allows of gaps in the series. To mend the definition, it is only
necessary to notice how these gaps can occur. Let us suppose, then, a
linear series of points extending from a point, _A_, to a point, _B_,
having a gap from _B_ to a third point, _C_, and thence extending to a
final limit, _D_; and let us suppose this series conforms to Kant’s
definition. Then, of the two points, _B_ and _C_, one or both must be
excluded from the series; for otherwise, by the definition, there would
be points between them. That is, if the series contains _C_, though it
contains all the points up to _B_, it cannot contain _B_. What is
required, therefore, is to state in non-metrical terms that if a series
of points up to a limit is included in a continuum the limit is
included. It may be remarked that this is the property of a continuum to
which Aristotle’s attention seems to have been directed when he defines
a continuum as something whose parts have a common limit. The property
may be exactly stated as follows: If a linear series of points is
continuous between two points, _A_ and _D_, and if an endless series of
points be taken, the first of them between _A_ and _D_ and each of the
others between the last preceding one and _D_, then there is a point of
the continuous series between all that endless series of points and _D_,
and such that every other point of which this is true lies between this
point and _D_. For example, take any number between 0 and 1, as 0.1;
then, any number between 0.1 and 1, as 0.11; then any number between
0.11 and 1, as 0.111; and so on, without end. Then, because the series
of real numbers between 0 and 1 is continuous, there must be a _least_
real number, greater than every number of that endless series. This
property, which may be called the Aristotelicity of the series, together
with Kant’s property, or its Kanticity, completes the definition of a
continuous series.
The property of Aristotelicity may be roughly stated thus: a continuum
contains the end point belonging to every endless series of points which
it contains. An obvious corollary is that every continuum contains its
limits. But in using this principle it is necessary to observe that a
series may be continuous except in this, that it omits one or both of
the limits.
Our ideas will find expression more conveniently if, instead of points
upon a line, we speak of real numbers. Every real number is, in one
sense, the limit of a series, for it can be indefinitely approximated
to. Whether every real number is a limit of a _regular_ series may
perhaps be open to doubt. But the series referred to in the definition
of Aristotelicity must be understood as including all series whether
regular or not. Consequently, it is implied that between any two points
an innumerable series of points can be taken.
Every number whose expression in decimals requires but a finite number
of places of decimals is commensurable. Therefore, incommensurable
numbers suppose an infinitieth place of decimals. The word infinitesimal
is simply the Latin form of infinitieth; that is, it is an ordinal
formed from _infinitum_, as centesimal from _centum_. Thus, continuity
supposes infinitesimal quantities. There is nothing contradictory about
the idea of such quantities. In adding and multiplying them the
continuity must not be broken up, and consequently they are precisely
like any other quantities, except that neither the syllogism of
transposed quantity, nor the Fermatian inference applies to them.
If A is a finite quantity and _i_ an infinitesimal, then in a certain
sense we may write A + _i_ = A. That is to say, this is so for all
purposes of measurement. But this principle must not be applied except
to get rid of _all_ the terms in the highest order of infinitesimals
present. As a mathematician, I prefer the method of infinitesimals to
that of limits, as far easier and less infested with snares. Indeed, the
latter, as stated in some books, involves propositions that are false;
but this is not the case with the forms of the method used by Cauchy,
Duhamel, and others. As they understand the doctrine of limits, it
involves the notion of continuity, and, therefore, contains in another
shape the very same ideas as the doctrine of infinitesimals.
Let us now consider an aspect of the Aristotelical principle which is
particularly important in philosophy. Suppose a surface to be part red
and part blue; so that every point on it is either red or blue, and, of
course, no part can be both red and blue. What, then, is the color of
the boundary line between the red and the blue? The answer is that red
or blue, to exist at all, must be spread over a surface; and the color
of the surface is the color of the surface in the immediate neighborhood
of the point. I purposely use a vague form of expression. Now, as the
parts of the surface in the immediate neighborhood of any ordinary point
upon a curved boundary are half of them red and half blue, it follows
that the boundary is half red and half blue. In like manner, we find it
necessary to hold that consciousness essentially occupies time; and what
is present to the mind at any ordinary instant, is what is present
during a moment in which that instant occurs. Thus, the present is half
past and half to come. Again, the color of the parts of a surface at any
finite distance from a point, has nothing to do with its color just at
that point; and, in the parallel, the feeling at any finite interval
from the present has nothing to do with the present feeling, except
vicariously. Take another case: the velocity of a particle at any
instant of time is its mean velocity during an infinitesimal instant in
which that time is contained. Just so my immediate feeling is my feeling
through an infinitesimal duration containing the present instant.
ANALYSIS OF TIME
One of the most marked features about the law of mind is that it makes
time to have a definite direction of flow from past to future. The
relation of past to future is, in reference to the law of mind,
different from the relation of future to past. This makes one of the
great contrasts between the law of mind and the law of physical force,
where there is no more distinction between the two opposite directions
in time than between moving northward and moving southward.
In order, therefore, to analyze the law of mind, we must begin by asking
what the flow of time consists in. Now, we find that in reference to any
individual state of feeling, all others are of two classes, those which
affect this one (or have a tendency to affect it, and what this means we
shall inquire shortly), and those which do not. The present is
affectible by the past but not by the future.
Moreover, if state _A_ is affected by state _B_, and state _B_ by state
_C_, then _A_ is affected by state _C_, though not so much so. It
follows, that if _A_ is affectible by _B_, _B_ is not affectible by _A_.
If, of two states, each is absolutely unaffectible by the other, they
are to be regarded as parts of the same state. They are contemporaneous.
To say that a state is _between_ two states means that it affects one
and is affected by the other. Between any two states in this sense lies
an innumerable series of states affecting one another; and if a state
lies between a given state and any other state which can be reached by
inserting states between this state and any third state, these inserted
states not immediately affecting or being affected by either, then the
second rate mentioned, immediately affects or is affected by the first,
in the sense that in the one the other is _ipso facto_ present in a
reduced degree.
These propositions involve a definition of time and of its flow. Over
and above this definition they involve a doctrine, namely, that every
state of feeling is affectible by every earlier state.
THAT FEELINGS HAVE INTENSIVE CONTINUITY
Time with its continuity logically involves some other kind of
continuity than its own. Time, as the universal form of change, cannot
exist unless there is something to undergo change, and to undergo a
change continuous in time, there must be a continuity of changeable
qualities. Of the continuity of intrinsic qualities of feeling we can
now form but a feeble conception. The development of the human mind has
practically extinguished all feelings, except a few sporadic kinds,
sound, colors, smells, warmth, etc., which now appear to be disconnected
and disparate. In the case of colors, there is a tridimensional spread
of feelings. Originally, all feelings may have been connected in the
same way, and the presumption is that the number of dimensions was
endless. For development essentially involves a limitation of
possibilities. But given a number of dimensions of feeling, all possible
varieties are obtainable by varying the intensities of the different
elements. Accordingly, time logically supposes a continuous range of
intensity in feeling. It follows, then, from the definition of
continuity, that when any particular kind of feeling is present, an
infinitesimal continuum of all feelings differing infinitesimally from
that is present.
THAT FEELINGS HAVE SPATIAL EXTENSION
Consider a gob of protoplasm, say an amœba or a slime-mould. It does not
differ in any radical way from the contents of a nerve-cell, though its
functions may be less specialized. There is no doubt that this
slime-mould, or this amœba, or at any rate some similar mass of
protoplasm feels. That is to say, it feels when it is in its excited
condition. But note how it behaves. When the whole is quiescent and
rigid, a place upon it is irritated. Just at this point, an active
motion is set up, and this gradually spreads to other parts. In this
action, no unity nor relation to a nucleus, or other unitary organ can
be discerned. It is a mere amorphous continuum of protoplasm, with
feeling passing from one part to another. Nor is there anything like a
wave-motion. The activity does not advance to new parts, just as fast as
it leaves old parts. Rather, in the beginning, it dies out at a slower
rate than that at which it spreads. And while the process is going on,
by exciting the mass at another point, a second quite independent state
of excitation will be set up. In some places, neither excitation will
exist, in others each separately, in still other places, both effects
will be added together. Whatever there is in the whole phenomenon to
make us think there is feeling in such a mass of protoplasm,—_feeling_,
but plainly no _personality_,—goes logically to show that that feeling
has a subjective, or substantial, spatial extension, as the excited
state has. This is, no doubt, a difficult idea to seize, for the reason
that it is a subjective, not an objective, extension. It is not that we
have a feeling of bigness; though Professor James, perhaps rightly,
teaches that we have. It is that the feeling, as a subject of inhesion,
is big. Moreover, our own feelings are focused in attention to such a
degree that we are not aware that ideas are not brought to an absolute
unity; just as nobody not instructed by special experiment has any idea
how very, very little of the field of vision is distinct. Still, we all
know how the attention wanders about among our feelings; and this fact
shows that those feelings that are not co-ordinated in attention have a
reciprocal externality, although they are present at the same time. But
we must not tax introspection to make a phenomenon manifest which
essentially involves externality.
Since space is continuous, it follows that there must be an immediate
community of feeling between parts of mind infinitesimally near
together. Without this, I believe it would have been impossible for
minds external to one another, ever to become co-ordinated, and equally
impossible for any coördination to be established in the action of the
nerve-matter of one brain.
AFFECTIONS OF IDEAS
But we are met by the question what is meant by saying that one idea
affects another. The unravelment of this problem requires us to trace
out phenomena a little further.
Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality
as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other
ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate
sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third
element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it.
