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LAY SERMONS, ADDEESSES, AND EEVIEWS.
LAY SERMONS,
ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS
BY
THOMAS HEMY HUXLEY, LL.D., F.R.S..
AtTTHOR OP
"man's place in natuke," "origin of species," etc., etcj.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETO^sT AND COMPAJSTY,
1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET.
18 8 2.
A PREFATORY LETTER.
My dear Tyndall,
I slioiild liave liked to provide tMs coUection
of **Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Eeviews/^ with a
Dedication and a Preface. In the former, I should have
asked you to allow me to associate your name with the
book, chiefly on the ground that the oldest of the papers
in it is a good deal younger than our friendship. In
the latter, I intended to comment upon certain criticisms
with which some of these Essays have been met.
But, on turning the matter over in my mind, I began
to fear that a formal dedication at the beginning of such
a volume would look like a grand lodge in front of a set
of cottages ; while a complete defence of any of my old
papers would simply amount to writing a new one — a
labour for Y\^hich I am, at present, by no means fit.
The book must go forth, therefore, without any better
substitute for either Dedication, or Preface, than this
letter ; before concluding which it is necessary for me
to notify you, and any other reader, of two or three
matters.
Fl A PREFATORY LETTER.
The first is, that the oldest Essay of the whole, that
"On the Educational Value of the Natural History
Sciences,'' contains a view of the nature of the differences
between living and not-living bodies out of which I have
long since grown.
Secondly, in the same paper, there is a statement con-
cerning the method of the mathematical sciences, which,
repeated and expanded elsewhere, brought upon me,
durinof the meeting; of the British Association at Exeter,
the artillery of our eminent friend Professor Sylvester.
No one knows better than you do, how readily I
should defer to the opinion of so great a mathematician
if the question a,t issue were really, as he seems to think
it is, a mathematical one. But I submit, that the dictum
of a mathematical athlete upon a difficult problem which
mathematics offers to philosophy, has no more special
weight, than the verdict of that great pedestrian Captain
Barclay would have had, in settling a disputed point in
the physiology of locomotion.
The genius which sighs for new w^orlds to conquer
beyond that surprising region in which "geometry,
algebra, and the theory of numbers melt into one another
like sunset tints, or the colours of a dying dolphin,'' may
be of comparatively little service in the cold domain
(mostly lighted by the moon, some say) of philosophy.
And the more I think of it, the more does our friend
seem to me to fall into the position of one of those
" verstiindige Leute," about whom he makes so apt a
quotation from Goethe. Surely he has not duly con-
sidered two points. The first, that I am in no way
A PREFATORY LETTER. vii
answerable for tlie origination of tlie doctrine lie criti-
cises : and tlie second, that if we are to employ the
terms observation, induction, and experiment, in the
sense in which he uses them, logic is as much an
observational, inductive, and experimental science as
mathematics; and that, I confess, appears to me to be
a reductio ad ahsurdum of his argument.
Thirdly, the Essay " On the Physical Basis of Life" was
intended to contain a plain and untechnical statement of
one of the great tendencies of modern biological thought,
accompanied by a protest, from the philosophical side,
against what is commonly called Materialism. The
result of my well-meant efforts I find to be, that I am
generally credited with having invented "protoplasm"
in the interests of ''materialism." My unlucky "Lay
Sermon" has been attacked by microscopists, ignorant
alike of Biology and Philosophy ; by philosophers, not
very learned in either Biology or Microscopy ; by clergy-
men of several denominations ; and by some few writers
who have taken the trouble to understand the subject.
I trust that these last will believe that I leave the Essay
unaltered from no want of respectful attention to all they
have said.
Fourthly, I wish to refer all who are interested in
the topics discussed in my address on " Geological Ee-
form," to the reply with which Sir William Thomson has^
honoured me.
And, lastly, let me say that I reprint the review of
"The Origin of Species" simply because it has been
cited as mine by a late President of the Geological Society.
1
riii A FliEFATORY LETTER, \
If you find its phraseology, in some places, to be more ]
vigorous than seems needful, recollect that it was written \
in the heat of our first battles over the Novum Organ on
of Biology ; that we were all ten years younger in those I
days ; and last, but not least, that it was not published ;
until it had been submitted to the revision of a friend
for whose judgment I had then, as I have now, the |
greatest respect. ;
• ■ j
Ever, my dear Tyndall, ]
Yours very faithfully,
T. H. HUXLEY.
London, June 1870. i^ I
CONTENTS.
L
Oh the Advisableness of improving Natural Knowledge.
(A Lay Sermon delivered in St. Martin's Hall, on the evening
of Sunday, the 7th of January, 1866, and subsequently published
in the Fortnightly Review) ,«»,.« 1
II.
Emancifation — Black and White. (The Reader, May 20th, 1865) 20
III.
A Liberal Education : and Where to find It. (An Address
to the South London Working Men's College, delivered on the
4th of January, 1868, and subsequently published in Macmillan^s.
Magazine) 27
IV.
Scientific Education : Notes of an After-dinner Speech. (De-
livered before the Liverpool Philomathic Society ia April 1869,
and subsequently published in Macmillan's Magazine) . . . . • 54
V.
On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences.
(An Address delivered at St. Martin's Hall, on the 2 2d July, 1854,
and published as a pamphlet in that year) .... . • • '] 2
CONTENTS.
Yl.
On the Study of Zoology. (A Lecture delivered at tlie South
Kensington Museum, in 1861, and subsequently published by the
Department of Science and Art) 94
VII.
On the Physical Basis of Life. (A Lay Sermon delivered in
Edinburgh, on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1868, at the request
of the late Eev. James Cranbrook ; subsequently published in the
Fortnightly Review) 120
VIIL
The Scientific Aspects op Positivism. (A Reply to Mr. Congreve's
Attack upon the preceding Paper. Published .n the Fortnightly
lievievj, 1869) •e>.c,8«e...9.e«a«147
IX.
On a Piece op Chalk. (A Lecture delivered to the Working Men of
Norwich, during the Meeting of the British Association, in 1868.
Subsequently published in Macmillan^s Magazine) ,174
X.
(Geological CoNTEMroRANEiTY and Persistent Types of Life. (The
Anniversary Address to the Geological Society for 1862) . » , « 20%
XI.
Geological Reform. (The Anniversary Address to the Geological
Society for 1869) 228
XII.
>^ The Origin of Species. (The Westminster Review, April 1860) , , , 255
CONTENTS. xi
XIII.
PAGK
Criticisms on "The Origin' of Species." (The Natural History
Review, 1864) 299
XIY.
On Descartes' " Discourse touching the Method of using One's
Eeason rightly and of seeking Scientific Truth." (An
Address to the Cambridge Young Men's Christian Society, delivered
on the 24th of March, 1870, and subsequently published in
Macmillaov's Magazine) .......,•..*..« 32C
XY.
Spontaneous Generation. (An Address delivered before the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, ^t the Liverpool
meeting, September, 1870, and published in Nature) ....
ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPEOVING
NATUEAL KNOWLEDGE.
This time two hundred years ago — in tlie beginning of
January, 1666 — ^those of our forefathers wlio inhabited
this great and ancient city, took breath between the
shocks of two fearful calamities : one not quite past,
although its fury had abated ; the other to come.
"Within a few yards of the very spot on which we
are assembled, so the tradition runs, that painful
and deadly malady, the plague, appeared in the latter
months of 1664 ; and, though no new visitor, smote the
people of England, and especially of her capital, with
a violence unknown before, in the course of the following
year. The hand of a master has pictured what happened
in those dismal months ; and - in that truest of fictions,
" The History of the Plague Year,^^ Defoe shows death,
with every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking
through the narrow streets of old London, and changing
their busy hum into a silence broken only by the
wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead ; by the
woful denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics ; and
by the madder yells of despairing profligates.
But, about this time in 1666, the death-rate had
sunk to nearly its ordinary amount; a case of plague
occurred only here and there, and the richer citizens
2 LAY SERMONS, JBDJRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [l
wlio liad flown from tlie pest had returned to their
dwellings. The remnant of the people began to toil
at the accustomed round of duty, or of pleasure ; and
the stream of city life bid fair to flow back along its
old bed, with renewed and uninterrupted vigour.
The newly kindled hope was deceitful. The great
plague, indeed, returned no more ; but what it had
done for the Londoners, the great fire, which broke
out in the autumn of 1666, did for London ; and, in
September of that year, a heap of ashes and the inde-
structible energy of the people were all that remained
of the glory of five-sixths of the city within the walls.
Our forefathers had their own ways of accounting
for each of these calamities. They submitted to the
plague in humility and in penitence, for they believed
it to be the judgment of God. But, towards the fire
they were furiously indignant, interpreting it as the
effect of the malice of man, — as the work of the
Eepublicans, or of the Papists, according as their pre-
possessions ran in favour of loyalty or of Puritanism.
It would, I fancy, have fared but ill with one who,
standing where I now stand, in what was then a thickly
peopled and fashionable part of London, should have
broached to our ancestors the doctrine which I now
propound to you — that all their hypotheses were alike
wrong ; that the plague was no more, in their sense,
Divine judgment, than the fire was the work of any poli-
tical, or of any religious, sect ; but that they were them-
selves the authors of both plague and fire, and that they
must look to themselves to prevent the recurrence of
calamities, to all appearance so peculiarly beyond the
reach of human control — so evidently the result of the
wrath of God, or of the craft and subtlety of ao
enemy.
..] ABriSABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 3
And one may picture to oneself how harmoniously
the holy cursing of the Puritan of that day would have
chimed in w^ith the unholy cursing and the crackling
wit of the Eochesters and Sedleys, and with the revilings
of the political fanatics, if my imaginary plain dealer
had gone on to say that, if the return of such misfortunes
were ever rendered impossible, it would not be in virtue
of the victory of the faith of Laud, or of that of
Milton ; and, as little, by the triumph of republicanism,
as by that of monarchy. But that the one thing
needful for compassing this end v/as, that the people
of England should second the efforts of an insig-
nificant corporation, the establishment of which, a few
years before the epoch of the great plague and the
great fire, had been as little noticed, as they were
conspicuous.
Some twenty years before the outbreak of the plague
a few calm and thoughtful students banded themselves
together for the purpose, as they phrased it, of "im-
proving natural knowledge/'' The ends they proposed
to attain cannot be stated more clearly than in the
words of one of the founders of the organization : —
" Our business was (precluding matters of theology
and state affairs) to discourse and consider of philo-
sophical enquiries, and such as related thereunto : — as
Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation,
Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and
Natural Experiments ; with the state of these studies
and their cultivation at home and abroad. We then
discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves
in the veins, the venae lacteaa, the lymphatic vessels,
the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and
new stars, the satellites of Ju.piter, the oval shape (as
it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots on the sun and
4 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. £1.'
its turning on its own axis, tlie inequalities and seleno-
graphy of the moon, the several phases of Yenus and
Mercury, the improvement of telescopes and grinding
of glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the
possibility or impossibility of vacuities and nature's ab-
horrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment in quick-
silver, the descent of heavy bodies and the degree of
acceleration therein, with divers other things of like
nature, some of which were then but new discoveries,
and others not so generally known and embraced as
now they are ; with other things appertaining to what
hath been called the New Philosophy, which, from
the times of G-alileo at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon
(Lord Yeruiam) in England, hath been much cultivated
in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as
well as with us in England."
The learned Dr. Wallis, writing in 1696, narrates, in
these words, what happened half a century before, or
about 1645. The associates met at Oxford, in the
rooms of Dr. Wilkins, who was destined to become a
bishop ; and subsequently coming together in London,
they attracted the notice of the king. And it is a
strange evidence of the taste for knowledge which the
most obviously worthless of the Stuarts shared with
his father and grandfather, that Charles the Second
was not content with saying witty things about his
philosophers, but did wise things with regard to them.
For he not only bestowed upon them such attention as
he could spare from his poodles and his mistresses, but,
being in his usual state of impecuniosity, begged for
them of the Duke of Ormond ; and, that step being
without effect, gave them Chelsea College, a charter, and
a mace : crowning his favours in the best way they could
be crowned, by burdening them no further with royal
patronage or state interference.
I.] ADFISABLENESS OF IMFROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 5
Thus it was tliat tlie lialf-dozen young men, studious
of the " New Philosophy," who met in one another's
lodgings in Oxford or in London, in the middle of the
seventeenth century, grew in numerical and in real
strength, until, in its latter part, the " Eoyal Society for
the Improvement of Natural Knowledge" had already
become famous, and had acquired a claim upon the vene-
ration of Englishmen, which it has ever since retained,
as the principal focus of scientific activity in our islands,
and the chief champion of the cause it was formed to
support.
It was by the aid of the Royal Society that Newton
published his '' Principia." If all the books in the world,
except the Philosophical Transactions, were destroyed, it
is safe to say that the foundations of physical science
would remain unshaken, and that the vast intellectual
progress of the last two centuries would be largely,
though incompletely, recorded. Nor have any signs
of halting or of decrepitude manifested themselves in
our own times. As in Dr. Wallis's days, so in these,
" our business is, precluding theology and state affairs,
to discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries."
But our '' Mathematick" is one which Newton would
have to go to school to learn ; our " Staticks^ Mechanicks,
Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural Experiments" con-
stitute a mass of physical and chemical knowledge,
a glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for
the doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals ; our
"Physick" and "Anatomy" have embraced such in-
finite varieties of being, have laid open such new
worlds in time and space, have grappled, not unsuc-
cessfully, with such complex problems, that the eyes
of Vesalius and of Harvey might be dazzled by the
sight of the tree that has grown out of their grain of
mustard seed.
6 l^r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [i.
The fact is perliaps ratlier too mucli, than too little,
forced upon one's notice, nowadays, that all this mar-
vellous intellectual growth has a no less wonderful
expression in practical life ; and that, in this respect, if
in no other, the movement symbolized by the progress
of the Eoyal Society stands without a parallel in the
history of mankind.
A series of volumes as bulky as the Transactions of
the Eoyal Society might possibly be filled with the
subtle speculations of the Schoolmen ; not improbably,
the obtaining a mastery over the products of mediaeval
thought might necessitate an even greater expenditure of
time and of energy than the acquirement of the " New
Philosophy;'' but though such work engrossed the best
intellects of Europe for a longer time than has elapsed
since the great fire, its effects were " writ in water/' so
far as our social state is concerned.
On the other hand, if the noble first President of the
Eoyal Society could revisit the upper air and once more
gladden his eyes with a sight of the familiar mace, he
vfould find himself in the midst of a material civilization
more different from that of his day, than that of the
seventeenth, was from that of the first, century. And if
Lord Brouncker's native sagacity had not deserted his
ghost, he would need no long reflection to discover that
all these great ships, these railways, these telegraphs,
these factories, these printing-presses, without which the
whole fabric of modern English society would collapse
into a mass of stagnant and starving pauperism, — that
all these pillars of our State are but the ripples and the
bubbles upon the surface of that great spiritual stream,
the springs of which, only, he and his fellows were
privileged to see ; and seeing, to recognise as that which
it behoved them above all things to keep pure and
undefiled.
I.] ADFISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 7
It may not be too great a fliglit of imagination to
conceive our noble revenant not forgetful of the great
troubles of bis own day, and anxious to know bow often
London bad been burned down since bis time, and bow
often tbe plague bad carried off its tbousands. He would
bave to learn tbat, altbougb London contains tenfold the
inflammable matter tbat it did in 1666 ; tbougb, not
content witb filling our rooms with woodwork and ligbt
draperies, we must needs lead inflammable and ex^Dlosive
gases into every corner of our streets and bouses, we
never allow even a street to burn down. And if be
asked bow tbis bad come about, we sbould bave to
explain tbat tbe improvement of natural knowledge bas
furnished us witb dozens of machines for throwing water
upon fires, any one of which would bave furnished the
ingenious Mr. Hooke, the first " curator and experi-
menter" of the Koyal Society, with ample materials for
discourse before half a dozen meetings of that body ;
and that, to say truth, except for tbe progress of natural
knowledge, we should not have been able to make even
the tools by w^hich these machines are constructed.
And, further, it would be necessary to add, that although
severe fires sometimes occur and inflict great damage,
the loss is very generally compensated by societies, the
operations of which have been rendered possible only
by the progress of natural knowledge in the direction of
mathematics, and the accumulation of wealth in virtue
of other natural knowledge.
But the plague ? My Lord Brouncker's observation
would not, I fear, lead him to think that Englishmen of
tbe nineteenth century are purer in life, or more fer-
vent in religious faith, than the generation which could
produce a Boyle, an Evelyn, and a Milton. He might
find the mud of society at the bottom, instead of at the
top, but I fear that the sum total would be as deserving
S . LJr SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEJFS, [i
of swift judgment as at the time of the Eestoration.
And it would be our duty to explain once more, and
this time not without shame, that we have no reason
to believe that it is the improvement of our faith, nor
that of our morals, which keeps the plague from our
city ; but, again, that it is the improvement of our
natural knowledge.
AYe have learned that pestilences will only take up
their abode among those who have prepared unswept
and ungarnished residences for them. Their cities must
have narrow, unwatered streets, foul with accumulated
garbage. Their houses must be ill-drained, ill-lighted,
ill- ventilated. Their subjects must be ill- washed, ill-
fed, ill-clothed. The I^ondon of 1665 was such a city.
The cities of the East, wdiere plague has an enduring
dwelling, are such cities. We, in later times, have
learned somewhat of Nature, and partly obey her.
Because of this partial improvement of our natural
knowledge and of that fractional obedience, we have
no plague ; because that knowledge is still very imper-
fect and that obedience yet incomplete, typhus is our
companion and cholera our visitor. But it is not
presumptuous to express the belief that, when our
knowledge is more complete and our obedience the
expression of our knowledge, London wiU count her
centuries of freedom from typhus and cholera, as she
now gratefully reckons her two hundred years of
ignorance of that plague which swooped upon her
thrice in the first half of the seventeenth century.
Surely, there is nothing in these explanations which
is not fully borne out by the facts ? Surely, the prin-
ciples involved in them are now admitted among the
fixed beliefs of all thinking men? Surely, it is true
that our countrymen are less subject to fire, famine,
pestilence, and all the evils which result from a want
I.] ABVISAMENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 9
ol command, over and due anticipation of tlie course of
Nature, than were the countrymen of Milton ; and health,
wealth, and well-being are more abundant with us than
with them ? But no less certainly is the difference due
to the improvement of our knowledge of Nature, and
the extent to which that improved knowledge has been
incorporated with the household words of men, and has
supplied the springs of their daily actions.
Granting for a moment, then, the truth of that which
the depredators of natural knowledge are so fond of
urging, that its improvement can only add to the resources
of our material civilization ; admitting it to be possible that
the founders of the Eoyal Society themselves looked for
no other reward than this, I cannot confess that I was
guilty, of exaggeration when I hinted, that to him who
had the gift of distinguishing between prominent events
and important events, the origin of a combined effort
on the part of mankind to improve natural knowledge
might have loomed larger than the Plague and have out-
shone the glare of the Fire ; as a something fraught with
a wealth of beneficence to mankind, in comparison with
which the damage done by those ghastly evils would
shrink into insignificance.
It is very certain that for every victim slain by
the plague, hundreds of mankind exist and find a fair
share of happiness in the world, by the aid of the
spinning jenny. And the great fire, at its worst, could
not have burned the supply of coal, the daily working
of which, in the bowels of the earth, made possible by the
steam pump, gives rise to an amount of wealth to which
the millions lost in old London are but as an old song.
But spinning jenny and steam pump are, after all, but
toys, possessing an accidental value ; and natural know-
ledge creates multitudes of more subtle contrivances, the
10 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [u
praises of wliicli do not happen to be sung because tliey
are not directly convertible into instruments for creating
wealth. When I contemplate natural knowledge squan-
dering such gifts among men, the only appropriate
comparison I can find for her is, to liken her to such a
peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, striding ever
upward, heavily burdened, and with mind bent only on
her home ; but yet, without eifort and without thought,
knitting for her children. Now stockings are good and
comfortable things, and the childi*en will undoubtedly
be much the better for them ; but surely it would be
short-sighted, to say the least of it, to depreciate this
toiling mother as a mere stocking-machine — a mere
provider of physical comforts ?
However, there are blind leaders of the blind, and not
a few of them, who take this view of natural knowledge,
and can see nothing in the bountiful mother of humanity
but a sort of comfort- grinding machine. According to
them, the improvement of natural knowledge always has
been, and always must be, synonymous with no more
than the improvement of the material resources and the
increase of the gratifications of men.
Natural knowledge is, in their eyes, no real mother of
mankind, bringing them up with kindness, and, if need
b.e, vfith sternness, in the way they should go, and
instructing them in all things needful for their welfare ;
but a sort of fairy godmother, ready to furnish her pets
with shoes of swiftness, swords of sharpness, and omni-
potent Aladdin's lamps, so that they may have telegraphs
to Saturn, and see the other side of the moon, and thank
God they are better than their benighted ancestors.
If this talk were true, I, for one, should not greatly
care to toil in the service of natural knowledsre. I think
I would just as soon be quietly chipping my own flint
axe, after the manner of my forefathers a few thousand
i:\ ADVISABLENESS OF IMP ROVING NATURAL KNOWLEBGE. l\
years back, as be troubled with the endless malady of
thought which now infests us all, for such reward. But
I venture to say that such views are contrary alike to
reason and to fact. Those who discourse in such fashion
seem to me to be so intent upon trying to see what is
above Nature, or what is behind her, that they are blind
to what stares them in the face, in her.
I should not venture to speak thus strongly if my
justification were not to be found in the simplest and
most obvious facts, — if it needed more than an appeal
to the most notorious truths to justify my assertion, that
the improvement of natural knowledge, whatever direc-
tion it has taken, and however low the aims of those
who may have commenced it — has not only conferred
practical benefits on men, but, in so doing, has efi'ected
a revolution in their conceptions of the universe and of
themselves, and has profoundly altered their modes of
thinking and their views of right and wrong. I say
that natural knowledge, seeking to satisfy natural wants,
has found the ideas which can alone still spiritual
cravings. I say that natural knowledge, in desiring to
ascertain the laws of comfort, has been driven to discover
those of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new
morality.
Let us take these points separately ; and, first, what
great ideas has natural knowledge introduced into men s
minds ?
I cannot but think that the foundations of all natural
knowledge were laid when the reason of man first came
face to face with the facts of Nature : when the savage
first learned that the fingers of one hand are fewer than
those of both ; that it is shorter to cross a stream than
to head it ; that a stone stops where it is unless it be
moved, and that it drops from the hand which lets it go ;
12 ZJF SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS [i.
tliat light and heat come and go with the sun ; that
sticks burn away in a fire ; that plants and animals grow
and die ; that if he struck his fellow-savage a blow he
would make him angry, and perhaps get a blow in return,
while if he offered him a fruit he would please him, and
perhaps receive a fish in exchange. When men had
acquired this much knowledge, the outlines, rude though
they were, of mathematics, of physics, of chemistry, of
biology, of moral, economical, and political science, were
sketched. Nor did the germ of religion fail when
science began to bud. Listen to words which, though
new, are yet three thousand years old : —
** , . . When in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart." i
If the half-savage Greek could share our feelings thus
far, it is irrational to doubt that he went further, to
find, as we do, that upon that brief gladness there
follows a certain sorrow, — the little light of awakened
human intelligence shines so mere a spark amidst the
abyss of the unknown and unknowable ; seems so in-
sufficient to do more than illuminate the imperfections
that cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot be
realized, of man^s own nature. But in this sadness, this
consciousness of the limitation of man, this sense of an
open secret which he cannot penetrate, lies the essence of
all religion ; and the attempt to embody it in the forms
furnished by the intellect is the origin of the higher
theologies.
Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that the
foundations of all knowledge — secular or sacred — were
1 Need it be said that this is Tennyson's English for Homer's Greek ?
l] ADVISJBIENESS of niPROVING natural KNOWL-EBGE. 13
laid when intelligence dawned, tliougli the superstructure
remained for long ages so slight and feeble as to be
compatible with the existence of almost any general
view respecting the mode of governance of the universe.
No doubt, from the first, there were certain phsenomena
which, to the rudest mind, presented a constancy of
occurrence, and suggested that a fixed order ruled, at
any rate, among them. I doubt if the grossest of Fetish
worshippers ever imagined that a stone must have a
god within it to make it fall, or that a fruit had a god
within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to such
matters as these, it is hardly questionable that man-
kind from the first took strictly positive and scientific
views.
But, with respect to all the less familiar occurrences
which present themselves, uncultured man, no doubt, has
always taken himself as the standard of comparison, as
the centre and measure of the world ; nor could he well
avoid doing so. And finding that his apparently un-
caused will has a powerful efiect in giving rise to many
occurrences, he naturally enough ascribed other and
greater events to other and greater volitions, and came
to look upon the world and all that therein is, as the
product of the volitions of persons like himself, but
stronger, and capable of being appeased or angered, as
he himself might be soothed or irritated. Through such
conceptions of the plan and working of the universe all
mankind have passed, or are passing. And we may now
consider, what has been the efiect of the improvement
of natural knowledge, on the views of men who have
reached this stage, and who have begun to cultivate
natural knowledge with no desire but that of "increasing
God's honour and bettering mans estate.'^
For example : what could seem wiser, from a mere
material point of view, more innocent, from a theological
2
14 LAY SliRMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [i
one, to an ancient people,- tlian that tliey slioukl learn
tlie exact succession of the seasons, as warnings for their
husbandmen ; or the position of the stars, as guides to
their rude navigators '? But what has grown out of this
search for natural knowledge of so merely useful a
character? You all know the reply. Astronomy, —
which of all sciences has filled men's minds with general
ideas of a character most foreign to their daily ex-
perience, and has, more than any other, rendered it
impossible for them to accept the beliefs of their fathers.
Astronomy, — which tells them that this so vast and
seemingly solid earth is but an atom among atoms,
whirling, no man knows whither, through illimitable
space ; which demonstrates that what we call the peace-
ful heaven above us, is but that space, filled by an
infinitely subtle matter whose particles are seething and
surging, like the waves of an angry sea; which opens
up to us infinite regions where nothing is known, or
ever seems to have been known, but matter and force,
operating according to rigid rules ; which leads us to
contemplate phsenomena the very nature of which
demonstrates that they must have had a beginning, and
that they must have an end, but the very nature of
which also proves that the beginning was, to our concep-
tions of time, infinitely remote, and that the end is as
immeasurably distant.
But it is nob alone those who pursue astronomy who
ask for bread and receive ideas. What more harmless
than the attempt to lift and distribute Wciter by pumping
it ; what more absolutely and grossly utilitarian ? But
out of pumps grew the discussions about Nature's
abhorrence of a vacuum ; and then it was discovered
that Nature does not abhor a vacuum, but that air has
weight ; and that notion paved the way for the doctrine
that all matter has weight, and that the force which
I.J inVISABLJENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGR 15
produces weight is co-extensive with the universe, — in
short, to the theory of universal gravitation and endless
force. . While learning how to handle gases led to the
discovery of oxygen, and to modern chemistry, and to
the notion of the indestructibility of matter.
Again, what simpler, or more absolutely practical,
than the attempt to keep the axle of a wheel from
heating when the wheel turns round very fast ? How
useful for carters and gig drivers to know something
about this ; and how good were it, if any ingenious
person would find out the cause of such phaenomena,
and thence educe a general remedy for them. Such
an ingenious person was Count Eumford ; and he and
his successors have landed us in the theory of the per-
sistence, or indestructibility, of force. And in the in-
finitely minute, as in the infinitely great, the seekers
after natural knowledge, of the kinds called physical and
chemical, have everywhere found a definite , order and
succession of events which seem never to be infrino^ed.
o
And how has it fared with "Physick'' and Anatomy'?
Have the anatomist, the physiologist, or the physician,
whose business it has been to devote themselves assi-
duously to that eminently practical and direct end, the
alleviation of the sufferings of mankind, — have they
been able to confine their vision more absolutely to the
strictly useful ? I fear they are worst offenders of all.
For if the astronomer has set before us the infinite
magnitude of space, and the practical eternity of the
duration of the universe; if the physical and chemical
philosophers have demonstrated the infinite minuteness
of its constituent parts, and the practical eternity of
matter aud of force ; and if both have alike proclaimed
the universality of a definite and predicable order and
succession of events, the workers in biology have not
only accepted all these, but have added more startling
16 lAY SERMONS, ABDItESSES, AND REVIEWS. [t
theses of tlieir own. For, as the astronomers discover in
the earth no centre of the universe, but an eccentric
speck, so the naturalists find man to be no centre of
the living world, but one amidst endless modifications
of life ; and as the astronomer observes the mark of
practically endless time set upon the arrangements of
the solar system so the student of life finds the records
of ancient forms of existence peopling the world for ages,
which, in relation to human experience, are infinite.
Furthermore, the physiologist finds life to be as
dependent for its manifestation on particular molecular
arrangements as any physical or chemical phsenomenon ;
and, wherever he extends his researches, fixed order
and unchanging causation reveal themselves, as plainly
as in the rest of Nature.
Nor can I find that any other fate has awaited the
germ of Eeligion. Arising, like all other kinds oi
knowledge, out of the action and interaction of man's
mind, with that which is not man's mind, it has taken
the intellectual coverings of Fetishism or Polytheism ; of
Theism or Atheism ; of Superstition or Eationalism.
With these, and their relative merits and demerits, I
have nothing to do ; but this it is needful for my
purpose to say, that if the religion of the present differs
from that of the past, it is because the theology of the
present has become more scientific than that of the past ;
because it has not only renounced idols of wood and
idols of stone, but begins to see the necessity of breaking
in pieces the idols built up of books and traditions and
fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs : and of cherishing the
noblest and most human of man's emotions, by worship
"for the most part of the silent sort" at the altar of the
Unknown and Unknowable.
Such are a few of the new conceptions implanted in
our minds by the improvement of natural knowledge.
r.l JBVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE. 17
Men have acquired tlie ideas of the practically infinite
extent of the universe and of its practical eternity ;
they are familiar with the conception that our earth
is but an infinitesimal fragment of that part of the
universe which can be seen ; and that, nevertheless, its
duration is, as compared with our standards of time,
infinite. They have further acquired the idea that man
is but one of innumerable forms of life now existing in
the globe, and that the present existences are but the
last of an immeasurable series of predecessors. More-
over, every step they have made in natural knowledge
has tended to extend and rivet in their minds the con-
ception of a definite order of the universe — which is
embodied in what are called, by an unhappy metaphor,
the laws of Nature — and to narrow the range and
loosen the force of men s belief in spontaneity, or in
changes other than such as arise out of that definite
order itself.
Whether these ideas are well or ill founded is not the
question. No one can deny that they exist, and have
been the inevitable outgrowth of the improvement of
natural knowledge. And if so, it cannot be doubted
that they are changing the form of men's most cherished
and most important convictions.
And as regards the second point — the extent to which
the improvement of natural knowledge has remodelled
and altered what may be termed the intellectual ethics
of men, — what are among the moral convictions most
fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people ?
They are the convictions that authority is the soundest
basis of belief; that merit attaches to a readiness to
believe ; that the doubting disposition is a bad one,
knd scepticism a sin ; that when good authority has
pronounced what is to be believed, and faith ha^ ac-
18 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [f.
cepted it, reason lias no further duty. There are many
excellent persons who yet hold by these principles, and
it is not my present business, or intention, to discuss
their views. All I wish to bring clearly before your
minds is the unquestionable fact, that the improvement
of natural knowledge is effected by methods which
directly give the lie to all these convictions, and assume
the exact reverse of each to be true.
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses
to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism
is the highest of duties ; blind faith the one unpardon-
able sin. And it cannot be otherwise, for every great
advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute
rejection of authority, the cherishing of the keenest
scepticism, the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith. ;
and the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest
convictions, not because the men he most venerates
hold them ; not because their verity is testified by
portents and wonders ; but because his experience teaches
him that whenever he chooses to brino^ these convictions
into contact with their primary source. Nature — when-
ever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment
and to observation — Nature will confirm them. The
man of science has learned to believe in justification,
not by faith, but by verification.
Thus, without for a moment pretending to despise
the practical results of the improvement of natural
knowledo^e, and its beneficial influence on material civili-
zation, it must, I think, be admitted that the great
ideas, some of which I have indicated, and the ethical
spirit which I have endeavoured to sketch, in the few
moments which remained at my disposal, constitute the
real and permanent significance of natural knowledge.
If these ideas be destined, as I believe they are, to
be more and more firmly established as the world grows
I.] ABVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOf^'LEDGK 19
older ; if tliat spirit be fated, as I believe it is, to
extend itself into all departments of human tlionglit, and
to become co-extensive with the range of knowledQ:e : if,
as our race approaches its maturity, it discovers, as I be-
lieve it will, that there is but one kind of knowledge and
but one method of acquiring it ; then we, who are still
children, may justly feel it our highest duty to recognise
the advisableness of improving natural knowledge, and
so to aid ourselves and our successors in their course
towards the noble goal which lies before mankind.
EMANCIPATION— BLACK AND WHITE
Quashie's plaintive inquiry, ''Am I not a man and a
brother 1 " seems at last to have received its final reply —
the recent decision of the fierce trial by battle on the
other side of the Atlantic fully concurring with that long
since delivered here in a more peaceful way.
The question is settled ; but even those who are most
thoroughly convinced that the doom is just, must see
good grounds for repudiating half the arguments which
have been employed by the winning side ; and for
doubting whether its ultimate results will embody the
hopes of the victors, though they may more than realize
the fears of the vanquished. It may be quite true that
some negroes are better than some white men ; but no
rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the
average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the
average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply
incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and
our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour,
as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete
successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed
rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts
and not by bites. The highest places in the hierarchy of
civilization will assured!)^ not be within the reach of our
dusky cousins, though it is by no mcuns necessary that
II.J EMANCIPJTION— BLACK AND WHITE. 21
tliey should be restricted to the lowest. But whatever
the position of stable equilibrinm into which the laws of
social gravitation may bring the negro, all responsibility
for the result will henceforward lie between Nature and
him. The white ma,n may wash his hands of it, and the
Caucasian conscience be void of reproach for evermore.
And this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the
real justification for the abolition policy.
The doctrine of equal natural rights may be an illogical
delusion ; emancipation may convert the slave from a
well fed animal into a pauperised man ; mankind may
even have to do without cotton shirts ; but all these e^ils
must be faced, if the moral law, that no human being
can arbitrarily dominate over another without grievous
damage to his own nature, be, as many think, as readily
demonstrable by experiment as any physical truth. If
this be true, no slavery can be abolished without a double
emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom
more than the freed-man.
The like considerations apply to all the other questions
of emancipation which are at present stirring the world —
the multifarious demands that classes of mankind shall
be relieved from restrictions imposed by the artifice of
man, and not by the necessities of Nature. One of the
most important, if not the most important, of all these, is
that which daily threatens to become the " irrepressible "
woman question. What social and political rights have
women ? What ought they to be allowed, or not allowed
to do, be, and suffer ? And, as involved in, and under-
lying all these questions, how ought they to be educated?
There are philogynists as fanatical as any "misogu-
nists" who, reversing our antiquated notions, bid the
man look upon the woman as the higher type of
humanity ; who ask us to regard the female intellect as
the clearer and the quicker, if not the stronger; who
22 lAF SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [it.
desire us to look up to the feminine moral sense as the
purer and the nobler ; and bid man abdicate his usurped
sovereignty over Nature in favour of the female line.
On the other hand, there are persons not to be outdone
in all loyalty and just respect for woman-kind, but by
nature hard of head and haters of delusion, however
charming, who not only repudiate the new woman-
worship which so many sentimentalists and some philo-
sophers are desirous of setting up, but, carrying their
audacity further, deny even the natural equality of the
sexes. They assert, on the contrary, that in every
excellent character, wdiether mental or physical, the
averag^e woman is inferior to the averag;e man, in the
sense of having that character less in quantity, and lower
in quality. Tell these persons of the rapid perceptions and
the instinctive intellectual insight of women, and they
reply that the feminine mental peculiarities, which pass
under these names, are merely the outcome of a greater
impressibility to the superficial aspects of things, and of
the absence of that restraint upon expression, which, in
men, is imposed by reflection and a sense of responsibility.
Talk of the passive endurance of the weaker sex, and
opponents of this kind remind you that Job was a man,
and that, until quite recent times, patience and long-
suflering Avere not counted among the specially feminine
virtues. Claim passionate tenderness as especially
feminine, and the inquiry is made whether all the best
love-poetry in existence (except, perhaps, the "Sonnets
from the Portuguese " ) has not been written by men ;
whether the song which embodies the ideal of pure and
tender passion — Adelaida — was written by Fvau Beeth-
oven ; whether it was the Fornarina, or Raphael, who
painted the Sistine Madonna. Nay, we have known one
such heretic go so far as to lay his hands upon the ark
itself, so to speak, and to defend the startling paradox
II.] EMANCIPATION— BLACK AND WHITE. 23
that, even in physical beauty, man is the superior. He
admitted, indeed, that there was a brief period of eariy
youth when it might be hard to say whether the prize
should be awarded to the graceful undulations of the
female figure, or the perfect balance and supple vigour of
the male frame. But while our new Paris might hesitate
between the youthful Bacchus and the Venus emerging
from the foam, he averred that, when Venus and Bacchus
had reached thirty, the point no longer admitted of a
doubt; the male form having then attained its greatest
nobihty, while the female is far gone in decadence ; and
that, at this epoch, womanly beauty, so far as it is inde-
pendent of grace or expression, is a question of drapery
and accessories.
Supposing, however, that all these arguments have a
certain foundation ; admitting for a moment, that they
are comparable to those by which the inferiority of the
negro to the white man may be demonstrated, are they
of any value as against woman-emancipation ? Do they
afibrd us the smallest ground for refusing to educate
women as well as men — to give women the same civil
and political rights as men ? No mistake is so commonly
made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be
bad because the arguments of its supporters are, to a
great extent, nonsensical. And we conceive that those
who may laugh at the arguments of the extreme
philogynists, may yet feel bound to work heart and soul
towards the attainment of their practical ends.
As regards education, for example. Granting the
alleged defects of women, is it not somewhat absurd to
sanction and maintain a system of education which
would seem to have been specially contrived to ex-
aggerate all these defects 1
Naturally not so firmly strung, nor so well balanced,
as boys, girls are in ^Teat measure debarred from the
24 l^T SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [ii.
sports and physical exercises wliicli are justly tliouglit
absolutely necessary for the full development of the
vigour of the more favoured sex. Women are, by nature,
more excitable than nien — prone to be swept by tides of
emotion, proceeding from hidden and inward, as well as
from obvious and external causes ; and female education
does its best to weaken every physical counterpoise to
this nervous mobility — tends in all ways to stimulate the
emotional part of the mind and stunt the rest. We find
girls naturally timid, inclined to dependence, born con-
servatives; and we teach them that independence is
unladylike ; that blind faith is the right frame of mind ;
and that whatever we may be permitted, and indeed
encouraged, to do to our brother, our sister is to be left
to the tyranny of authority and tradition. With few
insignificant exceptions, girls have been educated either
to be drudges, or toys, beneath man ; or a sort of angels
abcwe him; the highest ideal aimed at oscillating between
Clarchen and Beatrice. The possibility that the ideal of
womanhood lies neither in the fair saint, nor in the fair
sinner ; that the female type of character is neither
better nor worse than the male, but only weaker ; that,
women are meant neither to be men's guides nor their
playthings, but their comrades, their fellows and their
equals, so far as Nature puts no bar to that equality, does
not seem to have entered into the minds of those who
have had the conduct of the education of girls.
If the present system of female education stands self-
condemned, as inherently absurd ; and if that which we
have just indicated is the true position of woman, what
is the first step towards a better state of things ? We
reply, emancipate girls. Eecognise the fact that they
share the senses, perceptions, feelings, reasoning powers,
emotions, of boys, and that the mind of the average girl
is less diii'erent from that of the average boy, than the
ii.] EMANCIPATION— BLACK AND WHITE. 25
mincl of one boy is from that of another ; so that what-
ever argument justifies a given education for all boys,
justifies its application to girls as well. So far from
imposing artificial restrictions upon the acquirement of
knowledge by w^omen, throw every facility in their way.
Let our Faustinas, if they will, toil through the whole
round of
" Jnristerei und Medizin,
Uiid leider ! audi Piiilosophie. "
Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They
will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom ; and the
"golden hair" will not curl less gracefully outside the
head by reason of there being brains wdthin. Nay, if
obvious practical difiiculties can be overcome, let those
women who feel inclined to do so descend into the
gladiatorial arena of life, not merely in the guise of
retiarice, as heretofore, but as bold sicarice, breasting the
open fray. Let them, if they so please, become mer-
chants, barristers, politicians. Let them have a fair field,
but let them understand, as the necessary correlative,
that they are to have no favour. Let Nature alone sit
high above the lists, " rain influence and judge the
prize."
And the result? For our parts, though loth to
prophesy, w^e believe it will be that of other emanci-
pations. Women wdll find their place, and it will neither
be that in which they have been held, nor that to wdiich
some of them aspire. Nature's old salique law will not
be repealed, and no change of dynasty will be effected.
The big chests, the massive brains, the vigorous muscles
and stout frames, of the best men will carry the day,
whenever it is worth their while to contest the prizes of
life with the best women. And the hardship of it is,
that the very improvement of the women will lessen
26 l^Y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [ii.
tlieir chances. Better motliers will bring forth better
sons, and the impetus gained by the one sex will be
transmitted, in the next generation, to the other. The
most Darwinian of theorists will not venture to pro-
pound the doctrine, that the physical disabilities under
which women have hitherto laboured, in the struggle for
existence with men, are likely to be removed by even the
most skilfully conducted process of educational selection.
We are, indeed, fully prepared to believe that the
bearing of children may, and ought, to become as free
from danger and long disability, to the civilized woman,
as it is to the savage ; nor is it improbable that, as
society advances towards its right organization, mother-
hood will occupy a less space of woman's life than it has
hitherto done. But still, unless the human species is to
come to an end altoo^ether — a consummation which can
hardly be desired by even the most ardent advocate of
'^ women's rights " — somebody must be good enough to
take the trouble and responsibility of annually adding to
the world exactly as many people as die out of it. In
consequence of some domestic difficulties, Sydney Smith
is said to have suggested that it would have been good
for the human race had the model offered by the hive
been followed, and had all the working part of the female
community been neuters. Failing any thorough-going
reform of this kind, we see nothing for it but the old
division of humanity into men potentially, or actually,
fathers, and women potentially, if not actually, mothers.
And we fear that so long as this potential motherhood is
her lot, woman will be found to be fearfully weighted in
the race of life.
The duty of man is to see that not a grain is piled
upon that load beyond what Nature imposes; that
injustice is rot added to inec[uality.
A LIBERAL EDUCATION ; AM)
WHEEE TO FIND IT.
The business wliicli the South London Working Mens
College has unclertaken is a great work ; indeed, I might
say, that Education, with which that college proposes to
grapple, is the greatest work of all those which lie ready
to a man's hand just at present.
And, at length, this fact is becoming generally recog-
nised. You cannot go anywhere without hearing a buzz
of more or less confused and contradictory talk on this
subject — nor can you fail to notice that, in one point at
any rate, there is a very decided advance upon like
discussions in former days. Nobody outside the agri-
cultural interest now dares to say that education is a
bad thing. If any representative of the once large and
pow^erful party, Avhich, in former days, proclaimed this
opinion, still exists in a semi-fossil state, he keeps his
thoughts to himself In fact, there is a chorus of voices,
almost distressing in their harmony, raised in favour of
the doctrine that education is the great panacea for
human troubles, and that, if the country is not shortly
to go to the dogs, everybody must be educated.
The politicians tell us, " you must educate the masses
because they are going to be masters." The clergy join
ID the cry for education, for they affirm that the people
as I^Jy SERMONS, ABDBESSES, AND REVIEWS. [iii.
are drifting away from clmrch and chapel into the
broadest infidelity. The manufacturers and the capita-
lists swell the chorus lustily. They declare that igno-
rance makes bad workmen ; that England will soon be
unable to turn out cotton goods, or steam engines,
cheaper than other people ; and then, Ichabod ! Ichabod !
the glory will be departed from us. And a few voices
are lifted up in favour of the doctrine that the masses
should be educated because they are men and women
with unlimited capacities of being, doing, and suffering,
and that it is as true now, as ever it was, that the people
perish for lack of knowledge.
These members of the minority, with whom I confess
I have a good deal of sympathy, are doubtful whether
any of the other reasons urged in favour of the education
of the people are of much value — whether, indeed, some
of them are based upon either wise or noble grounds of
action. They question if it be wise to tell people that
you will do for them, out of fear of their power, what
you have left undone, so long as your only motive was
compassion for their weakness and their sorrows. And, if
ignorance of everything which it is needful a ruler should
know is likely to do so much harm in the governing
classes of the future, why is it, they ask reasonably
enough, that such ignorance in the governing classes of
the past has not been viewed with equal horror ?
Compare the average artisan and the average country
squire, and it may be doubted if you will find a pin to
choose between the two in point of ignorance, class
feeling, or prejudice. It is true that the ignorance is of
a different sort — that the class feeling is in favour of a
different class, and that the prejudice has a distinct
favour of wrong-headedness in each case— but it is
questionable if the one is either a bit better, or a bit
worse, than the other. The old protectionist theory is
ni.] A LIBERAL UDUCATION, 29
the doctrine of trades unions as applied by tlie squires,
and tlie modern trades unionism is the doctrine of the
squires applied by the artisans. Why should we be
worse off under one regime than under the other ?
Again, this sceptical minority asks the clergy to think
whether it is really want of education which keeps the
masses away from their ministrations — whether the most
completely educated men are not as open to reproach on
this score as the workmen ; and whetlier, perchance, this
may not indicate that it is not education which lies at
the bottom of the matter ?
Once more, these people, whom there is no pleasing,
venture to doubt whether the glory, which rests upon
being able to undersell all the rest of the world, is a very
safe kind of glory — ^whether we may not purchase it too
dear ; especially if we allow education, which ought to
be directed to the making of men, to be diverted into a
process of manufacturing human tools, Avonderfully adroit
in the exercise of some technical industry, but good for
nothing else.
And, finally, these people inquire whether it is the
masses alone who need a reformed and improved educa-
tion. They ask whether the richest of our public schools
might not well be made to supply knowledge, as well as
gentlemanly habits, a strong class feeling, and eminent
proficiency in cricket. They seem to think that the noble
foundations of our old universities are hardly fulfilling
their functions in their present posture of half-clerical
seminaries, half racecourses, where men are trained to
win a senior wranglership, or a double-first, as horses a,re
trained to win a cup, with as little reference to the n^eds
of after-life in the case of the man as in that of the
racer. And, while as zealous for education as the rest,
they affirm that, if the education of the richer classes
were such as to fit them to be the leaders and the
30 Ur SEBMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [in.
governors of tlie poorer ; and, if tlie education of the
poorer classes were such as to enable them to appreciate
really wise guidance and good governance ; the politicians
need not fear mob-law, nor the clergy lament their want
of flocks, nor the capitalists prognosticate the annihilation
of the prosperity of the country.
Such is the diversity of opinion upon the why and the
wherefore of education. And my hearers will be pre-
pared to expect that the practical recommendations
which are put forward, are not less discordant. There is
a loud cry for compulsory education. We English, in
spite of constant experience to the contrary, preserve a
touching faith in the efficacy of acts of parliament ; and
I believe we should have compulsory education in the
course of next session, if there were the least probability
that half a dozen leading statesmen of different parties
would aoTce what that education should be.
o
Some hold that education without theology is v/orse than
none. Others maintain, quite as strongly, that educa-
tion with theology is in the same predicament. But this
is certain, that those who hold the first opinion can by no
means agree what theology should be taught ; and that
those who maintain the second are in a small minority.
At any rate "make people learn to read, write, and
cipher,^' say a great many ; and the advice is un-
doubtedly sensible as far as it goes. But, as has
happened to me in former days, those who, in despair of
getting anything better, advocate this measure, are met
with the objection that it is very like making a child
pra,ctise the use of a knife, fork, and spoon, without
giving it a particle of meat. I really don't know what
reply is to be made to such an objection.
But it would be unprofitable to spend more time in
disentangling, or rather in showing up the knots in, the
ravelled skeins of our neighbours. Sluch more to the
HI.] A LIB-ERAL EDUCATION. 31
purpose is it to ask if we possess any clue of our own
wliich may guide us among these entanglements. And
by way of a beginning, let us ask ourselves — What is
education ? Above all things, what is our ideal of a
thoroughly liberal education ? — of that education which,
if we could begin life again, we would give ourselves —
of that education which, if we could mould the fates to
our own will, we would give our children. Well, I know
not what may be your conceptions upon this matter,
but I vfill tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that our
views are not very discrepant.
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and
fortune of every one of us would, one day or other,
depend upon his winning or losing a game at chess.
Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a
primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves
of the pieces ; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen
eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check ?
Do you not think that we should look with a disappro-
bation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowed
his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow
up without knowing a pawn from a knight ?
Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the
life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us,
and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do
depend upon our kn owing something of the rules of a
game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess.
It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every
man and woman of us being one of the two players in a
game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world,
the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules
of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The
player on the other side is hidden from us. We know
that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also
32 LAY SJERMONS, ADDRESSES, AWD REVIEWS. [ni
we know, to our cost, tliat lie never overlooks a mistake,
or makes tlie smallest allowance for ignorance. To the
man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that
sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong
shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is
checkmated — without haste, but without remorse.
My metaphor will remind some of yon of the famous
picture in which Eetzsch has depicted Satan playing at
chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking
fiend in that picture, a calm, strong angel who is playing
for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win — and
I should accept it as an image of human life.
Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules
of this mighty game. In other words, education is the
instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under
which name I include not merely things and their forces,
but men and their ways ; and the fashioning of the
affections and of the will into an earnest and lovins;
desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me,
education means neither more nor less than this. Any-
thing which professes to call itself education must be
tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, J
will not call it education, whatever may be the force of
authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.
It is important to remember that, in strictness, there
is no such thins^ as an uneducated man. Take an ex-
treme case. SujDpose that an adult man, in the full
vigour of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in the
world, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to
do as he best might. How long would he be left
uneducated ? Not ^yq minutes. Nature would begin
to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the
properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his
elbow telling him to do this and avoid that; and by slow
degrees the man would receive an education, which, if
III.] A LWERAL EDUCATION. 33
narrow, would be tliorougli, real, and adequate to his
circumstances, thougli there would be no extras and very-
few accomplishments.
And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam,
or, better still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of
social and moral phenomena, would be revealed. Joys
and woes, compared with which all others might seem
but faint shadows, would spring from the new relations.
Happiness and sorrow would take the place of the
coarser monitors, pleasure and pain ; but conduct would
still be shaped by the observation of the natural conse-
quences of actions ; or, in other words, by the laws or
the nature of man.
To every one of us the world was once as fresh and
new as to Adam. And then, long before we were sus-
ceptible of any other mode of instruction, Nature took
us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought its
educational influence, shaping our actions into rough -
accordance with Nature's laws, so that we might not be
ended untimely by too gross disobedience. Nor should
I speak of this process of education as past, for any one,
be he as old as he may. For every man, the world is as
fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold
novelties for him who has the eyes to see them. And
Nature is still continuing her patient education of us in
that great university, the universe, of which we are all
members — Nature having no Test-Acts.
Those who take honours in Nature's university, who
learn the laws which govern men and things and obey
them, are the really great and successful men in this
world. The great mass of mankind arc the '' Poll," who
pick up just enough to get through without much dis-
credit. Those who won't learn at all ai^e plucked ; and
then you can't come up again. Nature's pluck means
extermination.
34 XJ7 SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [m.
Thus the question of compulsory education is settled
so far as Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question
was framed and passed long ago. But, like all com-
pulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and wasteful
in its * operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as
wilful disobedience — incapacity meets with the same
punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a
word and a blow, and the blow first ; but the blow
without the word. It is left to you to find out why
your ears are boxed.
The object of what we commonly call education — that
education in which man intervenes and which I shall
distino^uish as artificial education — is to make Q:ood these
defects in Nature's methods ; to prepare the child to
receive Nature's education, neither incapably nor igno-
ranfcly, nor with wilful disobedience ; and to understand
the preliminary symptoms of her displeasure, without
waiting for the box on the ear. In short, all artificial
education ought to be an anticipation of natural educa-
tion. And. a liberal education is an artificial education,
which has not only prepared a man to escape the
great evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has
trained him to appreciate and to seize upon the rewards,
which Nature scatters with as free a hand as her
penalties.
That man, I think, has had a liberal education, who
has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready
servant of his will, and does Avith ease and pleasure all
the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of ; whose
intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts
of equal strength, and in smooth working order ; ready,
like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work,
and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of
the mind ; whose mind is store:! with a knowledge of
the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the
in.] A LIBERAL EDUCATION. S5
laws of lier operations ; one wlio, no stunted ascetic, is
full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to
come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender
conscience ; who has learned to love all beauty, whether
of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect
others as himself.
Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal
education ; for he is, as completely as a man can be, in"
harmony with Nature. He will make the best of her,
and she of him. They will get on together rarely ; she
as his ever beneficent mother ; he as her mouth-piece,
her conscious self, her minister and interpreter.
Where is such an education as this to be had ?
Where is there any approximation to it '? Has any one
tried to found such an education ? Looking over the
length and breadth of these islands, I am afraid that all
these questions must receive a negative answer. Con-
sider our primary schools, and what is taught in them.
A child learns : —
1. To read, write, and cipher, more or less well; but
in a very large proportion of cases not so well as to take
pleasure in reading, or to be able to write the commonest
letter properly.
2. A quantity of dogmatic theology, of Avhich \\\<d
child, nine times out of ten, understands next to nothing.
3. Mixed up with this, so as to seem to stand or fall
with it, a few of the broadest and simplest principles of
morality. This, to my mind, is much as if a man of
science should make the story of the fall of the apple in
Newton's garden, an integral part of the doctrine of
gravitation, and teach it as of equal authority with the
law of the inverse squares.
4. A good deal of Jewish history and Syrian geo-
grapliyj and, perhaps, a little something about English
35 LAY SER3I0NS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [lit.
history and tlie geograpliy of the child's own country.
But I doubt if there is a primary school in England in
which hangs a map of the hundred in which the village
lies, so that the children may be practically taught by it
what a map means.
5. A certain amount of regularity, attentive obedience,
respect for others : obtained by fear, if the master be in-
competent or foolish; by love and reverence, if he be wise.
So far as this school course embraces a training in
the theory and practice of obedience to the moral laws
of Nature, I gladly admit, not only that it contains a
valuable educational element, but that, so far, it deals
with the most valuable and important part of all educa-
tion. Yet, contrast what is done in this direction with
what might be done ; with the time given to matters of
comparatively no importance ; with the absence of any
attention to things of the highest moment ; and one is
tempted to think of Falstaff's bill and "the halfpenny
worth of bread to all that quantity of sack."
Let us consider what a child thus " educated " knows,
and what it does not know. Begin with the most im-
portant topic of all — morality, as the guide of conduct.
The child knows well enouo;h that some acts meet with
approbation and some with disapprobation. But it has
never heard that there lies in the nature of things a
reason for every moral law, as cogent and as well defined
as that which underlies every physical law ; that stealing
and lying are just as certain to be followed by evil
consequences, as putting your hand in the fire, or jump-
ing out of a garret window. Again, though the scholar
may have been made acquainted, in dogmatic fashion,
with the broad laws of morality, he has had no training
in the application of those laws to the difficult problems
which result from the complex conditions of modern
civiiization. Would it not be very hard to expect any one
III.] A LIB-EBAL EDUCATION, 37
to solve a problem in conic sections wlio had merely been
taugbt the axioms and definitions of mathematical science?
A workman has to bear hard labour, and perhaps
privation, while he sees others rolling in wealth, and
feeding their dogs with what would keep his children
from starvation. Would it not be well to have helped
that man to calm the natural promptings of discontent
by showing him, in his youth, the necessary connexion
of the moral law which prohibits stealing with the
stability of society — by proving to him, once for all, that
it is better for his own people, better for himself, better
for future generations, that he should starve than steal ?
If you have no foundation of knowledge, or habit of
thought, to work upon, what chance have you of persua-
ding a hungry man that a capitalist is not a thief " with
a circumbendibus ? " And if he honestly believes that, of
what avail is it to quote the commandment against steal-
ing, when he proposes to make the capitalist disgorge ?
Again, the child learns absolutely nothing of the
history or the political organization of his own country.
His general impression is, that everything of much im-
portance happened a very long while ago ; and that the
Queen and the gentlefolks govern the country much
after the fashion of King David and the elders and
nobles of Israel — his sole models. Will you give a man
with this much information a vote ? In easy times he
sells it for a pot of beer. Why should he not ? It is of
about as much use to him as a chignon, and he knows as
much what to do with it, for any other purpose. In bad
times, on the contrary, he applies his simple theory of
government, and believes that his rulers are the cause of
his sufferings — a belief which sometimes bears remark-
able practical fruits.
Least of all, does the child gather from this primary
"education" of ours a conception of the laws of the
38 l^T SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [ifJ.
physical world, or of the relations of cause and effect
therein. And this is the more to be lamented, as the
poor are especially exposed to physical evils, and are
more interested in removing them than any other class
of the community. If any one is concerned in knowing
the ordinary laws of mechanics one would think it is the
hand-iabourer, whose daily toil lies among levers and
pulleys ; or among the other implements of artisan work.
And if any one is interested in the laws of health, it is
the poor workman, v/hose strength is wasted by ill-pre-
pared food, whose health is sapped by bad ventilation and
bad drainage, and half whose children are massacred by
disorders which might be prevented. Not only does our
present primary education carefully abstain from hinting'
to the workman that some of his greatest evils are trace-
able to mere physical agencies, which could be removed
by energy, patience, and frugality ; but it does worse —
it renders him, so far as it can, deaf to those who could
help him, and tries to substitute an Oriental submission
to what is falsely declared to be the will of God, for his
natural tendency to strive after a better condition.
What Avonder then, if very recently, an appeal has
been made to statistics for the profoundly foolish pur-
pose of showing that education is of no good — that it
diminishes neither misery, nor crime, among the masses of
mankind ? I reply, why should the thing which has
been called education do either the one or the other 1 If
I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to read and write
won't make me less of either one or the other — unless
somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing
to wise and good purposes.
Suppose any one were to argue that medicine is of no
use, because it could be proved statistically, that the
percentage of deaths was just the same, among people
who had been taught how to open a medicine. chest, and
nij A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 39
among tliose who did not so much as know the key by
sight. The argument is absurd ; but it is not m ore
prepostorous than that against which I am contending.
The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other
woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and
write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of
the wisdom box. But it is quite another matter whether
he ever opens the box or not. And he is as likely to
poison as to cure himself, if, without guidance, he
swallows the first drug that comes to hand. In these
times a man may as well be purblind, as unable to read
— lame, as unable to write. But I protest that, if I
thought the alternative were a necessary one, I would
rather that the children of the poor should grow up
ignorant of both these mighty arts, than that they should
remain ignorant of that knowledge to which these arts
are means.
It may be said that all these animadversions may
apply to primary schools, but that the higher schools, at
any rate, must be allowed to give a liberal education.
In fact, they professedly sacrifice everything else to this
object.
Let us inquire into this matter. What do the higher
schools, those to which the great middle class of the
country sends it children, teach, over and above the in-
struction given in the primary schools ? There is a little
more reading and ^T:iting of English. But, for all that,
every one knows that it is a rare thing to find a boy of
the middle or upper classes who can read aloud decently,
or who can put his thoughts on paper in clear and gram-
matical (to say nothing of good or elegant) language.
The " ciphering" of the lower schools expands into
elementary mathematics in the higher ; into arithmetic,
with a little algebra, a little Euclid. But I doubt if
40 l^T SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [in.
one boy in five liundred has ever heard the explanation
of a rule of arithmetic, or knows his Euclid otherwise
than by rote.
Of theology, the middle class schoolboy gets rather
less than poorer children, less absolutely and less rela-
tively, because there are so many other claims upon his
attention. I venture to say that, in the great majority
of cases, his ideas on this subject when he leaves school
are of the most shadowy and vague description, and
associated with painful impressions of the weary hours
spent in learning collects and catechism by heart.
Modern geography, modern history, modern literature ,
the English language as a language ; the w^hole circle
of the sciences, physical, moral, and social, are even
more completely ignored in the higher than in the lower
schools. Up till within a few years back, a boy might
have passed through any one of the great public schools
with the greatest distinction and credit, and might never
so much as have heard of one of the subjects I have
iust mentioned. He mio;ht never have heard that the
earth goes round the sun ; that England underwent a
great revolution in 1688, and France another in 1789;
that there once lived certain notable men called Chaucer,
Shakspeare, Milton, Yoltaire, Goethe, Schiller. The first
might be a G-erman and the last an Englishman for any-
thing he could tell you to the contrary. And as for
science, the only idea the word would suggest to his
mind would be dexterity in boxing.
I have said that this was the state of things a few
years back, for the sake of the few righteous who are
to be found among the educational cities of the plain.
But I would not have you too sanguine about the result,
if you sound the minds of the existing generation of
public schoolboys, on such topics as those I have
mentioned.
III.] A LIBERAL BDTJCATION, 41
Now let us pause to consider tliis wonderful state of
affairs ; for the time will come wlien Englishmen will
quote it as the stock example of the stolid stupidity of
their ancestors in the nineteenth century. The most
thoroughly commercial people, the greatest voluntary
wanderers and colonists the world has ever seen, are
precisely the middle classes of this country. If there be
a people which has been busy making history on the
great scale for the last three hundred, years — and the
most profoundly interesting history — history which, if
it happened to be that of Greece or Eome, we should
study with avidity — it is the English. If there be a
people which, during the same period, has developed a
remarkable literature, it is our own. If there be a
nation whose prosperity depends absolutely and wholly
upon their mastery over the forces of Nature, upon their
intelligent apprehension of, and obedience to, the laws
of the creation and distribution of wealth, and of the
stable equilibrium of the forces of society, it is pre-
cisely this nation. And yet this is what these wonderful
people tell their sons : — " At the cost of from one to two
thousand pounds of our hard earned money, we devote
twelve of the most precious years of your lives to school.
There you shall toil, or be supposed to toil ; but there
you shall not learn one single thing of all those you will
most want to know, directly you leave school and enter
upon the practical business of life. You will in all
probability go into business, but you shall not know
where, or how, any article of commerce is produced, or
the difference between an export or an im23ort, or the
meaning of the word 'capital.' You will very likely settle
in a colony, but you shall not know whether Tasmania
is part of New South Wales, or vice versa,
« Very probably you may become a manufacturer, but
you shall not be provided with the means of under-
42 LAY SERMOm ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [in.
standing the working of one of your own steam- engines^
or the nature of the raw products you employ ; and,
when you are asked to buy a patent, you shall not have
the slightest means of judging whether the inventor is
an impostor who is contravening the elementary prin-
ciples of science, or a man who will make you as rich
as Croesus.
^' You will very likely get into the House of Commons.
You will hp.ve to take your share in making laws which
may prove a blessing or a curse to millions of men.
But you shall not hear one word respecting the political
organization of your country ; the meaning of the con-
troversy between freetraders and protectionists shall
never have been mentioned to you ; you shall not so
much as know that there are such things as economical
laws.
" The mental power which will be of most importance
in your daily life will be the power of seeing things as
they are without regard to authority ; and of drawing-
accurate general conclusions from particular facts. But
at school and at college you shall know of no source of
truth but authority ; nor exercise your reasoning faculty
upon anything but deduction from that whith is laid
down by authority.
" You will have to weary your soul with work, and
many a time eat your bread in sorrow and in bitterness,
and you shall not have learned to take refuge in the
^reat source of pleasure without alloy, the serene resting-
^lace for worn human nature, — the world of art."
Said I not rightly that we are a w^onderful people ?
I am quite prepared to allow, that education entirely
devoted to these omitted subjects might not be a com-
pletely liberal education. But is an education which
ignores them all, a liberal education ? Nay, is it too
much to say that the education which should embrace
III.] A LIBmAl EDUCATION. 43
these subjects and no others, would be a real educa-
tion, tliougii an incomplete one ; while an education
which omits them is really not an education at
all, but a more or less useful course of intellectual
gymnastics 1
For what does the middle- class school put in the place
of all these things which are left out 1 It substitutes
what is usually comprised under the compendious title
of the " classics '' — that is to say, the languages, the
literature, and the history of the ancient Q-reeks and
Romans, and the geography of so much of the world
as was known to these two great nations of antiquity.
Now, do not expect me to depreciate the earnest and
enlightened pursuit of classical learning. I have not
the least desire to speak ill of such occupations, nor
any sympathy with those who run them down. On
the contrary, if my opportunities had lain in that di-
rection, there is no investigation into which I could
have thrown myself with greater delight than that of
antiquity.
What science can present greater attractions than
philology ? How can a lover of literary excellence fail
to rejoice in the ancient masterpieces ? And with what
consistency could I, whose business lies so much in the
attempt to decipher the past, and to build up intelligible
forms out of the scattered fragments of long-extinct
beings, fail to take a sympathetic, though an unlearned,
interest in the labours of a Niebuhr, a Gibbon, or a
Grote? Classical history is a great section of the pa-
la3ontology of man ; and I have the same double respect
for it as for other kinds of palseontology — that is to say,
a respect for the facts which it establishes as for all
facts^ and d still greater respect for it as a preparation
for the discovery of a law of progress.
44 l^Y SEMIONS, JDDJRESSFS, AND REVIEWS, [iil
But if tlie classics were tauglit as they miglit be
taught — if boys and girls were instructed in Greek and
Latin, not merely as languages, but as illustrations of
philological science ; if a vivid picture of life on the
shores of the Mediterranean, two thousand years ago,
were imprinted on the minds of scholars ; if ancient
history were taught, not as a weary series of feuds and
fights, but traced to its causes in such men placed under
such conditions ; if, lastly, the study of the classical
books were followed in such a manner as to impress boys
with their beauties, and with the grand simplicity of
their statement of the everlasting problems of human
life, instead of with their verbal and grammatical pecu-
liarities ; I still think it as little proper that they should
form the basis of a liberal education for our contempo-
raries, as I should think it fitting to make that sort of
palaeontology with which 1 am familiar, the back-bone
of modern education.
It is wonderful how close a parallel to classical
training could be made out of that palaeontology to which
I refer. In the first place I could get up an osteological
primer so arid, so pedantic in its terminology, so alto-
gether distasteful to the youthful mind, as to beat the
recent famous production of the head-masters out of
the field in all these excellences. Next, I could exercise
my boys upon easy fossils, and bring out all their
powers of memory and all their ingenuity in the applica-
tion of my osteo-grammatical rules to the interpretation,
or construing, of those fragments. To those who had
reached the higher classes, I might supply odd bones
to be built up into animals, giving great honour and
reward to him who succeeded in fabricating monsters
most entirely in accordance with the rules. That
would answer to verse-making and essay- writing in
the dead languages.
inj A LIBERAL EDUCATIOlSr. 45
To be sure, if a gi-eat comparative anatomist were
to look at these fabrications he might shake his head,
or langh. But what then 1 Would such a catastrophe
destroy the parallel? What think you would Cicero,
or Horace, say to the production of the best sixth
form going ? And would not Terence stop his ears
and run out if he could be present at an English per-
formance of his own plays? Would Hamlet, in the
mouths of a set of French actors, who should insist
on pronouncing English after the fashion of their own
tongue, be more hideously ridiculous ?
But it will be said that I am forgetting the beauty, and
the human interest, which appertain to classical studies.
To this I reply that it is only a very strong man who
can appreciate the charms of a landscape, as he is
toiling up a steep hill, along a bad road. What with
short-windedness, stones, ruts, and a pervading sense
of the wisdom of rest and be thankful, most of us
have little enough sense of the beautiful under these
circumstances. The ordinary schoolboy is precisely in
this case. He finds Parnassus uncommonly steep, and
there is no chance of his having- much time or inclination
to look about him till he gets to the top. And nine
times out of ten he does not get to the top.
But if this be a fair picture of the results of classical
teaching: at its best — and I gather from those who
have authority to speak on such matters that it is so —
what is to be said of classical teaching at its worst,
or in other words, of the classics of our ordinary middle-
class schools?^ I will tell you. It means getting up
endless forms and rules by heart. It means turning
Latin and Greek into English, for the mere sake of
being able to do it, and without the smallest regard
^ For a justification of what is here said about these schools, see tliat
valuable book, " Essays on a Liberal Education," passim.
46 ^^^r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEJF3, [iii.
to tlie wortli, or wortlilessness, of the autlior read. It
means tlie learning of innumerable, not always decent,
fables in such a shape that the meaning they once had
is dried up into utter trash ; and the only impression
left upon a boy's mind is, that the people who believed
such things must have been the greatest idiots the
world ever saw. And it means, finally, that after a
dozen years spent at this kind of work, the sufferer
shall be incompetent to interpret a passage in an author
he has not already got up ; that he shall loathe the
sight of a G-reek or Latin book: and that he shall
never open, or think of, a classical writer again, until,
wonderful to relate, he insists upon submitting his
sons to the same process.
These be your gods, 0 Israel ! For the sake of this
net result (and respectability) the British father denies
his children all the knowledge they might turn to
account in life, not merely for the achievement of
vulgar success, but for guidance in the great crises of
human existence. This is the stone he offers to those
whom he is bound by the strongest and tender est ties
to feed with bread.
If primary and secondary education are in this un-
satisfactory state, what is to be said to the universities ?
This is an awful subject, and one I almost fear to
touch with my unhallowed hands ; but I can tell you
what those say who have authority to speak.
The Eector of Lincoln College, in his lately published,
valuable " Suggestions for Academical Organization wdth
especial reference to Oxford," tells us (p. 127) : —
"The colleges were, in their origin, endowments,
not for the elem.ents of a general liberal education,
but for the prolonged study of special and professional
faculties by men of riper age. The universities em-
nij A LIBER J L EDUCATION, 47
braced botli these objects. The colleges, while they
mcidentally aided in elementary education, were specially
devoted to the hiQ;hest learnino:
" This was the theory of the middle-age university and
the design of collegiate foundations in their origin. Time
and circumstances have brought about a total change.
The colleges no longer promote the researches of science,
or direct jDrofessional study. Here and there college
walls may shelter an occasional student, but not in
larger proportions than may be found in private life.
Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now
the only function performed by the university, and
almost the only object of college endowments. Colleges
were homes for the life-study of the highest and most
abstruse parts of knowledge. They have become boarding
schools in which the elements of the learned languages
are taught to youths."
If Mr. Pattison's high position, and his obvious love
and respect for his university, be insufficient to convince
the outside world that language so severe is yet no
more than just, the authority of the Commissioners
who reported on the University of Oxford in 1850 is
open to no challenge. Yet they write : —
" It is generally acknowledged that both Oxford and
the countiy at large suffer greatly from the absence of a
body of learned men devoting their lives to the cultivation
of science, and to the direction of academical education.
" The fact that so few books of profound research
emanate from the University of Oxford, materially
impairs its character as a seat of learning, and con-
sequently its hold on the respect of the nation/'
Cambridge can claim no exemption from the reproaches
addressed to Oxford. And thus there seems no escape
from the admission that what we fondty call our great
seats of learning are simply " boarding schools '' for
43 X^r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [m.
bigger boys ; that learned men are not more numerous
in tliem than out of them ; that the advancement of
knowledge is not the object of fellows of colleges;
that, in the philosophic calm and meditative stillness
of their greenswarded courts, philosophy does not thrive,
and meditation bears few fruits.
It is my great good fortune to reckon amongst my
friends resident members of both universities, who are
men of learning and research, zealous cultivators of
science, keeping before their minds a noble ideal of a
university, and doing their best to make that ideal a
reality ; and, to me, they would necessarily typify the
universities, did not the authoritative statements I have
quoted compel me to believe that they are exceptional,
and not representative men. Indeed, upon calm con-
sideration, several circumstances lead me to think that
the Eector of Lincoln College and the Commissioners
cannot be far wrong.
I believe there can be no doubt that the foreigner
who should wish to become acquainted with the scientific,
or the literary, activity of modern England, would simply
lose his time and his pains if he visited our universities
with that object.
And, as for works of profound research on any subject,
and, above all, in that classical lore for which the
universities profess to sacrifice almost everything else,
why, a third-rate, poverty-stricken German university
turns out more produce of that kind in one year, than
our vast and wealthy foundations elaborate in ten.
Ask the man who is investigating any question, pro-
foundly and thoroughly — be it historical, philosophical,
philological, physical, literary, or theological ; who is
trying to make himself master of any abstract subject
(except, perhaps, political economy and geology, both
of which are intensely Anglican sciences) whether he
ni.] A LIBERAL EBUCATIOK 49
is not compelled to read half a dozen times as many
German, as Englisli, books ? And whether, of these
English books, more than one in ten is the work of
a fellow of a college, or a professor of an English
university ?
