mineral, to a living grain of corn. When this is examined by
polarised light, chromatic phenomena similar to those noticed in
crystals are observed. And why? Because the architecture of the
grain resembles that of the crystal. In the grain also the molecules
are set in definite positions, and in accordance with their
arrangement they act upon the light. But what has built together the
molecules of the corn? Regarding crystalline architecture, I have
already said that you may, if you please, consider the atoms and
molecules to be placed in position by a Power external to themselves.
The same hypothesis is open to you now. But if in the case of
crystals you have rejected this notion of an external architect, I
think you are bound to reject it in the case of the grain, and to
conclude that the molecules of the corn, also, are posited by the
forces with which they act upon each other. It would be poor
philosophy to invoke an external agent in the one case, and to reject
it in the other.
Instead of cutting our grain of corn into slices and subjecting it to
the action of polarised light, let us place it in the earth, and
subject it to a certain degree of warmth. In other words, let the
molecules, both of the corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in
that state of agitation which we call heat. Under these
circumstances, the grain and the substances which surround it
interact, and a definite molecular architecture is the result. A bud
is formed; this bud reaches the surface, where it is exposed to the
sun's rays, which are also to be regarded as a kind of vibratory
motion. And as the motion of common heat, with which the grain and
the substances surrounding it were first endowed, enabled the grain
and these substances to exercise their mutual attractions and
repulsions, and thus to coalesce in definite forms, so the specific
motion of the sun's rays now enables the green bud to feed upon the
carbonic acid and the aqueous vapour of the air. The bud appropriates
those constituents of both for which it has an elective attraction,
and permits the other constituent to return to the atmosphere. Thus
the architecture is carried on. Forces are active at the root, forces
are active in the blade, the matter of the air and the matter of the
atmosphere are drawn upon, and the plant augments in size. We have in
succession the stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear; the cycle of
molecular action being completed by the production of grains, similar
to that with which the process began.
Now there is nothing in this process which necessarily eludes the
conceptive or imagining power of the human mind. An intellect the
same in kind as our own would, if only sufficiently expanded, be able
to follow the whole process from beginning to end. It would see every
molecule placed in its position by the specific attractions and
repulsions exerted between it and other molecules, the whole process,
and its consummation, being an instance of the play of molecular
force. Given the grain and its environment, with their respective
forces, the purely human intellect might, if sufficiently expanded,
trace out _à priori_ every step of the process of growth, and, by the
application of purely mechanical principles, demonstrate that the
cycle must end, as it is seen to end, in the reproduction of forms
like that with which it began. A necessity rules here, similar to
that which rules the planets in their circuits round the sun.
You will notice that I am stating the truth strongly, as at the
beginning we agreed it should be stated. But I must go still further,
and affirm that in the eye of science the animal body is just as much
the product of molecular force as the chalk and the ear of corn, or as
the crystal of salt or sugar. Many of the parts of the body are
obviously mechanical. Take the human heart, for example, with its
system of valves, or take the exquisite mechanism of the eye or hand.
Animal heat, moreover, is the same in kind as the heat of a fire,
being produced by the same chemical process. Animal motion, too, is
as certainly derived from the food of the animal, as the motion of
Trevethyck's walking-engine from the fuel in its furnace. As regards
matter, the animal body creates nothing; as regards force, it creates
nothing. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his
stature? All that has been said, then, regarding the plant, may be
restated with regard to the animal. Every particle that enters into
the composition of a nerve, a muscle, or a bone, has been placed in
its position by molecular force. And unless the existence of law in
these matters be denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we
must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule of the body to
its environment, its position in the body might be determined
mathematically. Our difficulty is not with the _quality_ of the
problem, but with its _complexity_; and this difficulty might be met by
the simple expansion of the faculties we now possess. Given this
expansion, with the necessary molecular data, and the chick might be
deduced as rigorously and as logically from the egg, as the existence
of Neptune from the disturbances of Uranus, or as conical refraction
from the undulatory theory of light.
