THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON--(_Continued_).
THE NATURE AND RELATIONS OF MAN.
_Position of Man according to the Heliocentric and Geocentric Theories._
OF ANIMAL LIFE.--_The transitory Nature of living Forms.--Relations of
Plants and Animals.--Animals are Aggregates of Matter expending Force
originally derived from the Sun._
THE ORGANIC SERIES.--_Man a Member of it.--His Position determined by
Anatomical and Physiological Investigation of his Nervous System.--Its
triple Forms: Automatic, Instinctive, Intellectual._
_The same progressive Development is seen in individual Man, in the
entire animal Series, and in the Life of the Globe.--They are all under
the Control of an eternal, universal, irresistible Law._
_The Aim of Nature is intellectual Development, and human Institutions
must conform thereto._
_Summary of the Investigation of the Position of Man.--Production of
Inorganic and Organic Forms by the Sun.--Nature of Animals and their
Series.--Analogies and Differences between them and Man.--The Soul.--The
World._
[Sidenote: The apparent position of man on the heliocentric theory.]
When the ancient doctrine of the plurality of worlds was restored by
Bruno, Galileo, and other modern astronomers, the resistance it
encountered was mainly owing to its anticipated bearing on the nature
and relations of man. It was said, if round our sun, as a centre, there
revolve so many planetary bodies, experiencing the changes of summer and
winter, day and night--bodies illuminated by satellites, and perhaps
enjoying twilight and other benefits such as have been conferred on the
earth--shall we not consider them the abodes of accountable, perhaps of
sinful, beings like ourselves? Nay, more; if each of the innumerable
fixed stars is, as our sun, a central focus of light, attended by dark
and revolving globes, is it not necessary to admit that they also have
their inhabitants? But among so many families of intelligent beings, how
is it that we, the denizens of an insignificant speck, have alone been
found worthy of God's regard?
It was this reasoning that sustained the geocentric theory, and made the
earth the centre of the universe, the most noble of created things; the
sun, the moon, the stars, being only ministers for the service of man.
[Sidenote: The fallacy of objections to that theory.] But, like many
other objections urged in that memorable conflict, this was founded on a
misconception, or, rather, on imperfect knowledge. There may be an
infinity of worlds placed under the mechanical relations alluded to, but
there may not be one among them that can be the abode of life. The
physical conditions under which organization is possible are so numerous
and so strictly limited that the chances are millions to one against
their conjoint occurrence.
[Sidenote: Evidence furnished by Geology.] In a religious point of view,
we are greatly indebted to Geology for the light it has cast on this
objection. It has taught us that during inconceivable lapses of time our
earth itself contained no living thing. These were those pre-organic
ages to which reference was made in the last chapter. Then by slow
degrees, as a possibility for existence occurred, there gradually
emerged one type after another. It is but as yesterday that the life of
man could be maintained.
[Sidenote: The transitory nature of living forms.] Only in the presence
of special physical conditions can an animal exist. Even then it is
essentially ephemeral. The life of it, as a whole, depends on the death
of its integrant parts. In a waterfall, which maintains its place and
appearance unchanged for many years, the constituent portions that have
been precipitated headlong glide finally and for ever away. For the
transitory matter to exhibit a permanent form, it is necessary that
there should be a perpetual supply and also a perpetual removal. So long
as the jutting ledge over which the waters rush, and the broken gulf
below that receives them, remain unchanged, the cataract presents the
same appearance. But variations in them mould it into a new shape; its
colour changes with a clear or cloudy sky; the rainbow seen in its spray
disappears when the beams of the sun are withdrawn.
So in that collection of substance which constitutes an animal; whatever
may be its position, high or low, in the realm of life, there is a
perpetual introduction of new material and a perpetual departure of the
old. It is a form, rather than an individual, that we see. Its
permanence altogether depends on the permanence of the external
conditions. If they change, it also changes, and a new form is the
result.
[Sidenote: Characteristics of animal life.] An animal is therefore a
form through which material substance is visibly passing and suffering
transmutation into new products. In that act of transmutation force is
disengaged. That which we call its life is the display of the manner in
which the force thus disengaged is expended.
[Sidenote: Matter and force.] A scientific examination of animal life
must include two primary facts. It must consider whence and in what
manner the stream of material substance has been derived, in what manner
and whither it passes away. And, since force can not be created from
nothing, and is in its very nature indestructible, it must determine
from what source that which is displayed by animals has been obtained,
in what manner it is employed, and what disposal is made of it
eventually.
[Sidenote: Force is derived from the sun.] The force thus expended is
originally derived from the sun. Plants are the intermedium for its
conveyance. The inorganic material of a saline nature entering into
their constitution is obtained from the soil in which they grow, as is
also, for the most part, the water they require; but their organic
substance is derived from the surrounding atmosphere, and hence it is
strictly true that they are condensations from the air.
[Sidenote: Mode in which plants obtain material substance.] These
statements may be sufficiently illustrated, and the relation between
plants and animals shown, by tracing the course of any one of the
ingredients entering into the vegetable composition, and derived, as has
been said, from the air. For this purpose, if we select their chief
solid element, carbon, the remarks applicable to the course it follows
will hold good for other accompanying elements. It is scarcely necessary
to embarrass the brief exposition of vegetable life now to be given by
any historical details, since these will come with more propriety
subsequently. It is sufficient to mention that the chemical explanations
of vegetable physiology rest essentially on the discovery of oxygen gas
by Priestley, of the constitution of carbonic acid by Lavoisier, and of
water by Cavendish and Watt.
[Sidenote: Action of a plant on the air.] While the sun is shining, the
green parts of plants, especially the leaves, decompose carbonic acid,
one of the ingredients of the atmospheric air. This substance is
composed of two elements, carbon and oxygen; the former is appropriated
by the plant, and enters into the composition of elaborated or
descending sap, from which forthwith organic products, such as starch,
sugar, wood fibre, acids, and bases are made. The other element, the
oxygen, is for the most part refused by the plant, and returns to the
air. As the process of decomposition goes on, new portions of carbonic
acid are presented through mechanical movements, the trembling of the
leaf, breezes, and currents rising from the foliage warmed by the solar
beams giving place to other cool currents that set in below.
The action of a plant upon the air is therefore the separation of
combustible material from that medium. Carbon is thus obtained from
carbonic acid; from water, hydrogen. Plant life is chemically an
operation of reduction, for in like manner ammonia is decomposed into
its constituents, which are nitrogen and hydrogen; and sulphuric and
phosphoric acids, which like ammonia, may have been brought into the
plant through its roots in the form of salt bodies, are made to yield up
the oxygen with which they had been combined, and their sulphur and
phosphorus, combustible elements, are appropriated.
