Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the indefinite prolongation of human
life--Improper inference drawn from the effects of mental stimulants on
the human frame, illustrated in various instances--Conjectures not
founded on any indications in the past not to be considered as
philosophical conjectures--Mr Godwin's and Mr Condorcet's conjecture
respecting the approach of man towards immortality on earth, a curious
instance of the inconsistency of scepticism.
Mr Godwin's conjecture respecting the future approach of man towards
immortality on earth seems to be rather oddly placed in a chapter which
professes to remove the objection to his system of equality from the
principle of population. Unless he supposes the passion between the
sexes to decrease faster than the duration of life increases, the earth
would be more encumbered than ever. But leaving this difficulty to Mr
Godwin, let us examine a few of the appearances from which the probable
immortality of man is inferred.
To prove the power of the mind over the body, Mr Godwin observes, "How
often do we find a piece of good news dissipating a distemper? How
common is the remark that those accidents which are to the indolent a
source of disease are forgotten and extirpated in the busy and active?
I walk twenty miles in an indolent and half determined temper and am
extremely fatigued. I walk twenty miles full of ardour, and with a
motive that engrosses my soul, and I come in as fresh and as alert as
when I began my journey. Emotion excited by some unexpected word, by a
letter that is delivered to us, occasions the most extraordinary
revolutions in our frame, accelerates the circulation, causes the heart
to palpitate, the tongue to refuse its office, and has been known to
occasion death by extreme anguish or extreme joy. There is nothing
indeed of which the physician is more aware than of the power of the
mind in assisting or reading convalescence."
The instances here mentioned are chiefly instances of the effects of
mental stimulants on the bodily frame. No person has ever for a moment
doubted the near, though mysterious, connection of mind and body. But
it is arguing totally without knowledge of the nature of stimulants to
suppose, either that they can be applied continually with equal
strength, or if they could be so applied, for a time, that they would
not exhaust and wear out the subject. In some of the cases here
noticed, the strength of the stimulus depends upon its novelty and
unexpectedness. Such a stimulus cannot, from its nature, be repeated
often with the same effect, as it would by repetition lose that
property which gives it its strength.
In the other cases, the argument is from a small and partial effect, to
a great and general effect, which will in numberless instances be found
to be a very fallacious mode of reasoning. The busy and active man may
in some degree counteract, or what is perhaps nearer the truth, may
disregard those slight disorders of frame which fix the attention of a
man who has nothing else to think of; but this does not tend to prove
that activity of mind will enable a man to disregard a high fever, the
smallpox, or the plague.
The man who walks twenty miles with a motive that engrosses his soul
does not attend to his slight fatigue of body when he comes in; but
double his motive, and set him to walk another twenty miles, quadruple
it, and let him start a third time, and so on; and the length of his
walk will ultimately depend upon muscle and not mind. Powell, for a
motive of ten guineas, would have walked further probably than Mr
Godwin, for a motive of half a million. A motive of uncommon power
acting upon a frame of moderate strength would, perhaps, make the man
kill himself by his exertions, but it would not make him walk a hundred
miles in twenty-four hours. This statement of the case shews the
fallacy of supposing that the person was really not at all tired in his
first walk of twenty miles, because he did not appear to be so, or,
perhaps, scarcely felt any fatigue himself. The mind cannot fix its
attention strongly on more than one object at once. The twenty thousand
pounds so engrossed his thoughts that he did not attend to any slight
soreness of foot, or stiffness of limb. But had he been really as fresh
and as alert, as when he first set off, he would be able to go the
second twenty miles with as much ease as the first, and so on, the
third, &c. Which leads to a palpable absurdity. When a horse of spirit
is nearly half tired, by the stimulus of the spur, added to the proper
management of the bit, he may be put so much upon his mettle, that he
would appear to a standerby, as fresh and as high spirited as if he had
not gone a mile. Nay, probably, the horse himself, while in the heat
and passion occasioned by this stimulus, would not feel any fatigue;
but it would be strangely contrary to all reason and experience, to
argue from such an appearance that, if the stimulus were continued, the
horse would never be tired. The cry of a pack of hounds will make some
horses, after a journey of forty miles on the road, appear as fresh,
and as lively, as when they first set out. Were they then to be hunted,
no perceptible abatement would at first be felt by their riders in
their strength and spirits, but towards the end of a hard day, the
previous fatigue would have its full weight and effect, and make them
tire sooner. When I have taken a long walk with my gun, and met with no
success, I have frequently returned home feeling a considerable degree
of uncomfortableness from fatigue. Another day, perhaps, going over
nearly the same extent of ground with a good deal of sport, I have come
home fresh, and alert. The difference in the sensation of fatigue upon
coming in, on the different days, may have been very striking, but on
the following mornings I have found no such difference. I have not
perceived that I was less stiff in my limbs, or less footsore, on the
morning after the day of the sport, than on the other morning.