You see I am not mincing matters, but avowing nakedly what many
scientific thinkers more or less distinctly believe. The formation of
a crystal, a plant, or an animal, is, in their eyes, a purely
mechanical problem, which differs from the problems of ordinary
mechanics, in the smallness of the masses, and the complexity of the
processes involved. Here you have one half of our dual truth; let us
now glance at the other half. Associated with this wonderful
mechanism of the animal body we have phenomena no less certain than
those of physics, but between which and the mechanism we discern no
necessary connection. A man, for example, can say 'I feel,' 'I
think,' 'I love;' but how does consciousness infuse itself into the
problem? The human brain is said to be the organ of thought and
feeling: when we are hurt, the brain feels it; when we ponder, or when
our passions or affections are excited, it is through the
instrumentality of the brain. Let us endeavour to be a little more
precise here. I hardly imagine there exists a profound scientific
thinker, who has reflected upon the subject, unwilling to admit the
extreme probability of the hypothesis, that for every fact of
consciousness, whether in the domain of sense, thought, or emotion, a
definite molecular condition, of motion or structure, is set up in the
brain; or who would be disposed even to deny that if the motion, or
structure, be induced by internal causes instead of external, the
effect on consciousness will be the same? Let any nerve, for example,
be thrown by morbid action into the precise state of motion which
would be communicated to it by the pulses of a heated body, surely
that nerve will declare itself hot--the mind will accept the
subjective intimation exactly as if it were objective. The retina may
be excited by purely mechanical means. A blow on the eye causes a
luminous flash, and the mere pressure of the finger on the external
ball produces a star of light, which Newton compared to the circles on
a peacock's tail. Disease makes people see visions and dream dreams;
but, in all such cases, could we examine the organs implicated, we
should, on philosophical grounds, expect to find them in that precise
molecular condition which the real objects, if present, would
superinduce.
The relation of physics to consciousness being thus invariable, it
follows that, given the state of the brain, the corresponding thought
or feeling might be inferred: or, given the thought or feeling, the
corresponding state of the brain might be inferred. But how inferred?
It would be at bottom not a case of logical inference at all, but of
empirical association. You may reply, that many of the inferences of
science are of this character--the inference, for example, that an
electric current, of a given direction, will deflect a magnetic needle
in a definite way. But the cases differ in this, that the passage
from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is conceivable,
and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of
the problem. But the passage from the physics of the brain to the
corresponding facts of consciousness is inconceivable as a result of
mechanics. Granted that a definite thought, and a definite molecular
action in the brain, occur simultaneously; we do not possess the
intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which
would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one to
the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our
minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, as to
enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we
capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their
electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately
acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we
should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, 'How are
these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?'
The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain
intellectually impassable. Let the consciousness of love, for
example, be associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the
molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a
left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we love, that
the motion is in one direction, and, when we hate, that the motion is
in the other; but the WHY?' would remain as unanswerable as before.
In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that
thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the
brain, I think the position of the 'Materialist' is stated, as far as
that position is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be able
finally to maintain this position against all attacks; but I do not
think, in the present condition of the human mind, that he can pass
beyond this position. I do not think he is entitled to say that his
molecular groupings, and motions, explain everything.
In reality they explain nothing. The utmost he can affirm is the
association of two classes of phenomena, of whose real bond of union
he is in absolute ignorance. The problem of the connection of body
and soul is as insoluble, in its modern form, as it was in the
prescientific ages. Phosphorus is known to enter into the composition
of the human brain, and a trenchant German writer has exclaimed, 'Ohne
Phosphor, kein Gedanke!' That may or may not be the case; but even if
we knew it to be the case, the knowledge would not lighten our
darkness. On both sides of the zone here assigned to the materialist
he is equally helpless. If you ask him whence is this 'Matter' of
which we have been discoursing--who or what divided it into molecules,
who or what impressed upon them this necessity of running into organic
forms--he has no answer. Science is mute in reply to these questions.
But if the materialist is confounded and science rendered dumb, who
else is prepared with a solution? To whom has this arm of the Lord
been revealed? Let us lower our heads, and acknowledge our ignorance,
priest and philosopher, one and all.
Perhaps the mystery may resolve itself into knowledge at some future
day. The process of things upon this earth has been one of
amelioration. It is a long way from the Iguanodon and his
contemporaries, to the President and Members of the British
Association. And whether we regard the improvement from the
scientific or from the theological point of view--as the result of
progressive development, or of successive exhibitions of creative
energy--neither view entitles us to assume that man's present
faculties end the series, that the process of amelioration ends with
him. A time may therefore come when this ultra-scientific region, by
which we are now enfolded, may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to
human, investigation. Two-thirds of the rays emitted by the sun fail
to arouse the sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual organ
requisite for their translation into light does not exist. And so
from this region of darkness and mystery which surrounds us, rays may
now be darting, which require but the development of the proper
intellectual organs to translate them into knowledge as far surpassing
Ours, as ours surpasses that of the wallowing reptiles, which once
held possession of this planet. Meanwhile the mystery is not without
its uses. It certainly may made a power in the human soul; but it is
a power which has feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It may be,
will be, and I hope is turned to account, both in steadying and
strengthening intellect, and in; rescuing man from that littleness to
which, in the struggle for existence, or for precedence in the world,
he is continually prone.
