[188] "A few phrases of Aristotle," says Dr. Brown, (Works I. p. 341,)
"are perhaps even at this moment exercising no small sway on the very
minds which smile at them with scorn." Mr. Carlyle asks, "Do not Books
still accomplish _miracles_, as _Runes_ were fabled to do?... Consider
whether any Rune, in the wildest imagination of Mythologist, ever did
such wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some Books have done."
_Heroes_, p. 252.
[189] No writer has ever dwelt more on this truth than Coleridge, and
no writer ever had a stronger reason for dwelling upon it. Perhaps the
ordinary public has seldom been more unjust than in its estimate of
Coleridge's addiction to opium. The occasion of his first use of it
was a venial error, his servitude was heavy, and the account of his
sufferings and struggles most deeply affecting. Then, his final victory
(respecting which so little is generally said) was a very noble moral
achievement.
[ao] Men have aimed at accomplishing their purpose partly by training
animals, and partly by breeding through select specimens of each race.
The two principles thus relied on are habit and heredity. Respecting
the latter of these a note of considerable length had been intended in
this place. But the reader interested in the general question can learn
sufficient details in Dr. Carpenter's _Mental Physiology_ together with
the authorities therein referred to by him.
The following instances adduced by Mr. Wallace to show how improvement
through heredity is visibly limited are very remarkable. "In the matter
of speed, a limit of a definite kind as regards land animals does exist
in nature. All the swiftest animals--deer, antelopes, hares, foxes,
lions, leopards, horses, zebras, and many others--have reached very
nearly the same degree of speed. Although the swiftest of each must
have been for ages preserved, and the slowest must have perished, we
have no reason to believe there is any advance of speed. The possible
limit under existing conditions, and perhaps under possible terrestrial
conditions, has been long ago reached." He immediately proceeds to
place in contrast with these, some examples where progress is not thus
barred. "In cases, however, where this limit had not been so nearly
reached as in the horse, we have been enabled to make a more marked
advance and to produce a greater difference of form. The wild dog is an
animal that hunts much in company, and trusts more to endurance than to
speed. Man has produced the greyhound, which differs much more from the
wolf or the dingo than the racer does from the wild Arabian. Domestic
dogs, again, have varied more in size and in form than the whole family
of Canidæ in a state of Nature. No wild dog, fox, or wolf, is either
so small as some of the smallest terriers and spaniels, or so large as
the largest varieties of hound or Newfoundland dog. And, certainly, no
two wild animals of the family differ so widely in form and proportions
as the Chinese pug and the Italian greyhound, or the bulldog and the
common greyhound. The known range of variation is, therefore, more than
enough for the derivation of all the forms of Dogs, Wolves, and Foxes
from a common ancestor." Wallace. _Natural Selection_, pp. 292, 3.
Dr. Prichard's accounts of similar variations in his _Natural History
of Man_ and other ethnological works are particularly interesting.
Habit is a topic more germane to the subject of self-training, and is
therefore examined at some length in our text.
It seems natural that the empire of both Habit and Heredity should
be strongest over the purely automatous, and the instinctive or
semi-instinctive actions of mankind. Witness the effect of Caste
institutions, Guilds, and family vocations. Regular occupation struck a
certain visitor to this world as producing a like result:--
"Nimbly," quoth he, "do the fingers move
If a man be but used to his trade."
[ap] "They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man
is of kin to the beast by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by
his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise
magnanimity, and the raising of human nature; for take an example of
a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he
finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God, or
'melior natura'; which courage is manifestly such as that creature,
without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never
attain. So man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon divine
protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith, which human nature
in itself could not obtain'; therefore, as atheism is in all respects
hateful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to
exalt itself above human frailty." Bacon. _Essay on Atheism_, p. 56.
"What joy to watch in lower creature
Such dawning of a moral nature,
And how (the rule all things obey)
They look to a higher mind to be their law and stay!"
_Remains_ of A. H. Hallam, privately printed.
[aq] The difference between brute and Man appeared so vast to Bacon
that, following Telesius in this as in some other respects, he adopted
as a doctrine the duality of the human soul. He maintains it at length
in the _De Augmentis_ iv. 3, a chapter which begins thus:--"Let us
now proceed to the doctrine which concerns the Human Soul, from the
treasures whereof all other doctrines are derived. The parts thereof
are two; the one treats of the rational soul, which is divine; the
other of the irrational, which is common with brutes.... Now this soul
(as it exists in man) is only the instrument of the rational soul, and
has its origin like that of the brutes in the dust of the earth....
For there are many and great excellencies of the human soul above the
souls of brutes, manifest even to those who philosophise according to
the sense. Now wherever the mark of so many and great excellencies is
found, there also a specific difference ought to be constituted; and
therefore I do not much like the confused and promiscuous manner in
which philosophers have handled the functions of the soul; as if the
human soul differed from the spirit of brutes in degree rather than in
kind; as the sun differs from the stars, or gold from metals."
