[Illustration:
M. ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF
]
THE
NATURE OF MAN
STUDIES IN OPTIMISTIC PHILOSOPHY
BY
ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF
PROFESSOR AT THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
EDITED BY
P. CHALMERS MITCHELL
M.A., D.SC. OXON.
SECRETARY OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
=The Knickerbocker Press=
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Eleventh Printing
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
When Pasteur died a remarkable article appeared in one of the Paris
newspapers. The writer described the intimate routine of the life at the
Pasteur Institute, and compared it with that of a mediæval religious
community. A little body of men, forsaking the world and the things of
the world, had gathered together under the compulsion of a great idea.
They had given up the rivalries and personal interests of ordinary men,
and, sharing their goods and their work, they lived in austere devotion
to science, finding no sacrifice of health or money, or of what men call
pleasure, too great for the common object. Rumours of war and peace,
echoes of the turmoil of politics and religion, passed unheeded over
their monastic seclusion; but if there came news of a strange disease in
China or Peru, a scientific emissary was ready with his microscope and
his tubes to serve as a missionary of the new knowledge and the new hope
that Pasteur had brought to suffering humanity. The adventurous exploits
and the patient vigils of this new Order have brought about a revolution
in our knowledge of disease, and there seems no limit to the triumphs
that will come from the parent Institute in Paris and from its many
daughters in other cities.
Élie Metchnikoff, now Professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is
one of the most distinguished of the disciples who left all else to
follow Pasteur. He was born on the third (16) May, 1845, in a village of
the Government of Kharkoff (Little Russia). He was educated at the
Gymnasium and the University of Kharkoff, passing through the Faculty of
Science. From 1864 to 1870 he worked at Zoology at Giessen, Göttingen
and Munich, successively under three well-known zoologists, Leuckhart,
Henle and Von Siebold, and was then appointed Professor of Zoology and
Comparative Anatomy at Odessa. He made expeditions to Madeira, Teneriffe
and the Kalmuck Steppes in connection with his zoological researches. In
1882, in consequence of administrative difficulties, arising as part of
the troubles that followed the murder of the Tzar, Alexander II., he
resigned the Professorship and became Director of the municipal
Bacteriological Laboratory. In 1888 he went to the Pasteur Institute,
and has remained there since that time.
The earlier part of Metchnikoff’s career was devoted to Zoology, and
chiefly to investigation of the embryological history of the lower
invertebrates, and the sequence of his discoveries should afford food
for reflection to those Baconian economists who are unwilling to shelter
any tree of knowledge that does not give immediate promise of marketable
fruit. The labour of many years spent in minute tracing of the
development of insects, echinoderms, worms and jellyfish, would appear
sufficiently unprofitable to those who give a scanty support to Botany
as the provider of drugs, who tolerate Chemistry because it has supplied
aniline dyes, and who patronise the physical sciences from a lively
sense of the convenience of telephones and telegraphs. And yet from
these remote, inhuman interests, Metchnikoff, without intellectual
transition, passed directly to results affecting vitally the human race,
and became one of the high priests of Bacteriology and a guardian of the
Pandora’s box of modern times.
From observations made originally on water-fleas, he was led to discover
the functions of the white corpuscles of human blood. He showed by what
mechanism these made perpetual war against the intruding microbes of
disease, and he laid the foundations of knowledge as to the agencies
that weaken and the modes of strengthening these guardians of our
health. In a series of investigations into the phenomena of inflammation
in men and lower animals, he carried his observations into new fields,
and explained the relations of the white corpuscles to the juices that
attract and repel them (chemotaxis). It was he, for instance, who
discovered that these corpuscles, under certain circumstances, migrate
into the hairs and absorb and remove the pigment, so producing the
blanching of old age. Although popularly the most interesting this was
far from being the most important of the changes of senile decay that he
found to be due to the activity of the wandering cells of the body. And,
as will be seen in the present volume, the actions and interactions of
the bacteria harboured in the body, the white corpuscles that are a
natural part of the body, and the various juices or serums produced
naturally or introduced by accident or design, are concerned in life
itself and the decay of life.
