THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 Dr. Roy Van Wart
 
 BODY AND MIND: 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR CONNECTION AND MUTUAL 
 
 INFLUENCE, SPECIALLY IN REFERENCE TO 
 
 MENTAL DISORDERS: 
 
 AN ENLARGED AND REVISED EDITION. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED 
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY MAUDSLEY, M. D., 
 
 FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS ; PROFESSOR OP MEDICAL 
 
 JURISPRtTDENCE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, ETC. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "RESPONSIBILITY IN MENTAL DISEASES;" "PHYSIOLOGY AND 
 
 PATHOLOGY OF THE MIND," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STJKEET. 
 1890.
 
 
 PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The first three Lectures, on Body and Mind, and 
 the last two Essays, in this volume, appeared in the 
 first edition. The Lecture or Address on Conscience 
 and Organization, and the Essays on Hamlet and 
 Swedenborg, are additions. Nearly half the book, 
 therefore, consists of matter which was not contained 
 in the first edition. Under these circumstances, a 
 slight addition has been made to the title-page, in 
 order to indicate, so far as possible, the character of 
 the new matter which has been added. 
 
 June 1, 1873. 
 
 fiO.'^P.'^fi
 
 PEEFACE TO THE EIKST EDITIOK 
 
 The three lectures forming the first part of this 
 volume were delivered before the Royal College of 
 Physicians of London, to which I had the honor of 
 being appointed Gulstonian Lecturer for this year; 
 the latter part consists of two articles which, having 
 appeared elsewhere, are reprinted here as presenting a 
 completer view of some points that are only touched 
 upon in the lectures ; and the general plan of the 
 whole, as thus constituted, may be described as being 
 to bring man, both in his physical and mental rela- 
 tions, as much as possible within the scope of scientific 
 inquiry. 
 
 The first lecture is devoted to a general survey oi 
 the Physiology of Mind — to an exposition of the phys- 
 ical conditions of mental function in health. In the 
 second lecture are sketched the features of some forms 
 of degeneracy of mind, as exhibited in morbid varieties 
 of the human kind, with the purpose of bringing 
 prominently into notice the operation of physical
 
 Vi PREFACE. 
 
 causes from generation to generation, and the rela- 
 tionship of mental to other disorders of the nervous 
 system. In the thii'd lecture, which contains a gen- 
 eral survey of the pathology of mind, are displayed 
 the relations of morbid states of the body to disor- 
 dered mental function. I would fain believe the gen- 
 eral result to be a well-warranted conclusion that, 
 whatever theories may be held concerning mind and 
 the best method of its study, it is vain to expect, and 
 a folly to attempt, to rear a stable fabric of mental 
 science, without taking faithful account of physiologi- 
 cal and pathological inquiries into its j^henomena. 
 
 In the criticism of the " Limits of Philosophical 
 Inquiry," which follows the lectures, will be found 
 reasons why no attempt has been made to discuss the 
 bearing of the views broached in them on any system 
 of philosophy. iN'either materialism nor spiritualism 
 are scientific terms, and one need have no concern 
 with them in a scientific inquiry, which, if it be true 
 to its spirit, is bound to have regard only to what lies 
 within its powers and to the truth of its results. It 
 would seem to be full time that vague and barren 
 disputations concerning materialism and spiritualism 
 should end, and that, instead of continuing such fruit- 
 less and unprofitable discussion, men should apply 
 themselves diligently to discover, by direct interroga- 
 tion of Xature, how much matter can do without spir- 
 itual help. Let each investigator pursue the method
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 of research which most suits the bent of his genius, 
 and here, as in other departments of science, let each 
 system be judged by its fruits, which cannot fail in 
 the end to be the best sponsors and sureties for its 
 truth. But the physiological inquirer into mind may, 
 if he care to do so, justly protest against the easy con- 
 fidence with which some metaphysical psychologists 
 disdain physiological inquiry, and ignore its results, 
 without ever having been at the pains to make them- 
 selves acquainted with what these results are, and 
 with the steps by which they have been reached. Let 
 theory be what it may, there can be no just question 
 of the duty of observing faithfully all the instances 
 which mental phenomena offer for inductive inquiry, 
 and of striving to realize the entirely new aspect 
 which an exact study of the physiology of the nervous 
 system gives to many problems of mental science. 
 One reflection cannot fail to occur forcibly to those 
 who have pursued this study, namely, that it would 
 have been well could the physiological inquirer, after 
 rising step by step from the investigation of life in its 
 lowest forms to that of its highest and most complex 
 manifestations, have entered upon his investigations 
 of mind without being hampered by any philosophi- 
 cal theories concerning it. The very terms of met- 
 aphysical psychology have, instead of helping, op 
 pressed and hindered him to an extent which it is im- 
 possible to measure: they have been hobgoblins tc
 
 ^ii PREFACE. 
 
 frighten him from entering on his path of inquiry, 
 phantoms to lead him astray at every turn after he 
 has entered upon it, deceivers lurking to betray him 
 under the guise of seeming friends tendering help. 
 Let him take all the pains in the world, he cannot ex- 
 press adequately and exactly what he would — neither 
 more nor less — ^for he must use words which have al- 
 ready meanings of a metaphysical kind attached to 
 them, and which, when used, are therefore for him 
 more or less a misinterpretation. He is thus forced 
 into an apparent encroachment on questions which he 
 does not in the least degree wish to meddle with, and 
 provokes an antagonism without ever designing it ; 
 and so one cannot but think it would have been well 
 if he could have had his own words exactly fitting his 
 facts, and free from the vagueness and ambiguity of a 
 former metaphysical use. 
 
 The article on the " Theory of Yitality," which ap- 
 peared in 1863, is now reprinted, with a few, mainly 
 verbal, alterations. The aspect of some of the ques- 
 tions discussed in it has been somewhat changed by 
 the progress of inquiry and thought since that time, 
 but it appears to the Author that, great as discussion 
 has been, there are yet considerations respecting vitali- 
 ty that have not been duly weighed. ^Yhether living 
 matter was formed originally, or is now being formed, 
 from non-living matter, by the operation of physical 
 causes and natural laws, are questions whicli, notwith-
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 standing the lively and vigorous handling which they 
 have had, are far from being settled. Exact experi- 
 ment can alone put an end to this dispute : the one 
 conclusive experiment, indeed, in proof of the origin 
 of living from dead matter, will be to make life. 
 Meanwhile, as the subject is still in the region of dis- 
 cussion, it is permissible to set forth the reflections 
 which the facts seem to warrant, and to endeavor to 
 indicate the direction of scientific development which 
 seems to be foretokened by, or to exist potentially in, 
 tlie knowledge which we have thus far acquired. This 
 much may be said : that those who oppose the doc- 
 trine of so-called spontaneous generation, not on the 
 ground of the absence of conclusive evidence of its 
 occurrence, which they might justly do, but on the 
 ground of what they consider special characteristics 
 of living matter, would do well to look with more in- 
 sight into the phenomena of non-living N'ature, and to 
 consider more deeply what they see, in order to dis- 
 cover whether the characteristic properties of life 
 are quite so special and exclusive as they imagine 
 them to be. Having done that, they might go on to 
 consider whether, even if their premises were grant- 
 ed, any conclusion regarding the mode of origin of life 
 would legitimately follow; whether in fact it would 
 not be entirely gratuitous and unwarrantable to con- 
 clude thence the impossibility of the origin of living 
 matter from non-living matter. The etymological im-
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 port of the words physics and physiology is notably 
 the same ; and it may be that, as has been suggested, 
 in the difference of their application lies a hidden 
 irony at the assumption on which the division is 
 grounded. 
 
 9, Hanoter Square, W. 
 November 5, 1870
 
 CONTEXTS 
 
 PART I. 
 LECTURES. 
 
 BODY AND MIND: 
 
 PAQH 
 
 I. — On the Physical Condition of Mental Function 
 
 IN Health 41 
 
 II. — On Certain Forms of Degeneracy of Mind, their 
 Causation, and their Relations to other Dis- 
 orders op the Nervous System 41 
 
 III. — On the Relations of Morbid Bodily Spates to dis- 
 ordered Mental Functions '70 
 
 IV. — COKSCIENCE and ORGANIZATION 98 
 
 PART II. 
 ESSAYS. 
 
 I. — Hamlet 123 
 
 II — Emanuel Swedenkorg 163 
 
 III — The Theory of Vitality 218 
 
 [V. — The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry 254
 
 PART I. 
 LECTURES 
 
 BODY AND MIND: 
 
 I.— ON THE PHYSICAL CONDITION OF MENTAL FUITG- 
 TION IN HEALTH. 
 
 ri.— ON CEETAIN FORMS OP DEGENERACY OF MIND, 
 THEIR CAUSATION, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO 
 OTHER DISORDERS OF THE NERVOUS cYSTEM. 
 
 III.— ON THE RELATIONS OF MORBID BODILY riTATES 
 TO DISORDERED MENTAL FUNCTIONfc 
 
 rV.-CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION.
 
 BODY AI^D MIJ^^D: 
 
 AN INQUIEY INTO THEIE CONNECTION AND 
 UTUxVL INFLUENCE, SPECIALLY IN EEFEEENCL TO 
 MENTAL DISOEDEES. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Gentlemen : The relations of mind and body in health 
 and in disease I have chosen as the subject of these lectures, 
 not with the hope of doing full justice to so complex and 
 diflBcult an inquiry, but because it has for some time been 
 my special work, and there was no other subject on which I 
 should have felt myself equally justified in addressing you. 
 ISo one can be more deeply sensible than I am how little 
 exact our knowledge is of the bodily conditions of mental 
 functions, and how much of that which we think we know 
 is vague, uncertain, and fluctuating. But the time has come 
 when the immediate business which lies before any one who 
 would advance our knowledge of mind unquestionably is a 
 close and searching scrutiny of the bodily conditions of its 
 manifestations in health and disease. It is most necessary 
 now to make use of the results of the study of mind in 
 health to light and guide our researches into its morbid phe- 
 nomena, and in like manner to bring the instructive in- 
 stances presented by unsound mind to bear upon the inter- 
 pretation of its healthy functions. The physiology and the 
 pathology of mind are two branches of one science ; and he
 
 12 BODY AND MIND 
 
 who studies the one must, if he would work wisely and well, 
 study the other also. My aim will he to promote the recon- 
 ciliation between them, and in doing so I shall embrace the 
 occasion, whenever it offt;rs itself, to indicate the principles 
 which should guide our efforts for what must always be the 
 highest object of medical science and art — the production 
 and preservation of a sound mind in a sound body. Act- 
 ually to accomplish much of this purpose will not lie in 
 my power, but I may bring together fragmentary observa- 
 tions, point out the bearing of them on one another and on 
 received opinions, thus unfold their meaning, and murk 
 broadly the lines which future research must take. 
 
 Within the memory of men now living insanity was such 
 a special study, and its treatment such a special art, that it 
 stood quite aloof from general medicine in a mysterious and 
 mischievous isolation ; owing little or nothing to the results 
 of progress in other branches of medicine, and contributing 
 nothing to their progress. The reason of this it is not hard 
 to discover. The habit of viewing mind as an intangible 
 entity or incorporeal essence, which science inherited from 
 theology, prevented men from subjecting its phenomena to 
 the same method of investigation as other natural phenom- 
 ena; its disorders were thought to be an incomprehensible 
 affliction and, in accordance with the theological notion, due 
 to the presence of an evil spirit in the sufferer, or to the en- 
 slavement of the soul by sin, or to any thing but their true 
 cause — bodily disease. Consequently, the treatment of the 
 insane was not in the hands of intelligent physicians, who 
 aimed to apply the resources of medicine to the alleviation 
 or cure of bodily illness, but was given up to coarse and ig- 
 norant jailers, whose savage cruelties will for all time to 
 come be a great and ugl)^ blot upon the enlightenment of the 
 age which tolerated them. 
 
 Matters are happily changed now. On all hands it is ad- 
 mitted that the manifestations of mind take place through 
 the nervous system , and that its derangements are the result
 
 ORGAN AND FUNCTION. 13 
 
 Df nervous disease, amenable to the same method of investi- 
 gation as other nervous diseases. Insanity has accordingly 
 become a strictly medical study, and its treatment a branch 
 of medical practice. Still, it is all too true that, notwith- 
 standing we know much, and are day by day learning more, 
 of the physiology of the nervous system, we are only on the 
 tlireshold of the study of it as an instrument subserving men- 
 tal function. We know little more positively than that it 
 has such function ; we knoAV nothing whatever of the physics 
 and of the chemistry of thought. The conception of mind as a 
 mysterious entity, ditferent essentially from, and vastly supe- 
 rior to, the body which it inhabits and uses as its earthly tene- 
 ment, but from which its noblest aspirations are thought to 
 be to got free, still works openly or in a latent way to ob- 
 struct the study of its functions by the methods of physical 
 research. Without speculating at all concerning the nature 
 of mind — which, let me distinctly declare at the outset, is a 
 question which science cannot touch, and I do not dream of 
 attempting to touch — I do not shrink from saying that we 
 shall make no progress toward a mental science if we begin 
 by depreciating the body: not by disdaining it, as metaphy- 
 sicians, religious ascetics, and maniacs have done, but by 
 laboring in an earnest and inquiring spirit to understand 
 it, shall we make any step forward; and when we have 
 fully comprehended its functions, when we know how to 
 estimate fitly this highest, most complex, and wonderful 
 achievement of organized skill, it will be quite time, if 
 there be then the inclination, to look down upon it with 
 contempt. 
 
 The truth is, that in inquiries concerning mind, as was 
 once the case in speculations concerning other natural phe- 
 nomena of forces, it has been the practice to begin where the 
 inquiry should have ended. Just as the laws of physical ac- 
 tions were evoked out of the depths of human consciousness, 
 aud the relations of bodies to one another attributed to sym- 
 pathies and antipathies, attractions and abhorrences, instead
 
 14 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 of being acquired bj patient observation and careful generaliza- 
 tion, so has a fabric of mental philosophy been reared on the 
 doubtful revelations of self-consciousness, in entu-e disregard 
 of the more tedious and less attractive duty of observation 
 of facts, and induction from them. Surely it is time we 
 put seriously to ourselves the question whether the inductive 
 method, which has proved its worth by its abundant fruit- 
 fulness wherever it has been faithfully applied, should not 
 be as rigidly used in the investigation of mind as in the 
 investigation of other natural phenomena. If so, we ought 
 certainly to begin our inquiry with the observation of the 
 simplest instances — with its physiological manifestations in 
 animals, in children, in idiots, in savages, mounting by de- 
 grees to the highest and most recondite facts of consciousness, 
 the interpretation or the misinterpretation of which consti- 
 tutes what has hitherto claimed to be mental philosophy. The 
 inductions which we get by observing the simple may be used 
 with success to disentangle the phenomena of the complex ; 
 but the endeavor to apply the complex and obscure to the 
 interpretation of the simple is sure to end in confusion and 
 error. The higher mental faculties are formed by evolution 
 from the more simple and elementary, just as the more spe- 
 cial and complex structure proceeds from the more simple and 
 general ; and in the one case as in the other we must, if 
 we would truly learn, follow the order of development. Not 
 that it is within my present purpose to trace the plan of 
 development of our mental faculties, but the facts and argu- 
 ments which I shall bring forward will prove how vain 
 and futile it is to strive to rear a sound fabric of mental sci- 
 ence on any other foundation. 
 
 To begin the study of mind, then, with the observation 
 of its humblest bodily manifestations' is a strictly scientific 
 method. When we come to inquire what these are, it is far 
 from easy to fix the point at which mental function begins. 
 Without doubt most of the actions of man, and many of 
 those of the higher animals, do evince the operation of mind,
 
 REFLEX ACTIOX. 16 
 
 but whereabouts in the animal kingdom it first appears, and 
 what part it has in the lower nerve-functions of man, are 
 questions not easilj answered. The more closely the matter 
 is looked into, the more clearly it appears that we habitually 
 embrace in our conception of mind different nervous func- 
 tions, some of which proceed from different nerve-centres, 
 and the more necessary it becomes to analyze these functions, 
 to separate the more simple and elementary, and to discover 
 in the concrete as much as possible of the meaning of the 
 abstraction. Is the brain the exclusive organ of mind? If 
 it be so, to what category of functions shall we refer the re- 
 flex acts of the spinal cord, which take place independently 
 of the brain, and which often achieve as definite an end, and 
 seem to display as intelligent an aim, as any conscious act of 
 volition ? It needs not to illustrate in detail the nature and 
 extent of reflex action, which is familiar enough, but I may 
 select a striking example in order to serve as a text for the 
 reflections which I wish to bring forward. One simple fact, 
 rightly understood and truly interpreted, will teach as much 
 as a thousand facts of the same kind, but the thousand must 
 have been previously observed in order to understand truly 
 the one ; for it is certainly true that, to apprehend the full 
 meaning of common things, it is necessary to study a great 
 many uncommon things. This, however, has been done in 
 this instance by the distinguished physiologists whose labors 
 have fixed on a tolerably firm basis the doctrine of reflex 
 action ; we may, therefore, take, as our starting-point, the 
 accepted results of their labors. 
 
 It is well known that, if the hind-foot of a frog that haa 
 had its head cut off be pinched, it is withdi awn from the ir- 
 ritation. The stimulus to the afferent nerve reaches the gray 
 matter of the spinal cord, and sets free a force which excites 
 to action the corresponding motor nerves of the same side. 
 "When the foot is pinched more strongly, the force liberated 
 by the stimulus passes across the cord to the motor nerves 
 of the opposite side, and there is a simultaneous withdrawal
 
 16 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 of both limbs ; and, if the excitation be stronger still, there 
 is a wider irradiation of the effects of the stimulus in the 
 gray matter, and a movement of all four limbs follows, the 
 frog jumping awaj. These movements of the decapitated 
 frog, which it is plain effect the definite purpose of getting it 
 out of the way of harm, we believe to be analogous to the 
 violent coughing by which food that has gone the wrong way 
 is expelled from the human larynx, or to the vomiting by 
 which offending matter is ejected from the stomach. Inde- 
 pendently of consciousness and of will, an organism plainly 
 has the power — call it intelligent or call it what we will — of 
 feeling and eschewing what is hurtful to it, as well as of feel- 
 ing and ensuing what is beneficial to it. 
 
 But the experiment on the frog may be made more striking 
 and instructive. Touch with acetic acid the thigh of a de- 
 capitated frog over the internal condyle, and the animal rubs 
 it off with the dorsal surface of the foot of the same side ; 
 cut off the foot, and apply the acid to the same spot, and the 
 animal tries to get at it again with its foot, but, of course^ 
 having lost it, cannot. After some fruitless efforts, therefore, 
 it gives up trying in that way, seems restless, as though, says 
 Pfluger, it was seeking some other way; and at last it makes 
 use of the foot of the other leg, and succeeds in rubbing off 
 the acid. I'J'otably we have here not merely contractions of 
 muscles, but combined and harmonized contractions in due 
 sequence for a special purpose. There are actions that have 
 all the appearance of being guided by intelligence and insti- 
 gated by will in an animal the recognized organ of whose in- 
 telligence and will has been removed. 
 
 What are we to say in explanation of movements that have 
 such a look of adaptation? Are they mental, or are they 
 only physical? If they are mental, it is plain that we must 
 much enlarge and modify our conception of mind, and of the 
 Beat of mind ; if physical, it is plain that we must subtract 
 from mind functions that are essential to its full function, and 
 properties that are the very foundations of its development
 
 PURPOSIVE ACTS. 17 
 
 in the higher centres. Some eminent physiologists now 
 maintain, on tbe strength of these experiments, that the ac- 
 cepted doctrine of reflex action is quite untenable, and that 
 the spinal cord is really endowed with sensation and volition ; 
 and certainly these adapted actions seem to give us all the 
 signs of being felt and willed, except telling us that they are 
 80. Before accepting, however, this explanation of the ob- 
 scure by something more obscure still, it were w^ell to realize 
 distinctly how dangerous a practice it usually is to apply de- 
 ductively to the interpretation of simple phenomena ideas 
 pertaining to the more complex, and how essential a princi- 
 ple of the method of induction it is to follow the order of 
 evolution, and to ascend from the interpretation of the sim- 
 ple to that of the complex. The explanation savors of the 
 old and evil tendency \A'hich has done so much harm in phi- 
 losophy, the tendency to explain the facts of Nature by what 
 we feel to go on in our minds ; because we know that most of 
 our actions take place consciously and voluntarily, we can hard- 
 ly help thinking that it must be the same in the frog. Might 
 we not, however, as well suppose and hold that positive at- 
 tracts negative and repels positive electricity consciously and 
 voluntarily, or that in the double decomposition of chemical 
 salts one acid chooses voluntarily the other base ? It is most 
 necessary to be on our guard against the danger of misapply- 
 ing ideas derived from internal observation of the functions 
 of mind-centres to the interpretation of the functions of 
 lower nerve-centres, and so of misinterpreting them. As- 
 suredly we have sad experience enough to warn us against 
 involving the latter in the metaphysical haze wliich still 
 hangs over the functions of the supreme centres. 
 
 All the conclusion which the facts warrant is that actions 
 for a definite end, having indeed the semblance of predesign- 
 ing consciousness and will, may be quite unconscious and auto- 
 matic ; that the movements of the decapitated frog, adapted 
 as they are to secure its well-being, are no more evidence of 
 intelligence and will than are the movements of coughing,
 
 18 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 Bneezing, and swallowing in man. In the constitution of tlie 
 animal's spinal cord are implanted the faculties of such move- 
 ments for self-preservation, which it has inherited as a part 
 of its nature, and without which it could hardly live a day; 
 accordingly it acts necessarily and blindly ; though it has lost 
 its foot, it endeavors vainly to act as if its foot was still there, 
 and only when the irritation continues unaffected by its futile 
 efforts makes, in answer to it, those further reflex movements 
 which are the physiological sequences of the unsuccessful 
 movements: it supplements one series of reflex actions by 
 another.* But, although these purposive movements are not 
 evidence of intelligence and volition in the spinal cord, it is 
 another question whether they do not evince the same physi- 
 ological properties and the operation of the same laws of 
 evolution as govern the development of intelligence and will 
 in the higher centres. 
 
