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OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 


VOLUME II. 


em, OF 10, 


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C Y, 


c- 7 
OUTLINES OF COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 
BASED ON THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION, 
WITH CRITICISMS “ON THE POSITIVE 
PHILOSOPHY . 


BY 


JOHN FISKE 


L’ univers, pour qui saurait Pembrasser d’un seul point de vue, ne serait, s°il est permis 
de le dire, qu’un fait unique et une grande vérité. —D’ALEMBERT 


Kal 7d SAov rotT0 51a radta Kéo mov Kadodoww, obk akooulay.— PLATO 


IN TWO VOLUMES 


VOLUME II, 


ELEVENTH EDITION 


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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
Che Viversite Press, Cambridge 
1890 


Entered according to Act oi Congress, in the year 1874, by 


JOHN FISKE, — 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


CONTENTS. 


. 
PART II. (Continvep.) 
SYNTHESIS. 
CHAPTER X. 
PAGE 
MATURATL: GELECTION « 6 © ¢. 6 © @'€ @.@le © 6¢ 8 © @ oe 8 
CHAPTER XI. 
TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 2» «© © © © © © © © © @ @ e 82 


CHAPTER XII. 


ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT « «© «© «@ o« « 


CHAPTER XIII. 


LIFE AS ADJUSTMENT .se« e© ©§ © © eo @ @ @ © @ @ © 8 ew et 


eee Nh 4S oo ok ee ee Se Se te teres UR 


CHAPTER XY. 


THE COMPOSITION OF MIND ¢« ¢« e 4 CRE 1) es erie ag OB 


vi CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER XVI. 


‘ PAGE 
THE EVOLUTION OF MIND ee e@e © e © e © © « @ 


e e e e e 133 


CHAPTER XVII. 


SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL ¢ » © e e © © ¢ © « «© « © « 164 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY «© © « © © © © © © @ ¢ 


@ 


Puen S| 


CHAPTER XIX. 


ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS « © «© © © © © © «© © © © « 225 


CHAPTER XX. 


CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS « «© «© ce eee o. 8 6 uel 6 ee 


CHAPTER XXL 


GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY « «© © © eo ec eo ee e » 285 


CHAPTER XXII 


GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY « e « « Pear e 324 


PART III. 
COROLLARIES., 


CHAPTER L 
THE QUESTION RESTATED « 0 «© «© 0 © © «© @© 0 ec ee © 867 


CHAPTER Il 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEIGSM . « 6 0 0 © 8 » @ 6): 66 "© es, 881 


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MATTER AND SPIRIT « ee ee ee ee ee ee eo oe 488 


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THE ORITICAL ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY « ie ie gs ge MEO 


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PART IL. 


SYNTHESIS, 


(CONTINUED.) 


“Nie Thitickeit des Organismus ist bestimmt durch seine Receptivitat 
und umgekehrt. Weder scino Thitigkeit noch seine Receptivitat ist an sich 
etwas reelles, Realitit erlangen beide nur in dieser Wechselbestimmung. 
Thitigkeit und Receptivitat entstehen also zugleich in einem und demselben 
untheilbaren Moment, und nur dieses Simultaneitiit von Thitigkcit und Re- 
ceptivitit constituirt das Leben. In den entgegengesctzten Richtungen, die 
durch diese Entgegensetzung entstehen, licgt das Princip fiir die Construc- 
tion aller Lebenserscheinungen.”—ScHELLING, L£rster Eniwurf. 1799. 


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CHAPTER X. 
NATURAL SELECTION, 


In that most delightful of printed books, the “ Conversations 
of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret,” there is an amusing 
anecdote which shows how distinctly the great master real- 
-ized the importance of the question of the origin of species. 
The news of the French Revolution of July, 1830, had 
just reached Weimar and set the whole town in commotion. 
In the course of the afternoon, says Soret, “I went around 
to Goethe’s. ‘ Now,’ exclaimed he to me, as I entered, ‘ what 
do you think of this great event? The volcano has come to 
an eruption; everything is in flames, and we have no longer 
a transaction with closed doors!’ ‘Terrible affair, said I, 
‘but what could be expected under such outrageous circum- 
stances, and with such a ministry, otherwise than that the 
whole would end with the expulsion of the royal family ?’ 
My good friend,’ gravely returned Goethe, ‘we seem not 
to understand each other. I am not speaking of those 
creatures there, but of something quite different. I am 
speaking of the contest, so important for science, between 
Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, which has just come to an 
open rupture in the French Academy!’” At this unex- 
pected turn of the subject poor Soret knew not what to say, 
B 2 


4 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. lpr. 1. 


and for some minutes, he tells us, his thoughts were quite at 
a standstill. | 

The anecdote well illustrates the immeasurable superiority 
of Goethe over Comte in prophetic insight into the bearings 
of the chief scientific question of the immediate future. 
While Comte was superciliously setting aside the problem of 
man’s origin, as a problem not only insoluble but utterly devoid 
of philosophic value even if it could be solved, the great 
German poet and philosopher was welcoming the outbreak 
of this famous contest on questions of pure morphology, as 
conducive to the speedy triumph of the development theory, 
for which he himself had so long been waging battle. But 
events were hastening that triumph even more rapidly than 
Goethe could have anticipated. In December 1831, only a 
few weeks before Goethe was laid in the grave, Mr. Darwin 
set out upon that voyage around the world, in the course of 
which he fell in with the facts which suggested his theory of 
the origin of species. The history of the investigation is a 
memorable one,—worth noting for the illustration it gives 
of the habits of a truly scientific mind. On his return to 
England, in 1837, Mr. Darwin began patiently to collect all 
kinds of facts which might be of use in the solution of the 
problem,—“ how is organic evolution caused?” It was only 
after seven years of unremitting labour that he went so far 
as to commit to manuscript a brief sketch of his general 
conclusions, of which the main points were communicated to 
his friends Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. Hooker. A less wise 
and sober speculator than Mr. Darwin would now at once 
have rushed into print, A thinker less thoroughly imbued 
with the true scientific spirit would probably have suffered 
from not publishing his views, and profiting by the adverse 
criticisms of contemporary observers. It is a striking illus- 
tration of Mr. Darwin’s patience and self-restraint that he 
continued fifteen years longer to work assiduously in testing 
the weak and strong points of his theory, before presenting 


—_ 


on) NATURAL SELECTION. F 


it to the public, And it is an equally interesting illustration 
of his thoroughly scientific temperament that, after so many 
years of solitary labour, he should have been so little carried 
away by the fascinations of his own hypothesis as to foresee 
clearly all the more valid objections which might be urged 
against it. After a careful perusal of the recent literature of 
the subject, and especially of the skilful work of Mr. St. 
George Mivart, it still seems to me that the weightiest 
objections which have yet been brought to bear on the Dar- 
winian theory are to be found in Chapters VI—IX. of Mr. 
Darwin’s own work, where they are elaborately and in most 
cases conclusively answered. To such a marvellous instance 
of candour, patience, and sobriety, united with the utmost 
boldness of speculation, the history of science can show but 
few parallels. 

In 1858, a fortunate circumstance caused Mr. Darwin to 
break his long silence, and to give to the public an exposition 
of the results of his researches, Mr. Wallace, who had been 
for several years engaged in studying the natural history of 
the Malay Archipelago, had arrived at views concerning the 
origin of species quite similar to Mr. Darwin’s, and in 1858 he 
sent Mr, Darwin an essay on the subject, which in August of 
the same year was published in the Journal of the Linnzan 
Society. ‘Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. Hooker now earnestly 
advised Mr. Darwin to publish his own views; and in 1859 
the memorable treatise on the “Origin of Species” was 
given tothe world. 

It would, however, be incorrect to rate Mr. Wallace’s merits, 
in the discovery of the law of natural selection, so high as 
Mr. Darwin’s. They do not stand on precisely the same 
level, like Adams and Leverrier with reference to the disco- 
very of the planet Neptune. Mr. Wallace, indeed, thought 
out independently all the essential points of the theory, and 
stated it in a way which showed that he understood its 
wide-reaching importance; but being a much younger man 


6 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (pr. 11. 


than Mr. Darwin, and having begun the investigation at a 
much later date, he by no means worked it out so elabo- 
rately. Nor is it likely that, with an equal length of time 
at his command, he could have succeeded in producing a 
work comparable in scientific calibre to the “Origin of 
Species.” His lately published collection of essays, while 
showing unusual powers of observation and rare acuteness in 
the' application of his theory to certain special classes of 
phenomena, nevertheless furnishes convincing proof that in 
breadth and depth of scientific attainment, as well as in 
philosophic capacity, he is very far inferior to his great 
coadjutor. In his preface, indeed, Mr. Wallace hastens to 
acknowledge, with a modest self-appreciation as rare as it is 
admirable, and especially rare in such cases, that his strength 
would have been quite unequal to the task which Mr. Darwin 
has accomplished. 

As Prof. Haeckel somewhere observes, it was quite fortunate 
for the progress of science that Mr. Darwin received such a 
stimulus to the publication of his theory; since otherwise 
he might perhaps have gone on several years longer, 
observing and experimenting in seclusion. The almost im- 
mediate acquiescence of the majority of naturalists in Mr. 
Darwin’s views, shows that in 1859 the scientific world 
was fully prepared for them. The flimsiness of the special- 
creation hypothesis was more or less clearly perceived by 
a large number of biologists, who were only withheld from 
committing themselves to the derivation theory by the cir- 
cumstance that no satisfactory explanation of the process of 
development had been propounded. No one had assigned 
an adequate cause for such a phenomenon as the gradual 
evolution of a new species; and sundry attempts which had 
been made in this direction were so obviously futile as to 
txcite both distrust and ridicule. Lamarck, for example, 
placing an exaggerated stress upon an established law of 
biology, contended that “desires, by leading to increased 


cH, X.] NATURAL SELECTION. ” 


actions of motor organs, may induce further development of 
such organs,” and that, consequently, animals may become 
directly adapted through structural changes to changes in 
their environment. We shall see, as we continue the dis- 
cussion, that such directly adaptive changes really take 
place; but Lamarck ill understood their character, and 
indeed could not have been expected to understand it, 
since in his day dynamical biology was in its earliest in- 
fancy... By insisting on volition as a chief cause of adaptive 
change, the illustrious naturalist not only left the causes of 
vegetable variation unexplained, but even in the zoological 
department laid open the way for malicious misrepresen- 
tations which the uninstructed zeal of theological adversaries 
has gladly transferred to the account of Mr. Darwin. Some 
time ago a clergyman in New York, lecturing about Dar- 
winism, sarcastically alluded to “the bear which took to 
swimming, and so became awhale.” Had this worthy person 
condescended to study the subject about which he thought 
himself fit to enlighten the public, he would soon have dis- 
covered that his funny remark is not even a parody upon 
any opinion held by Mr. Darwin. In so far as it is appli- 
cable to any opinion ever held by a scientific writer, it may 
perhaps be accepted as a parody, though at best a very far- 
fetched and feeble one, of the hypothesis of Lamarck. 

It is now time to explain what the Darwinian theory is. 
At the outset we may observe that while it is a common error 
to speak of Mr. Darwin as if he were the originator of the 
derivation theory, the opposite error is not unfrequently 
committed of alluding to him as if he had contributed 
nothing to the establishment of that theory save the doctrine 
of natural selection. Mr. Mivart habitually thus alludes to 
him. In fact, however, Mr. Darwin’s merits are twofold. 
He was the first to marshal the arguments from classification, 


* Lamarck also tried to explain organic development metaphysically, as 
the continuous manifestation of an “ inherent tendency ” toward perfection. 


8 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 1, 


embryology, morphology, and distribution, and thus fairly to 
establish the fact that there has been a derivation of higher 
forms from lower; and he was also the first to point out 
the modus operandi of the change. The first of these achieve- 
ments by itself would have entitled him to associate his name 
with the development theory; though it was only by the 
second that the triumph of the theory was practically assured. 
Just as, in astronomy, the heliocentric theory was not regarded 
as completely established until the forces which it postulated 
were explained as identical with forces already known, so the 
development theory possessed comparatively little value as a 
working hypothesis so long as it still remained doubtful 
whether there were any known or knowable causes sufficient 
to have brought about the phenomena which that theory 
assumed to have taken place. It was by pointing out ade- 
quate causes of organic evolution that Mr. Darwin established 
the development theory upon a thoroughly scientific basis. 

As Lyell explained all past geologic phenomena as due to 
the slow action of the same forces which are still in, action 
over the earth’s surface and beneath its crust, so Mr. Darwin, 
in explaining the evolution of higher from lower forms of 
life, appeals only to agencies which are still visibly in action. 
‘Whether species, in a state of nature, are changing or not at 
the present time, cannot be determined by direct observation, 
any more than the motion of the hour-hand of a clock could 
be detected by gazing at it forone second. The entire period 


1 <‘Tf we imagine mankind to be contemplated by some creature as short- 
lived as an ephemeron, but possessing intelligence like our own—if we 
imagine such a being studying men and women, during his few hours of life, 
and speculating as to the mode in which they came into existence ; it is 
manifest that, reasoning in the usual way, he would suppose each man and 
woman to have been separately created. No appreciable changes of structure 
eccurring during the few hours over which his observations extended, this 
being would probably infer that no changes of structure were taking place, or 
had taken place ; and that from the outset, each man and woman had pos- 
sessed all the characters then visible—had been originally formed with them, 
oy pee naturally be the first impression,”’—Spencer, Principles of Biology, 
vol, i. p. 338. 


-_ 


cu.x.) NATURAL SELECTION. 9 


which has elapsed since men began to observe nature sys- 
tematically, is but an infinitesimal portion of the period 
requisite for any fundamental alteration in the characteristics 
of a species. But there are innumerable cases in which 
species are made to change rapidly through the deliberate 
intervention of man. In the course of a few thousand years, 
a great number of varieties of plants and animals have been 
produced under domestication, many of which differ so widely 
from their parent-forms that, if found in a state of nature, 
they would be unhesitatingly classified as distinct species, 
and sometimes as distinct genera. Modifications in the 
specific characters of domesticated organisms are the only 
ones which take place so rapidly that we can actually observe 
them ; and it therefore becomes highly important to inquire 
what is the agency which produces these modifications. 

That agency is neither more nor less than selection, taking 
advantage of that slight but universal variation in organisms 
implied by the fact that no two individuals in any species 
are exactly alike. If man, for example, wishes to produce a 
breed of fleet race-horses, he has only to take a score of 
horses and select from these the fleetest to pair together: 
from among the offspring of these fleet pairs he must again 
select the fleetest ; and thus, in a few generations, he will 
obtain horses whose average speed far exceeds that of the 
fleetest of their undomesticated ancestors. It is in this and 
no other way that our breeds of race-horses have becn pro- 
duced. In this way too have been produced the fine wools 
of which our clothing is made. By selecting, generation after 
generation, the sheep with the finest and longest wool, a breed 
of sheep is ultimately reared with wool almost generically 
different from that of the undomesticated race. In this and 
no other way have the different races of dogs—the greyhound, 
the mastiff, the terrier, the pointer, and the white-haired 
Eskimo—been artificially developed from two or three closely 
allied varieties of the wolf and jackal. The mastiff and 


10 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1, 


blood-hound are more than ten times as large as {he terrier, 
and, if found in a state of nature, they would perhaps be 
classed in distinct genera, like the leopard and panther, whose 
differences are hardly more striking. Yet the ancestral races 
from which these dogs have been reared differed but slightly 
from each other. The different breeds of dogs vary in the 
number of their toes, teeth, and vertebre, in the number 
and disposition of their mamme, in the shape of their 
zygomatic arches, and in the position of their occiputs; 
although dogs have not been selected with refereuce to these 
peculiarities, about which uninstructed men neither know 
nor care, but only with reference to their sveed, fleetness, 
strength, or sayacity. In the case of domestic pigeons, where 
man has been to a great extent actuated by pure fancy in his 
selections, the divergences are still more remarkable. All 
domestic pigeons are descended from a single species of wild 
pigeon; yet their differences, even in bony structure, in the 
internal organs, and in mental disposition, are such as charac- 
terize distinct genera, and to describe them completely would 
require a large volume. Pigs, rabbits, cows, fowl, silk-moths, — 
and hive-bees furnish no less instructive evidence; and the 
development of the peach and the almond from a common 
stock, and of countless varieties of apple from the sour crab, 
may be cited, out of a hundred examples, to show what pro- 
digies artificial selection has accomplished in the modification 
of vegetal organisms. , 

Now Mr. Darwin’s great achievement has been to show 
that a similar process of selection, going on throughout the 
organic world without the knowledge or intervention of 
man, tends not only to maintain but to produce adaptive 
alterations in plants and animals. The process is a simple 
one, when once we have the clew to it. All plants and 
animals tend to increase in a high geometrical ratio, The 
old problem of the nails in the horse’s shoe teaches 
us what an astounding affair is a geometrical rate of in- 


Pe oy PO STEN ye ee eee 


ha ae 


on. x.] NATURAL SELECTION. rt 


crease; but when we consider the reproductive capacity of 
insects and plants, the nails in the horse’s shoe are left no- 
where. When Arctic travellers tell us that the minute proto- 
coccus multiplies so fast as to colour blood-red many acres 
of snow in a single night, such a rate of increase appears 
astonishing. But it is a mere trifle compared to what would 
happen if reproduction were to go on unchecked. Let us 
take the case of a plant which yields one hundred seeds 
yearly, and suppose each of these seeds to reach maturity so 


as to yield its hundred offspring in the following year: in the 


tenth year the product would be one hundred quintillions* 
of adult plants! As this is one of those figures before which 
the imagination stands hopelessly baffled, let us try the effect 
of an illustration. Supposing each of these plants to be from 
three to five inches in length, so that about twenty thousand 
would reach an English mile, the total length of the number © 
just mentioned would be equal to five million times the radius 
of the earth’s orbit. The ray of light, which travels from the 
sun to the earth in eight minutes, would be seventy-six years 
in passing along this line of little plants! And in similar 
wise, it might be shown of many insects, crustaceans, and 
fishes, that their unchecked reproduction could not long go 
on without requiring the assimilation of a greater quantity 
of matter than is contained in the whole solar system. 

We may now begin dimly to realize how prodigious is the 
slaughter which unceasingly goes on throughout the organic 
world. For obviously, when a plant, like the one just cited, 
maintains year by year a tolerable uniformity in its numbers, 
it does so only because ou the average ninety-nine seeds 
perish prematurely for one that survives long enough to 
produce other seeds. A single codfish has been known to 
tay six million eggs within a year. If these eggs were all 
to become adult codfishes, and the multiplication were to 


* According to the American system of numeration, One hundred thousand 
Willions, according to the English system, 


12 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [prem 


continue at this rate for three or four years, the ocean would 
not afford room for the species. Yet we have no reason to 
suppose that the race of codfishes is actually increasing in 
numbers to any notable extent. With the codfish, as with 
animal species in general, the numbers during many succes- 
sive generations oscillate about a point which is fixed, or 
moves but slowly forward or backward. Instead of a 
geometrical increase with a ratio of six millions, there is 
practically no marked increase at all. Now this implies that 
out of the six million embryo codtish a sufficient number 
will survive to replace their two parents, and to replace a 
certain small proportion of those contemporary codfishes who 
leave no progeny. Perhaps a dozen may suffice for this, 
perhaps a hundred. The rest of the six million must die. 
We may thus understand what is meant by the “ struggle 
for existence.” Battles far more deadiy than those of 
Gettysburg or Gravelotte have been incessantly waged on 
every square mile of the earth’s life-bearing surface, since 
life first began. It is only thus that the enormous increase 
of each species has been kept within bounds. Of the many 
offspring produced by each plant and animal, save in the case 
of those highest in the scale, but few attain maturity and 
leave offspring behind them. The most perish for want of 
sustenance, or are slain to furnish food for other organisms. 
There is thus an unceasing struggle for life—a competition 
for the means of subsistence—going on among all plants and 
animals. In this struggle by far the greater number succumb 
without leaving offspring, but a few favoured ones in each 
generation survive and propagate to their offspring the 
- qualities by virtue of which they have survived. 

Thus we see what is meant by “ Natural Selection.” The 
organisms which survive and propagate their kind are those 
which are best adapted to the conditions in which they live: 
so that we may, by a legitimate use of metaphor, personify 
Nature as a mighty breeder, selecting from each generation 


cH, x.] NATURAL SELECTION, 13 


those individuals which are fleetest, strongest, most sagacious, 
lions with supplest muscles, moths with longest antenne, 
mollusks with hardest shells, wolves with keenest scent, bees 
with surest instinct, flowers with sweetest nectar,—until, in 
the course of untold ages, the numberless varieties of organic _ 
life have been produced by the same process of which man 
now takes advantage in order to produce variations to suit 
his own caprices. 

Between natural selection and selection by man there is, 
however, one important difference. Selection by man tends 
_to produce varieties adapted to satisfy human necessities or 
inclinations, and it has no direct reference to the maintenance 
of the species. Such abnormities as the pouter and tumbler 
pigeons could not be sustained in a state of nature ; and 
hence, when doinesticated animals are turned loose, they are 
_ apt to revert to something like their ancestral type,! else they 
are exterminated by races better adapted to wild life. But 
natural selection, working with the sternest of methods, saves 
from the general slaughter only those individuals which can 
best take care of themselves, and thus maintains each species 
in adaptation to its environment. The wonderful harmonies 
in the organic world, which a crude philosophy explained as 
the achievement of creative contrivance, are therefore due to 
the continued survival of the fittest and the continued 
slauchter of the less adapted plants and animals. 

Now if the geography and meteorology of the earth were 
ever-constant, if the nature of the soil, the amount of 
moisture, the density of the atmosphere, and the intensity of 
solar radiance were everywhere to remain forever unaltered, 
and if each race of plants and animals were always to remain 
confined to one limited area, the survival of the fittest would 
simply maintain unaltered any given aspect of the beings 
constituting the organic world. All variations on either side 


1 This fact, which has often been alleged by superficial critics as an obstacle 
to the Darwinian theory, is thus in reality implied by that theory. 


14 : COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11, 


of tlie well-adjusted mean would be incessantly cut off by 
natural selection, and species would be immutable. It is 
needless to say that no such state of things has ever existed. 
Constant change has been the order of things ever since our 
planet first became fit to support organic life. No part of 
the earth’s surface is now, or ever has been, at rest. Con- 
tinents are rising and sinking, seas are growing deeper and 
shallower, soils are constantly altering in chemical composi- 
tion, rivers are ever changing their beds, solar radiance is 
ever gaining or losing in intensity, according to the earth’s 
ever-varying position in space, the density and moisture of 
the air are continually increasing and diminishing, and every 
species of plant and animal is continually pressing upon the 
limits of the area within ‘which it is confined. All these 
changes are going on to-day, and have been going on during 
millions of ages. Though so slight as to be recognized only 
by the most careful observation during the period covered 
by human history, these changes have during longer periods 
sufficed to submerge every continent and perhaps to make dry 
land of every sea and ocean on the face of the globe. They 
have raised mountains like the Andes and the Himalayas at 
the rate of a few inches per century; they have converted ex- 
tensive tropical swamps into the desert of Sahara; they have 
repeatedly covered Europe and North America with glaciers ; 
and they have hidden beneath solid rocks vast treasures of 
carbon stealthily purloined from the dense atmosphere of an 
older age. 

Since such changes have ever been going on, it follows that 
organisms have been unable to remain constant and live. A 
race of animals or plants in which no individuals ever varied 
would sooner or later inevitably be exterminated, leaving no 
progeny to fill its place. Observation shows, however, that 
there is no such race. The members of each species are ever 
slightly varying, but, so long as the environment remains 
constant, natural selection prevents the variations from 


cu. x.) NATURAL SELECTION. 15 


accumulating on either side of the mean which is most 
advantageous to the species. When the environment changes, 
if certain variations on one side of the established mean 
tend to bring the individuals which manifest them into closer 
adaptation to the new environment, these individuals will 
survive in the struggle for life, and thus the average character 
of the species will be slightly altered. No two bears have 
just the same amount of hair, no two moths have just the 
same length of proboscis, no two antelopes are exactly matched 
in fleetness. Now if increasing cold renders a thicker 
covering useful to the bear, or if the lengthening of a flower- 
calyx, due to a slight change in soil or quantity of sunlight, 
renders a longer proboscis useful to the moth, or if the 
immigration of a carnivorous animal makes it necessary for 
antelopes often to run for their lives, then in each generation 
the thickest-coated bears, the longest-tongued moths, and the 
fleetest antelopes will survive. Every individual variation 
in the direction of a heavier coat, a longer sucker, or a 
structure better adapted for fleeing will give its owner the 
advantage in the incessant struggle for life, and these 
peculiarities will be oftenest inherited, while individuals 


which do not vary, or which vary in the wrong direction, 


will have to migrate or die. 
The student of natural history, who realizes, however 


dimly, the prodigious complexity of the relations of the 


various species of animals and plants to each other, will 
perceive that the amount of variation thus preserved and 
enhanced must in the course of long ages become enormous. 
If a grain of sand were each year added to an ant-heap, it 
would in course of time become as large as Chimborazo. But 
these changes, directly caused by natural selection, are greatly 


1 It is thus one of the great merits of the theory of natural selection, that 
it accounts for the phenomena of eatinction of species, —which formerly could 
only be accounted for by the gratuitous and utterly indefensible hypothesis 
bf periodical catastrophes or cataclysms, 


16 COSMIC PHILOSUPHY, 3 [Pr. 11. 


aided and emphasized by other changes indirectly produced 
by correlation of growth, and also by what is called the law 
of use and disuse. By correlation of growth, or internal 
equilibration, we mean the effect produced upon any part of 
the organism by change in a related or neighbouring part. 
Let us suppose that it becomes advantageous to some feline 
animal, like the ancestor of the lion, to have large and power- 
ful jaws. Since no two of our leonines would have jaws of 
exactly the same size and strength, natural selection would 
preserve all the strong-jawed individuals, while the weak- 
jawed individuals would succumb in the struggle for life. In 
the course of many generations our race of leonines would 
possess on the average much larger and stronger jaws than at 
the period at which we began to consider it. But greater 
weight of jaw entails increased exertion of the muscles 
which move the jaw, so that these muscles, receiving more 
and more blood, will become permanently increased in size 
and power. The portions of the skull into which the jaw- 
bones fit will likewise receive an extra strain, and will con- 
sequently increase in rate of nutrition and grow to a larger 
size, so that the shape of the whole head will be altered. 
This increased weight of the head, and the increasingly 
violent activity of the muscles which move the jaws, entails a 
greater strain upon the vertebrze which support the head, and 
upon the cervical muscles which move it from side to side. 
The heightened nutrition of these bones and muscles will 
add to their weight, so that the shoulders and chest will be 
affected. There will be a tightening of the tendons, and 
probably a perceptible alteration in the relative lengths of 
the different bones and muscles throughout the anterior part 
of the body ; and these changes, altering the animal’s centre 
of gravity, will inevitably cause other compensating changes 
in the rest of the body. The legs, shoulders and haunches 
will be modified. Alterations in the weights bearing upon 
‘he chest will affect the erowth of the lungs and the aeration 


a eee ee eee OS eee eee St eS 
* 


ee Pe ed 0 ee a 
6 


ee Cr 


eh oe a 
ert aie 


cH. X.] NATURAL SELECTION. VI 


of the blood. And the stomach, intestines, and various 
secreting glands will respond to the requirements of all these 
nutritive changes. While, lastly, such deep-seated variations 
cannot fail to influence the nervous system of the animal, and 
to modify somewhat its temperament and its modes of life. 
To illustrate the effects of use and disuse, let us reconsider 
the antelopes, of whom natural selection has so long pre- 
served the swiftest and most quickly frightened individuals 
that they now rank among the fleetest and most timid of 
mamuals. If all the lions and other swift carnivora of 
Africa were to become extinct, so that antelopes would no 
longer have to run for their lives, the slower and less easily 
alarmed individuals would begin to be preserved in as great 
numbers as the swifter and more timid ones, so that by and 
by the average speed and timidity of the race would be 
diminished. In all this we see merely the effects wrought by 
unaided natural selection. But it is a fundamental law of 
biology that functions are maintained at their maximum only 
through constant exercise. Freed from savage enemies, our 
antelopes would less frequently use the muscles concerned in 
running, and would less often exercise the mental faculties 
concerned in the rapid perception of approaching danger. 
Inevitably, therefore, they would, after several generations, 
diminish in speed, and become less alert and less timid. 
Here we see the effects of what is called the law of use and 
disuse. But to these we should also have to add the effects 
of correlation of growth. Decrease in speed, involving 
decrease in muscular tonicity, and rendering possible the 
assimilation of less concentrated food, would seriously modify 
the nutrition of the entire organism. The digestive tract 
would probably be enlarged, and larger and lazier bodies 
could not fail to be produced, voth by the direct influence of 
the nutritive processes, and because natural selection would 
no longer necessitate the slaughter of all clumsy-bodied 
individuals. Thus in course of time the breed of antelopes 
VOL. IL. Cc 


18 COSMIC PHILQSOPHY, Dash by Me 


would become so thoroughly altered as to constitute a distinct 
species from their graceful, swift, and timid ancestors. It is 
in just these ways that New Zealand birds, freed by insular 
isolation from the attacks of mammalian enemies, have grown 
large and clumsy, and have lost the power of flight which 
their partly-aborted wings show that they once possessed. 

By the same kind of illustration we may form a rough 
notion of the way in which a single species bifurcates into 
two well-defined species. Suppose a race of ruminants to 
have been living in Africa before the introduction of car- 
nivora, and suppose that, for sundry reasons, the vitality of 
the race was but little affected by moderate variations in 
the sizes of its individuals, so that while some were com- 
paratively light and nimble, others were comparatively large 
and clumsy. Now introducing upon the scene the common 
ancestor of the lion and the leopard—by immigration either 
from Asia or from some other adjacent territory now sub- 
merged—let us note some probable features of the complex 
result. First, as regards the attacked ruminants, it is likely 
that in course of time the lightest and swiftest individuals, 
habitually taking refuge in flight, would have greatly increased 
both in fleetness and in timidity; the largest and most clumsy 
of the species, unable to save themselves by fleeing, would 
often be forced to stand and fight for their lives, and would 
thus ultimately have gained in size, strength, and courage; 
while those who were neither nimble enough to get out of 
the way nor strong enough to fight successfully would have 
all been killed off. And thus, after a while, by perpetual 
destruction of the means and preservation of the extremes, 
we should get two kinds of ruminant as different from one 
another as the antelope which escapes by his fleetness and 
cauticus timidity, and the buffalo which boldly withstands 
the lion and not unfrequently conquers or repulses him. 
Secondly, let us olserve what must have been going on all 
\he while with the attacking carnivora. The lighter and less 


i ee ON ee ye ee 


. 


on. x.] NATURAL SELECTION, 19 


powerful of these would find manifest advantage in crouching 
amid dense foliage and springing down upon unwary victims 
passing below. The larger and more powerful individuals 
would more frequently roam about the open country, attack- 
ing the larger ruminants and giving chase to the nimbler 
ones, and would thus increase in strength and fieetness. 
And thus there would be initiated such differences of size 
and habit as characterize the leopard and the hon. 

It must be borne in mind that this is a purely hypothe- 
tical illustration, which does not pretcnd to give a complete 
account of the complex process, I have no idea that the 
differentiation between antelopes and buffaloes, or between 
lions and leopards, was accomplished in any such straight- 
forward way as this. But while unduly simplifying the 
case, the illustration is undoubtedly sound in principle. No 
doubt the lion is so strong and so swift because only the 
strongest and swiftest lions have been ‘able to prey at once 
upon buffaloes and upon antelopes. No doubt the antelope 
is so swift and so timid because only the swiftest and most 
quickly-frightened antelopes have been enabled to get away 
from the lion, and to propagate their kind. And no doubt in 
the process above described, we get a partial glimpse of some 
of the essential incidents in the past careers of these races. 

All the foregoing illustrations unite in enforcing the con- 
clusion that the direct and indirect effects of natural selection 
are by no means limited to slight or superficial vhanges in 
organisms. The student of physiology well knows that no 
change, however seemingly trivial, which ensures the sur- 
vival of the organism in its fierce struggle for existence, can 
fail in the iong run to entail so many other changes as to 
modify, more or less perceptibly, the entire structure. Even 
such a slight change as an increased thickness of the woolly 
coat of a mammal may, by altering the excretory power of 
the skin, affect the functions of the lungs, liver, and kidneys, 
and thus indirectly increase or diminish the size of the 


c 2 


20 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


animal, which in turn will modify its speed, its muscular 
development, its mental faculties, and its habits of life. 

Having thus briefly indicated the capacity of the theory of 
natural selection for explaining the most general phenomena 
of organic variation, let us in conclusion observe how admir- 
ably it explains certain special phenomena, which do not 
otherwise admit of scientific explanation. For evidence of 
the signal success with which Mr, Darwin has explained 
such otherwise unaccountable facts as the dimorphism of 
certain flowers, the existence of neuters or sterile females 
among bees and ants, the odoriferous glands in mammals, 
the calcareous shells of mollusks, the heavy carapace of the 
tortoise, the humps of the camel, the amazingly complicated © 
contrivances through which orchidaceous plants are fertilized 
by insects, the slave- making instinct of certain ants, the 
horns of male ruminants, atid countless other phenomena ; 
for all this, I must refer to Mr. Darwin’s various works. 
From the mass of phenomena to which the theory of natural 
selection has been satisfactorily applied, I will only select 
as an illustration the case of colour, in the animal and 
vegetal kingdoms. 

Until after the publication of Mr. Darwin’s speculations, 
the colours of plants and animals had never been made the 
subject of careful and philosophical study. So far as any 
hypothesis was held concerning these phenomena, it was the 
vaguely conceived hypothesis that they are due to the direct 
action of such physical conditions as climate, soil, or food. 
But there are fatal objections to such an explanation. When 
Dr. Forbes Winslow, in his work on the “ Physiological 
Influence of Light,” tells us that “the white colour of ani- 
mals inhabiting the polar regions is attributable to the 
absence of intense sunlight,” it is an obvious objection that 
the polar regions are not pre-eminent for darkness. Though 
within the limits of the arctic circle the sun is below the 
horizon for six months together, it is none the less for the 


cH. Xx. | NATURAL SELECTION. 21 


other six months above the horizon; and though its slanting 
rays do not cause excessive heat in the summer, the prolonged 
glare of light, intensified by reflection from the snow and ice, 
is described as peculiarly intolerable. The summer ought to 
tan the polar bears as much as the winter can bleach them. 
And to this it may be added that the Eskimos and Green- 
landers, living under the polar circle, are not bleached. 
Several other facts, alike incompatible with the direct action 
of physical agencies, are mentioned by Mr. Wallace. While 
wild rabbits, for instance, are always tinted grey or brown, 
the same rabbits, when domesticated, give birth to white and 
black varieties, though there has been no change either in 
climate or in food. The case is the same with domestic 
pigeons. But even supposing that the most general features 
of animal colouring could be explained on this hypothesis— 
which they cannot be—there would still remain the more 
remarkable cases of tree-frogs, which resemble bark, and of 
the so-called leaf-butterflies, which when at rest are indistin- 
guishable from leaves; and the existence of such cases isa 
stumbling-block in the way of all theories save the theory of 
natural selection. 
_ For according to the theory of natural selection each species 
of animals will be characterized by that shade of colour which 
is most advantageous to the species in the struggle for exist- 
ence. Now, as Mr. Wallace observes, “ concealment is useful 
to many animals, and absolutely essential to some. Those 
whicn have numerous enemies from which they cannot escape 
by rapidity of motion, find safety in concealment. Those 
which prey upon others must also be so constituted as not to 
alarm them by their presence or their approach, or they would 
soon die of hunger.” In striking harmony with this general 
principle, we find that the great majority of animals are so 
coloured as best to escape notice, and that animals which are 
not protectively coloured are animals whose habits of life are 
such as to enable them to dispense with secrecy. The polar 


ug COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [er. 1 


bear is white, as the California bear is grey and the Hindustan 
bear black, because with a coat thus coloured it can best 
escape notice and secure its prey. -The polar hare has a per- 
manent coat of white ; but the alpine hare, the arctic fox, and 
the ermine, which do not live amid perpetual snow, have 
coats that are white in the winter only. Arctic owls, falcons, 
and buntings are. coloured snowy white; and the ptarmigan 
is white in winter, while “its summer plumage go exactly 
harmonizes with the lichen-covered stones among which it 
delights to sit, that a person may walk through a flock of 
them without seeing a single birds” In the sandy deserts of 
NorthernAfrica, all birds, without exception, all snakes and 
lizards, and all the smaller mammals, are of a uniform sandy 
colour. The camel is tinted like the desert in which he 
lives, and the same is true of the antelope and the Australian 
kangaroo. The tawny lion, says Mr. Wallace, “is a typical 
example of this, and must be almost invisible when sidings 
upon the sand or among desert rocks and stones.” His 
brother, the tiger, “is a jungle animal, and hides himself 
among tufts of grass or of bamboos, and in these positions 
the vertical stripes with which his body is adorned must so 
assimilate with the vertical stems of the bamboo, as to assist 
_ greatly in concealing him from his approaching prey. How 
remarkable it is that besides the lion and tiger, almost all 
the other large cats are arboreal in their habits, and almost 
all have ocellated or spotted skins, which must certainly 
tend to blend them with the backeround of foliage; while 
the one exception, the puma, has an ashy brown uniform 
fur, and has the habit of clinging so closely to a limb of a 
tree, while waiting for his prey to pass beneath, as to be 
hardly distinguishable from the bark.”! Such nocturnal 
animals as owls, goat-suckers, mice, bats, and moles are 
dusky-coloured. In tropical forests, where the trees are laden 
with green foliage all the year round, we find brilliant green 


1 Wallace, Natural Sclection, pp. 49, 53. 


cH. x.} NATURAL SELECTION. 23 


pigeons and parrots; while the northern snipe resembles the 
marshy vegetation in which it lives, and the woodcock, with 
its variegated browns and yellows, is inconspicuous among 
the autumn leaves.' Arboreal iguanas are tinted leafy green ; 
and out of many species of tropical tree-snakes there is but 
one which is not green, and this kind conceals itself during 
the daytime in holes, Flat fish, like the skate and flounder, 
are coloured like the gravel beneath them. Fishes which live 
among gorgeous coral reefs are magnificently tinted. The 
brilliant red hippocampi of Australia dwell among sea-weed 
of the same colour. And numerous other examples from 
the vertebrate sub-kingdom are given by Mr. Wallace, from 
whose remarkable essay the examples here given are culled. 
Before going farther, let us note how completely these 
interesting phenomena are in harmony with the theory ot 
natural selection. The variability of the hues of domestic 
animals descended from a monotonously-coloured wild species, 
shows that there is no direct physiological necessity for the 
production of animals of a single given style of colouring. 
But it is tolerably obvious that in the struggle for existence 
the most conspicuous among those animals which serve as 
food for others will be the soonest detected, killed, and 
eaten; while in general the most conspicuous carnivorous 
animals will be the most easily avoided, and hence will be 
the most likely to perish for lack of sustenance. And while 
it is not universally true of the higher animals, as it is of 
the lower animals and plants, that a much greater number 


perish than survive, the destruction of life is nevertheless 


so great that the fate of each creature must often depend 
upon apparently trivial circumstances, The explanation 
would therefore be satisfactory, even if protective shades 


1 Tho general principle is well stated by Emerson, in this pretty quatrain : 
** He took the colour of his vest 
From rabbit’s coat and grouse’s breast 3 
For as the wild kinds lurk and hide, 
So walks the huntsmun unespied.” 


» 


24 CUSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. 1 


of colouring could be regarded as circumstances of slight 
importance,—which they cannot. 

Since, therefore, it is natural selection which keeps up the 
protective hues of animals, by killing off all save the least 
conspicuous individuais, we may understand why it is that 
animaJ3 which have for several generations been domesticated 
no longer retain, without considerable deviation, their pro- 
tective style of colouring. Freed from the exigencies of wild 
life, there is no longer an imperious need for concealment, 
and hence the unfavourably coloured individuals survive like 
the rest, and variety appears among members of the same 
species. In the cat family, which appears to have been 
originally arboreal, there is a strong tendency to the produc- 
tion of stripes and spots. In the lion, which is not arboreal, 
and in the puma, owing to the peculiarity above mentioned, 
these variegated markings have been almost wholly weeded 
out by natural selection. But in the domestic cat, along 
with these spots and stripes which occasionally show its 
blood-relationship with the leopard and tiger, we more often 
meet with colours not paralleled among the wild species; 
now and then we see cats which are coal-black or snowy 
white. Cows, horses, sheep, dogs, and fowl, furnish parallel 
examples. ‘Thus too we may understand why the sable and 
the Canadian woodchuck retain their brown fur during the 
winter; for the one can subsist on berries, and is far more 
agile than any of its foes, while the other lives in burrows 
by the riverside and catches small fish that swim by in the 
water. And thus we may understand why it is that in the 
case of birds which build open nests, the female is dull 
coloured like the nest; while on the other hand, the females 
of birds which build domed nests are often as brightly 
coloured as the males. 

1 The variegated marking usually appears, however, in lion-cubs; thus 
showing that the variegated colouring of the leopard and tiger is relatively 


primary, while the monotonous colouring of the adult lion is relatively 
secondary. 


cH. X.] NATURAL SELECTION. 25 


Turning now to the insect world, we find a vast abundance 
of corroborative proof. Among the tiger-beetles examined 
by Mr. Wallace in the Malay islands, those which lived upon 
wet mossy stones in mountain brooks. were coloured velvet 
green ; others, found for the most part on dead leaves in the 
forest, were brown ; others again, “ never seen except on the 
wet mud of salt marshes, were of a glossy olive so exactly 
the colour of the mud as only to be distinguished when the 
sun shone,” by casting a shadow. “In the tropics there are 
thousands of species of insects which rest during the 
day clinging to the bark of dead or fallen trees; and the 
greater portion of these are delicately mottled with grey and 
brown tints, which though symmetrically disposed and 
infinitely varied, yet blend so completely with the usual 
colours of the bark, that at two or three feet distance they 
are quite indistinguishable.” Moths, which when resting 
expose the upper surfaces of their wings, have these dull- 
coloured. Butterflies, on the other hand, which rest with 
their wings raised perpendicularly and laid together so as 
to show only the under surfaces, have the upper surfaces 
brilliantly coloured, while the exposed under surfaces are 
dusky and inconspicuous, or even marked in imitation of 
leaves. Mr. Wallace describes an East Indian butterfly 
whose wings are superbly tinted with blue and orange: this 
butterfly is a very swift flyer and is never known to settle 
save among the dead leaves in the dry forests which it 
frequents. When settled, with its wings raised, it imitates a 
shrivelled leat suv perfectly that even the keen eye of the 
naturalist can hardly detect it. This protective colouring is 
found throughout the whole immense order to which belong 
“rasshoppers, crickets, and locusts; the most remarkable 
instance being furnished by the so-called “ walking-leaf,” to 
which no description can do justice. On the other hand, 
hornets, bees, and wasps, which are protected by their stings, 
are brilliantly but not in general protectively coloured. Bugs 


26 - COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11, 


and ground-beetles emit a disagreeable, pungent smull, and 
they are often conspicuously coloured. But the most 
wonderful of all are the cases of protective mimicry. The 
heliconide are among the most beautiful of South American 
butterflies. Being never eaten by birds, on account of a 
nauseous liquid which exudes from them when touched, they 
are not only very lazy dyers, but have the under sides of their 
wings as gorgeously tinted as the upper side, so that they 
can be seen from quite a ‘ong distance. From the same 
cause they are prodigiously numerous, swarming in all the 
tropical forests. Now it is obvious that if another butterfly, 
not protected by a disagreeable odour or taste, were to 
resemble the heliconia in colouring, it would be as efficiently 
protected as by imitating a dead leaf or dry twig; provided 
that there were but few of these butterflies among a large 
number of heliconias. For, as Mr. Wallace says, “if the 
birds could not distinguish the two kinds externally, and there 
were on the average only one eatable among fifty uneatable, 
they would soon give up seeking for the eatable ones, even if 
they knew them to exist.” Now along with the heliconide 
there does, in fact, live a distinct family of butterflies, the 
pieridee, most of which are white, and which are anatomically 
as distinct from the heliconide as a lion from a buffalo. 
But of these vieride there is one genus, the leptalis, which 
exactly resembles the heliconias in external appearance. So 
close is the resemblance that such expert naturalists as Mr. 
Bates and Mr. Wallace have been repeatedly deceived by it 
at the time of capture. Moreover, each species of this genus 
leptalis is a copy of the particular species of heliconia 
which lives in the same district. Every band and spot and 
fleck of colour in the heliconia is accurately reproduced in 
the leptalis; and besides this, the lazy mode of flight is also 
imitated. While in point of numbers, we find about one 
leptalis to a thousand heliconias. Nor is this the only 
instance. So pre-eminently favoured are these beautiful 


ee, We 


cH. X.] NATURAL SELECTION. | 27 


insects by their disgusting taste, that they are exactly 
imitated by at least three genera of diurnal moths. In other 
parts of the world similar phenomena have been noticed. 
The relationship of the leptalis to the heliconia is repeated 
in India, in the Philippine Islands, in the Malay archipelago, 
and in various parts of Africa; the protected insect being, 
in all these cases, very much less numerous than the insect 
whose colours it mimics. In similar wise, bees and wasps 
are often imitated by beetles, by flies and even by moths, 
For further details I must refer to Mr. Wallace’s essay, 
which is a singularly beautiful specimen of inductive reason- 
ing. The facts already cited are quite enough to sustain the 
general conclusion that the colours of animals are in the main 
determined by the exigencies of the struggle for existence. 
Where it is for the advantage of an animal to be concealed, 
as in the great. majority of cases, its colour, whether brilliant 
or sombre, is such as to protect it. But where the animal is 


otherwise adequately protected—either by its peculiar habits, 


by a sting, a disgusting odour or taste, or a hard carapace— 
and where it is not needful for it to be hidden from the prey 
upon which it feeds, then there is usually no reference to 
protection in the colour of the animal. In some of these 
cases, however, a very conspicuous colouring .becomes pro- 
tective—as in the case of the jet-black toad which Mr. 
Darwin saw in La Plata, which emitted a poisonous secretion, 
and which, when crawling over the sandy plain, could not 
-ail to be recognized by every passing creature as an object 
to be avoided. 

In many cases the gorgeous tints of the otherwise protected 
male animal are due to what is called “sexual selection,”— 
to the continual selection of the more beautiful males by the 
females. To this cause is due the magnificent plumage of 
the male bird of paradise; and Mr. Darwin would similarly 
explain the brilliant colours of many male butterflies. In 
his work on the “Descent of Man” may be found an account 


28 COSMiC PHILOSOPITY. [PT. 11 


of the elaborate observations which have Jed to these con- 
clusions. Without feeling it necessary to insist upon the 
validity of all the special explanations contained in that 
work, we must admit that the general theory is substantiated 
by a superabundance of inductive evidence. And when this 
kind of selection is taken in connection with the need for 
protective concealment, we have the means of explaining by 
far the greater part of the colouring found in the animal 
kingdom. 

The colours of the vegetal kingdom have, to a considerable 
extent, been no less satisfactorily explained. “Flowers do 
not often need protection, but very often require the aid of 
insects to fertilize them, and maintain their reproductive 
powers in the greatest vigour. Their gay colours attract 
insects, as do also their sweet odours and honeyed secretions; 
and that this is the main function of colour in flowers is 
shown by the striking fact that those plants which can be 
perfectly fertilized by the wind, and do not need the aid of 
insects, rarely or never have gaily-coloured flowers.”? 

Returning for one moment to the case of animals, which 
are usually benefited by concealment but sometimes by 
conspicuousness, let us note Prof. Shaler’s ingenious explana- 
tion of the rattlesnake’s rattle. The existence of this 
appendage has long been a puzzle to philosophical naturalists, 
and Darwinians have been repeatedly challenged to account 
for the formation or preservation by natural selection of an 
organ assumed to be injurious to the species, The difficulty 
has lain in the assumption, too hastily made, that the noise 
of the rattle must be prejudicfal to the snake by fore- 
warning its enemies or prey of its presence, and thus 
giving the enemies time for sudden attack, and allowing 
the prey to escape. On the theory of natural selection, the 
preservation of the species must entail the atrophy of such 
an organ, or, rather, must prevent its origination, unless the 

1 Wallace, Natural Selection, p. 262, 


Pe Ee et |e ae eee ee 


cn, x.] NATURAL SELECTION, 29 


damage occasioned by it be more than compensated by some 
utility not hitherto detected. Prof. Shaler’s hypothesis, how- 
ever, suggests the possibility that this whole speculation is 
fundamentally erroneous. Far from being injurious to the 
snake, by serving to warn its prey, it would appear that the 
rattle may be directly useful by serving as a decoy. Prof. 
Shaler has observed that the peculiar sound of the rattle is a 
very close imitation of the note emitted by a certain cicada 
common in American forests frequented by rattlesnakes; and 
according to his ingenious suggestion, the bird, hearing the 
note and thinking to make a meal of the cicada, advances 
upon its own destruction, becoming the eaten instead of the 
eater. If this be true, there may be data here for explaining 
some of the alleged phenomena of fascination, so far as 
rattlesnakes are concerned; and another case will be added 
to the numerous cases now on record in which certain 
animals have acquired, for utility’s sake, peculiarities charac- 
teristic of totally different species. I should be more inclined, 
however, to adopt quite a different interpretation of the 
rattlesnake’s rattle. As hinted above, the general law that 
animals are benefited by concealment has some important 
exceptions, In many cases, when an animal is especially 
noxious, it is for his advantage to be conspicuous, that 
enemies may recognize him at a distance and keep away 
from him. Thus,as we have seen, while grasshoppers, moths, 
end butterflies (on the exposed under-surfaces of their wings) | 
are usually so coloured as best to escape notice, on the other 
hand, bees and wasps, which are protected by their stings, 
and many beetles, which are protected by a noxious taste or 
odour, are apt to be conspicuously coloured. And the jet- 
black toad of La Plata is a still better example. Now a 
zattlesnake is unquestionably a very noxious animal, and so 
dangerous to its enemies that they will always do well to 
keep out of its way. Moreover, the death-wound inflicted 
by it, though usually very sure, is somewhat slow in operation; 


30 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 1. 


so that in a fierce struggle it will often happen that its action 
is not prompt enough to preclude a return of compliments 
fatal to the snake. When a tiger tears open the jugular vein 
of his enemy, the enemy is placed hors de combat at once; 
but when the rattlesnake has bitten, there is nothing to 
prevent the foe from employing his few remaining moments 
in tearing the serpent to pieces. Hence the rattlesnake 
must be peculiarly benefited by an apparatus which serves 
as a signal to warn enemies of his presence, and to keep 
them from attacking him. His more formidable enemies, 
belonging chiefly to the mammalian class, are certainly 
intelligent enough to profit by such warning and shun the 
danger; and as it is plainly for the snake’s advantage to 
avoid even a conflict, it is clear that he is practically helped 
even less by his terrible bite than by his power of 
threatening a bite. 

This explanation seems to me quite sound in principle. 
Yet if we adopt it, there is nothing to prevent us from giving 
due weight also to Prof. Shaler’s suggestion. The success 
with which the note of the cicada is counterfeited by the 
rattle is a point to be more fully determined by further 
ybservation. And if it turns out that the rattle fulfiis the 
double purpose of alarming sundry animals that are hostile 
and of enticing sundry others that are good for food, it will 
not be the first case in which it has happened that a structure 
useful in one way has also become useful in another way. 
The question is an interesting one, and valuable if only 
because it reminds us of the danger of reasoning too con- 
fidently, from @ priori premises, about matters the due 
elucidation of which requires careful study of the details of 
the every-day life of animals. It is one of the great merits 
of the theory of natural selection: that it has directed so many 
naturalists, with eyes open, into this fruitful field of inquiry. 

It is because it so well illustrates the wealth of suggestive- 
ness in Mr, Darwin’s theory, that I have ventured upon thir 


Oe 


Ws eee 


tS. 2 ae 5 Sea ee 


on, x.] NATURAL SELECTION, 31 


digression. To the general validity.of that theory, or even 
to the validity of the more special hypothesis concerning the 
uses of concealment or of cunspicuousness, the success o. the 
foregoing explanation is not essential,—since its possible 
inadequacy may very well be due to the incompleteness of 
our grasp upon all the details of this particular case. But, 
returning from this digression to our main thesis, and con- 


sidering the general significance of the phenomena of colour, 


we see that, in addition to those most general phenomena of 
organic life which demand for their explanation the Dar- 
winian theory, there is at least one special class of pheno- 
mena which that theory is competent to explain even in 
minute details. And there are other special classes of 
phenomena to which it has been applied with equally re- 
markable success. But when a theory, deduced from the 
observed general facts of organic life, and invoking no 
agencies but such as are known to be in operation, is found 
on trial to account for such an enormous mass of special 
facts, for which no other valid explanation has been pro- 
pounded,—we may well say of it, as Laplace said of his owu 
Nebular Hypothesis, that the chances in favour of its being 
a true explanation are many thousand million to one. 


CHAPTER XL 
TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED, 


WHEN an objection to a complex theory in any department 
of science is so extremely obvious as to seem at first sight 
fatal to the theory, it is unwise to urge it in argument until 
we have very thoroughly considered the matter. Men like 
Laplace and Goethe, Spencer and Darwin, in framing their 
theories of evolution, are indeed liable to overlook difficulties 
which are so unobtrusive as to be detected only after pro- 
longed observation; but they are very unlikely to overlook 
difficulties which are so conspicuous as to occur at once to 
the minds of a hundred general readers. When, therefore, a 
reader of average culture, who has perhaps never seriously 
bent his mind to the question of the origin of species, and 
who is very likely unacquainted with the sciences which 
throw light upon that subject, finds himself immediately 
confronted by difficulties in a theory which men of the 
highest learning and capacity have spent a quarter of a cen- 
tury in testing, common prudence should lead him to con- 
tinue his study until he has made sure that the difficulty is 
not due to his own ignorance rather than to the shortcomings 
of the theory. This wholesome caution is too seldom maui- 
fested by literary reviewers, many of whom, in criticizing 
Mr. Darwin's theory without having duly read his works, 


oH. XI] TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED, 33 


allege certain objections as being quite obvious to all intelli- 
gent people, save to the one-sided speculator who is supposed 
to have ignored them. In Mr. Darwin’s case, this mode of 
treatment is peculiarly impertinent, since even the less ob- 
vious objections to the theory of natural selection were for 
the most part foreseen and answered in the first edition of 
the “Origin of Species,’—a book to which, as to an arsenul 
of scientific facts, one must still resert who would deal intel- 
ligently with the latest criticisms directed against the theory. 

The most obvious objection to the Darwinian theory is the 
paucity, or, as it is often incorrectly alleged, the absence, of 
transitional forms in the various sedimentary strata. This is 
at first sight a weighty objection against the doctrine of natural 
selection, according to which the progress has been effected 
by infinitesimal increments ; although it is of no force against 
the doctrine. of derivation, as held by Mr. Mivart, who 
rejects the maxim Natura non facit saltum, and maintains 
that progress has been effected by sudden jumps, occurring 
at rhythmical intervals. Mr. Mivart’s suggestion, however, 
cannot be entertained as a scientific hypothesis so long as it 
alleges no physical agencies competent to effect the sudden 
jumps from one specific form to another; nor does the com- 
parative paucity of transitional forms in a fossil state afford 
any reason for our adopting it. A brief consideration will 
show us that the fact is entirely consistent with the theory 
of progress by minute variations. 

In the first place, let us note that in general intermediate 
transitional forms must be the soonest killed off in the 
struggle for existence; and that, especially, where two 
strains or varieties become further differentiated into true 
species, it is the extreme forms which multiply at the 
expense of those which are intercalated between them. 
Here, as on a former occasion, our comprehension of the 
argument will be facilitated by a reference to the analogous 
set of phenomena which occur during the process of lin- 

VOL, II. DB 


34 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1 


cuistic differentiation, It is held by most philologists that 
all languages in the tertiary or amalgamative stage of 
development must have previously existed in the secondary 
or agglutinative s{age,—and, at a yet earlier period, in the 
‘primary or juxtapositive stage, of which the Chinese is a 
still living example. Against this view M. Renan has urged 
the absence or paucity of transitional forms connecting one 
class of languages with another. Now in answering M. 
Renan’s objection, I have begun by showing, from a con- 
sideration of the Romanic dialects, that the difficulty is 
only imaginary. “A language like Latin, spread. over a 
vast space of country in imperfectly civilized times, in- 
evitably breaks up into a host of local patois. Hach secluded 
rustic community has its own style of pronunciation, its 
own choice of words and syntactical devices, its own method 
of contracting or otherwise modifying its expressions. And 
although the inhabitants of any given town can usually 
communicate with these of the next town, the slight 
differences accumulate until intercourse between distant 
places is no longer practicable. In such a state of things 
we find plenty of transitional dialects, as the Genoese and 
Provengal between Italian and French, and the Balearic 
and Catalan between French and Spanish. The Tuscan can 
understand the Genoese, the Genoese can understand the 
dweller in Piedmont, the Piedmontese can understand the 
Vaudois, the Vaudois can understand the Lyonnais, and 
so on until we come to Paris; but the Tuscan and the 
Parisian cannot understand each other. Now the progress 
of civilization in each country tends to kill out the patois, 
elevating that variety of the language which has been made 
the vehicle of the dominant literature to supremacy over 
the more provincial forms. Increased facilities of com- 
munication, and the growth of large centres of population, 
and commercial as well as literary activity, end by making 
the inhabitants of all parts of the country speak and write 


cH. X1.] TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED, 35 


more and more like those of its intellectual metropolis. 
And in this way the intermediate dialects slowly disappear, 
leaving two languages with thoroughly distinct individuali- 
ties, like Italian and French.”! Now even here, as I go 
on to show, the relationships among the dialects have 
become sufficiently obscured—owing to disappearance of 
connecting links—to alloy M. Raynouard to maintain the 
paradox that the modern Romanic languages are descended, 
not directly from the Latin, but from the old Provengal. 
And in such countries as Hindustan, the processes of di- 
vergence, and accompanying obliteration, have gone on to 
such an extent that Bengali has been mistaken for a non- 
Aryan language. 

Here in the domain of language we see that competition 
is most severe and destructive between closely allied forms, 
and that the extremes will vigorously flourish long after the 
short-lived means have been crushed out of existence. The 
maxim Jn medio tutissimus tbis does not apply to such cases. 
We have now to observe that among the phenomena which 
natural history deals with, a quite similar process goes on. 
First we may note, with Mr. Darwin, that “as the species 
of the same genus usually have, though by no means in- 
variably, much similarity in habits and constitution, and 
always in structure, the struggle will generally be more 
severe between them, if they come into competition with 
each other, than between the species of distinct genera. 
We see this in the recent extension over parts of the United 
States of one species of swallow having caused the decrease 
of another species. The recent increase of the missel- 
thrush in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the 
song-thrush. How frequently we hear of one species of rat 
taking the place of another species under the most different 
climates! In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach has every- 


1 “The Genesis of Language,” North American Review, Oct. 1869, pp. 
834, 335. 
D 2 


36 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [Pr. 11, 


where driven before it its great congener. In Australia the 
imported hive-bee is rapidly exterminating the small sting- 
less native bee. One species of charlock has been known 
to supplant another species; and so in other cases. We can 
dimly see why the competition should be most severe 
between allied forms, which fill nearly the same place in 
the economy of nature; but probably in no one case could 
we precisely say why one species has been victorious over 
another in the great battle of life.” } 

For our present purpose, however, it is not needful that 
we should be able to accomplish the latter task, which would 
require a knowledge of the minutiz of the organic world 
such as is not likely to be possessed by anyone for a long 
time tocome. It is enough for us to note that the ordinary 
process of competition, among organisms as among dialects, 
tends to kill out the means much sooner than the extremes, 
Still more clear will this become, if we recur to one of the 
hypothetical illustrations given in the preceding chapter. 
It was there shown that, in the case of a group of ruminants 
hitherto isolated from carnivorous foes, and in which different 
strains or varieties have begun to establish themselves, a 
newly-arriving incident force, in the shape of strong and 
swift* carnivora, will at once tend to exterminate all the 
intermediate forms, while the extremes will not only be 
indefinitely preserved, but will become yet more widely 
different from each other. Now this hypothetical case is 
probably a fair sample of a very large proportion—perhaps 
the majority—of the cases in which specific variations have 
been rapidly accumulated and persistently fixed. It is by 
no means likely that variation has gone on throughout the 
past with a uniform pace; but there must rather have been 
immensely long periods of comparative stability, alter- 
nating with relatively brief periods, during which newly- 
‘ntroduced sets of circumstances have tended to enhance 


1 Origin of Species, 6th edit., p. 59 


ee 
ry ‘ 


CH, XI.] TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 37 


and accumulate variations on either side of a hitherto 
established mean. Such a conclusion is implied by the 
theory of natural selection, according to which specific vari- 
ation occurs, not in conformity to some mysterious law 
of progress uniformly operating, but only in conformity 
to some more or less conspicuous alteration in the sum- 
total of the conditions of existence. 

It follows, therefore, that in general, when incipient 
varieties are differentiated into well-marked species, the 
number of intermediate forms must be immeasurably smaller 
than the numbers of forms contained in the resulting species 
to which they serve as the transition. During epochs of 
rapid divergence, the means may all be extinguished after a 
few hundred generations, while the generations of the ex- 
tremes which persist thereafter may be numbered by tens of 
thousands. Suppose, for example, two great islands sepa- 
rated by a shallow sea. During long ages, while the floor of 
this intervening sea is constantly rising, the specific changes 
occurring on either island may be quite few and unimportant, 
and such fossil records as are left will indicate a general per- 
sistence of type. But when in course of time the process of 
elevation has converted this intervening channel into an 
isthmus connecting the two islands, there must inevitably 
ensue a marked change in the conditions of existence in 
both regions, Extinction will go on at a relatively rapid 
pace; and, as above illustrated, this extinction must ordi- 
narily result in the disappearance of intermediate forms and 
the preservation of extremes. After a while this process 
must result in the establishment of an approximate equili- 
brium among the forms of life over both areas, such ,as 
formerly obtained over each area separately. And thus fora 
long time to come, the specific changes occurring will again 
be few and unimportant. 

Thus we see graphically illustrated the truth that, in com- 
parison with the myriads of individuals comprising the well- 


38 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1% 


defined species which propagate themselves through long 
ages with relative stability of character, the number of inter- 
mediate individuals which ever come into existence must be 
relatively small. We have next to note that, even of this 
relatively small number of individuals, a still smaller rela. 
tive number are likely to leave after death a permanent fossil 
record of their existence. 

In the first place it is only by a rare combination of cir- 
cumstances that any plant or animal gets fossilized at all. 
The chances were nearly infinite against the preservation of 
any of the very earliest organisms, with their soft and speedily 
decaying textures. The higher land animals, on the other 
hand, owe their occasional preservation to the accidents of 
dying in sheltered caves, or of being covered with blown 
sand or peat-moss, or of being frozen in Arctic ice. ‘Trees 
with solid trunks, littoral and marine animals, especially 
crustaceans and shell-covered mollusks, are more likely to be 
preserved than other organisms. But, in the second place, 
the majority of the organisms once fossilized are afterwards 
destroyed along with the sedimentary strata which contain 
them. Since there have been several enormously long alter-. 
nating periods of elevation and of subsidence, it follows that 
all the older sedimentary strata must have been metamor- 
phosed by volcanic heat. These oldest rocks have sunk to a 
depth of six or eight miles, down below the ocean-floor, 
where they have been metamorphosed by the heat of the 
molten liquid below, and whence they have again been slowly 
shoved up above water-level, with all traces of their organic 
contents obliterated. This process must have occurred so 
many times as to have destroyed all but the later records of 
lite. The title “ paleozoic,” formerly applied to the Silurian 
rocks, is a misnomer. It was formerly supposed that there 
were no fossil-bearing rocks below the Silurian. But within 
a few years the Cambrian and Laurentian strata have been 
discovered, carrying us back into an antiquity nearly twice as 


SESSA RT SS Ps Re RE 


cu. XI] TWO GBJECTIONS CUNSIDERED. 39 


great as that to which we had reached with the Silurian 
rocks; and it is now generally admitted that cven the 
Laurentian strata are modern compared with the beginnings 
of life upon our globe. 

But this is not all. Along with the immensely long 
ceologic rhythms, which have thus entailed the periodic 
metamorphosis of strata, there have been going on minor 
rhythms, resulting in the alternate deposit and denudation of 
fossil-bearing strata. Each of the sedimentary strata now 
surviving was deposited during an epoch of subsidence, and 
since its elevation to its present position has been more or 
less denuded. Now it is only during epochs of subsidence 
that permanent fossil-bearing strata can be deposited. During 
epochs of elevation the newly-formed sedimentary deposit is 
rapidly disintegrated by the action of coast-waves; and even 
those thin deposits which are made during an epoch of sub- 
sidence are in the next-recurring epoch of elevation soon 
worn away. It is thus only the thicker strata deposited 
during an epoch of subsidence which have preserved for our 
inspection a few specimens of the organisms living at the 
time when they were deposited. 

But in close juxtaposition to this comes the remarkable 
fact that the most rapid variation ameng specific forms must 
take place during epochs of elevation. For since the only 
variations preserved by natural selection are those which 
bring the organism into closer adaptation to its environment ; 
and since in most cases the organic environment of any group 
of organisms, comprising its enemies, competitors, and prey, 
is a much more important factor of change than its inorganic 
environment, comprising climate and soil; it follows that 


those periods during which groups of organisms, hitherto 


isolated, are gradually brought into contact with one another, 
must be the periods most favourable for specific change. The 
most rapid variation, attended by the greatest frequency of 
transitional forms, will therefore occur during those epochs of 


40 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (Pr. 1, 


elevation when archipelagos are being converted into con- 
tinents, and when shallow parts of the sea, hitherto divided 
by deep channels, are getting practically united together by 
the diminishing depth of the channel. During such periods 
it is not only the inorganic agencies of climate and soil 
which will be altered; the organic environment of each 
group of organisms will be immensely increased in extent 
and heterogeneity. The struggle for existence will increase 
in violence, and there will be an increased amount both of 
variation and of extinction, 

We are thus driven to the remarkable conclusion, not only 
that each system of fossiliferous strata now remaining has 
been preceded and followed by systems destroyed as fast as 
they were formed, but also that the systems thus destroyed 
coincided with the periods which must have been richest in 
transitional forms. 

But notwithstanding the extreme imperfection of the geolo- 
gical record, and notwithstanding these special difficulties in 
the way of finding transitional forms, such forms are frequently 
met with. Indeed it may be asserted, as one of the most 
significant truths of paleontology, that extinct forms are 
almost always intercalary between forms now existing. Not 
only species, genera, and families, but even orders of con- 
temporary animals, apparently quite distinct, are now and 
then fused together by the discovery of extinct intermediate 
forms. In Cuvier’s time, horse, tapir, pig, and rhinoceros 
were ranked as a distinct order from cow, sheep, deer, buffalo, 
and camel. But so many transitional forms have been found 
in tertiary strata that pachyderms and ruminants are now 
united in a single order. By numerous connecting links the 
pig is now seen to be closely united with the camel and 
the antelope. Similar results relating to the proboscidians, 
the hyzena family of carnivora, the apes, the horse, and the 
rhinoceros, have been obtained from the exploration of a 
single locality near Mount Pentelikos in Greece. Among 


i at te Es el en Te 


 — 


cH. X1.] TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 41 


more than seventy species there discovered, the gradational 
arrangement of forms was so strongly marked, that the great 
paleontologist, M. Gaudry, became a convert to Mr. Darwin’s 
theory in the course of the search. Referring for many 
more such examples to the last edition of Sir Charles Lyell’s 
“Principles of Geology,” let me further observe that there 
has as yet been but little search for fossils save in Europe 
and North America, and even these areas have by no means 
been thoroughly explored. Concerning South America much 
less is known, and the greater portions of Asia, Africa, and 
Australia are just so much ¢erra incognita to the paleon- 
tologist. As M. Gaudry observes, a few strokes of the pick- 
axe at the foot of Mount Pentelikos have revealed to us the 
closest connecting links between forms which seemed before 
very widely separated: far closer will such links be drawn 
when a considerable portion of the earth’s surface shall have 
been thoroughly investigated. 

_ The argument from “missing links,” therefore, in so far 
as it has any validity at all, is an argument which rests en- 
tirely upon negative evidence. But negative evidence, as 
everyone knows, is a very unsafe basis for argument.22 A 


1 We may also profitably consider the toxodon, found by Mr. Darwin in 
South America, which is ‘‘ one of the strangest animals ever discovered. In 
size it equalled an elephant or megatherium, but the structure of its teeth, as 
Mr. Owen states, proves indisputably that it was intimately related to the 
Gnawers, the order which at the present day includes most of the smallest 

uadrupeds : in many details it is allied to the pachydermata : judging from 
the position of its eyes, ears, and nostrils, it was probably aquatic, like the 
dugong and manatee, to which it is also allied. How wonderfully,” says 
Mr. Darwin, “are vue different orders, at the present time so well separated, 
blended together in different pvints of the structure of the toxodon !”— 
Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle, p. 82. Compare the remarks on the quaternary 
fauna of Western Europe in Sir John Lubbock’s Prehistoric Times, 2nd 
edition, pp. 296-298. 

2 “For instance, the several species of the chthamaline (a weston: or 
sessile cirrhipeds) coat the rocks all over the world in infinite numbers: they 
are all strictly littoral, with the exception of a single Mediterranean spevics, 
which inhabits deep water, and this has been found fossil in Sicily, whereas 
not one other species has hitherto been found in any tertiary formation : yet 
it is known that the genus chthamalus existed during the Chalk period.” — 
Darwin, Origin of Species, 6th edit., p. 271. 


42 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11 


single item of positive evidence will always cutweigh any 
amount of negative evidence. A single case in which two 
or three species or genera are demonstrably connected with 
each other through lineally intermediate forms, is enough 
to outweigh the case of a thousand species or genera in 
which no such linear connection has yet been demonstrated. 
Now there can be no question that Hquus, Hipparion, and 
Anchitherium, are quite distinct genera; and a comparison 
of the skeletons of the three leaves it equally unquestion- 
able that the hipparion is simply a more ancient horse, and 
that the anchitherium is simply a more ancient hipparion. As 
Prof. Huxley observes, “the process by which Anchitherium 
has been converted into Hguus is one of specialization, or 
of more and more complete deviation from what might be 
called the average form of an ungulate mammal. In the 
horses, the reduction of some parts of the limbs, together 
with the special modification of these which are left, is 
carried to a greater extent than in any other hoofed mam- 
mals. The reduction is less and the specialization is less 
in the hipparion, and still less in the anchitherium; but 
yet, as compared with other mammals, the reduction and 
specialization of parts in the anchitherium remain great.” ? 
But as we go back still farther into the Eocene epoch, we 
find Plagiolophus, a genus intermediate between the horse 
and the agouti, in which the reduction and specialization 
of parts is still less. Here, where the exploration has 
been relatively complete, the intermediate forms are so 
numerous as to leave no doubt whatever as to the genetic 
kinship.2 And similarly of the rhinocerotide and hyznide 

1 Critiques and Addresses, p. 195. 

2 I may add that, in particular, numerous extinct forms intercalary between 
man and ape are likely to be discovered when we search for them in those 
parts of the earth where they are likely to exist,—namely, in Africa, Mada- 

ascar, South-eastern Asia, and the Malay Archipelago. Such formsare not 
ikely, however, to be directly intermediate between man and the gorilla or 


the chimpanzee. For these are probably aberrant types, and the connection 
between man and the authropoid apes is to be sought much lower down,— 


cH. X1.] TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 43 


Prof. Huxley says, “it is indeed a conceivable (?) suppo- 
sition that every species of rhinoceros and every species of 
hyzena, in the long succession of forms between the Mio- 
cene and the present species, was separately constructed out 
of dust, or out of nothing, by supernatural power; but until 
I receive distinct evidence of the fact, I refuse to run vhe 
risk of insulting any sane man by supposing that he seri- 
ously holds such a notion.” 

lt thus appears that the argument from “ missing links,” 
which to the general reader may appear so obviously fatal 
to the Darwinian theory, is to the student of paleontology 
by no means alarming. Our brief survey of the facts in the 
case has shown us /irst, that transitional varieties are always 
likely to have been less numerous in individuals than the 
well-defined species which they serve to connect ; secondly, 
that the geologic eras which have left in the rocks the record 
of their organic life have been usually the eras in which 
variation and extinction have been least rapid, and in which 
accordingly transitional varieties have been least numerous; 
and thirdly, that in spite of all these adverse circumstances, 
‘ransitional forms have already been discovered in consider- 
able numbers, while it is fair to expect that many more 
will be discovered when by and by we have come to know 
the earth’s surface more intimately. 

Of all the objections which have been urged against the 
theory of natural selection, this objection, from the paucity 
of transitional forms, is the least weighty, though probably 
the most obvious. The second objection which we have to 
ecnsider, though less immediately obvious, is more weighty ; 
and though there is no reason for regarding it as insuper- 
able, we must admit that it has not yet been entirely dis- 
posed of. This objection is implicated with the difference 


perhaps near the point of eaparhate of the anthropoid apes from the lower 
monkeys and lemurs. See the anatomical evidence very well presented in 
Mr. Mivart’s recent work on Man and Apes, 


44 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11, 


oetween the morphological and the physiological definitions 
of species, and is usually known as the argument from the 
infertility of hybrids. As ordinarily stated, indeed, this 
argument is merely the expression of a sorry confusion of 
ideas. By a curious misunderstanding the infertility of the 
mule is often urged as a direct objection to the Darwinian 
theory. But this is putting the cart before the horse. It is 
not the infertility of the offspring of the horse and the ass 
which should be cited as an obstacle to the theory of natural 
selection, but it is the fertility of the offspring of the carrier- — 
pigeon and the pouter, or of the pouter and tumbler. Mor- 
phologically the carrier, the pouter, and the tumbler may 
well be regarded as distinct species artificially developed 
from a common wild stock; but so long as mutual infer- 
tility is held to be the physiological test by which we are 
to distinguish between varieties and species, it may be argued 
that, in spite of their great morphological differences, the 
carrier and the tumbler are only varieties and not true 
species. And going a step farther, it may be argued that 
until the theory of natural selection has accounted for the 
rise of infertility between races descended from a common 
stock, it has not completely performed the task of reconciling 
deduction with observation. 

Against the derivation theory in general, this objection has 
no weight whatever. That races originally fertile together 
should, vadedt long subjection to different sets of slincircintuodib 
become infertile with one another, is @ priori in the highest 
degree probable, when we reflect upon the extreme sensi- 
tiveness of the reproductive system to changes of habit in 
the organism as a whole. When we remember that “the 
eoiistitubion of many wild animals is so altered by confine- 
ment that they will not breed even with their own females,” 
we need not be surprised that the leopard and the lion, 
which during many ages have had very different habits of 
life, will not breed with each other, Nor need we wonder 


ex, X1.] TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 45 


that the horse and the ass, with less important differences in 
general habit, have become partially infertile together, to 
such an extent that their offspring are hopelessly barren. 
Though the modus operandi of this change is as yet ill- 
understood, it is nevertheless a change quite in harmony 
with what we know concerning the intimate dependence of 
the reproductive system upon the rest of the organism. And 
let us not fail to note that it is the achievement of this 
change in the capacities of the reproductive system which 
completes the demarcation between two bifurcating species, 
and finally prevents the indefinite multiplication of inter- 
mediate varieties. 

But while this objection has no weight as against the 
theory of derivation in general, it may fairly be urged that 
the failure to explain the origination of mutual infertility is, 
for the present at least, a shortcoming on the part of the 
theory of natural selection. After the conclusive arguments 
brought up in-our ninth chapter, the derivation theory will 
no longer, in the present work, be regarded as on trial: that 
the higher forms of life are derived from lower forms, will 
be taken as proved. But whether the theory of natural 
selection has completely fulfilled its proposed task of ex- 
plaining the mode in which such derivation has been brought 
about, is quite another question. And while admitting the 
‘ull force of the considerations alleged by Mr. Darwin, in his 
admirable chapter on Hybridism, it seems to me that there is 
a gap at this point which further research will be required 
to fill.t As Prof. Huxley reminds us, “it must not be for- 


1 I doubt if the hypothesis of natural selection, taken alone, will afford the 
solution of this problem. It seems more likely that such considerations will 
have to enter as are presented in Mr. Spencer's Principles of Biology, vol. i. 
pp. 209-291. Concerning what may be called the ‘‘ dynamics of heredity,” 
we know as yet but little; but as far as speculation has already gone, Mr. 
Darwin’s theory of pangenesis seems to me decidedly inferior to Mr. Spencer’s 
theory of physiological units. J do not discuss these theories here, Seantine 
it is not necessary for the general purposes of this work It may do no 
narm, however, to remind some of my readers that “‘ pangenesis” is merely 


46 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11. 


gotten that the really important fact, so far as the inquiry into 
the origin of species goes, is that there are such things in 
nature as groups of animals and of plants, whose members are 
incapable of fertile union with those of other groups; and 
that there are such things as hybrids, which are absolutely 
sterile when crossed with other hybrids. For if such 
phenomena as these were exhibited by only two of those 
assemblages of living objects, to which the name of species 

. 1s given, it would have to be accounted for by any theory 
of the origin of species, and every theory which could not 
account for it would be, so far, imperfect.” } 


We have now reached a point at which we may pause for 
a moment to contemplate the theory of natural selection in 
its logical aspect, and to mark its character as a scientific 
hypothesis. A moment’s inspection will reveal the absurdity 
of the thoughtless remark—sometimes heard from theologians 
and penny-a-liners—that the Darwinian theory rests upon 
purely gratuitous assumptions and can never be submitted to 
verification. On the contrary, the theory of natural selection, 
when analyzed, will be found to consist of eleven propositions, 
of which nine are demonstrated truths, the tenth is a corollary 
from its nine predecessors, and the eleventh is a perfectly legi- 
timate postulate. Let us enumerate these propositions :— 

1. More organisms perish than survive; 

2. No two individuals are exactly alike; 

3. Individual peculiarities are transmissible to offspring 3 

4, Individuals whose peculiarities bring them into closest 
adaptation with their environment, are those which survive 
and transmit their peculiar organizations ; 

5. The survival of the fittest thus tends to maintain an 
equilibrium between organisms and their environments ; 


a subsidiary hypothesis, with the possible inadequacy of which Mr, Darwin’s 
main theory is in no way concerned, 
4 Huxley, Lay Sermons, p. 393, 


cH, XI.] TWO OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 47 


6. But the environment of every group of organisms is 
steadily, though slowly, changing ; 

7. Every group of organisms must accordingly change in 
average character, under penalty of extinction ; 

8. Changes due to individual variation are complicated by 
the law that a change set up in any one part of a highly 
complex and coherent aggregate, like an organism, initiates 
changes in other parts; 

9. They are further complicated by the law that structures 
are nourished in proportion to their use ; 

10. From the foregoing nine propositions, each one of 
which is indisputably true, it is an inevitable corollary that 
changes thus set up and complicated must eventually alter 
the specific character of any given group of organisms ; 

11. It is postulated that, since the first appearance of life 
upon the earth’s surface, sufficient time has elapsed to have 
enabled such causes as the foregoing to produce all the 
specific heterogeneity now witnessed. 

It seems to me that this summary fairly represents the 
logical character of the theory of natural selection. The 
theory is so strong that no scientific writer is disposed to 
deny that the process of natural selection has always gone 
on and must continue to goon. And the inference cannot 
be avoided that in due course of time the process must work 
specific variations. The only purely hypothetical portion of 
the theory is the assumption that past geologic time has been 
long enough to allow of the total process of evolution by 
such infinitesimal increments. But concerning this assump- 
tion, 1t is the clear verdict of logic, that if the theory is 
thoroughly substantiated in all its other portions, we have 
the right to claim as much time as is needful, provided we 
do not run counter to conclusions legitimately reached by 
astronomy, geology, or physics. Now concerning the age of 
the earth, neither astronomy, nor geology, nor physics, has as 
yet had anything conclusive to say; and it must be left for 


48 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11. 


future inquiries to give us the quantitative data requisite for 
settling this point.1_ We cannot yet, indeed, estimate the age 
of the last great glacial epoch with any approach to accuracy; 
yet the age which we assign to this epoch must enter as an 
important factor into our estimates of the antiquity of pre- 
ceding epochs. But while this point remains undetermined, 
it may be noted that even the decision which leaves the 
smallest time for the operation of unaided natural selection 
can weaken the Darwinian theory only on the assumption 
that the agency already alleged by that theory has been the 
sole factor concerned in forwarding organic evolution; and 
this assumption, though it may have been made by over- 
confident disciples of Mr. Darwin, has never been made by 
Mr. Darwin himself. Mr. Darwin is too profoundly scientific 
in spirit to imagine that, with all his unrivalled patience and 
sagacity, he has completely solved one of the most intricate 
problems with which the student of nature has ever been 
called upon to deal. It is more than likely that future 
research will disclose other agencies which have cooperated 
with natural selection in accelerating the diversification of 
species. Meanwhile the evidence in behalf of the first ten 
propositions involved in the Darwinian theory is sufficiently 
strong to make it apparent that a vast amount of specific 
change must have taken place, and also that natural selection 
has been a chief factor in producing that change. To the 
urguments which in our ninth chapter were seen to overthrow 
the dogma of fixity of species, may now be added the 
argument that at least one group of clearly-defined agencies 
is at work, with which, in the long run, the fixity of species 
must become incompatible. The explanation of the details 
of specific differentiation may well form the subject of 
cautious investigation for many generations of observers and 


1 The reader who wishes to see how fallacious all pang at reachmng the 
age of the earth from astronomico-physical arguments are likely to prove with 


our present resources, may consult Huxley’s Lay Sermons, pp. 268 279. 


thinkers. But enough has already been explained to draw 
forth the undeniable Fact of Derivation from the region of 
- mystery in which it was formerly half-hidden, and thus to 
place the Theory of Derivation upon a thoroughly scientific 
basis. In expounding the way in which this has been done, 
we have obtained several useful conceptions, which will uot 
- fail to do us good service in future chapters. 


CHAPTER XIL 
ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 


' AN objection much less obvious than the two considered in 
the foregoing chapter, is brought up by Mr. Mivart against 
the theory of natural selection. In the Cuvierian classifica- 
tion, the marsupials were ranked as an order of mammalia, 
side by side with orders like the carnivora or rodentia. This 
arrangement is now obsolete. The class of mammals is no 
longer directly divided into orders, but is first separated into 
three sub-classes, the monodelphia, didelphia, and ornitho- 
delphia. The latter sub-class, forming the link between 
mammals and sauroids, is now nearly extinct, being repre- 
sented only by a single order, containing two genera, the 
Australian echidna and duck-bill. Leaving these aside, all 
other mammals, except the marsupials, are comprised within 
the sub-class monodelphia. The didelphia or marsupials are 
divided by Prof. Haeckel into eight orders; and between 
these orders and sundry orders of the higher monodelphia 
there is a curious parallelism. For example there is an order 
of edentate marsupials, there is a marsupial order of carnivora, 
and another of insectivora, and another of rodents, while the 
kangaroo strongly resembles the sub-order of ruminants, and 
the opossum is clearly related to the lemurs, or lowest of the 
primates It becomes, “hen, an interesting problem to settle 


ae ee 


ee ee ow ere, 


eee em 


i 


cu. x11.] ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT, 51 


the genetic relationships between the two sub-classes. Did 
the order of apes descend from the ape-like marsupials, the 
monodelphian carnivora from the didelphian carnivora, the 
higher rodents from the marsupial rodents, and so on? If 
so, it is difficult to see how the pouch should have been lost, 
and the placenta developed in so many different orders 
independently: such a number of exact coincidences seem 
hardly probable. On the other hand, did all the monodelphia 
descend from one didelphian form? If so, it is strange that 
the differentiation into orders should have gone on so similarly 
in the two sub-classes, resulting, for example, in the production 
of marsupial mice which in general appearance are hardly 
distinguishable from placental mice. 

Birds and reptiles present an equally puzzling cross- 
relation. Upon no theory are these the direct ancestors of 
mammals, although the lowest mammals are both bird-like 
and reptilian in appearance. The duck-bill, belonging to the 
mammalian sub-class of ornithodelphia, somewhat resembles 
a lizard with a bird’s beak. Embryology shows that the 
three classes are divergent offshoots from an amphibious 
or batrachioid ancestor; but the birds and reptiles resemble 
each other much more closely than either resembles the 
mammalia, so that Prof. Huxley joins them together in the 
super-class or province of sauroids. So far all is plain; but 
when we inquire by what forms the birds and reptiles are 
linked most closely together, we are met by a difficulty. 
Birds:are divided into two sub-classes: the ostrich, cassowary, 
emeu, dinornis, etc., are grouped together as struthious birds, 
while all other existing forms belong to the sub-class of 
carinate birds. Now until quite lately it was supposed that 
li birds were descended from an extinct reptilian form like 
“kat ancient reptile, the flying pterodactyl. For the resem- 
tlances in structure between the pterodactyls and the carinate 
birds are striking enough to have suggested an immediate com- 
munity of origin, Nevertheless, within the past seven years, 

E 2 


52 COSMIC PHILOSUPHY, [Pr. 11 


a much stronger case has been made out in favour of the 
descent of the struthious birds from large reptilian forms 
akin to the dinosauria,—of which extinct order the member 
most commonly known is the gigantic iguanodon. Now 
here, says Mr. Mivart, is a dilemma just like the one which 
confronted us in the case of mammals. If all birds started 
from the pterodactyl, why do the struthious birds so strongly 
resemble a totally different reptile? If all birds started from 
a dinosaurus, why do the carinate birds so strongly resemble 
the pterodactyl? If we try to split the difference, and say 
that the carinate birds started from the pterodactyl, while 
the struthious birds started from the dinosaurus, the difficulty 
is immensely increased. For then the question arises, how 
could the struthious and the carinate birds, starting from 
such different points, have come to resemble each other 
so strongly ? 

_ Mr. Mivart is careful to state that these zoological cross- 
relations do not constitute an obstacle to the theory of evolu- 
tion. They are difficulties only on the theory that organic 
evolution has been solely caused by the natural selection of 
fortuitous variations. To make this more clear, let us pro- 
visionally accept one of each of the pairs of alternatives 
offered by the two cases just described. Let us agree, with 
Prof. Haeckel, that all the monodelphian mammals have 
come from one didelphian; and let us agree, with Prof, 
Huxley, that the kinship between birds and reptiles is closest 
in the case of the struthious birds and the dinosattrians, 
Now we are obliged to maintain that the original monodel- 
phian branched off into a dozen or more forms, of which six 
or seven happen to agree remarkably, in general appearance 
and in habits of life, with six or seven of the forms into 
which the original didelphian had at an earlier date branched 
off. And we are also obliged to maintain that the remark- 
able shoulder-structure of the pterodactyl, in which it agrees 
so closely with the carinate birds, was independently evulved 


Se eee NOTRE Se ese By S Tn 


ena 


en. xu.) ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT, 53 


and has a purely physiological significance. That is to say, 
the resemblance of the pterodactyl to carinate birds is a 
secondary adaptive resemblance, like the less marked re- 
semblance of bats to birds, or like the resemblance of a 
porpoise to a fish. And this view, which seems to be Prof. 
Huxley’s, is rendered probable by the fact that in wing- 
structure the pterodactyl differs from birds in much the same 
way that a bat does. 

We are now extricated from our imbroglio with regard to 
classification, but we are still left confronted with the diffi- 
culty of supposing that the natural selection of casual varia- 
tions can so often have resulted in producing whole orders of 
closely-resembling animals from distinct ancestral orders. 
Other facts, brought up by Mr. Mivart, still further increase 
the apparent difficulty. The most important of all these 
relate to the development of the higher organs of sense in the 
three sub-kingdoms of annulosa, mollusks, and vertebrates. 
Coincidences between the members of any one of these 
sub-kingdoms and the members of the others, are not 
to be attributed to community of origin. No naturalist 
supposes that an annulose animal, or a true mollusk, has 
ever been developed into a vertebrate. And while the mol- 
lusks and vertebrates appear to have diverged from a mol- 
luscoid ancestor akin to the still-living ascidians, the annulose 
sub-kingdom has a totally different pedigree. To discover 
any likeness between the two great groups, we must follow 
them back to those remotest ancestors who possessed hardly 
any distinctively animal characteristics. Bearing all this 
in mind, it is a striking fact that the eye of the cuttle- 
fish, which is the highest of mollusks, appears te be con- 
structed like the eyes of vertebrates. It apparently contains 
not only a similar retina, but also a lens, the choroid and 
sclerotic tunics, and the vitreous and aqueous humours. 
Now this coincidence cannot be due to community of in- 
beritance, for the vertebrate and molluscous sub-kingdoms 


54 _ OOSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. 1 


are linked together only at their lowest extremities, and 
while the lowest vertebrate has an eye far inferior to the 
one just described, the molluscoid ascidians have merely 
rudimentary eye-spots. The coincident structures have there- 
fore been independently developed. Again, Mr. Mivart urges 
that the agreement cannot be explained on the assumption 
“that the conditions requisite for effecting vision are so rigid 
that similar results in all cases must be independently arrived 
at”; for the eyes of the higher insects, which are excellent 
visual organs, differ very widely in structure from those of 
the cuttle-fish and the higher vertebrates. Here, therefore, is 
a difficulty ; and it is still further increased if the alleged fact 
be true, that there is a similarly close correspondence between 
the auditory structures in the vertebrates and in the cuttle-fish. 

In presenting these difficulties I have closely followed Mr. 
Mivart, whose scientific arguments are usually stated with a 
clearness and precision which one would gladly see paralleled 
in the philosophic discussions by which they are supplemented, 
I have selected these arguments because they seem to me to 
constitute the strongest portion of the case which Mr. Mivart 
has brought to bear against the theory of natural selection; 
and also because by seeing whither they tend, we shall begin 
to see how the theory of natural selection must be supple- 
mented, before it can become a complete explanation of the 
phenomena with which it deals. 

Now we must at the outset admit that natural selection 
must act upon every individual variation which is distinctly 
auvantageous or injurious to the species,—always preserving 

} the former and rejecting the latter. This process must equally 
go on, whether the variation is a mere idiosyncrasy, such as 
we call fortuitous, or whether it is one that is manifested 
simultaneously by a large number of individuals, so that it 
may be traced to causes acting upon them all in common. 
Now this latter case is the one which must here be taken into 
the account. If a large number of individuals may simul- 


on. x11.) ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT, 54 


taneously vary in a given direction, and if this may often 
happen within the limits of single generations, it is obvious 
that: we have here a factor of specific change not to be lightly 
passed over. In estimating the effects of natural selection 
upon a number of variations which are, quite legitimately, 
taken for granted, we must not forget to generalize the varia- 
tions in connection with some common cause to which they 
may be assignable. Now it cannot be denied that in any 
single generation of organisms variations are very likels to 
occur, throughout nearly the whole number of individuals, 
which are due to the direct adaptation of the species to its 
environing circumstances. When exhibited in the effects 
wrought upon the human constitution by exposure to changed 
physical conditions, such variations are known as acclimatiza- 
tion. Within the infinitesimal period of two centuries the 
English race in America has come to differ perceptibly, though : 
very slightly, from the English race in Europe; and this very 
slight difference, which cannot be explained by the much 
overrated hypothesis of the infusion of foreign blood, and 
which certainly cannot be traced to natural selection, must 
be almost wholly due to direct adaptation to new physical 
and social conditions. Of kindred import is the fact that 
“twenty-nine kinds of American trees all differ from their 
nearest European allies in a similar manner, having leaves 
less toothed, buds and seeds smaller, fewer branchlets, etc.” 
So M. Costa states “that young shells taken from the shores 
ot England and placed in the Mediterranean at once altered 
their manner of growth, and formed prominent diverging rays 
like those on the shells of the proper Mediterranean oyster.” 
We have seen that the direct action of physical agencies will 
by no means account for the chief features of colouring in 
the organic world ; yet it appears to be true that members of 
the same species of birds are more brightly coloured when 
living in a clear dry atmosphere than when living near the 
coast. So, ton, in the contour of their wings, the various 


6 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. an 


butterflies of Celebes all show parallel divergences, inexpli- 
cable by natural selection alone, from kindred species in Java 
and India. And a host of like facts concerning these insects 
are cited by Mr. Mivart from Mr. Wallace’s essay on the 
Malayan Papilionide. More examples might be cited if this 
work were intended to be a scientific treatise on Darwinism ; 
but for the comprehension of the present point, in its philo- 
sophic bearings, these illustrations will suffice. 

Facts of this kind point to the conclusion that an inherent 
capacity for adaptive changes is possessed by all organisms. 
And by the phrase “inherent capacity” I do not mean to 
insinuate the existence of any occulta vis, or metaphysical 
“innate power,” of which no scientific account is to be given 
in terms of matter and motion. An organism is a complex 
system of forces; even the simplest living patch of proto- 
plasm is a highly complex system, but in the higher organisms 
the complication of forces is almost infinite, when compared 
with our limited powers of analysis. Now such a system of 
forces must, under penalty of overthrow, maintain both its 
internal equilibrium and its equilibrium with external inei- 
dent forces. And this double maintenance of equilibrium 
necessitates a rhythmical redistribution of forces from mo- 
ment to moment, of which, as was shown in the chapter on 
rhythm, the result must be continual change. Now the 
internal equilibration of the forces in the organism with each 
other, is generalized in the laws of growth, development, and 
heredity ; while the external equilibration of the forces in 
the organism with environing forces, is generalized in the 
Jaws of variation and adaptation. As the result of the former 
process, all organisms tend to assume certain typical forms, 
as inevitably as crystals. In the case of the lowest organisms 
the forms assumed may possibly be due to the operation of 
chemical polarity similar (though much more involved) to 
that which gives form to crystals. In all but the lowest 
organisms the forms assumed are the expression of tendencies 


AIR ee IS 2 


SDE STA Se See ape 


a aol ae a 


on, x1u.] ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 57 


due to the cooperation of countless ancestral forces; and 
such tendencies are now not improperly classified under the 
head of “ physiological polarity,’—provided that nothing 
more is meant by “polarity” than the ability of certain 
special groups of forces to work different structural changes 
in different directions. So much for the internal adaptive 
process. But now, as the result of the parallel process of 
external adaptation, it follows that the forms due to the 
internal process can remain constant only so long as the 
environment remains unchanged. If the changes in the 
environment are too great or too sudden to be equilibrated 
by changes in the distribution of the system of internal 
forces, the system is overthrown, and the organism perishes. 
But if the external changes are moderate and yradual, the 
adjustment of the organism to them by means of internal 
changes, must result in that kind of organic variation known 
as direct adaptation. We need not be surprised, therefore, 
by the parallel variations of whole genera of American trees 
or Malayan butterflies; nor need we ascribe them, with cer- 
tain recent writers, to “occult energies” of the metaphysical 
sort, or to a kind of pantheistic “intelligence ” inherent in 
nature, or to any other agency unrecognizable by science ; 
since the necessity for such parallel variations, wherever 
whole groups of organisms are exposed to like environing 
agencies, is a corollary from the fundamental principles of 
vital dynamics. , 

We are now in a position to amend quite materially the 
view thus far taken of the causes of organic evolution. 


Hitherto we have concerned ourselves too exclusively with 


the selection of variations, omitting to inquire into the cha- 
racter and mode of origin of the variations selected, But 
the latter point is no less important than the former. If 
variations might occur equally in all directions from the 
average standard, by reason of circumstances so indefinitely 
compounded as to’ make them seem fortuitous, then the 


be COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr 1 


natural selection of such variations might well be pronounced 
incapable—save in very rare instances—of working entirely 
analogous results in organisms so genetically distinct as 
monoc2!phians and didelphians, or as vertebrates and mol- 
lusks. In other words, natural selection, acting upon such 
fortuitous individual variations, would tend to produce in- 
definitely increasing differentiations in many directions, 
Such differentiations are to be seen in the amazingly elabo- 
rate contrivances for the fertilization of orchids, the expla- 
nation of which is one of Mr. Darwin’s most brilliant 
achievements. But when it is admitted that a great num- 
ber of similar adaptive variations must be simultaneously 
occurring in the same direction, then it is obvious that the 
natural selection of such variations may often produce ana- 
logous results in different genera and families, or even in 
different orders, classes, or sub-king¢doms. Mr, Mivart 
alleges the many resemblances between whales and the 
ancient ichthyosaurians, as hardly explicable on the theory 
of the selection of fortuitous variations. But when we recol- 
lect that the vertebrate structure of mammals is at the out- 
set homologous with that of reptiles, and that direct adaptation 
must of itself tend to produce similar variations alike in 
mammals and in reptiles which pass from a terrestrial into an 
aquatic environment, the resemblance between a whale and 
an ichthyosaurus ceases to be an enigma. The superficial 
resemblance of a whale to a fish is a fact of like nature. 
And in the case of amphibious carnivora, like the seal, direct 
adaptation to a partially marine environment has aided in 
producing fish-like limbs, while it has not interfered with 
the general likeness of the animal to certain families of land 
carnivora. So in the case of the pterodactyl as compared 
with carinate birds, we begin with skeletons constructed on 
the same plan, and we may expect to find that direct adapta- 
tion to the necessities of flight will tend to produce similar 
modifications of the shoulder-structure. But since, before 


web OS Ie PAS ee See ae eR ie nd 
. —" 3 “3 


eu. xu.) ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 59 


the appearance of pterodactyls, the dermal covering of 
reptiles was very likely as different from that of birds as it 
is now, so that a reptilian wing could not be formed by a 
modification of the dermal covering, we find, naturally 
enough, the wing of the pterodactyl formed, like that of the 
bat, by a modification of the skeleton. And this fact seems 
to justify us in the alternative which we have accepted, that 
the likeness of the pterodactyl to birds is no proof of im- 
mediate kinship, but only of secondary adaptive variaticn, 
as in the case of bats. A similar argument applies to the 
numerous likenesses between the higher mammals and the 
marsupials, At an ancient epoch the marsupials were a 
dominant race of animals, extending all over the world. 
But since they have been almost everywhere exterminated 
by their hardier monodelphian descendants, there is no 
difficulty in the view that direct adaptation to similar differ- 
ences of environment, when aided by natural selection, has 
brought about a differentiation of the higher mammals analo- 
gous to that which had formerly taken place among the 
marsupials. That six or seven orders of monodelphians 
should vary in the same direction with six or seven orders of 
didelphians, is no more surprising than that twenty-nine 
kinds of American trees should all differ in the same direc- 
tion from their European congeners, It is certainly far less 
surprising than would be the simultaneous loss of a pouch 
and acquirement of a placenta by a host of marsupial genera 
scattered all over the earth. 

Pursuing the argument a step farther, we may begin to 
understand, in a general way, even the similarity of the eye 
of a cuttle-fish to the eye of a vertebrate. Utterly unlike a 
vertebrate in general structure, and so remotely akin that - 
for practical purposes of argument the kinship is of no 
account,—if a cuttle-fish could be shown to possess numerous 
points of special resemblance to a vertebrate, the fact would 
be an obstacle to any theory of the origin of organic forms, 


60 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1. 


But the only special resemblances which are found to exist, 
are those between the eyes and the ears. Now these are 
organs in which such variations as occur must be in a pre- 
eminent degree directly adaptive. The eye, for example, 
contains an optical apparatus of which the function is the 
concentration of rays of light into a focus upon the retina. 
Such is the function discharged by the lens, and the vitreous 
and aqueous humours. Now, while the compound eyes of 
insects show us that this function can be discharged in more 
than one way, a brief consideration of the optical conditions | 
in the case would show that it can only be accomplished in 
a few ways. Not only does the passage of the light directly 
tend to set up molecular rearrangements in the refracting 
matter which lies before the retina, but out of those rearrange- 
ments there are very few which can assist the focalizing pro- 
cess, so that natural selection, in preserving the best-refracting 
eyes, would have but very few directions in which to act. 
The anterior membrane might differentiate into a number of 
converging lenses, as in the higher annulosa, but if such a 
differentiation did not occur, it is difficult to see how the 
needful refraction could be secured, save by the differentiation 
of the successive strata which we call the aqueous, crystalline, 
and vitreous humours, This may serve to indicate the course 
of explanation to be taken. The physical conditions for 
securing very efficient vision being thus limited, and direct 
adaptation being such an important factor in the process, 
it does not seem at all strange that two eyes quite similar in 
structure should be independently produced. A precisely 
similar argument will apply to the case of the ear. And the 
force of these considerations is still further increased when 
we learn from Prof. Gegenbaur that the resemblances be- 
tween the eyes of vertebrates and the eyes of cuttle-fishes are 
only superficial analogies, and not fundamental homologies, 
as Mr. Mivart’s very exaggerated statement might lead one 
to suppose. 


ge PT ee 


eee ea 


ex. xu.] ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 61 


In all these cases, here too briefly summed up, natural 
selection must of course be regarded as steadily cooperating 
with direct adaptation. No matter whether individual vari- 
ations are directly called forth by environing agencies, or are 
due to internal causes, in our ignorance of which we call 
them fortuitous, they must equally be the objects of natural 
selection wherever they influence, in the slightest degree, the 
individual’s chances of survival. Thus the theory of natural 
selection is not superseded, but supplemented, by the class 
of considerations here suggested by Mr. Mivart’s objections. 
Ordinarily, if not always, the two processes must go on in 
concert; and while the frequent occurrence of directly adap- 
tive changes must greatly accelerate the operation of natural 
selection, on the other hand natural selection, by weeding out 
all cases of retrograde variation, must complete the work of 
direct adaptation. 

There are, however, some conspicuous instances in which 
natural selection seems to play either a very subordinate 
part, or none at all, As we have just been considering eyes 
and ears, let us once more return to them, to show how certain 
peculiarities in their structure must be chiefly due to directly 
adaptive changes. Within the human ear, firmly fastened 
in the temporal bone, is a spirally-coiled chamber, known as 

he cochlea. Within this chamber there is a very elastic 
membrane, and on it lie the so-called fibres of Corti, which 
are a series of fibrous filaments placed side by side, with 
great regularity, so as to present somewhat the appearance of 
the key-board on a piano. It is now held by physiologists 
that this row of fibres is really a key-board, and that each 
fibre is set in vibration only by a particular musical note, 
exactly as an A-tuning-fork is set vibrating when A is 
sounded near it, but not when any other note is sounded. 
The auditory nerve, in passing into the cochlea, branches into 
an immense number of nerve-filaments, each of which com- 
inunicates with one of the keys of this ear piano. So that 


62 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, | (pr. 1, 


when A is sounded on a musical instrument, the A-key 
within the ear vibrates, and transmits its vibrations to a 
special filament of the auditory nerve. If this view be 
correct, we have here a truly marvellous instance of dif- 
ferentiation. But now in what way can this structure have 
ever been useful to human beings in the struggle for life ? 
Doubtless a considerable power of discriminating sounds is 
useful to any animal, but of what use can it be to distinguish 
between A and A-sharp? We may safely conclude, I think, 
that survival of the fittest has played quite a secondary part 
in this case. The explanation must be sought in the direct 
effects wrought by auditory vibrations upon the molecular 
structure of the cochlear fibres. And it is a system of effects 
which has not even yet been wrought in its present complete- 
ness save among highly civilized people, A savage cannot 
distinguish the slight variations in pitch by which our ears 
are delighted. And even among ourselves there are ears 
which can neither in melody discriminate between the 
ascending and the descending gamut, nor in harmony 
distinguish between the mellifluous tonic chord and the 
harsh inversions of the minor ninth. The defect may be 
compared to that of colour-blindness, although it is probably 
more common because the ear has been far less thoroughly 
trained than the eye. Now when we consider how much can 
be effected by individual training in enabling a moderately 
good ear to discriminate between quarters, eighths, and 
smaller fractions of a tone, and bear in mind that this 
training must consist in the further differentiation of the 
sensitive cochlear fibres, we have a strong argument in favour 
of the production of this wonderful structure by direct 
adaptation alone. | 
Concerning the human eye I need only say that in the 
retina it presents a structure closely analogous to the ear- 
piano just described. The chief layer of the retina is com- 
posed of little rods of nerve-tissue, packed closely together 


en, x11.) ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT, 63 


like organ-pipes ; and it is probable that each of these rods 
vibrates in unison with a particular ray of light. Here is a 
case of extreme differentiation just like that witnessed in the 
ear; and substantially the same argument will apply to it. 
The survival of a primeval savage in the struggle for life 
would certainly depend to a considerable extent on his ability 
to discriminate certain colours as well as outlines by the 
eye, as also upon his ability to recognize the timbre or quality 
of certain sounds. But the power of distinguishing the 
delicate shades in a painting of Correggio could be no more 
useful, from a zoological point of view, than the power of 
appreciating the most subtle harmonic effects in a symphony 
of Schumann. For this extreme differentiation there would 
seem to be no assignable cause save the direct action of 
luminous waves upon the wonderfully sensitive and responsive 
nerve-tissue of civilized man. 

Were it needful for the further illustration of our position, 
I might show how Mr. Spencer has proved that the structure 
of vertebral columns is also primarily due to directly adaptive 
changes. Many peculiarities in the shapes of plants and 
animals are probably thus to be explained. And in regard 
to the hues of organisms—those phenomena which are so 
beautifully explained by the Darwinian theory—there are 
some exceptions to be cited. The magnificent tints of many 
corals, of certain caterpillars, and of the shells of sundry 
muilusks, must undoubtedly be due to the direct working of 
such chemical affinities as produce our wonderful aniline 
dyes, or the rich tints of our American autumn woods. 

But passing over all these interesting points, enough has 
been said to show that there are many phenomena vu: organic 
evolution which natural selection, when ‘considered alone, 
will not suffice to account for, But, with the amendments 


1 This is the opinion of Helmholtz, the greatest living authority ; and it is 
strengthened by Dr. Brown Séquard’s discovery of the number of fibres in the 
spival cord which are specialized for the reception of particular sersations. 


64 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. IL 


now agreed upon, there may be framed an outline of a 
tolerably complete classification of agencies. Let us reduce 
to a common form of expression the agencies contemplated 
in this and in the two preceding chapters. 

Considered in the widest sense, the processes which we 
have seen to cooperate in the evolution of organisms are all 
processes of equilibration or adjustment. From the dyna- 
mical point of view, as bas been shown in previous chapters, 
an organism is a complex aggregate of matter, in which per- 
manent structural and functional differentiations and inte- 
grations are rendered possible by the fact that it continually 
receives about as much motion as it expends. Now a state 
in which expended motion is continually supplied from 
without, is called a state of dependent moving equilibrium. 
In other words, it is a state in which every change in the 
distribution of external forces must be met by a change in 
the distribution of internal forces, in order that the equili- 
brium may be preserved. This is the case with every 
organism. Its life is a perpetual balancing of external 
forces by internal forces. And the complete accomplishment 
of this end requires also that there shall be a continuous 
internal equilibration,—a perpetual balancing of forces opera- 
tive in the different parts of the organism. Thus the career 
of an organism, or of a group of organisms, consists of two 
kinds of equilibration, which we may briefly designate as 
external and internal equilibration. And a moment’s con- 
sideration will show us that each of these kinds of equilibra- 
tion may be either direct or indirect. The adjustment of a 
eroup of organisms to changing external circumstances is 
effected partly by such direct adaptations as we have above 
considered, partly by the destruction of all those members of 
the group which do not become directly adapted. In this 
latter way equilibrium is maintained indirectly ; and natural 
selection, or survival of the fittest, may be accurately cha- 
racterized as “indirect equilibration.” Turning now to the 


cn. x1.] ADJUSTMENT, DIRECT AND INDIRECT. 65 


internal processes, we see that direct equilibration which 
consists in continually arranging all the units of the organism 
in accordance with their physiological polarities, exemplified 
alike in heredity and in correlation of growth. On the other 
hand the dwindling and final evanescence of organs which 
are disused, is due to the fact that the nutritive material is 
all needed by the other organs which are in constant use ; 
and it may accordingly be regarded as an indirect method 
of preserving the internal equilibrium of the organism. The 
process of organic evolution may therefore be summarized 


as follows: 
External Direct .« « Adaptation. 


ee : Indirect . Natural Selection. 
Equilibration Shier Heredity. 
Internal * * ( Correlation of Growth. 
Indirect . Use and Disuse, 


Here we have a classification of agencies coextensive with 
uur present knowledge of the subject, and sufficiently com- 
prehensive to include such factors in the problem as may 
hereafter be discovered. Under one of these four sub-divi- 
sions every special process concerned in forwarding organic 
evolution must be included. For since it is admitted on all 
sides that specific change is due to the necessity for main- 
taining equilibrium between the organism and the environ- 
ment, it follows that every process which results in the 
modification of species must be a process of adjustment 
or equilibration, either external or internal, direct or in- 
direct. In the scientific treatment of the problem, there is 
room for much beside natural selection, but there is no room 
for occulice vires, or pantheistic intelligences, or for “ten- 
‘encies,” save such as may be expressed as the unneutralized 
surplus of forces acting in a particular direction. 

But we have now done something more than merely to 
classify the causes of organic evolution. In the act of 
classifying these, we have arrived at the law or formula 

VOL, II. ¥F 


66 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. IL 


which expresses the chief characteristic of organic evolution. 
We have reached the all-important truth that the progress of 
life on the globe has been the continuous equilibration of the 
organism with its environment. We need now only go a 
step farther in order to obtain a formula which will not only 
express the distinguishing characteristic of Life itself, but 
will also serve as an immediate basis for our inquiries into 
the phenomena of mind and of society, 


CHAPTER XIIL 
LIFE AS ADJUSTMENT, 


OnE of the cardinal propositions of Mr. Spencer’s system of 
philosophy is the definition of Life, first published in 1855, 
in his “ Principles of Psychology,” but now transferred to the 
first volume of his “Principles of Biology.” According to 
Mr. Spencer, the continuous maintenance of an equilibrium 
between the organism and its environment is the process in 
which life essentially consists. Life—including also intel- 
ligence as the highest known manifestation of life—is the 
continuous establishment of relations within the organism, 
in correspondence with relations existing or arising in the 
environment.! Out of the host of illustrations by which 


1 The full definition runs thus :—‘*‘ Life is the definite combination of 
heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence 
with external coexistences and sequences.” This is incomparably the most 
profound and complete definition of Life that has ever been framed; and the 
chapter in which it is set forth and illustrated woald alone entitle Mr. Spencer 
to a place among the greatest thinkers that have ever lived. The objection 
has indeed been raised, in metaphysical quarters, that this is a definition, not 
of Life, but of the circumstances or accidents in which Life is manifested. 
Concerning this objection, we may content ourselves with the following re- 
marks by Mr. Lewes. Both Life and Mind, says Mr. Lewes, are processes, 
** Neither is a substance ; neither is a force. To speak of Vitality as a sub- 
stance would shock all our ideas; but many speak of it as a force. They 
might with equal propriety hold Mortality to be a force. What, then, is 
meant by Vitality, or vital forces? If the abstraction be resolved into its 
concretes, it will be seen that a certain process, or group of processes, is con- 
densed into a simple expression, and the final result of this process is trans- 


F 2 


68 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


this formula is justified, it will be sufficient for our present 
purpose to select but one or two. “The stinging and con- 
tractile powers of a polyp’s tentacle correspond to the sensi- 
tiveness and strength of the creatures serving it for prey. 
Unless that external change which brings one of these 
creatures in contact with the tentacle were quickly followed 
by those internal changes which result in the coiling and 
drawing up of the tentacle, the polyp would die of inani- 
tion. The fundamental processes of integration and dis- 
integration within it would get out of correspondence with 
the agencies and processes without it; and the life would 
cease.” So in higher animals, “every act of locomotion im- 
plies the expenditure of certain internal mechanical forces, 
adapted in amounts and directions to balance or out-balance 
certain external ones. The recognition of an object is impos- 
sible without a harmony between the changes constituting 
perception, and particular properties coexisting in the en- 
vironment. Escape from enemies supposes motions within 
the organism, rela!«:| in kind and rapidity to motions without 
it. Destruction of prey requires a particular combination of 
subjective actions, fitted in degree and succession to overcome 
a group of objective ones. And so with those countless 
automatic processes exemplified in works on animal instinct.” 
And similarly, as will appear still more clearly when we 
come to treat especially of the evolution of intelligence, 
“the empirical generalization that guides the farmer in his 
rotation of crops, serves to bring his actions into concord 
with certain of the actions going on in plants and soil; and 
the rational deductions of the educated navigator who calcu- 
lates his position at sea, constitute a series of mental acts by 
posed from a resultant into an initial condition, the name given to the whole 
group of phenomena becomes the personification of the phenomena, and the 
product is supposed to have been the producer. In lieu of regarding vital 
actions ag the dynamical results of their statical conditions, the actions are 
personified, and the personification comes to be regarded as indicating some 


thing independent of and antecedent to the concrete facts it expresses.”— 
Protlems of Life and Mind, vol. i. p. 110. 


ou, X11.) LIFE AS ADJUSTMENT. 69 


which his proceedings are conformed to surrounding cireum- 
stances.” 

