supposition, that there is a feeling--a sense of right and wrong--in our
nature, antecedent to and independent of experiences of utility. Where
free play is allowed to the relations between man and man, this feeling
attaches itself to those acts of universal utility or self-sacrifice,
which are the products of our affections and sympathies, and which we
term moral; while it may be, and often is, perverted, to give the same
sanction to acts of narrow and conventional utility which are really
immoral,--as when the Hindoo will tell a lie, but will sooner starve
than eat unclean food; and looks upon the marriage of adult females as
gross immorality.
The strength of the moral feeling will depend upon individual or racial
constitution, and on education and habit;--the acts to which its
sanctions are applied, will depend upon how far the simple feelings and
affections of our nature, have been modified by custom, by law, or by
religion.
It is difficult to conceive that such an intense and mystical feeling of
right and wrong, (so intense as to overcome all ideas of personal
advantage or utility), could have been developed out of accumulated
ancestral experiences of utility; and still more difficult to
understand, how feelings developed by one set of utilities, could be
transferred to acts of which the utility was partial, imaginary, or
altogether absent. But if a moral sense is an essential part of our
nature, it is easy to see, that its sanction may often be given to acts
which are useless or immoral; just as the natural appetite for drink, is
perverted by the drunkard into the means of his destruction.
_Summary of the Argument as to the Insufficiency of Natural Selection to
account for the Development of Man._
Briefly to resume my argument--I have shown that the brain of the lowest
savages, and, as far as we yet know, of the pre-historic races, is
little inferior in size to that of the highest types of man, and
immensely superior to that of the higher animals; while it is
universally admitted that quantity of brain is one of the most
important, and probably the most essential, of the elements which
determine mental power. Yet the mental requirements of savages, and the
faculties actually exercised by them, are very little above those of
animals. The higher feelings of pure morality and refined emotion, and
the power of abstract reasoning and ideal conception, are useless to
them, are rarely if ever manifested, and have no important relations to
their habits, wants, desires, or well-being. They possess a mental organ
beyond their needs. Natural Selection could only have endowed savage man
with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas he actually
possesses one very little inferior to that of a philosopher.
The soft, naked, sensitive skin of man, entirely free from that hairy
covering which is so universal among other mammalia, cannot be explained
on the theory of natural selection. The habits of savages show that they
feel the want of this covering, which is most completely absent in man
exactly where it is thickest in other animals. We have no reason
whatever to believe, that it could have been hurtful, or even useless to
primitive man; and, under these circumstances, its complete abolition,
shown by its never reverting in mixed breeds, is a demonstration of the
agency of some other power than the law of the survival of the fittest,
in the development of man from the lower animals.
Other characters show difficulties of a similar kind, though not perhaps
in an equal degree. The structure of the human foot and hand seem
unnecessarily perfect for the needs of savage man, in whom they are as
completely and as humanly developed as in the highest races. The
structure of the human larynx, giving the power of speech and of
producing musical sounds, and especially its extreme development in the
female sex, are shown to be beyond the needs of savages, and from their
known habits, impossible to have been acquired either by sexual
selection, or by survival of the fittest.
The mind of man offers arguments in the same direction, hardly less
strong than those derived from his bodily structure. A number of his
mental faculties have no relation to his fellow men, or to his material
progress. The power of conceiving eternity and infinity, and all those
purely abstract notions of form, number, and harmony, which play so
large a part in the life of civilised races, are entirely outside of the
world of thought of the savage, and have no influence on his individual
existence or on that of his tribe. They could not, therefore, have been
developed by any preservation of useful forms of thought; yet we find
occasional traces of them amidst a low civilization, and at a time when
they could have had no practical effect on the success of the
individual, the family, or the race; and the development of a moral
sense or conscience by similar means is equally inconceivable.
