Full text of "Scientific materialism and ultimate conceptions"

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM

AND

ULTIMATE CONCEPTIONS.

fcj

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM

AND

ULTIMATE CONCEPTIONS.

"Ignoramus Ignorabimus."

Du Bois REYMOND.

SIDNEY BILLING,

( BARRISTER-A T-LA W )
AUTHOR OF TREATISES ON THE LAW OF PEWS, AWARDS, AND PATENTS.

^^ MICROFILMED BY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

, * LIBRARY - ...:/

RASTER NEGATIVE NQ.s

LONDON :

BICKERS AND SON, LEICESTER SQUARE.
1879.

\_All Rights reserved.]

PRINTED BY
J. E. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.

PREFACE.

THE pseudo-philosophy, characteristic of the period, has arisen
from the broad statement of material views by popular writers on
scientific subjects and the generally materialistic tendency of
lecture-room teachings. If. these teachings are accepted God
(if they admit such) is unthinkable ; Life and mind molecular
arrangements ; Vitality, electrical or physical force ; Man, a sen
sible automaton ; Creation, but the potence of matter ; the casual
displacing the actual, the methods of Nature become the Causal
fact, and Man s Immortality, final in the expression of Fame.
Thus bereft of God, as a Creator and Providence, and of Immor
tality thinking man in death meets annihilation.

The object of this treatise is to discuss these dicta in plain
language ; and when words are used which have a scientific as
well as a general meaning, the latter is to be taken. The
effort has been made to probe the methods of nature as disclosed
in her mechanics, chemistry and physics, and to find, as far as
may be, the ultimates on which the Kosmos is reared, whereby
each reader may arrive at a conclusion, without having wholly
to rely upon authoritative dogma. Authority should be accepted
only when supported by evidences ; these evidences, reflected
upon and discussed, may then be allowed to stand in the place of an
independent idea. Hypotheses are indispensable to research, but
they should be examined with a rigid scepticism, for " scientific
imagination " is only misleading when scepticism is lulled.

The method of nature is to be sought in the grand generaliza
tions of Malpighi, Grove, and Darwin. Principles are the bases
of the Kosmos Infinitesimals, its explanation. A knowledge of
these infinitesimals constitutes Science : Philosophy has broader
distinctions and a deeper aim. Our perceptions of external
objects are sense effects exciting consciousness ; our conceptions,
ideas as units in intelligence impressed on the consciousness ; and
when impressed, the impulsions by which we Will, Direct, and
Control.

iv Preface.

Ultimate conceptions, such as God and immortality, find but
an indefinite expression in finite thought. If the Kosmos be the
endless repetition of a thought there is no death, in the sense of
annihilation. Of death the Roman wrote " Mors janua vitae,"
Joaquin Miller,

" This earthly load
Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever/

When we reflect on the Cause we find a satisfaction in the intel
ligence which is recognised as everywhere underlying the methods
of nature, displaying a purposeness in their conception. Our
difficulties arise not so much from the indefiniteness of the con
ceptions which are formed in the mind, as from the attempts made
to render these conceptions, which are necessarily indefinite
definite. If we regard effects as occurring in an invariable
sequence, the originating impulsion, however it arises, becomes
the Cause ; we then have an antecedent existing in its own im
pulse, disclosing an intelligence and a power sufficient to accom
plish every purpose. And as a definition on such a subject is
impossible, in the balance of probabilities, we must accept that
possibility which is the most probable.

The examination of the various subjects in comment was
entered upon without bias and with the determination to accept
all that was found consistent with reason. The scientific facts
are generally accepted the deductions from these facts alone
are denied or canvassed. The conclusions arrived at may be
erroneous ; the two sides of the questions are presented, and if
their examination be as helpful to others as their consideration
has been to me, I shall feel repaid for my labours.

My space was limited as my subject was large ; to economise
I have presented the names of authors without prefix or affix, but
in all cases it is intended both should be supposed. To those
writers whose matter I have taken, an acknowledgment is made
by name or by inverted commas ; none named are known to me,
so no personality can be assumed. Utterances and writings,
not the men^ have been the subjects of comment.

SIDNEY BILLING.

Sunbury-on-Thames.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PREFACE

PAGE
iii

PART I.

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM.

CHAP. I. The Methods of Nature Animal Electricity and Vital
Action, The Hypothesis of the Kosmos God,
Religious reformers Strauss, Spontaneity, Proto
plasm, .....

CHAP. II. The phases of German thought, N ageli, Haeckel, and
Virchow The Ape theory.

CHAP. III. Hypotheses and Philosophies.

CHAP. IV. Dual Man Perception and Conception.

CHAP. V. Faith, Religion, Immortality, Sociology.
Recapitulation. .

108

PART II.
ULTIMATE CONCEPTIONS.

CHAP. I. The Atomic Theory The doctrine of Proportion

Berkeley s Hypothesis. . . .158

CHAP. II. Matter The Belfast Address The Birmingham
Oration Heat, a principle unconditioned The
Eternities. . . . .169

CHAP. III. Heat Heat, a principle conditioned. . . 206

CHAP. IV. Vitality Causation Cell Theory Spontaneity. . 232

CHAF. V. Mind Vital Action. . . . 271

CHAP. VI. Evolution and Automatism. . . . 286

vi Contents.

CHAP. VII. The Kosmos What is the Kosmos ? Learned Igno
rance German Materialism Ultimate Kosmic
Conceptions The Central Sun Astronomical
Knowledge Ancient Culture Astronomy A
Speculation on Ultimates The Solar System
Sun Spots The Prominences Metallic Rain
Nebulae Planets Comets Meteors Terrestrial
Magnetism Reichenbach s Hypothesis The
Heat of the Interiorof the Earth The Odyll The
Dead Eye The Spectrum Analysis and Incandes
cence Light and Force Material Substances The
Consequence Solar Physics. . .310

ERRATA.

NAMES. Page 3, note 5, for Gasertdi, read Gassendi, P. 6, n. 3, Potter, read Porter.
P. 1-2, lines 8 and 11, Humbolt, read Humboldt, and p. 24, n. 2. P. 203,
in n., Euke, read Encke, twice. P. 237, Raine, read Rainy. P. 303, note,
line 3, Dr. Allen Thomson, read Dr. Allan Thomson. P. 328, n. 1, 1. 11,
Tschirhausen, read Tschirnhausen.

REFERENCES. Page 6, fourth -note, read 4 instead of 2. P. 11, last note, read 3
instead of 2. P. 187, strike out note 1, it being a repetition of note 2,
p. 186. P. 177, line 10, after Kant, insert reference to note 1. P. 288,
line J6, 1, read 2. P. 317, reference to quotation (Prop. Sci.). read
(Pop. Sci.).

MISSPELT. Page 4, note 1, for Spectrescope, read Spectroscope. P. 18, line 14, Glo-
begerina, read Globigerina. P. 46, line 35, infinitessimally, read infinitesi-
mally, et infra. P. 253, note, line 4, lancelot, read lancelet.
ERRORS. Page 17, line 18, for Urea, read Urine.

,, 41 27, in master, read from matter.

,, 43 21, directing, read directed.

,, 81 ,, 17, instructive, read instinctive.

,, 82, Caption of Chapter Hypothesis, read Hypotheses.

83, note 2, line 3, saving respiration, read serving.

84, lines 3 and 4, emphatically say so, read say no.

,, 85, note 1, line 4, have relatives, read has reference.

87 2, in these modes, read in three modes.

,, 96, line 5, discovered, read disclosed.

,,141 20, and from the gases, read and from which the gases.

,, 153 24, that in matter is a postulate, read that matter is a
postulate.

,, 156 ,, 15, could not t&gt;e, read could be.

200, lines 8, 9, 10, although physical science offers no justification for
the notion that molecules can be moved by states of
consciousness, read that states of consciousness are the
results of molecular motions.

,, 211, lines 3 and 4, Unison harmony, read unison of her harmony.

237, line 12, colour or, read colour of.

246, last line, strike out whether.

,, 267 crystalloid, read crystalline.

278, line 41 (inertia:), read inertia.

28], note 1, line 19, in the idea influences, read ideal influences.

,, 287 2, line 10, through its merits, read demerits.

290 ,, 1, line 6, statement ? read statements?

299, line 34, phases, read phrases.

,, 302 ,, 27, refractions, read reflex actions.

,, 306 ,, 32, tends to one and &c., read tends to one mode, and &c.

,,311 ,, 13, unchanging ; as an, read and as.

319, note, line 2, there is a, read there was u.

PART I.

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM.

CHAP. I.

The Methods of Nature. Animal Electricity and Vital Action.
The Hypotheses of the Kosmos. God Religious Reformers.
Strauss. Spontaneity. Protoplasm.

ONLY by a discussion of principles can we arrive at the
methods of nature, or rightly estimate phenomena. Every
effect should be rigidly criticised, or effects originating in effects
may be mistaken for a " precession of causes/ and thus by a
multiplicity of causes we may be led to accept an indiscriminating
materialism, whereby, "matter" enthroned in an indurate eternity,
creates herself, and by an inconceivable series of self-constituted
motions amazes the consciousness by making intelligence one of
its states. 1 Whilst we concede the chemistry and mechanics
of nature we admire her resources, but when these creations of
the cause are defined to be the infallible cause, the objective and
subjective are involved in an indistinguishable chaos. The uni
versal and the unchanging alone are the true, and the true the
for-ever subsisting eternal. The universal and unchanging are
capable of infinite variation 3 but the principles always remain
constant in quality as Heat, Vitality, Consciousness, and Intelli
gence.

Until it be accepted that principles and their conditions are the
working facts of science, speculation 3 will never be banished and
dogmatism will retain its ascendency. 4 Ultimate facts are the

1 " The purpose of the physical sciences throughout all their provinces is to answer
the question what is ? The purpose of the moral sciences is to answer the question
what ought lo be " ( Macintosh s Ethical Dissertation ), or rather what should be our
rule of conduct.

2 The changes in organs are but variations in the great system by which new mat
ter is assimilated to the animal body, and . . . always bear a certain relation to
the original type as parts of the same design. ( Bell, Brid. Treat., p. 2J.)

3 We never attain the certainty " that our conceptions are really identical with
truth." Speculative investigation must be admitted yet even " in the so-called exact
sciences . . . beyond a certain limit these cease to be exact. (Kekule).

4" Since Bacon s time hypotheses are made and treated as proved, and finally
" are gradually raised to articles of faith," and all " who sin against these dogmas
are persecuted as heretics . . . " ( Kekult, Bonn, 1878.)

i Vitality.

only bases upon which exactness can be founded ; science then
instead of being a bundle of specialized threads, presents a united
whole ; chemistry, mechanics and electro-magnetism, inter
dependent, are the streams of a vast river whose sources are
unknown, whose termination is hidden ; the whole interlaced
by vital energy. Where in phenomena is found an effect without
an antecedent ? Vitality, grand though its place be in the
Kosmos, has its antecedent in the originating impulse, which pre
cedes and coerces all, that all in nature which wields the corre
lated forces as its methods of action whereby particle is interknit
with particle, whether the form be animate or inanimate ; by
which masses are raised and disintegrated, growing from imper
ceptible realities, and when resolved again into these imperceptions
become viewless as the wind. Vitality, the proximate of nature, due
to the presence of its simple law, is universal, as spontaneity resulting
in method. Where shall we seek an atom or a molecule in that
absorption, the unity of the universe ? The correlated forces
result in heat electricity, heat ; magnetism, heat ; light, heat ;
motion, heat ; chemical affinity, heat ; gravitation, heat ; for if it
be not a correlated force to what shall its origin be assigned ? If
in the forces we have a correlation beginning in and resulting in
heat, is it not probable the material elements have their origin in
the same universality ? What is an atom ? l a sand grain which
can be split into imperceptible dust, and as a liquid solution
further disintegrated ; vaporised, it passes into a beyond inap
preciable by the highest powers of the lens ; in reason, it would
seem to have passed into its primordial. If the primordial be
considered an existing entity, imponderable, imperceptible, its
conservation is a continuing fact; a matrix ever giving to objec
tivity and ponderosity, units as representative dynamics Force
and Matter.

Chemistry and mechanics, as simulations of the working powers
of nature, are the technics of physics, the expressions of a finite
intelligence acting by external agencies ; the vital fact, the
expression of an unlimited intelligence acting through an innate
internal convulsion quantitatively and qualitatively assimulating
materials and through affinities suiting them to the necessities of
varied combinations. The method of nature is shown in its
resulting effects the cause, in its purposed finality. If vital
energy were the result of chemistry, mechanics and force
whenever the chemist, machinist and electrician concentrated their
sciences on their collected materials we have the right to expect

1 " The chemist will always welcome an explanation of his units because chemistry
requires atoms only as a. starting point, not as an end." ( Kckult, Bonn.)

Molecules and Atoms.

in their compacted substance (simulated protoplasm) the exhi
bition of life. If the vital energy be present in every particle
known as substance then in a spontaneity of action the distinc
tion between the inorganic and organic is broken up 1 and we
have life in its latent form waiting for apposite conditions to
make its display. No composite substance can have qualities not
existing in the elements composing it, though in the aggregation
new forces become apparent. 2

Generally stated, science is perception. When atoms and
molecules (not objects of perception) are presented as real and
existing quantities, science becomes the imaginative. 3 They
may be contemplative necessities in scientific analysis, as symbols
to work out the problems presented ; but when theories are
founded on supposititious quantities inexactness must result. 4 If
an atom be distinguished as the smallest severable quantity of an
elemental substance, and a molecule 5 as the smallest severable
quantity of a composite form, we get nearer to a definition and
have Thomson s "definite masses of matter." It is easy to
understand that the particles of elemental substances unite in
definite proportions, the aeriform, liquid and solid, being dif
ferent states of the same substances. 6 When phenomena are

1 If, as asserted, the architecture of the grain resembles the architecture of the
crystal ( Frag. Sci., 116), it is something like saying that both exist by the same
vital fact.

2 Liebig says, "Vital force manifests itself in two conditions that of a static
equilibrium, as in the seed, and in a dynamic state, as in growth and reproduction.

3 Democritus taught, " From nothing, nothing can come ; nothing that is can be an
nihilated ; all change is only a combination or separation of particles." This is supposed
to be the first scientific observation of matter. Bayle s definition was, " The chemical
element is that which is not further divisible into materially different parts." With
the idea of the chemical element that of indestructibility is connected ; from this
followed, the invariability of elements.

4 " The whole value of science consists in the power it confers . . . of apply
ing to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects, .... and it
is only so far as we can discover and register resemblances, or differences, that we
can turn our observation to account, for " what is true of one thing is true of its
equivalent." (Jevons.)

5 " We are unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or any of their
properties to the operation of any of the causes we call natural." (Clerk Max
well.) Herschel, J., said it has " the essential character of a manufactured article."
G;isendi had a similar idea.

6 A molecule "the smallest particles of a substance in which its qualities inhere,
or the smallest particles of a substance which can exist by themselves. 1 " Among
chemical reactions we may distinguish three classes 1st. Those in which molecules
are broken up into atoms. 2nd. Those in which atoms are united to form molecules.
3rd. Those in which the atoms of one molecule change places with those of ano
ther, i.e. analysis, synthesis, metathesis." ( Cooke s New Cheniistry. )

Kekule says, ali the conceptions which the mind could form regarding the
essence of matter, the hypothesis of discrete mass particles has led to an intelligible
explanation of facts. " We must imagine matter consists of small particles uniform

Malpigki*s Littles.

analysed only forms and forces are found, their infinite modifica
tions objectively presented Nature. By force elemental sub
stances are disintegrated, but it is impossible to say nature recog
nises atoms, the composites arising through affinities resulting from
an innate action. When Malpighi said all things were composed
of littles, he spoke of the increase of substances through the cen
tralising focus or nucleus and by deposition. It is probable the
germ is as much insisting in simple elemental substances as in
composite organic forms, for a mass has no other qualities than
those of its elements ; germs have multiplication through an active
vitality, whilst the particles in elemental substances cohere through
a latent vitality ; in the processes of crystallization there is a some
thing approaching interbreeding or multiplication, although the
formation is said to be mechanical, because it is a deposition by
layers.

In all organic combinations carbon is present. In any of its
forms it cannot be fused. In its perfect form (the diamond)
when combusted, there are no debris. In the gaseous form it is
known only in combination, and in some phase or other it ap
pears in all substances ; a review of all the facts relating to it
gives the idea of an objective form of heat. 1 Heat is a universal

in their material and not further divisible, not even by chemical processes. Of atoms
they accumulate " in consequence of forces inherent in them or acting on them, and
thus produce systems of atoms or molecules. " If this conception of the essence of
matter is taken, chemistry may be denned as the science of atoms, and physics as the
science, of molecules, and " that which treats oi masses as a separate discipline in me
chanics. Mechanics, physics, and chemistry ... are the bases of all special
natural sciences because ... all changes in the great Kosmos or in the micro-
cosmos of the vegetable or animal body can be but of a mechanical, physical, or che
mical nature." Atoms he calls "the building stones of which the molecules are
constructed. The separate atoms of a molecule are not connected all with all or
all with one, but, on the contrary, each one is connected with only one or with
a few neighbouring atoms, just as in a chain, link is connected with link.
"Atoms within the molecule must be in constant motion, although nothing certain
is known respecting the nature of this motion." " The motion of atoms, therefore
is certainly similar to that of molecules in the solid state, and thus it may be said that
the molelcules of existing substances are solid aggregations of atoms. The nature
of the motion of atoms, unknown at present, perhaps may he imagined as an os
cillatory one in such a way that the number of oscillations executed in the unit of
time exactly represents the chemical value. Chemical quantivalence only accounts
for the chemical serial connection," but does not explain " their position in space and
the/or/ of molecules." Investigations show " that the nature of the connection of
atoms influences the mean distances of atoms." The nature of the forces which
connect atoms has " not been made up at present." The electro-chemical theory
of Berzelius proving insufficient. " Besides the chemical quantivalences the specific
intensity must also be considered : whether the property of atoms is dependent on
weight has not been obtained," " but this seems certain, that the numerical value of
the atomic weight is the variable by which the substantial nature and all pro
perties dependent on this are determined." ( Sectoral Address, Bonn, 1878.)

1 Higgin* considers the spectrum of a comet may be regarded as that of carbon.
Secchi and Wolf came to the same conclusions. ( Proctor, Spectrescojw, p. 98.)

Heat a Principle conditioned.

principle, and the more its active state can be nullified the nearer
the solid is approached, as shown in condensing into a liquid form
oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and air. A great stress is laid on the
mechanical action of heat, but its application should be to the
antecedent working fact. 1 Motion is the result of heat, its con
dition (heat) being expressed as vibration ; as a principle heat is
the parent of its conditions, heat, light, electricity, &c., known
as the correlation of forces. 2 To the expression of heat as an
antecedent principle acting through its conditions we owe all we
know of phenomena. Heat, instead of being " a mode of motion"
is the principle to which motion is due. Motion is an effect ; an
effect may be the mode of the manifestation of a principle, but a
principle cannot be the mode of an effect. 3

What vitality is we do not know, but can say were there no
heat there were no exhibition of life ; if, as said, life be only ani
mate motion, life becomes a modification of heat. Temperature
merely expresses the dynamic state of heat. Heat and life may

1 Seguin, in a work on railways, 1839, expressed an opinion, entertained in com
mon with himself, by his uncle Montgolfier, of the identity of heat with mechanical
force, and calculated its equivalence. The idea has been practically iliustrated in
dependently by Joule and Helmholtz. (I ide infra, article " Heat.* )

2 Mr. Justice Grove, in his work on the Correlation of Physical Forces (p. 153,
4th ed.), says, "A prepared daguerreotype plate is enclosed in a box filled with
water having a glass front with a shutter over it. Between this glass and the plate
is a gridiron of silver wire; the plate is connected with one extremity of a galva
nometer coil, and the gridiron of wire with one extremity of a Breguet s helix an
elegant instrument, formed by a coil of two metals, the unequal expansion of which
indicates slight changes in temperature the other extremity of the galvanometer
and helix are connected by a wire and the needles brought to zero. As soon as a
beam either of daylight or the oxyhydrogen light is, by raising the shutter, per
mitted to impinge upon the plate, the needles are deflected. Thus light being the
initiating force we get chemical action on the plate, electricity circulating through
the wires, magnetism in tbe coil, heat in the helix and motion in the needles."

3 Science calls heat vibration ; yet the heat of the sun is commented on as specific.
If heat be the mere vibration of material particles, there can be no exhaustion of the
sun s heat. The heat, or whatever the principle, the sun has the power to pro
duce its like, and thus the planetary system depends on his energy. No science
shows that the capacity for the excitation of the vibrations can be nullified. The text
books continually speak of the store of heat in the sun, &c. If the vibratory theory
be true, then the sun imparts to the earth the potence of excitation even when not
directly acting on a particular surface, as in the night. Are we to suppose the
potence is always beeoming active? or that in consonance with the theory that the
vibratory action once set up is always in action, intensified only when reflecting the
direct heat of the sun ? In light heat is spoken of as a something specific, as tbe
calorific rays. Light will pass through a lens of ice without melting it and fire a
match beyond. If heat be but a vibration of the particles of the mass, how is the
cohesion of the particles maintained, and how can the mere motion of the particle
fire the match beyond ? If, on the other hand, it be said heat is the vibration of the
elements of the ether, then, as it directly passes through the lens, whether of ice or
of glass, it leads to the inference that it is a something specific, a substance im
ponderable only because science has no balance sufficiently delicate to detect its
weight. (Vide infra, Part 2, Heat: )

Finite Perception Infinite Conception.

both exist without the expression of form ; form then becomes
the objective expression of an activity through the operations of
law, thereby presupposing an intellectual predisposition. 1 If all
acts be the embodied facts of an intelligence subjective to itself,
resulting in an objective form, then all analysis becomes in intel
ligence a synthesis. Perception is embodied in conception, and
conception in result is perceptively embodied ; the image sym
bolised in the mind is as subjective a reality as phenomenon in its
objective phase is real to the senses. 2 Finite powers give but an
imperfect presentment of objective forms, but when the finite is
magnified into infinitude the analytical becomes the synthetical ;
then intelligence embodied in principles works out in analysis, by
a multiple of littles, all objective phenomena. If this subjective
intelligence be existing, we have the creative idea embodied in
substance. It appears idle to say from the objective or material
is produced the intellectual and subjective or ethereal. 3 It does
not follow because we find the incomplete presentment of a form
which, by progressive steps, becomes complete (the horse), that
the first presentment was merely tentative ; in the completed
form is seen the completion of the conceptive idea ; are we then
to say that so vast a stretch of intellectual power is a resulting
effect, a potence of matter ? 4 The facts of natural phenomena,
as we trace them, show that the perfected organism is reached by
a sequence of almost imperceptible differentiations in form and
function. The finite commences in littles, and developes into
magnitudes. Watt devised his engine, but did not conceive the
magnitude of the perfected machine, and its almost infinite adap
tation to mechanical force. The infinite begins in conception,
and presents the first form as the commencing step of the design,
the perfected image being present in idea before its first present
ment became phenomenal j in art the design is conceived before
the idea is manipulated.

1 The great Creator of all things has infinitely diversified the works of his hands
but at the same time stamped a certain similitude on the features of nature that
demonstrates to us that tlie whole is one family of one parent." ( Zooiiomia,
E. Darwin, pref., 3rd ed.)

8 It is hut to exercise our reflections to find we are in the centre of a system
wherein the strictest relations are established between our intellectual capacities and
a material world. (Bell, Bridg. TV)

3 The mind is forced to interpret the impressions received through the senses as
proofs of the reality of a material world, and in like manner is forced to interpret
the intuitions of dependence and moral obligation ns proofs of the reality of a spiritual
world." (Potter, Set. and Revel., p. 33.)

3 If the " structure of the universe is an insoluble mystery* ( Belfast 4d. ), what
evidence is it possible to adduce for the "potence of matter?" The riddle only
becomes more perplexed. " I have asked myself can it he possible that man s know
ledge is the greatest knowledge that man s life is the highest life?" (Tyndall,

Creation. 7

It is said that the universe 1 is a mere mechanical arrangement ;
Helmholtz says there is no machine but is the result of intelli
gence. To this intelligence we direct our enquiry and find an
infinite expansion of thought beyond the power of the finite to
penetrate. When we are told that the germ 3 contains all the
successions of phenomena, we must conceive the intelligence
which devised this germ machine and endowed it with powers
which consummated the purposes of its institution. To speak
of the universe as a machine is to speak also of the intelligence
which designed, 3 fashioned, and not only crushed its energies into
form and fact, but instituted them. If the universe as a consum
mated problem be unfathomable, how much more does it become
so when we ponder on the little, the first condensed speck which,
by the expansion of its law becomes all we know and see, or
imagine we know and see. When human ingenuity has pene
trated the outlying facts of the material phenomena, it has its
pause, for the mystery of life, the mystery of mind and the
greater mystery beyond, hitherto have defied all human scrutiny.
The Finite is a grouping without, the Infinite an expansion
from the centre comprising all within its concentrating power.
Physical force is a resulting agency, vital force is the fact
of the cohesion and coherence of the universe. Vital func
tion thus becomes the inherent power which moulds masses,
crystallizes the inorganic, and granulates the organic, the impulsive
power of living forms.

Huxley says "Our thoughts maybe delusive, but they cannot
be fictitious." " Thus thought is existence," for all our con
ceptions of existence are concentrated in thought. 4 Objects are
but symbols of things painted on the retina of the eye and

Manchester.) Have we not his answer when he discerns " in matter" all the forms
and qualities of life ?" ( Bel. Add. )

1 Erasmus Darwin, in his preface Zuonotnia, says persons " idly ingenious
busied themselves in attempting to explain the laws of life by those of mechanism
and chemistry ; they considered the body as an hydraulic machine, and the fluids as
passing through a series of chemical changes, forgetting that animation was its
essential characteristic."

2 "Who could have believed that the germs of all the fair objects which we
behold in nature were in that void and dark and formless earth over whose waters
the Spirit of God spread his fostering wing ?" ( Thoughts on Person. Rel., Goul-
burn, p. 10.)

3 " We cannot think at all about the impressions which the external world pro
duces upon us without thinking of them as caused ; and we cannot carry out an
enquiry concerning their causation without inevitably committing ourselves to the
hypothesis of a first cause." (Spencer, First Principles, p. 37.)

4 "The complexity of structure belongs to external nature." . " We do not per
ceive a relation between this complexity and the mind . . . the mind may be as
distinct from the bodily organs as are the exterior influences which give them exer
cise." (Bell, B. 2V p. 7.)

8 The Major and tlie Minor.

translated in consciousness. In cases of colour blindness red
appears to be green ; this would show that it is collective rather
than individual experiences which determine a fact, and yet the
green colour is as vivid a reality to the individual, as the red by
collective experience, is determinative of the conception. As the
external sense of vision is deceptive so may conclusions be which
are ingrafted on perception. Physical science built upon perceptive
experiences can be truly translated only as they are reliable.
Intellectual phenomena are only known as effects connected with
objects. Material philosophy therefore pronounces all to be the re
sultants of matter and molecular changes. Had we not intellectual
consciousness there would be neither perception nor conception,
objects, nor thoughts. When the symbol photographed in the
eye receives translation it becomes our reality. 1 How then can it
be said the major (mind) has its origin in the minor ? (matter) ;
logically we know all majors are composed of minors, but this
can be said only of related things ; pile as we may atom on atom
we should never elicit mind, pile idea on idea and a wisdom would
be attainable approaching the precincts of infinitude. Percep
tive knowledge is built up of the symbols of things, not of things.
How then can we say that the symbolical expression of that we
term matter, objective forms, creates the subjecting intellect ?
Water swells upon the application of heat, the mass being affected
by an action within the particles, 2 the manifestation is influ
enced from without. How then can we say the closely com
pacted brain moves through it own motion ?

Admitting molecular changes, they occur through an external
impulsion. Water at an unchanging temperature uninfluenced by
external forces would remain apparently a motionless mass ; and
so the brain, unless influenced by a something external to itself,
would exhibit thesame death in life ; only on an irrefragable evidence
can it be accepted that consciousness and intellect are the result of
changes in the positions of its material particles this evidence
is wanting. Were it otherwise, we must say matter comprehends

1 " In the nervous system it holds universally that variety or contrast is necessary
to sensation." "The brain is insensible tbal part of the brain which, if disturbed
or diseased, takes away consciousness, is as insensible as the leather of our shoe " !
" Reason on it as we may, the fact is so the brain, through which every impression
must be conveyed before it is perceived, is itself insensible." (Bell, Bridg. Treat.,
pp. 161, 162.)

* Prout says, "heat envelopes each molecule in the form of an atmosphere."
( Bridgewater Treatise. ) Porter ( Science and Revelation, p. 11), objecting to
Faraday s view that atoms are " centres of force," says, " A centre of lorce must
either be material or immaterial ; if material the absurdity is as before, if immaterial
no aggregate of the immaterial could form the material universe." This is a mere
question of definition.

States of Consciousness.

itself " inert matter" thinks. When the confession is made
that "our knowledge of anything we know and feel more or less
... is a knowledge of states of consciousness " (however we
may dissent from the statement as to states of consciousness), it
is difficult to understand that these u states of consciousness" can
originate from matter. The symbol of a thing is expressed in con
sciousness, and but for the intellect it would there stagnate like
water uninfluenced by forces. To make the proposition more
obscure, we are told that

" The self and the not-self," being " states of consciousness," that of them
we cannot have " such unquestionable and immediate certainty as we have of
the states of consciousness which we consider to be their effects. " ( 45.)

Self and not-self, " states of consciousness," " states of con
sciousness" resulting efFects of the self and the not-self! is some
thing like saying a reflecting object is the result of the object
it reflects !

Consciousnesss as the mirror of the mind is in itself a unity ;
how that which is unity can be split into states is beyond my
comprehension. We should not say a reflector is states of reflec
tion, and by a parity of reasoning it seems impossible to say that
consciousness, being the reflector by and through which impres
sions are received, can be split into states. Science talks of states
of consciousness, but science is not infallible. There may be
states of mind, because the mind is composed of many parts ;
there may be distinctive intelligences, because intelligence consists
of degrees. We are conscious, or we are not conscious ; this
fact in relation to consciousness stands in the place of all its facts.

It is not because of the insight which has been achieved by the
analysis of the substances surrounding us, or by deductions which
announce that worlds have evolved from chaos ; l that all we per
ceive and all we comprehend are questions of physics. The stati
cal and dynamical are phases of phenomena, but the hidden energy
which transposes and transforms defies the powers of analysis. In
science, mechanical agencies find their expression and are in
truded as causes, but the intelligence underlying all has no place
in molecular physics, which, duly considered, if they have a place
in a true system of nature, are found to be functional and deter
mined by their law. The dogmatism of science reaches its
climax when we are told, " No one possessing any knowledge of
physical science would now venture to hold that vital force is the

1 " Obseivation has never yet reached, or can ever reach, the development of &
fiery cloud into emotion, intellect, will ; phenomena of the human mind." (Porter,
&lt; Set. and Revel., p. 28.)

io Scientific Dogmatism.

source of muscular power." 1 If this be the dictum of science, it
becomes necessary to examine the data on which it is founded.
Huxley says

" The tendency to disturb equilibrium to take forms which succeed one
another in definite cycles is the character of the living world." When speak
ing of vital action, he says that he cannot tell "the cause of the wonderful dif
ference between the dead . . . and the living particle of matter, appearing
in other respects identical." It may be there will " be discovered some higher
laws of which the facts of life are particular cases," and that a bond will be
found " between physico-chemical phenomena on the one hand and vital pheno
mena on the other ; at present we assuredly know there is none." ( L. S.,
p. 76.)

The examination of this hypothesis brings us as a starting
point to u the soul of the world," as an expression of universal
vitality. We have Thales and his demons. The living active
principle of Hippocrates called by him Nature, to which he re
ferred all sources of motion. An analogy of this thought is
found in the philosophy of Spinoza and in the expressions of
Goethe, that God is everywhere in nature, not that the method of
nature is God. Kepler and others have thought that the exposi
tion of the methods of nature was thinking again the thoughts
of God. 2 Pliny s philosophy was his theology, for to him motion,
whether vital or physical, was adisplayof thedivineenergy. Socrates
had a conception that the changes in nature could be explained
without having recourse to the direct agency of the Gods (vide
c Clouds of Aristophanes ) Aristotle has his primum mobile as the
first moving cause. Plato recognised a Divine being. 3 Aristotle s
idea became to him a soul, for the first moving cause was active
in animate forms through the instrumentality of a principle dis
tinct from the organism, and possessed an energy distinct from
the organs through which it was manifested. It could receive
nourishment, possessed sensation, motion, desire and intelligence.

1 " Dr. Frankland ascertained by direct calometrical determinations the potential
energy locked up in a muscle, and in its chief products of oxidation urea, uric
acid, and hippuric acid and proved that the store available was much less than
would suffice to account for the work done by Kick and Wislicenus in the ascent of
the Faulhorn. Frankland s experiments conclusively proved that the muscular force
expended by the two Professors . . . must have been chiefly derived from the oxida
tion of non-nitrogenous matters, since it could not have been produced by the oxida
tion of the muscle or other nitrogenous constituents of their bodies." (l^ide Nat.,
vol. xvii, p. 319.)

2 Perswus, a follower of Zeno, says : " Those who have made discoveries ad
vantageous to man should be esteemed as gods ; it is not sufficient to call them dis
coverers of gods, but that they should be deemed divine. (Wheelwright s transla
tion.)

3 Plato, referring to the early traditions, says, " One God governed the universe ;
but a change taking place in the nature of men and things, the command devolved
on Jupiter and other inferior deities to preside over different departments under him."
( Mitiord s UreeceS]

Thinking God s Thought. T I

In his idea this soul descended to vegetables. He had a definite
idea that the muscles are the seat of the motive power, and that
some nerves had relations to movement and others to sensation.
From the period of Aristotle mythic hypotheses have been in
vented to account for vital action.

Von Helmont (with Paracelsus) held that the Archaeus (con
scious and personal) accounted for all vital manifestations, and
assumed the credit of distinguishing the specific characters of ani
mate and inanimate nature. Stahl held matter to be essentially and
necessarily inert, and that the powers of motion were derived from
a special immaterial animating principle anlma^ " which does
without teaching and without consideration that which it ought to
do." Hoffman followed with "nervous influence" or "nerve
fluid," having powers of action or tone, which may be increased
(if unduly, spasm results) or diminished (if unduly, atony).
Then came Glissen s doctrine of muscular .irritability. Haller
expanded the idea, and drew the distinction between the special
vital properties of the muscles and of the nerves, retaining for the
muscle irritability, for the nerve sensibility ; for each property
there was a something departing at death. The property was the
life, of which, muscular contraction and nervation were acts.
Brown added to the theory " stimulation," all things acting on
the vital property acted as an excitant or stimulus.

After the time of Paracelsus the hope was excited that because
of the great revelations made of the mechanical methods of the
universe (Galileo, Kepler and Newton) " that the mechanical
principles of the macrocosm would supply the key to all con
tained in the microcosm." Hence followed the material and
mechanical theories, with which science is so much infested, the
expectation being that they would suffice for explanation.
Gilbert struck another path, he came to the conclusion that
magnetism was the key to the vital movement, 2 but no fruit
resulted until Galvani s accidental discovery. The movements he
witnessed led him "to divine" that they were the resultants of
animal electricity, due to the two kinds then known (vitreous
and resinous) 3 and contained in the jerking limbs, and that the

1 Erasmus Darwin calls this the spirit of animation.

2 " I do not think the experiments conclusive of Galvnni, Volta and others, they
show a similitude between the spirit of animation which contracts the muscular fibre
and the electric fluid. Since the electric fluid may act only as a more potent stimulus,
exciting the muscular fibres into action and not supplying them with a new quantity
of the spirit of life." ( Zoonomia, i, 83.)

2 (600 years B.C.) It was known a piece of amber rubbed acquired the quality
of attracting light bodies. Gilbert showed that glass, resin, wax, &c., possessed the
same power. Dut ay caused a feather to be repelled by an excited glass tube " and
intended to amuse himself by chasing it round the room with a piece of excited

12 Animal Electricity.

muscular fibres " were charged during rest as Leyden jars are
charged "* and that muscular action was a discharge brought
about by an electrical action of the nerve on the muscle. Volta
was opposed to Galvani s views, his investigations led to the
discovery of the voltaic pile and battery. Galvani continued
his researches, Volta held that the contractions of the " galvano-
scopic " frog were due to electricity arising from heterogeneous
bodies in contact. Humbolt (1779) examined the question and
held Volta was wrong in ignoring altogether the influences of
animal electricity, and Galvani in recognizing nothing but this
influence. Humbolt, although a believer in animal electricity, only
rendered the theory highly probable. 3 The discovery of the
voltaic battery set the subject at rest until 1827, when Nobili
detected an electric current in a frog s leg by means of a gal
vanometer he invented, since perfected by Du Bois Reymond,
William Thomson and others. Some years later a treatise of
Matteucci led Du Bois Reymond to investigate the subject.

sealing wax, but he found the feather was attracted, and he concluded there were two
species of electricity, to which he gave the names vitreous and resinous electricity ;
they are also called positive and negative. He found them to possess the same
general physical properties ; they are self- repulsive, but one is attractive of the other.
Eitrly electricians observed the similarity between the phenomena of the electric
spark and those of lightning. Franklin, intending to raise a pointed rod by way of
attracting electricity from the clouds, hit on the idea of making a kite of a silk hand
kerchief stretched on a light wooden frame, and attached to it a hempen string
terminating in a silk cord, to which he attached a key. During a thunderstorm he
raised his kite, but no result was obtained until the string became wetted, when he
saw the filaments repelling one another; on presenting his knuckle to the key he
" received an electric spark." Franklin s theory assumes butone fluid, Dufay s two,
Faraday has proved that the inductive action takes place in curved lines the direction
ol which can be varied by the approach of bodies. Radcliffe throughout his treatise
distinguishes the forms as Franklinic and Faradaic.

1 The gymnotus will deflect a magnetic needle, will magnetise a steel wire and
decompose iodide of potassium. In an intercepted metallic circuit a spark was seen,
and the induced spark was also obtained by a coil. The spark of the torpedo
passes through conducting bodies, but not through non-conductors. Faraday experi
menting on a gymnotus found the quantity of electricity passing at each discharge
was equal to that of a Leyden battery containing 3500 square inches, charged to its
highest degree, and this could be repeated two or three times without a sensible
interval of time. The discharges were attended by nervous exhaustion.

High pressure steam escaping through a narrow jet will produce electric sparks
many feet in length, probably due to the friction accompanying the escape by the
action of minute drops against the tube. (J ide Draper s Chem., p. 143.)

2 Erasmus Darwin says, " The alterations of electricity or magnetism do not
apply philosophically to the illustration of the contraction of muscular fibres,
since the force of those attractions in some proportion acts inversely as the distance,
but in muscular motions there appears to be no difference in velocity or strength
during the beginning or end of the contraction but which may be clearly ascribed
vo the varying mechanic advantage in the approximation of one bone to another,
not to that of " cohesion or elasticity." " We must conclude that animal con
traction is governed by laws of its own and not by those of mechanics, chemistry,
magnetism, or electricity " (p. 82). " If nevertheless this theory should ever
become established u stimulus must be called an eductor of vital ether ; which

Physical and Vital Force. 13

West of Alford (1832) supposed "that the nervous influence which is pre
sent in relaxed muscular fibre is the only influence which the nerves of volition
possess over that tissue, and its office is to restrain or control the tendency to
contract, so inherent in the muscle, and that contraction can only take place
when by an act of the will the influence is suspended, the muscle being then
left to act according to its own innate properties." Again, he says " that
nervous influence is imparted to muscular fibre for the purpose of restraining
its contraction and that the action of the will and of all other disposers to con
traction is simply to withdraw for a while this influence so as to allow the
peculiar property of the muscular fibre to display itself." Bell is reported to
have said "that relaxation might be the act, and not contraction, and that
physiologists in studying the subject, had too much neglected the consideration
of the mode by which relaxation is effected."

Later, Duges held " muscular contraction exists only by the
annihilation of expansion."

C. B. Radcliffe has contributed an important memoir on the
subject ( Vital Motion as a mode of Physical Motion ), a scientific
and practical application of S. T. Coleridge s idea that electricity
was the method of organised function ( Theory of Life ). 1 If
from Radcliffe s title the idea is to be gathered that physical
motion is the forestaller of vital motion the casual is made the
actual. That nature works by the forces (correlated) as her

stimulus may consist of sensation or volition as in the electric eel, as well as in
the appulses of external bodies ; as the drawing oft the charges of vital fluid
may occasion the contraction or motions of muscular fibres and organs of sense."
( Zoonomia, p. 84, vol. i.)

1 Sulzer (early in the 18th century) observed when silver and zinc are placed above
and under the tongue, the metallic edges being in contact, a metallic taste is obtained.
This is the first record of voltaic electricity. Galvani supposed the convulsions in the
limb of a dead skinned frog, when a metallic connection was made between a nerve and
muscle, arose from the muscular systems of animals being constantly in a positive elec
trical state, the nervous system being negative. Volta, on the contrary, held that these
convulsions were not due to any peculiarity of the animal system, but to the contact
of the metals employed. Erasmus Darwin, commenting on these effects (the
experiments of Sulzer apparently being unknown to him), says Volta experimented
with clean lead and silver, placing one above and one beneath the tongue; on contact of
the metals a saline or acidulous taste was perceived, " as if a fluid-like stream of elec
tricity passed from one to the other." Galvani, Fowler and Volta found silver and
zinc more effective ; by placing a lozenge of one metal above and the other beneath
the tongue, on contact a taste is perceived. If one of the metals be placed between
the upper lip and the gum of the fore teeth and their external edges be brought in
contact in a darkened room a flash of light is perceived in the eyes, showing " the
great sensibility of these organs of sense to the stimulus of the electric fluid " in
suddenly passing through them (vide Zoonomia, vol. i, p. 164).

It Radcliffe s ably conducted experiments be accepted as proof that muscular action
is the result of electric action, it is probable the effect on organs of taste and sight
may be due to a similar agency and that electricity plays a greater part in nature s
methods than has been heretofore conceived. We can only suppose that the vital
fact exemplifies its energy by physical means in its application to the animal economy.
Whatever be the physics of the mechanism, they can but be conducted by waste.
The vital energy using them as its methods repairs the waste and thus excludes
all idea of physical force (per se] being the initiatory impulse. If vital action
resulted alone in mechanical motion it might be said that muscular force was phy
sical force ; but no physical force reproduces itself.

14 Vitality and Electricity.

method is undoubted, hence it follows that the physical fact is a
resultant of the vital fact, the universal principle in nature. In
nature there is no distinction between the minutest material
particle and the most perfect of composite forms, except in the
conditions due to the aggregation and disposition of the particles.
If the vital motion of man be manifested through electrical
agency the same force is effective in the protamceba and even
in cells ; the cellular fact is a polar fact, and hence an electrical
fact, or its differentiation . The vital fact has formative besides
motive functions. The electrical, mechanical, and chemical
amalgamations produce objective phenomena ; by the considera
tion of them an insight is given into the working methods of
nature. It is more than doubtful, were there no vital principle
as a directing agent, whether nature could be. These considera
tions show nothing of the interactions of interior principles.
When analyses are made there are no disclosures of vitality, intelli
gence, or consciousness, or even of sensation, or the reason for the
cohesion of particle with particle or whence by the interactions of
force the differentiations we trace in the infinite variations of
phenomena arise. Can we then say we have a knowledge of
facts ? or shall we not say the knowledge we have attained is that
of our ignorance of the ultimate impulses of nature ?

Radcliffe appears to have said all that can be said of physical
motion, and has said it well. Accepting all his facts, he nowhere
explains what vital motion is ; but it must be conceded he dis
closes a method of its action, viz. that the physical motion of
animated life is derived from vital motion and is not a creator of
vital motion, and unless his title contains an equivoque it inaptly
presents his subject, suggesting the idea that vital motion is
the casual and physical motion the actual. His mode of treatment
utterly destroys the assumption of Frankland (supra}, and if the
reasonings are adopted it must henceforth be said that vital force is
the source of muscular power. He concludes by saying (p. 183)

" In point of fact, electricity and elasticity would seem to be everything
in vital motion, and vitality nothing. In saying this about electricity, how
ever, I have no wish to elevate that which is physical at the expense of that
which is vital. On the contrary, I firmly believe and with this remark I
bring to a close what I have to say upon vital motion in its physiological rela
tions that which is called electricity is only a one-sided manifestation of the
workings of a single, central, cosmical law, which, when fully revealed, will
be found to rule living and lifeless bodies alike, not by entombing spirit in
matter, but by transfiguring and spiritualising matter a law which without
confusion of substance binds all things together in the very closest communion
a law which makes the old belief of multeity in unity and unity in multeity
a sober fact."

Progressive Advancement. 1 5

There is the same confusion here so obvious in other treatises, the
confounding the perceived with the conceived. The method of
the work is the perceptive ; the underlying element, inducing the
work, the conceptive. When all is said which physical considera
tions can say, we have man (in his two or combined phases of
being the perceptive and conceptive), the thinking presentment of
an organic fact.

Physicists and chemists work by way of analysis. The philo
sopher accepts the facts and subordinates all to principles, for
every object and living form, rightly understood, contains within
itself the past history of the world. Organization as a vital fact
is the expression of its work, as intelligence is digested thought.
Reasonings fairly conducted open up truths whereby seeming facts,
long accepted as truths, are overthrown by the slow march of
induction. Copernicus prepared the way for Galileo, he for
Kepler, and Kepler for Newton. Newton, by the discovery of
the laws of gravitation, opened out a vast field for inquiry and
gave scope for speculation, out of which eager thinkers constructed
a scheme or foundation for Kosmical science. The speculations
of Kant and Laplace led to the nebular theory, in the same way
as the theory of light and Newton s observation of two lines in
the solar spectrum led to the development of the present system of
spectral analysis which discloses the elemental compounds of suns
and planetary bodies. The minutiae of parts are but the stepping-
stones of construction, the underlying energy moulds and fashions,
and from heterogeneity produces homogeneity by the imperative
force of law. Physics disclose the faculty of being adapted ; the po-
tence discerned in physics thus becomes that inner capability we
know as vital energy. 1 Allow the physicist to construe the theme,
and intelligence is but a problem of molecular physics. 2 No
experiment has yet proved that vital and physical forces are the
same. The muscle lengthens or swells through vital action. 8 If

1 All vital acts are associated muscxilar facts, as when the arm is extended to a
distant object other muscles come into unconscious action in order to preserve the
centre of gravity. So when threading a needle, the pectoral muscle is brought into
action to preserve the trunk of the body motionless, and for the moment respiration
ceases. (fide Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 59.)

2 " The assertion that the universe is self-existent does not really carry us a step
beyond the cognition of its present existence, and so leaves us with a mere restate
ment of its mystery." ( First Principles, p. 32, Spencer.)

3 Bell, speaking of the muscular action of the eye, says "When men deny the
fine muscular adaptation of the eye to the sensation on the retina, how do they
account for the obvious fact that the eyeball does move in such just degrees ? How
is the one eye adjusted to the other with such marvellous precision ? And how do
the eyes move together in pursuit of an object, never failing to accompany it cor
rectly, be it the flight ot a bird, the course of a tennis ball, and even of a bomb-shell.
Is it not an irresistible conclusion that if we follow an object, adjusting the muscles

1 6 Vitality and Physics.

this lengthening and swelling were mere physical results, why
does the innate, or we might say the self-active power cease when
the life is withdrawn . ?1 The materials are present, but their
elasticity has passed away. If we collate the facts, what do we
find ? Vital force as the inherent fact of all things ; physical or
material force but a consequence of the organization. Vital force
originates, physical force acts only through an impulsion. Vital
force congregates, disintegrates, and multiplies itself; physical
force acts only in masses through gravitation. Vital force cannot
be originated, nor its issues directed ; but physical force may be
directed and called into action at will, and may be made the play
thing of the hour, as the incitation of muscular elasticity after
death. By some it has been said that catalytic action is allied to,
if it be not of the same nature as fermentation. Fermentation is
the result of a living organism, and its changes are self-multiplica
tion, not due to the mere dissolution or disintegration of the parts.
There may be decay without putrefaction, but no putrefaction can
occur without the presence of living particles (Pasteur}. Cata
lytic forms have no power of self-multiplication^ the living always
have. The changes " in the living cells show that life involves
more than chemical, mechanical, and catalytic changes, or of the
whole together" (Beale}. z An organic compound and an organ
ism can be presented in their original constituents j the first has
the capacity of life, i.e. the possibility of being the life bearer ;
the last possesses the life fact, affording proof that the objective
presentment of the elements in combination constitutes merely
the vehicle through which vitality is manifested.

It were better to accept the dogmatism of Theology as the
social rule than that of Materialism. The former has at least its
check in the communion of belief, the latter has no check ; for
it is not to be supposed that the multitude have attained to such

of the eye so as to present the axis of vision successively to it as it changes place,
we must be sensible of these motions ? for how can we direct the muscles unless we
be sensible to their action ? And must we not have a conception of the relations of
the muscles and of the position of the axis of the eye before we can alter its direc
tion to fix it on a new object? ( B. T., p. 287.)

1 Muscular fibre ceases to have irritability after death, but retains its elasticity, as
shown in a harp string a rude stroke and it becomes relaxed and has no energy to
regain its former position ; in the living fibre the elasticity is restored by vital action
when relaxed by too continued a strain. (Bell, B. T. )

2 "If the vital actions of man s frame were directed by his will, they are neces
sarily so minute and complicated they would immediately fall in confusion." " A
tracery of nervous cords unites many organs in sympathy ; if one filament were
broken, pain, spasm, and suffocation would ensue." The action of the heart, the
circulation of the blood, and all vital functions are governed by laws not dependent
on will, and to which the powers of the mind are altogether inadequate, A doubt, a
moment s pause of irresolution, a forgctfulness of a single action at its appointed
time, would terminate life. (Bell, &lt; Brid. Treat., 10.)

Germs. 1 7

culture that philosophical dicta would be adopted as the rule of
conduct. Buddha is explicit on the point. 1

Burdon Sanderson and Tyndall, however they may differ in
definition and explanation, agree in describing germs as inappre
ciable by the highest powers of the microscope, and even go so
far as to assume them to be atmospheric specks. What conclu
sion can be drawn other than that the germs are not in themselves
existing composite forms, but that they are elemental units which,
by an interaction and in an aggregation cement their life facts pro
ducing their like, as active organizations, or by contact with the
juices of an organization producing morbid action. Pasteur by
his series of experiments showed that the infections of the vine
and silk worm arose from germs.