 I have taken the experiment on the frog to exemplify the 
 proposition that designed actions may be unconscious and 
 automatic, because the phenomena are more simple in it than 
 in man, and more easy therefore to be understood ; but the 
 proposition is equally true of his spinal cord. In its case, 
 however, we have to bear in mind that faculties are not in- 
 nate to the same degree and extent as in the lower animals, 
 but have to be acquired by education — to be organized, in 
 fact, after birth. It must be taught, just as the brain must, 
 before it can perform its functions as an organ of animal life ; 
 and, being much more under the control of the more highly- 
 developed brain, feeling and volition commonly mingle largely 
 in its functions, and its independent action cannot be so 
 plainly exhibited. But, when its motor centres have been 
 taught, when they have gained by education the power of 
 executing what are called secondary automatic acts, it is cer- 
 
 * Wisely or unwisely, as the case may be ; for reflex movements which 
 commonly effect a useful end may, under the changed circumstances of dis- 
 ease, do great mischief, becoming even the occasion of violent suffering 
 and of a mo?t painful death.
 
 SECONDARY AUTOMATIC ACTS. 19 
 
 tain that it can and does habitually execute them indepen- 
 dently of consciousness and of will. They become as purely 
 automatic as are the primitive reflex acts of the frog. To the 
 statement, then, that actions bearing the semblance of design 
 may be unconscious and automatic we have now to add a 
 second and most weighty proposition — namely, that acts con- 
 sciously designed at first may, by repetition, become uncon- 
 scious and automatic, the faculties of them being organized 
 in the constitution of the nerve-centres, and they being then 
 performed as reflex eff*ects of an external stimulus. This law, 
 by which the education of the spinal cord takes place, is, as 
 we shall hereafter see, a most important law in the develop- 
 ment of the higher nerve-centres. 
 
 Let us now go a step further. The automatic acts, whether 
 primary or secondary, in the frog or in the man, which are 
 excited by the suitable external stimulus, may also be excited 
 by an act of will, by an impulse coming downward from the 
 brain. When this happens, it should be clearly apprehended 
 that the immediate agency of the movements is the same ; it 
 is in the motor centres of the spinal cord ; the will does not 
 and cannot act upon the nerve-fibres of each muscle individu- 
 ally, but simply gives the order which sets in motion the or- 
 ganized machinery of the movements in the proper motor 
 centres. This is a consideration of the utmost importance, 
 for it exhibits how great a part of our voluntary acts is really 
 the automatic action of the spinal cord. The same move- 
 ments are eflfected by the same agency in answer to diff"erent 
 stimuli — in the one case to an external stimulus, in the other 
 case to an impulse of will ; and in both cases the mind is alike 
 ignorant of the immediate agency by which they are done. 
 But while the automatic acts take place independently of 
 will, the will is absolutely dependent on the organized expe- 
 rience in the cord for the accomplishment of its acts; with- 
 out this it would be impotent to do a voluntary act. When, 
 therefore, we have taken out of a voluntary act the large 
 part which is due to the automatic agency of the motor cen-
 
 20 BODr A.ND MIXD. 
 
 tres, it clearly appears that we have subtracted no small 
 proportion from what we are in the habit of comprising 
 vaguely under mind. We perceive, indeed, how indispensa- 
 ble an exact and faithful observation of the functions of the 
 spinal cord is to a true physiological inquiry into mind, and 
 what an important means of analysis a knowledge of them 
 yields us. Carrying the knowledge so gained into our exami- 
 nation of the functions of the higher nerve-centres, we ob- 
 serve how much of them it will serve to interpret. The re- 
 sult is, that we find a great part of the habitual functions of 
 the higher centres to be similarly automatic, and to admit of 
 a similar physiological interpretation. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the ganglionic nuclei of the 
 senses — the sensorial nuclei — are connected with motor nu- 
 clei ; and that we have in such anatomical arrangement the 
 agency of a number of reflex movements. Most of the in- 
 stinctive acts of animals are of this kind, the faculties being 
 innate in them. In man, however, who is actually the most 
 helpless, thougli potentially the most powerful, of all living 
 creatures when he comes into the world, the sensory and 
 associated motor nuclei must be educated, just as the spinal 
 centres must. To illustrate this sensori-motor or instinctive 
 action, we may take the results of Flourens's well-known 
 experiment of removing the cerebral hemispheres of a pigeon. 
 What happens ? The pigeon seemingly loses at once all in- 
 telligence and all power of spontaneous action. It appears 
 as if it were asleep ; yet, if thrown into the air, it will fly. 
 If laid on its back, it struggles on to its legs again ; the pupil 
 of the eye contracts to light, and, if the light be very bright, 
 the eyes are shut. It will dress its feathers if they are ruflSed, 
 and will sometimes follow with a movement of its head the 
 movement of a candle before it ; and, when a pistol is fired o^ 
 It will open its eyes, stretch its neck, raise its head, and then 
 fall back into its former attitude. It is quite evident from 
 this experiment that general sensibility and special sensations 
 are possible after the removal of the hemispheres ; but they
 
 SENSORI-MOTOR ACTS. 21 
 
 are not then transformed into ideas. The impressions of sense 
 reach and affect the sensory centres, but they are not intel- 
 lectually ^ercez-we^Z ; and the proper movements are excited, 
 but these are reflex or automatic. There are no ideas, there 
 is no true spontaneity; and .the animal would die of hunger 
 before a plateful of food, though it will swallow it when 
 pushed far enough into its mouth to come within the range 
 of the reflex acts of deglutition. Here again, then, we have 
 a surprising variety of adapted actions of which the body is 
 capable without the intervention of intelligence, emotion, and 
 will — without, in fact, mind in its exact sense having any part 
 in them. The pigeon is brought to the level of the inverte- 
 brata, which have no higher nerve-centres than sensory 
 ganglia, no centres of intelligence and will, and which exe- 
 cute all their varied and active movements, all their wonder- 
 ful displays of instinct, through sensory and associated motor 
 nuclei. They seek what is good for them, avoid what is 
 hurtful to them, provide for the propagation of their kind — 
 perform, indeed, all the functions of a very active life without 
 Tcnowiiig that they are doing so, not otherwise than as our 
 pupils contract to light, or as our eyes accommodate them- 
 selves to vision at different distances, without consciousness 
 on our part. The highest specializations of this kind of 
 nerve-function are displayed by the ant and the bee ; their 
 wonderful instinctive arts show to what a degree of special 
 perfection sensori-motor action may be brought.* 
 
 * I do not Bay that the ant and the hee are entirely destitute of any power 
 of adaptation to new experiences in their lives— that theyare, in fact, purely 
 organized machines, acting always with unvarying regularity; it would 
 appear, indeed, from close ohservation, that these creatures do sometimes 
 discover in their actions traces of a sensibility to strange experiences, and 
 of corresponding adaptation of movements. We cannot, moreover, con- 
 ceive how the remarkable instincts which they manifest can have been 
 »cquired originally, except by virtue of some such power. But the power 
 In them now is evidently of a rudimentary kind, and must remain so while 
 they have not those higher nerve-centres in which the sensations are com- 
 bined into ideas, and perceptions of the relations of things are acquired. 
 Granting, however, that the bee or ant has these traces of adaptive action,
 
 22 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 Unlike the bee and the ant, man must slowly learn the 
 use of his senses and their respondent movements. This he 
 does by virtue of the fundamental property of nerve-centres, 
 whereby they react in a definite way to suitable impressions, 
 organically register their experience, and so acquii-e by edu- 
 cation their special faculties. Thus it is that many of the 
 daily actions of our life, which directly follow impressions 
 on the senses, take place in answer to sensations that are not 
 perceived — become, so to speak, instinctive ; some of them 
 being not a whit less automatic than the instinctive acts of 
 tlie bee, or the acts of the pigeon deprived of its hemispheres. 
 "When we move about in a room Avith the objects in which 
 we are quite familiar, we direct our steps so as to avoid them, 
 without being conscious what they are, or what we are do- 
 ing ; we see them, as we easily discover if we try to move 
 about in the same way with our eyes shut, but we do not 
 j)erceixe them, the mind being fully occupied with some train 
 of thought. In like manner, when we go through a series 
 of familiar acts, as in dressing or undressing ourselves, the 
 operations are really automatic; once begun, we continue 
 them in a mechanical order, while the mind is thinking of 
 other things ; and if we afterward reflect upon what we have 
 done, in order to call to mind whether we did or did not omit 
 something, as for instance to wind up our watch, we cannot 
 satisfy ourselves except by trial, even though we had actually 
 done what we were in doubt about. It is evident, indeed, 
 that in a state of profound reverie or abstraction a person 
 may, as a somnambulist sometimes does, see without know- 
 
 11 must be allowed that they are truly nidiments of functions, which in the 
 enpreme nerve-centres we designate as reason and volition. Such a con- 
 fession might be a trouble to a metaphysical physiologist, who would therc- 
 npon find it necessary to place a metaphysical entity behind the so-called 
 Instincts of the bee, but can be no trouble to the iaductive physiologist; he 
 simply recognizes an illustration of a physiological diflnsion of properties 
 Bnd of the physical conditions of primitive volition, and traces in the evo- 
 lution of mind and its organs, as in the evolution of other functions anJ 
 Uieir organs, a progressive specialization and increasing complexitv.
 
 SUPREME NERVE-CENTRES. 23 
 
 ing that he sees, hear without knowing that he hears, and go 
 through a series of acts scarcely, if at all, conscious of them 
 at the time, and not remembering them afterward. For the 
 most distinct display of sensori-motor action in man, it is 
 necessary that his cerebral hemispheres, which are so largely 
 developed, and intervene much in the functions of the subor- 
 dinate centres, should be deeply engaged in their own fanc- 
 tions, or that these should be suspended. This appears to 
 be the case in those brief attacks of epileptic unconsciousness 
 known as the petit mal, in which a person will sometimes 
 go on with the work he was engaged in at the time of the 
 attack, utterly unaware of the momentary interruption of 
 his consciousness.* There are many instances of this sort on 
 record, which I cannot stop to relate now; they prove how 
 large a part sensori-motor functions, which are the highest 
 nerve-functions of so many animals, play in our daily actions. 
 We ought clearly to apprehend the fact that, as with the 
 spinal cord, so here, the movements which take place in an- 
 swer to the stimulus from without may be excited by the 
 stimulus of the will descending from the hemispheres, and 
 that, when they are so excited, the immediate agency of them 
 is the same. The movements that are outwardly manifest 
 are, as it were, contained inwardly in the appropriate motor 
 nuclei ; these have been educated to perform them. Hence 
 it is that, when the left corpus striatum is broken up by dis- 
 ease, the right cannot do its special work ; if it could, a man 
 might write with his left hand when his right hand was dis- 
 abled by paralysis. 
 
 Thus much, then, concerning our sensori-motor acts. 
 When we have yielded up to the spinal cord all the part in 
 our actions that properly belongs to it, and to the sensory gan- 
 glia and their connected motor nuclei all the part that be- 
 longs to them, we have subtracted no inconsiderable part 
 Irom the phenomena which we are in the habit of designating 
 
 ♦ For example!?, I may refer to my work on " Tlie Physiology and Pa« 
 thology of Mind," 2d edition.
 
 24 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 mental and including under mind. But we still leave un- 
 touched the highest functions of the nervous system — those 
 to which the hemispherical ganglia minister. These are the 
 functions of intelligence, of emotion, and of will ; they are 
 the strictly mental functions. The question at once arises 
 whether we have to do in these supreme centres with funda- 
 mentally different properties and different laws of evolution 
 from those which belong to the lower nerve-centres. We 
 have to do with different functions certainly ; but are the 
 organic processes which take place in them essentially differ- 
 ent from, or are they identical with, those of the lower 
 nerve-centres ? They appear to be essentially the same : 
 there is a reception of impressions, and there is a reaction to 
 impressions, and there is an organic registration of the effects 
 both of the impressions and of the reactions to them. The ex- 
 ternal stimuli do not, it is true, ascend directly to the supreme 
 centres as they do to the spinal centres and the sensory cen- 
 tres; they are transmitted indirectly through the sensory 
 ganglia ; it is through the senses that we get our ideas. This 
 is in accordance with the anatomical observation — which, 
 however, is disputed — that no sensory fibres go directly 
 through to the hemispheres, and no motor fibres start directly 
 from them; both sensory and motor fibres stopping at the 
 corpora striata and thalami optici, and new fibres connect- 
 ing these with the hemispheres. But this does not alter the 
 fundamental similarity of the organic processes in the higher 
 centres. The impressions which are made there are the physi- 
 ological conditions of ideas ; the feeling of the ideas is emo- 
 tion — for I hold emotion to mean the special sensibility of 
 the vesicular neurine to ideas — the registration of them is 
 memory ; ■im^ih.Q reaction to them is volition. Attention 
 IS the maintenance of the tension of an idea or a group of 
 ideas — the keeping it before the mind ; and reflection is the 
 BQCcessive transference of energy from one to another of a 
 series of ideas. "We know not, and perhaps never shall know, 
 what mind is ; but we are nevertheless bound to investigate,
 
 MEMORY. 26 
 
 in a scientific spirit, the laws of its functions, and to trace 
 the resemblances which undoubtedly exist between them and 
 the functions of lower nerve-centres. 
 
 Take, for example, the so-called faculty of memory, of 
 which metaphysicians have made so much as affording us the 
 knowledge of personal identity. From the way in which 
 they usually treat of it, one would suppose that memory was 
 peculiar to mind, and far beyond the reach of physical ex- 
 planation. But a little reflection will prove that it is noth- 
 mg of the kind. The acquired functions of the spinal cord, 
 and of the sensory ganglia, obviously imply the existence of 
 memory, which is indispensable to their formation and exer- 
 cise. How else could these centres be educated ? The im- 
 pressions made upon them, and the answering movements, 
 both leave their traces behind them, which are capable of 
 being revived on the occasions of similar impressions. A 
 ganglionic centre, whether of mind, sensation, or movement, 
 which was without memory, would be an idiotic centre, in- 
 capable of being taught its functions. In every nerve-cell 
 there is memory, and not only so, but there is memory in 
 every organic element of the body. The virus of small-pox 
 or of syphilis makes its mark on the constitution for the rest 
 of life. We may forget it, but it will not forget us, though, 
 like the memory of an old man, it may fade and become faint 
 with advancing age. The manner in which the scar of a cut 
 in a child's finger is perpetuated, and grows as the body grows, 
 evinces, as Mr. Paget has pointed out, that the organic ele- 
 ment of the part remembers the change which it has suffered. 
 Memory is the organic registration of the effects of impres- 
 sions, the organization of experience, and to recollect is to 
 revive this experience — to call the organized residua intc* 
 functional activity. 
 
 The fact that memory is accompanied by consciousness in 
 the supreme centres does not alter tlie fundamental nature of 
 the organic processes that are the condition of it. The more 
 Bure and perfect, indeed, memory becomes, the more uncon
 
 26 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 scions it becomes; and, when an idea or mental state has 
 been completely organized, it is revived without conscious- 
 ness, and takes its part automatically in our mental opera- 
 tions, just as an habitual movement does in our bodily activ- 
 ity. We perceive in operation here the same law of organi- 
 zation of conscious acquisitions as unconscious power, which 
 we observed in the functions of the lower nerve-centres. A 
 child, while learning to speak or read, has to remember the 
 meaning of each word, must tediously exercise its memory ; 
 but which of us finds it necessary to remember the meanings 
 of the common words which we are daily using, as we must 
 do those of a foreign language with which we are not very 
 familiar ? "We do remember them, of course, but it is by an 
 unconscioQS memory. In like manner, a pupil, learning to 
 play the piano-forte, is obliged to call to mind each note: but 
 the skilful player goes through no such process of conscious 
 remembrance ; his ideas, like his movements, are automatic, 
 and both so rapid as to surpass the rapidity of succession of 
 conscious ideas and movements. To my mind, there are in- 
 controvertible reasons to conclude that the organic conditions 
 of memory are the same in the supreme centres of thought 
 as they are in the lower centres of sensation and of reflex 
 action. Accordingly, in a brain that is not disorganized by 
 injury or disease, the organic registrations are never actually 
 forgotten, but endure while life lasts; no wave of oblivion 
 can efface their characters. Consciousness, it is true, may 
 be impotent to recaU them ; but a fever, a blow on the head, 
 a poison in the blood, a dream, the agony of drowning, the 
 hoar of death, rending the veil between our present con- 
 sciousness and these inscriptions, will sometimes call viv- 
 idly back, in a momentary flash, and call back too with all 
 the feelings of the original experience, much that seemed to 
 have vanished from the mind forever. In the deepest and 
 most secret recesses of mind, there is nothing hidden from 
 the individual self, or from others, which may not be thus 
 some time accidentally revealed ; eo that it might well be
 
 VOLITION. 21 
 
 that, as De Quincey surmised, the opening of the book at 
 the day of judgment shall be the unfolding of the everlasting 
 scroll of memory.* 
 
 As it is with memory so is it with volition, which is a 
 physiological function of the supreme centres, and which, like 
 memory, becomes more unconscious and automatic the more 
 completely it is organized by repeated practice. It is not 
 man's function in life to think and feel only; his inner life he 
 must express or utter in action of some kind — in word or 
 deed. Eeceiving the impressions from Nature, of which he 
 is a part, he reacts upon Nature intelligently, modifying it in 
 a variety of ways ; thus Nature passes through human na- 
 ture to a higher evolution. As the spinal cord reacts to its 
 impressions in excito-motor action, and as the sensory centres 
 react to their impressions in sensori-motor action, so, after 
 the complex interworking and combination of ideas in the 
 hemispherical ganglia, there is, in like manner, a reaction or 
 desire of determination of energy outward, in accordance 
 with the fundamental property of organic structure to seek 
 what is beneficial and shun what is hurtful to it. It is this 
 property of tissue that gives the impulse which, wJien guided 
 by intelligence, we call volition, and it is the abstraction 
 from the particular volitions which metaphysicians personify- 
 as the will, and regard as their determining agent. Physio- 
 logically, we cannot choose but reject the will ; volition we 
 know, and will we know, but the will, apart from particular 
 acts of volition or will, we cannot know. To interpose such 
 a metaphysical entity between reflection and action there- 
 upon would bring us logically to the necessity of interposing 
 a similar entity between the stimulus to the spinal cord and 
 its reaction. Thus, instead of unravelling the complex by 
 help of the more simple, we should obscure the simple by 
 
 * An apt illustration, most trae to Nature, of the recurrence of early 
 Impressions in the delirium of dying, is afforded by Falstafif, who, as ha 
 expires in a London tavern after a life of debauchery, babbles of green 
 fields.
 
 08 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 speculations concemmg the complex. As physiologists, we 
 have to deal with volition as a function of the supreme cen- 
 tres, following reflection, varying in quantity and quality as 
 its cause varies, strengthened by education and exercise, en- 
 feebled by disuse, decaying with decay of structure, and al- 
 ways needing for its outward expression the educated agency 
 of the subordinate motor centres. We have to deal with 
 will, not as a single undecomposable faculty unaffected by 
 bodily conditions, but as a result of organic changes in the 
 supreme centres, affected as certainly and seriously by dis- 
 order of them as our motor faculties are by disorder of their 
 centres. Loss of power of will is one of the earliest and most 
 characteristic symptoms of mental derangement ; and what- 
 ever may have been thought in times past, we know well 
 now that the loss is not the work of some unclean spirit that 
 has laid its hands upon the will, but the direct effect of 
 physical disease. 
 
 But I must pass on now to other matters, without stop- 
 ping to unfold at length the resemblances between the prop- 
 erties of the supreme centres and those of the lower nerve- 
 centres. We see that the supreme centres are educated, as 
 the other centres are, and the better they are educated the 
 better do they perform their functions of thinking and willing. 
 The development of mind is a gradual process of organization 
 in them. Ideas, as they are successively acquired through 
 the gateways of the senses, are blended and combined and 
 grouped in a complexity that defies analysis, the organic com- 
 binations being the physiological conditions of our highest 
 mental operations — reflection, reasoning, and judgment. Two 
 leading ideas we ought to grasp and hold fast : first, that the 
 complex and more recondite phenomena of mind are formed 
 out of the more simple and elementary by progressive spe 
 cialization and integration ; and, secondly, that the laws bi 
 means of which this formation takes place are not laws oi 
 association merely, but laws of organic combination and evo 
 lution. The growth of mental power means an actual addj
 
 MOTOR INTUITIONS. 29 
 
 tion of structure to tlie intimate constitution of the centres 
 of mind — a mental organization in them ; and mental derange- 
 ment means disorder of them, primary or secondary, func- 
 tional or organic. 
 
 Although I have declared the hemispherical ganglia to he 
 preeminently the mind-centres, and although it is in disorder 
 of their functions — in disordered intelligence, in disordered 
 emotion, and in disordered will — that insanity essentially con- 
 sists, it is nevertheless impossible to limit the study of our 
 mental operations to the study of them. They receive im- 
 pressions from every part of the body, and, there is reason to 
 believe, exert an influence on every element of it : there is 
 not an organic motion, sensible or insensible, which does not, 
 consciously or unconsciously, affect them, and which they in 
 turn do not consciously or unconsciously affect. So intimate 
 and essential is the sympathy between all the organic func- 
 tions, of which mind is the crown and consummation, that we 
 may justly say of it, that it sums up and comprehends the 
 bodily life — that every thing which is displayed outwardly is 
 contained secretly in the innermost. We cannot truly under- 
 stand mind-functions without embracing in our inquiry all 
 the bodily functions and, I might perhaps without exaggera- 
 tion say, all the bodily features. 
 
