Part I. MATHESIS.--_Pneumatogeny_: Primary Art, Primary

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ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

UNIVERSAL PROGRESS;

A Series of Discussions.

BY

HERBERT SPENCER,

AUTHOR OF

"THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY," "SOCIAL STATICS,"

"ESSAYS, MORAL, POLITICAL AND AESTHETIC," "EDUCATION,"

"FIRST PRINCIPLES," ETC., ETC., ETC.

WITH

_A NOTICE OF SPENCER'S "NEW SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY."_

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

443 & 445 BROADWAY.

1865.

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

PUBLISHED BY D. APPLETON & CO.

_EDUCATION--INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL._ 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth,

$1.25.

_A NEW SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY._ Vol. I. _FIRST PRINCIPLES._ Large 12mo.

503 pages. Cloth $2.00.

_PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY._ In Quarterly Parts, by Subscription. $2.00

per year.

NOW IN PRESS:

_ESSAYS--MORAL, POLITICAL, AND AESTHETIC._ 1 vol., large 12mo. Cloth.

_Copies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price._

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the

Southern District of New York.

AMERICAN NOTICE

OF A

NEW SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY.

BY

HERBERT SPENCER.

The author of the following work, Mr. Herbert Spencer, of England, has

entered upon the publication of a new philosophical system, so original and

comprehensive as to deserve the attention of all earnest inquirers. He

proposes nothing less than to unfold such a complete philosophy of Nature,

physical, organic, mental and social, as Science has now for the first time

made possible, and which, if successfully executed, will constitute a

momentous step in the progress of thought.

His system is designed to embrace five works; each a distinct treatise, but

all closely connected in plan, and treating of the following subjects in

the order presented: 1st, First Principles; 2d, Principles of Biology; 3d,

Principles of Psychology; 4th, Principles of Sociology; 5th, Principles of

Morality. The opening work of the series--_First Principles_--though

somewhat of an introductory character, is an independent and completed

argument. It consists of two parts: first, "The Unknowable," and second,

"The Laws of the Knowable." Unattractive as these titles may seem, they

indicate a discussion of great originality and transcendent interest.

When public consideration is invited to a system of philosophy so extended

as to comprehend the entire scheme of nature and humanity, and so bold as

to deal with them in the ripest spirit of science, it is natural that many

should ask at the outset how the author stands related to the problem of

Religion. Mr. Spencer finds this the preliminary question of his

philosophy, and engages with it at the threshold of his undertaking. Before

attempting to work out a philosophical scheme, he sees that it is at first

necessary to find how far Philosophy can go and where she must stop--the

necessary limits of human knowledge, or the circle which bounds all

rational and legitimate investigation; and this opens at once the profound

and imminent question of the spheres and relation of Religion and Science.

Mr. Spencer is a leading representative of that school of thinkers which

holds that, as man is finite, he can grasp and know only the finite;--that

by the inexorable conditions of thought all real knowledge is relative and

phenomenal, and hence that we cannot go behind phenomena to find the

ultimate causes and solve the ultimate mystery of being. In such assertions

as that "God cannot by any searching be found out;" that "a God understood

would be no God at all;" and that "to think God _is_ as we think Him to be

is blasphemy," we see the recognition of this idea of the inscrutableness

of the Absolute Cause. The doctrine itself is neither new nor limited to a

few exceptional thinkers. It is widely affirmed by enlightened science, and

pervades nearly all the cultivated theology of the present day. Sir William

Hamilton and Dr. Mansel are among its recent and ablest expounders. "With

the exception," says Sir William Hamilton, "of a few late absolutist

theorizers in Germany, this is perhaps the truth of all others most

harmoniously reechoed by every philosopher of every school;" and among

these he names Protagoras, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Melanchthon, Scaliger,

Bacon, Spinoza, Newton, and Kant.

But though Mr. Spencer accepts this doctrine, he has not left it where he

found it. The world is indebted to him for having advanced the argument to

a higher and grander conclusion--a conclusion which changes the

philosophical aspect of the whole question, and involves the profoundest

consequences. Hamilton and Mansel bring us, by their inexorable logic, to

the result that we can neither know nor conceive the Infinite, and that

every attempt to do so involves us in contradiction and absurdity; but

having reached this vast negation, their logic and philosophy break down.

Accepting their conclusions as far as they go, Mr. Spencer maintains the

utter incompleteness of their reasoning, and, pushing the inquiry still

farther, he demonstrates that though we cannot grasp the Infinite in

_thought_, we can realize it in _consciousness_. He shows that though by

the laws of thinking we are rigorously prevented from forming a

_conception_ of that Incomprehensible, Omnipotent Power by which we are

acted upon in all phenomena, yet we are, by the laws of thought, equally

prevented from ridding ourselves of the _consciousness_ of this Power. He

proves that this consciousness of a Supreme Cause is not _negative_, but

_positive_--that it is indestructible, and has a higher certainty than any

other belief whatever. The Unknowable, then, in the view of Mr. Spencer, is

not a mere term of negation, nor a word employed only to express our

ignorance, but it means that Infinite Reality, that Supreme but Inscrutable

Cause, of which the universe is but a manifestation, and which has an

ever-present disclosure in human consciousness.

Having thus found an indestructible basis in human nature for the religious

sentiment, Mr. Spencer next shows that all religions rest upon this

foundation, and contain a fundamental verity--a soul of truth, which

remains when their conflicting doctrines and discordant peculiarities are

mutually cancelled. In the lower and grosser forms of religion this truth

is but dimly discerned, but becomes ever clearer the more highly the

religion is developed, surviving every change, and remaining untouched by

the severest criticism.

Mr. Spencer then proceeds to demonstrate that all science tends to

precisely the same great conclusion;--in all directions investigation leads

to insoluble mystery. Alike in the external and the internal worlds, the

man of science sees himself in the midst of perpetual changes of which he

can discover neither the beginning nor the end. If he looks inward, he

perceives that both ends of the thread of consciousness are beyond his

grasp. If he resolve the appearances, properties, and movements of

surrounding things into manifestations of Force in Space and Time, he still

finds that Force, Space, and Time pass all understanding. Thus do all lines

of argument converge to the same conclusion. Whether we scrutinize internal

consciousness or external phenomena, or trace to their root the faiths of

mankind, we reach that common ground where all antagonisms disappear--that

highest and most abstract of all truths, which is affirmed with equal

certainty by both religion and science, and in which may be found their

full and final reconciliation.

It is perhaps hardly just to Mr. Spencer to state his position upon this

grave subject without giving also the accompanying reasoning; but so

compressed and symmetrical is his argument that it cannot be put into

narrower compass without mutilation. To those interested in the advance of

thought in this direction, we may say that the discussion will be found

unsurpassed in nobleness of aim, eloquence of statement, philosophic

breadth, and depth and power of reasoning.

This portion of the work embraces five chapters, as follows: I. Religion

and Science; II. Ultimate Religious Ideas; III. Ultimate Scientific Ideas;

IV. The Relativity of all Knowledge; V. The Reconciliation.

The second and larger portion of _First Principles_ Mr. Spencer designates

"The Laws of the Knowable." By these he understands those fundamental and

universal principles reached by scientific investigation, which underlie

all phenomena, and are necessary to their explanation. Certain great laws

have been established which are found equally true in all departments of

nature, and these are made the foundation of his philosophy. The sublime

idea of the Unity of the Universe, to which science has long been tending,

Mr. Spencer has made peculiarly his own. Through the vast diversities of

nature he discerns a oneness of order and method, which necessitates but

one philosophy of being; the same principles being found to regulate the

course of celestial movement, terrestrial changes, and the phenomena of

life, mind, and society. These may all be comprehended in a single

philosophical scheme, so that each shall throw light upon the other, and

the mastery of one help to the comprehension of all.

To Mr. Spencer the one conception which spans the universe and solves the

widest range of its problems--which reaches outward through boundless space

and back through illimitable time, resolving the deepest questions of life,

mind, society, history, and civilization, which predicts the glorious

possibilities of the future, and reveals the august method by which the

Divine Power works evermore,--this one, all-elucidating conception, is

expressed by the term EVOLUTION. To this great subject he has devoted his

remarkable powers of thought for many years, and stands toward it not only

in the relation of an expositor, but also in that of a discoverer.

The fact that all living beings are developed from a minute structureless

germ has long been known, while the law which governs their evolution--that

the change is ever from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous--has been

arrived at within a generation. But this fact of growth is by no means

limited to the physical history of plants and animals--it is exemplified

upon a far more extended scale. Astronomers hold that the solar system has

gone through such a process, and Geologists teach that the earth has had

its career of evolution. Animals have a mental as well as a physical

development, and there is also a progress of knowledge, of religion, of the

arts and sciences, of institutions, manners, governments, and civilization

itself. Mr. Spencer has the honour of having first established the

universality of the principle by which all these changes are governed. The

law of evolution, which has been hitherto limited to plants and animals, he

demonstrates to be the law of _all_ evolution. This doctrine is unfolded in

the first Essay of the present volume, and is more or less fully

illustrated in the others; but it will be found elaborately worked out in

the second part of _First Principles_.

The course of the discussion in this part of the work will be best shown by

enumerating the titles to the chapters, which are as follows: I. Laws in

General; II. The Law of Evolution; III. The Same continued; IV. The Causes

of Evolution; V. Space, Time, Matter, Motion, and Force; VI. The

Indestructibility of Matter; VII. The Continuity of Motion; VIII. The

Persistence of Force; IX. The Correlation and Equivalence of Forces; X. The

Direction of Motion; XI. The Rhythm of Motion; XII. The Conditions

Essential to Evolution; XIII. The Instability of the Homogeneous; XIV. The

Multiplication of Effects; XV. Differentiation and Integration; XVI.

Equilibration; XVII. Summary and Conclusion.

A most interesting and fruitful field of thought, it will be seen, is here

traversed by our author, and the latest and highest questions of science

are discussed under novel aspects and in new relations. Not only do the

pages abound with acute suggestions and fresh views, but the entire

argument, in its leading demonstrations, and the full breadth of its

philosophic scope, is stamped with a high originality.

* * * * *

Having thus determined the sphere of philosophy and ascertained those

fundamental principles governing all orders of phenomena which are to be

subsequently used for guidance and verification, the author proceeds to the

second work of the series, which is devoted to Biology, or the Science of

Life. He regards life not as a foreign and unintelligible something, thrust

into the scheme of nature, of which we can know nothing save its mystery,

but as an essential part of the universal plan. The harmonies of life are

regarded as but phases of the universal harmony, and Biology is studied by

the same methods as other departments of science. The great truths of

Physics and Chemistry are applied to its elucidation; its facts are

collected, its inductions established, and constantly verified by the first

principles laid down at the outset. Apart from its connections with the

philosophical system, of which it forms a part, this work will have great

intrinsic interest. Nothing was more needed than a compact and

well-digested statement of those general principles of life to which

science has arrived, and Mr. Spencer's presentation is proving to be just

what is required. Some idea of his mode of treating the subject may be

formed by glancing over a few of his first chapter-headings. PART FIRST: I.

Organic Matter; II. The Actions of Forces on Organic Matter; III. The

Reactions of Organic Matter on Forces; IV. Proximate Definition of Life; V.

The Correspondence between Life and its Circumstances; VI. The Degree of

Life Varies with the Degree of Correspondence; VII. Inductions of Biology.

PART SECOND: I. Growth; II. Development; III. Function; IV. Waste and

Repair; V. Adaptation; VI. Individuality; VII. Genesis; VIII. Heredity; IX.

Variation; X. Genesis, Heredity and Variation; XI. Classification; XII.

Distribution.

* * * * *

In the scheme of nature Mind is ever associated with Life. The third

division of this philosophical system will therefore be Psychology, or the

Science of Mind. This great subject will be considered, not by the narrow

methods usual with metaphysicians, but in its broadest aspects as a phase

of nature's order--to be studied by observation and induction through the

whole range of psychical manifestation in animated beings. The subject of

mind will be regarded in the light of the great truths of Biology

previously established; the connections of mind and life will be traced;

the progress of mentality as exhibited in the animal grades, and the

evolution of the intellectual faculties in man will be delineated and the

cooperation of mind and nature in the production of ideas and intelligence

unfolded. We have no work upon mind of this comprehensive and thoroughly

scientific character: the materials are abundant, and the necessity of

their organization is widely recognized. That Mr. Spencer is eminently the

man to perform this great task is proved by the fact that he is already the

author of the most profound and able contribution to the advancement of

psychological science that has appeared for many years.

* * * * *

In the true philosophic order, Biology and Psychology prepare the way for

the study of social science, and hence the fourth part of Mr. Spencer's

system will treat of Sociology, or the natural laws of society. As a

knowledge of individuals must precede an understanding of their mutual

relations, so an exposition of the laws of life and mind, which constitute

the science of human nature, must precede the successful study of social

phenomena. In this part will be considered the development of society, or

that intellectual and moral progress which depends upon the growth of human

ideas and feelings in their necessary order. The evolution of political,

ecclesiastical, and industrial organizations will be traced, and a

statement made of those principles underlying all social progress, without

which there can be no successful regulation of the affairs of society. Mr.

Spencer's mind has long been occupied with these important questions, as

the reader will find by referring to his able work upon "Social Statics,"

published several years ago.

* * * * *

Lastly, in Part Fifth, Mr. Spencer proposes to consider the _Principles of

Morality_, bringing to bear the truths furnished by Biology, Psychology,

and Sociology, to determine the true theory of right living. He will show

that the true moral ideal and limit of progress is the attainment of an

equilibrium between constitution and conditions of existence, and trace

those principles of private conduct, physical, intellectual, moral, and

religious that follow from the conditions to complete individual life.

Those rules of human action which all civilized nations have registered as

essential laws--the inductions of morality--will be delineated, and also

those mutual limitations of men's actions necessitated by their coexistence

as units of society, which constitute the foundation of justice.

* * * * *

It cannot be doubted that the order here indicated, as it corresponds to

the method of nature, is the one which Philosophy must pursue in the

future. It combines the precision of science with the harmony and unity of

universal truth. The time is past when Biology can be considered with no

reference to the laws of Physics; Mind with no reference to the science of

Life, and Sociology, without having previously mastered the foregoing

subjects. The progress of knowledge is now toward more definite,

systematic, and comprehensive views, while it is the highest function of

intellect to coordinate and bind together its isolated and fragmentary

parts. In carrying out his great plan, therefore, Mr. Spencer is but

embodying the large philosophical tendencies of the age.

If it is urged that his scheme is too vast for any one man to accomplish,

it may be replied: 1st. That it is not intended to treat the various

subjects exhaustively, but only to state general principles with just

sufficient details for their clear illustration. 2d. A considerable portion

of the work is already issued, and much more is ready for publication,

while the author is still in the prime of life. 3d. It must be remembered

that intellects occasionally appear, endowed with that comprehensive grasp

and high organizing power which fits them for vast undertakings. The reader

will find at the close of the volume Mr. Spencer's Prospectus of his

system. That he who has so clearly mapped out his work is the proper one to

execute it, we think will be fully apparent to all who peruse the present

volume.

An impression prevails with many that Mr. Spencer belongs to the positive

school of M. Auguste Comte. This is an entire misapprehension; but the

position having been assumed by several of his reviewers, he repels the

charge in the following letter, which appeared in the _New Englander_ for

January, 1864.

_To the Editor of the New Englander_:

SIR:--While recognizing the appreciative tone and general candour of

the article in your last number, entitled "Herbert Spencer on Ultimate

Religious Ideas," allow me to point out one error which pervades it.

The writer correctly represents the leading positions of my argument,

but he inadvertently conveys a wrong impression respecting my

tendencies and sympathies. He says of me, "the spirit of his philosophy

is evidently that of the so-called positive method which has now many

partial disciples, as well as many zealous adherents among the thinkers

of England." Further on I am tacitly classed with "the English admirers

and disciples of the great Positivist;" and it is presently added that

"in Mr. Spencer we have an example of a positivist, who does not treat

the subject of religion with supercilious neglect." Here and

throughout, the implication is that I am a follower of Comte. This is a

mistake. That M. Comte has given a general exposition of the doctrine

and method elaborated by science, and has applied to it a name which

has obtained a certain currency, is true. But it is not true that the

holders of this doctrine and followers of this method are disciples of

M. Comte. Neither their modes of inquiry nor their views concerning

human knowledge in its nature and limits are appreciably different from

what they were before. If they are Positivists it is in the sense that

all men of science have been more or less consistently Positivists; and

the applicability of M. Comte's title to them no more makes them his

disciples than does its applicability to the men of science who lived

and died before M. Comte wrote, make them his disciples.

My own attitude toward M. Comte and his partial adherents has been all

along that of antagonism. In an essay on the "Genesis of Science,"

published in 1854, and republished with other essays in 1857, I have

endeavoured to show that his theory of the logical dependence and

historical development of the sciences is untrue. I have still among my

papers the memoranda of a second review (for which I failed to obtain a

place), the purpose of which was to show the untenableness of his

theory of intellectual progress. The only doctrine of importance in

which I agree with him--the relativity of all knowledge--is one common

to him and sundry other thinkers of earlier date; and even this I hold

in a different sense from that in which he held it. But on all points

that are distinctive of his philosophy, I differ from him. I deny his

Hierarchy of the Sciences. I regard his division of intellectual

progress into the three phases, theological, metaphysical, and

positive, as superficial. I reject utterly his Religion of Humanity.

And his ideal of society I hold in detestation. Some of his minor views

I accept; some of his incidental remarks seem to me to be profound, but

from everything which distinguishes Comteism as a system, I dissent

entirely. The only influence on my own course of thought which I can

trace to M. Comte's writings, is the influence that results from

meeting with antagonistic opinions definitely expressed.

Such being my position, you will, I think, see that by classing me as a

Positivist, and tacitly including me among the English admirers and

disciples of Comte, your reviewer unintentionally misrepresents me. I

am quite ready to bear the odium attaching to opinions which I do hold;

but I object to have added the odium attaching to opinions which I _do

not_ hold. If, by publishing this letter in your forthcoming number,

you will allow me to set myself right with the American public on this

matter, you will greatly oblige me. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

HERBERT SPENCER.

We take the liberty of making an extract from a private letter of Mr.

Spencer, which contains some further observations in the same connection:

"There appears to have got abroad in the United States, a very

erroneous impression respecting the influence of Comte's writings in

England. I suppose that the currency obtained by the words 'Positivism'

and 'Positivist,' is to blame for this. Comte having designated by the

term Positive Philosophy all that body of definitely-established

knowledge which men of science have been gradually organizing into a

coherent body of doctrine, and having habitually placed this in

opposition to the incoherent body of doctrine defended by theologians,

it has become the habit of the theological party to think of the

antagonist scientific party under this title of Positivists applied to

them by Comte. And thus, from the habit of calling them Positivists

there has grown up the assumption that they call themselves

Positivists, and that they are the disciples of Comte. The truth is

that Comte and his doctrines receive here scarcely any attention. I

know something of the scientific world in England, and I cannot name a

single man of science who acknowledges himself a follower of Comte, or

accepts the title of Positivist. Lest, however, there should be some

such who were unknown to me, I have recently made inquiries into the

matter. To Professor Tyndall I put the question whether Comte had

exerted any appreciable influence on his own course of thought: and he

replied, 'So far as I know, my own course of thought would have been

exactly the same had Comte never existed.' I then asked, 'Do you know

any men of science whose views have been affected by Comte's writings?'

and his answer was: 'His influence on scientific thought in England is

absolutely _nil_.' To the same questions Prof. Huxley returned, in

other words, the same answers. Professors Huxley and Tyndall, being

leaders in their respective departments, and being also men of general

culture and philosophic insight, I think that, joining their

impressions with my own, I am justified in saying that the scientific

world of England is wholly uninfluenced by Comte. Such small influence

as he has had here has been on some literary men and historians--men

who were attracted by the grand achievements of science, who were

charmed by the plausible system of scientific generalizations put forth

by Comte, with the usual French regard for symmetry and disregard for

fact, and who were, from their want of scientific training, unable to

detect the essential fallaciousness of his system. Of these the most

notable example was the late Mr. Buckle. Besides him, I can name but

seven men who have been in any appreciable degree influenced by Comte;

and of these, four, if not five, are scarcely known to the public."

Mr. Spencer's philosophical series is published by D. Appleton & Co., New

York, in quarterly parts (80 to 100 pages each), by subscription, at two

dollars a year. "_First Principles_" is issued in one volume, and four

parts of Biology have appeared. We subjoin some notices of his philosophy

from American and English reviews.

_From the National Quarterly Review_ (American.)

Comte thus founded social science, and opened a path for future

discoverers; but he did not perceive, any more than previous inquirers,

the fundamental law of human evolution. It was reserved for Herbert

Spencer to discover this all-comprehensive law which is found to

explain alike all the phenomena of man's history and all those of

external nature. This sublime discovery, that the universe is in a

continuous process of evolution from the homogeneous to the

heterogeneous, with which only Newton's law of gravitation is at all

worthy to be compared, underlies not only physics, but also history. It

reveals the law to which social changes conform.

_From the Christian Examiner._

Reverent and bold--reverent for truth, though not for the forms of

truth, and not for much that we hold true--bold in the destruction of

error, though without that joy in destruction which often claims the

name of boldness;--these works are interesting in themselves and in

their relation to the current thought of the time. They seem at first

sight to form the turning point in the positive philosophy, but closer

examination shows us that it is only a new and marked stage in a

regular growth. It is the positive philosophy reaching the higher

relations of our being, and establishing what before it ignored because

it had not reached, and by ignoring seemed to deny. This system

formerly excluded theology and psychology. In the works of Herbert

Spencer we have the rudiments of a positive theology and an immense

step toward the perfection of the science of psychology.... Such is a

brief and meagre sketch of a discussion which we would commend to be

followed in detail by every mind interested in theological studies.

Herbert Spencer comes in good faith from what has been so long a

hostile camp, bringing a flag of truce and presenting terms of

agreement meant to be honourable to both parties: let us give him a

candid hearing.... In conclusion, we would remark that the work of

Herbert Spencer referred to (First Principles) is not mainly

theological, but will present the latest and broadest generalizations

of science, and we would commend to our readers this author, too little

known among us, as at once one of the clearest of teachers and one of

the wisest and most honourable of opponents.

_From the New Englander._

Though we find here some unwarranted assumptions, as well as some grave

omissions, yet this part (Laws of the Knowable) may be considered, upon

the whole, as a fine specimen of scientific reasoning. Considerable

space is devoted to the "Law of Evolution" the discovery of which is

the author's chief claim to originality, and certainly evinces great

power of generalization. To quote the abstract definition without a

full statement of the inductions from which it is derived would convey

no fair impression of the breadth and strength of the thought which it

epitomizes. Of Mr. Spencer's general characteristics as a writer, we

may observe that his style is marked by great purity, clearness, and

force; though it is somewhat diffuse, and the abstract nature of some

of his topics occasionally renders his thought difficult of

apprehension. His treatment of his subjects is generally thorough and

sometimes exhaustive; his arguments are always ingenious if not always

convincing; his illustrations are drawn from almost every accessible

field of human knowledge, and his method of "putting things" is such as

to make the most of his materials. He is undoubtedly entitled to a high

rank among the speculative and philosophic writers of the present

day....

In Mr. Spencer we have the example of a positivist, who does not treat

the subject of religion with supercilious neglect, and who illustrates

by his own method of reasoning upon the highest objects of human

thought, the value of those metaphysical studies which it is so much

the fashion of his school to decry. For both these reasons the volume,

which we now propose to examine, deserves the careful attention of the

theologian who desires to know what one of the strongest thinkers of

his school, commonly thought atheistic in its tendencies, can say in

behalf of our ultimate religious ideas. For if we mistake not, in spite

of the very negative character of his own results, he has furnished

some strong arguments for the doctrine of a positive Christian

theology. We shall be mistaken if we expect to find him carelessly

passing these matters by (religious faith and theological science) as

in all respects beyond knowledge and of no practical concern. On the

contrary, he gives them profound attention, and arrives at conclusions

in regard to them which even the Christian theologian must allow to

contain a large measure of truth. While showing the _unsearchable

nature_ of the ultimate facts on which religion depends, he

demonstrates their _real existence_ and their great importance.... In

answering these questions Mr. Spencer has, we think, arrived nearer to

a true philosophy than either Hamilton or Mansel. At least he has

indicated in a more satisfactory manner than they have done, the

positive datum of consciousness that the unconditioned, though

inscrutable, _exists_. It may be said that Mr. Spencer is not

chargeable with excluding God from the universe, or denying all

revelation of Him in His works, since he earnestly defends the truth

that an inscrutable power is shown to _exist_. We certainly would not

charge him with theoretical atheism, holding as he does this ultimate

religious idea.

_From the North American Review._

The law of organic development announced in the early part of the

present century, by Goethe, Schelling, and Von Baer, and vaguely

expressed in the formula, that "evolution is always from the homogenous

to the heterogeneous, and from the simple to the complex," has recently

been extended by Herbert Spencer so as to include all phenomena

whatsoever. He has shown that this law of evolution is the law of _all_

evolution. Whether it be in the development of the earth or of life

upon its surface, in the development of Society, of government, of

manufactures, of commerce, of language, literature, science and art,

this same advance from the simple to the complex, through successive

differentiations, holds uniformly. The stupendous induction from all

classes of phenomena by which Mr. Spencer proceeds to establish and

illustrate his theorem cannot be given here.

_From the Christian Spectator_ (_English_).

Mr. Spencer claims for his view that it is not only a religious

position, but preeminently _the_ religious position; and we are most

thoroughly disposed to agree with him, though we think he does not

appreciate the force of his own argument, nor fully understand his own

words. For let us now attempt to realize the meaning of this fact, of

which Mr. Spencer and his compeers have put us in possession; let us

endeavour to see whether its bearings are really favorable or adverse

to religion. They are put forward indeed avowedly as adverse to any

other religion than a mere reverential acquiescence in ignorance

concerning all that truly exists; but it appears to us that this

supposed opposition to religion arises from the fact that the doctrine

itself is so profoundly, so intensely, so overwhelmingly religious,

nay, so utterly and entirely CHRISTIAN, that its true meaning could not

be seen for very glory. Like Moses, when he came down from the Mount,

this positive philosophy comes with a veil over its face, that its too

divine radiance may be hidden for a time. This is Science that has been

conversing with GOD, and brings in her hand His law written on tables

of stone.

_From the Reader._

To answer the question of the likelihood of the permanence of Mr.