We practically recognize the truth of this definition of 
life when we attempt to ascertain whether an animal is dead 
or alive by poking it with a stick. If it responds by motions 
of its own, we judge it to be alive; if it merely moves as the 
stick pushes it, we judge it to be dead. So we decide whether 
a tree is alive or dead by observing whether the increased 
supply of solar radiance in spring causes those internal 
motions which result in the putting forth of leaves, In 
these cases we recognize the truth “that the alteration 
wrought by some environing agency on an inanimate object 
does not tend to induce in it a secondary alteration, that 
anticipates some secondary alteration in the environment, 
But in every living body there is a tendency towards 
secondary alterations of this nature; and it is in their pro- 
duction that the correspondence consists.” 

This formula for vital phenomena is further illustrated 
and justified by the fact that the degree of life is low or 
high, according as the correspondence between internal and 
external relations is simple or complex, limited or extensive, 
partial or complete, imperfect or perfect. The lowest forms 
of life respond only to the simpler and more homogeneous 
changes which affect their total environment. The relations 
established within a plant answer only to the presence or 
absence of a certain quantity of light and heat, and to the 
chemical and hygrometric relations existing in the envelop- 
ing atmosphere and subjacent soil. In a polyp, besides 
general relations similar to these, certain more special rela- 
tions are established in correspondence with the external 
existence of mechanical irritants; as when its tentacles 
contract on being touched, The increase of extension 
acquired by the correspondences as we ascend the animal 
scale, may be seen by cantrasting the polyp, which can 
simply distinguish between soluble and insoluble matters, 


70 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. 11 


or between opacity and translucence in its environment, 
with the keen-scented bloodhound, and the far-sighted 
vulture. And the increase of complexity may be appre- 
ciated by comparing the motions respectively gone through 
by the polyp on the one hand, and by the dog and vulture 
on the other, while securing and disposing of their prey. In 
the next chapter it will be shown that the advance from 
lower to higher forms of life consists in the orderly establish- 
ment of relations within the organism, answering to external 
relations of coexistence and sequence, that are continually 
more special, more remote in space and in time, and more 
heterogeneous ; until at last we reach civilized man, whose 
intelligence responds to every variety of external stimulus, 
whose ordinary needs are supplied by implements of amazing 
complexity, and whose mental sequences may be determined 
by circumstances as remote as the Milky Way and as ancient 
as the birth of the Solar System. 

When viewed under this aspect the phenomena of life and 
of intelligence are so similar that it is difficult to keep them 
separate in our series of illustrations. As we proceed to 
treat of psychology, we shall much better appreciate the 
importance of the truth which I am now expounding. 
Restricting ourselves here, as far as possible, to physiological 
illustrations, let us note that in any organism life continues 
just so long as relations in the environment are balanced by 
internal relations, and no longer. The difference in result 
between a jump from a horse-car and a jump from an 
express train running at full speed, depends simply on the 
difference in the ability of the contracting muscles to neu- 
 tralize a small or a large quantity of arrested momentum. 
The motor energy with which the head is carried forward 
antil it strikes the ground, is exactly the surplus of external 
- force to which the organism has failed to oppose an internal 
force. If the resulting concussion of the brain is not. se 
great av to induce instant death, but only causes inflamma 


cH. X1I1.] LIFE AS ADJUSTMENT. 71 


tion, with temporary loss of consciousness, then the con- 
tinuance of life will depend upon the ability of the molecular 
forces within the organism to bring about a redistribution of 
matter and motion which shall balance the sudden redistri- 
bution caused by the blow. Dynamical pathology regards 
all diseases as disturbances of the internal equilibrium of 
the organism, and recovery is the restoration of the equili- 
brium. The avoidance of danger is the coordination of 
certain actions in anticipation of more or less complex 
relations about to arise without. If disease and danger be 
successfully avoided, the death which ensues in old age is 
due to the diminished plasticity of the organism which 
renders it incapable of responding to external changes. As 
we saw when treating of the primary aspects of Evolution 
and Dissolution, the evolution of the body, even to the close 
of life, is characterized by the integration of its constituent 
matter, shown in the increasing proportion of solids to fluids 
which makes the bones brittle, the muscles stiff, and the 
nerves sluggish. Death from old age ensues just when the 
consequent molecular immobility has reached the point at 
which incident forces can no longer be balanced by internal 
rearrangements. 

A paragraph will suffice for the exposition of this formula 
of life in connection with the general law of evolution. 
That the evolution of life upon the earth, beginning with 
innumerable jelly-like patches of protoplasm, like the 
monera discovered by Prof. Haeckel, and ending with more 
than two million species of plants and animals such as 
naturalists classify, has been a change from homogeneity to 
heterogeneity, will be denied by no one. Nor is it needful 
to repeat, save for form’s sake, what was sufficiently illus- 
trated in an earlier chapter,—that the higher forms are also 
those in which the various orders of integration are most 
completely exemplified. We need only to note that the 
continuous adjustment of the organism to its environment, 


72 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. 11 


in which process we have seen that life consists, must ne- 
cessitate both the differentiation of the organism and the 
integration or definite combination of the changes which 
constitute its activity. For as the life becomes higher the 
environment itself increases in heterogeneity as well as in 
extent. The environment of a fresh-water alga is, as Mr. 
Spencer remarks, limited to the ditch or pool in which the 
alga lives. The acaleph borne along on a wave of the sea 
has a much more homogeneous environment than the cater- 
pillar which crawls over leaves; and the actions by which 
the caterpillar must “meet the varying effects of gravita- 
tion,” are far more heterogeneous than the actions of the 
acaleph. In the case of the higher animals, not only is 
their environment extremely heterogeneous as consisting to 
a great extent of adjacent organisms which stand to them in 
the relations of enemies, competitors, or prey; but it also 
presents highly coordinated actions on the part of these 
organisms, which must be met by highly coordinated actions 
on the part of the former. Thus with the increase of the 
organism in heterogeneity, definiteness, and coherence, its 
environment increases in heterogeneity and presents more 
definite and coherent relations to which the organism must 
adjust itself. And in this way the heterogeneous, definite, 
and coherent activity of the organism is again enhanced. 
The corollary from this group of truths is one which will 
nearly concern us when we come to treat of the Evolution 
of Society: it is this,—the greater the amount of progress 
already made, the more rapidly must progress go on. 


CHAPTER XIV. 
LIFE AND MIND. 


BEFORE we proceed to treat of psychical life as the con- 
tinuous establishment of subjective relations that are in 
correspondence with environing objective relations, we must 
dispose of certain questions which have been raised by 
Comte and his disciples concerning the right of psychology 
to be regarded as an independent science. Part of Comte’s 
plan for the renovation of philosophy was the rescuing of 
psychology from the exclusive control of metaphysicians. 
The manner in which he proposed to accomplish the rescue 
is only too briefly described: he simply denied in toto the 
claims of psychology to be regarded as an independent 
science. According to Comte there can be no science, worthy 
of the name, founded upon the observation and comparison 
of states of consciousness; and psychology must therefore 
be studied as a part of biology, by the aid solely of the 
methods used in biology. That is, the study of mind must 
be reduced to the study of nervous phenomena simply. It 
is easy to say that the inevitable outcome of this is the 
unqualified assertion of materialism. But as Comte himself 
never drew such an inference, and always protested ener- 
getically against materialism, as based upon illegitimate 
inferences from the study of nervous phenomena, it would 


74 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pT. IL 


not be fair in us to draw the inference for him and then 
upbraid him with it. This kind of misrepresentation is dear 
to theologians, and we may contentedly leave them an entire 
monopoly of it. But worse remains behind. Having con- 
demned psychological analysis as useless, Comte offers us in 
exchange the ludicrous substitute—Phrenology ! 

Of all the scientific blunders which Comte ever made, this 
was beyond question the one which has done most to injure 
his credit with competent scientific critics. Yet in fairness 
we must remember that Comte’s ignorance of psychology was 
his weakest point, and that forty years ago, when the anatomy 
and physiology of the nervous system were in their infancy 
the conception of dividing the grey surface of the cerebrum 
into thirty or more provinces, each the seat of a complex 
group of mental aptitudes, did not seem so absurd as it does 
now. In those days even Broussais, a first-class physiologist, 
adopted some of the leading doctrines of phrenology. More- 
over the fundamental conception of Gall—which included 
the anatomical comparison ,of all animal brains, in con-~ 
nection with the study of the mental characteristics of 
animals—was a noble conception ; though in working it out 
he showed himself lamentably ignorant of the plainest rules 
of induction. The purposes of our inquiry do not render it 
necessary for me to discuss the merits of a hypothesis which 
has long since ceased to be of any interest, save as an episode 
in the early history of physiological psychology. Those who 
wish to see the question treated critically may be referred to 
the works of Miiller, Valentin, Wagner, Vulpian, Gratiolet, 
Longet, and especially of Lélut ; to “the appendix to Hamil- 
ton’s “Lectures on Metaphysics”; to the chapter on Gall in 
Mr, Lewes’s “History of Philosophy ” ; and to Mr. Bain’s 
treatise on “The Study of Character.” 

It is not Comte’s acceptance of phrenology, but his denial 
of psychology, which here concerns us. The former is merely 
a personal question, bearing upon Comte’s scientific com- 


oH. xI¥.] LIFE AND MIND, 75 


petence; the latter is a question of general interest. We 
may note at the outset that many contemporary posi- 
tivists differ from ~Comte on this point. It is generally 
agreed that a science may be founded, even if it has not 
already been founded, upon the observation and comparison 
of states of consciousness; though there is some disagree- 
ment as to the position of that science with reference to tha, 
other sciences. Mr. Lewes, for instance, misled by his general 
adherence to the Comtean classification of the sciences, re- 
gards psychology as a subdivision of biology, on the ground 
that the phenomena of consciousness are merely a special 
division of the phenomena of life. This is, in one sense, true; 
so true, indeed,.as to be fatal to the conclusion which it is 
meant to support. For it may be said, with equal truth, that 
the phenomena of life are but a subdivision of the pheno- 
mena presented by the surface of our contracting and cooling 
planet; so that it might equally well be argued that biology | 
is only a subdivision of geology. And again it may be said 
that geologic phenomena are only a subdivision of the general 
phenomena presented by the condensation of a nebula; so 
that geology is only a branch of astronomy. Yet it could 
hardly be said that psychology is a mere branch of astro- 
nomy; so that here we seem to have reached a reductio 
ad absurdum. ) 

But by travelling back over the course, we shall get out 
of the difficulty, and not only see why psychology has as 
good a right as any other branch of inquiry to be ranked as 
an independent science, but also see why it must needs be 
partly founded upon an observation and comparison of states 
of consciousness. Let us then, having reached the primeval 
nebuia, begin our journey backwards. 

Our position is explained by the consideration that all the 
synthetic concrete sciences are but adjacent tracts of one 
general science,—Cosmology: “ Practically, however, they 
are distinguishable as successively more specialized parts of 


78 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 11. 


the total science—parts further specialized by the intro- 
duction of additional factors. The astronomy of the solar 
system is a specialized part of that general astronomy which 
includes our whole sidereal system; and becomes specialized 
by taking into account the revolutions and rotations of 
planets and satellites. Geology is a specialized part of this 
special astronomy ; and becomes specialized by joining with 
the effects of the earth’s molar motions, the effects of con- 
tinuous decrease in its internal molecular motion, and the 
effects of the molecular motion radiated from the sun. Bio- 
logy is a specialized part of geology, dealing with peculiar 
agorézates of peculiar chemical compounds formed of the 
earth’s superficial elements—ageregates which, while exposed 
to these same general forces molar and molecular, also exert 
certain general actions and reactions on one another. And 
psychology is a specialized part of biology, limited in its 
application to a higher division of these peculiar aggregates, 
and occupying itself exclusively with those special actions 
and reactions which they display, from instant to instant, in 
their converse with the special objects, animate and inani- 
mate, amid which they move.” ? 

This last point is one which requires further illustration. 
Concisely expressed, it amounts to this—that psychology is 
distinguished by dealing in a particular way with the rela- 
tions between the organism and its environment. A few 
illustrations will render this perfectly intelligible; will show 
us that mere nervous physiology is not, and never can be, 
psychology. 

Nervous physiology treats of relations subsisting within 
the organism. It explains how waves of molecular motion, 
set up in a nerve-centre and transmitted along a nerve-axis, 
cause contraction in the fibres of a muscle, or secretion in a 
eland, or molecular rearrangement in the substance of the 
tissues, or sets up a new molecular undulation in some other 


1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 187, 138, 


CH. XIV. ] LIFE AND MIND. 77 


nerve-centre. It seeks to formulate the conditions under 
which nervous stimulation and nervous discharge take place. 
Or it shows how certain feelings are invariably sequent upon 
certain rearrangements of the molecules composing the nerve- 
substance. Even if it recognizes, as it does continually recog- 
nize, some force external to the organism, which causes the 
molecular rearrangement and the resultant feeling, it never- 
theless does not concern itself with the relation between the 
external cause and the internal effect, but only with the 
internal effect. 

Now, as Mr. Spencer has forcibly pointed out, “so long as 
we state facts of which all the terms lie within the organism, 
our facts are anatomical or physiological, and in no degree 
psychological. Even though the relation with which we are 
dealing is that between a nervous change and a feeling, it is 
still not a psychological relation so long as the feeling is 
regarded merely as connected with the mervous change, and 
not as connected with some existence lying outside the 
organism. . . . For that which distinguishes psychology from 
the sciences on which it rests, is, that each of its propositions 
takes account both of the connected internal phenomena and 
of the connected external phenomena to which they refer, 
In a physiological proposition an inner relation is the essential 
subject of thought; but in a psychological proposition an 
outer relation is joined with it as a coessential subject of 
thought. A relation in the environment rises into coordinate 
importance with a relation in the organism. The thing con- 
templated is now a totally different thing. It is not the 
onnection between the internal phenomena, nor is it the 
connection between the external phenomena; but it is the 
connection between these two connections. A psychological pro- 
dosition is necessarily compounded of two propositions, of 
which one concerns the subject and the other concerns the 
object ; and cannot be expressed without the four terms which 
these two propositions imply. The distinction may be best 


78 COSMIC PHILOSOPAY. (Pr. 1. 


explained by symbols. Suppose that a and B are two re 
lated manifestations in the environment—say, the colour and 
taste of a fruit; then, so long as we contemplate their rela- 
tion by itself, or as associated with other external phenomena, 
we are occupied with a portion of physical science. Now 
suppose that x and yY are the sensations produced in the 
organism by this peculiar light which the fruit reflects, and 
by the chemical action of its juice on the palate; then, so 
long as we study the action of the light on the retina and 
optic centres, and consider how the juice sets up in other 
centres a nervous change known as sweetness, we are occu- 
pied with facts belonging to the science of physiology. But 
we pass into the domain of psychology the moment we 
inquire how there comes to exist within the organism a rela- 
tion between X and Y that in some way or other corresponds 
to the relation between A and B. Psychology is exclusively 
concerned with this connection between AB and XY: it has 
to investigate its nature, its origin, and its meaning.”2 

It is true, as the last chapter showed us, that biology also 
presupposes a reference to phenomena outside the organism, 
the very definition of Life being “the continuous adjustment 
of internal relations to external relations”; so that Mind here 
appears to be but the highest form of Life. We see here the 
difficulty of sharply demarcating adjacent provinces of na- 
ture. Nevertheless there is a broad distinction, though not 
a sharp one. Exclude from biological problems all those 
adjustments which constitute mental reaction upon the en- 
vironment, and the only external factors remaining are those 
general conditions of temperature, moisture, food and the 
like, which are taken for granted once for all. While in each 
special problem of psychology, the relation between internal 
end external relations is the main subject of inquiry ; on the 
other hand in special problems of biology, the relation be- 
tween the internal processes and these general external 


1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. y. 132. 


pH. x1v.] LIFE AND MIND. 79 


factors is not the chief, but a subordinate, subject of inquiry. 
Digestion, for instance, implies food; and “ food implies 
neighbouring plants or animals ; but this implication scarcely 
enters into our study of digestion, unless we ask the quite 
special question—how the digestive organs become fitted to 
the materials they have to act upon.” But a moment’s intro- 
spection will make it clear to everyone, “that he cannot 
frame any psychological conception without looking at in- 
ternal coexistences and sequences in their adjustments to ex- 
ternal coexistences and sequences. If he studies the simplest 
act of perception, as that of localizing a touch in some part 
of his skin, the indispensable terms of his inquiry are :-—on 
the one hand a thing (1) and a position (2), both of which he 
regards as objective ; and on the other hand a sensation (3), 
and a state of consciousness constituting his appreheusion of 
position (4), both of which he regards as subjective. Or, if 
he takes for his problem one of his complex sentiments, as 
that of justice, he cannot represent to himself this sentiment, 
or give any meaning to its name, without calling to mind 
actions and relations supposed to exist in the environment: 
neither this nor any other emotion can be aroused in con- 
sciousness even yaguely, without positing something beyond 
consciousness to which it refers.” } 

Let us observe, in passing, that these considerations are 
quite incompatible with Materialism. The doctrine of the 
materialists rests partly on the assumption that the study of 
the laws of nervous action can give us a complete account of 
mental phenomena. But we have seen that to understand 
the simplest act of perception, we must take into the account 
..ot only the subjective and the objective factors, but the 
relation between the two. It is this relation which consti- 
tutes tne perception. But this relation exists only in con- 
sciousness, and we cannot explain it save by direct observation 
oi cousviousness. Push our researches in biology as tar as 


* Spencer, Principles of Psycholegy, vol. i. p- 133. 


80 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, fer. u 


we may, the most we can ever ascertain is that certain nerve- 
changes succeed certain other nerve-changes or certain ex- 
ternal stimuli in a certain definite order. But all this of 
itself can render no account of the simplest phenomenon of 
consciousness. As Mr. Spencer well says, “such words as 
ideas, feelings, memories, volitions, have acquired their several 
meanings through self-analysis, and the distinctions we make 
Letween sensations and emotions, or between automatic acts 
and voluutary acts, can be established only by comparisons 
among, and classifications of, our mental states. The thoughts 
and feelings which constitute a consciousness, and are abso- 
lutely inaccessible to any but the possessor of that cone 
sciousness, form an existence that has no place among the 
existences with which the rest of the sciences deal. Though 
accumulated observations and experiments have led us by 
a very indirect series of inferences to the belief that mind 
and nervous action are the subjective and objective faces of 
the same thing, we remain utterly incapable of seeing, and 
even of imagining, how the two are related. Mind still 
continues to us a something without any kinship to other 
things.” | 

Thus we conclude that psychology—though, from the 
objective point of view, it may be regarded as a branch of 
biology in the same abstract sense in which biology may be 
regarded as a branch of geology, and geology as a branch of 
astronomy—has nevertheless an equal claim with any of 
these to be ranked as a distinct science. From the sub- 
jective point of view it has a superior claim to any of the 
others. Since here the phenomena studied are directly given 
in the consciousness of the investigator, there arises a dis- 
tinction more fundamental than those by which the various 
departments of objective science are marked off from each 
other. And, indeed, without some of the data furnished by 
this unique subjective science, it is impossible to obtain the 
premises of philosophy; as will at once be admitted, on 


cH. XIVv.] LIFE AND MIND. 8] 


recollecting the topics which occupied us in the first part of 
this work. Psychology is therefore distinct alike from biology 
and from other sciences, in its problems and in its theorems, 
The problem of biology is to formulate the laws of nutri- 
ticn and reproduction, muscular contraction and nervous 
irlitation, heredity and adaptation. The problem of psy- 
chology is to formulate the laws of Association,—the order 
in which certain relations among environing phenomena give 
rise to certain corresponding relations among our states of 
consciousness. And while the theorems of objective science 
in general are based upon the observation of objective phe- 
nomena, whether external or internal to the organism; the 
theorems of psychology are based not only upon the obser- 
vation of objective phenomena, but also upon the observation | 
of subjective states. 

In view of these results, we see how hopelessly Comte 
went astray. Rejecting all introspection as metaphysical 
and delusive, he would have had us confine our inquiries to 
the succession of those nervous phenomena which are the 
invariable concomitants of feelings, ignoring the fact that 
without introspective observation we can never even ascertain 
that there 7s any invariable concomitance between the feel- 
ings and the nervous phenomena. He would have us solve 
» problem in which two factors are concerned, by investi- 
gating only one factor. 

In giving his reasons for thus rejecting all observation of 
consciousness, Comte reveals his inability (upon which I 
have already frequently remarked) to distinguish between 
psychology and metaphysics. He insists that psychologic 
inquiry, as hitherto conducted, has not resulted in discovery. 
If this were true, it would not help his case. Metaphysical 
)sychologists have failed in discovery, not because they have 
directly examined states of consciousness, but because they 
have constructed unverifiable hypothesus about the nature of 
Mind in itself, Where they have abstained from ontological 

VOL. IL G 


82 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. 31, 


inquiries, and have contented themselves with scientific 
methods, psychologists have made discoveries. To say 
nothing of such recent inquirers as Bain, Wundt, Fechner, 
and Taine, it may be fairly claimed that, among older specu~ 
lators, Hobbes, Locke, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and 
Hartley, have by psychologic analysis made real and per- 
manent contributions to our knowledge of mental operations. 
And at the very date when Comte was preparing his great 
treatise for publication, there appeared a remarkable book 
which, by establishing some of the fundamental laws of 
Association, went far toward placing psychology upon a 
scientific basis. It is not to the crude and superficial Gall, 
as Comte would have us believe, that we must give the 
respect due to the founder of scientific psychology: that 
respect is due, in far greater degree, to James Mill, the illus- 
trious author of the “ Analysis of the Human Mind.” 
Nevertheless, while psychology is a science clearly distinct 
from biology, dealing with phenomena which may be classed 
as super-organic, and using introspective observation as one 
of its main implements of inquiry, it is no more than any 
other an absolutely independent science. Since the pheno- 
mena of Mind are never manifested to us save in connection 
with the phenomena of Life, and since the same general 
formula expresses the fundamental characteristics of the two 
croups of phenomena, it follows that no complete science of 
psychology can be constituted without the aid of biology. 
The conclusions reached by the analysis of subjective states 
must be shown to be in harmony with the conclusions 
reached by the synthesis of objective phenomena, before the 
scientific interpretation of Mind can be regarded as entirely 
satisfactory. The force of this statement becomes at once’ 
apparent, when we recollect that introspective observation 
can inform us only concerning the mental. processes which 
go on in adult civilized men. In order to understand the 
genesis of these mental processes, we need the assistance of 


cn. xIv.] LIFE AND MIND. 83 


objective psychology and of nervous physiology; we need 
to compare the mental processes observed in adult civilized 
men, with the mental processes observed or inferred in 
civilized children, in adult barbarians, and in the lower 
animals, down to those humble organisms in which the phe- 
nomena of intelligence first become differentiated from the 
phenomena of organic life. The immense advance which has 
been made in mental science during the past forty years, has 
been mainly due to the practical recognition of this fact. 
Treatises on psychology are no longer solely based upon an 
analysis of what happens when “I see the inkstand,” 
although analyses of this sort are still, as is here maintained, 
indispensable. The nervous system, in its ascending com- 
plications from the amphioxus to man, is now taken into 
the account. The normal variations in psychical manifes- 
tation, in the various human races, from childhood to old 
age, are taken into the account. The abnormal variations 
caused by stimulants and narcotics, as well as those ex- 
hibited in epilepsy, insanity, and other forms of nervous 
disease, are taken into the account. And careful investi- 
gations into the ways in which different organisms respond 
to external stimuli, show us that the lower forms of psy- 
chical activity are no longer neglected. While the analysis 
of complex mental operations has been pushed to an extent 
which until lately would have been deemed impracticable, 
on the other hand the sub-science of psychogeny, dealing 
with the origin of the various manifestations of mental 
activity, has arisen to coordinate importance with subjective 
ysychology. It has become generally recognized that—in- 
effaceable as is the distinction between the phenomena of 
consciousness and all other phenomena—nevertheless the 
one as well as the other can be scientifically explained, 
only when present manifestations are studied in their con- 
nection with past manifestations. In this domain, as in 
all others, the Law of Evolution holds sway. 
G2 


84 COSMIO PHILOSOPHY, (pr. 11 


Let us now, in accordance with these general considera- 
tions, begin by contemplating the phenomena of Mind as 
gradually differentiated from the phenomena of Life ; reserv- 
ing for another chapter the interpretation of sundry psycho- 
logical truths in terms of the law of evolution. And first 
let us reconsider the definition of life which was briefly 
illustrated in the preceding chapter. We saw that life 
essentially consists in the continuous adjustment of relations 
within the organism to relations in the environment. And 
we saw that the degree of life is low or high, according as 
the correspondence between internal and external relations is 
limited or extensive, partial or complete, simple or complex. 
We saw tnat the lowest forms of life respond to the changes 
going on about them only in a simple, imperfect, and general 
way. A tree, for instance, meeting by changes within itself 
none but physical and chemical changes which occur with 
general uniformity in the environment, exhibits life in a very 
simple and unobtrusive form. We habitually regard it as 
less alive than a polyp, because the polyp, by displaying 
nascent sensitiveness and contractility, responds to a greater 
variety of more special external stimuli. Yet the polyp, 
possessing no specialized organs of sense, can oppose but one 
sort of action to many diverse kinds of impression. [heno- 
mena so different as those of light and heat, sound and 
mechanical impact, can affect it in but one or two ways,—by 
sausing it to move, or by slightly altering its chemical con- 
dition. The modes of response to outer relations are few and 
homogeneous. Passing abruptly to civilized man, at the other 
eud of the animal scale, we find a different state of things. 
To each kind of external stimulus there are many possible 
modes of response. Not only, for example, does the human 
organism sharply distinguish between variations which 
altect the eye and those which affect the ear; not only co 
eye aud ear, which are themselves organs of ainazine com- 
plexity, discern an endless number of differing tones and 


cH. Xtv.] LIFE AND MIND. 85 


hues, as well as a great variety of intensities and qualities ; 
but each particular manifestation of sound or of light is 
capable of arousing in the organism very different psychical 
combinations, entailing different muscular actions, according 
to circumstances. Tennyson’s traveller, who, walking at 
nightfall in a strange land, hears the moaning of a distant sea, 
* And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound 
Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry 
Of great wild beasts,” 

will adopt a course of action more or less in conformity with 
environing relations, according to the degree of his sagacity 
and the extent of his experience. Streaks of light and 
strata of cloud in the horizon will lead the practised mariner 
and the unskilled passenger to different conclusions. A 
cartoon of Raphael or a symphony of Beethoven will excite 
different emotions in an artist and in a person of feeble 
impressibility. And from the swinging of a cathedral lamp 
the young Galileo drew inferences which had escaped the 
attention or baffled the penetration of thousands of less 
acute beholders. Thus, with civilized man, the modes of 
response to outer relations are almost infinitely numerous and 
heterogeneous. 

But now, in this briefly indicated contrast between the 
lowest and highest extremes of life, regarded as a correspond- 
ence between the organism and the environment, we have 
jassed abruptly from vital relations which are purely physical 
to vital relations which are almost purely psychical. The 
relations contemplated have been, in each of the instances, 
relations internally set up in adjustment to external relations. 
But while the relations set up within the tree are simply 
physico-chemical; and while the relations set up within the 
polyp, thovgh involving nascent sensitiveness, are neverthe- 
less, in the absence of specialized nerve-matter, unattended 
by consciousness, and therefore cannot strictly be classed as 
psychical; on the other hand, the relations set up within 


86 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. IL 


civilized man are almost purely psychical, involving only such 
physico-chemical elements as are necessitated by the fact 
that conscious activity does not yo on unattended by molecular 
changes in nerve-tissue. It appears, therefore, that while in 
the vegetal world, and in the lower regions of the animal 
world, the life is purely or almost purely physico-chemical, 
it becomes more and more predominantly psychical as we 
ascend in the animal world, until at the summit it is mainly 
_ psychical, The continuous adjustment of inner to outer 
relations, which both constitutes life and maintains it from 
moment to moment, is a process which, at first purely 
physiological, becomes ever more distinctly psychological. 
From the facts of comparative anatomy we may elicit a 
parallel truth. In standard works on human anatomy it is 
customary to distinguish between the vegetative organs, (com- 
prising the nutritive and reproductive systems,) which are 
developed from the endoderm of the embryo, and the animal 
organs, (comprising the nervo-muscular system,) which are 
developed from the ectoderm. Not unfrequently these are 
otherwise and more appropriately distinguished as the 
nutritive and relational systems; the special office of the 
former being the integration of nutritive material, in behoof 
either of the organism or of its derivative offspring, while the 
special office of the latter is the maintenance of relations 
between the organism and the environment. The demarca- 
tion is thoroughly distinct, but it is not absolute; since the 
relations each moment set up even in the nutritive system 
must correspond with certain general relations of air, 
temperature, and assimilable material in the environment, 
Now we have to note that in the vegetal world such general 
correspondences are all that are established; there is no 
system of organs differentiated for the purpose of maintaining 
an equilibrium of relations with the environment. In such 
simply organized animals as the polyp there is no differentia- 
tion of relational tissues or organs; but the entire surface of 


CH. XIV.] LIFE AND MIND. 87 


the animal, besides maintaining such general correspondences 
as characterize vegetal life, exhibits in a slight degree the 
irritability and contractility which in higher creatures are— 
specialized in those tissues which form the relational organs. 
In the molluscoida, the property of irritability being localized 
in a few nerve-threads uniting in ganglionic masses, and the 
property of contractility being specialized in a_ parallel 
manner, there is rendered possible that more special mode of 
response to environing agencies, known as reflex action. In 
the lower vertebrata, the integration of numerous adjacent 
ganglia into a medulla, having connections with various parts 
of the organism, renders possible a much more perfectly 
coordinated series of responses to external stimuli. And at 
the same time the development of a pair of pedunculated 
ganglia from the upper portion of the medulla, is attended 
by the ability to compound the impressions which the medulla 
receives; so that it becomes possible for the correspondences 
to extend in space and time. As we ascend through the 
vertebrate sub-kingdom, the growth of these pedunculated 
ganglia—the cerebrum and cerebellum—becomes more and 
more the predominant characteristic of the nervous system ; 
and at the same time the power of adjusting inner relations 
to remote, special, and complex relations increases. Finally 
when we come to man, in whom the correspondences have 
reached a marvellous degree of heterogeneity, extent, and de- 
finiteness, we find not only that the relational system of organs 
is the dominant fact in his organization, but also thatthe system 
of pedunculated cephalic ganglia is the dominant fact in the 
relational system of organs. Not only is the nutritive life 
quite subordinated to the specially relational life, but the 
lower modes of the relational life, such as reflex action and 
instinct, are quite subordinated to those higher modes, such 
as thought and emotion, which are made possible by the 
great extent to which the cerebrum and cerebellum carry the 
compounding of impressions received in the medulla. In 


88 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. 11 


order to realize with vividness how comyletely human life has 
come to mean the higher psychical life, let us try to imagine 
what life would be without the cerekrum and cerebellum 
Yet from the biological point of view these systems of ganglia 
though nearly, are not quite, absolutely essential to human 
life; since the less complex acts and impressions are still 
coordinated after they have been destroyed by disease, and 
since infants, born without any brain save the medulla and 
basal ganglia, have been known to live for a short time. Such 
a deprivation of the higher relational activities naturally 
seems to us almost equivalent to deprivation of life. 

We may now more thoroughly appreciate the force of the 
distinction between the provinces of biology and of psy- 
chology, which was stated in the earlier part of this chapter. 
We see that while life, physical and psychical, is the con- 
tinuous adjustment of inner to outer relations, nevertheless 
in the lowest forms of life, unaccompanied by mind, the 
outer relations to which adjustment is made are exceedingly 
general, and the correspondence is simple, direct and homo- 
geneous. But as we pass to forms somewhat higher, we find, 
along with this simple correspondence maintained by the 
whole organism, a number of more complex, indirect, and 
special correspondences, for the establishinent and main- - 
tenance of which there is differentiated a particular relational 
structure. As the correspondence increases in complexity, 
in indirectness, and in speciality, the maintenance of it is 
confined more and more to this specialized nervo-muscular 
structure; and the enormously heterogeneous series of ad- 
justments which eventually goes on becomes distinguished , 
from the relatively homogeneous series of adjustments which : 
has all along been going on, as psychical life in contrast with 
physical life. Thus by a regular process of evolution it 
happens that, while at the outset the psychical life is but 
a slight extension of the correspondence which constitutes 
the physical life, at the end the correspondence which con 


ete mnet ras. 
3 Coe, ae 


cH. XIV.] LIFE AND MIND. 89 


stitutes the psychical life is all in all, and the processes of 
physical life come to be regarded as entirely subordinate 
to the maintenance of this higher correspondence. 

Let us now briefly trace the various extensions and com- 
plications of the correspondence as it becomes more hetero- 
geneous, definite, and coherent. Scanty justice can here be 
done to the subject, since it is necessary for me to compress 
into half-a-dozen pages the substance of a series of illus- 
trations, which in Mr. Spencer’s exceedingly condensed 
exposition fill a hundred pages. Nevertheless a few striking 
facts may be noted down, which will serve to assist in the 
comprehension of the process. Let us first note that in the 
simplest forms of life the correspondence extends “only to 
external relations which have one or both terms in contact 
with the organism. The processes going on in the yeast- 
plant cease unless its cell-wall is bathed by the saccharine 
and other matters on whose affinities they depend... . And 
so too among the lowest animals, the substances to be 
assimilated ‘must come in collision with the organism before 


‘any correspondence between inner and outer changes is 


shown.” . The correspondence is similarly limited in time. 
The tree, which puts forth its leaves from year to year, does 
so only in response to luminous and thermal changes which 
occur contemporaneously. The polyp’s tentacles contract 
only in response to immediately present stimuli. “ Alike in all 
these forms of life, there is an-absence of that correspondence 
between internal relations and distant external relations ”— 
in space and time—which we see exhibited in higher forms. 
, Now the extension of the correspondence in space is 
effected by the gradual differentiation of organs of sense. 
One of the most notable achievements of modern biology is 
the discovery—due among others, to Huschke, Remak, 
Milne-Edwards, and Huxley—that all the sense-organs are 
but successive modifications of tactile structures, or rather, 
of those simple dermal structures which in the higher 


90 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [Pr. 11. 


organisms are specialized as tactile. The most perfect 
organs of touch are the vibrisse or whiskers of the cat, 
which act as long levers in communicating impulses to the 
nerve-fibres that terminate in clusters about the dermal 
sacs in which they are inserted. Yet these whiskers are 
merely specialized forms of just such hairs as those which 
cover the bodies of most mammals, and which are found 
evanescent upon the human skin, embedded in minute sacs 
or re-entrant folds. Now it is a demonstrated fact that the 
eye and ear are morphologically identical with vibrisse. The 
bulb of the eye and the auditory chamber are nothing but 
extremely-metamorphosed hair-sacs, and the same is true of 
the olfactory chamber. The crystalline lens is a differentiated 
hair, the aqueous and vitreous humours are liquefied dermal 
tissue, and the otolites of the ear are “ concretions from the 
contents of an epidermic sac.” In view of these astounding 
disclosures of embryology, we may readily assent to Mr. 
Spencer’s statement that modern science justifies the guess of 
Demokritos, “that all the senses are modifications of touch.” 
From a single sense, more or less diffused over the surface of 
the body, and capable of establishing correspondences only 
with agencies in direct contact with the body, there have 
arisen, by slow differentiations, such localized senses as sight 
and hearing, which serve to enlarge the environment and 
establish correspondences with agencies more and more re- 
mote. Let us briefly consider the sense of sight, omitting 
hearing, as well as smell and taste, since our space is too 
limited to deal with them properly. 

In such lowly organized creatures as the hydra the ability 
to distinguish between light and darkness, or between sun- 
shine and shadow, is possessed in a slight degree by the 
entire surface of the body. But vision can hardly be said 
to exist, even in its most rudimentary aspect, until this 
sensibility is “concentrated in a particular spot. The rudi- 
mentary eye consisting, as in a planaria, of some pigment 


CH, Xiv.] LIFE AND MIND, 91 


grains, may be considered as simply a part of the surface more 
irritable by light than the rest. Some idea of the impression 
it is fitted to ‘receive may be formed by turning our closed 
eyes towards the light, and passing the hand backwards and 
forwards before them.” But while this localization of sen- 
sibility enables the creature to adapt itself to the movements 
of neighbouring opaque bodies, the extension of the corre- 
spondence is nevertheless very slight. To produce noticeable 
obscuration the opaque object must approach very near; and 
hence “we may infer that nascent vision extends to those 
objects alone which are just about to touch the organism, 

. . so that it amounts at first to little more than anti- 
cipatory touch.”* As we pass to higher forms, we find the 
eye gradually increasing in translucence, acquiring convexity 
of surface, liquefying internally into refracting humours, 
while the nerve-vesicles within multiply and arrange them- 
selves as retinal rods; the result being seen in the gradually 
increasing power of the organism to adapt its actions to 
actions occurring at a distance. The process and the result 
of development are essentially the same in the case of 
hearing and smell, though there are great differences in the 
degrees to which these senses are developed in the highest 
animals, 

Further extension of the correspondence is effected, in 
the higher vertebrates, by the increase in size and complexity 
of the cerebrum and cerebellum. These pedunculated groups 
of ganglia, which issue from the medulla, and whose function 
it is to compound in higher and higher aggregates the 
already-compound impressions received by the medulla, are 
capable of adjusting inner relations to outer relations beyond 
the reach of the organs of sense. “Chased animals that 
make their way across the country to places of refuge out of 
view, are obviously led by combinations of past and present 
impressions which enable them to transcend the sphere of the 


4 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 314, 815. 


2 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [Pr. 11. 


senses.” And in man, by the aid of science, the correspon- 
dence is extended not only over the entire surface of the 
earth, but through all visible space ; witness the facts that 
telegraphic reports enable purchasers in New York to adapt 
their actions to prices in London, and that the inferences of 
astronomers are modified in accordance with chemical changes 
going on in remote nebule. 

Along with the extension of the correspondence in space 
there goes on an extension in time, resulting in an enormous 
increase of the psychical life. Under their more simple forms 
the two kinds of extension go on together. The rudimentary — 
eye, which enables the organism to anticipate the contact of 
an approaching opaque body, may serve to illustrate the 
primitive connection between adjustments to external co- 
existences and adjustments to external sequences. And it is 
obvious, without concrete illustration, that in general the 
more remote are the outer relations to which inner relations 
are adjusted, the longer will be the interval by which the 
adjustment may be made to anticipate the group of outer 
relations which it is designed to balance, But it is only in 
the higher vertebrates, whose cephalic ganglia are sufficiently 
large and complex to enable them to form ideal representa- 
tions of outer relations not immediately present, that there is 
witnessed a decided extension of the correspondence in time. 
Dogs and foxes exhibit a well-marked anticipation of future 
events, in hiding food to be eaten hereafter. But it is first 
in the human race that such foresight becomes highly con- 
sSpicuous ; and the difference between civilized and savage 
men in this respect is probably even more marked than the 
difference between savage men and the higher allied mam- 
mals. There are strong reasons for believing that the more 
complex correspondences in time are chiefly effected by the 
cerebrum, while the more complex correspondences in space 
are chiefly effected by the cerebellum. And if this be the 
case, we may understand why it *s that in the course ol 


ru. xiv.] LIVE AND MIND. 93 


human progress the increase of the cerebrum in size and 
complexity has been so much greater than the increase of 
the cerebellum. In no other respect is civilized man so 
widely distinguished from the savage, as in his habitual 
adjustment of his daily actions to contingencies likely to 
arise in a more or less distant future. But here we touch 
upon an important theorem of sociology, which I shall here- 
after consider at greater length. 

Next let us note that the extension of the correspondence 
in space and in time is accompanied by a progressive increase 
in the speciality of the correspondence. Manifestly the 
differentiation of sense-organs which renders possible the 
adjustment of inner relations to distant outer relations, also 
renders possible the adjustment of inner relations to outer 
relations that are more and more special. Increased width of 
retina enhances the power of estimating the size of neigh- 
bouring objects, since the differences in the visual areas 
which they occupy will become more clearly appreciable. The 
multiplication of retinal rods enhances the power of estimat- 
ing shape, since differently shaped objects affect different 
numbers and different combinations of these rods. Thus 
while animals with rudimentary vision, in becoming aware of 
the presence of approaching objects, can recognize them only 
as objects, on the other hand an animal with developed 
vision, in recognizing objects near or distant, can also 
distinguish between innumerable differences in their sizes 
and shapes, and can make a proportionally great number of 
special adaptations in its conduct. It is similar with the 
ability to distinguish colours, and to estimate direction by 
the cye. And from the growing heterogeneity of the other 
senses, we might draw parallel illustrations, were there room 
for them. Finally the high development of the cephalic 
ganglia, rendering possible the compounding of ideal repre- 
sentations of objects and relations not present to sense, 
increases to an enormous degree the speciality of the adjust- 


84 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [Pr. 11. 


ments, Such special adjustments are seen in the cases of 
“the lion that goes to the river-side at dusk to lie in wait for 
creatures coming to drink, and the house-dog standing outside 
the door in expectation that some one will presently open it.” 
But the increase in speciality of adjustment is most con- 
spicuously exemplified in the progress of the human race; as 
is seen by contrasting the savage who sharpens his arrows in 
expectation of the periodic flight of certain birds, with the 
astronomer who at a given day, hour, and minute, adjusts his 
telescope to watch a transit of Venus. 

In the life of the highest animals, and especially in the 
life of the human race, characterized as it is by the predomin- 
ant activity of the great cephalic ganglia, there is witnessed 
an increase in the generality of the correspondence, parallel 
with the increase in speciality. As this topic falls almost 
entirely within the province of sociology, the illustration 
of it must be reserved for a future chapter. Let it here 
suffice to recall the fact, already mentioned, (Part I. Chap. viii.,) 
that the progress of human knowledge has all along been 
equally characterized by analysis and by synthesis,—by the 
differentiation implied in the recognition of relations that are 
more and more special, as well as by the integration implied 
in the grouping of relations in classes that are more and more 
general. 

Along with the increase of the correspondence in spatial 
and temporal remoteness, in speciality and in generality, there 
is a continuous increase in complexity. Indeed, in the various 
aspects of psychical progress already contemplated, this 
aspect has been continually illustrated. Obviously the 
development of sense-organs, while widening the environ- 
ment and increasing the number of relations to which the 
organism may adjust itself, enhances also the complexity of 
the adjustments, Contrast the simple movements of the 
planaria when an opaque object passes before its rudimentary 
eye, with the complex movements of a cat when a mouse ig 


cH. xIv.] LIFE AND MIND. 95 


heard scratching in the wainscot, and it becomes evident that 
the heterogeneity of the impressions received by an organism 
is paralleled by the heterogeneity of the adjustmeats by 
which it responds to them. The multiplication of the objects 
and relations of which any organism can take cognizance, 
involves of necessity a growing complexity in the actions by 
which it adapts itself to their presence. In civilized man, 
whose immensely developed cephalic ganglia bear witness to 
the predominance of psychical over physical life, this 
correlated advance in heterogeneity of correspondence is 
exemplified in the interdependent progress of science and art. 
Here again we are carried into the domain of sociology, and 
this thread must be left to be gathered up with the others 
when we come to treat of intellectual progress. 

It remains to note that the extension of the correspondence 
in space and time, and its increase in definite heterogeneity, 
both heighten the degree of life and add to the ability to 
maintain life. On the one hand, the more numerous, the 
more complicated, and the more clearly defined, are the outer 
relations to which the organism adapts itself, and the longer 
the interval of time by which the adjustments may be made 
to forestall external contingencies, the greater will be the 
number of heterogeneous changes in which life consists. 
And on the other hand, the greater the number of hetero- 
geneous changes by which the organism can respond to outer 
ehanges, the more easily and surely will life be prolonged. 
Whence, says Mr. Spencer, “we may clearly see how life 
and ability to maintain life, are two sides of the same fact— 
how life is a combination of processes, the result of whose 
workings is their own continuance.” An interesting com- 
nentary on this proposition is furnished by Mr. Lankester’s 
recently-published essay on “Comparative Longevity,” in 
which it is shown that high individuation, or the power of 
responding heterogeneously to external changes, is the chief, 
though not the sole, factor concerned in producing length 


eS COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. 1. 


of life. The amount of normal longevity in any species 
depends upon the definite heterogeneity of the adaptation 
of its individual members to environing circumstances, and 
also upon the ratio of their nutrition to their expenditure. 
But the preponderant importance of the former factor is 
seen in the fact that, in spite of their immensely greater 
personal expenditure, the higher animals are, as a rule, very 
much longer lived than the lower ones. In the civilized 
human races also, as contrasted with the savage races, the 
life is not only higher in degree but longer in duration: 
the longevity of the lowest savages rarely exceeds forty-five — 
years. 

As we proceed to survey, in a single view, the various 
truths here separately elucidated, we find that the essential 
distinction, above insisted on, between the sciences of 
biology and psychology, is thoroughly justified by the very 
facts which illustrate the close connection between the two. 
The foregoing exposition conclusively proves that in dealing 
with the adjustments of inner to outer actions, biology 
“limits itself to the few in which the. outer actions are those 
of agents in actual contact with the organism—food, aerated 
medium, and things which produce certain effects by touch 
(as insects which fertilize flowers); thus leaving to psy- 
chology all other adjustments of inner to outer actions.” 
“The moment we rose to a type of creature which adjusts 
certain organic relations to relations of which both terms 
are not presented to its surface, we passed into adjust- 
ments of the psychological order. As soon as there exists 
a rudimentary eye capable of receiving an impression from 
a moving object about to strike the organism, and so ren- 
dering it possible for the crganism to make some adapted 
movement, there is shown the dawn of actions which we 
distinguish as intelligent. As soon as the organism, feebly 
sensitive to a jar or vibration propagated through its medium 
contracts itself so as to be in less danger from the adjacent 


sof istedvanca, we perceive a nascent form of the life 
| cares as psychical. That is to say, whenever the corre- 
j ‘spondence exhibits some extension in space or in time, some ro 
_ increase of speciality or complexity, we find we have crossed oe 
: ‘the boundary between physical life and psychical life”? _ ; aie 


Be" i scoue, Priscigles of Pojcheligag wk Lp ale a 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 


In pursuing the analysis of a complex series of phenomena, 
with the object of ascertaining the simple ultimate elements 
of which the complex series is made up, we shall sometimes 
most satisfactorily accomplish our purpose if we begin with 
the most complicated cases which the series presents. After 
explaining these by resolving them into their less complex 
components, our analysis “ must proceed similarly with these 
components; and so, by successive decompositions, must 
descend to the simpler and more general, reaching at last 
the simplest and mst general.” Let us proceed, after this 
fashion, to inquire into the Composition of Mind. Begin- 
ning with the most highly-involved operations of conscious 
intelligence, and neglecting, for the time being, the con- 
sideration of those emotional states by which all operations 
of intelligence are to a greater or less degree accompanied, let 
us pursue our analysis until we have arrived at those ultimate 
units of feeling in the manifold compounding of which all con- 
scious operations, whether intellectual or emotional, consist. 
Beginning, then, with a somewhat complicated operation 
of intelligence, let us consider the process by which an as- 
tronomer, knowing the dimensions of the earth, is enabled to 
ealculate therefrom the distance of the moon. He must, in 


cH, Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 99 


the first place, assimilate in thought the case of the moon to 
like cases in which the distances of inaccessible objects upon 
the earth are indirectly measured. When a land-surveyor 
wishes to ascertain the distance of a church-tower situated 
‘on the farther side of a river, he has recourse to an indirect 
method of measurement. Upon his own side of the river he 
first measures the distance between two points sufficiently 
removed from each other, and this distance he calls a base- 
line. From each end of the base-line he now takes a sight 
at the inaccessible tower, and, with the proper instruments, 
measures the difference between its direction and the direc- 
tion of the base-line. In this way he obtains an ideal triangle, 
of which the tower is the apex; and, knowing the length of 
the base-line, and the value of the two angles at the ends of 
the base-line he calculates by trigonometry the length of the 
two sides which express the distance of the tower from the 
ends of the base-line. Now, the astronomer, imitating this 
process, assumes as a base-line the known distance between 
two remote points on the earth’s surface, as for example 
London and Cape Town; and then from each of these points 
he proceeds to take the bearings of the moon. The process, 
indeed, is here complicated by the fact that, owing to the 
long distance, the inequalities of the earth’s surface, and its 
curvature, the observer at Cape Town cannot see the position 
of London, and vice versd. It is necessary, therefore, again 
to resort to an indirect method, and, having measured the 
meridional bearings of the moon from the north-pole at 
London and from the south-pole at Cape Town, to compare 
these bearings with the knowledge that the bearing of the 
one pole from the other is 180 degrees or two right angles, 
A further correction must be made for the fact that London 
and Cape Town are not on the same meridian, But disre- 
garding these steps in the process, as unnecessarily com- 
piicating our case, we have to note that, when the astronomer 
has thus indirectly measured the angles which ideal lines 
H 2 


100 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 1: 


drawn to the moon must make at the two ends of his long 
base-line from London to Cape Town, he is at once enabled, 
like the land-surveyor, to calculate by trigonometry the 
lengths of these ideal lines, and thus to ascertain the moon’s 
distance. What, now, is the essential characteristic of the 
process which the astronomer goes through? Or, in other 
words, what is the fundamental psychical process by the mani- 
fold compounding of which is built up this highly-complex 
series of inferences ? 

From beginning to end, the fundamental process is the 
cognition of the equality of sundry relations, The thought | 
which underlies and determines the whole calculation is the 
cognition that the relations between the sides and angles of a 
great triangle, having for its apex the moon, and for its base 
the chord of the are of the meridian of London measured to 
a point in the southern hemisphere upon the same parallel 
with Cape Town, are equal to the relations between the sides 
and angles of a similar small triangle, having an inaccessible 
tower for its apex and a measured line of five or six rods for 
its base; and that these relations, in turn, are equal to the 
relations between the sides and angles of a still smaller and 
similar triangle which may be drawn on a sheet of paper, and 
of which the sides and angles may, if necessary, be directly 
measured. Now, this cognition implies the previous establish- 
ment, in the calculator’s mind, of sundry cognitions of the 
ejualities and inequalities of certain relations between the 
sides and angles of triangles. To show briefly how such 
cognitions have been established, let us cite the simplest case 
—that in which the two angles at the base of an isosceles 
triangle are recognized as equal to each other. Euclid es- 
tablishes this point by supposing two similar and equal 
isoscelas triangles, of which the oneis turned over and placed 
upon the other, so that the apex and one side of the one will 
coincide with the apex and opposite side of the other. 
Then the other sides and the bases must respectively coincide 


Tai he 


vu. Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 101 


otherwise the two triingles would not be similar and equal, 
and the conditions of the case would be violated. Ali the 
sides being thus equal, each to each, the two triangles must 
everywhere coincide, and consequently the two basal angles 
must be equal, both in the triangle which has been turned 
over and in the one which has kept its original position. 
Now, each step of this demonstration is a cognition of the 
equality of a pair of relations of length or of direction; and 
in each case this cognition is established, not by any anterior 
demonstration, but by direct inspection. Or, in other words, 
when it is said that two lines of equal length, starting from 
the same point, and running in the same direction, must 
coincide at their farther extremities, the truth of the state- 
ment is at once recognized simply because the states of con- 
sciousness which we call the ideas of the two lines are totally 
indistinguishable from each other. This immediate perception 
of the equality—or, in some cases, of the inequality—between 
two or more relations of position or magnitude is the goal 
toward which every geometrical demonstration tends. And, 
still more, it is the mental act implied in every step of every 
such demonstration. All the devices familiar to the reader 
of Euclid—the bisecting of lines and angles, the drawing of 
parallels and the circumscribing of circles for argumentative 
purposes—are simply devices for bringing a given pair of 
space-relations directly. into consciousness, so that their 
equality or inequality may be recognized by direct inspection. 

Manifestly the case is the same in that algebraic reasoning 
which our astronomer will often find it desirable to employ 
in the course of his computation of the moon’s distance. 
The axiom that “relations which are equal to the same rela- 
tion are equal to each other” is an axiom which twice involves 
the immediate recognition of the equality of two given 


relations. And, if any proof were needed that the whole 


science of algebra is based upon this axiom, it may be found 
in one of the most common algebraic artifices “When a 


102 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 11, 


simplification may be thereby achieved, it is usual to throw 
any two forms of an equation into a proportion—a procedure 
in which the equality of the relations is specifically asserted.” 
To cite Mr. Spencer’s simple illustration: if we take any 
equation, 2 xy=y?, and, dividing it by y, obtain a second 
equation, 2 x=y, the legitimacy of our proceeding is at once 
rendered apparent when the two equations are thrown together 
in a proportion, in which it is asserted that the ratio of 2 zy 
to y* is equal to the ratio of 2z2to y. Or, if any doubt still 
remain as to the correctness of this, we resort to the familiar 
device of multiplying extremes and means, and obtain the 
identical proposition 2 ay’? =2 ay*,in which the identity of the 
two terms is immediately cognized, because the states of con- 
sciousness which they evoke are indistinguishable from one 
another. 

Thus the complicated quantitative reasoning by which an 
astronomer determines the distance of a heavenly body con- 
sists in the long-continued compounding of immediate cogni- 
tions of the equality or inequality of two or more given 
relations or groups of relations of position and magnitude. 

Before proceeding to unfold all that is implied by this 
conclusion, let us consider another concrete example of a 
somewhat different kind. "When acertain horned animal, of 
slender figure, with cloven hoofs, and a hairy integument, is 
presented to the inspection of a naturalist, he at once re- 
cognizes it as a giraffe; and, if required further to describe 
it, he observes that, as having four ‘stomachs and chewing 
the cud, it belongs to the sub-order of ruminants; as having 
its toes firmly united in a solid hoof, it belongs to the order 
of ungulata; as having mammary glands and suckling its 
young, it belongs to the class of mammals; and, as having 
an internal bony skeleton, it belongs to the sub-kingdom of 
vertebrates. What, now, is the mental act which is repeated 
at each stage of this description? It is “a cognition of the 
fact that the relation between particular attributes in this 


tn. Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 103 


animal is like the relation between homologous attributes 
in certain other animals.” To confine ourselves to the first 
clause of the description—“the attributes implied by the 
term ruminant can be known only as previously observed or 
described ; and the predication of these, as possessed by the 
animal under remark, is the predication of attributes like 
certain before-known attributes. Once more, there is no 
assignable reason why, in this particular case, a relation of 
coexistence should be thought, between ‘ such attributes as 
the possession of four stomachs and the possession of horns 
and cloven hoofs,’ unless as being like certain relations of 
coexistence previously known ; and, whether the thinking of 
this relation can be otherwise accounted for or not, it is clear 
that the predication cannot otherwise have any probability, 
much less certainty.”! The case is the same with the re- 
maining clauses of the description, In each instance the 
mental operation performed by the naturalist is the recogni- 
tion of the likeness between certain groups of relations 
observed in this giraffe and certain other groups of relations 
previously classified as pertaining to ruminants, ungulata, 
mammals, and vertebrates. Obviously, therefore, the reason- 
ing by which the places of animals in the zoological scale 
are determined, consists in the compounding of cognitions 
of likeness or unlikeness between certain given groups of 
relations. 

So far, then, the mental] operation performed by the natu- 
ralist seems to be not unlike that performed by the astro- 
nomer. And indeed, in spite of the superficial difference 
’ which seems so widely to separate the classification of 
animals from the measurement of celestial spaces, it will 
appear, on a moment’s reflection, that the only real difference 
between the mental processes involved in the former case, 
and those involved in the latter, is the extent to which Jae- 
ness is predicated of the relations concerned. Deeply con 


3 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. p. 69. 


104 _ COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. ls, 


sidered, the act of the astronomer is the same as that of the 
naturalist, save that, while the former classifies together 
sundry groups of relations as equal to one another, or indistin- 
guishable from one another, the latter classifies together 
sundry groups of relations as dike one another, or but slightly 
distinguishable from one another. Now; in this statement 
we see that what is meant by equality is merely exact like- 
ness ; but something more is needed for the accurate descrip- 
tion of the difference between the two cases. The objects 
which the astronomer contemplates are simple triangles, 
presenting simple relations of position and magnitude; 
while the objects contemplated by the naturalist are com- 
plex organisms, presenting immensely compounded relations 
of structure and function. Now, in speaking of simple 
things or simple relations, such as lengths and breadths, 
weights, times, and velocities, we habitually predicate 
equality or inequality of them. “ Wherever the terms of the 
comparison, being both elementary, have only one aspect under 
which they can be regarded, and can he specifically posited 
as either distinguishable or indistinguishable, we call them 
either wnequal or equal. But when we pass to complex things, 
exhibiting at once the attributes, size, form, colour, weight, 
texture, hardness—things which, if equal in some particulars, 
are rarely equal in all, and therefore rarely indistinguishable 
—then we use the term Jike to express, partly the approximate 
equality of the several attributes separately considered, and 
partly the grouping of them in a parallel manner in time and 
space. Similarly with the relations involved in reasoning. 
If simple, they are recognized as equal or unequal; if com- 
plex, as lke or unlike,” 7 

The essential difference, then, between the quantitative rea- 
soning employed in the most advanced sciences, and the 
qualitative reasoning employed in those which are less ad- 
vanced, may be thus stated: in the first case the relations 
contemplated are so simple that they may be directly juxta 


CH. xVv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 105 


posed in consciousness, and recognized as equal or unequal ; 
but in the second case the relations contemplated consist of 
so many simple relations heterogeneously combined, that they 
can only through a very indirect process be juxtaposed in 
consciousness, and hence are only approximately recognized 
as like or unlike. That this is the only essential difference 
between quantitative reasoning and qualitative reasoning is 
shown by the fact that all qualitative reasoning is vaguely 
quantitative, while all quantitative reasoning begins by be-ng 
qualitative. For example—to cite Mr. Spencer’s admirable 
illustration—when a brewer describes a vat of fermenting 
wort as containing carbonic acid, he makes a qualitative 
statement ; yet some rude notion of quantity is involved in it. 
“He thinks of the carbonic acid as more, certainly, than a 
eubic foot; less, certainly, than the total capacity of the vat: 
the quantity is thought of as in some ratio to the quantity of 
wort.” On the other hand, “a man who has walked a mile 
in fifteen minutes, and, observing that he has a quarter of a 
mile still to go, infers the time it will take to reach his desti- 
nation, does not primarily infer three minutes and three 
quarters : he primarily infers a short time—a time indefinitely 
conceived as certainly less than ten minutes, and certainly 
more than one.” Doubtless he may in an instant proceed to 
calculate the exact length of the time; yet, as it will not be 
denied that even before calculating he has a vague notion 
of the interval, it must be admitted that his inference, though 
ultimately quantitative, is, at the outset, only qualitative. 
Between the two kinds of reasoning, therefore, the only differ- 
ence is the degree of definiteness to which they are re- 
spectively developed. 

Bearing in mind these mutually harmonious conclusions— 
which alike imply the assertion that, between the highest and 
the lowest kinds of reasoning employed by civilized man, the 
difference consists solely in the complexity of the relations 
contemplated, and in the greater or less definitcness with 


106 COSMIC PHILOSUPHY. [rT. II. 


which these relations are cognized as equal or unequal, like 
or unlike—let us now advance a step farther. Already, in 
the course of the foregoing analysis, the essential similarity 
between reasoning and classification has been vividly brought 
before us. We have now to scrutinize this similarity some- 
what more closely. 

To cite an example with which we are already familiar; 
when our astronomer, some thirty years ago, observed 
that certain irregularities in the motions of Uranus still 
remained unaccounted for, after calculating the combined 
effects of all the interior planets in producing such irregu-_ 
larities, it occurred to him that the unexplained irregularities 
could only be due to the gravitative force of some undisco- 
vered planet outside of Uranus; and the discovery of Nep- 
tune was the result of this most brilliant hypothesis. Now, 
the mental act involved in this deduction was essentially a 
classification of cases. The case of the unexplained pertur- 
bations was mentally ranked along with the several cases of 
explained perturbations presented by the solar system, as 
being similarly due to gravitative force; and to the number 
of known cases in which planets deflect each other from the 
regular paths in which they would otherwise move, a new 
hypothetical case was added. Comparing, now, this mental 
operation with that of the naturalist who, by virtue of certain 
observed likenesses of structure and function, ranks together 
lions, and elephants, and seals, in the class of mammals, we 
may conclude roughly that the one process consists in the 
formation of a group of like cases, while the other consists in 
the formation of a group of like things. And since by the 
expression “‘like cases” we mean merely “ like sets of rela- 
tions among two or more given groups of things,” it follows 
that we may characterize Reasoning as the classification of . 
relations, while Classification, ordinarily so called, is the classi- 
fication of things. When, for example, on perceiving two 
similar triangles set side by side, we proceed to make some 


CH. Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND, 107 


inference from the known value of a side in the one to the 
desired value of the corresponding side in the other, the act 
ig an act of reasoning. But when, on taking up two similar 
sea-shells, we recognize them in their totality as belonging 
to an oyster or some other familiar mollusk, the act is an 
act of classification, commonly so called. In other words, 
if the perception of similarity is followed by the thought 
of one or more of the like relations which make up simi- 
larity, we have an act of reasoning; but if it is followed 
by the thought of other objects presenting like relations 
of similarity to the one now perceived, we have an act of 
classification. 

But, closely related as these two mental operations are 
now seen to be, we have not yet disclosed the full extent to 
which they are related. Not only is classification involved 
in every act of. reasoning or inference, but reasoning or 
inference is involved in every act of classification. Not only 
does reasoning consist in the grouping of relations as like or 
unlike, but the classification of things can go on only through 
the grouping of relations as like or unlike. To illustrate 
this, let us take a further downward step, and consider a 
mental operation apparently much simpler than those hitherto 
treated. Let us consider what is implied by the perception 
of an object. 

It is admitted on all sides that the perception of an object 
necessarily implies the recognition of the object as this or 
‘hat, as iike certain objects, and as unlike certain other 
objects. Every act of perception, therefore, involves classi- 
fication. We cannot even name a chair without implying 
the existence of a group of objects which the chair resembles; 
and the essential element in the perception of a chair is not 
the reception of a group of visual or tactual impressions, but 
the interpretation of these impressions as like other ante- 
cedent impressions which, taken together, constitute the 
consciousness of the presence of a chair. And this is as 


108 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [Pr. 1% 


much an act of classification, as the act by virtue cf which 
the naturalist would rank a newly-found horned and cloven- 
hoofed mammal among the ruminants; the only difference 
being that in ordinary perception the act has been per- 
formed so frequently as to have become automatic at an 
early period of life, while in scientific classification the act 
involves more or less conscious thinking, and comparison of 
relations. 

Here, in this last clause, there is hinted what we are seek- 
ing for. Not only in scientific classification, but in ordinary 
perception also, there must go on a comparison of relations, 
and a grouping of them as like or unlike. In perceiving an 
apple, for example, “the bulk is perceived to be like the bulk 
of apples in general; the form like their forms; the colour 
like their colours; the surface like their surfaces; and so 
on.” For if the bulk were like that of a water-melon, or if 
the shape were cubical, or if the colour were inky black, or if 
the surface were covered with thorns, the object would not 
be perceived to be an apple. The act of perception, there- 
fore, consists in the recognition of sundry attributes as like 
sundry attributes previously known, and as having relations 
to one another like the relations between the before-known 
attributes. This will appear still more clearly, when we 
recollect what takes place in visual perception. It is well 
known that the eye, unassisted by the muscular and tactual 
senses, can take no cognizance of distance, shape, or solidity 
—the only impressions which the retina receives are im- 
pressions of colour, and indirectly of superficial extension. 
It is because of this that infants reach out for the moon, 
and that blind men, on first receiving sight, are unable 
' to distinguish between a round orange and a cubical block, 
without feeling the surfaces of the two. Only after re- 
peated and careful comparison of visual impressions with 
muscular ard tactual impressions is the patient enabled 
to discover, by the eye alone, that all the objects in the 


sod 


cH. Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND, 109 


room or in the landscape are not in contact with his body ; 
and it is ouly after a similar elaborate comparison, that 
the young child achieves the feat of looking at an object in 
a given direction, or of recognizing by vision its father or 
mother, Accordingly, when looking about the room, all that 
you really see is a congeries of coloured spots. Your know- 
ledge of the presence of divers objects—chairs, windows, mir- 
ror, mantel-piece—is not given in the act of vision, but is the 
result of an exceedingly complex, though apparently instan- 
taneous, process of reasoning. Your seemingly immediate 
knowledge that a certain group of coloured spots means a chair 
is due to the fact, that from early infancy this group of coloured 
spots, or some other like group, has been associated with sun- 
dry impressions of touch and resistance, and with sensations 
yielded by the little muscles which turn the eye hither and 
thither. The frequency with which the association has been 
repeated has rendered the process of inference automatic, just 
as, to a less-marked extent, the process of reading, at first 
accompanied by a conscious classification of every letter, has 
become automatic, so that we are not aware of cognizing 
the letters at all. Nevertheless, although too rapid to rise 
into consciousness, the process is still one of inference, imply- 
ing, like any other process of inference, the grouping of cer- 
tain relations as like or unlike certain other relations. Cer- 
tain correlated groups of colours are automatically classified 
with other correlated groups of colours previously received 
upon the retina, and also with certain correlated groups of 
muscular and tactual impressions, previously received simul- 
taneously with the grours of colours in question. Thus our 
visual perception of objects consists ef a group of sensations 
plus a complicated series of inferences which does not differ 
fundamentally from a course of scientific demonstration. And 
the same truth may be, with equal justice, though less vividly, 
illustrated in the case of any other sense than sight. A much 
simpler ca.e than that of visual perception is that of a spoon, 


110 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. | [pr. 11. 


containing some unknown liquid, thrust into the mouth by 
another person in the dark. Here the only clue to the cha- 
racter of the liquid is its taste ; and when, by its peculiar mild 
pungency, the liquid is recognized as bromide of potassium, 

the psychical process consists of a gustatory sensation plus an 
act of classification by which the sensation is grouped with 
other like sensations previously received. The example is a 

good one, as showing us also the obverse case. If bromide of 
potassium has not been previously tasted, the result is simply 
gustatory sensation unattended by perception; or rather, it ig _ 
gustatory sensation generically classified as mildly pungent, 
but not specifically referred to any known liquid, and there- 
fore only partially interpreted. There is perception, but it is 
incomplete. 

It is not pretended that these psychological truths are 
established by the crude and fragmentary exposition here 
given. The numerous observations and experiments upon 
which they are based would be very interesting to recount ; 
but our space does not admit of detailed proof, nor is it 
needed ; since these truths are the common property of psy- 
shitopists, and will be questioned by no competent student of 
the phenomena of mind. Referring, for minute and elabo- 
rate proof, to Mr. Spencer’s “ Principles of Psychology,” let 
us be content with setting down the implication which is 
common to all these conclusions; namely, that between the 
various psychical processes thus far contemplated, which in- 
clade alike the measurement of celestial distances by the 
astronomer, and the direct perception of objects by the un- 
learned child, or indeed by the ape or dog, there is generic 
identity. The fundamental characteristic which is common 
to them all is the reception of certain groups of sensations, 
accompanied by the classification of these groups of sensa- 
tions, and of the relations between them, according to their 
various likenesses and unlikenesses. The difference between 
the highest and the lowest of the processes thus brought 


cH. Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 111 


together consists solely in the heterogeneity and definiteness 
of the groups which are classified, and in the extent to which 
the classifications are compounded. 

To such a statement, however, there is one essential qualifi- 
cation to be added. It is not strictly correct to say that the 
classification involved alike in the most complex act of rea- 
soning and in the simplest act of perception is a classification 
of groups of sensations and of the relations between them. 
For, when an object is perceived, along with the sensations 
actually present, there are remembered or internally-revived 
sensations which enter into the classification, and these inter- 
nally-revived sensations are what we call ideas or images. 
For example, “ when passing the finger over a rough surface, 
the perception contains very much 14cre than the coordinated 
sensations immediately experienced. Along with these there 
go the remembered visual impressions produced by such a 
surface, which cannot be kept out of the mind, and in the 
suggestion of wnich the perception largely consists ; and there 
are automatic inferences respecting the texture and density 
of the substance.” So when we see an orange lying on the 
table, the only sensation actually present and entering into 
the case is the sensation of a patch of reddish-yellow colour 
surrounded by other unlike patches of colour. The other 
elements in the classification of which the perception consists 
are ideas or internally-revived sensations of position, shape, 
bulk, texture, juiciness, and so on. And now we discover 
another point of difference in degree between perception and 
.easoning. While in perception some of the elements classi- 
fied must be sensations actually present, in reasoning al] the 
elements classified may be ideas or internally-revived sensa- 
tions. The sides and angles of the isosceles triangles which 
the astronomer compares in estimating the moon’s distance 
are ideal sides and angles; and the naturalist, in writing 
about the classification of ruminants, deals solely with in- 
ternally-revived impressions of horns, hoofs, and multiple 


112 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (PT. 1 


stomachs, which were previously present to sense. Thus the 
classification involved in reasoning differs from that involved 
in perception, not only in heterogeneity and definiteness, 
but also in indirectness, Nevertheless the difference is not 
fundamental, but is only a difference in degree ; as is proved 
by the fact that alike in reasoning and in perception there is 
implied the previous reception of the actually present sensa- 
tions of which the ideas or revived sensations are the copies. 
Our statement, therefore, will become strictly correct if we 
say that the fundamental characteristic common to the most 
refined reasoning, and the crudest perception, is the presence 
of certain states of consciousness, accompanied by the classifi- 
cation of these states and of the relations between them 
according to their various likenesses and unlikenesses; the 
differences between the processes being differences in hetero- 
geneity, definiteness, indirectness, and extent of integration 
or compounding. 

Let us next observe that, as between the highest and 
lowest kinds of reasoning there is a great difference in the 
extent to which the comparison of relations is carried, so 
between the highest and lowest kinds of perception there is 
a similar difference. 

There is a striking contrast in degree of directness “ be- 
tween the perception that some surface touched by the finger 
is hard, and the perception that a building at which we are 
looking is a cathedral. The one piece of knowledge is almost 
immediate. The other is mediate in a double, a triple, a 
quadruple, and even in a still higher degree. It is mediate 
inasmuch as the solidity of that which causes the visual im- 
pression is inferential; mediate inasmuch as its position, its 
size, its shape, are inferential; mediate inasmuch as its 

xaterial, its hollowness, are inferential; mediate inasmuch 
as its ecclesiastical purpose is an inference from these irfer- 
ences; and mediate inasmuch as the identification of it as a 
particular cathedral is a still more remote inference resulting 


a 
ot S 


any 


CH, XV.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 113 


from the union of these inferences with those many others 
through which the locality is recognized.”* From this 
example it appears that while, at the highest extreme, 
perception emerges into reasoning, on the other hand at its 
lowest extreme, as where a body is perceived to be rough or 
hard, it borders very closely upon simple sensation. Pro- 
ceeding, then, a step farther in our descending analysis, we 
have to examine the character of the difference between per- 
ception and sensation. 

Sensation, uo less than perception, has a variety of grades. 
At the one extreme it rises to a point where it is barely dis- 
tinguishable from perception; at the other extreme it lapses 
into an unconscious or sub-conscious psychical state. While 
writing these lines the sum-total of my consciousness may 
contain elements contributed by dull sounds of persons walk- 
ing overhead, by the rumbling of wagons in the street, by 
faint odours wafted from the kitchen, by soothing pulses of 
sensation from the pipe held in my mouth, and by the occa- 
sional striking of the cuckoo-clock, as well as by the pressure 
exerted by the chair in which I am sitting, and the table 
upon which my arm is resting, and the pen which is grasped 
in my fingers. But, while I am absorbed in thought, none 
of these elements rise into the foreground of consciousness : 
though they are present as psychical states, as is shown by 
the fact that the going out of the pipe or the failure of the 
clock to strike is noticed, yet I become conscious of them, in 
the ordinary sense of the word, “ only when they pass a 
certain degree of intensity,’ as when a child overhead falls 
on the floor, or when the shriek and rumble of a passing rail- 
way-train are added to the confused mass of out-door noises ; 
“and only then can I be said to experience” these feelings 
“as sensations.” But when a psychical state rises into the 
foreground of consciousness an] becomes known as a sensa- 
tion, as when my finger happens to touch the heated pipe- 


1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. p. 245. 
VOL, II, T 


114 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 1 


bow], then “Tnot only contemplate the affection as an affec- 
tion of myself—as a state through which my consciousness 
is passing or has passed—but I also contemplate it as exist- 
ing in a certain part of my body—as standing in certain 
relations of position, I perceive where it is.” The close 
relationship between sensation and perception is illustrated 
by this example: nevertheless psychology here distinguishes 
between two portions of the mental act. Though in the 
practical experience there is no separation between the 
two, yet analysis enables us to distinguish between the con- 
sciousness of the painful feeling and the consciousness of 
the presence of the heated object which causes the feeling ; 
and the former of these we call sensation, while the latter 
we call perception. 

We shall now be greatly assisted by observing a psycholo- 
gical fact of which Sir William Hamilton caught a glimpse, 
though, as usual, his analysis was not sufficiently thorough, 
and his statement of the case was inaccurate. We need not 
pause to criticize the theorem that while “perception proper 
and sensation proper exist only as they coexist, in the de- 
gree or intensity of their existence they are always found in 
an inverse ratio to each other;” for its inaccuracy has been 
fully demonstrated by Mr. Mill and also by Mr. Spencer, 
who shows the true statement to be, “ not that sensation and 
perception vary inversely, but that they exclude each other 
with degrees of stringency which vary inversely.” To illus- 
crate this, we will suppose that you are getting water from 
a hot-water faucet, and that, as the water begins by running 
cold, you clasp your hand about the faucet so as to turn it 
off when the water has become sufficiently warm. While 
the water is cool or tepid, sensation is at the minimum, and 
not only is there no exclusion of perception, but conscious- 
ness is occupied with the outer phenomena, the faucet and 
the running water, more than with the inner phenomenon, 
the feeling of temperature. The pointed end of the upright 


vE XxVv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 115 


part of the faucet, and the protuberance where the horizontal 
piece is fitted upon it, awaken tactual sensations which co- 
exist with the sensation of temperature, and the automatic 
comparison of these sensations which constitutes the per- 
ception of the faucet goes on unhindered. To concentrate 
consciousness upon the feeling of temperature requires a 
voluntary act of attention, induced by the desire to know 
how warm the water is getting. As the water becomes very 
much warmer, so as to be slightly uncomfortable, the per- 
ception of the faucet does not become gradually less vivid, 
but it tends to disappear entirely, and conscivusness tends 
to occupy itself exclusively with the feeling of temperature. 
Only through a distinct voluntary effort can the perception 
be made to come into the foreground of consciousness. If, 
now, there comes a sudden spurt of very hot water, the 
tactual perception of the faucet is for the moment entirely 
excluded, and the perceptive act implied in the estimation 
of the degree of temperature is also expelled from conscious- 
ness, which is occupied entirely with the sensation of pain, 
inducing a violent withdrawal of the hand. Here sensation, 
reaching a maximum, has quite driven out the group of 
tactual perceptions, and even visual perceptions are to that 
extent held in abeyance, that for the moment they cease to 
occupy the attention. If, now, a piece of soap is taken from 
its dish, the newly-aroused group of sensations—of weight, 
hardness, smoothness, and the rest—exist in minimum in- 
tensity, and consciousness is occupied, not with them, but 
with the presence of the piece of soap: perception tends to 
exclude sensation. 

“What, now,” inquires Mr. Spencer, “is the real nature of 
this mutual exclusion? Is it not an instance of the general 
iact that consciousness cannot be in two equally distinct 
statics at the same time; and that in proportion as the pre- 
Jominance of one state becomes more marked, the suppres- 


sion of other states becomes more decided? I cannot know 
r:2 


116 COSMIC PHILOSOPAY. (pr. 1 


that I have a sensation without, for the moment, having my 
attention specially occupied with that sensation. I cannot 
know the external thing causing it, without, for the moment, 
having my attention specially occupied with that external 
thing. As either cognition rises, the other ceases.” By the 
“external thing,” Mr. Spencer does not here mean the Ding 
an sich, but the group of phenomena which are referred to 
an existence outside of the organism. But we have already 
seen that, when consciousness is so occupied with such a group 
of phenomena that the result is the perception of an object, the 
psychical act involved is an automatic classification of sundry 
states of consciousness and of the relations between them, 
according to their various likenesses and unlikenesses. Thus 
we arrive at the distinction between sensation and percep- 
tion. Impossible as it is to disentangle the two in practical 
experience, analysis yet distinguishes the former as an ap- 
parently elementary state of consciousness, while the latter 
is “a discerning of the relations between states of conscious- 
ness.” According, therefore, as attention is directed chiefly 
to a conscious feeling or to the relations between a number 
of feelings, is now sensation and then perception predominant. 

It remains to be observed that sensations, or—as we may 
otherwise call them—feelings, are either peripherally or cen- 
trally initiated. In other words, a feeling may either origi- 
nate at the surface of the organism—as is the case with 
sensations of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and in 
the main with muscular and thermal sensations; or it may 
originate in the interior of the organism—as is the case with 
the sensations of hunger and repletion, and with certain mus- 
cular sensations, such as cramp; or, aguin, it may start from 
some group of nerve-centres, as is the case with those vazue 
feelings which accompany more or less complex acts of per- 
ception and reasoning, and which, when they acquire a certain 
devree of prominence, we call emotions. By the inclusion of 
these states of consciousness, the term “feeling” covers a 


1 ee 


rH, Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 117 


somewhat wider range of meaning than the term “sensation.” 
Nevertheless the current use of the word “ feeling” to desig- 
nate indifferently a sensation or an emotion bears unconscious 
witness to the fact that the two kinds of psychical state differ 
only in their modes of genesis and of composition. The con- 
trast between a peripheral sensation, as of colour or touch, 
and an emotion, is chiefly a contrast in degree of definiteness 
and of localization. But this contrast holds also between 
_ peripheral sensations and such vague internal sensations as 
hunger, which, being known as cravings, are assimilated to 
the lowest orders of emotion. From this difference in defi- 
niteness arises the fact that the peripheral sensations admit 
of being definitely grouped according to their relations of 
likeness and unlikeness, and thus afford the material for per- 
ception and reasoning, while emotional states admit no such 
definite grouping, but arrange themselves variously in clusters, 
the particular character of the cluster being determined by 
certain contemporaneous perceptions or ideal reproductions of 
past perceptions. For these reasons the ultimate psycho- 
logical nature of emotion can be reached only through a syn- 
thetical interpretation which starts by recognizing the fact 
that, along with that classifying of conscious states which 
occurs in perception and reasoning, there goes on a recogni- 
tion of certain states as pleasurable or desirable to retain in 
consciousness, and a recognition of certain other states as 
painful or desirable to expel from consciousness. Thus in 
practical experience emotions are, in however slight a degree, 
inseparably associated with perceptions and inferences, as the 
vague, internally-initiated feelings accompanying the definite 
peripheral feelings in the classifying of which the perceptions 
and inferences consist. 

Looking back, now, over the region already traversed, we 
find that we have passed in review a large number of mental 
operations which differ immensely in complexity, some of 
them being performed only by the most highly-educated adult 


118 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11, 


civilized men, while others are performed habitually by 
children, barbarians, and numerous animals inferior to man. 
Yet, amid all this diversity, our analysis has detected a funda- 
mental unity. In spite of their vast differences in complexity, 
we have seen that all these mental operations are ultimately 
made up of the same psychical process. The grouping of the 
relations among feelings is the elementary act which is re- 
peated alike in each simple and direct act of perception, and 
in each complicated and indirect act of ratiocination. At the 
present stage of our analysis, therefore, the ultimate elements 
of mind would seem to be feelings and the relations between 
feelings. It remains to add that relations themselves must be 
secondary feelings due to the bringing together of primary 
feelings. We can know a relation only as some modification 
of conscicusness resulting from some combination of the 
feelings directly aroused in us by inner or outer agencies; 
and such modification of consciousness must be itself a kind 
of feeling. For further illustration let us briefly mention the 
different relations in the order of their decreasing complexity, 
that we may note the fundamental relation involved in them 
all. The most complex relations are those of similarity and 
dissimilarity, as exemplified when we recognize the kinship 
between a thorough bred race-horse and a Shetland pony, or 
the complicated divergences between a city and a village. 
Simpler relations are those of cointension and non-cointension, 
as when we perceive that two sounds are equal in degree of 
loudness, or that in grasping wood and in grasping marble 
the feelings of temperature are different in degree; of coexten- 
sion and non-coextension, as when two lines or two areas are 
seen to be equal or unequal; of coexistence and non-coexistence, 
as when the yellow-reddish light reflected by an orange is re- 
garded as accompanied by sweetness and juiciness, but not 
by viscidity ; of connature and non-connature, as when greater 
warmth is mentally assimilated to less warmth, but distin- 
guished from blueuess or roughness. Now, underlying all 


ee eae = Paes —— . 


cH. Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 119 


these reiations, and all mental processes whatever, is the 
relation of likeness and unlikeness between primary states of 
consciousness, Given the power of recognizing two feelings 
or conscious states as like each other, and two other feelings 
or conscious states as unlike each other, and we have the 
primordial process in the manifold compounding of which all 
operations of intelligence consist. Let us now take into the 
account the universally-admitted fact that consciousness is 
rendered possible only by ceaseless change of state—that a 
uniform state of consciousness is in no respect different from 
complete unconsciousness, If our minds were to become 
spellbound, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, all our 
thoughts and feelings remaining fixed im statw quo, our con- 
scious existence would be practically at an end. For con- 
sciousness to exist at all, it is necessary that a given state » 
should be followed by a different state. But this is not all 
that is required. A succession of feelings, of which no two 
were alike, would not give rise to consciousness, since the re- 
cognition of any feeling implies its classification with some 
antecedent like feeling. Consciousness, therefore, “is not 
simply a succession of changes, but an orderly succession of 
changes—a succession of changes combined and arranged in 
special ways.” Thus we reach the law of the Composition 
of Mind. Since intelligence cannot arise or continue unless 
consciousness is continually passing from one state into a 
different state, it follows that there must be a continuous 
differentiation of states ; and again, since intelligence cannot 
arise or continue unless particular states of consciousness are 
continually known as like certain previous states, it follows 
that there must be a continuous éntegration of states. Alike 
in the most rudimentary perception and in the most deve- 
loped reasoning, the essential process is the separation of the 
unlike and the bringing together of the like. So that, 
“under its most general aspect, all mental action whatever is 
definable as the continuous differentiation and integration of 


120 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr 1 


states of consciousness,” and the kind of mental action is 
regarded as high or low, according to the greater or less 
extent to which the differentiation and integration are carried, 
The phenomena of conscious intelligence are thus seen to 
conform to the universal law of evolution; and we may 
further note that this conclusion is entirely in harmony with 
the definition of psychical life as the continuous adjustment 
of inner to outer relations. For clearly, when an intelligence 
is developing in the midst of a complex environment, the 
greater the number of subjective relations which are adjusted 
to objective relations, the greater wil] be the extent to which 
the differentiation and integration of conscious states will be 
carried. 

Here we may seem to have arrived at a satisfactory con- 
clusion of our analysis. But the lowest depths of the pro- 
blem yet remain to be sounded, as will be seen when we 
consider a superficial objection not unfrequently urged against 
the foregoing views. Alike in all the mental operations 
which have formed the subject-matter of our analysis, we 
have seen that the relations of likeness and unlikeness enter- 
ing into the case are classified with certain other relations of 
likeness and unlikeness previously cognized. The thought 
which determines the astronomer in calculating the moon’s 
distance, implies previous experience of triangles and of 
numerical relations, In the classification of a giraffe there 
is implied previous acquaintance with the complex relations 
of structure and function connoted by the terms ruminant, 
ungulate, monodelphian, mammal, vertebrate, and animal. 
The perception of an apple implies numerous antecedent 
experiences of colour, size, configuration, smoothness, odour, 
and taste. And in like manner, though we have provisionally 
defined a sensation as an “elementary state of conscious- 
ness,” yet we have also seen that, in order to become truly 
conscious of a sensation, we must know it, or, in other words, 
must classify it with some like sensation previously felt, 


hee 


~~ ae 
CO ee es 


cH. Xv.] THK COMPOSITION OF MIND. 121 


In short, we have seen that there can be no cognition, of 
whatever order, which is not a recognition, necessarily im- 
plying some previous combination of psychical states. How, 
then, it is asked, can there be any first cognition? How 
can intelligence ever begin at all, if the first and simplest 
intelligent act implies a reference to experiences which, in 
accordance with the theory, must have preceded any intel- 
ligent act ? 

Formidable as this objection may seem, and unanswerable 
as it would have been, if urged half a century ago, it has 
to-day no force whatever; and those who now deliberately 
urge it succeed only in betraying their entire lack of acquaint- 
ance with the progress which psychology has made since 
the times of Reid and Stewart. As long as psychological 
questions were settled simply by introspection—by observing 
what goes on in the consciousness of adult civilized man— 
the objection here cited must have seemed conclusive. But 
familiarity. with the conception of evolution has now led us 
to regard things in general, not as coming at once into 
fulness of being, but as gradually beginning to be; and in the 
case of the phenomena of intelligence, this view of the ques- 
tion is amply justified by experiments in objective psycho- 
logy presently to be mentioned. The conception of an 
absolutely first cognition, not determined by previous psy- 
chical states, rests upon a fallacy similar to that upon which 
rested the preformation theory in biology. Just as it was 
formerly held that the embryo started as a fully-developed 
organism, differing from an adult organism only in size, so 
the objection which we are now considering involves the 
hypothesis that the earliest cognitions of an infant are like 
tnose of an adult in point of definiteness, the only difference 
being in the quantity of them. The latter hypothesis is as 
contrary as the former to the Doctrine of Evolution, and it 
is quite as decidedly negatived by the observation of facts. 
For, let us observe what is implied by the acquiring of a 


122 COSMIC PHILUSOPHY. ee a 


definite cognition by an infant. If the foregoing analysis be 
taken as correct, it is obvious that when any object, as an 
orange, is first presented to the mind of an infant, it cannot 
be perceived or identified as an orange. Before this intel- 
lectual feat can be achieved, there must go on for some time 
that complicated grouping of visual, tactual, and gustatory 
sensations above described. In accordance with the esta- 
blished theory of vision, we must admit that, when the 
orange is held before the child’s eye, the only sensation 
aroused is that of a reddish-yellow colour, which cannot even 
be perceived to be found until after it has been associated 
with sundry tactual sensations. But this is not all. Not 
even the sensation of a reddish-yellow colour can acquire 
definite shape in consciousness, until sensations of blue, or 
red, or green, or white colour, have been aroused, with which 
it can be contrasted, and until a subsequent like sensation of 
reddish-yellow colour has been aroused to which it can be 
assimilated. Observe, now, the position into which we are 
brought. We are obliged to hold that the first sensation of 
orange-colour cannot, strictly speaking, exist as a sensation 
at all; while, nevertheless, a subsequent sensation of orange- 
colour (not, in any actual case, the second, but the twentieth 
or hundredth) occurring after intervening sensations of blue 
or green, can acquire definite shape as a sensation by being 
compared with this first sensation which is not strictly a 
sensation. Obviously, then, though the first presentation of 
orange-colour cannot awaken a visual sensation which can be 
known as such, it must produce some psychical state which 
is real, though not known. For if no psychical state were 
produced by the first presentation, then the second, or 
twentieth, or hundredth presentation could no more awaken 
a definite state of consciousness than the first. We are thus 
led to the assertion that states of consciousness may be 
produced by the differential grouping or compounding of 
psychical states which are beneath consciousness. 


iv 


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vy 
: 
a 

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4 

a 

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f 

4 

a] 

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i 
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eo 


> a9 


CH. XV.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 123 


‘Now, this conclusion, which admirably explains the begin- 
nings of conscious intelligence in the young child, is com- 
pletely confirmed by experiments lately made with reference 
to the continuous genesis of sensations in the adult. Not 
only does the infant frame its earliest conscious sensations 
by the compounding of unconscious or sub-conscious psy- 
chical changes, but in every sensation of sound, colon, 
odour, taste, or touch, which the adult receives, there is a 
precisely similar formation of a conscious state by the com- 
pounding of unconscious or sub-conscious psychical states, 
In the case of sound, the evidence for this statement amounts 
to complete demonstration; the evidence is hardly less 
strong in the case of sight; and, in the case of the other 
senses, all the evidence thus far obtained points toward the 
same conclusion. Let us first examine the composition of a 
sensation of sound, as admirably elucidated by M. Taine in 


- his recent treatise on “ Intelligence.” 


In musical sounds three characteristics are to be distin- 
guished—loudness, pitch, and quality or timbre. The first 
of these, the loudness, depends upon the amplitude of the 
atmospheric waves by which the sensation of sound is caused. 
A series of sound-producing waves, like any other series of 
waves, has its elevations and depressions, and the height of 
the elevation above the depression is called the amplitude of 
the wave. The loudness of the sound varies as the square 
of the wave’s amplitude. From this it follows that every 
elementary sound has a period of minimum intensity, 
answering to the wave’s minimum amplitude when it is just 
beginning to rise ; secondly, a period of maximum intensity 
anwering to the wave’s maximum amplitude when it las 
risen to its greatest height; and, thirdly, a period of mini- 
mum intensity, answering to the wave’s minimum amplitude 
when it has sunk nearly to the level again; while between 
shese minima and the maximum there are many varying 
jegrees of loudness. In other words, every elementary 


124 : COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. IL 


sound is at first faint, then gradually becomes loud, then 
erows fainter, till it disappears. Now, note what happens 
when elementary sounds are made to succeed each other, 
If the succession be irregular, there is a mere chaos of 
noises—a case with which we need not here deal. But if 
the succession be regular, and steadily increase in rapidity, 
there follows a remarkable series of results, As long as the 
waves or pulses answering to the elementary sounds succeed 
each other slowly, the sounds are distinguishable from each 
other as raps or puffs, according to the instrument employed, 
and each has its maximum and its two minima of intensity. 
But, when the waves begin to strike the ear at the rate of 
about sixteen in a second, the consciousness of separate raps 
or puffs becomes evanescent, and there arises the conscious- 
ness of a continuous tone of very low pitch. That the con- 
sciousness of the separate sounds has not quite ceased, and 
that the continuousness of the tone which they compose is 
not complete, are shown by the fact that the maxima and 
minima are still perceived. In the deepest bass-notes of an 
organ, for example, the pulsations are clearly distinguishable 
—a fact which proves that we are conscious of the effects 
answering respectively to the protuberances and to the 
hollows of the waves. Now, the pitch of a tone depends 
upon the rapidity with which the waves succeed each other, 
and, therefore, upon their length, or the distance between 
two successive hollows, because as the waves come faster 
they grow shorter. The shorter the waves, the higher the 
pitch. Hence, as the pitch rises, the protuberance of any 
wave approaches nearer and nearer to the protuberances of 
the waves immediately behind it and in front of it, and the 
maximum intensities of sound which answer to the protuber- 
ances become crowded together in consciousness. The result 
is that, after a while, the maxima and minima are no longer 
distinguishable by the ear, so that by no effort of attention 
can we discern the elementary pulses of which the tone is 


eT 


CH. XV.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 128 


composed. ‘The tone asserts itself to be completely’ homo- 
ceneous. All that mere introspection could discover in 
consciousness would be an apparently simple sensation of 
musical tone. Yet into the composition of this sensation 
there enter a thousand or several thousand psychical states 
answering to the presence of as many elementary sounds 
with their maxima and minima of intensity. And if any 
one of these elementary sub-conscious psychical states were 
absent, the character of the conscious sensation would be 
different from what it is. 

But this is not all, Every musical tone has a timbre or 
quality of its own, according as it proceeds from a piano, a 
violin, a flute, or any other instrument. Now, Helmholtz 
has proved that the quality of any tone is due solely to the 
number and combinations of certain higher and fainter tones 
which accompany it. Along with the fundamental note 
there are heard sundry harmonic notes, due to vibrations 
from two to ten times more rapid than those which con- 
stitute the fundameutal note. When any note is sounded 
on the piano, the first six harmonics are sounded with it; 
when the same note is sounded on the violin, by means of 
the bow, the first six harmonics are sounded so feebly as to 
be overpowered by the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth; 
and this is the only cause of the difference in quality of tone 
between the piano and the violin. Now, by an effort of 
attention these harmonic over-tones may be recognized as 
distinct sensations when two or three notes are slowly 
struck. But in ordinarily rapid playing they are not dis- 
tinctly recognized. Their only effect is to impart to the 
tones that peculiar quality which enables the ear to re- 
cognize the instrument from which they emanate. Thus 
our apparently simple sensations of musical sound are enor- 
mously complex. When F-in-alé is sounded on the violin, 
there are produced, in the course of a single second, several 
thousand psychical states which together make up the sen- 


126 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. u. 


satiun of pitch, fifty-five times as many psychical states 
which together make up the sensation of quality, and an 
immense number of other psychical states which together 
make up the sensation of intensity. These psychical states 
are not, in any strict sense of the term, states of conscious- 
ness ; for, if they were to rise individually into conscious- 
ness, the result would be an immense multitude of sensa- 
tions, and not a single homogeneous sensation. There is no 
alternative, therefore, but to conclude that in this case a 
seemingly simple state of consciousness is in reality com- 
pounded of an immense multitude of sub-conscious psychical 
changes. 

Returning, now, to what we have called the elementary 
sound, by the manifold compounding of which all cognizable 
tones, qualities, and intensities are built up, we shall the 
more readily yield to the evidence which shows that even 
this primitive unit of sound is not elementary. For, as M. 
Taine observes, each so-called elementary sound, in passing 
from its minimum to its maximum, passes through an 
infinite series of degrees of intensity, and, unless there were 
some psychical modification corresponding to each increment 
of intensity, there would be no state of consciousness answer- 
ing to the total rise from the minimum to the maximum. 
Again, while, for simplicity’s sake, we have assumed that 
each of the raps or puffs which occur too slowly to be heard 
as a single tone of lowest pitch is heard by itself as an ele- 
mentary sensation, this is not strictly true. For the so- 
called simple sensation must be either a sensation of musical 
tone or a sensation of noise. In the former case its composite 
character has been already shown. In the latter case, in the 


sensation of noise, rap, or puff, the truly primitive elements 


are sub-conscious psychical states answering to successive 
waves of unequal lengths. Any one of these waves by itself 
will not produce a genuine state of consciousness ; it is only 
by compounding the sub-conscious psychical affections which 


“4 


en. xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 127 


they severally produce, that we obtain the so-called elemen- 
tary sensation of noise or rap. 

In every way, therefore, the conclusion is forced upon us 
that every one of our apparently simple auditory sensations 
is made up of a vast multitude of psychical affections, of 
which the really simple ones would never rise into con- 
sciousness save by being joined with others. Our simplest 
cognizable sensation of sound is in reality a compound of the 
fourth or fifth, or even of some higher, order. 

In the case of visual sensations, the same conclusion is 
reached by a precisely similar argument, sensations of colour 
differing from those of sound only as answering to wave- 
lengths immeasurably shorter and more rapid in succession. 
It is unnecessary to insist upon the manifold analogies be- 
tween sound and light, which are each day brought more 
vividly before the attention of the physical inquirer, as, for 
example, in the wonderful but plausible hypothesis lately pro- 
pounded, that all the lines in the spectrum are simply the 
harmonic overtones of a fundamental colour, which, being a 
couple of octaves below red, is itself invisible. Restricting 
our statement to ascertained points of resemblance, it may be 
said that the argument from the phenomena of musical pitch 
applies step by step to the phenomcna of colour as we rise in 
the scale from red to violet; the only difference being that, 
as the slowest vibrations which the eye receives occur at the 
rate of about 458,000,000,000,000 in a second, we cannot 
experimentally distinguish, as in the case of the lowest 
sounds, the seemingly elementary sensation which answers 
to each couple of vibrations, Nevertheless, from experiments 
with the electric spark it has been shown that a sensation of 
light which endures for one second is composed of at least a 
million successive sensations, each one of which, if sepa- 
rately excited, would rise into consciousness and be recog- 
nized as a flash of light. Now, as this flash of electric light 
is cojnized as white, it follows that the cognizable sensavion 


128 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (pr. m1, 


which lasts for one-millionth of a second is really made up 
of at least three sub-conscious psychical states, which, if they 
were severally to rise into consciousness, would be severally 
cognized as red, green, and violet flashes—these being the 
primitive elements of which the consciousness of white light 
is composed, This fact alone shows that the method by 
which a sensation is formed out of sub-conscious psychical 
changes is essentially the same in the eye and in the ear. 

No such elaborate investigations have been made with re- 
ference to the other peripheral sensations. Yet, in the cases 
of smell and taste, the argument is not essentially different 
from what it is in the cases of hearing and vision. The 
physical antecedent, either of smell or taste, is a chemical 
reaction between particles of the odorous or sapid substance, 
and the ends of the olfactory or gustatory nerve-fibrils. Now, 
a chemical reaction implies an enormous number of undu- 
latory movements by which myriads of molecules are seeking 
to reach a position of equilibrium. Accordingly, the end of 
the nerve-fibrils in the olfactory chamber or in the tongue 
must be rapidly smitten by little molecular waves, just as the 
auditory filaments are smitten by atmospheric waves; and 
thus there is indicated a course of argument similar to that 
employed in the case of sound. It may be fairly argued that 
if each wave does not produce some sub-conscious psychical 
effect, the sum of the waves will not produce a state of 
consciousness known as smell or taste; so that here too 
the seemingly primitive sensation is really derivative and _ 
compound. 

M. Taine’s argument with reference to the tactile sensa- 
tions is singularly beautiful, but no room is left for more than 
the briefest allusion to a few of its salient points. Ali tactile 
sensations are either dermal or muscular; that is, they are due, 
either to disturbances of nerve-fibrils embedded in the skin, or 
to disturbances of nerve-fibrils embedded in the extremities of 
the muscles lying under'the skin. In the first case, the sensa- 


on, xv] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 129 


tion is either of contact or of temperature; in the second case, 
there is a sensation of resistance or pressure; and in both 
cases, when the sensation proper to the nerve is prolonged or 
intensified beyond a certain degree, it is at first accompanied 
and finaily supplanted by a sensation of pain. Now, Weber's 
experiments have shown that these differences in sensation 
are not due to the excitation of distinct nerves, but to the 
differently-combined excitation of the filaments of the same 
nerves. ‘The difference between the sensation of contact and 
the sensation of temperature depends upon the order.in which 
the filaments of a particular nerve are set in vibration. And 
thus, as Fick observes, we may understand why it is difficult 
to distinguish between a prick from a needle and a minute 
burn from a spark of fire; for the nearer we approach toa 
truly elementary sensation, the more evanescent becomes the 
distinction between the compound sensation of temperature and 
that of mechanical contact. On the contrary, when a larger 
area of skin is suddenly rubbed or burnt, so that enough nerves 
are brought into play to compound the elements of the sensa- 
tions, then there is no difficulty in distinguishing the feeling 
of temperature from that of mechanical contact. From these 
and many other kindred facts, to which scanty justice is done 
by this cursory allusion, M. Taine very plausibly concludes 
that our ordinary tactile sensations are made up of little 
component psychical affections differing only in number, 
order, and duration; while, according as these elementary 
psychical states are differently compounded, they form con- 
scious sensations which, as presented to consciousness, seem 
to be severally simple and distinct in kind. 

Throughout this remarkabie analysis questions are sug- 
gested which can be completely answered only when physics 
and chemistry, as well as physiology and psychology, are 
much more advanced than at present. Yet there are three 
important principles which we may regard as established in 
the case of sound, and as clearly indicated in the case of the 

VOL. II, K 


i130 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. It. 


other sensations. The /irst is, that sensations which are 
apparently simple and elementary, and which cannot be 
analyzed by mere observation of consciousness, are neverthe- 
less compounded of many successive and simultaneous sensa- 
tions, which are themselves compounded of still lower 
psychical affections. The second is, that two sensations, 
which differ only in the mode in which their elements are 
compounded, may appear in consciousness as generically 
different and irreducible to each other. The third is, that 
two or more psychical affections which, taken separately, are 


as non-existent to consciousness, may, nevertheless, when ~ 


taken together, coalesce into’a sensation which is present to 
consciousness. And when these three conclusions are pre- 
sented in a single statement, they become equivalent to the 
conclusion above obtained from examining the beginnings of 
conscious int :lligence in an infant; namely, that states of 
consciousness may be produced by the differential grouping 
or compounding of psychical states which are beneath 
consciousness, 
This result is in entire harmony with what might be in- 
ferred @ priori from the known characteristics of nerve- 
action. Whether in the grey substance of ganglia, or in the 
white substance of nerve-fibres, the physical action which 
accompanies psychical changes is an undulatory displace- 
ment of molecules resulting in myriads of little waves 
or pulses of movement. From this fact we might have 
suspected that, as a cognizable state of consciousness is 
attended by the transmission of 2 number of little waves 
from one nerve-cell to another, so the ultimate psychical 
eleinents of each conscious state must correspond to the 
passige of these little waves taken one by one. And this 
infereuce, which by itself would be only a plausible guess, is 
raised to the rank of a scientific hypothesis by its harmony 
- with the results of the analysis above sketched. 
Thus we are led to infer, as the ultimate unit of which 


a ee ee a ee ee 


cu. Xv.] THE COMPOSITION OF MIND. 131 


Mind is composed, a simple psychical shock, answering to 
that simple physical pulsation which is the ultimate unit of 
nervous action. By the manifold and diverse compounding 
of myriads of such primitive psychical shocks, according 
to the slight structural differences of different nerves, are 
formed innumerable elementary sensations, which appear 
to be generically different; just as aquafortis and laughing- 
gas, which seem generically different, yet differ really only 
in the proportions of nitrogen and oxygen which compose 
them. By a similar differential compounding of these 
elementary sensations, we get complex sensations of blue- 
ness and redness, warmth, pressure, sweetness, roughness, 
and of various kinds of timbre and degrees of pitch. Carry- 
ing still farther the same process of differentiation and inte- 
gration, we rise step by step to perceptions of greater and 
greater complexity, to conscious classifications, and to rea- 
soning in its various forms, from the crude inferences of the 
child, barbarian, or boor, to the subtle and indirect combina- 
tions of the artist and the scientific discoverer. Thus, amid 
all their endless diversities, we discern, though dimly, a 
fundamental unity of composition throughout all orders of 
psychical activity, from the highest to the lowest. 

Near the close of his first edition of the “ Origin of 
Species,” Mr. Darwin predicted that the establishment of 
his theory would eventually place the science of psychology 
upon a new basis—that of the acquirement of each mental 
faculty by slow gradations” We seem now to have fairly 
started upon the path which leads to this desired goal. For, 
while, among the mental operations above analyzed, some 
are peculiar to the highest human intelligence, there are 
others which are shared by the highest and the lowest human 


1 Mr. Darwin has since recognized that this new basis is already well laid 
by Mr. Spencer. See Origin of Species, 6th edit., p. 428. Indeed the 
“Principles of Psychology,” upon which the present chapter is almost 
entirely founded, was first published in 1855, four years before the “Origin 
of Species.” 

L 2 


132 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1. 


intelligence, Others—as the simplest inferences, several 
complex perceptions, and all the most simple ones—are 
shared by all human intelligence with the intelligence of 
apes, dogs, horses, and indeed of the majority of mammals, 
many birds, and possibly some lower animals. Others, again 
—as the simplest perceptive acts implied in recognizing a 
sensation—must be shared with all those animals whose 
nervous system is sufficiently complex to allow of their 
having any consciousness whatever. While others, finally 
—as the simplest sub-conscious groupings of primitive 
psychical shocks—must be shared by humanity with all — 
those forms of animal existence which possess any nervous 
structure whatever. For instance, that reflex action which — 
occurs when the foot of a sleeping person, casually moved 
into a cold part of the bed, is quickly withdrawn without ~ 
arousing any state of consciousness, involves the activity of 
a fragment of the human nervous system which corresponds 
in general structure to the entire nervous systein of a medusa 
or jelly-fish. In such lowly creatures, then, we must sup- 
pose that the psychical actions which go on are similar to 
our own sub-conscious psychical actions, And, clearly, if 
we could trace the slow increments by which the nervous 
system has grown in heterogeneity, definiteness, and co- 
herence, during the countless ages which have witnessed the 
progress from the primeval marine vertebrate to the civilized 
modern man, we should also be able to trace the myriad 
stages of the composition of mind, from the reflex contrac- 
tions of a rudimentary fin, up to the generalizations of an 
Aristotle or a Newton. 


~~ oS ee a ee ee eee ~ 
Pea Set See Se 
2 i “Ue 


CHAPTER XVL 
THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 


THaT the amcunt of intelligence manifested by any vertebrate 
animal depends to a certain extent upon the amount of nerve- 
tissue integrated in its cephalic ganglia, and especially in the 
cerebrum, is a truth familiar to everyone, though often crudely 
stated and incorrectly interpreted. In the lowest vertebrate, 
the amphioxus, there is no brain at all. In fishes, the cere- 
brum and cerebellum are much smaller tha. the optic lobes ; 
the cerebrum being in many large fishes about the size of a 
pea, though in the shark it reaches the size of a plum. Con- 
tinuing to grow by the addition of concentric layers at the 
surface, the cerebrum becomes somewhat larger in birds and 
in the lower mammals. It gradually covers up the optic 
lobes, and extends backwards as we pass to higher namma- 
lian forms, until in the anthropoid apes and in man it covers 
the whole upper surface of the cerebellum. In these highest 
animals it begins also to extend forwards. In the chimpanzee 
and gorilla the anterior portion of the cerebrum is larger than 
in inferior mammals; but in these animals, as in the lowest 
races of men, the frontal extension is but slight, and the fore- 
head is both low and narrow. In civilized man, the anterior 
portion of the cerebrum is greatly extended both vertically 
and laterally. As already observed, the most prominent 
physiological feature of human progress has been the growth 
xf the cerebrum. The cranial capacity of an averag Euro- 


134 COSMIC PHILOSOPITY. [pr 1. 


pean exceeds that of the Australians and Bushmen by nearly 
forty cubic inches ; and the expansion is chiefly in tlie upper 
and anterior portions. 

But this parallelism between increased intelligence and 
increased size of the cerebrum is complicated by a further 
parallelism between the amount of intelligence and the 
irregular creasing and furrowing of the cerebral surface. In 
the higher mammals both the cerebrum and the cerebellum 
are convoluted. But the convolutions do not correspond with 
any “bumps,” real or imaginary, on the external surface of 


the skull; they are not symmetrical on opposite sides, like © 


the fancied “ organs” of the phrenologists ; nor indeed, so far 
as the general brain-surface is concerned, do they constitute 
elevations and depressions at all. The surface of the brain 
does not resemble a group of hills and valleys, but rather a 
perfectly smooth table-land cut here and there by very steep 
and narrow chasms. A perfectly smooth lump of butter, 
irregularly furrowed by a sharp knife held perpendicularly, 
would present a surface like that of the human brain. Now 
the amount of intelligence depends in some way on the 
number and irregularity of these furrows. In the lowest 
moncdelphian mammals, as the rodents and the lowest 
monkeys, there are no furrows, or only a few very shallow 
ones. In the carnivora and ungulata, there aré-numerous 
furrows, some of tkem tolerably deep, but all of them 
symmetr.cally arranged. As we proceed to the higher 
apes, we find the furrows increasing in number and depth, 
though not yet losing their symmetry of arrangement. 
Idiots, young children, and adult savages have these creases 
few and regular; and in the lower races their arrangement 
is similar in different individuals. But in civilized man 
the creases are very numerous, deep and irregular; and they 
are not alike in any two individuals,! 


1 Phrenologists have done good service by familiarizing the unlearned 
public with the fact that the quantity of mental capacity is related to the 


ee ee ee ee ee ee ee 


CH. xvi] THE ZVOLUTION OF MIND. 135 


The convolutions into which the human brain is divided 
by these furrows, consist for the most part of “eight distinct 
and concentric layers, formed chiefly of closely-packed fibres, 
and of crowds of cells of very different shapes, the layers 
differing in the relative proportion of cells and fibres, and in 
the manner of their arrangement.”! Each cell sends forth 
processes with which the tissue of certain fibres becomes 
continuous. The office of the fibres is to establish communi- 
cation between the cells. Between millions of these cells 
there run millions of fibres, establishing communications in 
all directions. And the elaborate researches of Schroeder 
van der Kolk have gone far to prove that thé shapes of the 
cells and the intricacy of their communications vary with 
the amount of intelligence. In various forms of mental 
disease, both cells and fibres undergo pathological changes, 
such as atrophy, hardening, softening, or some other form of 
degeneration. That is to say, not only are the activities of 
the cells impeded, but the channels of communication are 
variously obliterated or blocked up. 


quantity of brain. But the character of this relationship is seriously mis- 
interpreted both by phrenologists and by the rest of the unlearned public. 
It is impossible to say that a mun with an unusually large head must be a 
man of unusual mental capacity, because the quantity of mental capacity 
depends on many other factors besides quantity of brain. It not only 
depends upon the sinuons creasing of the brain-surface here described, which 
can in nowise Je eletected by an examination of the outside of the head, but 
it also depends largely, as Mr. Lewes well reminds us, upon the very im- 
portant clement of vascular irrigation. “ Many individual variatious in 
mental character depend on the variations in the calibre of the cerebral 
and carotid trunks—and many variations in the intellectual, emotive, and 
active tendencies depend on the relative importance of the cerebral and 
carotid trinks. The energy of the brain depends mainly on the calibre of its 
arteries ; the special directions of that energy depend on the territorial dis- 
tribution.” —Problems of Life and Mind, vol.i. p.151. Again, the quantity 
of available mental energy which can be evolved in a given period of time, 
depends, to a very great extent, upon the efficiency with which the blood is 
supplied with oxygen and freed from carbonic acid ; so that mental capacity 
not only depends upon capacity of brain, but also apon capacity of lungs and 
liver. In short, a thorough examination shows that while Mind is most 
directly correlated with Brain, it is indirectly but closely correlated with the 
entire organism. So that the attempt to estimate individual differences im 
mental capacity by referring to brain-size alone, is an utter absurdity. 
1 Maudsley, Physiology and Pathology of Mind, p-: 55. 


136 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. 0. 