[190] We have it on Coleridge's authority that "Lord Erskine, speaking
of animals, hesitating to call them brutes, hit upon that happy
phrase--'the mute creation.'" Would this were true! exclaims some
invalid, nervously agonized by cats and dogs, cocks and hens, and
listening with horror to their various cries and noises. But strictly
speaking Lord Erskine was right,--for the animal world is mute as far
as real language is concerned. Compare Max Müller on the "Bow-wow
Theory." _Lectures on Language_, Series I. Lecture ix.
[191] The Poet's thought, not more imaginative than true, should be
kept in mind when estimating the difference between gregariousness and
society. If the latter be held a development of the former, it must
have been transformed in the progress of its descent. Where affinities
are really traceable between the human and the unreasoning world, they
may perhaps be referred with greater probability to a common ancestry
than to a lineal pedigree. And the more remote the alleged origin, the
less unlikely it may appear.
[192] "Sir Humphrey Davy, when a boy, was placed under a schoolmaster
who neglected his duties, and adverting to this subject in a letter
addressed to his mother after he was settled in London, he says, 'I
consider it as fortunate that I was left much to myself as a child, and
put on no particular plan of study, and that I enjoyed much idleness
at Mr. Coryton's school. I, perhaps, owe to these circumstances the
little talents I have, and their peculiar application. What I am I made
myself. I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.'"
Brodie's _Psychological Inquiries_, I. 29.
"The regular course of studies, the years of academical and
professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some
idle books under the bench at the Latin School. What we do not call
education is more precious than that which we call so. We form no
guess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative value.
And education often wastes its efforts in attempts to thwart and balk
this natural magnetism, which is sure to select what belongs to it."
Emerson. _Spiritual Laws._
[ar] "We can command Nature only by obeying her; nor can Art avail
anything except as Nature's handmaiden. We can affect the conditions
under which Nature works; but things artificial as well as things
natural are in reality produced Not by Art but Nature. Our power is
merely based upon our knowledge of the procedure which Nature follows.
She is never really thwarted or controlled by our operations, though
she may be induced to depart from her usual course, and under new and
artificial conditions to produce new phenomena and new substances.
"Natural philosophy, considered from this point of view, is therefore
only an answer to the question, How does Nature work in the production
of phenomena?" R. L. Ellis. _Preface to Bacon's Philosophical Works_,
Vol. I. p. 59.
[as] "The philosopher, not less than the poet, postpones the
apparent order and relations of things to the empire of thought.
'The problem of philosophy,' according to Plato, 'is, for all that
exists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute.' It
proceeds on the faith that a law determines all phenomena, which being
known, the phenomena can be predicted. That law, when in the mind, is
an idea. Its beauty is infinite. The true philosopher and the true poet
are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty,
is the aim of both. Is not the charm of one of Plato's or Aristotle's
definitions, strictly like that of the Antigone of Sophocles? It is,
in both cases, that a spiritual life has been imparted to nature; that
the solid seeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a
thought; that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses of
nature with an informing soul, and recognized itself in their harmony,
that is, seized their law. In physics, when this is attained, the
memory disburthens itself of its cumbrous catalogues of particulars,
and carries centuries of observation in a single formula." Emerson.
_Idealism._
"He who studies the concrete and neglects the abstract cannot be called
an interpreter of nature. Such was Bacon's judgment." Robert Leslie
Ellis, in _Bacon's Works_, Vol. I. p. 26.
"If a man's knowledge be confined to the efficient and material causes
(which are unstable causes, and merely vehicles, or causes which
convey the form in certain cases) he may arrive at new discoveries in
reference to substances in some degree similar to one another, and
selected beforehand; but he does not touch the deeper boundaries of
things. But whosoever is acquainted with Forms, embraces the unity of
nature in substances the most unlike; and is able therefore to detect
and bring to light things never yet done, and such as neither the
vicissitudes of nature, nor industry in experimenting, nor accident
itself, would ever have brought into act, and which would never have
occurred to the thought of man. From the discovery of Forms therefore
results truth in speculation and freedom in operation."--Bacon. _Novum
Organon_, Book II. Aph. III.
[at] The problem awaiting the philosophic physicist runs as follows:--
It remains to be seen how closely and with what degree of distinctness,
science can approximate these impalpable forces governing the natural
world, to the forces we are accustomed to call immaterial, because they
become known to us by the activities of Thought and Will.
This problem--the incorporeity of Matter, or a near approach to
it--has been a favourite subject of speculation in all ages. The
curious reader may track it from the pre-and post-Christian Greeks
through Arabian and Jewish philosophies to the Schoolmen (who borrowed
from Jews unknowingly) and so transmitted it down like an heirloom
to our own later controversialists. The subject has been treated on
Metaphysical grounds, for Religious interests, or as a weapon keen
edged in demolishing antagonistic cosmologies. But it has not often
been entertained for purely scientific reasons, and as one of those
so-called "useless questions" which always turn out most prolific
seminal principles, fertile in explaining nature and throwing out
branches in numerous unforeseen directions.
It was thus however and with no side views that the illustrious Faraday
looked at this subject. With what effect may be best learned by putting
together two separate accounts of his reasoning.
