more than once among the spirits, at their own invitation. They do
not improve on acquaintance. Surely no baser delusion ever obtained
dominance over the weak mind of man.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
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FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE:
A SERIES OF DETACHED ESSAYS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS.
BY
JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO, NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
SIXTH EDITION.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1879.
All rights reserved.
********************
In the bright sky they perceived an illuminator;
in the all-encircling firmament an embracer;
in the roar of thunder and in the violence of
the storm they felt the presence of a shouter and of furious strikers;
and out of the rain they created an Indra, or giver of rain.--MAX MULLER.
*****
I. REFLECTIONS ON PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.
1861.
AMID the apparent confusion and caprice of natural phenomena, which
roused emotions hostile to calm investigation, it must for ages have
seemed hopeless to seek for law or orderly relation; and before the
thought of law dawned upon the unfolding human mind these otherwise
inexplicable effects were referred to personal agency. In the fall of
a cataract the savage saw the leap of a spirit, and the echoed
thunder-peal was to him the hammer-clang of an exasperated god.
Propitiation of these terrible powers was the consequence, and
sacrifice was offered to the demons of earth and air.
But observation tends to chasten the emotions and to check those
structural efforts of the intellect which have emotion for their base.
One by one natural phenomena came to be associated with their
proximate causes; the idea of direct personal volition mixing itself
with the economy of nature retreating more and more. Many of us fear
this change. Our religious feelings are dear to us, and we look with
suspicion and dislike on any philosophy, the apparent tendency of
which is to dry them up. Probably every change from ancient savagery
to our present enlightenment has excited, in a greater or less degree,
fears of this kind. But the fact is, that we have not yet determined
whether its present form is necessary to the life and warmth of
religious feeling. We may err in linking the imperishable with the
transitory, and confound the living plant with the decaying pole to
which it clings. My object, however, at present is not to argue, but
to mark a tendency. We have ceased to propitiate the powers of
nature--ceased even to pray for things in manifest contradiction to
natural laws. In Protestant countries, at least, I think it is
conceded that the age of miracles is past.
At an auberge near the foot of the Rhone glacier, I met, in the summer
of 1858, an athletic young priest, who, after a solid breakfast,
including a bottle of wine, informed me that he had come up to 'bless
the mountains.' This was the annual custom of the place. Year by year
the Highest was entreated, by official intercessors, to make such
meteorological arrangements as should ensure food and shelter for the
flocks and herds of the Valaisians. A diversion of the Rhone, or a
deepening of the river's bed, would, at the time I now mention, have
been of incalculable benefit to the inhabitants of the valley. But
the priest would have shrunk from the idea of asking the Omnipotent to
open a new channel for the river, or to cause a portion of it to flow
over the Grimsel pass, and down the valley of Oberhasli to Brientz.
This he would have deemed a miracle, and he did not come to ask the
Creator to perform miracles, but to do something which he manifestly
thought lay quite within the bounds of the natural and non-miraculous.
A Protestant gentleman who was present at the time smiled at this
recital. He had no faith in the priest's blessing; still, he deemed
his prayer different in kind from a request to open a new river-cut,
or to cause the water to flow up-hill.
In a similar manner the same Protestant gentleman would doubtless
smile at the honest Tyrolese priest, who, when he feared the bursting
of a glacier dam, offered the sacrifice of the Mass upon the ice as a
means of averting the calamity. That poor man did not expect to
convert the ice into adamant, or to strengthen its texture, so as to
enable it to withstand the pressure of the water; nor did he expect
that his sacrifice would cause the stream to roll back upon its source
and relieve him, by a miracle, of its presence. But beyond the
boundaries of his knowledge lay a region where rain was generated, he
knew not how. He was not so presumptuous as to expect a miracle, but
he firmly believed that in yonder cloud-land matters could be so
arranged, without trespass on the miraculous, that the stream which
threatened him and his people should be caused to shrink within its
proper bounds.
