THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES
CRITIQUES
AND
ADDRESSES.
BY
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, LL.D., RR.S.
LIBRARYi
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1873.
[ Tlu Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved. ]
LONDON :
R. OLAT, SOKS, AND TAYJLOR, PRINTERS,
UKKAI) HTHKKT HILL.
PREFACE.
THE "Critiques and Addresses" gathered together in
this volume, like the " Lay Sermons, Addresses, and
Reviews," published three years ago, deal chiefly with
educational, scientific, and philosophical subjects ; and,
in fact, indicate the high- water mark of the various
tides of occupation by which I have been carried along
since the beginning of the year 1870.
In the end of that year, a confidence in my powers
of work, which, unfortunately, has not been justified by
events, led me to allow myself to be brought forward
as a candidate for a seat on the London School Board.
Thanks to the energy of my supporters I was elected,
and took my share in the work of that body during
the critical first year of its existence. Then my health
gave way, and I was obliged to resign my place among
colleagues whose large practical knowledge of the
business of primary education, and whose self-sacrificing
zeal in the discharge of the onerous and thankless
duties thrown upon them by the Legislature, made it
vi PREFACE.
a pleasure to work with them, even though my position
was usually that of a member of the minority.
I mention these circumstances in order to account for
(I had almost said to apologize for) the existence of
the two papers which head the present series, and
which are more or less political, both in the lower and
in the higher senses of that word.
The question of the expediency of any form of
State Education is, in fact, a question of those higher
politics which lie above the region in which Tories,
Whigs, and Radicals " delight to bark and bite." In
discussing it in my address on " Administrative
Nihilism," I found myself, to my profound regret, led
to diverge very widely (though even more perhaps
in seeming than in reality) from the opinions of a
man of genius to whom I am bound by the twofold
tie of the respect due to a profound philosopher and
the affection given to a very old friend. But had I no
other means of knowing the fact, the kindly geniality of
Mr. Herbert Spencer's reply 1 assures me that the tie
to which I refer will bear a much heavier strain than
I have put, or ever intend to put, upon it, and I rather
rejoice that I have been the means of calling forth
so vigorous a piece of argumentative writing. Nor
is this disinterested joy at an attack upon myself
diminished by the circumstance, that, in all humility,
but in all sincerity, I think it may be repulsed.
Mr. Spencer complains that I have first misinterpreted,
and then miscalled, the doctrine of which he is so able
1 "Specialized Administration ;" Fortnightly Review, December 1871.
PREFACE. vii
an expositor. It would grieve me very much if 1
were really open to this charge. But what are the
facts ? I define this doctrine as follows :
" Those who hold these views support them by two lines of argu-
ment. They enforce them deductively by arguing from an assumed
axiom, that the State has no right to do anything but protect its
subjects from aggression. The State is simply a policeman, and its
duty, neither more nor less than to prevent robbery and murder and
enforce contracts. It is not to promote good, nor even to do any-
thing to prevent evil, except by the enforcement of penalties upon
those who have been guilty of obvious and tangible assaults upon
purse or person. And, according to this view, the proper form of
government is neither a monarchy, an aristocracy, nor a democracy,
but an astynomocracy, or police government. On the other hand,
these views are supported d 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 was filled with surprised regret when I learned
from the conclusion of the article on "Specialized
Administration," that this statement is held by Mr.
Spencer to be a misinterpretation of his views. Per-
haps I ought to be still more sorry to be obliged to
declare myself, even now, unable to discover where my
misinterpretation lies, or in what respect my presenta-
tion of Mr. Spencer's views differs from his own most
recent version of them. As the passage cited above
shows. I have carefully defined the sense in which
I use the terms which I employ, and, therefore, I
am riot greatly concerned to defend the abstract
appropriateness of the terms themselves. And when
viii PREFACE.
Mr. Spencer maintains the only proper functions of
Government to be those which are comprehensible under
the description of "Negatively regulative control," I
may suggest that the difference between such " Nega-
tive Administration" and "Administrative Nihilism," in
the sense defined by me, is not easily discernible.
Having, as I hope, relieved myself from the suspicion
of having misunderstood or misrepresented Mr. Spencer's
views, I might, if I could forget that I am writing a
preface, proceed to the discussion of the parallel which
he elaborates, with much knowledge and power,
between the physiological and the social organisms.
But this is not the place for a controversy involving
so many technicalities, and I content myself with one
remark, namely, that the whole course of modern
physiological discovery tends to show, with more and
more clearness, that the vascular system, or apparatus
for distributing commodities in the animal organism,
is eminently under the control of the cerebro-spinal
nervous centres a fact which, unless I am again
mistaken, is contrary to one of Mr. Spencer's funda-
mental assumptions. In the animal organism, Govern-
ment does meddle with trade, and even goes so far
as to tamper a good deal with the currency.
In the same number of the Fortnightly Review as
that which contains Mr. Spencer's essay, Miss Helen
Taylor assails me though, I am bound to admit,
more in sorrow than in anger for what she terms,
my "New Attack on Toleration/' It is I, this time,
PREFACE. ix
who may complain of misinterpretation, if the greater
part of Miss Taylor's article (with which I entirely
sympathise) is supposed to be applicable to my "in-
tolerance." Let us have full toleration, by all means,
upon all questions in which there is room for doubt,
or which cannot be distinctly proved to affect the
welfare of mankind. But when Miss Taylor has
shown what basis exists for criminal legislation,
except the clear right of mankind not to tolerate that
which is demonstrably contrary to the welfare of
society, I will admit that such demonstration ought
only to be believed in by the " curates and old women "
to whom she refers. Eecent events have not weakened
the conviction I expressed in a much-abused speech
at the London School Board, that Ultramontanism is
demonstrably the enemy of society ; and must be met
with resistance, merely passive if possible, but active
if necessary, by "the whole power of the State."
Next in order, it seems proper that I should briefly
refer to my friend Mr. Mivart's onslaught upon my
criticism of Mr. Darwin's critics, himself among the
number, which will be found in this volume. In
" Evolution and its Consequences " L I am accused of
misrepresentation, misquotation, misunderstanding, and
numerous other negative and positive literary and
scientific sins ; and much subtle ingenuity is expended
by Mr. Mivart in attempting to extricate himself
from the position in which my exposition of the real
1 Contemporary Review, January 1872.
x PREFACE.
opinions of Father Suarez has placed him. So much
more, in fact, has Mr. Mivart's ingenuity impressed
me than any other feature of his reply, that I shall
take the liberty of re-stating the main issue between
us ; and, for the present, leaving that issue alone to
the judgment of the public.
In his book on the " Genesis of Species " Mr. Mivart,
after discussing the opinions of sundry Catholic writers
of authority, among whom he especially includes St.
Augustin, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Jesuit Suarez,
proceeds to say : " It is then evident that ancient
and most venerable theological authorities distinctly
assert derivative creation, and thus their teachings
harmonize with all that modern science can possibly
require," l By the " derivative creation " of organic
forms, Mr. Mivart understands, " that God created
them by conferring on the material world the power
to evolve them under suitable conditions/'
On the contrary, I proved by evidence, which Mr.
Mivart does not venture to impugn, that Suarez,
in his "Tractatus de Opere sex Dierum," expressly
rejects St. Augustin's and St. Thomas' views y ; that he
vehemently advocates the literal interpretation of the
account of the creation given in the Book of Genesis ;
and that he treats with utter scorn the notion that
the Almighty could have used the language of that
Book, unless He meant it to be taken literally.
1 1 regret that in one part of my essay on " Mr. Darwin's Critics," I gave
the sense and not the very words of this passage, as a quotation ; and that, by
an oversight, the inverted commas remain in the present edition (see p. 267).
PREFACE. xi
Mr. Mivart, therefore, either has read Suarez and
has totally misrepresented him a hypothesis which, I
hope I need hardly say, I do not for a moment en-
tertain : or, he has got his information at second
hand, and has himself been deceived. But in that
case, it is surely an imprudence on his part, to
reproach me with having "read Suarez ad hoc, and
evidently without the guidance of anyone familiar with
that author." No doubt, in the matter of guidance,
Mr. Mivart has the advantage of me. Nevertheless, the
guides who supplied him with his references to Suarez'
" Metaphysica," while they left him in ignorance of the
existence of the " Tractatus," are guides with whose
services it might be better to dispense ; leaders who
wilfully shut their eyes, being even more liable to
lodge one in a ditch, than blind leaders.
At the time when the essay on " Methods and Results
of Ethnology" was written, I had not met with a
passage in Professor Max Miiller's "Last Results of
Turanian Researches" 1 which shows so appositely, that
the profoundest study of philology leads to conclusions
respecting the relation of Ethnology with Philology,
similar to those at which I had arrived in approaching
the question from the Anatomist's side, that I cannot
refrain from quoting it :
"Nor should we, in our phonological studies, either expect or
desire more than general hints from physical ethnology. The proper
and rational connection between the two sciences is that of mutual
1 Bunsen's " Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History," vol. i.
p. 349. 1854.
xii PEE FACE.
advice and suggestion, but nothing more. Much of the confusion of
terms and indistinctness of principles, both in Ethnology and Phono-
logy, are due to the combined study of these heterogeneous sciences.
Ethnological race and phonological race are not commensurate, except
in ante-historical times, or perhaps at the very dawn of history.
With the migration of tribes, their wars, their colonies, their conquests
and alliances, which, if we may judge from their effects, must have
been much more violent in the ethnic, than even in the political,
period of history, it is impossible to imagine that race and language
should continue to run parallel. The physiologist should pursue his
own science unconcerned about language."
It is further desirable to remark that the statements
in this Essay respecting the forms of Native American
crania need rectification. On this point, I refer the
reader who is interested in the subject to my paper
" On the Form of the Cranium among the Patagonians
and the Fuegians" published in the Journal of
Anatomy and Physiology for 1868.
If the problem discussed in my address to the British
Association in 1870 has not yet received its solution,
it is not because the champions of Abiogenesis have
been idle, or wanting in confidence. But every new
assertion on their side has been met by a counter
assertion ; and though the public may have been led
to believe that so much noise must indicate rapid
progress, one way or the other, an impartial critic will
admit, with sorrow, that the question has been " marking
time " rather than marching. In mere sound, these two
processes are not so very different.
LONDON, April 1873.
CONTENTS.
i.
PAGE
ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. (An Address delivered to the Members
of the Midland Institute, on the 9th of October, 1871, and subse-
quently published in the Fortnightly Review) 3
II.
THE SCHOOL BOARDS : WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY
DO. (The Contemporary Review, 1870) 33
III.
ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. (An Address to the Students of the
Faculty of Medicine in University College, London, 1870) . . 56
IV.
YEAST. (The Contemporary Review, 1871) 71
V.
ON THE FORMATION OP COAL. (A Lecture delivered before the
Members of the Bradford Philosophical Institution, and subse-
quently published in the Contemporary Review) 92
VI.
ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. ( Good Words, 1870) Ill
xiv CONTENTS.
VII.
PASB
ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. (The Fortnightly
Review, 1865) 134
VIII.
ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. (The Contemporary
Review, 1871) . . 167
IX.
PALAEONTOLOGY AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. (The Presidential
Address to the Geological Society, 1870) 181
X.
BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. (The Presidential Address to the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1870) . . 218
XL
MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. (The Contemporary Review, 1871) .... 251
XII.
THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS. (A Review of Haeckel's " Natiirliche
Schopfungs-Geschichte." The Academy, 1869) 303
XIII.
BISHOP BERKELEY ON THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION. (Mac-
millaris Magazine, 1871)' 320
CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES.
B
I.
ADMINISTBATIVE NIHILISM.
(AN ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS OP THE MIDLAND INSTITUTE,
OCTOBER 9TH, 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
inconsiderable in numbers, nor deficient in supporters of
weight and authority, in whose judgment all this legis-
lation is a step in the wrong direction, false in principle,
and consequently sure to produce 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 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
B 2
4 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
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 servants, or the work of society will come to a
standstill. 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 incon-
sistent, 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 successful soldier,
wins a peerage, all the world admires them ; and looks
with pride upon the social system which renders such
achievements possible. 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 quoque
sort to the caste argument. 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, es-
pecially in the country, is harder and more laborious
than that of most artisans, and he is constantly obliged
I.] A DMINISTHA TIVE NIHILISM. 5
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 admirable 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 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 discovers 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."
"' Citizeus,' we shall say to them in our tale ' You are brothers,
vet 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 j others
again, who are t> 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 will some-
times have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden sou. And God
6 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
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 j 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 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 or iron guards the State, it will then be
destroyed.' " 1
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 performance 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 ; remove 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 coach-
men, 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 superficial
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 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-
1 " The Dialogues of Plato." Translated into English, with Analysis and Intro-
duction, by B. JoweH, M.A. Vol. ii. p. 213.
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 7
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 gun-
powder hollow ; and if knowledge, which should give
that power guidance, 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 otrt
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 ques-
tions of the utmost difficulty, as well as of the most
momentous gravity, will have to be decided, is prepared
by education to comprehend the 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 distinguishing 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
8 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
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.
Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and
self-respect, are the qualities which make a real gentle-
man, or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article
which commonly goes by that name. I by no means
wish to express any sentimental 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 sorts and con-
ditions 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 inconsist-
ent 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
legislation 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 adultera-
tion, or to regulate injurious trades ; all legislative
interference with anything that bears directly or in-
directly on commerce, such as shipping, harbours, rail-
ways, roads, cab-fares, and the carriage of letters ; and
all attempts to promote the spread of knowledge by the
establishment of teaching bodies, examining bodies,
libraries, or museums, or by the sending out of scientific
expeditions ; all endeavours to advance art by the
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 9
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, 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 aggression. 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 govern-
ment. On the other hand, these views are supported d
posteriori, by an induction from observation, which pro-
fesses 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 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
10 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [r.
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 manage-
ment, will probably be least inclined to believe in the
innate superiority of private enterprise over State man-
agement. If continental bureaucracy and centralization
be fraught with multitudinous evils, surely English
beadleocracy and parochial obstruction are not altogether
lovely. If it be said that, as a matter of political expe-
rience, 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 necessary,
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 any other man," I am
unable to see that the logical consequence is any such
restriction of the power of Government, as its sup-
porters imply. If my next-door neighbour chooses to
have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous
atmosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhus 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 unvac-
cinated, 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
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 11
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 civilization, 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 justi-
fies the State in enforcing 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 organized State, the Govern-
ment, 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
acquaintance .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.
12 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES, [r.
The statesman, 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 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 abstaining from giving any at all ?
But the argument may be met directly. Ifc may be
granted that the State, or corporate authority of the
people, might with perfect propriety 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 deter-
mined ?
One of the oldest and profoundest of English philoso-
phers, Hobbes of Malmesbury, writes thus :
"The office of the sovereign, be it monarch or an assembly, c >n-
sisteth in the end for which he was entrusted with the sovereign!
O
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 industry, without danger or hurt to
the commonwealth, shall acquire to himsalf."
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 :
" And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to in-
dividuals, further than their protection from injuries, when they shall
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 13
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." l
To a witness of the civil war between Charles L andr-
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;" nncl all who have read the "Leviathan"
know to what length Hobbes's anxiety for the preserva-
tion of the authority of the representative of the sove-
reign 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 invalidated by his mon-
strous 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 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 champion 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
1 " Leviathan," Moleswortli's ed. p. 322.
12 CRITIQUES AND ADDIIESSES. [r.
The statesman, 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 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 abstaining 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 propriety 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 deter-
mined ?
One of the oldest and profoundest of English philoso-
phers, Hobbes of Malmesbury, writes thus :
"The office of the sovereign, be it monarch or an assembly, c>n-
sisteth in the end for which he was entrusted with the sovereign
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 industry, without danger or hurt to
the commonwealth, shall acquire to himsalf."
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 :
" And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to in-
dividuals, further than their protection from injuries, when they shall
I.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 1:3
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." l
To a witness of the civil war between Charles I. ancL
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 preserva-
tion of the authority of the representative of the sove-
reign 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 invalidated by his mon-
strous 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 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 champion 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
1 " Leviathan," Moleswortli's ed. p. 322.
14 CRITIQUES AND ADDEESSES. [i.
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 fur-
ther 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, whoever 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 inroads and invasion. And all this to be
directed to no other end than the peace, safety, and public good of
the people." J
Just as in the case of Hobbes, so in that of Locke, it
may at first sight appear from this passage that the latter
philosopher's views of the 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
i Locke's Essay, " Of Civil Government," 131.
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 15
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 magis-
trate ought to leave religion alone is, according to Locke,
simply this, that " true and saving religion consists in the
inward 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 Liberalism, 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 Tolera-
tion " 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 corol-
lary which he draws from this proposition is that there
ought to be no toleration for either Papists or Atheis ts.
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," 1 the essence of which is the
denial that the State has a right to be anything more
than chief policeman. 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."
16 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
because their belief is small ; they know that the State
had better leave things alone unless it has a clear know-
ledge 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 ab-
sorbed in the mere accumulation of wealth ; and as this
is a matter in which the plainest and strongest form of
self-interest is intensely concerned, 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 inter-
course 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 stripping 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 themselves stark naked ; and it is
not more apparent why laissez-faire great and benefi-
cial as it may be in all that relates to the accumulation
of wealth should be the one great commandment which
the State is to obey in all other matters ; and especially
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
i.J ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 17
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 de-
voted a very able and ingenious essay 1 to the drawing
out of a comparison between the process by which men
have advanced from the savage state to the highest
civilization, and that by which an animal passes from
the condition of an almost shapeless and 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 dis-
appear, 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
1 The " Social Organism " Essays. Second Series.
H C
18 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
are, in sundry respects, comparable to those discharged by the cerebral
masses in a vertebrate animal The cerebrum co-ordinates
the cauntless heterogeneous considerations which affect the present
and future welfare of the individual 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 sacrifice none of them. Similarly
we may describe the office of Parliament as that of averaging the
interests of the various classes in a community ; and a good Parlia-
ment 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 v/ith 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 tending 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 contraction, 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 sepa-
rate cell left free to follow its own " interests," 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 " congestion " and the brain,
like other despots whom we have known, calls out at
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 19
once for the use of sharp steel against them. As in
Ilobbes's "Leviathan," the representative of the sove-
reign authority in the living organism, though he de-
rives all his powers from the mass which he rules, is
above the law. The questioning of his authority in-
volves death, or that partial death which we call para-
lysis. 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 cognizance of certain profound arid
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 organization whatever depends upon what is
substantially a contract, whether expressed or implied,
between the members 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, 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 garrottes me, and
then clears out my pockets, robs ma 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, prefer-
20 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
ring 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 highwayman 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, never-
theless 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 freedom 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
organization, whether simple or complex, is the fact that
each member of the society voluntarily renounces his
freedom in certain directions, in return for the advan-
tages 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 implied contracts between the members of
a society to do this, or abstain from that.
It appears to me that this feature constitutes the dif-
ference between the social and the physiological organism.
Among the higher physiological organisms, there is none
which is developed by the conjunction of a number of
primitively independent existences into a complex whole.
The process of social organization appears to be com-
parable, not so much to the process of organic develop-
ment, as to the synthesis of the chemist, by which inde-
pendent elements are gradually built up into complex
I.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 21
aggregations in which each element retains an inde-
pendent individuality, though held in subordination to
the whole. The atoms of carbon and hydrogen, oxygen,
nitrogen, which enter into a complex molecule, do
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 neutralized 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 atoms thus associated resumes the
freedom which it has renounced, and follows some
external attraction, the molecule is broken up, and all
the peculiar properties which depended upon its consti-
tution vanish.
Every society, great or small, resembles such a com-
plex molecule, in which the atoms are represented by
men, possessed of all those multifarious attractions and
repulsions which are manifested in their desires and
volitions, the unlimited power of satisfying which, we
call freedom. The social molecule exists in virtue of the
renunciation 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 sup-
pression of which is essential to the existence 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 permitted 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
-2-2 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
me to be, not only to enforce the renunciation of the
anti-social desires, but, wherever it may be 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 organization, so far as the latter does in
the long run necessitate their definite correlation. By antagonism, I
here mean the unsocial sociability of mankind that is, the combina-
tion 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 desiring
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 them-
selves a place among their fellows, whom they can neither do with,
nor do without.
"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 en-
lightenment the foundations of a way of thinking are laid, which
gradually changes the mere rude capacity of moral perception into
1 " Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbiirgerKchen 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 Lis
JSssay on Condorcet.' (Fortnightly Review, No. xxxviii. N.S. pp. 136, 137.)
i.J ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 23
determinate practical principles ; and thus society, which is originated
by a sort of pathological compulsion, 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 remarkable 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 indivi-
duality has no play, society does not advance ; if indi-
viduality Ireaks out of all bounds, society perishes.
But when men living in society once become aware
that their welfare depends upon two opposing 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 in consistent with the existence
of society, but in encouraging that free individuality
which is essential to the evolution of the social organiza-
tion ? 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 MAN-
KIND." 1
But the good of mankind is not a something which is
absolute and fixed for all men, whatever their capacities
i Of Civil Government," 229.
26 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [i.
enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow-
men. l
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 con-
trary, he cannot have acquired his wealth, except by
benefiting others to the full extent of what they con-
sidered to be its value ; and his wealth is no more than
fairy gold if he does not go on benefiting others in 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 promote the acquisition of
wealth by any direct interference with commerce. But
there is no such agreement as to the further question
i " Hie est itaque finis ad quern tendo, talem scilicet Naturam acquirere, et
lit multi mecum earn acquirant, conari hoc est de mea felicitate etlam operam
dare, ut alii multi idem atque ego intelligent, 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 acquiren-
dam ; deinde formare talem societatem quails est desideranda, ut quam plurimi
quam facillime et secure eo perveniant." B. SPINOZA, De Intellectfis Emen-
datione Tractatus.
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 27
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 enormously to the total wealth of the
community ? And if so, may the State, acting for the
general good, take charge of the means of communica-
tion between its members, or of the postal and telegraph
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 proved, that G-overnment will
manage these things worse than private enterprise would
do. Nor is there any agreement upon the still more
important question whether the State ought, or ought
not, to regulate the distribution of wealth. If it ought
not, then all legislation which regulates 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 legiti-
mately 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
enjoyment of their property, and defines what that pro-
perty 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 pro-
28 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSED [i.
mote friendship and sympathy between man and man
directly. But I see no reason why, if it be otherwise expe-
dient, the State 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
o
the community. A Church in which, week by week,
services should be devoted, not to the iteration 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 busi-
ness 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 disestablish it.
Whatever the State may not do, however, it is uni-
versally agreed that it may take charge of the main-
tenance 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 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
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM, 29
State rest upon the same basis as those of an individual.
If any number of States agree to observe a common set
of international laws, they have, in fact, set up a sove-
reign 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 continually in danger
of returning to the state of nature, in which contracts
are void ; and the possibility 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 indi-
viduals we call the State may not do what voluntary
effort fails in doing, either 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 progress and the refine-
ment 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 trouve d'hommes superieurs
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
30 CRITIQUES AND ADDEE8E88. [i
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
moderne, la culture des sciences dans leur expression la plus elevee est
peut-etre plus ne"cessaire encore a l'e"tat moral d'une nation qu'& sa
prospe*rite rnaterielle.
" Les grandes deconvertes, les meditations de la pensee dans les arts,
dans les sciences et dans les lettres, en un mot les travaux desinte"-
resses de 1'esprit dans tons les genres, les centres d'euseignement pro-
pres a les faire connaitre, introduisent dans le corps social tout eutier
1'esprit philosopbique ou scientifique, cet esprit de discernement qui
soumet tout a une raison severe, condamne 1'ignorance, dissipe les pre-
juge's et les erreurs. 11$ 61event le niveau intellectuel. le sentiment
moral ; par eux, Fidee divine elle-meme se repand et s'exalte. ... Si,
au moment du pe"rii supreme, la France n'a pas trouve des hommes
superieurs pour niettre en oeuvre ses ressources et le courage de ses
enfants, il faut 1'attribuer, j'en ai la conviction, a ce que la France s'est
desinteresee, depuis un demi-siecle, des grands travaux de la pcnsee,
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 knighthood, 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 know-
i.] ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. 31
ledge 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 philoso
phical as in other breasts, and another to offer men who
desire to do the hardest of work for the most modest
of tangible rewards, the means of making themselves
useful to their age and generation. 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 College in Newcastle, are all
noble products of local energy and munificence. But
the good they are doing is not local the common-
wealth, to its uttermost limits, shares in the benefits
they confer ; 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 after, in fulfilment of its end the good of
mankind ; then it is clear that the Government may
32 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES.
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 intellectual 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 welfare 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
cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night."
II.
THE SCHOOL BOAEDS : WHAT THEY CAN DO,
AND WHAT THEY MAY DO.
AN electioneering manifesto would be out of place in the
pages of this Review ; but any suspicion that may arise
in the mind of the reader that the following pages
partake of that nature, will be dispelled, if he reflect
that they cannot be published l until after the day on
which the ratepayers of the metropolis will have decided
which candidates for seats upon the Metropolitan School
Board they will take, and which they will leave.
As one of those candidates, 1 may be permitted to
say, that I feel much in the frame of mind of the Irish
bricklayer's labourer, who bet another that he could not
carry him to the top of the ladder in his hod. The
challenged hodman won his wager, but as the stakes
were handed over, the challenger wistfully remarked,
" I'd great hopes of falling at the third round from the
top." And, in view of the work and the worry which
awaits the members of the School Boards, I must confess
to an occasional ungrateful hope that the friends who are
1 Notwithstanding Mr. Huxley's intentions, the Editor took upon himself, in
what seemed to him to be the public interest, to send an extract from this
article to the newspapers before the day of the election of the School Board.
EDITOR of the Contemporary Review.
H D
34 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
toiling upwards with me in their hod, may, when they
reach " the third round from the top," let me fall back
into peace and quietness.
But whether fortune befriend me in this rough
method, or not, I should like to submit to those of whom
I am a potential, but of whom I may not be an actual,
colleague, and to others who may be interested in this
most important problem how to get the Education Act
to work efficiently some considerations as to what are
the duties of the members of the School Boards, and
what are the limits of their power.
I suppose no one will be disposed to dispute the
proposition, that the prime duty of every member of
such a Board is to endeavour to administer the Act
honestly ; or in accordance, not only with its letter, but
with its spirit. And if so, it would seem that the first
step towards this very desirable end is, to obtain a clear
notion of what that letter signifies, and what that spirit
implies ; or, in other words, what the clauses of the Act
are intended to enjoin and to forbid. So that it is really
not admissible, except for factious and abusive purposes,
to assume that any one who endeavours to get at this
clear meaning is desirous only of raising quibbles and
making difficulties.
Beading the Act with this desire to understand it, I
find that its provisions may be classified, as might
naturally be expected, under two heads : the one set
relating to the subject-matter of education ; the other to
the establishment, maintenance, and administration of
the schools in which that .education is to be conducted,
Now it is a most important circumstance, that all the
sections of the Act, except four, belong to the latter
division ; that is, they refer to mere matters of adminis-
tration. The four sections in question are the seventh,
the fourteenth, the sixteenth, and the ninety-seventh.
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 35
Of these, the seventh, the fourteenth, and the ninety-
seventh deal with the subject-matter of education, while
the sixteenth defines the nature of the relations which
are to exist between the "Education Department" (an
euphemism for the future Minister of Education) and
the School Boards. It is the sixteenth clause which is
the most important, and, in some respects, the most
remarkable of all. It runs thus :
" If the School Board do, or permit, any act in contravention of, or
fail to comply with, the regulations, according to which a school pro-
vided by them is required by this Act to be conducted, the Education
Department may declare the School Board to be, and such Board shall
accordingly be deemed to be, a Board in default, and the Education
Department may proceed accordingly ; and every act, or omission, of
any member of the School Board, or manager appointed by them, or
any person under the control of the Board, shall be deemed to be per-
mitted by the Board, unless the contrary be proved.
" If any dispute arises as to whether the School Board have done, or
permitted, any act in contravention of, or have failed to comply with,
the said regulations, the matter shall be referred to the Education Depart-
ment, whose decision thereon shall be final."
It will be observed that this clause gives the Minister
of Education absolute power over the doings of the
School Boards. He is not only the administrator of the
Act, but he is its interpreter. I had imagined that on
the occurrence of a dispute, not as regards a question of
pure administration, but as to the meaning of a clause
of the Act, a case might be taken and referred to a court
of justice. But I am led to believe that the Legislature
has, in the present instance, deliberately taken this
power out of the hands of the judges and lodged it in
those of the Minister of Education, who, in accordance
with our method of making Ministers, will necessarily
be a political partisan, and who may be a strong theo-
logical sectary into the bargain. And I am informed by
members of Parliament who watched the progress of the
D 2
36 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
Act, that the responsibility for this unusual state of
things rests, not with the Government, but with the
Legislature, which exhibited a singular disposition to
accumulate power in the hands of the future Minister of
Education, and to evade the more troublesome difficulties
of the education question by leaving them to be settled
between that Minister and the School Boards.
I express no opinion whether it is, or is not, desirable
that such powers of controlling all the School Boards in
the country should be possessed by a person who may be,
like Mr. Forster, eminently likely to use these powers
justly and wisely, but who also maybe quite the reverse.
I merely wish to draw attention to the fact that such
powers are given to the Minister, whether he be fit or
unfit. The extent of these powers becomes apparent
when the other sections of the Act referred to are con-
sidered. The fourth clause of the seventh section
says :
" The school shall be conducted in accordance with the conditions
required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain an
annual Parliamentary grant."
What these conditions are appears from the following
clauses of the ninety-seventh section :
" The conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in
order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant shall be those con-
tained in the minutes of the Education Department in force for the
time being. . . . Provided that no such minute of the Education
Department, not in force at the time of the passing of this Act, shall
be deemed to be in force until it has lain for not less than one month
on the table of both Houses of Parliament."
Let us consider how this will work in practice. A
school established by a School Board may receive support
from three sources from the rates, the school fees, and
the Parliamentary grant. The latter may be as great as
the two former taken together ; and as it may be assumed,
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 37
without much risk of error, that a constant pressure will
be exerted by the ratepayers on the members who re-
present them, to get as much out of the Government,
and as little out of the rates, as possible, the School
Boards will have a very strong motive for shaping the
education they give, as nearly as may be, on the model
which the Education Minister offers for their imitation,
and for the copying of which he is prepared to pay.
The Eevised Code did not compel any schoolmaster to
leave off teaching anything ; but, by the very simple pro-
cess of refusing to pay for many kinds of teaching, it has
practically put an end to them. Mr. Forster is said to
be engaged in revising the Revised Code ; a successor of
his may re-revise it and there will be no sort of check
upon these revisions and counter-revisions, except the
possibility of a Parliamentary debate, when the revised,
or added, minutes are laid upon the table. What chance
is there that any such debate will take place on a matter
of detail relating to elementary education a subject
with which members of the Legislature, having been, for
the most part, sent to our public schools thirty years
ago, have not the least practical acquaintance, and for
which they care nothing, unless it derives a political
value from its connection with sectarian politics ?
I cannot but think, then, that the School. Boards will
have the appearance, but not the reality, of freedom of
action, in regard to the subject-matter of what is com-
monly called " secular" education.
As respects what is commonly called " religious "
education, the power of the Minister of Education is
even more despotic. An interest, almost amounting to
pathos, attaches itself, in my mind, to the frantic exer-
tions which are at present going on in almost every
school division, to elect certain candidates whose names
have never before been heard of in connection with
38 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
education, and who are either sectarian partisans, or
nothing. In my own particular division, a body orga-
nized ad hoc is moving heaven and earth to get the
seven seats filled by seven gentlemen, four of whom are
good Churchmen, and three no less good Dissenters.
But why should this seven times heated fiery furnace of
theological zeal be so desirous to ehed its genial warmth
over the London School Board ? Can it be that these
zealous sectaries mean to evade the solemn pledge given
in the Act ?
" No religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive
of any particular denomination shall be taught in the school."
I confess I should have thought it my duty to reject
any such suggestion, as dishonouring to a number of
worthy persons, if it had not been for a leading article
and some correspondence which appeared in the Guardian
of November 9th, 1870.
The Guardian is, as everybody knows, one of the
best of the " religious " newspapers ; and, personally, I
have every reason to speak highly of the fairness, and
indeed kindness, with which the editor is good enough
to deal with a writer who must, in many ways, be so
objectionable to him as myself. I quote the following
passages from a leading article on a letter of mine,
therefore, with all respect, and with a genuine conviction
that the course of conduct advocated by the writer must
appear to him in a very different light from that under
which I see it ;
"The first of these points is the interpretation which Professor
Huxley puts on the ' Cowper-Temple clause.' It is, in fact, that which
we foretold some time ago as likely to be forced upon it by those who
think with him. The clause itself was one of those compromises
which it is very difficult to define or to maintain logically. On the
one side was the simple freedom to School Boards to establish what
.schools they pleased, which Mr. Forster originally gave, but agaiust
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 39
which the Nonconformists lifted up their voices, because they con-
ceived it likely to give too much power to the Church. On the other
side there was the proposition to make the schools secular intelligible
enough, but in the consideration of public opinion simply impossible
and there was the vague impracticable idea, which Mr. Gladstone
thoroughlv tore to pieces, of enacting that the teaching of all school-
masters in the new schools should be strictly ' undenominational.'
The Cowper-Temple clause was, we repeat, proposed simply to tide
over the difficulty. It was to satisfy the Nonconformists and the
' unsectarian,' as distinct from the secular party of the League, by for-
bidding all distinctive ' catechisms and formularies,' which might have
the effect of openly assigning the schools to this or that religious body.
It refused, at the same time, to attempt the impossible task of denning
what was undenominational ; and its author even contended, if we
understood him correctly, that it would in no way, even indirectly,
interfere with the substantial teaching of any master in any school.
This assertion we always believed to be untenable ; we could not sea
how, in the face of this clause, a distinctly denominational tone could
be honestly given to schools nominally general. But beyond this mere
suggestion of an attempt at a general tone of comprehensiveness in
religious teaching it was not intended to go, and only because such was
its limitation was it accepted by the Government and by the House.
" But now we are told that it is to be construed as doing precisely
that which it refused to do. A 'formulary,' it seems, is a collection
of formulas, and formulas are simply propositions of whatever kind
touching religious faith. All such propositions, if they cannot be
accepted by all Christian denominations, are to be proscribed ; and it
is added significantly that the Jews also are a denomination, and so
that any teaching distinctively Christian is perhaps to be excluded,
lest it should interfere with their freedom and rights. Are we then to
fall back on the simple reading of the letter of the Bible 1 No ! this,
it is granted, would be an 'unworthy pretence.' The teacher is to
give 'grammatical, geographical, or historical explanations ;' but he is
to keep clear of ' theology proper,' because, as Professor Huxley takes
great pains to prove, there is no theological teaching which is not
opposed by some sect or other, from Roman Catholicism on the one
hand to Unitariauism on the other. It was not, perhaps, hard to see
that this difficulty would be started ; and to those who, like Professor
Huxley, look at it theoretically, without much practical experience of
schools, it may appear serious or unanswerable. But there is very
little in it practically ; when it is faced determinately and handled
firmly, it will soon shrink into its true dimensions. The class who are
least frightened at it are the school-teachers, simply because they
know most about it. It is quite clear that the school-managers must
40 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
be cautioned against allowing their schools to be made places of
proselytism : but when this is done, the case is simple enough.
Leave the masters under this general understanding to teach freely ; if
there is ground of complaint, let it be made, but leave the onus pro-
bandi on the objectors. For extreme peculiarities of belief or unbelief
there is the Conscience Clause ; as to the mass of parents, they will be
more anxious to have religion taught than afraid of its assuming this
or that particular shade. They will trust the school-managers and
teachers till they have reason to distrust them, and experience has
shown that they may trust them safely enough. Any attempt to
throw the burden of making the teaching undenominational upon the
managers must be sternly resisted : it is simply evading the intentions
of the Act in an elaborate attempt to carry them out. We thank
Professor Huxley for the warning. To bo forewarned is to be fore-
armed."
A good deal of light seems to me to be thrown on the
practical significance of the opinions expressed in the
foregoing extract by the following interesting letter,
which appeared in the same paper :
" SIB, I venture to send to you the substance of a correspondence
with the Education Department upon the question of the lawfulness
of religious teaching in rate schools under section 14 (2) of the Act.
I asked whether the words * which is distinctive,' &c., taken gram-
matically as limiting the prohibition of any religious formulary, might
be construed as allowing (subject, however, to the other provisions of
the Act) any religious formulary common to any two denominations
anywhere in England to be taught in such schools ; and if practically
the limit could not be so extended, but would have to be fixed accord-
ing to the special circumstances of each district, then what degree of
general acceptance in a district would exempt such a formulary from
the prohibition ? The answer to this was as follows : ' It was under-
stood, when clause 14 of the Education Act was discussed in the House
of Commons, that, according to a well-known rule of interpreting Acts
of Parliament, "denomination ' must be held to include "denomina-
tions." When any dispute is referred to the Education Department
under the last paragraph of section 16, it will be dealt with according
to the circumstances of the case.'
" Upon my asking further if I might hence infer that the lawfulness
of teaching any religious formulary in a rate school would thus depend
exclusively on local circumstances, and would accordingly be so decided
by the Education Department in case of dispute, I was informed in
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 41
explanation that ' their lordships' ' letter was intended to convey to
me that no general rule, beyond that stated in the first paragraph of
their letter, could at present be laid down by them; and that their
decision in each particular case must depend on the special circum-
stances accompanying it.
*' I think it would appear from this that it may yet be in many
cases both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies in rate
schools. " H. I.
" STEYNING, November 5, 1870."
Of course I do not mean to suggest that the editor of
the Guardian is bound by the opinions of his corre-
spondent ; but I cannot help thinking that I do not
misrepresent him, when I say that he also thinks " that
it may yet be, in many cases, both lawful and expedient
to teach religious formularies in rate schools under these
circumstances."
It is not uncharitable, therefore, to assume that, the
express words of the Act of Parliament notwithstand-
ing, all the sectaries who are toiling so hard for seats in
the London School Board have the lively hope of the
gentleman from Steyning, that it may be " both lawful
and expedient to teach religious formularies in rate
schools ; " and that they mean to do their utmost to bring
this happy consummation about. 1
Now the pathetic emotion to which I have referred,
as accompanying my contemplations of the violent
struggles of so many excellent persons, is caused by the
1 A passage in an article on the " Working of the Education Act," in the
Saturday Review for Nov. 19,"' 1870, completely justifies this anticipation of
the line of action which the sectaries mean to take. After commending
the Liverpool compromise, the writer goes on to say :
" If this plan is fairly adopted in Liverpool, the fourteenth clause of the Act
will in effect be restored to its original form, and the majority of the ratepayers
in each district be permitted to decide to what denomination the school shall
belong."
In a previous paragraph the writer speaks of a possible " mistrust " of one
another by the members of the Board, and seems to anticipate u accusations of
dishonesty." If any of the members of the Board adopt his views, I think it
highly probable that he may turn out to be a true prophet.
42 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [u.
circumstance that, so far as I can judge, their labour is
in vain.
Supposing that the London School Board contains, as
it probably will do, a majority of sectaries ; and that they
carry over the heads of a minority, a resolution that
certain theological formulas, about which they all happen
to agree, say, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity,
shall be taught in the schools. Do they fondly imagine
that the minority will not at once dispute their interpreta-
tion of the Act, and appeal to the Education Department
to settle that dispute ? And if so, do they suppose that
any Minister of Education, who wants to keep his place,
will tighten boundaries which the Legislature has left
loose; and will give a "final decision " which shall be
offensive to every Unitarian and to every Jew in the
House of Commons, besides creating a precedent which
will afterwards be used to the injury of every Noncon-
formist ? The editor of the Guardian tells his friends
sternly to resist every attempt to throw the burden of
making the teaching undenominational on the managers,
and thanks me for the warning I have given him. I
return the thanks, with interest, for his warning, as to
the course the party he represents intends to pursue, and
for enabling me thus to draw public attention to a
perfectly constitutional and effectual mode of check-
mating them.
And, in truth, it is wonderful to note the surprising
entanglement into which our able editor gets himself in
the struggle between his native honesty and judgment
and the necessities of his party. " We could not see,"
says he, " in the face of this clause how a distinct de-
nominational tone could be honestly given to schools
nominally general." There speaks the honest and clear-
headed man. "Any attempt to throw the burden of
making the teaching undenominational must be sternly
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 43
resisted. " There speaks the advocate holding a brief for
his party. " Verily," as Trinculo says, " the monster hath
two mouths : " the one, the forward month, tells us very
justly that the teaching cannot " honestly " be " distinctly
denominational ; " but the other, the backward mouth,
asserts that it must by no manner of means be " undeno-
minational." Putting the two utterances together, I can
only interpret them to mean that the teaching is to
be " indistinctly denominational." If the editor of the
Guardian had not shown signs of anger at my use of the
term "theological fog," I should have been tempted to
suppose it must have been what he had in his mind,
under the name of "indistinct denominationalism."
But this reading being plainly inadmissible, I can only
imagine that he inculcates the teaching of formulas
common to a number of denominations.
But the Education Department has already told the
gentleman from Steyning that any such proceeding will
be illegal. " According to a well-known rule of inter-
preting Acts of Parliament, ' denomination ' would be
held to include ' denominations/ ;; In other words, we
must read the Act thus :
" No religious catechism or religious formulary which
is distinctive of any particular denominations shall be
taught/'
Thus we are really very much indebted to the editor
of the Guardian and his correspondent. The one has
shown us that the sectaries mean to try to get as much
denominational teaching as they can agree upon among
themselves, forced into the elementary schools ; while
the other has obtained a formal declaration from the-
Education Department that any such attempt will
contravene the Act of Parliament, and that, therefore,
the unsectarian, law-abiding members of the School
Boards may safely reckon upon bringing down upon
44 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
their opponents the heavy hand of the Minister of
Education. 1
So much for the powers of the School Boards. Limited
as they seem to be, it by no means follows that such
Boards, if they are composed of intelligent and practical
men, really more in earnest about education than about
sectarian squabbles, may not exert a very great amount of
influence. And, from many circumstances, this is espe-
cially likely to be the case with the London School Board,
which, if it conducts itself wisely, may become a true
educational parliament, as subordinate in authority to the
Minister of Education, theoretically, as the Legislature is
to the Crown, and yet, like the Legislature, possessed
of great practical authority. And I suppose that no
Minister of Education would be other than glad to have
the aid of the deliberations of such a body, or fail to pay
careful attention to its recommendations.
What, then, ought to be the nature and scope of the
education which a School Board should endeavour to give
to every child under its influence, and for which it should
try to obtain the aid of the Parliamentary grants ? In
my judgment it should include at least the following
kinds of instruction and of discipline :
1. Physical training and drill, as part of the regular
business of the school.
It is impossible to insist too much on the importance
of this part of education for the children of the poor of
great towns. All the conditions of their lives are un-
favourable to their physical well-being. They are badly
1 Since this paragraph was written, Mr. Forster, in speaking at the Birkbeck
Institution, has removed all doubt as to what his " final decis ; on " will be in the
ase of such disputes being referred to him : " I have the fullest confidence
that in the reading and explaining of the Bible, what the children will be
taught will be the great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us
desire they should know, and that no effort will be made to cram into their poor
little minds, theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them from
understanding."
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 45
lodged, badly housed, badly fed, and live from one year's
end to another in bad air, without chance of a change.
They have no play-grounds ; they amuse themselves
with marbles and chuck-farthing, instead of cricket or
hare-and-hounds ; and if it were not for the wonderful
instinct which leads all poor children of tender years
to run under the feet of cab-horses whenever they can,
I know not how they would learn to use their limbs
with agility.
Now there is no real difficulty about teaching drill
and the simpler kinds of gymnastics. It is done ad-
mirably well, for example, in the North Surrey Union
schools ; and a year or two ago, when I had an oppor-
tunity of inspecting these schools, I was greatly struck
with the effect of such training upon the poor little
waifs and strays of humanity, mostly picked out of the
gutter, who are being made into cleanly, healthy, and
useful members of society in that excellent institution.
Whatever doubts people may entertain about the
efficacy of natural selection, there can be none about
artificial selection ; and the breeder who should attempt
to make, or keep up, a fine stock of pigs, or sheep, under
the conditions to which the children of the poor are
exposed, would be the laughing-stock even of the bucolic
mind. Parliament has already done something in this
direction, by declining to be an accomplice in the as-
phyxiation of school children. It refuses to make any
grant to a school in which the cubical contents of the
school-room are inadequate to allow of proper respiration.
I should like to see it make another step in the same
direction, and either refuse to give a grant to a school
in which physical training is not a part of the pro-
gramme, or, at any rate, offer to pay upon such training.
If something of the kind is not done, the English
physique, which has been, and is still, on the whole, a
46 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
grand one, will become as extinct as the dodo, in the
great towns.
And then the moral and intellectual effect of drill, as
an introduction to, and aid of, all other sorts of training,
must not be overlooked. If you want to break in a colt,
surely the first thing to do is to catch him and get him
quietly to face his trainer ; to know his voice and bear
his hand ; to learn that colts have something else to do
with their heels than to kick them up whenever they
feel so inclined ; and to discover that the dreadful human
figure has no desire to devour, or even to beat him, but
that, in case of attention and obedience, he may hope
for patting and even a sieve of oats.
But, your " street Arabs/' and other neglected poor
children, are rather worse and wilder than colts ; for the
reason that the horse-colt has only his animal instincts
in him, and his mother, the mare, has been always tender
over him, and never came home drunk and kicked him
in her life ; while the man-colt is inspired by that very
real devil, perverted manhood, and his mother may have
done all that and more. So, on the whole, it may pro-
bably be even more expedient to begin your attempt to
get at the higher nature of the child, than at that of the
colt, from the physical side.
2. Next in order to physical training I put the instruc-
tion of children, and especially of girls, in the elements
of household work and of domestic economy ; in the first
place for their own sakes, and in the second for that of
their future employers.
Everyone who knows . anything of the life of the
English poor is aware of the misery and waste caused
by their want of knowledge of domestic economy, and
by their lack of habits of frugality and method. I
suppose it is no exaggeration to say that a poor French-
woman would make the money which the wife of a poor
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 47
Englishman spends in food go twice as far, and at the
same time turn out twice as palatable a dinner. Why
Englishmen, who are so notoriously fond of good living,
should be so helplessly incompetent in the art of cookery,
is one of the great mysteries of nature ; but from the
varied abominations of the railway refreshment-rooms to
the monotonous dinners of the poor, English feeding is
either wasteful or nasty, or both.
And as to domestic service, the groans of the house-
wives of England ascend to heaven ! In five cases out
of six, the girl who takes a "place" has to be trained
by her mistress in the first rudiments of decency and
order ; and it is a mercy if she does not turn up her
nose at anything like the mention of an honest and
proper economy. Thousands of young girls are said
to starve, or worse, yearly in London ; and at the same
time thousands of mistresses of households are ready
to pay high wages for a decent housemaid, or cook,
or a fair workwoman ; and can by no means get what
they want.