In 1844, Dr. Bence Jones informs us Faraday (then in his 53rd year)
indulged in "A speculation respecting that view of the nature of matter
which considers its ultimate atoms as centres of force, and _not as so
many little bodies surrounded by forces_.... The particle, indeed, is
supposed to exist only by these forces, and where they are it is."
This speculation did in fact give a tone to that memorable season--now
thirty years ago.
Dr. Tyndall says:--"On Friday, January 19, 1844, he opened the weekly
evening meetings of the Royal Institution by a discourse entitled 'A
speculation touching Electric Conduction and the nature of Matter.' In
this discourse he not only attempts the overthrow of Dalton's Theory
of Atoms, but also the subversion of all ordinary scientific ideas
regarding the nature and relations of Matter and Force. He objected
to the use of the term atom:--'I have not yet found a mind,' he says,
'that did habitually separate it from its accompanying temptations; and
there can be no doubt that the words definite proportions, equivalent,
primes, etc., which did and do fully express all the _facts_ of what is
usually called the atomic theory in chemistry, were dismissed because
they were not expressive enough, and did not say all that was in the
mind of him who used the word atom in their stead,'" (_Faraday as a
Discoverer_, pp. 119-20.)
And again:--"With his usual courage and sincerity he pushes his view
to its utmost consequences. 'This view of the constitution of matter,'
he continues, 'would seem to involve necessarily the conclusion that
matter fills all space, or at least all space to which gravitation
extends; for gravitation is a property of matter dependent on a certain
force, and it is this force which constitutes the matter. In that view
matter is not merely mutually penetrable; but each atom extends, so to
say, throughout the whole of the solar system, yet always retaining
its own centre of force.'" Faraday "compares the interpenetration of
two atoms to the coalescence of two distinct waves, which though for
a moment blended to a single mass, preserve their individuality, and
afterwards separate." (_Ibid._ pp. 123-4 and note.)
The subject did not easily lose its hold on the philosopher's mind.
"At the Institution," writes Dr. Bence Jones, "he gave eight lectures
after Easter on the phenomena and philosophy of heat. He ended this
course thus:--'We know nothing about matter but its forces--nothing in
the creation but the effect of these forces; further our sensations
and perceptions are not fitted to carry us; all the rest, which we may
conceive we know, is only imagination.' He gave two Friday discourses:
the first on the nature of matter, the other on recent improvements in
the silvering of mirrors.
"His notes of the first lecture begin thus:--'Speculations dangerous
temptations; generally avoid them; but a time to speculate as well
as to refrain, all depends upon the temper of the mind. I was led to
consider the nature of space in relation to electric conduction, and so
of matter, _i.e._ whether _continuous_ or consisting of _particles with
intervening space_, according to its supposed constitution. Consider
this point, _remarking the assumptions everywhere_.
"'_Chemical considerations_ abundant, but almost all _assumption_.
Easy to speak of atomic proportions, multiple proportions, isomeric
and isomorphic phenomena and compound bases; and to account for
effects we have only to hang on to assumed atoms the properties or
arrangement of properties assumed to be sufficient for the purpose.
But the fundamental and main facts are expressed by the term _definite
proportion_,--the rest, including the atomic notion, is assumption.
"'The view that physical chemistry necessarily takes of atoms is now
very large and complicated; first many elementary atoms--next compound
and complicated atoms. System within system, like the starry heavens,
_may be right_--but may _be all wrong_. Thus see how little of general
theory of matter is known as fact, and how _much_ is assumption.
"'Final brooding impression, that particles are only centres of force;
that the force or forces constitute the matter; that therefore there is
no space between the particles distinct from the particles of matter;
that they touch each other just as much in gases as in liquids or
solids; and that they are materially penetrable, probably even to their
very centres. That, for instance, water is not two particles of oxygen
side by side, but two spheres of power mutually penetrated, and the
centres even coinciding.'" Bence Jones--Life of Faraday, Vol. II., pp.
177-78.
These views (best known as Boscovich's theory), though not generally
held in scientific circles, are favoured by Bacon's most able
commentator, Robert Leslie Ellis, and are pronounced by Professor
Huxley a "tenable hypothesis." Mr. Spencer poises the balance as
follows:--"Though the combining weights of the respective elements are
termed by chemists their 'equivalents,' for the purpose of avoiding
a questionable assumption, we are unable to think of the combination
of such definite weights, without supposing it to take place between
definite numbers of definite particles. And thus it would appear that
the Newtonian view is at any rate preferable to that of Boscovich. A
disciple of Boscovich, however, may reply that his master's theory is
involved in that of Newton; and cannot indeed be escaped. 'What,' he
may ask, 'is it that holds together the parts of these ultimate atoms?'
'A cohesive force,' his opponent must answer. 'And what,' he may
continue, 'is it that holds together the parts of any fragments, into
which, by sufficient force, an ultimate atom might be broken?' Again
the answer must be--a cohesive force. 'And what,' he may still ask, 'if
the ultimate atom were, as we can imagine it to be, reduced to parts as
small in proportion to it, as it is in proportion to a tangible mass
of matter--what must give each part the ability to sustain itself,
and to occupy space?' Still there is no answer but--a cohesive force.