Between these fibres and cells there are differences of mole- 

cular structure implying differences in molecular activity, 
While the matter composing a cell is built up in enormously 
complex ageregates of molecules, wholly unshielded from 
external disturbance, the nerve-matter of a fibre is protected 
throughout its entire length by a membranous sheath. And 
while it is probable that the action going on in a cell consists 
in the continual fall cf unstably arranged molecules into a state 
cf more stable equilibrium, from which a fresh rush of blood is 
continually raising tliem to their former unstable state ; it is 
probable that the action going on in a fibre consists in the 
successive isomeric transformations and retransformations of 
the systems of molecules which make up the fibre. These 
conclusions are quite probable, though not proven. But it is 
entirely proved that a cell is a place where nervous energy is 
liberated, while a fibre is a path along which nervous energy 
is transmitted. 
_ Bearing all this in mind, it appears that the cerebrum and 
cerebellum are places where countless centres are constantly 
liberating nervous energy, and where this liberated energy is 
continually flowing along definite channels and from one centre 
to another. But to make the statement complete, we should 
add that much of the liberated energy is drafted off along 
centrifugal fibres into the corpora striata, whence it flows into 
the meduila and spinal centres, and is thus diffused over the 
body. Omitting the further consideration of these circum- 
stances, let us inquire into the meaning of this unceasing 
interchange of molecular motion between the innumerable 
cells crowded together in the cerebrum and cerebellum. 
Ia other words, what are the functions of these supreme 
ganglia? 

That their functions are not in any degree the direct co- 
ordination of sensations and movements, would appear from 
the fact that these direct coordinations are already made in | 
the spinal cord and in the medulla. All the muscular adjust- 


CH. XvI.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 137 


ments made in the trunk and limbs are effected either 
directly by the spinal centres, or indirectly by the sympa- 
thetic ganglia in cooperation with the spinal centres. The 
medulla coordinates all these muscular adjustments with the 
museular adjustments uf the face, and with the impressions 
received from the speciulized organs of sense. It is therefore 
highly imprebable that the supreme ganglia can be in any 
way directly concerned with these coordinations. And the 
improbability is increased by the fact that the cerebrum and 
cerebellum are as destitute of sensation as the free ends of 
the finger-nails. Scratch one of the spinal centres, and the 
result is tetanus. Scratch the medulla, and the whole body 
is thrown into terrible convulsions. But the cerebrum and 
cerebellum may be scratched and sliced without pain or con- 
vulsion. They take heed only of those impressions which 
are communicated to them indirectly. Countless multitudes 
of nerve-fibres coming up from the medulla, are gathered 
together in the corpora striata; whence other fibres, con- 
tinuing from them, radiate to the innumerable cells of which 
the supreme ganglia are composed, 

We must conclude, therefore, that the functions of the 
cerebrum and cerebellum are comprised in the further com- 
pounding of sensory impressions already compounded in the 
medulla. And as such compounding involves the repro- 
duction of impressions received in lower centres, and also 
involves the coordination of past with present impressions, 
we may say that the supreme ganglia are the seats of the 
higher psychical life,—of memory, reason, emotion, and voli- 
ton. Dr. Maudsley has thus appropriately termed them the 
tdvational centres. But between the functions of the two, 
thus closely related, there is nevertheless a difference, 
Although the precise determination of the way in which 
ideational functions are shared between the two centres, has 
long remained a puzzling problem, there is good reason for 
‘believing that Mr, Spencer has solved the difficulty by 


138 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


assioniag to the cerebellum the office of doubly-compour d 
coordination in space, and to the cerebrum the otfice of 
doubly-compound coordination in time. The facts of com- 
parative anatomy, and of comparative psychology, so far as 
nown, are in harmony with this opinion. We saw in the 
chapter on Life and Mind that the extension of the cor- 
resnondence in time at first goes on parallel with the exten- 
sion of the correspondence in space; the increased area over 
which the organism can act being the measure of its in- 
creased capacity for adapting its actions to longer and longer 
sequences in the environment. But we saw also that in the 
human race the extension of the correspondence in time has 
gone on far more rapidly than the extension in space; the 
most striking characteristic of intellectual progress being the 
ability of civilized man to adapt his inferences and actions 
to remote contingencies. Side by side with these facts, 
comparative anatomy shows us that the cerebrum and cere- 
bellum at first keep pace with each other in growth; but, 
as we reach those higher mammals which exhibit some 
degree of foresight, we find the cerebrum outgrowing the 
cerebellum and overlapping it; while in man the growth of 
the cerebrum has been so great as to render comparatively 
insignificant all other changes in the nervous system. With 
the enormous cerebrum of civilized man we may further 
contrast the preponderant cerebellum in those carnivorous 
birds whose psychical life consists chiefly in the coordination 
of those extremely complex and remote space-relations in- 
volved in the swooping upon prey from great distances. 
The human cerebellum is absolutely larger than that of such 
birds; but its smallness relatively to the cerebrum is a fact 
parallel with the simplicity of the space-relations which 
man coordinates, as compared with the time-relations, 
Among the latter are comprised all our ideas of cause, 
motion, progress,—in a word, all manifestations of force 
which involve the relation of scquence. But these ideas 


a ee en aan ee 
~ ee a ee 


eae eee ae 


CH. Xv1.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 139 


make up by far the largest and most heterogeneous portion 
oi our psychical life. 

I am inclined to regard thes. considerations as very 
powerful ones,—and there are several others which lead to 
the same conclusion. To present the case properly would 
require a whole chapter ; but it is not essential for our present 
purpose that the question should be decided. Whether 
Mr. Spencer’s view of tne respective functions of the cere- 
brum and cerebellum be correct or not, it equally remains 
true that the class of functions shared by the two are idea- 
tional functions. They compound in double, triple, quad- 
ruple, or in far higher multiples, the sensory elements already 
simply compounded by the medulla. And it is in this com- 
pound grouping of impressions, past and present, according 
to their various degrees of likeness and unlikeness, that 
thought and emotion, the highest phases of psychical life, 
consist. 

A moment ago we asked, what is the meaning of the 
seaseless interchange of molecular motion which goes on 
among the innumerable cells of the brain? We now see 
what is the meaning of it, for there can be but one meaning. 
The continual redistribution of nervous energy among the 
cells, is the objective side of the process of which the sub- 
jective side is the recompounding of impressions. If we 
may for a moment unduly simplify the matter, it may be 
said that for every renewed grouping of impressions, for 
every revived association of ideas, there is a nervous dis- 
charge between two or more cells, along formerly-used sets 
of transit-fibres ; and for every fresh grouping of impressions, 
for every new connection of ideas, there is a discharge along 
new transit lines. In reality the matter cannot be so simple 
ns this, since, as we shall presently see, the maintenance of 
consciousness implies a state of tension between many simul- 
taneous discharges. But however great the complexity, the 
principle remains the same. 


140 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. 11 


If it be objected to this view that it obliges us to assume 
a vast amount of differentiation and integration in the brain, 
duiing the lifetime of single individuals, it may be replied 
that the assumption is fully sustained, both by sound deduc- 
tion and by observation. Not only does the brain increase in 
size and heterogeneity during the first twenty-five years of 
life, but ordinarily it increases in heterogeneity, and often in 
size, for many years later; and in some cases it increases in 
heterogeneity until the end of life. The brain of a young 
child is in homogeneity like the brain of an ape; the furrows 
are shallow, symmetrical, and few in number. With advanc- 
ing years they increase in number, depth, and irregularity ; 
and the increase is most marked in those persons who do 
the most brain-work. In the brains of five very eminent 
men examined by Wagner, the heterogeneity of surface 
is described as quite astonishing. Such facts prove that 
the operations of thought work strongly-marked structural 
changes in individual brains, in the course of a few years. 
And as these strongly-marked changes are but the summing- 
up of countless little changes in the arrangements of cells 
and fibres, the inference is inevitable that such little changes 
must be going on all the time. This is the testimony of 
observation, and deduction might have taught us to expect 
as much; since the molecules of nerve-tissue are chemically 
by far the most unstable molecules known to science, ever 
ready to undergo metamorphosis and arrange themselves in 
new groups. Waste and repair go on more rapidly in the 
brain than in any other part of the body; the cerebrum, 
weighing between three and four pounds, receives at each 
pulsation one-fifth of all the blood sent from the heart, and 
if the supply is stopped for an instant, consciousness ceases. 
Where nutritive change is so excessively rapid, such structural 
changes as are involved in the continual setting-up of new 
transit-lines, must be readily effected. And quite in harmony 
with this course of inference is the fact that, when cerebral 


cH. XVI.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 141 


nutrition is notably retarded, as by the anemia and feeble 
circulation of disease or old age, new associations of ideas 
become difficult or even impossible. 

To sum up this whole preliminary argument: ng 
cerebrum and cerebellum are organs whose function is 
ideation or the generation of ideal feelings and thoughts, 
They are organs made up of a tissue in which chemical 
changes occur with unparalleled rapidity. We cannot see 
these changes go on, but we can equally well infer their 
seneral character when we have examined the chemical 
properties and molecular structure of the tissue in which 
they occur. Microscopic and chemical examination of this 
tissue shows that these chemical changes must consist in a 
perpetual transfer of energy from one cell to another along 
transit-lines composed of nerve-threads. Bear in mind that 
the cell does not average more than one ten-thousandth of 
an inch in diameter, and that the quantity of matter con- 
tained in a transit-line is almost infinitely small. Now since 
the cerebrum and cerebellum are, subjectively speaking, 
places where ideation is continually going on; and since they 
are, objectively speaking, places where nerve-cells are con- 
tinually sending undulations back and forth along transit- 
lines; the inference seems forced upon us, that the transfer 
of an undulation from one cell to another is the objective 
accompaniment of each subjective unit of feeling of which 
thoughts and emotions are made up. And if this be so, it 
becomes a mere truism to say that the formation of a new 
association involves the establishment of a new transit-line, 
wr set of transit-lines, while the revival of an old association 
involves merely the recurrence of motion along old transit- 
lines. That this is merely a hypothesis, I readily grant, 
Nevertheless it is a verifiable hypothesis ; it is in harmony 
with all that we know of nerve-action ; and it may be held 
provisionally until some better one is propounded. When 
we proceed to see how many phenomena it explains, we shall 


142 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11. 


he, I think, quite ready to admit that, if it does not contain 
the whole truth, it must at least contain a foreshadowing of 
the truth. 

For we have now to note that, by a deduction from an 
established law of molecular motion, this hypothetical law 
of nervous action can be shown to ex lain that law of 
association which subjective analysis proclaims as the 
fundamental law of intelligence. In the chapter on Life 
and Mind, we saw that the chief business of psychology is 
to answer the question how there comes to be established in 
the mind a relation between two subjective states x and y, 
answering to a relation between two phenomena A and B in 
the environment. How is it that there is a subjective rela- 
tion between the idea of sweetness and the group of ideas 
comprised in the visual perception of a peach, answering in 
some way to the objective relation between the coexistent 
properties of the peach, so that the presentation of the one 
to the cephalic ganglia is inevitably accompanied by the 
representation of the other? This question lies at the bottom 
of psychology, and we have now to see how it is to be 
answered. The answer will lead us throngh a portion of the 
domain of molecular physics, and will incidentally give us a 
hint concerning the genesis of nervous systems. 

In the chapter on Matter, Motion, and Force, it was shown 
that all motion takes place along the line of least resistance, 
whether the motion be the movement of a mass of matter 
through a resisting medium, or the passage of a series of 
undulations through the molecules of an aggregate. Let us 
reconsider this truth in one of its concrete applications. 

When a wave of molecular motion traverses a mass of 
matter for the first time, the line of least resistance will of 
course be determined by the intimate structure of the mass. 
But now mark what happens. Immediately after the passage 
of the wave, the intimate structure of the mass, in the 
vicinity of the line along which the wave has travelled, is 


pH. XVI.] THE WVOLUTION OF MIND. 143 


different from what it was a moment ago. The passage of 
the wave has pushed a linear series of molecules out of 
position, and a short time must elapse before these molecules 
can return to their positions. Therefore if the first wave is 
instantly followed by a second, starting from the same point, 
the line already traversed will be the line of least resistance, 
even more decidedly than before. The second wave will 
encounter less resistance than the first wave, because it will 
find its work of altering the positions of the molecules 
already partly done for it. Thus, according to the molecular 
mobility of the matter in question, the transit of succeeding 
waves, along the line once established, will rapidly become 
less and less hindered. And the process must go on either 
until the inertia of the molecules along the transit-line 
opposes a Minimum of resistance to the passage of the wave, 
or even until the energy given out by the molecules in 
changing position adds to the momentum of the wave. In 
either case there is established a permanent line of least re- 
sistance, along which all subsequent waves that start from the 
same point must travel. The most familiar illustration of 
this process is afforded by the facts of magnetization, which 
show “that the establishment of undulations along certain 
lines determines their continuance along those lines.”? The 
case of liquid matter flowing through solid matter—as when 
currents of rain-water, percolating through loose soil, gradually 
break away obstructing particles and excavate small channels 
which ultimately widen and deepen into river-beds—is a 
case isi which similar dynamic principles are involved. In 
all these cases, “if we confine our attention to that part of the 
motion which escaping transformation continues its course, 


1 An illustration of this principle is perhaps to be found in the mellowing 
of old violins. According to Prof. Tyndall, “the very act of playing has a 
beneficial influence; apparently constraining the molecules of the wood, 
which in the first instance were refractory, to conform at last to tle require- 
ments of the vibrating strings.” On Sound, p. 90. As Dr. Maudsley would 
tay, “musical residua” remain in the molecular structure of the wood, 


144 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 11 


then it is a corollary from the persistence of forve that as 
much of this remaining motion as is taken up in changing 
the positions of the units, must leave these by so much less 
able to obstruct subsequent motion in the same direction.”? 
Now in the case of organic bodies, the enormously complex 
molecular changes involved in nutrition are such as to aid 
in the setting-up of the most perfect transit-lines. In an 
inorganic mass the molecules have comparatively little 
mobility, and they do not leave their connections from — 
moment to moment, to be instantly replaced by new molecules. 
But the complex clusters of molecules which make up living 
tissue possess immense mobility, and they are continually 
falling to pieces and getting built up again. Consequently | 
the repeated passage of waves either of fluid matter or of 
molecular motion along a definite iine of least resistance, not 
only changes the positions of the molecular clusters, but also 
modifies the nutritive changes by which the temporary — 
equilibrium of the clusters is restored. Instead of a set of 
relatively homogeneous molecules, which are simply pushed 
aside and then tend to oscillate back again, the advancing 
wave encounters a heterogeneous edifice of molecules, which 
tumbles to pieces and is instantly rebuilt. But in the re- 
building the force exerted by the advancing wave has to be 
expended ; and the result is that in the rebuilt cluster there - 
is a surplus tension exerted in the very direction in which 
the waves are travelling. The transit-lines thus become far 
more permeable than any which can be established in in- 
organic bodies. The energy given out by the decomposing 
cluster of molecules adds to the momentum of the wave; so 
that the line of least resistance becomes to a certain extent a 
1 Spencer, First Principl:s, p. 248. Thus, though Mr. Mill is justified in 
saying (Inaugural Discourse, p. 62) that “physiology is the first science in 
which we [distinetly] recognize the influence of habit—the tendency of some- 
thing to happen again merely because it has happened before”—yet, as we 
here see, the phenomena of habit are foreshadowed in the inorganic world, 


An admirable instance of that continuity among phenomena whic): is every. 
where implied by the theory of evolution. 


cH. XvI.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 145 


line of traction. A good illustration is afforded by the 
gradual evolution of the circulatory system as we ascend in 
the animal scale. In the lowest animals which possess any 
nutritive fluid perceptibly distinct from the protoplasmic 
jelly of which their bodies are composed, this*fluid percolates 
here and there at seeming random, its course being determined 
by local pressures, just as in the case of rain-water trickling 
through the ground. Now as we ascend to higher animals, 
we find that the nutritive fluid has wrought for itself certain 
channels, to which it confines itself, and which gradually 
become more and more definite in direction, and more and 
more clearly demarcated from the adjacent portions of tissue. 
Until, when we reach animals of a high type of structure, we 
find the blood coursing through permanent channels, the 
walls of which contract and expand in such a way as to 
assist the blood in its progress. A similar explanation is 
to be given of the genesis of the contractile fibres of muscle, 
as due to the continuance of molecular undulations along 
certain lines. 

When we come to the nervous system, we find most com- 
pletely realized all the conditions requisite for the rapid 
establishment of permanent transit-lines. The clusters of 
molecules of which wnerve-tissue is composed, are more 
heterogeneously compounded than any other known systems 
of molecules; and the alternate pulling to pieces and put- 
ting together of these clusters, which we ca!l nutrition, goes 
on here with unparalleled rapidity. Of all known sub- 
stances, nerve is the most changeable, the most impressible, 
the most readily adaptable to changing combinations of 
-neident forces,—in short, the most easily differentiable and 
integrable. Hence we find that those long transit-lines, 
Known as afferent and efferent nerves, are not ouly so con- 
stituted that a wave of disturbance set up at one end is 
immensely increased before it reaches the other end, but. are 
also protected by enveloping clusters of molecules in such a 

VOL, IL, L 


146 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [Pr. 11. 


way that none of the transmitted motion is allowed to 
escape laterally. Ease of transit is here witnessed at its 
maximum. : 

Making use of these theorems of transcendental physics, 
and applying t6 the problem his vast and accurate know- 
ledge of biological details, Mr. Spencer has propounded a 
theory of tle genesis of nervous systems of all orders of 
complexity, which, whether entirely or only partially true, 
must be regarded as one of his most brilliant achievements. 
In the lately-published “ Physical Synthesis,” which con- 
cludes the first volume of his “ Principles of Psychology,” 
Mr. Spencer shows that the irritability which characterizes 
the entire surface of the lowest animals, and which probably 
consists in the isomeric transformation of colloidal clusters of 
molecules distributed over the surface, must gradually be- 
come concentrated in certain definite transit-lines, just as the 
circulation of a nu ritive fluid becomes confined to certain 
channels : while the collision of waves which takes place 
wherever two or more of these transit-fibres inosculate, 
must result in such chemical changes, and in the gradual 
formation of such a structure, as characterize nerve-centres, 
But the exposition, when carried into details, is altogether 
too abstruse to be profitably presented here, nor is it neces- 
sary for our present purpose. The explanation of the laws 
of association only requires that, starting with some kind 
of nervous system as already established, we should examine 
the character of the nutritive changes set up within it by 
environing agencies. | 

The foregoing argument shows us that the most prominent 
characteristic of such changes is the formation of transit- 
lines between neighbouring cells; and we have seen that 
the more frequently a wave of molecular disturbance passes 
along any such transit-line, the more easily will it pass, and 
the more difficult will it be to divert it into any other transit- 
lina) Hence in any complex aggregate of cells and fibres 


tH. XvI.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 147 


like the human brain, we may expect to find a countless 
number of transit-lines, of all degrees of permeability. 
Those which have been oftenest traversed will be the most 
permeable, and those which are traversed only at rare 
intervals will be but slightly permeable; while the passage 
of a nervous discharge in a new direction will involve the 
differentiation of a new line oi transit. 

Now subjective psychology furnishes us with an exact 
parallel to this state of things. The profound analysis of 
conscious changes carried on by the English school of psy- 
chology since the time of Hobbes, and accepted by the 
Kantian school in all save a few very important instances 
—which we shall presently see to be similarly explicable— 
has ended in the conclusion that states of consciousness 
cohere with a strength dependent upon the frequency with 
which they have been repeated in experience. In other 
words, “the persistence of the connection between states of 
consciousness is proportionate to the persistence of the con- 
nection between the agencies to which they answer. This 
fundamental law of association is illustrated by such familiar 
truths as the following :—“ that phenomena wholly unrelated 
in our experience, we have no tendency to think of together; 
that where a certain phenomenon has occurred in many rela- 
tions, we usually imagine it as recurring in the relation in 
which it has most frequently occurred; that when we have 
witnessed many recurrences of a certain relation we come to 
have a strong belief in that relation; that if a relation has 
been daily experienced throughout life with scarcely an 
exception, it becomes difficult for us to conceive it as other- 
wise—to break the connection between the states of con- 
sciousness representing it; and that where a relation has 
been perpetually repeated in our experience with absolute 
uniformity, we are entirely disabled from conceiving the 
negation of it.”} 


2 Spencer, Principles of Psycholo,y, vol i. p. 421 
L 2 


148 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [p? u, 


The correspondence between the subjective and the objec- 
tive sides of the phenomena is thus complete, and the in- 
creasing complication of cell and fibre in the brain, from 
infancy to old age, is seen to have a psychological meaning, 
If the acquisition of a new idea is attended by the passage 
of a wave of molecular motion along a new path; and if 
recollection is a state of consciousness attending the trans- 
mission of a later wave along the same path; we have an 
adequate physical interpretation of the fact that the repeti- 
tion of an idea is favourable to the recollection of it. And 

we have also the physical interpretation of habit and pre- 
"judice. Molecular motions that have been repeatedly trans- 
‘mitted between particular groups of nerve-cells, end by 
establishing more or less intricate webs of transit-lines 
which cannot be obliterated. No effort can prevent their 
occasional recurrence along these lines, or establish a nev: 
plexus of transit-lines, involving the derangement of the old 
unes. Late in life, when the ratio of repair to waste is 
greatly diminished, when the nutrition of the cerebral tissue 
is impaired, when the pulling to pieces and putting together 
of molecular clusters in which nutrition consists goes on 
slowly, then the formation of new sets of transit-lines be- 
comes especially difficult; and hence, as we say, the shaking 
off of old habits and prejudices, and the acquiring of new 
and strange ideas, is next to impossible. It is proverbially 
hard to teach an old dog new tricks. We may here also see 
why it is impossible to learn or to carry on complicated think- 
ing when in a state of anemia: the nutritive changes go on 
too slowly. Changes in memory further illustrate the slieoery. 
In youth, when the excess of repair over waste is at the 
maximum, but few discharges through any transit-fibre are 
needful in order to work a permanent nutritive change, set- 
ting up a line of communication which shall last through 
lift hence learning is easy and rapid, and memory is power- 
ful, In old age, when waste is slightly in excess of repair, 


on. xv1.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 149 


and both are at the minimum, a great many discharges are 
necessary for the achievement of any permanent nutritive 
change: hence learning is slow and difficult, and memory is 
feeble. And hence—what is most significant of all—the 
old man does not remember recent events, while he re- 
members very well what happened in his youth, when his 
rate of nutrition was rapid. These and countless similar 
facts show us that a state of consciousness and a nutritive 
change in the cephalic ganglia are correlated like the sub- 
jective and objective faces of the same thing. And thus are 
explained the many facts which in the seventh chapter were 
brought forward in illustration of the transformations of vital 
energy,—such as the facts that consciousness ceases the 
instant the carbonic acid in the blood kas attained a certain 
ratio to the oxygen; that much thinking entails a great ex- 
eretion of alkaline phosphates; and that prolonged mental 
exertion is followed by a bodily fatigue and a keen appetite 
not essentially different from the fatigue and hunger which 
follow muscular exercise. 

Regardiug it now as provisionally established that an 
association of ideas is dependent upon the formation of a 
transit-line between two nerve-cells, and that the more often 
the fibrous path is traversed the more indissoluble will be 
the association, let us proceed briefly to apply this doctrine 
to the explanation of sundry psychical phenomena. Now as 
we begin to examine the simplest psychical phenomena— 
those of reflex action and instinct—we are met by the seem- 
ing difficulty that indissolubly connected psychical states 
occur where the corresponding objective relation has never 
been repeated within the experience of the individual. In- 
stinctive adjustments of inner to outer relations are appa- 
rently made without any help from experience. Moths and 
butterflies take to wing immediately on emerging from the 
envelope of the chrysalis; “a fly-catcher, immediately after 
its exit irom the egg, hus been known to peck at and capture 


150 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [Pr. 11. 


an insect” ; and “a young pointer will point at a covey the 
first time he is taken afield.” But in such cases as these, 
where the cohesion of psychical states has not been deter- 
mined by the experience of the individual, it has nevertheless 
been determined by the experience of the race. That the 
repetition of ancestral experiences must end in the automatic 

cohesion of psychical states, is both demonstrable d priort 
and illustrated by many facts. Birds living in islands un- 
inhabited by men will not fly away when approached by 
travellers, having none of that instinctive fear which “con- 
tinued experience of human enmity has wrought” in other 
birds. Yet in a few generations, these birds will acquire the 
same instinctive fear. In many cases the offspring of a dog 
that has been taught to beg will beg instinctively ; and 
various peculiarities of demeanour, carefully impressed by 
education upon sporting dogs, are manifested without educa- 
tion by their descendauts, Indeed it is familiar to breeders 
that the dispositions and instincts of domestic animals can 
be to a certain extent modified by training and selection, no 
less than their physical constitutions.} 

The physical explanation of the automatic cohesion of 
psychical states implied in hereditary instinct, is not diffi- 
cult at this stage of our inquiry. When the experience of 
many past generations has uniformly contributed to establish 
a certain arrangement of transit-lines in the chief ganglia of 
the animal, there must be a hereditary tendency for such 


1 “How strongly these don-es‘ic instincts, habits, and dispositions are in- 
herited, and how curiously they become mingled, is well shown when lifferent 
breeds of dogs are crossed. Thus it is known that a cross with a bull-dog 
has affected for many generations the courage and obstinacy of greyhounds ; 
and a cross with a greyhound has given to a whole family of shepherd -dogs 
a tendency to iiunt hares. These domestic instincts, when thus tested by 
trossing, resemble natural instincts, which in a like manner become curiously 
dlended tovether, and for a long period exhibit traces of the instincts of 
either parent : for example Le Roy describes a dog, whose great-grandfather 
was a wolf, and this dog showed a trace of its wild parentage only in one 
way, by not coming in a straight line to his master, when called.”— Darwin, 
Irigin of Species, 6th edit., p. 210. 


. 


be. RVI] THE sVOLUTION OF MIND, 151 


transit-lines to devsop by the mere process of nutrition. 
And where the psychical life is very simple, and but little 
varied from generation to generation, a nervous system em. 
bodying certain organized aptitudes will be transmitted as 
surely as the muscular or vascular system is transmitted 
Nervous discharges will run along pre-established transit 
lines as inevitably as in human beings the nervous discharges 
which regulate the respiratory and alimentary movements 
run in permanent channels. The character of the process is 
best exemplified in reflex action, the simplest form of psychical 
life. In reflex action, which is unaccompanied by conscious- 
ness, a single inner relation is adjusted to a single outer 
relation. For the simpler kinds of reflex action nothing is 
needed but what is called a nervous arc,—that is, an afferent 
nerve, a ganglion, and an efferent nerve. When a person 
sound asleep draws away a limb that is touched, the impres- 
sion is simply carried along an afferent nerve to one of the 
spinal ganglia, and thence reflected along an efferent nerve - 
to the muscle which moves the limb. The assistance of the 
brain is not needed. In many animals the limbs thus 
respond to stimuli after the head has been cut off or the 
brain sliced away. ‘his kind of psychical life, which is but 
one degree removed from purely physical life, is all that is 
manifested by those lowly-organized animals whose nervous 
systems consist of simple arcs. So thoroughly physical is this 
croup of phenomena that it may seem almost inappropriate 
to call it psychical: nevertheless it forms the transition from 
the one kind of life to the other. It is the lowly beginning 
from which higher forms of psychical activity arise. 

Now in reflex action, as it is exemplified alike in the 
rhythmical movemauts of our heart, lungs, stomach, and 
other viscera, and in the contraction of a polyp’s tentacle 
when food comes against it, we see a series of nervous dis- 
charges which are automatically directed along certain definite 
\ransit-lines, The lines of least resistance have become per- 


152 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [rr. 0. 


manently organized in the animal structure, and they are 
transmitted, with the accompanying capacities of action, 
from generation to generation. Here we see “ indissolubly 
connected psychical states existing where there are per- 
petually repeated experiences of the external relations to 
which they answer.” 

The phenomena of instinct are more distinctly psychical 
than those of reflex action. ‘ While simple reflex action is 
common to the internal visceral processes and to the pro- 
cesses of external adjustment, instinct is not. There are no 
instincts displayed by the kidneys, the lungs, the liver: they 
occur only among the actions of that nervo-muscular appa- 
ratus which is the agent of psychical life.” Instinct, more- 
over, implies the coordination of a large number of stimuli 
with the answering movements, and herein is its chief dif- 
ference from reflex action,—a difference in degree only. The 
newly-hatched fly-catcher, in seizing a fly, shows “ en exact 
appreciation of distance, as well as a power of precisely 
regulating the muscular movements in accordance with it.” 
The number of impressions and movements here coordinated 
is so considerable that it would take several pages to describe 
them thoroughly. Here certain systems of transit-lines, 
involved in the establishment of a correspondence in space, 
are wrought by nutrition in the animal’s nervous system, so 
completely that when the outer relation occurs the discharge 
instantly takes place along the pre-established channels, and 
the adjustment is made. There is an intricate compounding 
of reflex actions, involving the assistance of the brain ; for if 
the cerebellum be sliced, the fly-catching can no longer be 
performed, Intricate, however, as the combination is, it is a 
special and unvarying one which has been continually re- 
peated during the whole lifetime of countless ancestral fly- 
catchers, so that there is nothing strange in the fact that it is 
completely organized at birth. The principle is the same as 
in the simpler phenomena of refiex action. Here, as before 


? 


cH, xv1.]} THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 153 


extending the experience theory to the entire race, we see 
«“ indissolubly connected psychical states existing where there 
are perpetually repeated experiences of the external relations 
to which they answer.” 

Though the higher kinds of instinct, in which the supreme 
yanglia cooperate, are probably accompanied by a vague con- 
sciousness, yet in the main the processes which we have just 
described must be regarded as automatic. Let us now notice 
what must occur when the correspondence between inner and 
outer relations has become quite complex and special. As 
Mr. Spencer has pointed out, “phenomena become less 
frequent in proportion as they become more complex; and 
hence the experiences of them can never be so numerous as 
are the experiences of simple phenomena. The relation 
between a passing obscuration and a living body, recurs 
oftener than the relation between a certain degree of obscura- 
tion and danger, or than the relation between a certain other 
degree of obscuration and food. Again, each of these rela- 
tions is more general than the relation between a particular 
size and form of visual impression and an object of a 
particular class. And again, this relation is more «general 
than that between a particular size, form, and colour of 
visual impression, and a certain species of that class.”+ From 
this it follows that a lowly-organized animal, in which there 
is established a correspondence only with the most general 
euvirouing relations, and which therefore has experience only 
of such most general relations, has at the same time a uniform 
experience which maintains a complete cohesion among its 
simple psychical states. On the other hand, a _ highly- 
organized animal, in which there are established correspond- 
ences with many complex and special relations, will have a 
varied experience, and at the same time a varying cohesion 
among its complex psychical states. While the most general 
relations which it experiences will also be the most frequent, 


4 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 441, 


154 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, Pr. 1h 


and while sundry special relations (as in the seizing of its 
prey by the fly-catcher) will be extremely frequent, there are 
many other special relations of which the experience will be 
much less frequent. And accordingly, along with the per- 
fectly coherent psychical states generated by the former, there 
will be a congeries of less coherent psychical states generated 
by the latter. Or, to restate the case in physiological 
language :—While in the lower organism there will be a 
number of transit-lines permanently established, and scarcely 
any tendency toward the formation of new ones; on the 
other hand, in the higher organism, there will be a number 
of permanent transit-lines and a number of such lines in 
process of formation, along with a continual tendency toward 
the establishment of new ones. The consequences of this 
are obvious. In becoming more and more complex, the 
correspondences become less and less instantaneous and 
decided. ‘They gradually lose their distinctly automatic 
character, and that which we call Instinct merges into some- 
thing higher.” 

For as long as the psychical life consists solely in the 
passage of nervous undulations along permanent pre-esta- 
blished channels, there is no consciousness. Consciousness, 
as already shown, implies continual discrimination, or the 
continual recognition of likenesses and differences; and this 
process implies a rapid succession of changes in the supreme 
ganglia. Now this rapid succession of changes occurs when 
a vast number of relations are brought together in a single 
eanglion, or group of ganglia, as in the cerebrum, in order to 
be compared with each other. Besides this, consciousness 
implies a certain lapse of time during which impressions 
persist ; and there is no such persistence in reflex action, or 
in the lower forms of instinct, where the molecular disturbance 
constituting a nervous impression is instantly drafted off 
along the pre-established channels. Such persistence occurs 
only when a number of impressions are brought together in 


Ci. XVI.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 155 


a single ganglion, where an appreciable time must elapse 
before they are carried off each along its own set of transit- 
lines. For example, when you tickle or pinch the arm of a 
person asleep, the arm is at first withdrawn by simple reflex 
action: the ordinary channel, through the afferent nerve te 
the spinal centre and back again through the efferent nerve tc 
the limb, suffices to carry off all the molecular disturbance, 
—and there is no consciousness of the irritation or of the 
resulting contraction. But if the pinching be frequently 
repeated, so that the disturbance is generated faster than it 
can be thus drafted off, the surplus is sent up through a 
centripetal fibre from the spinel ganglion to the brain ; and 
some dreaming ensues, or perhaps a fretful sound is emitted. 
If the impression be kept up long enough, there is full con- 
sciousness of it, and the person awakes. Now the rise of 
consciousness implied in the dreaming and waking is due to 
the persistence in the cerebrum of a molecular disturbance 
which is not at once drafted off through the proper centrifugal 
‘fibres. 
Obviously, therefore, when the number of impressions sent 
in to the brain from moment to moment exceeds the number 
of thoroughly permeable channels which have been formed 
there, so that there is a brief period of tension during which 
occur the nutritive changes implied in the transmission of the 
disturbance through the appropriate channels, then there 
arise the phenomena of conscious intelligence. For mark 
what must happen. In the first place, the persistence of 
the impressions enables them to be consciously felt, either 
pleasurably or painfully ; so that there is the germ of Emo- 
tion. Secondly, the disturbance tends to propagate itself 
along various permeable transit-lines, so that there is a 
revived association of ideas, or what we call Memory. 
Thirdly, there is an integration of the present impressions 
with such past ones as they resemble, and a differentiation of 
them from such past ones as they do not resemble; and this 


156 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rv. m 


comparison of present with past impressions, dependent on 
memory, implies classification, and is the germ of what we 
call Perception and Reasoning. Jouwrthly, there is, in the case 
of many kinds of impressions, a period of tension during 
which it becomes determined along what set of centrifugal 
fibres the surplus disturbance shall be drafted off, and here 
we have the primitive form of Volition. Thus the various 
phases of conscious psychical life—which we call emotion, 
memory, reason, and volition—arise as soon as there begins 
to elapse an appreciable time between the accumulation of 
molecular disturbance in a group of cephalic nerve-cells, and 
its discharge along the proper transit-fibres. And this state of 
things, which is not possible in simple nervous systems which 
only respond instinctively or by reflex action to a few general 
relations in the environment, becomes possible in those com- 
pound nervous systems which respond to a great number of 
infrequent and special relations. For the establishment of 
inner relations, answering to these infrequent and special 
outer relations, involves a lapse of time during which numer- 
ous diverse impressions are getting distributed through various 
transit-lines hitherto little used. When, as in the fully- 
developed human cerebrum, a vast number of infrequent and 
special relations are continually set up, there is a maximum 
of nutritive change, there is a maximum of time during 
which impressions simultaneously coming in may be com- 
pared and classified, and there is a maximum of con- 
sciousness. 

This explanation of the way in which the various phases 
of conscious psychical life arise, is fully confirmed by the 
way in which they disappear when actions at first con- 
sciously performed become instinctive. The confirmation 
is so complete as to afford a very strong proof of the truth 
of the hypothesis. Many of the actions performed by 
civilized man are designated by psychologists as “ second- 
arily automatic.” That is, they are at first performed with 


f 
4 
¥ 


cH. XVI] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 157 


the assistance of reason, volition, and conscious memory, 
and they are attended by feelings of pleasure or pain. But 
after a while they are performed without the aid of reason, 
volition, or conscious memory, and they are not attended 
by pleasurable or painful feelings. In becoming instinc- 
tive, they lapse partially or entirely from consciousness. 
The child in learning to walk and talk, must will each 
movement and rationally coordinate it with other move- 
ments in order to attain the desired end. But the man, 
in walking and talking, is unconscious of the separate move- 
ments, and volition serves only to set them going. In learn- 
ing to read, the child must consciously remember each letter, 
combine it with others into a word, and associate the word 
with the thing signified; and this last process is repeated in 
later years when we learn foreign languages. But in reading 
our own language, or a foreign one which has been thoroughly 
learned, the association of words and things is automatic. 
In reading an English book, in which French quotations are 
inserted, one frequently passes from one language to the 
other and back again, without noticing the change, if the 
attention be concentrated on the subject-matter. In learn- 
ing to play the piano, there is at first a vast amount of con- 
scious association between the written notes, the key-board, 
and the muscular adjustments of the fingers, wrists, and 
arms; but an accomplished pianist will play a familiar 
piece while his attention is directed to other matters. 
The case is similar with writing, and indeed with all 
habitual actions which require nervo-muscular coordination. 
In many cases, moreover, the intervention of conscious 
attention only impairs the accuracy of adjustment. In 
billiard-playing and rifle-shooting, the aim is usually im- 
paired if we stop to think about it; and on the piano it 
is almost impossible to play triple notes with one hand 
and double notes with the other if we attempt to measure 
out the time, 


158 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [er. 0 


Purely intellectual acts also become to a certain extent 
automatic with practice, as was indeed implied in some of 
the foregoing illustrations. Not only the combination of 
words into a sentence, but the combination of sentences into 
a proposition, and the combination of propositions into a 
theory, is effected more and more rapidly, until the pro- 
cess hardly attracts attention. In a complicated exposition 
like the present, numerous scientific theorems, at first 
laboriously comprehended one by one, are wrapped up to- 
gether and thrown into some subordinate clause of a sen- 
tence, the total being so obvious as not to withdraw the 
attention from the main current of thought while writing. 
In such facts we have a partial explanation of many of 
the phenomena of what is called unconscious or “ sub-con- 
scious” thinking. And thus, too, are to be explained those 
sudden flashes of insight, scientific or poetical, which in 
early times were attributed to inspiration or dictation from 
without. Obviously without a good deal of such automatic 
acting and thinking, we could achieve but little in art or 
science. We should never become good pianists if we had 
to keep paying attention to all the requisite muscular ad- 
justments; and science would advance but slowly if at 
each step of an intricate inquiry in dynamics it were neces- 
sary to stop and reflect upon the elementary laws of matter 
and motion. 

The physical interpretation of these secondary automatic 
processes is not difficult, according to the hypothesis here 
expounded. During the process of learning, there is an 
extensive formation of new trausit-lines, and consequently 
an appreciable interval between the accumulation of mole- 
cular disturbance in the cerebral cells and its discharge, 
Impressions persist. long enough to be compared together, 
and accordingly there is reason and there is volition. There 
is a maximum of consciousness, because there is a maximum 
duration of the nutritive changes, and hence weariness soon 


cH, Xv1.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 159 


follows; cerebral nutrition entailing greater waste than 
occurs in any other part of the system, But with constant 
repetition the resistance to the passage of undulations along 
the new transit-lines disappears entirely. Nutrition has so 
modified them that, as above explained, they become lines 
of traction instead of lines of resistance. As we say, 
nothing can prevent the one group of ideas or movements 
from following the other. The discharges are made instantly, 
and along with a minimum duration of nutritive change 
there is a minimum of consciousness. The combinations 
become permanently organized in the brain-structure, and 
in becoming permanently organized they become instinctive 
or automatic, | 

We may now also begin to understand why it is that in 
man the organization of instincts, primary and secondary, is 
continued through the early years of life, while in the other 
animals the majority of the instincts are already organized 
at birth. The distinction is not an absolute one, as many of 
the higher vertebrates, both birds and mammals, and ina 
marked degree the anthropoid apes, cannot take care of 
themselves immediately after birth, though they soon become 
able to do so. The lower we descend the animal scale, the 
more completely organized is the psychical life of the newly- 
born organism, The reason is obviously to be found in the 
greater speciality and complexity, and the consequent rela- 
tive infrequency, of the coordinations made by the highest 
animals, and especially by man. When, for example, we 
put forth the hand to grasp an object, the muscular adjust- 
ments are as instinctive as those of the fly-catcher pouncing 
on an insect; “volitin being concerned merely in setting 
the process going.” But with us, the impressions which we 
receive and the motions which we make are endlessly varied, 
and the complex combinations of them occur severally with 
less frequency than is the case with the simpler combina- 
tions. formed by lower animals. They are accordingly not 


160 OUSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 


coordinated before birth, though they are easily coordinated 
during childhood. 

A great number of psychical phenomena are thus satisfac- 
torily explained by the hypothesis, But one further service, 
and a most signal one, is rendered by it; and this we must 
briefly indicate, in accordance with previous promises, before 
leaving the subject. The view of cerebral action here 
adopted settles the long-vexed question between the Lockian 
and Kantian schools as to the sources of knowledge; and 
the verdict, while partly favourable to each of these schools, 
is not wholly favourable to either. Let us reconsider the 
portion of our hypothesis which bears upon this question. 

It follows from the general principles involved in the 
foregoing exposition, that the peculiar intellectual activity 
of any parent, by modifying the nutrition of his cerebral 
tissue, must Impress itself upon the unstimulated and _ half- 
developed brain of his infant offspring. Eliminating the 
effects wrought in it by countless environing circumstances, 
we may say that the infant brain just as surely tends to 
develop transit-lines similar to those in the parental brain, 
as the infant face tends to develop muscular peculiarities of 
expression like those characteristic of the parental face. 
And while the tendency is so slight as to count for little 
or nothing in the case of the more complex and infrequent 
associations of ideas, it must be a resistless tendency in the 
case of those nerve-connections which answer to associa- 
tions involved in every act of experience,—as, for example, 
those concerned in building up our conceptions of space, 
time, force, and causation. A concise restatement of the 
case will now lead us at once to our conclusion, While 
ancestral experience impresses upon the brain a nutritive 

1 In the concluding chapter of this Part, I shall endeavour to show that 
this origination and prolongation of the period of infancy, which is the effect 
oi increasing intelligence, is in turn the proximate cause of the genesis of 


social relations and of ethical feelings, and thus, indirectly, of the entire 
intellectual and moral supremacy of man. 


cH. XVI._ THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 161 


tendency toward the formation of certain special nerve- 
connections, individual experience tends now to assist and 
now to check the inherited tendency. And so the number 
and direction of transit-lines in any brain is due to the 
cooperation of innumerable ancestral and individual ex- 
periences, Locke was therefore wrong in calling the infant’s 
mind a blank sheet upon which experience is to write know- 
ledge. The mind of the infant cannot be compared to a 
blank sheet, but rather to a sheet already written over here 
and there with invisible ink, which tends to show itself as 
the chemistry of experience supplies the requisite conditions. 
Or, dropping metaphor, the infant’s mind is correlated with 
the functions of a complex mass of nerve-tissue which 
already has certain definite nutritive tendencies. On the 
other hand, the school of Leibnitz and Kant was wrong in 
assuming a kind of intuitional knowledge not ultimately 
due to experience. For the ideas formerly called innate or 
intuitional are the results of nutritive tendencies in the 
cerebral tissue, which have been strengthened by the uni- 
form experience of countless generations, until they have 
become as resistless as the tendency of the dorsal line of 
the embryo to develope into a vertebral column. The 
strength of Locke’s position lay in the assertion that al) 
knowledge is ultimately derived from experience,—that is, 
from the intercourse between the organism and the environ- 
ment. The strength of Kant’s position lay in the recogni- 
tion of the fact that the brain has definite tendencies, even 
at birth, The Doctrine of Evolution harmonizes these two 
seemingly-opposite views, by showing us that in learning we © 
are merely acquiring latent capacities of reproducing ideas; 
and that beneath these capacities lie more or less poweriul 
autritive tendencies, which are transmissible from parent to 
-hild. 

I believe that the last difficulties which may have hovered 
about the doctrine of the Test of Truth, expounded iu the 

VOL, II. M 


162 COSMIC PHILOSOPRY. (pr. 1 


third chapter of our Prolegomena, are now swept away. It 
must be by this time quite clear that the inconceivability- 
test and the experience-test are merely the obverse faces of 
the same thing. An association of subject and predicate, 
which answers to an objective relation of which the ex- 
perience has been absolutely uniform, must be absolutely 
indissoluble ; and, vice versa. The ultimate question at issue 
between Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer thus becomes reduced to 
a question of terminology, save in one important particular, 
in which I have already shown that Mr. Mill is not only 
demonstrably wrong, but also inconsistent with himself. 
The foregoing exposition adds new weight to the argument 
by which it was formerly (Part I, Chap. iii.) proved that 
when Mr. Mill asserts that the negation of such an axiom 
as the indestructibility of matter, which is now inconceivable, 
was in past times conceivable, he virtually asserts that there 
was a time when men could frame inner relations of which 
the corresponding outer relations had never been presented 
in experience. And thus he not only runs counter to the 
general theory of Life as Adjustment which is here adopted, 
but he contravenes his own favourite doctrine of the ex- 
periential origin of all knowledge, which is in reality part 
and parcel of that general theory of life. 

With these corollaries I must conclude this too brief 
account of the process of psychical evolution. In the present 
chapter and its two predecessors, while steadily refraining 
from the chinerical attempt to identify Mind with some 
form of Matter or Motion, it has nevertheless been shown 
that, owing to the mysterious but unquestionable correlation 
which exists between the phenomena of Mind and the 
phenomena of Matier and Motion, it is possible to describe 
the evolution of the former by the same formula which 
describes the evolution of the latter. By a continuous dif- 
ferential compounding of impressions, we pass, through 
infinitesimal stages, from the relatively homogeneous and 
simple set of correspondences known as reflex action, mani- 


CH. XVI.] THE EVOLUTION OF MIND. 163 


fested alike by the highest and the lowest animals, to those 
exceedingly complex and heterogeneous sets of correspond- 
ences known as reason and volition, which are manifested 
only by the highest animals, and in their greatest complexity 
by man alone. Throughout this wonderful process we have 
seen how closely the evolution of psychical function is 
correlated with the evolution of nerve structure. But, great 
as has been our gain during the foregoing exposition, our 
theory of psychical evolution is as yet by no means com- 
plete. Concerning the relations of Mind to Life, and con- 
cerning the Composition and Evolution of Mind in general, 
we have obtained many valuable results, But nothing 
has as yet been said concerning the especial mode of genesis 
of those highest manifestations of thought and feeling 
which distinguish civilized man. This problem must be 
duly treated before our account of psychical evolution can be 
regarded as complete even in outline. Upon questions of this 
sort, however, we are not yet prepared to enter. Those 
highest manifestations of thought and feeling which dis- 
tinguish civilized man from inferior mammals, and in a less- 
marked degree from uncivilized man, are the products of 
countless ages of social evolution; and before we can hope 
to understand their mode of genesis, we must see what are 
the teachings of history and psychology cencerning the 
character of social evolution in general. Having shown how, 
starting from a relatively low degree of sociality, a relatively 
high degree is attained in conformity to the general theory of 
Life as Adjustment, we shall be better enabled to comprehend 
the genesis of that lowest degree of sociality, the attainment 
of which was the decisive step which first raised Man above 
the level of the Brutes. The four following chapters will 
therefore be concerned with Sociology; and the first will be 
devoted to clearing away a complicated misunderstanding, by 
the help of which metaphysicians have long sought, and 
still seek, to deter us from applying scientific methods of 
interpretation to the phenomena of human history. 
mM 2 


CHAPTER XVIL 
SOCIOLOGY AND FRFE-WILL 


THAT the phenomena manifested by human beings, as grouped 
in societies, conform to fixed and ascertainable laws, is a pro- 
position which has thus far been taken for granted, inasmuch 
as it is logically inseparable from the other sets of proposi- 
tions which go to make up our Cosmic Philosophy. Not only, 
moreover, have we thus tacitly assumed that social phenomena 
conform to law and may be made the subject of science, but 
in the fourth chapter of this Synthesis it was expressly stated 
that the fundamental law to which they conform is the Law 
of Evolution, which has now been proved to hold sway among 
inorganic and organic phenomena, as well as among those 
super-organic phenomena which we distinguish as psychical. 
Under ordinary circumstances we might fairly go on and 
justify our tacit assumption and our explicit assertion, by 
showing, both deductively and inductively, that the evolution 
cf society follows in general the same method as the evolu- 
tion of organic life. In the following chapter I shall proceed 
to do this. I shall show, first, that social evolution consists 
in the integration of human families or tribal communities into 
larger and larger groups, which become ever more heterogene- 
ous and more interdependent ; and secondly, that what we call 
civilization consists in the ever increasing definiteness and 
complexity of the correspondence between the community 


CH, XvIr.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREZ-WILL. 165 


and the environment. Thirdly, I shall carry on the inquiry 
to a point somewhat in advance of Mr. Spencer's exposition, 
as it now stands, and show how these truths must be supple- 
mented in order to give usa law of social evolution which 
shall cover social phenomena simply, excluding the more 
general phenomena of organic life. 

But while under ordinary circumstances it might be well 
enough to proceed directly to such an investigation, since 
there is no better way of proving that certain groups of 
phenomena conform to law than by pointing out the law to 
which they conform, nevertheless in the present case I think 
it desirable to preface the inquiry with a brief discussion of 
one or two logical and psychological truths—truths of method 
and of doctrine—which lie at the basis of sociology. In our 
survey of the simpler sciences, no such preface was called for. 
In beginning to treat of biological truths, we did not deem it 
necessary to prove that waste and repair proceed according to 
immutable laws, or to forestall possible cavils by declaring 
that, although we cannot predict our states of health from 
week to week, nevertheless organic phenomena are not the 
sport of chance. It is otherwise in sociology, which is a new 
science, encumbered with many popular misconceptions, and 
regarded with an evil eye by theologians——persons who 
profess great devotion to the interests of advancing knowledge 
in general, while the particular advance in knowledge at any 
time going on somehow never happens to be the one which 
they think fit to regard with favour. Of each new trophy 
which Science has from time to time laboriously won, these 
opponents have hastened to declare, “ Behold it is the last!” 
Lhough the phenomena presented by the heavenly bodies, by 
the surface of the earth, and by the life which covers the 
earth, have one after another, in spite of vehement theological 
protest, been made the subjects of science,! it is still stoutly 


1 “Als Pythagoras seinen beriihmten Lehrsatz entdeckte, opferte er den 
Gottern eine Hekatombe, d. h. ein Opfer von hundert Stieren, Seitdem 


166 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1. 


maintained that the results of human volitions can never 
become amenable to scientific treatment. Here, it is cried. 
on the threshold of sociology we must take our final stand, 
and insist, in the interests of religion and morality, that 
although all other events may occur in regular sequence, 
nevertheless in human affairs there is no such sequence, 
The arguments by which it is sought to establish this desperate 
proposition, are based partly on those facts which are assumed 
to prove the freedom of the will, partly on the endless 
diversity and complexity of human affairs. Concerning this 
latter class of considerations, I may say here that they are at 
once irrelevant and inconclusive. Irrelevant, since even if it 
were to be granted—which it is not—that the extreme intri- 
cacy of social phenomena imay prevent our discerning the 
order of their sequence, this would prove, not that there is no 
sequence, but that our vision is limited. Inconclusive, because 
from the nature of the case, other things being equal, com- 
plex phenomena cannot be generalized until the simpler 
phenomena which they involve have been mentally reduced 
to orderly succession. As we shall again have occasion to 
notice, the laws of social life could not be discovered until 
the sciences of biology and psychology had gone far toward 
formulating the laws of physical and psychical life in general. 
But the misconceptions which cluster about this subject are 
so numerous that they may best be eliminated by a somewhat 
detailed controversy. Let us examine the argument from 
complexity, as presented by Mr. Froude; and afterwards the 
argument from the assumed lawlessness of volition, as pre- 
sented by Mr. Goldwin Smith. 

Mr. Froude begins! by dogmatically denying that there 
is or can be such a thing as a science of history. There is 
something incongruous, he says, in the very connection of 


briillen alle Ochsen, so oft eine neue Wahrheit entdeckt wird.”—Biichner, 
Die Darwin’sche Theorie, p. 288. 
1 Short Studies on Great Subjects, vol. 1, 


eH, XVII. | SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. — 167 


the two words. “It is as if we were to talk of the colour of 
sound, or the longitude of the rule-of-three.” But he carries 
on the thought in a way that shows plainly his reluctance to 
grapple fairly with the problem. In his next sentence lie 
says, “where it is so difficult to make out the truth on the 
commonest disputed facts in matters passing under our very 
eyes, how can we talk of a science in things long past, which 
come to us only through books?” Now to reason like this, 
is merely to shrink from the encounter. For the question is, 
not whether the science is difficult, but whether it is possible. 
Mr. Froude sets out to show that there can be no such science, 
and his first bit of proof is that, if there is such a science, it 
must be far more difficult than any other; a position which 
we may contentedly grant. Let us follow him a step farther. 
“It often seems to me as if history were like a child’s box 
of letters, with which we can spell any word we please. We 
have only to pick out such letters as we want, arrange them 
as we like, and say nothing about those which do not suit 
our purpose.” And what does all this amountto? Is this 
Mr. Froude’s idea of historical investigation? Why, the 
same thing may be done in any science. We have only to 
pick out all the facts on one side, and blink all the facts 
on the other side to prove the veracity of every oracle, 
soothsayer, and clairvoyant that ever existed, the validity 
of every paltry omen, the credibility of every crazy notion 
of alchemy or judicial astrology. In this way we may 
prove that the homceopathist always saves his patient, while 
the allopathist always kills him; or vice versa. And it was 
in this way that the phrenologists erected their pseudo- 
science. By following this method, also, it becomes easy to 
prove that Henry VIII. was an exemplary husband. It is in 
this way that every incorrect or inadequate hypothesis in 
physical science or in history has arisen and gained temporary 
recognition. Supposing Tycho Brahe had said to his Coper- 
nican antagonists, “ Astronomy is like a child’s box of letters; 


168 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr 


if we take out what we want and let the rest go, we can 
spell whatever we please; I spell out the Ptolemaic hypo- 
thesis, and will therefore abide by it ;”—he would have been 
talking much after the manner of Mr. Froude. It is true, as 
Mr. Froude further says, that one philosopher believes in 
progress, a second in retrogression, and a third, like Vico, 
in ever-recurring cycles. But is this because the facts are 
undecipherable, or because the investigation is one-sided ? 
Because Agassiz still believes organic species to be fixed, 
while almost all other naturalists believe them to be variable 
in character, are we to infer that there is no science of biology ? 
In such unworthy plight does Mr. Froude retreat before the 
problem he has encountered. He starts to show us that a 
science of history is as ridiculous an impossibility as a scarlet 
B-flat or a westerly proportion ; and he ends by mildly observ- 
ing that history is a difficult subject, in which a series of par- 
tial examinations may bring forth contradictory conclusions! 

The next bit of inference concerns us more intimately. 
« Will a time ever be when the lost secret of the foundation 
of Rome can be recovered by historiclaws? If not, where 
is our science?” Just where it was before. The science of 
history has nothing to do with dates, except to take them, so 
far as they can be determined, from the hands of historical 
criticism. They are its data, not its conclusions. As Mr. 
Morley reminds us, we do not dispute the possibility of a 
science of meteorology, because such a science cannot tell 
us whether it was a dry or a wet day at Jericho two thousand 
years ago. Facts like these show us that sciences dealing with 
phenomena which are the products of many and complex 
factors, cannot hope to attain that minute precision which is 
attained by sciences dealing with phenomena which are the 
products of few and simple factors. They show that sociology 
cannot, like astronomy, be brought under the control of mathe- 
matical deduction. But it was not necessary for Mr. Froude 
to write an essay to prove this. 


on. xvit] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. 169 


But, continues Mr. Froude, “can you imagine a science 
which would have foretold such movements as” Moham- 
medanism, or Christianity, or Buddhism? To the question 
as thus presented, we must answer, certainly not. Neither 
can any man foretell any such movement as the typhoid fever 
which six months hence is to strike him down. If the latter 
case does not prove that there are uo physiologic laws, 
neither does the former prove that there are no laws of 
history. In both instances, the antecedents of the pheno- 
menon are irresistibly working out their results; though, in 
both cases, they are so complicated that no human skiil can 
accurately anticipate their course. But toa different present 
ment of Mr. Froude’s question, we might return a different 
answer. ‘There is a sense in which movements hike Moham- 
medanism, or Buddhism, or Christianity, could not have been 
predicted, and there is a sense in which they could have been. 
What could not have been predicted was the peculiar character 
impressed upon these movements by the gigantic personalities 
of such men as Mohammed and Omar, Sakyamuni, Jesus and 
Paul. What could have been predicted was the general 
character and direction of the movements. For example, as 
I shall show in the following chapter, Christianity as a 
universal religion was not possible until Rome had united in 
a single commonwealth the progressive nations of the world. 
And when Rome had accomplished this task, it might well 
have been predicted that before long a religion would arise, 
which should substitute monotheism for polytheism, pro- 
claim‘ng the universal fatherhood of God, and the universal 
brotherhood of men. I admit that such a prediction could 
have been made only by a person familiar with scientific 
modes of thought not then in existence; but could sucha 
person have been present to contemplate the phenomena, he 
might have foreseen such a revolution in its main features, 
as being an inévitable result of the interaction of Jewish, 
Hellenic and Roman ideas. J am inclined to think he might 


170 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. th 


have foreseen that it would arise in Palestine, that its spread 
would be confined to the area covered by Roman civilizaticn, 
and that its work would for a long time be most thorough in 
the most thoroughly Romanized regions, 

We do not need, however, to insist upon this point. Forin 
none of the concrete sciences is there anything like thorough 
and systematic prevision, save in astronomy; and even in 
astronomy, our foresight becomes precarious as soon as 
we pass beyond the solar system, and begin to inquire into 
the results of the mutual gravitation of the innumerable 
stellar bodies. We know that our sun is rushing, with 
immense velocity, toward the constellation Hercules; but we 
cannot yet trace his orbit, as Kepler traced the orbit of Mars. 
When we come to biology and psychology, the power of accu- 
rate prevision is very small; yet no one denies that the 
phenomena of life and intelligence conform to fixed and 
ascertainable laws. In sociology we must expect still less 
ability to predict. The truth is, as Comte acutely pointed 
out, that while in the simpler sciences our object is gained if 
we can foretell the course of phenomena so as to be able to 
regulate our actions by it, in the more complex sciences our 
object is gained when we have generalized the conditions 
under which phenomena occur so as to be able to make our 
volitions count for something in modifying them. We cannot 
modify astronomic phenomena, but we can predictthem. We 
cannot predict, save to a limited extent, biologic phenomena; 
but, knowing more and more thoroughly the conditions under 
which they occur, we can more and more skilfully modify 
them so as to ensure health or overcome disease. And 
obviously even this limited ability to modify the phenomena 
implies a certain amount of prevision,—quite enough to 
justify us in asserting that the phenomena conform to law. 
The case is similar in sociology. Though we may not be 
able definitely to predict a given political revolution, we may 
nevertheless understand the general movement of affairs and 


cH. xvi.) SOCIOLOGY AND FREB-WILL. 171 


the effects which certain kinds of legislation are likely to 
‘produce, so as to hasten a desired result or avert social mis- 
chief. Upon this possibility are based all our methods of 
government and of education. And, as in biology, this ability 
to modify the phenomena proves that the phenomena occur in 
some fixed order of sequence. For if there were phenomena 
without any definite order of sequence, we could neither 
predict nor modify them ; and where there is a definite order 
of sequence, there is, or may be, a science. 

Now in denying that there is or can be a science of 
history, Mr. Froude, if he means anything, means that 
social affairs have no fixed order of sequence, but are the 
sport of chance. Either Law or Chance—these are the 
only alternatives, unless we were to have recourse, like the 
Mussulman, to Destiny, an illegitimate third idea, made up 
of the other two misconceived and mutilated in order to fit 
together. But for the modern thinker there is no middle 
course. It is either symmetry or confusion, law or chance, 
and between the two antagonist conceptions there can be no 
compromise. If the law of causation is universal, we must 
accept the theory of law. If it has ever, in any one instance, 
been violated, we may be excused for taking up with the 
theory of chance. Now we know that all the vast bodies in 
this sidereal universe move on for untold ages in their orbits, 
in strict conformity to law. In conformity to law, the solar 
system in all its complexity has grown out of a homogeneous 
nebula; and the crust of the cooling earth has condensed 
into a tigid surface fit for the maintenance of organic life. 
Out of plastic materials furnished by this surface and the 
air and moisture by which it is enveloped, organic life has 
arisen and been multiplied in countless differing forms, all in 
accordance with law. Of this aggregate of organic existence, 
man, the most complex and perfect type, lives and moves 
and has his being in strict conformity to law. His periods 
of activity and repose are limited by planetary rotations 


172 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. 11. 


His achievements, physical and mental, are determined by 
the rate of his nutrition, and by the molecular structure and 
relative weight of the nervous matter contained in him. His 
very thoughts must chase each other along definite paths and 
contiguous channels marked out by the laws of association. 
Throughout these various phenomena, already generalized for 
us by astronomers, geologists, biologists, and psychologists, 
we know that neither at any time nor in any place is law 
interfered with,—that yesterday, to-day, and for ever, the effect 
follows the cause with inevitable and inexorable certainty. 
And yet we are asked to believe that in one particular 
corner of the universe, upon the surface of one little planet, 
in a portion of the organism of one particular creature, 
there is one special phenomenon, called volition, in which 
the law of causation ceases to operate, and everything goes 
helter-skelter ! 

Such is the demand which Mr, Froude makes upon our 
powers of acquiescence, and such is the theory which Mr. 
Goldwin Smith, in the interests of theology, pronounces it 
unphilosophical, if not impious, for us to reject. Of the 
Science of Higtors: Mr. Smith asserts that “it extinguishes 
all sympathy”; it “must put an end to self-exertion ” ; it 
“would diasalyn the human family”; it makes man the anh 
helpless of animals, no better in fact than “ a beast or a blade 
of yrass” ; it degrades humanity to mere clay; it establishes 
“a strange contradiction between our outward observation 
and our inward consciousness; it makes us “render up our 
personality,” and become “a mere link in a chain of causa- 
tion, a mere grain in a mass of being”; it builds up, “with 
much exultation,” an “adamantine barrier of law’—what- 
ever that may be—between man and the source of all good- 
ness; and, to crown all, it tells us that “conscience is an 
illusion,” and prevents our having any “rule of right action.”? 


1 Lectures on the Study of History, pp. 63, 67, 48, 82, 85, 87, 59. Far 
abler men than Mr. Smith or Mr. Frou le have i in like minner "allowed their 


er 


cu. XviI.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. 173 


- Hard words are as powerless to overthrow as to establish 
a philosophical theory. In scientific inquiry the ability to 
weigh evidence goes for much, but facility in declamation 
goes for little. And to anyone who has been brought up 
amid scientific pursuits, there is but little that is instructive 
or edifying in the fervid rhetoric of a writer who, in attack- 
ing a disagreeable doctrine, prefers to stigmatize i* as dis- 
acreeable, rather than to show that the evidence is against it. 
Nevertheless beneath the emotional assertions just quoted 
there lies a complicated theoretical misconception, the cha- 
racter of which it is worth our while to examine. The well- 
worn argument is that unless the human will were “ free,” 
there could be no responsibility, and therefore no morality ; 
that if volitions are caused, even though it be by our own 
desires, we are all in a condition similar to that of the man 
who has made a promise under duress, to whom neither 
praise nor blame can justly be attached for the manner in 
which his promise is kept. ‘ 

It is popularly supposed that there is something very 
forcible in this argument; and that, when coupled with the 
opposing arguments drawn from such sequences as are easily 
traceable among human affairs, the result is a puzzle which 
must for ever remain insoluble. The problem of free-will 
has been described by poets, and is customarily regarded, as 
the most difficult problem which can occupy human atten- 
tion; and we frequently hear it said that it ean never be 
feelings to run away with them when treating of this question.— Not the 
picture of a man; but the representation of an automaton that is what it 
cannot help being; a phantom dreaming what it cannot but dream; an 
engine performing what it must perform ; an incarnate reverie ; a weather- 
cock shifting helplessly in the winds of sensibility ; a wretched , association- 
machine, through which ideas pass linked together by laws over which the 
machine has no control; anything, in short, except that free and self-sus- 
tained centre of underived, and therefore responsible activity, which we call 
Man” ;—such, says Prof. Ferrier, is “the false representation of man which 
philosophy invariably and inevitably pictures forth whenever she makes 
cominon cause with the natural sciences.” — Lectures and Philosophical 


Remains, vol. ii. p. 195, Verily the free-will question is a great opener of the 
food-gates of rhetoric! vp , 


174 CUSM1IC PHILOSOPHY, [Pr. 14, 


completely solved, But in reality all this perplexity is the 
result of the desperate muddle into which metaphysics has 
brought the subject. Strip the question of the peculiar meta- 
physical jargon in which it is usually propounded, restate it 
in precise scientific language, and it becomes a very easy 
question to auswer. Would that science presented none 
more difficult! Confused and inaceurate verbiage is respon- 
sible for the chronie disputation upon this subject. No- 
where else is Berkeley’s complaint so thoroughly applicable, 
that in dealing with metaphysics men first kick up a dust 
and then wonder why they cannot see through it. Those 
who have come to regard the question from a purely scientific 
point of view, also regard it as thoroughly settled; and the 
need for refuting such arguments as the one above cited, they 
class among the needs, too often thrust upon us, of refuting 
fallacies already thrice exploded, In illustration of this, let 
us notice the theory which the free-will argument implies 
concerning the nature of volition. 

The theory implies that over and above particular acts of 
volition, there is a certain entity called “The Will,” which 
is itself a sort of personage within the human personality. 
This entity, called “The Will,” is supposed to have desires 
and intentions of its own, which the causationists are sup- 
posed to declare constantly liable to be frustrated by external 
agencies, In opposition to this imaginary heresy, it is 
asserted that this autocratic Will is “ free,” and sitting in 
judgment over “motives,” may set aside the stronger in 
favour of a weaker, or may issue a decree in defianceof all 
motives alike. Some such erude conception as this is im- 
plicitly conveyed by every statement which, alluding to the 
Will as an entity, ascribes “ freedom” to it. Only by means 
of such a conception can the phrase “freedom of the Will”. 
be shielded from the imputation of nonsense, Only thus 
can the argument above cited be regarded as relevant to the 
subject in dispute. For if Will be not conceived as an 


eH. XVII.) SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. 175 


entity acting under conditions, then no comparison can be 
made between caused volition and constrained behaviour. 
If instead of “The Will” we look at the act of willing— 
which is not an entity, but a dynamic process—then it be- 
comes absurd to talk of this act as being either free or not 
free, and we must seek for some other word than “freedom” 
by which to designate its alleged want of causal connection 
with preceding psychical states, 

Now the tendency to erect relations and processes into 
entities is a tendency which modern metaphysics has in- 
herited from a mischievous mode of thought current in 
ancient times and rather loosely known as “Realism.” 
Among metaphysicians, unused to the habits of thought 
which science nurtures, the tendency is an almost irresistible 
one. Civilization, for example, is opviously a process, but 
Dr. Whately continually speaks of it as if it were a thing 
which could be handed about from one nation to another, or 
hidden away for a time in some dark corner, And upon 
this amusing misconception he builds a wonderful theory, 
which, however, it is not worth while for any busy man to 
stop and refute. It is in a similar way, and owing to the 
same realistic tendency, that there has arisen the conception 
of such an entity as “The Will,” the existence of which 
modern psychology does not recognize any more than it 
recognizes the lapidity of stones or the ubication of points 
in space. Modern psychology is concerned only with the 
process of will, or volition, As Dr. Maudsley observes, “ it 
is not man’s function in life to think and feel only: his 
inner life he must express or utter in action of some kind 
—in word or deed. Receiving impressions from nature, of 
which he is a part, he reacts upon nature intelligently, 
modifying it in a variety of ways... As the spinal cord 
reacts to its impressions in excito-motor action, and as the 
Sensory centres react to their impressions in sensori-motor 
action, so, after the complex interworking and combinatiou 


176 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 11. 


of ideas in the hemispherical ganglia, there is in like manner 
a reaction or desire of determination of energy outwards, 
in accordance with the fundamental property of organic 
structure to seek what is beneficial and to shun what is 
hurtful to it. It is this property of tissue that gives the 
impulse which, when guided by intelligence, we call volition ; 
and it is the abstraction from the particular volitions which 
metaphysicians personify as the Will. ... Physiologically 
we cannot choose but reject the Will: volition we know, and 
will we know, but the Will, apart from particular acts of 
volition or will, we cannot know. To interpose such a 
metaphysical entity between reflection and action thereupon, 
would bring us logically to the necessity of interposing a 
similar entity between the stimulus to the spinal cord and 
its reaction. Thus instead of unravelling the complex by 
help of the more simple, we should obscure the simple by 
speculations concerning the complex.” As scientific in- 
quirers, ‘we have to deal with volition as a function of the 
supreme centres, following reflection, varying in quantity 
and quality as its cause varies, strengthened by education 
and exercise, enfeebled by disease, decaying with decay of 
structure, and always needing for its outward expression the 
educated agency of the subordinate motor centres. We 
have to deal with will, not as a single undecomposable 
faculty unaffected by bodily conditions, but as a result of 
organic changes in the supreme centres, affected as certainly 
and seriously by disorder of them as our motor faculties are 
by disorder of their centres. Loss of power of will is one of 
the earliest and most characteristic symptoms of mental . 
derangement; and whatever may have been thought in times 
past, we know well now that the loss is not the work of 
some unclean spirit that has laid its hands upon the Wili, 
but the direct effect of physical disease.” 

Volition i is, accurdingly, that transformation of feeling inte 

1 Boly and Mind, pp. 22, 23. 


cH, XviI.] SOCIOLUGY AND FREE-WILL, | 177 


action which is attended by a conscious comparison of im- 
pressions, and which involves nutritive changes in the cere- 
brum or cerebellum, or in both. As we saw in the pre- 
ceding chapter, the sequence of actions upon impressions is 
either reflex or instinctive, and in either case automatic, so 
long as the nervous energy liberated by the impression is 
instantly discharged through a completely permeable chan- 
ne! or set of channels. But in those higher organisms in 
which an immensely varied experience has established innu- 
merable complex systems of less permeable channels, there 
intervenes between the liberation of energy in the brain and 
its discharge upon the motor centres a period during which 
there is a tension between various nerve-currents, each seek- 
ing to discharge itself along the most permeable lines of 
transit. We saw also that this period of tension is a period 
of conscious deliberation, involving conscious reflection, and 
feelings of desire or aversion. And these views turned out 
to be justified by the fact that as soon as the frequent repeti- 
tion of any given set of experiences has rendered all the 
transit-lines involved in the case completely permeable, so 
that there is no longer any appreciable period of tension, 
then the acts once conscious and voluntary become invo- 
luntary and automatic. 

Now the state of consciousness called Desire is accom- 
panied by a nascent excitement of the nerve-fibres distributed 
upon the muscular apparatus whose activity is requisite for 
the attainment of the desired object. There is a tendency to 
go through with the movements, needful for realizing the 
desire; and this tendency, unless neutralized by an an- 
tagonist tendency, must end in action. In the language of 
dynamics, tension when not counteracted by opposing 
tension, must pass into wis viva. This passage of nervous 
tension into nervous vis viva constitutes volition, which may 

VOL. IL N 


178 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 11. 


fcr piactical purposes be regarded indifferently as the final 
stage of emotion or as the initial stage of action. 

Passing from the case in which a single desire is operative 
let us briefly consider the special case of two conflicting 
desires, where the gratification of the one is incom- 
patible with that of the other. In this case, two groups of 
motor-nerves are nascently-excited. Here there are two 
opposite tensions, and the resulting action will depend on 
their comparative strength. If they exactly neutralize each 
other, as in the hypothetical case of the ass between the two 
bundles of hay, no volition will ensue. But in a complex 
aggregate, like the human or animal organism, such a state 
of equilibrium cannot be of long continuance. Sooner or 
later,—either from the greater vividness with which one of 
the desired objects is mentally realized, or from any one of a 
thousand other disturbing circumstances down to those of a 
purely physical nature,—one desire will become stronger 
than the other. And instantly thereupon, the surplus nervous 
tension remaining after the weaker desire is neutralized, will 
pass into nervous vis viva; or, in other words, volition will 
take place. 

The opposing tension need not, however, have desire for its 
concomitant. It may be furnished by the mere inertia of the 
nervo-muscular system ; as when a man, wishing to do some- 
thing which requires exertion, is too weary to do it. Weariness 
implies a diminution in the total amount of contractile force ; 
a state in which a tension greater than ordinary is obviously 
required for the initiation of muscular motion. Conversely, 
the originating tension need not always be supplied by desire, 
but may be consequent upon vivacity, which is the presence 
of a superfluous amount of vital energy ; as exemplified alike 
in the morning frolics of an infant, in the singing of birds, 
and in the gambols of a dog when released from his kennel. 

Casus as simple as those here treated occur no doubt with 
somparative infrequency., Usually’a great number of motives, 


cH, XVII.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL, 179 


indefinitely complex and variable in their mutual combina- 
tions and oppositions, are simultaneously operative. But 
however numerous or complicated the forces at work, from 
whatever source the motives to action or inaction arise, what- 
ever be the nature of the incentives to one kind of conduct 
or to some other kind, it is equally true that the result 
depends upon their comparative strength. Indeed, since 
forces can be measured only by their effects, to say that 
of two conflicting motives one is followed by volition, is to 
call that motive the stronger one. “ Our only evidence of 
excess of force is the movement it produces ”; and when the 
ancient engineer wished to ascertain the comparative power 
of a couple of catapults, he had no alternative but to see 
which would hurl its stone to the greater distance. To say 
explicitly that volition does not follow the strongest motive, 
is to say implicitly that motion does not always follow the 
line of least resistance; which is to deny the persistence 
of force. 

Volition being accordingly regarded as the process whereby 
feeling initiates action, it becomes evident that the term 
“free” is no more applicable to it than the termn “ copper- 
coloured.” As Mr. Bain observes; “ The designation ‘liberty 
of choice’ has no real meaning, except as denying extraneous 
interference. If I am interfered with by another person com- 
pelling me to act in one way, then it may be said, intel- 
ligibly enough, that I have not liberty of choice. But, as 
between the different motives of my own mind, there is no 
meaning in the use of the word ‘liberty.’ Various motives,— 
p-esent or prospective pleasures and pains,—concur in urging 
me to act. The result of the conflict shows that one group is 
stronger than another, and that is the whole case.”! Or, 
as M. Littré has still more forcibly reminded us, the term 
“liberty,” as applied to volition, means the power of obeying 
the strongest motive. When that power is interfered with, 


+ Bain, The Emotions and the Will, 1st edit. p. 550. 
N 2 


180 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. m 


by paralysis or insanity, or the constraint exercised by other 
persons, then we may truly say that we are deprived of free- 
will and of responsibility. But so long as circumstances allow 
volition to follow the strongest motive, then we truly say that 
we are free and responsible for our actions. Thus the tables 
are completely turned, and much of the current disputation 
on this subject is reduced at once to unmeaning verbiage. 
The popular arguments in favour of “freedom” are seen to 
be as palpable cases of ignoratio elencht as are those daily 
urged against the development hypothesis. By a scientific 
definition of Will, the assertion. of freedom is set aside as 
irrelevant, leaving behind the assertion of non-causation. 
That this too is virtually disposed of by the same definition, 
scarcely needs pointing out. Yet, for the sake of still greater 
clearness, our present results may fitly be supplemented by a 
new class of considerations. 

That volitions differ from all other phenomena by their 
capability of occurring without any cause, is the opinion of 
the frée-will philosophers; and Mr. Smith, in criticizing 
the contrary opinion, remarks that “if comets formed their 
own future” (ze, were endowed with volition), “they would 
be rather embarrassing subjects of science.” Without at- 
tempting to decipher the vagaries in which these cosmical 
bodies might in such case take it upon themselves to in- 
dulge,! it will be enough for my present purpose to point out 
some of the shoals on which the free-will doctrine must land 
its defenders. If volitions arise without cause, it necessarily 
follows that we cannot infer from them the character of the 
antecedent states of feeling. If, therefore, a murder has been 
committed, we have @ priori no better reason for suspecting 


1 In point of fact a comet does “form its own future” iu the same way 
that a man does. The state of a heavenly body at any given moment is a 
product, partly of the forces, molar and molecular, with which it was endowed 
at the preceding moment, and partly of the forces simultaneously exerted 
upon it by euvironing heavenly bodies. The case of human volition differs . 
from this in nothing save the number and complexity, and consequeat rela 
tive incalculableness, of the forces at work, 


CH. XVII.} SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. 181 


the worst enemy than the best friend of the murdered man. 
If we see a man jump from a fourth-story window, we must 
beware of too hastily inferring his insanity, since he may be 
merely exercising his free-will ; the intense love of life im- 
planted in the human breast being, as it seems, unconnected 
with attempts at suicide or at self-preservation. We can thus 
frame no theory of human actions whatever. The countless 
empirical maxims of every-day life, the embodiment as they 
are of the inherited and organized sagacity of many genera- 
tions, become wholly incompetent to guide us; and nothing 
which any one may do, ought ever to occasion surprise. The 
mother may strangle her first-born child, the miser may cast 
his long-treasured gold into the sea, the sculptor may break 
in pieces his lately-finished statue, in the presence of no 
other feelings than those which before led them to cherish, 
to hoard, and to create. 

To state these conclusions is to refute their premise. 
Probably no detender of the doctrine of free-will could be 
induced to accept them, even to save the theorem with which 
they are inseparably wrapped-up. Yet the dilemma cannot 
be avoided. Volitions are either caused, or they are not. If 
they are not caused, an inexorable logic brings us to the 
absurdities just mentioned. If they are caused, the free-will 
doctrine is annihilated. No help is afforded by the gratuitous 
hypothesis that there is a connection between the act and the 
mative, which yet is not a causal connection. Such con- 
neciicn, if it exist, must be a case either of conditional 
invariable sequence, or of unconditional invariable sequence. 
On the first supposition, we have a case like the succession of 
day and night, in which both terms of the sequence are 
conditioned upon a third fact; so that here we do not escape 
causation. The second supposition is but an ass:2rtion of 
causation in other words. While to take refuge in the 
postulate that this assumed connection is a case of variable 
Jequence, is to affirm and deny connection in the same breath, 


182 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


But it is said that consciousness declares the Will to be 
free; and therefore that any attempt to disprove its freedom 
by reasoning is suicidal, since all such reasoning must end 
by impugning the veracity of that consciousness on which 
its own data are ultimately based. An ingenious argument 
truly, the conclusion whereof would be more readily ad- 
mitted, if its premise were true. Consciousness, which is 
so confidently appealed to as establishing by its infallible 
verdict the doctrine of free-will, in fact says nothing about 
the matter. That volitions are uncaused, is a proposition 
altogether too indirect for consciousness to sit in judgment 
upon, and it can neither be proved nor disproved by simple 
introspection. It would have been equally appropriate for the 
' medieval astronomer to appeal to conscivusness as testifying 
to the revolution of the sun about the earth. As Mr. Bain 
observes, “it is a great stretch of asseveration to call the 
construction of an enormous theory an act of consciousness 
so simple that we cannot make a slip in performing it.”? 
Consciousness tells us only that we will. By observation 
and experience—not by the simple and direct interrogation 
of consciousness—we know that, circumstances permitting, 
our volitions may be accomplished. With the exception, 
therefore, of those theological fatalists who assert that 
human actions are determined by an external constraining 
power, it is the universal opinion that men can voluntarily 
determine their own actions; and this is just what the much- 
abused testimony of consciousness amounts to. Thisis all that 
it means to anyone not mystified by metaphysics; the non- 
causation of volitions being a theorem so far from obvious 
to a great many men, that it requires considerable explana- 
“ion to make them understand it. By the testimony of 
consciousness, as thus interpreted, the assertors of the 
lawlessness of volition are not helped in the least. The 
question at issue between them and their opponents is, not 


1 The Emotions and the Will, 1st edit. p. 563, 


oh ey OE ee ee oe AP 


on, XvII.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-W1LL. 183 


whether the actions of men are normally free, but whether their 
freedom is consistent with their being caused. The assertors 
of “Free-Will” maintain that causation is inconsistent with 
liberty! The so-called necessarians assert that liberty ana 
causation are quite consistent with each other. To which we 
must now add, that it is not causation, but the absence 
thereof, which is as incompatible with liberty as it is with law. 

For the causationist, believing that volition invariably 
follows the stronger motive, endeavours to increase the 
relative strength of all those emotions whose outcome is 
virtuous and upright conduct, while he strives to weaken 
those feelings whose tendency is toward base and ignoble 
conduct. Knowing that by continual indulgence desire is rein- 
forced, while by constant repression it is enfeebled, he applies 
this knowledge to the control of his will and the discipline of 
his character. But on tl.e theory that volitions are causeless, 
all methods of self-discipline become of no avail. If they 
are powerless to influence action, it is of small practical 
importance whether noble and sympathetic or base and selfish 
motives are prevalent; and the moral distinction between 
them loses most of its significance. Why, asks Mr. Smith, 
“is a Philip II. more the subject of moral disapprobation 
than tlie plague?” Why, indeed, unless his atrocious crimes 
are to be interpreted as the necessary outgrowth of a character 
wherein good motives were impotent and bad motives all- 
powerful. Were volition self-determining, then similar acts 

1 “The law of bondage throughout the universe is the law of cause and 
éffect. In the violation, then, of this law, true freedom must consist.” 
Ferrier, Lectures and Philosophical Remains, vol. ii. p. 255. One might 
expect such a remark as this trom Mr. Goldwin Smith, who speaks of being 
“bound by the chain of certain causation”; but from so acute a thinke 
as Prof. Ferrier, it is surprising. To adopt, in a somewhat altered sense, 
Kant’s happv illustration,—the spectacle of a bird denouncing as an encum- 
brance the air by which alone it is enabled to fly, would be a fitting parallel 
to the spectacle of those philosophers who decry that regularity of sequence 
through which alone has “freedom” any meaning. As Lessing long ago 
said, with well-bestowed contempt, “‘ Le beau privilége d’étre soumis & une 


uissance aveugle qui ne suit aucune régle! Zn seruitje moins le jowet du 
rd parce que ce hasard résiderait en moi?” 


184 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (ex. 1. 


might have been committed by a Washington or a Borromeo, 
Obviously there would be little use in laboriously schooling 
our desires to virtue, if at any moment in spite thereof, some 
uncaused volition might bring forth from us a detestable 
deed. It is therefore not the doctrine of causation, but the 
so-called free-will doctrine, that, if true, would “ put an end 
to self-exertion,” and deprive us of every “rule of right 
action.” Since self-control, and therefore liberty, is impossible 
unless volition is determined by desire; it is the latter 
doctrine—not the former—which is really inconsistent with 
the assertion of human freedom, which takes from us the 
dignity of responsibility, ard makes man the sport ot a 
grotesque and purposeless chance. 

In truth, the immediate corollaries of the free-will doc- 
trine are so shocking not only to philosophy but to common- 
sense, that were not accurate thinking a somewhat rare 
phenomenon, it would be inexplicable how any credit should 
ever have been given to such a dogma. This is but one of 
the many instances, in which by the force of words alone, 
men have been held subject to chronic delusion. The 
libertarian doctrine has obtained currency because it has 
talked loudly of human freedom, with which nevertheless a 
brief analysis proves it to be incompatible. Substitute for 
the unmeaning phrase “ freedom of the Will,” the accurate 
phrase “lawlessness of volition,’ and the theory already 
looks less plausible. In place of the vague and ambiguous 
word “ necessity,” write the clear and definitely-connotative 
word “causation,” and the scientific theory at once loses its 
imaginary terrors, The titles with which the free-will doc- 
trine decorates itself, and those with which it brands its 
opponent, are alike “ question-begging epithets.” They serve 
to prejudge the point at issue, 

Not content with the overwhelming prestige which its 
name thus gives it, the free-will doctrine seeks to follow 
up its advantage by identifying its antagonist with Asiatic 


cu. Xvi1.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. 185 


fatalism; a confusion of ideas like that under which Mr, 
Bounderby laboured, when unable to see the difference 
between giving workmen their just dues, and feeding them 
with turtle-soup out of a gold-lined spoon. To say that 
actions dependent on volition will take place whenever the 
essential conditions are present, and to say that they will take 
place even if the conditions are absent, are by free-will 
theorists held to be one and the same assertion!* Fatalism 
is, however, much more closely akin to their own doctrine, 
Each ignores causation ; each is incompatible with personal 
freedom; the only difference between them being that the 
one sets up Chance, while the other sets up Destiny, as the 
arbiter of human affairs. And while each doctrine is theo- 
retically held by large bodies of men, each in practice is 
habitually contradicted by its upholders. The defenders of 
free-will, who in practice are obliged to admit a certain con- 
aection between acts and motives, and the Arab fatalists, 
among whom the saying is current that “when Allah wills 
an event, he prepares the causes beforehand,” alike ex- 
emplify this. Though both agree in repudiating causation, 
both equally in their every-day maxims give evidence of 
an unconscious belief in its existence. 

Having identified the causation theory with fatalism, it 
Lecomes all the easier for its opponents to accuse it of deny- 
ing moral responsibility. Accordingly, when Mr. Buckle, 
following in the footsteps of Laplace, inferred from the regu- 
larity of the statistics of crime and suicide, marriages and 
uead-letters, that voluntary actions conferm to law ;? it was 


1 “Tt is owing to the very general misconception of the nature of Law that 
there arises the misconception of Necessity ; the fact that events arrive irre- 
sistibly whenever their conditions are present, is confounded with the concep- 
tion that the events must arrive whether the conditions be present or not, 
being fatally predetermined. Necessity simply says that whatever is is, and 
will vary with varying conditions. Fatalism says that something must be ; 
and this something cannot be modified by any modification of the conditions.” 
—Lewes, Problems of Life and Mini, vol. i. p. 899. 

2 Buckle, Civilization in Eng’and, vol. i. pp. 20—80; Laplace, Essai sur 
es Probabilités, p. 76. 


186 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. ; (pr. 1. 


proposed by one of his reviewers that state-governments 
should at once suspend judicial operations, and having 
ascertained from statistics the yearly number of murders, 
should forthwith hang a corresponding number of individuals, 
selected by lot from the community. To which suggestion the 
natural reply would have been, that if governments ever do 
adopt this singular course of administering justice, they will 
then be consistently acting on the belief that motives do not 
stand in a causal relation to volitions. If the volition can 
follow the weaker motive, the feelings which ordinarily 
deter from the commission of crime, need not be strength- 
ened by the fear of punishment.* 

Thus do all the favourite arguments in behalf of the free- 
will hypothesis recoil upon its defenders. To adopt from 
barbarian warfare, an ungraceful but expressive simile, they 
are like awkwardly-thrown boomerangs which wound the 
thrower. Attempting, as the free-will philosophers do, to 
destroy the science of history, they are compelled by an 
inexorable logic to pull down with it the cardinal principles 
of ethics, politics, and jurisprudence. Political economy, if 
rigidly dealt with on their theory, would fare little better ; 
and psychology would become chaotic jargon. That psy- 
chical actions, and volitions among them, conform to law, is 
the indispensable axiom of every science or philosophy 
which treats of the mind and its products, whether indi- 


1 “The very reason for giving notice that we intend to punish certain acts, 
and for inflicting punishment if the acts be committed, is that we trust in the 
efficacy of the threat and the punishment as deterring motives. If the voli- 
tion of agents be not influenced by motives, the whole machinery of law 
becomes unavailing, and punishment a purposeless infliction of pain. In fact 
it is on that very ground that the madman is exempted from punishment ; 
his volition being presumed to be not capable of being acted upon by the 
deterring motive of legal sanction. The free agent, thus understood, is one 
who can neither feel himself accountable, nor be rendered accountable to or 
by others. It is only the necessary agent (the person whose volitions are de- 
termined by motives, and, in case of conflict, by the strongest desire or the 
strongest apprehension) that can be held really accountable, or can feel hime 
self to be so.”—Grete, Review of Mill’s Examination of Hamilton's Philo: 
sophy, p. 976 


CH, XVI.) SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL. 187 


vidually or socially embodied. He-who asserts the contrary, 
maintains “a form of the Manichean doctrine of two prin- 
ciples .... in which one principle, that of order, presides 
over the physical phenomena of the universe, and the other, 
that of disorder, over its moral phenomena.”! As I have 
already said, no middle ground can be taken. The denial of 
causation is the affirmation of chance, and “between the 
theory of Chance and the theory of Law, there can be no 
compromise, no reciprocity, no borrowing and lending.” To 
write history on any method furnished by the free-will 
doctrine, would be utterly impossible. Mr. Smith tells us 
that “finding at Rome a law to encourage tyrannicide, we 
are certain that there had been tyrants at Rome, though 
there is nothing approaching to historical evidence of the 
tyranny of Tarquin.” By drawing this inference he abandons 
his own principles, according to which the law in question 
might have originated without any cause except the self- 
determining will of some Roman legislator. And he is 
equally inconsistent in saying that “a nation may have to go 
through one stage of knowledge or civilization before it can 
reach another, but its going through either is still free.” If 
by this it is meant that a nation’s progress need not be due 
to constraint exercised over it by other nations, the state- 
ment is true, but it is one which no one has thought of dis- 
puting. But if it is meant that the latter of two successive 
stages of civilization is not caused by the former, the state- 
ment destroys itself. By admitting that “a nation may have 
to go through one stage of civilization before it can reach 
another,” Mr. Smith gives up his case and concedes all which 
has ever been claimed by those who would construct a 
science of history. If there is a definite order of sequence 
among the stages of civilization, that order may sooner or 
later be formulated, and to formulate that order is.to found 
sociology as a science. But if causation in history is denied, 


3 W. Adam, Theories of History, p. 65. 


188 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr wu. 


if each epoch is not determined by the preceding epoch, 
then the inference is inevitable that the French Revolution 
might have happened in the reign of Louis XI., or that the 
progress of Christianity might have been eastward instead of 
westward. Thus all conception of progress, as well as all 
conception of order, is at an end. Thus the vast domain of 
History, numbering among its component divisions the phe- 
nomena of Language, Art, Religion, and Government, the 
products of social activity as well as the phases of social 
progress, becomes an unruly chaos, a Tchu-va-Bohu, where 
event stumbles after event, and change jostles change, with- 
out sequence and without law. 

I think, therefore, we are quite justified in saying that, 
when stripped of the metaphysical jargon in which it is 
usually propounded, the question of free-will becomes an 
easy one to answer. Having laid the dust which metaphy- 
sicians have kicked up, we find our vision no longer obscured. 
From whatever scientific stand-point we contemplate the 
doctrine of the lawlessness of volition, we find that its 
plausibleness depends solely on tricks of language. The first 
‘rick is the personification of Will as an entity distinct from 
all acts of volition; the second trick is the ascription to this 
entity of “freedom,” a word which is meaningless as applied 
to the process whereby feeling initiates action; and the third 
trick is the assumption that desires or motives are entities 
outside of a person, so that if his acts of volition were 
influenced by them he would be robbed of his freedom. Any- 
one, however, who is not misled by these verbal quibbles, and 
who bears in mind that a person, psychologically considered, 
is nothing more than the sum of his conscious states, will 
perceive at once that when the desires or aversions determine 
the volitional acts, it is the person himself who determines 
them. We have accordingly seen that, since liberty of choice 
means nothing if it does not mean the power to exert volition 
in the direction indicated by the strongest group of motives ; 


on. Xvit.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL, 189 


and since all control over character is impossible unless de- 
sires and volitions occur in a determinate order of sequence ; 
it is the doctrine of lawlessness and not the causationist 
doctrine which is incompatible with liberty and destructive 
of responsivility. The rhetoric which Mr. Goldwin Smith 
lavishes, on the strength of a set of misapplied phrases, might 
therefore be justly retorted upon him, on the strength of a 
psychologic analysis. And this, which is the conclusion of 
science, we have seen to be also the conclusion of common 
sense. Whatever may be our official theories, we all practi- 
cally ignore and discredit the doctrine that volition is lawless. 
Whatever voice of tradition we may be in the habit of 
echoing, we do equally, from the earliest to the latest day of 
our self-conscious existence, act and calculate upon the 
supposition that volition, alike in ourselves and in others, 
follows invariably the strongest motive. And upon this 
ineradicable belief are based all our methods of government, 
of education, and of self-discipline. Finally, in turning our 
attention to history, we have found that the aggregate of 
thoughts, desires, and volitions in any epoch is so manifestly 
dependent upon the aggregate of thoughts, desires, and 
volitions in the preceding epoch, that even the assertors of 
the lawlessness of volition are forced to commit logical suicide 
by recognizing the sequence. Thus, whether we contemplate 
volitions themselves, or compare their effects, whether we 
resort to the testimony of psychology or to the testimony of 
history, we are equally compelled to admit that Law is coex- 
tensive with all orders of phenomena and with every species 
of change, 

It is hardly creditable to the character of the present age 
for scientific enlightenment that such a statement should need 
«o be made, or that twenty-six pages of critical argument 
should be required to illustrate it. To many this chapter will 
no doubt seem much like an elaborate attempt to prove the 
truth of the multiplication table. Nevertheless where such 


190 _ COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11. 


a blinding metaphysical dust has been raised, a few drops of 
the cold water of common-sense may be not only harmless 
but useful. Having thus done somewhat to clear the air, we 


may next proceed to point out the way in which social changes 
conform to the Law of Evolution, 


CHAPTER XVIIL 
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, 


Any attempt to discover the laws to which social changes 
conform must run great risk of being frustrated by the mere 
immensity of the mass of details which the investigator 
strives to arrange in orderly sequence. Seemingly number- 
less as are the phenomena dealt with by the physical sciences, 
they bear no proportion, either in multitude or in variety, to 
the facts upon which the student of sociology must build his 
scientific theorems. Facts concerning man in his physical 
relations to soil, climate, food, and the configuration of the 
earth, blend with facts concerning the intellectual and moral 
relations of men to each other and to the aspects of nature 
by which they are surrounded, making up a problem of such 
manifold complexity that it may well have long been deemed 
incapable of satisfactory solution. The fit ground for wonder 
is, indeed, not that we are as yet unable to arrive at accurate 
prevision amid such a diversified throng of phenomena, but 
that, considering the meagreness of our knowledge in many 
other departments, we should have been able to detect any 
uniformity whatever in human affairs, and having detected 
.f, to explain it upon trustworthy scientific principles. 

There is but one way to conduct such an intricate investiga- 
tion securely to its final issue; and that is, to make extensive 


192 COSMIC PHILOSOPBY. [er. 11 


use of elimination as it is employed in the simpler sciences. | 
“If without any previous investigation of the properties of 
terrestrial matter, Newton had proceeded at once to study the 
dynamics of the universe, and after years spent with the 
telescope in ascertaining the distances, sizes, times of revolu- 
tion, inclinations of axes, forms of orbits, perturbations, etc., 
of the celestial bodies, had set himself to tabulate this 
accumulated mass of observations, and to educe from them 
the fundamental laws of planetary and stellar equilibrium, 
he might have cogitated to all eternity without arriving at a 
result.” This lucid illustration, which I have cited from the 
introduction to Mr. Spencer’s “Social Statics,” suggests the 
proper method of approaching the investigation of complex 
phenomena. Minor perturbing elements must for a time be 
left out of consideration, just as the inequalities of motion 
resulting from the mutual attractions of the planets were at 
first passed over in the search for the general formula of 
gravitation. The discussion of endless minute historical 
details must be reserved until the law of social changes has 
been deduced from the more constant phenomena, and is 
ready for inductive verification. A law wide enough to form 
a basis for sociology must needs be eminently abstract, and 
can be found only by contemplating the most general and 
prominent characteristics of social changes. The prime 
requisite of the formula of which we are in quest is that it 
should accurately designate such changes under their leading 
aspect. 

Now by far the most obvious and constant characteristic 
common to a vast number of social changes is that they are 
changes from a worse to a better state of things,—that they 
constitute phases of Progress. It is not asserted that human 
history has in all times and places been the history of 
progress ; it is not denied that at various times and in many 
places it has been the history of retrogression; but attention 
is called to the fact-—made trite by long familiarity, yet none 


OH. XVILI. | THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIET.. 193 


the less habitually misconceived—that progress has been on 
the whole the most constant and prominent feature of the 
history of a considerable and important portion of mankind. 

Around this cardinal fact have clustered, as I just hinted, 
many serious misconceptions. The illustrious thinkers of 
the last century, who endeavoured to study human history 
from a scientific point of view, were unconsciously led into 
an error from which contemporary writers have not as yet 
entirely freed themselves. The followers of Turgot and 
Condorcet were prone to regard progress as something neces- 
sary and universal, They attempted to account for it, much 
as Lamarck tried to explain organic development, as the 
continuous and ubiquitous manifestation of an occult, in- 
herent tendency toward perfection. Subsequent literature 
exhibits many traces of this metaphysical conception. Thus 
Dr. Whately, in his edition of Archbishop King’s discourses, 
asserts that “civilization is the natural state of man, since 
he has evidently a natural tendency toward it.” Upon which 
it has been aptly remarked that, “by a parity of reasoning, 
old age is the natural state of man, since he has evidently 
a natural tendency towards it.” Indeed, as this comparison 
is intended to show, it is difficult to use such expressions 
as “natural state” and “natural tendency” without becoming 
involved in a confusion of ideas. And to ascribe progress 
to an inherent tendency, without taking into account the 
complex set of conditions amid which alone that tendency 
can be realized, is to give us an empty formula instead of 
a scientific explanation. Whether the individual will die 
young or reach old age, and whether the community will 
remain barbarous or become civilized, depends, to a great 
extent, upon environing circumstances; and no theory of 
progress can have any value which omits the consideration 
of this fact. Mr. William Adam labours under the confusion 
of ideas here signalized, when he finds fault with Sir G. C. 
Lewis for upholding the doctrine of progress while admitting 

VOL. IL Oo 


194 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1, 


that certain races have never advanced in civilization. For 
this, Mr. Adam accuses him of virtually dividing mankind 
into two differently-constituted races, of which the one 
possesses, while the other lacks, the inherent tendency toward 
perfection! He might as well maintain that because we 
admit that certain men are stunted, while others grow tall, 
we divide mankind into two differently-constituted races, of 
which the one possesses while the other lacks, the inherent 
tendency toward increase in size. Closely allied to this 
fallacy is that which associates lateness in time with com- 
pleteness in development, and requires us to assume that 
nowhere at any time has there been a temporary retrogression. 
Thus Mr. Goldwin Smith appears to be confused by the 
impression that the temporary decline in the moral tone of 
English society after the Restoration of Charles IL., is a fact 
inconsistent with the doctrine of a general progress. And 
Mr. Mansel still more preposterously declares that on the 
theory of progression we ought to regard the polytheism of 
imperial Rome as a higher form of religion than the earlier 
Hebrew worship of Jehovah. While another form of the 
same confusion is to be seen in the attempts which writers 
imbued with the conception of progress often make, to coax 
the annals of the past into affirming the uninterrupted 
advance of civilization. 

These examples show how vaguely the doctrine of progress 
has hitherto been apprehended. The fallacy of supposing 
civilization to have proceeded serially, or uniformly, or in 
consequence of any universal tendency, is nearly akin to the 
fallacy of classifying the animal kingdom in a series of ascend- 
ing groups,—a fruitful source of delusion, which it was Cuvier's 
great merit to have steadily avoided. The theological habit 
of viewimg progressiveness as a divine gift to man,’ and the 


2 W. Adam, Theories of History, p. 87. 
* “It is impossible for mere savages to civilize themselves. . . . Come — 
sequently men must at some period have received the rudiments of civilization 


tH. XVIII.) THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, 195 


metaphysical habit of regarding it as a necessary attribute of 
humanity, are equally unsound and equally fraught with 
error. Until more accurate conceptions are acquired, no 
secure advance can be made toward discerning the true 
order of social changes. Far from being necessary and 
universal, progress has been in an eminent degree contingent 
and partial. Its career has been frequently interrupted by 
periods of stagnation or declension, and wherever it has 
gone on, it has been forwarded, not by an inexplicable ten- 
dency or nisus, but by a concurrence of favourable con- 
ditions, external and internal. We must remember more- 
over, as Sir Henry Maine reminds us,’ that the communities 
which have attained to a conspicuous degree of civilization 
constitute a numerical minority of mankind. Contempora- 
neous with the rapidly advancing nations of Europe exist 
the sluggish nations of Asia, and the almost stationary tribes 
of Africa and Polynesia. 


“Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.” 


So irregular, indeed, has been the march of civilization, that 
most stages of progress may be made the subject of ocular 
investigation at the present day. 

In the science of history, therefore, old “means not old 
in chronology, but in structure: that is most archaic which 
lies nearest to the beginning of human progress considered 
as a development, and that is most modern which is farthest 
removed from that beginning.” ? 

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that the career of progress 
has been neither universal nor unbroken, it remains entirely 
true that the law of progress, when discovered, will be found 
to be the law of history. The great fact to be explained is 


from a superhuman instructor.” (!) Whately’s Rhetoric, p. 94. A statement 
not altogether compatible with the one just quoted from the same author in 
the text. 
aero’ Law, p. 24; cf. Lewis, Mthods of Observation in Politics, vol. i. 
02. 
2M Lennan, Primitive Marriage, p. 9. 


0 2 


196 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 11. 


either the presence or the absence of progress. And when we 
have formulated the character of progress, and the conditions 
essential to it, we have the key to the history of the stationary 
as well as of the progressive nations. When we are able to 
show why the latter have advanced, the same general principle 
will enable us to show why the former have not advanced. 
Though in biogeny we habitually view the process of natural 
selection as the process whereby higher organisms are slowly 
originated, the principle loses none of its importance because 
sundry species from time to time suffer deterioration, or 
remain stationary, or become extinct. When we know how it 
is that some species advance, we know how it is that other 
species do not advance. So, in the science of language, which 
is equally with sociogeny a science of development—being, 
indeed, neither more nor less than a quite special province 
of sociogeny—we rightly consider the main problem solved 
when we have explained the process of phonetic integration, 
by which languages ascend from the primary, through the 
secondary, to the tertiary stage of structure. It matters not 
that Chinese remains to this day a primary language, and 
that the numerical majority of languages have not yet become 
tertiary by completely fusing together the component roots 
of their words. The process by which languages pass from a 
lower stage to a higher remains none the less the fundamental 
phenomenon to be investigated, and when we have generalized 
the conditions under which this process takes place, we can 
xplain its absence as well as its presence. Now the case is 
the same with progress in society, that it is with progress. 
in language or in organic life. Whether manifested or not 
manifested in any particular community, progress is still 
the all-important phenomenon to be investigated. It is the 
one grand phenomenon, to explain the presence and the 
absence of which, is to explain the phenomena of history 
Just as the study of the languages which have advanced 
furnishes us the key for understanding those which have 


oh lat Ll ly Ek 


#H. XVIII] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 197 


not advanced, ‘so the study of the progressive communities 
furnishes us, as we shall see, the law of history ; a law which, 
in its most general expression, covers the phenomena pre- 
sented by the non-progressive communities likewise. Ccmte 
was therefore right in restricting the main current of his 
inquiry to the course of that civilization which began on the 
eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and has extended over 
Europe and a portion of America, The same plan will be 
pursued in the present chapter. Although incidental con- 
firmation will be sought in the history of the stationary 
communities, our main problem will be to formulate the law 
of progress from a comparison of the phenomena presented 
by the progressive communities. 

But before we can fairly enter upon our task, it will be 
desirable for us to note the Factors of Progress with which 
we shall chiefly have to deal. 

The prime factors in social progress are the Community 
and its Environment. The environment of a community 
comprises all the circumstances, adjacent or remote, to which 
the community may be in any way obliged to conform its 
actions. It comprises not only the climate of the country, 
its soil, its flora and fauna, its perpendicular elevation, its 
relation to mountain-chains, the length of its coast-line, the 
character of its scenery, and its geographical position with 
reference to other countries ; but it includes also the ideas, 
feelings, customs, and observances of past times, so far as 
they are preserved by literature, traditions, or monuments; 


_as well as foreign contemporary manners and opinions, so far 


as they are known and regarded by the community in ques- 


tion. Thus defined, the environment may be very limited or 


very extensive. The environment of an Eskimo tribe consists 
of the physical circumstances of Labrador, of adjoining 
tribes, of a few traders or travellers, and of the sum-total of 
the traditions received from ancestral Eskimos. These make 
up the sum of the conditions affecting the social existence of 


198 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. fpr. 


the Eskimos. The environment of the United States, on the 
other hand, while it comprises the physical conditions of the 
North American continent, comprises also all contemporary 
nations with whom we have intercourse, and all the organized 
tradition—political and ethical, scientific and religious— 
which we possess in common with all the other commu 
nities whose civilization originated in the Roman Empire. 
The significance of this increase of size and diversity in the 
environment will be explained presently. 

Bearing in mind this definition of a social environment— 
which I believe carries with it its own justification—let us 
briefly notice the error committed by those writers who would 
fain interpret all the most important social phenomena as due, 
solely. or chiefly, to physical causes. This is an error fre- 
quently committed by physiologists who try their hand at 
the investigation of social affairs, and who attempt to treat 
sociology as if it were a mere branch of biology. But this 
is not the case. As we have seen psychology to be an off- 
shoot from biology, specialized by the introduction of in 
quiries concerning the relations of the percipient mind to it 
environment; we must similarly regard sociology as an off- 
shoot from psychology, specialized by the introduction of 
inquiries concerning the relations of many percipient and 
emotionally-incited minds to each other and to their common 
environment. As in biogeny all attempts to discover the law 
of organic development failed utterly so long as the relations 
of the organism to physical environing agencies were alone 
studied, and succeeded only when Mr, Darwin took into 
account the relations of organisms to each other; so still 
more inevitably in sociogeny must all our efforts fail so long 
as we consider merely the physiologic relations of a commu- 
nity to the country in which it dwells, and refuse to recognize 
the extent to which communities influence each other by 
means that are purely intellectual or moral. Doubtless the 
character of the physical environment is of importance, more 


cH. XVIII.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 199 


especially, perhaps, in the earlier stages of civilization. No 
doubt civilization will first arise, other things equal, in a 
locality where food and shelter can be obtained with a 
medium amount of exertion; where nature is neither too 
niggard nor too lavish in the bestowal of her favours. No 
doubt there is a physical significance in the fact that civiliza- 
tion began, not in barren Siberia, or in luxuriant Brazil, but 
in countries like Egypt and Mesopotamia, which were neither 
so barren as io starve, nor so luxuriant as to spoil, the 
labourer. No doubt the Greeks owed much to the extent of 
their coast-line. No doubt—above all—the Mediterranean is 
_ justly sacred to the student of history as partly the civilizer 
of the peoples who upon its waves first courted adventure, 
and conducted commerce, and imparted to each other cosmo- 
politan sympathies which could never have been evoked but 
for some such intercourse, All this may be granted. But as 
civilization advances, the organized experience of past gene- 
rations becomes to a greater and greater extent the all- 
important factor of progress. As Comte expresses it, in one 
of his profoundest aphorisms, the empire of the dead over 
the living increases from age to age. If we contemplate, 
from a lofty historical point of view, the relative importance 
of the factors in the environment of our United States, I 
believe we shall be forced to conclude that the victory of the 
Greeks at Marathon, the conquest of Gaul by Cesar, the 
founding of Christianity, the defeat of Attila at Chalons and 
of the Arabs at Tours, the advent of the Normans in England, 
the ecclesiastic reforms of Hildebrand, the Crusades, the 
revolt of Luther, the overthrow of the Spanish Armada, and 
the achievements of scientific inquirers from Archimedes to 
Faraday, have influenced and are influencing our social con- 
ition to a far greater extent than the direction of the Rocky 
Mountains, or the position of the Great Lakes or the course 
of the Gulf Stream. Or if we inquire why the Spaniards 
are still so superstitious and bigoted, I believe we shall find 


200 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11. 


little enlightenment in the fact that Spain is peculiarly 
subject to earthquakes, but much enlightenment in the 
fact that for eight centuries Spain was the arena of a life- 
and-death struggle between orthodox Christians and Moorish 
unbelievers. i 
The mention of Spain and earthquakes brings me to Mr. 
Buckle, a writer of marked ability, who, though he did not 
explicitly countenance the error I am here criticizing, was 
nevertheless sometimes betrayed into committing it, as may 
be seen from the following passage :—“The Arabs in their 
own country have, owing to the extreme aridity of their soil, 
always been a rude and uncultivated people; for in their case, 
as in all others, great ignorance is the fruit of great poverty. 
But in the seventh century they conquered Persia; in the 
eighth century they conquered the best part of Spain; in the 
ninth century they conquered the Punjab, and eventually 
nearly the whole of India. Scarcely were they established 
in their fresh settlements, when their character seemed to 
undergo a great change. They who in their original land 
were little else than roving savages, were now for the first 
‘ime able to accumulate wealth, and, therefore, for the first 
‘ime did they make some progress in the arts of civilization. 
Yn Arabia they had been a mere race of wandering shepherds; 
in their new abodes they became the founders of mighty 
empires, — they built cities, endowed schools, collected 
libraries ; and the traces of their power are still to be seen 
at Cordova, at Bagdad, and at Delhi.”1 To exhibit the utter 
superficiality of this explanation, we have only to ask two 
questions. First, if the Arabs became civilized only because 
they exchanged their native deserts for Spain, Persia and 
India, why did not the same hold true of the Turks, when 
they exchanged their barren steppes for the rich empire 
of Constantinople? Though they have held for four cen- 
turies what is perhaps the finest geographical position on the 


1 History of Civilization, vol. i. p. 42 


Ps ne a ig 


a eh 


cH. XVIII.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 201 


earth’s surface, the Turks have never directly aided the 
progress of civilization. Secondly, how was it that the Arabs 
ever came to leave their native deserts and to conquer the 
region between the Pyrenees and the Ganges? Was it 
because of a geologic convulsion? Was it because the soil, 
the climate, the food, or the general aspect of nature, had 
undergone any sudden change? One need not be a profound 
student of history to see the absurdity of such a suggestion. 
It was because their minds had been greatly wrought upon 
by new ideas ; because their conceptions of life, its duties, 
its aims, its possibilities, had been revolutionized by the 
genius of Mohammed. The whole phenomenon requires a 
psychological, not a physical, explanation. 

The environment in our problem must, therefore, not only 
include psychical as well as physical factors, but the former 


are immeasurably the more important factors, and as civiliza- 
tion/advances their relative importance steadily increases. 


Bearing in mind these preliminary explanations, let us now 
address ourselves to the problem of social evolution, applying 
to the solution of it sundry biological principles established 
in previous chapters. We have first to observe that itis a 
corollary from the law of use and disuse, and the kindred 
biologic laws which sum up the processes of direct and 
indirect equilibration, that the fundamental characteristic of 
social progress is the continuous weakening of selfishness and 
the continuous strengthening of sympathy. Or—to use a mor 
convenient and somewhat more accurate expression suggested 
by Comte—it is a gradual supplanting of egoism by altruism. 
In the course ux our inquiry into the causes of organic 
evolution; it was shown that all the processes cooperating 
in the development of higher from lower forms of life, are 
in the widest and deepest sense processes of equilibration. 
The all-important truth was there demonstrated, that the 
progress of life on the earth has been the continuous equilibra- 


1 See above, chapters xii. and xiii, 


202 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. . {Pr. 11. 


tion of the organism with its environment. In the mainten- 
ance of such an equilibrium life has been shown to consist. 
Accordingly, as we have seen, if the environment is suddenly 
and violently altered, the organism perishes; but when it is 
altered slowly, the organism slowly adapts itself to it. If 
the adaptation is not completed within a single generation, 
nevertheless a sufficient number of generations will com- 
plete it, just as the children and grandchildren of an emi- 
grant become more and more thoroughly acclimated to their 
new home. ? 

