find each organ possessed of a different power. But there is as yet
no conventional language adapted to our discourse on this subject,
and that is the source of many mistakes; for when a man even like
Mr. Hunter had his mind illuminated upon this science, how was he to
frame his language, when every word that he used had already a meaning
which had no reference to the discovery he had made--to the distinct
qualities which he had ascertained to belong to the living parts?...
"The difference between dead and living matter will appear to be, that
in the one instance the particles are permanently arranged and continue
to exhibit their proper character, as we term it, until by ingenuity
and practice some means are found to withdraw the arranging or uniting
influence; and then the matter is chemically dissolved: resolves into
its elements, and forms new combinations: whilst the life continues,
not simply to arrange the particles, and to give them the order or
organization of the animal body, but to whirl them in a series of
revolutions, during all which the material is passive, the law being in
the life. The order and succession of these changes and their duration
do not result from the material of the frame, which is the same in
all animals, but from that influence which we term life, and which is
superadded to the material." (_Ibid._ 408.)
Writing on Function Mr. Herbert Spencer discusses the following
question. Its interest to our argument is unmistakable.
"Does Structure originate Function, or does Function originate
Structure? is a question about which there has been disagreement.
Using the word Function in its widest signification, as the totality
of all vital actions, the question amounts to this--Does Life produce
Organization, or does Organization produce Life?
"To answer this question is not easy, since we habitually find the
two so associated that neither seems possible without the other;
and they appear uniformly to increase and decrease together....
There is, however, one fact implying that Function must be regarded
as taking precedence of Structure. Of the lowest Rhizopods, which
present no distinctions of parts, and nevertheless feed and grow and
move about, Prof. Huxley has remarked that they exhibit Life without
Organization....
"It may be argued that on the hypothesis of Evolution, Life necessarily
comes before organization. On this hypothesis, organic matter in a
state of homogeneous aggregation, must precede organic matter in a
state of heterogeneous aggregation. But since the passing from a
structureless state to a structured state, is itself a vital process,
it follows that vital activity must have existed while there was yet
no structure: structure could not else arise. That function takes
precedence of structure, seems also implied in the definition of
Life. If Life consists of inner actions so adjusted as to balance
outer actions--if the actions are the _substance_ of Life, while the
adjustment of them constitutes its _form_; then, may we not say that
the actions to be formed must come before that which forms them--that
the continuous change which is the basis of function, must come before
the structure which brings function into shape? Or again, since
throughout all phases of Life up to the highest, every advance is the
effecting of some better adjustment of inner to outer actions; and
since the accompanying new complexity of structure is simply a means
of making possible this better adjustment; it follows that function is
from beginning to end the determining cause of structure."--_Principles
of Biology_, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, p. 153, seq.
We now return to Kant, from whom Dr. Whewell quoted the sentence--"An
organized product of nature is that in which all the parts are mutually
ends and means." Passing by a metaphysical paragraph expressed in a
manner too technical for the general reader, Kant's practical comment
on this sentence runs as follows:--
"Dass die Zergliederer der Gewächse und Thiere, um ihre Structur zu
erforschen und die Gründe einsehen zu können, warum und zu welchem
Ende solche Theile, warum eine solche Lage und Verbindung der Theile
und gerade diese innere Form ihnen gegeben worden, jene Maxime: dass
nichts in einem solchen Geschöpf UMSONST sey, als unumgänglich
nothwendig annehmen und sie eben so, als den Grundsatz der allgemeinen
Naturlehre: dass NICHTS VON UNGEFÄHR geschehe, geltend machen,
ist bekannt. In der That können sie sich auch von diesem teleologischen
Grundsatze eben so wenig lossagen, als dem allgemeinen physischen,
weil, so wie bei Veranlassung des letzteren gar keine Erfahrung
überhaupt, so bei der des ersteren Grundsatzes kein Leitfaden für die
Beobachtung einer Art von Naturdinge, die wir einmal teleologisch unter
dem Begriffe der Naturzwecke gedacht haben, übrig bleiben würde.
"Denn dieser Begriff führt die Vernunft in eine ganz andere Ordnung
der Dinge, als die eines blossen Mechanism der Natur, der uns hier
nicht mehr genug thun will. Eine Idee soll der Möglichkeit des
Naturproducts zum Grunde liegen. Weil diese aber ein absolute Einheit
der Vorstellung ist, statt dessen die Materie eine Vielheit der Dinge
ist, die für sich keine bestimmte Einheit der Zusammensetzung an
die Hand geben kann, so muss, wenn jene Einheit der Idee, sogar als
Bestimmungsgrund _a priori_ eines Naturgesetzes der Causalität einer
solchen Form des Zusammengesetzten dienen soll, der Zweck der Natur auf
ALLES, was in ihrem Producte liegt, erstreckt werden; weil, wenn wir
einmal dergleichen Wirkung im GANZEN auf einen übersinnlichen
Bestimmungsgrund über den blinden Mechanism der Natur hinaus beziehen,
wir sie auch ganz nach diesem Princip beurtheilen müssen und kein Grund
da ist, die Form eines solchen Dinges noch zum Theil vom letzteren als
abhängig anzunehmen, da alsdann bei der Vermischung ungleichartiger
Principien, gar keine sichere Regel der Beurtheilung übrig bleiben
würde." _Kritik der Urtheilskraft_, Section 65.
For the benefit of those who find Kant's German difficult we subjoin a
neat French Translation from the pen of M. Barni.
"On sait que ceux qui dissèquent les plantes et les animaux pour en
étudier la structure, et pouvoir reconnaître pourquoi et à quelle fin
telles parties leur ont été données, pourquoi telle disposition et
tel arrangement des parties, et précisément cette forme intérieure,
admettent comme indispensablement nécessaire cette maxime que rien
n'existe _en vain_ dans ces créatures, et lui accordent une valeur
égale à celle de ce principe de la physique générale, que _rien
n'arrive par hasard_. Et en effet ils ne peuvent pas plus rejeter ce
principe téléologique que le principe universel de la physique; car,
de même qu'en l'absence de ce dernier il n'y aurait plus d'expérience
possible en général, de même, sans le premier, il n'y aurait plus de
fil conducteur pour l'observation d'une espèce de choses de la nature,
que nous avons une fois conçues téléologiquement sous le concept des
fins de la nature.
"En effet ce concept introduit la raison dans un tout autre ordre de
choses que celui du pur mécanisme de la nature, qui ne peut plus ici
nous satisfaire. Il faut qu'une idée serve de principe à la possibilité
de la production de la nature. Mais comme une idée est une unité
absolue de réprésentation, tandis que la matière est une pluralité de
choses qui par elle-même ne peut fournir aucune unité déterminée de
composition, si cette unité de l'idée doit servir, comme principe _a
priori_, à déterminer une loi naturelle à la production d'une forme de
ce genre, il faut que la fin de la nature s'étende _à tout_ ce qui est
contenu dans sa production. En effet, dès que pour expliquer un certain
effet, nous cherchons, au-dessus de l'aveugle mécanisme de la nature,
un principe supra-sensible et que nous l'y rapportons _en général_,
nous devons le juger tout entier d'après ce principe; et il n'y a pas
de raison pour regarder la forme de cette chose comme dépendant encore
en partie de l'autre principe, car alors, dans le mélange de principes
hétérogènes, il ne resterait plus de règle sûre pour le jugement."
_Critique du Jugement_, Section 65.
Kant is not in any dress the easiest of thinkers to follow--a result
possibly consequent upon the resemblance which his writings bear to
trains of reasoning as they pass from the lips of one who thinks aloud.
The following paragraph from another work of Dr. Whewell's may be
useful to some minds as a comment upon this portion of Kant's teleology.
"There is yet one other Idea which I shall mention, though it is one
about which difficulties have been raised, since the consideration
of such difficulties may be instructive: the Idea of a purpose, or
as it is often termed, a _Final Cause_, in organized bodies. It has
been held, and rightly, that the assumption of a Final Cause of each
part of animals and plants is as inevitable as the assumption of an
efficient cause of every event. The maxim, that in organized bodies
nothing is _in vain_, is as necessarily true as the maxim that nothing
happens _by chance_. I have elsewhere shown fully that this Idea is
not deduced from any special facts, but is assumed as a law governing
all facts in organic nature, directing the researches and interpreting
the observations of physiologists. I have also remarked that it is
not at variance with that other law, that plants and that animals are
constructed upon general plans, of which plans, it may be, we do not
see the necessity, though we see how wide is their generality. This
Idea of a purpose,--of a Final Cause,--then, thus supplied by our
minds, is found to be applicable throughout the organic world. It is
in virtue of this Idea that we conceive animals and plants as subject
to _disease_; for disease takes place when the parts do not fully
answer their _purpose_; when they do not do what they _ought_ to do.