Surely, if the elementary schools are worth anything,
they may put an end to a state of things which is de-
moralizing the poor, while it is wasting the lives of those
better off in small worries and annoyances.
3. But the boys and girls for whose education the
School Boards have to provide, have not merely to dis-
charge domestic duties, but each of them is a member
of a social and political organization of great complexity,
and has, in future life, to fit himself into that organi-
zation, or be crushed by it. To this end it is surely
needful, not only that they should be made acquainted
with the elementary laws of conduct, but that their
affections should be trained, so as to love with all their
hearts that conduct which tends to the attainment of
the highest good for themselves and their fellow-men,
48 CRITIQUES AND ADDEJ28SES. [11.
and to hate with all their hearts that opposite course of
action which is fraught with evil.
So far as the laws of conduct are determined by the
intellect, I apprehend that they belong to science, and to
that part of science which is called morality. But the
engagement of the affections in favour of that particular
kind of conduct which we call good, seems to me to be
something quite beyond mere science. And I cannot
but think that it, together with the awe and reverence,
which have no kinship with base fear, but arise whenever
one tries to pierce below the surface of things, whether
they be material or spiritual, constitutes all that has any
unchangeable reality in religion.
And just as I think it would be a mistake to confound
the science, morality, with the affection, religion ; so do
I conceive it to be a most lamentable and mischievous
error, that the science, theology, is so confounded in the
minds of many indeed, I might say, of the majority
of men.
I do not express any opinion as to whether theology
is a true science, or whether it does not come under the
apostolic definition of " science falsely so called ; " though
I may be permitted to express the belief that if the
Apostle to whom that much misapplied phrase is due
could make the acquaintance of much of modern theo-
logy, he would not hesitate a moment in declaring that
it is exactly what he meant the words to denote.
But it is at any rate conceivable, that the nature of
the Deity, and His relations to the universe, and more
especially to mankind, are capable of being ascertained,
either inductively or deductively, or by both processes.
And, if they have been ascertained, then a body of science
has been formed which is very properly called theology.
Further, there can be no doubt that affection for the
Being thus defined and described by theologie science
IT. J THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 49
would be properly termed religion ; but it would not
be the whole of religion. The affection for the ethical
ideal defined by moral science would claim equal if not
superior rights. For suppose theology established the
existence of an evil deity and some theologies, even
Christian ones, have come very near this, is the religious
affection to be transferred from the ethical ideal to
any such omnipotent demon ? I trow not. Better a
thousand times that the human race should perish under
his thunderbolts than it should say, " Evil, be thou
my good."
There is nothing new, that I know of, in this state-
ment of the relations of religion with the science of
morality on the one hand and that of theology on the
other. But I believe it to be altogether true, and very
needful, at this time, to be clearly and emphatically
recognized as such, by those who have to deal with the
education question.
We are divided into two parties the advocates of
so-called "religious" teaching on the one hand, and
those of so-called " secular " teaching on the other. And
both parties seem to me to be not only hopelessly wrong,
but in such a position that if either succeeded completely,
it would discover, before many years were over, that it
had made a great mistake and done serious evil to the
cause of education.
For, leaving aside the more far-seeing minority on
each side, what the "religious" party is crying for is
mere theology, under the name of religion ; while the
" secularists " have unwisely and wrongfully admitted
the assumption of their opponents, and demand the
abolition of a]l " religious " teaching, when they only
want to be free of theology Burning your ship to get
rid of the cockroaches !
But my belief is, that no human being, and no society
H E
50 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
composed of human beings, ever did, or ever will, come
to much, unless their conduct was governed and guided
by the love of some ethical ideal. Undoubtedly, your
gutter child may be converted by mere intellectual drill
into " the subtlest of all the beasts of the field ; " but we
know what has become of the original of that descrip-
tion, and there is no need to increase the number of
those who imitate him successfully without being aided
by the rates. And if I were compelled to choose for one
of my own children, between a school in which real
religious instruction is given, and one without it, I should
prefer the former, even though the child might have to
take a good deal of theology with it. Nine-tenths of a
dose of bark is mere ha]f-rotten wood ; but one swallows
it for the sake of the particles of quinine, the beneficial
effect of which may be weakened, but is not destroyed,
by the wooden dilution, unless in a few cases of excep-
tionally tender stomachs.
Hence, when the great mass of the English people
declare that they want to have the children in the
elementary schools taught the Bible, arid when it is plain
from the terms of the Act, the debates in and out of
Parliament, and especially the emphatic declarations of
the Vice-President of the Council, that it was intended
that such Bible-reading should be permitted, unless good
cause for prohibiting it could be shown, I do not see
what reason there is for opposing that wish. Certainly?
I, individually, could with no shadow of consistency
oppose the teaching of the children of other people to
do that which my own children are taught to do. And,
even if the reading the Bible were not, as I think it is,
consonant with political reason and justice, and with a
desire to act in the spirit of the education measure, I
am disposed to think it might still be well to read that
book in the elementary schools.
n.J THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 51
I have always been strongly in favour of secular
education, in the sense of education without theology ;
but I must confess I have been no less seriously per-
plexed to know by what practical measures the religious
feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, was to
be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion
on these matters, without the use of the Bible. The
Pagan moralists lack life and colour, and even the noble
Stoic, Marcus Antoninus, is too high and refined for an
ordinary child. Take the Bible as a whole ; make the
severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate for
shortcomings and positive errors ; eliminate, as a sensible
lay- teacher would do, if left to himself, all that it is not
desirable for children to occupy themselves with ; and
there still remains in this old literature a vast residuum
of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the
great historical fact that, for three centuries, this book
has been woven into the life of all that is best and
noblest in English history ; that it has become the
national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to noble and
simple, from John-o'- Groat's House to Land's End, as
Dante and* Tasso once were to the Italians ; that it is
written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds
in exquisite beauties of mere literary form ; and, finally,
that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village
to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and
other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back
to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in the world.
By the study of what other book could children be so
much humanized and made to feel that each figure in
that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but
a momentary space in the interval between two eterni-
ties ; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time,
according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as
they also are earning their payment for their work ?
E 2
52 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
On the whole, then, I am in favour of reading the
Bible, with such grammatical, geographical, and historical
explanations by a lay-teacher as may be needful, with
rigid exclusion of any further theological teaching than
that contained in the Bible itself. And in stating what
this is, the teacher would do well not to go beyond the
precise words of the Bible ; for if he does, he will, in
the first place, undertake a task beyond his strength,
seeing that all the Jewish and Christian sects have been
at work upon that subject for more than two thousand
years, and have not yet arrived, and are not in the least
likely to arrive, at an agreement ; and, in the second
place, he will certainly begin to teach something dis-
tinctively denominational, and thereby come into violent
collision with the Act of Parliament.
4. The intellectual training to be given in the elemen-
tary schools must of course, in the first place, consist in
learning to use the means of acquiring knowledge, or
reading, writing, and arithmetic ; and it will be a great
matter to teach reading so completely that the act shall
have become easy and pleasant. If reading remains
" hard," that accomplishment will riot be much resorted
to for instruction, and still less for amusement which
last is one of its most valuable uses to hard-worked
people.
But along with a due proficiency in the use of the
means of learning, a certain amount of knowledge, of
intellectual discipline, and of artistic training should be
conveyed in the elementary schools ; and in this direc-
tion for reasons which I am afraid to repeat, having
urged them so often I can conceive no subject-matter
of education so appropriate and so important as the
rudiments of physical science, with drawing, modelling,
and singing. Not only would such teaching afford the
best possible preparation for the technical schools about
.n] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 53
which so much is now said, but the organization for
carrying it into effect already exists. The Science and
Art Department, the operations of which have already
attained considerable magnitude, not only offers to
examine and pay the results of such examination in
elementary science and art, but it provides what is still
more important, viz. a means of giving children of high
natural ability, who are just as abundant among the
poor as among the rich, a helping hand. A good old
proverb tells us that " One should not take a razor to
cut a block : " the razor is soon spoiled, and the block is
not so well cut as it would be with a hatchet. But it is
worse economy to prevent a possible Watt from being
anything but a stoker, or to give a possible Faraday no
chance of doing anything but to bind books. Indeed,
the loss in such cases of mistaken vocation has no
measure ; it is absolutely infinite and irreparable. And
among the arguments in favour of the interference of
the State in education, none seems to be stronger than
this that it is the interest of every one that ability
should be neither wasted, nor misapplied, by any one ;
and, therefore, that every one's representative, the State,
is necessarily fulfilling the wishes of its constituents
when it is helping the capacities to reach their proper
places.
It may be said that the scheme of education here
sketched is too large to be effected in the time during
which the children will remain at school ; and, secondly,
that even if this objection did not exist, it would cost
too much.
I attach no importance whatever to the first objection
until the experiment has been fairly tried. Considering
how much catechism, lists of the kings of Israel,
geography of Palestine, and the like, children are made
to swallow now, I cannot believe there will be any
54 . CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [n.
difficulty in inducing them to go through the physical
training, which is more than half play ; or the instruc-
tion in household work, or in those duties to one another
and to themselves, which have a daily and hourly
practical interest. That children take kindly to elemen-
tary science and art no one can doubt who has tried
the experiment properly. And if Bible-reading is not
accompanied by constraint and solemnity, as if it were
a sacramental operation, I do not believe there is any-
thing in which children take more pleasure. At' least
I know that some of the pleasantest recollections of my
childhood are connected with the voluntary study of an
ancient Bible which belonged to my grandmother. There
were splendid pictures in it, to be sure ; but I recollect
little or nothing about them save a portrait of the high
priest in his vestments. What come vividly back on
my mind are remembrances of my delight in the
histories of Joseph and of David ; and of my keen
appreciation of the chivalrous kindness of Abraham
in his dealings with Lot. Like a sudden flash there
returns back upon me, my utter scorn of the pettifogging
meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over the
heartbreaking lamentation of the cheated Esau, " Hast
thou not a blessing for me also, my father ? " And I
see, as in a cloud, pictures of the grand phantasmagoria
of the Book of Kevelation.
I enumerate, as they issue, the childish impressions
which come crowding out of the pigeon-holes in my
brain, in which they have lain almost undisturbed for
forty years. I prize them as an evidence that a child
of five or six years old, left to his own devices, may be
deeply interested in the Bible, and draw sound moral
sustenance from it. And I rejoice that I was left to deal
with the Bible alone ; for if I had had some theologica .
"explainer" at my side, he might have tried, as such
ii.] THE SCHOOL BOARDS. 55
do, to lessen my indignation against Jacob, and thereby
have warped ray moral sense for ever ; while the great
apocalyptic spectacle of the ultimate triumph of right
and justice might have been turned to the base purposes
of a pious lampooner of the Papacy.
And as to the second objection costliness the reply
is, first, that the rate and the Parliamentary grant together
ought to be enough, considering that science and art
teaching is already provided for ; and, secondly, that if
they are not, it may be well for the educational parlia-
ment to consider what has become of those endowments
which were originally intended to be devoted, more or
less largely, to the education of the poor.
When the monasteries were spoiled, some of their
endowments were applied to the foundation of cathedrals ;
and in all such cases it was ordered that a certain portion
of the endowment should be applied to the purposes of
education. How much is so applied ? Is that which may
be so applied given to help the poor, who cannot pay for
education, or does it virtually subsidize the comparatively
rich, who can ? How are Christ's Hospital and Alley n's
foundation securing their right purposes, or how far are
they perverted into contrivances for affording relief to
the classes who can afford to pay for education ? How
But this paper is already too long, and, if I
begin, I may find it hard to stop asking questions of
this kind, which after all are worthy only of the lowest
of Eadicals.
III.
ON MEDICAL EDUCATION.
(AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE
IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, MAY 18, 1870, ON THE
OCCASION OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES FOR THE SESSION.)
IT has given me sincere pleasure to be here to-day, at
the desire of your highly respected President and the
Council of the College. In looking back upon my own
past, I am sorry to say that I have found that it is a
quarter of a century since I took part in those hopes and
in those fears by which you have all recently been
agitated, and which now are at an end. But, although
so long a time has elapsed since I was moved by the
same feelings, I beg leave to assure you that my
sympathy with both victors and vanquished remains
fresh so fresh, indeed, that I could almost try to per-
suade myself that, after all, it cannot be so very long
ago. My business during the last hour, however, has
been to show that sympathy with one side only, and I
assure you I have done my best to play my part heartily,
and to rejoice in the success of those who have suc-
ceeded. Still, I should like to remind you at the end of
it all, that success on an occasion of this kind, valuable
and important as it is, is in reality only putting the foot
in.] ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 57
upon one rung of the ladder which leads upwards ; and
that the rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon,
but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him
to put the other somewhat higher. I trust that you will
all regard these successes as simply reminders that your
next business is, having enjoyed the success of the day,
no longer to look at that success, but to look forward to
the next difficulty that is to be conquered. And now,
having had so much to say to the successful candidates,
you must forgive me if I add that a sort of under-
current of sympathy has been going on in my mind all
the time for those who have not been successful, for
those valiant knights who have been overthrown in your
tourney, and have not made their appearance in public. I
trust that, in accordance with old custom, they, wounded
and bleeding, have been carried off to their tents, to
be carefully tended by the fairest of maidens ; and in
these days, when the chances are that every one of such
maidens will be a qualified practitioner, I have no doubt
that all the splinters will have been carefully extracted,
and that they are now physically healed. But there
may remain some little fragment of moral or intellectual
discouragement, and therefore I will take the liberty to
remark that your chairman to-day, if he occupied his
proper place, would be among them. Your chairman,
in virtue of his position, and for the brief hour that he
occupies that position, is a person of importance ; and it
may be some consolation to those who have failed if I
say, that the quarter of a century which I have been
speaking of, takes me back to the time when I was up
at the University of London, a candidate for honours
in anatomy and physiology, and when I was exceed-
ingly well beaten by my excellent friend Dr. Eansom,
of Nottingham. There is a person here who recollects
that circumstance very well. I refer to your venerated
58 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [in.
teacher and mine, Dr. Sharpey. He was at that time
one of the examiners in anatomy and physiology, and
you may be quite sure that, as he was one of the
examiners, there remained not the smallest doubt in my
mind of the propriety of his judgment, and I accepted
my defeat with the most comfortable assurance that I
had thoroughly well earned it. But, gentlemen, the
competitor having been a worthy one, and the examina-
tion a fair one, I cannot say that I found in that cir-
cumstance anything very discouraging. I said to myself,
" Never mind ; what's the next thing to be done ? "
And I found that policy of " never minding" and going
on to the next thing to be done, to be the most important
of all policies in the conduct of practical life. It does
not matter how many tumbles you have in this life, so
long as you do not get dirty when you tumble ; it is
only the people who have to stop to be washed and made
clean, who must necessarily lose the race. And I can
assure you that there is the greatest practical benefit in
making a few failures early in life. You learn that
which is of inestimable importance that there are a
great many people in the world who are just as clever as
you are. You learn to put your trust, by and by, in an
economy and frugality of the exercise of your powers,
both moral -and intellectual ; and you very soon find out,
if you have not found it out before, that patience and
tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their
weight of cleverness. In fact, if I were to go on dis-
coursing on this subject, I should become almost eloquent
in praise of non-success ; but, lest so doing should seem,
in any way, to wither well-earned laurels, I will turn
from that topic, and ask you to accompany me in some
considerations touching another subject which has a very
profound interest for me, and which I think ought to
have an equally profound interest for you.
in.] ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 59
I presume that the great majority of those whom I
address propose to devote themselves to the profession
of medicine ; and I do not doubt, from the evidences of
ability which have been given to-day, that I have before
me a number of men who will rise to eminence in that
profession, and who will exert a great and deserved
influence upon its future. That in which I am interested,
and about which I wish to speak, is the subject of
medical education, and I venture to speak about it for
the purpose, if I can, of influencing you, who may have
the power of influencing the medical education of the
future. You may ask, by what authority do I venture,
being a person not concerned in the practice of medicine,
to meddle with that subject ? I can only tell you it is a
fact, of which a number of you I dare say are aware by
experience (and I trust the experience has no painful
associations), that T have been for a considerable number
of years (twelve or thirteen years to the best of my
recollection) one of the examiners in the University of
London. You are further aware that the men who come
up to the University of London are the picked men of
the medical schools of London, and therefore such obser-
vations as I may have to make upon the state of know-
ledge of these gentlemen, if they be justified, in regard
to any faults I may have to find, cannot be held to indi-
cate defects in the capacity, or in the power of applica-
tion of those gentlemen, but must be laid, more or less,
to the account of the prevalent system of medical edu-
cation. I will tell you what has struck me but in
speaking in this frank way, as one always does about the
defects of one's friends, I must beg you to disabuse your
minds of the notion that I am alluding to any particular
school, or to any particular college, or to any particular
person ; and to believe that if I am silent when I should
be glad to speak with high praise, it is because that
60 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [in.
praise would come too close to this locality. What has
struck me, then, in this long experience of the men best
instructed in physiology from the medical schools of
London, is (with the many and brilliant exceptions to
which I have referred), taking it as a whole, and broadly,
the singular unreality of their knowledge of physiology.
Now, I use that word " unreality" advisedly f I do not
say " scanty ; " on the contrary, there is plenty of it a
great deal too much of it but it is the quality, the
nature of the knowledge, which I quarrel with. I know
I used to have I don't know whether I have now, but
I had once upon a time a bad reputation among
students for setting up a very high standard of acquire-
ment, and I dare say you may think that the standard
of this old examiner, who happily is now very nearly an
extinct examiner, has been pitched too high. Nothing
of the kind, I assure you. The defects I have noticed,
and the faults I have to find, arise entirely from the
circumstance that my standard is pitched too low. This
is no paradox, gentlemen, but quite simply the fact.
The knowledge I have looked for was a real, precise,
thorough, and practical knowledge of fundamentals ;
whereas that which the best of the candidates, in a large
proportion of cases, have had to give me was a large,
extensive, and inaccurate knowledge of superstructure ;
and that is what I mean by saying that my demands
went too low, and not too high. What I have had to
complain of is, that a large proportion of the gentlemen
who come up for physiology to the University of London
do not know it as they know their anatomy, and have
not been taught it as they have been taught their
anatomy. Now, I should not wonder at all if I heard
a great many " No, noes " here ; but I am not talking
about University College ; as I have told you before, I
am talking about the average education of medical
in.] ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 61
schools. What I have found, and found so much reason
to lament, is, that while anatomy has been taught as a
science ought to be taught, as a matter of autopsy, and
observation, and strict discipline ; in a very large number
of cases, physiology has been taught as if it were a mere
matter of books and of hearsay. I declare to you,
gentlemen, that I have often expected to be told, when
I have been asked a question about the circulation of
the blood, that Professor Breitkopf is of opinion that it
circulates, but that the whole thing is an open ques-
tion. I assure you that I am hardly exaggerating the
state of mind on matters of fundamental importance
which I have found over and over again to obtain among
gentlemen coming up to that picked examination of the
University of London. Now, I do not think that is a
desirable state of things. I cannot understand why
physiology should not be taught in fact, you have here
abundant evidence that it can be taught with the same
definiteness and the same precision as anatomy is taught.
And you may depend upon this, that the only physiology
which is to be of any good whatever in medical practice,
or in its application to the study of medicine, is that
physiology which a man knows of his own knowledge ;
just as the only anatomy which would be of any good to
the surgeon is the anatomy which he knows of his own
knowledge. Another peculiarity I have found in the
physiology which has been current, arid that is, that in
the minds of a great many gentlemen it has been sup-
planted by histology. They have learnt a great deal of
histology, and they have fancied that histology and phy-
siology are the same things. I have asked for some
knowledge of the physics and the mechanics and the
chemistry of the human body, and I have been met by
talk about cells. I declare to you I believe it will take
me two years, at least, of absolute rest from the business
62 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSED [in.
of an examiner to hear the word " cell," " germinal
matter," or '''carmine/' without a sort of inward
shudder.
Well, now, gentlemen, I am sure my colleagues in this
examination will bear me out in saying that I have not
been exaggerating the evils and defects which are current
have been current in a large quantity of the phy-
siological teaching, the results of which come before
examiners. And it becomes a very interesting question
to know how all this comes about, and in what way it
can be remedied. How it comes about will be perfectly
obvious to any one who has considered the growth of
medicine. I suppose that medicine and surgery first
began by some savage, more intelligent than the rest,
discovering that a certain herb was good for a certain
pain, and that a certain pull, somehow or other, set a
dislocated joint right. I suppose all things had their
humble beginnings, and medicine and surgery were in
the same condition. People who wear watches know
nothing about watchmaking. A watch goes wrong and
it stops ; you see the owner giving it a shake, or, if he
is very bold, he opens the case, and gives the balance-
wheel a turn. Gentlemen, that is empirical practice,
and you know what are the results upon the watch. I
should think you can divine what are the results of ana-
logous operations upon the human body. And because
men of sense very soon found that such were the effects
of meddling with very complicated machinery they did
not understand, I suppose the first thing, as being the
easiest, was to study the nature of the works of the
human watch, and the next thing was to study the way
the parts worked together, and the way the watch
worked. Thus, by degrees, we have had growing up our
body of anatomists, or knowers of the construction of the
human watch, and our physiologists, who know how the
in.] ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 63
machine works. And just as any sensible man, who has
a valuable watch, does not meddle with it himself, but
goes to some one who has studied watchmaking, and_
understands what the effect of doing this or that may
be ; so, I suppose, the man who, having charge of that
valuable machine, his own body, wants to have it kept
in good order, comes to a professor of the medical art
for the purpose of having it set right, believing that, by
deduction from the facts of structure and from the facts
of function, the physician will divine what may be the
matter with his bodily watch at that particular time, and
what may be the best means of setting it right. If that
may be taken as a just representation of the relation of
the theoretical branches of medicine what we may call
the institutes of medicine, to use an old term to the
practical branches, I think it will be obvious to you that
they are of prime and fundamental importance. What-
ever tends to affect the teaching of them injuriously
must tend to destroy and to disorganize the whole fabric
of the medical art. I think every sensible man has seen
this long ago ; but the difficulties in the way of attain-
ing good teaching in the different branches of the
theory, or institutes, of medicine are very serious. It is
a comparatively easy matter pray mark that I use the
word " comparatively "it is a comparatively easy
matter to learn anatomy and to teach it ; it is a very
difficult matter to learn physiology and to teach it. It
is a very difficult matter to know and to teach those
branches of physics and those branches of chemistry
which bear directly upon physiology ; and hence it is
that, as a matter of fact, the teaching of physiology,
and the teaching of the physics and the chemistry
which bear upon it, must necessarily be in a state
of relative imperfection ; and there is nothing to be
grumbled at in the fact that this relative imperfection
64 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [in.
exists. But is the relative imperfection which exists
only such as is necessary, or is it made worse by our
practical arrangements ? I believe and if I did not so
believe I should not have troubled you with these obser-
vations I believe it is made infinitely worse by our
practical arrangements, or rather, I ought to say, our very
unpractical arrangements. Some very wise man long ago
affirmed that every question, in the long run, was a ques-
tion of finance ; and there is a good deal to be said for
that view. Most assuredly the question of medical
teaching is, in a very large and broad sense, a question
of finance. What I mean is this : that in London the
arrangements of the medical schools, and the number of
them, are such as to render it almost impossible that
men who confine themselves to the teaching of the
theoretical branches of the profession should be able
to make their bread by that operation ; and, you know, if
a man cannot make his bread, he cannot teach at least
his teaching comes to a speedy end. That is a matter
of physiology. Anatomy is fairly well taught, because it
lies in the direction of practice, and a man is all the
better surgeon for being a good anatomist. It does not
absolutely interfere with the pursuits of a practical
surgeon if he should hold a Chair of Anatomy though
I do not for one moment say that he would not be a
better teacher if he did not devote himself to practice.
(Applause.) Yes, I know exactly what that cheer means,
but I am keeping as carefully as possible from any sort
of allusion to Professor Ellis. But the fact is, that even
human anatomy has now grown to be so large a matter,
that it takes the whole devotion of a man's life to put
the great mass of knowledge upon that subject into such
a shape that it can be teachable to the mind of the
ordinary student. What the student wants in a pro-
fessor is a man who shall stand between him and the
in.] O^V MEDICAL EDUCATION. 65
infinite diversity and variety of human knowledge, and
who shall gather all that together, and extract from it
that which is capable of being assimilated by the mind.
That function is a vast and an important one, and unless,
in such subjects as anatomy, a man is wholly free from
other cares, it is almost impossible that he can perform
it thoroughly and well. But if it be hardly possible for
a man to pursue anatomy without actually breaking
with his profession, how is it possible for him to pursue
physiology ?
I get every year those very elaborate reports of Henle
and Meissner volumes of, I suppose, 400 pages alto-
gether and they consist merely of abstracts of the me-
moirs and works which have been written on Anatomy
and Physiology only abstracts of them! How is a
man to keep up his acquaintance with all that is doing
in the physiological world in a world advancing with
enormous strides every day and every hour if he has
to be distracted with the cares of practice ? You know
very well it must be impracticable to do so. Our men
of ability join our medical schools with an eye to the
future. They take the Chairs of Anatomy or of Phy-
siology ; and by and by they leave those Chairs for the
more profitable pursuits into w r hich they have drifted by
professional success, and so they become clothed, and
physiology is bare. The result is, that in those schools
in which physiology is thus left to the benevolence, so
to speak, of those who have no time to look to it, the
effect of such teaching comes out obviously, and is made
manifest in what I spoke of just now the unreality, the
bookishness of the knowledge of the taught. And if
this is the case in physiology, still more must it be the
case in those branches of physics which are the founda-
tion of physiology ; although it may be less the case
in chemistry, because for an able chemist a certain
H F
66 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES, [in.
honourable and independent career lies in the direc-
tion of his work, and he is able, like the anatomist,
to look upon what he may teach to the student as
not absolutely taking him away from his bread-winning
pursuits.
But it is of no use to grumble about this state of things
unless one is prepared to indicate some sort of practical
remedy. And I believe and I venture to make the
statement because I am wholly independent of all sorts
of medical schools, and may, therefore, say what I believe
without being supposed to be affected by any personal
interest but I say I believe that the remedy for this
state of things, for that imperfection of our theoretical
knowledge which keeps down the ability of England at
the present time in medical matters, is a mere affair of
mechanical arrangement ; that so long as you have a
dozen medical schools scattered about in different parts
of the metropolis, and dividing the students among them,
so long, in all the smaller schools at any rate, it is im-
possible that any other state of things than that which
I have been depicting should obtain. Professors must
live ; to live they must occupy themselves with practice,
and if they occupy themselves with practice, the pursuit
of the abstract branches of science must go to the wall.
All this is a plain and obvious matter of common-sense
reasoning. I believe you will never alter this state of
things until, either by consent or by force majeure and
I should be very sorry to see the latter applied but
until there is some new arrangement, and until all the
theoretical branches of the profession, the institutes of
medicine, are taught in London in not more than one or
two, or at the outside three, central institutions, no good
will be effected. If that large body of men, the medical
students of London, were obliged in the first place to
get a knowledge of the theoretical branches of their
HI.] ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 67
profession in two or three central schools, there would
be abundant means for maintaining able professors not,
indeed, for enriching them, as they would be able to
enrich themselves by practice but for enabling them
to make that choice which such men are so willing to
make ; namely, the choice between wealth and a modest
competency, when that modest competency is to be
combined with a scientific career, and the means of ad-
vancing knowledge. I do not believe that all the talking
about, and tinkering of, medical education will do the
slightest good until the fact is clearly recognized, that men
must be thoroughly grounded in the theoretical branches
of their profession, and that to this end the teaching of
those theoretical branches must be confined to two or
three centres.
Now let me add one other word, and that is, that if
I were a despot, I would cut down these branches to a
very considerable extent. The next thing to be done
beyond that which I mentioned just now, is to go back
to primary education. The great step towards a thorough
medical education is to insist upon the teaching of the
elements of the physical sciences in all schools, so that
medical students shall not go up to the medical colleges
utterly ignorant of that with which they have to deal ;
to insist on the elements of chemistry, the elements of
botany, and the elements of physics being taught in our
ordinary and common schools, so that there shall be some
preparation for the discipline of medical colleges. And,
if this reform were once effected, you might confine the
" Institutes of Medicine " to physics as applied to phy-
siology to chemistry as applied to physiology to
physiology itself, and to anatomy. Afterwards, the
student, thoroughly grounded in these matters, might go
to any hospital he pleased for the purpose of studying
the practical branches of his profession. The practical
F 2
68 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [in.
teaching might be made as local as you like ; and you
might use to advantage the opportunities afforded by all
these local institutions for acquiring a knowledge of the
practice of the profession. But you may say : " This is
abolishing a great deal ; you are getting rid of botany
and zoology to begin with." I have not a doubt that
they ought to be got rid of, as branches of special
medical education ; they ought to be put back to an
earlier stage, and made branches of general education.
Let me say, by way of self-denying ordinance, for which
you will, I am sure, give me credit, that I believe that
comparative anatomy ought to be absolutely abolished.
I say so, not without a certain fear of the Vice-Chan-
cellor of the University of London who sits upon my
left. But I do not think the charter gives him very much
power over me ; moreover, I shall soon come to an end of
my examinership, and therefore I am not afraid, but shall
go on to say what I was going to say, and that is, that
in my belief it is a downright cruelty I have no other
word for it to require from gentlemen who are engaged
in medical studies, the pretence for it is nothing else,
and can be nothing else, than a pretence of a knowledge
of comparative anatomy as part of their medical curri-
culum. Make it part of their Arts teaching if you like,
make it part of their general education if you like, make
it part of their qualification for the scientific degree by
all means that is its proper place ; but to require that
gentlemen whose whole faculties should be bent upon
the acquirement of a real knowledge of human phy-
siology should worry themselves with getting up hearsay
about the alternation of generations in the Salpse is
really monstrou . I cannot characterize it in any other
way. And having sacrificed my own pursuit, I am sure
I may sacrifice other people's ; and I make this remark
with all the more willingness because I discovered, on
in.] ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 69
reading the name of your Professors just now, that the
Professor of Materia Medica is not present. I must con-
fess, if I had my way I should abolish Materia Medica 1
altogether. I recollect, when I was first under exami-
nation at the University of London, Dr. Pereira was
the examiner, and you know that " Pereira's Materia
Medica " was a book de omnibus rebus. I recollect
my struggles with that book late at night and early in
the morning (I worked very hard in those days), and I
do believe that I got that book into my head somehow
or other, but then I will undertake to say that I forgot it
all a week afterwards. Not one trace of a knowledge of
drugs has remained in my memory from that time to
this ; arid really, as a matter of common sense, I cannot
understand the arguments for obliging a medical man to
know all about drugs and where they come from. Why
not make him belong to the Iron and Steel Institute, and
learn something about cutlery, because he uses knives ?
But do not suppose that, after all these deductions,
there would not be ample room for your activity. Let
us count up what we have left. I suppose all the time
for medical education that can be hoped for is, at the
outside, about four years. Well, what have you to master
in those four years upon my supposition ? Physics ap-
plied to physiology ; chemistry applied to physiology ;
physiology ; anatomy ; surgery ; medicine (including
therapeutics) ; obstetrics ; hygiene ; and medical juris-
prudence nine subjects for four years ! And when
you consider what those subjects are, and that the acqui-
sition of anything beyond the rudiments of any one
of them may tax the energies of a lifetime, 1 think
that even those energies which you young gentlemen
have been displaying for the last hour or two might
i It will, I hope, be understood that I do not include Therapeutics under
this head.
70 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [in.
be taxed to keep you thoroughly up to what is wanted
for your medical career.
I entertain a very strong conviction that any one
who adds to medical education one iota or tittle beyond
what is absolutely necessary, is guilty of a very grave
offence. Gentlemen, it will depend upon the knowledge
that you happen to possess, upon your means of
applying it within your own field of action, whether
the bills of mortality of your district are increased or
diminished ; and that, gentlemen, is a very serious con-
sideration indeed. And, under those circumstances, the
subjects with which you have to deal being so difficult,
their extent so enormous, and the time at your disposal
so limited, I could not feel my conscience easy if I did
not, on such an occasion as this, raise a protest against
employing your energies upon the acquisition of any
knowledge which may not be absolutely needed in your
future career.
IV.
YEAST.
IT has been known, from time immemorial, that the
sweet liquids which may be obtained by expressing the
juices of the fruits and stems of various plants, or by
steeping malted barley in hot water, or by mixing honey
with water are liable to undergo a series of very singu-
lar changes, if freely exposed to the air and left to them-
selves, in warm weather. However clear and pellucid
the liquid may have been when first prepared, however
carefully it may have been freed, by straining and filtra-
tion, from even the finest visible impurities, it will not
remain clear. After a time it will become cloudy and
turbid ; little bubbles will be seen rising to the surface,
and their abundance will increase until the liquid hisses
as if it were simmering on the fire. By degrees, some of
the solid particles which produce the turbidity of the
liquid collect at its surface into a scum, which is blown
up by the emerging air-bubbles into a thick, foamy froth.
Another moiety sinks to the bottom, and accumulates as
a muddy sediment, or "lees."
When this action has continued, with more or less
violence, for a certain time, it gradually moderates. The
evolution of bubbles slackens, and finally comes to an
72 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
end ; scum and lees alike settle at the bottom, and the
fluid is once more clear and transparent. But it has
acquired properties of which no trace existed in the
original liquid. Instead of being a mere sweet fluid,
mainly composed of sugar and water, the sugar has more
or less completely disappeared, and it has acquired that
peculiar smell and taste which we call " spirituous."
Instead of being devoid of any obvious effect upon the
animal economy, it has become possessed of a very
wonderful influence on the nervous system ; so that in
small doses it exhilarates, while in larger it stupefies, and
may even destroy life.
Moreover, if the original fluid is put into a still, and
heated for a while, the first and last product of its dis-
tillation is simple water ; while, when the altered fluid is
subjected to the same process, the matter which is first
condensed in the receiver is found to be a clear, volatile
substance, which is lighter than water, has a pungent
taste and smell, possesses the intoxicating powers of the
fluid in an eminent degree, and takes fire the moment it
is brought in contact with a flame. The alchemists
called this volatile liquid, which they obtained from wine,
" spirits of wine," just as they called hydrochloric acid
" spirits of salt," and as we, to this day, call refined
turpentine " spirits of turpentine." As the " spiritus,"
or breath, of a man was thought to be the most refined
and subtle part of him, the intelligent essence of man
was also conceived as a sort of breath, or spirit ; and,
by analogy, the most refined essence of anything was
called its "spirit." And thus it has come about that we
use the same word for the soul of man and for a glass
of gin.
At the present day, however, we even more commonly
use another name for this peculiar liquid namely,
" alcohol," and its origin is not less singular. The Dutch
iv.] YEAST. 73
physician, Van Helmont, lived in the latter part of the
sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century
in the transition period between alchemy and chemistry
and was rather more alchemist than chemist. Appended "
to his " Opera Omnia," published in 1707, there is a very
needful "Clavis ad obscuriorum sensum referandum," in
which the following passage occurs :
" ALCOHOL. Chymicis est liquor aut pulvis summS subtilisatus,
vocabulo Orientalibus quoque, cum primis Habessinis, familiari, quibus
cohol speciatim pulverem impalpabilera ex antimonio pro oculis tin-
gendis denotat. . . Hodie autem, ob analogiam, quivis pulvis teuerior,
ut pulvis oculorum cancri summe subtilisatus alcohol audit, baud
aliter ac spiritus rectificatissimi alcolisati dicuntur."
Similarly, Eobert Boyle speaks of a fine powder as
" alcohol ; " and, so late as the middle of the last cen-
tury, the English lexicographer, Nathan Bailey, defines
" alcohol " as " the pure substance of anything separated
from the more gross, a very fine and impalpable powder,
or a very pure, well-rectified spirit." But, by the time
of the publication of Lavoisier's " Traite Elementaire de
Chimie," in 1789, the term "alcohol," " alkohol," or
" alkool " (for it is spelt in all three ways), which Van
Helmont had applied primarily to a fine powder, and only
secondarily to spirits of wine, had lost its primary mean-
ing altogether ; and, from the end of the last century
until now, it has, I believe, been used exclusively as the
denotation of spirits of wine, and bodies chemically
allied to that substance.
The process which gives rise to alcohol in a saccharine
fluid is known to us as " fermentation ; " a term based
upon the apparent boiling up or " effervescence " of the
fermenting liquid, and of Latin origin.
Our Teutonic cousins call the same process " gahren,"
"gasen," "goschen," and "gischen;" but, oddly enough,
we do not seem to have retained their verb or their
74 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
substantive denoting the action itself, though we do use
names identical with, or plainly derived from, theirs for
the scum and lees. These are called, in Low German,
"gascht" and "gischt;" in Anglo-Saxon, "gest," "gist/'
and "yst," whence our "yeast." Again, in Low German
and in Anglo-Saxon, there is another name for yeast,
having the form " barm," or " beorm ; " and, in the
Midland Counties, " barm " is the name by which yeast
is still best known. In High German, there is a third
name for yeast, "hefe," which is not represented in
English, so far as I know.
All these words are said by philologers to be derived
from roots expressive of the intestine motion of a
fermenting substance. Thus " hefe " is derived from
"heben," to raise; "barm" from "beren" or "baren,"
to bear up ; " yeast," " yst," and " gist," have all to do
with seething and foam, with "yeasty waves," and
"gusty" breezes.
The same reference to the swelling up of the ferment-
ing substance is seen in the Gallo-Latin terms "levure"
and " leaven."
It is highly creditable to the ingenuity of our ancestors
that the peculiar property of fermented liquids, in virtue
of which they " make glad the heart of man," seems to
have been known in the remotest periods of which we
have any record. All savages take to alcoholic fluids
as if they were to the manner born. Our Vedic fore-
fathers intoxicated themselves with the juice of the
" soma ; " Noah, by a not unnatural reaction against a
superfluity of water, appears to have taken the earliest
practicable opportunity of qualifying that which he was
obliged to drink ; and the ghosts of the ancient Egyptians
were solaced by pictures of banquets in which the wine-
cup passes round, graven on the walls of their tombs.
A knowledge of the process of fermentation, therefore,
iv.] YEAST. 75
was in all probability possessed by the prehistoric
populations of the globe ; and it must have become a
matter of great interest even to primaeval wine-bibbers
to study the methods by which fermented liquids coulcT
be surely manufactured. No doubt, therefore, it was
soon discovered that the most certain, as well as the
most expeditious, way of making a sweet juice ferment
was to add to it a little of the scum, or lees, of another
fermenting juice. And it can hardly be questioned that
this singular excitation of fermentation in one fluid, by
a sort of infection, or inoculation, of a little ferment
taken from some other fluid, together with the strange
swelling, foaming, and hissing of the fermented sub-
stance, must have always attracted attention from the
more thoughtful. Nevertheless, the commencement of
the scientific analysis of the phenomena dates from a
period not earlier than the first half of the seventeenth
century.
At this time, Van Helmont made a first step, by
pointing out that the peculiar hissing and bubbling of a
fermented liquid is due, not to the evolution of common
air (which he, as the inventor of the term "gas," calls
"gas ventosum"), but to that of a peculiar kind of air
such as is occasionally met with in caves, mines, and
wells, and which he calls " gas sylvestre."
But a century elapsed before the nature of this " gas
sylvestre," or, as it was afterwards called, "fixed air,"
was clearly determined, and it was found to be identical
with that deadly " choke-damp " by which the lives of
those who descend into old wells, or mines, or brewers'
vats, are sometimes suddenly ended ; and with the
poisonous aeriform fluid which is produced by the com-
bustion of charcoal, and now goes by the name of
carbonic acid gas.
During the same time it gradually became clear that
76 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
the presence of sugar was essential to the production of
alcohol and the evolution of carbonic acid gas, which are
the two great and conspicuous products of fermentation.
And finally, in 1787, the Italian chemist, Fabroni, made
the capital discovery that the yeast ferment, the presence
of which is necessary to fermentation is what he termed
a " vegeto-animal " substance or is a body which gives
off ammoniacal salts when it is burned, and is, in other
ways, similar to the gluten of plants and the albumen
and casein of animals.
These discoveries prepared the way for the illustrious
Frenchman, Lavoisier, who first approached the problem
of fermentation with a complete conception of the nature
of the work to be done. The words in which he ex-
presses this conception, in the treatise on elementary
chemistry to which reference has already been made,
mark the year 1789 as the commencement of a revolu-
tion of not less moment in the world of science than
that which simultaneously burst over the political world,
and soon engulfed Lavoisier himself in one of its mad
eddies.
"We may lay it down as an incontestable axiom that, in all the
operations of art and nature, nothing is created ; an equal quantity of
matter exists both before and after the experiment : the quality and
quantity of the elements remain precisely the same, and nothing takes
place beyond changes and modifications in the combinations of these
elements. Upon this principle, the whole art of performing chemical
experiments depends ; we must always suppose an exact equality
between the elements of the body examined and those of the products
of its analysis.
" Hence, since from must of grapes we procure alcohol and carbonic
acid, I have an undoubted right to suppose that must consists of car-
bonic acid and alcohol. From these premisses we have two modes of
ascertaining what passes during vinous fermentation : either by deter-
mining the nature of, and the elements which compose, the ferment-
able substances; or by accurately examining the products resulting
from fermentation ; and it is evident that the knowledge of either of
these must lead to accurate conclusions concerning the nature and com-
iv.] YEAST. 77
position of the other. From these considerations it became necessary
accurately to determine the constituent elements of the fermentable
substances ; and for this purpose [ did not make use of the compound
juices of fruits, the rigorous analysis of which is perhaps impossible,
but made choice of sugar, which is easily analysed, and the nature of
which I have already explained. This substance is a true vegetable
oxyd, with two bases, composed of hydrogen and carbon, brought to
the state of an oxyd by means of a certain proportion of oxygen ; and
these three elements are combined in such a way that a very slight
force is sufficient to destroy the equilibrium of their connection."
After giving the details of his analysis of sugar and
of the products of fermentation, Lavoisier continues :
" The effect of the vinous fermentation upon sugar is thus reduced
to the mere separation of its elements into two portions ; one part is
oxygenated at the expense of the other, so as to form carbonic acid ;
while the other part, being disoxygeuated in favour of the latter, is
converted into the combustible substance called alkohol ; therefore, if
it were possible to re-unite alkohol and carbonic acid together, we
ought to form sugar." 1
Thus Lavoisier thought he had demonstrated that the
carbonic acid and the alcohol which are produced by
the process of fermentation, are equal in weight to the
sugar which disappears ; but the application of the more
refined methods of modern chemistry to the investigation
of the products of fermentation by Pasteur, in 1860,
proved that this is not exactly true, and that there is
a deficit of from 5 to 7 per cent, of the sugar which is
not covered by the alcohol and carbonic acid evolved.
The greater part of this deficit is accounted for by the
discovery of two substances, glycerine and succinic acid,
of the existence of which Lavoisier was unaware, in the
fermented liquid. But about 1| per cent, still remains
to be made good. According to Pasteur, it has been
appropriated by the yeast, but the fact that such appro-
priation takes place cannot be said to be actually proved.
i " Elements of Chemistry." By M. Lavoisier. Translated by Robert
Kerr. Second Edition, 1793 (pp. 186196).
78 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
However this may be, there can be no doubt that the
constituent elements of fully 98 per cent, of the sugar
which has vanished during fermentation have simply
undergone rearrangement ; like the soldiers of a brigade,
who at the word of command divide themselves into
the independent regiments to which they belong. The
brigade is sugar, the regiments are carbonic acid, succiiiic
acid, alcohol, and glycerine.
From the time of Fabroni, onwards, it has been ad-
mitted that the agent by which this surprising rearrange-
ment of the particles of the sugar is effected is the yeast.
But the first thoroughly conclusive evidence of the
necessity of yeast for the fermentation of sugar was
furnished by Appert, whose method of preserving perish-
able articles of food excited so much attention in France
at the beginning of this century. Gay-Lussac, in his
"Memoire sur la Fermentation/' 1 alludes to Appert's
method of preserving beer-wort unfermented for an
indefinite time, by simply boiling the wort and closing
the vessel in which the boiling fluid is contained, in such
a way as thoroughly to exclude air ; and he shows that,
if a little yeast be introduced into such wort, after it
has cooled, the wort at once begins to ferment, even
though every precaution be taken to exclude air. And
this statement has since received full confirmation from
Pasteur.
On the other hand, Schwann, Schroeder and Dusch,
and Pasteur, have amply proved that air may be allowed
to have free access to beer-wort, without exciting
fermentation, if only efficient precautions are taken
to prevent the entry of particles of yeast along with
the air.
Thus, the truth that the fermentation of a simple
solution of sugar in water depends upon the presence of
1 " Annales de Chimie," 1810.
iv.] YEAST. 79
yeast, rests upon an unassailable foundation ; and the
inquiry into the exact nature of the substance which
possesses such a wonderful chemical influence becomes
profoundly interesting.
The first step towards the solution of this problem
was made two centuries ago by the patient and pains-
taking Dutch naturalist, Leeuwenhoek, who in the year
1680 wrote thus :
" Sgepissime examinavi fermentum cerevisiae, semperque hoc ex
globulis per materiam pellucidam fluitantibus, quam cerevisiam esse
censui, constare observavi : vidi etiam evidentissime, unumquemque
hujus ferment! globulum denuo ex sex distinctis globullis constare,
accurate eidem quantitate et formae, cui globulis sanguinis nostri,
respond entibus.
" Verum tails mihi de horum origine et formatione conceptus for-
mabam ; globulis nempe ex quibus farina Tritici, Hordei, Avense,
Fagotritici., se constat aquae calore dissolvi et aquae commisceri ; hac,
vero aqua, quam cerevisiam vocare licet, refrigescente, multos ex
minimis particulis in cerevisia coadunari, et hoc pacto efficere particu-
lam sive globulum, quae sexta pars est globuli faacis, et iterum sex ex
hisce globulis conjungi." 1
Thus Leeuwenhoek discovered that yeast consists of
globules floating in a fluid ; but he thought that they
were merely the starchy particles of the grain from which
the wort was made, re-arranged. He discovered the fact
that yeast had a definite structure, but not the meaning
of the fact. A century and a half elapsed, and the in-
vestigation of yeast was recommenced almost simulta-
neously by Cagniard de la Tour in France, and by
Schwann and Kutzing in Germany. The French observer
was the first to publish his results ; and the subject
received at his hands and at those of his colleague, the
botanist Turpin, full and satisfactory investigation.
The main conclusions at which they arrived are these.