It is now to be shown that civilization is a slow process 
of breeding, of adaptation, of acclimatization—mental and 
moral, as well as physical,—of equilibration between the 
Community and the Environment. From age to age the 
environment is slowly but incessantly changing, and to its 
gradual changes the human race, embodied in communities, 
is continually adapting itself. As just observed, I am not 
referring to the physical environment alone; for in dealing 
with society we have to take into the account those psycho- 
logical factors which have been shown to be by far the most 
considerable of all. Leaving out of the aecount all minor 
considerations of climate, food, or other physical circum- 
stances, and looking at the psychological factors alone, we 
must admit that the environment is slowly but constantly 
changing. Every city that is built, every generalization 
that is reached, every invention that is made, every new 
principle of action that is suggested, alters in some degree 
the social environment,—alters the sum-total of external 
relations to which the community must adjust itself by 
instituting new internal relations. The entire organized 
experience of each generation, so far as it is perpetuated by 
literature or oral tradition, adds an item to the environment 
of the next succeeding generation; so that the sum-total of 
the circumstances to which each generation is required to 
conform itself, is somewhat different from the sum-total of 


2 


Fore aes be i i Si ra BO is 


0B, Xvit1.) THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, 203 


circumstances to which the immediately preceding genera- 
tion was required to conform itself. Thus the community, 
by the inevitable results of its own psychical activity, is 


. gontinually modifying the environment; and to the environ- 


ment, as thus continually modified, the community must 
reciprocally conform itself. 

Now in the primitive, isolated, savage condition of man- 
kind, what was the environment of each family or petty 
tribe, and what kind of emotional activity was it fitted to 
awaken? The unanimous testimony of scientific expiorers, 
and others who have carefully studied the primitive phases 
of society, leaves us in little doubt as to this question. As 
Mr. M’Lennan concisely expresses it, “ The state of hostility 
is the normal state of the race in early times.”! The environ- 
ment of each little tribe is a congeries of neighbouring hostile 
tribes; and the necessity of escaping captivity or death 
involves continual readiness for warfare, and the continual 
manifestation of the entire class of warlike unsocial passions. 
While, on the other hand, the tribe is so small and homo- 
geneous, that the opportunity for the exercise of sympathetic 
and social feelings is confined chiefly to the conjugal and 
parental relations. Nevertheless in the exercise of these feelings 
in these relations are contained the germs of all subsequent social 
progress. While without the limited sphere of the tribe all 
is hatred, revenge, and desire to domineer, within the limits 
of the tribe there is room for the rudimentary display of 
such feelings as loyalty, gratitude, equity, family affection, 
personal friendship, and regard for the claims of others. 
Since these feelings can be exercised only within family or 
tribal limits, it follows that the sphere for their exercise is 
relatively small; while as the hostile or egoistic feelings 
are conformed to the whole environment outside of the tribe, 
it follows that the sphere for their exercise is large. Hence, 
in this primitive state of society, the egoistic feelings, being 

2 Primitive Marriage, p. 184. 


204 _ COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. | [pr. 11, 


oftenest called into play in the habitual occupations of life, 
will be most active and will overbalance the altruistic feel- 
ings. While, on the other hand, as the kindlier sympathies 
are but nascent, even the altruistic feelings, such as they are, 
will be strongly tinged with egoism. The highest emotion 
attainable will be clannishness, and the highest rule of duty 
will be that which enjoins loyalty to the tribal patriarch, 
This is actually found to be the emotional and ethical condi- 
tion of primitively organized communities, wherever they 
have been attentively studied by competent observers. Such, 
for example, has been the state of things existing from time 
immemorial among the American Indians, among the Poly- 
nesians, and among the Arabs of the desert; and these 
aspects of clan-society, in a somewhat later stage, among the 
Scottish Highlanders, are well pourtrayed in several of the 
Waverley Novels. : 

Now what is it that chiefly determines the slow develop- 
ment of the altruistic feelings and the gradual atrophy of the 
egoistic feelings? Obviously it is the growth of the commu- 
nity in size and complexity,—the gradual enlargement of the 
area over which the altruistic feelings extend, and the gradual 
increase in the number of social situations which demand 
the exercise of those feelings. These conditions are partly 
fulfilled when the tribal community grows to a vast size, 
remaining structurally a tribe with a patriarchal head,—~—as 
was the case in ancient Egypt, Assyria, Persia and India, and 
as is still the case in China. But they are still better fulfilled 
when the community increases in the complexity of its 
internal relations, and, instead of remaining a tribe, hecomes 
a federation of civic bodies, as in ancient Grecce, or a single 
great civic body, uniting various tribal elements, as in ancient 
Rome. In each of these cases, the increased power of’ self- 
protection renders warfare less necessary and frequent, and 
the partial supplanting of the primitive predatory life by the 
occupations of agriculture and trade besins to make men 


sae Se ee ee 


cH, XVIt1.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 205 


more and more dependent on one another over a wider and 
wider area, and to create a whole class of interests to which 
warfare and destructiveness are more and more inimical. 
And in the latter case, where the community assumes a civic 
character, the rise of a genuine political life begins to make 
men operate on each other by indirect compulsion, or by 
persuasion, rather than by direct and brutal compulsion ; and 


_ the highest attainable ethical feeling is no longer clannishness 


fo) fo) : 
but patriotism, in the exalted sense in which that word wai 


understood by the Greeks and Romans. Note also that under 
the influence of this high ethical feeling, even military life 
oses its primitive purely egoistic character, and becomes a 
school of self-discipline and self-sacrifice, nourishing in no 
slight degree the altruistic feelings. If we compare the cam- 
paigns of Marathon and Thermopylai with the expedition of 
a band of Highlanders in execution of a blood-feud, or 

with the excursion of a party of Red Indians on the war- 
path, we shall find no difficulty in realizing the force of these 
considerations. 

But, like other phenomena in nature, our ethical Shelitins 
are not sharply marked off from each other. There is a 
selfish as well as a sympathetic side to patriotism (under- 
standing the word always as the Greeks and Romans under- 
stood it.) At the one extreme, patriotism is akin to 
clannishness ; at the other extreme, it becomes so wide as 
to resemble cosmopolitanism. As long as the purely civic 
structure of society lasted, the clannish element was dis- 
tinctly present in patriotism. Greek history, after the 
expulsion of the Persians, is the history of the struggle 
between the higher and the lower patriotism,—between the 
two feelings. eaeiven to the Greeks as Pan-Hellenism and 
Autonomism, represented respectively by Athens and by 
the Doric communities. The mournful history of Thuky- 
dides tells us how autonomism won the day, entailing the 
moral and political failure of Greek civilization, 


208 | COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (rr. 1. 


_ But when Rome had extended her beneficent sway over 
all the precincts of the Mediterranean, uniting communities 
hitherto autononious and hostile by common interests of 
culture and of commerce, and bringing aggressive warfare to an 
end in the Pax Romana, then there became possible a cosmo< 
politan spirit, a Christian feeling, which regarded all men as 
legally and ethically equal,—equal before the Emperor, and 
equal before God. To trace the slow growth of this feeling 
in the annals of Roman law and of Stoic philosophy, and 
to observe its culmination in the genesis of Christianity, is 
to obtain the key to Roman history. 
_. But great political changes were necessary before Rome 
could carry to the end its great work,—partly because it had 
increased in size so much faster than it increased in structure. 
It crushed autonomism too rapidly. It developed imperialism 
at tlie éxpense of nationality. And hence the time at last 
arrived when the mutual cohesion of its provinces became 
too slight to withstand those barbaric assaults from without, 
which—as we should be careful to remember—had all along 
been intermittently attempted from the days of Brennus to 
those of Alaric. For a time, European society seemed likely 
to disintegrate into a set of tribal communities. But the old 
Empire had done its work too thoroughly for that. Roman 
principles, embodied in the Catholie Church, and in the 
renovated Empire of Charles the Great, exerted an organizing 
power which prevailed over the spirit of elannish isolation, 
and by effecting the grand series of compromises which we 
vaguely designate as the feudal system, laid the basis of 
_ modern society. 
If now wé examine the ethical circumstances of that vast 
modern fabric which has been reared upon material supplied 
1 Of coursé it is Hot méant to imply that other elements were not at work 
in the genesis of Christianity. The growth of what Matthew Arnold calls 
the “spirit of Hebraism,” not in Judea merely, but throughout the Greco- 
Roman World, is an intérésting phenomenon in this connection, but the 
treatment of it does not fall within the scope of the present exposition. 


Son, 


Ee ot ee 


CH, XVIII.) THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, 207 


in the older days of Rome—and which owes so much of its 
permanent character to the labours of the great Catholic and 
Imperial statesmen of the Middle Ages—we shall find that 
the process here described has been continually going on. 
For the primitive normal state of warfare there has been 
eradually substituted a normal state of peace. While in 
primitive times the interests of men were supposed to coin- 
cide only throughout the limited area of a petty clan, they 
are now seen to coincide throughout vast areas, and the 
railway, the steamship, and the telegraph are daily bringing 
communities into closer union, and, as George Eliot well 
expresses it, “making self-interest a duct for sympathy.” 
The spirit of Christianity, first rendered possible by Roman 
cosmopolitanism, has made, and is ever making, wider and 
deeper conquests as civilization advances, By the primitive 
savage moral duties were imperfectly recognized, but only 
within the limits of the clan. By the Greek the ethical 
code was enlarged, but it was a code not applicable to bar- 
barians. The medieval Christian had a.still longer list of 
duties owed by him to all mankind, his brethren in the 
sight of God; and to the ancient conception of justice thus 
materially widened, he added, in elementary shape, the con- 
ception of benevolence or the “enthusiasm of humanity ;” 
but the familiar maxim that “no faith need be kept with 
heretics” shows that even to his conception of duty there 
were practical limits narrower than would now be admitted. 
The modern, on the other hand, recognizes that he owes cer- 
tain duties to all men with whom he may be brought into 
contact, not because they are his kindred, or his neighbours, 
ur his countrymen, or his fellow-Christians, but because they 
are his fellow-men. Such is cur ethical standard, however 
imperfectly conformed to; and neither ancient nor medieval 
nad such an ethical standard. Compare also the ideal types of 
perfect manhood at the two extremes of civilization within our 
ken. The primitive type is the man of intense personality, 


208 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11 


with an enormous sense of his own importance, easily roused 
to paroxysms of anger, brooking no contradiction, disregardful 
of the feelings of others, domineering over all within his 
reach. The modern type is the man of mild personality, 
shunning the appearance of self-assertion, slow to anger, 
patient of contradiction, mindful of the feelings of those 
about him, unwilling to “make trouble.” Such is the con- 
trast between the typical ancient and the typical modern; 
and it implies a prodigious alteration in the dominant ethical 
feelings of the progressive portion of our race. 

This change, as we now see, has been wrought by the slow 
but incessant modification of the social environment to which 
each generation of men has had to conform its actions. The 
altruistic feelings, finding at each successive epoch a wider 
scope for action, have become gradually strengthened by use; 
while the egoistic feelings, being less and less imperatively 
called into play, have become gradually weakened by disuse. 
And this change in the environment we. perceive to have 
been wrought by the continuous growth of the community 
in size and complexity. Where, as among stationary tribes 
of savages, there has been no such growth, there the moral 
type of the primeval man is still to be found; and where, 
as among the stationary communities of Asia, there has been 
growth in size without corresponding growth in complexity, 
there the moral type is intermediate between that of the 
barbarian and that of the inheritor of Roman civilization. 
Thus the progress of society is a mighty process of equili- 
bration or adjustment, in the course of which men’s rules o 
action and emotional incentives to action become ever more 
and more perfectly fitted to the requirements arising from 
the circumstance of their aggregation into communities. 

Here we have arrived at a rudimentary conception of the 
law of social progress, so far as it can be obtained from a > 
comprehensive historical induction, aided and verified by 
deduction from a few fundamental truths of biology. The 


ae oct S 


On, XVIII.) THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 209 


foregoing discussion has brought out one point of funda- 
mental importance, in which the development of social life 
agrees with the development of organic life: both are con- 
tinuous processes of adjustment or equilibration. But in all 
this there 1s nothing more than might have been anticipated. 
Since the phenomena of society are really but the phe- 
nomena of life, specialized by the addition of new groups of 
circumstances ; we must expect to find that the law of social 
evolution will be identical with the law of organic evolution, 
save only that it will require an all-important additional 
clause to express the results of the action of the superadded 
circumstances. Let us then seek to ascertain definitely,— 
first, in what respects the two kinds of evolution agree, and 
secondly, in what respects they differ, 

' In the first place the evolution of society, no less than the 
evolution of life, conforms to that universal law of evolution 
discovered by Mr. Spencer, and illustrated at length in earlier 
chapters. The brief survey just taken shows us that social 
progress consists primarily in the integration of small and 
simple communities into larger communities that are of higher 
and higher orders of composition ; and in the more and more 
complete subordination of the psychical forces which tend tc 
maiutain isolation, to the psychical forces which tend to main- 
tain aggregation. In these respects the prime features of social 
progress are the prime features of evolution in general. 

In the second place, the progress of society exhibits those 
secondary features of differentiation and integration which 
evolution universally exhibits. The advance from indefinite 
homogeneity to definite heterogeneity in structure and 
function is a leading characteristic of social progress. On 
considering primitive societies, we find them affected by no 
gauses of heterogeneity except those resulting from the 
astablishment of the various family relationships. As Sir 
denry Maine has shown, in early times the family and not 
the individual was the social unit. In the absence of any- 

VOL. II, P 


210 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. {pr 1 


thing like national or even civic organization, each family 
chief was a monarch in miniature, uniting in his own person 
the functions of king, priest, judge, and parliament; yet he 
was scarcely less a digger and hewer than his subject children, 
wives, and brethren. Commercially, it is needless to say, all 
primitive communities are homogeneous. In any barbarous 
tribe the number of different employments is very limited, 
and such as there are may be undertaken indiscriminately — 
by everyone. Every man is his own butcher and baker, his 
own tailor and carpenter, his own smith, and his own weapon 
maker. Now the progress of such a society toward a civi- 
lized condition begins with the differentiation and integration 
of productive occupations. That each specialization of labour 
entails increased efficiency of production, which reacting 
brings out still greater specialization, is known to every tyro 
in political eccnomy. Nor is it less obvious that, with the 
advance of civilization, labour has been steadily increasing 
in coherent heterogeneity, not only with regard to its division 
among different sets of mutually-dependent labourers, but 
also with regard to its processes, and even its instruments, 
The distinguishing characteristic of modern machinery, as 
compared with the rude tools of the Middle Ages or the 
clumsy apparatus of the ancients, is its definite heterogeneity. 
The contrast between the steam-engine of to-day and the 
pulleys, screws, and levers of a thousand years ago assures us 
that the growing complexity of the objects which labour aims 
at is paralleled by the growing complexity of the modes of. 
attaining them. Turning to government, we see that by dif- 
ferentiation in the primeval community some families acquired 
supreme power, while others sank, though in different degrees, 
to the rank of subjects. The integration of allied families into 
tribes, and of adjacent tribes into nations, as well as that kind 
of integration exhibited at a later date in the closely-knit 
diplomatic inter-relations of different countries, are marked 
steps in social progress. Next may be mentioned the differs 


om, xvitt.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 211 


entiation of the governing power into the civil and the eccle- 
siastical; while by the side of these ceremonial government 
grows up insensibly as a third power, regulating the minor 
details of social intercourse none the less potently because 
not embodied in statutes and edicts. Comparing the priests 
and augurs of antiquity with the dignitaries of the medizval 
Church, the much greater heterogeneity of the latter system 
becomes manifest. Civil government likewise has become 
differentiated into executive, legislative, and judicial. Exe- 
eutive government has been divided into many branches, and 
diversely in different nations. A comparison of the Athenian 
popular government with the representative systems o/ the 
present day shows that the legislative function has no more 
than any of the others preserved its original homogeneity. 
While the contrast between the Aula Regis of the Norman 
kings and the courts of common law, equity, and admiralty, 
county courts, queen’s courts, state courts, and federal 
courts,—which are lineally descended from it, tells us the 
same story concerning the judicial power. Nor should it be 
forgotten that the steady expansion of legal systems, to meet 
the exigencies which civilization renders daily more complex, 
is an advance from relatively indefinite humogeneity to 
relatively definite heterogeneity. 

Obviously, however, our task is not completed when we 
have pointed out this general coincidence between the 
development of society and the development of life. Nor 
can the universal law here illustrated be the special law of 
social progress for which we are seeking. By reason of its 
very comprehensiveness, the law of universal evolution 
cannot be regarded as supplying the precise kind of in- 
formation we desire concerning the relations of social to 
wganic phenomena. By its aid we have found it possible 
to interpret not only the development of life, intelligence, 
and society, but also the genesis of planetary systems and 
he evolution of the earth. It is therefore the law not only 

P 2 


212 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. 11, 


of social, psychical, and vital changes, but also of inorganic 
changes. Underlying all the sciences of genesis, and fusing 
them into one grand science of cosmogony, it utters no truth 
concerning organic or social development which is not equally 
true of aJl development. Thus while it is indeed, in the 
deepest sense, the ultimate law to which organic and super- 
organic changes conforin, it is silent respecting the differential 
dhaxnotéristica by which these changes are distinguished from 
inorganic changes. Already in treating of the evolution of 
life we saw that the ultimate and general formula needed to 
be supplemented by a derivative and special formula, which 
should describe organic development in terms inapplicable to 
inorganic phenomena. And this formula we found in the 
detinition of life as the continuous adjustment of inner to 
outer relations, upon which also was afterwards based our 
entire theory of the evolution of intelligence. 

‘Now the historic survey into which we were led a moment 
ago, while inquiring into the progress of moral feelings, 
showed us that, in this respect also, the evolution of society 
agrees with the evolution of life in general. The progress of 
a community, as of an organism, is a process of adaptation, 
—a continuous establishment of inner relations in con- 
formity to outer relations. If we contemplate material civi- 
lization under its widest aspect, we discover its legitimate 
aim to be the attainment and maintenance of an equilibrium 
between the wants of men and the outward means of satis- 
fying them. And while approaching this goal, society is 
ever acquiring in its economic structure both greater hetero- 
geneity dnd greater specialization. It is not only that agri- 
culture, manufactures, commerce, legislation, the acts of the 
ruler, the judge, and the physician, have since ancient times 
grown immeasurably multiform, both in their processes and 
in their appliances; butit is also that this specialization has 
resulted in the greatly increased ability of society to adapt 
:tself to the emergencies by which it is ever beset. The 


CH. XVIII.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, 213 


history of scientific progress is in like manner the history of 
an advance from a Jess complete toward a more complete 
correspondence between the order of our conceptions and the 
order of phenomena, Truath—the end of all honest and 
successful research—is attained when subjective relations 
are adjusted to objective relations. And what is the con- 
summation of moral progress but the thorough adaptation 
of the desires of each individual to the requirements arising 
from the coexistent desires of all neighbouring individuals ? 
Thus the phenomena of social and of organic progress are 
seen to correspond to a degree not contemplated by those 
thinkers who, from Plato to Hobbes, have instituted a com- 
parison between them. The dominant characteristics of all 
life are those in which social and individual life agree. 

Let us now examine more closely the relations between 
the Community and the Environment. From the twofold 
circumstance that life is high according as the organism is 
heterogeneous, and also according as it is adjusted to sur- 
rounding conditions, may be derived the corollary that the 
heterogeneity of the environment is the chief proximate deter- 
mining cause of social progress. Thus we may understand 
why civilization advances so much more rapidly in modern 
than it did in ancient times. As Sir Charles Lyell observes; 
“We see in our own times that the rate of progress in the 
arts and sciences proceeds in a geometrical ratio as know- 
ledge increases, and so, when we carry back our retrospect 
into the past, we must be prepared to find the signs of re- 


_tardation augmenting in a like geometrical ratio; so that the 


progress of a thousand years at a remote period may cor- 
respond to that of a century in modern times, and in ages 
still more remote Man would more and more resemble tbe 
brutes in that attribute which causes one generation exactly 
to imitate in all its ways the generation which preceded 
it.”* That the process is here the same in social and in 


2 See above, p. 72. * Antiquity of Man, p. 377. 


214 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. {P. 0. 


organic life, Sir Charles Lyell already suspects; for he else- 
where observes that the lower the place of organi¢ beings 
“in a graduated scale, or the simpler their structure, the 
more persistent are they in form and organization. In what- 
ever manner the changes have been brought about, the rate 
of change is greater where the grade oi organization is 
higher.” And this fact results from the more complex rela- 
tions of the higher beings to their environment. Applying 
these considerations to history, it will be seen that, owing to 
the political isolation of ancient communities, the hetero- 
geneity of their environments must have been inconsiderable. 
Holding little intercourse with each other, and accommo- 
dating their deeds and opinions mostly to the conditions 
existing at home, their progress was usually feeble and halt- 
ing. Owing to the enormous heterogeneity of the environ- 
ment to which modern communities are forced to adjust 
themselves, progress in later ages has been far more rapid 
and far more stable than of old. The physical well-being 
of an ancient Greek was not enhanced by an invention made 
in China, nor could his philosophy derive useful hints from 
theories propounded in India. But in these days searcely 
anything can happen in one part of our planet which does 
not speedily affect every other part. The physical environ- 
ment of a modern European extends over a great part of the 
earth’s surface, and his psychical environment is scarcely 
limited in time or space. ‘His welfare is not unfrequently 
affected by accidents occurring at the antipodes, while his 
plans for the coming year are often shaped with conscious or 
unconscious reference to events which happened centuries 
ago. That the rapid and permanent character of modern 
progress is in great measure due to this circumstance, will be 
denied by no one. And thus is explained the wonderful 
eivilizing effect of various events which have from time to 
time brought together distant sections of mankind; among 
which it will be sufficient merely to name the campaigns of 


3H. XVIU.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 215 


Alexander, the spread of Roman dominion, the Arabian con- 
quests, the Crusades, and the voyages of Columbus, Magellan, 
and De Gama. The invention of printing, increasing the 
rapidity and the frequency with which the thoughts of 
various minds are brought into contact, offers another illus- 
tration ; and in a similar way is to be explained the civilizing 
agency of railroads and telegraphs. 

Comparing these deductions with the historical survey of 
ethical development above taken, we arrive at a set oi 
mutually harmonious conclusions. We see that the process 
of intellectual and moral adaptation which constitutes social 
progress is determined by the steadily increasing hetero- 
geneity of the social environment. And we see that this 
increased heterogeneity of the environment is caused by the 
integration or growing interdependence of communities that 
were originally isolated. We have now to examine this 
process of integration somewhat more in detail. By insti- 
tuting a novel comparison between the processes of organic 
and of social life, we shall be led directly to the special law 
of progress for which we are seeking. 

Observe first that the living beings which are lowest, or 
next to the lowest, in the scale of organization—as, for 
example, the protococeus and the amceba—are nothing but 
simple cells. It has heen shown, by Mr. Spencer, that 
progress in morphological composition, both in the animal 
and in the vegetable kingdoms, consists primarily in the 
union of these simpie cells into aggregates of higher and 
higher orders of complexity. Now in the study of social 
evolution we are met by precisely similar phenomena. Let 
us consider what is implied by the conclusions at which 
Sir Henry Maine has arrived, in his profound treatise on 
“Ancient Law,” by an elaborate inquiry into early ideas 
of property, contract, and testamentary succession, and into 
primitive criminal legislation. “Society in ancient times,” 
says Sir Henry Maine, “ was not what it is assumed to be 


216 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. — (re. 1. 


at present, a collection of individuals. In fact, and in the 
view of the men who composed it, it was an aggregation of 

The contrast may be most forcibly expressed ‘dy 
saying that the wnit of an ancient society was the family, 
of a modern society the individual.” But originally the ~ 
family-government excluded not only individual indepen- 
dence, but also state supremacy. The sole government 
actual or possible was that exercised by the male head of a 
family-group. By slow stages various family-groups closely 
akin in blood appear to have become integrated into tribes 
or clans, community of descent being still the only con- 
ceivable bond which could hold together a number of indi- 
viduals in the same political aggregate. Ata later stage 
the limits of the tribe were further enlarged by the impor- 
tant legal fiction of “ adoption,” or the pretence that newly- 
added members were descended from some conspicuous 
common ancestor of the tribe. Vestiges of a time when 
there were no aggregations of men more extensive than the 
tribal community thus constituted, and when there was no 
sovereign authority save that exercised by the head of the 
tribe, may be found in every part of the world,? and among 
totally-savage races this state of things still continues. Now 
we shall find something more than an instructive analogy in 
the comparison of the primitive family-group to a unicellular 
organism, for such a comparison will enable us to realize 
that in social and in organic evolution the process of integra- 
tion has been substantially the same. The first well-marked 
stage in coalescence is the formation of the tribe or clan, 

1 Ancient Law, p. 126. 

2 “The yévos of Athens, the gens of Rome, the mark or gemeinde of the 
Teutonic nations, the village community of the East . . . the Irish clan, are 
all essentially the same thing "—Freeman, Comparative Politics, p. 102. 

See, among other authorities, Volney’s View of the United States, p. 397 ; 
Phillipp on Jurisprudence, p. 207; Charles Comte, Traité de Législation, 
liv. iii, chap. 28; Grote, History of Greece, vol. iii., pp. 49—69 ; Gibbon 
(Paris edit.), vol. iii., p. 245; Vico, Scienza Nuova, Opere, tom. iv., pp. 23, 


85, 40; Aristotle Zh. Nikom, viii. 14; Tacitus, Germania, vii. ; Caesar, 
Bell. Gall. vi. 22, 23. 


cH, XVIII.} THE EVOLUTION OF SOUIETY. 217 


which may be compared to those lowly organisms made up 
by. the union of ameeba-like units with but little specializa- 
tion of structure or function. At this stage social organi- 
zation is but one step removed from that absolute and 
ferocious anarchy which characterizes the non-social life of 
brutes. “ Mistrust, jealousy, secret ambushes, and implacable 
vengeances ” characterize the mutnal relations of these social 
“ agoregates of the first order.” Hostility is the rule, and 
peace the exception. The repulsive forces are stronger and 
the cohesive forces weaker than at any subsequent period. 
As we have seen above, the selfish impulses which tend to 
maintain savage isolation are as yet unchecked save by 
instinctive loyalty within the tribal limits. 

The coalescence of such tribes into civic communities is 
the formation. of social “aggregates of the second order.” 
For a long time these higher aggregates retain conspicuous 
traces of their mode of composition, as in Greece and Rome,} 
until increasing social heterogeneity obliterates the original 
lines of demarcation; while new divisions spring up, result- 
ing from the integration of like parts, as is seen in the guilds 
of medisval Europe, and still better in the localization of 
industries which marks the present time. 

The coalescence of civic-and_tribal_ communities into the. 
nation—an “ aggregate of the.third-.order ”—is well exem- 
plified in the history of France, which, from a disorderly 
collection of independent baronies, has passed by well- 
defined transitions into a perfectly integral nation. The 
attainment of this stage is indispensable to a career 
of permanent progress. As hinted above, the premature 
overthrow of the Hellenic political system is to be attributed 


1 The structure of the Amphiktyonic union shows “that the system of 
cities with which we are so familiar in Grecian history grew out cf an earlier 
system of tribes.” Freeman, Comparative Politics, p. 88. Further evidence, 
in abundance, may be found in the succeeding pages of that excellent book, 


veh reads, from beginning to end, almost like a commentary upon this 
pter. : 


218 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. fer. m 


tu its very incomplete integration. An aggregate of the 
national type was in process of formation by the extensive 
coalescence of maritime cities under the leadership of Athens, 
when the Peloponnesian war intervened, vindicating the 
superiority of selfish autonomy, and showing by its result 
that the civilizing spirit of nationality was as yet too feeble 
to prevail. 

It was first under Roman dominion that national agere- 
gation and the feeling of national solidarity began to be 
brought to something like completeness. By absorbing 
nearly all the petty communities then existing within the 
limits of the Mediterranean world, and by gradually extend- 
ing to their members the privileges of citizenship, Rome 
succeeded in dealing to the passion for autonomy a blow 
from which it has never recovered; while the enormous 
extent of the Empire, and its ethnic heterogeneity, imparted 
to the national spirit thus evoked, a cosmopolitan character 
destined to be of prodigious service to civilization. The 
influence of these circumstances upon the attitude of Chris- 
tianity I have already alluded to, and it cannot be too 
strongly insisted upon. No human mind could have even 
conceived, much less have carried into execution, the idea of 
a universal religion, if the antique state of social isolation 
had not previously been brovght to a close in universal 
empire. If Christianity had appeated four centuries earlier 
than it did, it would, like Buddhism, have assumed the garb 
of a local religious reformation. Or if it could have aimed 
at anything higher and more comprehensive than this, its 
preaching would have fallen upon ears not ready to receive 
it. All the Oriental enthusiasm, all the Hellenic subtlety, of 
Panl, could have effected nothing, had he visited Athens in 
the days of Plato and Diogenes. But the cosmopolitan 
element in Roman civilization was just that which Chris- 
tianity most readily assimilated, and which it intensified by 
setting up a new principle of common action in place of the 


— e, en  ee 
es 


OH. XVIIL.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 219 


primeval principle of community of race. From this hippy 
concurrence of circumstances there” was formed, upon the 
ruins of Paganism, that religious organization which alone, 
of all churches that have existed, has earned the glorious 
name of Catholic. Disgusted at some of her high-handed 
proceedings in later times, Protestant historians haye too 
generally forgotten that the Roman Church, by co-ordinating 
the most vigorous and progressive elements of ancient life, 
prepared the way both for the ubiquity and for the per- 
manence of modern civilization. Had the ecclesiastical 
system of the Empire perished, along with the breaking 
up of its political system; had there been really that wreck 
of ancient institutions in the fifth century which was 
formerly supposed to have occurred, until Mr. Bryce and 
Mr. Freeman dispelled the gross error; it is difficult to see 
how medieval European history could have been politically 
anything more than a repetition of Grecian history, save 
only in the extent of its geographical range. Whoever is 
disposed to doubt so emphatic an assertion will do well 
duly to ponder the fact that the newly-arriving Teutonic 
subjects of the Empire (who would, in such case, have come 
as foreign conquerors) had not advanced beyond the stage of 
tribal organization. On their further aggregation into rural 
and civic bodies, the autonomous spirit would have acquired 
an ascendency which it might well have taken another more 
fortunate Athenian federation, or another all-absorbing 
Roman domination, thoroughly to destroy. Even as it was, 
it required all the immense power of the Church, unflinch- 
ingly exercised through many generations, to prevent Euro- 
pean society from disintegrating into a mere collection of 
mutually repelling tribal communities, But the Church 
not only preserved the best social results of Roman dominion, 
by hastening the consolidation of each embryonic nation- 
ality; it also, by its peculiar position as common arbiter 
between the different states thus arising, assisted in the 


220 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. pr 


formation of a new social aggregate of a yet higher order. 
The modern system of independent nationalities held in 
virtual federation—not by international codes, but by the 
possession of guiding principles of conduct more or less 
heartily reverenced by all—is chiefly the work of the Roman 
Church. Here, finally, we have reached a system whose 
structure bears in the highest degree the marks of perma- 
nence. It is sustained by the ever-deepening sentiments 
of cosmopolitan philanthropy and universal justice,—the 
most cohesive cf social forces, as the spirit of local selfish- 
ness was the most disruptive. 

Here it might seem that we have obtained all the data 
requisite for enunciating our law of social progress. But 
something is still wanting. Our law of progress, if now 
enunciated, would be too general. It would cover alike the 
phenomena of social and of organie life. In both there is 
an advance from indeterminate uniformity to determinate 
multiformity ; in both there is a continuous adaptation of the 
organism or the community to its environment; and in both 
there is a continuous integration, entailing an advance from 
incoherence to coherence of structure. We must now start 
in search of that all-important clause which shall express the 
essential difference between organic and social progress, 

’ In the ancient family-community, as delineated by Sir 
Henry Maine, the separate existence of the individuals was 
almost submerged and lost in the corporate existence of the 
ageregate. Personal freedom was entirely unrecognized. To 
family duties all individual rights were subjected. By a tie, 
religious no less than political, the members of the family 
were all held in allegiance to its oldest male representative, 
The father might abandon his son in infancy, and when 
grown up might sell him as a slave, or put him to death 
for disobedience. And the wife was to an equal extent in 
the power of her husband, to whom she legally stood in the 
relation of a daughter, so that marriage was but the ex- 


+. 


CH. XVIII.] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY, 221 


change of one form of servitude for another. No transfer of 


property was valid, unless the persons conducting it swore 
in the name of some ancestor,—dead ages ago, it might be; 
for so absolute was the authority of the paterfamilias that it 
could not be conceived as departing from him at death, but 
must be exercised by him, through the medium of prescrip- 
tive ceremoniai, over whole generations to come. Nothing, 


in short, was regulated by contract, but everything was deter- 


mined by status." And this is the fact which irretrievably 
demolishes Rousseau’s theory that social aggregation is due to 
@ primitive compact. That theory is merely an illegitimate 
attempt to explain an ancient phenomenon by causes which 
have had only a modern existence.2, The member of a pri- 
mitive tribal community had no conception of contract; what 
he was born to do, belonged to his status; and that he must 
do. The prevalence of this state of things in the empires of 
the East is chief among many converging proofs that those 
nations are nothing but immense tribes, or aggregates of the 


. first order. 


With the rise of higher aggregates, such as states, civic or 
imperial, this sinking of the individual in the corporate 
existence still for some time continued. The rights and 
duties of the individual were still unrecognized, save in so far 
as they followed froin the status in which he happened to be 
placed. In republican Rome, and in the Hellenic commu- 
nities, the welfare of the citizen was universally postponed 
to the welfare of the state. But circumstances too compli- 
cated to be here detailed, of which the chief symptom was 
the iicreasing importance assigned by Roman jurisprudence 
to contracts, resulted, at an advanced period of the empire, 


1 This term is well defined by Heineccius :—“ Status est qualitas cujus 
ratione homines diverso jure utuntur. .. Aliojure utitur liber homo ; alio 
servus ; alio civis ; alio peregrinus.”  Recitationes, lib. i. tit. 3. 

2 See the discussion of the doctrine in Austin, Province of Jurisprudence, 
pp. 331—371 ; Kant, Rechtslehre, Th. ii., Abschn, L3 Stahl, Philosuphde des 
Rechts, ii, 142; Maine, Ancient Law, chap. iv 


4 


222 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [Pr. 11, 


in the more or less complete recognition of individual rights 
and obligations. On the rise of the feudal system, the rela- 
tions of vassal to suzerain were, through the influence of 
Roman conceptions, extensively regulated by contract; and 
it is in this respect that the feudal institutions are most 
widely distinguished “from the unadulterated usages of pri- 
mitive races.”* It was, I believe, mainly owing to this that 
the integration of feudal lordships into nations was accom- 
panied by the enlargement of individual liberty to a much 
greater extent than the integration of ancient clans, gentes, 
and phratries into civic communities. The Roman Church 
also aided in promoting the freedom of individuals, as well 
as in facilitating the consolidation of states. By the more 
or less strict enforcement of clerical celibacy, it maintained 
in the midst of hereditary aristocracy a comparatively demo- 
cratic organization, where advancement largely depended 
upon moral excellence or intellectual ability. And preserv- 
ing, by the same admirable institution, its independence of 
feudal patronage, it was often enabled successfully to inter- 
pose between the tyranny of kings and the helplessness of 
subjects. To ecclesiastical celibacy, more than to almost any 
other assignable institution, we owe our emancipation from 
ancient patriarchal conceptions of social duty. The develop- 
ment of industry, crossing in various ways the antique 
divisions of society, has contributed to the same result; 
until, in modern times, the primitive mode of organization is 
almost entirely effaced, leaving but few barely traceable 
vestiges. Individual rights and obligations, from being no- 
thing, have come to be all in all. While originally the indi- 
vidual was thought to exist only for the sake of the state, 
the state is now regarded as existing only for the sake of the 
individual. | 

It will thus be seen that the very same process, which has 
resulted in the formation of social aggregates of a higher and 


1 Maine, op. cit. p. 365. 


on, XVIII] THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 223 


higher order, has also resulted in the more and more complete 
subordination of the requirements of the aggregate to the 
requirements of the individual. And be it further noticed, 
that the relative strength of the altruistic feelings which 
maintain the stability of the highest social aggregation, main- 
tains also to the fullest extent the independence of its inu- 
vidual members; while the relative strength of the egoistic 
feelings which in early times prevented the exisvence of any 
higher organization than the family or tribe, was also in- 
compatible with individual freedom of action, Now this is 
precisely the reverse of the state of things which we find in 
organic evolution. In organic development, the individual 
life of the parts is more and more submerged in the cor- 
porate life of the whole. In social development, corporate 
life is more and more subordinated to individual life. The 
highest organic life is that in which the units have the least 
possible freedom. The highest social life is that in which 
the units have the greatest possible freedom. This feature of 
social evolution is most conveniently described by Schelling’s 
term individuation, which is employed in a kindred sense 
both in Mr. Spencer’s and in other modern works on biology. 

Thus we have at last reached the conclusion in quest of 
which we set out. Supplementing our previous results, 
according to which organic and social evolution were seen to 
agree, by our present result, according to which they are seen 
to differ, we obtain a formula for social evolution which may 
be regarded as fundamentally accurate. We obtain the Law 
of Progress, which may be provisionally stated as follows :— 

“ The Evolution of Society is a continuous establishment of 
psychical relations within the Community, in conformity to 
physical and psychical relations arising in the Environment ; 
during which, both the Community and the Environment pass 
from @ state of relatively indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to 
a state of relatively definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during 


224 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, ~— (er. 11. 


which, the constituent Units of the Community become ever 
more distinctly individuated.” 

In the next chapter I shall proceed to show how this ex- 
ceedingly general and technical formula includes and justifies 
whatever is defensible in sundry less abstract generalizations, 
expressed in more popular language, by Comte and Buckle. 
We shall be called upon to pass in review certain phases of 
social evolution, and to criticize, with the aid of the theorems 
now at our disposal, the claims of Comte to be regarded as 
the founder of sociology. 


CHAPTER XIX, 
ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS, 


THE discussion contained in the foregoing chapter has shown 
to what a notable extent the phenomena of social evolution 
may be expressed, with the strictest accuracy, by formulas 
originally invented to describe the evolution of life in 
general, Let us briefly review the results which we heve 
already obtained. 

_ First, we saw that social as well as orga’e evolution 
consists in the continuous adaptation of the community, or 
organism, to the environment. Or, expressing the same thing 
in other words, social progress is a continuous establishment 
of inner relations in conformity to outer relations. 

Secondly, we saw that in the course of this adeptation 
the community, like the organism, continually incresses in 
definite heterogeneity, through successive differentiations and 
integrations. 

Thirdly, we saw that in the community, as in the orgavism, 
the increase in internal heterogeneity is determined by the 
continuous increase of heterogeneity in the environment. 

Fourthly, we saw that the increase of heterogeneity in the 
environment is determined by the successive integration of 
communities into more and more complex and coherent 
ageregates. And this law also holds of organic progress. 

VOL, II. Q 


226 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


These four generalizations, expressing the points in which 
social and organic development coincide, were summed up in 
the two first clauses of our law of progress. They are imme- 
diate corollaries of the law of universal evolution and of the 
definition of life as adjustment. They are not to be under- 
stood as mere expressions of striking analogies. They are 
to be understood as implying that the evolution of life and 
the evolution of society are, to a certain extent and in 
the most abstract sense, identical processes. Such a con- 
clusion, indeed, became inevitable the moment we were 
brought to admit that the phenomena of society constitute 
but a specialized division of the phenomena of psychical life. 

Nevertheless it would be a grave error to infer, from this 
necessary coincidence in development, that a community is 
nothing more than a kind of organism, as Plato imagined in 
his “ Republic,” and Hobbes in his “ Leviathan.” When we 
go so far as to compare the metropolis of a community to 
the heart of an organism, its roads to blood-vessels, its cir- 
culating commodities to circulating nutritive materials, its 
money to blood-corpuscles, its channels for transmitting 
intelligence to nerve-axes, and the individuals of which it is 
composed to physiologic units; we are instituting a series of 
analogies, which are no doubt of considerable value in the 
study both of history and of political economy. In his essay 
on the “Social Organism,” Mr. Spencer has traced a great 
number of such analogies, which are no less instructive than 
curious, but they are after all analogies and not homologies, 
So when M. Littré points out that the study of political 
economy stands in the same relation to the science of 
sociology as the study of the nutritive functions to the 
science of biology, he reveals an analogy of great philoso- 
phical value. But we nevertheless feel that there is a wide 
distinction between an organism and a community, which it 
would be absurd to ignore; and Hobbes’s conception of 
society as a vast Leviathan strikes us as grotesque. 


AE ee 


en, x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS, 227 


This insuperable distinction is the fact that in a community 
the psychical life is all in the parts, while in an organism the 
psychical life is all in the whole. The living units of society 
“do not and cannot lose individual consciousness,” while 
“the community as a whole has no corporate consciousness.” 
“The corporate life must here be subservient to the lives 
of the parts; instead of the lives of the parts being sub- 
servient to the corporate life.” The historical induction at 
the close of the preceding chapter showed us that such has 
been the case. While during the advance toward greater 
heterogeneity and coherence, the original lines of demarcation 
between communities have been ever becoming effaced as the 
communities have become integrated into higher and higher 
ageregates, we saw that as a part of the very same process 
the individualities of the members of society have been ever 
increasing in definiteness and ever acquiring a wider scope 
for activity. And we saw that this process not only has ever 
gone on, but must continue to go on; since, by the law of 
use and disuse, the sympathetic or social feelings must con- 
tinue to grow at the expense of the selfish or anti-social 
feelings ; and since this slow emotional modification, which 
makes possible the higher integration of society, ensures also 
the higher individuation of its members. “ Progress, there- 
fore, is not an accident, but a necessity. Instead of civiliza- 
tion being artificial, it is a part of nature; all of a piece with 
the development of the embryo or the unfolding of a flower. 
The modifications mankind have undergone, and are still 
undergoing, result from a law underlying the whole organic 
creation ; and provided the human race continues, and the 
constitution of things remains the same, those modifications 
must end in completeness.”* As surely as the astronomer 
can predict the future state of the heavens, the sociologist 
can foresee that the process of adaptation must go on until 

1 Spencer’s Essays, 2nd series, p. 154, 
* Spencer, Social Statics, p. 65. 
Q 2 


228 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rr. 1. 


in a remote future it comes to an end in rroximate equili- 
brium. The increasing interdependence of human interests 
must eventually go far to realize the dream of the philosophic 
poet, of a Parliament of Man, a Federation of the World, 


“When the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law,” 


and when the desires of each individual shall be in proximate 
equilibrium with the means of satisfying them and with the 
simultaneous desires of all surrounding individuals. Such a 
state implies at once the highest possible individuation and 
the highest possible integration among the units of the com- 
munity; and it is the ideal goal of intellectual and moral 
progress, 

Thus the fundamental law of progress, as formulated at the 
close of the last chapter, contains all the provisions requisite 
in such a formula. It describes, in a single grand generaliza- 
tion, all the phenomena of social evolution, both in so far as 
they result from the general laws of life, and in so far as they 
result from the operation of circumstances peculiar to the 
ageregation of intelligent organisms in a community. And 
it includes and justifies all the minor generalizations which 
may be reached by a direct induction from historical pheno- 
mena solely. 

This law of progress we find to be exceedingly abstract: it 
expresses a general truth quite completely disengaged from the 
incidents of particular cases. Such, as we were led to anti- 
cipate, must be the character of a law which generalizes a 
vast number of complex phenomena. A formula which is 
to include in one expression phenomena so different as the 
rise of Christianity and the invention of the steam-engine 
must needs be eminently abstract. To attempt to make it 
concrete, so as to appeal directly to the historical imagina- 
tion, would be to deprive it of its universality, to increase its 
power of expressing some one set of phenomena by render- 
ing it powerless to express some other equally important set, 


Se oem ee 
510 On ee ae 
. = Soa 


cu, x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 229 


This consideration explains the manifest failure of all the 
attempts which have been made to determine the general law 
of progress by a simple historical induction. Take, for ex- 
ample, the two crude generalizations which pretty nearly 
sum up the philosophy of history as it is contained in the 
work of Mr. Buckle; that “scepticism” is uniformly favour- 
able to progress, while the “protective spirit ” (or, the spirit 
of over-legislation) is uniformly detrimental to it. These, in 
the first place, are generalizations drawn from a peculiar and 
temporary phase of society and illegitimately extended to all 
phases of society ; and, in the second place, even so far as 
they go, they have but a limited applicability,—expressing 
at best certain aspects of intellectual and industrial progress, 
but leaving quite out of sight, that slow moral evolution 
which underlies the whole. Whatever of truth is contained 
in these statements is also contained in the formula which I 
am here expounding, and is much more accurately expressed 
in the terms of that formula. Scepticism, for instance, in 
the best sense of the word, is the attitude of mind which is 


‘caused by the perception that certain inner psychical rela- 


tions—say, a given set of beliefs or institutions—have ceased 
to be adapted to outer relations. The medieval conception 
of the world, as presented in Dante’s treatise on “The 
Monarchy,” was very closely adapted both to the know- 
ledge and to the social needs of the time. The conception 
of man as the centre of a universe made solely for his use 
and behoof, with a sun to give him light by day and a 
moon and stars to give him light by night, with an Em- 
peror and a Pope divinely appointed to rule him in this 
life, and an Autocrat in heaven uniting in himself the 
functions of these two, and ruling nature according to his 
arbitrary will; this conception, I say, was in harmony both 
with the best science and with the most urgent social 
requirements of the time, and the fact of its long duration 
shows how profound was the harmony, While this state of 


230 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. IL 


‘things lasted, there was but little room for scepticism. But 
after a while the psychical environment had so far altered 
as to be out of balance with this conception of the world. 
The Copernican revolution unseated Man from his throne in 
the centre of the universe, and advancing physical generali- 
zation cast discredit upon the theory of providential govern- 
ment, and so arose the long line of “infidels” from Bruno 
and Varini to Voltaire and Diderot. While, on the other 
hand, the increasing power of monarchy, especially in France, 
gradually undermined the moral independence of the Papacy, 
converting it from an upholder of equity and a friend of the 
people into an unscrupulous ally of regal usurpation and 
iniquity; and thus arose the Great Schism, followed by the 
Protestant revolt and the grand democratic movement which 
culminated in the French Revolution. Now what is all this 
infidel rebellion against dogma and democratic rebellion 
against authority, but the intellectual and moral turbulence 
caused by the growing cenviction that the psychical relations 
comprised in the authorized conception of the world were 
out of balance with the new aggregate of relations formed 
by the discoveries of science and the altered requirements 
of social existence? And this painful attitude of the mind, 
prompting men to fresh investigation of the order of nature 
and to new social re-arrangements, is the stimulus to a new 
and closer adaptation. 

Such is the function of scepticism in the community, and 
such also is its function in the individual. A person, for 
instance, is educated in an environment of Presbyterian 
theology, accepting without question all the doctrines of 
Calvinism. By and by his environment enlarges. Facts in 
science or in history, methods of induction, canons of criti- 
cism present themselves to his mind as things irreconcilable 
_ with his old creed. Hence painful doubt, entailing efforts 
to escape by modifying the creed to suit new mental 
exigencies. Hence eager study and further enlargement of 


cu. x1x.} ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 231 


the environment, causing fresh disturbance of equilibrium > 
and renewed doubt resulting in further adaptation. And so 
the process continues until, if the person in question be 
sufficiently earnest and sufficiently fortunate, the environ- 
ment enlarges so far as to comprehend the most advanced 
science of the day, and the process of adaptation goes on 
until an approximate equilibrium is attained between the 
order of conceptions and the order of phenomena, and 
scepticism, having discharged its function, exists no longer, 
save in so far as it may be said to survive in the engrained 
habit of weighing evidence and testing one’s hypotheses. 

Now to say that scepticism is one of the causes of 
progress is to make a historical induction which is valuable 
as far as it goes; but it is at best an empirical generalization. 
To make it a scientific law, we need to express the function 
of scepticism in terms of some formula which covers all the 
phenomena of progress. And who does not see that in so 
expressing it we are obtaining a far more definite and ac- 
curate and serviceable notion than when we merely state 
vaguely that scepticism is a cause of progress? 

Just so with the statement that the protective spirit is a 
hindrance to progress. By the colloquial phrase “ protective 
spirit,” Mr. Buckle means the control, or at least the undue 
control, of the community over its individual members, 
Now in estimating the effect of this circumstance upon pro- 
gress, everything depends upon the precise amount of such 
control which we are to regard as excessive. But this varies 
with each epoch of civilization. What would now be in- 
tolerable despotism was once needful restraint. You cannot 
have a constitutional democracy of Vandals or Moguls. So 
long as men’s altruistic feelings are not powerful enough to 
make them spontaneously respect the claims of their fellows, 
the only force which can make society hold together is that 
hero-worship which enjoins implicit obedience to the head 
of the tribe or state. But, as we have already seen, the 


233 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. 1 


steady growth of altruism at the expense of egoism, which 
renders possible a more complete social aggregation, renders 
possible also a more complete development of individual 
liberty. So that what in one age is a needful control 
exercised by the community over its members becomes in 
the next age an undue control. All this is expressed in the 
law of progress, as here formulated; but it is not expressed, 
with any approach to accuracy, in the crude statement that 
the protective spirit is an obstacle to civilization. 

Indeed the longer we study this general formula, the more 
we shall be convinced that it includes and justifies all sound 
inductions which can be derived from a survey of historical 
phenomena. As we apply it to the facts of history one after 
another, we shall see ever more clearly that its very abstract- 
ness is its excellence, and that the initial difficulty in 
thoroughly realizing its import arises from its very fulness of 
meaning. And we shall become ever more deeply impressed 
with the belief that no amount of mere historic induction 
can give us a universally applicable law of social progress, 
unless our results be deductively interpreted as corollaries 
from the general laws of life. 

We are now in a position to examine the claims of Comte 
to be regarded as the founder of sociology. And first let us 
note that a law of social progress answering so many require- 
ments as are met by the law above expounded could not 
have been obtained earlier than the present generation or 
even than the present decade. 

To conceive of sociogeny as a specialized branch of psy- 
chogeny, itself a specialized branch of biogeny, was not pos- 
sible until a general science of genesis had been at least 
partially instituted. The very idea of a science of genesis 
as applied to organic phenomena was not elaborated until 
the appearance of Von Baer’s great treatise in 1829, 
And the conception was then altogether too novel to be 
worked into the web of philosophy which Comte was weav- 


cu. x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 233 


ing. Considering how, throughout the latter part of his life, 
he steadfastly refrained from the study of contemporary scien- 
tific literature, I do not think it likely that Comte ever 
became aware of the growing prominence of this conception 
of genesis; and if he had become aware of it he would 
doubtless have scornfully repudiated it, as he repudiated 
almost every new conception which was distinctly in advance 
of the limited scientific knowledge of 1830. The knowledge 
which Comte was not prepared to utilize at that date, he 
was certainly not in a condition to utilize at any later period 
of his life. It was in 1857, the year of Comte’s death, that 
Mr. Spencer, in an essay entitled “ Progress: its Law and 
Cause,” first definitely extended the law of organic develop- 
ment to historic phenomena; although he had ever since 
1851 been visibly working toward that result, and had in 
1855 reached that grand generalization of the development 
of both life and intelligence, regarded as processes of adjust- 
ment, which underlies the law of social progress here ex- 
pounded. It was this splendid series of researches, culmi- 
nating in the announcement of the universal law of evolution, 
in 1861, which supplied a new basis for all the sciences 
which treat of genesis, and rendered possible the discovery of 
the special, laws of sociogeny. And finally, in 1861, the 
further clue to these special laws was given by Sir Henry 
Maine, whose immortal treatise on “ Ancient Law” threw an 
entirely new light upon the primitive structure of society, 
and demonstrated—what before could only have been sur- 
mised—that human society, as earliest organized, consisted 
of a congeries of tribal communities by the integration of 
which have arisen the various orders of states and federations 
known to history. 

When, therefore, we inquire whether Comte did or did not 
create a science of sociology, we need not be surprised if it 
appears that he did not create such a science. For in socio- 
logy, even more than in any other science, the prime requisite 


234 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1 


is tv formulate the law of evolution—in this case, the crder 
of sequence of historic events from epoch to epoch. So far 
as a science of society could be founded upon purely statical 
considerations, the work had already been performed; by 
Adam Smith, as regards political economy, by Bentham, as 
regards jurisprudence, and by both these great thinkers, as re- 
gards ethics. But ethics, jurisprudence, and political economy, 
put together, do not make up a science of society, as Comte 
clearly saw. For in sociology the historical element—the 
question whence we started and whither we are bound—is 
the element which takes precedence of all others. Even 
ethics, jurisprudence, and political economy cannot be placed 
upon a truly rational basis until we understand the order of 
intellectual ‘and moral change from epoch to epoch. To 
understand the “tendencies of the age” is an indispensable 
pre-requisite for sound sociological thinking as well as for 
sound political acting. Thus that portion of sociology which 
treats of genesis is, relatively to the whole science, even 
more important than the corresponding portions of biology 
and psychology. In biology pure and simple, we can, as we 
have seen, obtain a tolerably complete notion of the order of 
changes in the organism, with but occasional reference to the 
comparatively stable and unchanging environment. In psy- 
chology we have to take the environment into account at 
every step; but unless we are studying the quite special 
problem of the growth of the mental faculties, we do not 
need to refer to a definite and persistent succession of changes 
in the environment. But in sociology we cannot work in 
this way. As M. Littré has well pointed out, when we come 
to study humanity we are met by a new phenomenon un- 
known in biology or in psychology pure and simple. That 
new phenomenon is Tradition, or the bequeathing of all its 
organized intellectual and moral experience by each genera- 
tion to its successor. Here for the first time we have an 
environment which is rapidly changing in a definite order 


cu. x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. o& 


of sequence, and changing by the very activity of the com- 
munity itself. The organized experience of each generation 
becomes a part of the environment of its successor, and 
since in each successive age “the empire of the dead over 
the living increases,” the environment of each generation 
consists to a greater and greater extent of the sum-total of 
traditions bequeathed hy all past generations. Hence we 
cannot hope scientifically to comprehend the simplest feature 
in any given state of the community without reference to 
ancestral states. The religious phenomena of the present 
day, for example, cannot be understood without previous 
knowledge of the whole history of Christianity, and indeed 
of human speculative thought since men began to be aware 
of the universe about them. Our political organization can 
be scientifically interpreted only as the offspring of ances- 
tral political organizations in a series reaching back to the 
primitive tribal community.’ And so with all the aspects 
of society. Whether we are studying a creed, a code of laws, 
a dialect, a system of philosophy, a congeries of myths, or 
a set of manners and customs, we can arrive at the rational 
solution of our problem only through a historical inquiry. 
Hence the doctrine of genesis, indispensable as it is in the 
_ other two organic sciences, becomes, if one may say so, even 
more indispensable in sociology. Here the whole science 
rests upon sociogeny, and until we have reached a scientific 
conception of progress we cannot stir a step. 

Thus, in addition to the unparalleled complexity of its 
phenomena, and to its general dependence both for doctrine 
und for method upon the simpler sciences, we perceive still 
another reason why the science of sociology has been the last 
to be constituted. Resting as it does upon the law of pro- 
gress, it has had to wait not only until the preceding sciences 


1 See’ Mr. Freeman’s book, Comparative Politics,--the work of a great 
roaraeetl dag inherits the gift of Midas, and makes gold of every subject that 
@ touches. 


1236 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [er. 11. 


were founded, but until they were sufficiently advanced to 
supply it with the general formula of organic development, 
from which alone the law of social progress could be deduced. 
It was not enough that Bichat had laid the foundations for a 
general theory of nutrition, reproduction and innervation, or 
that James Mill had established the fundamental laws of 
association ; though this was indeed much. The new science 
had to wait until Von Baer had traced the order in which 
organisms develope, until Mr. Darwin had shown how through 
heredity and natural selection organisms become adapted to 
their environments, and until Mr. Spencer had shown how 
associated ideas and emotions are slowly generated and modi- 
fied in conformity to surrounding circumstances. 

All this, of course, could not be foreseen by Comte. But 
he nevertheless clearly saw—and it does honour to his philo- 
sophic acumen—that a comprehensive theory of social changes 
can be obtained only by studying them in the order of their 
historical dependence. He saw that the laws of sociology 
are at bottom the laws of history. And especially, from the 
practical point of view, he saw that no general theory fit to 
serve as a basis for the amelioration of society could be de- 
duced from mere abstract reasonings about human nature, or 
obtained inductively from the mere observation of contem- 
porary social phenomena. All theories formed in this way, 
without reference to the order of historic progression, are in 
danger of being stated too absolutely, and are wont to give 
birth only to utopian projects. Comte was never weary of 
pointing out the errors of those political economists who 
ieduce general laws of accumulation and distribution from 
the industrial phenomena presented by a single country at a 
particular epoch ; or of those moralists who base their theories 
upon that absurdest of aphorisms, that “human nature is 
always and everywhere the same”; or of those legislators 
who, in ignorance of the fact that humanity is travelling in 
a definite and partially ascertainable direction, fondly hope to 


De et ee 


pa. x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 237 


turn it hither and thither by shrewdly-concocted acts of par- 
liament. Nor, in maintaining this last position, did he ever 
fall into the opposite error—characteristic of superficial 
writers like Macaulay and Buckle—that individual genius 
and exertion is of little or no account in modifying the course 
of history. He did not forget that history is made by indi- 
vidual men, as much as a coral reef is made by individual 
polyps. Each contributes his infinitesimal share of effort: 
nor is the share of effort always so trifling. Considering the 
course of history merely as the resultant of the play of moral 
forces, is there not in a Julius Cesar or a Themistokles as 
large a manifestation of the forces which go to make history 
as in thousands of common men? Nevertheless the fact 
remains that civilization runs in a definite path, that the 
sum-total of ideas and feelings dominant in the next genera- 
tion will be the offspring of the sum-total of ideas and feel- 
ings dominant in this, and that only by understanding the 
general course of the movement of humanity can we hope to 
make our volitions count for much as an item in the resulting 
ageregate of effects. 

Holding such views as these, Comte saw that the first aim 
of the sociological inquirer must be to ascertain the law of 
progress. And accordingly he set himself to work to perform 
this task, with the only instrument then at his command,— 
that of historical induction. I have already remarked upon 
his wonderful skill in the use of that instrument of research. 


~I doubt if anyone has ever lived who had a keener sense of 


the significance of historic events, so far as such significance 
could be perceived without the aid of conceptions furnished 
by the sciences of organic development. The fifth volume of 
the “ Philosophie Positive” is certainly a marvellous tableau 
of the progress of society. I know of no concrete presenta- 
tion of universal history which can be compared with it. 
The general excellence of the conception is matched by the 
excellence of the execution even to the smallest details. And 


238 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 1, 


amid the host of pregnant suggestions concerning Greek and 
Roman, and especially concerning medieval, history, the 
great fact that there has been and is a determinate order 
of sequence in human affairs is placed quite beyond cavil 
on the highest plane of inductive demonstration. 

To achieve so much as this was to show that a science of 
sociology is possible, and to prepare the way very thoroughly 
for the creation of such a science. But Comte professed to 
have done more than this. He regarded himself as the 
founder of sociology, and is so regarded by his disciples. 
It is part of our business to determine, if we can, whether 
the claim is a valid one; and in order to do this, we must 
examine the theorems which Comte propounded as the 
fundamental laws of progress. : 

These theorems are two in number,—the first relating to 
the intellectual, the second to what we may call the material, 
development of mankind, The first is an old acquaintance, 
being nothing else than the generalization that all human 
conceptions must pass through three stages—the theological, 
the metaphysical, and the positive. We have already (Part I. 
chapter vii.) examined this theory upon its own merits. 
Tried by a psychological analysis, we have found it to be 
only partially true. We saw it to be correct in so far as it 
asserts that the prevailing conception of the world becomes 
less and less anthropomorphic from age to age; but incorrect 
_in so far that it asserts that in this deanthropomorphizing 
process there are three radically distinguishable stages, and 
also, in so far as it asserts that the process must end in Posi- 
tivism, We saw that, although without doubt men began by 
seeing volition everywhere and must end by seeing an in- 
scrutable Power everywhere, nevertheless the mental process 
has throughout been one and the same, and any appearance 
of definite stages can be only superficial. Nevertheless, 
between the primeval savage who prays to his fetish and the 
modern philosopher who recognizes that he must shape his 


eS ST a ed 
> i 


ew. x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 239 


conduct according to invariable laws or pay the penalty in 
some form of inevitable suffering, the difference in mental 
attitude is so vast that we may well have a distinction in 
terms to correspond to it. It is for this reason that I have 
frequently contrasted Anthropomorphism and Cosmism as 
the initial and final terms of a continuous progression. This, 
however, is not the Comtean doctrine. Again, metaphysics, 
as Comte understands it, being merely imperfect scientific 
inquiry conducted by the aid of the subjective method be- 
queathed by anthropomorphism, cannot be regarded as the 
peculiar possession of any particular stage. 

But while Comte’s theorem, in spite of these radical 
defects, contains a germ of truth and has been found to be 
eminently useful as a formula for intellectual development, I 
cannot but be surprised that Comte should have regarded it 
as the fundamental law of social progress, and still more that 
such able writers as Mr. Mill and Mr. Lewes should at the 
present day be found countenancing such an opinion. Does 
this “law” explain how it was that Greek civilization pre- 
maturely failed ? Does it throw any light upon the causal 
connection between Roman universal dominion and the 
Christian sentiment of the brotherhood of men? Does it 
recognize the distinction between the growth of a community 
in size and its growth in structure, or hint to us that the 
differences between Chinese and European civilization may 
be summed up in the statement that China is only a stupen- 
dous tribal community, while Romanized Europe is virtually 
a federation of exceedingly heterogeneous national aggre- 
gates? And while, as we shall presently see, it uncon- 
sciously recognizes that intellectual development is a con- 
tinous process of adaptation, does it say anything about that 
slow process of emotional change by which the more har- 
monious co-operation of societies and the more perfect 
freedom of individuals are alike rendered possible? Indeed 
it says nothing about any of these things; and I must think 


240 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, : ee 


that these are very extensive lacune in a theorem which 
professes to be the fundamental law of social progress. 

But this formula, as it stands, is not the whole of Comte’s 
fundamental law of history. With the advance from theolo- 
gical, through metaphysical, to positive conceptions of the 
world, Comte couples an advance from military to industrial 
life, through an ill-defined intermediate stage—inserted, 
doubtless, to complete the threefold parallelismm—which he 
calls the “legal” stage. Thoroughly to explain what he 
means by this “legal” stage of society, would require more 
detail than I can here well indulge in. We must be content 
with observing that he means to designate that epoch, which 
indeed we have not yet left behind us, in which parlia- 
mentary legislation is thought competent to renovate society 
artificially—in which it is supposed that legislatures can 
make men rich by giving them paper-money, intellectual by 
pa‘ronizing literature, temperate by closing dram-shops. As 
this phase of opinion was very conspicuous in the eighteenth 
century, coupled with metaphysical systems of political 
ethics deduced from revolutionary theories of the “inherent 
rights of man,” Comte links this whole set of doctrines 
together, and makes a so-called metaphysico-legal stage in 
social progress. But I cannot think this a happy generali- 
zation. This “legal” stage is, at the best, a phase of intel- 
zectual development, and to introduce it into the midst of a 
purely social progress from military to industrial life, seems 
too much like committing the logical fallacy known as cross- 
division. Omitting this stage, then, and reducing Comte’s 
double formula to its lowest terms,—the only ones, I think, 
upon which he himself would invariably have insisted,—we 
have the following, as the Comtean law of progress :— 

The progress of society is a gradual change from anthro- 
pomorphic to positive conceptions of the world, and from 
military to industrial modes of life; and the latter kind af 
change 1s determined by the former. 


cH. x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND ORITICISMS. 241 


Such is the form of statement most favourable for Comte, 
and at the same time I believe it to be the one which best 
represents his permanent opinion, We shall presently see 
that the generalization of the change from military to in- 
dustrial modes of life is one of great value, and it is to the 
thorough elaboration of it that much of the merit of Comte’s 
social philosophy is due. But I must first call attention to 
the fatal defect in the above formula, the defect which 
destroys its claim to be regarded as the law of progress. 
That fatal defect is its total omission of moral feeling as a 
factor in social evolution. Though he is far from committing 
Mr. Buckle’s absurdity of denying that there has been any 
improvement in moral feeling, Comte nevertheless falls into 
substantially the same error with Mr. Buckle, in attempting 
to explain all social progress as due simply to a progressive 
alteration of opinion. The error is one which seems to be 
shared by two other eminent writers——Mr. Mill and Mr. 
Lewes. Here are the statements of the four: Mr. Mill says, 
“We are justified in concluding that the order of human 
progression in all respects will mainly depend on the order 
of progression in the intellectual convictions of mankind.” ! 
Mr. Lewes says, somewhat more vaguely, “The evolutions 
of Humanity correspond with the evolutions of Thought.” ? 
Mr. Buckle says, “ The progress of mankind depends on the 
success wiih which the laws of phenomena are investigated, 
and on the extent to which a knowledge of those laws is 
diffused.”* Comte says, “It is not to the readers of this 
work that I think it necessary to prove that ideas govern 
the world, and that the social mechanism reposes ultimately 
upon opinions.” 4 | 

Now it is not so much because of what these propositions 
assert as because of what they omit, that they must be pro- 

1 System of Logic, 4th edit., vol. ii. p. 517. 
2 Philosophy of the Sciences, p. 23. 
8 History of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 1. 


4 Philosophie Positive, tom. i. p. 48. 
VOL. II. R 


242 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rr. 1, 


nounced unsatisfactory and misleading. It is beyond ques- 
tion that the progress of mankind does depend upon the 
progressive conformity of the order of their conceptions to 
the order of phenomena; but, after the inquiry contained in 
the preceding chapter, I believe no further proof is necessary 
to convince us that the progress of mankind also depends 
upon the progressive conformity of their desires to the 
requirements arising from their aggregation in communities. 
If civilization is a process of intellectual adaptation, it is 
also a process of moral adaptation; and the latter I believe 
to be the more fundamental of the two. The case is well 
stated by Mr. Spencer, in the following passage: “Ideas do 
not govern the world; the world is governed by feelings, to 
which ideas serve only as guides. The social mechanism 
does not rest finally upon opinions; but almost wholly 
upon character..... All social phenomena are produced 
by the totality of human emotions and beliefs: of which 
the emotions are mainly predetermined, while the beliefs are: 
mainly post-determined. Men’s desires are chiefly inherited ; 
but their beliefs are chiefly acquired, and depend on 
surrounding conditions; and the most important surround- 
ing conditions depend on the social state which the prevalent 
desires have produced. The social state at any time existing 
is the resultant of all the ambitions, self-interests, fears, 
reverences, indignations, sympathies, etc., of ancestral citizens 
and existing citizens. The ideas current in this social state 
must on the average be congruous with the feelings of citizens ; 
and therefore, on the average, with the social state these 
feelings have produced. Ideas wholly foreign to this social 
state cannot be evolved, and, if introduced from without, 
cannot get accepted—or, if accepted, die out when the 
temporary phase of feeling which caused their acceptance 
ends.” This statement, I may observe in passing, is well 
iliustrated by the abortive attempts of missionaries to civilize 
the lower races of mankind by converting them to Christi- 


tH. xix.) ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 243 


anity. Though they sometimes succeed in procuring temporary 
verbal acceptance for Christian ideas, they almost always fail 
in effecting a genesis of Christian feeling, and such civiliza- 
tion as they are able to produce is apt to be both supcrficial 
and transient, This is simply because civilization is not a 
mere process of external acquirement, but is a process of slow 
adaptation or breeding, which requires many generations to 
effect a permanent, modification of character. The Fiji, whose 
language contains no words expressive of the higher emotions 
or the more exalted principles of action, cannot be made 
into a Christian. You may cover him with a very little of 
the external varnish of civilization; you may astonish him 
into accepting a few formulas, to him quite unintelligible, 
concerning the relations of man to his Creator; but, after all, 
he remains a savage still, in feelings and in habits of thought, 
bloodthirsty, treacherous and superstitious, with a keen 
appetite for human flesh. Or suppose you could resuscitate 
a medizval baron—one of those innumerable freebooters 
who lived entrenched in the romantic castles of the Rhine 
and levied blackmail on every luckless wayfarer—suppose 
you could resuscitate such a man, and were to endeavour to 
expound to him in the simplest language a few of the most 
self-evident modern axioms concerning political rights and 
the interdependence of human interests: would he under- 
stand you? By nomeans. So vast would be the difference 
in mental habit, that in all probability he could not even 
argue with you. “ Hence ”—to continue with Mr. Spencer— 
‘though advanced ideas when once established act upon 
society and aid its further advance; yet the establishment of 
such ideas depends on the fitness of the society for receiving 
them. Practically, the popular character and the secial 
state determine what ideas shall be current; instead of the 
current ideas determining the social state and the character. 
The modification of men’s moral natures, caused by the 


r 2 


244 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [er. 11. 


continuous discipline of social life, is therefore the chief 
proximate cause of social progress.” 

It is worthy of note that Comte, in his later period, comes 
partly around to this very point of view. At the becinning 
of the “ Politique Positive,” we find him announcing that 
the increasing tendency in the altruistic impulses to prevail 
over the egovistic impulses is the best measure by which 
to judge of the progress of society. Yet the unsteadiness 
with which he grasped this principle is revealed by the 
somewhat misty statement, a few pages further on, that “the 
co-ordination of human nature as a whole depends ultimately 
upon the coordination of intellectual conceptions.” A 
similar fluctuation in opinion may be noticed in Mr. Buckle; 
and it was indeed hardly possible for the function of moral 
feeling as a factor of progress to be thoroughly understood 
by writers unacquainted with the laws of adaptation upon 
which the scientific interpretation of that function is based. 
But whatever Comte’s latest opinions may have been, since 
he never formulated any law to include the action of moral 
feeling as a factor of progress, his claims to be regarded as 
the founder of sociology must rest entirely upon his theory 
of progress as announced and ny illustrated in the 
“ Philosophie Positive.” 

That theory, as we now see, is much too incomplete to 
serve as the foundation for a scientific study of history. 
Civilization cannot be summed up in the correct formula 
that men’s occupations begin by being military and end by 
being industrial, or in the incorrect formula that men’s con- 
ceptions of the world begin by being anthropomorphic and 
end by being positive; nor is it true that the former change 
is determined by the latter. We need to add the formula 
that men’s feelings begin by being almost purely egoistic and 
" must end by being altruistic to a considerably greater extent 
than will suffice to prevent individual interests from clashing. 


4 Politique Positive, tom. i. p. 16, 


cH. x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS, 245 


And even with all three formulas before us, we need some- 
thing more before we can say that we have obtained the Law 
of Progress. These formulas are historical generalizations of 
great value; but as thus announced, they are too isolated 
with respect to each other. The progress of society is not 
moral progress, or intellectual progress, or material progress ; 
but it is the combination of all the three, Our three for- 
mulas, therefore, must be integrated in a single formula. And 
this is done, and satisfactorily done, when it is shown that 
they are all involved in that law of adaptation or adjustment 
which underlies sociology, as well as psychology and biology. 

That the progress from egoism to altruism is involved in 
that fundamental law, was proved in the preceding chapter, 
and has been illustrated throughout the whole of this dis- 
cussion. But the law of adaptation equally involves the 
progress from Anthropomorphism, not to Positivism, but to 
Cosmism, as a necessary corollary. For what does that 
progress depend upon? What is the underlying process of 
which it is the necessary symptom and result? Why is it 
that men begin by investing the unknown causes of pheno- 
mena with quasi-human attributes and end by recognizing a 
single Cause which is inscrutable? In treating of deanthro- 
pomorphization (Part I. chap. vii.) we examined this point. 
We perceived the primitive anthropomorphism to be a corol- 
lary from the relativity of all knowledge. We saw that, to 
interpret phenomena at all, men must interpret them in 
terms of their own consciousness, We saw that before the 
dawn of science, when events seemed isolated and capri- 
cious, the phenomenon itself was by a natural inference-— 
which only the progress of science has taught us to correct— 
endowed with a quasi-human personality. We traced the 
manner in which, as phenomena become generalized in wider 
und wider groups, the causes of phenomena become con- 
veived as more and more abstract, and become stripped by 
slow degie:s of their anthropomorphic vestments. Until 


246 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


finally, when generalization has proceeded to such an extent 
as to give us a single grand science of Cosmology, dealing 
with the Universe as an integral whole, there comes to be 
recognized a single Cause of phenomena, which, as being 
infinite, cannot be in any anthropomorphic sense personal, 
and which, as being absolute, must be inscrutable. 

Thus we see that Comte’s formula is not fundamental, 
even as a formula for intellectual development. The pro- 
cess of deanthropomorphization is not the fundamental fact. 
The continuous organization of knowledge and generaliza- 
tion of phenomena is the fundamental fact, of which the con- 
tinuous deanthropomorphization is the necessary symptom 
and result. Now in Part I. chap. ii, we traced the out- 
lines of this continuous organization of knowledge; and we 
found that the advance from incomplete to complete know- 
ledge consists in the continuous establishment of groups of 
notions which are ever more coherent within themselves, 
while they are ever more clearly demarcated from one 
another. Now what is all this but a continuous process 
of differentiation and integration? When we say that from 
first to last, from the simplest cognitions of infancy to the 
widest generalizations of science, we cognize phenomena 
invariably through difference and likeness, we mean that we 
are continually differentiating notions answering to unlike 
phenomena and continually integrating notions answering to 
like phenomena. Or, to express the same thing in other 
words, we are continually establishing relations of likeness 
and unlikeness among our conceptions, that in some way or 
other definitely correspond to relations of lfkeness and un- 
likeness among phenomena. Thus our intellectual progress 
is at bottom a process of adaptation. And, when treating of 
the Test of Truth (Part I. chap. iii), it was shown that 
Truth, the goal of intellectual progress, is nothing else than 
the complete adaptation of the order of conceptions to the 
order of phenomena,—the establishment of inner relations 


en. xix.) IZLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 247 


that are in equilibrium with outer relations. Thus we 
obtain a ~eritable law of intellectual progress; whereas to 
say that men’s conceptions pass from Anthropomorphism to 
Positivism is merely to enunciate an empirical generalization, 
which, besides being empirical, is also radically imperfect. 
The gradual change from a military to an industrial life 
must also seek its rational explanation in the law of progress 
as above formulated. The diminution of warfare and the 
concomitant increase of devotion to industrial pursuits are 
entailed by the growth of communities in size and structure. 
Among the primitive tribal societies there is no industrial 
life save that implied in hunting and fishing, and at a some- 
what. later date in the rearing of domestic animals. Settled 
agricultural pursuits require a greater power of continuous 
application and a more developed ability to subordinate 
present enjoyment to the anticipation of future needs than 
is to be found in the primitive savage. It is only the mental 
habit produced by long-continued social discipline which 
enables us to work to-day that we may enjoy the fruits of 
our labour at a distant period. The primeval tribe wanders 


from spot to spot, seeking ever a better hunting-ground or 


richer pasturage, leading a predatory life which differs in 
little save in its family organization from that led by the 
lower animals. In this stage of society constant warfare is 
inevitable, since each tribe must fight or be erushed out of 
existence by neighbouring tribes. Over a large part of the 
earth’s surface, such has been the monotonous career of 
savage man from the earliest times until the present day. 
Such appears to have Leen, in its main features, the ancient 
history of our own country before its conquest by Europeans, 
as it is admirably delineated in the writings of that acute 
observer Mr. Parkman. 

The exigencies of warfare, however, of themselves facili- 
tate that integration of tribal communities which we have 
seen to be the indispensable condition of progress, A con+ 


248 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (Pr. um. 


siderable step toward civilization is taken when tribes begin 
to aggrecate for mutual defence over a wide tract of country. 
When America was discovered, an aggregation of this sort 
had apparently begun to be formed among the Iroqaois; and 
such was the highest organization reached by the ancient 
Turanian tribes of Central Asia. A far more important step 
is taken when warfare ceases to be purely destructive and 
becomes acquisitive; or, in other words, when the victors, 
instead of massacreing the vanquished, begin to make slaves 
of them. By this step agricultural industry is fairly brought 
into existence, and the tribal confederacy becomes fixed in 
location and enabled to increase indefinitely in size at the 
expense of the less highly organized communities in the 
neighbourhood. Under these conditions the tribal con- 
federacy may grow until it takes on the semblance of an 
“agoregate of the third order,’ as in China,! or in ancient 
Egypt, Assyria, Media, Lydia, and Persia. I am expressing 
something more than an analogy: -I am describing a real 
homology as far as concerns the process of development— 
when I say that these communities simulated modern Euro- 
pean nations much in the same way that a tree-fern of the 
carboniferous period simulated the exogenous trees of the 
present time. The vast growth and the considerable civi- 
lization obtained by such communities were rendered possible 
only through the institution of industrial slavery in place of 
the primeval indiscriminate slaughter of captives. Only 
through enforced labour did the continuous culture of the 
soil and the consequent stability of society become possible ; 


1 “In every respect the Chinese constitution of society may be regarded as 
a gigantic amplification of the constitution of the family. The family is no 
doubt the constituent element of which all societies are composed ; just as, in 
the body, all tissues, nervous or muscular, are generated from the primitive 
cellular tissue ; but whereas in other societies we find differentiation into 
classes and institutions which have no direct analogue in the family, in China 
we find far less of this, far more of adherence to the primitive social tissue, 
to the patriarchal type. On this type the village and the empire are alike 
moulded.” Bridges, in Lssays on International Polity, p. 401. 


on. x1x.]} ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS, 249 


a point which Comte clearly saw, and has brilliantly 
illustrated. 

Thus we see how the exigencies of self-protection entailed 
by the primitive state of universal warfare furnished of 
themselves the conditions for the rise of industry. We need 
not trace in detail the slow growth of the industrial spirit 
at the expense of the military spirit in the ancient civic 
communities, in the ancient and medieval Empire, and in 
modern times, That has been done, with a masterly hand, 
by Comte. We may only note briefly how industry—the 
offspring of slavery, itself the offspring of warfare—has all 
along, by aiding the differentiation and integration of society, 
been draining the vitality out of its primeval parent. Let 
us note, then, that the kind of differentiation, known as 
“division of labour,” by rendering the various portions of 
the community more and more dependent on each otlier, 
renders a state of warfare ever less easy to sustain, and 
therefore continually, though slowly, diminishes the frequency 
and shortens the continuance of wars. The statement that 
in early times a community is, on the whole, better able to 
endure protracted warfare than in later times, may be illus- 
trated by a comparison between the Punic Wars of Rome 
and the War of Secession in our own country. The horrible 
destruction of life and property occasioned by the first and 
second Punic wars is minutely described in Mommsen’s 
“Kouun History.” The first of these desperate struggles 
lasted twenty-three years, during the five severest of which 
the vensus of Roman patricians was diminished by one-sixth 
of the whole number,—a fact terrible to contemplate when its 
full significance is realized. After twenty-three years of com- 
parative quiet began the still more deadly struggie against 
Hannibal, which lasted seventeen years. During this war, the 
total loss of life in all the communities engaged—‘talian, 
Spanish, Sicilian, and African—cannot be estimated at less 
than 600,000 persons actually slain; a loss which I believe 


250 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. 11. 


somewhat exceeds that of the Northern and Southern States 
in the American war. But to make a fair comparison, we 
must include the circumstance that the population of these 
ancient communities was not more than one-sixth as great 
as the population of the United States; and that in ancier 
times the normal rate of increase of population was very 
much slower than in such a community as ours. The second 
Punic war was, therefore, relatively as murderous as our 
civil war would have been had it continued until between © 
three and four million lives were destroyed. And if we 
would appreciate the direct damage to industry which it 
entailed, we have a sufficient datum in the fact that during 
those seventeen years more than four hundred flourishing 
towns and villages in Italy alone were blotted out of 
existence.! 

Now opinions may differ as to the possibility of our 
carrying on for seventeen years a war which should drain 
our resources as the Hannibalic war drained the resources of 
Italy. Probably no country could so well sustain such a trial 
as the United States, owing to the favourableness of our 
social conditions for exceedingly rapid growth in wealth and 
population. Nevertheless, even omitting foreign interference 
from the account, I do not believe the thing would be possible. 
I believe it perfectly safe to assert that a war like the one 
we have lately passed through would, if prolonged to seven- 
teen years, entail social disintegration throughout the com- 
munity. Yet the absolute military power of the United 
States is incomparably greater than that of ancient Rome: 
wherein, then, lies the difference ? 

The explanation will be found, and the particular conclu- 
sion reinforced, when we consider the enormous increase of 
heterogeneity and interdependence in the modern as con- 
trasted with the ancient community. In ancient Italy there 
was but little division of labour: it required but a few simple 

4 Mommsen, Réimische Geschichte, tom. i, p. 671 5 see also p. 536. 


cn. x1x.] ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 251 


occupations to supply the wants of the whole community. 
In the United States considered as a whole, the division ot 
labour is perhaps not quite so extreme as in western Europe, 
owing to the sparseness of population and the purely agricul- 


tural activity of large sections of the country: still, the 


inlustrial differentiation is very great, and to supply the 
wants of each portion of the community a vast number of 
mutually dependent and highly complicated occupations is 
indispensably necessary. Obviously the heterogeneous com- 
munity cannot so well bear the abstraction of units from its 
mutually dependent parts, as the homogeneous community 
could bear the abstraction of units from its relatively in- 
dependent and self-sufficing parts. The difference is much 
the same as the difference between cutting off portions of 


‘a worm and cutting off portions of a vertebrate animal. 


You may take one of the lower worms and slice away at 
it for some time without destroying it, but in the case 
of the vertebrate a comparatively small loss of parts entails 
destruction. In society the principle is the same. The 
Romans could lose army after army, while the few who 
remained at home could carry on all the agricultural 
and commercial operations necessary to the maintenance of 
the community. There were no great organized industries, 
manufacturing or commercial, so linked together that the 
destruction of any one might cause general financial 
disaster. But in any large modern community industry has 
yecome so heterogeneous that it is difficult for one part to 
take on the functions of another part, and so completely 
integrated that a sudden and considerable withdrawal of men 
from the ordinary pursuits of life can hardly take place 
without causing widespread suffering, And the contrast is 
made still greater by the industrial federation of modern 
communities as compared with the industrial isolation of 
ancient states. Though the time has perhaps never been, 
since Mediterranean civilization began, when a war could 


252 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. 11 


continue very long in one community without tending to set 
up disturbance in some other, yet this interaction of different 
states was far less conspicuous in ancient than it is in 
modern times. The Hannibalic war might go on for seven- 
teen years, and Athens or Alexandria not be much the worse 
off for it. But before the war of secession had continued 
twelve months, the consequent suffering in Lancashire was 
manifesting itself in riots, and England for a time seemed 
willing at all hazards to interfere and check the contest. 
This single example—out of hundreds that might be taken 
—must suffice to illustrate the way in which the ever- 
increasing interdependence of human interests, itself both 
the cause and the effect of industrial progress, is ever making - 
warfare less and less endurable. To this it must be added 
that both moral and intellectual factors contribute to bring 
about the general result. As human interests in various 
parts of the world become more and more inextricably 
wrought together, and as communities which lie apart from 
each other come ever into closer contact, the ancient an- 
tagonisms of sentiment between them slowly disappear, and 
international friendship grows at the expense of the old 
hostility or distrust. Thus the moral adaptation due to long- 
continued social discipline diminishes the warlike feelings 
and strengthens the feelings which maintain an industrial 
régime; while on the other hand, intellectual adaptation, 
ever adding new complication to industry, arrays the opinion 
of society more and more decidedly against war, as against 
un intolerable source of disturbance. Besides which, the 
very heterogeneity of the military art, the increasing cecm- 
plication both of the implements and of the methods of war- 
fare, due to scientific and industrial progress, renders war ever 
more costly, and makes the community less willing to engage 
in it. And these cooperating processes must go on until] 
—probably at no very distant period—warfare shall have 
become extinct in all the civilized portions of the globe, 


cu. x1x.) ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS. 253 


In so far as the present chapter has dealt with the claims 
of Comte to be regarded as the founder of Sociology, I believe 
it is sufficiently proved that these claims cannot be sustained, 
though in many ways he did more than anyone else to pre- 
pare the way forsuch an achievement, Ifa man can ever be 
properly said to create or found a science, it is only when he 
discovers some fundamental principle which underlies the 
phenomena with which the science has to deal, and which 
thus serves to organize into a coherent ratiocinative body of 
knowledge that which has hitherto been an incoherent em- 
pirical body of knowledge. It was in this way that Newton 
may be said to have created a science of celestial dynamics, 
and that Bichat is sometimes, and more loosely, said to have 
been the founder of modern biology. In no such sense can 
Comte be said to have created sociology. Standing on the 
vantage-ground of contemporary science, which enables us to 
discern in outline the law of progress, we can see not only 
that Comte was far from detecting that law, but that, 
with the limited appliances at his command, he could not 
have been expected to discover it. Nevertheless his 
contributions to sociology were exceedingly brilliant and 
valuable, and he did perhaps all that the greatest thinker 
could have done forty years ago. He arrived at a double 
generalization of the phenomena of intellectual and material 
progress, as wide as could then be reached by unaided 
historical induction; and he verified this double generaliza- 
tion by an elaborate survey of ancient and modern history, 
which, even had he written nothing else, would alone suffice 
to make his name immortal. It entitles him, I think, to be 
ranked first among those sociologists who have proceeded 
solely on the historical method,—on a somewhat higher 
plane, perhaps, than Vico or Montesquieu, Turgot or Con- 
dorcet. That generalization, in both its branches, and in so 
far as it is correct, we have here seen to be a corollary from 
the fundamental law of social evolution obtained in the pre- 


254 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (PT. 11, 


ceding chapter. We have seen that the continuous adapta- 
tion, both moral and intellectual, of the community to its 
environment, involves, as necessary concomitants, both the 
progressive deanthropomorphization of men’s conceptions of 
Cause, and the gradual change from military to industrial 
habits of life. And the harmony between the results thus 
obtained by pursuing two wholly independent lines of 
inquiry, adds fresh support both to the fundamental law and 
to its historic ccrollaries, In the very act of proving that 
Comte did not achieve the whole, we do but place what he 
did achive upon a deeper and firmer basis, 


CHAPTER XX. 
CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS 


At the beginning of the chapter on the Evolution of Society 
we remarked upon the error of those metaphysical writers 
who have gone so far as to ascribe progressiveness to an 
occult tendency inherent in human nature. It need not 
take a very long survey of human societies, past and present, 
to assure us that beyond a certain point stagnation has been 
the rule and progress the exception. Over a large part of the 
earth’s surface the slow progress painfully achieved during 
thousands of prehistoric ages has stopped short with the 
savage state,as exemplified by those African, Polynesian, and 
American tribes which can neither work out a civilization 
for themselves, nor appropriate the civilization of higher 
races with whom they are brought into contact. Half the 
human race, having surmounted savagery, have been arrested 
in an immobile type of civilization, as in China, in ancient 
Eeypt, and in the East generally. It is only in the Aryan 
and some of the Seinitic races, together with the Hungarians 
and other Finnic tribes subjected to Aryan influences, that 
we can find evidences of a persistent tendency to progress. 
And that there is no inherent race-tendency at work in this 
is shown by the fact that some of the Aryaus, as the Hindus 
and Persians, are among the most unprogressive of men. It 


256 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 1. 


becomes apparent, therefore, that the progress of the European 
Aryans, and of such other races as have from time to time 
arisen from an immobile condition, can have been due only 
to a concurrence of favourable circumstances. In order to 
complete our outline-sketch of the Evolution of Society, we 
must consider some of these circumstances, and thus, so far 
as possible, redeem the promise which was implied at the 
beginning of the discussion. By pointing out some of the 
conditions essential to progress in civilization, we must en- 
deavour to throw a glimmer of light upon the fact that so 
small a portion of the human rece has attained to per- 
manent progressiveness. A faint glimmer of enlightenment 
is indeed the most we can hope for, and even this will 
perhaps be thought to have been obtained by a mere re- 
statement of the problem in other words. Nevertheless, in 
other departments of study as well as in algebra, much good 
is often done by reducing a problem from one form of ex- 
pression to another. For if such a reduction ends in classi- 
fying the problem, the first and most important step is taken 
toward a solution. Let us deal in this way with the pro- 
blem before us, which is one of the most complex and 
difficult that the history of the world presents. 

It will be obvious to everyone that there is a close kin- 
ship between this question in sociology and the biological 
question why certain species remain unchanged through 
countless ages. The latter fact has been urged as an obstacle 
in the way of the development theory, and has been felt to 
be such by Dr. Bastian, who has endeavoured to dispose of 
it by an extraordinary application of his favourite theories 
of archebiosis and heterogenesis But indeed those who 
urge this fact as an obstacle, and those who seek to explain 
it away, show that they have not thoroughly comprehended 
the Doctrine of Evolution. For example, it is not implied 
in the general law of evolution, as above expounded in 


1 Bastian, Beginnings of Life, vol. ii. pp. 584—640. 


cH. Xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 257 


Chapter IV., that wherever the integration of. matter and 
concomitant dissipation of motion are going on, there must 
always ensue a change from indefinite uniformity to definite 
multiformity of structure. As has already been shown, such 


- a change can be expected to take place only when a number 


of specified circumstances concur in forwarding it. So it is 
one of the peculiar merits of Mr. Darwin’s theory of natural 
selection, that it does not allege an unceasing or ubiquitous 
alteration of animal and vegetal forms, but includes, in a 
general way, all cases of persistence of type, as well as all 
eases of proyress or retrogression. One and the same general 
theory accounts for the fact that, while some species thrive 
in the struggle for life and acquire new capacities, others 
dwindle in numbers or deteriorate in structure, while others 
again maintain themselves unchanged throughout immense 
periods. Throughout all these cases, the general truth is 
easily discerned that the total result will depend upon a very 
complex combination of circumstances: the difficulty is in 
applying the general truth to the special cases that arise. 
Probably no naturalist could point out all the specific circum- 
stances which have caused any one race of animals to prevail 
over another in the struggle for life. Such a task would 
probably demand a more vast and minute knowledge of the 
details of the organic world than it is as yet possible for the 
most unremitting industry, inspired by the highest genius, 


to acquire. Yet no one doubts the general principle that it 


is natural selection which determines, not only which races 
shall prevail, but also which races shall vary and which shall 
remain unmodified. Soin dealing with human societies, in 
the primitive era with which the present discussion is chiefly 
concerned, the historic data are insufficient to enable us to 
ascertain the precise circumstances to which the prevalenze 
and the improvahility of certain races are to be attributed. 
Nevertheless we can here, too, point out sundry general 
VOL, II. 8 


258 COSMIC PHILOSOPAY. [vr. 1 


principles in accordance with which natural selection has 
determined the course of events. 

In considering the action of natural selection upon the 
human race, we must first note how that action is, in some 
respects, materially modified by social conditions. Among 
inferior animals, even those which are gregarious, as the 
ruminants and sundry smaller carnivora, the preservation 
of any individual requires his almost complete adaptation 
to surrounding circumstances. There is so little division 
of labour, and consequently so little mutual assistance, that 
all must be capable who would survive. With the earliest 
manifestations of true sociality this state of things must 
be somewhat altered. Even in the rudest actual or ima- 
ginable society there is some division of labour, and some 
mutual assistance. Those who are less swift for hunting 
or less strong for fighting may at least perform services for 
the hunters and warriors, and in return will be more or 
less efficiently fed and protected; so that those who fall 
below the average capability of the race are no longer sure 
to be prematurely cut off, and thus the agency of natural 
selection in keeping up a nearly uniform standard of fit- 
ness is to some extent checked. In the highly complex 
societies which we call civilized, division of labour and co- 
operation have done much to obscure the effects of this 
agency. From the cooperation which goes on to a greater 
or less extent in all societies, and from the enormous hetero- 
genelty of man’s psychical organization, it follows that there 
are innumerable circumstances which may enable individual 
men to survive, in spite of their falling considerably short of 
the normal standard of the community and the age to which 
thev belong. This fact, as will hereafter appear, renders it 
possible for man to have an ideal standard of excellence or 
successfulness in life, and is closely associated with the 
genesis of the ethical feelings of approval and disapproval. 

But while natural selection among individuals grows some. 


cH, Xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 259 


what less rigorous, its effects upon rival or antagonist societies 
are in nowise diminished in their beneficent severity. The 
attributes which tend to make a society strong and durable 
with reference to surrounding societies, are the attributes 
which natural selection will chiefly preserve. As Mr. Wal- 
lace has pointed out: “Capacity for acting in concert for 
protection, and for the acquisition of food and shelter; sym- 
pathy, which leads all in turn to assist each other; the 
sense of right, which checks depredations upon our fellows ; 
. .. self-restraint in present appetites; and that intelligent 
foresight which prepares for the future, are all qualities that 
from their earliest appearance must have been for the benefit 
of each community, and would therefore have become the 
subjects of natural selection. Tribes in which such mental 
and moral qualities were predominant, would have an ad- 
vantage in the struggle for existence over other tribes in 
which they were less developed, and would live and main- 
tain their numbers, while the others would decrease and 
finally succumb,” ? 

The most conspicuous result of this unceasing operation 
of natural selection upon rival communities, has been the 
continuous increase of the aggregate military strength of 
the human race, and the more and more complete segre- 
gation of this military strength into those portions of the 
race which are most civilized. As Mr. Bagehot has ably 
shown,” however broken or discontinuous the provressive 
career of the European family of nations may seem to have 
been in other respects, there can hardly be a doubt that 
the increase of their aggregate military force has been un- 
interrupted. There can hardly be a doubt that the total 
fighting power of the Mediterranean communities was greater 


1 Wallace, Natural Selection, p. 812. 

2 See his Physics and Politics, London, 1872,—a little book so excellent 
both in thought and in expression that one cannot but wish there were much 
more of it, 

& 2 


260 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11 


under Trajan than in the time of Polybios; that the sum of 
Latx and Teutonic strength in the days of Charles Martel 
was greater than in the days of Marcus Aurelius; that the 
united Europe of Pope Gregory VII. could have vanquished 
the united Europe of Charles the Great, but would have 
been no match for the united Europe of Plilip, Elizabeth, 
and Henry; or that the existing generation of Aryans in 
Europe and America represents a greater quantity of mili- 
tary power than any previous generation. This result is 
partly due to the mere increase of the civilized communities 
in size and industrial complexity, and partly to the integra- 
tion, over wider and wider areas, of communities previously 
isolated. But while there have been periods of intermittence 
in the operation of these social and political circumstances, 
as during the Teutonic reconstruction of the Roman Empire, 
the increase in total fighting power appears to have gone on 
without intermittence, showing that it has been in great 
degree due to a cause unremitting in its operation. That 
cause has been natural selection. In the earlier and ruder 
times it has operated through the actual conquest of the 
weaker tribes, provinces, or cities, by the stronger. In later 
and more refined ages, the quieter but equally stringent com- 
petition of nation with nation, involving the possible conquest 
or relative humiliation of one by another, has caused a con- 
siderable proportion of the ever-accumulating intellectual 
and industrial acquirements of each nation to be expended 
(or, as Mr. Bagehot more happily says, “invested”) in an 
increase of military strength. 

From the cooperation of these circumstances the aggregate 
physical strength of civilized society has increased so enor- 
mously that in comparison with the military events of our 
time, the military events of antiquity seem like mere child’s 
play, if we look at physical dimensions alone, and not at 
world-historie significance. Ignoring the latter point of view, 
Mr. Robert Lowe has maintained that the battle of Marathon 


CH. Xx. ] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 261 


was an event of less importance than “a good colliery 
accident,” because forsooth only 192 lives were lost on the 
side of the Greeks!!_ To him, however, who has acquired 
the habit of looking at European history as one connected 
whole, it will not seem extravagant to say that contemporary 
English civilization is indebted to the victory of Marathon 
in a far higher degree than to the victories of Crecy or 
Agincourt, or even of Waterloo. The immense relative 
importance of some of these ancient military events of small 
dimensions, is due to the fact that military strength was not 
then concentrated in the most highly civilized communities, 
as it is in modern times. In antiquity there was a real 
danger that the nascent civilization of higher type might be 
extinguished by the long-established civilization of far lower 
type, or even by barbarism, through mere disparity of 
numbers. We do not know how often in prehistoric times 
some little gleam of civilization may have been put out by 
an overwhelming wave of barbarism, though by reason of 
the great military superiority which even a little civilization 
gives, such occurrences are likely to have been on the whole 
exceptional This great superiority is well exemplified in 
the ease with which the Greeks defeated ten times their own 
number of Asiatics at Marathon, and afterwards at Kynaxa. 
Nevertheless it cannot be questioned that the invasions ot 
B.c. 490 and 480 were fraught with serious danger to Grecian 
independence, and if Datis or Mardonios had happened to 
possess the military talent of Cyrus or of Timour, the danger 
would have been alarming indeed. Now if little Greece had 
thus been swallowed up by giant Persia, and the nascent 
political ana intellectual freedom extinguished in Athens as 
it was in the Ionic cities of Asia Minor, the entire future 
history of Macedonia, of Rome, and of Europe, would have 
been altered in a way that is not pleasant to contemplate. 
When we reflect upon the enormous place in human history 


1 See Freeman, Comparative Politics, p. 498. 


262 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pT 11 


which is filled by the products of Athenian intellectual 
activity during the two centuries succeeding the victory 
of Marathon; when we remember that the foundations of 
philosophy, of exact science, of esthetic art in all its 
branches, of historic and literary criticism, and of free 
political discussion, were then and there for ever securely 
laid; when we consider the widely ramifying influcnces, now 
obvious and now more subtle, of all this intense productivity 
upon Roman ethics and jurisprudence, upon the genesis of 
Christianity, upon the lesser Renaissance of the thirteenth 
century, and the greater Renaissance of the fifteenth; when 
we see how inseparably the life of Athens runs as a woof 
through the entire web of European life down to our own 
times ;—when we come to realize all this, we shall begin to 
realize how frightful was the danger from which we were 
rescued at Marathon and at Salamis, 

Probably at no subsequent time has European civilization 
been in a position of such imminent peril. In the life-and- 
death struggle between Rome and Carthage, the military 
superiority belonged so decidedly to the more highly-evolved 
community that even the unrivalled genius of Hannibal was 
powerless to turn the scale. One of the most conspicuous 
features in Roman history, from the conquest of Spain by - 
Scipio to the conquest of the Saxons by Charles the Great, 
was the continual taming of the brute force of barbarism, 
and the enlisting it on the side of civilization. In the 
earlier times there seems to have been real danger in the 
invasions of Brennus and of the Cimbri, and perhaps in that 
of Ariovistus. But with the conquest of Gaul and the 
more subtle process of Romanization which the Teutons 
underwent, the danger from these sources disappeared, until, 
when the great struggle with outer barbarism came in the 
fifth century, we see the Empire saved on a Gaulish field by 
the prowess of the West-Goth. The battle of Chalons seems 


1 See Arnold, History of Rome, vol. iii. p. 68, 


cH. Xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 263 


to me to liave been the last of the great fights in which the 
further continuance of European civilization was really 
imperilled. Though the victory of Attila could hardly have 
entailed the rebarbarizing of the whole Empire, it might well 
have caused such a temporary “solution of continuity” between 
ancient and modern history as the old historians supposed to 
have been wrought afew years later by the comparatively 
insignificant intrigues of Odoacer. Many hard-working years 
might have been needed to recover the ground thus lost. 
But in passing to the eighth century, I think we may well 
doubt the soundness of Gibbon’s suggestion that the victory 
of Abderahman at Tours might have led to the Moham- 
medanization of Europe; for while one great defeat forced the 
Arab to retire behind the Pyrenees, on the other hand the 
complete overthrow of the Frankish power would probably 
have required many battles as fierce as this one. This 
increased toughness of civilization is still more plainly seen 
five centuries later, when the overwhelming victory of the 
Mongols at Liegnitz produced no effect at all beyond a 
temporary scare. It was not that the invasion under Batu 
was intrinsically less forinidable than the invasion of Attila, 
but that the physical strength of civilized Europe had been 
growing throughout the long interval, so that the blow which 
might once have proved fatal was no longer dangerous, 
Since the fruitless sieges of Vienna by the Turks, the mere 
dread of barbaric or semi-.arbaric invasion has passed away 
for ever. Tribally-organized barbarism is henceforth out of 
the lists entirely, and even the civilization of lower type has 
ceased to compete, in a military way, with the civilization of 
higher type. 

Thus we see how natural selection, facilitating and co- 
operating with the integration of the more civilized communi- 
ties and their increase in size and complexity, has gradually 
removed one of the dangers to which the earlier civilizations 
were exposed, and has concentrated the power of making 


264 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [prt 


war on a grand scale into the hands of those communities in 
which predatory activity is at the minimum and industrial 
activity at the maximum. We are thus again reminded of 
the curiously cooperating processes, partially illustrated in 
the preceding chapter, through which warfare or destructive 
competition, once ubiquitous, is becoming evanescent, and 
giving place to a competition that is industrial or productive 
in character. But what now more especially concerns us is 
to look back to the earlier stages of the struge¢le for life 
between communities, and to observe some of the circurn- 
stances which must have tended to make some communities 
prevail over others. 

The illustrations just cited show well enough the tendency 
of the higher type of civilization to prevail, in the long run, 
over the lower type. They are illustrations of the military 
advantages of civilization, And Mr. Bagehot has incidentally 
shown how thoroughly this fact disposes of the old-fashioned 
doctrine that modern savages are the degraded descendants 
of civilized ancestors. It was formerly assumed that, in- 
stead of mankind having arisen out of primeval savagery, 
modern savages have fallen from a primeval state of civili- 
zation, having lost the arts, the morality, and the intelligence 
which they once possessed; and of late years some such 
thesis as this has been overtly maintained by the Duke of 
Argyll. Such a falling off, upon any extensive scale, is in 
every way incompatible with the principle of natural selec- 
tion. Take, for example, the ability to anticipate future 
contingencies,—to abstain to-day that we may enjoy to- 
morrow. In the next chapter it will be shown that this is 
the most prominent symptom of the deepest of all the intei- 
lectual differences between civilization and savagery. Now, 
obviously, the ability to postpone present to future enjoy- 
ment is, in a mere economic or military aspect, such an im- 
portant acquisition to any race or group of men, that when 
enve acquired it could never be lost. The race possessing 


cH, xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 265 


this capacity could by no possibility yield ground to the 
races lacking it, unless overwhelmed by sheer weight of 
vastly superior numbers,—a case which the hypothesis of a 
universal primitive civilization does not leave room for. Or 
take the ready belief in omens by which the life of the 
savage is so terribly hampered. Could a single tribe in old 
Australia have surmounted the necessity of searching for 
omens before undertaking any serious business, it would 
inevitably, says Mr. Bagehot, have subjugated all the other 
tribes on the continent. In like manner it is obvious that 
such implements as the bow and arrow and the iron swords 
or hatchets could never have given place to the boomerang 
and the knives and hatchets of stone or bronze; and 
the intellectual capacity implied in monotheism and the 
discovery of elementary geometry could never have been 
conquered out of existence by the intellectual capacity im- 
plied in fetishism and the inability to count above three or 
four. So, because the men who possess the attributes of 
civilization must necessarily prevail, in the long run, over 
the men who lack these attributes, it follows that there 
cannot have been, in prehistoric times, a general loss of the 
attributes, external and internal, of civilization. 

Now one of the attributes which will most surely give to 
any group of men an advantage in the competition with 
neighbouring groups, is the presence of a powerful bond of 
union between its members. Our entire survey of social 
evolution shows uncat one of the most distinctive character- 
istics of civilized men is their capacity for acting in concert 
with one another over wider and wider areas. The next 
chapter will enable us more fully to understand that the 
acquirement of this capacity is simply a further prolonging 
of the extension of correspondences in time and space which 
has been shown to be a leading characteristic of psychical 
progress throughout the organic world. The growth of this 
capacity, during historic times, has been a complex result of 


266 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (ev. 11, 


the increase of progressive communities, in size, in hetero- 
geneity, and in reciprocity of intercourse. For this many-sided 
development has uot only entailed a relative weakening of 
the more anti-social impulses and a complicated interlacing 
of the interests of communities and individuals, but it has 
also entailed a general widening and diversifying of intellec- 
tual experiences, enabling men to realize the desirableness of 
those remoter ends which are indirectly secured by concerted 
action over wide areas. Thus in a high state of civilization 
a large amount of concerted action is ensured by the opera- 
tion of the ordinary incentives to individual activity, without 
the aid of extraordinary incentives especially embodied in 
eovernmental edicts, political, sacerdotal, or ceremonial. But 
in a primitive state of society it is quite otherwise. It is 
notorious that uncivilized men cannot be made to act in 
concert save under the stimulus of loyalty to a chief, or of 
reverence for some superstition, or of slavish obedience to 
time-honoured custom. Hence in early times those commu- 
nities are most likely to prevail, in which loyalty, reverence, 
and obedience are most strongly developed. From a military 
point of view there are hardly any other advantages which can 
outweigh these. Rigidity in family-relationships is one in- 
stance in which these advantages are manifested. A commu- 
nity in which the patria potestas is thoroughly established must 
inevitably subjugate those rival communities in which kin- 
ship is reckoned through females only. The common-sense 
of the old historians perceived and insisted upon the fact 
that much of the marvellous success of the Roman common- 
wealth was traceable to strictness of family-discipline. In 
like manner, as Mr. Bagehot has suggested, we may discern 
the true social function perfurmed by those dreadful religions 
of early times which so naturally awakened lvathing and 
horror in such thinkers as Lucretius: they enforced, with 
tremendous sanctions, such lines of conduct as were pre- 
scribed by the uecessities of the primitive community; they 


cH. Xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS, 267 


rend-red it easier to ensure concerted action among men by 
compelling all to act in conformity to some unchangeable 
rule. 

In short, among numerous tribal groups of primitive men, 
those will prevail in the struggle for existence in which 
the lawless tendencies of individuals are most thoroughly 
subordinated by the yoke of tyrannical eustom,—the only 
yoke which uncivilized men can be made to wear. Such 
communities will grow at the expense of tribes that are 
less law-abiding. It matters comparatively little, as Mr. 
Bagehot says, whether the tyrant custom be intrinsically 
good or bad: the great thing, at first, is to subject men’s 
individualities to a system of common habits. Mr. Mill has 
complained, in his work on “ Liberty” and elsewhere, that 
one of the characteristics of modern civilization is the dis- 
appearance of strongly-marked individualities, such as we 
find in medieval and in ancient civilization. But surely 
he is quite mistaken in this,—and his mistake arises 
partly from neglect of the circumstance that in ancient 
and in feudal times the full manifestation of one powerful 
individuality was achieved only through the utter sinking 
of many weaker individualities, and partly from the fallacy 
of taking the unparalleled community of Athens as a type 
of ancient communities in general, Surely in no previous 
age has there been anything like so wide a scope for the 
manifestation of strongly-marked individuality of thought 
or character as in the present age. It would, indeed, be 
hardly too much to say that this is the first age in human 
history which has given us a realizing foretaste of the 
time when freedom of thought and freedom of action shall 
not only be acknowledged as a right but insisted upon as 
a duty for all men. But this is due to the fact that men’s 
natures have, through long ages of social discipline, be- 
come in some degree adapted to the social state. This 
relatively free recogniticn of idiosyncrasies in thought or 


268 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rr. m 


demeanour shows that modern society can count upon an 
organic or instinctive conformity to law on the part of 
individuals, upon which ancient society could not count, 
In early times, freedom from the yoke of custom meant 
simple lawlessness ; and against such disintegrating lawless- 
ness all the most formidable sanctions which society could 
devise were brought to bear. Hence the feeling of corporate 
responsibility is universal among primitive societies. “ Not 
only the mutilators of the Hermai, but all the Athenians— 
not only the violator of the rites of the Bona Dea, but all 
the Romans—are liable to the curse engendered; and so 
all through ancient history.” In such a stage of mental 
development, the community as a whole is beset with 
perpetual anxiety concerning the words and deeds of its 
members; and it is to a great extent from this sense of 
corporate responsibility that persecution for heresy in opinion 
or eccentricity in behaviour is ultimately derived, 

The inference from all these considerations is obvious. 
Tribes with the strongest sense of corporate responsibility, 
with the most rigid family-relationships, the most despotic 
yoke of custom, go on growing through long ages at the ex- 
pense of rival tribes in which the means for securing con- 
certed action over wide areas are less perfect. Age after age 
some competing tribes are exterminated or enslaved, while 
nthers are absorbed by the victorious tribe and assimilated to 
it; and thus age after age the bond of tyrannical custom 
becomes stronger and more rigid, while it extends over wider 
areas and constrains a larger number of people to uniformity 
of behaviour. Such a process will naturally result in the 
formation of a huge social “ aggregate of the first order,” as 
in Egypt, Assyria, China, Mexico, and Peru. The common 
sharacteristic of these civilizations of lower type is that 
their growth in size has been out of all proportion to their 
increase in structural heterogeneity. Though they may 
contain many cities, they contain nothing like the civic type 


a air: 


oH. XX.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS, 269 


of social organization, as seen in Greece and Italy; and 
though they have taken on the semblance of nations, yet 
they lack the fundamental conception of true Nationality,— 
the union of individuals through community of interests, 
rather than through physical community of descent.t In 
all these half-civilized societies, we find that the prim‘tive 
tribal or patriarchal mode of structure is simply expanded 
without being essentially altered. The family is still the 
unit of society, the sense of corporate responsibility is still 
powerful, individual careers are still determined by status 
and not by contract, originality in opinion or in demeanour 
is still prohibited by the most formidable legal or social 
penalties ; the tyranny of custom, in short, is still paramount, 
and—to crown all—the three kinds of governmental agency, 
political, ecclesiastical, and ceremonial, are still concentrated 
in the person of the patriarchal ruler, who is at once king, 
chief-priest or vice-deity, and master of ceremonies. 

Observe, now, the dilemma which seems to confront us. 
In the operation of natural selection upon primitive tribes, 
we seem to have found a satisfactory explanation of the 
erowth of such social “ aguregates of the first order” 
as China or old Mexico. But now, how are we going to 
get past this stage? How shall we account for the forma- 
tion of social aggregates of a higher type? The problem now 

1 In antiquity the only conceivable bond of social union was community of 
descent, actual or fictitious, Even the conception of territorial proximity as 
a source of common action did not gain currency in Europe till towards the 
tenth century of the Christian era. Theodoric the East-Goth, whom the old 
historians called “ King of Italy,” would not have understood the meaning of 
the phrase. In those days a man could be king of a group of kindred 
people, without reference to locality, but such a thing as kingship of a geo- 
graphical area was unintelligible. The modern nationality (of which the 
United States is perhaps the most perfect type) is founded upon the thorough 
subordination of the patriarchal theory of community in blood to the modern 
theory of community in interests. The so-called “doctrine of nationalities,” 
about which so much sentimental nonsense has been written, ought rather to 
be called the “doctrine of races,” since it is virtually a revival of the patri- 


archal theory. It may be truly said that, in spite of greater ethnic diversity, 


Switzerland, for example, is in many respects more completely a nationality 
than Spain. 


