THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE VERSUS THE SCIENCE OF LIFE, AS REPRESENTED BY
PROF. F. MAX MÜLLER AND PROF. GEORGE JOHN ROMANES.
All the sciences form, or at least ought to form, one great system,
culminating in the science of sciences. Therefore it is more than
doubtful how any science could exist without being somehow in contact
with other sciences; and all of them must stand in some relation to
philosophy. It is necessary that each science should develop in relative
independence of the other sciences. We cannot expect to decide, for
instance, chemical problems by physical or purely mechanical laws
before we have carefully searched the nature and conditions of chemical
processes. But as soon as this has been done we can expect that a
comparison between the results of two or more sciences will throw new
light upon the subject-matter on both sides. Solomon says: “To everything
there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Thus the
sciences have to grow, each one on its own grounds, and when they have
reached a certain state of maturity, they will coalesce with each other.
And two sciences will by their coalescence fertilise the one the other so
as to produce a new department which may by and by develop into a special
science.
Now it appears to the uninitiated as if the spiritual world of science
were in every respect different from the world of objective realities
around us. While in the world of bodily realities the struggle for
existence is fought eternal peace is supposed to reign in the sacred
halls of intellectual aspirations. Says the German poet:
“_Härt in dem Raume stossen sich die Körper,_
_Leicht bei einander wohnen die Gedanken._”
This is true only in a very limited sense. Ideas are the most intolerant
beings imaginable. The struggle for existence is raging as fiercely in
the intellectual realm as in the world of realities, and there also the
law that the fittest will survive holds good.
Far be it from us to denounce this state of general warfare, for although
it is hard on those who succumb, it is the means by which evolution
becomes possible; and evolution in the domain of science means a nearer
approach to truth. If in the evolution of thought two neighboring
sciences have developed so far as to meet, a struggle will ensue. The
ideas on the two sides will have to fight before they coalesce. It
is natural that different scientists look at things from different
standpoints. They have developed a terminology which exactly suits their
purpose and thus the representatives of the different sciences are often
like people of a different nationality. They do not understand each
other because they speak different languages. Moreover they have not
unfrequently a different religion; that means, their ideas about truth
and the test of truth appear to be different and sometimes they regard
one another as no better than heathens. The battle is unavoidable,
and considering all in all, the battle is desirable, it should not be
avoided. The fittest to survive being the truest, the whole progress of
science through the struggle for existence among ideas consists in the
approach to truth.
It may be objected that there are peacemakers who will reconcile the
contending parties. True. And it is further true that the aim of every
war is peace. But a peacemaker can be successful only if his mind is
broad enough to let the whole battle be fought out within himself.
The battle itself is and will remain unavoidable. Idea stands against
idea, and the mental process of reflection is nothing but a struggle of
conflicting ideas which takes place in one and the same mind. The aim of
all reflection is the settlement of the conflict, so that all ideas will
agree. The two parties disappear in one; errors are given up, and that
which is consistent only will remain. In other words Dualism makes room
for Monism.
It is a good sign of the times that a battle has begun to rage between
the so-called natural sciences and the science of language. The old
Hegelian distinction between the _Geisteswissenschaften_ and the
_Naturwissenschaften_ has been surrendered; and Prof. F. Max Müller was
among the foremost to inculcate the truth that philology is a natural
science. If philology is a natural science it cannot be but that its
subject of investigation is a part of nature and as such it stands in
close relation to other parts of nature. One and the same thing may
be the subject of investigation of different sciences. One and the
same plant may be an object of observation to the physiologist, to the
botanist, to the druggist, to the physician, and to the chemist. Their
standpoints and their purposes being different, they will bring to light
very different results, and if these results are contradictory among each
other the conflict is at hand. It cannot be shirked but must be decided
by an honest and square fight. We have witnessed of late a conflict
between philology and anthropology concerning the origin of the Aryas
and it looks as if this conflict will contribute much to promote our
knowledge of the oldest history of mankind, although the last word has
not as yet been spoken: _adhuc sub judice lis est_.
We are now confronted with a conflict between Philology and Biology. The
first skirmishes have been fought by two men who are entitled to speak,
each one in behalf of his science. Prof. F. Max Müller stands up for
philology and Prof. George John Romanes for biology.
Professor Romanes takes it for granted that the rational mind of man has
developed gradually from the lower stage of the brute. He says in his
book “Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 276:
“The whole object of these chapters has been to show, that on
psychological grounds it is abundantly intelligible how the
conceptual stage of ideation may have been gradually evolved
from the receptual—the power of forming general, or truly
conceptual ideas, from the power of forming particular and
generic ideas. But if it could be shown—or even rendered in any
degree presumable—that this distinctly human power of forming
truly general ideas arose _de novo_ with the first birth of
articulate speech, assuredly my whole analysis would be
destroyed: the human mind would be shown to present a quality
different in origin—and, therefore, in kind—from all the
lower orders of intelligence: the law of continuity would be
interrupted at the terminal phase: an impassable gulf would be
fixed between the brute and the man.”