The globular, or oval, corpuscles which float so thickly in
1 Leeuwenhoek, "Arcana Naturae Detecta." Ed. Nov., 1721.
80 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
the yeast as to make it muddy, though the largest are
not more than one two-thousandth of an inch in diameter,
and the smallest may measure less than one seven-
thousandth of an' inch, are living organisms. They
multiply with great rapidity, by giving otf minute buds,
which soon attain the size of their parent, and then either
become detached or remain united, forming the compound
globules of which Leeuwenhoek speaks, though the con-
stancy of their arrangement in sixes existed only in the
worthy Dutchman's imagination.
It was very soon made out that these yeast organisms,
to which Turpin gave the name of Torula cerevisicv, were
more nearly allied to the lower Fungi than to anything
else. Indeed Turpiu, and subsequently Berkeley and
Hoffmann, believed that they had traced the development
of the Torula into the well-known and very common mould
the Penicillium glaucum. Other observers have not
succeeded in verifying these statements ; and my own
observations lead me to believe, that while the connection
between Torula and the moulds is a very close one, it
is of a different nature from that which has been supposed.
I have never been able to trace the development of Torula
into a true mould ; but it is quite easy to prove that
species of true mould, such as Penicillium, when sown
in an appropriate nidus, such as a solution of tartrate of
ammonia and yeast-ash, in water, with or without sugar,
give rise to Tor idee, similar in all respects to T. cerevisice,
except that they are, on the average, smaller. Moreover,
Bail has observed the development of a Torula larger
than T. cerevisice, from a Mucor, a mould allied to
Penicillium.
It follows, therefore, that the Torulce, or organisms of
yeast, are veritable plants ; and conclusive experiments
have proved that the power which causes the rearrange-
ment of the molecules of the sugar is intimately connected
iv.] YEAST. 81
with the life and growth of the plant. In fact, whatever
arrests the vital activity of the plant also prevents it
from exciting fermentation.
Such being the facts with regard to the nature of yeast,
and the changes which it effects in sugar, how are they
to be accounted for ? Before modern chemistry had
come into existence, Stahl, stumbling, with the stride of
genius, upon the conception which lies at the bottom of
all modern views of the process, put forward the notion
that the ferment, being in a state of internal motion,
communicated that motion to the sugar, and thus caused
its resolution into new substances. And Lavoisier, as
we have seen, adopts substantially the same view. But
Fabroni, full of the then novel conception of acids and
bases and double decompositions, propounded the hypo-
thesis that sugar is an oxide with two bases, and the
ferment a carbonate with two bases ; that the carbon of
the ferment unites with the oxygen of the sugar, and
gives rise to carbonic acid ; while the sugar, uniting with
the nitrogen of the ferment, produces a new substance
analogous to opium. This is decomposed by distillation,
and gives rise to alcohol. Next, in 1803, Thenard pro-
pounded a hypothesis which partakes somewhat of the
nature of both Stahl's and Fabroni's views. " I do not
believe with Lavoisier," he says, " that all the carbonic
acid formed proceeds from the sugar. How, in that case,
could we conceive the action of the ferment on it ? I
think that the first portions of the acid are due to a
combination of the carbon of the ferment with the oxygen
of the sugar, and that it is by carrying off a portion of
oxygen from the last that the ferment causes the fer-
mentation to commence the equilibrium between the
principles of the sugar being disturbed, they combine
afresh to form carbonic acid and alcohol."
The three views here before us may be familiarly
II G
82 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
exemplified by supposing the sugar to be a card-house.
According to Stahl, the ferment is somebody who knocks
the table, and shakes the card-house down ; according to
Fabroni, the ferment takes out some cards, but puts
others in their places ; according to Thenard, the ferment
simply takes a card out of the bottom story, the result
of which is that all the others fall.
As chemistry advanced, facts came to light which put
a new face upon Stahl's hypothesis, and gave it a safer
foundation than it previously possessed. The general
nature of these phenomena may be thus stated : A body,
A, without giving to, or taking from, another body,
B, any material particles, causes B to decompose into
other substances, C, D, E, the sum of the weights of
which is equal to the weight of B, which decomposes.
Thus, bitter almonds contain two substances, amyg-
dalin and synaptase, which can be extracted , in a separate
state, from the bitter almonds. The amygdalin thus
obtained, if dissolved in water, undergoes no change ;
but if a little synaptase be added to the solution, the
amygdalin splits up into bitter almond oil, prussic acid,
and a kind of sugar.
A short time after Cagniard de la Tour discovered the
yeast plant, Liebig, struck with the similarity between
this and other such processes and the fermentation of
sugar, put forward the hypothesis that yeast contains a
substance which acts upon sugar, as synaptase acts upon
amygdalin. And as the synaptase is certainly neither
organized nor alive, but a mere chemical substance,
Liebig treated Cagniard de la Tour's discovery with no
small contempt, and, from that time to the present, has
steadily repudiated the notion that the decomposition of
the sugar is, in any sense, the result of the vital activity
of the Torula. But, though the notion that the Torula
is a creature which eats sugar and excretes carbonic acid
iv.] YEAST. 83
and alcohol, which is not unjustly ridiculed in the most
surprising paper that ever made its appearance in a
grave scientific journal, 1 may be untenable, the fact that
the TorulcB are alive, and that yeast does not excite fer-
mentation unless it contains living Tdrulcs, stands fast.
Moreover, of late years, the essential participation of
living organisms in fermentation other than the alco-
holic, has been clearly made out by Pasteur and other
chemists.
However, it may be asked, is there any necessary op-
position between the so-called " vital " and the strictly
physico-chemical views of fermentation ? It is quite pos-
sible that the living Torula may excite fermentation in
sugar, because it constantly produces, as an essential part
of its vital manifestations, some substance which acts
upon the sugar, just as the synaptase acts upon the
amygdalin. Or it may be, that, without the formation
of any such special substance, the physical condition of
the living tissue of the yeast plant is sufficient to effect
that small disturbance of the equilibrium of the particles
of the sugar, which Lavoisier thought sufficient to effect
its decomposition.
Platinum in a very fine state of division known as
platinum black, or noir de platine has the very singu-
lar property of causing alcohol to change into acetic acid
with great rapidity. The vinegar plant, which is closely
1 " Das entra'thselte Geheimuiss der geistigen Gahrung (Vorlaufige briefliche
Mittlieilung) " is the title of an anonymous contribution to Wohler and
Liebig's " Aunalen der Pharniacie" for 1839, in which a somewhat Rabelaisian
imaginary description of the organization of the " yeast animals " and of the
manner in which their functions are performed, is given with a circumstantiality
worthy of the author of Gulliver's Travels. As a specimen of the writer's humour,
his account of what happens when fermentation comes to an end may suffice.
" Sobald namlich die Thiere keinen Zucker mehr vorfinden, so fressen sie sich
gegeuseitig selbst auf, was durch eine eigene Manipulation geschieht ; alles wird
verdaut bis auf die Eier, welche unverandert durch den Darmkanal heneinehen ;
man hat zuletzt wieder gahrungs-fahige Hefe, namlich den Saamen der Thiere,
der iibrig bleibt."
Or 2
84 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
allied to the yeast plant, has a similar effect upon dilute
alcohol, causing it to absorb the oxygen of the air, and
become converted into vinegar ; and Liebig's eminent
opponent, Pasteur, who has done so much for the theory
and the practice of vinegar-making, himself suggests that
in this case
" La cause du phenomena physique qui accompagne la vie de la
plante reside dans un 6tat physique propre, analogue a celui du noir
de platine. Mais il est essentiel de remarquer que cet 6tat physique
de la plante est etroitement lie avec la vie de cette plante." 1
Now, if the vinegar plant gives rise to the oxidation
of alcohol, on account of its merely physical constitution,
it is at any rate possible that the physical constitution
of the yeast plant may exert a decomposing influence
on sugar.
But, without presuming to discuss a question which
leads us into the very arcana of chemistry, the present
state of speculation upon the modus operandi of the
yeast plant in producing fermentation is represented, on
the one hand, by the Stahlian doctrine, supported by
Liebig, according to which the atoms of the sugar are
shaken into new combinations, either directly by the
Torulce, or indirectly, by some substance formed by
them ; and, on the other hand, by the Thenardian doc-
trine, supported by Pasteur, according to which the yeast
plant assimilates part of the sugar, and, in so doing, dis-
turbs the rest, and determines its resolution into the
products of fermentation. Perhaps the two views are
not so much opposed as they seem at first sight to be.
But the interest which -attaches to the influence of the
yeast plants upon the medium in which they live and
grow (Iocs not arise solely from its bearing upon the
theory of fermentation. So long ago as 1838, Turpin
compared the forulce to the ultimate elements of the
" Etudes surles Mycodermes," Comptes-Rendus, liv., 1862.
iv.] YEAST. 85
tissues of animals and plants " Lcs organes elemen-
taires de leurs tissus, comparables aux petits ve'getaux
des levures ordinaires, sont aussi les decompositeurs des
substances qui les environnent."
Almost at the same time, and, probably, equally guided
by his study of yeast, Schwann was engaged in those re-
markable investigations into the form and development
of the ultimate structural elements of the tissues of
animals, which led him to recognize their fundamental
identity with the ultimate structural elements of vege-
table organisms.
The yeast plant is a mere sac, or " cell," containing a
semi-fluid matter, and Schwann's microscopic analysis
resolved all living organisms, in the long run, into an
aggregation of such sacs or cells, variously modified ; and
tended to show, that all, whatever their ultimate compli-
cation, begin their existence in the condition of such
simple cells.
In his famous " Mikroskopische Untersuchungen "
Schwann speaks of Torula as a "cell;" and, in a re-
markable note to the passage in which he refers to the
yeast plant, Schwann says ;
" I have been unable to avoid mentioning fermentation, because it is
the most fully and exactly known operation of cells, and represents,
in the simplest fashion, the process which is repeated by every cell of
the living body."
In other words, Schwann conceives that every cell of
the living body exerts an influence on the matter which
surrounds and permeates it, analogous to that which a
Torula exerts on the saccharine solution by which it is
bathed. A wonderfully suggestive thought, opening up
views of the nature of the chemical processes of the
living body, which have hardly yet received all the
development of which they are capable.
Kant defined the special peculiarity of the living body
86 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSED [iv.
to be that the parts exist for the sake of the whole and
the whole for the sake of the parts. But when Turpin
and Schwann resolved the living body into an aggrega-
tion of quasi-independent cells, each, like a Torula,
leading its own life and having its own laws of growth
and development, the aggregation being dominated and
kept working towards a definite end only by a certain
harmony among these units, or by the superaddition of
a controlling apparatus, such as a nervous system, this
conception ceased to be tenable. The cell lives for its
own sake, as well as for the sake of the whole organism ;
and the cells, which float in the blood, live at its
expense, and profoundly modify it, are almost as much
independent organisms as the Torulce which float in
beer-wort.
Schwann burdened his enunciation of the " cell
theory " with two false suppositions ; the one, that the
structures he called " nucleus " and " cell-wall " are
essential to a cell ; the other, that cells are usually
formed independently of other cells; but, in 1839, it
was a vast and clear gain to arrive at the conception,
that the vital functions of all the higher animals and
plants are the resultant of the forces inherent in the
innumerable minute cells of which they are composed,
and that each of them is, itself, an equivalent of one of
the lowest and simplest of independent living beings
the Torula.
From purely morphological investigations, Turpin and
Schwann, as we have seen, arrived at the notion of the
fundamental unity of structure of living beings. And,
before long, the researches of chemists gradually led up
to the conception of the fundamental unity of their
composition.
So far back as 1803, Thenard pointed out, in most
distinct terms, the important fact that yeast contains a
iv.] YEAST. 87
nitrogenous " animal " substance ; and that such a sub-
stance is contained in all ferments. Before him, Fabroni
and Fourcroy speak of the " vegeto-animal " matter of
yeast. In 1844 Mulder endeavoured to demonstrate
that a peculiar substance, which he called "protein/'
was essentially characteristic of living matter.
In 1846, Pay en writes:
" Enfin, une loi sans exception me semble apparaitre dans les faits
nombreux que j'ai observes et conduire a envisager sous un nouveau
jour la vie vege*tale; si je ne m'abuse, tout ce que dans les tissus
ve"ge*taux la vue directe ou amplifiee nous permet de discerner sous la
forme de cellules et de vaisseaux, ne represeute autre chose que les
enveloppes protectrices, les reservoirs et les conduits, a 1'aide desquels
les corps anirne*s qui les secretent et les fagonnent, ee logent,
puisent et charrient leurs aliments, deposent et isolent les mati^res
excrStees."
And again :
"Ann de completer aujourd'hui 1'enonce du fait ge"n6ral, je rappel-
lerai que les corps, doue des fonctions accomplies dans les tissus des
plantes, sont formes des elements qui constituent, en proportion peu
variable, les organismes animaux; qu'ainsi Ton est conduit a reconnaitre
uue immense unite de composition e*lementaire dans tous les corps
vivants de la nature." 1
In the year (1846) in which these remarkable passages
were published, the eminent German botanist, Von Mohl,
invented the word " protoplasm," as a name for one por-
tion of those nitrogenous contents of the cells of living
plants, the close chemical resemblance of which to the
essential constituents of living animals is so strongly
indicated by Payen. And through the twenty-five years
that have passed, since the matter of life was first called
protoplasm, a host of investigators, among whom Cohn,
Max Schulze, and Kiihne must be named as leaders, have
accumulated evidence, morphological, physiological, and
1 "Mem. sur les DeVeloppements des V4g4taux," &c. " Mem. Pr&enteea
ix. 1846.
88 C2UTTQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
chemical, in favour of that "immense unite cle compo-
sition elementaire dans tous les corps vivants de la
nature/' into which Payen had, so early, a clear insight.
As far back as 1850, Cohn wrote, apparently without
any knowledge of what Payen had said before him :
" The protoplasm of the botanist, and the contractile substance and
sarcode of the zoologist, must be, if not identical, yet in a high degree
analogous substances. Hence, from this point of view, the difference
between animals and plants consists in this ; that, in the latter, the con-
tractile substance, as a primordial utricle, is enclosed within an inert
cellulose membrane, which permits it only to exhibit an internal
motion, expressed by the phenomena of rotation and circulation, while,
in the former, it is not so enclosed. The protoplasm in the form of the
primordial utricle is, as it were, the animal element in the plant, but
which is imprisoned, and only becomes free in the animal ; or, to strip
off the metaphor which obscures simple thought, the energy of organic
vitality which is manifested in movement is especially exhibited by a
nitrogenous contractile substance, which in plants is limited and
fettered by an inert membrane, in animals not so." x
In 1868, thinking that an untechnical statement of
the views current among the leaders of biological science
might be interesting to the general public, I gave a
lecture embodying them in Edinburgh. Those who
have not made the mistake of attempting to approach
biology, either by the high a priori road of mere philo-
sophical speculation, or by the mere low d posteriori
lane offered by the tube of a microscope, but have taken
the trouble to become acquainted with well-ascertained
facts and with their history, will not need to be told
that ill what I had to say " as regards protoplasm " in
my lecture " On the Physical Basis of Life," there was
nothing new ; and, as I hope, nothing that the present
state of knowledge does not justify us in believing to
be true. Under these circumstances, my surprise may
be imagined, when I found, that the mere statement of
1 Colin, "Ueber Protococcus pluvialis," in the "Nova Acta" for 1850.
iv.] YEAST. 89
facts and of views, long familiar to me as part of the
common scientific property of continental workers, raised
a sort of storm in this country, not only by exciting
the wrath of unscientific persons whose pet prejudices
they seemed to touch, but by giving rise to quite
superfluous explosions on the part of some who should
have been better informed.
Dr. Stirling, for example, made my essay the subject
of a special critical lecture, 1 which I have read with much
interest, though, I confess, the meaning of much of it
remains as dark to me as does the '' Secret of Hegel "
after Dr. Stirling's elaborate revelation of it. Dr. Stirling's
method of dealing with the subject is peculiar. " Proto-
plasm " is a question of history, so far as it is a name ;
of fact, so far as it is a thing. Dr. Stirling has not
taken the trouble to refer to the original authorities for
his history, which is consequently a travesty ; and still
less has he concerned himself with looking at the facts,
but contents himself with taking them also at second-
hand. A most amusing example of this fashion of
dealing with scientific statements is furnished by Dr.
Stirling's remarks upon my account of the protoplasm
of the nettle hair. That- account was drawn up from
careful and often-repeated observation of the facts. Dr.
Stirling thinks he is offering a valid criticism, when he
says that my valued friend Professor Strieker gives a
somewhat different statement about protoplasm. But
why in the world did not this distinguished Hegelian
look at a nettle hair for himself, before venturing to
speak about the matter at all ? Why trouble himself
about what either Strieker or I say, when any tyro can
see the facts for himself, if he is provided with those
not rare articles, a nettle and a microscope ? But I
suppose this would have been " Aufklarung " a recur-
1 Subsequently published under the title of " As regards Protoplasm.''
00 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [iv.
rence to the base common-sense philosophy of the
eighteenth century, which liked to see before it believed,
and to understand before it criticised. Dr. Stirling winds
up his paper with the following paragraph :
" In short, the whole position of Mr. Huxley, (1) that all organisms
consist alike of the same life-matter, (2) which life-matter is, for its
part, due only to chemistry, must be pronounced untenable nor less
untenable (3) the materialism he would found on it/'
The paragraph contains three distinct assertions con-
cerning my views, and just the same number of utter
misrepresentations of them. That which I have numbered
(l) turns on the ambiguity of the word " same/' for a
discussion of which I would refer Dr. Stirling to a great
hero of "Aufklarung," Archbishop Whately ; statement
number (2) is, in my judgment, absurd, and certainly
1 have never said anything resembling it ; while, as to
number (3), one great object of my essay was to show
that what is called " materialism " has no sound philo-
sophical basis !
As we have seen, the study of yeast has led inves-
tigators face to face with problems of immense interest
in pure chemistry, and in animal and vegetable mor-
phology. Its physiology is not less rich in subjects for
inquiry. Take, for example, the singular fact that yeast
will increase indefinitely when grown in the dark, in
water containing only tartrate of ammonia, a small per-
centage of mineral salts, and sugar. Out of these
materials the Torulce will manufacture nitrogenous pro-
toplasm, cellulose, and fatty matters, in any quantity,
although they are wholly deprived of those rays of the
sun, the influence of which is essential to the growth of
ordinary plants. There has been a great deal of specu-
lation lately, as to how the living organisms buried
beneath two or three thousand fathoms of water, and
therefore in all probability almost deprived of light, live.
iv.] YEAST. 91
If any of them possess the same powers as yeast (and
the same capacity for Jiving without light is exhibited
by some other fungi) there would seem to be no difficulty
about the matter.
Of the pathological bearings of the study of yeast, and
other such organisms, I have spoken elsewhere. It is
certain that, in some animals, devastating epidemics are
caused by fungi of low order similar to those of which
Torula is a sort of offshoot. It is certain that such
diseases are propagated by contagion and infection, in
just the same way as ordinary contagious and infectious
diseases are propagated. Of course, it does not follow
from this, that all contagious and infectious diseases are
caused by organisms of as definite and independent a
character as the Torula ; but, I think, it does follow that
it is prudent and wise to satisfy oneself in each parti-
cular case, that the " germ theory " cannot and will not
explain the facts, before having recourse to hypotheses
which have no equal support from analogy.
V.
ON THE FORMATION OF COAL.
THE lumps of coal in a coal-scuttle very often have a
roughly cubical form. If one of them be picked out and
examined with a little care, it will be found that its six
sides are not exactly alike. Two opposite sides are com-
paratively smooth and shining, while the other four
are much rougher, and are marked by lines which run
parallel with the smooth sides. The coal readily splits
along these lines, and the split surfaces thus formed are
parallel with the smooth faces. In other words, there
is a sort of rough and incomplete stratification in the
lump of coal, as if it were a book, the leaves of which
had stuck together very closely.
Sometimes the faces along which the coal splits are
not smooth, but exhibit a thin layer of dull, charred-
looking substance, which is known as " mioeral charcoal."
Occasionally one of the. faces pf a lump of coal will
present impressions, which are obviously those of the
stem, or leaves, of a plant ; but though hard mineral
masses of pyrites, aod even fine mud, may occur here
and there, neither sarid nor pebbles are met with.
When tiie coal burns, the chief ultimate products of
its combustion are carbonic acid, water, and aminoniacal
v.] ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. 93
products, which escape up the chimney ; and a greater
or less amount of residual earthy salts, which take the
form of ash. These products are, to a great extent, such
as would result from the burning of so much wood.
These properties of coal may be made out without any
very refined appliances, but the microscope reveals some-
thing more. Black and opaque as ordinary coal is, slices
of it become transparent if they are cemented in Canada
balsam, and rubbed down very thin, in the ordinary way
of making thin sections of non-transparent bodies. But
as the thin slices, made in this way, are very apt to
crack and break into fragments, it is better to employ
marine glue as the cementing material. By the use of
this substance, slices of considerable size and of extreme
thinness and transparency may be obtained. 1
Now let us suppose two such slices to be prepared
from our lump of coal one parallel with the bedding,
the other perpendicular to it ; and let us call the one
the horizontal, and the other the vertical, section. The
horizontal section will present more or less rounded
yellow patches and streaks, scattered irregularly through
the dark brown, or blackish, ground substance ; while
the vertical section will exhibit more elongated bars and
granules of the same yellow materials, disposed in lines
which correspond, roughly, with the general direction of
the bedding of the coal.
This is the microscopic structure of an ordinary piece
of coal. But if a great series of coals, from different
localities and seams, or even from different parts of the
same seam, be examined, this structure will be found to
vary in two directions. In the anthracitic, or stone-
coals, which burn like coke, the yellow matter diminishes,
and the ground substance becomes more predominant,
1 My assistant in the Museum of Practical Geology, Mr. Newton, invented
this excellent method of obtaining thin slices of coal
D4 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
and blacker, and more opaque, until it becomes impos-
sible to grind a section thin enough to be translucent;
while, on the other hand, in such as the " Better-Bed"
coal of the neighbourhood of Bradford, which burns with
much flame, the coal is of a far lighter colour, and trans-
parent sections are very easily obtained. In the browner
parts of this coal, sharp eyes will readily detect multi-
tudes of curious little coin-shaped bodies, of a yellowish
brown colour, embedded in the dark brown ground sub-
stance. On the average, these little brown bodies may
have a diameter of about one-twentieth of an inch.
They lie with their flat surfaces nearly parallel with the
two smooth faces of the block in which they are con-
tained ; and, on one side of each, there may be discerned
a figure, consisting of three straight linear marks, which
radiate from the centre of the disk, but do not quite
reach its circumference. In the horizontal section these
disks are often converted into more or less complete
rings ; while in the vertical sections they appear like
thick hoops, the sides of which have been pressed to-
gether. The disks are, therefore, flattened bags ; and
favourable sections show that the three-rayed marking is
the expression of three clefts, which penetrate one wall
of the bag.
The sides of the bags are sometimes closely approxi-
mated ; but, when the bags are less flattened, their
cavities are, usually, filled with numerous, irregularly
rounded, hollow bodies, having the same kind of wall as
the large ones, but not more than one seven-hundredth
of an inch in diameter.
In favourable specimens, again, almost the whole
ground substance appears to be made up of similar
bodies more or less carbonized or blackened- and, in
these, there can be no doubt that, with the exception of
patches of mineral charcoal, here and there, the whole
v.] ON THE FORMATION OF COAL 95
mass of the coal is made up of an accumulation of tlie
larger and of the smaller sacs.
But, in one and the same slice, every transition can
be observed from this structure to that which has been
described as characteristic of ordinary coal. The latter
appears to rise out of the former, by the breaking-up
and increasing carbonization of the larger and the
smaller sacs. And, in the anthracitic coals, this process
appears to have gone to such a length, as to destroy the
original structure altogether, and to replace if by a com-
pletely carbonized substance.
Thus coal may be said, speaking broadly, to be com-
posed of two constituents : firstly, mineral charcoal ;
and, secondly, coal proper. The nature of the mineral
charcoal has long since been determined. Its structure
shows it to consist of the remains of the stems and
leaves of plants, reduced to little more than their carbon.
Again, some of the coal is made up of the crushed and
flattened bark, or outer coat, of the stems of plants, the
inner wood of which has completely decayed away. But
what I may term the "saccular matter" of the coal,
which, either in its primary or in its degraded form, con-
stitutes by far the greater part of all the bituminous
coals I have examined, is certainly not mineral charcoal ;
nor is its structure that of any stem or leaf. Hence its
real nature is, at first, by no means apparent, and has
been the subject of much discussion.
The first person who threw any light upon the pro-
blem, as far as I have been able to discover, was the
well-known geologist. Professor Morris. It is now thirty-
four years since he carefully described and figured the
coin-shaped bodies, or larger sacs, as I have called them,
in a note appended to the famous paper " On the Coal-
brookdale Coal-Field/' published at that time, by the
present President of the Geological Society, Mr. Prest-
96 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
wich. With much sagacity, Professor Morris divined the
real nature of these bodies, and boldly affirmed them
to be the spore-cases of a plant allied to the living
club-mosses.
But discovery sometimes makes a long halt ; and it is
only a few years since Mr. Carruthers determined the
plant (or rather one of the plants) which produces these
spore-cases, by finding the discoidal sacs still adherent
to the leaves of the fossilized cone which produced them.
He gave the name of Flemingites gracilis to the plant
of which the cones form a part. The branches and stem
of this plant are not yet certainly known, but there is
no sort of doubt that it was closely allied to the Lepi-
dodendron, the remains of which abound in the coal
formation. The Lepidodendra were shrubs and trees,
which put one more in mind of an Araucaria than of
any other familiar plant ; and the ends of the fruiting
branches were terminated by cones, or catkins, somewhat
like the bodies so named in a fir, or a willow. These
conical fruits, however, did not produce seeds ; but the
leaves of w T hich they were composed bore upon their
surfaces sacs full of spores or sporangia, such as those
one sees on the under surface of a bracken leaf. Now, it
is these sporangia of the Lepidodendroid plant Fleming-
ites which were identified by Mr. Carruthers with the
free sporangia described by Professor Morris, which are
the same as the large sacs of which I have spoken. And,
more than this, there is no doubt that the small sacs
are the spores, which were originally contained in the
sporangia,
The living club-mosses are, for the most part, insigni-
ficant and creeping herbs, which, superficially, very
closely resemble true mosses, and none of them reach
more than two or three feet in height. But, in their
essential structure, they very closely resemble the earliest
v.] ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. 97
Lepidodendroid trees of the coal : their stems and leaves
are similar ; so are their cones ; and no less like are the
sporangia and spores ; while even in their size, the spores
of the Lepidodendron and those of the existing Lycopo-
dium, or club-moss, very closely approach one another.
Thus, the singular conclusion is forced upon us, that
the greater and the smaller sacs of the " Better-Bed "
and other coals, in which the primitive structure is well
preserved, are simply the sporangia and spores of certain
plants, many of which were closely allied to the existing
club-mosses. And if, as I believe, it can be demonstrated
that ordinary coal is nothing but " saccular " coal which
has undergone a certain amount of that alteration which,
if continued, would convert it into anthracite ; then, the
conclusion is obvious, that the great mass of the coal
we burn is the result of the accumulation of the spores
and spore-cases of plants, other parts of which have
furnished the carbonized stems and the mineral char-
coal, or have left their impressions on the surfaces of
the layer.
Of the multitudinous speculations which, at various
times, have been entertained respecting the origin and
mode of formation of coal, several appear to be nega-
tived, and put out of court, by the structural facts the
significance of which I have endeavoured to explain.
These facts, for example, do not permit us to suppose
that coal is an accumulation of peaty matter, as some
have held.
Again, the late Professor Quekett was one of the first
observers who gave a correct description of what I have
termed the " saccular" structure of coal; and, rightly
perceiving that this structure was something quite dif-
ferent from that of any known plant, he imagined that
it proceeded from some extinct vegetable organism which
was peculiarly abundant amongst the coal-forming plants.
H H
98 CRITIQUES ASD ADDRESSES. [v.
But tins explanation is at once shown to be untenable
when the smaller and the larger sacs are proved to be
spores or sporangia.
Some, once more, have imagined that coal was of sub-
marine origin ; and though the notion is amply and easily
refuted by other considerations, it may be worth while
to remark, that it is impossible to comprehend how a
mass of light and resinous spores should have reached
the bottom of the sea, or should have stopped in that
position if they had got there.
At the same time, it is proper to remark that I do
not presume to suggest that all coal must needs have
the same structure ; or that there may not be coals in
which the proportions of wood and spores, or spore-cases,
are very different from those which I have examined.
All I repeat is, that none of the coals which have come
under my notice have enabled me to observe such a dif-
ference. But, according to Principal Dawson, who has
so sedulously examined the fossil remains of plants in
North America, it is otherwise with the vast accumula-
tions of cqal in that country.
"The true coal," says Dr. Dawson, "consists principally of the
flattened bark of Sigillarioid and other trees, intermixed with leaves of
Ferns and Cordaites, and other herbaceous debris, and with fragments
of decayed wood, constituting ' mineral charcoal,' all these materials
having manifestly alike grown and accumulated where we find them." l
When I had the pleasure of seeing Principal Dawson in
London last summer, I showed him my sections of coal,
and begged him to re-examine some of the American
coals on his return to Canada, with an eye to the presence
of spores and sporangia, such as I was able to show him
in our English and Scotch coals. He has been good
enough to do so ; and in a letter dated September 26th,
1870, he informs me that
i " Acadian Geology," 2nd edition, p. 138.
v.j ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. 99
" Indications of spore-cases are rare, except in certain coarse shaly
coals and portions of coals, and in the roofs of the seams. The most
marked case I have yet met with is the shaly coal referred to as con-
taining Sporangites in my paper on the conditions of accumulation of
coal (Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xxii. pp. 115, 139, and
165). The purer coals certainly consist principally of cubical tissues
with some true woody matter, and the spore-cases, &c., are chiefly in
the coarse and shaly layers. This is my old doctrine in my two papers
in the Journal of the Geological Society, and I see nothing to modify it-
Your observations, however, make it probable that the frequent clear
spots in the cannels are spore-cases."
Dr. Daw son's results are the more remarkable, as the
numerous specimens of British coal, from various locali-
ties, which I have examined, tell one tale as to the
predominance of the spore and sporangium element in
their composition ; and as it is exactly in the finest and
purest coals, such as the "Better-Bed" coal of Lowmoor,
that the spores and sporangia obviously constitute almost
the entire mass of the deposit.
Coal, such as that which has been described, is always
found in sheets, or " seams," varying from a fraction of
an inch to many feet in thickness, enclosed in the sub-
stance of the earth at very various depths, between beds
of rock of different kinds. As a rule, every seam of
coal rests upon a thicker, or thinner, bed of clay, which
is known as " under-clay." These alternations of beds
of coal, clay, and rock may be repeated many times,
and are known as the " coal-measures ; " and in some
regions, as in South Wales and in Nova Scotia, the
coal-measures attain a thickness of twelve or fourteen
thousand feet, and enclose eighty or a hundred seams
of coal, each with its under-clay, and separated from
those above and below by beds of sandstone and shale.
The position of the beds which constitute the coal-
measures is infinitely diverse. Sometimes they are tilted
up vertically, sometimes they are horizontal, sometimes
curved into great basins ; sometimes they come to the
H 2
100 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
surface, sometimes they are covered up by thousands
of feet of rock. But, whatever their present position,
there is abundant and conclusive evidence that every
under-clay was once a surface soil. Not only do car-
bonized root-fibres frequently abound in these under-
clays ; but the stools of trees, the trunks of which are
broken off and confounded with the bed of coal, have
been repeatedly found passing into radiating roots, still
embedded in the under-clay. On many parts of the
coast of England, what are commonly known as " sub-
marine forests " are to be seen at low water. They
consist, for the most part, of short stools of oak, beech,
and fir trees, still fixed by their long roots in the bed
of blue clay in which they originally grew. If one of
these submarine forest beds should be gradually depressed
and covered up by new deposits, it would present just
the same characters as an under-clay of the coal, if the
Sigillaria and Lepidodendron of the ancient world were
substituted for the oak, or the beech, of our own times.
In a tropical forest, at the present day, the trunks of
fallen trees, and the stools of such trees as may have
been broken by the violence of storms, remain entire for
but a short time. Contrary to what might be expected,
the dense wood of the tree decays, and suffers from the
ravages of insects, more swiftly than the bark. And the
traveller, setting his foot on a prostrate trunk, finds that
it is a mere shell, which breaks under his weight, and
lands his foot amidst the insects, or the reptiles, which
have sought food or refuge within.
The trees of the coal forests present parallel condi-
tions. When the fallen trunks which have entered into
the composition of the bed of coal are identifiable, they
are mere double shells of bark, flattened together in
consequence of the destruction of the woody core ; and
Sir Charles Lyell and Principal Dawson discovered, in the
v.] ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. 101
hollow stools of coal trees of Nova Scotia, the remains
of snails, millipedes, and salamander-like creatures, em-
bedded in a deposit of a different character from that
which surrounded the exterior of the trees. Thus, in en-
deavouring to comprehend the formation of a seam of
coal, we must try to picture to ourselves a thick forest,
formed for the most part of trees like gigantic club-
mosses, mares'-tails, and tree ferns, with here and there
some that had more resemblance to our existing yews
and fir-trees. We must suppose that, as the seasons
rolled by, the plants grew and developed their spores and
seeds ; that they shed these in enormous quantities, which
accumulated on the ground beneath ; and that, every now
and then, they added a dead frond or leaf; or, at longer
intervals, a rotten branch, or a dead trunk, to the mass.
A certain proportion of the spores and seeds no doubt
fulfilled their obvious function, and, carried by the wind
to unoccupied regions, extended the limits of the forest ;
many might be washed away by rain into streams, and
be lost ; but a large portion must have remained, to
accumulate like beech-mast, or acorns, beneath the trees
of a modern forest
But, in this case, it may be asked, why does not our
English coal consist of stems and leaves to a much
greater extent than it does ? What is the reason of the
predominance of the spores and spore-cases in it ?
A ready answer to this question is afforded by the
study of a living full-grown club-moss. Shake it upon
a piece of paper, and it emits a cloud of fine dust, which
falls over the paper, and is the well-known Lycopodium
powder. Now this powder used to be, and I believe
still is, employed for two objects, which seem at first
sight to have no particular connection with one another.
It is, or was, employed in making lightning, and in
making pills. The coats of the spores contain so much
102 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
resinous matter, that a pincli of Lycopodium powder,
thrown through the flame of a candle, burns with an in-
stantaneous flash, which has long done duty for lightning
on the stage. And the same character makes it a capital
coating for pills ; for the resinous powder prevents the
drug from being wetted by the saliva, and thus bars
the nauseous flavour from the sensitive papillae of the
tongue.
But this resinous matter, which lies in the walls of
the spores arid sporangia, is a substance not easily altered
by air and water, and hence tends to preserve these
bodies, just as the bituminized cerecloth preserves an
Egyptian mummy ; while, on the other hand, the merely
woody stem and leaves tend to rot, as fast as the wood
of the mummy's coffin has rotted. Thus the mixed
heap of spores, leaves, and stems in the coal-forest would
be persistently searched by the long- continued action of
air and rain ; the leaves and stems would gradually be
reduced to little but their carbon, or, in other words, to
the condition of mineral charcoal in which we find them ;
while the spores and sporangia remained as a compara-
tively unaltered and compact residuum.
There is, indeed, tolerably clear evidence that the coal
must, under some circumstances, have been converted
into a substance hard enough to be rolled into pebbles,
while it yet lay at the surface of the earth ; for in some
seams of coal, the courses of rivulets, which must have
been living water, while the stratum in which their
remains are found was still at the surface, have been
observed to contain rolled pebbles of the very coal
through which the stream has cut its way.
The structural facts are such as to leave no alternative
but to adopt the view of the origin of such coal as I have
described, which has just been stated ; but, happily, the
process is not without analogy at the present clay. I
v.J ON THE FORMATION OF GOAL. 103
possess a specimen of what is called " white coal" from
Australia. It is an inflammable material, burning with
a bright flame, and having much the consistence and
appearance of oat-cake, which, I am informed, covers a
considerable area. It consists, almost entirely, of a
compacted mass of spores and spore-cases. But the fine
particles of blown sand which are scattered through it,
show that it must have accumulated, subaerially, upon
the surface of a soil covered by a forest of cryptogamous
plants, probably tree-ferns.
As regards this important point of the subaerial region
of coal, I am glad to find myself in entire accordance
with Principal Dawson, who bases his conclusions upon
other, but no less forcible, considerations. In a passage,
which is the continuation of that already cited, he
writes :
" (3) The microscopical structure and chemical composition of the
beds of caunel coal aod earthy bitumen, and of the more highly bitu-
minous and carbonaceous shale, show them to have been of the nature
of the fine vegetable mud which accumulates in the ponds and shallow
lakes of modern swamps. When such fine vegetable sediment is mixed,
as is often the case, with clay, it becomes similar to the bituminous
limestone and calcareo-bituminous shales of the coal-measures, (4)
A few of the under-clays, which support beds of coal, are of the
nature of the vegetable mud above referred to ; but the greater part
are argillo-arenaceous in composition, with little vegetable matter, and
bleached by the drainage from them of water containing the products
of vegetable decay. They are, in short, loamy or clay soils, and must
have been sufficiently above water to admit of drainage. The absence
of sulphurets, and the occurrence of carbonate of iron in connection
with them, prove that, when they existed as soils, rain-water, and not
sea-water, percolated them. (5) The coal and the fossil forests present
many evidences of subaerial conditions. Most of the erect and
prostrate trees had become hollow shells of bark before they were
finally embedded, and their wood had broken into cubical pieces of
mineral charcoal. Land-snails and galley-worms (Xylobius) crept into
them, and they became dens, or traps, for reptiles. Large quantities
of mineral charcoal occur on the surface of all the large beds of coal.
None of these appearances could have been produced by subaqueous
104 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
action. (6) Though the roots of the Sigillaria bear more resemblance
to the rhizomes of certain aquatic plants ; yet, structurally, they are
absolutely identical with the roots of Cycads, which the stems also
resemble. Further, the Sigillarice grew on the same soils which
supported Conifers, Lepidodendra, Cordaites, and Ferns plants which
could not have grown in water. Again, with the excaption perhaps of
some Pinnularice and Asterophyllites, there is a remarkable absence
from the coal measures of any form of properly aquatic vegetation.
(7) The occurrence of marine, or brackish- water animals, in the roofs
of coal-beds, or even in the coal itself, affords no evidence of sub-
aqueous accumulation, since the same thing occurs in the case of
modern submarine forests. For these and other reasons, some of
which are more fully stated in the papers already referred to, while I
admit that the areas of coal accumulation were frequently submerged,
I must maintain that the true coal is a subaerial accumulation by
vegetable growth on soils, wet and swampy it is true, but not
submerged."
I am almost disposed to doubt whether it is necessary
to make the concession of " wet and swampy ; " other-
wise, there is nothing that I know of to be said against
this excellent conspectus of the reasons for believing in
the subaerial origin of coal.
But the coal accumulated upon the area covered by
one of the great forests of the carboniferous epoch would,
in course of time, have been wasted away by the small,
but constant, wear and tear of rain and streams, had the
land which supported it remained at the same level, or
been gradually raised to a greater elevation. And, no
doubt, as much coal as now exists has been destroyed,
after its formation, in this way. What are now known
as coal districts owe their importance to the fact that
they were areas of slow depression, during a greater or
less portion of the carboniferous epoch ; and that, in
virtue of this circumstance, Mother Earth was enabled
to cover up her vegetable treasures, and preserve them
from destruction.
Wherever a coal-field now exists, there must formerly
have been free access for a great river, or for a shallow
v.] ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. 105
sea, bearing sediment in the shape of sand and mud.
When the coal-forest area became slowly depressed, the
waters must have spread over it, and have deposited
their burden upon the surface of the bed of coal, in the^
form of layers, which are now converted into shale, or
sandstone. Then followed a period of rest, in which the
superincumbent shallow waters became completely filled
up, and finally replaced, by fine mud, which settled
down into a new under-clay, and furnished the soil for
a fresh forest growth. This flourished, and heaped up
its spores and wood into coal, until the stage of slow
depression recommenced. And, in some localities, as I
have mentioned, the process was repeated until the first
of the alternating beds had sunk to near three miles
below its original level at the surface of the earth.
In reflecting on the statement, thus briefly made, of
the main facts connected with the origin of the coal
formed during the carboniferous epoch, two or three
considerations suggest themselves.
In the first place, the great phantom of geological time
rises before the student of this, as of all other, fragments
of the history of our earth springing irrepressibly out
of the facts, like the Djin from the jar which the fisher-
man so incautiously opened ; and like the Djin again,
being vaporous, shifting, and indefinable, but unmis-
takably gigantic. However modest the bases of one's
calculation may be, the minimum of time assignable to
the coal period remains something stupendous.
Principal Dawson is the last person likely to be guilty
of exaggeration in this matter, and it will be well to
consider what he has to say about it :
" The rate of accumulation of coal was very slow. The climate of
the period, in the northern temperate zone, was of such a character
that the true conifers show rings of growth, not larger, nor much less
distinct, than those of many of their modern congeners. The Sigil-
106 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
lance and Calamites were not, as often supposed, composed wholly, or
even principally, of lax and soft tissues, or necessarily short-lived.
The former had, it is true, a very thick inner bark ; but their dense
woody axis, their thick and nearly imperishable outer bark, and their
scanty and rigid foliage, would indicate no very rapid growth or decay.
In the case of the Sigillarice, the variations in the leaf-scars in
different parts of the trunk, the intercalation of new ridges at the
surface representing that of new woody wedges in the axis, the trans-
verse marks left by the stages of upward growth, all indicate that
several years must have been required for the growth of stems of
moderate size. The enormous roots of these trees, and the condition
of the coal-swamps, must have exempted them from the danger of
being overthrown by violence. They probably fell in successive
generations from natural decay ; and making every allowance for other
materials, we may safely assert that every foot of thickness of pure
bituminous coal implies the quiet growth and fall of at least fifty
generations of Sigillarice, and therefore an undisturbed condition of
forest growth enduring through many centuries. Further, there is
evidence that an immense amount of loose parenchymatous tissue, and
even of wood, perished by decay, and we do not know to what extent
even the roost durable tissues may have disappeared in this way ; so
that, in many coal-seams, we may have only a very small part of the
vegetable matter produced."
Undoubtedly the force of these reflections is not
diminished when the bituminous coal, as in Britain,
consists of accumulated spores and spore-cases, rather
than of stems. But, suppose we adopt Principal Dawson's
assumption, that one foot of coal represents fifty genera-
tions of coal plants ; and, further, make the moderate
supposition that each generation of coal plants took ten
years to come to maturity then, each foot-thickness of
coal represents five hundred years. The superimposed
beds of coal in one coal-field may amount to a thickness
of fifty or sixty feet, and therefore the coal alone, in that
field, represents 500 x 50 - 25,000 years. But the
actual coal is but an insignificant portion of the total
deposit, which, as has been seen, may amount to between
two and three miles of vertical thickness. Suppose it
be 12,000 feet which is 240 times the thickness of the
v.] ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. 107
actual coal is there any reason why we should believe
it may not have taken 240 times as long to form ? I
know of none. But, in this case, the time which the_
coal-field represents would be 25,000 x 240 6,000,000^
years. As affording a definite chronology, of course such
calculations as these are of no value ; but they have much
use in fixing one's attention upon a possible minimum.
A man may be puzzled if he is asked how long Rome
took a-building ; but he is proverbially safe if he affirms
it not to have been built in a day ; and our geological
calculations are all, at present, pretty much on that
footing.
A second consideration which the study of the coal
brings prominently before the mind of anyone who is
familiar with palaeontology is, that the coal Flora, viewed
in relation to the enormous period of time which it lasted,
and to the still vaster period which has elapsed since it
flourished, underwent little change while it endured, and
in its peculiar characters, differs strangely little from that
which at present exists.
The same species of plants are to be met with through-
out the whole thickness of a coal-field, and the youngest
are not sensibly different from the oldest. But more than
this. Notwithstanding that the carboniferous period is
separated from us by more than the whole time repre-
sented by the secondary and tertiary formations, the
great types of vegetation were as distinct then as now.
The structure of the modern club-moss furnishes a com-
plete explanation of the fossil remains of the Lepido-
dendra, and the fronds of some of the ancient ferns are
hard to distinguish from existing ones. At the same
time, it must be remembered, that there is nowhere in
the world, at present, any forest which bears more than a
rough analogy with a coal-forest. The types may remain,
but the details of their form, their relative proportions,
108 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
their associates, are all altered. And the tree-fern forest
of Tasmania, or New Zealand, gives one only a faint
and remote image of the vegetation of the ancient
world.
Once more, an invariably- recurring lesson of geological
history, at whatever point its study is taken up : the
lesson of the almost infinite slowness of the modification
of living forms. The lines of the pedigrees of living
things break off almost before they begin to converge.
Finally, yet another curious consideration. Let us
suppose that one of the stupid, salamander-like Labyrin-
thodonts, which pottered, with much belly and little leg,
like Falstaff in his old age, among the coal-forests, could
have had thinking power enough in his small brain to
reflect upon the showers of spores which kept on falling
through years and centuries, while perhaps not one in
ten million fulfilled its apparent purpose, and reproduced
the organism which gave it birth : surely he might, have
been excused for moralizing upon the thoughtless and
wanton extravagance which Nature displayed in her
operations.
But we have the advantage over our shovel-headed
predecessor or possibly ancestor and can perceive that
a certain vein of thrift runs through this apparent prodi-
gality. Nature is never in a hurry, and seems to have
had always before her eyes the adage, " Keep a thing
long enough, and you will find a use for it." She has
kept her beds of coal many millions of years without
being able to find much use for them ; she has sent them
down beneath the sea, and the sea-beasts could make
nothing of them ; she has raised them up into dry land,
and laid the black veins bare, and still, for ages and ages,
there was no living thing on the face of the earth that
could see any sort of value in them ; and it was only the
other clay, so to speak, that she turned a new creature
v.] 0^ THE FORMATION OF COAL. 109
out of her workshop, who by degrees acquired sufficient
wits to make a fire, and then to discover that the black
rock would burn.
I suppose that nineteen hundred years ago, when:
Julius Caesar was good enough to deal with Britain as
we have dealt with New Zealand, the primaeval Briton,
blue with cold and woad, may have known that the
strange black stone, of which he found lumps here and
there in his wanderings, would burn, and so help to warm
his body and cook his food. Saxon, Dane, and Norman
swarmed into the land. The English people grew into a
powerful nation, and Nature still waited for a full return
of the capital she had invested in the ancient club-
mosses. The eighteenth century arrived, and with it
James Watt. The brain of that man was the spore out
of which was developed the steam-engine, and all the
prodigious trees and branches of modern industry which
have growD out of this. But coal is as much an essential
condition of this growth and development as carbonic
acid is for that of a club-moss. Wanting coal, we
could not have smelted the iron needed to make our
engines, nor have worked our engines when we had
got them. But take away the engines, and the great
towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire vanish like a dream.