As an idea spreads, its power of affecting other ideas gets rapidly
reduced; but its intrinsic quality remains nearly unchanged. It is long
years now since I last saw a cardinal in his robes; and my memory of
their color has become much dimmed. The color itself, however, is not
remembered as dim. I have no inclination to call it a dull red. Thus,
the intrinsic quality remains little changed; yet more accurate
observation will show a slight reduction of it. The third element, on
the other hand, has increased. As well as I can recollect, it seems to
me the cardinals I used to see wore robes more scarlet than vermillion
is, and highly luminous. Still, I know the color commonly called
cardinal is on the crimson side of vermillion and of quite moderate
luminosity, and the original idea calls up so many other hues with it,
and asserts itself so feebly, that I am unable any longer to isolate it.
A finite interval of time generally contains an innumerable series of
feelings; and when these become welded together in association, the
result is a general idea. For we have just seen how by continuous
spreading an idea becomes generalised.
The first character of a general idea so resulting is that it is living
feeling. A continuum of this feeling, infinitesimal in duration, but
still embracing innumerable parts, and also, though infinitesimal,
entirely unlimited, is immediately present. And in its absence of
boundedness a vague possibility of more than is present is directly
felt.
Second, in the presence of this continuity of feeling, nominalistic
maxims appear futile. There is no doubt about one idea affecting
another, when we can directly perceive the one gradually modified and
shaping itself into the other. Nor can there any longer be any
difficulty about one idea resembling another, when we can pass along the
continuous field of quality from one to the other and back again to the
point which we had marked.
[Illustration: Figure 7.]
Third, consider the insistency of an idea. The insistency of a past idea
with reference to the present is a quantity which is less the further
back that past idea is, and rises to infinity as the past idea is
brought up into coincidence with the present. Here we must make one of
those inductive applications of the law of continuity which have
produced such great results in all the positive sciences. We must extend
the law of insistency into the future. Plainly, the insistency of a
future idea with reference to the present is a quantity affected by the
minus sign; for it is the present that affects the future, if there be
any effect, not the future that affects the present. Accordingly, the
curve of insistency is a sort of equilateral hyperbola. (See the
figure.) Such a conception is none the less mathematical, that its
quantification cannot now be exactly specified.
Now consider the induction which we have here been led into. This curve
says that feeling which has not yet emerged into immediate consciousness
is already affectible and already affected. In fact, this is habit, by
virtue of which an idea is brought up into present consciousness by a
bond that had already been established between it and another idea while
it was still _in futuro_.
We can now see what the affection of one idea by another consists in. It
is that the affected idea is attached as a logical predicate to the
affecting idea as subject. So when a feeling emerges into immediate
consciousness, it always appears as a modification of a more or less
general object already in the mind. The word suggestion is well adapted
to expressing this relation. The future is suggested by, or rather is
influenced by the suggestions of, the past.
IDEAS CANNOT BE CONNECTED EXCEPT BY CONTINUITY
That ideas can nowise be connected without continuity is sufficiently
evident to one who reflects upon the matter. But still the opinion may
be entertained that after continuity has once made the connection of
ideas possible, then they may get to be connected in other modes than
through continuity. Certainly, I cannot see how anyone can deny that the
infinite diversity of the universe, which we call chance, may bring
ideas into proximity which are not associated in one general idea. It
may do this many times. But then the law of continuous spreading will
produce a mental association; and this I suppose is an abridged
statement of the way the universe has been evolved. But if I am asked
whether a blind ἀνάγκη cannot bring ideas together, first I point out
that it would not remain blind. There being a continuous connection
between the ideas, they would infallibly become associated in a living,
feeling, and perceiving general idea. Next, I cannot see what the
mustness or necessity of this ἁνάγκη would consist in. In the absolute
uniformity of the phenomenon, says the nominalist. Absolute is well put
in; for if it merely happened so three times in succession, or three
million times in succession, in the absence of any reason, the
coincidence could only be attributed to chance. But absolute uniformity
must extend over the whole infinite future; and it is idle to talk of
that except as an idea. No; I think we can only hold that wherever ideas
come together they tend to weld into general ideas; and wherever they
are generally connected, general ideas govern the connection; and these
general ideas are living feelings spread out.
MENTAL LAW FOLLOWS THE FORMS OF LOGIC
The three main classes of logical inference are Deduction, Induction,
and Hypothesis. These correspond to three chief modes of action of the
human soul. In deduction the mind is under the dominion of a habit or
association by virtue of which a general idea suggests in each case a
corresponding reaction. But a certain sensation is seen to involve that
idea. Consequently, that sensation is followed by that reaction. That is
the way the hind legs of a frog, separated from the rest of the body,
reason, when you pinch them. It is the lowest form of psychical
manifestation.
By induction, a habit becomes established. Certain sensations, all
involving one general idea, are followed each by the same reaction; and
an association becomes established, whereby that general idea gets to be
followed uniformly by that reaction.
Habit is that specialization of the law of mind whereby a general idea
gains the power of exciting reactions. But in order that the general
idea should attain all its functionality, it is necessary, also, that it
should become suggestible by sensations. That is accomplished by a
psychical process having the form of hypothetic inference. By hypothetic
inference, I mean, as I have explained in other writings, an induction
from qualities. For example, I know that the kind of man known and
classed as a “mugwump” has certain characteristics. He has a high
self-respect and places great value upon social distinction. He laments
the great part that rowdyism and unrefined good-fellowship play in the
dealings of American politicians with their constituency. He thinks that
the reform which would follow from the abandonment of the system by
which the distribution of offices is made to strengthen party
organizations and a return to the original and essential conception of
office-filling would be found an unmixed good. He holds that monetary
considerations should usually be the decisive ones in questions of
public policy. He respects the principle of individualism and of
_laissez-faire_ as the greatest agency of civilization. These views,
among others, I know to be obtrusive marks of a “mugwump.” Now, suppose
I casually meet a man in a railway-train, and falling into conversation
find that he holds opinions of this sort; I am naturally led to suppose
that he is a “mugwump.” That is hypothetic inference. That is to say, a
number of readily verifiable marks of a mugwump being selected, I find
this man has these, and infer that he has all the other characters which
go to make a thinker of that stripe. Or let us suppose that I meet a man
of a semi-clerical appearance and a sub-pharisaical sniff, who appears
to look at things from the point of view of a rather wooden dualism. He
cites several texts of scripture and always with particular attention to
their logical implications; and he exhibits a sternness, almost
amounting to vindictiveness, toward evil-doers, in general. I readily
conclude that he is a minister of a certain denomination. Now the mind
acts in a way similar to this, every time we acquire a power of
co-ordinating reactions in a peculiar way, as in performing any act
requiring skill. Thus, most persons have a difficulty in moving the two
hands simultaneously and in opposite directions through two parallel
circles nearly in the medial plane of the body. To learn to do this, it
is necessary to attend, first, to the different actions in different
parts of the motion, when suddenly a general conception of the action
springs up and it becomes perfectly easy. We think the motion we are
trying to do involves this action, and this, and this. Then, the general
idea comes which unites all those actions, and thereupon the desire to
perform the motion calls up the general idea. The same mental process is
many times employed whenever we are learning to speak a language or are
acquiring any sort of skill.
Thus, by induction, a number of sensations followed by one reaction
become united under one general idea followed by the same reaction;
while by the hypothetic process, a number of reactions called for by one
occasion get united in a general idea which is called out by the same
occasion. By deduction, the habit fulfils its function of calling out
certain reactions on certain occasions.
UNCERTAINTY OF MENTAL ACTION
The inductive and hypothetic forms of inference are essentially probable
inferences, not necessary; while deduction may be either necessary or
probable.
But no mental action seems to be necessary or invariable in its
character. In whatever manner the mind has reacted under a given
sensation, in that manner it is the more likely to react again; were
this, however, an absolute necessity, habits would become wooden and
ineradicable, and no room being left for the formation of new habits,
intellectual life would come to a speedy close. Thus, the uncertainty of
the mental law is no mere defect of it, but is on the contrary of its
essence. The truth is, the mind is not subject to “law,” in the same
rigid sense that matter is. It only experiences gentle forces which
merely render it more likely to act in a given way than it otherwise
would be. There always remains a certain amount of arbitrary spontaneity
in its action, without which it would be dead.
Some psychologists think to reconcile the uncertainty of reactions with
the principle of necessary causation by means of the law of fatigue.
Truly for a _law_, this law of fatigue is a little lawless. I think it
is merely a case of the general principle that an idea in spreading
loses its insistency. Put me tarragon into my salad, when I have not
tasted it for years, and I exclaim “What nectar is this!” But add it to
every dish I taste for week after week, and a habit of expectation has
been created; and in thus spreading into habit, the sensation makes
hardly any more impression upon me; or, if it be noticed, it is on a new
side from which it appears as rather a bore. The doctrine that fatigue
is one of the primordial phenomena of mind I am much disposed to doubt.
It seems a somewhat little thing to be allowed as an exception to the
great principle of mental uniformization. For this reason, I prefer to
explain it in the manner here indicated, as a special case of that great
principle. To consider it as something distinct in its nature, certainly
somewhat strengthens the necessitarian position; but even if it be
distinct, the hypothesis that all the variety and apparent arbitrariness
of mental action ought to be explained away in favor of absolute
determinism does not seem to me to recommend itself to a sober and sound
judgment, which seeks the guidance of observed facts and not that of
prepossessions.
RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW
Let me now try to gather up all these odds and ends of commentary and
restate the law of mind, in a unitary way.
First, then, we find that when we regard ideas from a nominalistic,
individualistic, sensualistic way, the simplest facts of mind become
utterly meaningless. That one idea should resemble another or influence
another, or that one state of mind should so much as be thought of in
another is, from that standpoint, sheer nonsense.