270 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11. 


before us is how to relax the tyranny of custom, and thus 
afford a chance for social reorganization, without entailing a 
retrogression toward primeval lawlessness. It is one of the 
puzzles of sociology that the very state of things which is 
pre-eminently useful in bringing men out of savagery is 
also likely to be pre-eminently in the way of their attaining 
to a persistently progressive civilization. ‘No one,” says 
Mr. Bagehot, “will ever comprehend the arrested civiliza- 
tions unless he sees the strict dilemma of early society. — 
Either men had no law at all, and lived in confused tribes, 
hardly hanging together, or they had to obtain a fixed law 
by processes of incredible difficulty. Those who surmounted 
that difficulty soon destroyed all those that lay in their way 
who did not. And then they themselves were caught in 
their own yoke. The customary discipline, which could only 
be imposed on any early men by terrible sanctions, con- 
tinued with those sanctions, and killed out of the whole 
society the propensities to variation which are the principle 
of progress.” * 

Mr. Bagehot shows that this problem has never been 
successfully solved except where a race, rendered organically 
law-abiding through some discipline of the foregoing kind, has 
been thrown into emulative conflict with other races simi- 
larly disciplined,—a condition which has been completely 
fulfilled only in the case of the migrating Aryans who settled 
Europe. But before we can extricate ourselves from our 
‘seeming dilemma, we need to point out, more distinctly 
than Mr. Bagehot has done, that in all probability none of 
the progressive Aryan races has ever passed through any- 
thing corresponding to the Chinese or Egyptian stage, and that 
when a community has once got into such a state of fixity, it 
is really questionable whether it can ever get out of it, unless 
under the direct tuition of other communities. It would at 
present be premature to speculate upon the results which 

1 Physics and Politics, p. 57. | 


cH. xx. ] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS, 271 


are likely to flow from British dominion in Hindustan, or 
from the intrusion of European ideas into Japan and China. 
Looking to the past only, it is safe to Say that when the 
“cake of custom” has become so firmly cemented, and on 
such a great scale, as in these primitively-organized commu- 
nities, there is but little likelihood of its getting broken. The 
Oriental stage—if one may so call it—is not a stage through 
which progressive nations pass, but it is a stage in which 
further progress is impossible, save through the occurrence 
of some deep-reaching social revolution. The progressive 
races are just those which have in some way avoided this 
dilemma,—which have succeeded in securing concerted action 
among individuals without going so far as to kill out the 
tendency to individual variations. Historically we find no 
traces of primitive political despotism among the European 
Aryans. Alike among Greeks, Italians, Teutons, and Slaves, 
we find the elements of a free constitution at hand, and the 
“age of discussion” inaugurated, at the very beginnings of 
recorded history. Though society is still constructed on the 
patriarchal type, there is nevertheless an amount of relative 
mobility among the social units such as is not witnessed 
eitler in Oriental despotisms or among modern savayes. 

I believe, tlierefore, that the character of the dilemma is 
somewhat inadequately represented by Mr. Bagehot. It is not 
quite true that in a progressive society the “cake of custom” 
must first be cemented as firmly as possible, and then after- 
wards broken. For when the cementing passes beyond a 
certain point, the breaking becomes impracticable. The 
dilemma consists rather in the fact that in a progressive 
society the cementing and the breaking of the “cake of 
custom” must go on simultaneously. Observe the seeming 
contradiction. 

While it is perfectly true that the power of concerted 
action on a large scale gives to the community possessing it 
a decided military advantage, and while it is true that in 


272 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. m. 


early times this power of cooperation can hardly be gained 
save through the uniformity of discipline prescribed by 
tyrannical custom, it is also true that a considerable amount 
of individual variability is, even in early times, a source of 
military strength to the community. For in all stages of 
progress the law holds good that, in order to ensure a per- 
manent supply of first-rate individual excellence, whether in 
intellect or in character, there must be perpetual variation,— 
the members of the community must not all conform to 
precisely the same standard of belief or action. It is not 
simply that out of the conflict of opinions there comes an 
increase of mental power, but it is that where absolute 
uniformity of opinion is enforced, the very individuals most 
capable of serving the community by reason of superior 
mental power are neglected, thwarted, or killed off. The 
truth is not yet wholly trite that the most valuable men of 
every age are its heretics. For this truth is obscured by the 
kindred truth that the heresy of one age is the orthodoxy. 
of the next,—so that complacent orthodoxy, ignoring the 
historical point of view, is wont to claim as its allies to-day. 
the very men whom it burnt or crucified in days gone by. 
Obviously it is in the nature of things that this should 
be so. If old-established ideas were never to be unsettled, 
new truths would cease to find recognition, and progress 
would be at an end. But in any age the discoverers and 
promulgators of new truths are to be found only among 
those who possess the superior mental flexibility requisite 
for shaking themselves loose from the network of old- 
established ideas. And wherever there is such mental 
flexibility, there is sure to*be heresy. Above all is this true 
in early communities, for in these later times we have 
become so far accustomed to variations in belief and practice, 
and have so far substituted individual for corporate responsi- 
bility, that there is a great deal of variation which we do 
not count as heresy, but which formerly would have been 


oH. xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 273 


regarded as such. Hence in an early community, the enforce- 
ment of absolute uniformity of belief and practice must 
establish a kind of natural selection tending to weed out all 
superior flexibility of mind. As a direct result the community 
closes up a prolific source of military superiority in the 
shape of individual political and military genius; for men 
of the Themistokles type are not produced, as a rule, in such 
states of society. The indirect result will be more fully 
appreciated when the next chapter has shown us how closely 
mental flexibility is implicated with that power of represent- 
ing objects and relations remote from sense which also 
underlies the invaluable power of anticipating future emer- 
gencies. To weed out superior flexibility of mind is to 
check further development in forethought or longheadedness, 
—a truth of which the entire history of the Oriental com- 
munities, so unlike each other in many respects, is one long 
and reiterated confirmation. Still further, when we recall 
the patent fact that the efficiency of any community is 
measured by the efficiency of its individual members, and 
that this efficiency is kept up by a kind of natural selection 
which is none the less potent for not working with the death: 
penalty as among lower animals, we shall realize how great 
is the military advantage entailed by free variation and com- 
petition. In illustration of all this we may recur to a 
historical event already cited for other purposes. When the 
Mede, whose laws were quoted as the very type of unchange- 
ableness, sought to add to his overgrown dominions the 
modest patrimony of the Athenian, of whom it was said 
that he was ever curious after new and unheard-of things, 
the wager of battle resulted in no doubtful verdict. When 
it is asked how Miltiades, with his ten thousand, could so 
quickly put to flight Datis, with his hundred thousand, the 
unhesitating reply is that the result was due to the superior 
social organization under which the ten thousand were reared. 
But this superiority of organization consisted mainly in the 
VOL. IT, T 


4 
274 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1 


fact that the individual career of the Mede wats prescribed 
by unvarying tradition, while the maxim upon which the 
Athenian implicitly acted was La carriére ouverte aux talents, 

These are some of the military advantages of Mr. Bagehot’s 
“age of discussion.” But in truth they are advantages which 
do not belong exclusively to any age or to any epoch of 
development, but are operative at all times, though in dif- 
ferent ages and communities their action is diversely com- 
plicated with the action of the opposite advantages previously © 
considered. Mr. Bagehot’s error—if it be real and not mcrely 
apparent—lies in describing as purely successive circum- 
stances which must have been in great degree simultaneous. 
The “strict dilemma of early society” is not that the fetters 
of tyrannical custom must first be riveted and afterwards 
unriveted, but that they must be riveted and unriveted at 
the same time in communities which are destined to attain 
to permanent progressiveness. On the one hand we have 
seen that primitive societies in which uniformity of belief 
and practice is most sternly enforced, will prevail in the 
struggle for life. On the other hand we have seen that 
primitive societies in which flexibility of mind is most 
encouraged, will come out uppermost. And herein lies the 
seeming dilemma or contradiction. 

In reality, however, as the whole question is one of war- 
fare, so it is practically a struggle for life between these two 
principles. Into the numberless combinations of circum- 
stances which have given the victory now to one side and 
now to the other, we cannot inquire, from lack of historical 
data. On general grounds we may admit that, at the outset, 
uniformity must have been a more important possession than 
flexibility ; we can plainly see how those communities that 
conquered by means of uniformity became caught, as it 
were, in their own toils, and were estopped from further 
progression; and we can see how those communities that 
won the day by preserving a modicum of flexibility have 


on. xx. | CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 275 


been rewarded by unlimited progressiveness. We can thus 
dimly discern the way in which China kas become immobile, 
while Europe has become ever more and more mobile. But 
beyond these most general indications of what has happened, 
we can discern but little. We cannot tell precisely, for 
example, why the European Aryans won the day by preserv- 
ing a modicum of flexibility, rather than by enforcing such a 
monotony of disposition as would kill out all flexibility. At 
the earliest dawn of history the European portion of the 
Aryan race already surpasses all other races, both in individual 
variety of character and in longheadedness. The details of 
the process by which this superiority was gained are hidden 
from us in the night of time. Upon one point, however, we 
may profitably speculate. Among all the historic civiliza- 
tions, the European is the one of which we can most de- 
cidedly assert that it is not autochthonous. The Aryans 
who conquered Europe in successive Keltic, Italo-Hellenic, 
Teutonic, and Slavonic swarms, were not the quiet, conser- 
vative, stay-at-home people of prehistoric antiquity, but 
were rather the elect of all the most adventurous and 
flexible-minded portions of the tribally-organized population 
of Central Asia. Their invasion of Europe was in this 
respect like the subsequent invasion of England by the mis- 
cellaneous hordes roughly described as Angles and Saxons, 
Danes and Norinans, and like the still later colonization of 
North America by the most mobile and adventurous elements 
of West-European society. We may fairly suppose that the 
Aryan. invaders of Europe were the most supple-minded of 
their race,—che “ come-outers,” perhaps, for whom the cake 
of custom at home was getting too firmly cemented, but who 
had undergone sufficient social discipline to enable them to 
get along with a less solid cake in future. However this 
may be, the main point is that they were not aborigines but 
colonizers, and as such were subjected to a great hetero 

geneity of environing circumstances from the time when we 


tT 2 


276 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (PT. 11 


first catch sight of them. They were the pioncers or Yankees 
of prehistoric antiquity, in whom unusual flexibleness of 
mind was the natural result of continual change in the sets 
of relations to which they were obliged to make their theories 
and actions conform. Prehistoric antiquity presents no other 
case like this. The great immobile civilizations appear to 
have grown up in comparatively well-protected regions, 
where competition with outlying communities was checked 
at an early date. Screened in this way from intercourse 
with the outside world, and adapting themselves to an en- 
vironment which altered. but little, there was nothing which 
could serve to shake them loose from their monotony of 
discipline. A more extreme instance of a kindred pheno- 
menon is seen in the fact that in those protected corners of 
the world where competition has always been at a mini- 
mum; we find the smallest conceivable amount of progress 
from utter bestial savagery. That same isolation which has 
kept the flora and fauna of Australia in such a backward 
state that they are now melting away before the imported 
plants and animals of Europe as snow melts under a vernal 
sun,—that same isolation has retained the Australian man 
until this day at the lowest level of humanity. Similar 
things might be said of the Fuegians, the Andaman Islanders, 
and some of thie hill-tribes of aboriginal non-Aryan Hindus. 
Where there has been least competition and least natural 
selection, there has been least progress from savagery. Now 
returning to the immobile civilizations, when we bear in mind 
that of the two conflicting elements of military advantage, 
uniformity was likely to be of most importance at first and 
flexibility afterwards, we may begin to discern, I think, that 
where competition ceased at an early date, uniformity may 
well have carried the day and crushed out flexibility alto- 
gether. Herein we have an excellent explanation of the 
immobility of Egypt, China, Peru, and Mexico; and with 
some further qualiticatious an analogous case might be made 


a le 


ou. XXx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 277 


out for Assyria and Northern India, But no such early 
cessation of competition could have oceurred in the case of 
our Aryan forefathers. Little as we know concerning the 
circumstances of their prehistoric development, we know at 
least that it took place on the great highway between the 
teeming mainland of Asia and the coveted peninsula of Europe. 
In this swarming region there was kept up until quite recent 
times that intense competition of tribe with tribe which had 
all but died out in Evypt and China before the dawn of 
history. All this entailed for each winning tribe a greater 
heterogeneity of environment than in any other instance. 
Under such circumstances uniformity could hardly have 
carried the day so far as to crush out flexibility. Continual 
change of foes to be overcome, and of natural obstacles to 
be surmounted, must have given the advantage at last to 
those tribes which had gained enough uniformity to ensure 
concerted action, without sacrificing their versatility of mind 
in the process. 

To some such considerations as these we must look for 
the partial explanation of the fact that at the beginnings 
of recorded history we find in the European Aryans all the 
essential elements of progressiveness. The continuance of 
this progressiveness during the historic period is a fact which 
need not long detain us. Since the beginnings of Mediter- 
ranean Civilization, the heterogeneity of the environment has 
been too gréat, and the changes in the environment too rapid, 
to allow of general staguation; while the assaults of outer 
barbarism have been for the most part warded off by the 
military superiority which this higner civilization has en- 
tailed. At times there has been an appearance of danger 
that much of this hard-won advantage might be lost, not 
merely through assaults from without, but through causes 
internally operating, After the earlier incentives to noble 
and varied activity connected with the autonomous spirit 
had been destroyed by the universal hegemony of Rome, the 


278 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. a, 


need for protection from the threatening barbarian began to 
bring about a retrogression, in which for a time uniformity 
seemed likely to flourish at the expense of individuality. It 
is instructive, from this point of view, to observe the gradual 
change toward an Oriental type of government which went 
on from the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian. In the 
eastern half of the Empire, after its final political severance 
from the western half at the end of the eighth century, this 
change became really consummated, and after a while de- 
feated itself by culminating in a social stagnation and mili- 
tary feebleness which invited the sharp scimitar of the 
Mussulman. But in the West this fatal growth of patri- 
archal despotism was early checked by the rise of Chris- 
tianity as an independent spiritual power, by the immigration 
of the German tribes, and by the union of these two circum- 
stances. Iurope was in no immediate danger of lapsing into 
an Oriental condition when an Ambrose could say to a 
Theodosius, “ Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.” The 
German tribes, by their direct coalescence into national 
ageregates, without passing through the civic stage of organi- 
zation, furnished, in various degrees of completeness, the 
principles of representation and federation, thus adding im- 
portant elements of new life to the Empire. While finally 
the Christianization of these tribes, leading to the famous 
compact by which the Head of the Church transferred the 
lordship of the western world from the degenerate Byzantine 
to the strong-armed Frank, inaugurated a balance of powers 
which preserved Europe henceforth from any danger of be- © 
coming either a sultanate or a caliphate. In this twofold 
supremacy of Church and Empire during the Middle Ages, 
we have one of the most remarkable compromises be- 
tween antagonist forces known to history ; for while the ten- 
dency of either set of forces acting alone would have been 
‘toward absolute despotism, either in the spiritual or in the 
temporal form, on the other hand their joint action and 


ci, xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 279 


counter-action was in a high degree conducive to the develop- 
ment of individual liberty of thought and behaviour. 

The various hints here given thus combine to show how, 
both in historic and in prehistoric times, the European 
Aryans would seem to have profited by circumstances tend- 
ing to encourage individuality without weakening concentra- 
tion. Hence the peculiarly plastic consistency—the flexibility 
combined with toughness—of West-Aryan civilization. Hence 
the European races all possess the capacity of innovating 
without revolution. The English and the old Romaus have 
exhibited this capacity in the highest degree; the Spaniards 
and the French, in recent times, owing to previous reversion 
toward a despotic réime, have shown themselves partially 
deprived of it. But while it is thus manifested in quite 
various degrees, all alike possess it in a high degree as 
compared with those races which have been arrested in the 
Oriental stage of civilization. 

The successful achievement of innovation without revo- 
lution depends mainly upon an artifice which derives its 
validity from one of the most deep-seated tendencies of the 
human mind, and which has unquestionably been one of the 
chief agencies in forwarding social progress. I refer to the 
artifice of “ legal fiction,” as shown in the pretence that the 
novelty of belief or practice just inaugurated has its warrant 
in time-honoured precedent. The disposition to justify all 
innovation by means of this artifice is so strongly rooted in 
human nature that it is likely to be manifested for a long time 
to come,—probably until the millennial victory of that “ pure 
reason ’ chout which sentimental philosophers have prated, 
but which hitherto has played a very subordinate part in 
shaping human affairs, It is this disposition which leads the 
orthodox, after resisting some scientific heresy until resistance 
is no longer possible, to discover all at once that the heresy 
was really taught by Suarez, or St. Augustine, or Moses. It is 
this which enables changes to be made “ constitutionally,” or 


280 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [wr. 11, 


in accordance with a system of edicts framed in an age when 
the changes in question could not possibly have been con- 
templated or proviced for. Yet among ourselves, where the 
dread of novelty is comparatively slight, there is some 
difficulty in realizing how all-essential is this kind of artifice 
in early times. “To this day many semi-civilized races have 
great difficulty in regarding any arrangement as binding and 
conclusive unless they can also manage to look at it as an 
inherited usage. Sir Henry Maine, in his last work, gives a 
most curious case. The English Government in India has in 
many cases made new and great works of irrigation, of which 
no ancient Indian Government ever thought; and it has 
generally left it to the native village community to say what 
share each man of the village should have in the water; and 
the village authorities have accordingly laid down a series of 
most minute rules about it. But the peculiarity is, that in 
no case do these rules ‘ purport to emanate from the personal 
authority of their author or authors, which rests on grounds 
of reason, not on grounds of innocence and sanctity ; nor do 
they assume to be dictated by a sense of equity; there is 
always, I am assured, a sort of fiction under which some 
customs as to the distribution of water are supposed to have 
emanated from a remote antiquity, although, in fact, no such 
artificial supply had ever been so much as thought of’ So 
difficult does this ancient race—like, probably, in this respect 
so much of the ancient world—tind it to imagine a rule 
which is obligatory, but not traditional,” ? 

Now among the European Aryans, within historic times, 
this species of artifice assumed a form which made it in a 
very high degree conducive to the permanent progressiveness 
of the race. If we look into the great writers who in the 
seventeenth century illustrated with exquisite beauty and 
clearness the doctrines of Public Law, we find their heads 
filled with the notion of a primitive natural code, fit for 


1 Bagehot, Physics and Politics, p. 142 


cH. Xx. ] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 281 


regulating international concerns, and for supplying every- 
where the shortcomings of civil legislation, its degenerate 
offspring, whose worth must be rated according to the degree 
in which it approaches the perfection of its parent. The 
influence of this conception may be best appreciated by 
reflecting on the extent to which contemporary legal literature, 
whether embodied in expository treatises or in judicial deci- 
_ sions, is impregnated by it. The appeals to “:zight reason” 
and “natural reason” which since Blackstone’s time have 
filled a considerable place in juristic dissertation, bear un- 
_ equivocal marks of their origin. Nowhere better than here 
can we see exemplified the mighty influence of the ideas of 
Roman jurisprudence upon modern thought. Sir Henry 
Maine has well delineated the process by which, from the 
constantly felt want of a system of principles fit for settling 
disputes between Roman citizens and aliens or foreigners, 
there gradually arose in the Preetorian courts an equitable 
body of law founded upon customs common (or assumed as 
common) to all peoples alike. But far from comprehending 
the really progressive character of the noble juristic system 
steadily growing up under their own supervision—daily 
attaining grander proportions as the grotesque and barbarous 
elements hallowed by local usage were one-by one eliminated 
from the body of equitable ideas which formed their common 
substratum—the Pretors of the Republic and the great 
Antonine jurisconsults, under the immediate influence of 
Stoic conceptions, supposed themselves to be merely restoring 
to their original integrity the disfigured and partially 
obliterated ordinances of a primeval state of nature. The 
state of faultless morality and unimpeachable equity which 
constituted the ideal goal of their labours, they mistook for 
the shadow of a real though unseen past. 

But this form of the unconscious artifice—due in general 
to the great heterogeneity of the Roman environment, and in 
particular to the continual interaction between Greek and 


282 | COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


Roman ideas—was very different from the form of it ex- 
emplified by the Hindu who refers his modern edicts about 
water-supply to some remote era of primitive legislation. 
Between the two there is a world-wide difference,—all the 
difference between stagnation and progress. For the abstract 
and impersonal form in which the Roman conceived his Jus 
Nature made it possible for him to appeal to it, not simply 
in justification of particular departures from ancient custom, 
but in justification of the general principle of departure 
from ancient custom. It constituted, as it were, a court of 
appeal before which time-honoured customs must be called 
upon to establish their validity. It opened men’s minds to 
the distinction between mala prohibita and mala in se. It 
prepared the way for the recognition of a “higher law ” of 
God as distinct from the local and temporary laws of man. 
And in this way it no doubt contributed largely toward the 
establishment of Christianity as an independent spiritual 
power in the Empire. : 

To deal adequately with these interesting illustrations 
would require us to extend this part of our discussion to 
disproportionate length, Our purpose is sufficiently sub- 
served by the foregoing fragmentary statement, in which the 
problem of human progressiveness, though not fully solved, 
is at least so far classified that the solution of it is facili- 
tated. We have seen that permanent progressiveness is 
found where the social aggregate is characterized by a cohe- | 
sion among its parts which is neither too little nor too great. 
An excess and a deficiency of individual mobility have been 
shown to be alike incompatible with that persistent tendency 
toward internal rearrangement which we call progressiveness. 
The sociological puzzle to which Mr. Bagehot has called 
attention, and with which we have been concerned in the 
present chapter, is substantially the same thing as the 
dynamic paradox which confronted us when, in the fourth 
chapter, we were secking to determine the conditions which’ 


- OH. XX.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 283 


enable Evolution in general to result in continuous increase 
of structural and functional complexity. The present case 
is, indeed, but a special form of the more general case. 
How to secure a compromise between fluidity and rigidity is 
in both cases the essential desideratum. Where the units 
which make up the aggreeate have too much individual 
freedom of motion, the result is a fluid state in which there 
is no chance for stable structural arrangements. Where they 
have too little freedom of motion, the result is a solid state 
in which there is no chance for structural rearrangements. 
In the first case, where there is so little dissipation of motion, 
there is little or no Evolution. In the second case, where so 
little internal motion is retained, the Evolution which occurs 
is simply or chiefly a process of consolidation, unattended by 
any considerable advance from indeterminate uniformity 
toward determinate muitiformity. 

Bearing in mind that we are dealing, not with a mere 
series of striking analogies, but with a group of real resem- 
blances which result from a fundamental. homology between 
the special process here considered and the more general 
process which includes it, let us observe that one chief cir- 
cumstance which secures mobility without loss of coherence 
is a he'erogeneous and ever-changing social environment, to 
the heterogeneous changes of which the community is con- 
tinually required to adjust itself. The illustrations above 
given unite in showing that where circumstances have 
afforded such a heterojeneous environment (as a perpetual 
external excitant of internal rearrangements), the commu- 
nities which have survived through relatively-complete ad- 
,ustment have manifested a permanent capacity for progress. 
Thus is our problem completely connected with the more 
general problem of natural selection, and with the most 
general problem of Evolution as manifested in all orders of 
phenomena. And thus the essential continuity of the pro- 
cesses of Nature is again strikingly illustrated, 


284 COSMIC PHILOSOFAY,. [Pr. 11. 


In the following chapter we shall have frequent oveasion 
to refer to this circumstance of heterogeneity of the social 
environment as manifested psychologically, in its effects 
upon the intellectual mobility of men regarded as indi- 
viduals. To pursue the problem of progressiveness into this 
psychological region is the way in which to obtain a basis 
for the explanation of the progress from Brute to Man; and 
to this crowning inquiry we must now address ourselves 


; 
; 
’ 
j 
Py 
: 


CHAPTER XXL 
GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLEC-UALLY. 


Tur chief difficulty which most persons find in accepting the 
Doctrine of Evolution as applied to the origin of the human 
race, is the difficulty of realizing in imagination the kinship 
between the higher and the lower forms of intelligence and 
emotion. And this difficulty is enhanced by a tendency of 
which our daily associations make it hard to rid ourselves. 
There is a tendency to exaggerate the contrasts which really 
exist, by leaving out of mind the intermediate phenomena and 
considering only the extremes. Many critics, both among those 
who are hostile to the development theory and among those 
who regard it with favour, habitually argue as if the intel- 
ligence and morality of the human race might be fairly 
represented by the intelligence and morality of a minority 
of highly organized and highly educated people in the most 
civilized communities. "When speaking of mankind they are 
speaking of that which is represented to their imagination 
by the small number of upright, cultivated, and well-bred 
people with whom they are directly acquainted, and also to some 
extent by a few of those quite exceptional men and womer 
who have left names recorded in history. Though other 
elements are admitted into the conception, these are never- 
theless the ones whicn chiefly give to it its character. 
Employing then this conception of mankind, abstracted from 


286 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. 1. 


these inadequate instances, our critics ask us how it is 
possible to imagine that a race possessed of such a godlike 
intellect, such a keen wsthetic sense, and such a lofty soul, 
should ever have descended from a race of mere brutes. 
And again they ask us how can a race endowed with such a 
capacity for progress be genetically akin to those lower races 
of which even the highest show no advance from one genera- 
tion to another. Confronted thus by difficulties which reason* 
and imagination seem alike incompetent to overcome, they 
too often either give up the problem as insoluble, or else— 
which amounts to nearly the same thing—have recourse to 
the deus ex machind as an aid in solving it. 

Influenced, no doubt, by some such mental habit as this 
Mr. St. George Mivart declares that, while thoroughly agree- 
ing with Mr. Darwin as to man’s zoological position, he 
nevertheless regards the difference between ape and mush- 
room as less important than the difference between ape and 
man, so soon as we take into the account “the totality of 
man’s being.”! In this emphatic statement there is a certain 
amount of truth, though Mr. Mivart is not justified in imply- 
ing that it is a truth which the Darwinian is bound not to 
recognize. The enormous difference between civilized man 
and the highest of brute animals is by no one more emphati- 
cally recognized than by the evolutionist, who holds that to 
the process of organic development there has been super- 
added a stupendous process of social development, and who 
must therefore admit that with the beginning of human 
civilization there was opened a new chapter in the history of 
the universe, so far as we know it. From the human point 
of view we may contentedly grant that, for all practical 
purposes, the difference between an ape and a mushroom is 
of less consequence than the difference between an ape and 
an educated European of the nineteenth century. But to 
take this educated European as a typical sample of mankind 


1 Nature, April 20, 1871. 


on. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY, 287 


and to contrast him directly with chimpanzees and gibbons, 
is in the highest degree fallacious; since the proceeding 
involves the omission of a host of facts which, when taken 
into the account, must essentially modify the aspect of the 
whole case. 

When we take the refined and intellectual Teuton, with his 
one hundred and fourteen cubic inches of brain, and set him 
alongside of the chimpanzee with his thirty-five cubic inches 
of brain, the difference seems so enormous as to be incom- 
patible with any original kinship. But when we interpose 
the Australian, whose brain, measuring seventy cubic inches, 


comes considerably nearer to that of the chimpanzee than 


to that of the Teuton, the case is entirely altered, and we 
are no longer inclined to admit sweeping statements about 
the immeasurable superiority of man, which we may still 
admit, provided they are restricted to civilized man. If 
we examine the anatomical composition of these brains, the 
discovery that in structural complexity the Teutonic cere- 
brum surpasses the Australian even more than the latter 
surpasses that of the chimpanzee, serves to strengthen us 
in our position. And when we pass from facts of anatomy 
to facts of psychology, we obtain still further confirmation ; 
for we find that the difference in structure is fully paralleled 
by the difference in functional manifestation. If the English- 
man shows such wonderful command of relations of space, 
time, and number, as to be able to tell us that to an observer 
stauioned at Greenwich on the 7th of June, a.p. 2004, at 
precisely nine minutes and fifty-six seconds after five o’clock 
in the morning, Venus will begin to cross the sun’s disc; on 
the other hand, the Australian is able to count only up to 
five or six, and cannot tell us the number of fingers on his 
two hands, since so large a number as ten excites in him 
only an indefinite impression of plurality. Our conception of 


1 The Dammaras, according to Mr. Galton, are even worse off than this. 
“When they wish to express four, they take to th:ir fingers, which are to 


2388 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1h 


the godlike intellect evidently will not apply here. If the 
emotions of the German and his intellectual perceptions of 
the fitness of harmonious sounds for expressing emotion are 
so deep and subtle and varied as to result in the production 
of choruses like those of Handel and symphonies like those 
of Beethoven, on the other hand the crude emotions of the 
Australian are quite adequately expressed by the discordant 
yells and howls which constitute the sole kind of music ap- 
preciable by his undeveloped ears. We look in vain here for 
traces of the keen esthetic sense which in a measure links 
together our intellectual and moral natures. Again, if the 
American student has been known to be actuated by such 
noble ethical impulses and guided by such lofty conceptions 
of morality as to leave his comfortable home and his 


them as formidable instruments of calculation asa sliding rule is to an 
English school-boy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand 
reinains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for units. Yet they 
seldom lose oxen; the way in which they discover the loss of one is not by 
the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they 
know. When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. 
Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchafige for one sheep, 
it would sorely puzzle a Dammara to take two sheepand give him four sticks. 
I have done so, and seen a man put two of the sticks apart, and take a sight 
over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself 
that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two 
sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would 
be aiflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to come out too ‘pat’ to be 
correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks; and then his © 
mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and 
he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand, and one 
sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him, and the second 
sheep driven away. . . . Once while I watched a Dammara floundering 
hopelessly in a caleulation on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my spaniel, 

equally embarrassed on the other. She was overlooking half-a-dozen of her 
new-born puppies, which had been removed two or three times from her, and 

her anxiety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present, or 
if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them, 
backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself. She evidently had a 
vague notion of countiug, but the figure was too large for her brain. Taking 
the two as they stood, dog and Dammara, the comparison reflected no great 
honour on the man.”—Galton, Tropical South Africa, p. 132, cited in Lub- 

bock, Origin of Civilization, Amer. ed., p. 294. See also Tylor, Primitive 

Culture, vol. i. pp. 218—246. Probably the dual number, in grammar, 

“preserves the memorial of that stage of thought when all beyond two was 

an idea of indefinite number.” Id. p. 240. fs. 


cH. xx1.] GHNESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 289 


favourite pursuits, and engage in rough warfare, at the risk 
of life and limb, solely or chiefly that he might assist in 
relieving the miseries of far inferior men, whose direct 
claim upon his personal sympathies could never be other 
than slight, on the other hand the Australian has no words 
in his language to express the ideas of justice and benevo- 
lence, aud no amount of teaching can make him compre- 
hend these ideas. For although, like some brute animals, 
he is not wholly destitute of the primary feelings which 
underlie them, yet these feelings have been so seldom re- 
peated in his own experience, and that of his ancestors, 
that he is unable to generalize from them. The lofty soul, 
which is too sweepingly attributed to man in distinction 
from other animals, is here as difficult to discover as the 
godlike intellect or the keen esthetic sense. 

In similar wise is made to disappear the sharp contrast 
between human and brute animals in capability of progress. 
Hardly any fact is more imposing to the imagination than 
the fact that each generation of civilized men is perceptibly 
more enlightened than the preceding one, while each genera- 
_ tion of brutes exactly resembles those which have come 

before it. But the contrast is obtained only by comparing 
the civilized European of to-day directly with the brute 
animals known to us through the short period of recorded 
human history. The capability of progress, however, is by no 
means shared alike by all races of men. Of the numerous races 
historically known to us, it has been manifested in a marked 
degree only by two,—the Aryan and Semitic. To a much 
less conspicuous extent it has been exhibited by the Chinese 
and Japanese, the Copts of Egypt, and a few of the highest 
American races. On the other hand, the small-brained races 
—the Australians and Papuans, the Hottentots, and the 
majority of tribes constituting the widespread Malay and 
American families—appear almost wholly incapable of pro- 
gress, even under the guidance of higher races. The most 

VOL, IL v 


220 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rr 1 


that can be said for them is, that they are somewhat more 
imitative and somewhat more teachable than any brute 
animals. In the presence of the Aryan, even under the 
most favourable circumstances, they tend to become extin- 
guished, rather than to appropriate the results of a civiliza- 
tion which there is no reason to suppose they could ever 
have originated. The two great races of Middle Africa, the 
Negroes and the Kaffirs,! have shown, by their ability to 
endure slave labour, their superiority to those above men- 
tioned; but their career, where it has not been interfered 
with by white men, has been but little less monotonous than 
the career of a brute species. Of all these barbarian races, 
we commonly say that they have no history; and by this 
we mean that throughout long ages they have made no 
appreciable progress. In a similar sense we should say of 
a race of monkeys or elephants, that it has no history. 

Of like import is the fact, that as we go backward in time 
we find the progressiveness of the civilized races continually 
diminishing. No previous century ever saw anything ap- 
proaching to the increase in social complexity which has 
been wrought in America and Europe since 1789. In science 
and in the industrial arts the change has been greater than 
in the ten preceding centuries taken together. Contrast the 
seventeen centuries which it took to remodel the astronomy 
of Iipparchos with the forty years which it has taken to 
remodel the chemistry of Berzelius and the biology of Cuvier. 
Note how the law of gravitation was nearly a century in 
getting generally accepted by foreign astronomers,? while 

1 Tt is Haeckel who asserts a distinction of race between the Negroes and 
Saffirs. It is not necessary, however, to insist upon the distinction. 

2 It was still on trial in France in 1749, when Clairaut and Lalande mag- 
nificently verified it by calculating the retardation of Halley’s comet. It 
may be said that the French are notoriously slow in adopting ideas which 
have originated in other countries, and that they now ignore natural selection 
much as they formerly ignored gravitation. Nevertheless, in spite of the 
Academy and M. Flourens, there are plain indications that the doctrine of 


special creations is doomed speedily to suffer the fate in France which it has 
ready suffered in Germany, England, and America. 


it ae 


on. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 291 


within half a dozen years from its promulgation, the theory 
of natural selection was accepted by the great majority of 
naturalists. How small the difference between the clumsy 
wavvons of the Tudor period and the mail-coach in which 
our grandfathers rode, compared to the difference between 
the mail-coach and the railway train! How rapid the 
changes in philosophic thinking since the time oz the Hncy- 


' ¢elopédistes, in comparison with the slow though important 


changes which occurred between the epoch of Aristotle and 
the epoch of Descartes! In morality, both individual and 
national, and in genera] humanity of disposition and refine- 
ment of manners, the increased rapidity of change has been 
no less marked. 


& But these-considerations are immensely increased i in force 


when we take into account those epochs which, in the light 
of our present knowledge, can alone properly be termed 
ancient, Far beyond the comparatively recent period at 
which human history began on the eastern shores of the 
Mediterranean, extend the ages during which, as palzon- 
tology shows us, both the eastern and the western hemi- 
spheres were peopled by races of men. Ten thousand cen- 
turies before the time of Homer and the Vedic poets, wild 
men, with brute-like crania, carried on the struggle for 
existence with mainmoths, tigers, and gigantic bears, Jong 
since extinct. And recent researches make it probable that 
even this enormous period must be multiplied six- or eight- 
fold before we can arrive at the time when men first ap- 
peared upon the earth as creatures zoologically distinct from 
apes. The significance of these conclusions, even when we 
take into account only the shorter epoch of a single million 
of years, cannot be too strongly insisted upon, They show 
us that it is only in recent times that man has become 
widely distinguished from other animals by his capability of 


-progress. If, as evidence of our present progressiveness, we 


city the superiority of our Whitworth guns and Chassepot 
U 2 


Z92 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 11 


rifles over the howitzers and flintlocks used by our grand- 
fathers, we must also remember that more than twenty 
thousand generations lived and died before the primitive 
stone hatchets and stone-pointed arrows were superseded 
by battle-axes and javelins headed with bronze. During 
these long ages, each generation must have imitated its 
predecessor almost as closely as is the case with brute 
animals. The godlike intellect, of whose achievements we 
are now so justly proud, was then being acquired by almost © 
infinitely minute increments. In the face of the proved 
fact of man’s immense antiquity, no other conclusion is 
admissible. 

I have introduced these considerations, not so much to 
confirm the theory of the descent of man from an ape-like 
animal,—which I regard as already sufficiently proved by the 
evidence presented in the ninth chapter,—as to illustrate the 
true point of view from which the evolution of humanity 
should be regarded. In treating of the Doctrine of Evolution 
in general, we saw it to be a corollary from the persistence of 
force that the process of evolution, which at first goes on 
with comparative slowness, must, owing to the multiplication 
of effects, go on with increasing rapidity.1 We have seen, 
besides, that those most conspicuous aspects of evolution 
which consist in increase of definite complexity in structure 
and function must be much more conspicuous in the more 
compound than in the more simple kinds of evolution. In 
illustration of these closely allied truths, we may note that 
in all cases a long period of time elapses before any lower 
order of evolution gives rise to a distinctly higher order. 
Long ages must have passed before the slow integration of 
our solar nebula into a planetary system resulted in the 
appearance of distinctly geologic phenomena upon the 
several planets, Again, it was a long time before geologic 


1 See above, vol. i. p. 854. This was also hinted st the close of the 
enapter on Life as Adjustment, 


cn, xx1.]} GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 293 


evolution had proceeded sufficiently far to admit of the 
evolution of life: upon Saturn and Jupiter, as we have seen, 
the genesis of anything like what we know as life would 
appear still to be impossible. Again, after the first appear- 
ance of life upon our earth, a long time must have elapsed 
before protists, simple plants, and nerveless animals, were 
succeeded by animals sufficiently complex to manifest even 
the most rudimentary phases of psychical life. And again, 
as we can now see, the evolution of physical and psychical 
life to the very high degree exemplified in the primeval 
ape-like man, was ‘followed by a somewhat long period, 
during which the still higher psychical changes constituting 
social evolution ‘were slowly assuming their distinctive 
characteristics. 

Social evolution, therefore, Rabie as a complicated 
series of intellectual and emotional changes determined by 
the aggregation of men into communities, is a new order of 
evolution, more highly compounded than any that had gone 
before it. When, in the course of the struggle for existence, 
men began to unite in family groups of comparatively per- 
manent organization, a new era was begun in the progress 
of things upon the earth’s surface. A new set of structural 
and functional changes began, which for a long while pro- 
ceeding with the slowness characteristic of the | early stages 
of every order of evolution, are at last proceeding with a 
rapidity only to be slackened when some penultimate stage 
of equilibrium is approached. Hence it is in the highest 


degree unphilosophical to attempt to explain the present 


position of civilized man solely by reference to the laws of 
organic and psychicai evolution as obtained by the study of 
life in general. It is for biology to explain the differences 
between the human hand and foot and the hands and feet 
cf the other primates;+ but the chief differences between 
civilized man and the other members of the order to which 


2 See Prof. Huxley’s admirable monograph on Man’s Place in Nature. 


294 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. {rr. “t 


he belongs are psychological differences, and the immense 
series of psychical changes to which they are due has been 
all along determined by social conditions. 

The all-important contrast. therefore—for our present pur- 
pose—is not between man ant other primates, extinet and 
contemporary, but between civilized man and primitive man. 
Already we have found that the lowest contemporary man, 
whose social organization has never reached any higher form 
than that of the simplest tribal community, exhibits but 
scanty traces of the godlike intellect, the refined tastes, or the 
lofty soul which we are accustomed to ascribe to humanity 
in general as its distinctive attributes. Humanity, zoolo- 
gically considered, exists to-day, to which these attributes 
cannot be ascribed without a considerable strain upon the 
accepted meanings of our words. Zoologically, the Australian 
belongs to the genus Hoino, and is therefore nearer to us than 
to the gorilla or gibbon; psychologically, he is in many 
respects further removed from us than from these man-like 
apes. No one will deny that the intellectual progress implied 
in counting up to five or six, though equally important, is 
immeasurably inferior in quantity to the subsequent progress 
implied in the solution of dynamical problems by means of 
the integral caleulus,—an achievement to which the average 
modern engineer is competent. But im going back to the 
primeval man, we must descend to a lower grade of intelli- 
gence than that which is oceupied by the Australian. We 
must traverse the immensely long period during which the 
average human skull was enlarging from a capacity of thirty-. 
five inches, like that of the highest apes, to a capacity of 
seventy inches, like those post-glacial European skulls, of 
which the one found at Neanderthal is a specimen, and which 
are about on a par with the skulls of Australians. And 
when we have reached the beginning of this period—possibly 
in the Miocene epoch—we may fairly represent. to ourselves 
the individuals of the human genus as animals differing in 


cn. xxi.) GHNESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY, 295 


little save a more marked sociality from the dryopithecus and 
other extinct half-human apes. We may represent primitive 
man as an animal in whom, physical and psychical changes 
having hitherto proceeded pari passu, intelligence had at 
length arrived at a point where variations in it would sooner 
be seized on by natural selection than variations in physical 
structure. When among primates possessed of such an intel- 
ligence, the family groups temporarily formed among all 
mammals began to become permanent, then we must say that 
there began the career of humanity as distinguished from 
animality. For countless ages our ancestors probably were 
still but slightly distinguished from other primates, save that 
their increasing intelligence, their use of weapons, and their 
habits of combination, rendered them more than a match for 
much larger and stronger animals. In the later Pliocene times 
these primitive men may have come to bear some resem- 
blance to the lowest contemporary savages. Human remains 
and relies of the still later glacial period supply clear proof of 
such a resemblance ; yet the absence of any improvement in 
weapons and implements for many ages longer shows that as 
yet there was but little capability of progress. Of the career 
of mankind during the eight hundred thousand years which 
would seem to have elapsed since the era of the cave bear 
and woolly rhinoceros,! we possess many vestiges. But every- 


1 In assigning this conjectural date, I follow the theory which connects the 
great glacial epoch with that notable increase in the eccentricity of the earth’s 
orbit which, as calculated by Mr. Croll, began about 950,0C0 years B.c., and 
lasted 200,000 years. But while the fact of this great increase of eccen- 
tricity is, I presume, well established, and while it can hardly fail to have 
wrought marked climatic changes, it is by no means proved that the glaciation 
of Europe and North America was produced. solely or chiefly by this circum- 
stance ; and accordingly I dv not care to insist upon the chronology which I 
have adopted in the text. Nor is it necessary for the validity of my argu- 
ment that. it should be insisted on. What we do know is, that men existed 
both in Europe and in North America at the beginning of the ylacial period ; 
that this extensive dispersal implies the existence of the human race for a 
long time previous to this epoch ; and that thus we obtain a dumb antiquity 
im comparison with which the whole duration of the voice of historic tradition 
shrinks to a mere point of time, And this is all that my argument requires. 


296 COSMIC PHILOSOPAY, [rr. 1 


thing indicates the most extreme barbarism; nowhere does 
there appear a trace of anything like even the rudest civiliza- 
tion, until we reach that comparatively recent epoch ante- 
cedent to the dawn of history, but accessible to philology, 
The partial restoration of the Aryan mother-tongue enables 
us to go back perhaps a dozen or fifteen centuries beyond the 
age of Homer and the Vedas, and catch a few glimpses’ of 
the prehistoric Aryans,—an agricultural race completely 
tribal in organization, but acquainted with the use of metals, 
and showing marks of an intelligence decidedly above that 
of high contemporary barbarians like the Kaffirs. At the 
same time the deciphering of hieroglyphics on Egyptian 
monuments reveals to us the existence in the valley of the 
Nile of an old and immobile civilization, organized on a 
tribal basis, like that of China, already sinking in political 
decrepitude at the ill-defined era at which we first catch 
sight of it. Of the beginnings of civilization on the Nile, 
and also, indeed, on the Euphrates, and of the stages by 
which the Aryans arrived at the intellectual pre-eminence to 
which their recovered language bears witness, we know abso- 
lutely nothing. But even if we were to allow twenty 
thousand years for these proceedings,—an interval nearly 
seven times as long as that which separates the Homeric age 
from our own time—we should obtain but a brief period 
compared with the countless ages of unmitigated barbarism 
which preceded it. The progress of mankind is like a geo- 
metrical progression. For a good while the repeated doubling 
produces quite unobtrusive results ; but as we begin to reach 
the large numbers the increase suddenly becomes astonishing. 
Since the beginning of recorded history we have been mov- 
ing among the large numbers, and each decade now witnesses 
a greater amount of psychical achievement than could have 
been witnessed in thousands of years among pre-glacial men, 
Such a.result is just what the Doctrine of Evolution teaches 
usto anticipate ; and it thoroughly confirms our statement 


on. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 297 


that, in point of intelligence and capacity for progress, the 
real contrast is not between all mankind and other primates, 
but between civilized and primeval man. 

Let us now consider some of the leading characteristics 
of this gradual but increasingly rapid intellectual progress, 
reparded as a growing correspondence betaten the human 
mind and its environment. 

In the second chapter of our Prolegomena it was shown 
that the highest kinds of scientific knowledge differ only in 
fleeree from the lowest kinds of what is called ordinary 
knowledge. In spite of their great differences in mental 
capacity, it is obvious that the antelope who on hearing a 
roar from the neighbouring thicket infers that it is high time 
to run for his life, the Bushman who on seeing the torn 
carcass of the antelope infers that a lion has recently been 
present, and the astronomer who on witnessing certain unfore- 
seen irregularities in the motions of Uranus infers that an 
unknown planet is attracting it, perform one and all the same 
kind of mental operation. : In the three cases the processes 
are fundamentally the same, though differing in complexity. 
according to the number and remoteness of the past and 
present relations which are compared. In each case the. 
process is at bottom a grouping of objects and of relations: 
according to their likenesses and unlikenesses. It was 
similarly shown that all knowledge is a classification of: 
experiences, and that every act of knowledge is an act of. 
classification ; that. an act of inference, such as: is involved 
in simple cases of perception, is “ the attributing to a body, in 
consequence of some of. its properties, all those properties by 
virtue of which it is referred to a particular class”; that the 
“forming of a generalization is the putting together in one 
class all those cases which present like relations”; and that 
“the drawing a deduction is essentially the perception thata 
particular case belongs to a certain class of cases previously 
generalized. So that, as ordinary classification is a grouping 


298 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er 1 


together of like things ; reasoning is a grouping together of 
like relations among things.”+ In this fundamental doctrine 
the two different schools of modern psychology, represented 
respectively by Mr. Bain and Mr. Mansel, will thoroughly 
agree. But from this it inevitably follows that the highest and 
the lowest manifestations of intelligence consist: respectively 
of processes which differ only in heterogeneity and definite-. 
ness and in the extent, to whicl: they are compounded. 

But while proving that science is but an extension of or- 
dinary knowledge, it was also proved that: the higher orders 
of knowledge differ from the lower in the greater remoteness, 
generality, and abstractness of the relations which they for- 
mulate, in the greater definiteness of their: formulas, and in 
their more complete organization, Our inquiry into the 
mutual relations of life and intelligence® elicited an exactly 
p'rallel set of conclusions. It was there shown that psychical 
life consists in the continuous establishment of subjective rela- 
tions answering to objective relations ; and that, as we advance 
through the animal kingdom from the lowest to the highest 
forms, this correspondence between the mind and the environ- 
ment extends to relations which are continually more remote 
in space and time, more clearly defined, but at the same time 
more general; and finally we also traced a progressive orga- 
nization of correspondences. Continually; while passing in 
review. the various aspects of the progress of intelligence 
in the animal kingdom, we found ourselves: ending with 
illustrations drawn from that progress of human: intelligence: 
which is determined by social conditions. Let us now: illus- 
trate this subject somewhat further by tracing out the. intel- 
lectual correspondence between man and his environment, as 
increasing: in remoteness, in speciality and generality, in 
complexity, in definiteness, and in coherent organization. 

1 Spencer’s Essays, 1st series, p. 189; see above, part i. chap. ii.; pars %& 


chap. xv. 
® See.above, part ii, chap. xiv. 


on. xx] GUNESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY, 299 


The extension of the correspondence in space is a marked 
characteristic of intellectual progress, which we have already 
traced through the ascending groups of the animal kingdom, 
but which is carried much further by man than by any lower 
animal. It is no doubt true that the direct adjustments of 
psychical relations to distant objective relations, effected by 
unaided perception, have a narrower range in civilized men 
than in uncivilized men or in several of the higher mammals 
and birds. It is a familiar fact that the senses of civilized 
man—or at least the three senses which have a considerable 
range in space—are less acute and less extensive in range 
than those of the barbarian. It is said that a Bushman can 
see as far with the naked eye as a European can see with a 
field-glass ; arid certain wild and domestic birds and mammals, 
as the falcon, the vulture, and perhaps the greyhound, have 
still longer vision. Among the different classes of civilized 
men, those who, by living on the fruits of brain-work done 
indoors, are most widely differentiated from primeval men, 
have as a general rule the shortest vision, And the rapid 
increase of indoor life, which is one of the marked symptoms 
of modern civilization, tends not only to make myopia more 
frequent, but also to diminish the average range of vision in 
persons who are not myopic. There may very likely have 
been a similar, though less conspicuous and less carefully 
observed, decrease in the range of hearing. And the sense 
of smell, which is so marvellously efficient in the majority of 
mammals and in many savages, is to us of little use as an 
aid in effecting correspondences in space. 

In the case also of those simpler indirect adjustments 
which would seem, perhaps, to involve the use of the 
cerebellum chiefly, we have partially lost certain powers 
possessed by savages and lower animals. There are few 
things in which civilized men differ among themselves more 
conspicuously than the recollection of places, the identifica- 
lion of landmarks, and the ability to reach a distant: point 


300 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [enim 


through crooked streets without losing the way. But in 
these respects the most sagacious of us are but bunglers 
compared with primitive men or with dogs and foxes. Few 
things are more striking than the unerring instinct with 
which the Indian makes his way through utterly trackless 
forests, seldom stopping to make up his mind, and taking in 
at a single glance whole groups of signs which to his civilized 
companion are inappreciable, The loss of this power of co- 
ordination, like the decrease in the range of the senses, is 
undoubtedly due to disuse, the circumstances of civilized 
life affording little or no occasion for the exercise of these 
faculties, 

But although in these respects the correspondence in space 
does not seem to have been extended with the progress of 
civilization, yet in those far more indirect and complicated 
adjustments which, as involving time-relations of force and 
cause, depend largely on the aid of the cerebrum, the civil- 
ized man surpasses the savage to a much greater extent 
than the savage surpasses the wolf or lion. “ By combin- 
ing his own perceptions with the perceptions of others as 
registered in maps,” the modern “can reach special places 
lying thousands of miles away over the earth’s surface. A 
ship, guided by compass and stars and chronometer, brings 
him from the antipodes information by which his purchases 
here are adapted to prices there. From the characters of 
exposed strata he infers the presence of coal below; and 
thereupon adjusts the sequences of his actions to coexist- 
ences a thousand feet beneath. Nor is the environment 


1 In the course of the recent interesting discussion and correspondence in 
Nature concerning the “ sense of direction” exhibited in barbarians and lower 
animals, it was observed that a party of Samoyeds will travel in a direct line 
fron. yne point to another over trackless fields of ice, even on cloudy nights, 
when there is accordingly nothing whatever that is visible to guide their 
course. It would be too much to assert that this faculty is utterly lost in 
civilizzd man, so that a temporary recurrence to the conditions of barbaric 
life might not revive it; but even if retained at all, it is certainly kept quite 
in abeyanc> 


ou. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 301 


through which his correspondences reach limited to the sur- 
face and the substance of the earth. It stretches into the 
surrounding sphere of infinity.” In all these respects, the 
extension of the correspondence achieved during the progress 
of civilization has been much greater than that achieved 
during the immediately preceding stages of the evolution of 
man from an inferior primate, “ From early races acquainted 
only with neighbouring localities, up to modern geographers 
who specify the latitude end longitude of every place on the 
globe; from the ancient builders and metallurgists, knowing 
but surface deposits, up to the geologists of our day whose 
data in some cases enable them to describe the material 
existing at a depth never yet reached by the miner; from 
the savage barely able to say in how many days a full moon 
will return, up to the astronomer who ascertains the period 
of revolution of a double star ;—there has been ” an enormous 
“widening of the surrounding region throughout which the 
adjustment of inner to outer relations extends.”! It only 
remains to add that the later and more conspicuous stages of 
this progress have been determined by that increase in. the 
size and heterogeneity of the social environment which 
results from the growing interdependence of communities 
once isolated, and which we have already seen to be the 
fundamental element of progress in general. For this inte- 
gration of communities has not only directly enlarged the 
area throughout which adjustments are required to be made, 
but it has indirectly aided the advances in scientific know- 
ledge requisite for making the adjustments. 

Great, however, as has been the extension of the corre- 
spondence in space which has characterized the progress of 
the favoured portion of humanity from barbarism to civiliza- 
tion, the extension of the correspondence in time is a much 
more conspicuous and more distinctly human phenomenon, 
As we trace this kind of mental evolution through sundry 


1 Spencer, Princ‘ples of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 317, 319, 


308 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 


classes and orders of the animal kingdom in an ascending 
series, it is to be observed that until we reach the higher 
mammals the two kinds of correspondence advance together, 
—the distance at which outer relations are cognized forming 
a measure of the interval by which their effects may be 
anticipated. But among the higher mammals there is 
observed a higher order of adjustments to future emer- 
gencies, which advances more rapidly than the extension of 
the correspondence in space, and which in the human race | 
first acquires a notable development. ‘“ Not that the transi- 
tion is sudden,” observes Mr. Spencer. “ During the first 
stages of human progress, the method of estimating epochs 
does not differ in nature from that employed by the more 
intelligent animals. There are historical traces of the 
fact that originally the civilized races adjusted their actions 
to the lonver sequences in the environment just as Aus- 
tralians and Bushmen do now, by observing their coincidence 
with the migrations of birds, the floodings of rivers, the 
flowerings of plants. And it is obvious that the savages 
who, after the ripening of a certain berry, travel to the sea- 
shore, knowing that they will then find a particular shell-fish 
in se.son, are guided by much the same process as the dog 
who, on seeing the cloth laid for dinner, goes to the window 
to watch for his master, But when these phenomena of the 
seasons are observed to coincide with recurring phenomena 
in the heavens,—when, as was the case with the aboriginal 
THlottentots, periods come to be measured partly by astro- 
nomical and partly by terrestrial changes,—then we see 
making its appearance a means whereby the correspondence 
in time may be indefinitely extended. The sun’s daily 
movements and the monthly phases of the moon having once 
been generalized, and some small power of counting having 
been reached, it becomes possible to recognize the interval 
between antecedents and consequents that are long apart, 
and to adjust the actions to them. Multitudes of sequences 


on. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 303 


in the environment which, in the absence of answering func- 
tional periods, cannot be directly responded to by the or- 
ganism, may be discerned and indirectly responded to when 
there arises this ability of numbering days and lunations.”? 
In the advance to high stages of civilization, the extension 
of the correspondence in time is most conspicuously exempli- 
fie] in the habitual adjustment of our theories and actions to 
sequences more or le3s »emote in the future. In no other 
respect is civilized man more strikingly distinguished from 
the barbarian than in his power to adapt his conduct te 
future events, whether contingent or certain to occur. The 
ability to forego present enjoyment in order to avoid the risk 
of future disaster is what we call prudence or providence ; 
and the barbarian is above all things imprudent and impro- 
vident. Doubtless the superior prudence of the civilized 
man is due in great part to his superior power of self 
restraint ; so that this class of phenomena may be regarded 
as illustrating one of the phases of moral progress. Never- 
theless there are several purely intellectual elements which 
enter as important factors into the case. The power of 
economizing in harvest-time or in youth, in order to retain 


something upon which to live comfortably in winter or in 


old age, is obviously dependent upon the vividness with 
which distant sets of circumstances can be pictured in the 
imagination. The direction of the volitions involved in 
the power of self-restraint must be to a great extent deter- 
mined by the comparative vividness with which the distant 
circumstances and the present circumstances are mentally 
realized. And the power of distinctly imagining objective 
relations not present to sense is probably the most fundamen- 
tal of the many intellectual differences between the civilized 
man and the barbarian, since it underlies both the class of 
phenomena which we are now considering. and the class of 
phenomena comprised in artistic, scientitic, and philosophic 


1 Spencer, op. cit. i. 326, 


304: COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 1 


progress. The savage, with his small and undeveloped cere- 
brum, plays all summer, like the grasshopper in the fable, eat- 
ing and wasting whatever he can get; for although he knows 
that the dreaded winter is coming, during which he must starve 
and shiver, he is nevertheless unable to realize these distant 
feelings with sufficient force to determine his volition in the 
presence of his actual feeling of repugnance to toil. But. 
the civilized man, with his large and complex cerebrum, has 
so keen a sense of remote contingencies that he willingly 
submits to long years of drudgery, in order to avoid poverty 
in old age, pays out each year a portion of his hard-earned 
money to provide for losses by fire which may never occur, 
builds houses and accumulates fortunes for posterity to enjoy,. 
and now and then enacts laws to forestall possible disturb- 
ances or usurpations a century hence. ‘Again, the progress 
of scientific knowledge, familiarizing civilized man with the 
idea of an inexorable regularity of sequence among events, 
greatly assists him in the adjustment of his actions to far- 
distant emergencies. He who ascribes certain kinds of suffer- 
ing to antecedent neglect of natural laws is more likely to, 
shape his conduct so as to avoid a recurrence of the infliction, 
than he who attributes the same kinds of suffering to the 
wrath of an offended quasi-human Deity, and fondly hopes,, 
by ceremonial propitiation of the Deity, to escape in future. - 

This power of shaping actions so as to meet future contin- 
gencies has been justly recognized by political economists as 
au indispensable pre-requisite to the accumulation of wealth 
in any community, without which no considerable degree 
of progress can be attained. The impossibility of getting 
barbarians to work, save under the stimulus of actually 
present necessities, has been one of the chief obstacles in 
the way of missionaries who have attempted to civilize tribal] 
eommunities. The Jesuits; in the seventeenth century, were 
the most successful of Christian missionaries, and their pro- 
seedings with the Indians of Paraguay constitute one of the 


on, xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 305. 


most brilliant feats in missionary annals. Such unparalleled 
ascendency did the priests acquire over the imaginations 
of these barbarians that they actually made them cease 
from warfare. They taught them European methods of 
agriculture, as well as the arts of house-building, painting, 
dyeing, furniture-making, even the use of watches ; and they 
administered the affairs of the community with a despotic. 
power which has seldom been equalled either in absoluteness 
or in beneficence. Nevertheless the superficiality of all this 
show of civilization was illustrated by the fact that, unless 
perpetually watched, the workmen would go home leaving 
their oxen yoked to the plough, or would even cut them up 
for supper if no other meat happened to be at hand. 
Examples of a state of things intermediate between this 
barbaric improvidence and the care-taking foresight of the 
European are to be found among the Chinese,—a people 
who have risen far above barbarism, but whose civilization 
is still of a primitive type, The illustration is rendered 
peculiarly forcible by the fact that the Chinese are a very 
industrious people, and where the returns for labour are 
imm.diate will work as steadily as Germans or Americans. 
Owing to their crowded population, every rood of ground is’ 
needed for cultivation, and upon their great rivers the 
traveller continually meets with little floating farms con- 
structed upon rafts and held in place by anchors. Yet side 
by side with tliese elaborate but tragile structures are to be 
seen acres of swamp-land which only need a few years: of 
careful draining to become permanently fit for tillage. So 
incapable are the Chinese of adapting their actions to 
sequences at all remote, that they continue, age after age, 
to resort to such temporary devices, rather than to bestow 
their labour where its fruits, however enduring, cannot be 
enjoyed from the outset! The contrast proves that the 
cause is the intellectual inability to realize vividly a group of 
: 1 See Mill, Political Eionumy, book i. chap xi, 
VOL. II. x 


306 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (rr. 1. 


future conditions, involving benefits not immediately to be 
felt. 

Of the correspondence in time, even more forcibly than of 
the correspondence in space, it may be said that its extension 
during the process of social evolution has been much greater 
than during the organic evolution of the human race from 
some ancestral primate. Between the Australian, on the one 
hand, who cannot estimate the length of a month, or provide 
even for certain disaster which does not stare him in the 
face, and whose theory of things is adapted only to events 
which occur during his own lifetime; and, on the other hand, 
the European, with his practical foresight, his elaborate 
scientific previsions, and his systems of philosophy, which 
embrace alike the earliest traceable cosmical changes and the 
latest results of civilization; the intellectual gulf is certainly 
far wider than that which divides the Australian from the 
fox who hides the bird which he has killed, in order to 
return when hungry to eat it. 

It remains to add that the later and more conspicuous 
stages of this kind of intellectual progress have obviously 
been determined by the increase in the size and heterogeneity 
of the social environment. For the integration of commu- 
nities to which this increase is due has not only indirectly 
aided the advances in scientific knowledge requisite for 
making mental adjustments to long sequences, past and 
future, but it has also directly assisted the disposition to 
work patiently in anticipation of future returns, by increas- 
ing the general security and diminishing the chances that the 
returns to labour may be lost. 

The extension of the correspondence between subjective 
and objective relations in time and in space answers to that 
kind of primary integration which underlies the process of — 
evolution in general. In treating of the enlarged area, in 
time and space, throughout which inner relations are adjusted 
to outer relations, we have been treating of intellectual pro- 


cn. xxi] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 307 


gress regarded as a growth. But in proceeding to speak of 
the increasing heterogeneity, definiteness, and coherence of 
the adjustments, we proceed to treat of intellectual progress 
regarded as a development. Here, as elsewhere, throughout 
all save the simplest orders of evolution, quantitative increase 
is accompanied by qualitative increase. The knowledge is 
not only greater and the intellectual capacity greater, but 
the knowledge is more complex, accurate, and unified, and 
the intellectual capacity is more varied, 

The increase of the correspondence in definiteness may be 
sufficiently illustrated by the following brief citation from 
Mr, Spencer: “ Manifestly the reduction of objective pheno- 
mena to definite measures gives to those subjective actions 
that correspond with them a degree of precision, a special 
fitness, greatly beyond that possessed by ordinary actions, 
There is an immense contrast in this respect between the 
doings of the astronomer wlio, on a certain day, hour, and 
minute, adjusts his instrument to watch an eclipse, and those 
of the farmer who so arranges his work that he may have 
hands enough for reaping some time in August or September. 
The chemist who calculates how many pounds of quicklime 
will be required to decompose and precipitate all the bicar- 
bonate of lime which the water in a given reservoir contains 
in @ vertain percentage, exhibits an adjustment of inner to 
outer relations incomparably more specific than does the 
Jaundress who softens a tubful of hard water by a handful 
of soda. In their adaptations to external coexistences and 
sequences, there is a wide difference between the proceedings 
of ancient besiegers, whose battering-rams were indeterminate 
in their actions, and those of modern artillery officers, who, 
by means of a specific quantity of powder, consisting of 
specific ingredients, in specific proportions, placed in a tube 
at a specific inclination, send a bomb of specific weight on to 
& specific object, and cause it te explode at a specific 

x 2 


308 - QOSMIC PHILOSOPHY. fpr. 


moment.” It only remains to note that the difference in 
specific accuracy, here illustrated by contrasting the opera- 
tions of science with those of ordinary knowledge, is equally 
conspicuous when, on a somewhat wider scale, we contrast 
the proceedings, both scientific and artistic, of civilized men 
with the proceedings of the lowest savages. The most 
ignorant man in New England probably knows in June that 
winter is just six months distant; the Australian, to whon, 
as to the civilized child, time appears to go slowly, knows 
only that it is a long way off. So, too, the crude knives and 
hammers and the uncouth pottery of primeval men are 
distinguisied alike by their indefiniteness of contour, and by 
their uselessness in operations which require specific accuracy. 
And here, as before, in the extreme vagueness and lack of 
speciality, both in his knowledge and in the actions which 
are guided by it, the primeval man appears to stand nearer to 
the highest brutes than to the civilized moderns. 

Along with this increase in specialization, entailing 
greater definiteness of adjustment, there goes on an in- 
crease in generalization, involving an increased power of 
abstraction, of which barely the germs are to be found either 
in the lowest men or in other highly organized mammals. 
The inability of savage races to make generalizations in- 
volving any abstraction is sufficiently proved by the absence 
or extreme paucity of abstract expressions in their languages.’ 
As Mr. Farrar observes, “The Society-Islanders have words 
for dog’s tail, bird’s tail, and sheep’s tail, yet no word for 
tail; the Mohicans have verbs for every kind of cutting, and 
yet no verb ‘to cut.’ The Australians have no generic term 
for fish, bird, or tree. The Malavs have no term for tree or 
herb, yet they have words for fibre, root, tree-crown, stalk. 
stock, trunk, twig, and shoot. Some American tongues have 
separate verbs for ‘I wish to eat meat,’ and ‘I wish to eat soup, — 
Sut no verb for ‘I wish’; and separate words for a blow with 


1 Spencer, op. cit. i, 340. 


cH. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 809 


a sharp and a blow with a blunt instrument, but no abstract 
word for blow.”! Between the stage of intellectual progress 
thus illustrated and that in which an unlimited capacity for 
generalization pzoduces such words as “individuation” or 
“equilibration,” the contrast is sufficiently obvious; and it 
fully confirms our theorem, that the amount of intellectual 
progress achieved since man became human far exceeds that 
which was needed to transfer him from apehood to manhood. 

The increase of the correspondence in complexity, already 
illustrated incidentally in the treatment of these other 
aspects of the case, is still further exemplified in the growing 
complication of the interdependence between science and 
the arts. When tracing the complexity of correspondence 
through the lower stages of the evolution of intelligence in 
the animal kingdom, Mr. Spencer hints that the evolution of 
the executive faculties displayed in the organs of prehension 
and locomotion is closely related to that of the directive 
faculties displayed in the cenhalic ganglia and in the organs 
of sense. The parallelism may be summed up in the state- 
ment that in most, if not all, the principal classes of the 
animal kingdom, the animals with the most perfect prehensile 
organs are the most intelligent. Thus the cuttle-fish is the 
most intelligent of mollusks, and the crab similarly stands at 
the head of crustaceans, while the parrot outranks all other 
birds alike in sagacity and in power of handling things, and ° 
the ape and elephant are, with the exception of man, the 
most sagacious of mammals.! Of the human race, too; it 
may be said that, although Anaxagoras was wrong in assert- 
ing that brutes would have been men had they had hands, 
he might safely have asserted that without hands men could 
never have become human. Now this interdependence of 
the directive and executive faculties is continued throughout 
the process of social evolution in the shape of the inter- 


2 Chapters on Language, p. 199. 
* Spencer, op, sit. i, 368—372, 


310 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. 1, 


dependence of the sciences and the arts. “We may properly 
say that, in its higher forms, the correspondence between the 
organisni and its environment is effected by means of supple- 
mentary senses and supplementary limbs, . . . . The magni- 
fying-glass adds but another lens to the lenses existing in 
the eye. The crow-bar is but one more lever attached to the 
series of levers forming the arm and hand. And the rela-. 
tionship, which is so obvious in these first steps, holds 
throughout.” We may, indeed, go still deeper, and say that 
science is but an extension of our ordinary sense-perceptions 
by the aid of reasoning, while art is but an extension of the 
ordinary function of our muscular system, of expressing our 
psychical states by means of motion. Hence it is that “each 
great step towards a knowledge of laws has facilitated men’s 
operations on things; while each more successful operation 
on things has, by its results, facilitated the discovery of 
further laws.” Hence the sciences and arts, originating 
together,—as in the cases of “astronomy and agriculture, 
geometry and the laying out of buildings, mechanics and the 
weighing of commodities,’—have all along reacted upon each 
other, in an increasing variety of ways. It is sufficient to 
mention the reciprocal connections between navigation and 
astronomy, between geology and mining, between chemistry 
and all the arts; while telescopes and microscopes illustrate 
*the truth that “there is scarcely an observation now made in 
science, but what involves the use of instruments supplied 
»y the arts; while there is scarcely an art-process but what 
involves some of the previsions of science.” Just as in 
organic evolution we find the mutual dependence of the 
directive and executive faculties ever increasing, so that 
“complete visual and tactual perceptions are impossible 
without complex muscular adjustments, while elaburate 
actions require the constant overseeing of the senses”; so in 
3ocial evolution we find-between science and art an increas- 
ing reciprocity “such that. cach further cognition implies 


cu. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. Sil 


elaborate operative aid, and each new operation implies 
sundry elaborate cognitions.” I need only add that, in this 
as in the other aspects of intellectual progress, the increase 
in complexity of adjustment achieved during the process of 
social evolution is far greater than that achieved during the 
immediately preceding stages of the process of organic 
evolution. Between the ape and the primitive man, with 
his rude levers and hatchets and his few simple previsicns, 
the difference in complexity of correspondence is obviously 
less than between the primitive man and the modern, with 
his steam-hammers and thermo-electric multipliers, and his 
long list of sciences and sub-sciences, any one of which it 
would take much more than a lifetime to master in detail. 

We have thus passed in review the various aspects of 
intellectual progress, regarded as a process of adjustment of 
inner to outer relations, and we have seen that in all the 
most. essential features of this progress there is a wider dif- 
ference between the civilized man and the lowest savage than 
between the savage and the ape. It appears that those rare 
and admirable qualities upon which we felicitate ourselves as 
marks whieh absolutely distinguish us from brute an‘mals.. 
have been slowly acquired through long ages of social evolu- 
tion, and are shared only to a quite insignificant extent by 
the lowest contemporary races of humanity. As long as 
we regard things statically, as for ever fixed; we may well 
imagine an impassable gulf between ourselves and all other 
forms of organic existence. But as soon as we regard things 
dynamically, as for ever changing, we are taught that the 
eulf has been for the most part established during an epoch 
at the very beginning of which we were zoologically the same 
that. we now are. 

The next step in our argument will be facilitated by an 
inquiry into the common characteristic of the various intel- 
lectual differences between the civilized and the primitive 
man which we have above enumerated. The nature of this 


312 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. fer. 1. 


characteristic was hinted at when we were discussing the 
improvidence of the. barbarian. It was observed that the 
power of distinctly imagining objective relations not present 
to sense is the most fundamental of the many intellectual 
differences between the civilized man and the barbarian. 
Making this statement somewhat wider, we may now safely 
assert that the entire intellectual superiority of the civilized 
man over the savage, or of the modern man over the primeval 
man, is summed up in his superior power of representing that — 
which is not present to the senses. For it is not only in what 
we call providence that this superiority of representation 
shows itself, but also in all those combinations of present 
with past impressions which accompany the extension of the 
correspondence in space and time, and its increase in hetero- 
geneity, definiteness, and coherence, It is his ability to re- 
produce copies of his own vanished states of consciousness, 
and of those of his fellows, that enables the civilized men to 
adjust his actions to sequences occurring at the antipodes. 
It is this same power of representation which underlies his 
power of forming abstract and general conceptions. For the 
peculiarity of abstract conceptions is that “the matter of 
thought is no longer any one object, or any one action, but a 
trait common to many”; and it is, therefore, only when a 
number of distinct objects or relations possessing some 
common trait can be represented in consciousness that there 
becomes possible that comparison which results in the ab- 
straction of the common -trait as the object of thought. 
Obviously, then, the greater the power of abstraction and 
generalization which is observed, the greater is the power of 
representation which is implied. The case is the same with 
that definiteness of the intellectual processes which we have 
noted as distinguishing modern from: primitive thinking. 
For. the conception which underlies definiteness of thinking 
is the conception of exact likeness,—a highly abstract concep- 
tion which can only be framed after the comnarison of 


om. xxt.] GHNESIS, OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 213 


numerous represented eases in which degree of likeness is 
the common trait that is thought about. Hence not only 
the improvidence of the savage, but likewise the vagueness 
of his conceptions, his inability to form generalizations in- 
volving abstraction, and the limited area covered by his 
adjustments, are facts which one and all find their ultimate 
explanation in his relative incapacity for Goalie up repre- 
sentative states of consciousness. 

From this same incapacity results that inflexibility of 
thought in which the savage resembles the brute, and which 
is one of the chief proximate causes of his unprogressive- 
ness. “One of the greatest pains to human nature,” says 
Mr, Bagehot, “is the pain of a new idea.” This pain, which 
only to a few of the most highly cultivated minds in the 
most highly civilized communities has ceased to be a pain 
and become a pleasure, is to the savage not so much a pain as 
a numbing or paralyzing shock. To rearrange the elements of 
his beliefs is for the uncivilized man an almost impossible 
task. It is not so much that he does not dare to sever some 
traditional association of ideas which he was taught in child- 
hood, as it is that he is incapable of holding together in 
thought the clusters of representations with the continuity 
of which the given association is incompatible. This im- 
portant point is so ably and succinctly stated by Mr. Spencer, 
that I cannot do better than to quote his exposition entire. 
After reminding us that “ mental evolution, both: intellectual 
and emotional, may be measured by the degree of -remote- 
hess from primitive reflex action,” Mr. Spencer observes that 
“in reflox avtion, which is the action of nervous structures 
that effect few, simple, and often-repeated coordinations, the 
sequent nervous state follows irresistibly the antecedent 
nervous state; and does this not only for the reason that 
the discharge follows a perfectly permeable channel, bzt also 
for the reason that no alternative channel exists. From this 
stayo, in which the psychical life is automatically restrained 


314 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, ter. nm. 


within the narrowest limits, up through higher stages in 
which increasing nervous complexities give increasing varie- 
ties of actions and possibilities of new combinations, the 
process continues the same; and it continues the same as 
we advance from the savage to the civilized man. For where 
the life furnisies relatively few and little-varied experiences, 
where the restricted sphere in which it is passed yields no 
sign of the multitudinous combinations of phenomena that 
occur elsewhere, the thought follows irresistibly one or other _ 
oi the few channels which the experiences have made for it, 
—cannot be determined in some other direction for want of 
some other channel. But as fast as advancing civilization 
brings more numerous experiences to each man, as well as 
accumulations of other men’s experiences, past and present, 
the ever-multiplying connections of ideas that result imply 
ever-multiplying possibilities of thought. The convictions 
throughout a wide range of cases are rendered less fixed. 
Other causes than those which are usual become conceivable 3 
other effects can be imagined ; and hence there comes an in- 
creasing modifiability of opinion. This modifiability of opinion 
reaches its extreme in those most highly cultured persons 
whose multitudinous experiences include many experiences 
of errors discovered, and whose representativeness of thought 
is so far-reaching that they habitually call to mind the 
various possibilities of error, as constituting a general reason 
for seeking new evidence and subjecting their conclusions to 
revision. 

“If we glance over the series of contrasted modes of 
thinking which civilization presents, beginning with the 
savage who, seized by the fancy that something is a charm 
or an omen, thereafter continues firmly fixed in that belief, 
and ending with the man of science whose convictions, firm 
where he is conscious of long-accumulated evidence having 
no exception, are plastic where the evidence though abun. 
dant is not yet overwhelming, we see how an increase in 


cu, xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY, 315 


freedoin of thought goes along with that higher representa- 
tiveness accompanying further mental evolution.”?* 

is now we inquire for a moment into the causes of this 
higher representativeness of civilized thinking, we shall see 
most beautifully exemplified the way in which intellectual 
progress, as it goes on in the human race, is ‘etermined by 
social evolution. Intellectual progress is indeed a cause as 
well as a consequence of the evolution of society ; but amid 
the dense entanglement of causes and effects our present 
purpose requires us to single out especially the dependence 
of progress in representativeness upon social complexity, 
since herein will be found the secret of the mental pre- 
eminence of civilized man, Now the integration of small 
tribes into larger and more complex social aggregates, which 
is the fundamental phenomenon in civilization, tends directly 
to heighten representativeness of thinking by widening and 
varying the experiences of the members of society. The 
member of a savage tribe must think indefinitely, concretely, 
rigidly, improvidently, because his intellectual experiences 
are so few in number and so monotonous in character. In- 
crease in social complexity renders possible, or indeed directly 
produces, fresh associations of ideas in greater and greater 
variety and abundance, so that the decomposition and re- 
combination of thoughts involved in abstraction and genera- 
lization is facilitated; and along with this, the definiteness 
and the plasticity of thought is increased, and the contents 
of the mind become representative in higher and higher 
degrees. Thus in every way it is brought before us that 
sociality has been the great agent in the achievement of 
man’s intellectual pre-eminence, and that it has operated by 
widening and diversifying human experience, or in other 
words by increasing the number, remoteness, and hetero- 
gencity of the environing relations to which each individual’s 
actions have had to be adjusted, Am inquiry into the 

2 Spencer, op. cit. ii. 524, 


316 ---. @OSMIC PHILOSOPHY. fpr. m, 


genesis of. sociality will therefore best show us how the 
chasm which divides man intellectually from the brute is to 
be: crossed. . 

But bifors we proceed to this somewhat binighee and cir: 
cuitous inquiry, we may profitably contemplate under a new 
aspect the intellectual difference which we have assigned as 
the fundamental one between civilized and primeval man. 
We have observed that the intellectual superiority of man 
over brute and of the civilized man over the barbarian essen- 
tially consists in a greater capacity for mentally representing 
objects and relations remote from sense. And we have 
insisted upon the point that in this capacity of representation 
the difference between the highest and lowest specimens of 
normal humanity known to us far exceeds the difference 
between the lowest men and the highest apes. Now in 
closest connection. with these. conclusions stands the physical 
fact that the chief structural difference between man and 
ape, as also between civilized and uncivilized man, is the 
difference in size and complexity of cerebrum, The cerebrum 
is the organ especially set apart for the compounding and re- 
‘compounding of impressions that are not immediately sensory, 
The business of coordinating immediately presentative im-_ 
pressions is performed by the medulla and other subordinate 
centres.. The cerebrum is especially the organ-of that portion 
.of psychical life which is entirely representative. Obviously, 
then, the progress to higher and higher representativeness 
ought to be aoouinipauiad by a well-marked growth of the 
cerebrum relatively to the other parts of the nervous system, 
‘Now, in the light of the present arcument, how ‘significant 
‘is the fact ‘that the. cranial capacity ‘of the modern English- 
man surpasses that of the. aboriginal pp etyan Hindu 
by a difference of sixty-eight cubic. inches,” while between 
this Hindu skull and the’ skull of the porills the differenep 


1 See above, p. 137.5 | | ae Ot 
* Lyell, Antiquity of Mam, p. a4 


gu. xxi.) GENESIS-OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 317 


in capacity is but eleven cubic inches! That is to say, the 
difference in volume of brain between the highest and the 
lowest man is at least six times as great as the difference 
between the lowest man and the highest ape. And if we 
were to take into the account the differences in structural 
complexity, as indicated by the creasing and f-rowing 
of the brain-surface, we should obtain ‘a yet:more astonishing 
contrast. Yct, powerfully as this anatomical fact confirms 
the position we have all along been upholding, its full value 
will not be apparent if we are so dazzled by it as to overlook 
the significance of the lesser difference between the gorilla 
and the aboriginal inhabitant of India.: As the Duke of Argyll 
very properly observes, we do right-in setting a higher 
value in classification upon the eleven inches which intervene 
between the gorilla and the Hindu than upon the sixty-eight 
inches which intervene between the Hindu and the English- 
man.. For “the sienificance set by the facts of nature upon that 
difference of eleven cubic inches ... .-is the difference between 
an irrational brute confined to ’some one climate and. to some 
hmited area of the globe,—which no outward conditions can 
modify or improve,—and a being equally adapted to the 
whole habitable world, with powers, however undeveloped, of 
comparison, of reflection; of judgment, of reason; with a sens¢ 
of right and ‘wrong, and with all these: capable of accumu- 
lated acquisition, and therefore of: indefinite. advance.” 
Though somewhat exaggerated in what it: denies to the 
brute, and much more in what it claims for the aboriginal 
man, this statement contains.a. kernel of truth which is of 
value for our present purpose, and which is further illustrated 
by the fact that a minimum of brain-substance “‘is constantly 
and uniformly associated with all the other anatomical 
peculiarities of man. Below that minimum the whole 
accompanying structure undergoes far more than a corre 
sponding change,—even the whole change between the lowest 
pavage and the highest ape. Above that minimum, all 


318 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rr. 1, 


subsequent variations in quantity are accompanied by na 
changes whatever in physical structure.”+ Here again, 
though the antithesis is a little too absolutely stated, we have 
set before us a real distinction. Up to a certain point, the 
brain and the rest of the body are alike alterable by natural 
selection’ and such other agencies as may be concerned in the 
slow modification of organisms. But when the brain has 
reached a certain point in size and complexity, the rest of the 
body ceases to change, save in a few slight particulars, and 
the agencies concerned in forwarding the process of evolution 
seein to confine themselves to the brain, and especially to the 
cerebrum,—the result being marked psychical development, 
unattended by any notable physical alteration. Here we 
have reached a fact of prime importance. We may grant to 
the Duke of Argyll that when those eleven additional cubic 
inches of brain had been acquired, some kind of a Rubicon 
had been crossed, and a new state of things inaugurated. 
What was that Rubicon ? 

_ The answer has been furnished by Mr. Wallace, and must 
rank as one of the most brilliant contributions ever yet made 
to the Doctrine of Evolution. Since inferior animals respond 
chiefly by physical changes to changes in their environment, 
natural selection deals chiefly with such changes, to the 
visible modification of their bodily structure. In the case of 
sheep or bears, for instance, increased cold can only select for 
preservation the individuals most warmly coated ; or if a race 
of lions, which has hitherto subsisted upon small and sluggish 
tuminants until these have been nearly exterminated, is at 
last obliged to attack antelopes and buffaloes, natural selection 
can only preserve the swiftest and strongest or most ferocious 
lions. But when an animal has once appeared, endowed with 
sufficient intelligence to chip a stone tool and hurl a weapon, 
natural selection will take advantage of variations in this 
intelligence, to the comparative neglect of purely piyded 


2 Duke of Argyll, Primeval Man, pp. 57—64. 


cH. xx1.]) GENESIS OF MAN, INTALLECTUALLY, 319 


variations. Communities whose members are best able to 
meet by intelligent contrivances the changes in the environ- 
ment wili prevail over other communities, and will also be 
less easily destroyed by physical catastrophes. Still more 
strikingly must this superior availability o. variations in 
intelligence be exemplified, when the intelligence has pro- 
gressed so far as to sharpen spears, to use rude bows, to dig 
pitfalls, to cover the body with leaves or skins, and to strike 
fire by rubbing sticks, according te the Indian version of the 
myth of Prometheus, 

So soon, in short, as the intelligence of an animal has, 
through ages of natural selection and direct adaptation, be- 
come so considerable that a slight variation in it is of more 
use to the animal than any variation in physical structure, 
then such variations will be more and more constantly 
selected, while purely physical variations, being of less vital 
importance to the species, will be relatively more and more 
neglected, Thus, while the external appearance of such an 
animal, and the structure of his internal nutritive and mus- 
cular apparatus, may vary but little in many ages, his cere- 
bral structure will vary with comparative rapidity, entailing 
a more or less rapid variation in intellectual and emotional 
attributes, 

Here we would seem to have the key to the singular con- 
trast in the relations of man to contemporary anthropoid 
apes. We may now understand why man differs so little, 
in general physical structure and external appearance, from 
‘the chimpanzee and gorilla, while, with regard to the 
special point of cerebral structure and its correlative intel- 
ligence, he differs so vastly from these, his nearest living 
congeners, and the most sagacious of animals save himself. 
Coupled with what we now know concerning the inimense 
intiquity of the human race, Mr. Wallace’s brilliant sugges- 
tion goes far to bridge over the interval, which formerly 
seemed so impracticable, between brute and man. If we 


321) COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr 


take the thousands of centuries during which the human race 
has covered both the eastern and the western hemispheres, 
and compare with them the entire duration of recorded 
human history, we shall have set before us a profitable subject 
of reflection. Since the period during which man has pos- 
sessed sufficient intelligence to leave a traditionary record of 
himself is but an infinitesimal fraction of the period during 
which he has existed upon the earth, tt is but fair to conclude 
that, during those long ages of which none but a geologic record 


of his existence remains, he was slowly ACQUIRING that superior. 


intelligence which now so widely distingwishes him from all 


other animals:' Throughout an enormous period of time, his: 
brain-structure and its correlated intellectual and emotional: 


functions must have been constantly modified both by natural 


selection and by direct adaptation, while his outward physical’ 
appearance has undergone few modifications ; and of these. 


the most striking would. seem to be directly or indirectly: 
consequent: upon the cerebral changes,” | 


1 The reader will not fail to note that, even were the question otherwise: 
left open, after the conclusive evidence summarized in chapter ix., this point, 


by itself is ‘a point of truly enormous weight in favour of the theory of man’s 
descent from some lower animal. Upon the theory that the human race was 
created by a special miraculous act, its long duration in such utter silence is 


a meaningless, inexplicable fact ; whereas, upon the derivation theory, it is 


just what might be expected. ; 


2 To the general observer, as to the anatomist, the most notable points of 


difference between civilized and uncivilized’ man, as well as between man and 
the chimpanzee or gorilla, are the differences in the size of the jaws and the 
inclination of the forehead. The latter difference is directly consequent upon 
increase of intelligence ; and the former is indirectly occasioned by the same 
circumstance. For the diminution of the jaws, entailed by civilization, is, 
no doubt, primarily due to disuse ; and the disuse is occasioned partly by dif- 
ference in food, and partly by the employment of tools, and the consequent 
increased reliance upon the hands as prehensile organs. All these circum- 
stances are the result of increased intelligence. And in addition to this, it is 
probable that increased frontal developient has directly tended, by correla- 
tion of growth, to diminish the size of the jaws, as well as to push forwaid 
the bridge of the nose. To the increased’ reliance upon the hands as prehen- 
sile orgaus—a circumstance which we have seen’ to be in/an especial degree 
characteristic of developing intelligence—is probably also due the. complete 
attainment of the erect position of the body, already partially obtained hy 
the anthropoid: apes. . Cerebral development thus accounts for all the con: 
spicuous physical peculiarities of man except his bare skin, —a phenomenog 
for which no sutisiactory explanation has yet been suggested. 


ee 
ST 


ex. xx1.] GENESIS.OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. . 221. 


It is a corollary from the foregoing considerations, that no 
race of organisms can in fature tie produced through the. 
agency of sata) selection and direct adaptation, which shall, 
be zoologically distinct from, and superior to, the human race.: 
As the same causes which physically modify lower species; 
have, for countless ages, modified man directly and greatly in: 
intelligence and only indirectly and slightly in physical con- 
stitution, it follows that mankind is destined to advance, 
during future ages in psychical attributes, but is likely to. 
undergo only slight changes in. outward appearance. It is: 
by the coordination of intellectual and moral relations that. 
man maintains himself in equilibrium with the physical, in-, 
tellectual, and moral relations arising in his ever-changing. 
environment. And hence in thefuture, as in the recent, past, 
the dominant. fact in the career of humanity is not “7 sical; 
modification, but CIVILIZATION. "| ‘y 

- Here we are brought by a new route to the verge of that 
theory of civilization which I have sought to elucidate:i in the 
preceding chapters. We have touched upon a grand truth, 
of which it would be difficult to overrate the importance.’ 
For we can now admit—not as a concession to Mr. St. George. 
Mivart, but as a legitimate result of our own method of. 
inquiry—that when “the totality of man’s being” is taken! 
into the account, the difference between ape and mushroom: 
is less important than the difference between ape and man. 
And without conceding aught to that superlative nonsense 
known as the “doctrine of special creations,” we may admit, 
with the Duke of Argyll, that the eleven cubic inches of. 
brain-space, by which the aboriginal Hindu surpasses the 
gorilla, have a higher value, for purposes of classification,’ 
than the sixty-eight cubic inches by which the modern: 
Englishman surpasses the Hindu. We now see what kind: 
of a Rubicon it was’ which was crossed when those eleven. 
cubic inches of brain (or even when four or five of them), 
had been gained. The crossing of the Rubicon was the: 

VOL, IL. Df 


322 COSMIC PHILUSUPHY., [pr. 11. 


point at which natural selection began to confine itscif chiefly 
to variations in psychical manifestation. The ape-like pro- 
genitor of man, in whom physical and psychical changes had 
gone on part passu for countless scons, until he had reached 
the grade of intelligence implied by the possession of a brain 
four or five inches more capacious than that of the gorilla 
had now, as we may suppose, obtained a brain upon which 
could be devolved, to a greater and greater extent, the task of 
maintaining relations with the environment. Then began a 
new chapter in the history of the evolution of life. Hence- 
forward the survival of the fittest, in man’s immediate an- 
cestry, was the survival of the cerebrums best able to form 
representative combinations. The agencies which had hitherto 
been at work in producing an organic form endowed with rare 
physical capacities, now began steadfastly to labour in pro- 
ducing a mind capable to‘a greater and greater extent of 
ideally resuscitating and combining relations not present 
to the senses. 

But immense as was the step thus achieved in advance, 
the progress from brute to man was not yet accomplished. 
As we have already shown, the circumstances which by widen- 
ing and diversifying experience have mainly contributed to 
heighten man’s faculty of representativeness, have been for 
the most part circumstances attendant upon man’s sociality, 
or the capacity of individuals for aggregating into communities 
of increasing extent and complexity. Here we become 
involved in considerations relating to the emotions as well as 
to the intelligence. The capacity for sustaining the various 
relationships implied by the existence of a social aggregate— 
whether in the case of a primeval family community or of a 
modern nation—cannot be explained without taking into 
the account the genesis of those moral feelings by the pusses- 
sion of which man has come to differ from the highest brutes 
even more co.spicuously than by his purely intellectual 
achievements. The task. now before us, therefore, is te 


cH. xx1.] GENESIS OF MAN, INTELLECTUALLY. 323 


explain the genesis of the moral feelings which lie at the 
bottom of sociality in the human race; and with reference 
to this question I shall presently have a suggestion to offer, 
which will be found as serviceable as it is interesting and 
novel. Let us for the moment, however, consider the impli- 
cations of some of the current ethical theories, and especially 
let us examine the scientific basis of what is too crudely 
designated as Utilitarianism. 


CHAPTER XXIL 
GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY, 


THERE are two things, said Kant, which fill me with awe 
because of their sublimity,—the starry heavens above us, 
and the moral law within us. From the modern point of 
view there is interest as well as instruction to be found in 
the implied antithesis. While in the study of the stellar 
universe we contemplate the process of evolution on a scale 
so vast that reason and imagination are alike baffled in the 
effort to trace out its real significance, and we are over- 
powered by the sense of the infinity that surrounds us; on 
the other hand, in the study of the moral sense we contem- 
plate the last and noblest product of evolution which we 
can ever know,—the attribute latest to be unfolded in the 
development of psychical life, and by the possession of which 
we have indeed become as gods, knowing the good and the 
2vil. The theorems of astronomy and the theorems of ethics 
present to us the process of evolution in its extremes of 
extension and of intension respectively. For although upon 
other worlds far out in space there may be modes of exist- 
ence immeasurably transcending Humanity, yet these must 
remain unknowable by us. And while this possibility should 
be allowed its due weight in restraining us from the vain 
endeavour to formulate the infinite and eternal Sustaiuer 


ee. 


cH, Xxt11.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 825 


of the univérse’in terms of our own human nature, as if the 
highest symbols intelligible to us were in reality the highest 
symbols, nevertheless it can in no way influence or modify 
our science. To us the deve’opment of the noblest of human 
attributes must ever remain the last term in the stupendous 
series of cosmic changes, of which the development of plane- 
tary systems is the first term. And our special synthesis of 
the phenomena of cosmic evolution, which began by seek- 
ing to explain the genesis of the earth and its companion 
worlds, will be fitly concluded when we have offered a 
theory of the genesis of those psychical activities whose 
end_is to secure to mankind the most perfect fulness of 
life upon this earth, which is its dwelling-place. 

The great philosopher whose remark has suggested these 
reflections would not, however, have been teady to assent to 
the interpretation here given. Though Kant was one of the 
chief pioneers of the Doctrine of Evolation, having been the 
first to propose and to elaborate in detail the theory of the 
nebular origin of planetary systems, yet the conception of a 
continuous development of life in all its modes, physical and 
psychical, was not sufficiently advanced, in Kant’s day, to 
be adopted into philosophy. Hence in his treatment of the 
mind, as regards both intelligence and emotion, Kant took 
what may be called a statical view of the subject; and 
finding in the adult civilized mind, upon the study of which 
his systems of psychology and ethics were founded, a number 
of organized moral intuitions and an organized moral sense, 
which urges men to seek the right and shun the wrong, 
irrespective of utilitarian considerations of pleasure and pain, 
he proceeded to deal with these moral intuitions and this 
moral sense as if they were ultimate facts, incapable of 
being analyzed into simpler emotional elements, Now as 
the following exposition may look like a defence of utili- 
farianism, it being really my intention to show that utili-’ 
\arianism in the deepest and. widest sense-is the ethical 


326 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY.  frrom 


philosophy imperatively required by the facts, it is well to 
state, at the outset, that the existence of a moral sense and 
moral intuitions in civilized man is fully granted. It is 
admitted that civilized man possesses a complex group of 
emotions, leading him to seek the right and avoid the 
wrong, without any reference to considerations of utility ; 
and I disagree entirely with those utilitarian disciples of 
Locke, who would apparently refer these ethical emotions 
to the organization of experiences of pleasure and pain in 
the case of each individual. So long as the subject is 
contemplated from a statical point of view, so long as 
individual experience is studied without reference to, an- 
cestral experience, the follower of Kant can always hold 
his ground against the follower of Locke, in ethics as well 
as in psychology. When the Kantian asserts that’ the in- 
tuitions of right and wrong, as well as the intuitions of 
time and space, are independent of experience, he occupies 
a position which is impregnable, so long as the organization 
of experiences through successive generations is left out of 
the discussion. But already, on two occasions of supreme 
importance, we have found the Doctrine of Evolution lead- 
ing us to a common ground upon which the disciples of 
Kant and the disciples of Locke can dwell in peace together. 
We have seen that the experience-test and the incon- 
ceivability-test of truth are, when deeply considered, but 
the obverse faces of the same thing. We have seen that 
there is a stand-point from which the experience-theory 
and the intuition-theory of knowledge may be regarded as 
mutually supplementing each other. We shall presently 
see, in like manner, that the so-called doctrine of utili- 
tarianism and the doctrine of moral intuitions are by no 
means so incompatible with one another as may at first 
appear. As soon as we begin to study the subject dynami- 
cally, everything is shown in a new light. Admitting the 
truth of the Kantian position, that there exists in us a 


eH. XXI1.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 327 


moral sense for analyzing which our individual experience 
does not afford the requisite data, and which must there- 
fore be regarded as ultimate for each individual, it is never- 
theless open to us to inquire into the emotional antecedents 
of this organized moral sense as exhibited in ancestral types 
of psychical life. The inquiry will result in the conviction 
that the moral sense is not ultimate, but derivative, and that 
it has been built up out of slowly organized experiences of 
pleasures and pains. | 

But before we can proceed directly upon the course thus 
marked out, it is necessary that we should determine what 
are meant by pleasures and pains. What are the common 
characteristics, on the one hand; of the states of conscious- 
ness which we call pleasures, and, on the other hand, of the 
states of consciousness which we call pains? According to 
Sir William Hamilton, “ pleasure is a reflex of the sponta- 
neous and unimpeded exertion of a power of whose energy 
we are conscious; pain is a reflex of the overstrained or re- 
pressed exertion of such a power.” That this theory, which 
is nearly identical with that of Aristotle, is inadequate to 
account for all the phenomena of pleasure and pain, has been, 
I think. conclusively proved by Mr. Mill. With its complete 
adequacy, however, we need not now concern ourselves; a8 
we shall presently see that a different though somewhat allied 
statement will much better express the facts in the case. 
Hamilton’s statement, however inadequate, is illustrated by 
a number of truths which for our present purpose are of 
importance. A large proportion of our painful states of 
consciousness are attendant upon the inaction, or what 
Hamilton less accurately calls the “repressed exertion,” ot 
certain organic functions. According to the character of the 
functions in question, these painful states are known as 
cravings or yearnings. Inaction of the alimentary canal, 
and that molecular inaction due to deficiency of water in the 
system, are attended by feelings of hunger and thirst, whicn 


328 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. - [pr ny 


vary from slight discomfort to intense agony according as the 
inaction is prolonged, Of. kindred character are the acquired 
cravings for tobacco, alcohol, and other narcotics. Inaction 
of the muscles causes great discomfort in children who are 
compelled to sit still, and grown persons feel similar annoy- 
ance when the enforced stillness is long enough kept up. 
Prisoners. kept in dark cells soon feel an intense craving for 
light, which in time becomes scarcely less intolerable ‘than 
raging hunger. A similar explanation suffices for the emo- 
tional yearnings involved in home-sickness, ennui, deprivation 
of the approval of our fellow-creatures, or in separation from 
our favourite pursuits, All these painful states are due to the 
enforced inaction of certain feelings, social or esthetic. And 
in similar wise, as Mr..Spencer observes, the bitter. grief 
attendant upon:the death of a friend results from the ideal 
representation of a future in which certain groups of habitual 
emotions must remain inactive or unsatisfied by outward 

expression. | 
The objection may ha aed that all this is me an sintotetn 
way of saying that certain pains result from the deprivation 
of certain pleasures. But since such an objection, in its very. 
statement, recognizes that certain kinds of unimpeded acti- 
vity, physical or psychical, are pleasures, it need not disturb 
us, or lead us to under-estimate the value of Hamilton’s 
suggestion. Let us note next that excessive action of any 
function, equally with deficient action, is attended by pain, 
Local pain results from intensified sensations of heat, light, 
sound, or pressure; and though it may be in some cases true, 
as Mr. Spencer asserts, that sweet tastes are not rendcred 
positively disagreeable by any degree of intensity,’ the alleged 
fact seems quite contrary to my .own experience, and to that 
of several other persons whom I have questioned. Other — 
local pains, as in inflammation and sundry other forms oi 
disease, are apparently due to increased molecular activity in 
1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 276. 


a 


cH. xx] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 329 


the parts affected. And the feelings of pain or discomfort 
both local and systemic, attendant upon over-exercise, over- 
eating, or excessive use of a narcotic, are to be similarly 
explained. 

Thus we may say that pleasure, generally speaking, is “ the 
concomitant of an activity which is neither too small nor 
too great,” and we get at the significance of the Epicurean 
maxim, pndev ayav. But this doctrine, as already hinted, 
is by no means complete. For, as Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer 
ask, “What constitutes a medium activity? What deter- 
mines that lower limit of pleasurable action bel owwhich 
there is craving, and that higher limit of pleasurable action 
above which there is pain?” And furthermore, how happen 
there to be certain feelings (as among tastes and odours) 
which are disagreeable in all degrees of intensity, and others 
that are agreeable in all degrees of intensity? The answer, 
as Mr. Spencer shows, is to be sought in the study of the 
past conditions under which feelings have been evolved. 

If the tentacles of a polyp are rudely struck by some 
passing or approaching body, the whole polyp contracts 
violently in such a manner as to throw itself slightly out of 
the way; but if a fragment of assimilable food, floating by, 
happens to touch one of the tentacles gently, the tentacle 
grasps it and draws it slowly down to the polyp’s digestive 
sac. Now between these contrasted actions there is no 
such psychical difference as accompanies the similarly con- 
trasted human actions of taking food and ducking the head 
to avoid a blow; for the polyp’s contractions, being simply 
reflex actions of the lowest sort, are unattended by states of 
consciousness, either agreeable or disagreeable. Nevertheless 
there is one respect in which the two cases perfectly agree. 
In both cases there is a seeking of that which is beneficial 
to the organism, and a shunning of that which is injurious. 
And while, in the case of the polyp, there is no conscious 
pleasure or pain, we may fairly surmise that, as soun as any 


330 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. | (er. 11. 


animal’s psychical life becomes sufficiently complex to be 
attended by distinct states of consciousness, the presence of 
that which is beneficial is accompanied by a pleasurable 
feeling which leads to the seeking of it, while the presence of 
that which is injurious is accompanied by a painful feeling 
which leads to the shunning of it. Our surmise is strength- 
ened as we reconsider the human actions lately enumerated, 
and observe that the abnormal activity of a function, either 
in deficiency or in excess, is injurious, while the normal 
activity of a function in balance with its companion functions 
is beneficial, As Mr. Spencer says, “in a mutually dependent 
set of organs having a consensus of functions, the very exist- 
ence of a special organ having its special function, implies 
that the absence of its function must cause disturbance of 
the consensus,—implies too, that its function may be raised 
to an excess which must cause disturbance of the consensus, 
—implies, therefore, that maintenance of the consensus goes 
along with a medium degree of its function.” In accordanca 
with this view, we may note that hunger and thirst are 
feelings attendant upon a kind of functional inaction which 
is harmful, and even fatal if prolonged; that inaction or 
excessive action of the muscles is injurious as well as pain- 
ful; that the intense heat and cold, and the violent pressure, 
which cause distress, will also cause more or less injury, and 
may cause death ; that the discomfort following repletion and 
narcosis is the concomitant of a state of things which, if 
kept up, must end in dyspepsia, or other forms of disease, 
entailing usually a permanent lowering of nutrition; and 
that the intense sounds and lights which distress the ear and 
eye also tend to produce deafness and blindness. And in 
like manner, the enforced inaction of the social and esthetic 
feelings, which is attended by mental discomfort, is also 
attended in the long run by a diminution of the fulness and 
completeness of psychical life, which in extreme cases. may 
result in consumption, insanity, or narcotic craving, 


ou. xx11.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 331 


It would seem, therefore, that the class of cases upon which 
Hamilton relied will justify an interpretation much deeper 
than the one which he proposed for them. They will appa- 
rently justify us in asserting that pleasure is a state of con- 
sciousness accompanying modes of activity which tend to 
increase the fulness of life of an organism, while pain is a 
state of consciousness accompanying modes of activity which 
tend to diminish the fulness of life. Before considering the 
objections to this doctrine,—which, though at first sight 
formidable, will disappear on further analysis——let us note, 
with Mr, Spencer, that, on the theory of evolution, “races of 
sentient creatures could have come into existence under no 
_ other conditions.” Omitting the cases which, in human 
psychology, are complicated by the foresight of remote or 
inconspicuous consequences, Mr. Spencer observes that 
Pleasure is “a feeling which we seek to bring into con- 
sciousness and retain there,” while Pain is “a feeling which 
we seek to get out of consciousness and to keep out.” Hence 
it follows that “if the states of consciousness which a creature 
endeavours to maintain are the correlatives of injurious 
actions, and if the states of consciousness which it endeavours 
to expel are the correlatives of beneficial actions, it must 
quickly disappear through persistence in the injurious and 
avoidance of the beneficial.” In other words, even supposing 
arace cf animals could come into existence, which should 
habitually seek baneful actions as pleasurable, and shun 
useful actions as painful, natural selection would immediately 
exterminate it. Our supposition is therefore a hibernicism: 
under the operation of natural selection no such race could 
xver come into existence. Only those races can exist whose 
ieelings, on the average, result in actions which are in 
harmony with environing relations. Accordingly we may 
rest upon a still deeper and firmer basis our doctrine of 
pleasure and pain, and assert that Pleasure is a state of 
gonsciousness accompanying the relatively complete adjust- 


332 COSMIO PHILOSOPHY, [er. 1. 


ment of inner to outer relations, while Pain is a state of 
consciousness attendant upon the discordance between inuer 
and outer relations. 

We may now consider a class of facts which at first seem 
inconsistent with the theory, but which in reality serve 
further to illustrate it. Animals now and then perform self- 
destructive actions under circumstances which make it diffi- 
cult to suppose that the performance is not pleasurable. 
Though the majority of vegetable poisons are disagreeable to 
the taste, yet this is not always the case; and hence animals 
have been known to perish after a greedy meal upon some 
noxious herb. But here, as in the case of the moth which, 
in Tennyson’s phrase, is “shrivelled in a fruitless fire,” there 
is a new relation in the environment for which there is no 
corresponding adjustment established in the organism. The 
cases are like that of the child who ignorantly drinks a 
sweet poison, or satisfies its desire for muscular activity by 
climbing out of the window. The dynamic theory of life 
does not imply the pre-existence of internal relations answer- 
ing to all possible external relations. Were it so, life would 
be complete from the outset. For new emergencies there 
have to be new adjustments. Now manifestly if the whole 
race of moths could be made to live among lighted candles, 
one of two things must happen: either there must be gene- 
rated a tendency to avoid the candles, or the race must be 
exterminated. If an animal migrates to a district where 
poisonous herbs abound, its existence can be maintained only 
on one of two conditions: if it be low in intelligence, a 
disagreeable taste must be generated, so that the noxious 
food will be instantly rejected, or the odour must become 
offensive, so that the taste will be forewarned; but if the 
anima’ be possessed of high intelligence, like a bird or 
mamman, it will be enough if the dangerous object is identi- 
fied by smell or taste, or even by vision or touch, while along 
with the recognition there occurs an ideal representation o} 


| * UH. XXI1.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY, 333 


danger. Hence it is not necessary to the maintenance of a 
race like mankind that all poisons should be bitter, or that 
injurious actions, newly tried, should painfully affect any of 
the senses. The work of making the needful adjustments is 
thrown largely upon the cerebrum, with its power of forming 
ideal sequences like those formerly experienced, and of direct- 
ing action so as to anticipate them. Here, indeed, we come 
suddenly upon one of the conditions of luman progressive- 
ness, as above illustrated. ; 
We can now begin to see why man finds pleasure in so 
many kinds of activity which are noxious to himself. In no 
other animal are the failures of adjustment between pleasur- 
able and painful states, and beneficial and hurtful actions, so 
numerous or so conspicuous as in man. Though in the 
adjustments upon which the maintenauce of life immediately 
depends, the correspondence is of necessity unimpaired, yet 
in those less essential adjustments concerned in keeping up 
the greatest possible fulness of life, there is frequent and 
lamentable imperfection. Thus,—to take one instance out 
of a hundred,—we continually see pleasurable states of con- 
sciousness associated with hurtful actions in the cases of 
men who ruin themselves by the use of narcotics. The fact 
that men, who are so much wiser than brutes, should often 
persist in conduct unworthy of brute intelligence, has long 
formed the theme of much sage but fruitless moralizing. By 
Jalvinistic theologians such phenomena were formerly cited 
in proof of the theory that man is morally the lowest of 
creatures, having been rendered thoroughly unsound by the 
eating of the apple in Eden. It is needless to say that 
science offers a very different explanation. It follows from 
our inquiry into the causes of organic evolution,! that the 
adjustments which teygd to maintain the highest fulness of life 
can be kept up only by natural selection or by direct equili- 
bration, Now we have already had occasion to notice that in 


1 See above, part ii, chap. xii, 


334 _  OOSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (PT. Is 


the human race, partly on account of the extreme complexity 
of its individual organization, partly on account of super- 
added social conditions, the action of natural selection is to 
a great extent checked. I do not allude to the fact that the 
supremely important human sympathies, which have grown 
up in the course of social evolution, compel us to protect the 
idle and intemperate, so that, instead of starving, they are 
“enabled to multiply at the expense of the capable and in- 
dustrious.” For far deeper than this lies the circumstance 
that “there are so many kinds of superiorities which seve- 
rally enable men to survive, notwithstanding accompanying 
inferiorities, that natural selection cannot by itself rectify 
any particular unfitness; especially if, as usually happens, 
there are coexisting unfitnesses which all vary independently.”* 
In a race of inferior animals a function in excess is quickly 
reduced by natural selection, because, owing to the universal 
slaughter, the highest completeness of life possible to a given 
grade of organization is required for the mere maintenance 
of life. But under the conditions surrounding human deve- 
lopment, a function in excess may remain in excess provided 
its undue exercise is not such as is incompatible with life, 
Through countless ages, for example, the feelings which in- 
sure the maintenance of the race have been strengthened by 
natural selection, because of their prime importance to every 
race. But under the conditions of civilized life, the sexual 
passion has become a function in excess, which natural selec- 
tion is powerless to reduce, because, although it is probably 
the source of more crime and misery than any other excessive 
function, and therefore detracts more from complete individu- 
ation or the fulness of human life than any other, it is never- 
theless but seldom incompatible with the maintenance of life. 
In all such cases, mankind has so many other functions, be- 
sides the excessive ones, which enable it to subsist and 
achieve progress in spite of them, that their reduction to the 


1 Spencer, op. cit. i. 284, 


CH, XX11.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 335 


normal standard is left for the slow process of direct equili- 
bration. 

The action of direct equilibration, in turn, is greatly com- 
plicated, among the progressive races, by the rapid and 
extensive change of the social environment from age toage. A 
new set of readjustments needs to be made before the old 
ones are completed; and the result is that there are always 
a number of functions somewhat out of balance. When 
civilization is rapidly progressing, each generation of men is 
forced into kinds of activity to which the inherited emotional 
tendencies, and in some cases even the inherited physical con- 
stitutions, are not thoroughly adapted. Hence the number 
and variety of pathological phenomena, boti mental and 
physical, is greater in civilized than in savage communities. 
As might be expected, the present century, which has wit- 
nessed a far more extensive revolution in the modes of human 
activity than any previous age, exhibits numerous instances 
of these minor failures of adjustment. To take the most 
conspicuous example,—the progress of science and industry 
during the past three generations have raised the averave 
standard of comfortable living so greatly and so suddenly, — 
that to attain this standard an excessive strain is put upon 
men’s powers. In many respects, it is harder to live to-day 
than it was a hundred years ago. As a general rule we are 
overworked until late in life, in the mere effort to secure tlie 
means of maintaining life. Not only does this continual 
overwork entail a serious disturbance of the normal equili- 
briam between pleasures and pains and the correlative benetits 
«ud injuries, since it involves the undue exertion of certaix 
faculties and the undue repression of others, but there is 
further disturbance due to the specific character of the over- 
work. Throughout a very large and constantly increasing 
portion of the community, the excessive labour is intellectual 
labour ; the abnormal strain comes upon the nervous system. 
The task of maintaining the correspondence with environing 


336 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (PT. 1, 


relations, which in the course of organic evolution has been 
entrusted more and more largely to the nervous system, and 
which in the course of social evolution has been thrown 
more and more upon the cerebrum, has during the past 
hundred years been thrown upon the cerebrum to a formidable 
extent. The community, therefore, is suffering not simply 
from overwork, but from excessive brain-work, in the shape of 
inordinate thinking and planning, and inordinate anxiety. 
“Further, it is to be observed that many of the industrial 
activities which the struggle for existence has thrust on the 
members of modern societies, are in-door activities,—activi- 


ties not only not responded to by the feelings inherited from. 


aboriginal men, but in direct conflict with those more 
remotely inherited and deeply organized feelings which 
prompt a varied life in the open air.” Hence manifold dis- 
turbance. “A sedentary occupation pursued for years in a 
confined air, regardless of protesting sensations, brings about 
a degenerate physical state in which the inherited feelings are 
ereatly out of harmony with the superinduced requirements 
of the body. Desired foods, originally appropriate, become 
indigestible. An air pleasure-giving by its freshness to those 
in vigour, brings colds and rheumatisms. Amounts of exer- 
tion and excitement naturally healthful and gratifying are 
found injurious. All which evils, due though they are to con- 
tinued disregard of the guidance of inherited feelings, come 
eventually to be mistaken for proofs that the guidance of in- 
herited feelings is worthless.” } 

Further to pursue this interesting subject would be to con- 
vert a set of illustrations, already too elaborately stated, into 
an unmanageable digression. Summing up the results nov 
obtained, we see that natural selection, acting less rigidly 
under the limitations imposed by social evolution, fails to 


1 Spencer, op. cit. i. 282, 283. Light is thus thrown upon the misuse of 
alcohol and tobacco,—one of the most conspicuous of the cases in which 
men’s physical appetites prompt to actions that are injurious, 


OH. Xx1!.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 337 


reduce functions that are in excess, and leaves them to be 
reduced by direct equilibration. The process is accordingly 
slow, since direct adaptation to a rapidly changing environ 
ment is attended by the appearance of minor unfitnesses 
which further complicate the emotional disturbance, and 
disarrange the normal relations between incentives and 
actions. We need not, therefore, be surprised at the fact 
that men often find pleasure in detrimental activities; nor 
need we indorse the Puritanic or ascetic theory, suggested 
partly by the contemplation of this fact, “that painful actions 
are beneficial and pleasurable actions detrimental.” For if 
this were to any considerable extent the case, sentient life 
would inevitably disappear from the face of the earth. The 
cases which we have cited belong to ethical pathology. And 
just as pathologic phenomena do not invalidate the laws of 
physiology, just as the dynamic theory of life is not invali- 
dated by the fact that mal-adjustments are continually met 
with, so neither do cases of moral disease invalidate the 
corollary which inevitably follows from the Doctrine of 
Evolution, “that pleasures are the incentives to life-support- 
ing acts, and pains the deterrents from life-destroyiny acts.” 
We are now prepared to deal with the phenomena of Right 
and Wrong, and to notice how they become distinguished 
from the phenomena of Pleasure and Pain. Though the 
foregoing discussion forms the basis for a general doctrine of 
morality, it is nevertheless an inadequate basis, until properly 
supplemented. The existence of a moral sense has purposely 
been as far as possible unrecognized; for I believe that in 
Vealing with these complex subjects, little can be accom- 
=lished, save on the plan of separately cornering the various 
clements in the problem, and flooring them one by one. Any 
philosophy of ethics, therefore, which might be founded upon 
the preceding analysis, could be nothing move than a theory 
of Hedonism, recognizing no other incentive to proper action 
than the pleasing of one’s self. By one of the innumerable 
VOL, II. Z 


328 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. {[Pr. 1. 


tricks which the misuse of current words plays with the 

uderstanding, the so-called utilitarian theory has been, and 
still is, not unfrequently identified with this kind of hedo- 
nistic philosophy, which is in truth its very antipodes. ‘The 
error is much like that involved in the accusation of fatalism, 
commonly hurled at those whe maintain the obvious and 
harmless assertion that moral actions conform te law. But 
the difference, comprising the entire difference between the 
noblest self-sacrifice and the meanest self-fondling, is as 
follows: In our theory of pleasure and pain, which if taken 
as ultimate would be hedonism, the well-veing of the com- 
munity has been as far as possible omitted from the account. 
_ Wherever I have introduced references to social phenomena, 
I have considered them only in their effects upon the fulness 
of life of the individual. In dealing with the incentives to 
action in a race of brute animals, the foregoing considerations 
would be sufficient. But in the so-called utilitarian theory 
as it is now to be expounded, the well-being of the com- 
munity, eveu when incompatible with that of the individual, 
is the all-important consideration. While the actions deemed 
pleasurable are those which conduce to the fulness of life of the 
Individual, the actions deemed right are those which conduce 
to the fulness of life of the Community. And while the actions 
deemed painful are those which detract from the fulness of life 
of the Individual, the actions deemed wrong are those which 
detract from the fulness of life of the Community. According 
to utilitarianism, therefore, as here expounded, the conduct 
approved as moral is the disinterested service of the commu- 
nity, and the conduct stigmatized as immoral is the selfish 
preference of individual interests to those of the community. 
And bearivg in mind that the community, which primevally 
comprise only the little tribe, has by long-continued social 
integration come to comprise the entire human race, we have 
the ultimate theoiem of the utilitarian philosophy, as properiy 
understood, that actions morally right are those which are 


cH. Xx11.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 339 


beneficial to Humanity, while actions morally wrong are those 
which are detrimental to Humanity. 

