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 AUTOMATISM AND EVOLUTION 
 
Semper ego auditor tantum ? nunquarn reponam 
 Vexatus toties ' 
 
 'Je vois ordinairement que les hommes, aux faicts qu'on leur 
 propose, s'amusent plus volontiers a en chercher la iraison, qu'a en 
 chercher la verite.' Montaigne, liv. iii. chap. xi. 
 
 ' En voyant la complaisance du public pour les faiseurs de systemes 
 qui I'entretiennent tous les jours de leurs reveries, on ne peut s'empecher 
 d'admirer le singulier penchant des hommes pour tout ce qui est 
 explication. Personne ne s'informe si les explications sont exactes et 
 precises, si elles sont etablies sur des faits bien observes, deduites avec 
 rigueur, confirmees par les phenomenes ; on regarde seulement oil elles 
 vont ; et plus elles vont loin, plus on les regoit avidement.* 
 
 BiOT, Melanges^ vol. ii. p. no. 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE 
 
 BEING 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF THE MODERN THEORIES 
 OF AUTOMATISM AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 BY y 
 
 CHARLES ELAM, M.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 A physician's problems' 'medicine, disease, and death ' etc. 
 
 Carried about with every wind of doctrine. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO, v^ WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1876. 
 
 S^All rights reserved,^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The substance of the following pages was written in 
 1874, shortly after the meeting of the British Associa- 
 tion at Belfast. That the publication has been so 
 long deferred, is due to causes in great measure 
 beyond my own control, into any discussion of which 
 it is unnecessary to enter. 
 
 The essays are now offered to those interested in 
 these enquiries, with the intention of showing that 
 those purely physical theories of life and mind, that 
 have of late years been promulgated on high autho- 
 rity, and with unhesitating confidence, and have 
 obtained such extensive credence even amongst 
 thoughtful men, are simply untenable and unscientific, 
 and are exercising a mischievous and benumbing in- 
 fluence in every domain of thought. 
 
 As these chapters were at first intended for serial 
 publication, it has been thought advisable to pre- 
 serve, as far as possible, the original plan ; notwith- 
 standing that this necessarily entails some want of 
 consecutiveness in certain parts of the argument. 
 
 75 Harley Street, W. 
 November 1876. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGP. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. -• • • I 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES STATED. 
 
 The 'Belfast Addresses' — Their meaning— Necessary limita- 
 tions — Outline of the doctrine of Evolution . . , o 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE, 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's Philosophy — Professor Huxley's Doctrine 
 
 of * Protoplasm '..,..... 35 
 
 CPIAPTER IV, 
 
 HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 
 
 Arguments from Pathology ; from Comparative Anatomy ; and 
 from Physiology— Physicism and Automatism — Professor 
 Huxley's 'threefold unity' — His chemical theories — 
 Materialism — Conclusion . . . . . . .61 
 
yiii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 
 
 PAG 
 
 Statement of the doctrine — Professor Tyndall's views — Origin of 
 life and organic ' matter — Theory of continuity — Chemical 
 relations — Organic force — Conservation and correlation of 
 forces — Life theories compared with physical theories — 
 Conclusion ......... 74 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ORIGIN OF SPECIES, 
 
 Alleged superiority of Evolution over all other theories of Onto- 
 logy — Mr. Spencer's * Evanescence of Evil ' — Origin and 
 transmutation of species — Various theories — Mr. Darwin's 
 ' Natural Selection ' — Absence of all evidence — Abandon- 
 ment of the theory — Conclusion . . . . .105 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE PEDIGREE OF MAN. 
 
 Origin of species, continued —Arguments from Morphology and 
 Embryology — Descent of Man — Professor Huxley's doctrine 
 — Structure anfl essential nature — Mr. Darwin's views — 
 'Our Ancestors' — HaeckeFs 'Pedigree of Man' — Conclu- 
 sion ..,,...... 136 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The doctrines of Evolution, as held at the present 
 time, by a large and influential section of the scien- 
 tific world, logically culminate, as has been forcibly 
 observed by Mr. St. George Mivart,^ in ' three nega- 
 tions — viz. of God, the soul, and of virtue.' 
 
 The idea of a personal Creator of the universe is 
 proved, as an inevitable corollary of these doctrines, 
 not only to be untenable and impossible, but to be so 
 supremely irrational, that it can only have arisen in 
 what represented the minds of men, during those in- 
 conceivably dark ages when they were slowly evolving 
 themselves from their ancestral apes, into something 
 resembling humanity.^ 
 
 Until recent times, notwithstanding its absurdity, 
 
 ^ Contemporany Review for September 1874. 
 2 See Haeckel's Natfirliche Schopfungs-Geschichte, p. 68. 
 B 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 this belief has been for the most part deemed an in- 
 nocent one, and not without some favourable influence 
 on the minds of men. It was reserved for Professor 
 Clifford to make the noteworthy discovery that, ' if it 
 is right to call any doctrine immoral, it is right so to 
 call this doctrine/ which recognises a ' destiny or a 
 Providence outside of us, overruling the efforts of 
 men ; ' ^ or, in fact, any higher power or authority 
 than that of man himself 
 
 What has been considered as the soul is now 
 shown to be merely the mechanical result of the inter- 
 actions and affinities of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
 nitrogen ; existing only by virtue of the combinations 
 of these elements ; ceasing to be when such combina- 
 tions are resolved. 
 
 Virtue, under such conditions, ceases to have any 
 possible meaning. Every action of life and mind 
 being determined and limited absolutely by physical 
 laws, can only be mechanical or automatic in its 
 nature ; and its relation to morahty,- either as virtue 
 or vice, is as unreal as the morality itself 
 
 The demonstration of this Automatism is the latest 
 achievement of a science which is daily becoming 
 more unscientific — a thing of conjecture and assertion, 
 rather than of fact and induction. On the question 
 between Anthropomorphism (or freedom of volition)^ 
 and Physicism (or Automatism), Professor Huxley 
 says that * science closely invests the walls ; and philo- 
 
 * Fortnightly Rcviciv^ December 1874, p, 730, 
 
RULES OF PHILOSOPHISING. 
 
 sophers gird themselves for battle upon the last and 
 greatest of all speculative problems — Does human 
 nature possess any free volitional or truly anthropo- 
 morphic element, or is it only the cunningest of all 
 nature's clocks ? ' ^ The answer is finally and defi- 
 nitively given, that man is an automaton, without any 
 fragment of freedom of action. 
 
 It might, perhaps, have been a sufficient reply to 
 such a proposition to say that it must of necessity be 
 false, inasmuch as it contradicts a fundamental ex- 
 perience of the intuition of man. Mr. Lewes lays 
 down, as his second rule of philosophising, this posi- 
 tion : — 2 
 
 Any contradiction of fundamental experiences of sense or 
 intuition {is) to be taken as evidence of some flaw either in the 
 data or the calculatioii. 
 
 Now, there is no intuition which appears, to the ordi- 
 nary mind, to be more fundamental than this, that 
 man has, within certain obvious limits, a power of 
 choice, volition, or freedom of selection amongst 
 various possible lines of action. He is in no degree 
 more certain of anything revealed to him by the evi- 
 dence of his senses than he is of this ; and it is difficult 
 to conceive what order of phenomenon could be in- 
 cluded under the definition of a fundamental intuition, 
 if this were not so. It would appear, therefore, that 
 if the doctrine of Automatism opposes this idea of 
 volition, the doctrine itself, and that of Evolution, of 
 
 ^ Lay Sermons, p. 164. 
 
 2 Problems of Life and Alind, vol. i. p. 90. 
 
 B 2 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 which it is the logical corollary, must be rejected as 
 obviously false and sophistical. 
 
 But this, which would be conclusive in any other 
 science, is unavailing in that of Evolution, which, it is 
 agreed, is not to be tested by the ordinary methods. 
 Evolution is not to be doubted ; with or without sup- 
 port, or in the face of evidence to the contrary, it 
 must be accepted. We, the * profane or uninitiated,' 
 are authoritatively assured by the hierophants of these 
 mysteries, that what we have been accustomed igno- 
 rantly to consider as our volition ' is not the cause of 
 a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the 
 brain which is the immediate cause of that act ; ' ^ and 
 that therefore our sensation of volition is not a fun- 
 damental intuition at all, but only a delusion and a 
 snare. 
 
 In support of these doctrines the most astounding 
 statements have been made from the high places of 
 philosophy of late years — statements which possess 
 little of science except the language in which they are 
 clothed ; yet, being so clothed, and proceeding from 
 high authority, they have been accepted as science by 
 a considerable section of even the educated world. 
 These statements have chiefly been directed towards 
 the position that life is only a mechanical phenomenon, 
 due to the affinities of ordinary matter. It will be 
 instructive very briefly to notice some few of these 
 assertions. 
 
 ' Professor Huxley, in Fortnightly Review, November 1874. 
 
LIFE NOT MECHANISM. 
 
 Haeckel states that organic and inorganic sub- 
 stances are ' equally living ' ^ {glcicJwidssig bclebt). 
 
 Prof. Fiske announces that ' the difference between 
 a living and a not-living body is ... a difference 
 of degree, not of kind ; ' ^ and that the formation of 
 an organism differs only in complexity from that of 
 a crystal. 
 
 Many writers, including Professor Tyndall and 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, state that the lowest forms of 
 living matter approximate very closely to non-living 
 matter. 
 
 All these and a thousand similar fallacies, to which 
 science gives not the slightest even apparent support, 
 have been shattered to pieces over and over again. 
 They are all so manifestly false, that no attempt at 
 proof is ever made ; but the assertions are repeated 
 again and again, with the most monotonous itera- 
 tion. Dr. Lionel Beale, in his ' Lumleian Lectures,' 
 in 1875, and in his ' Life Theories,' in 1871, gave all 
 such doctrines their death-blow, from a microscopic 
 demonstration. But all this is in vain ; each suc- 
 cessive writer makes the same statements, with as 
 much confidence as if they were founded on any 
 fact. 
 
 Mr. Lewes devotes one hundred and nine pages in 
 his ' Problems of Life and Mind ' to insisting, with 
 every variety of iteration, on the application of the 
 
 » Op. cit., p. 66. 
 
 2 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 422. 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 strictly ' scientific method ' to all questions of life and 
 mind. On the hundred and tenth we meet with this 
 most marvellous illustration of the ' method': — 
 
 To speak of vitality as a substance would shock all our 
 ideas ; but many speak of it as a force. They might ivith 
 equal propi'iety hold mortality to be afoixe ! ! 
 
 To apply this ' method ' to the investigation of any 
 branch of physical science would lead to results any- 
 thing but scientific. For suppose we are told that the 
 phenomena of light depend upon the undulations of 
 a substance called ether ; and we reply, * This is 
 shocking to all our ideas. You might as well say 
 that darkness is due to the undulations of ether.' We 
 should certainly be deemed unworthy of any serious 
 answer. Yet this is a strictly parallel instance. 
 
 In like manner, the illustrious German philosopher, 
 Fritz Miiller, says that ' we may with equal propriety 
 speak of the creation of cholera, of a conflagration, or 
 of a railway collision, as of the creation of man.' 
 Haeckel quotes this' as the most crushing of arguments, 
 and one which cuts the ground completely away from 
 all the unbelievers in Evolution ! Surely confusion of 
 thought, or perversity of misapprehension, can go no 
 further than this. 
 
 These are but a few specimens of the utterly base- 
 less assertions which are made constantly in the in- 
 terests of the Evolution hypothesis ; and of the bald 
 and jejune arguments which are adduced in their sup- 
 ' Op. cit., p. 66. 
 
A^A TURA L SELECTION. 
 
 port. It is further said that * all living creatures, even 
 the highest organisms, including man himself, have 
 been gradually developed from one primary simple 
 form (the Monera), or a very few such forms, which 
 were not created^ but evolved from inorganic matter, 
 by the influence of the ordinary physical forces : ' ^ 
 and that, in particular, man is a lineal descendant of 
 the anthropoid apes — ' zvithout any doubt ' — in accord- 
 ance with the doctrine of natural selection. 
 
 When Mr. Mivart sums up his estimate of this 
 doctrine by designating it as a 'puerile hypothesis,'- 
 he certainly neither transgresses the bounds of reason 
 nor courtesy. It appears to me ' strange, monstrous, 
 unnatural, and portentous,' that a doctrine which is 
 not supported directly by any one single fact in the 
 whole domain of nature, which is wildly improbable 
 in its principles, and absolutely impossible in its 
 application to details, should occupy the attention of 
 the scientific world, to the exclusion of all others. 
 
 It has been justly said that 'there is but one 
 effective mode of displacing an error, and that is to 
 replace it by a conception which, w^hile readily adjust- 
 ing itself to conceptions firmly held on other points, 
 is seen to explain the facts more completely. The 
 one permanent victory over a false method is by 
 philosophising better.' ^ This is undoubtedly correct 
 as regards science and philosophy in general ; but 
 
 ' Oj). cif., p. 68, ^ Lessons from Nafinr, p, 300, 
 
 3 Problems of Life and Mind, vol. i. p. 7. 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 it is scarcely applicable to the doctrines in ques- 
 tion, inasmuch as they do not deal with facts and 
 phenomena as they do exist, but with such as might 
 possibly exist under undefined and impossible condi- 
 tions. They constitute mere forms of thought or 
 expression, which have no correlatives in fact or 
 nature ; nevertheless, from prestige, and various other 
 adventitious circumstances, they have obtained so firm 
 a hold on the popular scientific mind, that there 
 appears to be no hope for the reception of a truer 
 system of philosophy, and especially of biology, until 
 the modern conjectural * method ' is shown to have 
 no scientific foundation, and to lead to no practical 
 result. 
 
 The object of the following chapters is to inquire 
 what support the well-known facts and principles of 
 physical science give to the modern theories of Evolu- 
 tion and Automatism. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES STATED. 
 
 The * Belfast Addresses ' — Their meaning — Necessary limitations — 
 Outline of the doctrine of Evolution. 
 
 The eloquent and learned address delivered by Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall at Belfast, in the autumn of 1874, 
 followed by what was termed the ' brilliant vindica- 
 tion ' of Professor Huxley, may be considered to 
 mark an epoch in philosophical thought, as being a 
 full, formal, and public recognition of the doctrine 
 of Evolution carried out to its logical conclusion. 
 This conclusion is precise and intelligible, and may 
 be summed up in two short propositions, the second 
 being the natural and inevitable corollary of the 
 first— 
 
 1. Matter is all-powerful and all-suffi- 
 
 cient. 
 
 2. Man is only a sentient automaton. 
 
 The enunciation of doctrines such as these, on 
 such authority, and before such an assembly, could 
 not fail to cause great excitement, both amongst the 
 few who think for themselves, and the many who 
 allow others to think for them, and to form their 
 
JVIXDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 opinions. And whilst they were received at the time 
 with 'whirlwinds of applause,' and have since been 
 upheld with enthusiasm, as being the ' death-knell of 
 superstition,' and the signal for the ' emancipation of 
 thought,' there have not been wanting earnest and 
 enlightened seekers after truth, wherever it was to 
 be found, who have not only refused to accept this 
 teaching and its ' logical consequences,' but have been 
 unable to see in it anything more than a flimsy frame- 
 work of hypothesis, constructed upon imaginary or 
 irrelevant facts, with a complete departure from every 
 established canon of scientific investigation. 
 
 The enthusiasm on the one hand, and the opposi- 
 tion on the other, are sufficiently comprehensible. It 
 is less easy to understand the indignation, the dislike, 
 and the apprehension with which these utterances 
 have been received. Nothing can be more certain 
 than that every man has a perfect right, moral and 
 social, as well as legal, to express before a scientific 
 assembly any opinion that he may hold in science or 
 philosophy. It is, therefore, worse than unmeaning 
 to complain, as certain critics have done, that Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall has * abused his position, as President 
 of the Association,' in enunciating views ' subversive 
 of religion and morality,' as understood by them. 
 
 Still more misplaced and illogical is the alarm 
 
 \ that has been felt, and expressed in no measured 
 
 terms, as to the consequences of these doctrines. 
 
 Two simple reflections might at once set at rest 
 
L O GICAL CONSEQ UENCES. 
 
 all these apprehensions. The first is the self-evident 
 consideration that one triith can never contradict or 
 be opposed to another, to whatever department of 
 knowledge or belief they may respectively belong. 
 The second is, that statements made, and opinions 
 expressed, on the personal authority only of men of 
 great scientific eminence, are not necessarily scientific 
 truths. The first duty of all thinking men, before 
 expressing adhesion, attempting compromise, or 
 manifesting alarm, is to inquire, ' Are these doctrines 
 true?' If they prove after proper investigation to 
 be so, we may certainly leave the consequences to 
 take care of themselves, feeling well assured that 
 they will disturb no other truth in any domain of 
 thought. But in this investigation no amount of 
 mere assertion or authority must be allowed to rank 
 as demonstration or proof. 
 
 Professor Huxley, in concluding his very able 
 address, dwells some little time upon the ' logical 
 consequences ' of this doctrine, but suggests that any 
 inquiry into these matters should be carried out, irre- 
 spective of these. He says: — 
 
 The logical consequences are very important, but in the 
 course of my experience I have found that they were the 
 scarecrows of fools, and the beacons of wise men. Logical 
 consequences can take care of themselves. 
 
 Perhaps they can ; although the experience is 
 exceptionally fortunate that finds this to be the case. 
 But, however this may be, it is very desirable not 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 entirely to lose sight of these ' consequences,' seeing 
 that they serve as an incentive to investigation, and 
 also as a preventive to feeble attempts at compromise, 
 and at harmonising views between which there is and 
 must ever be an unresolvable discord — attempts which 
 work nothing but evil to the cause they are intended 
 to serve. The following quotations from Dr. Biichner's 
 * Force and Matter ' {Kraft luid Staff) will indicate 
 the tendency of what is to-day called ' philosophical 
 thought ' :— 
 
 That the world is not governed^ as frequently expressed, 
 but that the changes and motions of matter obey a necessity 
 inherent in it, which admits of 7io exception^ cannot be denied 
 by any person who is but superficially acquainted with the 
 natural sciences. (P. 5.) 
 
 Matter is the origin of all that exists ; all natural and 
 mental forces are inherent in it. (P. 32.) 
 
 What this or that man may understand by a governing 
 reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal God, 
 &c., is his own affair. The theologians, with their articles of 
 faith, must be left to themselves. (P. 43.) 
 
 Nature, the all-engendering and all- devouring, is its own 
 beginning and end, birth and death. She produced man by 
 her own power, and takes him again. (P. 88.) 
 
 There exists a phrase, repeated ad nausea^ji, of ' mortal 
 body and immortal spirit.' A closer examination causes us 
 with more truth to reverse the sentence. The body is 
 certainly mortal in its own individual form, but not in its f 
 constituents. It changes not merely in death, but also .... 
 during life ; however, in a higher sense it is immortal, since 
 the smallest particle of which it is composed cannot be 
 destroyed. On the contrary, that which we call ^spirit' 
 disappears with the dissolution of the individual material 
 
'IS THIS DOCTRINE TRUE?' 13 
 
 combination ; and it must appear to any unprejudiced 
 intellect as if the concurrent action of many particles of 
 matter had produced an effect which ceases ivith the cause. 
 ' Though ' (says Fechner) ' we are not annihilated by death, 
 we cannot save from death our previous mode of existence. 
 We return visibly to the earth from which we were taken.' 
 (P- 13-)' 
 
 Leaving the consequences to take care of them- 
 selves, Professor Huxley then proceeds : — 
 
 The only question for any man to ask is this : ' Is this 
 doctrine true or is it false ? ' No other question can be taken 
 into consideration until that is settled. And, as I have said, 
 the logical consequences of doctrines can only serve as a 
 warning to wise men to ponder well whether the doctrine be 
 true or not, and to test it in every possible direction. 
 
 This is a fair challenge, and the issue is simple 
 and direct. Is this doctrine true ? Not who has said 
 it, or what great authorities have upheld it, or under 
 what overwhelming prestige it has been advanced, or 
 what adventitious support it has received from per- 
 sonal or other sources. Nor, on the other hand, is it 
 tjtie question, ' Is a7iy other doctrine, theory, or tradi- 
 tion true or false } ' Every other question it is pro- 
 posed to set aside for the time being, and to inquire 
 solely, ' Is the doctrine of Evolution (of which Human 
 Automatism is the logical outcome) true "i ' 
 
 Perhaps, however, there may be an inquiry worth 
 pursuing for a brief space even before this which 
 concerns the truth of the doctrines. We may ask, 
 
 ' English translation, by Mr, J. F. Collingwood. 
 
14 
 
 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 • Do the sponsors for these statements really mean 
 what their words seem to imply ? or are they like 
 children playing in the dark, of whom the bolder 
 and more adventurous take pleasure in practising 
 upon the fears of their weaker companions ? ' 
 
 Professor Tyndall discerns in matter ' the promise 
 and potency of all terrestrial life.' But does he really 
 mean this ? It would not have been very surprising 
 if, with his devotion to, and perhaps unrivalled facility 
 for, physical investigation, he had lost sight of another 
 order of phenomena, which cannot be interpreted in 
 terms of matter. But this is not the case. In his 
 essay on ' Scientific Materialism ' ^ he distinctly re- 
 cognises in the facts of consciousness another class 
 of phenomena, the connection of which with physics 
 is iintJiinkablCy and speaks in set terms of ' two classes 
 of phenomena ' the * chasm between ' which must ever 
 ' remain intellectually impassable.' This reduces the 
 omnipotence of matter to a very innocent cry of 
 'Wolf 
 
 It is, doubtless, possible to assert that the 'two 
 classes of phenomena' are equally due to matter, 
 although the causative connection between them 
 cannot be traced, or even tJioiigJit ; but such asser- 
 tion must necessarily lack all scientific value. And, 
 indeed, if made, it would be answered by the author 
 himself, far more completely than I could hope to 
 answer it. No longer ago than November 1875 (see 
 
 * Fragments of Science,'^. 121. 
 
MATTER AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 15 
 
 FortnigJitly Reviczv, p. 585), Professor Tyndall quotes 
 and adopts the words of Du Bois Raymond, to the 
 effect that ' it is absolutely and for ever inconceivable 
 that a number of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and 
 oxygen atoms should be otherwise than indifferent 
 as to their own position and motion, past, present, or 
 future ; ' and adds, in his own words, that ' the con- 
 tinuity between molecular processes and the phe- 
 nomena of consciousness ... is a rock on which 
 materialism must inevitably split, whenever it pretends 
 to be a complete philosophy of the human mind.' 
 
 In the same essay (p. 595) the author intimates 
 that if our ' capacities ' were ' indefinitely multiplied,' 
 he could imagine that we should observe ' not only 
 the vegetable, but the mineral world, responsive to 
 the proper irritants ; ' in other words, we should find 
 that mere elementary matter is endowed with the 
 attribute of consciousness or sensation. Referring to 
 this, it was recently well and tersely observed by Mr. 
 Martineau, that ' you will get out of your atoms by 
 Evolution exactly so much, and no more, as you have 
 put into them by hypothesis.' I may add that on 
 the same principle we might make any number of 
 baseless assertions on any scientific subject whatever, 
 and defend their obvious inaccuracy on the grounds 
 of the imperfection of our senses or of our instru- 
 ments of research. 
 
 Professor Tyndall again refers (see ' Scientific 
 Materialism,' p. 419) to *the relation of physics to 
 
i6 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 consciousness ' as being * invariable.' I have no 
 doubt the writer firmly believes in this assumption ; 
 and its assertion on such high authority will weigh 
 powerfully with many ; yet it needs no profound 
 acquaintance with modern physiology and pathology 
 to convince us that no such ' invariable relation ' can 
 be verified ; that, in fact, it does not exist. 
 
 Comparing these various utterances, we cannot 
 but see that ' the promise and potency ' of life and 
 mind which Professor Tyndall discerns in matter 
 must be understood with many limitations ; and that 
 he himself most carefully guards us against attaching 
 to these words a literal significance. 
 
 It has, however, been asserted, as supporting this 
 proposition, that ' naturalists prove that there are no 
 other forces in nature beside the physical, chemical, 
 and mechanical,' ^ and that therefore all the pheno- 
 mena of life and mind must be due to them ; 
 although, ' as to the Jiozv, it must be confessed that 
 our knowledge is but scanty.' The latter clause of 
 the sentence is perfectly true ; the former stands 
 closely related to most of the assertions on which 
 the modern doctrine of Evolution is built. That 
 some naturalists and (so-called) philosophers assert 
 this, with marvellous monotony and perseverance, is 
 true enough ; that they prove it, that they even make 
 the most distant approach to proving it, is altogether 
 opposed to the truth. I hope at some future time to 
 
 * Biichner's Force and Alaitcr. Preface, p. xxvii. 
 
CONSCIOUS AUTOMATISM. 17 
 
 enter more fully into this subject ; at present I con- 
 tent myself with affirming it to be demonstrable that, 
 whatever evidence we may be able to adduce for the 
 existence of matter and physical forces, there is corre- 
 sponding evidence, at least as strong (I think imich 
 stronger), for the existence of something, certainly not 
 material, in any ordinary or legitimate acceptation 
 of the term, which is antagonistic to matter in its 
 activities, and which we are accustomed to call 
 mind. 
 
 Professor Huxley defines man as being ' a con- 
 scious automaton ; ' but, perhaps, lest the assertion 
 should be too strong food for his weaker brethren, 
 he qualifies it immediately by saying that the auto- 
 maton is ' endowed with free will, in the only intelli- 
 gible sense of that much-abused term ; inasmuch as 
 in many respects we are able to do as we like.' ^ 
 
 An * automaton endowed with free will' is certainly 
 a pleasing and interesting novelty in physical science ; 
 and Mr. Huxley deserves great credit for his ingenious 
 invention. It would have been an intellectual treat 
 to listen to him replying to any unfortunate opponent 
 who had committed himself so profoundly. Mean- 
 while his proposition, taken as a whole, is simply 
 suicidal ; for as no one, to my knowledge, ever con- 
 sidered free will to signify anything else but the 
 power to do as we like, the definition of man as being 
 ' an automaton endowed with free will ' leaves him 
 
 ' Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1874, p. 577- 
 C 
 
1 8 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 exactly where it found him ; that is, as an intelligent 
 free agent. 
 
 In entering formally upon the proposed inquiry, 
 Are these doctrines true ? it will clear the way to ask 
 first, what support they receive (i) from comparative 
 analogies, and (2) from what has been called * the 
 aggregate common sense ' of mankind ? 
 
 I. It is not easy to find any satisfactory illustration 
 or analogy from comparative anatomy or physiology. 
 Professor Huxley adduces the case of the frog, which 
 can stand, balance itself, jump, avoid obstacles, and 
 perform a variety of acts simulating volition, when 
 all connection between the brain, (the centre of 
 volition) and the limbs, is severed. The facts are 
 interesting ; they are also well known, and indisput- 
 able ; but the inferences from them are hasty and 
 altogether unwarranted. It can by no means follow, 
 that because certain acts of some animals may be 
 automatic, all their acts are so. 
 
 But even supposing, for the sake of the argument, 
 that this had been proved, that all the motions of a 
 frog in the normal state were automatic, and might, 
 in fact, be performed as well without as with a brain, 
 the question would naturally arise, How far will these 
 experiments and conclusions apply to the higher ani- 
 mals } And on trying the same mode of investigation 
 upon any of the warm-blooded quadrupeds, we should 
 arrive at the absolute certainty that no such results 
 could be obtained. A dog or cat, for instance, will 
 
FREEDOM OF CHOICE. 
 
 19 
 
 not live for one moment after division of the spinal 
 cord at its junction with the brain ; much less will it 
 perform any quasi-voluntary acts. In these, as in 
 man, under certain diseases or injuries, some simple 
 reflex motions may be elicited ; but nothing that 
 resembles complex voluntary action in any way. It 
 has never occurred to any physiologist to doubt that 
 certain motions and actions in man are automatic ; 
 nor that a much greater proportion of the actions of 
 the lower animals must be considered so ; but it 
 would require many intermediate steps of argument 
 to enable us from this to conclude that man is an 
 automaton. 
 
 2. What has the ' aggregate common sense ' of 
 mankind to say to this question ? Does any man's 
 personal experience lead him to the conclusion that 
 he is an automaton t I think not. It is only as a 
 sequel to reasoning, or pseudo-reasoning, that he 
 arrives at this stage of confusion. On the contrary, 
 every sane man knows that, within certain limits, 
 physical, social, legal, and the like, he can exercise a 
 definite power of choice as to what he will do, and 
 what he will leave undone. And that this kind or 
 appearance of choice is not delusive, is admitted by 
 Mr. Huxley himself, candidly, even if reluctantly. 
 In his essay on 'The Physical Basis of Life' he 
 confesses that ' otir volition counts for sojnething as a 
 condition of the course of events ; ' and that this ' can 
 be verified experimentally as often as we like to 
 
 c 2 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 try ' ^ — so recognising our personal consciousness as 
 authoritative and trustworthy, to this extent ; — and, 
 as quoted above, in his latest essay, he allows that 
 we are in many respects able to do as we like.' 
 