The processes of Tyndall were directed to the mere question
of spontaneous growth, and he claims to have proved there is no
such thing by ignoring the processes of nature. The methods
he pursued are the same as those of Bastian and others. The
later experiments on urea (Bastian) seem to have excited the atten
tion of Pasteur. 2 There are no repeated boilings in nature, nor
an exclusion of the elements of the protoplasm, which lives only
by contact with environments filled with vital energies. The
germ, whatever it be, is the car of vitality whereon it is trium
phantly borne to consummate its conquests. Nature works in
her own mode, and all these experimental distortions of nature s
course appear to show that the law of nature is the spontaneous in
rush of life. Creation, or whatever the name most fitting, was
accomplished once for all ; the first consolidated mass jelly spot
or germ contained within itself the vitality which became the
life. 3 According to the general theory the Kosmos arose from a

1 " It is better to believe in a future life in which happiness or misery can be felt;
for if the heart believes therein, it will abandon sin and act virtuously ; and even if
there be no resurrection, such a life will bring good name and the regard of many ;
but those who believe in extinction at death will not fail to commit any sin that they
may choose, because of their disbelief in a future ; and if there should happen to be
a future after all, they will be at a disadvantage, they will be like travellers without
provisions." ( Wheel of law. )

2 An investigation of Bastian s process was proposed. Pasteur, Dumas, and
Milne-Edwards were appointed as judges. Through certain preliminaries insisted
on, the investigation was deferred.

3 It is assumed pangenesis is incompatible with scientific analysis, yet physicists
are compelled to admit that microzoa float in the atmosphere. Of this character
are the invisible atmospheric germs of Tyndall and Burdon Sanderson. It is amus
ing to note the struggles to maintain hypotheses which deny on the one hand the
spontaneity of life and universal vitality, yet on the other gravely assume invisible
atmospheric living germs. This vitality pervades air, earth, and water ; the plasma
materials are everywhere. Vitality engenders other vitalities a parasitic life exists
in vigour in the interior of animals and plants ; not alone in cavities communicable
with the outer world, but in parts closely sealed from contact with air, as the worms

1 8 The Flaming Chaos.

consolidation of igneous vapour. 1 From such a state it is difficult
to understand how the life emerged. To adopt the igneous
theory, all we know of space, that Vast which glows with orbs
filling the arc of the sky, spanning distances represented by num
bers the mind fails to grasp, was once a glowing fiery vapour. If
this were the state of the sun and his system, it was that of all
other suns and cycles of suns and astral systems, heat in its ex
treme aspect supreme as substance. If the law of combinations
be followed, we find the elements existed in a fluid form ;
through condensations, aggregations, and cohesions by affinities,
the germ was developed and the earliest animated forms appeared ;
the rocks were the results of the life thus generated. Science
teaches, the polype deposits chalk, carbon in precipitation, absorbed
from the surrounding fluids. There is also the globegerina ooze.
Wyville Thomson was inclined to suppose that the red clay
found on the bottom of the ocean resulted from it. The idea
was dispelled when the naturalists accompanying the Challenger
expedition proved it to be mainly due to decomposed and disin
tegrated pumice, through the action of sea water. 2 The flints
are due to the sponges. 3 Infusorial and the early forms of life,

in sheep s brains, and the Trichina spiralis invading fleshy structure. Pantheists
may be excused for assuming the universality of life all the earth, as we know it,
is composed of once living debris. They erred in supposing spontaneity to be the
originating cause; but for the ultimate impulse directed by intelligence, the univer
sal chaos would have stagnated even although interpenetrated by a seething anima
tion.

1 The prevalence of heat as a principle in nature is proved by the ready production
of combustion ; by the concentration of the sun s rays a substance may be inflamed ;
by the compression of air in a glass cylinder by a piston, tinder or phosphorus at .
tached to it is ignited ; by pouring concentrated nitric acid on oil of turpentine, by the
trituration of phosphorus, by directing a stream of inflammable gas on particles of
phosphorus; and by passing an electric current along a wire by means of a voltaic
apparatus, &c. (fee.

2 The Challenger researches show the ocean, even in the lowest depths, has a life
of its own. Ross procured living infusoria from the bottom of the Antarctic Ocean,
and more than fifty species with siliceous carapaces from the floating ice of these
seas. In the Gulf of Erebus seventy-eight species of siliceous infusoria were brought
up from a depth of 1500 feet, and infusoria have been found at the depth of 12,000 a
pressure of 375 atmospheres.

3 Sponges (prorifera) are classed as animals, and are met with in all shapes,
sizes, forms, and colours Neptune s glove, sea muffs, sea tapers, the cup of Nep
tune, &c. Generally they appear to be gelatinous masses supported by a network of
horny filaments, or calcareous or siliceous framework ; in~tbeir natural habitations
they are full of life and action. Of organs there is no trace. Some have little hollows
or fibres of flint, so fragile as to break on the least pressure. Many naturalists
suppose the flints in chalk are the debris of sponges. Their remains are found in
jaspars and agates. The spiculfe vary in shape ; some have simple translucent bars,
others are like rough flints rendered transparent, others star-shaped with several
points. The greater number of them appear as knotted clubs of different coloured
glass. The pumice stone sponge (daclyto chutix) is an agglomerate of spiculae, and

The Ever-present Life. 19

even as high as the Crustacea, have swollen the mass of deposits
by their remains. The great fact of all is that these deposits, in
one mode or other, are composed of the skeletons, secretions,
and excretions of infusoria, and the simplest forms of life. Moun
tains are heaped up by their remains ; they face us in every
strata where oxydized carbon is the predominant constituent. In
the depths of the sea, far beneath the influence of the direct rays
of the sun, we find the foraminifera, or their remains ; a crawling
life, and eyeless creatures ; high on the mountain heights, even on
their most elevated points, the foraminifera and kindred orders
meet us. Schemes of creation and hypotheses of the advent of
life on the earth are many ; we have the theocratic idea of direct
manipulation, 1 and we have the astounding proposition of a dis
tinguished physicist that the precursor of life on the earth was the
advent of a lichen concealed in the crevices of a fragment of an
exploded world. The lichen would have been inoperative unless
the fungus had accompanied it. If the life was borne on the
fragment of an exploded world, from whence was the life im
parted to the first world coagulated from the igneous fluid ? The
only reasonable explanation of the presence of life on this globe
is that of a vital spontaneity. Science regards with indifference
the theory of men developing from apes, and of automatic man,
and with complacency regards the materialistic theory that from
matter we have " all the forms and qualities of life/ through its
own inherent power. Spontaneity, whatever it may mean, was
doubtless the fact of creation ; law formulated the fact, and
the beginning is the continuing present. In our ignorance of
real causes, the hypothesis of spontaneity points to that be
ginning of life from which all the facts of science converge. 2
We do not expect to see the rock become a man, but we do
find the beginnings of life in the organless jelly spot. Law, con-

resembles a madrepore rather than a sponge. It is hard and stiff, as though carved
from stone, and yet so porous as scarcely to weigh more than a similar bulk of cork,
and it is formed entirely of silex. The reticulated structures are transparent glass
tubes, the silex form ing the mass itself not being arranged as spicnlae. It is perfectly
rigid and sonorous when struck. Sponges are numerous ; myriads of gemmules pass
into the sea from every sponge inhabiting its waters. " So numerous are they and
so marvellously prolific, the wonder is that they do not swarm to such an extent as
to fill the oceans aud poison the whole earth by the odour of their decay."

1 The Chinese represented the first organizer of chaos as a feeble old man (Pan-
Kou-Che) toiling painfully at his work, carving out the crusts of the globe, at the
same time clearing a path through a wilderness of rocks. The Scandinavians made
their god (Thor) mighty and redoubtable, endowed with an invincible energy, who
with his hammer crushed and scattered the crusts of the earth, forming from the
splinters mountains and rocks.

2 Immensity everywhere, revealed in the sky, where glow a du.st of stars, and in
living infusoria too minute to display their organization. (Pouchet, I Univers.)

2O Intelligence the Law of Nature.

sidered as the ideal of intelligence, is the insisting fact of all nature,
and that which at any time was the result of its action is the con
tinuing fact, or all human science and human knowledge becomes
a bundle of contradictory absurdities. When formation by se
quential differentiation is considered, the kosmic theory of Kant
and its more definite mathematical expression by La Place viz.
that the earth is due to the condensation of igneous vapour,
a mass of heterogeneous gaseous substances in a state of violent
ignition appears open to grave doubts. Given heat as a distinct
principle from its action we can view the emanation of objective
phenomena, and conflagration becomes, as it continues to be, the
casual exhibition. It appears improbable that a universal confla
gration ever existed. The hypothesis is that the covering or en
velope of the sun is flaming hydrogen in a state of violent com
bustion, but within it, floats the opaque ball, the true sun which
the Herschels, Arago and Figuier supposed to be or might be
inhabited. If their ideas be more than hypotheses, the seeming
flaming hemisphere, which human ingenuity has found the means
of inspecting, will receive another solution. It is impossible to
conceive that an igneous mist, a flaming chaos of red hot elements,
could ever have been the state of a life-bearing orb. Passing over
the question of a primordial element we can say the elemental
gases, metals and metalloids, were a mingled chaos permeated by
heat, and that through some counteracting power the gases com
bined and the denser portions were precipitated as a fluid. We then
get a floating liquid orb with no solid in its sphere, surrounded by
a gaseous envelope of mingled elements which eventually suc
cumbed to vital energy. 1 Protoplasmic elements cohered and
jelly specks floated amid this partly condensed fluid sphere, and
congregated in millions and multiplied in myriads of millions ; 2

1 " Everywhere throughout our planet we notice the tendency of the ultimate
particles of matter to run into symmetric forms and that the very molecules are
instinct with a desire for union and growth. Tyndall at Manchester.

" With each new implement (mechanical structure) visible externally, there
are a thousand internal relations established ; a mechanical contrivance in the bones
and joints which alters every part of the skeleton ; an arrangement of muscles in
just correspondence ; a new and appropriate texture of nervous filaments which is
laid intermediate between the instrument and the very centre of life and motion ;
and finally new sources of activity must be created in relation to the new organ
otherwise the part will hang a useless appendage." Bell, Brid. Treat., 148.

2 " So rapid is the progression of infusorial life Ehrenberg calculated one of
these invisible creatures, of i^Vo* of an inch in extent, became in twenty-four
hours (by fission) a million, and in four days one hundred and forty billions, A bulk
nearly equal to two cubic feet; if the four clays were multiplied by the eras of
geology masses are disclosed which would construct thousands of worlds. Ilechus
showed that the mud of the harbour of Weimar (composed of half or a third of
existing species) accumulates so immensely that in a century they probably will

The Hypothetical Kosmos.

by secretions from their environments and from dead carcases,
infinitesimal in size, masses were formed which would obey the
law of motion incidental to inanimate substances collecting in a
body by mutual attractions 1 and by the action of the correlated
forces cohesion would be manifested in the mass. Time being of
no account in the tremendous impulse, the heterogeneous became
the homogeneous, chaos became order. The mass, heat impreg
nated would display unequal distensions and chemical contentions,
whereby swellings and eruptions would ensue ; the coagulated
and aggregated mass would assume all shapes compatible with
that of a revolving sphere, and from the heat generated, protru
sions, hollows, and fractures would arise, which the waters would
fill and form oceans and rivers, and interior forces would be
initiated such as the earth experiences. Were it not for those
forces, instead of the successions of heights and hollows, there
would be a smooth water-washed surface which the ebb tide
would leave bare and the flood submerge. In such a state, life in
its multifarious variety and in its active manifestation would be
but sparingly exhibited. Following the phases of the geological
eras in the deposition of strata, the simplest life-facts are first
presented, and as the environments become ameliorated so the life
presents itself in a higher form. Every departure from the chaotic
admixture presents the life-facts lit up by a new energy. Dif
ferentiations and the admixture of elemental substances would
account for the composition of the various rocks, and the infinite

represent a million cubic yards. On the heaths of Luneburg there are beds of these
accumulations of large extent, forty feet in thickness. In America such beds are
found twenty feet thick. Berlin is built on such a bed. The tiipolis (siliceous
rocks) are almost exclusively skeletons of Bacellaria. Mulliolie are heaped as
mountains of limestone. Nummelites form the chain of mountains which extend
along the Nile. The sphinx and pyramids are formed of them. The edible dust
found in many parts contains numberless species of infusoria (Retzius). The life in
the early geological eras leaves everywhere its mark on the strata. The calmness of
the sea was coequal with the fecundity. There are deposits of shells which show
no mark of erosion, retaining their delicate projections and almost imperceptible
striee and still glowing with colour. Again, there are deposits crushed and broken,
precipitated into a tumultuous sea and then elevated. Mollusks are piled in masses
deep in the strata and upreared as mountains. Shells, corals, animalculae, or their
remains, everywhere abound. Mountains of chalk are tue debris of sponges and
invisible foraminit era, encircling England, abounding on the Volga, in the north of
France, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Sicily, Arabia, &lt;fec. The strata of the earth
capable of inspection are found to be composed of once living things and the ground-
worn particles of the plutonic rocks, and from which all marks of life are erased. Look
where we will it is life or its remains ! "

2 Maury in proof of his hypothesis of the collection of the weed in the sea of
Saragossa says: " If we throw into a vessel of water pieces of cork, grain, or any
other floating bodies and communicate a rotary movement to the water, all these
light bodies will collect towards the centre because the water is less agitated there
than elsewhere."

22 The Alternative.

variations of their admixtures. This hypothesis presents a picture
more in accordance with scientific advance than that which a
flaming incandescence presents.

Fontenelle insisted intellect should be solely occupied with facts
out of which grow all philosophy as a subject capable of universal
application ; we may say all we know of objective forms is com
prised in three grand generalizations Malpighi s littles, Grove s
correlation 1 (transmutations) of forces, and Darwin s evolution
(developement). All substances are particled, and when acted on
by forces, they develope into masses ; this is the method of
Nature ; its continuity, due to recuperative energy. It is more
consistent with the revealed facts that animation arose from an
unbounded vitality, which energized as it produced, than to sup
pose all we know of animated nature are condensations from a fire
mist. Conflagration produces but incandescence, a disintegration
of masses ending in a gaseous exhalation ; the greater the heat the
wider the interstices between particle and particle, and as space is
an expanse, there could be no bounding lines.

In infusorial life we have an invisible world, as mighty and
grand as that of the seen. 2 Such a history announced before
the application of the microscope would have been considered as
the dream of lunacy. The discoveries of science are but percep
tive infinitesimals, worthless without intelligence as an interpreter.
Science has growth ; nothing in it is final. 3 Pythagorus, hun-

1 If the true emphasis were given by science to this theory, we should miss much
of the erudition we meet with to account for the changes of climate in the early
geological eras, as changing polar positions, inversions ol the equinox, oscillations,
& cooling earth and sun, viscosity of the earth, &c. &c., so scientifically demon
strated. The transfusion of the forces would simplify our conception of facts, and
probably throw some light on this very obscure question.

2 For a long time after infusoria were discovered it was supposed they had
no organization. Gleichen stained some water \vith carmine in which were some,
and was astonished to see them glowing with colour. The significance of this
fact long escaped the naturalist. Ehrenberg demonstrated that many of these
creatures had complicated internal organization. Some have twenty or more
stomachs (microzoon.s), others stomachs with teeth. Others have eyes presenting
flame-red pupils, others cavities representing hearts. The protei, like the white
blood-corpuscules, change their shapes now globular, now three cornered, now
star-like. &lt;fcc.

There is as much relative difference in size between a monad and the hooded
colpodos as between a mouse and a mammoth. Ehrenberg, from his observation of
the infusoria, supposed them to be in incessant movement, taking neither sleep nor
rest. Owen supposed this to be due to the great development of the digestive
powers. Some are cased in mail formed of silex, and are infinitely diversified
in form.

3 The coral of commerce was long a mystery. It has a long branched stem
beautifully red in colour, found in great ocean depths, its branches covered with
rose-coloured bark, display here and there small holes ; these are the habitations of
the polypi, which, when expanded, appear like flowers of a delicate white colour, in

The Unseen World. 23

dreds of years before the Christian era, sketched the planetary
system, Ptolemy and Copernicus attempted to revive his theory ;
but not until Galileo stretched his tube towards the skies did the
system gain credence. When Newton mathematically worked out
his theory of gravitation, the motions of the heavens were assumed
to be ascertained facts. The same inherence and relation which
particle has for particle find their counterpart in the spinning orbs,
wheel within wheel, in endless whirr, interlacing and combining by
polar influences (magnetic), a dependent and depending animation
expressed as motion. Magnetism within and around us, Galvani s
accident gave the clue to the mystery which Volta unlocked ;
Gilbert had before divined such action, but there were no imple
ments to test his conjecture and when there were, long years passed
before Faraday showed the relations of electricity to magnetism.
The vital unseen being so wondrously defined, can we say there
is nothing beyond the world we perceive, a world of existing and
intelligent power beyond that in which we live and assume to
know. There is no implement to probe its depths or reveal its
wonders. There may exist spiritual things around and about us of
which we are as unconscious as we were of the world of the animal-
culs. One well-authenticated and scientifically evidenced spiri
tual fact would do for the intelligent unseen what the microscope,
the telescope, and Voltaic-cell did for biology, astronomy, and
electro-magnetism. The boast of Tyndall at Birmingham, the

eight divergencies, spread raylike with fringes of cilia. Tournefort took it to be a
plant, Marsigli announced he had discovered the flowers of the coral and sent a
specimen to the Academy of Sciences, and it was supposed the question was settled.
Peysonnell discovered the flowers to be so many polypi, the builders of the stone
shrub. He made his discovery known to the Academy, and in return received
insult. Reaumer wrote to him in a tone of pity and irony, Jussieu contemptu
ously. Peysonnell, in disgust, forsook his native land, and died an exile. Even
tually, on investigation, it was found the obscure French physician was more learned
than the Academy. Nicolai put to rest for ever the absurd myths relating to coral
being limp and flaccid in water, but hard in the air. He descended to the sea bottom,
and found it was stone in water as in the atmosphere. Duthiers found the polypi
imitate the sexual dispositions found in certain plants. Some are male, others
female, and others hermaphrodite. The eggs are spherical, of a milk white, and
almost as soon as issued move about to seek a favourable site to establish
themselves. The polypi by their labours have raised the sea s bottom, and
brought about various changes (by their calcareous buildings) in the crust of the
globe.

The powers of these "builders of worlds," as Michelet calls them, recast and
changed the surface of the globe in antediluvian periods. The inhabitants of Suez
and Djeddah build their houses with masses of madrepores obtained from the Red
Sea (Forskal), Bolta says the Sandwich Islanders use them for the same
purposes.

Our palaces, monuments, and statues are the carcases of animals which played
their part in life in aeons of geological eras. Whatever our habitations, whether
timber or brick, all are composed of once-living forms.

24 The Method of Creation.

assumptions of Huxley and Haeckel will never be realized until
we go behind perception. With that only as our working fact,
we have as an axiom " ignoramus ignorabimus ;" when we pierce
the ideal and the scientifically unknown we may say, " We
know, and we shall know." 1

Through the minute and invisible, through an unceasing
vitality, with its adjunct heat, earth assumed its form. Heat,
expressed as animation, is soothing and developing ; as electric
action, condensing and changing; in excess destroying and re-form-
inor Thus we mi^ht run the round of all the correlated forces.

When we have thought all we can think, and proved all we can
prove, we have alone spontaneity through the impress of law. We
may formulate theories, and when all is done we arrive at Hume s
probable possible. Whether we test the air, the waters, or the
rocks, we find life or its remains, giving significance to Shelley s
idea, "that every grain of dust was once indued with life." 3

The hypothesis cursorily sketched may reconcile catastrophism,
uniformitarianism, and evolutionism, or may be claimed by either
or by all. Over it the theologian and materialist might shake
hands ; for on the one hand it may be said that the earth emerged
from the chaos of darkness by the fiat of an Almighty and Intelli
gent Will, and life became its fact by the institution of Law. And
on the other hand that this was accomplished by the direct ordina
tion of mechanics and chemistry as the method of nature through
vital evolution.

Of Deity we can have no exact knowledge ; we see in nature

1 Pouchet says, " I never see one of these gigantic sponges (Neptuue s Cup) with
out humbling myself before the wisdom of Providence. This monumental struc
ture is erected solely by myriads of polypi, fragile creatures shrunk within their holes
to plunge their imperceptible arms into the waves. And who directs and guides the in
visible hands of these polypi, separated from one another and often a yard apart, so as
to give their works such harmonious symmetry? Who, when the narrow stalk is
finished, tells its population that from henceforth they must widen it ? Who tells
them when the time is come for hollowing the vase, and when it is the season for
thinning its edges and adorning the exterior with elegant ribs? Arid, lastly, what
supreme inspiration teaches a multitude of workmen, so scattered, and all caged in
their little cells, that they mould the cup in all its artistic proportions" (L Univers).
"This magnificent construction is the noblest challenge one can oiler to the schools
of materialism. Do physico-chemical sciences explain bow these animals commu
nicate with each other so as to finish their common habitation, for it is absolutely
necessary that all should be governed by one dominant idea " (Ibid.). The same
idea may be extended to the germs of which all animal forms are composed.

2 The flashing phosphorescence on the surface of the ocean is due to minute crea
tures. The iniliury noctituca, a tiny jelly speck, with numerous points and filiform
appendages, plays a great part, as also the medusae or the physophora, trailing tresses
spangled with stars like those of Berenice. Midden found the blood-showers and
red snow were due to twenty species of animalculie and as many microscopic plants.
Humbolt says that each bed of ocean is peopled with animalculae to depths
exceeding the highest mountains.

The Unseen. 25

a working intelligence coextensive with phenomena, and find
thereby an active interposition resulting in homogeneous order. Call
this law or aught else, it is individualised in its facts. Whatever
it may be, we can neither add to nor diminish the reality. This
Intelligence must count for something in the order of nature ; if
for something, then for all things. 1

The dread of the unseen found with uncultured races and the
idolatry of the cultured enthusiast has its origin in the same
root. The solution of philosophical ideals and the extremes of
theological dicta are found in that inherent sentiment common to

the races of man, the sense of an existence without and beyond
us the presence of a life beyond the life we live. The first man
who regarded the sun as the ruling principle of nature gave being
to the intellectual sentiment expressed as religion. 2 The ampli
fication of the idea is found in the theologies of civilization,
in fact there is but little distinction between the fetish and

1 In the Vedic poems, of Chaos, cr the beginning, we read, " Nothing that is
was then, even what is not did not exist then, what was it that hid, or covered the
existing? What was the refuge of what? \Vas water the deep abyss, the chaos
which swallowed up everything ? There was no death, nothing immortal. There
was no space, no life, and lastly no time. No solar touch by which the morning
might be told from the evening. That one breathed, breathless by itself; other
than it, nothing has since been. That one breathed and lived; it enjoyed more
than mere existence ; yet its life was not dependent upon itself as our life depends
on the air we breathe. It breathed, breathless. Darkness there was, and all at
first was veiled in gloom profound as ocean." ( Hist. Sans., lit, Max Midler.) In the
Vedas there are other grand expositions of thought which may have afforded the
nucleus of myths and theisms. As a pervading idea, " there is the expression of
one supreme being in all and above all." (Ta/boys fVheeler.)

3 Dupuis ( Origine des Cultes ) held the hypothesis that all religious belief arose
from the worship of the elements. * Light and darkness, its perpetual contrast ; the
succession of days and nights, the periodical order of the seasons; the career of the
brilliant luminary which regulates their course ; that of the moon his sister and
rival ; night and the innumerable fires which she lights in the blue vault of heaven ;
the revolution of the stars which exhibits them for a longer or shorter period above
our horizon ; the constancy of this period in the fixed stars and planets ; their direct
and retrograde course ; their momentary rest ; the phases of the moon waxing, full,
waning, divested of all light; the progressive motion of the sun upwards, down
wards ; the successive order of the rising and setting of the fixed stars which mark
the different points of the course of the sun, whilst the different aspects which the
earth daily assumes mark here below also the same periods of the sun s annual
motion.... A 11 these different pictures displayed before the eyes of man, form tbe
great and magnificent spectacle by which I suppose him to be surrounded at tbe
moment when he is about to create his gods." Hume says, "The first ideas of
religion arose not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern
with regard to the events of life, and from incessant hopes and fears which actuate
the human mind" (Nat. Hist. Ret., p. 13.)

It was the conviction of something divine which gave permanence to the mythic
gods. " The early thinker necessarily invested all external objects with properties
and qualities similar to those he assigned to human beings, and these actions he
assigned to human motives. Sun, moon, and stars seemed living beings ; flames,
streams, and winds were supposed to be moved by feelings such as those known
to move animals and men. Philos.of Mind, p. 307.

26 Religious Reformers.

relic, or between the rude stone of sacrifice and the gorgeously
decked altar. 1

The act of reverence in the bended knee and the utterance of
prayer were sympathetic expressions of human sentiment originat
ing from the ideal conception of an unseen power, and thus becom
ing the intellectual communion of affinity spirit seeking spirit.
So true the conception, man universally adopted it. The bended
knee is the symbol of dependence and propitiation. Weill (Moise
etle Talmud"] says " in the Mosaic law there was no idea of prayer,
intercession, or pardon." This conclusion appears to receive coun
tenance from Luke xi, i, where one of the disciples said to Jesus,
" Teach us to pray." He gave the form, in which there is not a
single supplication for spiritual blessing or for salvation.

All the great religious reformers appear to have been impressed
by the idea that they were expressly selected by God for the office,
and assert that they were either in direct communion with Deity
or subjected to such an influx that the system they promulgated
was the direct announcement of the will of God. Buddha assumed
to have achieved the position of Deity by means of his austerities.
The followers of Jesus Christ assert that he was the Son of God,
and co-equal with God. 2 He embodied a great philosophy when
he proclaimed the Sonship of man and the Fatherhood of God.
Whether he said he was the Son of God in any other sense than
that all men are the sons of God is a subject of controversy. By
proclaiming the Sonship of man and the common Fatherhood of
God he showed the intellectual kinship of man. Buddha,
taught that all creatures were entitled to the consideration of
man ; that cruelty to them was a crime against the divine nature,
and subjected the perpetrators to a metempsychosis wherein they
would experience a thousand-fold the cruelties they had inflicted.
He inculcated purity of thought and act, and the denial of the
amenities of life as the means of attaining to Nirvana. He
imperatively stamped his sincerity by abandoning an august posi
tion, and becoming a wandering fakeer. The new thought in
culcated by Jesus was the kinship of man j by Moses the institu
tion of the Sabbath ; by Zoroaster, the immortality of the soul ;
by Mohammed, the continuation in a life to come of sensory

1 "The garlands which adorn a martyr s tomb cannot thrill with pleasure the
decaying corpse within." They may serve as beacons to the living, or as inci-
tations to an idealism which presupposes that all acts of life but subserve the
life to come and that an eternity of pleasurable bliss is concentrated in the con
templation of ineffable Deity, and lead to n faith built on a code whereby the
selfishness of the human is merged in tbe enjoyment of the divine. When all is
said we have but the fetish as an appreciation of tbe unseen.

2 Indra deposed Dyaus, Jupiter Chronos, Jesus Jehovah.

Theological Systems. 27

pleasures. In the parable of Lazarus and Dives the sensory fact
of pain in the life to come is delineated. If there be pain, it is
probable there will be the sensory fact of pleasure the more agree
able doctrine ; yet this is pointed to as a fatal blot in the Mo
hammedan creed. If the life to come be of pure intelligence or
spirit, it is difficult to conceive the presence of the senses as we
understand their action. The moral precept of duty, Do unto
others as you would they should do unto you, is the inculcation of
all the teachers. Its earliest expression, as an axiom of conduct,
is found in the writings of Confucius.

The teaching of modern spiritualism is, that in the future the
spirit will be instructed until the utmost knowledge and the utmost
purity is attained ; as then only the spirit can endure and enjoy
the presence of Deity. 1 Systems of theologies are really philoso
phies suited to the mental conditions of the period of their insti
tution, and are usually tainted with the sense expression of the
nation wherein they are promulgated. Thus, among the Jews
there was the deification of slaughter, assumed to be the attribute
of the God whom the people were bound to adore. With such
an example, it should excite no wonder that the miserable fetish
which at any time fanaticism can rear should engulf all patriotism
or humane ideas. Of all the horrors with which man has cursed
the world, foremost are religious wars. The darkest pages of his
tory are those which depict the strife of creeds, always due to a
selfish rapacity under the guise of the service of God :

" God on the lip, but in the heart
The gainful hope alone has part."

The history of theologies presents the curious fact that none of
the religious reformers have left a written thesis of their faith, if
Mohammed be excepted (he could neither read nor write) and if
the Leke, or book of rites, be doubted, it is so with the moral
teachings of Confucius. The preservation of his philosophy,

1 Clark, Bishop of Rhode Island, prior to his elevation to that dignity (1850),
preached the following as the creed ol the Christian faith. Speaking of the condi
tions of our future existence, he said, in substance : 1st. Provision will be made
" for the culture and exercise of all intellectual and moral faculties. Heaven will
not be a monotony. There will be full scope for development. Nothing we here
learn will be lost," no elevated taste cultivated in vain, no healthy affection wither
under the touch of death," &c., &c. 2nd. To the righteous the future will be a
constant and unending progress, and will operate under greatly improved conditions.
" We shall never reach a point where we shall stop and make no further advance ;
for there would then be an eternity before us without occupation." Finally, " Our
future destiny will be in precise accordance to our deserts and characters : we shall
reap what we have sown. We shall begin our life hereafter as we close it here.
There is no such thing as separating the man from the character, and there is no
such thing as separating the character from the destiny."

28 Ihe Error of Theologies.

then, is due to the memory of his followers. Five times his
works were destroyed, but were restored by tradition. 1 Strictly,
he was a moral reformer, and avoided all discussion on death or a
future state ; even on his death-bed, although repeatedly urged,
he gave no decisive sign of his opinion ; but, withal, the national
mind adheres to him. How, when the transmission of the doc
trines depends on traditions, are we to be assured we have the
words, or even the sentiments of the reformers ? We know that
all enthusiasts amplify when they relate the acts of the founders
of their faith or the tenets upon which their faith is founded ; and
the more they are absorbed in the doctrines they profess, the more
they intensify their imaginings. All the creeds abound, viewing
them as intellectual abstractions, with impossibilities, resulting in
the substitution of the finityof the human mind for the infinitude
of the primordial cause. The diversity of opinion shown in the
various creedal expressions, should teach forbearance towards the
beliefs of others, and when so-called inspired writings are in ques
tion the canon of criticism adopted should be applicable to all of
them.

The mistake in theologies lies in ignoring the instincts or physical
nature of man, and substituting an ordeal by which the natural is
to be suppressed. They all start with the idea that death, dis
ease, pain, and misery are the results of sin. Death is merely
org anic change, whilst disease and pain are the results of inherited
and individual abuse of natural law ; misery, the effects of conven
tional disparity or the neglect of social ordinances. To the theo
logical reformer nature is vile, and all natural desires sin ; salva
tion the eternal good only to be attained by a suppression
of the impulses of sensation j hunger a weakness to be com
bated ; maternal affection to be ignored ; love a snare which
hurls its indulgers into perdition, hence celibacy is enforced ; to
enjoy nature is to enter the region of everlasting death, and thereby
the reality of nature is transformed into a purgatory of denial,
making being but a foretaste of the fabled hell ; inbreeding a
habit to which no torture can come amiss. And through the
system enjoined by strict theological rules we have the nun, the
monk, the fakeer, the Buddhist devotee and Bonze all examples
of ecclesiastical rule, and all failures, or history has given a dis
torted picture. The religion of nature is the religion of percep
tion and the use of natural gifts ; the religion of the- sentiment,

1 Cambyses destroyed the statue of Memnon ; Lepsins defaced many of the monu
ments by taking away their inscriptions for the museum at Uerlin. The tradition
among the Fellahs of Upper Egypt is that Lep.sius destroyed the statue. Such is
tradition ! (Beke s Memoirs of Sinai .)

Religion and Idolism. 29

conception, the merging the real in the ideal, intelligence into
its ultimate. In this combination is found the true phase of
religion, an appreciation of nature and her gifts, and a recognition
of the spiritual merging in a supposed cognition of the unseen,
an interweaving of the natural with the intellectual, culminating
in the divine. Theology subverts nature and disregards her facts.
Religion recognises the supremacy of nature in organized man, and
in intellectual man discerns a reflex of the unseen, for it is through
the homogeneity of the intelligence seen in nature that man con
ceives the being of God. 1 The impossible can never become the
probable ; by no intellectual effort can the attributes of Deity be
depicted. It is possible to imagine what they are not, but this is
far from knowing what they are. Every system of theology
possesses the miraculous, and the evidences of thaumaturgy
are analogous. If, then, the miraculous be the test of a system,
how is discrimination to be made between the rival claims when
the evidences each adduces are similar in character ? The great
difficulty is that the marvellous always developes into the in
credible. The commencement is simplicity and truth ; the pris
tine type becomes lowered, priestcraft enters ; and the vulgar
crowd heralds its own idolism. The Egyptian mob clamoured for
their goddess Isis, and the devout Cyril developed the worship of
"the mother of God" (Gibbon}. The pageant becomes the
power of the priest, and when political aspirations are ingrafted
the power is cemented, the hierarch is evolved, the liberty of
thought and conscience endangered, and persecution sustains the
dominant faction.

If an appeal be made to science the difficulty is increased, for
God is " unthinkable ;" unfathomable he may be, but the thought
of God is the intellectual fact of the vast majority of cultured
men, an idea always indefinite, yet always recurring, because the
effort is always being made to make the indefinite the definite.
According to science there is no God, for if He be a fact, the fact
is inaccessible to reason, so, as a substitute Matter in its molecular
aspect is presented. In "the potence of matter " are "all the
forms and qualities of life." The potence of a thing is the possi
bility to become by its own inherent power. What is the
potence of matter but the capability of being moved ? a some
thing superadded to its mass. Forces act on matter ; it has never

1 " We fan the imagination and labour to comprehend the immensity of creation,
and fall back with the impression of the littleness of all belonging to us ; our lives
seem but a point of time compared with the astronomical and geological periods,
and we ourselves as atoms driven about amid the unceasing changes of the material
world." (Brid. Treat., Bell, p. 228.)

30 The Potence.

been proved that matter generates the force which moves it.
When the potence of intellect is spoken of, we face a something
which, by an innate faculty, is capable of becoming as the mind
of a child or of a savage, by culture developes into intelligence.
Matter has the capability of being moulded and changed ; heap
matter on matter we get but weight ; a fact of gravity, in this
matter has no part. Matter acted on by forces produces pheno
mena resulting in form ; form is no product of matter. The motion
of matter, if it exists, arises from the polarization of its particles.
The polar fact is a condition of heat, an undulation of ultimate
particles, or as it is termed vibration. 1 A picture is the effect of
colours, but we cannot say there is a potence in colour to produce
a picture ; yet without colour there could be no picture. The
capability of being moulded and developed and the capability to
produce are logical, and fact distinctions. Matter thus becomes
the objective presentment of a primordial principle ; molecular
energy (this panacea for our real ignorance of what are the real
facts of motive power) is the action of a something by which
motion is induced in the mass, thus motion is an effect ; not a
cause. This potence of matter is the basis of the materialistic
faith, reduced into definite phases ; we have a vibratory result real
ized in an unconscious insubstantiality ; add intellect to colour and
the picture is formed ; add intellect to matter and we have Nature.
Bence Jones says, " We are just ceasing to regard the
nervous force as the origin of all power in the body. We
have ceased to look on the human machine as the creator of
vital force." It is obvious that vital force holds the organism
together, and is the energy through which its motions are
directed, therefore " the human machine " cannot create " the
vital force." To regard the " nervous force " as the originator

1 " The doctrine of vibrations . . . is quite at variance with anatomy." "It
requires, we should imagine, the existence of an ether, and that this rluid shall have
laws unlike any other of which we have experience. It supposes a nervous fluid and
tubes or fibres in the nerve to receive and convey these vibrations. It supposes every
where motion as the sole means of propagating sensation." (Bell, Brid. T., p.
176.) " Nor can I be satisfied with the statement that light and colours result from
vibrations which vary from four hundred and fifty-eight millions to seven hundred
and twenty-seven millions of millions in a second, when I find that a fine needle
pricking the retina will produce brilliant light, and that the pressure of the finger on
the ball of the eye will give rise to all the colours of the rainbow." (7/;. ]77.)

" The disturbance of the extremity of a nerve, the vibrations upon it, or the
image painted upon its surface, cannot be transmitted to the brain according to any
physical laws that we are acquainted with. The impression on the nerve can have
no resemblance to the ideas suggested to the mind. All we can say is that the
agitations of the nerves of the outward senses are the signals which the Author of
Nature has made the means of correspondence with the realities." (Bell, li. T.,
p. 172.)

The Re duetto ad Absurdum. 31

of all the forces in the body is simply to ignore the fact of
vitality. We do not say the conduit is the originator of the water
which flows in its cavity, or of the properties concentrated in the
water. " The human machine" is an aggregate of dissimilar
particles held in cohesion by vital action, the nervous system,
is but the conducting wires by which the life energy is presented
throughout " the human machine," for a nerve fibre may be
compared to a bundle of wires, each having its battery con
nected with it." 1 Those who teach that the nervous force
originates all the forces in the organism, and that " the human
machine is the creator of vital force, sin equally against true
induction, as those do who assert that the molecular changes in
the brain produce consciousness and intellect. Science cannot
account for the origin of matter, or say what or whence it is ;
then the attempt to account for life and mind as arising from a
something of the reality of which nothing is known becomes
a reductio ad absurdum.

Abstruse theories have been built on sensation, yet there is the
widest difference of opinion concerning the changes which occur
even when a simple nerve is put in motion 2 . Sterling says
the sensationalists, " shut up in the mysticism of an unexplained
and unintelligible chaos of sense, throw all into the unknown

and dwell in a dogmatism, an obscuration and an intolerance pecu
liar to themselves." Snow tells us " Irritability involves sentience,
sentience involves consciousness and self-consciousness, and these
involve omniscience." If this be true, every organic irritation
involves omniscience, when probably we are not sentient of its
cause, or when it will cease, ergo irritation creates every possibility
of knowledge ! 3 But this is scarcely more wonderful than, as we
are told, " sheep is transubstantiated into man," or that " man is
a sensible automaton."

Strauss says " that we must not ascribe one part of the function
of our being to a physical, and the other to a spiritual cause, but
all of them to one and the same, which may be viewed in either

1 " The beauty and perfection of the system (nervous) is that each nerve is made
susceptible to its peculiar impression only." " The nerve of vision is as insensible
to touch as the nerve of touch is to light." (Bell, Sri. Treat., p. 152, 153.)

3 The senses of touch and hearing acquaint us with the mechanical impact and
\ibration of bodies ; those of smell and taste seem to acquaint us with some of these
chemical properties, while the senses of vision and of heat acquaint us with the
existence of their peculiar fluids. ( Zoonomia, vol. i, p. 69.)

Every gland of the body appears to be indued with a kind of taste by which it
selects or forms each its peculiar fluid .... and by which it is initiated into
activity. ( Zoonomia, vol. i, p. 68.)

3 " Our senses are not given us to discover the essences of things, but to acquaint us
with the means of preserving our existence." ( Malebranc/ie, 1. i, c, v.)

32 High Science.

aspect." That there are physical and chemical phenomena con
sequent upon the vital principle, and that there are intellectual
impulses in which the physico-chemical has no part, is apparent to
everyone who thinks the aspects are distinct. He appears to
have satisfied himself "that no one who has a clear kosmical con
ception, in harmony with the scientific facts of the time, can, if he
be honest and upright, believe in a personal God, and must confess
that he is not a Christian." What is "a clear kosmical conception"?
Can we be sure that any kosmical hypothesis is true, or so positively
delineated that it is a fact of evidence ? We know all substances
are resolvable into gases, but we never see them subsisting as
flaming elements. We find contact elicits heat, and sometimes
combustion, resulting in changed forms. If the primordial or
kosmic chaos, as pronounced, be an igneous vapour, whence was
that we term matter ? Whence were the forces we know per
meate it ? Whence was the life which renders it animate ? Whence
was the intellect which governs and fashions ? We may indulge
in kosmical hypotheses, but we are entirely without those evidences
necessary to substantiate them as facts. How then, can there
be " a clear kosmical conception" in "harmony with the scientific
facts of the time," when in no system are there agreed data
as to the primordial element, or its cause ? There is no final
science, so there can be no " clear kosmical conception." If there
were, a man who had this " clear kosmical conception," could
account for all origins and facts.

As high science, illustrative of the teaching of the time, we have :

" Molecular energy determines the form which the solar energy will assume.
In the one case this energy is so conditioned by its atomic machinery as to
result in the formation of a cabbage ; in another case it is so conditioned as to
result in the form of an oak. So also as regards the union of the carbon and
oxygen ; the form of this union is determined by the molecular machinery
through which the combining force acts ; in the one case it may result in the
formation of a man, in the other it may result in the formation of a grass
hopper." (Heat, a Mode of Motion.") ,,

The molecular energy of earth substances controls the energy
of the sun, producing a cabbage or an oak, a grasshopper or a
man I 1 Is argument needed ? So we are informed. " the sun
forms muscle and builds the brain," so, possibly, it does wind
mills and weathercocks. There is equal evidence for either pro
position. Is it by such utterances we are to arrive at " a true
kosmical conception ?"

1 There is in the true man of science, a wish stronger than the wish to have his
beliefs upheld, namely, the wish to have them true, which " causes him to reject
the most plausible support if he has reason to suspect that it is vitiated by error"
( Belfast Ad., p. 56).

Sun Theory. 33

The sun may be the energizer of the world, for the motes in
space the suns and systems are like nerve centres transfusing
and transmitting the energy with which they are stored, and
equalizing, by a recuperating power, the energy used in work.
In this sense only can the sun be considered as the storehouse
of energy (heat), centralized as to his system, and possibly the
mediate factor, through magnetic action, of the changes we know
in phenomena, but to other systems he is relative as a part of the
great astral cycle. By the necessity of the molecular theory heat
is transfused into motion, hence heat is known as vibration. If
the suns of the universe have flaming photospheres, or even if
that we deem ignited gas is only a magnetic action, then heat is
the motor principle, spread as a jelly-like stuff from the centre
to the circumference of the universe. These suns and systems
are but the active workers, the way-houses of transmission, by
which the slightest particle is governed, and the zones of suns
made to oscillate in unison. Whether heat be a principle or the
merest vibration, it is the pulsation from the great core where the
afferent and efferent streams of force mingle. 1 What the brain
is to the nervous system, the great central nucleus is to the uni
verse. Heat, in an active or passive form, pervades it ; where
space is, heat is. To the presence of heat we owe all objective
manifestations. As to wasted heat and degraded energy, the
phrases should be erased. Tolver Preston, with reason, says :

" The conclusion would seem warranted and necessary that work . . . must
take place widely in nature, and thus part of the store of energy accumulated
in materials on the earth s surface by the sun is made to fulfil a useful end,
instead of being uselessly dissipated in space." ( Nature, v. 17, p. 204.)

Huxley, also, in his masterly address, delivered before the
Geological Society (1869), demolished the theory of Thomson
and Tait based on the degradation of energy hypothesis. Strauss
asks : " Who, &c., can represent to himself a deity enthroned in
heaven ? " Has not the ancient personal God " been dispos
sessed of his habitation," " by the revelations of physical science ?"
Heaven is a conventional phrase. Heaven would be everywhere,
if man would permit. The heaven of the kosmos may neverthe
less exist as the centralizing power. The heaven of Confucius
was comprehensive as his idea of God. Whatever may be the
denials of an unhesitating materialism as to the existence of the
cause, to reason, it is apparent. Haeckel admits a cause, how-

1 Sensation and volition are movements of the sensorium in contrary directions.
Volition begins at the central parts, and proceeds to the extremities, and sensation
begins at the extremities and proceeds to the central parts ( Zoonomia, vol. i,
p. 71).

34 Cause and Effect.

ever he qualifies it. But with all these denials, law is admitted.
And what is the law but that concentration of an energy intel
lectually directed which makes the homogeneity of nature possi
ble ? We are told all things are the consequences of law, but
that law is a material consequent ; it is very like saying the law
makes the thing, and then the thing makes the law.

Hume says causation is an invariable antecedence, i.e. "we
call that a cause which invariably precedes ; that an effect which
invariably succeeds." 1 An effect is not always the result of a
preceding effect, as day and night proceeding from a cause not
apparent, the rotation of the earth. We trace effects backwards
until we find no preceding mechanical or chemical effect. This
we name the cause. Cause and force arrived at, force becomes
the acting fact of the cause j electricity, magnetism, &c., we
know as working powers in nature. 2 The primordial force of
phenomena is heat ; this accepted, all forces would proceed as
conditions of the primal force. No motion ensues without heat
being evolved, but no motion can ensue unless heat (static or dyna
mic) be existing. When bars of antimony and bismuth are in con
tact, an electric action results ; unite the extremities by a fine
platinum wire, and it glows with heat. This shows that the heat
latent in the bars has become active. Heat and electricity are
correlated possibly the same force exhibited in different aspects,
the cause of which will probably remain a secret. As a principle,
heat is universal : we cannot say the same of electricity, unless
it be affirmed that polarization is a resulting fact of electricity,
for all substances in their particles are said to be polar. When we
meet with the universal as a motor fact, it is a power in nature.
Grove has established the correlation of " heat, light, electricity,
magnetism, chemical affinity, and motion." Before the display of
any of these effects, heat must be existing as a specific power,

1 Conventionally, cause is succeeded by effects, and all effects preceded by a
cause. Science talks of the precession of causes, of factors and facts. Jn rigid reason
effects succeed effects in endless successions, springing from one essential cause. In
the things of our knowledge, the sequent has its antecedent, and each antecedent
springs from an effect. We trace the line backward until we pause, finding it im
possible in reason to go beyond an origination, to which there appears to be no
antecedent. Call it what \ve may, Cause, Creator, God, we arrive at a fact which,
perforce, vre name the uncaused cause; thus we arrive at a succession of effects
originating from that of which we can conceive no beyond in itself capable and
concentering in itself all effects, because they result from a single impulse.

a " I have long held an opinion almost amounting to conviction, in common, I be
lieve, with other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the
forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin, or, in other words, are
so directly related and mutually dependent that they are convertible, as it were, one
into another, and possess equivaleuce of power in their uclion " (Faraday). Grove
has verified the idea.

Personality of God. 3 5

although imponderable. If, then, it be specific, it exists as a
principle; all forms of power then become conditions of heat, i.e.
methods through which it acts (vide supra , note 3, p. 5.)

It is idle to discuss the personality of God, no evidences can
be adduced on which such a fact could be founded. Whatever
be the controlling fact of nature, it is centralized, hence indi
vidualized. The onward induction does not appear difficult. By
dissecting phenomena we find control and infinite knowledge ; if
knowledge be required to systematically pull to pieces, surely a greater
knowledge would be required to construct, and this constructive fact
general consent terms omniscience. The admission of omni
science in its unity is very like the admission of a personification,
for the halt cannot he made in the exemplification of a mere
creative power ; there must also be a maintaining power. 1

Strauss avowed his materialism, an honester procedure than
leading to the same conclusions by ensnaring subtleties. Allusions
may be made to " our noble Bible " and a lecture abound in
scriptural allusions which, according to the bias of the lecturer,
may be irony or faith, and an eulogy be written on the Bible
which might gracefully come from the pen of a theologian, but
all this in no way alters the tendency of the teaching : thinkers
judge by the written and spoken themes. Huxley objected to
Stirling s critique on " the physical basis of life/ Of the rele
vance of his answer each can judge (vide Yeast] ; but when he
concludes by saying " one great object of my essay was to show
that what is called materialism has no sound philosophical basis,"
there seems somehow to be a confusion of ideas. There can
be no doubt that the tendency of the scientific teaching of the
time is to relegate all phenomena to matter as the creative fact,
and if a cause be intruded, it is so inappreciable in quantity of
quality there is none that it becomes but a waiting purpose of
which no estimate is to be taken. Strauss says, " The compre
hensive Kosmos," or all " is the sum total of infinite worlds in all
stages of growth and decay " and eternally unchanged as regards
" the constancy of absolute energy amid the everlasting revolution
of the mutation of things." Despite all the pronounced and
authoritative dogmas with all their unthinkables, unfathomables,
and impossibles man intellectually seeks for, thinks for, and en
deavours by a mental analysis, or by an intellectual synthesis, to
account satisfactorily, at least to himself, for the cause of the

1 The oneness of facts is the " bearing of one part upon another (whereby) we
receive an impression of adaptation, of mutual fitness, of conspiring means, of pre
paration, of purpose and provision. " fVhewell, B. T., p. 13.

36 The Bathybius.

effect. Hume says u The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intel
ligent author " (Introd. Nat. Hist. Eel.}

Theologians present God as the cause or creative fact ; had
they paused there, the position would have been unassailable, but
ultra propositions have weakened the position. Whilst the general
fact is probably incontrovertible, the adjuncts must be shattered
in conflict. It is impossible to define the nature of the causal
being, or God. We may think it, feel it, believe it, but cannot
know it !

Strauss rejects the idea of spontaneous generation, and says it is
only necessary " that matter and force already in existence should
be brought into another kind of motion and combination " to
produce the effects. What then would the bursting forth of life
be but spontaneous generation ? The Bathybius was presented
to the admiration of the learned as the causative fact of life, and
excited a storm of adverse criticisms. At the bottom of the
Atlantic ocean was discovered a slime, " due to innumerable
lumps of transparent gelatinous substances," " each lump consist
ing of granules, cocoliths, and foreign bodies, embedded in a translu
cent, colourless, structureless matrix." " The granule heaps and
the transparent gelatinous matter in which they are embedded
represent masses of protoplasm." One of these masses (urschleirn)
is to be regarded as a new form of the simplest animated being,
proposed as the " Bathybius" a relation being found to this proto
plasm in the spicula of sponges. The Bathybius, u a vast sheet of
living matter enveloping the whole earth beneath the seas," and
then a picture is formed of a new flora and fauna which will
require thousands of years to bring to completion ( Microscopic
Journ.J October, 1868). Wallich on its introduction pronounced
the Bathybius to be a myth ; it was a grand conception, but
formed on insufficient data. The Challenger expedition showed
instead of this stuff being spread over the bottoms of the
oceans of the world, it occurs in comparatively few localities, and
is not " a widely extended sheet of living protoplasm which grows
at the expense of inorganic elements." Experiment has proved
it to be an inorganic compound of sulphuric acid and lime. The
whole imaginative machinery and its error arose from some masses
of this stuff preserved in alcohol being sent to Huxley, on which
he experimented. The dissipation of the dream was reserved for
the naturalists of the Challenger expedition. Murray says " In
the early part of the cruise many attempts were made to detect
the presence of free protoplasm in or on the bottoms from our
soundings and dredgings, with no definite result/ It was un
doubted however, that some specimens of the sea-bottom pre-

Satisfaction of Religious Faith. 37

served in spirit, assumed a very mobile or jelly-like aspect, and
also c that flocculent matter was often present. This mucus-
like mass wanted motion. On analysis Buchanan found it to be
sulphate of lime presenting an amorphous precipitate on the
addition of spirits of wine ; when dissolved in water, and allowed
to evaporate, it crystalized into gypsum. The crystals were all
alike and no amorphous matter was found. The treatment by
spirit created the whole difficulty."