In all these cases, stimulants upon the mind seem to act rather by
taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue, than by really and
truly counteracting it. If the energy of my mind had really
counteracted the fatigue of my body, why should I feel tired the next
morning? if the stimulus of the hounds had as completely overcome the
fatigue of the journey in reality, as it did in appearance, why should
the horse be tired sooner than if he had not gone the forty miles? I
happen to have a very bad fit of the toothache at the time I am writing
this. In the eagerness of composition, I every now and then, for a
moment or two, forget it. Yet I cannot help thinking that the process,
which causes the pain, is still going forwards, and that the nerves
which carry the information of it to the brain are even during these
moments demanding attention and room for their appropriate vibrations.
The multiplicity of vibrations of another kind may perhaps prevent
their admission, or overcome them for a time when admitted, till a
shoot of extraordinary energy puts all other vibration to the rout,
destroys the vividness of my argumentative conceptions, and rides
triumphant in the brain. In this case, as in the others, the mind seems
to have little or no power in counteracting or curing the disorder, but
merely possesses a power, if strongly excited, of fixing its attention
on other subjects.
I do not, however, mean to say that a sound and vigorous mind has no
tendency whatever to keep the body in a similar state. So close and
intimate is the union of mind and body that it would be highly
extraordinary if they did not mutually assist each other's functions.
But, perhaps, upon a comparison, the body has more effect upon the mind
than the mind upon the body. The first object of the mind is to act as
purveyor to the wants of the body. When these wants are completely
satisfied, an active mind is indeed apt to wander further, to range
over the fields of science, or sport in the regions of. Imagination, to
fancy that it has 'shuffled off this mortal coil', and is seeking its
kindred element. But all these efforts are like the vain exertions of
the hare in the fable. The slowly moving tortoise, the body, never
fails to overtake the mind, however widely and extensively it may have
ranged, and the brightest and most energetic intellects, unwillingly as
they may attend to the first or second summons, must ultimately yield
the empire of the brain to the calls of hunger, or sink with the
exhausted body in sleep.
It seems as if one might say with certainty that if a medicine could be
found to immortalize the body there would be no fear of its [not] being
accompanied by the immortality of the mind. But the immortality of the
mind by no means seems to infer the immortality of the body. On the
contrary, the greatest conceivable energy of mind would probably
exhaust and destroy the strength of the body. A temperate vigour of
mind appears to be favourable to health, but very great intellectual
exertions tend rather, as has been often observed, to wear out the
scabbard. Most of the instances which Mr Godwin has brought to prove
the power of the mind over the body, and the consequent probability of
the immortality of man, are of this latter description, and could such
stimulants be continually applied, instead of tending to immortalize,
they would tend very rapidly to destroy the human frame.
The probable increase of the voluntary power of man over his animal
frame comes next under Mr Godwin's consideration, and he concludes by
saying, that the voluntary power of some men, in this respect, is found
to extend to various articles in which other men are impotent. But this
is reasoning against an almost universal rule from a few exceptions;
and these exceptions seem to be rather tricks, than powers that may be
exerted to any good purpose. I have never heard of any man who could
regulate his pulse in a fever, and doubt much, if any of the persons
here alluded to have made the smallest perceptible progress in the
regular correction of the disorders of their frames and the consequent
prolongation of their lives.
