had occupied themselves with the problem of the solar system. Kepler
had deduced, from a vast mass of observations, those general
expressions of planetary motion known as 'Kepler's laws.' It had been
observed that a magnet attracts iron; and by one of those flashes of
inspiration which reveal to the human mind the vast in the minute, the
general in the particular, it had been inferred, that the force by
which bodies fall to the earth might also be an attraction. Newton
pondered all these things. He looked, as was his wont, into the
darkness until it became entirely luminous. How this light arises we
cannot explain; but, as a matter of fact, it does arise. Let me
remark here, that this kind of pondering is a process with which the
ancients could have been but imperfectly acquainted. They, for the
most part, found the exercise of fantasy more pleasant than careful
observation, and subsequent brooding over facts. Hence it is, that
when those whose education has been derived from the ancients speak of
'the reason of man,' they are apt to omit from their conception of
reason one of its most important factors.
Well, Newton slowly marshalled his thoughts, or rather they came to
him while he 'intended his mind,' rising like a series of
intellectual births out of chaos. He made this idea of attraction his
own. But, to apply the idea to the solar system, it was necessary to
know the magnitude of the attraction, and the law of its variation
with the distance. His conceptions first of all passed from the
action of the earth as a whole, to that of its constituent particles.
And persistent thought brought more and more clearly out the final
conclusion, that every particle of matter attracts every other
particle with a force varying inversely as the square of the distance
between the particles.
Here we have the flower and outcome of Newton's induction; and how to
verify it, or to disprove it, was the next question. The first step
of the philosopher in this direction was to prove, mathematically,
that if this law of attraction be the true one; if the earth be
constituted of particles which obey this law; then the action of a
sphere equal to the earth in size on a body outside of it, is the same
as that which would be exerted if the whole mass of the sphere were
contracted to a point at its centre. Practically speaking, then, the
centre of the earth is the point from which distances must be measured
to bodies attracted by the earth.
From experiments executed before his time, Newton knew the amount of
the earth's attraction at the earth's surface, or at a distance of
4,000 miles from its centre. His object now was to measure the
attraction at a greater distance, and thus to determine the law of its
diminution. But how was he to find a body at a sufficient distance?
He had no balloon? and even if he had, he knew that any height to
which he could attain would be too small to enable him to solve his
problem. What did he do? He fixed his thoughts upon the moon;--a
body 240,000 miles, or sixty times the earth's radius, from the
earth's centre. He virtually weighed the moon, and found that weight
to be 1/3600th of what it would be at the earth's surface. This is
exactly what his theory required. I will not dwell here upon the
pause of Newton after his first calculations, or speak of his
self-denial in withholding them because they did not quite agree with
the observations then at his command. Newton's action in this matter
is the normal action of the scientific mind. If it were otherwise--if
scientific men were not accustomed to demand verification--if they
were satisfied with the imperfect while the perfect is attainable,
their science, instead of being, as it is, a fortress of adamant,
would be a house of clay, ill-fitted to bear the buffetings of the
theologic storms to which it is periodically exposed.
Thus we see that Newton, like Torricelli, first pondered his facts,
illuminated them with persistent thought, and finally divined the
character of the force of gravitation. But, having thus travelled
inward to the principle, he reversed his steps, carried the principle
outwards, and justified it by demonstrating its fitness to external
nature.