Manufactures give place to agriculture and pasture, and
not ten men can live where now ten thousand are amply
supported.
Thus, all this abundant wealth of money and of vivid
life is Nature's interest upon her investment in club-
mosses, and the like, so long ago. But what becomes of
the coal which is burnt in yielding this interest ? Heat
comes out of it, light comes out of it, and if we could
gather together all that goes up the chimney, and all that
remains in the grate of a thoroughly-burnt coal-fire, we
should find ourselves in possession of a quantity of
110 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [v.
carbonic acid, water, ammonia, and mineral matters,
exactly equal in weight to the coal. But these are the
very matters with which Nature supplied the club-mosses
which made the coal. She is paid back principal and
interest at the same time ; and she straightway invests
the carbonic acid, the water, and the ammonia in new
forms of life, feeding with them the plants that now live,
Thrifty Nature ! Surely no prodigal, but most notable
of housekeepers !
VI.
ON COBA.L AND CORAL REEFS.
THE marine productions which are commonly known by
the names of "Corals" and "Corallines," were thought
by the ancients to be sea-weeds, which had the singular
property of becoming hard and solid, when they were
fished up from their native depths and came into con-
tact with the air.
i( Sic et curalium, quo primura contigit auras
Tempore durescit : mollis fuit herba sub undis,"
says Ovid (Me tarn, xv.) ; and it was not until the seven-
teenth century that Boccone was emboldened, by per-
sonal experience of the facts, to declare that the holders
of this belief were no better than " idiots," who had been
misled by the softness of the outer coat of the living red
coral to imagine that it was soft all through.
Messer Boccone's strong epithet is probably unde-
served, as the notion he controverts, in all likelihood,
arose merely from the misinterpretation of the strictly
true statement which any coral fisherman would make
to a curious inquirer; namely, that the outside coat of
the red coral is quite soft when it is taken out of the sea,
At any rate, he did good service by eliminating this
much error from the current notions about coral. But
112 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
the belief that corals are plants remained, not only in the
popular, but in the scientific mind ; and it received what
appeared to be a striking confirmation from the researches
of Marsigli in 1706. For this naturalist, having, the
opportunity of observing freshly-taken red coral, saw
that its branches were beset with what looked like deli-
cate and beautiful flowers, each having eight petals. It
was true that these " flowers" could protrude and retract
themselves, but their motions were hardly more exten-
sive, or more varied, than those of the leaves of the sen-
sitive plant ; and therefore they could not be held to
militate against the conclusion so strongly suggested by
their form and their grouping upon the branches of a
tree-like structure.
Twenty years later, a pupil of Marsigli, the young
Marseilles physician, Peyssonel, conceived the desire to
study these singular sea-plants, and was sent by the
French Government on a mission to the Mediterranean
for that purpose. The pupil undertook the investigation
full of confidence in the ideas of his master, but being
able to see and think for himself, he soon discovered that
those ideas by no means altogether corresponded with
reality. In an essay entitled " Traite du Corail," which
was communicated to the French Academy of Science,
but which has never been published, Peyssonel writes :
" Je fis fleurir le corail dans des vases pleins d'eau de mer, et j'obser-
vai que ce que nous croyons etre la fleur de cette pretend ue plante
n'etait au vrai, qu'un insecte semblable a une petite Ortie ou Poulpe.
J'avais le plaisir de voir remuer les pattes, on pieds, de cette Ortie, et
ayant mis le vase plein d'eau ou le corail e"tait a une douce chaleur
aupres du feu, tons les petites insectes s'Spanouirent. . . . L'Ortie
sortie etend les pieds, et forme ce que M. de Marsigli et moi avions
pris pour les petales de la fleur. Le calice de cette pretendue fleur est
le corps meme de 1' animal avarice" et sorti hors de la cellule." l
1 This extract from Peysonnel's manuscript is given by M. Lacaze Duthiers in
his valuable "Histoire Naturelle du Corail" (1866).
vi.J ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 113
The comparison of the flowers of the coral to a "petite
ortie " or " little nettle " is perfectly just, but needs ex-
planation. " Ortie de mer," or " sea-nettle," is, in fact,
the French appellation for our " sea-anemone," a creature
with which everybody, since the great aquarium mania,
must have become familiar, even to the limits of bore-
dom. In 1710, the great naturalist, Reaumur, had
written a memoir for the express purpose of demon-
strating that these " orties " are animals ; and with this
important paper Peyssonel must necessarily have been
familiar. Therefore, when he declared the " flowers " of
the red coral to be little " orties," it was the same thing
as saying that they were animals of the same general
nature as sea-anemones. But to Peyssonel's contempo-
raries this was an extremely startling announcement.
It was hard to imagine the existence of such a thing as
an association of animals into a structure with stem and
branches altogether like a plant, and fixed to the soil as
a plant is fixed ; and the naturalists of that day preferred
not to imagine it. Even Reaumur could not bring him-
self to accept the notion, and France being blessed with
Academicians, whose great function (as the late Bishop
Wilson and an eminent modern writer have so well
shown) is to cause sweetness and light to prevail, and to
prevent such unmannerly fellows as Peyssonel from blurt-
ing out unedifying truths, they suppressed him ; and, as
aforesaid, his great work remained in manuscript, and
may at this day be consulted by the curious in that state,
in the " Bibliotheque du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle."
Peyssonel, who evidently was a person of savage and un-
tameable disposition, so far from appreciating the kind-
ness of the Academicians in giving him time to reflect
upon the unreasonableness, not to say rudeness, of making
public statements in opposition to the views of some of
the most distinguished of their body, seems bitterly to
H I
114 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
have resented the treatment he met with. For he sent
all further communications to the Koyal Society of
London, which never had, and it is to be hoped never
will have, anything of an academic constitution ; and
finally took himself off to Guadeloupe, and became lost
to science altogether.
Fifteen or sixteen years after the date of Peyssonel's
suppressed paper, the Abbe Trembley published his won-
derful researches upon the fresh- water Hydra. Bernard de
Jussieu and Guettard followed them up by like inquiries
upon the marine sea-anemones and corallines ; Reaumur,
convinced against his will of the entire justice of Peys-
sonel's views, adopted them, and made him a half-and-
half apology in the preface to the next published volume
of the " Memoires pour servir a 1'Histoire des Insectes ; "
and, from this time forth, Peyssonel's doctrine that corals
are the work of animal organisms has been part of the
body of established scientific truth.
Peyssonel, in the extract from his memoir already
cited, compares the flower-like animal of the coral to a
" poulpe," which is the French form of the name " poly-
pus/' " the many-footed," which the ancient naturalists
gave to the soft-bodied cuttle-fishes, which, like the coral
animal, have eight arms, or tentacles, disposed around
a central mouth. Reaumur, admitting the analogy in-
dicated by Peyssonel, gave the name of polypes, not only
to the sea-anemone, the coral animal, and the fresh-water
Hydra, but to what are now known as the Polyzoa, and
he termed the skeleton which they fabricate a " poly-
pier" or "polypidom."
The progress of discovery, since Reaumur's time, has
made us very completely acquainted with the structure
and habits of all these polypes. We know that, among
the sea-anemones and coral-forming animals, each polype
has a mouth leading to a stomach, which is open at its
vi.] ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 116
inner end, and thus communicates freely with the general
cavity of the body ; that the tentacles placed round the
mouth are hollow, and that they perform the part of
arms in seizing and capturing prey. It is known thalf
many of these creatures are capable of being multiplied
by artificial division, the divided halves growing, after a
time, into complete and separate animals ; and that many
are able to perform a very similar process naturally, in
such a manner that one polype may, by repeated incom-
plete divisions, give rise to a sort of sheet, or turf, formed
by innumerable connected, and yet independent, descen-
dants. Or, what is still more common, a polype may
throw out buds, which are converted into polypes, or
branches bearing polypes, until a tree-like mass, some-
times of very considerable size, is formed.
This is what happens in the case of the red coral of
commerce. A minute polype, fixed to the rocky bottom
of the deep sea, grows up into a branched trunk. The
end of every branch and twig is terminated by a polype ;
and all the polypes are connected together by a fleshy
substance, traversed -by innumerable canals which place
each polype in communication with every other, and
carry nourishment to the substance of the supporting
stem. It is a sort of natural co-operative store, every
polype helping the whole, at the same time as it helps
itself. The interior of the stem, like that of the branches,
is solidified by the deposition of carbonate of lime in its
tissue, somewhat in the same fashion as our own bones
are formed of animal matter impregnated with lime salts ;
and it is this dense skeleton (usually turned deep red by
a peculiar colouring matter) cleared of the soft animal
investment, as the heart-wood of a tree might be stripped
of its bark, which is the red coral.
In the case of the red coral, the hard skeleton belongs
to the interior of the stem and branches only ; but, iu
I 2
116 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
the commoner white corals, each polype has a complete
skeleton of its own. These polypes are sometimes soli-
tary, in which case the whole skeleton is represented by
a single cup, with partitions radiating from its centre
to its circumference. When the polypes formed by bud-
ding or division remain associated, the polypidom is some-
times made up of nothing but an aggregation of these
cups, while at other times the cups are at once separated
and held together, by an intermediate substance, which
represents the branches of the red coral. The red coral
polype again is a comparatively rare animal, inhabiting
a limited area, the skeleton of which has but a very
insignificant mass ; while the white corals are very com-
mon, occur in almost all seas, and form skeletons which
are sometimes extremely massive.
With a very few exceptions, both the red and the
white coral polypes are, in their adult state, firmly ad-
herent to the sea-bottom ; nor do their buds naturally
become detached and locomotive. But, in addition to
budding and division, these creatures possess the more
ordinary methods of multiplication ; and, at particular
seasons, they give rise to numerous eggs of minute size.
Within these eggs the young are formed, and they leave
the egg in a condition which has no sort of resemblance
to the perfect animal. It is, in fact, a minute oval body,
many hundred times smaller than the full-grown crea-
ture, and it swims about with great activity by the help
of multitudes of little hair-like filaments, called cilia, with
which its body is covered. These cilia all lash the water
in one direction, and so drive the little body along as
if it were propelled by thousands of extremely minute
paddles. After enjoying its freedom for a longer or
shorter time, and being carried either by the force of its
own cilia, or by currents which bear it along, the embryo
coral settles down to the bottom, loses its cilia, and
vi.] ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 117
becomes fixed to the rock, gradually assuming the polype
form and growing up to the size of its parent. As the
infant polypes of the coral may retain this free and
active condition for many hours, or even days, and as aT
tidal or other current in the sea may easily flow at the
speed of two or even more miles in an hour, it is clear
that the embryo must often be transported to very con-
siderable distances from the parent. , And it is easily
understood how a^ingJe polype, which may give rise
to hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of embryos, may, by
this process of partly active and partly passive migra-
tion, cover an immense surface with its offspring. The
masses of coral which may be formed by the assemblages
of polypes which spring by budding, or by dividing,
from a single polype, occasionally attain very con-
siderable dimensions. Such skeletons are sometimes great
plates, many feet long and several feet in thickness ; or
they may form huge half globes, like the brainstone
corals, or may reach the magnitude of stout shrubs, or
even small trees. There is reason to believe that such
masses as these take a long time to form, and hence that
the age a polype tree, or polype turf, may attain, may be
considerable. But, sooner or later, the coral polypes, like
all other things, die ; the soft flesh decays, while the
skeleton is left as a stony mass at the bottom of the sea,
where it retains its integrity for a longer or a shorter
time, according as its position affords it more or less pro-
tection from the wear and tear of the waves.
The polypes which give rise to the white coral are
found, as has been said, in the seas of all parts of the
world ; but in the temperate and cold oceans they are
scattered and comparatively small in size, so that the
skeletons of those which die do not accumulate in any
considerable quantity. But it is otherwise in the greater
part of the ocean which lies in the warmer parts of the
118 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
world, comprised witliin a distance of about 1,800 miles
on each side of the equator. Within the zone thus
bounded, by far the greater part of the ocean is inhabited
by coral polypes, which not only form very strong and
large skeletons, but associate together into great masses,
like the thickets and the meadow turf, or, better still, the
accumulations of peat, to which plants give rise on the
dry land. These masses of stony matter, heaped up
beneath the waters of the ocean, become as dangerous
to mariners as so much ordinary rock, and to these,
as to common rock ridges, the seaman gives the name
of "reefs."
Such coral reefs cover many thousand square miles in
the Pacific and in the Indian Oceans. There is one reef,
or rather great series of reefs, called the Barrier Reef,
which stretches, almost continuously, for more than 1,100
miles off the east coast of Australia. Multitudes of the
islands in the Pacific are either reefs themselves, or are
surrounded by reefs. The Red Sea is in many parts
almost a maze of such reefs ; and they abound no less in
the West Indies, along the coast of Florida, and even as
far north as the Bahama Islands. But it is a very
remarkable circumstance that, within the area of what
we may call the " coral zone/' there are no coral reefs
upon the west coast of America, nor upon the west coast
of Africa ; and it is a general fact that the reefs are
interrupted, or absent, opposite the mouths of great
rivers. The causes of this apparent caprice in the distri-
bution of coral reefs are not far to seek. The polypes
which fabricate them require for their vigorous growth a
temperature which must not fall below 68 Fahrenheit
all the year round, and this temperature is only to be
found within the distance on each side of the equator
which has been mentioned, or thereabouts. But even
within the coral zone this degree of warmth is not eveiy-
ON CORAL AND CORAL RKEFfr 119
where to be had. On the west coast of America, and on
the corresponding coast of Africa, currents of cold water
from the icy regions which surround the South Pole set.
northward, and it appears to be due to their cooling
influence that the sea in these regions is free from the
reef builders. Again, the coral polypes cannot live in
water which is rendered brackish by floods from the land,
or which is perturbed by mud from the same source, and
hence it is that they cease to exist opposite the mouths
of rivers, which damage them in both these ways.
Such is the general distribution of the reef-building
corals, but there are some very interesting and singular
circumstances to be observed in the conformation of the
reefs, when we consider them individually. The reefs,
in fact, are of three different kinds ; some of them stretch
out from the shore, almost like a prolongation of the
beach, covered only by shallow water, and in the case of
an island, surrounding it like a fringe of no considerable
breadth. These are termed " fringing reefs." Others
are separated by a channel which may attain a width of
many miles, and a depth of twenty or thirty fathoms or
more, from the nearest land ; and when this land is an
island, the reef surrounds it like a low wall, and the sea
between the reef and the land is, as it were, a moat
inside this wall. Such reefs as these are called "en-
circling " when they surround an island ; and " barrier "
reefs, when they stretch parallel with the coast of a con-
tinent. In both these cases there is ordinary dry land
inside the reef, and separated from it only by a narrower
or a wider, a shallower or a deeper, space of sea, which
is called a " lagoon/' or " inner passage/' But there is a
third kind of reef, of very common occurrence in the
Pacific and Indian Oceans, which goes by the name of
an " Atoll." This is, to all intents and purposes, an
encircling reef, without anything to encircle ; or, in
120 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
other words, without an island in the middle of its
lagoon. The atoll has exactly the appearance of a vast,
irregularly oval, or circular, breakwater, enclosing smooth
water in its midst. The depth of the water in the lagoon
rarely exceeds twenty or thirty fathoms, but, outside the
reef, it deepens with great rapidity to 200 or 300
fathoms. The depth immediately outside the barrier, or
encircling, reefs, may also be very considerable ; but, at
the outer edge of a fringing reef, it does not amount
usually to more than twenty or twenty-five fathoms ; in
other words, from 120 to 150 feet.
Thus, if the water of the ocean could be suddenly
drained away, we should see the atolls rising from the
sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and resembling so
many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be
steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case
of the 'encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island,
would look like Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the
old crater of Somma ; while, finally, the island with a
fringing reef would have the appearance of an ordinary
hill, or mountain, girded by a vast parapet, within which
would lie a shallow moat. And the dry bed of the
Pacific might afford grounds for an inhabitant of the
moon to speculate upon the extraordinary subterranean
activity to which these vast and numerous "craters"
bore witness !
When the structure of a fringing reef is investigated,
the bottom of the lagoon is found to be covered with fine
whitish mud, which results from the breaking up of the
dead corals. Upon this muddy floor there lie, here and
there, growing corals, or occasionally great blocks of dead
coral, which have been torn by storms from the outer
edge of the reef, and washed into the lagoon. Shell-fish
and worms of various kinds abound ; and fish, some of
which prey upon the coral, sport in the deeper pools.
vi.] ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 121
But the corals which are to be seen growing in the
shallow waters of the lagoon are of a different kind from
those which abound on the outer edge of the reef, and of
which the reef is built up. Close to the seaward edge of
the reef, over which, even in calm weather, a surf almost
always breaks, the coral rock is encrusted with a thick
coat of a singular vegetable organism, which contains a
great deal of lime the so-called Nullipora. Beyond
this, in the part of the edge of the reef which is always
covered by the breaking waves, the living, true, reef-
polypes make their appearance ; and, in different forms,
coat the steep seaward face of the reef to a depth of 100
or even 150 feet. Beyond this depth the sounding-lead
rests, not upon the wall-like face of the reef, but on the
ordinary - shelving sea-bottom. And the distance to
which a fringing reef extends from the land corresponds
with that at which the sea has a depth of twenty or five-
and-twenty fathoms.
If, as we have supposed, the sea could be suddenly
withdrawn from arouncl an island provided with a
fringing reef, such as the Mauritius, the reef would
present the aspect of a terrace, its seaward face, 100 feet
or more high, blooming with the animal flowers of the
coral, while its surface would be hollowed out into a
shallow and irregular moat-like excavation.
The coral mud, which occupies the bottom of the
lagoon, and with which all the interstices of the coral
skeletons which accumulate to form the reef are filled up,
does not proceed from the washing action of the waves
alone ; innumerable fishes, and other creatures which
prey upon the coral, add a very important contribution
of finely-triturated calcareous matter ; and the corals and
mud becoming incorporated together, gradually harden
and give rise to a sort of limestone rock, which may vary
a good deal in texture. Sometimes it remains friable
122 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
and chalky, but, more often, the infiltration of water,
charged with carbonic acid, dissolves some of the cal-
careous matter, and deposits it elsewhere in the inter-
stices of the nascent rock, thus gluing and cementing the
particles together into a hard mass ; or it may even dis-
solve the carbonate of lime more extensively, and re-
deposit it in a crystalline form. On the beach of the
lagoon, where the coral sand is washed into layers by
the action of the waves, its grains become thus fused to-
gether into strata of a limestone, so hard that they ring
when struck with a hammer, and inclined at a gentle
angle, corresponding with that of the surface of the beach.
The hard parts of the many animals which live upon
the reef become imbedded in this coral limestone, so that
a block may be full of shells of bivalves and univalves,
or of sea-urchins ; and even sometimes encloses the
eggs of turtles in a state of petrifaction. The active and
vigorous growth of the reef goes on only at the seaward
margins, where the polypes are exposed to the wash of
the surf, and are thereby provided with an abundant
supply of air and of food. The interior portion of the
reef may be regarded as almost wholly an accumulation
of dead skeletons. Where a river comes down from the
land there is a break in the reef, for the reasons which
have been already mentioned.
The origin and mode of formation of a fringing reef, such
as that just described, are plain enough. The embryos of
the coral polypes have fixed themselves upon the sub-
merged shore of the island, as far out as they could live,
namely, to a depth of twenty or twenty-five fathoms. One
generation has succeeded another, building itself up upon
the dead skeletons of its predecessor. The mass has been
consolidated by the infiltration of coral mud, and har-
dened by partial solution and redeposition, until a great
rampart of coral rock 100 or 150 feet high on its sea-
vi.] ON CORAL AXD CORAL REEFS. 123
ward face has been formed all round the island, with
only such gaps as result from the outflow of rivers, in
the place of sally-ports.
The structure of the rocky accumulation in the en-
circling reefs and in the atolls is essentially the same as
in the fringing reef. But, in addition to the differences
of depth inside and out, they present some other pecu-
liarities. These reefs, and especially the atolls, are
usually interrupted at one part of their circumference,
and this part is always situated on the leeward side
of the reef, or that which is the more sheltered side.
Now, as all these reefs are situated within the region in
which the trade- winds prevail, it follows that, on the
north side of the equator, where the trade-wind is a
north- easterly wind, the opening of the reef is on the
south-west side: while in the southern hemisphere, where
the trade- winds blow from the south-east, the opening
lies to the north- west. The curious practical result
follows from this structure, that the lagoons of these
reefs really form admirable harbours, if a ship can only
get inside them. But the main difference between the
encircling reefs and the atolls, on the one hand, and
the fringing reefs on the other, lies in the fact of the
much greater depth of water on the seaward faces of the
former. As a consequence of this fact, the whole of
this face is not, as it is in the case of the fringing reef,
covered with living coral polypes. For, as we have
seen, these polypes cannot live at a greater depth than
about twenty-five fathoms ; and actual observation has
shown that while, down to this depth, the sounding-lead
will bring up branches of live coral from the outer
wall of such a reef, at a greater depth it fetches to
the surface nothing but dead coral and coral sand.
We must, therefore, picture to ourselves an atoll, or an
encircling reef, as fringed for 100 feet, or more, from its
124 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
summit, with coral polypes busily engaged in fabricating
coral ; while, below this comparatively narrow belt, its
surface is a bare and smooth expanse of coral sand,
supported upon and within a core of coral limestone.
Thus, if the bed of the Pacific were suddenly laid bare,
as was just now supposed, the appearance of the reef-
mountains would be exactly the reverse of that presented
by many high mountains on land. For these are white
with snow at the top, while their bases are clothed with
an abundant and gaudily-coloured vegetation. But the
coral cones would look grey and barren below, while
their summits would be gay with a richly-coloured
parterre of flower-like coral polypes.
The practical difficulties of sounding upon, and of
bringing up portions of, the seaward face of an atoll or
of an encircling reef, are so great, in consequence of the
constant and dangerous swell which sets towards it, that
no exact information concerning the depth to which the
reefs are composed of coral has yet been obtained. There
is no reason to doubt, however, that the reef-cone has the
same structure from its summit to its base, and that its
sea-wall is throughout mainly composed of dead coral.
And now arises a serious difficulty. If the coral
polypes cannot live at a greater depth than 100 or 150
feet, how can they have built up the base of the reef-
cone, which may be 2,000 feet, or more, below the
surface of the sea 1
In order to get over this objection, it was at one time
supposed that the reef-building polypes had settled upon
the summits of a chain of submarine mountains. But
what is there in physical geography to justify the
assumption of the existence of a chain of mountains
stretching for 1,000 miles or more, and so nearly of the
same height, that none should rise above the level of the
sea, nor fall 150 feet below that level?
vi.] ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 125
How again, on this hypothesis, are atolls to be
accounted for, unless, as some have done, we take refuge
in the wild supposition that every atoll corresponds with
the crater of a submarine volcano 1 And what explana-
tion does it afford of the fact that, in some parts of the
ocean, only atolls and encircling reefs occur, while others
present none but fringing reefs ?
These and other puzzling facts remained insoluble
until the publication, in the year 1840, of Mr. Darwin's
famous work on coral reefs ; in which a key was given
to all the difficult problems connected with the subject,
and every difficulty was shown to be capable of solution
by deductive reasoning from a happy combination of
certain well-established geological and biological truths.
Mr. Darwin, in fact, showed, that so long as the level of
the sea remains unaltered in any area in which coral
reefs are being formed, or if the level of the sea relatively
to that of the land is falling, the only reefs which can
be formed are fringing reefs. While if, on the contrary,
the level of the sea is rising relatively to that of the
land, at a rate not faster than that at which the upward
growth of the coral can keep pace with it, the reef will
gradually pass from the condition of a fringing, into that
of an encircling or barrier reef. And, finally, that if the
relative level of the sea rise so much that the encircled
land is completely submerged, the reef must necessarily
pass into the condition of an atoll.
For, suppose the relative level of the sea to remain
stationary, after a fringing reef has reached that distance
from the land at which the depth of water amounts to
150 feet. Then the reef cannot extend seaward by the
migration of coral germs, because these coral germs
would find the bottom of the sea to be too deep for
them to live in. And the only manner in which the
reef could extend outwards, would be by the gradual
126 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
accumulation, at the foot of its seaward face, of a talus
of coral fragments torn off by the violence of the waves,
which talus might, in course of time, become high
enough to bring its upper surface within the limits of
coral growth, and in that manner provide a sort of
factitious sea-bottom upon which the coral embryos
might perch. If, on the other hand, the level of the
sea were slowly and gradually lowered, it is clear that
the parts of its bottom, originally beyond the limit of
coral growth, would gradually be brought within the
required distance of the surface, and thus the reef might
be indefinitely extended. But this process would give
rise neither to an encircling reef nor to an atoll, but to a
broad belt of upheaved coral rock, increasing the dimen-
sions of the dry land, and continuous seawards with the
fresh frin <nn reef.
o o
Suppose, however, that the sea-level rose instead of
falling, at the same slow and gradual rate at which we
know it to be rising in some parts of the world not
more, in fact, than a few inches, or, at most, a foot or
two, in a hundred years, Then, while the reef would be
unable to extend itself seaward, the sea-bottom outside
it being gradually more and more removed from the
depth at which the life of the coral polypes is possible,
it would be able to grow upwards as fast as the sea rose.
But the growth would take place almost exclusively
around the circumference of the reef, this being the only
region in which the coral polypes would find the con-
ditions favourable for their existence. The bottom of
the lagoon would be raised, in the main, only by the
coral debris and coral mud, formed in the manner
already described ; consequently, the margins of the reef
would rise faster than the bottom, or, in other words,
the lagoon would constantly become deeper And, at
the same time, it would gradually increase in breadth ;
vi.] ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 127
as the rising sea, covering more and more of the land,
would occupy a wider space between the edge of the
reef and what remained of the land. Thus the rising
sea would eventually convert a large island with a
fringing reef, into a small island surrounded by an en-
circling reef. And it will be obvious tha.t when the
rising of the sea has gone so far as completely to cover
the highest points of the island, the reef will have
passed into the condition of an atoll.
But how is it possible that the relative level of the
land arid sea should be altered to this extent ? Clearly,
only in one of two ways : either the sea must have risen
over those areas which are now covered by atolls and
encircling reefs ; or, the land upon which the sea rests
must have been depressed to a corresponding extent.
If the sea has risen, its rise must have taken place
over the whole world simultaneously, and it must have
risen to the same height over all parts of the coral zone.
Grounds have been shown for the belief that the general
level of the sea may have been different at different
times ; it has been suggested, for example, that the ac-
cumulation of ice about the poles during one of the cold
periods of the earth's history, necessarily implies a dimi-
nution in the volume of the sea proportioned to the
amount of its water thus permanently locked up in the
Arctic and Antarctic ice-cellars ; while, in the warm
periods, the greater or less disappearance of the polar
ice-cap implies a corresponding addition of water to the
ocean. And no doubt this reasoning must be admitted
to be sound in principle ; though it is very hard to say
what practical effect the additions and subtractions thus
made have had on the level of the ocean ; inasmuch as
such additions and subtractions might be either inten-
sified or nullified, by contemporaneous changes in the
level of the land. And no one has yet shown that any
128 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
such great melting of polar ice, and consequent raising
of the level of the water of the ocean, has taken place
since the existing atolls began to be formed.
In the absence of any evidence that the sea has ever
risen to the extent required to give rise to the encircling
reefs and the atolls, Mr. Darwin adopted the opposite
hypothesis, viz. that the land has undergone extensive
and slow depression in those localities in which these
structures exist.
It seems, at first, a startling paradox, to suppose that
the land is less fixed than the sea ; but that such is the
case is the uniform testimony of geology. Beds of
sandstone or limestone, thousands of feet thick, and all
full of marine remains, occur in various parts of the
earth's surface, and prove, beyond a doubt, that when
these beds were formed, that portion of the sea-bottom
which they then occupied underwent a slow and gradual
depression to a distance which cannot have been less
than the thickness of those beds, and may have been
very much greater. In supposing, therefore, that the
great areas of the Pacific and of the Indian Ocean, over
which atolls and encircling reefs are found scattered,
have undergone a depression of some hundreds, or, it
may be, thousands of feet, Mr. Darwin made a supposi-
tion which had nothing forced or improbable, but was
entirely in accordance with what we know to have
taken place over similarly extensive a,reas, in other
periods of the world's history. But Mr. Darwin sub-
iected his hypothesis to an ingenious indirect test. If
his view be correct, it is clear that neither atolls, nor
encircling reefs, should be found in those portions of the
ocean in which we have reason to believe, on indepen-
dent grounds, that the sea-bottom has long been either
stationary, or slowly rising. Now it is known that, as
a general rule, the level of the land is either stationary,
vi.J ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 129
or is undergoing a slow upheaval, in the neighbourhood
of active volcanoes ; and, therefore, neither atolls nor
encircling reef ought to be found in regions in which
volcanoes are numerous and active. And this turns out
to be the case. Appended to Mr. Darwin's great work
on coral reefs, there is a map on which atolls and en-
circling reefs are indicated by one colour, fringing reefs
by another, and active volcanoes by a third. Arid it is
at once obvious that the lines of active volcanoes lie
around the margins of the areas occupied by the atolls
and the encircling reefs. It is exactly as if the up-
heaving volcanic agencies had lifted up the edges of
these great areas, while their centres had undergone a
corresponding depression. An atoll area may, in short,
be pictured as a kind of basin, the margins of which
have been pushed up by the subterranean forces, to
which the craters of the volcanoes have, at intervals,
given vent.
Thus we must imagine the area of the Pacific now-
covered by the Polynesian Archipelago, as having been,
at some former time, occupied by large islands, or, may
be, by a great continent, with the ordinarily diversified
surface of plain, and hill, and mountain chain. The
shores of this great land were doubtless fringed by coral
reefs ; and, as it slowly underwent depression, the hilly .
regions, converted into islands, became, at first, sur-
rounded by fringing reefs, and then, as depression went
on, these became converted into encircling reefs, and
these, finally, into atolls, until a maze of reefs and
coral-girdled islets took the place of the original land
masses.
Thus the atolls and the encircling reefs furnish us
with clear, though indirect, evidence of changes in the
physical geography of large parts of the earth's surface ;
and even, as my lamented friend, the late Professor
H K
130 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
Jukes, has suggested, give us indications of the manner
in which some of the most puzzling facts connected
with the distribution of animals have been brought
about. For example, Australia and New Guinea are
separated by Torres Straits, a broad belt of sea 100 or
120 miles wide. Nevertheless, there is in many respects
a curious resemblance between the land animals which
inhabit New Guinea and the land animals which
inhabit Australia. But, at the same time, the marine
shell-fish which are found in the shallow waters of
the shores of New Guinea, are quite different from
those which are met with upon the coasts of Australia.
Now, the eastern end of Torres Straits is full of atolls,
which, in fact, form the northern termination of the
Great Barrier Eeef which skirts the eastern coast of
Australia. It follows, therefore, that the eastern end
of Torres Straits is an area of depression, and it is
very possible, and on many grounds highly probable,
that, in former times, Australia and New Guinea were
directly connected together, and that Torres Straits did
not exist. If this were the case, the existence of casso-
waries and of marsupial quadrupeds, both in New Guinea
and in Australia, becomes intelligible; while the differ-
ence between the littoral molluscs of the north and the
south shores of Torres Straits is readily explained by
the great probability that, when the depression in
question took place, and what was, at first, an arm of
the sea became converted into a strait separating Aus-
tralia from New Guinea, the northern shore of this new
sea became tenanted with marine animals from the north,
while the southern shore, was peopled by immigrants
from the already existing marine Australian fauna.
Inasmuch as the growth of the reef depends upon
that of successive generations of coral polypes, and
as each generation takes a certain time to grow to its
vi.] ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. 131
full size, and can only separate its calcareous skeleton
from the water in which it lives at a certain rate, it is
clear that the reefs are records not only of changes in
physical geography, but of the lapse of time. It is by
no means easy, however, to estimate the exact value of
reef-chronology, and the attempts which have been made
to determine the rate at which a reef grows vertically,
have yielded anything but precise results. A cautious
writer, Mr. Dana, whose extensive study of corals and
coral reefs makes him an eminently competent judge,
states his conclusion in the following terms :
" The rate of growth of the common branching madrepore is not
over one and a half inches a year. As the branches are open, this
would not be equivalent to more than half an inch in height of solid
coral for the whole surface covered by the madrepore ; and, as they are
also porous, to not over three-eighths of an inch of solid limestone.
But a coral plantation has large bare patches without corals, and the
coral sands are widely distributed by currents, part of them to depths
over one hundred feet where there are no living corals ; not more than
one-sixth of the surface of a reef region is, in fact, covered with
growing species. This reduces the three-eighths to one-sixteenth.
Shells and other organic relics may contribute one-fourth as much as
corals. At the outside, the average upward increase of the whole
reef-ground per year would not exceed one-eighth of an inch.
"Now some reefs are at least two thousand feet thick, which at
one-eighth of an inch a year, corresponds to one hundred and ninety-
two thousand years." l
Halve, or quarter, this estimate if you will, in order
to be certain of erring upon the right side, and still there
remains a prodigious period during which the ancestors
of the existing coral polypes have been undisturbedly at
work ; and during which, therefore, the climatal condi-
tions over the coral area must have been much what
they are now.
And all this lapse of time has occurred within the
most recent period of the history of the earth. The
1 Dana, " Manual of Geology," p. 591.
K 2
132 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vi.
remains of reefs formed by coral polypes of different
kinds from those which exist now, enter largely into the
composition of the limestones of the Jurassic period ;
and still more widely different coral polypes have contri-
buted their quota to the vast thickness of the carboni-
ferous and Devonian strata. Then as regards the latter
group of rocks in America, the high authority already
quoted tells us :
" The Upper Helderberg period is eminently the coral reef period
of the palaeozoic ages. Many of the rocks abound in coral, and are
as truly coral reefs as the modern reefs of the Pacific. The corals are
sometimes standing on the rocks in the position they had when
growing : others are lying in fragments, as they were broken and
heaped by the waves ; and others were reduced to a compact limestone
by the finer trituration before consolidation into rock. This compact
variety is the most common kind among the coral reef rocks of the
present seas ; and it often contains but few distinct fossils, although
formed in water that abounded in life. At the fall of the Ohio, near
Louisville, there is a magnificent display of the old reef. Hemi-
spherical Favosites, five o~r six feet in diameter, lie there nearly
as perfect as when they were covered by their flower-like polypes ;
and besides these, there are various branching corals, and a profusion
of Cyathophyllia, or cup-corals." 1
Thus, in ajl the great periods of the earth's history of
which we know anything, a part of the then living
matter has had the form of polypes, competent to sepa-
rate from the water of the sea the carbonate of lime
necessary for their own skeletons. Grain by grain, and
particle by particle, they have built up vast masses of
rock, the thickness of which is measured by hundreds of
feet, and their area by thousands of square miles. The
slow oscillations of the crust of the earth, producing great
changes in the distribution of land and water, have often
obliged the living matter of the coral-builders to shift
the locality of its operations ; and, by variation and
adaptation to these modifications of condition, its forms
1 Dana, " Manual of Geology," p. 272.
vi.] ON COEAL AND COEAL REEFS. 133
have as often changed. The work it has done in the
past is, for the most part, swept away, but fragments
remain ; and, if there were no other evidence, suffice to
prove the general constancy of the operations of Nature
in this world, through periods of almost inconceivable^
duration.
VII.
ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF
ETHNOLOGY.
ETHNOLOGY is the science which determines the dis-
tinctive characters of the persistent modifications of
mankind ; which ascertains the distribution of those
modifications in present and past times, and seeks to
discover the causes, or conditions of existence, both
of the modifications and of their distribution. I say
" persistent " modifications, because, unless incidentally,
ethnology has nothing to do with chance and transitory
peculiarities of human structure. And I speak of
" persistent modifications " or " stocks " rather than
of " varieties," or "races," or "species," because each of
these last well-known termsimplies, on the part of its
employer, a preconceived opinion touching one of those
problems, the solution of which is the ultimate object
of the science ; and in regard to which, therefore,
ethnologists are especially bound to keep their minds
open and their judgments freely balanced.
Ethnology, as thus defined, is a branch of ANTHRO-
POLOGY, the great science which unravels the complexities
of human structure ; traces out the relations of man to
other animals ; studies all that is especially human in the
mode in which man's complex functions are performed;
viz.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 135
and searches after the conditions which have determined
his presence in the world. And anthropology is a section
of ZOOLOGY, which again is the animal half of BIOLOGY
the science of life and living things.
Such is the position of ethnology, such are the objects-
of the ethnologist. The paths or methods, by following
which he may hope to reach his goal, are diverse. He may
work at man from the point of view of the pure zoologist,
and investigate the anatomical and physiological pecu-
liarities of Negroes, Australians, or Mongolians, just as
he would inquire into those of pointers, terriers, and
turnspits, " persistent modifications " of man's almost
universal companion. Or he may seek aid from researches
into the most human manifestation of humanity
Language ; and assuming that what is true of speech is
true of the speaker a hypothesis as questionable in
science as it is in ordinary life he may apply to man-
kind themselves the conclusions drawn from a searching
analysis of their words and grammatical forms.
Or, the ethnologist may turn to the study of the
practical life of men ; and relying upon the inherent
conservatism and small inventiveness of untutored man-
kind, he may hope to discover in manners and customs,
or in weapons, dwellings, and other handiwork, a clue to
the origin of the resemblances and differences of nations.
Or, he may resort to that kind of evidence which is
yielded by History proper, and consists of the beliefs of
men concerning past events, embodied in traditional, or
in written, testimony. Or, when that thread breaks,
Archaeology, which is the interpretation of the unrecorded
remains of man's works, belonging to the epoch since the
world has reached its present condition, may still guide
him. And, when even the dim light of archaeology
fades, there yet remains Palaeontology, which, in these
latter years, has brought to daylight once more the
136 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
exuvia of ancient populations, whose world was not our
world, who have been buried in river beds immemorially
dry, or carried by the rush of waters into caves, inac-
cessible to inundation since the dawn of tradition.
Along each, or all, of these paths the ethnologist may
press towards his goal ; but they are not equally straight,
or sure, or easy to tread. The way of palaeontology has
but just been laid open to us. Archaeological and histo-
rical investigations are of great value for all those peoples
whose ancient state has differed widely from their pre-
sent condition, and who have the good or evil fortune
to possess a history. But on taking a broad survey of
the world, it is astonishing how few nations present
either condition. Respecting, five-sixths of the persistent
modifications of mankind, history and archaeology are
absolutely silent. For half the rest, they might as well be
silent for anything that is to be made of their testimony.
And, finally,, when the question arises as to what was the
condition of mankind more than a paltry two or three
thousand years ago; history and archaeology are, for the
most part, mere dumb dogs. What light does either of
these branches of knowledge throw on the past of the
man of the New World, if we except the Central Ameri-
cans and the Peruvians on that of the Africans, save
those of the valley of the Nile and a fringe of the Medi-
terranean ; on that of .all the Polynesian. Australian,
and central Asiatic peoples, the former of whom probably,
and the last certainly, were, at the dawn of history,
substantially what they are now ? While thankfully
accepting what history has to give him, therefore, the
ethnologist must not look for too much from her.
Is more to be expected from inquiries into the customs
and handicrafts of meri ? It is to be feared not. In
reasoning from identity of custom to identity of stock
the difficulty always obtrudes itself, that the minds of
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 137
men being everywhere similar, differing in quality and
quantity but not in kind of faculty, like circumstances
must tend to produce like contrivances ; at any rate, so
long as the need to be met and conquered is of a very
simple kind. That two nations use calabashes or shette
for drinking-vessels, or that they employ spears, or clubs,
or swords and axes of stone and metal as weapons and
implements, cannot be regarded as evidence that these
two nations had a common origin, or even that inter-
communication ever took place between them ; seeing
that the convenience of using calabashes or shells for
such purposes, and the advantage of poking an enemy
with a sharp stick, or hitting him with a heavy one,
must be early forced by nature upon the mind of even
the stupidest savage. And when he had found out the
use of a stick, he would need no prompting to discover the
value of a chipped or wetted stone, or an angular piece
of native metal, for the same object. On the other hand,
it may be doubted whether the chances are not greatly
against independent peoples arriving at the manufacture
of a boomerang, or of a bow j which last, if one comes to
think of it, is a rather complicated apparatus ; and the
tracing of the distribution of inventions as complex as
these, and of such strange customs as betel- chewing and
tobacco-smoking, may afford valuable ethnological hints.
Since the time of Leibnitz, and guided by such men
as Humboldt, Abel Remusat, and Klaproth, Philology
has taken far higher ground. Thus Prichard affirms that
"the history of nations, termed Ethnology, must be
mainly founded on the relations of their languages."
An eminent living philologer, August Schleicher, in a
recent essay, puts forward the claims of his science still
more forcibly :
" If, however, language is the human KO.T l^o-^v, the suggestion arises
whether it should not form the basis of any scientific systematic
138 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
arrangement of mankind ; whether the foundation of the natural
classification of the genus Homo has not been discovered in it.
" How little constant are cranial peculiarities and other so-called
race characters ! Language, on the other hand, is always a perfectly
constant diagnostic. A German may occasionally compete in hair and
prognathism with a negro, but a negro language will never be his
mother tongue. Of how little importance for mankind the so-called
race characters are, is shown by the fact that speakers of languages
belonging to one and the same linguistic family may exhibit the
peculiarities of various races. Thus the settled Osmanli Turk exhibits
Caucasian characters, while other so-called Tartaric Turks exemplify
the Mongol type. On the other hand, the Magyar and the Basque do not
depart in any essential physical peculiarity from the Indo-Germans,
whilst the Magyar, Basque, and Indo-Germanic tongues are widely
different. Apart from their inconstancy, again, the so-called race
characters can hardly yield a scientifically natural system. Languages,
on the other hand, readily fall into a natural arrangement, like that
of which other vital products are susceptible, especially when viewed
from their morphological side. ... The externally visible structure
of the cerebral and facial skeletons, and of the body generally, is less
important than that no less material but infinitely more delicate
corporeal structure, the function of which is speech. I conceive,
therefore, that the natural classification of languages is also the natural
classification of mankind. "With language, moreover, all the higher
manifestations of man's vital activity are closely interwoven, so that
these receive due recognition in and by that of speech." l
Without the least desire to depreciate the value of
philology as an adjuvant to ethnology, I must venture to
doubt, with Rudolphi, Desmoulins, Crawfurd, and others,
its title to the leading position claimed for it by the
writers whom I have just quoted. On the contrary, it
seems to me obvious that, though, in the absence of any
evidence to the contrary, unity of languages may afford
a certain presumption in favour of the unity of stock
of the peoples speaking those languages, it cannot be held
to prove that unity of stock, unless philologers are prepared
to demonstrate, that no nation can lose its language and
1 August Schleicher. Ueber die Bedeutung der Spraclie fiir die Natur-
geschichte des Menschen, pp. 1618. Weimar, 1858.-
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 139
acquire that of a distinct nation, without a change of blood
corresponding with the change of language. Desmoulins
long ago put this argument exceedingly well :
" Let us imagine the recurrence of one of those slow, or sudden,
political revolutions, or say of those secular changes which among
different people and at different epochs have annihilated historical
monuments and even extinguished tradition. In that case, the evidence,
now so clear, that the negroes of Hayti were slaves imported by a
French colony, who, by the very effect of the subordination involved
in slavery, lost their own diverse languages and adopted that of their
masters, would vanish. And metaphysical philosophers, observing the
identity of Haytian French with that spoken on the shores of the
Seine and the Loire, would argue that the men of St. Domingo with
woolly heads, black and oily skins, small calves, and slightly bent
knees, are of the same race, descended from the same parental stock,
as the Frenchmen with silky brown, chestnut, or fair hair, and white
skins. For they would say, their languages are more similar than
French is to German or Spanish." 1
It must not be imagined that the case put by Desmoulins
is a merely hypothetical one. Events precisely similar
to the transport of a body of Africans to the West India
Islands, indeed, cannot have happened among uncivilized
races, but similar results have followed the importation
of bodies of conquerors among an enslaved people over
and over again. There is hardly a country in Europe in
which two or more nations speaking widely different
tongues have not become intermixed ; and there is hardly
a language of Europe of which we have any right to
think that its structure affords a just indication of the
amount of that intermixture.
As Dr. Latham has well said :
"It is certain that the language of England is of Anglo-Saxon
origin, and that the remains of the original Keltic are unimportant.
It is by no means so certain that the blood of Englishmen is equally
Germanic. A vast amount of Kelticisin, not found in our tongue, very
probably exists in our pedigrees. The ethnology of France is still
more complicated. Many writers make the Parisian a Roman on the
1 Desmoulins, " Histoire Naturelle des Races Humaines," p. 315. 1826.
140 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
strength of his language ; whilst others make him a Kelt 011 the
strength of certain moral characteristics, combined with the previous
Kelticism of the original Gauls. Spanish and Portuguese, as languages,
are derivations from the Latin ; Spain and Portugal, as countries, are
Iberic, Latin, Gothic, and Arab, in different proportions. Italian is
modern Latin all the world over ; yet surely there must be much
Keltic blood in Lombardy, and much Etruscan intermixture in
Tuscany.
" In the ninth century every man between the Elbe and the Memen
spoke some Slavonic dialect ; they now nearly all speak German.
Surely the blood is less exclusively Gothic than the speech." 1
In other words, what philologer, if he had nothing
but the vocabulary and grammar of the French and
English languages to guide him, would dream of the
real causes of the unlikeness of a Norman to a Pro-
venal, of an Orcadian to a Cornishman ? How readily
might he be led to suppose that the different climatal
conditions to which these speakers of one tongue have
so long been exposed, have caused their physical dif-
ferences ; and how little would he suspect that these are
due (as we happen to know they are) to wide differences
of blood.
Few take duly into account the evidence which exists
as to the ease with which unlettered savages gain or
lose a language. Captain Erskine, in his interesting
" Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western
Pacific," especially remarks upon the " avidity with
which the inhabitants of the polyglot islands of Melanesia,
from New Caledonia to the Solomon Islands, adopt the
improvements of a more perfect language than their
own, which different causes and accidental communica-
tion still continue to .bring, to them ; " and he adds that
" among the Melanesian islands scarcely one was found
by us which did hot possess, in some cases still im-
perfectly, the decimal system of numeration in addition
to their own, in which they reckon only to five."
1 Latham, "Man and his Migrations," p. 171.
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 141
Yet how much philological reasoning in favour of the
affinity or diversity of two distinct peoples has been
based on the mere comparison of numerals !