Mill's philosophic reign, ... we should have to take account, among

other things, of the differences from Mr. Mill already shown by the

extraordinarily able and peculiarly original thinker whose name we have

associated with Mr. Mill's at the head of this article. We may take

occasion, at another time, to call attention to these speculations of

Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose works in the meantime, and especially that

new one whose title we have cited, we recommend to all those select

readers whose appreciation of masterly exposition, and great reach and

boldness of generalization, does not depend on their mere disposition

to agree with the doctrines propounded.

_From the British Quarterly Review._

Complete in itself, it is at the same time but a part of a whole,

which, if it should be constructed in proportion, will be ten times as

great. For these First Principles are merely the foundation of a system

of philosophy, bolder, more elaborate and comprehensive, perhaps, than

any other which has been hitherto designed in England.... Widely as it

will be seen we differ from the author on some points, we very

sincerely hope he may succeed in accomplishing the bold and magnificent

project he has mapped out.

_From the Cornhill Magazine._

Our "Survey," superficial as it is, must include at least the mention

of a work so lofty in aim, and so remarkable in execution as the system

of Philosophy which Mr. Herbert Spencer is issuing to subscribers....

In spite of all dissidence respecting the conclusions, the serious

reader will applaud the profound earnestness and thoroughness with

which these conclusions are advocated; the universal scientific

knowledge brought to bear on them by way of illustration, and the acute

and subtle thinking displayed in every chapter.

_From the Parthenon._

By these books he has wedged his way into fame in a manner distinctly

original, and curiously marked.... There is a peculiar charm in this

author's style, in that it sacrifices to no common taste, while at the

same time it makes the most abstruse questions intelligible.... The

book, if it is to be noticed with the slightest degree of fairness,

requires to be read and re-read, to be studied apart from itself and

with itself. For whatever may be its ultimate fate--although as the

ages go on it shall become but as the lispings of a little child, a

little more educated than other lisping children of the same time--this

is certain, that, as a book addressed to the present, it lifts the mind

far above the ordinary range of thought, suggests new associations,

arranges chaotic pictures, strikes often a broad harmony, and even

moves the heart by an intellectual struggle as passionless as fate, but

as irresistible as time.

_From the Critic._

Mr. Spencer is the foremost mind of the only philosophical school in

England which has arrived at a consistent scheme... Beyond this school

we encounter an indolent chaotic eclecticism. Mr. Spencer claims the

respect due to distinct and daring individuality; others are echoes or

slaves. Mr. Spencer may be a usurper, but he has the voice and gesture

of a king.

_From the Medico-Chirurgical Review._

Mr. Spencer is equally remarkable for his search after first

principles; for his acute attempts to decompose mental phenomena into

their primary elements; and for his broad generalizations of mental

activity, viewed in connection with nature, instinct, and all the

analogies presented by _life_ in its universal aspects.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The essays contained in the present volume were first published in the

English periodicals--chiefly the Quarterly Reviews. They contain ideas of

permanent interest, and display an amount of thought and labor evidently

much greater than is usually bestowed on review articles. They were written

with a view to ultimate republication in an enduring form, and were issued

in London with several other papers, under the title of "Essays;

Scientific, Political, and Speculative," first and second series;--the

former appearing in 1857, and the latter in 1863.

The interest created in Mr. Spencer's writings by the publication in this

country of his valuable work on "Education," and by criticisms of his other

works, has created a demand for these discussions which can only be

supplied by their republication. They are now, however, issued in a new

form, and are more suited to develop the author's purpose in their

preparation; for while each of these essays has its intrinsic and

independent claims upon the reader's attention, they are all at the same

time but parts of a connected and comprehensive argument. Nearly all of Mr.

Spencer's essays have relations more or less direct to the general doctrine

of Evolution--a doctrine which he has probably done more to unfold and

illustrate than any other thinker. The papers comprised in the present

volume are those which deal with the subject in its most obvious and

prominent aspects.

Although the argument contained in the first essay on "Progress; its Law

and Cause," has been published in an amplified form in the author's "First

Principles," it has been thought best to prefix it to the present

collection as a key to the full interpretation of the other essays.

To those who read this volume its commendation will be superfluous; we will

only say that those who become interested in his course of thought will

find it completely elaborated in his new System of Philosophy, now in

course of publication.

The remaining articles of Mr. Spencer's first and second series will be

shortly published, in a volume entitled "Essays; Moral, Political, and

AEsthetic."

NEW YORK, _March_, 1864.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. Progress: Its Law and Cause, 1

II. Manners and Fashion, 61

III. The Genesis of Science, 116

IV. The Physiology of Laughter, 194

V. The Origin and Function of Music, 210

VI. The Nebular Hypothesis, 239

VII. Bain on the Emotions and the Will, 300

VIII. Illogical Geology, 325

IX. The Development Hypothesis, 377

X. The Social Organism, 384

XI. Use and Beauty, 429

XII. The Sources of Architectural Types, 434

XIII. The Use of Anthropomorphism, 440

I. PROGRESS: ITS LAW AND CAUSE.

The current conception of Progress is somewhat shifting and indefinite.

Sometimes it comprehends little more than simple growth--as of a nation in

the number of its members and the extent of territory over which it has

spread. Sometimes it has reference to quantity of material products--as

when the advance of agriculture and manufactures is the topic. Sometimes

the superior quality of these products is contemplated: and sometimes the

new or improved appliances by which they are produced. When, again, we

speak of moral or intellectual progress, we refer to the state of the

individual or people exhibiting it; while, when the progress of Knowledge,

of Science, of Art, is commented upon, we have in view certain abstract

results of human thought and action. Not only, however, is the current

conception of Progress more or less vague, but it is in great measure

erroneous. It takes in not so much the reality of Progress as its

accompaniments--not so much the substance as the shadow. That progress in

intelligence seen during the growth of the child into the man, or the

savage into the philosopher, is commonly regarded as consisting in the

greater number of facts known and laws understood: whereas the actual

progress consists in those internal modifications of which this increased

knowledge is the expression. Social progress is supposed to consist in the

produce of a greater quantity and variety of the articles required for

satisfying men's wants; in the increasing security of person and property;

in widening freedom of action: whereas, rightly understood, social progress

consists in those changes of structure in the social organism which have

entailed these consequences. The current conception is a teleological one.

The phenomena are contemplated solely as bearing on human happiness. Only

those changes are held to constitute progress which directly or indirectly

tend to heighten human happiness. And they are thought to constitute

progress simply _because_ they tend to heighten human happiness. But

rightly to understand progress, we must inquire what is the nature of these

changes, considered apart from our interests. Ceasing, for example, to

regard the successive geological modifications that have taken place in the

Earth, as modifications that have gradually fitted it for the habitation of

Man, and as _therefore_ a geological progress, we must seek to determine

the character common to these modifications--the law to which they all

conform. And similarly in every other case. Leaving out of sight

concomitants and beneficial consequences, let us ask what Progress is in

itself.

In respect to that progress which individual organisms display in the

course of their evolution, this question has been answered by the Germans.

The investigations of Wolff, Goethe, and Von Baer, have established the

truth that the series of changes gone through during the development of a

seed into a tree, or an ovum into an animal, constitute an advance from

homogeneity of structure to heterogeneity of structure. In its primary

stage, every germ consists of a substance that is uniform throughout, both

in texture and chemical composition. The first step is the appearance of a

difference between two parts of this substance; or, as the phenomenon is

called in physiological language, a differentiation. Each of these

differentiated divisions presently begins itself to exhibit some contrast

of parts; and by and by these secondary differentiations become as definite

as the original one. This process is continuously repeated--is

simultaneously going on in all parts of the growing embryo; and by endless

such differentiations there is finally produced that complex combination of

tissues and organs constituting the adult animal or plant. This is the

history of all organisms whatever. It is settled beyond dispute that

organic progress consists in a change from the homogeneous to the

heterogeneous.

Now, we propose in the first place to show, that this law of organic

progress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in the development of

the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, in the development

of Society, of Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of Language,

Literature, Science, Art, this same evolution of the simple into the

complex, through successive differentiations, holds throughout. From the

earliest traceable cosmical changes down to the latest results of

civilization, we shall find that the transformation of the homogeneous into

the heterogeneous, is that in which Progress essentially consists.

With the view of showing that _if_ the Nebular Hypothesis be true, the

genesis of the solar system supplies one illustration of this law, let us

assume that the matter of which the sun and planets consist was once in a

diffused form; and that from the gravitation of its atoms there resulted a

gradual concentration. By the hypothesis, the solar system in its nascent

state existed as an indefinitely extended and nearly homogeneous medium--a

medium almost homogeneous in density, in temperature, and in other physical

attributes. The first advance towards consolidation resulted in a

differentiation between the occupied space which the nebulous mass still

filled, and the unoccupied space which it previously filled. There

simultaneously resulted a contrast in density and a contrast in

temperature, between the interior and the exterior of this mass. And at the

same time there arose throughout it rotatory movements, whose velocities

varied according to their distances from its centre. These differentiations

increased in number and degree until there was evolved the organized group

of sun, planets, and satellites, which we now know--a group which presents

numerous contrasts of structure and action among its members. There are the

immense contrasts between the sun and planets, in bulk and in weight; as

well as the subordinate contrasts between one planet and another, and

between the planets and their satellites. There is the similarly marked

contrast between the sun as almost stationary, and the planets as moving

round him with great velocity; while there are the secondary contrasts

between the velocities and periods of the several planets, and between

their simple revolutions and the double ones of their satellites, which

have to move round their primaries while moving round the sun. There is the

yet further strong contrast between the sun and the planets in respect of

temperature; and there is reason to suppose that the planets and satellites

differ from each other in their proper heat, as well as in the heat they

receive from the sun.

When we bear in mind that, in addition to these various contrasts, the

planets and satellites also differ in respect to their distances from each

other and their primary; in respect to the inclinations of their orbits,

the inclinations of their axes, their times of rotation on their axes,

their specific gravities, and their physical constitutions; we see what a

high degree of heterogeneity the solar system exhibits, when compared with

the almost complete homogeneity of the nebulous mass out of which it is

supposed to have originated.

Passing from this hypothetical illustration, which must be taken for what

it is worth, without prejudice to the general argument, let us descend to a

more certain order of evidence. It is now generally agreed among geologists

that the Earth was at first a mass of molten matter; and that it is still

fluid and incandescent at the distance of a few miles beneath its surface.

Originally, then, it was homogeneous in consistence, and, in virtue of the

circulation that takes place in heated fluids, must have been comparatively

homogeneous in temperature; and it must have been surrounded by an

atmosphere consisting partly of the elements of air and water, and partly

of those various other elements which assume a gaseous form at high

temperatures. That slow cooling by radiation which is still going on at an

inappreciable rate, and which, though originally far more rapid than now,

necessarily required an immense time to produce any decided change, must

ultimately have resulted in the solidification of the portion most able to

part with its heat--namely, the surface. In the thin crust thus formed we

have the first marked differentiation. A still further cooling, a

consequent thickening of this crust, and an accompanying deposition of all

solidifiable elements contained in the atmosphere, must finally have been

followed by the condensation of the water previously existing as vapour. A

second marked differentiation must thus have arisen: and as the

condensation must have taken place on the coolest parts of the

surface--namely, about the poles--there must thus have resulted the first

geographical distinction of parts. To these illustrations of growing

heterogeneity, which, though deduced from the known laws of matter, may be

regarded as more or less hypothetical, Geology adds an extensive series

that have been inductively established. Its investigations show that the

Earth has been continually becoming more heterogeneous in virtue of the

multiplication of the strata which form its crust; further, that it has

been becoming more heterogeneous in respect of the composition of these

strata, the latter of which, being made from the detritus of the older

ones, are many of them rendered highly complex by the mixture of materials

they contain; and that this heterogeneity has been vastly increased by the

action of the Earth's still molten nucleus upon its envelope, whence have

resulted not only a great variety of igneous rocks, but the tilting up of

sedimentary strata at all angles, the formation of faults and metallic

veins, the production of endless dislocations and irregularities. Yet

again, geologists teach us that the Earth's surface has been growing more

varied in elevation--that the most ancient mountain systems are the

smallest, and the Andes and Himalayas the most modern; while in all

probability there have been corresponding changes in the bed of the ocean.

As a consequence of these ceaseless differentiations, we now find that no

considerable portion of the Earth's exposed surface is like any other

portion, either in contour, in geologic structure, or in chemical

composition; and that in most parts it changes from mile to mile in all

these characteristics.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that there has been simultaneously going

on a gradual differentiation of climates. As fast as the Earth cooled and

its crust solidified, there arose appreciable differences in temperature

between those parts of its surface most exposed to the sun and those less

exposed. Gradually, as the cooling progressed, these differences became

more pronounced; until there finally resulted those marked contrasts

between regions of perpetual ice and snow, regions where winter and summer

alternately reign for periods varying according to the latitude, and

regions where summer follows summer with scarcely an appreciable variation.

At the same time the successive elevations and subsidences of different

portions of the Earth's crust, tending as they have done to the present

irregular distribution of land and sea, have entailed various modifications

of climate beyond those dependent on latitude; while a yet further series

of such modifications have been produced by increasing differences of

elevation in the land, which have in sundry places brought arctic,

temperate, and tropical climates to within a few miles of each other. And

the general result of these changes is, that not only has every extensive

region its own meteorologic conditions, but that every locality in each

region differs more or less from others in those conditions, as in its

structure, its contour, its soil. Thus, between our existing Earth, the

phenomena of whose varied crust neither geographers, geologists,

mineralogists, nor meteorologists have yet enumerated, and the molten globe

out of which it was evolved, the contrast in heterogeneity is sufficiently

striking.

When from the Earth itself we turn to the plants and animals that have

lived, or still live, upon its surface, we find ourselves in some

difficulty from lack of facts. That every existing organism has been

developed out of the simple into the complex, is indeed the first

established truth of all; and that every organism that has existed was

similarly developed, is an inference which no physiologist will hesitate to

draw. But when we pass from individual forms of life to Life in general,

and inquire whether the same law is seen in the _ensemble_ of its

manifestations,--whether modern plants and animals are of more

heterogeneous structure than ancient ones, and whether the Earth's present

Flora and Fauna are more heterogeneous than the Flora and Fauna of the

past,--we find the evidence so fragmentary, that every conclusion is open

to dispute. Two-thirds of the Earth's surface being covered by water; a

great part of the exposed land being inaccessible to, or untravelled by,

the geologist; the greater part of the remainder having been scarcely more

than glanced at; and even the most familiar portions, as England, having

been so imperfectly explored that a new series of strata has been added

within these four years,--it is manifestly impossible for us to say with

any certainty what creatures have, and what have not, existed at any

particular period. Considering the perishable nature of many of the lower

organic forms, the metamorphosis of many sedimentary strata, and the gaps

that occur among the rest, we shall see further reason for distrusting our

deductions. On the one hand, the repeated discovery of vertebrate remains

in strata previously supposed to contain none,--of reptiles where only fish

were thought to exist,--of mammals where it was believed there were no

creatures higher than reptiles,--renders it daily more manifest how small

is the value of negative evidence.

On the other hand, the worthlessness of the assumption that we have

discovered the earliest, or anything like the earliest, organic remains, is

becoming equally clear. That the oldest known sedimentary rocks have been

greatly changed by igneous action, and that still older ones have been

totally transformed by it, is becoming undeniable. And the fact that

sedimentary strata earlier than any we know, have been melted up, being

admitted, it must also be admitted that we cannot say how far back in time

this destruction of sedimentary strata has been going on. Thus it is

manifest that the title, _Palaeozoic_, as applied to the earliest known

fossiliferous strata, involves a _petitio principii_; and that, for aught

we know to the contrary, only the last few chapters of the Earth's

biological history may have come down to us. On neither side, therefore, is

the evidence conclusive. Nevertheless we cannot but think that, scanty as

they are, the facts, taken altogether, tend to show both that the more

heterogeneous organisms have been evolved in the later geologic periods,

and that Life in general has been more heterogeneously manifested as time

has advanced. Let us cite, in illustration, the one case of the

_vertebrata_. The earliest known vertebrate remains are those of Fishes;

and Fishes are the most homogeneous of the vertebrata. Later and more

heterogeneous are Reptiles. Later still, and more heterogeneous still, are

Mammals and Birds. If it be said, as it may fairly be said, that the

Palaeozoic deposits, not being estuary deposits, are not likely to contain

the remains of terrestrial vertebrata, which may nevertheless have existed

at that era, we reply that we are merely pointing to the leading facts,

_such as they are_.

But to avoid any such criticism, let us take the mammalian subdivision

only. The earliest known remains of mammals are those of small marsupials,

which are the lowest of the mammalian type; while, conversely, the highest

of the mammalian type--Man--is the most recent. The evidence that the

vertebrate fauna, as a whole, has become more heterogeneous, is

considerably stronger. To the argument that the vertebrate fauna of the

Palaeozoic period, consisting, so far as we know, entirely of Fishes, was

less heterogeneous than the modern vertebrate fauna, which includes

Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, of multitudinous genera, it may be replied,

as before, that estuary deposits of the Palaeozoic period, could we find

them, might contain other orders of vertebrata. But no such reply can be

made to the argument that whereas the marine vertebrata of the Palaeozoic

period consisted entirely of cartilaginous fishes, the marine vertebrata of

later periods include numerous genera of osseous fishes; and that,

therefore, the later marine vertebrate faunas are more heterogeneous than

the oldest known one. Nor, again, can any such reply be made to the fact

that there are far more numerous orders and genera of mammalian remains in

the tertiary formations than in the secondary formations. Did we wish

merely to make out the best case, we might dwell upon the opinion of Dr.

Carpenter, who says that "the general facts of Palaeontology appear to

sanction the belief, that _the same plan_ may be traced out in what may be

called _the general life of the globe_, as in _the individual life_ of

every one of the forms of organized being which now people it." Or we might

quote, as decisive, the judgment of Professor Owen, who holds that the

earlier examples of each group of creatures severally departed less widely

from archetypal generality than the later ones--were severally less unlike

the fundamental form common to the group as a whole; that is to

say--constituted a less heterogeneous group of creatures; and who further

upholds the doctrine of a biological progression. But in deference to an

authority for whom we have the highest respect, who considers that the

evidence at present obtained does not justify a verdict either way, we are

content to leave the question open.

Whether an advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous is or is not

displayed in the biological history of the globe, it is clearly enough

displayed in the progress of the latest and most heterogeneous

creature--Man. It is alike true that, during the period in which the Earth

has been peopled, the human organism has grown more heterogeneous among the

civilized divisions of the species; and that the species, as a whole, has

been growing more heterogeneous in virtue of the multiplication of races

and the differentiation of these races from each other.

In proof of the first of these positions, we may cite the fact that, in the

relative development of the limbs, the civilized man departs more widely

from the general type of the placental mammalia than do the lower human

races. While often possessing well-developed body and arms, the Papuan has

extremely small legs: thus reminding us of the quadrumana, in which there

is no great contrast in size between the hind and fore limbs. But in the

European, the greater length and massiveness of the legs has become very

marked--the fore and hind limbs are relatively more heterogeneous. Again,

the greater ratio which the cranial bones bear to the facial bones

illustrates the same truth. Among the vertebrata in general, progress is

marked by an increasing heterogeneity in the vertebral column, and more

especially in the vertebrae constituting the skull: the higher forms being

distinguished by the relatively larger size of the bones which cover the

brain, and the relatively smaller size of those which form the jaw, &c.

Now, this characteristic, which is stronger in Man than in any other

creature, is stronger in the European than in the savage. Moreover, judging

from the greater extent and variety of faculty he exhibits, we may infer

that the civilized man has also a more complex or heterogeneous nervous

system than the uncivilized man: and indeed the fact is in part visible in

the increased ratio which his cerebrum bears to the subjacent ganglia.

If further elucidation be needed, we may find it in every nursery. The

infant European has sundry marked points of resemblance to the lower human

races; as in the flatness of the alae of the nose, the depression of its

bridge, the divergence and forward opening of the nostrils, the form of the

lips, the absence of a frontal sinus, the width between the eyes, the

smallness of the legs. Now, as the developmental process by which these

traits are turned into those of the adult European, is a continuation of

that change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous displayed during the

previous evolution of the embryo, which every physiologist will admit; it

follows that the parallel developmental process by which the like traits of

the barbarous races have been turned into those of the civilized races, has

also been a continuation of the change from the homogeneous to the

heterogeneous. The truth of the second position--that Mankind, as a whole,

have become more heterogeneous--is so obvious as scarcely to need

illustration. Every work on Ethnology, by its divisions and subdivisions of

races, bears testimony to it. Even were we to admit the hypothesis that

Mankind originated from several separate stocks, it would still remain

true, that as, from each of these stocks, there have sprung many now widely

different tribes, which are proved by philological evidence to have had a

common origin, the race as a whole is far less homogeneous than it once

was. Add to which, that we have, in the Anglo-Americans, an example of a

new variety arising within these few generations; and that, if we may trust

to the description of observers, we are likely soon to have another such

example in Australia.

On passing from Humanity under its individual form, to Humanity as socially

embodied, we find the general law still more variously exemplified. The

change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous is displayed equally in

the progress of civilization as a whole, and in the progress of every tribe

or nation; and is still going on with increasing rapidity. As we see in

existing barbarous tribes, society in its first and lowest form is a

homogeneous aggregation of individuals having like powers and like

functions: the only marked difference of function being that which

accompanies difference of sex. Every man is warrior, hunter, fisherman,

tool-maker, builder; every woman performs the same drudgeries; every family

is self-sufficing, and save for purposes of aggression and defence, might

as well live apart from the rest. Very early, however, in the process of

social evolution, we find an incipient differentiation between the

governing and the governed. Some kind of chieftainship seems coeval with

the first advance from the state of separate wandering families to that of

a nomadic tribe. The authority of the strongest makes itself felt among a

body of savages as in a herd of animals, or a posse of schoolboys. At

first, however, it is indefinite, uncertain; is shared by others of

scarcely inferior power; and is unaccompanied by any difference in

occupation or style of living: the first ruler kills his own game, makes

his own weapons, builds his own hut, and economically considered, does not

differ from others of his tribe. Gradually, as the tribe progresses, the

contrast between the governing and the governed grows more decided. Supreme

power becomes hereditary in one family; the head of that family, ceasing to

provide for his own wants, is served by others; and he begins to assume the

sole office of ruling.

At the same time there has been arising a co-ordinate species of

government--that of Religion. As all ancient records and traditions prove,

the earliest rulers are regarded as divine personages. The maxims and

commands they uttered during their lives are held sacred after their

deaths, and are enforced by their divinely-descended successors; who in

their turns are promoted to the pantheon of the race, there to be

worshipped and propitiated along with their predecessors: the most ancient

of whom is the supreme god, and the rest subordinate gods. For a long time

these connate forms of government--civil and religious--continue closely

associated. For many generations the king continues to be the chief priest,

and the priesthood to be members of the royal race. For many ages religious

law continues to contain more or less of civil regulation, and civil law to

possess more or less of religious sanction; and even among the most

advanced nations these two controlling agencies are by no means completely

differentiated from each other.

Having a common root with these, and gradually diverging from them, we find

yet another controlling agency--that of Manners or ceremonial usages. All

titles of honour are originally the names of the god-king; afterwards of

God and the king; still later of persons of high rank; and finally come,

some of them, to be used between man and man. All forms of complimentary

address were at first the expressions of submission from prisoners to their

conqueror, or from subjects to their ruler, either human or

divine--expressions that were afterwards used to propitiate subordinate

authorities, and slowly descended into ordinary intercourse. All modes of

salutation were once obeisances made before the monarch and used in worship

of him after his death. Presently others of the god-descended race were

similarly saluted; and by degrees some of the salutations have become the

due of all.[A] Thus, no sooner does the originally homogeneous social mass

differentiate into the governed and the governing parts, than this last

exhibits an incipient differentiation into religious and secular--Church

and State; while at the same time there begins to be differentiated from

both, that less definite species of government which rules our daily

intercourse--a species of government which, as we may see in heralds'

colleges, in books of the peerage, in masters of ceremonies, is not without

a certain embodiment of its own. Each of these is itself subject to

successive differentiations. In the course of ages, there arises, as among

ourselves, a highly complex political organization of monarch, ministers,

lords and commons, with their subordinate administrative departments,

courts of justice, revenue offices, &c., supplemented in the provinces by

municipal governments, county governments, parish or union governments--all

of them more or less elaborated. By its side there grows up a highly

complex religious organization, with its various grades of officials, from

archbishops down to sextons, its colleges, convocations, ecclesiastical

courts, &c.; to all which must be added the ever multiplying independent

sects, each with its general and local authorities. And at the same time

there is developed a highly complex aggregation of customs, manners, and

temporary fashions, enforced by society at large, and serving to control

those minor transactions between man and man which are not regulated by

civil and religious law. Moreover it is to be observed that this ever

increasing heterogeneity in the governmental appliances of each nation, has

been accompanied by an increasing heterogeneity in the governmental

appliances of different nations; all of which are more or less unlike in

their political systems and legislation, in their creeds and religious

institutions, in their customs and ceremonial usages.

[A] For detailed proof of these assertions see essay on _Manners and

Fashion_.

Simultaneously there has been going on a second differentiation of a more

familiar kind; that, namely, by which the mass of the community has been

segregated into distinct classes and orders of workers. While the governing

part has undergone the complex development above detailed, the governed

part has undergone an equally complex development, which has resulted in

that minute division of labour characterizing advanced nations. It is

needless to trace out this progress from its first stages, up through the

caste divisions of the East and the incorporated guilds of Europe, to the

elaborate producing and distributing organization existing among ourselves.

Political economists have long since described the evolution which,

beginning with a tribe whose members severally perform the same actions

each for himself, ends with a civilized community whose members severally

perform different actions for each other; and they have further pointed out

the changes through which the solitary producer of any one commodity is

transformed into a combination of producers who, united under a master,

take separate parts in the manufacture of such commodity. But there are yet

other and higher phases of this advance from the homogeneous to the

heterogeneous in the industrial organization of society.

Long after considerable progress has been made in the division of labour

among different classes of workers, there is still little or no division of

labour among the widely separated parts of the community; the nation

continues comparatively homogeneous in the respect that in each district

the same occupations are pursued. But when roads and other means of transit

become numerous and good, the different districts begin to assume different

functions, and to become mutually dependent. The calico manufacture locates

itself in this county, the woollen-cloth manufacture in that; silks are

produced here, lace there; stockings in one place, shoes in another;

pottery, hardware, cutlery, come to have their special towns; and

ultimately every locality becomes more or less distinguished from the rest

by the leading occupation carried on in it. Nay, more, this subdivision of

functions shows itself not only among the different parts of the same

nation, but among different nations. That exchange of commodities which

free-trade promises so greatly to increase, will ultimately have the effect

of specializing, in a greater or less degree, the industry of each people.