Metchnikoff is an expert of experts in the science of life, and has
gained the right to a hearing by forty years of patient devotion and
brilliant research. In the volume that he has now given to the public,
he has addressed himself to the gravest and the most serious problems of
humanity, to life and sex and death and the fear of death. From the
earliest days when man could spare time from the satisfaction of his
immediate wants to reflect upon his nature and destiny, these problems
and the invention of fantastic solutions or evasive anodynes have
absorbed his attention. The folklore and philosophy, the religion and
poetry of all races and of all stages of culture, from savage barbarism
to decadent refinement, revolve round these obsessions of the mind, and,
as Metchnikoff most plainly shows, no enduring comfort has yet been
found. Now for the first time in the history of thought, the exact
methods of science have been brought to the statement of the problems.
In revising this translation of Metchnikoff’s book for the
English-speaking public I have had to content myself with seeing that
the plain meaning of the French was transformed to plain English, and
that references to French editions were changed, so far as was possible,
to corresponding references to English editions. Some of the phrases
that recur were difficult to express. “Human nature” for instance is not
an exact equivalent of _la nature humaine_, for the latter phrase has a
complete significance, and very definitely implies not only the mental
qualities of man, but his bodily framework, with its inherited and
acquired anatomical structure and physiological functions. The phrase
“human constitution,” especially in the common medical sense, carries
more of the meaning, and I have used it occasionally. The word “harmony”
means harmony with the environment, and disharmony is want of harmony or
imperfect adaptation to the existing environment. In the case of the
human organism, which has passed through profound changes at a rate
prodigious in the history of evolution, many parts of the constitution
are no longer in gear with the existing environment, and it is in such
disharmonies that Metchnikoff finds the source of the troubles that have
perplexed mankind.
In several parts of this volume, and particularly in the chapter dealing
with disharmonies in the reproductive functions, there is much plain
speaking on matters that modern civilisation attempts to conceal. I have
not had the impertinence to suppress or to alter a line or a word of
these pages. They are written in high seriousness on fundamental facts
of the constitution of man; they relate to problems and difficulties
that every age in the history of man has had to face, and that are dealt
with in the plainest language in the books of all the religions. For the
first time proper knowledge has been brought to the task, and it is to
be remembered that this volume is an attempt to explain mysteries of the
flesh and of the spirit of which all existing explanations have failed
to satisfy humanity. The volume is avowedly no more than a preliminary
statement, a rallying-point for the work of future generations. But it
awakens a new hope for humanity now that the old are fallen dumb; as
Metchnikoff himself says, “If it be true that man cannot live without
faith, this volume, when the age of faith seemed gone by, has provided a
new faith, that in the all-powerfulness of science.” In every country,
the new Order of priests of science, in the vigils of the laboratory, is
working for the future of humanity.
P. CHALMERS MITCHELL.
PREFACE
In offering this book to you, reader, I feel that I must justify its
publication. I admit freely that more could be said for a finished study
in which hypotheses were replaced by exact fact. But to get together
assured results in a field so little explored is a great task, calling
for time and much labour.
I remembered the adage, “_Ars longa, vita brevis_,” and I decided to
publish what is really a programme of work to be carried out as fully as
circumstances may permit. At all events, I hope that such a programme
may have its value for younger investigators, who wish a point of
orientation for their labours.
My book is addressed to disciplined minds, and in especial to
biologists. As I wrote it, I had not the general public in my mind, and
so I did not hesitate to devote nearly the whole of a chapter to
“disharmonies in the apparatus of reproduction.” I see in that apparatus
the clearest proof of the essential disharmony in the organisation of
man.
I have to thank those friends who were familiar with my views and whose
advice and assistance have helped me to develop them.
In particular, I desire to thank my friends Dr. E. Roux, who was at the
pains to make my French more French; and Dr. J. Goldschmidt and Dr.
Mesnil, who have read and revised the proof-sheets.
ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF.
PARIS, _February 8, 1903_.