How is it then that we thus find an Idea which is _supplied_ by our
own minds, but which is _exemplified_ in every part of the organic
world? Here perhaps the answer will be readily allowed. It is because
this Idea is an Idea of the Divine Mind. There _is_ a Final Cause in
the constitution of these parts of the universe, and therefore we
can interpret them by means of the Idea of Final Cause. We can _see_
a purpose, because there _is_ a purpose. Is it too presumptuous to
suppose that we can thus enter into the Ends and Purposes of the Divine
Mind? We willingly grant and declare that it would be presumptuous to
suppose that we can enter into them to any but a very small degree.
They doubtless go immeasurably beyond our mode of understanding or
conceiving them. But to a certain extent we _can_ go. We can go so
far as to see that they _are_ Ends and Purposes. It is _not_ a vain
presumption in us to suppose that we know that the eye was made for
seeing and the ear for hearing. In this the most pious of men see
nothing impious: the most cautious philosophers see nothing rash. And
that we can see thus far into the designs of the Divine Mind, arises,
we hold, from this:--that we have an Idea of Design and of Purpose
which, so far as it is merely _that_, is true; and so far, is Design
and Purpose in the same sense in the one case and in the other."[81]
* * * * *
It will be well worth while to close this present series of
illustrations by a review of Professor Huxley's last published and best
considered positions on Teleology. He printed, in 1871, an article on
Haeckel's "Natürliche Schöpfungs Geschichte," and has now entitled it
"The Genealogy of Animals," and included it in his recent volume of
Critiques. We may therefore assume that we here find the distinguished
Biologist's deliberate opinions. He says, p. 305, "The Teleology
which supposes that the eye, such as we see it in man or one of the
higher _Vertebrata_,[82] was made with the precise structure which
it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses
it to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Nevertheless it
is necessary to remember that there is a wider Teleology, which is
not touched by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon
the fundamental proposition of Evolution. That proposition is, that
the whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual
interaction, according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by
the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was
composed. If this be true, it is no less certain that the existing
world lay, potentially, in the cosmic vapour; and that a sufficient
intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules
of that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the Fauna of Britain
in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the
vapour of the breath on a cold winter's day.
"Consider a kitchen clock, which ticks loudly, shows the hours,
minutes, and seconds, strikes, cries 'cuckoo!' and perhaps shows the
phases of the moon. When the clock is wound up, all the phenomena which
it exhibits are potentially contained in its mechanism, and a clever
clockmaker could predict all it will do after an examination of its
structure.
"If the evolution theory is correct, the molecular structure of the
cosmic gas stands in the same relation to the phenomena of the world as
the structure of the clock to its phenomena."
Mr. Huxley's comparisons[83] are always amusing, partly because they
are of an unlooked for description. They also keep up the attention of
his readers or hearers. But they have one great fault--the fault we
noticed in explaining the nature of analogical argument--they carry
away the mind too far, and lead the reader often, sometimes the writer
himself, into very serious oversights. Let us take notice how the
Professor carries out his present similitude. "Now let us suppose a
death-watch, living in the clock-case, to be a learned and intelligent
student of its works. He might say, 'I find here nothing but matter and
force and pure mechanism from beginning to end,' and he would be quite
right. But if he drew the conclusion that the clock was not contrived
for a purpose, he would be quite wrong. On the other hand, imagine
another death-watch of a different turn of mind. He, listening to the
monotonous 'tick! tick!' so exactly like his own, might arrive at the
conclusion that the clock was itself a monstrous sort of death-watch,
and that its final cause and purpose was to tick. How easy to point to
the clear relation of the whole mechanism to the pendulum, to the fact
that the one thing the clock did always and without intermission was
to tick, and that all the rest of its phenomena were intermittent and
subordinate to ticking! For all this, it is certain that kitchen clocks
are not contrived for the purpose of making a ticking noise.
"Thus the teleological theorist would be as wrong as the mechanical
theorist, among our death-watches; and, probably, the only death-watch
who would be right would be the one who should maintain that the
sole thing death-watches could be sure about was the nature of the
clock-works and the way they move; and that the purpose of the clock
lay wholly beyond the purview of beetle faculties.
"Substitute 'cosmic vapour' for 'clock,' and 'molecules' for 'works,'
and the application of the argument is obvious." (pp. 306, 7.)
One thing is very obvious here--and that is a flaw. State the case as
a proposition thus--One or both of the two beetles is to the clock
and its maker, as man is to the world and its Maker. A tremendous
assumption--surely as sufficient to have startled Francis Bacon as the
apparition of a new Idol. Is there any possible reason for elevating
a death-watch--thinking in character as a death-watch--into a capable
interpreter of clocks? Moreover, the ground principle of our human
Teleology is that Man holds a lofty relation, not to the Universe only,
but to its Maker likewise. He claims, in a word, the most sublime of
all earthly kinships. The very fact that he can look with intelligent
and admiring appreciation upon the works of God, justifies his belief
that he has a real insight into their excellence, and is so far at
least akin to the mind of God. If Mr. Huxley meant that a proportionate
degree of insight into clock-making was possessed by his beetles,
they would surely have been able to read the clock's dial-plate and
understand the lesson conveyed by its pointers. The death-watch would
at least say "_labuntur horæ_"--and comprehend that time was being
registered--although he might even then fall far short of our human
belief "_pereunt et imputantur_," and fail of knowing that time
registers itself in a record of moral good and evil.
The truth is that all mixing up manlike attributes with brute
animality, and what seems ten times worse, with machines of wood and
metal, can be nothing better than an attempt to produce a sound and
prolific offspring from some ill-assorted and heterogeneous hybridism.
We have adverted to this peculiarity of style before and venture
upon doing so again, because all admirers of Mr. Huxley's great
powers (and who can read his writings without such admiration?) may
surely be justified in wishing that he would discard it at once and
for ever. Its practical effect is apparently to assume the real
point at issue and to cover up the tacit assumption. That he is
really no chance offender in this respect may be gathered from a few
instances noted at random. We have just had a couple of philosophic
death-watches[84]--one a Teleologist, the other a Mechanicist--the
lucubrations of both being neither exactly human, nor yet Coleopterous.
We observed before a righteous clock[85]--regularly moral if regularly
wound up. He has besides a machine, undescribed but endued with a
gift of ratiocination[86]--and more curious still a piano[87] which
listens when it is played upon, and though possessed of only one sense
(hearing) succeeds in building up "endless ideas" of a certain cast
and cogency. From this self-educated instrument much may of course be
looked for, and accordingly we find
"Its cogitative faculties immersed
In cogibundity of cogitation,"
till it evolves from the depth of its consciousness something like an
idealistic theory of sound. This hypothesis, Mr. Huxley in reply to
his piano, refutes, first by an appeal to the material substance of
the instrument itself; and secondly to the existence of a musician who
plays upon it. Will he permit us to accept in like manner the fact of
our own nobler subsistence, and also the being of One Who attunes its
secret heart-strings to notes of sublime melody?
The monsters aforecited irresistibly remind us of a repartee of
Goldsmith's. He wittily said that Dr. Johnson would make little fishes
talk like great whales. Had they done so it may be doubted whether the
Doctor's idolatrous biographer would have discovered a minnowy mind
beneath their Johnsonian utterances. And we confess to a difficulty of
our own. The righteous clock is indeed genuinely Huxleian, but what
shall we say of his mechanical logic, his piano, and his death-watches?
By way of illustrating our perplexity let us suppose some rural sexton
to mix up his own instincts with those of a biological burying beetle.
The destiny of all flesh would naturally be determined in the first
place by a decent covering of earth. But what about its final end?
Would that be an aldermanic beetle feast or a _Resurgam_?
Think again how a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals might breathe a benevolent spirit into a much employed
dissecting knife. The sharp thing would certainly entertain a
repugnance to the horrors of vivisection. There might also be a denial
of its utility based on the scalpel's personal experience, or perhaps
a moral doubt as to whether such means are justified by the ends
proposed. Would Mr. Huxley listen to the remonstrance and undertake to
lift up his powerful voice at Paris or at Berlin besides a few other
remote places which need not be particularized?