So that beginning with a barbarous tribe, almost if not quite homogeneous

in the functions of its members, the progress has been, and still is,

towards an economic aggregation of the whole human race; growing ever more

heterogeneous in respect of the separate functions assumed by separate

nations, the separate functions assumed by the local sections of each

nation, the separate functions assumed by the many kinds of makers and

traders in each town, and the separate functions assumed by the workers

united in producing each commodity.

Not only is the law thus clearly exemplified in the evolution of the social

organism, but it is exemplified with equal clearness in the evolution of

all products of human thought and action, whether concrete or abstract,

real or ideal. Let us take Language as our first illustration.

The lowest form of language is the exclamation, by which an entire idea is

vaguely conveyed through a single sound; as among the lower animals. That

human language ever consisted solely of exclamations, and so was strictly

homogeneous in respect of its parts of speech, we have no evidence. But

that language can be traced down to a form in which nouns and verbs are its

only elements, is an established fact. In the gradual multiplication of

parts of speech out of these primary ones--in the differentiation of verbs

into active and passive, of nouns into abstract and concrete--in the rise

of distinctions of mood, tense, person, of number and case--in the

formation of auxiliary verbs, of adjectives, adverbs, pronouns,

prepositions, articles--in the divergence of those orders, genera, species,

and varieties of parts of speech by which civilized races express minute

modifications of meaning--we see a change from the homogeneous to the

heterogeneous. And it may be remarked, in passing, that it is more

especially in virtue of having carried this subdivision of function to a

greater extent and completeness, that the English language is superior to

all others.

Another aspect under which we may trace the development of language is the

differentiation of words of allied meanings. Philology early disclosed the

truth that in all languages words may be grouped into families having a

common ancestry. An aboriginal name applied indiscriminately to each of an

extensive and ill-defined class of things or actions, presently undergoes

modifications by which the chief divisions of the class are expressed.

These several names springing from the primitive root, themselves become

the parents of other names still further modified. And by the aid of those

systematic modes which presently arise, of making derivations and forming

compound terms expressing still smaller distinctions, there is finally

developed a tribe of words so heterogeneous in sound and meaning, that to

the uninitiated it seems incredible that they should have had a common

origin. Meanwhile from other roots there are being evolved other such

tribes, until there results a language of some sixty thousand or more

unlike words, signifying as many unlike objects, qualities, acts.

Yet another way in which language in general advances from the homogeneous

to the heterogeneous, is in the multiplication of languages. Whether as Max

Mueller and Bunsen think, all languages have grown from one stock, or

whether, as some philologists say, they have grown from two or more stocks,

it is clear that since large families of languages, as the Indo-European,

are of one parentage, they have become distinct through a process of

continuous divergence. The same diffusion over the Earth's surface which

has led to the differentiation of the race, has simultaneously led to a

differentiation of their speech: a truth which we see further illustrated

in each nation by the peculiarities of dialect found in several districts.

Thus the progress of Language conforms to the general law, alike in the

evolution of languages, in the evolution of families of words, and in the

evolution of parts of speech.

On passing from spoken to written language, we come upon several classes of

facts, all having similar implications. Written language is connate with

Painting and Sculpture; and at first all three are appendages of

Architecture, and have a direct connection with the primary form of all

Government--the theocratic. Merely noting by the way the fact that sundry

wild races, as for example the Australians and the tribes of South Africa,

are given to depicting personages and events upon the walls of caves, which

are probably regarded as sacred places, let us pass to the case of the

Egyptians. Among them, as also among the Assyrians, we find mural paintings

used to decorate the temple of the god and the palace of the king (which

were, indeed, originally identical); and as such they were governmental

appliances in the same sense that state-pageants and religious feasts were.

Further, they were governmental appliances in virtue of representing the

worship of the god, the triumphs of the god-king, the submission of his

subjects, and the punishment of the rebellious. And yet again they were

governmental, as being the products of an art reverenced by the people as a

sacred mystery. From the habitual use of this pictorial representation

there naturally grew up the but slightly-modified practice of

picture-writing--a practice which was found still extant among the Mexicans

at the time they were discovered. By abbreviations analogous to those still

going on in our own written and spoken language, the most familiar of these

pictured figures were successively simplified; and ultimately there grew up

a system of symbols, most of which had but a distant resemblance to the

things for which they stood. The inference that the hieroglyphics of the

Egyptians were thus produced, is confirmed by the fact that the

picture-writing of the Mexicans was found to have given birth to a like

family of ideographic forms; and, among them, as among the Egyptians, these

had been partially differentiated into the _kuriological_ or imitative, and

the _tropical_ or symbolic: which were, however, used together in the same

record. In Egypt, written language underwent a further differentiation:

whence resulted the _hieratic_ and the _epistolographic_ or _enchorial_:

both of which are derived from the original hieroglyphic. At the same time

we find that for the expression of proper names which could not be

otherwise conveyed, phonetic symbols were employed; and though it is

alleged that the Egyptians never actually achieved complete alphabetic

writing, yet it can scarcely be doubted that these phonetic symbols

occasionally used in aid of their ideographic ones, were the germs out of

which alphabetic writing grew. Once having become separate from

hieroglyphics, alphabetic writing itself underwent numerous

differentiations--multiplied alphabets were produced; between most of

which, however, more or less connection can still be traced. And in each

civilized nation there has now grown up, for the representation of one set

of sounds, several sets of written signs used for distinct purposes.

Finally, through a yet more important differentiation came printing; which,

uniform in kind as it was at first, has since become multiform.

While written language was passing through its earlier stages of

development, the mural decoration which formed its root was being

differentiated into Painting and Sculpture. The gods, kings, men, and

animals represented, were originally marked by indented outlines and

coloured. In most cases these outlines were of such depth, and the object

they circumscribed so far rounded and marked out in its leading parts, as

to form a species of work intermediate between intaglio and bas-relief. In

other cases we see an advance upon this: the raised spaces between the

figures being chiselled off, and the figures themselves appropriately

tinted, a painted bas-relief was produced. The restored Assyrian

architecture at Sydenham exhibits this style of art carried to greater

perfection--the persons and things represented, though still barbarously

coloured, are carved out with more truth and in greater detail: and in the

winged lions and bulls used for the angles of gateways, we may see a

considerable advance towards a completely sculptured figure; which,

nevertheless, is still coloured, and still forms part of the building. But

while in Assyria the production of a statue proper seems to have been

little, if at all, attempted, we may trace in Egyptian art the gradual

separation of the sculptured figure from the wall. A walk through the

collection in the British Museum will clearly show this; while it will at

the same time afford an opportunity of observing the evident traces which

the independent statues bear of their derivation from bas-relief: seeing

that nearly all of them not only display that union of the limbs with the

body which is the characteristic of bas-relief, but have the back of the

statue united from head to foot with a block which stands in place of the

original wall. Greece repeated the leading stages of this progress. As in

Egypt and Assyria, these twin arts were at first united with each other and

with their parent, Architecture, and were the aids of Religion and

Government. On the friezes of Greek temples, we see coloured bas-reliefs

representing sacrifices, battles, processions, games--all in some sort

religious. On the pediments we see painted sculptures more or less united

with the tympanum, and having for subjects the triumphs of gods or heroes.

Even when we come to statues that are definitely separated from the

buildings to which they pertain, we still find them coloured; and only in

the later periods of Greek civilization does the differentiation of

sculpture from painting appear to have become complete.

In Christian art we may clearly trace a parallel re-genesis. All early

paintings and sculptures throughout Europe were religious in

subject--represented Christs, crucifixions, virgins, holy families,

apostles, saints. They formed integral parts of church architecture, and

were among the means of exciting worship; as in Roman Catholic countries

they still are. Moreover, the early sculptures of Christ on the cross, of

virgins, of saints, were coloured: and it needs but to call to mind the

painted madonnas and crucifixes still abundant in continental churches and

highways, to perceive the significant fact that painting and sculpture

continue in closest connection with each other where they continue in

closest connection with their parent. Even when Christian sculpture was

pretty clearly differentiated from painting, it was still religious and

governmental in its subjects--was used for tombs in churches and statues of

kings: while, at the same time, painting, where not purely ecclesiastical,

was applied to the decoration of palaces, and besides representing royal

personages, was almost wholly devoted to sacred legends. Only in quite

recent times have painting and sculpture become entirely secular arts. Only

within these few centuries has painting been divided into historical,

landscape, marine, architectural, genre, animal, still-life, &c., and

sculpture grown heterogeneous in respect of the variety of real and ideal

subjects with which it occupies itself.

Strange as it seems then, we find it no less true, that all forms of

written language, of painting, and of sculpture, have a common root in the

politico-religious decorations of ancient temples and palaces. Little

resemblance as they now have, the bust that stands on the console, the

landscape that hangs against the wall, and the copy of the _Times_ lying

upon the table, are remotely akin; not only in nature, but by extraction.

The brazen face of the knocker which the postman has just lifted, is

related not only to the woodcuts of the _Illustrated London News_ which he

is delivering, but to the characters of the _billet-doux_ which accompanies

it. Between the painted window, the prayer-book on which its light falls,

and the adjacent monument, there is consanguinity. The effigies on our

coins, the signs over shops, the figures that fill every ledger, the coats

of arms outside the carriage panel, and the placards inside the omnibus,

are, in common with dolls, blue-books, paper-hangings, lineally descended

from the rude sculpture-paintings in which the Egyptians represented the

triumphs and worship of their god-kings. Perhaps no example can be given

which more vividly illustrates the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the

products that in course of time may arise by successive differentiations

from a common stock.

Before passing to other classes of facts, it should be observed that the

evolution of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous is displayed not only

in the separation of Painting and Sculpture from Architecture and from each

other, and in the greater variety of subjects they embody, but it is

further shown in the structure of each work. A modern picture or statue is

of far more heterogeneous nature than an ancient one. An Egyptian

sculpture-fresco represents all its figures as on one plane--that is, at

the same distance from the eye; and so is less heterogeneous than a

painting that represents them as at various distances from the eye. It

exhibits all objects as exposed to the same degree of light; and so is less

heterogeneous than a painting which exhibits different objects and

different parts of each object as in different degrees of light. It uses

scarcely any but the primary colours, and these in their full intensity;

and so is less heterogeneous than a painting which, introducing the primary

colours but sparingly, employs an endless variety of intermediate tints,

each of heterogeneous composition, and differing from the rest not only in

quality but in intensity. Moreover, we see in these earliest works a great

uniformity of conception. The same arrangement of figures is perpetually

reproduced--the same actions, attitudes, faces, dresses. In Egypt the modes

of representation were so fixed that it was sacrilege to introduce a

novelty; and indeed it could have been only in consequence of a fixed mode

of representation that a system of hieroglyphics became possible. The

Assyrian bas-reliefs display parallel characters. Deities, kings,

attendants, winged figures and animals, are severally depicted in like

positions, holding like implements, doing like things, and with like

expression or non-expression of face. If a palm-grove is introduced, all

the trees are of the same height, have the same number of leaves, and are

equidistant. When water is imitated, each wave is a counterpart of the

rest; and the fish, almost always of one kind, are evenly distributed over

the surface. The beards of the kings, the gods, and the winged figures, are

everywhere similar: as are the manes of the lions, and equally so those of

the horses. Hair is represented throughout by one form of curl. The king's

beard is quite architecturally built up of compound tiers of uniform curls,

alternating with twisted tiers placed in a transverse direction, and

arranged with perfect regularity; and the terminal tufts of the bulls'

tails are represented in exactly the same manner. Without tracing out

analogous facts in early Christian art, in which, though less striking,

they are still visible, the advance in heterogeneity will be sufficiently

manifest on remembering that in the pictures of our own day the composition

is endlessly varied; the attitudes, faces, expressions, unlike; the

subordinate objects different in size, form, position, texture; and more or

less of contrast even in the smallest details. Or, if we compare an

Egyptian statue, seated bolt upright on a block, with hands on knees,

fingers outspread and parallel, eyes looking straight forward, and the two

sides perfectly symmetrical in every particular, with a statue of the

advanced Greek or the modern school, which is asymmetrical in respect of

the position of the head, the body, the limbs, the arrangement of the hair,

dress, appendages, and in its relations to neighbouring objects, we shall

see the change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous clearly

manifested.

In the co-ordinate origin and gradual differentiation of Poetry, Music and

Dancing, we have another series of illustrations. Rhythm in speech, rhythm

in sound, and rhythm in motion, were in the beginning parts of the same

thing, and have only in process of time become separate things. Among

various existing barbarous tribes we find them still united. The dances of

savages are accompanied by some kind of monotonous chant, the clapping of

hands, the striking of rude instruments: there are measured movements,

measured words, and measured tones; and the whole ceremony, usually having

reference to war or sacrifice, is of governmental character. In the early

records of the historic races we similarly find these three forms of

metrical action united in religious festivals. In the Hebrew writings we

read that the triumphal ode composed by Moses on the defeat of the

Egyptians, was sung to an accompaniment of dancing and timbrels. The

Israelites danced and sang "at the inauguration of the golden calf. And as

it is generally agreed that this representation of the Deity was borrowed

from the mysteries of Apis, it is probable that the dancing was copied from

that of the Egyptians on those occasions." There was an annual dance in

Shiloh on the sacred festival; and David danced before the ark. Again, in

Greece the like relation is everywhere seen: the original type being there,

as probably in other cases, a simultaneous chanting and mimetic

representation of the life and adventures of the god. The Spartan dances

were accompanied by hymns and songs; and in general the Greeks had "no

festivals or religious assemblies but what were accompanied with songs and

dances"--both of them being forms of worship used before altars. Among the

Romans, too, there were sacred dances: the Salian and Lupercalian being

named as of that kind. And even in Christian countries, as at Limoges, in

comparatively recent times, the people have danced in the choir in honour

of a saint. The incipient separation of these once united arts from each

other and from religion, was early visible in Greece. Probably diverging

from dances partly religious, partly warlike, as the Corybantian, came the

war dances proper, of which there were various kinds; and from these

resulted secular dances. Meanwhile Music and Poetry, though still united,

came to have an existence separate from dancing. The aboriginal Greek

poems, religious in subject, were not recited, but chanted; and though at

first the chant of the poet was accompanied by the dance of the chorus, it

ultimately grew into independence. Later still, when the poem had been

differentiated into epic and lyric--when it became the custom to sing the

lyric and recite the epic--poetry proper was born. As during the same

period musical instruments were being multiplied, we may presume that music

came to have an existence apart from words. And both of them were beginning

to assume other forms besides the religious. Facts, having like

implications might be cited from the histories of later times and peoples:

as the practices of our own early minstrels, who sang to the harp heroic

narratives versified by themselves to music of their own composition: thus

uniting the now separate offices of poet, composer, vocalist, and

instrumentalist. But, without further illustration, the common origin and

gradual differentiation of Dancing, Poetry, and Music will be sufficiently

manifest.

The advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous is displayed not only

in the separation of these arts from each other and from religion, but also

in the multiplied differentiations which each of them afterwards undergoes.

Not to dwell upon the numberless kinds of dancing that have, in course of

time, come into use; and not to occupy space in detailing the progress of

poetry, as seen in the development of the various forms of metre, of rhyme,

and of general organization; let us confine our attention to music as a

type of the group. As argued by Dr. Burney, and as implied by the customs

of still extant barbarous races, the first musical instruments were,

without doubt, percussive--sticks, calabashes, tom-toms--and were used

simply to mark the time of the dance; and in this constant repetition of

the same sound, we see music in its most homogeneous form.

The Egyptians had a lyre with three strings. The early lyre of the Greeks

had four, constituting their tetrachord. In course of some centuries lyres

of seven and eight strings were employed. And, by the expiration of a

thousand years, they had advanced to their "great system" of the double

octave. Through all which changes there of course arose a greater

heterogeneity of melody. Simultaneously there came into use the different

modes--Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, AEolian, and Lydian--answering to our keys;

and of these there were ultimately fifteen. As yet, however, there was but

little heterogeneity in the time of their music.

Instrumental music during this period being merely the accompaniment of

vocal music, and vocal music being completely subordinated to words, the

singer being also the poet, chanting his own compositions and making the

lengths of his notes agree with the feet of his verses,--there unavoidably

arose a tiresome uniformity of measure, which, as Dr. Burney says, "no

resources of melody could disguise." Lacking the complex rhythm obtained by

our equal bars and unequal notes the only rhythm was that produced by the

quantity of the syllables and was of necessity comparatively monotonous.

And further, it may be observed that the chant thus resulting, being like

recitative, was much less clearly differentiated from ordinary speech than

is our modern song.

Nevertheless, in virtue of the extended range of notes in use, the variety

of modes, the occasional variations of time consequent on changes of metre,

and the multiplication of instruments, music had, towards the close of

Greek civilization, attained to considerable heterogeneity--not indeed as

compared with our music, but as compared with that which preceded it. As

yet, however, there existed nothing but melody: harmony was unknown. It was

not until Christian church-music had reached some development, that music

in parts was evolved; and then it came into existence through a very

unobtrusive differentiation. Difficult as it may be to conceive _a priori_

how the advance from melody to harmony could take place without a sudden

leap, it is none the less true that it did so. The circumstance which

prepared the way for it was the employment of two choirs singing

alternately the same air. Afterwards it became the practice--very possibly

first suggested by a mistake--for the second choir to commence before the

first had ceased; thus producing a fugue.

With the simple airs then in use, a partially harmonious fugue might not

improbably thus result: and a very partially harmonious fugue satisfied the

ears of that age, as we know from still preserved examples. The idea having

once been given, the composing of airs productive of fugal harmony would

naturally grow up; as in some way it _did_ grow up out of this alternate

choir-singing. And from the fugue to concerted music of two, three, four,

and more parts, the transition was easy. Without pointing out in detail the

increasing complexity that resulted from introducing notes of various

lengths, from the multiplication of keys, from the use of accidentals, from

varieties of time, and so forth, it needs but to contrast music as it is,

with music as it was, to see how immense is the increase of heterogeneity.

We see this if, looking at music in its _ensemble_, we enumerate its many

different genera and species--if we consider the divisions into vocal,

instrumental, and mixed; and their subdivisions into music for different

voices and different instruments--if we observe the many forms of sacred

music, from the simple hymn, the chant, the canon, motet, anthem, &c., up

to the oratorio; and the still more numerous forms of secular music, from

the ballad up to the serenata, from the instrumental solo up to the

symphony.

Again, the same truth is seen on comparing any one sample of aboriginal

music with a sample of modern music--even an ordinary song for the piano;

which we find to be relatively highly heterogeneous, not only in respect of

the varieties in the pitch and in the length of the notes, the number of

different notes sounding at the same instant in company with the voice, and

the variations of strength with which they are sounded and sung, but in

respect of the changes of key, the changes of time, the changes of _timbre_

of the voice, and the many other modifications of expression. While between

the old monotonous dance-chant and a grand opera of our own day, with its

endless orchestral complexities and vocal combinations, the contrast in

heterogeneity is so extreme that it seems scarcely credible that the one

should have been the ancestor of the other.

Were they needed, many further illustrations might be cited. Going back to

the early time when the deeds of the god-king, chanted and mimetically

represented in dances round his altar, were further narrated in

picture-writings on the walls of temples and palaces, and so constituted a

rude literature, we might trace the development of Literature through

phases in which, as in the Hebrew Scriptures, it presents in one work

theology, cosmogony, history, biography, civil law, ethics, poetry; through

other phases in which, as in the Iliad, the religious, martial, historical,

the epic, dramatic, and lyric elements are similarly commingled; down to

its present heterogeneous development, in which its divisions and

subdivisions are so numerous and varied as to defy complete classification.

Or we might trace out the evolution of Science; beginning with the era in

which it was not yet differentiated from Art, and was, in union with Art,

the handmaid of Religion; passing through the era in which the sciences

were so few and rudimentary, as to be simultaneously cultivated by the same

philosophers; and ending with the era in which the genera and species are

so numerous that few can enumerate them, and no one can adequately grasp

even one genus. Or we might do the like with Architecture, with the Drama,

with Dress.

But doubtless the reader is already weary of illustrations; and our promise

has been amply fulfilled. We believe we have shown beyond question, that

that which the German physiologists have found to be the law of organic

development, is the law of all development. The advance from the simple to

the complex, through a process of successive differentiations, is seen

alike in the earliest changes of the Universe to which we can reason our

way back; and in the earliest changes which we can inductively establish;

it is seen in the geologic and climatic evolution of the Earth, and of

every single organism on its surface; it is seen in the evolution of

Humanity, whether contemplated in the civilized individual, or in the

aggregation of races; it is seen in the evolution of Society in respect

alike of its political, its religious, and its economical organization; and

it is seen in the evolution of all those endless concrete and abstract

products of human activity which constitute the environment of our daily

life. From the remotest past which Science can fathom, up to the novelties

of yesterday, that in which Progress essentially consists, is the

transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous.

* * * * *

And now, from this uniformity of procedure, may we not infer some

fundamental necessity whence it results? May we not rationally seek for

some all-pervading principle which determines this all-pervading process of

things? Does not the universality of the _law_ imply a universal _cause_?

That we can fathom such cause, noumenally considered, is not to be

supposed. To do this would be to solve that ultimate mystery which must

ever transcend human intelligence. But it still may be possible for us to

reduce the law of all Progress, above established, from the condition of an

empirical generalization, to the condition of a rational generalization.

Just as it was possible to interpret Kepler's laws as necessary

consequences of the law of gravitation; so it may be possible to interpret

this law of Progress, in its multiform manifestations, as the necessary

consequence of some similarly universal principle. As gravitation was

assignable as the _cause_ of each of the groups of phenomena which Kepler

formulated; so may some equally simple attribute of things be assignable as

the cause of each of the groups of phenomena formulated in the foregoing

pages. We may be able to affiliate all these varied and complex evolutions

of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, upon certain simple facts of

immediate experience, which, in virtue of endless repetition, we regard as

necessary.

The probability of a common cause, and the possibility of formulating it,

being granted, it will be well, before going further, to consider what must

be the general characteristics of such cause, and in what direction we

ought to look for it. We can with certainty predict that it has a high

degree of generality; seeing that it is common to such infinitely varied

phenomena: just in proportion to the universality of its application must

be the abstractness of its character. We need not expect to see in it an

obvious solution of this or that form of Progress; because it equally

refers to forms of Progress bearing little apparent resemblance to them:

its association with multiform orders of facts, involves its dissociation

from any particular order of facts. Being that which determines Progress of

every kind--astronomic, geologic, organic, ethnologic, social, economic,

artistic, &c.--it must be concerned with some fundamental attribute

possessed in common by these; and must be expressible in terms of this

fundamental attribute. The only obvious respect in which all kinds of

Progress are alike, is, that they are modes of _change_; and hence, in some

characteristic of changes in general, the desired solution will probably be

found. We may suspect _a priori_ that in some law of change lies the

explanation of this universal transformation of the homogeneous into the

heterogeneous.

Thus much premised, we pass at once to the statement of the law, which is

this:--_Every active force produces more than one change--every cause

produces more than one effect._

Before this law can be duly comprehended, a few examples must be looked at.

When one body is struck against another, that which we usually regard as

the effect, is a change of position or motion in one or both bodies. But a

moment's thought shows us that this is a careless and very incomplete view

of the matter. Besides the visible mechanical result, sound is produced;

or, to speak accurately, a vibration in one or both bodies, and in the

surrounding air: and under some circumstances we call this the effect.

Moreover, the air has not only been made to vibrate, but has had sundry

currents caused in it by the transit of the bodies. Further, there is a

disarrangement of the particles of the two bodies in the neighbourhood of

their point of collision; amounting in some cases to a visible

condensation. Yet more, this condensation is accompanied by the

disengagement of heat. In some cases a spark--that is, light--results, from

the incandescence of a portion struck off; and sometimes this incandescence

is associated with chemical combination.

Thus, by the original mechanical force expended in the collision, at least

five, and often more, different kinds of changes have been produced. Take,

again, the lighting of a candle. Primarily this is a chemical change

consequent on a rise of temperature. The process of combination having once

been set going by extraneous heat, there is a continued formation of

carbonic acid, water, &c.--in itself a result more complex than the

extraneous heat that first caused it. But accompanying this process of

combination there is a production of heat; there is a production of light;

there is an ascending column of hot gases generated; there are currents

established in the surrounding air. Moreover, the decomposition of one

force into many forces does not end here: each of the several changes

produced becomes the parent of further changes. The carbonic acid given off

will by and by combine with some base; or under the influence of sunshine

give up its carbon to the leaf of a plant. The water will modify the

hygrometric state of the air around; or, if the current of hot gases

containing it come against a cold body, will be condensed: altering the

temperature, and perhaps the chemical state, of the surface it covers. The

heat given out melts the subjacent tallow, and expands whatever it warms.

The light, falling on various substances, calls forth from them reactions

by which it is modified; and so divers colours are produced. Similarly even

with these secondary actions, which may be traced out into ever-multiplying

ramifications, until they become too minute to be appreciated. And thus it

is with all changes whatever. No case can be named in which an active force

does not evolve forces of several kinds, and each of these, other groups of

forces. Universally the effect is more complex than the cause.

Doubtless the reader already foresees the course of our argument. This

multiplication of results, which is displayed in every event of to-day, has

been going on from the beginning; and is true of the grandest phenomena of

the universe as of the most insignificant. From the law that every active

force produces more than one change, it is an inevitable corollary that

through all time there has been an ever-growing complication of things.

Starting with the ultimate fact that every cause produces more than one

effect, we may readily see that throughout creation there must have gone

on, and must still go on, a never-ceasing transformation of the homogeneous

into the heterogeneous. But let us trace out this truth in detail.[B]

[B] A correlative truth which ought also to be taken into account

(that the state of homogeneity is one of unstable equilibrium),

but which it would greatly encumber the argument to exemplify in

connection with the above, will be found developed in the essay

on _Transcendental Physiology_.

Without committing ourselves to it as more than a speculation, though a

highly probable one, let us again commence with the evolution of the solar

system out of a nebulous medium.[C] From the mutual attraction of the atoms

of a diffused mass whose form is unsymmetrical, there results not only

condensation but rotation: gravitation simultaneously generates both the

centripetal and the centrifugal forces. While the condensation and the rate

of rotation are progressively increasing, the approach of the atoms

necessarily generates a progressively increasing temperature. As this

temperature rises, light begins to be evolved; and ultimately there results

a revolving sphere of fluid matter radiating intense heat and light--a sun.

[C] The idea that the Nebular Hypothesis has been disproved because

what were thought to be existing nebulae have been resolved into

clusters of stars is almost beneath notice. _A priori_ it was

highly improbable, if not impossible, that nebulous masses should

still remain uncondensed, while others have been condensed

millions of years ago.