CONTENTS
_Page_
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION iii
AUTHOR’S PREFACE ix
PART I
DISHARMONIES IN THE NATURE OF MAN
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION—SUMMARY OF OPINIONS ON THE NATURE OF MAN 3
Importance of the study of the nature of man—The nature of man
as the foundation of morality—Greek worship of human
nature—Matriopathy of ancient philosophers—Rationalism of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—Degradation of human
nature by religious doctrines—Influence of these conceptions
on actual life and on art—Reaction of the Reformation
against the degradation of human nature—Mutilation of the
human body by primitive races
CHAPTER II
HARMONIES AND DISHARMONIES AMONGST BEINGS INFERIOR TO MAN 17
The organised world before the appearance of man on the
earth—Absence of a law of universal progress—Fertilisation
of vanilla—The part played by insects in the fertilisation
of orchids—Mechanism by which insects carry the pollen of
orchids—Habits of fossorial wasps—Harmonies in
nature—Useless organs—Rudiments of the pollinia of
orchids—Disharmonies in nature—Unadapted insects—Aberration
of instincts—Perversion of sexual instinct—Attraction of
insects by light—Luminous insects—Law of natural
selection—Happiness and unhappiness in the organised world
CHAPTER III
SIMIAN ORIGIN OF MAN 40
Relationship of the human species with anthropoid
apes—Analogies in the dentition, in the organisation of the
limbs and of the brain—Resemblance of the vermiform
appendage of man and anthropoids—Analogy between the
placenta and fœtus of man and anthropoid apes—Blood
relationship of man and monkeys shown by serums and
precipitates—Transmutation of species—Sudden transition from
monkey to man—J. Inaudi, the calculator, as an example of
the sudden appearance of characters in the human
species—Rudimentary organs in man—Proportion of progressive
and retrogressive organs in the organisation of man
CHAPTER IV
DISHARMONIES IN THE ORGANISATION OF THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM OF MAN 61
Perfection of the human form—The covering of hair—The
dentition in general, and the wisdom teeth—The vermiform
appendage—Appendicitis and its gravity—Uselessness of the
cæcum and of the large intestine—Instance of a woman without
a large intestine—Ancestral history of this portion of the
digestive tract—Injurious effect of the microbes of the
large intestine—Frequency of cancer of the large intestine
and of the stomach—Limited usefulness of the stomach—The
instinct of choice of food—Futility of this instinct in man
CHAPTER V
DISHARMONIES IN THE ORGANISATION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE
REPRODUCTIVE APPARATUS—DISHARMONIES IN THE FAMILY AND SOCIAL
INSTINCTS 78
I
Remarks on the disharmonies in the human organs of sense and
perception—Rudimentary parts of the reproductive
apparatus—Origin and function of the hymen
II
Evolution and significance of the menstrual flow in
women—Precocious marriage amongst primitive and uncivilised
races—Disharmony between age of puberty and age of
nubility—Age of marriage—Examples of disharmony in the
development of the reproductive function
III
Disharmonies in the family instincts—Artificial
abortion—Desertion and infanticide—Disharmonies in the
social instincts
CHAPTER VI
DISHARMONIES IN THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION 113
The instinct of self-preservation in animals—Man’s instinctive
love of life—Indifference to life during childhood—Buddhist
legend on instinctive self-preservation and the fear of
death—Fear of death treated in literature—Confessions of
Tolstoi regarding the fear of death—Other opinions on the
subject—The fear of death an instinctive
phenomenon—Development in man of a love of life—Treatment of
the aged—Murder of old people—Suicide of old men—Absence of
harmony between the love of life and the conditions of human
existence—The part played by the fear of death in religions
and systems of philosophy
PART II
ATTEMPTS TO DIMINISH THE ILLS ARISING FROM THE DISHARMONIES OF THE
HUMAN CONSTITUTION (RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS)
CHAPTER VII
RELIGIOUS ATTEMPTS TO COMBAT THE ILLS ARISING FROM THE
DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION 137
Animism as the foundation of primitive religions—The Jewish
religion in relation to the doctrine of immortality of the
soul—The religions of China—Ancestor-worship in
Confucianism—The conception of immortality in Taoism—The
persistence of the soul in the Buddhist religion—The
paradise of the Chinese Buddhists—Ancestors worshipped as
gods—Influence of religious faith on the fear of
death—Pessimism of the doctrine of Buddha—The meaning of
Nirvâna—Resignation as preached by Buddha—Objections to
immortality of the soul—Irritability of the tissues and
cells of the body—Religious hygiene—Religious means of
controlling the reproductive functions and of preventing