Second, by this and other means we are driven to perceive, what is quite
evident of itself, that instantaneous feelings flow together into a
continuum of feeling, which has in a modified degree the peculiar
vivacity of feeling and has gained generality. And in reference to such
general ideas, or continua of feeling, the difficulties about
resemblance and suggestion and reference to the external, cease to have
any force.
Third, these general ideas are not mere words, nor do they consist in
this, that certain concrete facts will every time happen under certain
descriptions of conditions; but they are just as much, or rather far
more, living realities than the feelings themselves out of which they
are concreted. And to say that mental phenomena are governed by law does
not mean merely that they are describable by a general formula; but that
there is a living idea, a conscious continuum of feeling, which pervades
them, and to which they are docile.
Fourth, this supreme law, which is the celestial and living harmony,
does not so much as demand that the special ideas shall surrender their
peculiar arbitrariness and caprice entirely; for that would be
self-destructive. It only requires that they shall influence and be
influenced by one another.
Fifth, in what measure this unification acts, seems to be regulated only
by special rules; or, at least, we cannot in our present knowledge say
how far it goes. But it may be said that, judging by appearances, the
amount of arbitrariness in the phenomena of human minds is neither
altogether trifling nor very prominent.
PERSONALITY
Having thus endeavored to state the law of mind, in general, I descend
to the consideration of a particular phenomenon which is remarkably
prominent in our own consciousnesses, that of personality. A strong
light is thrown upon this subject by recent observations of double and
multiple personality. The theory which at one time seemed plausible that
two persons in one body corresponded to the two halves of the brain
will, I take it, now be universally acknowledged to be insufficient. But
that which these cases make quite manifest is that personality is some
kind of co-ordination or connection of ideas. Not much to say, this,
perhaps. Yet when we consider that, according to the principle which we
are tracing out, a connection between ideas is itself a general idea,
and that a general idea is a living feeling, it is plain that we have at
least taken an appreciable step toward the understanding of personality.
This personality, like any general idea, is not a thing to be
apprehended in an instant. It has to be lived in time; nor can any
finite time embrace it in all its fullness. Yet in each infinitesimal
interval it is present and living, though specially colored by the
immediate feelings of that moment. Personality, so far as it is
apprehended in a moment, is immediate self-consciousness.
But the word co-ordination implies somewhat more than this; it implies a
teleological harmony in ideas, and in the case of personality this
teleology is more than a mere purposive pursuit of a predeterminate end;
it is a developmental teleology. This is personal character. A general
idea, living and conscious now, it is already determinative of acts in
the future to an extent to which it is not now conscious.
This reference to the future is an essential element of personality.
Were the ends of a person already explicit, there would be no room for
development, for growth, for life; and consequently there would be no
personality. The mere carrying out of predetermined purposes is
mechanical. This remark has an application to the philosophy of
religion. It is that a genuine evolutionary philosophy, that is, one
that makes the principle of growth a primordial element of the universe,
is so far from being antagonistic to the idea of a personal creator,
that it is really inseparable from that idea; while a necessitarian
religion is in an altogether false position and is destined to become
disintegrated. But a pseudo-evolutionism which enthrones mechanical law
above the principle of growth, is at once scientifically unsatisfactory,
as giving no possible hint of how the universe has come about, and
hostile to all hopes of personal relations to God.
COMMUNICATION
Consistently with the doctrine laid down in the beginning of this paper,
I am bound to maintain that an idea can only be affected by an idea in
continuous connection with it. By anything but an idea, it cannot be
affected at all. This obliges me to say, as I do say, on other grounds,
that what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind
hide-bound with habits. It still retains the element of diversification;
and in that diversification there is life. When an idea is conveyed from
one mind to another, it is by forms of combination of the diverse
elements of nature, say by some curious symmetry, or by some union of a
tender color with a refined odor. To such forms the law of mechanical
energy has no application. If they are eternal, it is in the spirit they
embody; and their origin cannot be accounted for by any mechanical
necessity. They are embodied ideas; and so only can they convey ideas.
Precisely how primary sensations, as colors and tones, are excited, we
cannot tell, in the present state of psychology. But in our ignorance, I
think that we are at liberty to suppose that they arise in essentially
the same manner as the other feelings, called secondary. As far as sight
and hearing are in question, we know that they are only excited by
vibrations of inconceivable complexity; and the chemical senses are
probably not more simple. Even the least psychical of peripheral
sensations, that of pressure, has in its excitation conditions which,
though apparently simple, are seen to be complicated enough when we
consider the molecules and their attractions. The principle with which I
set out requires me to maintain that these feelings are communicated to
the nerves by continuity, so that there must be something like them in
the excitants themselves. If this seems extravagant, it is to be
remembered that it is the sole possible way of reaching any explanation
of sensation, which otherwise must be pronounced a general fact,
absolutely inexplicable and ultimate. Now absolute inexplicability is a
hypothesis which sound logic refuses under any circumstances to justify.
I may be asked whether my theory would be favorable or otherwise to
telepathy. I have no decided answer to give to this. At first sight, it
seems unfavorable. Yet there may be other modes of continuous connection
between minds other than those of time and space.
The recognition by one person of another’s personality takes place by
means to some extent identical with the means by which he is conscious
of his own personality. The idea of the second personality, which is as
much as to say that second personality itself, enters within the field
of direct consciousness of the first person, and is as immediately
perceived as his ego, though less strongly. At the same time, the
opposition between the two persons is perceived, so that the externality
of the second is recognized.
The psychological phenomena of intercommunication between two minds have
been unfortunately little studied. So that it is impossible to say, for
certain, whether they are favorable to this theory or not. But the very
extraordinary insight which some persons are able to gain of others from
indications so slight that it is difficult to ascertain what they are,
is certainly rendered more comprehensible by the view here taken.
A difficulty which confronts the synechistic philosophy is this. In
considering personality, that philosophy is forced to accept the
doctrine of a personal God; but in considering communication, it cannot
but admit that if there is a personal God, we must have a direct
perception of that person and indeed be in personal communication with
him. Now, if that be the case, the question arises how it is possible
that the existence of this being should ever have been doubted by
anybody. The only answer that I can at present make is that facts that
stand before our face and eyes and stare us in the face are far from
being, in all cases, the ones most easily discerned. That has been
remarked from time immemorial.
CONCLUSION
I have thus developed as well as I could in a little space the
_synechistic_ philosophy, as applied to mind. I think that I have
succeeded in making it clear that this doctrine gives room for
explanations of many facts which without it are absolutely and
hopelessly inexplicable; and further that it carries along with it the
following doctrines: 1st, a logical realism of the most pronounced type;
2nd, objective idealism; 3rd, tychism, with its consequent thoroughgoing
evolutionism. We also notice that the doctrine presents no hindrances to
spiritual influences, such as some philosophies are felt to do.
Footnote 61:
_The Monist_, July, 1892.
Footnote 62:
This proposition is substantially the same as a theorem of Cantor,
though it is enunciated in a much more general form.
IV. MAN’S GLASSY ESSENCE[63]
In _The Monist_ for January, 1891, I tried to show what conceptions
ought to form the brick and mortar of a philosophical system. Chief
among these was that of absolute chance for which I argued again in last
April’s number.[64] In July, I applied another fundamental idea, that of
continuity, to the law of mind. Next in order, I have to elucidate, from
the point of view chosen, the relation between the psychical and
physical aspects of a substance.
The first step towards this ought, I think, to be the framing of a
molecular theory of protoplasm. But before doing that, it seems
indispensable to glance at the constitution of matter, in general. We
shall, thus, unavoidably make a long detour; but, after all, our pains
will not be wasted, for the problems of the papers that are to follow in
the series will call for the consideration of the same question.
All physicists are rightly agreed the evidence is overwhelming which
shows all sensible matter is composed of molecules in swift motion and
exerting enormous mutual attractions, and perhaps repulsions, too. Even
Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, who wishes to explode action at a
distance and return to the doctrine of a plenum, not only speaks of
molecules, but undertakes to assign definite magnitudes to them. The
brilliant Judge Stallo, a man who did not always rightly estimate his
own qualities in accepting tasks for himself, declared war upon the
atomic theory in a book well worth careful perusal. To the old arguments
in favor of atoms which he found in Fechner’s monograph, he was able to
make replies of considerable force, though they were not sufficient to
destroy those arguments. But against modern proofs he made no headway at
all. These set out from the mechanical theory of heat. Rumford’s
experiments showed that heat is not a substance. Joule demonstrated that
it was a form of energy. The heating of gases under constant volume, and
other facts instanced by Rankine, proved that it could not be an energy
of strain. This drove physicists to the conclusion that it was a mode of
motion. Then it was remembered that John Bernoulli had shown that the
pressure of gases could be accounted for by assuming their molecules to
be moving uniformly in rectilinear paths. The same hypothesis was now
seen to account for Avogadro’s law, that in equal volumes of different
kinds of gases exposed to the same pressure and temperature are
contained equal numbers of molecules. Shortly after, it was found to
account for the laws of diffusion and viscosity of gases, and for the
numerical relation between these properties. Finally, Crookes’s
radiometer furnished the last link in the strongest chain of evidence
which supports any physical hypothesis.
Such being the constitution of gases, liquids must clearly be bodies in
which the molecules wander in curvilinear paths, while in solids they
move in orbits or quasi-orbits. (See my definition _solid_ II, 1, in the
_Century Dictionary_.)
