of the nature of scientific theory, which is, or ought to be, no more
than the expression of fact in a general form. Whatever goes beyond such
expression is hypothesis; and hypotheses are not ends, but means. They
should be regarded as instruments by which new lines of inquiry are
indicated; or by the aid of which a provisional coherency and
intelligibility may be given to seemingly disconnected groups of
phenomena. The most useful of servants to the man of science, they are
the worst of masters. And when the establishment of the hypothesis
becomes the end, and fact is alluded to only so far as it suits the
"Idee," science has no longer anything to do with the business.
CCLXXXVII
Scientific observation tell us that living birds form a group or class
of animals, through which a certain form of skeleton runs; and that this
kind of skeleton differs in certain well-defined characters from that of
mammals. On the other hand, if anyone utterly ignorant of osteology, but
endowed with the artistic sense of form, were set before a bird skeleton
and a mammalian skeleton, he would at once see that the two were similar
and yet different. Very likely he would be unable to give clear
expression to his just sense of the differences and resemblances;
perhaps he would make great mistakes in detail if he tried.
Nevertheless, he would be able to draw from memory a couple of sketches,
in which all the salient points of likeness and unlikeness would be
reproduced with sufficient accuracy. The mere osteologist, however
accurately he might put the resemblances and differences into words, if
he lacked the artistic visualising faculty, might be hopelessly
incompetent to perform any such feat; lost in details, it might not even
occur to him that it was possible; or, still more probably, the habit of
looking for differences might impair the perception of resemblances.
Under these circumstances, the artist might be led to higher and broader
views, and thus be more useful to the progress of science than the
osteological expert. Not that the former attains the higher truth by a
different method; for the way of reaching truth is one and indivisible.
Whether he knows it or not, the artist has made a generalization from
two sets of facts, which is perfectly scientific in form; and
trustworthy so far as it rests upon the direct perception of
similarities and dissimilarities. The only peculiarity of the artistic
application of scientific method lies in the artist's power of
visualizing the result of his mental processes, of embodying the facts
of resemblance in a visible "type," and of showing the manner in which
the differences may be represented as modifications of that type; he
does, in fact, instinctively, what an architect, who desires to
demonstrate the community of plan in certain ancient temples, does by
the methodical construction of plans, sections, and elevations, the
comparison of which will furnish him with the "type" of such temples.
Thus, what I may term the artistic fashion of dealing with anatomy is
not only perfectly legitimate, but has been of great utility. The harm
of it does not begin until the attempt is made to get more out of this
visual projection of thought than it contains; until the origin of the
notion of "type" is forgotten and the speculative philosopher deludes
himself with the supposition that the generalization suggested by fact
is an "Idea" of the Pure Reason, with which fact must, somehow or other,
be made to agree.
CCLXXXVIII
Flowers are the primers of the morphologist; those who run may read in
them uniformity of type amidst endless diversity, singleness of plan
with complex multiplicity of detail. As a musician might say, every
natural group of flowering plants is a sort of visible fugue, wandering
about a central theme which is never forsaken, however it may,
momentarily, cease to be apparent.
CCLXXXIX
Like all the really great men of literature, Goethe added some of the
qualities of the man of science to those of the artist, especially the
habit of careful and patient observation of Nature. The great poet was
no mere book-learned speculator. His acquaintance with mineralogy,
geology, botany and osteology, the fruit of long and wide studies, would
have sufficed to satisfy the requirements of a professoriate in those
days, if only he could have pleaded ignorance of everything else.
Unfortunately for Goethe's credit with his scientific contemporaries,
and, consequently, for the attention attracted by his work, he did not
come forward as a man of science until the public had ranged him among
the men of literature. And when the little men have thus classified a
big man, they consider that the last word has been said about him; it
appears to the thought hardly decent on his part if he venture to stray
beyond the speciality they have assigned to him. It does not seem to
occur to them that a clear intellect is an engine capable of supplying
power to all sorts of mental factories; nor to admit that, as Goethe
somewhere pathetically remarks, a man may have a right to live for
himself as well as for the public; to follow the line of work that
happens to interest him, rather than that which interests them.
On the face of the matter it is not obvious that the brilliant poet had
less chance of doing good service in natural science than the dullest of
dissectors and nomenclators. Indeed, as I have endeavoured to indicate,
there was considerable reason, a hundred years ago, for thinking that an
infusion of the artistic way of looking at things might tend to revivify
the somewhat mummified body of technical zoology and botany. Great ideas
were floating about; the artistic apprehension was needed to give these
airy nothings a local habitation and a name; to convert vague
suppositions into definite hypotheses. And I apprehend that it was just
this service which Goethe rendered by writing his essays on the
intermaxillary bone, on osteology generally, and on the metamorphoses of
plants.