Or finally what ear would he lend to a magnifying glass accustomed
to habits of observation and possessed by the soul of Spurzheim.
Suppose it should affirm that a slice of Destructiveness is
recognizably different in structure from a section of Benevolence; and
Acquisitiveness in like manner distinguishable from Ideality! Yet a
humanitarian scalpel or Spurzheim magnifying glass may be thought a
Huxleian phenomenon.
A truce to such mongrel meditations. We gladly turn away from them and
continue our quotations from the Professor's sentiments delivered _in
propria persona_, recommencing at the place where our last extract
broke off. (p. 307.)
"The teleological and the mechanical views of nature, are not
necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a
mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume primordial
molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe
are the consequences; and the more completely is he thereby at the
mercy of the teleologist who can always defy him to disprove that
this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the
phenomena of the universe."
We quite agree with Mr. Huxley that Mechanism never can exclude final
causes, and that a thorough-going theory of Evolution (taken apart
from its excrescences) disables the theorist from all real disproof
of intention or Design. As we said before, the question of how the
theorist's primordial arrangement began, is left unprovided for. And if
a beginning, so certainly an _end_. The more steadily the first state
of the Universe conceivable by Science is contemplated, the wider and
more determinate the view thus taken, the more evident it becomes that
the ground occupied by Natural Theology is not fenced off by the iron
pale of Mechanism. The fencer is (as Huxley says) "at the mercy of the
Teleologist."
The Professor's next sentence deserves careful consideration--"On the
other hand, if the teleologists assert that this, that, or the other
result of the working of any part of the mechanism of the universe is
its purpose and final cause, the mechanist can always inquire how he
knows that it is more than an unessential incident--the mere ticking of
the clock, which he mistakes for its function."
How far this criticism holds good of many well-meant treatises
filled with special instances of Design is a question for candid
consideration. Meantime the whole sentence amounts to this
conclusion:--We must distinguish between such wide arguments as Baden
Powell's, and the details of certain writers who have dealt with what
they thought good examples and illustrations of a grand universal
principle. And that such is Mr. Huxley's meaning we may perceive from
another paragraph immediately preceding our first extract. (p. 305.)
"In more than one place, Professor Haeckel enlarges upon the service
which the _Origin of Species_ has done, in favouring what he terms
the 'causal or mechanical' view of living nature as opposed to the
'teleological or vitalistic' view. And no doubt it is quite true that
the doctrine of Evolution is the most formidable opponent of all
the commoner and coarser forms of Teleology. But perhaps the most
remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin
is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation
of the facts of both which his views offer."
Now, such being the state of facts, we may refuse to say with Huxley
that the following question (asked p. 307) is "not irrational." "Why
trouble oneself about matters which are out of reach, when the working
of the mechanism itself, which is of infinite practical importance,
affords scope for all our energies?"
We cannot forego our trouble, for two reasons. _First_, according to
the statements before quoted, Mr. Darwin's researches have improved the
case for Teleology. Advocates of Design may therefore take courage,
they have gained a potent alliance. _Secondly_, "the practical working
of the Mechanism itself" is very far, we think, from being our All--so
far, indeed, that it sinks into insignificance compared with the hope
of Immortality. Our highest interest lies in gathering such information
as we can regarding Him with Whom we have to do as the Arbiter of our
future existence. Above all things, we desire Him to be our Father and
our Friend. Perchance His attributes are not matters out of reach. He
may be very near to every one of us, if we are indeed His Offspring.
Another opinion of Professor Huxley's is of great auxiliary value to
the argument from Design. The structures mentioned have to some minds
appeared as its most serious difficulties. "Professor Haeckel," he
explains, "has invented a new and convenient name, 'Dysteleology,'
for the study of the 'purposelessnesses' which are observable in
living organisms--such as the multitudinous cases of rudimentary and
apparently useless structures. I confess, however, that it has often
appeared to me that the facts of Dysteleology cut two ways. If we are
to assume, as evolutionists in general do, that useless organs atrophy,
such cases as the existence of lateral rudiments of toes, in the foot
of a horse, place us in a dilemma. For, either these rudiments are of
no use to the animal, in which case, considering that the horse has
existed in its present form since the Pliocene epoch, they surely ought
to have disappeared; or they are of some use to the animal, in which
case they are of no use as arguments against Teleology." (p. 307.) It
would be hard to overestimate the value of this opinion, still more
hard to overrate its genuine and outspoken honesty.
Mr. Huxley places at the end of his recent volume a passage from Bishop
Berkeley which we will venture to borrow by way of conclusion to this
lengthy note:--
"You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it is forced
upwards in a round column to a certain height, at which it breaks and
falls back into the basin from whence it rose; its ascent as well
as its descent proceeding from the same uniform law or principle of
gravitation. Just so, the same principles which, at first view, lead to
scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense."
_Adsit omen!_ May it be even thus with our large-minded Professor
and with all other sovereign princes of Biology--[Greek: Hileôs'
Asklêpios]!
FOOTNOTES:
[14] See more particularly Chapter V., "Production and its Law."
[15] Most literary people are aware that it was borrowed by Paley
himself. A reference very accessible to ordinary readers may be made
to Knight's English Cyclopædia, Article _Nieuwentyt_. "A work," says
the biographer, "was published by him at Amsterdam in 1715, in one
volume 4to, entitled 'The right use of Contemplating the Works of the
Creator': the object of the author is first to convince atheists of
the existence of a supreme and benevolent Creator, by contemplating
the mechanism of the heavens, the structure of animals, etc.; and,
secondly, to remove the doubts of deists concerning revealed religion.
It was originally published in Dutch, but has passed through several
editions, in German, French, and English. The English editions,
translated by Chamberlayne, under the title of the 'Religious
Philosopher,' appeared at London in 1718-19 and 1730, in three vols.
8vo. This work, as was first pointed out in the _Athenæum_ for 1848,
pp. 803, 907, 930, served as the basis for Paley's 'Natural Theology,'
the general argument and many of the illustrations in that remarkable
work being directly copied--and without the slightest acknowledgment,
though Paley was acquainted with the book--from the 'Religious
Philosopher.'"
Lord Brougham, who does not appear to have seen Bernard Nieuwentyt's
book, believes that Derham supplied the fountain from which Paley drank
so freely. Apparently he used both.
To this note it may be added that the want of Natural Philosophy under
which the Archdeacon himself laboured, has been recently commented on
in the following terms:--
"Paley kicked his foot unconcernedly against the stone he found on
the heath; for anything he knew, he says, it might have been there
for ever. Geology was then a practically unknown science, or he might
have found epochs of history in the stone, and evidence of all manner
of special creations for man's benefit. But Paley was no natural
philosopher, only a half-learned theologian, who skimmed over all
difficulties, and produced a book which has done immense harm in
leading Englishmen to anthropomorphic conceptions of God."--_Report of
an Address by A. J. Ellis, President of the Philological Society, in an
American Newspaper_ (_the Index_) _for August 10th, 1872_.
[k] So Hume (Inquiry, Section IV.): "A man, finding a watch or any
other machine in a desert island, would conclude that there had once
been men in that island." And again (Id. Section V.): "A man who should
find in a desert country the remains of pompous buildings, would
conclude that the country had in ancient times been cultivated by
civilized inhabitants but did nothing of this nature occur to him, he
could never form such an inference." The inference is, as Hume says,
from effect to cause--a subject which he is here investigating _more
suo_. To the nature of this inference I have found reason for recurring
more than once.
[16] A striking peculiarity of this skeleton is thus described by
Professor Huxley ("Manual of the Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals,"
p. 217). "In many _Lacertilia_ (_Lacertæ_, _Iguanæ_, _Geckos_) the
caudal vertebræ have a very singular structure, the middle of each
being traversed by a thin, unossified, transverse septum. The vertebra
naturally breaks with great readiness through the plane of the septum,
and when such lizards are seized by the tail, that appendage is pretty
certain to part at one of these weak points."
[l] "God," says Dogberry, "is a good Man." So others besides Dogberry.
Curiously enough, the charge of Anthropomorphism has been brought by
a most eminent naturalist against the greatest authorities on Natural
Selection.