We see that the resistance to compression and to inter-penetration
between sensible bodies is, by one of the prime propositions of the
molecular theory, due in large measure to the kinetical energy of the
particles, which must be supposed to be quite remote from one another,
on the average, even in solids. This resistance is no doubt influenced
by finite attractions and repulsions between the molecules. All the
impenetrability of bodies which we can observe is, therefore, a limited
impenetrability due to kinetic and positional energy. This being the
case, we have no logical right to suppose that absolute impenetrability,
or the exclusive occupancy of space, belongs to molecules or to atoms.
It is an unwarranted hypothesis, not a _vera causa_.[65] Unless we are
to give up the theory of energy, finite positional attractions and
repulsions between molecules must be admitted. Absolute impenetrability
would amount to an infinite repulsion at a certain distance. No analogy
of known phenomena exists to excuse such a wanton violation of the
principle of continuity as such a hypothesis is. In short, we are
logically bound to adopt the Boscovichian idea that an atom is simply a
distribution of component potential energy throughout space (this
distribution being absolutely rigid), combined with inertia. The
potential energy belongs to two molecules, and is to be conceived as
different between molecules _A_ and _B_ from what it is between
molecules _A_ and _C_. The distribution of energy is not necessarily
spherical. Nay, a molecule may conceivably have more than one center; it
may even have a central curve, returning into itself. But I do not think
there are any observed facts pointing to such multiple or linear
centers. On the other hand, many facts relating to crystals, especially
those observed by Voigt,[66] go to show that the distribution of energy
is harmonical but not concentric. We can easily calculate the forces
which such atoms must exert upon one another by considering[67] that
they are equivalent to aggregations of pairs of electrically positive
and negative points infinitely near to one another. About such an atom
there would be regions of positive and of negative potential, and the
number and distribution of such regions would determine the valency of
the atom, a number which it is easy to see would in many cases be
somewhat indeterminate. I must not dwell further upon this hypothesis,
at present. In another paper, its consequences will be further
considered.
I cannot assume that the students of philosophy who read this magazine
are thoroughly versed in modern molecular physics, and, therefore, it is
proper to mention that the governing principle in this branch of science
is Clausius’s law of the virial. I will first state the law, and then
explain the peculiar terms of the statement. This statement is that the
total kinetic energy of the particles of a system in stationary motion
is equal to the total virial. By a _system_ is here meant a number of
particles acting upon one another.[68] Stationary motion is a
quasi-orbital motion among a system of particles so that none of them
are removed to indefinitely great distances nor acquire indefinitely
great velocities. The kinetic energy of a particle is the work which
would be required to bring it to rest, independently of any forces which
may be acting upon it. The virial of a pair of particles is half the
work which the force which actually operates between them would do if,
being independent of the distance, it were to bring them together. The
equation of the virial is
1/2∑_mv_^2 = 1/2∑∑_Rr_.
Here _m_ is the mass of a particle, _v_ its velocity, _R_ is the
attraction between two particles, and _r_ is the distance between them.
The sign ∑ on the left hand side signifies that the values of _mv_^2 are
to be summed for all the particles, and ∑∑ on the right hand side
signifies that the values of _Rr_ are to be summed for all the pairs of
particles. If there is an external pressure _P_ (as from the atmosphere)
upon the system, and the volume of vacant space within the boundary of
that pressure is _V_, then the virial must be understood as including
3/2_PV_, so that the equation is
1/2∑_mv_^2 = 3/2_PV_ + 1/2∑∑_Rr_.
There is strong (if not demonstrative) reason for thinking that the
temperature of any body above the absolute zero (-273° C.), is
proportional to the average kinetic energy of its molecules, or say
_a_θ, where _a_ is a constant and θ is the absolute temperature. Hence,
we may write the equation
_a_θ = (1/2)avg(_mv_^2) = (3/2)_P_ avg(_V_) + (1/2)∑ avg(_Rr_)
where the heavy lines above the different expressions signify that the
average values for single molecules are to be taken. In 1872, a student
in the University of Leyden, Van der Waals, propounded in his thesis for
the doctorate a specialization of the equation of the virial which has
since attracted great attention. Namely, he writes it
_a_θ = (_P_ + _c_/_V_^2)(_V_ - _b_.)
The quantity _b_ is the volume of a molecule, which he supposes to be an
impenetrable body, and all the virtue of the equation lies in this term
which makes the equation a cubic in _V_, which is required to account
for the shape of certain isothermal curves.[69] But if the idea of an
impenetrable atom is illogical, that of an impenetrable molecule is
almost absurd. For the kinetical theory of matter teaches us that a
molecule is like a solar system or star-cluster in miniature. Unless we
suppose that in all heating of gases and vapors internal work is
performed upon the molecules, implying that their atoms are at
considerable distances, the whole kinetical theory of gases falls to the
ground. As for the term added to _P_, there is no more than a partial
and roughly approximative justification for it. Namely, let us imagine
two spheres described round a particle as their center, the radius of
the larger being so great as to include all the particles whose action
upon the center is sensible, while the radius of the smaller is so large
that a good many molecules are included within it. The possibility of
describing such a sphere as the outer one implies that the attraction of
the particles varies at some distances inversely as some higher power of
the distance than the cube, or, to speak more clearly, that the
attraction multiplied by the cube of the distance diminishes as the
distance increases; for the number of particles at a given distance from
any one particle is proportionate to the square of that distance and
each of these gives a term of the virial which is the product of the
attraction into the distance. Consequently, unless the attraction
multiplied by the cube of the distance diminished so rapidly with the
distance as soon to become insensible, no such outer sphere as is
supposed could be described. However, ordinary experience shows that
such a sphere is possible; and consequently there must be distances at
which the attraction does thus rapidly diminish as the distance
increases. The two spheres, then, being so drawn, consider the virial of
the central particle due to the particles between them. Let the density
of the substance be increased, say, _N_ times. Then, for every turn,
_Rr_, of the virial before the condensation, there will be _N_ terms of
the same magnitude after the condensation. Hence, the virial of each
particle will be proportional to the density, and the equation of the
virial becomes
_a_θ = _P_ avg(_V_) + _c_/avg(_V_).
This omits the virial within the inner sphere, the radius of which is so
taken that within that distance the number of particles is not
proportional to the number in a large sphere. For Van der Waals this
radius is the diameter of his hard molecules, which assumption gives his
equation. But it is plain that the attraction between the molecules must
to a certain extent modify their distribution, unless some peculiar
conditions are fulfilled. The equation of Van der Waals can be
approximately true, therefore, only for a gas. In a solid or liquid
condition, in which the removal of a small amount of pressure has little
effect on the volume, and where consequently the virial must be much
greater than _P_ avg(_V_), the virial must increase with the volume. For
suppose we had a substance in a critical condition in which an increase
of the volume would diminish the virial more than it would increase
(3/2)_P_ avg(_V_). If we were forcibly to diminish the volume of such a
substance, when the temperature became equalized, the pressure which it
could withstand would be less than before, and it would be still further
condensed, and this would go on indefinitely until a condition were
reached in which an increase of volume would increase (3/2)_P_ avg(_V_)
more than it would decrease the virial. In the case of solids, at least,
_P_ may be zero; so that the state reached would be one in which the
virial increases with the volume, or the attraction between the
particles does not increase so fast with a diminution of their distance
as it would if the attraction were inversely as the distance.
Almost contemporaneously with Van der Waals’s paper, another remarkable
thesis for the doctorate was presented at Paris by Amagat. It related to
the elasticity and expansion of gases, and to this subject the superb
experimenter, its author, has devoted his whole subsequent life.
Especially interesting are his observations of the volumes of ethylene
and of carbonic acid at temperatures from 20° to 100° and at pressures
ranging from an ounce to 5000 pounds to the square inch. As soon as
Amagat had obtained these results, he remarked that the “coefficient of
expansion at constant volume,” as it is absurdly called, that is, the
rate of variation of the pressure with the temperature, was very nearly
constant for each volume. This accords with the equation of the virial,
which gives
_dp_/_d_θ = _a_/avg(_V_) - _d_∑ avg(_Rr_)/_d_θ.
Now, the virial must be nearly independent of the temperature, and,
therefore, the last term almost disappears. The virial would not be
quite independent of the temperature, because if the temperature (i.e.,
the square of the velocity of the molecules) is lowered, and the
pressure correspondingly lowered, so as to make the volume the same, the
attractions of the molecules will have more time to produce their
effects, and consequently, the pairs of molecules the closest together
will be held together longer and closer; so that the virial will
generally be increased by a decrease of temperature. Now, Amagat’s
experiments do show an excessively minute effect of this sort, at least,
when the volumes are not too small. However, the observations are well
enough satisfied by assuming the “coefficient of expansion at constant
volume” to consist wholly of the first term, _a_/avg(_V_). Thus,
Amagat’s experiments enable us to determine the values of a and thence
to calculate the virial; and this we find varies for carbonic acid gas
nearly inversely to avg(_V_)^{0.9}. There is, thus, a rough
approximation to satisfying Van der Waals’s equation. But the most
interesting result of Amagat’s experiments, for our purpose at any rate,
is that the quantity _a_, though nearly constant for any one volume,
differs considerably with the volume, nearly doubling when the volume is
reduced fivefold. This can only indicate that the mean kinetic energy of
a given mass of the gas for a given temperature is greater the more the
gas is compressed. But the laws of mechanics appear to enjoin that the
mean kinetic energy of a moving particle shall be constant at any given
temperature. The only escape from contradiction, then, is to suppose
that the mean mass of a moving particle diminishes upon the condensation
of the gas. In other words, many of the molecules are dissociated, or
broken up into atoms or sub-molecules. The idea that dissociation should
be favored by diminishing the volume will be pronounced by physicists,
at first blush, as contrary to all our experience. But it must be
remembered that the circumstances we are speaking of, that of a gas
under fifty or more atmospheres pressure, are also unusual. That the
“coefficient of expansion under constant volume” when multiplied by the
volumes should increase with a decrement of the volume is also quite
contrary to ordinary experience; yet it undoubtedly takes place in all
gases under great pressure. Again, the doctrine of Arrhenius[70] is now
generally accepted, that the molecular conductivity of an electrolyte is
proportional to the dissociation of ions. Now the molecular conductivity
of a fused electrolyte is usually superior to that of a solution. Here
is a case, then, in which diminution of volume is accompanied by
increased dissociation.