 In what sense, then, are we supposed to be auto- 
 mata ? Mr. Huxley seems to be playing a little game 
 of bo-peep with the idea : first, we are automata pure 
 and simple ; that we are conscious automata is granted, 
 but apparently rather by way of concession to pre- 
 judice. Then we find ourselves endowed with free 
 will and power 'to do as we like.' And finally it 
 appears that ' there is no proof that any state of 
 consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of 
 the matter of the organism,' and that ' the feeling we 
 call volition is not the cause oi a«voluntary act, but 
 the symbol of that state of the brain which is the 
 immediate cause of that act.' '^ 
 
 Some special training in mental gyration is cer- 
 tainly required to enable us to follow, without vertigo, 
 these ever-changing phases of opinion. A plain man, 
 attributing only the ordinary and received meanings 
 to words, might well be justified in asking, 'What 
 does it all mean 1 ' 
 
 It is highly desirable, in a case like this, where the 
 general conviction and ' aggregate common sense ' of 
 mankind are set aside as untrustworthy, to ascertain 
 in what the trtit/i of a doctrine consists, and on what 
 
 * Lay Sert7ions, p. 145. 
 
 - Fortnightly Reviciu, Nov. 1 874, p. 577. 
 
EVIDENCE FROM CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 it depends. If assertion and reiteration, on high au- 
 thority, constitute truth, then are these doctrines very 
 true indeed ; but perhaps that will not be contended. 
 On the other hand, they are not necessarily untrue, 
 because opposed to the general conviction and con- 
 sciousness of men. I think, for instance, that in any 
 given act. A, I exercise my volition V, to change my 
 place by locomotion, to escape sensation S. But if 
 I am assured that S directly excites in my nervous 
 system the change which effects A, and that my sen- 
 sation V, which I erroneously suppose to be volition, 
 is only * a symbol ' of the state of brain so produced, 
 I have no absolute and incontestable answer to the 
 allegation, except such as arises from the dicta of my 
 own consciousness, and from the testimony of all 
 other men. 
 
 In the same way, a person who is generally called 
 ' colour-blind ' may tell me that all ripe cherries are of 
 the same colour as the leaves of the tree. I can but 
 reply that I see them differently, and that, with very 
 few exceptions, all men do the same. Should he 
 reply that he and the few exceptions alone see 
 rightly, and that I and all the world are subject to 
 diseased vision, I do not know that the argument 
 could be profitably prolonged. The truth is, that in 
 all such questions as these our ultimate appeal must 
 and will be to the evidences of our own consciousness. 
 It may be proved to us again and again that this 
 evidence is unreliable — that consciousness is liable 
 
22 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 to this, that, and the other error, physiologically and 
 pathologically. We know, when we come to reflect, 
 that this much-despised consciousness is at the root 
 of all our knowledge and all our belief ; and that if 
 we propose to reject its testimony, we p7'o tanto close 
 our only source of information. A distinguished and 
 learned writer, whom for the present I forbear to 
 name, lately urged the necessity of studying the 
 operations of the mind by investigating the structure 
 and functions of the brain ; because, from the un- 
 reliableness of our consciousness, no other course 
 offered any hope of success. The idea is amusing, 
 but would have been more practical, had it been 
 further shown how we were to dispense with this 
 unreliable auxiliary. We may for a moment be 
 startled by being told, gravely and authoritatively, 
 that we are only conscious automata, as we should be 
 if assured with equal solemnity that some marvellous 
 change had suddenly occurred in the colour of our 
 skin or hair. But as in the latter case we should look 
 in the glass, and trust implicitly to its evidence as 
 revealed through our consciousness, so in the former, 
 when told that we can neither think, act, nor move, 
 except automatically, we arise and walk, if we so 
 wish it, and our consciousness says, ' Solvitur ambit- 
 Ian do! 
 
 If a speaker in an assembly, or a piece of music 
 in a concert, displease me, I tJiink I balance in my 
 own mind the advantages and disadvantages of leav- 
 
EVOLUTION. 
 
 23 
 
 ing the room, and /^^/ that I act accordingly. If this 
 idea of mine is deceptive, and I am only obeying a 
 state of brain of which my * supposed volition is a 
 symbol/ I am certainly acting automatically ; but in 
 that case it is not true that my volition counts for 
 anything in tJie course of events, which Mr. Huxley 
 asserts to be the case. In regard to any individual 
 act or motion, it is no doubt impossible, except by 
 personal consciousness, to prove that it is not auto- 
 matic ; but in that case the suggestion of free will in 
 any form is out of place. On the other hand, if the 
 said act be the result of any intelligible form of voli- 
 tion, it certainly is not the act of an automaton. One 
 or the other view we must adopt ; there is no com- 
 promise or alternative possible. 
 
 The assertion, however, that ' man is but a con- 
 scious automaton ' does not profess to be based on 
 the results of experience or consciousness, but upon 
 considerations connected with his nature and origin. 
 It is, as stated in the outset, the logical and inevitable 
 corollary of the doctrine of Evolution. If this doc- 
 trine, as now held by a large and powerful section of 
 the scientific world, does indeed, as it professes, afford 
 the only possible solution of the various problems of 
 ontology, then it follows naturally and of necessity 
 that matter is all-sufficient, and that man is an 
 automaton, 'without spirit or spontaneity.' Then is 
 our immortality a dream ; volition, choice, and re- 
 sponsibility are mere delusions ; virtue, vice, right, 
 
24 
 
 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 and wrong are sounds without possible meaning ; and 
 education, government, rewards, and punishments, are 
 illogical and mischievous absurdities. Let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow Ave shall be carbonic acid, water, 
 and ammonia. 
 
 It cannot be too clearly understood that the con- 
 sequences of a doctrine, if true, afford no argument 
 whatever against its acceptance. My reason for briefly 
 enumerating some of them here is, that I have met 
 with many earnest and even educated men who have 
 accepted these doctrines without investigation, because 
 propounded on high authority, without reasoning or 
 reflecting what these consequences were, or what is 
 their logical sequel. 
 
 It is evident, however, that the importance of 
 these results renders it absolutely necessary to inquire, 
 What is this doctrine.'' and what is its scientific value.'' 
 For this inquiry the time is fully ripe. Evolution, 
 which not long ago was modestly, even somewhat 
 timidly, advanced as offering a rational solution of 
 certain natural phenomena, is now boldly set forth, 
 with unlimited pretension, as affording the only pos- 
 sible or thinkable system of nature. The last edition 
 of the gospel of Evolution, the ' Constructive Philo- 
 sophy' of Mr. Herbert Spencer, is announced as 
 ' .stereotyped,' conveying a significant intimation that 
 the system is now complete, and that no further 
 advance in that direction is probable or required ; 
 and those who do not accept it are described as only 
 
MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 25 
 
 ' those who have not kept pace with the recent ad- 
 vances in natural history,' or ' who have lagged 
 behind in science,' and as generally unworthy of con- 
 sideration. Evolution, in one word, is the Shibboleth 
 of modern progress. 
 
 The question of questions for mankind,^ (says Professor 
 Huxley) the problem which underlies all others, and is 
 more deeply interesting than any other, is the ascertainment 
 of the place which man occupies in nature, and of his rela- 
 tions to the universe of things. Whence our race has come ; 
 what are the limits of our power over nature, and of nature's 
 power over us ; to what goal we are tending ? are the 
 problems which present themselves anew, and with undimi- 
 nished interest, to every man born into the world. 
 
 By the conclusions of Evolution these problems 
 would appear to be definitively solved. As to man's 
 origin, it is now knozvit that he is the last term in a 
 long but uninterrupted series of developments, begin- 
 ning with ' cosmic gas,' and effected without ' the inter- 
 vention of any but what are termed secondary causes.'^ 
 As to his present relations to the universe of things, 
 and his power over nature, he is an automaton, and 
 nothing more than a 'part of that great series of 
 causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity, com- 
 poses that which is, and has been, and shall be, the 
 sum of existence.' ^ To what goal the race is tending 
 is not yet satisfactorily known, but, individually, the 
 man resolves into carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, 
 
 1 Man's Place in Nature, p. 57. ^ Ibid. p. 1 08. 
 
 ^ Fortnightly Review^ Nov. 1874, p. 577. 
 
26 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 and has no more personal future existence than a 
 consumed candle. 
 
 The earliest condition of our world (or universe) 
 presents itself to the * eye of the imagination ' as a vast 
 expanse of ' cosmic gas,' in which it is to be inferred 
 that there exists but one form of matter, and probably 
 only one form of force or motion. 
 
 After this we catch glimpses of a * fiery cloud,' in 
 which * not alone the more ignoble forms of life, not 
 alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the 
 human body, but the human mind itself — emotion, 
 intellect, will, and all their phenomena ... all our 
 philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, and all our 
 art — Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, Raphael ' — all are 
 supposed to be ' latent ' and ' potential.'^ 
 
 Then follows a long period of cooling and con- 
 traction, by means of w^hich the crust of the earth is 
 formed, and the once homogeneous matter becomes 
 differentiated by a process to be alluded to hereafter. 
 Watery vapours are condensed ; seas, rivers, and lakes 
 are formed ; and thus the earth is prepared for the 
 appearance of Life, which is first recognised under the 
 form of sea-slime, or mucus (Oken). 
 
 Opinions are not quite in unison as to the mode 
 in which this living mucus or ^protoplasm'' arises ; 
 but all are agreed that it is a product of inorganic 
 matter and force without any creative intervention. 
 
 ' Professor Tyndall on the Scientific Use of the hnagination. 
 
ORIGIN OF LIFE. 27 
 
 Oken's account is direct and unhesitating — 'Light 
 shines 2ipon the water ^ and it is salted. Light shines 
 upon the salted sea, and it lives! ^ Perhaps this would 
 scarcely be considered sufficiently explicit as a scien- 
 tific statement. Mr. Herbert Spencer, the * Apostle 
 of the Understanding,' as he is termed by Professor 
 Tyndall, is much more circumstantial. Thanks to 
 him, we now know that organisms are ' highly differ- 
 entiated ' portions of the matter forming the earth's 
 crust and its gaseous envelope ; and that organisation 
 consists principally in 'the formation of an aggregate 
 by the continued incorporation of matter previously 
 spread through a wider space ; ' ^ and also that this 
 formation depends upon ' an integration of matter 
 and concomitant dissipation of motion ; during which 
 the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent ho- 
 mogeneity, to a definite, coherent heterogeneity ; and 
 during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel 
 transformation.' ^ 
 
 Professor Fiske finds the development of life to be 
 due to the cooling of our planet, as follows : — ^ 
 
 As soon as it became cool enough for oxygen and hy- 
 drogen to unite into a stable compound, they did unite to 
 form vapour of water. As soon as it became cool enough 
 for double salts to exist, then the mutual affinities of simple 
 binary compounds and single salts, variously brought into 
 
 ^ Elements of Physiophilosophy , sec. 905. 
 2 First Principles, p. 31 1. 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 396. 
 
 "» Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 433. 
 
2ii WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 juxtaposition, sufficed to produce double salts. And so on, 
 throughout the inorganic world. 
 
 Here we obtain a hint as to the origin of organic life 
 upon the earth's surface. In accordance with the modern 
 dynamic theory of life, we are bound to admit that the 
 higher and less stable aggregations of molecules which con- 
 stitute protoplasm, were built up in just the same way in 
 which the lower and more stable aggregations of molecules 
 which constitute a single or a double salt, were built up. 
 Dynamically, the only difference between carbonate of 
 ammonia and protoplasm, which can be called fundamental, 
 is the greater molecular complexity and consequent insta- 
 bility of the latter. We are bound to admit, then, that as 
 carbonic acid and ammonia, when brought into juxtaposi- 
 tion, united by virtue of their inherent properties as soon as 
 the diminishing temperature would let them ; so also carbon, 
 nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, when brought into juxta- 
 position, united by virtue of their inherent properties, into 
 higher and higher multiples, as fast as the diminishing tem- 
 perature would let them, until at last living protoplasm was 
 the result of the long-continued process. 
 
 If this passage adds little to our knowledge of the 
 origin of life, it certainly illustrates how great an 
 amount of unscientific misrepresentation, and inconse- 
 quence of reasoning, can be compressed into a brief 
 space. It is difficult to know or conjecture what 
 meaning the author intends to convey ; for there is 
 certainly no resemblance, either chemically or ' dyna- 
 mically,' between protoplasm and carbonate of am- 
 monia, except that of their ultimate elements. 
 
 Having, however, arrived by this simple and lucid 
 process at the sea-slime, mucus, or protoplasm, there 
 
SPECIFIC EVOIUTIOiV. 29 
 
 seems to be no further difficulty or doubt. The 
 monera is the first form of individual life, and this 
 ' was formed from inorganic matter ' (Haeckel). Then 
 by successive evolutions we pass through amceboids, 
 worms, polyzoa, and ascidians, ' which last produced 
 the two remaining stirpes of the vertebrata and the 
 mollusca.' Amongst the vertebrata are found sundry 
 families of apes, from one of which, the Catarhini, man 
 is directly and lineally descended. 
 
 Those who wish to verify this abstract are re- 
 ferred to Dr. Haeckel's ' Natural History of Man,' or to 
 what is more readily accessible to the many. Professor 
 Huxley's excellent review of the same, entitled the 
 ' Genealogy of Animals,' as also to Mr. Darwin's 
 ' Descent of Man.' I have not attempted here to 
 give more than the barest outline of the general idea 
 of the doctrine of Evolution. 
 
 From the gravity with which these statements are 
 enunciated, from the vast number and weight of the 
 books written in support of them, and from the enor- 
 mous amount of learning and research of which they 
 scan to be the result, it might well appear as though 
 this were a system founded on knowledge and obser- 
 vation. It is somewhat difficult to realise the idea 
 that all this is but a figment of the imagination ; and 
 that at the best it is but a hypothesis, in direct support 
 of which not one single fact in the whole range of 
 natural history or palaeontology can be adduced. 
 
 It is in this doctrine that is illustrated what Pro- 
 
30 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 fessor Huxley calls ' Nature's great progression, from 
 the formless to the formed, from the inorganic to the 
 organic, from blind force to conscious intellect and 
 will.' ^ We find man set forth as a natural and inevi- 
 table product of the inorganic world, without ' the 
 intervention of any but what are termed secondary 
 causes,' ^ and necessarily with only such attributes as 
 attach to this material origin. He is an automaton 
 and nothing more. 
 
 This is a conclusion summary enough, but the end 
 is not yet. The tendency of Evolution is to reduce 
 all force to one expression or formula, and that the 
 mechanical. Mental phenomena are but higher ex- 
 pressions of the ordinary vital and nutritive changes ; 
 these are but the chemistry of quaternary compounds ; 
 and chemical force in its turn is not to be distin- 
 guished from mechanical, except under the penalty of 
 sacrificing all claim to enlightened views. In the 
 * Fortnightly Review ' for February 1 869 Professor 
 Tyndall says : ' I do not think that any really scientific 
 mind at the present day, will be disposed to draw 
 a substantial distinction between chemical and me- 
 chanical phenomena.' And thus the modern school 
 
 ' Professor Huxley makes much grave fun of another well-known for- 
 mula concerning the * ordained becoming of organic forms, ' which he 
 calls a 'qua-qua-versal proposition,' and remarks thereupon that 'it is the 
 first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible.' It may perhaps be ques- 
 tioned whether he himself always acts upon this wise maxim, and 
 whether a * great progression ' of this kind is much more intelligible 
 than a ' continuous becoming.' (See Man's Place in Nature^ p. 106.) 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 108. 
 
MATTER AND FORCE. 31 
 
 of philosophy recognises but one force ; all nature, 
 whether living or dead (if, indeed, there is any differ- 
 ence between the two), is but mechanical. 
 
 It appears further, according to this system of 
 philosophy, that not only is there but one force in 
 nature, but there is only ^ one ultimate form of matter, 
 out of which the successively more complex forms of 
 matter are built up.' ^ And finally it would seem that 
 matter itself, as generally conceived, does not neces- 
 sarily exist, but may be only a ' phenomenal centre of 
 energy ' or force ; ^ and thus we arrive at Cimmerian 
 darkness, where ' naught is everything, and everything 
 is naught.' 
 
 This, although a meagre and bare, is, I believe, a 
 tolerably faithful, outline of a system, which is now 
 * known ' to afford the only possible solution of the 
 mystery of the universe — a conclusion the grounds of 
 which ' will never be shaken,' ^ a doctrine not founded 
 ' on the basis of vague conjecture, but oi positive know- 
 ledge! ^ It is contrasted with the doctrine of 'special 
 creation,' by Mr. Herbert Spencer, much to the dis- 
 advantage of the latter ; and the comparison con- 
 cludes thus : — 
 
 The belief which we find thus questionable, both as 
 being a primitive belief and as being a belief belonging to 
 
 * Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 155. 
 2 Matter is only a '■hypothetical cause of states of our own con- 
 sciousness,' — Physical Basis of Life, p. 143. 
 ^ Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 385. 
 ■* Professor Tyndall's Belfast Address, p. 5. 
 
32 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 an almost extinct family, is a belief that is not countenanced 
 by a single fact. No one ever saw a special creation ; no 
 one ever found proof of an indirect kind that a special crea- 
 tion had taken place. It is significant, as Dr. Hooker 
 remarks, that naturalists, who suppose new species to be 
 miraculously originated, habitually suppose the origination 
 to occur in some region remote from human observation.'^ 
 
 If this be intended for argument, it is certainly 
 double-edged. Did any one ever see an organic Evo- 
 lution.^ or did anyone ever s&q proof oi such an Evolu- 
 tion having taken place } The answer must be No ! 
 however circuitous and veiled it may be. In the remain- 
 ing- alleeation there is an unconscious and childlike 
 innocence that almost disarms criticism. The system 
 that demands * ten or a hundred thousand generations ' 
 for the development of the distinguishing characters 
 of a single species, and a world so different from its 
 present state that not even a trace of its existence re- 
 mains, can scarcely object logically or consistently to 
 the relegation of certain phenomena to a ' region re- 
 mote,' whether in time or in space.^ And with all 
 this, those who do not or cannot accept this Evolu- 
 tion doctrine, are denied the possession of the very 
 faculties of thought or belief. To anyone who says 
 that he thinks the universe was created, Mr. Spencer 
 
 1 Principles of Biology, vol. i. p. 336. 
 
 2 ' If it were given to me to look beyond the abyss of geologically- 
 recorded time, to the still more remote period when the earth was 
 passing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more 
 see again than a man can recall his infancy, I should expect to be a 
 witness of the evolution of protoplasm from not-living matter.'— Pro- 
 fessor Huxley's Critiques and Addresses, p. 239. 
 
CREATION AND EVOLUTION. 33 
 
 replies, ' No ! you do not think so, for such a doctrine 
 is not thinkable.' And to those who say they believe 
 in a Creator and a creation, Mr. Spencer replies, ' No", 
 you do not believe, you only believe you believe.' ^ 
 Surely this is the very Dundrearyism of philosophy. 
 
 But it is far from my present object to discuss or 
 uphold the theory {' if it can be so called ') of creation, 
 or of any other system of ontology, in opposition to 
 Evolution. Creation is no more accessible to proof 
 ' from experimental demonstration ' than is Evolution. 
 It is not a scientific doctrine, and those who believe 
 in it do so on far other than scientific grounds. The 
 question is not whether the doctrine of Creation is 
 tenable or otherwise, but whether that of Evolution is 
 true or not. 
 
 It is not altogether easy to approach this question 
 so as to obtain a decisive answer. If we treat it as 
 a scientific inquiry, and ask for some confirmatory 
 evidence, we are told, almost plaintively, that 'the 
 strength of the doctrine of Evolution consists not in 
 an experimental demonstration.' ^ If we further in- 
 quire how it is to be approached, and in what its 
 strength does consist, we fail to get any definite 
 answer, except some vague statement as to * its gene- 
 ral harmony with scientific thought.' Indeed, the at- 
 titude of Evolution is entirely exceptional. It seems 
 to be taken for granted that the doctrine possesses 
 
 ' Vide Principles of Biology, vol. i. p. 337. 
 2 Professor Tyndall's Belfast Address, p. 58. 
 D 
 
34 WIiVDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 some esoteric and mysterious principle of vitality and 
 credibility, which makes it independent of any sup- 
 port from science or certain knowledge. We have a 
 right, however, to expect, if it be a true philosophy, 
 that whenever it comes into relation with the results 
 of observation and experience, it shall not be found 
 opposed to these. How far this is the case further 
 inquiry will show. 
 
35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's Philosophy— Professor Huxley's Doctrine 
 of ' Protoplasm. ' 
 
 The first question that arises then is this : Is it true 
 that there is originally but one form of matter t Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer says that there is ' reason to suppose ' 
 so ; and that * by the different grouping of units, and 
 by the combination of the unlike groups each with 
 its own kind, and each with other kinds, it is supposed 
 that there have been produced the kinds of matter 
 we call elementary.' ^ The * reaso7i to suppose ' all 
 this, and the subsequent supposing of it, seem to exist 
 only in Mr. Spencer's own mind ; and to have their 
 raison d'etre in the exigencies of the 'constructive 
 philosophy.' It is known to chemists that a very few 
 of the now supposed simple bodies may be suspected 
 to be compound, as one or two of the gases and some 
 less known bodies; but I have never heard of any 
 ' reason to suppose ' that iron, phosphorus, iodine, and 
 gold were composed of different arrangements of the 
 
 ^ Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 155, 
 D 2 
 
36 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 same units since the time when alchemy gave place to 
 chemistry.^ A captious person might perhaps be dis- 
 posed to ask, also, how it happened that with one 
 form of matter and one force any ' different group- 
 ings ' or ' further combinations ' could possibly occur. 
 But this would doubtless be dismissed as a frivolous 
 detail. 
 
 An excellent illustration is afforded by this subject 
 of the mode in which the 'constructive philosophy ' 
 is built up, and of the gigantic strides that are taken 
 from conjecture to certainty in the interests of the 
 Evolution hypothesis. Mr. Spencer having seen 
 ' reason to suppose ' such and such things, as already 
 quoted, in the very next paragraph, and without ad- 
 ducing any proof whatever, treats these suppositions 
 as ascertained facts, and proceeds to build upon them 
 as if they were solid foundations of scientific truth 
 in this wise: 'If, then, WE SEE (!) that by unlike 
 arrangements of like units all the forms of matter, 
 apparently so diverse in nature, may be produced,' 
 &c., &c. A curiously similar instance of evolution 
 of truth occurs in Professor Tyndall's essay on ' Scien- 
 tific Materialism.' In one sentence (' Fragments of 
 Science,' p. 120), he states that 'we should, on philo- 
 sophic grounds, expect to find' such and such physical 
 conditions ; and in the next commences an induc- 
 
 ' Biichner, a most thoroughgoing Evokitionist, affirms on the con- 
 trary, that 'nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, and phos- 
 phorus possess their inherent quahties from eternity ' — implying by 
 this that all the elementary bodies are eternally different. 
 
HASTY GENERALISATION. 37 
 
 tion from the same, with the phrase, 'The relation 
 of physics to consciousness being thus invariable ! ' 
 — a relation which, as I have -above pointed out, 
 does not exist in any demonstrable form, if at all. \ 
 Such being the received method of evolving science I 
 out of personal consciousness at the present day, 
 it ceases to be subject for surprise that so many 
 volumes of such portentous dimensions should have 
 appeared, containing so little absolute addition to our 
 certain knowledge of nature. 
 
 Is it true that there is but one form of force ; that 
 chemical and mechanical forces are fundamentally the 
 same ? Generalisation is very pleasant, very attractive, 
 and very philosophical when it is legitimate, and 
 when the resultant formula covers and includes all the 
 phenomena treated of; but it is eminently injurious 
 to the advancement of knowledge if these conditions 
 be not fulfilled ; when from detached facts a desperate 
 guess is made at analogies and resemblances which 
 do not exist in nature. It may be fairly questioned 
 whether we are not getting on too fast, and whether 
 true science will not rather be hindered than advanced 
 by such rash leaps in the dark. For what advantage 
 is it to us to say that chemical force is mechanical in 
 its operation, if we have at the same time to explain 
 that it is something different } Surely this tends to 
 great confusion of thought as well as of verbiage. 
 If we fasten together two plates of iron with screws 
 or rivets, we call the union mechanical. If we dissolve 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 these iron plates in mineral acids we call the process 
 chemical. It is certainly convenient to know by 
 different names processes that differ so much ; and 
 until their virtual identity is much more clearly de- 
 monstrable than it is at present, the advantage of 
 further generalisation is problematical. 
 
 But both in this order of phenomena, and in some 
 others to be noticed hereafter, the authoritative state- 
 ments as to ' identity ' of matter, force, or essence, are 
 so extraordinary, and so impossible to be received or 
 comprehended by the ordinary intelligence, that some 
 special theory seems to be required to account for 
 them ; and I would venture to suggest one that 
 would perhaps remove many difficulties and mis- 
 understandings. I cannot but suppose that with a 
 new philosophy there has arisen a new language or 
 terminology, in which words have not the same 
 meaning as they formerly had. One illustration will 
 explain the bearing of this theory. On February 2, 
 1 87 1, Professor Tyndall delivered a discourse at the 
 Royal Institution on ' The Identity of Light and 
 Radiant Heat.' The lecture was, as usual, interesting 
 in the extreme ; and the experimental illustrations 
 were of the most brilliant and striking order. But a 
 considerable part of these illustrations were absolutely 
 dependent upon the differences that exist between 
 light and radiant heat, as in the following expe- 
 riment : — 
 
 A horizontal beam of light was reflected upwards by a 
 
IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE. 39 
 
 plane mirror, and when the light was cut offhy the introduc- 
 tion of the opaque cell 2, powerful beam of reflected Jicat was 
 proved still to remain. The luminous beam was then totally 
 reflected to a horizontal direction ; the light was again cut off, 
 and a powerful deflection of the galvanometer needle was 
 obtained by the residual \vt2X-\>^2.vi\} 
 
 In this, and several other experiments to show 
 identity, we saw the beam of heat separated from the 
 beam of light by reagents, so to speak ; radiant heat 
 would pass where light would not, and so on.^ I con- 
 clude, therefore, that words of this kind have now a 
 different signification to that which they formerly pos- 
 sessed, and that when Professor Tyndall speaks of 
 chemical and mechanical forces being substantially 
 the same, he intends to imply that they are as differ- 
 ent as they well can be ; and in like manner when, as 
 we shall find shortly. Professor Huxley can see no 
 difference between the formation of water from its ele- 
 ments under the influence of the electric spark, and 
 the assimilation of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
 nitrogen by a living organism, it may be that he 
 intends to imply that the two processes are utterly 
 and irreconcilably different, — in which he will be quite 
 correct. 
 
 But the real question as to the trutJi of Evolution 
 commences at the next step in ' Nature's great pro- 
 
 ' Proceedings, 1 871, p. 419. 
 
 2 Professor Tyndall explained, in his treatise on Light, published in 
 1873, that when he said 'identity,' he did not mean identity in *all 
 respects.' 
 
40 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 g^'ession,' that is, in the progression from the inorganic 
 to the organic. Of this part of the doctrine Professor 
 Huxley is the best-known and most distinguished ex- 
 ponent. He claims no originality for the idea of Proto- 
 plasm as the ' Physical Basis of Life ;' but he has made 
 it all his own, and inseparably associated it with his 
 name, in England at least, by the inimitable charm of 
 style, and the marvellous fertility of illustration with 
 which he has invested it, in the well-known essay in the 
 * Fortnightly Review' for February 1869. This essay 
 was written, as it appears, with the double object of 
 showing ' that all life, activity, and intelligence, are 
 solely due to the arrangement oi the molecules of 
 ordinary matter — and that materialism has no sound 
 philosophic basis. In Professor Huxley's essay on 
 the ' Genealogy of Animals,' he thus states the ' fun- 
 damental proposition of Evolution ' : ' That proposi- 
 tion is, that the whole w^orld, living and not living, is 
 the result of the mutual interaction, according to de- 
 finite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of 
 which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was 
 composed. If this be true, it is no less certain that 
 the existing world lay, potentially, in the cosmic 
 vapour ; and that a sufficient intelligence could, from 
 a knowledge of the properties of the molecules of that 
 vapour, have predicted, say the fauna of Britain in 
 1 869, with as much certainty as one can say what will 
 happen to the vapour of the breath in a cold winter's 
 
 ^ See Yeasty p. 90. 
 
THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE. 41 
 
 day.' And yet Professor Huxley ' repudiates ' the 
 materialistic philosophy, and states in ' Yeast ' that 
 one great object he had in view in writing his essay 
 on the ' Physical Basis of Life ' was to ' show that 
 what is called Materialism has no sound philosophic 
 basis ! ' His mode of reconciling the latter proposi- 
 tion with the former will appear hereafter ; the doc- 
 trine in question is as follows : — 
 
 The Physical Basis or Matter of Life is ^Proto- 
 plasm' This is composed ' of ordinary matter, differ- 
 ing from it only in the manner in which its atoms 
 are aggregated, and is again resolved into ordinary 
 matter when its work is done.' ^ 
 
 The ijiatter of life . . . breaks up . . . into carbonic 
 acid, water, and ammonia, which certainly possesses no pro- 
 perties but those of ordinary matter. . . . Carbon, hydrogen, 
 oxygen, and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of these 
 carbon and oxygen unite in certain proportions, and under 
 certain conditions, to give rise to carbonic acid ; hydrogen 
 and oxygen produce water; nitrogen and hydrogen give 
 rise to ammonia. These new compounds, like the ele- 
 mentary bodies of which they are composed, are lifeless. But 
 when they are brought together, under certain conditions, 
 they give rise to the still more complex body, protoplasm ; 
 and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of Hfe. 
 
 I see no break in this series of steps in molecular com- 
 plication, and I am unable to understand why the language 
 which is applicable to any one term of the series may not be 
 used to any of the others. 
 
 When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a certain 
 
 ^ P. 136. This and the following references are to the pages in the 
 original essay in the Review above-mentioned. 
 
42 JVIiVBS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 proportion, and an electric spark is passed through them, 
 they disappear, and a quantity of water, equal to the sum of 
 their weights, appears in their place. 
 
 Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, 
 water, and ammonia disappear, and in their place, under the 
 influence of pre-existing protoplasm, an equivalent weight of 
 the matter of life makes its appearance ? 
 
 If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant 
 signification whenever it is employed, it seems to me that 
 we are logically bound to apply to the protoplasm, or 
 physical basis of life, the same conceptions as those which 
 are held to be legitimate elsewhere. If the phenomena 
 exhibited by water are its properties, so are those presented 
 by protoplasm, living or dead, its properties. 
 
 If the properties of water may be properly said to re- 
 sult from the nature and disposition of its component mole- 
 cules, I can find no intelligible ground for refusing to say 
 that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and 
 disposition of its molecules.^ 
 
 This, then, assumes to be a scientific statement, 
 clothed in 'scientific language,' and, as such, it is 
 amenable to ordinary investigation as to its accord- 
 ance with, or departure from, the known facts of 
 science. I have quoted it at length, first, because it is 
 rarely that in the history of Evolution we are brought 
 face to face with anything that resembles science ; and 
 secondly, because it is the most important link in the 
 chain of the doctrine, and with the demonstration of 
 
 * In Professor Huxley's essay on Yeast (see Critiques and Add?'esses, 
 p. 90), he denies ever having 'said anything resembling' the assertion 
 that ' life matter was due only to chemistry ' — and that such an asser- 
 tion would be ' absurd ! ! ' The latter part of the statement is certainly 
 true. 
 
ARE THESE DOCTRINES TRUE?' 
 
 43 
 
 its truth or error Evolution stands or falls. If we are 
 compelled to acknowledge the formation of living from 
 non-living matter, by ordinary chemical affinities, 
 Evolution has made good its position — all the rest is 
 mere detail — and man is an automaton, ' without spirit 
 or spontaneity.' If, on the other hand, it can be de- 
 monstrated that there is, and can be, no truth in this 
 part of the doctrine. Evolution has no loctis standi, 
 and must relinquish all pretension to existence as a 
 scientific hypothesis. To this statement of Professor 
 Huxley's, then, I propose to apply the test suggested 
 by himself, and inquire, 'Are these doctrines true?' 
 
 I know of no form of negation sufficiently explicit, 
 comprehensive, and emphatic, in which to reply to this 
 question. The doctrines as here stated are so utterly 
 at variance with the most familiar facts of chemistry, 
 that it is marvellous they should have so long passed 
 unchallenged — that is, on purely chemical grounds. 
 On other issues, both relevant and irrelevant, they 
 have been often objected to. If Professor Huxley 
 expresses an opinion on a matter of science or philo- 
 sophy, it is doubtless worthy of all consideration, as 
 snch, but if he makes a scientific statement, couched 
 in ' scientific language,' then it is as open to scientific 
 criticism as if the veriest tyro had said it. 
 
 To enter into detail : it is in no sense true that 
 protoplasm ' breaks up ' into carbonic acid, water, and 
 ammonia, any more than it is true that iron, when 
 exposed to the action of oxygen, ' breaks up ' into 
 
44 WIXDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 oxide of iron. A compound body can only break up 
 into its constituent parts ; and these are not the con- 
 stituent parts of protoplasm. To convert protoplasm 
 into these three compounds requires an amount of 
 oxygen nearly double the weight of the original mass 
 of protoplasm; speaking approximately, every loolbs. 
 of protoplasm would require 1 70 lbs. of oxygen. 
 
 Under no possible ' conditions ' can carbonic acid, 
 water, and ammonia, when brought together, 'give 
 rise to the still more complex body, protoplasm.' 
 Not even on paper can any multiple, or any combina- 
 tion whatever of these substances, be made to repre- 
 sent the composition of protoplasm, much less can it 
 be effected in practice. Carbonic acid (C O2), water 
 (H2 O), and ammonia (N H3) cannot by any combina- 
 tion be brought to represent Cgg H26 N^ O^q, which is 
 the equivalent of protein or protoplasm. 
 
 But the most incredible of all the errors, if it be 
 not simply a mystification, is found in the comparison 
 between the formation of water from its elements, and 
 the origination of protoplasm. Hydrogen and oxygen 
 doubtless unite to form an equivalent weight of water ; 
 that is, an amount of water equalling in weight the 
 combined weights of the hydrogen and the oxygen ; 
 and Professor Huxley asks, * Is the case in any way 
 changed when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia dis- 
 appear, and in their place, under the influence of pre- 
 existing protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the 
 matter of life makes its appearance } ' 
 
FORMATION OF PROTOPLASM. 45 
 
 The answer is, Certainly ; the case is changed in 
 every possible way in which a process, whether chemi- 
 cal or otherwise, can be changed. But it must also 
 be premised that the fact, as stated, is not true ; that 
 when these three substances disappear under certain 
 conditions, an * equivalent zueight of the matter of life 
 makes its appearance.' Every chemist knows what 
 an ' equivalent weight ' means, — knows also that there 
 can be no weight of protoplasm 'equivalent,' chemi- 
 cally speaking, to any amount of carbonic acid, water, 
 and ammonia, that may or can have disappeared. 
 These are simple, well-known, and understood chemi- 
 cal facts, and need no discussion. But granting for 
 the moment, and for the sake of argument, that these 
 bodies disappear, and that protoplasm appears, it is 
 manifest — almost too manifest to require stating — 
 that there is no resemblance whatever in the two pro- 
 cesses by which the results, which Professor Huxley 
 considers identical, are obtained. In the formation of 
 water the whole of its constituent parts combine to 
 form an equal weight of the compound ; the case is 
 entirely otherwise with regard to protoplasm, for here 
 the so-called elements do not combine at all. On the 
 contrary, they are uncombined or decomposed, by a 
 process and by affinities most assuredly unknown in 
 our laboratories. The carbonic acid and the ammonia 
 are certainly decomposed, and whilst the carbon and 
 nitrogen are assimilated, and add to the bulk of the 
 plant, part of the oxygen is eliminated by the leaves, 
 
46 WINDS OF DOCTRIAE. 
 
 and part is destined to the performance of various 
 functions in the economy. 
 
 Yet we are invited to see in this complex pro- 
 gramme of decomposition, selection, fixation, and re- 
 jection only a process analogous to the formation of 
 water from its elements ; and Professor Huxley can 
 see ' no break! It might be interesting to inquire how 
 wide a chasm must be before it is visible to an Evolu- 
 tionist ; and in the subsequent part of the inquiry it is 
 probable that further illustrations will be met with of 
 the Emersonian axiom, that ' the eye sees only what it 
 brings with it the power of seeing.' 
 
 But what especially and generically distinguishes 
 the formation of protoplasm from all these chemical 
 processes is, that it is never formed except under the 
 Immediate contact and influence of pre-existing and 
 living protoplasm. 
 
 It is this which constitutes the ' break ' that Pro- 
 fessor Huxley cannot see. It is this appearance of an 
 entirely new and distinct order of affinities, that annuls 
 the force of Professor Tyndall's truly elegant and 
 powerful illustration, of a curve whose elements have 
 been determined ' in a world of observation and ex- 
 periment,' being prolonged into 'an antecedent world' 
 — whence we * accept as probable the unbroken se- 
 quence of development from the nebula to the present 
 time.' ^ There is, there can be, no one curve the ele- 
 ments of which will comprehend the phencmena of 
 
 * Scientific Use of the Imagination. 
 
VITALITY AND ' AQUOSITY 
 
 47 
 
 matter, of life, and of mind. There is no transition 
 from one order of activity to the other ; there is no 
 ' great progression from the inorganic to the organic' 
 To say otherwise is mere waste of time in asserting 
 what is at once incapable of proof, and at variance 
 with all known facts. 
 
 How such doctrines came to be received, can only 
 be accounted for in Professor Huxley's own words, 
 when treating on some other antagonistic ' teaching,' 
 which he says was only ' tolerable on account of the 
 ignorance of those by whom it was accepted.' Refer- 
 ring to some anatomical question, he says further that 
 ' it would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation, 
 except for the general and natural belief that delibe- 
 rate and reiterated assertions must have some founda- 
 tion.' ^ It is by this time tolerably clear that Professor 
 Huxley's 'Chemistry of Life' has no foundation ex- 
 cept that of 'deliberate and reiterated assertion.' 
 
 If such be the case with the chemistry, what is to 
 be said for the argument founded upon it, or attached 
 to it — if, indeed, argument it can be called ? Seeing 
 ' no break ' in the processes by which life is evolved 
 from inorganic matter. Professor Huxley jumps to 
 the conclusion that we are no more justified in speak- 
 ing of ' vitality ' than we should be in speaking of 
 ' aquosity,' thus overlooking the most obvious neces- 
 sity for distinguishing between things that differ. 
 Water has none but physical properties, or, in 
 
 ^ Maii^s Place in A'atiire, p. 85. 
 
48 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 Professor Huxley's own words, none ' but those of 
 ordinary matter ; ' therefore we require no special 
 term to express succinctly the sum of its properties. If 
 we did, ' aquosity ' would be perhaps as good as any 
 other. But a living organism has certainly some 
 properties or functions which are materially different 
 from those of ' ordinary matter,' in addition to those 
 which it possesses as a chemical compound merely — 
 that is, it has its mechanical and chemical relations, 
 but it also has something else. 
 
 And here arises the distinction : we do not speak 
 of ' vitality ' so long as we discuss protoplasm only in 
 its physical and chemical relations, but when in addi- 
 tion to these it has life, we require something to 
 express that life, and we call the sum of its functions 
 its ' vital properties.' 
 
 Names are to know things by. We are accus- 
 tomed to call a certain class of forces ' mechanical,' 
 and in general we understand what is meant by the 
 term. When we meet with other manifestations of 
 force, apparently differing from these in energy, com- 
 plexity, and what we might also call origination, in 
 a motor aspect, we call these chemical, electrical, 
 magnetic, and the Hke. Doubtless these are closely 
 inter-related, and it may be also that they are ' substan- 
 tially' mechanical, according to Professor Tyndall's 
 opinion. But it would not tend to clearness of 
 thought, nor yet to comprehensibility of scientific 
 language, to speak of the induced electric current as 
 
ORGANIC FORCE. 
 
 49 
 
 a mechanical phenomenon ; nor of the effervescence 
 of chalk on the addition of a strong acid as a mag- 
 netic manifestation. 
 
 Further, when we meet with phenomena indi- 
 cating forces still more complex, still more active, and 
 even suggesting spontaneity, we are not satisfied to 
 sum these up under a category especially adapted to 
 express only a simpler and lower order of energies. 
 It appears unsatisfactory to call them chemical, 
 electric, or magnetic, until we can demonstrate hovv 
 these forces are disposed or combined so as to pro- 
 duce the complex manifestations of contraction, 
 nutrition, and reproduction, to say nothing for the 
 present of thought, " sensation, and will. We want 
 another and more specific name ; and inasmuch as 
 these acts are essentially and exclusively the acts of 
 living matter, we call the sum of such actions 
 ' vitality,' and the forces which immediately preside 
 over their production 'vital' or 'organic' Moreover^ 
 until their identity with the forces of inorganic nature 
 can be demonstrated, or inferred on some better 
 ground than vague conjecture, reckless assertion, or 
 hasty generalisation, we think ourselves authorised to 
 believe in some essential difference. Vital or organic 
 force or affinity is at least as different from chemical 
 or magnetic force or affinity, as these are from those 
 of a mechanical order. 
 
 I have said ' as different ; ' but this does not ex- 
 press the whole idea. Mechanical force is convertible 
 
 E 
 
50 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 into all the others, under certain limitations, and the 
 more active forces are all convertible into the me- 
 chanical. But by no means are we able to convert 
 any of these forces into the higher order of energy 
 that we have called * vital.' Even this is not all : not 
 only are we unable to produce living force, but we 
 are unable to make a combination of non-living 
 matter out of inorganic elements, resembling in any 
 way matter that may or can live. Supposing proto- 
 plasm to be only a chemical compound — which is not 
 impossible — the affinities whereby it is held together 
 belong to a chemistry, of which we know notJiing. We 
 can decompose it into what we are pleased to call its 
 elements, but it has never been re-formed, except 
 under the direct agency of actnally living protoplasm ; 
 and thus we are indebted not only for all organisa- 
 ^ : tion, but for all organisable matter, to an original, 
 ^ specific, and self-propagating endowment. It is of 
 small moment what this endowment, which we ever 
 and entirely fail to imitate, is called. It is sufficient 
 for us to know that, so far as our present knowledge 
 extends (and we have no right to dogmatise on con- 
 jecture), it differs infinitely more from chemical or 
 electric force, than these differ from each other, or 
 either of them from the mechanical. For anything I 
 can see, the old expression * vital force ' is as good as 
 any other. In any case the difference is specific, and 
 not one of degree merely ; and it is no part of true 
 philosophy to overlook such distinctions, or to ignore 
 
ORGAN/SABLE MATTER. 51 
 
 them, to satisfy the exigencies of a formula or a 
 creed. 
 
 This inabihty to construct organisable matter (say 
 protoplasm) out of its elements, is without doubt a 
 recognised difficulty in the way of the absolute de- 
 monstration of Evolution. What is the usual answer 
 to it, or method of meeting it } Professor Huxley 
 rather ignores it ; but Mr. Herbert Spencer feels that 
 it must be met, with some form of words at least, and 
 his followers copy him verbatim. He says : — 
 
 ' The chasm between the inorganic and the organic is 
 being filled up. On the one hand, some four or five thou- 
 sand compounds, once regarded as exclusively organic, have 
 now been produced artificially from inorganic matter ; and 
 chemists do 7iot doubt their ability ^ so to produce the highest 
 forms of organic matter. On the other hand, the micro- 
 scope has traced down organisms to simpler and simpler 
 forms, until in the Protogenes of Professor Haeckel there 
 has been reached a type distinguishable from a fragment of 
 albumen only by its finely granular character.' ^ 
 
 It seems incredible that this should be intended 
 for serious argument. Does not every candid observer 
 know that this said ' chasm ' is not in an}' way ' being 
 filled up ; ' and that the chemist could quite as easily 
 construct a full-grown ostrich, as this despised bit of 
 finely granulated albumen } And as for the ' four or 
 five thousand compounds,' as well might the goldsmith 
 
 * There are men who ' do not dotibt their ability ' to square the 
 circle ; but this confidence in their own powers is not generally sup- 
 posed to entitle them to the rank of great mathematicians. 
 
 2 Principlis of Psychologv, vol. i. p. 137. 
 E2 
 
52 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 say that he did not 'doubt his ability ' to make gold 
 out of a baser metal, because he had already moulded 
 it and coloured it in four or five thousand dififerent 
 fashions. It is true that systematic writers on chemi- 
 cal science divide their subject into ' organic ' and 
 ' inorganic ; ' and also that, according to the individual 
 views of the writer, many compound bodies are placed 
 in one or other division interchangeably. It is further 
 true that of late years many bodies once supposed to 
 be exclusively of organic origin have been artificially 
 formed. But it is not in any sense true that any sub- 
 stance even distantly resembling organisable matter 
 has been formed. The line of demarcation is as wide 
 as ever. For what are these ' organic ' matters said to 
 have been formed from their elements ? They are 
 chiefly binary and ternary compounds, as cyanogen, 
 urea, certain acids of the compound radical class, 
 some alcohols, ethers, and the like. Not one of them 
 bears the most remote resemblance to anything that 
 can live. Few of them contain nitrogen, and these 
 few, chiefly amides, are only combinations of ammonia 
 or ammonium with other binary or ternary compounds, 
 and can only by courtesy or convention be allowed to 
 be of ' organic ' nature. Neither chemically nor phy- 
 sically are they in any way allied to viable matter. 
 One least particle of albumen, granulated or other- 
 wise, would be a thousandfold more crushing answer 
 to the opponents of Evolution than myriads of such 
 compounds. 
 
LIVING SUBSTANCE. 53 
 
 If rightly considered, the very success of modern 
 chemistry in this domain, whilst an impassable barrier 
 still prevents any progress towards the construction 
 of organisable matter, should lead us to the conviction 
 that the affinities of life and living matter belong to 
 a chemistry of which we know nothing, and which we 
 shall in vain strive to imitate. 
 
 Let the matter be disguised or slurred over as it 
 may, the fact remains, that we are utterly unable to 
 imitate vital affinity so far as to make a bit of mate- 
 rial ready for its use, or even to make any definite 
 substance that will have similar chemical relations. 
 But even could this be done, a further difficulty would 
 remain — how to breathe into this dead matter the 
 breath of life. We can neither give life to previously 
 inert matter nor can we restore the life that has, how- 
 ever recently, left the organism. Living tissue, once 
 dead, is dead for ever, as regards the individual 
 organism. 
 
 If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 
 
 I can again thy former life restore, 
 
 Should I repent me ; — but once put out thine, 
 
 Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, 
 
 I know not where is that Promethean heat 
 
 That can thy light relume. When I have plucked 
 
 thy rose, 
 I cannot give it vital youth again : 
 It needs must wither. 
 
 Yet against those who see something more than che- 
 mistry, magnetism, electricity, and mechanics in the 
 
54 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 affinities that hold together organic bodies, modern 
 physiology launches the scathing sarcasm, that we 
 might as well talk of a ' steam-engine principle,' a 
 ' watch principle,' or a ' railroad principle ' as of a vital 
 force or principle. And Professor Huxley inquires 
 with like pungency : — ■ 
 
 What justification is there, then, for the assumption of 
 the existence m the living matter of a something which has 
 no representative or correlative in the not-living matter that 
 gave rise to it ? What better philosophic status has vitality 
 than aquosity ? And why should vitality hope for a better 
 fate tlian the other itys, which have disappeared since 
 Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the operation of the meat- 
 jack by its inherent meat-roasting quality^ and scorned the 
 materialism of those who explained the turning of the spit 
 by a certain mechanism, worked by the draught of the 
 chimney? (P. 140.) 
 
 This is very amusing — no one can be more so than 
 Professor Huxley ; — a little perception of facts and 
 analogies would make it perfect. To all this the 
 answ.er is obvious, if answer is required. All these are 
 machines which man has made, and can again make, 
 by the use of well-known forces and materials which 
 he can combine at will ; it is not therefore necessary 
 to hypothecate any other force or principle. When 
 man can make any, even the simplest organism, out of 
 inorganic matter, then shall we be compelled to ac- 
 knowledge that chemical and other forces are sufficient, 
 and that the hypothesis of a vital principle has had 
 its day and may cease to be. To Professor Huxley's 
 
FALSE ANALOGIES. 55 
 
 illustration I will respond seriously, when he has de- 
 monstrated to me that meat-jacks have been developed 
 from the beginning of time, only and exclusively under 
 the immediate contact and influence of pre-existing and 
 actively working meat-jacks. Until then the analogy 
 is scarcely close enough to need refutation or discussion. 
 Professor Huxley acknowledges candidly (p. 140) 
 that * the influence of pre-existing living matter is 
 something quite unintelligible ; ' but, he adds, as if 
 this were a complete answer by analogy, ' does any 
 one quite comprehend the modus operandi of an 
 electric spark which traverses a mixture of oxygen 
 and hydrogen ? ' I suppose no one knows better 
 than himself that the two cases are utterly distinct, 
 and afl"ord no illustration whatever one of the other. 
 Certainly we do not comprehend the action of the 
 electric spark, any more than we comprehend the 
 essential nature of any affinity or force whatever. 
 But we know that we can at will evoke and use the 
 electric spark, in much the same way as we can uti- 
 lise any other chemical agency. We can use 'it to 
 combine the oxygen and hydrogen, and so form an 
 equivalent of water ; and by decomposing this water, 
 with adequate adaptations, we can reproduce the same 
 amount of the constituent parts, and liberate again - 
 the same amount of electricity, which can be used 
 again and again indefinitely, making due allowance 
 for the imperfection of our instruments. Can this be 
 done with an organism .'' Can we arrest or store up 
 
56 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 the organic force as it departs in the death or decom- 
 position of an organism ? Can we make the faintest 
 or most distant approach to this ? Professor Huxley 
 knows that we cannot He knows that not only is 
 the action of a living organism * something quite 
 unintelligible,' but that it is unintelligible in a mode, 
 and in a region of thought, quite apart from the unin- 
 telligibility of ordinary chemical or electrical affinities. 
 To persist in saying, then, that vital force is nothing 
 different from ordinary physical and chemical agencies, 
 except perhaps in complexity, whilst confessing that 
 it is 'quite unintelligible,' cannot be considered as a 
 
 * scientific statement clothed in scientific language,' 
 but must be estimated as of the same value as the 
 assertion so perseveringly enunciated by Mr. Pulver- 
 macher, that ' Electricity is Life.' 
 
 But I think that the utterly fatal flaw in the phy- 
 sical theory of life, as set forth by Professor Huxley, 
 is found in the considerations respecting dead and 
 living protoplasm. The learned professor speaks of 
 dead matter of life and living matter of life ; he 
 speaks of mutton as 'once the living protoplasm,' 
 now the ' same matter altered by death ' and cookery, 
 but as not being by these alterations rendered ' in- 
 competent to resume its old functions as matter of 
 life' (p. 137). He speaks of its being subjected to 
 
 * subtle infitiences '• which ' will convert the dead proto- 
 plasm into the living protoplasm' — which will 'raise 
 the complex substance of dead protoplasm to the 
 
PROPERTIES OE PROTOPLASM. 57 
 
 higher power, as one may say, of living protoplasm ' 
 (p. 138). All this is dwelt upon at some length, but 
 not a hint is given that there is any difference in 
 chemical constitution, or in * arrangement of mole- 
 cules ' between the dead and the living ; and indeed 
 when it is alluded to at all, the idea is pronounced 
 'frivolous' (p. 135), unless I misapprehend the mean- 
 ing of the writer's rather obscure and perhaps ' qitdqiLa- 
 versal ' expressions. 
 
 Here, then, we enter upon a dilemma. The proper- 
 ties of protoplasm are said to be dependent altogether, 
 as we have seen, upon the arrangement of its consti- 
 tuent atoms. But we find protoplasm in one condition 
 manifesting only passive properties ; and again, with- 
 out any change, i.e. any known or knowable change, 
 in its chemical properties or arrangement of particles, 
 we find it exercising a vast variety of active properties, 
 as assimilation, contraction, and reproduction ; not 
 to mention thought, feeling, and will. We have then 
 an effect, nay, a whole train of marvellous effects, 
 without a cause — a conclusion that the most enthu- 
 siastic Evolutionist would scarcely pronounce to be 
 in * harmony with scientific thought.' And from this 
 dilemma we cannot escape, unless either by hypothe- 
 cating a change, mechanical or chemical, of which, by 
 Professor Huxley's own confession, we can possibly 
 know nothing (p. 135), and on which *we have no 
 right to speculate ' — or else by confessing that these 
 ' sttbtle influences' of which we have heard are only 
 
58 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 another name for that vital force or principle, in which 
 it is now so unfashionable and so unscientific to 
 beheve. 
 
 Had we not been assured on the highest authority 
 that the principles of Evolution are founded * on 
 certain knozvledge^ and also that these foundations 
 could * never be shaken,' we should have perhaps seen 
 ground to suspect that this appeal to 'subtle influ- 
 ences,' to eke out a process that had been proclaimed 
 w^ith a sound as of many trumpets to be only chemical 
 and mechanical, was merely an attempt to evacuate 
 an untenable position w^th the honours of war — a 
 somewhat ignominious giving up of the entire question. 
 But Evolution is forbidden to be judged by any ordi- 
 nary standard : it has privileges, a language, and an 
 inviolability all its own; and those who think or 
 believe otherwise, do not, as we have before seen, 
 think or believe at all, but only think they think, and 
 ' believe they believe.' ^ 
 
 One further consideration will aptly conclude this 
 division of the subject. It has been urged, and it is 
 granted, that the protoplasm, cell, or plasma \?>, in 
 form and chemical composition, apparently identical 
 in all living creatures. Is not this in itself a most 
 pregnant and significant fact, as indicating that there 
 
 1 It is interesting to know also that they lie like ' strangled snakes ' 
 around the cradle of this science ; by the side of which stands the 
 ' Majesty of Fact ! ' (see Lay Ser7)ions, pp. 278, 279) ; and, on the au- 
 thority of the learned and modest Dr. BUchner, that they are ' specu- 
 lative idiots.' 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF FACULTIES. 
 
 59 
 
 is, beyond all our visual or chemical investigations, a 
 distinct and special endowment in operation, of which 
 we know absolutely nothing ? For whilst it is true that 
 man can 'assimilate lobster,' and the lobster can 'return 
 the compliment ' and assimilate man, it is equally true 
 that the assimilated matter is converted into another 
 and special form of plasma, destined to the perform- 
 ance of the most diverse and varied functions, accord- 
 ing as it enters into the composition of the lobster or 
 of man. Here, then, appears the knot of the whole 
 question. All the activities of life (it is said) arise 
 solely from ' the arrangement of the molecules of 
 ordinary matter ; ' and here we have two such ar- 
 rangements, in which there is ' no substantial differ- 
 ence,' manifesting a variety of functions, almost 
 infinitely removed from each other in the two cases ; 
 for whilst the functions of the lobster protoplasm may 
 be fairly summed up, as proposed, under the ' three 
 categories ' of ' nutrition, motion, and reproduction 
 of the species,' the same protoplasm in man is found 
 subservient to the manifestation of the ' higher facul- 
 ties ' of ' intellect, feeling, and will' This might 
 appear conclusive as to the existence of something 
 beyond chemical and mechanical ' aggregation of 
 atoms ' as influencing the dynamic properties of life- 
 matter ; but Professor Huxley, whose resources are 
 inexhaustible, cuts the knot by the summary decla- 
 ration that 'all the multifarious and complicated 
 activities of man are comprehensible under these 
 
6o WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 categories,' nutrition, motion, and reproduction ; and 
 that these are ' substantially one ' with, and include, 
 ' those manifestations of intellect, of feeling, and of 
 will, which we rightly name the higher faculties ' 
 (p. 130). 
 
 How this most marvellous proposition is elabo- 
 rated and vindicated, will afford matter for future 
 consideration. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 
 
 Arguments from Pathology ; from Comparative Anatomy ; and from 
 Physiology — Physicism and Automatism — Professor Huxley's ' three- 
 fold unity ' — His chemical theories — Materialism — Conclusion. 
 
 Doctrines which, Hke those under discussion, reject 
 the ultimate data of consciousness as untrustworthy, 
 oppose the aggregate convictions and experience of 
 men, and ignore the fundamental principles upon 
 which society is constituted, are not necessarily to be 
 rejected as false for these reasons, nor on account of 
 any other ' logical consequences ' whatever, however 
 serious they may appear ; unless such consequences 
 involve a rediictio ad absitrdinn ant ivipossibilc. If 
 science declares them true, they nmst be accepted as 
 such, ruat cceluni ; there is no appeal. But if they are 
 only advanced on the authority of scientific men, how- 
 ever eminent, the case is different. They may still be 
 true ; there is a certain presumption in their favour ; 
 but to ensure acceptance they must be supported by 
 irrefragable scientific proof. 
 