And Prof. Max Müller criticises the position of Professor Romanes in an
article on Thought and Language (_The Monist_, Vol. I. No. 4, p. 582); he
says:
“My learned friend, Professor Romanes, labors to show that
there is an unbroken mental evolution from the lowest animal
to the highest man. But he sees very clearly and confesses
very honestly that the chief difficulty in this evolution is
language and all that language implies. He tries very hard to
remove that barrier between beast and man.... Professor Romanes
is, I believe, a most eminent biologist, and the mantle of
Darwin is said to have fallen on his shoulders. Far be it from
me to venture to criticise his biological facts. But we see in
his case how dangerous it is for a man who can claim to speak
with authority on his own special subject, to venture to speak
authoritatively on subjects not his own.”
It is not at all my intention to appear on the battle-field as a
peacemaker between these two generals, or to settle the problems that
arise from the conflict between philology and biology. That will
be better done by the parties concerned, and I am rather inclined
to speak with Schiller when he thought of the struggle between the
transcendentalist philosopher and the empirical naturalist:
“Enmity be between you! Your alliance would not be in time yet.
Though you may separate now, Truth will be found by your search.”
I look forward with great interest to further discussions which will
bring out with more clearness the positions of both parties, and it is
not impossible that both parties as soon as they have better understood
each other, will agree much better than either of them expected. But
it may be permitted me to make a few comments upon a proposition that
is involved in this conflict, which, however, properly considered, is
neither of a philological nor a biological nature. This is the idea of
the continuity of evolution. Prof. Max Müller says somewhere that, if
a Darwinian means an evolutionist, he had been a Darwinian long before
Darwin. “How a student of the science of language,” he says, “can be
anything but an evolutionist is to me utterly unintelligible.” So there
is no doubt about his being an evolutionist as much as Professor Romanes.
But the question is, What means evolutionist? Is he an evolutionist who
believes in a piecemeal evolution interrupted here and there by acts of
special creation? In my conception of the term, an evolutionist believes
in evolution wherever there is life and this involves the wholesale
rejection of special-creation acts as well as of the idea that any being
or organism (the organism of language included) could ever have made its
appearance in full growth and maturity or that any phenomenon of life
could present a break in the continuity of evolution.
The Greek myth tells us that the Goddess of Reason, the blue-eyed Pallas
Athene, was not born like other gods and mortals in the natural way of a
slow development. She jumped out of the head of Zeus full-armed in all
her beauty and gifted with the powers of her unusual accomplishments.
Is this myth true after all? Does the Logos of rational thought
present us with an instance in which the development process has been
interrupted? If so, we shall have to abandon the evolution theory as a
theory and return to the old-fashioned view of special-creation acts.
The difference between these two views is not of degree, but of kind.
He who accepts the principle of evolution as the law of life abandons
forever the idea of special and unconnected beginnings as much as that of
special-creation acts. He cannot with consistency believe in an evolution
with interruptions, for the theory of evolution is serviceable only if
evolution is conceived as continuous. Prof. Max Müller of course has a
right to define and use the word evolutionist as he sees fit, but if he
excludes continuity from the idea of evolution, we declare that he has
taken out the quintessence of its meaning and the core of its truth.
Why this is so, we shall now briefly discuss.
The evolution theory has been gradually developed by empirical
investigations and it owes its all but universal acceptance to the great
mass of _a posteriori_ evidence furnished by the natural sciences. It
rests nevertheless upon a better and safer foundation than isolated
instances of hap-hazard experience. Its foundation is quarried out of
another and more reliable material. The evolution theory rests upon the
ground of _a priori_ arguments.
By _a priori_ we do not understand anything mysterious, but simply such
cognition as possesses universality and necessity. That cognition which
is in possession of universality and necessity is also called formal
cognition. The formal sciences (for instance arithmetic, mathematics,
pure logic, and pure mechanics) give us information about such truths as
are applicable, because they are purely formal, to the formal conditions
of anything and everything possible. Because we know _beforehand_ that
the purely formal laws will hold good under all conditions Kant called
their formulated theorems “a priori.” All the objections to the idea of
apriority made by John Stuart Mill and other empiricists are due to their
misinterpretation of the term.[10]
Mr. Mill was mistaken when he thought Kant meant _a priori_ cognitions
were innate ideas which came to man from spheres unknown. The very first
sentence of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” proves that Kant knew of no
other knowledge than that which begins with experience. Kant says, “That
all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” But our
knowledge consists of two elements, viz. the empirical and the formal.
The former bears always the character of the special and incidental,
the latter of the universal and necessary. The former is sensory, being
furnished by the senses, the latter is properly mental originating in and
with the action of the mind in dealing with sense-materials, in arranging
them and bringing them into certain relations.
Formal knowledge is different in kind from empirical knowledge. The
rule “twice two is four” will hold good for all possible cases, but the
statement “A swan is white” does not hold good for all possible cases.
European swans as a rule are white, but Australian swans are black, and
for all we know, we might find swans that are blue, or red, or yellow.
Empirical knowledge is full of exceptions, formal knowledge is rigid,
there is no exception to any rule of formal knowledge.