And here, in passing, I would notice a point which is well worthy of
attention. Kepler had deduced his laws from observation. As far back
as those observations extended, the planetary motions had obeyed these
laws; and neither Kepler nor Newton entertained a doubt as to their
continuing to obey them. Year after year, as the ages rolled, they
believed that those laws would continue to illustrate themselves in
the heavens. But this was not sufficient. The scientific mind can
find no repose in the mere registration of sequence in nature. The
further question intrudes itself with resistless might, Whence comes
the sequence? What is it that binds the consequent to its antecedent
in nature? The truly scientific intellect never can attain rest until
it reaches the _forces_ by which the observed succession is produced. It
was thus with Torricelli; it was thus with Newton; it is thus
pre-eminently with the scientific man of to-day. In common with the
most ignorant, he shares the belief that spring will succeed winter,
that summer will succeed spring, that autumn will succeed summer, and
that winter will succeed autumn. But he knows still further--and this
knowledge is essential to his intellectual repose--that this
succession, besides being permanent, is, under the circumstances,
_necessary_; that the gravitating force exerted between the sun and a
revolving sphere with an axis inclined to the plane of its orbit, must
produce the observed succession of the seasons. Not until this
relation between forces and phenomena has been established, is the law
of reason rendered concentric with the law of nature; and not until
this is effected does the mind of the scientific philosopher rest in
peace.
The expectation of likeness, then, in the procession of phenomena, is
not that on which the scientific mind founds its belief in the order
of nature. If the force be _permanent_ the phenomena are _necessary_,
whether they resemble or do not resemble anything that has gone
before. Hence, in judging of the order of nature, our enquiries
eventually relate to the permanence of force. From Galileo to Newton,
from Newton to our own time, eager eyes have been scanning the
heavens, and clear heads have been pondering the phenomena of the
solar system. The same eyes and minds have been also observing,
experimenting, and reflecting on the action of gravity at the surface
of the earth. Nothing has occurred to indicate that the operation of
the law has for a moment been suspended; nothing has ever intimated
that nature has been crossed by spontaneous action, or that a state of
things at any time existed which could not be rigorously deduced from
the preceding state.
Given the distribution of matter, and the forces in operation, in the
time of Galileo, the competent mathematician of that day could predict
what is now occurring in our own. We calculate eclipses in advance,
and find our calculations true to the second. We determine the dates
of those that have occurred in the early times of history, and find
calculation and history in harmony. Anomalies and perturbations in
the planets have been over and over again observed; but these, instead
of demonstrating any inconstancy on the part of natural law, have
invariably been reduced to consequences of that law. Instead of
referring the perturbations of Uranus to any interference on the part
of the Author of nature with the law of gravitation, the question
which the astronomer proposed to himself was, 'How, in accordance with
this law, can the perturbation be produced?' Guided by a principle, he
was enabled to fix the point of space in which, if a mass of matter
were placed, the observed perturbations would follow. We know the
result. The practical astronomer turned his telescope towards the
region which the intellect of the theoretic astronomer had already
explored, and the Planet now named Neptune was found in its predicted
Place. A very respectable outcome, it will be admitted, of an impulse
which 'rests upon no rational grounds, and can be traced to no
rational principle;' which possesses 'no intellectual character;'
which 'philosophy' has uprooted from 'the ground of reason,' and fixed
in that 'large irrational department' discovered for it, by Mr.
Mozley, in the hitherto unexplored wilderness of the human mind.
The proper function of the inductive principle, or the belief in the
order of nature, says Mr. Mozley, is 'to act as a practical basis for
the affairs of life, and the carrying on of human society.' But what,
it may be asked, has the planet Neptune, or the belts of Jupiter, or
the whiteness about the poles of Mars, to do with the affairs of
society? How is society affected by the fact that the sun's
atmosphere contains sodium, or that the nebula of Orion contains
hydrogen gas? Nineteen-twentieths of the force employed in the
exercise of the inductive principle, which, reiterates Mr. Mozley, is
'purely practical,' have been expended upon subjects as unpractical as
these. What practical interest has society in the fact that the spots
on the sun have a decennial period, and that when a magnet is closely
watched for half a century, it is found to perform small motions which
synchronise with the appearance and disappearance of the solar spots?
And yet, I doubt not, Sir Edward Sabine would deem a life of
intellectual toil amply rewarded by being privileged to solve, at its
close, these infinitesimal motions. The inductive principle is
founded in man's desire to know--a desire arising from his position
among phenomena which are reducible to order by his intellect: The
material universe is the complement of the intellect; and, without the
study of its laws, reason could never have awakened to the higher
forms of self-consciousness at all. It is the Non-ego through and by
which the Ego is endowed with self-discernment. We hold it to be an
exercise of reason to explore the meaning of a universe to which we
stand in this relation, and the work we have accomplished is the
proper commentary on the methods we have pursued.