Carry the process in thought as far as we may, until the extension of
the parts is less than can be imagined, we still cannot escape the
admission of forces by which the extension is upheld; and we can find
no limit until we arrive at the conception of centres of force without
any extension." _First Principles_, p. 54.
It is evident that Faraday was able to think in a manner which has been
often declared impossible. Mr. Spencer's statement of the counter case
is alone sufficient to prove that the inquiry is sure to be recurrent.
We may add with Dr. Tyndall that facts alone cannot satisfy the mind,
and that when a law is established, the question "why" is inevitable.
Compare _foot-note_ p. 324 _post_.
[193] A familiar instance of one among these abstract entities may
convey to some readers a clearer idea of their nature than many careful
explanations. Three balks of timber are lying in our road,--one, a
very large and heavy monster, directly across it. Desirous of driving
by, and being without adequate help to remove an obstacle beyond our
strength, we call to mind the following definition. "The lever is an
inflexible bar, capable of free motion about a fixed axis, called the
fulcrum." (Newth. _Natural Philosophy_, p. 33.) Acting upon this idea,
we place one balk we can manage to move, upon a second which happens
to lie conveniently, and so roll away the third heavy monster. This
done, we replace No. 1 peaceably beside No. 2, and wend on our way
rejoicing. Now the lever, as defined by Newth, existed ideally in our
mind, and we realised and used it. Our lever and fulcrum are still
lying on the road, though they are lever and fulcrum no longer. The
leverage was an applied mental Form, but we no longer want the Form to
be operative,--and along with it the Force has disappeared.
[au] Our knowledge of Matter and of Motion;--our knowledge of their
continuance while our forms and other forms are undergoing change;--all
we most _certainly_ know of the material world, resolves itself into
our knowledge of Force. Thus far Mr. Herbert Spencer is with us, as may
be seen from the following paragraphs from his _First Principles_. "By
the indestructibility of Matter, we really mean the indestructibility
of the _force_ with which Matter affects us. As we become conscious of
Matter only through that resistance which it opposes to our muscular
energy, so do we become conscious of the permanence of Matter only
through the permanence of this resistance; as either immediately or
mediately proved to us. And this truth is made manifest not only by
analysis of the _à posteriori_ cognition, but equally so by analysis of
the _à priori_ one. For that which we cannot conceive to be diminished
by the continued compression of Matter, is not its occupancy of space,
but its ability to resist." (p. 179.) "It remains to be pointed out
that the continuity of Motion, as well as the indestructibility of
Matter, is really known to us in terms of _force_. That a certain
manifestation of force remains for ever undiminished, is the ultimate
content of the thought; whether reached _à posteriori_ or _à priori_."
(p. 182.) And again (pp. 191-2). "What, in these two foregoing
chapters, was proved true of Matter and Motion, is, _à fortiori_, true
of the Force out of which our conceptions of Matter and Motion are
built. Indeed, as we saw, that which is indestructible in matter and
motion, is the force they present. And, as we here see, the truth that
Force is indestructible, is the obverse of the truth that the Unknown
Cause of the changes going on in consciousness is indestructible.
So that the persistence of consciousness, constitutes at once our
immediate experience of the persistence of Force, and imposes on us the
necessity we are under of asserting its persistence.... Consciousness
without this or that particular _form_ is possible; but consciousness
without _contents_ is impossible."
We are also quite at one with Mr. Herbert Spencer as regards an
assertion made in his _Principles of Psychology_ (I. 161,) and
repeated, to shew how anti-materialistic he is, in his last book.
(_Essays_, III., p. 250.) "Of the two it seems easier to translate
so-called Matter into so-called Spirit, than to translate so-called
Spirit into so-called Matter, which latter is, indeed, wholly
impossible."
But though it is true, as he adds, that "no _translation_ can carry us
beyond our symbols," it is no less true that we are impelled to inquire
into that which underlies them. Mr. Spencer says further (_Psychology_
I. 162,) "The conditioned form under which Being is presented in the
Subject, cannot, any more than the conditioned form under which Being
is presented in the Object, be the Unconditioned Being common to the
two." In this negation we are less at one with him, for, as we firmly
believe, in that conditioned sphere we call our own subjective nature
there is a Reality presented to our consciousness by every act of
Volition which brings us far nearer than any objective or outside form
of existence can bring us to that Unconditioned Being which is common
to the two, and infinitely superior to them both.
[194] Spirit of Inductive Philosophy, p. 165.
[195] Ibid. pp. 169-170. "In the confined and literal notions, often
ignorantly entertained, of the sciences of observation, our conclusions
might be supposed restricted to the field of mere sensible experience;
and in this sense we should fall short of any worthy apprehension
of the Supreme Intelligence. But the truly inductive philosopher
extends his contemplation to intellectual conceptions of a higher
class, pointing to order and uniformity as constant and universal as
the extent of nature itself in space and in time; and in the same
proportion he recognises harmony and arrangement invested with the
attributes of universality and eternity, and thus derives his loftier
ideas of the Divine perfections."