All formal knowledge has developed by degrees. The history of the
sciences, of mathematics, logic, arithmetic, and also of the natural
sciences furnishes sufficient evidence. The formal part of the natural
sciences, by Kant called _reine Naturwissenschaft_, consists of such
cognitions as the law of cause and effect and the law of the conservation
of matter and energy. The formulation of these laws has been accomplished
after much and careful empirical investigation. And it could not be
otherwise. The latter law was elaborated in its full clearness long after
Kant. The law of causality and the law of the conservation of matter
and energy are purely formal, they are not sense-impressions and do
not contain any sensory elements. They are general rules of universal
applicability which being rigidly universal and without exceptions are
necessary under all conditions. Before we make any experiment we can know
that they will hold good in the experiment. Indeed all our experimenting
is based upon the supposition that the law of causation holds good and
that there can be neither an increase nor a decrease of matter and energy.
The mistake made by the so-called transcendentalists is this, that
they consider formal thought as having an independent existence, being
ready at hand before cognition is possible, while in fact it is a part
of cognition which at least in its germ is present in every actual
experience.
The theory of evolution is not more and not less a formal principle
than the law of causation and the law of the conservation of matter and
energy. Indeed it is nothing but the same thing applied to a special
case. The theory of evolution is the principle of the conservation
of matter and energy applied to the province of life. The theory
of evolution denies the possibility of special acts of creation.
There cannot come something out of nothing. And the new creations
that actually originate daily before our eyes are not creations from
nothing, they are simply transformations. There was a time on earth in
which no living being existed, neither plant nor animal. How did life
originate? Our answer is, It did not originate out of nothing, but it
evolved. Non-organised matter organised. That non-organised matter must
contain the elementary conditions of organised life is a conclusion
which we cannot escape from our point of view; and which is fully and
satisfactorily corroborated by our daily experience that water, earth,
and air under the sun’s influence are changed into wheat; and wheat is
manufactured into the bread which nourishes man and sustains his life.
Non-organised particles of matter are constantly being organised in
living organisms and displace the worn-out materials in their tissues—not
one atom of the latter remaining for good in a healthy living body.
The theory of evolution may be called an hypothesis, an assumption, a
presumption. But in that case we must say with Mill that the rule twice
two is four is also a mere assumption. The evidence for the latter is not
stronger than that for the former. Mill declares that after all twice two
might somewhere be five. Exactly so and not otherwise evolution might be
somewhere interrupted, so that something would originate out of nothing
instead of evolving from other things through transformation.
Prof. Max Müller speaks very sarcastically about the speechless man, the
_homo alalus_ who is supposed to be the ancestor of the present man. He
says (l. c., p. 585):
“Of the _Homo alalus_, the speechless progenitor of _Homo
sapiens_, with whom Professor Romanes seems so intimately
acquainted, students of human speech naturally know nothing.”
Prof. Max Müller also condemns all efforts of approaching the problem
of the origin of language through observation of children and animals.
The former he calls “nursery philology” the latter “menagerie
psychology.” And it is certainly true that the problem of the origin
of language cannot be solved from observations of children or animals,
because the problem lies in another field. The problem is not how a
ready made language is transferred upon the growing mind of a baby
but how speechless beings developed into speaking beings. And all the
intelligence of clever animals is still very different from the rational
thought of man. This is true, but it is also true that good observations
of animal psychology and also of nursery philology will throw some light
upon the evolution of rational thought.
Prof. Max Müller says:
“How can we attempt to realise what passes within the mind of
an animal?... We can imagine anything we like about what passes
in the mind of an animal,—we can know absolutely nothing.”
We are fully aware of the fact that the problem of the origin of language
is quite different from the problems of animal psychology. A solution of
the latter, which are extremely complex and difficult, would not help
us to solve the former. This being conceded we can nevertheless see
no reason why animal psychology should be condemned and given up as a
hopeless task.
It is not true that “we can know absolutely nothing about what passes in
the mind of an animal.” It is true we cannot see the animals’ feelings
and thoughts, but we can see their actions which reveal their feelings
as much as and sometimes even plainer than the speech of our brother man
reveals his thoughts. Might we not say with the same reason, “We see only
the printed book of a scientist (which is an expression of his views as
much as the behavior of an animal is of its feelings) but we can know
absolutely nothing about what passes in the mind of that scientist. All
we can do is to judge from analogy”? And should we on that account give
up all reading and studying and also all arguing with others?
Animal psychology is not only justified as a science, but we can even
hope that correct observations of animal intelligence will assist us
in correctly understanding the higher intelligence of human thought.
And “that some useful hints may be taken from watching children is not
denied” by Prof. Max Müller either, although this little concession
appears only in the shape of a short foot-note. The _homo alalus_ is by
no means a merely mythical figure, for according to the law of evolution
man must have developed out of a being lower than the present man. His
first ancestor must have been simple life-substance something like that
of the amœba. He must have passed through a long period in which he was
not capable of articulate speech. That we know nothing particular about
the _homo alalus_ is no proof against his existence. Moreover every
infant is an actual real _homo alalus_, a speechless man, or should we
according to Prof. Max Müller class our babies among the brutes?
Prof. Max Müller says (_The Monist_, p. 585):
“If, like Professor Romanes, we begin with the ‘immense
presumption that there has been no interruption in the
developmental process in the course of psychological history,’
the protest of language counts for nothing; the very fact that
no animal has ever formed a language, is put aside simply as an
unfortunate accident.”