M. Edouard Claparède writes as follows in the "Archives des Sciences
Physiques et Naturelles" for 1870:--
"Mon but est seulement de montrer que les armes dont M. Wallace se sert
victorieusement pour attaquer le duc d'Argyll, se retournent contre
lui-même. Sans doute, c'est un pur anthropomorphisme que de supposer
chez un Créateur un sentiment du Beau entièrement semblable au nôtre,
et une telle hypothèse n'a rien à faire avec la science. Mais cet
autre anthropomorphisme par lequel les Darwinistes supposent chez les
oiseaux un sens du Beau identique au nôtre, est il plus justifié? Soit
M. Darwin, soit M. Wallace, expliquent la formation de la belle voix
et du beau plumage chez les oiseaux mâles par sélection sexuelle. Les
femelles sont censées donner toujours la préférence aux mâles, qui,
au point de vue humain, ont la plus belle voix et les plus brillantes
couleurs. Au contraire, chez toutes les espèces à cri désagrèable
pour l'oreille humaine et à couleur sombre, la nature du cri comme de
la couleur a dû sa formation à une autre forme de sélection que la
sélection sexuelle. Quel oubli de l'antique dicton: _De gustibus et
coloribus non est disputandum_! Si ce dicton a été reconnu vrai chez
toutes les nations civilisées, il acquiert une force bien autrement
grande lorsqu'il s'agit de son application à des oiseaux. Serait il
absurde de supposer chez certains oiseaux un goût prononcé pour les
couleurs sombres, comme ce goût existe chez beaucoup d'hommes? Et alors
ne devient-il pas possible, contrairement à MM. Darwin et Wallace,
d'expliquer la couleur terne de certaines espèces par sélection
sexuelle? N'en peut-il pas être de même pour la voix criarde de tel ou
tel volatile? Certes, il est dangereux de baser un édifice sur quelque
chose d'aussi subjectif qu'un sentiment, quelque soit du reste la
nature de l'être chez lequel on le suppose plus ou moins gratuitement,
oiseau ou Créateur!" (pp. 175-6.)
[m] If any one desires to see how early and how persistently this
difficulty attached itself to the Design Analogy, I may be permitted to
refer him to a thin volume of my own, entitled "Right and Wrong," pp.
17-22 (text and notes), and Appendix, pp. 58-60.
A similar Dualism (coupled with the charge of Anthropomorphism) is
frequently urged against Natural Theology at the present day. The
alternative proposed has been called Monism. The fixed unyielding realm
of Abiology (inorganic nature) is taken as the type of the universe.
The sole supposable Divine principle (or Spirit) is identified with
its law, which is in turn pronounced identical with philosophical
necessity--that is to say, a necessity not imposed by or flowing from
the Divine will, but a necessity which annihilates the possibility of
all will. The Divine principle thus supposed is simply that law or
force which is embodied in the mechanism of the universe.
Professor Haeckel of Jena is the author of a book which has been styled
in Germany, "The Bible of Darwinism." The following passages will show
how he treats the subject under consideration in the text. He writes
(Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, Book II. cap. vi. sec. 2, "On
Creation") to the following effect:--
"THE CONCEPTION OF CREATION is either altogether unimaginable,
or at least perfectly inconsistent with that pure intuition of Nature
founded on an empirical basis. In Abiology a creation is no longer
anywhere spoken of at all, and it is in Biology only that people are
still closely wrapped up in this error. The conception of creation
is perfectly unimaginable, if by it is understood 'an origination of
something out of nothing.' This acceptation is quite incompatible
with one of the first and chiefest of Nature's laws--one, indeed,
universally acknowledged--namely, with the great law, that ALL
MATTER IS ETERNAL." (Vol. i. p. 171.)
There is one general reflection which may fairly strike the honest
and ingenuous mind respecting the difficulties thus "Now if the
conception of such an immaterial force, discoverable exterior to
matter, independent of, yet nevertheless acting upon it, is absolutely
inadmissible and inconceivable in itself, then so, too, becomes the
conception of a creative power from our point of view; and all the
more so, since with it are united the most untenable teleological
conceptions, and the most palpable Anthropomorphism."... "In all these
teleological conceptions, and similarly in all histories of creation
which the poetical phantasy of men has produced, gross Anthropomorphism
is so evident, that we may leave the denial of this Creation-idea
to the insight of any general reader who thinks for himself, and is
not too far involved in traditional prejudices."... "A creation of
organisms is, therefore, partly quite unimaginable, partly in such
complete contradiction to all knowledge of nature empirically gained,
that we cannot in any case allow ourselves to end by accepting this
hypothesis. There remains, consequently, nothing else but to suppose a
spontaneous origination of the simplest organisms, from which all more
perfect ones developed themselves by gradual metamorphosis--that is to
say, a self-forming or self-configuration of matter into organization,
which is generally called primordial production or spontaneous
generation (_generatio æquivoca_). (Ibid. 173-4.)
Haeckel commences his section upon Dualism and Monism (Book I. cap. iv.
section 6), with the following quotation from August Schleicher (die
Darwinische Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft: Weimar, 1863, p. 8):--
"The tendency of modern thought is undeniably towards _Monism_.
_Dualism_--whether you are pleased to define it as the contrast of
spirit and nature, of contents and form, of appearance and reality--is
no longer a firm ground to stand upon, if we wish to survey the
field of modern science. To the latter there is no matter without
spirit (_i.e._ without the unavoidable necessity that governs it),
nor, on the other hand, is there any spirit without matter. We might
say, perhaps, that there is neither matter nor spirit in the usual
acceptation of the words, but only a something which is the one and
the other at the same time. To charge this view--which is founded on
observation--with materialism, is equally unjust as to lay it at the
door of spiritualism."
Haeckel concludes this section by avowing an unalterable conviction of
the truth of Monism, with which his mind is thoroughly penetrated.
The extracts above given will explain the value of those distinctions
respecting Law and Causation, which are drawn in the latter part of
this chapter. The wider subject pertains, however, to Chapter V., where
it is discussed at some length.
[17] Many readers may be pleased by a perusal of Lord Brougham's
"Dissertation on the Origin of Evil." It gives an account of
various hypotheses, and ends with some interesting remarks. See his
"Dissertations on Subjects of Science connected with Natural Theology,"
vol. ii.
[18] Even Lord Brougham, whom no one will accuse of a too ardent
addiction to metaphysical pursuits, chides Paley very severely for
this neglect. Dr. Whewell's censure is more grave. Passages from these
criticisms are given in Additional Note A, with some explanations which
may conduce to a clear insight of what is meant by bad metaphysics,
particularly in relation to the subject before us.
[19] Compare the figure employed in Rev. xxi. 1.
[n] There seems little doubt that the popular phrase "Design proves
a Designer" has given rise to an extensive distrust of the Design
argument _in toto_. Compare Additional Note B.
[o] Another shape of the objection is stated and examined in Additional
Note C.
[20] Essay on the "Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy," Ed. 2, p. 174.
The italics and capitals are Professor Powell's.
[p] Were Paley now alive, he might plead the example of Mr. Darwin,
whose practice it is to speak of any incidental chasm occasioned by
the link sometimes missing from his premises, as "not a long step."
"Mr. Darwin's argument," says a reviewer of his "Descent of Man," "is
a continuous conjugation of the potential mood. It rings the changes
on 'can have been,' 'might have been,' 'would have been,' 'should
have been,' until it leaps with a wide bound into 'must have been.'"
(_Times_, April 8, 1871.) Any similarity between the reasonings of
the Archdeacon and the Naturalist may appear noteworthy. But the
coincidence ends here. Paley, though reproved by a Lord Chancellor, had
the good fortune to be excused by a Bishop. There is a short account
of both censure and defence in the notes to Powell's "Connection of
Natural and Divine Truth," pp. 287-9.
[21] P. 177.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Pp. 175-6.
[25] Putting aside workmanship exercised on given material, we may
perceive a gliding of thought from the idea of plan, form, or fashion,
to adaptation, and so onwards to purpose and intention--that is,
conscious adaptation to a designed end.
[26] "Sämmtliche Werke," vol. II., pp. 51, 52.
[27] "Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth," pp. 183-4.
[28] See the work last quoted, pp. 287-9. The Professor substantially
agrees with Lord Brougham's censure before referred to, and considers
Dr. Turton's defence of Paley an insufficient apology.
[29] "Essays and Reviews," 8vo. p. 125.