 Professor Huxley affirms the Automatism of man ; 
 and brings to the support of his views a wealth of 
 
62 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 learning and illustration, a force and grace of style, and 
 a dialectic skill, which make him a most formidable 
 champion of any doctrine that he may propound. 
 His arguments are chiefly derived from four sources : 
 (i) from physiology, in relation to molecular changes 
 in nerve and muscle, during action ; (2) from patho- 
 logy, as illustrated by the case of the ' French ser- 
 geant'; (3) from comparative physiology, as in certain 
 automatic actions of the frog ; and (4) from consider- 
 ations connected with man's origin and history. 
 
 If, in this discussion, precedence and prominence 
 have been given to the last division of the argument, 
 it is for this reason, that this alone can lead to a final 
 and decisive result. The greater includes the less ; 
 and the doctrine of Evolution, if itself demonstrated, 
 will prove all that the rest could hope to accomplish, 
 and very much more. The history of the frog gives 
 an instructive and interesting view of Automatism in 
 a concrete form, but has no bearing upon general 
 action. The case of the French sergeant is full of 
 interest and mystery ; but will afford at least as 
 powerful an argument against general human Auto- 
 matism, as in its favour, as may be inferred from the 
 following extract from his history. He had been 
 wounded in the head, and had been paralysed for 
 two years. He recovered to a great extent, but from 
 that time he began to live 
 
 two lives, a normal life and an abnormal life. In his 
 normal life he is perfectly well, cheerful, and a capital 
 
CASE OF THE 'FRENCH SERGEANT: 63 
 
 hospital attendant, does all his work well, and is a respect- 
 able, well-conducted man. That normal life lasts for seven- 
 and-twenty days, or thereabouts, out of every month ; but 
 for a day or two in each month — generally at intervals of about 
 that time— he passes into another life, suddenly and without 
 any warning or intimation. In this life he is still active, 
 goes about just as usual, and is to all appearance just the 
 same man as before, goes to bed and undresses himself, gets 
 up, makes his cigarette and smokes it, and eats and drinks. 
 But in this condition he neither sees, nor hears, nor tastes, 
 nor smells, nor is he conscious of anything whatever, and 
 has only one sense-organ in a state of activity, viz. that 
 of touch, which is exceedingly delicate. If you put an ob- 
 stacle in his way he knocks against it, fee's it, and goes to 
 the one side ; if you push him in any direction he goes 
 straight on, illustrating as well as he can the first law of 
 motion. You see I have said he makes his cigarettes, but 
 you may make his tobacco of shavings or of anything else 
 you like, and still he will go on making his cigarettes as 
 usual. His action is purely mechanical. And what is the 
 most remarkable fact of all is the modification which this 
 injury has made in the man's moral nature. In his normal 
 life he is one of the most upright and honest of men. In his 
 abnormal state, however, he is an inveterate thief. He will 
 steal everything he can lay his hands upon; and if he can- 
 not steal anything else, he will steal his own things and hide 
 them away.^ 
 
 It may fairly be urged, if this man in his abnormal 
 state, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling nothing, acting 
 mechanically, and being an ' inveterate thief,' is an 
 automaton, what is he when he has all his senses in 
 full operation, and when he is an upright and honest 
 man .^ Surely something veiy different from an auto- 
 
 ' British Medical Journal, August 24, 1S74. 
 
64 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 maton — as are all other men who comport themselves 
 In a manner so opposed to this kind of Automatism. 
 
 The argument from the physiology of the nervous 
 system, if pursued to the uttermost, would probably 
 only lead to a ' drawn battle,' in a scientific aspect ; 
 and then the general tendency of men to think that 
 they possess some power of voluntary action would 
 turn the scale against Automatism. In Professor 
 Huxley's essay on the ' Scientific Aspects of Posi- 
 tivism * the position is thus stated, in the writer's 
 peculiarly forcible and nervous style : — 
 
 As the ages lengthen, the borders of Physic! sm increase. 
 .... Even theology, in her purer forms, has ceased to 
 be anthropomorphic, however she may talk. Anthropo- 
 morphism has taken stand in its last fortress — man himself 
 But science closely invests the walls ; and philosophers gird 
 themselves for battle upon the last and greatest of all spe- 
 culative problems— Does human nature possess any free 
 volitional or truly anthropomorphic element, or is it only the 
 cunningest of all nature's clocks ? Some — among whom I 
 count myself — think that the battle will for ever remain a 
 drawn one, and that, for all practical purposes, this result is 
 as good as anthropomorphism winning the day.' 
 
 But the final struggle of Automatism, and what 
 is here called Anthropomorphism, will have to be 
 fought on the field of Evolution, and the battle can- 
 not be a drawn one. Being in direct opposition to 
 the instincts and convictions of humanity, the aggres- 
 sive doctrine must prove its right to acceptance, or it 
 will infallibly be rejected. If, on the other hand, the 
 
 ^ Lay Sermons, o^c, pp. 163-4. 
 
ALLEGED UNITY OF FACULTIES. 65 
 
 doctrine of Evolution, as now set forth, be a true 
 doctrine, I see (and wish to see) no escape from its 
 logical and inevitable corollary, Automatism, in its 
 fullest sense. Professor Huxley's conclusion, from his 
 own premises, is equally cogent and perspicuous. 
 *But,' says he, ' I bid you beware that, in accepting these 
 conclusions, you are placing your feet on the first 
 rung of a ladder which, in most people's estimation, 
 is the reverse of Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes 
 of heaven. It may seem a small thing to admit that 
 the dull vital actions of a fungus, or a foraminifer, are 
 the properties of their protoplasm, and are the direct 
 results of the nature of the matter of which they are 
 composed. But if, as I have endeavoured to prove 
 to you, their protoplasm is essentially identical with, 
 and most readily converted into, that of any animal, 
 I can discover no logical halting-place between the 
 admission that such is the case, and the further con- 
 cession that all vital action may, with equal propriety, 
 be said to be the result of the molecular forces of the 
 protoplasm which displays it' ^ The * conclusions ' 
 referred to in the opening of this passage were those 
 noticed at the end of the last chapter, and it becomes 
 necessary now to examine them further. 
 
 Professor Huxley proposes ^ to demonstrate that 'a 
 threefold unity — namely, a unity of power or faculty, a 
 unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition ' 
 
 ' Lay Sermons, 6^c,, p, 13S. 
 '^ Op. cit., p. 122. 
 F 
 
66 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 — pervades the whole living world. In expanding 
 the first idea as to unity of power or faculty, he 
 affirms that ' all the multifarious activities of man 
 are comprehensible under three categories. Either 
 they are immediately directed towards the main- 
 tenance and development of the body, or they effect 
 transitory changes in the relative positions of parts 
 of the body, or they tend towards the continuance 
 of the species ; ' that is to say, all the faculties of 
 man consist in nutrition, motion, or reproduction of 
 the species. And this classification is propounded as 
 exhaustive, and not excluding 'intellect, feeling, and 
 will, which we rightly name the higher faculties . . . 
 inasmuch as to everyone but the subject of them 
 they are known only as transitory changes in the 
 relative position of parts of the body.' 
 
 It might not be inopportune here to inquire 
 whether Professor Huxley has borne in mind, in this 
 most marvellous of statements, his own far-famed 
 canon, that ' it is the first duty of a hypothesis to be 
 intelligible.' In the absence of any explanation, or any 
 attempt at proof, unless Goethe's well-known epigram 
 be intended for either, it is difficult to conjecture 
 what the passage may mean. It seems equally to 
 defy exegesis, commentary, or criticism. If the mean- 
 ing be, as superficially considered it would appear, 
 that mental operations are identical with muscular 
 motion, because without this latter the former can- 
 not be communicated to others, I confess my entire 
 
UNITY OF FORM AND COMPOSITION. 67 
 
 inability to discuss it If it possesses any more 
 recondite meaning, it must be such as has no close 
 bearing upon the doctrine in question, inasmuch as 
 there is no further reference to it ; and it is only 
 illustrated by some interesting details of contraction 
 in animal and vegetable tissues. 
 
 By a ' unity of form,' Professor Huxley seems to 
 imply that all organisms, at some period of their ex- 
 istence, present themselves as particles of protoplasm, 
 with or without a nucleus. If the position means 
 more than this it is untenable. It appears to have 
 but little doctrinal force or application, but it will be 
 called upon hereafter as ' evidence for the defence.' 
 
 Finally, Professor Huxley predicates a 'unity of 
 substantial composition ' in all living beings, an all- 
 important truth, the significance of which it would 
 not be easy to over-estimate. It may be confidently 
 asserted, without any paradox, that this one incon- 
 testable fact of itself overthrows or devitalises the 
 entire doctrine which is founded upon it. For, if it be 
 true, as asserted, that ' all vital action is the result of 
 the molecular forces of the protoplasm that displays 
 it ; ' if ' the properties of protoplasm result from the 
 nature and disposition of its molecules ; ' and if, again, 
 there is no ' substantial diff"erence ' between the proto- 
 plasm of the lobster and that of man, then should the 
 functions of the protoplasm in both^ be identical ; 
 whereas we find them in the lobster strictly confined 
 to the three categories of nutrition, motion, and repro- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 duction ; whilst in man they are found subservient to 
 all his * multifarious and complicated activities,' which 
 include certainly * intellect, feeling, and will ; ' and 
 that these are not to be comprehended under either 
 nutrition, motion, or reproduction, is too obvious to 
 require, or even to admit of, proof The dilemma is 
 serious, and cannot be explained away by an appeal 
 to any idea of greater complexity of structure or 
 aggregation, which would only afford an answer to the 
 ear, and not to the understanding. If language has 
 any definite meaning, and if logical sequence has any 
 force, the difficulty can only be solved by a frank 
 acknowledgment, that every form of life has its own 
 special forces and endowments, concerning which 
 science can tell us nothing at present with any cer- 
 tainty, except that they are assuredly not to be ex- 
 plained by any theory of the molecular possibilities of 
 protoplasm. 
 
 Professor Huxley's ideas as to the composition of 
 protoplasm have already been noticed, and it has been 
 shown that they are clearly opposed to the known facts 
 of science. Here a simple alternative presents itself : 
 either Professor Huxley is familiar with the element- 
 ary facts of organic chemistry, in which case he would 
 be aware of the impossibility of such a composition ; 
 or he is not so — on which supposition it was at least 
 indiscreet to found an important practical doctrine, 
 like that of human Automatism, on a purely fanciful 
 chemical theory. Which alternative is to be adopted 
 
MA TERIALISM. 69 
 
 may perhaps receive some illustration from a parallel 
 passage in the essay 'On the Formation of Coal,'^ 
 where, referring to the burning of coal, it Is said : — 
 
 Heat comes out of it, light comes out of it, and if we 
 could gather together all that goes up the chimney, and all 
 that remains in the grate of a thoroughly-burnt coal-fire, we 
 should find ourselves in possession of a quantity of carbonic 
 acid, water, ammonia, and mineral matters, exactly equal in 
 weight to the coal ! 
 
 It requires but the most elementary acquaintance 
 with the subject to recognise that the ' quantity ' of 
 these products would be at least twice, probably 
 thrice, as great as the original weight of the coal. A 
 due consideration and comparison of these facts will 
 enable the reader to estimate at its true value the 
 science, from which such stupendous consequences are 
 so confidently deduced. 
 
 Leaving now this branch of the subject, I revert to 
 some considerations respecting the nature and ten- 
 dencies of this doctrine. We are told that one great 
 object of the essay on ' Protoplasm ' was to show 
 * that what is called Materialism has no sound philo- 
 sophical basis.' ^ 
 
 Indeed, both Professor Huxley and Professor Tyn- 
 dall, whilst avowedly adopting a ' materialistic termino- 
 logy,' seem to evince a somewhat morbid objection to 
 being considered materialists ; overlooking the most 
 obvious first principle of nomenclature, that 'names are 
 
 ' Critiques and Addj-esses, p. 109. 
 2 Yeasf, p. 96. 
 
yo WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 to know things by/ By common consent it has been 
 agreed to know that school of philosophy which rele- 
 gates all thought and intelligence to the domain of 
 matter, by the name of ' Materialistic ' — not as a term 
 of reproach, but as a distinctive epithet. Materialism 
 is quite as good as any other ism, if it be demonstj'ably 
 true — personally, I should say better^ always under this 
 limitation. 
 
 Professor Huxley says : 'This union of materialistic 
 terminology with the repudiation of materialistic philo- 
 sophy, I share with some of the most thoughtful men 
 with whom I am acquainted.' This simply amounts 
 to a confession that the writer's words are not in- 
 tended to express his ideas, and that other ' foremost 
 thinkers ' make an equally deceptive use of words. 
 But it has become customary of late years to consider 
 it immaterial what language is used to express, or it 
 may be to conceal, our ideas. Thus Professor Huxley 
 continues that — 
 
 In itself it is of little moment whether we express the 
 phenomena of matter in terms of spirit ; or the phenomena 
 of spirit in terms of matter ; matter may be regarded as a 
 form of thought ; thought may be regarded as a property 
 of matter: each statement has a certain relative truth. But 
 with a view to the progress of science, the materialistic 
 terminology is in every way to be preferred. (P. 146.) 
 
 Language is indeed of ' little moment,' if it be true 
 that thought may be ' regarded as a property of mat- 
 ter ; ' but to assert this is to assume the whole point 
 
QUESTION OF TERMINOLOGY. 71 
 
 in dispute — to beg the entire question. Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer thinks the 
 
 question is scarcely worth deciding ; since either answer 
 leaves us as completely outside of the reality as we were 
 at first. 
 
 Nevertheless, it may be as well to say here, once for all, 
 that were we compelled to choose between the alternatives 
 of translating mental phenomena into physical phenomena, 
 or of translating physical phenomena into mental pheno- 
 mena, the latter alternative would seem the more acceptable 
 of the two.^ 
 
 If all this be merely 'padding,' it is perhaps legiti- 
 mate enough. If it be intended for science or philo- 
 sophy, or to convey any kind of information, it would 
 appear to be a failure. One single illustrative ex- 
 ample would be worth volumes of such rhetorical 
 artifice as this. Hard, soft, round, angle, curve, colour, 
 form, and a host of similar words are known as ' terms 
 of matter.' Thought, will, feeling, perception, idea, 
 reason, and the like, are generally known as ' terms 
 of spirit or mind.' Now, when Mr. Spencer has de- 
 fined an epicycloid curve in ' terms of mind,' or when 
 Professor Huxley has expressed a misapprehension or 
 an error of judgment in 'terms of matter,' then, and not 
 until then, will we believe that terminology is a thing 
 of * little moment,' — and until then we will also 
 believe that there is something we call matter, and 
 something else which is not matter, and which we 
 are accustomed to call mind, which are not to be 
 
 - Principles of Psychology^ vol. i. p. 159, 
 
72 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 confounded or mistaken one for the other ; and the 
 phenomena of each of which respectively are not to 
 be expressed in terms of the other, except by an ar- 
 bitrary departure from the recognised and accepted 
 meaning of language. 
 
 But whilst the terminology made use of is con- 
 fessedly materialistic, some process of reconciliation 
 with a spiritualistic philosophy is obviously required ; 
 and accordingly Professor Huxley states^ that he 
 had led his readers into 'the materialistic slough* 
 in which they were now plunged, in order to point 
 out 'the sole path' by which, in his judgment, 'ex- 
 trication was possible/ I confess to some disappoint- 
 ment on traversing this path. I hoped for a rational, 
 or at least plausible, dialectic account of some method 
 by which matter could assume consciousness and 
 volition. But such is not to be found. The method 
 of extrication is certainly summary enough, if not 
 either new or satisfactory. It consists wholly and 
 solely, in refusing to recognise any difference between 
 matter and spirit, on the remarkable ground that we 
 know nothing with certainty about either, and that it 
 is of no consequence ! And this is ail, except a frag- 
 ment of morality, v/hich only makes ' confusion worse 
 confounded.' 
 
 Why trouble ourselves about matters of which, however 
 important they may be, we do know nothing, and can know 
 nothing ? We live in a world which is full of misery and 
 
 * Lay Sermons, p. 139. 
 
WHAT IS DUTY? 73 
 
 ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try 
 to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less 
 miserable, and somewhat less ignorant, than it was before he 
 entered it^ 
 
 A very excellent doctrine, without doubt, and one 
 upon which, it may be freely acknowledged, the 
 learned and eloquent speaker has ever strenuously, 
 consistently, and successfully acted. But may it not 
 be asked, ' What does it all mean ? If I am an 
 automaton, how can I have any dicties to perform ? 
 Conversely, if I have any duties, how can I be an 
 automaton ? What is duty ? and ivhy and how shall 
 I do it ? ' I can only solve this and all cognate 
 difficulties, by supposing that it is with Automatism 
 as with Materialism ; that Professor Huxley unites the 
 use of the automatic terminology with the repudiation 
 of the automatic philosophy ; and that, in fact, ' what 
 is called ' Automatism * has no sound philosophical 
 basis.' I cannot more appropriately conclude this 
 notice of the doctrine of 'The Physical Basis of 
 Life ' than with an extract from the author's own 
 anthology of criticism, where, speaking of the theory 
 of creation, he says : — 
 
 That such verbal hocus-pocus should be received as 
 science will one day be regarded as evidence of the low state 
 of intelligence in the nineteenth century, just as we amuse 
 ourselves with the phraseology about Nature's abhorrence of 
 a vacuum, wherewith Torricelli's compatriots were satisfied to 
 explain the rise of water in a pump.^ 
 
 1 Lay Sermons, p. 145. ^ I^icf., p. 2S5. 
 
74 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 
 
 Statement of the doctrine — Professor Tyndall's views — Origin of lif 
 and organic matter — Theory of continuity — Chemical relations — 
 Organic force — Conservation and correlation of forces — Life 
 theories compared with physical theories — Conclusion. 
 
 The general doctrine of Evolution, so far as it bears 
 upon human Automatism, involves three proposi- 
 tions : — 
 
 1. That the earliest organisms were the natural 
 
 product of the interactions of ordinary inor- 
 ganic matter and force. 
 
 2. That all the forms of animal and vegetable life 
 ' were successively and gradually developed 
 
 from the earliest and simplest organisms. 
 
 3. That man is only a higher animal, and the 
 
 lineal descendant of a family of apes ; or, 
 quoting the words of Professor Tyndall, that 
 * the doctrine of Evolution derives man, in 
 his totality, from the interaction of organ- 
 ism and environment through countless ages 
 past.' ^ 
 
 ' Belfast Address. 
 
EVIDENCE PROPOSED. 
 
 It would be manifestly impossible, within any 
 reasonable limits, to enter exhaustively into an ex- 
 amination of the various topics involved in these 
 propositions — the conservation of force, spontaneous 
 generation, the origin and transformation of species, 
 the genealogy of animals, man's position in nature, 
 and the whole domain of metaphysics and psycho- 
 logy. This would require many volumes, instead of 
 a few pages. What I propose to do, for the present, 
 is to notice the latest utterances on the subject, and 
 to attempt to gather from them, whether there is any 
 evidence for these three branches of the doctrine of 
 Evolution, of sufficient weight and cogency to satisfy 
 even those whose interest it is, in a philosophical 
 point of view, to accept such evidence ; or whether, 
 on the contrary, they are founded upon assertion and 
 conjecture as to what may, might, could, or should 
 occur under circumstances that cannot be defined, or 
 conditions that cannot be fulfilled. 
 
 Professor Tyndall is the latest, and unquestionably 
 the most philosophical expositor of the properties of 
 matter. Profoundly versed in physical science, en- 
 dowed with an almost unrivalled faculty for experi- 
 mental investigation and demonstration, skilled in 
 weighing evidence, candid in argument, and open to 
 the reception of the arguments of others, his guidance 
 towards the formation of an opinion as to the origin of 
 life cannot be otherwise than valuable. Let us, there- 
 fore, hear what he says, both in his character of philo- 
 
76 WINDS OF DOCTRIXE. 
 
 sopher, and of man of science ; for there is at least 
 an apparent antagonism in the two forms of doctrine. 
 As a philosopher, Professor Tyndall discerns in 
 matter ^ ' the promise and potency of all terrestrial 
 life.' He sees the earth, 'once a molten mass, now 
 not only swathed by an atmosphere, and covered by 
 a sea, but also crowded with living things' (p. 351). 
 He believes with Mr. Herbert Spencer ^ that this 'life 
 under all its forms has arisen by an unbroken evolu- 
 tion, and through the instrumentality of what are 
 called natural causes ; ' and has no doubt that ' were 
 not man's origin implicated, we should accept without 
 a murmur the derivation of animal and vegetable life 
 from what we call inorganic nature. The conclusions 
 of pure intellect point this way and no other.' ^ He 
 sees, with the eye of the imagination, a primitive 
 ' nebular haze,' gradually contracting into a ' molten 
 mass,' in which are ' latent and potential ' not only all 
 the forms of life, noble and ignoble, ' but the human 
 mind itself — emotion, intellect, will, and all their 
 phenomena ... all our philosophy, all our poetry, 
 all our science, and all our art ; ' all are * potential in 
 the fires of the sun.' ^ A fuller and more uncompro- 
 mising expression of the doctrine can scarcely be 
 imagined.^ 
 
 ^ P. 524. This and the following references are to the pages in the 
 last edition of the Fragments of Science. 
 
 - Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 464. ^ Introduction, p. 352. 
 
 * Scientific Use of the Imagination, p. 453. 
 
 * Professor Huxley not only discerns all this in the ' cosmic vapour,' 
 
NECESSITY FOR VERIFICATION. 77 
 
 Now, what does the man of science respond to all 
 this ? 
 
 Without verification (he says) a theoretic conception is 
 a mere figment of the intellect. The region of theory . . . 
 lies behind the world of the senses, but the verification of 
 theory occurs in the sensible world. To check the theory 
 we have simply to compare the deductions from it with the 
 facts of observations. If the deductions be in accordance 
 with the facts, we accept the theory ; if in opposition, the 
 theory is given up.^ 
 
 A truly philosophic method, preparing us for what 
 follows — a scientific judgment which claims the most 
 earnest and thoughtful consideration : — 
 
 If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence 
 to prove that any form of life can be developed out of mat- 
 ter, without demonstrable antecedent hfe, my reply is, that 
 evidence considered perfectly conclusive by many has been 
 
 but considers it * no less certain . . . that a sufficient intelligence could, 
 from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules of that vapour, 
 have predicted, say the fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much cer- 
 tainty as one can say what will happen to the vapour of the breath in 
 a cold winter's day.' — Genealogy of Animals. This is worth a moment's 
 attention. In a homogeneous vapour, as this is supposed to be, the 
 probability of the combination of any one atom with any other, is 
 defined by the number of the atoms contained in that vapour. This 
 number defies even approximate determination. Any unit we could 
 select, however multiplied, would give no idea whatever on the subject. 
 To say that all the men that ever lived could not count the possible 
 combinations of these atoms, were they to do nothing but count for 
 myriads of aeons, is to say little. And as I suppose that no man, 
 however ' sufficient ' his intelligence might be, would venture to predict 
 the position of three balls on a billiard-table after ten ordinary strokes, 
 it baffles all imagination to think what the intelligence referred to by 
 Professor Huxley could be, 
 
 * Fragments of Science, p. 469. 
 
/ 
 
 78 WINDS 01 DOCTRINE. 
 
 adduced ; and that were some of us who have pondered this 
 question to follow a very common example, and accept 
 testimony because it falls in with our own belief, we also 
 should eagerly close with the evidence referred to. But there 
 is in the true man of science a desire stronger than the 
 wish to have his beliefs upheld ; namely, the desire to have 
 them true. And tliis stronger wish causes him to reject the 
 most plausible support, if he has reason to suspect that it is 
 vitiated by error. Those to whom I refer as having studied 
 this question, believing the evidence offered in favour of 
 ' spontaneous generation ' to be thus vitiated, cannot accept 
 
 it In reply to your question, they will frankly admit 
 
 their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental 
 proof that life can be developed, save from demonstrable 
 antecedent life.^ 
 
 But further than this : the researches of Pasteur, 
 justly termed by Professor Huxley 'models of accu- 
 rate experimentation and logical reasoning,' and the 
 brilliant and conclusive demonstrations of Professor 
 Tyndall himself, as related in his essay on ' Putrefac- 
 tion and Infection,' have amply proved, beyond doubt 
 or dispute, that without the presence of germs (that 
 is, of antecedent life), no organisms ever originate 
 under the conditions specified by the supporters of 
 the theory of ' spontaneous generation.' 
 
 Here, then, is a distinct want of accordance be- 
 tween philosophical theory and scientific observation. 
 But it is obvious that it could not rest here. In the 
 interests of the Evolution hypothesis, it was necessary 
 to reconcile this antagonism, or to represent it as only 
 
 » Belfast Address, p. 525. 
 
SPONTA NE US GENERA TION. 
 
 79 
 
 apparent and temporary ; and this has been done by 
 crediting matter in the distant ages of the past with 
 powers and faculties which it does not possess, or 
 cannot be shown to possess, in these times. The 
 method is worthy of some attention, in detail 
 
 Professor Huxley, in his essay on * Biogenesis and 
 Abiogenesis,' one of the ablest and most lucid expo- 
 sitions ever given of that problem, says, that although 
 he thinks * it would be the height of presumption for 
 any man to say that the conditions under which 
 matter assumes the properties we call vital may not 
 some day be artificially brought together,' yet he sees 
 ' no reason for believing that the fact has been accom- 
 plished yet.' But he continues : — 
 
 Were it given to me to look beyond the abyss of geolo- 
 gically recorded time, to the still more remote period when 
 the earth was passing through physical and chemical condi- 
 tions, which it can no more see again than a man can recall 
 his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution 
 of living protoplasm from not-living matter.^ 
 
 In like manner. Professor Tyndall believes that if 
 a planet were * carved from the sun, set spinning 
 round an axis, and revolving round the sun at a dis- 
 tance from him equal to that of our earth,' ^ one of 
 the ' consequences of its refrigeration ' would be the 
 development of organic forms ; for ' who will set 
 limits to the possible play of molecules in a cooling 
 'planet t ' ^ 
 
 * Critiques and Addresses, p. 239. 
 2 Vitality^ p. 464. ^ Ibid.^ p. 644. 
 
So WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 Doubtless these conjectures are worthy of respect- 
 ful consideration, in deference to the high authori- 
 ties whence they emanate ; but still they are only 
 conjectures of the vaguest possible kind, and would 
 require very much explanation to give them any 
 scientific value. 
 
 What (it might be asked) were those 'conditions' 
 through which the earth was passing ? Was there 
 any different matter present at that time ? That is 
 not contended. Was there any now unknown kind 
 of force in operation ; or were the same forces acting 
 in greater intensity.'' The latter would seem to be 
 the idea suggested ; but it can scarcely be considered 
 plausible, since surely we have at our command forces 
 at least as intense as any that could be compatible 
 with the development or continuance of life. If or 
 ganic matter could be originated by the interactions 
 of moisture, and inorganic matter, in a cooling state, 
 with any amount or any combination of heat, light, 
 and electricity, surely we ought to be able to imitate 
 the process. I cannot see that a cooling planet would 
 be much more likely to produce minute organisms 
 than a cooling flask ; and Dr. Bastian's question is 
 full of force and pertinence when he asks : — 
 
 If such synthetic processes took place then, why should 
 they not take place now ? Why should the inherent mole- 
 cular properties of various kinds of matter have undergone 
 so much alteration ? ^ 
 
 ' Beginnings of Life, preface, p. x. Dr. Bastian is the latest, and 
 
INORGANIC EVOLUTION Si 
 
 When we are told that our earth was once a ne- 
 bulous haze, then a fiery cloud, then a molten sphe- 
 roid, and afterwards passed through various different 
 physical conditions as it cooled, we accept the history 
 as at least possible, or even highly probable, because 
 in each of its steps there is something that falls in with 
 our previous knowledge of physical law and action ; 
 and because each of these hypothecated changes in 
 physical condition can be imitated experimentally as 
 often as we wish. Very many, if not most, of the 
 forms of matter can be manifested in a solid, a fluid, 
 or a gaseous state, according to temperature, pressure, 
 and other conditions ; so far therefore there is nothing 
 either incredible or unlikely in such a history of the 
 physical development or evolution of the earth. 
 
 It is otherwise when we are authoritatively told 
 that the same forces that rounded the planet have 
 developed the organism. We ask for an illustration, 
 or an imitation of the process, but in vain ; nay, 
 
 certainly by far the most formidable, of the champions of the doctrine 
 of ' Spontaneous Generation.' His volumes are full of the records of 
 arduous, thoughtful, and conscientious work, and must ever retain a 
 conspicuous place in the literature of biological science. It is not 
 within my present scope of purpose to enter into the details of this 
 question ; they are too extensive to be introduced under the present plan. 
 And, moreover, the time is not the most favourable for justice to be 
 done to such works as those alluded to. The investigations of 
 M. Pasteur and Professor Tyndall have, for the time being at least, 
 satisfied the majority of scientific men that the hypothesis of Abiogene- 
 sis or Archebiosis is not necessary to account for the facts in question. 
 It is a subject obviously open to experimental demonstration, and 
 perhaps the last word has not yet been said. 
 