Is this from any lack of power in the English as
compared with the German mind? The countrymen
of Grote and of Mill, of Faraday, of Eobert Brown,
of Lyell, and of Darwin, to go no further back than
the contemporaries of men of middle age, can afford
to smile at such a suggestion. England can show now,
as she has been able to show in every generation since
civilization spread over the West, individual men who
hold their own against the world, and keep alive the
old tradition of her intellectual eminence.
But, in the majority of cases, these men are what
they are in virtue of their native intellectual force, and
of a strength of character which will not recognise impedi-
ments. They are not trained in the courts of the
Temple of Science, but storm the walls of that edifice in
all sorts of irregular ways, and with much loss of time
and power, in order to obtain their legitimate positions.
Our universities not only do not encourage such men ;
do not offer them positions, in which it should be their
highest duty to do, thoroughly, that which they are most
capable of doing ; but, as far as possible, university train-
ing shuts out of the minds of those among them, who
are subjected to it, the prospect that there is anything in
the world for which they are specially fitted. Imagine
the success of the attempt to still the intellectual hunger
of any of the men I have mentioned, by putting before
him, as the object of existence, the successful mimicry
of the measure of a Greek song, or the roll of Ciceronian
prose ! Imagine how much success would be likely
to attend the attempt to persuade such men, that the
50 lAT SERMONS, JLBRESSUS, AND REVIEWS. [m.
sducation wliich leads to perfection in sucli elegancies
is alone to be called culture; while the facts of history,
the process of thought, the conditions of moral and
social existence, and the laws of physical nature, are
left to be dealt Avith as they may, by outside bar-
barians !
It is not thus that the German universities, from
being beneath notice a century ago, have become what
they are now — the most intensely cultivated and the
most productive intellectual corporations the world has
ever seen.
The student who repairs to them sees in the list of
classes and of professors a fair picture of the world
■ of knowledge. Whatever he needs to know there is
some one ready to teach him, some one competent to
discipline him in the way of learning ; whatever his
special bent, let him but be able and diligent, and in
due time he shall find distinction and a career. Among
his professors, he sees men whose names are known
and revered throughout the civilized world ; and their
living example infects him with a noble ambition, and a
love for the spirit of work.
The Germans dominate the intellectual world by
virtue of the same simple secret as that which made
Napoleon the master of old Europe. They have declared
la carriere ouverte aux talents, and every Bursch
marches with a professor's gown in his knapsack. Let
him become a great scholar, or man of science, and
ministers will compete for his services. In Germany,
they do not leave the chance of his holding the office
he would render illustrious to the tender mercies of a
hot canvass, and the final wisdom of a mob of country
parsons.
In short, in Germany, the universities are exactly what
the Rector of Lincoln and the Commissioners tell us the
!iT.] A WBT.MAL EDUCATION, 51
Englisli universities are not ; tliat is to say, corporations
"of learned men devoting their lives to the cultivation
of science, and the direction of academical education."
They are not " boarding schools for youths," nor clerical
seminaries ; but institutions for the higher culture of
men, in which the theological faculty is of no more
importance, or prominence, than the rest ; and which
are truly "universities," since they strive to represent
and embody the totality of human knowledge, and
to find room for all forms of intellectual activity.
May zealous and clear-headed reformers like Mr.
Pattison succeed in their noble endeavours to shape
our universities towards some such ideal as this, without
losing what is valuable and distinctive in their social
tone ! But until they have succeeded, a liberal education
will be no more obtainable in our Oxford and Cambridge
Universities than in our public schools.
If I am justified in my conception of the ideal of a
liberal education ; and if what I have said about the
existing educational institutions of the country is also
true, it is clear that the two have no sort of relation
to one another ; that the best of our schools and the
most complete of our university trainings give but
a narrow, one-sided, and essentially illiberal education —
while the worst give what is really next to no education
at all. The South London Working-Men's College
could not copy any of these institutions if it would.
I am bold enough to express the conviction that it
oup^it not if it could.
For wdiat is wanted is the reality and not the mere
name of a liberal education ; and this College must
steadily set before itself the ambition to be able to
give that education sooner or later. At present we
are but beginning, sharpening our educational tools.
52 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [tu.
as it were, and, except a modicum of physical science,
we are not able to offer much more than is to be found
in an ordinary school.
Moral and social science — one of the greatest and
most fruitful of our future classes, I hope — at present
lacks only one thing in our programme, and that is a
teacher. A considerable want, no doubt ; but it must
be recollected that it is much better to want a teacher
than to want the desire to learn.
Further, we need what, for want of a better name,
I must call Physical Geography. What I mean is that
which the Germans call '' ErdkundeJ' It is a descrip-
tion of the earth, of its place and relation to other
bodies ; of its general structure, and of its great features
— winds, tides, mountains, plains ; of the chief forms
of the vegetable and animal worlds, of the varieties
of man. It is the peg upon which the greatest quantity
of useful and entertaining scientific information can be
suspended.
Literature is not upon the College programme; but
I hope some day to see it there. For literature is
the greatest of all sources of refined pleasure, and one
of the great uses of a liberal education is to enable
us to enjoy that pleasure. There is scope enough for
the purposes of liberal education in the study of the
rich treasures of our own language alone. All that
is needed is direction, and the cultivation of a refined
taste by attention to sound criticism. But there is
no reason why French and German should not be
mastered sufiiciently to read what is worth reading
in those languages, with pleasure and with profit.
And finally, by -and -by, we must have History ;
treated not as a succession of battles and dynasties ;
not as a series of biographies ; not as evidence that
Providence has always been on the side of either Whigs
•!\ III,] J LIBERAL EDUCATION. 53
or Tories ; but as the development of man in times
past, and in other conditions than our own.
But, as it is one of the principles of our College to
be self-supporting, the public must lead, and we must
follow, in these matters. If my hearers take to heart
what I have said about liberal education, they will
desire these things, and I doubt not we shall be able
to supply them. But we must wait till the demand
is made.
BCIENTIFIG EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN
AFTER-DINNEK SPEECH.
[Mr. Thackeray, talking of after-dinner speeclies, has lamented that
" one never can recollect tlie fine things one thought of in tlio
cab," in going to the place of entertainment. I am not aware that
there are any " fine things " in the following pages, but such as
there are stand to a speech which really did get itself spoken, at
the hospitable table of the Liverpool Philomathic Society, more or
less in the position of what " one thought of in the cab."]
The introduction of scientific training into tlie general
education of tlie country is a topic upon which I
could not have spoken, without some more or less
apologetic introduction, a few years ago. But upon
this, as upon other matters, public opinion has of late
undergone a rapid modification. Committees of both
Houses of the Legislature have agreed that something
must be done in this direction, and have even thrown
out timid and faltering suggestions as to what should
be done ; while at the opposite pole of society, com-
mittees of working-men have expressed their conviction
that scientific training is the one thing needful for
their advancement, whether as men, or as workmen.
Only the other day, it was my duty to take part in
the reception of a deputation of London working men,
who desired to learn from Sir Eoderick Murchison, the
Director of the Eoyal School of Mines, whether the
IV.] SCIENTIFIC HDUCATIOK, 55
organization of the Institution in Jermyn Street could
be made available for tlie supply of tliat scientific
instruction, tlie need of wliicfi could not have been
apprebended, or stated, more clearly tlian it was by
them.
The heads of colleges in our great Universities (who
have not the reputation of being the most mobile of
persons) have, in several cases, thought it well that,
out of the great number of honours and rewards at
their disposal, a few should hereafter be given to the
cultivators of the physical sciences. Nay, I hear that
some colleges have even gone so far as to appoint one,
or, may be, two special tutors for the purpose of putting
the facts and principles of physical science before the
undergraduate mind. And I say it with gratitude
and great respect for those eminent persons, that the
head masters of our public schools, Eton, Harrow,
Winchester, have addressed themselves to the problem
of introducing instruction in physical science among
the studies of those great educational bodies, w^ith
much honesty of purpose and enlightenment of under-
standing ; and I live in hope that, before long, impor-
tant changes in this direction will be carried into effect
in those strongholds of ancient prescription. In f^ict,
such changes have already been made, and ]3^^ysical
science, even now, constitutes a recognised element of
the school curriculum in Harrow and Eugby, wdiilst
I understand that ample preparations for such studies
are beino; made at Eton and elsewhere.
Looking at these facts, I might perhaps spare myself
the trouble of giving any reasons for the introduction
of physical science into elementary education ; yet I
cannot but think that it may be well, if I place before
you some considcTations which, perhaps, have bardlj
received full attention.
56 lAT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [iv.
At otlier times, and in other places, I have endeavoured
to state the higher and more abstract arguments, by
Vvdiich the study of physical science may be shown
to be indispensable to the complete training of the
human mind ; but I do not wish it to be supposed
that, because I happen to be devoted to more or less
abstract and " unpracticaF^ pursuits, I am insensible
to the weio'lit which ous^ht to be attached to that which
has been said to be the English conception of Paradise
— " namely, getting on." I look upon it, that " getting
on" is a very important matter indeed. I do not
mean merely for the sake of the coarse and tangible
results of success, but because humanity is so con-
stituted that a vast number of us would never be
impelled to those stretches of exertion which make
us wiser and more capable men, if it were not for the
absolute necessity of putting on our faculties all the
strain they will bear, for the purpose of "getting on"
in the most practical sense.
Now the value of a knowledge of physical scieiice
as a means of getting on, is indubitable. There are
hardly any of our trades, except the merely huckstering
ones, in which some knowledge of science may not
be directly profitable to the pursuer of that occupation.
As industry attains higher stages of its development,
as its processes become more complicated and refined,
and competition more keen, the sciences are dragged
in, one by one, to take their share in the fray ; and
he who can best avail himself of their help is the man
who will come out uppermost in that struggle for exist-
ence, which goes on as fiercely beneath the smooth
surface of modern society, as among the wild inhabit-
ants of the woods.
But, in addition to the bearing of science on ordinary
practical life, let me direct your attention to its immense
IV.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 57
influence on several of the professions. I ask any one
who has adopted the calling of an engineer, how much
time he lost when he left school, because he had to
devote himself to pursuits which were absolutely novel
and strange, and of which he had not obtained the
remotest conception from his instructors ? He had
to familiarize himself with ideas of the course and
powers of Nature, to which his attention had never
been directed during his school-life, and to learn, for
the first time, that a world of facts lies outside and
beyond the world of words. I appeal to those who
know what Engineering is, to say how far I am right
in respect to that profession ; but with regard to
another, of no less importance, I shall venture to
speak of my own knowledge. There is no one of
us who may not at any moment be thrown, bound
hand and foot by physical incapacity, into the hands
of a medical practitioner. The chances of life and
death for all and each of us may, at any moment,
depend on the skill with which that practitioner is
able to make out what is wrong in our bodily frames,
and on his ability to apply the proper remedy to the
defect.
The necessities of modern life are such, and the
class from which the medical profession is chiefly
recruited is so situated, that few medical men can hope
to spend more than three or four, or it may be five,
years in the pursuit of those studies which are imme-
diately germane to physic. How is that all too brief
period spent at present ? I speak as an old examiner,
having served some eleven or twelve years in that
capacity in the University of London, and therefore
having a practical acquaintance with the subject ;
but I might fortify myself by the authority of the
President of the College of Surgeons, Mr. Qiiain, whom
58 LJT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND B.WIEWS. [iv.
I heard the other day in an admirable address (the
Hunterian Oration) deal fully and wisely with this very
topic. -^
A young man commencing the study of medicine is
at once required to endeavour to make an acquaintance
with a number of sciences, such as Physics, as Chemistry,
as Botany, as Physiology, which are absolutely and entirely
strange to him, however excellent his so-called education
at school may have been. Not only is he devoid of all
apprehension of scientific conceptions, not only does he
fail to attach any meaning to the words "matter,'*
"force," or "law'' in their scientific senses, but, worse
still, he has no notion of v/hat it is to come into contact
with nature, or to lay his mind alongside of a physical
fact, and try to conquer it, in the way our great naval
hero told his captains to master their enemies. His
whole mind has been given to books, and I am hardly
exaggerating if I say that they are more real to him
than Nature . He imag-ines that all knowledo^e can be
got out of books, and rests upon the authority of some
^ LIr. Qiiain's words {Midi^il Times and Gazette, February 20) are : — "A
few words as to our special Medical course of instruction and the influence
upon it of such changes in the elementary schools as I have mentioned. The
student now enters at once upon several sciences — physics, chemistry, anatomy,
physiology, botany, pharmacy, therapeutics — all these, the fa^ts and the
language and the laws of each, to be mastered in eighteen months. Up to
the beginning of the Medical course many have learned little. We cannot
claim anything better than the Examiner of the University of London and
the Cambridge Lecturer have reported for their Universities. Supposing that
at school young people had acquired some exact elementary knowledge in
physics, chemistry, and a branch of natural history — say botany — with the
physiology connected with it, they would then have gaiiied necessary know-
ledge, with some practice in inductive reasoning. The whole studies are
processes of observation and induction — the best discipline of the mind for
tlic purposes of life — for our purposes not less than any. * By such study
(says Dr. Whewell) of one or more departments of inductive science the
mind may escape from the thraldom of mere words.' By that plan the
burden of the early Medical course would be much lightened, and more time
devoted to practical studies, including Sir Thomas Watsun's 'final and supreme
stage ' of the knowledge of Medicine.'*
IV.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATIOK 59
master or other ; nor does lie entertain any misgiving
that the method of learning which led to proficiency
in the rules of grammar, will suffice to lead him to a
mastery of the laws of Nature. The youngster, thus
unprepared for serious study, is turned loose among
his medical studies, with the result, in nine cases out
of ten, that the first year of his curriculum is spent
in learning how to learn. Indeed, he is lucky, if at
the end of the first year, by the exertions of his teachers
and his own industry, he has acquired even that art of
arts. After which there remain not more than three,
or perhaps four, years for the profitable study of such
vast sciences as Anatomy, Physiology, Therapeutics,
Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, and the like, upon his
knowledge or ignorance of which it depends whether
the practitioner shall diminish, or increase, the bills of
mortality. Now what is it but the preposterous con-
dition of ordinary school education which prevents a
young man of seventeen, destined for the practice of
medicine, from being fully prepared for the study of
nature; and from coming to the medical school, equipped
with that preliminary knowledge of the principles of
Physics, of Chemistry, and of Biology, upon which he
has now to waste one of the precious years, every
moment of which ought to be given to those studies
which bear directly upon the knowledge of his
profession ?
There is another profession, to the members of which,
I think, a certain preliminary knowledge of physical
science might be quite as valuable as to the medical
man. The practitioner of medicine sets before himself
the noble object of taking care of man's bodily welfare ;
but the members of this other profession undertake to
"minister to minds diseased,'* and, so far as may be,
to diminish sin and soften sorrow. Like the medical
60 lAr SERMONS, ADLEESSES, AND REVIEWS, [iv.
profession, the clerical, of whidi I now speak, rests its
power to heal upon its knowledge of the order of the
universe — upon certain theories of mans relation to
that which lies outside him. It is not my business to
express any opinion about these theories. I merely
wish to point out that, like all other theories, they are
professedly based upon matter of fact. Thus the clerical
profession has to deal with the facts of Nature from a
certain point of view ; and hence it comes into contact
mth that of the man of science, who has to treat the
same facts from another point of view. You know how
often that contact is to be described as collision, or
^dolent friction ; and how great the heat, how little
the light, which commonly results from it.
In the interests of fair play, to say nothing of those
of mankind, I ask, Why do not the clergy as a body
acquire, as a part of their preliminary education, some
such tincture of physical science as wiU put them in
a position to understand the difficulties in the way
of accepting their theories, which are forced upon the
mind of every thoughtful and intelligent man, who has
taken the trouble to instruct himself in the elements
of natural knowledge ?
Some time ago I attended a large meeting of the
clergy, for the purpose of delivering an address which
I had been invited to give. I spoke of some of the
most elementary facts in physical science, and of the
manner in which they directly contradict certain of the
ordinary teachings of the clergy. The result was, that,
after I had finished, one section of the assembled eccle-
siastics attacked me with all the intemperance of pious
zeal, for stating facts and conclusions wliich no com-
petent judge doubts ; while, after the first speakers had
subsided, amidst the cheers of the great majority of their
colleagues, the more rational minority rose to tell me
IV. j SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION, 61
that I had taken wholly superfluous pains, that they
abeady knew all about what I had told them, and
perfectly agreed with me. A hard-headed friend ol
mine, who was present, put the not unnatural question,
" Then why don^t you say so in your pulpits ? '' to
^\'hich inquiry I heard no reply.
In fact the clergy are at present divisible into three
sections : an immense body who are ignorant and speak
out ; a small proportion who know and are silent ;
and a minute minority who know and speak according
to their knowledge. By the clergy, I mean especially
the Protestant clergy. Our great antagonist — I speak
as a man of science — the Eoman Catholic Church, the
one great spiritual organization which is able to resist,
and must, as a matter of life and death, resist, the
progress of science and modern civilization, manages
her affairs much better.
It was my fortune some time ago to pay a visit to
one of the most important of the institutions in which
the clergy of the Eoman Catholic Church in these islands
are trained ; and it seemed to me that the difference
between these men and the comfortable champions of
Anglicanism aud of Dissent, was comparable to the
differeuce between . our gallant Volunteers and the
trained veterans of Napoleon's Old Guard.
The Catholic priest is trained to know his business,
and do it effectually. The professors of the college in
question, learned, zealous, and determined men, per-
mitted me to speak frankly with them. We talked like
outposts of opposed armies during a truce — as friendly
enemies ; and when I ventured to point out the diffi-
culties their students would have to encounter from
scientific thought, they replied : " Our Church has lasted
many ages, and has passed safely through many storms.
The present is but a new gust of the old tempest, and
4
62 Ur SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWB. [it.
v^e c!o not turn out our young men less fitted to weather
it, than they have been, in former times, to cope with
the difficulties of those times. The heresies of the day
are explained to them by their professors of philosophy
and science, and they are taught how those heresies are
to be met/'
I heartily respect an organization which faces its
enemies in this way ; and I wish that all ecclesiastical
organizations were in as effective a condition. I think
it would be better, not only for them, but for us. The
army of liberal thought is, at present, in very loose
order; and many a spirited free-thinker makes use of
his freedom mainly to vent nonsense. We should be
the better for a vigorous and watchful enemy to hammer
us into cohesion and discipline ; and I, for one, lament
that the bench of BishojDS cannot show a man of
the calibre of Butler of the "Analogy," who, if he
were alive, would make short work of much of the
current a jpriori '^ infidelity."
I hope you will consider that the arguments I have
now stated, even if there were no better ones, con-
stitute a sufficient apology for urging the introduction
of science into schools. The next question to which
I have to address myself is, What sciences ought to be
thus taught 'i And this is one of the most important of
questions, because my side (I am afraid I am a terribly
candid friend) sometimes spoils its cause by going in
for too much. There are other forms of culture beside
physical science ; and I should be profoundly sorry to
see the fact forgotten, or even to observe a tendency to
starve, or cripple, literary, or aesthetic, culture for the sake
of science. Such a narrow view of the nature of educa-
tion has nothing to do with my firm conviction that
a complete and thorough scientific culture ought to be
mj SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION, 63
introduced into all schools. By this, however, I do not
mean that every schoolboy should be taught everything
in science. That would be a very absurd thing to con-
ceive, and a very mischievous thing to attempt. What
I mean is, that no boy nor girl should leave school
without possessing a grasp of the general character of
science, and without having been disciplined, more or
less, in the methods of all sciences ; so that, when
turned into the world to n:iake their own way, they
shall be prepared to face scientific problems, not by
knowing at once the conditions of every problem, or
by being able at once to solve it ; but by being familiar
with the general current of scientific thought, and by
being able to apply the methods of science in the
proper way, when they have acquainted themselves with
the conditions of the special problem.
That is what I understand by scientific education.
To furnish a boy with such an education, it is by no
means necessary that he should devote his whole school
existence to physical science : in fact, no one would
lament so one-sided a proceeding more than I. Nay
more, it is not necessary for him to give up more than a
moderate share of his time to suck studies, if they be
properly selected and arranged, and if he be trained in
them in a fitting manner.
I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as
follows. To begin with, let every child be instructed in
those general views of the phenomena of Nature for ^'
which we have no exact English name. The nearest
approximation to a name for what I mean, which we
possess, is " physical geography." The Germans have a
better, " Erdkunde,'' ("earth knowledge" or "geology''
m its etymological sense,) that is to say, a general know-
ledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it.
If any one who has had experience of the ways of young
64 I AT SJSRMONS, ABJDRESSES, AND RWIEIVS, [rv.
children will call to mind tlieir questions, lie will find
tliat so far as they can be put into any scientific category,
they come under this head of " Erclkunde/' The child
asks, *' What is the moon, and why does it shine % "
" What is this water, and where does it run ? " " What
is the wind ? " " What makes the waves in the sea ? "
" Where does this animal live, and what is the use of
that plant ? " And if not snubbed and stunted by being
told not to ask foolish questions, there is no limit to the
intellectual craving of a young child ; nor any bounds to
the slow, but solid, accretion of knowledge and develop-
ment of the thinking faculty in this way. To all such
questions, answers which are necessarily incomplete,
though true as far as they go, may be given by any
teacher v^hose ideas represent real knowledge and not
mere book learning ; and a panoramic view of Nature,
accompanied by a strong infusion of the scientific habit
of mind, may thus be placed within the reach of every
child of nine or ten.
After this preliminary opening of the eyes to the
great spectacle of the daily progress of Nature, as the
reasoning faculties of the child grow, and he becomes
gL> familiar with the use of the tools of knowledge — reading,
writing, and elementary mathematics — he should pass
on to what is, in the more strict sense, physical science.
Now there are two kinds of physical science : the one
regards form and the relation of forms to one another ;
the other deals with causes and efiects. In many of
what we term our sciences, these two kinds are mixed
up together; but systematic botany is a pure example
of the former kind, and physics of the latter kind, of
science. Every educational advantage which training
in physical science can give is obtainable from the proper
study of these two ; and I should be contented, for the
present, if they, added to our ** Erdkunde/^ furnished
IV.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION, 65
fclie whole of tlie scientific curriculum of schools. Indeed,
I conceive it would be one of the greatest boons which
could be conferred upon England, if henceforward every
child in the country were instructed in the general
knowledo;e of the thing's about it, in the elements
of physics, and of botany. But I should be still
better pleased if there could be added somewhat of
chemistry, and an elementary acquaintance with human
physiology.
So far as school education is concerned, I want to go
no farther just now ; and I believe that such instruction
would make an excellent introduction to that preparatory
scientific training which, as I have indicated, is so essen-
tial for the successful pursuit of our most important pro-
fessions. But this modicum of instruction must be so
given as to ensure real knowledge and practical discipline.
If scientific education is to be dealt with as mere book-
work, it will be better not to attempt it, but to stick to
the Latin Grammar, v/hich makes no pretence to be any-
thing but bookwork.
If the great benefits of scientific training are sought,
it is essential that such training should be real : that is
to say, that the mind of the scholar should be brought
into direct relation with fact, that he should not merely
be told a thing, but made to see by the use of his own
intellect and ability that the thing is so and no otherwise.
The great peculiarity of scientific training, that in virtue
of which it cannot be replaced by any other discipline
whatsoever, is this bringing of the mind directly into
contact with fact, and practising the intellect in the
completest form of induction ; that is to say, in drawing
conclusions from particular facts made known by imme-
diate observation of Nature.
The other studies which enter into ordinary education
do not discipline the mind in this way. Mathematical
66 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. fiv.
training is almost purely declnctiYe. Tlie matliematician
starts with a few simple propositions, the proof of which
is so obvious that they are called self-evident, and the
rest of his work consists of subtle deductions from them.
The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordinarily
practised, is of the same general nature, — authority and
tradition furnish the data, and the mental operations of
the scholar are deductive.
Again : if history be the subject of study, the facts
are still taken upon the evidence of tradition and au-
thority. You cannot make a boy see the battle of
Thermopylae for himself, or know, of his own know-
ledge, that Cromwell once ruled England. There is no
getting into direct contact with natural fact by this
road ; there is no dispensing with authority, but rather a
resting upon it.
In all these respects, science differs from other edu-
cational discipline, and prepares the scholar for common
life. What have we to do in every-day life ? Most of
the business w^hich demands our attention is matter of
fact, which needs, in the first place, to be accurately
observed or apprehended ; in the second, to be inter-
preted by inductive and deductive reasonings, which are
altogether similar in their nature to those employed in
science. In the one case, as in the other, whatever is
taken for granted is so taken at one's own peril ; fact
and reason are the ultimate arbiters, and patience and
honesty are the great helpers out of difficulty.
But if scientific training is to yield its most eminent
results, it must, I repeat, be made practical. That is to
say, in explaining to a child the general phaenomena of
Nature, you must, as far as possible, give reality to your
teaching by object-lessons ; in teaching him botany, he
must handle the plants and dissect the flowers for him-
self; in teaching him physics and chemistry, you must
IV.] SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 67
not be solicitous to fill liim witli information, but you
must be careful that what he learns he knows of his own
knowledge. Don't be satisfied with telling him .that a
mao'net attracts iron. Let him see that it does ; let him
feel the pull of the one upon the other for himself. And,
especially, tell him that it is his duty to doubt until he
is compelled, by the absolute authority of Nature, to
believe that which is written in books. Pursue this
discipline carefully and conscientiously, and you may
make sure that, however scanty may be the measure of
information which you have poured into the boy's mind,
you have created an intellectua.1 habit of priceless value
in practical life.
One is constantly asked, When should this scientific
education be commenced ? I should say with the dawn
of intelligence. As I have already said, a child seeks
for information about matters of physical science as
soon as it begins to talk. The first teaching it wants
is an object-lesson of one sort or another ; and as soon
as it is fit for systematic instruction of any kind, it is fit
for a modicum of science.
People talk of the difficulty of teaching young
children such matters, and in the same breath insist
upon their learning their Catechism, which contains
propositions far harder to comprehend than anything
in the educational course I have proposed. Again: I
am incessantly told that we, wdio advocate the intro-
duction of science into schools, make no allowance for
the stupidity of the average boy or girl; but, in my
belief, that stupidity, in nine cases out of ten, ^^Jit, non
nascitur," and is developed by a long process of parental
and pedagogic repression of the natural intellectual ap-
petites, accompanied by a persistent attempt to create
artificial ones for food which is not only tasteless, but
essentially indigestible.
68 LAY SEmWNS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [iv.
Tliose who urge the difBculty of instructing young
people in science are apt to forget another very im-
portant, condition of success — important in all kinds of
teaching, but most essential, I am disposed to think,
when the scholars are very young. This condition is,
that the teacher should himself really and practically
know his subject. If he does, he will be able to speak
of it in the easy language, and with the completeness
of conviction, with which he talks of any ordinary
every-day matter. If he does not, he will be afraid to
wander beyond the limits of the technical phraseology
which he has got up ; and a dead dogmatism, which
oppresses, or raises opposition, will take the place of
the lively confidence, born of personal conviction, which
cheers and encourages the eminently sympathetic mind
of childhood.
I have already hinted that such scientific training as
we seek for may be given v/ithout making any extra-
vagant claim upon the time now devoted to education.
We ask only for *' a most favoured nation " clause in our
treaty with the schoolmaster ; we demand no more than
that science shall have as much time given to it as any
other single subject — say four hours a week in each class
of an ordinary school.
For the present, I think men of science would be well
content with such an arrangement as this ; but speaking
for myself, I do not pretend to believe that such an
arrangement can be, or will be, permanent. In these
times the educational tree seems to me to have its roots
in the air, its leaves and flowers in the ground ; and, I
confess, I should very much like to turn it upside down,
BO that its roots might be solidly embedded among the
facts of Nature, and draw thence a sound nutriment
for the foliaofe and fruit of literature and of art. No
educational system can have a claim to permanence,
IV.] SCIENTIFIC I^DUCATION, 69
unless it reco2;nizGs tlie trutli that education has two
great ends to wliicli eveiytliing else must be subordinated.
The one of these is to increase knowledge ; the other is
to develop the love of right and the hatred of wrong.
AYith wisdom and uprightness a nation can make its
way worthily, and beauty will follow in the footsteps of
the two, even if she be not specially invited ; while there
is perhaps no sight in the whole world more saddening
and revolting than is offered by men sunk in ignorance
of everything but what other men have written ; seem-
ingly devoid of moral belief or guidance ; but with the
sense of beauty so keen, and. the power of expression so
cultivated, that their sensual caterwauling may be almost
mistaken for the music of the spheres.
At present, education is almost entirely devoted to the
cultivation of the povv^er of expression, and of the sense of
literary beauty. The matter of having anything to say,
beyond a hash of other people's opinions, or of possess-
ing any criterion of beauty, so that w^e may distinguish
between the Godlike and the devilish, is left aside as of
no moment. I think I do not err in saying that if
science were made the foundation of education, instead
of being, at most, stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this
state of things could not exist.
In advocating the introduction of physical science
as a leading element in 'education, I by no means refer
only to the higher schools. On the contrary, I believe
that such a change is even more imperatively called, for
in those primary schools, in which the children of the
poor are expected to turn to the best account the little
time they can devote to the acquisition of knowledge.
A great step in this direction has already been made
by the establishment of science-classes under the De-
partment of Science and. Art, — a measure which came
into existence unnoticed, but which will, I believe, turn
70 ^^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REHEWS, [iv
out to be of more importance to the welfare of the
people, than many political changes, over which the
noise of battle has rent the air.
Under the regulations to which I refer, a schoolmaster
can set up a class in one or more branches of science ;
his pupils will be examined, and the State will pay him,
at a certain rate, for all who succeed in passing. 1
have acted as an examiner under this system from the
beginning of its establishment, and this year I expect
to have not fewer than a couple of thousand sets of
answers to questions in Physiology, mainly from young
people of the artisan class, who have been taught in
the schools which are now scattered all over Great
Britain and Ireland. Some of my colleagues, who have
to deal with subjects such as Geometry, for which the
present teaching power is better organized, I under-
stand are likely to have three or four times as many
papers. So far as my own subjects are concerned, 1 can
undertake to say that a great deal of the teaching, the
results of which are before me in these examinations, is
very sound and good ; and I think it is in the power of
the examiners, not only to keep up the present standard,
but to cause an almost unlimited improvement. Now
what does this mean 1 It means that by holding out
a very moderate inducement, the masters of primary
schools in many parts of the country have been led to
convert them into little foci of scientific instruction ; and
that they and their pupils have contrived to find, or to
make, time enough to carry out this object with a very
considerable degree of efficiency. That efficiency will,
I doubt not, be very much increased as the system
becomes known and perfected, even with the very
limited leisure left to masters and teachers on week-
days. And this leads me to ask. Why should scientific
teaching be limited to week-days?
lY.] SCIENTIFIC ED V CATION. 7 1
Ecclesiastically-minded persons are in tlie habit of
calling things they do not like by very hard names, and
I should not wonder if they brand the proposition I
am about to make as blasphemous, and worse. But,
not minding this, I venture to ask. Would there really be
anything wrong in using part of Sunday for the purpose
of instructing those who have no other leisure, in a
knowledge of the phsenomena of ^Nature, and of man's
relation to Nature ?
I should like to see a scientific Sunday-school in every
parish, not for the purpose of superseding any existing
means of teaching the people the things that are for
their good, but side by side with them. I cannot but
think that there is room for all of us to work in helping
to bridge over the great abyss of ignorance which lies
at our feet.
And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I
have referred, object that they find it derogatory to the
honour of the God whom they worship, to awaken the
minds of the young to the infinite wonder and majesty
of the works which they proclaim His, and to teach
them those laws which must needs be His laws, and
therefore of all things needful for man to know — I can
only recommend them to be let blood and put on low
diet. There must be something very wrong going on
in the instrument of logic, if it turns out such conclu-
sions from such premises.
ON TflE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE
NATUEAL HISTOEY SCIENCES.
The subject to whicli I liave to beg your attention
during the ensuing hour is " The Eelation of Physio-
logical Science to other branches of Knowledge/'
Had circumstances permitted of the delivery, in
their strict logical order, of that series of discourses
of which the present lecture is a member, I should
have preceded my friend and colleague Mr. Henfrey,
who addressed you on Monday last; but while, for
the sake of that order, I must beg you to suj)pose that
this discussion of the Educational bearings of Biology
in general does precede that of Special Zoology and
Botany, I am rejoiced to be able to take advantage of
the light thus already thrown upon the tendency and
methods of Physiological Science.
Eegarding Physiological Science, then, in its widest
sense — as the equivalent of Biology — the Science of
Individual Life — we have to consider in succession :
1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge,
2. Its value as a means of mental discipline.
3. Its worth as practical information.
And lastly,
4. At what period it may best be made a branch of
Education.
r.] EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 73
Our conclusions on the first of these heads must
depend, of course, upon the nature of the subject-
matter of Biology; and I think a few preliminary
considerations will place before you in a clear light
the vast difference which exists between the living
bodies with which Physiological science is concerned, and
the remainder of the universe ; — between the phsenomena
of Number and Space, of Physical and of Chemical force,
on the one hand, and those of Life on the other.
The mathematician, the physicist, and the chemist
contemplate things in a condition of rest ; they look
upon a state of equilibrium as that to which all bodies
normally tend.
The mathematician does not suppose that a quantity
will alter, or that a given point in space will change
its direction with regard to another point, sponta-
neously. And it is the same with the physicist. When
Newton saw the apple fall, he concluded at once that
the act of faUing was not \hQ result of any power
inherent in the apple, but that it was the result of the
action of something else on the apple. In a similar
manner, all physical force is regarded as the disturbance
of an equilibrium to which things tended before its
exertion,- — to which they v/ill tend again after its
cessation.
The chemist equally regards chemical change in a
body, as the effect of the action of something external
to the body changed. A chemical compound once formed
would persist for ever, if no alteration .took place in
surrounding conditions.
But to the student of Life the aspect of Nature is
reversed. Here, incessant, and, so far as we know,
spontaneous change is the rule, rest the exception —
the anomaly to be accounted for. Living things have
no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium.
74 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [v.
Permit me, however, to give more force and clearness
to these somewhat abstract considerations, by an iUiistra-
tion or two.
Imagine a vessel full of water, at the ordinary tem-
perature, in an atmosphere saturated with vapour. The
quantity and the figure of that water will not change,
so far as we know, for ever.
Suppose a knnp of gold be thrown into the vessel —
motion and disturbance of figure exactly proportional
to the momentum of the gold will take place. But after
a time the effects of this disturbance will subside — •
equilibrium will be restored, and the water will return
to its passive state.
Expose the water to cold — it will solidify — and in so
doing its particles will arrange themselves in definite
crystalline shapes. But once formed, these crystals
change no further.
Again, substitute for the lump of gold some substance
capable of entering into chemical relations with the
water: — -say, a mass of that substance which is called
"protein" — the substance of flesh :— a very considerable
disturbance of equilibrium will take place— all sorts of
chemical compositions and decompositions will occur ;
but in the end, as before, the result will be the resump-
tion 01 a condition of rest.
Instead of such a mass of dead protein, however,
take a particle of living protein — one of those minute
microscopic living things which throng our pools, and
are known as Infusoria — such a creature, for instance, as
an Euglena, and place it in our vessel of water. It is a
round mass provided with a long filament, and except
in this peculiarity of shape, presents no appreciable
physical or chemical diff'erence whereby it might be
distinguished from the particle of dead protein.
But the difi'erence in the phaenomena to which it
f.] EDUCATIONAL FALUE OE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 75
will give rise is immense : in tlie first place it will
develop a vast quantity of physical force — cleaving
the water in all directions with considerable rapidity
by means of the vibrations of the long filament or
cilium.
Nor is the amount of chemical energy which the little
creature possesses less striking. It is a perfect laboratory
in itself, and it will act and react u^pon the water and
the matters contained therein ; converting them into new
compounds resembling its own substance, and at the
same time giving up portions of its own substance which
have become effete.
Furthermore, the Euglena will increase in size ; but
this increase is by no means unlimited, as the increase
of a crystal might be. After it has grown to a certain
extent it divides, and each portion assumes the form of
the original, and proceeds to repeat the process of growth
and division.
Nor is this all. For after a series of such divisions
and subdivisions, these minute points assume a totally
new form, lose their long tails — round themselves, and
secrete a sort of envelope or box, in which they remain
shut up for a time, eventually to resume, directly or
indirectly, their primitive mode of existence.
Now, so far as we know, there is no natural limit to
the existence of the Euglena, or of any other living germ.
A living sjDecies once launched into existence tends to
live for ever.
Consider how^ widely different this living particle is
from the dead atoms with which the physicist and
chemist have to do!
The particle of gold falls to the bottom and rests —
the particle of dead protein decomposes and disappears —
it also rests : but the living protein mass neither tends
to exhaustion of its forces nor to any permanency of
TQ LAY SERMONS ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [v
form, but is essentially distinguislied as a distnrlDer
of equilibrium so far as force is concerned, — as under-
going continual metamorpliosis and change, in point of
form.
Tendency to equilibrium of force and to permanency
of form, then, are the characters of that portion of the
universe which does not live — the domain of the chemist
and physicist.
Tendency to disturb existing equilibrium — to take on
forms which succeed one another in definite cycles — is
the character of the living world.
What is the cause of this wonderful difference between
the dead particle and the living particle of matter
appearing in other respects identical % that difference
to which we give the name of Life %
I, for one, cannot tell yoa. It may be that, by and
by, philosophers will discover some higher laws of which
the facts of life are particular cases— very possibly they
will find out some bond between physico-chemical
phaenomena on the one hand, and vital phsenomena
on the other. At present, however, we assuredly know
of none; and I think we shall exercise a wise humility
in confessing that, for us at least, this successive assump-
tion of different states — (external conditions remaining
the same) — this spontaneity of action — if I may use
a term which implies more than I would be answerable
for — which constitutes so vast and plain a practical
distinction between living bodies and those which do
not live, is an ultimate fact ; indicating as such, the
existence of a broad line of demarcation between the
subject-matter of Biological and that of all other sciences.
For I would have it understood that this simple
Euglena is the type of all living things, so far as the
distinction between these and inert matter is concerned.
That cycle of changes, which is constituted by perhaps
r. J EB UCATIONAL FAL UE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 7 7
not more than two or tliree steps in the Englena, is
as clearly manifested in the multitnclinons stages through
which the germ of an oak or of a man passes. What-
ever forms the Living Being may take on, whether
simple or complex, production, groivth, reioroduction,
are the phsenomena which distinguish it from that
which does not live.
If this be true, it is clear that the student, in passing
from the physico-chemical to the physiological sciences,
enters upon a totally new order of facts ; and it will
next be for us to consider how far these new facts
involve neio methods, or reauire a modification of those
' A.
with which he is already acquainted. Now a great
deal is said about the peculiarity of the scientific method
in general, and of the different methods which are
pursued in the different sciences. The Mathematics
are said to have one special method; Physics another,
Biology a third, and so forth. For my own part, I
must confess that I do not understand this phraseology.
So far as I can arrive at any clear comprehension
of the matter, Science is not, as many would seem to
suppose, a modification of the black art, suited to the
tastes of the nineteenth century, and flourishing mainly
in consequence of the decay of the Inquisition.
Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and orga-
nized common sense, differing from the latter only as
a veteran may differ from a raw recruit : and its methods
differ from those of common sense only so far as the
guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner
in which a savage wields his club. The primary power
is the same in each case, and perhaps the untutored
savage has the more brawny arm of the two. The
real advantage lies in the point and polish of the
swordsman's weapon ; in the trained eye quick to spy
out the weakness of the adversary ; in the ready hand
/
78 L^-^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [v
prompt to follow it on tlie instant. But, after all, tlie
sword exercise is only tlie liewing and poking of tlie
clubman developed and perfected.
So, the vast results obtained by Science are won
by no mystical faculties, by no mental processes, other
than those which are practised by every one of us,
in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective
policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made
by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that
by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Mont-
martre from fragments of their bones. Nor does that
process of induction and deduction by which a lady,
finding a stain of a peculiar kind upon her dress, con-
cludes that somebody has upset the inkstand thereon,
differ in any way, in kind, from that by which Adams
and Leverrier discovered a new planet.
The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scru-
pulous exactness, the methods which we all, habitually
and at every moment, use carelessly ; and the man
of business must as much avail himself of the scientific
method — must be as truly a man of science — as the
veriest bookworm of us all ; though I have no doubt
that the man of business will find himself out to be a
philosopher with as much surprise as M. Jourdain
exhibited, when he discovered that he had been all
his life talking prose. If, however, there be no real
difference between the methods of science and those
of common life, it would seem, on the face of the
matter, highly improbable that there should be any
difference between the methods of the different sciences ;
nevertheless, it is constantly taken for granted, that
there is a very wide difference between the Physiological
and other sciences in point of method.
In the first place it is said — and I take this point
first, because the imputation is too frequently admitted
f.] EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 79
by Pliysiologists themselves — that Biology differs from
the Physico-chemical and Mathematical sciences in
being "inexact."
Now, this phrase " inexact " must refer either to the
methods or to the results of Plivsiolog:ical science.
It cannot be correct to apply it to the methods ; for,
as I hope to show you by and by, these are iden-
tical in all sciences, and whatever is trne of Physiological
method is true of Physical and Mathematical method-
Is it then the results of Biological science which are
** inexact''? I think not. If I say that respiration is
performed by the lungs ; that digestion is effected in the
stomach ; that the eye is the organ of sight ; that the
jaws of a vertebrated animal never open sideways, but
always up and down ; while those of an annulose animal
always open sideways, and never up and down — I am
enumerating propositions which are as exact as anything
in Euclid. How then has this notion of the inexactness
of Biolooical science come about? I believe from two
causes : first, because, in consequence of the great com-
plexity of the science and the multitude of interfering
conditions, we are very often only enabled to predict
approximately what will occur under given circum-
stances ; and secondly, because, on account of the com-
parative youth of the Physiological sciences, a great
many of their laws are still imperfectly worked out.
But, in an educational point of view, it is most important
to distinguish between the essence of a science and
the accidents which surround it ; and essentially, the
methods and results of Physiology are as exact as those
of Physics or Mathematics.
It is said that the Physiological method is especially
comi^arative ^ ; and this dictum also finds favour in the
^ " In tlie tliird place, we liare to review the metliod of Comparison, wMch
is so specially adapted to the study of living bodies, and by which, above aU
80 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [v
eyes of many. I sliould be sorry to suggest thcit the
speculators on scientific classification have been misled
by the accident of the name of one leading branch of
Biology — Coraparative Anatomy ; but I Avould ask
v/hether comioarison, and that classification which is the
result of comparison, are not the essence of every science
whatsoever ? How is it possible to discover a relation of
cause and efi'ect of a7iy kiud without comparing a series
of cases together in which the supposed cause and efiect
occur singly, or combined ? So far from comparison
being in any way peculiar to Biological science, it is,
I think, the essence of every science.
A speculative philosopher again tells us that the
Biological sciences are distinguished by beiug sciences
of observation and not of experiment ! ^
Of all the strange assertions into which speculation
without practical acquaintance with a subject may lead
even an able man, I think this is the very strangest.
Physiology not an experimental science I Why, there
others, that study must be advanced. In Astronomy, this method is neces-
sarily inapplicable ; and it is not till we arrive at Chemistry that this third
means of investigation can be used, and then only in subordination to the
two others. It is in the study, both statical and dynamical, of living bodies
that it first acqunes its full development ; and its use elsewhere can be only
through its application here." — Comte's Positive Fhilosojyhy, translated by
Miss Martineau. Vol. i. p. 372.
By what method does M. Comte suppose that the equality or inequality of
forces and quantities and the dissimilarity or similarity of forms — points oi
some slight importance not only in Astronomy and Physics, but even in
Mathematics — are ascertained, if not by Comparison ?
" Proceeding to the second class of means, — Enperiment cannot but be
less and less decisive, in proportion to the complexity of the pha^nomena to be
explored ; and therefore we saw this resource to be less effectual in chemistry
than in physics : and we now find that it is eminently useful in chemistry in
comparison with j^hysiology. In fact, the nature of the joha^nomena sums to
offer almost insurmountable impediments to any extensive and ])rolific aiJ^lino-
lion of such a ^jrocedure in biology.''' — Comte, vol. i. p. 367.
M. Comte, as his manner is, contradicts himself two pages further on, but
that will hardly relieve him from the responsil/dity of such a paragraph a»
the above.
y
2
7.] EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL UISTORT SCIENCES. 8 1
is not a function of a single organ in the body wliicli lias
not been determined wholly and solely by experiment.
How did Harvey determine the nature of the circulation,
except by experiment 1 How did Sir Charles Bell de-
termine the functions of the roots of the spinal nerves,
save by experiment ? How do w^e know the use of a
nerve at all, except by experiment ? Nay, how do you
know even that your eye is your seeing apparatus, unless
you make the experiment of shutting it ; or that your
ear is your hearing apparatus, unless you close it up and
thereby discover that you become deaf ?
It would really be much more true to say that Phy-
siology is the experimental science par excellence of all
sciences ; that in which there is least to be learnt by
mere observation, and that which affords the greatest
field for the exercise of those faculties which characterise
the experimental philosopher. I confess, if any one
were to ask me for a model application of the logic of
experiment, I should know no better work to put into
his hands than Bernard's late Eesearches on the Func-
tions of the Liven ^
Not to give this lecture a too controversial tone, how-
ever, I must only advert to one more doctrine, held by a
thinker of our own age and country, whose opinions are
worthy of all respect. It is, that the Biological sciences
differ from all others, inasmuch as in them classification
takes place by type and not by definition.^
^ "Nonvelle Fonction du Foie considere Gorume organe prodncteur de
matiere sucree chez rHomme et les Animaux," par M, Claude Bernard.
2 '^ Natural Ch^oups given hy Tyioe, not by Definition The class is
steadily fixed, though not precisely limited ; it is given, though not circum-
scribed ; it is determined, not by a boundary-line without, but by a central
[)oint within ; not by what it strictly excludes, but what it eminently includes ;
by an example, not by a precept ; in short, instead of DefiniUon we have a
Type for our director. A type is an example of any class, for instance, &
species of a genus, which is considered as emxinently possessing the characters
of the class. All the species which have a greater affinity with this type-
N
8 2 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEn 'S. [v.
It is said, in short, that a natural-historv class is not
capable of being defined — that the class Eosace^, for
instance, or the class of Fishes, is not accurately and
absolutely definable, inasmuch as its members will pre-
sent exceptions to every possible definition ; and that
the members of the class are united together only by
the circumstance that they are all more like some
imaginary average rose or average fish, than they
resemble anything else.
But here, as before, I think the distinction has arisen
entirely from confusing a transitory imperfection with
an essential character. So long as our information con-
cerning them is imperfect, we class all objects together
according to resemblances which we feel, but cannot
define ; we group them round types, in short. Thus,
if you ask an ordinary person what kinds of animals
there are, he will probably say, beasts, birds, reptiles,
fishes, insects, &c. Ask him to define a beast from a
reptile, and he cannot do it ; but he says, things like
a cow or a horse are beasts, and things like a frog or a
lizard are reptiles. You see he does class by t5rpe, and
not by definition. But how does this classification difier
from that of the scientific Zoologist 1 How does the
meaning of the scientific class-name of "Mammalia"
difier from the unscientific of " Beasts " ?
Why, exactly because the former depends on a defi-
nition, the latter on a type. The class Mammalia is
scientifically defined as " all animals which have a ver-
tebrated skeleton and suckle their young." Here is no
reference to type, but a definition rigorous enough for a
geometrician. And such is the character which every
scientific naturalist, recognises as that to which his classes
Bpecies than with any others, form the genus, and are ranged about it,
deviating from it in various directions and diflerent degrees." — Wheweli^,
The Fhilosojjhy of the Inductive ticimces, vol. i. pp. 476, 477.
r.] i:d ucational val ue of natural history SCUNCES. 8 3
must aspire — knowing, as lie does, that classification by
type is simply an acknowledgment of ignorance and a
temporary^ device.
So much in the way of negative argument as against
the reputed differences between Biological and other
methods. No such differences, I believe, really exist.
The subject-matter of Biological science is different
from that of other sciences, but the methods of all are
identical; and these methods are —
1. Observation of fptcts — including uuder this head
that artificial ohservation which is called experiment.
2. That process of tying up similar facts into bundles,
ticketed and ready for use, which is called Comparison
and Classification, — the results of the process, the
ticketed bundles, being named General propositions.
3. Deduction, which takes us from the general pro-
position to facts again — teaches us, if I may so say, to
anticipate from the ticket what is inside the bundle.
And finally —
4. Verification, which is the process of ascertaining
whether, in point of fact, our anticipation is a correct
one.
Such are the methods of all science whatsoever ; but
perhaps you will permit me to give you an illustration
of their employment in the science of Life ; and I will
take as a special case, the establishment of the doctrine
of the Circulation of the Blood.
In this case, sinip)le ohservation yields ns a knowledge
of the existence of the blood from some accidental
hsemorrhage, we will say : we may even grant that it
iu forms us of the localization of this blood in particular.
vessels, the heart, &c., from some accidental cut or the
like. It teaches also the existence of a pulse in various
parts of the body, and acquaints us with the structure of
the heart and vessels.
B 4 LAY SERMONS, ABDBESSES, AND REVIEWS. [v.
Here, however, simple observation stops, and we
must liave recourse to experiment.
You tie a vein, and you find that the blood acicumu-
hites on tlie side of tlie ligature opposite the heart. You
tie an artery, and you find that the blood accumulates
on the side near the heart. Open the chest, and you
see the heart contracting with great force. Make open-
ings into its principal cavities, and you will find that
all the blood flows out, and no more pressure is exerted
on either side of the arterial or venous ligature.
Now all these facts, taken together, constitute the
evidence that the blood is propelled by the heart through
the arteries, and returns by the veins — that, in short, the
blood circulates.
Suppose our experiments and observations have been
made on horses, then we group and ticket them into a
general proposition, thus : — all horses have a circulation
of their blood.
Henceforward a horse is a sort of indication or label,
telling us where we shall find a peculiar series of phe-
nomena called the circulation of the blood.
Here is our general proposition, then.
How, and when, are we justified in making our next
step — a deduction from it %
Suppose our physiologist, whose experience is limited
to horses, meets with a zebra for the first time, — will he
suppose that this generalization holds good for zebras
ako ?
That depends very much on his turn of mind. But
we will suppose him to be a bold man. He will say,
*' The zebra is certainly not a horse, but it is very like
one, — so like, that it must be the ' ticket ' or mark of a
blood-circulation also ; and, I conclude that the zebra
has a circulation."
That is a deduction, a very fair deduction, but by no
v.] EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 85
means to be considered scientifically secure. This last
quality in fact can only be given by verijication-^^hd^t
is, by making a zebra tlie subject of all the experiments
performed on the horse. Of course, in the present case,
the deduction would be conjinned by this process of
verification, and the result would be, not merely a
positive widening of knowledge, but a fair increase of
confidence in the truth of one's generalizations in other
cases.
Thus, having settled the point in the zebra and horse,
our philosopher would have great confidence in the ex-
istence of a circulation in the ass. Nay, I fancy most
persons would excuse him, if in this case he did not
take the trouble to go through the process of verification
at all ; and it would not be without a parallel in the
history of the human mind, if our imaginary physiologist
now maintained that he was acquainted with asinine
circulation a 'priori.
However, if I might impress any caution upon your
minds, it is, the utterly conditional nature of all our
knowledge, — the danger of neglecting the process of
verification under any circumstances ; and the film upon
which we rest, the moment our deductions carry us
beyond the reach of this great process of verification.
There is no better instance of this than is afibrded by
the history of our knowledge of the circulation of the
blood in the animal kingdom until the year 1824. In
every animal possessing a circulation at all, which had
been observed up to that time, the current of the blood
was known to take one definite and invariable direction.
Now, there is a class of animals called Ascidians, w^hich
possess a heart and a circulation, and up to the period of
which I speak, no one would have dreamt of questioning
the propriety of the deduction, that these creatures have
a circulation in one direction ; nor would any one have
5
86 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [V.
fchouglit it worth while to verify the point. But, in that
year, M. von Hasselt, happening to examine a transparent
animal of this class, found, to his infinite surprise, that
after the heart had beat a certain number of times, it
stopped, and then began beating the opposite way — so
as to reverse the course of the current, which returned
by and by to its original direction.
I have myself timed the heart of these little animals.
I found it as regular as possible in its periods of reversal :
and I know no spectacle in the animal kingdom more
wonderful than that which it presents — all the more
wonderful that to this day it remains an unique fact,
peculiar to this class among the whole animated world.
At the same time I know of no more striking case of
the necessity of the verification of even those deduc-
tions which seem founded on the widest and safest
inductions.
Such are the methods of Biology ^ — m.ethods which are
obviously identical with those of all other sciences, and
therefore wholly incompetent to form the ground of any
distinction between it and them.^
But I shall be asked at once, Do you mean to say
that there is no difference between the habit of mind
of a mathematician and that of a naturalist 1 Do you
imagine that Laplace might have been put into the
Jardin des Plantes, and Cuvier into the Observatory,
with equal advantage to the progress of the sciences
they professed ?
To which I would reply, that nothing could be further
from my thoughts. But different habits and various
special tendencies of two sciences do not imply different
methods. The mountaineer and the man of the plains
have very different habits of progression, and each
^ Save for the pleasure of doing so, I need hardly point out my obligations
tu Mr. J. S. Mill's "System of Logic," in this view of scientific method.
r.] EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 87
would be at a loss in tlie other s place ; but tlie metliod
of progression, by putting one leg before the other, is
the same in each case. Every step of each is a combi-
nation of a lift and a push ; but the mountaineer lifts
more and the lowlander pushes more. And I think the
case of two sciences resembles this.
I do not question for a moment, that while the Mathe-
matician is busied with deductions from general pro-
positions, the Biologist is more especially occupied with
observation, comparison, and those processes which lead
to general propositions. All I wish to insist upon is,
that this difference depends not on any fundamental
distinction in the sciences the: aselves, but on the ac-
cidents of their subject-matter, of their relative com-
plexity, and consequent relative perfection.
The Mathematician deals with two properties of
objects only, number and extension, and all the in-
ductions he wants have been formed and finished ages
ago. He is occupied now with nothing but deduction
and verification.
The Biologist deals with a vast number of properties
of objects, and his inductions will not be completed, I
fear, for ages to come ; but when they are, his science
will be as deductive and as exact as the Mathematics
themselves.
Such is the relation of Biology to those sciences which
deal with objects having fewer properties than itself
But as the student, in reaching Biology, looks back upon
sciences of a less complex and therefore more perfect
nature ; so, on the other hand, does he look forward to
other more complex and less perfect branches of know-
ledge. Biology deals only with living beings as isolated
things — treats only of the life of the individual : but
there is a higher division of science still, which considers
living beings as aggregates — which deals with the rela-
88 lAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS [v
fcion of livinof beino^s one to another — tlie science wliicli
observes men — whose experiments are made by nations
one upon another, in battle-fielcls — whose general jorojpo-
sitions are embodied in history, morality, and religion —
whose deductions lead to our happiness or our misery,
—and whose verifications so often come too late, and
serA^e only
*To point a moral or adorn a tale" —
I mean the science of Society or Sociology/.
I think it is one of the grandest features of Biology,
that it occupies this central position in hunian know-
ledo-e. There is no side of the human mind which
physiological study leaves uncultivated. Connected by
innumerable ties with abstract science, Physiology is yet
in the most intimate relation with humanity ; and by
teaching us that law and order, and a definite scheme
of development, regulate even the strangest and wildest
manifest?ttions of individual life, she prepares the student
to look for a goal even amidst the erratic wanderings of
mankind, and to believe that history offers something
more than an entertaining chaos — a journal of a toilsome,
fcras[i-comic march nowhither.
The preceding considerations have, I hope, served to
indicate the replies which befit the two first of the
questions which I set before you at starting, viz. what is
the range and position of Physiological Science as a
branch of knowledge, and what is its value as a means
of mental discipline.
Its subject-matter is a large moiety of the universe —
i ts position is midway between the physico-chemical and
the social sciences. Its value as a branch of discipline
is partly that which it has in common with all sciences —
the training and strengthening of common sense ; partly
that which is more peculiar to itself — the great exercise
w.'] EDUCATIONAL VALVE OF NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 89
which it affords to the faculties of observation and com-
parison ; and I may add, the exactness of knowledge
which it recjiiires on the part of those among its votaries
who desire to extend its boundaries.
If what has been said as to the position and scope
of Biology be correct, our third question — What is the
practical value of physiological instruction 1 — might, one
would think, be left to answer itself.
On other grounds even, were mankind deserving of
the title '^ rational,'' which they arrogate to themselves,
there can be no question that they would consider, as the
most necessary of all branches of instruction for them-
selves and for their children, that which professes to
acquaint them with the conditions of the existence they
prize so highly — which teaches them how to avoid
disease and to cherish health, in themselves and those
who are dear to them.
I am addressing, I imagine, an audience of educated
persons ; and yet I dare venture to assert that, with the
exception of those of my hearers who may chance to
have received a medical education, there is not one who
could tell me what is the meaning: and use of an act
which he performs a score of times every minute, and
whose suspension would involve his immediate death ; —
I mean the act of breathing — or who could state in
precise terms why it is that a confined atmosphere is
injurious to health.
The practical value of Physiological knowledge 1
Why is it that educated men can be found to maintaiji
that a slaughter-house in the midst of a great city is
rather a good thing than otherwise ? — that mothers
persist in exposing the largest possible amount of surface
of their children to the cold, by the absurd style of dress
they adopt, and then marvel at the peculiar dispensation
of Providence, which removes their infants by bronchitis
90 LAY SERMONS, ADBRISSES, AND REVIEWS, [▼
and gastric fever ? Why is it that quackery rides ram-
pant over the land ; and that not long ago, one of the
largest public rooms in this great city could be filled by
an audience gTavely listening to the reverend expositor
of the doctrine — that the simple physiological phoenomena
known as spirit-rapping, table-turning, phreno-magnetism,
and by I know not what other absurd and inappropriate
names, are due to the direct and personal agency of Satan ?
Why is all this, except from the utter ignorance as to
the simplest ^aws of their own animal life, which prevails
among even the most highly educated persons in this
country ?
But there are other branches of Biological Science,
besides Physiology proper, whose practical influence,
though less obvious, is not, as I believe, less certain. I
have heard educated men speak with an ill-disguised
contempt of the studies of the naturalist, and ask, not
without a shruo^, " What is the use of knowino^ all about
these miserable animals — what bearing has it on human
life?"
I will endeavour to answer that question. I take it
that all will admit there is defijiite Government of this
universe — that its pleasures and pains are not scattered
at random, but are distributed in accordance with orderly
and fixed laws, and that it is only in accordance with
all we know of the rest of the world, that there should
be an agreement between one portion of the sensitive
creation and another in these matters.
Surely then it interests us to know the lot of other
animal creatures— however far below us, they are still
the sole created things which share with us the capability
of pleasure and the susceptibility to pain.
I cannot but think that he who finds a certain pro-
portion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life
of the very worms, will bear his own share with more
v.] EDUCATION AL VALUE OF NATUR J L HISTORY SCIENCES. 91
courage and submission ; and will, at any rate, view with
suspicion those weakly amiable theories of the Divine
government, which would have us believe pain to be an
oversight and a mistake, — to be corrected by and by.
On the other hand, the predominance of happiness
among li^dng things — their lavish beauty — the secret and
wonderful harmony which pervades them all, from the
highest to the lowest, are equally striking refutations of
that modern Manichean doctrine, which exhibits the
world as a slave-mill, worked with many tears, for mere
utilitarian ends.
There is yet another way in which natural history
may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon practical
life, — and that is, by its influence over our finer feelings,
as the greatest of all sources of that pleasure which is
derivable from beauty. I do not pretend that natural-
history knowledge, as such, can increase our sense of the
beautiful in natural objects. I do not suppose that the
dead soul of Peter Bell, of whom the great poet of nature
says,—
A primrose by the river's brim,
A yellow primrose was to liim, —
And it was notMng more, —
would have been a whit roused from its apathy, by the
information that the primrose is a Dicotyledonous
Exogen, with a monopetaious corolla and centrcil placen-
tation. But I advocate natural-history knowledge from
this point of view, because it ^'ould lead us to seek the
beauties of natural objects, instead of trusting to chance
to force them on our attention. To a person uninstructed
in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk
through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art,
nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall.
Teach him something of natural history, and you place
in his hands a catalogue of those which are wortl)
92 J^T SFRMOXS, ADDRESSES, AXD BEFIElfS. [v.
turning ronnd. Surely our innocent pleasures are not so
abundant in tliis life, that "we can afford to despise tliis
or anv otlier source of them. We should fear being
banished for our neoiect to that limbo, where the o^reat
Florentine tells us are those who, during this life, " wept
when they might be joyful."
But I shall be trespassing unwarrantably on your
kindness, if I do not proceed at once to my last point —
the time at which Physiological Science should first form
a part of the Curriculum of Education.
The distinction between the teachino- of the facts of a
science as instruction, and the teaching it systematically
as knowledge, has already been placed before you in a
previous lecture : and it appears to me, that, as with
other sciences, the common facts of Biology — the uses of
parts of the body — the names and habits of the living
creatm^es which surround us — mav be tauoht with
advantage to the youngest child. Indeed, the avidity of
chiLdren for this kind of knowledge, and the comparative
ease with which they retain it, is something quite
marvellous. I doubt whether any toy would be so
acceptable to young children as a vivarium of the same
kind as, but of course on a smaller scale than those
admirable devices hi the Zoolooical Gardens.
On the other hand, systematic teaching in Biology
cannot be attempted with success until the student has
attained to a certain knowledge of physics and chemistry :
for though the jjhgenomena of life are dependent neither
on physical nor on chemical, but on vital forces, yet they
result in all sorts of physical and chemical changes,
which can only be judged by their own laws.
And now to sum up in a few words the conclusions to
which I hope you see reason to follow me.
Biolog}^ needs no apologist when she demands a place
— and a prominent place — in any scheme of education
V.J EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF NATURAL EISTORY SCIENCES, 93
worthy of the name. Leave out the Physiological
sciences from your curriculum, and you launch the
student into the world, undisciplined in that science
whose subject-matter would Lest develop his powers of
observation ; ignorant of facts of the deepest importance
for his own and others' w^elfare ; blind to the richest
sources of beauty in God's creation ; and unprovided
with that belief in a living law, and an order manifesting
itself in and through endless change and variety, which
might serve to check and moderate that phase of despair
through which, if he talie an earnest interest in social
problems, he wall assuredly sooner or later pass.
Finally, one word for myself I have not hesitated to
speak strongly where I have felt strongly ; and I am but
too conscious that the indicative and imperative moods
have too often taken the place of the more becoming
subjunctive and conditional. I feel, therefore, how
necessary it is to beg you to forget the personality of
him who has thus ventured to address you, and to con-
sider only the truth or error in w^hat has been said*
YI.
m THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGy.
Natural History is tlie name familiarly applied to tlie
study of tlie properties of such natural bodies as mine-
rals, plants, and animals ; the sciences which embody
the knowledge man has accjuired upon these subjects
are commonly termed Natural Sciences, in contradistinc-
tion to other so-called " physical '' sciences ; and those
who devote themselves especially to the pursuit of
such sciences have been and are commonly termed
*' Naturalists."
Linnaeus was a naturalist in this wide sense, and his
" Systema Nature " was a work upon natural history, in
the broadest acceptation of the term ; in it, that great
methodizing spirit embodied all that was known in his
time of the distinctive characters of minerals, animals,
and plants. But the enormous stimulus which Linnseus
gave to the investigation of nature soon rendered it
impossible that any one man should write another
" Systema Naturae," and extremely difficult for any one
to become a naturalist such as Linnaeus was.
Great as have been the advances made by all the three
branches of science, of old included under the title of
natural history, there can be no doubt that zoology and
botany have grown in an enormously greater ratio than
n.] ON TEE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 95
mineralogy ; and hence, as I suppose, the name of
*' natural history" has gradually become more and more
definitely attached to these prominent divisions of the
subject, and by ** naturalist" people have meant more
and more distinctly to imply a student of the structure
and functions of living beings.
However this may be, it is certain that the advance of
knowledge has gradually widened the distance between
mineralogy and its old associates, while it has drawn
zoology and botany closer together ; so that of late years
it has been found convenient (and indeed necessary) to
associate the sciences which deal with vitality and all its
phenomena under the common head of " biology ;" and
the biologists have come to repudiate any blood-relation-
ship with their foster-brothers, the mineralogists.
Certain broad laws have a general application through-
out both the animal and the vegetable worlds, but the
ground common to these kingdoms of nature is not of
very wide extent, and the multiplicity of details is so
great, that the student of living beings finds himself
obliged to devote his attention exclusively either to the
one or the other. If he elects to study plants, under
any aspect, we know at once what to call him. He is a
botanist, and his science is botany. But if the investi-
gation of animal life be his choice, the name generally
applied to him will vary according to the kind of
animals he studies, or the particular phsenomena of
animal life to which he confines his attention. If the
study of man is his object, he is called an anatomist, or
a physiologist, or an ethnologist ; but if he dissects
animals, or examines into the mode in which their func-
tions are performed, he is a comparative anatomist or
comparative physiologist. If he turns his attention to
fossil animals, he is a palaeontologist. If his mind is
more particularly directerl to the description specific,
96 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vi.
discrimination, classification, and distribution" of animals,
he is termed a zoolooist.
o
For the pm^poses of the present discourse, however, I
shall recognise none of these titles save the last, which I
shall emxploy as the equivalent of botanist, and I shall
use the term zoology as denoting the whole doctrine
of animal life, in contradistinction to botany, which
signifies the whole doctrine of vegetable life.
Employed in this sense, zoology, like botany, is di-
visible into three great but subordinate sciences, mor-
phology, physiology, and distribution, each of which
may, to a very great extent, be studied independently
of the other.
Zoological morphology is the doctrine of animal form
or structure. Anatomy is one of its branches ; develop-
ment is another ; while classification is the expression
of the relations which clifierent animals bear to one
another, in respect of their anatomy and their develop-
ment.
Zoological distribution is the study of animals in
relation to the terrestrial conditions which obtain now,
or have obtained at any previous epoch of the earth's
history.
Zoological physiology, lastly, is the doctrine of the
functions or actions of aninials. It regards animal bodies
as machines impelled by certain forces, and performing
an amount of work which can be expressed in terms of
the ordinary forces of nature. The final object of phy-
siology is to deduce the facts of morphology, on the one
hand, and those of distribution on the other, from the
laws of the molecular forces of matter.
Such is the scope of zoology. But if I were to content
myself with the enunciation of these dry definitions, I
should ill exemplify that method of teaching this branch
of physical science, Avhich it is my chief business to-
vi.J ON TEE tiTUDY OF ZOOLOGY, 97
night to recommend. Let us turn away then from
abstract definitions. Let us take some concrete livinor
thing, some animal, the commoner the better, and let us
see how the application of common sense and common
logic to the obvious facts it presents, inevitably leads us
into all these branches of zoological science.
I have before me a lobster. When I examine it, v/hat
appears to be the most striking character it presents?
Why, I observe that this part which we call the tail of
the lobster, is made up of six distinct hard rings and a
seventh terminal piece. If I separate one of the middle
rings, say the third, I find it carnes upon its under sur-
face a pair of limbs or appendages, each of which con-
sists of a stalk and two terminal pieces. So that I can
represent a transverse section of the ring and its appen-
dages upon the diagram board in this way.
If I now take the fourth ring I find it has the same
structure, and so have the fifth and the second ; so that,
in each of these divisions of the tail, I find parts which
correspond with one another, a ring and two appendages ;
and in each appendage a stalk and two end pieces.
These corresponding parts are called, in the technical
language of anatomy, "homologous parts."' The ring
of the third division is the " homologue " of the ring
of the fifth, the appendage of the former is the homo-
logue of the appendage of the latter. And, as each
division exhibits corresponding parts in corresponding
places, we say that all the divisions are constructed upon
the same plan. But now let us consider the sixth di-
vision. It is similar to, and yet difierent from, the
others. The ring is essentially the same as in the other
divisions ; but the appendages look at first as if they
were very different ; and yet when we regard them
closely, what do we find 1 A stalk and two terminal
divisions, exactly as in the others, but the stalk is very
d8 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vi.
sliort and very tliick, the terminal divisions are very
broad and fiat, and one of tliem is divided into two
pieces.
I may say, therefore, that the sixth segment is like the
others in plan, but that it is modified in its details.
The first segment is like the others, so far as its ring is
concerned, and though its appendages differ from any of
those yet examined in the simplicity of their structure,
parts corresponding with the stem and one of the divi-
sions of the appendages of the other segments can be
readily discerned in them.
Thus it appears that the lobster's tail is composed of
a series of segments which are fundamentally similar,
though each presents peculiar modifications of the plan
common to all. But when I turn to the fore part of the
body I see, at first, nothing but a great shield-like shell,
called technically the " carapace," ending in front in a
sharp spine, on either side of which are the curious com-
pound eyes, set upon the ends of stout moveable stalks.
Behind these, on the under side of the body, are two
pairs of long feelers, or antennse, followed by six ]3airs of
jaws, folded against one another over the mouth, and
five pairs of legs, the foremost of these being the great
pinchers, or claws, of the lobster.
It looks, at first, a little hopeless to attempt to find in
this complex mass a series of rings, each with its pair of
appendages, such as I have shown you in the abdomen,
and yet it is not difiicult to demonstrate their existence.
Strip ofi" the legs, and you will find that each pair is
attached to a very definite segment of the under wall
of the body ; but these segments, instead of being the
lower parts of free rings, as in the tail, are such parts of
rings which are all soHdly united and bound together ;
and the like is true of the jaws, the feelers, and the eye-
stalks, every pair of which is borne upon its own special
VL.] ON TRE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 99
segment. Thus tlie conclusion is gradually forced upon
us, that the body of the lobster is composed of as many
rings as there are pairs of appendages, namely, twenty
in all, but that the six hindmost rinses remain free and
moveable, while the fourteen front rings become firmly
soldered together, their backs forming one continuous
shield — the carapace.
Unity of plan, diversity in execution, is the lesson
taught by the study of the rings of the body, and the
same instruction is given still more emphatically by the
appendages. If I examine the outermost jaw I find it
consists of three distinct portions, an inner, a middle,
and an outer, mounted upon a common stem ; and if I
compare this jaw with the legs behind it, or the jaws in
front of it, I find it quite easy to see, that, in the legs, it
is the part of the appendage v\'hich correspends with the
inner division, which becomes modified into what we
know familiarly as the *' leg,'' while the middle division
disappears, and the outer division is hidden under the
carapace. Nor is it more difficult to discern that, in the
appendages of the tail, the middle division appears
again and the outer vanishes ; while, on the other hand,
in the foremost jaw, the so-called mandible, the inner
division only is left ; and, in the same way, the parts of
the feelers and of the eye-stalks can be identified with
those of the legs and jaws.
But whither does all this tend ? To the very remark-
able conclusion that a unity of plan, of the same kind as
that discoverable in the tail or abdomen of the lobster,
pervades the whole organization of its skeleton, so that
I can return to the diagram representing any one of the
rings of the tail, which I drew upon the board, and by
adding a third division to each appendage, I can use it
as a sent of scheme or plan of any ring of the body. I
can give names to all the parts of that figure, and then
LOO l^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [vi.
if I take any segment of tlie body of tlie lobster, I can
point out to you exactly, what modification tlie general
plan has undergone m that particular segTuent; what
part has remained moveable, and what has become fixed
bo another) what has been excessively developed and
metamorphosed, and what has been suppressed.
But I imagine I hear the question, How is all this to
be tested ? No doubt it is a pretty and ingenious way
of looking at the structure of any animal, but is it any-
thing more ? Does Nature aclaiowledge, in any deeper
way, this unity of plan we seem to trace ?
The objection suggested by these questions is a very
valid and important one, and morphology was in an
unsound state, so long as it rested upon the mere percep-
tion of the analogies which obtain between fully formed
parts. The unchecked ingenuity of speculative anato-
mists proved itself fully competent to spin any number
of contradictory hypotheses out of the same facts, and
endless morphological dreams threatened to supplant
scientific theory.
Happily, however, there is a criterion of morpho-
logical truth, and a sure test of all homolooies. Our
lobster has not always been what we see it ; it was once
an egg, a semifluid mass of yolk, not so big as a pin's
head, contained in a transparent membrane, and exhi-
biting not the least trace of any one of those organs,
whose multiplicity and complexity, in the adult, are so
surprising. After a time a delicate patch of cellular
membrane appeared upon one face of this yolk, and that
patch was the foundation of the whole creature, the clay
out of which it would be moulded. Gradually investing
the yolk, it became subdivided by transverse constric-
tions into segments, the forerunners of the rings of the
body. Upon the ventral surface of each of the rings
thus sketched out, a pair of bud-like prominences made
VI.) ON THE STUnr OF ZOOLOGY, 101
their appearance — tlie rudiments of the appendages of
the ring. At first, all the appendages were alike, but, as
they grew, most of them became distinguished, into a
stem and two terminal divisions, to which, in the middle
part of the body, was added a third outer division ; and
it was only at a later period, that by the modification, or
absorption, of certain of these primitive constituents, the
limbs acquired their perfect form.