[q] The general reader may reasonably feel a difficulty in assigning
their proper meaning to terms used in senses so technical. He may
possibly be assisted by looking over the field of view thus:--A Force
is visible to us as a movement in Nature;--when we try to formulate it
intelligently to ourselves, its mental equivalent is Law. If, then,
we wish to describe an intelligent præ-conception of Law (such as
distinctly involves the Foresight of its operation) we call the Law
a Creative Idea, or (less definitely) a Design. Tracing the chain of
causation in the reverse or downward direction, the Idea when put in
movement appears to our mind's eye as Law; and when we wish to include
its actual working upon the realm of Nature we term it a Force.
Both James Mill and his son (a truly affectionate annotator), are
careful to point out that the essence of moral causation involves
Intention--that is (as Mr. Mill explains), Foresight, or expectation of
consequences.--"Analysis of the Human Mind," II., 400, 401.
It should be observed that in many branches of Natural Science the
word Law is so employed as to include the conception of Force. Law
is in this usage not merely a logical formula expressive of realized
facts, but it involves the idea of the coercion or impellent motion
which brought those facts into being. "Thus, then," says Dr. Carpenter,
"whilst no Law, which is simply _a generalisation of phenomena_, can be
considered as having any _coercive_ action, we may assign that value
to Laws which express _the universal conditions of the action of a
Force_, the existence of which we learn from the testimony of our own
consciousness." He had before remarked that "it is the substitution of
the Dynamical for the mere Phenomenal idea, which gives their highest
value to our conceptions of the Order of Nature."--_Address to British
Association at Brighton, August, 1872._ This _Order_ of Nature, as the
learned President says in conclusion, is no "sufficient account of its
_Cause_."
[30] See how the matter appears to a Satirist:--"By the great variety
of theories here alluded to, every one of which, if thoroughly
examined, will be found surprisingly consistent in all its parts; my
unlearned readers will perhaps be led to conclude that the creation
of a world is not so difficult a task as they at first imagined. I
have shown at least a score of ingenious methods in which a world
could be constructed; and I have no doubt that had any of the
philosophers above quoted the use of a good manageable comet, and the
philosophical warehouse, _chaos_, at his command, he would engage
to manufacture a planet as good, or, if you will take his word for
it, better than this we inhabit." Such is the dictum of the profound
Knickerbocker,--"History of New York," 8vo, p. 16. His variety
of theories concludes with that of "the renowned Dr. Darwin," of
Lichfield. If the history were brought down to our day, additional
variety might be given to this part of it.
[r] It is upon this confusion that Powell charges Pantheistic theories
in which physical speculations are mistakenly supposed to have their
natural termination. See Additional Note D, where the passage to which
more than one reference has already been made, is given _in extenso_.
Compare also our Chapter VI. on Causation.
[31] Essay as above, p. 165.
[32] The signification attached by the Professor to Law and Cause may
be most readily explained by a similitude. Let the physical series of
antecedents and consequents be represented by a chain of which we see
the present links, but both its beginning and its end are invisible.
Physical law is this chain. Cause must not be considered its first
link, for Cause differs in _kind_ from the series, is in truth _sui
generis_, and can be illustrated by no physical phenomenon, but by
the fact of our own Moral Volition. Cause, therefore, is external to
the chain, and originates, not only the first, but every link of it.
Each and all--nay, the universal chain in its entirety--may be viewed
as owing its existence to one single fiat of an absolute moral Cause.
Compare on this subject Chapters VI. and VII. ensuing.
[33] Essay, pp. 155, 173. It should, however, be observed that
Sterling's language has been interpreted two opposite ways, and
therefore the obscurity may be verbal. Coleridge's expressions have
regard to certain "so-called _Demonstrations_." His own judgment as to
the cumulative proofs of Theism was that "there are so many convincing
reasons for it, within and without--a grain of sand sufficing, and
a whole universe at hand to echo the decision!--that for every mind
not devoid of all reason, and desperately conscience-proof, the
Truth which it is the least possible to prove, it is little less
than impossible not to believe; only indeed just so much short of
impossible, as to leave some room for the will and the moral election,
and thereby to keep it a truth of religion, and the possible subject of
a commandment."--_Aids to Reflection_, Edition 1843, Vol. I. p. 135.
First and rare edition, p. 177.
[34] "There is thus no alternative, but either to abandon the inquiry
after an immediate intuition of power, or to seek for it in _mind
as determining its own modifications_; a course open to those who
admit an immediate consciousness of self, and to them only. My first
and only presentation of power or causality is thus to be found in
my consciousness of _myself as willing_. In every act of volition,
I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form the resolution
or to abstain; and this constitutes the presentative consciousness
of free-will and of power. Like any other simple idea, it cannot
be defined; and hence the difficulty of verbally distinguishing
causation from mere succession. But every man who has been conscious
of an act of will, has been conscious of power therein; and to one
who has not been so conscious, no verbal description can supply the
deficiency."--_Prolegomena Logica_, p. 151.
[s] It seems singular that this rise of thought has of late years
seldom been explicitly put forward as the natural continuation and
necessary extension of the argument from Design. "He that planted the
ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?... He
that teacheth man knowledge, _shall not He know?_" In other words, if
we may argue from the structure of the eye and ear to an Intelligence
which comprehends our sense-perceptions, their conditions, and their
activities, may we not always argue from the reason of man to an
Intelligence comprehending our highest human endowments?
If so, we reflect these attributes back upon our explanation of the
natural world. We say, further, that such a Creator would never make a
mere _machine_. Humanity was a necessary complement of all that is set
under Man. And thus Francis Bacon's aphorism may be applied in a double
sense,--Man not only interprets Nature to himself--but he affords in
himself a text for her more complete interpretation. Nature and Human
Nature are two correlatives.
[35] Take, as example, the scientific theories on Insanity and its
melancholy accompaniments. How many theorizers seem to justify Sir
William Ellis's old observation, that few of his medical brethren ever
got much notion of Mind?
[36] "Natural Theology attempts to demonstrate the existence of a
personal First Cause, supreme Reason, and Will. The relations of
mankind towards such a Being are called Natural Religion."--_Right and
Wrong_, p. 58.
[37] If any one wishes to convince himself that other meanings proposed
are open to serious objections, let him peruse Max Müller's first
Lecture on the Science of Religion.
[38] Compare Additional Note E, on the extent and divisions of the
Science of Natural Theology.
[39] The Soul, p. 32, seq.
[40] Any strictures of ours on the language employed by Natural
Theologians must be understood as appeals from individual or peculiar
usage to world-wide acceptation and old established custom:--
"Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi."
[41] As regards another important word illustrated in this chapter,
it may be useful to add that the term Analogy is often employed in
a wide or rather vague signification; not only by careless writers,
but by philosophers. There is an important passage in Bacon's Plan of
the Instauratio (prefixed to the Novum Organon) which Wood translates
thus:--"The testimony and information of the senses bears always a
relation to man, and not to the universe, and it is altogether a great
mistake to assert that our senses are the measure of things.
The Latin original for "bears a relation" is "est ex analogiâ," but
Mr. Ellis prefers rendering it by "has reference to," and confirms his
decision by comparing two other Latin phrases;--one, "Materia non est
cognoscibilis nisi _ex analogiâ_ formæ"--the other, "Materia non est
scibilis nisi _in ordine_ ad formam;--ut dicit" (adds Thomas Aquinas)
"Philosophus in primo Physicorum." Mr. Ellis subjoins "That the meaning
of the word Analogy was misconceived by S. Thomas, by Duns Scotus, and
by the schoolmen in general, is pointed out by Zabarella, _De prim.
rerum materiâ_, I. 4."
"Philosophus" means Aristotle, who, however, in the passage referred to
is faithful to his own correct definition of Analogy, and his instance
may readily be stated in four terms, as will appear on reference to the
passage (Ed. Bekker 191, a. 8). Argyropylus translates by "similitudine
rationis," and St. Hilaire explains "analogia" for the benefit of the
general reader by "rapport proportionnel"--(Leçons de Physique I. 8, s.
18).
That Bacon was really thus vague in his use of "ex analogiâ" may be
gathered from his substitution of "in ordine ad" as an equivalent in
the closely related passage, Nov. Org. II. 20. Such being the case with
so great a writer, some little allowance may be made for difference of
phrase employed by ordinary reasoners on Natural Theology.
[42] By way of assisting the young student to a clear perception of
what is involved in our Science, we illustrate its ground-work at
considerable length in an additional note (marked F) on Teleology.