CCXC
All this is mere justice to Goethe; but, as it is the unpleasant duty of
the historian to do justice upon, as well as to, great men, it behoves
me to add that the germs of the worst faults of later speculative
morphologists are no less visible in his writings than their great
merits. In the artist-philosopher there was, at best, a good deal more
artist than philosopher; and when Goethe ventured into the regions which
belong to pure science, this excess of a virtue had all the consequences
of a vice. "Trennen und zahlen lag nicht in meiner Natur," says he; but
the mental operations of which "analysis and numeration" are partial
expressions are indispensable for every step of progress beyond happy
glimpses, even in morphology; while, in physiology and in physics,
failure in the most exact performance of these operations involves sheer
disaster, as indeed Goethe was afforded abundant opportunity of
learning. Yet he never understood the sharp lessons he received, and put
down to malice, or prejudice, the ill-reception of his unfortunate
attempts to deal with purely physical problems.
CCXCI
There was never any lack of the scientific imagination about the great
anatomist; and the charge of indifference to general ideas, sometimes
brought against him, is stupidly unjust. But Cuvier was one of those
happily endowed persons in whom genius never parts company with
common-sense; and whose perception of the importance of sound method is
so great that they look at even a truth, hit upon by those who pursue an
essentially vicious method, with the sort of feeling with which an
honest trader regards the winnings of a gambler. They hold it better to
remain poor than obtain riches by the road that, as a rule, leads to
ruin.
CCXCII
The irony of history is nowhere more apparent than in science. Here we
see the men, over whose minds the coming events of the world of biology
cast their shadows, doing their best to spoil their case in stating it;
while the man who represented sound scientific method is doing his best
to stay the inevitable progress of thought and bolster up antiquated
traditions. The progress of knowledge during the last seventy years
enables us to see that neither Geoffroy, nor Cuvier, was altogether
right nor altogether wrong; and that they were meant to hunt in couples
instead of pulling against one another. Science has need of servants of
very different qualifications; of artistic constructors no less than of
men of business; of people to design her palaces and of others to see
that the materials are sound and well-fitted together; of some to spur
investigators, and of others to keep their heads cool. The only would-be
servants, who are entirely unprofitable, are those who do not take the
trouble to interrogate Nature, but imagine vain things about her; and
spin, from their inner consciousness, webs, as exquisitely symmetrical
as those of the most geometrical of spiders, but alas! as easily torn to
pieces by some inconsidered bluebottle of a fact.
CCXCIII
There is always a Cape Horn in one's life that one either weathers or
wrecks one's self on.
CCXCIV
A Local Museum should be exactly what its name implies, viz.,
"Local"--illustrating local Geology, local Botany, local Zoology, and
local Archaeology.
Such a museum, if residents who are interested in these sciences take
proper pains, may be brought to a great degree of perfection and be
unique of its kind. It will tell both natives and strangers exactly what
they want to know, and possess great scientific interest and importance.
Whereas the ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, Hindoo
idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, scorpions, and conch shells--who
shall describe the weary inutility of it? It is really worse than
nothing, because it leads the unwary to look for the objects of science
elsewhere than under their noses. What they want to know is that their
"America is here," as Wilhelm Meister has it.
CCXCV
A man who speaks out honestly and fearlessly that which he knows, and
that which he believes, will always enlist the goodwill and the respect,
however much he may fail in winning the assent, of his fellow men.
CCXCVI
Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.
CCXCVII
I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no reason for
believing in it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving
it.
I have no _a priori_ objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal
daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about _a priori_
difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing
anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half
so wonderful as the conservation of force, or the indestructibility of
matter.
Whoso clearly appreciates all that is implied in the falling of a stone
can have no difficulty about any doctrine simply on account of its
marvellousness. But the longer I live, the more obvious it is to me that
the most sacred act of a man's life is to say and to feel, "I believe
such and such to be true." All the greatest rewards and all the heaviest
penalties of existence cling about that act. The universe is one and the
same throughout; and if the condition of my success in unravelling some
little difficulty of anatomy or physiology is that I shall rigorously
refuse to put faith in that which does not rest on sufficient evidence,
I cannot believe that the great mysteries of existence will be laid open
to me on other terms.
CCXCVIII
I cannot conceive of my personality as a thing apart from the phenomena
of my life. When I try to form such a conception I discover that, as
Coleridge would have said, I only hypostatize a word, and it alters
nothing if, with Fichte, I suppose the universe to be nothing but a
manifestation of my personality. I am neither more nor less eternal than
I was before.
CCXCIX
I do not know whether the animals persist after they disappear or not. I
do not even know whether the infinite difference between us and them may
not be compensated by _their_ persistence and _my_ cessation after
apparent death, just as the humble bulb of an annual lives, whilst the
glorious flowers it has put forth die away.