Thus the study of development proves that the doc-
trine of unity of plan is not merely a fancy, that it is
not merely one way of looking at the matter, but that it
is the expression of deep-seated natural facts. The legs
and jaws of the lobster may not merely be regarded as
modifications of a common type, — in fact and in nature
they are so, — the leg and the jaw of the young animal
being, at first, indistinguishable.
These are wonderful truths, the more so because the
zoologist finds them to be of universal application. The
investigation of a polype, of a snail, of a fish, of a horse,
or of a man, would have led us, though by a less easy
path, perhaps, to exactly the same point. Unity of plan
everywhere lies hidden under the mask of diversity of
structure — the complex is ever5rf7here evolved out of the
simple. Every animal has at first the form of an egg,
and every animal and every organic part, in reaching its
adult state, passes through conditions common to other
animals and other adult parts ; and this leads me to
another point. I have hitherto spoken as if the lobster
were alone in the world, but, as I need hardly remind
you, there are myriads of other animal organisms. Of
these, some, such as men, horses, birds, fishes, snails,
slugs, oysters, corals, and sponges, are not in the least
like the lobster. But other animals, though they may
differ a good deal from the lobster, are yet either very
like it, or are like something that is like it The cray
102 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vt»
fisli, the rock lobster, and the prawn, and the shrimp, for
example, however different, are yet so like lobsters, that
a child would group them as of the lobster kind, in con-
tradistinction to snails and sings ; and these last again
would form a kind by themselves, in contradistinction to
cows, horses, and sheep, the cattle kind.
But this spontaneous grouping into "kinds** is the
first essay of the human mind at classification, or the
calling by a common name of those things that are
alike, and the arranging them in such a manner as best
to sup^o'est the sum of their likenesses and unlikenesses
to other things.
Those kinds which include no other subdivisions than
the sexes, or various breeds, are called, in technical
language, species. The English lobster is a species,
our Cray fish is another, our prawn is another. In other
countries, however, there are lobsters, cray fish, and
prawns, very like ours, and yet presenting sufficient
differences to deserve distinction. Naturalists, therefore,
express this resemblance and this diversity by grouping
them as distinct species of the same "genus." But the
lobster and the cray-fish, though belonging to distinct
genera, have many features in common, and hence are
grouped together in an assemblage which is called a
family. More distant resemblances connect the lobster
with the prawn and the crab, which are expressed by
putting all these into the same order. Again, more
remote, but still very cleifinite, resemblnaces unite the
lobster with the woodlouse, the king crab, the water-
flea, and the barnacle, and separate them from all other
animals ; whence they collectively constitute the larger
group, or class, Crustacea. But the Crustacea exhibit
many peculiar features in common with insects, spiders,
and centipedes, so that these are grouped into the still
larger assemblage or " province " Articulata ; and, finally,
VI.] ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY, 103
die relations wliicli tliese liave to worms aud otlier lower
animals, are expressed by combining the whole vast
aggregate into the snb-kingdom of Annidosa.
If I had worked my w^ay from a sponge instead of a
lobster, I should have fonnd it associated, by like ties,
with a great number of other animals into the sub-
kino^dom Protox.oa; if I had selected a fresh- water
polype or a coral, the members of what natm^alists
term the sub-kingdom Ccelenferata would have grouped
themselves around my type; had a snail been chosen,
the inhabitants of all univalve and bivalve, land and
water, shells, the lamp shells the squids, and the sea-
mat would have gradually linked themselves on to it as
members of the same sub-kingdom of Mollusca ; and
finally, starting from man, I should have been compelled
to admit first, the ape, the rat, the horse, the dog, into
the same class ; and then the bird, the crocodile, the
turtle, the frog, and the fish, into the same sub-kingdom
of Vertehrata.
And if I had followed out all these various lines of
classification fully, I should discover in the end that
there was no animal, either recent or fossil, which did
not at once fall into one or other of these sub-kingdoms.
In other words, every animal is organized upon one or
other of the five, or more, plans, whose existence renders
our classification possible. And so definitely and pre-
cisely marked is the structure of each animal, that, in
the present state of our knowledge, there is not the least
evidence to prove that a form, in the slightest degree
transitional between any of the two groups Vertehrata,
uinmilosa, Mollusca, and Ccelenterata, either exists, or
lias existed, during that period of the earth's history
which is recorded by the geologist. Nevertheless, you
must not for a moment suppose, because no such
transitional forms are known, that the members c^
104 LJr SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REFIEfFS. [vi.
the sub-kingdoms are disconnected from, or indepen-
dent of, one another. On the contrary, in their earliest
condition they are all alike, and the primordial germs
of a man, a dog, a bird, a fish, a beetle, a snail, and
a polype are, in no essential structural respects, dis-
tinguishable.
In this broad sense, it may with truth be said, that
all living animals, and all those dead creations which
geology reveals, are bound together by an all-pervading
unity of organization, of the same character, though not
equal in degree, to that which enables lis to discern one
and the same plan amidst the twenty different segments
of a lobster's body. Truly it has been said, that to a
clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which
the Infinite may be seen.
Turning from these purely morphological considera-
tions, let us now examine into the manner in which the
attentive study of the lobster impels us into other lines
of research.
Lobsters are found in all the European seas ; but on
the opposite shores of the Atlantic and in the seas of
the southern hemisphere they do not exist. They are,
however, represented in these regions by very closely
allied, but distinct forms — the Homarsu Americanus
and the Homarus Capeusis: so that we may say that
the European has one species of Homarsu; the
American, another; the African, another; and thus
the remarkable facts of geographical distribution begin
to dawn upon us.
Ac^ain, if we examine the contents of the earth's crust
we shall find in the latter of those deposits, which have
served as the great burying grounds of past ages, num-
berless lobster-like animals, but none so similar to our
living lobster as to make zoologists sure that they be-
longed even to the same genus. If we go still furthei
VI.] ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOOr, 105
back in time, we discover, in the oldest rocks of all, the
remains of animals, constructed on the same general
plan as the lobster, and belonging to the same great
group of Crustacea ; but for the most part totally
different from the lobster, and indeed from any other
living form of crustacean ; and. thus we gain a notion of
that successive change of the animal population of the
globe, in past ages, which is the most striking fact
revealed by geology.
Consider, now, where our inquiries have led us. We
studied our type morphologically, when we determined
its anatomy and its development, and when comparing
it, in these respects, with other animals, we made out its
place in a system of classification. If we were to
examine every animal in a similar manner, we should
establish a complete body of zoological morphology.
Again, we investigated the distribution of our type in
space and in time, and, if the like had been done with
every animal, the sciences of geographical and geological
distribution would have attained their liuiit.
But you will observe one remarkable circumstance,
that, up to this point, the question of the life of these
organisms has not come under consideration. Morpho-
logy and distribution might be studied almost as well, if
animals and plants were a peculiar kind of crystals, and
possessed none of those functions which distinguish living
beings so remarkably. But the facts of morphology and
distribution have to be accounted for, and the science,
whose aim it is to account for them, is Physiology.
Let us return to our lobster once more. If we watched
the creature in its native element, we should see it climb-
ing actively the submerged rocks, among which it dehghts
to live, by means of its strong legs ; or swimming by
powerful strokes of its great tail, the appendages of
whose sixth joint are spread out into a broad fau-like
106 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AXB REVIEWS. [vi
propeller : seize it, and it will sliow you tliat its great
claws are no mean weapons of offence ; suspend a piece
of carrion among its liaunts, and it will greedily devour
it, tearing and crushing the flesh by means of its multi-
tudinous jaws.
Suppose that we had known nothing of the lobster
but as an inert mass, anorganic crystal, if I may use the
phrase, and that v^e coidd suddenly see it exerting all
these powers, what wonderful new ideas and new ques-
tions would arise in our minds ! The great new questioD
would be, '' How does all this take place ? " the chief new
idea would be, the idea of adaptation to purpose, — the
notion, that the constituents of animal bodies are not
mere unconnected parts, but organs working together to
an end. Let us consider the tail of the lobster ag^ain
from this point of view. Morphology has taught us
that it is a series of segments composed of homologous
parts, which undergo various modifications — beneath
and through which a common plan of formation is dis-
cernible. But if I look at the same part physiologicaEy,
I see that it is a most beautifully constructed organ ol
locomotion, by means of which the animal can swiftly
propel itself either backwards or forwards.
But how is this remarkable propulsive machine made
to perform its functions ? If I were suddenly to kill one
of these animals and to take out all the soft parts, I
should find the shell to be perfectly inert, to have no
more power of moving itself than is possessed by the
machinery of a mill, when disconnected from its steam-
engine or water-wheel. But if I were to open it, and
take out the viscera only, leaving the white flesh, I
should perceive that the lobster could bend and extend
its tail as well as before. If I were to cut off the tail, I
should ceaseto find any spontaneous motion in it; but
on pinching any portion of the flesh, I should observe
-l] on tee study of zoology. lOj
that it imderwent a very curious change — each fibre be-
coming shorter and thicker. By this act of contraction,
as it is termed, the paiiis to which the ends of the fibre
are attached are, of course, approximated ; and accord-
ing to the relations of their points of attachment to the
centres of motion of the different rings, the bending or
the extension of the tail results. Close observation of
the newly-opened lobster would soon show that all its
movements are due to the same cause — the shortenino;
and thickening of these fleshy fibres, which are techni-
cally called muscles.
here, then, is a capital fact. The movements of the
lobster are due to muscular contractility. But why does
a muscle contract at one time and not at another '? ^hy
does one whole gTOup of muscles contract when the
lobster wishes to extend his tail, and another gTOup
when he desires to bend it ? What is it originates,
directs, and controls the motive power ?
Experiment, the great instrument for the ascertain
ment of ti^uth in physical science, answers this question
for us. In the head of the lobster there lies a small
mass of that peculiar tissue which is known as nervous
substance. Cords of similar matter connect this brain
of the lobster, directly or indirectly, T^ith the muscles.
Kow, if these communicating cords are cut, the brain
remaining entire, the power of exerting what we call
voluntary motion in the parts below the section is de-
stroyed ; and on the other hand, if, the cords remaining
entire, the brain mass be destroyed, the same voluntary
mobility is equally lost. Whence the inevitable conclu-
sion is, that the power of originating these motions resides
in the brain, and is propagated along the nervous cords.
In the higher animals the pheenomena which attend
tliis transmission have been investio'ated, and the exer-
tion of the peculiar energy which resides in the nerves
108 L-^T >S'EE3iOiVS, ADDRJESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vi
has been found to be accompanied by a disturbance of
tlie electrical state of tbeir molecules.
If we could exactly estimate the signification of tbis
disturbance ; if we could obtain the value of a given
exertion of nerve force by determining tbe quantity of
electricity, or of heat, of which it is the equivalent ; if
we could asscertain upon what arrangement, or other
condition of the molecules of matter, the manifestation of
the nervous and muscular energies depends, (and doubt-
less science will some day or other ascertain these points,)
physiologists would have attained their ultimate goal in
this direction ; they would have determined the relation
of the motive force of animals to the other forms of force
found in nature ; and if the same process had been suc-
cessfully performed for all the operations which are
carried on in, and by, the animal frame, physiology
would be perfect, and the facts of morphology and
distribution would be deducible from the laws which
physiologists had established, combined with those deter-
mining the condition of the surrounding universe.
There is not a fragment of the organism of this h amble
animal, vdiose study would not lead us into regions of
thought as large as those which I have briefly opened
up to you ; but what I have been saying, I trust, has not
only enabled you to form a conception of the scope and
purport of zoology, but has given you an imperfect
example of the manner in which, in my opinion that
science, or indeed any physical science, may be' best
taught. The great matter is, to make teaching real and
practical, by fixing the attention of the student on par-
ticular facts ; but at the same time it should be rendered
broad and comprehensive, by constant reference to the
generalizations of which all particular facts are illustra-
tions. The lobster has served as a type of the whole
animal kingdon, and its anatomy and physiology have
Ti.] ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. ;[Q9
illustrated for us some of tlie greatest truths of l)iology.
Tlie student who lias once seen for Mmself the facta
which I have described, has had their relations ex-
plained to him, and has clearly comprehended them,
has, so far, a knowledge of zoology, which is real and
genuine, however limited it may be, and which is worth
more than all the mere reading knowledge of the science
he could ever acquire. His zoological information is, so
far, knowledge and not mere hearsay.
And if it were my business to fit you for the certi-
ficate in zoological science granted by this department,
I should pursue a course precisely similar in principle
to that which I have taken to-night. I should select a
fresh-water sponge, a fresh-water polype or a CyancBe^
a fresh- water mussel, a lobster, a fowl, as types of the
^YQ primary divisions of the animal kingdom. I should
explain their structure very fully, and show how each
illustrated the great principles of zoology. Having
gone very carefully and fully over this ground, I should
feel that you had a safe foundation, and I should then
take you in the same way, but less minutely, over
similarly selected illustrative types of the classes; and
then I should direct your attention to the special forms
enumerated under the head of types, in this syllabus,
and to the other facts there mentioned.
That would, speaking generally, be my plan. But
I have undertaken to explain to you the best mode of
acquiring and communicating a knowledge of zoology,
and you may therefore fairly ask me for a more de-
tailed and precise account of the manner in which 1
should propose to furnish you with the information I
refer to.
My own impression is, that the best model for all
kinds of training in physical science is that afforded
by the method of teaching anatomy, in use in the
"^6
110 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REFIEWB. [i^i,
medical sehools. This metliod consists of three elements
— lectures, demonstrations, and examinations.
The object of lectures is, in the first place, to awaken
the attention and excite the- enthusiasm of the student ;
and this, I am sure, may be effected to a far greater
extent by the oral discourse and by the personal influence
of a respected teacher than in any other way. Secondly,
lectures have the double use of guiding the student
to the salient points of a subject, and at the same
time forcing him to attend to the whole of it, and not
merely to that part which takes his fancy. And lastly,
lectures afford the student the opportunity of seeking
explanations of those difficulties which will, and indeed
ought to, arise in the course of his studies.
But for a student to derive the utmost possible value
from lectures, several precautions are needful.
I have a strong impression that the better a discourse
is, as an oration, the worse it is as a lecture. The flow
of the discourse carries you on without proper atten-
tion to its sense ; you drop a word or a phrase, you
lose the exact meaning for a moment, and while you
strive to recover yourself, the speaker has passed on
to something else.
The practice I have adopted of late years, in lecturing
to students, is to condense the substance of the hour's
discourse into a few dry propositions, which are read
slowly "jand taken down from dictation ; the reading of
each being followed by a free commentary, expanding
and illustrating the proposition, explaining terms, and
removing any difficulties that may be attackable in
tliat way, by diagrams made roughly, and seen to
grow under the lecturers hand. In this manner you,
at any rate, insure the co-operation of the student to
a certain extent. He cannot leave the lecture-room
entirely empty if the taking of notes is enforced ; and
vi.J ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY, \ 1 ]
a student must be preternaturally dull and mechanical,
if he can takes notes and hear them properly explained,
and yet learn nothing.
What books shall I read ? is a question constantly
put by the student to the teacher. My reply usually is,
" None : write your notes out carefully and fully ; strive
to understand them thoroughly ; come to me for the
explanation of anything you cannot understand; and
I would rather you did not distract your mind by
reading." A properly composed course of lectures
ought to contain fully as much matter as a student
can assimilate in the time occupied by its delivery ; and
the teacher should always recollect that his business is
to feed, and not to cram the intellect. Indeed, I believe
that a student who gains from a course of lectures
the simple habit of concentrating his attention upon
a definitely limited series of facts, until they are
thoroughly mastered, has made a step of immeasurable
importance.
But, however good lectures may be, and however
extensive the course of reading by which they are
follovfed up, they are but accessories to the great in-
strument of scientific teaching; — demonstration. If I
insist unweariedly, nay fanatically, upon the importance
of physical science as an educational agent, it is because
the study of any branch of science, if properly conducted,
appears to me to fill up a void left by all other means
of education. I have the greatest respect and love for
literature ; nothing would grieve me more than to see
literary training other than a very prominent branch of
education : indeed, I wish that real literary discij)line
were far more attended to than it is ; but I cannot
shut my eyes to the fact, that there is a vast difi'erence
between men who have had a purely literary, and those
who have had a sound scientific, training.
112 LAY SERMONS, AT) DRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [ti.
Seeking for tlie cause of this difference, I imagine 1
can find it in the fact, that, in the world of letters,
learning and knowledge are one, and books are the
source of both ; whereas in science, as in life, learning
and knowledge are distinct, and the study of things,
and not of books, is the source of the latter.
All that literature has to bestow may be obtained
by reading and by practical exercise in writing and
in speaking ; but I do not exaggerate when I say, that
none of the best gifts of science are to be won by these
means. On the contrary, the great benefit which a
scientific education bestows, whether as training or as
knowledge, is dependent upon the extent to which the
mind of the student is brought into immediate contact
with facts — upon the degree to which he learns the
habit of appealing directly to Nature, and of acquiring
through his senses concrete images of those properties
of things, which are, and always will be, but approxi-
matively expressed in human iangiiage. Our way. of
looking at Nature, and of speaking about her, varies
from year to year ; but a fact once seen, a relation of
cause and effect, once demonstratively apprehended, are
possessions which neither change nor pass away, but,
on the contrary, form fixed centres, about which other
truths aggregate by natural affinity.
Therefore, the great business of the scientific teacher
is, to imprint the fundamental, irrefragable facts of his
science, not only by words upon the mind, but by
sensible impressions upon the eye, and ear, and touch
of the student, in so complete a manner, that e'very
term used, or law enunciated, should afterwards call
up vivid images of the particular structural, or other,
facts which furnished the demonstration of the law, or
the illustration of the term.
Now this important operation can only be achieved
vl] on tee study of zoology, 1 13
by constant demonstration, wliicli may take place to
a certain imperfect extent dnring a lecture, but which
ought also to be carried on independently, and which
should be addressed to each individual student, the
teacher endeavouring, not so much to show a thing to
the learner, as to make him see it for himself.
I am well aware that there are great practical difficul-
ties in the way of effectual zoological demonstrations.
The dissection of animals is not altogether pleasant,
and requires much time ; nor is it easy to secure an
adequate supply of the needful specim^ens. The botanist
has here a great advantage ; his specimens are easily
obtained, are clean and wholesome, and can be dissected
in a private house as well as anywhere else ; and
hence, I believe, the fact, that botany is so much
more readily and better taught than its sister science.
But, be it difficult or be it easy, if zoological science
is to be properly studied, demonstration, and, con-
sequently, dissection, must be had. Without it, no
man can have a really sound knowledge of animal
organization.
A good deal may be done, however, without actual
dissection on the student's part, by demonstration upon
specimens and preparations ; and in all probability it
would not be very difficult, were the demand sufficient,
to organize collections of such objects, sufficient for all
the purposes of elementary teaching, at a comparatively
cheap rate. Even without these, much might be effected,
if the zoological collections, which are open to the
public, were arranged according to what has been
termed the " typical principle ; '' that is to say, if the
specimens exposed to public view were so selected, that
the public could learn something from them, instead
of being, as at present, merely confused by their mul-
tiplicity. For example, the grand ornithological gallery
114 LAT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [ly.
at the British. Museum contains between two and three
thousand species of birds, and sometimes five or six
specimens of a species. They are very pretty to look
at, and some of the cases are, indeed, splendid ; but
I will undertake to say, that no man but a professed
ornithologist has ever gathered much information from
the collection. Certainly, no one of the tens of thousands
of the general public who have walked through that
gallery ever knew more about the essential peculiarities
of birds when he left the gallery, than when he entered
it. But if, somewhere in that vast hall, there were a
few preparations, exemplifying the leading structural
peculiarities and the mode of development of a common
fowl ; if the types of the genera, the leading modifi-
cations in the skeleton, in the plumage at various ages,
in the mode of nidification, and the like, among birds,
were displayed; and if the other specimens were put
away in a place where the men of science, to whom
they are alone useful, could have free access to them,
I can conceive that this collection might become a
great instrument of scientific education.
The last implement of the teacher to which I have
adverted is examination — a means of education now so
thoroughly understood that I need hardly enlarge upon
it. I hold that both written and oral examinations
are indispensable, and, by requiring the description
of specimens, they may be made to supplement
demonstration.
Such is the fullest reply the time at my disposal
will allow me to give to the question — how may a know-
ledge of zoology be best acquired and communicated ?
But there is a previous question which may be moved,
and which, in fact, I know many are inclined to move.
It is the question, wliy should training masters be
encouraged to acquire a knowledge of this, or any other
Ti.] ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 115
brancli of pliysical science ? What is tlie use, it is said,
of attempting to make pliysical science a brancli of
primary education ? Is it not probable that teachers,
in pursuing such studies, will be led astray from the
acquirement of more important but less attractive
knowledge ? And, even if they can learn something
of science without prejudice to their usefulness, what
is the good of their attempting to instil that knowledge
into boys whose real business is the acquisition of
reading, writing, and arithmetic ?
These questions are, and will be, very commonly
asked, for they arise from that profound ignorance of
the value and true position of physical science, which
infests the minds of the most highly educated and
intelligent classes of the community. But if I did not
feel well assured that they are capable of being easily
and satisfactorily answered ; that they have been an-
swered over and over again ; and that the time will
come when men of liberal education will blush to raise
such questions, — I should be ashamed of my position
here to-night. Without doubt, it is your great and very
important function to carry out elementary education ;
without question, anything that should interfere with
the faithful fulfilment of that duty on your part would
be a great evil ; and if I thought that your acquirement
of the elements of physical science, and your communi-
cation of those elements to your pupils, involved any
sort of interference with your proper duties, I should
be the first person to protest against your being en-
couraged to do anything of the kind.
But is it true that the acquisition of such a know-
ledge of science as is proposed, and the communication
of that knowledge, are calculated to weaken your use-
fulness ? Or may I not rather ask, is it possible for you
to discharge your functions properly without these aids 1
116 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [vl
What is tlie purpose of primary intellectual educa-
tion ? I apprehend that its first object is to train the
young in the use of those tools wherewith men extract
knowledge from the ever-shifting succession of phseno-
mena which pass before their eyes ; and that its second
object is to inform them of the fundamental laws which
have been found by experience to govern the course of
things, so that they may not be turned out into the.
world naked, defenceless, and a prey to the events they
might control.
A boy is taught to read his own and other languages,
in order that he may have access to infinitely wider
stores of knowledge than could ever be opened to him
by oral intercourse with his fellow men ; he learns to
write, that his means of communication with the rest of
mankind may be indefinitely enlarged, and that he may
record and store up the knowledge he acquires. He
is taught elementary mathematics, that he may under-
stand all those relations of number and form, upon
which the transactions of men, associated in complicated
societies, are built, and that he may have some praptice
in deductive reasoning.
All these operations of reading, writing, and ciphering,
are intellectual tools, whose use should, before ail things,
be learned, and learned thoroughly ; so that the youth
may be enabled to make his life that which it ought to
be, a continual progress in learning and in wisdom.
But, in addition, primary education endeavours to fit
a boy out with a certain equipment of positive know-
ledge. He is taught the great laws of morality; the
religion of his sect ; so much history and geography as
will tell him where the great countries of the world
are, what they are, and how they have become what
they are,
"Witliout doubt all these are most fitting and ex-
VI.] CN THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY, 117
cellcnt tilings to teacli a boy ; I should be very sorry
to omit any of tliem from any scheme of primary in-
tellectual education. The system is excellent, so far as
it 2:oes.
But if I regard it closely, a curious reflection arises.
I suppose that, fifteen hundred years ago, the child of
any well-to-do Koman citizen was taught just these
same things ; reading and writing in his own, and, per-
haps, the Greek tongue ; the elements of mathematics ;
and the religion, morality, history, and geography cur-
rent in his time. Furthermore, I do not think I err
in affirming, that, if such a Christian Eoman boy, who
had finished his education, could be transplanted into
one of our public schools, and pass through its course of
instruction, he would not meet with a single u.nfamiliar
line of thought; amidst all the new facts he would
have to learn, not one would suggest a different mode
of regarding the universe from that current in his
own time.
And yet surely there is some great difference between
the civilization of the fourth century and that of the
nineteenth, and still more between the intellectual habits
and tone of thought of that day and this 1
And what has made this difference 1 I answer fear-
lessly,— The prodigious developiTxCnt of physical science
within the last two centuries.
Modern civilization rests upon physical science ; take
away her gifts to our own country, and our position
among the leading nations of the world is gone to-
morrow ; for it is physical science only, that makes
intelligence and moral energy stronger than brute force.
The whole of modern thought is steeped in science ; it
has made its way into the works of our best poets, and
even the mere man of letters, who affects to ignore and
despise science, is unconsciously impregnated with her
118 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vi
spirit, and indebted for his best products to ber methods.
I believe that the greatest intellectual revolution man-
kind has yet seen is now slowly taking place by her
agency. She is teaching the world that the ultimate
court of appeal is observation and experiment, and not
authority ; she is teaching it to estimate the value of
evidence ; she is creating a firm and living faith in the
existence of immutable moral and physical laws, perfect
obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an
intelligent being.
But of all this your old stereotyped system of educa-
tion takes no note. Physical science, its methods, its
problems, and its difficulties, will meet the poorest boy
at every turn, and yet we educate him in such a manner
that he shall enter the world as ignorant of the existence
of the methods and facts of science as the clay he was
born. The modern world is full of artillery ; and we
turn out our children to do battle in it, equipped with
the shield and sword of an ancient gladiator.
Posterity will cry shame on us if we do not remedy
this deplorable state of things. Nay, if we live twenty
years longer, our own consciences will cry shame on us.
It is my firm conviction that the only way to remedy
it is, to make the elements of physical science an integral
part of primary education. I have endeavoured to show
you how that may be done for that branch of science
which it is my business to pursue ; and I can but add,
that I should look upon the day when every school-
master throughout this land was a centre of genuine,
however rudimentary, scientific knowledge, as an epoch
in the history of the country.
But let me entreat you to remember my last words.
A^ddressing myself to you, as teachers, I would say, mere
book learning in physical science is a sham and a
delusion — what you teach, unless you wish to be impos-
VI,] ON THE STUDY OF ZOOLOGY. 119
tors, tliat yoia must first know; and real knowledge in
science means personal acquaintance with the facts, be
they few or many.^
* It has been suggested to me that these words may be taken to imply
a discouragement on my part of any sort of scientific instruction which
does not give an acquaintance with the facts at first hand. But this is
not my meaning. The ideal of scientific teaching is, no doubt, a system
by which the scholar sees every fact for himself, and the teacher suj)plies
only the explanations. Circumstances, however, do not often allow of the
attainment of that ideal, and we must put up with the next best system —
one in which the scholar takes a good deal on trust from a teacher, who,
knowing the facts by his own knowledge, can describe them with so much
vividness as to enable his audience to form competent ideas concerning
them. The system which I repudiate is that which allows teachers who
have not come into direct contact with the leading facts of a science to pass
their second-hand information on. The scientific virus, like vaccine lymph,
if passed through too long a succession of organisms, will lose all its effect
in protecting the young against the intellectual epidemics to which thej7 are
exposed-
ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE."^
In order to make tlie title of this discourse generally
intelligible, I have translated tlie term '^ 'Protoplasm/'
which is the scientific name of the substance of wliich I
am about to speak, by the words "the physical basis of
life." I suppose that, to many, the idea that there is
such a thing as a physical basis, or matter, of life may
l3e novel — so widely spread is the conception of life as a
sometliing which works through matter, but is independent
of it ; and even those who are aware that matter and
life are inseparably connected, may not be prepared for
the conclusion plainly suggested by the phrase, ^'the
physical basis or matter of life," that there is some one
kind of matter which is common to all living beings,
and that their endless diversities are bound together by
a physical, as well as an ideal, unity. In fact, when first
^ The substance of this paper was contained in a discourse which was
delivered in Edinburgh on the evening of Sunday, the 8th of November,
1868 — being the first of a series of Sunday evening addresses upon non-
theological topics, instituted by the Eev. J. Cranbrook. Some phrases, which
could possess only a transitory and local interest, have been omitted ;
instead of the newspaper report of the Archbishop of York's address, his
Grace's subsequently-published pamphlet ''On the Limits of Philosophical
Inquiry" is quoted; and I have, here and there, endeavoured to express my
meaning more fully and clearly than I seem to have done in speaking — if I
may judge by sundry criticisms upon what I am supposed to have said, which
have appeared. But in substance, and, so far as my recollection serves, in
form, what is here written corresponds with what was there said.
Til.] ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 121
appreli ended, sucli a doctrine as tliis appears almost
shocking to common sense.
What, truly, can seem to be more ob^donsly different
from one another, in faculty, in form, and in snbstancC;
than the various kinds of living beings ? What community
of faculty can there be between the brightly- coloured
lichen, which so nearly resembles a mere mineral in-
crustation of the bare rock on which it grows, and the
painter, to wdiom it is instinct with beauty, or the
botanist, whom it feeds with knowledge ?
Again, think of the microscopic fungus — a mere infi-
nitesimal ovoid particle, which finds space and duration
enough to multiply into countless millions in the body
of a living fly ; and then of the wealth of foliage, the
luxuriance of flower and fruit, which lies between this
bald sketch of a plant and the giant pine of California,
towering to the climensions of a cathedral spire, or the
Indian fig, which covers acres with its profound shadow,
and endures while nations and empires come and go
around its vast circumference. Or, turning to the other
half of the world of life, picture to yourselves the great
Finner whale, hugest of beasts that live, or have lived,
disporting his eighty or ninety feet of bone, muscle, and
blubber, Avith easy roll, among waves in which the
stoutest ship that ever left dockyard would founder
hopelessly; and contrast him with the invisible animal-
cules—-mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which could,
in fact, dance upon the point of a needle with the same
ease as the angels of the Schoolmen could, in imagination.
With these images before your minds, you may well ask,
what community of form, or structure, is there between
the animalcule and the whale ; or between the fungus and
the fig-tree ? And, ct fortiori, between all four ?
Finally, if w^e regard substance, or material composi-
tion, what hidden bond can connect the flower which a
122 LJF SHRMONS, ADBRUSSES, AND REVIEWS. [vil
girl wears in her liair and the blood which courses
through her youthful veins ; or, what is there in common
between the dense and resisting mass of the oak, or the
strong fabric of the tortoise, and those broad disks of
glassy jelly which may be seen pulsating through the
waters of a calm sea, but which drain away to mere films
in the hand which raises them out of their element ?
Such objections as these must, I think, arise in the
mind of every one who ponders, for the first time, upon
the conception of a single physical basis of life under-
lying all the diversities of vital existence ; but I propose
to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding these
apparent difficulties, a threefold unity — namely, a unity
of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of
substantial composition — does pervade the whole living
world.
No very abstruse argumentation is needed, in the first
place, to prove that the powers, or faculties, of all kinds
of living matter, diverse as they may be in degree, are
substantially similar in kind.
Goethe has condensed a survey of all the powers of
mankind into the well-known epigram : —
" Wariim treibt sich das Volk so und schreit ? Es will sich ernalireii
Kinder zeugen, und die naliren so gut es vermag.
*****
Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stell' er sicb. wie er auch wilL"
In physiological language this means, that all the
multifarious and complicated activities of man are
comprehensible under three categories. Either they are
immediately directed towards the maintenance and deve-
lopment of the body, or they efi'ect transitory changes
in the relative positions of parts of the body, or they tend
towards the continuance of the species. "Even those mani-
festations of intellect, of feeling, and of will, which we
m.] ON THJE FHTSICAL BASIS OF LTFK 123
riglitly name tile liigher faculties, are not excluded from
tliis classification, inasmuch as to every one but the subject
of them, they are known only as transitory changes in
the relative positions of parts of the body. Speech,
gesture, and every other form of human action are, in
the long run, resolvable into muscular contraction, and
muscular contraction is but a transitory change in the
relative positions of the parts of a muscle. But the
scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities
of the highest form of life, covers all those of the lower
creatures. The lowest plant, or animalcule, feeds, grows,
and reproduces its kind. In addition, all animals manifest
those transitory changes of form which we class under
irritability and contractility ; and, it is more than
probable, that when the vegetable world is thoroughly
explored, we shall find all plants in possession of the
same powers, at one time or other of their existence.
I am not now alluding to such phsonomena, at once
rare and conspicuous, as those exhibited by the leaflets
of the sensitive plant, or the stamens of the barberry,
but to much more widely-spread, and, at the same time,
more subtle and hidden, manifestations of vegetable
contractility. You are doubtless aware that the common
nettle owes its stinging property to the innumerable stiil
and needJe-like, though exquisitely delicate, hairs which
cover its surface. Each stinging-needle tapers from a
broad base to a slender summit, which, though rounded
at the end, is of such microscopic fineness that it readily
penetrates, and breaks off in, the skin. The whole hair
consists of a very delicate outer case of wood, closely
applied to the inner surface of which is a layer of semi-
fluid matter, full of innumerable granules of extreme
minuteness. This semi-fluid lining is protoplasm, which
thus constitutes a kind of bag, full of a limpid liquid,
and roughly corresponding in form with the interior of
124 LAY SER2I0NS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [rii
the liair whicli it fills. When viewed with a sufficiently
high magnifying power, the protoplasmic layer of the
nettle hair is seen to be in a condition of unceasing
activity. Local contractions of the whole thickness of
its substance pass slowly and gradually from point to
point, and . give rise to the appearance of progressive
waves, just as the bending of successive stalks of corn by
a breeze produces the apparent billows of a corn-field.
But, in addition to these movements, and independently
of them, the granules are driven, in relatively rapid
streams, through channels in the protoplasm which seem
to have a considerable amount of persistence. Most
commonly, the currents in adjacent parts of the proto-
plasm take similar directions ; and, thus, there is a
general stream up one side of the hair and down the
other. But this does not prevent the existence of partial
currents which take different routes ; and, sometimes,
trains of granules may be seen coursing swiftly in
opposite directions, within a twenty-thousandth of an
inch of one another ; while, occasionally, opposite streams
come into direct collision, and, after a longer or shorter
struggle, one predominates. The cause of these currents
seems to lie in contractions of the protoplasm which
bounds the channels in which they flow, but which are
so minute that the best microscopes show only their
eff'ects, and not themselves.
The spectacle afibrded by the wonderful energies
prisoned within the compass of the microscopic hair
of a plant, which we commonly regard as a merely
passive organism, is not easily forgotten by one who has
watched its display, continued hour after hour, without
pause or sign of weakening. The possible complexity
of many other organic forms, seemingly as simple as
the protoplasm of the nettle, dawns upon one; and the
comparison of such a protoplasm to a body with an
vii.J ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 125
internal circulation, wliich has been put forward by an
eminent pliysiologist, loses much of its startling character.
Currents similar to those of the hairs of the nettle have
been observed in a great multitude of very different
plants, and weighty authorities have suggested that they
probably occur, in more or less perfection, in all young
vegetable cells. If such be the case, the wonderful
noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only
to the dulness of our hearing ; and could our ears catch
the murmur of these tiny Maelstroms, as they whirl in
the innumerable myriads of living cells which constitute
each tree, we should be stunned, as with the roar of
a great city.
Among the lower plants, it is the rule rather than the
exception, that contractility should be still more openly
manifested at some periods of their existence. The
protoplasm of AlgcB and Fungi becomes, under many
circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its
woody case, and exhibits movements of its whole mass,
or is propelled by the contractility of one, or more, hair-
like prolongations of its body, which are called vibratile
cilia. And, so far as the conditions of the manifestation
of the phsenomena of contractility have yet been studied,
they are the same for the plant as for the animal. Heat
and electric shocks influence both, and in the same way,
though it may be in difierent degrees. It is by no means
my intention to suggest that there is no difference in
faculty between the lowest plant and the highest, or
betv/een plants and animals. But the difference between
the powers of the lowest plant, or animal, and those of
the highest, is one of degree, not of kind, and depends,
as Milne-Edwards long ago so well pointed out, upon
the extent to which the principle of the division of
labour is carried out in the living economy. In the
lowest organism all parts are competent to perform ail
126 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vii
functions, and one and tlie same portion of proto-
plasm may successively take on the function of feeding,
moving, or reproducing apparatus. In tlie liigliest, on
the contrary, a great number of parts combine to per-
form each function, each part doing its allotted share of
the work with great accuracy and efficiency, but being
useless for any other purpose.
On the other hand, notwithstanding all the funda-
mental resemblances which exist between the powers of
the protoplasm in plants and in animals, they present
a striking difference (to which I shall advert more at
length presently), in the fact that plants can manufacture
fresh protoplasm out of mineral compounds, whereas
animals are obliged to procure it ready made, and hence,
in the long run, depend upon plants. Upon what con-
dition this difference in the powers of the two great
divisions of the world of life depends, nothing is at
present known.
With such qualification as arises out of the last-
mentioned fact, it may be truly said that the acts of all
living things are fundamentally one. Is any such unity
predicable of their forms ? Let us seek in easily verified
facts for a reply to this question. If a drop of blood be
drawn by pricking one's finger, and viewed with proper
precautions and under a sufficiently high microscopic
power, there will be seen, among the innumerable mul-
titude of little, cncular, discoidal bodies, or corpuscles,
which float in it and give it its colour, a comparatively
small number of colourless corpuscles, of somewhat larger
size and very irregular shape. If the drop of blood be
kept at the temperature of the body, these colourless
corpuscles will be seen to exhibit a marvellous activity,
changing their forms with great rapidity, drawing in
and thrusting out prolongations of their substance, and
creeping about as if they were independent organisms.
viu] ON TEE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFK 127
The substance wliicli is tlius active is a mass of proto-
plasm, and its activity differs in detail, rather than in
principle, from that of the protoplasm of the nettle.
Under sundry circumstances the corpuscle dies and
becomes distended into a round mass, in the midst of
which is seen a smaller spherical body, which existed,
but was more or less hidden, in the living corpuscle, and
is called its nitcleus. Corpuscles of essentially similar
structure are to be found in the skin, in the lining of the
mouth, and scattered through the whole framework of
the body. Nay, more ; in the earliest condition of the
human organism, in that state in which it has but just
become distinguishable from the egg in which it arises,
it is nothing but an aggregation of such corpuscles, and
every organ of the body was, once, no more than such
an aggregation.
Thus a nucleated mass of protoplasm turns out to be
what may be termed the structural unit of the human
bof'y. As a matter of fact, the body, in its earliest state,
is a mere multiple of such units ; and, in its perfect con-
dition, it is a multiple of such units, variously modified.
But does the formula which expresses the essential
structural character of the highest animal cover all the
rest, as the statement of its powers and faculties covered
that of all others ? Very nearly. Beast and fowl,
reptile and fish, moUusk, worm, and polype, are all com-
posed of structural units of the same character, namely,
masses of protoplasm with a nucleus. There are sundry
very low animals, each of which, structurally, is a mere
colourless blood-corpuscle, leading an independent life.
But, at the very bottom of the animal scale, even this
simplicity becomes simplified, and all the phsenomena of
life are manifested by a particle of protoplasm without a
nucleus. Nor are such organisms insignificant by reason
of their want of complexity. It is a fair question
128 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND RtVlEWS. [vii
wlietlier the protoplasm of those simplest forms of life,
which people an immense extent of the bottom of the
sea, would not outweigh that of all the higher living
beings which inhabit the land put together. And in
ancient times, no less than at the present day, such
living beings as these have been the greatest of rock
builders.
What has been said of the animal world is no less true
of plants. Imbedded in the protoplasm at the broad, or
attached, end of the nettle hair, there lies a spheroidal
nucleus. Careful examination further proves that the
whole substance of the nettle is made up of a repetition
of such masses of nucleated protoplasm, each contained
in a w^ooden case, which is modified in form, sometimes
iuto a woody fibre, sometimes into a duct or spiral vessel,
sometimes into a pollen grain, or an ovule. Traced back
to its earliest state, the nettle arises as the man does, in
a particle of nucleated protoplasm. And in the lowest
plants, as in the lowest animals, a single mass of such
protoplasm may constitute the whole plant, or the photo -
plasm may exist without a nucleus.
Under these circumstances it may well be asked, how
is one mass of non-nucleated protoplasm to be distin-
guished from another ? why call one " plant ^^ and the
other " animal" ?
The only reply is that, so far as form is concerned,
plants and animals are not separable, and that, in many
cases, it is a mere matter of convention whether we call
a given organism an animal or a plant. There is a living
body called JEthalium septicum, which appears upon
decaying vegetable substances, and, in one of its forms, is
common upon the surfaces of tan-pits. In this condition
it is, to all intents and purposes, a fungus, and formerly
was always regarded as such ; but the remarkable in-
vestigations of De Bary have shown that, in another
VII.] ON THE FHFSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 129
condition, the JEtlialium is an actively locomotive crea-
ture, and takes in solid matters, upon wMdi, apparently,
it feeds, thiis exhibiting the most characteristic feature
of animality. Is this a plant ; or is it an animal ? Is
it both ; or is it neither '? Some decide in favour of the
last supposition, and establish an intermediate kingdom,
a sort of biological No Man's Land for all these ques-
tionable forms. But, as it is admittedly impossible to
draw any distinct boundary line between this no man's
land and the vegetable world on the one hand, or the
animal, on the other, it appears to me that this pro-
ceeding merely doubles the difficulty which, before, was
sinoie.
Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of
all life. It is the clay of the potter : which, bake it and
paint it as he will, remains clay, separated by artifice,
and not by nature, from the commonest brick or sun-
dried clod.
Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are
cognate, and that all living forms are fundamentally of
one character. The researches of the chemist have
revealed a no less striking uniformity of material com-
position in living matter.
In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical inves-
tigation can teU us little or nothing, directly, of the
composition of living matter, inasmuch as such matter
must needs die in the act of analysis, — and upon this
very obvious ground, objections, which I confess seem to
me to be somewhat frivolous, have been raised to the
drawing of any conclusions whatever resjDccting the
composition of actually living matter, from that of the
(lead matter of life, which alone is accessible to us. But
objectors of this class do not seem to reflect that it is
also, in strictness, true that we know nothing about the
composition of any body whatever, as it is. The state-
130 l^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES t AND REVIEWS. [vii
ment tliat a crystal of calc-spar consists of carbonate of
lime, is quite true, if we only mean that, by appropriate
processes, it may be resolved into carbonic acid and
quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic acid over the
very quicklime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate
of lime again ; but it will not be calc-spar, nor anything
like it. Can it, therefore, be said that chemical analysis
teaches nothing about the chemical composition of calc-
spar ? Such a statement would be absurd ; but it is
hardly more so than the talk one occasionally hears
about the uselessness of applying the results of chemical
analysis to the livmg bodies which have yielded them.
One fact, at anv rate, is out of reach of such refine-
ments, and this is, that all the forms of protoplasm
which have yet been examined contain the four elementL%
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very complex
union, and that they behave similarly towards several
reagents. To this complex combination, the nature of
which has never been determmed with exactness, the
name of Protein has been applied. And if v/e use this
term with such caution as may properly arise out of our
comparative ignorance of the things for which it stands,
it may be truly said, that all protoplasm is proteinaceous ,
or, as the white, or albumen, of an egg is one of the
commonest examples of a nearly pure proteine matter,
we may say that all living matter is more or less
albuminoid.
Perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that all forms
of protoplasm are afiected by the direct action of electric
shocks ; and yet the number of cases in which the
contraction ot protoplasm is shown to be effected by this
agency increases every day.
Nor can it be affirmed with perfect confidence, that all
forms of protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar
coagulation at a temperature of 40° — 50° centigrade,
vii,] ON THE FHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 131
wliich Las been called " heat- stiffening," thougli Kiiline's
beautiful researches have proved this occurrence to take
place in so many and such diverse living beings, that it
is hardly rash to expect that the law holds good for all.
Enough has, perhaps, been said to prove the existence
of a general uniformity in the character of the proto-
plasm, or physical basis, of life, in whatever group of
living beings it may be studied. But it will be under-
stood that this general uniformity by no means excludes
any amount of special modifications of the fundamental
substance. The mineral, carbonate of lime, assumes an
immense diversity of characters, though no one doubts
that, under all these Protean changes, it is one a.nd the
same thino^.
And nov/, what is the ultimate fate, and what the
origin, of the matter of life ?
Is it, as some of the older naturalists supposed,
difiused throughout the universe in molecules, which are
indestructible and unchangeable in themselves ; but, in
endless transmigration, unite in innumerable permu-
tations, into the diversified forms of life we know ? Or,
is the matter of life composed of ordinary matter,
difiering from it only in the manner in which its atoms
are aggregated ? Is it built up of ordinary matter, and
again resolved into ordinary matter when its work is
done?
Modern science does not hesitate a moment between
these alternatives. Physiology writes over the portals of
life —
"Debemur morti nos nostraque/*
with a profounder meaning than the Eoman poet attached
to that melancholy line. Under whatever disguise it
takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, worm or man, the
132 ZJr SUMMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [vii.
living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved
into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always
dying, and, strange as tlie paradox may sound, could not
live unless it died.
In tlie wonderful story of the "Peau de Cliagrin,"
tlie liero becomes possessed of a magical wild ass' skin,
whicli yields him the means of gratifying all his wishes.
But its surface represents the duration of the proprietor's
life ; and for every satisfied desire the skin shrinks in
proportion to the intensity of fruition, until at length
life and the last handbreadth of the "peau de chagrin
disappear with the gratification of a last wish.
Balzac's studies had led him over a wide range of
thought and speculation, and his shadowing forth of
physiological truth in this strange story may have been
intentional. At any rate, the matter of life is a veritable
peau de chagrin, and for every vital act it is somewhat
the smaller. All work implies waste, and the "work of
life results, directly or indirectly, in the waste of pro-
toplasm.
Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some
physical loss ; and, in the strictest sense, he burns that
others may have light — so much eloquence, so much of
his body resolved into carbonic acid, water, and urea.
It is clear that this process of expenditure cannot go on
for ever. But, happily, the protoplasmic ^e(X^t de chagrin
differs from Balzac's in its capacity of being repaired, and
brought back to its full size, after every exertion.
For example, this present lecture, whatever its intel-
lectual worth to you, has a certain physical value to me,
which is, conceivably, expressible by the number of
grains of protoplasm and other bodily substance wasted
in maintaining my vital processes during its delivery
M.J jyeau de chagrin will be distinctly smaller at the end
of the discourse than it was at the beginning. By and
riL] ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. \Zo
by, I shall probably have recourse to tbe substance com-
monly called mutton, for the purpose of stretching it
back to its original size. Now this mutton was once
the living protoplasm, more or less modified, of another
animal — a sheep. As I shall eat it, it is the same matter
altered, not only by death, but by exposure to sundry
artificial operations in the process of cooking.
But these changes, whatever be their extent, have not
rendered it incompetent to resume its old functions as
matter of life. A singular inward laboratory, which I
possess, will dissolve a certain portion of the modified
protoplasm ; the solution so formed will pass into my
veins ; and the subtle influences to which it will then be
subjected will convert the dead protoplasm into living
protoplasm, and transubstantiate sheep into man.
Nor is this all. If digestion w^ere a thing to be trifled
with, I might sup upon lobster, and the matter of life of
the crustacean would undergo the same wonderful meta-
morphosis into humanity. And Avere I to return to my
own place by sea, and undergo shipwreck, the Crustacea
might, and probably would, return t\iQ compliment, and
demonstrate our common nature by turning my proto-
plasm into living lobster. Or, if nothing better were to
be had, I might supply my wants with mere bread, and
I should find the protoplasm of the wheat-plant to be
convertible into man, with no more trouble than that
of the sheep, and with far less, I fancy, than that of
the lobster.
Hence it appears to be a matter of no great moment
what animal, or what plant, I lay under contribution for
protoplasm, and the fact speaks volumes for the general
identitv of that substance in all livino; beino^s. I share
this catholicity of assimilation with other animals, all oi
which, so far as we know, could thrive equally well on
the protoplasm of any of their fellows, or of auy plant ;
1.34 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEJFS. [vil
but liere the assimilative powers of the animal world
cease. A solution of smelling-salts in water, with an
infinitesimal proportion of some other saline matters,
contains all the elementary bodies which enter into the
composition of protoplasm ; but, as I need hardly say, a
hogshead of that fluid would not keep a hungry man from
starving, nor would it save any animal whatever from a
like fate. An animal cannot make protoplasm, but must
take it ready-made from some other animal, or some
plant — the animal's highest feat of constructive chemistry
being to convert dead protoplasm into that living matter
of life which is appropriate to itself.
Therefore, in seeking for the origin of protoplasm, we
must eventually turn to the vegetable world. The fluid,
containing carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, which
offers such a Barmecide feast to the animal, is a table
richly spread to multitudes of plants ; and, with a due
supply of only such materials, ma.ny a plant will not only
maintain itself in vigour, but grow and multiply until it
has increased a million-fold, or a million million-fold, the
quantity of protoplasm which it origina^Uy possessed; in
this way building up the matter of life, to an indefinite
extent, from the common matter of the universe.
Thus, the animal can only raise the complex sub-
stance of dead protoplasm to the higher power, as one
may say, of living protoplasm ; while the plant can raise
the less complex substances — carbonic acid, water, and
ammonia — to the same stage of living protoplasm, if not
to the same level. But the plant also has its limitations.
Some of the fungi, for example, appear to need higher
compounds to start with ; and no known plant can live
upon the uncompounded elements of protoplasm. A
plant supplied with pure carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
and nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, and the like, would
as infallibly die as the aniinal in his bath of smelling*
TII.J ON THE FUrSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 135
salts, thoiigli it would be siTiTouncled by all tlie consti-
tuents of protoplasm. Nor, indeed, need the process of
simplification of vegetable food be carried so far as this,
in order to arrive at the limit of the plant's thaumaturgy.
Let water, carbonic acid, and all the other needful con-
stituents be supplied with ammonia, and an ordinary
plant will still be unable to manufacture protoplasm.
Thus the matter of life, so far as we know it (and we
have no right to speculate on any other), breaks up, in
consequence of that continual death which is the con-
dition of its manifesting vitality, into carbonic acid,
w^ater, and ammonia, which certainly possess no proper-
ties but those of ordinary matter. And out of these
same forms of ordinary matter, and from none wdiich
are simpler, the vegetable world builds up all the proto-
plasm which keeps the animal world a-going. Plants are
the accumulators of the power which animals distribute
and disperse.
But it will be observed, that the existence of the
matter of life depends on the pre-existence of certain
compounds ; namely, carbonic acid, water, and ammonia.
Withdraw any one of these three from the world, and. all
vital phsenomena come to an end. They are related
to the protoplasm^ of the plant, as the protoj^lasmx of the
plant is to that of the animal. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon
and oxygen unite, in certain proportions and under
certain conditions, to give rise to carbonic acid j
hydrogen and oxygen produce water ; nitrogen and
hydrogen give rise to ammonia. These new compounds,
like the elementary bodies of wdiich they are composed,
are lifeless. But when they are brought together,
under certain conditions they give rise to the still
more complex body, protoplasm, and this protoplasm
exhibits the phcenomena of life.
136 L^y SI:RM0NS, addresses, and reviews. [vii.
I see no break in this series of steps in molecular
complication, and I am unable to understand wliy the
language wliicli is applicable to any one term of the
series may not be used to any of the others. We think
fit to call different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen,
hydrogen, and nitrogen, and to speak of the various
powers and activities of these substances as the pro-
perties of the matter of which they are composed.
When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain
proportion, and an electric spark is passed through them,
they disappear, and a quantity of water, equal in weight
to the sum of their weights, appears in their place.
There is not the slightest parity between the passive and
active powers of the waters and those of the oxygen and
hydrogen which have given rise to it. At 32** Fahrenheit,
and far below that temperature, oxygen and hydrogen
are elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to rush
away from one another with great force. Water, at the
same temperature, is a strong though brittle solid, whose
particles tend to cohere into definite geometrical shapes,
and sometimes build up frosty imitations of the most
complex forms of vegetable foliage.
Nevertheless we call these, and many other strange
phsenomena, the properties of the water, and we do not
hesitate to believe that, in some way or another, they
result from the properties of the component elements of
the water. We do not assume that a something called
"aquosity" entered into and took possession of the oxide
of hydrogen as soon as it was foruied, and then guided
the aqueous particles to their places in the facets of the
crystal, or amongst the leaflets of the hoar-frost. On the
contrary, we live in the hope and in the faith that, by
the advance of molecular physics, we shall by and by be
able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of
M'ater to the properties of water, as we are now able to
ni.] ON TEE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 137
deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its
parts and the manner in which they are put together.
Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid,
water, and ammonia disappear, and in their place, under
the influence of pre-existing living protoplasm, an
equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its
appearance ?
It is true that there is no sort of parity between the
properties of the components and the properties of the
resultant, but neither was there in the case of the water.
It is also true that what I have spoken of as the in-
fluence of pre-existing living matter is something quite
unintelligible ; but does anybody quite comprehend the
modus operandi of an electric spark, which traverses a
mixture of oxygen and hydrogen ?
"What justification is there, then, for the assumption of
the existence in the living matter of a something which
has no representative, or correlative, in the not living
matter which gave rise to it ? What better philosophical
status has '' vitality " than *' aquosity " ? And why
should ** vitality'' hope for a better fate than the other
" itys" which have disappeared since Martinus Scriblerus
accounted for the operation of the meat-jack by its
inherent " meat^roasting quality/' and scorned the
"materialism" of those who explained the turning of the
spit by a certain mechanism worked by the draught of
the chimney ?
If scientific language is to possess a definite and
constant signification whenever it is employed, it seems
to me that we are logically bound to apply to the
protoplasm, or physical basis of life, the same concep-
tions as those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere.
If the phaenomena exhibited by water are its properties,
so are those presented by protoplasm, living or dead, its
properties.
[38 l^Y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEJVS. [vii.
If tlie properties of water may be properly said to
result from the nature and disposition of its component
molecules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing
to say that the properties of protoplasm result from the
nature and disposition of its molecules.
But I bid you beware that, in accepting these conclu-
sions, you are placing your feet on the first rung of a
ladder which, in most people's estimation, is the reverse
of Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes of heaven. It may
seem a small thing to admit that the dull vital actions
of a fungus, or a foraminifer, are the properties of their
protoplasm, and are the direct results of the nature of the
matter of which they are composed. But if, as I have
endeavoured to prove to you, their protoplasm is essen-
tially identical with, and most readily converted into,
that of any animal, I can discover no logical halting-
place between the admission that such is the case, and
the further concession that all vital action may, with
equal propriety, be said to be the result of the molecular
forces of the protoplasm which displays it. And if so,
it must be true, in the same sense and to the same
extent, that the thoughts to which I am now giving
utterance, and your thoughts regarding them, are the
expression of molecular changes in that matter of life
which is the source of our other vital phsenomena.
Past experience leads me to be tolerably certain that,
when the propositions I have just placed before you are
accessible to public comment and criticism, they will be
condemned by many zealous persons, and perhaps by
some few of the wise and thoughtful. I should not
wonder if "gross and brutal materialism" were the
mildest phrase applied to them in certain quarters.
And, most undoubtedly, the terms of the propositions are
distinctly materialistic. Nevertheless two things ara
rii.] ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 139
certain : tlie one, tLat I hoH tlie statements to be sub-
stantially true ; the other, that I, individually, am no
materialist, but, on the contrary, believe materialism to
involve grave philosophical error.
This union of materialistic terminology with the repu-
diation of materialistic philosophy I share with some of
the most thoughtful men with whom I am acquainted.
And, when I first undertook to deliver the present
discourse, it appeared to me to be a fitting opportunity
to explain how such a union is not only consistent with,
but necessitated by, sound logic. I purposed to lead you
through the territory of vital phsenomena to the material-
istic slough in which you find yourselves now plunged,
and then to point out to you the sole path by which, in
my judgment, extrication is possible.
An occurrence of which I was unaware until my
arrival here last nig^ht renders this line of aro^ument
singularly opportune. I found in your papers the
eloquent address " On the Limits of Philosophical
Inquiry,*' which a distinguished prelate of the English
Church delivered before the members of the Philoso-
phical Institution on the previous day. My argument,
also, turns upon this very point of the limits of philo-
sophical inquiry ; and I cannot bring out my own views
better than by contrasting them w^ith those so plainly
and, in the main, fairly stated by the Archbishop of
York.
But I may be permitted to make a preliminary con-
ment upon an occurrence that greatly astonished me.
Applying the name of the "New Philosophy'' to that
estimate of the limits of philosophical inquiry which I,
in common with manv other men of science, hold to be
just, the Archbishop opens his address by identifying
this "New Philosophy" with the Positive Philosophy of
M. Comte (of whom he speaks as its " founder'') ; and
140 LAY SURMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [vii.
tlien proceeds to attack tliat pliilosoplier and his doctrines
vigorously.
Now, so far as I am concerned, tlie most reverend
prelate might dialectically hew M. Comte in pieces, as a
modern Agag, and I should not attempt to stay his
hand. In so far as my study of what specially charac-
terises the Positive Philosophy has led me, I find therein
little or nothing of any scientific value, and a great deal
which is as thoroughly antagonistic to the very essence
of science as anything in ultramontane Catholicism. In
fact, M. Comte's philosophy in practice might be com-
pendiously described as Catholicism mimes Christianity.
But what has Comtism to do with the " New Philo-
sophy," as the Archbishop defines it in the .following
passage ?
" Let me briefly remind you of the leading principles of this new
pliilosopliy.
'' All knowledge is experience of facts acquired by the senses. The
traditions of older philosophies have obscured our experience by mixing
with it much that the senses cannot observe, and until these additions
are discarded our knowledge is impure. Thus metaphysics tell us that
one fact which we observe is a cause, and another is the effect of that
cause ; but, upon a rigid analysis, we find that our senses observe
nothing of cause or effect: they observe, first, that one fact succeeds
another, and, after some opportunity, that this fact has never failed to
follow — that for cause and effect we should substitute invariable suc-
cession. An older philosophy teaches us to define an object by dis-
tinguishing its essential from its accidental qualities : but experience
knows nothing of essential and accidental ; she sees only that certain
marks attach to an object, and, after many observations, that some of
them attach invariably, whilst others may at times be absent
As all knowledge is relative, the notion of anything being necessary
must be banished with other traditions." ^
There is much here that expresses the spirit of the
" New Philosophy,'' if by that term be meant the spirit
of modern science ; but I cannot but marvel that the
" The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry," pp. 4 and 5.
vil] on tee physical basis of life. 141
assembled wisdom and learnino; of Edinburo'li should
have uttered no sign of dissent, when Comte was
declared to be the founder of these doctrines. No one
will accuse Scotchmen of habitually forgetting their
great countrymen ; but it was enough to make David
Hume turn in his grave, that here, almost within ear-
shot of his house, an instructed audience should have
listened, without a murmur, while his most characteristic
doctrines were attributed to a French writer of fifty
years later date, in whose dreary and verbose pages we
miss alike the vigour of thought and the exquisite clear-
ness of style of the man whom I make bold to term the
most acute thinker of the eighteenth century — even
though that century produced Kant.
But I did not come to Scotland to vindicate the
honour of one of the greatest men she has ever produced.
My business is to point out to you that the only way of
escape out of the crass materialism in which we just
now la^nded, is the adoption and strict working-out of
the very principles which the Archbishop holds up to
reprobation.
Let us suppose that knowledge is absolute, and not
relative, and therefore, that our conception of matter
represents that which it really is. Let us suppose,
further, that we do know more of cause and effect than
a certain definite order of succession amono^ facts, and
that we have a knowledge of the necessity of that succes-
sion— and hence, of necessary laws — and I, for my part,
do not see what escape there is from utter materialism
and necessarianism. For it is obvious that our know-
ledge of what we call the material world is, to begin
with, at least as certain and definite as that of the
spiritual world, and that our acquaintance with law is of
as old a date as our knowledge of spontaneity. Further,
1 take it to be demonstrable that it is utterly impossible
143 LAY SmMONS, JDBItFSSmS, AND REVIEWS. [vii
to prove that anytliing whatever may not be tlie effect
of a material and necessary cause, and tliat human logic
is equally inconipetert to prove that any act is
really spontaneous. A really spontaneous act is one
which, by the assumption, has no cause ; and the attempt
to prove such a negative as this is, on the face of the
paatter, absurd. And while it is thus a philosophical
impossibility to demonstrate that any given phsenomenon
is not the effect of a material cause, any one v/ho is
acquainted with the history of science will admit, that
its progress has, in all ages, meant, and now, more than
ever, means, the extension of the province of what we
call matter and causation, and the concomitant gradual
banishment from all regions of human thought of what
\\'Q call spirit and spontaneity.
I have endeavoured, in the first part of this discourse,
to give you a conception of the direction towards which
modern physiology is tending ; ptud I ask you, what is
the difference between the conception of life as the
product of a certain disposition of material molecules,
and the old notion of an Archseus governing and di-
recting blind matter within each living body, except
this — that here, as elsewhere, matter and law have de-
voured spirit and spontaneity ? And as surely as every
future grows out of past and present, so will the phy-
siology of the future gradually extend the realm of
matter and law until it is co-extensive with knowledge,
with feeling, and with action.
The consciousness of this great truth weighs like a
nightmare, I believe, upon many of the best minds of
these days. They watch what they conceive to be the
progress of materialism, in such fear and powerless anger
as a savage feels, when, during an eclipse, the great
shadow creeps over the face of the sun. The advancing
tide of matter threatens to drown their souls ; the tio^ht-
vii. j ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE, 143
ening grasp of law impedes their freedom ; they are
alarmed lest m.an^s moral nature be debased by the
increase of his wisdom.
If the " New Philosophy " be worthy of the repro-
bation with which it is visited, I confess their fears seem
to me to be well founded. While, on the contrary,
could David Hume be consulted, I think he would smile
at their perplexities, and chide them for doing even as
the heathen, and falling down in terror before the
hideous idols their own hands have raised.
For, after all, what do we know of this terrible
" matter," except as a name for the unknown and hypo-
thetical cause of states of our own consciousness ? And
what do we know of that *' spirit" over w^hose threatened
extinction by matter a great lamentation is arising, like
that which was heard at the death of Pan, except that
it is also a name for an unknown and hypothetical cause,
or condition, of states of consciousness ? In other words,
matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary sub-
strata of groups of natural phsenomena.
And what is the dire necessity and " iron" law under
which men groan ? Truly, most gratuitously invented
bugbears. I suppose if there be an,** iron" law, it is
that of gravitation ; and if there be a |)liysical necessity,
it is that a stone, unsupported, must faU to the ground.
But what is all we really know, and can know, about the
latter phsenomenon? Simply, that, in all human ex-
perience, stones have xfallen to the ground under these
conditions ; that we have not the smallest reason for
believing that any stone so circumstanced will not fall
to the ground ; and that we have, on the contrary, every
reason to believe that it v/ill so fall. It is very con-
venient to indicate that all the conditions of belief Lave
been fulfilled in this case, by calling the statement that
unsupported stones will fall to the ground, " a law of
L44 L^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REFIEIFS, [vii.
Qature." But when, as commonly happens, we change
will into must, we introduce an idea of necessity which
most assuredly does not lie in the observed facts, and
has no warranty that I can discover elsewhere. For my
part, I utterly repudiate and anathematize the intruder.
Fact I know ; and Law I know ; but what is this Ne-
cessity, save an empty shadow of my own mmds
throwing ?
But, if it is certain that we can have no knowledge
of the nature of either matter or spirit, and that the
notion of necessity is something illegitimately thrust
into the perfectly legitimate conception of law, the
materialistic position that there is nothing in the world
but matter, force, and necessity, is as utterly devoid of
justification as the most baseless of theological dogmas.
The fundamental doctrines of materialism, like those of
spiritualism, and most other "isms,^' lie outside "the
limits of philosophical inquiry,'^ and David Hume's great
service to humanity is his irrefragable demonstration of
what these limits are. Hume called him^^elf a sceptic,
and therefore others cannot be blamed if they apply the
same title to him ; but that does not alter the fact that
the name, with its existing implications, does him gross
injustice.
If a man asks me what the politics of the inhabitants
of the moon are, and I reply that I do not know ; that
neither I, nor any one else, have any means of knowing ;
and that, under these circumstances, I decline to trouble
myself about the subject at all, I do not think he has
any right to call me a sceptic. On the contrary, in re-
plying thus, I conceive that I am simply honest and
truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy of
time. So Hume's strong and subtle intellect takes up
a great many problems about which we are naturally
furious, ajid shows us that they are essentially questions
VII.] ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE, 145
of lunar polities, in tlieir essence incapable of being
answered, and therefore not worth the attention of men
who have work to do in the world. And he thus ends
one of his essays : —
" If we take ia hand any yolume of Divinity, or school metaphysic?,
for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning
quantity or mimber 2 ]^o. Does it contain any experimental reasoning
concerning matter of fact and existence ? I^To. Commit it then to the
flames ; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." ^
Permit me to enforce this most wise advice. Why
trouble ourselves about matters of which, however im-
portant they may be, w^e do know nothing, and can
know nothing ? We live in a world which is full of
misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and
all of us is to try to make the little corner he can in-
fluence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less
ignorant than it was before he entered it. To do this
effectually it is necessary to be fully possessed of only
two beliefs : the first, that the order of nature is ascer-
tainable by our faculties to an extent v/hich is practically
unlimited ; the second, that our volition counts for some-
thing as a condition of the course of events.
Each of these beliefs can be verified experimentally,
as often as we like to try. Each, therefore, stands upon
the strongest foundation upon which any belief can rest,
and forms one of our highest truths. If we find that
the ascertainment of the order of nature is facilitated
by using one terminology, or one set of symbols, rather
than another, it is our clear duty to use the former ; and
DO harm can accrue, so long as we bear in mind, that w^e
are dealing merely with terms and symbols.
In itself it is of little moment whether we express
the phsenomena of matter in terms of spirit ; or the
^ Hume's Es'^ay "Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy," in the
* Inquiry conceraiug the Human Understanding."
146 LAY SEFaiONS, ABLRESSi:S, AND RWIEWB, [vu.
plisenomena of spirit, in terms of matter : matter may
be regarded as a form of thought, thought may be re-
garded as a property of matter — each statement has a
certain relative truth. But with a view to the progress
of science, the materiahstic terminology is in every way
to be preferred. For it connects thought with the other
phsenomena of the universe, and suggests inquiry into
the nature of those physical conditions, or concomitants
of thoudit, which are more or less accessible to us, and
a knowledge of which may, in future, help us to exercise
the same kind of control over the world of thought, as
we already possess in respect of the material world ;
whereas, the alternative, or sj^iritualistic, terminology is
utterly barren, and leads to nothing but obscurity, and
confusion of ideas.
Thus there can be little doubt, that the further science
advances, the more extensively and consistently will all
the phaenomena of nature be represented by materialistic
formulae and symbols.
But the man of science, who, forgetting the limits o1
philosophical inquiry, slides from these formulae and
symbols into what is commonly understood by mate-
rialism, seems to me to place himself on a level witli
the mathematician, who should mistake the :r's and yi
with which he works his problems, for real entities — and
with this further disadvantage, as compared with the
mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are . of
no practical consequence, while the errors of systematic
materialism may paralyse the energies and destroj the
beauty of a life.
THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM.
It is now some sixteen or seventeen years since I became
acquainted with the " Philosophie Positive/' the " Dis-
coiirs snr TEnsemble clu Positivisme/' and the " Politique
Positive" of Anguste Comte. I was, led to study these
works partly by the allusions to them in Mr. Mill's
"Logic," partly by the recommendation of a dis-
tinguished theologian, and partly by the urgency of a
valued friend, the late Professor Plenfrey, who looked
upon LI. Comte's bulky volumes as a mine of wisdom,
and lent them to me that I mio^it dig- and be rich.
After clue perusal, I found myself in a position to echo
my friend's v/ords, though I may have laid more stress
on the " mine" than on the *' wisdom." For I found
the veins of ore few and far between, and the rock so
apt to run to mud, that one incurred the risk of being
intellectually smothered in the w^orking. Still, as I
was P^lacl to acknowleds^e, I did come to a nuo^o-et here
and there ; though not, so far as my experience went,
in the discussions on the philosophy of the physical
sciences, but in the chapters on speculative and practical
sociology. In these there was indeed much to arouse
the liveliest interest in one whose boat had broken away
from the old moorings, and w^ho had been content " to
lay out an anchor by the stern" until daylight should
148 L^^ SER2I0NS, ADBBESSES, AND REVIEWS, [viii.
break and tlie fog clear. Notliing conld be more inter-
esting to a student of biology than to see tlie study
of the biological sciences laid down, as an essential part
of the prolegomena of a new view of social plisenomena.
Nothing could be more satisfactory to a worshipper of
the severe truthfulness of science than the attempt to
dispense with all beliefs, save such as could brave the
light, and seek, rather than fear, criticism ; while, to a
lover of courage and outspokenness, nothing could be
more touching than the placid announcement on the
title-page of the " Discours sur TEnsemble du Positi-
visme," that its author proposed
" Eeorganiser, sans Dieu ni roi,
Par le culte systematique de rHumanite,"
the shattered frame of modern society.
In those clays I knew my " Faust '^ pretty well, and,
after reading this word of might, I was minded to
chant the well-knowD stanzas of the " Geisterchor" —
"Well! Weh!
Die schone welt.
Sie stiirzt, sie zerfallfc
Wir tragen
Die Triimmem ins ^iclits liiiralDcr.
Maclitiger
Der Erdensohne
Praclitiger,
Bane sie wieder
In deinem Eusene bane sie anf."
Great, however, was my perplexity, not to say disap-
pointment, as I followed the progress of this "mighty
son of earth" in his work of reconstruction. Un-
doubtedly ''Dieu" disappeared, but the ''Nouveau
Grand-Etre Supreme," a gigantic fetish, turned out bran-
ncw by M. Comtc's own hands, reigned in his stead.
tiEoi" also was not heard of; but, in his place, I found
VIII.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM, 149
a minutely-defined social organization, wliicli, if it ever
came into practice, woiild exert a despotic authority
such as no snltan has rivalled, and no Puritan presbytery,
in its palmiest days, could hope to excel. While as for
the **culte systematique de THumanite," I, in my blind-
ness, could not distinguish it from sheer Popery, with
M. Comte in the chair of St. Peter, and the names of
most of the saints changed. To quote "Faust'' again,
I found myself saying with Gretchen, —
**Ungefalir sagt das der Pfarrer aucb.
l^ur mit ein bisclien andern Worten."
Eightly or wrongly, this was the impression which, all
those years ago, the study of M. Comte's works left on
my mind, combined with the conviction, which I shall
always be thankful to him for awakening in me, that
the organization of society upon a new and purely
scientific basis is not only practicable, but is the only
political object much worth fighting for.
As I have said, that part of M. Comte's writings
which deals with the philosophy of physical science
appeared to me to possess singularly little value, and
to show that he had but the most superficial, and merely
second-hand, knowledge of most branches of what is
usually understood by science. I do not mean by this
merely to say that Comte was behind our present know-
ledge, or that he w^as unacquainted with the details of
the science of his own clay. No one could justly make
such defects cause of complaint in a philosophical writer
of the past generation. What struck me was his want of
apprehension of the great features of science ; his strange
mistakes as to the merits of his scientific contemporaries ;
and his ludicrously erroneous notions about the part which
some of the scientific doctrines current in his time were
destined to play in the future. With these impressions
[50 L^T SERJIONS, ADDR-ESSES, AND REVIEWS. [viil
in my mind, no one will l3e surprised if I acknowledge
tliat, for these sixteen years, it has been a periodical
source of irritation to me to find M. Comte put forward
as a representative of scientific thought; and to observe
that writers whose philosophy had its legitimate parent
in Hume, or in themselves, were labelled ^^Comtists" or
"Positivists^' by public w^riters, even in spite of vehe-
ment protests to the contrary. It has cost Mr. Mill
hard rubbings to get that label ofi"; and I watch Mr.
Spencer, as one regards a good man struggling with
adversity, still engaged in eluding its adhesiveness, and
ready to tear away skin and all, rather than let it stick.
My own turn might come next ; and therefore, when
an eminent prelate the other day gave currency and
authority to the popular confusion, I took an oppor-
tunity of incidentally revindicating Hume^s property in
the so-called ^'New Philosophy," and, at the same time,
of repudiating Comtism on my own behalf.-^
* I am glad to oLserre that ]Mr. Congreve, in the criticism -u-ith ■whicli he
has favoured me in the number of the Fortnightly Eevieiv for April 1869, does
not venture to challenge the justice of the claim I made for Hume. He merely
suggests that I have been wanting in candour in not mentioning Comte's high
opinion of Hmne. After mature reflection I am unable to discern my fault.