Mr Godwin says, 'Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to conclude,
that, because a certain species of power is beyond the train of our
present observation, that it is beyond the limits of the human mind.' I
own my ideas of philosophy are in this respect widely different from Mr
Godwin's. The only distinction that I see, between a philosophical
conjecture, and the assertions of the Prophet Mr Brothers, is, that one
is founded upon indications arising from the train of our present
observations, and the other has no foundation at all. I expect that
great discoveries are yet to take place in all the branches of human
science, particularly in physics; but the moment we leave past
experience as the foundation of our conjectures concerning the future,
and, still more, if our conjectures absolutely contradict past
experience, we are thrown upon a wide field of uncertainty, and any one
supposition is then just as good as another. If a person were to tell
me that men would ultimately have eyes and hands behind them as well as
before them, I should admit the usefulness of the addition, but should
give as a reason for my disbelief of it, that I saw no indications
whatever in the past from which I could infer the smallest probability
of such a change. If this be not allowed a valid objection, all
conjectures are alike, and all equally philosophical. I own it appears
to me that in the train of our present observations, there are no more
genuine indications that man will become immortal upon earth than that
he will have four eyes and four hands, or that trees will grow
horizontally instead of perpendicularly.
It will be said, perhaps, that many discoveries have already taken
place in the world that were totally unforeseen and unexpected. This I
grant to be true; but if a person had predicted these discoveries
without being guided by any analogies or indications from past facts,
he would deserve the name of seer or prophet, but not of philosopher.
The wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the
savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles,
proves but little. Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers
of a machine cannot be expected to guess at its effects. I am far from
saying, that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the
powers of the human mind; but we certainly know more of this instrument
than was known four thousand years ago; and therefore, though not to be
called competent judges, we are certainly much better able than savages
to say what is, or is not, within its grasp. A watch would strike a
savage with as much surprise as a perpetual motion; yet one is to us a
most familiar piece of mechanism, and the other has constantly eluded
the efforts of the most acute intellects. In many instances we are now
able to perceive the causes, which prevent an unlimited improvement in
those inventions, which seemed to promise fairly for it at first. The
original improvers of telescopes would probably think, that as long as
the size of the specula and the length of the tubes could be increased,
the powers and advantages of the instrument would increase; but
experience has since taught us, that the smallness of the field, the
deficiency of light, and the circumstance of the atmosphere being
magnified, prevent the beneficial results that were to be expected from
telescopes of extraordinary size and power. In many parts of knowledge,
man has been almost constantly making some progress; in other parts,
his efforts have been invariably baffled. The savage would not probably
be able to guess at the causes of this mighty difference. Our further
experience has given us some little insight into these causes, and has
therefore enabled us better to judge, if not of what we are to expect
in future, at least of what we are not to expect, which, though
negative, is a very useful piece of information.
As the necessity of sleep seems rather to depend upon the body than the
mind, it does not appear how the improvement of the mind can tend very
greatly to supersede this 'conspicuous infirmity'. A man who by great
excitements on his mind is able to pass two or three nights without
sleep, proportionably exhausts the vigour of his body, and this
diminution of health and strength will soon disturb the operations of
his understanding, so that by these great efforts he appears to have
made no real progress whatever in superseding the necessity of this
species of rest.