Before these methods were adopted the unbridled imagination roamed
through nature, putting in the place of law the figments of
superstitious dread. For thousands of years witchcraft, and magic,
and miracles, and special providences, and Mr. Mozley's 'distinctive
reason of man,' had the world to themselves. They made worse than
nothing of it--_worse_, I say, because they let and hindered those who
might have made something of it. Hence it is, that during a single
lifetime of this era of 'unintelligent impulse,' the progress in
knowledge is all but infinite as compared with that of the ages which
preceded ours.
The believers in magic and miracles of a couple of centuries ago had
all the strength of Mr. Mozley's present logic on their side. They
had done for themselves what he rejoices in having so effectually done
for us--cleared the ground of the belief in the order of nature, and
declared magic, miracles, and witchcraft to be matters for 'ordinary
evidence' to decide. 'The principle of miracles' thus 'befriended'
had free scope, and we know the result. Lacking that rock-barrier of
natural knowledge which we now possess, keen jurists and cultivated
men were hurried on to deeds, the bare recital of which makes the
blood run cold. Skilled in all the rules of human evidence, and
versed in all the arts of cross-examination, these men, nevertheless,
went systematically astray, and committed the deadliest wrongs against
humanity. And why? Because they could not put Nature into the
witness-box, and question her--of her voiceless 'testimony' they knew
nothing. In all cases between man and man, their judgment was to be
relied on; but in all cases between man and nature, they were blind
leaders of the blind. [Footnote: 'In 1664 two women were hung in
Suffolk, under a sentence of Sir Matthew Hale, who took the
opportunity of declaring that the reality of witchcraft was
unquestionable; "for first, the Scriptures had affirmed so much; and
secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such
persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime."
Sir Thomas Browne, who was a great physician as well as a great
writer, was called as a witness, and swore "that he was clearly of
opinion that the persons were bewitched."--Lecky's History of
Rationalism, vol. i. p. 120.]
Mr. Mozley concedes that it would be no great result if miracles were
only accepted by the ignorant and superstitious, 'because it is easy
to satisfy those who do not enquire.' But he does consider it 'a
great result' that they have been accepted by the educated. In what
sense educated? Like those statesmen, jurists, and church dignitaries
whose education was unable to save them from the frightful errors
glanced at above? Not even in this sense; for the great mass of Mr.
Mozley's educated people had no legal training, and must have been
absolutely defenceless against delusions which could set even that
training at naught. Like nine-tenths of our clergy at the present
day, they were versed in the literature of Greece, Rome, and Judea;
but as regards a knowledge of nature, which is here the one thing
needful, they were 'noble savages,' and nothing more. In the case of
miracles, then, it behoves us to understand the weight of the
negative, before we assign a value to the positive; to comprehend the
depositions of nature, before we attempt to measure, with them, the
evidence of men. We have only to open our eyes to see what honest and
even intellectual men and women are capable of, as to judging
evidence, in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, and in
latitude fifty-two degrees north. The experience thus gained ought, I
imagine, to influence our opinion regarding the testimony of people
inhabiting a sunnier clime, with a richer imagination, and without a
particle of that restraint which the discoveries of physical science
have imposed upon mankind.
*****
Having thus submitted Mr. Mozley's views to the examination which they
challenged at the hands of a student of nature, I am unwilling to quit
his book without expressing my admiration of his genius, and my
respect for his character. Though barely known to him personally, his
recent death affected me as that of a friend. With regard to the
style of his book, I heartily subscribe to the description with which
the 'Times' winds up its able and appreciative review. It is marked
throughout with the most serious and earnest conviction, but is
without a single word from first to last of asperity or insinuation
against opponents; and this not from any deficiency of feeling as to
the importance of the issue, but from a deliberate and resolutely
maintained self-control, and from an over-ruling, ever-present sense
of the duty, on themes like these, of a more than judicial calmness.'