[Sidenote: Composition and resolution of matter and force.] Every plant,
from the humblest moss to the oak of a thousand years, is thus formed by
the sun from material obtained from the air--combustible material once
united with oxygen, but now separated from that body. It is of especial
importance to remark that in this act of decomposition, force, under the
form of light, has disappeared, and become incorporated with the
combustible, the organizing material. This force is surrendered again,
or reappears whenever the converse operation, combination with oxygen,
occurs.
Vegetable products thus constitute a magazine in which force is stored
up and preserved for any assignable time. Hence they are adapted for
animal food and for the procuring of warmth. The heat evolved in the
combustion of coal in domestic economy was originally light from the sun
appropriated by plants in the Secondary geological times, and locked up
for untold ages. The sun is also the source from which was derived the
light obtained in all our artificial operations of burning gas, oil,
fat, wax, for the purposes of illumination.
[Sidenote: Correlation of physical forces.] My own experiments have
proved that it is the light of the sun, in contradistinction to the
heat, which occasions the decomposition of carbonic acid, furnishing
carbon to plants and oxygen to the atmosphere. But such is the relation
of the so-called imponderable principles of chemistry to each other, and
their mutual convertibility, that that which has disappeared in
performing its function as light may reappear as heat or electricity, or
in the production of some mechanical effect.
[Sidenote: The nature of food.] Food is used by all animals for the sake
of the force it thus contains, the remark applying to the carnivora as
well as the herbivora. In both cases the source of supply is the
vegetable kingdom, indirectly or directly. The plant is thus
indispensable to the animal. It is the collector and preserver of that
force the expenditure of which constitutes the special display of animal
life.
From this point of view, animals must therefore be considered as
machines, in which force obtained as has been described, is utilized.
The food they take, or the tissue that has been formed from it, is acted
upon by the air they breathe, and undergoes partial or total oxydation,
and now emerges again, in part as heat in part as nerve-force, in some
few instances in part as light or electricity, the force that originally
came from the sun.
[Sidenote: Cycle through which matter and force pass.] There is,
therefore, a cycle or revolution through which material particles
suitable for organization incessantly run. At one moment they exist as
inorganic combinations in the air or the soil, then as portions of
plants, then as portions of animals, then they return to the air or soil
again to renew their cycle of movement. The metamorphoses feigned by the
poets of antiquity have hence a foundation in fact, and the vegetable
and animal, the organic and inorganic worlds are indissolubly bound
together. Plants are reducing, animals oxydizing, machines. Plants form,
animals destroy.
Thus, by the light of the sun, the carbonic acid of the atmosphere is
decomposed--its oxygen is set free, its carbon furnished to plants. The
products obtained serve for the food of animals, and in their systems
the carbon is re-oxydized by the air they respire, and, resuming the
condition of carbonic acid, is thrown back into the atmosphere in the
breath, ready to be decomposed by the sunlight once more, and run
through the same cycle of changes again. The growth of a plant and the
respiration of an animal are dependent on each other.
[Sidenote: The duration of matter and imperishability of force.]
Material particles are thus the vehicles of force. They undergo no
destruction. Chemically speaking, they are eternal. And so, likewise,
force never deteriorates or becomes lessened. It may assume new phases,
but it is always intrinsically unimpaired. The only changes it can
exhibit are those of aspect and of distribution; of aspect, as
electricity, affinity, light, heat; of distribution, as when the
diffused aggregate of many sunbeams is concentrated in one animal form.
It is but little that we know respecting the mutations and distribution
of force in the universe. We cannot tell what becomes of that which has
characterized animal life, though of its perpetuity we may be assured.
It has no more been destroyed than the material particles of which such
animals consist. They have been transmuted into new forms--it has taken
on a new aspect. The sum total of matter in the world is invariable; so,
likewise, is the sum total of force.
[Sidenote: Theory of Averroes.] These conclusions resemble in many
respects those of the philosophy of Averroes, but they are free from the
heresy which led the Lateran Council, under Leo X., to condemn the
doctrines of the great Spanish Mohammedan. The error of Averroes
consisted in this, that he confounded what is here spoken of under the
designation of force with the psychical principle, and erroneously
applied that which is true for animals to the case of man, who is to be
considered as consisting of three essentially distinct parts--a material
body, upon which operate various physical forces, guided and controlled
by an intelligent soul.
In the following paragraphs the distinction here made is brought into
more striking relief.
[Sidenote: Anatomical mode of determining position in the animal
series.] The station of any animal in the organic series may be
determined from the condition of its nervous system. To this observation
man himself is not an exception. Indeed, just views of his position in
the world, of the nature of his intellect and mental operations, can not
be obtained except from the solid support afforded by Anatomy.
[Sidenote: The uselessness of the metaphysical sciences.] The reader has
doubtless remarked that, in the historical sketch of the later progress
of Europe given in this book, I have not referred to metaphysics, or
psychology, or mental philosophy. Cultivated as they have been, it was
not possible for them to yield any other result than they did among the
Greeks. A lever is no mechanical power unless it has a material point of
support. It is only through the physical that the metaphysical can be
discovered.
[Sidenote: Necessity of resorting to Anatomy and Physiology.] An
exposition of the structure, the physical forces, and the intellectual
operations of man must be founded on anatomy. We can only determine the
methods of action from the study of the mechanism, and the right
interpretation of that mechanism can only be ascertained from the
construction of its parts, from observations of the manner in which they
are developed, from comparisons with similar structures in other
animals, not rejecting even the lowest, and from an investigation of
their habits and peculiarities. Believing that, in the present state of
science, doctrines in psychology, unless they are sustained by evidence
derived from anatomy and physiology, are not to be relied on, I have not
thought it necessary to devote much space to their introduction. They
have not taken a part in the recent advances of humanity. They belong to
an earlier social period, and are an anachronism in ours. I have
referred to these points heretofore in my work on Physiology, and
perhaps shall be excused the following extract:
"The study of this portion of the mechanism of man brings us therefore
in contact with metaphysical science, and some of its fundamental dogmas
we have to consider. Nearly all philosophers who have cultivated in
recent times that branch of knowledge, have viewed with apprehension the
rapid advances of physiology, foreseeing that it would attempt the final
solution of problems which have exercised the ingenuity of the last
twenty centuries. [Sidenote: Solution of psychological questions.] In
this they are not mistaken. Certainly it is desirable that some new
method should be introduced, which may give point and precision to
whatever metaphysical truths exist, and enable us to distinguish,
separate, and dismiss what are only vain and empty speculations.