There is certainly a sufficiently marked difference in the various
characters of which we have some knowledge, relative to the energies of
their minds, their benevolent pursuits, etc., to enable us to judge
whether the operations of intellect have any decided effect in
prolonging the duration of human life. It is certain that no decided
effect of this kind has yet been observed. Though no attention of any
kind has ever produced such an effect as could be construed into the
smallest semblance of an approach towards immortality, yet of the two,
a certain attention to the body seems to have more effect in this
respect than an attention to the mind. The man who takes his temperate
meals and his bodily exercise, with scrupulous regularity, will
generally be found more healthy than the man who, very deeply engaged
in intellectual pursuits, often forgets for a time these bodily
cravings. The citizen who has retired, and whose ideas, perhaps,
scarcely soar above or extend beyond his little garden, puddling all
the morning about his borders of box, will, perhaps, live as long as
the philosopher whose range of intellect is the most extensive, and
whose views are the clearest of any of his contemporaries. It has been
positively observed by those who have attended to the bills of
mortality that women live longer upon an average than men, and, though
I would not by any means say that their intellectual faculties are
inferior, yet, I think, it must be allowed that, from their different
education, there are not so many women as men, who are excited to
vigorous mental exertion.
As in these and similar instances, or to take a larger range, as in the
great diversity of characters that have existed during some thousand
years, no decided difference has been observed in the duration of human
life from the operation of intellect, the mortality of man on earth
seems to be as completely established, and exactly upon the same
grounds, as any one, the most constant, of the laws of nature. An
immediate act of power in the Creator of the Universe might, indeed,
change one or all of these laws, either suddenly or gradually, but
without some indications of such a change, and such indications do not
exist, it. Is just as unphilosophical to suppose that the life of man
may be prolonged beyond any assignable limits, as to suppose that the
attraction of the earth will gradually be changed into repulsion and
that stones will ultimately rise instead of fall or that the earth will
fly off at a certain period to some more genial and warmer sun.
The conclusion of this chapter presents us, undoubtedly, with a very
beautiful and desirable picture, but like some of the landscapes drawn
from fancy and not imagined with truth, it fails of that interest in
the heart which nature and probability can alone give.
I cannot quit this subject without taking notice of these conjectures
of Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet concerning the indefinite prolongation of
human life, as a very curious instance of the longing of the soul after
immortality. Both these gentlemen have rejected the light of revelation
which absolutely promises eternal life in another state. They have also
rejected the light of natural religion, which to the ablest intellects
in all ages has indicated the future existence of the soul. Yet so
congenial is the idea of immortality to the mind of man that they
cannot consent entirely to throw it out of their systems. After all
their fastidious scepticisms concerning the only probable mode of
immortality, they introduce a species of immortality of their own, not
only completely contradictory to every law of philosophical
probability, but in itself in the highest degree narrow, partial, and
unjust. They suppose that all the great, virtuous, and exalted minds
that have ever existed or that may exist for some thousands, perhaps
millions of years, will be sunk in annihilation, and that only a few
beings, not greater in number than can exist at once upon the earth,
will be ultimately crowned with immortality. Had such a tenet been
advanced as a tenet of revelation I am very sure that all the enemies
of religion, and probably Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet among the rest,
would have exhausted the whole force of their ridicule upon it, as the
most puerile, the most absurd, the poorest, the most pitiful, the most
iniquitously unjust, and, consequently, the most unworthy of the Deity
that the superstitious folly of man could invent.
What a strange and curious proof do these conjectures exhibit of the
inconsistency of scepticism! For it should be observed, that there is a
very striking and essential difference between believing an assertion
which absolutely contradicts the most uniform experience, and an
assertion which contradicts nothing, but is merely beyond the power of
our present observation and knowledge. So diversified are the natural
objects around us, so many instances of mighty power daily offer
themselves to our view, that we may fairly presume, that there are many
forms and operations of nature which we have not yet observed, or
which, perhaps, we are not capable of observing with our present
confined inlets of knowledge. The resurrection of a spiritual body from
a natural body does not appear in itself a more wonderful instance of
power than the germination of a blade of wheat from the grain, or of an
oak from an acorn. Could we conceive an intelligent being, so placed as
to be conversant only with inanimate or full grown objects, and never
to have witnessed the process of vegetation and growth; and were
another being to shew him two little pieces of matter, a grain of
wheat, and an acorn, to desire him to examine them, to analyse them if
he pleased, and endeavour to find out their properties and essences;
and then to tell him, that however trifling these little bits of matter
might appear to him, that they possessed such curious powers of
selection, combination, arrangement, and almost of creation, that upon
being put into the ground, they would choose, amongst all the dirt and
moisture that surrounded them, those parts which best suited their
purpose, that they would collect and arrange these parts with wonderful
taste, judgement, and execution, and would rise up into beautiful
forms, scarcely in any respect analogous to the little bits of matter
which were first placed in the earth. I feel very little doubt that the
imaginary being which I have supposed would hesitate more, would
require better authority, and stronger proofs, before he believed these
strange assertions, than if he had been told, that a being of mighty
power, who had been the cause of all that he saw around him, and of
that existence of which he himself was conscious, would, by a great act
of power upon the death and corruption of human creatures, raise up the
essence of thought in an incorporeal, or at least invisible form, to
give it a happier existence in another state.