Both these priests fashioned that which they did not understand to
their respective wants and wishes. In their case imagination came
into play, uncontrolled by a knowledge of law. A similar state of
mind was long prevalent among mechanicians. Many of these, among whom
were to be reckoned men of consummate skill, were occupied a century
ago with the question of perpetual motion. They aimed at constructing
a machine which should execute work without the expenditure of power;
and some of them went mad in the pursuit of this object. The faith in
such a consummation, involving, as it did, immense personal profit to
the inventor, was extremely exciting, and every attempt to destroy
this faith was met by bitter resentment on the part of those who held
it. Gradually, however, as men became more and more acquainted with
the true functions of machinery, the dream dissolved. The hope of
getting work out of mere mechanical combinations disappeared: but
still there remained for the speculator a cloud-land denser than that
which filled the imagination of the Tyrolese priest, and out of which
he still hoped to evolve perpetual motion. There was the mystic store
of chemic force, which nobody understood; there were heat and light,
electricity and magnetism, all competent to produce mechanical motion.
[Footnote: See Helmholtz: 'Wechselwirkung der Naturkräfte.'] Here,
then, was the mine in which our gem must be sought. A modified and
more refined form of the ancient faith revived; and, for aught I know,
a remnant of sanguine designers may at the present moment be engaged
on the problem which like-minded men in former ages left unsolved.
And why should a perpetual motion, even under modern conditions, be
impossible? The answer to this question is the statement of that
great generalisation of modern science, which is known under the name
of the Conservation of Energy. This principle asserts that no power
can make its appearance in nature without an equivalent expenditure of
some other power; that natural agents are so related to each other as
to be mutually convertible, but that no new agency is created. Light
runs into heat; heat into electricity; electricity into magnetism;
magnetism into mechanical force; and mechanical force again into light
and heat. The Proteus changes, but he is ever the same; and his
changes in nature, supposing no miracle to supervene, are the
expression, not of spontaneity, but of physical necessity. A
perpetual motion, then, is deemed impossible, because it demands the
creation of energy, whereas the principle of Conservation is--no
creation, but infinite conversion.
It is an old remark that the law which moulds a tear also rounds a
planet. In the application of law in nature the terms great and small
are unknown. Thus the principle referred to teaches us that the
Italian wind, gliding over the crest of the Matterhorn, is as firmly
ruled as the earth in its orbital revolution round the sun; and that
the fall of its vapour into clouds is exactly as much a matter of
necessity as the return of the seasons. The dispersion, therefore, of
the slightest mist by the special volition of the Eternal, would be as
much a miracle as the rolling of the Rhone over the Grimsel
precipices, down the valley of Hash to Meyringen and Brientz.
It seems to me quite beyond the present power of science to
demonstrate that the Tyrolese priest, or his colleague of the Rhone
valley, asked for an 'impossibility' in praying for good weather; but
Science can demonstrate the incompleteness of the knowledge of nature
which limited their prayers to this narrow ground; and she may lessen
the number of instances in which we 'ask amiss,' by showing that we
sometimes pray for the performance of a miracle when we do not intend
it. She does assert, for example, that without a disturbance of
natural law, quite as serious as the stoppage of an eclipse, or the
rolling of the river Niagara up the Falls, no act of humiliation,
individual or national, could call one shower from heaven, or deflect
towards us a single beam of the sun.
Those, therefore, who believe that the miraculous is still active in
nature, may, with perfect consistency, join in our periodic prayers
for fair weather and for rain: while those who hold that the age of
miracles is past, will, if they be consistent, refuse to join in these
petitions. And these latter, if they wish to fall back upon such a
justification, may fairly urge that the latest conclusions of science
are in perfect accordance with the doctrine of the Master himself,
which manifestly was that the distribution of natural phenomena is not
affected by moral or religious causes. 'He maketh His sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust.' Granting 'the power of Free Will in man,' so strongly claimed
by Professor Mansel in his admirable defence of the belief in
miracles, and assuming the efficacy of free prayer to produce changes
in external nature, it necessarily follows that natural laws are more
or less at the mercy of man's volition, and no conclusion founded on
the assumed permanence of those laws would be worthy of confidence.