The truth is that several different kinds of dissociation have to be
distinguished. In the first place, there is the dissociation of a
chemical molecule to form chemical molecules under the regular action of
chemical laws. This may be a double decomposition, as when iodhydric
acid is dissociated, according to the formula
_HI_ + _HI_ = _HH_ + _II_;
or, it may be a simple decomposition, as when pentachloride of
phosphorus is dissociated according to the formula
_PCl__{5} = _PCl__{3} + _ClCl_.
All these dissociations require, according to the laws of
thermo-chemistry, an elevated temperature. In the second place, there is
the dissociation of a physically polymerous molecule, that is, of
several chemical molecules joined by physical attractions. This I am
inclined to suppose is a common concomitant of the heating of solids and
liquids; for in these bodies there is no increase of compressibility
with the temperature at all comparable with the increase of the
expansibility. But, in the third place, there is the dissociation with
which we are now concerned, which must be supposed to be a throwing off
of unsaturated sub-molecules or atoms from the molecule. The molecule
may, as I have said, be roughly likened to a solar system. As such,
molecules are able to produce perturbations of one another’s internal
motions; and in this way a planet, i.e., a sub-molecule, will
occasionally get thrown off and wander about by itself, till it finds
another unsaturated sub-molecule with which it can unite. Such
dissociation by perturbation will naturally be favored by the proximity
of the molecules to one another.
Let us now pass to the consideration of that special substance, or
rather class of substances, whose properties form the chief subject of
botany and of zoölogy, as truly as those of the silicates form the chief
subject of mineralogy: I mean the life-slimes, or protoplasm. Let us
begin by cataloguing the general characters of these slimes. They one
and all exist in two states of aggregation, a solid or nearly solid
state and a liquid or nearly liquid state; but they do not pass from the
former to the latter by ordinary fusion. They are readily decomposed by
heat, especially in the liquid state; nor will they bear any
considerable degree of cold. All their vital actions take place at
temperatures very little below the point of decomposition. This extreme
instability is one of numerous facts which demonstrate the chemical
complexity of protoplasm. Every chemist will agree that they are far
more complicated than the albumens. Now, albumen is estimated to contain
in each molecule about a thousand atoms; so that it is natural to
suppose that the protoplasms contain several thousands. We know that
while they are chiefly composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and
nitrogen, a large number of other elements enter into living bodies in
small proportions; and it is likely that most of these enter into the
composition of protoplasms. Now, since the numbers of chemical varieties
increase at an enormous rate with the number of atoms per molecule, so
that there are certainly hundreds of thousands of substances whose
molecules contain twenty atoms or fewer, we may well suppose that the
number of protoplasmic substances runs into the billions or trillions.
Professor Cayley has given a mathematical theory of “trees,” with a view
of throwing a light upon such questions; and in that light the estimate
of trillions (in the English sense) seems immoderately moderate. It is
true that an opinion has been emitted, and defended among biologists,
that there is but one kind of protoplasm; but the observations of
biologists, themselves, have almost exploded that hypothesis, which from
a chemical standpoint appears utterly incredible. The anticipation of
the chemist would decidedly be that enough different chemical substances
having protoplasmic characters might be formed to account, not only for
the differences between nerve-slime and muscle-slime, between
whale-slime and lion-slime, but also for those minuter pervasive
variations which characterize different breeds and single individuals.
Protoplasm, when quiescent, is, broadly speaking, solid; but when it is
disturbed in an appropriate way, or sometimes even spontaneously without
external disturbance, it becomes, broadly speaking, liquid. A moner in
this state is seen under the microscope to have streams within its
matter; a slime-mould slowly flows by force of gravity. The liquefaction
starts from the point of disturbance and spreads through the mass. This
spreading, however, is not uniform in all directions; on the contrary,
it takes at one time one course, at another another, through the
homogeneous mass, in a manner that seems a little mysterious. The cause
of disturbance being removed, these motions gradually (with higher kinds
of protoplasm, quickly) cease, and the slime returns to its solid
condition.
The liquefaction of protoplasm is accompanied by a mechanical
phenomenon. Namely, some kinds exhibit a tendency to draw themselves up
into a globular form. This happens particularly with the contents of
muscle-cells. The prevalent opinion, founded on some of the most
exquisite experimental investigations that the history of science can
show, is undoubtedly that the contraction of muscle-cells is due to
osmotic pressure; and it must be allowed that that is a factor in
producing the effect. But it does not seem to me that it satisfactorily
accounts even for the phenomena of muscular contraction; and besides,
even naked slimes often draw up in the same way. In this case, we seem
to recognize an increase of the surface-tension. In some cases, too, the
reverse action takes place, extraordinary pseudopodia being put forth,
as if the surface-tension were diminished in spots. Indeed, such a slime
always has a sort of skin, due no doubt to surface-tension, and this
seems to give way at the point where a pseudopodium is put forth.
Long-continued or frequently repeated liquefaction of the protoplasm
results in an obstinate retention of the solid state, which we call
fatigue. On the other hand, repose in this state, if not too much
prolonged, restores the liquefiability. These are both important
functions.
The life-slimes have, further, the peculiar property of growing.
Crystals also grow; their growth, however, consists merely in attracting
matter like their own from the circumambient fluid. To suppose the
growth of protoplasm of the same nature, would be to suppose this
substance to be spontaneously generated in copious supplies wherever
food is in solution. Certainly, it must be granted that protoplasm is
but a chemical substance, and that there is no reason why it should not
be formed synthetically like any other chemical substance. Indeed,
Clifford has clearly shown that we have overwhelming evidence that it is
so formed. But to say that such formation is as regular and frequent as
the assimilation of food is quite another matter. It is more consonant
with the facts of observation to suppose that assimilated protoplasm is
formed at the instant of assimilation, under the influence of the
protoplasm already present. For each slime in its growth preserves its
distinctive characters with wonderful truth, nerve-slime growing
nerve-slime and muscle-slime muscle-slime, lion-slime growing
lion-slime, and all the varieties of breeds and even individual
characters being preserved in the growth. Now it is too much to suppose
there are billions of different kinds of protoplasm floating about
wherever there is food.
The frequent liquefaction of protoplasm increases its power of
assimilating food; so much so, indeed, that it is questionable whether
in the solid form it possesses this power.
The life-slime wastes as well as grows; and this too takes place chiefly
if not exclusively in its liquid phases.
Closely connected with growth is reproduction; and though in higher
forms this is a specialized function, it is universally true that
wherever there is protoplasm, there is, will be, or has been a power of
reproducing that same kind of protoplasm in a separated organism.
Reproduction seems to involve the union of two sexes; though it is not
demonstrable that this is always requisite.
Another physical property of protoplasm is that of taking habits. The
course which the spread of liquefaction has taken in the past is
rendered thereby more likely to be taken in the future; although there
is no absolute certainly that the same path will be followed again.
Very extraordinary, certainly, are all these properties of protoplasm;
as extraordinary as indubitable. But the one which has next to be
mentioned, while equally undeniable, is infinitely more wonderful. It is
that protoplasm feels. We have no direct evidence that this is true of
protoplasm universally, and certainly some kinds feel far more than
others. But there is a fair analogical inference that all protoplasm
feels. It not only feels but exercises all the functions of mind.
Such are the properties of protoplasm. The problem is to find a
hypothesis of the molecular constitution of this compound which will
account for these properties, one and all.
Some of them are obvious results of the excessively complicated
constitution of the protoplasm molecule. All very complicated substances
are unstable; and plainly a molecule of several thousand atoms may be
separated in many ways into two parts in each of which the polar
chemical forces are very nearly saturated. In the solid protoplasm, as
in other solids, the molecules must be supposed to be moving as it were
in orbits, or, at least, so as not to wander indefinitely. But this
solid cannot be melted, for the same reason that starch cannot be
melted; because an amount of heat insufficient to make the entire
molecules wander is sufficient to break them up completely and cause
them to form new and simpler molecules. But when one of the molecules is
disturbed, even if it be not quite thrown out of its orbit at first,
sub-molecules of perhaps several hundred atoms each are thrown off from
it. These will soon acquire the same mean kinetic energy as the others,
and, therefore, velocities several times as great. They will naturally
begin to wander, and in wandering will perturb a great many other
molecules and cause them in their turn to behave like the one originally
deranged. So many molecules will thus be broken up, that even those that
are intact will no longer be restrained within orbits, but will wander
about freely. This is the usual condition of a liquid, as modern
chemists understand it; for in all electrolytic liquids there is
considerable dissociation.
But this process necessarily chills the substance, not merely on account
of the heat of chemical combination, but still more because the number
of separate particles being greatly increased, the mean kinetic energy
must be less. The substance being a bad conductor, this heat is not at
once restored. Now the particles moving more slowly, the attractions
between them have time to take effect, and they approach the condition
of equilibrium. But their dynamic equilibrium is found in the
restoration of the solid condition, which, therefore, takes place, if
the disturbance is not kept up.