Are we to maintain, then, that when we approve of certain 
actions, we do so because we consciously and deliberately 
reason out, in each particular case, the conclusion that these 
actions are beneficial to mankind? By no means. Not only 
is it that the highest science cannot always enable us to say’ 
surely of a given action that it is useful to mankind, but it is 
also that we do not stop to apply science to the matter at 
all. We approve of certain actions and disapprove of certain 
actions quite instinctively. We shrink from stealing or 
lying as we shrink from burning our fingers; and we no 
more stop to frame the theorem that stealing and lying, 
if universally practised, must entail social dissolution and 
@ reversion to primeval barbarism, than we stop to frame the 
theorem that frequent burning of the fingers must entail 
an incapacity for efficient manual operations. In short, 
there is in our psychical structure a moral sense which 
is as quickly and directly hurt by wrong-doing or the idea 
of wrong-doing as our tactile sense is hurt by stinging. 

Shall we, then, maintain, as a corollary from the Doctrine 
of Evolution, that our moral sense is due to the organic 
registration, through countless ages, of deliberate inferences 
that some actions benefit Humanity, while others injure 
it? Shall we say that the primeval savage began by reason- 
ing his way to the conclusion that if treachery were to 
be generally allowed, within the limits of the tribe, then 
the tribe must succumb in the struggle for existence to other 
tribes in which treachery was forbidden; and that, by a 
gradual organization of such inductions from experience, our 
moral sense has slowly arisen? This position is no more 
venable than the other. Mr. Richard Hutton and Mr. St. 
George Mivart would seem to have attributed to Mr. Spencer 
some such doctrine. But Mr. Spencer is too profound a 
thinker to ignore so completely the conditions under which 

Z2 


340 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. Ph 


permanent emotional states are generated. Our moral sense 
has arisen in no such way. But to understand the way 
in which it has arisen, we must recur to our fundamental 
problem, and seek for the conditions which first enabled 
social evolution, as distinguished from organic evolution, to 
start upon its career. 

It is now time to propose an answer to the question, 
already twice suggested and partly answered, How did social 
evolution originate? Starting from the researches of Sir 
Henry Maine, which are supported by those of Messrs, 
Tylor, M‘Lennan, and Lubbock, we have come to the conclu- 
sion that it originated when families, temporarily organized 
among all the higher gregarious mammals, became in the 
case of the highest mammal permanently organized. Start- 
ing from the deductions of Mr. Wallace, we have seen reason 
for believing that civilization originated when in the highest 
mammal variations in intelligence became so much more im- 
portant than variations in physical structure that they began 
to be seized upon by natural selection to the relative exclu- 
sion of the latter. In the permanent family we have the 
germ of society. In the response to outer relations by 
psychical changes, which almost completely subordinate 
physical changes, we have the germ of civilization. Let us 
now take a step in advance of previous speculation,! and 
see what can be done by combining these two theorems, so 
that the permanent organization of families and tlie complex 
intelligence of the highest mammal will appear in their 
causal relations to each other. 

Many mammals are gregarious, and gregariousness implies 


1 The latest writer upon these subjects is inclined to give up the problem 
asinsoluble. “I at least find it difficult to conceive of men, at all like the 
present men, unless existing in something like families, that is, in groups 
avowedly connected, at least on the mother’s side, and probably always wita 
a vestige of connection, more or less, on the father’s side, and unless these 
groups were, like many animals, gregarious, under a leader more or less fixed. 
lé is almost beyond imagination how man, as we know man, could by any 
sort of process have gained this step in civilization.”—Bagehot, Physics and 
Politics, p. 136. 


OH. Xx1I.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 341 


incipient power of combination and of mutual protection. 
But gregariousness differs from sociality by the absence of 
definitive family relationships, except during the brief and 
intermittent periods in which there are helpless offspring to 
be protected. Now it might be maintained that the com- 
plex intelligence of the highest mammal led him vaguely 
to recognize the advantage of associating in more and more 
permanent groups for the sake of mutual protection. From 
this point of view Mr. Darwin argues that men were ori- 
ginally a race of weak and mild creatures like chimpan- 
zees, and not a race of strong and ferocious creatures like 
gorillas, and were accordingly forced to combine because 
unable to defend themselves singly. It is undeniable that 
man is, relatively to his size, a weak animal; and there is 
much value in Mr. Darwin’s suggestion in so far as it goes 
to explain the origin of gregariousness among those primates 
who were the ancestors of man. Nevertheless, it can hardly 
be said to explain Sociality as distinguished from Gregari- 
ousness. It may also be argued that the superior sagacity 
even of the lowest savage makes him quite a formidable 
antagonist to animals much more powerful than himself. 
Besides, the study of savage life brings out results at vari- 
ance with the notion of man’s primitive gentleness. <A 
strong case might be made in support of the statement that 
uncivilized man is an extremely ferocious animal, and that 
among savage races, which certainly differ very notably in 
natural ferocity of disposition, the most ferocious tribes are 
often the most likely to become dominant and assist social 
integration by subduing other tribes. The earliest annals 
of the highest of human races, the Aryan, certainly bear 
witness to extreme ferocity, checked and determined in its 
direction by a moral sense further developed than that of 
Bavages. While recognizing, therefore, the value of Mr. 
Darwin’s Suggestion, so far as it goes, I believe that the 
true explenation lies much further beneath the surface. 


342 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. {PT. 11. 


It will be remembered that, in treating of the parallel 
evolution of the mind and the nervous system,) it was shown 
that the increase of intelligence in complexity and speciality 
involves a lengthening of the period during which the ner- 
vous connections involved in ordinary adjustments are be- 
coming organized. Even if the physical interpretation there 
given should turn out to be inadequate, the fact remains un- 
deniable, that while the nervous connections accompanying 
a simple intelligence are already organized at birth, the ner- 
vous connections accompanying a complex intelligence are 
chiefly organized after birth, Thus there arise the pheno- 
mena of infancy, which are non-existent among those ani- 
mals whose psychical actions are purely reflex and instinc- 
tive. Infancy, psychologically considered, is the period during 
which the nerve-connections and correlative ideal associations 
necessary for self-maintenance are becoming permanently 
established. Now this period, which only begins to exist 
when the intelligence is considerably complex, becomes longer 
and longer as the intelligence increases in complexity. In 
the human race it is much longer than in any other race 
of mammals, and it is much longer in the civilized man 
than in the savage.” Indeed among the educated classes of 
civilized society, its average duration may be said to be 
rather more than a quarter of a century, since during all this 
time those who are to live by brain-work are simply acquir- 
ing the capacity to do so, and are usually supported upon 
the products of parental labour. 

It need not be said that, on the general theory of evolu- 
tion, the passage from the short infancy of other primates 
to the relatively long infancy witnessed among the lowest 
coutemporary savages, cannot have been a sudden one® But 


1 See above, part ii. chap. xvi. 

2 Possibly there may be a kindred implication in the fact that women attain 
maturity earlier than men. 

3 In this connection it is interesting to observe that the phenomena of 
infancy seem to be decidedly more marked in the anthropoid apes than iu 
other non-human primates, At the age of one month the orang-outang begins 


cn, Xxu.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY, 343 


a special reason may be assigned why Nature, which never 
makes long jumps, must have been incapable of inaking this 
particular jump. Throughout the animal kingdom the period 
of infancy is correlated with feelings of parental affection, 
sometimes confined to the mother, but often shared ty the 
father, as in the case of animals which mate. Where, as 
among the lower animals, there is no infancy, there is no 
parental affection. Where the infancy is very short, the 
parental feeling, though intense while it lasts, presently dis- 
appears, and the offspring cease to be distinguished from 
strangers of the same species. And in general the duration 
of the feelings which insure the protection of the offspring 
is determined by the duration of the infancy. The agency 
of natural selection in maintaining this balance is too obvi- 
ous to need illustration. Hence, if long infancies could have 
suddenly come into existence among a primitive race of 
ape-like men, the race would have quickly perished from 
inadequate persistence of the parental affections. The pro- 
longation must therefore have been gradual, and the same 
increase of intelligence to which it was due must also have 
prolonged the correlative parental feelings, by associating 
them more and more with anticipations and memories. The 
concluding phases of this long change may be witnessed 
in the course of civilization. Our parental affections now 
endure through life; and while their fundamental instinct 
is perhaps no stronger than in savages, they are, neverthe- 
less, far more effectively powerful, owing to our far greater 
power of remembering the past and anticipating the future. 
I believe we have now reached a very thorough and satis- 
factory explsnation of the change from Gregariousness to 


to learn to walk, holding on to convenient objects of support, like a human 
infant. Up to this time it lies on its back, tossing about and examining its 
hands and feet. A monkey at the same age has reached maturity, so far as 
locomotion and prehension are concerned. See Mr. Wallace’s interesting ex- 
pyiabey fog an infant orang-outang, in his Malay Archipelago, vol. i, 
pp. 68—71. 


344 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [Pr I 


Sociality. Bear in mind that I am not indulging in pure 
hypothesis, The prolongation of infancy accompanying the 
development of intelligence, and the correlative extension 
of parental feelings, are facts established by observation 
wherever observation is possible. And to maintain that ‘he 
correlation of these phenomena was kept up during an epoch 
which is hidden from observation, and can only be known by 
inference, is to make a genuine induction, involving no other 
assumption than that the operations of nature are uniform, | 
To him who is still capable of believing that the human race 
was created by miracle in a single day, with all its attributes, 
physical and psychical, compounded and proportioned just as 
they now are, the present inquiry is, of course, devoid of 
significance. But for the evolutionist there would seem to 
be no alternative but to accept, when ¢ once propounded, the 
present series of inferences. 

For the process here described, when long enough con- 
tinued, must inevitably differentiate and integrate a herd or 
troop of gregarious ape-like men into a number of small 
family communities such as are now found among the lowest 
savages. The prolonged helplessness of the offspring must 
keep the parents together for longer and longer periods in 
successive epochs ; and when at last the association is so long 
kept up that the older children are growing mature while the 
younger ones still need protection, the family relations begin 
to become permanent. The parents have lived so long in 
company, that to seek new companionships involves some 
disturbance of engrained habits; and meanwhile the older 
sons ate more likely to continue their original association 
with each other than to establish associations with strangers. 
since they have common objects to achieve, and common 
enmities, bequeathed and acquired, with neighbouring fami- 
lies. As the parent dies, the headship of the family thus 
established devolves upon the oldest, or bravest, or most 
sagacious male remaining. Thus the little group gradually 


cH, XXI1.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 345 


becomes a clan, the members of which are united by ties con- 
siderably stronger than those which ally them to members of 
adjacent clans, with whom they may indeed combine to resist 
the aggressions of yet further outlying clans, or of formidable 
beasts, but towards whom their feelings are usually those of 
hostile rivalry. It remains to add, that the family groups 
thus constituted differ widely in many respects from modern 
families, and do not afford the materials for an idyixic picture 
of primeval life. Though always ready to combine against the 
attack of a neighbouring clan, the members of the group are 
by no means indisposed to fight among themselves. The 
sociality is but nascent: infants are drowned, wives are 
beaten to death, and there are deadly quarrels between 
brothers. Soin modern families evanescent barbarism shows 
itself in internal quarrels, while nevertheless injury offered 
from without is resented in common. A more conspicuous 
difference is the absence of monogamy in the primitive clan. 
It has been, I think, demonstrated,—and for the evidence in 
detail I would refer to Sir John Lubbock’s excellent treatise 
on the “Origin of Civilization,” and to the learned works of 
M‘Lennan and Tylor,—that in the primitive clan all the 
women are the wives of all the men. Traces of this state of 
things, which some of our half-educated “reformers” would 
fain restore, are found all over the world, both in modern 
savage communities and in traditional observances preserved 
by communities anciently eivilized. There was also, as Sir 
Henry Maine has proved, entire community of lands and 
goods, and the individual possessed no personal rights as 
against the interests of the elan. And let us note, in conclu- 
sion, that this state of things, while chiefly brought about by 
the process of direct equilibration above described, is just 
that which natural selection must assist and maintain so 
long as the incipient community is small and encompassed by 
dangers. 


Thus we cross the chasm which divides animality from hu- 
® 


346 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, {Pr. 11. 


manity, gregariousness from sociality, hedonism from morality, 
the sense of pleasure and pain from the sense of right and 
wrong, For note that by the time integration has resulted in 
the establishment of a permanent family group with definite 
relationships between the members, the incentives to action 
in each member of the group have become quite different 
from what they were in a state of mere gregariousness. 
Sympathy, or the power of ideally reproducing in one’s self 
the pleasures and pains-of another person, is manifested in | 
a rudimentary form by all gregarious animals of moderate 
intelliyence. Not unfrequently, as Mr. Darwin shows, a baboon 
has been known to risk his life to save that of a comrade ; 
and the higher apes habitually take under their care young 
orphans of their own species. It is evident that this power 
of sympathy must be strengthened and further developed 
when a number of individuals are brought into closer and 
more enduring relationships, even though these come far 
short of what, from our modern ethical standard, would be 
termed loving. Affection in the savage clan is but partially 
preventive of fiendish cruelty; yet there is an ability in the 
members to understand each other’s feelings, and there is a 
desire for the approbation of fellow-clansmen. Kinship in 
blood, as well as community of pursuits and interests, pro- 
motes these feelings. Even to-day we can usually understand 
the mental habits, desires, and repugnances of our own 
immediate kindred better than we can understand those of 
other people unrelated to us, even though circumstances may 
now and then have led us to prefer the society of the latter. 
We can more readily admire their excellences and condone 
their faults, for their faults and excellences are likely to be in 
© measure our own. 

Given this rudimentary capacity of sympathy, we can see 
how family integration must alter and complicate the emo- 
tional incentives to action. While the individual may still 
exercise his brute-like predatory instincts upon strangers and 


tH. XXII.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 347 


lower animals, and will, indeed, be more highly approved the 
more he does so, on the other hand there is a curb upon his 
exercise of them within the limits of the clan. There is a 
nascent public opinion which lauds actions beneficial to the 
elan, and frowns upon actions detrimental to it; though ivr 
this it is not necessary that there should be a generalization 
of the effects of certain actions, any more than a generaliza- 
tion of the effects of hunger is needed to insure the indi- 
vidual’s approval of eating. The mere present sense of 
collective pleasure or pain is enough to organize the complex 
feeling, For example, when a marauding expedition upon a 
neighbouring clan is defeated by the cowardice or treachery 
of one of the party, the offender is perhaps beaten, kicked, or 
killed. The present sense of collective pain immediately 
prompts the actions which tend to repress the cowardice or 
treachery. On the other hand, the pleasurable states which 
result in all the members of the clan, in common, after an 
exhibition of successful bravery, immediately generate ap- 
proval of the man who is brave, along with the desire to 
imitate him. In short,—to quote Mr. Spencer,—onre of the 
things that come to be strongly associated in the mind of 
the young savige, with marks of approval, “which are 
symbolical of pleasures in general, is courage; and one of 
the things that comes to be associated in his mind with 
frowns and other marks of enmity, which form his symbol of 
unhappiness, is cowardice. These feelings are not formed in 
him because ne has reasoned his way to the truth that courage 
is useful to his tribe, and by implication to himself, or to the 
truth that cowardice is a cause of evil. In adult life he 
may, perhaps, see this; but he certainly does not see it at 
the time when bravery is thus associated in his conscious- 
ness with all that is good, and cowardice with all that is 
bad, Similarly there are produced in him feelings of inclina- 
tion or repugnance towards other lines of conduct that have 
become established or tnterdicted, because they are beneficial 


348 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. | fpr. m. 


or injurious to the tribe; though neither the young nor the 
adults know why they have become established or interdicted, 
Instance the praiseworthiness of wife-stealing and the vicious- 
ness of marrying within the tribe.” In these ways the 
establishment of permanent family relationships generates 
new incentives to action, unknown in the previous epoch of 
mere gregariousness, which must often, and in some instances 
habitually, overrule the mere animal incentives comprised in 
personal pleasures and pains. The good of the individual — 
must begin to yield to the good of the community. 

Next in order comes the genesis of the feelings of regret 
and remorse, which are the fundamental ingredients of con- 
science. This part of the subject has been ably treated by 
Mr. Darwin, whose chapter on the Moral Sense is one of the 
most profound and suggestive chapters in his recent work on 
the “ Descent of Man.” Mr. Darwin points to the important 
fact, that, while the incentives to actions beneficial to the 
community are always steadily in operation, on the other 
hand the purely. selfish impulses, although frequently strong 
enough to acquire temporary mastery over the others, are 
nevertheless accompanied by pleasures that are brief in dura- 
tion and leave behind memories of comparatively slight 
vividness. Now, when intelligence has progressed to a point 
where there is some definite memory of particular past 
actions, the workings of the mind, with reference to conduct, 
begin to assume a more strictly moral character. Though at 
the moment of action a man may yield to the desire of 
gratifying hunger, or revenge, or cupidity, at the cost of vio- 
lating the rules enforced by social sanctions, yet afterwards, 
when “ past and weaker impressions are contrasted with the 
ever-enduring social instincts, retribution will surely come, 
Man will then feel dissatisfied with himself, and will resolve, 
with more or less force, to act differently for the future. This 
is conscience; for conscience looks backward and judges past 


1 Spencer, Recent Discussions, p. 23, 


aia Sis 7 


cH. Xx1!.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 349 


actions, inducing that kind of dissatisfaction which, if weak, 
we cal] regret, and, if severe, remorse.” + 

All these varieties of incentive are next sth fnoed by 
incentives of a mysterious and supernatural character. When 
intelligence has progressed to the point where some curiosity 
is felt concerning the causes of phenomena,—a point barely 
reached by the lowest contemporary savages,—mythologies 
begin to be framed. A mythology is a rudimentary cosmic 
philosophy ; and let me note, in passing, that an uncivilized 
race must have attained considerable latent philosophic 
capacity before it can construct a rich mythology,—instance 
the luxuriant folk-lore of Greece as contrasted with the scanty 
mythology of savages. Now, the earliest kind of philosophy 
is fetishism, by which natural phenomena are attributed to 
the volitions of countless supernatural agencies. What are 
these agencies? Recent researches have elicited the fact that 
they are supposed to be the ghosts of the dead ancestors of 
the tribe. ‘The dead chief, who appears to the savage in 
dreams, is supposed to rule the winds and floods, and to visit 
with his wrath those who violate the rules of action estab- 
lished in the tribe? When one of Mr. Darwin’s companions, 
in Tierra del Fuego, shot some birds to preserve as specimens, 


a Fuegian present exclaimed, “O Mr. Bynoe, rain much,: 


much wind, blow much!” thus indicating his belief that the 
wasting of food, condemned by tribal rules, would be visited 
with condign punishment by the tutelar deities of the tribe. 
“This transfigured form of restraint,” says Mr. Spencer, 
« differing at first but little from the original form, is capable 
of immense development.” As the fetishistic agencies are 
generalized into the deities of polytheism, and these in time 
are summed up in a single anthropomorphic deity, there 
slowly grows up the theory of a hell in which actions con- 
demned by oe community will be punished. The complex 


a Darwin, Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 87. 
8 See Myths znd Myth- Makers, pp. 75, 227. 


350 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rv 


conveptions of good and evil are thus so widely differentiated 
from the simpler conceptions of pleasure and pain, that the 
traces of the original kinship are obscured. This kind of 
restraint has not ceased to operate upon numbers of civilized 
men at the present day; and theologians tell us that, if it 
were removed, there would ensue a moral retrogression. So 
doubtless there would, if it could be removed prematurely. 
Returning to our savage, it must be observed that these 
combined agencies have enforced upon him an amount of 
self-restraint, in view of tribal sanctions, which differentiates 
him widely from any gregarious animal. Savages are not 
unfrequently capable of extreme devotion and self-sacrifice 
when the interests of the tribe are at stake: instances are 
not rare in which they will deliberately choose to be shot 
rather than betray the plans of their fellow-tribesmen. It is 
to such cases as these that we must attribute the discre- 
pancies in the accounts of savage morality given by different 
travellers If we do not stop to analyze the matter, such 
instances may seem to prove that the savage is morally on a 
level with us. But the analysis of countless seemingly in- 
consistent observations shows that savage virtues are, in 
general, confined to the clan. The same savage who will 
suffer torture with equanimity, rather than betray his com- 
rades, is also capable of the most fiendish cruelty and 
treachery toward the members of another clan. For the 
very forces which, during long ages, have brought him to the 
point at which he can sacrifice his own pleasure to the good 
of the tribe, have also been impressing upon him the 
meritoriousness of letting loose all his brutal instincts beyond 
the tribal limits. The savage has no sense of the Wickedness 
of killing, stealing, and lying, in the abstract, or of the 


1 Between different savage races, moreover, there are undoubtedly great 
differences in emotional characteristics. While some, as the Fijis, are excey» 
tionally ferocious, others, as the Hawaiians and Eskimos, appear to be cou» 
parstively gentle and sympathetic. 


q 


cH. XXII. | GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 351 


horrible cruelty of tying his enemy to a tree and slowly 
burning him to death with firebrands. To- the Indians 
described by Mr. Parkman, such villany formed the most 
delightful of recreations. 

Thus, though the savage has the germ of a moral sense, 
which prompts him, irrespective of utilitarian considerations, 
to postpone his personal welfare to that of his clan, he can 
by no means be accredited with a fully developed moral sense. 
And the incentives which influence him are not what we 
call moral sentiments, in the strict sense of the phrase. 
“They are simply sentiments that precede and make possible 
those highest sentiments which do not refer either to personal 
benefits or evils to be expected from men, or to more remote 
rewards and punishments.” The lower incentives have 
indeed continued to exert a powerful, perhaps a predomina- 
ting, influence down to the present time. So long as readers 
are found for ethical treatises, like that of Jonathan Dymond, 
in which the sole ground of moral obligation is held to be 
the supernaturally revealed fiat of an anthropomorphic Deity ; 
“while sermons set forth the torments of the damned and 
the joys of the blessed as the chief deterrents and incentives, 
and while we have prepared for us printed instructions ‘ how 
to make the best of both worlds’; it cannot be denied that 
the feelings which impel and restrain men are still largely 
composed of elements like those operative on the savage,— 
the dread, partly vague, partly specific, associated with the 
idea of reprobation, human and divine, and the sense of 
satisfaction, partly vague, partly specific, associated with the 
idea of approbation, human and divine.”! But a sound 
ethical philosophy regards it as degrading to perform good 
actions or to refrain from performing bad actions merely in 
order to win applause or to secure a place in heaven. Some- 
*hing more is needed to complete our account of the moral 
Bens, 


1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. p. 602. 


352 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [Pr 


Nevertheless, the more perilous portions of the labyrinth 
have been traversed, I hope with safety, and we now need 
only one more clew to bring us to the light. We shall best 
realize the character of this additional element needed, if we 
consider for a moment the most general aspects of the two 
groups of feelings already described. While the feelings of 
which we first treated under the head of pleasures and pains 
are purely egoistic or self-regarding feelings, on the other hand 
the feelings which we have lately described as underlying 
and forming the groundwork of the moral sense in a state of 
sociality have been happily characterized by Mr. Spencer as 
“ego-altruistic” feelings. That is, they concern the happi- 
ness of the individual in so far as it depends upon the 
feelings with which his fellow-creatures regard him. The 
mixed feeling ordinarily known as geuerosity, for example, is 
often to a very large extent ego-altruistic. “The state of 
consciousness which accompanies performance of an act 
beneficial to another is usually mixed; and often the pleasure 
given is represented less vividly than are the recipient’s 
feeling toward the giver and the approval of spectators. The 
sentiment of generosity proper is, however, unmixed in those 
cases where t/ie benefaction is anonymous: provided, also, 
that there is no contemplation of a reward to be reaped here- — 
after. These conditions being fulfilled, the benefaction clearly 
implies a vivid representation of the pleasurable feelings 
(usually themselves representative) which the recipient will 
have.” 4 

This vivid representation of the pleasurable or painful feel- 
ings experienced by others is sympathy; and the additional 
factor to be taken into the account, in order to complete the 
explanation of the moral sense, is the enormous expansion of 
sympathy which has been due to the continued intevration 
of communities, and to the accompanying decrease of warlike 
or predatory activity. A word of passing comment ouly is 

1 Spencer, Prtuciples of Psychology, vul. ii. p. 618. 


oH. XXII] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 353 


needed for the cynical theory that sympathy is but an 
ethereally refined selfishness, and that when we relieve a 
fellow-creature in distress we do it only because it pains us 
to see him suffer. This is true; but when the pain occa- 
sioned by the sight of another’s suffering, or by the idea of 
suffering and wrong when generalized and detached from the 
incidents of particular cases, becomes so strong as to deter- 
mine our actions, then the chasm is entirely crossed which 
divides us psychically from the brutes. Between the Fiji, 
who keenly relishes the shrieks of his human victim, and 
Uncle Toby, who could not kill a fly and pitied even the 
Devil, the difference has come to be generic. And when this 
kind of self-pleasing is carried so far as to lead.a man to risk 
his life in the effort to rescue a stranger, or perhaps even an 
enemy, from fire, or drowning, it is so widely removed from 
what we mean when we speak of selfishness as to be antithe- 
tical to it. We do not describe the workings of Shakespeare’s 
genius as reflex actions, though all intelligence was originally 
reflex action. Neither are we justified in describing as 
selfish the actions which are dictated by sympathy, though 
all sympathy is in its origin a kind of self-pleasing. 

As already shown in describing the chief characteristics 
of the evolution of society, the primary cause which has 
developed sympathy at the expense of the egoistic instincts. 
has been the continued integration of communities, originally 
mere tribes or clans, into social aggregates of higher and 
higher orders of complexity. For by this long-continued 
process the opportunities for the exercise of the altruistic 
feelings have been necessarily increased in number and fre- 
quency of occurrence, while the occasions requiring the ex- 
ercise of the anti-social feelings have become less frequent, 
.o that the former set of feelings have become strengthened 
by use, while the latter have become relatively weakened by 
disuse. Along with this direct and obvious effect of social 
integration, another effect has been wrought, indirect and 

VOL, II, AA 


354 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (prom 


less obvious, A high development of sympathy cannot be 
secured without a high development of representativeness, so 
closely inter-related are our intellectual and moral natures. 
A very feeble faculty of imagining objects and relations not 
present to sense must necessitate an absence of active sym- 
pathetic emotion, save in its crudest form. It is a familiar 
fact that many men are cruel, in word or deed, because they 
are incapable of adequately representing to themselves the 
pain, physical or mental, of which they are the cause. The 
validity of such an interpretation is confirmed by the fact 
that even where there is very high representative capacity, 
the lack of the requisite elements of personal experience will 
prevent the rise of sympathetic feeling. Thus it is notori- 
ously difficult for strong and healthy people to enter into 
the feelings of those who are weak and nervous. These facts 
show that the development of sympathy is largely deter- 

mined by the development of the representative faculty and — 
by increasing width and variety of experience. With the 
simplest form of sympathy, such as the painful thrill felt 
on seeing some one in a dangerous position, contrast such a 
complex sentiment as the sense of injustice, and it becomes 
evident that the latter feeling differs from the former mainly 
in degree and quantity of representativeness. In the former 
case there is a representation of the injury or death im- 
pending over some person immediately in sight; and it is 
the shrinking from this detriment to the fulness of life of 
another person which constitutes the sympathetic feeling. In 
the latter case—supposing, for example, the kind of injustice 
in question to be that against which English-speaking people 
have made provision in habeas corpus acts—there is the 
sympathetic excitement of that highly representative egoistic 
sentiment known as the love of personal freedom. At first 
a mere recalcitration against whatever impedes the free action 
of the limbs, this egoistic feeling has, through increased 
power of representation, developed inte a dislike and dread 


CH. XXxI1.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 355 


of whatever possible combination of circumstances may in 
any way, however remotely, interfere with the fullest legiti- 
mate exercise of all the functions of physical and psychical 
life. To have this complex feeling sympathetically excited 
for persons whom one has never seen, and who are perhaps 
yet unborn,—and still more, to be so far possessed by this 
highly generalized and impersonal sympathy as to risk one’s 
own liberty and life in efforts to avert the possible evils 
which are the objects of its dread,—implies a power of re- 
presenting absent relations such as has yet been acquired by 
only two or three of the most highly gifted families of man- 
kind. And manifestly the sentiments which respond to the 
notions of justice and injustice in the abstract, are still more 
remotely representative, still more highly generalized, and 
still mere thoroughly disevgaged from the consideration of 
concrete instances of pleasure and pain. 

To this expansion of the power of sympathetically represent- 
ing feelings detached from the incidents of particular cases, 
until the sphere of its exercise has become even wider than 
the human race, and includes all sentient existence, is due 
our instinctive abhorrence of actions which the organically 
registered experience of mankind has associated with pain 
and evil, and our instinctive approval of actions similarly 
associated with pleasure and increased fulness of life. It 
is not that, as in intellectual progress, there has been a 
registration of inferences, at first conscious, but finally auto- 
matic; but it is that there has been a registration of feelings 
respectively awakened by pleasure-giving and pain-giving 
actions. And just as men’s intellectual conceptions of the 
causes of phenomena become more and more impersonal 
gs they are extended over wider and wider groups of pheno- 
nena, generating at last an abstract conception of Universal 
Cause, so free from the element of personality that to less 
cultivated minds it seems atheistic; so in like manner, as 
the sympathetic feelings are extended over wider and wider 


AA 2 


356 _ COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. 1 


areas, no longer needing the stimulus of present pains and 
pleasures to call them forth, they generate at last an ab- 
stract moral sense, so free from the element of personality 
that to grosser minds it is unintelligible. The savage cannot 
understana the justice which he sees among Europeans, and 
the mercy of the white man is ascribed by him to imbecility 
or fear. To him some personal end seems necessary as an 
incentive to action. But the philanthropist finds an adequate 
incentive in the contemplation of injustice in the abstract. 

Thus the ethical theories, as well as the psychology, of the 
schools of Hume and Kant, appear to be reconciled in the 
deeper synthesis rendered possible by the theory of evolu- 
tion. On the one hand, it is a corollary from the laws of 
life that actions desired by the individual and approved by 
the community must in the long run be those which tend 
to heighten the life respectively of the individual and of 
the community, And on the other hand, it is equally true 
that there is a highly complex feeling, the product of a slow 
emctional evolution, which prompts us to certain lines of 
conduct irrespective of any conscious estimate of pleasures 
or utilities. In no department of inquiry is the truth and 
grandeur of the Doctrine of Evolution more magnificently 
illustrated than in the province of ethics. 

Before we conclude, there are one or two further points 
to which it seems necessary to allude. In asserting that we 
possess an instinctive and inherited moral sense, it is not 
meant that we possess, anterior to education and experience, 
an organic preference for certain particular good actions, 
and an organic repugnance to certain particular bad actions. 
We do not inherit a horror of stealing, any more than the 
Hindu inherits the horror of killing cattle We simply 
inherit a feeling which leads us, when we are teld that 
stealing is wrong, to shun it, without needing to be taught 
that it is detrimental to society. Hence there is a chance 
fer pathological disturbances in the relations between the 


eH, XXII. ] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 357 


moral sense and the actions with which it is concerned. 
Imperfectly adjusted moral codes arise, and false principles 
of action gain temporary currency. These, nevertheless, 
come ultimately to outrage our sympathies, and are conse- 
quently overthrown; while the principles of action which 
really tend to heighten the life of society are sustained by 
our sympathies ever more and more forcibly, and at last 
become invested with a sacredness which is denied to the 
others. Hence arises the ethical distinction between mala 
prohibita and mala in se. 

Finally, it is not to be denied that, when the intelligence 
is very high, there is likely to arise a deliberate pursuit of 
moral excellence, attended by a distinct knowledge of the 
elements in which such excellence consists. Instead of being 
primeval, as the cruder utilitarianism seems to have imagined, 
such conscious devotion to ends conducive to the happiness 
of society is the latest and highest product of social evolu- 
tion, and becomes possible only when the moral sense is 
extremely developed. At this stage, ethical conceptions 
begin to be reflected back upon the conduct of the individual 
where it concerns solely or chiefly himself; and the self- 
regarding virtues, as Mr. Darwin calls them, which are quite 
unknown save in a high state of civilization, come into 
existence. The injury of one’s self, by evil thoughts, in- 
temperate behaviour, or indulgence of appetite, comes to be 
regarded as not only physically injurious, but morally wrong ; 
and there arises the opinion that it is selfish and wicked for 
one to neglect one’s own health or culture. Here we ap- 
proach the limits at which morality shades off into religion. 
For, as I shall hereafter show, Religion views the.individual 
in his relations to the Infinite Power manifested in a uni- 
verse of causally connected phenomena, as Morality views 
him in relation to his fellow-creatures. Tc violate the 

llecrees of Nature comes to be considered a sin, capable of 


2 See below, part iii. chap. v. 


358 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 1: 


awakening keen remorse ; for to him whose mental habits 
have been nurtured by scientific studies, the principles of 
action prescribed by the need for harmonizing inner with 
outer relations are, in the truest sense, the decrees of God, 


And now, having reached the terminus of our inquiry, let 
us louk back over the course for a moment, that we may 
sec the character of the progress we have achieved. Sucha 
retrospect is here especially needed, because the complexity 
of our subject has been so great, and the range of our illus- 
trations so wide, that the cardinal points in our argument 
have perhaps run some risk of getting overlaid and con- 
cealed from view, and in particular it may not be sufficiently 
obvious how completely we have attained the object set 
before us as the goal of the present chapter and its pre- 
decessor, namely, to explain the genesis of the psychical 
forces which wrought the decisive change from animality 
to humanity. That we may well appreciate the solid con- 
sistency of the entire argument concerning the Genesis of 
Man, let us therefore contemplate in a single view its 
various: factors. 

We have seen that the progress from brute to man has 
been but slightly characterized by change in general bodily 
structure in comparison with the enormous change which 
has been wrought in the cerebrum, and in those highest 
psychical functions which stand in correlation with the con- 
dition of the cerebrum. We have seen that the develop- 
ment of these highest psychical functions, in all their 
wondrous variety and complexity, has consisted at bottom 
in the increase of the power of mentally representing objects 
and relations remote from sense. By the reiterated testimony 
of many diverse kinds of. illustrative facts, we have been 
convinced that in mere quantity of representative capacity, 
with its infinitely various consequences, the civilized man 
surpasses the lowest savage by a far greater interval than 


cH, Xx11.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY, 359 


that by which the lowest savage surpasses the highest ape ; 
just as the gulf between the cerebral capacity of the English- 
man and that of the non-Aryan dweller in Hindustan is six 
times greater than the gulf which similarly divides the non- 
Aryan Hindu from the gorilla, And we have indicated in 
sundry ways how this increase in representative capacity, 
itself a pre-requisite to any high degree of social combination, 
has been furthered by each advance in social combination, 
so that the enormous psychical progress achieved since man- 
kind became distinctly human has been mainly dependent 
upon that increasing heterogeneity of experience which in- 
creasing social integration has supplied. 

But in spite of the fact that the psychical progress achieved 
since mankind became distinctly human is so much greater 
in quantity than that which was required to carry it from 
apehood to manhood, we were led to adopt the Duke of 
Argyll’s suggestion, that the boundary was really crossed 
when this preliminary and less conspicuous psychical pro- 
gress had been achieved. And working out the happy 
thought which science owes to Mr. Wallace, we concluded 
that this comparatively inconspicuous but all-essential step 
in psychical progress was taken when the intelligence of the 
progenitors of mankind had reached the point where a slight 
increase in representative capacity came to be of greater 
utility to the species than any practicable variation in bodily 
structure. Here our first line of inquiry ended. So far as the 
mere subordination of physical to psychical modification is 
concerned, the character of the progress from apchood to 
manhood now became intelligible. 

But at this point we were confronted with a new question, 
suggested by some of the conclusions obtained on our first 
line of inquiry. Having perceived that the intellectuul 
progress, or increase in representative capacity, which dis- 
tinguishes man from brute, is so intimately connected with 
man’s capacity for social combination, it became needful 


360 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. | (rr. 1 


to search for the circumstances which begot in the progeni- 
tors of mankind the capacity for a kind of social combina- 
tion more definite in the character of its relationships than 
that quasi-social combination, not uncommon among mam- 
mals, which is known as gregariousness. In other words, 
seeing that such thinkers as Sir Henry Maine have shown 
that the primordial unit of society, by the manifold com- 
pounding of which great tribes and nations have come into 
existence, was the aboriginal family group, with its nascently 
ethical relationships between the members, how shall we 3 
explain the genesis of these family groups, which have 
nothing strictly answering to them, either among non- 
human primates or among other gregarious animals? 

The feature by which the most rudimentary human family 
group is distinguished from any collocation of kindred in- 
dividuals among gregarious mammals is the permanent 
character of the relationships between its constituent mem- 
bers. Enduring from birth until death, these relationships 
acquire a traditionary value which passes on from genera- 
tion to generation, and thus there arise reciprocal necessities 
of behaviour between parents and children, husbands and 
wives, brethren and sisters, in which reciprocal necessities 
of behaviour we have discerned the requisite conditions for 
the genesis of those ego-altruistic impulses which, when 
further modified by the expansion of the sympathetic feelings, 
give birth to moral sentiments. Accordingly the pheno- 
menon which demands explanation is the existence of per- 
manent relationships, giving rise to reciprocal necessities of 
behaviour, among a group-of individuals associated for the 
performance of sexual and parental functions. 

The explanation, as I have shown, is to be found in that 
gradual prolongation of the period of infancy, which is one 
of the consequences, as yet but partially understood, of in- 
ereasing intelligence. Let us observe the causal connections 


CH. Xx11.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 361 


so far as we can trace them out, recalling sore of the conclu- 
sions reached in the chapter on the Evolution of Mind. 

In an animal whose relations with its environment are 
very simple, resulting in an experience which is but slightly 
varied, the combinations of acts requisite for suppor’ ing life 
take place with a regularity and monotony approaching the 
monotonous regularity with which the funcuons of the 
viscera are performed. Hence the tendency to perform these 
actions is completely established at birth in each individual, 
just as the tendency of the viscera to perform their several 
functions is pre-established, all that is required in addition 
being simply the direct stimulus of outward physical oppor- 
tunity. And the psychical life of such an animal we call 
purely instinctive or automatic. In such an animal the 
organized experience of the race counts for everything, the 
experience of the individual for nothing, save as contributing 
its mite towards the cumulated experience of the race. But 
in an animal whose relations with its environment are very 
complex, resulting in an experience which is necessarily 
varied to a considerable extent from generation to generation, 
the combinations of acts requisite for supporting life must 
occur severally with far less frequency than in the case of 
the lower animal just considered. Hence the tendency to 
perform any particular group of these actions will not be 
completely established at birth in each individual, like the 
tendency of the viscera to perform their several functions, 
On the other hand, there will be a multitude of conflicting 
tendencies, and it will be left for the cireumstances subse- 
quent to birth to determine which groups of tendencies shall 
be carried out into action. The psychical life of such an 
animal is no longer purely automatic or instinctive A 
portion of its life is spent in giving direction to its future 
career, and in thus further modifying the inherited tendencies 
with which its offspring start in life. In such an animal the 
organized experience of the race counts for much, but the 


362 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, Ler. 1. 


special experience of the individual counts for something in 
altering the future career of the race. Such an animal is 
capable of psychical progress, and such an animal must 
begin life, not with matured faculties, but as an infant. 
Instead of a few actually realized capacities, it starts with a 
host of potential capacities, of which the play of circumstance 
must determine what ones shall be realizable. | 

Manifestly, therefore, the very state of things which made 
psychical variation more advantageous to the progenitors of 
mankind than physical variation, this very state of things 
simultaneously conspired to enhance the progressiveness of 
primeval man and to prolong the period of his infancy, until 
the plastic or malleable part of his life came to extend over 
several years, instead of terminating in rigidity in the course 
of four or five months, as with the orang-outang. Upon the 
consequences of this state of things, in gradually bringing 
about that capacity for progress which distinguishes man from 
all lower animals, I need not further enlarge. What we 
have here especially to note, amid the entanglement of all 
these causes conspiring to educe humanity from animality, is 
the fact, illustrated above, that this prolongation of infancy 
was manifestly the circumstance which knit those permanent 
relationships, giving rise to reciprocal necessities of behaviour, 
which distinguish the rudest imaginable family group of men 
from the highest imaginable association of gregarious non- 
human primates. 

In this line of inquiry, which, so far as I know, has never 
yet been noticed by any of the able writers who have dealt 
with the origin of the human race, it seems to me that we 
have the clew to the solution of the entire problem. In this 
new suggestion as to the causes and the effects of the pro- 
longed infancy of man, I believe we have a suggestion as 
fruitful as the one which we owe to Mr. Wallace. And the 
most beautiful and striking feature in this treatment of the 
problem is the way in which all the suggestions hitherto 


tH. XXII] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY. 363 


made agree in helping us tothe solution. That same increase 
in representativeness, which is at the bottom of intellectual 
progressiveness, is also at the bottom of sociality, since it 
necessitates that prolongation of infancy to which the genesis 
of sociality, as distinguished from mere gregariousness, must 
look for its explanation. In this. phenomenon of the pro- 
longing of the period of infancy we find the bond of connec- 
tion between the problems which occupy such thinkers as 
Mr. Wallace and those which occupy such thinkers as Sir 
Heury Maine. We bridge the gulf which seems, on a super- 
ficial view, for ever to divide the human from the brute world. 
And not least, in the grand result, is the profound meaning 
which is given to the phenomena of helpless babyhood. 
From of old we have heard the monition, “ Except ye be as 
babes, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” The latest 
science now shows us—though in a very different sense of 
the words—that, unless we had been as babes, the ethical 
phenomena which give all its significance to the phrase 
“kingdom of heaven” would have been non-existent for us. 
Without the circumstances of infancy we might have become 
formidable among animals through sheer force of sharp- 
wittedness. But, except for these circumstances, we should 
vever have comprehended the meaning of such phrases as 
“self-sacrifice” or “devotion.” The phenomena of social 
life would have been omitted from the history of the world, 
und with them the phenomena of ethics and of religion. 


" ; 
5 ee? sii Te ae Pas 


ie 7i2Re Cae 


PART IIL 
COROLLARIES. 


© Was wir’ ein Gott der nur von aussen stiesse, 
Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse ! 
Ihm ziemt’s die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, 
Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen ; 
So dass was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist 
Nie seine Kraft, nie seinen Geist vermisst.” 
GoETE™. 


“For my thoughts are not baad thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, 
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”—Isa1a1! 


Ls 


se 


“RN i 


9 iy 
iis 


Vet enemrt “ 
Wy 

Ae Wed’ 

a oe 


CHAPTER IL. 
THE QUESTION RESTATED. 


A Syntuesis of scientific doctrines has now been fairly con- 
structed, in accordance with the plan laid out in the eleventh 
chapter of our Prolegomena. We have passed in review the 
sciences which deal with the various orders of phenomena 
that make up the knowable universe, and we have contem- 
plated the widest truths which these sciences severally 
reveal, as corollaries of an ultimate truth. Before proceed- 
ing to expound our Cosmic Philosophy in its final results, 
let us briefly sum up the leading conclusions at which we 
have arrived. 

It has been proved to follow from that axiom of the Per- 
sistence of Force upon which all physical science is based, 
that the mere coexistence of innumerable discrete bodies in 
the universe, exerting attractive and repulsive forces upon 
each other, necessitates a perpetual rhythmical redistribution 
of the Matter and Motion of which the phenomenal universe 
is composed. It has been proved that this eternal rhythm 
must of necessity be manifested in alternating eras both 
general and local, of Evolution and Dissolution,— eras in which 
now the concentration of Matter and dissipation of Motion, 
and now the diffusion of Matter and absorption of Motion, 
predominate,—eras which may be short. as in the duration of 


368 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, {pr. 11, 


a snow-crystal or of a »utterfly’s life, or long, as in the 
duration of our planetary system. It has been proved that 
the process of Evolution, during which Matter is chiefly 
being concentrated while Motion | is chiefly being lost, must, 
under certain assigned conditions, result in a continuous 
change from a state of homogeneity, indefiniteness, and 
incoherence to a state of heterogeneity, definiteness, and 
coherence, 

With the aid of these demonstrated truths of Physics, 
we have surveyed the history of the knowable universe, 
intent upon finding some provisional answer to the time- 
honoured question of Philosophy—whence came we, what 
are we, and whither do we tend? Throughout all the pro- 
vinces of nature we have traced that aspect of the stupendous 
process of Evolution, which consists in the transition from. 
indefinite incoherent homogeneity to definite coherent hetero- 
geneity. We have seen it exemplified in the development 
of our planetary system from a relatively homogeneous ball 
of vapour. We have witnessed it as shown in the increasing 
physical and chemical diversity and interdependence of. the 
various portions of the surface of our cooling earth, and in 
those wonderful differentiations by which solar radiance is 
metamorphosed into the innumerable forms of energy mani- 
fested alike by winds and waves, by growing plants and 
animals, and by reasoning men. We have described it in 
some detail as revealed in the gradual change of a seed into 
a tree and of an ovum into an adult mammal. We have 
observed it also in the increasing chemical complexity which 
at a remote epoch resulted in the formation of living proto- 
plasm ; and we have seen how from this earliest protoplasm 
there have arisen, in the course of ages well-nigh infinite in 
duration, the myriad forms of animal and vegetable life 
The progress toward higher complexity and higher organiza- 
tion has likewise been discovered to be taking place in 
processes as well as in things, Ut has been shown that Life ig 


cH, 1.] THE QUESTION RESTATED. 369 


a process, consisting in a series of adjustments between the 
organism and its environment; and that Mind, objectively 
considered, is a special form of Life, consisting in a specialized 
portion of the series of adjustments. In these wondrous 
processes we have found the Law of Evolution most beauti- 
fully exemplified; the degree of Life, or of Mind, being 
high in proportion not only to the extent which the adjust- 
ments cover, but also to their complexity, definiteness, and 
coherence. That superadded process known as Civilization 
or social progress, has also been shown to consist in a series 
of adjustments between the community and its environ- 
ment, in the course of which society becomes ever more and 
more complex and more interdependent in its various ele- 
ments. That moral sense which underlies social progress 
and renders it possible, has been exhibited as the noble 
product of the slow organization of those feelings of pleasure 
and pain which, in highly-developed organisms, are mainly 
concerned in enhancing the perfectness of the adjustments 
in which Life consists. And finally we have witnessed the 
wonderful complication of cooperating processes by which 
Humanity—the crown and glory of the universe as we 
know it—has been evolved from a lower type of animal life, 
in entire conformity to the general law. The direct and 
relatively-simple processes of physical adjustment became 
at leneth almost wholly subordinated to the indirect and 
relatively-complex processes of psychical adjustment, so that 
variations in intelligence came to be selected in preference to 
variations in physique ; the increased complexity of psychical 
adjustments entailed the lengthening of the period required 
for organizing them; the lengthening of. infancy, thus. 
entailed, brought about the segregation, into permanent 
family-groups, of individuals associated for the performance 
of sexual and pareuta: functions; the maintenance of such 
family-groups involved the setting up of permanent reciprocal 
necessities of behaviour among the members of the group; 
VOL. IL BB 


370 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 111. 


in this way the ultimate test of right and wrong action came 
to be the welfare of the community, instead of the welfare of 
the individual; the long process of ‘social evolution, thus 
inaugurated, has all along reacted upon individual evolution, 
by increasing the power of mental representation, and 
‘ nourishing sympathy at the expense of egoism; and thus, 
through one and the same endlessly complicated plexus of 
causes, has arisen the historic Man, with his Intellect and 
his Moral Sense. Yet endlessly complicated as the process 
has been, we see that itis throughout definable as the gradual 
substitution of adjustments that are relatively-indirect, hetero- 
geneous, and highly organized, for adjustments that are 
relatively-direct, homogeneous, and slightly organized. 

Thus we have fulfilled all the requirements laid down in 
hs concluding chapter of our Prolegomena. We have found 
u hypothesis which is based upon properties of matter and 
principles of dynamics that have previously been established ; 
which appeals to no unknown agency and invokes no une 
known attribute of matter or motion; and which, accord- 
ingly, contains no unverifiable element. This hypothesis 
has been successfully subjected to both deductive and in- 
ductive verification. In every department of nature it has 
triumphantly borne the supreme test of reconciling the order 
of conceptions with the order of phenomena. And in our 
sociological chapters, as well as in the chapters on the 
Genesis of Man, it has enabled us to detect relations among 
phenomena which had hitherto remained in obscurity. 

It remains to add that this grand hypothesis, for the con- 
ception and elaboration of which I have ventured to liken 
Mr. Spencer to the thinker who conceived and elaborated 
the hypothesis of gravitation, affords in itself a striking 
illustration of that process of Evolution which it formulates, 
Considered as an event in intellectual development, this dis- 
covery is an immense extension in time of the correspondence 
between the order of human conceptivns and the order of 


CH. 1.] THE QUESTION RESTATED, 371 


phenomena, as Newtou’s discovery was an immense exten- 
sion of the correspondence in space. The one has enabled 
us to adjust our mental sequences to phenomena as distant 
as the Milky Way; the other carries back the adjustments 
till they comprehend the birth of the Solar System. The 
announcement of a verifiable Law of Evolution is but the 
most recent phase of a process which has been going on 
from the time when men first began to speculate about the 
world of phenomena,—the process of substituting what may 
be called dynamical habits of thought for statical habits. 
Clearly the formation of a theory of the universe, whether 
as expressed in the crude mythologies of barbarians or ir 
the elaborate systems of modern philosophers, is the estab- 
lishment of a complex group of subjective relations that are 
either very imperfectly or much more completely adjusted 
to objective relations. All men now existing, whether civil- 
ized or savage, with the exception of idiots and very young 
children, possess some such theory, however vague and 
shadowy it may be. Such general statements as “ez ve 
made by the most ignorant boor obvious!y ‘ts*’y soine dim 
conception of the world and of his relatisas to it. Even 
the beliefs that the moon is about the size of a cheese, or 
that the devil has bewitched his cattle, are parts of a rudi- 
mentary kind of cosmic philosophy. Now among unedu- 
cated persons, alike in barbarous and in civilized countries, 
the crude philosophies current universally imply that the 
yeneral arrangement of things is everywhere and in all ages 
substantially the same as it is witnessed by them in their 
immediate environment. Their theories are not adjusted to 
remote facts in time and space which only a thorough educa- 
tion could have added to their experience. They take what 
we may call a statical view of things. Hence they suppose 
that God created the world a few thousand years ago in 
nearly the same condition in which we now behold it; 
traditional observances, such as the keeping of a Sabbath, 
BB 2 


372 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 1% 


advanced social institutions, like monogamy, and highly 
elaborated philosophical doctrines, such as monotheism, are 
unhesitatingly referred back to the beginning of the world: 
and it is in general taken for granted that the thoughts 
and feelings current in past ages were like the thoughts and 
feelings current in our own. Until within the last three 
or four generations this statical view of things was shared 
by cultivated with uncultivated people, though with some- 
what different degrees of narrowness. On the other hand | 
the dynamic view of things, represented by the Doctrine of 
Evolution, which regards the universe and all that is in 
it as presenting a different aspect from epoch to epoch, obvi- 
ously results from the adjustment of our theories to longer 
and longer sequences in the past. The progress of geologic 
discovery, revealing the immense antiquity of the earth, was 
one of the circumstances which hegan to arouse in educated 
people a tendency to regard things as continually though 
slowly changing; and the theories of Goethe and Lyell, the 
revolution in biology wrought by Lamarck and Cuvier, and 
the application of the comparative method to the historic 
and philologic interpretation of past states of society, deep- 
ened and strengthened this tendency. In no other respect 
is the present age so widely distinguished from past ages as 
in this habit of looking at all things dynamically. It is 
shown in the literary criticism of Sainte-Beuve, and the art- 
criticism of Taine, and in the historical criticism of Momm- 
sen or Baur, no less than in Mr. Darwin’s science, or Mr, 
Spencer’s philosophy. In our concluding chapter we shall 
observe some of the practical bearings of this great differ- 
ence in mental habit between the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries, with especial reference to the political utopias of 
Rousseau, and to the attempts of the Lucyclopédistes to over- 
throw Christianity. It is enough for us now to bear in 
mind that this immense widening of the mental horizon 
which modern times have witnessed; this power of criti 


a7. 1.] 7.HE QUESTION RESTATED. 873 


cizing sympathetically the relatively rude theories, customs, 
and prejudices of bygone generations; this ability to realize 
in imagination a time when forms of life now wholly distinct 
were represented by a common ancestral type, or a time 
when the material universe existed in a shape very differ- 
ent from that in which it is presented to our senses; this 
growing tendency to interpret groups of phenomena by 
reference to other groups of phenomena long preceding; are 
all alike explicable, in an ultimate analysis, as a prodigious 
extension in time of the correspondence between the human 
mind and its environment. 

The Doctrine of Evolution, in which this dynamical habit 
of viewing things is reduced to a system, represents also 
the most extensive integration of correspondences that has 
yet been achieved. The continuous organization of scientific 
truths by philosophy has all along been a progress in this 
kind of integration. From the very first crude observations 
and the earliest cosmical theories, it is true that succeeding 
observations have all along had their results incorporated 
with the cosmical theories, or else new cosmical theories 
have been framed, which, by including the results of more 
mature observation, have superseded the old ones, In this 
way the progress of philosophy has on the whole kept pace 
with that of science. But between the earlier systems and 
the more modern ones there is a marked difference in the 
extent to which special truths in different departments of 
science are made to support and illustrate each other. For 
the gaps in the scientific knowledge synthesized in older 
systems were so considerable that, in order to make a syn- 
thesis at all, it was necessary to incorporate a large amount 
of hypothetical speculation which was not only unverified 
but unverifiable ; so that the relations between science and 
philosophy were much less coherent than at present. To- 
day the interdependence is more complete than ever before. 
Our cosmic theories are rapidly mcdified, by the*incorpora- 


374 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [Pr. 111. 


tion of the results of countless new observations in all 
departments of science; and philosophy, refraining more 
and more from ontological speculations, is becoming more 
and more thoroughly identified with cosmology. It is re. 
cognizing more and more fully that its proper business is 
to oversee and coordinate those seemingly separate groups 
of scientific truths which scientific specialists have not the 
leisure, and often neither the desire nor the ability, to co- 
ordinate. And obviously the philosophy most completely 
organized after this manner, constitutes the most complete — 
integration of correspondences between the order of con- 
ceptions and the order of phenomena. It constitutes an 
integral body of knowledge, the various members of which 
are at once more distinctly demarcated from each other and 
more intimately dependent upon each other than in any 
previous system. 

Thus, in accordance with the expectation held out in an 
earlier chapter,’ we find that “from the earliest traceable 
cosmical changes down to the latest products of civiliza- 
tion,” there has been going on, and is going on, a ceaseless 
process of change, of which the main features are simple 
enough to be clearly deducible from the known physical 
properties of the universe, but of which the stupendous 
grandeur is such as to baffle the most strenuous efforts 
alike of reason and of imagination to follow it out in all 
its concrete details. Thus, too, we find ourselves amply 
rewarded for the hope with which we set out upon our in- 
quiry,—namely, that in henceforth abandoning vain onto- 
logical speculation we were by no means about to dethrone 
Philosophy, but were on the point of winning for it even 
a goodlier realm than that which metaphysics had assigned 
toit. Forin comparison with the sublime synthesis of truths 
which the foregoing chapters have but unworthily interpreted, 
all previous philosophic speculation seems fragmentary, crude 

1 See above, vol. i. p. 352. 


Ck 1.] Lok QUESTION RESTATED, 375 


and unsatisfying, To no other theory of things yet devised 
by the wit of man carn we so well apply the enthusiastic 
exclamation of Giordano Bruno:—*Con questa _filosofia 
anima mis’ aggrandisce, e mi si magnifica lintelletto.” 


But while one part of our task has thus been fairly 
accomplished, another and equally important part still re- 
mains to be disposed of. Questions have from time to time 
been implicitly suggested, to which provisional answers must 
be given before our Cosmic Philosophy can be regarded as 
satisfactorily expounded, even in outline. That great Dor- 
trine, for the establishing of which all departments of human 
knowledge have been laid under contribution, and which in 
turn is fast remodelling human thinking on all subjects 
whatever, has. relations of the closest sort with religious 
philosophy. Sundry theological questions raised in the 
course of our Prolegomena must now be considered in the 
light of the general principles with which our survey of 
universal evolution has furnished us. Questions concern- 
ing God and the Soul, which the Positive Philosophy simply 
set aside as unworthy the attention of scientific thinkers, 
neveriheless cannot be ignored by any philosophy which 
seeks to bring about a harmony between human knowledge 
and human aspirations; and though we may confess our- 
selves unable to settle such questions, as scientific questions 
are settled, we may yet go as far as is possible without 
deserting the objective method, and indicate the position 
which we occupy with reference to them. We have already, 
in the earlier part of this work, been brought to the con- 
clusion that the phenomenal universe is the manifestation 
of a Divine Power that cannot be identified with the totality 
of phenomena:! we have now to unfold, somewhat more 
fully, what is meant by this theistic conclusion. We have, 


1 This is implied in the statements in vol. i. p. 88, and also in the chapter 
m “ Anthropomorphism and Cosmism.” See also vol. i. p. 188, 


376 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. 111. 


at every fitting opportunity, declared that the phenomena 
of Mind can in nowise be explained as movements of 
Matter, while at the same time a law of evolution, expressed 
in terms of matter and motion, is found to include the 
order of sequence of psychical phenomena: we must now 
attempt to clear away the difficulties which, to many minds, 
no doubt cluster around the seeming paradox. We have 
also hinted that beside the sphere to be assigned to Morality, 
there is a wider sphere to be assigned to Religion:? it 
behoves us now to show what are the general functions of 
religion, in accordance with our fundamental view of Life 
as an adjustment between inner and outer relations. And 
after having done what we can to elucidate these points, we 
must conclude by describing the critical attitude which our 
Cosmic Philosophy occupies with reference to other systems 
of belief and other principles of action. 

The central problem, which must first occupy us, and the 
decision of which will affect the treatment of all the others, 
is the problem of Theism. What kind of theism is it which 
is compatible with the conclusions reached in the second 
part of this work concerning the past and present states 
of the universe? In discussing this question we shall pre- 
sently find that the phase of theism which has until quite 
recently been the current phase, and which is still the phase 
officially defended by theologians, does not appvar to be 
compatible with the conclusions referred to. As in treating 
of the preliminary evidence for the evolution of the higher 
forms of life from lower forms, we found ourselves at every 
step arrayed in opposition to the doctrine of special creations _ 
bequeathed to us by ancient mythology, so now upon this . 
wider ground we shall have to note that the Doctrine of 
Evolution is throughout irreconcilably opposed to the Doc- 
trine of Creation, so that the establishment of the former 


1 See vol. i. pp. 270, 412; vol. ii. pp. 80, 162. 
® See above, p. 357. 


cH. 1.] THE QUESTION RESTATED, 377 


is in fact synonymous with the overthrow and destruc- 
tion of the latter. In coming to regard the universe as 
evolved in accordance with discernible physical laws, work- 
ing throughout a lapse of time to which human thinking 
can assign neither a beginning nor an end, we cease to re- 
gard it as created at any given point of time in accordance 
with a preconceived plan remotely analogous to the plans 
by which finite intelligence adapts means to ends. It is not, 
az we shall see in a moment, that the one conception meta- 
physically refutes the other, but that it practically super- 
sédes it, and enables philosophy to dispense with it. While 
upon the time-honoured statical view of things, any given 
group of phenomena was explained by a reference to the 
direct creative action of a divine Power extraneous to the 
Cosmos; on the other hand, upon the modern dynamical 
view of things, any given group of phenomena is explained 
by a reference to some antecedent group of phenomena, while 
all phenomena alike are regarded as the sensible manifes- 
tations of a divine Power immanent in the Cosmos, It 
becomes desirable, therefore, to inquire whether on the new 
view there is any ground for assuming, as was necessarily 
assumed on the old view, that the divine Power works by 
methods analogous to human methods. The question which 
we have to answer is not whether there exists a God. As 
we clearly shown in the first part of this work, and as will 
presently be still more emphatically reiterated, our Cosmic 
Philosophy is based upon the affirmation of God’s existence, 
and not upon the denial of it, like irreligious Atheism, or 
upon the ignoring of it, like non-religious Positivism. The 
question which we have now to answer concerns the exisi- 
ence of a limited personal God, who is possessed of a quasi- 
human consciousness, from whose quasi-human volitions 
have originated the laws of nature, aud to whose quasi- 
human contrivance are due the manifold harmonies observed 
in the universe. Is this most refined and subtilized remnaut 


378 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 121 


of primitive anthropomorphism to be retained by’ our Cosmic 
Philosophy, or is it to be rejected? And if it is to be re- 
jected, what are the grounds which justify us in rejecting it! 

Let us not forget, in stating the question, that we are now 
in a region of thought where absolute demonstration, in the 
ssientifie sense, is impossible. I believe it is beyond the 
power of science to prove that the divine Power immanent 
in the Cosmos either does or does not work by anthropo- 
morphic methods. We cannot expect, therefore, to obtain a 
result which, like a mathematical theorem, shall stand firm 
through mere weight of ‘logic, or which, like a theorem in 
physics, can be subjected to a crucial test. We can only 
examine the arguments upon which the anthropomorphic 
hypothesis is founded, and inquire whether they are of such 
a character as to be convincing or satisfactory to thinkers 
who rigidly adhere to the Doctrine of Evolution, who assert — 
the relativity of knowledge, and who refuse to reason upon 
the subjective method. If, then, it turns out that these argu- 
ments are not thus satisfactory, it will follow that, as the 
Doctrine of Evolution becomes more and more widely under- 
stuod and accepted, the anthropomorphic hypothesis will gene- 
rally fall into discredit, not because it will have been disproved, 
but because there will be no sufficient warrant for main- 
taining it. Or—to restate the case—if the hypothesis which 
represents God as working after quasi-human methods be 
found harmonious with the scientific truths upon which our 
Cosmic Philosophy rests, it may survive the complete estab- 
lishment of that philosophy; but if otherwise, it will perish, 
as other doctrines have perished, through lack of the mental 
predisposition to accept it. It is, indeed, generally true that 
theories concerning the supernatural perish, not from extra- 
neous violence, but from inanition.! The belief in witchcraft, 


2 Qe n’est pas d'un raisonnement, mais de tout ensemble des sciences 
modernes que sort cet immense résultat—il n’y a pas de surnaturel.”—Renan 
Etudes @ Histoire Religieuse, p. 206. 


en. 1.) THE QUESTION RESTATED. 379 


or the physical intervention of the Devil in human affairs, is 
now laughed at; yet two centuries have hardly elapsed since 
it was held by learned and sensible men, as an essential part 
of Christianity. It was supported by an immense amount 
of testimony, which no one has ever refuted in detail. No 
one, for example, has ever disproved witchcraft, as Young 
disproved the corpuscular theory of light. But the belief 
has died out because scientific cultivation has rendered the 
mental soil unfit for it. The contemporaries of Bodin were 
so thoroughly predisposed by their general theory of things 
to believe in the continual intervention of the Devil, that it 
needed but the slightest evidence to make them credit any 
particular act of intervention. But to the educated man of 
to-day such intervention seems too improbable to be admitted 
on any amount of testimony. The hypothesis of diabolic in- 
terference is simply ruled out; and will remain ruled out. So 
with what is called “ spiritualism,” or the belief in the physical 
intervention of the souls of the dead in human affairs. Men 
of science decline to waste their time in arguing against it, 
because they know that the only way in which to destroy it 
is to educate people in science. “Spiritualism” is simply 
one of the weeds which spring up in minds uncultivated by 
science. There is little use in merely pulling up one form 
of the superstition by the roots, for another form, equally 
noxious, is sure to take root: the only way of ensuring the 
destruction of the pests is to sow the seeds of scientific truth. 
When, therefore, we are gravely told what persons of un- 
Joubted veracity have seen, we are affected about as mucl. as 
if a friend should come in and assure us, upon his honour as 
a gentleman, that heat is not a mode of motion. The case is 
the same with the belief in miracles, or the physical inter- 
vention of the Deity in human affairs. To the theologian 
such intervention is d priori so probable that he needs but 
slight historic testimony to make him believe in it. To the 
scientific thinker it is @ priori so improbable that no amount 


380 _ COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, — (pr. 111. 


of historic testimony, such as can be produced, suffices to 
make him entertain the hypothesis for an instant. Hence it 
is that such critics as Strauss and Renan, to the great disgust 
of theologians, always assume, prior to argument, that mira- 
culous narratives are legendary. Hence it is that when the 
slowly dying belief in miracles finally perishes, it will not be 
because any one will ever have refuted it by an array of 
syllogisms : the syllogisms of the theologian and those of the 
thinker trained in science have no convincing power as 
against each other, because neither accepts the major premise 
of the other: but it will be because the belief is discordant 
with the mental habits induced by the general study of 
science. Hence it is that the scientific philosopher is averse 
to proselytism, and has no sympathy with radical infidelity, 
For he knows that theological habits of thought are relatively 
useful, while scepticism, if permanent, is intellectually and 
’ morally pernicious. Knowing this, he knows that the only 
way to destroy theological habits of thought without detri- 
ment, is to nurture scientific habits,—which stifle the former, 
as surely as clover stifles weeds. 

The belief that God works after quasi-human methods is 
akin to those just cited, in being incapable of proof or dis- 
proof by mere syllogism. Our business is only to determine 
whether the arguments in favour of it are calculated to con- 
vince those who insist upon the relativity of all knowledge, 
and whether the belief itself can be made to harmonize with 
the scientific truths upon which our Cosmic Philosophy is 
based. Let us begin by examining the doctrine of final 
causes, as defended by metaphysical arguments; and let us 
afterwards observe how this famous argument from design is 
affected by the theory of evolution. 


CHAPTER ILI. 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM, 


THOUGH the medieval conception of an arbitrary Provi- 
dence, overruling natural laws and occasionally setting them 
aside, influenced by human petitions to bring about special 
results by extraordinary means, and singling out nations or 
individuals as the objects of its favour or displeasure, has 
been partially abandoned for a more refined conception of 
theism, in which the Deity is represented as working through 
natural laws; yet the survival of the doctrine of final causes. 
shows that a strong element of anthropomorphism is retained 
even in the latter conception. The doctrine of final causes. 
ultimately reposes on the assumption that God entertains 
intentions and purposes closely resembling in kind, though 
greatly excelling in degree of sagacity, the purposes and. 
intentions of man. *In accordance with this view, we are 
told that it will not do to content ourselves with the dis- 
povery of Law, but that we must also look about for indica- 
tions of Purpose ; since Law is not, relatively to our human 
understanding, an ultimate fact, but may be recognized by us 
as the expression of the will of a Lawgiver. Everything 
that exists—it is said—has been created to subserve some 
design, and as a means to the accomplishment of some end ; 
and the detection of this end, the penetration of this design 


382 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (rr. m0. 


must assist us greatly in the scientific study of the universe. 
Not only must we inquire, with Sokrates, into the divine 
purposes subserved by the structure of the eyes and the 
position of the alimentary canal;! but we shall also find it 
desirable to interpret the design exhibited in the inclinations 
of the planetary axes; and our knowledge of chemistry must 
be deemed incomplete until we have ascertained the creative 
plan in the arrangement of combining equivalents.2 Not 
only will light thus be thrown upon many facts which would 
else have remained for ever wrapped in impenetrable dark- 
ness; but the mere recognition of an anthropomorphic 
purpose or providence in the constitution of things is said to 
afford unfailing consolation amid perplexity and suffering. 
He who cherishes the belief in the conscious supervision of 
a personal Deity is held tu possess the surest of safeguards 
against scepticism and despair. 

A hypothesis which holds out such brilliant hopes may 
well be retained in our Cosmic Philosophy, if it can be shown 
to be in harmony with the demonstrated scientific truths 
upon which that philosophy rests. But if this cannot be 
done, then the hypothesis must be discarded, even though it 
should carry with it all our hopes and wishes in indiscriminate 
ruin. It has been well said that “we must follow Truth, 
though she lead us to Hades.” The noble quest in which 
Science engages is the quest, not of faith or of consolation, 
but of truth; and, with the scientific philosopher, loyalty to 
truth is the first principle of religion. The disagreeableness 
of a well-supported conclusion furnishes no sort of justifica- 
tion for not accepting it, save to those minds which are 
irreligious as well as unscientific. He who is loyal to Truth 


1 Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. 4. § 6. 

2 «¢The inorganic world, considered in the same light, would not fail to 
exhibit unexpected evidences of thought, in the character of the laws regu- 
lating chemical combinations, the action of physical forces, the universal 
attraction, etc. Even the history of human culture ought to be investigated 
from this point of view.”— Agassiz, Essay on Classification, p. 199. 


cH. I1.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THHEISM. 383 


will never harbour the misgiving that her paths may lead to 
Hades : he will fearlessly follow the guidance of Science, never 
doubting that consolation must come of knowing the truth. 
In the present case we shall find reason to conclude that the 
hypothesis of a quasi-human God is likely to aggravate 
rather than to relieve the mental distress of scepticism. 

The doctrine of final causes we may first contemplate, for 
a moment, under its logical aspect, and notice that, even if it. 
were true, it could never have the value which is claimed for 
it as a means of investigation. Even admitting that all 
things have been created with forethought, and that the 
harmonious cooperation of phenomena is the fruit of con- 
trivance, it is none the less undeniable that this forethought 
cannot be perceived, the threads of this contrivance cannot 
be unravelled by us, until the laws to which phenomena 
conform have already been discovered. Previous to Newton, 
for instance, all attempts to detect design in the structure of 
the solar system must have shared the fate of the quite 
different guesses of Descartes and others as to its physical 
conditions, Evidences of design, therefore, in order to be 
trustworthy, must be deduced from known laws, and cannot 
safely be employed as stepping-stones to the discovery of new 
truths. However plausible they may seem as corollaries, 
they can never be useful as lemmas or postulates. As M. 
Scherer well observes, God is the cause of all things, but the 
explanation of nothing.t Accordingly unless we are so 
arrogant as to lay claim to the possession of some direct 


2 “6 Dieu, comme on I’a trés-hien dit, est la cause de tout, mais i] n’est exe 
plication de rien.” Scherer, Nouvelles Etudes sur la Litiérature Contemno- 
ruine, p. 408. See also Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Anomalies de l Organisation, 
tom, iii. p. 608. The only objection which can be made te M, Scherer’s 
statement is its disjunctive form, Obviously that which is the cause of 
everything cannot be the explanation of anything. We cannot explain any 
particular group of phenomena by a reference to divine action, because such 
a reference is merely a reference to the source of all phenomena alike, and 
hence cannot give us specifiz information concerning any particular group. 
Laplace was therefore quite justified in saying ‘‘Je n’ai pas besoin de cette 
hypothése.” 


384 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 1 


means of insight into the Divine purposes, what is left for 
us but to content ourselves with the humbler means of 
research lying everywhere at our disposal—with being 
“servants and interpreters of nature,” as the great master 
of inductive inquiry so wisely and modestly said? 

Not only does the teleological theory thus appear to be 
useless, from a scientific point of view, but its claim to 
philosophic validity is open to serious doubt. Looking at 
it historically, we observe that its career has been that of — 
a perishable hypothesis born of primeval habits of thought, 
rather than that of a permanent doctrine obtained by the 
employment of scientific methods. From time to time, with 
the steady advance of knowledge, the search for final causes 
has been discarded in the simpler sciences, until it is now 
kept up only in the complex and difficult branches of 
biology and sociology. As Laplace observes, final causes 
disappear as soon as we obtain the data requisite for resolv- 
ing problems scientifically. Even Dr. Whewell, the great 
champion of the teleological method in our day, admits that 
it must not be applied to the inorganic sciences; which 
amounts to the confession that, wherever we know enough, 
we can very well do without it.2 Creative design, however, 
if manifested at all, is probably not confined to a limited 
department of nature; and therefore the rejection of teleology 

1 As Descartes somewhere says, ‘‘ Nous rejetterons entitrement de notre 
philusophie la recherche des causes finales ; car nous ne devons pas tant pré- 
sumer de nous-mémes que de croire que Dieu nous ait voulu faire part de ses 
conseils.” 

3 Laplace, Essai sur les Probabilités, p. 87; Whewell, History of the In- 
ductive Sciences, vol. iii. p. 480. Even in biology the principle does not 
always work well :—‘‘ A final purpose is indeed readily perceived and ad- 
mitted in regard to the multiplied points of ossification in the skull of the 
human fetus and their relation to safe parturition. But when we find that 
the same ossific centres are established, and in similar order, in the skull of 
the embryo kangaroo, which is born when an inch in length, and in that of 
the callow bird that breaks the brittle egg, we feel the truth of Bacon's com- 
parison of final causes to the Vestal Virgins.” Owen, The Naiwre of Limbs, 
p. 89. Or, as Prof. Huxley very happily observes, they ‘* might be more fitl 


termed the heiairw of philosophy, so constantly have they led men astray. 
Lay Sermons, p. 255. 


cH, 11.) ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 585 


by the most advanced sciences augurs ill for its ultimate 
chances of survival in any field of inquiry. Previous to the 
researches of Kant and Laplace, such phenomena as the 
distribution of satellites and the inclinations of planetary 
axes were explained teleologically. These phenomena 
having been at last interpreted by a reference to universal 
laws of matter and motion, the teleological hypothesis took 
refuge in biology, where it held for a while a doubtful tenure, 
as a means of explaining the origination of specific forms of 
life. The discoveries of Mr. Darwin having gone far toward 
driving it from this stronghold, replacing the conception of 
miraculous interposition by the conception of natural selec- 
tion, it is nevertheless still appealed to by such writers as 
Mr. Wallace and Mr. Mivart, as furnishing an explanation 
for sundry phenomena of organic evolution which natural 
selection, taken alone, seems at present incompetent to ac- 
count for. In short, the teleological hypothesis derives its 
apparent confirmation never from the phenomena which were 
explained yesterday, but always from the phenomena which 
are awaiting an explanation to-morrow. “I give up pheno- 
menon A,” says the theologian, “ for that you have explained 
in terms of matter and motion; but phenomenon B you can 
never so explain, and upon that I therefore rest my teleolo- 
gical hypothesis.” To-merrow phenomenon B is interpreted 
in terms of matter and motion, and appeal is made to pheno- 
menon C; and so on, to the end of the alphabet. Now the 
cosmic conception of Deity, as we shall hereafter see, being 
planted in the region of the Unknowable, which is coex- 
tensive with that of the Knowable, has no such precarious 
tenure, and all that the progress of discovery can do is to 
enlarge and strengthen it. But the anthropomorphic con- 
ception, lodged in that ever diminishing area of the Knowable 
which is to-day unknown, is driven from outpost to outpost, 
pnd robbed of some part of its jurisdiction by every advance 
of science. Surely that must be an unworthy conception of 
VOL. II. co 


336 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. 1, 


Deity which is confessedly based on those limitations alone 
of finite phenomenal knowledge, which each day’s experience 
proves more and more clearly to be but temporary. Sumiely 
the teleological hypothesis is built upon a rotten foundation, 
when it has to dread the shock of each advancing wave of 
knowledge. Surely it is no less irreverent than unphiloso- 
phical to rest our faith in God’s existence upon the alleged 
impossibility of interpreting in terms of matter and motion 
the beginnings of life, the cross-relations between marsupials 
and monodelphia, or the structure of the ears and eyes of a 
cephalopod. 

Further to develope this argument would be premature, in 
the absence of explanations to be given in the next chapter. 
Contenting ourselves for the present with this brief indica- 
tion, let us now approach the subject somewhat more closely, 
and examine certain metaphysical arguments upon which it 
has lately been sought to base an elaborate teleological 
theory. The “Inquiry into the Theories of History,” by 
Mr. William Adam, presents us with what is probably the 
last form of the attempt to carry on scientific research by 
tleological methods, and two or three of its arguments may 
here be fitly noticed, as typical of the entire class to which 
they belong. | 

Mr. Adam accepts, with some qualifications, the doctrine: 
of Descartes and Spinoza, that causes resemble their effects, 
He holds that physical, intellectual, and moral causes re- 
spectively resemble their physical, intellectual, and moral 
effects; and hence infers that the Deity, as a moral and 
intellectual cause, must resemble the effect Man — must 
therefore purpose, contrive, and exert volition. The con 
clusion would have more weight, were it not so manifestly 
begged in the premise. Next, even in this modified shape, 
the rule that causes resemble their effects is hampered by 
awkward exceptions, in dealing with which Mr, Adam has 
not been fortunate. Assuming, for example, that heat is the 


cA. I] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM., 387 


cause of sieam, he maintains the likeness of the cause 
to its effect, on the ground that both are in a state of 
molecular agitation! The mental confusion which resulted 
in this extraordinary statement, is still more explicitly re- 
vealed in the assertion that “heat is like steam, as being 
both physical objects.” So, then, we get some conception of 
the kind of science with which anthropomorphism is prac- 
tically compatible. Heat, it seems, is a physical object in 
a state of molecular agitation !} The ordinary physicist will 
certainly object that heat, being the state of molecular agi- 
tation, can hardly be called, with propriety, the physical 
object. And the logician will add that, even if it could be 
so called, au argument would hardly be thought convineing 
which should rest upon the alleged resemblance of a billiard- 
table to a rhinoceros—yet these are both physical objects, 
Mr. Adam is equally unhappy in his answer to Mr. Mill’s 
humorous criticism of Descartes. Parodying the celebrated 
maxim,—WSi enim ponamus aliquid in idea reperirt quod non 
fuerit in ejus causa, hoc igitur habet a nihilo, Mr. Mill 
observes that “if there be pepper in the soup, there must be 
pepper in the cook who made it, since otherwise the pepper 
would be without a cause.” Mr, Adam’s reply savours 
strongly of medizval realism. The cook, he says, is not 
indeed the efficient cause of the pepper, but the cook’s 
intelligence is the efficient cause of the intelligence dispiayed 
in the mixture of the ingredients of the soup—so thai even 
here the cause is like the effect! Comment is not needed, 
Human ingenuity is indeed pushed to the limit of its 
tether, when by a play upon words it tries to liken a 
physical combination of salt, pepper, and meat-juice to an 
intellectual coordination of experiences, 

Apart from these ill-chosen and ill-managed examples, 
the Cartesian argument, as modified by Mr. Adam, appears 
to stand as follows:—When a physical event, such as the 
pulling of a trigger, is followed by another physical event, 

co 2 


388 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr, 11 


such as the firing of a pistol, the antecedent resembles the 
consequent, since both are physical events. When an in- 
tellectual event, such as the rising into consciousness of the 
idea of Hamlet, is followed by another intellectual event, 
such as the ideal representation of a crowded theatre, the 
antecedent resembles the consequent, since both are intel- 
lectual events. When a moral event, such as a fit of un- 
governable passion, is followed by another moral event, such 
as a bitter sense of remorse, the antecedent is like the 
consequent, since both are moral-events. Therefore the 
primal Cause, antecedent to the whole compound series of 
intellectual and moral events, must be intellectual and 
moral in its nature. 


Underneath this whole argument there lies an ill-concealed 
aetitio principit. Three parallel lines of causal sequence 
being set up, it is unwarrantably assumed that causal rela- 
tions hold only between the successive members of each 
separate series, or in other words, that there are no causal 
relations between the members of one series and the members: 
of another. A single instance of causal relation between a 
material event and an intellectual or emotional event— 
such as the relation between certain atmospheric undulations 
communicated from violin-strings to the auditory nerve, and 
the consequent recognition of the triad of A-minor, with 
the accompanying pleasurable feeling—is fatal to the argu- 
ment. Waiving this objection, however, and for the moment 
admitting that the universe, as containing intellectual and 
moral phenomena, requires an intellectual and moral Cause; 
we may note that the argument proves altogether too much, 
Since the universe contains material, as well as psychical 
phenomena, its First Cause, according to Mr. Adam’s argu- 
ment, must partake of all the differential qualities of those 
phenomena. If it reasons and wills, like the higher animals, 
jt must also, like minerals, plants, and the lowest animals, be 
unintelligent and unendowed with the power of volition, 


cH. I1.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 389 


which requires in the First Cause a more than Hegelian 
capacity for uniting contradictory attributes. Else we must 
suppose its causal action to be confined to man, and those 
other animals which manifest intelligence and volition, 
while the rest of the universe either seeks another First 
Cause, or goes without one. All these are alike conclusions 
which philosophy cannot for a moment tolerate, and which 
are as shocking to science as to religion. 

A still more fatal criticism remains to be made, Con- 
sidered as a modification of the Cartesian doctrine, Mr. 
Adam’s theory is entirely illegitimate: it is the product of 
a gross misconception of the Cartesian doctrine. All these 
causes and effects, so carefully but unskilfully compared by 
Mr. Adam, are phenomenal antecedents and consequents; and 
even supposing the universal resemblance of phenomenal 
causes to phenomenal effects to be fully made out, the anthro- 
pomorphic argument is not helped in the least. Until a 
phenomenal effect can be brought into juxtaposition and 
compared with its nowmenal cause, the argument has no 
logical validity; but, because of the relativity of all know- 
ledge, this can never be done. To call the First Cause a 
phenomenon is to make a statement thatis self-contradictory ; 
since phenomena exist only by virtue of their relation to 
human (or animal) consciousness. The First Cause being 
absolute and infinite, is a noumenon, and no amount of 
resemblance, alleged or proved, between various orders of 
its phenomenal effects, can bear witness to any resemblance 
between a phenomenal effect and the noumenal Cause. The 
phenomena of motion, for example, exist as phenomena only 
in so far as they are cognized; and the very constitution of 
the thinking process renders it impossible for us to assert 
similarity between the phenomenon and the thing in itself. 
Indeed a comparison between the various phenomena of 
motion gives us good ground for believing that there can be 
no such thing as resemblance between the phenomena and 


390 COSMIC PHILOSOPAY. (er. m1. 


their noumenal cause. At the beginning of this work it was 
shown that the objective reality underlying the phenomena 
of heat, light, actinism, and mechanical vibration, cannot be 
held to resemble one of these sets of phenomena more than 
another, and accordingly cannot be held to resemble any of 
them. And this conclusion, thus forced upon us by concrete 
examples, is the only one consistent with what we know of 
knowledge. Obviously the phenomena cannot be held to be 
like the objective reality without ignoring the circumstance 
that the mind is itself a factor in the process of cognition. 
Now the Cartesians, with more insight into the exigencies of 
the case than is shown by Mr. Adam, unflinchingly asserted 
that phenomenal effects are like noumenal causes,—that 
whatever is in the subjective conception is also in the 
objective reality. Asa proposition in psychology, this is a 
denial of the relativity of knowledge. Asa canon of logic, 
this is the proclamation of the subjective method. Hence, 
though the metaphysician and the theologian may adopt an 
anthropomorphic hypothesis founded upon such an argument, 
it is impossible for a scientific philosopher to do so. 

The attempt to establish the anthropomorphic hypothesis 
by means of the volitional theory of causation is, from the 
scientific point of view, equally futile. From first to last, as 
was fully demonstrated in the chapter on Causation, the 
argument of the volitionists is made up of pure assumptions, 
From the unwarranted ontological postulate that Will is a 
noumenal or efficient cause of muscular action in animals, 
it proceeds, by a flagrant non sequitur, to the equally un- 
warranted conclusion that Will is the noumenal or efficient 
cause of all the dynamic phenomena of the universe, and 
must therefore be the First Cause, Volition being asserted 
to be the only source whence motion can originate, it is 
affirmed that, save on the hypothesis of a Supreme Will, the 
activity of nature baffles comprehension. The reply of the 
scientilic critic is that, in an ultimate analysis, the activity 


oH, 11] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM, 391 


of nature does, and must ever, baffle comprehension; and ° 
that, upon any hypothesis frameable by our intelligence, 
whether theistic or non-theistic, the origination of motion 
must remain not only incomprehensible but inconceivable. 
Relatively to our finite power of apprehension, motion is to be 
regarded, like matter, as eternal." The unthinkableness of 
the creation or destruction of matter or motion is involved 
in the axiom that force is persistent, which is the funda- 
mental axiom of all science and of Cosmic Philosophy. 
Whether motion, considered apart from our power of appre- 
hension, ever had a beginning or not, is a question which 
cannot concern us as scientific thinkers, To assert that it 
had, is to put into words a hypothesis that cannot be 
translated into thought, and to assume Volition as its primal 
antecedent, is te frame an additional hypothesis that is 
essentially unverifiable. Phenomenally we know of Will 
only as the cause of certain limited and very peculiar kinds 
ef activity displayed by the nerves and muscles of the 
higher animals. And to argue from this that all other 
kinds of activity are equally caused by Will, simply be- 
cause the primal origination of motion is otherwise inex- 
plicable, is as monstrous a stretch of assumption as can well 
be imagined. While to contend—as many have done—that 
because human volitions are attended by a sensation of 
effort, there is therefore effort in each case of causation, is 
much like identifying gravitative force with the sensation 
of weight by which the attempt to overcome it is always 
accompanied.” 


1 Or—to state the same thing in snother form—the possibilities of thought 
are limited by experience ; and experience furnishes no data for enabling us 
to conceive a time, either past or future, when the Unknowable would he 
objectively manifested to consciousuess otherwise than in movements of 
matter. But this, it should be remembered, applies solely to our powers of 
conception. Thought is not tne measure of things, and where the region of 
experience is transcended, the test of inconceivability becomes imappiicabie 
See above, vol. i. p. 11. 

® See above, vol. i p. 157. 


392 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. » (er. 11 


The last of the @ priori arguments which it is necessary 
to notice in this connection, is that which infers the exist- 
ence of an intelligent Lawgiver from the omnipresence of 
Law. “The proofs of necessary law and of an intelligent 
will .... remain undeniable,” says Mr. Adam, “and no 
hardihood of assertion can annul them; and when an at 
tempt is made to bring both into logical connection, the 
mind, not only without violence to its powers, but on the 
contrary with a clear perception of necessary congruity, — 
believes that law must proceed from a lawgiver, beneficent 
laws from a moral ruler. To disjoin an intelligent will from 
necessary law is to shake our confidence in the perpetuity 
and salutary operation of law itself. The conception of law 
without will is that of agency without an agent: the con- 
ception of will without law is that of an agent without agency. 
Necessary law is the constant expression of the divine will.” 
Upon this point Mr. Adain repeatedly insists in the course 
of his work,’ asserting again and again that, without admit- 
ting “this great central conception of a Supreme Will,” the 
laws of nature must for ever remain unintelligible. Let us 
not fail to note that Mr. Adam’s conception of theism, as 
here illustrated, is far more refined, and far less hostile to 
scientific inquiry, than the conception of theism embodied in 
the accepted creeds of theologians, and officially defended 
from the pulpit. Those who adopt Mr. Adam’s conception 
will, if consistent, welcome, instead of opposing, every scien- 
tific interpretation of phenomena hitherto deemed super- 
natural; since, in the above passage, God is clearly regarded 
as manifesting himself in order and not in disorder, in 
method and not in caprice, in law and not in miracle, With 
this view our Cosmic Philosophy thoroughly coinciles; and, 
eliminating the anthropomorphism from Mr. Adam’s state- 
ment, I, for one, will heartily join in the assertion that 


2 Adam, Theories of History, pp. 92, 130, 180, 189, 209, 222, 281, 284, 
404, The passage just cited is to be fouid on p. 192. 


cH. 11] ANTHROPOMURPHIC THEISM. 393 


“necessary law is the constant expression of the divine 
working.” But the connection asserted between universal 
law and a supreme quasi-human Will, is one which a scien- 
tific philosophy cannot admit, for it rests upon a mere verbal 
equivocation. The inference from community of name to 
community of nature, however appropriate it might have 
seemed to the realists of the twelfth century, is in our day: 
hardly admissible. Because the: word “law” is used to 
describe alike the generalizations of Kepler and the-statutes 
enacted by a legislative body, we must not infer, with a 
naiveté worthy of the schoolmen, that. whatever is true of 
the one will always be true of the other. That the laws of 
Justinian emanated from a lawgiver is no reason for believing 
the same to have been the case with the: law of gravitation ; 
for the former were edicts enjoining obedience, while the 
latter is but.a generalized expression of the manner in which: 
certain phenomena occur. <A law of nature, as formulated 
in’ a scientific treatise, is a statement of facts, and nothing: 
more. Expressed in the indicative mood, it has nothing 
whatever to do with the imperative. Science knows nothing’ 
of a celestial Ukase compelling the earth to gravitate toward 
the sun. We know that it does so gravitate with a. certain: 
intensity, and that is the whole story. Nevertheless, so 
strong is the realistic tendency that, in speaking of laws of 
nature, the most careful writers too seldom avoid: “a tacit 
reference to the original sense of the word law, .. .. the 
expression of the will of a superior.”? Indeed, it is imme- 
diately after defining a law as “a general. name for certain: 
phenomena of the same kind, which regularly recur under 
the: same circumstances,” that Mr. Adam alludes to “the 
Supreme Will which swlyects (!) all phenomena to law, and 
solligates all laws into a universe (!).” Upon such a confusion 
of ideas, and amid such a chaos of terminology, is this whole 
argument,,so far as concerns theism, unsuspectingly reared, 
«Mill, Lystem of Logie, vol.-i: p. 348s 


394 - COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 111, 


Strip the shrase “law of nature” of this inherent ambiguity, 
substitute for it the equivalent phrase, “order of sequence 
among certain phenomena,” and the anthropomorphic in: 
ference so confidently drawn from it at once disappears, 

Viewed in close connection with the Doctrine of Evolution, 
this scholastic argument from the Law to the Lawgiver lands 
us amid strange and terrible embarrassments. For what is a 
law, in the sense in which the word is used by legislators? 
It is a set of relations established by the community, or by 
some superior mind representing and guiding the community, 
in correspondence with certain environing circumstances. 
Certain phenomena of crime, for example, tend to detract 
from the fulness of life of society, and to balance these 
phenomena a certain force of public opinion is embodied in 
an edict prescribing due punishments for the crimes in 
question. Or—slightly to vary the definition and make it 
more comprehensive—a law is the embodiment of a certain 
amount of psychical energy, directed towards the securing of 
the highest attainable fulness of social life. Now if, on the 
strength of an ambiguous terminology, we proceed to regard 
the “laws” of nature as edicts enjoined upon matter and 
motion by a personal Ruler, shall we also, as we are logically 
bound to do, carry with us the conceptions of legislation. 
with which the Doctrine of Evolution has supplied us? 
Shall we say that the infinite Deity adjusts inner relations to 
external contingencies ? 

Here we come upon the brink of the abyss into which the 
anthropomorphic hypothesis must precipitate us, if instead 
of passively acquiescing in it as a vague authoritative 
formula, we analyze it with the scientific appliances at our 
command. To those who have acquired some mastery of 
the physical truths upon which our Cosmic Philosophy is 
based, the doctrine not only ceases to be intellectually con- 
soling, but becomes a source of ungovernable disturbance, 
For to repr2sent the Deity as a person who thinks, contrives, 


cH. u.) ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 395 


and legislates, is simply to represent him as a product of 
evolution. The definition of intelligence being “the con- 
tinuous adjustment of specialized inner relations to special- 
ized outer relations,” it follows that to represent the Deity 
as intelligent is to surround Deity with an environment, and 
thus to destroy its infinity and its self-existence. The 
eternal Power whereof the web of phengmena is but the 
visible garment becomes degraded into a mere strand in the 
web of phenomena; and the Cosmos, in exchange for the 
loss of its infinite and inserntable God, receives an anomalous 
sovereign of mythologic pedigree. : 

Nor can the theologian find a ready avenue of escape 
from these embarrassments in the assumption that there is 
such a thing as disembodied intelligence which is not 
definable as a correspondence between an organism and 
its environment, and which is therefore not a product of 
evolution. Experience does not afford the data for testing 
such a hypothesis, and to meet it with denial would accord- 
ingly be unphilosophic in the extreme. That there may be 
such a thing as disembodied or unembodied Spirit will be 
denied by no one, save by those shallow materialists who 
fancy that the possibilities of existence are measured by the 
narrow limitations of their petty knowledge. But such an 
admission can be of no use to the theologian in establishing 
his teleological hypothesis, For even granting the existence 
of such unembodied Spirit, the moment we ascribe to it 
intelligence we are using words to which experience has 
assigned definite meanings, and we are not at liberty to play 
fast and loose with these meanings. When we speak of 
“intelligence,” we either mean nothing at all, or we mean 
that which we know as intelligence. But that which we 
know as intelligence implies a circumscribed and limited 
form of Being adapting its internal processes to other 
processes going on beyond its limits.’ Save as describing 
such a@ correspondence between circumscribed Being and its’ 


396 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. eo 


environment, the word “ intelligence” has no meaning what 
ever, and to employ it is simply to defy logic and insult 
common-sense. In ascribing intelligence to unembodied’ 
Spirit, we are either using meaningless jargon, or we are 
implicitly surrounding unembodied Spirit with an environ- 
ment of some kind, and are thus declaring it to be both 
limited and dependent. The assumption of disembodied 
intelligence, therefore leaves the fundamental difficulty quite 
untouched, 

Thus in default of all tenable @ priori support for the. 
anthropomorphic hypothesis, it must be left to rest, if it. is to: 
be entertained at. all, upon its ancient, inductive basis, In 
spite of the difficulties encompassing the conception, we may 
fairly admit that if the structure of the universe presents 
unmistakeable evidences of divine contrivance or forethought, 
these evidences, may be received in verification. of the hypo- 
thesis which ascribes to. God a quasi-human nature, And 
thus the possible establishment of that hypothesis must: 
depend upon the weight accorded to the so-called “ evidences: 
of design.” 

From the dawn of philosophic discussion, Pagan and 
Christian, Trinitarian and Deist, have appealed with equal 
confidence to the harmony pervading nature as. the surest 
foundation of their faith in an intelligent and beneficent 
Ruler of the universe. We meet with the argument in the 
familiar writings of Xenophon and Cicero, and it is forcibly 
and eloquently maintained by Voltaire, as, well as by Paley, 
and, with various modifications, by Agassiz: as well as by the 
authors of the Bridgewater Treatises. One: and all they 
thallenge us to explain, on any other hypothesis than that: of 
creative design, these manifold harmonies, these exquisite 
adaptations of means to ends, whereof the world is admitted 
to be full, and which are especially conspicuous among: the 
phenomena of life. Until the establishment of the Doctrine 
of Evolution, the glove thus thrown, age after age, into the 


cn, 11} ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 397 


arena of philosophic controversy, was never triumphantly 
taken up. It was Mr. Darwin who first, by his discovery of 
natural selection, supplied the champions of science with the 
resistless weapon by which to vanquish, in this their chief 
stronghold, the champions of theology. And this is doubt- 
less foremost among the causes of the intense hostility which 
all consistent theologians feel towards Mr. Darwin. This 
antagonism has been generated, not so much by the sillv 
sentimentalism which regards the Darwinian theory as 
derogatory to human dignity; not so much by the knowledge 
that the theory is incompatible with that ancient Hebrew 
cosmogony which still fascinates the theological imagination ; 
as by the perception, partly vague and partly definite, that 
in natural selection there has been assigned an adequate 
cause for the marvellous phenomena of adaptation, which 
had formerly been regarded as clear proofs of beneficent 
creative contrivance. It needs but to take into the account 
the other agencies in organic evolution besides the one so 
admirably illustrated by Mr. Darwin, it needs but to re- 
member that life is essentially a process of equilibration, 
both direct and indirect, in order to be convinced that the 
Doctrine of Evolution has once for all deprived natural 
theology of the materials upon which until lately it 
subsisted. 

These apparent indications of creative forethought are 
just so many illustrations of the scientific theorem that life, 
whether physical or psychical, is the continuous adjustment 
of inner relations to outer relations. “On this fact,” says 
Mr. Barratt, “depends the usual argument to prove the ~ 
existence of God from design or final causes; the whole 
strength of which is produced by @ mere verbal sleight of 


1 That Darwinism has given the death-blow to teleology is admitted by 
Bchleiden,—an unwilling witness. See Biichner, Die Darwinsche Theorie, p. 
159. Haeckel also says :—“ Wir erblicken darin [in Darwin’s discovery] den 
definitiven Tod aller teleologischen und vitalistischen Beurtheilung der Or- 
ganismen.” Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, tom. i. p. 160. 


398 COSMIO PHILOSOPHY. [Pr 11 


tongue—by calling an effect a cause. Any combination 
of laws would produce its own proper results: hence under 
any constitution of the universe, good or bad, possible or 
impossible, as it may seem to us, it would always be true 
that ‘whatever is, is right. To give an instance—the 
particular laws of our present universe bring about night, 
they also cause the phenomenon sleep in animated creatures: 
these two naturally suit each other, being different results of 
the same laws—just as any two propositions in Euclid agree 
together. But to say that either is the final cause of the 
other is to transfer an idea derived from one part of ourselves, 
our motives to action, to an entirely different part of our- 
selves, our primary laws of sensation, The earth is suited to 
its inhabitants because % has produced them, and only such as 
suit tt live.” This last statement, which I have italicized, is 
the triumphant answer with which science meets the challenge 
of natural theology. It is not that the environment has 
been adapted to the organism by an exercise of creative 
intelligence and beneficence, but it is that the organism is 
necessarily fitted to the environment because the fittest 
survive. In no way can the contrast between theology and 
science, between Anthropomorphism and Cosmism, be more 
clearly illustrated than in this antithesis. Let us now pursue 
the argument somewhat farther into detail, but slightly 
changing for a moment the point of view, in order that we 
may not only show the superiority of the scientific explana- 
tion, but may also show how the anthropomorphic theory 
finds its apparent justification. A theory may be shattered 
by refutation; but in order to demolish it utterly it must be 
accounted for. We shall see that from the very constitution 
of the human mind, and by reason of the process whereby 
intelligence has arisen, we are likely everywhere to meet 
with apparent results of creative forethought; and that thus 


4 Physical Ethics, p. 88. 


CH. IT.J ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 399 


in the evolution of intelligence itself these phenomena find 
their only satisfactory explanation. 

In the chapter on the Evolution of Mind it was shown 
that the intelligence of any man consists, partly of inner 
relations adjusted from moment to moment in conformity 
with the outer relations present in his own environment, and 
partly of organized and integrated inner relations bequeathed 
him by countless generations of ancestors, brute andhuman, 
and adjusted to the outer relations constantly presented in 
innumerable ancestral environments. Throughout all time, 
therefore, since intelligence first appeared upon the earth, 
the world of conceptions has been maintained in more or less 
complete correspondence with the world of phenomena. 
Just as in the mental evolution of each individual there is 
preserved a certain degree of harmony with the mental 
evolution of contemporary and surrounding individuals, so 
the total evolution of intelligence has kept pace more or 
less evenly with the changes of the environment with which 
it has interacted. Sense after sense has assumed distinct 
existence in response to stimuli from without. One set of 
experiences after another has been coordinated in harmony 
with combinations existing without. Emotion after emotion 
has been slowly generated in conformity with the necessities 
entailed by outward circumstances, And thus the contem- 
plating mind and the world of phenomena contemplated are, 
if I may so express it, tuned in mysterious unison. 

Let us now inquire into the bearing of this fact upon the 
vrigin and apparent justification of the teleological theory. 
We have seen that man has from the earliest times been 
wont to project ideally his personality into the external 
world, assimilating the forces of physical nature to the forces 
displayed in his own volitions, and with unrestrained fancy 
multiplying likenesses of his own intelligence as means 
whereby to render comprehensible the agencies ever at work 
around him, Stronger in the ages of primeval fetishism 


400 | COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pT. mL 


than at any subsequent time, this aboriginal tendency is 
nevertheless not yet quite fully overcome. Even as in the 
crying of an infant at sight of a stranger may be seen still 
feebly surviving the traces of feelings organized in the race 
at a time when the strange meant the dangerous, so likewise 
may we detect evanescent symptoms of a fetishistic style of 
reasoning in many highly subtilized ontological theories now 
in vogue ; of which the volitional theory of causation, above 
dealt with, is a notable example. This archaic mode of 
reasoning, now become exceptional, was once universal. 
Now applied only to the most abstruse problems, it was 
at first equally employed in the solution of the simplest. 
Storm and sunshine, as well as defeat and victory, were 
regarded as the manifestations of superhuman volition 
and the achievements of superhuman intelligence. But 
scientific generalization, steadily arranging in correlated 
groups phenomena which had hitherto seemed isolated and 
lawless, was followed by the generalization of presiding 
divinities. And this went on until, in comparatively modern 
times the habit of viewing nature as an organic whole has 
resulted in monotheism. As the most prominent result of 
this generalizing process we have seen slowly going on an 
elimination, from the objects of men’s worship, of the less 
noble qualities originally ascribed to them. One by one the 
erosser sensual passions, the emotions least worthy of re- 
verence, and intellectual shortcomings, such as the liability to 
make niistakes and to be overreached, have been omitted 
from the conception of Deity. And the culmination of this 
purifying process is to be seen in the Deity of the modern 
metaphysician, which is little more than an abstract embodi- 
ment of reason and volition.. But in spite of all this pro- 
gressive change in the form of the conception, its substance 
still remains the same. It is still the human personality, 
however refined and etherealized, which is appealed to alike 
as the source and as the explanation of all phenomena. It 


cH. I.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM., 401 


is the primitive fetishistic habit of thought, however modified 
by contlict with scientific habits, which furtively leads us to 
regard volition as supplying the nexus between cause and 
effect, and to interpret the harmonious correspondences iu 
nature as results of creative contrivance and indications of 
creative purpose. 

Such being the origin of the teleological hypothesis, its 
apparent warrant is to be sought in the facts above recounted 
with respect to the evolution of intelligence. It is the com- 
plex and organized correspondence of the mind with its 
environment, which seems to furnish inductive justification 
to the thinker who is predisposed to see in nature the workings 
of a mind like his own, Arranging and combining various 
experiences received from without, adjusting new inner rela- 
tions to outer relations established from time immemorial, 
man reacts upon the environment, and calls into being new 
agereeations of matter, new channels of motion, new reservoirs 
of energy. He does not perceive and reflect only—he also con- 
trives andinvents. As often as he builds an engine, launches 
a ship, paints a picture, moulds a statue, or composes a sym- 
phony, he creates in the environment new relations tallying 
with those present within himself. And then, by a natural 
but deceptive analogy, he infers that what has taken place in 
the tiny portion of the universe which owns himself as its 
designer, must also have taken place throughout the whole. 
All the relations externally existing, he interprets as conse- 
quent upon primordial relations shaped in a mind similar 
to his own. By a subtle realism, he projects the idea of 
himself out upon the field of phenomena, and deals with it 
henceforth as an objective reality. Human intelligence made 
the watch, therefore superhuman intelligence made the flower. 
Human volitions bring to pass wars and revolutions, divine 
volitions therefore cause famine and pestilence. So when, 
in the pervading unity which amid endless variety of detail 
binds into a synthetic whole the classes and genera of the 

VOL. IL LD D 


402 _ COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [rr. 11% 


organic world, an earnest and reverent thinker, like Agassiz, 
beholds the work of omnipresent thought, he is but wnawares 
contemplating his own personality reflected before him, and mis- 
taking, Narcissus-like, a mirrored image for a substantial object 
of adoration. Thus isexplained, even while it is refuted, the 
famous argument of the watch, with all its numerous kin- 
dred. In the anthropomorphic hypothesis, the bearings of 
the inner and the outer worlds are exactly reversed. It is 
not the intelligence which has made the environment, but it 
is the environment which has moulded the intelligence. In 
the mint of nature, the coin Mind has been stamped; and 
theology, perceiving the likeness of the die to its impression, 
has unwittingly inverted the causal relation of the two, 
making Mind, archetypal and self-existent, to be the die. 

Therefore, to cite the language employed with slightly 
different but kindred intent by Mr, Barratt, “we protest 
against the reversal of the true order. . . . We must not fall 
down and worship as the source of our life and virtue the 
image which our own minds have set up. Why is such 
idolatry any better than that of the old wood and stone? If 
we worship the creations of our minds, why not also those 
of our hands? The one is indeed a more refined self-adora- 
tion than the other; but the radical error remains the same 
in both. The old idolators were wrong, not because they 
worshipped themselves, but because they worshipped their 
treation as if it were their creator; and how can any [anthro- 
pomorphic theory] escape the same condemnation?” ? 

The origin of the teleological hypothesis is thus pointed 
out, and its plausibility accounted for. On the one hand, 
the primitive tendency in man to interpret nature anthropo- 
morphically, and his proneness to lend to his own ideas 
objective embodiment, are facts admitting no dispute. All 
history teems with evidences of their wide-spread and deep- 
rooted influence. Has not fetishism been at one time the 
universal theology, and realism at another time the dominant 


1 Physical Ethics, p. 225. 


CH, I1.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THILISM. 403 


philosophy? On the other hand, it is a corollary from the 
fundamental laws of life that psychical development has 
followed the course and been determined by the conditions 
above described. The view here defended may thus far claim 
at least equal weight with those which maintain the validity 
of the teleological hypothesis. But we have next to consider 
a class of phenomena, in the explanation of which that hypo- 
thesis appears at a signal disadvantage. 

The perfect adjustment of inner to outer relations is 
that which constitutes perfect life. Were no chemical or 
mechanical relations to arise without the organism, too 
sudden, too intricate, or too unusual, to be met by internal 
adaptations, death from disease and accident would no longer 
occur. Were there no concurrence of phenomena defying 
interpretation and refusing to be classified, there would be 
perfect knowledge. Were no desires awakened, save such as 
might be legitimately gratified by the requisite actions, there 
would be perfect happiness. That the ultimate state of 
humanity will be characterized by a relatively close ap- 
proach to such an equilibrium between external require- 
ments and internal resources, is a belief which, however para- 
doxical it may seem to a superficial observer, is justified by 
all that we know of history and of biology. It is with reason 
that the modern mind sees its Golden Age in the distant 
future, as the ancient mind saw it in the forgotten past. 
But however bright and glorious may be the destination of 
mankind, its onward progress is marked by irksome toil and 
bitter sorrow. Though like the crusading children, in Arnold’s 
beautiful simile, we may cry from time to time, “Jerusalem is 
reached!” it is only to be rudely awakened from our delusion 
—to realize that the goal is yet far off, and that many a weary 
ague must be traversed before we can attain it. Mean- 
while, grinding misery is the lot of many, regret and disap- 
pointment the portion of all. The life of the wisest man is 
chiefly made up of lost opportunities, defeated hopes, half- 

DD2 


404 - OOSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 1m. 


finished projects, and frequent failure in the ever-renewed 
strife between good and evil inclinations. So penetrated are 
the noblest careers by the leaven of selfish folly, that the 
conscientious biographer is too often constrained to adopt the 
tone of apology, mingling condemnation with approval. Side 
by side with deeds of heroism and sympathetic devotion, his- 
tory is ever recording deeds of violence and selfish oppres- 
sion. Undisciplined and conflicting desires are continually 
coming to fruition in hateful and iniquitous actions. The 
perennial recurrence of war and persecution, the obstinate 
vitality of such ugly things as despotism, superstition, fraud, 
robbery, treachery, and bigotry, show how chaotic as yet is 
the distribution of moral forces. While the prevalence, here 
and there, of ignorance and poverty, disease and famine, shows 
how imperfect as yet is our power to adapt ourselves to the 
changes going on around us, 

That this state of things is temporarily necessitated by the 
physical constitution of the universe and by the process of 
evolution itself, may readily be granted.1_ The physical ills 
with which humanity is afflicted are undoubtedly consequent 
upon the very movement of progress which is bearing it on- 
ward toward relative perfection of life, and moral evils like- 
wise are the indispensable concomitants of its slow transition 
from the primeval state of savage isolation to the ultimate 
state of civilized interdependence. They are not obstacles to 
any scientific theory of evolution, nor do they provide an 
excuse for gloomy cynicism, but should rather be viewed 
with quiet resignation, relieved by philosophic hopefulness, 
and enlightened endeavours to ameliorate them. But though 


1 Jn treating of the special-creation hypothesis (Principles of Biology, 

rt iii.) Mr. Spencer calls attention to the numerous cases in which the 
Dig her life is sacrificed, without compensation, to the lower, as for example in 
the case of parasites. This is a formidable objection, not only to the doctrine 
ef special creations, but to anthropomorphic theism in general. But for my 
vresent purpose it is quite enough to point out that the constitution of the 
world is such that even the genesis of higher life involves an enorinous in 
fliction of misery upon sentient creatures, 


CH. II,] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 405 


crime and suffering may indeed be destined eventually to 
disappear, their prevalence throughout the recorded past has 
none the less been ever the stumbling-block and opprobrium 
of all anthropomorphic theories. of the universe. Just so 
far as the correspondence between the organism and its 
environment is complete, does the teleological hypothesis find 
apparent confirmation. Just so far as the correspondence is 
incomplete, does it meet with patent contradiction. If har- 
mony and fitness are to be cited as proofs of beneficent 
design, then discord and unfitness. must equally be kept in 
view as evidences of less admirable contrivance. A scheme 
which permits thousands of generations to live and die in 
wretchedness, cannot, merely by providing for the well-being. 
of later ages, be absolved from the alternative charge of awk- 
wardness or malevolence. If there exist a personal Creator 
of the universe who is infinitely intelligent and powerful, 
he cannot be infinitely good: if, on the other hand, he be 
infinite in goodness, then he must be lamentably finite: in: 
power or in intelligence. By this two-edged difficulty, Theo- 
logy has ever been foiled. Vainly striving to elude: the 
dilemma, she has at times sought refuge in optimism; 
alleging the beneficent results of suffering and the evan- 
escent character of evil, as if to prove, that suffering and 
evil do not really exist. Usually, however, she has taken. 
the opposite course, postulating distinct supernatural sources 
for the evil and the good! From the Joétuns and Vritras of 


L “ Odn kpa mdvrwr ye atriov 73 dyabdr, GAARA TSy pry e} exdvrwy alriov, Trav 
B28 xaxdv dvalriov. Ovd? dpa bd Oeds, ered) dyabds, wdvrwy av ein alrios, &s oi 
WoAAol A€gyovow, GAN GAlyww pty Tots avOpedmois alrios, woAAGy 5 dvalrios*’ 
woAd yap €Adtrw Tdyabd TOY Kaxdy ijuiv’ Kal Tov uty ayabdy oidéva AAAov 
sintaréov, Trav St naxay GAN drra dei (ntely ra atria, AAA’ ov Tov Ocdv.” Plato, 
Republic, ii. 18 (Bekker). He goes:on to refute the Homeric conception of 
the two jars, Jliad, xxiv. 660. See, also Aristotle, Metaphysica, A. p. 984, 
b. 17; and compare the views of James Mill, in J. S. Mill’s Autobiography, 

» 40. For those who may wish to revive the Manichzan doctrine, an excel- 
font point of departure has been afforded by Mr. Martineau, in his suggestion: 
that the primary qualities of matter constitute a “datum objective to God,” 
who, “in shaping the orbits out of immensity, and determining seasons out: 


406 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [PT. 11%, 


early Aryan mythology, down to the multiform Manicheism: 
of later times, may be seen the innumerable vestiges of her 
fruitless attempts to reconcile the fact of the existence of 
evil with the hypothesis of the infinite power and bene- 
volence of a personal Deity. 