The theory of evolution rightly understood is no presumption in the
usual sense of the word. It is no more a presumption than to say that
something cannot come from nothing. And what is “the protest of language”
which would disprove the continuity of evolution? That rational or human
thought is something _sui generis_, that it is different in kind and
not in degree from brute intelligence; that language is an impassable
barrier between man and brute, being the Rubicon which no other animal
has crossed. Very well. We agree entirely with all these propositions.
Human reason is different in kind from brute intelligence and human
reason has developed such as it is through language only. Nay reason is
language. Noiré is right when he says, Man thinks because he speaks.
But the Rubicon of language was not an absolutely impassable barrier.
The speechless ancestor of man, whether we call him _homo alalus_ or
anthropoid, or even man-ape, _has_ crossed it, and having crossed it he
became the Cæsar of the animal creation.
Prof. Max Müller’s theory of the identity of language and thought[11] is
so valuable because it bridges the gap between the rational sphere of
man and the not-yet rational sphere of the brute creation. It explains
the origin of reason. The origin of reason in the world of living beings
is explained as soon as the origin of language is understood, for reason
develops with language and rational thought is nothing but rational
speech. If the origin of language were an unfathomable mystery, Prof.
Max Müller’s view of the identity of language and thought would lose all
practical importance.
The proposition of the identity of language and thought is a very radical
idea; it is the fundamental idea of monism. In a more general form it
was first pronounced by Giordano Bruno, who says somewhere that, if we
could put the soul of a man into the organism of an animal, say of a
snake, it would cease to be a human soul and become the soul of a snake.
Speech would be changed into a hissing, in accordance with the snake’s
organs for uttering sounds. And in the same way all the feelings, all the
concepts, all the desires and inclinations—in short the whole psychical
life would be that of a snake.
Thought is the soul of language. As there are no ghost-souls, so there
are no ghost-thoughts. And the soul is not something distinct from the
organism, it is the form of the organism. It happens in fairy-tales that
the Prince is transformed into a frog, but if a fairy could transform
a man into a frog, his soul would certainly also become a frog-soul.
Language is the visible organism of the invisible thought, and as is
language, exactly so is thought.
The problem how language has developed was first answered by the
onomatopoetic theory, “the bow-wow theory” as Max Müller calls it.
Language was conceived as an echo of nature, as a reflex action that
takes place in a living and feeling being. Yet this theory had to be
abandoned, because an historical investigation of language proved that
words with very few exceptions were not imitations of external sounds.
Yet the spirit of investigation was not daunted by this defeat, and
the bow-wow theory reappeared in a modified form. Language was still
considered as a reflex action; however, it was conceived to be a reflex
which re-echoed the impressions of natural phenomena as they had affected
man. This was the exclamation theory which seeks the origin of language
in the “ohs and ahs,” the sighs and shouts of a feeling mind. Prof. Max
Müller calls this theory “the pooh-pooh theory.” This theory had also
to be discarded because it was in conflict with the actual facts of
the evolution of language. Next Noiré and Prof. Max Müller came with
their theory, called by Noiré “the synergastic theory,” which conceives
language as the expression of common work, also called by Noiré the Logos
theory, the sympathetic theory, and the causality theory. Prof. Max
Müller in order to forestall any deriders of this theory suggests calling
it “the yo-he-ho theory,” yo-he-ho being the sailors’ song when engaged
in some common work as hoisting or hauling.
This yo-he-ho theory actually explains the origin of language, and it is,
so far as we can see, not in conflict with any historical or philological
facts. But in honor of the inventors of the onomatopoetic theory it must
be recognised that the main idea of the yo-he-ho theory is the same as
that of the bow-wow theory. The main idea is this: Language did not
originate in man’s mind out of itself in some mysterious way representing
a break in the continuity of evolution, but it is a certain reflex-action
of living and feeling beings taking place in consequence of external
stimuli. This reflex-action however is not direct, but indirect. It is
not that of a single being, it is the reflex-action of a whole society,
engaged in common work. It developed in consequence of their common
activity and through their want of intercommunication.
* * * * *
Prof. Max Müller charges against the evolutionist, that “the very fact
that no animal has ever formed a language is put aside simply as an
unfortunate accident.” Is this a fair reprehension? Is not the fact that
no animal, except man, crossed the Rubicon of language quite a distinct
problem? And accepting Professor Noiré’s theory of the origin of language
which considers speech as the product of a common activity accompanied
by what may be called _clamor concomitans_, I see very good reasons why
other animals did not develop language. First, there is no animal, with
the sole exception perhaps of ants and bees, that lives in societies.
Some of them live in herds, but there is a great difference between a
herd and a society. This difference is first a difference of degree, but
gradually it becomes a difference of kind. Secondly, animals have no
organs to work with, while man has his hands, and we may add, thirdly,
that no animal, not even the parrot, has the same power of articulation.
Prof. Ludwig Noiré accepts without equivocation the idea that the
speechless ancestor of man became a rational being by developing language
and I was always under the impression that Prof. Max Müller agreed with
his late friend not only concerning the identity of language and reason,
but also concerning the origin of reason. But if Prof. Max Müller agrees
with Noiré, why does he object to the continuity of evolution which as
he states in a private letter to us is “only a beautiful postulate”?