CCC
My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact,
not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations.
CCCI
Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the
great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire
surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be
prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever
and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have
only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at
all risks to do this.
CCCII
There are, however, other arguments commonly brought forward in favour
of the immortality of man, which are to my mind not only delusive but
mischievous. The one is the notion that the moral government of the
world is imperfect without a system of future rewards and punishments.
The other is: that such a system is indispensable to practical morality.
I believe that both these dogmas are very mischievous lies.
With respect to the first, I am no optimist, but I have the firmest
belief that the Divine Government (if we may use such a phrase to
express the sum of the "customs of matter") is wholly just. The more I
know intimately of the lives of other men (to say nothing of my own),
the more obvious it is to me that the wicked does _not_ flourish nor is
the righteous punished. But for this to be clear we must bear in mind
what almost all forget, that the rewards of life are contingent upon
obedience to the _whole_ law--physical as well as moral--and that moral
obedience will not atone for physical sin, or _vice versa_.
CCCIII
The ledger of the Almighty is strictly kept, and every one of us has the
balance of his operations paid over to him at the end of every minute of
his existence.
Life cannot exist without a certain conformity to the surrounding
universe--that conformity involves a certain amount of happiness in
excess of pain. In short, as we live we are paid for living.
CCCIV
It is to be recollected in view of the apparent discrepancy between
men's acts and their rewards that Nature is juster than we. She takes
into account what a man brings with him into the world, which human
justice cannot do. If I, born a bloodthirsty and savage brute,
inheriting these qualities from others, kill you, my fellow-men will
very justly hang me, but I shall not be visited with the horrible
remorse which would be my real punishment if, my nature being higher, I
had done the same thing.
CCCV
The absolute justice of the system of things is as clear to me as any
scientific fact. The gravitation of sin to sorrow is as certain as that
of the earth to the sun, and more so--for experimental proof of the fact
is within reach of us all--nay, is before us all in our own lives, if we
had but the eyes to see it.
CCCVI
Not only do I disbelieve in the need for compensation, but I believe
that the seeking for rewards and punishments out of this life leads men
to a ruinous ignorance of the fact that their inevitable rewards and
punishments are here.
CCCVII
If the expectation of hell hereafter can keep me from evil-doing, surely
_a fortiori_ the certainty of hell now will do so? If a man could be
firmly impressed with the belief that stealing damaged him as much as
swallowing arsenic would do (and it does), would not the dissuasive
force of that belief be greater than that of any based on mere future
expectations?
CCCVIII
As I stood behind the coffin of my little son the other day, with my
mind bent on anything but disputation, the officiating minister read, as
a part of his duty, the words, "If the dead rise not again, let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die." I cannot tell you how inexpressibly
they shocked me. Paul had neither wife nor child, or he must have known
that his alternative involved a blasphemy against all that was best and
noblest in human nature. I could have laughed with scorn. What! because
I am face to face with irreparable loss, because I have given back to
the source from whence it came, the cause of a great happiness, still
retaining through all my life the blessings which have sprung and will
spring from that cause, I am to renounce my manhood, and, howling,
grovel in bestiality? Why, the very apes know better, and if you shoot
their young the poor brutes grieve their grief out and do not
immediately seek distraction in a gorge.
CCCIX
He had intellect to comprehend his highest duty distinctly, and force of
character to do it; which of us dare ask for a higher summary of his
life than that? For such a man there can be no fear in facing the great
unknown, his life has been one long experience of the substantial
justice of the laws by which this world is governed, and he will calmly
trust to them still as he lays his head down for his long sleep.
CCCX
Whether astronomy and geology can or cannot be made to agree with the
statements as to the matters of fact laid down in Genesis--whether the
Gospels are historically true or not--are matters of comparatively small
moment in the face of the impassable gulf between the anthropomorphism
(however refined) of theology and the passionless impersonality of the
unknown and unknowable which science shows everywhere underlying the
thin veil of phenomena.
CCCXI
I am too much a believer in Butler and in the great principle of the
"Analogy" that "there is no absurdity in theology so great that you
cannot parallel it by a greater absurdity of Nature" (it is not
commonly stated in this way), to have any difficulties about miracles. I
have never had the least sympathy with the _a priori_ reasons against
orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible
antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school.
CCCXII
This universe is, I conceive, like to a great game being played out, and
we poor mortals are allowed to take a hand. By great good fortune the
wiser among us have made out some few of the rules of the game, as at
present played. We call them "Laws of Nature," and honour them because
we find that if we obey them we win something for our pains. The cards
are our theories and hypotheses, the tricks our experimental
verifications. But what sane man would endeavour to solve this problem:
given the rules of a game and the winnings, to find whether the cards
are made of pasteboard or gold-leaf? Yet the problem of the
metaphysicians is to my mind no saner.