There are good reasons for believing that, in consequence of the high

tangential velocity, and consequent centrifugal force, acquired by the

outer parts of the condensing nebulous mass, there must be a periodical

detachment of rotating rings; and that, from the breaking up of these

nebulous rings, there must arise masses which in the course of their

condensation repeat the actions of the parent mass, and so produce planets

and their satellites--an inference strongly supported by the still extant

rings of Saturn.

Should it hereafter be satisfactorily shown that planets and satellites

were thus generated, a striking illustration will be afforded of the highly

heterogeneous effects produced by the primary homogeneous cause; but it

will serve our present purpose to point to the fact that from the mutual

attraction of the particles of an irregular nebulous mass there result

condensation, rotation, heat, and light.

It follows as a corollary from the Nebular Hypothesis, that the Earth must

at first have been incandescent; and whether the Nebular Hypothesis be true

or not, this original incandescence of the Earth is now inductively

established--or, if not established, at least rendered so highly probable

that it is a generally admitted geological doctrine. Let us look first at

the astronomical attributes of this once molten globe. From its rotation

there result the oblateness of its form, the alternations of day and night,

and (under the influence of the moon) the tides, aqueous and atmospheric.

From the inclination of its axis, there result the precession of the

equinoxes and the many differences of the seasons, both simultaneous and

successive, that pervade its surface. Thus the multiplication of effects is

obvious. Several of the differentiations due to the gradual cooling of the

Earth have been already noticed--as the formation of a crust, the

solidification of sublimed elements, the precipitation of water, &c.,--and

we here again refer to them merely to point out that they are simultaneous

effects of the one cause, diminishing heat.

Let us now, however, observe the multiplied changes afterwards arising from

the continuance of this one cause. The cooling of the Earth involves its

contraction. Hence the solid crust first formed is presently too large for

the shrinking nucleus; and as it cannot support itself, inevitably follows

the nucleus. But a spheroidal envelope cannot sink down into contact with a

smaller internal spheroid, without disruption; it must run into wrinkles as

the rind of an apple does when the bulk of its interior decreases from

evaporation. As the cooling progresses and the envelope thickens, the

ridges consequent on these contractions must become greater, rising

ultimately into hills and mountains; and the later systems of mountains

thus produced must not only be higher, as we find them to be, but they must

be longer, as we also find them to be. Thus, leaving out of view other

modifying forces, we see what immense heterogeneity of surface has arisen

from the one cause, loss of heat--a heterogeneity which the telescope shows

us to be paralleled on the face of the moon, where aqueous and atmospheric

agencies have been absent.

But we have yet to notice another kind of heterogeneity of surface

similarly and simultaneously caused. While the Earth's crust was still

thin, the ridges produced by its contraction must not only have been small,

but the spaces between these ridges must have rested with great evenness

upon the subjacent liquid spheroid; and the water in those arctic and

antarctic regions in which it first condensed, must have been evenly

distributed. But as fast as the crust grew thicker and gained corresponding

strength, the lines of fracture from time to time caused in it, must have

occurred at greater distances apart; the intermediate surfaces must have

followed the contracting nucleus with less uniformity; and there must have

resulted larger areas of land and water. If any one, after wrapping up an

orange in wet tissue paper, and observing not only how small are the

wrinkles, but how evenly the intervening spaces lie upon the surface of the

orange, will then wrap it up in thick cartridge-paper, and note both the

greater height of the ridges and the much larger spaces throughout which

the paper does not touch the orange, he will realize the fact, that as the

Earth's solid envelope grew thicker, the areas of elevation and depression

must have become greater. In place of islands more or less homogeneously

scattered over an all-embracing sea, there must have gradually arisen

heterogeneous arrangements of continent and ocean, such as we now know.

Once more, this double change in the extent and in the elevation of the

lands, involved yet another species of heterogeneity, that of coast-line. A

tolerably even surface raised out of the ocean, must have a simple, regular

sea-margin; but a surface varied by table-lands and intersected by

mountain-chains must, when raised out of the ocean, have an outline

extremely irregular both in its leading features and in its details. Thus

endless is the accumulation of geological and geographical results slowly

brought about by this one cause--the contraction of the Earth.

When we pass from the agency which geologists term igneous, to aqueous and

atmospheric agencies, we see the like ever-growing complications of

effects. The denuding actions of air and water have, from the beginning,

been modifying every exposed surface; everywhere causing many different

changes. Oxidation, heat, wind, frost, rain, glaciers, rivers, tides,

waves, have been unceasingly producing disintegration; varying in kind and

amount according to local circumstances. Acting upon a tract of granite,

they here work scarcely an appreciable effect; there cause exfoliations of

the surface, and a resulting heap of _debris_ and boulders; and elsewhere,

after decomposing the feldspar into a white clay, carry away this and the

accompanying quartz and mica, and deposits them in separate beds,

fluviatile and marine. When the exposed land consists of several unlike

formations, sedimentary and igneous, the denudation produces changes

proportionably more heterogeneous. The formations being disintegrable in

different degrees, there follows an increased irregularity of surface. The

areas drained by different rivers being differently constituted, these

rivers carry down to the sea different combinations of ingredients; and so

sundry new strata of distinct composition are formed.

And here indeed we may see very simply illustrated, the truth, which we

shall presently have to trace out in more involved cases, that in

proportion to the heterogeneity of the object or objects on which any force

expends itself, is the heterogeneity of the results. A continent of complex

structure, exposing many strata irregularly distributed, raised to various

levels, tilted up at all angles, must, under the same denuding agencies,

give origin to immensely multiplied results; each district must be

differently modified; each river must carry down a different kind of

detritus; each deposit must be differently distributed by the entangled

currents, tidal and other, which wash the contorted shores; and this

multiplication of results must manifestly be greatest where the complexity

of the surface is greatest.

It is out of the question here to trace in detail the genesis of those

endless complications described by Geology and Physical Geography: else we

might show how the general truth, that every active force produces more

than one change, is exemplified in the highly involved flow of the tides,

in the ocean currents, in the winds, in the distribution of rain, in the

distribution of heat, and so forth. But not to dwell upon these, let us,

for the fuller elucidation of this truth in relation to the inorganic

world, consider what would be the consequences of some extensive cosmical

revolution--say the subsidence of Central America.

The immediate results of the disturbance would themselves be sufficiently

complex. Besides the numberless dislocations of strata, the ejections of

igneous matter, the propagation of earthquake vibrations thousands of miles

around, the loud explosions, and the escape of gases; there would be the

rush of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to supply the vacant space, the

subsequent recoil of enormous waves, which would traverse both these oceans

and produce myriads of changes along their shores, the corresponding

atmospheric waves complicated by the currents surrounding each volcanic

vent, and the electrical discharges with which such disturbances are

accompanied. But these temporary effects would be insignificant compared

with the permanent ones. The complex currents of the Atlantic and Pacific

would be altered in direction and amount. The distribution of heat achieved

by these ocean currents would be different from what it is. The arrangement

of the isothermal lines, not even on the neighbouring continents, but even

throughout Europe, would be changed. The tides would flow differently from

what they do now. There would be more or less modification of the winds in

their periods, strengths, directions, qualities. Rain would fall scarcely

anywhere at the same times and in the same quantities as at present. In

short, the meteorological conditions thousands of miles off, on all sides,

would be more or less revolutionized.

Thus, without taking into account the infinitude of modifications which

these changes of climate would produce upon the flora and fauna, both of

land and sea, the reader will see the immense heterogeneity of the results

wrought out by one force, when that force expends itself upon a previously

complicated area; and he will readily draw the corollary that from the

beginning the complication has advanced at an increasing rate.

Before going on to show how organic progress also depends upon the

universal law that every force produces more than one change, we have to

notice the manifestation of this law in yet another species of inorganic

progress--namely, chemical. The same general causes that have wrought out

the heterogeneity of the Earth, physically considered, have simultaneously

wrought out its chemical heterogeneity. Without dwelling upon the general

fact that the forces which have been increasing the variety and complexity

of geological formations, have, at the same time, been bringing into

contact elements not previously exposed to each other under conditions

favourable to union, and so have been adding to the number of chemical

compounds, let us pass to the more important complications that have

resulted from the cooling of the Earth.

There is every reason to believe that at an extreme heat the elements

cannot combine. Even under such heat as can be artificially produced, some

very strong affinities yield, as for instance, that of oxygen for hydrogen;

and the great majority of chemical compounds are decomposed at much lower

temperatures. But without insisting upon the highly probable inference,

that when the Earth was in its first state of incandescence there were no

chemical combinations at all, it will suffice our purpose to point to the

unquestionable fact that the compounds that can exist at the highest

temperatures, and which must, therefore, have been the first that were

formed as the Earth cooled, are those of the simplest constitutions. The

protoxides--including under that head the alkalies, earths, &c.--are, as a

class, the most stable compounds we know: most of them resisting

decomposition by any heat we can generate. These, consisting severally of

one atom of each component element, are combinations of the simplest

order--are but one degree less homogeneous than the elements themselves.

More heterogeneous than these, less stable, and therefore later in the

Earth's history, are the deutoxides, tritoxides, peroxides, &c.; in which

two, three, four, or more atoms of oxygen are united with one atom of metal

or other element. Higher than these in heterogeneity are the hydrates; in

which an oxide of hydrogen, united with an oxide of some other element,

forms a substance whose atoms severally contain at least four ultimate

atoms of three different kinds. Yet more heterogeneous and less stable

still are the salts; which present us with compound atoms each made up of

five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve, or more atoms, of three, if not more,

kinds. Then there are the hydrated salts, of a yet greater heterogeneity,

which undergo partial decomposition at much lower temperatures. After them

come the further-complicated supersalts and double salts, having a

stability again decreased; and so throughout. Without entering into

qualifications for which we lack space, we believe no chemist will deny it

to be a general law of these inorganic combinations that, _other things

equal_, the stability decreases as the complexity increases.

And then when we pass to the compounds of organic chemistry, we find this

general law still further exemplified: we find much greater complexity and

much less stability. An atom of albumen, for instance, consists of 482

ultimate atoms of five different kinds. Fibrine, still more intricate in

constitution, contains in each atom, 298 atoms of carbon, 40 of nitrogen, 2

of sulphur, 228 of hydrogen, and 92 of oxygen--in all, 660 atoms; or, more

strictly speaking--equivalents. And these two substances are so unstable as

to decompose at quite ordinary temperatures; as that to which the outside

of a joint of roast meat is exposed. Thus it is manifest that the present

chemical heterogeneity of the Earth's surface has arisen by degrees, as the

decrease of heat has permitted; and that it has shown itself in three

forms--first, in the multiplication of chemical compounds; second, in the

greater number of different elements contained in the more modern of these

compounds: and third, in the higher and more varied multiples in which

these more numerous elements combine.

To say that this advance in chemical heterogeneity is due to the one cause,

diminution of the Earth's temperature, would be to say too much; for it is

clear that aqueous and atmospheric agencies have been concerned; and,

further, that the affinities of the elements themselves are implied. The

cause has all along been a composite one: the cooling of the Earth having

been simply the most general of the concurrent causes, or assemblage of

conditions. And here, indeed, it may be remarked that in the several

classes of facts already dealt with (excepting, perhaps, the first), and

still more in those with which we shall presently deal, the causes are more

or less compound; as indeed are nearly all causes with which we are

acquainted. Scarcely any change can with logical accuracy be wholly

ascribed to one agency, to the neglect of the permanent or temporary

conditions under which only this agency produces the change. But as it does

not materially affect our argument, we prefer, for simplicity's sake, to

use throughout the popular mode of expression.

Perhaps it will be further objected, that to assign loss of heat as the

cause of any changes, is to attribute these changes not to a force, but to

the absence of a force. And this is true. Strictly speaking, the changes

should be attributed to those forces which come into action when the

antagonist force is withdrawn. But though there is an inaccuracy in saying

that the freezing of water is due to the loss of its heat, no practical

error arises from it; nor will a parallel laxity of expression vitiate our

statements respecting the multiplication of effects. Indeed, the objection

serves but to draw attention to the fact, that not only does the exertion

of a force produce more than one change, but the withdrawal of a force

produces more than one change. And this suggests that perhaps the most

correct statement of our general principle would be its most abstract

statement--every change is followed by more than one other change.

Returning to the thread of our exposition, we have next to trace out, in

organic progress, this same all-pervading principle. And here, where the

evolution of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous was first observed, the

production of many changes by one cause is least easy to demonstrate. The

development of a seed into a plant, or an ovum into an animal, is so

gradual, while the forces which determine it are so involved, and at the

same time so unobtrusive, that it is difficult to detect the multiplication

of effects which is elsewhere so obvious. Nevertheless, guided by indirect

evidence, we may pretty safely reach the conclusion that here too the law

holds.

Observe, first, how numerous are the effects which any marked change works

upon an adult organism--a human being, for instance. An alarming sound or

sight, besides the impressions on the organs of sense and the nerves, may

produce a start, a scream, a distortion of the face, a trembling consequent

upon a general muscular relaxation, a burst of perspiration, an excited

action of the heart, a rush of blood to the brain, followed possibly by

arrest of the heart's action and by syncope: and if the system be feeble,

an indisposition with its long train of complicated symptoms may set in.

Similarly in cases of disease. A minute portion of the small-pox virus

introduced into the system, will, in a severe case, cause, during the first

stage, rigors, heat of skin, accelerated pulse, furred tongue, loss of

appetite, thirst, epigastric uneasiness, vomiting, headache, pains in the

back and limbs, muscular weakness, convulsions, delirium, &c.; in the

second stage, cutaneous eruption, itching, tingling, sore throat, swelled

fauces, salivation, cough, hoarseness, dyspn[oe]a, &c.; and in the third

stage, [oe]dematous inflammations, pneumonia, pleurisy, diarrh[oe]a,

inflammation of the brain, ophthalmia, erysipelas, &c.: each of which

enumerated symptoms is itself more or less complex. Medicines, special

foods, better air, might in like manner be instanced as producing

multiplied results.

Now it needs only to consider that the many changes thus wrought by one

force upon an adult organism, will be in part paralleled in an embryo

organism, to understand how here also, the evolution of the homogeneous

into the heterogeneous may be due to the production of many effects by one

cause. The external heat and other agencies which determine the first

complications of the germ, may, by acting upon these, superinduce further

complications; upon these still higher and more numerous ones; and so on

continually: each organ as it is developed serving, by its actions and

reactions upon the rest, to initiate new complexities. The first pulsations

of the f[oe]tal heart must simultaneously aid the unfolding of every part.

The growth of each tissue, by taking from the blood special proportions of

elements, must modify the constitution of the blood; and so must modify the

nutrition of all the other tissues. The heart's action, implying as it does

a certain waste, necessitates an addition to the blood of effete matters,

which must influence the rest of the system, and perhaps, as some think,

cause the formation of excretory organs. The nervous connections

established among the viscera must further multiply their mutual

influences: and so continually.

Still stronger becomes the probability of this view when we call to mind

the fact, that the same germ may be evolved into different forms according

to circumstances. Thus, during its earlier stages, every embryo is

sexless--becomes either male or female as the balance of forces acting upon

it determines. Again, it is a well-established fact that the larva of a

working-bee will develop into a queen-bee, if, before it is too late, its

food be changed to that on which the larvae of queen-bees are fed. Even more

remarkable is the case of certain entozoa. The ovum of a tape-worm, getting

into its natural habitat, the intestine, unfolds into the well-known form

of its parent; but if carried, as it frequently is, into other parts of the

system, it becomes a sac-like creature, called by naturalists the

_Echinococcus_--a creature so extremely different from the tape-worm in

aspect and structure, that only after careful investigations has it been

proved to have the same origin. All which instances imply that each advance

in embryonic complication results from the action of incident forces upon

the complication previously existing.

Indeed, we may find _a priori_ reason to think that the evolution proceeds

after this manner. For since it is now known that no germ, animal or

vegetable, contains the slightest rudiment, trace, or indication of the

future organism--now that the microscope has shown us that the first

process set up in every fertilized germ, is a process of repeated

spontaneous fissions ending in the production of a mass of cells, not one

of which exhibits any special character: there seems no alternative but to

suppose that the partial organization at any moment subsisting in a growing

embryo, is transformed by the agencies acting upon it into the succeeding

phase of organization, and this into the next, until, through

ever-increasing complexities, the ultimate form is reached. Thus, though

the subtilty of the forces and the slowness of the results, prevent us from

_directly_ showing that the stages of increasing heterogeneity through

which every embryo passes, severally arise from the production of many

changes by one force, yet, _indirectly_, we have strong evidence that they

do so.

We have marked how multitudinous are the effects which one cause may

generate in an adult organism; that a like multiplication of effects must

happen in the unfolding organism, we have observed in sundry illustrative

cases; further, it has been pointed out that the ability which like germs

have to originate unlike forms, implies that the successive transformations

result from the new changes superinduced on previous changes; and we have

seen that structureless as every germ originally is, the development of an

organism out of it is otherwise incomprehensible. Not indeed that we can

thus really explain the production of any plant or animal. We are still in

the dark respecting those mysterious properties in virtue of which the

germ, when subject to fit influences, undergoes the special changes that

begin the series of transformations. All we aim to show, is, that given a

germ possessing these mysterious properties, the evolution of an organism

from it, probably depends upon that multiplication of effects which we have

seen to be the cause of progress in general, so far as we have yet traced

it.

When, leaving the development of single plants and animals, we pass to that

of the Earth's flora and fauna, the course of our argument again becomes

clear and simple. Though, as was admitted in the first part of this

article, the fragmentary facts Palaeontology has accumulated, do not clearly

warrant us in saying that, in the lapse of geologic time, there have been

evolved more heterogeneous organisms, and more heterogeneous assemblages of

organisms, yet we shall now see that there _must_ ever have been a tendency

towards these results. We shall find that the production of many effects by

one cause, which, as already shown, has been all along increasing the

physical heterogeneity of the Earth, has further involved an increasing

heterogeneity in its flora and fauna, individually and collectively. An

illustration will make this clear.

Suppose that by a series of upheavals, occurring, as they are now known to

do, at long intervals, the East Indian Archipelago were to be, step by

step, raised into a continent, and a chain of mountains formed along the

axis of elevation. By the first of these upheavals, the plants and animals

inhabiting Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea, and the rest, would be subjected to

slightly modified sets of conditions. The climate in general would be

altered in temperature, in humidity, and in its periodical variations;

while the local differences would be multiplied. These modifications would

affect, perhaps inappreciably, the entire flora and fauna of the region.

The change of level would produce additional modifications: varying in

different species, and also in different members of the same species,

according to their distance from the axis of elevation. Plants, growing

only on the sea-shore in special localities, might become extinct. Others,

living only in swamps of a certain humidity, would, if they survived at

all, probably undergo visible changes of appearance. While still greater

alterations would occur in the plants gradually spreading over the lands

newly raised above the sea. The animals and insects living on these

modified plants, would themselves be in some degree modified by change of

food, as well as by change of climate; and the modification would be more

marked where, from the dwindling or disappearance of one kind of plant, an

allied kind was eaten. In the lapse of the many generations arising before

the next upheaval, the sensible or insensible alterations thus produced in

each species would become organized--there would be a more or less complete

adaptation to the new conditions. The next upheaval would superinduce

further organic changes, implying wider divergences from the primary forms;

and so repeatedly.

But now let it be observed that the revolution thus resulting would not be

a substitution of a thousand more or less modified species for the thousand

original species; but in place of the thousand original species there would

arise several thousand species, or varieties, or changed forms. Each

species being distributed over an area of some extent, and tending

continually to colonize the new area exposed, its different members would

be subject to different sets of changes. Plants and animals spreading

towards the equator would not be affected in the same way with others

spreading from it. Those spreading towards the new shores would undergo

changes unlike the changes undergone by those spreading into the mountains.

Thus, each original race of organisms, would become the root from which

diverged several races differing more or less from it and from each other;

and while some of these might subsequently disappear, probably more than

one would survive in the next geologic period: the very dispersion itself

increasing the chances of survival. Not only would there be certain

modifications thus caused by change of physical conditions and food, but

also in some cases other modifications caused by change of habit. The fauna

of each island, peopling, step by step, the newly-raised tracts, would

eventually come in contact with the faunas of other islands; and some

members of these other faunas would be unlike any creatures before seen.

Herbivores meeting with new beasts of prey, would, in some cases, be led

into modes of defence or escape differing from those previously used; and

simultaneously the beasts of prey would modify their modes of pursuit and

attack. We know that when circumstances demand it, such changes of habit

_do_ take place in animals; and we know that if the new habits become the

dominant ones, they must eventually in some degree alter the organization.

Observe, now, however, a further consequence. There must arise not simply a

tendency towards the differentiation of each race of organisms into several

races; but also a tendency to the occasional production of a somewhat

higher organism. Taken in the mass these divergent varieties which have

been caused by fresh physical conditions and habits of life, will exhibit

changes quite indefinite in kind and degree; and changes that do not

necessarily constitute an advance. Probably in most cases the modified type

will be neither more nor less heterogeneous than the original one. In some

cases the habits of life adopted being simpler than before, a less

heterogeneous structure will result: there will be a retrogradation. But it

_must_ now and then occur, that some division of a species, falling into

circumstances which give it rather more complex experiences, and demand

actions somewhat more involved, will have certain of its organs further

differentiated in proportionately small degrees,--will become slightly more

heterogeneous.

Thus, in the natural course of things, there will from time to time arise

an increased heterogeneity both of the Earth's flora and fauna, and of

individual races included in them. Omitting detailed explanations, and

allowing for the qualifications which cannot here be specified, we think it

is clear that geological mutations have all along tended to complicate the

forms of life, whether regarded separately or collectively. The same causes

which have led to the evolution of the Earth's crust from the simple into

the complex, have simultaneously led to a parallel evolution of the Life

upon its surface. In this case, as in previous ones, we see that the

transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous is consequent upon

the universal principle, that every active force produces more than one

change.

The deduction here drawn from the established truths of geology and the

general laws of life, gains immensely in weight on finding it to be in

harmony with an induction drawn from direct experience. Just that

divergence of many races from one race, which we inferred must have been

continually occurring during geologic time, we know to have occurred during

the pre-historic and historic periods, in man and domestic animals. And

just that multiplication of effects which we concluded must have produced

the first, we see has produced the last. Single causes, as famine, pressure

of population, war, have periodically led to further dispersions of mankind

and of dependent creatures: each such dispersion initiating new

modifications, new varieties of type. Whether all the human races be or be

not derived from one stock, philology makes it clear that whole groups of

races now easily distinguishable from each other, were originally one

race,--that the diffusion of one race into different climates and

conditions of existence, has produced many modified forms of it.

Similarly with domestic animals. Though in some cases--as that of

dogs--community of origin will perhaps be disputed, yet in other cases--as

that of the sheep or the cattle of our own country--it will not be

questioned that local differences of climate, food, and treatment, have

transformed one original breed into numerous breeds now become so far

distinct as to produce unstable hybrids. Moreover, through the

complications of effects flowing from single causes, we here find, what we

before inferred, not only an increase of general heterogeneity, but also of

special heterogeneity. While of the divergent divisions and subdivisions of

the human race, many have undergone changes not constituting an advance;

while in some the type may have degraded; in others it has become decidedly

more heterogeneous. The civilized European departs more widely from the

vertebrate archetype than does the savage. Thus, both the law and the cause

of progress, which, from lack of evidence, can be but hypothetically

substantiated in respect of the earlier forms of life on our globe, can be

actually substantiated in respect of the latest forms.

If the advance of Man towards greater heterogeneity is traceable to the

production of many effects by one cause still more clearly may the advance

of Society towards greater heterogeneity be so explained. Consider the

growth of an industrial organization. When, as must occasionally happen,

some individual of a tribe displays unusual aptitude for making an article

of general use--a weapon, for instance--which was before made by each man

for himself, there arises a tendency towards the differentiation of that

individual into a maker of such weapon. His companions--warriors and

hunters all of them,--severally feel the importance of having the best

weapons that can be made; and are therefore certain to offer strong

inducements to this skilled individual to make weapons for them. He, on the

other hand, having not only an unusual faculty, but an unusual liking, for

making such weapons (the talent and the desire for any occupation being

commonly associated), is predisposed to fulfil these commissions on the

offer of an adequate reward: especially as his love of distinction is also

gratified. This first specialization of function, once commenced, tends

ever to become more decided. On the side of the weapon-maker continued

practice gives increased skill--increased superiority to his products: on

the side of his clients, cessation of practice entails decreased skill.

Thus the influences that determine this division of labour grow stronger in

both ways; and the incipient heterogeneity is, on the average of cases,

likely to become permanent for that generation, if no longer.

Observe now, however, that this process not only differentiates the social

mass into two parts, the one monopolizing, or almost monopolizing, the

performance of a certain function, and the other having lost the habit, and

in some measure the power, of performing that function; but it tends to

imitate other differentiations. The advance we have described implies the

introduction of barter,--the maker of weapons has, on each occasion, to be

paid in such other articles as he agrees to take in exchange. But he will

not habitually take in exchange one kind of article, but many kinds. He

does not want mats only, or skins, or fishing gear, but he wants all these;

and on each occasion will bargain for the particular things he most needs.

What follows? If among the members of the tribe there exist any slight

differences of skill in the manufacture of these various things, as there

are almost sure to do, the weapon-maker will take from each one the thing

which that one excels in making: he will exchange for mats with him whose

mats are superior, and will bargain for the fishing gear of whoever has the

best. But he who has bartered away his mats or his fishing gear, must make

other mats or fishing gear for himself; and in so doing must, in some

degree, further develop his aptitude. Thus it results that the small

specialities of faculty possessed by various members of the tribe, will

tend to grow more decided. If such transactions are from time repeated,

these specializations may become appreciable. And whether or not there

ensue distinct differentiations of other individuals into makers of

particular articles, it is clear that incipient differentiations take place

throughout the tribe: the one original cause produces not only the first

dual effect, but a number of secondary dual effects, like in kind, but

minor in degree. This process, of which traces may be seen among groups of

schoolboys, cannot well produce any lasting effects in an unsettled tribe;

but where there grows up a fixed and multiplying community, these

differentiations become permanent, and increase with each generation. A

larger population, involving a greater demand for every commodity,

intensifies the functional activity of each specialized person or class;

and this renders the specialization more definite where it already exists,

and establishes it where it is nascent. By increasing the pressure on the

means of subsistence, a larger population again augments these results;

seeing that each person is forced more and more to confine himself to that

which he can do best, and by which he can gain most. This industrial

progress, by aiding future production, opens the way for a further growth

of population, which reacts as before: in all which the multiplication of

effects is manifest. Presently, under these same stimuli, new occupations

arise. Competing workers, ever aiming to produce improved articles,

occasionally discover better processes or raw materials. In weapons and

cutting tools, the substitution of bronze for stone entails upon him who

first makes it a great increase of demand--so great an increase that he

presently finds all his time occupied in making the bronze for the articles

he sells, and is obliged to depute the fashioning of these to others: and,

eventually, the making of bronze, thus gradually differentiated from a

pre-existing occupation, becomes an occupation by itself.