 I have already shown this in respect of motor functions, 
 by exhibiting how entirely dependent for its expression will 
 is upon the organized mechanism of the motor centres — how, 
 in effecting voluntary movements, it presupposes the appro- 
 priate education of the motor centres. Few persons, perhaps, 
 consider what a wonderful art speech is, or even remember 
 that it is an art which we acquire. But it actually costs us a 
 great deal of pains to learn to speak ; all the language which 
 an infant has is a cry ; and it is only because w e begin to learn 
 to talk when we are very young, and are constantly prac- 
 tising, that we forget how specially we have had to educate 
 our motor centres of speech. Here, however, we come to 
 another pregnant consideration : the acquired faculty of the
 
 30 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 educated motor centre is not only a necessary agency in the 
 performance of a voluntary act, but I maintain that it posi- 
 tively enters as a mental element into the composition of the 
 definite volition ; that, in fact, the specific motor faculty not 
 only acts downward upon the motor nerves, thus executing 
 the movement, but also acts upward upon the mind-centres, 
 thereby giving to consciousness the conception of the suitable 
 movement — the appropriate motor intuition. It is certain 
 that, in order to execute consciously a voluntary act, we must 
 have in the mind a conception of the aim or purpose of the 
 act. The will cannot act upon the separate muscles, it can 
 only determine the result desired ; and thereupon the com- 
 bined contraction, in due force and rapidity, of the separate 
 muscles takes place in a way that we have no consciousness 
 of, and accomplishes the act. The infant directly it is born 
 can suck, certainly not consciously or voluntarily ; on the first 
 occasion, at any rate, it can have no notion of the purpose of 
 its movements ; but the eftect of the action is to excite in the 
 mind the special motor intuition, and to lay the foundation 
 of the special volition of it. We cannot do an act voluntarily 
 unless we know what we are going to do, and we cannot 
 Icnow exactly what we are going to do until we have taught 
 ourselves to do it. This exact knowledge of the aim of the 
 act, which we get by experience, the motor intuition gives us. 
 The essential intervention of the motor intuition, which 
 is, as it were, the abstract of the movement, in our mental 
 life, is best illustrated by the movements of speech, but is by 
 no means peculiar to them. Each word represents a certain 
 association and succession of muscular acts, and is itself noth- 
 ing more than a conventional sign or symbol to mark the par- 
 ticular muscular expression of a particular idea. The word 
 has not independent vitality ; it difi'ersin different languages; 
 and those who are deprived of the power of articulate speech 
 must make use of other muscular acts to express their ideas, 
 speaking, as it were, in a dumb discourse. There is no reason 
 on earth, indeed, why a person might not learn to express
 
 GESTURE LANGUAGE. 31 
 
 every thought wliicli lie can utter in speech by movements 
 of his fingers, limbs, and body — by the silent language of ges- 
 ture. The movements of articulation have not, then, a special 
 hind of connection with the mind, though their connection is 
 a specially intimate one ; they are simply the most convenient 
 for the expression of our mental states, because they are so 
 numerous, various, delicate, and complex, and because, in con- 
 junction with the muscles of the larynx and the respiratory 
 muscles, they modify sound, and thus make audible language. 
 Having, on this account, been always used as the special in- 
 struments of utterance, their connection with thought is most 
 intimate ; the Greeks, in fact, used the word xSyos to mean 
 both reason and speech. But this does not make the rela- 
 tions of the movements of speech to mind different funda- 
 mentally from the relations of other voluntary movements to 
 mind; and we should be quite as much warranted in assign- 
 ing to the mind a special faculty of writing, of walking, or of 
 gesticulating, as in speaking of a special faculty of speech in it. 
 "What is true of the relations of articulate movements to 
 mental states is true of the relations of other movements to 
 mental states : they not only express the thought, but, when 
 otherwise put in action, they can excite the appropriate 
 thought. Speak the word, and the idea of which it is the ex- 
 pression is aroused, though it was not in the mind previously; 
 or put other muscles than those of speech into an attitude 
 which is the normal expression of a certain mental state, and 
 the latter is excited. Most if not all men, when thinking, 
 repeat internally, whisper to themselves, as it were, what they 
 are thinking about; and persons of dull and feeble intel- 
 ligence cannot comprehend what tbey read, or what is some- 
 times said to them, without calling the actual movement to 
 their aid, and repeating the words in a whisper or aloud. As 
 speech has become the almost exclusive mode of expressing 
 our thoughts, there not being many gestures of the body 
 which are the habitual expressions of simple ideas, we cannot 
 present striking examples of the powers of other movements
 
 32 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 to call up tlie appropriate ideas ; yet the delicate muscular 
 adaptations which effect the accommodation of the eye to 
 vision at different distances seem really to give to the mind 
 its ideas of distance and magnitude. No one actually sees 
 distance and magnitude ; he sees only certain signs from 
 which he has learned to judge intuitively of them — the mus- 
 cular adaptations, though he is unconscious of them, impart- 
 ing the suitable intuitions. 
 
 The case is stronger, however, in regard to our emotions. 
 Visible muscular expression is to passion what language or 
 audible muscular expression is to thought. Bacon rightly, 
 therefore, pointed out the advantage of a study of the forms 
 of expression. "For," he says, "the lineaments of the body 
 do disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in gen- 
 eral ; but the motions of the countenance and parts do not 
 only so, but do further disclose the present humor and state 
 of the mind or will." The muscles of the countenance are 
 the chief exponents of human feeling, much of the variety of 
 which is due to the action of the orbicular muscles with the 
 system of elevating and depressing muscles. Animals cannot 
 laugh, because, besides being incapable of ludicrous ideas, 
 they do not possess in suflScient development the orbicular 
 muscle of the lips and the straight muscles which act upon 
 them. It is because of the superadded muscles and of their 
 combined actions — ^not combined contraction merely, but 
 consentaneous action, the relaxation of some accompanying 
 the contraction of others — ^that the human countenance is 
 capable of expressing a variety of more complex emotions 
 than animals can. Those who would degrade the body, in 
 order, as they imagine, to exalt the mind, should consider 
 more deeply than they do the importance of our muscular 
 expressions of feeling. The manifold shades and kinds of 
 expression which the lips present — their gibes, gambols, and 
 flashes of merriment; the quick language of a quivering 
 nostril ; the varied waves and ripples of beautiful emotion 
 which play on the human countenance, with the spasms of
 
 MUSCULAR EXPRESSION. 33 
 
 passion that disfigure it — all which we take such pains to 
 embody in art — are simply effects of muscular action, and 
 might be produced by electricity or any other stimulus, if we 
 could only apply it in suitable force to the proper muscles. 
 When the eye is turned upward in rapt devotion, in the 
 ecstasy of supplication, it is for the same reason as it is rolled 
 upward in fainting, in sleep, in the agony of death : it is an 
 involuntary act of the oblique muscles, when the straight 
 muscles cease to act upon it. We perceive, then, in the study 
 of muscular action, the reason why man looks up to heaven 
 in prayer, and why he has placed there the power " whence 
 Cometh his help." A simple property of the body, as Sir 0. 
 Bell observes — the fact that the eye in supplicartion takes 
 what is its natural position when not acted upon by the will 
 —has influenced our conceptions of heaven, our religious ob- 
 servances, and the habitual expression of our highest feelings. 
 Whether each passion which is special in kind has its 
 special bodily expression, and what is the expression of each, 
 it would take me too long to examine now. Sufl&ce it to say 
 that the special muscular action is not merely the exponent 
 of tlie passion, but truly an essential part of it. Fix the 
 countenance in the pattern of a particular emotion — ^in a 
 look of anger, of wonder, or of scorn — and the emotion 
 whose appearance is thus imitated will not fail to be aroused. 
 And if we try, while the features are fixed in the expression 
 of one passion, to call up in the mind a quite different one, 
 we shall find it impossible to do so. This agrees with the 
 experiments of Mr. Braid on persons whom he had put into 
 a state of hypnotism; for, when the features or the limba 
 were made by him to assume the expression of a particular 
 emotion, thereupon the emotion was actually felt by the pa- 
 tient, who began to act as if he was under its influence. We 
 perceive then that the muscles are not alone the machinery 
 by which the mind acts upon the world, but that their ac- 
 tions are essential elements in our mental operations. The 
 superiority of the human over the animal mind seems to be
 
 34 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 essentially connected with the greater variety of muscular 
 action of which man is capable : were he deprived of the in- 
 finitely-varied movements of hands, tongue, larynx, lips, and 
 face, in which he is so far aliead of the animals, it is prob- 
 able that he would be no better than an idiot, notwithstand- 
 ing he might have a normal development of brain.* 
 
 If these reflections are well grounded, it is obvious that 
 disorder of the motor centres may have, as I believe it has, 
 no little effect upon the phenomena of mental derangement. 
 In some cases of insanity there are genuine muscular hallu- 
 cinations, just as there are in dreams sometimes, when the 
 muscles are in a constrained attitude ; and, where the morbid 
 effects are not so marked, there is good reason to suppose 
 that a searching inquiry along this almost untrodden path 
 will disclose the mode of generation of many delusions that 
 seem now inexplicable. 
 
 But we cannot limit a complete study of mind even by a 
 fall knowledge of the functions of the nervous and muscular 
 systems. The organic system has most certainly an essential 
 part in the constitution and the fanctions of mind. In the 
 great mental revolution caused by the development of the 
 sexual system at puberty we have the most striking example 
 of the intimate and essential sympathy between the brain as 
 a mental organ and other organs of the body. The change 
 of character at this period is not by any means limited to the 
 appearance of the sexual feelings and their sympathetic 
 ideas, but, when traced to its ultimate reach, will be found 
 to extend to the highest feelings of mankind, social, moral, 
 and even religious. In its lowest sphere, as a mere animal 
 instinct, it is clear that the sexual appetita forces the most 
 selfish person out of the little circle of self-feeling into a 
 wider feeling of family sympathy and a rudimentary moral 
 feeling. The consequence is that, when an individual is sexu- 
 
 * There may be no little truth, therefore, though not the entire truth, 
 In the saying of Anaxagoras, that man is the wisest of animals by reason 
 of his having hands.
 
 ORGANIC FUNCTIONS. 35 
 
 ally mutilated at an early age, he is emasculated morally as 
 well as physically. Eunuchs are said to be the most de- 
 praved creatures morally : they are cowardly, envious liars, 
 utterly deceitful, and destitute of real social feeling. And 
 there is certainly a characteristic variety of insanity caused 
 by self-abuse, which makes the patient very like a eunuch in 
 character. 
 
 It has been affirmed by some philosophers that there is 
 no essential difference between the mind of a woman and 
 that of a man; and that if a girl were subjected to the same 
 education as a boy, she would resemble him in tastes, feel- 
 ings, pursuits, and powers. To my mind it would not be one 
 whit more absurd to affirm that the antlers of the stag, the 
 human beard, and the cock's comb, are effects of education ; 
 or that, by putting a girl to the same education as a boy, the 
 female generative organs might be transformed into male 
 organs. The physical and mental differences between the 
 sexes intimate themselves very early in life, and declare 
 themselves most distinctly at puberty : they are connected 
 with the influence of the organs of generation. The forms 
 and habits of mutilated men approach those of women ; and 
 women, whose ovaries and uterus remain from some cause in 
 a state of complete inaction, approach the forms and habits 
 of men. It is said, too, that in hermaphrodites the mental 
 character, like the physical, participates equally in that of 
 both sexes. While woman preserves her sex, she will neces- 
 sarily be feebler than man, and, having her special bodily 
 and mental characters, will have to a certain extent her own 
 sphere of activity ; where she has become thoroughly mas- 
 culine in nature, or hermaphrodite in mind — when, in fact, 
 she has pretty well divested herself of her sex — then she 
 may take his ground, and do his work ; but she wiU have 
 lost her feminine attractions, and probably also her chief 
 feminine functions. 
 
 Allowing that the generative organs have their specific 
 effect upon the mind, the question occurs whether each of
 
 36 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 the internal organs has not also a special effect, giving rise to 
 particular feelings witli their sympathetic ideas. They are 
 notably united in the closest sympathy, so that, although in- 
 sensihle to touch, they have a sensibility of their own, by 
 virtue of -which they agree in a consent of functions, and re- 
 spond more or less to one another's sufferings ; and there can 
 be no question that the brain, as the leading member of this 
 physiological union, is sensible of, and affected by, the con- 
 ditions of its fellow-members. "We have not the same oppor- 
 tunity of observing the specific effects of other organs that 
 we have in the case of the generative organs; for while 
 those come into functional action directly after birth, these 
 come into action abruptly at a certain period, and thus ex- 
 hibit their specific effects in a decided manner. It may well 
 be, however, that the general uniformity among men in their 
 passions and emotions is due to the specific sympathies of 
 organs, just as the uniformity of their ideas of external N"a- 
 ture is due to the uniform operation of the organs of sense. 
 It is probable that an exact observation of the mental ef- 
 fects of morbid states of the different organs would help the 
 inquiry into the feelings and desires of the mind which owe 
 their origin to particular organs. TThat are the psychological 
 features of disease of the heart, disease of the lungs, disease 
 of the liver? They are unquestionably different in each case. 
 The inquiry, which has never yet been seriously attempted, 
 is, without doubt, a difficult one, but I believe that the phe- 
 nomena of dreams might, if carefully observed, afford some 
 help. The ground-tone of feeling in a dream, the background 
 on which the phantoms move, is often determined by the 
 state of an internal organ, the irritation of which awakens 
 into some degree of activity that part of the brain with 
 which the organ is in specific sympathy; accordingly sympa- 
 thetic ideas spring out of the feeling and unite in a more or 
 less coherent dream-drama. How plainly this happens in the 
 case of the generative organs it is unnecessary to point out : 
 exciting their specific dreams, they teach a lesson concerning
 
 SPECIFIC ORGANIC SYMPATHIES. 37 
 
 ptysiological sympatliies which, applied to the observation 
 of the effects of other organs, may be largely useful in the 
 interpretation, not of dreams only, but of the phenomena of 
 insanity. Dreams furnish a particularly fruitful field for the 
 study of the specific effects of organs on mind, because these 
 effects are more distinctly felt and more distinctly declared 
 when the impressions from the external senses are shut out 
 by sleep. As the stars are not visible, although they still 
 shine, in the daytime, so the effects of an internal organ may 
 not be perceptible during the waking state while conscious- 
 ness is actively engaged. But just as, when the sun goes 
 down, the stars shine visibly, which before were invisible, 
 veiled by his greater light, so when active consciousness is 
 suspended, organic sympathies, which before were insensible, 
 declare themselves in the mind. Perhaps it is in the lexcita- 
 tionof its sympathetic feeling and ideas by a disordered organ 
 during sleep that we may discover the explanation of a fact 
 which seems to be undoubted, and to be more than accident- 
 al — namely, that a person has sometimes dreamed propheti- 
 cally that he would have a particular internal disease, before 
 he consciously felt a symptom of it, and has been afterward 
 surprised to find his dream come true. 
 
 It is natural to suppose that the passion which a particu- 
 lar organ produces in the mind will be that which, when 
 otherwise excited, discharges itself specially upon that organ. 
 Notably this is the case with the sexual organs and the pas- 
 sion to which they minister. When we consider the effects 
 which a joyful anticipation, or the elation of a present ex- 
 citement, has upon the lungs — the accelerated breathing and 
 the general bodily exhilaration which it occasions — we can- 
 not help thinking of the strange hopefulness and the sanguine 
 expectations of the consumptive patient, who, on the edge 
 of the grave, projects, without a shadow of distrust, what h« 
 will do long after he will have been " green in death and fes- 
 tering in his shroud." Observe how fear strikes the heart, 
 and what anxious fear and apprehension accompany soma
 
 58 BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 affections of the heart. Anger, disappointment, and envy, 
 notably touch the liver ; which, in its turn, when deranged, 
 engenders a gloomy tone of mind through which all things 
 have a malignant look, and fi'om which, when philosophy 
 avails not to free us, the restoration of its functions will 
 yield instant relief. The internal organs are plainly not the 
 agents of their special functions only, but, by reason of the 
 intimate consent or sympathy of functions, they are essential 
 constituents of our mental life. 
 
 The time yet at my disposal will not allow me to do more 
 than mention the effects of mental states on the intimate pro- 
 cesses of nutrition and secretion. Emotion may undoubtedly 
 favor, hinder, or pervert nutrition, and increase, lessen, or 
 alter a secretion ; in doing which there is reason to think 
 that it acts, not only by dilating or contracting the vessels 
 through the vaso-motor system, as we witness in the blush 
 of shame and the pallor of fear, but also directly on the or- 
 ganic elements of the part through the nerves, which, as the 
 latest researches seem to show, end in them sometimes by 
 continuity of substance. If they do so end, it is difficult to 
 conceive how a strong emotion vibrating to the ultimate 
 fibrils of a nerve can fail to affect for a moment or longer 
 the functions of the organic elements. Be this so or not, 
 however, the familiar observations — first, that a lively hope 
 or joy exerts an enlivening effect upon the bodily life, quiet 
 and equable when moderate, but, when stronger, evinced in 
 the brilliancy of the eye, in the quickened pulse and respira- 
 tion, in an inclination to laugh and sing ; and, secondly, that 
 grief or other depressing passion has an opposite effect, re- 
 laxing the arteries, enfeebling the heart, making the eye dull, 
 impeding digestion, and producing an inclination to sigh and 
 weep — these familiar observations of opposite effects indicate 
 the large part which mental states may play, not in the 
 causation of all sorts of disease alone, but in aiding recov- 
 ery from them. A sudden and great mental shock may, like 
 a great physical shock, and perhaps in the same way, par-
 
 INFLUENCE OF MIND ON BODY. 39 
 
 uljze for a time all the bodily and mental fonctions, or cause 
 instant death. It may, again, produce epilepsy, apoplexy, or 
 insanity ; while a prolonged state of depression and anxiety 
 is sometimes an important agent in the causation of chronic 
 disease, such as diabetes and heart-disease. Can it be 
 doubted, too, that the strong belief that a bodily disorder 
 will be cured by some appliance, itself innocent of good or 
 harm, may so affect beneficially the nutrition of the part as 
 actually to effect a cure ? To me it seems not unreasonable 
 to suppose that the mind may stamp its tone, if not its very 
 features, on the individual elements of the body, inspiring 
 them with hope and energy, or infecting them with despair 
 and feebleness. A separated portion of the body, so little 
 that our naked eye can make nothing of it, the spermatozoon 
 of the male and the ovum of the female, does at any rate 
 contain, in a latent state, the essential characters of the 
 mind and body of the individual from whom it has pro- 
 ceeded ; and, as we are utterly ignorant how this myste- 
 rious effect is accomplished, we are certainly not in a posi- 
 tion to deny that what is true of the spermatozoon and ovum 
 may be true of other organic elements. And, if this be so, 
 then those who profess to discover the character of the in- 
 dividual in the character of the nose, the hand the features, 
 or other part of the body, may have a foundation of truth 
 for speculations which are yet only vague, fanciful, and val- 
 ueless. 
 
 Perhaps we do not, as physicians, consider sufficiently the 
 influence of mental states in the production of disease, and 
 their importance as symptoms, or take all the advantage 
 which we might take of them in our efforts to cure it. Quack- 
 ery seems to have here got hold of a truth which legitimate 
 medicine fails to appreciate and use adequately. Assuredly 
 the most successful physician is he who, inspiring the great 
 est confidence in his remedies, strengthens and exalts the im- 
 agination of his patient : if he orders a few drops of pepper- 
 mint-water with the confident air of curing the disease, wiU
 
 40 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 he not really do more sometimes for the patient than one who 
 treats him in the most approved scientific way, but without 
 inspiring a conviction of recovery ? Ceremonies, charms, ges- 
 ticulations, amulets, and the like, have in all ages and among 
 all nations been greatly esteemed and largely used in the 
 treatment of disease ; and it may be speciously presumed that 
 they have derived their power, not from any contract with 
 the supernatural, but, as Bacon observes, by strengthening 
 and exalting the imagination of him who used them. En- 
 tirely ignorant as we are, and probably ever shall be, of the 
 nature of mind, groping feebly for the laws of its operation, 
 we certainly cannot venture to set bounds to its power over 
 those intimate and insensible molecular movements which 
 are the basis of all our visible bodily functions, any more than 
 we can justly venture to set bounds to its action in the vast 
 and ever-progressing evolution of Nature, of which all our 
 thoughts and works are but a part. This much we do know : 
 that as, on the one hand, in the macrocosm of Nature, it is 
 certain that the true idea once evolved is imperishable — that 
 it passes from individual to individual, from nation to nation, 
 from generation to generation, becoming the eternal and ex- 
 alting possession of man — so, on the other hand, in the mi- 
 crocosm of the body, wliich some ignorantly despise, there 
 are many more things in the reciprocal action of mind and 
 organic element than are yet dreamed of in our philosophy.
 
 LECTURE n. 
 
 Gentlemen : In mj last lecture I gaye a general snrvey 
 of tlie physiology of onr mental functions, showing how in- 
 dissoluhly they are bound up with the bodily functions, and 
 how barren must of necessity be a study of mind apart from 
 body. I pointed out that the higher mental operations were 
 functions of the supreme nerve-centres ; but that, though of 
 a higher and more complex nature than the functions of the 
 lower nerve-centres, they obeyed the same physiological laws 
 of evolution, and could be best approached through a knowl- 
 edge of them. I now propose to show that tbe phenomena 
 of the derangement of mind bear out fully this view of its na- 
 ture ; that we have not to deal with disease of a metaphys- 
 ical entity, which the method of inductive inquiry cannot 
 reach, nor the resources of the medical art touch, but with 
 disease of the nervous system, disclosing itself by physical 
 and mental symptoms. I say advisedly physical and mental, 
 because in most, if not all, cases of insanity, at one period or 
 other of their course, there are, in addition to the prominent 
 mental features, symptoms of disordered nutrition and secre- 
 tion, of disordered sensibility, or of disordered motility. Nei- 
 ther in health nor in disease is the mind imprisoned in one 
 corner of the body ; and, when a person is lunatic, he is, as 
 Dr. Bucknill has remarked, lunatic to his fingers' ends. 
 