It is a wholesome sign for England that she numbers among her clergy
men wise enough to understand all this, and courageous enough to act
up to their knowledge. Such men do service to public character, by
encouraging a manly and intelligent conflict with the real causes of
disease and scarcity, instead of a delusive reliance on supernatural
aid. But they have also a value beyond this local and temporary one.
They prepare the public mind for changes, which though inevitable,
could hardly, without such preparation, be wrought without violence.
Iron is strong; still, water in crystallising will shiver an iron
envelope, and the more unyielding the metal is, the worse for its
safety. There are in the world men who would encompass philosophic
speculation by a rigid envelope, hoping thereby to restrain it, but in
reality giving it explosive force. In England, thanks to men of the
stamp to which I have alluded, scope is gradually given to thought for
changes of aggregation, and the envelope slowly alters its form, in
accordance with the necessities of the time.
*****
The proximate origin of the foregoing slight article, and probably the
remoter origin of the next following one, was this. Some years ago, a
day of prayer and humiliation, on account of a bad harvest, was
appointed by the proper religious authorities; but certain clergymen
of the Church of England, doubting the wisdom of the demonstration,
declined to join in the services of the day. For this act of
nonconformity they were severely censured by some of their brethren.
Rightly or wrongly, my sympathies were on the side of these men; and,
to lend them a helping hand in their struggle against odds, I inserted
the foregoing chapter in a little book entitled 'Mountaineering in
1861.' Some time subsequently I received from a gentleman of great
weight and distinction in the scientific world, and, I believe, of
perfect orthodoxy in the religious one, a note directing my attention
to an exceedingly thoughtful article on Prayer and Cholera in the
'Pall Mall Gazette.' My eminent correspondent deemed the article a
fair answer to the remarks made by me in 1861. I, also, was struck by
the temper and ability of the article, but I could not deem its
arguments satisfactory, and in a short note to the editor of the 'Pall
Mall Gazette' I ventured to state so much. This letter elicited some
very able replies, and a second leading article was also devoted to
the subject. In answer to all, I risked the publication of a second
letter, and soon afterwards, by an extremely courteous note from the
editor, the discussion was closed.
Though thus stopped locally, the discussion flowed in other
directions. Sermons were preached, essays were published, articles
were written, while a copious correspondence occupied the pages of
some of the religious newspapers. It gave me sincere pleasure to
notice that the discussion, save in a few cases where natural
coarseness had the upper hand, was conducted with a minimum of
vituperation. The severity shown was hardly more than sufficient to
demonstrate earnestness, while gentlemanly feeling was too predominant
to permit that earnestness to contract itself to bigotry or to clothe
itself in abuse. It was probably the memory of this discussion which
caused another excellent friend of mine to recommend to my perusal the
exceedingly able work which in the next article I have endeavoured to
review.
Mr. Mozley's book belongs to that class of writing of which Butler may
be taken as the type. It is strong, genuine argument about difficult
matters, fairly tracing what is difficult, fairly trying to grapple,
not with what appears the gist and strong point of a question, but
with what really at bottom is the knot of it. It is a book the
reasoning of which may not satisfy everyone... But we think it is a
book for people who wish to see a great subject handled on a scale
which befits it, and with a perception of its real elements. It is a
book which will have attractions for those who like to see a powerful
mind applying itself, without shrinking or holding back, without trick
or reserve or show of any kind, as a wrestler closes body to body with
his antagonist, to the strength of an adverse and powerful
argument.--Times, Tuesday, June 5, 1866.