But the most instructive example of the fallacy
which may attach to merely philological reasonings, is
that afforded by the Feejeans, who are, physically, so
intimately connected with the adjacent Negritos of New
Caledonia, &c., that no one can doubt to what stock
they belong, and who yet, in the form and substance of
their language, are Polynesian. The case is as remark-
able as if the Canary Islands should have been found to
be inhabited by negroes speaking Arabic, or some other
clearly Semitic dialect, as their mother tongue. As it
happens, the physical peculiarities of the Feejeans are
so striking, and the conditions under which they live
are so similar to those of the Polynesians, that no one
has ventured to suggest that they are merely modified
Polynesians a suggestion which could otherwise cer-
tainly have been made. But if languages may be thus
transferred from one stock to another, without any
corresponding intermixture of blood, what ethnological
value has philology ? what security does unity of
language afford us that the speakers of that language
may not have sprung from two, or three, or a dozen,
distinct sources ?
Thus we come, at last, to the purely zoological method,
from which it is not unnatural to expect more than
from any other, seeing that, after all, the problems of
ethnology are simply those which are presented to the
zoologist by every widely distributed animal he studies.
The father of modern zoology seems to have had no
doubt upon this point. At the twenty-eighth page of
the standard twelfth edition of the " Systema Naturae,"
in fact, we find :
142
CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES.
[VII.
I. PRIMATES.
Denies primores incisores : superiores IV. paralleli, mammae
pectorales II.
1. HOMO. Nosce te ipsum.
Sapiens. 1. H. diurnus : varians cultura, loco.
Ferus. Tetrapus, mutus, hirsutus.
Americanus a. Rufus, cholericus, rectus Pilis nigris, rectis, crassis
Naribus patulis Facie ephelitica : Mento subimberbi.
Pertinax, contentus, liber. Pingit se liueis daedaleis
rubris.
Regitur Consuetudine.
Europceus fi. Albus sanguineus torosus. Pilis flavescentibus, prolixis.
Oculis coeruleis.
Levis, argutus, inventor. Tegitur Yestimentis arctis.
Regitur Eitibus.
Asiaticus y. Luridus, melancholicus, rigidus. Pilis nigricantibus.
Oculis fuscis. Severus, fastuosus, avarus. Tegitur
Indumentis laxis.
Regitur Opinionibus.
Afer 3. Niger, phlegmaticus, laxus. Pilis atris, contortuplicatis.
Cute holosericea. Naso simo. Labiis tumidis.
Feminis sinus pudoris.
Mammas, lactantes prblixso.
Vafer, segnis, negligens. Ungit se pingui. Regitur
Arbitrio.
Monstrosus e. Solo (a) et arte (b c) variat. :
a. Alpini parvi, agiles, timidi.
Patagonici magni, segnes.
b. Monorchides ut minus fertiles : Hottentotti.
Juncece puellae, abdomine attenuate : EuropoeaB.
c. Macrocephali capiti conico : Chinenses.
Plagiocephali capite antice compresso : Canadenses.
Turn a few pages further on in the same volume, and
there appears, with a fine impartiality in the distribution
of capitals and sub-divisional headings :
VIT.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 143
III. FER.E.
Denies primores superiores sex, acutiusculi. Canini solitarii.
12. CANIS. Dentes primores superiores VI.: laterales longiores
distarites : iutermedii lobati. Infedores VI.: laterales
lobati.
Laniarii solitarii, incurvati.
Molares VI. s. VII. (pluresve quam in reliquis).
familiaris 1. C. cauda (sinistrorsum) recurvata
domesticus a, auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata.
sagax (3. auriculis pendulis, digito spurio ad tibias posticas.
grajus y. magnitudine lupi, trunco curvato, rostro attenuate,
&c. &c.
Linnaeus' definition of what lie considers to be mere
varieties of the species Man are, it will be observed, as
completely free from any allusion to linguistic pecu-
liarities as those brief and pregnant sentences in which
he sketches the characters of the varieties of the species
Dog. " Pilis nigris, naribus patulis " may be set against
"auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata ;" while the
remarks on the morals and manners of the human
subject seem as if they were thrown in merely by way
of makeweight.
Buffon, Blumenbach (the founder of ethnology as a
special science), Rudolph i, Bory de St. Vincent, Des-
moulins, Cuvier, Retzius, indeed I may say all the
naturalists proper, have dealt with man from a no less
completely zoological point of view ; while, as might
have been expected, those who have been least natu-
ralists, and most linguists, have most neglected the
zoological method, the neglect culminating in those
who have been altogether devoid of acquaintance with
anatomy,
Prichard's proposition, that language is more persistent
than physical characters, is one which has never been
144 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
proved, and indeed admits of no proof, seeing that the
records of language do not extend so far as those of
physical characters. But, until the superior tenacity of
linguistic over physical peculiarities is shown, and until
the abundant evidence which exists, that the language
of a people may change without corresponding physical
change in that people, is shown to be valueless, it is
plain that the zoological court of appeal is the highest
for the ethnologist, and that no evidence can be set
against that derived from physical characters.
What, then, will a new survey of mankind from the
Linnean point of view teach us ?
The great antipodal block of land we call Australia
has, speaking roughly, the form of a vast quadrangle,
2,000 miles on the side, and extends from the hottest
tropical, to the middle of the temperate, zone. Setting
aside the foreign colonists introduced within the last
century, it is inhabited by people no less remarkable
for the uniformity, than for the singularity, of their
physical characters and social state. For the most part
of fair stature, erect and well built, except for an
unusual slenderness of the lower limbs, the AUSTRALIANS
have dark, usually chocolate-coloured skins ; fine dark
wavy hair ; dark eyes, overhung by beetle brows ; coarse,
projecting jaws ; broad and dilated, but not especially
flattened, noses ; and lips which, though prominent, are
eminently flexible.
The skulls of these people are always long and narrow,
with a smaller development of the frontal sinuses than
usually corresponds with such largely developed brow
ridges. An Australian skull of a round form, or one the
transverse diameter of which exceeds eight-tenths of its
length, has never been seen. These people, in a word,
are eminently " dolichocephalic," or long-headed ; but,
viz.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 145
with this one limitation, their crania present considerable
variations, some being comparatively high and arched,
while others are more remarkably depressed than almost
any other human skulls.
The female pelvis differs comparatively little from the_
European ; but in the pelves of male Australians which
I have examined, the antero-posterior and transverse
diameters approach equality more nearly than is the
case in Europeans.
No Australian tribe has ever been known to cultivate
the ground, to use metals, pottery, or any kind of textile
fabric. They rarely construct huts. Their means of
navigation are limited to rafts or canoes, made of sheets
of bark. Clothing, except skin cloaks for protection
from cold, is a superfluity with which they dispense;
and though they have some singular weapons, almost
peculiar to themselves, they are wholly unacquainted
with bows and arrows.
It is but a step, as it were, across Bass's Straits to
Tasmania. Neither climate nor the characteristic forms
of vegetable or animal life change largely on the south
side of the Straits, but the early voyagers found Man
singularly different from him on the north side. The
skin of the Tasmanian was dark, though he lived between
parallels of latitude corresponding with those of middle
Europe in our own hemisphere ; his jaws projected, his
head was long and narrow ; his civilization was about on
a footing with that of the Australian, if not lower, for I
cannot discover that the Tasmanian understood the use
of the thro wing-stick. But he differed from the Aus-
tralian in his woolly, negro-like hair, whence the
name of NEGRITO, which has been applied to him and
his congeners.
Such Negritos differing more or less from the Tasma-
nian, but agreeing with him in dark skin and woolly
H L
146 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
hair occupy New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the
Louisiade Archipelago ; and stretching to the Papuan
Islands, and for a doubtful extent beyond them to the
north and west, form a sort of belt, or zone, of Negrito
population, interposed between the Australians on the
west and the inhabitants of the great majority of the
Pacific islands on the east.
The cranial characters of the Negritos vary consider-
ably more than those of their skin and hair, the most
notable circumstance being the strong Australian aspect
which distinguishes many Negrito skulls, while others
tend rather towards forms common in the Polynesian
islands.
In civilization, New Caledonia exhibits an advance
upon Tasmania, and, farther north, there is a still greater
improvement. But the bows and arrows, the perched
houses, the outrigger canoes, the habits of betel-chewing
and of kawa- drinking, which abound more or less among
the northern Negritos, are probably to be regarded not
as the products of an indigenous civilization, but merely
as indications of the extent to which foreign influences
have modified the primitive social state of these people.
From Tasmania or New Caledonia, to New Zealand or
Tongataboo, is again but a brief voyage ; but it brings
about a still more notable change in the aspect of the
indigenous population than that effected by the passage
of Bass's Straits. Instead of being chocolate-coloured
people, the Maories andTongans are light brown; instead
of woolly, they have straight, or wavy, black hair. And
if from New Zealand, we travel some 5,000 miles east to
Easter Island ; and from Easter Island, for as great a
distance north-west, to the Sandwich Islands ; and thence
7,000 miles, westward and southward, to Sumatra ; and
even across the Indian Ocean, into the interior of Mada-
gascar, we shall everywhere meet with people whose hair
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 147
is straight or wavy, and whose skins exhibit various
shades of brown. These are the Polynesians, Micro-
nesians, Indonesians, whom Latham has grouped together
under the common title of AMPHINESIANS.
The cranial characters of these people, as of the
Negritos, are less constant than those of their skin and
hair. The Maori has a long skull ; the Sandwich
Islander a broad skull. Some, like these, have strong
brow ridges ; others, like the Dayaks and many Poly-
nesians, have hardly any nasal indentation.
It is only in the westernmost parts of their area that
the Amphinesian nations know anything about bows and
arrows as weapons, or are acquainted with the use of
metals or with pottery. Everywhere they cultivate the
ground, construct houses, and skilfully build and manage
outrigger, or double, canoes ; while, almost everywhere,
they use some kind of fabric for clothing.
Between Easter Island, or the Sandwich Islands, and
any part of the American coast is a much wider interval
than that between Tasmania and New Zealand, but the
ethnological interval between the American and the
Polynesian is less than that ' between either of the pre-
viously named stocks.
The typical AMERICAN has straight black hair and
dark eyes, his skin exhibiting various shades of reddish
or yellowish brown, sometimes inclining to olive. The
face is broad and scantily bearded ; the skull wide and
high. Such people extend from Patagonia to Mexico,
and much farther north along the west coast. In the
main a race of hunters, they had nevertheless, at the time
of the discovery of the Americas, attained a remark-
able degree of civilization in some localities. They had
domesticated ruminants, and not only practised agri-
culture, but had learned the value of irrigation. They
manufactured textile fabrics, were masters of the potters'
L 2
148 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
art, and knew how to erect massive buildings of stone.
They understood the working of the precious, though
not of the useful, metals ; and had even attained to a
rude kind of hieroglyphic, or picture, writing.
The Americans not only employ the bow and arrow,
but, like some Amphinesians, the blow-pipe, as offensive
weapons : but I am not aware that the outrigger canoe
has ever been observed among them.
I have reason to suspect that some of the Fuegian
tribes differ cranially from the typical Americans ; and
the Northern and Eastern American tribes have longer
skulls than their Southern compatriots. But the ESQUI-
MAUX, who roam on the desolate and ice-bound coasts of
Arctic America, certainly present us with a new stock.
The Esquimaux (among whom the Greenlanders are
included), in fact, though they share the straight black
hair of the proper Americans, are a duller complexioned,
shorter, and more squat people, and they have still more
prominent cheek-bones. But the circumstance which
most completely separates them from the typical Ameri-
cans, is the form of their skulls, which instead of being
broad, high, and truncated behind, are eminently long,
usually low, and prolonged backwards.
These Hyperborean people clothe themselves in skins,
know nothing of pottery, and hardly anything of metals.
Dependent for existence upon the produce of the chase,
the seal and the whale are to them what the cocoa-nut
tree and the plantain are to the savages of more genial
climates. Not only are those animals meat and rai-
ment, but they are canoes, sledges, weapons, tools,
windows, and fire; while they support the dog, who
is the indispensable ally and beast of burden of the
Esquimaux.
It is admitted that the Tchuktchi, on the eastern
side of Behring's Straits, are, in all essential respects,
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 149
Esquimaux ; and I do not know that there is any
satisfactory evidence to show that the Tunguses and
Samoiedes do not essentially share the physical characters
of the same people. Southward, there are indications
of Esquimaux characters among the Japanese, and
it is possible that their influence may be traced yet
further.
However this may be, Eastern Asia, from Mantchouria
to Siam, Thibet, and Northern Hindostan, is continuously
inhabited by men, usually of short stature, with skins
varying in colour from yellow to olive ; with broad cheek-
bones and faces that, owing to the insignificance of the
nose, are exceedingly flat ; and with small, obliquely-set,
black eyes and straight black hair, which sometimes
attains a very great length upon the scalp, but is always
scanty upon the face and body. The skull is never
much elongated, and is, generally, remarkably broad and
rounded, with hardly any nasal depression, and but slight,
if any, projection of the jaws.
Many of these people, for whom the old name of
MONGOLIANS may be retained, are nomades ; others, as
the Chinese, have attained a remarkable and apparently
indigenous civilization, only surpassed by that of Europe.
At the north-western extremity of Europe the Lapps
repeat the characters of the Eastern Asiatics. Between
these extreme points, the Mongolian stock is not con-
tinuous, but is represented by a chain of more or less
isolated tribes, who pass under the name of Calmucks
and Tartars, and form Mongolian islands, as it were, in
the midst of an ocean of other people.
The waves of this ocean are the nations for whom, in
order to avoid the endless confusion produced by our
present half -physical, half -philological classification, I
shall use a new name XANTHOCHROI indicating that
they are "yellow" haired and "pale" in complexion.
150 CRITIQUES AND ADDEESSES. [vn.
The Chinese historians of the Han dynasty, writing in
the third century before our era, describe, with much
minuteness, certain numerous and powerful barbarians
with " yellow hair, green eyes, and prominent noses/*
who, the black-haired, skew-eyed, and flat-nosed an-
nalists remark in passing, are "just like the apes from
whom they are descended/' These people held, in force,
the upper waters of the Yenisei, and thence under various
names stretched southward to Thibet and Kashgar. Fair-
haired and blue-eyed northern enemies were no less
known to the ancient Hindoos, to the Persians, and to the
Egyptians, on the south of the great central Asiatic area ;
while the testimony of all European antiquity is to the
effect that, before and since the period in question, there
lay beyond the Danube, the Ehine, and the Seine, a vast
and dangerous yellow or red haired, fair- skinned, blue-
eyed population. Whether the disturbers of the marches
of the Eoman Empire were called Gauls or Germans,
Goths, Alans, or Scythians, one thing seems certain, that
until the invasion of the Huns, they were tall, fair, blue-
eyed men.
If any one should think fit to assume that in the year
100 B.C., there was one continuous Xanthochroic popula-
tion from the Ehine to the Yenisei, and from the Ural
mountains to the Hindoo Koosh, I know not that any
evidence exists by which that position could be upset,
while the existing state of things is rather in its favour
than otherwise. For the Scandinavians, wholly, the
Germans to a great extent, the Slavonian and the
Finnish tribes, some of the inhabitants of Greece, many
Turks, some Kirghis, and some Mantchous, the Ossetes in
the Caucasus, the Siahposh, the Eohillas, are at the
present day fair, yellow or red haired, and blue-eyed ;
and the interpolation of tribes of Mongolian hair and
complexion, as far west as the Caspian Steppes and the
vii. J METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 151
Crimea, might justly be accounted for by those subse-
quent westward irruptions of the Mongolian stock, of
which history furnishes abundant testimony.
The furthermost limit of the Xanthochroi north-west-
ward is Iceland and the British Isles ; south-westward^
they are traceable at intervals through the Berber country,
and end in the Canary Islands.
The cranial characters of the Xanthochroi are not, at pre-
sent, strictly definable. The Scandinavians are certainly
long-headed ; but many Germans, the Swiss so far as they
are Germanized, the Slavonians, the Fins, and the Turks,
are short-headed. What were the cranial characters of
the ancient " U-suns " and " Ting-lings " of the valley of
the Yenisei is unknown.
West of the area occupied by the chief mass of the
Xanthochroi, and north of the Sahara, is a broad belt of
land, shaped like a >-. Between the forks of the Y lies
the Mediterranean ; the stem of it is Arabia. The stem
is bathed by the Indian Ocean, the western ends of the
forks by the Atlantic. The people inhabiting the area
thus roughly sketched have, like the Xanthochroi, pro-
minent noses, pale skins and wavy hair, with abundant
beards ; but, unlike them, the hair is black or dark, and
the eyes usually so. They may thence be called the MELA-
NOCHROI. Such people are found in the British Islands,
in Western and Southern Gaul, in Spain, in Italy south
of the Po, in parts of Greece, in Syria and Arabia,
stretching as far northward and eastward as the Caucasus
and Persia. They are the chief inhabitants of Africa
north of the Sahara, and, like the Xanthochroi, they end
in the Canary Islands. They are known as Kelts, Iberians,
Etruscans, Romans, Pelasgians, Berbers, Semites. The
majority of them are long-headed, and of smaller stature
than the Xanthochroi.
It is needless to remark upon the civilization of these
152 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
two great stocks. With them has originated everything
that is highest in science, in art, in law, in politics,
and in mechanical inventions. In their hands, at the
present moment, lies the order of the social world, and
to them its progress is committed.
South of the Atlas, and of the Great Desert, Middle
Africa exhibits a new type of humanity in the NEGRO,
with his dark skin, woolly hair, projecting jaws, and thick
lips. As a rule, the skull of the Negro is remarkably
long ; it rarely approaches the broad type, and never
exhibits the roundness of the Mongolian. A cultivator
of the ground, and dwelling in villages; a maker of
pottery, and a worker in the useful as well as the orna-
mental metals ; employing the bow and arrow as well
as the spear, the typical negro stands high in point of
civilization above the Australian.
Resembling the Negroes in cranial characters, the
BUSHMEN of South Africa differ from them in their
yellowish brown skins, their tufted hair, their remark-
ably small stature, and their tendency to fatty and
other integumentary outgrowths ; nor is the wonderful
click with which their speech is interspersed to be over-
looked in enumerating the physical characteristics of
this strange people.
The so-called " Drawidian " populations of Southern
Hindostan lead us back, physically as well as geographi-
cally, towards the Australians ; while the diminutive
MINCOPIES of the Andaman Islands lie midway between
the Negro and Negrito races, and, as Mr. Busk has
pointed out, occasionally present the rare combination
of Brachycephaly, or short-head edn ess, with woolly
hair.
In the preceding progress along the outskirts of the
habitable world, eleven readily distinguishable stocks, or
persistent modifications, of mankind, have been recog-
VIL] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 153
nized. I have purposely omitted such people as the
Abyssinians and the Hindoos, who there is every reason
to believe result from the intermixture of distinct stocks.
Perhaps I ought, for like reasons, to have ignored the
Mincopies. But I do not pretend that my enumeration
is complete or, in any sense, perfect. It is enough for
my purpose if it be admitted (and I think it cannot
be denied) that those which I have mentioned exist,
are well marked, and occupy the greater part of the
habitable globe.
In attempting to classify these persistent modifications
after the manner of naturalists, the first circumstance
that attracts one's attention is the broad contrast between
the people with straight and wavy hair, and those with
crisp, woolly, or tufted hair. Bory de St. Vincent, noting
this fundamental distinction, divided mankind accord-
ingly into the two primary groups of Leiotrichi and
Ulotrichi, terms which are open to criticism, but which
I adopt in the accompanying table, because they have
been used. It is better for science to accept a faulty
name which has the merit of existence, than to burthen
it with a faultless newly invented one.
Under each of these divisions are two columns, one
for the Brachycephali, or short heads, and one for the
Dolichocephali. 1 or long heads. Again, each column is
subdivided transversely into four compartments, one for
the " leucous," people with fair complexions and yellow
or red hair ; one for the " leucomelanous," with dark hair
and pale skins ; one for the " xanthomelanous," with black
hair and yellow, brown, or olive skins ; and one for the
" melanoma," with black hair and dark brown or blackish
skins.
1 Skulls, the transverse diameter of which is more than eight-tenths the
long diameter, are short ; those which have the transverse diameter less than
eight-tenths the longitudinal, are long.
154 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
LEIOTRICHI. ULOTRICHI.
Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. Dolichocephali. Brachycephali.
Leucous.
.... Xanthochroi ....
Leucomelanous.
.... Melauochroi ....
Xanthomelanous.
Esquimaux. Mongolians. Bushmen.
Americans.
Melanous.
Australians. Negroes. Mincopies (?)
Negritos.
** TJte names of the stocks known only since the fifteenth century
are put into italics. If the " Skralings " of the Norse discoverers of
America were Esquimaux, Europeans became acquainted with the
latter six or seven centuries earlier.
It is curious to observe that almost all the woolly-
headed people are also long-headed ; while among the
straight-haired nations broad heads preponderate, and
only two stocks, the Esquimaux and the Australians, are
exclusively long-headed.
One of the acutest and most original of ethnologists,
Desmoulins, originated the idea, which has subsequently
been fully developed by Agassiz, that the distribution
of the persistent modifications of man is governed by
the same laws as that of other animals, and that both
fall into the same great distributional provinces. Thus,
Australia ; America, south of Mexico ; the Arctic regions ;
Europe, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa, taken together,
are each regions eminently characterized by the nature
of their animal and vegetable populations, and each, as
we have seen, has its peculiar and characteristic form of
man. But it may be doubted whether the parallel thus
drawn will hold good strictly, and in all cases. The
Tasmanian Fauna and Flora are essentially Australian,
and the like is true to a less extent of many, if not of
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 155
all, the Papuan islands ; but the Negritos who inhabit
these islands are strikingly different from the Austra-
lians. Again, the differences between the Mongolians
and the Xanthochroi are out of all proportion greater
than those between the Faunae and Florae of Central and-
Eastern Asia. But whatever the difficulties in the
way of the detailed application of this comparison of
the distribution of men with that of animals, it is well
worthy of being borne in mind, and carried as far as it
will go.
Apart from all speculation, a very curious fact regard-
ing the distribution of the persistent modifications of
mankind becomes apparent on inspecting an Ethnolo-
gical chart, projected in such a manner that the Pacific
Ocean occupies its centre. Such a chart exhibits an
Australian area occupied by dark smooth-haired people,
separated by an incomplete inner zone of dark woolly-
haired Negritos and Negroes, from an outer zone of com-
paratively pale and smooth-haired men, occupying the
Americas, and nearly all Asia and North Africa.
Such is a brief sketch of the characters and distribu-
tion of the persistent modifications, or stocks, of man-
kind at the present day. If we seek for direct evidence
of how long this state of things has lasted, we shall
find little enough, and that little far from satisfactory.
Of the eleven different stocks enumerated, seven have
been known to us for less than 400 years ; and of these
seven not one possessed a fragment of written history at
the time it came into contact with European civilization.
The other four the Negroes, Mongolians, Xanthochroi,
and Melanochroi have always existed in some of the
localities in which they are now found, nor do the negroes
ever seem to have voluntarily travelled beyond the limits
of their present area. But ancient history is in a great
156 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [VH.
measure the record of the mutual encroachments of the
other three stocks.
On the whole, however, it is wonderful how little
change has been effected by these mutual invasions and
intermixtures. As at the present time, so at the dawn
of history, the Melanochroi fringed the Atlantic and
the Mediterranean ; the Xanthochroi occupied most of
Central and Eastern Europe, and much of Western and
Central Asia ; while Mongolians held the extreme east of
the Old World. So far as history teaches us, the popu-
lations of Europe, Asia, and Africa were, twenty centuries
ago, just what they are now, in their broad features and
general distribution.
The evidence yielded by Archaeology is not very
definite, but, so far as it goes, it is to much the same
effect. The mound builders of Central America seem to
have had the characteristic short and broad head of the
modern inhabitants of that continent. The tumuli and
tombs of Ancient Scandinavia, of pre-Eoman Britain, of
Gaul, of Switzerland, reveal two types of skull a broad
and a long of which, in Scandinavia, the broad seems
to have belonged to the older stock, while the reverse
was probably the case in Britain, and certainly in Switz-
erland. It has been assumed that the broad-skulled
people of ancient Scandinavia were Lapps ; but there
is no proof of the fact, and they may have been, like
the broad-skulled Swiss and Germans, Xanthochroi.
One of the greatest of ethnological difficulties is to
know where the modern Swedes, Norsemen, and Saxons
got their long heads, as all their neighbours, Fins, Lapps,
Slavonians, and South Germans, are broad-headed.
Again, who were the small-handed, long-headed people
of the " bronze epoch," and what has become of the
infusion of their blood among the Xanthochroi ?
At present Palaeontology yields no safe data to the
yu.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 157
ethnologist. We know absolutely nothing of the ethno-
logical characters of the men of Abbeville and Hoxne ;
but must be content with the demonstration, in itself of
immense value, that Man existed in Western Europe
when its physical condition was widely different from^
what it is now, and when animals existed, which, though
they belong to what is, properly speaking, the present
order of things, have long been extinct. Beyond the
limits of a fraction of Europe, Palaeontology tells us
nothing of man or of his works.
To sum up our knowledge of the ethnological past
of man : so far as the light is bright, it shows him
substantially as he is now ; and, when it grows dim, it
permits us to see no sign that he was other than he
is now.
It is a general belief that men of different stocks
differ as much physiologically as they do morphologically ;
but it is very hard to prove, in any particular case, how
much of a supposed national characteristic is due to
inherent physiological peculiarities, and how much to
the influence of circumstances. There is much evidence
to show, however, that some stocks enjoy a partial or
complete immunity from diseases which destroy, or
decimate, others. Thus there seems good ground for
the belief that Negroes are remarkably exempt from
yellow fever; and that, among Europeans, the melano-
chrous people are less obnoxious to its ravages than the
xanthochrous. But many writers, not content with
physiological differences of this kind, undertake to prove
the existence of others of far greater moment ; and,
indeed, to show that certain stocks of mankind exhibit,
more or less distinctly, the physiological characters of
true species. Unions between these stocks, and still
more between the half-breeds arising from their mixture,
are affirmed to be either infertile, or less fertile than those
158 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
which take place between males and females of either
stock under the same circumstances. Some go so far as
to assert that no mixed breeds of mankind can maintain
themselves without the assistance of one or other of the
parent stocks, and that, consequently, they must inevit-
ably be obliterated in the long run.
Here, again, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain trust-
worthy evidence, and to free the effects of the pure
physiological experiment from adventitious influences.
The only trial which, by a strange chance, was kept clear
of all such influences the only instance in which two
distinct stocks of mankind were crossed, and their progeny
intermarried without any admixture from without is
the famous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who were the
progeny of Bligh's English sailors by Tahitian women.
The results of this experiment, as everybody knows, are
dead against those who maintain the doctrine of human
hybridity, seeing that the Pitcairn Islanders, even though
they necessarily contracted consanguineous marriages,
throve and multiplied exceedingly.
But those who are disposed to believe in this doctrine
should study the evidence brought forward in its support
by M. Broca, its latest and ablest advocate, and compare
this evidence with that which the botanists, as repre-
sented by a G-aertner, or by a Darwin, think it indispen-
sable to obtain before they will admit the infertility of
crosses between two allied kinds of plants. They will
then, I think, be satisfied that the doctrine in question
rests upon a very unsafe foundation ; that the facts
adduced in its support are capable of many other inter-
pretations ; and, indeed, that from the very nature of
the case, demonstrative evidence one way or the other
is almost unattainable. A priori, I should be disposed
to expect a certain amount of infertility between some of
the extreme modifications of mankind ; and still more
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 159
between the offsprings of their intermixture. A poste-
riori, I cannot discover any satisfactory proof that such
infertility exists.
From the facts of ethnology I now turn to the theories
and speculations of ethnologists, which have been devised
to explain these facts, and to furnish satisfactory answers
to the inquiry what conditions have determined the
existence of the persistent modifications of mankind,
and have caused their distribution to be what it is ?
These speculations may be grouped under three heads:
firstly, the Monogenist hypotheses ; secondly, those of
the Polygenists ; and thirdly, that which would result
from a simple application of Darwinian principles to
mankind.
According to the Monogenists, all mankind have sprung
from a single pair, whose multitudinous progeny spread
themselves over the world, such as it now is, and became
modified into the forms we meet with in the various
regions of the earth, by the effect of the climatal and
other conditions to which they were subjected.
The advocates of this hypothesis are divisible into
several schools. There are those who represent the most
numerous, respectable, and would-be orthodox of the
public, and are what may be called " Adamites," pure and
simple. They believe that Adam was made out of earth
somewhere in Asia, about six thousand years ago ; that
Eve was modelled from one of his ribs ; and that the
progeny of these two having been reduced to the eight
persons who were landed on the summit of Mount
Ararat after an universal deluge, all the nations of the
earth have proceeded from these last, have migrated to
their present localities, and have become converted into
Negroes, Australians, Mongolians, &c., within that time.
Five-sixths of the public are taught this Adanritie Mono-
genism, as if it were an established truth, and believe it.
160 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
I do not; and I am not acquainted with any man of
science, or duly instructed person, who does.
A second school of monogenists, not worthy of much
attention, attempts to hold a place midway between the
Adamites and a third division, who take up a purely
scientific position, and require to be dealt with accord-
ingly. This third division, in fact, numbers in its ranks
Linnaeus, Buffon, Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard, and
many distinguished living ethnologists.
These "Kational Monogenists/' or, at any rate, the
more modern among them, hold, firstly, that the present
condition of the earth has existed for untold ages ;
secondly, that, at a remote period, beyond the ken of
Archbishop Usher, man was created, somewhere between
the Caucasus and the Hindoo Koosh ; thirdly, that he
might have migrated thence to all parts of the inhabited
world, seeing that none of them are unattainable from
some other inhabited part, by men provided with only
such means of transport as savages are known to possess
and must have invented ; fourthly, that the operation of
the existing diversities of climate and other conditions
o
upon people so migrating, is sufficient to account for all
the diversities of mankind.
Of the truth of the first of these propositions no com-
petent judge now entertains any doubt. The second is
more open to discussion, for in these latter days many
question the special creation of man : and even if his
special creation be granted, there is not a shadow of a
reason why he should have been created in Asia rather
than anywhere else. Of all the odd myths that have
arisen in the scientific world, the " Caucasian mystery,"
invented quite innocently by Blumenbach, is the oddest.
A Georgian woman's skull was the handsomest in his
collection. Hence it became his model exemplar of
human skulls, from which all others might be regarded as
viz.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 161
deviations ; and out of this, by some strange intellectual
hocus-pocus, grew up the notion that the Caucasian man
is the prototypic "Adamic" man, and his country the
primitive centre of our kind. Perhaps the most curious
thing of all is, that the said Georgian skull, after all, is-
not a skull of average form, but distinctly belongs to the
brachycephalic group.
With the third proposition I am quite disposed to
agree, though it must be recollected that it is one thing
to allow that a given migration is possible, and another
to admit there is good reason to believe it has really
taken place.
But I can find no sufficient ground for accepting the
fourth proposition ; and I doubt if it would ever have
obtained its general currency except for the circumstance
that fair Europeans are very readily tanned and em-
browned by the sun. But I am not aware that there
is a particle of proof that the cutaneous change thus
effected can become hereditary, any more than that the
enlarged livers, which plague our countrymen in India,
can be transmitted ; while there is very strong evidence
to the contrary. Not only, in fact, are there such cases
as those of the English families in Barbadoes, who have
remained for six generations unaltered in complexion, but
which are open to the objection that they may have
received infusions of fresh European blood ; but there is
the broad fact, that not a single indigenous Negro exists
either in the great alluvial plains of tropical South
America, or in the exposed islands of the Polynesian
Archipelago, or among the populations of equatorial
Borneo or Sumatra. No satisfactory explanation of
these obvious difficulties has been offered ,by the advo-
cates of the direct influence of conditions. And as for
the more important modifications observed in the struc-
ture of the brain, and in the form of the skull, no one
H M
162 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
has ever pretended to show in what way they can be
effected directly by climate.
It is here, in fact, that the strength of the Poly gen ists,
or those who maintain that men primitively arose, not
from one, but from many stocks, lies. Show us, they
say to the Monogenists, a single case in which the cha-
racters of a human stock have been essentially modi-
fied without its being demonstrable, or, at least, highly
probable, that there has been intermixture of blood
with some foreign stock. Bring forward any instance
in which a part of the world, formerly inhabited by one
stock, is now the dwelling-place of another, and we
will prove the change to be the result of migration,
or of intermixture, and not of modification of character
by climatic influences. Finally, prove to us that the
evidence in favour of the specific distinctness of many
animals, admitted to be distinct species by all zoologists,
is a whit better than that upon which we maintain the
specific distinctness of men.
If presenting unanswerable objections to your adver-
sary were the same thing as proving your own case, the
Polygenists would be in a fair way towards victory ; but,
unfortunately, as I have already observed, they have
as yet completely failed to adduce satisfactory positive
proof of the specific diversity of mankind. Like the
Monogenists, the Polygenists are of several sects ; some
imagine that their assumed species of mankind were
created where we find them the African in Africa, and
the Australian in Australia, along with the other animals
of their distributional province ; others conceive that each
species of man has resulted from the modification of some
antecedent species of ape the American from the broad-
nosed Simians of the New World, the African from
the Troglodytic stock, the Mongolian from the Orangs.
The first hypothesis is hardly likely to win much
vii.] METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 163
favour. The whole tendency of modern science is to
thmst the origination of things farther and further into
the background ; and the chief philosophical objection to
Adam being, not his oneness, but the hypothesis of his
special creation ; the multiplication of that objection-
tenfold is, whatever it may look, an increase, instead of
a diminution, of the difficulties of the case. And, as to
the second alternative, it may safely be affirmed that,
even if the differences between men are specific, they
are so small, that the assumption of more than one
primitive stock for all is altogether superfluous. Surely
no one can now be found to assert that any two stocks
of mankind differ as much as a chimpanzee and an
orang do ; still less that they are as unlike as either
of these is to any New World Simian !
Lastly, the granting of the Polygenist premises does
not, in the slightest degree, necessitate the Polygenist
conclusion. Admit that Negroes and Australians, Ne-
gritos and Mongols are distinct species, or distinct genera,
if you will, and you may yet, with perfect consistency,
be the strictest of Monogenists, and even believe in Adam
and Eve as the primaeval parents of all mankind.
It is to Mr. Darwin we owe this discovery : it is he
who, coming forward in the guise of an eclectic philoso-
pher, presents his doctrine as the key to ethnology, and
as reconciling and combining all that is good in the
Monogenistic and Polygenistic schools.
It is true that Mr. Darwin has not, in so many words,
applied his views to ethnology ; but even he, who " runs
and reads " the " Origin of Species' 7 can hardly fail to do
so ; and, furthermore, Mr. Wallace and M. Pouchet have
recently treated of ethnological questions from this point
of view. Let me, in conclusion, add my own contribution
to the same store.
I assume Man to have arisen in the manner which I
M 2
164 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
have discussed elsewhere, and probably, though by no
means necessarily, in one locality. "Whether he arose
singly, or a number of examples appeared contempo-
raneously, is also an open question for the believer in the
production of species by the gradual modification of pre-
existing ones. At what epoch of the world's history this
took place, again, we have no evidence whatever. It
may have been in the older tertiary, or earlier, but what
is most important to remember is, that the discoveries
of late years have proved that man inhabited Western
Europe, at any rate, before the occurrence of those great
physical changes which have given Europe its present
aspect. And as the same evidence shows that man was
the contemporary of animals which are now extinct, it is
not too much to assume that his existence dates back at
least as far as that of our present Fauna and Flora, or
before the epoch of the drift.
But if this be true, it is somewhat startling to reflect
upon the prodigious changes which have taken place in
the physical geography of this planet since man has been
an occupant of it.
During that period the greater part of the British
islands, of Central Europe, of Northern Asia, have been
submerged beneath the sea and raised up again. So has
the great desert of Sahara, which occupies the major part
of Northern Africa. The Caspian and the Aral seas have
been one, and their united waters have probably com-
municated with both the Arctic and the Mediterranean
oceans. The greater part of North America has been
under water, and has emerged. It is highly probable
that a large part of the Malayan Archipelago has
sunk, and its primitive continuity with Asia has been
destroyed. Over the great Polynesian area subsidence
has taken place to the extent of many thousands of
feet subsidence of so vast a character, in fact, that
vii.j METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 165
if a continent like Asia had once occupied the area of
the Pacific, the peaks of its mountains would now show
not more numerous than the islands of the Polynesian
Archipelago.
What lands may have been thickly populated for
untold ages, and subsequently have disappeared and
left no sign above the waters, it is of course impossible
for us to say ; but unless we are to make the wholly
unjustifiable assumption that no dry land rose elsewhere
when our present dry land sank, there must be half a
dozen Atlantises beneath the waves of the various oceans
of the world. But if the regions which have undergone
these slow and gradual, but immense alterations, were
wholly or in part inhabited before the changes I have
indicated began and it is more probable that they
were, than that they were not what a wonderfully
efficient " Emigration Board " must have been at work
all over the world long before canoes, or even rafts, were
invented ; and before men were impelled to wander by
any desire nobler or stronger than hunger. And as
these rude and primitive families were thrust, in the
course of long series of generations, from land to land,
impelled by encroachments of sea or of marsh, or by
severity of summer heat or winter cold, to change their
positions, what opportunities must have been offered for
the play of natural selection, in preserving one family
variation and destroying another !
Suppose, for example, that some families of a horde
which had reached a land charged with the seeds of
yellow fever, varied in the direction of woolliness of
hair and darkness of skin. Then, if it be true that
these physical characters are accompanied by compara-
tive or absolute exemptions from that scourge, the
inevitable tendency would be to the preservation and
multiplication of the darker and woollier families, and
166 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vn.
the elimination of the whiter and smoother-haired. In
fact, by the operation of causes precisely similar to those
which, in the famous instance cited by Mr. Darwin,
have given rise to a race of black pigs in the forests
of Louisiana, a negro stock would eventually people
the region.
Again, how often, by such physical changes, must a
stock have been isolated from all others for innumerable
generations, and have found ample time for the hereditary
hardening of its special peculiarities into the enduring
characters of a persistent modification.
Nor, if it be true that the physiological difference of
species may be produced by variation and natural selec-
tion, as Mr. Darwin supposes, would it be at all astonish-
ing if, in some of these separated stocks, the process of
differentiation should have gone so far as to give rise to
the phenomena of hybridity. In the face of the over-
whelming evidence in favour of the unity of the origin
of mankind afforded by anatomical considerations, satis-
factory proof of the existence of any degree of sterility
in the unions of members of two of the "persistent
modifications " of mankind, might well be appealed to
by Mr. Darwin as crucial evidence of the truth of his
views regarding the origin of species in general.
VIII
ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH
ETHNOLOGY.
IN view of the many discussions to which the compli-
cated problems offered by the ethnology of the British
islands have given rise, it may be useful to attempt to
pick out, from amidst the confused masses of assertion
and of inference, those propositions which appear to rest
upon a secure foundation, and to state the evidence by
which they are supported. Such is the purpose of the
present paper.
Some of these well-based propositions relate to the
physical characters of the people of Britain and their
neighbours ; while others concern the languages which
they spoke. I shall deal, in the first place, with the
physical questions.
I. Eighteen hundred years ago the population of
Britain comprised people of two types of complexion
the one fair, and the other dark. The dark people
resembled the Aquitani and the Iberians; the fair
people were like the Belgic Gauls.
The chief direct evidence of the truth of this proposi-
tion is the well-known passage of Tacitus :
" Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigenes an
advecti, ut inter barburos, paruin compertum. Hubitus corporum
168 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vm.
varii : atque ex eo argumenta : nam rntilse Calecloniam habitantium
comae, magni artus Germanicam origiuem asseveraut. Silururu colorati
vultus et torti plerumque criues, et posita contra Hispaniam, Iberos
veteres trajecisse, easque sedes occupasse, fidem faciunt. Proximi
Gallis et similes sunt ; seu duraute originis vi, seu procurrentibus in
diversa terris, positio cceli corporibus habitum dedit. In universum
tamea sestimauti, Gallos vicinum solum occupasse, credibile est ; eorum
sacra deprehendas, superstitionum persuasione ; sermo baud multum.
diversus." l
This passage, it will be observed, contaiDS statements
as to facts, and certain conclusions deduced from these
facts. The matters of fact asserted are : firstly, that the
inhabitants of Britain exhibit much diversity in their
physical characters ; secondly, that the Caledonians are
red-haired and large-limbed, like the Germans ; thirdly,
that the Silures have curly hair and dark complexions,
like the people of Spain ; fourthly, that the British
people nearest Gaul resemble the " Galli."
Tacitus, therefore, states positively what the Caledo-
nians and Silures were like ; but the interpretation of
what he says about the other Britons must depend upon
what we learn from other sources as to the characters of
these " Galli." Here the testimony of " divus Julius "
comes in with great force and appropriateness. Csesar
writes :
*' Britannise pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insula ipsi
inemoria proditum dicunt : marituma pars ab iis, qui predse ac belli
inferendi causa ex Belgio trausierant ; qui onmes fere iis nominibus
civitatum appellantur quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et
bello inlato ibi permanserunt atque agros colere eaeperuut." 2
From these passages it is obvious that in the opinion
of Csesar and Tacitus, the southern Britons resembled
the northern Gauls, and especially the Belgse ; and the
evidence of Strabo is decisive as to the characters in
which the two people resembled one another : " The men
1 Taciti Agricola, c. 11. 2 De Bello Gallico, v. 12.
viii.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 169
[of Britain] are taller than the Kelts, with hair less
yellow ; they are slighter in their persons." l
The evidence adduced appears to leave no reasonable
ground for doubting that, at the time of the Eoman
conquest, Britain contained people of two types, the
dark and the other fair complexioned, and that there was
a certain difference between the latter in the north and
in the south of Britain : the northern folk being, in the
judgment of Tacitus, or, more properly, according to the
information he had received from Agricola and others,
more similar to the Germans than the latter. As to the
distribution of these stocks, all that is clear is, that the
dark people were predominant in certain parts of the
west of the southern half of Britain, while the fair stock
appears to have furnished the chief elements of the
population elsewhere.
No ancient writer troubled himself with measuring
skulls, and therefore there is no direct evidence as to the
cranial characters of the fair and the dark stocks. The
indirect evidence is not very satisfactory. The tumuli of
Britain of pre-Eoman date have yielded two extremely
different forms of skull, the one broad and the other long ;
and the same variety has been observed in the skulls of
the ancient Gauls. 2 The suggestion is obvious that the
one form of skull may have been associated with the fair,
and the other with the dark, complexion. But any con-
clusion of this kind is at once checked by the reflection
that the extremes of long and short-headedness are to
be met with among the fair inhabitants of Germany and
of Scandinavia at the present day the south-western
Germans and the Swiss being markedly broad-headed,
1 "The Geography of Strabo." Translated by Hamilton and Falconer:
v. 5.
2 See Dr. Thurnam " On the Two principal Forms of Ancient British and
Gaulish Skulls."
170 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vm.
while the Scandinavians are as predominantly long-
headed.
What the natives of Ireland were like at the time of
the Koman conquest of Britain, and for centuries after-
wards, we have no certain knowledge ; but the earliest
trustworthy records prove the existence, side by side with
one another, of a fair and a dark stock, in Ireland as in
Britain. The long form of null is predominant among
the ancient, as among modern, Irish.
II. The people termed Gauls, and those called Germans,
by the Romans, did not differ in any important physical
character.
The terms in which the ancient writers describe both
Gauls and Germans are identical. They are always tall
people, with massive limbs, fair skins, fierce blue eyes,
and hair the colour of which ranges from red to yellow.
Zeuss, the great authority on these matters, affirms
broadly that no distinction in bodily feature is to be
found between the Gauls, the Germans, and the Wends,
so far as their characters are recorded by the old histo-
rians ; and he proves his case by citations from a cloud
of witnesses.
An attempt has been made to show that the colour of
the hair of the Gauls must have differed very much from
that which obtained among the Germans, on the strength
of the story told by Suetonius (Caligula, 4), that Caligula
tried to pass off Gauls for Germans by picking out
the tallest, and making them " rutilare et summittere
cornam."
The Baron de Belloguet remarks upon this passage :
" It was in the very north of Gaul, and near the sea, that Caligula
got up this military comedy. And the fact proves that the Belgae
were already sensibly different from their ancestors, whom Strabo had
found almost identical with their brothers on the other side of the
Rhine.*
VIIL] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 171
But the fact recorded by Suetonius, if fact it be, proves
nothing ; for the Germans themselves were in the habit of
reddening their hair. Ammianus Marcellinus 1 tells how,
in the year 367 A.D., the Eoman commander, Jovinus,
surprised a body of Alemanni near the town now calleoL
Charpeigne, in the valley of the Moselle ; and how the
Eoman soldiers, as, concealed by the thick wood, they
stole upon their unsuspecting enemies, saw that some
were bathing and others "comas rutilantes ex more."
More than two centuries earlier Pliny gives indirect
evidence to the same effect when he says of soap :
" Galliarum hoc iuventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud Gerinanos
inajore in usu viris quam fee minis." 2
Here we have a writer who flourished only a short time
after the date of the Caligula story, telling us that the
Gauls invented soap for the purpose of doing that which,
according to Suetonius, CLligula forced them to do.
And, further, the combined and independent testimony
of Pliny and Ammianus assures us that the Germans
were as much in the habit of reddening their hair as
the Gauls. As to De Belloguet's supposition that, even
in Caligula's time, the Gauls had become darker than
their ancestors were, it is directly contradicted by
Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew the Gauls well.
" Celsioris staturse et candidi pcene Galli sunt omnes, et
rutili, luminumque torvitate terribiles," is his description;
and it would fit the Gauls who sacked Eome.
III. In none of the invasions of Britain which have
taken place since the Roman dominion, has any other
type of man been introduced than one or other of the
two which existed during that dominion.
The North Germans, who effected what is commonly
called the Saxon conquest of Britain, were, most
1 lies GestsB, xxvii. 2 Historia. Naturalis, xxviii. 51.
172 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vin.
assuredly, a fair, yellow, or red-haired, blue-eyed, long-
skulled people. So were the Danes and the Norsemen
who followed them ; though it is very possible that the
active slave trade which went on, and the intercourse with
Ireland, may have introduced a certain admixture of the
dark stock into both Denmark and Norway. The Nor-
man conquest brought in new ethnological elements, the
precise value of which cannot be estimated with exact-
ness ; but as to their quality, there can be no question,
inasmuch as even the wide area from which William
drew his followers could yield him nothing but the fair
and the dark types of men, already present in Britain.
But whether the Norman settlers, on the whole, strength-
ened the fair or the dark element, is a problem, the
elements of the solution of which are not attainable.