[Sidenote: Uncertainty of metaphysics.] "So far from philosophy being a
forbidden domain to the physiologist, it may be asserted that the time
has now come when no one is entitled to express an opinion in philosophy
unless he has first studied physiology. It has hitherto been to the
detriment of truth that these processes of positive investigation have
been repudiated. If from the construction of the human brain we may
demonstrate the existence of a soul, is not that a gain? for there are
many who are open to arguments of this class on whom speculative
reasoning or a mere dictum falls without any weight. Why should we cast
aside the solid facts presented to us by material objects? In his
communications throughout the universe with us, God ever materializes.
He equally speaks to us through the thousand graceful organic forms
scattered in profusion over the surface of the earth, and through the
motions and appearances presented by the celestial orbs. Our noblest and
clearest conceptions of his attributes have been obtained from these
material things. I am persuaded that the only possible route to truth in
mental philosophy is through a study of the nervous mechanism. The
experience of 2500 years, and the writings of the great metaphysicians
attest, with a melancholy emphasis, the vanity of all other means.
"Whatever may be said by speculative philosophers to the contrary, the
advancement of metaphysics is through the study of physiology. What sort
of a science would optics have been among men who had purposely put out
their own eyes? What would have been the progress of astronomy among
those who disdained to look at the heavens? Yet such is the preposterous
course followed by the so-called philosophers. They have given us
imposing doctrines of the nature and attributes of the mind in absolute
ignorance of its material substratum. [Sidenote: Necessity of the
interpretation of structure.] Of the great authors who have thus
succeeded one another in ephemeral celebrity, how many made themselves
acquainted with the structure of the human brain? Doubtless some had
been so unfortunate as never to see one! Yet that wonderful organ was
the basis of all their speculations. In voluntarily isolating themselves
from every solid fact which might serve to be a landmark to them, they
may be truly said to have sailed upon a shoreless sea from which the fog
never lifts. The only fact they teach us with certainty is, that they
know nothing with certainty. It is the inherent difficulty of their
method that it must lead to unsubstantial results. What is not founded
on a material substratum is necessarily a castle in the air."
[Sidenote: Intellectual relations of man depend on his nervous system.]
Considering thus that scientific views of the nature of man can only be
obtained from an examination of his nervous system, and that the right
interpretation of the manner of action of that system depends on the
guiding light of comparative anatomy and physiology, I shall, in the
following exposition, present the progress of discovery on those
principles.
[Sidenote: The rudimentary nervous system is automatic.] In those low
tribes of life which show the first indications of a nervous system, its
operation is purely mechanical. An external impression, as a touch, made
upon animals of that kind, is instantly answered to by a motion which
they execute, and this without any manifestation of will or
consciousness. The phenomenon is exactly of the same kind as in a
machine of which, if a given lever is touched, a motion is instantly
produced.
[Sidenote: Two elementary forms of nerve structure.] In any nervous
system there are two portions anatomically distinct. They are, 1st, the
fibrous; 2d, the vesicular. It may be desirable to describe briefly the
construction and functions of each of these portions. Their conjoint
action will then be intelligible.
[Sidenote: Structure of a nerve fibre.] 1st. A nerve fibre consists
essentially of a delicate thread--the axis filament, as it is
called--enveloped in an oil-like substance, which coagulates or congeals
after death. This, in its turn, is inclosed in a thin investing sheath
or membranous tube. Many such fibres bound together constitute a nerve.
[Sidenote: Function of a nerve fibre is conduction.] The function of
such a nerve fibre is indisputably altogether of a physical kind, being
the conveyance of influences from part to part. The axis filament is the
line along which the translation occurs, the investing material being
for the purpose of confining or insulating it, so as to prevent any
lateral escape. Such a construction is the exact counterpart of many
electrical contrivances, in which a metallic wire is coated over with
sealing-wax or wrapped round with silk, the current being thus compelled
to move in the wire without any lateral escape. Of such fibres, some
convey their influences to the interior, and hence are called
centripetal; some convey them to the exterior, and hence are called
centrifugal. No anatomical difference in the structure of the two has,
however, thus far been discovered. As in a conducting wire the
electrical current moves in a progressive manner with a definite
velocity, so in a nerve filament the influence advances progressively at
a rate said to be dependent on the temperature of the animal examined.
It seems in the cold-blooded to be much slower than in the hot. It has
been estimated in the frog at eighty-five feet per second; in man at two
hundred feet--an estimate probably too low.
The fibres thus described are of the kind designated by physiologists as
the cerebro-spinal; there are others, passing under the name of the
sympathetic, characterized by not possessing the investing medullary
substance. In colour they are yellowish-gray; but it is not necessary
here to consider them further.
[Sidenote: Structure of a nerve vesicle.] 2nd. The other portion of the
nervous structure is the vesicular. As its name imports, it consists of
vesicles filled with a gray granular material. Each vesicle has a
thickened spot or nucleus upon it, and appears to be connected with one
or more fibres. If the connexion is only with one, the vesicle is called
unipolar; if with two, bipolar; if with many, multipolar or stellate.
Every vesicle is abundantly supplied with blood.
[Sidenote: Function of a nerve vesicle.] As might be inferred from its
structure, the vesicle differs altogether from the fibre in function. I
may refer to my "Physiology" for the reasons which have led to the
inference that these are contrivances for the purposes of permitting
influences that have been translated along or confined within the fibre
to escape and diffuse themselves in the gray granular material. They
also permit influences that are coming through many different channels
into a multipolar vesicle to communicate or mix with one another, and
combine to produce new results. Moreover, in them influences may be long
preserved, and thus they become magazines of force. Combined together,
they constitute ganglia or nerve centres, on which, if impressions be
made, they do not necessarily forthwith die out, but may remain
gradually declining away for a long time. Thus is introduced into the
nervous mechanism the element of time, and this important function of
the nerve vesicle lies at the basis of memory.
It has been said that the vesicular portion of the nerve mechanism is
copiously supplied with blood. Indeed, the condition indispensably
necessary for its functional activity is waste by oxydation. Arterial
vessels are abundantly furnished to insure the necessary supply of
aerated blood, and veins to carry away the wasted products of decay.