The only difference, with regard to our own apprehensions, that is not
in favour of the latter assertion is that the first miracle we have
repeatedly seen, and the last miracle we have not seen. I admit the
full weight of this prodigious difference, but surely no man can
hesitate a moment in saying that, putting Revelation out of the
question, the resurrection of a spiritual body from a natural body,
which may be merely one among the many operations of nature which we
cannot see, is an event indefinitely more probable than the immortality
of man on earth, which is not only an event of which no symptoms or
indications have yet appeared, but is a positive contradiction to one
of the most constant of the laws of nature that has ever come within
the observation of man.
When we extend our view beyond this life, it is evident that we can
have no other guides than authority, or conjecture, and perhaps,
indeed, an obscure and undefined feeling. What I say here, therefore,
does not appear to me in any respect to contradict what I said before,
when I observed that it was unphilosophical to expect any specifick
event that was not indicated by some kind of analogy in the past. In
ranging beyond the bourne from which no traveller returns, we must
necessarily quit this rule; but with regard to events that may be
expected to happen on earth, we can seldom quit it consistently with
true philosophy. Analogy has, however, as I conceive, great latitude.
For instance, man has discovered many of the laws of nature: analogy
seems to indicate that he will discover many more; but no analogy seems
to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense, or a new species of
power in the human mind, entirely beyond the train of our present
observations.
The powers of selection, combination, and transmutation, which every
seed shews, are truly miraculous. Who can imagine that these wonderful
faculties are contained in these little bits of matter? To me it
appears much more philosophical to suppose that the mighty God of
nature is present in full energy in all these operations. To this all
powerful Being, it would be equally easy to raise an oak without an
acorn as with one. The preparatory process of putting seeds into the
ground is merely ordained for the use of man, as one among the various
other excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea
that will be found consistent, equally with the natural phenomena
around us, with the various events of human life, and with the
successive revelations of God to man, to suppose that the world is a
mighty process for the creation and formation of mind. Many vessels
will necessarily come out of this great furnace in wrong shapes. These
will be broken and thrown aside as useless; while those vessels whose
forms are full of truth, grace, and loveliness, will be wafted into
happier situations, nearer the presence of the mighty maker.
I ought perhaps again to make an apology to my readers for dwelling so
long upon a conjecture which many, I know, will think too absurd and
improbable to require the least discussion. But if it be as improbable
and as contrary to the genuine spirit of philosophy as I own I think it
is, why should it not be shewn to be so in a candid examination? A
conjecture, however improbable on the first view of it, advanced by
able and ingenious men, seems at least to deserve investigation. For my
own part I feel no disinclination whatever to give that degree of
credit to the opinion of the probable immortality of man on earth,
which the appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve.
Before we decide upon the utter improbability of such an event, it is
but fair impartially to examine these appearances; and from such an
examination I think we may conclude, that we have rather less reason
for supposing that the life of man may be indefinitely prolonged, than
that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high, or potatoes
indefinitely large. Though Mr Godwin advances the idea of the
indefinite prolongation of human life merely as a conjecture, yet as he
has produced some appearances, which in his conception favour the
supposition, he must certainly intend that these appearances should be
examined and this is all that I have meant to do.