CCCXIII
I have not the smallest sentimental sympathy with the negro; don't
believe in him at all, in short. But it is clear to me that slavery
means, for the white man, bad political economy; bad social morality;
bad internal political organisation, and a bad influence upon free
labour and freedom all over the world.
CCCXIV
At the present time the important question for England is not the
duration of her coal, but the due comprehension of the truths of
science, and the labours of her scientific men.
CCCXV
It is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in
chains.
CCCXVI
A good book is comparable to a piece of meat, and fools are as flies who
swarm to it, each for the purpose of depositing and hatching his own
particular maggot of an idea.
CCCXVII
Children work a greater metamorphosis in men than any other condition of
life. They ripen one wonderfully and make life ten times better worth
having than it was.
CCCXVIII
Teach a child what is wise, that is _morality_. Teach him what is wise
and beautiful, that is _religion_!
CCCXIX
People may talk about intellectual teaching, but what we principally
want is the moral teaching.
CCCXX
We are in the midst of a gigantic movement greater than that which
preceded and produced the Reformation, and really only the continuation
of that movement. But there is nothing new in the ideas which lie at the
bottom of the movement, nor is any reconcilement possible between free
thought and traditional authority. One or other will have to succumb
after a struggle of unknown duration, which will have as side issues
vast political and social troubles. I have no more doubt that free
thought will win in the long run than I have that I sit here writing to
you, or that this free thought will organize itself into a coherent
system, embracing human life and the world as one harmonious whole. But
this organization will be the work of generations of men, and those who
further it most will be those who teach men to rest in no lie, and to
rest in no verbal delusions.
CCCXXI
Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is
ever done in this world by hesitation.
CCCXXII
The world is neither wise nor just, but it makes up for all its folly
and injustice by being damnably sentimental.
CCCXXIII
Without seeing any reason to believe that women are, on the average, so
strong physically, intellectually, or morally, as men, I cannot shut my
eyes to the fact that many women are much better endowed in all these
respects than many men, and I am at a loss to understand on what grounds
of justice or public policy a career which is open to the weakest and
most foolish of the male sex should be forcibly closed to women of
vigour and capacity.
CCCXXIV
We have heard a great deal lately about the physical disabilities of
women. Some of these alleged impediments, no doubt, are really inherent
in their organization, but nine-tenths of them are artificial--the
products of their modes of life. I believe that nothing would tend so
effectually to get rid of these creations of idleness, weariness, and
that "over stimulation of the emotions" which, in plainer-spoken days,
used to be called wantonness, than a fair share of healthy work,
directed towards a definite object, combined with an equally fair share
of healthy play, during the years of adolescence; and those who are best
acquainted with the acquirements of an average medical practitioner will
find it hardest to believe that the attempt to reach that standard is
like to prove exhausting to an ordinarily intelligent and well-educated
young woman.
CCCXXV
The only good that I can see in the demonstration of the truth of
"Spiritualism" is to furnish an additional argument against suicide.
Better live a crossing-sweeper than die and be made to talk twaddle by a
"medium" hired at a guinea a _seance_.
CCCXXVI
I ask myself--suppose you knew that by inflicting prolonged pain on 100
rabbits you could discover a way to the extirpation of leprosy, or
consumption, or locomotor ataxy, or of suicidal melancholia among human
beings, dare you refuse to inflict that pain? Now I am quite unable to
say that I dare. That sort of daring would seem to me to be extreme
moral cowardice, to involve gross inconsistency.
For the advantage and protection of society, we all agree to inflict
pain upon man--pain of the most prolonged and acute character--in our
prisons, and on our battlefields. If England were invaded, we should
have no hesitation about inflicting the maximum of suffering upon our
invaders for no other object than our own good.
But if the good of society and of a nation is a sufficient plea for
inflicting pain on men, I think it may suffice us for experimenting on
rabbits or dogs.
At the same time, I think that a heavy moral responsibility rests on
those who perform experiments of the second kind.
The wanton infliction of pain on man or beast is a crime; pity is that
so many of those who (as I think rightly) hold this view, seem to forget
that the criminality lies in the wantonness and not in the act of
inflicting pain _per se_.
CCCXXVII
The one condition of success, your sole safeguard, is the moral worth
and intellectual clearness of the individual citizen. Education cannot
give these, but it can cherish them and bring them to the front in
whatever station of society they are to be found, and the universities
ought to be and may be, the fortresses of the higher life of the nation.
CCCXXVIII
As a matter of fact, men sin, and the consequences of their sins affect
endless generations of their progeny. Men are tempted, men are punished
for the sins of others without merit or demerit of their own; and they
are tormented for their evil deeds as long as their consciousness lasts.
CCCXXIX