If I had suggested that Comte had borrowed from Hume without acknowledg-
ment ; or if, instead of tryiug to express my own sense of Hume's merits witJx
the modesty which becomes a writer who has no authority in matters of philo-
sophy, I had affirmed that no one had properly appreciated him, Mr. Congreve's
remarks would apply : but as I did neither of these things, they api^ear to
me to be irrevelant, if not mijustifiable. And even had it occurred to me to
quote M. Comte's expressions about Hume, I do not know that I should have
cited them, inasmuch as, on his own showing, M. Comte occasionally speaks
very decidedly touching writers of whose works he has not read a line. Thus,
in Tome VI, of the "Philosophie Positive," p. 61.9, M. Comte writes: "Le
plus grand des metaphysiciens modernes, I'illustre Kant, a noblement merite
tine eternelle admiration en tentant, le premier, d'echapper du-ectement a
I'absolu philo3ophicj[ue par sa celebre conception de la double realite, a la
fois objective et subjective, qui indique un si juste sentiment de la saine
philosophie."
But in the " Preface Personnelle" in the same volume, p. 35, INI. Comte tells
ns :~" Je n'ai jamais lu, en aucune laiigue, ni Vico, ni Kant, ni Herder, si
nil.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF FOSITIVISM. 151
The few lines devoted to Comtlsm in my paper on the
" Physical Basis of Life '' were, in intention, strictly
limited to these two purposes. But they seem to have
given more umbrage than I intended they should, to the
followers of ]\I. Comte in this country, for some of whom,
let me observe in passiug, I entertain a most unfeigned
respect ; and J\Ir. Congreve's recent article gives expres-
sion to the displeasure which I have excited among the
members of the Comtian body,
Mr. Congreve, in a peroration which seems especially
intended to catch the attention of his readers, indig-
nantly challenges me to admh^e M. Comte's life, "to
deny that it has a marked character of grandeur about
it ;^ and he uses some very strong language because 1
show no sioii of veneration for his idoL I confess I do
not care to occupy myself with the denigration of a man •
who, on the whole, deserves to be spoken of with respect.
Therefore, I shall enter into no statement of the reasons
which lead me unhesitatingly to accept Mr. Congreve's
challenge, and to refuse to recognise anything which de-
serves the name of grandeur of character in M. Comte,
unless it be his arrogance, which is undoubtedly sublime.
All I have to observe is, that if Mr. Congreve is justified
in saying that I speak with a tinge of contempt for his
spiritual father, the reason for such colouring of my
language is to be found in the fact, that, when I wrote,
I had but just arisen from the perusal of a v>'ork with
which he is doubtless well acquainted, 11. Littre's
''Auguste Comte et la Philosophie Positive."
Though there are tolerably fixed standards of right
and wrong, and even of generosity and meauness, it
Hegel, &c. ; je ne connais leurs divers oii^Trr.gcs que d^ipres quelques relations
indirectes et certains extraits fort insuffisants."
WTio knows but that the " &c." may include Euine ? And in that cas«
wLat is the value of M. Comte's praise of Imn?
152 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND RWIEWS. [viii.
may be said that tlie beauty, or grandeur, of a life is
more or less a matter of taste : and Mr. Cono-reve's
notions of literary excellence are so different from mine
that, it may be, we should diverge as widely in our
judgment of moral beauty or ugliness. Therefore, while
retaining my own notions, I do not presume to quarrel
with his. But when Mr. Congreve devotes a great deal
of laboriously guarded insinuation to the endeavour to
lead the public to believe that I have been guilty of the
dishonesty of having criticised Comte without having
read him, I must be permitted to remind him that he
has neglected the well-known maxim of a diplomatic
sage, ''If you want to damage a man, you should say
what is probable, as well as what is true,"
And when Mr. Congreve speaks of my having an ad-
vantage over him in my introduction of "Christianity"
into the phrase that "M. Comte's philosophy, in practice,
might be described as Catholicism minus Christianity ;"
intending thereby to suggest that I have, by so doing,
desired to profit by an appeal to the odium theologicum,
— he lays himself open to a very unpleasant retort.
AYhat if I were to suggest that Mr. Congreve had not
read Comte's works ; and that the phrase "the context
shows that the view of the writer ranges — hovv^ever
superficially — over the whole works. This is obvious
from the mention of Catholicism," demonstrates that
Mr. Congreve has no acquaintance with the " Philosophie
Positive "1 I think the suggestion would be very unjust
and unmannerly, and I shall not m^ake it. But the fact
remains, that this little epigram of mine, Avhich has so
greatly provoked Mr. Congreve, is neither more nor less
than a condensed paraphrase of the following passage
which is to be found at page 344 of the fifth volume of
the "Philosophie Positive :''^ —
* ]!^ow and ahvays I quote the second edition, by Littre.
yiiL] THU SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF FOSITIVISM. 153
*'La seule solution possible de ce grand probleme historique, qui n'a
jamais pii etre philosophiquement pose jusqu'ici, consiste a conceroir,
en sens radicalement inverse des notions habituelles, que ce qui d/evait
necessairement perir ainsi, dans le catholicisme, (detail la doctrine^ et non
V organisation, qui n'a ete passagerement ruinee que par suite de son
inevitable adherence elementaire a la philosopliie theologique, destinee
k succoniber graduellement sous I'irresistible emancipaton de la raison
humaine ; tandis qyCune telle constitution, convenahlement reconstriiite
sitr des bases intellectuelles a la fois plus etendues et plus stables, devra
finalement presider a V indispensable reorganisation sjnrituelle , des
societes modernes, sauf Us differences essentielles spontanement corre-
spondantes a V extreme diversite des docti^ines fondamentales ; a moins
de supposer, ce qui serait certainement contradictoire a 1' ensemble des
lois de notre nature, que les immenses efforts de taut de grands
hommes, secondes par la perseverante sollicitude des nations civilisees,
ians la fondation seculaire de ce chef-d'oeuvre politique de la sagesse
humaine, doivent etre enfin irrevocablement perdus pour 1' elite de
riiumanite sauf les resultats, capitaux mais provisoires, qui s'y rap-
portaient immediatement. Cette explication generale, dega evidem-
ment motivee par la suite des considerations propres a ce chapitre,
sera de plus en plus confirmee par tout le reste de notre operation
historique, dont elle constituera sponianemoit la principale conclasion
politique.^'
Nothing can be clearer. Comte's ideal, as stated by
himself, is Catholic organization without Catholic doc-
trine, or, in other words, Catholicism minus Christianity.
Surely it is utterly unjustifiable to ascribe to me base
motives for stating a man^s doctrines, as nearly as may
be, in his own words !
iVly readers would hardly be interested were I to follow
Mr. Congreve any further, or I might point out that the
fact of his not having heard me lecture is hardly a safe
ground for his speculations as to what I do not teach.
Nor do I feel called upon to give any opinion as to
M. Comte's merits or demerits as regards sociology.
Silr. Mill (whose competence to speak on these matters
I suppose will not be questioned, even by Mr. Congreve)
has dealt with M. Comte's philosophy from this point of
view, w^ith a vigour and authoritv to which I cannot fox
154 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS iviii.
a moment aspire ; and witli a severity, not nnfrequently
amounting to contempt, wliicli I have not the wish, if I
had the power, to surpass. I, as a mere student in these
questions, am content to abide by Mr. MilFs judgment
until some one shows cause for its reversal, and I decline
to enter into a discussion which I have not provoked.
The sole obligation which lies upon me is to justify so
much as still remains without justification of what I
have written respecting Positivism — namely, the opinion
expressed in the following paragraph : —
" In so far as my study of Tvliat specially characterises the Positive
Philosophy has led me, I find therein little or nothing of any scientific
value, and a great deal which is as thoroughly antagonistic to the very
essence of science as anything in ultramontane Catholicism.''
Here are two propositions: the first, that the "Phi-
losophic Positive" contains little or nothing of any
scientific value ; the second, that Comtism is, in spirit,
anti-scientific. I shall endeavour to bring forward ample
evidence in support of both.
I. No one who possesses even a superficial acquaint-
ance with physical science can read Comte's "Lecons"
without becoming aware that he was at once singularly
devoid of real knowledge on these subjects, and singu-
larly unlucky. What is to be thought of the contem-
porary of Young and of Fresnel, who never misses
an opportunity of casting scorn upon the hypothesis
of an ether — the fundamental basis not only of the
undulatory theory of light, but of so much else in
modern physics — and whose contempt for the intellects
of some of the strongest men of his generation was such,
that he puts forward the mere existence of night as a
refutation of the undulatory theory ? ^ What a won-
derful gauge of his own value as a scientific critic does
he afford, by whom we are informed that phrenology is
^ "Philosophie Positive," ii p. 440.
viii.J THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF FOSITIFISJI. 155
a great science, and psycliologv a cliiniDsra ; tliat Gali
was one of the great men of his age, and that Cuviei
was "brilliant but superficial"!^ How nnlucky must
one consider the bold speculator who, just before the
dawn of modern histology — which is simply the appli-
cation of the microscope to anatomy — reproves what he
calls " the abuse of microscopic investigations," and " the
exaofgerated credit'^ attached to them: who, when the
morphological uniformity of the tissues of the great
majority of plants and animals was on the eve of being
demonstrated, treated with ridicule those who attempt
to refer all tissues to a "tissu generateur," formed by
"le chimerique et inintelligible assemblage d'une sorte
de monades organiques, qui seraient des lors les vrai&
elements primordiaux de tout corps vivant ; " ^ and who
finally tells us, that all the objections against a linear
arrans^ement of the species of livins; " beins^s are in their
essence foolish, and that the order of the animal series is
" necessarily linear," ^ when the exact contrary is one of
the best established and the most important truths of
zoology. Appeal to mathematicians, astronomers, pliysi
cists,^ chemists, biologists, about the ''Philosophic Posi
tive," and they all, with one consent, begin to make
protestation that, whatever M. Comte's other merits, he
has shed no light upon the philosophy of their particular
studies.
To be just, however, it must be admitted that even
M. Comte's most ardent disciples are content to be
judiciously silent about his knowledge or appreciation of
1 " Le "brielant mail snperficiel Cuvier." — Fhilosoiihie, Fositive, vi. p. 383.
9 " Pliilosophie Positive," iii. p. 339. s Ibid. p. 387.
Hear the late Dr. Whewell, who calls Comte " a shallow pretender," so
*as all the modern sciences, except astronomy, are concerned, and tells us
far "his pretensions to discoveries are, as Sir John Herschel has shown,
thatrdly fallaoicus." — "Comto and Positivism" Macmillan's Magazine,
aWih 18G6.
Marc
156 l^r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [viii.
tlie sciences themselves, and prefer to base tlieir master s
claims to scientific authority upon his "law of the
three states," and his " classification of the sciences. "
But here, also, I must join issue with them as completely
as others — notably Mr. Herbert Spencer — have clone
before me. A critical examination of what M. Comte
has to say about the " law of the three states " brings out
nothing but a series of more or less contradictory state-
ments of an imperfectly apprehended truth ; and his " clas-
sification of the sciences," whether regarded historically
or logically, is, in my judgment, absolutely worthless.
Let us consider the law of "the three states" as it
is put before us in the opening of the first Legon of
the " Philosophic Positive : " —
" En etudiant ainsi le developpement total de I'intelligence liumaine
dans ses diverses spheres d'activite, depnis son premier essor le plus
simple jusqu'a nos jours, je crois avoir decouvert une grande loi
fondamentale, a laquelle il est assujetti par une necessite invariable, et
qui me semble pouvoir etre solidement etablie, soit sur les preuves
rationelles fournies par la connaissance de notre organisation, soit sur
les verifications historiques resultant d'un exam en attentif du passe.
Cette loi consiste en ce que cliacune de nos conceptions principales,
chaque branclie de nos connaissances, passe successivement par trois
etats tbeoriques diii'erents ; I'etat theologique, ou fictif ; I'etat meta-
pbj^sique, ou abstrait ; ■ I'etat scientifique, ou positif. En d'autres
termes, I'esprit humain, par sa nature, emploie successivement dans
cbacune de ses recherches trois methodes de philosopher, dont le
caractere est essentiellement different et meme radicalement oppose ;
d'abord la methode theologique, ensuite la methode metaphysique, et
enfin la methode positive. De la, trois sortes de philosophie, ou de
systemes generaux de conceptions sur I'ensemble des phenomenes qui
^exduent mutuellement ; la premiere est le point de depart necessaire de
Tintelligence humaine ; la troisieme, son etat fixe et definitif ; la seconde
est uniquement destinoe a servir de transition." ^
Nothing can be more precise than these statements,
which may be put into the following propositions : —
(a) The human intellect is subjected to the law by
^ *' Philosophie Positive," i. pp. 8, 9.
7III.] TUE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM, 157
an invariable necessity, which, is demonstrable, a priori,
from the natm^e and constitution of the intellect ;
while, as a matter of historical fact, the human in-
tellect has been subjected to the law.
(6) Every branch of human knowledge passes through
the three states, necessarily beginning v/ith the first
stage.
(c) The three states mutually exclude one another,
being essentially different, and even radically opposed.
Two questions present themselves. Is M. Comte
consistent with himself in making these assertions 1
And is he consistent with fact ? I reply to both
questions in the negative ; and, as regards the first,
I bring forward as my witness a remarkable passage
which is to be found in the fourth volume of the
''Philosophic Positive" (p. 491), when M. Comte had
had time to think out, a little more fully, the notions
crudely stated in the first volume : —
" A proprement parler, la pMlosopliie theologiqne, meme dans notre
premiere enfance, individuelle ou sociale, n'a jamais pu etre rigoureuse-
ment universelle, *c'est-a-dire que, pour les ordres quelconques de
phenomenes, les faits les plus simples et les 2^lus cominuns ont toujour s
ete regardes comme essentiellement assujettis a des lois naturelles, au lieu
d'etre attribues a V arbitraire volonte des agents surnaturels. L'illustre
Adam Smith a, par exemple, tres-heureusement remarque dans ses
essais philosopliiques, qu'on ne trouvait, en aucun temps ni en aucun
pays, un dieu pour la pesanteur. II en est ainsi, en general^ meme a
regard des sujets les 'plus compliques^ envers tous les phenomenes assez
elementaires et assez familiers pour que la parfaite invariahilite de
leurs relations effectives ait toujours dtb frapper spontanement Vobser-
vateur le moins prepare. Daus I'ordre moral et social, qu'une vaine
opposition voudrait aujourd'hui systematiquemcnt interdire a la phi-
losophie positive, il y a eu necessairement, en tout temps, la pensee
d(is lois naturelles, relativement aux plus simples phenomenes de la
vie journaliere, comme I'exige evidemment la conduite generale de
nolle existence reelle, individuelle ou sociale, qui n'aurait pu jamais
comporter aueune prevoyance quelconque, si tous les phenomenes
humains avaient ete rigoureusement attribues a des agents surnaturels,
puisque des lors la priere aurait logiquement constitue la seule res-
8
158 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [via
source imaginable pour influer sur le coiirs liabituel des actions
humaines. On doit meme remavcpier, a, ce sujet, que c^est, au contraire,
Vebauclie iipon.tanee des premieres lois iiaturelles propres aux actes indi-
viduels ou sociaux qui, fictivement transportee b, tous les phenomenes du
monde exterieur, a d'ahord fommi, dapres nos explications precedentes, le-
vrai principe fondamental de laphilosophie theologique. Ainsi^ le germe
elementaire de la philosophie positive est certainement tout aussi primiti/
au foud que celui de la philosophie theologique elle-me?ne, quoi qiHil n^ait
pu se developper que heaucoup plus tard. Une telle notion importe
extremement a la parfaite rationalite de notre theorie sociologique, puis-
que la vie humaine ne pouvant jamais ofFrir aucune veritable creation
quelconque, mais toujours une simple evolution graduelle, I'essor final
de I'esprit positif deviendrait scientifiquement incomprehensible, si,
d^s I'origine, on n'en concevait, a tous egards, les premiers rudiments
necessaires. Depuis cette situation primitive, a mesure que nos
observations se sont spontanement etendues et generalisees, cet essor,
d'abord a peine appreciable, a constamment suivi, sans cesser long-
temps d'etre subalterne, une progression tres-lente, mais continue, la
philosophie theologique restant toujours reservee pour les phenomenes,
de moins en moins nombreux, dont les lois naturelles ne pouvaient
encore etre aucunement connues."
Compare tlie propositions implicitly laid clown here
with those contained in the earlier volume, (a) As
a matter of fact, the human intellect has not been
invariably subjected to the law of the three states,
and therefore the necessity of the law cannot be
demonstrable ct 2^^^ori. (/>) Much of our knowledge
of all kinds has not passed through the three states,
and more particularly, as M. Comte is careful to point
out, not through the first, (c) The positive state has
more or less co-existed with the theological, from the
dawn of human intelligence. And, by way of com-
pleting the series of contradictions, the assertion that
the three states are " essentially different and even
radically opposed,'' is met a little lower on the same
page by the declaration that " the metaphysical state
is, at bottom, nothing but a simple general modification
of the first f while, in the fortieth Lecon, as also in the
interesting early essay entitled " Considerations phUo-
Till.] THE SCIEMTIFiG ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. 159
sopliiques sur les Sciences et les Savants (1825)," the
three states are practically reduced to two. " Le veri-
table esprit general de toute pbilosophie theologique
ou metaphysique consiste a prendre pour principe, dans
Texplication des plienomenes du monde exterieur, notre
sentiment iramediat des phenomenes humaines ; tandis
que au contraire, la philosopliie positive est toujours
caracterisee, non moins profondement, par la subordina-
tion necessaire et rationnelle de la conception de Tlionime
a celle du monde.^' ^
I leave M. Comte's disciples to settle which of these
contradictory statements expresses their master^s real
meaning. All I beg leave to remark is, that men of
science are not in the habit of paying much attention
to " laws " stated in this fashion.
The second statement is undoubtedly far more rational
and consistent with fact than the first ; but I cannot
think it is a just or adequate account of the growth
of intelligence, either in the individual man, or in the
human species. Any one who will carefully watch the
development of the intellect of a child wdll perceive
that, from the first, its mind is mirroring nature in two
difierent ways. On the one hand, it is merely drinking
in sensations and building up associations, while it forms
conceptions of things and their relations which are more
thoroughly " positive," or devoid of entanglement with
hypotheses of any kind, than they will ever be in after-
life. No child has recourse to imaginary personifications
in order to account for tlie ordinary properties of objects
which are not alive, or do not represent living things. It
does not imagine that the taste of sugar is brought about
by a god of sweetness, or that a spirit of jumping causes
a ball to bound. Such phaenomena, which form the basis
of a very large part of its ideas, are taken as matters
' " Philosophie Positive," iii. p, 188.
160 LAY SERMONS, dD DRESSES, AND REVIEW'S. [viii.
of course — as ultimate facts wliicli suggest no difficulty
and need no explanation . So far as all tliese common,
though important, phsenomena are concerned, the child's
mind is in what Si. Comte would call the "positive''
state.
But, side by side with this mental condition, there rises
another. The child becomes aware of itself as a source
of action and a subject of passion and of thought. The
acts which follow upon its own desires are among the
most interesting and prominent of surrounding occur-
rences ; and these acts, again, plainly arise either out of
affections caused by surrounding things or of other
changes in itself Among these surrounding things, the
most interesting and important are mother and father,
brethren and nurses. The hypothesis that these won-
derful creatures are of like nature to itself is speedily
forced upon the child's mind ; and this primitive piece
of anthropomorphism turns out to be a highly successful
speculation, which finds its justification at every turn.
No wonder, then, that it is extended to other simihuiy
interesting objects which are not too unlike these — to
the dog, the cat, and the canary, the doll, the toy, and
the picture-book — that these are endowed with v/ills and
affections, and with capacities for being "good" and
" naughty." But surely it would be a mere perversion of
lang;ua2;e to call this a " theoloo;ical " state of mind, either
in the proper sense of the word * theological," or as con-
trasted with " scientific " or " positive.''. The child does
not worship either father or mother, dog or doll. On
the contrary, nothing is more curious than the absolute
irreverence, if I may so say, of a kindly-treated young-
child ; its tendency to believe in itself as the centre
of the universe, and its disposition to exercise despotic
tyranny over those who could crush it with a finger.
Still less is there anything unscientific, or an ti- scientific,
viii.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM, 161
in tills infantile antliropomorpliism. The cliild observes
that many plisenomena are the consequences of affections
of itself; it soon has excellent reasons for the belief
that many other phsenomena are consequences of the
affections of other beings, more or less like itself. And
having thus good evidence for believing that many of
the most interesting occurrences about it are explicable
on the hypothesis that they are the work of intelligences
like itself — having discovered a vera causa for many
phsenomena — why should the cliild limit the apphcation
of so fruitful an hypothesis? The dog has a sort of
intelligence, so as the cat ; why should not the doll
and the picture-book also have a share, proportioned
to their likeness to intelligent things ?
The only limit which does arise is exactly that which,
as a matter of science, should arise ; that is to say, the
anthropomorphic interpretation is applied only to those
phsenomena which, in their general nature, or their
apparent capriciousness, resemble those which the child
observes to be caused by itself, or by beings like itself.
All the rest are regarded as things which explain them-
selves, or are inexplicable.
It is only at a later stage of intellectual development
that the intelligence of man awakes to the apparent
conflict between the anthropomorphic, and what I may
call the physical,-^ aspect of nature, and either endeavours
to extend the anthropomorphic view over the whole of
nature — which is the tendency of theology ; or to give
the same exclusive predominance to the physical view —
^ The word "positive" is in every way ol)jectionable. In one sense it
suggests tliat mental quality wliicli was undoubtedly largely developed in
M. Comte, but can best be dispensed with in a philosopher ; in another, it is
unfortunate in its application to a system which starts with enormous nega-
tions ; in its third, and specially philosojphical sense, as implying a system of
tiiought which assumes nothing beyond the content of observed facts, it
ianplies that which never did exist, and never -will.
L62 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [viii.
whicli is the tendency of science ; or adopts a middle
course, and taking from the anthropomorphic view its
tendency to personify, and from the physical view its
tendency to exclude volition and affection, ends in what
M. Comte calls the "metaphysical" state — "metaphy-
sical,'' in M. Comte's writings, being a general term of
abuse for anything he does not like.
What is true of the individual is, mutatis Tntitandis,
true of the intellectual development of the species. It
is absurd to say of men in a state of primitive savagery,
that all their conceptions are in a theological state.
Nine-tenths of them are eminently realistic, and as
" positive " as ignorance and narrowness can make them.
It no more occurs to a savage than it does to a child,
to ask the why of the daily and ordinary occurrences
which form the greater part of his mental life. But
in regard to the more striking, or out-of-the-way, events,
which force him to speculate, he is highly anthropo-
morphic ; and, as compared with a child, his anthropo-
morphism is complicated by the intense impression
which the death of his own kind makes upon him,
as indeed it well may. The warrior, full of ferocious
energy, perhaps the despotic chief of his tribe, is
suddenly struck down. A child may insult the man
a moment before so awful ; a fly rests, undisturbed, on
the lips from which undisputed command issued. And
yet the bodily aspect of the man seems hardly more
altered than when he slept, and, sleeping, seemed to
himself to leave his body and wander through dream-
land. What then if that something, which is the essence
of the man, has really been made to wander by the
violence done to it, and is unable, or has forgotten,
to come back to its shell? Will it not retain some-
what of the powers it possessed during life ? May
it not help us if it be pleased, or (as seems to be
rjTi.j THE SCIENTIFIG ASPECTS OF FOSITIFISJf. 1G3
by far tlie more genera] impression) hurt us if it be
angered ? Will it not be well to do towards it those
things which would have soothed the man and put
him in good humour during his life? It is impossible
to study trustworthy accounts of savage thought with-
out seeing that some such train of ideas as this lies at
the bottom of their speculative beliefs.
There are savages without God, in any proper sense
of the word, but none without ghosts, And the Fetish-
ism, Ancestor-worship, Hero-worship, and Demonology
of primitive savages, are all, I believe, different manners
of expression of their belief in ghosts, and of the
anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the-way events,
which is its concomitant. AVitchcraft and sorcery are
the practical expressions of these beliefs; and they
stand in the same relation to religious worship as the
simple anthropomorphism of children, or savages, does
to theology.
In the progress of the species from savagery to
advanced civilization, anthropomorphism grows into
theology, while physicism (if I may so call it) develops
into science ; but the development of the two is con-
temporaneous, not successive. For each, there long
exists an assured province which is not invaded by
the other ; while, between the two, lies a debateable land,
ruled by a sort of bastards, who owe their complexion
to physicism and their substance to anthropomorphism,
and are M. Comte's particular aversions — metaphysical
entities.
But, as the ages lengthen, the borders of Physicism
increase. The territories of the bastards are all annexed
to science ; and even Theology, in her purer forms,
has ceased to be anthropomorphic, however she may
talk. Anthropomorphism has taken stand in its last
fortress — man himselL But science closely invests the
164 ^^^ SI:RM0NS, JDBBESSES, and reviews, [viiL
walls ; and Philosophers gird themselves for battle
upon the last and greatest of all speculative problems-
Does human nature possess any free, volitional, or truly
anthropomorphic element, or is it only the cunningest
of all Nature's clocks ? Some, among whom I count
myself, think that the battle will for ever remain a
drawn one, and that, for all practical purposes, this result
is as good as anthropomorphism winning the day.
The classification of the sciences, which, in the eyes
of M. Comte's adherents, constitutes his second great
claim to the dignity of a scientific philosopher, appears
to me to be open to just the same objections as the
law of the three states. It is inconsistent in itself, and
it is inconsistent with fact. Let us consider the main
points of this classification successively : — ■
" II faut distingner par rapport a tons les- ordres des plienomenes,
deux genres de sciences naturelles ; les unes abstraites, generales, ont
pour objet la decouverte des lois qui regissent les diverses classes de
plienomenes, en considerant tons les cas qu'on pent concevoir; les
autres concretes, particulieres, descriptives, et qn'on designe quelquefois
sons le nom des sciences natnrelles proprement dites, consistent dans
I'application de ces lois a I'liistoire effective des differents etres
existants." ^
The " abstract" sciences are subsequently said to be
mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology,
and social physics — the titles of the two latter being
subsequently changed to biology and sociology. M.
Comte exemplifies the distinction between his abstract
and his concrete sciences as follows : —
*' On ponrra d'abord Tapercevoir tres-nettement en comparant, d'une
part, la physiologie generate, et d'une autre part la zoologie et la
botanique proprement dites. Ce sont evidemment, en effet, deux
travaux d'un caractere fort distinct, que d'etudier, en general, les lois
de la vie, on de determiner le mode d'existence de chaque corps vivant,
en particulier. Cette secov.de etvde, en outre, est necessairemcnt fondet
sur la previiiere" — P. 57.
» " Pliilosopliie PoKitive," i. p. 53
Till.] mE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. 165
All the unreality and mere bookishness of M. Comte's
knowledge of pliysical science comes out in the passage
I have italicised. " The special study of living beings
is based upon a general study of the laws of life!''
What little I know about the matter leads me to think
that, if M. Conite had possessed the slightest practical
acquaintance with biological science, he would have
turned his phraseology upside down, and have perceived
that we can have no knowledge of the general laws
of life, except that wdiich is based upon the study of
particular living beings.
The illustration is surely unluckily chosen ; but the
language in which these so-called abstract sciences are
defined seems to me to be still more open to criticism.
With, what pro|)riety can astronomy, or physics, or
chemistry, or biology, be said to occupy themselves
with the consideration of *' all conceivable cases''' which
fall within their respective provinces ? Does the as-
tronomer occupy himself with any other system of the
universe than that which is visible to him '? Does he
speculate upon the possible movements of bodies which
may attract one another in the inverse proportion of the
cube of their distances, say? Does biology, whether
"abstract" or "concrete," occupy itself with any other
form of life than those which exist, or have existed ?
And, if the abstract sciences embrace all conceivable
cases of the operation of the laws with wdiich they
are concerned, would not they, necessarily, embrace the
subjects of the concrete sciences, which, inasmuch as
they exist, must needs be conceivable ? In fact, no such
distinction as that which M. Comte draws is tenable.
The first stage of his classification breaks by its own
weio^ht.
But granting M. Comte his six abstract sciences, he
proceeds to arrange them according to what he calk
166 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [viii.
their natural order or Merarcliy, tlicir places in this
hierarchy bein;^ determined by the degree of generality
and simplicity of the conceptions with which they
deal. Mathematics occupies the first, astronomy the
second, physics the third, chemistry the fourth, biology
the fifth, and sociology the sixth and last place in the
series. M. Comte's arguments in favour of this classi-
fication are first —
** Sa conformite essentielle avec la co-ordination, en qnelqne sorte
spontanee, qui se tronve en effet implicitement admise par les savants
livres a I'etude dea diverse branches de la ptiilosopliie natiu?elle."
But I absolutely deny the existence of this conformity.
If there is one thing clear about the progress of modern
science, it is the tendency to reduce all scientific
problems, except those which are purely mathematical,
to questions of molecular physics — that is to say, to
the attractions, repulsions, motions, and co-ordination
of the ultimate particles of matter. Social phsenomena
are the result of the inreraction of the components of
society, or men, with one another and the surrounding
imiverse. But, in the language of physical science,
which, uy the nature of the case, is materialistic, the
actions of men, so fiir as they are recognisable by
science, are the results of molecular changes in the
ma-ter of which they are composed ; and, in the long
run, these must come into the hands of the physicial.
A fortiori, the phsenomena of biology and of chemistry
are, in their ultimate analysis, questions of molecular
physics. Indeed, the fact is acknowledged by all
chemists and biologists who look beyond their imme-
diate occupations. And it is to be observed, that the
phsenomena of biology are as directly and immediately con-
nected with molecular physics as are those of chemistry.
Molar physics, chemistry, and biology are not three
fiii.J THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. 16 7
successive steps in the ladder of knowledge, as M.
Comte would have us believe, but three branches
springing from the common stem of molecular physics.
As to astronomy, I am at a loss to understand how
any one who will give a moment's attention to the
nature of the science can fail to see that it consists of
two parts : first, of a description of the phsenomena,
which is as much entitled as descriptive zoology, or
botany, is, to the name of natural history ; and, secondly,
of an explanation of the phaenomena, furnished by the
laws of a force — gravitation — the study of which is as
much a part of physics, as is that of heat, or electricity.
It would be just as reasonable to make the study of
the heat of the sun a science preliminary to the rest
of thermotics, as to place the study of the attraction of
the bodies, which compose the universe in general,
before that of the particular terrestrial bodies, which
alone we can experimentally know. Astronomy, in fact,
owes its perfection to the circumstance that it is the
only branch of natural history, the phsenomena of which
are largely expressible by mathematical conceptions,
and which can be, to a great extent, explained by the
application of very simple physical laws.
With regard to mathematics, it is to be observed, in
the first place, that M. Comte mixes up under that
head the pure relations of space and of quantity, which
are properly included under the name, with rational
mechanics and statics, which are mathematical deve-
lopments of the most general conceptions of physics,
namely, the notions of force and of motion. Eelegating
these to their proper place in physics, we have left pure
mathematics, which can stand neither at the head, nor
at the tail, of any hierarchy of the sciences, since, like
logic, it is equally related to all ; though the enormous
practical difficulty of applying mathematics to the more
168 LAY SERMONS, JDDHESSES, AND REVIEWS [viii.
complex plia3nomena of nature removes them, for the
present, out of its sphere.
On this subject of mathematics, again, M. Comte
indulges in assertions which can only be accounted for
by his total ignorance of physical science practically.
As for example : —
"C'est done par I'etude des mathematiqiies, et seulement par elle,
que Ton pent se faire ime idee juste et aiDprofondie de ce que c'est
qu'une science. C^est la imiquement qu'on doit chercher a connaitre
avec precision la methodx generale que Veqjrit humain emploie constam-
ment dans toutes ses recherches positives, parce que nulle part ailleurs
les questions ne sont resolues q'une nmniere aussi complete et les
deductions prolongees aussi loin avec une severite rigoureuse. C'est
la ^galement que notre entendement a donne les plus grandes preuves
de sa force, parce que les idees qu'il j considere sont du plus baut
degre d'abstraction possible dans I'ordre positif. Toute education
scientifigue qui ne commence point par une telle etude peche done neces-
sairement par sa base." ^
That is to say, the only study which can confer "a just
and comprehensive idea of what is meant by science,^'
and, at the same time, furnish an exact conception of
the general method of scientific investigation, is that
which knows nothing of observation, nothing of experi-
ment, nothing of induction, nothing of causation ! And
education, the whole secret of which consists in proceed-
ing from the easy to the difficult, the concrete to the
abstract, ought to be turned the other way, and pass
from the abstract to the concrete.
M. Comte puts a second argument in favour of his
hierarchy of the sciences thus : —
"Un second caractere tres-essentiel de notre classification, c'est
d'etre necessairement conforme a I'ordre effectif du developpement de
la philosophie naturelle. C'est ce que verifie tout ce qu'on sait do
riiistoire des sciences." ^
But Mr. Spencer has so thoroughly and completely
demonstrated the absence of any correspondence between
' **riiilosophie Positive," i p. 99. 2 ii^i^^^ i p, 77,
viu.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF FOSITIFISM. 169
the historical clevelopment of the sciences, and their
position in the Comtean hierarchy, in his essay on the
"Genesis of Science," that I shall not waste time in
repeating his refutation,
A third proposition in support of the Comtean classi-
fication of the sciences stands as follows: —
"En troisieme lien cette classification presente la propriete tr^s-
remarquable de marquer exactement la perfection relative des diffe-
rentes sciences, laquelle consiste essentiellement dans le degre de
precision des connaissances et dans leur co-ordination plus on moins
intime." ^
I am quite unable to understand the distinction which
M. Comte endeavours to draw in this passage in spite
of his amplifications further on. Every science must
consist of precise knowledge, and that knowledge must
be co-ordinated into general proportions, or it is not
science. When M. Comte, in exemplification of the
statement I have cited, says that "les phenomenes
organiques ne comportent qu'une etude a la fois moins
exacte et moins systematique que les phenomenes des
corps bruts," I am at a loss to comprehend what he
means. If I affirm that ''when a motor nerve is irri-
tated, the muscle connected with it becomes simultane-
ously shorter and thicker, without changing its volume,"
it appears to me that the statement is as precise or exact
(and not merely as true) as that of the physicist who
should say, that ''when a piece of iron is heated, it
l)ecomes simultaneously longer and thicker and increases
in volume ;" nor can I discover any difi'erence, in point
of precision, between the statement of the morphological
law that, *' animals which suckle their young have two
occipital condyles," and the enunciation of the physical
law that "water subjected to electrolysis is replaced by
an equal weight of the gases, oxygen and hydrogen/^
* "Philosophie Positive,"!, p. 73
170 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REfiEWS. [viii.
A.S for anatomical or physiological investigation being
less "systematic" than that of the physicist or chemist,
the assertion is simply unaccountable. The methods of
physical science are everywhere the same in principle,
and the physiological investigator who was not *' sys-
tematic '' would, on the whole, break down rather sooner
than the inquirer into simpler subjects.
Thus M. Comte's classification of the sciences, under
all its aspects, appears to me to be a complete failure.
It is impossible, in an article which is already too long,
to inquire how it may be replaced by a better ; and it is
the less necessary to do so, as a second edition of Mr.
Spencers remarkable essay on this subject has just been
published. After wading through pages of the long-
winded confusion and second-hand iiif mation of the
"Philosophic Positive," at the risk of a crise cerehrale —
it is as good as a shower-bath to turn to the "Classi-
fication of the Sciences," and refresh oneself with Mr.
SpeDcer's profound thought, precise knowledge, and clear
lanffuaore.
II. The second proposition to which I have committed
myself, in the paper to which I have been obliged to
refer so often, is, that the "Positive Philosophy" contains
" a great deal which is as thoroughly antagonistic to the
very essence of science as is anything in ultramontane
Catholicism."
AYhat I refer to in these words, is, on the one hand
the doocmatism and narrowness which so often mark
M. Comte's discussion of doctrines which he does not
like, and reduce his expressions of opinion to mere
passionate puerilities ; as, for example, when he is
arguing against the assumption of an ether, or when
he is talking (I cannot call it arguing) against pyscho-
lugy, or political economy. On the other hand, I allude
to the spirit of meddling systematization and regulatioD
VIII.] THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM, 171
wliich animates even the " Philosopliie Positive," and
breaks out, in tlie latter volumes of that work, into no
uncertain foreshadowing of the anii-scientific monstro-
sities of Comte's later writings.
Those who try to draAV a line of demarcation between
the spiiit of the ** Philosophie Positive," and that of
the "Politique'' and its successors, (if I may express
an opinion from fragmentary knowledge of these last,)
must have overlooked, or forgotten, what Comte himself
labours to show, and indeed succeeds in proving, in
the *'Appendice General" of the *' Politique Positive/'
"Des mon debut," he writes, **je tentai de ^fonder \q
nouveau pouvoir spirituel que j'institue anjourd'hui."
*'Ma politique, loin d'etre aucunement opposee a ma
philosophic, en constitue tellement la suite naturelle
que celle-ci fut directement instituee pour scrvir de base
a celle-]a comme le prouve cet appendice." ^
This is quite true. In the remarkable essay entitled
"Considerations sur le Ponvoir spirituel," published in
March 1826, Comte advocates the establishment of a
" modern spiritual power," which, he anticipates, may
exercise an even greater influcLce over temporal affairs,
than did the Catholic clergy, at the height of their
vigour and independence, in the twelfth century. This
spiritual power is, in fact, to govern opinion, and to
have the supreme control over education, in each
nation of the West; and the spiritual powers of the
several European peoples are to be associated together
and placed under a common direction or " souverainete
spirituel] e."
A system of "Catholicism minus Christianity" was
therefore completely organized in Comte's mind, four
years before the first volume of the "Philosophic
Positive " vras written ; and, naturally, the papal spirit
1 Log. cit., Preface Speciale, pp. i ii
L 72 L^r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS [viii.
sliows itself in tliat work, not only in tlie ways I
have already mentioned, but, notably, in the attack
on liberty of conscience wliich breaks out in the fourth
volume : — •
*'I1 n'y a point cle lilDerte cle conscience en astronomie, en physique,
en chimie, en physiologie meme, en ce sens que chacun trouverait
absurde de ne pas croire de coniiance aux principes etablis dans les
sciences x^ar les homines competents."
" Nothing in ultramontane Catholicism " can, in my
judgment, be more completely sacerdotal, more entirely
anti-scientific, than this dictum. All the great steps in
the advancement of science have been made by just
those men who have not hesitated to doubt the "prin-
ciples established in the sciences by competent persons ; "
and the great teaching of science — the great use of it as
an instrument of mental discipline — is its constant incul-
cation of the maxim, that the sole ground on which any
statement has a right to be believed is the impossibility
of refuting it.
Thus, without travelling beyond the limits of the
"Philosophic Positive,'' we find its author contempla-
ting the establishm±ent of a system of society, in which
an organized spiritual power shall over-ride and direct
the temporal power, as completely as the Innocents and
Gregorys tried to govern Europe in the middle ages ; and
repudiating the exercise of liberty of conscience against
the " hommes com]pete-nts,'' of whom, by the assump-
tion, the new priesthood would be composed. Was
Mr. Congreve as forgetful of this, as he seems to have
been of some other parts of the " Philosophic Positive,"
when he wrote, that "in any limited, careful use of
the term, no candid man could say that the Positive
Philosophy contained a great deal as thoroughly anta-
VIII. J THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF POSITIVISM. I73
gonistic to [the very essence of^] science as Catholi-
cism " ?
M. Comte, it will have been observed, desires to retain
the whole of Catholic organization ; and the logical
practical result of this part of his doctrine wonld be
the establishment of something corresponding with that
eminently Catholic, but admittedly anti-scientific, insti-
tution— the Holy Office.
I hope I have said enough to show that I wrote the few
lines I devoted to M. Comte and his philosophy, neither
unguardedly nor ignorantly, still less maliciously. I
shall be sorry if what I have now added, in my own
justification, should lead any to supdose that I think
M. Comte^s works worthless ; or that I do not heartily
respect, and sympathise wdth, those who have been im-
pelled by him to think deeply upon social problems,
and to strive nobly for social regeneration. It is the
virtue of that impulse, I believe, which will save
the name and fame of Auguste Comte from oblivion.
As for his philosophy, I* part v/ith it by quoting
his own words, reported to me by a quondam Comtist,
now an eminent member of the Institute of France,
M. Charles Eobin : —
"La Philosopliie est une tentative incessante de Tesprit liumain pour
arriver au repos : mais elle se trouve incessamnent aussi derangee par
les progres continus de la science. De la vient pour le philosophe
I'obligation de refaire chaque soir la syntliese de ses conceptions ; et
un jour viendra oii I'liomnie raisonnable ne fera plus d'autre priere
du soir."
* Mr. Congreve leaves out these important words, wticli show that I refci
to the tjpirit, and not to the details of science.
IX.
A PIECE OF CHALK.
A LECTUHE TO WOUKI^^G MEN".
Iff a well were to be sunk at our feet in tlie midst of
the city of Norwieb, the diggers would very soon find
themselves at work in that white substance almost too
soft to be called rock, with which we are all familiar as
"chalk."
Not only here, but over the whole county of Norfolk,
the well-sinker might carry his shaft down many hundred
feet without coming to the end of the chalk ; and, on
the sea-coast, where the waves have pared away the
face of the land which breasts them, the scarped faces
of the hiofh cliffs are often whoUv formed of the same
material. Northward, the chalk may be followed as far
as Yorkshire ; on the south coast it appears abruptly
in the picturesque west embays of Dorset, and breaks
into the Needles of the Isle of Wight; while on the
shores of Kent it supplies that long line of white cliffs
to which England owes her name of Albion.
Were the thin soil which covers it all washed away,
a curved band of white chalk, here broader, and there
narrower, might be followed diagonally across England
from Lulworth in Dorset, to Flamborough Head in
s.] ON A PIECE OF CHALK. 175
Yorksliire — a distance of over 280 miles as the crow
flies.
From tliis band to the Nortli Sea, on the east, and the
Channel, on the south, the chalk is largely hidden by
other deposits ; but, except in the Weald of Kent and
Sussex, it enters into the very foundation of all the
south-eastern counties.
Attaining, as it does in some places, a thickness of
more than a thousand feet, the English chalk must be
admitted to be a mass of considerable magnitude.
Nevertheless, it covers but an insignificant portion of
the whole area occupied by the chalk formation of the
globe, which has precisely the same general characters
as ours, and is found in detached patches, some less,
and others more extensive, than the English.
Chalk occurs in north-west Ireland ; it stretches over
a large part of France, — the chalk which underlies Paris
being, in fact, a continuation of that of the London
basin ; it runs through Denmark and Central Europe, and
extends southward to North Africa ; while eastward, it
appears in the Crimea and in Syria, and may be traced
as far as the shores of the Sea of Aral, in Central Asia.
If all the points at which true chalk occurs were
circumscribed, they would lie within an irrregular oval
about 3,000 miles in long diameter — the area of which
would be as great as that of Europe, and would many
times exceed that of the largest existing inland sea —
the Mediterranean.
Thus the chalk is no unimportant element in the
masonry of the earth's crust, and it impresses a peculiar
stamp, varying with the conditions to which it is
exposed, on the scenery of the districts in which it
occurs. The undulating downs and rounded coombs,
covered with sweet-grassed turf, of our inland chalk
country, have a peacefully domestic and mutton-
176 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [ix.
suggesting prettiness, but can liardly be called either
grand or beautiful. But on our southern coasts, the
wall-sided cliffs, many hundred feet high, with vast
needles and pinnacles standing out in the sea, sharp
and solitary enough to serve as perches for the wary
cormorant, confer a wonderful beauty and grandeur
upon the chalk headlands. And, in the East, chalk has
its share in the formation of some of the most venerable
of mountain ranges, such as the Lebanon.
What is this wide-spread component of the surface of
the earth ? and whence did it come ?
You may think this no very hopeful inquiry. You
may not unnaturally suppose that the attempt to solve
such problems as these can lead to no result, save that
of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations, in-
capable of refutation and of verification.
If such were really the case, I should have selected
some other subject than a ''piece of chalk ^' for my
discourse. But, in truth, after much' deliberation, I
have been unable to think of any topic which would so
well enable me to lead vou to see how solid is the foun-
dation upon which some of the most startling conclusions
of physical science rest.
A great chapter of the history of the world is written
in the chalk. Few passages in the history of man can
be supported by such an overwhelming mass of direct
and indirect evidence as that which testifies to the truth
of the fragment of the history of the globe, which I hope
to enable you to read, with your own eyes, to-night.
Let me add, that few chapters of human history have
a more profound significance for ourselves. I weigh
my words well when I assert, that the man who should
know the true history of the bit of chalk which every
carpenter carries about in his breeches-pocket, though
13.] ON A FIECE OF CHALK, 177
ignorant of all otlier history, is likely, if he will think
his knowledo^e out to its ultimate results, to have a truer,
and therefore a better, conception of this wonderful
universe, and of man's relation to it, than the most
learned student who is deep-read, in the records of
humanity and. ignorant of those of Nature.
The language of the chalk is not hard to learn, not
nearly so hard as Latin, if you only want to get at the
broad features of the story it has to tell ; and I pro-
pose that we now set to work to spell that story out
together.
We all know that if we " burn " chalk the result
is quicklime. Chalk, in fact, is a compound of carbonic
acid gas, and lime, and when you make it very hot the
carbonic acid flies away and the lime is left.
By this method of procedure we see the lime, but we
do not see the carbonic acid. If, on the other hand, you
were to powder a little chalk and drop it into a good
de<al of strong vinegar, there would be a great bubbling
and fizzing, a.nd, finally, a clear liquid, in which no sign
of chalk would appear. Here you see the carbonic acid
in the bubbles ; the lime, dissolved in the vineo-ar,
vanishes from sight. There are a great many other
ways of showing that chalk is essentially nothing but
carbonic acid and quicklime. Chemists enunciate the
result of all the experiments which prove this, by
stating that chalk is almost wholly composed of " car-
bonate of lim.e."
It is desirable for us to start from the knowledge of
this fact, though it may not seem to help us very far
towards what we seek. For carbonate of lime is a widely-
spread substance, and is met with under very various
conditions. All sorts of limestones are composed of
more or less pure carbonate of lime. The crust which
is often deposited by waters which have drained through
178 l^r SIMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [ix
limestone rocks, in tlie form of wliat are called stalag-
mites and stalactites, is carbonate of lime. Or, to take
a more familiar example, the fur on tke inside of a tea-
kettle is carbonate of lime ; and, for anything chemistry
tells us to the contrary, the chalk might be a kind of
gigantic fur upon the bottom of the earth-kettle, which
is kept pretty hot below.
Let us. try another method of making the chalk tell
us its own history. To the unassisted eye chalk looks
simply like a very loose and open kind of stone. But
it is possible to grind a slice of chalk down so thin that
you can see through it — until it is thin enough, in fact,
to be examined with any magnifying powder that may
be thought desirable. A thin slice of the fur of a
kettle might be made in the same way. If it were
examined microscopically, it would show itself to be
a more or less distinctly lamina^ted mineral substance,
and nothing more.
But the slice of chalk presents a totally different
appearance when placed under the microscope. The
general mass of it is made up of very minute granules ;
but, imbedded in this matrix, are innumerable bodies,
some smaller and some larger, but, on a rough average,
not more than a hundredth of an inch in diameter,
having a well-defined shape and structure. A cubic
inch of some specimens of chalk may contain hundreds
of thousands of these bodies, compacted together with
incalculable millions of the granules.
The examination of a transparent slice gives a good
notion of the manner in which the components of the
chalk are arranged, and of their relative proportions.
But, by rubbing up some chalk with a brush in water
and then pouring off the milky fluid, so as to obtain
sediments of different degrees of fineness, the granules
and the minute rounded bodies may be pretty well
IX.] ON A PIECE OF CHALK, 179
separated from one anotlier, and submitted to micro-
scopic examination, either as opaque or as transparent
objects. By combining the views obtained in these
various methods, each of the rounded bodies may be
proved to be a beautifully-constructed calcareous fabric,
made up of a number of chambers, communicating freely
with one another. The chambered bodies are of various
forms. One of the commonest is something like a
badly-grown raspberry, being formed of a number of
nearly globular chambers of different sizes congregated
together. It is called Glohigerinay and some specimens
of chalk consist of little else than Glohigerince and
granules.
Let us fix our attention upon the Glohigerina. It is
the spoor of the game we are tracking. If we can learn
what it is and what are the conditions of its existence,
we shall see our way to the origin and past history of
the chalk.
A suggestion which may naturally enough present
itself is, that these curious bodies are the result of some
process of aggregation which has taken place in the
carbonate of lime ; that, just as in winter, the rime on
our windows simulates the most delicate and elegantly
arborescent foliage — proving that the mere mineral water
may, under certain conditions, assume the outward form
of organic bodies — so this mineral substance, carbonate
of lime, hidden away in the bowels of the earth, has
taken the shape of these chambered bodies. I am not
raising a merely fanciful and unreal objection. Very
learned men, in former days, have even entertained the
notion that all the formed things found in rocks are of
this nature ; and if no such conception is at present
held to be admissible, it is because Ions: and varied
experience has now shown that mineral matter never
does assume the form and structure we find in fossils.
180 LAT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [ix.
If any one were to try to persuade yon tliat an oyster-
shell (whicli is also chiefly composed of carbonate of
lime) tad crystallized out of sea- water, I suppose you
would laugh at the absurdity. Your laughter would
be justified by the fact that all experience tends to
show that oyster-shells are formed by the agency of
oysters, and in no other way. And if there were no
better reasons, we should be justified, on like grounds,
in believing that Globigerina is not the product of any-
thing but vital activity.
Happily, however, better evidence in proof of tho,
organic nature of the Glohigerince than that of analogy
is forthcoming. It so happens that calcareous skeletons,
exactly similar to the Globigerince of the chalk, are
being formed, at the present moment, by minute living
creatures, which flourish in multitudes, literally more
numerous than the sands of the sea-shore, over a large
extent of that part of the earth's surface which is
covered by the ocean.
The history of the discovery of these living Globi-
gerince, and of the part which they play in rock
buildiug, is singular enough. It is a discovery which,
like others of no less scientific importance, has arisen,
incidentally, out of work devoted to very difierent and
exceedingly practical interests.
When men first took to the sea, they speedily learned
to look out for shoals and rocks; and the more the
burthen of their ships increased, the more imperatively
necessary it became for sailors to ascertain with precision
the depth of the waters they traversed. Out of this
necessity grew the use of the lead and sounding line ;
and, ultimately, marine-surveying, which is the recording
of the form of coasts and of the depth of the sea, as
ascertained by the sounding-lead, upon charts.
At the same time, it became desirable to ascertain
IX. j ON A PIECE OF CHAEK. 181
and to indicate tlie nature of tlie sea-bottom, since this
circumstance greatly affects its goodness as liolding
ground for anchors. Some ingenious tar, whose name
deserves a better fate than the oblivion into which it
has fallen, attained this object by " arming '' the bottom
of the lead with a lump of grease, to w^hich more or less
of the sand or mud, or broken shells, as the case might
be, adhered, and was brought to the surface. But,
however well adapted such an apparatus might be for
rough nautical purposes, scientific accuracy could not be
expected from the armed lead, and to remedy its defects
(especially when applied to sounding in great depths)
Lieut. Brooke, of the American Navy, some years ago
invented a most ingenious machine, by which a consider-
able portion of the superficial layer of the sea-bottom
can be scooped out and brought up, from any depth to
which the lead descends.
In 1853, Lieut. Brooke obtained mud from the bottom
of the North Atlantic, between Newfoundland and the
Azores, at a depth of more than 10,000 feet, or two
miles, by the help of this sounding apparatus. The
specimens were sent for examination to Ehrenberg of
Berlin, and to Bailey of West Point, and those able
microscopists found that this deep-sea mud w^as
almost entirely composed of the skeletons of living
organisms — the greater proportion of these being just
like the Glohigerince already known to occur in the
chalk.
Thus far, the w^ork had been carried on simply in the
interests of science, but Lieut. Brooke's method of sound-
ing acquired a high commercial value, when the enter-
prise of laying down the telegraph-cable between this
country and the United States was undertaken. For
it became a matter of immense importance to know,
not only the depth of the sea over the whole line along
182 LAY SERMONS, JDDRESSFS, AND REVIEWS, [ix.
wMcL. tlie cable was to be laid, but tlie exact nature of
tbe bottom, so as to guard against chances of cutting or
fraying the strands of that costly rope. The Admiralty
consequently ordered Captain Dayman, an old friend and
shipmate of mine, to ascertain the depth over the whole
line of the cable, and to bring back specimens of the
bottom. In former days, such a command as this might
have sounded very much like one of the impossible things
which the young prince in the Fairy Tales is ordered to
do before he can obtain the hand of the Princess. How-
ever, in the months of June and July 1857, my friend
performed the task assigned to him with great expedition
and precision, without, so far as I know, having met with
any reward of that kind. The specimens of Atlantic
mud which he procured were sent to me to be examined
and reported upon.-^
The result of all these operations is, that we know the
contours and the nature of the surfiice-soil covered by
the North Atlantic, for a distance of 1,700 miles from
east to west, as well as we know that of any part of
the dry land.
It is a prodigious plain — one of the widest and most
even plains in the world. If the sea were drained off,
you might drive a wagon all the way from Valentia, on
tlie west coast of Ireland, to Trinity Bay, in Newfound-
land. And, except upon one sharp incline about 200
miles from Valentia, I am not quite sure that it would
even be necessary to put the skid on, so gentle are the
ascents and descents upon that long route. From Valentia
* See Appondix to Captain Dajninu's "DeejD-sea Soundings in the North
Atlantic Ocean, between Ireland and. Newfoundland, made in H.M.S.
Cycloxjs. Published by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,
1858." They have siuce formed the subject of an elaborate Memoir by
Messrs. Parker and Jones, published in the Fhilosophical Transactions fo?
1&G5.
<s.] ON A PIECE OF CHALK. 183
the road would lie down-liill for about 200 miles to the
point at which the bottom is now covered by 1,700
fathoms of sea-water. Then would come the central
plain, more than a thousand miles wide, the inequalities
of the surface of which would be hardly perceptible,
though the depth of water upon it now varies from
10,000 to 15,000 feet; and there are places in which
Mont Blanc might be sunk without showing its peak
above water. Beyond this, the ascent on the American
side commences, and gradually leads, for about 300
miles, to the Newfoundland shore.
Almost the whole of the bottom of this central plain
(which extends for many hundred miles in a north and
south direction) is covered by a fine mud, which, when
brought to the surface, dries into a greyish-white friable
substance. You can write with this on a blackboard, if
you are so inclined ; and, to the eye, it is cjuite like very
soft, greyish chalk. Examined chemically, it proves to
be composed almost wholly of carbonate of lime ; and if
you make a section of it, in the same way as that of the
piece of chalk was made, and view it with the micro-
scope, it presents inuumerable Glohigerince embedded
in a granular matrix.
Thus this deep-sea mud is substantially chalk. I say
substantially, because there are a good many minor dif-
ferences ; but as these have no bearing on the question
immediately before us, — which is the nature of the
Glohigerince of the chalk, — it is unnecessary to speak
of them.
Glohigerince of every size, from the smallest to the
largest, are associated together in the Atlantic mud, and
the chambers of many are filled by a soft animal matter.
This soft substance is, in fact, the remains of the creature
to which the Glohigerina shell, or rather skeleton, owes
its existence — and which is an animal of the simplest
184 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [ix.
imaginable description. It is, in fact, a mere particle
of liying jelly, without defined parts of any kind —
without a mouth, nerves, muscles, or distinct organs,
and only manifesting its vitality to ordinary observation
by thrusting out and retracting from all parts of its
surface, long filamentous processes, which serve for arms
and legs. Yet this amorphous particle, devoid of every-
thing which, in the higher animals, we call organs, is
capable of feeding, growing, and multiplying ; of sepa-
rating from tlie ocean the small proportion of carbonate
of lime which is dissolved in sea water ; and of
building up that substance into a skeleton for itself,
according to a pattern which can be imitated by no
other known agency.
The notion that animals can live and flourish in the
sea, at the vast depths from which apparently living
Globigerince have been brought up, does not agree very
well with our usual conceptions respecting the conditions
of animal life ; and it is not so absolutely impossible as
it might at first sight appear to be, that the Glohigerince
of the Atlantic sea-bottom do not live and die where
they are found.
As I have mentioned, the soundings from the great
Atlantic plain are almost entirely made up of Globi-
gerincE, with the granules which have been mentioned,
and some few other calcareous shells ; but a small per-
centage of the chalky mud — perhaps at most some five
per cent, of it — is of a difierent nature, and consists of
shells and skeletons composed of silex, or pure flint. These
silicious bodies belong partly to the lowly vegetable
organisms which are called Diatomacece, and partly to
the minute, and extremely simple, animals, termed
Radiolaria. It is quite certain that these creatures
do not live at the bottom of the ocean, but at its
surface — where they may be obtained in prodigious
IS.] ON A PIECE OF CHALK. 185
numbers by the use of a properly constructed net.
Hence it follows tliat these silicious organisms, though
they are not heavier than the lightest dust, must have
fallen, in some cases, through fifteen thousand feet of
water, before they reached their final resting-place on
the ocean floor. And, considering how large a surface
these bodies expose in proportion to their weight, it
is probable that they occupy a great length of time
in making their burial journey from the surface of the
Atlantic to the bottom.
But if the Radiolaria and Diatoms are thus rained
upon the bottom of the sea, from the superficial layer
of its waters in which they pass their lives, it is ob-
viously possible that the GlohigerinoB may be similarly
derived; and if they were so, it would be much more
easy to understand how they obtain their supply of food
than it is at present. Nevertheless, the positive and
negative evidence all points the other way. The
skeletons of the full-grown, deep-sea Glohigerince are
so remarkably solid and heavy in proportion to their
surface as to seem little fitted for floating ; and, as a
matter of fact, they are not to be found along with the
Diatoms and Radiolaria, in the uppermost stratum of
the open ocean.
It has been observed, again, that the abundance of
Glohigerince, in proportion to other organisms, of like
kind, increases with the depth of the sea ; and that
deep-water Glohigerince are larger than those which live
in shallower parts of the sea ; and such facts negative
the supposition that these organisms have been swept by
currents from the shallows into the dee23s of the Atlantic.
It therefore seems to be hardly doubtful that these
wonderful creatures live and die at the depths in which
they are found. ^
* During the cruise of H.M.S. Bull-dog, commanded by Sir Leopold
186 Ur SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [in.
However, the important points for ns are, tliat tlie.
living Glohigerince are exclusively marine animals, tlie
skeletons of whieli abound at tlie bottom of deep seas ;
and that there is not a shadow of reason for believing
that the habits of the Glohigermco of the chalk differed
from those of the existing species. But if this be true,
there is no escaping the conclusion that the chalk itself
is the dried mud of an ancient deep sea.
In working over the soundings collected by Captain
Dayman, I was surprised to find that many of what
I have called the " granules" of that mud, were not, as
one might have been tempted to think at first, the mere
powder and w^aste of Glohigerince, but that they had a
definite form and size. I termed these bodies " cocco-
lit/isj' and doubted their organic nature. Dr. AVallich
verified my observation, and added the interesting
discovery that, not unfrequently, bodies similar to these
"coccoliths" were aggregated together into spheroids,
which he termed " coccospheres!' So far as we knew,
these bodies, the nature of which is extremely puzzling
and problematical, were peculiar to the Atlantic
soundings.
But, a few years ago, Mr. Sorby, in making a careful
examination of the chalk by means of thin sections and
otherwise, observed, as Ehrenberg had done before him,
that much of its granular basis possesses a definite form.
Comparing these formed particles with those in the
M^Clintock, in 1860, living star-fisL. were brouglifc up, clinging to the lowest
part of tlie sounding-line, from a depth of 1,260 fathoms, midway between
Cape Farewell, in Greenland, and the Eockall banks. Dr. Wallich ascertained
that the sea-bottom at this point consisted of the ordinary GlGbigerina ooze,
and that the stomachs of the star-fishes were fuU of Glohigerince. This
discovery removes all objections to the existence of living Glohigerince at
great depths, which are based upon the supposed difficulty of maintaining
animal life under such conditions ; and it throws the burden of proof upon
those who object to the supposition that the Glohigerinc?: live and die whew
they are found.
ix] ON A FILCE OF CHALK. 187
Atlantic soundings, lie found tlie two to be identical ;
and thus proved that the chalk, like the soundino-s,
contains these mysterious coccoliths and coccos|)heres.
Here was a further and a most interesting confirmation,
from internal evidence, of the essential identity of the
chalk with modern deep-sea mud. Glohigerince, cocco-
liths, and coccospheres are found as the chief constituents
of both, and testify to the general similarity of the con-
ditions under which both have been formed.^
The evidence furnished bv the hewing;, facino- and
superposition of the stones of the Pyramids, that these
structures were built by men, has no greater weight
than the evidence that the chalk was built by Glohi-
gerince ] a,nd the belief that those ancient pyramid-
builders were terrestrial and air-breathing creatures like
ourselves, is it not better based than the conviction that
the chalk-makers lived in the sea.
But as our belief in the building of the Pyramids by
men is not only grounded on the internal evidence
afforded by these structures, but gathers strength from
multitudinous collateral proofs, and is clinched by the
total absence of any reason for a contrary belief ; so the
evidence drawn from the Globerigince that the chalk is
an ancient sea-bottom, is fortified by innumerable inde-
pendent lines of evidence : and our belief in the truth
of the conclusion to which all positive testimony tends,
receives the like negative justification from the fact that
no other hypothesis has a shadow of foundation.
It may be worth while briefly to consider a few of
these collateral proofs that the chalk was deposited at
the bottom of the sea.
* I have recently traced out the development of the " coccoliths " from a
diameter of f oVo*^ of ^^ i^ch up to their largest size (which is abouti^^joth),
and no longer cloubt that they are produced by independent organisms, which,
like the Glohigerince, live and die at the bottom of the sea.
188 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWB. [ix.
Tlie great mass of tlie clialk is composed, as we have
seen, of tlie skeletons of Glohigerince, and other simple
organisms, imbedded in granular matter. Here and
there, however, this hardened mnd of the ancient sea
reveals the remains of higher animals which have lived
and died, and left their hard parts in the mud, just as
the oysters die and leave their shells behind them, in the
mud of the present seas.
There are, at the present day, certain groups of animals
which are never found in fresh waters, being unable to
live anywhere but in the sea. Such are the corals ; those
corallines which are called Polyzoa ; those creatures
which fabricate the lamp-shells, and are called Brachio-
poda ; the pearly Nautilus^ and all animals allied to
it ; and all the forms of sea-urchins and star-fishes.
Not only are all these creatures confined to salt water
at the present day ; but, so far as our records of the past
go, the conditions of their existence have been the same :
hence, their occurrence in any deposit is as strong
evidence as can be obtained, that that deposit was
formed in the sea. Now the remains of animals of all
the kinds which have been enumerated, occur in the
chalk, in greater or less abundance ; while not one of
those forms of shell-fish which are characteristic of fresh
water has yet been observed in it.
When we consider that the remains of more than three
thousand distinct species of aquatic animals have been
discovered among the fossils of the chalk, that the great
majority of them are of such forms as are now met with
only in the sea, and that there is no reason to believe
that any one of them inhabited fresh water — the collateral
evidence that the chalk represents an ancient sea-bottom
acquires as great force as the proof derived from the
nature of the chalk itself. I think 3^ou will now allow
that I did not overstate my case when I asserted that
xj ON A PIECE OF CHALK. 189
we have as strong grounds for believing that all the vast
area of dry land, at present occupied by the chalk, was
once at the bottom of the sea, as we have for any matter
of history whatever ; while there is no justification for
any other belief
No less certain it is that the time during which
the countries we now call south-east England, France,
Germany, Poland, Kussia, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, were
more or less completely covered by a deep sea, was of
considerable duration.
We have already seen that the chalk is, in places,
more than a thousand feet thick. I think you will
agree with me, that it must have taken some time for
the skeletons of animalcules of a hundredth of an inch in
diameter to heap up such a mass as that. I have said
that throughout the thickness of the chalk the remains
of other animals are scattered. These remains are often
in the most exquisite state of preservation. The valves
of the shell-fishes are commonly adherent ; the long
spines of some of the sea-urchins, which would be de-
tached by the smallest jar, often remain in their places.
In a word, it is certain that these animals have lived
and died when the place which they now occupy was
the surface of as much of the chalk as had then been
deposited ; and that each has been covered up by the
layer of Glohigerina mud, upon which the creatures
imbedded a little higher up have, in like manner, lived
and died. But some of these remains prove the existence
of reptiles of vast size in the chalk sea. These lived
their time, and had their ancestors and descendants,
which assuredly implies time, reptiles being of slow
growth.
There is more curious evidence, again, that the process
of covering up, or, in other words, the deposit of Glohi-
gerina skeletons, did not go on very fast. It is demon-
190 LAF SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [ix
strable that an animal of tlie cretaceous sea miglit die,
that its skeleton might lie uncovered upon the sea-bottom
long enough to lose all its outward coverings and appen-
dages by putrefaction ; and that, after this had happened,
another animal might attach itself to the dead and naked
skeleton, might grow to maturity, and might itself die
before the cpJcareous mud had buried the whole.
Cases of this kind are admirably described by Sir
Charles Lyell. He speaks of the frequency with which
geologists find in the chalk a fossilized sea-urchin, to
which is attached the lower valve of a Crania. This
is a kind of shell -fish, with a shell composed of two
pieces, of wdiich, as in the oyster, one is fixed and the
other free.
" The upper valve is almost invariably wanting,
though occasion ally found in a perfect state of pre-
servation in the white chalk at some distance. In this
case, we see clearly that the sea-urchin first lived from
youth to age, then died and lost its spines, which Avero
carried away. Then the young Crania adhered to the
bared shell, grew and perished in its turn ; after w^hich,
the upper valve was separated from the lower, before
the Echinus became enveloped in chalky mud." ^
A specimen in the Museum of Practical Geology, in
Loudon, still further prolongs the period which must have
elapsed between the death of the sea-urchin, and its burial
by the GlohigerincB. For the outward face of the valve of
a Crania, which is attached to a sea-urchin (Micraster),
is itself overrun by an incrusting coralline, v/hich spreads
thence over more or less of the surface of the sea-urchin.
It folio w^s that, after the upper valve of the Crania fell
off, the surface of the attached valve must have remained
exposed long enough to allow of the growth of the whole
coralline, since corallines do not live imbedded in mud.
' '' Elements of Geology," by Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. F.E,S., p. 23.
cl] c^' a piece of chalk 191
Tlie progress of knowledge may, one day, enable ns
to deduce from such facts as tliese the maximum rate
at which the chalk can have accumulated, and thus to
arrive at the minimum duration of the chalk period.
Suppose that the valve of the Crania upon which a
coralline has fixed itself in the way just described, is so
attached to the sea-urchin that no part of it is more than
an inch above the face upon which the sea-urchin rests.
Then, as the coralline could not have fixed itselfj if the
Crania had been covered up with chalk mud, and
could not have lived had itself been so covered, it foUow^s,
that an inch of chalk mud could not have accumulated
within the time between the death and decay of the soft-
parts of the sea-urchin and the growth of the coralline to
the full size which it has attained. If the decay of the
soft parts of the sea-urchin ; the attachment, grow^th to
maturity, and decay of the Crania ; and the subsequent
attachment and growth of the coralline, took a year
(which is a low estimate enough), the accumulation of
the inch of chalk must have taken more than a year :
and the deposit of a thousand feet of chalk must,
consequently, have taken more than twelve thousand
years.
The foundation of all this calculation is, of course, a
knovrledo^e of the lenojth of time the Crania and the
coralline needed to attain their full size; and, on this
head, precise knowledge is at present wanting. But
there are circumstances which tend to show, that nothing
like an inch of chalk has accumulated during the life of
a Crania ; and, on any probable estimate of the length
of that life, the chalk period must have had a much
longer duration than that thus roughly assigned to it.
Thus, not only is it certain that the chalk is the mud of
an ancient sea-bottom ; but it is no less certain, that the
192 L^r SERMONSy ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [i\,
chalk sea existed during an extremely long period, thougli
we may not be prepared to give a precise estimate of the
length of that period in years. The relative dura,tion is
clear, though the absolute duration may not be definable.
The attempt to affix any precise date to the period at
which the chalk sea began, or ended, its existence, is
baffled by difficulties of the same kind. But the rela-
tive age of the cretaceous epoch may be determined
with as great ease and certainty as the long duration
of thab. epoch.
You will have heard of the interesting discoveries
recently made, in various parts of Western Europe, of
flint implements, obviously worked into shape by human
hands, under circumstances which show conclusively that
man is a very ancient denizen of these regions.
It has been proved that the old populations of Europe,
whose existence has been revealed to us in this way, con-
sisted of savages, such as the Esquimaux are now ; that,
in the country which is now France, they hunted the
reindeer, and were familiar with the ways of the mam-
moth and the bison. The physical geography of France
was in those days different from what it is now — the
river Somme, for instance, having cut its bed a hundred
feet deeper between that time and this ; and, it is pro-
bable, that the climate was more like that of Canada
or Siberia, than that of "Western Europe.
The existence of these people is forgotten even in the
traditions of the oldest historical nations. The name
and fame of them had utterly vanished until a few
years back ; and the amount of physical change which
has been effected since their day, renders it more than
probable that, venerable as are some of the historical
nations, the workers of the chipped flints of Hoxne or
of Amiens are to them, as they are to us, in point of
antiquity.
/x[. ON A PIECE OF CHALK, 193
But, if we assign to tliese hoar relics of long-vanished
generations of men the greatest age that can possibly be
claimed for them, they are not older than the drift, or
boulder clay, which, in comparison with the chalk, is
bufc a very juvenile deposit. You need go no further
than your own sea-board for evidence of this fact. At
one of the most charming spots on the coast of Norfolk,
Cromer, you wall see the boulder clay forming a vast
mass, which lies upon the chalk, and must consequently
have come into existence after it. Huge boulders of
chalk are, in fact, included in the clay, and have evi-
dently been brought to the position they now occupy,
by the same agency as that wdiich has planted blocks of
syenite from Norway side by side with them.
The chalk, then, is certainly older than the boulder
clay. If you ask how much, I will again take you no
further than the same spot upon your owm coasts for
evidence. I have spoken of the boulder clay and drift
as resting upon the chalk. That is not strictly true.
Interposed between the chalk and the drift is a compa-
ratively insignificant layer, containing vegetable matter.
But that layer tells a wonderful history. It is full of
stumps of trees standing as they grew. Fir-trees are
there with their cones, and hazel-bushes with their nuts ;
there stand the stools of oak and yew" trees, beeches and
alders. Hence this stratum is appropriately called the
"forest-bed."
It is obvious that the chalk must have been upheaved
and converted into dry land, before the timber trees
could grow upon it. As the bolls of some of these trees
are from two to three feet in diameter, it is no less clear
that the dry land thus formed remained in the same
condition for long ages. And not only do the remains
of stately oaks and w^ell-grown firs testify to the duration
of this condition of things, but additional evidence to
194 LAY SERMONS, ALBRESSJES, AND REVIEWS. [is
the same effect is afforded by tlie abundant remains of
elephants, rliinoceroses, hippopotamuses, and other great
wild beasts, which it has yielded to the zealous search of
such men as the Eev. Mr. Gunn.
When you look at such a collection as he has formed,
and bethink you that these elephantine bones did veritably
carry their owners about, and these great grinders crunch,
in the dark woods of wdiich the forest-bed is now the
only trace, it is impossible not to feel that they are as
good evidence of the lapse of time as the annual rings
of the tree-stumps.
Thus there is a writing upon the w^all of cliffs at
Cromer, and w^hoso runs may read it. It tells us, with
an authority which cannot be impeached, that the
ancient sea-bed of the chalk sea was raised up, and
remained dry land, until it was covered with forest,
stocked \vith the great game whose spoils have rejoiced
your geologists. How long it remained in that condition
cannot be said ; but " the wdiirligig of time brought its
revenges ^' in those days as in these. That dry land,
with the bones and teeth of generations of long-lived
elephants, hidden away among the gnarled roots and dry
leaves of its ancient trees, sank gradually to the bottom
of the icy sea, which covered it with huge masses of
drift and boulder clay. Sea-beasts, such as the walrus,
now restricted to the extreme north, paddled about where
birds had twittered among the topmost twigs of the fir-
trees. How long this state of things endured we know
not, but at length it came to an end. The upheaved
glacial mud hardened into the soil of modern Norfolk.
Forests grew once more, the wolf and the beaver re-
placed the reindeer and the elephant ; and at length
wliat we call the history of England dawned.
Thus you have, within the limits of your own county,
proof that the chalk can justly claim a very much
IX.] ON- A PIECE OF CHALK. 195
greater antiquity tlian even tlie oldest pliysical traces of
mankind. But we may go furtlier and demonstrate, by
evidence of the same authority as that "which testifies to
the existence of the father of men, that the chalk is
vastly older than Adam himself.
The Book of Genesis informs us that Adam, immediatelv
upon liis creation, and before the appearance of Eve, was
placed in the Garden of Eden. The problem of the
geographical position of Eden has greatly vexed the
spirits of the learned in such matters, but there is one
point respecting which, so far as I know, no commentator
has ever raised a doubt. This is, that of the four rivers
wdiich are said to run out of it, Euphrates and Hiddekel
are identical with the rivers now knowai by the names of
Euphrates and Tigris.