 Mental disorders are neither more nor less than nervous dis- 
 eases in which mental symptoms predominate, and their entire 
 separation from other nervous diseases has been a sad hin-
 
 42 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 derance to progress. When a blow on the head has paralyzed 
 sensibility and movement, in consequence of the disease in 
 the brain which it has initiated, the patient is sent to the 
 hospital ; but when a blow on the head has caused mental 
 derangement, in consequence of the disease of brain which it 
 has initiated, the patient is sent to an asylum. In like man- 
 ner, one man who has unluckily swallowed the eggs of a 
 tfenia, and has got a cysticercus in the brain, may go to the 
 hospital ; another who has been similarly unlucky goes to an 
 asylum. Syphilitic disease of the brain or its arteries lands 
 one person in an asylum with mental symptoms predominant, 
 another in a hospital with sensory and motor disorder pre- 
 dominant. The same cause produces different symptoms, ac- 
 cording to the part of the brain which it particularly affects. 
 No doubt it is right that mental derangements should have, 
 as they often require, the special appliances of an asylum, 
 but it is certainly not right that the separation which is neces- 
 sary for treatment should reach to their pathology and to the 
 metliod of its study. So long as this is the case, we shall 
 labor in vain to get exact scientific ideas concerning their 
 causation, their pathology, and their treatment. 
 
 Clearing, then, the question as completely as possible from 
 the haze which metaphysics has cast around it, let us ask — 
 How comes idiocy, or insanity ? What is the scientific mean- 
 ing of them? We may take it to be beyond question that 
 they are not accidents; that they come to pass, as every 
 other event in Nature does, by natural law. They are mys- 
 terious visitations only because we understand not the laws 
 of their production, appear casualties only because we are 
 ignorant of their causality. When a blow on the head or an 
 inflammation of the membranes of the brain has produced 
 derangement of mind, we need not look farther for a cause : 
 the actual harm done to structure is suflicient to account for 
 disorder of function in the best-constituted and best-developed 
 brain. But it is only in a small proportion of cases of insanity 
 that we car discover such a direct physical occasion of disease. 
 
 i
 
 IDIOCY 43 
 
 In a great many cases — in more than half, certainly, and per- 
 liaps in five out of six — there is something in the nervous 
 organization of the person, some native peculiarity, which, 
 however we name it, predisposes him to an outbreak of in- 
 sanity. When two persons undergo a similar moral shock, 
 or a similar prolonged anxiety, and one of them goes mad in 
 consequence, while the other goes to sleep and goes to work 
 and recovers his equanimity, it is plain that all the cooper- 
 ating conditions have not been the same, that the entire 
 cause has been different. What, then, has been the differ- 
 ence ? In the former case there has been present a most im- 
 portant element, which was happily wanting in the latter — 
 there has been a certain hereditary neurosis, an unknown and 
 variable quantity in the equation. 
 
 Perhaps of all the erroneous notions concerning mind 
 which metaphysics has engendered or abetted, there is none 
 more false than that which tacitly assumes or explicitly de- 
 clares that men are born with equal original mental capacity, 
 opportunities and education determining the differences of 
 subsequent development. The opinion is as cruel as it is false. 
 What man can by taking thought add one cubit either to his 
 mental or to his bodily stature? Multitudes of human beings 
 come into the world weighted with a destiny against which 
 they have neither the will nor the power to contend ; they are 
 the step-children of Nature, and groan under the worst of all 
 tyrannies — the tyranny of a bad organization. Men differ, in- 
 deed, in the fundamental characters of their minds, as they do 
 in the features of their countenances, or in the habits of their 
 bodies; and between those who are born with the pojten- 
 tiality of a full and complete mental development, nnder fa- 
 vorable circumstances, and those who are born with an 
 innate incapacity of mental development, under any circum- 
 stances, there exists every gradation. What teaching could 
 ever raise the congenital idiot to the common level of hu- 
 man intelligence? What teaching could ever keep the in- 
 spired mind of the man of genius at that level?
 
 44 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 The congenital idiot is deprived of his human birthright ; 
 for he is born with such a defect of brain that he cannot 
 display any, or can only display very feeble and imperfect 
 mental functions. From no fault of his own is he thus afflict- 
 ed, seeing that he must be held innocent of all offence but 
 the offence of his share of original sin ; but it is nowise so 
 clear that it is not from some fault of his parents. It is all too 
 true that, in many cases, there has observably been a neglect 
 or disregard of the laws which govern the progress of human 
 development through the ages. Idiocy is, indeed, a manufac- 
 tured article ; and, although we are not always able to tell 
 how it is manufactured, still its important causes are known 
 and are within control. Many cases are distinctly traceable 
 to parental intemperance and excess. Out of 300 idiots in 
 Massachusetts, Dr. Howe found as many as 145 to be the off- 
 spring of intemperate parents ; and there are numerous scat- 
 tered observations which prove that chronic alcoholism in 
 the parent may directly occasion idiocy in the child. I think, 
 too, that there is no reasonable question of the ill effects of 
 marriages of consanguinity : that their tendency is to pro- 
 duce degeneracy of the race, and idiocy as the extremest 
 form of such degeneracy. I do not say that all the children 
 of such marriages may not sometimes be healthy, and some 
 of them quite healthy at other times ; but the general and 
 ultimate result of breeding in and in is to produce barrenness 
 and sterility, children of a low degree of viability and of 
 imperfect mental and physical development, deaf-mutism, and 
 actual imbecility or idiocy. Again, insanity in the parent 
 may issue in idiocy in the offspring, which is, so to speak, the 
 natural term of mental degeneracy when it goes on un- 
 checked through generations. It may be affirmed with no 
 little confidence that, if the experiment of intermarrying in- 
 sane persons for two or three generations were tried, the re- 
 sult would be sterile idiocy and extinction of the family. 
 Certain unfavorable conditions of life tend unquestionably to 
 produce degeneracy of the individual ; the morbid predispo-
 
 DEGENERATE VARIETIES. 45 
 
 Bition so generated is then transmitted to the next generation, 
 and, if the unfavorable conditions continue, is aggravated in 
 it ; and thus is formed a morbid variety of the human kind, 
 which is incapable of being a link in the line of progress of 
 humanity. Nature puts it under the ban of sterility, and 
 thus prevents the permanent degradation of the race. Morel 
 has traced through four generations the family history of a 
 youth who was admitted into the asylum at Kouen in a state 
 of stupidity and semi-idiocy; the summary of which may 
 fitly^illustrate the natural course of degeneracy when it goes 
 on through generations. 
 
 First generation : Immorality, depravity, alcoholic ex- 
 cess and moral degradation, in the great-grandfather, who 
 was killed in a tavern-brawl. 
 
 Second generation : Hereditary drunkenness, maniacal at- 
 tacks, ending in general paralysis, in the grandfather. 
 
 Third generation : Sobriety, but hypochondriacal tenden- 
 cies, delusions of persecutions, and homicidal tendencies in 
 the father. 
 
 Fourth generation : Defective intelligence. First attack 
 of mania at sixteen; stupidity, and transition to complete 
 idiocy. Furthermore, probable extinction of the family; 
 for the generative functions were as little developed as those 
 of a child of twelve years of age. He had two sisters who 
 were both defective physically and morally, and were classed 
 as imbeciles. To complete the proof of heredity in this case, 
 Morel adds that the mother had a child while the father was 
 confined in the asylum, and that this adulterous child showed 
 no signs of degeneracy. 
 
 When epilepsy in young children leads to idiocy, as it 
 often does, we must generally look for the deep root of the 
 mischief in the family neurosis. 
 
 No one can well dispute that, in the case of such an 
 
 extreme morbid variety us a congenital idiot is, we have to 
 
 do with a defective nervous organization. "We are still, 
 
 however, without more than a very few exact description? 
 
 3
 
 46 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 of the brains of idiots. Mr. Marshall has recently examined 
 and described the brains of two idiots of European descent. 
 He found the convolutions to be fewer in number, individu- 
 ally less complex, broader and smoother, than in the apes : 
 "In this respect," he says, "the idiots' brains are even more 
 simple than that of the gibbon, and approach that of the 
 baboon." The condition was the result neither of atrophy 
 nor of mere arrest of growth, but consisted essentially in an 
 imperfect evolution of the cerebral hemispheres or their 
 parts, dependent on an arrest of development. The propor- 
 tion of the weight of brain to that of body was extraordinarily 
 diminished. We learn, then, that when man is born with a 
 brain no higher — indeed, lower — than that of an ape, he may 
 have the convolutions fewer in number, and individually less 
 complex, than they are in the brain of a chimpanzee and an 
 orang; the human brain may revert to, or fall below, that 
 type of development from which, if the theory of Darwin be 
 true, it has gradually ascended by evolution through the 
 
 "With the defect of organ there is a corresponding defect 
 of function. But there is sometimes more than a simple 
 defect. A curious and interesting fact, which has by no 
 means yet received the consideration which it deserves, is 
 that, with the appearance of this animal type of brain in 
 idiocy, there do sometimes appear or reappear remarkable 
 animal traits and instincts. There is a class of idiots which 
 may justly be designated theroid^ so like brutes are the mem- 
 bers of it. The old stories of so-called wild men, such as 
 Peter the wild boy, and the young savage of Aveyron, who 
 ran wild in the woods and lived on acorns and whatever else 
 they could pick up there, were certainly exaggerated at the 
 time. These degraded beings were evidently idiots, who 
 exhibited a somewhat striking aptitude and capacity for a 
 wild animal life. Dr. Carpenter, however, quotes the case 
 of an idiot girl, who was seduced by some miscreant, and 
 who, when she was delivered, gnawed through the umbilical 
 
 i
 
 THEROID DEGENERACY. 47 
 
 cord as some of the lower animals do. And Dr. Orichton 
 Brown, of the West Riding Asylum, records a somewhat 
 Biniilar case in a young woman, not an idiot naturally, but 
 who had gone completely demented after insanity. She had 
 been in the habit of escaping from home, and of living in 
 solitude in the woods, feeding upon wild fruits or what she 
 could occasionally beg at a cottage, and sleeping in the brush- 
 wood. She had frequently lived in this manner for a fort- 
 night at a time. During one of these absences she was 
 delivered of twins ; she had sought out a sheltered hollow, 
 and there, reverting to a primitive instinct, gnawed through 
 the umbilical cord. The twins were alive when found two 
 days after birth, but the mother was in a very exhausted 
 state, having had no food or covering since her delivery. 
 " We have at Salpetri^re," says Esquirol, " an imbecile woman, 
 who used to earn a few sous by doing rough household 
 work. It has happened on several occasions that as soon aa 
 she got her sous she took them to a laborer, and gave herself 
 up to his brutality ; but when she was pregnant she went no 
 more to him." 
 
 In the conformation and habits of other idiots the most 
 careless observer could not help seeing the ape. A striking 
 instance of this kind is described by Dr. Mitchell, Deputy 
 Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland. " I have never," he 
 says, "seen a better illustration of the ape-faced idiot than in 
 this case. It is not, however, the face alone that is ape- 
 like. He grins, chatters, and screams like a monkey, never 
 attempting a sound in any way resembling a word. He puts 
 himself in the most ape-like attitude in his hunts after lice, 
 and often brings his mouth to help his hands. He grasps 
 what he brings to his mouth with an apish hold. His thumbs 
 are but additional fingers. He has a leaping walk. He has 
 heavy eyebrows, and short hair on his cheek or face. He is 
 muscular, active, and not dwarfish. He sits on the floor in 
 ape fashion, with his genitals always exposed. He has filthy 
 habits of all kinds. He may be called an idiot of the lowest
 
 18 BODY AND MIXD. • 
 
 order ; yet there is a miscliievous brute-like intelligence in his 
 eye. His head is not very small, its greatest circumference 
 being twenty inches and a half, but in shape it strongly 
 exhibits the ape-form of abnormality." 
 
 Pinel has recorded the case of an idiot "svho was some- 
 thing like a sheep, both in respect of her tastes, her mode of 
 life, and the form of her head. She had an aversion to meat, 
 and ate fruit and vegetables greedily, and drank nothing but 
 water. Her demonstrations of sensibility, joy, or trouble, 
 were confined to the repetition of the ill-articulated words, 
 5^, ma^ tail. She alternately bent and raised her head, and 
 rubbed herself against the belly of the girl who attended 
 her. If she wanted to resist or express her discontent, she 
 tried to butt with the crown of her head ; she was very pas- 
 sionate. Her back, her loins, and shoulders, were covered 
 with flexible and blackish hairs one or two inches long. She 
 never could be made to sit on a chair or bench, even when at 
 meals; as soon as she was placed in a sitting posture, s?ie 
 glided on the floor. She slept on the floor in the posture of 
 animals. 
 
 There is now under care, in the West Riding Asylum, a 
 deformed idiot girl who, in general appearance and habits, 
 has, according to Dr. Brown, striking features of resemblance 
 to a goose ; so much so, that the nurses who received her dp- 
 scribed her as just like " a plucked goose." Her father died 
 in the asylum, and her mother's sister was also a patient in it 
 at one time. She is four feet two inches in height, has a small 
 head, and thin and scanty hair, so that the crown of the head 
 is partially bald. The eyes are large, round, prominent, and 
 restless, and are frequently covered by the eyelids, as if \>y a 
 Blow, forcible eff'ort at winking. The lower jaw is laige, 
 projecting more than one inch beyond the contracted upper 
 jaw, and possesses an extraordinary range of antero-pos- 
 terior, as well as lateral, movement ; the whole configuration 
 of the lower part of the face having a somewhat bill-like ap- 
 pearance. The neck is unusually long and flexible, and is
 
 TUEROID IDIOCY. 49 
 
 capable of being bent backward so as actually to toucli the 
 back between the scapuke. Tlie cutis anserina is general 
 over the body, but is most marked on the back and dorsal 
 aspects of the limbs, where it looks exactly as if it had been 
 just deprived of feathers. The inferior angles of the scapula) 
 stand prominently out, and moving freely with the movements 
 of the arms have precisely the appearance of rudimentary 
 wings. The girl utters no articulate sounds, but expresses 
 pleasure by cackling like a goose, and displeasure by hissing 
 or screeching like a goose, or perhaps like a macaw. "When 
 angry, she flaps her arms against her sides and beats her feet 
 upon the floor. She knows her own name, and understands 
 one or two short sentences, such as " Come here " and " Put 
 out your hand." She recognizes the persons who attend 
 upon her, and feed her, and is much agitated if touched by a 
 stranger. She cannot feed herself, but swallows voraciously 
 all that is put into her mouth, showing no preference for one 
 article of diet over another. She is dirty in her habits, and 
 no amount of attention has improved her in this respect. 
 She is very fond of her bath, cackling when she is put into it. 
 and screeching when she is taken out of it.* 
 
 It is a natural question, Whence come these animal traits 
 
 * The following acconnt of an idiot in the "Western Counties Idiot Asy- 
 lum has been communicated to me by Mr. Kenton, surgeon to the Asylum : 
 She is between 15 and 16 years old, has a very small head, bnt is well formed 
 otherwise, and well nourished. She has little or no intellect, not being able 
 to speak, and barely understanding a few signs. By careful treatment she 
 has been taught to feed herself, but there her education has reached its 
 limit. She has been left to herself, and watched with a view to observe her 
 natural habits. When alone in the garden, she chooses a quiet spot among 
 the shrubs, and, sitting down, will bend forward with her small head be- 
 tween her thighs, and occupy herself in picking imaginary insects from the 
 adjacent parts of her body, pretending to pick them and to throw them 
 away. She will then wander about, and finding a suitable bough, will 
 swing by her hands, and then double her legs over the branch and swing 
 with her head downward. She will steal any thing she fancies, and hide it 
 away ; will suddenly spring upon any child near and bite and scratch It, 
 and then in a moment look as demure as if she had done nothing. At cer- 
 tain times she will go under the shrubs, scratch a hole with her hands in
 
 50 BODY AND MIKD. 
 
 and instincts in man? Whence was derived the instinct 
 which taught the idiot woman to gnaw through the umhilical 
 cord? Was it really the reappearance of a primitive instinct 
 of animal nature — a faint echo from a far-distant past, testi- 
 fying to a kinship which man has almost outgrown, or has 
 grown too proud to acknowledge? No doubt such animal 
 traits are marks of extreme human degeneracy, but it is no 
 explanation to call them so ; degenerations come by law, and 
 are as natural as natural law can make them. Instead of 
 passing them by as abnormal, or, worse still, stigmatizing 
 them as unnattiral, it behooves us to seek for the scientific 
 interpretation which they must certainly have. When we 
 reflect that every human brain does, in the course of its de- 
 velopment, pass througli the same stages as the brains of 
 other vertebrate animals, and that its transitional states re- 
 semble the permanent forms of their brains ; and when we 
 reflect further, that the stages of its development in the 
 womb may be considered the abstract and brief chronicle of 
 a series of developments that have gone on through countless 
 ages in Nature, it does not seem so wonderful, as at the first 
 blush it might do, that it should, when in a condition of 
 arrested development, sometimes display animal instincts. 
 Summing up, as it were, in itself the leading forms of the 
 vertebrate type, there is truly a brute brain within the man's; 
 and when the latter stops short of its characteristic develop- 
 ment as Tiuman — wlien it remains arrested at or below the 
 level of an orang's brain — it may be presumed that it will 
 manifest its most primitive functions, and no higher functions. 
 
 the ground, sit down upon it as a cat does, then turn round and carefully 
 cover the spot by scraping the earth over it with her hands. She tears her 
 clothes up into strips, and hides the pieces. Mr. Kenton mentions another 
 idiot under his care, who puts every thing to his nose before putting it into 
 his mouth. This he does, not liastily, but deliberately, examining each 
 piece of food carefully by his sense of smell. He greatly dislikes butter, 
 and will not eat pie-crust or any cooked food which contains butter, and he 
 detects its presence with certainty by the sense of smell. He will not kiss 
 any one iDl he has sniffed at the person first.
 
 CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT. 51 
 
 I am not aware of any other considerations than those just 
 adduced which offer even the glimpse of an explanation of 
 the origin of these animal traits in man. We need not, how- 
 ever, confine our attention to idiots only. "Whence come the 
 savage snarl, the' destructive disposition, the obscene lan- 
 guage, the wild howl, the offensive habits, displayed by some 
 of the insane ? Why should a human being deprived of his 
 reason ever become so brutal in character as some do, unless 
 he has the brute nature within him? In most large asylums 
 there is one, or more than one, example of a demented per- 
 son who truly ruminates : bolting his food rapidly, he retires 
 afterward to a corner, where at his leisure he quietly brings 
 it up again into the mouth and masticates it as the cow does. 
 I should take up a long time if I were to enumerate the 
 various brute-like characteristics that are at times witnessed 
 among the insane ; enough to say that some very strong facts 
 and arguments in support of Mr. Darwin's views might be 
 drawn from the field of morbid psychology. We may, with- 
 out much diflS-Culty, trace savagery in civilization, as we can 
 trace animalism in savagery ; and, in the degeneration of in- 
 sanity, in the unhinding, so to say, of the human kind, there 
 are exhibited marks denoting the elementary instincts of its 
 composition. 
 
 It behooves us, as scientific inquirers, to realize distinctly 
 the physical meaning of the progress of human intelligence 
 from generation to generation. What structural differences 
 in the brain are implied by it? That an increasing purpose 
 runs through the ages and that "the thoughts of men are 
 widened with the process of the suns," no one will call in 
 question ; and that this progress has been accompanied by a 
 progressive development of the cerebral hemispheres, the 
 convolutions of which have increased in size, number, and 
 complexity, will hardly now be disputed. Whether the frag- 
 ments of ancient human crania which have been discovered 
 in Europe do or do not testify to the existence of a barbarous 
 race that disappeared before historical time, they certainly
 
 52 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 mark a race not higher than the lowest surviving human va- 
 riety. Dr. Pritchard's comparison of the skulls of the same 
 nation at diiFerent periods of its history led him to the con- 
 clusion that the present inhabitants of Britain, " either as the 
 result of many ages of great intellectual cultivation or from 
 some other cause, have much more capacious brain-cases 
 than their forefathers." Yet stronger evidence of a growth 
 of brain with the growth of intelligence is furnished by an 
 examination of the brains of existing savages. Gratiolet has 
 figured and described the brain of the Hottentot Yenus, who 
 was nowise an idiot. He found a striking simplicity and a 
 regular arrangement of the convolution of the frontal lobes, 
 which presented an almost perfect symmetry in the two 
 hemispheres, involuntarily recalling the regularity and sym- 
 metry of the cerebral convolutions in the lower animals. 
 The brain was palpably inferior to that of a normally-de- 
 veloped white woman, and could only be compared with the 
 brain of a white idiotic from arrest of cerebral development. 
 Mr. Marshall has also recently examined the brain of a Bush- 
 woman, and has discovered like evidence of structural inferi- 
 ority : the primary convolutions, although all present, were 
 smaller and much less complicated than in the European ; 
 the external connecting convolutions were still more remark- 
 ably defective; the secondary .sulci and convolutions were 
 everywhere decidedly less developed ; there was a deficiency 
 of transverse commissural fibres ; and in size, and every one 
 of the signs of comparative inferiority, "it leaned, as it were, 
 to the higher quadrumanous forms." The developmental dif- 
 ferences between this brain and the brain of a European 
 were in fact of the same kind as, though less in degree than, 
 those between the brain of an ape and that of a man. 
 Among Europeans the average weight of the brain is greater 
 in educated than in uneducated persons ; its size — other cir- 
 cumstances being equal — bearing a general relation to the 
 mental power of the individual. Dr. Thurnam concludes, 
 from a series of carefully-compiled tables, that while
 
 BRAIN-WEIGHTS. 53 
 
 the average weight of the brain in ordinary Europeans 
 is 49 oz., it was 54.7 oz. in ten distinguished men; and 
 Prof. Wagner found a remarkably complex arrangement 
 of the convolutions in the brains of five very eminent 
 men which he examined.* Thus, then, while we take it to 
 be well established that the convolutions of the human brain 
 have undergone a considerable development through the ages, 
 we may no less justly conclude that its larger, more numer- 
 ous, and complex convolutions reproduce the higher and more 
 varied mental activity to the progressive evolution of which 
 their progressive increase has answered — that they manifest 
 the kird of function which has determined the structure. 
 The vesicular neurine has increased in quantity and in qual- 
 ity, and the Unction of the increased and more highly-en- 
 dowed struc^'.ure is to display that intelligence which it un- 
 
 *The following tT-bl:; ir compiled from Dr. T'hunam'e paper "On the 
 Weight of the Human Brain " {Journal of Mental Sd-ence, April, 1866) : 
 
 BRAIN-T^EilHTS OP DISTINGl ISHFD IiEN. 
 