Strauss hailed the discovery as perfecting his hypothesis.
He says :

" The existence of this crudest form has since been actually demonstrated.
Huxley has discovered the Bathybius, a slimy heap of jelly on the sea bottom ;
Haeckel has what he has called the structureless clots of albuminous carbon,
which although inorganic in their constitution, yet are capable of nutrition and
accretion. By these the chasm may be said to be bridged, and the transition
effected from the inorganic to the organic."

Darwin is called by Strauss as a witness for his kosmic concep
tion, but Darwin affords no such evidence ; he distinctly admits
a Creator. Strauss also speaks of

"The magic formula, by which science solves the mystery of the universe.
Every mystery, he says, appears absurd, and yet continues, Nothing pro
found, whether in life, in the arts, or in state, is devoid of mystery. "

The phenomena of life and structure do not appear to have
been studied by him. The wonder is, not that he was wrong
in his conclusions, but that others, well acquainted with
organic structure and life, should inculcate analogous systems.
Mechanics cannot account for the living protamceba ; there is
no mechanical apparatus which by an inherent faculty can grow
or multiply itself. The living machine does both. 1

The advantage of religious faith in the satisfaction it gives
to the intellect " by fixing it on invisible ends and ties, render
ing life something more than it seems to be, can hardly be exag
gerated." A world of mere phenomena in the superficiality of scien
tific deductions, might become a greater danger to " society than
even those stronger .... passions .... of which there is such
wholesome fear, and which, it is justly said, only a deep religious
faith can adequately restrain." In a world without faith there
would be that " passionless ennui " which forces the enquiry is
" life worth living for ?" To some minds materialism may prove
satisfactory. In all its schemes there is the quasi admission of the
cause. The admission, however qualified, is the thin end of the

1 Where in physical force are we to find the discrimination of the vilal force ? where
the immensity of variation, the infinity of adaptation ? Where in physical force are
we to find in apparent weakness the greater strength ?

38 Huxley and Tyndall.

wedge which topples the structure into ruins. If religion be
grounded even on superstitions, it has its satisfaction in the
exigency of the fact ; but where in the material hypothesis is to be
found such satisfaction ?

In England Huxley and Tyndall have, in the popular concep
tion, the foremost place as the exponents of scientific opinion. In
their particular studies both have attained eminence ; but their
supremacy is gone when they stray beyond the technics of their
sciences. Both are advocates of material views. Huxley, a giant in
his science, attempts an explanation, but appears to give too large a
view to what he terms "states of consciousness." When he says
impenetrability, extension, and resistance are states of consciousness,
we then enquire what consciousness means, and find it to be an
instantaneous impression or the experience of a sensation, both are
passive results ; neither resistance nor extension are such passive
results : we know them through mental action, therefore they
are not per se facts of consciousness, but facts of intelligence.
John Stuart Mill (Essays on Religion] makes conscience and con
sciousness the same. In the vagueness of the phrase, " states of
consciousness," notwithstanding deductions from Kant, the defin
ition becomes a confused riddle.

In his lecture on " Descartes discourse on method," he
(Huxley) continues :

" I am prepared to go with the materialist wherever the true pursuit of the
path of Descartes may lead." ("But this path," he tells us, "leads two ways
by that of De la Mettrie and Priestley to modern physiology and modern ma
terialism ; and by that of Berkeley and Hume to Kant and idealism and that
" each branch is sound and healthy, and has as much life and vigour as the
other.") " And I am glad ... to declare my belief that their fearless
development of the material aspect of these matters has had an immense influ
ence upon physiology and psychology. Nay, more, when they go further
than I think they are entitled to do, when they introduce Calvinism into
science and declare that man is nothing but a machine, I do not see any par
ticular harm in their doctrines so long as they admit, which is a matter of ex
perimental fact, namely, that it is a machine capable of adjusting itself within
certain limits." " But when the materialists stray beyond the borders of their
path and begin to talk of there being nothing else in the universe but matter
and force and necessary laws, I decline to follow them. I go back to the
path from which we started, and to the other path of Descartes." We have
seen " in a manner, which admits no doubt, that all our knowledge is a know
ledge of states of consciousness. Matter and force, so far as we can know,
are mere names for certain forms of consciousness. Necessary, means that of
which we cannot conceive the contrary ; law, means a rule which is always
found to hold good. Thus it is an indisputable truth that what we call the
material world is only known to us under the forms of the ideal world ; and,
as Descartes tells us, our knowledge of the soul is more intimate than the
knowledge of our body. If I say impenetrability is a property of matter, all
that I can really mean is that the consciousness I call extension, and the con-

Huxley s Defence. 39

sciousness I call resistance, constantly accompany one another. Why and how
they are related is a mystery, and if I say thought is a property of matter, all
that I can mean is that the consciousness I call extension and that of resistance
accompany all other sorts of consciousness. But as in the former case why
they are thus associated is an insoluble mystery. From all this it follows that
what I may term legitimate materialism, i.e. the extension of the conception
and of the methods of physical science, to the highest as well as to the lowest
phenomena of vitality, is neither more nor less than a short-hand idealism, and
Descartes two paths meet on the summit of the mountain, though they set out
on opposite sides."

We have subtlety on subtlety through the whole of the disser
tation ; from all that appears, the path by De la Mettrie and
Priestley is the broad beaten way ; whilst that by the way of
Berkeley and Hume, presents an occasional illusion.

If the " subtle Berkeley stepped " beyond the limits of know
ledge, when he declared the substance of matter did not exist,"
what do those who see in matter " all the forms and qualities
of life," and in molecular vibration, heat, consciousness, life, and
intellect ? Brute matter, as Hume expresses it, the cause, the
effect, the creator, the thinker, the feeler, and this matter made
up of inert indurate atoms, of the dimensions 3-o"o &gt; -o^o-,-o"^o t h ^
of aline, an inch in extent. Yet science is stated to be the result
of perception and experiment \ Berkeley denied matter existed,
except as it existed in consciousness. Yet his system is consistently
decried by those who argue that the qualities of things are but
states of consciousness. If we listen to commentators, the systems
of Kant and Spinoza, like that of Darwin, mean only that which
suits their views. Both Kant and Spinoza, construed in the spirit
of their intention, pourtray the pre-eminence of Deity. Darwin
attempts to show the mode by which the constructive faculty of
the Creator works. The first has a kosmic theory, but in intelli
gence idealised finds his pre-eminent ALL. Spinoza sees God even
in matter, yet spiritualizes all in his ideal of GOD ; and Darwin,
whilst presenting his view of the constructive energy of organic
life, acknowledged all was the work of the Creator. Descartes
combines Kant, Spinoza, and Darwin, and, be his method what
ever it may, he had a firm conviction of the existence of God
as the Creator, and antecedent of all things.

Consciousness, to the mind and sensation, is what the retina
is to the eye, a medium on which the symbol is instantaneously
impressed (Helmholtz measured an interval), which symbol, when
interpreted by intelligence, becomes a reality ; thus intelligence
counts for all in the Great Kosmos by which we are surrounded.
No thinking mind will doubt that mechanico-chemistry is the
modus through which the kosmos is presented and is construed j

40 Omne Vivum ex Vivo.

but this is different from saying mechanics and chemistry ini
tiated the Kosmos. If they be the creations of intellect, as un
doubtedly they are, they become, as the constructors of material
forms, the agents of intelligence. Where are we to find the logic
which makes resulting effects institutors of that of which they are
the result ? If phenomena be regarded as a form of intelligence,
we can have at the same time intellectual probabilities, ideal pos
sibilities, with mechanics and chemistry as constructive elements ;
but never as creators. It is possible to understand a chain of effects
resulting from a single cause, but it is impossible to conceive a
cause being the result of the effect it had instituted. The method
of the world must include intelligence, for there could be no
mechanics without it ; the only conclusion to be arrived at,
is that creation is the fact of intelligence. Vitality, as a principle,
being the primordial of nature, makes the axiom omnevivum ex ovo
true of the beginning of life, and its changes to omne vlvum ex vivo
true of all the after facts of life. The life first proceeds from the
the egg or jelly-speck, and the living organism reproduces it, and
thus the apparent contradiction is satisfied, the living organism pro
ceeds from the egg and the egg from the living organism, / .., the
initiatory fact is always continuing.

Chemistry and mechanics, as we know them, are supposed to
be the invention of man, when in fact, they are processes by
which nature compasses her designs. If it required intellect to
disinter them from formulated matter, in order to apply them to
the uses of man, surely it required intellect to institute them. 1 If,
then, intelligence instituted matter and its forms for forms are
all we really recognise in objective phenomena to form is due
the multitudinous variety we know as Nature. 2 Have we not,
then, in this exposition, the single factor and the single equation
by which, according to Nageli, we can only correctly construe all
that we find within and around us ? a factor fitted for all the
purposes of production, and an equation filling the purposes of
its detail. We call the motion apparent in matter, force, because
we so name a moving power. When we talk of an unperceived

1 Man "can establish no new law of nature which is not a result of existing ones
He can invest matter with no new properties which are not modifications of its pre
sent attributes. His greatest advances in skill and power are made when he cills to
his aid forces which before existed unemployed, or when he discovers so much of
the habits of some elements as to be able to bend them to his purpose" (WAewell,
Bridg. Treat., 359).

8 " The laws of nature . . . are the rules for that which things are to do and suffer ;
and this by no consciousness or will of theirs. They are rules describing the mode
in which things do act." " The metaphor is very simple, but it is proper for us to
recollect it as a metaphor, in order that we may clearly apprehend what is implied
in speaking of the laws of nature " (ibid, pp. ti, T).

Nature s Fact, Spontaneity, 41

motion occurring in the inner recesses of a living substance, if
it be force, it is inherent, the power of the formed particle. It
may be called molecular, or vital, or polar, call it what we may,
it means the interior power in the particled mass, acting through
itself, without initiation, but by the inherent fact of its own
existence, and may be said to be the nerve power of the Creator
vibrating through the mass. Matter is but an aggregation of par
ticles forming a mass. Intellect is perfect in every particle, and
by culture assumes its magnitude. A single particle of intellect
is an idea, an idea produces an idea, but no aggregation of intel
lectual particles can produce more than an idea. If then, matter
can only be perfected by a summation of particled aggregates,
and intellect is perfected in its particle, what shall we say ?
that intellect arose from matter, or that matter is the result of
intellect, constituted through appointed motors ? If intellect con
strues itself, we have then a knowledge only limited by the
powers of intellect, and a probable verification of NagelPs pro
blem ; but if we deduce intellect from matter, we have the axiom
of Du Bois Reymond and its pertinacious consequence, " Igno
ramus tgnorabimus." A thing can be no more than a product
of its particles. Intellect, perfect in its particle, is only equal to
itself in all its forms. Matter in its particle, being " insignifi
cant" (vide Nageli), cannot be more than form, whatever its im
portance in the economy of nature.

Naturalists are puzzled to define the vital principle. Physico-
materialists affirm life is a property of matter, and deny the spon
taneity of life. Spontaneous life, as originating in matter, can
not be upheld, for nature exists through vital action. How the
inert and evanescent can be the existing and real has never been
proved. Despite Belfast orations and boiled substances, 1 nature
holds on her way by an existing and uncontrollable principle,
through a vital spontaneity, awaiting conditions which when satis
fied, life bursts into being. Every evidence shows this is the fact

1 If it were wished to prove the power of an intricate mechanism depending on a
little wheel (even although "a capricious" God direct it), we should not take
away the little wheel and then expect the machine to work. Yet this is precisely
what is done by those who boil infusions and exclude them from the air. It is like
expecting the machine to work when all conditions of action are destroyed. Con
tact with the air produces the conditions necessary for the exhibition of life. There
may be germs or minute coagulations which require contact to perfect their condi
tions, and present them as vehicles of life. What is this but the first blushing of
life? If organisms are progressively developed, spontaneity of life in the lowest
stage must be its first and its only result; all else becomes development. Before the
theory of evolution was practically applied to the things of life, spontaneity was
scientifically impossible. The theory recognised, spontaneity is its only reasonable
outcome. Life from the germ is as old as the oldest recorded thoughts of the
Egyptians. Who can say how long before them it existed ?

42 The Vehicle of Life.

of phenomena : in the inorganic, expressed as the polar fact ; in
animate forms breathing and reproduction, with a power to
change position ; in plants breathing and reproduction. In living
forms there is an ingeneration in an ingeneration, and if vitality
be the persistent fact, then the inorganic must be capable of its
presentment. The gaseous, moulded by vital power, presents
the diversities of phenomena. By collection and condensation
we have the vehicle of life^ but not the life. The protoplasmic
substances might be for ever exhibited, and yet there be no pre
sentment of life. What the particular modifying conditions are
by which the inorganic becomes the organic, or how the inanimate
substance becomes animate, is a secret not solved. We have the car
riage of life, we are able to dissect its parts, to note its changes,
and to form some of its constituents, but the mystery of the
albumen and of the vital fact defies analysis. In the ice cavern
life is rarely engendered. Heat is incorporated before the life is
displayed, and if heat be the primordial element, an atom does
not exist because it is resolved into its primary. Steam issuing
from an aperture under pressure is imperceivable ; on the tem
perature being lowered, we have the cloud or heat dust, 1 con
densing into the fluid and solid. If there be law, it must be
universal in its operation ; then exactly what we know as a
condensation of heat occurs in all substances. The conditions
alone are varied ; we have the imperception, the cloud, the
liquid, the solid. A pertinence is added to the argument now
oxygen, air, and nitrogen have been condensed, and hydrogen
presented in metallic drops, 2 In nature the paraphernalia for the

1 Tyndall s water dust finds a parallel in WhewelPs fine watery poieder
(Briil. T.).

2 Andrews, of Belfast, by experiment arrived at the conclusion that the gaseous
and the liquid are but "extreme stages of one and the same condition of matter."
He failed to liquefy either oxygen, hydrogen, or nitrogen. Cailletet, in September
(1877), rendered acetylene (hydrogen and carbon) into a liquid; on Novamber 27,
nitric acid (hydrogen and nitrogen). He then succeeded in liquefying oxygen and
carbonic oxide by pressure and freezing. The pressure he obtained by means of
hydraulic power, 4400 Ibs. to the square inch, the temperature at the same time
being reduced by freezing mixtures. On releasing the gas from the pressure, its
expansion reduced the temperature to 200 below zero Cent. ; the partial liquefac
tion was shown as a dense cloud. Before he had made his discovery public, Pictet,
of Geneva, succeeded in liquefying oxygen ; he obtained not a cloud, but a jet of
liquid. The results were independently obtained. Pictet s results were obtained
through an elaborate machinery, the efficiency of which depended on the rapid eva
poration of volatile liquids, as liquid sulphuric acid (the condensed anhydride), and
by a pressure of 500 atmospheres, eventually falling to 350. The gas subjected to
experiment was generated in a strong iron vessel, and thence conducted into a strong
long glass tube immersed in a larger tube containing solid (frozen) carbonic acid
An orifice closed by a screw tap put the oxygen in relation with the atmosphere.
On turning the tap the pent gas shot forth in liquid jets. By means of the electric
light, the jet was shown to consist of two parts, an outer blue cone of condensed

Imaginative Symbols. 43

conversion exists, the cold of space and the pressure of atmo
spheres. If Cooke s calculation ( New Chemistry ) as to the
enormity of weight involved by the undulatory theory of light be
true, we have a pressure more enormous than any human in
genuity could supply. Heat as the primary must remain as an
hypothesis ; but natural facts point to it as the true agent of
nature as a principle, the undulation being a condition. When
heat is combined with vital action, it becomes the factor of mate
rial phenomena. The life controls the substance, but without
the substance there is no manifestation of life, without the
life there is no manifestation of intellect. We cannot say
that life is heat, nor that heat, as a substance, is life, or that
life is intellect. As abstractions, we have three all-pervading
principles, heat, life, intellect, as the sum of all we perceive, or
conceive, think, or feel, translated by consciousness. Conscious
ness we cannot say is a principle, although, a necessity of life, pas
sively capable of instantaneous impression ; it reflects images,
feelings, and thought; an incident of life, not a vital fact, for life can
be when consciousness has ceased. Lewes tells us, " the uni
verse exists, but does not live. " The universe is an organization
directing and possessing functions ; the distinction between life
and existence is found in the active or passive fact. Vitality sub
sists in the universe, and the universe exists in its vitality.

Atoms and molecules, Huxley tells us, are but imaginative
symbols, and that he who mistook them for real quantities would
err equally with the metaphysician who should so mistake his x s
and y s. Whether they be facts due to "scientific imagination,"
or what, by him they appear to be treated as real quantities, for
now-a-days the molecular theory is the expositor of every diffi
culty, not alone in the inanimate, but in animate forms ; it has
possession of the brain ; molecular motion produces intellect !
Tyndall talks of the thinking brain as of a something more than
an organ. People talk of a musical box not as creating the sound,
but as the vehicle for its expression. The brain, notwithstanding
what physicists say, never created the intellect. 1 It, like the

gas and an inner white portion, in which the oxygen exists in a liquid and probably,
as suggested, in a solid condition. Cailletet released nitrogen from a pressure of
200 atmospheres, when, on its eruption, the temperature became so lowered that
drops of liquid nitrogen were formed. On the last day of 1877 he succeeded in lique
fying air. Pictet (11 Jan., 1878) succeeded in producing hydrogen in a solid form
by a pressure of 6oO atmospheres. On opening the stop-cock, the hydrogen shot
forth in a jet of blue-steel colour, the solidified drops falling on the floor with the
ring of metallic grains, leaving little doubt that hydrogen is the vapour of a metal.
Water thus becomes a metallic oxide. Dumas idea.

Perkins, of the Royal Society, in 1823, claimed to have liquefied atmospheric air
under a pressure of 1 1 00 atmospheres.

2 In quadrupeds the brain is fully developed at the birth, i.e. all the parts are as

44 The Brain.

musical box, is the vehicle of expression. 1 It is impossible to
understand a motion of molecules without a motion of neigh
bouring molecules. Huxley says :

" The mental states we call sensations and ideas are caused by modes of
motion in the brain, and the mental causality of volitional and emotional
movements really originate in certain movements of the brain, of which those
mental states are merely concomitants. The feeling we call volition is not
the cause of the voluntary act, but the symbol of the state of the brain is the
immediate cause of the act." 2

There is evidence that the brain is the organ of the nervous
functions, but the assertion that the brain originates conscious
ness is the merest conjecture. 3 The spider, the ant, the bee,

perfect as in an adult animal of the same species ( Wentzell, p. 246). In man, the
brain makes continual progress to its ultimate magnitude and perfect state from con.
ception to the seventh year alter birth. Those parts which are formed .subsequently
to birth are those parts entirely wanting in lower animals, and as the parts are de
veloped peculiar faculties are proportionally developed ; but until this development
those faculties are not clearly perceptible. From the age of seven to that of eighty
the changes respecting size, collectively or in parts, are so trifling as to be unworthy
of notice ( B. 7 ., p. 247, 286, Bell). Combe s opinion was the human brain in
creases in size until twenty-eight years; some assert the increase continues on until
forty years of age. It is observable " the adult human being as much excels in de
sign and method the actions and operations of all other adult animals, as those of
the infant are excelled in precision and adroitness by the young of all other animals
( B. T., ib. 247), corresponding with the relative constitutions of brain at the re
spective periods."

1 At a seance at the Academy (1876), MM. Giacomini and Mosso showed the
photograph of a woman who had lost a great part of the frontal and the two parietal
bones through syphilis. She is now cured. The movements of this brain were
studied by one of M. Marey s tambours being applied to the cranial aperture. It
was proved there are in the brain of man, even during the most absolute repose,
three different kinds of movement. Pulsations, which are produced at each con
traction of the heart. Oscillations, which correspond to the movements of the
respiration. Undulations, which are the largest curves, and are due to the
movements of the vessels during attention, cerebral activity, sleep, and other
causes unknown ; they might be called spontaneous movements of the vessels
( Nature, vol. xv. p. 264). Other interesting particulars are narrated. All tend
to show that the brain is a mere functional organ impressed by causes external to
itself not creating and originating so far as function is concerned, any other part
of the body might as well be the thinking fact, as the " thinking brain." It is
probably the organ through which thought is manifested, as the musical box is an
organ by which sounds are displayed, but the sounds depend on an impulsion. In
the box, mechanical force ; in the brain what?

2 Erasmus Darwin has a somewhat similar expression, but he refers all to the
spirit of animation and vitality; and yet by a peculiar perplexity makes motion and
other acts of the organism due to the excitation of pleasure and pain ; not as Bain
has it, " pleasure in the distance and pain in the distance," but as the causes of im
mediate irritations to which by a series of augmentations, accumulative in character,
he imputes the health or disease of the organism (vide Zoonomia ).

3 " The similarity of the texture of the brain to that of the pancreas" has led to
the supposition " that a fluid perhaps more subtle than the electric aura is separated
from the blood by that organ for the purposes of motion and sensation . . . the
electric fluid is actually accumulated and given out voluntarily by the torpedo and
Gymnotus electricus, and an electric shock frequently stimulates a paralytic limb and

Equivalent of Consciousness and Heat. 45

&C. 1 to judge by effects think, invent, and construct; but where
in the invertebrata is found that complicated substance we term
the brain ? If the hypothesis be true in one relation, it must be
true in all its bearings ; and unless all animated things doing in
telligent acts have this substance, how are we to say that the
powers manifested by them are due to the molecular changes in
the brain ? The answer may be that there is a microscopic sub
stance which serves this purpose, and then the enquirer would be
crushed down by a jargon of scientific presentments, as ganglias,
&c. When we speak of the animal brain, we have pulp sub
stances of two characters, for which, in the invertebrata we look
in vain. By the convoluted surfaces, according to Gall and
Spurzheim, the intellectual intensity is induced. In the inspec
tion of the nettle-sting the microscope discloses a fluid in motion.
Goodsir found the same motion in a minute fungus from the eye
of a gold fish ; spores were extruded, which swam about like ani
mals. The same action was detected by Haeckel in a minute
alga. The nettle-sting may be filled with a fluid protoplasm, as
doubtless were the fungus and alga. It is probable the insect
nerves have a similar fluid, if not a fluid, then a substance ca
pable of conveying sensory and will action, probably by some
power analogous to electricity or magnetism, but the conductors
of the electric and magnetic fluids no more account for the pre
sence of the fluid than does the brain for the intellectual mani
festation. In another place Huxley says :

" That the phenomena of life are dependent neither on physical nor chemical,
but on vital force, yet they result in all sorts of physical and chemical changes
which can only be judged by their own laws. ( L. S., p. 92.)

needs no perceptible tube to convey it . . . The singular figure of the brain and
nervous system seems well adapted to distribute it over every part of the body."
( Zoonomia vol. i. p. 9).

1 Evelyn, describing the actions of a spider (Aranea scenica), " Did the fly happen
not to be within leap, the spider would move towards it so softly that its motion
seemed not more perceptible than that of the shadow of the gnomen of a dial ; if the
intended prey moved the spider would keep pace with it exactly as if it were actu
ated by one spirit, moving backwards, forwards, or on each side, without turning,
When the fly took wing and pitched itself behind the huntress, she turned round
with the swiftness of thought and always kept her head towards it though to all ap
pearance as immovable as one of the nails of the wood on which was her station,
till at last being arrived within due distance, swift as lightning she made the fatal
leap and secured her prey." A parallel we find in a wasp hunting a spider. " The
spider as soon as he found himself marked down showed the greatest terror, running
hither and thither, with many doubles and turns . . . these the wasp followed
accurately turn by turn, never quitting the spider s track . . . recovering when
at fault like a dog, until after an exciting chase he seized his exhausted prey" ( Nat.,
vol. xvii, p. 381. Jt is suggested the trail is afforded by web left on the spider s
track. This idea is repudiated by the original correspondent and on sufficient rea
sons (ib., p. 448). Fide explanation by C. L. W. Merlin ( Nat., 1 vol. xviii, p. 311).

46 Equivalence of Consciousness.

Imagination may breed imagination, but none the more is it
proved that the material compound we call the brain by an
imaginative or a real motion breeds the intelligence. If intelli
gence be induced by material changes, where is the pertinence of the
quotation Huxley adopts from Emerson. " Truly it has been said
to a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the in
finite can be seen" ( L. S., 104). If all be matter, or of matter, there
can be no Infinite. The meaning becomes clearer when we read

" I hold with the materialist that the human body, like all living bodies, is
a machine, the operations of which, sooner or later, will be explained on
mechanical principles." " I believe we shall arrive at a mechanical equivalent
of consciousness as we have arrived at a mechanical equivalent of heat," and
" that thought is as much a function of matter as heat is." ( Macmillans
Mag., xxii, p. 79.)

When it is really known what heat is, it will be time to say
its equivalent is found ; but we have not arrived at an equivalent
of heat even as we know it. The equivalent suggested, the foot
pounds, is but a question of temperature or of work ; all force
facts, more or less, are heat facts. The heat fact, either as a prin
ciple or in its conditions, is universal. An expression of capacity
differs greatly from an expression of equivalence, and no foot
pounds could be presented as the equivalent of universal power.
We might just as well say there are so many particles in a cubic
foot ; the universe is composed of so many cubic feet, and the par
ticle thus becomes the equivalent of the whole ; either would
show a measure of quantity, but it would be difficult to change
a measure of quantity into an equivalence of its working fact.
With more reason it could be said a looking-glass was the
mechanical equivalent of consciousness, but to get a real equi
valent for a passive fact appears to be an impossibility. There
is no working power in consciousness, it merely notes received
impressions ; unless we mix in one heterogeneous heap, sensa
tion, mind, life, intellect, conscience, and consciousness, we
have in it a mere passive implement. We might just as well
take Thomson s infinitessimally small and imperceptible masses
of matter as the equivalent of matter, or say with Hartley, that
touch is the equivalent of the senses, or that the vibriunticules
are the equivalents of sensation and vital motion. When all is
said, we can only say the multiple of a particle is the expression of
the mass ; we can no more say a particle is the equivalent of a
whole than we can say the inrinitessimal portion of a grain is
the equivalent of gravitation. 1 No authority can make the inexact

1 Gravitation is an accepted fact of science, hut as explained by science, its ultimate
fact is weight. A reasoning on ultiuiates finds as a definition a pressure on, or

Paper Philosophy and True Teaching. 47

the exact. The fall of a pound 772 feet, raising the temperature
i, the foot pounds is but the mechanical expression of force
exhibited as work ; force is as much an objective thing as matter,
for both probably are expressions of heat, latent or active. We
can add particle to particle and make a sum of the whole, but no
additions of temperature will make a sum of heat ; we merely arrive
at an equalisation.

In his lecture on biology, Huxley expresses great disgust at what
he calls " paper philosophy." W hat is his dissertation, " the physical
basis of life " in the main, but paper philosophy? Where are we
to find an experimental proof for his deductions ? We have an
ao-prep-ation of chemical elements, but there is no warrant for

OD D

the assumption that they constitute the " physical basis of life "
in the sense of creating the life. That, where life is found these
elements are found is one thing, but to say they create the
life is quite another. Virchow (infra] has shown us what science
should be, and should do, and with a masterly hand has drawn the
distinction between dogmatic assumption, and fact, and has shown

a crowding to the centre. Were gravitation the primordial fact, there could be no
phenomena ; it is to the combating of this passive energy we owe that we know as
nature. The objective world is comprised of minute particles ; these particles possess
the polar fact. On consolidation, they are things with two ends or poles, attraction
at one pole repulsion at the other ; hence a power within the thing (particle, atom,
or molecule, as a symbol, the phrase is indifferent). When repulsion is in the
ascendant the passive fact of gravitation disappears, and that we knew as gravitation
reappears by transference into an active form of force by the principle of correlation,
If we have hydrogen gas in an open vessel we turn the mouth downwards if we wish
to keep it there, otherwise it would pass into the atmosphere and thence into space
and be lost to us ; but here it is arrested by the gravitative correlation of affinity,
and by combination with another substance, subserves again the uses of nature. If,
on the contrary, we have oxygen in the vase, we turn the mouth upwards because if
reversed the vase would be emptied by the gravitating fact of weight. The oxygen
being heavier than the atmosphere keeps its place in the vessel. We have two
substances, oneamenable to thelaw of gravity expressed as weight,the other wholly free.
Can we then say the gravitating fact is universal? The universal alone is the true,
hence we say gravitation is only universal by being amenable to the principle of inter
changing forces (correlation) , hence gravitation becomes correlated. Gravity in
its correlated fact becomes repulsion ; in its double aspect, attraction and repulsion,
polar. We have then the force rushing in the straight line, which would be inter
minable but for the pull to the centre, hence the curve which unites the two ends of
the line. The same polar fact presented in the particle is equally active in suns and
planets, and to go further, systems of suns, as representing the particles of the
universe. These masses are but aggregated infinitesimals, and the same law which
governs them governs the congregated mass. We have but a multiple of infinites-
simals, which in their ultimates are force or life units. We have then the eternal
swelling from the centre, and the eternal repression, hence an interaction within an
interaction, and arrive at Malpighi s littles (as polarised units); at Grove s correlation
o.f forces (as transfusion or transference), at Darwin s evolution (as development).
We have the grand generalisations, as principles, as the methods or working facts of
nature; and hence can view the universe in its physics, as a machine. As Helm-
holtz says, we can have no mechanics without intelligence ; we have in intelligence
the directing power, the beyond, through which all was and is.

48 Fir chow s Canon.

that scientific teaching consists in something more than supposi
titious inferences.

If Huxley adhered to his definitions we should be spared from
such a priori assumptions, contrasting so unfavorably with his
lecture on " a piece of chalk ; " his addresses to learned societies ;
his comments on palaeontology, ethnology, and biology. Wild
dreams flow sometimes from purely philosophical sources the
idiosyncrasy of talent. If the object of a lecture be amusement,
it is attained by the probable and the absurd, spiced with a crumb
of science, and half thinkers and no thinkers leave the room sim
pering in their own satisfaction. If, on the other hand, it be to
instruct, no hypotheses or assumptions, however dogmatically
insisted upon, can stand in the place of details, the results of obser
vation, experiment, and thought. Virchow is great on the point.
He says :

" We should submit to the student the real knowledge of the fact in the
first place, and if we go further we must tell him this is not proved .... but
this is my opinion, my idea, my speculation." " That which is known and that
which is only supposed, as a rule, get so thoroughly mixed up[that, that which
is supposed becomes the main thing, and that which is really known becomes
only of secondary importance."

Facts we know on proof, and accept the forces by which they
are induced as principles, acting through the particular con
ditions of law which govern them ; we know little else. We can
practically apply a principle, but the application of it does not
involve an entire knowledge of its powers. Science is an aid to
philosophy ; but all scientists are not philosophers, nor all philoso
phers scientists. Virchow, in his comment on the addresses of
Haeckel and Nageli, at Munich (1877), says :

" If any one wants by any means to connect mental phenomena with those
of the rest of the universe, then he will come necessarily to transfer mental pro-
cesses as they occur in man and the animals of the highest organizations to the
lower and lowest animals, and afterwards a soul is even ascribed to plants
Further on the cell thinks and feels, and finally he finds a passage down to
chemical atoms, which hate, or love one another, or flee from one another. All
this is very fine and excellent, and may after all be quite true. // may be, but
I do not know in what I am to recognise all this."

No wonder Huxley expected doubt where he announced the
protoplasm as "the physical basis of life;" and that "such a
doctrine . . . appears almost shocking to common sense." He
might have said that the platter was the physical basis of that
which is on it, in the sense of the text. The only fact of the
protoplasm is the vital fact, the compounds, the vehicle through
which the effect, life, is presented, so the plate is the vehicle of

Is Mind of Matter ? 49

that it contains. The life and the substance on the plate, are
each distinct presentments, empirically subsisting. We may col
lect the materials of the protoplasm and subject them to every
process which art can devise, yet the life in them would be perdue
as in a stone. The reasoning on this subject points rather that
the vital energy moulds the compounds, collecting the environ
ments and creating its own conditions ; their intermingling in dif
ferent ratios presents the variety. Theine and strychnine are
identical in their elements, but differ in combination. The forami-
nifera shells are exquisite in construction, but the jelly-spot within,
through its vitality, without parts, without organs, without
detected structure of any kind, builds these wondrous mansions.
Physically we can simulate properties and forces ; but we cannot
change one substance into another. In isomeric substances we have
butyric acid and acetic ether, with exactly the same composition,
the same chemical formula, the same vapour density and specific
gravity, but art cannot change the rank pungency of the first into
the delicious aroma of the latter, because there is behind a
chemistry which places science at fault, as in vital action there
are mechanics unknown to us.

In animate forms we find a tracery of nerves which spring
from or converge in a principal organ, but it does not follow that
consciousness and motive power acting through them are in-
generated by them, any more than we can say the conductors
generate the electric power. In an open circuit there is no exhi
bition of force, close the circuit and the spark ensues, because the
condition necessary for its display is presented. 1 We have the
latent and the active form in all processes of Nature ; she mar
shals her forces, by the fact of her law she closes the circuit,
and we have the resistless whiz of the electric fluid. So it is with
life.

We will consider the protoplasm as a fact without the assump
tion, " the physical basis of life." The organless protamoeba,
the plant, animals, and man have all the same ultimate organic com-

1 A beautiful idea is presented of unity in the mechanics of nature by Hughes s
" Microphone," whereby we have a philosophical explanation of the echo. His
experiment shows substances are " resonant." The same principle is found in the
echo bounding from rock to rock, and in the whispering gallery of St. Paul s where
articulated words may be heard in any part of its circuit. The microphone realizes
Malpighi s idea that all, by which we are surrounded, are accumulated littles.
Sounds made apparent in the experiments do not accord with the rule of the inverse
square, as they appear to magnify with the square of the surfaces of contact,
the " walk of a fly " is rendered audible, and " the delicate rubbing of a fine camel
hair pencil over a smooth wooden surface." Of course the irrepressible molecule
appears. The editor of Nature says, " It is not too early, however, to see that
we have in the microphone a new method of attaching and qualifying molecular
motions." (Nat. \. 18, p. 58.)

50 The Normal or Abnormal State.

position ; the nucleated or non-nucleated cell-germ or seed. This
community of organism pervades the realm of life, with faculty,
form, and " substantial composition." When we are told " mani
festations of intellect, of feeling and will . . . are not excluded
from this classification, inasmuch as to every one, but the subject,
they are known only as transitory changes in the body," for " all
are resolved into muscular contraction, and muscular contraction is
but a transitory change in the relative parts of the muscles " (L. S.),
we demand to know what intellect, feeling, and will have to do
with muscular contraction, excepting as the means of their mani
festation. We create distinctions and differences, but when we
go to nature they fade into homogeneity. Muscular contraction
is an effect of vital energy set in motion by an act of the will or
of sensation, and those processes, so dwelt upon as automatic, are
vitally directed facts, although unconsciously manifested. 1 If every
functional motion were consciously enacted, life, instead of having
its pleasures and moments of repose, would be occupied by an
anxious consciousness, and we should be constantly dwelling on
the movements of the organization (vide sup. note 2, p. 16). It
is not because our organic functions are unconsciously conducted
that they are without sensation. All we know of sensation is
that its fact is impressed on the consciousness ; and when we
become conscious of the irritability of a nerve, were such con
sciousness continuous, sensation would be an agony. On a diag
nosis of the facts we must assume there is sensation in every
organic function, because on derangement we become conscious
of it. In a perfect automatic theory pain would be the normal
and its absence the abnormal state of the organism. In conson
ance with all phenomenal facts we may assume consciousness to
have latent and positive qualities, although passive to impression.
If muscular contraction, as a transitory change, creates con
sciousness, will, mind, and sensation, then every motion produces
them ; what then becomes of the automatic theory 2 volun
tary and involuntary actions ? 3 In a living form muscular con-

1 A machine might move of itself we may grant, but what constructed the machine
so that its movements might answer the purposes of life? How came the candle in
the candlestick ? How the fire on the hearth ? Did they " fall into their places by
the casual operation of gravity." (Vide tVhewell, B.T., p. 172).

3 Erasmus Darwin ascribes conscious action (automatism) to the irritation of a
nerve inducing muscular association. He says, " when I am walking in that grove
before my window 1 do not run against the trees or benches, though my thoughts
are strenuously exerted on some other object .... the idea of the tree or bench
.... exists on my retina and induces by association the action of certain locomo
tive muscles ; though neither itself nor the actions of these muscles engage my
attention. (Zoonomia, v. i., p. 50.)

2 " The lowest stage of vitality and irritability appears to carry us beyond mechanism,
beyond chemical affinity." (tt.T. Whewell, p. 147.)

Coleridge s Hypothesis. 51

traction is due to vital energy. Frog antics induced by external
stimulants may remotely simulate life action, so a twitching in
the limb of a paralysed patient may be excited by a stimulus.
If this be the same power as that manifested by vital action,
how is it when the muscular contraction ensues that the patient
does not walk ? as undoubtedly he would do were the parallel
true. Unbiassedly examined the examples prove the contrary
of the hypothesis, and show that the vital energy is not inbred by
the organism but that the organism requires an impulse external
to itself to incite it to motion. If this be true of muscular con
traction how can we say this " transitory change" induced by
will created " manifestations of intellect, feeling, and will ?" We
may have electrical action as the method of nature, but we
cannot say the physics create vitality. 1 Exactly what occurs in a
machine made by art occurs in the human machine in the latter
the inciter, vitality, and will, acting through a directing intelligence,
in the former, manipulations intelligently directed, determining
action.

S. T. Coleridge s hypothesis, as interpreted by S. Watson,
defines

" Life as a principle of indi&lt;vidualization, or the power which unites a given
all into a whole which is presupposed in all its parts." Thus Reproduction
corresponds to magnetism, Irritability to electricity ; sensibility, constructive, or
chemical affinities, are all results of magnetic polarization, the power to connect
or disconnect, to retain or produce attachment. Individuality is " the one great
end of Nature, her ultimate object, or by whatever word we may designate that
something which bears to a final cause the same relation that Nature herself
bears to the supreme intelligence." " The most general law is polarity, or the
essential dualism of nature, arising out of its productive unity and still tending
to reaffirm it, either as equilibrium, indifference, or identity. Life then we
consider as the copula, or union of thesis and antithesis, position and counter-
position life itself being positive of both ; as, on the other hand, the two
counter points are the necessary manifestations of life." Thus in the identity of
the two counter powers life subsists, in the strife it consists, and in their con
ciliation it at once dies, and is born again into a new form, either falling back
into the life of the whole, or starting anew in the process of individualization
(Theory of Life). There are many hypotheses of life, but to modern science is
due the discovery that life and mind are derived from matter and muscular
contraction.

In nature the same law every where appears 1 the same habits
and conditions in the varied forms of life, modified to suit particu
lar needs. In the main ramifications the vascular, nervous,

TLe millions of millions of particles which the world contains must be finished
up in as complete a manner, and fitted into their places with as much nicety, as the
most delicate wheel or spring in a piece of human (art) machinery (B.T. fVhewell,
p. 146). He enquires, "What are the habits of thought to which it can appear
possible that this could take place without design, intention, intelligence, purpose,
knowledge ?"

52 The Progression of the Life Forms.

and other systems differentiated hold true in all forms. 1 In the
fetus can be traced the progression of the new forms of life. 2 Com
mencing with the "jelly-blob," the distinctive characteristics can
be traced through the grand gradations of living forms j 3 the inter
mediate links cannot be shown, but the types are always apparent.

" Gestation acts by development through inferior types, and brings the being
to maturity when its point of development is reached. Thus the fcetal con
dition would reach a certain point. If the fish diverges, the reptile, bird, and
mammal go on together, and in turn diverge ; the reptile first, then the bird,
The structural organization continuing, in the mammal reaches the highest
point of organization. This generalization shows the main ramifications the
differences of orders, tribes, families, genera, and varieties can be imagined,
and when an almost illimitable period of time is introduced, we have probably
the programme of the workings of nature. An ephemeron viewing a tadpole
in the morning (its youth), seeing the same in the noon (its age), could not
assume the brachias would change and be replaced by lungs, nor that the tail
would be erased and feet formed, and that the land would be its future habitat.
The work of nature is done in aeons of time. Man s life and that of the ephe
meron in these stretches of time are on a par. The changes come in periods,
like those of the calculating machine ; the law continues its force to a
certain point, then interposes a condition, a change appears, and so may
be traced the diversities of natural phenomena." (Vide Fes. Great., p. 212,
et seq.}

All living things grow and reproduce their kind, and have irri
tability and contractibility ; the nettle owes its irritating power
to stiff needle-like delicate hairs which taper " from a broad base
to a slender summit/ readily penetrating and breaking off. This
hair has a delicate outer casing of wood, within is a fluid matter
full of granules " protoplasm." Under the lens it appears to
be in continual activity, streaming up one side and down the other ;

1 " We recognise the bones of the hand in the fin of the whale, in the paddle of
the turtle, and in the wing of the bird. We see the same bones perfectly suited to
their purpose in the paw of the lion or the bear, and equally fitted for motion in the
hoof of the horse or in the foot of a camel, or adjusted for climbing or cling
ing in the long-clawed foot of the sloth. (Bell, Briil. Treat. p. 21.)

Cuvier says: " Never do we see in nature the cloven hoof of the ox joined with
the pointed fang of the lion ; nor the sharp talons of the eagle accompanying the
flattened beak of the swan." Galen asks, How happens it " that the teeth and
talons of the leopard and lion should be similar, also the teeth and hoofs of sheep
and goats 1

2 The extraordinary fact of animated life is the infinite variation of a funda
mental plan modified by conditions, radiations from given centres, or divergencies
from particular forms. ( f- es. of Creat. 2nd ed. p. 119.) This idea amplified, and
we have the modern theory of evolution.

" From the moment of birth there is a new impulse given to growth." " Few
are aware the foetus has a life adapted to its condition, and ... .if protracted beyond
its appointed time must die .... because the time is come for a change of its
economy." (Bell, Brid. Treat. p. 146.)

3 All analysis tends to show the oneness of design in creation the dependence of
each fact on the purposencss of the whole, and thus we are irresistibly compelled to
admit the unity of the power of which phenomena are but diversified manifesta
tion*. (Vide Carpenter Pres. Ad?)

Protoplasm. 53

sometimes diverging in different routes (vide L. S.). In the
nettle is found the same fact as in the virus of the viper.

Protoplasm is a name applied by Mohl to the colourless, or
yellowish, or smooth, or granular viscid substance of nitroge-
neous composition, the formative substance in vegetable cells,
which the Germans call schleim, and the English mucilage or
mucus. The surface of the protoplasm pelicle, he re
garded of the highest importance, and named it the primordial
utricle ; this primordial utricle Huxley called protoplasm, but
formerly he restricted the term to matter within it, and he re
garded it as an accidental modification of the endoplast and of little
importance. The varioles of his periplastic substance are now
tenanted by simple or nucleated protoplasms, endowed with
subtle influences ; this is immaterial, supposing the vital principle
is meant. Max Schultze called the active moving matter, forming
the sarcodeof the Rhizopods, protoplasm, as well as the substance
circulating in the cells of the Valisnaria, the hairs of nettles and
other vegetable cells, and the active moving matter constituting the
white blood corpuscules, and other contractile bodies variously dis
tributed. Contractility is held by some to be the peculiar charac
teristic of the protoplasm. This was the view of Kiihne, who
included different forms of muscular tissue in the same category
as the amoeba and the white blood corpuscules. Muscular tissue
exhibits structure which the amoeba is said not to do. Beale says
the living matter of the cells corresponds to the substance of which
the white corpuscules, pus corpuscules, &c., are composed. " In all
living beings the matter upon which existence depends is germinal
matter, and in all living structures the germinal matter contains
the same general characters." This he calls bioplasm, and con
tends the term protoplasm should only be applied to living sub
stances. The author of the festiges of Creation says, white
blood corpuscules are produced by the expansion of contained
granules, and are multiplied by fission.

The nucleated mass of protoplasm is the structural unit of the
human organism. The lowest forms of life find their repetition
in the blood corpuscules ; the polype (coral builders) are analo
gous in class. In plants the protoplasm appears in a sheath ; in
ova within a sac, or as a jelly mass, or speck with no external skin,
with or without a nucleus. The grand divisions of the kingdoms
of life were instituted for convenience. All living forms are
cognate as to origin, however they differ in function ; this shows
an initiatory and inherent power active and acting in a given

1 Even in " the lowest creatures the sense of touch implies the comparison of two
distinct senses." (Bed, B. T.)

54 The Mechanics and Chemistry of Nature.

direction. The calc spar can be resolved into carbonic acid and
quick lime, and resolved back to carbonate of lime, but art cannot
re-form the calc spar. We may simulate nature ; two colourless
cold liquids may be mixed and there will follow an exhibition of
heat accompanied by considerable ebullition. Again, two colour
less liquids on admixture will glow vividly with colour ; again mix
two colourless liquids, and, after stirring, the solid rock will grow
before our eyes. The facts appear, but we do not know why the
heat and motion is evolved in the one, why the colour glows in the
other, or why in the third cohesion has taken place. The modus
of phenomena is shown, the initiative escapes us ; a law is found
in their recurrence, but the motor power is beyond our purview.

If the protoplasm, be a living substance, as Beale insists, no animal
or plant can make it. By it they live and multiply through vital
power. When the life ceases we have again organic substance,
nothing remaining, save structure. To affirm that plants make pro
toplasm and animals exist by taking into them formed protoplasm,
is not consistent with the natural fact. The protamoeba absorbs
its fellow, but where, excepting in the very earliest forms of living
substances, do we find its repetition, however significant it may be
as showing, that absorption is the generative fact of vitality. The
granules by the same process increase by collecting the environ
ing gases necessary for nutrition, the growth being from the centre.
In the simplest forms (cells) the protoplasm is found, all animal
forms being composed of cells ; we have millions of absorbing
machines bound into one by a directing vitality. 1 When we are
seriously told matter forms, in the sense of creating, life and mind,
sense and feeling, in the hocus-pocus of such material changes
we have a thaumaturgy far more astounding than the decried
miracles of the creeds. Life in one form is necessary to life in
another form, and life inbreeds life in due successions ; a resulting
homogeneity. 2 As each particle of the great whole we term,
the universe is relative to and necessary for the maintenance of
the other particles, they can be neither wasted nor destioyed.
This is due to the inherence of vital action ; the consonance of
nature. The potence of life first appears in the germ, in the
core or nucleus of the living substance. So we might speak of
the core or nucleus of the universe, whence the energy of being
emerges and diverges to its circumference ; knitting and bonding

1 " God," as was said by the ancients " works by geometry."

2 If it be admitted that " the life principle is modified to meet the requirements of
its environments " (Spencer), how would it be possible to predicate any recurring
animal form ? And if it be, as doubtless it is, that the life principle modifies the
environments, then the recurring form becomes the continuity of a. precedent
effect.

Parallel Nature and a Machine. 5 5

all by an " iron law/ multiplied in its conditions, directed by an
intelligence, which conceived its purpose, resulting in an orderly
fact infinitely diversified. 1

When the mechanics and chemistry of nature are dwelt upon
it were proper to confine the words to their true signification ; it
is well to say mechanical this and chemical that, &c., for they
designate the facts of nature which does its work through the
appointed means. Earth may be eulogized as " the great mother "
out of whose womb proceed all things. The earth is the matrix,
the vehicle or bearer, but does not initiate any thing the store
house of elemental substances, the great natural vat from whence
the vital principle dips that it wants. Earth (matter) supplies the
materials in which the life subsists, but it is the vital power which
converts the inorganic into the organic ; and when, by the wear of
its action, the energy supplied to the material is exhausted, it is
exuded and the organic again becomes the inorganic. Thus we
have the ever-recurring round, vitality supreme, energy ex
hausted and energy rehabilitated. A watch marks the lapses of
time by the perfect adaptation of its parts and their action ;
so nature exists through the perfect homogeneity of its parts and
their action. Intellect created the homogeneity of the parts of the
watch by which its action became possible, and, as materialists in
sist on parity of reasoning, we can say Intellect created and. perfected
the homogeneity of the parts of that mechanism we term nature.
If we cannot u quite comprehend the modus operandl of an electric
spark which traverses a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, 1 it
seems presumptuous to suppose science can comprehend the more
intricate mystery, life, and present " the physical basis." // may
be all quite true but there are no proofs. " Martinus Scriblerus "
and his "meat jack" is quite in analogy with the physical account
ings for the being of life, sensation, intellect, and consciousness.
Scientific language " should be precise and definite, and define
facts and their action." The prevailing fashion, the adoption of a
materialistic terminology, does not make a thing to be other than
it is, despite the ingenuity of our professors, it only gives an
inaccurate idea, by substituting " the nomen for the numen." z

1 " The heavenly bodies in their motions through space are held in their orbits by
the combination of a power, not more wonderful . . . than that by which a globule
of blood is suspended in a mass of fluids or by which in due season it is attracted
and resolved ; than that by which & molecule entering into the composition of a
body is driven through a circle of revolutions and made to undergo different states
of aggregation, becoming sometime a uart of a fluid, sometime an ingredient of a
solid, and finally cast out again by the influence of living forces." (Bell, Bridg.
Treat., p. 231.)

2 The readers of modern treatises on science and attendants at lectures should
have their reason so armed as to form independent conclusions ; then by the hubit

56 The German Association, 1877.

CHAP. II.

THE PHASES OF GERMAN THOUGHT.
Haeckel^ and Virchow. The Ape Ancestry.

At the jubilee meeting of the German Association, held at
Munich, 1877, addresses were delivered by eminent German phy
sicists. The addresses of Nageli and Haeckel were expositions
of popular ideas. The opinions delivered by these gentlemen were
combatted by Virchow. These addresses, pertinently bearing on the
subject of this treatise, are condensed from the reports in t Nature
(vols.i6and 1 7 ),where they first appeared in an English publication.