[43] "Die rechte Erkenntniss kann sich erst dann einfinden wenn man
weiss wie man erkennt d. h. wenn man seine eigene Natur begriffen hat."
Page 5 of "Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache," von W. H. J. Bleek.
[44] Macaulay's Essays. Ed. 1852, p. 401.
[45] The division of Sciences into ancillary and "architectonic" is
Aristotelian. It seems also founded in the nature of things. That real
science tends to ground itself, strives after unification with kindred
sciences, and, by so doing, rises into philosophy, is a fact visible
in every line and letter of Faraday; and the general reader will find
it exemplified throughout many fascinating pages of Dr. Tyndall's
_Fragments of Science for Unscientific People_, particularly in his
articles on Vitality, the use of the Imagination, and the life of
Faraday, not to mention his own book on the great inductive philosopher.
[46] It is interesting to compare the French-Scotch, and German-Scotch
types of intellect. The former flowered in the Stuart men and in
David Hume. The latter produced such diversely graven characters
as Sir William Hamilton and Mr. Carlyle. Hume's natural acuteness
received a subtle refinement from his Jesuit educators at La Flêche.
But his intellectual bent and determination was given by the French
parlour-philosophy, which heralded Rousseau and Robespierre. Hume's
well-known face is a truthful index to his mind. If compared with
Kant's, the lesson is obvious to even an unskilled physiognomist.
Self-complacency beams over every feature.
[47] No doubt the actual course of Hume's philosophising was determined
by his zeal against everything he deemed superstitious. It was this
dominant motive which made him less a calm philosopher than a skilful
advocate, and laid him open to the influences of the French Deism of
his period. How strong the tendency was we may infer from the following
anecdote, which occurs in an account of his declining days by his
friend and admirer, Dr. Adam Smith (pp. 47-50):--
Hume had been "reading a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the
Dead: among all the excuses which are alleged to Charon for not
entering readily into his boat, he could not find one that fitted
him. He then diverted himself with inventing several jocular excuses,
which he supposed he might make to Charon, and with imagining the very
surly answers which it might suit the character of Charon to return to
them. 'Upon further consideration,' said he, 'I thought I might say to
him, Good Charon, I have been correcting my works for a new edition.
Allow me a little time that I may see how the Public receives the
alterations.' But Charon would answer, 'When you have seen the effect
of these, you will be for making other alterations. There will be no
end of such excuses; so, honest friend, please step into the boat.'
But I might still urge, 'Have a little patience, good Charon; I have
been endeavouring to open the eyes of the Public. If I live a few years
longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of
the prevailing systems of superstition.' But Charon would then lose all
temper and decency. 'You loitering rogue, that will not happen these
many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a
term? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy loitering rogue!'"
[48] The "Treatise" was written during his youthful three years'
residence in France, chiefly at La Flêche. Hume was twenty-seven years
old when he published it. See "Life," pp. 6 and 7, and Burton's _Life
of Hume_, Vol. I. pp. 57-124.
[49] This work, the least known of all Hume's writings, but not the
least original, is here cited in the not uncommon reprint 2 vols. 8vo,
1817.
[50] It is curious to compare with both Hume and Bacon a brief
dictum of S. T. Coleridge. Biog. Lit., last chapter. "Poor unlucky
Metaphysics! And what are they? A single sentence expresses the object
and thereby the contents of this science. [Greek: Gnôthi seauton]: et
Deum quantum licet et in Deo omnia scibis. Know thyself: and so shalt
thou know God, as far as is permitted to a creature, and in God all
things. Surely there is a strange--nay, rather a too natural--aversion
in many to know themselves." "People," says Guesses at Truth, "can
seldom brook contradiction, except within themselves."
[51] Compare Advancement. B. II. with De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iii.
[52] De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv.
[53] Advancement. B. II. (Ed. Basil Montague, Vol. II. p. 134). It is
generally an advantage to quote from the enlarged Treatise, the De
Augmentis, but in some places the Advancement is more simple and more
full.
[54] De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv. init.
[55] De Augmentis. B. III. Chap. iv. Ellis and Spedding, iv. 362.
[56] "The cone and vertical point" itself is "the work which God
worketh,"--("summariam nempe Naturæ legem")--and "it may fairly be
doubted whether man's inquiry can attain to it. But these three are
the true stages of knowledge." De Augmentis, as before. So too in his
_Valerius_ he speaks of this "highest generality of motion or summary
law of Nature" as reserved by God "within His own curtain."
[57] The great thinker speaks of it as made up in part "of the common
principles and axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent to
several Sciences;" in part "of the inquiry touching the operation of
the relative and adventitious conditions of Essences, as quantity,
similitude, diversity, possibility, and the rest." These he terms
"Transcendentals," and they form a highest kind of philosophical
arrangements, "with this distinction and provision, that they be
handled as they have efficiency in Nature and not logically."
His instances of common principles show how very vaguely this idea
of the first division floated before his mind. Some of them are
axioms mathematically certain and true in more than one province of
philosophy, others are generalized truths obtained by experience or by
comparison of objects diverse in appearance, but to his mind identical
or very similar. Among these latter occurs his celebrated saying, that
"the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music is the same with
the playing of light upon the water";--a thought that haunts us by the
seaside and on the shore of mountain lakes while listening to some
sweet voice or clear-toned instrument.
From his philosophical arrangements Bacon takes away inquiries into the
One, the Good, and the Divine, and assigns them to Natural Theology.
[58] Translation of the De Augmentis in Ellis and Spedding. Vol. iv. p.
346.
[59] Nov. Org. E. and S., iv. 120.
[60] De Augmentis. E. and S., iv. 362.
[61] Kitchin. Nov. Org. p. 134. But Mr. Kitchin believes that could
Bacon have witnessed the actual progress of science, it would have
led him to recognize the usefulness of Final Causes, in the field of
physical inquiry, and by way of illustration proceeds to quote "the
famous case of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood from
the consideration of the Final Causes of the valves in the veins of the
animal body." (Ibid. p. 135.)
[62] Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind. Vol. ii. pp. 310, 11.
[63] In a volume of philosophical Romance some unknown Gulliver
of the 19th century bestows many pages of pleasant satire on the
Utilitarian principle, assumed as a maxim of social life and pushed
to its ultimate conclusions. The author travels into the country of
Nowhere (Erewhon), and learns by personal experience, first in a
prison, and next in the house of a princely swindler Senoj Nosnibor
(_alias_ Jones Robinson) those true laws of Sociology which best
subserve the great final end--the noble object laid down by Mr. Mill.
Ill-health is made criminal. Immorality counts as being out of sorts.
The former is an object of penal justice, the latter of condolence
joined with alterative discipline. The swindler sends for his family
"straightener," and gets well amidst the sympathy of his friends;
the consumptive is condemned to imprisonment and hard labour for the
rest of his miserable days. And this is reasonable in itself, and
justified by the results,--the Erewhonians possess the finest physique
in the world, and rob and embezzle only when they happen to feel
tempted. Our traveller himself, though full of old-fashioned moral
prejudices, becomes convinced by contemplating the great final cause.
"That dislike," he observes, "and even disgust should be felt by the
fortunate for the unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been
discovered to have met with any of the more serious and less familiar
misfortunes, is not only natural, but desirable for any society,
whether of man or brute: what progress either of body or soul had been
otherwise possible?"--and again, "I write with great diffidence, but
it seems to me that there is no unfairness in punishing people for
their misfortunes or rewarding them for their sheer good luck: it is
the normal condition of human life that this should be done, and no
right-minded person will complain at being subjected to the common
treatment. There is no alternative open to us. It is idle to say that
men are not responsible for their misfortunes. What is responsibility?
Surely to be responsible means to be liable to have to give an answer
should it be demanded, and all things which live are responsible for
their lives and actions, should society see fit to question them
through the mouth of its authorised agent. What is the offence of a
lamb that we should rear it, and tend it, and lull it into security,
for the express purpose of killing it? Its offence is the misfortune
of being something which society wants to eat, and which cannot defend
itself. This is ample. Who shall limit the right of society except
society itself? And what consideration for the individual is tolerable
unless society be the gainer thereby?" Erewhon, pp. 85, 86, and 100,
101.