 Ages. Oz. 
 
 1. Cnvier, Naturalist 63 64.5 
 
 2. Abercrombie, PhijHc:in 64 63 
 
 3. Spurzheim, Physician ...... 56 55.'M5 
 
 <i. D'w'icYAet, Mathematitia-A ...... 54 55.6 
 
 5. De Moray, Statesman anc C'm. tuT . . . , 50 53 fi 
 
 6. Daniel Webster, Statesman 70 53.5 
 
 7. Chva^'beW, Lord- Chancellor 80 53.^ 
 
 ^. ChdilmQv^^ celebrated Freaci\er 6/63 
 
 9. Fuchs, Pathologist {.'2 52.9 
 
 10. Gauss, Mathematician ..«-... 78 52.t» 
 
 Average of ten distinguished mpu .... 50-70 54.7 
 
 Brain-weights of average European m->n . . • "j sqIw 47! 
 
 Average brain-weight of male negroes 44.3 
 
 " " 14 congenital idi ^tt. (a ales) . . 42 
 
 " • " 8 " " (females) . . 41.2 
 
 Estimated brain-weight of Microcephalic idiocy (ii\ales) . . 37.5 
 
 " (females) . 32.£: 
 It may be proper to add that the average weight of the adult male br.iin 
 Is 10 per cent, greater than that of the female— 100 : 90. The brains of the 
 Hottentot, Bushman, and Australian are, so far as observation goes, ot leat 
 Weight iban those of negroes.
 
 54 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 consciously embodies. The native Australian, who is one of 
 the lowest existing savages, has no words in his language to 
 express such exalted ideas as justice, love, virtue, mercy; he 
 has no such ideas in his mind, and cannot comprehend them. 
 The vesicular neurine which should embody them in its con- 
 stitution and manifest them in its function has not been de- 
 veloped in his convolutions; he is as incapable therefore of 
 tlie higher mental displays of abstract reasoning and moral 
 feeling as an idiot is, and for a like reason. Indeed, were we 
 to imagine a person born in this country, at this time, with 
 a brain of no higher development than the brain of an Aus- 
 tralian savage or a Bushman, it is perfectly certain that he 
 would be more or less of an imbecile. And the only way, I 
 suppose, in which beings of so low an order of development 
 could be raised to a civilized level of feeling and thought 
 Avould be by cultivation 'continued through several genera- 
 tions ; they would have to undergo a gradual process of hu- 
 manization before they could attain to the capacity of civili- 
 zation. 
 
 Some, who one moment own freely the broad truth that 
 all mental manifestations take place through the brain, go 
 on, nevertheless, to straightway deny that the conscience or 
 moral sensibility can be a function of organization. But, if 
 all mental operations are not in this world equally functions 
 of organization, I know not what warrant we have for de- 
 claring any to be so. The solution of the much-vexed ques- 
 tion concerning the origin of the moral sense seems to lie in 
 the considerations just adduced. Are not, indeed, our moral 
 intuitions results of the operation of the fundamental law of 
 nervous organization by which that which is consciously ac- 
 quired becomes an unconscious endowment, and is then 
 transmitted as more or less of an instinct to the next genera- 
 tion ? They are examples of knowledge which has been 
 hardly gained through the suffering and experience of the 
 race, being now inherited as a natural or instinctive sensi- 
 bility of the well-constituted brain of the indidduah In the 
 
 <
 
 THE MORAL SENSE. 65 
 
 matter of our moral feelings we are most truly the heirs of 
 the ages. Take the moral sense, and examine the actions 
 which it sanctions and those which it forhids, and thus ana- 
 lyze, or, as it were, decompose, its nature, and it will be found 
 that the actions which it sanctions are those which may be 
 proved by sober reason to be conducive to the well-being and 
 the progress of the race, and that its prohibitions fall upon 
 the actions which, if freely indulged in, would lead to the 
 degeneration, if not extinction, of manliind. And if we 
 could imagine the human race to live back again to its ear- 
 liest infancy — to go backward through all the scenes and 
 experiences through which it has gone forward to its present 
 height — and to give back from its mind and character at 
 each time and circumstance, as it passed it, exactly that 
 which it gained when it was there before — should we not 
 find the fragments and exuviae of the moral sense lying here 
 and there along the retrograde path, and a condition at the 
 beginning which, whether simian or human, was bare of al] 
 true moral feeling ? * 
 
 "We are daily vritnesses of, and our daily actions testify 
 to, the operation of that plastic law of nervous organization 
 by which separate and successive acquisitions are combined 
 and so intimately blended as to constitute apparently a sin- 
 gle and undecomposable faculty : we observe it in the forma- 
 tion of our volitions; and we observe it, in a more simple 
 and less disputable form, in the way in which combinations 
 of movements that have been slowly formed by practice are 
 executed finally as easily as if they were a single and sim- 
 ple movement. If the moral sense — which is derived, then, 
 insomuch as it has been acquired in the process of human 
 development through the ages — were not more or less innate 
 in the well-born individual of this age, if he were obliged to 
 go, as the generations of his forefathers have gone, through 
 
 * Foster, in his "Essay on Decision of Character," makes this concep. 
 tlon of the individual character, almost in the words used ; but the applies 
 tion of it to the race, and the conclusion drawn, are of course not his.
 
 56 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 the elementary process of acquiring it, lie would be very 
 much in the position of a person who, on each occasion of 
 writing his name, had to go through the elementary steps of 
 learning to do so. The progressive evolution of the human 
 brain is a proof that we do inherit as a natural endowment 
 the labored acquisitions of our ancestors ; the added struct- 
 ure represents, as it were, the embodied experience and 
 memories of the race ; and there is no greater difficulty in 
 believing that the moral sense may have been so formed, than 
 in believing, what has long been known and is admitted on 
 all hands, that the young fox or young dog inherits as an in- 
 stinct the special cunning which the foxes and the dogs that 
 have gone before it have had to win by hard experience. 
 
 These remarks are not an unnecessary digression. Nor 
 will they have been made in vain if they serve to fix in our 
 minds the conviction that the law of progressive evolution 
 and specialization of nerve-centres, which may be traced 
 generally from the first appearance of nerve-tissue in the low- 
 est animals to the complex structure of the nervous system 
 of man, and specially from the rudimentary appearance of 
 cerebral convolutions in the lower vertebrata to the numer- 
 ous and complex convolutions of the human brain, does not 
 abruptly cease its action at the vesicular neurine of the hemi- 
 spheres, but continues in force within the intimate recesses 
 of the mental organization. Moreover, they are specially to 
 the purpose, seeing that they enable us to understand in some 
 sort how it is that a perversion or destruction of the moral 
 sense is often one of the earliest symptoms of mental derange- 
 ment : as the latest and most exquisite product of mental or- 
 ganization, the highest bloom of culture, it is the first to 
 testify to disorder of the mind-centres. Not that we can de- 
 tect any structural change in such case ; it is far too delicate 
 for that. The wonder would, indeed, be if we could discover 
 such more than microscopical changes with the instruments 
 of research which we yet possess. We might almost as well 
 look to discover the anatomy of a gnat with a telescope.
 
 INSANE NEUROSIS. 57 
 
 I purposely selected for consideration the defective brain 
 of the idiot, because it exhibits an undeniable fault of struct- 
 ure, which is often plainly traceable to evil ancestral in- 
 fluences. When we duly consider this, and reflect that we 
 might, if we chose, arrange a series of human brains which 
 should present a regular gradation from the brain of an ape 
 to that of a well-developed European, are we not fully justi- 
 fied in supposing that like unfavorable ancestral influences 
 may occasion defects in the constitution or composition of 
 the mind-centres which we are yet quite unable to detect ? 
 We know nothing of the occult molecular movements which 
 are the physical conditions of our mental operations; we 
 know little or nothing of the chemical changes which accom- 
 pany them — cannot, in fact, detect the difli'erence between 
 the nerve-element of a brain exhausted by exercise and in- 
 capable of further function, and that of a brain reinvigorated 
 by sleep and ready for a day of energetic function ; and we 
 know nothing of the intricate connection of nerve-cells in the 
 hemispheres. It is plain, then, that there may be, unknown 
 to us save as guessed from their eflfects, the most important 
 modifications in the molecular activities of nerve-element, 
 changes in its chemical composition, and actual defects in the 
 physical constitution of the nerve-centres. Wherefore, when 
 no appreciable defect is found in the brain of one who has 
 had a strong predisposition to insanity, and has ultimately 
 died insane, it behooves us to forbear a hasty conclusion that 
 it is a perfectly well-constituted brain. Close to us, yet in- 
 accessible to our senses, there lies a domain of Nature — that 
 of the infinitely little — the operations in which are as much 
 beyond our present ken as are those that take place in the 
 remotest regions of space, to whicli the eye, with all its aids, 
 cannot yet reach, and of which the mind cannot conceive. 
 
 It certainly cannot be disputed that, when nothing abnor- 
 mal whatever may be discoverable in the brains of persona 
 who have a strong hereditary tendency to insanity, they 
 often exhibit characteristic peculiarities in their manner of
 
 58 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 thought, feeling, and conduct, carrying in their physiognomy, 
 bodily habit, and mental disposition, the sure marks of their 
 evil heritage. These marks are, I believe, the outward and 
 visible signs of an inward and imisible peculiarity of cerebral 
 organization. Here, indeed, we broach a most important in- 
 quiry, which has only lately attracted attention — the inquiry, 
 namely, into the physical and mental sig-ns of the degeneracy 
 of the human kind. I do not mean to assert that all persons 
 whose parents or blood relatives have suffered from nervous 
 or mental disease exhibit mental and bodily peculiarities ; 
 some may be well formed bodily and of superior natural in- 
 telligence, the hereditary disposition in them not having 
 assumed the character of deterioration of race ; but it admits 
 of no dispute that there is what may be called an insane 
 temx)erament or neurosis, and that it is marked by peculiari- 
 ties of mental and bodily conformation. Morel, who was the 
 first to indicate, and has done much to prosecute, this hne of 
 inquiry, looks upon an individual so constituted as containing 
 in himself the germs of a morbid variety : summing up the 
 pathological elements which have been manifested by his an- 
 cestors, he represents the first term of a series which, if 
 nothing happen to check the transmission of degenerate ele- 
 ments from generation to generation, ends in the extreme 
 degeneracy of idiocy, and in extinction of the family. 
 
 "What are the bodily and mental marks of the insane 
 temperament ? That there are such is most certain ; for 
 although the varieties of this temperament cannot yet be 
 described with any precision, no one who accustoms himself 
 to observe closely will fail to be able to say positively, in 
 many instances, whether an insane person, and even a sane 
 person in some instances, comes of an insane family or not. 
 An irregular and unsymmetrical conformation of the head, a 
 want of regularity and harmony of the features, and, as Morel 
 holds, malformations of the external ear, are sometimes ob- 
 served. Convulsions are apt to occur in early life, and there 
 are tics, grimaces, or other spasmodic movements of muscles
 
 THE INSANE TEMPERAMENT. 59 
 
 of face, eyelids, or lips, afterward. Stammering and defects 
 of pronunciation are also sometimes signs of the neurosis.. 
 In other cases there are peculiarities of the eyes, which, 
 though they may be full and prominent, have a vacillating 
 movement, and a vacantly-abstracted, or half-fearful, half- 
 suspicious, and distrustful look. There may, indeed, be 
 something in the eye wonderfully suggestive of the look of an 
 animal. The walk and -manner are uncertain, and, though 
 not easily described in words, may be distinctly peculiar. 
 "With these bodily traits are associated peculiarities of thought, 
 feeling, and conduct. "Without being insane, a person who 
 has the insane neurosis strongly marked is thought to be 
 strange, queer, and not like other persons. He is apt to see 
 things under novel aspects, or to think about them under 
 novel relati(ms, which would not have occurred to an ordinary 
 mortal. Punning on words is, I am inclined to think, some- 
 times an indication of the temperament, and so also that 
 higher kind of wit which startles us with the use of an idea 
 in a double sense ; of both which aptitudes no better example 
 can be given than that of Charles Lamb. His case, too, may 
 show that the insane temperament is compatible with, and 
 indeed it not seldom coexists with, considerable genius. Even 
 those who have it in a more marked form often exhibit re- 
 markable special talents and aptitudes, such as an extraor- 
 dinary talent for music, or for calculation, or a prodigious 
 memory for details, when they may be little better than im- 
 becile in other things. There is, indeed, a marked instinctive 
 character in all they think and do ; they seem not to need or 
 to be able to reflect upon their own mental states. At one 
 time unduly elated, at another time depressed without ap- 
 parent cause, they are prone to do things diff'erently from 
 the rest of the world ; and now and then they do whimsical 
 and seemingly quite purposeless acts, especially under con- 
 ditions of excitement, when the impulses springing out of the 
 unconscious morbid nature surprise and overpower them. 
 Indeed, the mentai balance may be easily upset altogether by
 
 60 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 any great moral shock, or by the strain of continued anxiety. 
 A great physical change in the system, too, such as is caused 
 by the development of puberty, by the puerperal state, and 
 the climacteric change, is not without danger to their mental 
 stability. The effects of alcohol on such persons are in some 
 respects special : it does not make them so much drunk as 
 mad for the time being ; and I think it will be found in most, 
 if not all, cases of insanity caused by alcohol that there has 
 been a predisposition to it. 
 
 I have sketched generally the features of the insane 
 temperament, but there are really several varieties of it which 
 need to be observed and described. In practice we meet 
 with individuals representing every gradation from the mild- 
 est form of the insane temperament down to actual idiocy. 
 These cases ought to be arranged in groups according to their 
 affinities, for until this be done we shall not make much real 
 progress toward exact scientific notions respecting the causa- 
 tion and pathology of insanity. One group might consist of 
 those egotistic beings, having the insane neurosis, who mani- 
 fest a peculiar morbid suspicion of every thing and every- 
 body ; they detect an interested or malicious motive in the 
 most innocent actions of others, always looking out for an 
 evil interpretation ; and even events they regard as in a sort 
 of conspiracy against them. Incapable of altruistic reflec- 
 tion and true sympathies, they live a life of solitude and self- 
 brooding, intrenched within their morbid self-feeling, until the 
 discord between them and the world is so great that there is 
 nothing for it but to count them mad. Another group might 
 be made of those persons of unsound mental temperament 
 who are born with an entire absence of the moral sense, 
 destitute of the possibility even of moral feeling ; they are 
 as truly insensible to the moral relations of life, as defi- 
 cient in this regard, as a person color-blind is to certain 
 colors, or as one who is without ear for music is to the finest 
 harmonies of sound. Although there is usually conjoined 
 with this absence of moral sensibility more or less weakness
 
 MORAL DEFECTS. 61 
 
 of mind, it does happen in some instances that there is a re- 
 markably acute intellect of the cunning type. 
 
 The observations of intelligent prison-surgeons are tend- 
 ing more and more to prove that a considerable proportion 
 of criminals are weak-minded or epileptic, or come of families 
 in which insanity, epilepsy, or some other neurosis, exists. 
 Mr. Thompson, surgeon to the General Prison of Scotland, 
 has gone so far recently as to express his conviction that the 
 principal business of prison-surgeons must always be with 
 mental defects or disease ; that the diseases and causes of 
 death among prisoners are chiefly of the nervous system; 
 and, in fine, that the treatment of crime is a branch of psy- 
 chology. He holds that there is among criminals a distinct 
 and incurable criminal class, marked by peculiar low physical 
 and mental characteristics ; that crime is hereditary in the 
 families of criminals belonging to this class; and that this 
 hereditary crime is a disorder of mind, having close relations 
 of nature and descent to epilepsy, dipsomania, insanity, and 
 other forms of degeneracy. Such criminals are really mordid 
 varieties, and often exhibit marks of physical degeneration — 
 spinal deformities, stammering, imperfect organs of speech, 
 club-foot, cleft-palate, hare-lip, deafness, paralysis, epilepsy, 
 and scrofula. Moreau relates a striking case, which is of in- 
 terest as indicating the alliance between morbid or degenerate 
 varieties, and which I may quote here. 
 
 Mrs. D , aged thirty-two. Her grandfather kept an 
 
 inn at the time of the great French Revolution, and during 
 the Reign of Terror he had profited by the critical situation 
 in which many nobles of the department found themselves to 
 get them secretly into his house, where he was believed to 
 have robbed and murdered them. His daughter, who was in 
 his secrets, having quarrelled with him, denounced him to 
 the authorities, but he escaped conviction from want of proofs. 
 She subsequently committed suicide. One of her brothers 
 had nearly murdered her with a knife on one occasion, and 
 another brother hanged himself. Eer sister was epileptic,
 
 62 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 imbecile, and paroxysmally violent. Her daughter, the pa- 
 tient, after swimming in the head, noises in the ears, flashes 
 before the eyes, became deranged, fancying that people were 
 plotting against her, purchasing arms and barricading herself 
 in her room, and was finally put in an asylum. Thus there 
 were, in different members of this family, crime, melancholia, 
 epilepsy, suicide, and mania. Need we wonder at it? The 
 moral element is an essential part of a complete and sound 
 character ; he who is destitute of it, being unquestionably to 
 that extent a defective being, is therefore on the road to, or 
 marks, race degeneracy ; and it is not a matter of much won- 
 der that his children should, when better influences do not 
 intervene to check the morbid tendency, exhibit a further de- 
 gree of degeneracy, and be actual morbid varieties. I think 
 that no one who has studied closely the causation of insanity 
 will question this mode of production. 
 
 I could not, if I would, in the present state of knowledge, 
 describe accurately all the characteristics of the insane neu- 
 rosis, and group according to their aflinities the cases testify- 
 ing to its influence. The chief concern now with its morbid 
 peculiarities is to point out, first, that they mark some inher- 
 ited fault of brain-organization ; and, secondly, that the cause 
 of such fault is not insanity alone in the parent, but may be 
 other nervous disease, such as hysteria, epilepsy, alcoholism, 
 paralysis, and neuralgia of all kinds. Except in the case of 
 suicidal insanity, it is not usual for the parent to transmit to 
 the child the particular form of mental derangement from 
 which he has suflered : insanity in the parent may be epilepsy 
 in the child, and epilepsy in the parent insanity in the child ; 
 and, in families where a strong tendency to insajaity exists, 
 one member may be insane, another epileptic, a third may 
 Bufi'er from severe neuralgia, and a fourth may commit sui- 
 cide. The morbid conditions which affect the motor nerve- 
 centres in one generation seem to concentrate themselves 
 sometimes upon the sensory or the ideational centres in an 
 other. In truth, nervous disease is a veritable Proteus, dis- 
 
 
 J
 
 TRANSITORY FURY. 68 
 
 appearing in one form to reappear in another, and, it may be, 
 capriciously skipping one generation to fasten upon tlie next. 
 
 The different forms of insanity that occur in young chil- 
 dren — as all forms of it except general paralysis may do — are 
 almost always traceable to nervous disease in the preceding 
 generation, a neuropathic condition being really the essential 
 element in their causation. The cases of acute mania in chil- 
 dren of a few weeks or a few years old, which have been de- 
 scribed, might more properly be classed as examples of idiocy 
 with excitement. There can be no true mania until there is 
 some mind. But we do meet sometimes in older children 
 ■with a genuine acute mania, occurring usually in connection 
 with chorea or epilepsy, and presenting the symptoms, if I 
 may so express it, of a mental chorea or an epilepsy of the 
 mind, but without the spasmodic and convulsive movements 
 of these diseases. More or less dulness of intelligence and 
 apathy of movement, giving the seeming of a degree of imbe- 
 cility, is common enough in chorea, and in some cases there 
 is violent delirium ; but, besides these cases, there are others 
 in which, without choreic disorder of movements, there is a 
 choreic mania : it is an active delirium of ideas which is the 
 counterpart of the usual delirium of movements, and its auto- 
 matic character and its marked incoherence are striking 
 enough to an ordinary observer. Hallucinations of the spe- 
 cial senses, and loss or perversion of general sensibility, usu- 
 ally accompany the delirium, the disorder affecting the cen- 
 tres of special and general sensation, as well as the mind-cen- 
 tres. 
 
 Between this choreic mania and epileptic mania there are 
 intermediate conditions partaking more or less of the charac- 
 ter of one or the other — hybrid forms of a cataleptic nature. 
 The child will lie for hours or days in a seeming ecstasy or 
 trance, with its limbs rigid or fixed in a strange posture. 
 There may be apparent insensibility to impressions, while at 
 other times vague answers are given, or there is a sudden 
 bursting out into wild shrieks or incoherent raving. If thi*
 
 84 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 be of a religious kind, the child is apt to be thought by ig- 
 norant persons to be inspired. The attacks are of variable 
 duration, and are repeated at varying intervals. On the one 
 hand, they pass into attacks of chorea ; and, on the other 
 hand, into true epileptic seizures, or alternate with them. 
 