But, on the other hand, we find that every one of these characteristics
is necessary for the full development of human nature. The rapid
progress of civilization under favourable conditions, would not be
possible, were not the organ of the mind of man prepared in advance,
fully developed as regards size, structure, and proportions, and only
needing a few generations of use and habit to co-ordinate its complex
functions. The naked and sensitive skin, by necessitating clothing and
houses, would lead to the more rapid development of man's inventive and
constructive faculties; and, by leading to a more refined feeling of
personal modesty, may have influenced, to a considerable extent, his
moral nature. The erect form of man, by freeing the hands from all
locomotive uses, has been necessary for his intellectual advancement;
and the extreme perfection of his hands, has alone rendered possible
that excellence in all the arts of civilization which raises him so far
above the savage, and is perhaps but the forerunner of a higher
intellectual and moral advancement. The perfection of his vocal organs
has first led to the formation of articulate speech, and then to the
development of those exquisitely toned sounds, which are only
appreciated by the higher races, and which are probably destined for
more elevated uses and more refined enjoyment, in a higher condition
than we have yet attained to. So, those faculties which enable us to
transcend time and space, and to realize the wonderful conceptions of
mathematics and philosophy, or which give us an intense yearning for
abstract truth, (all of which were occasionally manifested at such an
early period of human history as to be far in advance of any of the few
practical applications which have since grown out of them), are
evidently essential to the perfect development of man as a spiritual
being, but are utterly inconceivable as having been produced through the
action of a law which looks only, and can look only, to the immediate
material welfare of the individual or the race.
The inference I would draw from this class of phenomena is, that a
superior intelligence has guided the development of man in a definite
direction, and for a special purpose, just as man guides the development
of many animal and vegetable forms. The laws of evolution alone would,
perhaps, never have produced a grain so well adapted to man's use as
wheat and maize; such fruits as the seedless banana and bread-fruit; or
such animals as the Guernsey milch cow, or the London dray-horse. Yet
these so closely resemble the unaided productions of nature, that we may
well imagine a being who had mastered the laws of development of organic
forms through past ages, refusing to believe that any new power had been
concerned in their production, and scornfully rejecting the theory (as
my theory will be rejected by many who agree with me on other points),
that in these few cases a controlling intelligence had directed the
action of the laws of variation, multiplication, and survival, for his
own purposes. We know, however, that this has been done; and we must
therefore admit the possibility that, if we are not the highest
intelligences in the universe, some higher intelligence may have
directed the process by which the human race was developed, by means of
more subtle agencies than we are acquainted with. At the same time I
must confess, that this theory has the disadvantage of requiring the
intervention of some distinct individual intelligence, to aid in the
production of what we can hardly avoid considering as the ultimate aim
and outcome of all organized existence--intellectual, ever-advancing,
spiritual man. It therefore implies, that the great laws which govern
the material universe were insufficient for his production, unless we
consider (as we may fairly do) that the controlling action of such
higher intelligences is a necessary part of those laws, just as the
action of all surrounding organisms is one of the agencies in organic
development. But even if my particular view should not be the true one,
the difficulties I have put forward remain, and I think prove, that some
more general and more fundamental law underlies that of "natural
selection." The law of "unconscious intelligence" pervading all organic
nature, put forth by Dr. Laycock and adopted by Mr. Murphy, is such a
law; but to my mind it has the double disadvantage of being both
unintelligible and incapable of any kind of proof. It is more probable,
that the true law lies too deep for us to discover it; but there seems
to me, to be ample indications that such a law does exist, and is
probably connected with the absolute origin of life and organization.
(_Note A._)
_The Origin of Consciousness._
The question of the origin of sensation and of thought can be but
briefly discussed in this place, since it is a subject wide enough to
require a separate volume for its proper treatment. No physiologist or
philosopher has yet ventured to propound an intelligible theory, of how
sensation may possibly be a product of organization; while many have
declared the passage from matter to mind to be inconceivable. In his
presidential address to the Physical Section of the British Association
at Norwich, in 1868, Professor Tyndall expressed himself as follows:--
"The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of
consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought, and a
definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do not
possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the
organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the
one phenomenon to the other. They appear together, but we do not know
why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and
illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the
brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their
groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be, and were we
intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and
feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem,
'How are these physical processes connected with the facts of
consciousness?' The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would
still remain intellectually impassable."
In his latest work ("An Introduction to the Classification of Animals,")
published in 1869, Professor Huxley unhesitatingly adopts the "well
founded doctrine, that life is the cause and not the consequence of
organization." In his celebrated article "On the Physical Basis of
Life," however, he maintains, that life is a property of protoplasm, and
that protoplasm owes its properties to the nature and disposition of its
molecules. Hence he terms it "the matter of life," and believes that all
the physical properties of organized beings are due to the physical
properties of protoplasm. So far we might, perhaps, follow him, but he
does not stop here. He proceeds to bridge over that chasm which
Professor Tyndall has declared to be "intellectually impassable," and,
by means which he states to be logical, arrives at the conclusion, that
our "_thoughts are the expression of molecular changes in that matter of
life which is the source of our other vital phenomena_." Not having been
able to find any clue in Professor Huxley's writings, to the steps by
which he passes from those vital phenomena, which consist only, in their
last analysis, of movements of particles of matter, to those other
phenomena which we term thought, sensation, or consciousness; but,
knowing that so positive an expression of opinion from him will have
great weight with many persons, I shall endeavour to show, with as much
brevity as is compatible with clearness, that this theory is not only
incapable of proof, but is also, as it appears to me, inconsistent with
accurate conceptions of molecular physics. To do this, and in order
further to develop my views, I shall have to give a brief sketch of the
most recent speculations and discoveries, as to the ultimate nature and
constitution of matter.