[196] See Ravaisson (_La Philosophie en France_, p. 82,) for an account
of Comte's position in this particular. He characterizes it thus: "Du
positivisme physique superficiel il est arrivé au positivisme moral."
[av] Or else as some may prefer to state it, Mind _is_ the intelligible
law. In other words, Law is the manifestation and energizing of the
Mind in Nature, and we recognize mind in the energy of Law. Canon
Mozley spoke as follows in 1872. "There is a great deal said now about
Mind in Nature, and scientific men talk enthusiastically about Mind;
the old notion of chance is obsolete, and in spite of the strength of
a materialist school, there is a tendency to a consensus of scientific
men that there is Mind in the universe. Would any one in any public
meeting of scientific men dare to stand up and _deny_ that there was
Mind in Nature? It would be thought monstrous. It would be set down as
the revival of an old stupidity. It is the only form in which they find
they can speak of nature which at all ennobles it or which satisfies
their own idea of the sublimity of nature." _The Principle of Causation
considered in opposition to Atheistic Theories_, p. 41.
The learned writer goes on to connect this admitted idea of Mind with
the collateral idea of Design. And this is a most natural sequence of
thought. But, for reasons already mentioned, the main argument of this
chapter pursues another track. Mind in Nature being directly intuited,
(to use an expressive Kantian phrase) we supplement the evidence thus
given by a cross-examination of facts for the purpose of eliciting an
account of what manner of Intelligence this Mind in Nature must be.
[aw] "It is true," says Canon Mozley, "that matter has lately been set
before us as claiming more vicinity to mind than it has been usual to
assign it; and a scientific man, of the highest genius, has regretted
that 'mind and matter have ever been presented to us in the rudest
contrast--the one as all noble, the other as all vile.'... Hobbes,
in the 17th century, anticipated this claim, and laid down 'that all
matter as matter is endued not only with figure and a capacity of
motion, but also with an actual sense and perception, and wants only
the organs and memory of animals to express its sensations,'" _On
Causation_, as before, p. 38.
The doctrine of an inferior and irrational, or as some phrase it "a
blind intelligence" is the topic next discussed with some fulness in
our text.
This "blind intelligence" makes Nature, so to speak, "the instinct of
the Universe." Thence it is "no long step" to a belief that the world
is a living creature, neither are there wanting modern accounts of
the principle of Vitality, and its powers of assimilation,--equally
applicable to the accretive growth of a crystal.
The renovators of philosophy were (as Mr. Leslie Ellis remarks)
strongly inclined to this belief, its typical teacher being Campanella.
Leibniz points out with his usual energy its affinity with the
Scholastic doctrine of "substantial forms"--(a very different
theory from Bacon's) "formas quasdam substantiales ejusmodi sibi
imaginatus videtur, quæ per se sint causa motus in corporibus,
quemadmodum Scholastici capiunt;" and proceeds to say, "ita reditur
ad tot deunculos, quot formas substantiales, et Gentilem prope
polytheismum.... Quum tamen revera in natura nulla sit sapientia,
nullus appetitus, ordo vero pulcher ex eo oriatur, quia est horologium
Dei." _Leibnitii Opera Philosophica_, Ed. Erdmann, pp. 52-3.
[197] "Easiest" is here and elsewhere used to mean that which accounts
in the most natural and perfect manner alike for a single fact and for
the complex whole of facts presented to us. Such an "easiest account"
is the law of Gravitation--it is at once the simplest and the most
complete.
[198] _Fragments of Science_, p. 88.
[199] Struck it so truly that (to borrow Mr. Huxley's expression) a
sufficient Intelligence might have predicted the Universe. But what an
infinitude of knowledge would this "sufficiency" seem to presuppose!
[ax] Taking an optical structure of the Eye as a test example, the
chances of its Evolution _per accidens_ have been calculated by an
eminent mathematician. His results may be seen in the _Additional Note_
appended to this Chapter. They are extracted from the Hulsean Lectures
for 1867.
[ay] For example:--No one holds the doctrine of Natural Selection more
firmly than Mr. Wallace;--he is, in fact, known to have anticipated the
Darwinian theory of Evolution. But he also holds that Natural Selection
cannot account for certain of the physical peculiarities of Man; much
less for his consciousness, his language, his moral sense, or his
Volition.
Mr. Wallace maintains likewise that
(1) Atoms are centres of Force.
(2) Force is known to us as Will.
(3) The Will that governs the world is the Will of higher
intelligences or of one supreme Intelligence.
He quotes, as representing his own thought, the following lines from an
American poetess:--
"God of the Granite and the Rose!
Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee!
The mighty tide of Being flows
Through countless channels, Lord, from thee.
It leaps to life in grass and flowers,
Through every grade of being runs,
While from Creation's radiant towers
Its glory flames in Stars and Suns."
To the above-mentioned points Mr. Wallace adds a spiritualistic belief
in many sublime intelligences intermediate between the Deity and the
Universe. Compare _Natural Selection_, Ed. 2. Essay X. with Notes.