We should add, that the faults of the work are wholly on the surface
and in the arrangement; that the matter is as solid and as logical as
that of any book within recent memory, and that it abounds in striking
passages, of which we have scarcely been able even to give a sample.
No future arguer against miracles can afford to pass it
over.--SATURDAY REVIEW, September 15, 1866.
********************
II MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES.
[Footnote: Fortnightly Review, New Series, vol. i. p. 645.]
1867.
IT is my privilege to enjoy the friendship of a select number of
religious men, with whom I converse frankly upon theological subjects,
expressing without disguise the notions and opinions I entertain
regarding their tenets, and hearing in return these notions and
opinions subjected to criticism. I have thus far found them liberal
and loving men, patient in hearing, tolerant in reply, who know how to
reconcile the duties of courtesy with the earnestness of debate. From
one of these, nearly a year ago, I received a note, recommending
strongly to my attention the volume of 'Bampton Lectures' for 1865, in
which the question of miracles is treated by Mr. Mozley. Previous to
receiving this note, I had in part made the acquaintance of the work
through an able and elaborate review of it in the 'Times.' The
combined effect of the letter and the review was to make the book the
companion of my summer tour in the Alps. There, during the wet and
snowy days which were only too prevalent in 1866, and during the days
of rest interpolated between days of toil, I made myself more
thoroughly conversant with Mr. Mozley's volume. I found it clear and
strong--an intellectual tonic, as bracing and pleasant to my mind as
the keen air of the mountains was to my body. From time to time I
jotted down thoughts regarding it, intending afterwards to work them
up into a coherent whole. Other duties, however, interfered with the
complete carrying out of this intention, and what I wrote last summer
I now publish, not hoping to be able, within any reasonable time, to
render my defence of scientific method more complete.
Mr. Mozley refers at the outset of his task to the movement against
miracles which of late years has taken place, and which determined his
choice of a subject. He acquits modern science of having had any
great share in the production of this movement. The objection against
miracles, he says, does not arise from any minute knowledge of the
laws of nature, but simply because they are opposed to that plain and
obvious order of nature which everybody sees. The present movement
is, he thinks, to be ascribed to the greater earnestness and
penetration of the present age. Formerly miracles were accepted
without question, because without reflection; but the exercise of the
'historic imagination' is a characteristic of our own time. Men are
now accustomed to place before themselves vivid images of historic
facts; and when a miracle rises to view, they halt before the
astounding occurrence, and, realising it with the same clearness as if
it were now passing before their eyes, they ask themselves, 'Can this
have taken place?' In some instances the effort to answer this
question has led to a disbelief in miracles, in others to a
strengthening of belief. The aim of Mr. Mozley's lectures is to show
that the strengthening of belief is the logical result which ought to
follow from the examination of the facts.
Attempts have been made by religious men to bring the Scripture
miracles within the scope of the order of nature, but all such
attempts are rejected by Mr. Mozley as utterly futile and wide of the
mark. Regarding miracles as a necessary accompaniment of a revelation,
their evidential value in his eyes depends entirely upon their
deviation from the order of nature. Thus deviating, they suggest and
illustrate a power higher than nature, a 'personal will;' and they
commend the person in whom this power is vested as a messenger from on
high. Without these credentials such a messenger would have no right
to demand belief, even were his assertions regarding his Divine
mission backed by a holy life. Nor is it by miracles alone that the
order of nature is, or may be, disturbed. The material universe is
also the arena of 'special providences.' Under these two heads Mr.
Mozley distributes the total preternatural. One form of the
preternatural may shade into the other, as one colour passes into
another in the rainbow; but, while the line which divides the
specially providential from the miraculous cannot be sharply drawn,
their distinction broadly expressed is this: that, while a special
providence can only excite surmise more or less probable, it is 'the
nature of a miracle to give proof, as distinguished from surmise, of
Divine design.'