But now mark the ramified changes which follow this change. Bronze soon

replaces stone, not only in the articles it was first used for, but in many

others--in arms, tools, and utensils of various kinds; and so affects the

manufacture of these things. Further, it affects the processes which these

utensils subserve, and the resulting products--modifies buildings,

carvings, dress, personal decorations. Yet again, it sets going sundry

manufactures which were before impossible, from lack of a material fit for

the requisite tools. And all these changes react on the people--increase

their manipulative skill, their intelligence, their comfort,--refine their

habits and tastes. Thus the evolution of a homogeneous society into a

heterogeneous one, is clearly consequent on the general principle, that

many effects are produced by one cause.

Our limits will not allow us to follow out this process in its higher

complications: else might we show how the localization of special

industries in special parts of a kingdom, as well as the minute subdivision

of labour in the making of each commodity, are similarly determined. Or,

turning to a somewhat different order of illustrations, we might dwell on

the multitudinous changes--material, intellectual, moral,--caused by

printing; or the further extensive series of changes wrought by gunpowder.

But leaving the intermediate phases of social development, let us take a

few illustrations from its most recent and its passing phases. To trace the

effects of steam-power, in its manifold applications to mining, navigation,

and manufactures of all kinds, would carry us into unmanageable detail. Let

us confine ourselves to the latest embodiment of steam-power--the

locomotive engine.

This, as the proximate cause of our railway system, has changed the face of

the country, the course of trade, and the habits of the people. Consider,

first, the complicated sets of changes that precede the making of every

railway--the provisional arrangements, the meetings, the registration, the

trial section, the parliamentary survey, the lithographed plans, the books

of reference, the local deposits and notices, the application to

Parliament, the passing Standing-Orders Committee, the first, second, and

third readings: each of which brief heads indicates a multiplicity of

transactions, and the development of sundry occupations--as those of

engineers, surveyors, lithographers, parliamentary agents, share-brokers;

and the creation of sundry others--as those of traffic-takers,

reference-takers. Consider, next, the yet more marked changes implied in

railway construction--the cuttings, embankings, tunnellings, diversions of

roads; the building of bridges and stations; the laying down of ballast,

sleepers, and rails; the making of engines, tenders, carriages and waggons:

which processes, acting upon numerous trades, increase the importation of

timber, the quarrying of stone, the manufacture of iron, the mining of

coal, the burning of bricks: institute a variety of special manufactures

weekly advertised in the _Railway Times_; and, finally, open the way to

sundry new occupations, as those of drivers, stokers, cleaners,

plate-layers, &c., &c. And then consider the changes, more numerous and

involved still, which railways in action produce on the community at large.

The organization of every business is more or less modified: ease of

communication makes it better to do directly what was before done by proxy;

agencies are established where previously they would not have paid; goods

are obtained from remote wholesale houses instead of near retail ones; and

commodities are used which distance once rendered inaccessible. Again, the

rapidity and small cost of carriage tend to specialize more than ever the

industries of different districts--to confine each manufacture to the parts

in which, from local advantages, it can be best carried on. Further, the

diminished cost of carriage, facilitating distribution, equalizes prices,

and also, on the average, lowers prices: thus bringing divers articles

within the means of those before unable to buy them, and so increasing

their comforts and improving their habits. At the same time the practice of

travelling is immensely extended. Classes who never before thought of it,

take annual trips to the sea; visit their distant relations; make tours;

and so we are benefited in body, feelings, and intellect. Moreover, the

more prompt transmission of letters and of news produces further

changes--makes the pulse of the nation faster. Yet more, there arises a

wide dissemination of cheap literature through railway book-stalls, and of

advertisements in railway carriages: both of them aiding ulterior progress.

And all the innumerable changes here briefly indicated are consequent on

the invention of the locomotive engine. The social organism has been

rendered more heterogeneous in virtue of the many new occupations

introduced, and the many old ones further specialized; prices in every

place have been altered; each trader has, more or less, modified his way of

doing business; and almost every person has been affected in his actions,

thoughts, emotions.

Illustrations to the same effect might be indefinitely accumulated. That

every influence brought to bear upon society works multiplied effects; and

that increase of heterogeneity is due to this multiplication of effects;

may be seen in the history of every trade, every custom, every belief. But

it is needless to give additional evidence of this. The only further fact

demanding notice, is, that we here see still more clearly than ever, the

truth before pointed out, that in proportion as the area on which any force

expends itself becomes heterogeneous, the results are in a yet higher

degree multiplied in number and kind. While among the primitive tribes to

whom it was first known, caoutchouc caused but a few changes, among

ourselves the changes have been so many and varied that the history of them

occupies a volume.[D] Upon the small, homogeneous community inhabiting one

of the Hebrides, the electric telegraph would produce, were it used,

scarcely any results; but in England the results it produces are

multitudinous. The comparatively simple organization under which our

ancestors lived five centuries ago, could have undergone but few

modifications from an event like the recent one at Canton; but now the

legislative decision respecting it sets up many hundreds of complex

modifications, each of which will be the parent of numerous future ones.

[D] "Personal Narrative of the Origin of the Caoutchouc, or

India-Rubber Manufacture in England." By Thomas Hancock.

Space permitting, we could willingly have pursued the argument in relation

to all the subtler results of civilization. As before, we showed that the

law of Progress to which the organic and inorganic worlds conform, is also

conformed to by Language, Sculpture, Music, &c.; so might we here show that

the cause which we have hitherto found to determine Progress holds in these

cases also. We might demonstrate in detail how, in Science, an advance of

one division presently advances other divisions--how Astronomy has been

immensely forwarded by discoveries in Optics, while other optical

discoveries have initiated Microscopic Anatomy, and greatly aided the

growth of Physiology--how Chemistry has indirectly increased our knowledge

of Electricity, Magnetism, Biology, Geology--how Electricity has reacted on

Chemistry and Magnetism, developed our views of Light and Heat, and

disclosed sundry laws of nervous action.

In Literature the same truth might be exhibited in the manifold effects of

the primitive mystery-play, not only as originating the modern drama, but

as affecting through it other kinds of poetry and fiction; or in the still

multiplying forms of periodical literature that have descended from the

first newspaper, and which have severally acted and reacted on other forms

of literature and on each other. The influence which a new school of

Painting--as that of the pre-Raffaelites--exercises upon other schools; the

hints which all kinds of pictorial art are deriving from Photography; the

complex results of new critical doctrines, as those of Mr. Ruskin, might

severally be dwelt upon as displaying the like multiplication of effects.

But it would needlessly tax the reader's patience to pursue, in their many

ramifications, these various changes: here become so involved and subtle as

to be followed with some difficulty.

Without further evidence, we venture to think our case is made out. The

imperfections of statement which brevity has necessitated, do not, we

believe, militate against the propositions laid down. The qualifications

here and there demanded would not, if made, affect the inferences. Though

in one instance, where sufficient evidence is not attainable, we have been

unable to show that the law of Progress applies; yet there is high

probability that the same generalization holds which holds throughout the

rest of creation. Though, in tracing the genesis of Progress, we have

frequently spoken of complex causes as if they were simple ones; it still

remains true that such causes are far less complex than their results.

Detailed criticisms cannot affect our main position. Endless facts go to

show that every kind of progress is from the homogeneous to the

heterogeneous; and that it is so because each change is followed by many

changes. And it is significant that where the facts are most accessible and

abundant, there are these truths most manifest.

However, to avoid committing ourselves to more than is yet proved, we must

be content with saying that such are the law and the cause of all progress

that is known to us. Should the Nebular Hypothesis ever be established,

then it will become manifest that the Universe at large, like every

organism, was once homogeneous; that as a whole, and in every detail, it

has unceasingly advanced towards greater heterogeneity; and that its

heterogeneity is still increasing. It will be seen that as in each event of

to-day, so from the beginning, the decomposition of every expended force

into several forces has been perpetually producing a higher complication;

that the increase of heterogeneity so brought about is still going on, and

must continue to go on; and that thus Progress is not an accident, not a

thing within human control, but a beneficent necessity.

* * * * *

A few words must be added on the ontological bearings of our argument.

Probably not a few will conclude that here is an attempted solution of the

great questions with which Philosophy in all ages has perplexed itself. Let

none thus deceive themselves. Only such as know not the scope and the

limits of Science can fall into so grave an error. The foregoing

generalizations apply, not to the genesis of things in themselves, but to

their genesis as manifested to the human consciousness. After all that has

been said, the ultimate mystery remains just as it was. The explanation of

that which is explicable, does but bring out into greater clearness the

inexplicableness of that which remains behind. However we may succeed in

reducing the equation to its lowest terms, we are not thereby enabled to

determine the unknown quantity: on the contrary, it only becomes more

manifest that the unknown quantity can never be found.

Little as it seems to do so, fearless inquiry tends continually to give a

firmer basis to all true Religion. The timid sectarian, alarmed at the

progress of knowledge, obliged to abandon one by one the superstitions of

his ancestors, and daily finding his cherished beliefs more and more

shaken, secretly fears that all things may some day be explained; and has a

corresponding dread of Science: thus evincing the profoundest of all

infidelity--the fear lest the truth be bad. On the other hand, the sincere

man of science, content to follow wherever the evidence leads him, becomes

by each new inquiry more profoundly convinced that the Universe is an

insoluble problem. Alike in the external and the internal worlds, he sees

himself in the midst of perpetual changes, of which he can discover neither

the beginning nor the end. If, tracing back the evolution of things, he

allows himself to entertain the hypothesis that all matter once existed in

a diffused form, he finds it utterly impossible to conceive how this came

to be so; and equally, if he speculates on the future, he can assign no

limit to the grand succession of phenomena ever unfolding themselves before

him. On the other hand, if he looks inward, he perceives that both

terminations of the thread of consciousness are beyond his grasp: he cannot

remember when or how consciousness commenced, and he cannot examine the

consciousness that at any moment exists; for only a state of consciousness

that is already past can become the object of thought, and never one which

is passing.

When, again, he turns from the succession of phenomena, external or

internal, to their essential nature, he is equally at fault. Though he may

succeed in resolving all properties of objects into manifestations of

force, he is not thereby enabled to realize what force is; but finds, on

the contrary, that the more he thinks about it, the more he is baffled.

Similarly, though analysis of mental actions may finally bring him down to

sensations as the original materials out of which all thought is woven, he

is none the forwarder; for he cannot in the least comprehend

sensation--cannot even conceive how sensation is possible. Inward and

outward things he thus discovers to be alike inscrutable in their ultimate

genesis and nature. He sees that the Materialist and Spiritualist

controversy is a mere war of words; the disputants being equally

absurd--each believing he understands that which it is impossible for any

man to understand. In all directions his investigations eventually bring

him face to face with the unknowable; and he ever more clearly perceives it

to be the unknowable. He learns at once the greatness and the littleness of

human intellect--its power in dealing with all that comes within the range

of experience; its impotence in dealing with all that transcends

experience. He feels, with a vividness which no others can, the utter

incomprehensibleness of the simplest fact, considered in itself. He alone

truly _sees_ that absolute knowledge is impossible. He alone _knows_ that

under all things there lies an impenetrable mystery.

II. MANNERS AND FASHION.

Whoever has studied the physiognomy of political meetings, cannot fail to

have remarked a connection between democratic opinions and peculiarities of

costume. At a Chartist demonstration, a lecture on Socialism, or a _soiree_

of the Friends of Italy, there will be seen many among the audience, and a

still larger ratio among the speakers, who get themselves up in a style

more or less unusual. One gentleman on the platform divides his hair down

the centre, instead of on one side; another brushes it back off the

forehead, in the fashion known as "bringing out the intellect;" a third has

so long forsworn the scissors, that his locks sweep his shoulders. A

considerable sprinkling of moustaches may be observed; here and there an

imperial; and occasionally some courageous breaker of conventions exhibits

a full-grown beard.[E] This nonconformity in hair is countenanced by

various nonconformities in dress, shown by others of the assemblage. Bare

necks, shirt-collars _a la_ Byron, waistcoats cut Quaker fashion,

wonderfully shaggy great coats, numerous oddities in form and colour,

destroy the monotony usual in crowds. Even those exhibiting no conspicuous

peculiarity, frequently indicate by something in the pattern or make-up of

their clothes, that they pay small regard to what their tailors tell them

about the prevailing taste. And when the gathering breaks up, the varieties

of head gear displayed--the number of caps, and the abundance of felt

hats--suffice to prove that were the world at large like-minded, the black

cylinders which tyrannize over us would soon be deposed.

[E] This was written before moustaches and beards had become common.

The foreign correspondence of our daily press shows that this relationship

between political discontent and the disregard of customs exists on the

Continent also. Red republicanism has always been distinguished by its

hirsuteness. The authorities of Prussia, Austria, and Italy, alike

recognize certain forms of hat as indicative of disaffection, and fulminate

against them accordingly. In some places the wearer of a blouse runs a risk

of being classed among the _suspects_; and in others, he who would avoid

the bureau of police, must beware how he goes out in any but the ordinary

colours. Thus, democracy abroad, as at home, tends towards personal

singularity.

Nor is this association of characteristics peculiar to modern times, or to

reformers of the State. It has always existed; and it has been manifested

as much in religious agitations as in political ones. Along with dissent

from the chief established opinions and arrangements, there has ever been

some dissent from the customary social practices. The Puritans,

disapproving of the long curls of the Cavaliers, as of their principles,

cut their own hair short, and so gained the name of "Roundheads." The

marked religious nonconformity of the Quakers was accompanied by an

equally-marked nonconformity of manners--in attire, in speech, in

salutation. The early Moravians not only believed differently, but at the

same time dressed differently, and lived differently, from their fellow

Christians.

That the association between political independence and independence of

personal conduct, is not a phenomenon of to-day only, we may see alike in

the appearance of Franklin at the French court in plain clothes, and in the

white hats worn by the last generation of radicals. Originality of nature

is sure to show itself in more ways than one. The mention of George Fox's

suit of leather, or Pestalozzi's school name, "Harry Oddity," will at once

suggest the remembrance that men who have in great things diverged from the

beaten track, have frequently done so in small things likewise. Minor

illustrations of this truth may be gathered in almost every circle. We

believe that whoever will number up his reforming and rationalist

acquaintances, will find among them more than the usual proportion of those

who in dress or behaviour exhibit some degree of what the world calls

eccentricity.

If it be a fact that men of revolutionary aims in politics or religion, are

commonly revolutionists in custom also, it is not less a fact that those

whose office it is to uphold established arrangements in State and Church,

are also those who most adhere to the social forms and observances

bequeathed to us by past generations. Practices elsewhere extinct still

linger about the headquarters of government. The monarch still gives assent

to Acts of Parliament in the old French of the Normans; and Norman French

terms are still used in law. Wigs, such as those we see depicted in old

portraits, may yet be found on the heads of judges and barristers. The

Beefeaters at the Tower wear the costume of Henry VIIth's body-guard. The

University dress of the present year varies but little from that worn soon

after the Reformation. The claret-coloured coat, knee-breeches, lace shirt

frills, ruffles, white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, which once formed

the usual attire of a gentleman, still survive as the court-dress. And it

need scarcely be said that at _levees_ and drawing-rooms, the ceremonies

are prescribed with an exactness, and enforced with a rigour, not elsewhere

to be found.

Can we consider these two series of coincidences as accidental and

unmeaning? Must we not rather conclude that some necessary relationship

obtains between them? Are there not such things as a constitutional

conservatism, and a constitutional tendency to change? Is there not a class

which clings to the old in all things; and another class so in love with

progress as often to mistake novelty for improvement? Do we not find some

men ready to bow to established authority of whatever kind; while others

demand of every such authority its reason, and reject it if it fails to

justify itself? And must not the minds thus contrasted tend to become

respectively conformist and nonconformist, not only in politics and

religion, but in other things? Submission, whether to a government, to the

dogmas of ecclesiastics, or to that code of behaviour which society at

large has set up, is essentially of the same nature; and the sentiment

which induces resistance to the despotism of rulers, civil or spiritual,

likewise induces resistance to the despotism of the world's opinion. Look

at them fundamentally, and all enactments, alike of the legislature, the

consistory, and the saloon--all regulations, formal or virtual, have a

common character: they are all limitations of men's freedom. "Do

this--Refrain from that," are the blank formulas into which they may all be

written: and in each case the understanding is that obedience will bring

approbation here and paradise hereafter; while disobedience will entail

imprisonment, or sending to Coventry, or eternal torments, as the case may

be. And if restraints, however named, and through whatever apparatus of

means exercised, are one in their action upon men, it must happen that

those who are patient under one kind of restraint, are likely to be patient

under another; and conversely, that those impatient of restraint in

general, will, on the average, tend to show their impatience in all

directions.

That Law, Religion, and Manners are thus related--that their respective

kinds of operation come under one generalization--that they have in certain

contrasted characteristics of men a common support and a common

danger--will, however, be most clearly seen on discovering that they have a

common origin. Little as from present appearances we should suppose it, we

shall yet find that at first, the control of religion, the control of laws,

and the control of manners, were all one control. However incredible it may

now seem, we believe it to be demonstrable that the rules of etiquette, the

provisions of the statute-book, and the commands of the decalogue, have

grown from the same root. If we go far enough back into the ages of

primeval Fetishism, it becomes manifest that originally Deity, Chief, and

Master of the ceremonies were identical. To make good these positions, and

to show their bearing on what is to follow, it will be necessary here to

traverse ground that is in part somewhat beaten, and at first sight

irrelevant to our topic. We will pass over it as quickly as consists with

the exigencies of the argument.

* * * * *

That the earliest social aggregations were ruled solely by the will of the

strong man, few dispute. That from the strong man proceeded not only

Monarchy, but the conception of a God, few admit: much as Carlyle and

others have said in evidence of it. If, however, those who are unable to

believe this, will lay aside the ideas of God and man in which they have

been educated, and study the aboriginal ideas of them, they will at least

see some probability in the hypothesis. Let them remember that before

experience had yet taught men to distinguish between the possible and the

impossible; and while they were ready on the slightest suggestion to

ascribe unknown powers to any object and make a fetish of it; their

conceptions of humanity and its capacities were necessarily vague, and

without specific limits. The man who by unusual strength, or cunning,

achieved something that others had failed to achieve, or something which

they did not understand, was considered by them as differing from

themselves; and, as we see in the belief of some Polynesians that only

their chiefs have souls, or in that of the ancient Peruvians that their

nobles were divine by birth, the ascribed difference was apt to be not one

of degree only, but one of kind.

Let them remember next, how gross were the notions of God, or rather of

gods, prevalent during the same era and afterwards--how concretely gods

were conceived as men of specific aspects dressed in specific ways--how

their names were literally "the strong," "the destroyer," "the powerful

one,"--how, according to the Scandinavian mythology, the "sacred duty of

blood-revenge" was acted on by the gods themselves,--and how they were not

only human in their vindictiveness, their cruelty, and their quarrels with

each other, but were supposed to have amours on earth, and to consume the

viands placed on their altars. Add to which, that in various mythologies,

Greek, Scandinavian, and others, the oldest beings are giants; that

according to a traditional genealogy the gods, demi-gods, and in some cases

men, are descended from these after the human fashion; and that while in

the East we hear of sons of God who saw the daughters of men that they were

fair, the Teutonic myths tell of unions between the sons of men and the

daughters of the gods.

Let them remember, too, that at first the idea of death differed widely

from that which we have; that there are still tribes who, on the decease of

one of their number, attempt to make the corpse stand, and put food into

his mouth; that the Peruvians had feasts at which the mummies of their dead

Incas presided, when, as Prescott says, they paid attention "to these

insensible remains as if they were instinct with life;" that among the

Feejees it is believed that every enemy has to be killed twice; that the

Eastern Pagans give extension and figure to the soul, and attribute to it

all the same substances, both solid and liquid, of which our bodies are

composed; and that it is the custom among most barbarous races to bury

food, weapons, and trinkets along with the dead body, under the manifest

belief that it will presently need them.

Lastly, let them remember that the other world, as originally conceived, is

simply some distant part of this world--some Elysian fields, some happy

hunting-ground, accessible even to the living, and to which, after death,

men travel in anticipation of a life analogous in general character to that

which they led before. Then, co-ordinating these general facts--the

ascription of unknown powers to chiefs and medicine men; the belief in

deities having human forms, passions, and behaviour; the imperfect

comprehension of death as distinguished from life; and the proximity of the

future abode to the present, both in position and character--let them

reflect whether they do not almost unavoidably suggest the conclusion that

the aboriginal god is the dead chief: the chief not dead in our sense, but

gone away carrying with him food and weapons to some rumoured region of

plenty, some promised land, whither he had long intended to lead his

followers, and whence he will presently return to fetch them.

This hypothesis once entertained, is seen to harmonize with all primitive

ideas and practices. The sons of the deified chief reigning after him, it

necessarily happens that all early kings are held descendants of the gods;

and the fact that alike in Assyria, Egypt, among the Jews, Ph[oe]nicians,

and ancient Britons, kings' names were formed out of the names of the gods,

is fully explained. The genesis of Polytheism out of Fetishism, by the

successive migrations of the race of god-kings to the other world--a

genesis illustrated in the Greek mythology, alike by the precise genealogy

of the deities, and by the specifically asserted apotheosis of the later

ones--tends further to bear it out. It explains the fact that in the old

creeds, as in the still extant creed of the Otaheitans, every family has

its guardian spirit, who is supposed to be one of their departed relatives;

and that they sacrifice to these as minor gods--a practice still pursued by

the Chinese and even by the Russians. It is perfectly congruous with the

Grecian myths concerning the wars of the Gods with the Titans and their

final usurpation; and it similarly agrees with the fact that among the

Teutonic gods proper was one Freir who came among them by adoption, "but

was born among the _Vanes_, a somewhat mysterious _other_ dynasty of gods,

who had been conquered and superseded by the stronger and more warlike Odin

dynasty." It harmonizes, too, with the belief that there are different gods

to different territories and nations, as there were different chiefs; that

these gods contend for supremacy as chiefs do; and it gives meaning to the

boast of neighbouring tribes--"Our god is greater than your god." It is

confirmed by the notion universally current in early times, that the gods

come from this other abode, in which they commonly live, and appear among

men--speak to them, help them, punish them. And remembering this, it

becomes manifest that the prayers put up by primitive peoples to their gods

for aid in battle, are meant literally--that their gods are expected to

come back from the other kingdom they are reigning over, and once more

fight the old enemies they had before warred against so implacably; and it

needs but to name the Iliad, to remind every one how thoroughly they

believed the expectation fulfilled.

All government, then, being originally that of the strong man who has

become a fetish by some manifestation of superiority, there arises, at his

death--his supposed departure on a long projected expedition, in which he

is accompanied by his slaves and concubines sacrificed at his tomb--there

arises, then, the incipient division of religious from political control,

of civil rule from spiritual. His son becomes deputed chief during his

absence; his authority is cited as that by which his son acts; his

vengeance is invoked on all who disobey his son; and his commands, as

previously known or as asserted by his son, become the germ of a moral

code: a fact we shall the more clearly perceive if we remember, that early

moral codes inculcate mainly the virtues of the warrior, and the duty of

exterminating some neighbouring tribe whose existence is an offence to the

deity.

From this point onwards, these two kinds of authority, at first complicated

together as those of principal and agent, become slowly more and more

distinct. As experience accumulates, and ideas of causation grow more

precise, kings lose their supernatural attributes; and, instead of

God-king, become God-descended king, God-appointed king, the Lord's

anointed, the viceregent of heaven, ruler reigning by Divine right. The old

theory, however, long clings to men in feeling, after it has disappeared in

name; and "such divinity doth hedge a king," that even now, many, on first

seeing one, feel a secret surprise at finding him an ordinary sample of

humanity. The sacredness attaching to royalty attaches afterwards to its

appended institutions--to legislatures, to laws. Legal and illegal are

synonymous with right and wrong; the authority of Parliament is held

unlimited; and a lingering faith in governmental power continually

generates unfounded hopes from its enactments. Political scepticism,

however, having destroyed the divine _prestige_ of royalty, goes on ever

increasing, and promises ultimately to reduce the State to a purely secular

institution, whose regulations are limited in their sphere, and have no

other authority than the general will. Meanwhile, the religious control has

been little by little separating itself from the civil, both in its essence

and in its forms. While from the God-king of the savage have arisen in one

direction, secular rulers who, age by age, have been losing the sacred

attributes men ascribed to them; there has arisen in another direction, the

conception of a deity, who, at first human in all things, has been

gradually losing human materiality, human form, human passions, human modes

of action: until now, anthropomorphism has become a reproach.

Along with this wide divergence in men's ideas of the divine and civil

ruler has been taking place a corresponding divergence in the codes of

conduct respectively proceeding from them. While the king was a

deputy-god--a governor such as the Jews looked for in the Messiah--a

governor considered, as the Czar still is, "our God upon Earth,"--it, of

course, followed that his commands were the supreme rules. But as men

ceased to believe in his supernatural origin and nature, his commands

ceased to be the highest; and there arose a distinction between the

regulations made by him, and the regulations handed down from the old

god-kings, who were rendered ever more sacred by time and the accumulation

of myths. Hence came respectively, Law and Morality: the one growing ever

more concrete, the other more abstract; the authority of the one ever on

the decrease, that of the other ever on the increase; originally the same,

but now placed daily in more marked antagonism.

Simultaneously there has been going on a separation of the institutions

administering these two codes of conduct. While they were yet one, of

course Church and State were one: the king was arch-priest, not nominally,

but really--alike the giver of new commands and the chief interpreter of

the old commands; and the deputy-priests coming out of his family were thus

simply expounders of the dictates of their ancestry: at first as

recollected, and afterwards as ascertained by professed interviews with

them. This union--which still existed practically during the middle ages,

when the authority of kings was mixed up with the authority of the pope,

when there were bishop-rulers having all the powers of feudal lords, and

when priests punished by penances--has been, step by step, becoming less

close. Though monarchs are still "defenders of the faith," and

ecclesiastical chiefs, they are but nominally such. Though bishops still

have civil power, it is not what they once had. Protestantism shook loose

the bonds of union; Dissent has long been busy in organizing a mechanism

for the exercise of religious control, wholly independent of law; in

America, a separate organization for that purpose already exists; and if

anything is to be hoped from the Anti-State-Church Association--or, as it

has been newly named, "The Society for the Liberation of Religion from

State Patronage and Control"--we shall presently have a separate

organization here also.