But the w^hole country in wdiich these mighty rivers
take their origin, and through which they run, is
composed of rocks which are either of the same age as
the chalk, or of later date. So that the chalk must not
only have been formed, but, after its formation, the time
required for the deposit of these later rocks, and for their
upheaval into dry land, must have ela23sed, before the
smallest brook which feeds the swift stream of '^ the
great river, the river of Babylon,^'' began to flow.
Thus, evidence which cannot be rebutted, and which
need not be strengthened, though if time permitted
I might indefinitely increase its quantity, compels you
to believe that the earth, from the time of the chalk
to the present day, has been the theatre of a series of
changes as vast in their amount, as they were slow in
their progress. The area on which w^e stand has been
first sea and then land, for at least four alternations ;
and has remained in each of these conditions for a
period of great length.
196 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [ix.
Nor have these wonderful metamorpTioses of sea into
land, and of land into sea, been confined to one corner
of England. Daring the chalk period, or *' cretaceous
epoch," not one of the present great physical features of
the globe was in existence. Our great mountain ranges,
Pyrenees, Alps, Himalayas, Andes, have all been up-
heaved since the chalk was deposited, and the cretaceous
sea flowed over the sites of Sinai and Ararat.
All this is certain, because rocks of cretaceous, or still
later, date have shared in the elevatory movements
which gave rise to these mountain chains ; and may
be found perched up, in some cases, many thousand
feet high upon their flanks. And evidence of equal
cogency demonstrates that, though, in Norfolk, the
forest-bed rests directly upon the chalk, yet it does so,
not because the period at which the forest grew imme-
diately followed that at which the chalk was formed,
but because an immense lapse of time, represented
elsewhere by thousands of feet of rock, is not indicated
at Cromer.
I must ask you to believe that there is no less con-
clusive proof that a still more prolonged succession of
similar changes occurred, before the chalk was deposited.
Nor have we any reason to think that the first term in
the series of these changes is known. The oldest sea-
beds preserved to us are sands, and mud, and pebbles,
the wear and tear of rocks which were formed in still
older oceans.
But, great as is the magnitude of these physical
changes of the world, they have been accompanied by
a no less striking series of modifications in its living
inhaljitants.
All the great classes of animals, beasts of the field,
fowls of the air, creeping things, and things which dwell
in the waters, fl.ourished upon the globe long ages before
IX.] ON A FIECE OF CHALK, 197
the chalk was deposited. Very few, however, if any, of
these ancient forms of animal life were identical with
those which now live. Certainly not one of the higher
animals was of the same species as any of those now in
existence. The beasts of the field, in the days before
the chalk, were not onr beasts of the field, nor the fowls
of the air such as those which the eye of men has seen
flying, unless his antiquity dates infinitely further back
than we at present surmise. If we could be carried
back into those times, we should be as one suddenly
set down in Australia before it was colonized. We should
see mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, snails, and
the like, clearly recognisable as such, and yet not one
of them would be just the same as those with which we
are familiar, and many would be extremely difierent.
From that time to the present, the population of the
world has undergone slow and gradual, but incessant,
changes. There has been no grand catastrophe — no
destroyer has swept away the forms of life of one
period, and replaced them by a totally new creation ;
but one species has vanished and another has taken
its place ; creatures of one type of structure have
diminished, those of another have increased, as time
has passed on. And thus, while the differences between
the living creatures of the time before the chalk and
those of the present day appear startling, if placed
side by side, we are led from one to the other by the
most gradual progress, if we follow the course of Nature
through the whole series of those relics of her operations
which she has left behind.
And it is by the population of the chalk sea that the
ancient and the modern inhabitants of the world are
most completely connected. The groups which are
dying out flourish, side by side, with the groups which
are now the dominant forms of life.
198 LJr SERMONS, JDDRESSFS, AND REVIEIFS, [ix.
Thus tlie chalk contains remains of those strange
flying and swimming re]3tiles, the pterodactyl, the ich-
thyosaurus, and the plesiosaurus, which are found in no
later deposits, but abounded in preceding ages. The
chambered shells called ammonites and belemnites,
which are so characteristic of the period preceding the
cretaceous, in like manner die with it.
But, amongst these fading remainders of a previous
state of things, are some very modern forms of life,
looking like Yankee pedlars among a tribe of Red
Indians. Crocodiles of modern type appear ; bony
fishes, many of them very similar to existing species,
almost supplant the forms of fish which predominate
in more ancient seas ; and many kinds of living shell-
fish first become known to us in the chalk. The vege-
tation acquires a modern aspect. A few living animals
are not even distinguishable as species, from those which
existed at that remote epoch. The Glohigerina of the
present day, for example, is not different sjDCcifically
from that of the chalk; and the same may be said
of many other Foraminifera. I think it probable that
critical and unprejudiced examination will show that
more than one species of much higher animals have had
a similar longevity ; but the only example which I can
at present give confidently is the snake's-head lamp-
shell (Terehratulina caput serpentis), which lives in
our English seas and abounded (as Terehratulina striata
of authors) in the chalk.
The longest line of human ancestry must hide its
diminished head before the pedigree of this insignificant
shell-fish. We Englishmen are proud to have an ancestor
who was present at the Battle of Hastings. The an-
cestors of Terehratulina caput serpentis may have been
present at a battle of Ichthyosauria in that part of the
sea which, when the chalk was forming, flowed over the
IX.] ON A PIECE OF CHALK. 199
site of Hastiiio^s. While all around has cliano-cd, this
Terebratulina has peacefully propagated its species from
generation to generation, and stands to this day, as a
living testimony to the continuity of the present with
the past history of the globe.
Up to this moment I have stated, so far as I know,
nothing but well-authenticated facts, and the immediate
conclusions which they force upon the mind.
But the mind is so constituted that it does not
willingly rest in facts and immediate causes, but seeks
always after a knowledge of the remoter links in the
chain of causation.
Taking the many changes of any given spot of the
earth's surface, from sea to land and from land to sea,
as an established fact, we cannot refrain from asking
ourselves how these changes have occurred. And when
we have explained them— as they must be explained
— by the alternate slow movements of elevation
and depression which have affected the crust of the
earth, we go still further back, and ask. Why these
movements ?
I am not certain that any one can give you a satis-
factory answer to that question. Assuredly I cannot.
All that can be said, for certain, is, that such movements
are part of the ordinary course of nature, inasmuch as
they are going on at the present time. Direct proof
may be given, that some parts of the land of the
northern hemisphere are at this moment insensibly rising
and others insensibly sinking ; and there is indirect, but
perfectly satisfactory, proof, that an enormous area now
covered by the Pacific has been deepened thousands of
feet, since the present inhabitants of that sea came into
existence.
Thus there is not a shadow of a reason for believing
200 LAY SERMONS, ABDimHSBS, AND REVIEWS, [ix
tliat the physical changes of the globe, in past times,
have been effected by other than natural causes.
Is there any more reason for believing that the concomi-
tant modifications in the forms of the living inhabitants
of the globe have been brought about in other ways ?
Before attempting to answer this question, let us try
to form a distinct mental picture of what has happened,
in some special case.
The crocodiles are animals which, as a group, have a
very vast antiquity. They abounded ages before the
chalk was deposited ; they throng the rivers in warm
climates, at the present day. There is a difference in
the form of the joints of the back-bone, and in some
minor particulars, between the crocodiles of the present
epoch and those which lived before the chalk ; but, in
the cretaceous epoch, as I have already mentioned, the
crocodiles had assumed the modern type of structure. |
Notwithstanding this, the crocodiles of the chalk are *
not identically the same as those which lived in the
times called *' older tertiary," which succeeded the cre-
taceous epoch ; and the crocodiles of the older tertiaries
are not identical with those of the newer tertiaries, nor
are these identical with existing forms. I leave open
the question whether particular s|)ecies may have lived
on from epoch to epoch. But each epoch has had its
peculiar crocodiles; though all, since the chalk, have
belonged to the modern type, and differ simply in their
proportions, and in such structural particulars as aie
discernible only to trained eyes.
How is the existence of this lons^ succession of dif-
ferent species of crocodiles to be accounted for ?
Only two suppositions seem to be open to us — Either
each species of crocodile has been specially created, or it
has arisen out of some pre-existing form by the opera-
tion of natural causes.
IX.] ON A PIECH OF CHALK. 201
Choose your liypotliesis ; I have chosen mine. I can
find no warranty for believing in the distinct creation of
a score of successive species of crocodiles in the course of
countless ages of time. Science gives no countenance
to such a wild fancy ; nor can even the perverse
ingenuity of a commentator pretend to discover this
sense, in the simple words in which the writer of
Genesis records the proceedings of the fifth and sixth
days of the Creation.
On the other hand, I see no good reason for doubting
the necessary alternative, that all these varied species
have been evolved from pre-existing crocodilian forms,
by the operation of causes as completely a part of the
common order of nature, as those which have effected
the changes of the inorganic world.
Few will venture to affirm that the reasonino- which
applies to crocodiles loses its force among other animals,
or among plants. If one series of species has come into
existence by the operation of natural causes, it seems
folly to deny that all may have arisen in the same way.
A small beginning has led us to a great ending. If I
were to put the bit of chalk with which we started into
the hot but obscure flame of burning hydrogen, it would
presently shine like the sun. It seems to me that this
physical metamorphosis is no false image of what has
been the result of our subjecting it to a jet of fervent,
thouo;h nowise brilliant, thouQ;ht to-nioht. It has become
mminous, and its clear rays, penetrating the abyss of
the remote past, have brought within our ken some stages
of the evolution of the earth. And in the shifting^ " with-
ont haste, but without rest" of the land and sea, as in the
endless variation of the forms assumed by living beings,
we have observed nothing but the natural product of the
forces originally possessed by the substance of the universe.
GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPOEANEITY AND
PEESISTENT TYPES OF LIFE.
Merchants occasionally go through a wholesome, though
troublesome and not always satisfactory, process which
they term '' taking stock/' After all the excitement of
speculation, the pleasure of gain, and the pain of loss,
the trader makes up his mind to face facts and to
learn the exact quantity and quality of his solid and
reliable possessions.
The man of science does well sometimes to imitate
this procedure ; and, forgetting for the time the import-
ance of his own small winnings, to re-examine the
common stock in trade, so that he may make sure how
far the stock of bullion in the ceUar — on the faith of
whose existence so much paper has been circulating —
is really the solid gold of truth.
The Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society
seems to be an occasion well suited for an undertaking^
of this kind — for an inc]uiry, in fact, into the nature and
value of the present results of paloeontological investi-
gation; and the more so, as all those who have paid
close attention to the late multitudinous discussions
in w^hich palaeontology is implicated, must have felt
the urgent necessity of some such scrutiny.
jl] geological C0NTE2IP0RANEIT}r. 203
First in order, as tlie most definite and unquestionable
of all tlie results of palaeontology, must be mentioned
the immense extension and impulse given to botany,
zoology, and comparative anatomy, by tlie investigation
of fossil remains. Indeed, the mass of biological facts
has been so greatly increased, and the range of biological
speculation has been so vastly widened, by the researches
of the geologist and palseontologist, that it is to be feared
there are naturalists in existence who look upon geology
as Brindley regarded rivers. " Eivers,^^ said the great
engineer, " were made to feed canals ; " and geology,
some seem to think, was solely created to advance com-
parative anatomy.
Were such a thought justifiable, it could hardly expect
to be received with favour by this assembly. But it
is not justifiable. Your favourite science has her own
great aims independent of all others ; and if, notwith-
standing her steady devotion to her own progress, she
can scatter such rich alms among her sisters, it should
be remembered that her charity is of the sort that
does not impoverish, but " blesseth him that gives and
him that takes.''
Eegard the matter as we will, however, the facts
remain. Nearly 40,000 species of animals and plants
have been added to the Systema Naturae by paloeonto-
logical research. This is a living population equivalent
to that of a new continent in mere number ; equivalent
to that of a new hemisphere, if we take into account the
small population of insects as yet found fossil, and the
large proportion and peculiar organization of many of
the Yertebrata.
But, beyond this, it is perhaps not too much to say
that, except for the necessity of interpreting palseonto-
iogical facts, the laws of distribution would have received
kss careful study ; while few compai-ative anatomists
204 I'^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [x.
(and tliose not of tlie first order) would liave been
induced by mere love of detail, as sucb, to study the
minutise of osteology, were it not that in sucb minutias
lie the only keys to the most interesting riddles offered
by tlie extinct animal world.
These assuredly are great and solid gains. Surely it
is matter for no small congratulation that in half a cen-
tury (for palaeontology, though it dawned earlier, came
into full day only with Cuvier) a subordinate branch of
biology should have doubled the value and the interest
of the whole group of sciences to which it belongs.
But this is not all. Allied with geology, palaeon-
tology has established two laws of inestimable import-
ance : the first, that one and the same area of the earth's
surface has been successively occupied by very difi"erent
kinds of living beings ; the second, that the order of
succession established in one locality holds good, approxi-
mately, in all.
The first of these laws is universal and irreversible ;
the second is an induction from a vast number of
observations, though it may possibly, and even pro-
bably, have to admit of exceptions. As a consequence
of the second law, it follows that a peculiar relation
frequently subsists between series of strata, containing
organic remains, in difierent localities. The series
resemble one another, not only in virtue of a general
resemblance of the organic remains in the two, but also
in virtue of a resemblance in the order and character
of the serial succession in each. There is a resemblance
of arrangement ; so that the separate terms of each series,
as well as the whole series, exhibit a correspondence.
Succession implies time ; the lower members of a
series of sedimentary rocks are certainly older than
the upper ; and when the notion of age was once
introduced as the equivalent of succession, it was no
«.] GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY, 205
wonder that correspondence in succession came to be
looked upon as correspondence in age, or *' contem-
poraneity."" And, indeed, so long as relative age only
is spoken of, correspondence in succession is correspon-
dence in age ; it is relative contemporaneity.
But it would have been very much better for geology
if so loose and ambiguous a word as " contemporaneous "
had been excluded from her terminology, and if, in its
stead, some term expressing similarity of serial relation,
and excluding the notion of time altogether, had been
employed to denote correspondence in position in two
or more series of strata.
In anatomy, where such correspondence of position
has constantly to be spoken of, it is denoted by the
word " homology " and its derivatives ; and for Geology
(which after all is only the anatomy and physiology
of the earth) it might be well to invent some single
word, such as "homotaxis^^ (similarity of order), in
order to express an essentially similar idea. This, how-
ever, has not been done, and most probably the inquiry
will at once be made — To what end burden science with
a new and strange term in place of one old, familiar,
and part of our common language ?
The reply to this question will become obvious as
the inquiry into the results of palaeontology is pushed
further.
Those whose business it is to acquaint themselves
specially with the works of palaeontologists, in fact,
will be fully aware that very few, if any, would rest
satisfied with such a statement of the conclusions of
their branch of biology as that which has just been
given.
Our standard repertories of palaeontology profess to
teach us far hio;her thinD;s — to disclose the entire sue-
10
206 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS xj
cession of living forms upon the surface of the globe ;
to tell us of a wholly different distribution of climatic
conditions in ancient times ; to reveal the character
of the first of all living existences ; and to trace out
the law of progress from them to us.
It may not be unprofitable to bestow on these pro-
fessions a somewhat more critical examination than
they have hitherto received, in order to ascertain how
far they rest on an irrefragable basis ; or whether, after
all, it might not be well for palaeontologists to learn
a little more carefully that scientific '' ars artium,'' the
art of saying "I don't know/' And to this end let
us define somewhat more exactly the extent of these
pretensions of palaeontology.
Every one is aware that Professor Bronn's "Unter-
suchungen"' and Professor Pictet's ''Traite de Paleon-
tologie'' are works of standard authority, familiarly
consulted by every working palaeontologist. It is desir-
able to speak of these excellent books, and of their
distinguished authors, with the utmost respect, and in
a tone as far as possible removed from carping criticism ;
indeed, if they are specially cited in this place, it is
merely in justification of the assertion that the follow-
ing propositions, which may be found implicitly, or
explicitly, in the works in question, are regarded by
the mass of palaeontologists and geologists, not only
on the Continent but in this country, as expressing
some of the best-established results of palaeontology.
Thus :—
Animals and plants began their existence together,
not long after the commencement of the deposition of
the sedimentary rocks ; and then succeeded one another,
in such a manner, that totally distinct faunae and florae
occupied the whole surface of the earth, one after the
other, and during distinct epochs of time.
X.] GEOLOGICAL CONTEMFORANEITY. 207
A geological forination is the sum of all tlie strata
deposited over the whole surface of the earth during
one of these epochs : a geological fauna or flora is the
sum of all the species of animals or plants which
occupied the w^hole surface of the globe, during one
of these epochs.
The population of the earth's surface was at first
very similar in all parts, and only from the middle of
the Tertiary epoch onwards, began to show a distinct
distribution in zones.
The constitution of the original population, as well
as the numerical proportions of its members, indicates
a warmer and, on the whole, somewhat tropical climate,
which remained tolerably equable throughout the year.
The subsequent distribution of living beings in zones
is the result of a gradual lowering of the general
temperature, w^hich first began to be felt at the
poles.
It is not now proposed to inquire whether these
doctrines are true or false ; but to direct your atten-
tion to a much simpler though very essential preliminary
question — What is their logical basis ? what are the
fundamental assumptions upon which they all logically
depend ? and what is the evidence on which those
fundamental propositions demand our assent ?
These assumptions are two : the first, that the com-
mencement of the geological record is coeval with the
commencement of life on the globe ; the second, that
geological contemporaneity is the same thing as chrono-
logical synchrony. Without the first of these assump-
tions there would of course be no ground for any
statement respecting the commencement of life ; with-
out the second, all the other statements cited, every
one of which implies a knowledge of the state of
208 LJi^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [i
different parts of tlie eartli at one and tlie same time,
will be no less devoid of demonstration.
The first assumption obviously rests entirely on
negative evidence. This is, of course, the only evidence
that ever can be available to prove the commencement
of any series of phsenomena; but, at the same time,
it must be recollected that the value of negative
evidence depends entirely on the amount of positive
corroboration it receives. If A. B. wishes to prove an
alibi, it is of no use for him to get a thousand witnesses
simply to swear that they did not see him in such
and such a place, unless the witnesses are prepared
to prove that they must have seen him had he been
there. But the evidence that animal life commenced
with the Lingula-flags, e.g., would seem to be exactly
of this unsatisfactory uncorroborated sort. The Cam-
brian witnesses simply swear they "haven't seen any-
body their way;" upon which the counsel for the
other side immediately puts in ten or twelve thousand
feet of Devonian sandstones to make oath they never
saw a fish or a mollusk, though all the world knows
there were plenty in their time.
But then it is urged that, though the Devonian
rocks in one part of the world exhibit no fossils, in
another they do, while the lower Cambrian rocks no-
where exhibit fossils, and hence no living being could
have existed in their epoch.
To this there are two replies : the first, that the
observational basis of the assertion that the lowest
rocks are nowhere fossiliferous is an amazingly small
one, seeing how very small an area, in comparison to
that of the wdiole world, has yet been fully searched ;
the second, that the argument is good for nothing unless
the unfossiliferous rocks in question were not only
contem2Doraneous in the geological sense, but synchronous
X.] GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY, 209
in tlie clironological sense. To use the cxlihi illustratioa
again. If a man wishes to prove he was in neither
of two places, A and B, on a given day, his witnesses
for each place must be prepared to answer for the
whole day. If they can only prove that he was not
at A in the morning, and not at B in the afternoon,
the evidence of his absence from both is nil, because
he might have been at B in the morning and at A in
the afternoon.
Thus everything depends upon the validity of the
second assumption. And we must proceed to inquire
what is the real meaning of the word " contemporaneous'^
as employed by geologists. To this end a concrete
example may be taken.
The Lias of England and the Lias of Germany, the
Cretaceous rocks of Britain and the Cretaceous rocks
of Southern India, are termed by geologists " contem-
poraneous '' formations ; but whenever any thoughtful
geologist is asked whether he means to say that they
were deposited synchronously, he says, " No, — only
within the same great epoch.'' And if, in pursuing
the inquiry, he is asked what may be the approximate
value in time of a *' great epoch '^ — whether it means
a hundred years, or a thousand, or a million, or ten
million years — his reply is, " I cannot tell."
If the further question be put, whether physical
geology is in possession of any method by which the
actucil synchrony (or the reverse) of any two distant
deposits can be ascertained, no such method can be
heard of ; it being admitted by all the best authorities
that neither similarity of mineral composition,nor of
physical character, nor even direct continuity of stratum,
are ahsolute proofs of the synchronism of even approxi-
mated sedimentary strata : while, for distant deposits,
there seems to be no kind of physical evidence attain-
210 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [s
able of a nature competent to decide wlietlier such
deposits were formed simultaneously, or whether they
possess any given difference of antiquity. To return
to an example already given. All competent authorities
will probably assent to the proposition that physical
geology does not enable us in any way to reply to
this question — Were the British Cretaceous rocks depo-
sited at the same time as those of India, or are they a
million of years younger or a million of years older ?
Is palaeontology able to succeed where physical
geology fails ? Standard writers on palaeontology, as
has been seen, assume that she can. They take it for
granted, that deposits containing similar organic remains
are synchronous — at any rate in a broad sense ; aud
yet, those who will study the eleventh and twelfth
chapters of Sir Henry De la Beche's remarkable ^'Ee-
searches in Theoretical Geology," published now nearly
thirty years ago, and will carry out the arguments
there most luminousl}^ stated, to their logical conse-
qences, may very easily convince themselves that
even absolute identity of organic contents is no proof
of the synchrony of deposits, while absolute diversity
is no proof of difference of date. Sir Henry De la
Beche goes even further, and adduces conclusive evidence
to show that the different parts of one and the same
stratum, having a similar composition throughout, con-
taining the same organic remains, and having similar
beds above and below it, may yet differ to any con-
ceivable extent in ag:e.
Edward Forbos was in the habit of asserting that
the similarity of the organic contents of distant forma-
tions was primd facie evidence, not of their similarity,
but of their difference of age ; and holding as he did
the doctrine of single specific centres, the conclusion
was as legitimate as any other; for the two districts
t.] GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY, 211
must have been occupied by migration from one of the
two, or from an intermediate spot, and the chances
against exact coincidence of migration and of imbedding
are infinite.
In point of fact, however, whether the hypothesis
of single or of multiple specific centres be adopted,
similarity of organic contents cannot possibly afibrd
any proof of the synchrony of the deposits which
contain them ; on the contrary, it is demonstrably
compatible with the lapse of the most prodigious
intervals of time, and w^ith interposition of vast changes
in the organic and inorganic worlds, between the epochs
in which such deposits were formed.
On wdiat amount of similarity of their faunse is the
doctrine of the contemporaneity of the European and
of the North American Silurians based ? In the last
edition of Sir Charles Lyell's "Elementary Geology"
it is stated, on the authority of a former President of
this Society, the late Daniel Sharpe, that between
30 and 40 per cent, of the species of Silurian MoUusca
are common to both sides of the Atlantic. By way
of due allowance for further discovery, let us double
the lesser number and suppose that 60 per cent, of
the species are common to the North American and
the British Silurians. Sixty per cent, of species in
common is, then, proof of contemporaneity.
Now suppose that, a million or two of years hence,
when Britian has made another dip beneath the sea
and has come up again, some geologist applies this
doctrine, in comparing the strata laid bare by the
upheaval of the bottom, say, of St. George's Channel
with what may then remain of the Sufi'olk Crag.
Reasoning in the same way, he will at once decide
the Sufi'olk Crag and the St. George's Channel beds
to be contemporaneous ; although we happen to know
212 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [x.
that a vast period (even in tlie geological sense) of
time, and physical changes of almost unprecedented
extent, separate the two.
But if it be a demonstrable fact that strata con-
taining more than 60 or 70 per cent, of species of
Mollusca in common, and comparatively close together,
may yet be separated by an amount of geological time
sufficient to allow of some of the greatest physical
changes the world has seen, what becomes of that
sort of contemporaneity the sole evidence of which
is a similarity of facies, or the identity of half a dozen
species, or of a good many genera 1
And yet there is no better evidence for the contem-
poraneity assumed by all who adopt the hypotheses
of universal faunae and florse, of a universally uniform
climate, and of a sensible coolino^ of the 2flobe clurino-
geological time.
There seems, then, no escape from the admission that
neither physical geology, nor palaeontology, possesses
any method by which the absolute synchronism of two
strata can be demonstrated. All that geology can
prove is local order of succession. It is mathematically
certain that, in any given vertical linear section of an
undisturbed series of sedimentary deposits, the bed
which lies lowest is the oldest. In any other vertical
linear section of the same series, of course, corresponding
beds will occur in a similar order ; but, however great
may be the probability, no man can say with absolute
certainty that the beds in the two sections were syn-
chronously deposited. For areas of moderate extent,
it is doubtless true that no practical evil is likely to
result from assuming the corresponding beds to be
synchronous or strictly contemporaneous ; and there
are multitudes of accessory circumstances which may
fully justify the assumption of such synchrony. But
X.J GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY, 213
tlie moment the geologist lias to deal with large areas,
or with completely separated deposits, the mischief
of confounding that *' homotaxis " or *' similarity of
arrangement," which can be demonstrated, with " syn-
chrony" or "identity of date," for which there is not
a shadow of proof, under the one common term of
' contemporaneity " becomes incalculable, and proves
the constant source of gratuitous speculations.
For anything that geology or paljBontology are able
to show to the contrary, a Devonian fauna and flora
in the British Islands may have been contemporaneous
with Silurian life in North America, and with a Car-
boniferous fauna and flora in Africa. Geographical pro-
vinces and zones may have been as distinctly marked in
the Paleeozoic epoch as at present, and those seemingly
sudden appearances of new genera and species, which Ave
ascribe to new creation, may be simple results of migration.
It may be so ; it may be otherwise. In the present
condition of our knowledge and of our methods, one
verdict — ''not proven, and not proveable" — must be
recorded against all the grand hypotheses of the palaeon-
tologist respecting the general succession of life on the
globe. The order and nature of terrestrial life, as a
wdiole, are open questions. Geology at present provides
us with most valuable topographical records, but she
has not the means of working them into a universal
history. Is such a universal history, then, to be regarded
as unattainable ? Are all the grandest and most in-
teresting problems which ofi"er themselves to the
geological student essentially insoluble % Is he in the
position of a scientific Tantalus — doomed always to
thirst for a knowledge which he cannot obtain ? The
reverse is to be hoped ; nay, it may not be impossible
to indicate the source whence help will come.
In commencing these remarks, mention was made of
214 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [x
the great obligations under wliicli tile naturalist lies to
tlie geologist and palaeontologist. Assuredly tlie time
will come when these obligations will be repaid tenfold,
and when the maze of the workFs past history, through
which the pure geologist and the pure palaeontologist
find no guidance, will be securely threaded by the clue
furnished by the naturalist.
All who are competent to express an opinion on the
subject are, at present, agreed that the manifold varieties
of animal and vegetable form have not either come into
existence by chance, nor result from capricious exertions
of creative power ; but that they have taken place in a
definite order, the statement of which order is what
men of science term a natural law. Whether such a
law is to be regarded as an expression of the mode of
operation of natural forces, or whether it is simply a
statement of the manner in which a supernatural power
has thought fit to act, is h secondary question, so long
as the existence of the law and the possibility of its
discovery by the human intellect are granted. But he
must be a half-hearted philosopher who, believing in
that possibility, and having watched the gigantic strides
of the biological sciences during the last twenty years,
doubts that science will sooner or later make this further
step, so as to become possessed of the law of evolution
of organic forms — of the unvarying order of that great
chain of causes and effects of which all organic forms,
ancient and modern, are the links. And then, if ever,
we shall be able to begin to discuss, with profit, the
questions respecting the commencement of life, and the
nature of the successive populations of the globe, which
so many seem to think are already answered.
The preceding arguments make no particular claim to
novelty ; indeed they have been fi oating more or less
X.] GEOLOGICAL CONTEIIPORANEITr. 215
distiuctly before tlie minds of geologists for tlie last
thirty years ; and if, at tlie present time, it has seemed
desirable to give them more definite and systematic
expression, it is because palaeontology is every day
assuming a greater importance, and now requires to
rest on a basis the firmness of which is thoroughly well
assured. Among its fundamental conceptions, there
must be no confusion between what is certain and
what is more or' less probable.^ But, pending the
construction of a surer foundation than palaeontology
now possesses, it may be instructive, assuming for the
nonce the general correctness of the ordinary hypothesis
of geological contemporaneity, to consider whether the
deductions which are ordinarily drawn from the whole
body of palaeontological facts are justifiable.
The evidence on which such conclusions are based is
of two kinds, negative and positive. The value of
negative evidence, in connexion with this inquiry, has
been so fully and clearly discussed in an address from
the chair of this Society,^ which none of us have
forgotten, that nothing need at present be said about
it ; the more, as the considerations which have been
laid before you have certainly not tended to increase
your estimation of such evidence. It will be preferable
to turn to the positive facts of palaeontology, and to
inquire what they tell us.
We are all accustomed to speak of the number and
the extent of the changes in the living population of
the globe during geological time as something enormous ;
and indeed they are so, if we regard only the negative
difierences which separate the older rocks from the
more modern, and if we look upon specific and generic
* ** Le plus grand service qu'on pnisse rendre k la science est d'y faire plac6
Dette ayant d'y rien construire." — Cuvier.
' Aimiversary Address for 1851, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vii
216 L^Y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [x.
clianges as great changes, wliich from one point of view
tliey truly are. But leaving tlie negative differences
out of consideration, and looking only at tlie positive
data furnislied by the fossil world from a broader point
of view — from that of the comparative anatomist who
has made the study of the greater modifications of
animal form his chief business — a surprise of another
kind dawns upon the mind ; and under this aspect the
smallness of the total change becomes as astonishing as
was its greatness under the other.
There are two hundred known orders of plants; of
these not one is certainly known to exist exclusively
in the fossil state, The whole lapse of geological time
has as yet yielded not a single new ordinal type of
vegetable structure.^
The positive change in passing from the recent to the
ancient animal world is greater, but still singularly
small. No fossil animal is so distinct from those now
living as to require to be arranged even in a separate
class from those which contain existing forms. It is
only when we come to the orders, v/hich may be
roughly estimated at about a hundred and thirty, that
we meet with fossil animals so distinct from those now
living as to require orders for themselves ; and these do
not amount, on the most liberal estimate, to more than
about 10 per cent, of the whole.
There is no certainly known extinct order of Protozoa;
there is but one amono^ the Coelenterata — that of the
rugose corals ; there is none among the Mollusca ; there
are three, the Cystidea, Blastoidea, and Edrioasterida,
among the Echinoderms ; and two, the Trilobita and
Eurypterida, among the Crustacea ; making altogether
five for the great sub-kingdom of Annulosa. Among
^ See Hooker's " Introductory Essay to tlie Flora of Tasmania,"
p. xxiiL
X.] PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE. 217
Vertebrates there is no ordinally distinct fossil fisli :
there is only one extinct order of Amphibia — the Laby-
rinthodonts ; but there are at least four distinct orders
of Eeptilia, viz. the Ichthyosauria, Plesiosanria, Ptero-
sauria, Dinosauria, and perhaps another or two. There
is no known extinct order of Birds, and no certainly
known extinct order of Mammals, the ordinal distinct-
ness of the " Toxodontia '^ being doubtful.
The objection that broad statements of this kind, after
all, rest largely on negative evidence is obvious, but it
has less force than may at first be supposed ; for, as
might be expected from the circumstances of the case,
we possess more abundant positive evidence regarcliug
Fishes and marine MoUusks than respecting any other
forms of animal life ; and yet these ofier us, through the
whole range of geological time, no species ordinarily
distinct from those now living ; while the far less
numerous class of Echinoderms presents three, and the
Crustacea two, such orders, though none of these come
down later than the Palaeozoic age. Lastly, the Eeptilia
present the extraordinary and exceptional phaenomenon
of as many extinct as existing orders, if not more ; the
four mentioned maintaining their existence from the
Lias to the Chalk inclusive.
Some years ago one of your Secretaries pointed out
another kind of positive palseontological evidence tend-
ing towards the same conclusion — afforded by the
existence of what he termed " persistent types " of vege-
table and of animal life.^ He stated, on the authority
of Dr. Hooker, that there are Carboniferous plants which
appear to be generically identical with some now li\dng ;
that the cone of the Oolitic Araucaria is hardly distin-
■*• See the abstract of a Lecture "On the Persistent Types of Animal Life,
in the "Notices of the Meetings of the Koyal Listitution of Great Erittiiii/'
-— Jrne 3, 1859, voL i:i. p. 151.
218 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REFIEIFS, [s.
guishable from that of an existing species ; tliat a true
Pinus appears in the Purbecks, and a Juglans in the
Chalk; while, from the Bagshofc Sands, a Banhsia, the
wood of which is not distingnishable from that of species
now living in Australia, had been obtained.
Turning to the animal kingdom, he affirmed the tabu-
late corals of the Silurian rocks to be wonderfully like
those which now exist ; while even the families of the
Aporosa were all represented in the older Mesozoic
rocks.
Among the Mollusca similar facts were adduced.
Let it be borne in mind that Avicula, Mytails, Chiton,
Natica, Patella, Trochus, Discina, Orhicula, Lingida,
Rliynclionella, and Nautilus, all of which are existing
genera, are given without a doubt as Silurian in the
last edition of " Siluria ; '' while the highest forms of
the highest Cephalopods are represented in the Lias by
a genus, Belemnoteutliis, which presents the closest rela-
tion to the existing Loligo.
The two highest groups of the Annulosa, the Insecta
and the Arachnida, are represented in the Coal, either
by existing genera, or by forms differing from existing
genera in quite minor peculiarities.
Turning to the Yertebrata, the only palaeozoic Elas-
mobranch Fish of which we have any complete know-
ledge is the Devonian and Carboniferous Pleuracanthus,
which differs no more fi:om existing Sharks than these
do from one another.
Again, vast as is the number of undoubtedly Ganoid
fossil Fishes, and great as is their range in time, a large
mass of evidence has recently been adduced to show that
almost all those respecting which we possess sufficient
information, are referable to the same sub-ordinal groups
as the existing Lepidosteus, Polypterus, and Sturgeon ;
and that a singular relation obtains between the older
jl] persistent types of life. 219
and the younger Fislies ; the former, the Devonian
Ganoids, being almost all members of the same sub-order
as Folypterus, while the Mesozoic Ganoids are almost
all similarly allied to Lepidosteus}
Again, what can be more remarkable than the singular
constancy of structure preserved throughout a vast period
of time by the family of the Pycnodonts and by that
of the true Coelacanths : the former persisting, with but
insignificant modifications, from the Carboniferous to the
Tertiary rocks, inclusive ; the latter existing, with still
less change, from the Carboniferous rocks to the Chalk,
inclusive ?
Among Eeptiles, the highest living group, that of the
Crocodilia, is represented, at the early part of the Mesozoic
epoch, by species identical in the essential characters o^
their organization with those now living, and clifiering
from the latter only in such matters as the form of the
articular facets of the vertebral centra, in the extent
to which the nasal passages are separated from the
cavity of the mouth by bone, and in the proportions
of the limbs.
And even as regards the Mammalia, the scanty
remains of Triassic and Oolitic species afi"ord no founda-
tion for the supposition that the organization of the
oldest forms differed nearly so much from some of those
which now live as these differ from one another.
It is needless to multiply these instances ; enough has
been said to justify the statement that, in view of the
immense diversity of known animal and vegetable forms,
and the enormous lapse of time indicated by the accumu-
lation of fossiliferous strata, the only circumstance to be
wondered at is, not that the changes of life, as exhibited
' " Memoirs oi tlie Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. — Decade x.
Preliminary Essay upon the Systematic Arrangement of the Fishes of the
Devonian Epoch."
220 l^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS [x
by positive evidence, have been so great, but thai: they
have been so small.
Be they great or small, however, it is desirable to
attempt to estimate them. Let us, therefore, take each
great division of the animal world in succession, and,
whenever an order or a family can be shown to have
had a prolonged existence, let us endeavour to ascertain
how far the later members of the group differ from the
earlier ones. If these later members, in all or in many
cases, exhibit a certain amount of modification, the fact
is, so far, evidence in favour of a general law of change ;
and, in a rough way, the rapidity of that change will be
measured by the demonstrable amount of modification.
On the other hand, it must be recollected that the
absence of any modification, while it may leave the
doctrine of the existence of a law of change without
positive support, cannot possibly disprove all forms of
that doctrine, though it may afford a sufficient refuta-
tion of many of them.
The Peotozoa. — The Protozoa are represented through-
out the whole range of geological series, from the Lower
Silurian formation to the present day. The most
ancient forms recently made known by Ehrenberg are
exceedingly like those which now exist : no one has ever
pretended that the difference between any ancient and
any modern Foraminifera is of more than generic value
nor are the oldest Foraminifera either simpler, more
embryonic, or less differentiated, than the existing forms.
The CcELEXTERATA. — The Tabulate Corals have existed
from the Silurian epoch to the present day, but I am not
aware that the ancient Ileliolites possesses a single mark
of a more embryonic or less differentiated character, or
less high organization, than the existing Ileliopora. As
for the Aporose Corals, in what respect is the Silurian
X.] PERSISTENT TYFES OF LIFE 221
Palceooyclus less liiglily organized or more 01111313^01110
tlian the modern Fiingia, or the Liassic Aporosa than
the existmo* members of the same families ?
The MoUusca. — In what sense is the living: Wold-
lieimia less embryonic, or more specialized, than the
palaeozoic Spirifer ; or the existing RliynclionellcB, Cra-
nice, DiscincB, Lingulce, than the Silurian species of the
same genera ? In what sense can Loligo or Spirilla
be said to be more specialized, or less embryonic, than
Belemnites ; or the modern species of Lamellibranch and
Gasteropod genera, than the Silurian species of the same
genera ?
The Annulosa. — The Carboniferous Insecta and Aracli-
nida are neither less specialized, nor more embryonic,
than those that now live, nor are the Liassic Cirripedia
and Macrura ; while several of the Brachyura, which
appear in the Chalk, belong to existing genera ; and
none exhibit either an intermediate, or an embryonic,
character.
The Veetebrata. — Among fishes I have referred to
the Coelacanthini (comprising the genera Cmacanthus,
Holophagus, Undma, and Macropoma) as affording an
example of a persistent type ; and it is most remarkable
to note the smallness of the differences between any of
these fishes (affecting at most the j^roportions of the
body and fins, and the character and sculpture of the
scales), notwithstanding their enormous range in time
In all the essentials of its very peculiar structure, the
Macropoma of the Chalk is identical with the Ccdacan-
thus of the Coal. Look at the genus Lepidotus, again,
persisting without a modification of importance from the
Liassic to the Eocene formations inclusive.
Or among the Teleostei — in what respect is the Beryx
of the Chalk more embryonic, or less differentiated, than
Beryx lineatus of King George s Sound \
222 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REFIEJf^S. [x.
Or to turn to tlie liiglier Vertebrata — in what sense
are the Liassic Chelonia inferior to those which now
exist ? How are the Creta.ceous Ichthyosauria, Plesio-
sauria, or Pterosauria less embryonic, or more differ-
entiated, species than those of the Lias ?
Or lastly, in what circumstance is the Fhascolotherium
more embryonic, or of a more generalized type, than the
modern Opossum ; or a Lophiodon, or a Palceotheriuiii,
than a modern Tapirus or Hyrax ?
These examples might be almost indefinitely multi-
plied, but surely they are sufficient to prove that the
only safe and unquestionable testimony we can procure
— positive evidence — fails to demonstrate any sort of
progressive modification towards a less embryonic, or less
generalized, type in a great many groups of animals of
long-continued geological existence. In these groups
there is abundant evidence of variation — none of what
is ordinarily understood as progression ; and, if the
known geological record is to be regarded as even any
considerable fragment of the whole, it is inconceivable
that any theory of a' necessarily progressive development
can stand, for the numerous orders and families cited
afford no trace of such a process.
But it is a most remarkable fact, that, while the
groups which have been mentioned, and many besides,
exhibit no sign of progressive modification, there are
others, co-existing with them, nnder the same conditions,
in which more or less distinct indications of such a
process seem to be traceable. Among such indications
I may remind you of the predominance of Holostome
Gastero23oda in the older rocks as compared with that of
Siphonostome Gasteropoda in the later. A case less open
to the objection of negative evidence, however, is that
afforded by the Tetrabranchiate Cephalopoda, the forms
of the shells and of the septal sutures exhibiting a
2fJ PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE. 223
certain increase of complexity in the newer genera.
Here, however, one is met at once with the occurence
of Orthoceras and Baculites at the two ends of the
series, and of the fact that one of the simplest genera,
Nautilus, is that which now exists.
The Crinoidea, in the abundance of stalked forms in
the ancient formations as compared with their present
rarity, seem to present us with a fair case of modification
from a more embryonic towards a less embryonic con-
dition. But then, on careful consideration of the facts,
the objection arises that the stalk, calyx, and arms of
the palaeozoic Crinoid are exceedingly different from the
corresponding organs of a larval Comatula ; and it might
with perfect justice be argued that Actinocrinus and
Eucalyptocrinus, for example, depart to the full as
widely, in one direction, from the stalked embryo of
Comatula, as Comatula itself does in the other.
The Echinidea, again, are frequently quoted as ex-
hibiting a gradual passage from a more generalized to a
more specialized type, seeing that the elongated, or oval,
Spatangoids appear after the spheroidal Echinoids. But
here it might be argued, on the other hand, that the
spheroidal Echinoids, in reality, depart further from the
general plan and from the embryonic form than the
elongated Spatangoids do ; and that the peculiar dental
apparatus and the pedicellarise of the former are marks
of at least as great differentiation as the petaloid ambu-
lacra and semitse of the latter.
Once more, the prevalence of Macrurous before Bra-
chyurous Podophthalmia is, apparently, a fair piece of
evidence in favour of progressive modification in the
same order of Crustacea ; and yet the case will not
stand much sifting, seeing that the Macrurous Podoph-
thalmia depart as far in one direction from the common
type of Podophthalmia, or from any embryonic condition
224 LJ.Y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REFIEIFS. [x,
of the Bracliyura, as the Bracliyura do in tlic other ;
and that the middle terms between Macrura and
Brachyura— the Anomura — are little better represented
in the older Mesozoic rocks than the Bracliyura are.
None of the cases of progressive modification which
are cited from among the Invertebrata appear to me to
have a foundation less open to criticism than these ; and
if this be so, no careful reasoner v/ould, I think, be in-
clined to lay very great stress upon them. Among the
Vertebrata, however, there are a few examples which
appear to be far less open to objection.
It is, in fact, true of several groups of Vertebrata
which have lived through a considerable range of time,
that the endoskeleton (more particularly the spinal
column) of the older genera presents a less ossified, and,
so far, less clifierentiated, condition than that of the
younger genera. Thus the Devonian Ganoids, though
almost all members of the same sub-order as Polypterus,
and presenting numerous important resemblances to the
existing genus, which possesses biconcave vertebra, are,
for the most part, wholly devoid of ossified vertebral
centra. The Mesozoic Lepidosteidae, again, have, at most,
biconcave vertebrse, while the existing Lepidosteus has
Salamandroid, opisthocoelous, vertebrae. So, none of the
Palaeozoic Sharks have shown themselves to be possessed
of ossified vertebrae, while the majority of modern
Sharks possess such vertebrae. Again, the more ancient
Crocodilia and Lacertilia have vertebrae with the articular
facets of their centra flattened or biconcave, while
the modern members of the same group have them
procoelous. But the most remarkable examples of
progressive modification of the vertebral column, in cor-
respondence with geological age, are those afibrded by
the Pycnodonts among fish, and the Labyrinthodonts
auiong Amphibia.
i.] PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE. 225
The late able ichttiyologist Heckel pointed out tlie
fact, that, while the Pycnodonts never possess true ver-
tebral centra, they differ in the degree of expansion and
extension of the ends of the bony arches of the vertebrce
upon the sheath of the notochord ; the Carboniferous
forms exhibiting hardly any such expansion, while the
Mesozoic genera present a greater and greater develop-
ment, until, in the Tertiary forms, the expanded ends
become suturally united so as to form a sort of false ver-
tebra. Hermann von Meyer, again, to whose luminous
researches we are indebted for our present large know-
ledge of the organization of the older Labyrinthodonts,
has proved that the Carboniferous Archegoscmrus had
very imperfectly developed vertebral centra, while the
Triassic Mast?donsaurus had the same parts completely
ossified. ■"•
The regularity and evenness of the dentition of the
Anoijlotherium, as contrasted with that of existino*
Artiodactyles, and the assumed nearer approach of the
dentition of certain ancient Carnivores to the typical
arrangement, have also been cited as exemplifications of
a law of progressive development, but I know of no
other cases based on positive evidence which are worthy
of particular notice.
"What then does an impartial survey of the positively
ascertained truths of palaeontology testify in relation to
the common doctrines of progressive modification, which
suppose that modification to have taken place by a ne-
cessary progress from more to less embryonic forms, or
from more to less generalized types, within the limits of
the period represented by the fossiliferous rocks ?
It negatives those doctrines ; for it either shows us no
_ 1 As this Address is passing through the press (IVIarch 7, 1862), evidence
lies before me of the existence of a new Labyrinthodont {Pholidogaster),
from the Edinburgh coal-field, with well-ossified vertebral centra.
226 l^T SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEJfS. [x/
evidence of any sucli modification, or demonstrates it to
Lave been very slight; and as to tlie nature of that
modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever that the
earlier members of any long-continued group were more
generalized in structure than the later ones. To a certain
extent, indeed, it may be said that imperfect ossification
of the vertebral column is an embryonic character;
but, on the other hand, it would be extremely incor-
rect to suppose that the vertebral columns of the older
Vertebrata are in any sense embryonic in their whole
structure.
Obviously, if the earliest fossiliferous rocks now known
are coeval with the commencement of life, and if their
contents give us any just conception of the nature and
the extent of the earliest fauna and flora, the insig-
nificant amount of modification which can be demon-
strated to have taken place in any one group of animals,
or plants, is quite incompatible with the hypothesis that
all living forms are the results of a necessary process of
progressive development, entirely comprised within the
time represented by the fossiliferous rocks.
Contrariwise, any admissible hypthesis of progressive
modification must be compatible with persistence with-
out progression, through indefinite periods. And should
such an hypothesis eventually be proved to be true, in
the only way in which it can be demonstrated, viz. by
observation and experiment upon the existing forms of
life, the conclusion will inevitably present itself, that the
Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and Cainozoic faunae and florae,
taken together, bear somewhat the same proportion to
the whole series of living beings which have occupied
this globe, as the existing^ fauna and flora do to them.
Such are the results of palaeontology as they appear,
and have for some years appeared, to the mind of an
inquirer who regards that study simply as one of the
X.] PERSISTENT TYPES OF LIFE. 227
applications of tlie great biological sciences, and who
desires to see it placed upon the same sound basis as
other branches of physical inquiry. If the arguments
which have been brought forward are valid, probably no
one, in view of the present state of opinion, will be
inclined to think the time wasted which has been spent
upon their elaboration.
GEOLOGICAL EEFOEM
''A great reform in geological speculation seems now to have "become
necessary."
"It is quite certain that a great mistake has been made, — that British
l)opular geology at the present time is in direct opposition to the principles
ijf Natural Philosophy."^
In reviewing^ tlie course of geolooical tlioiio^lit clurinof
the past year, for the purpose of discovering those
matters to which I might most fitly direct yonr attention
in the Address which it now becomes my duty to deliver
from the Presidential Chair, the two somewhat alarming
sentences which I have just read, and which occur in
an able and interesting essay by an eminent natural
philosopher, rose into such prominence before my mind
that they eclipsed everj^hing else.
It surely is a matter of paramount importance for the
British geologists (some of them very popular geologists
too) here in solemn annual session assembled, to inquire
whether the severe judgment thus passed upon them by
so high an authority as Sir William Thomson is one to
which they must plead guilty sans phrase, or whether
they are prepared to say '' not guilty," and appeal for a
1 On Geological Time. By Sir W. Thomson, LL.D. Transactions of the
Geological Society of Glasgow, vol. iii.
XI.] GEOLOGICAL REFORM, 229
reversal of the sentence to that higher court of educated
scientific opinion to which we are all amenable.
As your attorney-general for the time being, I thought
I could not do better than get up the case with a view
of advising you. It is true that the charges brought
forward by the other side involve the consideration of
matters quite foreign to the pursuits with which I am
ordinarily occupied ; but, in that respect, I am only in
the position which is, nine times out of ten, occupied by
counsel, who nevertheless contrive to gain their causes,
maiuly by force of mother- wit and common sense, aided
by some training in other intellectual exercises.
Nerved by such precedents, I proceed to put my
pleading before you.
And the first question with which I 23ropose to deal
is, What is it to which Sir W. Thomson refers when he
speaks of "geological speculation'' and "British popular
geology " ?
I find three, more or less contradictory, systems of
geological thought, each of which might fairly enough
claim these appellations, standing side by side in Britain.
I shall call one of them Catasteophism, another Uni-
FOEMiTARiANiSM, the third Evolutionism ; and I shall
try briefly to sketch the characters of each, that you may
say whether the classification is, or is not, exhaustive.
By Catasteophism, I mican any form of geological
speculation which, in order to account for the phsenomena
of geology, supposes the operation of forces different in
their nature, or immeasurably different in power, from
those which we at present see in action in the universe.
The Mosaic cosmogony is, in this sense, catastrophic,
because it assumes the operation of extra-natural power.
The doctrine of violent upheavals, dehddes, and cata-
clysms in general, is catastrophic, so far as it assumes
that these were brought about by causes which have
11
230 l^T SER210NS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xi
now no parallel. There was a time when catastrophism
might, pre-eminently, have claimed the title of " British
popular geology ; " and assuredly it has yet many ad-
herents, and reckons among its supporters some of the
most honoured members of this Society,
By Unifoemitarianism, I mean especially, the teach-
ing of Hutton and of Lyell.
That great though incomplete work, " The Theory of
the Earth, seems to me to be one of the most remarkable
contributions to geology which is recorded in the annals
of the science. So far as the not-living world is con-
cerned, uniformitarianism lies there, not only in germ,
but in blossom and fruit.
If one aslcs how it is that Hutton was led to entertain
views so far in advance of those prevalent in his time, in
some respects ; while, in others, they seem, almost curi-
ously limited, the answer appears to me to be plain.
Hutton was in advance of the geological speculation
of his time, because, in the first place, he had amassed a
vast store of knowledge of the facts of geology, gathered
by personal observation in travels of considerable extent ;
and because, in the second place, he was thoroughly
trained in the physical and chemical science of his day,
and thus possessed, as much as any one in his time
could possess it, the knowledge which is requisite for
the just interpretation of geological phsenomena, and
the habit of thouQ-ht which fits a man for scientific
inquiry.
It is to this thorough scientific training, that I ascribe
Hutton s steady and persistent, refusal to look to other
causes than those now in operation, for the explanati(>n
of p^eological phsenomena.
Thus he writes : — " I do not pretend, as he [M. de Luc J
does in his theory, to describe the beginning of things.
1 take things such as I find them at present ; and
W.] GWLOGICAL REFORM. 231
from these I reason v/itli regard to tliat which must
have been." ^
And again : — "A theory of the earth, which has for
object truth, can have no retrospect to that which had
preceded the present order of the world ; for this order
alone is what we have to reason upon ; and to reason
without data is nothing but delusion. A theory, there-
fore, w^hich is limited to the actual constitution of this
earth cannot be allowed to proceed one step beyond the
present order of things." ^
And so clear is he, that no causes beside such as are
now in operation are needed to account for the character
and disposition of the components of the crust of the
earth, that he says, broadly and boldly : — " . . . There
is no part of the earth which has not had the same
origin, so far as this consists in that earth being collected
at the bottom of the sea, and afterwards produced,
as land, along with masses of melted substances, by the
operation of mineral causes." ^
But other influences w^ere at work upon Hutton beside
those of a mind logical by Nature, and scientific by
sound training ; and the peculiar turn which his specu-
lations took seems to me to be unintelligible, unless these
be taken into account. The arguments of the French
astronomers and mathematicians, wdiich, at the end of
the last century, were held to demonstrate the existence
of a compensating arrangement among the celestial
bodies, whereby all perturbations eventually reduced
themselves to oscillations on each side of a mean po-
sition, and the stability of the solar system was secured,
had evidently taken stroug hold of Hutton's mind.
In those oddly constructed periods which seem to have
prejudiced many persons against reading his works, but
1 The Theory of the Er.rth, vol. 1 p. 173, note. Ibid. p. 281
8 Ibid, p. 371.
232 Ur SERMONS, ABDRHSSES, AND REVIEWS. [xi
wMcli are full of that peculiar, if unattractive, eloquence
wliicli flovv^s from mastery of the subject, Hutton says : — >
" We have now got to the end of our reasoning , we
have no data further to conclude immediately from that
which actually is. But we have got enough ; we have
the satisfaction to find, that in Nature there is wisdom,
system, and consistency. For having, in the natural
history of this earth, seen a succession of worlds, we
may from this conclude that there is a system in Nature ;
in like manner as, from seeing revolutions of the planets,
it is concluded, that there is a system by which they are
intended to continue those revolutions. But if the sue
cession of worlds is established in the system of Nature,
it is in vain to look for anything higher in the origin of
the earth. The result, therefore, of this physical inquiry
is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, — no prospect
of an end." ^
Yet another influence worked strongly upon Hutton.
Like most philosophers of his age, he coquetted with
those final causes which have been named barren virgins,
but which might be more fitly termed the hetairw of
philosophy, so constantly have they led men astray.
The final cause of the existence of the world is, for
Hutton, the production of life and intelligence.
" We have now considered the globe of this earth
as a machine, constructed upon chemical as well as
mechanical principles, by which its different parts are all
adapted, in form, in quality, and in quantity, to a certain
end ; an end attained v/ith certainty or success ; and an
end from which we may perceive wisdom, in contem-
plating the means employed.
" But is this world to be considered thus merely as a
machine, to last no longer than its parts retain their
present position, their proper forms and qualities? Ot
» The Tlieoiy of tlie Earth, vol. i p. £00.
Xi.J GEOLOGICAL RILFOR^L 233
may it not be also considered as an organized body ?
such a?! has a constitution in which the necessary decay
of the macliine is naturally repaired, in the exertion of
those productive powers by which it had been formed.
" This is the view in which w^e are now to examine
the globe ; to see if there be, in the constitution of this
world, a reproductive operation, by w^hich a ruined con*
stitution may be again repaired, and a duration or
stability thus procured to the machine, considered as a
world sustaining plants and animals." ^
Kirwan, and the other Philistines of the day, accused
Hutton of declaring that his theory implied that the
world never had a beginning, and never diifered in
condition from its present state. Nothing could be more
grossly unjust, as he expressly guards himself against
any such conclusion in the following terms : —
"But in thus tracing back the natural operations
which have succeeded each other, and mark to us the
course of time past, w^e come to a period in which we
cannot see any farther. This, however, is not the
beginning of the operations which proceed in time and
according to the wise economy of this world ; nor is it
the establishing of that which, in the course of time,
had no beginning ; it is only the limit of our retrospec-
tive view of those operations which have come to pass
in time, and have been conducted by supreme intel-
ligence." ^
I have spoken of Uniformitarianism as the doctrine of
Hutton and of Lycll. If I have quoted the older writer
rather than the newer, it is because his works are little
known, and his claims on our veneration too frequently
forgotten, not because I desire to dim the fame of his
eminent successor. Few of the present generation of geo-
logists have read Play fair s " Illustrations," fewer still the
» The Theory of tlie Earth, vol. i. pp. 16, 17. ^ Ibid. p. 223.
234 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xl
original *' Theory of tlie Eartla ; '' the more is the pity ;
but ' which of us has not thumbed every page of the
" Principles of Geology " ? I think that he wlio writes
fairly the history of his own progress in geological
thought, will not be able to separate his debt to Hutton
from his obligations to Lyell ; and the history of the
progress of individual geologists is the history of geology.
No one can doubt that the influence of uniformitarian
views has been enormous, and, in the main, most
beneficial and favourable to the progress of sound
geology.
Nor can it be questioned that Uniformitarianism has
even a stronger title than Catas trophism to call itself the
geological speculation of Britain, or, if you will, British
popular geology. For it is eminently a British doctrine,
and has even now made comparatively little progress
on the continent of Europe. Nevertheless it seems to
me to be open to serious criticism upon one of its
aspects.
I have shown how unjust was the insinuation that
Hutton denied a beginning to the world. But it would
not be unjust to say that he persistently, in practice,
shut his eyes to the existence of that prior and different
state of things which, in theory, he admitted ; and, in
this aversion to look beyond the veil of stratified rocks,
Lyell follows him.
Hutton and Lyell alike agree in their indisposition
to carry their speculations a step beyond the period
recorded in the most* ancient strata now open to obser-
vation in the crust of the earth. This is, for Hutton,
" the point in which we cannot see any farther ; '^ while
Lyell tells us, — ■
" The astronomer may find good reasons for ascribing
the earth's form to the original fluidity of the mass, in
times long antecedent to the first introduction of living
XL] GEOLOGICAL REFOiOL 235
beings into tlie planet ; but tlie geologist must be content
to reofard the earliest monuments which it is his task to
interpret, as belonging to a period when the crust had
already acquired great solidity and thickness, probably
as great as it now possesses, and when volcanic rocks,
aot essentially differing from those no"^ produced, were
formed from time to time, the intensity of volcanic heat
being neither greater nor less than it is now/^ ^
And again, " As geologists, we learn that it is not only
the present condition of the globe which has been suited
to the accommodation of myriads of living creatures, but
that many former states also have been adapted to the
organization and habits of prior races of beings. The
disposition of the seas, continents and islands, and the
climates, have varied ; the species likewise have been
changed ; and yet they have all been so modelled, on
types analogous to those of existing plants and animals,
as to indicate, throughout, a perfect harmony of design
and unity of purpose. To assume that the evidence of
the beginning, or end, of so vast a scheme lies within
the reach of our philosophical inquiries, or even of our
speculations, appears to be inconsistent with a just
estimate of the relations which subsist between the finite
powers of man and the attributes of an infinite and
eternal Being." ^
The limitations implied in these passages appear to
me to constitute the weakness and the logical defect of
uniformitarianism. No one will impute blame to Huttoii
that, in face of the imperfect condition, in his clay, of
those physical sciences which furnish the keys to the
riddles of geology, he should have thought it practical
wisdom to limit his theory to an attempt to account for
** the present order of things ; " but I am at a loss to com-
prehend why, for all time, the geologist must be content
* Principles of Geology, vol. ii. p. 211. * Ibid. p. 613.
236 LAT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xi
to regard the oldest fossiliferous rocks as tlie ultima
Thule of Ms science ; or what there is inconsistent with
the relations between the finite and the infinite mind, in
the assumption, that we may discern somewhat of the
beginning, or of the end, of this speck in space we call
our earth. The finite mind is certainly competent to
trace out the development of the fowl within the egg ;
and I know not on what ground it should find more
difficulty in unravelling the complexities of the develop-
ment of the earth. In fact, as Kant has well remarked, ^
the cosmical process is really simpler than the biological.
This attempt to limit, at a particular point, the progress
of inductive and deductive reasoning from the thing-s
wdiich are, to those which were — this faithlessness to its
own logic, seems to me to have cost Uniformitarianism
the place, as the permanent form of geological specula-
tion, which it might otherwise have held.
It remains that I should put before you what I
understand to be the third phase of geological specula-
tion— namely, Evolutionism.
I shall not make what I have to say on this head
clear, unless I diverge, or seem to diverge, for a while,
from the direct path of my discourse, so far as to explain
what I take to be the scope of geology itself. I conceive
geology to be the history of the earth, in precisely the
same sense as biology is the history of living beings ;
and I trust you will not think that I am overpowered by
the influence of a dominant pursuit if I say that I trace
a close analogy between these two histories.
If I study a living being, under what heads does the
^ " Man darf es sicli also nicht befremclen lassen, wenn ich mich unterstelie
zLi sagen, dass eher die Bildimg aller HimmelskoriDer, die Ursache ihrer
Bevvegungen, kurz der Ursprung der ganzen gegenwartigen Verfassung des
VVeltbaues werden konnen eingesehen werden, ehe die Erzeugimg eines
eiazigen Krautes oder einer Eaupe aus meclianisclien Griinden, deiitlich und
ToUstctndig kiind verden wird." — Kant's Sdmmtliche Werke, Bd. I. p. 220,
Xh] GEOLOGICAL REFORM. 237
knowledge I obtain fall 1 1 can learn its structure, or
wliat we call its Anatomy ; and its Development, or
the series of changes wliicli it passes through, to acquire
its complete structure. Then I find that the living
being has certain pov^ers resulting from its own acti-
vities, and the interaction of these with the activities of
other things — the knovdedge of which is Physiology.
Beyond this the living being has a position in space and
time, wdiich is its Disteibxjtion. All these form the
body of ascertainable facts which constitute the status
quo of the living creature. But these facts have their
causes ; and the ascertainment of these causes is the
doctrine of j^tiology.
If we consider what is knowable about the earth, v/e
shall find that such earth-knowledge — if I may so trans-
late the word geology — falls into the same categories.
What is termed stratigraphical geology is neither more
nor less than the anatomy of the earth ; and the history
of the succession of the formations is the history of a
succession of such anatomies, or corresponds with deve-
lopment, as distinct from generation.
The internal heat of the. earth, the elevation and
depression of its crust, its belchings forth of vapours,
ashes, and lava, are its activities, in as strict a sense, as are
warmth and the movements and products of respiration
the activities of an animal. The phgenomena of the
seasons, of the trade winds, of the Gulf-stream, are as
much the results of the reaction between these inner
activities and outward forces, as are the budding of the
leaves in sprino; and their falling^ in autumn the efiects
of the interaction between the organization of a plant
and the solar light and heat. And, as the study of the
activities of the living being is called its physiology, so
are these phaenomena the subject-matter of an analogous
telluric physiology, to which we sometimes give the
238 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEJFS, [xi
name of meteorology, sometimes that of physical geo-
graphy, sometimes that of geology. Again, the earth
has a place in space and in time, and relations to other
bodies in both these respects, which constitute its distri-
bution. This subject is usually left to the astronomer;
but a knowledge of its broad outlines seems to me to be
an essential constituent of the stock of geological ideas.
All that can be ascertained concerning the structure,
succession of conditions, actions, and position in space of
the earth, is the matter of fact of its natural history.
But, as in biology, there remains the matter of reasoning
from these facts to their causes, which is just as much
science as the other, and indeed m^ore ; and this consti-
tutes geological aetiology.
Having regard to this general scheme of geological
knowledge and thought, it is obvious that geological
speculation may be, so to speak, anatomical and develop-
mental speculation, so far as it relates to points of strati-
graphical arrangement which are out of reach of direct
observation ; or, it may be physiological speculation, so
far as it relates to undetermined problems relative to the
activities of the earth ; or, it may be distributional specu-
lation, if it deals with modifications of the earth's place
in space ; or, finally, it will be setiological speculation, if
it attempts to deduce the history of the world, as a
whole, from the known properties of the matter of the
earth, in the conditions in which the earth has been placed.
For the purposes of the present discourse I may take
this last to be what is meant by '' geological speculation."
Now uniformitarianism, as we have seen, tends to
ignore geological speculation in this sense altogether.
The one point the catastrophists and the uniformi-
tarians agreed upon, when this Society was founded, was
to ignore it. And you will find, if you look back into
our records, that our revered fathers in geology plumed
el] geological reform. 239
tliemselves a good deal upon tlie practical sense and
\Yisdom of this proceeding. As a temporary measure, I
do not presume to challenge its wisdom ; but in all
organized bodies temporary changes are apt to produce
permanent effects ; and as time has slipped by, altering
all the conditions which may have made such mortifica-
tion of the scientific flesh desirable, I think the effect of
the stream of cold water which has steadily flowed over
geological speculation within these Avails has been of
doubtful beneficence.
The sort of geological speculation to which I am now
referring (geological setiology, in short) was created, as
a science, by that famous philosopher Immanuel Kant,
when, in 1755, he wrote his " General Natural History
and Theory of the Celestial Bodies ; or an Attempt to
account for the Constitution and the Mechanical Origin
of the Universe upon Newtonian principles."^
In this very remarkable but seemingly little-known
treatise,^ Kant expounds a complete cosmogony, in the
shape of a theory of the causes which have led to the deve-
lopment of the universe from diffused atoms of matter
endowed w^ith simple attractive and re23ulsive forces.
" Give me matter,'^ says Kant, " and I will build the
world;" and he proceeds to deduce from the simple
data from which he starts, a doctrine in all essential re-
spects similar to the w^ell-known "Nebular Hypothesis"
of Laplace.^ He accounts for the relation of the masses
and the densities of the planets to their distances from
the sun, for the eccentricities of their orbits, for their
rotations, for their satellites, for the general agreement
^ Grant (" History of Physical Astronomy," p. 574) makes but the briefest
lefer^mce to Kant.
2 " Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie cles Hiinmels ; ocler Versuch
7on der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen Weltge-
biiudes nach Newton'schen Grundsatzen abgehandelt." — Kant's Sdrnmtlicha
Werke, Bd. i, p. 207.
* Systeme du Monde, tome ii. chap. 6.
240 I^^^ SERMONS, ADDBJESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xi
in tlie direction of rotation among the celestial bodies,
for Saturn's ring, and for tlie zodiacal liglit. He finds
in each system of worlds, indications that the attractive
force of the central mass will eventually destroy its orga-
nization, by concentrating upon itself the matter of the
wdiole system ; but, as the result of this concentration,
he argues for the development of an amount of heat
which will dissipate the mass once more into a molecular
chaos such as that in which it began.
Kant pictures to himself the universe as once an
infinite expansion of formless and difiused matter. At
one point of this he supposes a single centre of attraction
set up ; and, by strict deductions from admitted dynamical
principles, shows how this must result in the development
of a prodigious central body, surrounded by systems of
solar and planetary worlds in all stages of development.
In vivid language he depicts the great world- maelstrom,
widening the margins of its prodigious eddy in the slow
progress of millions of ages, gradually reclaiming more
and more of the molecular waste, and converting chaos
into cosmos. But what is gained at the margin is lost
in the centre ; the attractions of the central systems
bring their constituents together, which then, by the heat
evolved, are converted once more into molecular chaos.
Thus the vv^orlds that are, lie between the ruins of the
worlds that have been and the chaotic materials of the
worlds that shall be ; and in spite of all waste and
destruction. Cosmos is extending his borders at the
expense of Chaos.
Kant's further application of his views to the earth
itself is to be found in his " Treatise on Physical Geo-
graphy^'^ (a term under which the then unknovvai science
of geology was included), a subject which he had studied
v\'ith very great care and on which he lectured for many
^ Kant's " Samnitliclie Werke," Ed. viii. p. 145.
II.J GEOLOGICAL REFOIUI. 241
rears. The foiirtli section of the first part of this
Treatise is called " History of the great Changes which
the Earth has formerly undergone and is still undergoing/'
and is, in fact, a brief and pregnant essay upon the prin-
ciples of geology. Kant gives an account first *'of the
gradual changes which are now taking place" under
the heads of such as are caused by earthquakes, such
as are brought about by rain and rivers, such as ars
effected by the sea, such as are produced by windo
and frost; and, finally, such as result from the opera-
tions of man.
The second part is devoted to the " Memorials of the
Changes which the Earth has undergone in remote an-
tiquity.'' These are enumerated as : — A. Proofs that
the sea formerly covered the whole earth. B. Proofs
that the sea has often been changed into dry land and
then again into sea. C. A discussion of the various
theories of the earth put forward by Scheuchzer, Moro,
Bonnet, Woodward, White, Leibnitz, Linnaeus, and
Buffon.
The third part contains an "Attempt to give a sound
explanation of the ancient history of the earth.''
I suppose that it would be very easy to pick holes in
the details of Kant's speculations, whether cosmological,
or specially telluric, in their application. But, for all
that, he seems to me to have been the first person to
frame a complete system of geological speculation by
foundino; the doctrine of evolution.
AYith as much truth as Hut ton, Kant could say, "I
take things just as I find them at present, and, from
these, I reason with regard to that which must have
been." Like Hutton, he is never tired of pointing
out that " in Nature there is wisdom, system, and con-
sistency." And, as in these great principles, so in believ-
ing that the cosmos has a reproductive operation *''by
242 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xi.
vvhicli a ruined constitution may be repaired/' he for-
stalls Hutton ; while, on the other hand, Kant is true to
science. He knows no bounds to geological speculation
but those of the intellect. He reasons back to a begin-
ning of the present state of things ; he admits the possi-
bility of an end.
I have said that the three schools of geological specu-
lation which I have termed Catastrophism, Uniformi-
tarianism, and Evolutionism are commonly supposed to
be antagonistic to one another ; and I presume it will
have become obvious that, in my belief, the last is
destined to swallow up the other two. But it is proper
to remark that each of the latter has kept alive the tra
dition of precious truths.
Catasteophism has insisted upon the existence of a
practically unlimited bank of force, on which the theorist
miofht draw ; and it has cherished the idea of the de-
velopment of the earth from a state in which its form,
and the forces which it exerted, were very different from
those we now know. That such difference of form and
power once existed is a necessa^ry part of the doctrine of
evolution.
UxiFOEMiTAEiANiSM, on the otlicr hand, has with
equal justice insisted upon a practically unlimited bank
of time, ready to discount any quantity of hypothetical
paper. It has kept before our eyes the power of the
infinitely little, time being granted, and has compelled us
to exhaust known causes, before flying to the unknown.
To my mind there appears to be no sort of necessary
theoretical antagonism between Catastrophism and Uni-
formitarianism. On the contrary, it is very conceivable
that catastrophes may be part and parcel of uniformity.
Let me illustrate rr.y case by analogy. The working of
a clock is a model of uniform action ; good time-keeping
means uniformity of action. But the striking of the
I.J GEOLOGICAL REFORM, 243
clock is essentially a catastroplie ; the hammer might be
made to blow up a barrel of gunpowder, or turn on a
deluge of water ; and, by proper arrangement, the clock,
instead of marking the hours, might strike at all sorts of
irregular periods, never twice alike, in the intervals,
force, or number of its blows. Nevertheless, all these
irregular, and apparently lawless, catastrophes would be
the result of an absolutely uniformitarian action ; and
we might have two schools of clock-theorists, one
studying the hammer and the other the pendulum.
Still less is there any necessary antagonism between
either of these doctrines and that of Evolution, which
embraces all that is sound in both Catastrophism and
Uniformitarianism, while it rejects the arbitrary assump-
tions of the one and the, as arbitrary, limitations of the
other. Nor is the value of the doctrine of Evolution to the
philosophic thinker diminished by the fact that it applies
tlie same method to the living and the not-living world ;
and embraces, in one stupendous analogy, the growth
of a solar system from molecular chaos, the shaping
of the earth from the nebulous cubhood of its youth,
through innumerable changes and immeasurable ages,
to its present form; and the development of a living
being from the shapeless mass of protoplasm we term a
germ.
I do not know whether Evolutionism can claim that
amount of currency which would entitle it to be called
British popular geology ; but, more or less vaguely, it is
assuredly present in the minds of most geologists.
Such being the three phases of geological speculation,
we are now in position to inquire which of these it is
that Sir William Thomson calls upon us to reform in
the passages which I have cited.
It is obviously Uniformitarianism which the dis-
244 ^^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xi
tinguished physicist takes to be tlie representative of
geological speculation in general. And thus a first
issue is raised, inasmuch, as many persons (and those
not the least thoughtful among the younger geologists)
do not accept strict Uniformitarianism as the final form
of geological speculation, We should say, if Ilutton
and Playfa.ir declare the course of the world to have
been always the same, point out the fallacy by all means ;
but, in so doing, do not im_agine that you are proving
modern geology to be in opposition to natural phi-
losophy. I do not suppose that, at the present day
any geologist would be found to maintain absolute
Uniformitarianism, to deny that the rapidity of the
rotation of the earth may be diminishmg, that the sun
may be waxing dim, or that the earth itself "may be
cooling. Most of us, I suspect, are Gallios, " who care
for none of these things,''' being of opinion that, true
or fictitious, they have made no practical difference to
the earth, during the period of which a record is pre-
served in stratified deposits.
The accusation that we have been running counter to
the jyrinGi'plQS of natural philosophy, therefore, is devoid
of foundation. The only question which can arise is
whether we have, or have not, been tacitly making
assumptions which are in opposition to certain con-
clusions which may be drawn from those principles.
And this question subdivides itself into two : — ^the first,
are we really contravening such conclusions ? the second,
if we are, are those conclusions so firmly based that we
may not contravene them ? I reply in the negative to
both these questions, and I will give you my reasons
for so doing. Sir AVilliam Thomson believes that he
is able to prove, by physical reasonings, "that the
existing state of things on the earth, life on the earth
— all geological history showing continuity of life — '
£1.] GWLOGICAl REFORM. 245
must be limited within some such period of time as one
hundred million years'' (loc. cit. p. 25).