 G 
 
82 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 more, it is demonstrated to us that such an imitation 
 is utterly impossible. The seeker after truth then 
 naturally replies, ' You have doubtless other reasons 
 for holding to this doctrine ; as it stands at present, 
 it is but an ' unverified theoretic conception,' and as 
 such can have no scientific value, or certainly not one 
 of sufficient weight to entitle you to found upon it 
 so important a practical doctrine as that of human 
 automatism.' 
 
 Professor Tyndall has other reasons, profound, 
 beautiful, and philosophical ; whether conclusive or 
 not, it remains to be seen. Having premised that 
 the strength of the doctrine of Evolution does not 
 consist in experimental demonstration, but in its gene- 
 ral harmony with scientific thought, he proceeds: — 
 
 Those who hold the doctrine of Evolution are by no 
 means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data, and they 
 only yield to it a provisional assent. They regard the nebu- 
 lar hypothesis as probable, and in the utter absence of any 
 evidence to prove the act illegal, they extend the method of 
 nature from the present into the past. Here the observed 
 uniformity of nature is their only guide. Within the long 
 range of physical inquiry, they have never discerned in 
 nature the insertion of caprice. Throughout this range, the 
 laws of physical and intellectual continuity have nm side by 
 side. Having thus determined the elements of their curve ^ 
 
 ' * From a few observations of a comet, when it comes within the 
 range of his telescope, an astronomer can calculate its path in regions 
 which no telescope can reach ; and in like manner, by means of data 
 furnished in the narrow world of the senses, we make ourselves at home 
 in other and wider worlds, which can be traversed by the intellect 
 2i\onQ.^ --Fragments of Scieftce, p. 71. 
 
LA IV OF CONTINUITY. ^^ 
 
 in a world of observation and experiment, they prolong that 
 curve into an antecedent world, and accept as probable the 
 unbroken sequence of development from the nebula to the 
 present time. ^ 
 
 This is a truly refined conception ; and a perfectly 
 legitimate method of supplementing the lack of 
 direct evidence, where this is obviously unattainable. 
 But we must be careful not to be led away either by 
 force of thought or grace of style, into forgetfulness 
 of whither we are going. It must be remembered 
 that this is the last stronghold of the theory of the 
 material origin of life, involving the most essential 
 and radical principle of Evolution, and its necessary 
 corollary. Automatism. Observation has failed to 
 give any support to the doctrine ; experiment has 
 demonstrated its present impossibility ; conjecture is 
 valueless ; but the ' law of continuity ' has still to be 
 tested. Let us inquire what it tells us. 
 
 Going backwards from generation to generation 
 into the far distant ages, and passing ' from the 
 highest to the lowest organisms,' each form of life in 
 long succession declares, in inarticulate but unmistak- 
 able language, ' I derived my life from antecedent 
 life.' But we may imagine ourselves finally to arrive 
 at the period when the first organisms appeared on 
 our globe. What do they tell us .'' If there be any 
 such ' laws of physical and intellectual continuity ' as 
 have been spoken of, extending across this line, then 
 
 * Scientific Use of the Imagination, p. 456. 
 G 2 
 
84 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 they also to our interrogation, * Whence came ye ? ' 
 must reply, ' From antecedent life.' If instead of 
 this they say, *We are the natural product of the 
 interactions of inorganic matter and force,' then the 
 * continuity ' of thought is no longer possible — 
 the curve is broken, or becomes ' transcendental,' 
 not to be defined by any mental equation. A pos- 
 sible verbal resource here might be to indicate a 
 gradual and insensible transition from the organic 
 to the inorganic. Apparently pointing in this direc- 
 tion. Professor Tyndall continues : — 
 
 On tracing the line of life backwards, we see it ap- 
 proaching more and more to what we call the purely physical 
 condition. We come at length to those organisms which I 
 have compared to drops of oil, suspended in alcohol and 
 water. We reach the protogenes of Haeckel, in which we 
 have a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only 
 by its finely granulated character. ^ 
 
 This is a profoundly important statement — one 
 demanding the utmost attention, and one in which, 
 unless I am greatly mistaken, there is a misapprehen- 
 sion of so serious a nature as to vitiate the entire 
 argument. The protogenes is minute, and apparently 
 insignificant ; it is also nearly homogeneous ; but 
 who knows so well as Professor Tyndall, or who 
 has so clearly and beautifully demonstrated as he, 
 that apparent homogeneity is no argument for the 
 absence of structure t This little organism is either 
 
 ' Belfast Address, p. 524. 
 
EARLIEST FORMS OF LIFE. 85 
 
 living or not living ; we know of no transition forms ; 
 there are none such ; this would involve a contradic- 
 tion in terms. If living, as it is by the terms of the 
 case, it is a fragment of living ' protoplasm^ which pro- 
 toplasm, as Professor Huxley has demonstrated, has 
 the same * powers and faculties,' the same * form,' and 
 the same 'substantial composition,' whether seen in 
 the ' dull foraminifer,' in those ' broad discs of glassy 
 jelly which may be seen pulsating through the waters 
 of a calm sea,' or in * the flower which a girl wears in 
 her hair, and the blood which courses through her 
 youthful veins.' 
 
 There is nothing to justify us in concluding that 
 in the protogenes there is any approach whatever to 
 the ' purely physical condition.' The line of demar- 
 cation between this ' fragment of albumen ' and any 
 inorganic matter is as defined, if not as wide, as 
 between the eagle and the rock on which the eyry 
 is built. The protoplasm of \hQ pj^otogeiies is, organi- 
 cally at least, as active ^ as that of any other or- 
 ganism ; its formation from inorganic matter equally 
 defies our efforts ; its functions are as incapable of 
 expression by any physical formula. On what 
 grounds, then, scientific or transcendental, can we 
 expect to hear this form of life declare, ' I came 
 
 * ' Nor are such organisms insignificant by reason of their want of 
 complexity. It is a fair question whether the protoplasm of those 
 simplest forms of life, which people an immense extent of the bottom 
 of the sea, would not outweigh that of all the higher living beings 
 which inhabit the land put together.' — Lay Sejynons, p. 128. 
 
86 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 direct from the universal mother who brings forth 
 all things as the fruit of her womb/ and I own no 
 other parentage ? ' Surely in this we should be able 
 to discern no ^ unbi'oken sequence of development 
 from the nebula to the present time ! ' and what has 
 become of the ' observed uniformity of nature ? ' 
 
 But in nothing is the weakness of this doctrine 
 more manifest than in the nature of the attempts so 
 constantly made to justify a belief, that chemistry 
 wdll in the future be more successful in forming 
 organisable matter from inorganic elements, than it 
 has been in the past. Professor Tyndall, who may 
 reasonably be expected to make the best of the case, 
 finds nothing more to say than this : — 
 
 The matter of the animal body is that of inorganic nature. 
 There is no substance in the animal tissues that is not pri- 
 marily derived from the rocks, the water, and the air. Are 
 the forces of organic matter, then, different in kind from 
 those of inorganic matter ? The philosophy of the present 
 day negatives the question. It is the compounding, in the 
 organic world, of forces belonging equally to the inorganic, 
 that constitutes the mystery and the miracle of vitality. 
 Every portion of every animal body may be reduced to 
 purely inorganic matter. A perfect reversal of this process 
 of reduction would carry us from the inorganic to the 
 organic ; and such a reversal is at least conceivable ! ! ^ 
 
 An organism that has to exist in, and derive its 
 means of continuance from, the external world, must 
 of necessity consist of the same matter (in part) as 
 
 ' Belfast Address, p. 524. 
 - Vitality, p. 463. 
 
ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS. 87 
 
 that world, under whatever theory of ontology it is 
 supposed to exist. By no logical process, however, 
 can this fact be considered as absolutely determining 
 the nature of the forces operating upon it, or in- 
 herent in it ; that is an altogether independent ques- 
 tion. But the concluding sentence of the last 
 quotation contains certainly one of the most marvel- 
 lous of all the conceptions ever set forth in scientific 
 guise. If we imagine a crystal vase dashed to myriads 
 of atoms on the ground, a manuscript burned to 
 ashes, a living body killed by a fall of a thousand 
 feet from a balloon, an exploded barrel of gun- 
 powder ; a ' perfect reversal ' of any of these events 
 or processes, would be in every way as practicable as 
 that which is here pronounced * at least conceivable.' ^ 
 The cause must indeed be considered hopeless into 
 the service of which such suppositions as this are 
 pressed. A house may be reduced to its proximate 
 elements, of stone, brick, wood, iron, &c. — and a * per- 
 fect reversal of this process of reduction ' is certainly 
 conceivable ; but this affords very imperfect evidence 
 
 1 ' The first quantitative analyses of organic bodies were made by 
 Gay-Lussac and Thenard. The substance to be analysed was mixed 
 with a known weight of chlorate of potassium, and made up into small 
 pellets, which were dropped one by one through a stop-cock of peculiar 
 construction, into an upright glass tube heated to redness, the gas 
 thereby produced escaping by a lateral tube, and being collected over 
 mercury,' &c., &c. Such is the beginning, and only a very small part 
 of the process described in Watts' Dictionary of Chemistry, a ' perfect 
 reversal' of which we are asked to consider as conceivable. The 
 modern practice is almost indefinitely more complex. 
 
88 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 that a house has ever been spontaneously developed 
 out of these materials, without the * intrusion ' of some 
 intelligent constructive agency. 
 
 And thus it is seen that observation and reason, 
 experiment and analogy, alike refuse any support to 
 the doctrine that derives life from the interactions of 
 inorganic matter and force. Pending the production 
 of additional evidence, we are entitled, at least, to 
 hold it as ' not proven,' and absolutely to reject, as a 
 baseless conception, any other doctrine, as that of 
 human Automatism, which is built upon It. 
 
 But is this negative conclusion all that can be 
 arrived at ? Is there nothing positive to be known 
 concerning the origin of life on the earth ? I think 
 there is ; and that it can be shown with tolerable 
 certainty that there is a break in the ' curve ' so 
 often alluded to ; and that the appearance of the 
 earliest organic forms was attended by phenomena 
 which admit of no explanation by any combination 
 of inorganic forces. 
 
 Not \vith the vagueness belonging to the emotions, but 
 with the definiteness belonging to the understanding, the 
 scientific man has to put to himself these questions regarding 
 the introduction of life upon the earth. ... As far as the 
 eye of science has hitherto ranged through nature, no intru- 
 sion of purely creative power into any series of phenomena 
 has ever been observed.^ 
 
 I will not further complicate a sufficiently involved 
 
 ^ Apology for the Belfast Address^ p. 547. 
 
THE ORGANIC FORCE. 89 
 
 question by insisting that absolute scientific evidence 
 can be produced to prove a ' purely creative power •' 
 as intruding at any period of the world's history. 
 This, however, may be affirmed with certainty, that 
 at a certain epoch in that history, a new power or 
 force was manifested, a force that was not a con- 
 tinuation or modification of any one that had pre- 
 viously existed, nor, so far as can be shown, was it 
 any combination of these. To avoid unnecessary 
 verbiage and repetition, I will at once call this the 
 ' Organic Force,' not as suggesting a theory, but 
 merely for a name by which it may be known. 
 
 Why is this ' organic force ' entitled to be called 
 a nezv power or force } For this reason, that we 
 know absolutely nothing of force but from its effects, 
 and that this force produces effects that no other 
 known force or combination of forces can accomplish. 
 To take but one simple instance : the organic force 
 in vegetable tissue can decompose carbonic acid, at 
 ordinary temperatures, into carbon and oxygen. Now 
 this cannot be effected by the intensification of any 
 one, or by any combination, of the ordinary forces of 
 the inorganic world, and therefore we are not only 
 entitled, but if we would be consistent we are com- 
 pelled, to recognise that with the first forms of 
 veeetable life there was manifested an intrusion of 
 some new power into the world, by whatever name, 
 * creative ' or otherwise, it may be called. Assuredly 
 at this point in the world's history, there was a most 
 
90 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 noteworthy disturbance of the laws and direction 
 of matter and force — sudden and catastrophical, not 
 gradual and imperceptible ; for we know of no 
 gradual transition from death to life ; and unless 
 we can suppose ordinary matter itself spontaneously 
 to assume powers or faculties exactly opposite to those 
 previously inherent in it, we are impelled to believe 
 that this disturbance, this institution of an entirely 
 new order of energy, this inauguration of a new 
 epoch, this clothing of the earth with a living gar- 
 ment, was the direct result of a fiat from without, of 
 a power which was ' certainly not mechanical.' 
 
 I do not know how any candid inquirer can close 
 his eyes to so patent a fact as this introduction of a 
 new force. It is customary to evade this necessity 
 by calling it chemistry. Be it so ; the name will do 
 as well as any other for those who, to satisfy the 
 exigencies of an * unverified theoretic conception,' 
 will be content to classify the most opposed pheno- 
 mena in one and the same category. If life force be 
 chemistry, it is a chemistry unknown in our labora- 
 tories ; producing effects exactly the reverse of most 
 of the chemistry with which we are acquainted ; and 
 residing only in an organic structure, which is in- 
 debted for its properties to a special endowment, 
 handed down to it through countless generations and 
 ages of antecedent life. 
 
 Whatever test we apply to this force, it is found 
 to differ toto ccelo from all known inorganic forces. 
 
ORGANIC AND INORGANIC FORCE. 91 
 
 All these can be demonstrated and made evident to 
 the senses ; they can be made to pass from one mass 
 of matter to another, by contact, by impulse, by 
 radiation, by transmission ; they can be measured by 
 our instruments ; they can for the most part be 
 collected in volume, or in some other way accumu- 
 lated, and stored up for use at will. Can we effect , 
 anything even remotely resembling all this with the ; 
 organic force or energy ? Can we collect it, or its 
 component parts — if it be ' compounded ' of inorganic 
 forces — as it leaves the dying organism? No; all 
 this is impossible. And if the ' mystery and miracle 
 of vitality ' be merely ' the compounding, in the or- 
 ganic world, of forces equally belonging to the inor- 
 ganic,' ^ it is evidently due from those who assert 
 this doctrine, that they should show at least some 
 resemblance or analogy between the two classes of 
 actions, or that they should give some hint as to 
 how any possible or conceivable combination of 
 inorganic forces can be made, even in thought, to 
 represent the actions of a living organism. As this 
 has never been done and can never be done, the 
 assertion must pass, amongst the rest, as indicating 
 a relation which ought to be true in order to support 
 the theory of Evolution ; but which, in the present 
 state of our knowledge, does not seem to have any 
 scientific foundation. 
 
 One point remains to be noticed, which will still 
 
 * vitality, p. 562. 
 
92 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 more clearly mark the difference between vital or 
 organic, and any form of inorganic, force ; which will, 
 in fact, if demonstrated, prove the existence of a 
 chasm between the two orders of energy that cannot, 
 even dialectically, be bridged over. I refer to certain 
 considerations connected with the great discovery of 
 modern times, the doctrine of the conservation and 
 correlation of forces. It will be necessary briefly to 
 state what these doctrines are, and then to inquire, 
 what are their relations to organic force ? With regard 
 to the ' Conservation of Force,' Helmholtz thus for- 
 mulates it : — 
 
 The total quantity of all the forces capable of work in 
 the whole universe remains eternal and unchanged through- 
 out all their changes. All change in nature amounts to this 
 — that force can change its form and locality without its 
 quantity being changed. The universe possesses, once for 
 all, a store of force which is not altered by any change of 
 phenomena, can neither be increased nor diminished, and 
 which maintains any change which takes place on it^ 
 
 An important position, and one that is susceptible of 
 scientific demonstration, so far as observations on 
 finite quantities can determine the conditions of the 
 infinite. But we are more particularly interested in 
 the question of the Correlation of Forces, a doctrine 
 the beauty and importance of which can scarcely be 
 over-estimated — one that forms the basis of all modern 
 philosophical thought on physical subjects, and that 
 is associated almost as a * household word ' with the 
 
 ' Popular Lectures, p. 360. 
 
CORRELATION OF FORCES. 93 
 
 name of our distinguished countryman, Sir W. R. 
 Grove. In his own words, its bearing and tendency 
 are thus sketched : — 
 
 Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, motion, and chemical 
 affinity, are all convertible material aflfections ; assuming 
 either as the cause, one of the others will be the effect; thus 
 heat may be said to produce electricity, electricity to pro- 
 duce heat, magnetism to produce electricity, electricity 
 magnetism, and so of the rest. Cause and effect, therefore, 
 in their abstract relation to these forces, are words solely of 
 convenience. We are totally unacquainted with the ulti- 
 mate generating power of each and all of them, and probably 
 shall ever remain so \ we can only ascertain the norjtice of 
 their action ; we must humbly refer their causation to one 
 omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying 
 their eftects, and developing, by experiment, their mutual 
 relations.^ 
 
 Following out in a little fuller detail the application 
 of this doctrine, we learn that, beginning with any one 
 of these physical forces, we may form cycles of greater 
 or less comprehensiveness, each one bringing us back 
 to the point whence we started. Thus, beginning with 
 mechanical motion, we can observe its conversion into 
 heat ; and this heat may be either at once reconverted 
 into motion, or it may give rise to light, to electricity, 
 or to chemical affinity. The cycles may embrace two, 
 three, or all of these forms of force. Motion may 
 produce heat or light ; light or heat may produce 
 chemical affinity ; this in turn may produce electricity, 
 
 ' The Correlation of the Physical Forces. Preface to 5th edition, 
 p. xiv. • 
 
94 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 and this magnetism ; whence, again, we may derive 
 mechanical motion. The order of the elements of the 
 cycle may be almost indefinitely changed. Probably, 
 were our means of investigation perfect, we might 
 observe the immediate production of any one term of 
 the series by any other. The quantities of the result- 
 ant forces are also definite and constant. 
 
 It is in attempting to incorporate organic force 
 into this cycle of transformations, that by our entire 
 failure we arrive at the conviction that life, in its 
 essence, is something beyond any combination of phy- 
 sical forces ; in short, that LIFE HAS NO PHYSICAL 
 CORRELATE. 
 
 For, in the first place, no one will contend that the 
 organic force is directly interchangeable with any one ^ 
 term of the series ; therefore in so far at least it differs 
 from any physical force ; for in the cycles alluded to 
 one force only was required to produce another, not a 
 combination of several. But is the organic force inter- 
 changeable with any number or any combination of 
 the other forces t This requires careful consideration ; 
 the negative answer, however, cannot be doubtful. 
 
 Each individual action of an organism will have 
 its physical correlate ; the motion of an organism will 
 
 1 Oken certainly asserts that 'galvanism is the principle of life,' 
 and that ' there is no other vital force than the galvanic polarity.' — 
 Physiophilosophy, sec. 884. He also proceeds to say that ' organism is 
 galvanism residing in a thoroughly homogeneous mass ... a galvanic 
 pile, pounded into atoms, must become alive. In this manner nature 
 brings forth organic bodies.' But these instructive details were written 
 under * a kind of inspiration.' 
 
NON-CORRELATE FORCE. 95 
 
 produce heat not the less- that it is an organism ; 
 chemical changes will produce electric conditions in 
 the organism as well as outside it ; but the force itself 
 which underlies, originates, combines, and utilises all 
 these single manifestations, is something which has no 
 known or conceivable correlative. 
 
 It may be objected to this that * life ' is but the 
 sum of the individual actions of an organism, and that 
 the sum of the correlates of these would represent the 
 correlate of a living organism. The position is un- 
 tenable ; but a full discussion of it would lead us away 
 into irrelevant issues. It is not contended by the 
 most ardent believers in Evolution that we can trace 
 with any accuracy the correlations of living force. 
 
 But granting, for the sake of the argument, every- 
 thing that can be claimed, it is still evident that there 
 is no true * correlation,' in any definite or scientific 
 sense, between life and any of the forces commonly 
 known as inorganic. For whilst organic force can 
 give origin to, or, we may even say, can be converted 
 into, the various forms of physical force, the converse 
 does not hold good ; no physical force or combination 
 of forces can be reconverted into organic force ; so 
 that whilst the relations of the ordinary physical forces 
 ■ represent a closed curve or cycle continually return- 
 ing upon itself, the introduction of organic force into 
 any point in the series carries the line off into infini- 
 tude, and renders the curve as incapable of closure as a 
 paraboHc projection. The 'reciprocity' is one-sided. 
 
96 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer deals vvith this question in 
 his own peculiar manner, of which we have already 
 seen one or two examples. He commences by ac- 
 knowledging candidly the difficulty of the subject, and 
 thus continues : — 
 
 Involved as are the phenomena of evolution, it is not to 
 be expected that a definite quantitative relation can in each 
 case, or indeed in any case, be shown between the forces 
 expended in successive phases. We have not adequate data 
 for this ; and probably shall never have them. . . . The 
 most we can hope is to establish a qualitative relation, that 
 is, indefinitely quantitative — quantitative in so far as involving 
 something like a due proportion between causes and efi'ects. 
 If this can be done, however, some progress will be made 
 towards the solution of our problem.^ 
 
 After some details of evolution of inorganic bodies 
 under conditions for which ' it is impossible to assign 
 a reason,' ^ but which are all traced ultimately to a 
 * still progressing motion ' of the substance of the sun 
 and of the earth towards their respective centres of 
 gravity, he sets forth this position — 'That the forces 
 exhibited in vital actions, vegetable and animal, are 
 similarly derived, is so obvious a deduction from the 
 facts of organic chemistry, that it will meet with 
 ready acceptance from readers acquainted with those 
 facts.' ^ 
 
 And it must be acknowledged that this acceptance 
 will follow most naturally from these 'facts of organic 
 
 ' lirst Principles^ chap. ix. 
 2 Ibid., p. 266. 
 ' Ibid., p. 271. 
 
INFLUENCE OF LIGHT. 97 
 
 chemistry' as known and set forth by Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer. One of these so-called facts refers to the 
 decomposition of carbonic acid and water by vege- 
 table tissue, and is stated as follows : 'To overcome 
 the powerful affinities which hold their elements to- 
 gether requires the expenditure of force, and this force 
 is supplied by the sun.' ^ 
 
 On such science and on such facts is the modern 
 * Constructive Philosophy ' built up ! The plain and 
 simple answer to this statement is, that the sun does 
 not supply the required force. The sun might beat 
 for thousands of years upon carbonic acid and water 
 without altering their chemical constitution in the 
 least. The analytic force is inherent in an organism, 
 which performs what no combination of inorganic 
 forces can effect. The sun's rays stimulate and favour 
 this action, but are not even essential as an accessory 
 to their production. Hear Professor Huxley : — 
 
 Take, for example, the singular fact that yeast will in- 
 crease indefinitely when grown i7t the da7'k, in water contain- 
 ing only tartrate of ammonia, a small percentage of mineral 
 salts, and sugar. Out of these materials the to7'idce. will 
 manufacture nitrogenous protoplasm, cellulose, and fatty 
 matters, in any quantity, although they are wholly deprived 
 of those rays of the sun, the influence of which is essential 
 to the growth of ordinary plants. There has been a great 
 deal of speculation lately as to how the living organisms 
 buried beneath two or three thousand fathoms of water, and 
 therefore in all probability almost deprived of light, live. If 
 any of them possess the same powers as yeast (and the same 
 * Loc. ciL 
 H 
 
98 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 capacity of living without light is exhibited by some other 
 fungi), there would seem to be no difficulty about the 
 matter.^ 
 
 Mr. Spencer proceeds to state that ' the irresistible 
 inference is that the forces by which plants abstract 
 the materials of their tissues from surrounding in- 
 organic compounds — the forces by which they grow 
 and carry on their functions — are forces that pre- 
 viously existed as solar radiations ' (p. 272). From 
 that point there is naturally but little difficulty in 
 arriving at a qualitative correlation, at least, for the 
 organic force ; and after traversing a dense jungle of 
 verbiage, in which revelations of the same scientific 
 value as that just quoted abound, Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 emerges into open country with a declaration concern- 
 ing *the forces called vital, which we have seen (!) to 
 be correlates of the forces called physical' ^ 
 
 Subsequently, by virtue of much repetition, the 
 doctrine is considered to be so far established that it 
 may serve as a basis for further argument ; and it 
 is referred to in another work in these terms :-— 
 
 Now that the transformiation and equivalence of forces 
 is seen by men of science to hold, not only throughout all 
 inorganic actions, but throughout all organic actions ; now 
 that even mental changes are recognised as the correlatives 
 of cerebral changes, which also conform to this principle ; 
 and now that there must be admitted the corollary, that all 
 actions going on in a society are measured by certain ante- 
 cedent energies, which disappear in effecting them, while 
 
 * Critiques and Addresses, p. 90. 
 2 Op. cit., p. 278. 
 
UNWARRANTED ASSUMPTIONS. 99 
 
 they themselves become actual or potential energies from 
 which subsequent actions arise, it is strange that there 
 should not have arisen the consciousness that these highest 
 phenomena are to be studied as lower phenomena have been 
 studied — not, of course, after the same physical methods, 
 but in conformity with the same principles.^ 
 
 It is somewhat amusing that this passage, perhaps 
 as full of unverified assumptions as any equal number 
 of words in the English language, occurs in a chapter 
 especially devoted to holding up to reprobation and 
 ridicule the practice of forming and expressing opinions, 
 before having duly considered the grounds on which 
 any such opinions should be based, or without having 
 the power to estimate the facts which bear upon them. 
 From what has been said before it is obvious that 
 until the convertibility of inorganic into organic force 
 can be demonstrated, no ^ correlation ' between the 
 two can be recognised, and therefore can only be ' seen 
 by men of science' in the form of an assertion or a 
 theoretic conception. It is still more certain, if pos- 
 sible, that ' mental changes ' are not ' correlatives! in 
 any demonstrable or scientific sense, of * cerebral 
 changes ; ' but the whole domain of psychology I wish 
 to defer to a future occasion, as it is too important 
 and extensive to be treated as a mere collateral issue ; 
 and the same considerations apply to the sociological 
 question introduced in the third clause. It must 
 suf^ce here to say, that Mr. Spencer has hitherto 
 failed to adduce any valid evidence, or even any strong 
 
 ^ The Study of Sociology, p. 6. 
 H 2 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 inferential reason for believing, that either life or 
 thought have any definable correlative in the inor- 
 ganic world. 
 
 In concluding this branch of the inquiry, I wish to 
 institute a comparison between the mode in which I 
 have attempted to establish the existence of a special 
 ' organic force,' and certain methods now of universal 
 application in physical science. 
 
 In all modern investigations into the nature and 
 properties of the imponderables, especially light and 
 heat, we find a certain ETHER occupying a prominent 
 position as the substratum of these phenomena, con- 
 cerning which I will quote a few sentences from 
 Professor Tyndall's lectures on * Heat as a Mode of 
 Motion ' — lectures which will be esteemed models of. 
 scientific thought and demonstration so long as science 
 is remembered : — 
 
 'According to the theory now universally received, light 
 consists of a vibratory motion of the molecules of the 
 luminous body ; but how is this motion transmitted to our 
 organs of sight ? Sound has the air as its medium, and a 
 close examination of the phenomena of light, by the most 
 refined and demonstrative experiments, has led philoso- 
 phers to the conclusion that space is occupied by a sub- 
 stance almost infinitely elastic, through which the pulses of 
 light make their way. . . . 
 
 The luminous ether fills stellar space ; it makes the 
 universe a whole, and renders possible the intercommuni- 
 cation of light and energy between star and star. But the 
 subtle substance penetrates further ; it surrounds the very 
 atoms of solid and liquid" substances. . . . 
 
THE HYPOTHESIS OF ETHER. 
 
 This ether also, ' whose motions are the Hght of 
 the universe,' is itself invisible ; it is imponderable and 
 impalpable ; it cannot be isolated, nor compressed, nor 
 attenuated, nor exhausted, nor excluded from any 
 space. It is of ' almost infinite tenuity,' and yet its 
 ' properties are those of a solid rather than of a gas. 
 It resembles jelly rather than air.' ^ 
 
 But how, it may be asked, do we arrive at a know- 
 ledge of the existence and properties of this ether ? 
 By a perfectly legitimate and philosophical process, 
 which consists in reasoning backwards from effects to 
 causes or substrata — from phenomena to that which 
 underlies them. Light and heat are demonstrated 
 to be modes of motion, tremors, undulations, or vibra- 
 tions. But where motion is, there must be something 
 that moves ; what is that something in the case of 
 light .'* Sound consists of movements of air ; but 
 undulations of air will not account for the phenomena 
 of light, nor will any form of motion of any of the 
 ponderable matters with which we are acquainted. 
 Thought following thought in this manner, at last 
 brings the investigator face to face with the inevitable 
 supposition, that all space is filled with this substance 
 ' of almost infinite tenuity ; ' not because he can de- 
 monstrate it, but because nothing else will fulfil the 
 conditions or account for tJie phenomena. 
 