Thus alike in authority, in essence, and in form, political and spiritual

rule have been ever more widely diverging from the same root. That

increasing division of labour which marks the progress of society in other

things, marks it also in this separation of government into civil and

religious; and if we observe how the morality which forms the substance of

religions in general, is beginning to be purified from the associated

creeds, we may anticipate that this division will be ultimately carried

much further.

Passing now to the third species of control--that of Manners--we shall find

that this, too, while it had a common genesis with the others, has

gradually come to have a distinct sphere and a special embodiment. Among

early aggregations of men before yet social observances existed, the sole

forms of courtesy known were the signs of submission to the strong man; as

the sole law was his will, and the sole religion the awe of his supposed

supernaturalness. Originally, ceremonies were modes of behaviour to the

god-king. Our commonest titles have been derived from his names. And all

salutations were primarily worship paid to him. Let us trace out these

truths in detail, beginning with titles.

The fact already noticed, that the names of early kings among divers races

are formed by the addition of certain syllables to the names of their

gods--which certain syllables, like our _Mac_ and _Fitz_, probably mean

"son of," or "descended from"--at once gives meaning to the term _Father_

as a divine title. And when we read, in Selden, that "the composition out

of these names of Deities was not only proper to Kings: their Grandes and

more honorable Subjects" (no doubt members of the royal race) "had

sometimes the like;" we see how the term _Father_, properly used by these

also, and by their multiplying descendants, came to be a title used by the

people in general. And it is significant as bearing on this point, that

among the most barbarous nation in Europe, where belief in the divine

nature of the ruler still lingers, _Father_ in this higher sense is still a

regal distinction. When, again, we remember how the divinity at first

ascribed to kings was not a complimentary fiction but a supposed fact; and

how, further, under the Fetish philosophy the celestial bodies are believed

to be personages who once lived among men; we see that the appellations of

oriental rulers, "Brother to the Sun," &c., were probably once expressive

of a genuine belief; and have simply, like many other things, continued in

use after all meaning has gone out of them. We may infer, too, that the

titles God, Lord, Divinity, were given to primitive rulers literally--that

the _nostra divinitas_ applied to the Roman emperors, and the various

sacred designations that have been borne by monarchs, down to the still

extant phrase, "Our Lord the King," are the dead and dying forms of what

were once living facts. From these names, God, Father, Lord, Divinity,

originally belonging to the God-king, and afterwards to God and the king,

the derivation of our commonest titles of respect is clearly traceable.

There is reason to think that these titles were originally proper names.

Not only do we see among the Egyptians, where Pharaoh was synonymous with

king, and among the Romans, where to be Caesar, meant to be Emperor, that

the proper names of the greatest men were transferred to their successors,

and so became class names; but in the Scandinavian mythology we may trace a

human title of honour up to the proper name of a divine personage. In

Anglo-Saxon _bealdor_, or _baldor_, means _Lord_; and Balder is the name of

the favourite of Odin's sons--the gods who with him constitute the Teutonic

Pantheon. How these names of honour became general is easily understood.

The relatives of the primitive kings--the grandees described by Selden as

having names formed on those of the gods, and shown by this to be members

of the divine race--necessarily shared in the epithets, such as _Lord_,

descriptive of superhuman relationships and nature. Their ever-multiplying

offspring inheriting these, gradually rendered them comparatively common.

And then they came to be applied to every man of power: partly from the

fact that, in these early days when men conceived divinity simply as a

stronger kind of humanity, great persons could be called by divine epithets

with but little exaggeration; partly from the fact that the unusually

potent were apt to be considered as unrecognized or illegitimate

descendants of "the strong, the destroyer, the powerful one;" and partly,

also, from compliment and the desire to propitiate.

Progressively as superstition diminished, this last became the sole cause.

And if we remember that it is the nature of compliment, as we daily hear

it, to attribute more than is due--that in the constantly widening

application of "esquire," in the perpetual repetition of "your honour" by

the fawning Irishman, and in the use of the name "gentleman" to any

coalheaver or dustman by the lower classes of London, we have current

examples of the depreciation of titles consequent on compliment--and that

in barbarous times, when the wish to propitiate was stronger than now, this

effect must have been greater; we shall see that there naturally arose an

extensive misuse of all early distinctions. Hence the facts, that the Jews

called Herod a god; that _Father_, in its higher sense, was a term used

among them by servants to masters; that _Lord_ was applicable to any person

of worth and power. Hence, too, the fact that, in the later periods of the

Roman Empire, every _ man saluted his neighbour as _Dominus_ and _Rex_.

But it is in the titles of the middle ages, and in the growth of our modern

ones out of them, that the process is most clearly seen. _Herr_, _Don_,

_Signior_, _Seigneur_, _Sennor_, were all originally names of rulers--of

feudal lords. By the complimentary use of these names to all who could, on

any pretence, be supposed to merit them, and by successive degradations of

them from each step in the descent to a still lower one, they have come to

be common forms of address. At first the phrase in which a serf accosted

his despotic chief, _mein herr_ is now familiarly applied in Germany to

ordinary people. The Spanish title _Don_, once proper to noblemen and

gentlemen only, is now accorded to all classes. So, too, is it with

_Signior_ in Italy. _Seigneur_, and _Monseigneur_, by contraction in

_Sieur_ and _Monsieur_, have produced the term of respect claimed by every

Frenchman. And whether _Sire_ be or be not a like contraction of _Signior_,

it is clear that, as it was borne by sundry of the ancient feudal lords of

France, who, as Selden says, "affected rather to bee stiled by the name of

_Sire_ than Baron, as _Le Sire de Montmorencie_, _Le Sire de Beaulieu_, and

the like," and as it has been commonly used to monarchs, our word _Sir_,

which is derived from it, originally meant lord or king. Thus, too, is it

with feminine titles. _Lady_, which, according to Horne Tooke, means

_exalted_, and was at first given only to the few, is now given to all

women of education. _Dame_, once an honourable name to which, in old books,

we find the epithets of "highborn" and "stately" affixed, has now, by

repeated widenings of its application, become relatively a term of

contempt. And if we trace the compound of this, _ma Dame_, through its

contractions--_Madam_, _ma'am_, _mam_, _mum_, we find that the "Yes'm" of

Sally to her mistress is originally equivalent to "Yes, my exalted," or

"Yes, your highness." Throughout, therefore, the genesis of words of honour

has been the same. Just as with the Jews and with the Romans, has it been

with the modern Europeans. Tracing these everyday names to their primitive

significations of _lord_ and _king_, and remembering that in aboriginal

societies these were applied only to the gods and their descendants, we

arrive at the conclusion that our familiar _Sir_ and _Monsieur_ are, in

their primary and expanded meanings, terms of adoration.

Further to illustrate this gradual depreciation of titles, and to confirm

the inference drawn, it may be well to notice in passing, that the oldest

of them have, as might be expected, been depreciated to the greatest

extent. Thus, _Master_--a word proved by its derivation and by the

similarity of the connate words in other languages (Fr., _maitre_ for

_master_; Russ., _master_; Dan., _meester_; Ger., _meister_) to have been

one of the earliest in use for expressing lordship--has now become

applicable to children only, and under the modification of "Mister," to

persons next above the labourer. Again, knighthood, the oldest kind of

dignity, is also the lowest; and Knight Bachelor, which is the lowest order

of knighthood, is more ancient than any other of the orders. Similarly,

too, with the peerage: Baron is alike the earliest and least elevated of

its divisions. This continual degradation of all names of honor has, from

time to time, made it requisite to introduce new ones having that

distinguishing effect which the originals had lost by generality of use;

just as our habit of misapplying superlatives has, by gradually destroying

their force, entailed the need for fresh ones. And if, within the last

thousand years, this process has produced effects thus marked, we may

readily conceive how, during previous thousands, the titles of gods and

demi-gods came to be used to all persons exercising power; as they have

since come to be used to persons of respectability.

If from names of honour we turn to phrases of honour, we find similar

facts. The Oriental styles of address, applied to ordinary people--"I am

your slave," "All I have is yours," "I am your sacrifice"--attribute to the

individual spoken to the same greatness that _Monsieur_ and _My Lord_ do:

they ascribe to him the character of an all-powerful ruler, so immeasurably

superior to the speaker as to be his owner. So, likewise, with the Polish

expressions of respect--"I throw myself under your feet," "I kiss your

feet." In our now meaningless subscription to a formal letter--"Your most

obedient servant,"--the same thing is visible. Nay, even in the familiar

signature "Yours faithfully," the "yours," if interpreted as originally

meant, is the expression of a slave to his master.

All these dead forms were once living embodiments of fact--were primarily

the genuine indications of that submission to authority which they verbally

assert; were afterwards naturally used by the weak and cowardly to

propitiate those above them; gradually grew to be considered the due of

such; and, by a continually wider misuse, have lost their meanings, as

_Sir_ and _Master_ have done. That, like titles, they were in the beginning

used only to the God-king, is indicated by the fact that, like titles, they

were subsequently used in common to God and the king. Religious worship has

ever largely consisted of professions of obedience, of being God's

servants, of belonging to him to do what he will with. Like titles,

therefore, these common phrases of honour had a devotional origin.

Perhaps, however, it is in the use of the word _you_ as a singular pronoun

that the popularizing of what were once supreme distinctions is most

markedly illustrated. This speaking of a single individual in the plural,

was originally an honour given only to the highest--was the reciprocal of

the imperial "we" assumed by such. Yet now, by being applied to

successively lower and lower classes, it has become all but universal. Only

by one sect of Christians, and in a few secluded districts, is the

primitive _thou_ still used. And the _you_, in becoming common to all ranks

has simultaneously lost every vestige of the honour once attaching to it.

But the genesis of Manners out of forms of allegiance and worship, is above

all shown in men's modes of salutation. Note first the significance of the

word. Among the Romans, the _salutatio_ was a daily homage paid by clients

and inferiors to superiors. This was alike the case with civilians and in

the army. The very derivation of our word, therefore, is suggestive of

submission. Passing to particular forms of obeisance (mark the word again),

let us begin with the Eastern one of baring the feet. This was, primarily,

a mark of reverence, alike to a god and a king. The act of Moses before the

burning bush, and the practice of Mahometans, who are sworn on the Koran

with their shoes off, exemplify the one employment of it; the custom of the

Persians, who remove their shoes on entering the presence of their monarch,

exemplifies the other. As usual, however, this homage, paid next to

inferior rulers, has descended from grade to grade. In India, it is a

common mark of respect; a polite man in Turkey always leaves his shoes at

the door, while the lower orders of Turks never enter the presence of their

superiors but in their stockings; and in Japan, this baring of the feet is

an ordinary salutation of man to man.

Take another case. Selden, describing the ceremonies of the Romans,

says:--"For whereas it was usual either to kiss the Images of their Gods,

or adoring them, to stand somewhat off before them, solemnly moving the

right hand to the lips, and then, casting it as if they had cast kisses, to

turne the body on the same hand (which was the right forme of Adoration),

it grew also by custom, first that the emperors, being next to Deities, and

by some accounted as Deities, had the like done to them in acknowledgment

of their Greatness." If, now, we call to mind the awkward salute of a

village school-boy, made by putting his open hand up to his face and

describing a semicircle with his forearm; and if we remember that the

salute thus used as a form of reverence in country districts, is most

likely a remnant of the feudal times; we shall see reason for thinking that

our common wave of the hand to a friend across the street, represents what

was primarily a devotional act.

Similarly have originated all forms of respect depending upon inclinations

of the body. Entire prostration is the aboriginal sign of submission. The

passage of Scripture, "Thou hast put all under his feet," and that other

one, so suggestive in its anthropomorphism, "The Lord said unto my Lord,

sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool,"

imply, what the Assyrian sculptures fully bear out, that it was the

practice of the ancient god-kings of the East to trample upon the

conquered. And when we bear in mind that there are existing savages who

signify submission by placing the neck under the foot of the person

submitted to, it becomes obvious that all prostration, especially when

accompanied by kissing the foot, expressed a willingness to be trodden

upon--was an attempt to mitigate wrath by saying, in signs, "Tread on me if

you will." Remembering, further, that kissing the foot, as of the Pope and

of a saint's statue, still continues in Europe to be a mark of extreme

reverence; that prostration to feudal lords was once general; and that its

disappearance must have taken place, not abruptly, but by gradual

modification into something else; we have ground for deriving from these

deepest of humiliations all inclinations of respect; especially as the

transition is traceable. The reverence of a Russian serf, who bends his

head to the ground, and the salaam of the Hindoo, are abridged

prostrations; a bow is a short salaam; a nod is a short bow.

Should any hesitate to admit this conclusion, then perhaps, on being

reminded that the lowest of these obeisances are common where the

submission is most abject; that among ourselves the profundity of the bow

marks the amount of respect; and lastly, that the bow is even now used

devotionally in our churches--by Catholics to their altars, and by

Protestants at the name of Christ--they will see sufficient evidence for

thinking that this salutation also was originally worship.

The same may be said, too, of the curtsy, or courtesy, as it is otherwise

written. Its derivation from _courtoisie_, courteousness, that is,

behaviour like that at court, at once shows that it was primarily the

reverence paid to a monarch. And if we call to mind that falling upon the

knees, or upon one knee, has been a common obeisance of subjects to rulers;

that in ancient manuscripts and tapestries, servants are depicted as

assuming this attitude while offering the dishes to their masters at table;

and that this same attitude is assumed towards our own queen at every

presentation; we may infer, what the character of the curtsy itself

suggests, that it is an abridged act of kneeling. As the word has been

contracted from _courtoisie_ into curtsy; so the motion has been contracted

from a placing of the knee on the floor, to a lowering of the knee towards

the floor. Moreover, when we compare the curtsy of a lady with the awkward

one a peasant girl makes, which, if continued, would bring her down on both

knees, we may see in this last a remnant of that greater reverence required

of serfs. And when, from considering that simple kneeling of the West,

still represented by the curtsy, we pass Eastward, and note the attitude of

the Mahomedan worshipper, who not only kneels but bows his head to the

ground, we may infer that the curtsy also, is an evanescent form of the

aboriginal prostration.

In further evidence of this it may be remarked, that there has but recently

disappeared from the salutations of men, an action having the same

proximate derivation with the curtsy. That backward sweep of the foot with

which the conventional stage-sailor accompanies his bow--a movement which

prevailed generally in past generations, when "a bow and a scrape" went

together, and which, within the memory of living persons, was made by boys

to their schoolmaster with the effect of wearing a hole in the floor--is

pretty clearly a preliminary to going on one knee. A motion so ungainly

could never have been intentionally introduced; even if the artificial

introduction of obeisances were possible. Hence we must regard it as the

remnant of something antecedent: and that this something antecedent was

humiliating maybe inferred from the phrase, "scraping an acquaintance;"

which, being used to denote the gaining of favour by obsequiousness,

implies that the scrape was considered a mark of servility--that is, of

_serf_-ility.

Consider, again, the uncovering of the head. Almost everywhere this has

been a sign of reverence, alike in temples and before potentates; and it

yet preserves among us some of its original meaning. Whether it rains,

hails, or shines, you must keep your head bare while speaking to the

monarch; and on no plea may you remain covered in a place of worship. As

usual, however, this ceremony, at first a submission to gods and kings, has

become in process of time a common civility. Once an acknowledgment of

another's unlimited supremacy, the removal of the hat is now a salute

accorded to very ordinary persons, and that uncovering, originally reserved

for entrance into "the house of God," good manners now dictates on entrance

into the house of a common labourer.

Standing, too, as a mark of respect, has undergone like extensions in its

application. Shown, by the practice in our churches, to be intermediate

between the humiliation signified by kneeling and the self-respect which

sitting implies, and used at courts as a form of homage when more active

demonstrations of it have been made, this posture is now employed in daily

life to show consideration; as seen alike in the attitude of a servant

before a master, and in that rising which politeness prescribes on the

entrance of a visitor.

Many other threads of evidence might have been woven into our argument. As,

for example, the significant fact, that if we trace back our still existing

law of primogeniture--if we consider it as displayed by Scottish clans, in

which not only ownership but government devolved from the beginning on the

eldest son of the eldest--if we look further back, and observe that the old

titles of lordship, _Signor_, _Seigneur_, _Sennor_, _Sire_, _Sieur_, all

originally mean, senior, or elder--if we go Eastward, and find that

_Sheick_ has a like derivation, and that the Oriental names for priests, as

_Pir_, for instance, are literally interpreted _old man_--if we note in

Hebrew records how primeval is the ascribed superiority of the first-born,

how great the authority of elders, and how sacred the memory of

patriarchs--and if, then, we remember that among divine titles are "Ancient

of Days," and "Father of Gods and men;"--we see how completely these facts

harmonize with the hypothesis, that the aboriginal god is the first man

sufficiently great to become a tradition, the earliest whose power and

deeds made him remembered; that hence antiquity unavoidably became

associated with superiority, and age with nearness in blood to "the

powerful one;" that so there naturally arose that domination of the eldest

which characterizes all history, and that theory of human degeneracy which

even yet survives.

We might further dwell on the facts, that _Lord_ signifies high-born, or,

as the same root gives a word meaning heaven, possibly heaven-born; that,

before it became common, _Sir_ or _Sire_, as well as _Father_, was the

distinction of a priest; that _worship_, originally worth-ship--a term of

respect that has been used commonly, as well as to magistrates--is also our

term for the act of attributing greatness or worth to the Deity; so that to

ascribe worth-ship to a man is to worship him. We might make much of the

evidence that all early governments are more or less distinctly theocratic;

and that among ancient Eastern nations even the commonest forms and customs

appear to have been influenced by religion. We might enforce our argument

respecting the derivation of ceremonies, by tracing out the aboriginal

obeisance made by putting dust on the head, which probably symbolizes

putting the head in the dust: by affiliating the practice prevailing among

certain tribes, of doing another honour by presenting him with a portion of

hair torn from the head--an act which seems tantamount to saying, "I am

your slave;" by investigating the Oriental custom of giving to a visitor

any object he speaks of admiringly, which is pretty clearly a carrying out

the compliment, "All I have is yours."

Without enlarging, however, on these and many minor facts, we venture to

think that the evidence already assigned is sufficient to justify our

position. Had the proofs been few or of one kind, little faith could have

been placed in the inference. But numerous as they are, alike in the case

of titles, in that of complimentary phrases, and in that of

salutes--similar and simultaneous, too, as the process of depreciation has

been in all of these; the evidences become strong by mutual confirmation.

And when we recollect, also, that not only have the results of this process

been visible in various nations and in all times, but that they are

occurring among ourselves at the present moment, and that the causes

assigned for previous depreciations may be seen daily working out other

ones--when we recollect this, it becomes scarcely possible to doubt that

the process has been as alleged; and that our ordinary words, acts, and

phrases of civility were originally acknowledgments of submission to

another's omnipotence.

Thus the general doctrine, that all kinds of government exercised over men

were at first one government--that the political, the religious, and the

ceremonial forms of control are divergent branches of a general and once

indivisible control--begins to look tenable. When, with the above facts

fresh in mind, we read primitive records, and find that "there were giants

in those days"--when we remember that in Eastern traditions Nimrod, among

others, figures in all the characters of giant, king, and divinity--when we

turn to the sculptures exhumed by Mr. Layard, and contemplating in them the

effigies of kings driving over enemies, trampling on prisoners, and adored

by prostrate slaves, then observe how their actions correspond to the

primitive names for the divinity, "the strong," "the destroyer," "the

powerful one"--when we find that the earliest temples were also the

residences of the kings--and when, lastly, we discover that among races of

men still living, there are current superstitions analogous to those which

old records and old buildings indicate; we begin to realize the probability

of the hypothesis that has been set forth.

Going back, in imagination, to the remote era when men's theories of things

were yet unformed; and conceiving to ourselves the conquering chief as

dimly figured in ancient myths, and poems, and ruins; we may see that all

rules of conduct whatever spring from his will. Alike legislator and judge,

all quarrels among his subjects are decided by him; and his words become

the Law. Awe of him is the incipient Religion; and his maxims furnish its

first precepts. Submission is made to him in the forms he prescribes; and

these give birth to Manners. From the first, time develops political

allegiance and the administration of justice; from the second, the worship

of a being whose personality becomes ever more vague, and the inculcation

of precepts ever more abstract; from the third, forms of honour and the

rules of etiquette.

In conformity with the law of evolution of all organized bodies, that

general functions are gradually separated into the special functions

constituting them, there have grown up in the social organism for the

better performance of the governmental office, an apparatus of law-courts,

judges, and barristers; a national church, with its bishops and priests;

and a system of caste, titles, and ceremonies, administered by society at

large. By the first, overt aggressions are cognized and punished; by the

second, the disposition to commit such aggressions is in some degree

checked; by the third, those minor breaches of good conduct, which the

others do not notice, are denounced and chastised. Law and Religion control

behaviour in its essentials: Manners control it in its details. For

regulating those daily actions which are too numerous and too unimportant

to be officially directed, there comes into play this subtler set of

restraints. And when we consider what these restraints are--when we analyze

the words, and phrases, and salutes employed, we see that in origin as in

effect, the system is a setting up of temporary governments between all men

who come in contact, for the purpose of better managing the intercourse

between them.

* * * * *

From the proposition, that these several kinds of government are

essentially one, both in genesis and function, may be deduced several

important corollaries, directly bearing on our special topic.

Let us first notice, that there is not only a common origin and office for

all forms of rule, but a common necessity for them. The aboriginal man,

coming fresh from the killing of bears and from lying in ambush for his

enemy, has, by the necessities of his condition, a nature requiring to be

curbed in its every impulse. Alike in war and in the chase, his daily

discipline has been that of sacrificing other creatures to his own needs

and passions. His character, bequeathed to him by ancestors who led similar

lives, is moulded by this discipline--is fitted to this existence. The

unlimited selfishness, the love of inflicting pain, the bloodthirstiness,

thus kept active, he brings with him into the social state. These

dispositions put him in constant danger of conflict with his equally savage

neighbour. In small things as in great, in words as in deeds, he is

aggressive; and is hourly liable to the aggressions of others like natured.

Only, therefore, by the most rigorous control exercised over all actions,

can the primitive unions of men be maintained. There must be a ruler

strong, remorseless, and of indomitable will; there must be a creed

terrible in its threats to the disobedient; and there must be the most

servile submission of all inferiors to superiors. The law must be cruel;

the religion must be stern; the ceremonies must be strict.

The co-ordinate necessity for these several kinds of restraint might be

largely illustrated from history were there space. Suffice it to point out,

that where the civil power has been weak, the multiplication of thieves,

assassins, and banditti, has indicated the approach of social dissolution;

that when, from the corruptness of its ministry, religion has lost its

influence, as it did just before the Flagellants appeared, the State has

been endangered; and that the disregard of established social observances

has ever been an accompaniment of political revolutions. Whoever doubts the

necessity for a government of manners proportionate in strength to the

co-existing political and religious governments, will be convinced on

calling to mind that until recently even elaborate codes of behaviour

failed to keep gentlemen from quarrelling in the streets and fighting duels

in taverns; and on remembering further, that even now people exhibit at the

doors of a theatre, where there is no ceremonial law to rule them, a degree

of aggressiveness which would produce confusion if carried into social

intercourse.

As might be expected, we find that, having a common origin and like general

functions, these several controlling agencies act during each era with

similar degrees of vigour. Under the Chinese despotism, stringent and

multitudinous in its edicts and harsh in the enforcement of them, and

associated with which there is an equally stern domestic despotism

exercised by the eldest surviving male of the family, there exists a system

of observances alike complicated and rigid. There is a tribunal of

ceremonies. Previous to presentation at court, ambassadors pass many days

in practising the required forms. Social intercourse is cumbered by endless

compliments and obeisances. Class distinctions are strongly marked by

badges. The chief regret on losing an only son is, that there will be no

one to perform the sepulchral rites. And if there wants a definite measure

of the respect paid to social ordinances, we have it in the torture to

which ladies submit in having their feet crushed. In India, and indeed

throughout the East, there exists a like connection between the pitiless

tyranny of rulers, the dread terrors of immemorial creeds, and the rigid

restraint of unchangeable customs: the caste regulations continue still

unalterable; the fashions of clothes and furniture have remained the same

for ages; suttees are so ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo and Diodorus

Siculus; justice is still administered at the palace-gates as of old; in

short, "every usage is a precept of religion and a maxim of jurisprudence."

A similar relationship of phenomena was exhibited in Europe during the

Middle Ages. While all its governments were autocratic, while feudalism

held sway, while the Church was unshorn of its power, while the criminal

code was full of horrors and the hell of the popular creed full of terrors,

the rules of behaviour were both more numerous and more carefully conformed

to than now. Differences of dress marked divisions of rank. Men were

limited by law to a certain width of shoe-toes; and no one below a

specified degree might wear a cloak less than so many inches long. The

symbols on banners and shields were carefully attended to. Heraldry was an

important branch of knowledge. Precedence was strictly insisted on. And

those various salutes of which we now use the abridgments were gone through

in full. Even during our own last century, with its corrupt House of

Commons and little-curbed monarchs, we may mark a correspondence of social

formalities. Gentlemen were still distinguished from lower classes by

dress; people sacrificed themselves to inconvenient requirements--as

powder, hooped petticoats, and towering head-dresses; and children

addressed their parents as _Sir_ and _Madam_.

A further corollary naturally following this last, and almost, indeed,

forming part of it, is, that these several kinds of government

decrease in stringency at the same rate. Simultaneously with the

decline in the influence of priesthoods, and in the fear of eternal

torments--simultaneously with the mitigation of political tyranny, the

growth of popular power, and the amelioration of criminal codes; has taken

place that diminution of formalities and that fading of distinctive marks,

now so observable. Looking at home, we may note that there is less

attention to precedence than there used to be. No one in our day ends an

interview with the phrase "your humble servant." The employment of the word

_Sir_, once general in social intercourse, is at present considered bad

breeding; and on the occasions calling for them, it is held vulgar to use

the words "Your Majesty," or "Your Royal Highness," more than once in a

conversation. People no longer formally drink each other's healths; and

even the taking wine with each other at dinner has ceased to be

fashionable. The taking-off of hats between gentlemen has been gradually

falling into disuse. Even when the hat is removed, it is no longer swept

out at arm's length, but is simply lifted. Hence the remark made upon us by

foreigners, that we take off our hats less than any other nation in

Europe--a remark that should be coupled with the other, that we are the

freest nation in Europe.