_The Nature of Matter._
It has been long seen by the best thinkers on the subject, that
atoms,--considered as minute solid bodies from which emanate the
attractive and repulsive forces which give what we term matter its
properties,--could serve no purpose whatever; since it is universally
admitted that the supposed atoms never touch each other, and it cannot
be conceived that these homogeneous, indivisible, solid units, are
themselves the ultimate _cause_ of the forces that emanate from their
centres. As, therefore, none of the properties of matter can be due to
the atoms themselves, but only to the forces which emanate from the
points in space indicated by the atomic centres, it is logical
continually to diminish their size till they vanish, leaving only
localized centres of force to represent them. Of the various attempts
that have been made to show how the properties of matter may be due to
such modified atoms (considered as mere centres of force), the most
successful, because the simplest and the most logical, is that of Mr.
Bayma, who, in his "Molecular Mechanics," has demonstrated how, from the
simple assumption of such centres having attractive and repulsive forces
(both varying according to the same law of the inverse squares as
gravitation), and by grouping them in symmetrical figures, consisting of
a repulsive centre, an attractive nucleus, and one or more repulsive
envelopes, we may explain all the general properties of matter; and, by
more and more complex arrangements, even the special chemical,
electrical, and magnetic properties of special forms of matter.[I] Each
chemical element will thus consist of a molecule formed of simple atoms,
(or as Mr. Bayma terms them to avoid confusion, "material elements") in
greater or less number and of more or less complex arrangement; which
molecule is in stable equilibrium, but liable to be changed in form by
the attractive or repulsive influences of differently constituted
molecules, constituting the phenomena of chemical combination, and
resulting in new forms of molecule of greater complexity and more or
less stability.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [I] Mr. Bayma's work, entitled "The Elements of Molecular |
| Mechanics," was published in 1866, and has received less |
| attention than it deserves. It is characterised by great |
| lucidity, by logical arrangement, and by comparatively |
| simple geometrical and algebraical demonstrations, so that |
| it may be understood and appreciated with a very moderate |
| knowledge of mathematics. It consists of a series of |
| Propositions, deduced from the known properties of matter; |
| from these are derived a number of Theorems, by whose help |
| the more complicated Problems are solved. Nothing is taken |
| for granted throughout the work, and the only valid mode of |
| escaping from its conclusions is, by either disproving the |
| fundamental Propositions, or by detecting fallacies in the |
| subsequent reasoning. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Those organic compounds of which organized beings are built up, consist,
as is well known, of matter of an extreme complexity. and great
instability; whence result the changes of form to which it is
continually subject. This view enables us to comprehend the
_possibility_, of the phenomena of vegetative life being due to an
almost infinite complexity of molecular combinations, subject to
definite changes under the stimuli of heat, moisture, light,
electricity, and probably some unknown forces. But this greater and
greater complexity, even if carried to an infinite extent, cannot, of
itself, have the slightest tendency to originate consciousness in such
molecules or groups of molecules. If a material element, or a
combination of a thousand material elements in a molecule, are alike
unconscious, it is impossible for us to believe, that the mere addition
of one, two, or a thousand other material elements to form a more
complex molecule, could in any way tend to produce a self-conscious
existence. The things are radically distinct. To say that mind is a
product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to
use words to which we can attach no clear conception. You cannot have,
in the whole, what does not exist in any of the parts; and those who
argue thus should put forth a definite conception of matter, with
clearly enunciated properties, and show, that the necessary result of a
certain complex arrangement of the elements or atoms of that matter,
will be the production of self-consciousness. There is no escape from
this dilemma,--either all matter is conscious, or consciousness is
something distinct from matter, and in the latter case, its presence in
material forms is a proof of the existence of conscious beings, outside
of, and independent of, what we term matter. (_Note B._)
_Matter is Force._--The foregoing considerations lead us to the very
important conclusion, that matter is essentially force, and nothing but
force; that matter, as popularly understood, does not exist, and is, in
fact, philosophically inconceivable. When we touch matter, we only
really experience sensations of resistance, implying repulsive force;
and no other sense can give us such apparently solid proofs of the
reality of matter, as touch does. This conclusion, if kept constantly
present in the mind, will be found to have a most important bearing on
almost every high scientific and philosophical problem, and especially
on such as relate to our own conscious existence.