 Now, suppose an objector says, ' Matter I know, 
 and force I know, but what is this t You call it 
 
 ' Fragments of Science , p. 4. 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 substance, but that cannot be allowed. All the sub- 
 stance with which I am acquainted can be weighed, or 
 measured, or handled, or in some other way be made 
 evident to the senses in a concrete form. Nature is 
 uniform in her action, and does not produce matter 
 with such negative qualities as those of ether, because 
 the exigencies of your hypothesis require it. Your 
 ether is an incomprehensible and therefore intolerable 
 paradox. You say that light cannot be accounted for 
 by the undulations of any known ponderable matter. 
 That is possible in the present state of science ; but 
 no doubt some time you will know better how to 
 arrange ordinary matter so as to produce the necessary 
 undulations. Therefore the theory of the ether is an 
 extinct belief! ^ What would be the effect of such a 
 remonstrance as this.-* Without doubt it would be 
 treated as altogether unworthy of an answer, and 
 very justly so treated. 
 
 Mtttatis viiLtandis, the argument may apply to the 
 theory of a vital or organic ' substance ' or force. We 
 meet with certain phenomena differing most widely 
 from, and in many cases opposed to, those of the in- 
 organic w^orld — undulations, vibrations, motions, spe- 
 cial chemical powers, to say nothing of more obscure 
 and complicated manifestations. We know (or think 
 after many attempts that we know) that no arrange- 
 
 1 It is a favourite formula of Mr. Herbert Spencer's, when speaking 
 of the doctrine of Special Creation, to say that it belongs to a family of 
 extinct beliefs. 
 
CREA TION. 
 
 103 
 
 ment or combination of any of those matters or forces 
 which we call inorganic will produce these effects. We 
 hypothecate, in consequence, another special force, not 
 correlated to those of the inorganic world, in the same 
 way that these are correlated to each other ; and as a 
 name to know it by we call it the Vital or Organic 
 Force. Is this in any way more unphilosophical 
 than the hypothesis of an Ether 1 
 
 And when we go back far beyond the records of 
 geological time, and stand in imagination on the line 
 that marks the beginning of life on our earth ; when 
 we see on one side of this line matter obeying only 
 simple and easily formulated laws, and on the other 
 the same matter assuming complex forms and functions, 
 not to be imitated by any human skill or science, not 
 reducible to any mechanical formula, not explicable 
 by any play of molecular attractions and repulsions ; 
 when we are unable to comprehend that this matter 
 can have spontaneously assumed these wondrous facul- 
 ties and endowments, it is, perhaps, not an unphilo- 
 sophic spirit that leads us reverently to trace in these 
 phenomena the presence of a power that 
 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent. 
 
 And whilst lost in wonder at the infinitely varied 
 forms of beauty everywhere arising, and the ever- 
 changing yet ever-perfect adaptations of structure to 
 function, of organism to environment, telling of an 
 
I04 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 intelligence and a constructive power, in comparison 
 with which the most exalted of human faculties are 
 but vanishing quantities : were we then permitted to 
 ask this new-sprung life whence it came and what was 
 its origin, it would be in no spirit of superstition or 
 vain belief, but in accordance with the strictest rules 
 of inductive philosophy, that we should expect to hear 
 the answer, ' The Hand that made us is Divine.' 
 
I05 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 
 
 Alleged superiority of Evolution over all other theories of Ontology — 
 Mr. Spencer's ' Evanescence of Evil ' — Origin and transmutation 
 of species— Various theories — Mr. Darwin's 'Natural Selection' 
 — Absence of all evidence — Abandonment of the theory — Con- 
 clusion. 
 
 The superiority of the Evolution hypothesis over 
 every other ontological theory is, according to 
 Haeckel, chiefly manifest in this — that by its means 
 alone we are able to give a mechanical explanation 
 of the most complicated organic phenomena. 
 
 In fact (he continues) such events as the origin and 
 formation of the organs of the senses present to the eye of 
 the understanding, guided by the light of Evolution, no more 
 difficulties than the explanation of any ordinary physical 
 processes, such as earthquakes, winds, or tides. By the 
 same light, we arrive at the very weighty conviction, that all 
 the natural bodies with which we are acquainted are equally 
 living) and that the distinction which has been held as 
 existing between the living and the dead does not really 
 exist. When a stone which is thrown into the air falls 
 again to the earth according to definite laws ; when a 
 crystal is formed from a saline fluid ; when sulphur and 
 mercury unite to form cinnabar ; these facts are neither 
 more or less mechanical life phenomena than the growth and 
 
io6 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 flowering of plants, than the propagation and sensory facul- 
 ties of animals, or the perceptions and intelligence of man.^ 
 
 This is a most attractive programme, and one full 
 of interest and promise : unfortunately nothing is 
 effected here or elsewhere towards completing the 
 * explanation.' It is asserted again and again that 
 life is but mechanical force, and that soul and spirit 
 and thought are but higher manifestations of the 
 same ; but no attempt, even the feeblest, is ever made 
 to justify the wild assumption, or to show how mecha- 
 / nical force can be conceived as representing either 
 life or thought. 
 
 Indeed, Evolution is charged with many burdens, 
 too heavy and grievous to be borne ; and it breaks 
 down utterly under the weight of them. Guided still 
 by the light of this doctrine, we are supposed not 
 only to be able to trace clearly the past history and 
 present condition of man, but even to predict, and 
 with still greater certainty, if possible, his future pro- 
 gress. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his ' Social Statics ' 
 (p. 79), predicts the ' evanescence of evil,' and the 
 consequent perfecting of man's nature, as an inevi- 
 table corollary of the laws of Evolution, as follows : 
 
 All imperfection is unfitness to the conditions of exist- 
 ence. 
 
 This unfitness must consist either in having a faculty or 
 faculties in excess, or in having a faculty or faculties defi- 
 cient, or in both. 
 
 ' Natiirliche Schopfiingsgeschichte, by Dr. Ernst Haeckel, 6th ed,, 
 
THE 'EVANESCENCE OF EVIL. 
 
 107 
 
 A faculty in excess is one which the conditions of exist- 
 ence do not afford full exercise to ; and a faculty that is 
 deficient is one from which the conditions of existence de- 
 mand more than it can perform. 
 
 But it is an essential principle of life that a faculty to 
 which circumstances do not allow full exercise diminishes, 
 and that a faculty on which circumstances make excessive 
 demands increases. 
 
 And so long as this excess and this deficiency continue, 
 there must continue decrease on the one hand, and growth 
 on the other. 
 
 Finally, all excess and all deficiency must disappear — 
 that is, all imperfection must disappear. 
 
 Thus the ultimate development of the ideal man is logi- 
 cally certain .... as certain as any conclusion in which 
 we place the most implicit faith — for instance, that all men 
 will die. . . . Progress ... is not an accident, but a neces- 
 sity. ... As surely as there is any efficacy in educational 
 culture, or any meaning in such terms as habit, custom, 
 practice, so surely must the human faculties be moulded 
 into complete fitness for the social state, so surely must the 
 things w^e call evil and immorality disappear, so surely must 
 man become perfect. 
 
 This is a fair instance of the statements made and 
 the arguments used in the interests of the Evolution 
 hypothesis ; and, as such, it merits some brief notice. 
 As Mr. Herbert Spencer usually reasons with some 
 appearance of accuracy upon facts as present in his 
 own mind, it is to be regretted that these facts are 
 not more in accord with those known to physiologists 
 and observers of nature generally. Whatever may 
 be man's destiny in the future, nothing can be more 
 certain than that he will not be perfected by any 
 
io8 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 evanescence of evil effected as here supposed. For 
 it is in no sense to be received as true that * a faculty, 
 on which circumstances make excessive demands, 
 increases.' A faculty duly exercised, in accordance 
 with individual and social requirements, improves, 
 within certain definite limits ; but a faculty on which 
 excessive demands are made inevitably deteriorates, 
 or is lost entirely. The eye, the ear, the brain, when 
 moderately exercised, improve as to function ; if ex- 
 cessive demands are made upon them, their functions 
 fail ; and if these demands be continued, disorganisa- 
 tion often ensues. Digestion is certainly not im- 
 proved by excessive demands on its powers — nor the 
 circulation, nor any other physiological function. 
 
 The history of man, whether physical or general, 
 affords as little support to this doctrine of perfecti- 
 bility as does physiology. If certain nations or 
 communities have advanced towards a higher state of 
 physical condition, of social aggregation, or of mental 
 and moral cultivation, and are therefore to be con- 
 sidered as illustrations of the law that ' all imperfec- 
 tion must disappear,' it can scarcely be contended 
 that those nations or communities which have either 
 remained stationary or have degenerated are illus- 
 trations of the same law. Yet history abounds with 
 such instances. In some Eastern nations, notably in 
 China, there is comparatively little change of any 
 kind within historic periods ; probably no one would 
 be likely to see there any indications of the evanes- 
 
RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 109 
 
 cence of evil; and yet China and its dependencies 
 may be supposed to contain nearly half, certainly 
 more than one-third, of the population of the earth. 
 It is not necessary to enter into any details as to 
 degenerations ; their history is the history of all 
 nations that have risen and fallen again ; where 
 * unfitness to the conditions of existence ' has resulted 
 in decay rather than in progress. 
 
 This digression from the main subject of this 
 inquiry has been introduced with the object of show- 
 ing what care it is necessary to exercise in examining 
 doctrines like these, set forth with much confident 
 use of language, before accepting them as valid. 
 Further illustrations will occur as we proceed. 
 
 In the preceding chapter the evidence for the first 
 of the three propositions concerning the origin of 
 organic forms was investigated — viz. ' That the earliest 
 organisms were the natural product of the interactions 
 of ordinary inorganic matter and force! It appeared 
 to be a result of the inquiry that neither observation, 
 experiment, nor reason gave any testimony in favour 
 of such a view ; and that life was in all cases due 
 either to antecedent life, or to a power or force from 
 without that was not identical, nor correlated with 
 the ordinary physical forces. The two remaining 
 propositions which now claim attention are more con- 
 veniently combined in one for discussion, and may be 
 thus formulated: — 'That all the forms of animal 
 and vegetable life^ including man himself, have been 
 
no WINDS OF DOCTRIXE. 
 
 successively and gradually developed from the earliest 
 and simplest organisms' 
 
 A casual survey of the vegetable and animal 
 world exhibits to the inquirer an infinite number of 
 forms, having almost every conceivable variety of 
 general aspect and attribute ; whilst a closer investi- 
 gation shows certain relationships of type and function 
 to subsist amongst certain members. Individuals are 
 closely grouped together with such identity of struc- 
 ture, and such constancy of character derived from 
 parent to offspring, as to be ranked as species. Various 
 species present such analogies one to the other as to 
 be classed under more extended heads, as genera. 
 Genera, again, that are allied by certain affinities, are 
 united to form natural orders ; and these are grouped 
 again, according to such general characters as they 
 may possess in common, into classes and sub- 
 kingdoms. Thus all the varieties of our domestic 
 dog or cat are so alike in essential structure, that 
 they are respectively considered as distinct species. 
 But the dog has many points of resemblance to the 
 wolf, the dingo, &c. ; and the cat has similar relations 
 to the lion, tiger, and puma. The allies of the dog 
 are therefore united to form a family, called Canis ; 
 and those of the cat are similarly united into the 
 family Felis. But the Canidce and the Felidce are 
 again allied by important points of structure, food, 
 and habits to each other and to the bears ifJrsidce), 
 martens {Mnstelidcs), and seals {Phocidce) ; and these 
 
ORIGIN OF LIFE AND SPECIES. 
 
 families are aggregated to constitute the natural order 
 of the Carnivora. These form one of the great 
 divisions of the class MAMMALIA — a section of the 
 great sub-kingdom of the Vertebrata. 
 
 Up to a comparatively recent period the majority 
 of naturalists held, with regard to these divisions, 
 that only the members of what were called species (such 
 as were fertile together, and had fertile offspring), had 
 any true alliance, any blood-relationship ; and that a 
 family, a genus, an order, or a class was simply an 
 e7is ratiojiis, a mental classification for convenience 
 only. 
 
 But so early ^ as 1796, Goethe alluded to the deve- 
 lopment of the higher animals, and man himself, from 
 lower forms of life ; and in 1 807 he somewhat ex- 
 panded the idea, with references to embryology. He 
 was soon followed by Oken, who, as we have before 
 seen, claims ' a kind of inspiration,' but whose 
 inflated dogmatism presents few tangible points for 
 either intelligent acquiescence or dissent. His doc- 
 trine as to organisms is as follows : — ^ 
 
 (900) Every organic has issued out of mucus. 
 
 (901) The prh?iary mucus out of which everything organic 
 has been cj'cated is the sea-mucus. 
 
 (905) The sea-mucus, as well as the salt, is produced by 
 
 * De Maillet's Telliamed was published ahnost fifty years before, in 
 1 748 ; but, except as indicating some belief in the variability of species, 
 it requires little notice as a philosophical work. 
 
 2 The figures refer to the sections in the Ray Society's edition of 
 Oken's Physiophilosophy. 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 the light. Light shines upon the water, and it is salted. 
 Light shines upon the salted sea., and it lives. 
 
 (906) All life is from the sea, none from the continent. 
 
 (912) The first organic forms, whether plants or animals, 
 emerged from the shallow parts of the sea. 
 
 (913) Man also is a child of the wa7'm and shallow parts 
 of the sea in the neighbourhood of the land. 
 
 (930) The primary organic is a mucus point. 
 (934) The first organic points are vesicles. 
 
 (958) No organism has been created of larger size than 
 an infusorial point. No organism is, nor has one ever been, 
 created which is not microscopic. 
 
 (959) Whatever is larger has not been created, but deve- 
 loped. 
 
 (960) Man has not been created, but developed. 
 
 Oken, it will be seen, allows the existence of a 
 Creator, whose function is to create microscopic 
 points. Philosophers are wiser now. Lamarck fol- 
 lowed in 181 5 with some daring speculations, which 
 I venture to think were indefinitely more philosophi- 
 cal ^ than any of the theories of Evolution which have 
 been propounded since that time, inasmuch as they 
 had some basis in physiological truth. But it is un- 
 necessary now to notice these doctrines at any length, 
 since it is at the present time generally believed that 
 'there is but one hypothesis as to the origin of 
 species of animals in general which has any scientific 
 
 ' Lamarck's account of the development of the giraffe's long neck 
 is infinitely more practical and probable than Mr. Darwin's ; as well as 
 his general, though perhaps somewhat vague, ideas of the production of 
 various other structures by means of attempted and increased function, 
 or desire for action. 
 
MR. DARWIN'S THEORIES. 113 
 
 existence — that propounded by Mr. Darwin.' ^ That 
 hypothesis is too well known to require any extended 
 introduction, but may be briefly stated thus : — Owing 
 to the high geometrical rate of increase of each 
 species, there is a constant struggle for life going on 
 amongst all living creatures, in which struggle ' the 
 weakest go to the wall,' and the strongest, that is, the 
 'favoured races,' survive. These favoured races are 
 so favoured in virtue of their having been born (in 
 obedience to chance, or some law, the conditions of 
 which are unknown) with a structure in so far differ- 
 ing from that of their species, as to afford them an 
 advantage, however slight, over their brethren in 
 the said struggle. This is innate variability ; and 
 when a variation occurs, thus enabling its possessor 
 to survive where others die, there is a prospect of a 
 race being formed with this peculiarity, which, slowly 
 augmenting for thousands of generations, at last gives 
 character to a nev/ species. And the slow accumula- 
 tion, through countless ages, of similar modifications, 
 by natural selection, forms distinct genera and orders. 
 The same powers which we daily see producing what 
 we call varieties are on this theory capable of pro- 
 ducing species in longer periods, and in still more 
 extended periods, genera, orders, and classes. There 
 are thus three essential elements in this theory — 
 variability, struggle for existence, and natural selec- 
 tion — and by means of these, it is supposed that, 
 
 ' Professor Huxley's A fan's Place in A^tmr, p. 106. 
 
114 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 beginning with the monei-a (which was evolved from 
 inorganic matter), we have in the course of long ages 
 obtained all the forms of life that have ever appeared 
 on our globe, including man himself, without the 
 ' intrusion ' of any creative power. 
 
 It is not my intention to attempt any detailed 
 investigation of these views. This has been done so 
 often by far abler hands than mine, that it would 
 appear as though nothing more could be said by 
 friend or foe without mere repetition. What can be 
 done by a calm and highly cultivated critical faculty, 
 a profound knowledge of natural history and of all 
 biological science, and a clear logical reason, to refute 
 the fallacies of natural selection, has been done by 
 Mr. St. George Mivart in his ' Genesis of Species,' 
 and later in his * Lessons from Nature.' ^ But the 
 theory has a source of vitality which does not lie in 
 the domain of facts or reason, and will therefore 
 doubtless survive for a time. 
 
 There are, however, a few general considerations 
 upon which I think due stress has not been laid, 
 tending to indicate that this hypothesis 'does not 
 really exist, although it may seem to do so,' as was 
 said by a distinguished writer concerning another 
 
 ' Mr, Mivart's final verdict is as follows : — ' With regard to the 
 conception as now put forward by Mr. Darwin, I cannot truly cha- 
 racterise it but by an epithet which I employ with great reluctance. 
 I weigh my words, and have present to my mind the many distinguished 
 naturalists who have accepted the notion, and yet I cannot hesitate to 
 call it a puerile hypothesis. ' — Lessons from N'attire, p. 300. 
 
SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF LIFE. 
 
 theory ; in other words, that it has no scientific basis. 
 The first is this — that the hypothesis of natural 
 selection is not directly supported by any single fact 
 in the whole range of natural history or palaeonto- 
 logy ; but that on the other hand every fact which is 
 known with any certainty in those sciences, so far as 
 it bears upon natural selection, directly opposes it. In 
 adducing evidence of these positions I will neither 
 give my own observations nor those of any opponent 
 of the theory, but will call upon its friends and sup- 
 porters to bear their testimony, first, as to the evi- 
 dence for the succession of life upon the earth from 
 lower to higher forms ; and, secondly, as to the exist- 
 ence of any instance of conversion of one species into 
 another. 
 
 Professor Huxley, whose authority in all matters 
 of natural history and palaeontology is indisputable, 
 and who cannot be suspected of any antagonism to 
 Evolution in general, or to Mr. Darwin's views in par- 
 ticular, thus writes in 1862 : — 
 
 What, then, does an impartial survey of the positively 
 ascertained truths of palaeontology testify in relation to the 
 common doctrines of progressive modification, which sup- 
 pose that modification to have taken place by a necessary 
 progress from more to less embryonic forms, or from more 
 to less generalised types, within the limits of the period re- 
 presented by the fossiliferous rocks ? 
 
 It negatives those doctrines, for it either shows us no 
 evidence of such modification, or demonstrates it to have 
 been very slight ; and as to the nature of that modification, 
 
ii6 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 it yields no evidence whatsoever that the earlier members of 
 any long- continued group were more generalised in structure 
 than the later ones. . . . Obviously if the earliest fossili- 
 ferous rocks now known are coeval with the commencement 
 of life, and if their contents give us any just conception of 
 the nature and extent of the earliest fauna and flora, the 
 insignificant amount of modification which can be demon- 
 strated to have taken place in any one group of animals or 
 plants is quite incompatible with the hypothesis that all 
 living forms are the results of a necessary process of pro- 
 gressive development, entirely comprised within the time 
 represented by the fossiliferous rocks. 
 
 Contrariwise, any admissible hypothesis of progressive 
 modification must be compatible with persistence without 
 progression through indefinite periods.* 
 
 This momentous judgment was somewhat revised 
 in the anniversary address to the Geological Society 
 in 1870. It was fully confirmed *so far as the inver- 
 tcbrata and lower vertcbrata are concerned ; ' but it 
 was to some extent modified in reference to the 
 higher vertebrata, where there seemed to be * a clear 
 balance in favour of the evolution of living forms 
 one from another' — this with sundry qualifications. 
 The learned writer gives it also as his opinion that 
 should such an hypothesis as that of progressive 
 modification ' eventually be proved to be true/ the 
 only way in which it can be demonstrated zvill be ' by 
 observation and cxperinieiit upon the existing forms of 
 life.' 2 
 
 • Essay on Persistent Tvpes of Life, in Lay Sermons, p. 225. 
 2 Ibid., p. 226. 
 
WANT OF EVIDENCE. 117 
 
 With regard to the second point in question, the 
 transrriutation of species, the same authority writes 
 thus : — 
 
 After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias 
 against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that as 
 the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group 
 of animals, having all the characters exhibited by species in 
 nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether arti- 
 ficial or natural.^ 
 
 This was written in i860; it was confirmed in 1863, 
 in the essay on ' Man's Place in Nature ; ' and up to 
 the present time the evidence stands exactly where it 
 did ; observation and experiment alike having hitherto 
 failed to make evident the slightest approach towards 
 specific transmutation. Notwithstanding which, Pro- 
 fessor Huxley now declares that Evolution, which was 
 once ' a matter of speculation and argument,' has now 
 * become a matter of fact and history. The history 
 of Evolution, as a matter of fact, is now distinctly 
 traceable. We k7?oiv it has happened, and what 
 remains is the subordinate question of how it hap- 
 pened.' ^ The cacoetJies of assertion appears to increase 
 in intensity, as the cause becomes, more hopeless. 
 
 Again, on the other hand, it has been clearly de- 
 monstrated that certain specific forms of life have 
 remained absolutely unchanged during immeasurable 
 periods, of time, even since the chalk period. Pro ■ 
 fessor Huxley says : — 
 
 ' Lay Sermons, ct'c, p. 295. 
 
 2 Address at Biiffalo, Aug. 25, reported in the Times of September 
 14, 1876. 
 
ii8 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 The Globigerina of the present day, for example, is not 
 different specifically from that of the chalk ; and the same 
 may be said of many other Foraminifcra. I think it pro- 
 bable that critical and unprejudiced examination will show 
 that more than one species of much higher animals have had 
 a similar longevity ; but the only example which I can at 
 present give confidently is the snake's-head lamp-shell 
 {Terebratiilina caput serpentts), which lives in our English 
 seas, and abounded (as Terebratiilina striata of authors) in 
 the chalk. ^ 
 
 Failing any direct support from palaeontology, or 
 from the phenomena of the now-living world, Mr. 
 Darwin's theory can only claim acceptance in so far 
 as it can be shown to be probable from the opera- 
 tion of the three principles of Variation, Struggle for 
 Existence, and Natural Selection. Whether these 
 are really living and acting principles, or whether they 
 are mere names for non-existences, is the question 
 now to be discussed. 
 
 I. Does jr/<fr//zr variability exist in nature .-^ The 
 answer to this question would be readily given in the 
 affirmative by a majority of living naturalists ; and 
 yet if anything whatever is amenable to proof by 
 observation, experiment, or reason, it can clearly be 
 proved that the answer should be negative. 
 
 It needs no accumulation of instances to show 
 that animals vary in form, colour, and generally in 
 what may be called structure. Probably no one 
 animal was ever exactly like another. Any boy who 
 
 ' Oft a piece of Chalk, an address delivered in 1868, republished in- 
 1874. -L^^y Serinons, p. 198. 
 
SPECIFIC VARIABILITY. 119 
 
 has kept rabbits, pigeons, dogs, cats, or any animals 
 whatever, is as famiHar with certain facts of varia- 
 tion as the most learned naturalist. The causes of 
 variation are obscure — its limits are undefined struc- 
 turally, but perfectly definite physiologically. It is 
 quite true that by artificial selection the breeder 
 of stock may ' not only modify the character of 
 his flock, but change it altogether — he may sum- 
 mon into life whatever form and mould he pleases ' 
 (Youatt). It is true, as Lord Somerville observes, 
 concerning the breeders of sheep, that ' it would seem 
 as though they had chalked out upon a wall a form 
 perfect in itself, and then had given it existence.' 
 But these, and all the instances that can be adduced 
 (and they are innumerable), are the most convincing 
 and irresistible arguments against specific variability. 
 For whilst we can vary form, colour, and structure 
 indefinitely, the specific physiological characters re- 
 main always and absolutely the same. The sheep is 
 always a sheep, the dog is always a dog, the rabbit is 
 always a rabbit, even if we succeed in varying their 
 form and appearance until they are almost unrecog- 
 nisable as such. The physiological characters, as 
 marked by fertility, are absolutely constant ; no 
 variation in this respect, to even the slightest extent, 
 has ever been observed in nature, or developed by 
 art.^ To suppose that it can ever begin to be other- 
 
 ' ' Our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis must be provisional 
 so long as one link in the chain of evidence is wanting ; and so long as 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 wise, is merely an unwarranted conjecture, such as 
 would be rejected summarily in any other science. 
 If any biological position can be established beyond 
 doubt, it is this, that indefinite structural variability, 
 with absolute physiological stability, must be consi- 
 dered as proof that specific differences are not de- 
 pendent on structure alone ; but that they are due to 
 a special endowment not to be traced to the ' mole- 
 cular possibilities of protoplasm.' 
 
 A species presents two groups of qualities — A 
 (morphological or structural), and B (physiological or 
 functional). With such certainty as attaches to any 
 of our knowledge, we know that A varies constantly, 
 and within very wide limits ; with exactly the same 
 certainty we know that amidst all these variations B 
 remains absolutely constant. The inevitable corollary 
 of this proposition is that B (mathematically speaking) 
 is not a function of A; in physiological language, that 
 fiinction is not essentially dependent upon structure. 
 This truth meets us everywhere in biological re- 
 search. 
 
 By the use of this method, we are compelled to 
 recognise B as indefinitely more important than A, as 
 being a constant quantity, whereas the latter is inde- 
 finitely variable. If we are told that our classifications 
 are founded necessarily upon A, it may be replied, 
 
 all the animals and plants certainly produced by selective breeding from 
 a common stock are fertile, and their progeny are fertile with one 
 another, thai link will be wanting.'' — Man's Place in Nature, p. 107. 
 
MINUTE VARIATIONS. 121 
 
 without any intention of epigram, * So much the worse 
 for the classification ; ' for this, to be of any value, 
 should be founded upon constant elements. The 
 truth is, however, that variation occurs chiefly in noii- 
 esseiitial particulars, and has no more effect in altering 
 specific nature, than allowing a man's hair and beard 
 to grow has upon his personal individuality. 
 
 Furthermore, there is an entire absence of evidence 
 of any 'favourable variation ' ever having occurred ; 
 and there is an utter vagueness in even surmising what 
 kind of variation might really be favourable in itself, 
 without entailing unfavourable results in its necessary 
 accompaniments.^ When we consider also that the 
 supposed variations are so slow, and so infinitesimally 
 minute, that it might require ' a million or a hundred 
 million generations ' ^ to establish the characters of a 
 'well-marked variety,' wc are fairly justified in hesi- 
 tating to believe in any such inconceivable agencies. 
 If anyone proposed to move one of the Pyramids by 
 shooting paper pellets at it, he might be logically right 
 in urging that no force, however small, can be lost, and 
 by accumulation must be effective ; but we should 
 scarcely argue the question with him. 
 
 ' Mr. Darwin confesses to this dijfficulty in many places, and often 
 uses such expressions as the following : — ' It is good thus to try in our 
 imagination to give any form some advantage over another. Probably 
 in no single instance should we know what to do so as to succeed. It 
 will convince us of our ignorance on the mutual relations of all organic 
 beings ; a conviction as necessary as it seems difficult to acquire.' — 
 Origin of Species, p. 78. '^ Ibid., p. 124. 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 There are two final considerations necessary to be 
 remembered in attempting to form a judgment on this 
 subject. The first is that ' varieties ' generally mani- 
 fest a tendency towards reversion to the original type, 
 when removed from the influence of artificial agencies. 
 The second is this, that although our knowledge of 
 all the circumstances connected with the formation of 
 * races ' is very imperfect, yet what we do know with 
 any certainty decidedly opposes the theory of their being 
 formed by slow and minute variations. On the con- 
 trary, all the marked instances with which we are 
 acquainted have occurred suddenly, and under condi- 
 tions of which no adequate explanation could be given ; 
 as in the case of the Ancon sheep. This certainly was 
 not an example of selecting and preserving a variation 
 favourable to the individual or to the race. 
 