These sentiments considered, the reader will not be surprised to learn
that our author, after a preparatory college training in the main
doctrines of Self-interest--to wit, Evasion and Inconsistency--ends
happily and usefully for himself by the successful abduction of his
host's daughter--and by advertising a propaganda of certain European
manners and observances unknown in Erewhon, to be carried out by
kidnapping its healthy inhabitants and training them properly on our
sugar plantations. What genuine disciple of Utilitarianism can conceive
a brighter moral triumph than the union of private self-interest with
the interested aims of a great sugar-growing people? Matter-of-fact
Baconians may argue that Utility substitutes a misplaced and one-sided
"why" for the "what" required by Moralists,--but our traveller's
answer is plain--he argues on _data_;--given the premises--his is the
inevitable conclusion. The defence of the former will be an interest
to plenty of people--philosophic and unphilosophic. Leave the data to
them; or if necessary make a further appeal to the religious aims of
society. In Erewhon the great feminine Divinity Ydgrun is supreme; she
is sovereign amongst ourselves also;--only we twist her name and call
the Goddess "Grundy."
[64] Preface to the Philosophical Works. pp. 56, 57.
[65] Works. Vol. i. p. 167.
[66] De Augmentis. iii. 5. init.
[67] Dr. Whewell rises into poetry--yet is not more poetical than
the philosopher on whom he thus comments. "If he" (Bacon) "had had
occasion to develop his simile, full of latent meaning as his similes
so often are, he would probably have said, that to these final causes
barrenness was no reproach, seeing they ought to be, not the mothers
but the daughters of our natural sciences; and that they were barren,
not by imperfection of their nature, but in order that they might
be kept pure and undefiled, and so fit ministers in the temple of
God."--_Bridgewater Treatise._ B. III. Ch. vii. sub. fin.
[68] It is a pleasure to confirm this paragraph by a definition of
Design taken from a writer who must be frequently quoted in these
pages, because his philosophy is of unusually wide scope, and embraces
the mixed sciences employed by a natural theologian:--"We direct our
thoughts to an action which we are about to perform; we _intend_ to
do it: we make it our _aim_: we place it before us, and act with
_purpose_ (_propositum_): we _design_ it, or mark it out beforehand
(_designo_)."--_Whewell's Elements of Morality_, Book I., Chap. i., p.
7.
[69] The Soul, p. 35.
[70] _Right and Wrong_, p. 31.
[71] Dans plusieurs passages de ses écrits, quand il insiste avec le
plus de force sur l'impossibilité où est la raison humaine d'atteindre
à la certitude, il semble tout près d'accepter la révélation divine
comme source de certaines grandes verités que nous ne saurions
repousser, quoiqu'il ne nous soit pas possible de les démontrer. Un
soir qu'à Paris il soupait chez le baron d'Holbach, on vint à parler de
la religion naturelle; Hume déclara que pour sa part il n'avait jamais
rencontré d'athée. On sait la réponse de son hôte. "Parbleu, vous avez
de la chance; pour la première fois vous en rencontrez dix-sept du même
coup." Hume ne demanda point à être compté comme le dix-huitième. Dix
ans auparavant, il se trouvait à Londres lorsque lui arriva la nouvelle
de la mort de sa mère; son ami Boyle, frère du comte de Glasgow, témoin
de la douleur profonde où le jeta cette perte, exprima le regret qu'il
ne pût trouver de consolation dans les croyances chrétiennes sur la
destinée des justes et sur la vie future. "Ah! mon ami," dit Hume
en sanglotant, "je peux bien publier mes spéculations pour occuper
les savans et les métaphysiciens; mais ne croyez pas que je sois si
loin que vous le supposez de penser comme le reste des hommes." _Deux
Mondes_, 1856, Vol. VI., pp. 118, 19. The latter anecdote will be found
in _Burton_ at rather greater length. Vol. I. 293, 4.
[72] These Dialogues were posthumously published in obedience to their
author's will. Hume had kept the MS. by him for twenty-seven years,
and had corrected it from time to time, yet had delayed publication
from deference to the judgment of his friends. He directed his literary
executor, Adam Smith, to publish the Dialogues within two years of his
death; but, in consequence of Smith's distaste for the task, this duty
devolved upon Hume's nephew. They were printed in 1779 translated into
German in 1781, and commented on by Jacobi in 1787.
Lowndes states that these Dialogues were not republished with the
"Essays," but is mistaken in saying so. They appear at the end of
Vol. II. in the 8vo. Edition of 1788. As this is not an uncommon or
expensive book, I quote its paging. The quantity of matter extends only
through 113 8vo. pages, and reference will not be difficult in any
other Edition.
It seems true that the Dialogues were withdrawn from later reprints
of the Essays. They appear to have been considered particularly
objectionable; but there is no doubt that they express Hume's most
deliberate and matured convictions, and thus become to fair inquirers
particularly valuable. It must, however, be added that Hume valued
himself on a conservatism of opinion. Comparing, when forty years old,
his recent Essays with his Treatise "planned before I was twenty-one
and composed before twenty-five," he says, "The philosophical
principles are the same in both; but I was carried away by the heat of
youth and invention to publish too precipitately." _Burton_, I. 337.
[73] There can be no doubt that Cleanthes is meant for the
representative man, both from the tenor of the Dialogue itself and
from a letter to Sir Gilbert Elliot, of Minto, given by _Burton_, I.
331-6. The following extracts may be acceptable to the reader:--"You
would perceive by the sample I have given you, that I make Cleanthes
the hero of the dialogue: whatever you can think of, to strengthen that
side of the argument, will be most acceptable to me. Any propensity you
imagine I have to the other side, crept in upon me against my will; and
'tis not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book, wrote before
I was twenty, which contained, page after page, the gradual progress
of my thoughts on that head. It began with an anxious search after
arguments, to confirm the common opinion; doubts stole in, dissipated,
returned; were again dissipated, returned again; and it was a perpetual
struggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhaps against
reason.... I could wish Cleanthes' argument could be so analyzed, as
to be rendered quite formal and regular. The propensity of the mind
towards it,--unless that propensity were as strong and universal
as that to believe in our senses and experience,--will still, I am
afraid, be esteemed a suspicious foundation. 'Tis here I wish for your
assistance; we must endeavour to prove that this propensity is somewhat
different from our inclination to find our own figures in the clouds,
our faces in the moon, our passions and sentiments even in inanimate
matter. Such an inclination may, and ought to be controlled, and can
never be a legitimate ground of assent.
"The instances I have chosen for Cleanthes are, I hope, tolerably
happy, and the confusion in which I represent the sceptic seems
natural, but--si quid novisti rectius, etc.... He (Cleanthes)
allows, indeed, in part 2nd, that all our inference is founded on
the similitude of the works of nature to the usual effects of mind,
otherwise they must appear a mere chaos. The only difficulty is, why
the other assimilations do not weaken the argument; and indeed it would
seem from experience and feeling, that they do not weaken it so much as
we might naturally expect."
It seems clear on the whole, that, so far as _Physico-Theology_ went,
Hume was not ill qualified for a Natural Theologian. All the more so
perhaps, because, while seeing the difficulties which attach themselves
to this kind of argument, he pronounced it to hold conclusively at last.
[74] The following quotation is from the _Treatise_ "composed before
twenty-five":--"Nor does this reasoning only prove, that morality
consists not in any relations, that are the objects of science; but
if examined, will prove with equal certainty, that it consists not in
any _matter of fact_, which can be discovered by the understanding.
This is the _second_ part of our argument; and if it can be made
evident, we may conclude, that morality is not an object of reason.
But can there be any difficulty in proving, that vice and virtue are
not matters of fact, whose existence we can infer by reason?... So
that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you
mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a
feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and
virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold,
which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects,
but perceptions in the mind: and this discovery in morals, like that
other in physics, is to be regarded as a considerable advancement of
the speculative sciences; though, like that too, it has little or no
influence on practice." _Treatise_, Book III., part 1, Vol. II., 170, 1.
This 3rd Book of the _Treatise_ was not printed till Hume was in his
30th year; and he felt some hesitation respecting the latter paragraph.
"Is not this," he asks Hutcheson, "laid a little too strong? I desire
your opinion of it, though I cannot entirely promise to conform myself
to it. I wish from my heart I could avoid concluding, that since
morality, according to your opinion, as well as mine, is determined
merely by sentiment, it regards only human nature and human life.... If
morality were determined by reason, that is the same to all rational
beings; but nothing but experience can assure us that the sentiments
are the same. What experience have we with regard to superior beings?