diseases—Failure of religions in their attempts to combat
the ills arising from the disharmonies of the human
constitution
CHAPTER VIII
ATTEMPTS IN SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY TO REMEDY THE ILLS ARISING
FROM THE DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION 166
Some philosophical systems are in intimate union with
religions—Ideas of ancient philosophers on the immortality
of the soul—The teaching of Plato—The scepticism of
Aristotle—The Stoics—Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius—Modern
philosophical systems—Pessimism and its origin—Lord
Byron—Theories of Schopenhauer and Hartmann—Mailaender’s
philosophy of deliverance—Criticisms of pessimism—Max
Nordau—Ideas of modern thinkers on death
PART III
WHAT SCIENCE IS ABLE TO DO TO ALLEVIATE THE DISHARMONIES OF THE HUMAN
CONSTITUTION
CHAPTER IX
WHAT SCIENCE CAN DO AGAINST DISEASE 203
Formation of the experimental method—The intervention of
religion in disease—Disease as a basis of pessimistic
systems of philosophy—Advance of medical science in the war
against disease—The revolution in medicine and surgery due
to the discoveries of Pasteur—The beneficial results of
Serum Therapy in the war against infectious diseases—Failure
of science to cure tuberculosis and malignant
tumours—Protests against the advance of science—Opposition
of Rousseau, Tolstoi and Brunetière—Proclamation of the
fallibility of science—Return to religion and mysticism
CHAPTER X
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF OLD AGE 228
General account of old age—Theory of senile degeneration
amongst unicellular organisms—Conjugation amongst
infusoria—Old age in birds and in anthropoid apes—General
characters of senile degeneration—Sclerosis of the
organs—Phagocyte theory of senile degeneration—Destruction
of higher elements by macrophags—Mechanism of whitening of
the hair—Serums acting on cells (cytotoxins)—Sclerosis of
the arteries and its causation—Harm done by the microbes of
the alimentary canal—Intestinal putrefaction and the modes
of preventing it—Attempts to prolong human life—Longevity in
biblical times
CHAPTER XI
INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF DEATH 262
Theory of the immortality of lower organisms—Immortality of
the sexual cells in higher organisms—Immortality of the
cellular soul—Occurrence of natural death in the case of
certain animals—Natural death in the Ephemeridæ—Loss of the
instinct of preservation in adult Ephemerids—Instinct of
life in the aged—Instinct of natural death in man—Death of
old men in biblical times—Changes in the instincts of man
and lower animals
CHAPTER XII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 285
Disharmonies in the human constitution as the chief source of
our sorrows—Scientific data as to the origin and destiny of
man—The goal of human existence—Difficulties in the way of
scientific investigation of the problem, What is
progress?—Difficulty of including the whole human rate in a
scheme of progress and morality—The instincts of life and of
natural death—Application to real life of the doctrines set
forth in this book
ILLUSTRATIONS
Photograph of Élie Metchnikoff _Frontispiece_
_Figs._ _Page_
1. _Catasetum saccatum_ 24
2. _Herminium monorchis_ 26
3. _Cerceris_ 28
4. _Listera ovata_ 32
5. _Pelopæus_ 34
6. Cæcum and vermiform appendage of man 44
7. Cæcum and vermiform appendage of chimpanzee 45
8. Fœtus of gibbon 46
9. Human fœtus 47
10. Fœtus of gorilla 50
11. Human fœtus 51
12. _Paramecium_ about to divide 230
13. Conjugation of _Paramecia_ 231
14. Section of a renal tubule invaded by Macrophags 241
15. Brain cells devoured by Macrophags 241
16. Hair becoming grey 243
17. _Chætogaster_ about to divide 265
18. Ephemerids 271
19. Swarms of _Palingenia virgo_ 273
20. Larva of an Ephemerid 276
THE NATURE OF MAN
PART I
DISHARMONIES IN THE NATURE OF MAN
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
SUMMARY OF OPINIONS ON THE NATURE OF MAN
Importance of the study of the nature of man—The nature of man as the
foundation of morality—Greek worship of human nature—Matriopathy of
ancient philosophers—Rationalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries—Degradation of human nature by religious doctrines—Influence
of these conceptions on actual life and on art—Reaction of the
Reformation against the degradation of human nature—Mutilation of the
human body by primitive races
Notwithstanding the real advance made by science, expressions of
discontentment with it are familiar. Science, it is said, no doubt has
ameliorated the material conditions of human life, but is powerless to
solve those moral and philosophical questions that interest cultured
people so deeply. In this region science has done no more than to
destroy the foundations of religion. It has robbed mankind of the
consolations of religion without being able to replace them with
anything more exact or more enduring.