When a body is in the solid condition, most of its molecules must be
moving at the same rate, or, at least, at certain regular sets of rates;
otherwise the orbital motion would not be preserved. The distances of
neighboring molecules must always be kept between a certain maximum and
a certain minimum value. But if, without absorption of heat, the body be
thrown into a liquid condition, the distances of neighboring molecules
will be far more unequally distributed, and an effect upon the virial
will result. The chilling of protoplasm upon its liquefaction must also
be taken into account. The ordinary effect will no doubt be to increase
the cohesion and with that the surface-tension, so that the mass will
tend to draw itself up. But in special cases, the virial will be
increased so much that the surface-tension will be diminished at points
where the temperature is first restored. In that case, the outer film
will give way and the tension at other places will aid in causing the
general fluid to be poured out at those points, forming pseudopodia.
When the protoplasm is in a liquid state, and then only, a solution of
food is able to penetrate its mass by diffusion. The protoplasm is then
considerably dissociated; and so is the food, like all dissolved matter.
If then the separated and unsaturated sub-molecules of the food happen
to be of the same chemical species as sub-molecules of the protoplasm,
they may unite with other sub-molecules of the protoplasm to form new
molecules, in such a fashion that when the solid state is resumed, there
may be more molecules of protoplasm than there were at the beginning. It
is like the jackknife whose blade and handle, after having been
severally lost and replaced, were found and put together to make a new
knife.
We have seen that protoplasm is chilled by liquefaction, and that this
brings it back to the solid state, when the heat is recovered. This
series of operations must be very rapid in the case of nerve-slime and
even of muscle-slime, and may account for the unsteady or vibratory
character of their action. Of course, if assimilation takes place, the
heat of combination, which is probably trifling, is gained. On the other
hand, if work is done, whether by nerve or by muscle, loss of energy
must take place. In the case of the muscle, the mode by which the
instantaneous part of the fatigue is brought about is easily traced out.
If when the muscle contracts it be under stress, it will contract less
than it otherwise would do, and there will be a loss of heat. It is like
an engine which should work by dissolving salt in water and using the
contraction during the solution to lift a weight, the salt being
recovered afterwards by distillation. But the major part of fatigue has
nothing to do with the correlation of forces. A man must labor hard to
do in a quarter of an hour the work which draws from him enough heat to
cool his body by a single degree. Meantime, he will be getting heated,
he will be pouring out extra products of combustion, perspiration, etc.,
and he will be driving the blood at an accelerated rate through minute
tubes at great expense. Yet all this will have little to do with his
fatigue. He may sit quietly at his table writing, doing practically no
physical work at all, and yet in a few hours be terribly fagged. This
seems to be owing to the deranged sub-molecules of the nerve-slime not
having had time to settle back into their proper combinations. When such
sub-molecules are thrown out, as they must be from time to time, there
is so much waste of material.
In order that a sub-molecule of food may be thoroughly and firmly
assimilated into a broken molecule of protoplasm, it is necessary not
only that it should have precisely the right chemical composition, but
also that it should be at precisely the right spot at the right time and
should be moving in precisely the right direction with precisely the
right velocity. If all these conditions are not fulfilled, it will be
more loosely retained than the other parts of the molecule; and every
time it comes round into the situation in which it was drawn in,
relatively to the other parts of that molecule and to such others as
were near enough to be factors in the action, it will be in special
danger of being thrown out again. Thus, when a partial liquefaction of
the protoplasm takes place many times to about the same extent, it will,
each time, be pretty nearly the same molecules that were last drawn in
that are now thrown out. They will be thrown out, too, in about the same
way, as to position, direction of motion, and velocity, in which they
were drawn in; and this will be in about the same course that the ones
last before them were thrown out. Not exactly, however; for the very
cause of their being thrown off so easily is their not having fulfilled
precisely the conditions of stable retention. Thus, the law of habit is
accounted for, and with it its peculiar characteristic of not acting
with exactitude.
It seems to me that this explanation of habit, aside from the question
of its truth or falsity, has a certain value as an addition to our
little store of mechanical examples of actions analogous to habit. All
the others, so far as I know, are either statical or else involve forces
which, taking only the sensible motions into account, violate the law of
energy. It is so with the stream that wears its own bed. Here, the sand
is carried to its most stable situation and left there. The law of
energy forbids this; for when anything reaches a position of stable
equilibrium, its momentum will be at a maximum, so that it can according
to this law only be left at rest in an unstable situation. In all the
statical illustrations, too, things are brought into certain states and
left there. A garment receives folds and keeps them; that is, its limit
of elasticity is exceeded. This failure to spring back is again an
apparent violation of the law of energy; for the substance will not only
not spring back of itself (which might be due to an unstable equilibrium
being reached) but will not even do so when an impulse that way is
applied to it. Accordingly, Professor James says, “the phenomena of
habit ... are due to the plasticity of the ... materials.” Now,
plasticity of materials means the having of a low limit of elasticity.
(See the _Century Dictionary_, under _solid_.) But the hypothetical
constitution of protoplasm here proposed involves no forces but
attractions and repulsions strictly following the law of energy. The
action here, that is, the throwing of an atom out of its orbit in a
molecule, and the entering of a new atom into nearly, but not quite the
same orbit, is somewhat similar to the molecular actions which may be
supposed to take place in a solid strained beyond its limit of
elasticity. Namely, in that case certain molecules must be thrown out of
their orbits, to settle down again shortly after into new orbits. In
short, the plastic solid resembles protoplasm in being partially and
temporarily liquefied by a slight mechanical force. But the taking of a
set by a solid body has but a moderate resemblance to the taking of a
habit, inasmuch as the characteristic feature of the latter, its
inexactitude and want of complete determinacy, is not so marked in the
former, if it can be said to be present there, at all.
The truth is that though the molecular explanation of habit is pretty
vague on the mathematical side, there can be no doubt that systems of
atoms having polar forces would act substantially in that manner, and
the explanation is even too satisfactory to suit the convenience of an
advocate of tychism. For it may fairly be urged that since the phenomena
of habit may thus result from a purely mechanical arrangement, it is
unnecessary to suppose that habit-taking is a primordial principle of
the universe. But one fact remains unexplained mechanically, which
concerns not only the facts of habit, but all cases of actions
apparently violating the law of energy; it is that all these phenomena
depend upon aggregations of trillions of molecules in one and the same
condition and neighborhood; and it is by no means clear how they could
have all been brought and left in the same place and state by any
conservative forces. But let the mechanical explanation be as perfect as
it may, the state of things which it supposes presents evidence of a
primordial habit-taking tendency. For it shows us like things acting in
like ways because they are alike. Now, those who insist on the doctrine
of necessity will for the most part insist that the physical world is
entirely individual. Yet law involves an element of generality. Now to
say that generality is primordial, but generalization not, is like
saying that diversity is primordial but diversification not. It turns
logic upside down. At any rate, it is clear that nothing but a principle
of habit, itself due to the growth by habit of an infinitesimal chance
tendency toward habit-taking, is the only bridge that can span the chasm
between the chance-medley of chaos and the cosmos of order and law.
I shall not attempt a molecular explanation of the phenomena of
reproduction, because that would require a subsidiary hypothesis, and
carry me away from my main object. Such phenomena, universally diffused
though they be, appear to depend upon special conditions; and we do not
find that all protoplasm has reproductive powers.
But what is to be said of the property of feeling? If consciousness
belongs to all protoplasm, by what mechanical constitution is this to be
accounted for? The slime is nothing but a chemical compound. There is no
inherent impossibility in its being formed synthetically in the
laboratory, out of its chemical elements; and if it were so made, it
would present all the characters of natural protoplasm. No doubt, then,
it would feel. To hesitate to admit this would be puerile and
ultra-puerile. By what element of the molecular arrangement, then, would
that feeling be caused? This question cannot be evaded or pooh-poohed.
Protoplasm certainly does feel; and unless we are to accept a weak
dualism, the property must be shown to arise from some peculiarity of
the mechanical system. Yet the attempt to deduce it from the three laws
of mechanics, applied to never so ingenious a mechanical contrivance,
would obviously be futile. It can never be explained, unless we admit
that physical events are but degraded or undeveloped forms of psychical
events. But once grant that the phenomena of matter are but the result
of the sensibly complete sway of habits upon mind, and it only remains
to explain why in the protoplasm these habits are to some slight extent
broken up, so that according to the law of mind, in that special clause
of it sometimes called the principle of accommodation,[71] feeling
becomes intensified. Now the manner in which habits generally get broken
up is this. Reactions usually terminate in the removal of a stimulus;
for the excitation continues as long as the stimulus is present.
Accordingly, habits are general ways of behavior which are associated
with the removal of stimuli. But when the expected removal of the
stimulus fails to occur, the excitation continues and increases, and
non-habitual reactions take place; and these tend to weaken the habit.
If, then, we suppose that matter never does obey its ideal laws with
absolute precision, but that there are almost insensible fortuitous
departures from regularity, these will produce, in general, equally
minute effects. But protoplasm is in an excessively unstable condition;
and it is the characteristic of unstable equilibrium, that near that
point excessively minute causes may produce startlingly large effects.
Here, then, the usual departures from regularity will be followed by
others that are very great; and the large fortuitous departures from law
so produced, will tend still further to break up the laws, supposing
that these are of the nature of habits. Now, this breaking up of habit
and renewed fortuitous spontaneity will, according to the law of mind,
be accompanied by an intensification of feeling. The nerve-protoplasm
is, without doubt, in the most unstable condition of any kind of matter;
and consequently, there the resulting feeling is the most manifest.