The first inquiry which arises plainly is, has it ever
been denied that this period Quay he enough for the
purposes of geology ?
The discussion of this question is greatly embarrassed
by the vagueness with which the assumed limit is, I.
will not say defined, but indicated, — "some such period
of past time as one hundred million years.'' Now
does this mean that it may have been two, or three, or
four hundred million years \ Because this really makes
all the difference.-^
I presume that 100,000 feet may be taken as a full
allowance for the total thickness of stratified rocks con-
taining traces of life ; 100,000 divided by 100,000,000
=0'001. Consequently, the deposit of 100,000 feet of
stratified rock in 100,000,000 years means that the
deposit has taken place at the rate of t^od ^f ^ foot, or,
say, -^ of an inch, per annum.
Well, I do not know that any one is prepared to main-
tain that, even making all needful allowances, the
stratified rocks may not have been formed, on the
average, at the rate of sV of an inch per annum.
I suppose that if such could be shown to be the
limit of world-growth, we could put up with the
allowance without feeling that our speculations had
undergone any revolution. And perhaps, after all, the
qualifying phrase ^' some such period" may not neces-
sitate the assumption of more than xie- or 2x9- or -arsr of
an inch of deposit per year, which, of course, would
give us still more ease and comfort.
But, it may be said, that it is biology, and not geology,
^ Sir William Thomson implies (loc. cit. p. 16), that the precise tinie is oi
no consequence : " the principle is the same ;" but, as the principle is
admitted, the whole discussion turns on its practical results.
246 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xi.
wMcli asks for so much, time — that the succession of
life demands vast intervals ; but this appears to me to
be reasoning in a circle. Biology takes her time from
geology. The only reason we have for believing in the
slow rate of the cliang^e in living^ forms is the fact that
they persist through a series of deposits which, geology
informs us, have taken a long while to make. If the
geological clock is wrong, all the naturalist will have to
do is to modify his notions of the rapidity of change
accordingly. And I venture to point out that, when we
are told that the limitation bi the period during which
living beings have inhabited this planet to one, tv>7-o, or
three hundred million years requires a complete revolu-
tion in geological speculation, the onus prohandi rests
on the maker of the assertion, who brings forward not
a shadow of evidence in its support.
Thus, if we accept the limitation of time placed before
us by Sir W. Thomson, it is not obvious, on the face
of the matter, that we shall have to alter, or reform,
our ways in any appreciable degree ; and we naay there-
fore proceed with much calmness, a.nd indeed much
indifference, as to the result, to inquire whether that
limitation is justified by the arguments employed in its
support.
These arguments are three in number : —
I. The first is based upon the undoubted fact that the
tides tend to retard the rate of the earth's rotation upon
its axis. That this must be so is obvious, if one con-
siders, roughly, that the tides result from the pull which
the sun and the moon exert upon the sea, causing it to
act as a sort of break upon the rotating solid earth.
Kant, who was by no means a mere " abstract philo-
sopher,'' but a good mathematician and well versed in
the physicjd science of his time, not only proved this in
an es&ay of exquisite clearness and intelligibility, now
TLU] GEOLOGICAL REF0R2L 247
more than a century old/ but deduced from it some of
its more important consequences, such as the constant
turning of one face of the moon towards the earth.
But there is a long step from the demonstration of a
tendency to the estimation of the practical value of that
tendency, which is all with which we are at present
concerned. The facts bearing on this point appear to
stand as follow : —
It is a matter of observation that the moon's mean
motion is (and has for the last 3,000 years been) under-
going an acceleration, relatively to the rotation of the
earth. Of course this may result from one of two
causes : the moon may really have been moving more
swiftly in its orbit; or the earth may have been rotating
more slowly on its axis.
Laplace believed he had accounted for this phseno-
menon by the fact that the eccentricity of the earth's
orb it has beendiminishing throughout these 3,000 years.
This would produce a diminution of tlie mean attraction
of the sun on the moon ; or, in other words, an increase
in the attraction of the earth on the moon ; and, con-
sequently, an increase in the rapidity of the orbital
motion of the latter body. Laplace, therefore, laid the
responsibility of the acceleration upon the moon, and
if his views were correct, the tidal retardation must
either be insignificant in amount, or be counteracted by
some other agency.
Our great astronomer, Adams, however, appears to
have found a flaw in Laplace's calculation, and to have
shown that only half the observed retardation could be
accounted for in the way he had suggested. There
* " Untersucliung der Frage ob die Erde in ilirer Umdreliung um die
Achse, wodrucli sie die Abwecliselimg des Tages imd der Nacht liervorbringt,
einige Veranderiing seit den ersten Zeiten iiires Ursprunges erlitten liabe,
&C." — Kakt's 8dm'mtliche Wtrke^ Bd. i. p. 178.
248 L^r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xj.
remains, therefore, tlie otlier lialf to be acconnted for ;
and liere, in tlie absence of all positive knowledge, three
sets of hypotheses have been suggested.
(a.) M. Delannay suggests that the earth is at fault, in
consequence of the tidal retardation. Messrs. Adams,
Thomson, and Tait work out this suggestion, and, " on
a certain assumption as to the proportion of retardations
due to the sun and moon,'^ find the earth may lose
twenty-two seconds of time in a century from this cause.^
(6.) But M. Dufour suggests that the retardation of the
earth (which is hypothetically assumed to exist) may be
due in part, or wholly, to the increase of the moment
of inertia of the earth by meteors falling upon its surface.
This suggestion also meets with the eutire approval of
Sir W. Thomson, who shows that meteor-dust, accumu-
lating at the rate of one foot in 4,000 years, would
account for the remainder of retardation.^
(c.) Thirdly, Sir W. Thomson brings forward an hypo-
thesis of his own with respect to the cause of the hypo-
thetical retardation of the earth's rotation : —
*' Let us suppose ice to melt from the polar regions
(20° round each pole, we may say) to the extent of
something more than a foot thick, enough to give 1*1
foot of water over those areas, or 0'006 of a foot of
water if spread over the Avhole globe, which would, in
reality, raise the sea-level by only some such undiscover-
able difference as three-fourths of an inch or an inch.
This, or the reverse, which we believe might happen any
year, and could certainly not be detected without far
more accurate observations and calculations for the mean
sea-level than any hitherto made, would slacken or
quicken the earth's rate as a timekeeper by one-tenth of
a second per year." ^
I do not presume to throw the slightest doubt upo^
> Sir W. Thomson, loc. cit., p. 14. * Loc. .it,, p. 27. ^ Ibid.
xi.l GEOLOGICAL REFORM. 249
tlie accuracy of any of tlie calculations made by such
distinguislied mathematicians as those who have made
the suggestions I have cited. On the contrary, it is
necessary to my argument to assume that they are all
correct. But I desire to point out that this seems to be
one of the niany cases in which the admitted accuracy of
mathematical process is allowed to throw a wholly
inadmissible appearance of authority over the results
obtained by them. Mathematics may be compared to a
mill of exquisite workmanship, which grinds you stuff of
any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get
out depends upon what you put in ; and as the grandest
mill in the world will not extract wheat-flour from
p^ascods, so pages of formulae will not get a definite
result out of loose data.
In the present instance it appears to be admitted : —
1 That it is not absolutely certain, after all, whether
the moon's mean motion is undergoing acceleration, or
the earth's rotation retardation.-^ And yet this is tho
key of the whole position.
2. If the rapidity of the earth's rotation is diminishing,
it is not certain how much of that retardation is due to
tidal friction,-~-rhow much to meteors, — how much to
possible excess of melting over accumulation of polar
ice, during the period covered by observation, which
amounts, at the outside, to not more than 2,600 years.
3. The effect of a different distribution of land and
water in modifying the retardation caused by tidal
friction, and of reducing it, under some circumstances,
to a minimum, does not appear to be taken into
account.
4 During the Miocene epoch the polar ice was cer-
tainly many feet thinner than it has been during, or
* It will te miderstood that I do not wish to deny that the earth's rotation
may 6« undergoing retardation.
250 LAY SER3I0NS, ABDRTlSSES, ANB REVIEWS. [xi.
since, the Glacial epocli. Sir W. Thomson tells ns that
the accumulation of something: more than a foot of
ice around the poles (which implies the withdrawal of,
say, an inch of water from the general surface of the
sea) will cause the earth to rotate quicker by one-tenth
of a second per annum. It would appear, therefore,
that the earth may have been rotating, throughout the
whole period which has elapsed from the commencement
of the Glacial epoch down to the present time, one, or
more, seconds per annum quicker than it rotated during
the Miocene epoch.
But, acording to Sir W. Thomson's calculation, tidal
retardation will only account for a retardation of 22" in
a century, or ^ ^ (say i) of a second per annum.
Thus, assuming that the accumulation of polar ice
since the Miocene epoch has only been sufficient to
produce ten times the effect of a coat of ice one foot
thick, we shall have an accelerating cause which covers
all the loss from tidal action, and leaves a balance
of i a second per annum in the way of acceleration.
If tidal retardation can be thus checked and over-
thrown by other temporary conditions, what becomes
of the confident assertion, based upon the assumed uni-
formity of tidal retardation, that ten thousand million
years ago the earth must have been rotating more than
twice as fast as at present, and, therefore, that we
geologists are " in direct opposition to the principles
of Natural Philosophy '^ if we spread geological history
over that time ?
II. The second argument is thus stated by Sir W.
Thomson :-— "An article, by myself, published in ' Mac-
millan's Magazine ' for March 1862, on the age of tho
sun's heat, explains results of investigation into various
questions as to possibilities regarding the amount of heat
that the sun could have, dealing with it as you would
v.] GEOLOGICAL REFORM. 5^51
with a stone, or a piece of matter, only taking into
account the sun's dimensions, which showed it to be
possible that the sun may have already illuminated the
earth for as many as one hundred million years, but at
the same time rendered it almost certain that he had not
illuminated the earth for five hundred millions of years.
The estimates here are necessarily very vague ; but yet,
vague as they are, I do not know that it is possible, upon
any regisonable estimate founded on known properties
of matter, to say that we can believe the sun has really
illuminated the earth for five hundred million years."-^
I do not wish to " Hansardize " Sir William Thomson
by laying much stress on the fact that, only fifteen years
ago, he entertained a totally different view of the origin
of the sun's heat^ and believed that the energy radiated
from year to year was supplied from year to year —
a doctrine which would have suited Hutton perfectly.
But the fact that so eminent a physical philosopher has,
thus recently, held views opposite to those which he now
entertains, and that he confesses his own estimates to
be ''very vague,'' justly entitles us to disregard those
estimates, if any distinct facts on our side go against
them. However, I am not aware that such facts exist.
As I have already said, for anything I know, one, two,
or three hundred millions of years may serve the needs
of geologists perfectly well.
in. The third line of argument is based upon the
temperature of the interior of the earth. Sir W,
Thomson refers to certain investigations which prove
that the present thermal condition of the interior of
the earth implies either a heating of the earth within the
last 20,000 years of as much as 100° F., or a greater
heating all over the surface at some time further back
than 20,000 years, and then proceeds thus :~
* Loc. cit., p. 20,
252 LAY SERMONS, ADiJRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xi.
"Now, are geologists prepared to admit that, at some
time witliin the last 20,000 years, there has been all
over the earth so high a temperature as that ? I pre-
sum^e not ; no geologist — no modern geologist — would
for a moment admit the hypothesis that the present
state of underground heat is due to a heating of the
surface at so late a period as 20,000 years ago. If that
is ♦ not admitted, we are driven to a greater heat at some
time more than 20,000 years ago. A greater heating
all over the surface than 100° Fahrenheit would kill
nearly all existing plants and animals, I may safely say.
Are modern geologists prepared to say that all life was
killed off the earth 50,000, 100,000, or 200,000 years
ago ? For the uniformity theory, the further back the
time of high surface-temperature is put the better;
but the further back the time of heating, the hotter it
must have been. The best for those who draw most
largely on time is that which puts it furthest back ;
and that is the theory that the heating was enough
to melt the whole. But even if it was enough to
melt tiie whole, we must still admit some limit, such as
fifty niillion years, one hundred million years, or two
or three hundred million yea.rs ago. Beyond that we
cannot go." ^
It will be observed that the "limit" is once again
of the vaguest, ranging from 50,000,000 years to
300,000,000. And the reply is, once more, that, for
anything that can be proved to the contrary, one or
two huudred million years might serve the purpose,
even of a through-going Huttonian uniformitarian,
very WselL
But if, on the other hand, the 100,000,000 or
200,000,000 years appear to be insufficient for geo-
logical purposes, we must closely criticise the method
* Loc. cit., p. 24.
XI.] GEOLOGICAL REFORM. 253
by whicli the limit is readied. The argument is simple
enough. Assuming the earth to be nothing but a cool-
ing mass, the quantity of heat lost per year, supposing
the rate of cooling to have been uniform, multiplied
by any given number of years, will be given the mini-
mum temperature that number of years ago.
But is the earth nothing but a cooling mass, " like
a hot- water jar such as is used in carriages,'' or " a globe
of sandstone " ? and has its cooling been uniform 1 An
affirmative answer to both these questions seems to be
necessary to the validity of the calculations on which
Sir W. Thomson lays so much stress.
Nevertheless it surely may be urged that such affirma-
tive answers are purely hypothetical, and that other
suppositions have an equal right to consideration.
For example, it it not possible that, at the prodigious
temperature which w^ould seem to exist at 100 miles
below the surface, all the metallic bases may behave as
mercury does at a red heat, when it refuses to combine
with oxygen ; while, nearer the surface, and therefore at
a lower temperature, they may enter into combination (as
mercury does with oxygen a few degrees below its boiling-
point) and so give rise to a heat totally distinct from
that which they possess as cooling bodies ? And has
it not also been proved by recent researches that the
quality of the atmosphere may immensely affect its
permeability to heat ; and, consequently, profoundly
modify the rate of cooling the globe as a whole 1
I do not think it can be denied that such conditions
may exist, and may so greatly affect the supply, and the
loss, of terrestrial heat as to destroy the value of any
calculations which leave them out of sio;ht.
My functions as your advocate are at an end. I
speak with more than the sincerity of a mere advocate
12
254 LAT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xi.
when I express tlie belief tliat tlie case against us has
entirely broken doAvn. The cry for reform which has
been raised without, is superfluous, inasmuch as we
have long been reforming from within, with all needful
speed. And the critical examination of the grounds
upon which the very grave charge of opposition to
the principles of Natural Philosophy has been brought
against us, rather shows that we have exercised a wise
discrimination in declining, for the present, to meddle
with, our foundations.
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
Mil. Dahwin's long-standing and well-earned scientifi.
eminence probably renders bim indifferent to tbat social
notoriety wbicb passes by tbe name of success ; but if
the calm spirit of tbe pbilosopber have not yet wholly
superseded the ambition and the vanity of the carnal
man within him, he must be well satisfied with the
results of his venture in publishing the *' Origin of
Species/^ Overflowing the narrow bounds of purely
scientific circles, the " species question " divides with
Italy and the Volunteers the attention of general society.
Everybody has read Mr. Darwin's book, or, at least, has
given an opinion upon its merits or demerits ; pietists,
whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with the mild
railing v/hich sounds so charitable ; bigots denounce it
with r ignorant invective ; old ladies of both sexes
consider it a ..iiecidedly dangerous book, and even
savans, who have no better mud to throw, quote anti-
quated writers to show that its author is no better than
an ape himself ; while every philosophical thinker
hails it as a veritable AYhitworth gun in the armoury of
liberalism ; and all competent naturalists and physio-
logists, whatever their opinions as to the ultimate fate
of the doctrines put forth, acknowledge that the work in
which they are embodied is a solid contribution to know-
ledge and inaugurates a new epoch in natural history.
256 LAY SERMONS, ABDRHSSES, AND REVIEWS [xii.
Nor has the discussion of the subject been restrained
within the limits of conversation. When the public is
eag^er and interested, reviewers must minister to its
o ...
wants ; and the genuine litterateur is too much in the
habit of acquiring his knowledge from the book he
judges— as the Abyssinian is said to provide himself
with steaks from the ox which carries him — to be w^ith-
held from criticism of a profound scientific work by the
mere want of the requisite preliminary scientific acquire-
ment ; while, on the other hand, the men of science who
wish well to the new views, no less than those who
dispute their validity, have naturally sought oppor-
tunities of expressing their opinions. Hence it is not
surprising that almost all the critical journals have
noticed Mr. Darwin's work at greater or less length ;
and so many disquisitions, of every degree of excellence,
from the poor product of ignorance, too often stimulated
by prejudice, to the fair and thoughtful essay of the
candid student of Nature, have appeared, that it seems
an almost helpless task to attempt to say anything new
upon the question.-
But it raay be doubted if the knowledge and acumen
of prejudged scientific opponents, or the subtlety of
orthodox special plea.ders, have yet exerted their full
force in mystifying the real issues of the great contro-
versy which has been set afoot, and whose end is hardly
likely to be seen by this generation ; so that a,t this
eleventh hour, and even failing anything new, it may be
useful to state afresh that which is true, and to put the
fundamental positions advocated by Mr. Darwin in such
a form that they may be grasped by those whose special
studies lie in other directions. And the adoption of this
course may be the more advisable, beca.use notwith-
standing its gi'cat deserts, and indeed partly on account
of them, the '* Origin of Species" is by no moang an easy
sii.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 257
book to read — if by reading is implied tlie full com-
preliension of an authors meaning.
"We do not speak jestingly in saying that it is Mr.
Darwin^s misfortune to know more about the question he
has taken up than any man living. Personally and
practically exercised in zoology, in minute anatomy, in
geology ; a student of geographical distribution, not on
maps and in museums only, but by long voyages and
hiborious collection ; having largely advanced each of
these branches of science, and having spent many years
in gathering and sifting materials for his present work,
the store of accurately registered facts upon which the
author of the " Origin of Species ^' is able to draw at
will is prodigious.
But this very superabundance of matter must have
been embarrassing to a writer who, for the present, can
only put forward an abstract of his views ; and 4;hence it
arises, perhaps, that notwithstanding the clearness of the
style, those who attempt fairly to digest the book find
much of it a sort of intellectual pemmican — a mass of
facts crushed and pounded into shape, rather than held
together by the ordinary medium of an obvious logical
bond : due attention will, without doubt, discover this
bond, but it is often hard to find.
Again, from sheer want of room, much has to be
taken for granted which might readily enough be proved ;
and hence, while the adept, who can supply the missing
links in the evidence from his own knowledge, discovers
fresh proof of the singular thoroughness with which all
difficulties have been considered and all nnjustifiable
suppositions avoided, at every reperusal of Mr. Darwin's
pregnant paragraphs, the novice in biology is apt to
complain of the frequency of what he fancies is gra-
tuitous assumption.
Thus w^hile it may be doubted if, for some years, any
258 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xii.
one is likely to be competent to pronounce judgment on
all the issues raised by Mr. Darwin, there is assuredly
abundant room for him, who, assuming the humbler,
though perhaps as useful, office of an interpreter between
the '' Origin of Species " and the pubUc, contents himself
with endeavouring to point out the nature of the
problems which it discusses ; to distinguish between
the ascertained facts and the theoretical views which it
contains ; and finally, to show the extent to which the
explanation it offers satisfies the requirements of scientific
logic. At any rate, it is this ofiice which we purpose to
undertake in the following pages.
It may be safely assumed that our readers have a
general conception of the nature of the objects to which
the word " sjDecies ^' is applied ; but it has, perhaps,
occurred to a few, even to those who are naturalists ex
professo, to reflect, that, as commonly employed, the
term has a double sense and denotes two very diff'erent
orders of relations. When we call a grou.p of animals,
or of plants, a species, we may imply thereby, either
that all these animals or plants have some common
peculiarity of form or structure ; or, we may mean that
they possess some common functional character. That
part of biological science which deals with form and
structure is called Morphology — that which concerns
itself with function, Physiology— so that we may con-
veniently speak of these two senses, or aspects, of
" species '' — the one as morpholgical, the other as phy-
siological. Eegarded from the former point of view, a
species is nothing more than a kind of animal or plant,
which is distinctly definable from all others, by certain
constant, and not mearly sexual, morphological peculiar-
ities. Thus horses form a sjDecies, because the group of
animals to which that name is applied is distinguished
from all others in the world by the following constantly
XII.3 TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 259
associated cliaracters. They have 1. A vertebral column ;
2. Mammse ; 3. A placental embryo ; 4. Four legs ; 5. A
single well-developed toe in each foot provided with a
hoof ; 6. A bushy tail ; and 7. Callosities on the inner
sides of both the fore and the hind legs. The asses,
again, form a distinct species, because, with the same
characters, as far as the fifth in the above list, all asses
have tufted tails, and have callosities only on the inner
side of the fore legs. If animals were discovered having
the general characters of the horse, but sometimes with
callosities only on the fore legs, and more or less tufted
tails; or animals having the general characters of the
ass, but with more or less bushy tails, and sometimes
with callosities on both pairs of legs, besides being inter-
mediate in other respects — the two species would have
to be merged into one. They could no longer be
regarded as morphologically distinct species, for they
would not be distinctly definable one from the other.
However bare and simple this definition of species
may appear to be, we confidently appeal to all practical
naturalists, whether zoologists, botanists, or palaeonto-
logists, to say if, in the vast majority of cases, they
know, or mean to affirm, anything more of the group of
animals or plants they so denominate than what has just
been stated. Even the most decided advocates of the
received doctrines respecting species admit this.
** I appreliend," says Professor Owen,^ "that few naturalists now-
a-days, in describing and proposing a name for what they call * a new
species,^ use that term to signify what was meant by it twenty or thirty
years ago ; that is, an originally distinct creation, maintaining its
primitive distinction by obstructive generative peculiarities. The pro-
poser of the new species now intends to state no more than he
actually knows; as, for example, that the differences on which he
1 On the Osteology of the Chimpanzees and Orangs : Transactions of the
Zoological Society, 1858.
260 ^-^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEIVS. [xii.
fonnds the specific character are constant in individuals of both sexes,
so far as observation has reached ; and that they are not due to
domestication or to artifi-cially superinduced external circumstances, or
to any outward influence within his cognizance ; that the species is
wild, or is such as it appears by ligature."
If we consider, in fact, that by far the largest pro-
portion of recorded existing species are known only by
the study of their skins, or bones, or other lifeless
exuvia ; that we are acquainted with none, or next to
none, of their physiological peculiarities, beyond those
which can be deduced from their structure, or are open
to cursory observation; and that we cannot hope to
learn more of any of those extinct forms of life which
now constitute no inconsiderable proportion of the knowxi
Flora and Fauna of the world : it is obvious that the
definitions of these species can be only of a purely
structural or morphological character. It is probable
that naturalists would have avoided much confusion of
ideas if they had more frequently borne the necessary
limitations of our knowledge in mind. But while it
may safely be admitted that w^e are acquainted with
only the morphological characters of the vast majority
of species — the functional, or physiological, peculiarities
of a few have been carefully investigated, and the result
of that study forms a large and most interesting portion
of the physiology of reproduction.
The student of Nature wonders the more and is as-
tonished tKeless^, tlie more conversant he becomes with
her operations; but of all the perennial miracles she
offers to his inspection, perhaps the most worthy of
admiration is the development of a plant or of an animal
If 6m its embrj^o. Examine the recently laid egg"~of
Bome common animal, such as a salamander or a new^t.
It is a minute spheroid in which the best microscope
win reveal nothing but a structureless sac, enclosing a
sir.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 261
glairy fluid, holding granules in suspension. But strange
possibilities lie dormant in tliat semi-fluid globule. Let
a moderate supply of warmth reach its watery cradle,
and the plastic matter imdergoes changes so rapid and
yet so steady and purposelike in their succession, that
one can only compare them to those operated by a
skilled modeller upon a formless lump of clay. As
with an invisible trowel, the mass is divided and sub-
divided into smaller and smaller portions, until it is
reduced to an aggregation of granules not too large to
build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism.
And, then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line
to be occupied by the spinal column, and moulded the
contour of the body ; pinching up the head at one end,
the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb into
due salamandrine proportions, in so artistic a way, that,
after watching the process hour by hour, one is almost
involuntarily possessed by the notion, that some more
subtle aid to vision than an achromatic, Vv^ould show the
hidden artist, with his plan before him, striving with
skilful manipulation to perfect his work.
As life advances, and the young amphibian ranges the
waters, the terror of his insect contemporaries, not only
are the nutritious particles supplied by its prey, by the
addition of which to its frame growth takes place, laid
down, each in its proper sjDot, and in such due proportion
to the rest, as to reproduce the form, the colour, and the
size, characteristic of the parental stock ; but even the
wonderful powers of reproducing lost parts possessed by
these animals are controlled by the same governing
tendency. Cut off" the legs, the tail, the jaws, separately
or all together, and, as Spall anzani showed long ago,
these parts not only grow again, but the redintegrated
limb is formed on the same type as those which were
lost. The new jaw, or leg, is a newt's, and never by any
262 LJY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xii.
accident more like that of a frog. What is true of the
newt is true of every animal and of every plant ; the
acorn tends to build itself up again into a woodland
giant such as that from whose twig it fell ; the spore of
the humblest lichen reproduces the green or brown
incrustation vdiich gave it bhth ; and at the other end
of the scale of life, the child that resembled neither the
paternal nor the maternal side of the house would be
reo^arded as a kind of monster.
So that the one end to which, in all living beings, the
formative impulse is tending — the one scheme which the
^ llrchssus of the old speculators strives to carry out,
J seeiins to be to mould the offspring into the likeness of
fc the parent. It is the first great law of reproduction,
% that the offspring tends to resemble its parent or parents,
^ more closely than anything else.
V\ Science will some day show us how this law is a
Necessary consequence of the more general laws which
govern matter ; but, for the present, more can hardly be
said than that it appears to be in harmony with them.
We know that the phsenomena of vitality are not some-
thing apart from other physical phaenomena, but one
with them ; and matter and force are the two names of
the one' artist who fashions the living as well as the life-
less. Hence living bodies should obey the same great
laws as other matter — nor, throughout Nature, is there a
law of wider application than this, that a body impelled
by two forces takes the direction of their resultant. But
living bodies may be regarded as nothing but extremely
complex bundles of forces held in a mass of matter, as
the complex forces of a magnet are held in the steel by
Its coercive force ; and, since the differences of sex are
comparatively slight, or, in other words, the sum of the
forces in each has a very similar tendency, their re-
sultant, the offspring, may reasonably be expected to
Lii.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 263
deviate but little from a course parallel to cither, or
to both.
Eepresent the reason of tlie law to ourselves by what
physical metaphor or analogy we will, however, the
great matter is to apprehend its existence and the im-
portance of the consequences deducible from it. For
things whicli are like to the same are like to oue another,
and if, in a great series of generations, every offspring is
like its parent, it follows that' all the offspring and all
the parents must be like one another ; and that, given
an original parental stock, with, the opportunity of un-
disturbed multiplication, the law in question necessitates
the production, in course of time, of an indefinitely large
group, the whole of whose members are at once very
similar and are blood relations, having descended from
the same parent, or pair of parents. The proof that all
the members of any given group of animals, or plants,
had thus descended, would be ordinarily considered
sufficient to entitle them to the rank of physiological
species, for most physiologists consider species to be de-
finable as ''the offspring of a single primitive stock."
But thougli it is quite true that all those groups we
call species may, according to the known laws of re-
production, have descended from a single stock,, and
though is is very likely they really have clone so, yet
this conclusion rests on deduction and can hardly hope
to establish itself upon a basis of observation. And the
primitiveness of the supposed single stock, which, after
all, is the essential patt of the matter, is not only a
hypothesis, but one which has not a shadow of founda-
tion, if by ''primitive" be meant "independent of any
other living being." A scientific definition, of which an
unwarrantable hypothesis forms an essential part, carries
its condemnation within itself; but even supposing such,
a definition were, in form, tenable, the physiologist who
264 l^Y SERMONSy ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [iii,
sliouM attempt to apply it in Nature would soon find
himself involved in great, if not inextricable, difficulties.
As we have said, it is indubitable that offspring tend to
resemble the parental organism, but it is equally true
that the similarity attained never amounts to identity,
either in form or in structure. There is always a certain
amount of deviation, not only from the precise characters
of a single parent, but when, as in most animals and
many plants, the sexes are lodged in distinct individuals,
from an exact mean between the two parents. And
indeed, on general principles, this slight deviation seems
as intelligible as the general similarity, if we reflect how
complex the co-operating "bundles of forces" are, and
how improbable it is that, in any case, their true re-
sultant shall coincide with any mean between the more
obvious characters of the two parents. Whatever be
its cause, however, the co-existence of this tendency to
minor variation with the tendency to general similarity,
is of vast importance in its bearing on the cjuestion of
the origin of species.
As a general rule, the extent to which an oilspring
differs from its parent is slight enough ; but, occasionally,
the amount of difference is much more strongly marked,
and then the divergent offspring receives the name of a
Variety. Multitudes, of what there is every reason to
believe are such varieties, are known, but the origin of
very few has been accurately recorded, and of these we
will select two as more especially illustrative of the main
features of variation. The first of them is that of the
" Ancon,'^ or " Otter '* sheep, of which a careful accouni
is given by Colonel David Humphreys, F.E.S., in a letter
to Sir Joseph Banks, published in the Philosophical
Transactions for 1813. It appears that one Seth Wright,
the proprietor of a farm on the banks of the Charles
River, in Massachusetts, possessed a flock of fifteen ewea
rii.] TEE OlilGIN OF SPECIES. 265
and a ram of the ordinary kind. In tlie year 1791, one
of the ewes presented her owner with a male lamb,
differing, for no assignable reason, from its parents by a
23roport ion ally long body and short bandy legs, whence
it w^as nnable to emulate its relatives in those sportive
leaps over the neighbours^ fences, in which they were
in the habit of indulging, much to the good farmer's
vexation.
The second case is that detailed by a no less unex-
ceptionable authority than Eeaumur, in his " Art de fau^e
eclore les Poulets.'^ A Maltese couple, named Kelleia,
whose hands and feet were constructed upon the ordinary
human model, had born to them a son, Gratio, who pos-
sessed six perfectly moveable fingers on each hand and
six toes, not quite so well formed, on each foot. No
cause could be assigned for the appearance of this un-
usual variety of the human species.
Two circumstances are well worthy of remark in both
these cases. In each, the variety appears to lia.ve arisen
in full force, and, as it w^ere, per saltum ; a wide and
definite difference appearing, at once, between the Ancon
ram and the ordinary sheep ; between the six-fingered
and six-toed Gratio Kelleia and ordinary men. In
neither case is it possible to point out any obvious reason
for the appearance of the variety. Doubtless there were
determining causes for these as for all other phenomena ;
but they do not appear, and we can be tolerably cer-
tain that wdiat are ordinarily understood as changes in
physical conditions, as in climate, in food, or the like,
did not take place and had nothing to do with the
matter. It was no case of what is commonly called
adaptation to circumstances ; but, to use a conveniently
erroneous phrase, the" "variations arose spontaneously.
The fruitless search after final causes leads their pursuers
a long way : but even those hardy teleologists, who are
266 LAY SER3I0NS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xii
ready to break tliroiigli all tlie laws of pliysics iu cliase
of tlieir favourite will-o'-tlie-wisjo, may be puzzled to
discover what purpose could be attained by the stunted
legs of Seth Wright s ram or the hexadactyle members
of Gratio Kelleia.
Varieties then arise we know not why ; and it is more
than probable that the majority of varieties have arisen
in this "spontaneous" manner, though we are, of course,
far from denying that they may be traced, in some cases,
to distinct external influences ; which are assuredly com-
petent to alter the character of the tegumentary cover-
ing, to change colour, to increase or diminish the size of
muscles, to modify constitution, and, among plants, to
give rise to the metamorphosis of stamens into petals,
and so forth. But however they may have arisen, what
especially interests us at present is, to remark that, once
in existence, varieties obey the fundamental law of re-
production that like tends to produce like, and their
offspring exemplify it by tending to exhibit the same
deviation from the parental stock as themselves. Indeed,
^lere seems to be, in many instances, a pre-potent in-
fluence about a newly-arisen variety which gives it
what one may call an unfair advantage over the normal
descendants from the same stock. This is strikingly
exemplified by the case of Gratio Kelleia, v/ho married
a woman with the ordinary pentadactyle extremities,
and had by her four children, Salvator, George, Andre,
and Marie. Of these children Salvator, the eldest boy,
had six fingers and six toes, like his father ; the second
and third, also boys, had ^nq fingers and ^n% toes, like
their mother, though the hands and feet of George
were slightly deformed ; the last, a girl, had five fingers
and ^\^ toes, but the thumbs were slightly deformed.
The variety thus reproduced itself purely in the eldest,
while the normal type reproduced itself purely in ikv:
XII.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 2G7
tliird, and almost purely in the second and last : so
that it would seem, at first, as if the normal type
were more pow^erful than the variety. But all these
children grew up and intermarried wdth normal Avives
and husband, and then, note what took place : Sal-
vator had four children, three of whom exhibited the
hexadactyle members of their grandfather and father,
while the youngest had the pentadactyle limbs of the
mother and grandmother ; so that here, notwithstanding
a double pentadactyle dilution of the blood, the hexa-
dactyle variety had the best of it. The same pre-potency
of the variety was still more markedly exemplified in
the progeny of two of the other children, Marie and
George. Marie (whose thumbs only were deformed)
gave birth to a boy with six toes, and three other
normally formed children ; but George, who was not
quite so pure a pentadactyle, begot, first, tw^o girls, each
of whom had six fingers and toes ; then a girl with six
fingers on each hand and six toes on the right foot, but
only ^YQ toes on the left ; and lastly, a boy wdth only
five fingers and toes. In these instances, therefore, the
variety, as it were, leaped over one generation to re-
produce itself in full force in the next. Finally, the
purely pentadactyle Andre w^as the father of many
children, not one of whom departed from the normal
parental type.
If a variation which approaches the nature of a mon-
strosity can strive thus forcibly to reproduce itself, it is
not wonderful that less aberrant modifications should
tend to be preserved even more strongly ; and the history
of the Ancon sheep is, in this respect, particularly in-
structive. With the "^cuteness" characteristic of their
nation, the neighbours of the Massachusets farmer
imagined it would be an excellent thing if all his sheep
were imbued wdth the stay-at-home tendencies enforced
268 £^r SFUMONS, ADDRESSES, AND BEVIEJVS. [xii,
by Nature upon tlie newly-arrived ram ; and tliey advised
Wright to kill the old patriarch of his fold, and install
the Ancon ram in his place. The result justified their
sagacious anticipations, and coincided very nearly with
what occiuTcd to the progeny of Gratio Kelleia. The
young lambs were almost always either pure Ancons, or
pure ordinary sheep.^ But when suthcient Ancon sheej)
were obtained to interbreed with one a^nother, it v^^as
found that the offspring was always pure Ancon. Colonel
Humphreys, in fact, states that he was acquainted with
only "one questionable case of a contrary nature."
Here, then, is a remarkable and well-established instance,
not only of a very distinct race being established ^jer
scdtum, but of that race breeding " true " at once, and
showing: no mixed forms, even when crossed with another
breed.
By taking care to select Ancons of both sexes, for
breeding from, it thus became easy to establish an ex-
, tremely well-marked race ; so peculiar that, even when
herded with other sheep, it was noted that the Ancons
kept together. And there is every reason to believe that
the existence of this breed might have been indefinitely
protracted ; but the introduction of the Merino sheep,
which were not only very superior to the Ancons in wool
and meat, but quite as quiet and orderly, led to the com-
plete neglect of the new breed, so that, in 1813, Colonel
Humphreys found it difficult to obtain the specimen,
1 Colonel Humphreys' statements are exceedingly explicit on this point : —
''When an Ancon ewe is impregnated by a common ram, the increase
resembles wholly either the ewe or the ram. The increase of the common
ewe impregnated by an Ancon ram follows entirely the one or the other,
without blending any of the distinguishing and essential peculiarities of both.
Frequent instances have happened where common ewes have had twins by
Ancon rams, when one exhibited the complete marks and features of the
ewe, the other of the ram. The contrast has been rendered singuL'vrly
striking, wlien one short-legged and one long-legged lamb, produced at a
birth, have been seen sucking the dam at the same time." — Fhilosophical
Transactims, 1813, Pt. I., pp. 89, 90.
fiL] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 269
whose skeleton was presented to Sir Josepli Banks. We
believe that, for many years, no remnant of it has existed
in the United States.
Gratio Kelleia was not the progenitor of a race of six-
fingered men, as Setli Wright's ram became a nation of
Ancon sheep, though the tendency of the variety to
perpetutate itself appears to have been fully as strong, in
the one case as in the other. And the reason of the
difference is not fax to seek. Seth Wright took care not
to weaken the Ancon blood by matching his Ancon ewes
with any but males of the same variety, while G-ratio
Kelleia's sons were too far removed from the patriarchal
times to intermarry with their sisters ; and his grand-
children seem not to have been attracted by their six-
fingered cousins. In other words, in the one example a
race was produced, because, for several generations, care
was taken, to select both parents of the breeding stock
"from animals exhibiting "a tendency to vary in the same
direction ; while, in the other, no race was evolved, because
no such selection was exercised. A race is a propagated
variety ; and as, by the laws of reproduction, . offspring
tend to assume the parental forms, they will be more
likely to propagate a variation exhibited by both parents
than that possessed by only one.
There is no organ of the body of an animal which
may not, and does not, occasionally, vary more or less
from the normal type ; and there is no variation wdiich
may not be transmitted, and which, if selectively trans-
mitted, may not become the foundation of a race. This
great truth, sometimes forgotten by philosophers, has
long been familiar to practical agriculturists and breeders ;
and upon it rest all the methods of improving the breeds
of domestic animals, which, for the last century, have
been followed with so much success in England. Colour,
form, size, texture of hair or wool, proportions of various
270 lAT SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [sii.
parts, strength or weakness of constitution, tendency to
fatten or to remain lean, to give much or little milk,
speed, strength, temper, intelligence, special instincts ;
there is not one of these characters whose transmission
is not an every-day occurrence within the experience
of cattle-breeders, stock-farmers, horse-dealers, and
dog and poultry fanciers. Nay, it is only the other,
day that an eminent physiologist. Dr. Brown-Sequard,
communicated to the Eoyal Society his discovery
that epilepsy, artificially produced in guinea-pigs, by a
means which he has discovered, is transmitted to their
offspring.
But a race, once produced, is no more a fixed and
immutable entity than the stock whence • it sprang ;
variations arise among its members, and as these varia-
tions are transmitted like any others, new races may be
developed out of the pre-existing one ad infinitum, ov,
at least, within any limit at present determined. Given
sufficient time and sufficiently careful selection, and the"
multitude of races v>^hich may a.rise from a .common
stock is as astonishing as are the extreme sf^'uctural
differences which they may present. A remarkable
example of this is to be found in the rock-pigeon, which
Mr. Darwin has, in our opinion, satisfactorily .• demon-
strated to be the progenitor of all out domestic ' pigeons,
of which there are certainly more than a hundred well-
marked races. The most noteworthy of these races are,
the four great stocks known to the " fancy " as tumblers,
pouters, carriers, and fantails ; birds which not only differ
most singularly in size, colour, and habits, but in the
form of the beak and of the skull : in the proportions of
the beak to the skull ; in the number of tail-feathers ; in
the absolute and relative size of the feet ; in the presence
or al)sence of the uropygial gland ; in the number of
vertebrse in the back; in short, in precisely those cha-
£11.] TEE ORIGIN OF SFECiES. 271
racters in whicli tlie genera and species of birds differ
from one another.
And it is most remarkable and instructive to observe,
that none of these races can be shown to have been
originated by the action of changes in what are com-
monly called external circumstances, upon the wild rock-
pigeon. On the contrary, from time immemorial, pigeon
fanciers have had essentially similar methods of treating
their pets, which have been housed, fed, protected and
cared for in. much the same way in all pigeonries. In
fact, there is no case better adapted than that of the
pigeons to refute the doctrine which one sees put forth
on high authority, that " no other characters than those
founded on the development of bone for the attachment
of muscles" are capable of variation. In precise con-
tradiction of this liasty assertion, Mr. Darwin s researches
prove that the skeleton of the wings in domestic pigeons
has hardly varied at all from that of the wild type ;
while, on the other hand, it is in exactly those respects,
such as the relative length of the beak and skull, the
number, of the vertebrae, and the number of the tail-
feathers, in which muscular exertion can have no im-
portant influence, that the utmost amount of variation
has taken place.
"We have said that the following out of the proj)erties
exhibited by physiological sjoecies would lead us into
difficulties, and at this point they begin to be obvious ,
for, if, as the result of spontaneous variation and of
selective breeding, the progeny of a common stock may
become separated into groups distinguished from one
another by constant, not sexual, morphological characters,
it is clear that the physiological definition of species is
likely to clash with the morphological definition. No
one would hesitate to describe the pouter and the
272 i^^r 8ER3I0NS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xn.
tumbler as distinct species, if tliey were found fossil, or
if tlieir skins and skeletons were imported, as those of
exotic wild birds commonly are — and, without doubt, if
considered alone, they are good and distinct morpho-
logical species. On the other hand, they are not physio-
logical species, for they are descended from a common
stock, the rock-pigeon.
Under these circumstances, as it is admitted on all
sides that races occur in Nature, how are we to know
whether any apparently distinct animals are really of
different physiological species, or not, seeing that the
amount of morphological difference is no safe guide ?
Is there any test of a physiological species ? The usutd
answer of physiologists is in the affirmative. It is said
that such a test is to be found in the phsenomena of
hybridization— in the results of crossing races, as com-
pared v/ith the results of crossing species.
So far as the evidence goes at present, individuals, of
what are certainly known to be mere races produced by
selection, however distinct they may appear to be, not
only breed freely together, but the offspring of such
crossed races are only perfectly fertile with one another.
Thus, the spaniel and the greyhouud, the dray-horse and
the Arab, the pouter and- the tumbler, breed together
with perfect freedom, and their mongrels, if matched
with other mongrels of the same kind, are equally fertile.
On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the
individuals of many natural species are either absolutely
infertile, if crossed with individuals of other species, or,
if they give rise to hybrid offspring, the hybrids so
produced are infertile when paired together. The horse
and the ass, for instance, if so crossed, give rise to the
mule, and there is no certain evidence of offspring ever
ha,ving been produced by a male and female mule. The
unions of the rock-pigeon and the ring-pigeon appear to
KiiJ TUE ORIGIN OF SFECIES. 273
be equally barren of result. Here, tlien, says the phy-
siologist, we have a means of distinguishing any two
true species from any two varieties. If a male and a
female, selected from each group, produce offrspring, and
that oifspring is fertile with others produced in the same
way, the groups are races and not species. If, on the
other hand, no result ensues, or if the offspring are
infertile with others produced in the same way, they are
true physiological species. The test would be an admir-
able one, if, in the first place, it were always practicable
to apply it, and if, in the second, it always yielded
results susceptible of a definite interpretation. Unfor-
tunately, in the great majority of cases, this touchstone
for species is wdioUy inapplicable.
The constitution of many wild animals is so altered
by confinement that they will not breed even with their
own females, so -that the nesfative results obtained from
crosses are of no value ; and the antipathy of wild animals
of difierent species for one another, or even of wild and
tame members of the same species, is ordinarily so great,
that it is hopeless to look for such unions in Nature.
The hermaphrodism of most plants, the difiiculty in the
way of ensuring the absence of their own, or the proper
working of other pollen, are obstacles of no less magni-
tude in applying the test to them. And in both animals
and plants is superadded the further difficulty, that
experiments must be continued over a long time for the
purpose of ascertaining the fertility of the mongrel or
hybrid progeny, as well as of the first crosses from
which the;y spring.
Not only do these great practical difficulties lie in the
way of applying the hybridization test, but even when
this oracle can be questioned, its replies are sometimes
as doubtful as those of Delphi. For example, cases are
cit^d by Mr. Darwin, of plants which are more fertile
274 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS [xii.
with the pollen of anotlier species tlian with their own ;
and there are others, such as certain fuci, whose male
element will fertilize the ovule of a plant of distinct spe-
cies, while the males of the latter species are ineffective
with the females of the first. So that, in the last-named
instance, a physiologist, who should cross the two species
in one way, would decide that they were true species ;
while another, who should cross them in the reverse
way, would, with equal justice, according to the rule,
pronounce them to be mere races. Several jolants, which
there is great reason to believe are mere varieties, are
almost sterile when crossed ; while both animals and
plants, which have always been regarded by naturalists
as of distinct species, turn out, when the test is applied,
to be perfectly fertile. Again, the sterility or fertility
of crosses seems to bear no relation to the structural
resemblances or difierences of the members of any two
groups.
Mr. Darwin has discussed this question with singular
ability and circumspection, and his conclusions are
summed up as follow, at page 276 of his work : —
"First crosses between forms sufficiently distinct to be ranked as
species, and their hybrids, are very generally, but not universally,
sterile. The sterility is of all degrees, and is often so slight that the
two most careful experimentalists who have ever lived have come to
diametrically opposite conclusions in ranking forms by this test. The
sterility is innately variable in individuals of the same species, and is
eminently susceptible of favourable and unfavourable conditions. The
degree of sterility does not strictly follow systematic affinity, but is
governed by several curious and complex laws. It is generally dif-
ferent, and sometimes widely different, in reciprocal crosses between
the same two species. It is not always equal in degree in a first cross,
and in the hybrid produced from this cross.
" In the same manner as in grafting trees, the capacity of one
species or variety to take on another is incidental on generally
unknown differences in their vegetative systems ; so in crossing, the
greater or less facility of one species to unite with another is inci-
dental on unknown differences in their reproductive systems. There
Ki!.] THE ORIGIN OF SFECIAS. 275
is no mure reason to think tliat species have been specially endowed
with various degrees of sterility to prevent them crossing and breeding
in Nature, than to think that trees have been specially endowed with
various and somewhat analogous degrees of difficulty in being grafted
together, in order to prevent them becoming inarched in our forests.
"The sterility of first crosses between pure species, which have
their reproductive systems perfect, seems to depend on several circum-
stances ; in some cases largely on the early death of the embryo. The
sterility of hybrids which have their reproductive systems imj)erfect,
and which have had this system and their whole organization dis-
turbed by being compounded of two distinct species, seems closely
allied to that sterility which so frequently affects pure species when
their natural conditions of life have been disturbed. This view is
supported by a parallelism of another kind ; namely, that the crossing
of forms, only slightly different, is favourable to the vigour and fertility
of the offspring ; and that slight changes in the conditions of life are
apparently favourable to the vigour and fertility of all organic beings.
It is not surprising that the degree of difficulty in uniting two species
and the degree of sterility of their hybrid offspring, should generally
correspond, though due to distinct causes ; for both depend on the
amount of difference of some kind between the species which are
crossed. Nor is it surprising that the facility of effecting a first cross,
the fertility of hybrids produced from it, and the capacity of being
grafted together — though this latter capacity evidently depends on
widely different circumstances — should all run to a certain extent
parallel with the systematic affinity of the forms which are subjected
to experiment ; for systematic affinity attempts to express all kinds of
resemblance between all species.
" Pirst crosses between forms known to be varieties, or sufficiently
alike to be considered as varieties, and their mongrel offspring, are
very generally, but not quite universally, fertile. Nor is this nearly
gener?d and perfect fertility surprising, when we remember how liable
we are to argue in a circle with respect to varieties in a state of
Nature ; and when we remember that the greater number of varieties
have been produced under domestication by the selection of mere
external differences, and not of differences in the reproductive system.
In all other respects, excluding fertility, there is a close general
resemblance between hybrids and mongrels." — Pp. 276-8.
We fully agree with the general tenor of tliis weighty
passage; but forcible as are these arguments, and little as
the value of fertility or infertility as a test of species may
be, it must not be forgotten that the really impo^^tant
27^ l^r SERMONS, ALDllESSKS, AND REVIEWS, . [zii.
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
pbsenomena as these were exhibited by only two of those
assemblages of living objects, to which the name of
species (whether it be used in its physiological or in
its morphological sense) is 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 v/ould be, so
far, imperfect.
Up to this point we have been dealing with matters of
fact, and the statements which we have laid before the
reader would, to the best of our knowledge, be admitted
to contain a fair exposition of what is at present known
respecting the essential properties of species, by all who
have studied the question. And whatever may be his theo-
retical views, no naturalist will probably be disposed to
demur to the following summary of that exposition : —
Living beings, whether animals or plants, are divisible
into multitudes of distinctly definable kinds, which are
morphological species. They are also divisible into
groups of individuals, which breed freely together, tend-
ing to reproduce their like, and are physiological species.
Normally resembling their parents, the offspring of
members of these species are still liable to vary, and the
variation may be perpetuated by selection, as a race,
which race, in many cases, presents all the characteristics'
of a morphological species. But it is not as yet proved
that a race ever exhibits, when crossed with another race
of the same species, those phsenomena of hybridization
which are. exhibited by many species when crossed with
other species. On the other hand, not only is it not
XII.] TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 277
proved that all species give rise to hybrids infertile
inter se, but there is much reason to believe that, in
crossing, species exhibit every gradation from perfect
sterility to perfect fertility.
Such are the most essential characteristics of species.
Even were man not one of them — a member of the same
system and subject to the same laws— the question of
their origin, their causal connexion, that is, with the
other phsenomena of the universe, must have attracted
his attention, as soon as his intelligence had raised itself
above the level of his daily wants.
Indeed history relates that such was the case, and
has embalmed for us the speculations upon the origin
of living beings, which were among the earliest products
of the dawning intellectual activity of man. In those
early days positive knowledge was not to be had, but the
craving after it needed, at all hazards, to be satisfied, and
according to the country, or the turn of thought of the
speculator, the suggestion that all living things arose
from the mrid of the Nile, from a primeval egg, or from
some more anthropomorphic agency, afforded a sufficient
resting-place for his curiosity. The myths of Paganism
are as dead as Osiris or Zeus, and the man who should
revive them, in opposition to the knowledge of our time,
would be justly laughed to scorn ; but the coeval imagi-
nations current among the rude inhabitants of Palestine,
recorded by writers whose very name and age are
admitted by every scholar to be unknown, have unfor-
tunately not yet shared their fate, but, even at this day,
are regarded by nine-tenths of the civilized world as the
authoritative standard of fact and the criterion of the
justice of scientific conclusions, in all that relates to the
origin of things, and, among them, of species. In this
nineteenth century, as at the da-wn of modern physical
13
278 LAY SERMONS, ADBRi:SSES, AND REVIEWS. [xa
science, tlie cosmogony of tlie semi-barbarous Hebrew is
the incubus of the pliilosoplier and the opprobrium of the
orthodox. Who shall number the patient and earnest
seekers after truth, from the days of Galileo until now,
whose lives have been embittered and their good name
blasted by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters ? Who
shall count the host of weaker men whose sense ol
truth has been destroyed in the effort to harmonize
impossibilities — rwhose life has been wasted in the
attempt to force the generous new wine of Science
into the old bottles of Judaism, compelled by the outcry
of the same strong party 1
It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their
cause has been amply avenged. Extinguished theolo-
gians lie about the cradle of every science as the
strangled snakes beside that of Hercules ; and history
records that whenever science and orthodoxy have been i
fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from ^
the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated ;
scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon
of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it
forget ; and though, at present, bewildered and afraid
to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first
chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end
of sound science ; and to visit, with such petty thunder-
bolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those who \
refuse, to degrade Nature to the level of primitive
Judaism.
Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggres- j
sive tendencies. With eyes fixed on the noble goal to ^
which "per asp era et ardua" they tend, they may, now
and then, be stirred to momentary wrath by the unneces-
sary obstacles with which the ignorant, or the malicious,
encumber, if they cannot bar, the difficult path ; but
why should their souls be deeply vexed ? The majesty
XII.] fHE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 279
of Fact is on their side, and the elemental forces of
Nature are working for tliem. Not a star comes to the
meridian at its calculated time but testifies to the justice
of their methods — their beliefs are " one with the falling
rain and with the growing corn/' By doubt they are
established, and open inquiry is their bosom friend.
Such men have no fear of traditions however venerable,
and no respect for them when they become mischievous
and obstructive ; but they have better than mere anti-
quarian business in hand, and if dogmas, which ought to
be fossil but are not, are not forced upon their notice,
they are too happy to treat them as non-existent.
The hypotheses respecting the origin of species which
profess to stand upon a scientific basis, and, as such,
alone demand serious attention, are of two kinds. The
one, the '* special creation " hypothesis, presumes every
species to have originated from one or more stocks,
these not being the result of the modification of any
other form of living matter — or arising by natural
agencies — but being produced, as such, by a super-
natural creative act.
The other, the so-called " transmutation " hypothesis,
considers that all existing species are the result of the
modification of pre-existing species, and those of their
predecessors, by agencies similar to those which at the
present day produce varieties and races, and therefore in
ah altogether natural way ; and it is a probable, though
not a necessary consequence of this hypothesis, that all
living beings have arisen from a single stock. With
respect to the origin of this primitive stock, or stocks,
the doctrine of the origin of species is obviously not
necessarily concerned. The transmutation hypothesis,
for exailiple, is perfectly consistent either with the con-
ception of a special creation of the primitive germ, or
280 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [su
w^itli tlie supposition of its liaving arisen, as a modiii-
cation of inorganic matter, by natural causes.
Tlie doctrine of special creation owes its existence
very largely to tlie supposed necessity of making science
accord with the Hebrew cosmogony ; but it is curious
to observe that, as the doctrine is at present maintained
by men of science, it is as hopelessly inconsistent with
the Hebrew view as any other hypothesis.
If there be any result which has come more clearly
out of geological investigation than another, it is, that
the vast series of extinct animals and plants is not
divisible, as it was once supposed to be, into distinct
groups, separated by sharply-marked boundaries. There
are no great gulfs between epochs and formations — no
successive periods marked by the appearance of plants,
of water animals, and of land animals, en masse. Every
year adds to the list of links between what the older
geologists supposed to be widely separated epochs :
witness the craofs linking; the drift Avith the older ter-
tiaries ; the Maestricht beds linking the tertiaries with
the chalk ; the St. Cassian beds exhibiting an abundant
fauna of mixed mesozoic and palaeozoic types, in rocka
of an epoch once supposed to be eminently poor in life ;
witness, lastly, the incessant disputes as to whether a
given stratum shall be reckoned devonian or carbon-
iferous, Silurian or devonian, cambrian or silurian.
This truth is further illustrated in a most interesting
manner by the impartial and highly competent testimony
of M. Pictet from whose calculations of what percentage
of the genera of animals, existing in any formation, lived
during tlie preceding formation, it results that in no
case is the proportion less than one-third, or 33 per
cent. It is the triassic formation, or the commencement
of the mesozoic epoch, which has received this smallest
inheritance from preceding ages. The other formations
XII.J THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 281
not uncommonly exhibit 60, 80, or even 94 per cent,
of genera in common with those whose remains are
imbedded in their predecessor. Not only is this true,
but the subdivisions of each formation exhibit new
species characteristic of, and found only in, them ; and,
in many cases, as in the lias for example, the separate
beds of these subdivisions are distinguished by well-
marked and peculiar forms of life. A section, a hundred
feet thick, will exhibit, at different heights, a dozen
species of ammonite, none of which passes beyond its
particular zone of limestone, or clay, into the zone below
it or into that above it ; so that those who adopt the
doctrine of special creation m^ust be prepared to admit,
that at intervals of time, corresponding with the thickness
of these beds, the Creator thought fit to interfere with
the natural course of events for the purpose of making
a new ammonite. It is not easy to transplant oneself
into the frame of mind of those who can accept such a
conclusion as this, on any evidence short of absolute
demonstration ; and it is difficult to see what is to be
gained by so doing, since, as we have said, it is obvious
that such a view of the origin of living beings is utterly
opposed to the Hebrew cosmogony. Deserving no aid
from the powerful arm of bibliolatry, then, does the
received form of the hypothesis of special creation derive
any support from science or sound logic 1 Assuredly
not much. The arguments brought forward in its favour
all take one form : If species Avere not supernaturally
created, we cannot understand the facts x, or y, or 2;
we cannot understand the structure of animals or plants,
unless we suppose they were contrived for special ends ;
we cannot understand the structure of the eye, except
by supposing it to have been made to see with ; we
cannot understand instincts, unless we suppose animals
to have been miraculouslv endowed with them.
282 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xii
As a question of dialectics, it must be admitted that
fcliis sort of reasoning is not very formidable to those
who are not to be frightened by consequences. It is an
argumentum ad ignorantiam — take this explanation or
be ignorant. But suppose we prefer to admit our igno-
rance rather than adopt a hypothesis a.t variance with
all the teachings of Nature ? Or, suppose for a moment
we admit the explanation, and then seriously ask our-
selves how much the wiser are we ; what does the
explanation explain ? Is it any more than a grandilo-
quent way of announcing the fact, that we really know
nothicg a.bout the matter ? A phsenomenon is explained
when it is shown to be a case of some general law of
N^iture ; but the supernatural interposition of the Creator
can, by the nature of the case, exem.plify no law, and if
species have really arisen in this way, it is absurd to
attempt to discuss their origin.
Or, lastly, let us ask ourselves whether any amount
of evidence which the nature of our faculties permits us
to attain, can justify us in asserting that any phseno-
menon is out of the reach of natural causation. To this
end it is obviously necessary that we should know all
the consequences to which all possible combinations,
continued through unlimited time, can give rise. If we
knew these, and found none competent to originate
species, we should have good ground for denying their
origin by natural causation. Till we know them, any
hypothesis is better than one which involves us in such
miserable presumption.
But the hypothesis of sj)ecial creation is not only a
mxcre specious mask for our ignorance ; its existence in
Biology marks the youth and imperfection of the science.
For what is the history of every science but the his-
tory of the elimination of the notion of creative, or
other interferences, with the natural order of the phseno-
Ell.] TEE ORIGIN OF SFECIES. 283
niena wliicli are the subject-matter of tliat science'?
When Astronomy Avas young ^'the morning stars sang
together for joy," and the planets were guided in their
courses by celestial hands. Now, the harmony of the
stars has resolved itself into gravitation according to
the inverse squares of the distances, and the orbits of
the planets are deducible from the laws of the forces
which alJow a schoolboy's stone to break a window.
The lightning was the angel of the Lord ; but it has
pleased Providence, in these modern times, that science
should make it the humble messenger of man, and we
know that every flash that shimmers about the horizon
on a summer's evening is determined by ascertainable
conditions, and that its direction and brightness might,
if our knowledge of these were great enough, have been
calculated.
The solvency of great mercantile companies rests on
the validity of the laws which have been ascertained
to govern the seeming irregularity of that human life
which the moralist bewails as the most uncertain of
things ; plague, pestilence, and famine are admitted, by
all but fools, to be the natural result of causes for the
most part fully within human control, and not the
unavoidable tortures inflicted by wrathful Omnipotence
upon his helpless handiwork.
Harmonious order governing eternally continuous
progress — the web and woof of matter and force inter-
weaving by slow degrees, without a broken thread, that
veil which lies between us and the Infinite— that
universe which alone we know or can know ; such is
the picture which science draws of the world, and in
proportion as any part of that picture is in unison with
the rest, so may we feel sure that it is rightly painted.
Shall Biology alone remain out of harmony with her
sister sciences ?
284 l^T SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xii.
Siicli arguments against the liypotliesis of the direct
creation of species as these are pLainly enough cleducible
from general considerations ; but there are, in addition,
phaenomena exhibited by species themselves, and yet
not so much a part of their very es=-:ence as to have
required earlier mention, which are in the highest degree
perplexing, if we adopt the popularly accepted hypo-
thesis. Such are the facts of distribution in space and
in time ; the singular phsenomena brought to light by
the study of development ; the structural relations of
species upon .which our systems of classification are
found^ed ; the great doctrines of philosophical anatomy,
such as that of homology, or of the community of
structural plan exhibited by large groups of species
differing very widely in their habits and functions.
The species of anim^als which inhabit the sea on
opposite sides of the isthmus of Panama are wholly
distinct ; ^ the animals and plants which inhabit islands
are commonly distinct from those of the neighbouring
mainlands, and yet have a similarity of aspect. The
mammals of the latest tertiary epoch in the Old and
New Worlds belong to the same genera, or family
groups, as those which now inhabit the same great
geographical area. The crocodilian reptiles w^hich existed
in the earliest secondary epoch were similar in general
structure to those now living, but exhibit slight differ-
ences in their vertebrse, nasal passages, and one or two
other points. The guinea-pig has teeth which are shed
]3efore it is born, and hence can never subserve the
masticatory purpose for which they seem contrived, and,
in like manner, the female dugong has tusks which
never cut the gum. All the members of the same
great group run through similar conditions in their
1 Eecent investigations tend to show that this statement is not strictlj
accurate. — 1870.
Ku.] . TEE OllIGII^ OF SPECIES, 28i>
development, and all tlieir parts, in the adult state, are
arranged according to tlie same plan. Man is more like
a gorilla than a gorilla is like a lemur. Such are a few,
taken at random, among the multitudes of similar facts
which modern research has established ; but when the
student seeks for an explanation of them from the sup-
porters of the received hypothesis of the origin of species,
the reply he receives is, in substance, of Oriental sim-
plicity and brevity — "Mashallah! it so pleases God!^'
There are difierent species on opposite sides of the
isthmus of Panama, because they were created different
on the two sides. The pliocene mammals are like th^
existing ones, because such was the plan of creation ;
and we find rudimental organs and similarity of plan,
because it has pleased the Creator to set before himself
a " divine exemplar or archetype," and to copy it in his
works ; and somewhat ill, those who hold this view
imply, in some of them. That such verbal hocus-pocus
should be received as science will one day be regarded
as evidence of the low state of intelligence in the nine-
teenth century, just as we amuse ourselves with the
phraseology about Nature^s abhorrence of a vacuum,
wherewith Torricelli's compatriots were satisfied to
explain the rise of water in a pump. And be it recol-
lected that this sort of satisfaction Avorks not only
negative but positive ill, by discouraging inquiry, and
so depriving man of the usufruct of one of the most
fertile fields of his. great patrimony. Nature.
The objections to the doctrine of the origin of species
by special creation which have been detailed, must have
occurred, with more or less force,, to the mind of every
one who has seriously and independently considered the
subject. It is therefore no wonder that, from time to
time, this hypothesis should have been met by counter
hypotheses, all as well, and some better, founded than
286 l^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REFIEfFS. [xii
itseii ; and it is curious to remark tliat tlie inventors of
the opposing views seem to liave been led into them
as much by their knowledge of geology, as by their
acquaintance with biology. In fact, when the mind has
once admitted the conception of the gradual production
of the present physical state of our globe, by natural
causes operating through long ages of time, it will be
little disposed to allow tliat living beings have made
their appearance in another way, and the speculations of
De Maillet and his successors are the natural complement
of Scilla s demonstration of the true nature of fossils.
A contemporary of Newton and of Leibnitz, sharing
therefore in the intellectual activity of the remarkable
age which witnessed the birth of modern physical
science, Benoit de Maillet spent a long life as a consular
aofent of the French Government in various Mediter-
o
ranean ports. For sixteen years, in fact, he held the
oiSce of Consul- General in Egypt, and the wonderful
phenomena offered by the valley of the Nile appear to
have strongly impressed his mind, to have directed his
attention to all facts of a similar order which came within
his observation, and to have led him to speculate on the
origin of the present condition of our globe and of its
inhabitants. But, with all his ardour for science, De
Maillet seems to have hesitated to publish views which,
notwithstanding the ingenious attempts to reconcile
them with the Hebrew hypothesis, contained in the
preface to " Telliamed," were hardly likely to be received
with favour by his contemporaries.
But a short 'time had elapsed since more than one of
the great anatomists and physicists of the Italian school
had paid dearly for their eiideavours to dissipate s ome of
the prevalent errors ; and their illustrious pupil, Harvey,
the founder of modern physiology, had not fared so well,
in a country less oppressed by the benumbing influences
XII.] . THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 287
of tlicology, as to tempt any man to follow his example.
Probably not uninfluenced by these considerations, his
Catholic majesty's Consul-General for Egypt kept his
theories to himself throughout a long life, for " Telli-
amed," the only scientific work which is known to have
proceeded from his pen, was not printed till 1735, when
its author had reached the ripe age of seventy-nine ; and
though De Maillet lived three years longer, his book was
not given to the world before 1748. Even then it was
anonymous to those who were not in the secret of the
anagram atic character of its title ; and the preface and
dedication are so worded as, m case of necessity, to give
the printer a fair chance of falling back on the excuse
that the work was intended for a mere jeu dJ esprit.
The speculations of the supposititious Indian sage,
though quite as sound as those of many a " Mosaic
Geology,'' which sells exceedingly well, have"~'~no great
"value if we consider them by the light of modern
science. The waters are supposed to have originally
covered the whole globe ; to have deposited the rocky
masses which compose its mountains by processes com-
parable to those which are now forming mud, sand, and
shingle ; and then to have gradually lowered their level,
leaving the spoils of their animal and vegetable inhabi-
tants embedded in the strata. As the dry land appeared,
certain of the aquatic animals are supposed to have
taken to it, and to have become gradually adapted to
terrestrial and aerial modes of existence. But if we
rega^rd the general tenor and style of the reasoning in
relation to the . state of knowledge of the day, two
circumstances appear very well worthy of remark. The
first, that De Maillet had a notion of the modifiability of
living forms (though without any precise information on
the subject), and how such modifiability might account
for the origin of species ; the second, that he verj/
23 8 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xii
clearly appreliended tlie great modern geological doc-
trine, so strongly insisted upon by Huttpn, and so
ably and compreliensively expounded by Lyell, that we
must look to existing causes for the explanatioi; of past
geological events. Indeed, the following passage of the
preface, in which De Maillet is supposed to speak of the
Indian philosopher Telliamed, his alter ego, might have
been written by the most philosophical uniformitarian of
the present day : —
" Ce qii'il y a d'etonnant, est que pour arriver a ces connoissances
il seni"ble avoir perverti I'ordre naturel, puisqu'au lieu de s'attacher
d'abord a reclierclier rorigine de notre globe il^a commence par
travailler a s'instruire de la nature. Mais a I'entendre, ce renverse-
ment de I'ordre a ete ]D0ur lui I'effet d'un genie favorable qui I'a
conduit pas a pas et comme par la main aux decouvertes les plus
sublimes. C'est en decomposant la substance de ce globe par une
anatomic exacte de toutes ses parties qu'il a premierement appris de
quelles matieres il etait compose et quels arrangemens ces memes
matieres observaient entre elles. Ces lumieres jointes a Vesprit de
comparaison toujours necessaire a quiconque entreprend de percer les
voiles dont la nature aime a se cacber, ont servi de guide a notre
pbilosopbe pour parvenir a des connoissances plus interessantes. Par
la matiere et I'arrangement de ces compositions il pretend avoir
reconnu quelle est la veritable origine de ce globe que nous habitons,
comment et par qui il a ete forme." — Pp. xix. xx.
But De Maillet was before his age, and as could
hardly fail to happen to one who speculated on a zoolo-
gical and botanical question before Linnaeus, and on a
physiological problem before Haller, he fell into great
errors here and there ; and hence, perhaps, the general
nedect of his work. Eobinet's speculations are rather
behind, than in advance of, those of De Maillet ; and
though Linnoeus may have played with the hypothesis
of transmutation, it obtained no serious support until
Lamarck adopted it, and advocated it with great ability
in his " Philosophic Zoologique."
Impelled towards the hypothesis of the transmutation
xiij THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 289
of species, partly by liis general cosmological and geolo-
gical views ; partly by the conception of a graduated,
though irregularly branching, scale of being, which had
arisen out of his profound study of plants and of the
lower forms of animal life, Lamarck, whose general line
of thought often -closely resembles that of De Maillet,
made a great advance upon the crude and merely specu-
lative manner in which that writer deals with the ques-
tion of the origin of living beings, by endeavouring to
find physical causes competent to effect that change of
one species into another, which De Maillet had only
supposed to occur. And Lamarck conceived that he
had found in Nature such causes, amply sufficient for the
purpose in view. It is a physiological fact, he says, that
organs are increased in sise by action, atrophied by
inaction ; it is another physiological fact that modifica-
tions produced are transmissible to offspring. Change
the actions of an animal, therefore, and you will change
its structure, by increasing the development of the parts
newly brought into use and by the diminution of those
less used ; but by altering the circumstances which
surround it you will alter its actions, and hence, in the
long run, change of circumstance must produce change
of organization. All the species of*' animals, therefore,
are, in Lamarck's view, the result of the indirect action
of changes of circumstance upon those primitive germs
•which he considered to have originally arisen, by spon-
taneous generation, within the waters of the globe. It
is curious, however, that Lamarck should insist so
strongly^ as he has done, that circumstances never in
any degree directly modify the form or the organization
of animals, but only operate by changing their wants
and consequently their actions ; for .he thereby brings
upon himself the obvious question, how, then, clo plants,
^ See Phil. Zoologique, vol, i. p. 222, et seq.
290 1-41" SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. Ki:
wliicli cannot be said to hay-e wants or actions, become
modified'? To this ^be replies, tliat tliey are modified
by the changes in their nutritive processes, which are
effected by changing circumstances ; and it does not
seem to have occurred to him that such changes might
be as well supposed to take place among animals.
When we have said that Lamarck felt that mere
specidation was not the way to arrive at the origin of
"species, but that it was necessary, in order t-o the estab-
lishment of any sound theory on the subject, to discover
by observation or otherwise, some vera causa, competent
to give rise to them ; that he affirmed the true order of
classification to coincide with the order of their develop-
ment one from another ; that he insisted on the necessity
of allowing sufficient time, very strongly ; and that all
the varieties of instinct and reason were traced back by
him to the same cause as that which has given rise to
species, we have enumerated his chief contributions to
the advance of the question. On the other hand, from
his ignorance of any poAver in Nature competent to
modify the structure of animals, except the development
of parts, or atrophy of them, in consequence of a change
of needs, Lamarck was led to attach infinitely greater
weight than it deserves to this agency, and the absur-
dities into which he was led have met with deserved
condemnation. Of the struggle for existence, on which,
as, we shall see, Mr. Darwin lays such great stress, he had
no conception ; indeed, he doubts whether there really
are such things as extinct species, unless they be such
large animals as may have met their death at the hands
of man ; and so little does he dream of there being any
other destructive causes at work, that, in discussing
the possible existence of fossil shells, he asks, " Pourquoi
d'ailleurs seroient-ils perdues des que Thomme n'a pu
operer leur destruction?" (Phil. ZooL, vol. i. p. 77.)
XIl] the OkiGIN OF SPECIES. 291
Of the influence of selection Lamarck Las as little
notion,, and He makes ho use of the wonderful phceno-
niena which are exhibited by domesticated animals, and
illustrate its powers. The vast influence of Cuvier was
employed against the Lamarckian views, and, as the
untenability of some of his conclusions was easily
shown, his doctrines sank under the ojoprobium of
scientific, as well as of theological, heterodoxy. Nor
have the efforts made of late years to revive them
tended to re-establish their credit in the minds of sound
thinkers acquainted with the facts of the case ; indeed
it may be doubted whether Lamarck has not suffered
more from his friends than from his foes.
Two years ago, in fact, though we venture to question
if even the strongest supporters of the special creation
hypothesis had not, now and then, an uneasy conscious-
ness that all was not right, their position seemed more
impregnable than ever, if not by its own inherent strength,
at any rate by the obvious failure of all the attempts
which had been made to ca'rry it. On the other hand,
however much the few, who thought deeply on the
question of species, might be repelled by the generally
received dogmas, they saw no way of escaping from
them, save by the adoption of suppositions, so little jus-
tified by experiment or by observation, as to be at least
equally distasteful.
The choice lay between two absurdities and a middle
condition of uneasy scepticism ; which last, however
unpleasant and unsatisfactory, was obviously the only
justifiable state of mind under the circumstances.
Such being the general ferment in the minds of
naturalists, it is no wonder that they mustered strong in
the rooms of the Linnsean Society, on the 1st of July of
the year 1858, to hear two papers by authors living
on opposite sides of the globe, working out their results
292 Ur SEJLMOXS, ADDRESSES, AND 'REVIEWS, [xii,
iiiclepenclently, and yet professing to have discovered onG
and the same solution of all the problems connected with
Bpecies. The one of these authors was an able naturalist,
Mr. Wallace, who had been employed for some years in
studying the productions of the islands of the Indian
Archipelago, and who had forwarded a memoir embody-
ino; his views to Mr. Darwin, for communication to the
Linnsean Society. On perusing the essay, Mr. Darwin
was not a little surprised to find that it embodied some
of the leading ideas of a great work which he had been
preparing for twenty years, and parts of which, contain-
ing a development of the very same views, had been
perused by his private friends fifteen or sixteen years
before. Perplexed in what manner to do full justice
both to his friend and to himself, Mr. Darwin placed
the matter in the hands of Dr. Hooker and Sir Charles
L3^ell, by whose advice he communicated a brief abstract
of his own views to the Linnsean Society, at the same
time that ]Mr. Wallace's paper was read. Of that abstract,
the work on the " Origin of Species " is an enlargement :
but a complete statement of Mr. Darwin's doctrine is
looked for in the laro;e and well-illustrated work which
he is said to be preparing for publication.