It cannot be disputed that a general uneasiness disturbs the world of
to-day. Although his environment is most favourable to the fulfilment of
many of his capacities, man finds himself without orientation when he
has to determine the course of his life, or to explain to himself his
true relation to such categories of humanity as family, nation, race and
human race. This uneasiness reveals itself as discontentment, and it
leads to pessimism or to mysticism. Most of the philosophical systems of
the nineteenth century were steeped in melancholy, and led straight to a
denial of the possibility of happiness and even to an advocacy of
extinction. The frequency of suicide has increased greatly among all the
civilised peoples. There is no need to tabulate proofs of a notorious
fact.[1]
A remedy for this malady of the age has been sought in the attempt to
restore religious and mystical faith. On all sides have sprung up
efforts to found new religions or to amend the old. Many defenders of
science have gone the length of admitting its incapacity to solve the
problem of the existence of man; they have held that that problem was
insoluble for the human mind. Such a depressing conclusion has been
formulated in spite of many attempts to reach a rational conception of
the universe and of man.
It is no new thing to ask if there be nothing but faith to control human
conduct and to lead mankind towards universal happiness. Men of science
and philosophers, in many ages, have thought that human nature itself
could provide all the materials for a rational morality.
In the ancient world and, above all, among the Greeks, human nature was
held in high esteem. The Oriental races, predecessors of the Greeks in
civilisation, generally represented their gods as fantastic or grotesque
beings, composites of men and animals. The Greeks made gods in their own
image, giving them all the most beautiful qualities of the human race.
Such a conception was a dominant factor in ancient Greek life and
civilisation. The adoration of Man embraced the human body, and led to
the despising of every mode of tampering with the natural body. Thus,
for instance, shaving[2] of the face was regarded as a humiliation, for
a smooth chin gave an unnatural, womanish cast to the face of a man.
The adoration of human nature by the Greeks appeared in Greek plastic
art, and was the cause of its excellence. The ideal of art was to copy,
in the most faithful way, the most perfect example of the human body,
and Greek artists made measurements of the body so accurately that
modern science has confirmed their chief results.[3] As sculpture most
completely realised the Greek ideal of the human body, it became almost
a national art among the Greeks.
Greek philosophy had an equally high opinion of human nature, of the
human body, and of representations of the human body. Just as Greek art
aimed at the presentation of the body of man, so Greek philosophy
proclaimed the nobility of all human qualities, and inculcated the
doctrine of a harmonious development of all sides of human nature.[4]
Such a doctrine was formulated by Plato, and became a fundamental
principle of the Old Academy; the New Academy assumed it, and handed it
on to the Sceptics. According to Xenocrates (fourth century), who
belonged to the Old Academy, happiness consisted not only in the
possession of human virtue, but in the accomplishment of all natural
acts.[5]
The principle of a worship of human nature is in itself rather vague,
and it is not surprising that disputes and contradictions arose in
relation to its application. Thus Plato excluded pleasure from his
conception of the good, while Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, held a contrary
opinion. For the latter pleasure was the natural motive of human action,
and its attainment was associated as intimately with the perfect life as
beauty and health were associated with the perfect human body.[6]
Under the name _Matriopathy_ there arose, in the ancient world, a
doctrine the object of which was the study of the goal of natural
morality. This doctrine was held by many philosophers, but these applied
it to the details of actual life in very different fashions. Thus, for
the Stoics, the _summum bonum_ and happiness, the most lofty aim, could
not be found except by conforming life to nature. Conduct was to be
brought into harmony with the rational order of nature in such a fashion
that every conscious and rational being would perform no actions that
could not be deduced from the general law.[7] The same principle of a
life in harmony with nature led the Epicureans to the conclusion that
“pleasure is a natural good, that is to say, a condition conformable
with nature, and so bringing with it intrinsic contentment.”[8] Setting
out from the same fundamental principle, the theories of the Stoics and
Epicureans led in opposite directions.