 2. Is there anything in nature which can be called 
 a * Struggle for Existence,' within the meaning of the 
 hypothesis t Certainly not, if by ' struggle ' is implied 
 any event or combination of events, the result of 
 which can in any way be influenced by slight indi- 
 vidual variations. It is true that all organic beings 
 tend to multiply at a rate which, if unchecked, would 
 in any one instance very soon overstock the earth. 
 The elephant is supposed to breed more slowly than 
 any other known animal ; yet at the lowest compu- 
 tation one pair might easily be the ancestors of fifteen 
 millions in five centuries. As to the multiplication 
 of the lower animals, the understanding is baffled in 
 
STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. 123 
 
 attempting to realise their increase. In five gene- 
 rations one aphis may be the parent of 5,904,900,000 
 individuals, and there may be twenty generations in a 
 year. The female flesh-fly will have 20,000 young 
 ones ; and in five days any pair of these are' qualified 
 to produce as many more ; and Linnaius asserts that 
 three flies of the Miisca voviitoria could devour the 
 carcase of a horse sooner than a lion. The unchecked 
 produce of one pair of herrings or mackerel would in 
 a very few years crowd the Atlantic until they had no 
 room to move ; and it would not require a century for 
 any pair of birds, or any of our domestic animals, so 
 to stock a continent, that not an individual of any 
 other species could exist there. 
 
 It is evident, then, that of all the countless myriads 
 of living creatures born within any given period by far 
 the greater part must be destroyed ; and this whole- 
 sale destruction is effected by means which absolutely 
 preclude any idea of * struggle,' as influencing the result 
 in the slightest conceivable degree. When clouds of 
 locusts devastate an entire district ; when countless 
 millions of aphides destroy vegetation, and are them- 
 selves helplessly swallowed up in mass by ladybirds 
 and other enemies ; when the great ant-bear destroys 
 thousands of ants, with their dwelling, for a single 
 repast ; when the Balcenoptera engulfs whole shoals of 
 herrings and smaller fish for a mouthful ; when thou- 
 sands of small fry — shrimps, crabs, molluscs, and 
 medusae — disappear for each meal of the common 
 
124 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 . Greenland whale ; when the bear or the badger de- 
 / stroy and devour the nests of bees wholesale — surely 
 in all this the most vivid imagination can see no room 
 for * struggle,' or any possibility of ' survival of the 
 fittest.' For what advantage could it afford an insect 
 that was about to be swallowed by a bird, that it pos- 
 sessed a thousandth fragment of some property not 
 possessed by its fellows ? What preservation against 
 ravages of the slugs would be afforded by an ' infini- 
 tesimal ' difference between one weed and its neigh- 
 bour ? What minute difference would avail the 
 duckling that the fox was about to carry off? These 
 may perhaps be deemed feeble and trifling illus- 
 trations ; yet it is only by bringing the principle to 
 some such practical test as these that its truth or 
 probability can be recognised. It sounds at first 
 plausible enough to say that profitable variations will 
 naturally tend to the preservation of individuals ; but 
 when we put it to the test, and see that it is theo- 
 retically improbable, and that there is a total lack of 
 direct evidence that such has ever been the case, we 
 are disposed to look upon it as more sound than 
 sense. The balance of the organic world is preserved 
 by the order of nature, in obedience to which the 
 stronger prey upon the weaker ; and against this law, 
 without which nature itself would be a chaotic impos- 
 sibility, there is no appeal, no resistance, no * struggle.' 
 It must be observed, before leaving this part of 
 the subject, that Mr. Darwin himself, beyond the 
 
INCOHERENT DOC TRINE. 1 2 5 
 
 general idea of struggle and survival, has no definite 
 notion of the circumstances demanding such struggle, 
 nor of its essential nature. The following are only a 
 few out of innumerable illustrations that might be 
 brought forward. In the * Origin of Species,' at p. 
 109, it is stated that 'from the high geometrical 
 ratio of increase of all organic beings, each area is 
 already fully stocked with inhabitants, &c. ; ' but on 
 the next page it is said that ' probably no region 
 is as yet fully stocked'. At p. no it is stated that 
 * it is the most closely allied forms — varieties of the 
 same species, and species of the same genus, or re- 
 lated genera — which, from having nearly the same 
 structure, constitution, and habits, generally come 
 into the severest competition with each other.' Here 
 we seem to have arrived at a general principle ; but 
 at p. 114 another view requires support incompatible 
 with this, and we are told that * the advantages of 
 diversification of structure, with the accompanying 
 differences of habit and constitution, determine that 
 the inhabitants which thus jostle each other most 
 closely shall, as a general rule, belong to what we 
 call different genera and orders! And at p. 121 (all 
 these occurring in the same chapter, and in different 
 parts of the same argument) we find again that the 
 struggle 'will be most severe between those forms 
 which are most nearly related to each other in habits, 
 constitution, and structure.' From all which it is not 
 unnatural to conclude that the idea of * a struggle for 
 
126 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 existence' is not to be reconciled with the observed 
 facts of nature. 
 
 3. If there be any cogency in the foregoing con- 
 siderations, the conclusion from them is inevitable, 
 that 'Natural Selection' is a mere euphuism for a 
 negation — a happy phrase for something that is not 
 — representing only a casual residuum after whole- 
 sale and indiscriminate destruction. In itself it is 
 absolutely ' nothing ; ' Mn its application as a theory 
 to individual phenomena it is full of the most irre- 
 concilable incoherencies. Two illustrations only will 
 suffice to show the impossibility of rationally adapt- 
 ing the imaginary principle of natural selection to 
 existing facts. In Madeira there are various kinds 
 of beetles, some having wings largely developed, 
 some having moderate ones, and some without. It 
 is rather amusing to see the manner in which these 
 differences are reconciled to the theory. The large 
 wings are ' quite compatible with the action of 
 natural selection. For when a new insect first ar- 
 rived on the island the tendency of natural selec- 
 tion to enlarge or reduce the wings would depend 
 upon whether a greater number of individuals were 
 saved by successfully battling with the winds, or by 
 giving up the attempt, and rarely or never flying.' ^ 
 Then, in the same page, the author adds that certain 
 considerations have made him ' believe that the wing- 
 
 > This phrase is used by Mr. St. George Mivart, in his Lessons 
 from Nature, p. 300. - Origin of Species, p. 136. 
 
NATURAL SELECTION. 127 
 
 less condition of so many Madeira beetles is mainly 
 due to the action of natural selection, but combined 
 probably with disuse. For during thousands of suc- 
 cessive generations each individual beetle which flew 
 least, either from its wings having been ever so little 
 less perfectly developed, or from indolent habit, will 
 have had the best chance of surviving from not being 
 blown out to sea ; and, on the other hand, those 
 beetles which most readily took to flight would 
 oftenest have been blown out to sea, and thus have 
 been destroyed ! ' The second instance is taken from 
 the account of the action of natural selection upon 
 certain blind animals in the caves of Styria and of 
 Kentucky. Natural selection has acted here by pre- 
 serving blind animals, because those which had sight 
 might be subject to ' inflammation of the nictitating 
 membrane.' ^ But it seems that in one of the blind 
 rats the eyes themselves are of ' immense size ; ' and 
 it would appear to be a most extraordinary mistake 
 of natural selection to preserve this animal merely 
 becanse blind, whilst its ' immense ' eyes still remain 
 subject to the objectionable inflammation. It is diffi- 
 cult to imagine any reasoning more puerile, occurring 
 in a grave scientific work, the results of which upon 
 natural history and philosophy generally were des- 
 tined to be so important. 
 
 If I dwell for a brief space longer upon some of 
 the impossibilities involved in the reception of this 
 
 ^ Origin of Species, p. 137. 
 
> 
 
 128 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 theory, it is because, although virtually abandoned 
 by its author, as will be seen presently, it still lives 
 in the minds of many, and acts as a serious obstacle 
 to the advance of science. 
 
 There is no principle more frequently and dis- 
 tinctly enunciated in Mr. Darwin's work than that 
 natural selection can only act by preserving and 
 perpetuating exceedingly minute variations, of such 
 a character as will enable their possessor to contend 
 more vigorously in the struggle for life. We have 
 already seen that there is no such struggle. But 
 even if there were, variations so minute as are con- 
 stantly insisted upon could by no possibility give 
 their possessor any advantage. We should entirely 
 fail to form any conception how a very slightly 
 enlarged sebaceous follicle, a minute pimple on the 
 nose of a fish, or a microscopic point of ossification 
 or consolidation amongst the muscles of any animal, 
 could give its possessor any superiority over its 
 fellows ; yet by the terms of the hypothesis such 
 and no other must have been the origin of the 
 mammary gland ; of the powerful offensive weapons 
 of the sword-fish or saw-fish ; and of locomotor 
 organs generally amongst the higher animals. But 
 the earliest rudiments of a gland, or other organ, 
 of an offensive weapon, or of a limb, must have 
 been absolutely functionless, and therefore useless 
 to its possessor, if developed in this way. The appli- 
 cation of the principle is therefore impossible. 
 
ABSENCE OF TRANSITIONAL FORMS. 129 
 
 The absence of transitional forms between differ- 
 ent species has always been recognised as a serious 
 difficulty. Professor Huxley, who is much more 
 Darwinian than Mr. Darwin himself, says that this 
 difficulty ' has no force ; ' ' but Mr. Darwin does not 
 fail to see how serious it is. He says : — 
 
 Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely- 
 graduated organic chain ; and this perhaps is the most 
 obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against 
 my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the 
 extreme imperfection of the geological record. ^ 
 
 I do not pretend that I should have ever suspected how 
 poor a record of the mutations of life the best preserved geo- 
 logical section revealed, had not the difficulty of our not dis- 
 covering innumerable transitional links between the species, 
 which appeared at the commencement and close of each 
 formation, pressed so hardly on my theory.' ^ And ' he who 
 rejects these views on the nature (i.e. the extreme imperfec- 
 tion) of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole 
 theory.'^ 
 
 After these plain confessions of want of support 
 from geology as it now is, the difficulty is cut at 
 once. Where are the transition forms connecting 
 the species in the same formations .'* The answer is 
 ready ; they are not preserved — the conditions were 
 unfavourable. 'Where are the remains of those in- 
 finitely numerous organisms which must have existed 
 long before the first bed of the Silurian system was 
 deposited .'* ' ^ This question refers to the fact of 
 
 ' Lay Sermons, p. 296. ^ Ibid., p. 302. 
 
 2 Origin of Species, p. 280. ' Ibid., p. 342. 
 
 s IHd., p. 343. 
 K 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 y 
 
 finding creatures of high organisation in the earhest 
 seas, whence the supporters of * Evolution ' were 
 obHged to suppose countless ages of development 
 before the age of trilobites. The answer to it is 
 equally trenchant and conclusive : ' They may now 
 all be in a metamorphosed condition, or may lie 
 buried in the ocean.' ^ Can Mr. Darwin fail to see 
 that there cannot be imagined any theory of ontology 
 too wild and monstrous to be supported by argument 
 like this ? 
 
 But geology has its tale to tell, and one which 
 appears not only not to support, but clearly to con- 
 trovert, the development theory. It never was the 
 highly generalised types or the small and feeble 
 species or germs that first appeared either amongst 
 niolluscs, fish, reptiles, or mammals. Where are now 
 the representatives of the gigantic fishes of the old 
 red sandstone } Where are the mighty reptile tyrants 
 of air, earth, and water of the oolite } Have they 
 been ' improved ' and * preserved ' into the puny re- 
 presentatives of the modern reptile class } Where 
 are the ponderous monsters that shook the eocene 
 and miocene earth with their massive tread .'* Where 
 is the megatherium, unless improved into the feeble 
 sloth of the present day t These races appeared in 
 the plenitude of their power; and as their dynasty 
 grew old, it was not that the race was * improved ' 
 and preserved in consequence ; but they dwindled, 
 
 ' Origin of Species, p. 343. 
 
ORIGIN 01 INSTINCTS. 
 
 and were, so to speak, degraded, as if to make room 
 in the economy of nature for their successors. But 
 this is too large a subject to enter upon at present. 
 
 Mr. Darwin gives some imaginary details re- 
 specting the development of certain instincts con- 
 cerning which it may be sufficient to remark that, 
 had they been given by an opponent m the form 
 of satire, or of a reductio ad absiirdicm, the purpose 
 would appear to have been well answered. One 
 instance may be given. The American cuckoo builds 
 its own nest ; probably the English cuckoo did so 
 once, but perhaps accidentally and occasionally laid 
 an ^^^ in another bird's nest. 
 
 If the old bird profited by this occasional habit, or if the 
 young were made more vigorous . . . then the old bird or 
 the fostered young would gain an advantage. And analogy 
 would lead me to believe that the young thus reared would 
 be apt to follow by inheritance the occasional and aberrant 
 habit of their mother. ... By a continued process of this 
 nature, I believe that the strange instinct of our cuckoo 
 could be, and has been generated.^ 
 
 The final and utterly fatal blow to the theory of 
 natural selection is found in the fact of the existence 
 of neuters or sterile females in insect communities, 
 such as the working ants. These differ widely both 
 in structure and instinct from both parents, and yet, 
 being absolutely sterile, are unable to transmit their 
 peculiarities. Their development by natural selection, 
 
 1 Origin of species y p. 217. 
 K 2 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 therefore, is simply a contradiction in terms, a formal 
 impossibility. Mr. Darwin recognises the difficulty 
 to the extent of saying, that it at first appeared 
 * fatal to his whole theory ; ' and adds, ' It may well 
 be asked, how is it possible to reconcile this case 
 with the theory of natural selection }' ^ It certainly 
 is not possible ; and all that is said by way of illus- 
 tration does not tend in the slightest degree either 
 to remove or lessen the difficulty. 
 
 On a general survey of the theory, nothing strikes 
 the inquirer more forcibly than the total absence of 
 direct evidence of any one of the steps. No one pro- 
 fesses to have ever seen a variety (producing fertile 
 offspring with other varieties) become a species (pro- 
 ducing no, or infertile, offspring with the original 
 stock). No one knows of any living or any extinct 
 species having given origin to any other, at once or 
 gradually.^ Not one instance is adduced of any variety 
 
 ^ Origin of Species, pp. 236, 237. 
 
 2 A formal exception must here be made in favour of Dr. Biichner, 
 who states {Force and Matter, p. 80), that ' Holothurice engender 
 snails ! ' and adds, * If such an extraordinaiy process is possible that a 
 holothuria should produce a snail, what naturalist can deny that con- 
 ditions may once have subsisted in which ... an ape, nay, any other 
 animal, may have given birth to man ? ' As this snail event is less 
 likely to occur, zoologically speaking, than that a hen should hatch from 
 one of her eggs a puppy dog, we may infer the value of Dr. Biichner's 
 revelations generally. This learned and cautious gentleman (in his 
 preface, p. cii.), states that his method of investigation ' has already 
 conducted him to truth, enlightenment, and deliverance of his fellow- 
 men from obsolete and pernicious prejudices.' That it has also con- 
 ducted him to literary sobriety and decency is evident from his comments 
 on all who think differently to himself, whom he calls a ' howling 
 pack,' 'mental slaves,' and 'yelping curs.' (See preface, p. Ixxxvi.) 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY. 133 
 
 having ever arisen which did actually give its pos- 
 sessor, individually, any advantage in the struggle for 
 life. Not one instance is recorded of any given variety 
 having been actually selected for preservation, whilst 
 its allies became extinct. There is an abundance of 
 semi-acute reasoning upon what might possibly have 
 occurred, under conditions which seem never to have 
 been fulfilled ; but not the least fragment of direct 
 testimony, either derived from human experience or 
 from the geological record. 
 
 It is often said that it requires but little ingenuity 
 to find objections to the Darwinian theory — that they 
 lie on the surface — that Mr. Darwin himself was the 
 first to recognise and acknowledge them. All this is 
 to a certain extent true ; but that an absolutely fatal 
 objection to a theory lies on the surface, is no sufficient 
 argument for rejecting such an objection, or refusing 
 to recognise its validity. Mr. Darwin did, indeed, 
 from the first acknowledge certain difficulties, with 
 a candour which has perhaps done more to advance 
 the spread of his doctrines than any other course 
 would have effected. His error consisted in looking 
 upon these difficulties as something to be got over, 
 in many cases by mere forms of words ; and in not 
 earlier recognising that more than one of the objec- 
 tions were absolutely and essentially fatal to the 
 whole doctrine. It would appear that now Mr. Dar- 
 win has virtually abandoned the theory of natural 
 selection as an agency for the production of species ; 
 
34 
 
 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 that is, if words and ideas are allowed to have the 
 same significance in regard to Evolution that they 
 have in ordinary usage. In the ' Origin of Species ' 
 we are more than once told that it would be ' fataV 
 to his theory if the discovery were made of cha- 
 racters ^ or structures which could not be accounted 
 for by ' numerous, successive, slight modifications ; ' 
 and now in the ' Descent of Man,' vol. ii. p. 387, we 
 find the following passage : — 
 
 No doubt man, as well as every other animal, presents 
 structures which, as far as we can judge with our little know- 
 ledge, are not now of any service to him, nor have been so 
 during any former period of his existence. . . . Such stmc- 
 tures cannot be accounted for by any form of selection, or by the 
 inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts. 
 
 Immediately afterwards he refers to their produc- 
 tion by 'unknown cansesl which obviously, like Pro- 
 fessor Huxley's appeal to 'subtle influences''^ as a 
 source of life-phenomena, involves a relinquishment 
 of the entire position. 
 
 The conclusions which necessarily follow from the 
 foregoing observations may be briefly summed up in 
 one syllogism, embracing not only natural selection, 
 but also the larger theme of Organic Evolution gene- 
 rallv — 
 
 ' On this subject see also Mr. Mivart's Lessons from Nature, 
 
 P- 337- 
 
 2 See conclusion of Chapter III. 
 
CONCLUDING SYLLOGISM. 135 
 
 * Without verification a theoretic conception is 
 a mere figment of the intellect : ' ^ 
 
 But the theory of Organic Evolution is an 
 unverified theoretic conception : ^ 
 
 Therefore Organic Evolution is a mere 
 figment of the intellect. 
 
 * Professor Tyndall's Fragments of Science, p. 469. 
 
 2 As seen above, Professor Huxley gives it as his judgment that the 
 only way in which such an hypothesis can be proved to be true is ' by 
 observation and experiment upojt the existing forms of life. ^ It is fully 
 acknowledged that hitherto these have given no direct evidence in favour 
 of the theory. 
 
136 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE PEDIGREE OF MAN. 
 
 Origin of Species, continued— Arguments from Morphology and Em- 
 bryology — Descent of Man — Professor Huxley's doctrine — Stmcture 
 and essential nature — Mr. Darwin's views — 'Our ancestors' — 
 Haeckel's ' Pedigi-ee of Man' — Conclusion. 
 
 There is, however, a further aspect of this question 
 of Evolution. Although unverified as yet, it is not 
 proved that some form of evolution may not be verified 
 in the future. What has been done so far amounts 
 merely to a demonstration that the doctrine, as now 
 generally propounded, receives no direct support from 
 facts ; and that ' natural selection,' in particular, is 
 simply impossible. It may be that ' the continuous 
 operation of the ordaiiied becoming of living things ' ^ 
 is effected under certain limitations by some kind of 
 evolution ; but inasmuch as it still lacks any vestige 
 
 ^ Owen's Palceontology, p. 3. Notwithstanding Professor Huxley's 
 criticism upon this phrase, which he characterises as a ' qua-qua-versal 
 proposition . . . which may be read backwards, forwards, or sideways, 
 with exactly the same amount of signification ' {Alan^s Place in Nature, 
 p. 106), it seems to me to be at least as full of meaning as * Nature's 
 great progression from the formless to the formed — from the inorganic 
 to the organic — from blind force, to conscious intellect and will ' {ibid.^ 
 p. 108). 
 
GENERAL DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. 137 
 
 of proof, the doctrine in no way warrants its suppor- 
 ters in upholding it as the only possible or thinkable 
 system of ontology. 
 
 ' The strens^th of the doctrine of Evolution consists 
 not in an experimental demonstration (for this subject 
 is hardly accessible to this mode of proof), but in its 
 general harmony with scientific thought.' ^ There is 
 no doubt that if we can set aside the consideration of 
 its adverse relation to all the phenomena revealed by 
 'observation and experiment,' much may be said, in- 
 volving both reason and probability, in favour of this 
 harmony with scientific thought. It must not, how- 
 ever, be forgotten that scientific thought can only 
 mean the aggregate thoughts of scientific men ; and 
 that the doctrines of Evolution are not accepted uni- 
 versally. Mr. Darwin writes, in 1871 : ^ ^ Of the older 
 and honoured chiefs in natural science, many unfor- 
 tunately are still opposed to evolution in every form.' 
 Since that time it is certain that, on the Continent 
 at least, the doctrine has been met by many distin- 
 guished botanists and zoologists with growing dis- 
 favour. Nevertheless Evolution, if modestly and tem- 
 perately advanced, forms an excellent nucleus around 
 which to group many facts of science, and upon which 
 to expend the energies and genius of philosophical 
 research. And as the dreams of the alchemists be- 
 came the vci^a causa of chemical science, so it may be 
 
 1 The Belfast Address, by Professor Tyndall, p. 527. 
 
 2 Descent of Man, p. 2. 
 
138 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 anticipated that at some future time, what are now 
 the crude and baseless speculations of Evolution may 
 lead to a truer knowledge of natural law, and a more 
 perfect system of biology. 
 
 The strongest arguments in favour of the deriva- 
 tive origin, or evolution, of living forms, are found in 
 the study of homologies (Morphology), and of Em- 
 bryology, and these must now be briefly noticed. 
 
 Homology is the name applied to the investigation of those 
 profound resemblances which have so often been found to 
 underlie superficial differences between animals of very 
 different fomi and habit. Thus man, the horse, the whale, 
 and the bat, all have the pectoral limb, whether it be the 
 arm, or fore leg, or paddle, or wing, formed on essentially 
 the same type, though the number and proportion of the 
 parts may more or less differ. Again, the butterfly and the 
 shrimp, different as they are in appearance and mode of life, 
 are yet constructed on the same common plan, of which 
 they constitute cUvergent manifestations. No ^/r/m reason 
 is conceivable why such similarities should be necessary, but 
 they are readily expHcable on the assumption of a genetic 
 relationship and affinity between the animals in question, 
 assuming, that is, that they are the modified descendants of 
 some ancient form, their common ancestor. ' 
 
 The manifold indications of community of plan 
 with diversity of execution, met with so constantly in 
 the organic world, are phenomena full of the deepest 
 interest and the most profound significance. It can- 
 not be doubted that community of descent, genetic 
 
 ' This passage is taken from Mr. Mivart's General Summary of the 
 Doctrine of Natural Selection : Genesis of Species, p. 7. 
 
MORPHOLOGY. 139 
 
 relationship, or blood affinity, combined with indefinite 
 variability^ would satisfactorily account for them. But 
 as these conditions are entirely hypothetical, and in- 
 volve di petitio piHneipii, we must inquire whether they 
 can be explained by no other means. If it be clearly 
 demonstrated that they cannot, then derivation must 
 be accepted. If, on the other hand, it can be shown 
 that rational analogies indicate another possibility, 
 then the question will still remain siibjiidice. 
 
 Our knowledge of the causes of form throughout 
 nature is absolutely nil, but we know something con- 
 cerning its accessory conditions, and from this know- 
 ledge it can be clearly demonstrated that similarity 
 and identity of form do not necessarily depend upon 
 community of origin. For the support of this pro- 
 position I would appeal to the phenomena of crystal- 
 line isoniorpJiisni, the fundamental law of which, as 
 stated by MItscherlich, is that ' bodies having a simi- 
 lar chemical constitution have also the same crystal- 
 line form, as determined by the measurement of their 
 angles.' As an example, it is shown that the corre- 
 sponding salts of phosphoric and arsenic acids, contain- 
 ing equal numbers of atoms of water, crystallise in the 
 same forms.' ^ Those who reduce all inorganic and or- 
 ganic forces to the same category cannot consistently 
 object to an illustration of organic laws from the in- 
 organic world ; and here we have identity of form 
 produced, and in other and allied instances all kinds 
 
 ' See Watts' Dictionary of Chemistry, ' Isomorphism. 
 
I40 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 of small modifications of form, where any idea of 
 genetic relationship is altogether out of the question. 
 This illustration proves nothing as to organisms, fur- 
 ther than this, that matter in general aggregates into 
 certain special forms, in obedience to a force of which 
 we know nothing. If simple salts aggregate into 
 identical and allied forms, where their constitution is 
 different, and where genetic affinity is impossible, is 
 it inconceivable that, without this affinity, matter so 
 much more complex in composition may aggregate 
 also into allied forms } 
 
 Wherever we turn in biological research, we are 
 compelled, if we will be logical, to recognise behind 
 every outer form of living things a 'special endowment ' 
 which can by no ingenuity be formulated in terms of 
 molecular complication. It may be humbling to our 
 pride to have to take refuge in a phrase ; but what 
 can we do } The ' endowment ' is there, in whatever 
 it may consist ; otherwise we are compelled to recog- 
 nise diverse effects proceeding from the same cause. 
 ' The primordial germs of a man, a dog, a bird, a fish, 
 a beetle, a snail, and a polyp are in no essential struc- 
 tural respects distinguishable ; ' ^ yet, in virtue of what 
 we must of necessity call a special endowment, each 
 ultimately assumes its destined form. A fragment of 
 begonia leaf grows into a begonia plant ; a morsel of 
 divided polyp grows into the same species of polyp — 
 all due to an endowment which we can in nowise ra- 
 
 ' Professor Huxley's Lay Sermons, p. 104. 
 
DIFFERENT ARCHETYPES. 141 
 
 tionally connect with mere organisation. It does not 
 appear as if that most cumbrous, most incomprehen- 
 sible, and most hopelessly complicated and impossible 
 of doctrines, called Pangenesis, could help us at all in 
 the emergency. We can form no definite conception 
 of the nature of this endowment any more than we 
 can of the nature of life itself ; but it is surely better 
 to acknowledge our ignorance, than dogmatically to 
 assert that it is something which it demonstrably is 
 not. 
 
 Again, if similarity of structure and typical for- 
 mation be admitted as an argument for community of 
 origin, surely it would be reasonable, conversely, to 
 view diversity of typical formation as an argument 
 for independent origin. Now, there are at least five 
 distinct types upon which the members of the animal 
 kingdom are constructed, which cannot possibly be 
 reduced to any general expression or formula. The 
 Protozoa, the Coelenterata, the Mollusca, the Anmilata, 
 and the Vertebrata have all different archetypes, 
 which have no natural or derivative relation one to the 
 other. There is no traceable structural or develop- 
 mental relation between any two of these, and we have 
 it affirmed on the highest authority that * the^-e is not 
 the least evidence to pr'ove that a form, in tJie slightest 
 degree transitional betiveen any tivo of tJie groups . . . 
 either exists or has existed duiHng that period of tJie 
 eartJis history which is recorded by the geologist} This 
 
 ' Lay Sermons — Study of Zoloogy, p. 103. 
 
142 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 is a most important statement, and one which would 
 appear to be absolutely fatal to any idea of unbroken 
 causative or genetic succession of organic forms. But 
 Evolution is more than hydra-headed, and error dies 
 hard. We 'must not for a moment suppose, because 
 no such transitional forms are known, that the members 
 of the sub-kingdoms are disconnected from, or inde- 
 pendent of, one another. On the contrary, in their 
 earliest condition they are all alike,' ^ and their 
 primordial germs are in no essential structural 
 respect distinguishable ; and this is considered to 
 be conclusive evidence that they are all ' bound 
 together by an all-pervading unity of organisation,' 
 — including five distinct and utterly unassimilable 
 types ! 
 
 The argument from embryology is derived from 
 the fundamental fact that the primordial germs of 
 all animals (above the very lowest, of which we know 
 little or nothing) are absolutely alike in all essential 
 particulars. They are approximately (in most in- 
 stances) of the same size ; they are of the same 
 chemical composition ; and they present themselves 
 under an absolutely identical form, that of a simple 
 cell. Further, the history of this cell corresponds, 
 in all types, to a remarkable 'extent. In all cases it 
 divides first into two similar cells, then into four, eight, 
 sixteen, and so on, until it arrives at the stage of the 
 Morula (Haeckel) or ' mulberry mass.' Then com- 
 
 * Lay Sermons — Study of Zoology, p. 103. 
 
ARGUMENT FROM EMBRYOLOGY. 143 
 
 mences another order of transformations, the first of 
 which is the appearance of the ' blastodermic vesicle.' 
 So far the process is virtually identical in all cases ; 
 and in the case of the higher animals, man included, 
 the development of the embryo so closely corresponds, 
 up to a late period, that at a tolerably advanced stage, 
 say of the dog and man, the appearances are exceed- 
 ingly similar. 
 