Thus we see that the idealist has no need to dread a mechanical theory
of life. On the contrary, such a theory, fully developed, is bound to
call in a tychistic idealism as its indispensable adjunct. Wherever
chance-spontaneity is found, there, in the same proportion, feeling
exists. In fact, chance is but the outward aspect of that which within
itself is feeling. I long ago showed that real existence, or thing-ness,
consists in regularities. So, that primeval chaos in which there was no
regularity was mere nothing, from a physical aspect. Yet it was not a
blank zero; for there was an intensity of consciousness there in
comparison with which all that we ever feel is but as the struggling of
a molecule or two to throw off a little of the force of law to an
endless and innumerable diversity of chance utterly unlimited.
But after some atoms of the protoplasm have thus become partially
emancipated from law, what happens next to them? To understand this, we
have to remember that no mental tendency is so easily strengthened by
the action of habit as is the tendency to take habits. Now, in the
higher kinds of protoplasm, especially, the atoms in question have not
only long belonged to one molecule or another of the particular mass of
slime of which they are parts; but before that, they were constituents
of food of a protoplasmic constitution. During all this time, they have
been liable to lose habits and to recover them again; so that now, when
the stimulus is removed, and the foregone habits tend to reassert
themselves, they do so in the case of such atoms with great promptness.
Indeed, the return is so prompt that there is nothing but the feeling to
show conclusively that the bonds of law have ever been relaxed.
In short, diversification is the vestige of chance-spontaneity; and
wherever diversity is increasing, there chance must be operative. On the
other hand, wherever uniformity is increasing, habit must be operative.
But wherever actions take place under an established uniformity, there
so much feeling as there may be takes the mode of a sense of reaction.
That is the manner in which I am led to define the relation between the
fundamental elements of consciousness and their physical equivalents.
It remains to consider the physical relations of general ideas. It may
be well here to reflect that if matter has no existence except as a
specialization of mind, it follows that whatever affects matter
according to regular laws is itself matter. But all mind is directly or
indirectly connected with all matter, and acts in a more or less regular
way; so that all mind more or less partakes of the nature of matter.
Hence, it would be a mistake to conceive of the psychical and the
physical aspects of matter as two aspects absolutely distinct. Viewing a
thing from the outside, considering its relations of action and reaction
with other things, it appears as matter. Viewing it from the inside,
looking at its immediate character as feeling, it appears as
consciousness. These two views are combined when we remember that
mechanical laws are nothing but acquired habits, like all the
regularities of mind, including the tendency to take habits, itself; and
that this action of habit is nothing but generalization, and
generalization is nothing but the spreading of feelings. But the
question is, how do general ideas appear in the molecular theory of
protoplasm?
The consciousness of a habit involves a general idea. In each action of
that habit certain atoms get thrown out of their orbit, and replaced by
others. Upon all the different occasions it is different atoms that are
thrown off, but they are analogous from a physical point of view, and
there is an inward sense of their being analogous. Every time one of the
associated feelings recurs, there is a more or less vague sense that
there are others, that it has a general character, and of about what
this general character is. We ought not, I think, to hold that in
protoplasm habit never acts in any other than the particular way
suggested above. On the contrary, if habit be a primary property of
mind, it must be equally so of matter, as a kind of mind. We can hardly
refuse to admit that wherever chance motions have general characters,
there is a tendency for this generality to spread and to perfect itself.
In that case, a general idea is a certain modification of consciousness
which accompanies any regularity or general relation between chance
actions.
The consciousness of a general idea has a certain “unity of the ego,” in
it, which is identical when it passes from one mind to another. It is,
therefore, quite analogous to a person; and, indeed, a person is only a
particular kind of general idea. Long age, in the _Journal of
Speculative Philosophy_ (Vol. II, p. 156), I pointed out that a person
is nothing but a symbol involving a general idea; but my views were,
then, too nominalistic to enable me to see that every general idea has
the unified living feeling of a person.
All that is necessary, upon this theory, to the existence of a person is
that the feelings out of which he is constructed should be in close
enough connection to influence one another. Here we can draw a
consequence which it may be possible to submit to experimental test.
Namely, if this be the case, there should be something like personal
consciousness in bodies of men who are in intimate and intensely
sympathetic communion. It is true that when the generalization of
feeling has been carried so far as to include all within a person, a
stopping-place, in a certain sense, has been attained; and further
generalization will have a less lively character. But we must not think
it will cease. _Esprit de corps_, national sentiment, sympathy, are no
mere metaphors. None of us can fully realize what the minds of
corporations are, any more than one of my brain-cells can know what the
whole brain is thinking. But the law of mind clearly points to the
existence of such personalities, and there are many ordinary
observations which, if they were critically examined and supplemented by
special experiments, might, as first appearances promise, give evidence
of the influence of such greater persons upon individuals. It is often
remarked that on one day half a dozen people, strangers to one another,
will take it into their heads to do one and the same strange deed,
whether it be a physical experiment, a crime, or an act of virtue. When
the thirty thousand young people of the society for Christian Endeavor
were in New York, there seemed to me to be some mysterious diffusion of
sweetness and light. If such a fact is capable of being made out
anywhere, it should be in the church. The Christians have always been
ready to risk their lives for the sake of having prayers in common, of
getting together and praying simultaneously with great energy, and
especially for their common body, for “the whole state of Christ’s
church militant here in earth,” as one of the missals has it. This
practice they have been keeping up everywhere, weekly, for many
centuries. Surely, a personality ought to have developed in that church,
in that “bride of Christ,” as they call it, or else there is a strange
break in the action of mind, and I shall have to acknowledge my views
are much mistaken. Would not the societies for psychical research be
more likely to break through the clouds, in seeking evidences of such
corporate personality, than in seeking evidences of telepathy, which,
upon the same theory, should be a far weaker phenomenon?
Footnote 63:
_The Monist_, October, 1892.
Footnote 64:
I am rejoiced to find, since my last paper was printed, that a
philosopher as subtle and profound as Dr. Edmund Montgomery has long
been arguing for the same element in the universe. Other
world-renowned thinkers, as M. Renouvier and M. Delbœuf, appear to
share this opinion.
Footnote 65:
By a _vera causa_, in the logic of science, is meant a state of things
known to exist in some cases and supposed to exist in other cases,
because it would account for observed phenomena.
Footnote 66:
Wiedemann, _Annalen_, 1887-1889.
Footnote 67:
See Maxwell on Spherical Harmonics, in his _Electricity and
Magnetism_.
Footnote 68:
The word _system_ has three peculiar meanings in mathematics. (_A._)
It means an orderly exposition of the truths of astronomy, and hence a
theory of the motions of the stars; as the Ptolemaic _system_, the
Copernican _system_. This is much like the sense in which we speak of
the Calvinistic _system_ of theology, the Kantian _system_ of
philosophy, etc. (_B._) It means the aggregate of the planets
considered as all moving in somewhat the same way, as the solar
_system_; and hence any aggregate of particles moving under mutual
forces. (_C._) It means a number of forces acting simultaneously upon
a number of particles.
Footnote 69:
But, in fact, an inspection of these curves is sufficient to show that
they are of a higher degree than the third. For they have the line _V_
= O, or some line _V_ a constant for an asymptote, while for small
values of _P_, the values of _d_^2_p_/(_dV_)^2 are positive.
Footnote 70:
Anticipated by Clausius as long ago as 1857; and by Williamson in
1851.
Footnote 71:
“Physiologically, ... accommodation means the breaking up of a
habit.... Psychologically, it means reviving consciousness.” Baldwin,
_Psychology_, Part III, ch. i., § 5.
V. EVOLUTIONARY LOVE[72]
AT FIRST BLUSH. COUNTER-GOSPELS
Philosophy, when just escaping from its golden pupa-skin, mythology,
proclaimed the great evolutionary agency of the universe to be Love. Or,
since this pirate-lingo, English, is poor in such-like words, let us say
Eros, the exuberance-love. Afterwards, Empedocles set up passionate-love
and hate as the two co-ordinate powers of the universe. In some
passages, kindness is the word. But certainly, in any sense in which it
has an opposite, to be senior partner of that opposite, is the highest
position that love can attain. Nevertheless, the ontological gospeller,
in whose days those views were familiar topics, made the One Supreme
Being, by whom all things have been made out of nothing, to be
cherishing-love. What, then, can he say to hate? Never mind, at this
time, what the scribe of the apocalypse, if he were John, stung at
length by persecution into a rage unable to distinguish suggestions of
evil from visions of heaven, and so become the Slanderer of God to men,
may have dreamed. The question is rather what the sane John thought, or
ought to have thought, in order to carry out his idea consistently. His
statement that God is love seems aimed at that saying of Ecclesiastes
that we cannot tell whether God bears us love or hatred. “Nay,” says
John, “we can tell, and very simply! We know and have trusted the love
which God hath in us. God is love.” There is no logic in this, unless it
means that God loves all men. In the preceding paragraph, he had said,
“God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” We are to understand,
then, that as darkness is merely the defect of light, so hatred and evil
are mere imperfect stages of ἀγἀπη and ἀγαθόν, love and loveliness. This
concords with that utterance reported in John’s Gospel: “God sent not
the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should
through him be saved. He that believeth on him is not judged: he that
believeth not hath been judged already.... And this is the judgment,
that the light is come into the world, and that men loved darkness
rather than the light.” That is to say, God visits no punishment on
them; they punish themselves, by their natural affinity for the
defective. Thus, the love that God is, is not a love of which hatred is
the contrary; otherwise Satan would be a co-ordinate power; but it is a
love which embraces hatred as an imperfect stage of it, an Anteros—yea,
even needs hatred and hatefulness as its object. For self-love is no
love; so if God’s self is love, that which he loves must be defect of
love; just as a luminary can light up only that which otherwise would be
dark. Henry James, the Swedenborgian, says: “It is no doubt very
tolerable finite or creaturely love to love one’s own in another, to
love another for his conformity to one’s self: but nothing can be in
more flagrant contrast with the creative Love, all whose tenderness _ex
vi termini_ must be reserved only for what intrinsically is most
bitterly hostile and negative to itself.” This is from _Substance and
Shadow_: an _Essay on the Physics of Creation_. It is a pity he had not
filled his pages with things like this, as he was able easily to do,
instead of scolding at his reader and at people generally, until the
physics of creation was well-nigh forgot. I must deduct, however, from
what I just wrote: obviously no genius could make his every sentence as
sublime as one which discloses for the problem of evil its everlasting
solution.