Also, through the former, the necessary materials for repair and
renovation are brought. [Sidenote: Physiological condition of nerve
action is nerve waste.] There is a definite waste of nervous substance
in the production of a definite mechanical or intellectual result--a
material connexion and condition that must never be overlooked. Hence it
is plain that unless the repair and the waste are synchronously equal to
one another, periodicities in the action of the nervous system will
arise, this being the fundamental condition connected with the physical
theories of sleep and fatigue.
The statements here made rest upon two distinct forms of evidence. In
part they are derived from an interpretation of anatomical structure,
and in part from direct experiment, chiefly by the aid of feeble
electrical currents. The registering or preserving action displayed by a
ganglion may be considered as an effect, resembling that of the
construction known as Ritter's secondary piles.
It will not suit my purpose to offer more than the simplest illustration
of the application of the foregoing facts. When an impression, either by
pressure or in any other way, is made on the exterior termination of a
centripetal fibre, the influence is conveyed with a velocity such as has
been mentioned into the vesicle to which that fibre is attached, and
thence, going forth along the centrifugal fibre, may give rise to motion
through contraction of the muscle to which that fibre is distributed.
[Sidenote: Reflex action of the nervous system.] An impression has thus
produced a motion, and to the operation the designation of reflexion is
commonly given. This reflexion takes place without consciousness. The
three parts--the centripetal fibre, the vesicle, and the centrifugal
fibre--conjointly constitute a simple nervous arc.
[Sidenote: Gradual complexity of the nervous system.] A repetition of
these arcs, each precisely like all the others, constitutes the first
step toward a complex nervous system. Their manner of arrangement is
necessarily subordinated to the general plan of construction of the
animals in which they occur. Thus, in the Radiates it is circular; in
the Articulates, linear, or upon an axis. But, as the conditions of life
require consentaneousness of motion in the different parts, these nerve
arcs are not left isolated or without connexion with each other. As it
is anatomically termed, they are commissured, nerve fibres passing from
each to its neighbours, and each is thus brought into sympathy or
connexion with all the others.
[Sidenote: First appearance of special ganglia.] The next advance is a
very important one, for it indicates the general plan on which the
nervous system is to be developed: it is the dedication of special nerve
arcs to special duties. Thus, in the higher articulates and molluscs,
there are such combinations expressly for the purpose of respiration and
deglutition. Their action is altogether of the reflex kind; it takes
place without consciousness. These ganglia are commissured for the sake
of sympathetic action, and frequently several of them are coalesced for
the sake of package.
This principle of dedication to special uses is carried out in the
introduction of ganglia intended to be affected by light, or sounds, or
odours. The impressions of those agencies are carried to the ganglion by
its centripetal fibres. Such ganglia of special action are most commonly
coalesced together, forming nervous masses of conspicuous size; they are
always commissured with those for ordinary motions, the action being
reflex, as in the preceding case, though of a higher order, since it is
attended with consciousness.
[Sidenote: They are automatic mechanisms.] Such being the elementary
construction of a nervous system, it is plain that animal tribes in
which it exists in no higher degree of complexity must be merely
automata. In this remark many insects must be included, for the instinct
they display is altogether of a mechanical kind, and, so far as they are
concerned, without design. Their actions are uniformly alike; what one
does under given circumstances, under the same circumstances another
will certainly do. They are incapable of education, they learn nothing
by experience, and the acts they are engaged in they accomplish as well
at the first trial as ever after.
Of parts like those described, and of others of a higher order, as will
be presently seen, the most complex nervous system, even that of man, is
composed. [Sidenote: Evidence to be used in these investigations.] It
might, perhaps, be expected that for the determination of the duty of
each part of such complex system the physiologist must necessarily
resort to experiment, observing what functions have been injured or
destroyed when given portions have been removed by his knife. At the
best, however, evidence of that kind must be very unsatisfactory on
account of the shock the entire system receives in vivisections, and
accordingly, artificial evidence can, for the most part, be used only in
a corroborative way. But, as Cuvier observed, the hand of Nature has
prepared for us these very experiments without that drawback. The animal
series, as we advance upward from its lowest members, proves to us what
is the effect of the addition of new parts in succession to a nervous
system, as also does any individual thereof in its successive periods of
development. It is one of the most important discoveries of modern
physiology that, as respects their nervous system, we can safely
transfer our reasonings and conclusions from the case of the lowest to
that of the highest animal tribes.
The articulata present structures and a mode of action illustrating in a
striking manner the nervous system of man. Lengthwise upon their ventral
region is laid a double cord, with ganglia, like a string of beads;
sometimes the cords are a little distance apart, but more generally they
are coalesced, each pair of ganglia being fused into one. [Sidenote:
First introduction of governing ganglia.] To every segment of the body a
pair is supplied, each pair controlling its own segment, and acting
toward it automatically, each also acting like any of the others. But in
the region of the head there is a special pair, the cephalic ganglia,
receiving fibres from the eyes and other organs of sense. From them
proceed filaments to the ventral cord, establishing communications with
every segment. So every part has two connexions, one with its own
ventral ganglia, and one with the cephalic.
It is not difficult to determine experimentally the functions of the
ventral ganglia and those of the cephalic. If a centipede be
decapitated, its body is still capable of moving, the motion being
evidently of a reflex kind, originating in the pressure of the legs
against the surface on which they rest. [Sidenote: But thus far actions
are only instinctive.] The ventral cord, with its ganglia, is hence
purely an automatic mechanism. But if, in making the decapitation, we
leave a portion of the body in connexion with the head, we recognize
very plainly that the cephalic ganglia are exercising a governing power.
In the part from which they have been cut off the movement is forward,
regardless of any obstacle; in that to which they are attached there are
modifications in the motions, depending on sight or other special
senses; obstacles are avoided, and a variety of directions pursued. Yet
still the actions are not intelligent, only instinctive. The general
conclusion therefore is, that the cephalic ganglia are of a higher order
than the ventral, the latter being simply mechanical, the former
instinctive; but thus far there is no trace of intelligence.
[Sidenote: Nervous anatomy of vertebrates, as man.] In man these typical
parts are all present, and discharge the functions specified. His spinal
cord answers to the ventral cord of the articulates. It has its lateral
communications in the same way, and each segmental portion presents the
same reflex action. Toward its upper part it dilates to form the medulla
oblongata, sending forth nerves for respiration and deglutition.