The axiom of Du Bois Reymond is " Ignoramus Ignorabimus."
That of Nageli, " We know and we shall know, if we be satisfied
with human insight." Virchow more modestly says, " That which
honours me is a knowledge of my ignorance"

The inaugural address at Munich was delivered by Pettenkofer.
He said : " If knowledge be power .... then among sciences
natural science is .... destined to play a great part, perhaps the
greatest in the history and culture of mankind. Natural science
has but to look for facts and truths, and never need busy itself
about the immediate practical application of what has been found/

ON THE LIMITS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. NAGELI.

Among many practical and scientific men the opinion is widely
spread that a certain and lasting knowledge and understanding of
natural phenomena is on the whole impossible ; and they think that
scientific theories, generally, are only attempts to approach the in
accessible reality ; and change their tenor and expression with
the views of the time. This law is not a view based on prin
ciples, but only despair caused by failure, the necessary conse
quence of wrong method and of scientific incapacity. The
problem of natural phenomena is an algebraic equation with
many unknown factors ; the solution is only possible if just as

of "intellectual effort" they would be enabled "to discern the truth from a
phraseology which has only the appearance of truth, (Helmholtz s Rectoral Lecture,
Berlin, 1878).

Nageli at Munich. 57

many equations can be obtained as there are unknown factors, and
if the same unknown factors are obtained in all j as this is im
possible, we try to get an equation in which there is only one
unknown factor. This is done by scientific experiment, in which
all unknown factors are removed, save one. A snail, which takes
the straight road for its goal, progresses, while a grasshopper, with
its bounds in all directions, remains always on the same spot. Thus
scientific investigation proves that by an exact method certain and
permanent knowledge of natural phenomena may be gained.

The opinion is that belief begins where knowledge ceases,
but with this our interest is not satisfied. We wish to know
whether the limit where human knowledge must stop can be
determined. What is the fundamental difference between know
ledge and belief? From two sides the absolute power over
nature is claimed with certainty ; with decreasing energy by
natural philosophers, with increasing energy by materialists. The
former think they can construct nature out of herself, and natural
knowledge for them is finding the concrete natural phenomena
for the constructed abstract ideas. The latter only admit force
and matter in time and space, and that Man, built up of matter and
force, shall master nature, which is built up of the same factors.

Du Bois Reymond, on the same subject, arrived at three con
clusions : I. Natural knowledge or understanding is the reduc
tion of a natural phenomenon to the mechanics of simple and in
divisible atoms. 2. There are no atoms of this description, and
therefore there is no real understanding. 3. Even if we could
understand the world through the mechanics of atoms, we could not
nevertheless understand sensation and consciousness through them.

Nageli says Du Bois Reymond does not go beyond this negative.
The investigation of natural sciences cannot define the limits of
a domain she does not possess, and in their incompleteness leads
to false deductions which contradict our natural scientific con
science. We must go beyond the negative side and examine
whether the human mind is not capable of natural knowledge, and
of its nature and extent. The way in which I understand nature
is determined by the answers to the following questions : i.
The condition and capacity of the Ego. 2. The condition and
accessibility of nature. 3. The demands which we make of
knowledge subject, object, and copula participate in the conclu
sion. The capacity of the Ego is our power of thinking, in what
ever condition it may be, and only gives us nature as we perceive
her by the senses. Our knowledge is only correct in so far as obser
vation by the senses and internal perception are correct, the pro
bability being that both lead us to objective truth. Scientific

58 Nageli at Munich.

analysis shows that in the totality of force-endowed matter the
world each particle of matter, all its inherent forces, are in rela
tion to all others. It is influenced by all, and, in its turn, acts
upon all ; the effect which it causes and receives is the total effect
of all the single particles ; but these effects are so insignificant, as
regards the infinite majority of cases, that they are neglected because
imperceptible. Man and the higher animals have certain parts in
them developed into organs of sensation by which they are sensi
tive to certain natural phenomena, and have been developed from
the smaller beginnings to high degrees of perfection.

The idea of Darwin, that in organic nature only such arrange
ments attained full development as were useful to the bearer
is simple and reasonable ; sensation corresponds, and is exactly
portioned to the requirements of the organism. We are sensitive
to temperature and to light, for they are necessities ; but we are
not organised to perceive the electricity which surrounds us. We
perceive the increase and decrease of heat and light, but we do not
know whether the air contains free electricity, nor whether it
is positive or negative. We touch a telegraph wire but find no
result. We can imagine the atmosphere without the light
ning and the thunder, but their presence has helped us to our
knowledge of its fact. Had not accident revealed the attractive
and repulsive force generated by friction, it is probable we should
have no idea of electricity. Our senses are organized for the
requirements of our bodily existence, not to satisfy our intellectual
wants ; to acquaint us with and to explain all phenomena of nature.
If they perform this function only incidentally, we cannot rely
on them to explain all phenomena of nature ; it is indeed very
probable that there are still other natural forces, other forms of
molecular motion of which we obtain no serious impressions, because
they never unite to any remarkable outcome, and therefore remain
hidden from us. We are probably deficient in the power of sen
sation for the whole domain of natural life, and, as far as we can
have the power, it is confined in time and space to an insignificantly
small part of the whole.

Our natural knowledge is not confined to what we perceive by
our senses; by conclusions we attain to a knowledge our senses
do not reach. The knowledge of the place of Neptune was
obtained by calculation. 1 We know, although the best micro-

1 Before the scientific world knew that Le Verrier and Adams were calculating
the disturbing cause which led to the discovery of the planet Neptune, a clair
voyant or mystic somnambulist (Andrew Jackson Davis, U.S. America, then a lad
utterly uncultured, unlettered, and ignorant of science), predicted, when in a som
nambulistic state, there was another large planet belonging to the solar system beyond
the orbit of Uranus (in fact two). The calculations of Le Verrier and Adams were

Nageli at Munich. 59

scopes do not show it, that water consists of infinitesimal par
ticles, or molecules, which are in motion. In other preparations
of water we know the proportionate number and weight of the
particles composing it. By the conclusions drawn from facts
we know facts not perceived by the senses. We may therefore
indulge the hope that starting from the small domain open to
our senses, little by little the entire field of nature will be con
quered by reason ; but this hope can never be fulfilled. As the
effect of a natural force decreases with its distance, the possi
bility of knowledge also decreases as the distance in space and
time increase. Thus, the condition, the composition, and
history of a fixed star, of the life in its satellites, of the mate
rial and spiritual movements in these organisms, we cannot know
anything, nor of the discovery of a still unknown natural force, of
an unknown form of motion, of the smallest material particles ;
the less this force or motion possesses the peculiarity of accumu
lating- and causing collective effects the more it eludes us. The

O O

confined capacity of the Ego allows us only an extremely fragmen
tary knowledge of the universe.

The boundaries which nature opposes are more evident if we
adopt the hypothesis that man has the most perfect capacity for
natural knowledge. If time and space did not exist then every
phenomena could be judged in the past as well as in the present.
The largest stellar systems as well as the minutest atoms would
be in purview ; for if man were provided with perfect senses then
all the phenomena of nature, all forces and all forms of motions,
would be perceived directly by him. La Place says : " A mind
which for a given moment knew all the forces which are active in
nature, and the respective positions of the beings of which she con
sists, if it were comprehensive enough to analyse these data,
would unite in the same formula the motion of the largest heavenly
body and the lightest atom. Nothing would be uncertain ; the
future as well as the past would be present to its gaze.

The human mind, in the perfection which it has been enabled to
give to astronomy, offers a weak reflection of a mind of this des
cription." This mind would not solve the problem given. La
Place starts from the finiteness of the world in all directions ; but
this finiteness is not given. The difficulty nature opposes to
human knowledge is its endlessness. In space nature is endless.

not then made public, and consequently before their calculations were verified by
its discovery the prediction was made. The evidence of this fact is preserved, and
if it be possible for human evidence to be complete this is so. He also announced
Faraday s discovery of dia-magnetism, giving the details before the discovery was
known in America, and named Faraday as the discoverer. This evidence is also com
plete. This is one of those peculiar mental facts to which physical science has no key

60 Nageli at Munich.

To travel with the speed of light (192,500 of miles in a second)
through the known universe of fixed stars would require some
20,000,000 of years, according to a probable estimate. If in
thought we placed ourselves at the end of this immeasurable
space we should still see a new starry firmament, and as the earth
appears our centre of the universe, we should peer on the beyond
and still imagine we were in the centre of the universe. The
starry heavens we now see, compared with the universe, are
after all, infinitely smaller than the smallest atom compared to the
world.

What applies to space applies equally to the groupings in space,
to the composition, organization, and individualization of matter ;
the object of morphological natural science. All consist of parts,
itself a part of a bigger whole. We have organs composed of
cells, and these of smaller elementary particles ; further we get
chemical molecules and atoms of chemical elements ; these resist
further subdivision at present, and are considered as compound
bodies on account of their properties ; but no physical atoms
strictly can exist, no little particles which would be really indi
visible. Size is but relative; the smallest body in existence
which we know, the particles of light, heat, and ether, may be of
any size we choose in our conception even infinitely large, if
we imagine ourselves sufficiently small by side of it ; indivisibility
never ceases. The composition of individual particles, separated,
continues endlessly downwards or upwards in continually larger
individual groups. The heavenly bodies are the molecules which
unite in groups of lower and higher orders, and our whole system
of stars is only a molecular group in an infinitely larger whole,
which we must suppose to be a unit organism, and only a
particle of a still larger whole. As space is endless in all direc
tions so time is endless on two sides, it has never begun and will
never cease. The Bible teaches In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. Geologists say : In the beginning the
world was a gaseous mist, from which heavenly bodies were formed
by condensation. But this beginning is only a finiteness, and the
time which has passed since this beginning is only as a moment
compared to the eternity before. From the union of time and
space, an empire of phenomena results. Matter in motion which
fills space, the particles of which act on one another and then
with diverse forces (attraction and repulsion), motion causes
motion and a change of motion, and this is the chain of cause
and effect ; an endless one it neither could begin with a first
cause nor finish with a last effect.

Nature is everywhere uninvestigable where she becomes endless

Nageli at Munich. 61

or eternal ; we cannot conceive her as a whole, because that which
has neither beginning nor end does not lead to conception, and
this is why La Place s problem is futile from the beginning. A
formula is unthinkable for which we have not component factors,
and which if these factors were given would never come to an end.
A formula of this kind would give us, as astronomical calculation
really does, a solution correct within certain limits, a practical
solution, not a fundamental one.

The investigator of nature finds his investigations limited in all
directions, for the uninvestigable eternity bids him stop. The in
finitely large and the infinitely small have been mixed with end
lessness and nothing, leading to erroneous conceptions. Amongst
them are the theories of physical atoms on the one hand and the
beginning and end of the universe on the other. Matter consti
tuting the heavenly bodies is supposed in the beginning to be
gaseous ; in this Du Bois Reymond finds a difficulty. If this
matter had been at rest and distributed equally he cannot find out
whence motion and unequal distribution have come.

The condensation of matter has gone on for an infinite time ;
we have the nebulae, then burning liquid drops which cool down
to dark bodies. The world is a condensed and no longer an in
candescent world drop. The still incandescent already dark
heavenly bodies must give off their store of heat to universal space.
By-and-by they must fall upon one another, and if a local rise of
temperature takes place this only serves to accelerate the process
of cooling on the whole. At last, all heavenly bodies will unite
in a dark, solid icy mass upon which there will no longer be motion
or life. This is the result of correct physical consideration, and
the consequence of our confined insight ; it would only be a
logical necessity if we knew everything. But we see but a small
part of the universe, and possess but a fragmentary knowledge of
the forces and forms of motion in the part we know ; our deduc
tions may be without perceptible error for billions of years, but
with the lapse of greater periods they must become more uncertain
and eventually be totally erroneous.

In illustration, we are most certain of the incandescent state of
the earth at one period, and by analogy conclude that the other
planets were incandescent bodies, as the sun is still. Going back
wards from suns we get to accumulated masses of clouds, the
embryos of later suns, then to cloud belts, eventually to the
gaseous mass distributed with tolerable uniformity, beyond which,
with our present insight, we cannot go. This proves a constancy
of change, each change consisting of a sum of motions and sup
poses a former change, or sum of motions, from which it resulted

62 Nageli at Munich.

with mechanical necessity, and, further on, a chain of changes from
all eternity ; and if our scientific insight does not lead to this, does
not justify us in this supposition, it proves only its inadequacy.
On the contrary we must conclude that the series of developments
of the heavenly bodies is only one of the numberless successive
periods, and that analogous periods and consequences have preceded
and will follow endlessly. We know a mass of gas in a state of
progressive condensation produces heat, and how the hot condensed
mass again gives forth this heat, until its temperature is that of
its surroundings, but we do not know how the solid mass can
again become gaseous, and how the necessary heat distributed
in space can again be collected. This gap we fill with supposi
tions. The example shows we may use our experiences of the
finite only for deductions within the finite. As soon as man
wishes to overstep this domain opened to him by his senses, and
which is accessible, and wants to form a conception of the whole,
he falls into absurdities ; either he leaves what is gained by
experience and meditation, and then loses himself in arbitrary and
empty fancies, or he proceeds logically by the laws of the finite,
and then he finally arrives at perfectly ridiculous consequences.
Supposing we follow changes according to the laws of causality,
we arrive at the standpoint of nebulosity, and adopt what is
known there as the measure ; then we find stages both in the
past and in the future which more and more approach to perfect rest
without ever reaching it. But if we suppose the heavenly bodies
and systems arise and perish without end in the universe,wefind two
possibilities : according to the materialistic conception the suc
cessive changes are of the same value, or according to the philosophi
cal conception they continually change their relative value, becom
ing more perfect every time, in which case the universe in the eternal
past would more and more approach absolute imperfection (there
fore rest), and in the eternal future absolute perfection (therefore
again rest). These conceptions are equally irrational. The
first (physical) and the last (philosophical) let the world awake
from dead rest and return to it ; the materialistic conception con
demns it to eternal rest, because a change which always repeats
itself means for an eternity nothing else but rest. With space
we do not fare better than with time. As space filled with
matter can but everywhere be limited by more space filled with
matter, we arrive at the absurd deduction that the world in its
circumference is bordered by itself. If we allow infinity to
universal space, then heavenly bodies follow on heavenly bodies
without end. Thus we arrive at the mathematically correct,
but, according to our ideas, absurd deduction, that our earth, just

Nageti at Munich. 63

as it now is, must occur several times, indeed an infinite number
of times, in the universe. The examples show our finite reason
is only accessible to finite conceptions, and when we wish to raise
our conception to the Eternal we fall back upon finite and obscure
ideas.

All conceptions are exclusively the results of sensuous percep
tions, and our knowledge cannot go further than to compare the
phenomena we have observed and judge of them with reference
to one another. The comparison of many phenomena gives a
unit by which we can measure and determine; we therefore
obtain as many measures as there are properties in nature, and,
as they are reduced from finite facts, they have only a relative
value. We may not only compare different objects and measure
them one by another, but also a system, a unit group of things
of similar nature with itself and measure it by itself. The
knowledge is complete if the later stage be proved to be the
necessary consequence of the earlier one, or the earlier the pre
decessor of the later. In the elementary domains of the material
this causal relation is the mechanical necessity. In higher domains
of the material we cannot from our causal knowledge uphold
the demand for this causal necessity. As in the case of struc
ture, it cannot be definitely explained why the origin of a chemical
compound and of a crystal must be the necessary result of known
forces and motions of elementary atoms and molecules ; still less
in cells and the growth of organisms and propagation and the
inheritance of peculiarities. Yet in these domains we may speak
of causal knowledge with some show of right. A time will
arrive when we need no longer presuppose ontogenetic and phylo-
genetic necessity as a matter of course, but when we shall also
be able to understand its cause.

The mechanics of the heavens are based on general gravitation
and centrifugal force, both are simple forces acting in a straight
line ; both are hypotheses resting on our experience, but of the
reasons we are ignorant. If we were to demand that our know
ledge of the "why?" should be clear there would be neither
astronomical nor physical knowledge ! Natural knowledge need
not begin with the hypothetical and smallest unknown things. It
begins wherever matter has shaped itself into unities of the same
order, which may be compared to, and be measured by one
another, and wherever such unities combine to form compound
unities of a higher order. It may begin at every age from the
organization or the composition of matter ; at the atom of
chemical elements which forms the chemical compounds ; at the
molecule of the compounds which composes the crystal, at the

64 Nageli at Munich.

crystalline granule which composes the cell and its parts ; at
the organism, or individual, which becomes the element of the
formation of a species. Each scientific discipline has its justifi
cation essentially in itself.

I have tried to determine the capacity of the Ego, the accessi
bility of nature and the essence of human understanding. It is
easy now to fix the limits of human knowledge. We can only
know that our senses acquaint us with, and this is limited in time
and space to an infinitesimal domain, perhaps to only a part of
the natural phenomena occurring in this domain, on account of
a deficient development of our organs of sense. Of that with
which we are acquainted we only know the finite, the changeable
and perishable, only what is relative and differs by degrees,
because we can only apply mathematical ideas to natural things
and judge them by the measures we have gained from them. Of
all that is endless or eternal, stable or constant, of all absolute
differences we have no conception. We have a perfect idea of an
hour, a metre, a kilogramme, but we have no idea of time, space,
matter and force, motion and rest, cause and effect. The extent
and limit of our possible natural knowledge may be shortly and
exactly stated : We can only know the finite, but we can know all
the finite which comes within the reach of our sensory perceptions.

When we consider the consequences which have arisen from a
departure from a correct method based on principles, the most
remarkable are, that finite nature is divided into two radically
different domains, and particularly that there is an insuperable
limit between the inorganic and the organic, or between material
and spiritual nature. The antagonists of an intimate connection
between material and immaterial nature draw the line of separa
tion in different places ; some ascribe living nature (life endowed
nature) to plants ; life is ascribed to represent something special,
whilst others admit this only for the animal world endowed with
sensation, and others only for the spiritually conscious human
race ; new immaterial, or eternal principles, are said to apply to
higher grades. Du Bois Reymond holds the second of these
views : He says, " that in the first trace of pleasure which was
felt by one of the simplest beings in the beginning of animal
life upon our earth an insuperable limit was marked, whilst
upwards from this to the most elevated mental activity and down
wards from the vital force of the organic to the simple physical
force he nowhere finds another limit."

Experience shows the clearest consciousness of the thinker
downwards, through the more imperfect consciousness of the
child, to the unconsciousness of the embryo and to the insensi-

N dgeli at Munich. 65

bility of the human ovum, or through the more imperfect con
sciousness of undeveloped human races and of higher animals to
the unconsciousness of lower animals, and of sensitive plants ;
there exists a continual gradation without definable limit, and
that the same gradation continues from the life of the animal
ovum and the vegetable cell downwards through organised ele
mentary or less lifeless forms, (parts of the cell) to crystals and
chemical molecules. The conclusion to be drawn by analogy is
this : Just as all organisms consist of and have been formed of
matter which occurs in inorganic nature, so the forces which are
inherent in matter, have entered into the formation as well. If
matter combines with other matter their forces unite to the same
total result, and this represents the new property of the resulting
body thus life and feeling are the new relative properties which
albumen molecules obtain under certain circumstances. Expe
rience shows that spiritual life is everywhere connected in the
most intimate manner with natural life and that the one influences
the other and cannot exist without the other. As everywhere in
nature forces and motions are united only with material particles,
so the spiritual forces and motions only appertain to matter, i.e.,
they are composed of the general forces and motions of nature
and are connected with them as cause and effect. No natu
ralist can avoid the idea of a causal conception of this nature,
unless he becomes unfaithful, consciously, or unconsciously, to his
first principle. The problem is therefore to understand how the
forces of inorganic matter combine in matter and form into
organisms so that their result represents life, sensation, and con
sciousness. The solution of this problem is very remote ; but it
is yet possible.

The mind can indeed be looked upon as the secretion of the
substance of the brain in the same way that the gall is the secre
tion of the liver as K. Vogt, and previously Cabanis had said. 1
According to Nageli, Du Bois Reymond says the finite mind as
it has developed itself through the animal world up to man, is a
double one : on the one side is the acting, inventing, unconscious
material mind which puts the muscles into motion and determines
the world s history ; this is nothing else but the mechanics of
atoms and is subject to the causal law ; and on the other side the
inactive, contemplative, remembering, fancying, conscious im
material mind which feels pleasure and pain, love and hate ; this

1 It is difficult to seethe similitude, the gall is an objective presentment proceed
ing from a material substance through vital action. The mind is not an objective
presentment, how it should follow as a material consequent from a material sub
stance is not clear.

66 Nageli at Munich.

one lies outside the mechanics of matter and cares nothing for
cause and effect.

Generally both sides of the mental life are called mind. If the
separation existed as described, this would be truly the unintelli
gible secretion of the material mind, or of the atoms of the brain ;
it would not be anything but the useless ornament of this material
mind, its infallibly following unreal shadow, because as standing
outside the chain of cause and effect, it is powerless and- without
nfluence upon actions ; without it the world s history would have
run exactly the same course ; therefore without a conscious and
perceived mental life we should have thought, done, and spoken
everything, but only mechanically, and not otherwise than a very
artistically-invented dead automaton would think, act, and speak.

Can we imagine that so many occurrences which most evi
dently resulted from sensation and consciousness, have some
other sensationless and unconscious origin ? can we imagine that
sensation and consciousness are so entirely useless, whilst every
where utility is so evidently prominent in organic nature, that so
useless and superfluous a phenomenon should occur just where we
expect the greatest utility ? Can we imagine that the causal
principle which governs the whole of nature fails us just at the
most important part ? Can we imagine that organised matter
accidentally and without cause acquires a property (sensation and
consciousness) and loses it again accidentally and without effort,
because in the ovum and in the embryo the conscious and per
ceived mental life would not be present, it would arise gradually,
it would be lost in every sleep, obtained again more or less
completely in the waking state, and be annihilated for .ever in
death r

It is quite correct for Du Bois Reymond to say we can only
know the material conditions of mental life ; but how life results
from those conditions remains a secret to us for ever. It would
be an error to suppose that we generally understand the origin of
natural life from its causes. In all purely material phenomena
we find the same barrier as in the mental ones. In the inorganic
world the cause is lost in the effect ; but we cannot understand
the nature of the transfer. We know that two bodies which are
apart, if there be no obstacles, approach one another until they
touch; what induces the mutual motion is just as unintelligible,
and will remain just as eternal an enigma as the origin of
sensation and consciousness from material causes. The view is
generally held, that nature in her simpler inorganic phenomena
offers no difficulties to our conception. Whereas, in reality, the
difficulties everywhere are the same in principle. Mental life is

N dgeli at Munich. 67

known by subjective experiences, and these Nageli traces from
irritations which produce sensations 1 , whether in plants or animals,
and he sums his conclusions by saying, sensation is therefore a pro
perty of the albumen molecules, and if it be granted in the case
of the albumen molecules, we must grant it likewise to the mole
cules of all other substances. If the molecules feel something
which is related to sensation, then this must be pleasure ; they can
respond to attraction and repulsion, we follow their inclination and
disinclination; it must be displeasure if they are forced to execute
some opposite movement, and it must be neither pleasure nor dis
pleasure if they remain at rest. We have the gratification and
offence of the molecules, but these different sensations are neces
sarily unequal with regard to conditions and intensity according to
the forces acting. The simplest organizations which we know are
the molecules of chemical elements, and, therefore, simultaneously
influenced by several qualitatively and quantitatively different sen
sations which agglomerate to a total sensation of pleasure and
pain.

If we look upon mental life in its general significance as the
immaterial expression of material phenomena ; as the mediation
between cause and effect, then we find it everywhere in nature.
Mental force is the capacity of material particles to act upon each
other; the mental phenomenon is the manifestation of this action
which consists in motion. So changes of the position of material
particles and of the forces lead to new mental occurrences.

The cogency of the argument as to the materiality of the
mind is summed in the following conclusions (which I have
italicised) : Just as the stone would not fall if it did not feel the
presence of the earth^ so the trampled wor?n would not wriggle if it
had no sensation^ and the brain would not act reasonably if it had no
consciousness. We are then told natural science must be exact ;
must rigidly avoid everything which oversteps the limits of the
finite and intelligible^ and must proceed in a strictly materialistic
manner , because its sole object is finite force-endowed matter. All
that is eternal and stable, the hoiv and the why of the universe,
remains for ever incomprehensible to the human mind, and if it
tries to overstep the limits of minuteness, it can only puff itself

1 Erasmus Darwin in his work Zoonomia, published at the end of the last
century, draws similar deductions he does not say pleasure and displeasure, but
pleasure and pain commencing in irritation, and so on. Bain, in Bt&gt;dy and Mind, .
sets forth somewhat similar ideas. Have we then three thinkers independently,
arriving at the same conclusions ? Such coincidences do occur, but they are not vary
frequent. Erasmus Darwin, although not a materialist, abounds in arguments (in
his effort to prove the derivation of sensation and mind through irritations producing,
pleasure or pain), which might afford handy weapons for materialistic arguments.

63 Haeckel on Evolution.

up to a ridiculously adorned idol, or desecrate the Eternal and the
Divine by human disfiguration. Such are the reasonings which
are to lead man to reject Du Bois Reymond s motto, Ignoramus
et ignorabimus, and adopt that of materialism, which, according to
Nageli is, " we know and we shall know "!

HAECKEL ON EVOLUTION.

No doctrine for the last decade has claimed such general atten
tion ; no other affects our important convictions so deeply as that
of Evolution and the monistic philosophy united with it ; because
by this doctrine the question of all questions can be solved the
fundamental question of the position of man in nature. The
highest principles of all science must depend on the position which
our advanced understanding of nature assigns to man.

By the conception of natural selection in the struggle for
existence, a firm foundation is afforded to biology in its depart
ment of morphology, Lamark, G. St. Hilaire, Oken, and Schel-
ling have presented their conclusions. The natural philosophy of
their time could only draw up a general plan of construction.
Between 1830 and 1859 a strictly empirical investment of nature
was flourishing, and two principal branches of real natural history
started from totally different bases. Lyell s geology, and the
history of the development of living creatures, animals, and plants ;
yet side by side with them stood the irrational myth, that every
single species of animals and plants, like man himself, had been
created independently of one another. The contradiction of the
two doctrines, the natural development theory of the geologists
and of the creation myth, was decided in favour of the former by
Darwin in 1859. Since then it has been recognised that forma
tion and changes in the living inhabitants of the globe follow the
same great eternal laws of mechanical development as the earth
itself, and the whole world system. Comparative anatomy and
the history of germs, systematic zoology and botany, cannot be
explained without the theory of descent ; by it the relations of
organic forms can be deduced ; by it alone can we understand the
existence of rudimentary organs, eyes which do not see, wings
which do not fly, muscles which do not move, and which most
emphatically refute the old system of teleology, because they prove
in the clearest manner that the utility in the structure of organic
forms is neither general nor perfect, that it is not the result of
a plan of creation worked with an object in view, but necessarily
caused by the accidental coincidences of mechanical causes. 1

1 In the "Reign of Luw" (p. \5Qet.scq.) there is a description of the wings of birds ;
if they be the " mere accidental coincidences of mechanical causes," we must exclude

Intelligence in Nature. 69

In biology, the historical and historico-philosophical method
takes the place of the exact mathematical. If the botanist fol-

all ideas of intelligence in nature, and all idea of such a formative fact as law origi
noting from an intelligent cause.

The birds wings, whether they be long, short, broad, or narrow, are exactly suited
to the exigencies of the possessors. In the lilting the body of the bird there is a
contravention of the laws of gravity, the dead substance of the bird weighing as
much as the living. How then is this contravention of a special law achieved? By
a lever, which is the bird s wing. The mechanical law is "a small amount of motion,
or motion through a very small space, at the short end of a lever produces a great
amount of motion, or motion through a long space at the opposite or longer end
(p. 151) This is exactly the motion "transmitted to the end of a long wing.
The albatross affords such an example. Tbe bird sometimes accepts the aid of
gravity, sometimes opposes it, as is exemplified in the power of exposing the wings
at the exact angles which produce the desired effects, and is on the same mechanical
principles which account for the resisting force of the narrow blades of a screw
propeller. Tbe quills of a bird s wings at the lower ends are called primaries, those
from the mid vein secondaries, and those next the body tertiarics. " Tbe motion
of a bird s wing increases from its minimum at the shoulder pointto its maximum at
the tip." The propelling power of a bird s wing is distinct from the sustaining
power, " and depends on the reaction of the air escaping backwards. " The
perpendicular stroke .... has the double effect of both propelling and
sustaining .... this brings two different forces to bear .... a direction
upwards and one forwards," and arises from what mechanicians call " the paral
lelogram of forces." A kestrel will hang in air in a half gale of wind, " with
wings folded close to its body, with no visible muscular motion," so nice is the adjust
ment of position to produce this exact balance." The change of position results
in a forward motion. The tail of a bird has not a function analogous to that of
the rudder of a ship; it assists in the turning motion " and serves to stop the way
of the bird " when it rises or turns to take a new direction, and also serves as a
balance. " The whole order of nature is contrivance," and " that kind of arrange
ment by which the unchangeable demands of law are met." The distinction
between a bird and a balloon is, birds fly, balloons float the active and passive
representations of force. The heron, one of the slowest in flight, is computed to
make from 240 to 300 movements in a minute, with some other birds the velocity is

so great the eye cannot follow it the vibration of the wings leaving only a

blurred impression." Connected with the forces (supra), the explanation of flight
appears. When a bird supports itself by the downward stroke of the wings, it must, at
the end of each stroke, lift the wing upwards to the apparent danger of the neutrali
zation of the force " for it must be made with equal velocity, and, if it required
equal force it must produce equal resistance and an equal rebound from the elasti
city of the air." The difficulty is evaded -first, by the upper surface of the wing
being convex, the under surface concave. The air struck by the concave surface is
gathered up, %vhilst that struck by the convex surface escapes on all sides. Secondly,
" the feathers of the bird s wing are made to underlap each other, so that in the
downward stroke the pressure of air closes them against each other, and converts the
whole series into a connected membrane, through which the air cannot escape ....
in the upward stroke the same pressure has a precisely reverse effect ; it opens the
feathers, separates them from each other, and converts each pair of feathers into a
self-acting valve, through which the air rushes at every point." Thus the same
implement is at one time a close continuous membrane impervious to air, at another
a series of disconnected joints, through the interstices of which the air passes without
resistance, " the machine being so adjusted that when pressure is required, the
maximum of pressure is adduced, and when it is to be avoided, it is avoided by con
verting the continuous membrane into open valves. Thus is contradicted the dictum
of Haeckel, that the mechanical contrivances found in nature are " not the result of a
plan of creation worked with an object in view." But for the sequence of effects

70 Haeckel at Munich.

lowed the formation of the plant from the seed, and the zoolo
gist from the ovum they considered the morphological task com
plete by observing the history of these germs. Wolff", Baer,
Remack, Schleiden, and the school formed by them, understood
until lately the individual ontogeny exclusively. Now the
mystery of germs no longer confronts us as unintelligible.
By the laws of inheritance, the changes of form the germ passes
through are but an abbreviated repetition of the corresponding
changes of form which the ancestors of the organism have passed in
the course of many millions of years. If an egg is placed in
the incubator, and in twenty-one days a chicken creeps forth, we
are not astonished. The simple cell leads to the two-leaved
gastrula, then to the worm-shaped and skull -less germ, thence to
the further germ-forms, which, on the whole, show the organiza
tion of a fish, an amphibian or reptile, and lastly that of a bird.
The series of the germ-form of the chicken gives a sketch of its
ancestors. The history of the germ is an extract from the history of its
ancestors occasioned by the laws of inheritance.,

The phylogenetic interpretation of the ontogenetic phenomena
is up to the present time the only exposition of the latter ; their
common object is the investigation of historical events which
happened in the course of many millions of years before man
lived on earth. Phylogeny uses these historical archives in the
same manner as other historical disciplines do ; as the linguist, by
the comparative investigation of living languages, proves their
origin from a common ancestral language. Only the ignorant
smile incredulously when it is said the chain of the Alps is but
the hardened deposits of the bottoms of seas ; the nature of the
fossils they contain admits of no other explanation. The hypo
theses of Phylogony and those of Geology differ in that those of
Geology are more simple. The question of the origin of man is
decided by the theory of evolution, or doctrine of descent. If
the theory of evolution be true, if there exists a natural philogony,
then man has resulted from the form vertebrata^ from the class
mammalia, from the sub-class placentalia, from the order apes.
All attempt to shake this deduction, from the evolution doctrine,
is futile (vide infra, p. 80). The phylogenetic archives of compara
tive anatomy, ontology and palaeontology speak too distinctly in
favour of an identical and uniform descent of all vertebrata from
a single ancestral form, to permit our having any doubts now,
thanks to the most illustrious morphologists, Gegenbaur and
Huxley. It is often supposed that only the origin of the human

in the union of forces, tlie flight of the bird would have been an impossibility, and
without an intelligent arrangement of all its parts it never could have been.

Haeckel at Munich. 71

body is explained, but not that of our spiritual activity ; in the
face of this objection we must remember the physiological fact
that our intellectual life is inseparably united with the organiza
tion of our central nervous system, which is composed exactly like
that of all higher vertebrata and originates exactly in the same way.
Whatever we may imagine to be the connection of soul and
body, of mind and matter, so much results from the evolution
doctrine that at least all organic matter if indeed not all matter
is in a certain sense animated. Microscopical investigation dis
closes that the anatomical elementary parts of the organism,
cells universally possess individual animated life. Since Schleiden
founded the cell theory for the vegetable kingdom and Schwann
applied the same to the animal world, we ascribe to these microsco
pical life-beings an individual and independent life. They are the
elementary organisms of Brucke and of Virchow (Cellular Pathology)
Naturalists now consider the cells no longer as the dead passive
building stones of the organism, but as the living active state
citizens of the same. This conception is confirmed by the study
of infusoria, amoeba, and other unicellular organisms here we find
with the single cells, living in isolation, the same manifestation of
soul-life, sensation, conception, volition, and motion, as with the
higher animals, composed of many cells, and the soul-life of the cell
is tied to the cell substance protoplasm. In the monera we see
single detached pieces of protoplasm possess motion and sensation
like the whole cell. Accordingly, we must suppose that the cell-soul,
the foundation of empirical psychology, is a compound itself, viz.
the total result of the psychic activities of the protoplasm mole
cules, which we will shortly call plastidule. The plastidule-soul
would therefore be the last factor of organic soul-life.

Modern organic chemistry shows that the peculiar physical and
chemical properties of an element, of carbon^ in its complicated
combination with other elements cause the peculiar physiological
properties of organic compounds, and before all others of proto
plasm. The monera, consisting exclusively of protoplasm, forms
the bridge over the deep chasm between organic and inorganic
nature, If, in spontaneous generation, a certain number of carbon
atoms unite with a number of atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
and sulphur, to form the unity of a plastidule, we must regard
the plastidule-soul, i.e. the total sum of its life activities, as the
necessary product of the forces of these united atoms. In this
most extreme psychological consequence of our monistic doctrine
of evolution we meet with those old conceptions of the anima
tion of all matter, which already in the philosophy of Democritus,
Spinoza, Bruno, Leibnitz, and Schopenhauer, have found varied

7 2 Virchow at Munich.

expressions, because all soul-life can finally be reduced to the
two elementary functions of sensation and motion; to their re
ciprocal action in reflex motion. The simple sensation of
inclination and disinclination, the simple forms of motion,
attraction, and repulsion, these are the true elements out of which
all soul activity is built in infinitely varied and complicated com
binations. Monism avoids the one-sidedness of materialism, as
well as that of spiritualism, it unites practical idealism with theore
tical idealism, it combines natural science with mental science, to
form an all-comprising uniform, general, or total science.

The recognition of common simple causes for the most varying
and complicated phenomena leads to the simplification, as well as
to the deepening of our education and culture ; only by causal
conception dead knowledge becomes living science. Not the
quantity of empirical knowledge, but the quantity of its causal
conception is the true measure of the education of the mind.

The conclusion of the lecture was a comment on Theology, &c.

VIRCHOW ON THE LIBERTY OF SCIENCE IN MODERN STATES.

Vichow, in his address, comments on those of Niigeli and
Haeckel, denying their conclusions because not founded on scien
tific data.

In celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of this association, it is
becoming to remember the change which has taken place in
Germany since the days when Oken assembled the German
naturalists and physicians for the first time. In 1822, the time of
the first meeting at Leipsic, it was thought to be so dangerous to
hold such a meeting, that it was held in perfect secrecy, Indeed,
the names of the Austrian members could only be published in
1861. Oken, the valued teacher, died in exile, in the same
canton in Switzerland in which Ulrich von Hutten ended his life,
full of troubles and contests ; the exile of Oken will remain the
signature of the time we have gone through, and we should
remember he bore all the signs of a martyr ; we shall point to him
as one who with his blood conquered and obtained for us the
liberty of science. It is now easy to speak of the liberty of science
when in calmness we can discuss the highest and most difficult
problems of life and the hereafter. We have arrived at a point
when it becomes necessary to investigate whether we may hope to
retain securely the possession we enjoy, and we ought to ask our
selves what we are to do to maintain the present state of things.
For the present we have nothing more to ask, our special task is
to render it possible through our moderation, through a certain
resignation with regard to personal opinions and predilections that the

Fir chow at Munich. 73,

favorable dispositions now entertained towards us do not change
to the contrary. In my opinion we are really in danger of doing
harm to the future by using too amply our liberty in the arbitra
riness of personal speculation which now claims prominence in
many domains of natural science. In reference to the address
of Nageli I should like to adduce a few practical incidents from the
experience of natural science and show how great is the difference
between real science for which alone we can claim the totality
of our liberties and that larger domain which belongs more to
speculative expansion, which formulates a series of doctrines which
are yet to be proved. There is a limit between this speculative
domain and that which is actually proved and perfectly determined.
The practical questions lie very near. Whatever is considered to
be secured scientific truth demands complete admission into the
scientific treasures of the nation. This the nation must admit as
part of itself. In this lies the double promotion which natural
science offers. On the one hand, the material progress made ; on
the other, the mental importance is similar. Where scientific
truth is completely proved every one can convince himself of this
truth, and then it will become a part of his thought. Each essentially
new truth must necessarily influence the whole method of the
conception of man the method of thinking.

By the examinations of the human eye, microscopically and
anatomically, we have learned to know its vital qualities and phy
siological functions ; at last, by the discovery of the retina purple,
we learn in a perfectly certain manner how the action of light
takes place in the interior of the human body, and it is quite an
outside organ of the human body, not the brain, but the eye, which
experiences this action. We learn that the photographic process
is not a mental but a chemical phenomenon, which occurs by
the help of certain vital processes, and that in reality we do not
see external things, but their images in our eye, and are thus
enabled to separate the purely mental part of vision from the
purely material. I may therefore say that each true step of pro
gress in natural knowledge produces new conceptions, new trains
of thought, and nobody can avoid placing even the highest problems
of the mind in a certain relation with natural phenomena.

There is a practical consideration nearer to us. When we con
sider the educational movements, the question arises What is to
be taught ? If natural science demands to be admitted into edu
cation, so that its fertile materials may be early inculcated, the.
question is What should be the demand ? for it is not, as Professor
Haeckel says in the matter of descent, a question for the peda
gogues ; if it be as certain as he thinks, it would force its ad-

74 Virchow at Munich.

mission consciously or unconsciously, according to the bias of the
teacher. He could not ignore his own knowledge, if, indeed, he
did not know where man goes to, he would at least believe he
knew certainly, exactly how man had originated, and how in the
course of years the progressive series shaped itself, and I should say
if he did not demand its admission into the educational series it
would be accomplished.

When I promulgated the opinion I held in opposition to the
theory of development of organic life then held, that each cell
had its origin in another cell, and I still consider it correct,
there were not wanting those who extended the doctrine far
beyond the limits I intended. I have received the most wonderful
theories based on the cellular theory, as that the heavenly bodies
represented so many cells flying about universal space, and playing
a part similar to that of the cells in our bodies. I do not say they
were simpletons, for I gathered that many cultured men had enter
tained the idea, and could not understand that the heavenly pheno
mena were based on something else than the utility of the human
body. And in order to gain a monistic conception, the idea was
arrived at that the heaven must be an organism. 1 cite this to
show how our doctrines are enlarged, and how they may return to
us in a form frightful to ourselves. Imagine how the theory of
descent may be shaped in the head of a Socialist !

I am not afraid of the charge of half knowledge, nor of the
inquiry of one of our liberal journals u whether one of the great
faults of our time, Socialism, was not based upon the diffusion of
half knowledge." All human knowledge is only piece work ; we
only possess pieces of science, for none here is able to represent
each science in the same light. It is exactly because they have
developed themselves in a certain one sided direction that we
esteem the special scientific men so highly. In other fields we
are all in half knowledge, as it were. I have tried to obtain
chemical knowledge, but I feel incompetent to sit down at a
meeting and discuss modern chemistry in all directions, yet I have
progressed so far that a chemical novelty does not strike me as in
comprehensible, but I have to learn and relearn. " That which
honours me is the knowledge of my ignorance" I must do as every
one else does who enters the domain of science. The error is in
not remembering that it is impossible for any single person to
command the totality of all these (scientific) details. We get far
enough to know the foundations of natural science. Every time we
find a gap in our knowledge we should say, " now we enter a
domain quite unknown to us." If every one were sufficiently
aware of this he would own it is a dangerous thing to draw con-

Fir chow at Munich. 75

elusions with regard to the history of all things when he is not even
master of the material from which the conclusions are to be drawn.

It is easy to say a cell consists of small particles called plasti-
dules, composed lc of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and
sulphur," endowed with a special soul, the sum of the forces the
chemical atoms possess ; it is possible but unapproachable for me.
Until it be defined, in a manner I can understand, how by the com
bination of these elements a soul results, I am not justified in in
troducing the plastidule-soul into the educational programme, or in
asking that it be recognised as a scientific truth. Before it can be said
this is modern science, it should be completed by a series of investiga
tions, for thus only can the doctrine be confirmed. There are in
science many problems which are long in suspense before a true
solution can be found. It does not follow that when they are
only speculation or presentiment they should be taught as scientific
facts. The doctrine of the contagium animatum loses itself in the
obscurity of the middle ages. In the sixteenth century works
exist which place the dogma as a certainty of fact, as now-a-days
the plastidule-soul is set up. More than two centuries have passed,
and we now find in the nineteenth century some contagia animata,
bit by bit, but the end of the proof is not yet. Cattle disease
and diphtheria are diseases caused by special organisms we know,
still we must not say all contagia, or even all infectious diseases, are
caused by living organisms. The doctrine formulated in the six
teenth century has emerged again and again in the ideas of men, but
it is only in the second decade of this century that more positive
proofs have been obtained, and it is now only we infer, in the sense of
an inductive extension of our knowledge, that all contagia and
miasmata are living organisms. Even those who go not so far,
have yet said they resemble living beings very closely, and have pro
perties which we know in living beings only ; they have waited until
proof was afforded, and this caution commands reserve even now.

Science presents a number of facts which teach that similar phe
nomena can happen in very different ways. When fermentation was
reduced to the presence of certain fungi, it was open to imagine all
fermentations happen in the same way all those processes included
as " catalytic " which occur in the animal body as well as in plants.
Digestion, we know, has nothing to do with fungi, although
possessing catalytic properties. If the saliva changes starch and
dextrine into sugar, when we eat, this new formation takes place ;
no fungus takes part in this nor in any fermentation in organisms,
but there are chemical substances which, much in the same way,
as it happens in the interior of the fungus, bring about the
chemical change. In the one case the process is connected with

76 Fir chow at Munich.

a certain vegetable organism, whilst in the other it takes place
simply through a liquid. Each single case should be examined,
whether the supposition, highly probable, be true, and whether it
be justified by facts. Among infectious diseases there is poisoning
by snake-bites ; this is compared with those diseases termed infec
tious (for infection does not signify much else than poisoning) ;
after a snake-bite the phenomena which occur might be sup
posed to be caused by fungi producing the change in the organs,
for certain forms of snake poisoning resemble certain forms of
septical infections, and yet there is no cause to suspect the impor
tation of fungi, whilst in other cases the importation is recognised
and acknowledged.

There are numberless instances in natural science which should
constrain us to confine the validity of doctrines to what we can
prove, and not by induction to extend it. because there is proof
in one of several cases. Nowhere is the necessity more expressive
than in the field of the theory of evolution.

The question of the first origin of organic beings is extremely
old. The old popular doctrine was that things of life could pro
ceed from a clod of clay. The doctrine of generatio tequivoca
and that of epigenesis are closely connected. With Dar
winism the theory of spontaneous generation is taken up ; the
idea is very seductive, a series of living forms from the protozoa
to the highest organism, and connected with the inorganic world.
This is that tendency to generalization which has found place in
speculation at all times, and extends even to the most obscure
periods. We have the desire not to separate the organic world
from the Universe as a something divided from it. In this sense
carbon and company has separated itself from ordinary carbon
and founded the first plastidule under special circumstances. The
beginning of our real knowledge of higher organisms dates from
the day when Harvey said Omne vivum ex ovo^ although incorrect
in its generality, for a whole number of generations exist without
ova. From Harvey to Von Siebold, who obtained the general
recognition of parthenogenesis, there lies a whole series of increas
ing restrictions. It were ingratitude not to acknowledge in the
opposition which Harvey assumed against the old generatio aquivoca
the greatest progress has been made. In the place of a single
scheme we have a variety of data, but we have no uniform
system which explains, once for all, how a new animal begins.

Genera tio cequivoca has many times been refuted, nevertheless it
faces us again. No single positive fact is adduced to show it ever

1 Huxley says he cannot find in Harvey s works the axiom, but the general meaning
conveys the idea.

Fir chow at Munich. 77

occurred. Nevertheless we do want to form an idea how the first
organic being could have originated by itself \ nothing remains but
spontaneous generation. I do not wish to believe a special creation
existed. If I want to form a conception in my own way, I must
form it in the sense &t generatio tequivoca^ although there is no proof
of it. We always have our weapons in ourselves to fight that not
justified. To be outspoken, we must own Naturalists have a
slight predilection for generatio csquivoca. It would be very beau
tiful if it could be proved. Proofs are still wanting, but if any
kind of proof could be successfully given we should acquiesce,
but then we should have to continue our investigation, because no
one will think that spontaneous generation is valid for the totality
of organic beings. All attempts to find a certain basis for
generatio tequivoca in the lowest forms from the inorganic to the
organic world have failed. It is doubly dangerous to demand
that this ill-reputed doctrine should be adopted as a basis of all
conceptions of life. With the Bathybius the hope has again vanished.
As to the connection between the organic and inorganic we know
nothing. Supposition may be set down as certainty ; our problem
as a dogma that cannot be admitted. Just as in the progress of the
doctrines of evolution it has been found more certain to analyse
the original doctrine part by part ; we shall have to keep apart
the organic and inorganic things in the old way not prematurely
throw them together. Nothing has been more harmful and dan
gerous to natural science than premature synthesis. Father Oken
was damaged in the opinion of his contemporaries and the following
generation, because he admitted synthesis to a greater extent than
a stricter method would have allowed. We must not forget that
every time a doctrine which has assumed the air of a well founded
and reliable one, claiming general validity, turns out faulty in its
outlines, or is found arbitrary and despotic in essential points,
numbers thereby lose their faith in science. " You are not sure
your doctrine which is called truth to-day is not a falsehood to
morrow ; how then can you demand that your doctrine can be
come the object of instruction and of the general consciousness ?"
If half knowledge be the characteristic of all naturalists, then in
the lateral branches of their science they are only half knowers. If
the true naturalist is aware of the limit between his knowledge and
his ignorance, he must confine his claims with regard to the public
in demanding that only each investigator can designate as reli
able truth ; that which is confirmed truth only should be admitted
into the plan of education. Generally, a distinction alone is made
between objective and subjective knowledge, but there is an inter
mediate part Belief. It exists in science, with the difference that

7 8 Virchow at Munich.

its application is to other things than religion ; every man instructs
himself by means of tradition. The cause in the human mind is
a simple one, and carries the method it follows in one domain,
finally, into all others. Each creed has its peculiar historical side,
and in the garb of an objective fact it appears with certain proofs.
This is the case with the Christian,the Mohammedan, with Judaism
and Buddhism. On the other side we find subjectivity reigns ; there
the individual dreams,, there visions come and hallucinations. All
this we find in natural science ; there too we have the currents of
dogma, there too we have the currents of the objective and subjective
doctrines. First we try to reduce dogmatic currents. The
aim of science has been the conservative side. This side collects
the ascertained facts with the full consciousness of proof . This side
adheres to experiment as the highest expression of proof. This side
in the possession of the scientific treasury, has always grown larger
and broader at the expense of the dogmatic stream.

Only thirty years ago the Hippocratic method of medicine was
spoken of as something sublime ; it is now annihilated nearly down
to the root. During the last seventy years the science has under
gone a complete reformation, and at the end of the present century
the objective current will probably have consumed the dogmatic
one. In this science, any one who wants to speculate, plenty
of opportunity is offered. I do not go so far as to make "the
inhuman demand," that every one is to express himself entirely
without any subjective vein, but I do say, we must teach a know
ledge of facts in the first place, and if we go further must say,
41 This is not proved, but this is my opinion, my idea, my theory,
my speculation/ This we can do only with those who are edu
cated and developed. We cannot carry the same method into
elementary schools, and say to each peasant boy, ll This is a fact,
that we know and that we only suppose." On the contrary, that
which is only known and that which is only supposed, as a rule, get
so thoroughly mixed that the supposed becomes the main thing,
and the really known appears of secondary importance. We
cannot give facts only, they must be arranged in systematic order.

Professor Nageli has discussed in a philosophical manner the
difficult questions he has chosen, but he has taken a step extremely
dangerous. He has done in another direction what in one way is
done by the generatio tzquivoca. He asks that the mental domain
shall be extended, not only from animals to plants, but finally that
we shall actually pass from the organic world into the inorganic with
our conceptions of the nature of mental phenomena. All this may
be very fine and excellent, and may after all be quite true. It may
be. Is there any scientific necessity to extend the domain of mental

Fir chow at Munich. 79

phenomena beyond the circle of those bodies in which we see
them really acting ? I have no objection that carbon atoms should
have a mind, or that they obtain a mind in their union in the
plastidule association. I do not know in what I am to recognise this.
It is playing with words. If attraction and repulsion are declared
to be mental occurrences, then mind ceases to be mind. The human
mind may eventually be explained in a chemical way, but it is not
our task to mix these domains. We shall not advance unless we
limit the domain of mental phenomena to where we perceive it. We
are not to suppose mental phenomena where perhaps they may be^
although we do not notice them perceptibly. There is no doubt
the whole sum of mental phenomena is attached to certain
animals, not to the totality of organised beings, not even to all
animals generally. I admit that certain gradual transitions, certain
points can be found, where from mental phenomena we get to
phenomena of a simply material or physical nature. I do not
declare that it will never be possible to bring psychical phenomena
into immediate connection with physical ones, but I say at present
we are not justified in settling down this possible connection as a
scientific doctrine. We must distinguish between what we want
to teach and what we want to investigate.