The Darwinian hypothesis has the merit of being
eminently simple and comprehensible in principle, and
its essential positions may be stated in a very few
words : all species have been produced by the develop-
ment of varieties from common stocks by the conversion
of these first into permanent races and then into new
species, by the process of natural selection, which
process is essentially identical with that artificial selec-
tion by which man has originated the races of domestic
animals — the struggle for existence taking the place
of man, and exerting, in the case of natural seleQticm,
XII.] THE ORIGIN' OF SPECIES, 293
that selective action wliicli he performs in artificial
selection.
The evidence brought forward by Mr. Darwin in
support of his hypothesis is of three kinds. Fiist, he
endeavours to prove that species may be originated by
selection ; secondly, he attempts to show that natural
causes are competent to exert selection ; and thirdly, he
tries to prove that the most remarkable and apparently
anomalous phenomena exhibited by the distribution, de-
velopment, and mutual relations of species, can be shown
to be deducible from the general doctrine of their orioin,
which he propounds, combined with the known facts of
geological change ; and that, even if all these phsenomena
are not at present explicable by it, none are necessarily
inconsistent with it.
There cannot be a doubt that the method of inquiry
which Mr. Darwin has adopted is not only rigorously in
accordance with the canons of scientific logic, but that it
is the only adequate method. Critics exclusively trained
in classics or in mathematics, w'ho have never determined a
scientific fact in their lives by induction from experiment
or observation, prate learnedly about Mr. Darw^in's
method, which is not inductive enough, not Baconian
enough, forsooth, for them. But even if practical ac-
quaintance W'ith the process of scientific investigation is
denied them, they may learn, by the perusal of Mr.
Mill's admirable chapter " On the Deductive Method,"
that there are multitudes of scientific inquiries, in which
the method of pure induction helps the investigator but
a very little way,
"The mode of investigation," says Mr. ]\Iil], "which, from the
proved inapplicahility of direct methods of observation and experi-
ment, remains to us as the main source of the knowledge we possess,
or can acquire, respecting the conditions and laws of recurrence of the
more complex phsenomena, is called, in its most general expression.
294 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND UEVIEWB. [siL
the deductive method, and consists of three operations : the first, one
of direct induction; the second, of ratiocination; and the third, of
verification."
Now, tlie conditions "wliicli have cletermined tlie ex-
istence of species are not only exceedingly complex,
but, so far as tlie great majority of tliem are concerned,
are necessarily beyond our cognizance. But what Mr.
Darwin has attempted to do is in exact accordance with
the rule laid down by Mr. Mill ; he has endeavoured to
determine certain great facts inductively, by observation
and experiment ; he has then reasoned from the data
thus furnished; and lastly, he has tested the validity of
his ratiocination by comparing his deductions with the
observed facts of Nature. Inductively, Mr. Darwin en-
deavours to prove that species arise in a given way.
Deductively, he desires to show that, if they arise in that
way, the facts of distribution, development, classification,
&c., may be accounted for, i.e. may be deduced from
their mode of orio^in, combined with admitted changes in
physical geography and climate, during an indefinite
period. And this explanation, or coincidence of observed
with deduced facts, is, so far as it extends, a verification
of the Darwinian view.
There is no fault to be found with Mr. Darwin's
method, then ; but it is another question whether he has
fulfilled all the conditions imposed by that method. Is
it satisfactorily proved, in fact, that species may be
originated by selection? that there is such a thing as
natural selection ? that none of the phgsnomena exhibited
by species are inconsistent with the origin of species in this
way ? If these questions, can be answered in the afiirm-
ative, Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the ranks of hypo-
theses into those of proved theories ; but, so long as the
evidence at present adduced falls short of enforcing that
£11.] THE ORIGIN OF SFECIES. 295
affirmation, so long, to onr minds, must tlie new doctrine
be content to remain among the former — an extremely
valuable, and in tlie highest degree probable, doctrine,
indeed the only extant hypothesis which is Avorth any-
thing in a scientific point of view ; but still a hypothesis,
and not yet the theory of species.
After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias
as^ainst Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction
that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven
that a group of animals, having all the characters exhi-
bited by species in Nature, has ever been originated by
selection, whether artificial or natural. G-roups having
the morphological character of species, distinct and per-
manent races in fact, have been so produced over and
over again ; but there is no positive evidence, at present,
that any group of animals has, by variation and selective
breeding, given rise to another group which was even in
the least degree infertile with the first. Mr. Darwin is
perfectly aware of this weak point, and brings forward a
multitude of ingenious and important arguments to di-
minish the force of the objection. We admit the value
of these arguments to their fullest extent ; nay, we will
go so far as to express our belief that experiments, con-
ducted by a skilful physiologist, would very probably
obtain the desired production of mutually more or less
infertile breeds from a common stock, in a comparatively
few years ; but still, as the case stands at present, this
"little rift within the lute '\ is not to be disguised nor
overlooked.
In the remainder of Mr. Darwin's argument our ot\t3.
private ingenuity has not hitherto enabled us to pick
holes of any great importance ; and judging by what we
hear and read, other adventurers in the same field do not
seem to have been much more fortunate. It has been
urged, for instance, that in his chapters on the struggle
296 i^-^i' SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xii.
for existence and on natural selection, Mr. Darwin does
not so mncli prove tliat natural selection does occur, as
tliat it must occur ; but, in fact, no other sort of demonstra-
tion is attainable. A race does not attract our attention
in ISTature until it has, in all probability, existed for a
considerable time, and then it is too late to inquire into
the conditions of its origin. Again, it is said that there
is no real analogy between the selection which takes
place under domestication, by human influence, and any
operation which can be eifected by Nature, for man inter-
feres intelligently. Reduced to its. elements, this argu-
ment implies that an effect produced with trouble by an
intelligent agent imxBt, a fortiori, be more troublesome, if
not impossible, to an unintelligent agent. Even putting
aside the question whether Nature, acting as she does
according to definite and invariable laws, can be rightly
called an unintelligent agent, such a position as this is
wholly untenable. Mix salt and sand, and it shall puzzle
the wisest of men, with his mere natural appliances, to
separate all the grains of sand from all the grains of salt ;
but a shower of rain will effect the same object- in ten
minutes. And so, while man may find it tax all his in-
telligence to separate any variety which arises, and to
breed selectively from it, the destructive agencies inces-
santly at wor]^ in Nature, if they find one variety to be
more soluble in circumstances than the other, will inevit-
ably, in the long run, eliminate it.
A frequent and a just objection to the Lamarcldan
hypothesis of the transmutation of species is based upon
the absence of transitional forms between many species.
But against the Darwinian hypothesis this argument has
no force. Indeed, one of the most valuable and sugges-
tive parts of Mr. Darwin's work is that in which he
proves, that the frequent absence of transitions is a ne-
cessary consequence of his doctrine, and that the stock
xiL] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, 297
whence two or more species have sprung, need in no
respect .be intermediate between these species. If any
two species have arisen from a common stock in the same
way as the carrier and the pouter, say, have arisen from
the rock-pigeon, then the common stock of these two
species need be no more intermediate between the two
than the rock-pigeon is between the carrier and pouter.
Clearly appreciate the force of this analogy, and all the
arguments against the origin of species by selection, based
on the absence of transitional forms, fall to the ground.
And Mr. Darwin's position might, we think, have been
even stronger than it is if he had not embarrassed himself
with the aphorism, " NaHira noii facit saltum/' which
turns up so often in his pages. We believe, as we have
said above, that Nature does make jumps now and then,
and a recognition of the fact is of no small importance
in disposing of many minor objections to the doctrine
of transmutation. ^^
But we must pause. The discussion of Mr. Darwin's
arguments in detail would lead us fai beyond the limits
within which we proposed, at starting, to confine this
article. Our object has been attained if we have given
an intelligible, however brief, account of the established
facts connected with species, and of the relation of the
explanation of those facts offered by Mr. Darwin to the
theoretical views held by his predecessors and his con-
temporaries, and, above all, to the requirements of scien-
tific logic. We have ventured to point out that it does
not, as yet, satisfy all those requirements ; but we do not
"Hesitate to assert that it is as superior to any preceding
or contemporary hyjDothesis, in the extent of observational
and experimental basis on which it rests, in its rigorously
scientific method, and in its power of explaining biolo-
gical phsenomena, as was the hypothesis of Copernicus to
tne speculations of Ptolemy. But the planetary orbits
298 LAT SERMONS, m. WRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xii.
turned out to be not quite circular after all, and, grand
as was tlie service Copernicus rendered to science, Kepler
and Newton had to come after liim. AYhat if tlie orbit
of Darwinism should be a little too circular \ What if
species should offer residual phsenom.ena, here and there,
not explicable by natural selection 1 Twenty years hence
naturalists may be in a position to say wli other this is, or
is not, the case ; but in eithe.r event they will owe the
author of "The Origin of Spacies" an immense debt of
gratitude. We should leave a very wrong impression on
the reader's mind if we permitted him to suppose that
the value of that work depends wholly on the ultimate
justification of the theoretical views which it contains.
On the contrary, if they were disproved to-morrow, the
book would still be the best of its kind — the most com-
pendious statement of well-sifted facts bearing on the
doctrine of species that has ever appeared. The chapters
on Variation, on the Struggle for Existence, on Instinct,
on Hybridism, on the Imperfection of the Geological
Eecord, on Geographical Distribution, have not only no
equals, but, so far as our knowledge goes, no competitors,
within the range of biological literature. And viewed as
a whole, we do not believe that, since the publication of
Von Baer s Eesearches on Development, thirty years ago,
any work has appeared calculated to exert so large an
influence, not only on the future of Biology, but in ex-
tending the domination of Science over regions of thought
into wliich she has, as yet, hardlv nenetrated.
XIIl.
CEITICISMS ON " THE OEIGIN OF SPECIES."
i. XJeber die Darwin'sche Schopfungstheorie ; Ei:^f Yortraq, von
A. KoLLiKER. Leipzig, 1864.
2. Examination du Livre de M. Darwin sur l'Origine des Especes.
Par P. Elourens. Paris, 1864.
Ix tlie course of tlie present year [18G4] several foreign
commentaries upon Mr. Darwin s great work have made
tlieir appearance. Tliose wlio have perused that re-
markable chapter of the '' Antiquity of Man," in which
Sir Charles Lyell draws a parallel between the develop-
ment of species and that of languages, wdll be glad' to
hear that one of the most eminent philologers of Ger-
many, Professor Schleicher, has, independently, published
a most instructive and philosophical pamphlet (an excel-
lent notice of which is to be found in the Header,
for February 27th of this year) supporting similar views
with all the weight of his special knowledge and
established authority as a linguist. Professor Haeckel,
to whom Schleicher addresses himself, previously took
occasion, in his splendid monograph on the Radiolaria^
* "Die Radiolarien : eine Monographie," p. 231,
300 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS [xiii-
to express his high appreciation of, and general concord-
ance with, Mr. Darwin s views.
But the niost elaborate criticisms of the " Origin of
Species_^whicE" have ^appeared are" two_ works _oi_yery
wicleiy different meritpthe one by Professor KoUiker, the
AvelTEiown^anatomist and histo]oDfi&r~of Wtirzbtir^ the
other by M. FIourenaK Perpetual Secretary of the French
Academy of SciencesT
Professor Kolliker's critical essay ^ Upon the Dar-
v/inian Theory " is, like all that proceeds from the pen
of that thoughtful and accomplished writer, worthy; of
the most careful consideration. It comprises a brief but
clear sketch of Darwin's views, followed by an enume-
ration of the leading difficulties in the way of their
acceptance ; difiiculties which would appear to be insur-
mountable to Professor Kolliker, inasmuch ashe proposes
to replace Mr. Darwin's Theory by one which he terms
the " Theory of Heterogeneous Generation." We shall
proceed to consider first the destructive, and secondly,
the constructive portion of the essay.
We regret to find ourselves compelled to dissent very
widely from many of Professor Kolliker's remarks ; and
from none more thoroughly than from those in which he
seeks to define what we may term the philosophical
position of Darwinism.
*' Darwin," says Professor Kolliker, "is, in the fullest sense of the
word, a Teleologist. He says quite distinctly (I'irst Edition, pp. 199,'
200) that every particular in the structure of au animal has been
created for its benefit, and he regards the whole series of animal forms
only from this point of view."
And aofain :
ii
7. The teleological general conception adopted by Darwin is a
mistaken one.
" Varieties arise irrespectively of the notion of purpose, or of utility,
according to general laws of Nature, and may be either useful, OT
hurtful, or indilLrenk
Kill.] CIUTICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SFECIES:* 3() 1
"The assumption that an organism exists only on account of some
definite end in view, and represents something more than the incor-
poration of a general idea, or law, implies a one-sided conception of
the universe. Assuredly, every organ has, and every organism fulfils,
its end, but its purpose is not the condition of its existence. Every
organism is also sufficiently perfect for the purpose it serves, and in
that, at least, it is useless to seek for a cause of its improvement."
It is RiTimil^T lioAY (Mereijtly 0110 .and the same book
will_ impress different minds. That which struck the
present writer most forcibly on his first perusal of the
" Origin of Species" was the conviction that Teleolooy,
as commonly understood, had received its deathblow'^at
Mr. Darwin's hands. For the teleological argument runs
thus : an organ or organism (A) is precisely fitted to
perform a function or purpose (B) ; therefore it was
specially constructed to perform that function. In
Paley's famous illustration, the adaptation of all the
parts of the watch to the function, or purpose, of show-
ing the time, is held to be evidence that the watch was
specially contrived to that end ; on the ground, that the
only cause we know of, competent to produce such an
effect as a watch which shall keep time, is a contrivino-
intelligence adapting the means directly to that end.
Suppose, however, that any one had been able to show
that the watch had not been made directly by any
person, but that it was the result of the modification
of another watch which kept time but |)oorly ; and that
this again had proceeded from a structure which could
bardly be called a watch at all — seeing that it had no
figures on the dial and the hands were rudimentary;
and that going back and back in time we came at last
to a revolving barrel as the earliest traceable rudiment
of the whole fabric. And imagine that it had been
possible to show that all these changes had resulted, first,
from a tendency of the structure to vary indefinitely;
and secondlv, from somethinor in the surrounding world
u
302 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiii.
wMcli helped all variations in the direction of an accu-
rate time-keeper, and checked all those in other directions ;
then it is obvious that the force of Paley's argument
would be gone. For it would be demonstrated that an
apparatus thoroughly well adapted to a particular pur-
pose might be the result of a method of trial and error
w^orkecl by unintelligent agents, as w^ell as of the direct
application of the means appropriate to that end, by an
intellio^ent ag^ent.
Now it appears to us that what we have here, for illus-
tration's sake, supposed to be done with the watch, is
exactly what the establishment of Darwin's Theory will
do for the organic world. For the notion that every
oro;anism has been created as it is and launched straio-ht
at a purpose, Mr. Darwin substitutes the conception of
something which may fairly be termed a method of trial
and error. Organisms vary incessantly ; of these varia-
tions the few meet with surrounding conditions which
suit them and thrive ; the many are unsuited and be-
come extinguished.
According to Teleology, each organism is like a riile
bullet fired straight at a mark ; according to Darwin,
organisms are like grapeshot of w^hich one hits some-
thin o; and the rest fall v/ide.
For the teleoloo^ist an oro^anism exists because it was
made for the conditions in which it is found; for the
Darwinian an organism exists because, out of many of
its kind, it is the only one w^hich has been able to persist
in the conditions in which it is found.
Teleology implies that the organs of every organism
are perfect and cannot be improved ; the Darwinian
theory simply affirms that they work well enough t?r"
enable the oro:anism to hold its own ao:ainst such com-
petitors as it has met with, but admits the possibility of
indefinite improvement. But an example may bring
XIII.] CRITICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES:' 303
into clearer light the profound opposition between the
ordinary teleological, and the Darwinian, conception.
Cats catch mice, small birds and the like, very well.
Teleology tells us that they do so because they w^ere
"expressly constructed, for so doing — that they are perfect
mousing apparatuses, so perfect and -so delicately ad-
justed that no one of their organs could be altered,
without the change involving the alteration of all the
rest. Darwinism affirms, on the contrary, that there
w^as no express construction concerned in the matter;
but thafaraong; the multitudinous variations of the
Feline stock, many of which died out from want of
power to resist opposing influences, some, the cats, were
better fitted to catch mice than others, whence they
throve and persisted, in proportion to the advantage
over their fellows thus offered to them.
Far from imagining that cats exist in order to catch
mice well, Darwinism supposes that cats exist because
they catch mice well — mousing being not the end, but
the condition, of their existence. And if the cat-type
has long persisted as we know it, the interpretation of
the fact upon Darwinian priiiciples would be, not that
the cats have remained invariable, but that such varieties
as have incessantly occurred have been, on the whole,
less fitted to get on in the world than the existing
stock.
If we apprehend the spirit of the " Origin of Species ''
rightly, then, nothing can be more entirely and abso-
lutely opposed to Teleology, as it is commonly under-
stood, than the Darwinian Theory. So far from being
a " Teleologist in the fullest sense of the word,'' we
should deny that he is a Teleologist in the ordinary
sense at all ; and we should say that, apart from his
merits as a naturalist,, he has rendered a most remarkable
service to philosophical thought by enabling the student
304 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS [xm.
of Nature to recognise, to tlieir fullest extent, tliose adap^
tations to purpose wliich are so striking in the organic
world, and which Teleology has done good service in
keeping before our minds, without being false to the
fundamental principles of a scientific conception of the
universe. The apparently diverging teachings of the
Teleologist and of the Morphologist are reconciled by
the Darwinian hypothesis.
But leaving our own impressions of the " Origin of
Species," and turning to those passages specially cited by
Professor Kolliker, we cannot admit that they bear the
interpretation he puts upon them. Darwin, if we read
him rightly, does not affirm that every detail in the
structure of an animal has been created for its benefit.
His words are (p. 199) : —
*' The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest
lately made "by some naturalists against the utilitarian dpctrine^ that
every detail of structure lias been produced for the good of its possessor.
They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty
in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would
be absolutely fatal to my theory — yet I fully admit that many struc-
tures are of no direct use to their possessor."
And after sundry illustrations and qualifications, he
concludes (p. 200) : —
" Hence every detail of structure in every living creature (making
some little allowance for the direct action of physical conditions) may
be viewed either as having been of special use to some ancestral form,
or as being now of special use to the descendants of this form — either
directly, or indirectly, through the complex laws of growth,"
But it is one thing to say, Darwinically, that every
detail observed in an animal's structure is of use to it,
or has been of use to its ancestors ; and quite another
to affirm, teleologically, that every detail of an animal's
structure has been created for its benefit. On the former
hypothesis, for example, the teeth of the foetal Balcena
ha-ve a meaning ; on the latter, none. So far as we are
i
xiii.J CRITICISMS ON "TEH ORIGIN OF SPECIES:' 305
' a^Y^re, tliere is not a plirase in tlie " Origin of Species,"
inconsistent with Professor Kolliker's position, tliat " va-
rieties arise irrespei^tively of tiie notion of purpose, or
of utility, according to general laws of Nature, and may
"be eitlier use%l, or hurtful, or indifferent/'
On the' contrary, Mr. Darwin wri:.s (Summary of
Chap. V.) :—
" Our ignorance of the la-\Y3 of variation is profound. I^ot in one
case out of a hundred can we pretend to assign, any reason why this or
that part varies more or less from the same part in the parents. . . • .
The external conditions of life, as climate and food, &c. seem to have
induced some slight modifications. Habit, in producing constitutional
differences, and use, in strengthening, and disuse, in weakening and
diminishing organs, seem to have been more potent in their effects."
And finally, as if to prevent all possible misconception,
Mr. Darwin concludes his Chapter on Variation with
these pregnant words : —
** Whatever the cause may be of each slight difference in the offspring
from their parents — and a cause for each must exist — it is the steady
accumulation, through natural selection of such differences, when bene-
ficial to the individual, that gives rise to all the more important
modifications of structure, by which the innumerable beings on the
face of the earth are enabled to struggle with each otlier, and the best
"^adapted to survive."
"We have dwelt at length upon this subject, because of
its great general importance, and because we believe that
Professor KoUiker s criticisms on this head are based
upon a misapprehension of Mr. Darwin's views — sub-
stantially they appear to us to coincide v/ith his own.
The other objections which Professor Kolliker enumerates ^
and discusses are the folTowinsj -}—
" 1. !N"o_ transitional forms between existing species are known ;
and known varieties, whether selected or spontaneous, neveir^go -so .
far as to establish new species."
* Space will not allow us to give Professor KoUiker's arguments in detail ;
our readers will find a full and accurate version of them in the Header for
August 13th and 20th, 1864.
306 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiii.
To this Professor KoUiker appears to attacli some
weight. He makes the suggestion that the short-faced
tumbler pigeon may be a pathological product.
" 2. 1^0 transitional forms of animals are met with among tlie
organic remains of earlier epoclis."
Upon this, Professor KoUiker remarks that the absence
of trausitional forms in the fossil world, though not ne-
cessarily fatal to Darwin's views, weakens his case.
*' 3. The struggle for existence does not take place."
To this objection, urged by Pelzeln, KoUiker, very
justly, attaches no weight.
" 4. A tendency of organisms to give rise to useful varieties, and
a natural selection, do not exist.
" The varieties which are found arise in consequence of manifold
external influences, and it is not obvious why they all, or partially,
should be particularly useful. Each animal suffices for its own ends,
is perfect of its kind, and needs no further development. ShoulB",
however, a variety be useful and even maintain itself, there is no
obvious reason why it should change any further. The whole con-
ception of the imperfection of organisms and the necessity of their_
becoming perfected is plainly the weakest side of Darwin's Theory,
and a ^3is aller (ISTothbehelf) because Darwin could think of no other
principle by which to explain the metamorphoses which, as I also
believe, have occurred."
Here again we must venture to dissent completely
from Professor KoUiker's conception of Mr. Darwin's
liypothesis. It appears to us to be one of the many
peculiar merits of that hypothesis that it involves no
belief in a necessary and continual progress of organisms.
Again, Mr. Darwin, if we read him aright, assumes
no special tendency of organisms to give rise to useful
varieties, and knows nothing of needs of development,
or necessity of perfection. What he says is, in sub-
stance : All organisms, vary. It is in the highest degree
improbable that any given variety should have exactly
the same relations to surrounding conditions as the '
STii.] CRITICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES:' 30 7
parent stock. In that case it is either better fitted
(wlien the variation may be called useful), or worse
fitted, to cope with them. If better, it will tend to
supplant the parent stock ; if worse, it will tend to be
extinguished by. the parent stock.
If (as is hardly conceivable) the new variety is so per-
fectly adapted to the conditions that no improvement upon
it is possible, — it will persist, because, though it does
not cease to vary7the varieties will be inferior to itself.
If, as is more probable, the new variety is by no
means perfectly adapted to its conditions, but only
fairly well adapted to them, it will persist, so long as
none of the varieties which it throws off are better
adapted than itself.
On the other hand, as soon as it varies in a useful
way, i. e. when the variation is such as to adapt it more
perfectly to its conditions, the fresh variety will tend
to supplant the former.
So far from a gradual progress towards perfection
forming any necessary part of the Darwinian creed, it
appears to us that it is perfectly consistent with indefinite
persistence in one state, or with a gradual retrogression.
Suppose, for example, a return of the glacial epoch and
a spread of polar climatal conditions over the whole
globe. The operation of natural selection under these cir-
cumstances would tend, on the whole, to the weeding out
of the higher organisms and the cherishing of the lower
forms of life. Cryptogamic vegetation would have the
advantage over Phanerogamic ; Hydrozoa over Corals ;
Crustacea over Insecta, and Amjjhipoda and Isopoda '
ove;r the high '^.rCr^f5^acea; Cetaceans and Seals over
the Primates, , the- civilization of the Esquimaux over
that .of the European."
"5. Pelzeln has also objected that if the later organisms have
proceeded from the earlier, the whole developmental series, from the
308 LJr SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIETFS [xiii.
simplest to the liigliest, conld not now exist ; in such a case the
simpler organisms must have disappeared."
To tliis Professor KoUiker replies, with x^erfect justice,
that the conclusion drawn by Pelzeln does not really
follow from Darwin's premises, and that, if we take the
facts of Palaeontology as they stand, they rather support
than oppose Darwin's theory.
" 6. Great weight must he attached to the objection brought forward
by Huxley, otherwise a warm supporter of Darwin's hypothesis, that
we know of no varieties which are sterile with one another, as is tho
rule among sharply distinguished animal forms.
" If Darwin is right, it must be demonstrated that forms may be
produced by selection, which, like the present sharply distinguished
animal forms, are infertile when coupled with one another, and this
has not been done."
The Yv^ eight of this objection is obvious ; but our
ignorance of the conditions of fertility and sterility,
the want of carefully conducted experiments extending
over long series of years, and the strange anomalies
presented by the results of the cross-fertilization of
many plants, should all, as Mr. Darwin has urged, be
taken into account in considering it.
The seventh objection is that we have already dis-
cussed {siqjrd, p. 329).
The eighth and last stands as follows : —
'' 8. The developmental theory of Darwin is not needed to enable ua
to understand the regular harmonious progress of the complete series
of organic forms from the simpler to the more perfect.
"The existence of general laws of Nature explains this harmony,
even if we assume that all beings have arisen separately and inde-
pendent of one another. Darwin forgets that inorganic nature, in
which there can be no thought of a genetic connexion of forms,
exliibits the same regular plan, the same harmony, as the organic
world ; and that, to cite only one example, there is as much a natural
eystem of n\inerals as of plants and animals."
We do not feel quite sure that we seize Professor
Kjlliker's meaning here, but he appears to suggest that
xiji.] CRITICISMS ON « THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES." 309
the observation of the general order and harmony which
pervade inorganic nature, would lead us to anticipate a
similar order and harmony in the organic world. And
this is no doubt true, but it by no means follows that
the particular order and harmony observed among them
should be that which we see. Surely the stripes of dun
horses, and the teeth of the foetal Balcena, are not ex-
plained by the " existence of general laws of Nature.''
Mr. Darwin . endeavours to explain the exact order of
organic nature which exists ; not the mere fact that
there is some order.
And with regard to the existence of a natural system
of minerals ; the obvious reply is that there may be a
natural classification of any objects — of stones on a sea-
beach, or of works of art ; a natural classification being
simply an assemblage of objects in groups, so as to
express their most important and fundamental re-
semblances and difierences. No doubt Mr. Darwin be-
lieves tlmt those resemblances and difi'erences upon
which our natural systems or classifications of animals
and plants are based, are resemblances and difi'erences
which have been produced genetically, but we can dis-
cover no reason for supj^osing that he denies the existence
of natural classifications of other kinds.
And, after all, is it quite so certain that a genetic
relation may not underlie the classification of minerals 1
The inorganic world has not always been what we see
it. It has certainly had its metamorphoses, and, very
probably, a long " Entwickelungsgeschichte " out of a
nebular blastema. Who knows how far that amount
of likeness among sets of minerals, in virtue of which
they are now grouped into families and orders, may
not be the expression of the common conditions to
which that particular patch of nebulous fog, which may
have been constituted by their atoms, and of which
310 ZJF SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiiL
fchey may be, in the strictest sense, tlie descendants, was
subjected?
It will be obvious from v/liat bas preceded, that we
do not ag;ree witb Professor KoUiker in tbinkino; tbe
objections wbicb be brings forward so weighty as to be
fatal to Darwin's view. But even if tbe case were otbcr-
wise, we sliould be unable to accept tbe " Theory of
Heteroo-eneons Generation" which is offered as a sub-
stitute. That theory is thus stated : —
" The fundamental conception of this hypothesis is, that, under the
influence of a general law of development, the germs of organisms
produce others different from themselves. This might happen (1) by
the fecundated, ova passing, in the course of their development, under
particular circumstances, into higher forms ; (2) by the primitive and
later organisms producing other organisms without fecundation, out of
germs or eggs (Parthenogenesis)."
In favour of this hypothesis. Professor Kolliker ad-
duces the well-known facts of Agamogenesis, or " alter-
nate generation ; '' the extreme dissimilarity of the
males and females of many animals ; and of the males,
females, and neuters of those insects which live in
colonies : and he defines its relations to the Darwinian
theory as follows : —
" It is obvious that my hypothesis is apparently very similar to
Darwin's, inasmuch as I also consider that the various forms of
animals have proceeded directly from one another. My hypothesis of
the creation of organisms by heterogeneous generation, however, is
distinguished very essentially from Darwin's by the entire absence of
the principle of' useful variations and their natural selection ; and my
fundamental conception is this, that a great plan of development lies
at the foundation of the origin of the whole organic world, impelling
the simpler forms to more and more complex developments. How
this law operates, what influences determine the development of the
eggs and germs, and impel them to assume constantly new forms, I
naturally cannot pretend to say j but I can at least adduce the great
analogy of the alternation of generations. If a Bipinnaria, a Bracki-
alaria, a Pluteus, is competent to produce the Echinoderm, which is
80 widely difi'erent from it ; if a hydroid polype can produce the highei
XI1I.3 CRITICISMS ON ''THE ORIGIN OF SFECIESP 311
Medusa; if the vermiform Trematode * nurse* can develop within
itself the very unlike Cercaria, it will not appear impossible that the
egp:, or ciliated embryo, of a sponge, for once, under special conditions,
might become a hydroid polype, or the embryo of a Medusa, an
Echinoderm."
It is obvious, from tliese extracts, that Professor Kol-
liker's hypotliesis is based upon the supposed existence
of a close analogy between the phsenomena of Agamo-
genesis and the production of new species from pre-
existing ones. But is the analogy a real one ? We
think that it is not, and, by the hypothesis, cannot be.
For what are the phsenomena of Agamogenesis, stated
generally 1 An impregnated egg develops into an
asexual form, A ; this gives rise, asexually, to a second
form or forms, B, more or less different from A. B may
multiply asexually again ; in the simpler cases, however,
it does not, but, acquiring sexual characters, produces
impregnated eggs from whence A once more arises.
No case of Agamogenesis is known in which, ivlien A
differs ividely from B, it is itself cajpable of sexual
propagation. No case whatever is known in which the
progeny of B, by sexual generation, is other than a
rej)roduction of A.
But if this be a true statement of the nature of the
process of Agamogenesis, how can it enable us to com-
prehend the production of new species from already
existing ones ? Let us suppose Hyaenas to have pre-
ceded Dogs, and to have produced the latter in this
way. Then the Hysena will represent A, and the Dog,
B. The first difficulty that presents itself is that the
Hyaena must be asexual, or the process will be wholly
without analogy in the world of Agamogenesis. But
passing over this difficulty, and supposing a male and
female Dog to be produced at the . same time from the
Hy^na stock, the progeny of the pair, if the analogy
312 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEVrS. [xiii.
of the simpler kinds of Agamogenesis^ is to be followed,
should be a litter, not of puppies, but of young Hyaenas.
For the Agamogenetic series is always, as we have seen,
A : B : A : B, &c.; whereas, for the production of a new
species, the series must be A : B : B : B, &c. The pro-
duction of new species, or genera, is the extreme perma-
nent divergence from the primitive stock. All known
Agamogenetic processes, on the other hand, end in a
complete return to the primitive stock. How' then is
the production of new species to be rendered intelligible
by the analogy of Agamogenesis ?
The other alternative put by Professor KoUiker — the
passage of fecundated ova in the course of their develop-
ment into higher forms — would, if it occurred, be merely
an extreme case of variation in the Darw^inian sense,
greater in degree than, but perfectly similar in kind to,
that which occurred when the well-known Ancon Earn
was developed from an ordinary Ewe's ovum. Indeed
we have always thought that Mr. Darwin has unneces-
sarily hampered himself by adhering so strictly to his
favourite " Natura non facit saltum.'* We greatly
suspect that she does make considerable jumps in
the way of variation now and then, and that these
saltations give rise to some of the gaps which appear
to exist in the series of known forms.
Strongly and freely as we have ventured to disagree
* If, on the contrary, we follow tbe analogy of the more complex forms oi
Agamogenesis, such as that exhibited by some Trema^oc^ct and by the ApMdes._
the Hyaena must produce, asexually, a brood of asexual Dogs, from which
other sexless Dogs must proceed. At the end of a certain number of terms
of the series, the Dogs would acquire sexes and generate young ; but these
youijg would be, not Dogs, but Hysenas. In fact, we have demonstrated, in
Agamogenetic phsenomena,that inevitable recTirrence to the original type, which
Is asserted to be true of variations in general, by Mr. Darwin's opponents ;
and which, if the assertion could be changed into & demonstration, would, ia
fact, foe fatal to his hypothesis.
£111. J CRITICISMS ON '* THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES** 313
witli Professor Kolliker, we have always done so with
regret, and we trust without violating that respect which
is due, not only to his scientific eminence and to the
careful study which he has devoted to the subject, but
to the perfect fairness of his argumentation, and the
generous appreciation of the worth of Mr. Darwin's
labours which he always displays. It would be satisfac-
tory to be able to sav as much for M. Flourens.
But the Perpetual Secretary of" the French Academy
of Sciences deals with Mr. Darwin as the first Napoleon
would have treated an "ideologue;'' and while dis-
playing a painful weakness of logic and shallowness of
information, assumes a tone of authority, which always
touches upon the ludicrous, and sometimes passes the
limits of good breeding.
For example (p. bQ>) ; —
"M. Darwin continue: *Aucune distinction aLsolue n'a etc et ne
pent etre etablie entre les especes et les varietes.' Je vous ai deja dit
que vous vous trompiez ; une distinction absolue separe les varietes
d'avec les especes."
*' Je vous ai dejd dit ; moi, M. le Secretaire perpetuel
de TAcademie des Sciences : et vous
* Qui n'etes rien,
Pas mcme Academicien; *
what do you mean by asserting the contrary?'* Being
devoid of the blessings of an Academy in England, we
are unaccustomed to see our ablest men treated in this
fashion even by a " Perpetual Secretary.''
Or again, considering that if there is any one quality
of Mr. Darwin's work to which friends and foes have
alike borne witness, it is his candour and fairness in
admitting and discussing objections, what is to be
thought of M. Flourens' assertion, that
314 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xiii.
" M. Darwin ne cite que les auteurs qui partagent ses opinions."
,R 40.)
Once more (p. 65) :
"Enfin I'ouvrage de M. Darwin a paru. On ne pent qu'etre frappe
du talent de Tauteur. Mais que d'idees obscures, que d'idees fausses !
Quel jargon metaphysique jete mal a propos dans rhistoire naturelle,
qui tombe dans le galimatias des qu'elle sort des idees claires, dea ^
'■dees justes ! Quel langage pretentieux et vide ! Quelles personi- ~
fications pueriles et surannees ! 0 lucidite ! 0 solidite de 1' esprit
Frangais, que devenez-vous ? "
"Obscure ideas/' " metaphysical jargon," "pretentious
and empty language/' " puerile and superannuated per-
sonifications." Mr. Darwin has many and hot opponents
on this side of the Channel and in Germany, but we do
not recollect to have found precisely these sins in the
long catalogue of those hitherto laid to his charge. It is
worth while, therefore, to examine into these discoveries
effected solely by the aid of the " lucidity and solidity "
of the mind of M. Flourens.
According to M. Flourens, Mr. Darwin's great error is
that he has personified Nature (p. 10), and farther that
he has
" imagined a natural selection : be imagines afterwards tbat tbis
power of selecting [pouvoij- d^elire) wbicb be gives to ligature is similar
to tbe jDower of man. Tbese two suppositions admitted, notbing
stops bim : be plays witb Nature as be likes, and makes her do all
be pleases." (P. 6.)
And this is the way M. Flourens extinguishes natural
selection :
" YoyoDS done encore nne fois, ce qu'il pent y avoir de fonde dans
ce qu'on nomme election naturelle.
" L' election naturelle n'est sous un autre nom que la nature. Pour
un etre organise, la nature n'est que 1' organisation, ni plus ni moins.
" II faudra done aussi personnifier V organisation, et dire que
V organisation cboisit V organisation. Velection naturelle est cette
fc<!rnie subsiantielle dont on jouait autrefois avec tant de facilite.
Ariatote disait que ' Si I'art de batir etait dans le bois, cet art agirait
XIII.] CRITICISMS ON « THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES/* 315
comme la nature? A la place de Vart de bdtir M. Darwin met
Velection naturelle, et c'est tout un : Tun n'est pas plus chinierique
que Fautre." (P. 31.)
And this is really all that M. Flourens can make of
Natural Selection. We have given the original, in fear
lest a translation should be regarded as a travesty ; but
with the. original before the reader, we may try to
analyse the passage. " For an organized being, Nature
is only organization, neither more nor less.^'
Organized beings then have absolutely no relation to
inorganic nature : a plant does not depend on soil or
sunshine, climate, depth in the ocean, height above it ;
the quantity of saline matters in water have no influence
upon animal life ; the substitution of carbonic acid for
oxygen in our atmosphere would hurt nobody ! That
these are absurdities no one should know better than
M. Flourens ; but they are logical deductions from the
assertion just quoted, and from the further statement
that natural selection means only that "organization
chooses and selects organization."
For if it be once admitted (what no sane man denies)
that the chances of life of any given organism are
increased by certain conditions (A) and diminished by
their opposites (B), then it is mathematically certain that
any change of conditions in the direction of (A) will
exercise a selective influence in favour of thcat organism,
tending to its increase and multiplication, while any
change in the direction of (B) wdll exercise a selective
influence against that organism, tending to its decrease
and extinction.
Or, on the other hand, conditions remaining the same,
let a given organism vary (and no one doubts that they
do vary) in two directions : into one form (a) better fitted
to cope with these conditions than the original stock,
and a second (&) less well adapted to them. Then it is
316 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiir
no less certain that the conditions in question must
exercise a selective influence in favour of (a) and against
(6), so tliat (a) will tend to predominance, and (6) to
extirpation.
That M. Flourens should be unable to perceive the
logical necessity of these simple arguments, which lie at
the foundation of all Mr. Darwin's reasoning; that he
should confound an irrefragable deduction from the
observed relations of organisms to the conditions which
lie around them, with a metaphysical "forme substan-
tielle," or a chimerical personification of the powers
of Nature, would be incredible, were it not that other
passages of his work leave no room for doubt upon
the subject.
" On imagine une election naturelle que, pour plus de menagement,
on me dit etre inconsciente, sans s'apercevoir que le contre-sens litteral
est precisement la: election inconsciente.'''' (P. 52.)
" J'ai deja dit ce qu'il faut penser de X election naturelle. Ou
Velection naturelle n'est rien, ou c'est la nature : mais la nature douee
d' election, mais la nature personniliee : derniere erreur du dernier
siecle : Le xix® ne fait plus de personnifications." (P. 53.)
M. Flourens cannot imagine an unconscious selection
— it is for him a contradiction in terms. Did M,
Flourens ever visit one of the prettiest watering-places
of " la belle France," the Baie d'Arcachon "? If so. he
will probably have passed through the district of the
Landes, and will have had an opportunity of observing
the formation of " dunes " on a grand scale. What are
these " dunes ?" The winds and waves of the Bay of
Biscay have not much consciousness, and yet they have
with great care "selected,'^ from among an infinity of
masses of silex of all shapes and sizes, which have been
submitted to their action, all the grains of sand below a
certain size, and have heaped them by themselves over
a great area. This sand has been "unconsciously
fielected '' from amidst the gravel in which it first lay
nil.] CRITICISMS ON " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES:' 317
witli as miicli precision as if man had '^ consciously
selected " it by the aid of a sieve. Physical Geology is
full of such selections — of the picking out of the soft
from the hard, of the soluble from the insoluble, of the
fusible from the infusible, by natural agencies to which
we are certainly not in the habit of ascribing con-
sciousness-.
But that which wind and sea are to a sandy beach,
the sum of influences, which we term the " conditions
of existence,'' is to living organisms. The weak are
sifted out from the strong. A frosty night " selects "
the hardy plants in a plantation from among the tender
ones as effectually as if it were the wind, and they, the
sand and pebbles, of our illustration ; or, on the other
hand, as if the intelligence of a gardener had been
operative in cutting the weaker organisms down. The
thistle, which' has spread over the Pampas, to the
destruction of native plants, has been more effectually
" selected" by the im conscious operation of natural con-
ditions than if a thousand agriculturists had spent their
time in sowing it.
It is one of Mr. Darwin's many great services to
Biological science that he has demonstrated the sig-
nificance of these facts. He has shown that — given
variation and e^iven change of conditions — the inevitable
result is the exercise of such an influence upon organisms
that one is helped and another is impeded ; one tends
to predominate, another to disappear ; and thus the
living world bears within itself, and is surrounded by,
impulses towards incessant change.
But the truths just stated are as certain as any other
physical laws, quite independently of the truth, or false-
hood, of the hypothesis which Mr. Darwin has based
upon them ; and that M; Flour ens, missing the substance
and grasping at a shadow should be blind to the admi-
318 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xni
rable exjDosition of tliem, whicli Mr. Darwin has given,
and see nothing there but a " derniere erreur du dernier
siecle^' — a personification of Nature — leads us indeed
to cry with him : ''0 lucidite ! 0 solidite de Tesprit
Francais, que devenez-vous ?''
M. Flourens has, in fact, utterly failed to comprehend
the first principles of the doctrine which he assails so
rudely. His objections to details are of the old sort, so
battered and hackneyed on this side of the Channel, that
not even a Quarterly Eeviewer could be induced to
pick them up for the purpose of pelting Mr. Darw^in
over aofain. We have Cuvier and the mummies : M.
Eoulin and the domesticated animals of America ; the
difiiculties presented by hybridism and by Palaeontology ;
Darwinism a rifacciamento of De Maillet and Lamarck ;
Darwinism a system without a commencement, and its
author bound to believe in M. Pouchet, &c. &c. How
one knows it all by heart, and with wdiat relief one reads
at p. 65 —
" Je laisse M. Darwin ! "
But we cannot leave M. Flourens without calling our
readers' attention to his wonderful tenth chapter, " De
la Preexistence des Germes et de TEpigenese,'' which
opens thus : —
*' Spontaneous generation is only a chima^ra. TMs point esta-
blished, two hypotheses remain : that of pre-eocistence and that of
ejngenesis. The one of these hypotheses has as little foundation as
the other." (P. 163.)
" The doctrine of epigenesis is derived from Harvey : following by
ocular inspection the development of the new being in the Windsor
does, he saw each part appear successively, and taking the moment
of appearance for the moment of formation he imagined epigenesis.^*
(P. 165.)
On the contrary, says M. Flourens (p. 167),
" The new being is formed at a stroke (tout d\in coup), as a whole,
histantaneously ; it is not formed part by part, and at different times.
XIII.] CRITICISMS ON ''THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES:* 319
It is formed at once ; it is formed at the single individual moment
at which the conjunction of the male and female elements takes
place."
It will be observed tliat Zvl. Flourens uses lanQ-ua^e
o o
wliicli cannot be mistaken. For him, the labours of Yon
Baer, of Eathke, of Coste, and their contemporaries and
successors in Germany, France, and England, are non-
existent /and, as Darwin ^Hmagina'^ natural selection, so
Harvey "imagina' that doctrine which gives him an even
greater claim to the veneration of posterity than his
better known discovery of the circulation of the' blood.
Language such as that we have quoted is, in fact, so
preposterous, so utterly incompatible with anything but
absolute ignorance of some of the best established facts,
that we should have passed it over in silence had it not
appeared to afford some clue to M. Flourens' unhesitating,
d priori, repudiation of all forms of the doctrine of the
progressive modification of living beings. He whose
mind remains uninfluenced by an acquaintance with the
phaenomena of development, must indeed lack one of the
chief motives towards the endeavour to trace a genetic
relation between the different existing forms of life.
Those who are ignorant of Geology, find no difficulty in
believing that the world was made as it is ; and the
shepherd, untutored in history, sees no reason to regard
the green mounds which indicate the site of a Eoman
camp, as aught but part and. parcel of the primaeval
hill-side. So M. Flourens, who believes that embryos
are formed " tout d'un coup," naturally finds no difficulty
in conceiving that species came into existence in the
same v/ay.
XIV,
ON DESOAETES' " DISCOUESE TOUCHING THE
METHOD OF USING ONE'S EEASON EIGHTLY
AND OF SEEKING SCIENTIFIC TEUTH/'
It bas been well said that " all tlie tlioudits of men,
from the beginning of the world until now, are linked
together into one great chain ; " but the conception of
the intellectual filiation of mankind which is expressed
in these words may, perhaps, be more fitly shadowed
forth by a different metaphor. The thoughts of men
seem rather to be comparable to the leaves, flowers, and
fruit upon the innumerable branches of a few great stems,
fed by commingled and hidden roots. These stems bear
the names of the half-a-dozen men, endowed with intel-
lects of heroic force and clearness, to whom we are led,
at whatever point of the world of thought the attempt
to trace its history commences ; just as certainly as the
following up the small twigs of a tree to the branchlets
which bear them, and tracino^ the branchlets to their
supporting branches, brings us, sooner or later, to the
bole.
It seems to me that the thinker who, more than any
other, stands in the relation of such a stem towards the
philosophy and the science of the modern world is Eene
Descartes. I mean, that if you lay hold of any charac-
XIV.] ON DESCARTES' ** DISCO URSE» 3 2 1
fceristic product of modern vvays of thinking, either in
the region of philosophy, or in that of science, yon find
the spirit of that thought, if not its form, to have been
present in the mind of the great Frenchman.
There are some men who are counted great because
they represent the actuality of their own age, and mnror
it as it is. Such an one was Voltaire, of whom it was
epigrammaticallysaid,"he expressed everybody's thoughts
better than anybody/' ^ But there a.re other men who
attain greatness because they embody the potentiality of
their own day, and magically reflect the future. They
express the thoughts which will be everybody's two
or three centuries after them. Such an one was
Descartes.
Born, in 1596, nearly three hundred years ago, of a
noble family in Touraine, Eene Descartes grew up into a
sickly and diminutive child, whose keen wit soon gained
him that title of "the Philosopher," which, in the mouths
of his noble kinsmen, was more than half a reproach.
The best schoolmasters of the day, the Jesuits, educated
him as well as a French boy of the seventeenth century
could be educated. And they must have done their
work honestly and well, for, before his schoolboy days
were over, he had discovered that the most of what he
had learned, except in mathematics, was devoid of solid
and real value.
'^ Therefore," saj's he, in that "Discourse "^ which I have taken for
my text, " as soon as I was old enough to be set free from the govern-
ment of my teachers, I entirely foi^sook the study of letters ; and
determining to seek no other knowledge than that which I could
discover within myself, or in the great book of the world, I spent the
remainder of my youth in travelling ; in seeing courts and armies ; in
the society of people of different humours and conditions; in gathering
^ I forget who it was said of Mm : " II a plus que personne I'esprit que tout
le monde a."
2 " Discours de la Methode pour bien condriire sa Eaison et cherclier Is
Vdrite dans les Sciences.
322 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiv.
varied experience ; in testing myself by tlie chances of fortune ; and
in always trying to profit by my reflections on what happened. . . .
And I always had an intense desire to learn how to distinguish truth
from falsehood, in order to be clear about my actions, and to walk
surefootedly in this Mfe,"
But "learn wliat is true, in order to do what is riofht,"
is tlie summing up of the whole duty of man, for all
who are unable to satisfy their mental hunger with the
east wind of authority ; and to those of us moderns who
are in this position, it is one of Descartes' great claims to
our reverence as a spiritual ancestor, that, at three-and-
twenty, he saw clearly that this was his duty, and acted
up to his conviction. At two-and-thirty, in fact, finding
all other occupations incompatible with the search after
the knowledge which leads to action, and being possessed
of a modest competence, he withdrew into Holland ;
where he spent nine years in learning and thinking, in
such retirement that only one or two trusted friends
knew of his whereabouts.
In 1637 the firstfruits of these long meditations were
given to the world in the famous *' Discourse touching
the Method of using Eeason rightly and of seeking
scientific Truth," which, at once an autobiography and a
philosophy, clothes the deepest thought in language of
exquisite harmony, simplicity, and clearness.
The central propositions of the whole "Discourse " are
these. There is a path that leads to truth so surely, that
any one who will follow it must needs reach the goal,
whether his ca^oacity be great or small. And there is one
guiding rule by which a man may always find this path,
and keep himself from straying when he has found it.
This golden rule is — give unqualified assent to no pro-
positions but those the truth of which is so clear and
distinct that they cannot be doubted.
The enunciation of this great first commandment of
XIV.] ON DESCARTES' " DISCOURSED 323
science consecrated Doubt. It removed Doubt from the
seat of penance among the grievous sins to which it had
long been condemned, and enthroned it in that high place
among the primary duties, which is assigned to it by the
scientific conscience of these latter days. Descartes was
the first among the moderns to obey this commandment
deliberately ; and, as a matter of religious duty, to strip
ofi" all his beliefs and reduce himself to a state of intel-
lectual nakedness, until such time as he could satisfy
himself which were fit to be worn. He thoug:ht a bare
skin healthier than the most respectable and well-cut
clothing of what might, possibly, be mere shoddy.
Vv'hen I say that Descartes consecrated doubt, you must
remember that it was that sort of doubt which Goethe
has called ^Hhe active scepticism, whose whole aim is to
conquer itself ; '' ^ and not that other sort which is born
of flippancy ard ignorance, and whose aim is only to
perpetuate itself, as an excuse for idleness and indifi'er-
ence. But it is impossible to define what is meant by
scientific doubt better than in Descartes' own words.
After describing the gradual progress of his negative
criticism, he tells us : —
"For all that, I did not imitate tlie sceptics, wlio doulbt only for
doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary,
my whole intention was to arrive at certainty, and to dig away the
drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath."
And further, since no man of common sense, when
he pulls down his house for the purpose of rebuilding it,
fails to provide himself with some shelter while the work
is in progress ; so, before demolishing the spacious, if not
commodious, mansion of his old beliefs, Descartes thought
it wise to equip himself w^ith what he calls " une morale
'par iDwvision,'' by which he resolved to govern his
* " Eine tliatige Skepsis ist die, welclie imablassi^ bemiiht ist sich selhsfc
zu iiberwinden, mid durch geregelte Erfahrang zu einer Art von bediugter
Zaverliissigkeit zu gelangen." — Maximen unci Eeflexioncn, 7'® Abtheilung.
324 LAY SERMONS, JDDEUSSFS, AND REVIEWS, [xiv.
practical life uiitil such time as lie should be better
instructed. The laws of this " provisional self-govern-
ment " are embodied in four maxims, of which one binds
our philosopher to submit himself to the laws and religion
in which he was brought up ; another, to act, on all those
occasions which call for action, promptly and according
to the best of his judgment, and to abide, without
repining, by the result : a third rule is to seek happiness
in limiting his desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy
them ; while the last is to make the search after truth
the business of his life.
Thus prepared to go on living while he doubted,
Descartes proceeded to face his doubts like a man. One
thing was clear to him, he would not lie to himself —
would, under no penalties, say, "I am sure" of that of
which he was not sure ; but would go on digging and
delving until he came to the solid adamant ; or, at worst,
made sure there was no adamant. As the record of his
progress tells us, he was obliged to confess that life is full
of . delusions ; that authority may err ; that testimony
may be false or mistaken ; that reason lands us in end-
less fallacies ; that memory is often as little trustworthy
as hope ; that the evidence of the very senses may be
misunderstood ; that dreams are real as long as they last,
and that what we call reality may be a long and restless
dream. Nay, it is conceivable that some powerful and
malicious being may find his pleasure in deluding us, and
in making us believe the thing which is not, every moment
of our lives. What, then, is certain 1 What even, if
such a being exists, is beyond the reach of his powers of
delusion ? Why, the fact that the thought, the present
consciousness, exists. Our thoughts may be delusive,
but they cannot be fictitious. As thoughts, they are
real and existent, and the cleverest deceiver cannot
make them otherwise.
XIV.] ON DESCARTES* '* Dli^COURSE:* ' 325
Thus, tlioiTglit is existence. More tlian tLat, so far aa
we are concerned, existence is tlioiigiit, all onr concep-
tions of existence being some kind or other of thought.
Do not for a. moment suppose that these are mere
paradoxes or subtleties. A little reflection upon the
commonest facts proves them to be irrefragable truths.
For example, I take up a marble, and I find it to be
a red, round, hard, single body. We call the redness,
the roundness, the hardness, and the singleness, "quali-
ties " of the marble ; and it sounds, at first, the height of
absurdity to say that all these qualities are modes of our
own consciousness, which cannot even be conceived to
exist in the marble. But consider the redness, to begin
with. How does the sensation of redness arise? The
waves of a certain very attenuated matter, the particles
of which are vibi'ating with vast rapidity, but with very
different velocities, strike upon the marble, and those
which vibrate with one particular velocity are thrown off
from its surface in all directions. The optical apparatus
of the eye gathers some of these together, and gives them
such a course that they impinge upon the surface of the
retina, which is a singularly delicate apparatus, connected,
with the termination of the fibres of the optic nerve.
The impulses of the attenuated matter, or ether, affect
this apparatus and the fibres of the optic nerve in a
certain way ; and the change in the fibres of the optic
nerve produces yet other changes in the brain ; and
these, in some fashion unknown to us, give rise to the
feeling, or consciousness, of redness. If the marble
could remain imchang;ed, and either the rate of vibration
of the ether, or .the nature of the retina, could be altered,
the marble would seem not red, but some other colour.
There are many people who are what are called colour-
blind, being unable to distinguish one colour from
another. Such an one mis^ht declare our marble to be
15
326 Ur SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xir.
green ; and lie would be quite as riglit in saying that it
is green, as we are in declaring it to be red. But then,
as tbe marble caunot, in itself, be both green and red, at
the same time, this shows that the quality "redness^'
must be in our consciousness and not in the marble.
In like manner, it is easy to see that the roundness and
the hardness are forms of our consciousness, belono;ino'
to the groups which we call sensations of sight and
touch. If the surface of the cornea were cylindrical, we
should have a very different notion of a round body
from that which v/e possess now ; and if the strength of
the fabric, and the force of the muscles, of the body were
increased a hundredfold, our marble would seem to be as
soft as a pellet of bread crumbs.
Not only is it obvious that all these qualities are in us,
but, if you will make the attempt, you wdll find it quite
impossible to conceive of " blueness," " roundness," and
" hardness ^' as existing without reference to some such
consciousness as our own. It may seem strange to say
that even the " singleness " of the marble is relative to us ;
but extremely sinijDle experiments will show that such is
veritably the case, and that our two most trustworthy-
senses may be made to contradict one another on this
very point. Hold the marble between the finger and
thumb, and look at it in the ordinary way. Sight and
touch agree that it is single. Now squint, and sight
tells you that there' are two marbles, while touch asserts
that there is only one. Next, return the eyes to their
natural position, and, having crossed the forefinger and
\k\.^ middle finger, put the marble between their tips.
Then touch will declare that there are two marbles, while
Bight says that there is cnly one ; and touch claims our
belief, when we attend to it, just as imperatively as
eight does.
But it may be said, the marble takes up a certain
xiv.J ON DESCARTES' ''BIS course:' 327
space which could not be occupied, at the same time, by
anything else. In other words, the marble has the
primary quality of matter, extension. Surely this cjuality
must be in the thing, and not in our minds \ But the
reply must still be ; w^hatever may, or may not, exist in the
thing, all that we can know of these qualities is a state of
consciousness. What w^e call extension is a consciousness
of a relation between two, or more, affections of the
sense of sight, or of touch. And it is wholly incon-
ceivable that what we call extension should exist inde-
pendently of such consciousness as our own. Whether,
notwithstanding this inconceivability, it does so exist, or
not, is a point on which I offer no opinion.
Thus, whatever our marble may be in itself, all that
we can know of it is under the shape of a bundle of our
own consciousnesses.
Nor is our knowledge of anything we know or feel
more, or less, than a knowledge of states of consciousness.
And our whole life is made up of such states. Some of
these states we refer to a cause we call " self ; " others to
a cause or causes which may be comprehended under
the title of '* not-self'*' But neither of the existence of
'self,'' nor of that of ''not-self," have we, or can we by
any possibility have, any such unquestionable and im-
mediate certainty as we have of the states of conscious-
ness which we consider to be their effects. They are not
immediately observed facts, but results of the application
of the law of causation to those facts. Strictly speaking,
the existence of a " self" and of a "not-self" are hypo-
theses by which we account for the facts of consciousness.
They stand upon the same footing as the belief in the
general trustworthiness of memory, and in the general
constancy of the order of nature — as hypothetical
assumptions wdiich cannot be proved, or known with
that highest degree of certainty which is given by im-
328 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xiv.
mediate consciousness ; but wliicli, nevertlieless, are of
the highest practical value, inasmuch as the conclu-
sions logically drawn from them are always verified
by experience.
This, in my judgment is the ultimate issue of Descartes'
argument ; but it is proper for me to point out that we
have left Descartes himself some way behind us. He
stopped at the famous formula, ** I think, therefore I am."
But a little consideration will show this formula to be
full of snares and verbal entanoiements. In the first
place, the ''therefore" has no business there. The "I
Lim" is assumed in the " I think," which is simply another
way of saying "I am thinking." And, in the second
place, " I think " is not one simple proposition, but three
distinct assertions rolled into one. The first of these is,
'* something called I exists ; " the second is, " something
called thought exists;" and the third is, '' the thought is
the result of the action of the I.^'
Now, it will be obvious to you, that the only one of
these three propositions which can stand the Cartesian
test of certainty is the second. It cannot be doubted,
for the very doubt is an existent thought. But the first
and third, whether true or not, may be doubted, and
have been doubted. For the assertor may be asked,
How do you know that thought is not self-existent ; or
that a given thought is not the effect of its antecedent
thought, or of some external power 1 And a diversity of
other questions, much more easily put than answered.
Descartes, determined as he was to strip off all the gar-
ments which the intellect weaves for itself, forgot this
gossamer shirt of the " self ;" to the great detriment,
and indeed ruin, of his toilet when he began to clothe
himself again.
But it is beside my purpose to dwell upon the minor
peculiarities of the Cartesian philosophy. All I wish to
xiT.] ON DESCARTES' *' discourse:' 329
put clearly before your minds thus far, is that Descartes,
having commenced by declaring doubt to be a duty,
found certainty in consciousness alone ; and that the
necessary outcome of his views is what may properly be
termed Idealism ; namely, the doctrine that, whatever
the universe may be, all we can know of it is the picture
presented to us by consciousness. This picture may be
a true likeness — though how this can be is inconceiv-
able ; or it may have no more resemblance to its cause
than one of Bach's fugues has to the person who is
playing it; or than a piece of poetry has to the mouth
and lips of a reciter. It is enough for all the practical
purposes of human existence if we find that our trust in
the representations of consciousness is verified by results ;
and that, by their help, we are enabled "to walk sure-
footedly in this life."
Thus the method, or path which leads to truth, indi-
cated by Descartes, takes us straight to the Critical
Idealism of his great successor Kant. It is that Idealism
which declares the ultimate fact of all knowledge to be a
consciousness, or, in other words, a mental phsenomenon ;
and therefore afiirms the highest of all certainties, and
indeed the only absolute certainty, to be the existence of
mind. But it "is also that Idealism which refuses to
make any assertions, either positive or negative, as to
what lies beyond consciousness.- It accuses the subtle
Berkeley of stepping beyond the limits of knowledge
when he declared that a substance of matter does not
exist ; and of illogicality, for not seeing that the ar-
guments which he supposed demolished the existence
of matter were equally destructive to the existence
of souL And it refuses to listen to the jargon of
more recent days about the " Absolute," and all the
other hypostatized adjectives, the initial letters of
the names of which are generally printed in capita]
630 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEV/B, [xiv.
letters ; just as you give a Grenadier a bearskin cap, to
make him look more formidable than he is by nature.
I repeat, the path indicated and foUoAved by Descartes
which we have hitherto been treading, leads through
doubt to that critical Idealism which lies at the heart
of modern metaphysical thought. But the '' Discourse'"
shows us another, and apparently very different, path,
which leads, quite as definitely, to that correlation of all
the phsenomena of the universe with matter and motion,
which lies at the heart of modern physical thought, and
which most people call Materialism.
The early part of the seventeenth century, v/hen Des-
cartes reached manhood, is one of the great epochs of the
intellectual life of mankind. At that time, physical
science suddenly strode into the arena of public and
familiar thought, and openly challenged, not only Philo-
sophy and the Church, but that common ignorance
which passes by the name of Common Sense. The asser-
tion of the motion of the earth was a defiance to all
three, and Physical Science threw down her glove by the
hand of Galileo.
It is not pleasant to think of the immediate result of
the coml^at ; to see the champion of science, old, worn,
and on his knees before the Cardinal Inquisitor, signing
his name to what he knew to be a lie. And, no doubt,
the Cardinals rubbed their hands as they thought how
well they had silenced and discredited their adversary.
But two hundred years have passed, and however feeble
or faulty her soldiers. Physical Science sits crowned and
enthroned as one of the legitimate rulers of the world
of thouplit. Charitv children would be ashamed not to
know that the earth moves ; while the Schoolmen are
forgotten ; and the Cardinals — well, the Cardinals are at
the OEcumenical Council, still at their old business of
trying to stop the movement of the world.
jLiv.] ON DISCARDS' '' LTSCOURSE:* 331
As a sLip, wMcli having lain becalmed with every
stitch of canvas set, bounds away before the breeze
which springs up astern, so the mind of Descartes, poised
in equilibrium of doubt, not only yielded to the full force
of the impulse towards physical science and physical
ways of thought, given by his great contemjDoraries,
Galileo and Harvey, but shot beyond them ; and antici-
pated, by bold speculation, the conclusions, which could
only be placed upon a secure foundation by the labours
of generations of workers.
Descartes saw that the discoveries of Galileo meant
that the remotest parts of the universe were governed by
mechanical laws ; while those of Harvey meant that the
same laws presided over the operations of that portion of
the world which is nearest to us, namely, our own bodily
frame. And crossing the interval betw^een the centre
and its vast circumference by one of the great strides of
genius, Descartes sought to resolve all the phaenomena of
the universe into matter and motion, or forces operating
according to law.^ This grand conception, which is
sketched in the ^'Discours,'^ and more fully developed
in the "Principes" and in the *'Traite de THomme,'' he
worked out with extraordinary power and knowledge ;
and with the effect of arriving, in the last-named essay,
at that purely mechanical view of vital phaenomena
towards which modern physiology is striving.
Let us try to understand how Descartes got into this
path, and w^hy it led him where it did. The mechanism
of the circulation of the blood had evidently taken a
great hold of his mind, as he describes it several times,
at much length. After giving a full accounc of it in the
1 *'■ Au milieu de toutes ses erreurs, 11 ne faut pas meconnaitre line grande
idee, qui consiste a avoir tente pour la premiere fois de ramener tous les
phenomenes naturels a n'etre qu'un simple develloppemeut des lois de la
mecanique," is the weighty judgment of Biot, cited by Bouillier (Histoire d4
la Fhilosophie CarUsienne^ t. i. p. 196).
332 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiv.
'* Discourse," and erroneously describing tlie motion of
tlie blood, not to the contraction of the walls of the
heart, but to the heat which he supposes to be generated
there, he adds : —
** This motion, wliicli I liave just explained, is as mncli tlie necessary
result of tlie structure of the parts which one can see in the heart, and
of the heat which one may feel there with one's fingers, and of the
nature of the Hood, which may be experimentally ascertained; as is
that of a clock of the force, the situation, and the figure, of its weight
and of its wheels."
But if this apparently vital operation were explicable
as a simple mechanism, might not other vital operations
be reducible to the same category ? Descartes replies
without hesitation in the affirmative.
"The animal spirits," says he, ''resemble a very subtle flaid, or a
very pure and vivid fiame, and are continually generated in the heart,
and ascend to the brain as to a sort of reservoir. Hence they pass
into the nerves and are distributed to the muscles, causing contraction,
or relaxation, according to their quantity."
Thus, according to Descartes, the animal body is an
automaton, which is competent to perform all the animal
functions in exactly the same way as a clock or any other
piece of mechanism. As he puts the case himself : —
" In proportion as these spirits [the animal spirits] enter the cavities
of the brain, they pass thence into the pores of its substance, and from
these pores into the nerves ; where, according as they enter, or even
only tend to enter, more or less, into one than into another, they have
the power of altering the figure of the muscles into which the nerves
are inserted, and by this means of causing all the limbs to move.
Thus, as you may have seen in the grottoes and the fountains in royal
gardens, the force with which the water issues from its reservoir is
sufficient to move various machines, and even to make them play
instruments, or jDronounce words according to the different disposition
of the pipes which lead the water.
"And, in truth, the nerves of the machine which I am describing may
very well be compared to the pipes of these waterworks ; its muscles
and its tendons to the other various engines and springs which seem to
move them ; its animal spirits to the water which impels them, of
which the heart is the fountain ; while the cavities of the brain are
X.IV.] ON DESCARTES' *' DISCOURSE" 333
the central office. Moreover, respiration and other sucli actions as are
natural and usual in the body, and which depend on the course of the
spirits, are like the movements of a clock, or of a mill, which may be
kept up by the ordinary flow of the water.
" The external objects which, by their mere presence, act upon the
organs of the senses ; and which, by this means, determine the cor-
poral machine to move in many different ways, according as the parts
of the brain are arranged, are like the strangers who, entering into
some of the grottoes of these waterworks, unconsciously cause the
movements which take place in their presence. For they cannot enter
■without treading upon certain planks so arranged that, for example, if
they approach a bathing Diana, they cause her to hide among the
reeds; and if they attempt to follow her, they see approaching a
JSTeptune, who threatens them wdth his trident ; or if they try some
other way, they cause some monster who vomits water into their
faces, to dart out ; or like contrivances, according to the fancy of the
engineers who have made them. And lastly, when the rational soul is
lodged in this machine, it will have its principal seat in the brain, and
will take the place of the engineer, who ought to be in that part of
the works with which all the pipes are connected, when he wishes to
increase, or to slacken, or in some way to alter, their movements." ^
And again still more strongly : —
" All the functions which I have attributed to this machine (the
body), as the digestion of food, the pulsation of the heart and of
the arteries ; the nutrition and the growth of the limbs ; resjoiration,
wakefulness, and sleep ; the reception of light, sounds, odours, flavours,
heat, and such like qualities, in the organs of the external senses ; the
impression of the ideas of these in the organ of common sense and in
the imagination ; the retention, or the impression, of these ideas on the
memory ; the internal movements of the appetites and the passions ;
and lastly, the external movements of all the limbs, which follow so
aptly, as well the action of the objects which are presented to the
senses, as the impressions which meet in the memory, that they
imitate as nearly as possible those of a real man :^ I desire, I say,
that you should consider that these functions in the machine naturally
proceed from the mere arrangement of its organs, neither more nor
less than do the movements of a clock, or other automaton, from that
* " Traite de rHomme " (Cousin's Edition), p. 347.
2 Descartes pretends that he does not apply his views to the human body,
but only to an imaginary machine which, if it could be constructed, would do
sU that the human body does ; throwmg a sop to Cerberus unworthily ; and
uaeiessly, because Cerberus was by no means stupid enough to swallow it.
334 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xiv.
of its weiglits and its wheels ; so that^ so far as these are concerned, it
is no necessary to conceive any other vegetative or sensitive soul, nor
any other principle of motion, or of life, than the blood and the spirits
agitated by the fire which burns continually in the heart, and which
is no wise essentially different from all the fires which exist in inani-
mate bodies." ^
The spirit of these passages is exactly that of the
most advanced physiology of the present day ; all that
is necessary to make them coincide with our present
physiology in form, is to represent the details of the
working of the animal machinery in modern language,
and by the aid of modern conceptions.
Most undoubtedly, the digestion of food in the human
body is a purely chemical process ; and the passage of
the nutritive parts of that food into the blood, a physical
operation. Beyond all question, the circulation of the
blood is simply a .matter of mechanism, and results from
the structure and arrangement of the parts of the heart
and vessels, from the contractility of those organs, and
from the regulation of that contractility by an automa-
tically acting nervous apparatus. The progress of phy-
siology has further shown, that the contractility of the
muscles and the irritability of the nerves are purely the
results of the molecular mechanism of those organs ; and
that the regular movements of the respiratory, ali-
mentary, and other internal organs are governed and
guided, as mechanically, by their appropriate nervous
centres. The even rhythm of the breathing of every one
of us depends upon the structural integrity of a particular
region of the medulla oblongata, as much as the ticking
of a clock depends upon the integrity of the escapement.
You may take away the hands of a clock and break up its
striking machinery, but it will still tick ; and a man may
be unable to feel, speak, or move, and yet he will breathe.
Again, in entire accordance with Descartes' affirmatiOD,
1 ^'Traite de I'Homme," p. 427.
XIV.] ON DESCARTES' " discourse:' 335
it is certain that the modes of motion wliich constitute
the physical basis of light, sound, and heat, are trans-
muted into affections of nervous matter by the sensory
organs. These affections are, so to speak, a kind of
physical ideas, which are retained in the central organs,
constituting what might be called physical memory, and
may be combined ia a manner which answers to associa-
tion and imagination, or may give rise to muscular
contractions, in those '* reflex actions'' which are the
mechanical representatives of volitions.
Consider what happens when a blow is aimed at the
eye.-^ Instantly, and without our knowledge or will, and
even against the will, the eyelids close. What is it that
happens ? A picture of the rapidly advancing fist is
made upon the retina at the back of the eye. The retina
changes this picture into an affection of a number of the
fibres of the optic nerve ; the fibres of the optic nerve
affect certain parts of the brain ; the brain, in consequence,
affects those particular fibres of the seventh nerve which
go to the orbicular muscle of the eyelids ; the change in
these nerve-fibres causes the muscular fibres to change
their dimensions, so as to become shorter and broader ;
and the result is the closing of the slit between the two
lids, round which these fibres are disposed. Here is a
pure mechanism, giving rise to a purposive action, and
strictly comparable to that by which Descartes supposes
his Avaterwork Diana to be moved. But we may go
further, and inquire whether our volition, in what we term
voluntary action, ever plays any other part than that of
Descartes' engineer, sitting in his office, and turning this
tap or the other, as he wishes to set one or another
machine in motion, but exercising no direct influence
"upon the movements of the whole.
Our voluntary acts consist of two parts : firstly, we
* Compare "Traits des Passions," Art. XIII. and XVL
336 l^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS, [xiv.
desire to perform a certain action ; and, secondly, we some-
how set a-going a machinery which does what we desire.
But so little do we directly influence that machinery,
that nine-tenths of us do not even know its existence.
Suppose one wills to raise one^s arm and whirl it round.
Nothing is easier. But the majority of us do not know
that nerves and muscles are concerned in this process ;
and the best anatomist among us would be amazingly
perplexed, if he were called upon to direct the succession,
and the relative strength, of the multitudinous nerve-
changes, Vv^hich are the actual causes of this very simple
operation.
So again in speaking. How many of us know that the
voice is produced in the larynx, and modified by the
mouth ? How many among these instructed persons
understand how the voice is produced and modified?
And what living man, if he had unlimited control over al]
the nerves supplying the mouth and larynx of another
person, could make him pronounce a sentence ? Yet, if
one has anything to say, what is easier than to say it ?
We desire the utterance of certain words : we touch the
spring of the word-machine, and they are spoken. Just
as Descartes' engineer, when he wanted a particular hy-
draulic machine to play, had only to turn a tap, and what
he wished was done. It is because the body is a ma-
chine that education is possible. Education is the forma-
tion of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organization
upon the natural organization of the body ; so that acts,
which at first required a conscious effort, eventually
became unconscious and mechanical. If the act which
[)rimarily requires a distinct consciousness and volition
of its details, always needed the same effort, education
would be an impossibility.
According to Descartes, then, all the functions whicli
are common to man and animals are performed by tliQ
xiY.] ON DESCARTES' '' DISCOURSED 337
body as a mere meclianism, and lie looks upon oonscious-
ness as the peculiar distinction of the *' cliose pensante/^
of the "rational sonl/' which in man (and in man
only, in Descartes' opinion) is superadded to the body.
This rational soul he conceived to be lodged in the
pineal gland, as in a sort of central office ; and, here, by
the intermediation of the animal spirits, it became aware
of what was going on in the body, or influenced the
operations of the body. Modern physiologists do not
ascribe so exalted a function to the little pineal gland, but,
in a vague sort of way, they adopt Descartes' principle,
and suppose that the soul is lodged in the cortical part
of the brain — at least this is commonly regarded as the
seat and instrument of consciousness.