[Sidenote: Their automatic apparatus.] Of these the action is still
reflex, as is proved by the involuntary movements of respiration and
deglutition. A portion of food being placed in the pharynx, contraction
instantly occurs, the will having no kind of control over the act of
swallowing. [Sidenote: Their instinctive apparatus.] Above or in front
of this enlargement is a series of ganglia, to which converge the nerves
of special sense--of hearing, sight, smell; these are, therefore, the
equivalents of the cephalic ganglia of insects, their function being
also the same. In the lowest vertebrates, as in the amphioxus, the
nervous system consists of nothing more. It may therefore be said to
have only two parts--the cord and the sensory ganglia, and to have two
functions--the automatic, attributable to the former, and the
instinctive, attributable to the latter.
[Sidenote: Their intellectual apparatus.] But as we advance from the low
vertebrates upward in the animal scale, we begin to detect new organs;
on the medulla oblongata a cerebellum, and on the sensory ganglia a
cerebrum. From this moment the animal displays reasoning powers, its
intelligence becoming more strikingly marked as the development of the
new organs is greater.
[Sidenote: Functions of the brain.] It remains to determine with
exactness the function of one of these new parts, the cerebrum; the
other portion, the cerebellum, being of minor interest, and connected,
probably, with the locomotive apparatus. For the same reason it is
unnecessary to speak of the sympathetic nerve, since it belongs to the
apparatus of organic life. Confining our attention, therefore, to the
true brain, or cerebrum, we soon recognize that the intelligence of an
animal is, in a general manner, proportional to the relative size of
this organ as compared with the sensory ganglia. We are also struck with
the fact that the cerebrum does not send forth to other portions any
independent fibres of its own, nor does it receive any from them, its
only means of communication being through the parts that have been
described--that is to say, through the sensory and automatic apparatus.
[Sidenote: Its relations to the instinctive and automatic portions.] The
cerebrum is therefore a mechanism of a higher order, and its
relationship with the thalami optici and corpora striata indicate the
conditions of its functions. It can only receive impressions which have
come through them, and only act upon the body through their intermedium.
[Sidenote: Its secondary and tertiary lobes.] Moreover, as we ascend the
animal scale, we find that these cerebral parts not only increase in
size, but likewise, in their turn, give rise to offshoots; secondary
lobes emerging posteriorly on the primary ones, and, in due season,
tertiary lobes posteriorly on the secondary. To these, in human anatomy,
the designations of anterior, middle, and posterior lobes have been
respectively given. In proportion, as this development has proceeded,
the intellectual qualities have become more varied and more profound.
[Sidenote: Action of the spinal cord alone.] The relation of the
cerebrum to the cranio-spinal axis is manifested by the circumstance
that the latter can act without the former. In sleep the cerebrum is, as
it were, torpid, but respiration, deglutition, and other reflex actions
go on. If we touch the palm of a sleeping infant our finger is instantly
grasped. [Sidenote: Conjoint action of the brain and cord.] But, though
the axis can work without the cerebrum, the cerebrum can not work
without the axis. Illustrations of these truths may be experimentally
obtained. An animal from which the cerebrum has been purposely removed
may be observed to perform actions automatic and instinctive, but never
intelligent; and that there is no difference between animals and man in
this respect is demonstrated by the numerous instances recorded in the
works of medicine and surgery of injuries by accident or disease to the
human nervous system, the effects corresponding to those artificially
produced in experiments on animals. This important observation,
moreover, shows that we may with correctness use the observations made
on animals in our investigations of the human system.
[Sidenote: Three distinct parts of the nervous system of man.] In the
nervous system of man our attention is therefore especially demanded by
three essentially distinct parts--the spinal cord, the sensory ganglia,
and the cerebrum. [Sidenote: They are the automatic, the instinctive,
the intellectual.] Of the first, the spinal cord, the action is
automatic; by its aid we can walk, from place to place, without
bestowing a thought on our movements; by it we swallow involuntarily; by
it we respire unconsciously. The second portion, the sensory ganglia,
is, as we have seen, the counterpart of the cephalic ganglia of
invertebrates; it is the place of reception of sensuous impressions and
the seat of consciousness. To these ganglia instinct is to be referred.
Their function is not at all impaired by the cerebrum superposed upon
them. The third portion, the cerebrum, is anatomically distinct. It is
the seat of ideas. It does not directly give rise to motions, being
obliged to employ for that purpose its intermediate automatic associated
apparatus. [Sidenote: Dominating control of the latter.] In this realm
of ideas thoughts spring forth suggestively from one another in a
perpetual train or flux, and yet the highest branch of the nervous
mechanism still retains traces of the modes of operation of the parts
from which it was developed. Its action is still often reflex. Reason is
not always able to control our emotions, as when we laugh or weep in
spite of ourselves, under the impression of some external incident. Nay,
more; the inciting cause may be, as we very well know, nothing
material--nothing but a recollection, an idea--and yet it is enough. But
these phenomena are perhaps restricted to the first or anterior lobes of
the brain, and, accordingly, we remark them most distinctly in children
and in animals. As the second and third lobes begin to exercise their
power, such effects are brought under control.
[Sidenote: Progressive nervous development in the animal series.] There
is, therefore, a regular progression, a definite improvement in the
nervous system of the animal series, the plan never varying, but being
persistently carried out, and thus offering a powerful argument for
relationship among all those successively improving forms, an
observation which becomes of the utmost interest to us in its
application to the vertebrates. In the amphioxus, as has been said, the
cranio-spinal axis alone exists; the Cyclostome fishes are but a step
higher. In fishes the true cerebrum appears at first in an insignificant
manner, a condition repeated in the early embryonic state both of birds
and mammals. An improvement is made in reptiles, whose cerebral
hemispheres are larger than their optic lobes. As we advance to birds, a
further increase occurs; the hemispheres are now of nearly sufficient
dimensions to cover over those ganglia. In the lower mammals there is
another step, yet not a very great one. But from the anterior lobes,
which thus far have constituted the entire brain, there are next to be
developed the middle lobes. In the Rodents the progress is still
continued, and in the Ruminants and Pachyderms the convolutions have
become well marked. [Sidenote: It attains its maximum in man.] In the
higher carnivora and quadrumana the posterior or tertiary lobes appear.
The passage from the anthropoid apes to man brings us to the utmost
development thus far attained by the nervous system. The cerebrum has
reached its maximum organization by a continued and unbroken process of
development.