At this moment there are few naturalists who are not of opinion
that man is allied to the rest of the animal world. Vogt is of
opinion that a connection will be found, if indeed not with apes,
then perhaps in some other direction. I should not be alarmed
if proof were found that the ancestors of man were vertehrated
animals. I work by preference in the field of anthropology, yet
I must declare that every step of positive progress which we have
made in the domain of prehistoric anthropology has really moved
further away from the proof of this connection. Cuvier maintained
in the quaternary period man did not exist ; but now quater
nary man is a real doctrine, tertiary man a problem, and yet there
are questions in discussion for the existence of man during the
tertiary period. Even ecclesiastics admit, as Bourgeois, that
man existed in the tertiary period. Quaternary fossil man we
find just the same as ourselves. Only ten years ago, when a
skull was found in peat, or in the lake dwellings, a wild and unde
veloped state was seen in it. We were then scenting monkey air^
but these old troglodytes turn out to be quite respectable society.
Our French neighbours warn us not to count too much on these
big heads ; it may be possible the old brains had more intermediary
tissue than those of the now day, and that their nerve substance,
notwithstanding the size of the receptacle, remained at a low
state of development. Comparing the total of fossil man found

So The Ape Theory.

with the existing types, we find that in the present there is relatively
a much larger number of lower types than there were in that period.
In the fossil types the lower developments are absolutely wanting.
That only the higher geniuses of the quaternary period were pre
served I dare not suppose, but this can be said, that one fossil
monkey skull or ape-man has never been found. It is possible
in some special spot on earth tertiary man lived, for the remarkable
discovery of the fossil ancestors of the horse in America, from
which the horse had entirely disappeared, gives countenance to the
idea. It may be that tertiary man has existed in Greenland or
Lemuria and will be brought to light somewhere or other. We
cannot teach, we cannot designate it as a revelation of science, that
man descends from the ape, or any other animal. Bacon said, with
perfect truth, " scientia est potentia" (knowledge is power), but
the knowledge he meant was not speculative, not the knowledge
of problems, but the objective knowledge of facts. We should
.abuse and endanger our power if in our teaching we do not fall back
upon this perfectly justified, perfectly safe,and impregnable domain.

The lectures concluded, I now advert to HaeckePs theory of the
ancestral ape. The variations of the human form can be perpetuated
as six-toed and six-fingered, or spotted, or warted, &c. {Fide Law
rence s Lee., vol. ii, p. 178), and by interpropagation such types may
become heritable. If we carry the idea backward to the descent of
man, what have we ? By the doctrine of evolution the animal which
emerged from the animal is man, 1 tailless or hairless articulated
speech, or brain power, or whatever be the differentiation he is
alone, and propagated his variety through the stock from which
he originated. The variation eventuates in a species, association
producing culture through the communication of ideas. If this
variation occurred only once it is sufficient to account for all the
races of man by the perpetuation of particular organized forms,
or faculties. Some of the progeny would probably revert to the

1 Organic man has a similarity to other animals ; there is the same necessity for
air, food, and sleep, digestion does not materially difl er, the nutriments are converted
into blood and distributed by the arteries and veins through the system, the absorb
ents extracting and appropriating to each part those ingredients adapted to their
uses ; the parts of the body and modes of growth ; the bone, muscle, tendon, skin,
hair, and brain, scarcely differ in their physical and chemical characters ; the secre
tions, as oile, tears, saliva ; the senses exhibited through similar organs, modified in
species ; emotions, passions, and propensities, are manifested in the same way. Man
divested of intelligence would be below the brute in instinctive capacity and modes
of defence and offence, and even " that instrument of instruments," the human
Land, would aid but little without intelligence to direct its movements, nor physically
speaking would intelligence aid much unless the hand was present to be directed
\Kidd, Eridg, Treat.}. Organic man exceeds all animals through possessing the
.band, Intellectual man by possessing abstract mind.

The A pe Theory. 8 r

ancestral type, some might inherit the form of both parents,
others that of the more perfect organism. It is not to be supposed
that one step produced the whole of the changes. Variations may
be progressive and retrogressive and even the perfected type, in
the earlier variations, may have reverted to a type representing a
degree in advance of the ancestral organism, but failing in the
higher definition which constitutes man ; thus might be per
petuated an animal form of advanced structure. It is as easy ta
conceive the anthropoid apes were the abortive descendants of early
man, as to suppose the ape was the direct ancestor of man, pro
bably they were a distinct variation. In either case we should
have the vertebrated, erect and placental mammal, class homo. The
brain of the ourang is that of a child in its earliest form, and as
such it remains in the quadrumana l (arrested development, or the
earlier brain-type the assumption may be of either) . It is in perfect
consonance with the needs of the creature, thus would be an argu
ment against arrested development ; it is instructive, impulsive,
but not inventive, and fails in the constructive powers of the
lowest classes. Huxley has shown there are essential differences
in teeth and structure between man and the ape. It seems rash
to assume that because the ape occurs in the same natural class as
man that therefore he is man s ancestor^ or a descendant from man ;
the original stock had probably diverging branches. 2

1 Nature never elevates the brain of an individual of a lower to that of a higher
class : though the brain of an individual of a. higher is frequently not developed
beyond the degree of the lower, (Kidd. Brid. Treat., p. 5 2.) The size of the
brain does not appear to be connected with the dispositions or qualities of animals,
for most opposites as to disposition may class in reference to size as the tiger and
deer, the hawk and pigeon. The proportional size of the brain with reference to
size of body gives a more uniform result ; thus a crocodile 12 feet, a serpent 18 leet,
a turtle from three to five hundred weight, have their brain substance of half an
ounce, whilst that of a sparrow in proportion is bigger than that of a man (ib. p. 58).
The true criterion appears to be the convolutions on its surface. Peschel says of
the ape, " the brain of a child with the jaws of an ox (The Races of Man, p. 4). .

All birds which use their claws as hands, as the hawk, parrot, and cuckoo appear
more docile and intelligent. The gregarious tribes have more of acquired know
ledge (Zoonomia, vol. i, p. 199).

2 Apes always tread either on the outer edges of their soles .... or on the
backs of their bent finger-joints. Man in contrast with the ape stands, walks,
jumps, dances, climbs, swims, rides, sits and can remain for a long time in an inde
pendent position. " Although the dentition of man and the apes of the old world
is very similar, differences occur; the permanent canine tooth is developed in us
before the last molar teeth, the front before the back ; in the apes on the contrary,
the development of the canine teeth forms the conclusion of dentition and the second
back molar teeth appear before the front ones. Finally the early disappearance of
the inter-maxillary bone in the human infant may be cited as a distinction." " At
the time of birth the gap between the child and the young of the ape is very
narrow .... the brains of children and young apes approach very closely in size,
but of all parts of the body the brain of the ape grows least, and although the brain
of the anthropomorphous ape contains all the main parts of the human skull, its
development nevertheless assumes quite another direction Before the

82 The Races of Man.

If we run through the characteristics of the races of man we
find variations minute in degree hut with such marked differences,
that some one (probably Vogt) said if naturalists were considering
any other creatures than man they would pronounce them to be
of distinct species. We know not what was the origin of man,
all rests in hypothesis, but we may assume that as development is
the order of nature, that by differentiation, however induced, the
witless Vedda may become the parent of a highly gifted intellec
tual race ; as the bow-shanked, coloured negro, by a succession
of judicious crossings becomes the straight-limbed white-
skinned Caucassian. We judge only by that we find. Race
may merge into race as animals into species, but we miss the
intermediate links. In this view the races of man may have
originated from a single pair, or more probably from an indi
vidual. This is supposing that the variation occurred but once ;
but for such an assumption there appears no warranty. Thus by
generation through a lower grade Man and the Gorilla may be
the offspring of the same parental stock differentiated in structure
and intelligence. We have not a few thousand years only to
work these changes, but aeons on aeons.

CHAP. III.

HYPOTHESIS AND PHILOSOPHIES.

In nature we have everywhere unconscious selection, 1 as we
have chemistry by affinities. As a mechanical illustration
there are the dunes heaped on the shore on parts of the Bay of
Biscay by the force of the wind and waves, and so it may be
natural selection acts by an amalgamation and differentiation of

change of teeth has begun, the brain of the ape has usually attained its completion,
whereas in the child its proper development is just then actively beginning. Their
development is directed to different ends, and the longer they advance towards these
ends the greater are the contrasts, (Peschcl, Races of Man, p. 3, 4.)

The assertion that there has been a tailed race of man, defended by Monboddo,
Lawrence shows to be a pure fiction (Lectures, vol, ii. p. 160). In his lecture on
the erect attitude peculiar to man, he enumerates the distinctions between the bones
of men and animals, (ib. p. 118, et seg.) In proof of the distinction between men
and all other animals, he says " no animal except man .... could support the
body in equilibria on one foot only " (ib. p. 145) and no other animal has buttocks.

1 "Every gland seems to be influenced to separate from the blood or to absorb
from the cavities of the body, or from the atmosphere its appropriated fluid by the
stimulus of that fluid on the giving gland : and not by mechanical or chemical
absorption. Hence it appears that each of these glands has a peculiar organ to
perceive these irritations" but which are not "succeeded by sensation" (Zoonomia,
vol. i, p. 113).

Huxley, Comment on. 83

properties in assorting the races of man j a given end arising
from a given direction through the impulsion of nature s law. I
cannot suppose a creation according with the orthodox idea, for
if we imagine a Creator, when in idea we view the vastness of the
universe it is impossible to suppose each detail arose from a personal
superintendence, but that the presence of the Creator is expressed
in His fiat, the governing law. The intelligence which could
conceive creation, could consummate its purpose by the interposition
of law, as an antecedent, by which all natural facts became creative
conceptions.

In the face of what Virchow has told us it will be useful to
examine that which Huxley urges :

" Let us suppose we do know more of cause and effect than a certain order
-of succession among facts and that we have a knowledge of the necessity of
that succession and hence of necessary laws and I for my part do not see the
escape there is from utter materialism and necessitarianism " (L. S., 141 ). 1

Necessary laws imply a law giver ; how such a presentment can
lead to " materialism " is not clear, the law is its own fact, hence
as the cause of the fact, a manifestation of intelligence. What can
materialism have to do with the disposition of facts, from other
than material agencies ? unless it be proved that matter institutes
law and thus creates its facts. When it can be shown that acci
dent can be universal in its effects and produce invariable order
and a homogeneity in facts, it will be time enough to say that it is
impossible " to demonstrate that any given phenomenon is not the
effect of a material cause, 2

// may lie true " that any one who is acquainted with the history of science
will admit that its progress has in all ages meant and now more than ever
means, the extension of the province of what we call matter and causation, and
the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what
we call spirit and spontaneity." (/.)

When the new philosophy can show what mind, heat, con
sciousness, intelligence, and life are, it were time to present such
a dogma. To say they are the result of the molecular changes of
matter is an unevidenced assumption. We know " that every
future grows out of past and present," but whether the finity of

1 "To call life the property of organization would be unmeaning; it would be
nonsense (Lawrence s Lee., vol. 1, p. 73).

2 Ray, speaking of first breathing, quaintly says, " Here metbinks appears a neces
sity of bringing in the agency of some superintendent intelligent being, for what
else should put the diaphragm and the muscles, saving respiration, in motion all of a
sudden, as soon as ever the foetus is brought forth ? Why should they not have
rested as well as they did in the womb? What aileth them that they must needs
bestir themselves to get in air to maintain the creature s life ? Why could they not
patiently suffer to die ? You will say the spirits do at this time flow to the organs
of respiration and the other muscles which concur to that action and move them.
But what raises the spirits which were quiescent, &lt;fec., I am not subtle enough to
discover. (JfVisdom of God manifested in the works of creation).

84 Molecular Lheory of Mind.

man will attain to a knowledge commensurate with material facts
as expressed " in feeling- and action is doubtful. Nii^eli infers

ID O

such a possibility ; Du Bois Reymond and Virchow emphatically
say so. Thinkers may deplore, but need not dread the "progress
of materialism." Whatever the "advancing tide of matter" may
do, it certainly cannot be said to tend to the advantage of or to
" the increase of wisdom." Were the new philosophy founded on
evidence and experiment it probably would produce a new era ;
but as the facts stand, the want of knowledge is made up by confi
dent surmises ; there is no need to dread that thinking men will
fall down " in terror before the hideous idols" our professors have
reared. No one, unless a bigot, fears a true interpretation of the
laws of nature j 1 but every thinking mind must despise all phases of
dogma, and when we meet with scientific dogmas they are simply
ridiculous, being subversions of the fundamental bases of science.

The advice is sage that we should not " trouble ourselves
about matters of which .... we can know nothing" ( L. S/),
although the observation is addressed to Theology it abates
nothing of its pertinence when applied to supposititious Science.

What molecular hypothesis of mind can account for the in
cident mentioned by Meadows Taylor ( Story of my Life )? 3
No material theory of mind can claim such an incident, nor
charlatanry and trick on which Carpenter is so logical and Hammond
assumes to be so scientific. The incident shows the impossibility
of the material hypothesis of mind ; if there be a rule, the rule
would account for all its facts.

1 Whewell inquires Is it by chance that the air and the ear exist together ?
Did the air produce the organization of the ear? Or the ear independently organized
anticipate the constitution of the atmosphere ? Or is it . . . . that there is a
mutual adaptation produced by an intelligence acquainted with the properties of
both, and adjusted them to each other (B. T., p. 123).

Lying in his cot, fatigued, sleep being impossible from noises without, his tent
doo r open, there he saw a figure in a wedding dress which held out her arms to him,
and said, " Do not let me go," he sprang from his couch. As he advanced the figure
receded until it vanished (vol. 2, p. 32.) What is the solution, preoccupation of
mind ? Probably, but no molecular brain change could present such an object. He

also relates (vol. 2, p. 294 : Captain , the senior officer of the 74th Highlanders,.

was in his tent writing letters, the side wall of the tent being open, where a young
man in hospital dress appeared without cap, and without saluting said : " I wish,

sir, you would kindly have my arrears of pay sent to my mother, who lives at ."

The captain took down the address and said, " All right, my man, that will do."
When the figure was gone, the irregularity of the whole affair struck him ; he sent

for the sergeant and inquired why he permitted " to come to him in that

irregular manner." Appearing thunderstruck, the sergeant said, " Sir, do you not
remember he died yesterday in hospital, and was buried this morning." The captain
showed the address he had taken down. The sergeant then stated the kit had been
sold, but there was no entry in the company s register, so he did not know where to
send the money. The general registry of the regiment was searched and the address
given by the appearance proved to be correct.

Materialistic Terminology. 85

We are told " that the order of nature is ascertainable by our
faculties to an extent practically unlimited ;" "our volition counts
for something as a condition of the course of events;" and that
"each of these beliefs can be verified as often as we like." If the
human faculties have power to an unlimited extent to ascertain
" the order of nature," why should there ever be a question on its
phenomena ? and if " the volition" of man be alone molecular
change, how is it possible it can account for anything, even
though it be "a condition in the course of events r" If it arises
from an accident of matter it has but the faculty of its origin, and
if it be impelled by an " iron law," what can the will have to do
with any " condition" occurring in the course of events ? Yet
these conditions can be experimentally " verified ;" How ? Can
our unlimited faculties experimentally show what the mind is, its
connection with matter, and its springs of action ?

When it is said " If there is one thing clear about modern science it is the
tendency to reduce all scientific problems, excepting those which are purely
mathematical, 1 to questions of molecular physics, that is to say to attractions
and repulsions, motions and co-ordinations of the ultimate particles ot matter."

It had been well had we been told what these ultimate particles
of matter are. Attractions, repulsions, and motions, are not objec
tive things ; and when " we know nothing, can know nothing of
matter," by what are we to recognise these ultimate particles ?
If we are to understand they are the objective presentment of an
Infinite idea, 2 it is easy to conceive that everything can then
be, and there is no more to say ; but if, on the other hand, the
intention be to express they are material substances out of which
intellect emerged, it is not a very consecutive logic to except
mathematics, purely a child of the intellect, and yet subject
intellect to the trammels of matter. We may have another mode
of escape "the language of science" being " materialistic," the
language and not its substance is involved, and " the molecular
changes" so much dwelt upon, may after all be intended to mean
creative and life impulses. Each thinker thinks for himself; the
irrefragable laws of nature controlling matter, and presenting
intelligence, continue their courses irrespective of the hypotheses,
suppositions, and dogmas of our "unlimited faculties" (finalities).
We are compelled to be content with the scattered pebbles by the
wayside as our insight into that which is, and that which will be.

1 The difficulties which appear to reside in numbers and magnitudes arise by
measuring with our own sounding line the greatness is no quality of numbers, all
that belongs to number, space, and ratio is equally true of the largest and smallest
and have relatives to our own faculties (vide IVheicell, B. T., p. 277.)

2 God, however " unknowable, 1 is consistent with all the facts we know, Lence
there is a consequence even in an idealization.

86 Lecture-room Phraseology.

No assumptions or presumptions of new philosophies, nor old
ones, can make the cause and its effects other than they are.

More than half the difficulties and obscurities of modern science
arise from the affectation of professors using the materialistic
terminology, as if they supposed the phrases could become evi
dences. These terminologies have become necessities for the
material philosophy, because they give a mechanical expression to
the subjects in comment. Tyndall, when lecturing on Fermenta
tion at Glasgow, describing the effect of "the bacteria," says,
" they exercise a useful and valuable function as the burners and
consumers of dead matter." Anything more misleading (presuming
science to be intended) than such phraseology can scarcely be
conceived. The bacteria neither burn nor consume the dead
matter, but, in accordance with their special place in nature,
change the character of the substances which the living energy
has for the time deserted (latent). They complete the office the
vibrio had commenced ; both are the agents of a chemical transmu
tation whereby the used substances are reconverted into their
elemental states, to reappear and work out the purposes of nature.

Lecture-room verbiage makes nature to appear as a series of
catastrophisms ; as if quiet events were brought about and accom
panied by violent commotions. Who would conceive two por
tions of oxygen and one of carbon combined in orderly affinities
to form dioxide of carbon ? No, we have the oxygen atoms, like
highwaymen lying in wait, to seize on and misuse their fellow
congener, and convert his properties to their use. When we
breathe we have burnings and combustino;s, &c. (vide Physio-

O O * \ -f

graphy, 227). Nervous persons might expect at any moment,
without premonition, that their bodies, by a spontaneous explo
sion, might be strewn over the room. The silence of order is
disturbed by rushings and crushings, collidings and oscillations, as
though elemental substances were not orderly and homogeneous,
and did not cohere in affinities, excluding the surplus heat which
prevents their more intimate union. These crushings and rush-
ings even accompany the snow-flake when it sends forth its
images with gentlest touch. From the description, we might
prepare to meet the crushing march of the glacier, and even in
the commonest facts expect the disastrous rush of the electric
fluid, and when atoms meet the detonating crash of the thunder.
Such grandiloquous phraseology may excite the wonder of the
ignorant, amuse the idle, and instruct no one. Such absurdities
do not depict true science, are not good taste, nor do they describe
the workings of nature. As a general principle, tall talk only
more emphatically displays paucity of ideas and want of know-

Air and Water. 87

ledge ; it may be endured from those who by real knowledge
occupy a deserved place in the scientific arena, but is execrable in
imitators. There is no rhythmic ring in it, although now-a-days
we have "rhythmic adjustments" and even "the rhythmic march
of the molecules/

Gases in nature, whatever their weight, intermingle in accord
ance with their specific gravities. The denser permeate the
lighter and the lighter descend into the denser. The explanation
probably is that the denser gases unimpededly occupy the inter
stices between the particles of the lighter, and again these the
particles of the denser (Le Sage s idea of gravitation]. Experi
ment shows a cubic foot of steam, alcoholic vapour, and ether
vapour, will each fill a vase containing a cubic foot, and that the
three together will occupy only a similar vase without chemically
intermixing the temperature of all being equal, and so main
tained. In their liquid form, as water, spirit, and ether, the result
is not obtained (Cooke). Recent science generally affirms the
formation of water to be a chemical, but air a mechanical result 1 .
What are we to understand, that electricity combines the hydrogen
and oxygen of the water, but that the oxygen and nitrogen are
united by pressure into particles of air, or that they merely lie to
gether as the steam, the alcoholic and ether vapours do in the
vase ? 2 The components of air neutralize each other, and therefore
must be supposed to form a compound or new substance. We
cannot pick the nitrogenous particle from the air, nor that of the
hydrogen from the water, unless by art. The gases of water and
air combine equally by their affinities ; if it were not so, how are
the proportions of either formed? water in weight 8 to I, air in
parts 23 to 77. Air may be called mixed, and so it is pronounced
to be, but why the admixture is called mechanical is not clear,
were it so, the gases would be in strata unequalized as to quantity
and quality. Oxygen acting alone would bring death as surely
as would the nitrogen alone, the former from its vividness and
the latter from its inertness of action. Crystallization may be a
mechanical combination because it is formed by layers. The
substance, air, is invisible, besides nitrogen and oxygen there may

1 " The atmosphere is essentially composed of one volume of oxygen and four of
azote (nitrogen), and is a.t least constituted vpon strictly chemical principles," and
" may be considered to be as much a chemical compound as water (Front, in
Bridgeioattr Treatise, p. 100).

2 Substances may frequently be expressed in their modes, as by the atom, the
weight, and the volume (e.g.), water by the atom, is one of oxygen to one of
hydrogen ; by weight, one of hydrogen to eight of oxygen ; by volume, two of
hydrogen to one of oxygen. These seeming differences are reconciled by the statement
that an atom of oxygen is eight times as heavy as that of hydrogen, but only half
the size (Draper s Chemistry, p. 153).

8 8 The Chemistry and Mechanics of Nature.

be aquafortis (nitric acid), ammonia, sulphuretted hydrogen,
carbonic acid, and other substances ; are all combinations of air,
or do they only float in the atmosphere ? Dissimilar substances
float in water ; they are not said to be component parts of water.
To call air a mechanical arrangement does not subvert its nature
any more than if water was said to be a mechanical composition.
In the sea water we have a something more than oxygen and
hydrogen. Where are we to find a separate chemistry and
mechanics for air and water when the elements of both can be
presented in a liquid form ? Electrical force will disentangle
oxygen from nitrogen and oxygen from hydrogen. The dis
entangled oxygen of air combining with the hydrogen floating in
the atmosphere falls as rain ; [ the oxygen is not consumed {Mackay s
Physiography]^ there is merely a change by affinities. The
chemistry and mechanics of nature never consume or destroy,
they only institute changes.

All the components of the protoplasm are of air, or float in the
air in its generic phase of atmosphere, and through heat, by the
agency of the great cosmic might of vitality, are congealed into
substances. Mediately vital force is the great mechanician and
chemist of nature, the conservative power which makes all the
sequences of natural facts possible.

The germ theory of disease illustrates the hypothesis of the
spontaneity of life, presenting a condition of things always
awaiting vitalization. It appears equally unscientific to present
the germs as active living substances as to present them as dead
germs awaiting animation. We have the perplexed question
of the rotifers over again. 3 If we assume the spontaneity of
life to be the fruition of the cause, we can then say that the
vesicle to support life is always present, and when conditions are
suitable the life becomes apparent or active. In the axioms

1 " The properties of water, with regard to heat, make one vast watering engine
of the atmosphere (B. T., Whewell, p. 95.)

a So far was the idea of resuscitation carried that Spallanzani insisted that mummies
could be revivified, yet appears to have doubted. He says: "An animal which
revives alter death, and revives as often as one will, is a phenomenon so unheard of
that it appears improbable and paradoxical, it confuses all our ideas of animal life."
Three classes of animalcula, the Rotifera, the Tardi grades, and Anguillultt, were
supposed to be indestructible, because in a dry state they appear to be dead, but
revive by moisture ; when they are really dry they never recover. Pouchet proved
this in his experiments on the Rotifera, Tinel on the Tardigrades, and Pennetier on
the Anguillulffi. Ehrenberg and Diesing nullified the hypothesis of the resurrec
tionists. The former said : " They only resuscitate animals which are not dead."
The resistance of the Rotifera to cold is marvellous, "the lowest temperature we can
obtain in our laboratories does not seem to have any effect on them (L Univers).
Pouchet says : " I have removed them quickly from a freezing apparatus and thrown
vfhem into a stove heated to 176 Fahr. When they emerged, on being immersed in
water they were seen to recover their animation and run about full of life" (ib.)

The Beginning of Creation. 89

" omne vivum ex ovo " and u omne vivum ex vivo " we find the
genesis and continuance of life, the commencing fact is the
continuing fact, the life from the egg and the egg from the life,
exactly what Koch found when watching the Bacillus anthracis^
the cause of splenic fever. The creature burst and strings of
spores were exposed as Dallinger and Drysdale found, who
watched for a weary time other forms of the same species, the
free-swimming spot, split up into germs or spores. These spores
are the life-bearers, not the life, that arises from conditions. As
the ova is fructified by the sperm in animal organizations, so the
germs entering a wound find there the suitable condition or
fructifying element inducing erysipelas. In small-pox the germ
is in the lymph ; no one would say the lymph or the dried coagu
lated blood of the splenic disease were substances active with
life, though the blood-dust kept by Koch for years produced the
disease. Grove, of Wandsworth, first called attention to the germ
theory of disease (1842). His treatise was a great advance on
the ideas then held by the medical profession, and may be con
sidered to be the nucleus of its present development ; in principle
there does not appear to be much advance. Lister s idea carried
into practice has been found to be efficacious ; destroy the
spore, or make the condition for its fructification impossible,
and there would be no life (/ . ., no diseas^), is exactly what occurs
in all the experiments by which it is attempted to show that there
is no spontaneous life in fact, exactly what Liebig did when he
destroyed the torula cells (yeast) to disprove their fermenting
power, and as others do when they boil their compounds. Heat
w ll kill the bacteria, cold will numb them, but neither heat nor
cold will kill the spores unless the operations are continuously
repeated. Stop a man s breath and his life is soon extinct ; boil
a lobster and it blushes in death ; deprive the germ of its nitro
genous compound, air, and the life cannot be ; the natural
condition is wanting. If the air be laden with life-vesicles or
germs chere can be no doubt life is spontaneous, and the sub
stances of the protoplasm form in the atmosphere so as to produce
varied and different results. All of living nature inhale these
germs, which in their new habitations find the conditions for
their exhibition as a living thing, or as contributing to the
continuation of the living thing. 1 Diseases may be communicated
by inhalation as well as by contact.

Burden Sanderson, who passed the whole facts in review, comes to the con
clusion that the " contagium e vi f vum " exists in two distinct forms, " the one

1 Bell says: "It is just to say that all animals consist of the same chemical
elements" and perform their functions " by the same vital actions" (B. T., p. 12fi).

Germ and Glandular Theories.

fugitive and visible, as transparent rods, the other permanent and latent" but
imperceptible and not yet presented in the field of the lens. Richardson, on the
other hand, in whnt he calls " the Glandular Theory," in effect says, " The base
of the poisonous matters of communicable disease I call septine, and it is the
product of the secretions of the animal body, which contain and yield an
organic product, as a gastric secretion, pepsine, a salivary secretion, ptyaline,
and so on ; each of which has a different function although their bases have
the same organic construction. Diseases are thus of a glandular origin, and
the poisons producing them modified forms of one or other of the secretions.
Each poison is specific and the parent of the same disease through endless
time. The type of all being the snake virus, and as an example, he gives that
of hospital fever, the poison of which, after evaporation and pulverization,
strongly resembles that of the snake. In the dry powdered state they are
inert, but will, when kept for long periods, absorb water, when their activity is
revived, but excessive dilution will destroy their life-principle, as proved by
Fordyce (vaccine lymph), as also will heat, oxidising, and other agents but
cold is a preservative. It is an error to suppose these poisons are propagated
by germs, the multiplication occurring by changing the secretions and the albu
minous substance of that with which the virus comes in contact, the change
being catalytic. The mode of the introduction may be by swallowing, or by
contact, and may enter the system as dust, fluid, or Vapour. The diseases
are " distinctly the offsprings of living animals," i. e. they are parasitical, and
can be communicated to other bodies. As a rule, " the human body furnishes
all the poisons that the human body suffers from that is to say, there is a
progression of poisons from one body to another, and that ordinary secretions
may change and become poisonous without previous infection. These illus
trations present the general principles of the theory of infectious diseases. 1

1 A series of experiments on sewage and iimmonia appears more or less remotely
to have a bearing on the germ theory of disease. Schliessing and Muntz filled n
long glass tube with sand and limestone heated to redness. When cold a stream of
liquid sewage was run through it ; the percolation occupied eight days, for eight days
after no nitrifaction took place, the ammonia in the liquid being merely that con
tained in the sewage. After eight clays small quantities of nitre were found,
gradually the quantity increased, at length no trace of ammonia existed in the fluid.
The only explanation appears to be fermentation. The experiment was repeated by
filling the tube witb vapour of chloroform, and whilst it was present no nitre was dis
coverable. On its removal (after fifteen days) a month elapsed before nitrifaction
began. The experiments showed that the presence of the vapour of carbolic acid has
a marked power of stopping the formation of nitric acid, but the presence of
bi-sulphide of carbon and of chloroform stops the whole process.

Warrington experimented on four vessels containing solution of chloride of ammo
nium with a little acid phosphate of potassium. Two were sown with earth from a
fairy ring (containing decaying fungi) ; one bottle containing the earth and one the
solution only were put in the dark, the two others kept in the light. At the end of
three months the bottle sown with the earth kept in the dark, contained an abun
dance of nitric acid, but no ammonia, the other three, ammonia but no trace of
nitric acid. A small quantity from the seeded bottle was added to the two unseeded
bottles, one of which was kept in the light, the other in the dark, in a month that
only kept in the dark contained nitric acid. The whole process appears to be analo
gous to that by which the alcohol of wine is converted into acetic acid (itide Chem.
News, Dec. 14, 1877).

If the theory to which the experiments point be established, it probably will have
an important bearing on the germ theory of disease. If the nitrogen, a necessity of
the germ, is not present as nitrogen, it is clear the germ is not formed, so there
can be no potence of life. Jt may also throw some light on the formation of the
" atmospheric germs." The atmosphere containing all the ingredients necessaryfor

The Continuing Beginning. 91

The one system calls the introduced substance a germ, which
multiplies by propagating itself and converts a healthy into a
diseased state ; the other, by a virus introduced through the
absorbents or it may be inbred, and by a catalytic process acts
noxiously on the secretions. The former makes the germ foreign
to the body infected ; the latter is an animal product bred by
an animal, and communicable, or bred by the body in which
the disease occurs. It is difficult to discriminate between the
two ; that of Sanderson appears as a conditional spontaneity ; that
of Richardson as a poison acting on present living substance, or
inbred by it. Practically the effect is the same ; in the sequel
both are blood-poisoning.

The germ theory of disease, with its imperceptible living or " at
mospheric " germs, is something like talking about the beginning of
creation. 1 The beginning is always a beginning in the continuity
of its fact, for a law once in being is always existing ; that which
originated life on earth is in continuous action. There is no law for
a particular purpose, it is one continual law conditioned to its purpose
and as to that particular purpose unchanging. These conditions in
infinite variation produce that chain of effects we term phenomena.
We talk of eternity as if it were only a possibility. Eternity is
always eternity, nor beginning nor end ; the beginning was
eternity and eternity the totality ; the past, the present and that
to come, have but one aspect, being synchronous in action ; we
cannot think of the present but it is the past and is the future.

the formation of the protoplasmic compound. Assuming they are at first pa-tially
compounded and chemically amalgamated through affinities on contact, innocuous
as air, but poisonous by imbibition in the blood, setting up an abnormal state inducing
disease sowing the blood with poisonous matter in the same way as in the latter
experiment Warrington sowed the ammoniacal solution. These experiments
appear to confirm Richardson, and more so when we consider that the elements, by
themselves, of the most important of natural combinations, may be said to be poi
sonous, as singly, being unable to support life. In air oxygen and nitrogen there
is too great an activity, corrected by a too great inertness. Water oxygen and
hydrogen (a metallic oxide, Dumas] neither life supporters, and Salt, chlorine and
sodium, both poisons in their pure state. Yet these inorganic substances in com
bination are life-bearers and necessities of nature. Probably, this is the state of the
floating germs which induce disease germs differ as much as animal tissues differ.
Taking the isomeric compounds as examples, the animal and human tissues, however
apparently identical in form and in their microscopic appearance, by a particular com
bination of the particles widely difler in results (the blood-corpuscules of some ani
mals differ widely from others). Assuming vitality as the principle of nature, the
variations in animation in the first instance are probably due to particular chemical
amalgamations, and the life once established is perpetuated by multiplication, diffe
rentiated by additions imbibed from the environments, and again differentiated by a
new admixture of the particles composing the organism ; hence as are conditions so
may the germ be innoxious or noxious.

1 " The short progressive changes from the lowest to the highest state of exist
ence of organization and enjoyment point to a beginning. (Bell, Brid. Treat.,
223.)

92 Finite and Infinite Conception.

In time there can be no beginning or end, it is eternity. The
practical application of time is a finite distinction j there is the past,
the present, and the to come, but in infinitude all is a continuing
present. We talk of space and the centre of the universe as
though all intelligence were concentrated in earth, and the ideas
man conceives were the rule of the universe. Such finiteness of
conception led to the assumption that the world comprised the
universe and that the sun swung in the firmament but as its atten
dant. The sun of science, the regenerator, almost creator^ is but
an attendant mote in the throng of suns which pulsate in space.
Man standing in his place on the earth, had he a microscopic
vision would find himself on the apex of a hill, with declina
tions on every side. If he were removed to the most distant star
art discloses, he would still be in the centre of the universe,
around and beyond he would have the same vision of astral
systems, and if then removed to the remotest of them, he would
have a similar horizon, bounded only by shining suns and whirring
worlds. We talk of space and pursue the idea until we come to
the ridiculous conception of a thing bounded by itself. What is
space ? a finite idea, a way mark of limitation. 1 The same
character of limitation occurs when we attempt a conception of
the Creator. Is it because we cannot conceive a space unlimited,
.and a Creator unshackled and of boundless power that it is to
be said intelligence is the mere vibrations of material particles,
not those of a glorious sun, or of an ethereal world, but those of
a diminutive speck, a particle of creation ? Is it because the
illimitable and the infinite is incomprehensible to the finite, that
we are to bound the boundless and make the Creator, or cause an
emanation from created and moulded substance ? OMNIPOTENT
INTELLIGENCE the mode of the thing ! The law of the substance
is the antecedent of the substance, but in the beyond we have
in the antecedent of the law, the power by which it was evolved.
We are amazed at the science which brings the stars within our
reach, and speaks confidently of the substance of suns. What is
this wondrous science but the link chain of the infinitcssimal ?
We know the method, but we do not know the fact of the
method. The sum of knowledge, even could " all the finite" be
.mastered, compared with that beyond, is like the dancing mote
which reflects the point of light striking it, only brilliant by a
borrowed influence. Our powers are finite, we think the finite ;
" human intelligence shines so mere a speck amid the abyss of
the unknown and the unfathomable." We may gather shells on

1 Nitgeli has the same iclea,Jthe text was written before Nk geli s address was
delivered. *

The Relativeness of Phenomena. 93,

the ever recurring shore of the vast ocean of eternity, and when
some glitter more brightly than others, the aspiring, in their
assumption, may say with Nageli, " we know and we shall know,"
but the thoughtful, in the sadness of disappointment, with Du
Bois Reymond will confess : " ignoramus ignorabimus."

Things are only equal to themselves and relative to all else.
A pound of water produces a pound of steam the force expressed
by raised temperature. The heat imponderable in the vapour,
is external to the substance on which it acts, the motion being in,
not of the fluid. If heat be only vibration, or wave motion,
whence the power that caused the vibration . ?1 The steam in a
receiver reverts back to water its expansive power apparently
exhausted ; repeat the process and we have the same result, a
bristling energy ; unconfined it passes into the air, an imponderable
vapour, and its elements combine in other affinities,

The ponderosity of steam is expressed, because of its elemental
form, as it is possible to make a sum of its particles. Heat alters
the relation of the particles ; experience alone teaches us, whereby
we know steam will revert to water. Surely we cannot say the quality
which caused this change, the quantity of which can be measured,
although imponderable, is a vibration ; if a vibration, of what ?
if of the water, it is due to the excitation ; then due to a something,
although weightless, yet impulsive as a force. Weight is but

1 " The heat and light of the sun (according to astronomers) do not reside in its
mass but in the coating which lies on its surface. If such a coating were fixed
there by the force of universal gravitation, how could we avoid having a similar
coating on the surface of the earth and all the other globes of the system ? If light
consists in the vibrations of an ether, why has the sun alone the power of exciting
such vibrations ? If the light be the emission of material particles why does the sun
alone emit such particles ? Similar questions may be asked in regard to heat what
ever the theory we adopt on the subject." (Whewell, B. T., 171.) He commence*
by saying, " No one probably will contend that the materials of our system are
necessarily luminous or hot." Science points to the fact that all the orbs are self-
luminous, and that all astral and planetary bodies are magnets. This established,
the theory of the direct transmission of heat a* heat from the sun to the other orbs,
composing his system is untenable, the rule of the inverse square interposes. The
action induced is that of a force, magnetic for instance, which by its correlation
becomes heat. We can then understand the bond of unity which connects orb with-
orb, not merely those of the planetary system, but all the orbs which throng in
space. No heat hypothesis as heat would afford the universality of action ; by the
correlation of forces alone can any reasonable theory be suggested. We then have
heat as a principle, conditioned as to facts, transfusing and transforming. Now, one
condition representing the principle, now another. Heat as a vibration accounts for
but little, heat as a principle accounts for all the forces. If heat (the principle
being denied) be adduced as the solar fact, why when on the top of a mountain,
nearer the sun, is the temperature reduced ? Newton s first letter to Bentley was
induced by the vagueness of the heat hypothesis. Had the bearings of magnetic
action in bis time been understood, we should probably have had a different
hypothesis to that which is now assumed as the basis of astral and planetary
motions.

94 Vibrations and Correlations.

the expression of a force, the gravitating power, and if gravita
tion (vide note I, p. 46) be correlated with the other forces then
heat has weight in its expression as gravity. All the forces in
the view of science are vibrations, but if correlated with gravity,
force becomes the expression of weight. There is no distinction
in effect between the pressure of bulk (as a grain, a cwt., or a
ton) and the pressure induced by the action of force, as for instance
the hydraulic press. The forces can be tested by the weigh beam ;
because not objective substances, is it to be said that they are but
the vibrations in the substance which shows their presence as
effects ? Weight, like other terms of the finite, is but a relative
expression. If gravitation be correlated with the other forces the
difficulty, whether heat be a substance or a vibration, vanishes.
Weight then becomes the expression of a principle : P orce (impul
sion and weight). If heat has the power to change the relations of
substances, it has quality, and if the quality be measurable it has
quantity, and, more, it has objectivity. All combustion is due to
heat ; if heat be only a vibration why does it consume the sub
stance in which it acts ? If alone the " vis viva " of the mass, why
does it waste and destroy it ? and why in the same substance is it
unequal in action ? We know and judge only by effects. What
ever our assumptions, infinitesimals, the working units of nature
alone are disclosed ; with them science is familiar and great its
insight, a wondrous chain of effects is disclosed resulting and in
terdependent. By minimums we judge. We talk learnedly of
germs, particles, atoms, and molecules, but when a complex phe
nomenon arises, in the maximum result we confuse our minimum*^
the initiation and its accompanying stages are lost sight of.

When by a possibility the initiatory fact is discerned, we find
the perfect adaptation of a means to an end. When the perfected
organism, Man, is in discussion, motion, a casual and subsidiary
fact, is substituted for life and intellect. We can have no
motion without heat ; on the other hand it can be said, we have
no heat without motion. Which is the antecedent ? The
white light is split by the prism into coloured spectra that
is, the colours comprised in the white light are disentangled
by the refractive powers of the prism. Yet it could be as
consistently said that the constituent colours of the white light
are the creations of the prism, as that heat (as a principle) is the
effect of motion. If by a possibility heat could be removed from
the universe all things would collapse ; with life and conscious
ness perception would be annihilated, there would be a resolution
into the primordial cause ; dissipated it could not be, because as
was its commencement so is its continuance.

The Eternal Circle. 95

In every fact we find intelligent arrangement ; that which
arranges cannot be the condition, or the mode of the thing arranged,
hence intelligence cannot have arisen from that which it formed
and moulded. Finite intelligence and infinite intelligence have
the same fundamental root, the difference being degree and quality.
The first, the relative fact ; the latter, the agglomerated whole,
comprising in itself both quantity and quality, in it there can be
no parts ; each part is the whole and the whole is present in every
part, thus we can say intelligence is eternal, the beginning and
the end (the for ever present) its unity. The beginning is always
beginning, at least such must be the reasoning of a finite intelli
gence which can only comprehend that it can perceive or conceive.
No conception can present a beginning which is always existing,
and continuing, as a tangible fact, and no individualization of
thought can present an end as a demonstrable fact. We see
change and only change, an eternal circle of things beginning in
its end and ending in its beginning. The condensation of evapo
rations collected in the atmosphere falls to the earth as rain, this
forms springs and brooks, springs and brooks rivers, rivers seas ;
the evaporation of the seas again possesses the atmosphere, and we
have the same round of effects ; this is the law of all phenomena,
we have the gas, the liquid, the solid : reversed, the solid, the
liquid, the gas, conditioned as facts, the mechanics, chemistry, and
physics of intelligence. A thousand years ago, John of Erigena
said, and thousands of years before him the Druids had said, in
their synopsis of the old world science, " In intelligence all Being
commenced and into intelligence all Being will return" Thus eter
nity is Intelligence and Intelligence Eternity. If then Intelli
gence be the eternal fact of all things, Intelligence, whatever
may be its particled presentment, is individualized in man ; being
eternal, it must be immortal, because in itself it has all quality
and quantity and is not subjected to change. Thus we go the
round of the mill horse, we argue in a circle. A vicious circle
logicians call it, but any way it is the fact of nature.

All ideas of beginnings and endings are finite ideas, and in the
Infinite alone can find their solution. We conceive of the unseen
world as a possible or a probable, and so it remains the unknown,
an " open secret." If the significance of spiritual facts are
ignored in this life there can be no explanation. 1 The eternal
fact of phenomena is intelligence, all springing from it must
inherit its qualities or be in unison with it : hence we are sur-

1 As well a symmetrical figure might be sought for in a lens of an unequal surface
as to expect from science a solution of the principles of the inner nature of man.
* The wise man accepts details, investigates, balances evidences, and then decides.
The fool decides."

96 Nature s Mechanics.

rounded by Eternity, Immensity, Continuity ; that which we per
ceive being but effects resulting from changes. If in the unknown
there be existence, it is an existence in intelligence ; Synthesis
will there take the place of analysis, and in the principle will be
discovered all it comprehends.

All parts of an organism are relative to the whole, and by
evolution are developed from pre-existing parts. 1 Here we meet
the recuperative energy which repairs its waste. A machine is
composed of unrelated parts, not one part proceeding from the
other ; when specially adapted they become related units, having
no recuperating energy ; waste implies their destruction. The
action of the machine is subordinated to the moving power.
Organisms are sympathetically co-ordinated. Thus, undue action
in one part produces its effect on different organs, as the action
of a secreting cell in the liver re-acts on the brain. An undue
action of the brain will check the secretion of a gland, or relax
the sphincters of the bladder. A variation, however slight, in the
composition or structure of the parts, will frustrate the organic
activity, or spend its energies in a new direction.

To state the problem of the evolution of life truly, we go back
to the monad or protamceba, the living jelly speck, nourished by
absorption and multiplied by fission, germination, or spores ex
hibiting the merest faculties of vitality, nutrition and multipli
cation ; life could not be the outcome of these faculties, because
before they could act the life must have been instituted, 3 and this
rule must hold in all animate forms. The initiating fact must
be the preceding fact; hence it follows that the functions in their
endless display, consciously or unconsciously performed, are the
facts of the motor-vitality. If the life ceases the function ceases,
but if a function ceases the life may exist, as in the severance of a
nerve. When the life-energy increases muscular action, there is
no alteration in principle ; the vehicles of conduction work with
increased effect, but there is no creation of the moving principles.
Give to the water channel a greater capacity and we have a
broader sheet and an increased power, but no logic can prove the
channel created the function of the water. Organ can only
mean the vehicle by which a function is displayed ; the lowest
rhizopods are said to exhibit the life without organization, yet
they display function, and function implies organization. It is

1 "The system of animal bodies is simple and universal, notwithstanding the
amazing diversity of forms, (it) not only embraces all living creatures" and "baa
been continued from periods .... before the last revolution of the earth s
surface had been accomplished." (Bell, Bridg. Treat., p. 223.)

2 " Nerves can perform no functions unless supplied with blood, all qualities of
life being supported through the circulating blood." (Bell, Bridg. Treat., p. 185.)

Automacy. 9,7

to subtleties we owe the assumptions of automatic action for
animals and man. 1

The whole stress of the argument is present or absent consciousness",.
The argument /&gt;r&lt;? makes the normal the abnormal fact of life. Any
derangement of a function excites consciousness. Carpenter saying
" the ego determines to do a certain action, and commands the
automaton to do it" (vide note 2, p. 5), is exactly what Amberley
suggests that the soul is without the machine (body), and
instructs the machine what to do. Huxley s sensible automaton,,
which excited so many remarks, is absolute wisdom compared
with such deductions. It is possible to know the method of a
natural fact without knowing the true or primordial initiation of

1 All internal motions of animal bodies, as digestion, production of secre
tions, repair of injuries, or increase of growth, occur without consciousness,,
in sleep, in waking hours, and in the foetus, as in the infant after nativity,
and depend upon irritative fluids. So actions of men and animals, which seern&gt;
neither to be directed by appetite, nor taught by experience, nor deducted from
observation, have been referred to instinct, and have been explained to be a
divine something, and the animal has been thought little better than a machine,
The irksomeness attending a continued attitude of the body, changes from
heat, cold or hunger, &c., excite to general locomotion. Sensations and desires
are as much a part of the system as bones and muscles are another part, hence
are natural or connate but neither can be termed instinctive, as that refers only
to the actions of animals.

Sensations and actions are experienced before nativity, as cold, warmth,.,
agitation, rest, the struggles of the limbs, &c. The actions of young animals
have been acquired like those attended with consciousness, by the repeated
efforts of our muscles under the conduct of our sensations and desires. The chick
in the egg moves its feet and legs, moving in the liquid surrounding it, shuts,
and opens its mouth ; puppies before the membrane surrounding them is.
broken move, put out their tongues and open their mouths ; calves lick them
selves and swallow their hairs ; towards the end of gestation the foetuses of"
all animals drink part of the liquid in which they swim. The white of the
egg is found in the mouth and gizzard of the chick, and the liquor amnii in
the mouth and stomach of the human foetus. The motions in the foetus are
such as by which they can best change their attitude. The growth of parts
first wanted to procure subsistence are farthest advanced before nativity. The
colt and lamb are more perfect than the puppy or rabbit. The chick of the
pheasant and partridge have more perfect plumage, more perfect eyes, and
greater aptitudes for walking than the callow nestlings of the dove or wren. It
is only necessary to show the first their food and teach them to pick whilst the
latter for days obtrude a gaping mouth. The foetus learns to swallow before
nativity. The inspiration of air is different from swallowing and arises from
a suffocating sensation, which sets in motion the breast, ribs and diaphragm,,
and thus respiration is discovered and continued. So creatures suck from the
teaching in the fetus. Galen took a brisk embryon from a goat without its
being able to see its dam, and put it in a room, where were vessels filled with
wine, honey, oil, milk, &c., fruit and grain. It got on. its feet and walked,,
shook itself, scratched its side with one of its feet, smelt all the things in the
room, and then drank the milk (2oonomia t vol. r, p. 187-194.)

9 8 Development.

the motive power. We know life and mind exist, but we do not
.know the how of their existence ! and therefore it seems rash to
insist upon a definite formula in respect of them.

If organism be the multiplication of a particular germ from
which all forms of life by successive gradations have arisen, it is
probable this germ was not localised, but that in all portions
-of the earth it existed in its inherent principle and became
clothed with life as conditions were assimilated to its uses. It is
idle to talk of one germ or of a number the first presentment
-of the phenomenon of life was that of a continuing principle :
in earth, in air, throughout our world, the materials of the
protoplasm are present, and wherever they are presented as an
albuminous compound, the vital energy, all conditions being
satisfied, is present. Nature makes no leaps. 1 All the conditions
of the law being in active relation these relations may continue
through long lapses of time ; but the law may, in its particular
action, have exhausted its energy, or new conditions may have
arisen enforcing modifications, or it may be the energy was accu
mulative and the time came when new developments arose,
having application not only to a change of external form but to
internal conditions. When the internal condition is modified a
change in form becomes imperative. The undue development of
or the suppression of an organ would modify the whole structure.
Huxley has most ably traced the modification of the lizard form
until it becomes the bird, and with the aid of Marsh s discoveries in
America the genealogy of the horse from its five-toed ancestors. 2
The theory of evolution appears to present this law. If the
modifications are self-supporting they are perpetuated, otherwise
they die out. Nature selects with greater emphasis than all
modes of art. In the vast periods of geological time there is
room for all the variations we find, development being the fitting-
ness of the fact to the environments. 3

1 \\ r hat I contend for is the necessity of certain relations being established
between the planet and the frames of all which inhabit it; between the great mass
and the physical properties of every part ; that in the mechanical construction of
animals, as in their endowments of lile, they are created in relation to the whole
planned together and fashioned by one mind. (Bell, Bridg. Treat., p. 8.)

2 There are rare instances of a horse having digital extremities. Suetonius says
there was such a horse in Caesar s stables, another was in possession of Leo X.
G. St. Hilaire says he had seen a horse with three toes on the fore-foot and four on
hind foot. Such an animal was lately exhibited both in London and Newmarket.
(Bell, Bridg. Treat., p. 91.)

3 " The magnitude of the earth determines the strength of our bones and the
power of our muscles ; so must the depth of the atmosphere determine the condi-
"tions of onr fluids and the resistance of our blood vessels ; the common act of
breathing, transpiration from the surfaces, must bear relation to the weight, moisture,
and temperature of the medium which surrounds us," " our body is formed with a
just correspondence to these external influences. 1 (Bell, B. T., p. 7.)