I am unable to discover any grounds for believing that
a Lapp element has ever entered into the population of
these islands. So far as the physical evidence goes, it is
perfectly consistent with the hypothesis that the only
constituent stocks of that population, now, or at any
other period about which we have evidence, are the dark
whites, whom I have proposed to call "Melanochroi"
and the fair whites, or " Xanthochroi."
IV. The Xanthochroi and the Melanochroi of Britain
are, speaking broadly, distributed, at present, as they
were in the time of Tacitus ; and their representatives
on the continent of Europe have the same general dis-
tribution as at the earliest period of which we have any
record.
At the present day, and notwithstanding the extensive
intermixture effected by the movements consequent on
civilization and on political changes, there is a predomi-
nance of dark men in the west, and of fair men in the
east and north, of Britain. At the present day, as from
the earliest times, the predominant constituents of the
viii.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 173
riverain population of the North Sea and the eastern half
of the British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock
continues in force through Central Europe, until it is
lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock extend
into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and by way of
Syria and North Africa, to the Canary Islands. They
were known in very early times to the Chinese, and in
still earlier to the ancient Egyptians, as frontier tribes.
The Thracians were notorious for their fair hair and
blue eyes many centuries before our era.
On the other hand, the dark stock predominates in
Southern and Western France, in Spain, along the
Ligurian, shore and in Western and Southern Italy ;
in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North Africa ; in Arabia,
Persia, Afghanistan, and Hindostan, shading gradually,
through all stages of darkening, into the type of the
modern Egyptian, or of the w T ild Hill-man of the
Dekkan. Nor is there any record of the existence of
a different population in all these countries.
The extreme north of Europe, and the northern part of
Western Asia, are at present occupied by a Mongoloid
stock, and, in the absence of evidence to the contrary,
may be assumed to have been so peopled from a very
remote epoch. But, as I have said, I can find no evi-
dence that this stock ever took part in peopling Britain.
Of the three great stocks of mankind which extend from
the western coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to its
southern and eastern shores, the Mongoloids occupy a
vast triangle, the base of which is the whole of Eastern
Asia, while its apex lies in Lapland. The Melanochroi,
on the other hand, may be represented as a broad band
stretching from Ireland to Hindostan; while the Xantho-
chroic area lies between the two, thins out, so to speak,
at either end, and mingles, at its margins, with both its
neighbours.
174 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vin.
Such is a brief and summary statement of what I
believe to be the chief facts relating to the physical
ethnology of the people of Britain. The conclusions
which I draw from these and other facts are (1) That
the Melanochroi and the Xanthochroi are two separate
races in the biological sense of the word race ; (2) That
they have had the same general distribution as at pre-
sent from the earliest times of which any record exists
on the continent of Europe ; (3) That the population
of the British Islands is derived from them, and from
them only.
The people of Europe, however, owe their national
names, not to their physical characteristics, but to their
languages, or to their political relations ; which, it is
plain, need not have the slightest relation to these
characteristics.
Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesar's time, Gaul
was divided politically into three nationalities the
Belgae, the Celtae, and the Aquitani; and that the last
were very widely different, both in language and in
physical characteristics, from the two former. The
Belgae and the Celtae, on the other hand, differed compa-
ratively little either in physique or in language. On the
former point there is the distinct testimony of Strabo ;
as to the latter, St. Jerome states that the " Galatians
had almost the same language as the Treviri." Now
the Galatians were emigrant Volcae Tectosages, and
therefore Celtae ; while the Treviri were Belgae.
At the present day, the physical characters of the
people of Belgic Gaul remain distinct from those of
the people of Aquitaine, notwithstanding the immense
changes which have taken place since Caesar's time ;
but Belgae, Celtae, and Aquitani (all but a mere fraction
of the last two, represented by the Basques and the
Britons) are fused into one nationality, " le peuple
vin.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 175
Frangais." But they have adopted the language of
one set of invaders, and the name of another ; their
original names and languages having almost disappeared.
Suppose that the French language remained as the sole
evidence of the existence of the population of Gaul^
would the keenest phllologer arrive at any other con-
clusion than that this population was essentially and
fundamentally a "Latin" race, which had had some
communication with Celts and Teutons ? Would he so
much as suspect the former existence of the Aquitani ?
Community of language testifies to close contact
between the people who speak the language, but to
nothing else ; philology has absolutely nothing to do
with ethnology, except so far as it suggests the existence
or the absence of such contact. The contrary assump-
tion, that language is a test of race, has introduced the
utmost confusion into ethnological speculation, and has
nowhere worked greater scientific and practical mischief
than in the ethnology of the British Islands.
What is known, for certain, about the languages
spoken in these islands and their affinities may, I believe,
be summed up as follows :
I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one language,
the Celtic, under two principal dialectical divisions, the
Cymric and the Gaelic, was spoken throughout the British
Islands. Cymric was spoken in Britain, Gaelic in
Ireland.
If a language allied to Basque had in earlier times
been spoken in the British Islands, there is no evidence
that any Euskarian- speaking people remained at the
time of the Roman conquest. The dark and the fair
population of Britain alike spoke Celtic tongues, and
therefore the name " Celt " is as applicable to the one
as to the other.
What was spoken in Ireland can only be surmised by
1V6 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vm
reasoning from the knowledge of later times ; but there
seems to be no doubt that it was Gaelic ; and that the
Gaelic dialect was introduced into the Western High-
lands by Irish invaders.
II. The Belgce and the Celtce, with the offshoots of the
latter in Asia Minor, spoke dialects of the Cymric
division of Celtic.
The evidence of this proposition lies in the statement
of St. Jerome before cited ; in the similarity of the names
of places in Belgic Gaul and in Britain ; and, in the
direct comparison of sundry ancient Gaulish and Belgic
words which have been preserved, with the existing
Cymric dialects, for which I must refer to the learned
work of Brandes. (
Formerly, as at the present day, the Cymric dialects of
Celtic were spoken by both the fair and the dark stocks.
III. There is no record of Gaelic being spoken any-
where save in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man.
This appears to be the final result of the long discus-
sions which have taken place on this much-debated
question. As is the case with the Cymric dialects,
Gaelic is now spoken by both dark and fair stocks.
IY. When the Teutonic languages first became known,
they were spoken only by Xanthochroi, that is to say, by
the Germans, the Scandinavians, and Goths. And they
were imported by Xanthochroi into Gaul and into
Britain.
In Gaul the imported Teutonic dialect has been com-
pletely overpowered by the more or less modified Latin,
which it found already in possession ; and what Teutonic
blood there may be in modern Frenchmen is not ade-
quately represented in their language. In Britain, on
the contrary, the Teutonic dialects have overpowered
the pre-existing forms of speech, and the people are
vastly less " Teutonic " than their language. Whatever
viri.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 177
may have been the extent to which the Celtic-speaking
population of the eastern half of Britain was trodden
out and supplanted by the Teutonic-speaking Saxons and
Danes, it is quite certain that no considerable displace-
ment of the Celtic-speaking people occurred in Cornwall,
Wales, or the Highlands of Scotland ; and that nothing
approaching to the extinction of that people took place
in Devonshire, Somerset, or the western moiety of Britain
generally. Nevertheless, the fundamentally Teutonic
English language is now spoken throughout Britain,
except by an insignificant fraction of the population in
Wales and the Western Highlands. But it is obvious
that this fact affords not the slightest justification for the
common practice of speaking of the present inhabitants
of Britain as an " Anglo-Saxon" people. It is, in fact,
just as absurd as the habit of talking of the French
people as a " Latin " race, because they speak a language
which is, in the main, derived from Latin. And the
absurdity becomes the more patent when those who have
no hesitation in calling a Devonshire man, or a Cornish
man, an "Anglo-Saxon," would think it ridiculous to call
a Tipperary man by the same title, though he and his
forefathers may have spoken English for as long a time
as the Cornish man.
Ireland, at the earliest period of which we have any
knowledge, contained, like Britain, a dark and a fair
stock, which, there is every reason to believe, were
identical with the dark and the fair stocks of Britain.
When the Irish first became known they spoke a Gaelic
dialect, and though, for many centuries, Scandinavians
made continual incursions upon, and settlements among
them, the Teutonic languages made no more way among
the Irish than they did among the French. How much
Scandinavian blood was introduced there is no evidence
to show. But after the conquest of Ireland by Henry II.,
H N
178 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vin.
the English people, consisting in part of the descendants
of Cymric speakers, and in part of the descendants
of Teutonic speakers, made good their footing in the
eastern half of the island, as the Saxons and Danes made
good theirs in England ; and did their best to complete
the parallel by attempting the extirpation of the Gaelic-
speaking Irish. And they succeeded to a considerable
extent ; a large part of Eastern Ireland is now peopled
by men who are substantially English by descent, and
the English language has spread over the land far beyond
the limits of English blood.
Ethnologically, the Irish people were originally, like
the people of Britain, a mixture of Melanochroi and
Xanthochroi. They resembled the Britons in speaking
a Celtic tongue ; but it was a Gaelic and not a Cymric
form of the Celtic language. Ireland was untouched by
the Roman conquest, nor do the Saxons seem to have
had any influence upon her destinies, but the Danes and
Norsemen poured in a contingent of Teutonism, which
has been largely supplemented by English and Scotch
efforts.
What, then, is the value of the ethnological difference
between the Englishman of the western half of England
and the Irishman of the eastern half of Ireland ? For
what reason does the one deserve the name of a " Celt,"
and not the other ? And further, if we turn to the
inhabitants of the western half of Ireland, why should
the term "Celts" be applied to them more than to
the inhabitants of Cornwall ? And if the name is appli-
cable to the one as justly as to the other, why should
not intelligence, perseverance, thrift, industry, sobriety,
respect for law, be admitted to be Celtic virtues ?
And why should we not seek for the cause of their
absence in something else than the idle pretext of
Celtic blood?"
viii.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 179
I have been unable to meet with any answers to these
questions.
V. The Celtic and the Teutonic dialects are members
of the same great Aryan family of languages ; but there
is evidence to show that a non- Aryan language was at-
one time spoken over a large extent of the area occupied
by Melanochroi in Europe.
The non- Aryan laDguage here referred to is the Euska-
rian, now spoken only by the Basques, but which seems
in earlier times to have been the language of the Aqui-
tanians and Spaniards, and may possibly have extended
much further to the East. Whether it has any connec-
tion with the Ligurian and Oscan dialects are questions
upon which, of course, I do not presume to offer any
opinion. But it is important to remark that it is a
language the area of which has gradually diminished
without any corresponding extirpation of the people
who primitively spoke it ; so that the people of Spain
and of Aquitaine at the present day must be largely
"Euskarian" by descent in just the same sense as the
Cornish men are " Celtic " by descent.
Such seem to me to be the main facts respecting the
ethnology of the British islands and of Western Europe,
which may be said to be fairly established. The hypo-
thesis by which I think (with De Belloguet and Thurnam)
the facts may best be explained is this : In very remote
times Western Europe and the British islands were
inhabited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi, alone,
and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied to the
Euskarian. The Xanthochroi, spreading over the great
Eurasiatic plains westward, and speaking Aryan dialects,
gradually invaded the territories of the Melanochroi.
The Xanthochroi, who thus came into contact with the
Western Melanochroi, spoke a Celtic language ; and that
Celtic language, whether Cymric or Gaelic, spread over
N 2
180 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [vm.
the Melanochroi far beyond the limits of intermixture of
blood, supplanting Euskarian, just as English and French
have supplanted Celtic. Even as early as Caesar's time,
I suppose that the Euskarian was everywhere, except in
Spain and in Aquitaine, replaced by Celtic, and thus the
Celtic speakers were no longer of one ethnological stock,
but of two. Both in Western Europe and in England
a third wave of language in the one case Latin, in
the other Teutonic has spread over the same area. In
Western Europe, it has left a fragment of the primary
Euskarian in one corner of the country, and a fragment
of the secondary Celtic in another. In the British
islands, only outlying pools of the secondary linguistic
wave remain in Wales, the Highlands, Ireland, and the
Isle of Man. If this hypothesis is a sound one, it
follows that the name of Celtic is not properly appli-
cable to the Melanochroic or dark stock of Europe.
They are merely, so to speak, secondary Celts. The
primary and aboriginal Celtic-speaking people are
Xanthochroi the typical Gauls of the ancient writers,
and the close allies by blood, customs, and language, of
the Germans.
IX.
PALAEONTOLOGY AND THE DOCTEINE OF
EVOLUTION.
(THE ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS TO THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
FOR 1870.)
IT is now eight years since, in the absence of the late
Mr. Leonard Homer, who then presided over us, it fell
to my lot, as one of the Secretaries of this Society, to
draw up the customary Annual Address. I availed
myself of the opportunity to endeavour to "take stock"
of that portion of the science of biology which is com-
monly called " palaeontology/' as it then existed ; and,
discussing one after another the doctrines held by palae-
ontologists, I put before you the results of my attempts
to sift the well-established from the hypothetical or the
doubtful. Permit me briefly to recall to your minds
what those results were:
1. The living population of all parts of the earth's
surface which have yet been examined has undergone a
succession of changes which, upon the whole, have been
of a slow and gradual character.
2. When the fossil remains which are the evidences of
these successive changes, as they have occurred in any
two more or less distant parts of the surface of the earth,
are compared, they exhibit a certain broad and general
182 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
parallelism. In other words, certain forms of life in
one locality occur in the same general order of suc-
cession as, or are homotaxial with, similar forms in the
other locality.
3. Homotaxis is not to be held identical with synchro-
nism without independent evidence. It is possible that
similar, or even identical, faunae and florae in two different
localities may be of extremely different ages, if the term
" age " is used in its proper chronological sense. I stated
that "geographical provinces, or zones, may have been as
distinctly marked in the Palaeozoic epoch as at present ;
and those seemingly sudden appearances of new genera
and species, which we ascribe to new creation, may be
simple results of migration."
4. The opinion that the oldest known fossils are the
earliest forms of life has no solid foundation.
5. If we confine ourselves to positively ascertained
facts, the total amount of change in the forms of animal
and vegetable life, since the existence of such forms is re-
corded, is small. When compared with the lapse of time
since the first appearance of these forms, the amount
of change is wonderfully small. Moreover, in each great
group of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, there are
certain forms which I termed PERSISTENT TYPES, which
have remained, with but very little apparent change
from their first appearance to the present time.
6. In answer to the question "What, then, does an
impartial survey of the positively ascertained truths of
palaeontology testify in relation to the common doctrines
of progressive modification, which suppose that modifi-
cation to have taken place, by a necessary progress from
more to less embryonic forms, from more to less gene-
ralized types, within the limits of the period represented
by the fossiliferous rocks ? " I reply, " It negatives these
doctrines ; for it either shows us no evidence of such
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 183
modification, or demonstrates such modification as has
occurred to have been very slight ; and, as to the nature
of that modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever
that the earlier members of any long-continued group
were more generalized in structure than the later ones/'
I think that 1 cannot employ my last opportunity of
addressing you, officially, more properly I may say
more dutifully than in revising these old judgments
with such help as further knowledge and reflection, and
an extreme desire to get at the truth, may afford me.
1. With respect to the first proposition, I may remark
that whatever may be the case among the physical
geologists, catastrophic palaeontologists are practically
extinct. It is now no part of recognized geological
doctrine that the species of one formation all died out
and were replaced by a brand-new set in the next forma-
tion. On the contrary, it is generally, if not universally,
agreed that the succession of life has been the result of
a slow and gradual replacement of species by species ;
and that all appearances of abruptness of change are due
to breaks in the series of deposits, or other changes in
physical conditions. The continuity of living forms has
been unbroken from the earliest times to the present day.
2, 3. The use of the word "homotaxis" instead of
"synchronism" has not, so far as I know, found much
favour in the eyes of geologists. I hope, therefore, that
it is a love for scientific caution, and not mere personal
affection for a bantling of my own, which leads me still
to think that the change of phrase is of importance, and
that the sooner it is made, the sooner shall we get rid of
a number of pitfalls which beset the reasoner upon the
facts and theories of geology.
One of the latest pieces of foreign intelligence which
has reached us is the information that the Austrian
geologists have, at last, succumbed to the weighty
184 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
evidence which M. Barrande has accumulated, and have
admitted the doctrine of colonies. But the admission
of the doctrine of colonies implies the further ad-
mission that even identity of organic remains is no
proof of the synchronism of the deposits which con-
tain them.
4. The discussions touching the Eozoon, which com-
menced in 1864, have abundantly justified the fourth
proposition, In 1862, the oldest record of life was in
the Cambrian rocks ; but if the Eozoon be, as Principal
Dawson and Dr. Carpenter have shown so much reason
for believing, the remains of a living being, the discovery
of its true nature carried life back to a period which, as
Sir William Logan has observed, is as remote from that
during which the Cambrian rocks were deposited, as the
Cambrian epoch itself is from the tertiaries. In other
words, the ascertained duration of life upon the globe
was nearly doubled at a stroke.
5. The significance of persistent types, and of the
small amount of change which has taken place even in
those forms which can be shown to have .been modified,
becomes greater and greater in my eyes, the longer I
occupy myself with the biology of the past.
Consider how long a time has elapsed since the Miocene
epoch. Yet, at that time, there is reason to believe that
every important group in every order of the Mammalia
was represented. Even the comparatively scanty Eocene
fauna yields examples of the orders Cheiroptera, Insec-
tivora, Rodentia, and Perissodactyla ; of Artiodactyla
under both .the Euminant and the Porcine modifications;
of Carnivora, Cetacea, and Marsupialia.
Or, if we go back to the older half of the Mesozoic
epoch, how truly surprising it is to find every order of
the Reptilia, except the Ophidia, represented; while
some groups, such as the Ornithoscelida and the Ptero-
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 185
sauria, more specialized than any which now exist,
abounded.
There is one division of the Amphibia which offers
especially important evidence upon this point, inasmuch
as it bridges over the gap between the Mesozoic and the"
Palaeozoic formations (often supposed to be of such pro-
digious magnitude), extending, as it does, from the bottom
of the Carboniferous series to the top of the Trias, if not
into the Lias. I refer to the Labyrinth odonts. As the
address of 1862 was passing through the press, I was
able to mention, in a note, the discovery of a large
Labyrinthodont, with well-ossified vertebrae, in the Edin-
burgh coal-field. Since that time eight or ten distinct
genera of Labyrinthodonts have been discovered in the
Carboniferous rocks of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
not to mention the American forms described by Principal
Dawson and Professor Cope. So that, at the present
time, the Labyrinthodont Fauna of the Carboniferous
rocks is more extensive and diversified than that of the
Trias, while its chief types, so far as osteology enables us
to judge, are quite as highly organized. Thus it is certain
that a comparatively highly organized vertebrate type,
such as that of the Labyrinthodonts, is capable of per-
sisting, with no considerable change, through the period
represented by the vast deposits which constitute the
Carboniferous, the Permian, and the Triassic formations.
The very remarkable results which have been brought
to light by the sounding and dredging operations, which
have been carried on with such remarkable success by
the expeditions sent out by our own, the American, and
the Swedish Governments, under the supervision of able
naturalists, have a bearing in the same direction. These
investigations have demonstrated the existence, at great
depths in the ocean, of living animals in some cases
identical with, in others very similar to, those which are
186 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
found fossilized in the white chalk. The Globigerince,
Cyatholiths, Coccospheres, Discoliths in the one are abso-
lutely identical with those in the other ; there are iden-
tical, or closely analogous, species of Sponges, Echino-
derms, and Brachiopods. Off the coast of Portugal,
there now lives a species of Beryx, which, doubtless,
leaves its bones and scales here and there in the
Atlantic ooze, as its predecessor left its spoils in the
mud of the sea of the Cretaceous epoch.
Many years ago 1 I ventured to speak of the Atlantic
mud as " modern chalk," and I know of no fact incon-
sistent with tile view which Professor Wyville Thomson
has advocated, that the modern chalk is not only the
lineal descendant of the ancient chalk, but that it remains,
so to spea,k, in the possession of the ancestral estate ;
and that from the Cretaceous period (if not much earlier)
to the present day, the deep sea has covered a large part
of what is now the area of the Atlantic. But if Globi-
gerina, and Terebratula caput-serpentis and Beryx, not
to mention other forms of animals and of plants, thus
bridge over the interval between the present and the
Mesozoic periods, is it possible that the majority of other
living things underwent a " sea-change into something
new and strange " all at once ?
6. Thus far I have endeavoured to expand and to
enforce by fresh arguments, but not to modify in any
important respect, the ideas submitted to you on a
former occasion. But when I come to the propositions
touching progressive modification, it appears to me, with
the help of the new light which has broken from various
quarters, that there is much ground for softening the
somewhat Brutus-like severity with which, in 1862, I
dealt with a doctrine, for the truth of which I should
1 See an article in the Saturday Review, for 1858, on " Chalk, Ancient and
Modern."
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 187
have been glad enough to be able to find a good foun-
dation. So far, indeed, as the Invertebrata and the
lower Vertebrata are concerned, the facts and the con-
clusions which are to be drawn from them appear to me
to remain what they were. For anything that, as yetj
appears to the contrary, the earliest known Marsupials
may have been as highly organized as their living con-
geners ; the Permian lizards show no signs of inferiority
to those of the present day ; the Labyrinthodonts can -
not be placed below the living Salamander and Triton ;
the Devonian Ganoids are closely related to Polypterus
and to Lepidosiren.
But when we turn to the higher Vertebrata, the results
of recent investigations, however we may sift and criticise
them, seem to me to leave a clear balance in favour of
the doctrine of the evolution of living forms one from
another. Nevertheless, in discussing this question, it is
very necessary to discriminate carefully between the dif-
ferent kinds of evidence from fossil remains which are
brought forward in favour of evolution.
Every fossil which takes an intermediate place between
forms of life already known, may be said, so far as it is
intermediate, to be evidence in favour of evolution, inas-
much as it shows a possible road by which evolution
may have taken place. But the mere discovery of such
a form does not, in itself, prove that evolution took place
by and through it, nor does it constitute more than
presumptive evidence in favour of evolution in general.
Suppose A, B, C to be three forms, while B is inter-
mediate in structure between A and C. Then the doctrine
of evolution offers four possible alternatives. A may
have become C by way of B ; or C may have become A
by way of B ; or A and C may be independent modifi-
cations of B ; or A, B, and C may be independent modifi-
cations of some unknown D. Take the case of the Pigs,
188 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
the Anoplotheridce, and the Ruminants. The Anoplo-
iheridw are intermediate between the first and the last ;
but this does not tell us whether the Ruminants have
come from the Pigs, or the Pigs from Ruminants, or both
from Andploiheridce, or whether Pigs, Ruminants, and
Anoplotlieridce alike may not have diverged from
some common stock.
But if it can be shown that A, B, and C exhibit suc-
cessive stages in the degree of modification, or speciali-
zation, of the same type ; and if, further, it can be proved
that they occur in successively newer deposits, A being
in the oldest and C in the newest, then the intermediate
character of B has quite another importance, and I should
accept it, without hesitation, as a link in the genealogy
of C. I should consider the burden of proof to be
thrown upon anyone who denied C to have been derived
from A by way of B, or in some closely analogous fashion ;
for it is always probable that one may not hit upon the
exact line of filiation, and, in dealing with fossils, may
mistake uncles and nephews for fathers and sons.
I think it necessary to distinguish between the former
and the latter classes of intermediate forms, as intercalary
types and linear- types. When I apply the former term,
I merely mean to say that as a matter of fact, the form
B, so named, is intermediate between the others, in the
sense in which the Anoplotherium is intermediate between
the Pigs and the Ruminants without either affirming,
or denying, any direct genetic relation between the three
forms involved. When I apply the latter term, on the
other hand, I mean to express the opinion that the forms
A, B, and C constitute a line of descent, and that B is
thus part of the lineage of C.
From the time when Cuvier's wonderful researches
upon the extinct Mammals of the Paris gypsum first made
intercalary types known, and caused them to be recognized
ix.] PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 189
as such, the number of such forms has steadily increased
among the higher Mammalia. Not only do we now
know numerous intercalary forms of Ungulata, but M.
Gaudry's great monograph upon the fossils of Pikermi
(which strikes me as one of the most perfect pieces o
palaeontological work I have seen for a long time) shows
us, among the Primates, Mesopithecus as an intercalary
form between the Semnopitheci and the Macaci ; and
among the Carnivora, Hycenictis and Ictitherium as
intercalary, or, perhaps, linear types between the Viver-
ridce and the Hycenidcs.
Hardly any order of the higher Mammalia stands so
apparently separate and isolated from the rest as that
of the Cetacea ; though a careful consideration of the
structure of the pinnipede Carnivora, or Seals, shows,
in them, many an approximation towards the still more
completely marine mammals. The extinct Zeuglodon,
however, presents us with an intercalary form between
the type of the Seals and that of the Whales. The
skull of this great Eocene sea-monster, in fact, shows
by the narrow and prolonged interorbital region; the
extensive union of the parietal bones in a sagittal suture;
the well-developed nasal bones ; the distinct and large
incisors implanted in premaxillary bones, which take a
full share in bounding the fore part of the gape ; the
two-fanged molar teeth with triangular and serrated
crowns, not exceeding five on each side in "each jaw;
and the existence of a deciduous dentition its close
relation with the Seals. While, on the other hand, the
produced rostral form of the snout, the long symphysis,
and the low coronary process of the mandible are ap-
proximations to the cetacean form of those parts.
The scapula resembles that of the cetacean Hyperoodon,
but the supra-spinous fossa is larger and more seal-like ;
as is the humerus, which differs from that of the Cetacea
190 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
in presenting true articular surfaces for the free jointing
of the bones of the fore-arm. In the apparently com-
plete absence of hinder limbs, and in the characters of
the vertebral column, the Zeuglodon lies on the cetacean
side of the boundary line ; so that, upon the whole, the
Zeuglodonts, transitional as they are, are conveniently
retained in the cetacean order. And the publication, in
1864, of M. Van Beneden's memoir on the Miocene and
Pliocene Squalodon, furnished much better means than
anatomists previously possessed of fitting in another
link of the chain which connects the existing Cetacea
with Zeuglodon. The teeth are much more numerous,
although the molars exhibit the zeuglodont double fang ;
the nasal bones are very short, and the upper surface of
the rostrum presents the groove, filled up during life by
the prolongation of the ethmoidal cartilage, which is so
characteristic of the majority of the Cetacea.
It appears to me that, just as among the existing
Carnivora, the walruses and the eared seals are inter-
calary forms between the fissipede Carnivora and the
ordinary seals, so the Zeuglodonts are intercalary between
the Carnivora, as a whole, and the Cetacea. Whether
the Zeuglodonts are also linear types in their relation to
these two groups cannot be ascertained, until we have
more definite knowledge than we possess at present,
respecting the relations in time of the Carnivora and
Cetacea.
Thus far we have been concerned with the intercalary
types which occupy the intervals between Families or
Orders of the same class ; but the investigations which,
have been carried on by Professor Gegenbaur, Professor
Cope, and myself into the structure and relations of the
extinct reptilian forms of the Ornithoscelida (or Dino-
sauria and Compsognatha) have brought to light the
existence of intercalary forms between what have hitherto
ix.] PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 191
been always regarded as very distinct classes of the
vertebrate sub-kingdom, namely ReptiUa and Aves.
Whatever inferences may, or may not, be drawn from
the fact, it is now an established truth that, in many
of these OmitkosceKdd, the hind limbs and the pelvis
are much more similar to those of Birds than they are
to those of Eeptiles, and that these Bird-reptiles, or
Kep tile-birds, were more or less completely bipedal.
When I addressed you in 1862, I should have been
bold indeed had I suggested that palaeontology would
before long show us the possibility of a direct transition
from the type of the lizard to that of the ostrich. At
the present moment we have, in the Ornithoscelida, the
intercalary type, which proves that transition to be
something more than a possibility ; but it is very doubt-
ful whether any of the genera of Ornithoscelida with
which we are at present acquainted are the actual linear
types by which the transition from the lizard to the bird
was effected. These, very probably, are still hidden from
us in the older formations.
Let us now endeavour to find some cases of true
linear types, or forms which are intermediate between
others because they stand in a direct genetic relation to
them. It is no easy matter to find clear and unmis-
takable evidence of filiation among fossil animals; for,
in order that such evidence should be quite satisfactory,
it is necessary that we should be acquainted with all
the most important features of the organization of the
animals which are supposed to be thus related, and not
merely with the fragments upon which the genera and
species of the palaeontologist are so often based. M.
Gaudry has arranged the species of Hywnidce, Probos-
cidea, Rhino cerotidce, and Equidce in their order of
filiation from their earliest appearance in the Miocene
epoch to the present time, and Professor Etitimeyer has
192 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
drawn up similar schemes for the Oxen and other
Ungulata with what, I am disposed to think, is a fair
and probable approximation to the order of nature. But,
as no one is better aware than these two learned, acute,
and philosophical biologists, all such arrangements must
be regarded as provisional, except in those cases in
which, by a fortunate accident, large series of remains
are obtainable from a thick and wide-spread series of
deposits. It is easy to accumulate probabilities hard
to make out some particular case in such a way that it
will stand rigorous criticism.
After much search, however, I think that such a
case is to be made out in favour of the pedigree of
the Horses.
The genus Equus is represented as far back as the
latter part of the Miocene epoch ; but in deposits
belonging to the middle of that epoch its place is
taken by two other genera, Hipparion and Anchi-
therium ; x and, in the lowest Miocene and upper Eocene,
only the last genus occurs. A species of Anchitherium
was referred by Cuvier to the PalceotJieria under the
name of P. aurelianense. The grinding-teeth are in fact
very similar in shape and in pattern, arid in the absence
of any thick layer of cement, to those of some species
of Palceotherium, especially Cuvier's Palceotherium minus,
which has been formed into a separate genus, Plagio-
lophus, by Pomel. But in the fact that there are only
six full-sized grinders in the lower jaw, the first premolar
being very small ; that the anterior grinders are as large
1 Hermann von Meyer gave the name of AncliUherium to A. Ezguerrte; and
in his paper on the subject he takes great pains to distinguish the latter as the
type of a new genus, from Cuvier's Palceotherlum d' Orleans. But it is precisely
the Palceotheriwn d' Orleans which is the type of Christol's genus Hippari-
therium ; and thus, though Hipparitherium is of later date than Anchitherium,
it seemed to me to have a sort of equitable right to recognition when this
address was written. On the whole, however, it seems most convenient to
adopt Anchitherium.
ix.] PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 193
as, or rather larger than, the posterior ones ; that the
second premolar has an anterior prolongation ; and that
the posterior molar of the lower jaw has, as Cuvier
pointed out, a posterior lobe of much smaller size and
different form, the dentition of Anchitherium departs
from the type of the Palceotherium, and approaches
that of the Horse.
Again, the skeleton % of Anchitherium is extremely
equine. M. Christol goes so far as to say that the
description of the bones of the horse, or the ass, current
in veterinary works, would fit those of Anchitherium.
And, in a general way, this may be true enough ; but
there are some most important differences, which, indeed,
are justly indicated by the same careful observer. Thus
the ulna is complete throughout, and its shaft is not a
mere rudiment, fused into one bone with the radius.
There are three toes, one large in the middle and one
small on each side. The femur is quite like that of a
horse, and has the characteristic fossa above the external
condyle. In the British Museum there is a most in-
structive specimen of the leg-bones, showing that the
fibula was represented by the external malleolus and by
a flat tongue of bone, which extends up from it on the
outer side of the tibia, and is closely ankylosed with the
latter bone. 1 The hind toes are three, like those of the
fore leg ; and the middle metatarsal bone is much less
compressed from side to side than that of the horse.
In the Hipparion the teeth nearly resemble those of
the Horses, though the crowns of the grinders are not
so long ; like those of the Horses, they are abundantly
coated with cement. The shaft of the ulna is reduced
1 I am indebted to M. Gervais for a specimen which indicates that the fibula
was complete, at any rate, in some cases ; and for a very interesting ramus of a
mandible, which shows that, as in the Paltfotheria, the hindermost milk-molar
of the lower jaw was devoid of the posterior lobe which exists in the hindermost
true molar.
H
194 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
to a mere style ankylosed throughout nearly its whole
length with the radius, and appearing to be little more
than a ridge on the surface of the latter bone until it is
carefully examined. The front toes are still three, but
the outer ones are more slender than in Anchitherium,
and their hoofs smaller in proportion to that of the
middle toe ; they are, in fact, reduced to mere dew-
claws, and do not touch the ground. In the leg, the
distal end of the fibula is so completely united with the
tibia that it appears to be a mere process of the latter
bone, as in the Horses.
In Equus, finally, the crowns of the grinding-teeth
become longer, and their patterns are slightly modified ;
the middle of the shaft of the ulna usually vanishes, and
its proximal and distal ends ankylose with the radius.
The phalanges of the two outer toes in each foot dis-
appear, their metacarpal and metatarsal bones being left
as the " splints."
The Hipparion has large depressions on the face in
front of the orbits, like those for the " larmiers " of many
ruminants ; but traces of these are to be seen in some
of the fossil horses from the Sewalik Hills ; and, as
. Leidy's recent researches show, they are preserved in
Anchitherium.
When we consider these facts, and the further circum-
stance that the Hipparions, the remains of which have
been collected in immense numbers, were subject, as
M. Gaudry and others have pointed out, to a great
range of variation, it appears to me impossible to resist
the conclusion that the types of the Anchitherium, of
the Hipparion, and of the ancient Horses constitute the
lineage of the modern Horses, the Hipparion being the
intermediate stage between the other two, and answer-
ing to B in my former illustration.
The process by which the Anchitherium has been con-
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 195
verted into Equus is one of specialization, or of more and
more complete deviation from what might be called the
average form of an ungulate mammal. In the Horses,
the reduction of some parts of the limbs, together with
the special modification of those which are left, is carried
to a greater extent than in any other hoofed mammals.
The reduction is less and the specialization is less in
the Hipparion, and still less in the Anchitherium ; but
yet, as compared with other mammals, the reduction
and specialization of parts in the Anchitherium remain
great.
Is it not probable then, that, just as in the Miocene
epoch, we find an ancestral equine form less modified
than Equus, so, if we go back to the Eocene epoch, we
shall find some quadruped related to the Anchitherium,
as Hipparion is related to Equus, and consequently
departing less from the average form \
I think that this desideratum is very nearly, if not
quite, supplied by Plagiolophus, remains of which occur
abundantly in some parts of the Upper and Middle
Eocene formations. The patterns of the grinding-teeth
of Plagiolophus are similar to those of Anchitherium, and
their crowns are as thinly covered with cement ; but the
grinders diminish in size forwards, and the last lower
molar has a large hind lobe, convex outwards and concave
inwards, as in Palceotherium. The ulna is complete and
much larger than in any of the Equidce, while it is more
slender than in most of the true Palceotlieria ; it is
fixedly united, but not arikylosed, with the radius.
There are three toes in the fore limb, the outer ones
being slender, but less attenuated than in the Equidce.
The femur is more like that of the Palceotheria than that
of the horse, and has only a small depression above its
outer condyle in the place of the great fossa which is so
obvious in the Equidce. The fibula is distinct, but very
O 2
19G CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
slender, and its distal end is ankylosed with the tibia.
There are three toes on the hind foot having similar pro-
portions to those on the fore foot. The principal meta-
carpal and metatarsal bones are flatter than they are in
any of the Equidce ; and the metacarpal bones are longer
than the metatarsals, as in the Palceotlieria.
In its general form, Plagiolophus resembles a very
small and slender horse, 1 and is totally unlike the
reluctant, pig-like creature depicted in Cuvier's resto-
ration of his Palceotlierium minus in the " Ossemens
Fossiles."
It would be hazardous to say that Plagioloplius is the
exact radical form of the Equine quadrupeds ; but I do
not think there can be any reasonable doubt that the
latter animals have resulted from the modification of
some quadruped similar to Plagiolophus.
We have thus arrived at the Middle Eocene formation,
and yet have traced back the Horses only to a three-toed
stock ; but these three- toed forms, no less than the Equine
quadrupeds themselves, present rudiments of the two
other toes which appertain to what I have termed the
" average" quadruped. If the expectation raised by the
splints of the Horses that, in some ancestor of the Horses,
these splints would be found to be complete digits, has
been verified, we are furnished with very strong reasons
for looking for a no less complete verification of the
expectation that the three-toed Plagiolophus-like "avus"
of the horse must have had a five-toed " atavus " at some
earlier period.
No such five-toed " atavus," however, has yet made its
appearance among the few middle and older Eocene
Mammalia which are known.
1 Such, at least, is the conclusion suggested by the proportions of the skeleton
figured by Cuvier and De Blainville ; but perhaps something between a Horse
and an Agouti would be nearest the mark.
ix.]' PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 197
Another series of closely affiliated forms, though the
evidence they afford is perhaps less complete than that
of the Equine series, is presented to us by the Dicho-
bune of the Eocene epoch, the Cainotherium of the
Miocene, and the Tragulida, or so-called " Musk-deer,"
of the present day.
The Tragulidce have no incisors in the upper jaw, and
only six grinding-teeth on each side of each jaw ; while
the canine is moved up to the outer incisor, and there is
a diastema, in the lower jaw. There are four complete
toes on the hind foot, but the middle metatarsals usually
become, sooner or later, ankylosed into a cannon bone.
The navicular and the cuboid unite, and the distal end
of the fibula is ankylosed with the tibia.
In Cainotherium and Dichobune the upper incisors are
fully developed. There are seven grinders ; the teeth
form a continuous series without a diastema. The meta-
tarsals, the navicular and cuboid, and the distal end of
the fibula, remain free. In the Cainotherium, also, the
second metacarpal is developed, but is much shorter than
the third, while the fifth is absent or rudimentary. In
this respect it resembles Anoplotherium secundarium.
This circumstance, and the peculiar pattern of the upper
molars in Cainotherium, lead me to hesitate in considering
it as the actual ancestor of the modern Tragulidce. If
Dichobune has a four-toed fore foot (though I am inclined
to suspect that it resembles Cainotherium) , it will be a
better representative of the oldest forms of the Traguline
series; but Dichobune occurs in the Middle Eocene,
and is, in fact, the oldest known artiodactyle mammal.
Where, then, must we look for its five-toed ancestor ?
If we follow down other lines of recent and tertiary
Ungulata, the same question presents itself. The Pigs
are traceable back through the Miocene epoch to the
Upper Eocene, where they appear in the two well-marked
198 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [rx.
forms of Hyopotamus and Chceropotamus ; but Hyo-
potamus appears to have had only two toes.
Again, all the great groups of the Kuminants, the
Bovidce, Antilopidce, Camelopardalidce, and Cervidce,
are represented in the Miocene epoch, and so are the
Camels. The Upper Eocene Anoplotherium, which is in-
tercalary between the Pigs and the Tragulidce, has only
two or, at most, three toes. Among the scanty mammals
of the Lower Eocene formation we have the perisso-
dactyle Ungulata represented by Coryphodon, Hyra-
cotherium, and Pliolophus. Suppose for a moment, for
the sake of following out the argument, that Pliolophus
represents the primary stock of the Perissodactyles, and
Dichobune that of the Artiodactyles (though I am far
from saying that such is the case), then we find, in the
earliest fauna of the Eocene epoch to which our investiga-
tions carry us, the two divisions of the Ungulata com-
pletely differentiated, and no trace of any common stock
of both, or of five-toed predecessors to either. With the
case of the Horses before us, justifying a belief in the
production of new animal forms by modification of old
ones, I see no escape from the necessity of seeking for
these ancestors of the Ungulata beyond the limits of the
Tertiary formations.
I could as soon admit special creation, at once, as
suppose that the Perissodactyles and Artiodactyles had
no five-toed ancestors. And when we consider how large
a portion of the Tertiary period elapsed before Anchi-
therium was converted into Equus, it is difficult to escape
the conclusion that a large proportion of time anterior to
the Tertiary period must have been expended in convert-
ing the common stock of the Ungulata into Perisso-
dactyles and Artiodactyles.
The same moral is inculcated by the study of every
other order of Tertiary monodelphous Mammalia. Each
ix.] PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 199
of these orders is represented in the Miocene epoch :
the Eocene formation, as I have already said, contains
Cheiroptera, Insectivora, Rodentia,Ungulata, Carnivora,
and Cetacea. But the Cheiroptera are extreme modifica-
tions of the Insectivora, just as the Cetacea are extreme
modifications of the Carnivorous type ; and therefore it
is to my mind incredible that monodelphous Insecti-
vora and Carnivora should not have been abundantly
developed, along with Ungulata, in the Mesozoic epoch.
But if this be the case, how much further back must
we go to find the common stock of the monodelphous
Mammalia ? As to the Didelphia, if we may trust the
evidence which seems to be afforded by their very scanty
remains, a Hypsiprymnoid form existed at the epoch of
the Trias, contemporaneously with a Carnivorous form. At
the epoch of the Trias, therefore, the Marsupialia must
have already existed long enough to have become differ-
entiated into carnivorous and herbivorous forms. But
the Monotremata are lower forms than the Didelphia,
which last are intercalary between the Ornithodelphia
and the Monodelphia. To what point of the Palaeozoic
epoch, then, must we, upon any rational estimate, rele-
gate the origin of the Monotremata ?
The investigation of the occurrence of the classes
and of the orders of the Sauropsida in time points in
exactly the same direction. If, as there is great reason
to believe, true Birds existed in the Triassic epoch, the
ornithoscelidous forms by which Reptiles passed into
Birds must have preceded them. In fact there is, even
at present, considerable ground for suspecting the exist-
ence of Dinosauria in the Permian formations ; but, in
that case, lizards must be of still earlier date. And if
the very small differences which are observable between
the Crocodilia of the older Mesozoic formations and
those of the present day furnish any sprt of approxi-
200 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
mation towards an estimate of the average rate of change
among the Sauropsida, it is almost appalling to reflect
how far back in Palaeozoic times we must go, before we
can hope to arrive at that common stock from which
the Crocodilia, Lacertilia, Ornithoscelida, and Plesio-
sauria, which had attained so great a development in
the Triassic epoch, must have been derived.
The Amphibia and Pisces tell the same story. There
is not a single class of vertebrated animals which, when
it first appears, is represented by analogues of the lowest
known members of the same class. Therefore, if there is
any truth in the doctrine of evolution, every class must
be vastly older than the first record of its appearance
upon the surface of the globe. But if considerations of
this kind compel us to place the origin of vertebrated
animals at a period sufficiently distant from the Upper
Silurian, in which the first Elasmobranchs and Ganoids
occur, to allow of the evolution of such fishes as these
from a Vertebrate as simple as the Amphioxus, I can
only repeat that it is appalling to speculate upon the
extent to which that origin must have preceded the
epoch of the first recorded appearance of vertebrate life.
Such is the further commentary which I have to offer
upon the statement of the chief results of palaeontology
which I formerly ventured to lay before you.
But the growth of knowledge in the interval makes
me conscious of an omission of considerable moment in
that statement, inasmuch as it contains no reference to
the bearings of palaeontology upon the theory of the
distribution of life ; nor takes note of the remarkable
manner in which the facts of distribution, in present
and past times, accord with the doctrine of evolution,
especially in regard to land animals.
That connection between palaeontology and geology
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 201
and the present distribution of terrestrial animals, which
so strikingly impressed Mr. Darwin, thirty years ago, as
to lead him to speak of a " law of succession of types/'
and of the wonderful relationship on the same continent
between the dead and the living, has recently received^
much elucidation from the researches of Gaudry, of
Riitimeyer, of Leidy, and of Alphonse Milne-Edwards,
taken in connection with the earlier labours of our
lamented colleague Falconer ; and it has been instruc-
tively discussed in the thoughtful and ingenious work of
Mr. Andrew Murray " On the Geographical Distribution
of Mammals." l
I propose to lay before you, as briefly as I can, the
ideas to which a long consideration of the subject has
given rise in my own mind.
If the doctrine of evolution is sound, one of its imme-
diate consequences clearly is, that the present distribu-
tion of life upon the globe is the product of two factors,
the one being the distribution which obtained in the
immediately preceding epoch, and the other the character
and the extent of the changes which have taken place in
physical geography between the one epoch and the other ;
or, to put the matter in another way, the Fauna and Flora
of any given area, in any given epoch, can consist only
of such forms of life as are directly descended from those
which constituted the Fauna and Flora of the same area
in the immediately preceding epoch, unless the physical
geography (under which I include climatal conditions)
of the area has been so altered as to give rise to immi-
gration of living forms from some other area.
1 The paper "On the Form and Distribution of the Land-tracts during the
Secondary and Tertiary Periods respectively ; and on the Effect upon Animal
Life which great Changes in Geographical Configuration have probably pro-
duced," by Mr. Searles V. Wood, jun., which was published in the Philoso-
phical Magazine, in 1862, was unknown to me when this Address was written.
It is well worthy of the most careful study.
202 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
The evolutionist, therefore, is bound to grapple with
the following problem whenever it is clearly put before
him : Here are the Faunae of the same area during
successive epochs. Show good cause for believing
either that these Faunae have been derived from one
another by gradual modification, or that the Faunae
have reached the area in question by migration from
some area in which they have undergone their deve-
lopment.
I propose to attempt to deal with this problem, so far
as it is exemplified by the distribution of the terrestrial
Vertebrata, and I shall endeavour to show you that it is
capable of solution in a sense entirely favourable to the
doctrine of evolution.
I have elsewhere 1 stated at length the reasons which
lead me to recognize four primary distributional provinces
for the terrestrial Vertebrata in the present world, namely,
first, the Novozelanian, or New-Zealand province ;
secondly, the Australian province, including Australia,
Tasmania, and the Negrito Islands ; thirdly, Austro-
Columbia, or South America plus North America as far
as Mexico ; and fourthly, the rest of the world, or Arc-
tog ceo,, in which province America north of Mexico con-
stitutes one sub-province, Africa south of the .Sahara a
second, Hindostan a third, and the remainder of the Old
World a fourth.
Now the truth which Mr. Darwin perceived and pro-
mulgated as "the law of the succession of types" is,
that, in all these provinces, the animals found in Plio-
cene or later deposits are closely affined to those which
now inhabit the same provinces ; and that, conversely,
the forms characteristic of other provinces are absent.