As already implied, this association of facts is not accidental. These

titles of address and modes of salutation, bearing about them, as they all

do, something of that servility which marks their origin, become

distasteful in proportion as men become more independent themselves, and

sympathise more with the independence of others. The feeling which makes

the modern gentleman tell the labourer standing bareheaded before him to

put on his hat--the feeling which gives us a dislike to those who cringe

and fawn--the feeling which makes us alike assert our own dignity and

respect that of others--the feeling which thus leads us more and more to

discountenance all forms and names which confess inferiority and

submission; is the same feeling which resists despotic power and

inaugurates popular government, denies the authority of the Church and

establishes the right of private judgment.

A fourth fact, akin to the foregoing, is, that these several kinds of

government not only decline together, but corrupt together. By the same

process that a Court of Chancery becomes a place not for the administration

of justice, but for the withholding of it--by the same process that a

national church, from being an agency for moral control, comes to be merely

a thing of formulas and tithes and bishoprics--by this same process do

titles and ceremonies that once had a meaning and a power become empty

forms.

Coats of arms which served to distinguish men in battle, now figure on the

carriage panels of retired grocers. Once a badge of high military rank, the

shoulder-knot has become, on the modern footman, a mark of servitude. The

name Banneret, which once marked a partially-created Baron--a Baron who had

passed his military "little go"--is now, under the modification of Baronet,

applicable to any one favoured by wealth or interest or party feeling.

Knighthood has so far ceased to be an honour, that men now honour

themselves by declining it. The military dignity _Escuyer_ has, in the

modern Esquire, become a wholly unmilitary affix. Not only do titles, and

phrases, and salutes cease to fulfil their original functions, but the

whole apparatus of social forms tends to become useless for its original

purpose--the facilitation of social intercourse. Those most learned in

ceremonies, and most precise in the observance of them, are not always the

best behaved; as those deepest read in creeds and scriptures are not

therefore the most religious; nor those who have the clearest notions of

legality and illegality, the most honest. Just as lawyers are of all men

the least noted for probity; as cathedral towns have a lower moral

character than most others; so, if Swift is to be believed, courtiers are

"the most insignificant race of people that the island can afford, and with

the smallest tincture of good manners."

But perhaps it is in that class of social observances comprehended under

the term Fashion, which we must here discuss parenthetically, that this

process of corruption is seen with the greatest distinctness. As contrasted

with Manners, which dictate our minor acts in relation to other persons,

Fashion dictates our minor acts in relation to ourselves. While the one

prescribes that part of our deportment which directly affects our

neighbours; the other prescribes that part of our deportment which is

primarily personal, and in which our neighbours are concerned only as

spectators. Thus distinguished as they are, however, the two have a common

source. For while, as we have shown, Manners originate by imitation of the

behaviour pursued _towards_ the great; Fashion originates by imitation _of_

the behaviour of the great. While the one has its derivation in the titles,

phrases, and salutes used _to_ those in power; the other is derived from

the habits and appearances exhibited _by_ those in power.

The Carib mother who squeezes her child's head into a shape like that of

the chief; the young savage who makes marks on himself similar to the scars

carried by the warriors of his tribe (which is probably the origin of

tattooing); the Highlander who adopts the plaid worn by the head of his

clan; the courtiers who affect greyness, or limp, or cover their necks, in

imitation of their king; and the people who ape the courtiers; are alike

acting under a kind of government connate with that of Manners, and, like

it too, primarily beneficial. For notwithstanding the numberless

absurdities into which this copyism has led the people, from nose-rings to

ear-rings, from painted faces to beauty-spots, from shaven heads to

powdered wigs, from filed teeth and stained nails to bell-girdles, peaked

shoes, and breeches stuffed with bran,--it must yet be concluded, that as

the strong men, the successful men, the men of will, intelligence, and

originality, who have got to the top, are, on the average, more likely to

show judgment in their habits and tastes than the mass, the imitation of

such is advantageous.

By and by, however, Fashion, corrupting like these other forms of rule,

almost wholly ceases to be an imitation of the best, and becomes an

imitation of quite other than the best. As those who take orders are not

those having a special fitness for the priestly office, but those who see

their way to a living by it; as legislators and public functionaries do not

become such by virtue of their political insight and power to rule, but by

virtue of birth, acreage, and class influence; so, the self-elected clique

who set the fashion, gain this prerogative, not by their force of nature,

their intellect, their higher worth or better taste, but gain it solely by

their unchecked assumption. Among the initiated are to be found neither the

noblest in rank, the chief in power, the best cultured, the most refined,

nor those of greatest genius, wit, or beauty; and their reunions, so far

from being superior to others, are noted for their inanity. Yet, by the

example of these sham great, and not by that of the truly great, does

society at large now regulate its goings and comings, its hours, its dress,

its small usages. As a natural consequence, these have generally little or

none of that suitableness which the theory of fashion implies they should

have. But instead of a continual progress towards greater elegance and

convenience, which might be expected to occur did people copy the ways of

the really best, or follow their own ideas of propriety, we have a reign of

mere whim, of unreason, of change for the sake of change, of wanton

oscillations from either extreme to the other--a reign of usages without

meaning, times without fitness, dress without taste. And thus life _a la

mode_, instead of being life conducted in the most rational manner, is life

regulated by spendthrifts and idlers, milliners and tailors, dandies and

silly women.

To these several corollaries--that the various orders of control exercised

over men have a common origin and a common function, are called out by

co-ordinate necessities and co-exist in like stringency, decline together

and corrupt together--it now only remains to add that they become needless

together. Consequent as all kinds of government are upon the unfitness of

the aboriginal man for social life; and diminishing in coerciveness as they

all do in proportion as this unfitness diminishes; they must one and all

come to an end as humanity acquires complete adaptation to its new

conditions. That discipline of circumstances which has already wrought out

such great changes in us, must go on eventually to work out yet greater

ones. That daily curbing of the lower nature and culture of the higher,

which out of cannibals and devil worshippers has evolved philanthropists,

lovers of peace, and haters of superstition, cannot fail to evolve out of

these, men as much superior to them as they are to their progenitors. The

causes that have produced past modifications are still in action; must

continue in action as long as there exists any incongruity between man's

desires and the requirements of the social state; and must eventually make

him organically fit for the social state. As it is now needless to forbid

man-eating and Fetishism, so will it ultimately become needless to forbid

murder, theft, and the minor offences of our criminal code. When human

nature has grown into conformity with the moral law, there will need no

judges and statute-books; when it spontaneously takes the right course in

all things, as in some things it does already, prospects of future reward

or punishment will not be wanted as incentives; and when fit behaviour has

become instinctive, there will need no code of ceremonies to say how

behaviour shall be regulated.

Thus, then, may be recognised the meaning, the naturalness, the necessity

of those various eccentricities of reformers which we set out by

describing. They are not accidental; they are not mere personal caprices,

as people are apt to suppose. On the contrary, they are inevitable results

of the law of relationship above illustrated. That community of genesis,

function, and decay which all forms of restraint exhibit, is simply the

obverse of the fact at first pointed out, that they have in two sentiments

of human nature a common preserver and a common destroyer. Awe of power

originates and cherishes them all: love of freedom undermines and

periodically weakens them all. The one defends despotism and asserts the

supremacy of laws, adheres to old creeds and supports ecclesiastical

authority, pays respect to titles and conserves forms; the other, putting

rectitude above legality, achieves periodical instalments of political

liberty, inaugurates Protestantism and works out its consequences, ignores

the senseless dictates of Fashion and emancipates men from dead customs.

To the true reformer no institution is sacred, no belief above criticism.

Everything shall conform itself to equity and reason; nothing shall be

saved by its prestige. Conceding to each man liberty to pursue his own ends

and satisfy his own tastes, he demands for himself like liberty; and

consents to no restrictions on this, save those which other men's equal

claims involve. No matter whether it be an ordinance of one man, or an

ordinance of all men, if it trenches on his legitimate sphere of action, he

denies its validity. The tyranny that would impose on him a particular

style of dress and a set mode of behaviour, he resists equally with the

tyranny that would limit his buyings and sellings, or dictate his creed.

Whether the regulation be formally made by a legislature, or informally

made by society at large--whether the penalty for disobedience be

imprisonment, or frowns and social ostracism, he sees to be a question of

no moment. He will utter his belief notwithstanding the threatened

punishment; he will break conventions spite of the petty persecutions that

will be visited on him. Show him that his actions are inimical to his

fellow-men, and he will pause. Prove that he is disregarding their

legitimate claims--that he is doing what in the nature of things must

produce unhappiness; and he will alter his course. But until you do

this--until you demonstrate that his proceedings are essentially

inconvenient or inelegant, essentially irrational, unjust, or ungenerous,

he will persevere.

Some, indeed, argue that his conduct _is_ unjust and ungenerous. They say

that he has no right to annoy other people by his whims; that the gentleman

to whom his letter comes with no "Esq." appended to the address, and the

lady whose evening party he enters with gloveless hands, are vexed at what

they consider his want of respect, or want of breeding; that thus his

eccentricities cannot be indulged save at the expense of his neighbours'

feelings; and that hence his nonconformity is in plain terms selfishness.

He answers that this position, if logically developed, would deprive men of

all liberty whatever. Each must conform all his acts to the public taste,

and not his own. The public taste on every point having been once

ascertained, men's habits must thenceforth remain for ever fixed; seeing

that no man can adopt other habits without sinning against the public

taste, and giving people disagreeable feelings. Consequently, be it an era

of pig-tails or high-heeled shoes, of starched ruffs or trunk-hose, all

must continue to wear pig-tails, high-heeled shoes, starched ruffs, or

trunk-hose to the crack of doom.

If it be still urged that he is not justified in breaking through others'

forms that he may establish his own, and so sacrificing the wishes of many

to the wishes of one, he replies that all religious and political changes

might be negatived on like grounds. He asks whether Luther's sayings and

doings were not extremely offensive to the mass of his contemporaries;

whether the resistance of Hampden was not disgusting to the time-servers

around him; whether every reformer has not shocked men's prejudices, and

given immense displeasure by the opinions he uttered. The affirmative

answer he follows up by demanding what right the reformer has, then, to

utter these opinions; whether he is not sacrificing the feelings of many to

the feelings of one: and so proves that, to be consistent, his antagonists

must condemn not only all nonconformity in actions, but all nonconformity

in thoughts.

His antagonists rejoin that _his_ position, too, may be pushed to an

absurdity. They argue that if a man may offend by the disregard of some

forms, he may as legitimately do so by the disregard of all; and they

inquire--Why should he not go out to dinner in a dirty shirt, and with an

unshorn chin? Why should he not spit on the drawing-room carpet, and

stretch his heels up to the mantel-shelf?

The convention-breaker answers, that to ask this, implies a confounding of

two widely-different classes of actions--the actions that are _essentially_

displeasurable to those around, with the actions that are but

_incidentally_ displeasurable to them. He whose skin is so unclean as to

offend the nostrils of his neighbours, or he who talks so loudly as to

disturb a whole room, may be justly complained of, and rightly excluded by

society from its assemblies. But he who presents himself in a surtout in

place of a dress-coat, or in brown trousers instead of black, gives offence

not to men's senses, or their innate tastes, but merely to their

prejudices, their bigotry of convention. It cannot be said that his costume

is less elegant or less intrinsically appropriate than the one prescribed;

seeing that a few hours earlier in the day it is admired. It is the implied

rebellion, therefore, that annoys. How little the cause of quarrel has to

do with the dress itself, is seen in the fact that a century ago black

clothes would have been thought preposterous for hours of recreation, and

that a few years hence some now forbidden style may be nearer the

requirements of Fashion than the present one. Thus the reformer explains

that it is not against the natural restraints, but against the artificial

ones, that he protests; and that manifestly the fire of sneers and angry

glances which he has to bear, is poured upon him because he will not bow

down to the idol which society has set up.

Should he be asked how we are to distinguish between conduct that is

_absolutely_ disagreeable to others, and conduct that is _relatively_ so,

he answers, that they will distinguish themselves, if men will let them.

Actions intrinsically repugnant will ever be frowned upon, and must ever

remain as exceptional as now. Actions not intrinsically repugnant will

establish themselves as proper. No relaxation of customs will introduce the

practice of going to a party in muddy boots, and with unwashed hands; for

the dislike of dirt would continue were Fashion abolished to-morrow. That

love of approbation which now makes people so solicitous to be _en regle_

would still exist--would still make them careful of their personal

appearance--would still induce them to seek admiration by making themselves

ornamental--would still cause them to respect the natural laws of good

behaviour, as they now do the artificial ones. The change would simply be

from a repulsive monotony to a picturesque variety. And if there be any

regulations respecting which it is uncertain whether they are based on

reality or on convention, experiment will soon decide, if due scope be

allowed.

When at length the controversy comes round, as controversies often do, to

the point whence it started, and the "party of order" repeat their charge

against the rebel, that he is sacrificing the feelings of others to the

gratification of his own wilfulness, he replies once for all that they

cheat themselves by mis-statements. He accuses them of being so despotic,

that, not content with being masters over their own ways and habits, they

would be masters over his also; and grumble because he will not let them.

He merely asks the same freedom which they exercise; they, however, propose

to regulate his course as well as their own--to cut and clip his mode of

life into agreement with their approved pattern; and then charge him with

wilfulness and selfishness, because he does not quietly submit! He warns

them that he shall resist, nevertheless; and that he shall do so, not only

for the assertion of his own independence, but for their good. He tells

them that they are slaves, and know it not; that they are shackled, and

kiss their chains; that they have lived all their days in prison, and

complain at the walls being broken down. He says he must persevere,

however, with a view to his own release; and in spite of their present

expostulations, he prophesies that when they have recovered from the fright

which the prospect of freedom produces, they will thank him for aiding in

their emancipation.

Unamiable as seems this find-fault mood, offensive as is this defiant

attitude, we must beware of overlooking the truths enunciated, in dislike

of the advocacy. It is an unfortunate hindrance to all innovation, that in

virtue of their very function, the innovators stand in a position of

antagonism; and the disagreeable manners, and sayings, and doings, which

this antagonism generates, are commonly associated with the doctrines

promulgated. Quite forgetting that whether the thing attacked be good or

bad, the combative spirit is necessarily repulsive; and quite forgetting

that the toleration of abuses seems amiable merely from its passivity; the

mass of men contract a bias against advanced views, and in favour of

stationary ones, from intercourse with their respective adherents.

"Conservatism," as Emerson says, "is debonnair and social; reform is

individual and imperious." And this remains true, however vicious the

system conserved, however righteous the reform to be effected. Nay, the

indignation of the purists is usually extreme in proportion as the evils to

be got rid of are great. The more urgent the required change, the more

intemperate is the vehemence of its promoters. Let no one, then, confound

with the principles of this social nonconformity the acerbity and the

disagreeable self-assertion of those who first display it.

* * * * *

The most plausible objection raised against resistance to conventions, is

grounded on its impolicy, considered even from the progressist's point of

view. It is urged by many of the more liberal and intelligent--usually

those who have themselves shown some independence of behaviour in earlier

days--that to rebel in these small matters is to destroy your own power of

helping on reform in greater matters. "If you show yourself eccentric in

manners or dress, the world," they say, "will not listen to you. You will

be considered as crotchety, and impracticable. The opinions you express on

important subjects, which might have been treated with respect had you

conformed on minor points, will now inevitably be put down among your

singularities; and thus, by dissenting in trifles, you disable yourself

from spreading dissent in essentials."

Only noting, as we pass, that this is one of those anticipations which

bring about their own fulfilment--that it is because most who disapprove

these conventions do not show their disapproval, that the few who do show

it look eccentric--and that did all act out their convictions, no such

inference as the above would be drawn, and no such evil would

result;---noting this as we pass, we go on to reply that these social

restraints, and forms, and requirements, are not small evils, but among the

greatest. Estimate their sum total, and we doubt whether they would not

exceed most others. Could we add up the trouble, the cost, the jealousies,

vexations, misunderstandings, the loss of time and the loss of pleasure,

which these conventions entail--could we clearly realize the extent to

which we are all daily hampered by them, daily enslaved by them; we should

perhaps come to the conclusion that the tyranny of Mrs. Grundy is worse

than any other tyranny we suffer under. Let us look at a few of its hurtful

results; beginning with those of minor importance.

It produces extravagance. The desire to be _comme il faut_, which underlies

all conformities, whether of manners, dress, or styles of entertainment, is

the desire which makes many a spendthrift and many a bankrupt. To "keep up

appearances," to have a house in an approved quarter furnished in the

latest taste, to give expensive dinners and crowded _soirees_, is an

ambition forming the natural outcome of the conformist spirit. It is

needless to enlarge on these follies: they have been satirized by hosts of

writers, and in every drawing-room. All that here concerns us, is to point

out that the respect for social observances, which men think so

praiseworthy, has the same root with this effort to be fashionable in mode

of living; and that, other things equal, the last cannot be diminished

without the first being diminished also. If, now, we consider all that this

extravagance entails--if we count up the robbed tradesmen, the stinted

governesses, the ill-educated children, the fleeced relatives, who have to

suffer from it--if we mark the anxiety and the many moral delinquencies

which its perpetrators involve themselves in; we shall see that this regard

for conventions is not quite so innocent as it looks.

Again, it decreases the amount of social intercourse. Passing over the

reckless, and those who make a great display on speculation with the

occasional result of getting on in the world to the exclusion of much

better men, we come to the far larger class who, being prudent and honest

enough not to exceed their means, and yet having a strong wish to be

"respectable," are obliged to limit their entertainments to the smallest

possible number; and that each of these may be turned to the greatest

advantage in meeting the claims upon their hospitality, are induced to

issue their invitations with little or no regard to the comfort or mutual

fitness of their guests. A few inconveniently-large assemblies, made up of

people mostly strange to each other or but distantly acquainted, and having

scarcely any tastes in common, are made to serve in place of many small

parties of friends intimate enough to have some bond of thought and

sympathy. Thus the quantity of intercourse is diminished, and the quality

deteriorated. Because it is the custom to make costly preparations and

provide costly refreshments; and because it entails both less expense and

less trouble to do this for many persons on a few occasions than for few

persons on many occasions; the reunions of our less wealthy classes are

rendered alike infrequent and tedious.

Let it be further observed, that the existing formalities of social

intercourse drive away many who most need its refining influence: and drive

them into injurious habits and associations. Not a few men, and not the

least sensible men either, give up in disgust this going out to stately

dinners, and stiff evening-parties; and instead, seek society in clubs, and

cigar-divans, and taverns. "I'm sick of this standing about in

drawing-rooms, talking nonsense, and trying to look happy," will answer one

of them when taxed with his desertion. "Why should I any longer waste time

and money, and temper? Once I was ready enough to rush home from the office

to dress; I sported embroidered shirts, submitted to tight boots, and cared

nothing for tailors' and haberdashers' bills. I know better now. My

patience lasted a good while; for though I found each night pass stupidly,

I always hoped the next would make amends. But I'm undeceived. Cab-hire and

kid gloves cost more than any evening party pays for; or rather--it is

worth the cost of them to avoid the party. No, no; I'll no more of it. Why

should I pay five shillings a time for the privilege of being bored?"

If, now, we consider that this very common mood tends towards

billiard-rooms, towards long sittings over cigars and brandy-and-water,

towards Evans's and the Coal Hole, towards every place where amusement may

be had; it becomes a question whether these precise observances which

hamper our set meetings, have not to answer for much of the prevalent

dissoluteness. Men must have excitements of some kind or other; and if

debarred from higher ones will fall back upon lower. It is not that those

who thus take to irregular habits are essentially those of low tastes.

Often it is quite the reverse. Among half a dozen intimate friends,

abandoning formalities and sitting at ease round the fire, none will enter

with greater enjoyment into the highest kind of social intercourse--the

genuine communion of thought and feeling; and if the circle includes women

of intelligence and refinement, so much the greater is their pleasure. It

is because they will no longer be choked with the mere dry husks of

conversation which society offers them, that they fly its assemblies, and

seek those with whom they may have discourse that is at least real, though

unpolished. The men who thus long for substantial mental sympathy, and will

go where they can get it, are often, indeed, much better at the core than

the men who are content with the inanities of gloved and scented

party-goers--men who feel no need to come morally nearer to their fellow

creatures than they can come while standing, tea-cup in hand, answering

trifles with trifles; and who, by feeling no such need, prove themselves

shallow-thoughted and cold-hearted.

It is true, that some who shun drawing-rooms do so from inability to bear

the restraints prescribed by a genuine refinement, and that they would be

greatly improved by being kept under these restraints. But it is not less

true that, by adding to the legitimate restraints, which are based on

convenience and a regard for others, a host of factitious restraints based

only on convention, the refining discipline, which would else have been

borne with benefit, is rendered unbearable, and so misses its end. Excess

of government variably defeats itself by driving away those to be governed.

And if over all who desert its entertainments in disgust either at their

emptiness or their formality, society thus loses its salutary influence--if

such not only fail to receive that moral culture which the company of

ladies, when rationally regulated, would give them, but, in default of

other relaxation, are driven into habits and companionships which often end

in gambling and drunkenness; must we not say that here, too, is an evil not

to be passed over as insignificant?

Then consider what a blighting effect these multitudinous preparations and

ceremonies have upon the pleasures they profess to subserve. Who, on

calling to mind the occasions of his highest social enjoyments, does not

find them to have been wholly informal, perhaps impromptu? How delightful a

picnic of friends, who forget all observances save those dictated by good

nature! How pleasant the little unpretended gatherings of book-societies,

and the like; or those purely accidental meetings of a few people well

known to each other! Then, indeed, we may see that "a man sharpeneth the

countenance of his friend." Cheeks flush, and eyes sparkle. The witty grow

brilliant, and even the dull are excited into saying good things. There is

an overflow of topics; and the right thought, and the right words to put it

in, spring up unsought. Grave alternates with gay: now serious converse,

and now jokes, anecdotes, and playful raillery. Everyone's best nature is

shown; everyone's best feelings are in pleasurable activity; and, for the

time, life seems well worth having.

Go now and dress for some half-past eight dinner, or some ten o'clock "at

home;" and present yourself in spotless attire, with every hair arranged to

perfection. How great the difference! The enjoyment seems in the inverse

ratio of the preparation. These figures, got up with such finish and

precision, appear but half alive. They have frozen each other by their

primness; and your faculties feel the numbing effects of the atmosphere the

moment you enter it. All those thoughts, so nimble and so apt awhile since,

have disappeared--have suddenly acquired a preternatural power of eluding

you. If you venture a remark to your neighbour, there comes a trite

rejoinder, and there it ends. No subject you can hit upon outlives half a

dozen sentences. Nothing that is said excites any real interest in you; and

you feel that all you say is listened to with apathy. By some strange

magic, things that usually give pleasure seem to have lost all charm.

You have a taste for art. Weary of frivolous talk, you turn to the table,

and find that the book of engravings and the portfolio of photographs are

as flat as the conversation. You are fond of music. Yet the singing, good

as it is, you hear with utter indifference; and say "Thank you" with a

sense of being a profound hypocrite. Wholly at ease though you could be,

for your own part, you find that your sympathies will not let you. You see

young gentlemen feeling whether their ties are properly adjusted, looking

vacantly round, and considering what they shall do next. You see ladies

sitting disconsolately, waiting for some one to speak to them, and wishing

they had the wherewith to occupy their fingers. You see the hostess

standing about the doorway, keeping a factitious smile on her face, and

racking her brain to find the requisite nothings with which to greet her

guests as they enter. You see numberless traits of weariness and

embarrassment; and, if you have any fellow feeling, these cannot fail to

produce a feeling of discomfort. The disorder is catching; and do what you

will you cannot resist the general infection. You struggle against it; you

make spasmodic efforts to be lively; but none of your sallies or your good

stories do more than raise a simper or a forced laugh: intellect and

feeling are alike asphyxiated. And when, at length, yielding to your

disgust, you rush away, how great is the relief when you get into the fresh

air, and see the stars! How you "Thank God, that's over!" and half resolve

to avoid all such boredom for the future!

What, now, is the secret of this perpetual miscarriage and disappointment?

Does not the fault lie with all these needless adjuncts--these elaborate

dressings, these set forms, these expensive preparations, these many

devices and arrangements that imply trouble and raise expectation? Who that

has lived thirty years in the world has not discovered that Pleasure is

coy; and must not be too directly pursued, but must be caught unawares? An

air from a street-piano, heard while at work, will often gratify more than

the choicest music played at a concert by the most accomplished musicians.

A single good picture seen in a dealer's window, may give keener enjoyment

than a whole exhibition gone through with catalogue and pencil. By the time

we have got ready our elaborate apparatus by which to secure happiness, the

happiness is gone. It is too subtle to be contained in these receivers,

garnished with compliments, and fenced round with etiquette. The more we

multiply and complicate appliances, the more certain are we to drive it

away.

The reason is patent enough. These higher emotions to which social

intercourse ministers, are of extremely complex nature; they consequently

depend for their production upon very numerous conditions; the more

numerous the conditions, the greater the liability that one or other of

them will be disturbed, and the emotions consequently prevented. It takes a

considerable misfortune to destroy appetite; but cordial sympathy with

those around may be extinguished by a look or a word. Hence it follows,

that the more multiplied the _unnecessary_ requirements with which social

intercourse is surrounded, the less likely are its pleasures to be

achieved. It is difficult enough to fulfil continuously all the

_essentials_ to a pleasurable communion with others: how much more

difficult, then, must it be continuously to fulfil a host of

_non-essentials_ also! It is, indeed, impossible. The attempt inevitably

ends in the sacrifice of the first to the last--the essentials to the

non-essentials. What chance is there of getting any genuine response from

the lady who is thinking of your stupidity in taking her in to dinner on

the wrong arm? How are you likely to have agreeable converse with the

gentleman who is fuming internally because he is not placed next to the

hostess? Formalities, familiar as they may become, necessarily occupy

attention--necessarily multiply the occasions for mistake,

misunderstanding, and jealousy, on the part of one or other--necessarily

distract all minds from the thoughts and feelings that should occupy

them--necessarily, therefore, subvert those conditions under which only any

sterling intercourse is to be had.