[az] That the perception of fitness, even when of the most exalted
kind, does not to some thinkers carry with it a perception of Design,
is plainly manifest from the ensuing paragraph:--
"The absurdity of the _à posteriori_ argument for a God consists in
the assumption that what we call order, harmony, and adaptation are
evidence of design, when it is evident that, _whether there be a God or
not, order, harmony, and adaptation must have existed from eternity,
and are not_ _therefore necessary proof of a designing cause_."
(_American Index_, Jan. 11, 1873.)
It is to be hoped that the writer of this rather strong statement had
insight enough to perceive that these eternal harmonizers of the whole
Universe do, in fact, constitute a self-existent Mind.
[ba] With perfect fairness, Professor Huxley admits the force of
this distinction. In a paragraph quoted p. 133, he wrote thus:--"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 in a cold winter's day."
It is curious to compare Mr. Huxley's dictum on the Eye (cited p. 133)
with a passage before part-quoted from Mr. Newman. "In saying that
lungs _were intended_ to breathe, and eyes to see, we imply an argument
from Fitness to Design, which carries conviction to the overwhelming
majority of cultivated as well as uncultivated minds. Yet, in calling
it an argument, we may seem to appeal to the logical faculty; and
this would be an error. No syllogism is pretended, that _proves_ a
lung to have been made to breathe; but _we see it_ by what some call
Common-Sense, and some Intuition. If such a fact stood alone in the
universe, and no other existences spoke of Design, it would probably
remain a mere enigma to us; but when the whole human world is pervaded
by similar instances, not to see a Universal Mind in nature appears
almost a brutal insensibility; and if any one intelligently professes
Atheism, the more acute he is, the more distinctly we perceive that he
is deficient in the Religious Faculty. Just as, if he had no sense of
Beauty in anything, we should not imagine that we could impart it by
argument, so neither here.... No stress whatever needs here to be laid
upon minute anatomy, as, for instance, of the eye: it signifies not,
whether we do or do not understand its optical structure as a matter of
science. If it had _no_ optical structure at all, if it differed in no
respect (that we could discover) from a piece of marble, except that
it sees, this would not impair the reasons for believing that it _is
meant_ to see." _The Soul_, pp. 32-3.
This extract from Mr. Newman raises the question--Is an eminent
Biologist any better judge on the subject of _Design_, than any other
eminent thinker? Clearly he is a judge of _Fitness_, but that fact is
admitted on all sides;--the eyes of animals are practically fit for
seeing with, and, what is more, they are fitted to the special fields
of vision useful to their several owners. The first question is, Does
the fact of seeing or the fitness to see raise a moral certainty or
very strong probability of Design? And should a Biologist rejoin that
there exists another account of organic facts and fitnesses probable
and adequate; next comes the further inquiry, which is the most
probable, the most adequate, in a word the easiest? In this connection
it must likewise be asked with some urgency, what _non_-Biological
reasons there are for preferring Design? Whether for instance any good
reasons may be found for believing that there is somewhere subsisting
in and over the Natural world an Intelligence of such order as to be
capable of arranging fitness with a view to the harmony and general
co-operation of natural Forces?
The attempt has been made to shew cause on this side in the present
Chapter. Of course, the case for Design must be rendered unanswerable
if a certitude of Reason, either speculative or practical, or a very
strong conclusion of moral argument, or a probability outweighing all
other probabilities, shall in any way be shewn for accepting the still
nobler belief in a self-existent Will and Personality. Now this latter
idea is the subject of our two closing Chapters, and is contemplated
on grounds with which the Biologist or Physicist, quâ Biologist or
Physicist has no very special concern.
It seems plain, however, that when a great Biologist is pre-eminently a
philosophic thinker (as an author like Mr. Huxley must be acknowledged
by competent judges)--then he possesses a strong vantage ground, and
vast opportunities either for good or for evil. And these last six
words remind us to add with Mr. Newman that after all _subjective_
conditions must not be forgotten.
Would not a man without sense of the Beautiful be "colour-blind" to
many among the harmonies of Nature? And is there not something in the
"Religious insight" Mr. Newman speaks of which seems nothing less than
a gift of vision and faculty divine? Man thus endowed may be in the
highest sense Nature's interpreter, when he sees in her moving mirror
the reflected lineaments of his own and Nature's God. To such a mind no
idea can be more sublimely magnificent than the philosophic Teleology
which Mr. Huxley bases on Evolution; it seems to compress into one the
Past, the Present, and the Future; and to follow with winged thought
that glance of an omniscient Creator which tongues of men and angels
must for ever fail to describe.
We ought to add that the principle of Evolution has been defined in
more than one way. Some definitions would exclude the wide Teleologic
view. What is here meant might (to borrow Mr. Spencer's remark) be more
justly characterized as "INVOLUTION."
[200] Comparing the life of Humanity with the life of an individual,
and arguing for an all-pervading optimism as the general Law in both,
Littré observes, "Pas plus dans un cas que dans l'autre, ne sont
éliminées? _les maladies, les perturbations, les dérangements, en un
mot, tous les accidents qui interviennent dans le fonctionnement de
chaque loi_, et qui sont d'autant plus fréquents et plus graves que
la loi dont il s'agit gouverne des rapports plus compliqués et plus
élevés." _Paroles de Philosophie Positive_, p. 26. The italics are our
own.