The Great Masons of the World. 99

When it is contended that function is not exhibited until the
structure is formed it seems to be confounding cause and effect.
Function (vitality) collects the products for the formation of the
structure, and infusing into the product its own energy becomes
thereby its function. If use enlarges a structure, the enlarge
ment, I.e. the growth, is due to the interfused function, that under
lying energy, which not only reforms, but occupies ; thus
muscular enlargement is due to function, and the power of
function appears to be increased because there is more room for
the display of its energy. H. Spencer says function preceded
structure. Rhizopods exhibit life without organization (Huxley). 1
Lewes retorts, life cannot be presented without a living body, and
every living body must have structure of some sort, some special^
configuration of the parts. This is all very true ; but how came
this u structure" this "living body" this "special configura
tion ?" If we cannot say the organizations were self-instituted,
then the formative function must have preceded them. It is the
feeblest and, apparently, the most insignificant life organizations
which are the true structural units ; functionally formed organiza
tions displaying functions, crowding in myriads of millions
wherever animation exists they are, (cells), and to go further, the
objective inorganic is due to them (supra^ p. 18) ; thus they become
the porteurs of the material the masons of the earth. Their
organization is their life, or they could not have displayed their
functions, which are assimilating and aggregating. It is possible
to say that function and organization in objective phenomena are
synchronous in action ; but this can only be said where the
precedent function was transfused into the motion of the organism.

The protoplasm is common to animals and plants. 2 So close

1 Bell called " the consciousness of muscular exertion the sixth sense." It was
this idea which led him to the investigation of the nerves (vide lectures).

2 [Vegetable, as well as animal fibres, are excited into a variety of motions by
irritation. The sensitive plant and mimosa are examples. The Dronaa mus-
cipula, its leaves are armed with spines at the outer edge and spread around the
stem, on the contact of an insect the leaf shuts like a steel trap. The various
secretions, gum, resins, &c., seem brought about in the same manner as in the
animal glands. The moisture is converted into sap, whilst the power of
absorption in the roots and barks of vegetables is excited into action by fluids
applied to their mouths like the lacteals and lymphatics of animals. Plants
may be considered as less perfect animals. The tree is a congeries of living
buds resembling coralline, congeries of animals. Each bud has its leaves and
petals for lungs, and produces its viviparous or oviparous offspring in buds
or seeds ; the bud roots, interwoven with the roots of its other buds, form the
bark 5 the only living part of the stem annually renewed is superinduced on
the former bark and forms concentric rings. A new tree is produced by a
branch, whence it would appear that the buds of deciduous trees are so many
annual plants, and the bark a contexture of the caudexes of each bud. The irri-

loo Animal or Plant.

is the resemblance in the diverging conditions, that diatoms were
once regarded as animals ; * the spores of some algae are first free
swimmers and appear to be creatures, but they collect in groups in
the same way as inanimate substances. In infusorial life such
instances occur and baffle the most accomplished microscopists.
Hydrocarbons abound in plants, and are rarely found in animals.
We have similarity in origin, but absolute diversity in development,
yet the same law finds its repetition in animal and plant, as though
the type and antitype were presented. It is probable particular
environments determined the departures, and the divergences were
perpetuated. Without phosphate of lime there were no bone, yet
phosphates abound in plants ; animals alone have bone, because

tability of plants like animals is liable to increase and decrease by habit. The
stamens and pistils show marks of sensibility, approaching each other at the
season of impregnation ; many close their petals and calyxes during the cold
part of the day, and in darkness. This cannot be ascribed to irritation. The
approach of the anthers to the stigma must be ascribed to love, hence to sen
sation. They also possess some degree of voluntary power as in their sleep (a
temporary abolition of voluntary power), and in the circular movements of the
tendrils in the effort to turn the leaves or flowers to the light. The associa
tions of fibrous motions are the same in plants as in animals. In the sensitive
plant one division irritated into contraction, the neighbouring ones contract
also. It is the same with the syngenesia. A sensitive plant leaf, slit by scissors,
after a few seconds seemed sensible of the injury, the whole branch collapsed
as far as the principal stem. The sap vessels in early spring, before the leaves
expand, are analogous to the placental vessels of the foetus ; the leaves of land
plants, to lungs, of water plants, to gills. Other systems of vessels resemble the
&lt;vena portarum, or aorta of fish. Their digestive power is the same, converting
fluids into sugar ; their seeds resemble eggs, their buds and bulbs, viviparous
offsprings. Their anthers and stigmas are real animals, attached indeed to the
parent like polypi, but capable of spontaneous motion affected by love and
have powers of reproduction. The male flowers of the valisnaria approach
nearer apparent animality, they detach themselves from the parent plant and
float on the surface of the water to the female. Other plants discharge the
fecundating farina, which the air carries to the stigma of the female flowers
" Can this be effected by any specific attraction ?" E. Darwin asks ; " have
vegetables ideas of external things ? do they possess organs of sense ?" It is
shown, some, as the mimosa, dronaea, the drosera, and the stamens of others,
as the berberis and syngenesia, are sensible to mechanical contact, i.e. have a
sense of touch, and a common sensorium, by means of which their muscles are
excited into action. How do the anthers and stigmas know others exist in
their vicinity ? He asks, " Is this mechanical attraction or love ?" The latter
has the strongest analogy for reproduction is the consequence. They have
also sense of smell, and may possess a faculty of perceiving as well as produc
ing odours and, a discriminatory power to distinguish the variations of tempera
ture, of moisture, of light, and of touch. He finally concludes "they possess
ideas of many properties of the external world and of their own existence 1
(Zoonomia, vol. i, Fide article, " Vegetable Animation, 1 p. 135).]

1 From the age of Aristotle to that of Linnaeus, it may be said no systematic
classification of animals was attempted or at least adopted.

The Unfathomable and the Unthinkable. 101

the absorbents are so constituted as to assimilate the substance.
Say what we may, we must go behind the organism and deduce
its constituents from the inorganic ; we then have a filiation of
affinities. This sounds like materialism. It is one thing to say
that an elemental compound is " the physical basis of life," but
quite another to say it forms the platform whereon life is exhi
bited. Life is the fact and not the incident, thus the organism is
the casual.

Tyndall at Manchester said, " Everywhere throughout our
planet we notice the tendency of the ultimate particles of matter
to run into symmetric forms, c and that the very molecules seem
instinct with a desire for union and growth molecules being
imaginative symbols ; imagination may run into imagination and
associate as an idea, but we do not get beyond scientific imagina
tion. Ultimate particles of matter, as science knows them, are
gaseous ; do these gases run into symmetric forms and become
objects of perception ? The method of nature is the inherent capacity
to mould and unfold ; the cause of the method, the antecedent
principle which impulsed it. If there be the implication of a
cause, however indefinite, we are not far from that idealization of
the mind termed Deity. It is not because the cause is c un
fathomable that, as Spencer says, it is unthinkable, or that it
u implies the establishment of a relation in thought between some
thing and nothing " (Prin. 5/0., vol. i., p. 336). In the material
view this may imply a logical dilemma, but a logical dilemma
does not make a truth an untruth, it merely displays a wanting
power of exposition. 1 Where, in natural facts, are we not in
volved in this dilemma ? The coalition of two gases in forming
water is an unfathomable fact, by Spencer s logic, therefore, " un
thinkable." We have the method of the fact, but of the cause of
the coalition we know nothing. Spencer confidently asserts
(First Principles], "Matter and motion, as we know them, are
differently-conditioned manifestations offeree," and yet this force
" must for ever remain unknown," so, unthinkable. When he
talks of "the ultimate of ultimates," what have we but the primal
-cause ? 2

There is no distinction between the organic and inorganic in

1 Huxley says, " Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the
beacons of wise men" (Fort. Re-ir., Nov. 1874).

2 In speaking of the development of a plant or animal from its embryo,
Huxley says, " The plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid and yet so
steady and purposelike in their succession, that one can only compare them to
those operated upon by a skilled modeller upon a formless lump of clay 1
{L. S., p. 260).

IO2 Organic and Inorganic.

constitution, and if the scientific idea is accepted, then nerve- 1
action is but an undulatory thrill from the centre to the surface.
The same undulating fact we find in the inorganic, interlaced as
it is with electrical conductors, every shock causing its energy to
be felt as far as the conducting apparatus extends. If it be
assumed the organic undulations are of the protoplasm, we fall
back on the shaking jelly. The distinction, so far as we know,
between nervous undulation and electrical vibration is, that the
one occurs in a sensitive body and is inbred by itself, the other in
lifeless forms, gathering their powers from the great outside
reservoir of nature.

Lewes tells us "it is sufficiently acknowledged among scientific
teachers that every problem of mind is necessarily a problem of
life." " It is enough that mind is never manifested, except in
living organisms, to make us seek in an analysis of organic
phenomena for the material conditions of every mental fact."
"Mental phenomena .... can only be the objective phenomena of
vital organisms." u The protoplasm is an organism because it
feeds and reproduces itself/

We are to seek mind in an analysis of organic compounds
what is to direct our search ? even life escapes the vigilance of
the searchers may not the organism, the mind, and the life, be
as distinct as alcohol and a vessel containing it. Throw forth the
spirit, the vessel remains, and the spirit is a continuing quantity.
When life and mind pass from the organism we have the
analogous facts. Before " the material conditions of every mental
fact " are found, it appears quite needful to prove that mind has its
origin from matter, as it is quite possible for a thing to be in a
thing, yet not of the thing, may act with it, and apparently form
a part of it, yet be utterly and entirely distinct in composition,
as colour in substance ; as in the illustration, we might just as
well seek in the vessel for the phenomenon of the alcohol. No
knowledge of structure or function ever disclosed the principle,
life, and no analysis of life ever disclosed the principle, mind. We
know life and mind exist because we are. conscious of them as
effects occurring in organic forms. It seems an outrage on all
reasoned analysis to say because the life is connected with the
organism and mind with the life, that in the compounds com
posing the organism we are to seek their bases (roots). The life is
that by which the organism exists, and the mind that by which its
motions are directed. 3 There can be no questions of morphology

1 The " perfection of the nervous system is that each nerve is made susceptible to
its peculiar impressions only." " The nerve of vision is as insensible to touch as
the nerve of touch is to light." (Bell, Bridg. Treat., p. 153.)

2 The hand supplements the intellect and presents the proof of that principle of

Nutrition. 103

or physiology here, for we have nothing to do with structure or
the ramification of vessels, &c. Heat is denied to be a principle,
and presented as a material vibration ; l life and mind derived
from matter and consciousness shivered into states ! The only-
changeless phenomena we know and of which we can speak with
absolute certainty are, Life and Heat, Consciousness and Intelli
gence. The two first are necessary for the existence of pheno
mena, the two latter as their interpreters.

We may learnedly talk of germs and tissues and interlacing
forces, but we are never rid of the fact that when the life flies
the organism ceases to be. Whatever may be the assumptions of
the vitalist, they are insignificant when compared with those of
the materialist. It is patent that the vital fact survives in the
germ, whilst the organism is dissolved into elemental gases, again
to be rehabilitated, again to become vehicles for an ensuing life.

Because the organism is sustained by nutrition, does it follow
that the nutriment creates the life ? it repairs the waste when the
assimilated parts worn and exhausted are exuded ; waste to the
particular organism, but not waste in the grand economy of
nature. Organisms have affinities for soda, potash, lime, magnesia,
&c. ; in the serum of the blood is phosphate of soda, in the nerve,
phosphate of potash, in the muscle, phosphate of magnesia, in the
bone, phosphate of lime, &c. In the organic arrangement there
is chemistry in a minute and efFective form ; it is all orderly
arrangement ; there are no " wrenchings ;" the substances are
assimilated, and through the absorbents the various parts of the
structure are nourished ; each adapts that fitted for its purposes.
The selective power is of vital action; the chemistry and mechanics
of nature may be imitated by art. Vaucanson s duck was said to
dio-est its food. 2 Our greatest fact of simulation is Edison s

O o

adaptation which so prominently presents the fittingness of purpose in animal
economy (vide Bell, Brid. Treat., c iii). The division of the fingers combines
motion with sense of touch, and adapts (see p. 6) the hand to grasp, to feel, and
compare (ibid., 107). On the perfect mobility of the thumb depends the power of
the human hand (the monkey has \\oflexur longus of the thumb.

The whole facts of the animal system are so perfectly connected that even the
fragment of a bone, be it of the jaw or spine or an extremity, tells its tale (Cuvier).

1 By the undulator theory many properties are explained ; there may be other
explanations when the subject is more intimately probed. The consequence ol the
theory is the luminiferous ether has no local motion, and produces refraction and
reflexion by the operation of its elasticity alone. Its tenuity must be extreme,
whilst its tension must be very great. The vibrations will be transverse (like the
pull of the muscles) ; from this transverse character the laws of polarization follow.
Some of the appearances, such as the fringes of shadows, &c., would occur whether
the vibrations were transverse or not (vide B. T., Whewell, p. 134, et seq).

2 Houdin says, " One of its wings being injured, it was sent to me to repair
and the digestion proved to be a real canard. A vase containing seed steeped
in water was placed before the bird. The motion of the bill in dabbling, crushed

1O4 Phonograph and Microphone.

phonograph, for there is voice and memory a memory and an

utterance which will endure as long as the tin foil on which the
sounds are magnetically impressed. In the microphone we have

-a magnifier of sounds. 1

the food and facilitated its introduction into a pipe placed beneath the lower bill-
The water and seed thus swallowed fell into a box under the bird s stomach." The
digestion was managed thus, " bread crumbs coloured green were expelled by a forc
ing pump and carefully caught on a silver salver as the result of artificial digestion"

(Alemoir Robert Houtiin, vol. i, p. 174).

1 [The problem ot the conduction of sound has for a long time engaged the
attention of the scientific. Hooke (1667) conveyed, by the aid of an extended
wire, sounds to a distance ; and a whisper could be heard a furlong off, although
the wire was bent in many angles. Wheatstone (fifty years ago) showed the
sounds of a musical box, many feet away, could be repeated by means of a
deal lath, one end resting on the box, the other end in the room of exhibition,
having on its top a sounding box. The same experiment was repeated by
Faraday at the Royal Institution. Henry and others, in America, improved
Wheatstone s idea. In one experiment two pianos were placed in houses on
the opposite sides of a wide street, and the sounds produced on one piano
were reproduced on the sounding board of the other. Helmholtz was the
first who produced by the aid of electro-magnetism telephone effects. He
placed a tuning fork between the poles of an electro-magnet, and by means of
a platinum wire, one end of which was dipped in a cup of mercury, and the
other attached to one of the legs of the tuning fork, he was enabled to
obtain an intermittent current of electricity. By connecting the first fork
with another of the same pitch, the vibrations of the one were communicated
to the other. The sounds were regulated by means of a resonator placed in
the front of the second fork. Page, of Massachusetts, forty years prior to
Helmholtz, made investigations as to the production of sounds by the aid of
electricity, which he called " galvanic music." The results of his researches
when published excited considerable attention. Reiss, in 1860, produced a
rough telephone, employing a beer barrel, a membrane, and strip of platinum
attached to the membrane by sealing wax. The platinum representing the
hammer of the ear, and by which the electric circuit was broken. The
receiving instrument, a knitting-needle surrounded by a coil of wire placed on a
violin which served as a sounding board. His subsequent arrangements were
of a more complete character. To him is due the credit of being the first to
conceive and carry out the idea of causing the human voice to vibrate a mem
brane and through it to break an electric circuit. Faber made an ingenious
machine, by means of an apparatus he simulated the mechanical causes by
which the voice is produced. Edison, on the other hand, obtains the mechanical
effects of the vibrations. About four years ago Barlow invented the Lolograph
as a short hand writer. It is a membraneous implement, the vibrations of the
voice are received on the membrane and recorded by a fine hair pencil kept
moistened with ink. The marks are curves similar to those made by Thorn-
son s siphon recorder, the paper being uniformly drawn along by a Morse s
feeder.

Telephones are of two characters the thread telephone, a couple of boxes
-covered with a membrane and connected by a thread, the sound is perpetuated
by talking into one box, the thread carrying the vibrations to the other, and
the electric telephone, which converts the sound into electricity and retrans-
ibrms it into sound, where it existed in the current of electricity running through
-the wire, produced, it may be said de no*vo, at the receiving end of the cir-

A Finity in an Infinity. 105

Man is a finity in an infinity, an intellectual particle connected
with the great positive, universal Mind. By the conceptive rela
tion with this infinitude he is enabled to construe intelligibly the
infinitessimal facts whose sum is phenomena, and find the art of

cuit. In the thread telephone the range of sound is limited. In the electric
telephone practically unlimited. The greatest distance over which the tele
phone has yet been used in connection with the submarine cable is from Holy-
head to Dublin. Bell s telephone owes its characteristic to a permanent
magnet surrounded by a coil of wire and to a disc of thin metal. Gray, of
Chicago, a few years ago produced a complex instrument by which musical
sounds could be reproduced and transmitted. This is probably the first electric
telephone. Its details are deposited in the American Patent Office. E.
Dolbear (another American physicist), produced a telephone in which he
uses electro-magnets, and with his apparatus it is stated that low talking can
be heard more distinctly than when a great effort is made. Edison, the in-
venter of the phonograph, has devised a telephone by which the sounds are
intensified. He has also constructed on the same principle the tasimeter, an
instrument of extreme delicacy for making observations on the heat of dis
tant objects. Bell was the first to enter the field in a practical form. For
some years he had been engaged in researches on electric telephony, and to him
the credit is due of having been the first to consummate the articulating tele
phone. One of the most ingenious purposes to which it has been put, is the
detecting the efficiency or non-efficiency of torpedoes fired by electricity
(McEnvoy is the adapter). The phonograph electrically records speech by
indentations on tin foil, by means of a turning apparatus, which on reversal
reproduces the sounds. There is a difficulty in transmitting the sounds over
ordinary or special telegraph wires, which makes it at present but little more
than a scientific toy. Hughes (the inventor of the telegraphic type printer)
produced the microphone. It was invented in December, 1877, ant made
public May, 1878. Originally most primitive in character, a halfpenny
wooden box for a resonator, on which with sealing wax was fixed a small
glass tube filled with a mixture of tin and zinc, the ends being stopped by two
pieces of charcoal, to which wires were attached to three Daniels cells (three
jam-pots in circuit), the wooden box with one end knocked out served as a
mouth-piece. The great secret of these inventions is the obtaining a per
fectly constant remittent electric current, to obtain which various means are
employed. The great effects of the microphone were obtained by connecting
it with the Bell telephone. Professor Hughes is now enabled to dispense with
the telephone, having discovered a receiver peculiarly delicate in character,
being, in fact, the membrane or receiver of the thread telephone. On this
drum he mounts his carbon apparatus which is attached to the centre of the
membrane.

Various tales are circulated as to the modes of discovery of the phonograph
and the microphone. It is said Edison, when trifling with his telephone, with
the little needle of the diaphragm pricked his finger ; on drawing it away, it
left an interrupted line of blood on its surface by the vibration of the point.
He placed some Morse s paper, so the diaphragm could travel over it, and
speaking through the tube found dots and dashes inscribed ; reversing the
process, a faint halloa was heard, which he had shouted at the machine. Upon
this he went to work, and produced his first phonograph. So also it is said
the discovery of the microphone was due to the accidental breaking of a wire
when some acoustic experiments were being tested by means of the telephone.

lo6 Abstract Conceptions.

nature expressed in her work. The bubble reared on sensory
facts bursts ; sensation being but functional, hence is merely a
method, which consciousness passively receives and reflects. The
interpretation belongs to another category intelligence. Sense
expressions are symbolical presentments, perceptions of form.
Kuhne s interpretation of vision shows our perception of it is repre
sentative. If facts as we conceive them can only be interpreted by
intelligence, it follows they are the results of intelligence ; and
physics, chemistry and mechanics the objective presentment of
the thought in which they originated ; in the same way as a cup
is the objective presentment of the thought of the designer,
through the mechanics of the potter, symbolising its fact in an
objective form. To say brute matter" which is modelled at will,
is the factor of its own fact, is neither science nor reason. If mind
originates in matter (the thinking brain) 1 it cannot soar beyond
its origin ; there could be no conception of the unseen as a
formative consequence, no abstract conceptions which could pass
from mind to mind. In nature there is a consonance throughout,
all is relative ; the material connected by material ties, the imma
terial or mental, by intellectual ties. Thus we arrive at the
moulder and the moulded. If phenomena exist through impulse,
then in the world of phenomena there is something besides
matter. The casual must be sought in the actual, the impulsive
in the beyond of matter.

In the teachings of the lecture-room and scientific theories, if
materialism be not avowed it is inferred in " the terminology/ A
subversion by phrases, an ultimate which reason would construe
as the completion, or end, means a beginning ; so probably mate
rialism may mean orthodoxy.

If we think our facts we cannot but perceive that intelligence
is the underlying principle of all natural phenomena, an intelli
gence so wide and vast in character that it spans every fact. As
science lias no explanation of the what^ the whence^ and the why

The stretched wire, although talked at and plucked at, produced no effect, it
broke and the telephone uttered a sound. The broken ends of the wire were
placed together, secured by a weight, again faint sounds were heard. This
broken circuit was improved and the microphone resulted. This might be
said to be " Science herself rewarding inventors" by revealing some of her
most hidden secrets. Let the accident be, or not be the discoveries were due
to the true intellectual interpretation of Nature speaking. She revealed her
method, man applied it.]

1 "The brain through which every impression must be conveyed before it is per
ceived, is itself insensible" (Bell, Bridg. Treat., p. 16i2). " The heart is also declared
to be insensible" (ib. 16ti). " The sensibilities of the living frame are appropriate
endowments ; not qualities necessarily arising from life ; still less the consequence of
delicacy of texture (ib., 167).

The Theist, the Deist, the Materialist. 107

of matter, it is an insipience authoritatively to pronounce on the
greater mysteries of heat, life, intellect, and consciousness. 1

A Theist believes in the rule of God, a Deist confounds all in
God : both may be tolerated by the orthodox, for they found
their ideas in the intelligence of the Cause j but the Materialist,
who thinks only in the fact from whence he emanated, must for
ever founder in the mire of his own creation.

1 Thomson (W.) and Clausius arrive at the conclusion that the world at some
period will infallibly come to an end 1st. The universe will unite in an enormous
ponderous mass. 2nd. All visible motion will have ceased and all forces be changed
" to mere molecular motions" in the shape of heat, " universally uniform in tem
perature," and this "state of death or rest will last eternally." This view, Loschmidt
controverts (Treatise on the modern theory of heat). For argument, adopting the
view that the sun is a slowly cooling body, and that his surface will solidify long after
the planets have fallen in on him, the period of rest and death will arrive, but cannot
be of unlimited duration, because it cannot be a state of equilibrium. (Parenthetically,
it may be said, the theory of Andrew Jackson Davis, the clairvoyant, seems more
reasonable ; viz. that the visible universe is a manufactory of spirit, and that even
tually all matter will be resolved into spirit, and be absorbed in the " great positive
mind," which appears to be his idea of an entity or God, repeating, in other words,
the hypothesis of John Scotus (Erigena).

Accepting the nebular theory of Kant and La Place, Helmholtz says the heat
of the solar mass in the condensation would be represented by a temperature of
28,611,000 C. if it had the capacity of water, but it of carbonate of lime or silicic
acid it would be 140,000,000 C. Thus, the heat of the interior of the mass would
be increased to-more unimmaginable sums ; an explosion would then ensue, and a
greater part of the heat would be converted into gravitation and the force of rota
tion, and the process of consolidation would again occur. This appears to be Losch-
midt s idea of a kosmical period.

If there were any such sums of heat as are imagined, there could be no possible
explosion, because there would be no material substance to explode, for all universal
space would be possessed by heat. In kosmical hypotheses the solar system is not
to be considered alone but with it the whole of the suns and systems of the universe.
All these kosmical theories are calculated on the arbitrary assumption that there is
no renewing energy. Reciprocation is as much a positive fact of phenomena as any
other scientific hypothesis. Heat in all these theories is conceived to be specific, but
if it be a mere undulation in the particles of matter it can have no specific character,
and if the specific heat assumes the proportions of the numbers designated which by
other hypotheses reach 250,000,000 C., there would be no matter from whence it
could emanate, hence heat cannot be the casual it is assumed to be. The reversion
of all things into heat by these kosmical theories, shows the resolution of all things
into a primordial principle (materially considered^) heat. Figures are important
factors in scientific analysis, and in their extremes are a reductio ad absurdum.
Two jelly specks adhering produce spores. Scientifically, there can be neither con
tact with nor exudation from other substances but beat is elicited ; then each
infusorial speck is a revealer of heat it is a quantity, however unappreciable.
Multiply the jelly specks into the bulk of the universe and with them the revealed
heat, and we arrive at a range of figures no numeration could name. This is the
fair outcome of the heat hypothesis of science. Where does it land us ? Reason
says nowhere ! We have of course the continual theories of dead worlds, which
the physical astronomer points out ; as the dark companion of Sirius, and that of
Procyon ; also incandescent suns and other mysteries, some reducible to some show
of reason, and others merely imaginative creations. Science rarely errs by a rejec
tion of the incredible, if by a possibility it can be dressed in a scientific phraseo
logy : the really possible and probable is frequently rejected because it cannot be
included in some scientific hypothesis or formula. Matter in the science of the
time is the only probable possible hence all which has not a material basis as a
factor is not the possible.

loS The Charlatanry of Science.

CHAPTER IV.
DUAL MAN PERCEPTION AND CONCEPTION.

MIND is defined to be but molecular changes in the substance
of the brain : Life " the molecular union of proximate principles of
three classes in reciprocal dissolution " structure, aliment, and
instrument," as " a peculiar force temporarily associated with
matter ;" " an undiscovered form of force having no connection
with primary energy or motion ;" " a power capable of controlling
and directing both matter and force," but arising from mechanical
agencies. The energy of the mechanism is but the method by
which nature moulds her fact ; vitality, the subsisting link which
tends to reunion and order, as mind and will, direct and control.
To a commonplace thinker mind and vitality comprise all that
can be conceived of thought and sensation, vitality, as the energy
of the mechanism, and mind, the energy of spirit expressed as
intellect. Call them the inbred vibrations of matter, what is the
gain ? There is no riddance of their inherence. Such utterances
are the very charlatanry of science. With Emerson we might
say, " Surely no one would be a charlatan who could afford to be
sincere."

Man in whatever aspect he is viewed is a mystery rendered
more impenetrable by the attempts made to solve the problem by
mechanical and chemical explanations. He is a compound of all
phenomena ; not the kosmos, but of the energy derived from it.
By his senses or the perceptive faculty he is united with objective
or external phenomena, and with the unseen or subjective by his
conceptive powers. Perception and conception pourtray his dual
nature. The consciousness is impressed by both these natures,
and makes man, so long as they are intertwined, a unity, probably,
a scientific molecule. The metaphysician lends his aid to deepen
the mystery. There is the admission of an existing soul, but then
it is demonstrated to be a point without extension. The very
principle of the Kosmos is the extended point or unit, so it is
impossible to admit there can be in the Kosmos a point incapable
of extension.

If extension be accepted in the sense of diffusion, there is no

Dual Man Perception and Conception.

point, physically or metaphysically, in the extended range of the
kosmos which is without it. If by the soul 1 is meant man s
individualism it is extended wherever his influence reaches. As
an abstract conception it is intellectual identity, not as a some
thing derived from matter, but in the sense of arresting and con
trolling. In the animal man, perception, or instinct is the guide ;
in the mental man, conception or intellect. In the animal man
we have an intricate mechanism, nerves, muscles, valves, conduits
and bones, responding to the impulses of will and sensation ; hence
the organism becomes only a vehicle for their display. Anatomy
has probed every part of the organized structure, but nowhere
does it find the soul, or the life. In dead matter there is irrita
bility by excitation, the muscle contracts, the nerves twitch
motion induced through impulse. In the living organism every
motion is the result of impulse. There is no evidence to show
that either life or mind are functions of structure. Function
exists with structure, but an initiatory fact precedes both. Intel
ligence as the formative faculty precedes vitality, vitality structure ;
in such a corollary it is impossible to say that intelligence or
vitality, are functions of structure. We cannot say that structure
is the identity of the creature, for it changes on each moment ;
continually dissipated as it is continually replaced. Perhaps no
more cogent a priori reasoning could be adduced in proof of the
dual fact of man, than the for ever changing body and the un
changing and augmenting mind. The phase of nature is the
continuous unity of two kingdoms, the material and the imma
terial, illustrated in physics as matter and force, the ponderable
and imponderable. A passive or receptive world and a world of
active principles, in, but not of matter. Thus the intangible
becomes the real. 3

The Ego and non Ego are the consciousness of one fact, for the
Ego could never be conceived without the non Ego, or the some
thing without the self. We talk learnedly but the mischief is
we talk seriously of Egos and non Egos^ as if the Ego in the
abstraction of thought 3 was not the conscious fact of the indi
vidualism of our identity. Science recognised in perception pre
sents the intelligence underlying the methods of nature, as facts of

1 The amber and the magnet were supposed by Thales to have a soul ; digestion
and assimilation by Paracelsus to be effected by a spirit (Archaeus). Air and gases
were at first deemed spiritual, "but when invested by a more material character
were deemed the ghost (as shown by the derivation from geist," ( Grove).

2 " I cannot see how scepticism should arise out of the contemplation of the struc
ture of the human body " (Bell, B. T., p. 2).

3 ABSTRACTION, when used independently in this treatise, means the concentra
tion of reasoning, special occupation of the mind to elicit a given end. Not as Sir
William Hamilton has it, " the negation of attention."

Philosophies.

law, ruling alike the floating mote and the revolving star, the germ
and the developed conception. When science leads to a concep
tion of causation sense-symbols fade in the purview, and the
effort is made to define the what and the why. The wrangle of
the schools arises more from the intermingling of perceptive and
conceptive ideas than from the contention as to the ideal and real.
The material philosopher counts his atoms and decides the kosmos
is composed of units of matter, in its eternity combining cause
and effect. The ideal philosopher sees all things in the ideal, or
spiritual, therefore to him the ideal is the real ; and whilst admitting
the units, insists they exist through intelligent contrivance,
condenses in the cause all succeeding effects, and asserts that by the
eternity of intelligence matter exists, but he admits secondary causes
and thereby gives an undue prominence to effects. The natural
philosopher, taking note of infinitessimal quantities, brushes them
aside in the truer aim of disclosing the religion of nature, wherein
he finds an intelligence which man alone, of all created things,
shares. Nature, contemplated in her higher or lower phases has
the same cadence, harmony, symmetry and sympathy, whether
exemplified in a sand grain or a world, and in the beyond a Pro
vidence exemplified in the laws of being, not supernatural although
supersensual.

In philosophy the perceptive and conceptive constitute unity.
Science defines her atom as " definite masses of matter," which
in conception are inconceivable, to perception impossible. If
there be such existing quantities the same providence attends them
as masses of worlds or systems of suns, for sun hangs to sun as
particle hangs to particle. The physicist imagines his unit whilst
a sun or a planet is that of an astronomer, but to the philosopher,
who superadds all, it is the unit of life ; indifferent to him whether
called into being at a word or whether all we know and see are
the accumulations of progressive impulses. 1 The all to him is
but the reflex of the originating thought and the conclusion to be
drawn is that the religion of man is the idealization of nature as
it is also the confession of essence.

The divinity of the cause is an existing fact in the minds of
most men, 3 but when they think outside the orthodox formula, 3

1 " The ancient mythologies seem throughout, rather to have embraced the idea
of generation than that of creation or formation ; and to have thence accounted for
the origin of the universe " (Hume, Nat. Hist. Kel. 29). " Epicurus, on being told
chaos first arose, answered his tutor, And chaos whence 9 "

3 " The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good being,
arises from reflecting upon the operations of our own mind, and augmenting those
qualities of goodness and wisdom, without bound or limit " (Hume, vol. ii,
p. 25).

3 "The only point in theology in which we shall find a consent of mankind almost

Pantheism and Atheism. 1 1 1

and find in nature an exemplification of this divinity of the cause,
they are accused of Pantheism. Pantheism when analysed is
providence dressed in mythic elements, making the thought which
called the universe into being objective 1 an idealization of
wisdom and power. This idealization, when expressed as a senti
ment, is the basis of Religion. Spinoza, a Pantheist and an Atheist ! 2
Surely the terms are not synonymous. The Theism of Spinoza
. is the spiritual identification of God in all things, not His per
sonal existence in them. Who, acknowledging a God, will deny
that God, or the ideal essence representing God, is not present
in all things by His law ? All ideas of God are individual con
ceptions. Practically (if a cause be acknowledged) God is every
where existing in His own essence, and by His law existing in all
things, yet it does not follow that all things are identifications of
God, only that they exist by His ordinance. Such I understand
are the teachings of Spinoza. 3

universal, is, that there i-s invisible intelligent power in the world " (Hume, Nat.
Hist. Rel., p. 25).

1 The Greeks were not content, when expressing the provident care of the gods,
with investing each grove, stream, mountain, dale, river, fountain, &lt;fec., with its
attendant demon ; they also concluded that man was surrounded by an unseen world of
supernatural beings. Not only the things of earth had their typical deities Earth,
Air, Fire, Winds, the Moon, the Sun, but the fruits of the earth, the flowers and
the corn. One god folded the blade, ere the beard emerged, others tended the joints
of the stalks, opened the ear, and conducted it to maturity; presided over the crop and
the garnering. Even the organism was cared for, the foetus and birth were attended
by gods. The infant took no nutriment but a god was present ; over each internal
function a god presided. The bones were knit, to stand and walk, the careful god
was by to prevent a fall ; no incident in life but had its attending care-taker.
The virtues were under supervision, and the manifestations of intelligence Comedy,
Tragedy, Song, music and dancing. The discipline of right and wrong ; household
and domestic all airs had their Penates and Lare.*. Each human being had his two
attendants, gods or genii ; the one exciting to good, the other to evil. Night, sleep,
death, became gods. This mythic Pantheism contained 30,000 gods or presiding
deities. The original idea in its intuition, however perverted or degenerated, was
the expression of a sense of Providence, a peopling of the unseen and unknown, by
care-taking spirits. Plato held that all this arose through the perversity of man,
through which, the one God delegated to Jupiter and inferior deities the care of man.
All old world myths and newer superstitions are the outbursts of the same mythic
elements (Fide Fiends, Ghosts, Spirits, J. N. Radcliffe, pp. 12, 19).

8 Dean Stanley, in his address to the students at Aberdeen (1877), said : " When we
look over the annals of ecclesiastical history we shall often find it is not within the
close ranks of the so-called orthodox but from the outlying camp of ttie so-called
heretic or infidel that the champions of the true faith have come." " It is not by the
light of the orthodox, but to the aspirations of the excommunicated Spinoza was
vouchsafed the clearest glimpse into the nature of Deity."

3 Victor Cousin, speaking of Spinoza, says : " For him, God the self-existent
being, the Eternal, the Infinite, too much crushes the finite and relative humanity
in short, he is so filled with the sentiment of God, that he loses therein the sentiment
of man." " The Ethica is a mystical hymn, an aspiration, a sigh of the soul raised
to Him who alone can rightfully say, I am that I am . . . . adoring the eternal for
ever; face to lace with the Infinite, he disdained this transitory world," and "knew
neither pleasure, nor action, nor glory." " Spinoza is an Indian Moni, a Persian

H2 Postulation of a God.

The mind postulates God, and the proof adduced is the uni
versally intense desire exhibited by man to ally himself to a
something beyond the sphere of his own being. Probably there
are professions of atheism, but was its fact ever realized in any
mind ? Creeds become harmful only when it is assumed their
-particular formula is alone the truth, as if truth were not universal.
The idea of God cannot be limited to one or within a thousand
conceptions, and it is a treason against the dearest privileges of
humanity and an impiety to say that man shall not in his own
conception of truth symbolize his own ideal ; there never was a
thought formed of Deity but contained its own good. There
was more of religion in the rejection by Servetus of the dogma of
the double procession, than in the gloomy Calvin who caused him
to be burnt to death for his rejection of it.

The Stoics built their ideas of the reality of life on the moral
sentiments, virtue, and wisdom, and esteemed all who were with
out the pale of their particular teachings to be fools. They
painted the shortcomings and depravity of man as the orthodox
do. They rejoiced in " the birthday of eternity " as a deliverance
from the bondage of the flesh and as an entrance into " the great
eternal peace." Is this often reiterated depravity of man an
inherent principle of his nature ? or does it exist through the social
distinctions instituted by man? 1 It is a grave question, and
before we deny God s higher creation, mind, as a spiritual truth,
it were well first to reflect upon the true nature of an Infinite
intelligence, and secondly, to inquire whether this Infinitude, which
must in itself be perfected purity, as containing within itself
every excellence, could be reflected in an innately depraved
formation. 2 This dogma of the innate depravity of man, if

Sufi, an enthusiastic monk. The author whom this so-called atheist most resembles
is the unknown author of the Imitation of Jesus Christ. "

1 If Canon Farrar succeeds in banishing Hell from dogmatic theology, however
opposed his idea may be to the tenets of the Anglican Church, he will do much to
eradicate from the mind the element of fear, and lead the devotee to a higher appre
ciation of the divine wisdom

2 If the hypothesis be true that man (as an organism) is descended from some
vertebrated form (all biologists appear to be of this opinion) it becomes an absurdity
to suppose that in his origination man was mentally perfect; the organism being of
progressive development, it is probable the mind also was progressively developed.
This at least we know, mind progresses through culture. Adam in Eden may be a
type of what mun should be. The animal antecedent of man disproves all ideas of
intellectual perfection, and therefore of his fall from this high position. The In pothesis
being accepted, it is a higher aspiration to suppose that man by culture must make
his own future, than to assume he was arbitrarily degraded from an exalted position,
and by a faith in postulates unproved, has to redeem his lost state. The former
position presents God in a beneficent aspect ; in the latter the position is reversed,
and God would be a capricious divinity inflicting degradation and pain on man ;
creating and authorizing evils for no apparent end. God as the author of nature

The Kinship of Humanity ! 113

answered affirmatively becomes the denial of the fact of God.
We are told morality can only spring from Religion ; in one
sense this is true, for all moral philosophy springs from senti
ment, as representing a mental condition.

If the history of theologies be true, theoretically, moral truth is
the fact of all, practically of none. Apostates from established
faiths in all ages of the world, however eminent for moral
conduct, have been esteemed Atheists, and therefore criminals.
The philosophical Socrates died because his thought was in
advance of his age ; he acknowledged the existence of a supreme
Deity. Such is the peculiarity of human thought, that frequently
first comes execration, and then adoption. In Christian ceremonials
are found Pagan rites and in theological tenets Pagan philo
sophies. The sedition of the populace of Alexandria led to the
worship of the " Mother of God." The superstitious people saw
only the reinstitution of the worship of Isis, but slowly it
became a supreme object in catholic thought. The reality of
thought is framed in the mind. Turn the page of life wherever
we may, in the kinship of humanity we find the self. Thought
treats of homogeneous man, and, mindful of his dual nature,
asserts the spiritual entity. He may be connoted with the clod,
but not the less within is the ethereal mind. The inorganic and
the organic had but one origin ; there is but one ultimate. A
thousand years ago John of Erigena and Avicenna, 1 and later

sends neither pains nor degradations. The miseries of humanity arise from social
distinctions and the neglect of nature s teachings, which, by hereditary transmis
sion have grown into miseries and pains. In animal races creature preys on crea
ture by nature s ordinances. This is adduced as proof by the opponents of the idea
of a provident God, that there is no Providence, and if there be a God, he is merci
less and cruel ! Livingstone, when under the paws of the lion, as he supposed
without possibility of rescue, says, " He caught me by the shoulder .... Growl
ing horribly, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor
similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first gripe of the cat. It
caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of
terror, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what
patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe ; they see the operation
but do not feel the knife." (South Africa, Livingstone, 1875 ed., p, 11.)

1 Uberweg says Averroes interpreted the doctrine of Aristotle, " respecting the
active and passive intellect, in a sense which is nearly pantheistic and excludes the
idea of individual immortality. He admits the existence of only one active intel
lect and affirms it belongs in common to the whole human race; that it becomes
temporarily particularised in individuals, but that each of its emanations becomes
finally absorbed in the original whole, in which alone, therefore, they possess immor
tality. Averroes did not himself identify the universal mind with the Deity himself,
but conceived it as an emanation from Deity and a movement of the lowest of
the celestial circles.

Al Gazzali (1010) the Mahommedan has a more beautiful theory. " God created
the spirit of man from a drop of His own light, its destiny is to return to Him. Do
not deceive yourselves with a vain imagination that it will return to Him as it left
Him. "When the body dies, the form you had on your entrance into the world and

114 Character.

Giordano Bruno taught this truth, and they repeated the philo
sophy of an older time : in all eras the record was true in nature :
Man, the central link in which phenomena and essence culmi
nate ; by his perceptions he is linked with the things of sense, in
his conception of ideal truth he soars to his God.
The poet Spenser says :

"For of the soul, the body form doth take,
For soul is form and doth the body make."

All are threads in the loom of time. We live in our insights,
but the world we mingle with is not the world we think. In
solitude man has revelations which, in the ascension of being, he
will carry with him. Character is a force by which others are
guided a moral order ; thus men of character become the con
science of the society to which they belong. The unthinking,
will have a principle personified. When the desire was to have
gods, whole generations were heaped into one person, combining
in one hero the conception of a Cycle, thus heroic idols were
obtained, a Romulus or a Numa (vide Michelefs Ro?nan Repub).
In these historic fictions eventually were centred the faith of the
people the human merging in the divine.

We perceive through sensation, but when sensation is trans
lated in consciousness symbols by collation become perceptions.
We can know by collective evidences ; we do not attempt to pass
through a barrier which experience has shown to be impassable.
If we passively accept the position, then we are acting through
our perceptions. If we would know the reason of the obstruc
tion we must define. In defining another principle is disclosed
Mind, and we arrive at an abstraction. There can be memory
and comparison in perception, but these are its highest functions.
Instinct in itself is sufficient for every purpose of life. It is
objected that instinct has no choice. Were this true it applies
equally to judgment, the guidance directing an impulse is always
selective, arising from what and how it may. If intelligence be
restricted to ideas and abstractions there are none in instinct.
All the complicated variations of instinct may be resolved into
sensation, experience, comparison, memory, and consequently
will, and we have the range of animal possibilities. When we
speak of mind, we speak of ideas. It is doubtful whether these

your present form are not the same, hence there is no necessity of your perishing on
account of the perishing of your body. Your spirit came to this world as a stranger;
it is only sojourning in a temporary home. From the trials and tempests ot this
troublesome life our refuge is in God. In reunion with Him we shall find eternal
rest, a rest without sorrow, a joy without pain, a strength without infirmity, -A
knowledge without doubt, and light and glory the sources from which we came."
(Conflict of Religion anil Science. Draper.)

Animal Immortality.

ideas have relation to sensation as their primal condition. Ideas
and memory of experiences in relation to instinct (leaving out at
present all notions of " the heredity " of descent) have a different
origin from mental ideas and spring from a different source^
Ideas are thoughts, as contradistinguished from sensations. The
faculties of instinct exist with the mind, but are never transposed,
although doubtless there is a blending of perception with concep
tion, as a fact of consciousness. Instinct is a property or principle
of organic animal life ; hence we have organic or instinctive
man ; we have also conceptive or mental man. Instinct never
originates, mind does. As the subject has been treated in the
books, these distinctive faculties have rarely been defined and
separated. The hypothesis has been, that the instinctive faculty
of the animal and the mental faculty by which man is distin
guished are one, and thereby has arisen the confusion so generally
met with.

If it were possible to form a mechanical theory of mind, it
must be grounded on the distinctive faculties of the cerebrum
and the cerebellum. Phrenology makes this distinction. The
assumption on which the Science is founded presents the brain as
an instrument of many keys, the pulpy matter of the brain
acting as a tympanum, or rather as a mirror, in which all objects,
sensations and thoughts are reflected, the players on the keys,,
phrenologists term organs. They place the organs of sensation
in the lower brain (the cerebellum), those of mind in the other
hemispheres (the cerebrum), the cineritious matter serving as the
connecting link of organ with organ.

Tyndall, in the Belfast address (Times report) , says : that
" Bishop Butler was forced to admit the immortality of animals.
I fail to find the proof in . The Analogy, the observa
tions on the subject being wholly inferential. 1 In Ecclesiastes 3

1 The Bishop was arguing that death did not involve the dissolution and destruc
tion of the organs of perception and motion, lie says the argument does not lead
us to suppose " the dissolution or destruction of living agents, " but it is said
these observations are equally applicable to brutes, and it is thought an insuperable
difficulty that they should be immortal, and by consequence capable of everlasting
happiness; but " suppose the invidious thing designed in such a manner of expres
sion, as it is not in the least, in the natural immortality of brutes; viz., that they
must arrive at great attainments and become rational and moral agents ; even this
would be no difficulty, since we know not what latent powers and capacities
they may be endued with. There was once, prior to experience, as great a pre
sumption against human creatures, as there is against the brute creatures, arriving
at that degre of understanding which we have in mature age." (Analogy, p. 25,
Ox. Univ., pr. ed., 1859).

2 c&lt; Yea they have all one breath, so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast "
(ch. iii. v. 19). " Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward.-:, and the spirit of
the beast that goeth downwards into the earth (ifi. v. ?h. "Then shall the

1 1 6 Sensation.

there is some ground for such an assumption, yet if an immortality
for the beast is inferred, it appears to be transfused into that of man,
and only through the immortality of man is the beast immortal.

Animals have a system of nerves or a conducting apparatus by
which sensation, motion, and will are transmitted, having their
impact in the axial cord, of which the cerebellum is one termina
tion and the medulla spinalis the other here the nerves
ramify and by a minutely arranged network appear finally to be
lost in the muscles and tissues. 1 The organ of touch is spread
throughout the skin and consists of nerves to receive the impres
sion of bodies capable of resistance. 3 The encephalon (the brain
as a whole) is the great organ of nervous power, receiving sensa
tion and transmitting the fiats of will, yet " not one nerve of
the body has its centre of innervation in the cerebrum or cere
bellum." 3 The cerebral hemispheres are credited with the pro
perties of sensation, the cerebellum with the property of muscular
co-ordination, the spinal cord with the property of reflexion "
(Lewes, Phy. Bas. of Mind, p. 159). The cerebellum is connected
with the cerebrum by the pons varolii, by the pyramids, and
diverging radii.

Instances are on record of children being born without the

dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it "
(i 6. xii. v. 7).

1 " By the various efforts of our sensations to acquire or avoid objects many
muscles are brought into successive or synchronous action ; these become associated
by habit and are then excited together, and . . . , gain indissoluble connections."
So the motions of the viscera become conjoined by habit, i.e. by sensitive associa
tion ( Zuonomia, vol. i, p. (S3).

2 The nervous tissues assume three forms. 1st. The nerves are bundles of fibres
and fibrils enclosed in a membraneous sheath. 2nd. Ganglia, bundles of fibrils
and fibres, sometimes with and sometimes without a sheath. 3rd. Centres
serving as points of union for different organs. In the invertebrata the neural axis
is the chain of ganglionic masses running along the under side (ventral) giving off
nerves to the organs of sense and muscles. In the vertebrata the axis runs aloug
the back (dorsal), called the spinal axis. Some of the nerves run into it
from surface or sense organs (afferent or sensory) ; others pass out of it to the
glands and muscles (efferent or motory). There are also commissural fibres, and a
chain of ganglia and nerves known as the sympathetic, held to be devoted to the vis
cera and blood-vessels (vide Lewes, Phy. lias, of Mind}.

3 When the cerebral hemispheres are artistically removed from a reptile or bird
(frog and pigeon) the rital functions continue ; they eat, drink, sleep, move their
limbs separately and in combination, and are sensible to light and touch. The bird
will thrust its head under its wing, fly if thrown into the air, avoid obstacles, and
alight on an object, eat and drink if food be administered, and when the food
touches the back of the mouth, swallow. There is a loss of the power of com
bining present states and feelings formerly in conjunction, a loss of spontaneity
and the conspicuous phenomena assigned to intelligence. The sexual feeling appears
to be preserved but without the power of gratification. If the cerebellum be also
removed combined movements cannot be effected. Flight is impossible and walking
a stagger. If the cerebellum alone be removed, all the perceptions and almost all
the emotions, all the spontaneity and vitality are retained but the sexual instinct is
gone. (Lewes, ib., p. 162).

Nerve Conduction. 117

cerebrum ; they lived for days and weeks there was no apparent
consciousness, but sensation must have existed, for they sucked
and performed other functional offices (Lawrence). Bell thrust
his finger into the pulpy mass of the cerebrum ; the patient felt
no pain, nor was there sensation, excepting at the edge of the
outer integument, but consciousness existed. In the face of
these facts it is idle to talk of mixed functions, will, memory,
and comparison obliterated, motion alone exhibiting sensation
and the functions of life. It follows that the two brains,
and the medulla oblongata and the spinal cord, have separate
offices, which co-ordinated make the organism what it is ; the
unity of action resulting from the harmonious relation of all its
parts. The inherent principles and the progression of organic
existences consist in variations from the ovum or plasma through
a gradation of forms until thinking man is reached, each vari
ation possessing those functions, whether organic, instinctive,
or mental, exactly suited to its place in the Kosmos. The
invariable sequence and the particular adaptations refute all ideas
of accidental interposition and the hypothesis that matter of its
own motion is sufficient for all creative purposes.

Brougham said (Dialogues on Instinct) : " The sceptical or free-
thinking philosophers always lowered human nature as much as
possible. They regarded it as something gained to their argu
ments against religious belief, if they could show the difference to
be slighter than is supposed between man and brutes ; " they appear
to aim at the constitution of the universe without the " hypothesis
of Deity. And that " Active memory and conception is im
plied in comparison, and that the animal possesses abstraction,"
and concludes, " that the animal mind and that of man are only
differences in degree."