 In children, as in adults, a brief attack of violent mania, 
 a genuine mania transitoria, may precede, or follow, or take 
 the place of an epileptic fit ; in the latter case being a masked 
 epOepsy. Children of three or four years of age are some- 
 times seized with attacks of violent shrieking, desperate 
 stubbornness, or furious rage, when they bite, tear, kick, and 
 do all the destruction they can ; these seizures, which are a 
 sort of vicarious epilepsy, come on periodically, and may 
 either pass in the course of a few months into regular epilepsy, 
 or may alternate with it. Older children have perpetrated 
 crimes of a savage and determined nature — incendiarism and 
 even murder — under the influence of similar attacks of tran- 
 sitory fury, followed or not by epileptic convulsions. It is of 
 the utmost importance to realize the deep efl:ect which the 
 epileptic neurosis may have on the moral character, and to 
 keep in mind the possibility of its existence when a savage, 
 apparently motiveless, and unaccountable crime has been 
 committed. A single epileptic seizure has been known to 
 change entirely the moral character, rendering a child rude, 
 vicious, and perverse, who was hitherto gentle, amiable, and 
 tractable, l^o one who has seen it can fail to have been 
 struck with the great and abrupt change in moral character 
 which takes place in the asylum epileptic immediately before 
 the recurrence of his fits; in the intervals between them he 
 is often an amiable, obliging, and industrious being, but when 
 they impend he becomes sullen, morose, and most dangerous 
 to meddle with. Xot an attendant but can then foretell that 
 he is going to have his fits, as confidently almost as he can 
 foretell that the sun will rise next day. Morel has made tho 
 interesting observation, which is certainly well founded, that 
 the epileptic neurosis may exist for a considerable period in
 
 INSANE NEUROSIS. 65 
 
 an undeveloped or masked form, showing itself, not bj con- 
 vulsions, but by periodic attacks of mania, or by manifesta- 
 tions of extreme mora) perversion, wMcb are apt to be 
 thought wilful viciousness. But they are not : no moral in- 
 fluence will touch them; they depend upon a morbid physical 
 condition, which can only have a physical cure ; and they 
 get their explanation, and indeed justification, afterward, 
 when actual epilepsy occurs. 
 
 The epileptic neurosis is certainly most closely allied to the 
 insane neurosis; and when it exists in its masked form, af- 
 fecting the mind for some time before convulsions occur, it is 
 hardly possible to distinguish it from one form of the insane 
 neurosis. The difiiculty of doing so is made greater, inas- 
 much as epilepsy in the parent may engender the insane 
 neurosis in the child, and insanity in the parent the epileptic 
 neurosis in the child. A character which the insane neurosis 
 has in common with the epileptic neurosis is, that it is apt to 
 burst out in a convulsive explosion of violence; that when 
 it develops into actual insanity it displays itself in deeds 
 rather than in words — in an insanity of action rather than 
 of thought. It is truly a neurosis spasmodica. Take, for ex- 
 ample, a case which is one of a class, that of the late Alton 
 murderer, who, taking a walk one fine afteruoon, met some 
 little girls at play, enticed one of them into a neighboring 
 hop-garden, there murdered her and cut her body into frag- 
 ments, which he scattered about, returned quietly home, 
 openly washing his hands in the river on the way, made an 
 entry in his diary, "Killed a little girl; it was fine and hot ;" 
 and, when forthwith taken into custody, confessed what he 
 had done, and could give no reason for doing it. At the trial 
 it was proved that his father had had an attack of acute 
 mania, and that another near relative was in confinement, 
 Buifering from homicidal mania. He himself had been noted 
 as peculiar; he had been subject to fits of depression, been 
 prone to weep without apparent reason, and had exhibited 
 singular caprices of conduct ; and it had once been necessary
 
 66 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 to watch him from fear that he might commit suicide. He 
 was not insane in the legal or the ordinary sense of the 
 term, but he certainly had the insane neurosis, and it may be 
 presumed confidently that he would, had he lived, have be- 
 come insane. 
 
 Those who have practical experience of insanity know 
 well that there is a most distressing form of the disease ; in 
 which a desperate impulse to commit suicide or homicide 
 overpowers and takes prisoner the reason. The terrible im- 
 pulse is deplored sometimes by him who suffers from it as 
 deeply as by any one who witnesses it ; it causes him unspeak- 
 able distress ; he is fully conscious of its nature, and struggles 
 in vain against it ; his reason is no further affected than in 
 having lost power to control, or having become the slave of, 
 the morbid and convulsive impulse. It may be that this form 
 of derangement does sometimes occur where there is no he- 
 reditary predisposition to insanity, but there can be no doubt 
 that in tlie great majority of cases of the kind there is such a 
 neuropathic state. The impulse is truly a convulsive idea, 
 springing from a morbid condition of nerve-element, and it 
 is strictly comparable with an epileptic convulsion. How 
 grossly unjust, then, the judicial criterion of responsibility 
 which dooms an insane person of this class to death if he 
 knew what he was doing when he committed a murder ! It 
 were as reasonable to hang a man for not stopping by an act 
 of will a convulsion of which he was conscious. An interest- 
 ing circumstance in connection with this morbid impulse is 
 that its convulsive activity is sometimes preceded by a feeling 
 very like the aura epileptica — a strange morbid sensation, 
 beginning in some part of the body, and rising gradually to 
 the brain. The patient may accordingly give warning of the 
 impending attack in some instances, and in one case was 
 calmed by having his thumbs loosely tied together with a 
 ribbon when the forewarning occurred. Dr. Skae records an 
 instructive example in one of his annual reports. The feeling 
 began at the toes, rose gradually to the chest, producing a 
 
 ill
 
 AURA EPILEPTICA. 67 
 
 sense of faintness and constriction, and then to the head, pro- 
 ducing a momentary loss of consciousness. This aura was 
 accompanied by an involuntary jerking — first of the legs, and 
 then of the arms. It was when these attacks came on tliat 
 the patient felt impelled to commit some act of violence 
 against others or himself. On one occasion he attempted to 
 commit suicide by throwing himself into the water ; moro 
 often the impulse was to attack others. He deplored his con- 
 dition, of which he spoke with great intelligence, giving all the 
 details of his past history and feelings. Id other cases a feeling 
 of vertigo, a trembling, and a vague dread of something fear- 
 ful being about to happen, resembling tlie vertigo and mo- 
 mentary vague despair of one variety of the epileptic aura, 
 precede the attack. Indeed, whenever a murder has been 
 committed suddenly, without premeditation, without malice, 
 without motive, openly, and in a way quite different from 
 the way in which murders are commonly done, we ought to 
 look carefully for evidence of previous epilepsy, and, should 
 there have been no epileptic fits, for evidence of an aura epi- 
 leptica and other symptoms allied to epilepsy. 
 
 It is worth while observing that in other forms of insanity, 
 when we look closely into the symptoms, there are not nn- 
 frequently complaints of strange, painful, and distressing 
 sensations in some part of the body, which appear to have a 
 relation to the mental derangement not unlike that which 
 the epileptic aura has to the epileptic fit. Common enough 
 is a distressing sensation about the epigastrium : it is not a 
 definite pain, is not comparable strictly to a burning, or 
 weight, or to any known sensation, but is an indescribable 
 feeling of distress to which the mental troubles are referred. 
 It sometimes rises to a pitch of anguisli, when it abolishes the 
 power to think, destroys the feeling of identity, and causes 
 Buch unspeakable suffering and despair that suicide is at- 
 tempted or accomplished. In other cases the distressing and 
 indescribable sensation is in the crown of the head or down 
 the spine, and sometimes it arises from the pelvic organs. In
 
 68 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 all cases the patients oonnect their mental trouble with it, 
 regarding it as the cause of the painful confusion of thought, 
 the utter inability of exertion, the distressing ideas, and the 
 paroxysm of despair. Perhaps they exaggerate its impor- 
 tance ; but there can be little doubt that writers on mental 
 disorders, too exclusively occupied with the prominent men- 
 tal features, have not hitherto given sufficient attention to 
 these anomalous sensations. We have been apt to class them 
 as hypochondriacal, and to pass them over as of no special 
 significance ; but I cannot help thinking that, properly studied, 
 they may sometimes teach us more of the real nature of the 
 particular form of insanity — of its probable course, termina- 
 tion, and its most suitable treatment — than many much more 
 obtrusive symptoms. 
 
 In bringing this lecture to an end, I may fitly point out 
 how entirely thus far the observation of the phenomena of de- 
 fective and disordered mind proves their essential dependence 
 on defective and disordered brain, and how closely they are 
 related to some other disordered nervous functions. The insane 
 neurosis which the child inherits in consequence of its par- 
 ent's insanity is as surely a defect of physical nature as is 
 the epileptic neurosis to which it is so closely allied. It is an 
 indisputable though extreme fact that certain human beings 
 are born with such a native deficiency of mind that all the 
 training and education in the world will not raise them to 
 the height of brutes ; and I believe it to be not less true that, 
 in consequence of evil ancestral influences, individuals are 
 born with such a flaw or warp of Nature that all the care in 
 the world will not prevent them from being vicious or crimi- 
 nal, or becoming insane. Education, it is true, may do 
 much, and the circumstances of hfe may do much ; but we 
 cannot forget that the foundations on which the acquisitions 
 of education must rest are not acquired, but inherited. No 
 one can escape the tyranny of his organization ; no one can 
 elude the destiny that is innate in him, and which uncon- 
 sciously and irresistibly shapes his ends, even when he be-
 
 TYRANNY OF ORGANIZATION. 69 
 
 lieves that lie is determining tliem with consummate fore- 
 sight and skill. A well-grounded and comprehensive theory 
 of mind must recognize and embrace these facts ; they meet 
 us every moment of our lives, and cannot be ignored if we 
 are in earnest in our attempts to construct a mental science ; 
 and it is because metaphysical mental philosophy has taken 
 no notice whatever of them, because it is bound by the prin- 
 ciple of its existence as a philosophy to ignore them, that, 
 notwithstanding the labor bestowed on it, it has borne no 
 fruits — that, as Bacon said of it, "not only what was asserted 
 once is asserted still, but what were questions once are ques- 
 tions still, and, instead of being resolved by discussion, are 
 only fixed and fed."
 
 LECTUEE m. 
 
 Gentlemen : In my last lecture I showed how large a 
 part in the production of insanity is played by the hereditary 
 neurosis, and pointed out the necessity of scrutinizing more 
 closely than has yet been done the features of the different 
 forms of mental derangement that own its baneful influence. 
 Past aU question it is the most important element in the 
 causation of insanity. It cannot be in the normal order of 
 events that a healthy organism should be unable to bear or- 
 dinary mental trials, much less a natural physiological func- 
 tion such as the evolution of puberty, the puerperal state, or 
 the climacteric change. When, therefore, the strain of grief 
 or one of these physiological conditions becomes the occa- 
 sion of an outbreak of insanity, we must look for the root of 
 the ill in some natural infirmity or instability of nerve-ele- 
 ment. !N"ot until we apply ourselves earnestly to an exact 
 observation and discrimination of all the mental and bodily 
 conditions which cooperate in the causation, and are mani- 
 fested in the symptoms, of the manifold varieties of insanity, 
 shall we render more precise and satisfactory our knowledge 
 of its causes, its classification, and its treatment. How un . 
 scientific it appears when we reflect, to enumerate, as is com« 
 monly done, sex and age among its predisposing causes ! Xo 
 one goes mad because he or she happens to be a man or a 
 woman, but because to each sex, and at certain ages, there 
 occur special physiological changes, which are apt to run into 
 pathological eftects in persons predisposed to nervous dis-
 
 HYSTERICAL INSANITY. 71 
 
 order. How often it happens that a moral cause of insanity 
 is sought and falsely found in a state of mind such as grief 
 or jealousy, which is really an early symptom of the disease! 
 Again, how vague and unsatisfactory the accepted psycho- 
 logical classification of insanity, under which forms of dis- 
 ease distinct enough to claim separate descriptions are in- 
 cluded in the same class ! It is obvious that we learn very 
 little of value from an account of the treatment of mania 
 generally when there are included under the class diseases so 
 different as puerperal mania, the mania of general paralysis, 
 syphilitic, epileptic, and hysterical mania, each presenting 
 features and requiring treatment in some degree special. 
 The hope and the way of advance in our knowledge of men- 
 tal disorders lie in the exact observation of the varieties of 
 tlie insane diathesis, and of the effects of bodily functions 
 and disorders upon these ; in noting carefully the bodily as 
 well as mental symptoms that characterize the several forms 
 of derangement of mind ; and in tracing the relations of 
 mental to other disorders of the nervous system. TVe must 
 aim to distinguish well if we would teach well — to separate 
 the cases that exhibit special features and relations, and to 
 arrange them in groups or classes according to their affinities, 
 just as we do habitually with general paralysis, and as I did 
 in my last lecture with epileptic mania. 
 
 Following this plan, we might in like manner make of 
 Jiysterical insanity a special variety. An attack of acute 
 maniacal excitement, with great restlessness, rapid and dis- 
 connected but not entirely incoherent conversation, some- 
 times tending to the erotic or obscene, evidently without 
 abolition of consciousness ; laughing, singing, or rhyming, 
 and perverseness of conduct, which is still more or less cohe- 
 rent and seemingly wilful — may occur in connection with, or 
 instead of, the usual hysterical convulsions. Or the ordinary 
 hysterical symptoms may pass by degrees into chronic insanity. 
 Loss of power of will is a characteristic symptom of hysteria 
 in all its Protean forms, and with the perverted sensations
 
 72 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 and disordered movements there is always some degree of 
 moral perversion. This increases until it swallows up the 
 other symptoms : the patient loses more and more of her 
 energy and self-control, becoming capriciously fanciful about 
 her health, imagining or feigning strange diseases, and keep- 
 ing up tiie delusion or the imposture with a pertinacity that 
 ijiight seem incredible, getting more and more impatient of 
 the advice and interference of others, and indifferent to the 
 interests and duties of her position. Outbursts of temper 
 become almost outbreaks of mania, particularly at the men- 
 strual periods. An erotic tinge may be observable in her 
 manner of behavior; and occasionally there are quasi- 
 ecstatic or cataleptic states. It is an easily-curable form of 
 derangement if the patient be removed in time from the anx- 
 ious but hurtful sympathies and attentions of her family, and 
 placed under good moral control ; but, if it be allowed to go 
 on unchecked, it will end in dementia, and it is especially apt 
 to do so when there is a marked hereditary predisposition. 
 
 In some instances we observe a curious connection be- 
 tween insanity and neuralgia, not unlike that which, existing 
 between epilepsy and a special form of neuralgia, induced 
 Trousseau to describe the latter as epileptiform. I have un- 
 der observation now a lady who suffered for some time from 
 an intense neuralgia of the left half of the face ; after the 
 removal of a tooth suspected to be at the root of the mis- 
 chief the pain ceased, but an attack of melancholia immedi- 
 ately followed. Griesinger mentions a similar case of a gen- 
 tleman under his care, in whom a double occipital neuralgia 
 was followed by a melancholic state of mind. In his " Com- 
 mentaries on Insanity," Dr. Burrows tells of a very eloquent 
 divine who was always maniacal when free from pains in the 
 spine, and sane when the pains returned to that site. And 
 the late Sir B. Brodie mentions two cases of a similar kind : 
 in one of them a neuralgia of the vertebral column alter- 
 nated with true insanity. These cases appear to be instances 
 of the transference of morbid action from one nerve-centre to
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF NEUROSES. 73 
 
 another, sucli as Dr. Darwin formerly noticed and commented 
 
 on. "Mrs, ," he says, "was seized every day, about 
 
 tlie same hour, with violent pain in the right side of her bow- 
 els, about the situation of the lower edge of the liver, with- 
 out fever, which increased for an hour or two, till it became 
 quite intolerable. After violent screaming she fell into con- 
 \n.ilsions, which terminated sometimes in fainting, with or 
 without stertor, as in common epilepsy ; at other times a 
 temporary insanity supervened, which continued about half 
 an hour, and the fit ceased." It seems not unreasonable to 
 suppose that the morbid action in the sensory centres, which 
 the violent neuralgia implied, was at one time transferred to 
 the motor centres, giving rise to con^ilsive movements, and 
 at another time to the mind-centres, giving rise to convulsive 
 ideas. There is a form of neuralgia which is the analogue of 
 a convulsion, and there is a mania which is the counterpart, 
 in the highest nerve-centres, of neuralgia and comnilsions in 
 their respective centres. Perhaps if we had the power in 
 some cases of acute insanity to induce artificially a violent 
 neuralgia, or general convulsions — to transfer the morbid ac- 
 tion from the mind-centres — we might, for the time being at 
 any rate, cure the insanity. 
 
 I pass on now to exhibit the eflfects of organic sympathies 
 in the causation of mental disorders, or rather the specific 
 efiects of particular organs upon the features of different 
 forms of insanity. In my first lecture I pointed out that 
 there is the closest physiological consent of functions be- 
 tween the different organs; that the brain, as the organ of 
 mind, joins in this consent; and that our ideas and feelings 
 are obtained by the concurrence of impressions from the 
 internal organs of the body and the external organs of the 
 senses. The consequence is, that derangement of an internal 
 organ, acting upon the brain, may engender, by pathological 
 sympathy, morbid feelings and their related ideas. The 
 mental effects may be general or specific : a general emotional 
 depression through which all ideas loom gloomy, of which
 
 74 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 every one's experience testifies; and a special morbid feeling 
 with its particular sympathetic ideas, of which the phenom- 
 ena of dreaming and insanity yield illustrations. 
 
 The slight shades of this kind of morbid influence we can- 
 not venture to trace; but it is easy to recognize the most 
 marked effects. Take, for example, the irritation of ovariea 
 or uterus, which is sometimes the direct occasion of nympho- 
 mania — a disease by which the most chaste and modest 
 woman is transformed into a raging fury of lust. Some ob- 
 servers have, without sufficient reason I think, made of 
 nymphomania a special variety, grouping under the term 
 cases in which it was a prominent symptom. But it certainly 
 occurs in forms of mania that are quite distinct — in puerperal 
 mania, for example, in epileptic mania, and in the mania 
 sometimes met with in old women ; and the cases in which 
 it does occur have not such characteristic features as warrant 
 tlie formation of a definite group. "We have, indeed, to note 
 and bear in mind how often sexual ideas and feelings arise 
 and display themselves in all sorts of insanity ; how they 
 connect themselves with ideas which in a normal mental 
 state have no known relation to them ; so that it seems as 
 inexplicable that a virtuous person should ever have learned, 
 as it is distressing that she should manifest, so much obscenity 
 of thought and feeling. Perhaps it is that such ideas are ex- 
 cited sympathetically in a morbidly active brain by unrelated 
 ideas, just as, in other nervous disorders, sympathetic morbid 
 sensations and movements occur in parts distant from the 
 seat of the primary irritation. Considering, too, what an 
 important agent in the evolution of mind the sexual feeling 
 is, how much of thought, feeling, and energy it remotely in- 
 spires, there is less cause for wonder at the naked interven- 
 tion of its simple impulses in the phenomena of mania, when 
 coordination of function is abolished in the supreme centres, 
 and the mind resolved, as it were, into its primitive animal 
 elements. This should teach us to take care not to attribute 
 too hastily the sexual feelings to a morbid irritation of the
 
 INSANITY OF rmBESCENCE. 75 
 
 sexual organs. It is plain that they may have a purely cen- 
 tral origin, just as the excitation of them in health may pro- 
 ceed from the mind. Here, in fact, as in other cases, we 
 must bear in mind the reciprocal mfluence of mind on organ, 
 and of organ on mind. 
 
 The great mental revolution which occurs at puberty may 
 go beyond its physiological limits, in some instances, and 
 become pathological. The vague feelings, blind longings, and 
 obscure impulses, which then arise in the mind, attest the 
 awakening of an impulse which knows not at first its aim or 
 the means of its gratification ; a kind of vague and yearning 
 melancholy is engendered, which leads to an abandonment to 
 poetry of a gloomy Byronic kind, or to indulgence in inde- 
 finite religious feelings and aspirations. There is a want of 
 some object to fill the void in the feelings, to satisfy the 
 undefined yearning — a need of something to adore; con- 
 sequently, where there is no visible object of worship the 
 invisible is adored. The time of this mental revolution is, at 
 best, a trying period for youth ; and, where there is an in- 
 herited infirmity of nervous organization, the natural dis- 
 turbance of the mental balance may easily pass into actual 
 destruction of it. 
 
 The form of derangement connected with this period of 
 life I believe to be either a fanciful and quasi-hysterical 
 melancholia, which is not very serious when it is properly 
 treated; or an acute mania, which is apt to be recurrent, and 
 is much more serious. The former occurs especially in girls, 
 if it be not peculiar to them ; there are periods of depression 
 and paroxysms of apparently causeless weeping, alternating 
 with times of undue excitability, more especially at the 
 menstrual periods; a disinclination is evinced to work, to 
 rational amusement, to exertion of any kind ; the behavior is 
 capricious, and soon becomes perverse and wilful ; the natural 
 alfections seem to be blunted or abolished, the patient taking 
 pleasure in distressing those whose feelings she would most 
 consider when in health; and, although there are no fixed
 
 75 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 delusions, there are unfounded suspicions or fears and chan- 
 ging morbid fancies. The anxious sympathies of those most 
 dear are apt to foster the morbid self-feeling which craves 
 them, and thus to aggravate the disease: what such patients 
 need to learn is, not the indulgence but a forgetfulness of 
 their feelings, not the observation but the renunciation of 
 self, not introspection but useful action. In some of these 
 cases, where the disease has become chronic, delusions of 
 sexiTal origin occur, and the patient whose virginity is intact 
 imagines that she is pregnant or has had a baby. 
 
 The morbid self-feeling that has its root in the sexual sys- 
 tem is not unapt to take on a religious guise. "We observe 
 examples of this in certain members of those latter-day reli- 
 gious sects which profess to commingle religion and love, and 
 which especially abound in America. K"o physiologist can 
 well doubt that the holy kiss of love in such cases owes all 
 its warmth to the sexnal feeling which consciously or uncon- 
 sciously inspires it, or that the mystical union of the sexes 
 lies very close to a union that is nowise mystical, when it does 
 not lead to madness. A similar intimate connection between 
 fanatical religious exaltation and sexual excitement is exem- 
 plified by the lives of such religions enthusiasts as St. Theresa 
 and St. Catherine de Sienne, whose nightly trances and 
 visions, in which they believed themselves received as verita- 
 ble spouses into the bosom of Christ and transported into an 
 unspeakable ecstasy by the touch of His sacred lips, attested, 
 though they knew it not, the influence of excited sexual or- 
 gans on the mind. More extreme examples of a like patho- 
 logical action are afforded by those insane women who be- 
 lieve themselves to be visited by lovers or ravished by perse- 
 cutors during the night. Sexual hallucinations, betraying 
 an ovarian or uterine excitement, might almost be described 
 as the characteristic feature of the insanity of old maids ; the 
 false visions of unreal indulgence being engendered probably 
 in the same way as visions of banquets occur in the dreams 
 of a starving person, or as visions of cooling streams to one
 
 PERIODIC INSANITY. 7*? 
 
 who is perisliing of tliirst. It seems to be the fact that, al- 
 though women bear sexual excesses better than men, tliey 
 Buffer more than men do from the entire deprivation of sexual 
 intercourse. 
 