[201] It is a curious problem to put testimony in the scale against
alleged necessities, regarding the course of Nature. A certain Eastern
prince had never seen ice--and obstinately rejected the idea of its
possible existence. Was he wise or unwise in his disbelief? Wise, if
we make the rule of actual experience our canon;--unwise if we admit
the rule of modification by unseen possibilities; and still more,
if we allow that a small amount of _affirmative_ testimony ought
in reason to outweigh a large amount of _negative_ presupposition,
or difficulty. A curious instance of this last rule is the natural
history of the duck-billed platypus (the ornithorynchus), rightly
called "_paradoxus_." The contradictory appearance of its organs
created a world of scepticism, when its history was first reported to
Naturalists. It was a question of improbability versus testimony;--and,
to use the established phrase, "every school boy" now knows that
Testimony was right. Compare Note (_c_) p. 264, _ante_.
[bb] How Bacon can have been pictured by his admirers as neither ideal,
nor metaphysical, seems to be one of those unintelligible mysteries
of idolatry which idol-worshippers cannot themselves explain. How
impossible it is on such a supposition to reconcile Bacon with himself
will appear evident to any informed reader of Mr. Ellis's Preface to
the Philosophical Works.
Bacon's tribute to Plato was just, as well as discriminating, and to
our purpose is most appropriate. He says (_De Augmentis_, III. 4)
"For Metaphysic, I have already assigned to it the inquiry of Formal
and Final Causes; which assignation, as far as it relates to Forms,
may seem nugatory; because of a received and inveterate opinion that
the Essential Forms or true differences of things cannot by any human
diligence be found out; an opinion which in the meantime implies and
admits that the invention of Forms is of all parts of knowledge the
worthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be found. And as for the
possibility of finding it, they are ill discoverers who think there is
no land where they can see nothing but sea. But it is manifest that
Plato, a man of sublime wit (and one that surveyed all things as from
a lofty cliff), did in his doctrine concerning Ideas descry that Forms
were the true object of knowledge; howsoever he lost the fruit of this
most true opinion by considering and trying to apprehend Forms as
absolutely abstracted from matter." This last path we have endeavoured
to avoid; and have ourselves elected to follow the Baconian precept,
and to treat the Law or Form of Production not logically, but as
seen in operation, and existent _in rerum naturâ_; not _in ordine ad
hominem_ but _in ordine ad Universum_.
What Bacon himself expected from the investigation, he states plainly
enough in continuation. "If we fix our eyes diligently seriously and
sincerely upon action and use, it will not be difficult to discern and
understand what those Forms are the knowledge whereof may wonderfully
enrich and benefit the condition of men.... This part of Metaphysic I
find deficient; whereat I marvel not, because I hold it not possible
that the Forms of things can be invented by that course of invention
hitherto used; the root of the evil, as of all others, being this: that
men have used to sever and withdraw their thoughts too soon and too far
from experience and particulars, and have given themselves wholly up to
their own meditation and arguments.
"But the use of this part of Metaphysic, which I reckon amongst the
deficient, is of the rest the most excellent in two respects; the
one, because it is the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge
the circuits and long ways of experience (as much as truth will
permit), and to remedy the ancient complaint that 'life is short and
art is long.'... For God is holy in the multitude of his works, holy
in the order or connexion of them, and holy in the union of them.
And therefore the speculation was excellent in Parmenides and Plato
(although in them it was but a bare speculation), 'that all things by
a certain scale ascend to unity.'" (_Ibid._ Ellis and Spedding, IV.
360-362.)
[bc] The Hulsean Lecturer before alluded to states this point with most
distinct emphasis. Speaking of the Eye as an optical instrument, he
says, "Here are _four_ conditions of things each utterly _independent_
of the others, viz. the nerve, then its non-reflecting coating, then
a transparent medium investing it, then a most remarkable _ether_
surrounding the whole, the concurrence of all four being essential
to the production of vision, nevertheless we are to believe that all
these adjustments and adaptations are accidentally made, retained
and handed down by inheritance. If there be not evidence here of the
selecting, arranging, controlling power of _mind_, will, forethought,
contrivance, then I feel that I have no evidence for the existence of
the individuality of my own being." _Analogies_, _etc._, p. 124.
[202] There is perhaps no familiar tribe in which the wonders of
this mechanical arrangement, can be more easily studied than in the
venerable family of owls.
[203] The stalk-eyed Crustacea are known to most readers through the
fascinating volume of Mr. Bell.
[204] _De Anima_, III. 1, 4. _Hist. Animal._, I. 9, IV. 8. The
structural eye is reduced to an ocellus.
[205] M. Le Court: see Geoffrey St. Hilaire, _Cours d'Histoire
Naturelle, des Mammifères_.
[206] One is glad of this result for Shakespeare's sake, as well as
Aristotle's; though a Warwickshire man might have been expected to know
the exact truth so far as his county is concerned; which Shakespeare
did not:--
"The blind mole casts
Copp'd hills towards heaven." (_Pericles_, I. 1.)