Now there are indeed facts which prove that the Rubicon of reason is not
so impassable to animals as Prof. Max Müller makes us believe. Let us
hear Noiré on the subject. He explains most logically that man performs
his many labors and has become a civilised being only with the help of
language, by naming things and handling them in his mind. Noiré says:
“It can be graphically shown, how ideas may represent for
man the rôle of things real; how man has acquired the power
of combining in his representative faculty the most remote
objects, and thereby has been able to accomplish the great
miracles of human industry and commerce. But all this would
be utterly inconceivable without concepts, which impart to
percepts their unity and self-dependence, bring about and
multiply their rational connection. Hence also, no animal
can ever advance a single step beyond _present_ perceptive
representation, can never escape from the constraint with
which Nature circumscribes the narrow sphere of its wants.
Unfortunately, however, in apparent contravention of this rule,
ants to the present day carry on a regular and methodical
species of agriculture, keep livestock and domestics like
we! Nay, they have been caught in conversations and social
entertainments of a quarter of an hour’s duration—God save the
mark!”[12]
This passage is full of humor, and the humor is slightly mingled with a
comical anger and self-irony. There is a fine theory excellent in every
respect worked out in all its details by the Professor and now he finds a
few trifles of facts which possess the impudence not to adapt themselves
to the theory. “_Gott besser’s_,” sighs Noiré, for it is not his fault
that the ants accomplish things which they ought not to, and the good
Lord is called upon to adapt nature with more rigidity to the Professor’s
theories.
Is there not an obvious reason why ants stand so high in their
performances? Are not ants social beings, more so than any other animal?
We are ignorant still of all their means of communication. But that they
have some means of communication seems to be an established fact. When
ants from different hills but of the same kind give each other battle,
it happens not unfrequently that a warrior attacks another warrior of the
same people most fiercely, but both let go as soon as they touch each
other with their feelers.[13] I refrain from telling stories about the
life of these wonderful creatures partly because one well-authenticated
report is sufficient for our purpose and partly because I must suppose
that most of my readers are familiar with the facts as presented by
Darwin, Lubbock, Forel, Huber, and many others. I will add only one
observation which is so far as I know undisputed. If ants of a special
kind rob the larvæ of another kind and educate them as their slaves, the
slaves will in case of war or danger stand by their masters even against
their own folks. They evidently speak the language of the hill in which
they have been raised.
Professor Forel successfully made the experiment, with the assistance of
ant-nurses, of raising together several kinds of ants from the larvæ of
hostile species. The ferocious Amazons and the Sanguineæ did not show
any enmity toward their comrades of the Pratensis and Rufa. When set
at liberty and transferred to a new residence they remained together
and behaved exactly as if they naturally belonged together. And this
experiment may be quoted to corroborate the proposition of Prof. Max.
Müller that “thought is thicker than blood.”[14]
Now it would be a desperate case for Professor Noiré to maintain his
theory in the face of these facts, if by language we have to understand
vocal signs only. Yet the idea of his and also of Prof. Max Müller’s
theory consists in the truth that thoughts cannot walk about like ghosts
in bodiless nudity: they are a system of notation. As such they are
symbolised in signs and are inseparable from their signs. These signs are
sounds with men, and by words we understand usually sound-symbols. But
there are other systems of notation besides vocal signs and they are
for that reason not less language than speech. We have reason to believe
that ants are in possession of symbolical signs and that most of them are
communicated through their feelers.
Professor Romanes describes the origin of ideas (in the second chapter of
“Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 23) in the following way:
“Just as Mr. Galton’s method of superimposing on the same
sensitive plate a number of individual images gives rise
to a blended photograph, wherein each of the individual
constituents is partially and proportionally represented; so
in the sensitive tablet of memory, numerous images of previous
perceptions are fused together into a single conception, which
then stands as a composite picture, or class-representation,
of these its constituent images. Moreover, in the case of
a sensitive plate it is only those particular images which
present more or less numerous points of resemblance that admit
of being thus blended into a distinct photograph; and so in the
case of the mind, it is only those particular ideas which admit
of being run together in a class that can go to constitute a
clear concept.”
Professor Romanes calls such a composite picture of sense-impressions
as must be supposed to exist in the animal brain “a recept” and he
distinguishes it from “the concept” of man. He says: “Reception means a
_taking again_.... The word ‘recept’ is seen to be appropriate to the
class of ideas in question, because in receiving such ideas the mind is
passive.” By “concept” however he understands “that kind of composite
idea which is rendered possible only by the aid of language or by the
process of naming abstractions as abstractions.”[15]
We agree with Professor Romanes in the main point, viz. that the process
of evolution must be considered as uninterrupted, but we cannot agree
with him on several minor points.[16]
We must express our doubt concerning the propriety of calling the mind
passive when receiving impressions. Every single sensation is an active
process, just as much as a reflex motion, and it may be considered as a
reaction that takes place in response to the stimulus of the impression.
Conception of course is also an active process, and concepts, the
products of conception, establish a new department in the mind. “Noiré,
quoted by Prof. Max Müller, says: ‘All trees hitherto seen by me leave
in my imagination a mixed image, a kind of ideal presentation of a tree.