__________________
Musings on the Matterhorn, July 27, 1868.
Hacked and hurt by time, the aspect of the mountain from its higher
crags saddened me. Hitherto the impression it made was that of savage
strength; here we had inexorable decay. But this notion of decay
implied a reference to a period when the Matterhorn was in the full
strength of mountainhood. Thought naturally ran back to its remoter
origin and sculpture. Nor did thought halt there, but wandered on
through molten worlds to that nebulous haze which philosophers have
regarded, and with good reason, as the proximate source of all
material things. I tried to look at this universal cloud, containing
within itself the prediction of all that has since occurred; I tried
to imagine it as the seat of those forces whose action was to issue in
solar and stellar systems, and all that they involve. Did that
formless fog contain potentially the _sadness_ with which I regarded the
Matterhorn? Did the _thought_ which now ran back to it simply return to
its primeval home? If so, had we not better recast our definitions of
matter and force; for, if life and thought be the very flower of both,
any definition which omits life and thought must be inadequate, if not
untrue. Are questions like these warranted? Why not? If the final
goal of man has not been yet attained; if his development has not been
yet arrested, who can say that such yearnings and questionings are not
necessary to the opening of a finer vision, to the budding and the
growth of diviner powers? When I look at the heavens and the earth,
at my own body, at my strength and weakness, even at these ponderings,
and ask myself, Is there no being or thing in the universe that knows
more about these matters than I do; what is my answer? Supposing our
theologic schemes of creation, condemnation, and redemption to be
dissipated; and the warmth of denial which they excite, and which, as
a motive force, can match the warmth of affirmation, dissipated at the
same time; would the undeflected human mind return to the meridian of
absolute neutrality as regards these ultra-physical questions? Is
such a position one of stable equilibrium? The channels of thought
being already formed, such are the questions, without replies, which
could run athwart consciousness during a ten minutes' halt upon the
weathered crest of the Matterhorn.
********************
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come uncalled for), but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.
TENNYSON.
*****
VII. AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS.
[Footnote: Delivered at University College, London, Session 1968-69.]
THERE is an idea regarding the nature of man which modern philosophy
has sought, and is still seeking, to raise into clearness; the idea,
namely, of secular growth. Man is not a thing of yesterday; nor do I
imagine that the slightest controversial tinge is imported into this
address when I say that he is not a thing of 6,000 years ago. Whether
he came originally from stocks or stones, from nebulous gas or solar
fire, I know not; if he had any such origin the process of his
transformation is as inscrutable to you and me as that of the grand
old legend, according to which 'the Lord God formed man of the dust of
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul.' But however obscure man's origin may be, his
growth is not to be denied. Here a little and there a little added
through the ages have slowly transformed him from what he was into
what he is. The doctrine has been held that the mind of the child is
like a sheet of white paper, on which by education we can write what
characters we please. This doctrine assuredly needs qualification and
correction. In physics, when an external force is applied to a body
with a view of affecting its inner texture, if we wish to predict the
result, we must know whether the external force conspires with or
opposes the internal forces of the body itself; and in bringing the
influence of education to bear upon the new-born man his inner powers
also must be taken into account. He comes to us as a bundle of
inherited capacities and tendencies, labelled 'from the indefinite
past to the indefinite future;' and he makes his transit from the one
to the other through the education of the present time. The object of
that education is, or ought to be, to provide wise exercise for his
capacities, wise direction for his tendencies, and through this
exercise and this direction to furnish his mind with such knowledge as
may contribute to the usefulness, the beauty, and the nobleness of his
life.