[To the argument regarding the quantity of the miraculous, introduced
at page 17, Mr. Mozley has done me the honour of publishing a Reply in
the seventh volume of the 'Contemporary Review.'--J. T.]
ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON MIRACLES.
AMONG the scraps of manuscript, written at the time when Mr. Mozley's
work occupied my attention, I find the following reflections:
With regard to the influence of modern science which Mr. Mozley rates
so low, one obvious effect of it is to enhance the magnitude of many
of the recorded miracles, and to increase proportionably the
difficulties of belief. The ancients knew but little of the vastness
of the universe. The Rev. Mr. Kirkman, for example, has shown what
inadequate notions the Jews entertained regarding the 'firmament of
heaven;' and Sir George Airy refers to the case of a Greek philosopher
who was persecuted for hazarding the assertion, then deemed monstrous,
that the sun might be as large as the whole country of Greece. The
concerns of a universe, regarded from this point of view, were much
more commensurate with man and his concerns than those of the universe
which science now reveals to us; and hence that to suit man's
purposes, or that in compliance with his prayers, changes should occur
in the order of the universe, was more easy of belief in the ancient
world than it can be now. In the very magnitude which it assigns to
natural phenomena, science has augmented the distance between them and
man, and increased the popular belief in their orderly progression.
As a natural consequence the demand for evidence is more exacting than
it used to be, whenever it is affirmed that the order of nature has
been disturbed. Let us take as an illustration the miracle by which
the victory of Joshua over the Amorites was rendered complete. In
this case the sun is reported to have stood still for 'about a whole
day' upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. An Englishman
of average education at the present day would naturally demand a
greater amount of evidence to prove that this occurrence took place,
than would have satisfied an Israelite in the age succeeding that of
Joshua. For to the one, the miracle probably consisted in the
stoppage of a fiery ball less than a yard in diameter, while to the
other it would be the stoppage of an orb fourteen hundred thousand
times the earth in size. And even accepting the interpretation that
Joshua dealt with what was apparent merely, but that what really
occurred was the suspension of the earth's rotation, I think the right
to exercise a greater reserve in accepting the miracle, and to demand
stronger evidence in support of it than that which would have
satisfied an ancient Israelite, will still be conceded to a man of
science.
There is a scientific as well as an historic imagination; and when, by
the exercise of the former, the stoppage of the earth's rotation is
clearly realised, the event assumes proportions so vast, in comparison
with the result to be obtained by it, that belief reels under the
reflection. The energy here involved is equal to that of six
trillions of horses working for the whole of the time employed by
Joshua in the destruction of his foes. The amount of power thus
expended would be sufficient to supply every individual of an army a
thousand times the strength of that of Joshua, with a thousand times
the fighting power of each of Joshua's soldiers, not for the few hours
necessary to the extinction of a handful of Amorites, but for millions
of years. All this wonder is silently passed over by the sacred
historian, manifestly because he knew nothing about it. Whether,
therefore, we consider the miracle as purely evidential, or as a
practical means of vengeance, the same lavish squandering of energy
stares us in the face. If evidential, the energy was wasted, because
the Israelites knew nothing of its amount; if simply destructive, then
the ratio of the quantity lost to the quantity employed, may be
inferred from the foregoing figures.
To other miracles similar remarks apply. Transferring our thoughts
from this little sand-grain of an earth to the immeasurable heavens,
where countless worlds with freights of life probably revolve unseen,
the very suns which warm them being barely visible across abysmal
space; reflecting that beyond these sparks of solar fire, suns
innumerable may burn, whose light can never stir the optic nerve at
all; and bringing these reflections face to face with the idea of the
Builder and Sustainer of it all showing Himself in a burning bush,
exhibiting His hinder parts, or behaving in other familiar ways
ascribed to Him in the Jewish Scriptures, the incongruity must appear.