And this indeed is the fatal mischief which these conventions entail--a

mischief to which every other is secondary. They destroy those highest of

our pleasures which they profess to subserve. All institutions are alike in

this, that however useful, and needful even, they originally were, they not

only in the end cease to be so, but become detrimental. While humanity is

growing, they continue fixed; daily get more mechanical and unvital; and by

and by tend to strangle what they before preserved. It is not simply that

they become corrupt and fail to act; they become obstructions. Old forms of

government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at

the risk of reigns of terror. Old creeds end in being dead formulas, which

no longer aid but distort and arrest the general mind; while the

State-churches administering them, come to be instruments for subsidizing

conservatism and repressing progress. Old schemes of education, incarnated

in public schools and colleges, continue filling the heads of new

generations with what has become relatively useless knowledge, and, by

consequence, excluding knowledge which is useful. Not an organization of

any kind--political, religious, literary, philanthropic--but what, by its

ever-multiplying regulations, its accumulating wealth, its yearly addition

of officers, and the creeping into it of patronage and party feeling,

eventually loses its original spirit, and sinks into a mere lifeless

mechanism, worked with a view to private ends--a mechanism which not merely

fails of its first purpose, but is a positive hindrance to it.

Thus is it, too, with social usages. We read of the Chinese that they have

"ponderous ceremonies transmitted from time immemorial," which make social

intercourse a burden. The court forms prescribed by monarchs for their own

exaltation, have, in all times and places, ended in consuming the comfort

of their lives. And so the artificial observances of the dining-room and

saloon, in proportion as they are many and strict, extinguish that

agreeable communion which they were originally intended to secure. The

dislike with which people commonly speak of society that is "formal," and

"stiff," and "ceremonious," implies the general recognition of this fact;

and this recognition, logically developed, involves that all usages of

behaviour which are not based on natural requirements, are injurious. That

these conventions defeat their own ends is no new assertion. Swift,

criticising the manners of his day, says--"Wise men are often more uneasy

at the over-civility of these refiners than they could possibly be in the

conversation of peasants and mechanics."

But it is not only in these details that the self-defeating action of our

arrangements is traceable: it is traceable in the very substance and nature

of them. Our social intercourse, as commonly managed, is a mere semblance

of the reality sought. What is it that we want? Some sympathetic converse

with our fellow-creatures: some converse that shall not be mere dead words,

but the vehicle of living thoughts and feelings--converse in which the eyes

and the face shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of

meaning--converse which shall make us feel no longer alone, but shall draw

us closer to another, and double our own emotions by adding another's to

them. Who is there that has not, from time to time, felt how cold and flat

is all this talk about politics and science, and the new books and the new

men, and how a genuine utterance of fellow-feeling outweighs the whole of

it? Mark the words of Bacon:--"For a crowd is not a company, and faces are

but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is

no love."

If this be true, then it is only after acquaintance has grown into

intimacy, and intimacy has ripened into friendship, that the real communion

which men need becomes possible. A rationally-formed circle must consist

almost wholly of those on terms of familiarity and regard, with but one or

two strangers. What folly, then, underlies the whole system of our grand

dinners, our "at homes," our evening parties--assemblages made up of many

who never met before, many others who just bow to each other, many others

who though familiar feel mutual indifference, with just a few real friends

lost in the general mass! You need but look round at the artificial

expressions of face, to see at once how it is. All have their disguises on;

and how can there be sympathy between masks? No wonder that in private

every one exclaims against the stupidity of these gatherings. No wonder

that hostesses get them up rather because they must than because they wish.

No wonder that the invited go less from the expectation of pleasure than

from fear of giving offence. The whole thing is a gigantic mistake--an

organized disappointment.

And then note, lastly, that in this case, as in all others, when an

organization has become effete and inoperative for its legitimate purpose,

it is employed for quite other ones--quite opposite ones. What is the usual

plea put in for giving and attending these tedious assemblies? "I admit

that they are stupid and frivolous enough," replies every man to your

criticisms; "but then, you know, one must keep up one's connections." And

could you get from his wife a sincere answer, it would be--"Like you, I am

sick of these frivolities; but then, we must get our daughters married."

The one knows that there is a profession to push, a practice to gain, a

business to extend: or parliamentary influence, or county patronage, or

votes, or office, to be got: position, berths, favours, profit. The other's

thoughts runs upon husbands and settlements, wives and dowries. Worthless

for their ostensible purpose of daily bringing human beings into

pleasurable relations with each other, these cumbrous appliances of our

social intercourse are now perseveringly kept in action with a view to the

pecuniary and matrimonial results which they indirectly produce.

Who then shall say that the reform of our system of observances is

unimportant? When we see how this system induces fashionable extravagance,

with its entailed bankruptcy and ruin--when we mark how greatly it limits

the amount of social intercourse among the less wealthy classes--when we

find that many who most need to be disciplined by mixing with the refined

are driven away by it, and led into dangerous and often fatal courses--when

we count up the many minor evils it inflicts, the extra work which its

costliness entails on all professional and mercantile men, the damage to

public taste in dress and decoration by the setting up of its absurdities

as standards for imitation, the injury to health indicated in the faces of

its devotees at the close of the London season, the mortality of milliners

and the like, which its sudden exigencies yearly involve;--and when to all

these we add its fatal sin; that it blights, withers up, and kills, that

high enjoyment it professedly ministers to--that enjoyment which is a chief

end of our hard struggling in life to obtain--shall we not conclude that to

reform our system of etiquette and fashion, is an aim yielding to few in

urgency?

* * * * *

There needs, then, a protestantism in social usages. Forms that have ceased

to facilitate and have become obstructive--whether political, religious, or

other--have ever to be swept away; and eventually are so swept away in all

cases. Signs are not wanting that some change is at hand. A host of

satirists, led on by Thackeray, have been for years engaged in bringing our

sham-festivities, and our fashionable follies, into contempt; and in their

candid moods, most men laugh at the frivolities with which they and the

world in general are deluded. Ridicule has always been a revolutionary

agent. That which is habitually assailed with sneers and sarcasms cannot

long survive. Institutions that have lost their roots in men's respect and

faith are doomed; and the day of their dissolution is not far off. The time

is approaching, then, when our system of social observances must pass

through some crisis, out of which it will come purified and comparatively

simple.

How this crisis will be brought about, no one can with any certainty say.

Whether by the continuance and increase of individual protests, or whether

by the union of many persons for the practice and propagation of some

better system, the future alone can decide. The influence of dissentients

acting without co-operation, seems, under the present state of things,

inadequate. Standing severally alone, and having no well-defined views;

frowned on by conformists, and expostulated with even by those who secretly

sympathize with them; subject to petty persecutions, and unable to trace

any benefit produced by their example; they are apt, one by one, to give up

their attempts as hopeless. The young convention-breaker eventually finds

that he pays too heavily for his nonconformity. Hating, for example,

everything that bears about it any remnant of servility, he determines, in

the ardour of his independence, that he will uncover to no one. But what he

means simply as a general protest, he finds that ladies interpret into a

personal disrespect. Though he sees that, from the days of chivalry

downwards, these marks of supreme consideration paid to the other sex have

been but a hypocritical counterpart to the actual subjection in which men

have held them--a pretended submission to compensate for a real domination;

and though he sees that when the true dignity of women is recognised, the

mock dignities given to them will be abolished; yet he does not like to be

thus misunderstood, and so hesitates in his practice.

In other cases, again, his courage fails him. Such of his

unconventionalities as can be attributed only to eccentricity, he has no

qualms about: for, on the whole, he feels rather complimented than

otherwise in being considered a disregarder of public opinion. But when

they are liable to be put down to ignorance, to ill-breeding, or to

poverty, he becomes a coward. However clearly the recent innovation of

eating some kinds of fish with knife and fork proves the fork-and-bread

practice to have had little but caprice for its basis, yet he dares not

wholly ignore that practice while fashion partially maintains it. Though he

thinks that a silk handkerchief is quite as appropriate for drawing-room

use as a white cambric one, he is not altogether at ease in acting out his

opinion. Then, too, he begins to perceive that his resistance to

prescription brings round disadvantageous results which he had not

calculated upon. He had expected that it would save him from a great deal

of social intercourse of a frivolous kind--that it would offend the fools,

but not the sensible people; and so would serve as a self-acting test by

which those worth knowing would be separated from those not worth knowing.

But the fools prove to be so greatly in the majority that, by offending

them, he closes against himself nearly all the avenues though which the

sensible people are to be reached. Thus he finds, that his nonconformity is

frequently misinterpreted; that there are but few directions in which he

dares to carry it consistently out; that the annoyances and disadvantages

which it brings upon him are greater than he anticipated; and that the

chances of his doing any good are very remote. Hence he gradually loses

resolution, and lapses, step by step, into the ordinary routine of

observances.

Abortive as individual protests thus generally turn out, it may possibly be

that nothing effectual will be done until there arises some organized

resistance to this invisible despotism, by which our modes and habits are

dictated. It may happen, that the government of Manners and Fashion will be

rendered less tyrannical, as the political and religious governments have

been, by some antagonistic union. Alike in Church and State, men's first

emancipations from excess of restriction were achieved by numbers, bound

together by a common creed or a common political faith. What remained

undone while there were but individual schismatics or rebels, was effected

when there came to be many acting in concert. It is tolerably clear that

these earliest instalments of freedom could not have been obtained in any

other way; for so long as the feeling of personal independence was weak and

the rule strong, there could never have been a sufficient number of

separate dissentients to produce the desired results. Only in these later

times, during which the secular and spiritual controls have been growing

less coercive, and the tendency towards individual liberty greater, has it

become possible for smaller and smaller sects and parties to fight against

established creeds and laws; until now men may safely stand even alone in

their antagonism.

The failure of individual nonconformity to customs, as above illustrated,

suggests that an analogous series of changes may have to be gone through in

this case also. It is true that the _lex non scripta_ differs from the _lex

scripta_ in this, that, being unwritten, it is more readily altered; and

that it has, from time to time, been quietly ameliorated. Nevertheless, we

shall find that the analogy holds substantially good. For in this case, as

in the others, the essential revolution is not the substituting of any one

set of restraints for any other, but the limiting or abolishing the

authority which prescribes restraints. Just as the fundamental change

inaugurated by the Reformation, was not a superseding of one creed by

another, but an ignoring of the arbiter who before dictated creeds--just as

the fundamental change which Democracy long ago commenced, was not from

this particular law to that, but from the despotism of one to the freedom

of all; so, the parallel change yet to be wrought out in this supplementary

government of which we are treating, is not the replacing of absurd usages

by sensible ones, but the dethronement of that secret, irresponsible power

which now imposes our usages, and the assertion of the right of all

individuals to choose their own usages. In rules of living, a West-end

clique is our Pope; and we are all papists, with but a mere sprinkling of

heretics. On all who decisively rebel, comes down the penalty of

excommunication, with its long catalogue of disagreeable and, indeed,

serious consequences.

The liberty of the subject asserted in our constitution, and ever on the

increase, has yet to be wrested from this subtler tyranny. The right of

private judgment, which our ancestors wrung from the church, remains to be

claimed from this dictator of our habits. Or, as before said, to free us

from these idolatries and superstitious conformities, there has still to

come a protestantism in social usages. Parallel, therefore, as is the

change to be wrought out, it seems not improbable that it may be wrought

out in an analogous way. That influence which solitary dissentients fail to

gain, and that perseverance which they lack, may come into existence when

they unite. That persecution which the world now visits upon them from

mistaking their nonconformity for ignorance or disrespect, may diminish

when it is seen to result from principle. The penalty which exclusion now

entails may disappear when they become numerous enough to form visiting

circles of their own. And when a successful stand has been made, and the

brunt of the opposition has passed, that large amount of secret dislike to

our observances which now pervades society, may manifest itself with

sufficient power to effect the desired emancipation.

Whether such will be the process, time alone can decide. That community of

origin, growth, supremacy, and decadence, which we have found among all

kinds of government, suggests a community in modes of change also. On the

other hand, Nature often performs substantially similar operations, in ways

apparently different. Hence these details can never be foretold.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, let us glance at the conclusions that have been reached. On the

one side, government, originally one, and afterwards subdivided for the

better fulfilment of its function, must be considered as having ever been,

in all its branches--political, religious, and ceremonial--beneficial; and,

indeed, absolutely necessary. On the other side, government, under all its

forms, must be regarded as subserving a temporary office, made needful by

the unfitness of aboriginal humanity for social life; and the successive

diminutions of its coerciveness in State, in Church, and in Custom, must be

looked upon as steps towards its final disappearance. To complete the

conception, there requires to be borne in mind the third fact, that the

genesis, the maintenance, and the decline of all governments, however

named, are alike brought about by the humanity to be controlled: from which

may be drawn the inference that, on the average, restrictions of every kind

cannot last much longer than they are wanted, and cannot be destroyed much

faster than they ought to be.

Society, in all its developments, undergoes the process of exuviation.

These old forms which it successively throws off, have all been once

vitally united with it--have severally served as the protective envelopes

within which a higher humanity was being evolved. They are cast aside only

when they become hindrances--only when some inner and better envelope has

been formed; and they bequeath to us all that there was in them good. The

periodical abolitions of tyrannical laws have left the administration of

justice not only uninjured, but purified. Dead and buried creeds have not

carried with them the essential morality they contained, which still

exists, uncontaminated by the sloughs of superstition. And all that there

is of justice and kindness and beauty, embodied in our cumbrous forms of

etiquette, will live perennially when the forms themselves have been

forgotten.

III. THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE.

There has ever prevailed among men a vague notion that scientific knowledge

differs in nature from ordinary knowledge. By the Greeks, with whom

Mathematics--literally _things learnt_--was alone considered as knowledge

proper, the distinction must have been strongly felt; and it has ever since

maintained itself in the general mind. Though, considering the contrast

between the achievements of science and those of daily unmethodic thinking,

it is not surprising that such a distinction has been assumed; yet it needs

but to rise a little above the common point of view, to see that no such

distinction can really exist: or that at best, it is but a superficial

distinction. The same faculties are employed in both cases; and in both

cases their mode of operation is fundamentally the same.

If we say that science is organized knowledge, we are met by the truth that

all knowledge is organized in a greater or less degree--that the commonest

actions of the household and the field presuppose facts colligated,

inferences drawn, results expected; and that the general success of these

actions proves the data by which they were guided to have been correctly

put together. If, again, we say that science is prevision--is a seeing

beforehand--is a knowing in what times, places, combinations, or sequences,

specified phenomena will be found; we are yet obliged to confess that the

definition includes much that is utterly foreign to science in its ordinary

acceptation. For example, a child's knowledge of an apple. This, as far as

it goes consists in previsions. When a child sees a certain form and

colours, it knows that if it puts out its hand it will have certain

impressions of resistance, and roundness, and smoothness; and if it bites,

a certain taste. And manifestly its general acquaintance with surrounding

objects is of like nature--is made up of facts concerning them, so grouped

as that any part of a group being perceived, the existence of the other

facts included in it is foreseen.

If, once more, we say that science is _exact_ prevision, we still fail to

establish the supposed difference. Not only do we find that much of what we

call science is not exact, and that some of it, as physiology, can never

become exact; but we find further, that many of the previsions constituting

the common stock alike of wise and ignorant, _are_ exact. That an

unsupported body will fall; that a lighted candle will go out when immersed

in water; that ice will melt when thrown on the fire--these, and many like

predictions relating to the familiar properties of things have as high a

degree of accuracy as predictions are capable of. It is true that the

results predicated are of a very general character; but it is none the less

true that they are rigorously correct as far as they go: and this is all

that is requisite to fulfil the definition. There is perfect accordance

between the anticipated phenomena and the actual ones; and no more than

this can be said of the highest achievements of the sciences specially

characterised as exact.

Seeing thus that the assumed distinction between scientific knowledge and

common knowledge is not logically justifiable; and yet feeling, as we must,

that however impossible it may be to draw a line between them, the two are

not practically identical; there arises the question--What is the

relationship that exists between them? A partial answer to this question

may be drawn from the illustrations just given. On reconsidering them, it

will be observed that those portions of ordinary knowledge which are

identical in character with scientific knowledge, comprehend only such

combinations of phenomena as are directly cognizable by the senses, and are

of simple, invariable nature. That the smoke from a fire which she is

lighting will ascend, and that the fire will presently boil water, are

previsions which the servant-girl makes equally well with the most learned

physicist; they are equally certain, equally exact with his; but they are

previsions concerning phenomena in constant and direct relation--phenomena

that follow visibly and immediately after their antecedents--phenomena of

which the causation is neither remote nor obscure--phenomena which may be

predicted by the simplest possible act of reasoning.

If, now, we pass to the previsions constituting what is commonly known as

science--that an eclipse of the moon will happen at a specified time; and

when a barometer is taken to the top of a mountain of known height, the

mercurial column will descend a stated number of inches; that the poles of

a galvanic battery immersed in water will give off, the one an inflammable

and the other an inflaming gas, in definite ratio--we perceive that the

relations involved are not of a kind habitually presented to our senses;

that they depend, some of them, upon special combinations of causes; and

that in some of them the connection between antecedents and consequents is

established only by an elaborate series of inferences. The broad

distinction, therefore, between the two orders of knowledge, is not in

their nature, but in their remoteness from perception.

If we regard the cases in their most general aspect, we see that the

labourer, who, on hearing certain notes in the adjacent hedge, can describe

the particular form and colours of the bird making them; and the

astronomer, who, having calculated a transit of Venus, can delineate the

black spot entering on the sun's disc, as it will appear through the

telescope, at a specified hour; do essentially the same thing. Each knows

that on fulfilling the requisite conditions, he shall have a preconceived

impression--that after a definite series of actions will come a group of

sensations of a foreknown kind. The difference, then, is not in the

fundamental character of the mental acts; or in the correctness of the

previsions accomplished by them; but in the complexity of the processes

required to achieve the previsions. Much of our commonest knowledge is, as

far as it goes, rigorously precise. Science does not increase this

precision; cannot transcend it. What then does it do? It reduces other

knowledge to the same degree of precision. That certainty which direct

perception gives us respecting coexistences and sequences of the simplest

and most accessible kind, science gives us respecting coexistences and

sequences, complex in their dependencies or inaccessible to immediate

observation. In brief, regarded from this point of view, science may be

called _an extension of the perceptions by means of reasoning_.

On further considering the matter, however, it will perhaps be felt that

this definition does not express the whole fact--that inseparable as

science may be from common knowledge, and completely as we may fill up the

gap between the simplest previsions of the child and the most recondite

ones of the natural philosopher, by interposing a series of previsions in

which the complexity of reasoning involved is greater and greater, there is

yet a difference between the two beyond that which is here described. And

this is true. But the difference is still not such as enables us to draw

the assumed line of demarcation. It is a difference not between common

knowledge and scientific knowledge; but between the successive phases of

science itself, or knowledge itself--whichever we choose to call it. In its

earlier phases science attains only to _certainty_ of foreknowledge; in its

later phases it further attains to _completeness_. We begin by discovering

_a_ relation: we end by discovering _the_ relation. Our first achievement

is to foretell the _kind_ of phenomenon which will occur under specific

conditions: our last achievement is to foretell not only the kind but the

_amount_. Or, to reduce the proposition to its most definite

form--undeveloped science is _qualitative_ prevision: developed science is

_quantitative_ prevision.

This will at once be perceived to express the remaining distinction between

the lower and the higher stages of positive knowledge. The prediction that

a piece of lead will take more force to lift it than a piece of wood of

equal size, exhibits certainty, but not completeness, of foresight. The

kind of effect in which the one body will exceed the other is foreseen; but

not the amount by which it will exceed. There is qualitative prevision

only. On the other hand, the prediction that at a stated time two

particular planets will be in conjunction; that by means of a lever having

arms in a given ratio, a known force will raise just so many pounds; that

to decompose a specified quantity of sulphate of iron by carbonate of soda

will require so many grains--these predictions exhibit foreknowledge, not

only of the nature of the effects to be produced, but of the magnitude,

either of the effects themselves, of the agencies producing them, or of the

distance in time or space at which they will be produced. There is not only

qualitative but quantitative prevision.

And this is the unexpressed difference which leads us to consider certain

orders of knowledge as especially scientific when contrasted with knowledge

in general. Are the phenomena _measurable_? is the test which we

unconsciously employ. Space is measurable: hence Geometry. Force and space

are measurable: hence Statics. Time, force, and space are measurable: hence

Dynamics. The invention of the barometer enabled men to extend the

principles of mechanics to the atmosphere; and Aerostatics existed. When a

thermometer was devised there arose a science of heat, which was before

impossible. Such of our sensations as we have not yet found modes of

measuring do not originate sciences. We have no science of smells; nor have

we one of tastes. We have a science of the relations of sounds differing in

pitch, because we have discovered a way to measure them; but we have no

science of sounds in respect to their loudness or their _timbre_, because

we have got no measures of loudness and _timbre_.

Obviously it is this reduction of the sensible phenomena it represents, to

relations of magnitude, which gives to any division of knowledge its

especially scientific character. Originally men's knowledge of weights and

forces was in the same condition as their knowledge of smells and tastes is

now--a knowledge not extending beyond that given by the unaided sensations;

and it remained so until weighing instruments and dynamometers were

invented. Before there were hour-glasses and clepsydras, most phenomena

could be estimated as to their durations and intervals, with no greater

precision than degrees of hardness can be estimated by the fingers. Until a

thermometric scale was contrived, men's judgments respecting relative

amounts of heat stood on the same footing with their present judgments

respecting relative amounts of sound. And as in these initial stages, with

no aids to observation, only the roughest comparisons of cases could be

made, and only the most marked differences perceived; it is obvious that

only the most simple laws of dependence could be ascertained--only those

laws which being uncomplicated with others, and not disturbed in their

manifestations, required no niceties of observation to disentangle them.

Whence it appears not only that in proportion as knowledge becomes

quantitative do its previsions become complete as well as certain, but that

until its assumption of a quantitative character it is necessarily confined

to the most elementary relations.

Moreover it is to be remarked that while, on the one hand, we can discover

the laws of the greater proportion of phenomena only by investigating them

quantitatively; on the other hand we can extend the range of our

quantitative previsions only as fast as we detect the laws of the results

we predict. For clearly the ability to specify the magnitude of a result

inaccessible to direct measurement, implies knowledge of its mode of

dependence on something which can be measured--implies that we know the

particular fact dealt with to be an instance of some more general fact.

Thus the extent to which our quantitative previsions have been carried in

any direction, indicates the depth to which our knowledge reaches in that

direction. And here, as another aspect of the same fact, we may further

observe that as we pass from qualitative to quantitative prevision, we pass

from inductive science to deductive science. Science while purely inductive

is purely qualitative: when inaccurately quantitative it usually consists

of part induction, part deduction: and it becomes accurately quantitative

only when wholly deductive. We do not mean that the deductive and the

quantitative are coextensive; for there is manifestly much deduction that

is qualitative only. We mean that all quantitative prevision is reached

deductively; and that induction can achieve only qualitative prevision.

Still, however, it must not be supposed that these distinctions enable us

to separate ordinary knowledge from science; much as they seem to do so.

While they show in what consists the broad contrast between the extreme

forms of the two, they yet lead us to recognise their essential identity;

and once more prove the difference to be one of degree only. For, on the

one hand, the commonest positive knowledge is to some extent quantitative;

seeing that the amount of the foreseen result is known within certain wide

limits. And, on the other hand, the highest quantitative prevision does not

reach the exact truth, but only a very near approximation to it. Without

clocks the savage knows that the day is longer in the summer than in the

winter; without scales he knows that stone is heavier than flesh: that is,

he can foresee respecting certain results that their amounts will exceed

these, and be less than those--he knows _about_ what they will be. And,

with his most delicate instruments and most elaborate calculations, all

that the man of science can do, is to reduce the difference between the

foreseen and the actual results to an unimportant quantity.

Moreover, it must be borne in mind not only that all the sciences are

qualitative in their first stages,--not only that some of them, as

Chemistry, have but recently reached the quantitative stage--but that the

most advanced sciences have attained to their present power of determining

quantities not present to the senses, or not directly measurable, by a slow

process of improvement extending through thousands of years. So that

science and the knowledge of the uncultured are alike in the nature of

their previsions, widely as they differ in range; they possess a common

imperfection, though this is immensely greater in the last than in the

first; and the transition from the one to the other has been through a

series of steps by which the imperfection has been rendered continually

less, and the range continually wider.

These facts, that science and the positive knowledge of the uncultured

cannot be separated in nature, and that the one is but a perfected and

extended form of the other, must necessarily underlie the whole theory of

science, its progress, and the relations of its parts to each other. There

must be serious incompleteness in any history of the sciences, which,

leaving out of view the first steps of their genesis, commences with them

only when they assume definite forms. There must be grave defects, if not a

general untruth, in a philosophy of the sciences considered in their

interdependence and development, which neglects the inquiry how they came

to be distinct sciences, and how they were severally evolved out of the

chaos of primitive ideas.

Not only a direct consideration of the matter, but all analogy, goes to

show that in the earlier and simpler stages must be sought the key to all

subsequent intricacies. The time was when the anatomy and physiology of the

human being were studied by themselves--when the adult man was analyzed and

the relations of parts and of functions investigated, without reference

either to the relations exhibited in the embryo or to the homologous

relations existing in other creatures. Now, however, it has become manifest

that no true conceptions, no true generalizations, are possible under such

conditions. Anatomists and physiologists now find that the real natures of

organs and tissues can be ascertained only by tracing their early

evolution; and that the affinities between existing genera can be

satisfactorily made out only by examining the fossil genera to which they

are allied. Well, is it not clear that the like must be true concerning all

things that undergo development? Is not science a growth? Has not science,

too, its embryology? And must not the neglect of its embryology lead to a

misunderstanding of the principles of its evolution and of its existing

organization?

There are _a priori_ reasons, therefore, for doubting the truth of all

philosophies of the sciences which tacitly proceed upon the common notion

that scientific knowledge and ordinary knowledge are separate; instead of

commencing, as they should, by affiliating the one upon the other, and

showing how it gradually came to be distinguishable from the other. We may

expect to find their generalizations essentially artificial; and we shall

not be deceived. Some illustrations of this may here be fitly introduced,

by way of preliminary to a brief sketch of the genesis of science from the

point of view indicated. And we cannot more readily find such illustrations

than by glancing at a few of the various _classifications_ of the sciences

that have from time to time been proposed. To consider all of them would

take too much space: we must content ourselves with some of the latest.

* * * * *

Commencing with those which may be soonest disposed of, let us notice first

the arrangement propounded by Oken. An abstract of it runs thus:--

Part I. MATHESIS.--_Pneumatogeny_: Primary Art, Primary

Consciousness, God, Primary Rest, Time, Polarity, Motion, Man,

Space, Point, Line, Surface, Globe, Rotation.--_Hylogeny_:

Gravity, Matter, Ether, Heavenly Bodies, Light, Heat, Fire.

(He explains that MATHESIS is the doctrine of the whole;

_Pneumatogeny_ being the doctrine of immaterial totalities,

and _Hylogeny_ that of material totalities.)