 For further illustration, the development of the 
 higher animals may be represented as passing through 
 certain stages. A, B, C, D, &c. ... to Z — all those 
 below Z representing closely corresponding stages 
 in the lower forms ; not the forms of the completed 
 animal, but what may be considered a sketch or dia- 
 gram of these or their embryos. We may suppose, 
 for instance, that calling Z the perfected' development 
 of man, W might represent the incomplete ape, T 
 forms of the lower mammalia, S the amphibia, P 
 fishes, M annelida, F amoeboid creatures, and so on. 
 Then each one of these divisions at some period in the 
 course of its development represents (typically or dia- 
 grammatically) the divisions before it in the alphabet, 
 just as S, representing say the frog, presents at one 
 period of its history the form of P (fishes), as a tad- 
 pole. They do not in all cases present the wh'ole of 
 the letters preceding, but always some, and always in 
 order, although the order may be broken. Thus the 
 series might be A, C, K, S, &c., but never in the form 
 of any succession like B, M, F, D, or the like ; and 
 
144 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 particularly it must be remarked that the embryonic 
 forms of any given race, say N, never represent any 
 further or higher development, as P or S, but always 
 and exclusively the types below, as K, L, M, &c. It 
 is also ' a general law, that the more closely any 
 animals resemble one another in adult structure, the 
 longer and the more intimately do their embryos 
 resemble one another ; so that, for example, the 
 embryos of a snake and of a lizard remain like one 
 another longer than do those of a snake and a bird ; 
 and the embryo of a dog and of a cat remain like one 
 another for a far longer period than do those of a dog 
 and a bird ; or of a dog and an opossum ; or even 
 than those of a dog and a monkey.' ^ 
 
 From all this has been deduced, in modern times, 
 the beautiful and philosophical doctrine of the corre- 
 spondences between Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis,^ 
 a doctrine the importance and utility of which can 
 scarcely be over-estimated, so long as its domain is 
 not extended to the explanation of phenomena, to 
 which it is in nowise applicable. It is thus formu- 
 lated by Haeckel : '^— 
 
 These two divisions of our science, Ontogenesis and 
 Phylogenesis, stand in the closest possible connection ; and 
 the one cannot be understood without the other. This funda- 
 mental biogenetic law, upon which the comprehension of the 
 entire doctrine of organic evolution absolutely depends, may 
 
 1 Professor Huxley's Marias Place in Nature^ p. 65. 
 
 2 Ontogenesis, the history of individual development. Phylogenesis, 
 the history of genealogical development. Biogenesis, the history of life- 
 development generally (Haeckel). 3 Anthropogenic, p. 7. 
 
EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT. 145 
 
 be shortly expressed thus : — The history of the germ is ajt 
 abstract or epitome of that of the race ; in other words, Onto- 
 genesis is a brief recapitnlation of Phylogenesis ; or, in some- 
 what greater detail, thus : — The series of forms presented by 
 the individual organism during its development from the 
 original germ to its perfect condition is a short and com- 
 pressed repetition of the long series of forms presented by 
 the ancestors of this organism, from the earliest periods of 
 the so-called organic creation up to the present time.' 
 
 Professor Haeckel further proceeds to deduce from 
 this the doctrine that * Phylogenesis is the mecJianical 
 cause of Ontogenesis,' on the supposition that each 
 stage of development is directly inherited from some 
 early member of the genealogical tree. 
 
 The facts of natural history and biology generally 
 that group themselves around this idea are interesting 
 and instructive in the highest degree. But to reason 
 from the com^espondcuces of embryonic development 
 with lower forms of animal life, that they stand in 
 relation of necessary cause and effect, is laying upon 
 the doctrine a burden which it can by no means bear. 
 A full examination of the subject is not only impos- 
 sible within our limits, but would be unnecessary and 
 out of place. It must suffice here to show that the 
 facts of Ontogenesis by no means involve necessarily 
 the admission of a common origin. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that it seems never to 
 have occurred to the supporters of this doctrine that, 
 on mccJiaiiical principles, those principles to which 
 they are so ready to appeal in other departments, the 
 
 L 
 
146 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 development of a simple cell, under any theory what- 
 ever of ontology, must of necessity present a certain 
 uniformity. The germ is the same in form and in 
 chemical constitution, and therefore in ' molecular 
 possibilities,' in all cases ; on physical principles, 
 therefore, it is only natural to suppose that its de- 
 velopment must run the same course, if it be allowed 
 that physical forces have anything to do with deve- 
 lopment. The mystery is not why the embryo in all 
 cases sJwiild present certain resemblances, but why it 
 should not. On ordinary principles we should expect 
 that all germs shoidd pass through the stages A, B, C, 
 &c., more or less of them, if such be the case with 
 any one of them — and it is altogether unnecessary to 
 call in a ' dens ex maeJiina ' in the form of Phylogenesis 
 to account for so obviously probable a fact. What 
 possible reason is there that it should be otherwise } 
 Why should germ A follow a certain course of deve- 
 lopment, and germ B, identical in all ascertainable 
 particulars, and placed under similar conditions, follow 
 a different one ? And how is it made any the more 
 or the less probable by attributing to them a common 
 origin } Why one germ should be arrested at E, 
 another at M, and another go on to Z, certainly does 
 involve a mystery ; but one not elucidated by either 
 Phylogenesis, or any other 7neehanical hypothesis. 
 Why the differentice ever occur is assuredly not to be 
 \ explained by community of origin. 
 
 From all this it would appear that, although the 
 
PARENTAGE OF MAN. 147 
 
 phenomena of morphology and embryology would ^ 
 give interesting corroborative testimony in illustration 
 of an already proved doctrine of Evolution, they can 
 by no means be made to serve as proof in themselves ; 
 and that we must accept the sound and philosophical 
 judgment of Professor Huxley on this subject, that 
 the truth of derivation of species can only be proved 
 by 'observation and experiment upon the existing 
 forms of life.' 
 
 If the doctrine of Organic Evolution fails to 
 establish its claim to existence as a scientific hypo- 
 thesis with regard to the brute creation, still less can 
 it bear the weight of the supposition that man is only 
 a higher brute, owing his origin to direct descent from 
 brutes, and to natural selection amongst these. Before 
 discussing this subject, I wish to make one preliminary 
 remark. Man's ' essential bestiality ' ^ has of late 
 years been so often and so dogmatically asserted, 
 that an impression has gone abroad, that the state- 
 ments are founded on some positive scientific data. 
 Thus when men of Mr. Darwin's eminence state that 
 unless we ' wilfully close our eyes, we may .... 
 recognise our parentage ' — that * the grounds upon 
 which this conclusion rests will never be shaken ' — 
 and that only he who is content to look upon nature 
 'like a savage' can 'any longer believe that man is 
 
 1 I believe the phrase is Mr. Mivart's, occurring in a most destruc- 
 tive criticism of the doctrine in question, but I have not the exact 
 reference. 
 
 L 2 
 
[48 WINDS OF DOCTRINE, 
 
 the work of a separate creation,'^ then those who 
 still believe that scientific men must have some foun- 
 dation for their confidently-expressed opinions, will 
 naturally attach considerable weight to them. Let 
 it then be clearly understood in the outset, that what- 
 ever may be asserted, in language however positive, 
 there is absolutely nothing known scientifically con- 
 cerning man's origin ; and that all that has been 
 or can be said consists merely of rash and hasty 
 inferences and deductions from the general doctrines 
 of Evolution, the value of which we have been at- 
 tempting to estimate, and which (we have seen strong 
 reason to believe) is only an 'unverified theoretic 
 conception ; ' in other words, a figment of the imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 In Professor Huxley's brilliant sketch, entitled 
 ' Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature,' the struc- 
 tural and developmental relations between man and 
 certain of the higher animals are set forth in the most 
 graphic and incisive manner. It is conclusively de- 
 monstrated that the differences in structure, however 
 great they may appear, are greater between certain 
 different races of men, than between the lowest 
 man and the highest ape. It is shown in particular 
 (p. 78) ' that the difference in volume of the cranial 
 cavity of different races of mankind is far greater ab- 
 solutely, than that between the lowest man and the 
 highest ape, while, relatively, it is about the same.' It 
 
 1 Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 213, and vol. ii. pp. 385, 386. 
 
MAN AND THE BRUTE. 149 
 
 is further demonstrated that, 'whatever system of 
 organs be studied, the comparison of their modifi- 
 cations in the ape series leads to one and the same 
 result — that the structural differences which separate 
 man from the gorilla and the chimpanzee are not so 
 great as those which separate the gorilla from the 
 lower apes' (p. 103). With regard to the embryo- 
 logical proof, it is remarked (p. 66) that * it is very long 
 before the body of the young human being can be 
 readily discriminated from that of the young puppy,' 
 .... and ' that it is only quite in the later stages of 
 development that the young human being presents 
 marked differences from the young ape, while the 
 latter departs as much from the dog in its develop- 
 ment as the man does.' The author adds : — 
 
 Startling as the last assertion may appear to be, it is 
 demonstrably true, and it alone appears to me sufficient to 
 place beyond all doubt the structural unity of man with the 
 rest of the animal world, and more particularly and closely , 
 with the apes. (P. 67.) 
 
 These, in common with all the arguments ad- 
 vanced on this side of the question, are admirably 
 adapted to prove, that which I suppose it has never 
 occurred to anyone to doubt — namely, that man is 
 an animal. It is difficult to conceive what else he 
 could be, if he were intended to be a living, active, and 
 intelligent creature in any form ; and if an animal, 
 then it is certain that the type of his formation must 
 correspond to that of some of the higher mammalia. 
 
I50 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 (For a clear and logical demonstration of this position, 
 the reader is referred to Mr. Mivart's ' Lessons from 
 Nature,' in the chapter on * Man.') The real question 
 at issue is not whether man is an animal, but whether 
 he is not also something more and higher— something 
 endowed with attributes differing not only in degree, 
 but also in kind, from those of the brute — attributes 
 of which the brute has not even the most elementary 
 germ. 
 
 I think Professor Huxley satisfactorily answers 
 this question in the work already quoted. After 
 showing * that no absolute structural line of demar- 
 cation, wider than that between the animals which 
 immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn be- 
 tween the animal world and ourselves,' he indicates 
 the essential superiority of man, as being 'the only 
 consciously intelligent denizen of this world ' (p. no), 
 and adds that ' no one is more strongly convinced 
 than I am of the vastness of the gulf between civilised 
 man and the brutes, or is more certain that, whether 
 from them or not, he is assuredly not of them.' 
 
 But this is not all : after showing how very closely 
 man corresponds stritctnrally with the higher apes — so 
 closely that there is less difference between him and 
 the gorilla, than between the gorilla and the lower apes 
 — Professor Huxley frankly recognises an ' immeasur- 
 able and practically infinite divergence of the human 
 from the simian stirps ' (p. 103). This is a statement 
 of the utmost significance, and involves a final and 
 
ESSENTIAL NATURE OF MAN. 151 
 
 perfect demonstration of the truth that has been forced 
 upon our attention more than once in the course of 
 this inquiry, namely, that structure does not even 
 approximately represent essential nature. We first 
 saw reason to believe that structure (or molecular com- 
 position) was not life ; subsequently it appeared that 
 structure was not the essence of species, or specific 
 difference ; and now it is perfectly evident that struc- 
 ture does not cover nor even indicate the essential 
 nature of man. For, with a certain difference in striic- 
 tare between the lower apes and the gorilla, we find 
 but a moderate, certainly finite, and easily measurable 
 difference of natiwe between them ; whilst with a less 
 marked dijference of structure between the gorilla and 
 man, we have a divergence of nature ' immeasurable 
 and practically infinite^ 
 
 Can any demonstration be more complete and co- 
 gent, that man's specific characteristics are not to be 
 defined by details of bodily structure } It is by the 
 possession of attributes and faculties that either do 
 not exist at all, or are merely rudimentary, in the 
 brute, that his essentially distinct nature and origin 
 are indicated. By the possession of intelligently arti- 
 culate language, of a conscious reasoning and reflective 
 faculty, of a moral sense, of a religious sentiment ; by 
 his power of conceiving abstract ideas of truth, justice, 
 &c. ; by his faculties of judgment and conscious 
 volition ; by all these it is demonstrated that man 
 is neither from nor of the brute ; that he ' differs 
 
152 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 fundamentally from every other creature which pre- 
 sents itself to our senses ; that he differs absolutely, and 
 therefore differs in origin also.' ^ And great as are all 
 those marks of distinction, one perhaps still more im- 
 portant remains behind, that is, man's capability for 
 continuous progress — his power of utilising and pro- 
 fiting by the ' registered experience ' of successive 
 generations. 
 
 Whether any animals may be considered to pos- 
 sess any rudiments, from which, by means of evolu- 
 tion and natural selection, articulate speech might 
 be supposed to be developed, is very doubtful, even 
 in the minds of the Evolutionists.^ Mr. Darwin 
 freely confesses that * articulate language is peculiar 
 to man.' ^ Professor Huxley is of the same opinion, 
 but attributes the want of it in the higher brutes to 
 some ' inconspicuous structural difference,' as slight 
 as might be imagined to exist between ' a watch 
 that keeps accurate time, and another that will not 
 ^o at all,' owing to some trifling accident, such as 
 a 'hair in the balance-wheel, a little rust on a 
 pinion,''^ or the like. With reference to this ques- 
 tion of structure, it is not uninteresting to consider 
 the fact, that the power of uttering articulate words 
 is not found in those races, the structure of whose 
 
 • lessons from Nature, p. 190. 
 
 2 Except the ingenious Dr. Biichner, the value of whose statements 
 we have already seen. He says that animals have articulate speech. 
 •'' Descent of Alan, vol. i. p. 54. 
 
 * I\Ian\s Place in Nature, p. 103. 
 
GENEALOGY OF MAM. 153 
 
 vocal organs is nearest to that of man ; but in such 
 creatures as parrots, whose vocal organs are so dif- 
 ferent to those of man, that it is not altogether easy 
 to trace either the analogous or the homologous parts. 
 
 With regard to volition and the reasoning faculty, 
 we may observe some germs in animals, although it 
 is not always possible to distinguish how much may 
 be due to mere reflex action. As relating to the 
 other distinguishing characteristics of man, they do 
 not seem to be present in even the most rudiment- 
 ary form in the brute. There is evidently no indica- 
 tion of progressive possibility ; it needs no discussion 
 to show that the religious sentiment has no repre- 
 sentative whatever, nor such abstract ideas as truth 
 and justice ; and Mr. Darwin's abortive attempt to 
 trace back the ' moral sense ' to some development 
 of gregarious or social instincts is so completely 
 beside the mark, that it really presents no point for 
 criticism. Professor Huxley, with great sagacity, says 
 nothing about it. 
 
 Turning to the genealogical tree of the human 
 
 race, as sketched by Evolutionists, we meet with 
 
 many points of interest. Mr. Darwin finds that — 
 
 The early progenitors of man were no doubt covered with 
 hair, both sexes having beards. Their ears were pointed 
 and capable of movement, and their bodies were provided 
 with a tail. . . . The foot . . . was prehensile, and our 
 progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequent- 
 ing some warm forest-clad land. ... At an earlier period 
 the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their habits. 
 
154 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 And so we are traced backwards in our pedigree 
 until we find the race derived from ' a group of 
 marine animals resembling the larvae of existing 
 Ascidians,' which were our * most ancient progeni- 
 tors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata.' ^ 
 
 On this Ascidian and its larva it is necessary to 
 make a few remarks, which will illustrate the mode 
 in which the hypothesis of Evolution, and of man's 
 origin in particular, is built up. It is known that 
 there is no transition form between the Invert ebi^ata 
 and the Vertebrata ; but as a recognised hiatus 
 between any two classes would be fatal to the * un- 
 broken sequence of nature ' in which the Evolutionist 
 delights, it must be filled up or ' bridged over,' coiite 
 que coiite\ and the Ascidian has been selected to 
 represent the transition form. Now, this Ascidian 
 is not even a highly-developed mollusc, but a crea- 
 ture of low organisation, about on a level with an 
 oyster, fixed to the rock daring the whole of its 
 adult life, and having no nervous system to speak 
 of, with the exception of one ganglion and a few 
 nervous fibres, between the two layers of its bag- 
 like body. In this adult form it evidently will not 
 answer the required conditions, but it is said to have 
 been discovered that its lai'vce * are related to the 
 Vertebrata in their manner of development, in the 
 relative position of the nervous system, and in pos- 
 sessing a structure closely like the chorda dorsalis 
 
 ' Descent of Man, vol. i. chap, vi. 
 
THE ASCIDIAN LARVA. 
 
 15s 
 
 of vertebrate animals.' And thus we are supposed 
 to ' have at last gained a clue to the source whence 
 the Vertebrata have been derived.' ' 
 
 I would ask for especial attention to this point ; 
 for it is here demonstrable either that the zeal for 
 theory has led Mr. Darwin and his school into 
 grievous and palpable error, or that there is no 
 truth in the doctrines of embryology as set forth 
 by all systematic writers. If the relations between 
 Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis as above stated have 
 any existence in nature, no embryonic form of any 
 animal can possibly represent any higher type of 
 development than the animal itself. For instance, 
 the larvse of M might exist as L, F, or D, but 
 never as P or S. Yet we are here called upon to 
 believe that the larva of a mollusc appears, not in 
 the form of a lower mollusc, or one of the Coelentc- 
 rata, but that it is actually organised, living, and 
 moving in the form of an adult being of a different 
 sub-kingdom, the highest of all, the Vertebrata. I 
 am not in a position to dispute the fact, if such it 
 be. I have neither seen any dissection of the larva 
 in question, nor heard of any. All that I would 
 urge is this, that such a fact will utterly destroy 
 the entire theory and science of embryology. If 
 there be any truth whatever in this science, it is 
 perfectly clear that the existence of a quasi-ver- 
 tebrate larva in the Ascidians is a very cogent 
 
 ' Descent of Man, p. 205. 
 
156 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 argument that the Ascidians have descended from 
 some vertebrate type, but certainly not that the Verte- 
 brata have descended from Ascidians. 
 
 Professor Haeckel has apparently perceived this 
 difficulty, as a matter of theory, and provides for it in 
 the most characteristic manner, by inserting in our 
 genealogical tree a form of animals which he calls 
 CJwrdonia, which ' developed themselves from the 
 Annelida, by the formation of a spinal marrow and a 
 chorda dorsalis ! ' ^ Other details of their structure 
 are given very systematically, and it is shown how 
 they became the parents of the nearest now-living 
 genera, the Ascidians, &c. The author does not even 
 profess to have any evidence to produce that such 
 animals ever existed ; there is no living representa- 
 tive of them ; there is no fossil evidence of their early 
 existence ; the sole raison d'etre of the class is, tJiat 
 they are required by the hypothesis. This interpolation 
 of imaginary classes of animals occurs frequently in 
 Professor Haeckel's history of man, as we shall see 
 presently. Meanwhile, should it be supposed that I 
 have exaggerated this most ready and compendious 
 method of constructing scientific natural history, I 
 would commend to the reader's careful attention Pro- 
 fessor Haeckel's twenty-second chapter, on the ' Brute 
 Ancestors of Man,' in the work already quoted. 
 
 Thus our study of the pedigree of man, as set 
 forth by Mr. Darwin, lands us in a serious dilemma. 
 
 * Natiirliche Schopfinigsgeichichte, p. 583. 
 
DARWINISM VERSUS EMBRYOLOGY. i;;? 
 
 Either the pedigree is hopelessly shattered, at the 
 most important point in its development, by collision 
 with embryology ; or this doctrine, that upon which 
 Evolution is mainly supported, is proved to be a 
 delusion, inasmuch as it cannot by any possibility be 
 strained to include Mr. Darwin's facts. The antago- 
 nism is real and irreconcilable ; it must be left to the 
 transcendental philosophers of the school of Evolu- 
 tion to decide, which part it will be the most to the 
 advantage of their doctrine that they should uphold. 
 With regard to the remainder of Mr. Darwin's 
 ' Descent of Man,' it is not necessary to say much. It 
 has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. 
 It is as unsatisfactory and inconsequent in argument, 
 as it is charming in style, rich in fancy, and fertile in 
 illustration. The volume and a half relating to 
 * Sexual Selection ' may be considered as a delightful 
 story of the loves of the birds and beasts, with about 
 as much real bearing upon the science of Evolution 
 as the ' Loves of the Angels.' A theory of selection 
 which ought, if a true principle, to be of universal 
 application, and yet leaves perhaps nine-tenths of the 
 forms of life obviously out of its domain, can scarcely 
 take rank as a scientific hypothesis. It certainly 
 adds but little to our knowledge of man's nature, and 
 gives only the feeblest of support to any theory of 
 his origin. It gives no single instance of the actual 
 operation of selection in the formation of species, but 
 abounds with suggestions of what * might have been ' 
 
WINDS OF DOCTRINE, 
 
 (which soon becomes ^ must have been ') under un- 
 known or impossible conditions.^ 
 
 Professor Haeckel pronounces upon man's pedi- 
 gree with the most unhesitating confidence. He 
 speaks of ' our ancestors ' as Monei^a, ' our ancestors ' 
 as worms, * our ancestors ' as fishes, &c., &c., with the 
 greatest freedom. We are reminded that when we 
 speak of * poor worms ' or ' miserable worms,' we 
 should remember that ^without any dotibt a long 
 series of extinct worms were our ancestors.' ^ He 
 recognises twenty-two distinct stages in our evolution, 
 which I will briefly recapitulate, as comprising the 
 latest data of philosophy on this subject. Of these, 
 eight belong to the invertebrate, and fourteen to the 
 vertebrate sub-kingdom. What follows is only an 
 abstract of the chapter before referred to. 
 
 I. The Monera is the earliest form of life. It 
 arose in the Laurentian epoch by spontaneous gene- 
 ration from inorganic matter. Its acceptance as our 
 earliest ancestor is necessary 'on the most weighty 
 general grounds.' 2. The AmcebcB ; and 3. The 
 Conipottnd AmcebcB come next. They are to be ac- 
 cepted on embryological considerations ; as also are 
 4. The Planceada, represented by some ciliated ani- 
 malculse. 5. The Gastrcea (Urdarmthiere) are a purely 
 imaginary class of animals. They are placed here 
 
 ' Those who are interested to know to what lengths zeal for theory 
 will occasionally carry its supporters may find an illustration in Naha-e 
 for Nov. 2, p. 18. The subject is scarcely adapted for quotation. 
 
 2 Anthropogenic, p. 399. 
 
'OUR BRUTE ancestors: 159 
 
 because required as ancestors for the Gastrula, itself 
 an imaginary order, derived from embryological exi- 
 gencies.^ 6. The ArcJielminthes, or earHest worms, 
 represented now by the Tiirbellaria. J. The Scole- 
 cida, the actual annelidan representatives of which 
 are not known. 8. The Chordojiia, noticed above, 
 also a purely imaginary type, having no known 
 extinct or living representatives, but being ^ ti?i- 
 doubtedly' the progenitors of all the Vertebrata, 
 through the Ascidians. 
 
 9. The Acrania, represented by the Amphioxus, 
 the lowest form of vertebrate animal, a rudimentary 
 fish, having certain resemblances to the Ascidians. 
 10. The Monorhina, which was the parent stem of 
 the sharks, through the Amphirhina, represented by 
 the modern lampreys. 1 1 . The SelacJiii^ or shark 
 tribes, from which sprung — 12. The Dipneiista, or 
 Lepidosirens, from which originated — 13. The true 
 Amphibia, and — 14. The Soziira, another order of 
 Amphibia, interpolated here ' because required as a 
 necessary transition stage between the true Amphibia,' 
 and — 15. The Protamniota, or general stem of the 
 Mammalia, reptiles, and birds. * What the Protam- 
 niota were like,' says Professor Huxley, * I do not 
 suppose anyone is in a position to say,' ^ but they 
 
 1 The reader is requested not to view this as a gloss or caricature 
 on the text. It is as nearly a precise abstract as I can make it ; and 
 the work in question is considered one of the most philosophical 
 treatises on biology of modern times. 
 
 2 Critiques and Addresses, p. 31S. 
 
i6o WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 are pj'oved to have existed, because they were the 
 necessary forerunners of — 16. The Pro-maviinalia, 
 the earHest progenitors of all the Mammalia. The 
 nearest living genera are the Echidna and Ornitho- 
 rynchus. \J. Marsiipialia, or kangaroos. i8. The 
 ProsimicB, or half-apes, as the indris and loris. 19. 
 The Meiiocerca, or tailed apes. 20. The A ntJwopoides^ 
 or man-like apes, represented by the modern orang, 
 gibbon, gorilla, and chimpanzee, amongst which, how- 
 ever, we are not to look ' for the direct ancestors of 
 man, but amongst the luiknown extinct apes of the 
 Miocene.' 21. The Pithecanthropi, or dumb ape-men 
 — an unknown race — the nearest modern representa- 
 tives of which are cretins and idiots ! ! (p. 592). They 
 ^ miist have' lived, as a necessary transition to — 22. 
 The Homines, or true men, who ' developed them- 
 selves from the last class, by the gradual conversion 
 of brute bowlings into articulate speech,' &c., &c. 
 
 With regard to the immediate ape-like ancestors 
 of man, it is distinctly and very emphatically set forth, 
 (p. 577) that none of the modern anthropoid apes can 
 be regarded as our direct progenitors : — 
 
 This opinion is never held by thoughtful supporters of 
 the descent-theory, although often attributed to them by their 
 thoughtless opponents. Our ape-like ancestors are long since 
 extinct. Perchance their fossil remains may some time be 
 found in the tertiary deposits of Southern Asia or Africa. 
 They must nevertheless be ranked amongst the tailless 
 catarhine anthropoid apes. 
 
 It is perhaps scarcely necessary again to state, 
 
LAMARCK'S VIEWS. i6i 
 
 that such a scheme of progression as that just briefly 
 sketched has no existence in nature. There is no 
 evidence of it in existing forms of Hfe ; there is no ' 
 indication of it in fossil remains ; and there is no 
 possibihty of such a progression, even as a matter of 
 theory, in accordance with the recognised laws of 
 Morphology. There are at least four distinct types 
 of animal life, the Ccelenterata^ the Molliisca, the 
 Anmilosa, and the Vertebrata, between no two of 
 which is there any transition form or forms, either 
 known or conceivable — that is, if Morphology be a 
 science at all, or anything beyond an incoherent ag- 
 gregation of irrelevant and unconnected details of 
 structure. 
 
 The reader is now in a position to judge of the 
 value of the evidence, which I have endeavoured 
 fairly to epitomise, both as to Evolution in general 
 and the pedigree of man in particular ; and also to 
 determine whether it is necessary to do more than to 
 leave both the original and the derived doctrine to 
 perish from inherent weakness. The connection of 
 these doctrines with Human Automatism is nothing 
 new or strange. All that has been said by Professor 
 Huxley is very little more than an amplification of 
 what was most clearly and tersely set forth by 
 Lamarck more than sixty years ago. 
 
 Lamarck discerned with perfect clearness the 
 strict logical dependence of Human Automatism upon 
 a physical theory of life. It will be evident from a 
 
1 62 WINDS OF DOCTRINE. 
 
 consideration of the following extracts from the in- 
 troduction to his ' Histoire Naturelle des Animaux 
 sans Vertebres,' how little progress has been made 
 in this department of biological science since his 
 days : — 
 
 Every fact or phenomenon that can be observed is essen- 
 tially physical. . . . All movement or change, every acting 
 force, and every effect whatever, are due necessarily to 
 mechanical causes, governed by laws. . . . Every fact or 
 phenomenon observed in a living body is at once a physical 
 phenomenon and a product of organisation. (Preface, p, 
 II, et seq.') 
 
 He further refers to these physical phenomena as 
 'constituting life' (p. 12), and to sensation and 
 thought being due to changes in a ' particular system 
 of organs capable of giving rise to these physical, 
 mechanical, and organic phenomena.' From these 
 general principles the conclusions are natural and 
 inevitable, that 'all living bodies or organisms are 
 subject to the same natural laws as are lifeless or 
 inorganic bodies ; that the ideas and faculties of the 
 mind generally are but manifestations of movements 
 in the central nervous system ; ' and finally, that ' the 
 Will is in truth never free' 
 
 But, be the doctrine new or old, it cannot be 
 denied that it is a strictly logical deduction from the 
 postulate. 
 
 If man is but the product of the molecular forces 
 of matter, from which he is evolved without the * in- 
 
CONCLUSION. 163 
 
 LONDOM : PRINTED BY 
 
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 tervention of any but what are termed secondary 
 causes ; ' if he is merely a * co-ordinated term of 
 Nature's great progression; or a result of ' the inter- 
 action of organism and environment through cosmic 
 ranges of time,' then is he indeed, hopelessly and 
 helplessly, a mere automaton, with neither choice, 
 will, nor responsibility. But if, on the other hand, 
 it has been or can be proved that such doctrines find 
 no support from science, from observation, from ex- 
 periment, or from reason, then the doctrine of Human 
 Automatism is relegated to the domain of all such 
 * figments of the imagination,' and man may trust 
 implicitly to the consciousness which tells him that | 
 he is no mere machine, but a responsible free agent, f 
 with duties to perform to his God, his neighbour, 
 and himself y and a conscience to prick him if he 
 performs them not. 
 
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