Quite different from this is my concept, which is never an image.’”[17]
And this is true.
We have on another occasion explained that sensations are
sense-impressions which have acquired meaning.[18] Rays of light are
reflected from an object and fall upon the retina of an eye. Here they
produce a disturbance of nervous substance which is transmitted to the
brain where it is felt as the image say of a tree. Now the ether-waves
are not sight, but a certain form of ether-waves corresponds to a
certain form of sight, and the latter comes to stand for the former. The
mental picture of a tree becomes a symbol for a special object outside
of us and it is projected to the place where experience has taught
us to expect that object. In naming objects we repeat the process of
expressing by symbols. Sensations are symbols, and names are symbols of
symbols. The name and concept tree is not the composite picture of all
the trees I have seen, but it is the symbol of this composite picture
of sense-impressions. Sensations are like the chords of a piano and the
concepts are like the keys. The key is different in kind from the chord
which belongs to it. When I touch the key the chord will sound: when I
pronounce a name the composite sensation of all its analogous memories
will be awakened.
* * * * *
Can there be any question that difference in kind can originate by
degrees? Professor Romanes uses the phrase “different in kind” as
synonymous with “different in origin” and therefore declares that human
reason and animal intelligence are “different in degree” only. The
word “kind,” it is true, is at least as vague as the word species and a
naturalist may often be doubtful where to draw the line. Man and monkey
are different in kind, and they are also more different in origin than
Carl Vogt assumed, for man is not the descendant of any of the monkey
families now existent. But this does not disprove that they are of a
still remoter common origin or at least that they originated in the same
way in some amœboid form as simple life-substance.
New formations which originate through combining are as much new
creations, i. e. things new in kind, as if they were produced through
special-creation acts of God which are said to be creations out of
nothing and not mere transformations.
Man builds houses out of bricks and timbers. Is not the house something
different in kind from the trees and the clay from which the materials
have been taken? Is not the boiler of a steam-engine different in purpose
and accordingly also different in kind from a tea-kettle? Is not every
invention something different in kind? And is not the same true of the
products of thought? Is not a triangle something different in kind from
a line? And the origin of the former is not more miraculous than that of
the latter. A triangle is more complex than a line, but its existence
in the mind is not more of a mystery than the existence of the line.
Difference in kind need not include difference of origin. Harmony is
different in kind from melody. Notes in succession produce melody, while
simultaneous notes produce harmony. In either case it is simply a matter
of combination.
Professor Romanes when speaking of the passivity of sense-impressions
seems to think of the unconsciousness of the process. We are not
conscious of the transformation of impressions into sensations while
we can become aware of our efforts to change the sense-material into
concepts. Yet the nature of mind is throughout activity. And no one has
perhaps insisted more strongly on the activity of mind than Prof. Max
Müller. But Prof. Max Müller distinguishes between the activity of the
mind and the ego which as he supposes performs that activity. He says
(“Science of Thought,” p. 63):
“We think of a mind dwelling in a body, and we soon find
ourselves in the midst of psychological mythology. Let it be
clearly understood, therefore, that by Mind I mean nothing but
that working which is going on within, embracing sensation,
perception, conception, and naming, as well as the various
modes of combining and separating the results of these
processes for the purpose of new discovery.
“But if Mind is to be the name of the work, what is to be the
name of the worker? It is not yet the Self, for the Self, in
the highest sense, is a spectator only, not a worker; but it is
what we may call the Ego, as personating the Self; it is what
other philosophers mean by the Monon, of which, as we shall
see, there are many. Let us call therefore the worker who does
the work of the mind in its various aspects, the Monon or the
Ego.”
And in another passage (l. c., p. 552) he speaks of the simplicity of the
monon:
“If then the process of thought is so simple as we saw, not
less simple, at least, than that of speech, it follows, that
the complicated apparatus which had been postulated by most
philosophers for the performance of thought in its various
spheres of manifestation, must make room for much plainer
machinery. Instead of intuition, intellect, understanding,
mind, reason, genius, judgment, and all the rest, we want
really nothing but a self-conscious Monon, capable of changing
all that is supplied by the senses into percepts, concepts,
and names. These changes may be represented as something
very marvellous, and we may imagine any number of powers and
faculties for the performance of them.”
“Grant a Monon conscious of itself, and conscious therefore of
the impacts made upon it or the changes produced in it by other
Mona which it resists, and we require little more to explain
all that we are accustomed to call Thought.”
The continuity of evolution naturally holds good according to Max Müller
for the natural man, but not for the Self.
How is this? Is the monon perhaps conceived as not-natural or outside of
nature. Hardly. For Prof. Max Müller speaks of the object also as being a
monon.[19] If the objects are as much mona as the subjects the same laws
must hold good for both, and the subject-monon must be supposed to be an
object-monon if considered in its relation to other object-mona.
If Prof. Max Müller’s protest against the continuity of evolution is not
based upon the dualism of natural and extra-natural mona, what can it
mean when he says that evolution does not hold good for the Self?