Sensation acts on the efferent nerves. Ideas, which become
abstractions, are excited independently of sensation ; although
they convey the fiats of will by the efferent nerves, they are im
pressed on the consciousness without the aid of external images,
and of themselves symbolize themselves. There is paralysis, where
consciousness, thought and life exist, but sensation has ceased.
If consciousness were a fact of sensation, consciousness were not
exhibited without it. The same remark is applicable to intel
ligence. An existing consciousness without sensation appears to
subvert the automatic hypothesis, for if they be not resulting
facts each may exist independently of the other. The facts of
instinct are all resolvable into sense expressions and sense expe
riences, as creatures banding together for the purpose of hunting,
appointing sentinels, &c., the power of construction, whether

1 1 8 Animal Prevision.

of the insect or the animal, even the remarkable fact of the
seeming prevision of depositing food for a progeny it will never
see, as with the ichneumon fly, carpenter bee, wasp, &c. There are
a few instincts which may be difficult to explain, and do not find
their explanation in the distinction between " simple and compo
site faculties." If experience, " heredity," memory, and tribal
transmission do not explain them, they must result from an
innate potence : they cannot be assumed to be reasoned con
clusions. There may be also an rror in the observer or re
porter. The wasp (cerceris cupresticidd), paralysing the beetle
that there may be living food for its larva, is stated on the autho
rity of Lubbock. The ant architect is reported by Huber, the
ants rolling themselves into balls, and floating on the floods ;
those spoken of by Livingstone, who built their nests on reeds
above the flood mark ; the driver ant, forming ladders of their
own bodies that the others might ascend ; the ants in Ceylon
passing from branch to branch over bridges of their bodies formed
by a double section, some leaving the main body and ascending to
the opposite point, and there forming the half-link of the bridge,
over which the others pass. The ring- tailed monkeys of Texas
are said to pass rivers in a similar manner ; linking themselves
together by forearm and tail, they hang in a string suspended
from a tree carefully selected, by an oscillation imparted to the
whole group, a swinging motion is produced, and eventually a
tree on the opposite bank is reached, and a bridge formed, over
which they pass, and, as with the ants, the first link leaves its
hold of the tree and ascends the suspended string, followed by
its fellows, until all have passed.

At Dublin (British Association^ 1878), Lubbock made some
interesting remarks on ants whose habits he had observed, having
collected thirty species, which he had in captivity. In England
there are thirty species out of seven hundred which comprise the
family. The ants are hunters, pastorals, and agriculturists.
The first lived chiefly by the chase, hunted alone, and their
battles were single combats ; the second domesticated certain
species of aphides, which they kept and tended, acting in concert;
of the third he could not speak. He confirmed the statements
which had been made as to their architectural skill, and had
observed their attention to their young and the institution of
slavery, and that other insects lived with them (according to
Andre, 583 species) ; in some cases the association was accidental.
He had not observed that varieties lived together, except there
were slaves. The sanguinea and fusca he mentioned ; the latter
did the domestic work and foraged, but appeared free to come

Animal Instincts. 119

and go. One species he noticed would starve had they not slaves
to feed them. They were kind to their friends, and recognised
them after long absence ; strangers were enemies them they
killed. He found no traces of warm affection, although when one
had fed it would fetch others to share the banquet. They were
capable of distinguishing colours, violet they avoided. Their sense
of touch was delicate, but he had not observed they distinguished
sounds, and could not say whether there was any difference of
character in the same species, but there was in the habits of the
different species. He seems to be of opinion that workers as well
as queens produced eggs, as he had found them in habitations
where there were no queens. The Texan ant (Atta malefaciens)
(communicated to Darwin by Dr. Lincecum, and by him to the
Linnean Society, 1861). According to him they prepare the
ground, sow, reap, store the grain and expose it to the air to dry.
(Homes without Hands, p. 370.) These are difficult questions, 1
and yet may be brought within the purview of the perceptive
faculties, joined with " heredity" of descent, which in fact is the
transmission of ancestral experiences, culminating in an individual
species. On the attributes of the various species of dogs the great
argument of the hereditary transmission of instinct is founded.
The attachment of a dog to his master is a sensory impulse.

Instinct has combinations and contrivances which approach
abstraction, but never become it, the peculiarity being that the
particular instinct is not that of an individual but of the whole species.
In the animal world the dog, the elephant, the horse, and the
monkey, make the nearest approach to what may be termed
reason, as the setter bringing the wounded duck across the
river, and returning for the dead one, the monkey that had
sugar given it wrapped in paper : on an occasion a wasp was in
serted, and the creature was stung ; from thenceforth, when any
thing was given it wrapped in paper, after shaking the parcel and
placing it near its ear, if no motions were observed it was opened,
but if there was movement within, it was flung away. Elephants
used as decoys, &c. The horse which had lost its shoe going to the

1 H. S. McCook calls this ant Myrmica malefaciens. He presented to the
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, a memoir on their habits, in which he
confirms the observations of Dr. Lincecum , except as to the planting ; to that he says,
"they seem most fond of the grass Anstiila stricta, and it even seems possible they
sow this lor themselves." Although he will not commit himself to this fact, he
says "the ants proved true harvesters. The seeds were carried into granaries
through central gates, they were shelled, and the husks carried out and deposited in
refuse heaps." Prof. Leidy said he had studied an allied species ( M. occidentali,)
in the Rocky Mountains, whose habits were like those described by McCook, but in
addition they fostered a fine large coccus for its saccharine production (vide Nat.,
;vol. xvii, p. 433).

I2O Man alone the Fire Raiser.

farrier to have it replaced. , The sparrows assembling when the
school children were leaving, whose habit was to throw them
crumbs, but which did not appear on Sundays when there was
no school, is noticed by Carpenter. An analogous fact may be
observed by any feeder of poultry; not a bird is to be seen, but no
sooner does the distributor of the grain arrive than the adjoining
fences and trees become lined with them. There are cases where
instinct appears to approach abstraction, but in these cases, what
ever the peculiarity, it is always tribal, therefore inherited, all
approaches to reason being the collective experiences of the
species. If one ant had formulated a thought which had been
adopted by the others, it were purely a mental fact, as contradis
tinguished from instinct, but not so when generalised throughout
the species wherever found and hereditarily transmitted. Each
genus of ants appears to be invested with some peculiarity confined
to the species. The facts of mind are individual conceptions,
not the characteristics of particular races of men. The increase of
the power of the mind by means of culture appears to be con
fined to man, and it is often found that some individuals possess
greater natural powers than those with whom they are associated,
but this is not hereditarily transmitted, nor does it become the
peculiar characteristic of a family. In uncultured races the mental
power is limited, because the ideas are limited. Instances are
recorded of individual members of savage tribes attaining to high
culture, (the singularity being that in most of the recorded in
stances the individual has forsaken civilization and resumed the
tribal habits). This shows the mental capacity is common to the
races of man, but when it appears in a higher ratio than usual it
is an individual and not a class distinction. No animal has yet
been discovered using fire for any purpose. Monkeys will sur
round a fire which has been left in the woods, but never place on
the flame a stick. To connect the fuel with the warmth is
an abstraction they have not reached, but if the animal instinct
and the reason of man were the same, man would not be the only
fire user. 1 Back in the boulder c\ay (Paleolithic epoch] charred bones
and sticks were discovered by Skertchly and Geikie, near Brandon,
in Suffolk.

I Ingenious theories have been formed as 1o the discovery by man of the use of
fire. The most probable appears the finding some edible root in the vicinity of a
lava stream. Humboldt states twenty years after the eruption of Torullo, shavings
could be ignited in the fissures (Hornitoes). Heated stones in holes covered with
earth is the cooking apparatus of many primitive tribes, and none have been dis
covered who do not possess artificial means of procuring fire. Its production at
will was of importance, and doubtless exercised the early intelligence. Their usual
mode of producing it is by hand-friction ; the drill and turning string was a far-oa
intellectual advance.

Huxley on Instinct. 12 1

Huxley says : " No one can doubt that the rudiments and out
lines of our mental phenomena are traceable among the lower
animals" (Uses of Biology}. Here we face the real question.
If the human mind be merely perceptive energy, then it is instinct.
If the only line of demarcation were the power to draw (/.)
there were no distinction between animal instincts and mental
processes. 1 The spider makes a geometrical web, the stays short
ened or lengthened in accordance with the coming weather.
The spider s web and the bee s cell, &c., are merely illustrative of
a constructive power to delineate figures an animal instinct. The
power of abstraction appears to be an innate mental characteristic.
If we follow historical records there is no time known when
man had not this power. If we take as an illustration astrono
mical data for thousands of years before the Christian era this
power of abstraction was exercised ; the discovery of the cycle
of the equinoxes is a grand illustration. If it be traced for a
period of 25,000 years where are we to assign a limit ? The split
flints fashioned as arrow and spear heads imply their hafting, the
perforated bone needle shows an adaptation to a use ; the shaping,
the hafting, and perforation, arise from an abstraction and beyond,
as mental characteristics, we have the sentiments these no animal
possesses ; they exhibit emotions emotions are instinctive dis
plays ; sentiments, abstract facts of mind, and beyond there is con
science, 2 the guiding rule of man with man ; it has neither rudiment
nor outline in any instinctive propensity, and further, it may be said
to be an abstraction, not traceable to any perceptive instinct, nor
to any mental conception, an inherited characteristic belonging to
the races of man, in principle the same, but varied by conditions.
To instinctive perception the sun is but an increment of heat, the

1 The activity of causation "produces the great difference between the human
and the brute creation. The ideas and actions of brutes are perpetually employed
about present pleasures or their present pains .... They seldom busy themselves
about the means of procuring future bliss or of avoiding future misery." (Zoonomia,.
i, p. 75).

2 Dag aid Stewart says : " Conscience although beautifully described by many of
the ancient moralists, was not sufficiently attended to by modern writers as a
fundamental principle in the science of ethics till the time of Dr. Butler." He is
spoken of as the first discoverer of the great principle, but no one can be said to
discover that of which all are conscious ; he was the first who made it the subject of a
full comment. Butler says, it is the principle " by which we survey and either approve
or disapprove our own conduct &c., . . from its very nature claiming superiority over
all other modes ; insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience,

without taking in judgment, direction and superintendency Had it strength, as

it has right, had it power, as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the
world." Chalmers says : " This theology of conscience has been greatly obscured but
never in any country or at any period in the history of the world has it been wholly
obliterated. We behold the vestiges of it in the simple theology of the desert; and
perhaps more distinctly there than in the complex superstitions of an artificial and
civilized heathenism " (Brid. Treat., p. 78.)

122 Instinct and Mind.

stars points of light, the moonlight a dimmer day, but in
abstraction, the sun is the centre of the planetary system and the
intercommunion of star with star is attained. The power of
communicating by cries or touch is a sense expression. We do
not think in words, yet the power of expressing ideas in words is
another feature of mental man. But for the grand distinctions
between intellect and instinct man would not have condensed
his individual experiences and added to them those of others, and
could never have advanced beyond the highest instinctive combi
nations. 1 If the records of the instinctive faculty be true the
highest achievements are found with the araneida;. The water
and trap-door spiders have contrivances outreaching the structural
capacity of any creature below man.

In the distinction between instinct and intellect and its crown
ing conscience is found the dual nature of man. With the
animal world he has organic utility and instinctive faculties ; were
this all there were no distinction between animal and man. In the
beyond is the mind in its individualised potence, unmistakably
drawing the distinction between individualised thought and tribal
instinctives. 2 The immortality of animals is probably a perpetual

1 Galen says : " To man is given, in lieu of every other natural weapon or organ of
defence, that instrument, the hand, an instrument applicable to every art and every
occasion .... man therefore wants not hoof or horn or any other natural weapon,
inasmuch as he is ahle with the hand .... to grasp the sword or spear " (lib.
i,c.JJ).

Ray says : *" Some animals have horns some have hoofs, some teeth, some talons,
some claws, some spurs and beaks ; man hath none of all these, but weak and
feeble and unarmed came into the world Why ? a hand, with reason to use it,
supplies the use of all these."

2 Marshall Hall, on the hypothesis of Unzer and Prochaska, founded his idea of
reflex nervous action which Carpenter extended to the phenomena of intelligence
as well as to those of muscular contraction. The idea was first directed to the
instincts, or it might be said to the seeming prevision of insects, which were held
to be the automatic results of reflex impulses, or, as Unzer says, " laws written
upon the nervous pulp;" in other words, the nervous system of the insect is so
adjusted as to react on its accustomed surroundings. Does it follow that a manifest
design in an action, of necessity implies design in the actor ? To Carpenter is given
the credit of recognising that by a fundamental principle nervous activity produces
in response to nervous stimuli, sensations and ideas. This system was that held by-
Erasmus Darwin nearly one hundred years ago, and discussed in his work Zoo-
nomia He does not limit the hypothesis to animals only, but extends it to man ;
it is the very principle on which he bases his theories of disease. He attributes
emotions and ideas to pleasure and pain as their roots. The distinction between
instinct and mind is that in the latter there is a power to determine the succession
of ideas and detain any of them before the consciousness ; to make them the guides
of conduct and to combat opposing ideas. Instincts appear to have no such power
of control. This great difference consists in the power of volition in the mind
which is wanting in instinct, unless directed to a natural want. Cuvicr said that
the lower animals were experiments prepared for the elucidation of psychological
problems ; in so far as mind, like the organism, is an initiative development,
Cuvier s saying has force. There is nothing tentative, but throughout a purpose-
ness pursued through uses to a given end.

Animals act by Sense Experiences. 123

metempsychosis of the tribal distinction, in man of a continuing
unity.

In the actions of animals there sometimes appears to be a
balancing of probabilities. 1 A careful examination shows the animal
&lt;loes or abstains from doing only by sense experiences and
mechanical adaptations. 3 Animals and birds have the brain sub
stance, insects and fishes something tantamount to it, which to
them, as to man, is the mirror of impressions or organ of conscious
ness. 3 It could not be otherwise if the doctrine of progression
be true. The illustrations of Darwin and others afford no room
to doubt the principles upon which the theory is based. 4

1 Erasmus Darwin says he saw a wasp catch a fly nearly as large as itself, and
separate the head and tail from the body to which the wings were attached ; seizing
the body it rose. A breeze blowing caught the fly s wings and turned the wasp round ;
it settled on the ground. " 1 then distinctly observed him cut off with his mouth
first one of the wings and then the other," and with the trunk flew away.
(Zoonomia, i, p. 203.)

2 It is suggested, evidently by a careful observer, that the bee makes its cell a
cylinder, as the silkworm does its cocoon and the burrower its hole, as shown by the
outer cells, which are always semi-cylindrical where there has been no pressure from
the inside. It a bee worked alone its cell would be cylindrical. Another instinct of
bees, is to swarm and crowd together. They work at their cells side by side, and
every bee working at its cylinder is surrounded by six others. Place a coin
on a table, and put around it as many similar coins as will exactly touch each
other and the central one; thereby is shown the geometrical law which produces
the hexagonal form of the cell. Each bee is pressed upon by six others, thus
the interstitial curves of the cylinders get squeezed out as they are made ;
through the mutual pressure every cylnder becomes a hexagon. The same
cause produces the peculiar prismatic form at the bottom of each cell. The work
is thus mechanical, in the same way as a horse pegged to a centre on being driven
describes a circle. Rev. C. Lacy. Grave objections have been advanced against
this explanation.

In the same way the polypi work in concert to produce Neptune s cup. A par
ticular form Is produced by the tribal instinct. The bees it is said solve the most
intricate of mathematical problems, viz. the figure which affords the greatest-
space with the greatest economy of material. There have been many ingenious
explanations to account for the symmetry of the bee s cell (vide Homes without
Hands). The idea of the cylinder becoming a hexagon by pressure has been before
suggested, but the result, so far as I know, has never been so simply explained, as
above. There are many cases of seeming prevision which defy so simple an analysis.

3 " It is affirmed, and not without the support of a most curious series of observa
tions, that the human brain in its earlier stage resembles that of a fish ; as it is
developed it resembles more the cerebral mass of the reptile ; in its increase it is
that of a bird ; and slowly and only after birth does it assume the proper form and
consistence of the human encephalon .... in these changes .... we nowhere
see the influence of the elements or other cause than that predestined .... If
.... we take the lowest link and look to the metamorphoses of insects the con
clusion will be the same." (Hell, Erid. Treat., p. 147).

4 Canon Kingsley said ; " To denounce Mr. Darwin s theory of evolution as an
atheistic theory (whatever uses may be made of it b) some of its advocates) is at
once a crime and a mistake." " I agree with Dr. Asa Grey, in his admirable pamphlet
on Darwin, that the tendency of physical science is not towards the omnipotence of
matter, but the omnipotence of spirit ; and I am inclined to regard the development
of an ovum according to kind as the result of a strictly immaterial and spiritual
agency " (Kingsley s Life and Letters ). The continual assault from the pulpit

1 24 The Physical Mind.

Tyndall says : " When we ponder it is the brain that thinks."
The brain is the organ of consciousness, by which impressions of
sensation and thought are transmitted ; did the brain think,
thought were merely a material presentment. That the brain is
a mere vehicle for the exhibition of effects is shown in that its
action accords with the respiratory and pulsatory movements, or
as Giacomini and Masso call them, " Pulsations, occultations, and
undulations/ (vide note I, p. 44).

Tyndall continues :

&lt;c It is by a kind of inspiration we rise from the wise and sedulous contempla
tion of facts to the principles on which they depend." " Newton pondered on
all things." " He could look into the darkest object until it became entirely
luminous ; how light arises we cannot explain, but as a matter of fact it does
arise." "Newton marshalled his thoughts, or rather they came to him, whilst
he intended, his mind rising like a series of intellectual births out of chaos
(Mirac. and Spec. Prov. Frag. Science, fth edition).

With such contradiction we cannot wonder at his exclamation,
" Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and
philosopher one and all !" (Frag. Science, 5th edition, p. 421).

In " the new school of philosophy" we do not find that a
sentiment 1 is an expression of mind, but that mind itself is non
existent, except as it exists as a physical consequent (see Bain,
Mind and Body], thus sentiment becomes emotion.

The modulations of tone (music) may be an instinctive
power. We find it with birds, but the existing thing (sound)
has no part in instinct. The power to perceive differs from
the thing perceived. Instinct uses that it finds, but does not
define or create. Intellect defines, and may be said to create,
for it constructs implements by which sounds are divided or
condensed. The bird sings by an innate volition. The instincts
feel a noise, the intellect seizes the noise, or rather so marshals
the wave-impulses as to create a harmonious cadence from that
which otherwise might be an undistinguishing clamouring.

" Pythagoras is said to have devised his theory of numbers by

on the Darwinian theory is emphatically denounced by Canon Farrar, who advises
unscientific preachers should at the least inform themselves of the facts of science
before they assume to assail its premisses.

1 " All the moral feelings, Argyll says, are founded on sentiment and nothing but
sentiment;" we may " despise sentimentality " and forget "that sentiment rules
the world." (House of Lords, Feb. 8th, 1877).

Dugald Stewart, in this connection, said : " The word sentiment agreeable to the
use made of the word by our best English writers, expresses, in my own opinion,,
very happily those complex determinations of the mind which result from the
co-operation of our entire rational powers and of our moral feelings, and Mr.
Hume sometimes employs (alter the manner of the French metaphysicians).
sentiment as synonymous with feeling, a use of the word quite unprecedented in
our tongue."

Helmholtz on Sound. 125

accidentally remarking that the hammers at a forge gave out
musical cadences. On investigating the facts he found the sound
was regulated by the weights of the hammers. His tests were
the tension of strings by a weight, whereby he obtained the same
accord j first a tone, then an octave, and so on. On his experiments
he founded his theory, which still holds its place in physics."

Sounds arise from substances in a state of agitation, or vibration. The
rapid changes striking on the interior apparatus of the ear render them
audible. In a second of time it is computed they range from twenty to thirty,
two thousand ; when they occur in regular succession they are the cadences we
term music. An irregular agitation generates noise. Distinctions arise when
the vibrations, or wave motions, occur in regular rotation, and the variations
of these distinct sounds in a given time are notes in music ; e.g. if twice as
many variations in the particular period occur it is said to be an octave above
a tone, and has twice as many vibrations as the tone itself 5 the second octave
has four times as many vibrations, the next eight, each octave doubling itself.
Thus an instrument having seven octaves the highest tone it accomplishes is
one hundred and twenty-eight vibrations in the same time the lowest takes to
make one vibration. A tone of the same number of vibrations has always the
same pitch, however produced. The waves of sound are like the undulations
on the surface of a liquid when its equilibrium is disturbed, occurring as a
succession of circles. Two waves of sound which are similar will destroy each
other, scientifically called " the interference of sound." Thus two tones will
perpetually reinforce or perpetually destroy each other (Helmholtz).

" For attaining to the higher beauty which appeals to the intellect . . both
harmony and disharmony alternately urge and moderate the flow of tones,
while the mind sees in their immaterial motion an image of its own per
petually streaming thoughts and moods, just as in the rolling ocean this
movement, rythmically repeated and yet ever varying, rivets our attention
and hurries us along." " The streams of sound, in primitive vivacity, bear
over into the hearer s soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard
from his own, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty, of
which God has allowed but few of his elect favourites to be heralds" (Helm
holtz, Harmony in Music}.

According to Timaeus, Plato said the soul of the universe was composed of
an admixture of divisible and indivisible essences, so that two together might
be united into one, reuniting two forces, the principles of two kinds of motions,
one, that which is always the same, the other, that which is always changing.
The proportions of the mixtures were according to harmonising numbers, so
that it is possible to know of what and by what rule the soul of the universe
was compounded. Since the ancients conceived of the soul by means of motion,
the quantity of motion developed in anything was the measure of the quantity
of the soul ; the principle was applied to the motion of the heavenly bodies.

In the school of Pythagoras twenty-seven 1 had a mystical significance, and
was considered as the perfect number. One represents the point ; then fwo and
three the first lineal numbers, even and uneven ; then four and nine the first
square and surface numbers, even and uneven ; last eight and twenty-seven, the
first solid and cubic numbers, twenty-seven being the sum of the whole.

The planetary velocities were reckoned in relation to tones ; one tone from
the Earth to the Moon ; half a tone from the Moon to Mercury ; another half
tone to Venus ; a tone and a half from Venus to the Sun ; one from the Sun to
Mars ; a semitone from Mars to Jupiter; half a tone from Jupiter to Saturn,
and a tone and a half from Saturn to the fixed stars. Cicero said, "Such great

126 Huxley a Materialist !

motions cannot take place in silence, and it is natural the two extremes should
have related sounds, as in the octave." Kepler improved on this ; he says r
"Jupiter and Saturn sing base, Mars takes the tenor, Earth and Venus the con
tralto, and Mercury is the Soprano." Pythagoras says, "We are alway s sur
rounded by this melody, and our ears are accustomed to it from our birth ; so
that, having nothing different to compare it with, we cannot perceive it.

When we look for these celestial harmonies in the relative dis
tances of the planets we do not find the rhythm. Stated roundly,
they are as 100, 67, 55, 44, 24, 16, 12, 10. Observation has
shattered the harmony of the divine relation of numbers and tones 5
yet it was a pleasing idealization. Gravitation is a grand dis
turber, and resolves all into true mechanics. The planets with
the sun and moon formerly made the mystic seven. We have
the seven superior angels, the seven gates of Mithra, the seven
worlds of purification of the Hindus, the seven hells of the Ma-
homedan, the Judaic seven angels, and the seven stars of the
Pleiades (one now wanting).

General opinion points . to Huxley as being a materialist. Is
he one ? He says :

" I take it all will admit there is a definite government of this universe, and
that its pleasures and pains are not scattered at random, but are distributed in
accordance with orderly and fixed laws, and it is in accordance with all we
know of the rest of the world, that there should be an agreement between one
portion of sensitive creation and the other" (Lay Sermons), "harmonious order
governing eternally continuous progress, the web and the woof of matter and
force interweaving by slow degrees, without a broken thread, that veil which
lies between us and the Infinite, that universe which we alone know and can
know. Such is the picture which Science draws of the world, and in propor
tion as any part of that picture is in unison with the rest, so may we feel it is
rightly painted" (*.) Helmholtz appears to hold the same opinion. Else
where in the Lay Sermons we read : " The phenomena of life are dependent
on neither physical nor chemical causes, but on vital powers ; yet they result in
all sorts of physical and chemical changes which can only be judged by their
own laws." " Thought is existence, and certainly is to be found in conscious
ness ; this may be conceived to be an idealism, which declares the fact of all
knowledge to be consciousness, in other words, a mental phenomenon, and
therefore affirms the highest of all certainties, and indeed the only absolute
certainty, to be the existence of mind."

Novalis (Frederic von Hardenberg), as interpreted by Carlyle, comes before
us as the most ideal of idealists. " For him the material creation is but an
appearance, a typical shadow in which the Deity manifests Himself to man.
Not only has the unseen world a reality, but it is the only reality, the rest
not being metaphorically but literally and in scientific strictness a show."
tl Sound and smoke overclouding the splendour of heaven." " The invisible
world is near us, or rather is here, in us and above us. Were the fleshy coil
removed from our soul, the glory of the unseen were even now around us, as
the ancients fabled of the spheral music."

The contention of the day is Matter or Intelligence. The first
is continually passing from perception, the latter always existing.

Matter or Intelligence. 127

Viewing the question as one merely of phenomenal effects
on which side is the doctrine of probabilities ? That there is
" a definite government of the Universe 3 shows an antecedent
to objective effects.

Bain says that " thought is at times so quiet . . that we might suppose
it conducted in a region of pure spirit, merely imparting its conclusions
through a material intervention. Unfortunately for this supposition, the fact
is now generally admitted that thought exhausts the nervous substance as
surely as walking exhausts the muscles " (Mind and Body}.

Unquestionably, but what does it prove ? that the body (the
organism) has within it a power which uses the nerves as a
conducting apparatus, and that the passage of its energy wears
its conductors in the same way as the electric energy will fuse a
wire. All energies wear that through which they work : by the spec
tral analysis it is shown the material of the conductors of the fluid
are printed on the spectrum. Heat will dissipate the material
which presents its effects. Can it then be a matter of surprise
that the passage of intellect should wear the conducting media ?
Were it not for the recuperative power of vital action the machine
would wither under the impelling energies. What greater proof of
the dual fact of man can we have ? As man is constituted, cause
and effect are commingled. Does it therefore follow that mind
is a consequent of the material organism ?

Aristotle, according to Bain, speaks of the soul as exercising
command. This, he says, " is a familiar enough mode of pre
senting the relation of the two, but it has no scientific validity.
The power commanding is not pure, but embodied mind."
Whether we speak of soul or mind, as we conceive them, both
are embodied, both are immaterial presentments. If there be a
scientific validity for mind, there may be for soul, certainly, if
the doctrine of evolution be fact. Each exists and is expressed
in the phrase volition. Quoting the professor :

"Aristotle held the nous emanated from a peculiar and select influence of the
celestial body, and its own operations are correspondingly dignified. It
cognizes the abstract and the universal. It has two modes or degrees on which
hang great results. There is, on the one hand, the receptive intellect (intellectus
patiens), and, on the other hand, the constructive or reproductive intellect
(intellectus agens). The first perishes with the body, the second, ths agens, is
intellectual energy in the purest manifestation, separable from the animal body."
"The climax is noiv reached, logical consistency is abandoned, and there is gained
a transcendental starting point for the immaterialism of after ages " 1 (italics mine) .

The Cambridge carrier, when asked if his horse could draw
inferences, replied, " Yes, anything in reason." Men of genius
sometimes have no such gift. The philosophy of Greece was in
existence before the era of Aristotle. Pythagoras, Thales, and

128 Immortality .

others preceded Aristotle ; Socrates and Plato were his contem
poraries. In the sayings of the one and in the writings of the
other there is a clear conception of the immortality of gods
and men. The philosophical lore of Greece, in the main, was
derived from Egyptian sources, and they were of Indian, Baby
lonish, and Phoenician origin. The idea of immortality was rife
in the East in very remote ages, as shown in the Vedas and the
Zendavesta, and is inferred rather than asserted in Judaic
records. Are we to understand the professor ignored his history
for the sake of his hypothesis, or that he undervalues the evidences
adduced as their proofs ? If Max Miiller and those who worked
in the same field have rightly construed their theories, if the
cuneiform inscriptions and Egyptian hieroglyphics stand for any
thing, we must conceive man had a conception of spiritual things,
and a belief in an immortal principle or soul : the fact is intruded
in the earliest historical records.

In verification of the experience of our race through a long
past it is asserted there is no proof of unembodied essence. To
this assertion is opposed the belief held by the human race through
a long succession of ages. 1 There are so-called religious expe
riences, diabolical experiences, witcheries and supernaturalisms,
heroes, gods, and immortalities. Surely that which may be called
the embodied testimony of the human race cannot be futile.
Science declares the evidences of the senses are not true por
traitures. If then the perceptive senses are faulty, where shall
we look for evidences, if we are to reject the almost universal
belief of man ? The material sequences have not the necessary
endurance, they vanish into mist ; the mirage of the tropics and
of the polar regions are phenomena of refraction, and yet appear
real. The telegraph wires to a traveller in motion move up and
down and interlace, yet are stable and fixed. To perception the
mirage is real, the wires move ; conception finds the cause of the
effect. Our mental facts are the accumulated experiences of
all time, and endure wherever culture endures. The testimony
afforded by the universality of the so-called religious sentiment
cannot be doubted, for it has no paid or interested advocates to

1 Some philosophers divide all created beings into material and immaterial; the first
obeying mechanical laws but can begin no motion of itself, the latter being the cause
of all motion. " The immaterial agent is supposed to exist in or with matter, hut
to be quite distinct from it, and to be equally capable of existence after the matter
which now possesses it is decomposed." E. Darwin instances electricity, magnetism,
and says, " From a parity of reasoning, the spirit of animation would appear to be
capable of existing as well separately from the body as with it" (Zoonomia, vol. i,
p. 14T), and believes "with St. Paul and Malebranche, that the ultimate cause only of
all motion is immaterial, that is God." St. Paul "distinguishes between the Psyche
or living spirit, and the Pneunia or reviving spirit," (ib. p. 148).

The Law. 129

vouch for its accuracy, or to thrust it into undesired notice,
for, as is said of the wild Arab, it wars against every creed, and
subsists only in its inherent universality. It is the pertinent fact
of existing man. It has no organized adverse interests busying
to present an adverse class of facts. Lubbock [History of Civili
sation] says, " there is no race of man yet discovered who have
not a belief in the supernatural."

Unless there be some such principle as the religious sentiment,
innate in the conception of man, causation and its consequences,
together with the guiding conscience and the continuity of con
sciousness, wherein must be placed the idea of immortality, con
stitutes but an idle dream of " the mind s own throwing." There
may have been myriads of successive existences, but if we are
unconscious of these antecedents, they are as if they had not been.
It may be possible that the consciousness of immortality may
arise from the shadows of prior existences (the fabled metem
psychosis of the past), but more probably it is a precedent prin
ciple perfected in thought, by what or from whence, who can say ?

" Science discloses the method of the world, but not its
cause," and is but the intellectual representation of the pheno
mena of nature, formulated in the terms of law. When a
phenomenon arises, whose tenor does not accord with precedent
effects, observation and experiment set to work to find the where
fore of the deviation. 1 When the principle is discovered, it is
spoken of as the law governing the facts. Scientifically, laws are
but expressions which denote the harmony of phenomena in
accord with natural principles, which when disclosed appear to
marshal the facts. Probably there is but one force in nature,
the variations recognised by science being its conditions, appa
rently conflicting but harmoniously grouping. Beneath " the web
and the woof" of fact, we seek for the cause and associate the
idea of power, and in that idea see the antecedent which is found
in all effects, and Lange s little wheel is arrived at, itself impulsed,
showing force agencies are distinct from material conditions.
Moreover, what is more important, we arrive at a factor without
the thing, unrealized in perception, but which in conception
becomes the significance of all facts.

Both the world without and the world within, both that which is perceived
and that which is conceived, compel us to look for the reality which exists in
each. "It is not the part of wisdom to spurn the lispings prompted by the
profound idea that has inspired the faith of man," " the part of wisdom is to
excavate that idea from amid the strange incrustations under which it is

1 If anything appears disjointed or thrown in by chance, .let the student mark
that for contemplation and experiment .... and the Whole design will stand more
fully disclosed (Bell, Brid. Treat., p. 228).

Constancy of Nature.

hidden, to understand its significance, and to estimate its value" (Anal, of Rel.
Faith, vol. ii., p. 425). Whether we speak of a force, a power, or a spirit, of
ultimate cause or of an all-pervading essence, of the absolute, or of a reality
beyond phenomena, the terms are symbols of the Supreme, not the Supreme
itself (*.). " Philosophy . . is under a logical compulsion to make the
same fundamental assumptions as Religion that of an ultimate all-pervading
power, origin, or cause " (ib. 425.)

The scientific postulate of the persistence of force, or rather
the " conservation of energy," is the expression of the fact that
every effect must have an adequate cause ; that in nature nothing
can be lost, no particle of force can be destroyed, or pass into
nonentity. Concentrated forces may be dissipated, and dissipated
forces may be concentrated, and one condition of force may pass
into another, but the ultimate fund of the power remains for
ever unchangeable, and it may be said as nothing is ever destroyed^
nothing is ever created, creation being the expression of intel
ligence perceptively rendered to endure for all time. When
science speaks of its discoveries as the laws of nature, it simply
predicates a constant unvarying force, which is always per
sistent and consistent, and which under like conditions produces
like results. To declare the uniformity of nature is merely to
say that the methods of force never change ; that it is the same
now as it ever was, and will be the same through the eternal
aeons of time. 1

The hypothesis of Thomson and Tait, " the degradation of
energy," is a denial of the scientific postulate of the " conserva
tion of energy." It is asserted that red stars are extinct worlds.
What is the fact ? a ursce majoris " has a periodical change of
colour, from intense fiery red to yellow, and is sometimes white.
The red or reddish hue continues for a shorter time than the
white or the yellow. Fading worlds have been likened to cooling
cinders. 3

1 Herbert Spencer says (First Principles), " By the persistence of force we really
mean the persistence of some power which transcends our knowledge and con
ception .... In other words, asserting the persistence of force is but another
mode of asserting an unconditional reality without beginning without end."
Amberley says, " Philosophy or reasoned thought and science, or reasoned observa
tion, have, both led us to admit as a fundamental principle, the necessary existence
of an unknown inconceivable and omnipotent power, whose operations are ever in
progress before our eyes, but whose nature is and can never cease to be an impene
trable mystery, and this is the cardinal truth of all religion (p. 423) and of all
philosophy."

* Lockyer, speaking of the progression of a planetary body, says: " It shines first
as a bright star, which afterwards becomes dim and perhaps red, before the state of
extinction is reached, to which it must surely arrive for do not forget that any mass
of matter must in time cease to give out heat and light whether that mass of matter
be a coul in the fire or a star in the heavens " (Science Prim, of Astronomy).

The dead coal or the dimmed star, is merely an altered condition ; the coal,
ceases to glow through a loss of its combustible principle, but the principle is

The Postulate of a God. 131

The experiments of Joule prove where energy appears to be
lost it exists in another form. There is no worthless refuse, all
reappears, reclothed with its pristine energy. The hypothesis of
Thomson and Tait is endorsed by Balfour Stewart as joint
author with Tait of the " Unseen Universe" wherein an attempt
is made to reconcile the scientific world and scientific facts
with the Pauline theology. The authors postulate a God, and
on the assumption of a received axiom of science the fabric is
reared. Spinoza held that the finite was an outbirth of the
infinite, but the authors of the Unseen Universe appear, by an
inverse mode of reasoning, to assume that because there is a
finite world which must pass away, therefore there must be an
existing unseen universe ; that as this world must pass into
nothingness through " the degradation of energy/ by the force
of continuity, the great principle is manifested, and we are told
that because of this because, the Pauline dogmas must be a con
tinuing existing truth, existing in an archetype. 1 In infinite
intelligence we conceive a universality, comprising in itself all
things, although presented as the omniscient, omnipotent^ and
omnipresent cause, this probable possible, this existence as God,
is only a postulate until His being is proved.

It is insufficient to assert that because all effects must have had
an antecedent competent cause, that therefore this cause is Deity.
To some minds the statement carries conviction ; others accept
the facts of the cause but deny its Divinity; others reject all ideas
of a creative cause, and refer all phenomenal effects to automatic
action, to chemistry, mechanics, and spontaneity; some refuse to

still an existing quantity, and reproduced through recuperative energy. Either " the
conservation of energy" and "the conservation of matter" are the merest hypo
theses, or there are neither dead particles, dead worlds, degraded energy, nor wasted
heat.

1 Attempts to reconcile Theology with Science never succeed, we only get Dogma
which postulates Deity, and the material aspect of ;i boundless idea culminating in
motion. If the great continuity is to be sought in material bases fruitless indeed is
the faith founded on creeds. Were there no unseen universe the continuity of
woilds would be preserved as existing in the idea, the vitality of which thrust them
into being. If the earth were resolved into its primary, yet as a particle of the
universe its continuity would exist whilst one particle of its substance floated io-
space. The spectrum analysis leads to the conclusion that galaxies and astral
systems, suns, planets and meteorites are of analogous composite substances, and if
all were resolved into that from whence they evolved the continuity would be un
broken so long as that primordial principle existed. If the universe be the expres
sion of the primordial intelligence objectively presented, then in that intelligence is
to be sought the bond of continuity. Worlds, suns, and systems, may fade into
nothingness, yet in an unbounded consciousness the creative continuity would be
for ever continuing. It requires great imagination to conceive that because there is
an existing material world that therefore there is an existing, to us, unseen material
universe ; at least such must be the confession if we accept the assumpti on of type-
and archetype as a theological hypothesis.

132 Idealism and Realism.

argue, and are satisfied with the conclusion that if there be a
God there is no manifestation of His Providence, and that if He
exists He is "unknowable, unthinkable, unfathomable," He may
be all these, and although this ultimate conception may be unde-
monstrable by finite reason it yet may exist, and all our ideas be
but the reflex of creative thought. In the design and purposes of
nature, in the causative intelligence expressed in phenomena,
faith finds both a God and a Providence. All men more or less
idealize their conceptions. The physicist considers his concep
tion as the summation of facts, and as an idealization of his
dream finds the basis of all things in "eternal matter/ The
theologian in his conception idealizes the human until it becomes
the divine, and on human attributes founds his ideal of Deity.
These conceptions are idolisms. The true idealization is that
entity of thought expressed as the Religious sentiment, engendered
by the personation of the impersonal self, conceiving Deity as a
Providence, a fact and a purpose, existing in the supersensual
as the praeter-natural, 1 an unembodied entity, with neither attri
butes nor parts, perfected in its own perfection, not as an idol,
but as an idealization, infinite and beyond the finite conception.

The ancients supposed they could unfold the processes of
nature by reason only. Imagination had its fling, and for
elements they had earth, air, water all compounds, and fire as
destroying and purifying. Hooked atoms and other incongruities
held the place of chemical affinities, and Physics became a string
of ingenious speculations. We can never by scientific analysis
know how the kosmic ultimate became objective ;" how the germ

1 " Let us acknowledge the praeternatural is not the supernatural, and that
whether the praeternatural is present or absent, the supersensual, the true super
natural, may and will remain unshaken, and what is supernatural?" " It has come
to he recognised the supernatural elements of religion are those which are moral
and spiritual" (Dean Stanley, Aberdeen, 1877). The supersensual and the super
natural both imply something above and beyond sense, effects. All facts of abstrac
tion are supersensual, but not supernatural. We know phenomena by perception,
we know intelligence, or cause, by conception ; as both exist in phenomena, super-
sensual in the phrase supernatural does not lift us beyond cause and effect, as they
are known in nature. When we arrive at an abstraction we apprehend the Prtcter-
Natural, or as the better word would be, the super-mundane. Prater is over, above,
more than, by the side of, near to, and also contrary to, or against, before. Hence
we may say our apprehension of Deity, because it is above, over, more than nature,
is Prater-Natural, and we may even say contrary to, or against, or before, as in the
relation of cause and effect ; thus Prseter-Natural would stand for the cause, or
creator, or the caused and cause combined.

- Germ Formation : The Ideas of Garrod, Sanderson, Thomson, and Tyndall.

Garrocl (Royal Inst.) said in respect to amcebiform bodies (Amoeba, Foramini-
fera, &c.), the protrusion of fine filaments (pseudopodia) is really a tem
porary growth, and not, as generally supposed, a search for food, as the
nutrient particles are in solution in the water, and furnish the materials for the

Lhe Multiple of Littles. 1 33

by the most simple variations multiplies itself, as it would seem,
in mathematical progression, almost realizing the Pythagorean
notion of number ; how the first simple living spot became the
lofty tree, or the grand organism, the human form ; nor
whence nor what is that vitality by which all these changes have
been wrought ; nor how the first conscious sensation becomes
conscious instinct ; nor how an idea multiplies, yet unifies itself,
until it becomes an abstraction. We know the constituents of
the simple spot ; we see the ovum and the cell ; we see the tree,
the lichen, and the fungus ; we can verify an enormous variety of
forms, and when this is done we fall back on its first expression,
the life-bearing plasma. We see the falling body, slow in its
originating motion, a moment, and its velocity is such that no

growth of the amoeba, and when the supply ceases growth ceases, and death
ensues. Thus he explains it : " If an amoeba be surrounded equally by
nutrient fluid the outer portion is well nourished. The inner part is less well
nourished, and the activity of this, the nucleus, is simply the result of motion
towards nourishment. In the case of the amoebae which have shells, such as
the foraminifera, the salts of lime are deposited by simple chemical precipita
tion (as illustrated by putting a hank of wool, soaked in turpentine,
into a jar of chlorine). Turpentine is simply carbon and hydrogen. The
hydrogen united with the chlorine, and solid carbon was precipitated. The
salts of lime which form shells and the bones of the higher animals are," he
seems to consider, " all due to precipitation through chemical action around
the amoebiform bodies." " The blood of amcebiform bodies may also be
studied in the same way, and may be called physical rather than vital."

If the physics are the methods by which vitality assimilates her materials,
to call it physical seems very like saying vitality exists and that it does not.
Mechanics are methods of formation, but the antecedent is intelligence, and
so the physics are modes, but the antecedent is vital action. The terminology
does not rid us of the reality !

Burdon Sanderson says : " Wherever those chemical processes go on,
which we collectively designate as life, we are in the habit of assuming the
existence of anatomical structure. The two things, however, although con
comitant, are not the same, for while anatomical structure cannot come into
existence without the simultaneous or antecedent existence of the molecular
structure which we recognise as living, the proof is at present wanting that the
vital molecular structure may not precede the anatomical. At the same time
it must be carefully borne in mind that there is no evidence of the contrary."

Alan Thomson (Brit. Ass. Plymouth, 1877), says: "We are just as
ignorant of the mode of the first origin of the compounds of the inorganic
elements as we are of those of living matter. " " No student of embryology (in
the present state of science) can escape being an evolutionist. No one could 1
say that the development of the individual in the higher animals does not
repeat, in its more general character, as in many of its specific phenomena,
the development of the race, and in some respects we cannot refuse to recog
nise the possibility of continuous derivation in the history of the origin of
both plants and animals, however we may fail to realize the precise chain
of connection." He appears to reduce the mystery to the smallest possible dimen
sions to assume a germ, and construct the ivhole series out of it (The Times)*

134 Laplace and Newton.

speed can overtake it ; we are conscious of an idea, but we are
not conscious how the idea becomes a thought. Internally we
know we are thinking men ; we can dwell on the diversity of
thoughts, not alone those of our own experiences, but can collate
those of others, and perforce we are forced back on the unit, the
idea. The idea, the increment motion, and the plasma spot, are
each units, and by an interchanging multiple they become magni
tudes. Here scientific analysis ends, and Malpighi s littles are
resolved by causative intelligences.

The last sentence of Laplace was, " What we know is little.,
what we are ignorant of, immense." Of the same character was
the utterance of Newton, who said, " I do not know what I may
appear to the world, but to myself I seem only like a boy playing

Burdon Sanderson s theory was attacked by Tyndall. The difference between
them appears to be the sense in which the words germ and structure are em
ployed. Sanderson holds, "the corpuscules are evidently organized ; that they
resemble in every respect the germs of the lower organisms, and differ from each
other so much in volume and structure that they unquestionably belong to
very numerous species." Such are the germs of M. Pasteur. In Tyndall s sense
they are not germs but finished organisms ; "yet it was of these that Pasteur
said that it was mathematically proved that they were the originators of the
organisms which are developed in albuminous liquids containing sugar when
exposed to the atmosphere." There are many things which, if inferences are to
hold, when argued in extremes become absurd, e.g. to say that the charac
teristic structures of nerve, of muscle, or of gland, exist in the ovum at the
moment after impregnation. From the moment it is supposed structure means
anatomical structure, the argument used by Tyndall loses all force. He
(Tyndall), after referring to the germ, says, " some of those particles (atmo
spheric) develop into globular bacteria, some into rod-shaped bacteria, some
into long flexile filaments, some into impetuously moving organisms, and some
into organisms without motion. One particle will emerge as a Bacillus
anthracis, which produces deadly splenic fever ; another will develop into a
bacterium, the spores of which are not to be microscopically distinguished
from those of the former organism ; and yet these undistinguishable spores are
absolutely powerless to produce the disorder which Bacillus anthracis never
fails to produce. It is not to be imagined that particles which, on develop
ment, emerge into organisms so different from each other, possess no struc
tural differences. But if they possess structural differences they must possess
the thing differentiated, viz. structure itself." Sanderson says in the definition
he has overlooked the distinction between anatomical " observation and mole
cular structure." Of germinal particles of "ultra microscopical minuteness"
we know nothing (although such particles exist) nor of their structural attributes
or their development ; nor can it be held there is any connection between " mole
cular limit" and " microscopical visibility." In speaking of disease germs, he
says, " It has been found that ordinary bacteria may be introduced into the
blood of healthy animals in quantities, without disturbing the health. The
danger of the morbific action of the atmosphere arises from their having
been infected by miasma or contagium. The statements which Tyndall (1876)
characterised as incautious had been, two years before, confirmed by experi
menters of acknowledged competence.

Idealization in Consciousness. 135

on the sea shore, diverting myself in now and then finding a
smoother pebble, or a more peculiar shell than ordinary, whilst
the vast ocean of truth lays open before me." (Poivel s Nat. Phil.)
Herbert Spencer says (Essay s^ vol. i, 407), " There is a warrant
higher than that which any argument can give for asserting an
objective existence, mysterious as it seems the consciousness of
something which is yet out of consciousness." If the something
which is yet out of consciousness be an idealization, the idealiza
tion exists as it is formulated in consciousness. Although the
subject of the idealization may not exist in conscious knowledge,
the thought which discloses consciousness exists in consciousness,
and is an image of the mind as positive in its presentment as
an image thrown by objective phenomena. What, then, can
Spencer s " something outside of consciousness" be but the pre
siding essence which we cannot define, however we may think it ?

CHAPTER V.

FAITH. RELIGION. IMMORTALITY. SOCIOLOGY.

VIRCHOW, in his address at Munich, assumed a prominence for
belief. Belief is faith. Faith may be a reasoned or an unreasoned
conclusion. Its postulates taken for granted the consequents flow
in seeming sequences. When reasoned premisses are assumed
as a basis, whether true or false, the acceptance of the theory is
exactly in accord with the mental condition, and its inception
presupposes its truth. The basis may be mere authority (i.e. un
reasoned) ; it may arise from the conception of a creative cause,
with an ideal so extended that it is clothed with attributes which
may be imaginative, or springing from a given bereasoned conse
quents, or be so utterly inconsequential as to be wholly impro
bable. Whatever the idealization may be, and however arising,
it constitutes the real elements of faith. Whatever variations
may arise, the broad principles exist and become a conscience in
consciousness. Whatever are the inconsistencies of the thought
or the changes in its condition the conception remains unchanged.
The same principle which induces faith in imaginative theories
has its place with science, where there is much of the speculative,

136 The Finite and the Infinite.

there is too little of the proved. No man knows all sciences, their
bases are presumed to be established ; when weighted by a name a
faith in them is formulated, perhaps in turn to be shattered by a
balance of probabilities. Theology and Science, presumptively, are
reasoned conclusions : on the one hand, a theoretical God, on
the other hand, theoretical Matter, but neither can be presented
with the precision of evidence. The ruling principle in each is
the same, whether it be dogmatic presumption or scientific
assumption. In this view materialism 1 may be as much a faith
as the most exalted moral code, or the most transcendental theo
logy, or the most mystical idealism.

Words present difficulties, and as are the peculiarities of
thought so are the distinctive meanings they convey. Ask a
dozen men to define civilisation, the definition would be different
with each. Sharon Turner s is " Political order, social courtesy,
pleasurable amusements, and domestic employments ;" Guizot s,
in its abstract principle, is perhaps the more correct, " The develop
ment respectively of social and individual activity, as marked by
two signs, the improvement of man s outward condition, and the
improvement and development of his faculties." Max Miiller
(Science of Language] recognises the difficulty. He says, " A
history of such terms (among others, the finite and infinite )
would do more than anything else to clear the philosophical
atmosphere of our days." Berkeley struggled with the same diffi
culty. Max Miiller says :

The infinite, we are told, is a negative idea, it excludes only. " We are
assured in the most dogmatic tone that the finite mind cannot conceive the
infinite." " There is no infinite, for as there is a finite the infinite has its
limits in the finite," and " cannot be infinite." "It is negative because the
negative particle in is used." " The same idea may be expressed by the
Perfect, the Eternal, the Self-existing," Here is no negative idea : that
negative words may express positive ideas was perfectly well known to the
Greek philosophers. The true exposition of " the finite" is "the shadow of
the infinite." Whatever may be the etymology of " finis," it stands for
something " which the senses do not supply," but " has an existence in the
language of reason." We " have besides reason two other organs of know
ledge, Sense and Faith ; " neither subordinate to the other," but " co-equal/"
" Faith is that organ of knowledge by which we apprehend infinitude. *"
" The infinite hidden from the senses, denied by reason, is conceived by faith)
underlying the experience of the senses and the combinations of reason..
What to our reason is negative, in-finite, becomes to faith positive " the
" infinite," and " if our eyes are once opened we see even with our senses^
straight into that endless all by which we are surrounded."

The external senses apprehend the finite, as being in their own:

1 If a profound argument for materialism were required it may be found ir*
Berkeley, but able as is the structure raised, he meets it by an argument equally able:
in refutation.

Definition of the Saxon Word God. 137

nature limited, and reason arranges and organizes that which
the senses present, terminating in consciousness, but this is a
consciousness of reasoned results based on observation and expe
riment. The element Faith gives another aspect to the argu
ment, and opens out another channel, another consciousness,
that of the innate interior consciousness. " The religious senti
ment" is that which conceives infinitude, or " self-existence
eternally prolonged." The perceptive mind is bounded by its
own sources of information, and cannot rise higher than its
source. Faith shows a higher source. There is a perceptive
faith, based on facts, evidences, and authorities, and a conceptive
faith, which grasps the Unseen. It is by faith only the unseen
can be appreciated. Reason leads to its confines, and faith,
enforced by inductions drawn from phenomenal nature, leaps the
chasm, and in the unseen finds the factor to which the existing
harmonies of nature are due.