How is this discipline to be secured, this knowledge imparted? Two
rival methods now solicit attention,--the one organised and equipped,
the labour of centuries having been expended in bringing it to its
present state of perfection; the other, more or less chaotic, but
becoming daily less so, and giving signs of enormous power, both as a
source of knowledge and as a means of discipline. These two methods
are the classical and the scientific method. I wish they were not
rivals; it is only bigotry and short-sightedness that make them so;
for assuredly it is possible to give both of them fair play. Though
hardly authorised to express an opinion upon the subject, I
nevertheless hold the opinion that the proper study of a language is
an intellectual discipline of the highest kind. If I except
discussions on the comparative merits of Popery and Protestantism,
English grammar was the most important discipline of my boyhood. The
piercing through the involved and inverted sentences of 'Paradise
Lost'; the linking of the verb to its often distant nominative, of the
relative to its distant antecedent, of the agent to the object of the
transitive verb, of the preposition to the noun or pronoun which it
governed, the study of variations in mood and tense, the
transpositions often necessary to bring out the true grammatical
structure of a sentence--all this was to my young mind a discipline of
the highest value, and a source of unflagging delight. How I rejoiced
when I found a great author tripping, and was fairly able to pin him
to a corner from which there was no escape! As I speak, some of the
sentences which exercised me when a boy rise to my recollection. For
instance, 'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear;' where the 'He'
is left, as it were, floating in mid air without any verb to support
it. I speak thus of English because it was of real value to me. I do
not speak of other languages because their educational value for me
was almost insensible. But knowing the value of English so well, I
should be the last to deny, or even to doubt, the high discipline
involved in the proper study of Latin and Greek.
That study, moreover, has other merits and recommendations. It is, as
I have said, organised and systematised by long-continued use. It is
an instrument wielded by some of our best intellects in the education
of youth; and it can point to results in the achievements of our
foremost men. What, then, has science to offer which is in the least
degree likely to compete with such a system? I cannot better reply
than by recurring to the grand old story from which I have already
quoted. Speaking of the world and all that therein is, of the sky and
the stars around it, the ancient writer says, 'And God saw all that
he had made, and behold it was very good.' It is the body of things
thus described which science offers to the study of man. There is a
very renowned argument much prized and much quoted by theologians, in
which the universe is compared to a watch. Let us deal practically
with this comparison. Supposing a watchmaker, having completed his
instrument, to be so satisfied with his work as to call it very good,
what would you understand him to mean? You would not suppose that he
referred to the dial-plate in front and the chasing of the case
behind, so much as to the wheels and pinions, the springs and jewelled
pivots of the works within--to those qualities and powers, in short,
which enable the watch to perform its work as a keeper of time. With
regard to the knowledge of such a watch he would be a mere ignoramus
who would content himself with outward inspection. I do not wish to
say one severe word here to-day, but I fear that many of those who are
very loud in their praise of the works of the Lord know them only in
this outside and superficial way. It is the inner works of the
universe which science reverently uncovers; it is the study of these
that she recommends as a discipline worthy of all acceptation.
The ultimate problem of physics is to reduce matter by analysis to its
lowest condition of divisibility, and force to its simplest
manifestations, and then by synthesis to construct from these elements
the world as it stands. We are still a long way from the final
solution of this problem; and when the solution comes, it will be more
one of spiritual insight than of actual observation. But though we
are still a long way from this complete intellectual mastery of
nature, we have conquered vast regions of it, have learned their
polities and the play of their powers. We live upon a ball of 8,000
miles in diameter, swathed by an atmosphere of unknown height. This
ball has been molten by heat, chilled to a solid, and sculptured by
water. It is made up of substances possessing distinctive properties
and modes of action, which offer problems to the intellect, some
profitable to the child, others taxing the highest powers of the
philosopher. Our native sphere turns on its axis, and revolves in
space. It is one of a band which all do the same. It is illuminated
by a sun which, though nearly a hundred millions of miles distant, can
be brought virtually into our closets and there subjected to
examination. It has its winds and clouds, its rain and frost, its
light, heat, sound, electricity, and magnetism. And it has its vast
kingdoms of animals and vegetables. To a most amazing extent the
human mind has conquered these things, and revealed the logic which
runs through them. Were they facts only, without logical
relationship, science might, as a means of discipline, suffer in
comparison with language. But the whole body of phenomena is instinct
with law; the facts are hung on principles, and the value of physical
science as a means of discipline consists in the motion of the
intellect, both inductively and deductively, along the lines of law
marked out by phenomena. As regards the discipline to which I have
already referred as derivable from the study of languages,--that, and
more, is involved in the study of physical science. Indeed, I believe
it would be possible so to limit and arrange the study of a portion of
physics as to render the mental exercise involved in it almost
qualitatively the same as that involved in the unravelling of a
language.