North and South America, perhaps, present one or
1 " On the Classification and Distribution of the Alectoromorphse ; " Proceed-
ings of the Zoological Society, 1868.
ix.] PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 203
two exceptions to the last rule, but they are readily
susceptible of explanation. Thus, in Australia, the
later Tertiary mammals are marsupials (possibly with
exception of the Dog and ,a Eodent or two, as at
present). In Austro-Columbia the later Tertiary fauna"
exhibits numerous and varied forms of Platyrrhine Apes,
Eodents, Cats, Dogs, Stags, Edentata, and Opossums ;
but, as at present, no Catarrhine Apes, no Lemurs, no
Insectivora, Oxen, Antelopes, Ehinoceroses, nor Didel-
phia other than Opossums. And in the wide-spread
Arctogseal province, the Pliocene and ]ater mammals
belong to the same groups as those which now exist in
the province. The law of succession of types, therefore,
holds' good for the present epoch as compared with its
predecessor. Does it equally well apply to the Pliocene
fauna when we compare it with that of the Miocene
tpoch ? By great good fortune, an extensive mammalian
fauna of the latter epoch has now become known, in four
very distant portions of the Arctogseal province which
do not differ greatly in latitude. Thus Falconer and
Cautley have made known the fauna of the sub-Hima-
layas and the Perim Islands ; Gaudry that of Attica ;
many observers that of Central Europe and France ;
and Leidy that of Nebraska, on the eastern flank of
the Eocky Mountains. The results are very striking.
The total Miocene fauna comprises many genera and
species of Catarrhine Apes, of Bats, of Insectivora ; of
Arctogseal types of Rodentia; of Proboscidea; of equine,
rhinocerotic, and tapirine quadrupeds ; of cameline,
bovine, antilopine, cervine, and traguline Euminants ; of
Pigs and Hippopotamuses ; of Viverridce and Hycenidce
among other Carnivora ; with Edentata allied to the
Arctogseal Orycteropus and Manis, and not to the
Austro-Columbian Edentates. The only type present
in the Miocene, but absent in the existing, fauna of
204 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
Eastern Arctogsea, is that of the Didelphida, which,
however, remains in North America.
But it is very remarkable that while the Miocene fauna
of the Arctogaeal province, as a whole, is of the same
character as the existing fauna of the same province,
as a whole, the component elements of the fauna were
differently associated. In the Miocene epoch, North
America possessed Elephants, Horses, Khinoceroses,
and a great number and variety of Euminants and
Pigs, which are absent in the present indigenous
fauna ; Europe had its Apes ? Elephants, Khinoceroses,
Tapirs, Musk : deer, Giraffes, Hysenas, great Cats, Eden-
tates, and Opossum-like Marsupials, which have equally
vanished from its present fauna ; and in Northern India,
the African types of Hippopotamuses, Giraffes, and Ele-
phants were mixed up with what are now the Asiatic
types of the latter, and with Camels, and Semnopithe-
cine and Pithecine Apes of no less distinctly Asiatic
forms.
In fact the Miocene mammalian fauna of Europe and
the Himalayan regions contains, associated together, the
types which are at present separately located in the
South- African and Indian sub-provinces of Arctogsea,
Now there is every reason to believe, on other grounds,
that both Hindostan, south of the Ganges, and Africa,
south of the Sahara, were separated by a wide sea from
Europe and North Asia during the Middle and Upper
Eocene epochs. Hence it becomes highly probable that
the well-known similarities, and no less remarkable dif-
ferences, between the present Faunae of India and South
Africa have arisen in some such fashion as the following.
Some time during the Miocene epoch, possibly when the
Himalayan chain was elevated, the bottom of the num-
mulitic sea was upheaved and converted into dry land,
in the direction of a line extending from Abyssinia to
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 205
the mouth of the Ganges. By this means, the Dekhan
on the one hand, and South Africa on the other, became
connected with the Miocene dry land and with one
another. The Miocene mammals spread gradually over
this intermediate dry land ; and if the condition of its^
eastern and western ends offered as wide contrasts as
the valleys of the Ganges and Arabia do now, many
forms which made their way into Africa must have
been different from those which reached the Dekhan,
while others might pass into both these sub-provinces.
That there was a continuity of dry land between
Europe and North America during the Miocene epoch,
appears to me to be a necessary consequence of the fact
that many genera of terrestrial mammals, such as Castor,
Hystrix, Elephas, Mastodon, Equus, Hipparion, Anchi-
therium, Rhinoceros, Cervus, Amphicyon, Hycenarctos,
and Machairodus, are common to the Miocene forma-
tions of the two areas, and have as yet been found
(except perhaps Anchitherium) in no deposit of earlier
age. Whether this connection took place by the east,
or by the west, or by both sides of the Old World,
there is at present no certain evidence, and the question
is immaterial to the present argument ; but, as there are
good grounds for the belief that the Australian province
and the Indian and South-African sub-provinces were
separated by sea from the rest of Arctogoea before the
Miocene epoch, so it has been rendered no less probable,
by the investigations of Mr. Carrick Moore and Pro-
fessor Duncan, that Austro-Columbia was separated by
sea from North America during a large part of the
Miocene epoch.
It is unfortunate that we have no knowledge of the
Miocene mammalian fauna of the Australian and Austro-
Columbian provinces ; but, seeing that not a trace of a
Platyrrhine Ape, of a Procyonirie Carnivore, of a charac-
206 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
teristically South -American Rodent, of a Sloth, an Arma-
dillo, or an Ant-eater has yet been found in Miocene
deposits of Arctogeea, I cannot doubt that they already
existed in the Miocene Austro-Columbian province.
Nor is it less probable that the characteristic types of
Australian Mammalia were already developed in that
region in Miocene times.
But Austro-Columbia presents difficulties from which
Australia is free ; Camelidce and Tapiridce are now
indigenous in South America as they are in Aretogsea ;
and, among the Pliocene Austro-Columbian mammals,
the Austro-Columbian genera Equus, Mastodon, and
Machairodus are numbered. Are these Postmiocene
immigrants, or Praemiocene natives ?
Still more perplexing are the strange and interesting
forms Toxodon, Macrauchenia, Typotherium, and a
new Anoplotherioid mammal (Homalodotherium) which
Dr. Cunningham sent over to me some time ago from
Patagonia, t confess I am strongly inclined to surmise
that these last, at any rate, are remnants of the popula-
tion of Austro-Columbia before the Miocene epoch, and
were not derived from Arctogaaa by way of the north
and east.
The fact that this immense fauna of Miocene Arctogaea
is now fully and richly represented only in India and in
South Africa, while it is shrunk and depauperized in
North Asia, Europe, and North America, becomes at once
intelligible, if we suppose that India and South Africa
had but a scanty mammalian population before the
Miocene immigration, while the conditions were highly
favourable to the new comers. It is to be supposed that
these new regions offered themselves to the Miocene
Ungulates, as South America and Australia offered them-
selves to the cattle, sheep, and horses of modern colonists.
But, after these great areas were thus peopled, came the
ix.] PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 207
Glacial epoch, during which the excessive cold, to say
nothing of depression and ice-covering, must have almost
depopulated all the northern parts of Arctogsea, destroy-
ing all the higher mammalian forms, except those which,
like the Elephant and Ehinoceros, could adjust theiiL
coats to the altered conditions. Even these must have
been driven away from the greater part of the area ; only
those Miocene mammals which had passed into Hin-
dostan and into South Africa would escape decimation
by such changes in the physical geography of Arctogaaa.
And when the northern hemisphere passed into its
present condition, these lost tribes of the Miocene Fauna
were hemmed by the Himalayas, the Sahara, the Eed Sea,
and the Arabian deserts, within their present boundaries.
Now, on the hypothesis of evolution, there is no sort
of difficulty in admitting that the differences between the
Miocene forms of the mammalian Fauna and those which
exist at present are the results of gradual modification ;
and, since such differences in distribution as obtain are
readily explained by the changes which have taken place
in the physical geography of the world since the Miocene
epoch, it is clear that the result of the comparison of the
Miocene and present Faunae is distinctly in favour of
evolution. Indeed I may go further. I may say that
the hypothesis of evolution explains the facts of Miocene,
Pliocene, and Eecent distribution, and that no other
supposition even pretends to account for them. It is,
indeed, a conceivable supposition that every species of
Rhinoceros and every species of Hyaena, in the long
succession of forms between the Miocene and the present
species, was separately constructed out of dust, or out
of nothing, by supernatural power ; but until I receive
distinct evidence of the fact, I refuse to run the risk of
insulting any sane man by supposing that he seriously
holds such a notion.
208 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
Let us now take a step further back in time, and
inquire into the relations between the Miocene Fauna
and its predecessor of the Upper Eocene formation.
Here it is to be regretted that our materials for forming
a judgment are nothing to be compared in point of extent
or variety with those which are yielded by the Miocene
strata. However, what we do know of this Upper Eocene
Fauna of Europe gives sufficient positive information to
enable us to draw some tolerably safe inferences. It has
yielded representatives of Insectivora, of Cheiroptera,
of Rodentia, of Carnivora, of artiodactyle and perisso-
dactyle Ungulata, and of opossum-like Marsupials. No
Australian type of Marsupial has been discovered in the
Upper Eocene strata, nor any Edentate mammal. The
genera (except perhaps in the case of some of the Insecti-
vora, Cheiroptera, and Rodentia] are different from those
of the Miocene epoch, but present a remarkable general
similarity to the Miocene and recent genera. In several
cases, as I have already shown, it has now been clearly
made out that the relation between the Eocene and
Miocene forms is such that the Eocene form is the less
specialized ; while its Miocene ally is more so, and the
specialization reaches its maximum in the recent forms
of the same type.
So far as the Upper Eocene and the Miocene Mamma-
lian Faunae are comparable, their relations are such as in
no way to oppose the hypothesis that the older are the
progenitors of the more recent forms, while, in some
cases, they distinctly favour that hypothesis. The period
in time and the changes in physical geography repre-
sented by the nummulitic deposits are undoubtedly very
great, while the remains of Middle Eocene and Older
Eocene Mammals are comparatively few. The general
facies of the Middle Eocene Fauna, however, is quite
that of the Upper. The Older Eocene pre-nummulitit
XL] PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 209
mammalian Fauna contains Bats, two genera of Garni-
vora, three genera of Ungulata (probably all perisso-
dactyle), and a didelphid Marsupial ; all these forms,
except perhaps the Bat and the Opossum, belong to
genera which are not known to occur out of the Lower
Eocene formation. The Coryphodon appears to have
been allied to the Miocene and later Tapirs, while Pliolo-
phits, in its skull and dentition, curiously partakes of
both artiodactyle arid perissodactyle characters ; the
third trochanter upon its femur, and its three-toed hind
foot, hoVever, appear definitely to fix its position in the
latter division.
There is nothing, then, in what is known of the older
Eocene mammals of the Arctogseal province to forbid
the supposition that they stood in an ancestral relation
to those of the Calcaire Grossier and the Gypsum of
the Paris basin, and that our present fauna, therefore,
is directly derived from that which already existed in
Arctogaea at the commencement of the Tertiary period.
But if we now cross the frontier between the Caino-
zoic and the Mesozoic faunae, as they are preserved
within the Arctogseal area, we meet with an astound-
ing change, and what appears to be a complete and
unmistakable break in the" line of biological continuity.
Among the twelve or fourteen species of Mammalia
which are said to have been found in the Purbecks, not
one is a member of the orders Cheiroptera, Rodentia,
Ungulata, or Carnivora, which are so well represented
in the Tertiaries. No Insectivora are certainly known,
nor any opossum-like Marsupials. Thus there is a vast
negative difference between the Cainozoic and the Meso-
zoic mammalian faunae of Europe. But there is a still
more important positive difference, inasmuch as all these
Mammalia appear to be Marsupials belonging to Aus-
tralian groups, and thus appertaining to a different
H p
210 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
distributional province from the Eocene and Miocene
marsupials, which are Austro- Columbian. So far as the
imperfect materials which exist enable a judgment to be
formed, the same law appears to have held good for all
the earlier Mesozoic Mammalia. Of the Stonesfield
slate mammals, one, Amphitlierium, has a definitely
Australian character; one, Phascolotherium, may be
either Dasyurid or Didelphine ; of a third, Stereognathus,
nothing can at present be said. The two mammals of
the Trias, also, appear to belong to Australian groups.
Every one is aware of the many curious points of
resemblance between the marine fauna of the European
Mesozoic rocks and that which now exists in Australia.
But if there was this Australian facies about both the
terrestrial and the marine faunae of Mesozoic Europe,
and if there is this unaccountable and immense break
between the fauna of Mesozoic and that of Tertiary
Europe, is it not a very obvious suggestion that, in the
Mesozoic epoch, the Australian province included Europe,
and that the Arctogaeal province was contained within
other limits ? The Arctogseal province is at present
enormous, while the Australian is relatively small. Why
should not these proportions have been different during
the Mesozoic epoch 1
Thus I am led to think that by far the simplest and
most rational mode of accounting for the great change
which took place in the living inhabitants of the European
area at the end of the Mesozoic epoch, is the supposition
that it arose from a vast alteration of the physical
geography of the globe ; whereby an area long tenanted
by Cainozoic forms was brought into such relations with
the European area that migration from the one to the
other became possible, and took place on a great scale.
This supposition relieves us, at once, from the difficulty
in which we were left, some time ago, by the arguments
ix.j PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 211
which I used to demonstrate the necessity of the existence
of all the great types of the Eocene epoch in some ante-
cedent period.
It is this Mesozoic continent (which may well have
lain in the neighbourhood of what are now the shores of
the North Pacific Ocean) which I suppose to have been
occupied by the Mesozoic Monodelphia ; and it is in this
region that I conceive they must have gone through the
long series of changes by which they were specialized
into the forms which we refer to different orders. I
think it very probable that what is now South America
may have received the characteristic elements of its
mammalian fauna during the Mesozoic epoch ; and there
can be little doubt that the general nature of the change
which took place at the end of the Mesozoic epoch in
Europe was the upheaval of the eastern and northern
regions of the Mesozoic sea-bottom into a westward
extension of the Mesozoic continent, over which the
mammalian fauna, by which it was already peopled,
gradually spread. This invasion -of the land was prefaced
by a previous invasion of the Cretaceous sea by modern
forms of mollusca and fish.
It is easy to imagine how an analogous change might
come about in the existing world. There is, at present,
a great difference between the fauna of the Polynesian
Islands and that of the west coast of America. The
animals which are leaving their spoils in the deposits
now forming in these localities are widely different.
Hence, if a gradual shifting of the deep sea, which at
present bars migration between the easternmost of these
islands and America, took place to the westward, while
the American side of the sea-bottom was gradually
upheaved, the palaeontologist of the future would find,
over the Pacific area, exactly such a change as I am
supposing to have occurred in the North-Atlantic area
P 2
212 CRITJQUm AND AI>1>RKWE8. [tx.
at the close of the Mesozoic period. An Australian
fauna would be found underlying an American fauna,
and the transition from the one to the other would be as
abrupt as that between the Chalk and lower Tertiaries ;
and as the drainage-area of the newly formed extension
of the American continent gave rise to rivers and lakes,
the mammals mired in their mud would differ from those
of like deposits on the Australian side, just as the Eocene
mammals differ from those of the Purbecks,
How do similar reasonings apply to the other great
change of life that which took place at the end of the
Palaeozoic period ?
In the Triassic epoch, the distribution of the dry land
and of terrestrial vertebrate life appears to have been,
generally, similar to that which existed in the Mesozoic
epoch ; so that the Triassic continents and their faunae
seem to be related to the Mesozoic lands and their faunae,
just as those of the Miocene epoch are related to those of
the present day. In fact, as I have recently endeavoured
to prove to the Society, there was an Arctogaeal continent
and an Arctogaeal province of distribution in Triassic
times as there is now ; and the Sauropsida and Marsu-
pialia which constituted that fauna were, I doubt not,
the progenitors of the Sauropsida and Marsupialia of
the whole Mesozoic epoch.
Looking at the present terrestrial fauna of Australia,
it appears to me to be very probable that it is essentially
a remnant of the fauna of the Triassic, or even of an
earlier, age ; ' in which case Australia must at that
time have been in continuity with the Arctogaeal
continent.
But now comes the further inquiry, Where was the
1 Since this Address was read, Mr. Krefft has sent us news of the discovery
in Australia of a freshwater fish of strangely Palaeozoic aspect, and apparently
a Ganoid intermediate between Dipterus and Lepidosiren.
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 2K3
highly differentiated Sauropsidan fauna of the Trias in
Palaeozoic times ? The supposition that the Dinosaurian,
Crocodilian, Dicynodontian, and Plesiosaurian types
were suddenly created at the end of the Permian epoch
may be dismissed, without further consideration, as a
monstrous and unwarranted assumption. The supposi-
tion that all these types were rapidly differentiated out
of Lacertilia, in the time represented by the passage
from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic formation, appears
to me to be hardly more credible, to say nothing of the
indications of the existence of Dinosaurian forms in the
Permian rocks which have already been obtained.
For my part, I entertain no sort of doubt that the
Eeptiles, Birds, and Mammals of the Trias are the
direct descendants of Eeptiles, Birds, and Mammals
which existed in the latter part of the Palaeozoic epoch,
but not in any area of the present dry land which has
yet been explored by the geologist.
This may seem a bold assumption, but it will not
appear unwarrantable to those who reflect upon the very
small extent of the earth's surface which has hitherto
exhibited the remains of the great Mammalian fauna of
the Eocene times. In this respect, the Permian land
Vertebrate fauna appears to me to be related to the
Triassic much as the Eocene is to the Miocene. Terres-
trial reptiles have been found in Permian rocks only in
three localities ; in some spots of France, and recently
of England, and over a more extensive area in Germany.
Who can suppose that the few fossils yet found in these
regions give any sufficient representation of the Permian
fauna ?
It may be said that the Carboniferous formations
demonstrate the existence of a vast extent of dry
land in the present dry-land area, and that the sup-
posed terrestrial Palaeozoic Vertebrate Fauna ought to
214 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [ix.
have left its remains in the Coal-measures, especially as
there is now reason to believe that much of the coal was
formed by the accumulation of spores and sporangia on
dry land. But if we consider the matter more closely,
I think that this apparent objection loses its force. It is
clear that, during the Carboniferous epoch, the vast area
of land which is now covered by Coal-measures must
have been undergoing a gradual depression. The dry
land thus depressed must, therefore, have existed, as
such, before the Carboniferous epoch in other words,
in Devonian times and its terrestrial population may
never have been other than such as existed during the
Devonian, or some previous epoch, although much higher
forms may have been developed elsewhere.
Again, let me say that I am making no gratuitous
assumption of inconceivable changes. It is clear that
the enormous area of Polynesia is, on the whole, an area
over which depression has taken place to an immense
extent ; consequently a great continent, or assemblage
of subcontinental masses of land, must have existed at
some former time, and that at a recent period, geologically
speaking, in the area of the Pacific. But if that con-
tinent had contained Mammals, some of them must have
remained to tell the tale ; and as it is well known that
these islands have no indigenous Mammalia, it is safe
to assume that none existed. Thus, midway between
Australia and South America, each of which possesses an
abundant and diversified mammalian fauna, a mass of
land, which may have been as large as both put together,
must have existed without a mammalian inhabitant.
Suppose that the shores of this great land were fringed,
as those of tropical Australia are now, with belts of
mangroves, which would extend landwards on the one
side, and be buried beneath littoral deposits on the other
side, as depression went on ; and great beds of mangrove
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 215
lignite might accumulate over the sinking land. Let
upheaval of the whole now take place, in such a manner
as to bring the emerging land into continuity with the
South-American or Australian continent, and, in course
of time, it would be peopled by an extension of the
fauna of one of these two regions just as I imagine
the European Permian dry land to have been peopled
I see nothing whatever against the supposition that
distributional provinces of terrestrial life existed in the
Devonian epoch, inasmuch as M. Barrande has proved
that they existed much earlier. I am aware of no reason
for doubting that, as regards the grades of terrestrial
life contained in them, one of these may have been
related to another as New Zealand is to Australia, or as
Australia is to India, at the present day. Analogy seems
to me to be rather in favour of, than against, the sup-
position that while only Ganoid fishes inhabited the fresh
waters of our Devonian land, Amphibia and Reptilia,
or even higher forms, may have existed, though we have
not yet found them. The earliest Carboniferous Amphi-
bia now known, such as Anthracosaurus, are so highly
specialized that I can by no means conceive that they
have been developed out of piscine forms in the interval
between the Devonian and the Carboniferous periods,
considerable as that is. And I take refuge in one of
two alternatives : either they existed in our own area
during the Devonian epoch and we have simply not yet
found them ; or they formed part of the population of
some other distributional province of that day, and only
entered our area by migration at the end of the Devonian
epoch. Whether Reptilia and Mammalia existed along
with them is to me, at present, a perfectly open question,
which is just as likety to receive an affirmative as a
negative answer from future inquirers.
Let me now gather together the threads of my argu-
210 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. ( ix.
mentation into the form of a connected hypothetical
view of the manner in which the distribution of living
and extinct animals has been brought about.
I conceive that distinct provinces of the distribution
of terrestrial life have existed since the earliest period at
which that life is recorded, and possibly much earlier ;
and I suppose, with Mr. Darwin, that the progress of
modification of terrestrial forms is more rapid in areas
of elevation than in areas of depression. I take it to be
certain that Labyrinthodont Amphibia existed in the
distributional province which included the dry land
depressed during the Carboniferous epoch ; and I con-
ceive that, in some other distributional provinces of that
day, which remained in the condition of stationary or of
increasing dry land, the various types of the terrestrial
Sauropsida and of the Mammalia were gradually
developing.
The Permian epoch marks the commencement of a
new movement of upheaval in our area, which attained
its maximum in the Triassic epoch, when dry land existed
in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, as it does
now. Into this great new continental area the Mammals,
Birds, and Eeptiles developed during the Palaeozoic epoch
spread, and formed the great Triassic Arctogseal province.
But, at the end of the Triassic period, the movement of
depression recommenced in our area, though it was
doubtless balanced by elevation elsewhere ; modification
and development, checked in the one province, went on
in that " elsewhere ; " and the chief forms of Mammals,
Birds, and Eeptiles, as we know them, were evolved and
peopled the Mesozoic continent. I conceive Australia to
have become separated from the continent as early as the
end of the Triassic epoch, or not much later. The Meso-
zoic continent must, I conceive, have lain to the east,
about the shores of the North Pacific and Indian Oceans
ix.] PALAEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 217
and I am inclined to believe that it continued along the
eastern side of the Pacific area to what is now the province
of Austro-Columbia, the characteristic fauna of which is
probably a remnant of the population of the latter part
of this period.
Towards the latter part of the Mesozoic period the
movement of upheaval around the shores of the Atlantic
once more recommenced, and was very probably accom-
panied by a depression around those of the Pacific. The
Vertebrate fauna elaborated in the Mesozoic continent
moved westward and took possession of the new lands,
which gradually increased in extent up to, and in some
directions after, the Miocene epoch.
It is in favour of this hypothesis, I think, that it is
consistent with the persistence of a general uniformity
in the positions of the great ' masses of land and water.
From the Devonian period, or earlier, to the present day,
the four great oceans, Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Ant-
arctic, may have occupied their present positions, and
only their coasts and channels of communication have
undergone an incessant alteration. And, finally, the
hypothesis I have put before you requires no supposition
that the rate of change in organic life has been either
greater or less in ancient times than it is now ; nor any
assumption, either physical or biological, which has not
its justification in analogous phenomena of existing
nature.
I have now only to discharge the last duty of my
office, which is to thank you, not only for the patient
attention with which you have listened to me so long to-
day, but also for the uniform kindness with which, for
the past two years, you have rendered my endeavours
to perform the important, and often laborious, functions
of your President a pleasure instead of a burden.
X.
BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS.
(THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR
THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE FOR 1870.)
IT has long been the custom for the newly installed
President of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science to take advantage of the elevation of
the position in which the suffrages of his colleagues had,
for the time, placed him, and, casting his eyes around
the horizon of the scientific world, to report to them
what could be seen from his watch-tower; in what
directions the multitudinous divisions of the noble army
of the improvers of natural knowledge were marching ;
what important strongholds of the great enemy of us all,
ignorance, had been recently captured ; and, also, with
due impartiality, to mark where the advanced posts of
science had been driven in, or a long-continued siege had
made no progress.
I propose to endeavour to follow this ancient precedent,
in a manner suited to the limitations of my knowledge
and of my capacity. I shall not presume to attempt a
panoramic survey of the world of science, nor even to
give a sketch of what is doing in the one great province
of biology, with some portions of which my ordinary
occupations render me familiar. But I shall endeavour
to put before you the history of the rise and progress of
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 219
a single biological doctrine ; and I shall try to give some
notion of the fruits, both intellectual and practical, which
we owe, directly or indirectly, to the working out, by
seven generations of patient and laborious investigators,
of the thought which arose, more than two centuries
ago, in the mind of a sagacious and observant Italian
naturalist.
It is a matter of every-day experience that it is
difficult to prevent many articles of food from becoming
covered with mould ; that fruit, sound enough to all
appearance, often contains grubs at the core ; that meat,
left to itself in the air, is apt to putrefy and swarm with
maggots. Even ordinary water, if allowed to stand in
an open vessel, sooner or later becomes turbid and full
of living matter.
The philosophers of antiquity, interrogated as to the
cause of these phenomena, were provided with a ready
and a plausible answer. It did not enter their minds
even to doubt that these low forms of life were generated
in the matters in which they made their appearance.
Lucretius, who had drunk deeper of the scientific spirit
than any poet of ancient or modern times except Goethe,
intends to speak as a philosopher, rather than as a poet,
when he writes that "with good reason the earth has
gotten the name of mother, since all things are produced
out of the earth. And many living creatures, even now,
spring out of the earth, taking form by the rains and the
heat of the sun." 1 The axiom of ancient science, "that
1 It is thus that Mr. Munro renders
" Linquitur, ut merito maternum nomen adepta
Terra sit, e terra quo-mam sunt cuncta creata.
Multaque mine etiam exsistant animalia terris
Imbribus et calido solis concreta vapore."
De Rerun Natura, lib. v. 793796.
But would not the meaning of the last line be better rendered "Developed
in rain-water and in the warm vapours raised by the sun"?
220 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
the corruption of one thing is the birth of another," had
its popular embodiment in the notion that a seed dies
before the young plant springs from it ; a belief so wide-
spread and so fixed, that Saint Paul appeals to it in one
of the most splendid outbursts of his fervid eloquence :
" Thou fool, that which thou so west is not quickened,
except it die." 1
The proposition that life may, and does, proceed from
that which has no life, then, was held alike by the
philosophers, the poets, and the people, of the most
enlightened nations, eighteen hundred years ago ; and it
remained the accepted doctrine of learned and unlearned
Europe, through the Middle Ages, down even to the
seventeenth century.
It is commonly counted among the many merits of our
great countryman, Harvey, that he was the first to declare
the opposition of fact to venerable authority in this, as
in other matters ; but I can discover no justification for
this wide- spread notion. After careful search through
the " Exercitationes de G-eneratione," the most that
appears clear to me is, that Harvey believed all animals
and plants to spring from what he terms a "primordium
vegetate'' a phrase which may nowadays be rendered " a
vegetative germ ; " and this, he says, is " oviforme" or
"egg-like ;" not, he is careful to add, that it necessarily has
the shape of an egg, but because it has the constitution
and nature of one. That this " primordium oviforme "
must needs, in all cases, proceed from a living parent is
nowhere expressly maintained by Harvey, though such
an opinion may be thought to be implied in one or two
passages ; while, on the other hand, he does, more than
once, use language which is consistent only with a full
belief in spontaneous or equivocal generation. 2 In fact,
1 1 Corinthians xv. 36.
" See the following passage in Excrcitatio I.: "Item xfiout-c net seen I it t
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENE8I8. 221
the main concern of Harvey's wonderful little treatise is
not with generation, in the physiological sense, at all, but
with development ; and his great object is the establish-
ment of the doctrine of epigenesis.
The first distinct enunciation of the hypothesis that all
living matter has sprung from pre-existing living matter,
came from a contemporary, though a junior, of Harvey,
a native of that country, fertile in men great in all
departments of human activity, which was to intellectual
Europe, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, what
Germany is in the nineteenth. It was in Italy, and from
Italian teachers, that Harvey received the most important
part of his scientific education. And it was a student
trained in the same schools, Francesco Kedi a man of
the widest knowledge and most versatile abilities,
distinguished alike as scholar, poet, physician, and
naturalist who, just two hundred and two years ago,
published his " Esperienze intorno alia Generazione degl'
Insetti/' and gave to the world the idea, the growth of
which it is my purpose to trace. Redi's book went
through five editions in twenty years ; and the extreme
simplicity of his experiments, and the clearness of his
arguments, gained for his views, and for their con-
sequences, almost universal acceptance.
Redi did not trouble himself much with speculative
considerations, but attacked particular cases of what was
supposed to be " spontaneous generation " experimentally.
Here are dead animals, or pieces of meat, says he ; I
dicuutur ; non quod ex putredine oriunda sint, sed quod casu, naturae sponte,
et sequivoca (ut aiunt) generatione, a parentibus sui dissimilibus proveniant."
Again, in " De Uteri Membranis : " " In cunctorum viventium generatione
(sicut diximus) hoc soleune est, ut ortum ducunt a primordio aliquo, quod turn
niateriam turn efficiendi potestatem in se habet : sitque adeo id, ex quo et a quo
quicquid nascitur, ortum suum ducat. Tale primordium in animalibus (sive ab
aliis yenerantibus proveniant^ sive sponte, aut ex putredine nascentur} est humor
in tunica aliqua aut putami ne conclusus." Compare also what Redi has to say
respecting Harvey's opinions, " Esperienze," p. 11.
222 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
expose them to the air in hot weather, and in a few days
they swarm with maggots. You tell me that these are
generated in the dead flesh ; but if I put similar bodies,
while quite fresh, into a jar, and tie some fine gauze over
the top of the jar, not a maggot makes its appearance,
while the dead substances, nevertheless, putrefy just in
the same way as before. It is obvious, therefore, that the
maggots are not generated by the corruption of the meat ;
and that the cause of their formation must be a something
which is kept away by gauze. But gauze will not keep
away aeriform bodies, or fluids. This something must,
therefore, exist in the form of solid particles too big to
get through the gauze. Nor is one long left in doubt what
these solid particles are ; for the blow-flies, attracted by
the odour of the meat, swarm round the vessel, and, urged
by a powerful but in this case misleading instinct, lay eggs
out of which maggots are immediately hatched upon the
gauze. The conclusion, therefore, is unavoidable ; the
maggots are not generated by the meat, but the eggs which
give rise to them are brought through the air by the flies.
These experiments seem almost childishly simple, and
one wonders how it was that no one ever thought of
them before. Simple as they are, however, they are
worthy of the most careful study, for every piece of
experimental work since done, in regard to this subject,
has been shaped upon the model furnished by the Italian
philosopher. As the results of his experiments were the
same, however varied the nature of the materials he
used, it is not wonderful that there arose in Kedi's mind
a presumption, that, in all such cases of the seeming pro-
duction of life from dead matter, the real explanation
was the introduction of living germs from without into
that dead matter. 1 And thus the hypothesis that living
1 " Pure contentandomi sempre in questa ed in ciascuna altro cosa, da cias-
cuno piii savio, la dove io difettuosamente parlassi, esser corretto ; non tacero,
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 223
matter always arises by the agency of pre-existing living
matter, took definite shape ; and had, henceforward, a
right to be considered and a claim to be refuted, in each
particular case, before the production of living matter in
any other way could be admitted by careful reasoners.
It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so
frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the
hypothesis of Biogenesis ; and I shall term the contrary
doctrine that living matter may be produced by not
living matter the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.
In the seventeenth century, as I have said, the latter
was the dominant view, sanctioned alike by antiquity
and by authority ; and it is interesting to observe that
Kedi did not escape the customary tax upon a discoverer
of having to defend himself a.gainst the charge of
impugning the authority of the Scriptures ; 1 for his
che per molte osservazioni molti volti da me fatte, mi sento inclinato a credere
che la terra, da quelle prime piante, e da quei primi an imali in poi, che ella nei
primi giorni del mondo produsse per comandemento del sovrano ed omnipotente
Pattore, non abbia mai piii prodotto da se medesima ne erba ne albero, ne
animale alcuno perfetto o imperfetto die ei se fosse ; e die tufcto quello, che ne'
tempi trapassati e nato e che ora nascere in lei, o da lei veggiamo, venga tutto
dalla semenza reale e vera delle piante, e degli an imali stessi, i quali col
mezzo del proprio seme la loro spezie conservano. E se bene tutto giorno
scorghiamo da' cadaveri degli animali, e da tutte quante le maniere dell' erbe,
e de' fieri, e dei frutti imputriditi, e corrotti nascere vermi infiniti
4 Nonne vides qusecunque mora, fluidoque calore
Corpora tabescunt in parva animalia verti'
lo mi sento, dico, inclinato a credere che tutti quei vermi si generino dal seme
paterno ; e che le carni, e 1' erbe, e V altre cose tutte putrefatte, o putrefattibili
non facciano altra parte, ne abbiano altro ufizio nella generazione degl' insetti, se
non d'apprestare un luogo o un nido proporzionato, in cui dagli animali nel
tempo della figliatura sieno portati, e partoriti i vermi, o 1' uova o 1' altre se-
menze dei vermi, i quali tosto che nati sono, trovano in esso nido un suffi-
ciente alimento abilissimo per nutricarsi : e se in quello non son portate
dalle madri queste suddette semenze, niente mai, e replicatamente niente, vi
s'ingegneri e nasca." E.EDJ, Esperienze, pp. 14 16.
1 " Molti, e molti altri ancora vi potrei annoverare, se non fossi chiamato a
rispondere alle rarapogiie di alcuni, che bruscamente mi rammentano cib, che si
legge nel capitolo quattordicesimo del sacrosanto Libro de' giudici "
UEDI, loc. cit. p. 45.
224 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
adversaries declared that the generation of bees from the
carcase of a dead lion is affirmed, in the Book of Judges,
to have been the origin of the famous riddle with which
Samson perplexed the Philistines :
" Out of the eater came forth meat,
And out of the strong came forth sweetness."
Against all odds, however, Eedi, strong with the
strength of demonstrable fact, did splendid battle for
Biogenesis ; but it is remarkable that he held the doctrine
in a sense which, if he had lived in these times, would
have infallibly caused him to be classed among the
defenders of " spontaneous generation." " Omne vivum
ex vivo," " no life without antecedent life," aphoristically
sums up Kedi's doctrine ; but he went no further. It is
most remarkable evidence of the philosophic caution and
impartiality of his mind, that although he had specula-
tively anticipated the manner in which grubs really are
deposited in fruits and in the galls of plants, he delibe-
rately admits that the evidence is insufficient to bear him
out ; and he therefore prefers the supposition that they
are generated by a modification in the living substance of
the plants themselves. Indeed, he regards these vege-
table growths as organs, by means of which the plant
gives rise to an animal, and looks upon this production
of specific animals as the final cause of the galls and of
at any rate some fruits. And he proposes to explain the
occurrence of parasites within the animal body in the
same way. 1
1 The passage (" Esperienze," p. 129) is worth quoting in full:
'* Se dovessi palesarvi il mio sentimento crederei che i frutti, i legumi, gli
alberi e le foglie, in due maniere inverminassero. Una, perche venendo i bachi
per di fuora, e cercando P alimento, col rodere ci aprono la strada, ed arrivano
alia piu interna midolla de' frutti e de' legiii. L'altra maniera si e, che io per
me stimerei, che non fosse gran fatto disdicevole il credere, che quell' anima o
quella virtu, la quale genera i fiori ed i frutti nelle piante viventi, sia quella
stessa che generi ancora i bachi di esse piante. E chi sa forse, che molti frutti
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 225
It is of great importance to apprehend Kedi's position
rightly ; for the lines of thought he laid down for us are
those upon which naturalists have been working ever
since. Clearly, he held Biogenesis as against Abiogenesis ;
and I shall immediately proceed, in the first place, to
inquire how far subsequent investigation has borne him
out in so doing.
But Kedi also thought that there were two modes
of Biogenesis. By the one method, which is that of
common and ordinary occurrence, the living parent gives
rise to offspring which passes through the same cycle
of changes as itself like gives rise to like ; and this
has been termed Homogenesis. By the other mode, the
living parent was supposed to give rise to offspring
degli alberi non sieno prodotti, non per uu fine primario e principale, ma bensi
per mi uffizio secondario e servile, destinato alia generazione di que' vermi, ser-
vendo a loro in vece di matrice, in cni dimoriuo mi prefisso e determinato
tempo ; il quale arrivato escan fuora a godere il sole.
" lo m' imraagino, clie questo mio pensiero non vi parra totalmente un para-
dosso ; mentre farete riflessione a quelle tante sorte di galle, di gallozzole, di
coccole, di ricci, di calici, di cornetti e di lappole, che son produtte dalle queree,
dalle farnie, da' cerri, da' sugheri, da' lecci e da altri siinili alberi da gliianda ;
imperciocche in quelle gallozzole, e particolarmente nelle piu grosse, che si
chiamano coronati, ne' ricci capelluti, clie ciuffoli da' nostri contadiui son detti ;
nei ricci legnosi del cerro, ne' ricci stellati della quercia, nelle galluzze della
foglia del leccio si vede evidentissimamente, clie la prima e principale inlenzione
della natuva e formare dentro di quelle un animale volante ; vedendosi nel
centre della gallozzola un uovo, che col crescere e col maturarsi di essa galloz-
zola va crescendo e maturando anch' egli, e cresce altresi a suo tempo quel verme,
che nell' uovo si racchiude ; il qual verme, quando lu gallozzola e fiuita di matu-
rare e che e venuto il termine destinato al suo nascimento, diventa, di verme che
era, una mosca lo vi confesso ingenuamente, che prima d'aver fatte
queste mie esperienze intorno alia generazione degl' iusetti mi dava a credere, o
per dir meglio sospettaya, che forse la gallozzola nascesse, perch e arrivando la
mosca nel tempo della primavera, e facendo una piccolissima fessura ne' rami piil
teneri della quercia, in quella fessura nascondesse uno de suoi semi, il quale
fosse cagione che sbocciasse fuora la gallozzola ; e che mai non si vedessero galle
o gallozzole o ricci o cornetti o calici o coccole, se non in que' rami, ne' quali le
mosche avessero depositate le loro semenze; e mi dava ad intendere, che le
gallozzole fossero una malattia cagionata nelle querce dalle punture delle mosche,
in quella giusa stessa che dalle punture d'altri anhnaletti simiglievo'i veggiamo
crescere de' tumori ne' corpi degli animali."
H y
226 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
which passed through a totally different series of states
from those exhibited by the parent, and did not return
into the cycle of the parent ; this is what ought to be
called Heterogenesis, the offspring being altogether, and
permanently unlike the parent. The term Heterogenesis,
however, has unfortunately been used in a different
sense, and M. Milne-Edwards has therefore substituted
for it Xenogenesis, which means the generation of
something foreign. After discussing Redi's hypothesis
of universal Biogenesis, then, I shall go on to ask how
far the growth of science justifies his other hypothesis
of Xenogenesis.
The progress of the hypothesis of Biogenesis was
triumphant and unchecked for nearly a century. The
application of the microscope to anatomy in the hands of
Grew, Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam, Lyonnet, Vallisnieri,
Reaumur, and other illustrious investigators of nature of
that day, displayed such a complexity of organization in
the lowest and minutest forms, and everywhere revealed
such a prodigality of provision for their multiplication
by germs of one. sort or another, that the hypothesis
of Abiogenesis began to appear not only untrue, but
absurd ; and, in the middle of the eighteenth century,
when Needham and Buffon took up the question, it was
almost universally discredited. 1
But the skill of the microscope-makers of the eighteenth
century soon reached its limit. A microscope magnifying
400 diameters was a chef d'ceuvre of the opticians of that
1 Needham, writing in 1750, says :
" Les naturalistes modernes s'accordent unanimement a eHablir, comme une
verit^ certaine, quetoute plante vient de sasemence spe'cifique, tout animal d'un
ceuf on de quelque chose d'analogue pr^existant dans la plante, ou dans 1'animal
de meine espece qui 1'a produit." Nouvelles Observations, p. 169.
" Les naturalistes ontgeneralement cru que les animaux microscopiques etaient
engendre"s par des ceufs transportes dans Pair, ou de"pose"s dans des eaux dor-
mantes par des insectes volaus." Ibid. p. 176.
x.] BIOGENESIS AND A BIOGENESIS. 227
day ; and, at the same time, by no means trustworthy.
But a magnifying power of 400 diameters, even when
definition reaches the exquisite perfection of our modern
achromatic lenses, hardly suffices for the mere discern-
ment of the smallest forms of life. A speck, only ~-th
of an inch in diameter, has, at ten inches from the eye,
the same apparent size as an object roo^th of an inch in
diameter, when magnified 400 times ; but forms of living
matter abound, the diameter of which is not more than
of an inch. A filtered infusion of hay, allowed
to stand for two days, will swarm with living things,
among which, any which reaches the diameter of a human
red blood-corpuscle, or about g^th of an inch, is a giant.
It is only by bearing these facts in mind, that we can
deal fairly with the remarkable statements and specula-
tions put forward by BufFon and Needham in the middle
of the eighteenth century.
When a portion of any animal or vegetable body is
infused in water, it gradually softens and disintegrates ;
and, as it does so, the water is found to swarm with
minute active creatures, the so-called Infusorial Animal-
cules, none of which can be seen, except by the aid of
the microscope ; while a large proportion belong to the
category of smallest things of which I have spoken,
and which must have looked like mere dots and lines
under the ordinary microscopes of the eighteenth
century.
Led by various theoretical considerations which I
cannot now discuss, but which looked promising enough
in the lights of their time, Buff on and Needham doubted
the applicability of Kedi's hypothesis to the infusorial
animalcules, and Needham very properly endeavoured to
put the question to an experimental test. He said to
himself, If these infusorial animalcules come from germs,
their germs must exist either in the substance infused, or
Q 2
228 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
in the water with which the infusion is made, or in the
super] acent air. Now the vitality of all germs is de-
stroyed by heat. Therefore, if I boil the infusion, cork it
up carefully, cementing the cork over with mastic, and
then heat the whole vessel by heaping hot ashes over it,
I must needs kill whatever germs are present. Con-
sequently, if Kedi's hypothesis hold good, when the
infusion is taken away and allowed to cool, no animal-
cules ought to be developed in it ; whereas, if the ani-
malcules are not dependent on pre-existing germs, but
are generated from the infused substance, they ought,
by and by, to make their appearance. Needham found
that, under the circumstances in which he made his
experiments, animalcules always did arise in the
infusions, when a sufficient time had elapsed to allow
for their development.
In much of his work Needham was associated with
Buffon, and the results of their experiments fitted in
admirably with the great French naturalist's hypothesis
of " organic molecules," according to which, life is the
indefeasible property of certain indestructible molecules
of matter, which exist in all living things, and have
inherent activities by which they are distinguished from
not living matter. Each individual living organism is
formed by their temporary combination. They stand to
it in the relation of the particles of water to a cascade,
or a whirlpool ; or to a mould, into which the water is
poured. The form of the organism is thus determined by
the reaction between external conditions and the inherent
activities of the organic molecules of which it is com-
posed ; and, as the stoppage of a whirlpool destroys
nothing but a form, and leaves the molecules of the water,
with all their inherent activities intact, so what we call
the death and putrefaction of an animal, or of a plant, is
merely the breaking up of the form, or manner of asso-
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 229
elation, of its constituent organic molecules, which are
then set free as infusorial animalcules.
It will be perceived that this doctrine is by no means
identical with Abiogenesis, with which it is often con-
founded. On this hypothesis, a piece of beef, or a handful
of hay, is dead only in a limited sense. The beef is dead
ox, and the hay is dead grass ; but the <f organic mole-
cules " of the beef or the hay are not dead, but are ready
to manifest their vitality as soon as the bovine or herba-
ceous shrouds in which they are imprisoned are rent by
the macerating action of water. The hypothesis there-
fore must be classified under Xenogenesis, rather than
under Abiogenesis. Such as it was, I think it will
appear, to those who will be just enough to remember
that it was propounded before the birth of modern che-
mistry, and of the modern optical arts, to be a most
ingenious and suggestive speculation.
But the great tragedy of Science the slaying of a
beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact which is so con-
stantly being enacted under the eyes of philosophers, was
played, almost immediately, for the benefit of Buffon and
Needham.
Once more, an Italian, the Abbe Spallanzani, a worthy
successor and representative of Kedi in his acuteness, his
ingenuity, and his learning, subjected the experiments
and the conclusions of Needham to a searching criticism.
It might be true that Needham's experiments yielded
results such as he had described, but did they bear out
his arguments ? Was it not possible, in the first place,
he had not completely excluded the air by his corks
and mastic ? And was it not possible, in the second
place, that he had not sufficiently heated his infusions and
the superjacent air ? Spallanzani joined issue with the
English naturalist on both these pleas, and he showed
that if, in the first place, the glass vessels in which the
230 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
infusions were contained were hermetically sealed by fusing
their necks, and if, in the second place, they were ex-
posed to the temperature of boiling water for three-quarters
of an hour, 1 no animalcules ever made their appear-
ance within them. It must be admitted that the experi-
ments and arguments of Spallanzarii furnish a complete
and a crushing reply to those of Needham. But we all too
often forget that it is one thing to refute a proposition,
and another' to prove the truth of a doctrine which,
implicitly or explicitly, contradicts that proposition; and
the advance of science soon showed that though Needham
might be quite wrong, it did not follow that Spallanzani
was quite right.
Modern Chemistry, the birth of the latter half of the
eighteenth century, grew apace, and soon found herself
face to face with the great problems which biology had
vainly tried to attack without her help. The discovery
of oxygen led to the laying of the foundations of a sci-
entific theory of respiration, and to an examination of
the marvellous interactions of organic substances with
oxygen. The presence of free oxygen appeared to be one
of the conditions of the existence of life, and of those
singular changes in organic matters which are known as
fermentation and putrefaction. The question of the
generation of the infusory animalcules thus passed into a
new phase. For what might not have happened to the
organic matter of the infusions, or to the oxygen of the
air, in Spallanzani's experiments ? What security was
there that the development of life which ought to have
taken place had not been checked or prevented by these
changes ?
The battle had to be fought again. It was needful to
repeat the experiments under conditions which would
make sure that neither the oxygen of the air, nor the
1 See Spallanzani, " Opere," vi. pp. 42 and 51.
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 231
composition of the organic matter, was altered in such a
manner as to interfere with the existence of life.
Schulze and Schwann took up the question from this
point of view in 1836 and 1837. The passage of air
through red-hot glass tubes, or through strong sulphuric-
acid, does not alter the proportion of its oxygen, while it
must needs arrest, or destroy, any organic matter which
may be contained in the air. These experimenters, there-
fore, contrived arrangements by which the only air which
should come into contact with a boiled infusion should
be such as had either passed through red-hot tubes or
through strong sulphuric aoid. The result which they
obtained was that an infusion so treated developed no
living things, while, if the same infusion was afterwards
exposed to the air, such things appeared rapidly and
abundantly. The accuracy of these experiments has been
alternately denied and affirmed. Supposing them to be
accepted, however, all that they really proved was that
the treatment to which the air was subjected destroyed
something that was essential to the development of life
in the infusion. This " something " might be gaseous,
fluid, or solid ; that it consisted of germs remained only
an hypothesis of greater or less probability.