[Sidenote: The same progressive development occurs in each individual
man.] This orderly development of the nervous system in the animal
series is recognized again in the gradual development of the individual
man. The primitive trace, as it faintly appears in the germinal
membrane, marks out the place presently to be occupied by the
cranio-spinal axis, and, that point of development gained, man answers
to the amphioxus. Not until the twelfth week of embryonic life does he
reach the state permanently presented by birds; at this time the
anterior lobes are only perceptible. In four or six weeks more the
middle lobes are evolved posteriorly on the anterior, and, finally, in a
similar manner, the tertiary or posterior ones are formed. And thus it
appears that, compared with the nervous system of other animals, that of
man proceeds through the same predetermined succession of forms. Theirs
suffers an arrest, in some instances at a lower, in some at a higher
point, but his passes onward to completion.
[Sidenote: It occurs again in the entire life of the globe.] But that is
not all. The biography of the earth, the life of the entire globe,
corresponds to this progress of the individual, to this orderly relation
of the animal series. Commencing with the oldest rocks that furnish
animal remains, and advancing to the most recent, we recognize a
continual improvement in construction, indicated by the degree of
advancement of the nervous system. The earliest fishes did not proceed
beyond that condition of the spinal column which is to be considered as
embryonic. The Silurian and Devonian rocks do not present it in an
ossified state. Fishes, up to the Carboniferous epoch, had a
heterocercal tail, just as the embryos of osseous fishes of the present
time have up to a certain period of their life. There was, therefore, an
arrest in the old extinct forms, and an advance to a higher point in the
more modern. The buckler-headed fishes of the Devonian rocks had their
respiratory organs and much of their digestive apparatus in the head,
and showed an approximation to the tadpoles or embryos of the frog. The
crocodiles of the oolite had biconcave vertebrae, like the embryos of the
recent ones which have gained the capability of making an advance to a
higher point. In the geological order, reptiles make their appearance
next after fishes, and this is what we should expect on the principle of
an ascending nervous development. Not until long after come birds, later
in date and higher in nervous advancement, capable not only of instinct,
but also of intelligence. Of mammals, the first that appear are what we
should have expected--the marsupials; but among the tertiary rocks, very
many other forms are presented, the earlier ones, whether herbivorous or
carnivorous, having a closer correspondence to the archetype than the
existing ones, save in their embryonic states, the analogies occurring
in such minor details as the possession of forty-four teeth. [Sidenote:
Absolute necessity of admitting transmutation of forms.] The biography
of the earth is thus, on the great scale, typical of individual life,
even that of man, and the succession of species in the progress of
numberless ages is the counterpart of the transmutation of an individual
from form to form. As in a dissolving view, new objects emerge from old
ones, and new forms spontaneously appear without the exercise of any
periodical creative act.
[Sidenote: Life of man from infancy to maturity in accordance with his
anatomy.] For some days after birth the actions of the human being are
merely reflex. Its cranio-spinal axis alone is in operation, and thus
far it is only an automaton. But soon the impressions of external
objects begin to be registered or preserved in the sensory ganglia, and
the evidences of memory appear. The first token of this is perhaps the
display of an attachment to persons, not through any intelligent
recognition of relationship, but merely because of familiarity. This is
followed by the manifestation of a liking to accustomed places and a
dread of strange ones. At this stage the infant is leading an
instinctive life, and has made no greater advance than many of the lower
mammals; but they linger here, while he proceeds onward. He soon shows
high powers of memory, the exercise of reason in the determinations of
judgment, and in the adaptation of varied means to varied ends.
Such is therefore the process of development of the nervous system of
man; such are the powers which consequently he successively displays.
His reason at last is paramount. No longer are his actions exclusively
prompted by sensations; they are determined much more by ideas that have
resulted from his former experiences. While animals which approach him
most closely in construction require an external stimulus to commence a
train of thought, he can direct his mental operations, and in this
respect is parted from them by a vast interval. The states through which
he has passed are the automatic, the instinctive, the intellectual; each
has its own apparatus, and all at last work harmoniously together.
[Sidenote: Every person consists of two lateral individuals.] But
besides this superposition of an instinctive apparatus upon an automatic
one, and an intellectual upon an instinctive, the nervous system
consists of two equal and symmetrical lateral portions, a right half and
a left. Each person may be considered as consisting in reality of two
individuals. The right half may be stricken with palsy, the left be
unimpaired; one may lose its sight or hearing, the other may retain
them. These lateral halves lead independent lives. Yet, though
independent in this sense, they are closely connected in another. The
brain of the right side rules over the left half of the body, that of
the left side rules over the right of the body. [Sidenote: Consequences
of this doubleness of construction.] On the relationships and
antagonisms of the two halves of the cerebro-spinal system must be
founded our explanations of the otherwise mysterious phenomena of double
and alternate life; of the sentiment of pre-existence; of trains of
thought, often double, but never triple; of the wilful delusions of
castle-building, in which one hemisphere of the brain listens to the
romance suggestions of the other, though both well know that the subject
they are entertaining themselves with is a mere fiction. The strength
and precision of mental operations depend as much upon the complete
equivalency of the two lateral halves as upon their absolute
development. It is scarcely to be expected that great intellectual
indications will be given by him, one of whose cerebral hemispheres is
unequal to the other. But for the detailed consideration of these topics
I may refer the reader to my work on Physiology. He will there find the
explanation of the nature of registering ganglia; the physical theory of
memory; the causes of our variable psychical powers at different times;
the description of the ear as the organ of time; the eye as the organ of
space; the touch as that of pressures and temperatures; the smell and
taste as those for the chemical determination of gases and liquids.
[Sidenote: Conclusions from the foregoing anatomical facts.] From a
consideration of the construction, development, and action of the
nervous system of man, we may gain correct views of his relations to
other organic beings, and obtain true psychical and metaphysical
theories. There is not that homogeneousness in his intellectual
structure which writers on those topics so long supposed. It is a triple
mechanism. [Sidenote: Man a member of the animal series.] A gentle, a
gradual, a definite development reaches its maximum in him without a
breach of continuity. Parts which, because of their completion, are
capable of yielding in him such splendid results, are seen in a
rudimentary and useless condition in organisms very far down below. On
the clear recognition of this rudimentary, this useless state, very much
depends. It indicates the master-fact of psychology--the fact that
Averroes overlooked--that, while man agrees with inferior beings in the
type of his construction, and passes in his development through
transformations analogous to theirs, he differs from them all in this,
that he alone possesses an accountable, an immortal soul. It is true
that there are some which closely approach him in structure, but the
existence of structure by no means implies the exercise of functions. In
the still-born infant, the mechanism for respiration, the lungs, is
completed; but the air may never enter, and the intention for which they
were formed never be carried out.