The Roman philosophers adopted the principle of a life strictly natural.
Seneca, for instance,[9] enunciated the maxim: “Take nature as your
guide, for so reason bids you and advises you; to live happily is to
live naturally.”
Without following through the centuries the development of the idea in
detail, I may content myself with saying that resort has been made to
it, wherever there was sought, outside the sanction of religion, a
rational principle to guide human conduct. It recurs even among those
convinced Christians who rebelled against the asceticism and hatred of
human nature that became prevalent in the early centuries of the
Christian era.
The Greek conception of a life in harmony with nature found its most
complete development in the rationalism of the Renaissance, and of the
centuries that followed it. Hutcheson,[10] a Scotch philosopher of the
eighteenth century, insisted that right was with the thinkers of the
naturalistic school, and that the realisation of their ideal was to be
considered as the highest virtue. He thus placed himself directly
against the Scotch clergy who asserted the greatest contempt for human
nature. Buckle[11] proclaimed that it was a high honour for Hutcheson to
have been the first Scotchman to raise his voice publicly against the
degrading views of his time.
The French philosophers of the eighteenth century, who sought to replace
the religious foundations of conduct by rational principles, again had
recourse to human nature. Not long before the French Revolution there
appeared a treatise in three volumes, written by Baron d’Holbach, and
entitled, “Universal Morality, or the Duties of Man based on
Nature.”[12] Frankly a materialist and atheist, that writer laid it down
as an axiom that “to be universal, the moral law must be founded on the
essential nature of man, that is to say, on the properties and qualities
found constantly in the human being, and that distinguish him from other
animals.” To be well assured, “morality presumes a science of human
nature.”[13]
The principle of ancient philosophy reappeared in the works of
rationalists of the nineteenth century. Wilhelm von Humboldt declared
that “the ultimate ideal of man, the ideal prescribed for him by the
irrefutable and eternal laws of reason, consisted in a development as
harmonious as possible of all his qualities in their entirety.” The
modern historian, Lecky,[14] defines the aim of life as the full
development of all that exists in the proportions determined by nature.
Philosophers and historians are not alone in the adoption of Greek
rationalism. Many naturalists, and among these some very distinguished
authors, have spoken in the same sense. It is easy to see the Greek
principle in such phrases as those of Darwin[15] when he wrote: “The
term general good may be defined as the means by which the greatest
possible number of individuals can be reared in full vigour and health,
with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are
exposed.”
Georges Seidlitz,[16] an advocate of the great English naturalist, got
still nearer to the conception of the ancients. According to him, the
moral and rational life consisted in “the accomplishment of all the
functions of the body, in due but full proportion.”
Herbert Spencer,[17] in analysing the aim of existence, came to the
conclusion that morality should be adjusted so as to make life as full
and complete as possible. As a criterion of physical perfection, the
English philosopher would accept only the complete devotion of all the
organs to the accomplishment of all their functions, while his criterion
of moral perfection was contribution to the general good. These views
are plainly, if not exactly, expressions of the Greek ideal.
While, then, rational philosophers in all the ages have sought the
foundation of morality in human nature itself, and have held human
nature to be good, or even perfect, many religious doctrines have
displayed a very different view. Human nature was regarded as being
composed of two hostile elements, a body and a soul. The soul alone was
to be honoured, while the body was regarded as the vile source of evils.
Such a view led to the flagellations and torturings of the body which
form so strange and so widespread a phenomenon. The Hindu fakirs who
swing themselves on hooks, the dervishes and Mussulman Assouans who beat
in their skulls with clubs, the Russian Skoptsy who emasculate
themselves, and many other instances make it plain that natural
perfection is not taken as the basis for conduct.
Buddha[18] in the clearest way showed his belief that human nature was
base. Coming out from the apartments of the women, there came to him a
“vivid idea of the impurity of the body, a feeling of repulsion from it,
and of blame of it; regarding his own body and seeing its wretchedness,
he began to despise it, and to formulate conceptions of impurity and
purity; _from the sole of the feet to the crown of the head, to the
limit of the brain, he saw that the body was born in impurity, came from
impurity, and always let itself be drawn to impurity_.” These
reflections led him to the conclusion: “What wise man, having regarded
his own body, will not see in it an enemy?”