 The development of puberty may lead indirectly to insanity 
 by becoming the occasion of a vicious habit of self-abuse in 
 men ; and it is not always easy to say in such cases how much 
 of the evil is due to pubescence and how much to self-abuse. 
 But the form of mental derangement directly traceable to 
 self-abuse has certainly characteristic features. There are 
 no acute symptoms, the onset of the disease being most grad- 
 ual. The patient becomes offensively egotistic and impracti- 
 cable ; ho is full of self-feeling and self-conceit ; insensible 
 to the claims of others upon him, and of his duties to them ; 
 interested only in hypochondriacally watching his morbid 
 sensations, and attending to his morbid feelings. His mental 
 energy is sapped ; and though he has extravagant pretensions, 
 and often speaks of great projects engendered by his con- 
 ceit, he never works systematically for any aim, but exhibits 
 an incredible vacillation of conduct, and spends his days in 
 indolent and suspicious self-brooding. His relatives he thinks 
 hostile to him, because they do not take the interest in his 
 sufferings which he craves, nor yield sufficiently to his pre- 
 tensions, but perhaps urge him to some kind of work ; he is 
 utterably incapable of conceiving that he has duties to them. 
 As matters get worse, the general suspicion of the hostility 
 of people takes more definite form, and delusions spring up 
 that persons speak offensively of him, or watch him in the 
 street, or comment on what passes in his mind, or play tricks 
 upon him by electricity or mesmerism, or in some other mys- 
 terious way. His delusions are the objective explanation, 
 by wrong imagination, of the perverted feelings. Messages 
 may be received from Heaven by peculiar telegraphic signals; 
 and there are occasionally quasi-cataleptic trances. It is 
 strange what exalted feelings and high moral and religious 
 aims these patients will often declare they have, who, incapa-
 
 78 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 ble of reforming themselves, are ready to reform the world. 
 A later and worse stage is one of moody or vacant self-ab- 
 Borj)tion, and of extreme loss of mental power. They are 
 Bilent, or, if they converse, they discover delusions of a sus- 
 picious or obscene character, the perverted sexual passion 
 still giving the color to their thoughts. They die miserable 
 wrecks at the last. This is a form of insanity which certainly 
 has its special exciting cause and its characteristic features ; 
 nevertheless, I think that self-abuse seldom, if ever, produces 
 it without the cooperation of the insane neurosis. 
 
 The monthly activity of tlie ovaries which marks the ad- 
 vent of puberty in women has a notable effect upon the mind 
 and body ; wherefore it may become an important cause of 
 mental and physical derangement. Most women at that 
 time are susceptible, irritable, and capricious, any cause of 
 vexation affecting them more seriously than usual; and 
 some who have the insane neurosis exhibit a disturbance of 
 mind which amounts almost to disease. A sudden suppres- 
 sion of the menses has produced a direct explosion of insan- 
 ity ; or, occurring some time before an .outbreak, it may be 
 an important link in its causation. It is a matter also of com- 
 mon experience in asylums, that exacerbations of insanity 
 often take place at the menstrual periods ; but whether there 
 is a particular variety of mental derangement connected with 
 disordered menstruation, and, if so, what are its special fea- 
 tures, we are not yet in a position to say positively. There is 
 certainly a recurrent mania, which seems sometimes to have, 
 in regard to its origin and the times of its attacks, a relation 
 to the menstrual function, suppression or irregularity of 
 which often accompanies it ; and it is an obvious presump- 
 tion that the mania may be a sympathetic morbid effect of 
 tlie ovarian and uterine excitement, and may represent an 
 exaggeration of the mental irritability which is natural to 
 women at that period. The patient becomes elated, hila- 
 rious, talkative, passing soon from that condition into a state 
 of acute and noisy mania, which may last for two or three
 
 RECURRENT INSANITY. 79 
 
 weeks or longer, and then sinking into a brief stage of more 
 or less depression or confusion of mind, from which she 
 awakens to calmness and clearness of mind. In vain we 
 flatter ourselves with the hope of a complete recovery ; after 
 an interval of perfect lucidity, of varying duration in differ- 
 ent cases, the attack recurs, goes through the same stages, 
 and ends in the same way, only to be followed by other at- 
 tacks, until at last, the mind being permanently weakened, 
 there are no longer intervals of entire lucidity. Could we 
 stop the attacks, the patient might still regain by degrees 
 mental power ; but we cannot. All the resources of our art 
 fail to touch them, and I know no other form of insanity 
 which, having so much the air of being curable, thus far de- 
 fies all efforts to stay its course. We should be apt to con- 
 clude that it was connected with the menstrual function, 
 were it not that periodicity is more or less the law of all ner- 
 vous diseases, that its attacks often recur at uncertain inter- 
 vals, and, more decisive still, that it is not confined to women, 
 but occurs perhaps as often in men. "Whether connected or 
 not, however, in any way with the generative functions, it 
 certainly presents features of relationship to epilepsy, and 
 occurs where the insane neurosis exists; and, if I were to 
 describe it in a few words, I should designate it an epilepsy 
 of the mind. Its recurrence more or less regularly ; the 
 uniformity of the prodromata and of the symptoms of the 
 attack, each being almost an exact image of the other ; its 
 comparatively brief duration ; the mental torpor or confu- 
 sion which follows it, and the ignorance or denial sometimes, 
 on the part of the patient, of his having had the attack ; the 
 temporary recovery ; and the undoubted fact that it often 
 occurs where there is evidence of an insane neurosis pro- 
 duced by epilepsy, or insanity, or both, in the family ; these 
 are facts which support the opinion of its kinship to epilepsy. 
 I have under my care an unmarried lady who for many years 
 has been subject to these recurrent attacks of mania, and 
 whose intelligence has now been destroyed by them ; ulti-
 
 80 
 
 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 mately true epileptic fits supervened, but- they only occur, at 
 long intervals, usually not oftener than twice a year, while 
 the maniacal attacks recur regularly every three or four 
 weeks. It is of some interest, in regard to the question of 
 its nature, that the age of its most frequent outbreak is, as it 
 is with epilepsy, the years that cover the development of 
 puberty. Irregularity or suppression of menstruation may 
 or may not be present, so that we are not warranted in at- 
 ibuting the disease to amenorrhoea or dysmenorrhoea ; we are 
 le less warranted in doing so, as any form of insanity, how- 
 ler caused, may occasion a suppression of the menses. 
 
 The natural cessation of menstruation at the change of 
 Mfe is accompanied by a revolution in the economy which is 
 ■rten trying to the mental stability of those who have a pre- 
 isposition to insanity. The age of pleasing is past, but not 
 , ways the desire, which, indeed, sometimes grows then more 
 ^acting ; there are all sorts of anomalous sensations of bod- 
 y distress, attesting the disturbance of circulation and of 
 . erve functions ; and it is now that an insane jealousy and a 
 propensity to stimulants are apt to appear, especially where 
 there have been no children. "When positive insanity breaks 
 out, it usually has the form of profound melancholia, with 
 vague delusions of an extreme character, as that the world is 
 in flames, that it is turned upside down, that every thing is 
 changed, or that some very dreadful but undefined calamity 
 has happened or is about to happen. The countenance has 
 the expression of a vague terror and apprehension. In some 
 cases short and transient paroxysms of excitement break the 
 melancholy gloom. These usually occur at the menstrual 
 periods, and may continue to do so for some time after the 
 function has ceased. It is not an unfavorable form of in- 
 sanity as regards probabihty of recovery under suitable treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Continuing the consideration of the influence of the gen- 
 erative organs in the production of insanity, I come now to 
 puerperal insanity. Under this name are sometimes con-
 
 PUERPERAL INSANITY. 81 
 
 founded three distinct varieties of disease — that which occurs 
 during pregnancy, that which follows parturition and is 
 properly puerperal, and that which comes on months after- 
 ward during lactation.* The insanity of pregnancy is, as a 
 rule, of a marked melancholic type, with suicidal tendency ; 
 a degree of mental weakness or apparent dementia heing 
 sometimes conjoined with it. Other cases, however, exhibit 
 much moral perversion, perhaps an uncontrollable craving 
 for stimulants, which we may regard as an exaggerated display 
 of the fanciful cravings from which women suffer in the 
 earlier months of pregnancy. We can hardly fail, indeed, to 
 recognize a connection between the features of this form of 
 insanity and the strange longings, the capriciousness, and t' le 
 morbid fears, of the pregnant woman. The patient may be 
 treated successfully by removal from home ; but, if the dis- 
 ease be allowed to go on, there is no good ground to expect 
 that parturition will have a beneficial effect upon it; on the 
 contrary, the probability is, that it will run into a severe puer- 
 peral insanity, and from that into dementia. 
 
 Puerperal insanity proper comes on within one month of 
 parturition : and, like the insanity of pregnancy, occurs most 
 often in primiparae. The statistics of the Edinburgh Asylum 
 show that in all the cases occurring before the sixteenth day 
 after labor, as most cases do, the symptoms were those of 
 acute mania ; but in all the cases which occurred after the 
 sixteenth day they were those of melancholia. In both forms, 
 but especially in the latter, there is sometimes a mixture of 
 childishness and apparent dementia. The mania is more 
 likely than the melancholia to get well. It is of an acute and 
 extremely incoherent character, a delirious rather than a sys- 
 tematized mania, marked by noisy restlessness, sleeplessness, 
 tearing of clothes, hallucinations, and in some cases by great 
 salacity, which is probably the direct mental effect of the irri- 
 tation of the generative organs. Suicide may be attempted 
 
 * " Tlie Insanity of Pretjnancy. Puerperal Insauity, and Insanity ol 
 Lactation." By J. Batty Tuke, M, D.
 
 62 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 in an excited, purposeless way. The bodily symptoms, con- 
 tradicting the violence of the mental excitement, indicate 
 feebleness; the features are pinched; the skin is pale, cold, 
 and clammy ; and the pulse is quick, small, and irritable. 
 We may safely say that recovery takes place in three out of 
 four cases of puerperal mania, usually in a few weeks ; the 
 patient, after the acute symptoms have subsided, sinking into 
 a temporary state of confusion and feebleness of mind, and 
 then waking up as from a dream. I may add the expression 
 of a conviction th.'a.t no good, but rather harm, is done by 
 attempting to stifl<? this or any other form of acute insanity 
 by the administration of large doses of opium. 
 
 The insanity of lactation does not come under the scheme 
 of this lecture • for it is an asthenic insanity, produced by 
 bodily exhaustion and the depression of mental worries. The 
 time of its occurrence seems to show that the longer the 
 child is suckled the greater is the liability to it ; and in the 
 majority of cpses it has the form of melancholia, often with 
 determined su\cidal tendency. 
 
 So fr^^ueKly is hereditary predisposition more or less 
 distinctly traceable in these three forms of insanity occurring 
 in conne^iioD with child-bearing, that we are warranted in 
 declaring' it o^ite exceptional for any one of them to be met 
 with where it is entirely absent. 
 
 I have no^ enumerated all the forms of insanity which, 
 being speoiaPy connected with the generative organs, pre- 
 sent charocteristic features. It is certain, however, that dis- 
 ease of them may act as a powerful cooj)erating cause in the 
 orod'jction ^f insanity, without giving rise, so far as we 
 know, to a special group of sjTnptoms. Thus, for example, 
 melancholia, distinguishable by no feature fi-om melancholia 
 otherwise caused, may be the eflect of disease of the uterus. 
 Schroder van der Kolk mentions the case of a woman pro- 
 foundly melancholic who suffered from prolapsus uteri, and 
 m whom the melancholia disappeared when the uterus was 
 returned to its proper place, ilenmiing relates two similar
 
 SYMPATHETIC INSANITY. 83 
 
 cases in which melancholia was cured bj the use of a pessary, 
 the depression returning in one of them whenever the pessary 
 was removed ; and I have met with one case in which pro- 
 found melancholia of two years' standing disappeared aftei 
 the removal of a prolapsus uteri. Other diseases and dis- 
 placements of the uterus may act in a similar way. 
 
 Let me now say a few words concerning the abdominal 
 organs. No one will call in question that the states of their 
 functions do exert a positive influence on our states of mind ; 
 but it is unfortunately too true that we cannot yet refer any 
 special mental symptoms to the influence of the abdominal 
 organs. I have met with one case of severe melancholia, of 
 long standing, which was distinctly cured by the expulsion 
 of a tape-worm ; and it appears to be tolerably certain that 
 hypochondriacal insanity is in some instances connected 
 with, if not caused by, a perverted sensation proceeding from 
 an internal organ, most often abdominal. In health we are 
 not conscious of the impressions which these organs make 
 upon the brain, albeit they assuredly send their unperceived 
 contributions to the stream of energies of which conscious- 
 ness is the sum and the outcome ; but, when a disordered or- 
 gan sends a morbid impression to the brain, it no longer does 
 its work there in silence and self-suppression, but asserts 
 itself in an unwonted afi'ection of consciousness. The hypo- 
 chondriac cannot withdraw his attention from the morbid 
 sensation to which it is irresistibly attracted, and which it 
 aggravates; his interest in all things else is gradually 
 quenched, and his ability to think and act freely in the rela- 
 tions of life sapped. The step from this state to positive in- 
 sanity is not a great one : the strange and distressing sensation, 
 being so anomalous, so unlike any thing of which the patient 
 has had experience, affecting him so powerftilly and so unac- 
 countably, gets at last an interpretation that seems suited to 
 its extraordinary character; and he then imagines that some 
 animal or man or devil has got inside him and is tormenting 
 him. He has now a hallucination of the organic sense which
 
 84 BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 dominates his thoughts, and he is truly insane. Not long since 
 I saw a patient who believed that he had a man in his belly ; 
 wlien his bowels were constipated, the delusion became active, 
 be made desperate efforts by vomiting to.getrid of his torment- 
 or, and was then surly, morose, and dangerous ; but, when 
 his bowels had been relieved, the delusion subsided into the 
 background, and he was good-tempered and industrious. If 
 a patient, instead of attributing his sufferings to an absurdly 
 impossible cause, ascribes them to a serious internal disease 
 wliich he certainly has not got, there wiU be a diflficulty in 
 deciding whether he is insane or not, should he do injury to 
 himself or others, as hypochondriacal melancholies sometimes 
 do. It is a probable surmise that in those cases of insanity in 
 which there are such delusions as that food will not enter 
 the stomach, that there is no digestion, that the intestines 
 are sealed up, there is a cause in a morbid irritation ascend- 
 ing from the viscera to the brain. I am furthermore dis- 
 posed to think that a form of fearfal melancholia in which 
 the patient evinces an extreme morbid sensitiveness to his 
 every thought, feeling, and act, in which he is, as it were, 
 hypochondriacally distressed about whatever he thinks, feels, 
 and does, imagining it, however trivial and innocent, to be a 
 great sin, which has cost him his happiness in time and eter- 
 nity, has its foundation in certain morbid states of abdominal 
 sensation. In cases of this sort, the delusion is not the cause 
 of the feeling of despair, but is, as it were, a condensation 
 from it, and an attempted interpretation of it. The same 
 thing is observed in dreams : the images and events of a dis- 
 tressing dream are not the causes of tlie feelings, but are 
 caused by them; they undergo strange and sudden meta- 
 morphoses without causing much or any surprise, and they 
 disappear together with the terror the moment we awake, 
 which would not be the case if they really caused the terror. 
 We perceive, indeed, in this generation of the image out of 
 the feeling, the d(>monstration of the true nature of ghosts 
 and apparitions- the nervous system being in an excited
 
 PANPHOBIA. 86 
 
 state of expectant fear, and the images being the effects and 
 exponents of the feeling: they give the vague terror form. 
 Accordingly, as Coleridge has remarked, those who see a 
 ghost under such circumstances do not suffer much in conse- 
 quence, though in telling the story they will perhaps say that 
 their hair stood on end, and that they were in an agony of terror: 
 whereas those who have been really fi-ightened by a figure 
 dressed up as a ghost have often suffered seriously from the 
 shock, having fainted, or had a fit, or gone mad. In like man- 
 ner, if an insane person actually saw the dreadful things which 
 he imagines that he sees sometimes, and really thought the ter- 
 rible thoughts which he imagines he thinks, he would suffer in 
 health more than he does, if he did not actually die of them. 
 I come now to the thoracic organs. The heart and 
 the lungs are closely connected in their functions, so that 
 they mutually affect one another. Some diseases of the 
 lungs greatly oppress and trouble the heart ; yet there is 
 reason to believe that they have their special effects upon 
 the mind. How, indeed, can we think otherwise when we 
 contrast the sanguine confidence of the consumptive patient 
 with the anxious fear and apprehension exhibited in some 
 diseases of the heart ? It used to be said that disease of the 
 heart was more frequent among the insane than among the 
 sane ; but the latest observations do not afford any support 
 to the opinion, nor do they furnish valid grounds to connect 
 a particular variety of insanity with heart-disease in those 
 cases in which it does exist. All that we are thus far war- 
 ranted in affirming is, that if there be a characteristic mental 
 effect of such disease, it is a great fear, mounting up at times 
 to despairing anguish ; and perhaps I may venture to add 
 that, if there be a variety of mental disorder specifically con- 
 nected with heart-disease, it is that form of melancholia in 
 which the patient is overwhelmed with a vague and vast 
 apprehension, where there is not so much a definite delusion 
 as a dreadful fear of every thing actual and possible, and 
 which is sometimes described as panphoMa.
 
 gQ BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 There has long been an opinion, which seems to be well 
 founded, that tubercle of the lungs is more common among 
 tlie insane than among the sane. For although the propor- 
 tion of deaths in asjlums attributed to phthisis is one-fourth, 
 which is the same proportion as that for tlie sane population 
 above fourteen years of age, Dr. Clouston has shown, by 
 careful scrutiny of the records of 282 post-mortem examina- 
 tions made in the Edinburgh Asylum, that phthisis was the 
 assigned cause of death in only a little more than half of the 
 cases in which there was tubercle in the body. The symp- 
 toms of phthisis are so much masked in the insane, there 
 being usually no cough and no expectoration, that its diag- 
 nosis is difficult, and it is not always detected during life. 
 The relation between it and insanity has been noticed by 
 several writers : Schroder van der Kolk was distinctly of 
 opinion that an hereditary predisposition to phthisis might 
 predispose to, or develop into, insanity, and, on the other 
 hand, that insanity predisposed to phthisis ; and Dr. Clous- 
 ton found that hereditary prediposition to insanity existed in 
 seven per cent, more of the insane who were tubercular than 
 of the insane generally. When family degeneration is far 
 gone, the two diseases appear to occur frequently, and the 
 last member is likely to die insane or phthisical, or both ; 
 whether, therefore, they mutually predispose to one another 
 or not, they are often concomitant effects in the course of 
 degeneration. However, in weighing the specific value of 
 these observations, we must not forget that, independently 
 of any special relation, the enfeebled nutrition of tuberculosis 
 will tend to stimulate into activity the latent predisposition 
 to insanity ; and that, in like manner, insanity, especially in 
 its melancholic forms, will favor the actual development of a 
 predisposition to phthisis. 
 
 In the cases in which the development of phthisis and 
 insanity has been nearly contemporaneous, which are about 
 one-fourth of the cases in which they coexist, the mental 
 8ymi)toms are of so peculiar and uniform a character as to
 
 PHTHISICAL MANIA. Si 
 
 have led to the inclusion of the cases in a natural group 
 under tlie designation of phthisical mania. They have no 
 positively distinctive symptom, it is true ; they cannot be 
 separated from other cases by a well-defined line of demar- 
 cation. Yet they do exhibit, Dr. Clouston believes, certain 
 common and uniform characters which justify their descrip- 
 tion as a separate variety. They often begin in an insidious 
 way by irritability, waywardness, and capriciousness of con- 
 duct, and apparent weakening of intellect ; yet the patient 
 converses rationally w^hen he chooses to talk, and shows that 
 he still has his intellect, albeit there is a great disinclination 
 to exert it. To sign a certificate of his insanity would be no 
 easy matter. Or they begin with an acutely maniacal oi 
 melancholic stage, which is, however, of very short duration, 
 soon passing into a half-maniacal, half-demented state. If 
 there be a single characteristic feature, it is a monomania of 
 suspicion. As the disease advances, the symptoms of de- 
 mentia predominate ; but there are occasional brief attacks 
 of irritable excitement and fitful flashes of intelligence. And 
 in these cases, more often tlian in other cases, there occurs a 
 momentary revival of intelligence before death. We shall 
 the more readily admit the special features of phthisical 
 mania when we call to mind that there is in most phthisical 
 patients a peculiar mental state ; and that brief attacks of 
 temporary mania or delirium sometimes occur in the course 
 of phthisis. The phthisical patient is irritable, fanciful, un- 
 stable of purpose, brilliant, and imaginative, but wanting in 
 calmness and repose, quick of insight, but without depth and 
 comprehension ; every thing is fitful — fitful energy, fitful pro- 
 jects, fitful flashes of imagination. The hectic is in his 
 thoughts and in his actions. The whims and imaginings of 
 his mind become almost wanderings at times, his fancies 
 almost delusions. 
 