It is not for the theologian to seek to stifle such objec- 
tions by telling us that, in raising them, we are blasphe- 
mously judging of the character of the Deity by human 
standards. Nor is it for him to silence us by pointing to 
the wondrous process of evolution as itself the working out 
of a mighty Teleology of which our finite understandings 
can fathom but the scantiest rudiments! As we shall see 
in the fifth chapter, the process of evolution, when reve- 
rently treated with the aid of such scientific resources as 
we possess, and when disencumbered of anthropomorphic 
hypotheses, leads us in the way of no such fearful dilemma 
as the one by which we are now encountered. It is 
theology alone which drives us to the brink of this 
fathomless abyss, by insisting upon the representation of. 
the Deity as a person endowed with anthropomorphic at- 
tributes. If goodness and intelligence are to be ascribed 
to the Deity, it must be the goodness and intelligence of 
which we have some rudimentary knowledge as manifested 
in humanity: otherwise our hypothesis is resolved into 
unmeaning verbiage. “If,” as Mr. Mill observes, “in 


of eternity, could but follow the laws of curvature, measure, and proportion.” 
Essays, Philosophical and Theolcgical, pp. 163, 164. In this way Mr. Mar- 
tineau preserves the quasi-human character of God in the only way in which 
(as I maintain) it can be preserved,—namely, by sacrificing his Omnipotence. 
{n seeking to escape from Mr. Spencer’s doctrine of the Unknowable, Mr. . 
Martineau succeeds only in positing, in his “ ovjective datum,” an ulterior 
Unknowable, by which God’s power is limited, and which ex hy,othesi is not ; 
livine. This brings us directly back to Ormuzd and Ahriman. See Mr. 
pen remarks, Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1873; vol. xiv. N.S. pp. 
26—728. 

1 For by taking such ground as this, he would virtually abandon his» 
anthropomorphic hypothesis, and concede all that is demanded by the Cosmist. 
For this conception of teleology implied in the process of evolution, 
Huxley, Critigues and Addresses, p. 306, 


on, 11.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 407 


ascribing goodness to God I do nct mean what I mean by 
goodness; if I do not mean the goodness of whtich I have 
some knowledge, but an incomprehensible attribute of an 
incomprehensible substance, which for aught I know may 
be a totally different quality from that which I love and 
venerate—what do I mean by calling it goodness? and 
what reason have I for venerating it? To say that God’s 
goodness may be different in kind from man’s goodness, 
what is it but saying, with a slight change of phraseology, 
that God may possibly not be good?” With Mr. Mill, 
therefore, “I will call no Being good, who is not what I 
mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures.” 
And, going a step farther, I will add that it is impossible 
to call that Being good, who, existing prior to the pheno- 
menal universe, and creating it out of the plenitude of 
infinite power and foreknowledge, endowed it with such 
properties that its material and moral development must 
inevitably be attended by the misery of untold millions of 
sentient creatures for whose existence their Creator is ulti- 
mately alone responsible. In short, there can be no hypo- 
thesis of a “moral government” of the world, which does 
not implicitly assert an immoral government. As soon as 
we seek to go beyond the process of evolution disclosed® 
by science, and posit an external Agency which is in the 
slightest degree anthropomorphic, we are obliged either to’ 
supplement and limit this Agency by a second one that is 
diabolic, or else to include elements of diabolism in the 
character of the first Agency itself. And in the latter case 
the blasphemy—if we choose to call it so—lies at the door 
of those who, by urging upon us their anthropomorphic: 
hypothesis, oblige us to judge the character of the Deity by 
human standards ; and not at the door of those who simply 
reveal the true character of that anthropomorphic hypothesia . 
by setting forth its hidden implications, 


408 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. om 


Thus from every point of view the doctrine of a quasi- 
human God appears equally unsatisfactory to the scientific 
thinker. It resis upon unsupported theories of causation, 
upon a mistaken conception of law, and upon a teleological 
hypothesis whose origin renders it suspicious, and whose 
evidence fails it in the hour of need. The inductive proof 
alleged in its support is founded upon the correspondence 
between the organism and the environment, and where the 
correspondence fails, just there: the doctrine is left helpless. 
The Doctrine of Evolution thus not only accounts for the 
origin and apparent justification of the anthropomorphic 
theory, but also reveals its limitations. And when thus 
closely scrutinized, the hypothesis appears as imperfect 
morally as it is intellectually. It is shown to be as incom- 
patible with the truest religion as.it is with the truest science. 
Instead of enlightening, it only mystifies us; and, so far 
from consoling, it tends to drive us to cynical despair. 

In spite of all the care observed in the wording of the 
foregoing argument—a care directed toward the bringing out 
of my entire thought, and not. toward the concealing of any 
portion of it—the views here maintained will doubtless by’ 
many be pronounced “ covertly atheistical.” It must be 
reserved for the next three chapters to demonstrate that they 
are precisely the reverse, and that. the intelligent acceptance’ 
of them must leave us in an attitude toward God more 
reverential than that which is assumed by those who still’ 
cling to the anthropomorphic hypothesis. At present we must’ 
be content with noting that our choice is no longer between 
an intelligent Deity and none at all: it lies between a limited 
Deity and one that is without limit. For, as the foregoing 
discussion has plainly shown, and as must appear from every 
similar discussion of the subject in terms of the Doctrine of 
Evolution, an anthropomorphic God cannot be conceived as 
an infinite God. Personality and Infinity are terms expres- 
sive of ideas which are mutually incompatible. The pseud 


cH. I1.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM, 409 


idea “Infinite Person” is neither more ner less un 

thinkable than the pseud-idea “Circular Triangle.” As 
Spinoza somewhere says, Determinatio negatio est-—to define 
God is to deny Him; and such being the case, what can be 
more irrational than, to insist upon thought and volition, 

phenomena only known to exist within quite narrow limita- 
tions, as the very nature and essence of the infinite Deity ? 

What theory of physical or moral phenomena, built upon 
sach an inadequate basis, can be other than unsound and 
misleading? What wonder if it continually land us in 
awkward and conflicting conclusions, painful to us alike 
as inquiring and as religious beings? As Goethe has pro- 
foundly said, “Since the great Being whom, we name the 
Deity manifests himself not only in man} but in a rich 
and powerful Nature, and in mighty world-events, a 
representation of Him, framed from human qualities, can- 
not of course be adequate, and the thoughtful observer 
will soon come to imperfections and contradictions, which 
will drive him to doubt—nay, even to despair—unless he 
be either little enough to let himself be soothed by an 
artful evasion, or great enough to rise to a higher point of 
view.”! Tothose whom the habits of thought which science 
nurtures have led to believe in the existence of an all-per- 
vading and all-sustaining Power, eternally and everywhere 
manifested in the phenomenal activity of the universe, alike 
the cause of all and the inscrutable essence of all, without 
whom the world would be as the shadow of a vision, and 
thought itself would vanish,—to these the conception of a 
presiding anthropomorphic Will is a gross and painful con- 
ception. Even were it the highest phenomenal conception 
which can be framed, it would still be inadequate to re- 
present the Ineffable Reality. But we do not and cannot 
know even that it is the highest. Hegel was rash with 
all the metaphysician’s rashness when he said that Humanity 

4 Eckermann, vol. ii. p. 357. 


419 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 111 


is the most perfect type of existence in the universe. Our 
knowledge of the Cosmos has been aptly compared by 
Carlyle to the knowledge which a minnow in its native 
creek has of the outlying ocean. Of the innumerable com- 
binations of matter and incarnations of force which are 
going on within the bounds of space, we know, save a few 
of the simplest, those only which are confined to the sur- 
face of our little planet. And to assert that among them 
all there may not be forms of existence as far transcend-— 
ine humanity as humanity itself transcends the crystal or 
the sea-weed, is certainly the height of unwarrantable 
assumption. 
¢¢Think you this mould of hopes and fears 


Could find no statelier than his pee:s 
In yonder hundred million spheres?” 


Until our knowledge becomes coextensive with the entire 
world of phenomena, questions like these must remain 
unanswered. Meanwhile we may rest assured that, could 
we solve them all, the state of the ease would not be essen- 
tially altered. Our conception might be relatively far loftier, 
but from the absolute point of view it would be equally 
beneath the Reality. We are therefore forced to conclude 
that the process of deanthropomorphization which has from 
the first characterized the history of philosophic development 
must still continue to go on; until the Intelligent Will 
postulated by the modern theologian shall have shared the 
fate of the earlier and still more imperfect symbols whereby 
finite man has vainly tried to realize that which must ever 
transcend his powers of conception, Dd 


CHAPTER TI. 
COSMIC THEISM, 


THE conclusions reached in the foregoing chapter were 
purely negative, and would therefore be very unsatisfactory 
if we were obliged to rest in them as final. Upon the 
religious side of philosophy as well as upon its scientific 
side, the mind needs some fundamental theorem with refer- 
ence to which it may occupy a positive attitude. According 
to the theory of life and intelligence expounded in previous 
chapters, mere scepticism can discharge but a provisional 
and temporary function. To the frivolously-minded the 
mere negation of belief may be in no wise distressing ; but 
to the earnest inquirer the state of scepticism is accompanied 
by pain, which, here as elsewhere, is only subserving its 
proper function when it stimulates him to renewed search 
after a positive result. In the present transcendental inquiry 
xt may indeed at first sight seem impossible to arrive at any 
positive result ‘whatever, without ignoring the relativity of 
knowledge and proving recreant to the rigorous requirements 
of the objective method. Nevertheless, as was hinted at the 
close of the preceding chapter, this is not the case. Although 
the construction of a theology, or science of Deity, is a task 
which exceeds the powers of human intelligence, there is 
nevertheless one supremely important theorem in which science 


a12 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, {Pr. ut. 


and religion find their permanent reconciliation, and by the 
assertion of which the mind is brought into a positive 
attitude of faith with reference to the Inscrutable Power 
manifested in the universe. The outcome of the present 
argument is not Atheism or Positivism, but a phase of 
Theism which is higher and purer, because relatively truer, 
than the anthropomorphic phase defended by theologians, _ 

This all-important theorem in which science and religion 
are reconciled, is neither more nor less than the theorem 
which alone gives complete expression to the truth that all 
knowledge is relative. In the first chapter of this work it 
was elaborately proved that as soon as we attempt to frame 
any hypothesis whatever concerning the Absolute, or that 
which exists out of relation to our consciousness, we are 
instantly checkmated by alternative impossibilities of thought, 
and when we seek to learn why this is so, we are taught by 
a psychologic analysis that, from the very organization of 
our minds, and by reason of the very process by which 
intelligence has been evolved, we can form no cognition into 
which there do not enter the elements of likeness, difference, 
and relation—so that the Absolute, as presenting none of 
these elements, is utterly and for ever unknowable. Trans- 
lating this conclusion into more familiar language, we found 
it to mean, first, “that the Deity, in so far as absolute and 
infinite, is inscrutable by us, and that every hypothesis of 
ours concerning its nature and attributes can serve only to 
illustrate our mental impotence,’—and, secondly, “that the 
Universe in itself is likewise inscrutable; that the vast 
synthesis of forces without us, which in manifold contact 
with us is from infancy till the close of life continually 
arousing us to perceptive activity, can never be known by 
us as it exists objectively, but only as it affects our con- 
sciousness,” + 

These are the closely-allied conclusions which were reached 


2 See above, vol i, p. 15. 


CH. I11.] COSMIC THEISM. 413 


in our opening discussion, But since such abstruse theorems 
need to be taken one by one into the mind, and allowed one 
after the other to dwell there for a while, in order to be duly 
comprehended, it did not then seem desirable to encumber 
the exposition with any reference to the third statement in 
which these two are made to unite; nor, indeed, would it 
have been possible to illustrate adequately this third state- 
ment until we had defined our position in relation to the 
questions of phenomenality, of causation and deanthropo- 
morphization, of the persistence of force, and of the evolution 
of the phenomenal world. But now, having obtained definite 
conclusions upon these points, we are at last enabled to 
present the case as a whole. Having seen that in certain 
senses the Deity and the Cosmos are alike inscrutable, let us 
now see if there is any sense in which it may be legitimately 
said that the Unknowable contained in our first theorem is 
identical with the Unknowable contained in our second 
theorem. 

Upon what grounds did we assert the unknowableness of 
Deity? We were driven to the conclusion that Deity is 
unknowable, because that which exists independently of in- 
telligence and out of relation to it, which presents neither 
likeness, difference, nor relation, cannot be cognized. Now by 
precisely the same process, we were driven to the conclusion 
that the Cosmos is unknowable, only in so far as it is absolute, 
It is only as existing independently of our intelligence and 
out of relation to it, that we can predicate unknowableness 
of the Cosmos. As manifested to our intelligence, the Cos- 
mos is the world of phenomena,—the realm of the knowable. 
We know stars and planets, we know the surface of our earth, 
we know life and mind in their various manifestations, indi- 
vidual and social. But, as we have seen, this vast aggregate 
of phenomena exists as such only in relation to our intelli- 
gence. Its esse is percipt. To this extent we have gone with 
Berkeley, But underlying this ageregate of phenomena, te 


‘14 COSMIO PHILOSOPHY. tem, att, 


whosé extension we kriow no limit in space or time, we have 
found ourselves compelled to postulate an Absolute Reality,— 
& Something whose éxistencé does not depend on the pre- 
sence of a percipient mind, which existed before the genesis 
of intelligence, and would continue to exist though all intelli- 
gence were to vanish from the seene. Without making such 
a postulate, we corcluded that it would be impossible to 
frame any theory whatever, either of subjective or of objective 
phenomena. Thus the theorem of the relativity of knowledge, 
when fully expressed, asserts that there exists a Something, 
of which all phenomena, as presented in consciousness, are 
manifestations, but concerning which we can know nothing 
save through its manifestations. 

Let us now take a step further, and turning to the con- 
Glusions reached in the first chapter of Part IL, let us 
inquire what is the Force of which we there asserted the pers 
gistence? “It is not,’ says Mr. Spencer, “the force we are 
immediately conscious of in our own muscular efforts; for 
this does not persist. As soon as an outstretched limb is 
relaxed; the sense of tension disappears. True, we assert 
that in the stone thrown or in the weight lifted, is exhibited 
the effect of this muscular tension ; and that the force which 
lias ceased to be present in our consciousness, exists else- 
where: But it does not exist elsewhere under any form 
cognizable by us. It was proved that though, on raising an 
object from the ground, we are obliged to think of its down- 
ward pull as equal and opposite to our upward pull; and 
though it is impossible to represent these pulls as equal 
without representing them as like in kind; yet, since their 
likeness in kind would imply in the object a sensation of 
muscular tension, which cannot be ascribed to it, we are 
compelled to admit that force as it exists out of our con- 
sciousness, is not force as we know it; Hence the force of 
which we assert persistence is that Absolute Force of which 
we are indefinitely conscious as the necessary correlate of the 


i a a 


ou. 111.) ; COSMIC THEISM. 415 


force we know. Thus by the persistence of force, we really 
mean the persistence of some Power which transcends our 
knowledge and conception. The manifestations, as occurring 
either in ourselves or outside of us, do not persist; but that 
which persists is the Unknown Cause of these manifesta- 
tions. In other words, asserting the persistence of force is 
but another mode of asserting an Unconditioned Reality, 
without beginning or end.” Thus as “ a subjective analysis 
proved that while, by the very conditions of thought, we are 
prevented from knowing anything beyoud relative being; 
yet that, by these very same conditions of thought, an in- 
definite consciousness of Absolute Being is necessitated,— 
so here, by objective analysis, we similarly find that the 
axiomatic truths of physical science unavoidably postulate 
Absolute Being as their common basis.”? 

Combining, therefore, these mutually harmonious results, 
and stating the theorem of the persistence of force in terms 
of the theorem of the relativity of knowledge, we obtain the 
following formula :—There exists a POWER, to which no limit 
an time or space is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as pre- 
sented in consciousness, are manifestations, but which we can 
know only through these manifestations. Here is a formula 
lecitimately obtained by the employment of scientific methods, 
as the last result of a subjective analysis on the one hand, 
and of an objective analysis on the other hand, Yet this 
formula, which presents itself as the final outcome of a 
purely scientific inquiry, expresses also the fundamental 
truth of Theism,—the truth by which religious feeling is 
justified. The existence of God—the supreme truth asserted 
ilike by Christianity and by inferior historic religions—is 
wserted with equal emphasis by that Cosmic Philosophy 
which seeks its data in science alone. Thus, as Mr. Lewes 
long ago observed, the renark of Comte, that the heavens 
declare no other glory than the glory of Hipparchos and 

1 First Principles, pp. 189, 190. 


416 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY [PT. U1. 


Newton, and such others as have Peer in detecting the order 
of sequence among celestial phenomena, seems as irrational 
to the scientific inquirer as it seems impious to the reli- 
gious mind. The Cosmist may assert, as consistently as the 
Anthropomorphist, that “the undevout astronomer is mad,” 
Though science must destroy mythology, it can never destroy 
religion; and to the astronomer of the future, as well as 
to the Psalmist of old, the heavens will declare the glory 
of God. 

Before proceeding further to expound this theorem, in 
which science and religion find their reconciliation, it is 
desirable to turn aside for a moment and contrast the views 
here expounded with the views maintained by Comte con- 
cerning the true object of the religious feeling. We shall 
thus the better elucidate our own position, while once more 
pointing out the world-wide difference between our philo- 
sophy and Positivism. Let us examine the conception of 
Deity formed by the thinker to whom the heavens mani- 
fested no other glory than that of Hipparchos and Newton 
and their compeers. 

Comte recognized, though vaguely, the truth that while 
the human race in the course of its philosophic evolution 
must outgrow theology, it can never outgrow religion. He 
justly maintained that, while the conception of a presiding 
quasi-human Will must eventually be discarded as an in- 
wequate subjective symbol, there will nevertheless remain 
to the last the powerful sentiment of devotion which hag 
hitherto attached itself to that anthropomorphic conception, 
but must finally attach itself to some other conception. 
Throughout future time, while science is supreme, no less 
than in that past time when mythology was supreme, there 
must be a religion, and this religion must have an object. 
So far the position taken by Comte appears to be defensible 
enough. But now when we come to consider the object of 
the religious sentiment in Comte’s scheme, we must pro- 


oH. 111] COSMIO THEISM. 417 


nounce his position not only irreconcilable with sound philo- 
sophy, but hopelessly retrograde as compared even with the 
current anthropomorphism. Seeing only the negative side 
of the theorem of relativity, and thus failing explicitly to 
recognize the existence of that Absolute Power of which the 
web of phenomena is but the visible garment, he was obliged 
to search for his Deity in the realm of the finite and the 
knowable. Working under these conditions, the result at 
which he finally arrived appears to have been legitimately 
evolved from the conception of the aims and scope of philo- 
sophy which he had framed in early life, at the very outset 
of his speculations. The thinker who from the beginning 
consistently occupied the anthropocentric point of view, who 
regarded philosophy, not as a unified theory of the Cosmos, 
but as a unified theory of Man, who depreciated the develop- 
ment theory and the study of sidereal astronomy as interfer- 
ing with his anthropocentric notions, and to whom the starry 
heavens declared no glory save that of finite men, arrived 
ultimately at the deification of Humanity. Comte “refers 
the obligations of duty, as well as all sentiments of devotion, 
to a concrete object, at once ideal and real; the Human 
Race, conceived as a continuous whole, including the past, 
the present, and the future.” “It may not be consonant to 
usage,” observes Mr. Mill, “to call this a religion; but the 
term, so applied, has a meaning, and one which is not 
adequately expressed by any other word. Candid persons 
of all creeds may be willing to admit, that if a person has 
an ideal object, his attachment and sense of duty towards 
which are able to control and discipline all his other senti- 
ments and propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life, 
that person has a religion. . . . Many indeed may be unable 
to believe that this object is capable of gathering around 
it feelings sufficiently strong: but this is exactly the point 
on which a doubt can hardly remain in an intelligent reader 
of Comte; and we join with him in contemning, as equally 
VOL, 11. EE 


a19 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. Len. ut 


irrational and mean, the conception of human nature as in- 
capable of giving its love and devoting its existence to any 
object which cannot afford in exchange an eternity of per- 
sonal enjoyment.” + With the general tenour of this passage 
I heartily agree. I have no sympathy with those critics 
who maintain that the idea of Humanity is an unworthy 
idea, incapable of calling forth to a high degree our senti- 
ments of devotion and reverence. No doubt, as the Comtists 
tell us, the majestic grandeur of which that idea is susceptible 
can be realized only after long and profound contemplation. 
And we may perhaps admit, with Mr. Mill, that “ascend- 
ing into the unknown recesses of the past, embracing the 
manifold present, and descending into the indefinite and 
r:nforeseeable future, forming a cullective Existence without 
assignable beginning or end, it appeals to that feeling of 
the Infinite which is deeply rooted in human nature.” We 
may still further admit that all morality may be summed 
up in the disinterested service of the human race,—such 
being, as already shown (Part II. chap. xxii.), the funda- 
mental principle of the ethical philosophy which is based 
on the Doctrine of Evolution. And it is, moreover, easy 
to sympathize with the feeling which led Comte formally to 
consecrate the memories of the illustrious dead, whose 
labours have made us what we are; that “communion of 
saints, unseen yet not unreal,” as Carlyle nobly expresses 
it, “ whose heroic sufferings rise up melodiously together 
unto Heaven, out of all times and out of all lands, as a 
sacred Miserere ; their heroic actions also, as a boundless 
everlasting Psalm of triumph.” This intense feeling of 
the community of the human race, this “enthusiasm of 
Humanity,” as the author of “Ecce Homo” calls it, forms 
a very considerable part of Christianity when stripped of 
its mythology, and is ane of the characteristics which chiefly 
1 Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 122. 


orf, 111. ] _ COSMIC THEISM. 419 


serve to difference the world-religion of Jesus and Paul 
from the ethnic religious of antiquity. 

Nevertheless, after freely acknowledging all these points 
of excellence in the Comtean conception, it must still be 
maintained that Comte’s assignment of Humanity as the 
direct object of religious worship was a retrograde step, when 
viewed in contrast, not only with the cosmic conception of 
Deity already clearly foreshadowed by Goethe, but even with 
the anthropomorphic conception as held by contemporary 
liberal theologians. A fatal criticism—omitted, and appa- 
rently overlooked by Mr. Mill, in his account of the Comtean 
religion—remains to be made upon it. I do not refer to 
the difficulty of ascribing godhood to a product of evolution, 
neither is it necessary to insist upon the marvellous shading- 
off of collective apehood into Deity which must puzzle the 
Comtist who stops to confront his theory with the conclu- 
sions now virtually established concerning man’s origin; 
though beneath the cavil and sareasm which cannot be kept 
from showing itself upon the surface of such objections, there 
lies just scientific ground of complaint against the Comtean 
hypothesis. The criticism to which I refer is one the force 
of which must be acknowledged even by those who have not 
yet learned to estimate the resistless weight of the evidence 
by which the development theory is supported. However 
erand Humanity may be as an object of contemplation, it 
is still finite, concrete, and knowable. It has had a begin- 
ning; in all probability it is destined to have an end. We 
can no longer, since the Copernican revolution, regard it as 
the chief and central phenomenon of the universe. We 
know if but as a local assemblage of concrete phenomena. 
manifested on the surface of a planet that is itself a lesser 
member of a single group among innumerable groups of 
worlds. It is no less significant than amusing that toward 
the last Comte would fain have banished from astronomy 
not only the study of the stars, but even the study of those 

EE 2 


420 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. 111, 


planets in our own system which do not considerably per- 
turb the motions of the earth. He wished to exclude from 
science everything which does not conspicuously affect 
human interests, and everything which by its magnitude 
dvarfs the conception of Humanity. Far sounder would 
his views have been had he now and then permitted his 
thoughts to range to the uttermost imaginable limits of the 
sidereal universe, and brought himself duly to realize how 
by the comparison Humanity quite loses its apparent infini- 
tude. Or had he more carefully analyzed the process of 
human thinking itself, the study of which he stigmatized 
as “metaphysical” and profitless, he might perhaps have 
seen that the world of phenomena speaks to us, everywhere 
and at all times, if we only choose to listen, of an Infinite and 
Unknowable Reality, whereas the conception of Humanity 
is but the conception of a Finite and Knowable Phenomenon. 
Here we touch the bottom of his error. This great Being, 
says the Comtist, this collective Humanity, is our supreme 
Being,—“ the only one we can know, therefore the only one 
we can worship.’ On the other hand, the Cosmist asserts, what 
we know is not what we worship; what we know is matter 
of science; it is only when science fails, and intelligence is 
baffled, and the Infinite confronts us, that we cease tv 
analyze and begin to worship. What men have worshipped, 
from the earliest times, has been not the Known, but the 
Unknown. ven the primeval savage, who worshipped 
plants and animals, worshipped them only in so far as 
their modes of action were mysterious to him,—only in so 
far as they constituted a part of the weird uninterpreted 
world by which he was surrounded. As soon as he had 
generalized the dynamic phenomena presented by the plant 
or the animal, that is, as soon as it became an object of 
knowledge, it ceased to be an object of worship. As soon as 
the grander phenomena of sunrise and sunset, storm and 
eclipse, had been partially generalized, they were no longer 


oH. I1.] CUSMIC THEISM. 421 


directly worshipped, but unseen agents were imugined as 
controlling the phenomena by their arbitrary velitions, and 
these agents, as being mysterious, were worshipped. So 
when polytheism began to give place to monotheism, the 
process was still the same. The visible and tangible world 
was regarded as the aggregate of things whifeli ' might be 
uniderstood s but above and beneath all this was the mys- 
terious aspect of things—the Dynamis, the Demiurgus, the 
Cause of all, the Ruler of all—and this mighty Something 
was worshipped. Though theology has all along wrestled 
with the insoluble problems presented by this supreme 
Mystery, and, by insisting on divers tangible propositions 
concerning it, has implicitly asserted that it can be at 
least partially known; the fact remains that only by being 
unknown has it continued to be the object of the religious 
sentiment. Could the theologian have carried his point 
and constructed a “science of Deity ;” could the divine 
nature have been all expressed in definite formulas, as we 
express the genesis of vegetation or the revolutions of 
the planets, worship would have disappeared altogether. 
Worship is ever the dark side of the shield, of ‘Wwhtch 
knowledge is the bright side. It is because science can 
never explain the universe, it is because the enlarging 
periphery of knowledge does but reveal from day to day a 
greater number of points at which we meet the unknow- 
able lying beyond, that religion can never become obsolete. 
Though we have come to recognize the most refined sym- 
bols by which men have sought to render Deity intelli- 
gible as inadequate and misleading symbols; though we 
sacrifice the symbol of personality, because personality im- 
plies limitation, and to speak of an infinite personality is 
to cheat oneself with a phrase that is empty of meaning; 
yet our recognition of Deity is only the more emphatic, 
Thus “the object of religious sentiment will ever continue 
to be that which it has ever been.” The God of the 


422 COSMIC PEILOSOPHY. (pr, am, 


scientific philosopher is still, and must ever be, the Gad of 
the Christian, theugh freed from the illegitimate formulas 
by the aid of which theology has sought to render Deity 
comprehensible. What is this wondrous; Dynamis which 
manifests itself to our consciousness in harmonious activity 
throughout the length and breadth and depth of the uni- 
yerse, which guides the stars for countless ages in paths 
that never err, and which animates the molecules of the 
dew-drop that gleams for a brief hour on the shaven 
lawn, — whose workings are so resistless that we have 
naught to do but reverently obey them, yet so infallible 
that we can place our unshaken trust in them, yesterday, 
to-day, and for ever? When, summing up all activity in 
one most comprehensive epithet, we call it Force, we are 
but using a scientific symbol, expressing an affection of our 
consciousness, which is yet powerless to express the in- 
effable Reality. To us, therefore, as to the Israelite of old, 
the very name of Jehovah is that which is not to be spoken. 
Push our scientific research as far.as we may, pursuing 
generalization until all phenomena, past, present, and fature, 
are embraced within a single formula;—we shall never 
fathom this ultimate mystery, we shall be no nearer the 
comprehension of this omnipresent Energy. Here science 
must ever reverently pause, acknowledging the presence of 
the mystery of mysteries. Here religion must ever hold 
sway, reminding us that from birth until death we are 
dependent on a Power to whose eternal decrees we must 
submit, to whose dispensations we must resign ourselves, 
and upon whose constancy we may implicitly rely. 

Thus we begin to realize, more vividly than theology could 
have taught us to realize, the utter absurdity of atheism, 
Thus is exhibited the prodigious silliness of Lalande, who 
informed mankind that he had swept the heavens with his 
telescope and found no God there,—as if God were an optical 
phenomenon! Thus, too, we see the poverty of that an- 


OH. Iu, COSMIC THEISM 423 


thropomorphism which represents the infinite Deity as acting 
through calculation and contrivance, just as finite intelligence 
acts under the limitations imposed by its environment. And 
thus, finally, we perceive the hopeless error of the Positivist, 
who would give us a finite knowable, like Humanity. for an 
object of religious contemplation. The reasoning which de- 
monstrates the relativity of knowledge, demonstrates also the 
failure of all such attempts to bind up religion in scientific 
formulas, 

The anthropomorphic theist, habitually thinking of God 
as surrounded and limited by an environment or “ objective 
datum,” will urge that the doctrine here expounded is neither 
more nor less than Pantheism, or the identification of Goa 
with the totality of existence. So plausible does this objec- 
tion appear, at first sight, that those who urge it cannot fairly 
be accused either of dulness of apprehension or of a desire 
to misrepresent. Nevertheless it needs but to look sharply 
into the matter, to see that the doctrine here expounded is 
utterly opposed to Pantheism. Though the word “ pantheism” 
has been almost as undiscriminatingly bandied about among 
theological disputants as the word “atheism,” it has still a 
well-defined metaphysical meaning which renders it inappli- 
eable to a religious doctrine based upon the relativity of 
knowledge. In the pantheistic hypothesis the distinction 
between absolute and phenomenal existence is ignored. and 
the world of phenomena is practically identified with Deity. 
Of this method of treating the problem the final outcome is 
to be seen in the metaphysics of Hegel, in which the process 
of evolution, vaguely apprehended, is described absolutely, 
as a process of change in the Deity, and in which God, as 
identified with the totality of phenomenal existence, is re- 
garded as continually progressing from a state of comparative 
imperfection to a state of comparative perfection. Or, in 
other words—-to reduce the case to the shape in which it was 
presented in the first chapter of this work—the Universe, as 


424 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pr. mm. 


identified with God, is regarded as self-evolved. Such a 
hypothesis, equally with that of the anthropomorphic theist, 
implicitly limits Deity with an “objective datum,” and ren- 
ders it finite; for, as Mr. Mansel has observed in another 
connection, “how can the Infinite become that which it was 
not from the first?” Obviously for the change an ulterior 
Cause is needed; and thus the pantheistic hypothesis resolves 
itself into the affirmation of a limited Knowable conditioned 
by an unlimited Unknowable,—but it is the former, and not 

the latter, which it deifies. | 

Hence to the query suggested at the beginning of this 
chapter, whether the Deity can be identified with the Cosmos, 
we must return a very different answer from that returned 
by the Pantheist. The ‘ open secret,’ in so far as secret, is 
God,—in so far as open, is the World; but in thus regarding 
the ever-changing universe of phenomena as the multiform 
revelation of an Omnipresent Power, we can in nowise iden- 
tify the Power with its manifestations. To do so would 
reduce the entire argument to nonsense. From first to last 
it has been implied that, while the universe is the mani- 
festation of Deity, yet is Deity something more than the 
universe. 

The doctrine which we have here expounded is, therefore, 
neither more nor less than Theism, in its most consistent and 
unqualified form. It is quite true that the word “theism,” 
as ordinarily employed, connotes the ascription of an an- 
thropomorphic personality to the Deity. But in this conno- 
tation there has been nothing like fixedness or uniformity. 
On the other hand the term has become less and less an- 
thropomorphic in its connotations, from age to age, and in 
the sense in which it is here employed the deanthropomor- 
phizing process is but carried one step farther. There was a 
time when theism seemed to require that God should be 
invested with a quasi-human body, just as it now seems 
to require that Gud should be invested with quasi-human 


OH, 111.] COSMIC THEISM., 425 


intelligence and volition. But for us to concede the jus- 
tice of the latter restriction would be as unphilosophical as 
it would have been for the early monotheists to concede 
the justice of the former. Just as the early Christians 
persisted in calling themselves theists while asserting that 
God dwells in a temple not made with hands, so may 
the modern philosopher persist in calling himself a. theist 
while rejecting the arguments by which Voltaire and Paley 
have sought to limit and localize the Deity. Following out 
the parallel, we might characterize the doctrine here ex- 
pounded as the “ higher theism,’ in contrast with the “lower 
theism” taught in the current doctrine. Or in conformity 
with the nomenclature which has already done us such good 
service, we may still better characterize it as Cosmic Theism, 
in contrast with the Anthropomorphic Theism of those theo- 
logians who limit the Deity by an “objective datum.” 

This happy expression of Mr. Martineau’s lays bare the 
anthropomorphic hypothesis to the very core, and when 
thoroughly considered, lets us into the secret of that super- 
ficial appearance of antagonism between Science and Religion 
which has disturbed so many theologians and misled so many 
scientific inquirers. Though as an act of lip-homage an- 
thropomorphism asserts the infinitude and omnipotence of 
God, yet in reality it limits and localizes Him. Though it 
overtly acknowledges that “in Him we live and move and 
have our being,” yet it tacitly belies. this acknowledgment by 
the fmplication, which runs through all its reasonings, that 
God is a person localized in some unknown part of space, and 
thai the universe is a “datum objective to God” in somewhat 
the same sense that a steam-engine is an “ objective datum” 
to the engineer who works it. I do not say that such a con- 
ception would be avowed by any theologian: as thus overtly 
stated, it would no doubt be generally met with an emphatic. 
disclaimer. Nevertheless this conception, whether avowed: 
or disclaimed, lies at the bottom of all the arguments which 


426 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 111. 


theologians urge either against the theory of evolv.tion ot 
against any other theory which extends what is called “the 
domain of natural law.” Take away this concer tion, and not 
only do their specific arguments lose all significance, but their 
entire position becomes meaningless: there ceases to be any 
reason for their opposing instead of welcoming the new 
theory. For if “extending the domain of natural law” he 
equivalent to “extending our knowledge of Divine action,” 
what objection can the theologian logically make to this? 
Manifestly his hostile attitude is wholly prescribed by his 
belief, whether tacit or avowed, that the sphere of natural 
law and the sphere of Divine action are two different spheres, 
so that whatever is added to the former is taken from the 
latter. It is assumed that the universe is a sort of lifeless 
machine, which under ordinary circumstances works along 
without immediate Divine superintendence, in accordance 
with what are called natural laws, very much as the steam- 
engine works when once set going, in accordance with the 
harmoniously cooperating properties of its material structure. 
Only by occasional interposition, it is assumed, does God 
manifest his existence,—by originating organic life, or creat- 
ing new species out of dust or out of nothing, or by causing 
prodigies to be performed within historic times for the edifi- 
cation of gaping multitudes, So deep-seated is this assump- 
tion—so vitally implicated is it with all the habits of thought 
which theology nurtures—that we sometimes hear it explicitly 
maintained that when natural law can be shown to be co- 
extensive with the whole of nature, then our belief in God 
will ipso facto be extinguished. 

Such a position is no doubt as irreligious as it is unscien- 
tific ; but it is not difficult to see how it has come to be 
so commonly maintained. Not only is it often apparently 
justified by the unphilosophical language of scientific men— 
especially of those shallow writers known as “ materialists” 
—-who speak of “natural law” as if it were something dif- 


cH. I11.] COSMIC THEISM. 427 


ferent from “Divine action;” but it is also the logical 
ofispring of that primitive fetishism from which all our 
theclogy is descended. For as physical generalization began 
to diminish the sphere of action of the innumerable quasi- 
hunian agencies by which fetishism sought to account for 
natural phenomena, there could hardly fail to arise a velief 
in some sort of opposition between invariable law and quasi- 
human agency. On the one hand you have a set of facts 
that occur in fixed sequences, and so are not the result of 
anthropomorphic volition ; on the other hand you have a set 
of facts that seem to occur according to no determinable 
order, and so are the result of anthropomorphic volition. 
The fetishistic thinker could not, of course, formulate the 
case in this abstract and generalized way ; but there can be 
no doubt that a crudely felt antithesis of the kind here indi- 
cated must have been nearly coeval with the beginnings of 
physical generalization. Now the gradual summing up and 
blending together of all the primeval quasi-human agencies 
into one grand quasi-human Agency, could not at once do 
away with this antithesis. On the contrary, the antithesis 
would naturally remain as the generalized opposition be- 
tween the realm of “invariable law” and the realm of 
“Divine originality.” It would be superfluous to recount 
the various metaphysical shapes which this conception has 
assumed, in some of which Nature has even been personified 
as an intelligent and volitional agency, distinct from God, 
and working through law while God works through miracle. 
The result has been that, as scientific generalization has 
steadily extended the region of “ natural law,” the region 
which theology has assigned to “ Divine action” has steadily 
diminished, until theological arguments have become insen- 
sibly pervaded by the curious assumption that the greater part _ 
of the universe is godless. For it is naively asked, if plants 
and animals have been naturally originated, if the world as 
a whole has been evolved and not created, and if human 


128 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (rr. 1m. 


actions conform to law, what is there left for God to do?? 
If not formally repudiated, is he not thrust back into the 
past eternity, as an unknowable source of things, which is 
postulated for form’s sake, but might as well, for all practical 
purposes, be omitted ? 

The reply is that the difficulty is one which theology has 
created for itself. It is not science, but theology, which has 
thrust back Divine action to some nameless point in the 
past eternity and left nothing for God to do in the present 
world... For the whole difficulty lies in the assumption of 
the material universe as a “datum objective to God,” and in 
the consequent distinction between “Divine action” and 
“natural law,”—a distinction for which science is in nowise 
responsible. . The tendency of modern scientific inquiry, 
whether working in the region of psychology or in that 
of transcendental physics, is to abolish this distinction, and 
to regard “natural law” as merely a synonym of “ Divine 
action.” And since Berkeley’s time the conception of the 
material universe as a “datum objective to God” is one 
which can hardly be maintained on scientific grounds, It is 
scientific inquiry, working quite independently of theology, 
which has led us to the conclusion that all the dynamic 
phenomena of Nature constitute but the multiform reve- 
lation of an Omnipresent Power that is not identifiable with 
Nature. And in this conclusion there is no room left for 
the difficulty which baffles contemporary theology. The 
scientific inquirer may retort upon the theologian :—Once 
really adopt the conception of an ever-present God, without 
whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and it becomes self- 

1 “Tllos omnes Deum aut saltem Dei providentiam tollere putant, qui res 
et miracula per causas naturales explicant aut intelligere student.” Spinoza, 
Vractatus. Theologico-Politicus, vi. Opera. iii. 86. ‘‘Od yap Rvetxovto Tovs 
pvoixovs kal wetTewporAcoxas TéTE KaAoUMEVOUS, ws eis aitias dAdyous ka) Suvduers 
dmpovoyjtous Kal KatnvayKacuéva wé0n SiatpiBovras 7d Oeiov.” Plutarch, 
Nikias, cap. 23. The complaint, it will be seen, is the same in modern that 


it was in ansient times. Compare Plutarch, Perikles, cap. 6; Cicero, Tuse. 
Disp. i. 13, Opera, ed. Nobbe, tom. viii, p. 299. 


ou, 111] COSMIC THEISM. 429 


evident that the law of gravitation is but an expression of a 
particular mode of Divine action. And what is thus true 
of one law is true of all laws. The Anthropomorphist is 
naturally alarmed by the continual detection of new uniformi- 
ties, and the discovery of order where before there seemed 
to be disorder; because his conception of Divine action has 
been historically derived from the superficial contrast be- 
tween the seemingly irregular action of will and the more- 
obviously regular action of less complex phenomena. The 
Cosmist, on the other hand, in whose mind Divine action is 
identified with orderly action, and to whom a really irregular 
phenomenon would seem like the manifestation of some 
order-hating Ahriman, foresees in every possible extension 
of knowledge a fresh confirmation of his faith in God, and 
thus recognizes no antagonism between our duty as inquirers 
and our duty as worshippers. He will admit no such in- 
herent and incurable viciousness in the constitution of things 
as is postulated by the anthropomorphic hypothesis. To him 
no part of the world is godless. He does not rest content 
with the conception of “an absentee God, sitting idle, ever 
since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his universe, 
and ‘seeing it go;’” for he has learned, with Carlyle, “that 
this@¢fair universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, 
is in very deed the star-domed City of God; that through 
every star, through every grass-blade, and most through every 
living soul, the glory of a present God still beams.” ? 

From the anthropomorphic point of view it will quite 
naturally be urged in objection, that this apparently-desirable 
result is reached through the degradation of Deity from an 
‘‘intelligent personality ” into a “blind force,” and is there- 
fore in reality an undesirable and perhaps-even quasi-atheistic 
result. To the theologian the stripping-off the anthropomor- 
phic vestments with which men have sought to render the 
Infinite representable in imagination, always means the 

1 Sartor Resartus, bk. ii. chap. vii. ; bk. iii. chap. viii, 


430 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. un. 


leaving of nothing but “blind force” as a residuum. Trained 
upon the subjective method, and habitually applying to all 
propositions the test of metaphysical congruity only, he 
naturally regards the possibilities of human thought as fairly 
representative of the possibilities of existence. Accordingly 
since human intelligence is the highest mode of Being which 
we know—being in the nature of things the highest mode, 
since it is the mode in which we ourselves exist, and which 
we must therefore necessarily employ as a norm by which to 
estimate all other modes—the theologian infers that any 
higher mode of Being is not only inconceivable but impos- 
sible. And so, when a vast extension of our knowledge of 
nature shows (or seems to show) that the workings of quasi- 
human intelligence form but an inadequate and misleading 
symbol of the workings of Divine Power, it naturally seems 
to the theologian that we are giving up an “ intelligent per- 
sonality” for a “ blind force.” 

Here, however, as before, the difficulty is one which 
theology has created for itself. It is not science, but theo- 
logy, which conjures up a host of phantom terrors by the 
gratuitous use of the question-begging epithet “ blind force.” 
The use of this, and of the kindred epithet “ brute matter,” 
implies that matter and force are real existences,—jgnde- 
pendent “data objective to” consciousness. Such a view, 
however, as already shown, cannot be maintained. To the 
scientific inquirer, the terms “matter” and “force” are 
mere symbois which stand tant bien que mal for certain 
generalized modes of Divine manifestation: they are no 
more real existences than the x and y of the algebraist are 
real existences. The question as to identifying Deity with 
Force is, therefore, simply ruled out. The question which 
really presents itself is quite different. Theologically 
phrased, the question is whether the creature is to be taken 
as a measure of the Creator. Scientifically phrased, the 
question is whether the highest form of Being as yet sug- 


cH. 111, ] COSMIC THEISM. 431 


gested to one petty race of creatures by its ephemeral 
experience of what is going on in one tiny corner of the 
universe, is necessarily to be taken as the equivalent of 
that absolutely highest form of Being in which all the pos- 
sibilities of existence are alike comprehended. It is the 
same question which confronted us in our opening chapter, 
and which returned to confront us in sundry other chapters 
of our Prolegomena. Already we have more than once 
answered it, in a general way, by showing that “the possi- 
bilities of thought are not coextensive with the possibilities 
of things.” We have now to give it a more special answer, 
by inquiring into the possibility of a mode of existence not 
limited by the conditions which limit conscious existence 
within the narrow domain of our terrestrial experience. In 
other words, we have to inquire into the relations between 
Matter and Spirit; and the inquiry, besides throwing light 
on questions which must have arisen in the course of our 
exposition of the evolution of life and intelligence, will also 
furnish us with the means for emphasizing the theistic con- 
clusions obtained in the present chapter. 


CHAPTER IV. 


MATTER AND SPIRIT, 


It is the usual lot of scientific writers who maintain theories 
which have not yet become popular with the theologica) 
world, to be accused of holding opinions which they not 
only do not hold, but against which they have perhaps, on 
every fitting occasion, publicly and emphatically protested. 
Partly, no doubt, such misrepresentations arise from that 
carelessness (to call it by no worse name) which too often 
characterizes the statements of persons who have come to 
believe that the interests of sacred truth have been com- 
mitted to them for safe keeping. Whether the truth in 
question derives its sacredness from time-hallowed tradition 
or what are called the “higher instincts of our nature,” 
whether its self-appointed guardians are conservative theo- 
logians or radical iconoclasts, extreme devotion to its 
interests is liable to be accompanied by a lofty disregard 
for that accuracy of statement which to the scientific in- 
quirer seems so indispensable. It appears to be tacitly 
assumed that the interests of Truth in the abstract can be 
rightly subserved only by the sacrifice of divers humble 
concrete truths. Abundant evidence of this is to be found 
in the tracts and speeches of “teetotalers,” “labour re- 
formers,” “friends of the People,” and other sentimentalists 


cH. IV.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 433 


As regards theologians, a great deal is to be said in behalf 
of their intolerance of opinions which they honestly believe 
to be fraught with spiritual and moral evil. But this zeal 
in the cause of Truth too often betrays them into misrepre- 
sentations which suggest that the maxim Nulla fides ewm 
hereticis has not yet been completely expunged from their 
moral code. Especially in the use of unpopular question- 
begging epithets they are by no means sufficiently scru- 
pulous. Such epithets as “materialism” and “atheism,” 
being extremely unpopular, have long been made to de 
heavy duty in lieu of argument. In this sort of barbario 
warfare the term “materialism” is especially convenient, 
by reason of a treacherous ambiguity in its connotations. 
Certain abstract theorems of metaphysics are correctly 
described as constituting materialism ; and the persons who 
assert them are correctly called materialists. On the other 
hand, those persons are popularly called materialists who 
allow their actions to be guided by the desires of the 
moment, without reference to any such rule of right living 
as is termed a “ high ideal of life” Persons who worship 
nothing but worldly success, who care for nothing but 
wealth, or fashionable display, or personal celebrity, or 
sensual gratification, are thus loosely called materialists. 
The term can therefore easily be made to serve as a poisoned 
weapon, and there are theologians who do not scruple to 
employ it as such against the upholders of philosophie 
opinicns which they do not like but are unable to refute. A 
most flagrant instance was recently afforded by a lecturer 
on Positivism, who, after insinuating that pretty much the 
whole body of contemporary scientific philosophers are 
Positivists, and that Positivists are but very little better 
than materialists, proceeded to inform his audience that 
“materialists” are men who lead licentious lives. 

It would be hard to find words strong enough to cha- 
racterize the villany of such misrepresentations as this 

VOL, IL FF 


434 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 1m 


could we fairly suppose them to be deliberately intended. 
They would imply extreme moral turpitude, were it not 
that they are so obviously the product of extreme sloven- 
liness of thinking joined with culpable carelessness of as- 
sertion. The chain of ill-conceived arguments upon which 
they depend is something like this:—Every attempt to 
interpret the succession of mental phenomena by means of 
theorems originally devised to interpret the movements of 
matter, involves the assertion of materialism ; the assertion — 
cf materialism involves the denial of personal immortality ; 
the denial of personal immortality deprives morality of its 
principal sanction, and prevents us from having any higher 
ideal of life than the gratification of egoistic desires ; ergo, 
we are justified in insinuating that philosophers who inter- 
pret mental manifestations by a reference to material struc- 
ture are likely to be men of loose morals, Such is the tacit 
argument which underlies this kind of theological misrepre- 
sentation; and in pity for the mental confusion which it 
- implies, we may perhaps condone or overlook the bigotry 
which assists in disguising its flimsiness. In truth, a more 
striking example of the audacity of the subjective method 
could not well be found. Not one of the premises from 
which so startling a conclusion is drawn has been verified ; 
and it would not be difficult to show that each one involves 
a non sequitur. It might be shown that the denial of per- 
sonal immortality does not deprive morality of its principal 
sanction, or prevent us from having any higher ideal of life 
than the gratification of egoistic desires. And it might be 
forcibly argued that the denial of personal immortality has 
by no means been proved to be an inevitable corollary from 
the assertion of materialism, though it may freely be ad- 
mitted to be a probable coroHary. But with these two un- 
verified inferences we are not now especially concerned, 
What concerns us is the initial non seguitur,—that every 
attempt to interpret mental manifestations by a reference 


CH. Iv.]} MATTER AND SPIRIT. 430 


to material structure involves the assertion of materialism, 
This is the non sequitur which lies at the very bottom of the 
theological misrepresentation, and its utter fallacicusness 
needs to be thoroughly exposed. 

It would be grossly unjust to throw all the blame of this 
particular non sequitur upon the theologians, who have 
enough logical delinquencies of their own to answer for, 
without being required to carry the burden of their adver- 
saries’ errors into the bargain. The illegitimate inference is 
one which scientific writers, and philosophers of a certain 
school, have been quite as ready to make as theologians : 
indeed, I believe it was the former who first suggested it to the 
latter. At all events, without going into historical minutie 
concerning the origin of materialism, but confining our 
attention to its more recent scientific phases, we may observe 
that it was not a theologian, but an eminent man of science, 
who first suggested that the results of modern objective 
psychology might be represented in the formula, Ohne 
Phosphor kein Gedanke. This formula has been caught up 
as a watchword by a school of atheistic writers, some of 
whom, as Moleschott and Vogt, rank very high as scientific 
specialists, but none of whom seem to be worthy of mention 
for psychological capyeity or for acquaintance with the best 
thoughts of modern philosophy. The most conspicuous 
representative of this school is Dr. Biichner—a writer who 
deserves praise for his power of lucid exposition, but whose 
pages are too often deformed with brutalities of expression for 
which no atonement is made in the shape of original or 
valuable thought. Although this writer has no scientific 
reputation whatever, and although his school has no more 
claim to rank with the great schools of philosophy in our 
time than it had when the now-forgotten Lamettrie repre- 
sented it in the days of Hume and Kant, yet througn 
loudness of asseveration it has succeeded in doing much to 
mislead and perplex the public mind with reference to the 

FF2 


436 : COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. mt, 


philosophic results of recent scientific inquiry. Because Dr. 
Biichner and his followers point to certain discoveries in 
nervous physiology or in transcendental physics as evidence 
of the materiality of mind, it has come to be currently 
supposed that those scientific inquirers who accept the dis- 
coveries accept also the materialistic inference. And because 
the ablest scientific inquirers, being more occupied in hunting 
for truths than in looking about for ugly consequences, have 
seldom said anything on either side of the question, their . 
silence has been interpreted as equivalent to assent, both by 
the materialists and by the theologians. Energetic protests, 
however, have been made against this erroneous interpreta- 
tion, by Prof. Tyndall on the part of molecular physics, and 
by Prof. Huxley on the part of physiology; while Mr, 
Spencer has most conclusively demonstrated that, from the 
scientific point of view, the hypothesis of the materialists is 
not only as untenable to-day as it has ever been, but must 
always remain inferior in philosophic value to the opposing 
spiritualistic hypothesis. Let us look at some of the argu- 
ments which necessitate this conclusion. 

“No thought without phosphorus!” This remark of 
Moleschott’s has been called a “trenchant” remark. To me 
it seems avery barren piece of truism. I have no doubt 
that a century hence, the fact that such a remark should 
have been regarded either as a valuable novelty or as an 
alarming heresy, will be cited in evidence of the intellectual 
dulness of our time. If the aphorism is not restricted to 
the conditions under which thinking occurs within the limits 
of our experience, it is merely an audacious assertion, not 
worthy of serious refutation. If it is thus restricted, it 
becomes a mere platitude. Within the limits of our ex- 
perience no one supposes that thinking is done without a 
body. No philosopher of any school whatever, theological 
or scientific, maintains that, during the period of human life, 
there is such a thing as consciousness without biain. None 


cH. Iv.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 437 


will assert, that, under terrestrial conditions, we have any 
experience of psychical manifestation apart from physical 
structure. When, therefore, some speculative physiologist 
singles out one of the most important chemical ingredients 
of brain-substance, and tells us that there is no thinking 
done without that chemical ingredient, we have no good 
ground either for rejoicing over increased wisdom, or for 
alarm at possible conclusions. The conclusions to be drawn, 
whatever they may be, remain just the same as _ before, 
Vision is essentially a psychical process; yet no one pretends 
that vision can be accomplished without an eye. If I were 
to proclaim on the house-tops, “ No vision without. retinal 
rods,” would not the common-sense of mankind either rebuke 
my audacity in pretending that I had got possession of a 
new and wonderful truth, or derisively inquire my reasons 
for making so much outcry over such a manifest platitude? 

_ The ease remains entirely unaltered when we come to such 
@ minute comparison of psychical manifestation and brain- 
action as was indicated in our chapter on the Evolution of 
Mind. Whatever theory be held with regard to a future 
life, he who admits that during the present life mental 
action in the gross is correlated with brain-action in the 
gross, can in no wise complain of an attempt to trace out 
the detailed correlations between mental action in the little 
and brain-action in the little. If the brain is the organ of 
Mina, and if the daily manifestations of Mind, in all their 
complexity, are conditioned by the possession of such a 
complex organ, then the simple ultimate elements of which 
the complex mental manifestations are made up, must be 
severally conditioned by the simple ultimate elements, struc- 
tural and functional, which make up the complex organ and 
its molecular activities. In proceeding to trace out these 
simple ultimate correlations, we are merely analyzing two 
complicated groups of phenomena into their elements, in 
order that we may arrive at a better practical understanding 


- 


138 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (Pr. 111. 


of them; and at the end of our inquiry we no more stand 
committed to any conclusion regarding the real nature of 
either group than we did at the beginning. When we admit 
that a blow on the head is likely to make a man insensible, 
we are just as much or just as little materialists as when we 
suggest the hypothesis that cerebral inflammation, by ob- 
structing certain particular transit-lines, may prevent certain 
particular associations of ideas and thus obliterate certain 
specific memories. Repeating Mr. Spencer’s words, we may © 
say that “the general relation between mental manifestations 
and material structure traced out [in this work], has implica- 
tions identical with, and no wider than, those which familiar 
experiences thrust upon us.” In objective psychology, as in 
other departments of inquiry, science is but an extension 
of common knowledge. “That drowsiness impedes thinking, 
that wine excites or stupefies according to amount and cir- 
cumstances, that great loss of blood produces temporary un- 
consciousness,—are facts admitted by everyone, be his theory 
of things what it may. That you cannot get out of the 
undeveloped child thoughts and feelings like those you get 
out of the developed man; that the idiot, with brain perma- 
nently arrested in its growth, remains permanently incapable 
of any but the simplest mental actions; are propositions not 
denied by the most intemperate reviler of physiological psy- 
chology. But one who recognizes such facts and propositions. 
is just as much chargeable with materialism as one who puts 
together facts and propositions like those which constitute 
the exposition [of psychical phenomena contained in this 
work]. Whoever grants that from the rudimentary con- 
sciousness implied by the vacant stare of the infant, up to 

the quickly apprehensive, far-seeing, and variously-feeling — 
consciousness of the adult, the transition is through slow 
steps of mental progress that accompany slow steps of bodily 
progress, tacitly asserts the same relation of Mind and Matter 
which is asserted by one who traces out the evolution of the 


cH, Iv.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 439 


nervous system and the accompanying evolution of intelli- 
gence, from the lowest to the highest forms of life.”? 

It appears, therefore, that, so far as objective psychology is 
concerned, but little support has as yet been obtained for the 
materialistic hypothesis. The most that psychology, work- 
ing with the aid of physiology, has thus far achieved, has 
been to show that, within the limits of our experience, ther~ 
is an invariable concomitance between psychical phenomena 
and the phenomena of nervous action; and this, as we have 
seen, is but the elaborate analytic statement of a plain truth, 
which is asserted alike by philosophers of every school and 
by the common-sense of every human being,—namely, that 
from birth until death there is no manifestation of Mind 
except in association with Body. But beyond this it is quite 
clear that objective psychology can never go. The most that 
psychology, working with the aid of physiology, can ever 
achieve, will be to show the invariable concomitance between 
nervous and psychical phenomena, within the limits of our 
experience. The most it can ever do will be to illustrate, 
with more and more minute detail, that same proposition in 
asserting which it has been from the outset upheld by the 
universal consent of mankind. To enlarge the scope of that 
proposition, to add to it new ulterior implications, must for 
ever remain beyond its power. Or if this is still not per- 
fectly clear, the kindred considerations now to be drawn from 
the study of transcendental physics will make it clear. 

It has been not uncommonly taken for granted, both by 
materialists and by theologians, that molecular physics, in 
establishing a quantitative correlation between the various 
modes of motion manifested throughout organic and in- 
organic nature, has supplied a basis whereon to found some 
theory of the materiality of Mind. Here, as before, the 
theologians have accepted the materialistic inference and 
aimed their assaults at the irrefragable scientific theorem, 


2 Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 617. 


440. COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. fer nr 


instead of admitting the scientific theorem and showing that, 
when rightly understood, it does not afford a premise for the 
materialistic inference. Mr. Spencer pithily remarks that 
the one class show by their fears, quite as much as the others 
show by their hopes, that they believe in the theoretical. 
possibility of resolving mental phenomena into motions of 
matter ; whereas those who really comprehend the import of 
modern discoveries in molecular physics are more thoroughly 
convinced than ever that any such reduction is utterly 
beyond. the bounds of possibility. A brief consideration will 
suffice to show us that one of the great results of the dis- 
covery of the correlation of forces is the final destruction of 
the central argument by which materialism has sought to 
maintain its position. Henceforth the spiritualistic hypo- 
thesis may, perhaps, be still regarded as on trial, in so far as 
ig needs much further explanation and limitation; but the 
materialistic hypothesis is doomed irretrievably. 

For let us note well what is implied in the assertion that 
sun-derived radiance is metamorphosed, first into the static 
energy of vegetable tissue, and afterwards into the dynamic 
energy which maintains the multiform activity of the animal 
organism; and that through the liberation of a part of such 
dynamic energy, in the form of diseharges between inter-: 
connected ganglia, there are rendered possible the pheno- 
mena of conscious activity! Let us endeavour to mark out: 
precisely what is meant by this assertion. In its present 
form it is a concrete statement, based upon the abstract 
truths that, within the limits of our experience, any given 
species of motion whatever has acquired its distinctive attri- 
putes through transformation from some other’ species, and 
will again lose these distinctive attributes through a subse- 
guent transformation. For example, the heat which now 
raises the temperature of a pound of water just one degree 
of Fahrenheit, has acquired its present form of existence 


1 See above, vol. i. pp. 411, 416. 


CH, Iv.] MATTER AND SPIRIT, 441 


through the transformation of as much .nolar motion as is 
implied in the fall of 772 pounds of matter through one foot, 
of space; and it will lose its present form of existence as 
fast as it is retransformed into molar motion of expan- 
sion, or into other modes of molecular motion, according to. 
superinduced circumstances. So when food is taken into the 
organism and assimilated with the tissues, the quantity of 
molecular motion involved in the secretion of bile by the 
liver, or in the raising of the arm by an act of will, or in the 
knitting of a new plexus of associated ideas by the opening 
of new communications between brain-cells, may equally be 
said to have acquired its present specific forms through 
transformation from the potential motion latent in the pre- 
pared food. So we may say, very roughly, that there is a 
metamorphosis, of molar motion into heat and actinism; of 
heat and actinism into the potential motion latent in the 
nutriment ultimately derived from sun-nourished vegetable 
tissues; of this potential motion inte undulations among the 
molecules of nerve; of these undulations back into molar 
motions of the muscles which move limbs, or into mole- 
cular motions of secreting glands, and so on, in a never- 
ending circuit. The circuit is thus very roughly described, 
but such is essentially its character. But now let us note 
that throughout this wondrous circuit, from molar motion to 
molecular nerve-motion, and back again to molar motion, 
there is no question of Mind whatever. The metamorphosis 
is always from one species of material motion into some 
sther species of material motion, but never from a species 
of material motion into an idea ora feeling, The dynamic 
circuit is absolutely complete without taking psychical 
manifestations. into the account at all) Now obviously 
the most that molecular physics can ever accomplish 
will be to point out, in more and more minute detail, the 
vharacteristics of the various metamorphoses which occur 
within the limits of this circuit. The ileal goal of physical 


442 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (PT. 11% 


inquiry would be to furnish algebraic equations for every 
curve described by every particle of matter during the entire 
series of transformations, from the arrested molar motions of 
the gravitating particles of the sun, down to the endlessly- 
complex molecular motions which take place within the 
cerebral tissue of a mathematician engaged in solving partial 
differential equations. However stupendous such an achieve- 
ment may seem to us who are as yet in the callow infancy 
of scientific inquiry, there is nevertheless no radical ab-— 
surdity involved in conceiving it as theoretically possible. 
But now let us suppose all this actually achieved. Let us 
suppose physical inquiry to have reached its uttermost con- 
ceivable limit, having reduced the whole problem of motion, 
in all its myriad manifestations, in both inorganic and 
organic nature, to a purely algebraic problem, for the solu- 
tion of which the requisite algebraic devices are at hand; 
and let us consider what we have thus achieved. Have we 
made the first step toward the resolution of psychical pheno- 
mena into modes of motion? Obviously we have not. The 
closed circuit of motion, motion, motion, remains just what 
it was before. No conceivable advance in physical discovery 
can get us out of this closed circuit, and into this circuit 
psychical phenomena do not enter. Psychical phenomena 
stand outside this circuit, parallel with that brief segment of 
it which is made up of molecular motions in nerve-tissue. 
However strict the parallelism may be, within the limits of 
our experience, between the phenomena of mind and this 
segment of the circuit of motions, the task of transcending 
or abolishing the radical antithesis between the phenomena 
of mind and the phenomena of motions of matter, must 
always remain an impracticable task. For in order to 
transcend or abolish this radical antithesis, we must be pre- 
pared to show how a given quantity of molecular motion in 
nerve-tissue can become transformed into a definable amount 
of ideation or feeling. But this, it is quite safe to say, cay 


CH. IVv.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 443 


never be done. Free as we were, a moment ago, to admit 
the boundless possibilities of scientific inquiry in one direc- 
tion, we may here at once mark the bounds beyond which, 
in another direction, scientific inquiry cannot advance. 

For in the last resort it is subjective psychology which 
must render the decisive verdict as to the possibility of 
identifying feeling with motion; and to obtain this decisive 
verdict there is but one legitimate way. By a physical 
analysis we must ascertain what is the primordial element 
in motion, and by a psychological analysis we must ascertain 
what is the primordial element in feeling; it must then be 
left for consciousness to decide whether these two primordial 
elements are or are not in such wise like each other that the 
one may be substituted for the other indifferently ; and from 
this verdict there can, in the nature of the case, be no appeal. 
Now it would be very rash to suppose that we have as yet 
arrived at a knowledge of the primordial unit, either of 
motion or of feeling: still we have made an approximation 
sufficient for the purposes of the present argument. Our 
analysis has progressed so far as to enable us to foresee the 
‘verdict, and to rest assured that further analysis will reiterate 
and not reverse it. In the chapter on the Composition of 
Mind, we saw that “the physical action which accompanies 
psychical changes is an undulatory displacement of molecules, 
resulting in myriads of little waves or pulses of movement.” 
We saw also that, “as a cognizable state of consciousness is 
attended by the transmission of a number of little waves 
from one nerve-cell to another, so the ultimate psychical 
elements of each conscious state must correspond to the 
passage of these little waves taken one by one.” And we 
were “led to infer, as the ultimate unit of which Mind is 
composed, a simple psychical shock, answering to that simple 
physical pulsation which is the ultimate unit of nervous 
action.”+ Here, then, are our approximately-primordial 

1 See above, p. 131, 


444 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. m1 


elements,—on the one hand a psychical shock as the basis. 
of all consciousness, on the other hand a physical pulsation 
as the basis of all that molecular motion of which nervous 
action is a species. It is now for consciousness to decide, 
upon direct inspection, whether a psychical shock is so much 
like a physical pulsation that in a given series. of propositions 
the one term might be substituted for the other. “Can we, 
then, think of the subjective and objective activities as the 
same? Can the oscillation of a molecule be represented in 
consciousness side by side with a [psychical] shock, and the 
two be recognized as one? No effort enables us to assimilate 
them. That a unit of feeling has nothing in common with a 
unit of motion, becomes more than ever manifest when we 
bring the two into juxtaposition. And the immediate verdict 
of consciousness thus given, might be analytically justified 
were this a fit place for the needful analysis. For ct might 
be shown that the conception of an oscillating molecule is built 
out of many units of feeling; and that to identify it with a 
[psychical] shock would be to identify a whole congeries of units 
with a single unit.”* 

Thus we were fully justified in stating that through no 
imaginable future advance in molecular physics can the 
materialists ever be enabled to realize their desideratum of 
translating mental phenomena in terms of matter and motion. 
We were right in hinting that one grand result of the 


1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. & p. 158. I have taken the 
liberty to alter Mr. Spencer’s metaphorical phrase “nervous shock” into 
- the more literally accurate phrase “psychical shock.” The term “nervous 
shock,” though partially justified by the colloquial use of the word ‘ ner- 
vous” in description of psychical states (as when we speak of feeling nerveus 
or flighty), is nevertheless a bad term in an argument like the present, where 
the stric..st accuracy is above all things desirable. For besides this. psycho- 
jogical use of it, the term ‘‘nervous shock” is used in physiology in a sense 
strictly synonymous with one kind of “‘ physical pulsation.” So that, to 
those who pay more attention to an author’s slips of expression than to his. 
manifest meaning, the term may seem to contain the materialistic implica- 
tions which it is the express purpose of Mr. Spencer’s argument to avoid, 
Any such misapprehension is impossible if we substitute the term “ psychical 
shock.” —(Mr. Spencer authorizes me to add that he thoroughly approves of 
this emendation.) 


bE. 1v.] MATTER AND SPIRIT, 445 


enormous progress achieved during the past forty years in 
the analysis of both physical and psychical phenomena, has 
been the final and irretrievable overthrow of the materialistic 
hypothesis. Henceforth we may regard materialism as ruled 
out, and relegated to that limbo of crudities to which we 
some time since consigned the hypothesis of special creations. 
The latest results of scientific inquiry, whether in the region 
of objective psychology or in that of molecular physics, leave 
the gulf between Mind and Matter quite as wide as i: was 
judged to be in the time of Descartes. It still remains as 
true as then, that between that of which the differential 
attribute is Thought and that of which the differential attri- 
bute is Extension, there can be nothing like identity or 
similarity. Although we have come to see that between 
the manifestations of the two there is such an unfailing 
parallelism that the one group of phenomena can be correctly 
described by formulas originally invented for describing the 
other group, yet all that has been established is this paral- 
Jelism. When it comes to the task of making the parallels 
meet, we are no better off than Malebranche with his Occa- 
sional Causes, or Leibnitz with his Pre-established Harmony : 
nay, we are no better off than the ancient Gnostics, with 
their “cons” and their “Demiurge.” Rich as are the 
harvests which science has obtained from these two fields, 
the fence which divides them has never been broken down ; 
and until the insuperable distinction between Subject and 
Object, between the Conscious and the Unconscious, can be 
transcended, it can never be broken down, 

But while the materialistic hypothesis is thus irretrievably 
doomed, it is otherwise with the opposing spiritualistic hypo- 
thesis. It is true that we cannot directly translate Matter in 
terms of Spirit, any more than we can translate Spirit in 
terms of Matter. But we have seen that the term “ matter” 
does not stand for any real existence, but only for one of the 
modes in which an Inscrutable Existence reveals itself to us, 


446 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr mm. 


within the limits of our terrestrial experience. It must 
always be borne in mind that we go with Berkeley to the 
full extent of asserting that the term “matter” means, not 
the occult reality, but the group of phenomena which are 
known as resistance, extension, colour, etc.1 If now we 
proceed to the outermost verge of admissible speculation, 
and inquire for a moment what may perhaps be the nature 
of that Inscrutable Existence of which the universe of phe- 
nomena is the multiform manifestation, we shall find that its. 
intimate essence may conceivably be identifiable with the 
intimate essence of what we know as Mind. In order to 
show how this can be, I shall cite from Mr. Spencer a 
somewhat lengthy passage, to which the attention of critics 
has hitherto been too little directed. 

“ Mind, as known to the possessor of it, is a circumscribed 
agoregate of activities; and the cohesion of these activities, 
one with another, throughout the aggregate, compels the 
postulation of a something of which they are the activities. 
But the same experiences which make him aware of this 
coherent aggregate of mental activities, simultaneously make 
him aware of activities that are not included in it—outlying 
activities which become known by their effects on this 
ageregate, but which are experimentally proved to be not 
coherent with it, and to be coherent with one another.2 As, 
y the definition of them, these external activities cannot be 
hrought within the aggregate of activities distinguished as 
those of Mind, they must for ever remain to him nothing 
more than the unknown correlatives of their effects on this 
ageregate ; and can be thought of only in terms furnished 
by this aggregate. Hence, if he regards his conceptions of 
these activities lying beyond Mind, as constituting know- 
ledge of them, he is deluding himself: he is but representing 
these activities in terms of Mind, and can never do other- 


1 See above, vol. i. p. 88. 
2 See, in this connection, First Principles, pp. 143—156. 


cH, Iv.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 447 


wise. Eventually he is obliged to admit that his ideas of 
Matter and Motion, merely symbolic of unknowable realities, 
are complex states of consciousness built out of units of 
feeling. But if, after admitting this, he persists in asking 
whether units of feeling are of the same nature as the units 
of force distinguished as external, or whether the units of 
force distinguished as external are of the same nature as units 
of feeling; then the reply, still substantially the same, is 
that we may go farther towards conceiving units of external 
force to be identical with units of feeling, than we can to- 
wards conceiving units of feeling to be identical with units 
of external force. Clearly, if units of external force are 
regarded as absolutely unknown and unknowable, then to 
trauslate units of feeling into them is to translate the known 
into the unknown, which is absurd. And if they are what 
they are supposed to be by those who identify them with 
their symbols, then the difficulty of translating units of 
feeling into them is insurmountable: if Force as it objec- 
tively exists is absolutely alien in nature from that which 
exists subjectively as Feeling, then the transformation of 
Force into Feeling is unthinkable. Either way, therefore, it 
is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of outer 
existence. But if, on the other hand, units of Force as they 
exist objectively, are essentially the same in nature with 
those manifested subjectively as units of Feeling; then a 
concrivable hypothesis remains open. Every element of 
that aggregate of activities constituting a consciousness, is 
known as belonging to consciousness only by its cohesion 
with the rest. Beyond the limits of this coherent aggregate 
of activities, exist activities quite independent of it, and 
which cannot be brought into it. We may imagine, then, 
that by their exclusion from the circumscribed activities 
constituting consciousness, these outer activities, though of 
the same intrinsic nature, become antithetically opposed in 
aspect. Being disconnected from consciousness, or cut off 


448 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er, mn, 


by its limits, they are thereby rendered foreign to it. Not 
being incorporated with its activities, or linked with these 
as they are with one another, consciousness cannot, as it 
were, run through them; and so they come to be figured as 
unconscious—are symbolized as having the nature called 
material as opposed to that called spiritual. While, how- 
ever, it thus seems an imaginable possibility that units of 
external Force may be identical in nature with units of the 
force known as Feeling, yet we cannot by so representing © 
them get any nearer to a comprehension of external Force, 
For . . . supposing all forms of Mind to be composed of 
homogeneous units of feeling variously aggregated, the reso- 
lution of them into such units leaves us as unable as before 
to think of the substance of Mind as it exists in such units; 
and thus, even could we really figure to ourselves all units 
of external Force as being essentially like units of the force 
known as Feeling, and as so constituting a universal sen- 
tiency, we should be as far as ever from forming a conception 
of that which is universally sentient.” * 

I do not know where we could find anything more ad- 
-mirable than this lucid statement, in which the most subtle 
conclusion now within the ken of the scientific speculator is 
reached without disregard of the canons prescribed by the 
doctrine of relativity. From this masterly statement it 
appears that while the Inscrutable Power manifested in the 
world of phenomena cannot possibly be regarded as quasi- 
material in its nature, it may nevertheless be possibly 
regarded as quasi-psychical. Were we compelled to choose 
between these two alternatives, the latter would be the one 
which we must perforce adopt. For besides the general 
reason here indicated for such preference, there would in 
such case be presented the more special reason, that upon 
no imaginable hypothesis of evolution (Gf the foregoing 
analysis be correct) can units of Mind be regarded as prov 

1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 159—161. 


on. 1,] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 449 


duced by the collocations of units of Matter. Were we 
constrained to such a treatment of the subject, we should be 
forced to admit that the actual existence of psychical energy, 
as a phenomenon essentially distinct from physical energy, 
implies, as its antecedent source, something quasi-psychical 
in the constitution of things. 

A third alternative, however, remains open. Since we 
know nothing even of Mind, save as qualitatively differen- 
tiated from Matter, under the persistent conditions by which 
conscious activity is limited, it is open to us to maintain that 
the Unknown Reality which is manifested under both aspects 
cannot legitimately be formulated in terms of either aspect. 
The unconditioned Source of the phenomena which we 
distinguish as psychical, and of the phenomena which we 
distinguish as material, may well be neither quasi-psychical 
nor quasi-material. Whichever set of terms we use, we are 
using symbols the values of which are determined by our 
experiences of conditioned existence, and which must there- 
fore be totally inadequate to express the characteristics of 
unconditioned existence. Nevertheless, in so far as the 
exigencies of finite thinking require us to symbolize the 
Infinite Power manifested in the world of phenomena, we 
are clearly bound to symbolize it as quasi-psychical, rather 
than as quasi-material. Provided we bear in mind the 
symbolic character of our words, we may say that “God is 
Spirit,’ though we may not say, in the materialistic sense, 
shat “God is Force.” Such an utterance is, indeed, anthro- 
jomorphic. But we are now finding powerful confirmation 
of the argument elaborated in our Prolegomena, that a 
Positive mode of philosophizing is impracticable, and that 
we can never get entirely rid of all traces of anthropo- 
morphism.! As formerly shown, “there is anthropomorphism 
even in speaking of the unknown Cause as a Power mani- 
fested in phenomena;” and if this expression is liable te 

£ee above, vol. i. p. 183 
VOL, Il. GG 


459 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 111, 


be honestly misinterpreted as implying the identification of 
Deity with so-called “ blind force,” and as thus conveying a 
lower conception than that upon which theology insists, then 
we need not shrink from the scarcely-greater anthropomor- 
phism involved in speaking’ of the unknown Cause as a 
Spirit manifested in phenomena. Such a choice of symbols 
will at least serve to show that we no more identify Deity 
with “blind force” than we identify Mind with “ brute 
matter,” or a psychical shock with a physical pulsation, and 
that, in our innermost intent, we are striving to convey a 
higher conception than that upon which theology insists. 

But in thus consenting to adopt a term about which quasi- 
psychical connotations have clustered, we do not implicitly 
consent to the clothing of Deity with definable psychical 
attributes. The moment we use the words “ intelligence” 
and “volition,” we are using words which have distinct 
meanings, as descriptive of certain circumscribed modes of 
psychical activity in man and some other animals. Except as 
descriptive of these circumscribed modes of psychical activity, 
they have no meanings whatever: and to seek to apply 
them to the unlimited activity (whether quasi-psychical 
or not) of a Being that is not circumscribed by an “ objec- 
tive datum” of any sort, is simply to call into existence a 
number of illegitimate propositions which, if dealt with as 
legitimate, would entangle us once more in the net-work of 
absurdities from which we were set free by the chapter on 
Anthropomorphic Theism. 

Thus we are gradually finding ourselves obliged to regard 
the suggestion with which we ended the chapter just 
mentioned as something more than a mere random sugges- 
tion. Whether it be true or not that, within the bounds of 
the phenomenal universe the highest type of existence is that 
which we know as Humanity, the conclusion is in every way 
forced upon us that, quite independently of limiting condi- 
tions in space or time, there is a form of Being which cay 


CH. Iv.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 451 


neither be assimilated to Humanity nor to any lower type of 
existence. We have no alternative, therefore, but to regard 
it as higher than Humanity, even “as the heavens are higher 
than the earth;” and, except for the intellectual arrogance 
which the arguments of theologians show lurking beneath 
their expressions of humility, there is no reason why this 
admission should not be made unreservedly, without the 
anthropomorphic qualifications by which its effect 1s com- 
monly nullified. The time is surely coming when the 
slowness of men in accepting such a conclusion will be 
marvelled at, and when the very inadequacy of human 
language to express Divinity will be regarded as a reason for 
deeper faith and more solemn adoration. 


CHAPTER V. 


RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 


From this abstract exposition of Cosmic Theism as a reli- 
gious doctrine, let us now proceed to consider some of the 
practical relations of Cosmic Theism to human life, with 
especial reference to conduct, which, as Matthew Arnold well 
says, makes up in importance at least seven-eighths of life. 
As every system of religion has comprised, on the one hand, 
a theory of the world, and on the other hand, a code enjoin- 
ing certain kinds of human conduct, and as we have thus 
far expounded Cosmism as a theory of the world, what is 
now to be said of the relations of Cosmism to human 
conduct? Or, in other words, does the enlargement of our 
conceptions of Divine action, in conformity with the require- 
ments of contemporary knowledge, involve any radical 
alteration of the fundamental principles of action in which 
Religion, viewed practically, consists ? 

The position is often taken, by those who dissent from 
surrent ecclesiastical creeds, that there is no reason in the 
nature of things why the long-established association between 
religion and ethics should be continued,—and to these the 
following inquiry will perhaps seem uncalled for. It is urged, 
with justice, that conduct is not necessarily dependent on 
creed that equal uprightness may coexist with belief in 


cH. V.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 453 


doctrines diametrically opposite, that, in point of fact, the 
atheist usually leads quite as pure and holy a life as the 
Christian ; and moreover, that it is possible to construct, out 
of scientific materials solely, an ethical code even more 
complete than any of those now generally accepted and 
practised. It would be useless to deny the force of these 
arguments. Not only is it true that science can furnish the 
inquirer with adequate principles of right action, but it is 
also true that, even without any very elaborate or thoroughly 
understood ethical code, the heterodox inquirer is, on the 
average, quite as likely to live rightly as the orthodox be- 
liever, since our characters depend far more upon our feelings 
which are inherited than upon the doctrines which are taught 
us. But, while admitting all this, it must still be claimed 
that the time-honoured association of religion with morality 
is not arbitrary but founded in the nature of things, and that 
it will accordingly continue in the future. The arguments 
just stated present but one side of the case. For while it is 
quite true that character is not a product of belief, it is no 
less true that action is influenced by belief. While obser- 
vation shows that theological scepticism does not. exert a 
deteriorating influence upon eharacter, it cannot be doubted 
that ethical scepticism, could it become dominant, would 
confuse and obscure the incentives which prompt us to 
actions in harmony with the environment, and deter us from 
mal-adjustments. Practically the momentum of inherited 
impulse and bequeathed ethical tradition is so powerful that 
the cases in which theological scepticism has entailed per- 
manently-effective ethical scepticism have been the exception 
rather than the rule. But what now concerns us is the 
inquiry whether in the nature of things a substitution of 
scientific for theological symbols involves an alteration of 
ethical values in the grand equation between duty and 
action. We shall find that no such change is involved in the 
substitution. Though we may, and do, throw overboard the 


454 | COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [Pr. 1 


whole of the semi-barbaric mythology in which Christianity 
has hitherto been symbolized, we shall find, nevertheless, that 
we have kept firmly in our possession the ethical kernel for 
which Christianity is chiefly valued even by those who retain 
the whole of this mythology. 

If we inquire into the position which every theological 
creed has occupied with reference to the ethical code by which 
it has been supplemented, we shall find that in every case it 
has served to supply a powerful sanction to the principles of | 
right action contained in the ethical code. That “thy days 
may be long in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee,” 
or that “thy Father which seeth in secret may reward thee 
openly,” therefore must thou do these things written in the 
law. Along with the moral code, embodying the principles 
of right action recognized by the community, there has ever 
been declared some theory of the relations of man to the 
unknowable Power manifested in the Cosmos, which has 
furnished incentives to the actions regarded as right and 
deterrents from the actions regarded as wrong. It is because 
religion has ever furnished this weighty sanction to morality 
that creeds and conduct have always been associated in men’s 
minds; and it is because of this that narrow-minded theo- 
logians, unable or unwilling to admit that there can be any 
other adequate sanctions than those supplied by their own 
creed, so persistently argue upon the assumption that those 
who do not accept their creed must of necessity be morally 
perverse. We need not for the moment inquire into the 
moral value of the sanctions established by the various 
historic religions: whether they appeal to the purest and 
highest of human. feelings or not, the essential point which 
now concerns us is the existence of such sanctions as an 
indispensable part of every religious system. 

What, now, are the ethical sanctions recognized by science, 
and by that religious doctrine which I have here proposed 
to designate as Cosmic Theism? In what sense does @ 


oH. v.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 455 


scientific philosophy hold to the distinction between sin on 
the one hand, and crime or tort on the other? Our questions 
may readily be answered if, bearing in mind the theoretic 
attitude of Cosmism toward Anthropomorphism, we note the 
anthropomorphic theory of sin and the anthropomorphic 
sanctions for righteousness. On the anthropomorphic hypo- 
thesis, sin is an offence against a personal Deity, consisting 
in the disobedient transgression of some one of his revealed 
edicts, and calling for punishment either in the present or 
in a future life, unless reparation be made by repentance or 
sacrifice. Now the theory of the Cosmist is in substance 
quite identical with this,1 though expressed by means of very 
different verbal symbols. From the scientific point of view, 
sin is a wilful violation of a law of nature, or—to speak in 
terms of the theory of evolution—it is a course of thought 
or action, wilfully pursued, which tends to throw the indi- 
vidual out of balance with his environment, and thus to 
detract from his physical or moral completeness of life. 
The seeking after righteousness is characteristic of the 
modern follower of science quite as much as it was charac- 
teristic of the mediaeval saint; save that while the latter 
symbolized his yearning as a desire to become like his 
highest concrete conception of human excellence ideally 
embodied in Christ, the former no longer employs any such 
anthropomorphic symbol, but formulates his feeling in 
scientific phrase as the persistent desire to live rightly, or 
in entire conformity to the requirements of nature,—as 
Goethe expresses it,— 


“Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren, resolut zu leben.” 
The feeling is identical in the two cases, though the 


1 Saving only the last clause. For, as we shall presently see, science knows 
of no such thing as reparation for sin. Repentance cannot ward off punish- 
ment. And herein the Cosmic hypothesis isas far superior to the Anthrapo- 
morphic hypothesis from the ethical, as it is from the philosophical, point cf 
view. 


456 COSMIC FHILUSOPHY. (Pr. 111. 


difference in the technical expression of it is as great as 
the difference between the theology of the “Imitation” and 
the science of “First Principles.” Now when a law of 
nature has been violated (to use the current phrase), the 
religion of the scientific inquirer tells him that a sin has 
been committed; and he is smitten with a sense of seli- 
reproach no whit less keen than that experienced by his 
mediwval predecessor. The distinction between the scientific 
and the religious view of the breach of law is thus apparent. 
When an act has been committed which must entail more 
or less misery either upon the individual himself or upon 
others, science merely recognizes that there has been a 
breach of law; but religion further declares that sin has 
been done, and there ensues a painful state of consciousness 
which, as we must carefully note, is not due to selfish dread 
of suffering to be encountered (since similar suffering in a 
righteous cause would be met with a feeling of self-approval), 
but is made up chiefly of self-condemnation for the in- 
excusable infraction of nature’s ordinance. Regarded as a 
product of psychical evolution, this sense of sin, peculiar to 
the most highly developed organisms, is the analogue of the 
sense of pain shared in some degree by all organisms endowed 
with consciousness. The sense of sin, like the sense of pain, 
is normally the deterrent from actions which tend to diminish 
the completeness of the correspondence in which life consists, 
But while the sense of pain is common to those creatures: 
whose incentives to action are purely selfish, the sense of 
sin can be possessed only by those creatures whose intelli- 
gence is sufficiently complex to enable them to recognize the 
relationship in which they stand to the omnipresent Power. 
and whose highest incentives to action are therefore quite 
impersonal. To feel the sting of self-reproach because ot 
wrong-doing, without any selfish reference to the misery 
which the wrong-doing must inevitably entail, is the high 
prerogative of that creature whose future career of evolution, 


cn. v.J. RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 457 


/ 
as we have seen, must mainly consist in spiritual improve- 


ment,—and in it we may recognize the sure token of the 
glorious fulness of life to which Humanity must eventually 
attain. 

Such is the crude outline of the theory of sin, and of the 
ethical sanctions furnished by religion, into which Cosmism 
metamorphoses the anthropomorphic theory. Far from re- 
jecting as a mythologic fiction the doctrine that sin is a 
violation of God’s decrees, entailing inevitable punishment, 
science recognizes therein the anthropomorphic version of 
the truth that every failure in the system of adjustments in 
which life consists is followed inevitably by pain, in some 
one of its lower or higher forms. And thus, by bringing the 
whole subject into the philosophic domain wherein the Law 
of Evolution holds sway, we begin to understand, so far as 
it is possible to understand, the philosophy of evil, pain, 
and wrong, which to the anthropomorphic theist, as we have 
seen, must ever remain a distressing and insoluble enigma. 
Let us briefly trace the process by which men have slowly 
arrived at the perception of the beneficence of pain, that 
we may the more clearly see how the process has been 
determined by the deanthropomorphization of the agencies 
by which pain is wrought. 

In treating of the philosophy of fetishism (Part I. chap. 
vii.) it was shown that by primeval men, unused to scientific 
generalization, the forces of nature must have been likened 
to human volition, because there was nothing else with which 
to compare them. Man felt within himself a source of power, 
and did not yet surmise that power could have any other 
source; and consequently he identified, without any qualiti- 
cation, the forces displayed outside of himself with the force 
of will as directly revealed in his consciousness. In this 
necessity of thought originated not only the personifications of 
ancient mythology, but also the primitive religious worship ; 
a religion of sacrifice, of sorcery, and of terror, as different 


458 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 151. 


from modern religion as mythology is different from modern 
philosophy. Of primitive religion the most prominent, as 
well as the most abiding, phase is devil-worship. Mr. Hunter’s 
remarks concerning the Santals will apply equally well to 
barbarians all over the world, as also to the primeval men 
from whose crude notions modern orthodoxy has inherited 
its terrorism. “Of a supreme and beneficent God the 
Santal has no conception ... He cannot understand how 
a Being can be more powerful than himself without wishing 
to harm him. Discourses upon the attributes of the Deity 
excite no emotion among the more isolated sections of the 
race, except a disposition to run away and hide themselves 
mn the jungle ; and the only reply made to a missionary at 
the end of an eloquent description of the omnipotence of 
God, was, ‘And what if that Strong One should eat me?’ 
But although the Santal has no God from whose benignity 
he may expect favour, there exist a multitude of demons 
and evil spirits, whose spite he endeavours by supplications 
to avert. So far from being without a religion, his rites 
are infinitely more numerous than those of the Hindu.”? 
The genesis of this primitive devil-worship finds its ex- 
planation in the fact that the uncontrollable agencies of 
nature—the storm and the earthquake, the wind and the 
wave—though supposed to resemble man in so far as they 
were intelligent and volitional agents, could not be wholly 
like him. Their ways were not as his ways. ‘They were 
not to be counted upon. They could not be prepared for, 
defended against, or reasoned with. They might bring harm; 
and frequently they did bring harm. Accordingly they were 
regarded with fear and trembling. It is not easy for us to 
realize the extent to which in early times the unknown was 
identified with the hurtful. It is not possible for us 


1 Annals of Rural Bengal, p. 181. . 
* As Humboldt says, in allusion to the long-enduring effects of this primi- 
tive inference :-—*‘ Es liegt tief in der triiben Natur des Menschen, in einer 


bH. V.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 459 


adequately to represent in imagination the overpowering 
emotions of mingled doubt and dread which must have 
seized the primitive thinker when brought face to face with 
this omnipresent, but to him utterly incoherent, universe. 
Where certainty is for us, for him was uncertainty. The 
same resistless forces which to us bring expected benefits 
were for him productive mainly of unlooked-for calamities, 
We, holding in our grasp the Aladdin’s lamp of physical 
knowledge, may find them obedient slaves: to him, who had 
not unearthed the talisman, they proclaimed themselves in- 
exorable masters. Hunger and disease, exposure to heat and 
cold, to the attacks of savage beasts and of unseen enemies, 
were stern realities of daily experience. There were neither 
houses for shelter and defence, nor cities for the common 
protection, nor arts to insure exemption from physical dis- 
comfort. Language had not yet found need for words to 
denote some of the most necessary implements and some ot 
the most ordinary processes of life. Nature was unmanage- 
able as well as unknown,—a stumbling-block as well as a 
riddle. 

Thus the unclassed phenomenon came to be a source of 
terror; for experience had taught that it was quite as likely 
to bring disaster as good fortune. Thus the volitional 
agencies by which fetishism sought to account for surround- 
ing phenomena came to be regarded as capricious and male- 
volent agencies, whose wrath must be averted by prayer or 
sorcery, and whose favour must be bought by sacrifice. 
Thus arose the conception of God as a consuming fire. Thus 
it was that in Egypt deprecating prayers were addressed 
to the crocodile, and in Syria to the serpent ; that Hindu 
mothers threw their children into the Ganges, while Cartha- 
ginians burned their new-born infants in front of the brazen 
image of Moloch. 


ernsterfillten Ansicht der Dinge, dass das Unerwartete, Ausserordentliche, 
nur Furcht, nicht Freude oder Hoffnung erregt." Kosmos. tom. i. p. 119. 


460 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [r. mn 


This sense of a Satanic presence in nature, whether em- 
bodied in the form of a malevolent devil or in that.of a 
ferocious deity, ever ready to burst forth with fire and con- 
sume his creatures, has been of long continuance, It lies at 
the bottom of mediaeval witchcraft, and it shows itself in the 
modern “ revival-meetings” in which the religious theories of 
uneducated people still betray their close kinship with those 
of the savage. From the educated portion of the com- 
munity, however, it has entirely disappeared ; and its dis- 
appearance is manifestly due to that part of their education 
which has consisted in the scientific generalization of natural 
agencies, and in the consequent deanthropomorphization of 
their conceptions of force. We have seen that, with the | 
progress of generalization, the conception of volition is 
gradually excluded from all those groups of phenomena in 
the production of which the human will is not implicated, 
and is replaced by the conception of a uniform force, whose 
actions may be foreseen or modified, and whose effects, if 
harmful, may be avoided. Our ability to predict the simpler 
phenomena of nature has deprived them of the terrors due 
primitively to our anthropomorphic explanations of them. 
Armies retreating from destruction—like that of Nikias— 
have never been checked in their course by eclipses which 
had been foreseen ; and comets have been beheld with equa- 
nimity since they have been known to move in conic sections. 
But coincident with the progress of our ability to predict 
these simpler phenomena, has been the progress of our 
ability to modify those which are more complicated. The 
advancement of science is also the advancement of art. 
Penetrating inquisitively into the secrets of Nature, we em- 
ploy our information in extorting from her her treasures. 
Fire is not the only bad master that we have contrived to 
make a very good servant. We transform heat into motion, 
and improve our means for travelling. We change electricity 
into motion, and facilitate the transfer of intelligence. The 


on. v.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 461 


agencies which produce small-pox we compel to defeat them- 
selves. And thus, in many ways, we extract profit and 
gratification from that which is ugly and noxious; as the 
refuse of gas-works and the drainings of stables, when dealt 
with by the chemist, yield rich dyes and delicate perfumes, 
Thus, as science advances, Nature is better understood. 
As art progresses, she inflicts less pain and bestows more 
pleasure. Once hated as an enemy, she is at last revered as 
a benefactor. Gradually it comes to be perceived that all 
pain arises from disregard of her wisely-framed ordinances ; 
and that, by conformity to those ordinances, pain may ulti- 
mately be avoided. Where the ancient man saw nothing 
but capricious volition, the modern man beholds force acting 
by invariable methods. The former knew not that the pain 
under which he was writhing resulted from a violation of 
Nature’s edicts, and he sought to prevent its recurrence by 
sacrifice and supplication. The latter knows that Nature’s 
commandments are not to be broken. He knows that to 
their infringement there is attached an inevitable penalty,— 
that misery will follow disobedience, the first time, the 
second time, every time; and he therefore learns to obey. 
Matter does not put off its resistance to save from broken 
bones ; the stomach does not stop digesting, that poison may 
be innocuous ; the law which couples imprudent exposure 
with bronchitis and pneumonia will not cease to operate, 
though thousands die; nerve-tissue will not renounce its 
properties, to prevent indulgence in evil thoughts and yield- 
ing to sinful inclinations from depraving the imagination and 
weakening the will. To be delivered from evil, we must 
avola the mal-adjustments of which evil is the consequence 
and the symptom. Hence, while to the aboriginal man 
malevolence was the only conceivable source ‘of suffering, 
the reverent follower of science perceives the truth of the 
paradox that the infliction of pain is subservient to a bene- 
ticent end. “ Pervadiny all nature, he sees at work a stern 


462 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. 11 


discipline, which is a little cruel, that it may be very kind,” 
That perpetual warfare going on throughout the animal 
world, whereby those no longer fit to live are spared the 
miseries of protracted existence, is found to be also the indis- 
pensable condition of the origination of higher forms of life, 
The disappearance of savage tribes before the spread of 
civilized races, while often accompanied by unjustifiable 
agoression on the part of the stronger, is perceived to in- 
volve the increase of the sum-total of happiness. Thus, 
with Michelet, we come to regard pain as in some sort the 
artist of the world, which fashions us with the fine edge of 
a pitiless chisel, cutting away the ill-adjusted and leaving 
the nobler type to inherit the earth,! 

But note that such a solution of the mystery of pain is 
attainable only by the complete elimination of anthropo- 
morphism from the problem. Introduce a quasi-human will 
behind the series of phenomena, and we are at once con- 
fronted anew with all the difficulties mentioned in the 
chapter on Anthropomorphic Theism. The fact stands in- 
exorably before us, that a Supreme Will, enlightened by 
perfect intelligence and possessed of infinite power, might 
differently have fashioned the universe, though in ways 
inconceivable by us, so that the suffering and the waste of 

1 “Ta douleur est en quelque sorte l’artiste du monde, qui nous fait, nous 
fagonne, nous sculpte & la fine pointe d’un impitoyable ciseau. Elle retranche 
la vie débordante. Et ce ha reste, plus exyuis et plus fort, enrichi de sa 


rte méme, en tire le don d'une vie supérieure.” Michelet, L’Ocseau, p. 106, 
ompare the sublime passage concerning man, wherein Tennyson says s— 


** If su he type this work of Time 


*¢ Within himself from more to more ; 
And, crowned with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course, and show 

That life is not as idle ore ; 


“ But iron dug from central gloom, 
And heated hot with burning fears, 
And dipped in baths of hissing tears, 
And battered with the shocks of doom, 


To shape and use,” 


cH. V.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. <63 


life which characterize nature’s process of evolution might 
have been avoided, It may be said that such a supposition 
is sheer nonsense,—since we must accept, as a pre-requisite 
for all speculation on the subject, the properties of matter 
and motion as we find them, necessitating as they do the 
process of evolution as we observe it. But to say this is to 
concede all that is here maintained, and implicitly to admit 
that, instead of postulating a quasi-human Will as the source 
of phenomena, we must rest content with the recognition of 
an Inscrutable Power, of which the properties of matter 
and motion, necessitating the process of evolution, with 
pain and wrong as its concomitants, are the phenomenal 
manifestations. 

With the entire elimination of anthropomorphism, the 
conception of malevolence as the source of suffering coni- 
pletely vanishes, and the mind assumes an attitude of 
reverent resignation with reference to the workings of 
Divine power. Even such a catastrophe as the Lisbon 
earthquake, which so sorely puzzled the aged Voltaire and 
the youthful Goethe, lost its worst horrors when geology, 
discarding mythological explanations, referred it to the 
action of those same subterranean energies which are ever 
maintaining the earth in a habitable condition. The scien- 
tific inquirer must needs recognize the fact that physical 
forces will work their normal effects, though the result be 
the sending of rain alike upon the just and upon the unjust. 
The expansive energy of steam will slay not only the wicked 
engineer who has neglected his boiler, but also the innocent 
shildren peacefully piaying on the deck overhead. 

“¢ Streams will not curb their pride, 
The just man not to entomb, 


Nor lightnings go aside 
To leave his virtues room.” 


But the flood and the earthquake, like the wickedness of 
inen, in so far as the arrangements of society are not yet 


464 OOSMIC PHILOSUPHY, (Pr. 111, 


adequate for curbing it, must be accepted with’ resignation 
as part and parcel of the events which the constitution of 
our universe necessitates. Such evils, which right living 
will not guard against, furnish no excuse for ceasing to shun 
the committal of wilful wrongs which detract, to a far 
greater extent, from the fulness of life of ourselves and our 
fellow-creatures. The sanction by which the religion of the 
scientific inquirer enforces its ethical code, is the certainty 
that mal-adjustment will be followed, always by the suffer- 
ing or degradation of the wrong-doer himself, and usually by - 
the suffering of others who are innocent. And while in this 
respect there is no essential difference between the Cosmic 
and the Anthropomorphic theories, on their ethical sides, 
there is another respect in which the sanction recognized by 
the former is far more powerful, and must in time become far 
more effective, than the sanction recognized by the latter, 
For the current anthropomorphism, in this as in other 
points betraying its kinship to primeval fetishism, asserts that 
by repentance and prayer the evil effects of sin may be 
avoided. The anthropomorphic theist sees in his Deity a 
being so nearly like himself as to be willing to interfere 
with the ordinary course of things and dissociate the act of 
wrong-doing from its legitimate penalty. As the father puts 
forth his arm and saves his falling child from the natural 
consequences of a false step, so it is supposed that God will, 
in certain cases, turn aside the blow which nature has in 
store for human misdeeds. Science knows of no such inter- 
ference with the law that pain is consequent upon mal- 
adjustment.. The deed once done will work its full effects, 
save in so far as checked by counter-actions. He who has 
swallowed arsenic. will be saved, not by prayer, but by an 
emetic. He who has yielded to temptation may indeed, by 
the repentant feeling of which prayer is the expression, 
secure himself from future yielding; but the tendency to- 
ward loss of self-control. initiated by the first surrender 


cH. v.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 465 


cannot be rendered non-existent by any ex post facto act of 
contrition, though its operation may be counteracted. And 
if the misdeed, as usually happens, has involved others than 
the agent, its evil consequences must endure and ramify, 
until they at last disappear through some natural process 
of equilibration. No amount of repentance for lying can 
deprive lies of their tendency to weaken the mutual con- 
fidence of men and thus to dissolve society. The lie once 
told must work its effects, as surely as the stone dropped 
into water must give forth its arrested motion in rippling 
circles. No penance or priestly absolution can do away with 
the persistence of force. 

Obedience to the so-called “laws of nature,” which are the’ 
decrees of God, is therefore the fundamental principle of 
religion viewed practically. And, as was hinted at the close 
of the twenty-second chapter of Part II., religion, as thus 
interpreted, has a wider meaning than morality, For, as 
we saw, in the chapter referred to, that a philosophy of 
hedonism has for its subject-matter the principles of action 
conducive to the right living of the individual so far as 
his own happiness is concerned, and that a philosophy of 
morality has for its subject-matter the principles of action 
conducive to the right living of the individual so far as 
the well-being of the community is concerned ; so a philo- 
sophy of religion has for its subject-matter the relaticns of 
the individual to the Inscrutable Power manifested in the 
universe, and the principles of action conducive to his right 
living considered as a part and parcel of the universe. To 
live in conformity to Nature’s decrees, is to live morally, in 
the common acceptation of that term, and something more 
beside. For there are many actions which, as immediately 
concerning none but the individual, are technically neither 
moral nor immoral, but which nevertheless are right or 
wrong. Over-eating, for example, which can hardly be 
termed immoral, and which the current hedonism mildly 

VOL. IL. H H 


466 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. mm, 


characterizes as imprudent, may from a religious point of 
view be regarded as wrong or sinful. I cite this homely 
illustration because it leads directly to the pith and centre 
of the truth which I am seeking to explain. Hedonism, of 
which the highest principle of action is personal selfishness, 
regards the individual as having a right to do what he likes 
with his own body. Religion declares that he has no such 
right, but on the other hand has duties toward himself which 
he is as much bound to discharge as if they directly con- 
cerned other people. Religion, therefore, extends the rules 
of right and wrong primarily derived from the relations of 
the individual to the community, until they cover even the 
self-regarding actions of the individual. And what is this 
but establishing rules of action concerning the individual 
in his relations to what we call Nature or the Universe? 
Finally, as the organized moral sense takes cognizance of 
actions injurious to the community, visiting them with the 
stings of self-reproach without any direct or conscious tracing 
out of their probable injurious consequences ; so the religious 
sense takes cognizance of all actions whatsoever which come 
within the class of mal-adjustments, whether they directly 
concern the community or not, and the feeling of self-con- 
demnation arises irrespective of any direct estimate of pro- 
bable consequences, For the religious sense is primarily 
based upon the aspiration—the noblest which any creature 
can entertain—after complete fulness of life; and any 
‘thought or act, any sin of omission or of commission, in- 
consistent with such aspiration, awakens the painful con- 
«ciousness of shortcoming, without any reference to those 
cower considerations of pleasure and pain of which alone 
hedonism takes cognizance, 


Such, in brief outline, is the theory of religion which seems 
to me most thoroughly consonant with our present knowledge. 
Scanty justice can be done, in one short chapter, to so great 


cn. ¥.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT, 467 


a subject. But a detailed exposition would not be in keeping 
with the purpose of the present work. It is not my aim to 
propound «# complete theory of religion, or to prepare the way 
for the inauguration of any new religious system—for I should 
regard any undertaking of this kind as ad initio self-convicted 
of absurdity—but simply to show that it is in the power oi 
Science, without proving recreant to its own methods, to 
maintain every one of the fundamental truths which give to 
Religion its permanent value. Starting from the knowledge 
of nature which we now possess, and without making appeal 
to venerated traditions based upon the scantier knowledge 
possessed by relatively barbarous ages, I have sought to show 
that the truths already discerned and asserted in these tra- 
Uitions—the fundamental truths to which alone the traditions 
owe their pertuanent hold upon men’s minds—are in nowise 
shaken, but rather confirmed and reiterated by our present 
knowledge. For my purpuse, this has been sufficiently shown 
in the present chapter and its two predecessors. For not 
only have we seen that scientific inquiry, proceeding from its 
own resources and borrowing no hints from theology, leads to 
the conclusion that the universe is the manifestation of a 
Divine Power that is in no wise identifiable with the uni- 
verse, or interpretabie in terms of “blind force” or of any 
other phenomena! manifestation ; but we have also seen that 
the ethical relations in which man stands with reference io 
this Divine Power are substantially the same, whether de- 
scribed in terms of modern science or in terms of ancient 
mythology. And in so far as there is any difference between 
the scientific and the mythologic view of the sanctions by 
wnich these ethical relations are maintained, we have seen 
that the sanctions recognized by the former are even more 
powerful than those recognized by the latter. While, lastly, 
as regards the basis of these ethical relations, the superiority 
of the scientific view is most conspicuously manifest, Far 
from its being true, as Mr. Mivart seems to fear, that the 
HH 2 


463 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er mm 


Doctrine of Evolution leaves morality without a theoretical 
basis, it supplies for it a theoretical basis incomparably deeper 
and stronger than has ever been supplied for it by any 
anthropomorphic theory of things. For not only does the 
Doctrine show that the principles of action which the re- 
ligious instincts of men have agreed in pronouncing sacred, 
are involved in the very nature of life itself, regarded as a 
continuous adjustment; but it shows that the obligation to 
conform to these principles, instead of deriving its authority 
from the arbitrary command of a mythologic quasi-human 
Ruler, derives it from the innermost necessities of that pro- 
cess of evolution which is the perpetual revelation of Divine 
Power. He to whom the theory of evolution, in all its 
details, has become as familiar as the saws and maxims of 
the old mythology are to him who still accepts it, will recog- 
nize that to be untrue to the highest attainable ethical code 
is to be untrue to philosophy, untrue to science, untrue to 
himself. Thus in the grand equation between duty and 
action, the substitution of scientific for theological symbols 
involves no alteration of ethical values. And thus in casting 
aside the mythologic formulas in which religious obligation 
was formerly symbolized, we do but recognize the obligation 
as more binding than ever, 


In criticism of the religious theory thus briefly expounded, 
it will doubtless be urged that such religion is too abstract, 
too coldly scientific, to have any general influence upon 
action, and can therefore be of no practical value. The con- 
ception of sin as a phase of mal-adjustment will be pro- 
nounced incapable of awakening the needful feelings unless 
there be joined to it the anthropomorphic symbol of an 
offended God. And it will moreover be asserted with vehe- 
mence, that in place of a Father whom men can “love and 
venerate, we are giving them a mere philosophical formula, 
valing for no warmer feelire than calm intellectual assent 


cH. v.] RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT, 469 


Granting that our doctrine is philosophically the reverse of 
atheism, it will be urged that here extremes meet, and that. 
an infinite and therefore unknowable God is practically 
equivalent to no God at all. . 

In reply to the latter objection it is hardly necessary again 
to remind the objector that upon similar grounds, and with 
equal plausibility, the early Christians were called atheists 
by their pagan adversaries. The reproach of atheism has 
been well defined, by Mr. R. W. Mackay, to be the reproach 
which the adherents of a lower creed endeavour to cast upon 
those of a higher one. The less anthropomorphic the symbol 
by which Deity is represented, the less readily imaginable it 
is as something which can be seen, or heard, or prayed to, the 
less existent does it appear. And as we proceed to take 
away, one by one, the attributes which limit Deity, and 
enable it to be classified, we seem, no doubt, to be gradually 
destroying it altogether. Nevertheless, to him who has thus 
far intelligently followed this exposition, it will not be neces- 
sary to demonstrate that the symbolization of Deity indicated 
by the profoundest scientific analysis of to-day is as practi- 
cally real as the symbolization which has resulted from the 
attempts of antiquity to perform such an analysis, and is in 
every way more satisfactory alike to head and heart. To him 
the most refined anthropomorphism to be met with in current 
theological treatises will no doubt seem as unsatisfactory as 
the anthropomorphism of orthodox “ revivalists” must seem 
to Mr. Hutton or Mr. Mertineau. 

Indeed there are few philosophical terms which have more 
thoroughly brought out the inveterate tendency of men to 
mistake the counters of thought for its hard money than this 
term “ Unknowable.” Alike from Idealists and Positivists, 
from theologians of every school and from penny-a-liners of 
no school, we hear long arguments based upon the vague 
connotations which the word “ Unknowable” calls up, without 
any reference to the precise sense in which the symbol is 


470 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. nt 


used in Mr. Spencer’s philosophy,—nay, without even a sus- 
picion that the symbol may have a precise value in some 
measure purified from such connotations. At this stage of 
our exposition, it is enough to suggest the fallaciousness of 
‘ such argumentation, without characterizing it in detail. It 
is enough to remind the reader that Deity is unknowable just 
in so far as it is not manifested to consciousness through the 
phenomenal world,—knowable just in so far as it is thus 
manifested ; unknowable in so far as infinite and absolute,— 
knowable in the order of its phenomenal manifestations ; 
knowable, in a symbolic way, as the Power which is disclosed 
in every throb of the mighty rhythmic life of the universe; 
knowable as the eternal Source of a Moral Law which is 
implicated with each action of our lives, and in obedience 
to which lies our only guaranty of the happiness which is 
incorruptible, and which neither inevitable misfortune nor 
untherited obloquy can take away. Thus, though we may 
not by searching find out God, though we may not compass 
infinitude or attain to absolute knowledge, we may at least 
know all that it concerns us to know, as intelligent and 
responsible beings.! They who seek to know more than this, 
to transcend the conditions under which alone is knowledge 
possible, are, in Goethe’s profound language, as wise as little 
children who, when they have looked into a mirror, turn it 
around to see what is behind it. ° 
To the other objection above hinted at it may be replied 
that undoubtedly the conception of sin here developed is too 
abstract to awaken the needful feelings in any save those 
who have obtained, either through their own inquiries or by 
the aid of instruction from others, a firm grasp of some 
philosophic theory of the universe like the one crudely 
sketched in the present work. For the larger part of the 
world to-day the anthropomorphic doctrine of sin is un- 
questionably the better one—and it is the doctrine held by 
? See above, vol. i. pp. 95, 96. 


GH. V.) RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 471 


the larger part of the world. If it were possible for men to 
come by the thousand, as on a second day of Pentecost, and 
embrace the views here expounded, or others like them, 
without having slowly and surely grown to them, there would 
be great risk of their going away with a frail and unservice- 
able religious theory. But as it is absolutely certain that 
such views will never become prevalent until the scientific 
philosophy upon which they are based has become generally 
understood and accepted, and as by that time they will neces- 
sarily have come to appear quite substantial and practical 
there appears to be but little weight in the objection re- 
ferred to. 

Indeed, as the next chapter will plainly show, nothing can 
be farther from the intentions of the scientific thinker than 
the demand that contemporary society shall give up any of 
the religious doctrines with which it is able to rest contented, 
in exchange for doctrines which to all minds save those suffi- 
ciently instructed in science are likely to seem shadowy and 
over-subtle. Far from proposing to institute a new religion 
which, like Islam, is to overrun the world and wrench all 
men suddenly from their idols, our aim is simply to point 
out some of the more important modifications which current 
religious doctrines seem destined to undergo in becoming 
accepted and assimilated by thinkers whose theories of 
things are based wholly upon irrefragable scientific truths. 
That the Doctrine of Evolution, which is now the possession 
of a few disciplined minds, will eventually become the 
common property of the whole civilized portion of the 
human race, is, to say the least, very highly probable. In 
view of this probability, it seems to me a worthy end for 
our philosophic inquiry, if we can ascertain that, in spite of 
the wtal change in the symbols by which religious faith 
finds its expression, nevertheless the religious attitude of 
mankind will remain, in all essential respects, unchanged. 
I shall endeavour to show, therefore, in the following chapter, 


472 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, : [PT. m1. 


that with reference to the fundamental truths of Christianity, 
and likewise with reference to the time-honoured institutions 
which are woven into the fabric of modern society, our 
Cosmic Philosophy is eminently conservative,—owning no 
fellowship either with the radical Infidelity of the eighteenth 
century or with the world-mending schemes of Positivism, 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE CRITICAL ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY, 


Our outline-sketch of the Cosmic Philosophy based on the 
Doctrine of Evolution would remain seriously defective with- 
out some account of its critical bearing with reference to 
past and present religious beliefs and social institutions, 
Since the reception of a number of definite opinions con- 
cerning man in his relations to the universe and to his 
fellow-creatures must leave their possessor in a certain cha- 
racteristic attitude,—ageressive or sympathetic, iconoclastic 
or conservative,—toward the multitude of opposite or con- 
flicting opinions by which he is surrounded, it becomes 
desirable for us to ascertain whether the critical temper of 
our Cosmic Philosophy tends toward the subversion or the 
conservation of that complex aggregate of beliefs and ordi- 
nances which make up the social order amid which we live 
Our object will be best attained, and our results will be 
most clearly presented, if we begin by considering some of 
the philosophic contrasts between the statical and dynamical 
habits of thinking, to which attention was called in an earlier 
chapter. 