Contemporaneously with these investigations a remark-
able discovery was made by Cagniard de la Tour. He
found that common yeast is composed of a vast accumu-
lation of minute plants. The fermentation of must, or of
wort, in the fabrication of wine and of beer, is always
accompanied by the rapid growth and multiplication
of these Torulce. Thus, fermentation, in so far as it
was accompanied by the development of microscopical
organisms in enormous numbers, became assimilated to
the decomposition of an infusion of ordinary animal or
vegetable matter ; and it was an obvious suggestion that
the organisms were, in some way or other, the causes
232 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
both of fermentation and of putrefaction. The chemists,
with Berzelius and Liebig at their head, at first laughed
this idea to scorn ; but in 1843, a man then very young,
who has since performed the unexampled feat of attain-
ing to high eminence alike in Mathematics, Physics,
and Physiology I speak of the illustrious Helmholtz
reduced the matter to the test of experiment by a method
alike elegant and conclusive. Helmholtz separated a
putrefying or a fermenting liquid from one which was
simply putrescible or fermentable, by a membrane which
allowed the fluids to pass through and become inter-
mixed, but stopped the passage of solids. The result
was, that while the putrescible or the fermentable liquids
became impregnated with the results of the putrescence
or fermentation which was going on on the other side of
the membrane, they neither putrefied (in the ordinary
way) nor fermented ; nor were any of the organisms
which abounded in the fermenting or putrefying liquid
generated in them. Therefore the cause of the develop-
ment of these organisms must lie in something which
cannot pass through membranes ; and as Helmholtz's
investigations were long antecedent to Graham's re-
searches upon colloids, his natural conclusion was that
the agent thus intercepted must be a solid material. In
point of fact, Helmholtz's experiments narrowed the
issue to this : that which excites fermentation and putre-
faction, and at the same time gives rise to living forms
in a fermentable or putrescible fluid, is not a gas and is
not a diffusible fluid ; therefore it is either a colloid, or it
is matter divided into very minute solid particles.
The researches of Schroeder and Dusch in 1854, and
of Schroeder alone, in 1859, cleared up this point by
experiments which are simply refinements upon those of
Eedi. A lump of cotton-wool is, physically speaking, a
pile of many thicknesses of a very fine gauze, the fineness
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 233
of the meshes of which depends upon the closeness of
the compression of the wool. Now, Schroeder and Dusch
found, that, in the case of all the putrefiable materials
which they used (except milk and yolk of egg), an infusion
boiled, and then allowed to come into contact with no
air but such as had been filtered through cotton-wool,
neither putrefied, nor fermented, nor developed living
forms. It is hard to imagine what the fine sieve formed
by the cotton-wool could have stopped except minute
solid particles. Still the evidence was incomplete until
it had been positively shown, first, that ordinary air does
contain such particles ; and, secondly, that filtration
through cotton-wool arrests these particles and allows
only physically pure air to pass. This demonstration has
been furnished within the last year by the remarkable
experiments of Professor Tyndall. It has been a common
objection of Abiogenists that, if the doctrine of Biogeny
is true, the air must be thick with germs ; and they regard
this as the height of absurdity. But Nature occasionally
is exceedingly unreasonable, and Professor Tyndall has
proved that this particular absurdity may nevertheless
be a reality. He has demonstrated that ordinary air is
no better than a sort of stir-about of excessively minute
solid particles ; that these particles are almost wholly
destructible by heat ; and that they are strained off, and
the air rendered optically pure, by its being passed
through cotton-wool.
But it remains yet in the order of logic, though not
of history, to show that among these solid destructible
particles there really do exist germs capable of giving
rise to the development of living forms in suitable
menstrua. This piece of work was done by M. Pasteur
in those beautiful researches which will ever render his
name famous ; and which, in spite of all attacks upon
them, appear to me now, as they did seven years
234 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
ago, 1 to be models of accurate experimentation and logical
reasoning. He strained air through, cotton- wool, and
found, as Schroeder and Dusch had done, that it con-
tained nothing competent to give rise to the development
of life in fluids highly fitted for that purpose. But the
important further links in the chain of evidence added
by Pasteur are three. In the first place he subjected
to microscopic examination the cotton- wool which had
served as strainer, and found that sundry bodies clearly
recognizable as germs, were among the solid particles
strained off. Secondly, he proved that these germs
were competent to give rise to living forms by simply
sowing them in a solution fitted for their development.
And, thirdly, he showed that the incapacity of air
strained through cotton-wool to give rise to life, was
not due to any occult change effected in the constituents
of the air by the wool, by proving that the cotton-
wool might be dispensed with altogether, and perfectly
free access left between the exterior air and that in the
experimental flask. If the neck of the flask is drawn
out into a tube and bent downwards ; and if, after the
contained fluid has been carefully boiled, the tube is
heated sufficiently to destroy any germs which may be
present in the air which enters as the fluid cools, the
apparatus may be left to itself for any time and no life
will appear in the fluid. The reason is plain. Although
there is free communication between the atmosphere
laden with germs and the germless air in the flask,
contact between the two takes place only in the tube ;
and as the germs cannot fall upwards, and there are
no currents, they never reach the interior of the flask.
But if the tube be broken short off where it proceeds
from the flask, and free access be thus given to germs
i "Lectures to Working Men on the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic
Nature," 1363.
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 235
falling vertically out of the air, the fluid, which has
remained clear and desert for months, becomes, in a
few days, turbid and full of life.
These experiments have been repeated over and over
again by independent observers with entire success ; and
there is one very simple mode of seeing the facts for
oneself, which I may as well describe.
Prepare a solution (much used by M. Pasteur, and
often called " Pasteur's solution") composed of water
with tartrate of ammonia, sugar, and yeast-ash dissolved
therein. 1 Divide it into three portions in as many
flasks ; boil all three for a quarter of an hour ; and,
while the steam is passing out, stop the neck of one
with a large plug of cotton-wool, so that this also may
be thoroughly steamed. Now set the flasks aside to cool,
and, when their contents are cold, add to one of the
open ones a drop of filtered infusion of hay which has
stood for twenty-four hours, and is consequently full of
the active and excessively minute organisms known as
Bacteria. In a couple of days of ordinary warm weather
the contents of this flask will be milky from the enormous
multiplication of Bacteria. The other flask, open and
exposed to the air, will, sooner or later, become milky
with Bacteria, and patches of mould may appear in
it ; while the liquid in the flask, the neck of which
is plugged with cotton-wool, will remain clear for an
indefinite time. I have sought in vain for any ex-
planation of these facts, except the obvious one, that
the air contains germs competent to give rise to
Bacteria, such as those with which the first solution
has been knowingly and purposely inoculated, and to
the mould-Fungi. And I have not yet been able to
meet with any advocate of Abiogenesis who seriously
1 Infusion of hay treated in the same way yields similar results ; but as it
contains organic matter, the argument which follows cannot be based upon it.
236 CRITIQUES AND ADDBESSES. [x.
maintains tha't the atoms of sugar, tartrate of ammonia,
yeast-ash, and water, under no influence but that of free
access of air and the ordinary temperature, re-arrange
themselves and give rise to the protoplasm of Bacterium.
But the alternative is to admit that these Bacteria arise
from germs in the air ; and if they are thus propagated,
the burden of proof that other like forms are generated
in a different manner, must rest with the assertor of
that proposition.
To sum up the effect of this long chain of evidence :
It is demonstrable that a fluid eminently fit for the
development of the lowest forms of life, but which
contains neither germs, nor any protein compound,
gives rise to living things in great abundance if it is
exposed to ordinary air ; while no such development
takes place, if the air with which it is in contact is
mechanically freed from the solid particles which ordi-
narily float in it, and which may be made visible by
appropriate means.
It is demonstrable that the great majority of these
particles are destructible by heat, and that some of
them are germs, or living particles, capable of giving
rise to the same forms of life as those which appear
when the fluid is exposed to unpurified air.
It is demonstrable that inoculation of the experimental
fluid with a drop of liquid known to contain living
particles gives rise to the same phenomena as exposure
to unpurified air.
And it is further certain that these living particles are
so minute that the assumption of their suspension in
ordinary air presents not the slightest difficulty. On
the contrary, considering their lightness and the wide
diffusion of the organisms which produce them, it is
impossible to conceive that they should not be sus-
pended in the atmosphere in myriads.
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 237
Thus the evidence, direct and indirect, in favour of
Biogenesis for all known forms of life must, I think, be
admitted to be of great weight.
On the other side, the sole assertions worthy of atten-
tion are that hermetically sealed fluids, which have been
exposed to great and long-continued heat, have some-
times exhibited living forms of low organization when
they have been opened.
The first reply that suggests itself is the probability
that there must be some error about these experiments,
because they are performed on an enormous scale every
day with quite contrary results. Meat, fruits, vegetables,
the very materials of the most fermentable and putres-
cible infusions, are preserved to the extent, I suppose
I may say, of thousands of tons every year, by a method
which is a mere application of Spallanzani's experiment.
The matters to be preserved are well boiled in a tin case
provided with a small hole, and this hole is soldered up
when all the air in the case has been replaced by steam.
By this method they may be kept for years without
putrefying, fermenting, or getting mouldy. Now this
is not because oxygen is excluded, inasmuch as it is now
proved that free oxygen is not necessary for either fer-
mentation or putrefaction. It is not because the tins
are exhausted of air, for Vibriones and Bacteria live, as
Pasteur has shown, without air or free oxygen. It is not
because the boiled meats or vegetables are not putres-
cible or fermentable, as those who have had the misfor-
tune to be in a ship supplied with unskilfully closed tins
well know. What is it, therefore, but the exclusion of
germs ? I think that Abiogenists are bound to answer
this question before they ask us to consider new experi-
ments of precisely the same order.
And in the next place, if the results of the experi-
ments I refer to are really trustworthy, it by no means
238 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
follows that Abiogeriesis has taken place. The resistance
of living matter to heat is known to vary within con-
siderable limits, and to depend, to some extent, upon
the chemical and physical qualities of the surrounding
medium. But if, in the present state of science, the al-
ternative is offered us, either germs can stand a greater
heat than has been supposed, or the molecules of dead
matter, for no valid or intelligible reason that is assigned,
are able to re-arrange themselves into living bodies,
exactly such as can be demonstrated to be frequently
produced in another way, I cannot understand how
choice can be, even for a moment, doubtful.
But though I cannot express this conviction of mine
too strongly, I must carefully guard myself against the
supposition that I intend to suggest that no such thing
as Abiogenesis ever has taken place in the past, or ever
will take place in the future. With organic chemistry,
molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy,
and every day making prodigious strides, I think it
would be the height of presumption for any man to
say that the conditions under which matter assumes
( the properties we call "vital" may not, some day, be
artificially brought together. All I feel justified in
affirming is, that I see no reason for believing that
the feat has been performed yet.
And looking back through the prodigious vista of the
past, I find no record of the commencement of life, and
therefore I am devoid of any means of forming a definite
conclusion as to the conditions of its appearance. Belief,
in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter,
and needs strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the
admitted absence of evidence, that I have any belief as
to the mode in which the existing forms of life have
originated, would be using words in a wrong sense. But
O ' O O
expectation is permissible where belief is not ; and if it
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 239
were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically
recorded time to the still more remote period when the
earth was passing through physical and chemical con-
ditions, which it can no more see again than a man can
recall his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the
evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter.
I should expect to see it appear under forms of great
simplicity, endowed, Hke existing fungi, with the power
of determining the formation of new protoplasm from
such matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and
tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water,
without the aid of light. That is the expectation to
which analogical reasoning leads me ; but I beg you
once more to recollect that I have no right to call my
opinion anything but an act of philosophical faith.
So much for the history of the progress of Kedi's great
doctrine of Biogenesis, which appears to me, with the
limitations I have expressed, to be victorious along the
whole line at the present day.
As regards the second problem offered to us by Kedi,
whether Xenogenesis obtains, side by side with Homo-
genesis, whether, that is, there exist not only the
ordinary living things, giving rise to offspring which
run through the same cycle as themselves, but also
others, producing offspring which are of a totally dif-
ferent character from themselves, the researches of two
centuries have led to a different result. That the grubs
found in galls are no product of the plants on which the
galls grow, but are the result of the introduction of the
eggs of insects into the substance of these plants, was
made out by Vallisnieri, Eeaumur, and others, before the
end of the first half of the eighteenth century. The
tapeworms, bladderworms, and flukes continued to be
a stronghold of the advocates of Xenogenesis for a
much longer period. Indeed, it is only within the
240 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
last thirty years that the splendid patience of Yon
Siebold, Van Beneden, Leuckart, Kiichenmeister, and
other helminthologists, has succeeded in tracing every
such parasite, often through the strangest wanderings
and metamorphoses, to an egg derived from a parent,
actually or potentially like itself; and the tendency of
inquiries elsewhere has all been in the same direction.
A plant may throw off bulbs, but these, sooner or later,
give rise to seeds or spores, which develop into the
original form. A polype may give rise to Medusae, or
a pluteus to an Echinoderm, but the Medusa and the
Echinoderm give rise to eggs which produce polypes or
plutei, and they are therefore only stages in the cycle
of life of the species.
But if we turn to pathology, it offers us some remark-
able approximations to true Xenogenesis.
As I have already mentioned, it has been known since
the time of Vallisnieri and of .Reaumur, that galls in
plants, and tumours in cattle, are caused by insects,
which lay their eggs in those parts of the animal or
vegetable frame of which these morbid structures are
outgrowths. Again, it is a matter of familiar experience
to everybody that mere pressure on the skin will give
rise to a corn. Now the gall, the tumour, and the corn
are parts of the living body, which have become, to a
certain degree, independent and distinct organisms.
Under the influence of certain external conditions,
elements of the body, which should have developed in
due subordination to its general plan, set up for them-
selves and apply the nourishment which they receive to
their own purposes.
From such innocent productions as corns and \varts,
there are all gradations to the serious tumours which, by
their mere size and the mechanical obstruction they cause,
destroy the organism out of which they are developed ;
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 241
while, finally, in those terrible structures known as
cancers, the abnormal growth has acquired powers of
reproduction and multiplication, and is only morpho-
logically distinguishable from the parasitic worm, the^
life of which is neither more nor less closely bound up
with that of the infested organism.
If there were a kind of diseased structure, the histo-
logical elements of which were capable of maintaining a
separate and independent existence out of the body, it
seems to me that the shadowy boundary between morbid
growth and Xenogenesis would be effaced. And I am
inclined to think that the progress of discovery has almost
brought us to this point already. I have been favoured
by Mr. Simon with an early copy of the last published
of the valuable " Eeports on the Public Health," which,
in his capacity of their medical officer, he annually pre-
sents to the Lords of the Privy Council. The appendix
to this report contains an introductory essay " On the Inti-
mate Pathology of Contagion," by Dr. Burdon-Sanderson,
which is one of the clearest, most comprehensive, and
well-reasoned discussions of a great question which has
come under my notice for a long time. I refer you to
it for details and for the authorities for the statements
I am about to make.
You are familiar with what happens in vaccination.
A minute cut is made in the skin, and an infinitesimal
quantity of vaccine matter is inserted into the wound.
Within a certain time a vesicle appears in the place of
the wound, and the fluid which distends this vesicle is
vaccine matter, in quantity a hundred or a thousandfold
that which was originally inserted. Now what has
taken place in the course of this operation ? Has the
vaccine matter, by its irritative property, produced a
mere blister, the fluid of which has the same irritative
property ? Or does the vaccine matter contain living
H R
242 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
particles, which have grown and multiplied where they
have been planted ? The observations of M. Chauveau,
extended and confirmed by Dr. Sanderson himself, appear
to leave no doubt upon this head. Experiments, similar
in principle to those of Helmholtz on fermentation and
putrefaction, have proved that the active element in the
vaccine lymph is non-diffusible, and consists of minute
particles not exceeding 2 -oTTo f an i ncn i n diameter,
which are made visible in the lymph by the microscope.
Similar experiments have proved that two of the most
destructive of epizootic diseases, sheep-pox and glanders,
are also dependent for their existence and their propa-
gation upon extremely small living solid particles, to
which the title of microzymes is applied. An animal
suffering under either of these terrible diseases is a
source of infection and contagion to others, for precisely
the same reason, as a tub of fermenting beer is capable
of propagating its fermentation by " infection," or
" contagion," to fresh wort. In both cases it is the
solid living particles which are efficient ; the liquid
in which they float, and at the expense of which they
live, being altogether passive.
Now arises the question, are these microzymes the
results of Homogenesis, or of Xenogenesis ; are they
capable, like the Tor nice of yeast, of arising only by
the development of pre-existing germs ; or may they
be, like the constituents of a nut-gall, the results of a
modification and individualization of the tissues of the
body in which they are found, resulting from the opera-
tion of certain conditions ? Are they parasites in the
zoological sense, or are they merely what Virchow has
called " heterologous growths " ? It is obvious that this
question has the most profound importance, whether
we look at it from a practical or from a theoretical
point of view. A parasite may be stamped out by
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 243
destroying its germs, but a pathological product can
only be annihilated by removing the conditions which
give rise to it.
It appears to me that this great problem will have to
be solved for each zymotic disease separately, for analogy
cuts two ways. I have dwelt upon the analogy of patho-
logical modification, which is in favour of the xeno-
genetic origin of microzymes ; but I must now speak
of the equally strong analogies in favour of the origin
of such pestiferous particles by the ordinary process of
the generation of like from like.
It is, at present, a well-established fact that certain
diseases, both of plants and of animals, which have all
the characters of contagious and infectious epidemics,
are caused by minute organisms. The smut of wheat
is a well-known instance of such a disease, and it cannot
be doubted that the grape-disease and the potato-disease
fall under the same category. Among animals, insects
are wonderfully liable to the ravages of contagious and
infectious diseases caused by microscopic Fungi.
In autumn, it is not uncommon to see flies motionless
upon a window-pane, with a sort of magic circle, in
white, drawn round them. On microscopic examina-
tion, the magic circle is found to consist of innumerable
spores, which have been thrown off in all directions by a
minute fungus called Empysa muscce, the spore-forming
filaments of which stand out like a pile of velvet from
the body of the fly. These spore-forming filaments are
connected with others which fill the interior of the fly's
body like so much fine wool, having eaten away and
destroyed the creature's viscera. This is the full-grown
condition of the Empusa. If traced back to its earlier
stages, in flies which are still active, and to all appear-
ance healthy, it is found to exist in the form of minute
corpuscles which float in the blood of the fly. These
R 2
244 CRITIQUES, AND ADDRESSES. [x.
multiply and lengthen into filaments, at the expense of
the fly's substance ; and when they have at last killed
the patient, they grow out of its body and give off
spores. Healthy flies shut up with diseased ones catch
this mortal disease, and perish like the others. A most
competent observer, M. Cohn, who studied the develop-
ment of the Empusa very carefully, was utterly unable
to discover in what manner the smallest germs of the
Empusa got into the fly. The spores could not be
made to give rise to such germs by cultivation ; nor
were such germs discoverable in the air, or in the food
of the fly. It looked exceedingly like a case of Abio-
genesis, or, at any rate, of Xenogenesis ; and it is only
quite recently that the . real course of events has been
made out. It has been ascertained, that when one of
the spores falls upon the body of a fly, it begins to
germinate, and sends out a process which bores its
way through the fly's skin ; this, having reached the
interior cavities of its body, gives off the minute
floating corpuscles which are the earliest stage of the
Empusa. The disease is " contagious," because a
healthy fly coming in contact with a diseased one,
from which the spore-bearing filaments protrude, is
pretty sure to carry off a spore or two. It is " infec-
tious" because the spores become scattered about all
sorts of matter in the neighbourhood of the slain
flies.
The silkworm has long been known to be subject to a
very fatal and infectious disease called the Musc:irdin&
Audouin transmitted it by inoculation. This disease is
entirely due to the development of a fungus, Botrytis
Bassiana, in the body of the caterpillar ; and its con-
tagiousness and infectiousness are accounted for in the
same way as those of the fly-disease. But, of late years,
a still more serious epizootic has appeared among the
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 245
silkworms ; and I may mention a few facts which will
give you some conception of the gravity of the injury
which it has inflicted on France alone.
The production of silk has been for centuries an im-
portant branch of industry in Southern France, and in
the year 1853 it had attained such a magnitude that the
annual produce of the French sericulture was estimated
to amount to a tenth of that of the whole world, and
represented a money- value of 117,000,000 francs, or
nearly five millions sterling. What may be the sum
which would represent the money-value of all the in-
dustries connected with the working up of the raw silk
thus produced is more than I can pretend to estimate.
Suffice it to say, that the city of Lyons is built upon
French silk as much as Manchester was upon American
cotton before the civil war.
Silkworms are liable to many diseases ; and, even
before 1853, a peculiar epizootic, frequently accompanied
by the appearance of dark spots upon the skin (w^hence
the name of " Pebrine " which it has received), had been
noted for its mortality. But in the years following 1853
this malady broke out with such extreme violence, that,
in 1858, the silk-crop was reduced to a third of the
amount which it had reached in 1853 ; and, up till
within the last year or two, it has never attained half
the yield of 1853. This means not only that the great
number of people engaged in silk growing are some
thirty millions sterling poorer than they might have
been ; it means not only that high prices have had to be
paid for imported silkworm eggs, and that, after investing
his money in them, in paying for mulberry-leaves and
for attendance, the cultivator has constantly seen his
silkworms perish and himself plunged in ruin ; but it
means that the looms of Lyons have lacked employment,
and that, for years, enforced idleness and misery have been
246 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
the portion of a vast population which, in former days,
was industrious and well-to-do.
Tri 1858 the gravity of the situation caused the French
Academy of Sciences to appoint Commissioners, of whom
a distinguished naturalist, M. de Quatrefages, was one, to
inquire into the nature of this disease, and, if possible, to
devise some means of staying the plague. In reading
the Keport 1 made by M. de Quatrefages in 1859, it is
exceedingly interesting to observe that his elaborate study
of the Pebrine forced the conviction upon his mind that,
in its mode of occurrence and propagation, the disease of
the silkworm is, in every respect, comparable to the
cholera among mankind. But it differs from the cholera,
and so far is a more formidable malady, in being here-
ditary, and in beiDg, under some circumstances, conta-
gious as well as infectious.
The Italian naturalist, Filippi, discovered in the blood
of the silkworms affected by this strange disorder a multi-
tude of cylindrical corpuscles, each about ^Vo of an mcn
long. These have been carefully studied by Lebert, and
named by him Panliistophyton ; for the reason that in
subjects in which the disease is strongly developed, the
corpuscles swarm in every tissue and organ of the body,
and even pass into the undeveloped eggs of the female
moth. But are these corpuscles causes, or mere con-
comitants, of the disease 1 Some naturalists took one
view and some another ; and it was not until the French
Government, alarnled by the continued ravages of the
malady, and the inefficiency of the remedies which had
been suggested, despatched M. Pasteur to study it, that
the question received its final settlement ; at a great
sacrifice, not only of the time and peace of mind of
that eminent philosopher, but, I regret to have to add,
of his health.
1 " Etudes sur les Maladies actuelles dcs Vers a Sole," p. 53.
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 247
But the sacrifice has not been in vain. It is now
certain that this devastating, cholera-like, Pebrine is the
effect of the growth and multiplication of the Panhisto-
phyton in the silkworm. It is contagious and infectious,
because the corpuscles of the Panhistophyton pass away
from the bodies of the diseased caterpillars, directly or
indirectly, to the alimentary canal of healthy silkworms
in their neighbourhood ; it is hereditary, because the cor-
puscles enter into the eggs while they are being formed,
and consequently are carried within them when they
are laid ; and for this reason, also, it presents the very
singular peculiarity of being inherited only on the
mother's side. There is not a single one of all the appa-
rently capricious and unaccountable phenomena pre-
sented by the Pebrine, but has received its explanation
from the fact that the disease is the result of the pre-
sence of the microscopic organism, Panhistophyton.
Such being the facts with respect to the Pebrine, what
are the indications as to the method of preventing it ?
It is obvious that this depends upon the way in which
the Panhistophyton is generated. If it may be generated
by Abiogenesis, or by Xenogenesis, within the silkworm
or its moth, the extirpation of the disease must depend
upon the prevention of the occurrence of the conditions
under which this generation takes place. But if; on the
other hand, the Panhistophyton is an independent organ-
ism, which is no more generated by the silkworm, than the
mistletoe is generated by the apple-tree or the oak on
which it grows, though it may need the silkworm for its
development in the same way as the mistletoe needs the
tree, then the indications are totally different. The sole
thing to be done is to get rid of and keep away the germs
of the Panhistophyton. As might be imagined, from the
course of his previous investigations, M. Pasteur was
led to believe that the latter was the right theory ; and,
248 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
guided by that theory, he has devised a method of extir-
pating the disease, which has proved to be completely
successful wherever it has been properly carried out.
There can be no reason, then, for doubting that, among
insects, contagious and infectious diseases, of great
malignity, are caused by minute organisms which are
produced from pre-existing germs, or by homogenesis ;
and there is no reason, that I know of, for believing
that what happens in insects may not take place in the
highest animals. Indeed, there is already strong evi-
dence that some diseases of an extremely malignant
and fatal character to which man is subject, are as much
the work of minute organisms as is the Pebrine. I refer
for this evidence to the very striking facts adduced by
Professor Lister in his various well-known publications
on the antiseptic method of treatment. It appears to
me impossible to rise from the perusal of those publica-
tions without a strong conviction that the lamentable
mortality which so frequently dogs the footsteps of the
most skilful operator, and those deadly consequences of
wounds and injuries which seem to haunt the very walls
of great hospitals, and are, even now, destroying more
men than die of bullet or bayonet, are due to the
importation of minute organisms into wounds, and their
increase and multiplication ; and that the surgeon who
saves most lives will be he who best works out the
practical consequences of the hypothesis of Eedi.
I commenced this Address by asking you to follow me
in an attempt to trace the path which has been followed
by a scientific idea, in its long and slow progress from the
position of a probable hypothesis to that of an estab-
lished law of nature. Our survey has not taken us into
very attractive regions ; it has lain, chiefly, in a land
flowing with the abominable, and peopled with mere
grubs and mouldiness. And it may be imagined with
x.] BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS. 249
what smiles and shrugs, practical and serious contempo-
raries of Eedi and of Spallanzani may have commented
on the waste of their high abilities in toiling at the
solution of problems which, though curious enough in
themselves, could be of no conceivable utility to
mankind.
Nevertheless, you will have observed that before we
had travelled very far upon our road, there appeared,
on the right hand and on the left, fields laden with
a harvest of golden grain, immediately convertible into
those things which the most solidly practical men will
admit to have value viz., money and life.
The direct loss to France caused by the Pebrine in
seventeen years cannot be estimated at less than fifty
millions sterling ; and if we add to this what Bedi's idea,
in Pasteur's hands, has done for the wine-grower and for
the vinegar-maker, and try to capitalize its value, we
shall find that it will go a long way towards repairing
the money losses caused by the frightful and calamitous
war of this autumn. And as to the equivalent of Kedi's
thought in life, how can we over-estimate the value of
that knowledge of the nature of epidemic and epizootic
diseases, and consequently of the means of checking, or
eradicating, them, the dawn of which has assuredly
commenced 1
Looking back no further than ten years, it is possible
to select three (1863, 1864, and 1869) in which the total
number of deaths from scarlet- fever alone amounted to
ninety thousand. That is the return of killed, the
maimed and disabled being left out of sight. Why, it is
to be hoped that the list of killed in the present bloodiest
of all wars will not amount to more than this ! But
the facts which I have placed before you must leave
the least sanguine without a doubt that the nature
and the causes of this scourge will, one day, be as well
250 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [x.
understood as those of the Pdbrine are now ; and that
the long-suffered massacre of our innocents will come to
an end.
And thus mankind will have one more admonition that
" the people perish for lack of knowledge ; " and that the
alleviation of the miseries, and the promotion of the
welfare, of men must be sought, by those who will not
lose their pains, in that diligent, patient, loving study of
all the multitudinous aspects of Nature, the results of
which constitute exact knowledge, or Science. It is the
justification and the glory of this great meeting that it is
gathered together for no other object than the advance-
ment of the moiety of science which deals with those
phenomena of nature which we call physical. May its
endeavours be crowned with a full measure of success !
XL
MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 1
THE gradual lapse of time has now separated us by more
than a decade from the date of the publication of the
" Origin of Species " and whatever may be thought or
said about Mr. Darwin's doctrines, or the manner in
which he has propounded them, this much is certain,
that, in a dozen years, the " Origin of Species " has
worked as complete a revolution in biological science as
the "Principia" did in astronomy and it has done so,
because, in the words of Helmholtz, it contains "an
essentially new creative thought." 1
Arid as time has slipped by, a happy change has come
over Mr. Darwin's critics. The mixture of ignorance
and insolence which, at first, characterised a large pro-
portion of the attacks with which he was assailed, is no
longer the sad distinction of anti-Darwinian criticism.
Instead of abusive nonsense, which merely discredited its
writers, we read essays, which are, at worst, more or less
1 1. "Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection." By A. R.
Wallace. 1870. 2. " The Genesis of Species." By St. George Mivart, F.R.S.
Second Edition. 1871. 3. " Darwin's Descent of Man." Quarterly Keview,
July 1871.
2 Helmholtz : " Ueber das Ziel und die Eortschritte der Naturwissenschaft."
Eroffnungsrede fiir die Naturforscherversammlung zu Innsbruck. 1869.
252 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [xi.
intelligent and appreciative ; while, sometimes, like that
which appeared in the North British Review for 1867,
they have a real and permanent value.
The several publications of Mr. Wallace and Mr.
Mivart contain discussions of some of Mr. Darwin's
views, which are worthy of particular attention, not only
on account of the acknowledged scientific competence
of these writers, but because they exhibit an attention
to those philosophical questions which underlie all
physical science, which is as rare as it is needful.
And the same may be said of an article in the Quarterly
Review for July 1871, the comparison of which with
an article in the same Re view for July 1860, is perhaps
the best evidence which can be brought forward of the
change which has taken place in public opinion on
" Darwinism."
The Quarterly Eeviewer admits " the certainty of the
action of natural selection" (p. 49) ; and further allows
that there is an a priori probability in favour of the
evolution of man from some lower animal form, if these
lower animal forms themselves have arisen by evolution.
Mr. Wallace and Mr. Mivart go much further than
this. They are as stout believers in evolution as Mr.
Darwin himself ; but Mr. Wallace denies that man can
have been evolved from a lower animal by that process
of natural selection which he, with Mr. Darwin, holds
to have been sufficient for the evolution of all 'animals
below man ; while Mr. Mivart, admitting that natural
selection has been one of the conditions of the evolution
of the animals below man, maintains that natural selec-
tion must, even in their case, have been supplemented
by " some other cause " of the nature of which, un-
fortunately, he does not give us any idea. Thus Mr.
Mivart is less of a Darwinian than Mr. Wallace, for he
has less faith in the power of natural selection. But he
XL] ME. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 253
is more of an evolutionist than Mr. Wallace, because
Mr. Wallace thinks it necessary to call it an intelligent
agent a sort of supernatural Sir John Sebright to pro-
duce even the animal frame of man ; while Mr. Mivart
requires no Divine assistance till he comes to man's soul.
Thus there is a considerable divergence between Mr.
Wallace and Mr. Mivart. On the other hand, there are
some curious similarities between Mr. Mivart and the
Quarterly Reviewer, and these are sometimes so close,
that, if Mr. Mivart thought it worth while, I think he
might make out a good case of plagiarism against the
Reviewer, who studiously abstains from quoting him.
Both the Reviewer and Mr. Mivart reproach Mr.
Darwin with being, " like so many other physicists,"
entangled in a radically false metaphysical system, and
with setting at nought the first principles of both
philosophy and religion. Both enlarge upon the neces-
sity of a sound philosophical basis, and both, I venture
to add, make a conspicuous exhibition of its absence.
The Quarterly Reviewer believes that man " differs more
from an elephant or a gorilla than do these from
the dust of the earth on which they tread," and Mr.
Mivart has expressed the opinion that there is more dif-
ference between man and an ape than there is between
an ape and a piece of granite. 1
And even when Mr. Mivart (p. 86) trips in a matter of
anatomy, and creates a difficulty for Mr. Darwin out of
a supposed close similarity between the eyes of fishes
and cephalopoda, which (as Gegenbaur and others have
clearly shown) does not exist, the Quarterly Reviewer
adopts the argument without hesitation (p. 66).
There is another important point, however, in which it
is hard to say whether Mr. Mivart diverges from the
Quarterly Reviewer or not.
1 See the Tablet for March 11, 1871.
254 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [XL
The Reviewer declares that Mr. Darwin has, " with
needless opposition, set at nought the first principles of
both philosophy and religion" (p. 90).
It looks, at first, as if this meant, that Mr. Darwin's
views being false, the opposition to " religion " which
flows from- them must be needless. But I suspect this
is not the right view of the meaning of the passage, as
Mr. Mivart, from whom the Quarterly Eeviewer plainly
draws so much inspiration, tells us that " the conse-
quences which have been drawn from evolution, whether
exclusively Darwinian or not, to the prejudice of
religion, by no means follow from it, and are in fact
illegitimate" (p. 5).
I may assume, then, that the Quarterly Reviewer and
Mr. Mivart admit that there is no necessary opposition
between " evolution, whether exclusively Darwinian or
not," and religion. But then, what do they mean by
this last much-abused term ? On this point the Quarterly
Reviewer is silent. Mr. Mivart, on the contrary, is
perfectly explicit, and the whole tenor of his remarks
leaves no doubt that by " religion " he means theology ;
and by theology, that particular variety of the great
Proteus, which is expounded by the doctors of the
Roman Catholic Church, and held by the members of
that religious community to be the sole form of absolute
truth and of saving faith.
According to Mr. Mivart, the greatest and most ortho-
dox authorities upon matters of Catholic doctrine agree
in distinctly asserting " derivative creation" or evolution ;
"and thus their teachings harmonize with all that modern
science can possibly require" (p. 305).
I confess that this bold assertion interested me more
than anything else in Mr. Mivart's book. What little
knowledge I possessed of Catholic doctrine, and of the
influence exerted by Catholic authority in former times,
XL] ME. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 255
had not led me to expect that modern science was likely
to find a warm welcome within the pale of the greatest
and most consistent of theological organizations.
And my astonishment reached its climax when I found
Mr. Mivart citing Father Suarez as his chief witness in
favour of the scientific freedom enjoyed by Catholics
the popular repute of that learned theologian and subtle
casuist not being such as make his works a likely place
of refuge for liberality of thought. But in these days,
when Judas Iscariot and Eobespierre, Henry VIII. and
Catiline, have all been shown to be men of admirable
virtue, far in advance of their age, and consequently the
victims of vulgar prejudice, it was obviously possible
that Jesuit Suarez might be in like case. And, spurred
by Mr. Mivart's unhesitating declaration, I hastened to
acquaint myself with such of the works of the great
Catholic divine as bore upon the question, hoping, not
merely to acquaint myself with the true teachings of the
infallible Church, and free myself of an unjust prejudice ;
but, haply, to enable myself, at a pinch, to put some
Protestant bibliolater to shame, by the bright example of
Catholic freedom from the trammels of verbal inspiration.
I regret to say that my anticipations have been cruelly
disappointed. But the extent to which my hopes have
been crushed can only be fully appreciated by citing, in
the first place, those passages of Mr. Mivart's work by
which they were excited. In his introductory chapter I
find the following passages :
" The prevalence of this theory [of evolution] need
alarm no one, for it is, without any doubt, perfectly con-
sistent with the strictest and most orthodox Christian 1
theology" (p. 5).
" Mr. Darwin and others may perhaps be excused if they
1 It should be observed that Mr. Mivart employs the term "Christian" as if
it were the equivalent of " Catholic."
256 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [xi.
have not devoted much time to the study of Christian
philosophy ; but they have no right to assume or accept
without careful examination, as an unquestioned fact,
that in that philosophy there is a necessary antagonism
between the two ideas ' creation ' and ' evolution/ as
applied to organic forms.
"It is notorious and patent to all who choose to
seek, that many distinguished Christian thinkers have
accepted, and do accept, both ideas, i.e. both ' creation '
and ( evolution/
" As much as ten years ago an eminently Christian
writer observed : ( The creationist theory does not
necessitate the perpetual search after manifestations of
miraculous power and perpetual "catastrophes." Crea-
tion is not a miraculous interference with the laws of
nature, but the very institution of those laws. Law and
regularity, not arbitrary intervention, was the patristic
ideal of creation. With this notion they admitted,
without difficulty, the most surprising origin of living
creatures, provided it took place by law. They held
that when God said, " Let the waters produce," " Let the
earth produce," He conferred forces on the elements of
earth and water, which enabled them naturally to pro-
duce the various species of organic beings. This power,
they thought, remains attached to the elements through-
out all time/ The same writer quotes St. Augustin and
St. Thomas Aquinas, to the effect that, ' in the institution
of nature, we do not look for miracles, but for the laws
of nature/ And, again, St. Basil speaks of the con-
tinued operation of natural laws in the production of all
organisms.
" So much for the writers of early and mediaeval times.
As to the present day, the author can confidently affirm
that there are many as well versed in theology as Mr.
Darwin is in his own department of natural knowledge,
XL] MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 257
who would not be disturbed by the thorough demon-
stration of his theory. Nay, they would not even be
in the least painfully affected at witnessing the genera-
tion of animals of complex organization by the skilfu 1
artificial arrangement of natural forces, and the pro-
duction, in the future, of a fish by means analogous to
those by which we now produce urea.
" And this because they know that the possibility of
such phenomena, though by no means actually foreseen,
has yet been fully provided for in the old philosophy
centuries before Darwin, or even centuries before Bacon,
and that their place in the system can be at once as-
signed them without even disturbing its order or marring
its harmony.
" Moreover, the old tradition in this respect has never
been abandoned, however much it may have been ignored
or neglected by some modern writers. In proof of this, it
may be observed that perhaps no post-mediaeval theologian
has a wider reception amongst Christians throughout the
world than Suarez, who has a separate section 1 in op-
position to those who maintain the distinct creation of
the various kinds or substantial forms of organic life "
(pp. 19-21).
Still more distinctly does Mr. Mivart express himself,
in the same sense, in his last chapter, entitled " Theology
and Evolution" (pp. 302-5).
" It appears, then, that Christian thinkers are perfectly
free to accept the general evolution theory. But are
there any theological authorities to justify this view of
the matter 1
"Now, considering how extremely recent are these
biological speculations, it might hardly be expected d
priori that writers of earlier ages should have given
expression to doctrines harmonizing in any degree with
1 Suarez, Metaphysica. Edition Vives. Paris, 1868, vol. i. Dispnt. xv. 2.
H S
258 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [xi.
such very modern views ; nevertheless, this is certainly
the case, and it would be easy to give numerous examples.
It will be better, however, to cite one or two authorities
of weight. Perhaps no writer of the earlier Christian
ages could be quoted whose authority is more generally
recognized than that of St. Augustin. The same may be
said of the mediaeval period for St. Thomas Aquinas :
and since the movement of Luther, Suarez may be taken
as an authority, widely venerated, and one whose ortho-
doxy has never been questioned.
" It must be borne in mind that for a considerable
time even after the last of these writers no one had
disputed the generally received belief as to the small
age of the world, or at least of the kinds of animals
and plants inhabiting it. It becomes, therefore, much
more striking if views formed under such a condition of
opinion are found to harmonize with modern ideas con-
cerning ' Creation ' and organic Life .
" Now St. Augustin insists in a very remarkable
manner on the merely derivative sense in which God's
creation of organic forms is to be understood ; that is,
that God created them by conferring on the material
world the power to evolve them under suitable con-
ditions."
Mr. Mivart then cites certain passages from St. Au-
gustin, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Cornelius a Lapide,
and finally adds :
" As to Suarez, it will be enough to refer to Disp. xv. sec. 2, No. 9,
p. 508, t. i. edition Vives, Paris; also Nos. 13 15. Many other
references to the same effect could easily be given, but these may
suffice.
"It is then evident that ancient and most venerable theological
authorities distinctly assert derivative creation, and thus their teach-
ings harmonize with all that modern science can possibly require."
It will be observed that Mr. Mivart refers solely to
XL] MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 259
Suarez's fifteenth Disputation, though he adds, " Many
other references to the same effect could easily be given/'
I shall look anxiously for these references in the third
edition of the " Genesis of Species." For the present, all
I can say is, that I have sought in vain, either in the
fifteenth Disputation, or elsewhere, for any passage in
Suarez's writings which, in the slightest degree, bears
out Mr. Mivart's views as to his opinions. 1
The title of this fifteenth Disputation is " De causa
formali substantiali," and the second section of that
Disputation (to which Mr. Mivart refers) is headed,
" Quomodo possit forma substantialis fieri in materia et
ex materia ? "
The problem which Suarez discusses in this place may
be popularly stated thus : According to the scholastic
philosophy every natural body has two components
the one its "matter" (materia prima) 9 the other its
" substantial form " (forma substantialis). Of these
the matter is everywhere the same, the matter of one
body being indistinguishable from the matter of any
other body. That which differentiates any one natural
body from all others is its substantial form, which
inheres in the matter of that body, as the human soul
inheres in the matter of the frame of man, and is the
source of all the activities and other properties of the
body.
Thus, says Suarez, if water is heated, and the source
of heat is then removed, it cools again. The reason
of this is that there is a certain "intimius principium "
in the water, which brings it back to the cool condition
when the external impediment to the existence of that
condition is removed. This intimius principium is the
" substantial form " of the water. And the substantial
1 The edition of Suarez's " Disputationes " from winch the following citations
are given, is Birckmann's, in two volunies folio, and is dated 1630.
89
_j
260 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [xi.
form of the water is not only the cause (radix) of the
coolness of the water, but also of its moisture, of its
density, and of all its other properties.
It will thus be seen that "substantial forms" play nearly
the same part in the scholastic philosophy as " forces "
do in modern science ; the general tendency of modern
thought being to conceive all bodies as resolvable into
material particles and forces, in virtue of which last
these particles assume those dispositions and exercise
those powers which are characteristic of each particular
kind of matter.
But the Schoolmen distinguished two kinds of sub-
stantial forms, the one spiritual and the other material.
The former division is represented by the human soul,
the anima rationalis ; and they affirm as a matter, not
merely of reason, but of faith, that every human soul
is created out of nothing, and by this act of creation
is endowed with the power of existing for all eternity,
apart from the materia prima of which the corporeal
frame of man is composed. And the anima rationalis,
once united with the materia prima of the body, be-
comes its substantial form, and is the source of all the
powers and faculties of man of all the vital and sen-
sitive phenomena which he exhibits just as the sub-
stantial form of water is the source of all its qualities.
The " material substantial forms " are those which
inform all other natural bodies except that of man ; and
the object of Suarez in the present Disputation, is to
show that the axiom " ex niliilo nihil fit" though not
true of the. substantial form of man, is true of the
substantial forms of all other bodies, the endless muta-
tions of which constitute the ordinary course of nature.
The origin of the difficulty which he discusses is easily
comprehensible. Suppose a piece of bright iron to be
exposed to the air. The existence of the iron depends
XL] ME. DARWIN'S CRITICS. 261
on the presence within it of a substantial form, which
is the cause of its properties, e.g. brightness, hardness,
weight. But, by degrees, the iron becomes converted
into a mass of rust, which is dull, and soft, and light,
and, in all other respects, is quite different from the iron.
As, ^in the scholastic view, this difference is due to
the rust being- informed by a new substantial form,
the grave problem arises, how did this new substan-
tial form come into being ? Has it been created ?
or has it arisen by the power of natural causation ?
If the former hypothesis is correct, then the axiom,
" ex nihilo nihil Jit" is false, even in relation to the
ordinary course of nature, seeing that such mutations
of matter as imply the continual origin of new
substantial forms are occurring every moment. But
the harmonization of Aristotle with theology was as
dear to the Schoolmen, as the smoothing down the dif-
ferences between Moses and science is to our Broad
Churchmen, arid they were proportionably unwilling to
contradict one of Aristotle's fundamental propositions.
Nor was their objection to flying in the face of the
Stagirite likely to be lessened by the fact that such
flight landed them in flat Pantheism.
So Father Suarez fights stoutly for the second hypo-
thesis; and I quote the principal part of his argumen-
tation as an exquisite specimen of that speech which is
a " darkening of counsel/'.
"13. Secundo de omnibus aliis formis subsfcantialibus [sc. mate-
rial ibus] dicendum est non fieri proprie ex nihilo, sed ex potentia
prsejacentis materise educi : ideoque in effectione harum forrnarum nil
fieri contra illud axioma, Ex nihilo nihil Jit, si recte intelligatur. Haec
assertio sumitur ex Aristotele 1. Physicorum per totum et libro 7.
Metaphyss. et ex aliis authoribus, quos statim referam. Et declaratur
breviter, nam fieri ex nihilo duo dicit, unum est fieri absolute et
simpliciter, aliud est quod talis effectio fit ex nihilo. Primum proprie
dicitur de re subsistente, quia ejus est fieri, cujus est esse : id autem
262 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [xi.
proprie quod subsistit et habet esse : nam quod alter! adjacet, potius est
quo aliud est. Ex bac ergo parte, formse substantiales materiales non
fiunt ex nihilo, quia proprie non fiunt. Atque hauc rationem reddit
Divus Thomas 1 parte, queestionq 45, articulo 8, et quaestione 90,
articulo 2, et ex dicendis raagis explicabitur. Sumendo ergo ipsum
fieri in hac proprietate et rigore, sic fieri ex nihilo est fieri secundum se
totum, id est nulla sui parte praesupposita, ex quo fiat. Et hac ratione
res naturales dum de novo fiunt, non fiunt ex nihilo, quia fiunt ex
praesupposita tnateria, ex qua componuntur, et ita non fiunt, secundum
se totae, sed secundum aliquid sui. Formae autem harum rerum,
quamvis revera totam suam entitatem de novo accipiaut, quam antea
non habebant, quia vero ipsae non fiunt, ut dictum est, ideo neque ex
nihilo fiunt. Attamen, quia latiori modo sumendo verbum illud^eH,
negari non potest : quin forma facta sit, eo modo quo nunc est, et antea
non erat, ut etiam probat ratio dubitandi posita in principio sectionis,
ideo addendum est, sumpto fieri in hac amplitudine, fieri ex nihilo non
tamen negare habitudinem materialis causae intrinsece componentis id
quod fit, sed etiam habitudinem causae materialis per se causantis et
sustentantis formam quse fit, seu confit. Diximus enim in superioribus
materiam et esse causam compositi et formae dependentis 