[Sidenote: His life and that of the planet alike.] Moreover, it appears
that the order of development in the life of individual man and the
order of development in the life of the earth are the same, their common
features indicating a common plan. The one is the movement of a few
hours, the other of myriads of ages. This sameness of manner in their
progression points out their dependence on a law immutable and
universal. The successive appearance of the animal series in the endless
course of time has not, therefore, been accidental, but as predetermined
and as certain as the successive forms of the individual. In the latter
we do not find any cause of surprise in the assumption of states ever
increasing in improvement, ever rising higher and higher toward the
perfection destined to be attained. We look upon it as the course of
nature. Why, then, should we consider the extinctions and creations of
the former as offering any thing unaccountable, as connected with a
sudden creative fiat or with an arbitrary sentence of destruction?
[Sidenote: Progress of humanity is according to law.] In this book I
have endeavoured to investigate the progress of humanity, and found that
it shows all the phases of individual movement, the evidence employed
being historical, and, therefore, of a nature altogether different from
that on which our conclusions in the collateral instances rest. It may
serve to assure us that the ideas here presented are true when we
encounter, at the close of our investigation, this harmony between the
life of the individual, the life of society, and the life of the earth.
Is it probable that the individual proceeds in his movement of
development under law, that the planet also proceeds in its movements
under law, but that society does not proceed under law?
[Sidenote: Eternity and universality of that law.] Man, thus, is the
last term of an innumerable series of organisms, which, under the
domination of law, has, in the lapse of time, been evolving. Law has
controlled the inorganic world, and caused the earth to pass through
various physical conditions, gently and continuously succeeding one
another. The plastic forms of organic beings have been modelled to suit
those changing conditions. The invariability of that law is indicated by
the numberless ages through which it has been maintained, its
universality by its holding good in the life of the meanest individual.
But it is only a part of sociology that we have considered, and of which
we have investigated the development. [Sidenote: Comparative sociology.]
In the most philosophical aspect the subject includes comparative as
well as human sociology. For, though there may not be society where
actions are simply reflex, there is a possibility of it where they are
instinctive, as well as where they are intellectual. Its essential
condition being intercommunication, there are necessarily modifications
depending respectively on touch or upon the higher and more delicate
senses. That is none the less society which, among insects, depends upon
antennal contacts. Human society, founded on speech, sight, hearing, has
its indistinct beginnings, its rudiments, very low down in the animal
scale, as in the bell-like note which some of the nudibranchiate
gasteropods emit, or the solitary midnight tapping with which the
death-watch salutes his mate. Society resting on instinct is
characterised by immobility; it is necessarily unprogressive. Society
resting on intellect is always advancing.
But, for the present, declining this general examination of sociology,
and limiting our attention strictly to that of humanity, we can not fail
to be struck with the fact that in us the direction of evolution is
altogether toward the intellectual, a conclusion equally impressed upon
us whether our mode of examination be anatomical or historical.
[Sidenote: The aim of Nature is not at moral, but intellectual
development.] Anatomically we find no provision in the nervous system
for the improvement of the moral, save indirectly through the
intellectual, the whole aim of development being for the sake of
intelligence. Historically, in the same manner, we find that the
intellectual has always led the way in social advancement, the moral
having been subordinate thereto. The former hay been the mainspring of
the movement, the latter passively affected. It is a mistake to make the
progress of society depend on that which is itself controlled by a
higher power. In the earlier and inferior stages of individual life we
may govern through the moral alone. In that way we may guide children,
but it is to the understanding of the adult that we must appeal.
[Sidenote: Systems of policy must be in accordance therewith.] A system
working only through the moral must sooner or later come into an
antagonism with the intellectual, and, if it do not contain within
itself a means of adaptation to the changing circumstances, it must in
the end be overthrown. This was the grand error of that Roman system
which presided while European civilization was developing. It assumed as
its basis a uniform, a stationary psychological condition in man.
Forgetting that the powers of the mind grow with the possessions of the
mind, it considered those who lived in past generations as being in no
respect mentally inferior to those who are living now, though our
children at sixteen may have a wider range of knowledge than our
ancestors at sixty. That such an imperfect system could exist for so
many ages is a proof of a contemporary condition of undeveloped
intellect, just as we see that the understanding of a child does not
revolt against the moral suasion, often intrinsically feeble, through
which we attempt to influence him. But it would be as unphilosophical to
treat with disdain the ideas that have served for a guide in the earlier
ages of European life, as to look with contempt on the motives that have
guided us in youth. Their feebleness and incompetency are excused by
their suitability to the period of life to which they are applied.
But whoever considers these things will see that there is a term beyond
which the application of such methods cannot be extended. [Sidenote: The
Age of Reason demands intellectual incentives for the individual.] The
head of a family would act unwisely if he attempted to apply to his son
at twenty-one the methods he had successfully used at ten; such methods
could be only rendered effective by a resort to physical compulsion. A
great change in the intervening years has taken place, and ideas once
intrinsically powerful can exert their influence no more. The moral may
have remained unchanged; it may be precisely as it was--no better, no
worse; but that which has changed is the understanding. Reasoning and
inducements of an intellectual kind are now needful. An attempt to
persist in an absolute system by constraint would only meet with
remonstrance and derision.
[Sidenote: And the same holds good for humanity.] If it is thus with the
individual, so it is likewise with humanity. For centuries nations may
live under forms that meet their requirements, forms suitable to a
feeble state; but it is altogether illusory to suppose that such an
adaptedness can continue for ever. A critical eye discerns that the
mental features of a given generation have become different from those
of its ancestors. New ideas and a new manner of action are the tokens
that a modification has silently taken place. Though after a short
interval the change might not amount to much, in the course of time
there must inevitably be exhibited the spectacle of a society that had
outgrown its forms, its rules of life.
Wherever, then, such a want of harmony becomes perceptible, where the
social system is incompatible with the social state, and is, in effect,
an obsolete anachronism, it is plainly unphilosophical and unwise to
resort to means of compulsion. No matter what the power of governments
or of human authorities may be, it is impossible for them to stop the
intellectual advancement, for it forces its way by an organic law over
which they have no kind of control.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Summary of the investigation of the position of man.]
Astronomers sometimes affirm that the sun is the cause, directly or
indirectly, of all the mechanical movements that take place upon the
earth. Physiologists say that he is the generator of the countless
living forms with which her surface is adorned.