Towards the end of the old world, the Greek theory of human nature
yielded to a very different conception. The opposition between the
opinions of the Stoics on morality, and their admiration of human
nature, led Seneca, one of the last Roman Stoics and a celebrated
contemporary of Jesus Christ, to break completely away from the ancient
doctrine. Convinced of the moral weakness and imperfection of man, and
of the persisting power of evil, Seneca declared that human nature
contained a vicious and essentially evil element. This element was
seated in the body, which he regarded as so essentially vile that it is
to be despised. Our body was no more than the dwelling of the soul, its
temporary home, a place in which it cannot be at rest. The body was a
burden which the soul would be rid of, a prison-house from which it
would escape. According to Seneca[19] the soul must wrestle with the
body, for the body brings to it nothing but suffering, while the soul is
essentially pure and spotless, and as much above the body as divinity is
above matter.
A dualism still more pronounced was characteristic of the early
Christian view of human nature, and led to the depreciation of the body
as compared with the soul. In the fourth and fifth centuries of our era
such a view was so dominant that a struggle against the material side of
our nature became a rule of life. The most absolute asceticism spread
throughout the Christian world.[20] A struggle against hunger, thirst,
and desire for sleep, rejection of all pleasures that come from
impressions of sight, of hearing, or of the palate, and, above all,
abstention from sexual intercourse, became, in the opinion of believers,
the true aim of human life. The conviction that human nature was
essentially corrupt led to a declaration of war against it; all the
pleasures were forbidden, even the most innocent of them being thought
vicious. What could be more in contrast with the calm and joyous
philosophy of the Greeks, for whom there did not exist the idea of a
struggle against the supposed corruption and imperfection of man? The
dualistic theory made such demands on its proselytes that these,
absorbed in the salvation of their souls, sank from the physical point
of view to the level of wild beasts. Hermits resorted to the lairs of
animals, abandoned their clothing and went about naked with shaggy and
disordered hair. In Mesopotamia and a part of Syria there arose a sect
of eaters of grass; these were people who had no dwellings and who ate
neither bread nor vegetables, but wandered on the hills and fed on the
herbage. Cleanliness of the body was regarded as an indication of
corruptness of the soul, and among the most highly venerated of the
saints were those who took no care of the body. Athanasius relates with
approval that when St. Antony, the father of monks, became old he never
washed his feet.[21]
Such doctrines soon brought about a most serious perversion of the
innate instincts of the human race. The senses of family and of society
became so weakened that fanatical Christians were more than indifferent
to their kinsmen and countrymen. One saint was venerated because he was
hard and cruel only to his relatives. It is told of the Abbot Siseuss
that on a believer asking to be received into the convent, he inquired
if the suppliant had any one akin to him. “I have only a son,” said the
Christian. “Well, then,” said the abbot, “take your son and cast him
into the river, for thus only may you become a monk.” The father set
about to do the bidding of the abbot, and it was only at the last moment
that the order was recalled. For admission into a Christian community it
was necessary to renounce one’s country.[22]
Such ideas have struck a deep and enduring root. In the opinion of the
ministers of the Scotch Church of the seventeenth century, according to
Buckle,[23] there was nothing so surprising as that the earth could
contain itself in the presence of that horrid spectacle, man, and that
it did not gape, as in former days, to swallow him in the midst of his
wickedness. For certainly, in the created universe, there could be
nothing so monstrous and so horrible as man.
It was to be expected that when such conceptions prevailed, celibacy and
repudiation of the reproductive instinct should have been made
obligatory on the clergy. The words, reported by St. Matthew (xix. 11,
12), that “there be eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the
kingdom of heaven’s sake” were interpreted by some as implying a
voluntary renunciation of marriage, while others insisted on the literal
meaning and in consequence mutilated themselves more or less completely.
The breasts of women were removed to eradicate the maternal instincts.