Mr. Mozley adduces various illustrations of what he regards to be
special providences, as distinguished from miracles. 'The death of
Arius,' he says, 'was not miraculous, because the coincidence of the
death of a heresiarch taking place when it was peculiarly advantageous
to the orthodox faith ... was not such as to compel the inference
of extraordinary Divine agency; but it was a special providence,
because it carried a reasonable appearance of it. The miracle of the
Thundering Legion was a special providence, but not a miracle, for
the same reason, because the coincidence of an instantaneous fall of
rain, in answer to prayer, carried some appearance, but not proof, of
preternatural agency.'
The eminent lecturer's remarks on this head brought to my recollection
certain narratives published in Methodist magazines, which I used to
read with avidity when a boy. The general title of these exciting
stories, if I remember right, was 'The Providence of God asserted,'
and in them the most extraordinary escapes from peril were recounted
and ascribed to prayer, while equally wonderful instances of calamity
were adduced as illustrations of Divine retribution. In such
magazines, or elsewhere, I found recorded the case of the celebrated
Samuel Hick, which, as it illustrates a whole class of special
providences approaching in conclusiveness to miracles, is worthy of
mention here. It is related of this holy man that, on one occasion,
flour was lacking to make the sacramental bread. Grain was present,
and a windmill was present, but there was no wind to grind the corn.
With faith undoubting, Samuel Hick prayed to the Lord of the winds:
the sails turned, the corn was ground, after which the wind ceased.
According to the canon of the Bampton Lecturer, this, though carrying
a strong appearance of an immediate exertion of Divine energy, lacks
by a hair's-breadth the quality of a miracle. For the wind _might_ have
arisen, and _might_ have ceased, in the ordinary course of nature. Hence
the occurrence did not 'compel the inference of extraordinary Divine
agency.' In like manner Mr. Mozley considers that 'the appearance of
the cross to Constantine was a miracle, or a special providence,
according to what account of it we adopt. As only a meteoric
appearance in the shape of a cross it gave some token of preternatural
agency, but not full evidence.'
In the Catholic canton of Switzerland where I now write, and still
more among the pious Tyrolese, the mountains are dotted with shrines,
containing offerings of all kinds, in acknowledgment of special
mercies--legs, feet, arms, and hands--of gold, silver, brass, and
wood, according as worldly possessions enabled the grateful heart to
express its indebtedness. Most of these offerings are made to the
Virgin Mary. They are recognitions of 'special providences,' wrought
through the instrumentality of the Mother of God. Mr. Mozley's
belief, that of the Methodist chronicler, and that of the Tyrolese
peasant, are substantially the same. Each of them assumes that
nature, instead of flowing ever onward in the uninterrupted rhythm of
cause and effect, is mediately ruled by the free human will. As
regards _direct_ action upon natural phenomena, man's wish and will, as
expressed in prayer, are confessedly powerless; but prayer is the
trigger which liberates the Divine power, and to this extent, if the
will be free, man, of course, commands nature.
Did the existence of this belief depend solely upon the material
benefits derived from it, it could not, in my opinion, last a decade.
As a purely objective fact, we should soon see that the distribution
of natural phenomena is unaffected by the merits or the demerits of
men; that the law of gravitation crushes the simple worshippers of
Ottery St. Mary, while singing their hymns, just as surely as if they
were engaged in a midnight brawl. The hold of this belief upon the
human mind is not due to outward verification, but to the inner
warmth, force, and elevation with which it is commonly associated. It
is plain, however, that these feelings may exist under the most
various forms. They are not limited to Church of England
Protestantism--they are not even limited to Christianity. Though less
refined, they are certainly not less strong in the heart of the
Methodist and the Tyrolese peasant than in the heart of Mr. Mozley.
Indeed, those feelings belong to the primal powers of man's nature. A
'sceptic' may have them. They find vent in the battle-cry of the
Moslem. They take hue and form in the hunting-grounds of the Red
Indian; and raise all of them, as they raise the Christian, upon a
wave of victory, above the terrors of the grave.