A statical view of things, as I have above defined it, is 
one which is adjusted solely or chiefly to relations existing in 
the immediate environment of the thinker. Certain groups 


44 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pT, 111. 


of physical phenomena, certain psychical prejudices, certain 
social customs, having existed with tolerable uniformity over 
a limited portion of the earth’s surface, it is assumed either 
that the given phenomena have always existed, or at least 
that they enter by divine pre-arrangement into the eternal 
order of things in such a way that any thorough-going 
alteration of them must involve universal anarchy and ruin, 
The fundamental doctrine of the philosophy which is deter- 
mined by this statical habit of interpreting phenomena, is 
the Doctrine of Creation. The world is supposed to have 
been suddenly brought into existence at some assignable 
epoch, since which time it has remained substantially un- 
altered. Existing races of sentient creatures are held to 
have been created by a miraculous fiat in accordance with 
sundry organic types which, as representing unchangeable 
ideas in the Divine Mind, can never be altered by physical 
circumstances. The social institutions also, amid which the 
particular statical theory originates, are either referred back 
to the foundation of the world, as is the case in early and 
barbaric mythologies; or else, as is the case with modern 
uneducated Christians, they are supposed to have been intro- 
duced by miracle at a definite era of history. In similar 
wise the existing order of things is legitimately to endure 
until abruptly terminated by the direct intervention of an 
extra-cosmic Power endowed with the anthropomorphic 
attributes of cherishing intentions and of acting out its 
good pleasure. Facts of paleontology, such as the extinc- 
tion of myriads of ancient animal and vegetal species, are 
explained as the result of innumerable catastrophes deter- 
mined by this same extra-cosmic Deity; and strange geo- 
logic phenomena are interpreted by the myth of a universal 
deluge which left them once for all just as we see them. 
Likewise the social institutions and the religious beliets 
now existing by express divine sanction, must remain essen- 
tially unaltered under penalty, of divine wrath as manifested 


yH. Vi. THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 46 


in the infliction upon society of the evils of atheism and 
anarchy. Hence, as the Doctrine of Creation is itself held 
to be one of these divinely-sanctioned religious beliefs, the 
scientific tendency to supersede this doctrine by the con- 
ception of God as manifested not in spasmodic acts of 
miracle, but in the gradual and orderly evolution of things, 
is stigmatized as an atheistical tendency, and the upholders 
of the new view are naturally enough accredited with a 
desire to subvert the foundations of religion and of goad 
conduct. Hence it is that even such scientific writers as 
Mr. Mivart—unable to escape the evidence in favour of 
Evolution which is supplied by their own studies, yet 
somewhat desperately clinging to the philosophic views 
which are founded upon the Doctrine of Creation—are now 
and then guilty of remarks much better befitting ignorant 
priests than men who have lived in direct contact with 
modern scientific thought. That dominance of the statical 
habit of thinking, which leads Mr. Mivart to prefer the 
irregular action of “sudden jumps” to the slow but regular 
operation of natural selection, leads him also to assert that 
the Doctrine of Evolution, as consistently held by Prof. 
Huxley, tends toward the intellectual and moral degrada- 
tion of mankind and toward the genesis of “horrors worse 
than those of the Parisian Commune!” ? 

Before proceeding to show how assertions of this sort are, 
from the evolutionist’s point of view, as reckless and absurd 
as, from Mr. Mivart’s point of view, they are justifiable and 
logical, let us note that the statical habit of thinking is by 
no means monopolized by the orthodox, or by those whose 
philosophic theories consist mainly of elements inherited 
from primeval mythology. The progress of scientific dis- 
covery since the time of Galileo and Bacon has but gradually, 
and as its newest result, established the Doctrine of Evo- 
lution; yet it has, from the very oucset, assumed a@ hostile 


2 Contemporary Review, January 1872, p. 196. 


476 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, — [pr. 111. 


attitude toward the body of mythical conceptions of which 
the current Christian theologies have been largely made up. 
The consequence of this has been the rise of a purely nega- 
tive iconoclastic style of criticism, both in religion and in 
politics, which, in spite of its deadly hostility to the pre- 
vailing orthodoxy, has nevertheless been equally characterized 
by theories and aims which are the products of the old 
statical habits of thought. While orthodoxy and its com- 
panion legitimism have regarded the existing religious and 
social order, not as a product of evolution, but as a divinely- 
appointed and therefore eternally sacred order of things; 
on the other hand iconoclasm, whether manifested in religion 
or in polities, has regarded the existing order of things, not 
as a product of evolution, but as the work of artful priests 
and legislators of antiquity, which may accordingly be 
destroyed as summarily as it was created. Even while 
justly inveighing, therefore, against patent absurdities or 
flagrant wrongs in the established order of things, the icono- 
clast proceeds from a point of view as untenable as that 
occupied by his orthodox antagonist. Rejecting the mythical 
conception of the established order as in any especial sense 
divinely-appointed, he nevertheless borrows from the old 
mythology its notion of cataclysms, and vainly imagines 
that beliefs and institutions which suit the intellectual and 
moral needs of half the world can be incontinently eradicated 
or overthrown by direct assaults from withont, Reasoning, 
then, upon this inadequate basis, and being as incapable of 
appreciating sympathetically the beliefs of a bygone age as 
his orthodox opponent is incapable of emancipating himself 
from such beliefs, the controversy between the two becomes 
naturally barren of profit though fruitful in recrimination ; 
and each regards the other with a dislike or a distrust which, 
though justifiable enough when considered from the points of 
view respectively occupied by the antagonists, nevertheless 


SH. VI.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY, 477 


seems barbaric or childish to those who have reached a higher 
stand-point, 

This higher stand-point is furnished by what I have called 
the dynamical habit of looking at things as continually 
changing in a definite and irreversible order of sequence. 
That this habit should not have been acquired, save by two 
or three isolated minds, until the present century, is not to 
be wondered at, since for the full acquirement of it there is 
needed a familiarity with scientific conceptions of genesis 
which could not have been gained at any earlier date. But 
as soon as the tendency to contemplate all phenomena as 
the products of preceding phenomena has become fairly 
established, a marked change is noticeable in the current 
style of criticism. The comparative method is found to be 
as applicable to religious beliefs and social or political in- 
stitutions as it is to placental mammals or to pluperfect 
tenses. And so the habit of regarding the existing order of 
things as on the one hand ordained of God or on the other 
hand maliciously contrived by the Devil gradually fades 
away, and is replaced by the habit of regarding it as evolved 
from some preceding order of things, and as in turn destined 
normally to evolve some future order. Hence the evolutionist 
perceives that it is not by mere controversial argument that 
mankind can be led to exchange the mythological for the 
scientific point of view. He regards the process as one, not 
of sudden conversion, but of slow growth, which can be 
accomplished only by the gradual acquirement of new habits 
of thought,—habits that are formed day by day and year by 
year, in the course of a long contact, whether immediate or 
not, with the results of scientific inquiry. Thus the evolu- 
tionist owns no fellowship with Jacobins and Infidels, fer 
he has learned that engrained habits of thought and favourite 
theories of the world, being the products of circumstances, 
must be to a certain extent adapted to the circumstances 
amid which they exist; and he knows that they cannot be 


478 es COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [PT. 111. 


dcstroyed, and ought not to be destroyed, save as they are 
gradually supplanted by habits of thought that are relatively 
more accurate and by theories of the world that are relatively 
more complete. 

In view of these considerations we may the better com- 
prehend the significance—upon which I formerly (Part I. 
chap. vii.) insisted—of the change in the attitude of philo- 
sophy of which Comte’s celebrated doctrine of the “ Three 
Stages ” was partly the cause and partly the symptom. In 
spite of his hostility to the Doctrine of Evolution, in most of 
the forms in which he came into contact with it as techni- 
cally stated, Comte was nevertheless thoroughly inspired by 
the comparative method, so far as the study of history was 
concerned. As far as was possible with his slender scientific 
resources, he looked at human affairs with the eye of an 
evolutionist. When he announced it as a law that every 
human conception must pass through three stages—the theo- 
logical, the metaphysical, and the positive—though his state- 
ment was a crude one, it nevertheless clearly showed that a 
time had come when opinions were no Jonger to be tried by 
their conformity to some absolute standard, whether of ortho-— 
doxy or of radicalism, but were henceforth to be estimated 
in their relations to the circumstances which had given rise 
to them. 

Those who have most carefully studied the iconoclastic phi- 
losophy of Voltaire and the Eneyclopédistes of the eighteenth 
century, will best appreciate the character and extent of the 
revolution in the attitude of philosophy which was effected 
«y this new method of criticism. In the opinion of those 
metaphysical thinkers, everything old was wrong, and any- 
thing new was likely to be right. They classified men, not 
relatively, as ancients, medizevals and moderns, but absolutely 
as fools and philosophers; the philosophers being all who 
subscribed to the doctrines of the Encyclopédie, the fools 
being all those who believed in miracles or in a personal God 


eH. VI.) THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 479 


So utterly destitute were they of that historic sense which 
enables the critic to enter into the spirit of the epoch which 
he is criticizing, that they could not interpret the mythology 
of antiquity and the theologic dogmas of the medieval 
Church otherwise than as a set of ingenious devices con- 
trived by priests and rulers for the ensnaring and subjugation 
of mankind. Perhaps nothing can better illustrate the bar- 
renness of their point of view than their undiscriminating 
admiration for the emperor Julian, whose memory they 
exalted because of his attempt to stop the progress of Chris- 
tianity; this being the very reason for which that monarch > 
is now justly regarded as one of the most blindly retrograde 
statesmen that ever lived. Such was their criticism—a mere 
bald negation and disavowal of all that had preceded them. 
And such being their criticism, such also was their political 
philosophy—an unqualified protest, primarily against feudal- 
ism, monopoly and divine right, but ultimately, as carried out 
by Rousseau, against all constraint whatever of man by man, 
and therefore against the very constitution of society. The 
immortal pamphlet in which this greatest of sophists sought 
to demonstrate that all civilization, all science, and all specu- 
lative culture is but an error and a failure, and that tue 
only remedy lies in a return to primitive barbarism,—was 
the legitimate outcome and reductio ad absurdum of a philo- 
sophy which began by forcibly severing itself from all historic 
sympathy with the time-hallowed traditions of our race. 
Such a philosophy may end, as it has ended, in anarchy of 
thought, but not in rational conviction. It cannot organize 
a new framework of opinions, nor can it even thoroughly 
accomplish the task of destroying the old framework. It 
may indeed, as it has done here and there, knock the vener- 
able edifice into unshapely ruin, but it cannot sweep away 
the cumbersome débris, and leave the ground clear for the 
erection of a new and niore permanent structure. It dis- 
credits altogether too profoundly the earnest work of that 


480 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 111, 


average human intelligence of past times, from which all 
our individual intelligences, with all their real or fancied 
enlightenment, are both by instruction and by inheritance 
derived. To refute the medizval conception of the world, 
without accounting for its long predominance, was to leave 
it but half refuted. And accordingly, when this negative 
philosophy was brought to a practical test by the Revolution 
of 1789, its inefficiency, both for construction of the new, 
and for thorough destruction of the old, was made painfully 
manifest. It soon became evident that more than one brick 
of the medieval edifice had been left standing, to serve as 
an obstruction. In France—then the centre of the European 
intellectual movement—there set in a powerful reaction. 
Against the revolutionary school of negative philosophers 
and anarchical statesmen, there asserted itself a retrograde 
school, which saw no escape save in a return to the medieval 
conception of the world and a renewal of adherence to 
medieval principles of action. This retrograde movement was 
represented in politics by Napoleon, the latter half of whose 
eareer was characterized by the conscious effort to imitate 
the achievements of Charles the Great; in literature by 
Chateaubriand ; in psychology by Laromiguiére and Maine 
de Biran; and in general philosophy by Joseph de Maistre, 
The last-named writer, who, for reasons easily explicable, 
has been too little studied, and whose true position in the 
history of thought Comte was the first to perceive and point 
out, will perhaps be remembered by future generations as 
the last heroic champion of a lost cause. Like Don Diego 
Garcia, whom Cervantes has immortalized, this unterrified 
knight took it upon himself to defend single-handed the 
fastnesses of medizval theology against the whole invading 
army of modern scientific conceptions. With that uncom- 
promising fanaticism which characterizes men who abandon 
eritical reflection in order to constitute themselves the advo- 
tates of a cause, De Maistre undertook to annihilate physica} 


oH. VI] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 481 


science and the group of philosophic notions to which its 
discoveries had given rise. According to him, Kant was an 
ignorant charlatan, Bacon an atheist in hypocritical dis- 
guise, and the so-called Baconian philosophy “a spiritless 
materialism,” uncertain and unsteady in its expression, frivo- 
lous in tone, and full of fallacies in every assertion. In place 
of this “spiritless materialism” he would give us the full- 
blown Catholicism of the days of Hildebrand, every subse- 
quent variation from which has, in his opinion, been due, not 
to disinterested seeking after higher truth, but to a madness of 
neologism, a diseased craving after new and strange devices, 
In these interesting opinions—interesting because they 
come, not from a peevish and ignorant priest, but from a 
man of wide culture, worldly wisdom, and undoubted intel- 
lectual power—may be seen the violence of the reaction 
against that negative philosophy which, in its effort to break 
entirely with the past, had assisted in bringing about the 
speculative atheism and practical anarchy of 1793. We have 


now to note that, from the statical point of view which he 


occupied, De Maistre was perfectly right in regarding modern 
scientific thought as an enemy to society which must be put 
down at whatever cost. For as modern science had not yet 
reached that conception of gradual change which underlies 
the Doctrine of Evolution, while it had become distinctly 
conscious of its hostility to the current mythologies, it as- 
sumed the attitude of Atheism with reference to Christian 
theology and of Jacobinism with reference to the institu- 
tions of Christian society. Now it is perfectly true that 
the practical outcome of these kindred forms of icono- 
elasm, could they be allowed to have their way unhindered, 
would be the dissolution of society and the return to primeval 
barbarism. or since it is impossible for a given state of 
tivilization to be made to order, even by the greatest political 
;enius, or to be produced in any way save by evolution from 
an antecedent state, it follows that the dissolution of the 
VOL, II, II 


492 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [ex. 1m, 


social relations existing at any epoch would simply leave the 
work of civilization to be (at least, to a great extent) done 
over again. An instructive historical example of such a dis- 
solution of social relations, partially effected, and of the 
consequent partial return toward barbarism, is to be found 
in the history of Romanized Europe from the fourth to the 
tenth centuries of the Christian era. And as this partial 
dissolution cannot be referred solely to the barbaric attacks 
from without—which during at least seven centuries had 
been steadily kept up without impairing the integrity of the 
Empire—it must be referred to causes operative within; to 
the demoralization consequent upon general scepticism as to 
_ the validity of the principles of action by which men had 
formerly been guided. Now the violent breaking up of the 
feudal and medieval Christian system, which occurred 
during the last century, was attended by some of the same 
dangerous symptoms as those which marked the dissolution 
of ancient polytheism and ancient notions of civic patriotism; 
though in-the modern case the succession of phenomena 
was more rapid, and there were no assaults from outside 
barbarism to complicate matters. We have lately remarked 
upon the curious phenomenon of a free-thinker, like Rous- 
seau, openly advocating a return to barbarism, upon the 
ground—which admirably illustrates his statical view of 
things—that social relaticns were due to a primitive con- 
tract, from which the contracting parties might at any time 
withdraw. It is also worth noting that, under the practical 
application of Rousseau’s doctrines by his apparently well- 
meaning but narrow-minded and fanatical disciple, Robes- 
pierre, the rejection of Christianity was followed by an act 
of adoration toward a courtesan which would have been 
more in keeping with early polytheistic ages, and the over- 
throw of feudal tyranny was followed by a mode of settling 
political questions such as is normally practised only among 
cocieties of primitive type. It is significant also, to the 


See ae 


oH, VI. ] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 483 


evolutionisv, that this partial dissolution of social relations 
should have been followed by that disgraceful epoch in 
which principles of international equity worthy only of 
Attila or Genghis Khan were embodied in the barbarous 
ethical code of the First Empire. 

A still more complete illustration of the tendency of pure 
iconoclasm toward social dissolution is to be found in certain 
radical theories concerning labour, property, and marriage, 
which have been current during the present century among 
people untrained in science and unfamiliar with the lessons 
of history, and which played their part in shaping the 
policy of the Parisian Commune of 1871. For the purposes 
of our inquiry it is not necessary for me to offer a matured 
judgment concerning this unfortunate historical transaction 
in all its actual complexity, even were I competent to do so. 
It is enough for us to remember that among those political 
leaders who sought to inaugurate the reign of the Commune, 
a considerable number professed to hold the doctrines com- 
monly known as communistic, and that the social relations 
which they were intent upon establishing are precisely those 
which Sir Henry Maine has shown to have existed among 
primeval men, and which exist to-day among the lowest 
races. This desire to return to the community of property 
and of wives characteristic of primitive savagery, to regulate 
human concerns by status and not by contract, to crush out 
capital and with it the possibility of any industrial integra- 
tion, to abolish the incentives which make man sow to-day 
that he may reap in the future, to destroy social differentia- 
tion by constraining all persons alike to manual labour, to 
strangie intellectual progress by permitting scientific inquiry 
only to such as might succeed in convincing a committee of 
ignorant workmen that their discoveries were likely to be 


practically useful, to smother all individualism under a social 


tyranny more absolute than the Hindu despotism of caste ; 


this desire, it is obvious, is simply the abnormal desire to 


ise Mee 


484 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (er. in. 


undo every one of the things in the doing of which we have 
seen that social evolution consists. It is, in short, the theory 
of Rousseau unflinchingly carried into details, though, in defer- 
ence to the watchwords of the present age, it is couched in 
expressions which imply a sympathy with human progress. 
For such abnormal plenomena as those of the Terror and 
the Commune, there is no doubt a deeper cause than the 
prevalence of anarchical social and religious theories. Such 
phenomena are strictly analogous to those of disease, indi- 
eating that sundry social functions are out of balance, and 
that the social organism is violently striving to regain equi- 
librium even at the risk of premature dissolution, Scienti- 
fically considered, the Commune was a case of retrograde 
metamorphosis, quite analogous to cancer in the individual 
organism ; and it was due to a minor failure of adjustment 
incident upon a rapid change in the social environment. 
Increased wealth and a heightened standard of comfortable 
living, entailing prolonged labour and more intense brain- 
work, leave the least industrious and intelligent members of 
the community in misery little removed from starvation. 
And while under the unchecked operation of natural selec- 
tion these unadapted members of the community would 
soon perish, as the lunatic and the drunkard would perish, 
we nevertheless save them artificially, as we artificially 
protect the drunkard and the lunatic; and we do so rightly, 
because the repression of our humanitarian feelings would 
entail far greater damage to society than the survival of 
these incapables. But in surviving they constitute a growth 
of a lower order of vitality, like a cancer implanted in nobler 
tissues, and their effort is to abolish a civilization of which 
their own misery is, for the time being, the inevitable result, 
and to reinstate that primitive order of things in which the 
strong fist and the strong passions were not yet at the mercy 
ot the keen intelligence and the large capacity for toil. 
Ulere, as in the case of the abnormal individual desires 


ba. Vi.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 485 


treated in the concluding chapter of Part II, we find’a 
number of unadjusted cravings which natural selection can 
but imperfectly deal with, and which it must be left for some 
process of direct adaptation slowly to adjust. An analogous 
though not entirely similar explanation will apply to the 
ease of Robespierre and the Terror. 

But while such pathological phenomena can by no means 
be explained as solely due to certain anarchical theories 
social and religious, it still remains true that between the 
abnormal social phenomena and the anarchical theories there 
is a very close kinship; such that the theory finds itself 
practically incarnated in the social event, while it is through 
the anarchical theory that the abnormal social event finds 
itself redeemed from the odium attaching to sheer criminal 
malevolence, and entitled to that slight modicum of credit 
which we are wont to accord to sincerity when allied with 
destructive fanaticism. It is as true that the iconoclastic 
theory naturally lends itself to the purposes of the Jacobin 
or the Communist, as it is that the Jacobin or the Com- 
munist naturally justifies to himself his purposes by. an 
appeal to the iconoclastic theory. Hence it is undeniable 
that when modern scientific thought, not yet having reached 
a Jynamical view of things, allied itself to the spirit of mere 
negative protest against existing beliefs and institutions, it 
might well have seemed to a thinker like De Maistre to be 
irreconcilably hostile to all the habits and aspirations which 
give tu civilized life its value. 

Now the dynamical view of things, however crudely an- 
nounced by Comte in his theory of the “Three Stages,’ 
differed. widely from the statical view of De Maistre; for ii 
proclaimed that we must found our general conception of the 
_ world and our plans for social amelioration upon a synthesis 

of special scientific truths, established by the use of the 
objective method, and not upon a congeries of theological 
dogmas, established originally by the use of the subjective 


486 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. = ~— (pr. mm 


method, and afterwards certified only by a perennial appeal 
to some authority assumed as infallible. It differed equally 
from the statical view represented by the iconoclasm of the 
eighteenth century ; for it said, we cannot ignore the past, 
or treat it with contumely: the men who originated mytho- 
logical explanations of natural phenomena were neither 
knaves nor the dupes of knaves, but genuine philosophers 
who made the best use of such implements of research as 
lay before them: men’s conceptions of the world have been | 
progressively stripped of their anthropomorphic vestments, 
and the scientific mode of thought, which, manifesting itself 
here and there in fragmentary generalizations, has all along 
been determining the progress, must ultimately, organized 
in a series of grand, all-embracing generalizations, reign 
supreme: the history of human thought is thus a develop- 
ment, and each creed or system, no matter how absurd it 
may at first appear, is a phase of that development; so that 
to construct a philosophy or a polity de novo, out of abstract 
principles, without reference to the concrete facts of past 
history, is simply to build a castle in the air. 

Thus would Comte have answered on the one hand the 
Jacobins and on the other hand the Ultramontanes, with 
both of whom he has, by a strange but not inexplicable fate, 
been charged with owning fellowship. Thus we arrive at 
the philosophic explanation of the unparalleled range of his 
historic sympathies, of the generous recognition which he 
was ever ready to accord to the crude but needful and ser- 
viceable beliefs and institutions of earlier ages, and ‘to their 
representative men of whatever creed. And thus, too, we 
are enabled to appreciate one of Comte’s principal reasons 
for calling his system of philosophy “ Positive.” In sharp 
contrast with the negative philosophy of the atheists and 
Jacobins, its purpose was not to overthrow old beliefs by an 
assault from without, but to construct, upon the basis of the 
yositive truths already furnished by science, a 1.ew system of 


cH. Vt] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOFBFY. 487 


beliefs, which should account for the old ones and supplant 
them by sheer force of its superior catholicity. For five 
ceniuries, said Comte, science has been arrayed in apparent 
hostility to religion, and philosophy has been chiefly employed 
in disintegrating Christian theology and feudalism: the time 
has now come for this negative work to be regarded only as 
incidental to the positive work of integrating scientific truths 
into a body of philosophic doctrine, upon which may ulti 
mately rest a new theory of religion and a reorganized social 
polity. 

As thus described, the critical attitude assumed by Posi- 
tivism may appear to be identical with that which is the 
result of a thorough adherence to the Doctrine of Evolution. 
There is, however, a profound difference between the position 
of the evolutionist and that of the positivist, which it is well 
worth our while to characterize at some length, even at the 
risk cf an apparent digression. Our subject is so very com- 
plex, by reason of the wide range of its practical applications, 
that we shall be greatly helped—as we have already on many 
occasions been helped—by contrasting our own view with 
that Comtean view which superficially resembles it, When 
we have noticed the two great errors—both of them due to 
imperfect apprehension of the nature of evolution, which left 
Comte, in spite of himself, in an attitude of hostility both 
to the current Christian theology and to the existing frame- 
work of society, we shall have virtually illustrated, with 
satisfactory clearness, our own conservative point of view. 

In the chapter on Anthropomorphism and Cosmism the 
first of the two fatal errors of Positivism was elaborately 
described and criticized. It was shown that, although by his 
theory of the three stages Comte announced his philosophy 
as a continuous development from older theological philo- 
sophies, and although he declared himself determined not to 
break with the past, yet nevertheless his explicit ignoring of 
Deity constituted in itself a breach with the past which no 


488 OCOSMIO PHILOSOPITY, (pr. 111. 


amount of continuity in other respects could remedy or atone 
for, We saw that, in spite of their numberless superficial 
differences, all historic religions have been at one in the 
affirmation of a Supreme Power upon which man is de- 

ndent ; and we saw that with respect to this affirmation 
our Cosmic Philosophy is as much at one with Christianity 
as Christianity is at one with older religious philosophies, 
On the other hand it is self-evident that there can be no 
continuity of development between a system of thought 
which affirms this truth and a system of thought which 
either denies it, like Atheism, or ignores it, like Positivism, 
In this respect it cannot be questioned that Comte broke 
with the past as completely as if he had been a dogmatic 
atheist. Hence is to be explained his utterly unphilosophical 
attempt to found a new religion, In his earlier scheme no 
place is left for religion at all; but when, by an afterthought, 
le recognized the existence in mankind of a religious senti- 
ment which demands satisfaction, his ignoring of Deity led 
iim to the construction of an artificial religious scheme from 
which the essential element of religion was entirely omitted, 
Ifud he recognized this essential element, he would have — 
seen that the time for instituting new religions has long 
since passed by, and that religious progress in future is 
possible only through the gradual evolution of Christianity 
itself into higher and higher forms, 

The second fatal error in Positivism is the opinion that 
society can be reorganized by philosophy. To demonstrate 
anew the fallaciousness of this opinion, which underlies the 
whole Comtean effort to reconstruct human society after a 
utopian model, would be but to repeat the arguments which 
have formed the woof of our chapters on sociology, If there 
is any convincing power in the multitude of mutually har- 
moniows proofs which were there accumulated, we must be 
already convinced that men are civilized, not by a mere 
change in their formulas of belief, but only by a change in 


on. vi.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY, 489 


their type of character which can be effected only through a 
considerable lapse of time, This is the reason why civiliza- 
tions cannot be made, but must grow. We diffor from the 
ancient Angles and Saxons, not so much because we know 
more than they knew, as because we have undergone fifteen 
centuries more of social discipline which has perceptibly 
modified our character, and with it our moral ideals, If 
Comte had ever tirmly grasped the theorem “that society is 
to be reorganized only by the accumulated effects of habit 
upon character,” he would have held himself aloof from 
projects which could have no meaning save on the hypothesis 
that society can be reorganized by philosophy. He would 
have seen that though the fruit of the tree of knowledge 
may make us like gods, knowing good and evil, it is only the 
tree of life which can renovate our souls and fit us for 
Paradise. 

But now, since society grows, but is not made; since men 
cannot be taught a higher state of civilization, but can only 
be bred into it; it follows that the whole Comtean attempt 
to construct an ideal Polity, including a new religion and 
new social institutions, was—save as a warning for future 
thinkers—just so much labour thrown away. After all his 
profound and elaborate survey of human history, Comte 
strangely forgot that the sum-total of beliefs and institutions 
in the twentieth century will be the legitimate offspring of 
the sum-total of beliefs and institutions in the nineteenth, 
but can in no case be the offspring of an individual intellect, 
even were that intellect ten times more powerful than 
Comte’s, No individual will has ever succeeded in re- 
modelling society in conformity to a prescribed ideal, Per- 
haps no single man, if we except the Founder of Christianity, 
has ever made his individual character and genius count for 
so much in the subsequent direction of human events as 
Julius Cesar. But Owsar never reconstructed society, and, 
though not instructed in the Doctrine of Evolution, would 


490 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. Dem arn 


have felt such a task to be simply an impossibility. The 
secret of Cesar’s greatness, and of his success, lay in tha 
wondrous common-sense with which he perceived the true 
significance of contemporary events, and in’ the unflinching 
perseverance with which he wrought out the political system 
for which society was already yearning, and which the cir. 
cumstances of the times rendered indispensable to the main- 
tenance of civilization. This has been the secret of the 
success of all statesmen of the highest order; of Charles the 
Great and Hildebrand, as well as of William the Silent, 
Edward I. of England, Henry IV. of France, and Richelieu. - 
By a sagacious instinct these great men felt, though they 
could not scientifically explain, the direction in which 
human affairs were naturally tending; and it was because 
they shaped their efforts with a view to assist, and not to 
check or warp, the resistless tendencies of society, that they 
succeeded in stamping their individualities so . powerfully 
upon history. It is from the lack of this sagacity that the 
ablest retrograde statesmen have either failed utterly, or at 
best succeeded only in working wanton mischief. Julian, 
and Philip II. of Spain, occupied positions which enabled 
them to wield enormous power, and the former was a man of 
signal ability and undoubtedly good intentions. Yet Julian 
wholly failed to sce that Platonic Paganism, however well 
adapted it may have been to the sporadic, municipal civiliza- 
tion of antiquity, was no longer adapted to the intellectual 
and moral needs of men living under the Roman Empire. 
Hence his insensate attempt to destroy the only religious 
organization capable of holding society together during the 
perilous times that were coming; an attempt which his 
early death fortunately frustrated before it had been per- 
sisted in long enough to work much social disturbance. 
Philip IL, a man of mediocre ability and: hopelessly vulgar 
egoism, might yet have done a good work, could he ever have 
been brought to understand the way in which the world wag 


oH. VI.) THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 491 


moving, and would move in spite of him. Yet he thought 
to establish in Romanized Europe an Oriental patriarchai 
cespotism, and he thought by mere brute force to bring over 
half the civilized world to a religious system which it had 
for ever discarded. And thus, though he wielded a power 
such as no man for centuries had wielded before him, he 
achieved absolutely nothing. At the end of his evil career, 
he was farther from each of his cherished aims than at the 
beginning. The physical power of Spain was exhausted in 
the vain effort to stem the course of events, and all the 
credit the son of Charles V. ever earned was that of being 
one of the most mischievous among the enemies of the 
human race. 

Now, our practical object in studying human progress 
scientifically is to be able to arrive at certain definite general 
principles of statesmanship. In every branch of speculative 
or practical activity, men begin by reasoning from parti- 
culars to particulars, accomplishing their results by a kind 
of sagacious instinct which hits upon the means requisite 
for attaining a given end. But after a while, as science pro- 
gresses, they establish general principles of action, and work 
with a distinct consciousness of the adaptation of the means 
employed to the end proposed. From being instinctive and 
irregular, their proceedings become ratiocinative and sys- 
tematic ; witness the whole history of industrial art. And, 
as that history shows, the more intelligent and coherent the 
course of proceeding, the less is the time and effort wasted 
in vain experiment. It is just the same in politics. We need 
to understand the conditions essential to progress, and the 
direction which progress is taking, that we may avoid the 
mischief entailed by stupid and ignorant legislation, and 
secure the benefits arising from legislation that is scientifi- 
eally conceived and put into operation with a distinct con- 
sciousness of the ends to be secured. We need sociology 
that we may not waste our energies and damage society in 


492 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (pr. 11, 


opposing the very reforms which a little science might tell 
us that the community requires and will have, sooner or 
later, in spite of us. I do not mean to say that a knowledge 
of the Jaws of history will alone suffice to make us states- 
men. Science and art are two different things, and so are 
scientific genius and practical genius. But if a Themistokles 
or a Hildebrand were to arise among us, he would be all 
the more useful for working in conformity to scientific prin- 
ciples, instead of trusting solely to his native sagacity. It 
is when genius works with vision that it achieves its utmost. 
And when we cannot have genius, by all means let us have 
vision, so far as science can impart it to us. Daily we grow 
indignant over the hand-to-mouth policy of our legislators, 
which inflicts so much needless suffering, and makes it so 
much harder for all of us to earn our bread. But we must 
remember that such a policy is the natural outcome of a 
foolish neglect of the lessons which history has to teach, 
and which may be read by anyone who holds the scientific 
clue to them. 

Such is our practical object, and our sole practical object, 
in studying sociology as a science. To attempt to construct 
an ideal polity, by adopting which society is to remodel 
itself, is to show that we have studied that science to little 
purpose. For if history can teach us anything, it can teach 
us that civilization is a slow growth, of which no one can 
foresee, save in its most general features, the final result; 
far less force that result prematurely merely by appeals to 
men’s judgment. 

How utterly Comte ignored all this—the plain teaching 
both of historic induction, and of deduction from the laws 
of organic life—can be appreciated only when we read the 
insane pages in which he attempts to predict the immediate 
future. He hy no means intended that society should wait 
till a remote era for the entire realization of his project, In 
geven years the control of public education in France was te 


cH. VI.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILDSOPHY, 493 


be given to Comte. In twelve years the Emperor Napoleon 
was to resign in favour of a Comtist triumvirate. In thirty- 
three years the religion of Humanity was to be definitely esta- 
blished. As Mr. Mill says, “a man may be deemed happy, 
but scarcely modest, who had such boundless confidence in 
his own powers of foresight, and expected to complete a 
triumph of bis own ideas on the reconstitution of society 
within the possible limits of his life-time. If he could live 
(he said) to the age of Fontenelle, or of Hobbes, or even 
of Voltaire, he should see all this realized, or as good as 
realized.” : 

But what we have here to note is not especially the 
personal conceit of the project, or the marks of insanity 
clearly indicated in these inordinate expectations; what we 
have to note is the mode of genesis of this wild scheme. 
Extravagant beyond all comparison as Comte’s proposals for 
remodelling religion and society undoubtedly were, they can 
nevertheless be easily traced, in their general outlines, back 
to the two errors which I have above signalized as the 
fundamental errors of Positivism. The first error—the 
ignoring of Deity—necessitated a complete rupture with 
Christian forms of religion; and the second error—the 
belief that society can be reorganized by a change in 
formulas of belief—led naturally to the attempt to sub- 
stitute a new religion for Christianity and a new kind of 
civilization for the existing civilization. Thus in spite of 
his keen historic appreciation of the excellence of Chris- 
tianity, and in spite of his sympathetic critical attitude, 
was Comte logically forced into a position quite as unte- 
nable as that held by the atheists and Jacobins. And now 
let us observe how, even as with these iconoclasts, the 
social state which Comte expected to substitute within 
forty years for the existing social state, was in all essential 
respects a retrogradation toward a more primitive structure 
of society. The positivist utopia is not indeed a return te 


494 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [er. 111. 


pristine savagery, like the utopia of Rousseau and his fol- 
lowers, but it is a reversion toward a spiritual despotism, 
such as was realized in ancient Egypt, and such as might 
perhaps have been realized in medizeval Europe, had not the 
policy of the Emperors opposed a salutary check to the policy 
of the Popes. In the chapter on the Evolution of Society, we 
found it to be the chief characteristic distinguishing social 
progress from the lower orders of organic evolution, that 
individuals, regarded as units of the community, are con-. 
tinually acquiring greater and greater freedom of action, 
consistently with the stability of the community. Now 
Comte’s ideal state of society is a state in which the units 
of the community possess no more individual freedom than 
the cells which make up the tissues of a vertebrate animal. 
It is an absolute spiritual despotism,—or if not technically 
a despotism, we may at least say of it, as Mr. Grote says of 
Plato’s imaginary commonwealth, that it is a state in which 
existence would be intolerable to anyone not shaped upon 
the Comtean model. Public opinion is to be controlled by 
a priestly class of philosophers, against whose authority all 
revolt would be as useless as the rebellion of a medieval 
monarch against a papal interdict. As Mr. Spencer sums 
it up: the Comtist “ideal of society is one in which 
government is developed to the greatest extent, in which 
slass-functions are far more under conscious public regula- 
tion than now, in which hierarchical organization with 
unquestioned authority shall guide everything—in which 
the individual life shall be subordinated in the greatest 
degree to the social life.” Now this cannot be unless the 
‘ development of society as it has hitherto proceeded is to 
be diametrically reversed. As our whole inquiry into the 
process of social evolution has taught us, “the form of 
society towards which we are progressing is one in which 
government will be reduced to the smallest amount possible, 
and /reedom increased to the greatest amount possible; one 


oH. V1.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY, 495 


in which human nature will have become so moulded by 
social discipline into fitness for the social state, that it will 
need little external restraint, but will be self-restrained ; 
oue in which the citizen will tolerate no interference with 
his freedom, save that which maintains the equal freedom 
of others; one in which the spontaneous cooperation which 
has developed our industrial system, and is now developing 
it with increased rapidity, will produce agencies for the dis- 
charge of nearly all social functions, and will leave to the 
primary governmental agency nothing beyond the function 
of maintaining those conditions to free action, which make 
such spontaneous cooperation possible; one in which 
individual life will thus be pushed to the greatest extent 
consistent with social life; and in which social life will 
have no other end than to maintain the completest sphere 
for individual life.” 4 

‘ If the scrutiny of these contrasted theorems still leaves 
us in any doubt as to the retrograde character of Comte’s 
ideal society, a single practical illustration will more than 
suffice to convince us. We have seen that certain Jacobins 
of the Commune announced their intention to permit scien- 
tific research only to such persons as might succeed in 
convincing an examining-committee of average citizens that 
their researches were likely to be of direct practical value. 
I need not say that, if such a rule could be enforced, the 
intellectual advancement of mankind would be instantly 
arrested. It is interesting to observe that Comte enter- 
tained an intention not wholly dissimilar to this. Disgusted 
with the insatiable curiosity which leads scientific thinkers 
to pry into the secrets of nature in all directions at once, 
often spending years upon subjects which to self-complacent 
gnorance or Philistinism seem entirely trivial, Comte 
enacted that “some one problem should always be selected, 
ihe solution of which would be more important than any 


1 Spencer, Recent Discussicns, p. 128, 


496 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, (PT. 111, 


other to the interests of humanity, and upon this the entire 
intellectual resources of the theoretic mind should be con- 
centrated, until it is either resolved, or has to be given up as 
insoluble ; after which mankind should go on to another, to 
be pursued with similar exclusiveness.” It only remains 
to add that this all-important problem was to be prescribed 
by the High Priest of Humanity. When now, knowing as 
we do Comte’s intense aversion to certain kinds of inquiry, 
we consider what would have been the result could such 
a system have gone into operation forty years ago; when we 
reflect that Bessel would never have been allowed to measure 
the parallax of a star, that the cell-doctrine in biology would 
have been hopelessly doomed, that Mr. Darwin’s researches 
would have been prohibited as useless, that the correlation 
of forces would have still remained undiscovered, that psy- 
chology would have been ruled out once for all, that the new 
chemistry would not have come into existence, and that 
spectrum analysis would never have been heard of; when 
we reflect upon all this, we may well thank God for the 
constitution of things which makes it impossible that the 
well-being of the human race should ever be irrevocably 
staked upon the wisdom or folly of a single speculative 
thinker. | 

So far as our present purpose is concerned, it would be 
time worse than wasted to present in further detail Comte’s 
purely whimsical and arbitrary proposals for the remodelling 
of society. As questions of philosophy they possess neither 
interest nor value: they are interesting solely as throwing 
light upon the morbid psychology of a powerful mind, fertile 
in suggestions, but hopelessly deficient in humour. Whoever 
wishes to learn their character can do so at the expense of 
wading through one of the most dismal books in all literature 
—the Catéchisme Positiviste. Enough has been said to esta- 
blish the fact that in breaking with the past and seeking to 


Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 164. a 


cH. ¥1.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 197 


remodél religion and society artificially, Comte yielded to 
the inevitable necessity which compels the would-be recon- 
structor of society to remodel it ideally upon a lower type 
than that which actually exists. He would have given us a 
religion without God and a society without freedom of action. 

If we now pause for a moment, and gather up tlie different 
threads of the argument, we shall assist the comprehension 
of our own position, presently to be stated. Let us, then, 
contemplate in a single view the conclusions deducible from 
the foregoing series of criticisms. 

We have seen the old statical habit of thought, as repre- 
sented in the Doctrine of Creation, manifesting itself in 
rigid orthodoxy, both in religion and in politics. We have 
observed the way in which modern scientific inquiry, detect- 
ing numberless absurdities or anomalies in the religious and 
political orthodoxy inherited from medizval times, yet 
retaining and carrying into its criticisms the statical habit 
of thought, has assumed an iconoclastic attitude with refer- 
ence to the existing order of things. We have traced this 
iconoclastic attitude in the modern history of Atheism and 
Jacobinism, and have noted how its tendency is in the 
direction of social dissolution, We have found that the 
only possible result of a sudden and violent aiteration of the 
existing order of things must be a retrogradation toward some 
lower order of things, characteristic of some less advanced 
type of civilization. And of this fatal necessity we have 
seen the most instructive example in the career of the 
Positive Philosophy. Though it had partially compassed, 
in an empirical fashion, the notion of development; though 
it wes fully alive to the barrenness of iconoclastic methods; 
though it began by regarding itself as the normal product 
vf a long course of speculative evolution ;—nevertheless 
when, by its ignoring of Deity, Positivism found itself arrayed 
sn sheer opposition to established and time-honoured theories, 
the resulting retrogradation wis hardly iess marked than it 


VOL. IL KK 


498 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. m1. 


had been in the case of atheistic Jacobinism.  And® when 
the notion (born of the statical habit of thought), that men’s 
natural ways of thinking and acting can be suddenly changed 
by a change in philosophic formulas, was called to its aid, 
the result was that absurdest though most logically con- 
structed of all utopias, the Positive Polity. 

In view of these profoundly interesting and instructive 
conclusions, can we not, by sheer contrast, immediately 
discern what must be the critical attitude of any philosophy — 
which is based upon the thorough and consistent recognition 
of the Doctrine of Evolution? We too, as well as the Posi- 
tivists, have our ideal state of society,—a state well described 
in the passage above quoted from Mr. Spencer, in which the 
greatest possible fulness of life shall be ensured to each 
member of the community by the circumstance that in the 
long course of social equilibration the desires of each indi- 
vidual shall have become slowly moulded into harmony with 
the coexistent desires of neighbouring individuals. But as 
cataclysms and miracles and sudden creations have no place 
in our purely dynamical theory of things, we do not expect 
to see this ultimate state of society realized within half a 
century. We know full well that it can be realized only in 
the indefinitely remote future. Nay, since the conception 
of absolute finality is as inconsistent with the Doctrine of 
Evolution as is the conception of absolute beginning, we do 
not regard it as destined ever to be absolutely realized. That 
supreme epoch of social equilibrium in which every man 
shall love the Lord with all his heart and his neighbour even 
as himself, in which the beast shall have been worked out, 
ani, in Tennyson’s phrase, the ape and the tiger shall have 
been allowed to die within us, in which egoistic or anti- 
social impulses shall be self-restrained, and everyone shall 
spontaneously do that which tends towards the general hap- 
piness,—this supreme epoch is likely for ever to remain an 
ideal epoch which shall relatively be more and more dis. 


CH. VI.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 499 


tinctly realized without ever being realized absolutely, just « 
as the hyperbola for ever approaches its asymptote without 
coming in contact with it. There will always be room left 
for that aspiration after a yet higher fulness of life, after a 
“closer wa!k with God,” which, whether it be expressed by 
the symbols of science or by the symbols of mythology, is 
the indestructible essence of all religion. An absolutely 
perfect state of society would be, by a curious and instruc- 
tive paradox, a state in which the religious sense would 
have no further function to subserve, because goodness 
would have become automatic and aspiration would be at 
an end. 

But while our ideal state of society is one which can only 
be gradually, relatively, and approximatively realized, it has 
none the less a present existence as an ideal which we must 
ever strive to incarnate as far as possibie in the concrete 
facts which make up the sum of our every-day life. There is 
a practical sense in which the evolutionist, no less than the 
radical sceptic or the orthodox believer, must recognize that 
he has a missionary function to fulfil. We do indeed aim, 
in conformity with surrounding conditions, at the realization 
of our social and ethical ideal,—seeking to do what within 
us lies to hasten the time when it may be proclaimed, with 
fresh significance, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 
But how shall we seck to effect our purpose? Shall we go 
forth to all the world and preach some “ gospel of Evolu- 
tion,” in the hope that men, seeing the error of their ways, 
shall suddenly embrace the new faith and be henceforth 
spiritually healed? In two ways our philosophy has taught 
us the absurdity of such a proceeding. Jirst, such doctrines 
are too subtle, too spiritual indeed, to be apprehended other- 
wise than by a slow process of growth, intellectual and 
moral. Accordingly, since men’s tlicologies are narrowly 
implicated with their principles of action, the taking away 
of their theology by any other process than that of slowly © 

K K 2 


500 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. un. 


supplanting it by a new system of conceptions equally 
adapted to furnish general principles of action, would be to 
leave men trivial-minded and irreligious, with no rational 
motive but self-interest, no clearly-conceived end save the 
jleasure of the moment. The evolutionist, therefore, be- 
lieving that faith in some controlling ideal is essential to 
right living, ana that even an unscientific faith is infinitely 
better than aimless scepticism, does not go about pointing 


out to the orthodox the inconsistencies which he discerns in 


their system of beliefs. And while assured that the dean- 
thropomorphizing process will continue to go on as it has 
gone on since the dawn of history, under the slow but un- 
ceasing stimulus of scientific generalization, he at the same 
time rejoices that a violent destruction of anthropomorphic 
conceptions is impossible. Refraining, therefore, from barren 
theologic controversy, his aim is to carry scientific methods 
and scientific interpretations into all departments of inquiry, 
in accordance with the profound aphorism of Dr. Newman : 
“False ideas may be refuted by argument, but only by true 
ideas can they be expelled.” Have we not seen that our 
beliefs are in a measure wrought into the very substance 
of our brains, so that the process of eradicating them must 
be a process of substitution which, as involving structural 
changes, must needs be gradual ? 

But secondly, the evolutionist must recognize that, even 
were it possible to effect a sudden conversion of mankind to 
a faith based upon scientific knowledge, such a conversion 
would not bring about the desired result of inaugurating a 
higher and better state of society. Not by a change of 
opinion, but by a change of heart, is the grand desideratum 
to be obtained. It is not by accepting all the theorems 
comprised in the Doctrine of Evolution, or in any other 
doctrine whatever, that men are to obey the dictates of 
selfishness less and the dictates of sympathy more. Yet 
this is the transfer of allegiance upon which, as we have 


cH. VI.) THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 501 


elsewhere shown, the amelioration of society and the relief 
of man’s estate depend. 

And these considerations as to the critical attitude of the 
evolutionist with reference to theology will equally apply to 
his critical attitude with reference to politics, concerning 
which I need, therefore, add but few explanatory words. 
Since it is the plain teaching of history that the group of 
institutions making up the framework of society at any 
given period cannot be violently altered without entailing 
w partial disintegration of society; since any custom or 
observance can be safely discontinued only when the com- 
munity has grown to the perception of its uselessness or 
absurdity ; and, above all, since the integrity of society 
depends in an ultimate analysis, not upon its institutions 
(which may be as liberal in Mexico as in Massachusetts), 
but upon the integrity of its individual members ; it follows 
that the evolutionist will look askance at the panaceas of 
radical world-menders, refusing to believe that the mil- 
lennium can be coaxed or cheated into existence until men 
have learned, one and all, each for himself, to live rightly, 
The only utopian ideal which he can consistently cherish, 
is that of contributing his individual share of effort to the 
improvement of mankind by leading an upright life, and 
applying the principles of common-sense and of the highest 
ethics within his ken to whatever political and social 
questions may directly concern him as member of a pro- 
gressive community. 

When, therefore, we are asked how we shall seek to incar- 
nate in fact our ethical and social ideal, the reply is: we 
must seek to realize this ideal, in so far as our frail half- 
developed natures will allow, by leading pure and uprigit 
lives, repressing the selfish impulses which are our legacy 
from the brute, obeying the dictates of sympathy wlhireby 
we are chiefly distinguished as human, and conforming as 
well as we may to the highest ethical code within our ken. 


508 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr. m1, 


As the coral reef is built by millions of tiny polyps, each 
giving up his little life to the process, until a stately island 
arises in mid-ocean, so the ideal society of the future, with 
its exemption from the ills which we now suffer, will be the 
result of myriads of individual efforts towards greater com- 
pleteness of life. Every temptation that is resisted, every 
sympathetic impulse that is discreetly yielded to, every 
noble aspiration that is encouraged, every sinful thouglit 
that is repressed, every bitter word that is withheld, adds 
its little item to the impetus of the great movement which 
is bearing Humanity onwards toward a richer life and a 
higher character, Out of individual rectitude comes the 
rectitude and happiness of the community; so that the ulti- 
mate salvation of mankind is to be wrought out solely by 
obedience to that religious instinct which, as shown in the 
preceding chapter, urges the individual, irrespective of 
utilitarian considerations, to live in conformity to nature’s 
requirements. “Nearer, my God, to thee,” is the prayer, 
dictated by the religious faith of past ages, to which the 
deepest scientific analysis of the future may add new 
meanings, but of which it can never impair the primary 
significance. 

Thus with regard to its practical bearings upon human 
conduct, the religious attitude of our scientific philosophy 
seems to be absolutely identical with the religious attitude 
of Christianity. We arrive at a deeper reason than has 
hitherto been disclosed for the difference between our posi- 
tion with reference to Christianity, and that which has been 
assumed by Radicalism and by Positivism. It is not merely 
that we refuse to attack Christianity because we recognize 
its necessary adaptation to a certain stage of culture, not yet 
passed by the average minds of the community; it is that 
we still regard Christianity as, in the deepest sense, our own 
religion. Or, if a somewhat different form of statement be 
preferred, we regard it as a faith which, precisely in the act 


DH. VI.) THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 503 


of realizing rnore and more fully its own ideal, becomes more 
and more fully identified with the faith which we are con- 
scious of cherishing. Instead of the intolerant hostility of 
the Infidel, or the indifferent neutrality of the Positivist, we 
offer cordial aid and sympathy. I cannot better illustrate 
the twofold source of this sympathy than by citing the words 
of a lady who is fairly entitled to rank as one of the most 
original and suggestive thinkers of our time. Speaking of 
the lower of the two lines of thought which determine the 
critical attitude of the evolutionist, Miss Hennell says :— 
“ When we see the various modes of error in belief, no longer 
in the light of heresies that we have the right to punish, or 
even to despise, but only as the incomplete condition that 
must of necessity belong to that which has to ripen out of 
the lower state into the higher; and when we bethink our- 
selves that it is the matter of our own most cherished 
aspiration that our own condition, as presently occupied, has 
to appear in the very same light to the station to be attained 
hereafter ; charity towards the imperfection is so inevitable 
that indeed it no longer requires to be insisted on as if it 
required inculcation. Our sphere of religious sympathy has 
been so much enlarged beyond its former bounds, that the 
original matter of duty has become matter of simple unques- 
tioning feeling.” Now this admirably illustrates what I have 
called the lower of the two lines of thought which determine 
our position: it explains our refusal to attack Christianity. 
‘he following deeply-meditated passage illustrates the higher 
line of thought, and shows why we identify our position with 
that which is held by Christianity. “ Very slight ground of 
self-gratulation should I have found,” says Miss Hennell, 
“in even the most palpable superiority of present faith that 
might have been gained, if the acquisition had really been 
made, as at first it appeared to me to be made, and as it must 
still appear to orthodox believers to be made, at the expense 
of the absolute subversal and denial of the faith that had 


504 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pr 1, 


cone befure it. If I could not now perceive that what was 
once true to me, and true to the world, was true for ever, in 
relation to what had to come after it, I do not deny to myself 
that I should inevitably fall away to cease believing at ali 
hencerorth both in myself and in the world. Yes: if I could 
not see in relation to Christianity, just as truly as was seen 
by the master-spirits of that religion in relation to Judaism, 
that neither of this later form of realization ‘can one jot 
or tittle pass away, until all be fulfilled’ in the newly- 
arriving doctrines of General Religion,—never, I am con- 
vinced, could the latter take any real kold upon me: never, 
in fact, could it de a religion to me.” ? 

To those who still adhere to the sharp distinctions charac- 
teristic of the statical view of things, who carry into their 
estimate of religious opinions the conception of fixity of 
species, it may seem absurd or sophistical in us to assimilate 
with Christianity a system of thought which has entirely 
thrown off the mythologic symbols wherein Christianity has 
hitherto been clothed and whereby it is customarily recog- 
nized as possessing an individuality of its own. To such it 
naturally seems that the giving up of the symbol is the 
giving up of the reality, and that the critical attitude of him 
who has given up the symbol must be an attitude of radical 
hostility. But now, as the crowning result of the whole 
argument, we are enabled to show how the dynamical view 
of things disposes of this paradox. He who brings to his 
estimate of religious opinions a Darwinian habit of mind, 
must understand that a sudden and radical alteration of 
Christianity into something else is as impossible as the 
sudden and radical change of one type of. organism inte 
another. He will see that, while form after form has 
perished, the Lif: remains, incarnated in newer and higher 
forms. That which is fundamental in Christianity is not 
the mythologic superstratum, but the underlying spiritua 

1 Miss Hennell, Present Religion, pp. 50, 51. 


CH. V1.) THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 505 


principle. The mythologic symbols have changed from age 
to age. The constant element has been, on its intellectual 
side the recognition of Deity, and on its emotional side the 
yearning for closer union with Deity, or for a more complete 
_ spiritual life. And the three foregoing chapters have con- 
clusively proved that this constant clamunt, in both its 
aspects, remains unchanged in that religion whose symbols 
are shaped by science. 

In using the phrase “ Cosmic Theism,” therefore, to denote 
the religious phase of the philosophy based upon the Doc- 
trine of Evolution, I do not use it as descriptive of a new 
form of religion before which Christianity is gradually to 
disappear. I use it as descriptive of that less-anthropo- 
morphic phase of religious theory into which the present 
more-anthropomorphic phase is likely to be slowly meta- 
morphosed. The conflict, as it presents itself to my mind, 
is not between Christianity and any other embodiment of 
religion or irreligion. The conflict is between science and 
mythology, between Cosmism and Anthropomorphism. The 
result is, not the destruction of religion, but the substitution 
of a relatively adequate for a relatively inadequate set of 
symbols. In the scientific philosopher there may be as 
much of the real essence of Christianity as there was in 
the cloistered monk who preceded him; but he thinks in the 
language of a man and not in the language of a child. 

The critical attitude of our philosophy with reference to 
the beliefs and the institutions amid which we live, has now 
been quite thoroughly defined both by what it is and by 
what it is not. We may now, I think, safely affirm that 
when Mr. Mivart accuses the Doctrine of Evolution of 
tending toward the intellectual and moral degradation of 
mankind and toward the genesis of atrocities worse than 
those of the Parisian Commune, he clearly shows that he 
has not thoroughly comprehended the implications of the 
doctrine. The conception of evolution, which he adopts 


506 ‘COSMIC PHILOSOPHY.  =—s[en am. 


after a loose and inconsistent fashion in so far as his own 
special studies have constrained him to adopt it, remains 
nevertheless in his mind a barren conception. He quite 
fails to grasp the dynamical view of things, and therefore 
naturally regards the overthrow of Roman Catholic theology 
as equivalent to the inauguration of atheism and of anarchy. 
We have seen, on the other hand, that all the iconoclastic 
attacks which have been directed either against Christianity 
or against the existing order of society have been theoretically 
based upon fallacies which are incompatible with the Doctrine 
of Evolution. It has been shown that, upon our general 
theory of life, we can look, for the realization of our highest 
social ideal, only to the perfecting of individual character 
under the conditions at any time existing. And for the 
perfecting of individual character we must rely upon that 
increasing sense of divine omnipresence and that increas- 
ing aspiration after completeness of spiritual life, which, 
taken together, constitute the permanent element, in Chris- 
tianity. When we add that our ethical code, deduced 
theoretically from the conception of Life set forth at such 
length in the second part of this work, is at bottom identical 
with the ethical code sanctioned by the highest Christianity, 
it at last becomes apparent how truly conservative, in the 
best sense of the word, is the critical attitude of our 
philosophy. 


The iconoclast, who has the welfare of mankind nearest 
his heart, will indeed probably blame us as too conservative, 
—as lacking in robust and wholesome aggressiveness. And 
he will perhaps find fault with us for respecting prejudices 
which he thinks ought to be shocked. Our reply must be. 
that. it is not by wounding prejudices that the cause of 
truth is most efficiently served. Men do not give up their 
false or inadequate beliefs by hearing them scoffed at or 
harshly criticized: they give them up only when they have 


| vH. VI.] THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY. 507 


been taught truths with which the false or inadequate beliefs 
are incompatible. The object of the scientific philosopher, 
therefore, will be to organize science and extend the boun- 
daries of knowledge. , 

If he obtains a fresh morsel of truth, he will proclaim it 
to the world without dread of consequences, and let it bide its 
time until society comes, of its own free-will and intelligence, 
to accept it. But while feeling it unnecessary, and often 
unadvisable, to urge his views upon others, no craven fear of 
-obloquy will prevail upon him to conceal them when it is 
desirable that they should be stated. He will state them 
without mental reservation, and, above all, without fear of 
any possible harm that can come from the unhampered quest 
of truth. There is nothing more reprehensible than the 
secret dread of ugly consequences with which so many 
writers approach all questions of vital importance. They 
shrink from lifting the veil which envelopes the Isis-statue 
of Truth, lest instead of a beaming countenance they may 
perchance encounter a ghastly death’s head. But philosophy 
should harbour neither fears nor repugnances, nor qualms of 
conscience. It is not for us, creatures of a day that we are, 
and seeing but a little way into a limited portion of nature, 
to say dictatorially, before patient examination, that we will 
not hare this or that doctrine as part of our philosophic 
creed. We must feel our way as best we can, gather with 
unremitting toil what facts lie within our reach, and grate- 
fully accept such conclusions as can honestly and by due 
vrocess of inference and verification be obtained for our 
guidance. We are not the autocrats, but the servants and in- 
terpreters of Nature; and we must interpret her as she is,— 
not as we would like her to be. That harmony which we 
hope eventually to see established between our knowledge 
and our aspirations is not to be realized by the timidity 
which shrinks from logically following out either of two 
apparently conflicting lines of thought—as in the question 


508 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. (pr. 112, 


of matter and spirit—but by the fearlessness which pushes - 
each to its inevitable conclusion. Only when this is recog- 
nized will the long and mistaken warfare between Science 
and Religion be exchanged for an intelligent and enduring 
alliance. Only then will the two knights of the fable finally 
throw down their weapons, on discovering that the causes 
for which they have so long been waging battle are in reality 
one and the same eternal cause,—the cause of truth, of 


goodness, and of beauty; “the glory of God, and the relief 
of man’s estate” 


vb. see 


INDEX. 


ABSULUTE, the, 1. 9, 14; ii. 412, 

Absolute Existerce, what is meant \y it, 
i. 87—91. 

Absolute truth, no criterion of, i. 11, 70. 

Abstract and ‘concrete sciences distin- 
guished by Comte, i. 189, 214. 

Abstract sciences cannot furnish a pri- 
mordial principle on which to build a 
philosophy, i. 268. 

a moe sciences, i. 215, 218, 


a not the same as generality, 

i. 214, 

Actinism as a mode of motion, i. 292, 

Adam, William, ii, 193, 386, 

Adaptation, direct, ii. 56. 

Adjustment, ii. 64. 

Adoption, legal fiction of, ii. 216, 

Agassiz, Louis, i. 449 ; ii. 382, 

Agreement, method of, i. 241. 

Alcohol retards waste, i. 334. 

Alexander's campaigns, their civilizing 
influence, ii. 215. 

Altruism and egoism, ii. 202, 207. 

Amphioxus and ascidian, i. 450. 

Analytical truths cannot ‘make up a body 
of philosophy, i. 314. 

Ancestors, worship of, ii. 349, 

Ancient societies simulating societies of 
modern type, ii. 248. 

Animals, how classified, i. 448 ; dependent 
on solar radiation, i, 410. 

Anstie on Stimulants and Narcotics, i, 197. 

er ct am as illustrating use and disuse, 

(iP 


Anthropomorphismn contrasted with Cos- 
mism, i. 182; can never be wholly got 
rid of, i. 183 ; ii. 449, 

Anticipation 0 of future contingencies, ii. 


92, 247, 303. 


Antipodes, how far inconceivable by the 
ancients, i. 64. 

Ae aa 300. ‘of man, immense significance 
of, ii 

Apes, brain ‘of, ii. 133. 

Arabian conquests, their civilizing in. 
fluence, ii. 215. 

Archzeus, theory of, i. 197, 419. 

Archebiosis, i. 243, 425 ; difficulty of the 
question, i. 427. 

Archimedes, i. 201, 209, 253. 

Argyll, Duke of, i. 20; ii. 264, 317. 

Aristeus and his bees, i. 418. 

Aristotle, i. 126, 224. 

Arnold, Matthew, ii. 452, 463, 

Articulata, origin of the type, i. 345. 

Aryan languayes, i, 443. 

Aryan race, i. 448. 

Ascidian and amphioxus, i. 450. 

Association of ideas, ii. 139, 147. 

Asteroids, origin of, i. 369; their planes 
of revolution not yet accounted for, i. 
372. 

Astrogeny, i. 220. 

Astronomy, a deductive science, i. 113; 
when constituted as a science, i. 197, 
199, 201 ; scope of, i. 202, 220; a con- 
ere science, i. 214; observation in, 
i. 

Atheism, i. 7; 
Comte, i. 262. 

Athens, its importance in history, ii, 262. 

Atoms, constitution of, i. 4. 

Attitude of philosophy, i. 259 ; ii. 473. 

Attraction and repulsion, i i. 5, 290. 

mae rg ae have no words for justice, 
etc., 

Pp ecpeeters nervous action, ii. 156, 

Autonomism, ii. 205. 

Axioms, i. 63. 


ludicrously treated by 


\ 


512 


Bacon, F., his services in founding 
modern philosophy, i. 112; his con- 
demnation of the subjective method, 
i. 114; his rejection of the Copernican 
astronomy, i. 232. 

Bagehot, W , ii. 259, 267, 280, 340. 

Bain, A., on liberty of choice, ii. 179. 

Barbaric languages, absence of general 
terms in, ii. 308. 

Barratt, A., on final causes, ii. 397, 402. 

Bastian, H. C., i. 129, 425. 

Bathybius, i. 426. 

Beale on Cancers, i. 343. 

Belief, double sense of the word, i. 61. 

Berkeley, i. 74, 117. 

Bernard, Claude, i. 244, 

Berzelius, overthrow of his dualistic 
theory, i. 225. 

“rr measures parallax of 61 Cygni, i, 

9 


249, 

Bichat, i. 199. 

Biogeny, i. 221. 

Biology, i. 37, 41, 113; when constituted 
as a science, i. 199 ; a concrete science, 
i. 213; scope of, i. 221; difficulty of 
experimentation in, i. 243; pre-emi- 
“rend the science of classification, i, 
244, 

Birds, carinate and struthious, ii. 51. 

Blainville’s attempts at linear classifica- 
tion, i. 449 

“Blind force” and ‘‘intelligent pers 
sonality,” ii. 429. 

Borda’s pendulum experiment, i. 237, 

Botany as related to biology, i. 212. 

Boyle and Mariotte, their law of pres- 
sures and densities, i. 206. 

Bradley’s discovery of aberration, i. 204. 

Brain increases in heterogeneity with 
mental labour, ii. 140. 

Brain-action, new theory of, ii. 141, 

Brewster’s optical discoveries, i. 206, 

Bridges, J. H., i. 252, 259; ii. 248, 

Broussais, ii. 74. 

Brown, Thomas, i. 53. 

Bruno, Giordano, ii. 375, 

Buckle, H. T., his lack of the historic 
sense, i. 165 ; on Mohammedan civiliza- 
tion, ii. 200; his philosophy of history, 
ii, 229. 

Biichner, L., i. 123; ii. 435. 

Butterflies and their colours, ii, 25; in 
Celebes and Java, ii, 56, 


CANCERS, i. 198, 343, 

Carbon, its function as a constituent of 
organic matter, i. 331. 

Carinate birds, ii. 51. 


INDEX. 


Cartesian test of truth, i. 99, 108; doc 
trine of causal resemblance, ii. 386 

Cats and humble-bees, i. 308. 

Cats’ whiskers, ii. 90. 

Causation, universality of, i. 53; source 
of our belief in, i. 146; Hamilton’s 
theory of, i. 148 ; Hume’s theory of, i. 
127, 155; hypothesis of occulta vis, i. 
154 ; does not imply constraint, i. 183 ; 
volitional theory of, i. 158; ii. 390; 
Ferrier’s view of, ii. 183. 

Cause, efficient and phenomenal, i. 154, 

Causes and efiects, resemblance of, ii. 386, 

ordeal torsion-balance experiment, 
i. 205, . 

Celibacy of clergy, ii. 222. 

Cell-doctrine repudiated by Comte, i, 
247, 251 

Cephalic ganglia, their increasing im- 
portance, ii. 87. 

Cerebral differences between civilized 
man and savage, ii. 316. 

Cerebrum and cerebellum, size of in dif- 
ferent animals, ii. 133; functions of, 
ii. 137. 

ChAlons, battle of, ii. 262. 

Chambers, G., his obituary notice of the 
nebular hypothesis, i. 386. 

Chance and law, ii. 171. 

Chemical heterogeneity of the earth’s 
surface, how brought about, i. 431. 

Chemism, cohesion, and gravity, i. 291. 

Chemistry, i. 34; its relations to mine- 
ralogy, i. 189, 212; wherein d:fierent 
from physics, i. 192, 203 ; when c onsti- 
tuted as ascience, i. 199; revoluticnized 
by Dumas, Laurent, etce., i. 225. 

Chinese, their small foresight, ii. 205; 
primitive structure of their society, 
ii. 248. 

Christianity, genesis of, ii. 169, 206, 218 3 
its political effects, ii. 278. 

Christians formerly called atheists, ii, . 
469. 

Cicada and rattlesnake, ii. 29. 

Circulatory system, stsges of its evolu. 
tion, ii. 145. 

Citizenship in Greece and Rome, ii. 221, 

Civic communities, ii. 117. 

Civilization a process of adaptation, ii, 
202, 212. 

Clan-societies, their characteristics, iL — 


Classification as dependent on hereditary 
kinship, i. 448, 

Classifying and reasoning, ii. 106. 

Climates, interdependence of, i. 404. 

Clover and humble-bees, i 308. 

Codash, their rate of increase, ii, 11, 


oad 


INDEX. 


Coexistence and non-coexistence, ii. 118. 

Coextension and non-coextension, ii. 118, 

Cognition involves recognition, i. 12; ii. 
120; discrimination, i. 14; how it 
arises, ii, 121. 

“penne as resulting from integration, 
i. 337. 

Cohesion, gravity, and chemism, i. 291. 

Cointension and non-cointension, ii. 118, 

(‘olours of plants and animals, ii. 20, 

Comets jee 3 nebula, i. 389. 

poe “forming their own future,’’ ii, 

vommune of Paris, ii. 483. 

Community and environment, ii. 197 ; its 
growth in size and complexity, ii. 204; 
more than an organism, ii. 226. 

Comparative method as connected with 
dynamical habits of thought, ii. 477. 

Comparison, i. 241. 

Compressibility of matter, i. 3. 

Comte, Auguste, his weakness as a psy- 
chologist, i. 82, 163, 249; ii. 73; com- 
pared with Plato, i. 103, 139 ; abandons 
the objective method, i. 131; empire 
of dead over living, i. 135 ; ii. 199 ; his 
habit of abstaining from reading, i. 
137; his Subjective Synthesis, i. 140 ; 
question as to his insanity, i. 141; not 
the founder of scientific philosophy, i. 
162; his keen historic sense, i. 165; 
compared with Cuvier, i. 166; his 
“‘ Law of the Three Stages,” i. 168; ii. 
238, 245, 468; his inconsistent state- 
ments, i. 170; compared with Coper- 
nicus, i. 185; his classification of the 
sciences, i. 189—215; his wrong ar- 
rangement of the parts of sociology, 
i. 194; his rejection of psychology, i. 
194; ii. 73: his erroneous view of che- 
mistry, i. 225; his small esteem for 
syllogistic logic, i. 235; his contribu- 
tions to the logic of induction, and his 
conception of Philosophy as an Or- 

non, i. 240; merged Philosophy in 

gic, i, 246; repudiated cell-doctrine, 
i. 247; condemned all inquiries into 
the origin of man, i. 248; denied the 
possilility of a science of stellar astro- 
nomy, i. 248; wherein different from 
St. Simon and Fourier, i. 260; identi- 
fied philosophy with sociology, i. 260 ; 
how he reached the Religion of 
Humanity, i. 261; his ludicrous treat- 
ment of atheism, i. 262; his remark 
abouf; the meaning of ‘“ Physics,” i. 
279; his acceptance of phrenology, ii. 
74; his claim to be regarded as the 
founder of sociology, ii. 232, 253; his 


VOL. II. 


$13 


law of social - ess, fi. 240; his re- 
mark that the heavens declare the 
glory of Hipparchos and Newton, ii. 
415; his Religion of Humanity, ii 
417 ;.his advance towards a dynamical 
view of things, ii. 486; his belief that 
society can be reorganized by philo- 
sophy, ii. 488; his extravagant ex- 
pectations, ii. 493 ; his intention of re- 
stricting scientific research, ii. 496. 

Concealment, its uses in the animal 
world, ii. 21. 

Concomitant variations, i. 237, 244, 

Concrete relations interpreted sooner 
than abstract relations, 1. 210, 


Concrete sciences, how distinguished by 


Comte, i. 189; cannvt furnish a pri- 
mordial theorem upon which to found 
a philosophy, i. 268, 

Condillae, i. 118. 

Con lorcet, i. 253 ; ii. 253. 

Connature and non-connature, ii. 118, 

Conscience, beginnings of, ii, 348. 

Consciousness, how far known, i. 16; its 
d rect warrant for the existence of its 
states, i. 64; dependent on cerebral 
changes, i. 413; ii. 149; involves an 
orderly succession of changes, ii. 119; 
how evolved from automatic mental 
action, ii. 154; does not assert that 
volitions are uncaused, ii. 182. 

Conspicuous phenomena generalized 
sooner than those that are inconspi- 
cuous, i. 209. 

a Truths defined by Mr. Lewes 
i, 58. 

Continuity between inorganic and or- 
ganic phenomena, i. 485 ; among psy- 
chical phenomena, ii. 132. 

Contract and status, ii. 221. 

Convolutions in the brain, structure of, 
ii. 135. 

Cooling of the solar system, i. 357. 

Cooperation as masking the effects of 
natural selection, ii. 258. 

Copernican revolution and final causes, i. 
261 


Corporate responsibility in ancient com- 
munities, ii, 268, 

Corpuscular theory of light, i. 130, 

Correlation of forces, i. 40, 290; affords 
no support for materialism, ii, 440, 

Correlation of growth, ii. 16. 

Correspondence extending in time and 
space, i. 35; ii. 89, 299; in speciality, 
ii. 93; in complexity, i. 36; ii. 94, 
309 ; in definiteness, ii. 307 ; in gene 

rality, i. 86; ii. 308; in integration, i 


jo 


514 


Corti, fibres of, ii. 61. 
Cosmism, i, 39, 44, 95, 182, 263, 276; ii. 
425, 505 


Coulomb’s discovery of the laws of elec- 
tric Hyena bane i. 203. , 

Cousin, V., his notions of method, i. 118. 

Creation, doctrine of, Mi toe to the 
doctrine of evolution, ii. 377, 474. 

Crusades, their civilizing influence, ii. 
215. 

Crystallization, i. 242. 

serie despotic yoke of, in early times, 
ii. 265. 

se i. 166, 244; his classification, i, 
449. 


Cyclical recurrence, strictly speaking, re- 


quires infinite time, i. 313. 


a Hg their inability to count, ii. 


Darwin, Charles, i. 308, 462; his dis- 
covery of natural selection, ii. 4; his 
hypothesis of pangenesis, ii. 45 ; does 
not allege ubiquitous progress, ii. 257 ; 
his suggestion as to the origin of gre- 
gariousness, ii. 341; his theory of the 
beginnings of conscience, ii. 348. 

ie an ” rejected by Comtists, i. 

48, 

Day, lengthening of, i. 393. 

Deanthropomorphization, i. 176; not a 
fundamental but a derivative fact, ii. 
a 


Death from old age, ii. 7]. 

Deity, how far unknowable, ii. 413, 470; 
how far to be regarded as quasi-psy- 
chical, ii. 446—451. 

Demokritos, his guess that all the senses 
are modifications of touch, ii. 90. 

Demonstration, what it consists in, i. 62. 

Derivation hypothesis, i. 442. 

Descartes, his test of truth, i 99; his 
conception of philosophy less sound 
than Bacon’s, i. 115; his hypothesis of 
vortices, i. 127; his view of final 
causes, li. 384. 

Design, arg ‘ment from, ii. 381. 

Desire, how it passes into volition, ii. 177. 

Devil-worship, ii. 458. 

Didelphia, ii. 50. 

Difference .nd No-difference, i. 89. 

‘Differentiation defined, i. 336 

Dilemma of matter and motion, how 
practically resolved, i, 271, 2738. 

Dinosaurus and birds, ii. 51. 

Distribution of organisms, i. 460. 

Dogs, races of, ii. 9. 


INDEX. 


Dynamic paradox in the peneeny of evo- 
lution, i. 331, 398 ; ii. 233. 

Dynamical and statical habits of tliought, 
ii. 371, 473. 

Dysteleology, or imperfect adjustment, 
ii. 403, 


EAR-PIANO, ii, 61. 

Early society, dilemma of, ii. 270. 

Earth, its primitive heat, i. 857 ; why it 
has attained so great structural hetero- 
geneity, i. 398; changes of its surface, 
li. 13; its age cannot be estimated 
with our present resources, ii. 48. 

Echoes, fetishistic interpretation of, i. 
197 


Effort, sense of, i. 156, 

Ego-altruistic feelings, ii. 352. 

Evoism and altruism, ii. 201, 207. 

Electricity a mode of motion, i. 292. 

Elevation and subsidence, ii. 39. 

Embryologic illustrations of the law of 
evolution, i, 338 ; evidence in favour of 
derivation, i. 454. 

Embryos of dog, man, and bird, i, 454. 

Emerson, R. W., on the colours of ani- 
mals, ii. 23. 

Emotion, rise of, ii. 155, 

Emotional states, order of their group- 
ing, ii, 117. 

Emotions and centrally-initiated sensa- 
tions, ii. 116. 

Empiricism, i. 62. 

Jincyclopédistes, their anarchical doe- 
trines, ii. 478. ; 

Environment, social, ii. 197; hetero- 
geneity of, ii. 213. 

Epicurean doctrine of pleasures, ii, 329, 

Equality and likeness, ii. 103, 

Eqguilibration, ii. 64. 

Equinoxes, precession of, i, 303. 

Error equivalent to wrong classifying, i 
32. 

Ether, i. 6. 

oe sanctions recognized by science, 
ii. 455. 

Etymologies of Aryan words, i. 446. 

European civilization in early times, ii. 
271 ; not autochthonous, ii. 275 ; causes 
of its progressiveness, ii. 277. 

Evolution, law of, its universality, i. 2743 

rimary and secondary redistributions, 

i, 829; conditions essential to, i. 329; 
why manifested chiefly in organic 
bodies, i. 331; illustrated in function 
as well as in structure, i. 349 ; passage 
from lower to higher orders of, ii. 292; 
discovery of, an extension of corre- 


INDEX, 


epontence in vime, ff. 870; also a vast 
integration of correspondences, ii. 373. 

Experience, how far it can tell us of the 
future, i. 49, 53. 

Experience - philosophy inadequately 
stated by the English school from 
Hobbes to Mill, i. 287 ; ii. 160. 

faces origin of necessary truths, i. 


Eyes of vertebrates and mollusks, ii. 53, 


FALLING bodies, law of, i. 108. 

Family-groups, importance of their first 
establishment, ii. 295. 

Fatalism, ii. 185. 

Eseiing, sensation and emotion, ii. 117. 

Ferrier, Prof., i. 75, 79; ii. 173, 288. 

Fetishism, origin of, i. 157 ; defined, i. 
168; psychological interpretation of, 
i. 179; how outgrown, i. 180 

Feudal institutions, wherein different 
— institutions of primitive races, ii. 

2 


Fevers, i. 198, 

Fichte, J. G., i. 48, 52, 76. 

** Fictions,” legal, their civilizing fune- 
tion, ii. 279; scientific and legal, i, 273. 

Final causes, logical aspect of the doc- 
trine, ii. 3383. 

First Cause, i. 7. 

Fishes, brain of, ii. 133. 

Flowers and insects, ii. 28, 

Fly-catcher, ii. 149. 

Force, persistence of, i. 40, 283 ; fi. 414. 

Forces, correlation of, i. 40, 290; affords 
no support for materialism, ii. 440. 

Foresight, ii. 92, 247, 303. 

Fossilization a rare occurrence, ii. 38, 

Fourier, J., his law of conduction, i. 206. 

France as illustrating national aggrega- 
tion, ii. 217. 

Frankland on the effects of the moon’s 
cooling, i. 382. 

Free-will, the popular argument for, ii 
173 ; not really a ditficult problem, ii. 
174; tricks of language upon which 
the absurd paradox is founded, ii. 188. 

freeman, E. A., ii. 217, 235. 

Frequent phenomena generalized sooner 
than those that are infrequent, i, 210. 

Fresnel, i. 130. 

Froude, J. A., 0. the science of history, 
ii. 166. 


Gaiir0, i. 34, 107, 109, 201, 204; his 
law that the relative motions of parts 
are not altered by the motion of the 


whole, i. 295. 


515 


Galton, F., ii. 288, 
alvanism, i, 206. 

Gaudry’s discoveries of “ transitional 
forms” near Athens, ii, 41. 

Gemeinde, ii. 216, 

General terms, lack of, in barbarous lan- 
guages, ii. 308. 

Generation, spontaneous,—the question 
really at issue, i. 426. 

Genesis, sciences of, i. 222, 

Gens and yévog, ii. 216. 

Geogeny, scope of, i, 220. 

Geologic rhythms, enormous complexity 
of, i. 304, 

Germ-theory, i. 420. 

German language never purged of its 
realistic implications, i. 123. 

Glacial epoch, date of, i. 304; ii. 295. 

i a: far unknowable, i. 15; ii. 412, 

7 


Goethe’s discoveries in morphology, i. 
113 ; his anecdote about the founding 
of St. Petersburg, i. 121; his interest 
in the controversy between Cuvier and 
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, ii. 3; his views 
concerning the quasi-humanity of God, 
ii. 409. 

Gravity, cohesion, and chemism, i, 291, 

Greek philosophy, i. 23, 43. 

Gregariousness, origin of, ii. 241. 

Grimm, J., his demonstration of the 
fetishistic orivin of myths, i. 177. 

Grove, W. R., i. 40, 203, 293. 

Gustatory sensations, how compounded, 
ii, 128, 


Hast, dynamical explanation of, ii. 144, 
Haeckel, E., i. 450; ii. 26, , 
Sir James, artificial 
marble, i. 242. 


Hall, produces 

Hamilton, Sir W., i. 78; his theory of 
causation, i. 148 ; his theory of the in- 
verse variation of perception ani sensa- 
tion, ii. 114; his theory of pleasure and 
pain, ii. 327. " 

ee why powerless against Rome, 
ii. 262. 

Harmonic tones, ii, 125, 

Hartley, i. 117. 

Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of 
the blood, i. 113. 

Hegel, i. 24, 43, 48, 52, 67, 77, 92, 99, 
104; his theory of the identity of con- 
tradictories, i. 119 ; why he is so hard 
to understand, i. 120 ; his contempt for 
verification, i. 121 ; his preference for 
the Ptolemaic astronomy, i. 122; de 


LL 2 


516 


nies the kinship between philosophy 
and common-sense, i. 124. ® 

Heineccius, his definition of status, ii.221, 

Heliconias, ii. 26. 

Hellenic political system, cause of its 
premature overthrow, ii. 218. 

Helvetius, i. 118. 

Hennell, Sara, ii. 503. 

Herakleitos, his belief that the universe 
is in u ceaseless flux, i. 312. 

Heredity as an element in the organiza- 
tion of experiences, ii. 149. 

Heresy, its social value, ii. 272. 

Herschel, Sir W., his theory of the con- 
stitution of nebule, i. 386. 

Heterogeneity defined, i. 336. : 

Heterogeneity of society as checking 
warfare, ii. 251. 

Hipparchos, i, 199. 

Hipparion and its kindred, i, 452. 

Hippokrates, i. 224. 

Hobbes, i. 117, 121, 211; his conception 
of society as a Leviathan, ii. 226. 

Holbach, i. 118. 

Homesickness, ii. 328. 

Homogeneity defined, i. 336. 

Homogeneous, instability of, i. 353. 

Horse, pedigree of, ii. 242. 

Huggins, W., determines the proper 
motion of Sirius, i. 207 ; demonstrates 
the gaseous condition of irresolvable 
nebulz, i. 386.' 

Humanity, religion of, ii. 417. 

Humble-bees and red clover, i. 308. 

Hume, i. 47, 86, 118, 127, 155. 

Hunter, W. W., on religion of Santals, 
ii. 458. 

Hutton, R. H., his misinterpretation of 
Mr. Spencer, ii. 339. 

Huxley, T. H., i. 129, 164, 166, 175, 185, 
227, 232, 247, 262; his classification of 
animals, i. 450; his remark about final 
causes, ii. 384. 

Huyghens, his theory of light, i. 130. 

Jiybrids, infertility of, ii. £4. Y 

liydra, its ability to distinguish light 
from. darkness, li. 90. 

Hygienic fallacies, i. 150. 

Hypothesis, its requisites, i, 137, 266, 


IcHTHYOSAURIANS and whales, ii. 58. 

Iconoclasm as illustrating statical habit 
of thought, ii. 476. ! p 

Ideal types of manhood in ancient and 
modern times, ii. 207. 

Idealism, i. 45, 74—90. 

Ideas and sensations, ii. 11], 

Ideational centres, ii. 137. 


INDEX. 


erect of contradictories, how far true, 
re pag fetishistic interpretation of, 
ea consists in failure to classify, 
toy ye civilizations, explanation of, ii. 


Inconceivable, ambiguity of the word, i. 
61; difference between inconceivable 
and incredible, i. 62. 

Inconceivability-test, what is meant by 
it, i. 69; ii. 162. 

Increase of plants and animals, high rate 
of, ii. 11. 

pe te ay their influence in history, ii, 


Individuation, ii. 95, 223. 

Induction, its weakness illustrated by 
Newton’s discoveries, i. 266. 

Infancy, origin of, ii. 159, 342 ; how the 
geen of it gave rise to society, 
i. 344, 360, 369. 

Infants, crying of, i. 104, 

Infinite, the, i. 7, 13. 

Inflexibility of mind in lower races, ii.313. 

Innate ideas, i. 46, 101, 115; ii. 161. 

i od physics, how divided by Comte, 
i, 192. 


Insects, origin of, i. 345; their relations 
with flowers, ii. 28. 


- Instability of the homogeneous, i. 353. 


Instinct, inheritance of, ii. 150; how dis- 
tinguished from reflex action, ii. 152; 
how it merges into reason, ii. 154. 

Integration defined, i. 336 ; degree of, an 
important test in classification, i. 347. 

Intuitional knowledge, ii. 161. 

Isolation, its effects upon social develop- 
ment, ii. 276. 

Isomeric transformations in nerve-fibres, 
ii. 136, 


JACOBINISM, origin of, ii. 476; tendency 
toward social dissolution, ii, 482. 

Jaws, diminution of, ii. 320. 

Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay, ii. 304, _ 

Joule’s discovery of the mechanical equi- 
valent of heat, i. 34, 203. 

Julian, ii. 490. 

Jupiter, his physical condition, i. 377. 

Juristic writers of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, ii. 280, | 


Kant, i. 24; asserted the relativity of 
knowledge, i. 48; his inconsistency, i. 
52, 118; reconciliation of his philo 


INDEX, 


sophy with that of Locke and Hume, 
ii. 160, 326, 356 ; his remark about the 
moral sense, ii. 324. 

Kepler, i. 107; his belief that the pla- 
netary motions were controlled by arch- 
angels, i. 110, 197. 

Kirchhoff's discovery of spectrum-ana- 
lysis, i. 207. 

ne is classifying, i. 11, 27 ; ii. 106, 

Kowalewsky’s discovery of the relation- 
ship between the ascidians and the 
amphioxus, i. 450. 


LaGRANGE’S principle of virtual velo- 
cities, i. 36, 40. 

Lalande’s inability to discover God with 
a telescope, ii. 422. 

Lamarck’s attempts at linear classifica- 
tion, i. 449; his theory of adaptive 
changes, ii. 6. 

Languages, classification of, i. 443. 

Lankester, E. R., ii. 95. 

Laplace’s discovery of the heat disengaged 
by sound, i. 206; his remark about 
Newton, i. 326; about final causes, ii. 


383. 

Lavoisier, i. 34, 199. 

Law, universality of, i. 288, 

Law and Lawgiver, li. 392. 

‘“‘ Legal” stage of progress, ii. 240. 

Leibnitz, i. 24, 46; his theory of Pre- 
established Harmony, i. 129, 158. 

Lessing, i. 166. 

Lewes, G. H., i. 18, 48, 50, 52, 58, 68, 
125, 128, 141, 257, 456; ii. 75, 241, 

15 


415. 
Liegnitz, battle of, ii. 263, er 
Life, genesis of, i. 430; definition of, ii. 
67 ; identical with ability to maintain 
life, ii. 95. 
Light, its relation to other modes of 
motion, i. 19, 292. 
Likeness and equality, ii, 103; and un- 
likeness, ii. 119. 
Lien, antelope, and buffalo, ii. 18. ; 
Jattré, E., his defence of Comte’s ori- 
inality, i. 228, 231; rejects Mr. 
ncer’s doctrine of the Unknowable, 
ij. 82, 169, 262; his suggestion as to 
Comte’s insanity, i. 141; on Free-will, 
ii. 179; on the function of Tradition in 
sociology, ii. 234. 
Locality, sense of, ii. 300. 
Locke, i. 46, 78 ; strength and weakness 
of his position, ii. 161. : : 
Logic, its relations to mathematics, 1. 


517 


215, 219 ; why omitted from Comte’s 
list of sciences, i. 234. 

Lombard, J., his experiments on heat 
evolved by the cerebrum, i. 415. 

Lowe, Robert, his opinion of the battle of 
Marathon, ii. 260. 

beer hen its function in early times, ii 


Lucretius and spontaneous generation, i, 


Lyell, Sir C., on increasing heterogeneity 
of environment, ii, 213. 


MACHINERY, ancient and modern, ii. 207. 

Magendie, i. 244. 

Magnetism a mode of motion, i. 292. 

Maine, Sir H., on the early constitution 
of society, ii. 209, 220 ; on conservatism 
in India, ii 280. 

ef oes J. de, his retrograde doctrines, 


ii. 480. 
“— prohibita and mala in se, ii, 282, 


Malebranche, i. 24, 158. 

Mammals, embryology of, i. 340; cross- 
relations among, ii. 50. 

Mammoths in Siberia, i. 321. 

Man, how affected by natwal selection, 
ii. 258; genesis of, summary of the 
argument, ii, 358; all-important con- 
trast, ii. 294; why he differs so much 
from the apes in intelligence aud so 
little in structure, ii. 319; why he can 
—- supplanted by a higher race, 
ii. 321. 


Manichezism, ii. 405. 

Mansel, H. L., i. 9, 14, 25. 

Marathon, battle of, ii. 261. 

Marriage in primitive times, ii. 345. 

Mars, his physical condition, i. 383. 

Marsupials and placental mammals, ii. 
wv, weve 

Martineau, J., his theory of a ‘‘ datum 
objective to God,” ii. 405, 425. 

Materialism utterly indefensible, ii. 79; 
ambiguous sense of the term, ii. 433 ; 
rejected by objective psychology, ii. 
437 ; and by molecular physics, ii. 439. 

Mathematics, i. 193, 200, 215, 219. 

Matter, composition of, i. 3; how far 
known, i. 16; how cognized, i. 282; 
indestructibility of, i. 65, 280 ; primary 
qualities of, i. 78; action of matter 
on matter unthinkable, i. 5, 155; ction 
of mind on matter, or of matter oy 
mind unthinkable, i. 158 ; ii, 445. 

Maudsley on the will, ii. 175. 

Means of investigation more neiaerous 


518 


in the more complex sciences, i, 210, 


Medieval philosophy, i. 24. 

Meldrum, C., on the relation between 
sun-spots and rainfall, i. 406. 

Memory, changes in, ii. 148; rise of, ii. 
155 


Mental. phenomena not identifiable with 
material phenomena, i. 352, 412. 

Metamorphosis of energy, its wondrous 
significance, i. 416. 

Metaphysics defined and criticized, i. 26, 
95, 105, 126, 143, 176. 

Meteorologic differentiations of earth’s 
surface, i. 403. 

Meteorology, i. 34, 190, 220. 

Meteors, i. 11, 391. 

Method of constructing a theory of the 
universe, i. 265. 

Mice and humble-bees, i. 308. 

Michelet, J., on the function of pain, ii. 
462. 

Military activity diminished with pro- 
gress of civilization, ii. 247 

Military life as nourishing the altruistic 
feelings, ii. 205. 

Military strength segregated into the 
most highly civilized communities, ii, 
259. 

Mill, James, i. 117, 2213 ii. 82. 

Mill, J.S., attacks Mr. Spencer’s test of 
truth, i. 61; unwittingly contravenes 
the experience-theory, i. 67; ii. 162; 
his criticism of Comte’s rejection of the 
objective method, i. 135 ; of Hamilton’s 
view of causation, i. 148 ; h’s own view 
of causation, i. 150—154; refutes the 
volitional theory, i. 159 —161 ; his illus- 
tration of the method of concomitant 
variations, i. 238; his obligations to 
Comte, i. 240; his remarks on bi- 
ology, i. 245; his definition of Philo- 
sophy, i. 246 ; his opinion that the law 
of causation is an induction per enume- 
rationem simplicem, i. 286; his remark 
about uniformity of law, i. 289; bis 
estimate of the nebular hypothesis, i, 
364; his suggestion that strongly 
marked individuality tends to dis- 
appear in modern times, ii. 267; his 
criticism of the Cartesian doctrine of 
causal resemblance, ii. 387 ; his remark 
about God's goodness, ii. 407 ; his view 
of the Religion of Humanity, ii, 
417. 

Mind not like a blank sheet, i. 46; ii. 
151; can never be resolved into mo- 
tions of matter, ii 442 ; law of its com: 
position, ii 119 ; unit of, ii, 131 ; quane 


INDEX, 


tity of, correlated with quantity of 
brain, ii. 133. 

Mineralogy, i. 189, 220, 225. 

Miracles, ii. 379. 

Missionary enterprises, why so often 
futile, ii. 142. 

Iivart, St. George, his theory that 
Nature makes jumps, ii. 33 ; his objec- 
tions to the Darwinian theory, ii. 50, 
286; misinterprets Mr. Spencer, ii, 
839 ; his view of the practical conse- 
quences of the Doctrine of Evolution, 
ii. 475, 506. 

Modern communities overworked, ii. 335. 

Modification of phenomena implies a cer 
tain amount of prevision, ii. 170. 

— on thought and phosphorus, ii 


Monodelphia, ii. 50. 

Monotheism, i. 168. 

Moon, its physical condition, i. 378; a 
type of the penultimate condition of 
all the planets, i. 392; speculations as 
to life upon it, 1.400 ; process by which 
its distance is determined, ii. 99. 

nee aspects of primitive society, ii. 

Moral government of the world, ii. 407. 

Morality and religion, their association 
not arbitrary, ii. 453; distinction be- 
tween, li. 465, 

Morphological testimony in favour of 
derivation, i. 459, 

Moths and lighted candles, ii. 332. 

Motion, transmission of, i. 6; how far 
known, i. 16; continuity of, i. 280; 
how cognized, i. 282; modes of, i. 2903 
direction of, i. 293; ii. 142; first law 
of, i. 294; how far to be regarded as 
eternal, ii. 391. 

Multiplication of effects, i. 354. 

*¢ Musical residua ” in old violins, ii. 148. 

Musical sounds, constitution of, ii. 123. 

IMythology, its kinship with metaphysies, 
i. 105, 148, 178; ii. 349. / 

*¢ Myths and Myth-makers,” i. 106, 178, 
196; ii. 349. 


Nancosts does not vary uniformly ac 
cording to dose, i. 238. 

Nationalities, doctrine of, ii. 269, 

Natural laws and divine action, ii. 425, 

‘‘ Natural reason” in jurisprudence, ii 
281. 

Natural selection, ii. 3; not limited to 
slight changes, ii. 19; logical character 
of the theory, ii. 46; wherein modiaed 
by social conditions, ii. 258, 334; point 


INDEX, 


at which its action changes, ii. 295; 

Per the argument from design, 

Nebule, constitution of, i. 886; distribu- 

hate of, i, 388; analogy with comets, 
9 


Nebular hypothesis, i. 248, 356—397, 
Necessary truths, i. 24, 47, 52—60. 
Negative evidence, i. 56. 

Neptune, discovery of, i. 35; ii. 106; his 
retrograde rotation, i. 356, 865; forma- 
tion of, i. 362. 

Nerve-tissue, establishment of transit- 
lines in, ii. 145. 

Nervous are, ii, 151, 

Nervous systems, genesis of, 146, 

Newman, J. H., quoted, ii, 500. 

Newton’s theory of maiter, i. 4; theory 
of gravitation, i. 12, 111, 113; theory 
of light, i. 180; his remark about 
metaphysics, i. 177; his law of the 
velocity of sound, i. 205 ; his discoveries 
ilustrate the helplessness of simple in- 
duction, i. 266 ; ii. 192; his hypothesis 
of gravitation inconceivable if meta- 
physically interpreted, i. 272; great- 
ness of his achievements, i. 326. 

Nitrogen as a constituent of organic 
matter, i. 533. 

Nuance, sense of, i. 29. 

Nutritive and relational systems of organs, 
ii, 86, 


O&LsJECTIVE and subjective elements in 
cognition, how far separable, i. 50. 

Objective method defined, i. 109, 

Observation, i. 241. 

Occasional causes, i, 24, 158. 

Occult substrata demolished by Berkeley 
and Hume, i. 88 : 

Occulta vis in causation, i. 154. 

Olfactory sensations, how compounded, 
ii, 128 

Omne vivum ex vivo, i. 419. PF phase 

Organic matter, direction of motion in, ii. 
144, 

Oriental type of civilization, how it has 
originated, ii. 268. : 

Vrigin, proximate and ultimate, i, 248, 
250 


Urnithodelphia, ii. 50. 
Ovum of mammals, i. 340. “e 
Jwen, Richard, on final causes, ii, 384, 


Patn, beneficence of, ii. £57. 
Pains and pleasures, ii. 327, 
Pangenesis, ii. 45, 


619 


Pan-Hellenism, ff. 205. 

Panspermatism, i. 420. 

Pantheism, i. 7; ii, 423, 

Paracelsus, i. 419, 

Paraguay Indians and Jesuits, ii. 804, 

Parental feeling correlated with duration 
of infancy, ii. 343, 

Parkman, F., ii. 247, 

Parmenides of Plato, i, 23. 

Patois, their tendency to disap 

Patria Potestas, ii. 220, 

Patriotism, ii, 205. 

Puc Romana, ii. 206. 

Pedigree of a hypothesis as a test of its 
value, i. 438, 

Pen and feather, i. 446. 

Pendulum, rhythm of, i. 299; Borda’s 
experiment with, i. 237. 

Perception implies recognition, ii. 1073 
simple and complex, ii. 112: how dif. 
ferent from sensation, ii, 113; rise of, 
ii. 156. 

Persistence of Force, i. 40, 283. 

ie ae incompatible with infinity, 
ii. 408. 

Phenomena, definition of, i. 20. 

Philip II., ii. 494; why a fit subject for 
moral disapprobation, ii. 183. 

hee Moai) distinguished from science, 
i, 39—44, 

Phosphorus and thought, ii. 436, 

Phrenology, ii. 74, 135. 

Physics, when constituted as a science, 
i. 199, 202; how divided, i. 203; the 
science of experiment, i. 243; ancient 
e: modern meaning of the word, i. 

79. 

Physiological units, ii. 45. 

Physiology, wherein different from psy- 
chology, ii. 76. 

Planaria, its eye-spot, ii. 90. 

Planes of revolution of asteroids not yet 
accounted for, i. 372, 

Planetary motions, i. 12; ancient theory 
of, i. 107 ; supposed to be controlled 
by archangels, i. 110, 197 ; great com- 
plexity of, i. 295; rhythm of, 303; 
graduai retardation of, 1. 394. 

Planets, sizes of, i. 8366; physical condi- 
tice of,i. 376; their ultimate fate, i. 
39 


, li. 34, 


Plants, their growth dependent on solar 
energy, i. 468. 

Plateau’s experiment in illustration of the 
nebular hypothesis, i. 363. 

Plato, i. 23, 99, 102; his theory of remi- 
niscence, i. 100 ; compared with Comte, 
i. 103, 139 ; on final causes, ii. 405. 

Pleasures and pains, ii. 327; why noxious 


520 


actions are sometimes pleasurable, ii. 
333. 

Polarity, i. 290; physiological, ii. 57. 

Political economy, a deductive science, 
i 113. 

Polytheism, i. 168. 

Positive Polity, utter failure of, ii, 4895 
its retrozrade character, ii. 494, 

Positivism, its relat.ons with idealism, 
i. 74—83; an impracticable philo-ophy, 
i. 175; current disposition to identify 
all scientific philosophy with it, i. 255; 
five fundamental propositions of, i, 
257 ; antagonistic to Cosmism, i. 93,94, 
145,175, 184, 263. 

Post hoc ergo propter hoe, i. 150. 

ig our notion of, whence derived, 
i. 156. 

Prayer cannot ward off the effects of 
wrong-doing, ii. 464, 

Precession, i. 303. 

Prediction in science, i. 33. 

Pre-established Harmony, i. 24, 129, 158, 

Preformation, theory of, i. 456. 

Prehension and intelligence, ii. 309. 

Prevision, quantitative and qualitative, 
i. 33; in sociology, ii. 169. 

Primitive men, their unprogressiveness, 
ii. 291. 

Primitive religion, ii. 458. 

Primitive state of high civilization, 
theory of, ii. 264. 

Proctor, R., i. 374, 378, 380. 

Progress, habitually misunderstood, ii. 

93; not universal, ii. 195, 255; yet 

still the prime phenomenon to be in- 
vestigated, ii. 196; factors of, ii. 197; 
its fundamental characteristic, ii. 201 ; 
its root in the exercise of the conjugal 
and parental feelings, ii. 203; deter- 
mined by increasing heterogeneity of 
environment, ii. 213 ; why morer:pid in 
modern than in ancient times, ii. 214; 
law of, ii. 223 ; Comte’s theory of, ii. 
240; moral and intellectual elements 
in, ii. 241; why some people do not 
advance, ii. 256-—283 ; inconspicuous in 
lower races of men, ii. 289. 

Proklos, his divine light, i. 23, 125. 

Protective spirit, ii. 231. 

Protists, Haeckel’s Kingdom of, i. 450, 

Providence, medieval notion of, ii. 381, 

Psychical phenomena can never be re- 
solved into motions of matter, ii. 442. 

Psychical states built up out of sub- 
psychical states, ii. 123; cohere less 
strongly as they increase in com- 
plexity, ii, 153. 

Psychogeny, i. 221, 


INDEX. 


Psychology; rejected by Comte, i. 194; 
twoiold division of, i. lL; wherein 
different from biology, ii. 76; problem 
of, ii. 78; its claims to rank as a pri- 
mary science, ii. 80 ; its dependence on 
biology, ii. 82. 

Pterodacty] and birds, ii. 51—53, 

Punic wars compared with the war uf 
secession, 1i. 249, 

Pyrrhonism, i. 23. 


rms why explained before comets, 
i. 210. 

Realism, i. 67, 
Cant how evolved from instinct, ii. 


Reasoning involves classification, i. 31; 
ii. 106; quantitative and qualitative, 
ii. 102. 

Reconciliation between Kant and Hume, 
i. 72,149; ii. 160. 

Redi, his panegyric on wine, i. 412; his 
experiments on decaying meat, i. 419. 

Reflex action, ii. 149. 

Reid, i. 77—79. 

Relational and nutritive systems of 
organs, ii. 86. 

Relations, equality of, it. 100; of animals 
in time,i 452. 

Relative truth, criterion of, i. 71. 

Relativity, canon of, i. 10; full meaning 
of the doctrine, i. 91. 

Religion not antagonistic to science, i. 
184; its relations to morality, ii. 357, 
465; of Humanity, how reached by 
Comte, i. 261; ii. 417. 

ey oe of antiquity, their function, ii, 


pe a cannot ward off punishment, 

il. f 

Representativeness, its importance as an 
intellectual facuity, ii. 512. 

Retina, structure of, ii. 62. 

Reversion of domesticated animals to- 
ward wild type, ii. 13. 

Revolution of 1789, ii. 480. 

Rhythm of motion, i. 2)7—313. 

Right and wrong, how different from 
pleasure and pain, ii. 337. 

Ring of the asteroids perturbed by 
Jupiter, i. 370. 

Rings detached from solar nebula, i. 361, 
Ata and quoit-shaped, i. 

oO. 
Robespierre, ii. 482, 485, 
bee church, grandeur of its work, ii. 


INDEX. . 


Rome, imi of its rule, ii. 206, 

215, 218. 

Rotifera as illustrating dependence of 
vitality on moisture, i. 334, 

Rousseau, J. J., his theory of a primitive 

- contract, ii. 221; his anarchical doc- 
trines, ii. 479. 

Rudimentary organs, i. 455. 


SAEMANN’s theory of the disappearance 
of the lunar air and water, i. 381. 

Sahara, effects of its submergence, 404. 

Saint-Simon, wherein different from 
Comte, i. 2€0. 

Sainte-Beuve, i. 29. 

Sanctions for morality furnished by 
religious systems, ii. 454. 

Santals, religion of, ii. 458. 

Satanic presence in nature, ii. 458. 

Satellites, distribution of, 1. 374. 

‘Saturation and substitution, i. 225. 

Saturn, eclipses caused by his rings, i. 
375; why he has rings, i. 376; his 
physical condition, i. 378. 

Savages, their want of foresight, ii. 247, 
303; moral condition of, ii. 350. 

Scales and lever, i. 36. 

Scepticism, i. 45, 86; its function, ii. 
229, 411 


Schelling, i. 48, 52, 77, 99 ; his theory of 
**intellectual intuition,” i. 124. 

Scherer, E., ii. 383. 

Schlegel, A. W., his hypothesis of word- 
budding, i. 66. 

Scholastic philosophy, its great value, 
i, 123... 

Schopenhauer, A., on Hegel, i. 124. 

Science and common knowledge, i. 27— 
38 ; ii. 297 ; enormous progress of since 
1830, i. 229, 251; originated in myth- 
ology, i. 177. 

Sciences, Comte’s classification of, i. 189 
—215; cannot be erranged in a linear 
series, i. 208 ; conditions which deter- 
mine their relative progress, i. 209— 
212; Mr. Spencer’s triple division of, i. 
zi5; tabular view of, i, 219; device 
for representing their relative rates of 
progress, i. 223. 

Secession, war of, compared with Punic 
wars, ii. 249 

Segregation as a consequence of the per- 
sistence of force, i, 855. 

Selection, ii. 9. 

Self-creation, i. 7. 

Self-existence, i. 7. 

Self-regarding virtues, ii. 357. 

Sensation, how differext from perception, 


VOL. I. 


ae” 


521 


fi. 113; peripherally or cer trally ini. 
tiated, ii. 116; relativity of, i. 17, 18. 

Sensations and ideas, ii. 111. 

Sense-organs differentiated from dermal 
structures, ii. 89. 

Sequences which are not causal, i. 151. 

Servetus, i. 65. 

Sexual selection, ii. 27. 

Shaler, N. 8., his theory of the rattle. 
snake’s rattle, ii. 28. 

Shark, brain of, ii. 133. 

eras ~y England and the Mediterranean, 
ii 


Siberian fungus, its psychical effects, i. 


Siberian mammoths, i. 321. 

Sidereal astronomy, why condemned by 
Comte, i. 260.. 

Silurian rocks not strictly paleeozoic, ii. 38. 

Similarity and dissimilarity, ii. 118. 

Sin, divine judgment on, i. 199; scien- 
tific doctrine of, ii. 455; anthropo- 
morphic doctrine of, as yet the most 
useful, ii. 470. 

Sizes of planets, i. 366. 

Sleep, physiological explanation of, i. 306. 

Smith, Adam, i. 113; his remark about a 
god of Weight, i. 195; his principle of 
division of labour, i. 207. 

aia Goldwin, on the science of history, 
ii. 172. 

Social environment, ii. 197 ; rapid change 
of, in recent times, ii. 335. 

Social evolution, definition of, ii. 223; 
closely akin to organic evolution, ii. 
225; prerequisites to the discovery ot 
the law of, ii. 233 ; opens a new chapter 
in the history of the world, ii. 398 
connected with representativeness, ii. 
315; origin of, ii. 340—363. 

Sociality and gregariousness, ii, 341. 

Society, morphological development of, 
ii. 215 

Sociozeny, i. 222. 

Socioloyy a concrete science, i. 213; pre- 
vision in, ii. 169; great difficulty of 
the study, ii. 191; position of the 
science, ii. 198. 

Solar energy, how transformed on the 
earth, i. 407. 

Solar nebula, its primitive rotation, i. 
360; its original shape, i. 361, 389. 

Solar ray, composition of, i. 19. 

— ~ Ng scouted at by Aristotclians, 
i, 11 


Solidity of matter, i. 3, 373. 

Sounds, constitutien of, ii. 123. 
Spallanzani and the germ-theory, i. 420. 
Special-creation hypothesis, i 440. 


M M 


522 


Speciatists, narrowness of, i. 241. 

Species, bifurcation of, ii. 18. 

Spectrum-analysis, i. 202, 207, 249; its 
latest indications, i. 388; enables us to 
measure the direct approach or reces- 
sion of a star, i. 487. 

Spencer, Herbert, his greatness as a psy- 
chologist, i. 163; his refutation of the 
theory of the ‘*‘ Three Stages,” i. 173 ; 
his refutation of the Comtean classifica- 
tion, i. 204; his distinction between 
abstractness and generality, i. 214; 
his triple division of sciences, i. 216; 
his opinion of Comte’s specuiations, i. 
227; comparison of his achievements 
with Newton’s, i. 326, 351; his ex- 

lanation of the retrograde rotation of 

ranus, i. 365; his hypothesis regard- 
ing the asteroids, i. 370; his theory of 
the distribution of nebulz, i. 388; on 
the functions of cerebrum and cere- 
bellum, ii. 138; on the genesis of 
nervous systems, ii. 146; “ Ideas do 
not govern the world,” ii. 242; emen- 
dation of his phrase ‘‘ nervous shock,” 
ii. 444; his rofutation of materialism, 
ii. 446; description of the state of 
society toward which we are progress- 
ing, ii. 495 

Spinoza, i. 24; erroneousness of his 
method, i. 116; produced a crisis in 
philosophy, i. 117 ; on the personality 
of God, ii. 409. 

Spirit, ii. 395, 449. 

Spirits in pharmacy, i. 197. 

‘* Spiritualism,” superstition of, ii. 379. 

Spontaneous generation, i. 12), 243. 

Stahl, i. 127, 419. 

Statical and dynamical habits of thought, 
ii. 371, 473. 

Status and contract, ii. 221. 

Stimulus, metaphysical doctrine of, i 
197 ; dynamically defined, i. 412, 

Stewart, Balfour, i. 395, 

Struggle for life, ii. 12, 

Struthious birds, ii. 67. 

Subjective method defined, i. 98, 

Subsidence and elevation, ii. 39. 

Sun, source of his heat, i. 359; must ultie 
mately become cold, i. 392. 

Sun-spots and rain-fall, i. 406. 

Sympathetic nerve, its action on the 
bloodvessels, i. 306, 

Sympathy, ii. 352. 


TACTILE sensations, how compounded, fi; 
129. 
Tactual sense, in man and lobster, i, 17. 


INDEX. 


Taine, H. A., ii. 123. 

Tear and larme, i. 446. 

Teleological hypothesis, its logical weak- 
ness, li. 385; overthrown by the dise 
covery of natural selection, ii, 3973 
origin of, ii. 399. 

Tennyson, ii. 85, 462. 

Theism, i. 7; does not necessarily impiy 

ersonality of God, ii. 424. 

*¢ Theological,” sometimes unfortunately 
used by Comte, i. 196, 

Thermodynamics, i. 34. 

Thought and phosphorus, ii. 436; wherein 
dependent on solar radiations, i, 413. 
Three stages, Comte’s theory of, i. 168; 

ii, 238, 245, 478. . 

Tides, rbythm of, i, 305; checking pla- 
netary rotation, i. 359, 393. 

Timaios of Plato, i, 102. 

a or quality of sound, source of, ii, 


Torricelli’s discovery of atmospheric pres- 
sure, i. 209. 

Toxodon, ii, 41. 

Transit-lines in brain, ii, 139. 

Tegeettecat forms, alleged paucity of, ii. 


Transubstantiation and transaccidenta- 
tion, i. 123, 

Trees in Europe and America, ii. 55. 

Truth, test of, i. 11, 45—71, 286; ii. 162; 
definition of, i. 45; ii. 246; does not 
apply where experience is transcended, 
4. 11 > ii, 391, 


UNDULATION, how necessitated, i. 300. 
Undulatory theory of light, i. 300. 
Unembodied spirit, ii. 395, 

Uniformity of belief and practice, its 
dangers, ii. 273. 

Unit of mind, ii. 131. 

Universal proposition inferred from single 
instance, i. 55 

Universe, origin of, i. 6; how far un- 
knowable, i. 15; ii. 413. 

Unknowable, doctrine of, rejected by 
Positivism, i 82, 169, 262; misunder- 
standings to which the term has given 
rise, ii. 469. 

Toe his retrograde rotation, i, 356, — 


Use and disuse, ii. 17. 


VERIFICATION, i. 108, 127. 
Vibration of particles, i, 20, 47% 
Vibrisse, ii. $0. 

Vico’s theory of cycles, i. 310. 


INDEX. 


Violins, why they become mellow with 
age, li, 1438. 
rate and spontaneous generation, i, 


Virteal velocities, i. 36, 40. 

Visual perception not originally cog- 
nizant of distance, ii. 108. 

ye sensations, how compounded, ii. 


Vision -and touch, ii. 90; range of, in 
savages and civilized men, ii. 

Vital Principle, i. 127, 197, 422, 

Volition, rise of, aM 156 ; definition of, ii. 
177 ; theo the lawlessness of, i. 
198 ; ii. 18 + ad 

Voltaire’s Micromégas, i. 81, 

Von Baer, i. 40, 208, 342. 


Wacner, Moritz, his testimony in favour 
of the derivation theory, i. 463. 

Wallace, A. R., on natural selection, ii 
5; his brilliant theory of the action of 
natural selection on man, ii. 318; his 
—— with an infant orang-outang, 


— its tendency to disappear, if 


Waste and repair in brain, ii. 140. 

Water unchanged in its passage through 
the animal organism, i. 410. 

Whales and ichthyosaurians, ii. 58, 

Whately, R., ii. 193. 

Whewell, Ww, on final causes, ii. 384, 

Will. freedom. of, i. 54,198; ii. 173. 

Winslow, Forbes, i ii. 20. 

Witchcraft, belief in, ii. 379. 

or obtained crystals of quartz, i. 

4 

Worship, its object not the known but 
the unknown, ii. 420. 

Wright, Chauncey, i. 105. 

Wrought-iron rendered crystalline by 
vibration, i. 330. 

— on the scope of geology, i 


Youna, Thomas, i. 130. 


Zooxwoey, as related to biology, i. 212, 


END. 


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