"Pray you tread softly that the blind mole may not
Hear a footfall." (_Tempest_, IV. 1.)
[207] The Proteus Anguinus has been rendered illustrious by Sir H.
Davy's _Consolations in Travel_. Since his time, living specimens have
been kept in England.
[208] The English reader will be charmed with the account of him in
Bell's _British Quadrupeds_.
[209] "In the organ of hearing in man we have first of all the external
orifice of the ear, which is closed at the bottom by the circular
tympanic membrane. Behind that membrane is the cavity called the drum
of the ear, this cavity being separated from the space between it
and the brain by a bony partition, in which there are two orifices,
the one round and the other oval. These orifices are also closed by
fine membranes. Across the cavity of the drum stretches a series of
four little bones: the first, called the _hammer_, is attached to the
tympanic membrane; the second, called the _anvil_, is connected by a
joint with the hammer; a third little round bone connects the anvil
with the _stirrup bone_, which has its oval base planted against the
membrane of the oval orifice above referred to. The base of the stirrup
bone abuts against this membrane, almost covering it, and leaving but
a narrow rim of the membrane surrounding the bone. Behind the bony
partition, and between it and the brain, we have the extraordinary
organ called the _labyrinth_, which is filled with water, and over the
lining membrane of which, the terminal fibres of the auditory nerve are
distributed. When the tympanic membrane receives a shock, that shock
is transmitted through the series of bones above referred to, and is
concentrated on the membrane against which the base of the stirrup
bone is planted. That membrane transfers the shock to the water of the
labyrinth, which, in its turn, transfers it to the nerves.
"The transmission, however, is not direct. At a certain place within
the labyrinth exceedingly fine elastic bristles, terminating in sharp
points, grow up between the terminal nerve fibres. These bristles,
discovered by Max Schultze, are eminently calculated to sympathise with
those vibrations of the water which correspond to their proper periods.
Thrown thus into vibration, the bristles stir the nerve fibres which
lie between their roots, and excite audition. At another place in the
labyrinth we have little crystalline particles called _otolithes_--the
Hörsteine of the Germans--embedded among the nervous filaments, and
which, when they vibrate, exert an intermittent pressure upon the
adjacent nerve fibres, thus exciting audition. The otolithes probably
subserve a different purpose from that fulfilled by the bristles of
Schultze. They are fitted, by their weight, to accept and prolong
the vibrations of evanescent sounds, which might otherwise escape
attention. The bristles of Schultze, on the contrary, because of their
extreme lightness, would instantly yield up an evanescent motion,
while they are eminently fitted for the transmission of continuous
vibrations. Finally, there is in the labyrinth a wonderful organ,
discovered by the Marchese Corti, which is to all appearance a musical
instrument, with its chords so stretched as to accept vibrations
of different periods, and transmit them to the nerve filaments
which traverse the organ. Within the ears of men, and without their
knowledge or contrivance, this lute of 3,000 strings has existed for
ages, accepting the music of the outer world, and rendering it fit
for reception by the brain. Each musical tremor which falls upon this
organ selects from its tensioned fibres the one appropriate to its own
pitch, and throws that fibre into unisonant vibration. And thus, no
matter how complicated the motion of the external air may be, those
microscopic strings can analyse it and reveal the constituents of which
it is composed." Tyndall. _On Sound_, pp. 323-4 and 5. We may add that
the "fine elastic bristles," mentioned by Dr. Tyndall, are known to be
prolongations of the free ends of the epithelial cells. The _other_
ends of these cells--(_i.e._ the deep or attached ends) are delicately
ramified, and are said to be in connection with slender nerve-fibrils.
[210] _E.g._, Coleridge. "I have at this moment before me, in the
flowery meadow, on which my eye is now reposing, one of its most
soothing chapters, in which there is no lamenting word, no one
character of guilt or anguish. For never can I look and meditate on
the vegetable creation without a feeling similar to that with which we
gaze at a beautiful infant that has fed itself asleep at its mother's
bosom, and smiles in its strange dream of obscure yet happy sensations.
The same tender and genial pleasure takes possession of me, and this
pleasure is checked and drawn inward by the like aching melancholy,
by the same whispered remonstrance, and made restless by a similar
impulse of aspiration. It seems as if the soul said to herself: From
this state hast _thou_ fallen! Such shouldst thou still become, thyself
all permeable to a holier power! thyself at once hidden and glorified
by its own transparency, as the accidental and dividuous in this quiet
and harmonious object is subjected to the life and light of nature;
to that life and light of nature, I say, which shines in every plant
and flower, even as the transmitted power, love and wisdom of God over
all fills, and shines through, nature! But what the plant is, by an
act not its own and unconsciously--_that_ must thou make thyself to
_become_--must by prayer and by a watchful and unresisting spirit, join
at least with the preventive and assisting grace to make thyself, in
that light of conscience which inflameth not, and with that knowledge
which puffeth not up!" _Statesman's Manual._ Appendix B. pp. 267, 8.
Ed. 1839.