If the Self is conceived as a monon, i. e. something “alone” like an
atomic unit, it can have no evolution. Evolution is change of form
through the production of new configurations. A monon or an isolated unit
considered by itself cannot evolve. It is as it ever has been and will
be—a monon.
If this is Prof. Max Müller’s meaning, we must ask, How does he know
that the self is a monon and that objects are mona? Do they not, if so
conceived, become highly mysterious entities? New mona are constantly
born into this World. Whence do they come? Is every birth of a child
the new creation of another monon by the creator, who so distributes
the babes in the world that like babes are given to like parents thus
producing the wrong impression of heredity as well as of a continuity of
evolution? The idea of explaining all the activities of the mind by the
postulate of a conscious monon is very simple indeed, but the problems
which would arise from this postulate are extremely complex, and it seems
to us that after all the proposition of evolution is by far the simplest
solution of all the difficulties.[20]
Mind as we conceive it is the product of evolution. Mind has been
evolved in a world which (judging from its product) must be conceived as
being freighted not only with energy but also with the potentiality of
feeling. Mind, as we know it in experience, is no monon, no indivisible
unit, but a unitary system of feelings and thoughts produced through
external impressions upon one part of the world by the rest of the world
which surrounds it. Mind is an abstract term; it does not denote a part
of the world, but a certain quality of a part of the world, viz. the
feelings and thoughts of special kinds of organisms. Mind is produced
through external impressions, but it does not consist merely of external
impressions. Mind, as we have stated before, is not passive; it is
active. It consists of the reactions which take place in response to
impressions and also of the accumulated products of these reactions.
Thus every mind is the concentrated effect of the whole cosmos upon one
special part of the cosmos, not as it takes place in one moment, but as
it has taken place in a definite and continuous period up to date. The
accumulation of these effects makes the mind grow and expand and the
system of the growth constitutes its specific character. We can as little
think of the mind as appearing suddenly by an act of special creation
as we can think that an oak tree can be created out of nothing or that
it can exist without previous growth. The law of continuity holds good
as much in the realm of the human mind as in the domain of animal and
plant-life.
* * * * *
So far we have borne in mind the philosophical and scientific aspect
only of the continuity of evolution. There is another aspect however
of no less importance, that is the religious view of the subject. We
do not believe that science and religion are two different spheres of
thought and that something may be true in science which is not true in
religion. Since the theory of evolution has revolutionised almost all our
sciences, we ask, what influence must this change of thought exercise
upon religion? Is not the religious idea of God destroyed and the whole
system of religion overturned?
We think not. An old and very powerful system of theology which has been
considered as orthodox for centuries will become untenable as soon as
the idea of evolution and the continuity of evolution are recognised in
their sweeping importance; but religion itself will enter into a new
phase of evolution and the idea of God will not be cast aside as a
mere superstition of the Dark Ages, it will be purified and appear in a
greater and sublimer, in a nobler, higher, and in a truer conception than
ever before.
The idea of God is an historical heirloom of past ages. The religious
man and the philosopher of all times have tried to put into it their
highest, their best, their grandest, and their purest emotions as well
as thoughts. And these thoughts were not meaningless, they were not mere
fancies. They contained the quintessence of their conception concerning
that feature of reality which has produced us as living, thinking, and
aspiring beings, and which still prompts us to aspire to higher aims. The
world which has produced other beings and ourselves, cannot be and is not
a meaningless congeries of material particles in motion. It is a living
cosmos. It is a grand harmonious universe pregnant with mind, and nothing
in it is suffered to exist for any length of time but that which conforms
to its laws; and that which conforms to its laws we call moral.
The idea of God, however, as it is commonly taught in our schools is
full of pagan notions, and the very paganism of the present God-idea is
often supposed to be its deepest and holiest meaning. No wonder that
atheism increases with the progress of science! And why should not
atheism increase, if it is truer than a superstitious theism? Atheism
I believe will increase more and more until theism is cleansed of its
pagan notions. But atheism will not come to stay, for atheism is a mere
negative view and negations have no strength to live. They have power to
criticise and they will serve as a leaven in the dough. Their purpose is
the purification of the positive views. Negations will pass away as soon
as their purpose is fulfilled.
The old pagan conception (now considered as orthodox) places God in the
dark nooks and crevices of our knowledge. Wherever science fails and
wherever our inquiring mind is entangled in problems which we cannot hope
to solve, wherever the continuity of nature and of the order of nature
is hidden from our intellectual sight, the so-called orthodox believer
comes forth and declares: “This is a holy place. Here is the finger of
God’s special interference!” Consider what a degrading view of God this
is! The place of darkness is conceived as an actual break in the order
of the world and this break is supposed to be a special revelation of
God! If we trust in truth, we need not shun the light of science and the
God of science—in contradistinction to the pagan notion of God—reveals
himself in the discoveries of science. God lives not in darkness but
in light, and his existence is proved not through the breaks in nature
(which we can be sure do not exist, and wherever they appear are due to
our ignorance) but through the order of nature, for God _is_ the order of
nature. God is that power through which we exist as living, thinking, and
aspiring beings, and to which we have to conform in order to live.
When Darwin speaks of “life as having been originally breathed into a few
forms or into one _by the Creator_,” he either uses allegorical language
or he means that the beginning of life was an act of special creation.