_All Force is probably Will-Force._--If we are satisfied that force or
forces are all that exist in the material universe, we are next led to
enquire what is force? We are acquainted with two radically distinct or
apparently distinct kinds of force--the first consists of the primary
forces of nature, such as gravitation, cohesion, repulsion, heat,
electricity, &c.; the second is our own will-force. Many persons will at
once deny that the latter exists. It will be said, that it is a mere
transformation of the primary forces before alluded to; that the
correlation of forces includes those of animal life, and that _will_
itself is but the result of molecular change in the brain. I think,
however, that it can be shown, that this latter assertion has neither
been proved, nor even been proved to be possible; and that in making it,
a great leap in the dark has been taken from the known to the unknown.
It may be at once admitted that the _muscular force_ of animals and men,
is merely the transformed energy derived from the primary forces of
nature. So much has been, if not rigidly proved, yet rendered highly
probable, and it is in perfect accordance with all our knowledge of
natural forces and natural laws. But it cannot be contended that the
physiological balance-sheet has ever been so accurately struck, that we
are entitled to say, not one-thousandth part of a grain more of force
has been exerted by any organized body or in any part of it, than has
been derived from the known primary forces of the material world. If
that were so, it would absolutely negative the existence of will; for if
will is anything, it is a power that _directs_ the action of the forces
stored up in the body, and it is not conceivable that this _direction_
can take place, without the exercise of some force in some part of the
organism. However delicately a machine may be constructed, with the most
exquisitely contrived detents to release a weight or spring by the
exertion of the smallest possible amount of force, _some_ external force
will always, be required; so, in the animal machine, however minute may
be the changes required in the cells or fibres of the brain, to set in
motion the nerve currents which loosen or excite the pent up forces of
certain muscles, _some force_ must be required to effect those changes.
If it is said, "those changes are automatic, and are set in motion by
external causes," then one essential part of our consciousness, a
certain amount of freedom in willing, is annihilated; and it is
inconceivable how or why there should have arisen any consciousness or
any apparent will, in such purely automatic organisms. If this were so,
our apparent WILL would be a delusion, and Professor Huxley's
belief--"that our volition counts for something as a condition of the
course of events," would be fallacious, since our volition would then be
but one link in the chain of events, counting for neither more nor less
than any other link whatever.
If, therefore, we have traced one force, however minute, to an origin in
our own WILL, while we have no knowledge of any other primary cause of
force, it does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force may be
will-force; and thus, that the whole universe, is not merely dependent
on, but actually _is_, the WILL of higher intelligences or of one
Supreme Intelligence. It has been often said that the true poet is a
seer; and in the noble verse of an American poetess, we find expressed,
what may prove to be the highest fact of science, the noblest truth of
philosophy:
God of the Granite and the Rose!
Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee!
The mighty tide of Being flows
Through countless channels, Lord, from thee.
It leaps to life in grass and flowers,
Through every grade of being runs,
While from Creation's radiant towers
Its glory flames in Stars and Suns.
_Conclusion._
These speculations are usually held to be far beyond the bounds of
science; but they appear to me to be more legitimate deductions from the
facts of science, than those which consist in reducing the whole
universe, not merely to matter, but to matter conceived and defined so
as to be philosophically inconceivable. It is surely a great step in
advance, to get rid of the notion that _matter_ is a thing of itself,
which can exist _per se_, and must have been eternal, since it is
supposed to be indestructible and uncreated,--that force, or the forces
of nature, are another thing, given or added to matter, or else its
necessary properties,--and that mind is yet another thing, either a
product of this matter and its supposed inherent forces, or distinct
from and co-existent with it;--and to be able to substitute for this
complicated theory, which leads to endless dilemmas and contradictions,
the far simpler and more consistent belief, that matter, as an entity
distinct from force, does not exist; and that FORCE is a product of
MIND. Philosophy had long demonstrated our incapacity to prove the
existence of matter, as usually conceived; while it admitted the
demonstration to each of us of our own self-conscious, ideal existence.
Science has now worked its way up to the same result, and this agreement
between them should give us some confidence in their combined teaching.