Descartes has clearly stated what he conceived to be
the difference between spirit and matter. Matter is sub-
stance which has extension, but does not think ; spirit is
substance which thinks, but has no extension. It is very
hard to form a definite notion of what this phraseology
means, when it is taken in connexion with the location
of the soul in the pineal gland ; and I can only represent
it to myself as signifying that the soul is a mathem^atical
point, having place but not extension, within the limits
of the pineal gland. Not only has it place, but it must
exert force ; for, according to the hypothesis, it is com-
petent, when it wills, to change the course of the animal
spirits, which consist of matter in motion. Thus the
soul becomes a centre of force. But, at the same time,
the distinction between spirit and matter vanishes ; inas-
much as matter, according to a tenable hypothesis, may
be nothing but a multitude of centres of force. The
case is worse if we adopt the modern vague notion that
consciousness is seated in the grey matter of the cere-
brum, generally ; for, as the grey matter has extension,
that which is lodo^ed in it must also have extension.
333 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiv.
A.iid tlius we are led, in anotlier way, to lose spirit
in matter.
In truth, Descartes' physiology, like the modern physi-
ology of which it anticipates the spirit, leads straight to
Materialism, so far as that title is rightly applicable to the
doctrine that we have no knowledge of any thinking sub-
stance, apart from extended substance ; and that thought
is as much a function of matter as motion is. Thus we
arrive at the singular result that, of the two paths opened
up to us in the " Discourse upon Method," the one
leads, by Vv^ay of Berkeley and Hume, to Kant and
Idealism ; while the other leads, by way of De La
Mettrie and Priestley, to modern physiology and Mate-
rialism.-^ Our stem divides into two main branches,
which grow in opposite ways, and bear flowers which
look as different as they can well be. But each branch
is sound and healthy, and has as much life and vigour
as the other.
If a botanist found this state of things in a new plant,
I imagine that he might be inclined to think that his tree
was monoecious — that the flowers were of different sexes,
a.nd that, so far from setting up a barrier between the
two branches of the tree, the only hope of fertility lay in
bringing them together. I may be taking too much of a
naturalist's view of the case, but I must confess that this
is exactly my notion of what is to be done with meta-
physics and physics. Their differences are comple-
mentary, not antagonistic ; and thought will never be
completely fruitful until the one unites with the other.
^ BoTiillier, into whose excellent "History of the Cartesian Philosophy"
I had not looked when this passage was written, says, very justly, that Descartes
" a merite le titre de pere de la physique, aussi bien que celui de pere de la
m^taphysique moderne " (t. i. p. 197). See also Kuno Fischer's " G-eschichte
der neuen Philosophic," Bd. i. ; and the very remarkable work of Lange,
" Geschichte des Materialismus." — A good translation of the latter would be
a great service to philosophy in England,
XIV.] ON DESCARTES' " discourse:' 339
Let me try to explain what I mean. I hold, with the
Materialist, that the human body, like all living bodies,
is a machine, all the operations of which will, sooner or
later, be explained on physical principles. I believe that
we shall, sooner or later, arrive at a mechanical equivalent
of consciousness, just as we have arrived at a mechanical
equivalent of heat. If a pound weight falling through a
distance of a foot gives rise to a definite amount of heat,
which may properly be said to be its equivalent ; the same
pound weight falling through a foot on a man's hand gives
rise to a definite amount of feeling, which might with equal
propriety be said to be its equivalent in consciousness.^
And as we already know that there is a certain parity
between the intensity of a pain and the strength of one's
desire to get rid of that pain ; and secondly, that there
is a certain, correspondence between the intensity of the
heat, or mechanical violence, which gives rise to the pain,
and the pain itself; the possibility of the establishment
of a correlation between mechanical force and volition
becomes apparent. And the same conclusion is sug-
gested by the fact that, within certain limits, the inten-
sity of the mechanical force we exert is proportioned to
the intensity of our desire to exert it.
Thus I am prepared to go with the Materialists wher-
ever the true pursuit of the path of Descartes may lead
them ; and I am glad, on all occasions, to declare my
belief that their fearless development of the materialistic
aspect of these matters has had an immense, and a most
beneficial, influence upon physiology and psychology.
Nay more, when they go farther than I think they are
entitled to do — when they introduce Calvinism into
* For all the qualifications -whicli need to be made here, I refer the reader
to the thorough discussion of the nature of the relation between nervf-action
and consciousness in Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Psychology,''
p, 115 et seq
340 l^r STJRMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEfFS, [xiv.
science and declare that man is nothing but a machine,
I do not see any particular harm in their doctrines, so
long as they admit that which is a matter of experi-
mental fact — nam^ely, that it is a machine capable of
adjusting itself within certain limits.
I protest that if some great Power would agree to
make me always think what is true and do what is right,
on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and
wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I
should instantly close with the offer. The only freedom
I care about is the freedom to do right ; the freedom to
do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms
to any one who will take it of me. But when the Ma-
terialists stray beyond the borders of their path and
begin to talk about there being nothing else in the
universe but Matter and Force and Necessary Laws,
and all the rest of tlieir ''grenadiers/' I decline to
follow them. I go back to the point from which we
started, and to the other path of Descartes. I remind
you that we have already seen clearly and distinctly,
and in a manner wdiich admits of no doubt, that all our
knowledge is a knowledge of states of consciousness.
" Matter'' and " Force " are, so far as we can know, mere
names for certain forms of consciousness. *' Necessary "
means that of which we cannot conceive the contrary.
" Law " means a rule which we have always found to hold
good, and which we expect always will hold good. Thus
it is an indisputable truth that what we call the material
world is only known to us under the forms of the ideal
world ; and, as Descartes tells us, our knowledge of the
soul is more intimate and certain than our knowledge of
the body. If I say that impenetrability is a property of
matter, all that I can really mean is that the conscious-
ness I call extension, and the consciousness I call resist-
ance, constantly accompany one another. Why and
siv.] ON DESCARTES' '' DISCOURSE.'* 341
how tliey are thus related is a mystery. And if I say
that thought is a property of matter, all that I can mean
is that, actually or possibly, the consciousness of exten-
sion and that of resistance accompany all other sorts of
consciousness. But, as in the former case, why they are
thus associated is an insoluble mystery.
From all this it follows that what I may term legiti-
mate materialism, that is, the extension of the conceptions
and of the methods of physical science to the highest as
well as the lowest phsenomena of vitality, is neither more
nor less than a sort of shorthand Idealism; and Des-
cartes^ two paths meet at the summit of the mountain,
though they set out on opposite sides of it.
The reconciliation of physics and metaphysics lies in
the acknowledgment of faults upon both sides ; in the
confession by phj^sics that all the phsenomena of nature
are, in their ultimate analysis, known to us only as facts
of consciousness ; in the admission by metaphysics, that
the facts of consciousness are, practically, interpretable
only by the methods and the formulae of physics : and,
finally, in the observance by both metaphysical and
physical thinkers of Descartes' maxim — assent to no
jDroposition the matter of which is not so clear and
distinct that it cannot be doubted.
When you did me the honour to ask me to deliver this
address, I confess I was perplexed what topic to select.
For you are emphatically and distinctly a Christian
body ; while science and philosophy, within the range
of which lie all the topics on which I could venture
to speak, are neither Christian, nor Unchristian, but are
Extrachristian, and have a world of their own, vv^hich, to
use language which will be very familiar to your ears just
now, is not only "unsectarian," but is altogether "secular/'
The arguments which I have put before you to-night, for
342 X^r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [x.f.
example, are not inconsistent, so far as I know, with any
form of theology.
After much consideration, I thought that I might be
most useful to you, if I attempted to give you some vision
of this Extrachristian world, as it appears to a person who
lives a good deal in it ; and if I tried to show yon by
what methods the dwellers therein try to distinguish
truth from falsehood, in regard to some of the deepest
and most difficult problems that beset humanity, "in
order to be clear about their actions, and to walk sure-
footed]y in this life," as Descartes says.
It struck me that if the execution of my project came
anywhere near the conception of it, you would become
aware that the philosophers and the men of science are
not exactly what they are sometimes represented to you
to be ; and that their methods and paths do not lead so
perpendicularly downwards as you are occasionally told
they do. And I must admit, also, that a particular and
personal motive weighed with me, — namely, the desire to
show that a certain discourse, which brought a great
storm about my head some time ago, contained nothing
but the ultimate development of the views of the father
of modern philosophy. I do not know if I have been
quite wise in allowing this last motive to weigh with me.
They say that the most dangerous thing one can do in a
thunderstorm is to shelter oneself under a great tree, and
the history of Descartes' life shows how narrowly he
escaped being riven by the lightnings, which were more
destructive in his time than in ours.
Descartes lived and died a good Catholic, and prided
himself upon having demonstrated the existence of God
and of the soul of man. As a reward for his exertions,
bis old friends the Jesuits put his works upon the
" Index," and called him an Atheist ; while the Pro-
testant divines of Holland declared him to be both a
XIV.] ON DESCABTi:S' '' discourse:" 343
Jesuit and an Atheist. His books narrowly escaped
being burned by the hangman ; the fate of Vanini was
dangled before his eyes ; and the misfortunes of Galileo
so alarmed him, that he well-nigh renounced the pur-
suits by which the world has so greatly benefited, and
was driven into subterfuges and evasions which were not
worthy of him.
" Very cowardly," you may say ; and so it was.
But you must make allowance for the fact that, in the
seventeenth century, not only did heresy mean possible
burning, or imprisonment, but the very suspicion of it
destroyed a man's peace, and rendered the calm pursuit
of truth difficult or impossible. I fancy that Descartes
was a man to care more about being w^orried and dis-
turbed, than about being burned outright ; and, like
many other men, sacrificed for the sake of peace and
quietness, what he would have stubbornly maintained
against downright violence.
However this may be, let those who are sure they would
have done better throw stones at him. I ha^ve no feelings
but those of gratitude and reverence for the man who did
what he did, when he did ; and a sort of shame that any
one should repine against taking a fair share of such
treatment as the world thought good enough for him.
Finally, it occurs to me that, such being my feeling
about the matter, it may be useful to all of us if I
ask you, "What is yours? Do you think that the
Christianity of the seventeenth century looks nobler and
more attractive for such treatment of such a man ?" You
will hardly reply that it does. But if it does not, may it
not be well if all of you do what lies within your power
to prevent the Christianity of the nineteenth century
from repeating the scandal ?
There are one or two living men, who, a couple of
centuries hence, will be remembered as Descartes is now,
344 LAY SERMONS, JDDEFSSES, AND REVIEWS. [xiv.
because they liave produced great tlionglits whicli will
live and grow as long as mankind lasts.
If tlie twenty-first century studies tlieir history, it will
find that the Christianity of the middle of the nineteenth
century recognised them only as objects of vilification.
It is for you and such as you, Christian young men, to
say w^hether this shall be as true of the Christianity of
the future as it is of that of the present. I appeal to you
to say " No," in your own interest, and in that of the
Christianity you profess.
In the interest of Science, no appeal is needful ; as
Dante sings of Fortune —
** Quest' e colei, cli'^ tanto posta in croce
Pur da color, clie le dovrian dar lode
Dandole biasmo a torto e mala voce.
Ma ella s' e beata, e cio non ode :
Con r altre prime creature lieta
Yolve sua spera, e beata si gode : "^
so, whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure among
the powers that are eternal, will do her work and be
blessed.
'*■ "And this Is she who's put on cross so mnch,
Even by them who ought to give her praise,
Giving her wrongly iU repute and blame.
But she is blessed, and she hears not this :
She, with the other primal creatures, glad
Kevolves her sphere, and blessed joys herself."
Inferno, viL 90—95 (W. ^L Eossetti's Translation)
XV.
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.
[i 1? IS long been tlie custom for the newly-installed
President of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science to take advantage of the elevation of
the position in which the suffrages of his colleagues
had, for the time, placed him, and, casting his eyes
around the horizon of the scientific world, to report
to them what could be seen from his watch-tower ; in
what directions the multitudinous divisions of the
noble army of the improvers of natural knowledge
were marching; what important strongholds of the
great enemy of us all, ignorance, had been recently
captured; and, also, with due impartiality, to mark
where the advanced posts of science had been driven
in, or a long-continued siege had made no progress.
I propose to endeavour to follow this ancient pre-
cedent, in a manner suited to the limitations of my
knowledge and of my cajDacity. I shall not presume
to attempt a panoramic survey of the world of science,
nor even to give a sketch of what is doing in the one
great province of biology, with some portions of which
my ordinary occupations render me familiar. But I
shall endeavour to put before you the history of the
rise and progress of a single biological doctrine ; and
I shall try to give some notion of the fruits, both in-
tellectual and practical, which we owe, directly or in-
346 ^^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xt
directly, to tlie working out, by seven generations of
patient and laborious investigators, of tlie tbougM
wMcIl arose, more tban two centuries ago, in tlie mind
of a sagacious and observant Italian naturalist.
It is a matter of every-day experience tbat it is
difficult to prevent many articles of food from be-
coming covered witb. mould ; tbat fruit, sound enough
to all appearance, often contains grubs at tbe core;
tbat meat, left to itself in tbe air, is apt to putrefy
and swarm witb maggots. Even ordinary water, if
allowed to stand in an open vessel, sooner or later
becomes turbid and full of living matter.
The pMlosopbers of antiquity, interrogated as to
tbe cause of tbese phenomena, were provided witb a
ready and a plausible answer. It did not enter tbeir
minds even to doubt tbat tbese low forms of life were
generated in tbe matters in wbicb tbey made tbeir
ajDpearance. Lucretius, wbo bad drunk deeper of tbe
scientific spirit tban any poet of ancient or modern
times except Goetbe, intends to speak as a pbiloso-
pber, ratber tban as a poet, wben be writes tbat " witb
good reason tbe eartb bas gotten tbe name of mother,
since all things are produced out of the earth. And
many living creatures, even now, spring out of the
earth, taking form by the rains and the heat of the
sun." ' The axiom of ancient science, " that the cor-
ruption of one thing is the birth of another," had its
popular embodiment in the notion that a seed dies
before the young plant springs from it ; a belief so
' It is thus that Mr. Munro renders
" Linquitur, ut merito maternum nomen adepta
Terra sit, e terra quoniam sunt cuncta creata.
Multaque nunc etiam exsistant animalia terris
Imbribus et calido solis concreta vapore."
De Rerum Natura, lib. v. '793-'796.
But would not the meaning of the last line be better rendered "Deve-
loped in rain-water and in the warm vapours raised bj the sun" ?
tv.J SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 347
wide spread and so fixed, tliat Saint Paul appeals to
it in one of tlie most splendid outbursts of his fervid
eloquence : —
" Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." ^
THe proposition tliat life may, and does, proceed
from tliat whidi lias no life, tlien, was lield alike Ly
tlie pMlosopliers, tlie jDoets, and tlie people, of tlie
most enliglitened nations, eigMeen hundred years ago ;
and it remained the accepted doctrine of learned and
unlearned Europe, through the middle ages, down
even to the seventeenth century.
It is commonly counted among the many merits of
our great countryman, Harvey, that he was the first to
declare the opposition of fact to venerable authority
in this, as in other matters; but I can discover no
justification for this wide-spread notion. After care-
ful search through the " Exercitationes de Generatione,"
the most that appears clear to me is, that Harvey be-
lieved all animals and plants to spring from what he
terms a ''^ primordium vegetale^^ a phrase which may
nowadays be rendered " a vegetative germ ; " and this,
he says, is " oviforme^'^ or " egg-like ; " not, he is care-
ful to add, that it necessarily has the shape of an ^^g^
but because it has the constitution and nature of one.
That this '^ primordium oviforme'''' must needs, in all
cases, proceed from a living parent is nowhere ex-
pressly maintained by Harvey, though such an opin-
ion may be thought to be implied in one or tw^o
passages ; while, on the other hand, he does, more
than once, use language which is consistent only with
a full belief in spontaneous or equivocal generation.'
^ 1 Corinthians xv. 36.
2 See the following passage in Exercitatio I. : — " Item sponte nascentia
dicuntur ; non quod ex jputredine oriunda sint, sed quod casu, naturaj
gponte, et aequivoca (ut aiunt) generatione, a parentibus sui dissimilibua
34S L ^Y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. \x\.
In fact, tlie main concern of Harvey's wonderful little
treatise is not witli generation, in the physiological
sense, at all, but witli development; and Ms great
object is the establishment of the doctrine of epi-
genesis.
The first distinct enunciation of the hypothesis that
all living matter has sprung from preexisting living
matter, came from a contemporary, though a junior, of
Harvey, a native of that country, fertile in men great
in all departments of human activity, which was to
intellectual Europe, in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, what Germany is in the nineteenth. It was
in Italy, and from Italian teachers, that Harvey re-
ceived the most important part of his scientific edu-
cation. And it was a student trained in the same
schools, Francesco Redi — a man of the widest know
ledge and most versatile abilities, distinguished alike as
scholar, poet, physician, and naturalist — who, just two
hundred and two years ago, published his " Esj)erienze
intorno alia Generazione degl' Insetti," and gave to the
world the idea, the growth of which it is my purpose
to trace. Redi's book went through ^yq editions in
twenty years ; and the extreme simplicity of his ex-
periments, and the clearness of his arguments, gained
for his views, and for their consequences, almost uni-
versal acceptance.
Redi did not trouble himself much with sj)eculative
coDsiderations, but attacked particular cases of what
was sup]30sed to be '^ spontaneous generation " experi-
pi oveniant." Again, in " De Uteri Membranis " : — " In cunctorum viven-
tium genei'atione (sicut diximns) hoc solenne est, ut ortum ducunt a pri-
mordio aliquo, quod turn materiam turn efficiendi potestatem in se habet*
sitque adeo id, ex quo et a quo quicquid nascitur, ortum suum ducat.
Tale primordium in animalibus {she ab aliis generantibus proveniant, sive
gponte, aut ex putrediiie nascentur) est humor in tunica aliqua aut puta-
mine conclusus," Compare also what Redi lias to say respecting Harvej^'s
opinions, "Esperienze," p. 11.
£V.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 349
mentally. Here are dead animals, or pieces of meat,
says lie ; I expose them to the air in liot weather, and
in a few days they swarm with maggots. You tell me
that these are generated in the dead flesh ; but if I put
similar bodies, w^hile quite fresh, into a jar, and tie
some fine gauze over the top of the jar, not a maggot
makes its appearance, while the dead substances, never-
theless, putrefy just in the same way as before. It is
obvious, therefore, that the maggots are not generated
by the corruption of the meat ; and that the cause of
their formation must be a something which is kept
away by gauze. But gauze will not keep away aeri-
form bodies, or fluids. This something must, therefore,
exist in the form of solid particles too big to get
through the gauze. Nor is one long left in doubt what
these solid particles are ; for the blowflies, attracted
by the odour of the meat, swarm round the vessel, and,
urged by a powerful but in this case misleading in-
stinct, lay eggs out of which maggots are immediately
hatched upon the gauze. The conclusion, therefore, is
unavoidable ; the maggots are not generated by the
meat, but the eggs which give rise to them are brought
through the air by the flies.
These experiments seem almost childishly simple,
and one wonders how it was that no one ever thought
of them before. Simple as they are, however, they are
worthy of the most careful study, for every piece of
experimental work since done, in regard to this subject,
has been shaped upon the model famished by the
Italian philosopher. As the results of his experiments
were the same, however varied the nature of the ma-
terials he used, it is not wonderful that there arose in
Redi's mind a presumption, that in all such cases of
the seeming production of life from dead matter, the
real explanation was the introduction of living germa
10
350 J^-^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv,
from without into tliat dead matter.' And tlins tlie
hypothesis that living matter always arises by the
agency of pre-existicg living matter, took definite shape ;
and had, henceforward, a right to be considered and a
claim to be refated, in each particular case, before the
production of living matter in any other way could be
admitted by careful reasoners. It will be necessary for
me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to
save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of
Biogenesis ; and I shall term the contrary doctrine — -
that living matter may be produced by not living mat-
ter— the hypothesis of Ahiogenesis,
In the seventeenth century, as I have said, the lat-
ter was the dominant view, sanctioned alike by an
tiquity and by authority ; and it is interesting to ob-
serve that Redi did not escape the customary tax upon
' " Pure contentandomi sempre in questa ed in ciascnna altro cosa, da
ciascuno piti savio, la dove io difettuosamente parlassi, esser corretto ; non
tacero, clie per molte osservazioni molti volti da me fatte, mi sento incli-
nato a credere clie la terra, da quelle prime piante, e da quel primi an imali
in poi, che ella nei primi giorni del mondo produsse per comandemento
del sovrano ed omnipotente Fattore, non abbia mai piu prodotto da se
medesima nfe erba n^ albero, nh animale alcuno perfetto o imperfetto che
ei se fosse ; e cbe tutto quello, che ne' tempi trapassati e nato e clie ora
nascere in lei, o da lei veggiamo, venga tutto dalla semenza reale e vera
delle piante, e degli animali stessi, i quali col mezzo del proprio seme la
loro spezie conservano. E se bene tutto giorno scorghiamo da' cadaveri
degli animali, e da tutte quante le maniere dell' erbe, e de' fiori, e dei
frutti imputriditi, e corrotti nascere vermi infiniti^
' Nonne vides quaecunque mora, fluidoque calore
Corpora tabescunt in parva animalia verti ' —
Io mi sento, dico, inclinato a credere che tutti quel vermi si generino dal
seme paterno; e che le carni, e I'erbe, e I'altre cose tutte putrefatte, o pu-
trefattibili non facciano altra parte, n^ abbiano altro ufizio nella genera-
zione degl' insetti, se non d'apprestare un luogo o un nido proporzionato,
in cui dagli animali nel tempo della figliatura sieno portati, e partoriti i
vermi, o I'uova o I'altre semenze dei vermi, i quali tosto che nati sono,
trovano in esso nido un suflSciente alimento abilissimo per nutricarsi: e
Be in quello non son portate dalle madri queste suddette semenze, niente
mai, e replicatamente niente, vi s'ingegneri e nasca." — Rem, Esperienze,
pp. 14-16.
XT. J SFOJ^ TAKEO US GENERA TION. 351
a discoverer of Laving to defend Mmself against tlio
cliarge of impugning tlie autliority of tlie Scriptures ; *
for liis adversaries declared tliat tlie generation of bees
from the carcase of a dead lion is affirmed, in the Book
of Judges, to have been the origin of the famous riddle
with v/hich Samson perplexed the Philistines : —
" Out of the eater came forth meat,
And out of the strong came forth sweetness."
Against all odds, however, Redi, strong with i\m
strength of demonstrable fact, did splendid battle for
Biogenesis ; but it is remarkable that he held the doc-
trine in a sense which, if he had lived in these times,
would have infallibly caused him to be classed among
the defenders of " spontaneous generation." " Omne
vivum ex vivo," "no life without antecedent life,"
aphoristically sums up Redi's doctrine ; but he went
no further. It is most remarkable evidence of the
philosophic caution and impartiality of his mind, that
although he had speculatively anticipated the manner
in which grubs really are deposited in fruits and in the
galls of plants, he deliberately admits that the evidence
is insufficient to bear him out ; and he therefore pre
fers the supposition that they are generated by a modi
fication of the living substance of the plants themselves
Indeed, he regards these vegetable growths as organs
by means of which the plant gives rise to an animal
and looks upon this production of specific animals as
the final cause of the galls and of at any rate some
fruits. And he proposes to explain the occurrence of
parasites within the animal body in the same way.^
^ "Molti, e molti altri ancora vi potrei annoverare, se non fossi chia-
mato a rispondere alle rampogne di alcuni, che bruscamente mi rammen-
*ano ci6, che si legge nel capitolo quattordicesimo del sacrosanto Libro de'
giudici " — Eedi, I. c, p. 45.
' The passage (Esperienze, p. 129) is worth quoting in full : —
" Se dovessi palesarvi il mio sentimento crederei che i frutti, i leguml,
352 ^^y SERMON'S, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv.
It is of great importance to apprehend Kedi's posi-
tion rightly ; for the lines of thought he laid down for
us are those upon which naturalists have been working
ever since. Clearly, he held biogenesis as against
Ahiogenesis j and I shall immediately proceed, in the
first place, to inquire how far subsequent investigation
has borne him out in so doing.
But Redi also thought that there were two modes
gli alberi e le foglie, in due mrmiere inverminassero. Una, perchS venendo
i bachi per di fuora, e cercando I'alimento, col rodere ci aprono la strada,
ed arrivano alia piti interna midoUa de' frutti e de' legni. L'altra mani-
era si 6, che io per me stimerei, che non fosse gran fatto disdicevole il cre-
dere, che quell' anima o quella virtu, la quale genera i fiori ed i frutti nelle
piante viventi, sia quella stessa che generi ancora i bachi di esse piante.
E chi sa forse, che molti frutti degli alberi non sieno prodotti, non per nn
fine primario e principale, ma bensi per un uffizio secondario e servile, de-
stinato alia generazione di que' vermi, servendo a loro in vece di matrice,
in cui dimorino un prefisso e determinato tempo ; il quale arrivato escan
fuora a godere il sole.
"Io m' immagino, che (juesto mio pensiero non vi parra totalmente un
paradosso ; mentre farete riflessione a quelle tante sorte di galle, di galloz-
zole, di coccole, di ricci, di calici, di cornetti e di lappole, che son produtte
dalle querce, dalle farnie, da' cerri, da' sugheri, da' lecci e da altri simili
alberi da ghianda; imperciocch^ in quelle gallozzole, e particolarmente
nelle piil grosse, che si chiamano coronati, ne' ricci capelluti, che ciuffoli
da' nostri contadini son detti ; nei ricci legnosi del cerro, ne' ricci stellati
della querela, nelle galluzze della foglia del leccio si vede evidentissima-
mente, che la prima e principale intenzlone della natura h formare dentro
di quelle un animale volante ; vedendosi nel centro della gallozzola un
uovo, che col crescere e col maturarsi di essa gallozzola va crescendo e ma-
turando anch' egli, e cresce altresi a suo tempo quel verme, che nelP uovo
si racchiude; il qual verme, quando la gallozzola k> finita di maturare e che
h venuto il termine destinato al suo nascimento, diventa, di verme che era,
una mosca Io vi confesso ingenuamente, che prima d'aver fatte
queste mie esperienze intorno alia generazione degl' insetti mi dava a cre-
dere, o per dir megiio sospettava, che forse la gallozzola nascesse, perchd
arrivando la mosca nel tempo della primavera, e facendo una piccolissima
fessura ne' rami pih teneri della querela, in quella fessura nascondesse uno
de suoi semi, il quale fosse cagione che sbocciasse fuora la gallozzola ; e che
mai non si vedessero galle o gallozzole o ricci o cornetti o calici o coc-
cole, se non in que' rami, ne' quali le mosche avessero depositate le loro
semenze ; e mi dava ad intendere, che le gallozzole fossero una malattia
cagionata nelle querce dalle punture delle mosche, in quella giusa stessa
she dalle punture d'altri animaletti slmiglievoli veggiamo crescere de' tu-
mori ne' corpi degli animali."
xr.J SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 353
of Biogenesis. By tlie one metliod, wLicli is that of
common and ordinary occurrence, tlie living parent
gives rise to offspring whicli passes tlirougli tlie same
cycle of changes as itself — ^like gives rise to like ; and
this has been termed Eomogenesis. By the other mode
the living parent was supposed to give rise to offspring
which passed through a totally different series of states
from those exhibited by the parent, and did not return
into the cycle of the parent ; this is what ought to be
called Seterogenesis^ the offspring being altogether and
permanently unlike the parent. The term Heteroge-
nesis, however, has unfortunately been used in a differ-
ent sense, and M. Milne-Edwards has therefore sub-
stituted for it Xenogenesis^ which means the generation
of something foreign. After discussing Redi's hypothesis
of universal Biogenesis, then, I shall go on to ask how
far the growth of science justifies his other hypothesis
of Xenogenesis.
The progress of the hypothesis of Biogenesis was
triumphant and unchecked for nearly a century. The
application of the microscope to anatomy in the hands
of Grew, Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam, Lyonet, Vallis-
nieri, Beaumur, and other illustrious investigators of
nature of that day, displayed such a complexity of
organisation in the lowest and minutest forms, and
everywhere revealed such a prodigality of provision
for their multiplication by germs of one sort or another,
that the hypothesis of Abiogenesis began to appear
not only untrue, but absurd ; and, in the middle of
the eighteenth century, when Needham and Buffon
took up the question, it was almost universally dis-
credited.'
^ Needham, -writing in 1760, says : —
" Les naturalistes modernes s'accordent nnanimement a etalblir, comme
une v6rite certaine, que toute plante vient de sa s6mence sp^cifiqne, tout
animal d'un ceuf on de quelque chose d'analogne preexistant dans la plante,
354 ^-4r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv
Bat tlie skill of tlie microscope-makers of tlie eigL-
teentli century soon readied its limit. A microscope
magnifying 400 diameters was a chef d'muvre of the
opticians of tliat day ; and, at the same time, by no
means trnstwortliy. But a magnifying power of 400
diameters, even wlien definition reaches the exquisite
'perfection of our modern achromatic lenses, hardly
suffices for the mere discernment of the smallest forms
of life. A speck, only ^V^h of an inch in diameter, has,
at 10 inches from the eye, the same apparent size as an
^^j^^^ iQoooth of an inch in diameter, when magnified
400 times ; but forms of living matter abound, the
diameter of which is not more than ^Q^Q^th of an inch.
A filtered infusion of hay, allowed to stand for two
days, will swarm with living things, among which, any
which reaches the diameter of a human red blood-cor-
puscle, or about g^^^^th of an inch, is a giant. It is
only by bearing these facts in mind, that we can deal
fairly with the remarkable statements and speculations
put forward by Buffon and Needham in the middle of
the eighteenth century.
When a portion of any animal or vegetable body
is infused in water, it gradually softens and disinte=
grates : and, as it does so, the water is found to swarm
with minute active creatures, the so-called Infasorial
Animalcules, none of which can be seen, except by the
aid of the microscope ; while a large proportion belong
to the category of smallest things of which I have
spoken, and which must have all looked like mere
dots and lines under the ordinary microscopes of the
eighteenth century.
ou dans I'animal de m^me esp^ce qui I'a prodult." — N'ouvelles Olsercations,
p. 1G9.
" Les naturalistes ont gen^ralement cru que les animaux microscopiques
6taient engendr^s par des ceufs transportes dans I'air, ou d6pos6s dans de?.
eaux dorraantes par des insectes volans." — Ibid., p. 176.
XV.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 355
Led by various tlieoretical considerations wliicli I
cannot now discuss, but wliicli looked promising enough
in tlie lights of that day, Buffon and Needham doubted
the applicability of Eedi's hypothesis to the infusorial
animalcules, and Needham very properly endeavoured
to put the question to an experimental test. He said
to himself, if these infusorial animalcules come from
germs, their germs must exist either in the substance
infused, or in the water with which the infusion is
made, or in the superjacent air. Now, the vitality of
all germs is destroyed by heat. Therefore, if I boil
the infasion, cork it up carefully, cementing the cork
over with mastic, and then heat the whole vessel by
heaping hot ashes over it, I must needs kill whatever
germs are present. Consequently, if Kedi's hypothesis
hold good, when the infusion is taken away and allowed
to cool, no animalcules ought to be developed in it;
whereas, if the animalcules are not dependent on pre-
existing germs, but are generated from the infused
substance, they ought, by-and-by, to make their appear-
ance. Needham found that, under the circumstances
in which he made his experiments, animalcules always
did arise in the infusions, when a sufficient time had
elapsed to allow for their development.
In much of his work Needham was associated with
Buffon, and the results of their experiments fitted in
admirably with the great French naturalist's hypothesis
of " organic molecules," according to which, life is the
indefeasible property of certain indestructible mole-
cules of matter, which exist in all living things, and
have inherent activities by which they are distinguished
from not living matter. Each individual living organ-
ism is formed by their temporary combination. They
stand to it in the relation of the particles of water to
a cascade, or a whirlpool ; or to a mould, into which
356 J^^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv.
the water is poured. Tlie form of tlie organism is thus
determined by the reaction "between external condi-
tions and the inherent activities of the organic mole-
cules of which it is comj)osed ; and, as the stoppage of
a whirlpool destroys nothing but a form, and leaves
the molecules of the water, with all their inherent
activities intact, so what we call the death and putre-
faction of an animal, or of a plant, is merely the break-
ing up of the form, or manner of association, of its
constituent organic molecules, which are then set free
as infasorial animalcules.
It will be perceived that this doctrine is by no means
identical with AMogenesis^ with which it is often con-
founded. On this hy]3othesis, a piece of beef, or a
handful of hay, is dead only in a limited sense. The
beef is dead ox, and the hay is dead grass ; but the
" organic molecules " of the beef or the hay are not
dead, but are ready to manifest their vitality as soon
as the bovine or herbaceous shrouds in which they are
imprisoned are rent by the macerating action of water.
The hypothesis therefore must be classified under Xen-
ogenesis, rather than under Abiogenesis. Such as it
was, I think it will appear, to those who will be just
enough to remember that it was propounded before
the birth of modern chemistry, and of the modern
oj^tical arts, to be a most ingenious and suggestive
speculation.
But the great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a
beautifal hypothesis by an ugly fact — which is so con-
stantly being enacted under the eyes of philosophers,
was played, almost immediately, for the benefit of
Buffon and Needham.
Once more, an Italian, the Abbe Spallanzani, a
worthy successor and representative of Redi in his
acuteness, his ingenuity, and his learning, subjected
XT.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 357
the experiments and tlie conclusions of Needliam to a
searcliing criticism. It miglit Le true that Keedham's
experiments yielded results such as he had described, but
did they bear out his arguments ? Was it not possible,
in the first place, that he had not completely excluded
the air by his corks and mastic ? And was it not pos-
sible, in the second place, that he had not sufficiently
heated his infusions and the superjacent air ? Spal-
lanzani joined issue with the English naturalist on
both these pleas, and he showed that if, in the first
place, the glass vessels in which the infasions were
contained were hermetically sealed by fusing their
necks, and if, in the second place, they were exposed
to the temperature of boiling water for three-quarters
of an hour,' no animalcules ever made their appearance
within them. It must be admitted that the experi-
ments and arguments of Spallanzani furnish a complete
and a crushing reply to those of Needham. But we
all too often forget that it is one thing to refute a prop-
osition, and another to prove the truth of a doctrine
which, implicitly or explicitly, contradicts that prop-
osition, and the advance of science soon showed that,
though IN^eedham might be quite wrong, it did not
follow that Spallanzani was quite right.
Modern chemistry, the birth of the latter half of the
eighteenth century, grew apace, and soon found herself
face to face with the great problems which biology had
vainly tried to attack without her help. The discovery
of oxygen led to the laying of the foundations of a
scientific theory of respiration, and to an examination
of the marvellous interactions of organic substances
with, oxygen. The presence of free oxygen appeared
to be one of the conditions of the existence of life, and
'' See Spallanzani, " Opere," vi., pp. 42 and 51.
358 LA Y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv.
of those singular cJiarLges in organic matters wMcli are
known as fermentation and putrefaction. The question
of the generation of the infusory animalcules thus
passed into a new phase. For what might not have
happened to the organic matter of the infusions, or to
the oxygen of the air, in Spallanzani's experiments ?
What security was there that the development of life
which ought to have taken jolace had not been checked
or prevented by these changes ?
The battle had to be fought again. It was needful
to repeat the experiments under conditions which
would make sure that neither the oxygen of the air,
nor the composition of the organic matter, was altered
in such a matter as to interfere with the existence of
life.
Schulze and Schwann took up the question from
this point of view in 1836 and 1837. The passage of
air through red-hot glass tubes, or through strong
sulphuric acid, does not alter the proportion of its
oxygen, while it must needs arrest or destroy any
organic matter which may be contained in the air.
These experimenters, therefore, contrived arrange-
ments by which the only air which should come into
contact with a boiled infusion should be such as had
either passed through red-hot tubes or through strong
sulphuric acid. The result which they obtained was
that an infusion so treated developed no living things,
while, if the same infusion was afterwards exposed to
the air, such things appeared rapidly and abundantly.
The accuracy of these experiments has been alternate-
ly denied and affirmed. Supposing them to be ac-
cepted, however, all that they really proved was that
the treatment to which the air was subjected destroyed
%oinething that was essential to the development of life
in the infusion. This " something " might be gaseous
sv.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 359
fluid, or solid; that it consisted of germs remained
only an hypothesis of greater or less probability.
Contemporaneously with these investigations a re-
markable discovery was made by Cagniard de la Tour.
He found that common yeast is composed of a vast
accumulation of minute plants. The fermentation of
must or of wort in the fabrication of wine and of beer
is always accompanied by the rapid growth and multi-
plication of these Torulce, Thus fermentation, in so
far as it was accompanied by the development of mi-
croscopical organisms in enormous numbers, became
assimilated to the decomposition of an infusion of or-
dinary animal or vegetable matter ; and it was an ob-
vious suggestion that the organisms were, in some way
or other, the causes both of fermentation and of putre-
faction. The chemists, with Berzelius and Liebig at
their head, at first laughed this idea to scorn ; but, in
1843, a man then very young, who has since performed
the unexampled feat of attaining to high eminence
alike in Mathematics, Physics, and Physiology — I
speak of the illustrious Helmholtz — reduced the mat-
ter to the test of experiment by a method alike ele-
gant and conclusive. Helmholtz separated a putrefy-
ing or a fermenting liquid from one which was simply
putrescible or fermentable by a membrane which al-
lowed the fluids to pass through and become inter-
mixed, but stopped the passage of solids. The result
was, that while the putrescible or the fermentable
liquids became impregnated with the results of the
putrescence or fermentation which was going on on
the other side of the membrane, they neither putrefied
(in the ordinary way) nor fermented ; nor were any of
the organisms which abounded in the fermenting or
putrefying liquid generated in them. Therefore the
cause of the development of these organisms must lie
360 ^-^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv.
in sometMng wliicli cannot pass throngli membranes ;
and, as Helmlioltz's investigations were long antece-
dent to Graham's researclies npon colloids, Ms natural
(conclusion was that the agent thus intercepted must
be a solid material. In point of fact, Helmholtz's
experiments narrowed the issue to this : that which
excites fermentation and putrefaction, and at the same
time gives rise to living forms in a fermentable or
putrescible fluid, is not a gas and is not a diffusible
fluid ; therefore it is either a colloid, or it is matter
divided into very minute solid particles.
The researches of Schroeder and Dusch in 1854, and
of Schroeder alone, in 1859, cleared up this point by
experiments which are simply refinements upon those
of Redi. A lump of cotton- wool is, physically speak-
ing, a pile of many thicknesses of a very fine gauze,
the fineness of the meshes of which dejDends upon the
closeness of the compression of the wool. Now,
Schroeder and Dusch found that, in the case of all the
putrefiable materials which they used (except milk
and yolk of Qgg)-) an infusion boiled, and then allowed
to come into contact with no air but such as had been
filtered through cotton-wool, neither putrefied nor fer-
mented, nor developed living forms. It is hard to
imagine what the fine sieve formed by the cotton- woo]
could have stopped except minute solid particles.
Still the evidence was incomplete u.ntil it had been
positively shown, first, that ordinary air does contain
such particles; and, secondly, that filtration through
cotton-wool arrests these particles and allows only
physically pure air to pass. This demonstration has
been furnished within the last year by the remarkable
experiments of Professor Tyndall. It has been a
common objection of Abiogenists that, if the doctrine
of Biogeny is true, the air must be thick with germs ;
xv.J SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 36,1
and they regard this as tlie heiglit of absurdity. But
Nature occasionally is exceedingly unreasonable, and
Professor Tyndall lias proved tEat this particular ab-
surdity may nevertlieless be a reality. He lias demon-
strated tliat ordinary air is no better tliaii a sort of
stirabout of excessively minute solid particles; tliat
tliese particles are almost wholly destructible by heat ;
and that they are strained off, and the air rendered
optically pure, by being passed through cotton-wool.
But it remains yet in the order of logic, though not
of history, to show that among these solid destructible
particles there really do exist germs capable of giving
rise to the development of living forms in suitable
menstrua. This piece of work was done by M. Pas-
teur in those beautiful researches which will ever ren-
der his name famous ; and which, in spite of all attacks
upon them, appear to me now, as they did seven years
ago', to be models of accurate experimentation and
logical reasoning. He strained air through cotton-
wool, and found, as Schroeder and Dusch had done,
that it contained nothing competent to give rise to the
development of life in fluids highly fitted for that pur-
pose. But the important further links in the chain of
evidence added by Pasteur are three. In the first
place he subjected to microscopic examination the
cotton-wool which had served as strainer, and found
that sundry bodies, clearly recognizable as germs, were
among the solid particles strained off". Secondly, he
proved that these germs were competent to give rise to
living forms by simply sowing them in a solution fitted
for their development. And, thirdly, he showed that
the incapacity of air strained through cotton- wool to
give rise to life was not due to any occult change af-
^ " Lectures to "Working Men on the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic
Nature," 1863.
362 i^-4 r SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv
fected in constituents of tlie air Iby tlie wool, by prov-
ing that tlie cotton-wool miglit be dispensed mth
altogether, and perfectly free access left between the
exterior air and that in the experimental flask. If the
neck of the flask is drawn ont into a tube and bent
downwards ; and if, after the contained fluid has been
carefally boiled, the tube is heated sufficiently to de-
stroy any germs which may be present in the air which
enters as the fluid cools, the apparatus may be left to
itself for any time and no life will appear in the fluid.
The reason is plain. Although there is free communi-
cation between the atmosphere laden with germs and
the germless air in the flask, contact between the two
takes place only in the tube ; and as the germs cannot
fall upwards, and there are no currents, they never
reach the interior of the flask. But if the tube be
broken short off where it proceeds from the flask, and
free access be thus given to germs falling vertically out
of the air, the fluid which has remained clear and desert
for months, becomes in a few days turbid and full of
life.
These experiments have been repeated over and
over again by independent observers with entire suc-
cess ; and there is one very simple mode of seeing the
facts for oneself, which I may as well describe.
Prepare a solution (much used by M. Pasteur, and
often called " Pasteur's solution ") composed of water
with tartrate of ammonia, sugar, and yeast-ash dis-
solved therein.' Divide it into three portions in as
many flasks ; boil all three for a quarter of an hour ;
and, while the steam is passing out, stop the neck of
one with a large plug of cotton- wool, so that this also
^ Infusion of hay treated in tlie same way yields similar results ; but, as
it contains organic matter, the argument which follows cannot be based
apon it.
£v.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 363
may be tliorouglily steamed. Now set the flasks aside
to cool, and, when tlieir contents are cold, add to one
of the open ones a drop of filtered infusion of hay
which has stood for twenty-fonr hours, and is conse-
quently full of the active and excessively minute
organisms known as Bacteria, In a couple of days
of ordinary warm weather the contents of this flask
will be milky from the enormous multiplication of
Bacteria. The other flask, open and exposed to the
air, sooner or later will become milky with Bacteria^
and patches of mould may appear in it ; while the
liquid in the flask, the neck of which is plugged
with cotton- wool, will remain clear for an indefinite
time. I have sought in vain for any explanation
of these facts, except the obvious one, that the air
contains germs competent to give rise to Bacteria^
such as those with which the first solution has been
knowingly and purposely inoculated, and to the mould-
Fungi, And I have not yet been able to meet with
any advocate of Abiogenesis who seriously maintains
that the atoms of sugar, tartrate of ammonia, yeast-ash,
and water, under no influence but that of free access
of air and the ordinary temperature, I'earrange them-
selves and gave rise to the protoplasm of Bacterium,,
But the alternative is to admit that these Bacteria
arise from germs in the air ; and if they are thus pro-
pagated, the burden of proof that other like forms are
generated in a different manner must rest with the as-
serter of that proposition.
To sum up the effect of this long chain of evi-
dence : —
It is demonstrable that a fluid eminently fit for
the development of the lowest forms of life, but which
contains neither germs, nor any protein compound,
gives rise to living things in great abundance if it is
364 ^^ 5^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xt.
exposed to ordinary air, wMle no sucli development
takes place if tlie air witli wMcli it is in contact is
meclianically freed from tlie solid particles wMcli ordi-
narily float in it and wliicli may be made visible by
appropriate means.
It is demonstrable tliat tlie great majority of tliese
particles are destructible by heat, and tliat some of
them are germs or living particles capable of giving
lise to tlie same forms of life as those wMcli appear
when the fluid is exposed to unpurified air.
It is demonstrable that inoculation of the experi-
mental fluid with a drop of liquid known to contain
living particles gives rise to the same phenomena as
ex|)osure to unpurified air.
And it is further certain that these living particles
are so minute that the assumption of their suspension
in ordinary air presents not the slightest difficulty.
On the contrary, considering their lightness and the
wide diffusion of the organisms which produce them,
it is impossible to conceive that they should not be
suspended in the atmosphere in myriads.
Thus the evidence, direct and indirect, in favor of
Biogenesis^ for all known forms of life must, I think,
be admitted to be of great weight.
On the other side, the sole assertions worthy of at-
tention are that hermetically-sealed fluids, which have
been exposed to great and long-continued heat, have
sometimes exhibited living forms of low organisation
when they have been opened.
The first reply that suggests itself is the probabil-
ity that there must be some error about these experi-
ments, because they are performed on an enormous
scale every day with quite contrary results. Meat,
fruits, vegetables, the very materials of the most fer-
mentable and putrescible infusions, are preserved to
tv.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 365
fclie extent, I suppose I may say, of thousands of tons
every year, by a metliod wHeli is a mere application
of Spallanzani's experiment. Tlie matters to be pre-
served are well boiled in a tin case provided witli a
small liole, and tliis liole is soldered up wben all the
air in the case has been replaced by steam. By this
method they may be kept for years without putrefy-
ing, fermenting, or getting mouldy. Now, this is not
because oxygen is excluded, inasmuch as it is now
proved that free oxygen is not necessary for either fer-
mentation or putrefaction. It is not because the tins
are exhausted of air, for Yihriones and bacteria live,
as Pasteur has shown, without air or free oxygen. It
is not because the boiled meats or vegetables are not
putreseible or fermentable, as those who have had the
aiisfortune to be in a ship supplied with unsMlfuUy-
closed tins well know. What is it, therefore, but the
exclusion of germs ? I think that Abiogenists are
bound to answer this question before they ask us to
consider new experiments of precisely the same order.
And in the next place, if the results of the experi-
ments I refer to are really trustworthy, it by no means
follows that Abiogenesis has taken place. The resist-
ance of living matter to heat is known to vary within
considerable limits, and to depend, to some extent,
upon the chemical and physical qualities of the sur-
rounding medium. But, if, in the present state of sci-
ence, the alternative is offered us, either germs can
stand a greater heat than has been supposed, or the
molecules of dead matter, for no valid or intelligible
reason that is assigned, are able to rearrange them-
selves into living bodies, exactly such as can be de-
monstrated to be frequently produced in another way,
I cannot understand how choice can be, even for a
moment, doubtful,
S66 L-^ 2^ SEmiONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xr.
But, tiioiigli I cannot express this conviction of
mine too strongly, I must carefully guard myself
against the suj)position that I intend to suggest that
no such thing as Abiogenesis ever has taken place in
the past, or ever will take place in tke future. With
organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology,
yet in their infancy, and every day making prodigious
strides, I think it would be the height of presumption
for any man to say that the conditions under which
matter assumes the properties we call "vital" may
not, some day, be artificially brought together. All I
feel justified in affirming is, that I see no reason for be-
lieving that the feat has been performed yet.
And, looking back through the prodigious vista of
the past, I find no record of the commencement of life,
and therefore I am devoid of any means of forming a
definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appear
ance. Belief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a
serious matter, and needs strong foundations. To say,
therefore, in the admitted absence of evidence, that I
have any belief as to the mode in which the existing
forms of life have originated, would be using words in
a wrong sense. But expectation is permissible where
belief is not ; and, if it were given me to look beyond
the abyss of geologically recorded time to the still
more remote period when the earth was passing
through physical and chemical conditions, which it
can no more see again tha.n a man can recall his in-
fancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution
of living protoplasm from not living matter. I should
expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity,
endowed, like existing fungi, with the power of deter-
mining the formation of new protoplasm from such
matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and tar
trates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water.
XT.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 367
witliout tlie aid of light. Tliat is tlie expectation to
whicli analogical reasoning leads me ; but I beg you
once more to recollect tliat I bave no rigbt to call my
opinion any thing but an act of pbilosopbical faith.
So much for the history of the progress of Eedi's
great doctrine of Biogenesis, which appears to me,
with the limitations I have ex|)ressed, to be victorious
along the whole line at the present day.
As regards the second problem offered to us by
Redi, whether Xenogenesis obtains, side by side with
Homogenesis — whether, that is, there exist not only
the ordinary living things, giving rise to offspring
which run through the same cycle as themselves, but
also others, producing offspring which are of a totally
different character from themselves — the researches of
two centuries have led to a different result. That the
grubs found in galls are no product of the plants on
which the galls grow, but are the result of the intro-
duction of the eggs of insects into the substance of
these plants, was made out by Yallisnieri, Reaumur,
and others, before the end of the first half of the
eighteenth century. The tapeworms, bladderworms,
and fiukes, continued to be a strono:hold of the advo-
cates of Xenogenesis for a much longer period. In-
deed, it is only within the last thirty years that the
splendid patience of Von Siebold, Van Beneden, Leuck-
art, Kiichenmeister, and other helminthologists, has
succeeded in tracing every such parasite, often through
the strangest wanderings and metamorphoses, to an
%^^^ derived from a parent, actually or potentially like
itself ; and the tendency of inquiries elsewhere has all
been in the same direction. A plant may throw off
bulbs, but these, sooner or later, give rise to seeds or
spores, which develop into the original form. A
polype may give rise to Medusae, or a pluteus to an
368 ^-^^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xr.
EcMnoderm, but the' Medusae and tlie EcMnoderm
give rise to eggs wMcli produce polypes or plutei, and
tliey are therefore only stages in the cycle of life of the
species.
But if we turn to pathology it offers us some re-
markable approximations to true Xenogenesis.
As I have already mentioned, it has been known
since the time of Vallisnieri and of Reaumur, that
galls in plants, and tumours in cattle, are caused by
insects, which lay their eggs in those parts of the ani-
mal or vegetable frame of which these morbid struc-
tures are outgrowths. Again, it is a matter of familiar
experience to everybody that mere pressure on the
skin will give rise to a corn. Now, the gall, the tu-
mour, and the corn, are parts of the living body, which
have become, to a certain degree, independent and dis-
tinct organisms. Under the influence of certain ex-
ternal conditions, elements of the body, which should
have developed in due subordination to its general
plan, set up for themselves and apply the nourish-
ment which they receive to their own purposes.
From such innocent productions as corns and warts,
there are all gradations to the serious tumours which,
by their mere size and the mechanical obstruction they
cause, destroy the organism out of which they are de-
veloped ; while, finally, in those terrible structures
known as cancers, the abnormal growth has acquired
powers of reproduction and multiplication, and is only
morphologically distinguishable from the parasite
worm, the life of which is neither more nor less close-
ly bound up with that of the infested organism.
If there were a kind of diseased structure, the histo-
logical elements of which w^re capable of maintaining
a separate and independent existence out of the body,
it seems to me that the shadowy boundary between
XT.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 369
morbid growtli and Xenogenesis would be effaced.
And I am inclined to think that the progress of dis-
covery has almost brought us to this point already. I
have been favoured by Mr. Simon with an early copy
of the last published of the valuable " Reports on the
Public Health," which, in his capacity of their medical
officer, he annually presents to the Lords of the Privy
Council. The apjDendix to this report contains an in-
troductory essay " On the Intimate Pathology of Con-
tagion," by Dr. Burdon Sanderson, which is one of the
clearest, most comprehensive, and well-reasoned dis-
cussions of a great question which has come under my
notice for a long time. I refer you to it for details and
for the authorities for the statements I am about to
make.
You are familiar with what happens in vaccination.
A minute cut is made in the skin, and an infinitesimal
quantity of vaccine matter is inserted into the wound.
Within a certain time a vesicle appears in the place of
the wound, and the fiuid which distends this vesicle is
vaccine matter, in quantity a hundred or a thousand-
fold that which was originally inserted. Now, what
has taken place in the course of this operation ? Has
the vaccine matter, by its irritative property, produced
a mere blister, the fluid of which has the same irrita-
tive property? Or does the vaccine matter contain
living particles, v/hich have grown and multiplied
where they have been planted ? The observations of
M. Chauveau, extended and confirmed by Dr. Sander-
son himself, appear to leave no doubt upon this head.
Experiments, similar in principle to those of Helmholtz
on fermentation and putrefaction, have proved that the
active element in the vaccine l}nxLph is non-diffusible,
and consists of minute particles not exceeding 2000 0 ^^
of an inch in diameter, which are made visible in the
370 ^^^ SSmiONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv,
lyrnpli by tlie microscope. Similar experiments liave
proved tliat two of the most destructive of epizootic
diseases, sheep-pox and glanders, are also dependent
for their existence and their propagation upon extremely
small living solid particles, to which the title of mi-
crozymes is applied. An animal suffering under either
of these terrible diseases is a source of infection and
contagion to others, for precisely the same reason as a
tub of fermenting beer is capable of propagating its
fermentation by " infection," or " contagion," to fresh
wort. In both cases it is the solid living particles
which are efficient ; the liquid in which they float, and
at the expense of which they live, being altogether
passive.
Now arises the question, are these microzymes the
results of Homogenesis^ or of Xenogenesis ; are they
capable, like the Tomdce of yeast, of arising only by the
development of pre-existing germs ; or may they be, like
the constituents of a nut-gall, the results of a modifica-
tion and individualisation of the tissues of the body in
which they are found, resulting from the operation of
certain conditions? Are they parasites in the zoolo-
gical sense, or are they merely what Virchow has
called "heterologous growths"? It is obvious that
this question has the most profound importance,
whether we look at it from a practical or from a theo-
retical point of view. A parasite may be stamped out
by destroying its germs, but a pathological product
can only be annihilated by removing the conditions
\^hich give rise to it.
It appears to me that this great problem mil have
to be solved for each zymotic disease separately, foi
analogy cuts two ways. I have dwelt upon the anal-
ogy of pathological modification, which is in favour of
the xenogenetic origin of microzymes ; but T must no^^
XV.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 371
speak of tlie equally strong analogies in favour of tlie
origin of such pestiferous particles by the ordinary pro-
cess of the generation of like from like.
It is, at present, a well- est ablisked fact tliat certain
diseases, both of plants and of animals, which have all
the characters of contagious and infectious epidemics,
are caused by minute organisms. The smut of wheat
is a well-known instance of such a disease, and it can-
not be doubted that the grape-disease and the potato-
disease fall under the same category. Among animals,
insects are wonderfully liable to the ravages of con-
tagious and infectious diseases caused by microscopic
Fimgi.
In autumn, it is not uncommon to see flies, motion-
less upon a window-pane, with a sort of magic circle,
in white, drawn around them. On microscopic exam-
ination, the magic circle is found to consist of innu-
merable spores, which have been thrown off in all
directions by a minute fungus called Mnpusa omiscce^
the spore-forming filaments of which stand out like a
pile of velvet from the body of the fly. These spore-
forming filaments are connected with others which fill
the interior of the fly's body like so much fine wool,
having eaten away and destroyed the creature's viscera.
This is the fall-grown condition of the Em^usa. If
traced back to its earlier stages, in flies which are still
active, and to all appearance healthy, it is found to
exist in the form of minute corpuscles which float in
the blood of the fly. These multiply and lengthen
into filaments, at the expense of the fly's substance ;
and, when they have at last killed the patient, they
grow out of its body and give off spores. Healthy
flies shut up with diseased ones catch this mortal dis-
ease and perish like the others. A most competent
observer, M. Cohn, who studied the development of
372 ^^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv.
the Empusa in the fly very carefully, was utterly un-
al)le to discover in wliat manner tlie smallest germs of
the Mvpusa got into the fly. The spores could not
be made to give rise to such germs by cultivation ; nor
were such germs discoverable in the air, or in the food
of the fly. It looked exceedingly like a case of Abio-
genesis, or, at any rate, of Xenogenesis ; and it is only
quite recently that the real course of events has been
made out. It has been ascertained, that when one of
the spores falls upon the body of a fly, it begins to
germinate and sends out a process which bores its way
through the fly's skin ; this, having reached the inte-
rior cavities of its body, gives off the minute floating
corpuscles which are the earliest stage of the JEmpusa.
The disease is "contagious," because a healthy fly
coming in contact with a diseased one, from which the
spore-bearing filaments protrude, is pretty sure to carry
off a spore or two. It is "infectious" because the
spores become scattered about all sorts of matter in
the neighbourhood of the slain flies.
The silkworm has long been known to be subject to
a very fatal and infectious disease called the Muscar-
dine. Audouin transmitted it by inoculation. This
disease is entirely due to the development of a fungus,
Botrytis Bassiana^ in the body of the caterpillar ; and
its contagiousness and infectiousness are accounted for
in the same way as those of the fly-disease. But of
late years a still more serious epizootic has appeared
among the silkworms ; and I may mention a few facts
which will give you some conception of the gravity of
the injury which it has inflicted on France alone.
The production of silk has been for centuries an im-
portant branch of industry in Southern France, and in
the year 1853 it had attained such a magnitude that
the annual produce of the French sericulture was esti-
TV.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 373
mated to amount to a tentli of tliat of tlie whole world,
and represented a money -value of 117,000,000 of francs,
or nearly five millions sterling. Wliat may be tLe sum
wliicli would represent tlie money-value of all tlie in-
dustries connected witli tlie working up of tlie raw silk
tkus produced is more than I can pretend to estimate.
Suffice it to say tliat tke city of Lyons is built upon
Frenck silk as muck as Manckester was upon American
cotton before tke civil war.
Silkworms are liable to many diseases; and even
before 1853 a peculiar e]3izootic, frequently accompa-
nied by tke appearance of dark spots upon tke skin
(wkence tke name of " Pebrine " wkick it kas receiv
ed), had been noted for its mortality. But in tke
years following 1853 tkis malady broke out witk suck
extreme violence, tkat, in 1858, tke silk-crop was re-
duced to a tkird of tke amount wkick it kad reacked
in 1853 ; and, up till witkin tke last year or two, it
kas never attained kalf tke yield of 1853. Tkis means
not only tkat tke great number of people engaged in
silk-growing are some tkirty millions sterling poorer
tkan tkey migkt kave been ; it means not only tkat
kigk prices kave kad to be paid for imported silkworm
eggs, and tkat, after investing kis money in tkem, in
paying for mulberry-leaves and for attendance, tke cul-
tivator kas constantly seen kis silkworms perisk and
kimself plunged in ruin ; but it means tkat tke looms
of Lyons kave lacked employment, and tkat for years
enforced idleness and misery kave been tke portion of
a vast population wkick, in former days, was indus-
trious and well to do.
In 1858 tke gravity of tke situation caused tke
Frenck Academy of Sciences to appoint Commissioners,
of wkom a distinguisked naturalist, M. de Quatrefages,
was one, to inquire into tke nature of this* disease, and
17
374 ^^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xr.
If possible, to devise some means of staying tlie plague.
In reading tlie Report' made by M. de Quatrefages in
1859, it is exceedingly interesting to observe tliat Ms
elaborate study of tlie Pebrine forced the conviction
upon liis mind that, in its mode of occurrence and prop-
agation, tlie disease of the silkworm is, in every respect,
comparable to the cholera among mankind. But it
differs from the cholera, and so far is a more formidable
disease, in being hereditary, and in being, under some
circumstances, contagious as well as infectious.
The Italian naturalist, Filippi, discovered, in the
blood of the silkworms affected by this strange disease,
a multitude of cylindrical corpuscles, each about g ^^ ^th
of an inch long. These have been carefully studied by
Lebert, and named by him Panliistophyton ; for the
reason that, in subjects in which the disease is strongly
developed, the corpuscles swarm in every tissue and
organ of the body, and even pass into the undeveloped
eggs of the female moth. But are these corpuscles
causes, or mere concomitants, of the disease? Some
naturalists took one view and some another ; and it was
not until the French Government, alarmed by the con-
tinued ravages of the malady, and the inefficiency of
the remedies which had been suggested, dispatched M.
Pasteur to study it, that the question received its final
settlement; at a great sacrifice, not only of the time
and peace of mind of that eminent philosopher, but, I
regret to have to add, of his health.
But the sacrifice has not been in vain. It is now
certain that this devastating, cholera-like Pebrine is
the effect of the growth and multiplication of the Pan-
Jiistopliyton in the silkworm. It is contagious and in-
fectious because the corpuscles of the PanMstopJiyton
pass away from the bodies of the diseased caterpillars,
* Etudes sur les Maladies Aptuelles des Vers I Sole, p. 53.
XT.] SPOjSTANEOUS GENERATIOI^: 375
directly or indirectly, to tlie alimentary canal of
healtliy silkworms in their neiglibourliood ; it is he-
reditary, because tlie corpuscles enter into tlie eggs
while they are being formed, and consequently are car-
ried within them when they are laid ; and, for this rea-
son, also, it presents the very singular peculiarity of
beino; inherited only on the mother's side. There is
not a single one, of all the apparently capricious and
unaccountable phenomena presented by the Pebrine,
but has received its explanation from the fact that the
disease is the result of the presence of the microscopic
organism, PanMstopJiyton.
Such being the facts with respect to the Pebrine,
what are the indications as to the method of prevent-
ing it ? It is obvious that this depends upon the way
in which the P anhidopliyton is generated. If it may
be generated by Abiogenesis, or by Xenogenesis, within
the silkworm or its moth, the extirpation of the dis-
ease must depend upon the prevention of the occurrence
of the conditions under which this generation takes
place. But if, on the other hand, the PanMstophyton
is an independent organism, which is no more generated
by the silkworm than the mistletoe is generated by the
oak or the apple-tree on which it grows, though it may
need the silkworm for its development in the same
way as the mistletoe needs the tree, then the indica-
tions are totally different. The sole thing to be done
is, to get rid of and keep away the germs of the Pan-
JiistopJiyton. As might be imagined, from the course
of his previous investigations, M. Pasteur was led to
believe that the latter was the right theory; and,
guided by that theory, he has devised a method of ex-
tirpating the disease, which has proved to be com-
pletely successful wherever it has been properly car-
ried out
576 -^-^y SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv
There can be no reason, tlien, for doubting that,
among insects, contagions and infections diseases of
great malignity are cansed "by minute organisms wMdi
are produced from pre-existing germs, or by bomogene-
sis ; and tbere is no reason, tbat I know of, for believ-
ing tbat what happens in insects may not take place
in the highest animals. Indeed, there is already strong
evidence that some diseases of an extremely malignant
and fatal character, to which man is subject, are as
much the work of minute organisms as is the Pebrine.
I refer for this evidence to the very striking facts ad-
duced by Professor Lister in his various- well-known
publications on the antiseptic method of treatment.
It seems to me impossible to rise from the perusal of
those publications without a strong conviction that
the lamentable mortality which so frequently dogs the
footsteps of the most skilful operator, and those deadly
consequences of wounds and injuries which seem to
haunt the very walls of great hospitals, and are, even
now, destroying more men than die of bullet or bayo-
net, are due to the importation of minute organisms
into wounds, and their increase and multiplication;
and that the surgeon who saves most lives will be he
who best works out the practical consequences of the
hypothesis of Redi.
I commenced this Address by asking you to follow
me in an attempt to trace the path which has been fol-
lowed by a scientific idea, in its long and slow pro-
gTess from the position of a probable hypothesis to that
of an established law of Nature. Our survey has not
taken us into very attractive regions; it has lain,
chiefly, in a land flowing with the abominable, and
peopled with mere grubs and mouldiness. And it may
be imagined with what smiles and shrugs practical
and serious contemporaries of Pedi and of Spallanzani
rv.] SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 377
may liave commented on tlie waste of tlieir higli abili*
ties in toiling at tlie solution of problems wliich, tlLongli
curious enougli in themselves, could be of no conceiv-
able utility to mankind.
!N^evertlieless, you will have observed tbat, before we
had travelled very far upon our road, there appeared, on
the right hand and on the left, fields laden with a har-
vest of golden grain, immediately convertible into those
things which the most sordidly practical of men will
admit to have value — viz., money and life.
The direct loss to France caused by the Pebrine in
seventeen years cannot be estimated at less than -Mij
millions sterling ; and if we add to this what Redi's
idea, in Pasteur's hands, has done for the wine-grower
and for the vinegar-maker, and try to capitalise its
value, we shall find that it will go a long way towards
repairing the money losses caused by the frightful and
calamitous war of this autumn. And as to the equi
valent of Redi's thought in life, how can we over-esti-
mate the value of that knowledge of the nature of epi-
demic and epizootic diseases, and consequently of the
means of checking, or eradicating them, the dawn of
which has assuredly commenced ?
Looking back no farther than ten years, it is possible
to select three (1863, 1864, and 1869) in which the
total number of deaths from scarlet-fever alone amount-
ed to ninety thousand. That is the return of killed,
the maimed and disabled being left out of sight.
Why, it is to be hoped that the list of killed in the
present bloodiest of all wars will not amount to more
than this ! But the facts which I have placed before
you must leave the least sanguine without a doubt
that the nature and the causes of this scourge will, one
day, be as well understood as those of the Pebrine are
378 ^^^ SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xv.
now ; and tliat tlie long-suffered massacre of out inno-
cents will come to an end.
And tlins mankind will liave one more admonition
that " the people perisli for lack of knowledge ; " and
that the alleviation of the miseries, and the promotion
of the welfare of men must be sought, Iby those who
will not lose their pains, in that diligent, patient, lov-
ing study of all the multitudinous aspects of l^ature,
the results of which constitute exact knowledge, or sci-
ence. It is the justification and the glory of this great
meeting that it is gathered together for no other object
than the advancement of the moiety of science which
deals with those phenomena of Nature which we call
physical. May its endeavours be crowned with a full
measure of success !
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body with Satan and sin shall be discarded utterly, and that we shall regard this
tabernacle of clay as the most perfect structure of the divine architect, and as the
sole means by which we can work out our salvation. Nature is the author's
supreme law, and his cure for all maladies of the individual and the community
is right living." — Home Journal.
" Dr. Oswald is as epigrammatic as Emerson, as spicy as Montaigne, and as
caustic as Heine."— i%ito6?e/p^m Press.
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW : An Examination of the Law
of Personal Rights, to discover the Principles of the Law, as
ascertained from the Practical Rules of the La%v, and har-
monized ^vith the Nature of Social Relations. By A. J. Willartj.
8vo, cloth. Price, $2.50.
" A calm, dignified, able, and exhaustive treatise of a subject which is of great
importance to every one. Mr. Willard first discusses the nature and origin of
rights, obligations, and powers of fundamental social law and institutional law.
He then expounds the science of law and defines the nature of all species of obli-
gations and contracts. A general view of rights and powers is then brought
forward, and a consideration of their special functions, as, for instance, the use
of air and water and the principles of individual sustenance. The doctrine of
individual redress and protection is thoroughly examined, and a long and inter-
esting discussion follows of nuisance?, wrongs, and injuries. The characteriza-
tion of dueling and the pithy and convincing way in which its absurdity is shown
are admirable. The treatment of the subject is so clear and logical, so simple
and scholarly, that it deserves the highest praise. It is a work such as Aristotle
might have written, had he lived in this latter ^dLYy— Philadelphia Press.
For sale by all boolcsellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid^ on receipt qf price.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,
1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York«
Scientific Publications.
A TREATISE ON CHEMISTRY. By H. E. Eoscoe, F. R. S., and C.
ScHOELEMMEE, F. K. S., Professors of Chemistry in tlie Victoria University,
Owens College, Manchester. Illustrated.
Vols. I and II.— Inorganic Chemistry. Svo.
Vol. I.— Non-Metallic Elements. Price, $5.00.
Vol. II.— Part I.— Metals. Price, 13.00.
Vol. II.— Part IL— Metals. Price, $3.00.
Organic Chemistry. Svo.
Vol. III.— Part I.— The Chemistry of the Hydrocarbons and their
Derivatives. Price, $5.00.
Vol. III.— Part II.— Completing the work. (In preparation.)
" It is diflBcult to praise too highly the selection of materials and their arrange-
ment, or the wealth of illustrations which explain and adorn the text. Whatever
tests of accuracy as to figures and facts we have been able to apply have been
satisfactorily met, while in clearness of statement this third volume leaves noth-
ing to be desired.'''— London Academy.
THE ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS. By Henet DmsTNiNG Macleod,
M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Inner Temple, barrister-at-
law selected by the Royal Commissioners for the Digest of the Law to pre-
pare the digest of the law of bills of exchange, bank notes, etc. Lecturer
on Political Economy in the University of Cambridge. In two volumes.
Volume I now ready. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.75.
" Mr. Macleod's works on economic science have one great merit, they belong
to the class of books that assist inquiry by setting their readers thinking. The
views they set forth are not only often valuable in themselves, but they are the
generative cause of ideas which may also be valuable in their readers. His
books, moreover, are written in the proper way. The subject is divided care-
fully in accordance with the opinions held by the author ; all classifications when
made are adhered to, and the descriptions and definitions ado|)ted are admirable
from his point of view, and in some cases from a wider stand-point." — The Statist.
ADOIiPH STRECKER'S SHORT TEXT-BOOK OF ORGANIC
CHEMISTRY. By Dr. Johannes Wislicenus. Translated and edited,
with Extensive Additions, by W. H. Hodgkinson, Ph. D., and A. J. Gkeen-
AWAT, F. I. C. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00.
"Let no one suppose that in this 'short text-book' we have to deal with a
primer. Everything is comparative, and the term 'short' here has relation to
the enormous development and extent of recent organic chemistry. This solid
and comprehenpive volume ie intended to represent the present condition of the
science in its main facts and leading principles, as demanded by the systematic
chemical student. We have here, probably, the best extant text-book of organic
chemistry. Not only is it full and comprehensive and remarkably clear and
methodical, but it is up to the very latest moment, and it has been, moreover,
prepared in a way to secure the greatest excellences in such a treatise." — T/ie
Popular Science Monthly.
THE ORIGIN OF C1VIL,IZATI0N AND THE PRIMITIVE CON-
DITION OF MAN, Mental and Social Condition of Savages.
By Sir John LtrBBOCK, Bart., F. R. S., President of the British Association.
With Illustrations. Fourth edition, with numerous Additions. Svo, cloth.
Price, $5.00.
For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,
1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New Toyk,
Scientific Publications.
THE BRAIN AND ITS FUNCTIONS. By J. Lurs, Physician to the
Hospice de la Salpetriere. With Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"No living physiologist is better entitled to speak with authority upon the
structure and functions of the brain than Dr. Luys. Hi? studies on the anatomy
of the nervous system are acknowledged to be the fullest and most systematic
ever undertaken. Dr. Luys supports his couclusions not only by his own ana-
tomical researches, but also by many functional observations of various other
physiologists, including of course Professor Ferrier's now classical experi-
ments."—^S'iJ. Jameses Gazette.
"Dr. Luys, at the head of the great French Insane Asylum, is one of the most
eminent and successful investigators of cerebral science now living; and he has
given unquestionably the clearest and most interesting brief account yet made of
the structure and operations of the brain. AVe have been fascinated by this vol-
ume more than by any other treatise we have yet seen on the machinery of sen-
sibility and thought ; and we have been instructed not only by much that is new,
bat by many sagacious practical hints such as it is well for everybody to under-
stand."— Tlie Popular Science Monthly.
THE CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF MODERN PHYSICS. Ly
J. B. Stallo. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
" Judge Stallo's work is an inquiry into the validity of those mechanical con-
ceptions of the universe which are now held as fundamental in physical science.
He takes up the leading modern doctrines which are based upon this mechanical
conception, such as the atomic constitution of matter, the kinetic theory of gases,
the conservation of energy, the nebular hypothesis, and other views, to find how
much stands upon solid empirical irround. and how much rests upon metaphys-
ical speculation. Since the appearance of Dr. Draper's ' Religion and Science,'
no book has been published in the country calculated to make so deep an impres-
sion on thoughtful and educated readers as this volume. . . . The range and
minuteness of the author's learning, the acuteness of his reasoning, and the
singular precision and clearness of his style, are qualities which very seldom
have been jointly exhibited in a scientific treatise." — Neio TorTc Sun.
THE FORMATION OP VEGETABI^E MOUIiD, THROUGH THE
ACTION OF WORMS, WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR
HABITS. By Charles Darwin, LL. D., F.R. S., author of "On the
Origin of Species," etc., etc. With Illustrations. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.50.
" Mr. Darwin's little volume on the habits and instincts of earth-wonns is no
less marked than the earlier or more elaborate efforts of his genius by freshness
of observation, unfailing power of Interpreting and correlating facts, and logical
vigor in generalizing upon them. The main purpose of the work is to point out
the share which worms have taken in the formation of the layer of vegetable
mould which covers the whole surface of the land in every moderately humid
country. All lovers of nature will unite in thanking Mr. Darwin for the new and
interesting light he has thrown upon a subject so long overlooked, yet so full of
interest and instruction, as the structure and the labors of the earth-worm." —
Saturday Beview.
"Respecting worms as among the most useful portions of animate nature.
Dr. Darwin relates, in this remarkable book, their structure and habits, the part
they have played in the burial of ancient buiklings and the denudation of the
land, in the disintegration of rocks, the preparation of soil for the growth of
plants, and in the natural history of the world."— -Boston Advertiser.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,
1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York.
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