The movement of love is circular, at one and the same impulse projecting
creations into independency and drawing them into harmony. This seems
complicated when stated so; but it is fully summed up in the simple
formula we call the Golden Rule. This does not, of course, say, Do
everything possible to gratify the egoistic impulses of others, but it
says, Sacrifice your own perfection to the perfectionment of your
neighbor. Nor must it for a moment be confounded with the Benthamite, or
Helvetian, or Beccarian motto, Act for the greatest good of the greatest
number. Love is not directed to abstractions but to persons; not to
persons we do not know, nor to numbers of people, but to our own dear
ones, our family and neighbors. “Our neighbor,” we remember, is one whom
we live near, not locally perhaps, but in life and feeling.
Everybody can see that the statement of St. John is the formula of an
evolutionary philosophy, which teaches that growth comes only from love,
from—I will not say self-_sacrifice_, but from the ardent impulse to
fulfil another’s highest impulse. Suppose, for example, that I have an
idea that interests me. It is my creation. It is my creature; for as
shown in last July’s _Monist_, it is a little person. I love it; and I
will sink myself in perfecting it. It is not by dealing out cold justice
to the circle of my ideas that I can make them grow, but by cherishing
and tending them as I would the flowers in my garden. The philosophy we
draw from John’s gospel is that this is the way mind develops; and as
for the cosmos, only so far as it yet is mind, and so has life, is it
capable of further evolution. Love, recognizing germs of loveliness in
the hateful, gradually warms it into life, and makes it lovely. That is
the sort of evolution which every careful student of my essay _The Law
of Mind_, must see that _synechism_ calls for.
The nineteenth century is now fast sinking into the grave, and we all
begin to review its doings and to think what character it is destined to
bear as compared with other centuries in the minds of future historians.
It will be called, I guess, the Economical Century; for political
economy has more direct relations with all the branches of its activity
than has any other science. Well, political economy has its formula of
redemption, too. It is this: Intelligence in the service of greed
ensures the justest prices, the fairest contracts, the most enlightened
conduct of all the dealings between men, and leads to the _summum
bonum_, food in plenty and perfect comfort. Food for whom? Why, for the
greedy master of intelligence. I do not mean to say that this is one of
the legitimate conclusions of political economy, the scientific
character of which I fully acknowledge. But the study of doctrines,
themselves true, will often temporarily encourage generalizations
extremely false, as the study of physics has encouraged
necessitarianism. What I say, then, is that the great attention paid to
economical questions during our century has induced an exaggeration of
the beneficial effects of greed and of the unfortunate results of
sentiment, until there has resulted a philosophy which comes unwittingly
to this, that greed is the great agent in the elevation of the human
race and in the evolution of the universe.
I open a handbook of political economy,—the most typical and middling
one I have at hand,—and there find some remarks of which I will here
make a brief analysis. I omit qualifications, sops thrown to Cerberus,
phrases to placate Christian prejudice, trappings which serve to hide
from author and reader alike the ugly nakedness of the greed-god. But I
have surveyed my position. The author enumerates “three motives to human
action:
The love of self;
The love of a limited class having common interests and feelings with
one’s self;
The love of mankind at large.”
Remark, at the outset, what obsequious title is bestowed on greed,—“the
love of self.” Love! The second motive _is_ love. In place of “a limited
class” put “certain persons,” and you have a fair description. Taking
“class” in the old-fashioned sense, a weak kind of love is described. In
the sequel, there seems to be some haziness as to the delimitation of
this motive. By the love of mankind at large, the author does not mean
that deep, subconscious passion that is properly so called; but merely
public-spirit, perhaps little more than a fidget about pushing ideas.
The author proceeds to a comparative estimate of the worth of these
motives. Greed, says he, but using, of course, another word, “is not so
great an evil as is commonly supposed... Every man can promote his own
interests a great deal more effectively than he can promote any one
else’s, or than any one else can promote his.” Besides, as he remarks on
another page, the more miserly a man is, the more good he does. The
second motive “is the most dangerous one to which society is exposed.”
Love is all very pretty: “no higher or purer source of human happiness
exists.” (Ahem!) But it is a “source of enduring injury,” and, in short,
should be overruled by something wiser. What is this wiser motive? We
shall see.
As for public spirit, it is rendered nugatory by the “difficulties in
the way of its effective operation.” For example, it might suggest
putting checks upon the fecundity of the poor and the vicious; and “no
measure of repression would be too severe,” in the case of criminals.
The hint is broad. But unfortunately, you cannot induce legislatures to
take such measures, owing to the pestiferous “tender sentiments of man
towards man.” It thus appears, that public-spirit, or Benthamism, is not
strong enough to be the effective tutor of love, (I am skipping to
another page), which must, therefore, be handed over to “the motives
which animate men in the pursuit of wealth,” in which alone we can
confide, and which “are in the highest degree beneficent.”[73] Yes, in
the “highest degree” without exception are they beneficent to the being
upon whom all their blessings are poured out, namely, the Self, whose
“sole object,” says the writer in accumulating wealth is his individual
“sustenance and enjoyment.” Plainly, the author holds the notion that
some other motive might be in a higher degree beneficent even for the
man’s self to be a paradox wanting in good sense. He seeks to gloze and
modify his doctrine; but he lets the perspicacious reader see what his
animating principle is; and when, holding the opinions I have repeated,
he at the same time acknowledges that society could not exist upon a
basis of intelligent greed alone, he simply pigeon-holes himself as one
of the eclectics of inharmonious opinions. He wants his mammon flavored
with a _soupçon_ of god.
The economists accuse those to whom the enunciation of their atrocious
villainies communicates a thrill of horror of being _sentimentalists_.
It may be so: I willingly confess to having some tincture of
sentimentalism in me, God be thanked! Ever since the French Revolution
brought this leaning of thought into ill-repute,—and not altogether
undeservedly, I must admit, true, beautiful, and good as that great
movement was—it has been the tradition to picture sentimentalists as
persons incapable of logical thought and unwilling to look facts in the
eyes. This tradition may be classed with the French tradition that an
Englishman says _godam_ at every second sentence, the English tradition
that an American talks about “Britishers,” and the American tradition
that a Frenchman carries forms of etiquette to an inconvenient extreme,
in short with all those traditions which survive simply because the men
who use their eyes and ears are few and far between. Doubtless some
excuse there was for all those opinions in days gone by; and
sentimentalism, when it was the fashionable amusement to spend one’s
evenings in a flood of tears over a woeful performance on a
candle-litten stage, sometimes made itself a little ridiculous. But what
after all is sentimentalism? It is an _ism_, a doctrine, namely, the
doctrine that great respect should be paid to the natural judgments of
the sensible heart. This is what sentimentalism precisely is; and I
entreat the reader to consider whether to contemn it is not of all
blasphemies the most degrading. Yet the nineteenth century has steadily
contemned it, because it brought about the Reign of Terror. That it did
so is true. Still, the whole question is one of _how much_. The Reign of
Terror was very bad; but now the Gradgrind banner has been this century
long flaunting in the face of heaven, with an insolence to provoke the
very skies to scowl and rumble. Soon a flash and quick peal will shake
economists quite out of their complacency, too late. The twentieth
century, in its latter half, shall surely see the deluge-tempest burst
upon the social order,—to clear upon a world as deep in ruin as that
greed-philosophy has long plunged it into guilt. No post-thermidorian
high jinks then!
So a miser is a beneficent power in a community, is he? With the same
reason precisely, only in a much higher degree, you might pronounce the
Wall Street sharp to be a good angel, who takes money from heedless
persons not likely to guard it properly, who wrecks feeble enterprises
better stopped, and who administers wholesome lessons to unwary
scientific men, by passing worthless checks upon them,—as you did, the
other day, to me, my millionaire Master in glomery, when you thought you
saw your way to using my process without paying for it, and of so
bequeathing to your children something to boast of their father
about,—and who by a thousand wiles puts money at the service of
intelligent greed, in his own person. Bernard Mandeville, in his _Fable
of the Bees_, maintains that private vices of all descriptions are
public benefits, and proves it, too, quite as cogently as the economist
proves his point concerning the miser. He even argues, with no slight
force, that but for vice civilization would never have existed. In the
same spirit, it has been strongly maintained and is to-day widely
believed that all acts of charity and benevolence, private and public,
go seriously to degrade the human race.
The _Origin of Species_ of Darwin merely extends politico-economical
views of progress to the entire realm of animal and vegetable life. The
vast majority of our contemporary naturalists hold the opinion that the
true cause of those exquisite and marvellous adaptations of nature for
which, when I was a boy, men used to extol the divine wisdom is that
creatures are so crowded together that those of them that happen to have
the slightest advantage force those less pushing into situations
unfavorable to multiplication or even kill them before they reach the
age of reproduction. Among animals, the mere mechanical individualism is
vastly reënforced as a power making for good by the animal’s ruthless
greed. As Darwin puts it on his title-page, it is the struggle for
existence; and he should have added for his motto: Every individual for
himself, and the Devil take the hindmost! Jesus, in his sermon on the
Mount, expressed a different opinion.