He apparently means the latter and is in this respect not a consistent
evolutionist. Darwin was great as a reformer of natural science, but
in theology he still stood upon the old standpoint. He calls God to
rescue where science fails. The Creator did not originally breathe life
into the organism, but his breath is constantly ensouling all living
beings. Now suppose there were or there could be exceptions to the law of
causation, to the conservation of matter and energy, or to the continuity
of evolution, would that not rather be a drawback in nature? Are the
patches on a coat better proof that it was made by a tailor than the
whole coat? Any kind of theology which still recognises special-creation
acts, or miracles, or breaks in evolution, we do not hesitate to say,
is not yet free from paganism, for it still sticks to the religious
conception of the medicine-man that God is a great magician. The God of
the medicine-man lives in the realm of the unknown and he appears in
man’s imagination where the light of science fails. The God of science
however is the God of truth, and evidence of his existence is not found
in the darkness of ignorance but in the light of knowledge. God’s being
is not recognised in the seeming exceptions to natural laws, but in the
natural laws themselves. God’s existence is not proved by our inability
to trace here or there the order of cause and effect, as if a disorder
in the world made it divine; on the contrary the only rational ground
of a faith in God is the irrefragable cosmic order of the universe. It
is true that we have to give up the idea of a personal God, but is not a
superpersonal God greater than the idol which we have made unto our own
likeness?
The God of science is perhaps more in agreement with the biblical God
than the God of dogmatic theology. The interpretations of biblical
passages which are at present generally considered as orthodox are
(merely from the standpoint of impartial exegetics) untenable. The first
chapter of Genesis has not one word about special-creation acts. Neither
the Elohim nor the Jahveh-Adonai account declares that in the beginning
there had been Nothing. Both accounts (Gen. Chap. I. 1 to II. 3, and
II. 3 et seqq.) agree that God “shaped” the world. The word _barah_ (to
shape, to form, to make) is nowhere used in the sense of creating out of
nothing. The Psalmist says, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens
made,” which was so interpreted in the New Testament that it meant “by
the logos,” and the gospel of St. John adds καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, i.
e. and the word was God. Logos means rational speech or reason, and
the world-reason through which the heavens were made can mean only the
cosmic order of the universe. This idea of St. John’s thought out to its
ultimate conclusions means monism.
There is a common error that scientific progress is dangerous to
religion. Scientific progress is dangerous to superstition only. Religion
(i. e. true religion) is not based upon our ignorance, but upon our
knowledge; it is not a child of the darkness but of the light, and faith
far from being a mere belief, i. e. the imperfect knowledge of an opinion
for which no proof is forthcoming, is applied knowledge, it is knowledge
plus the confidence that this knowledge can be made the basis of ethics
and the supreme rule for regulating our conduct in life. The history of
religion has been and is still a constant purification of our religious
ideas, and the crucible in which the religious ideas are purified is
science. We are slowly but constantly progressing toward a high religious
ideal and this ideal is a cosmical religion free from the pagan notions
so severely criticised by Christ and yet so carefully preserved by
the Christian churches. This cosmical religion will be the religion
of science. It will not consist of religious indifference nor of a
toleration of any and every opinion as is so often erroneously proclaimed
as the ideal of liberalism. On the contrary it will be in a certain sense
the most orthodox religion, for its maxim will be to stand on the truth
and nothing but the truth. And the truth is not at all indifferent or
tolerant. The truth is extremely intolerant and suffers no error beside
it, although, as a matter of course, the truth is very tolerant in so
far as it sanctions no violence but employs only the spiritual sword of
conviction by argument and logical proof.
We have given up the idea of special acts of creation as the calling
forth disconnectedly of something out of nothing. We conceive the whole
world as an orderly cosmos, well regulated by laws and evolving the
forms of life in agreement with its laws. Is there less divinity in a
cosmos than in a half chaotic world in which God makes exceptions and
counteracts his own ordinances? Is the idea of creation less religious
if it ceases to mean an origination of something out of nothing? Is not
man at least just as wonderful if evolved step by step out of the dust
of the earth through innumerable stages in the long process of evolution
as if he were made directly out of clay? And is there less divinity in
his soul, is he any less shaped unto the image of God because his growth
took place according to natural laws? Natural laws, in the conception
of purified religion, of the religion of science, are nothing but the
ideas of God, eternal and immutable, and formulated by scientists not on
the ground of special revelations but on the ground of the universal and
unchangeable, and throughout consistent revelation of God in his works.
* * * * *
The science of language and the science of life are two important
highroads to the cognition of truth. That both sciences will be
consistent with each other, that their results will finally be seen to
harmonise perfectly is beyond all doubt and also that their bearing upon
religious ideas will contribute much to their purification. Prof. F.
Max Müller and Prof. George John Romanes are two great scholars, each
one is a leader in his own branch of knowledge, and where they come in
conflict, it appears to us, that they rather complement than refute each
other. Both are strong Monists, although emphasising different sides of
Monistic truth and we feel convinced that their very differences will
help us to elaborate more fully and clearly and more comprehensively
the great truth of Monism—of that Monism which will more and more be
recognised as the corner-stone of science and also of the religion of
science.