How can we ascribe to them any sentiments at all? They have implanted
those sentiments in us for the conduct of life like our bodily
sensations, which they possess not themselves." (_Burton_, I. 119.) The
paragraph was, however, published; and helped by consequence to foster
in its author's mind that Utilitarian theory of morals respecting
which many late writers have been only Hume's copyists. In this very
_Treatise_ he did in fact apply that theory to the most important of
Social questions (see same Bk., Pt. II. Sec. 12, more especially p.
299), and was thus led into lax conclusions respecting those bonds
between Man and Woman which underlie the other foundations of Society.
Hume shares this blame with his disciples; for leading Utilitarians are
apt to shew by their own domestic relations that the principle, _when
applied_, results in maxims lower than our present English tone of
thought upon this subject.
But let us suppose that Hume had lived to analyze Rousseau's
Confessions. Would he not have urged with the force of truth, that
to animalize a Man is to destroy his Manhood, to weaken his judgment
and impair his Moral sense? Would he not have argued from Rousseau
the depraved boy, to Rousseau the shopman and footman, and pointed
out that in such cases Truth, Honesty, and Gratitude become mere
names and shadows?--No one could have replied that Hume was wrong in
fact and experience, but some might have said that _all_ which lowers
the supremacy of the Moral sense lowers the Manhood of Man. As Hume
admitted the fact of a Moral sense, he might possibly have felt the
cogency of this argument.
[75] No one who reads Hume's account of his own motives on various
occasions will think it untrue to say that his judgment was largely
influenced by his vanity. Compare for example his well-known letter to
Dr. Blair of December 20th, 1765, with another to the same, dated 1st
July, 1766;--the first a panegyric on the "celebrated Rousseau," the
second a fierce invective against that "blackest and most atrocious
villain." Who can help seeing that the motives of the eulogy are
derived from a series of self-gratulations;--while the cause of the
invective is a sharp wound given to the philosopher's self-love?
[76] In the _Inquiry concerning Human Understanding_, Section XI.,
he puts this case: "As the universe shows wisdom and goodness, we
infer wisdom and goodness. As it shows a particular degree of these
perfections, we infer a particular degree of them, precisely adapted
to the effect which we examine. But farther attributes or farther
degrees of the same attributes, we can never be authorized to infer or
suppose, by any rules of just reasoning." The argument of this section
upon which Hume's limitations are based, is put into the mouth of a
representative Epicurus; it is acute even to extreme subtlety, but it
is also suicidal. The restraints applied to what he explains as the
argument from effects to cause, and conversely down again from cause
to other effects, cannot be maintained without dealing a death blow
at the Inductive Philosophy. How little do we know of the material
Universe, yet we apply the principle of gravitation to the Whole, seen
and unseen. By its aid we find masses of radiant matter previously
unknown, and predict events long before they are phenomenally apparent.
The vast power of _extending_ knowledge which the Inductive principle
asserts, will occur for our investigation in Chapter IV. Another
Epicurean position contained in this same Section XI. has been quoted
in a previous note, together with Hume's own reply to it; see pp. 101,
2 _ante_.
A criticism of Hume's Tenth and Eleventh sections occupies a long note
appended by Lord Brougham to his "Discourse on Natural Theology"--a
volume I suppose accessible to almost all students of the science.
[77] The word Creation must here be construed strictly, so as to
signify a true Beginning;--the idea that is of a law-governed _materies
mundi_, a substantial force, and movement evoked into primary Existence.
The prospect of final change yet to be, is thus similarly connected by
a living philosopher (Helmholtz) with the history of our world's Past:--
"We estimate the duration of human History at 6,000 years; but
immeasurable as this time may appear to us, what is it in comparison
with the time during which the earth carried successive series of
rank plants and mighty animals, and no men; during which in our
neighbourhood the amber-tree bloomed, and dropped its costly gum on
the earth and in the sea; when in Siberia, Europe, and North America
groves of tropical palms flourished; where gigantic lizards, and after
them elephants, whose mighty remains we still find buried in the
earth, found a home? Different geologists, proceeding from different
premises, have sought to estimate the duration of the above-named
creative period, and vary from a million to nine million years.----The
time during which the earth generated organic beings is again small
when compared with the ages during which the world was a ball of fused
rocks. For the duration of its cooling from 2,000° to 200° Centigrade
the experiments of Bishop upon basalt show that about 350 millions of
years would be necessary.----And with regard to the time during which
the first nebulous mass condensed into our planetary system, our most
daring conjectures must cease. The history of man, therefore, is but
a short ripple in the ocean of time.----For a much longer series of
years than that during which he has already occupied this world, the
existence of the present state of inorganic nature favourable to the
duration of man seems to be secured, so that for ourselves and for
long generations after us we have nothing to fear. But the same forces
of air and water, and of the volcanic interior, which produced former
geological revolutions, and buried one series of living forms after
another, act still upon the earth's crust. They more probably will
bring about the last day of the human race than those distant cosmical
alterations of which we have spoken, forcing us perhaps to make way for
new and more complete living forms, as the lizards and the mammoth have
given place to us and our fellow-creatures which now exist.
"Thus the thread which was spun in darkness by those who sought a
perpetual motion has conducted us to a universal law of nature, which
radiates light into the distant nights of the beginning and of the
end of the history of the universe. To our own race it permits a long
but not an endless existence; it threatens it with a day of judgment,
the dawn of which is still happily obscured. As each of us singly
must endure the thought of his death, the race must endure the same.
But above the forms of life gone by, the human race has higher moral
problems before it, the bearer of which it is, and in the completion
of which it fulfils its destiny." Helmholtz, _Popular Lectures on
Scientific Subjects_, p. 191, seq.
The distinguished German had just before observed, "Even though the
force store of our planetary system is so immensely great ... still
the inexorable laws of mechanics indicate that this store of force,
which can only suffer loss and not gain, must be finally exhausted."
On the subject of such vast cosmical changes, the reader may like to
peruse the remarks of _Littré_ in his most recent volume--"Les choses,
ou, pour mieux dire, nos choses sont d'hier, dût cet hier comporter de
prodigieuses durées.
"Cette nouveauté est un témoignage que notre monde, notre univers,
auront une fin. Ce qui a commencé doit finir, la raison le dit, et
toutes nos connaissances physiques le confirment. Le soleil et les
étoiles se refroidissent incessamment, versant dans les espaces une
chaleur qui ne leur revient jamais. Quelque chauds qu'ils soient,
ils le sont chaque jour un peu moins, le calorique s'y épuisera;
ils s'éteindront, comme déjà leurs planètes se sont éteintes. Que
deviendront ces masses animées d'un mouvement rapide? Nul ne peut le
dire. Mais il suffirait d'un choc entre elles pour y transformer un
prodigieux mouvement en une prodigieuse incandescence, et y renouveler
un cycle de chaleur et d'expansion.
"Ce serait se perdre en vaines et gratuites hypothèses, que de spéculer
sur ce que deviendra notre univers quand il aura pris fin, comme de
spéculer sur ce qu'il fut avant qu'il eût pris commencement." Littré,
_La Science_, pp. 560, 1.
There are thinkers who believe that these cycles, immeasurable to Man,
took their governing laws from a supreme Designer. They will be aided
by Helmholtz and Littré in shaping their ideas of His far-reaching
wisdom and power. There are also thinkers who find within their own
inward Being a consciousness of kinship with the Source of Causation,
so infinitely beyond cycles apparently infinite. How great then the
value of human Spirits bearing His likeness, and with it a promise
of surviving the period when our world's cycles shall vanish away in
Space--to be replaced by other hereditary cycles, or to be remembered
no more for ever!
[78] This article has been lately reprinted in a volume of "Critiques
and Addresses," and Leibniz's censure of Newton will be found on p.
323. It may be convenient for some readers to be informed that the
Correspondence between Clarke and Leibniz to which I have referred will
be found at the end of Erdmann's Opera Leibnitii (Berlin, 1840), a
portable and useful Edition. The sentences quoted by me are on page 747.
[79] J. Müller.
[80] Kant.
[81] Philosophy of Discovery, Chap. XXX. 23, pp. 369-70.
[82] It is necessary to observe the Professor's limitations.
[83] They have been noted before. In this place it is necessary to
examine the following instances.
[84] Critiques, p. 306.
[85] Lay Sermons, p. 373.
[86] Critiques, p. 281.
[87] Ibid. 349.