Did this credulous prattle of the ancients about miracles stand alone;
were it not associated with words of imperishable wisdom, and with
examples of moral grandeur unmatched elsewhere in the history of the
human race, both the miracles and their 'evidences' would have long
since ceased to be the transmitted inheritance of intelligent men.
Influenced by the thoughts which this universe inspires, well may we
exclaim in David's spirit, if not in David's words: 'When I consider
the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which
thou hast ordained; what is man that thou shouldst be mindful of him,
or the son of man that thou shouldst so regard him?'
If you ask me who is to limit the outgoings of Almighty power, my
answer is, Not I. If you should urge that if the Builder and Maker of
this universe chose to stop the rotation of the earth, or to take the
form of a burning bush, there is nothing to prevent Him from doing so,
I am not prepared to contradict you. I neither agree with you nor
differ from you, for it is a subject of which I know nothing. But I
observe that in such questions regarding Almighty power, your
enquiries relate, not to that power as it is actually displayed in the
universe, but to the power of your own imagination. Your question is,
not has the Omnipotent done so and so? or is it in the least degree
likely that the Omnipotent should do so and so? but, is my
imagination competent to picture a Being able and willing to do so and
so? I am not prepared to deny your competence. To the human mind
belongs the faculty of enlarging and diminishing, of distorting and
combining, indefinitely the objects revealed by the senses. It can
imagine a mouse as large as an elephant, an elephant as large as a
mountain, and a mountain as high as the stars. It can separate
congruities and unite incongruities. We see a fish and we see a woman
we can drop one half of each, and unite in idea the other two halves
to a mermaid. We see a horse and we see a man; we are able to drop
one half of each, and unite the other two halves to a centaur. Thus
also the pictorial representations of the Deity, the bodies and wings
of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, horns, and tail of the Evil One,
the joys of the blessed, and the torments of the damned, have been
elaborated from materials furnished to the imagination by the senses.
It behoves you and me to take care that our notions of the Power which
rules the universe are not mere fanciful or ignorant enlargements of
human power. The capabilities of what you call your reason are not
denied. By the exercise of the faculty here adverted to, you can
picture to yourself a Being able and willing to do any and every
conceivable thing. You are right in saying that in opposition to this
Power science is of no avail--that it is 'a weapon of air.' The man of
science, however, while accepting the figure, would probably reverse
its application, thinking it is not science which is here the thing of
air, but that unsubstantial pageant of the imagination to which the
solidity of science is opposed.
********************
Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and
meanness.--EMERSON.
*****
III ON PRAYER AS A FORM OF PHYSICAL ENERGY.
THE Editor of the 'Contemporary Review' is liberal enough to grant me
space for some remarks upon a subject, which, though my relation to it
was simply that of a vehicle of transmission, has brought down upon me
a considerable amount of animadversion.
It may be interesting to some of my readers if I glance at a few cases
illustrative of the history of the human mind, in relation to this and
kindred questions. In the fourth century the belief in Antipodes was
deemed unscriptural and heretical. The pious Lactantius was as angry
with the people who held this notion as my censors are now with me,
and quite as unsparing in his denunciations of their 'Monstrosities.'
Lactantius was irritated because, in his mind, by education and habit,
cosmogony and religion were indissolubly associated, and, therefore,
simultaneously disturbed. In the early part of the seventeenth
century the notion that the earth was fixed, and that the sun and
stars revolved round it daily, was interwoven with religious feeling,
the separation then attempted by Galileo rousing the animosity and
kindling the persecution of the Church. Men still living can remember
the indignation excited by the first revelations of geology regarding
the age of the earth, the association between chronology and religion
being for the time indissoluble. In our day, however, the
best-informed theologians are prepared to admit that our views of the
Universe and its Author are not impaired, but improved, by the
abandonment of the Mosaic account of the Creation. Look, finally, at
the excitement caused by the publication of the 'Origin of Species;'
and compare it with the calm attendant on the appearance of the far
more outspoken, and, from the old point of view, more impious,
'Descent of Man.'