[Sidenote: Influence of the sun on inorganic nature, and on organic
nature.] If the light, the warmth, and other physical influences of the
sun could be excluded, there would be a stagnant and icy sea encircling
silent and solitary shores. But the veil once withdrawn, or the
influences permitted to take effect, this night and stillness would give
place to activity and change. In the morning beams of the day, the
tropical waters, expanding, would follow from east to west the course of
the sun, each renewed dawn renewing the impulse, and adding force to the
gentle but resistless current. At one place the flowing mass would move
compactly; at another, caught by accidentally projecting rocks, it would
give off little eddies, expending their share of its force; or,
compressed in narrow passages, it would rush impetuously along. Upon its
surface myriads of momentary ripples would play, or opposing winds,
called into existence by similar disturbances in the air, would force it
into waves, making the shores resound with their breaking surge. Twice
every day, under the conjoint influences of the sun and moon, as if the
inanimate globe itself were breathing, the tide would rise and fall
again upon the bosom of the deep.
The eddy, the ripple, the wave, the current, are accidental forms
through which the originally imparted force is displayed. They are all
expending power. Their life, if such a term can be used, is not the
property of themselves, but of the ocean to which they belong.
Influences which thus metaphorically give life to the sea, in reality
give life to the land. Under their genial operation a wave of verdure
spreads over the earth, and countless myriads of animated things attend
it, each like the eddies and ripples of the sea, expending its share of
the imparted force. The life of these accidental forms, through which
power is being transposed, belongs, not to itself, but to the universe
of which it is a part.
[Sidenote: Nature of animals.] Of the waves upon the ocean there may not
be two alike. The winds, the shores, their mutual interferences, a
hundred extraneous influences, mould them into their ephemeral shapes.
So those collections of matter of which animated things consist offer a
plastic substance to be modified. The number of individuals counts like
the ripples of the sea.
[Sidenote: They constitute a series.] As external circumstances change,
animated forms change with them, and thus arises a series of which the
members stand in a connected relation. The affiliated sequence of the
external circumstances is represented in the affiliated succession of
living types. From parts, or from things already existing, new parts and
new things emerge, the new not being added or juxtaposed to the old, but
evolved or developed from it. From the homogeneous or general, the
heterogeneous or special is brought forth. A new member, fashioned in
secrecy and apart, is never abruptly ingrafted on any living thing. New
animal types have never been suddenly located among old ones, but have
emerged from them by process of transmutation. As certainly as that
every living thing must die, so must it reach perfection by passing
through a succession of subordinate forms. An individual, or even a
species, is only a zoological phase in a passage to something beyond. An
instantaneous adult, like an immortal animal, is a physiological
impossibility.
[Sidenote: The doctrine of progressive improvement.] This bringing forth
of structure from structure, of function from function, incidentally
presents, upon the whole, an appearance of progressive improvement, and
for such it has been not unfrequently mistaken. Thus if the lowest
animals, which move by reflex action instantly but unconsciously, when
an impression is made upon them, be compared with the higher ones, whose
motions are executed under the influence of antecedent impressions, and
are therefore controlled by ideas, there seems to have been such an
improvement. Still, however, it is altogether of a physical kind. Every
impression of which the dog or elephant is conscious implies change in
the nerve centres, and these changes are at the basis of the memory
displayed by those animals. Our own experience furnishes many
illustrations. When we gaze steadfastly on some brightly-illuminated
object, and then close or turn aside our eyes, a fading impression of
the object at which we have been looking still remains; or, when a spark
is made to revolve rapidly, we think we see a circle of fire, the
impression upon the retina lasting until the spark has completed its
revolution. In like manner, though far more perfectly, are impressions
registered or stored up in the sensory ganglia, the phantoms of
realities that have once been seen. In those organs countless images may
thus be superposed.
[Sidenote: Analogies between animals and man.] Man agrees with animals
thus approaching him in anatomical construction in many important
respects. He, too, represents a continuous succession of matter, a
continuous expenditure of power. Impressions of external things are
concealed in his sensory ganglia, to be presented for inspection in
subsequent times, and to constitute motives of action. But he differs
from them in this, that what was preparatory and rudimentary in them is
complete and perfect in him. From the instrument of instinct there has
been developed an instrument of intellection. In the most perfect
quadrupeds, an external stimulus is required to start a train of
thought, which then moves on in a determinate way, their actions
indicating that, under the circumstances, they reason according to the
same rules as man, drawing conclusions more or less correct from the
facts offered to their notice. But, the instrument of intellection
completed, it is quickly brought into use, and now results of the
highest order appear. The succession of ideas is under control; new
trains can be originated not only by external causes, but also by an
interior, a spontaneous influence. The passive has become active.
Animals remember, man alone recollects. Every thing demonstrates that
the development and completion of this instrument of intellection has
been followed by the super-addition of an agent or principle that can
use it.
[Sidenote: Points of distinction between them.] There is, then, a
difference between the brutes and man, not only as respects
constitution, but also as respects destiny. Their active force merges
into other mundane forces and disappears, but the special principle
given to him endures. We willingly persuade ourselves that this
principle is actually personified, and that the shades of the dead
resemble their living forms. To Eastern Asia, where philosophy has been
accustomed to the abstract idea of force, the pleasures we derive from
this contemplation are denied, the cheerless doctrine of Buddhism
likening the life of man to the burning of a lamp, and death to its
extinction. Perceiving in the mutation of things, as seen in the narrow
range of human vision, a suggestion of the variations and distribution
of power throughout nature, it rises to a grand, and, it must be added,
an awful conception of the universe.
But Europe, and also the Mohammedan nations of Asia, have not received
with approbation that view. [Sidenote: The human soul.] To them there is
an individualized impersonation of the soul, and an expectation of its
life hereafter. The animal fabric is only an instrument for its use. The
eye is the window through which that mysterious principle perceives:
through the ear are brought to its attention articulate sounds and
harmonies; by the other organs the sensible qualities of bodies are made
known. From the silent chambers and winding labyrinths of the brain the
veiled enchantress looks forth on the outer world, and holds the
subservient body in an irresistible spell.
[Sidenote: Extension of these views to the nature of the world.] This
difference between the Oriental and European ideas respecting the nature
of man reappears in their ideas respecting the nature of the world. The
one sees in it only a gigantic engine, in which stars and orbs are
diffusing power and running through predestined mutations. The other,
with better philosophy and a higher science, asserts a personal God, who
considers and orders events in a vast panorama before him.