But it is only the sect of Skoptsy, by no means a small body in Russia,
that applies the gospel command in this stringent fashion. The wish
announced by St. Paul (Corinthians vii. 7), “I say therefore to the
unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I; but
if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than
to burn,” soon became a command, and since the fourth century the
Catholic Church has advocated celibacy of the clergy, although it was
not enforced until the eleventh century (under Gregory VII.). A low view
of human nature has survived in the Catholic Church even to our own
times. Pope Leo XIII., in his “Encyclical on Freemasons,” proclaimed
it.[24] “Human nature,” he said, “was contaminated by the Fall, and as
it is therefore much more prone to vice than to virtue, in order to
attain virtue it is absolutely necessary to restrain the wild impulses
of the soul, and to control the appetites by reason.”
Art has reflected the Christian conception of human nature. Sculpture,
which played so great a part in the ancient world, and which was
intimately associated with Greek ideals, began to decline rapidly in the
Christian era. It lasted longer in the Roman Empire of the East, but in
Italy it was almost completely forgotten by the eighth century. Painting
survived, but not without undergoing an extraordinary degeneration. All
the Italian works of art of the Carlovingian period, displayed the
utmost indifference to natural form, and a loss of the sense of harmony
and beauty. Later on, Italian art fell lower still. “No one dreamed any
longer of studying nature or of observing the human body. An epoch in
which the interference of supernatural forces was generally accepted,
and in which the conception of the universe was founded on a contrast
between the natural and the supernatural, could not admit in its art the
rule of natural law or a natural order of events.”[25]
The intimate connection between the depreciation of human nature due to
Christian doctrine and the inferiority of the art of the middle ages
cannot be denied. Taine[26] writes of the period as follows: “If one
considers the stained-glass windows or the images in the cathedrals, or
the rude paintings, it appears as if the human race had become
degenerate and its blood had been impoverished; pale saints, distorted
martyrs, virgins with flat chests, feet too long and bony hands, hermits
withered and unsubstantial, Christs that look like crushed and bleeding
earthworms, processions of figures that are wan, and stiffened, and sad,
upon whom are stamped all the deformities of misery and all the
shrinking timidity of the oppressed.”
The art of the middle ages fell lower and lower until the Renaissance,
with its return to the Greek ideal, brought new vigour. The great
masters of the Renaissance were in addition scientific men who had
studied mathematics and who employed the technique of mensuration; such
were Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel Angelo, and others. The return
to the Greek ideals and to nature brought with it the taste for beauty.
When the ancient spirit was born again, its influence reached science
and even religion, and the Reformation was a defence of human nature.
The Lutheran doctrines resumed the principle of a “development as
complete as possible, of all the natural powers” of man, and saw in that
ideal a guide for humanity. Compulsory celibacy was abolished, and free
play was given to all the tendencies in conformity with the laws of
nature.[27]
Besides those whose religion led them to despise the human body, there
have been many savage races and tribes who have practised mutilations of
the body. It would be a long list were I to set out all the modes in
which the human body has been disfigured. Treatises on Ethnography and
the volumes of travellers contain a multitude of details of this sort.
The hair, the teeth and the lips have been subjected to treatment with
the object of making them as unlike the natural condition as is
possible. Many of the lower races discolour their teeth, or remove some
of them, or file them to points. Others insert in the lips pieces of
wood, of stone, or of bone. A whole chapter might be occupied with an
account of the disfiguring devices of tattooers. The skull, the breasts,
and the feet, have all been subjected to deforming treatment.
Although there is not enough evidence to set down these practices to the
existence of definite and self-conscious religious or philosophic
doctrine, it is at least certain that the people among whom they occur
are far from revering human nature in the fashion of the Greeks, but
rather attempt to distort it in accordance with their own taste.
Discontent with the natural conditions of existence is, as we have seen,
so widespread that there is good reason for an inquiry as to the
existence of some general principle underlying this diversity of opinion
regarding human nature. I have already shown that this question of human
nature has for long interested mankind, and has shared largely in the
formation of ideas of the good and the beautiful. It is not too soon to
submit the problem to rational investigation, using those rigid methods
of science which have been learned in our epoch. I shall try to give an
exposition of human nature in its strength and in its weakness. But
before passing to man, I shall survey the lower forms of life, hoping to
fix some landmarks that will be useful in the study of the larger
problem.