By this action of faith we receive the consciousness of a higher
self of an interior something existing with, yet not of the environ
ing substance. By an induction we associate the mind and the
unseen power, visible only by its effects, with that other intelli
gence also unseen, but predicated only by results. Then, being
associated by their affinities, an influx is established, recognised
by the religious sentiment, and in faith is constituted an invisible
existence, to the inner consciousness unbounded. Congregated
in faith by the religious sentiment, the belief of a spiritual
kingdom existing in the unseen is embodied. Thus the ideal of
the idea presented in language means, " the Eternal, the Perfect,
the Self-Existing/ the Infinite, the Everlasting, whatever the
phrase may be, all are embodied in the Saxon word comprising all
being GOD. In this idea there can be no limit, nor can a secular
principle be connected with it.

Science and religion are easily reconciled. It is but to accept
the facts as they are condensed in consciousness and asserted by
conscience ; then all we know of this world and of the universe
appears as one thought, an idea of extended vastness, comprised in
one universal intelligence.

Martineau has asked, " What indeed have we found by moving out of all
radii into the infinite ? That the whole is woven together in one sublime
tissue of intellectual relations, geometrical and physical, the realised original

of which all our science is but a practical copy Unless, therefore,

it takes more mental faculty to construe a universe than to cause it, to read the
book of nature than to write it, we must more than ever look upon its sublime
face as the living appeal of thought to thought."

We see a thing and infer the existence of something external

138 The, Tu quo que.

to ourselves. The presence of the sensations is conceived to be
an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of their cause.

Precisely in the same way we feel the presence of the Unknowable being,
and " because we feel it we infer the existence of a real object both external to
and within ourselves. The presence of the emotion is conceived to be an
adequate warrant for asserting the presence of its cause." " The object of
the sensations and the object of emotion might be illusory: this is conceivable
in logic, but not in fact. There can be no reason for maintaining the
unreality of the emotional and the reality of the sensible object. Existence
is believed in both instances on the strength of an immediate intuitional
influence." The mental process is active in each ; and " if it be contended
that sensible perception carries with it a stronger warrant for our belief in the
existence of its objects than internal feeling, the reasons for this contention
must be exhibited before we can be asked to accept it, otherwise it will turn
out to be a pure assumption, constituting, not a reason for the rejection of
religion by those who accept it, but a mere explanation of the conduct of those
who do not." " The denial of religion is not the less emotional than its
affirmation ;" and when men "quit the emotional stronghold to speak of those
to whom that unknown cause is perceptible, as the victims of delusion, these
latter may confidently meet them on the field which they themselves have
chosen" (vide An. Ret. Fait/i, vol. ii., p. 477.)

Max Miiller says, " True reverence does not consist in declaring a subject,
because it is dear to us, to be unfit for free and honest inquiry. .
True reverence is shown in treating every subject, however sacred,
with perfect confidence, without fear, and without favour . . but before
all with an unflinching and uncompromising loyalty to truth" (Science
of Rel.}. " He who wants to find out what religion is, what foundation it has in
the soul of man, and what laws it follows in its historical growth, . .
the study of error is to him more instructive than the study of truth, and the
smiling augur as interesting a subject as the Roman suppliant who veiled his
face in prayer that he might be alone with his God" (IP.). " If we say that
it is religion which distinguishes man from the animal . . we do not
mean any special religion, but we mean a mental faculty which, independent
of, nay, in spite of sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the infinite
under different names and under various disguises;" and " when man turns his
face to heaven certain it is that he alone yearns for something which neither
sense nor reason can supply" (/&.). * "The highest morality that was ever
taught before the rise of Christianity was taught by men with whom the gods
had become mere phantoms, who had no altars, not even an altar to the
Unknown God." (ib. 143). (Buddhists). (This dictum is more than questionable
in the face of the teaching of the Vedic hymns and the Zend-avesta.)

Religion in its origin lies in a small compass : " A few words
recognised as names of Deity, a few epithets which have been
raised from their material meaning to a higher and more spiritual
stage," " words which originally expressed bodily strength, or
brightness, or purity, came gradually to mean greatness, goodness,
holiness," and eventually more technical ideas. The word ex
plaining breath, as Psyche among the Greeks, represents life, spirit,

The watch cry of the men of the day, that is, " Nothing exists in the intellect
but what has before existed in the senses," is answered by the epigram of Leibnitz.
" Yes, nothing but intellect."

The Links of Thought. 139

mind. The same idea is found in the Sanskrit Atman, which
eventually became the self. The Spaniards in their earliest visits
to Nicaragua found it in the Aztec word Tull (to live), having the
same significance as psyche and atman. The Aztecs believed that
when a person died in battle he went to the gods, and also when
he had led a good life ; otherwise the yuli perished with the body.
There goes forth from the mouth, they say, a something resem
bling the person (yuli). The same thought is found among many
uncultured nations. With the Zulus, Uthlanga^ a reed, meta
phorically, is the source of being, the original meaning being lost.
Everywhere we find the ghost, spirit, or shadow, as a perceptive
embodiment of the conceptive thought, the mythic expression
of the religious idea, that the man exists although the body dies.

The link of thought expressed in words is found when the
Greek says es-ti, he is ; the Roman est, the German tst, the
Slav yesti^ the Hindu asti. The Sanskrit word is a compound of
the root as^ to be, and the pronoun //; the root originally meant,
to breathe. We may then gather from language and mythology
that each accent had its original meaning, and each myth a
history (vide Phil. My thai. ^ Max Miiller). Words are not alone
expressions of thought, as by originating ideas they frequently
engender them.

Blackie contemns the attempts to explain mythology, even
under the guidance of a Bopp, a Grimm, or a Max Miiller ; yet
by their labours, and those of Cox, a meaning has been given to
seemingly unmeaning legends. If they have done no more they
have knitted world-thought with world-thought, and in tracing
these myths to their roots have shown how the dawning mind of
man allegorized nature, idealizing the perceptions by a concep
tion of the Divine. This idealization occurred not alone among
the Greeks and the Hindus in long-past ages, but all nations in
the dawn of a faith have done the same. However distant or
barbarous, the same strain of thought, and frequently the same
images, are presented in their legends. India, Egypt, Mexico,
have the same myths in their religious rites, with festivals regu
lated by the same stellar signs; but wherever the Aryan has placed
his foot the similarity in derivative customs is greater, disclosing
in mythic guise, a common origin. The distinctive character of
the sentiment prevailing with all peoples goes further to verify
the kinship of race 1 than the similarity of speech and of customs.

1 The Hottentots have a beautiful myth of the moon sending an insect as a
messenger to man. " Go thou to men and tell them, as I die and dying live, so shall
ye also die, and dying live." " The insect deputed the hare to deliver the message,
who rendered it, the moon says " As I die, and in dying perish, in the same manner
shall ye also die and come wholly to an end." The moon in anger split the hare s

140 Community of Faith.

Flood legends can be gathered all over the world ; no race is
without them. Taking into consideration the distinctive attri
butes of race, they appear to be the narrative of the same
incident. With all races is the same idea, the symbolising the
unseen. 1

Whatever the position of man, his dual nature pertinently
speaks in all his conclusions. The physicist by perception
continuing the action of his elements pronounces for material
causes. The philosopher, whilst contemplating the principles by
which the elemental substances cohere, combine, and change, whilst
accepting the analysis, unearths the principle, and by a conceptive
induction idealizes his theory, and finds beneath the moulded sub
stances an intellectual organizer. Uncultured man finds an expla
nation of nature in his superstitions, and extends his ideal into the
unseen. 2 Civilised man founds on his superstitions his ideal and
centres his hope on an imaginative given. The natural philosopher,
viewing nature as a whole, divines a cause, nameless in his thought,
and because nameless and undefined, he hypothecates an origin
whilst awaiting his proof. Thus the uncultured, the cultured y

lip, continuing to this day ; in revenge the hare scratched the moon s face, and
the traces continue. We have here a conceptive philosophy perverted into a per
ceptive distinction.

1 Plato aptly depicts the thought. " He will reason that the sun is he who gives
the seasons and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and
in a certain way, the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accus
tomed to behold."

In the Natural History of Religion, Hume says, he would show himself but little
acquainted " with the ignorance and stupidity of the people " who thought " the
doctrine of one supreme Deity owed its success to the prevalent force of reason.
In this day, in Europe, ask one of the uncultured why he believes in an Omnipotent
Creator ? He " would not hold out his hand and bid you contemplate the joints in his
fingers, the counterpoise they receive from the thumb, the softness and fleshy part of
the inside of the hand, &lt;fcc., which renders that member fit for the use to which it
was destined." " He would tell you of an unexpected death, a bruise, drought of the
seasons, or cold, rains, and of such events .... as are the chief difficulties
(in reasoning) to the admission of the idea of a supreme intelligence, but which
to him are the sole arguments for it " (16., p. 42).

2 The savage man lives and believes much in his own instincts, and quite accords
with the idea of the Latin poet, " that life could not be worth more than the plea
sure which renders it desirable." This feeling seems incorporated in his ideas of
a future state, and they consider the next life to be a continuation of this. The red
skin hunter hoped to be translated to a region abounding in game. The Maori
believed that life after death is a series of skirmishes in which the blessed are always
victorious. The Teuton of old nourished the same hope. Civilization cramps such,
aspirations. Would the cotton weaver be content to labour for ever in cotton mills,
although they were miles on miles in length, or the wearied field hand be content
for ever to dig, or the denizen of London for ever to live in the smoke and turmoil
of an exaggerated London ?

The Indian sage believes in metempsychosis. Figuier would hang its fetters on
the cultured mind. The climax of his philosophy is that the perfected souls of men
energize the sun ; this idea competes with the most ultra of psychological wonders \
And yet it is said a distinguished astronomer entertains a similar idea.

The Persistence of Matter, the Reality of Spirit. 141

and the philosopher, have faith in the same unknown fact, im
personal, unfathomable, and indefinable.

In maintaining man s immortality i.e. the eternal or ever-
living persistence of an immaterial essence, we pass into the super-
sensual, adducing the praeternatural, thereby making the insub
stantial the consubstantial. By experiment it is shown that
elemental substances are in being when they have passed from per
ception, also that forces imponderable and immaterial are present,
although unseen, existing in matter yet unembodied, presenting
effects, using matter as the vehicle to make their display. All
that can be said of the imponderable forces may be said of the
spirit or essence of man. The imponderable forces are individual
ized in their principle, as the intelligence, soul, or essence of man is
individualized in the Ego or self. If we only accept the seen, little in
deed were our knowledge; perception knows nothing of evaporation,
the ice is watched, it falls into water, or is dissolved into mist. 1

The perceptive is one phase of man, and it assumes the symbol
as its fact ; another phase is the conceptive or intelligent and
reasoning ; through this the elements are re-collected and con
densed, and from the gases, liquids and substances are made to
emerge. In the region of perception mind is the shadow of substance.
In that of conception, mind is substantial and real, an immaterial
entity existing in its own principle. We cannot put a thought
into a crucible and bring it out a substance, but in its symbol it
can be presented as a fact. Perception and conception, judged by
the same rule, find their facts in effects. No natural element can
be erased from existence, it exists in its ultimate, and by the recu
perative powers of nature is presented again as an effect. By a
parity of reasoning we must say that mind, in its ultimate or
essence, can neither be annihilated nor obliterated. Can it die ?

If we go to theologies the teaching is of an immortality, but it
is an immortality of the senses, for there are pictures of torments
and suffering. 2 This was the prevailing opinion of the old

1 An isolated block of ice, although surrounded b.y frost, will imperceptibly vanish
by evaporation. (Vide Maxwell on Heat).

2 Farrar says he does not hold " the Romish doctrine of Purgatory," " bnt it is
not to be confused with the opinion of many of the fathers that there is some inter
mediate state wherein souls which, at the time of death, are still imperfect and un
worthy and not yet in a state of grace .... may still be reached by God s mercy
beyond the grave." (Eternal Hope, preface, p. xx.) Farrar, in continuation, says,
" the statements .... that I denied the existence of Hell, or denounced the doctrine
of eternal punishment, are merely ignorant perversions of what I tried to teach "
(ib. xxi). " There are four elements in the current opinion which I consider to be
unsupported by Scripture." They are " I . The physical torments, the material
agonies, the sapiens ignis of eternal agonies. 2. The supposition of its necessarily
endless duration for all who incur it. 3. The opinion that, it is thus incurred by
the vast mass of mankind. 4. That it is a doom passed unreversibly at the moment
of death on all who die in a state of sin " (ib. xxviii). If this be not adenial of eternal

142 Theologies symbolize Science.

Fathers, delineated in the parable of Lazarus and Dives, and en
shrined as a dogma by the Church. Religion is the acknowledg
ment of an existing, unseen, and preternatural power ; its inculca
tions moral conceptions, 1 in its unity and universality a concen
tration of sentiment, intelligence and mind, and as an idealization,
God the Creator. The Greeks took the expression of beauty as
their kosmos, concentrating in the word the harmonious relations
of phenomena. Symmetry is an outbirth of sympathy, as consti
tuting a Providence, thus the kosmos in its element beauty, becomes
centralized in universality.

It is possible the theologies of the world are symbols of the
science of their eras, and the science we know and have, probably
existed in a long forgotten past. 3

Philosophy, or reasoned thought, and Science or reasoned
perception, admit of, as a fundamental principle, the existence of an
unknown and omnipotent power. Experience cannot be appealed
to as asserting an infallibility, and observation is frequently mis
leading. It was asserted as a fact of observation, none more
unhesitatingly, none considered more settled, than that the pulsa
tions of the heart occurred in all animal organisms in one mode

punishment words have lost their significance. A doctrine of the Anglican Church is
founded on the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Luke xvi, v. 24. It will be comforting to
the abused spiritualists to find they are not such ignorant dolts as they are pronounced
to be by Dr. Carpenter, who in pure ignorance of what was inculcated and believed
in by them vented his vituperations, when their ideas are upheld by so accomplished a
divine as Dr. Farrar. OUT professors may now indulge a materialistic terminology,
deny the intendence of their words, and so escape the charge of materialism !

1 Zeno (564 B.C.) insisted that culture was the true foundation of virtue. We
must trust to sense to furnish data of knowledge to be condensed by reason ; that
nature aims at the universal, hence individuals are the means by which her ends are
accomplished ; that everything around us is in mutation, decay follows reproduction,
and reproduction decay. The cataract preserves its shape but its waters are per
petually changing this is the aspect of nature. The universe as a whole alone is
unchangeable. He doubted whether the mind can ascertain absolute truth.

2 The researches of Layard in Assyria have disclosed great advances in art.
At Kougunjik, the scene of the late Mr. G. Smith s researches, ruins of edifices
and a literature, which had existed more than five thousand years before the Christian
era, have been found ; also elaborate designs in sculpture, drawing, engraving both
in relief and surface cutting, executed with a fineness of touch which demonstrated
high attainmants, glass bowls, enamelled bricks in all colours ornamented with
flowers and scrolls, fragments of earthen vases, with figures so highly glazed as to
have assumed .... the iridescence of ancient glass, bronzes inlaid with gold,
one of which is the Egyptian sacred scaralatus with extended wings ; bells formed
of an admixture of brass and tin, modulated in cadences, chairs formed of ivory,
copper rings, &c., the arch wanting in the Egyptian, early Grecian, and Roman
architecture ; the lens of rock crystal with opposite convex and plane facets,
pointing to optical instruments (as does the tube of the Druids. Diodorus). We have
at least the true microscope in a simple form, buried even before Rome had being,
a lost art. In the ages of Pliny and Cicero, a water-filled glass bulb served as a
microscope. We have besides the impressions of fixed characters on baked clay tablets,
which, as deciphered, disclose histories and philosophies.

Was Babylon the mine from whence Egypt drew her knowledge ? and the

Scientific Uncertainty. 143

only. Von Hasselt discerned a variation. 1 When it is found
that there is an innate (because universal) conception, according
in principle in the minds of all peoples, it may be assumed to be
fixed, however inexactly defined, involving no question of necessity,
it is one of being? The experiential and experimental schools
have effected at the least this good, they guard against accepting,
as necessary and ultimate beliefs, effects which are frequently con
tingent and dissoluble. Man cannot escape a faith. 3 Religion,
formless in intelligence, postulates its position as fixed and final.
It no sooner appears than a formula is instituted, against which it
is continually protesting. The attempt is always made to confine
it within a set of dogmas. Sooner or later the religious senti
ment bursts from the imposed thrall, but awaiting the new advent
is another scheme of dogmas. This is the history of creeds in all
ages of the world, and it is not the less true " that the deepest
hostility to theological systems is inspired by the very sentiment
to which these systems seek to give a formal and definite expres
sion " 4 (Amberley).

columns of Hermes but the rescript of an older era ? The pyramids of Gizeh
(according to Piazzi Smyth) show there were adepts in astronomical lore. The
Chaldeans were noted as astronomers and workers in occult arts. The temples were
their treasuries of knowledge; the tile-records, recopied in Assyria, show an
advanced civilization, founded on philosophy and commerce, for amongst them were
found trade accounts, and if those records be as old as the flood legends written on
the tiles, we have records of an advanced civilization preceding the time of Jacob, if
not that of Abram. The Chaldeans are famed in history as being deeply skilled in
science, and by the tiles we are assured their fame was not an idle romance. In the
time of Alexander, Berosus gave the mythic histories of Babylon, which, until the
discovery of the Assyrian ruins, were doubted by the learned, if they were not re
jected as impostures.

1 Up to 1824 it was supposed of every animal possessing a circulation, " that the
current of the blood took one definite and invariable direction. In 1824, " Von
Hasselt, happening to examine a transparent animal of a class (Ascidians), found
to his infinite surprise that after the heart had beat a certain number of times, it
stopped, and then began beating the opposite way, so as to reverse the course of the
current, whichjreturned by and by to its original direction. I have myself timed the
heart of these little animals ; I found it as regular as possible in its periods of
reversal" (Huxley, L. S., p. 86).

2 Huxley says with the "relative merits and demerits " of Fetishism, Polytheism,
Theism, Atheism, Superstition, or Rationalism, he has " nothing to do". . . ." "but
it is needful to say that if the religion of the present differs from that of the past
it is because the Theology of the present has become more scientific than that of
the past " and " because it begins to see the necessity .... of cherishing tho
noblest and most human of man s emotions by worship, for the most part of the
silent sort, at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable " (ib., p. 16).

3 Hume says : " Could any statuary of Syria, in early times, have formed a just
figure of Apollo, the conic stone, Heliogabalus, had never become the object of
profound adoration" (Nat. Hist, of ReL, p. 39). This fetish, was it the debasement
of the religious ideas or the perpetuation of a tradition ?

* " The little spark of awakened human intelligence shines so mere a speck amid
the abysses of the unknown and unknowable, seems so insufficient to do more
than to illuminate the imperfections which cannot be remedied, the aspiration.

144 Religion and Theology.

Man is most familiar with physical substance and sense expres
sions, and assumes a reality for the facts within his experiences,
whether they be of uniformity, harmony, power, or beneficence.
With all these ideas there is something outreaching experience, as
beyond and without the bounds of man s being, or as too lofty
and great to be held steadily before the mind : the ideal may
merge in symbols and be prostituted to sense or may exist as
imaginative contemplations. All formulated creeds gather their
complexion from the habits and instincts of the people amid
whom they originated ; this is the peculiar aspect of Judaism,
and the personal character of the God portrayed. The idea
embodied is but an enlarged representation of human thought,
connected with a power beyond the human, the spirit which
speaks in and through us ; in whatever words the ideas of God are
framed, they are " but symbolical of the supreme," and " not the
supreme itself," disclosing a being whose nature is clothed with a
mystery which no perception can pierce, no conception can
fathom. Between mind and matter, between spirit and body,
between life and substance, between internal and external pheno
mena there lies the gulf which neither science nor metaphysics,
but faith only can bridge.

Kant calls time " one of the forms of sensibility," Schelling holds
" it is pure activity with the negation of being," Leibnitz, " the
order of successions," as he defined space to be the order of
existences. Newton and Clark make space and time attributes
of Deity.

Flammarion has a curious exposition of time and space. He
argues :

Neither time nor space are realities. The only realities are Eternity and
Infinity; with them there is no beyond, no sides, no lengthening line.
Everything is relative. The ephemeris in its seconds of" time lives hours. As
are eras to eternity, so are days to man. A line is a length for ever pro
ceeding ; join the ends in an ellipse or a circle, and there is neither beginning
nor end. We only conceive space by imagining another space, and time but
as an interval between space and space. We exist in time, we dwell in space;
therefore to us they are positive quantities ; it is the relativeness of thing to
thing which creates distinctions, and these distinctions are our world of
effects.

Time is the measure of the motions of the earth ; if the earth did not move we
should have no record of, and thus no consciousness of, time. The astro
nomical idea of the church was a motionless earth. " The Fathers said, at
the end of the world the diurnal motion would cease, and there would be no

which cannot be realised, of man s own nature. But in this sadness, this conscious
ness of the limitations of man, this sense of an open secret which he cannot pene
trate, lies the essence of all religion ; and the attempt to embody it in the lorms
furnished by the intellect is the origin of the higher theologies " (L. S. p. 12).

Time and Space. 145,

more time." Had the earth been, as supposed, an immovable flat surface
illuminated by a sun immovable at the zenith and by an invariable diffused
light, no moving shadow would have been possible ; nothing which could have
been divided into days, hours, or minutes. Again, suppose the earth turned
twice as fast on its axis as it does, around the sun, then the eras would be
doubled ; a man of sixty would but have lived thirty of our years ; or even if the
motion were ten times as fast there would be the same seasons and days, only
occurring more rapidly. Other celestial motions following in the same order,
there would be no change perceivable. Again, microscopical animals, which
live hut a short period, and perform all the necessities of their organization,
they in proportion too have, it is to be supposed, an appreciation of life as.
profound as ours, yet their measure of time would be different. All is rela
tive $ a life of a hundred years is not longer than that of another organism
completed in a few minutes. It is the same with space. Earth has a diameter
of eight thousand miles and upwards. Suppose it diminished to the size of a
marble, and all its components underwent a corresponding diminution, our
mountains as grains of fine sand, the seas a drop, and we small as microscopic
infusoria, nothing would have changed for us ; we should still have had our regu
lated dimensions, and the earth would have had its exact relations. "A value that
can be increased or diminished at pleasure without change is not a mathema
tical absolute value. 1 In this sense it may be said neither time nor space have
any existence. If we were in pure space, what time should we find there ?
Whatever period we remained it would be the same. Each planet, in fact ; ,
makes its own time, and where there is no planet or anything answering to it,
there is no time. Thus Jupiter s years are twelve of ours, and his day only ten
hours ; Saturn s year is thirty of ours, and his day ten and a half hours.

The history of the universe is the eternal secret ; our notions
of time and space are the successions which befall our planet. Our
perceptions assume its complexions, and they are registered in eter
nities. Tn perception there is time and space, in conception neither,
for there is no possible beyond conception when exhibited in
consciousness ; no circling sides, no lengthening lines, Time
and space are mutually perceptive, but are never objectively pre
sented, and their relativeness is only arrived at through changing
phenomena. Were conception unembodied, conceptive facts alone
would be perceived, these facts would be thoughts rendered objec
tive as phenomena. Thus, if the principles by the application of
which phenomena arise were alone present in the mind, concep
tion would then be as spirit, the conception of the spirit would be
embodied, and phenomena would still surround the unembodied
spirit, but to it there would be no objective persistence, form only
would be present, and all phenomena would be merged in the
spiritual ideal. It would be the same with creeds as with sub
stance. The spirit would exist in the ideal it created, guided by
the indwelling sentiment to recognise that which was the cause
of its origin, foreshadowing the community between the per
ceptive and the conceptive. The perceptive may be ultimate in
the order of the perceived, but the ultimate of conception is

146 Spirit an Emanation from Matter.

hidden. To man there are two presentments organized forms
as vehicles, and mind as intelligence or spirit. What either is
we do not know. In the undiscovered yet to come, they may be
found to be diverse presentments of one principle, existing unem-
bodied as spirit, intelligence, or essence. We know what they
are not, however material views may attempt to confound them.
In the argument for the immortality of man it has hitherto been
assumed that spirit is a quality or principle existing with an
organism, but distinct, the two constituting man, the organism
being but the vehicle by which the spirit power is displayed.
Assuming (but which in no sense is conceded) that matter is alone
the self existing principle, the immortality of man, as spirit is
equally assured. By the doctrine of evolution, 1 all living organisms
through development proceed from the ovum^ or plasma spot, the
simple becoming by an ingeneration the compound and complex.
The material assumption is that sensation is a property of matter
and that through minute and infinite differentiations it becomes
mind graduating through organisms until man is reached. If
then sensation be a property of matter, mind by emanation pro
ceeds from matter. Matter being indestructible and therefore
eternal all things arising out of it, as its sublimation or spirit must
share and possess the properties existing in the indestructible and
eternal basis, then mind as the spirit of matter would be eternal
and indestructible. Thus we should say that spirit in its imma
ture form would be matter, but in its mature form, in sublimation,
would be spirit or essence ; in man presented as mind or intelli
gence. Man is individualised in his intelligence and hence intel
ligence in its ultimate would be spirit and this spirit by emanating
from an eternal and indestructible basis, would find a continuity
in an eternal duration. It is no argument to say that because
matter can be dissipated that mind can be dissipated. Matter is
not dissipated, excepting so far as our perceptions are concerned,
and if it be resolved into gases, or ether, principles or essences, it
is still an existing and persisting quantity. We can again gather
together the elements, but mind, even if it springs from matter,

1 Evolution is an equivocal phrase, signifying " the process of evoking or rolling
out of something already existing, at least in its elements." Evolution understood
as a process of development implies an antecedent. We have no God and all God
theorists invoking evolution as evidences of their special hypotheses, and that
whether the antecedent or God be personal or impersonal, or whether it he inert
matter, with or without design, a purposed fact, or u fortuitous concourse of atoms,
and with or without an antecedent intelligence. However absurd may be the
.hypothesis, evolution is made its parent or proof.

a " Think of the microscopic fungus, a mere infinitesimal ovoid particle, which
finds space and duration enough to multiply in countless millions in the body of a
living fly." (L. S., p. 121).

Immortality Indisputable. 147

cannot be reproduced in a material form ; it exists, as an entity,
not as matter exists to perception. Thus the existence of mind
becomes supcrsensual, existing as an immortal principle, by virtue
of the indestructible basis from which it emanated, existing in its
own affinities, and as an entity is individualized. Thus con
sciousness as an emanation from matter would be a self- existing
principle, because as also derived, by sublimation, from an in
destructible basis. It then follows that whether we argue that
matter is but a formulated thought, and that spirit is the first
principle, or that matter is the first principle, and that spirit through
development is its ethereal essence, adopt which mode we will,
we are assured of the immortality of man in his intelligence.
Both modes of arguing bring us face to face with an inscrutable
mystery. In the one form the minor proceeds from the major, in
the other the major from the minor a subverting of all principles
of reasoning, whatever the fact may be. We may now say,
whatever be the position assumed, man s immortality, so far as the
reasoning is concerned, is indisputable. If the entity or individualism
of the spirit or essence be denied, we should be landed in a species
of Buddhist Nirvana, an existing but an amalgamated intelligence.
If, on the other hand, the entity is admitted, we have independent,
self-governing, and self-controlling spirits or essences.

Nirvana in the general idea means annihilation. This the
Buddhists deny, and found on the principle a grand philosophy.
Their assumption is that as a spirit, man when purified by denials
of self pass into the other world, and in a series of existences
become spiritual agencies and gods. (Buddhavistas.) It is only
when the ultimate purity is attained, a pure and perfected intelli
gence, that the spirit enters Nirvana, and then becomes amalga
mated with the supreme intelligence, existing only in its light and
power. In this view Nirvana is an annihilation of the individual
consciousness. But if it can be assumed that the individualism
is still existing, it is an association of pure intellect with pure
intellect, an existing individualism, which, when associated with
supreme intelligence, becomes an omniscience combined with
omnipotence. (Vide note i, p. 113.)

Can the idea of immortality be a phantasy ? the idea exists
wherever culture exists. No race of man has been discovered
who have not some idea of an existence beyond the life they live.
With some uncultured races it is the conception of beings for
merly inhabitants of earth who return as evil spirits ; again,
others suppose their ancestors return as spiritual presences, con
tinuing but for few generations ; others that there is a forever
existing evil spirit, haunting and injuring ; others recognise a good

148 Argument for Immortality.

and evil spirit, some only a good spirit ; with all there is an im
pression of the unseen ; its lowest expression an unformulated
superstitious dread. With some tribes there is an evil spirit to
be propitiated and an exalted being to be regarded and reverenced
as the author of all good (vide Lubbock and. Tyler). It therefore
may be said that the conception of the unseen (spiritual agencies)
is universal with man, but it is doubtful whether in all cases the
idea of the immortality of man is ingrafted with it.

The consideration then arises Are superstitions the debase
ments of a religious faith, or is the idea of the unseen an inborn con
ception originating with the various tribes with whom it is found ?
We have then to fall back on the meaning attached to the idea of
Immortality, and have to inquire whether it be an innate con
ception or the result of culture ? All formulated creeds have as
an article of faith, the belief in the immortality of its professors.
Whence does the idea arise ? The general answer is, that it is
founded on a sentiment (the religious sentiment). Is this suffi
cient ? if so the fact is formulated through a mental conception
inherent in man and perfected through culture. Accepted as an
answer we must inquire in what does it consist ? Some answer it is
a continuation of consciousness. Animals are conscious, can it be
said they are immortal ? The answer should be in the negative,
because (as far as we know) they have no individualism, as the
expression of thought, nor the mental power in its condensation
as an abstraction, hence there can be no continuing consciousness,
because there is no conscience. In man, in the abstract idea
there is an individualism and conscience, as elements and condi
tions. Is this individualism a continuing abstraction ? If answered
affirmatively, then man as an individualized intelligence is im
mortal ; if the individualism, being a mental abstraction, is once in
existence, it must be accepted as being for ever existing, because it is
an intellectual unit, not existing merely as an idea, but because it is
interwoven in intellectual conception, itself a quality of intelligence.

It can be no phantom thought, because else, it would fade away
as wanting in intensity, or be obliterated through the crowding in
of other ideas ; on the contrary, it is continuing and for ever re
curring. We then arrive at the conception of the perpetuation of
an existing individualism consciously impressed, hence we have an
indefinite idea as to objectivity, but as to subjectivity definite.

This individualism, from whatever source it be derived, is an
existing fact in intelligence ; even if it be denied that intelligence
is other than a material consequent, it still as an ultimate unity
would be self-perpetuated, linked with consciousness, a conscious
individualism.

Sociology. 149

Questions of embodiment or disembodiment are merely relative
ideas. We recognise the disembodied as an existing quality
(e.g.], thought. The thoughts of men, dead ages ago, are recorded,
and thoughts flow from mind to mind without a cognizable
embodiment in substance.

Hegel says, " The interior world, the sentiments, the contem
plations, and the emotions of the soul, instead of retracing the
development of an action, its essence, and its final goal are
expressions of interior movements in the mind of the individual."
If it be true that there is no moment in life when we do not
(consciously or unconsciously) think, 1 it must be conceded that
with organic life there is soul-life ; it then follows, that in the
continuity of each fact there are separate existences, the material
components forming new material components, and that which
constitutes soul, through a universality of action, in its indivi
dualism is for ever continuing.

Another view of man is the social. On this Herbert Spencer
has written an admirable work (The Study of Sociology}. To be
practical its address is to another being than man as he is. The
ameliorations of class distinctions are admirably put, but there is
a point beyond which the principles cannot go, and that is " the
self." The whole philosophy merely discloses the selfishness of
man, the legacy of his ancestral descent. The ruling trait
throughout animal organisms is the instinctive self; which
includes, not only, so-called cultured but uncultured, unprogressed,
or savage man. The true exigence of life is the culture of
conscience, which includes morals and rights. The exercise of this
principle extends further than from man to man, it includes the
inferior organisms. This was recognised by Buddha. The
question is a large one, but may be comprised in a word, DUTY.
The principle of its development reveals the dual nature of man,
the self and the conscience. The instinct of man is self, deve
loping into selfishness, the root of all wrongs and evils, of
all class, social, and theological distinctions. The true exempli
fication of the higher nature is the overcoming the instinctive self.
There are recognised rights in men and in animals other than the
self. Self is a necessity of existence, but it is a self which should

1 Kant says, "There is no sleep in which we do not dream, and tlmtit is due to
the rapidity with which ideas succeed each other in sleep that constitutes a prin
cipal cause why we do not always recollect that we dream." " The mind is never
inactive nor wholly unconscious ol its activity " (Sir Win. Hamilton). Bankes appears
to have forestalled Kant. He says, "I suppose the soul is never totally inactive.
I never awaked since I had the use of my memory but 1 found myself coming
out of a dream, and I suppose that those who think they dream not, think so because
they forget their dreams " (Off. of the Soul s Immortality).

150 The Self.

be so regulated as to recognise there are other selfs in the exist
ing life.

Society as constituted is selfishness, on the one side endea
vouring to control the self of others, and still to exist, independently
of the other selfs. To the instincts or perceptions there is no
such institution as moral law ; and even if social restraint springs
from a conceptive sense of right, the selfs are for ever seeking
opportunities to evade it. If it were possible to educate men into
the moral tone Sociology would be possible, but then it must be
an education co-extensive whh man. A nation actuated alone by
moral law, with conscience as a -regulator or administrator, could
not exist beside other nations impulsed by a lower ideal, because
it would be the prey of instinctive rapacity.

The principle of turn the smitten cheek, &c., is admirably
grand as an ethical abstraction, but as a rule of life utterly imprac
ticable. We have the history of this ethical abstraction combined
with communism, and what is the record ? Those who on this
principle instituted a theology, first abrogated the communism,
because self for selfish purposes abstracted the aggregated funds.
This sect, whose principle of constitution was to suffer wrong for
the sake of its principle, became the most selfish, rapacious, and
unscrupulous of institutions, a shame on the page of history, and
yet its principle is founded on the truest thought which can
give insistance to our nature. The true principle of social rule is
governing the self. This principle to be effective can never be
commenced in the mass, for as man is constituted it were imprac
ticable. The principle may and does exist in individual instances
and with them it ends. Sociology may be admirable as a science,
but a reconstitution of man, alone, can make it practicable. All
who read the work must agree with its author and his admirable
pleadings, but at the same time must be convinced of the practical
impossibility of its application on a large scale. It in fact says
that the instinctive perception is to be engulfed in the conceptive
intelligence. If this were possible man would exist only in his
higher or spiritual nature, and he would be no longer man.
Glorious in theory in theory it must end, like the Republic, the
Atalantis, and the Utopia ; the mythic must succumb to the real.

Since the world was it has been found impossible to repress
the harsh dealings of self, without resorting to harsh measures
born of the self; and the end usually is, or history lies, a harsher
tyranny. The thing still exists as the thing, with a change of
form ; it is always the self. The conveniency of the self is
the first principle; the conveniencies of the other selfs are merely
contingent or secondary considerations. Wherever man exists

Nature. 151

there is always an inequality ; it may be of ingenuity or intellect.
Self must rule, for as man is constituted, through habit, the self
becomes greater than the social equities : the self is personal and
individual, the equities are tribal and contingent.

Spencer says, " Ethically considered, there has never been any warranty for
the subjection of the many to the few, excepting that it has furthered the
welfare of the many; and at the present time the furtherance of the welfare of
the many is the only warranty for the degree of class subordination which
continues."

When we consider the true meaning of this sentence, it is self-
expediency. " The whole that is possible of sociology is that social
government has (must) to undergo a transformation which will
make the regulating classes feel, while duly pursuing their interests,
that these interests are secondary to the interests of the masses
whose labours they direct." Spencer s observation although made
in respect of Trades Unions, is true of the whole community.
Even in this refinement it is self, and self. It has been so while
this world has been, and it will be whilst this world is, so long as
man is man. The true rule is to

Educate the people, and by their own force each class will assume its true
position ; " remove all the props by which the brass and iron folk are kept at
the top, and by a law as sure as gravitation they will gradually sink to the
bottom." " Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty and self-respect,
are the qualities which make a real lady or gentleman," and " one does not
see why the practice of those virtues should be more difficult in one state of
life than another" (Huxley). Novalis says: " We see a future philosopher in
him who restlessly traces and questions all natural things, pays heed to
all, brings together whatever is remarkable, and rejoices when he has become
master and possessor of a new phenomenon, of a new power, and a new
piece of knowledge."

In viewing Nature there is more to be considered than its
external consonance. Its harmonies and accords are evidences of
purpose. Can it be truly asserted that its gorgeous phenomena,
hill, dale, valley, mountains, plains, rivers, and seas, its infinite
variations of animated life, the beauty of form, and exquisite
paintings in colour, are the ultimate consummations of the creative
idea P 1 Form and colour have their beauty, but when an
aptness is found underlying all, they shine in a newer and more
radiant light. This terrestrial potence, were it the //, but shows

1 For what purpose, asks Cicero, " was the great fabric of the universe con
structed ? was it merely for the purpose of perpetuating the growth of trees and
herbs which are not endowed with sensation ? The supposition is absurd. Or was
it for the exclusive use of inferior animals ; it is not at all more probable that the
Deity wouid have produced so magnificent a structure for the sake of beings which,
although endued with sensation, possess neither speech nor intelligence. For
whom, then, was the world produced ? doubtless for those beings who are alone
endued with reason " (Cicero, de Nat. Deo., 611, c. 53).

1 52 Recapitulation.

the gauds of Nature symbolic expressions as they exist in
perception. There is a higher faculty which dives beneath these
accumulated beauties, ever seeking this cause, and beneath this
wealth of gems finds intelligent disposition.

Matter presents her discords flaming chaos, rapacity, cruelty,
and extirpation. Such is the display of the material potence, and
were that the formulator of Nature there would be no extrication
from the contradictions, tumults, and confusions. When matter
is confined to her office order reigns, and the seeming confusion
is merged in that purposeness which marshals results. The
creative idea, as applied to phenomena, is collective and dis
criminative ; there are no isolations and individualisms in an
infinite plan. Nature, by the purpose of her institution, becomes
perfect in her homogeneity. Thus the death, the horror and
dread, the incidents of the material thought, are but the gate of
change ; we see life in-glides on itself, rolling onward to reproduce
itself, until it expands in the glory of thought. The purpose for
which Nature was constituted becomes the inbreeding of spirit
through series of changes. The stages of the progressive steps
are blotted away, and intellectual Man is the exposition of natural
facts, the objective crown of the edifice, reared by cause through
effects ; and we can say with Novalis :

" The significance of the world is reason ; for her sake the world is here, and
when it has grown to be the arena of a child-like expanding reason it will one
day become the divine image of her activity." " Till then, let man honour
Nature as the emblem of his own spirit, the emblem ennobling itself along with
him to unlimited degrees ;" and " he who in rigid sequence of thought can lay
it open is for ever master of" Nature, for her purpose is her fact."

RECAPITULATION.

To recapitulate. Did we conceive that all organic movements
are of physical origin, it would lead to the inquiry into the nature
of these physics, and we should be compelled to confess that,
although Mechanics, Chemistry, and Force (in its various phases)
are adapted by Nature to suit her varied requirements, that
matter is but the vehicle of their expression, modelled and moulded
by impulses foreign to it. The assumption then follows that these
physics are not inbred by matter, but that matter is inbred by
them, their interaction producing form. Further, we inquire,
Whence are they ? A question unanswerable by science. All
it can say is they are known as impulses through their effects. In
organized forms we find vital action, animation inbreeding anima
tion, and in this animation we find so infinite an adaptability that a
nerve or muscle set in motion interacts on other nerves and

Matter in its Po fence. 153

muscles, the organism thrilling in synchronous unison ; effects
inducing effects, and so perfect the mechanical arrangement that
each separate part is endued with a motion of its own, and these
motions so blended that the whole mechanism acts as a vibrating
spring, and in its elastic rebound repairs its own waste. If we
suppose this animate motion originated in matter, it follows that
all objective substances are endued with vitality, and we must
assume that vitality and matter are synonymous terms. Besides
material presentments we have imponderable forces, and these
imponderables in their blended energy create the diversity we
know as phenomena. Beyond matter and force there is sensation.
If we suppose sensation to be an outbirth of matter, we must
suppose that each inanimate particle composing the universe has
sensation. Beyond sensation we have instincts, which in such
relations would become arranged sensations. Beyond instinct we
have mind, a directing and controlling impulse. If we conceive
intellect to be derived from matter then every particle of matter
is self-intelligent. If force, sensation, instinct, and intellect, be
derived from matter the conclusions drawn are necessary con
sequences, as the mass cannot have properties which are wanting
in the particles of which it is constituted. We must then say
Stahl s inert mass and Hume s "brute matter" is its own creator ;
that it has form, sensation, force, and intellect, by its own institu
tion, and that in matter is a postulate of Deity.

In an alternative view we find a greater probability. When
we consider the perfect arrangement and adaptation of part to
part, whether viewed in the minutest presentment or in the most
wondrous prodigy, we find in matter only the plastic material upon
which every force acts, which every sense permeates, and intelli
gence commands, all being in, yet not of it. Are we to suppose
that the particles arranged themselves, and that so perfect was the
accident of the arrangement that the accident is endlessly repeated.
If we suppose that Intelligence created, that it adapted, and objec
tively presented its conception as phenomena, we get nearer to a
probable possible. We are ignorant of what matter is, the whence
of intelligence, and how it interpenetrates and underlies all phen
omena. Order is but a form of intelligence. In conceiving all
phenomena as material consequences and all things inborn of it,
without impulsion, without intelligence, we plunge into difficulty,
and march from absurdity to absurdity ; but if we consider that
all things are the outcome of intelligence, the darkness is less
obdurate, the gloom has radiations of light.

It is not because we do not know what intelligence is that we
can deny it to be a power ; we see and experience its action in

154 Man s Technics Nature s Technics.

each moment of time. It is not because we see around us objec
tive forms that we are to say that the substance of which these
forms consist inbreeds its own powers. We know that the
substance to perception can be rendered as impalpable as the
intelligence and the imponderable forces. We know as art
the technics of man, and we know there is no technic adaptation
without intelligence. If we contrast the technics of man with
the technics of nature, we are bound in reason to admit that the
technics of nature are the results of an intelligence with a power
sufficing to execute all its purposes ; and when everywhere we
see arrangement and the interdependence of effect on effect, we are
compelled to conclude there was a purpose in the institution of
a Universe, and that it is the objective presentment of an intel
ligent thought. If, then, there be a thought of this magnitude
we can but conceive it as a particle of an intelligent immensity
concentrated in itself. We may indulge in a no cause hypothesis,
and confess our ignorance; we may indulge in an uncaused cause
hypothesis, and show our aspirations for wisdom. In our abso
lute ignorance of the originating cause, other than the manifesta
tion of intelligence, we cannot present a God, however we may
think him ; but we can conclude this originating intelligence is
omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent ; that it is in but not of
that we know and see. We know not what it zV, we only know
that it is.

Man alone of all things organic and organized is an individualism
through his mentality ; hence, because of his individualism, we must
conceive him to be an intellectual entity, with a potence to become,
to be achieved by culture. When we contemplate " man s place
in nature/ we must conceive that there was an object to be
accomplished by his existence, and that the purpose was worked
out by development. He stands at the head of creation, mind and
matter. We know the grand and the mean are relative as to
sequences, and that each are but agglomerations of particles, in
each differentiated until they reach a finality, that the finality
of one stage is the commencing step of the next, until the purpose
is effected through the adaptation of existing principles. Nature
is a consummation of means. All physics are vital, although not
sentient facts ; hence life arises by the impulsions of law from
the spontaneity of the cause. Can we conceive that the pur
pose of creation is accomplished by man being born but to die ?
We can conceive the wondrous development of organized forms,
as we know them, and that they were instituted that man
might be developed. If there be after this life no beyond for man, he
exists but as a thought and expires in its utterance, and all we

Hume. 155

know of that immensity, the Universe, is as of an ingenious and
wasted mechanism springing from nothing and ending in. nothing.

We assume to know, but what do we know, as a certainty
" of the great kosmic might r" Experience shows there is no
finality in the finite. Each man in the impressiveness of his
impressions must judge in his own conceptions by faith, or by
facts, a God and intelligence, no God or matter, a Creator or a
chance. In assumption, Nageli says, " We know and we shall
know." Do we or shall we ever know all of the finite ? Du Bois
Reymond, in a true appreciation, says, " Ignoramus ignorabimus"
GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN, as a collective fact (whatever be
the postulates of faith), is "an open secret" only to be resolved in
the Unknown.

The wont of the age in which Hume wrote was to consider
him as an atheist and an infidel. His thoughts, although in advance
of his time, were founded on a true philosophy, his object being to
induce men to think, and thereby to free themselves from the
trammels of dogma. Sir William Hamilton says, "The man
who gave the whole philosophy of Europe a new impulse and
direction, and to whom, mediately or immediately, must be
referred every subsequent advance in philosophical ideas, was
David Hume." Accepting the principles of Locke and Leibnitz,
he showed the insufficiency of their results. To him mediately
is due the philosophy of Kant, of Reid, of Royer Collard, Victor
Cousin, and Maine de Biran. Thus German, Scotch and
French philosophy is indebted to Hume; but for him "Kant
would have continued in his dogmatic slumber, Reid would have
remained in quiet adhesion to Locke, and the materialism of
Condillac would still be reigning over the schools of France."

Searchers for truth must commence, as great poets do, with
Nature, thence ascending to humanity, end by idealizing all in
Deity, 1 as the rock which by the stroke of the chisel is sculp
tured into form, takes from art both its form and its soul. Hel-
vetius held that the literature and spirit of the age move in
concert. " The time was when in Italy the word virtus meant
both morality and valour " but, transposed into virtu, it means
antiquities and knicknacks. So also there was a time when
science meant something more than an apotheosis of matter.
Thus the genius of an age means exactly the interest its denizens
take in it. A vitiated taste, in a morbid sympathy, may mistake

1 Schiller, in the Ideals, says, " When to me lived the tree, when to me sang the
silver fall of the fountain ; when from the echo of my life the soulless itself took
feeling." In the ideals and the life the two existences unite as the crowning result
of perfected art ; the life yielding the materials through which the ideal accomplished
its archetypal form.

156 Faith, the Destiny.

scientific imaginings and their consequent hypotheses for sound
deductions, and vicious subtleties for sound moralizings ; those
healthy at the core will not be corrupted by meretricious inter
pretations, however much they be the fashion of the day, and may
be likened to the philosopher, who, when called upon to observe an
enormous creature crawling on the surface of the moon, dis
pelled the illusion by showing it was induced by a blue bottle
fly lubricating itself on the surface of the lens.

In all we think, in all we feel, there is a needed faith in a
something not yet in experience, involving an archetype in a some
thing higher than o ur thought, and yet beyond all analyzation in
thought, hidden in shadows unpierced, hut which notwithstand
ing, culminates in the illimitable and the unknown. Faith is
the destiny of man, without which neither science nor philosophy
could not be ; it is " the twinkling of that sacred particle of fire
which does not confine its light and its warmth to the altar on
which it glows." No theory the mind can devise can exist
without faith ; it being that restless, productive, vivifying, indis
pensable principle which is the support of our reason. What is the
belief in the potence of matter, the fortuitous concourse of atoms,
the materiality of the mind, and the omnipotence of physical
force, but faith in unproved dogmas ? It is a perversion of faith
when it embitters itself into intolerance. The most intolerant,
perhaps, are those who have an intense faith in the wisdom of
of their own irreligion. 1 Whatever a man be, whether politician,
experimentalist, poet, or cobbler, if he exclusively cultivates that
calling, he becomes as narrow-minded and bigoted as the
Chinaman who, when mapping the world, represented the
Celestial empire with all its Tartar villages in full detail, and,
without that limit, characterized the rest of the world as wilds
and deserts, peopled by barbarians. " Strike from mankind the
principle of faith, and men would have.no more history than a
flock of sheep" (Bulwer).

The great thing of all is to know on which side we stand, and
where. It is impossible to predicate a Deity without a Pro
vidence, and it is equally impossible to predicate a Providence with
out an immortality of spirit. The assumption of pseudo-science is
that there is no God, or if there be, that He is undemonstrable/

1 Addison, with exquisite irony, says, " that the zealots in atheism would be

exempt from the simple thought which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervour

of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and

contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it "

^Spectator}.

3 Jacobi says, "To demonstrate God s existence would be to point out a ground
or causes of His existence, whereby God would be made a dependent being.

Culture. 157

unthinkable ; hence that it is impossible to predicate a Pro
vidence on the face of phenomena ; and as matter is the only
existing fact, there can be no immortality for man as a sentient
entity ; but if there be a God, a Providence, and an im?nortality of
spirit?- then, as "this world is a school for the education, not of a
faculty, but of a man," it follows that the only true cu/ture is that
of the mind, its culture, in the immortality of spirit, being the pre
paration for an eternity.

All thirst for an immortality. The scientific name it fame, 2
thus seeking in the evanescent the abiding ; thereby the spirit or
essence of man, wherein alone the immortal principle can reside,
becomes dependent on a fading or failing memory. There are
those who, in a truer wisdom, find an immortality in unending
progress, and thereby lift their ideal virtue and wisdom, " fur
ther and further from the breath of man, nearer and nearer to
the smile of God." The renown of the sage rarely lives in tra
dition, and but for the power of picturing thoughts in hierogly
phics, would find no world echo. The material, ruling the
thought, obliterates the ideal, and ends in the nothingness of its
own creation. With wisdom and hope as the ruling impulses,
there were on earth peace and good will. Man in his dual con
dition unites in himself the perceptive and conceptive : the per
ceptive bears through life, the ancestral taint of the organic
descent; the conceptive finds its ideal even in a chaos of worlds.
In the materialistic thought is met the heterogeneous and chaotic.

o o

In the ideal thought the homogeneous and intelligent. When man

O O O

forsakes the ideal for the material, what is the gain ? He leaves
hope behind, yet does not attain to certainty.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star

Twixt night and morn upon the horizon s verge ;
How little do we know that which we are !

How less what we may be ! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on and bears afar our bubbles " (Byron),

1 Man in the only sense "in which philosophy c;m employ the word is super
natural." Sir William Hamilton termed Jacobi " the pious and profound," who
says, " With a felicitous boldness, that it is the supernatural in man which reveals
to him the God whom nature conceals." " Mere nature does not^reveiil a Deity to
such of her children as cannot conceive the supernatural. She does not reveal Him
to the cedar and the rose, to the elephant and to the moth. (Bulwer). There is no
a