 I have now said enough concerning the sympathetic 
 mental eflfccts of disordered organs, not certainly to set forth 
 adequately their nature, but to show the essential importanco
 
 88 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 of a careful study of them. To complete the exposition of 
 the action of pathological sympathies on mind, it would be 
 necessary to trace out the close relations that there are 
 between the organic feelings and the different kinds of special 
 sensibility — between systemic and sense consciousLess. The 
 digestive organs have a close sympathy with the sense of 
 taste, as we observe in the bad taste accompanying indiges- 
 tion, in the nausea and vomiting which a nauseous taste 
 may cause, and in the avoidance of poisonous matter by 
 animals. The respiratory organs and the sense of smell are, 
 in like manner, s;yTnpathetically associated ; and there can be 
 no doubt that the sense of smell has special relations with the 
 sexual feeling. The state of the digestive organs notably 
 affects the general sensibility of the skin. Disturbances of 
 these physiological sympathies may become the occasions of 
 insane delusions. Digestive derangement, perverting tlie 
 taste, will engender a delusion that the food is poisoned. 
 Disease of the respiratory organs appears sometimes to pro- 
 duce disagreeable smells, which are then perhaps attributed 
 to objective causes, such as the presence of a corpse in the 
 room, or to gases maliciously disseminated in it by fancied 
 persecutors. In mania, smell and taste are often grossly per- 
 verted, for the patient will devour, with seeming relish and 
 avidity, dirt and garbage of the most offensive kind. Increase, 
 diminution, or perversion of the sensibility of the skin, one 
 or other of which is not uncommon among the insane, may 
 undoubtedly be the cause of extrav-agant delusions. We 
 hardly, indeed, realize how completely the mind is dependent 
 upon the habit of its sensations. The man who has lost a 
 limb can hardly be persuaded that he has lost it, so sensible 
 is he of the accustomed feelings in it ; years after he has lost 
 it he dreams of vivid sensations and of active movements in 
 it — has, in fact, both sensory and motor hallucinations. It is 
 easy, then, to understand how greatly abnormal sensations 
 may perplex and deceive the unsound mind. A woman under 
 Esquirol's care had couij)l<'to ana'sthcsia of the skin: she
 
 HALLUCINATIONS. 89 
 
 believed that the devil had carried off her body. A soldier 
 who was wounded at the battle of Austerlitz lost the sensibil- 
 ity of his skin, and from that time thought himself dead. 
 When asked how he was, he replied, "Lambert no longer 
 lives ; a cannon-ball carried him away at Austerlitz. "What 
 you see is not Lambert, but a badly-imitated machine," which 
 he always spoke of as it. A patient under my care, who suf- 
 fered from general paralysis, and had lost sensibility and 
 voluntary power of one side, could never be persuaded that 
 another patient, a very harmless fellow, had not got hold of 
 him, and was keeping him down ; and when convulsions 
 occurred in the paralyzed side, as they did from time to time, 
 he swore terribly at his fancied tormentor. Were a sane per- 
 son to wake up some morning with the cutaneous sensibility 
 gone, or with a large area of it sending up to the brain per- 
 verted and quite unaccountable impressions, it might be a 
 hard matter perhaps for him to help going mad. 
 
 The mental effects of perverted sensation afford a promis- 
 ing field for future research ; when better understood it can- 
 not be doubted that they will explain many phenomena in 
 tlie pathology of mind that now quite baffle explanation. It 
 behooves us to clearly realize the broad fact, which has most 
 wide-reaching consequences in mental physiology and pathol- 
 ogy, that all parts of the body, the liighest and the lowest, 
 have a sympathy with one another more intelligent than 
 conscious intelligence can yet, or perhaps ever will, conceive; 
 that "there is not an organic motion, visible or invisible, sen- 
 sible or insensible, ministrant to the noblest or to the most 
 humble purposes, which does not work its appointed effect in 
 the complex recesses of mind ; that the mind, as the crowning 
 achievement of organization, and the consummation and out- 
 come of all its energies, really comprehends the bodily life. 
 
 I had originally set down within the purpose of these 
 Lectures the consideration, which I must now forego, of the 
 influence of the quantity and quality of the blood in the pro- 
 duction of insanity. Poverty and vitiation of blood maj
 
 90 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 certainly play a weighty part in producing mental, as they do 
 in producing other nervous disorders. Lower the supply of 
 blood to the brain below a certain level, and the power of 
 thinking is abolished ; the brain will then no more do mental 
 work than a water-wheel will move the machinery of the mill 
 when the water is lowered so as not to touch it. Wben a 
 §trong emotion produces a temporary loss of consciousness, 
 it is to be presumed that a contraction of arteries takes place 
 within the brain similar to that whicb causes the pallor of 
 the face ; and wben the laboring heart pumps hard to over- 
 come the obstruction, and the walls of tbe vessels are weak, 
 they may burst, and the patient die of effusion of blood. 
 During sleep the supply of blood to the brain is lessened 
 naturally, and we perceive the effects of the lowering of the 
 supply, as it takes place, in the sort of incoherence or mild 
 delirium of ideas just before falling off to sleep. To a like 
 condition of things we ougbt most probably to attribute the 
 attacks of transitory mania or delirium that occur now and 
 then in consequence of great physical exhaustion, as from 
 great and sudden loss of blood, or just as convalescence from 
 fever or other acute disease is setting in, or in the prostration 
 of phthisis, and which a glass of wine opportunely given will 
 sometimes cure. The distress of the melancholic patient is 
 greatest when he wakes in the morning, which is a time 
 when a watch ought to be kept specially over the suicidal 
 patient; the reason lying probably in the effects of the di- 
 minished cerebral circulation during sleep. 
 
 If the state of the blood be vitiated by reason of some 
 poison bred in the body, or introduced into it from without, 
 the mental functions may be seriously deranged. We are 
 able, indeed, by means of the drugs at our command, to per- 
 form all sorts of experiments on the mind : we can suspend 
 its action for a time by chloral or chloroform, can exalt its 
 functions by small doses of opium or moderate doses of alco- 
 hol, can pervert them, producing an artificial delirium, by the 
 administration of large enough doses of belladonna and Indian
 
 VITIATED BLOOD. 91 
 
 hemp. We can positively do more experimentally with the 
 functions of the mind-centres than we can do with those of 
 any other organ of the body. "VVhcn these are exalted in con- 
 sequence of a foreign substance introduced into the blood, it 
 cannot be doubted that some j^^ysical effect is produced on 
 the nerve-element, which is the condition of the increased 
 activity, not otherwise probably than as happens when a 
 fever makes, as it certainly will sometimes do, a demented 
 person, whose mind seemed gone past all hope of even mo- 
 mentary recovery, quite sensible for the time being. Perhaps 
 this should teach us that, just as there are vibrations of light 
 which we cannot see, and vibrations of sound which we can- 
 not hear, so there are molecular movements in the brain which 
 are incapable of producing thought ordinarily, not sufficing to 
 affect consciousness, but which may do so when the sensi- 
 bihty of the molecules is exalted by physical or chemical 
 modification of them. 
 
 Alcohol yields us, in its direct effects, the abstract and 
 brief chronicle of the course of mania. At first there is an 
 agreeable excitement, a lively flow of ideas, a revival of old 
 ideas and feelings which seemed to have passed from the mind, 
 a general increase of mental activity — a condition very like 
 that which often precedes an attack of acute mania, when 
 the patient is witty, lively, satirical, makes jokes or rhymes, 
 and certainly exhibits a brilliancy of fancy which he is capable 
 of at no other time. Then there follows, in the next stage of 
 its increasing action, as there does in mania, the automatic 
 excitation of ideas which start np and follow one another 
 without order, so that thought and speech are more or less 
 incoherent, while passion is easily excited. After this stage 
 has lasted for a time, in some longer, in others shorter, it 
 passes into one of depression and maudlin melancholy, just as 
 mania sometimes passes into melancholia, or convulsion into 
 paralysis. And the last stage of all is one of stupor and de- 
 mentia. If the abuse of alcohol be continued for years, it 
 may cause different forms of mental derangement, in each of
 
 92 BODY AND MIND. 
 
 which the muscuhir care cnriously like the mental symptoms : 
 delirium tremens in one, an acute noisy and destructive mania 
 in another, chronic alcoholism in a third, and a condition of 
 mental weakness with loss of memory and loss of energy in a 
 fourth. 
 
 Writers on gout agree that a suppressed gout may entail 
 mental derangement in some persons ; and, on the other hand, 
 that insanity has sometimes disappeared with the appearance 
 of the usual gouty paroxysm. Sydenham noticed and described 
 a species of mania supervening on an epidemic of intermittent 
 fever, which, he remarks, contrary to all other kinds of mad- 
 ness, would not yield to plentiful venesection and purging. 
 Griesinger, again, has directed attention to cases in which, 
 instead of the usual symptoms of ague, the patient has had an 
 intermittent insanity in regular tertian or quartan attacks, and 
 has been cured by quinine. We must bear in mind, however, 
 that intermittence may be a feature of insanity as of other 
 nervous diseases, without ague having any thing whatever to 
 do with it, and without quinine doing any good whatever. 
 Quinine will not cure the intermittence of nervous diseases, 
 though it may cure ague in which the symptoms are inter- 
 mittent. Griesinger has also pointed out that mental disorder 
 has sometimes occurred in the course of acute rheumatism, 
 the swelling of the joints meanwhile subsiding. These facts, 
 with others which I cannot dwell upon now, prove how im- 
 portant an agency in the production of insanity a perverted 
 state of the blood may be. But it is a mode of causation of 
 which we know so little that I may justly declare we know 
 next to nothing. The observation and classification of mental 
 disorders have been so exclusively psychological that we have 
 not sincerely realized the fact that they illustrate the same 
 pathological principles as other diseases, are produced in the 
 eame way, and must be investigated in the same spirit of posi- 
 tive research. Until this be done I see no hope of iuiprove- 
 raent in our knowledge of them, and no use in multiplying 
 books about tliem.
 
 IDIOPATHIC INSANITY. 93 
 
 It is quite true tliat when we have referred all tlie cases 
 of insanity which we can to bodily causes, and grouped them 
 according to their characteristic bodily and mental features, 
 there will remain cases which we cannot refer to any recog- 
 nizable bodily cause or connect with any definite bodily dis- 
 ease, and which we must be content to describe as idiopathic. 
 The explanation of these cases we shall probably discover 
 ultimately in the influence of the hereditary neurosis and in 
 the peculiarities of individual temperament. It is evident 
 that there are fundamental differences of temperament, and 
 it is furthermore plain that different natures will be differently 
 favored in the struggle of existence ; one person will have an 
 advantage over another, and by the operation of the law of 
 Natural Selection there will be a success of the fittest to suc- 
 ceed. It is with the development of mind in the conduct of life 
 as it is with every form of life in its relation to its environ- 
 ment. Life is surrounded by forces that are always tending 
 to destroy it, and with which it may be represented as in a 
 continued warfare : so long as it contends successfully with 
 them, winning from tlrem and constraining them to further 
 its development, it flourishes ; but when it can no longer strive, 
 when they succeed in winning from it and increasiug at its 
 expense, it begins to decay and die. So it is with mind in 
 the circumstances of its existence : the individual who cannot 
 use circumstances, or accommodate himself successfully to 
 them, and in the one way or the other make them further his 
 development, is controlled and used by them ; being weak, he 
 must be miserable, must be a victim ; and one way in which 
 his suffering and failure will be manifest will be in insanity. 
 Thus it is that mental trials which serve in the end to strength- 
 en a strong nature break down a weak one which cannot fitly 
 react, and that the efiiciency of a moral cause of insanity 
 betrays a conspiracy from within with the unfavorable out- 
 ward circumstances. 
 
 It behooves us to bear distinctly in mind, when we take 
 the moral causes of insanity into consideration, that the men- 
 5
 
 94 BODY AND MIXD. 
 
 tal suflfering or psychical pain of a sad emotion testifies 
 to actual Tvear and teai- of nerve-element, to disintegration 
 of soDie kind ; it is the exponent of a physical change. 
 What the change is we know not ; hnt we may take it to be 
 beyond question that, when a shock imparted to the mind 
 through the senses causes a violent emotion, it produces a 
 real commotion in the molecules of the brain. It is not that 
 an intangible something flashes inward and mysteriously af- 
 fects an intangible metaphysical entity ; but that an impres- 
 sion made on the sense is conveyed along nervous paths of 
 communication, and produces a definite physical efi'ect in 
 physically-constituted mind-centres ; and that the mental 
 efi'ect, which is the exponent of the physical change, may be 
 then transferred by molecular motion to the muscles, thus 
 getting muscular expression, or to the processes of nutrition 
 and secretion, getting expression in modifications of them. 
 When there is a native infirmity or instability of nerve- 
 element, in consequence of bad ancestral influences, the in- 
 dividual will be more liable to, and will suffer more from, 
 such violeut mental commotions; the disintegrating change 
 in the nerve-element will be more likely to pass into a disor- 
 ganization which rest and nutrition caunot repair, not other- 
 wise than as happens with the elements of any other organ 
 under like conditions of excessive stimulation. As physi- 
 cians, we cannot afford to lose sight of the physical aspects 
 of mental states, if we would truly comprehend the nature 
 of mental disease, and learn to treat it with success. The 
 metaphysician may, for the purposes of speculation, separate 
 mind from body, and evoke the laws of its operation out of 
 the depths of self consciousness; but the physician — who 
 has to deal practically with the thoughts, feelings, and con- 
 duct of men ; who has to do with mind, not as an abstract 
 entity concerning which he may be content to speculate, but 
 as a force in Nature, the operations of which he must pa- 
 tiently observe and anxiously labor to influence — must recog- 
 nize how entirely the integrity of the mental functions de-
 
 UNITY OF BODY AND MIND. 96 
 
 pends on the integrity of the bodily organization — must ac- 
 knowledge the essential unity of body and mind. 
 
 To set forth this unity has been a chief aim in these Lec- 
 tures, because I entertain a most sincere conviction that a 
 just conception of it must lie at the foundation of a real ad- 
 vance in our knowledge both of the physiology and pathol- 
 ogy of mind. I have no wish whatever to exalt unduly tho 
 body ; I have, if possible, still less desire to degrade the mind ; 
 but I do protest, with all the energy I dare use, against the 
 unjust and most unscientific practice of declaring the body 
 vile and despicable, of looking down upon the highest and 
 most wonderful contrivance of creative skill as something of 
 which man dare venture to feel ashamed. I cannot now 
 summarize the facts and arguments which I have brought 
 forward ; I must trust to the indulgence of your memory of 
 them when I declare that to my mind it appears a clear sci- 
 entific duty to repudiate the quotation from an old writer, 
 which the late Sir William Ilamilton used to hang on tho 
 wall of his lecture-room : 
 
 " On eartli there is nothing great but man, 
 In man there is nothing great but mind." 
 
 The aphorism, which,- like most aphorisms, contains an equal 
 measure of truth and untruth, is suitable enough to the pure 
 metaphysician, but it is most unsuitable to the scientific in- 
 quirer, who is bound to reject it, not because of that which 
 is not true in it only, but much more because of the baneful 
 spirit with which it is inspired. On earth there are assured- 
 ly other things great besides man, though none greater ; and 
 in man there are other things great besides mind, though none 
 greater. And whosoever, inspired by the spirit of the aph- 
 orism, thinks to know any thing truly of man without study- 
 ing most earnestly the tilings on earth that lead up to man, 
 or to know any thing truly of mind without studying most 
 earnestly the things in the body that lead up to and issue in 
 mind, will enter on a barren labor, which, if not a sorrow to
 
 96 BODY AXD MIND. 
 
 himself, will assuredly be sorrow and vexation of spirit to 
 others. To reckon the highest operations of mind to be 
 functions of a mental organization is to exalt, not to degrade, 
 our conception of creative power and skill. For, if it be 
 lawful and right to burst into admiration of the wonderful 
 contrivance in I^ ature b j which noble and beautiful products 
 are formed out of base materials, it is surely much stronger 
 e\'idence of contrivance to have developed the higher mental 
 functions by evolution from the lower, and to have used 
 forms of matter as the organic instruments of all. I know 
 not why the Power which created matter and its properties 
 should be thought not to have endowed it with the functions 
 of reason, feeling, and will, seeing that, w^hether we discover 
 it to be so endowed or not, the mystery is equally incompre- 
 hensible to us, equally simple and easy to the Power which 
 created matter and its properties. To a right-thinking and 
 right-feeling mind, the beauty, the grandeur, the mystery of 
 Nature are augmented, not lessened, by each new glimpse into 
 the secret recesses of her operations. The sun going forth 
 from its chamber in the east to run its course is not less glo- 
 rious in majesty because we have discovered the law of gravi- 
 tation, and are able by spectral analysis to detect the metals 
 which enter into its composition — because it is no longer 
 Helios driving his golden chariot though the pathless spaces 
 of the heavens. The mountains are not less imposing in 
 their grandeur because the Oreads have deserted them, nor 
 the groves less attractive, nor the streams more desolate, be- 
 cause science has banished the Dryads and the IS'aiads. No, 
 science has not destroyed poetry, nor expelled the di\ine 
 from Nature, but has furnished the materials, and given the 
 presages, of a higher poetry and a mightier philosophy than 
 the world has yet seen. The grave of each superstition 
 which it slays is the womb of a better birth. And if it 
 come to pass in its onward march — as it may well be it will 
 come to pass—that other superstitions shall be dethroned as
 
 SCIENCE AND POETRY. 97 
 
 the sun-god has been dethroned, we may rest assured that 
 this also will be a step iu human progress, and in the benefi- 
 cent evolution of the Power which ruleth alike the courses 
 of the stars and the ways of men.
 
 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION.* 
 
 In beginning the work of this Section, over which I have 
 the honor to preside, I shall confine myself to a few intro- 
 ductory remarks of a general character, leaving to those who 
 will come after me the more exact scientific work of which 
 we have fair promise in the papers that are to be read. The 
 occasion seems fitting to take a short survey of the position 
 of medical psychology in relation to certain important ques- 
 tions of the day, and to consider the bearing which its prog- 
 ress must eventually have upon them. Permit me, then, to 
 ask you, first, to look back a little way at what medical 
 psychology was, in order the better to realize what it is, and, 
 if possible, to forecast something of the character of its fu- 
 ture work. A glance at the past will show how great a step 
 forward has been made, and may yield some reason for con- 
 gratulation ; a glance at the present, showing, as it cannot 
 fail to do, how small a proportion the gains bear to what re- 
 mains to be acquired, will prove that as yet we have rather 
 discovered the right path than made much way on it ; that 
 we are, in truth, only on the threshold of the history of med- 
 ical psychology as a science. 
 
 One of the saddest chapters in human history is that 
 which describes the cruel manner in which the insane were 
 treated in times past. Notwithstanding that it is happily a 
 thing of the past, it will not be without profit to inquire from 
 
 ♦ An Address on Medical Psychol ocry, delivered at the Opening of the Psy- 
 chological Section of the British Medical Association, 1872.
 
 GRECIAN VIEWS OF MADNESS. 90 
 
 what causes the barbarous usage sprang : for it was not com- 
 mon to all nations and all times ; on the contrary, it had its 
 birth in the ignorance and superstition of the dark ages of 
 Christian Europe. "Whatever may have been thought of 
 madness among the peoples who preceded the ancient Greeks 
 — and there is evidence that the Egyptians adopted a singu- 
 larly enlightened and humane treatment — it is certain that 
 the Greeks had comparatively sound theories of the nature 
 of insanity as a disease to be cured by medical and moral 
 means, and adopted principles of treatment in conformity 
 with those theories. Their dramatic poets, it is true, present 
 terrible pictures of madmen pursued by the anger of the 
 gods; but these were poetical representations, which must 
 not be taken as a measure of the best knowledge of the time. 
 Then, as now, and indeed as ever in the history of mankind, 
 the true thinkers were emancipated from the fables and su- 
 perstitions of the vulgar : the just measure of Greek intellect 
 must be sought in the psychology of Plato, in the science of 
 Aristotle, and in the medical doctrines of Hippocrates. This 
 eminent physician and philosopher expressly repudiates the 
 notion that one disease is of more divine origin than an- 
 other. After saying that the Scythians ascribe the cause of 
 certain disorders to God, he goes on to give his own opinion 
 that these, and all other disorders, are neither more nor less 
 of divine origin, and no one of them more divine or more 
 human than another"; that each has its own physical nature, 
 and that none is produced without or apart from its nature. 
 In what he says of the psychical symptoms of various diseases 
 of the body he evinces such enlarged views of the scope of 
 medical observation and practice as are not often evinced at 
 the present day ; and the few observations in his works re- 
 specting the symptoms of delirium " evidence that jclear and 
 correct view of disease which has made this first observer a 
 model to all succeeding times." He directs attention to such 
 facts of observation as the physical insensibility of the insane,^ 
 the appearance of mental diseases in the spring, the occur-
 
 100 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 rence of disorder of the intellect after a continuance of fear 
 and grief, the union of melancholy and ei)ilepsy, the critical 
 importance of hemorrhoidal discharges in mania, the diflS- 
 culty of curing madness which commences after the age of 
 forty, and the like. And as there was no superstition in 
 these doctrines, so there was no barbarism in his treatment, 
 which was medical, and consisted principally in evacuation 
 by the nse of hellebore. But moral treatment was not un- 
 known among the Greeks ; for Asclepiades, who seems to 
 have been the real founder of a psychical mode of cure, made 
 use of love, wine, music, employment, and special means, to 
 attract the attention and exercise the memory. He recom- 
 mended that bodily restraint should be avoided as much as 
 possible, and that none but the most dangerous should be 
 confined by bonds. Without going further into particulars, 
 enough has been said to show that the Greeks had acquired 
 accurate notions of madness as a disease, which was to be 
 cured by appropriate and moral treatment. 
 
 How came it to pass that these enlightened \dews ever 
 fell into oblivion ? This question is really only a part of the 
 larger question. How came it to pass that the high aesthetic 
 culture and brilliant intellectual development of the Grecian 
 era, which might have seemed possessions of mankind for- 
 ever, were lost in the darkness and barbarism of the middle 
 ages ? To trace the causes of this so sad decline would be 
 far beyond my present purpose ; suffice the fact that philoso- 
 phy, which had mounted so high, was for a time sunk so low 
 beneath the waves of superstition and ignorance, that it 
 might well have never been in existence. And, when atlast 
 a revival of learning took place, things were little better ; 
 empty scholastic subtilties and metaphysical mysticism en- 
 gaged the whole attention of men, who rivalled one another 
 in verbal disputations, without agreement in the meaning of 
 the terms they used, and in blind worship of tlie authority of 
 Aristotle, without real regard to the true method of his phi- 
 losophy, or to the facts with which it dealt. As if knowledge
 
 SPIRIT OF ASCETICISM. 101 
 
 were nothing more than a process of ingenious excogitation, 
 they made no attempt to observe the phenomena of Nature, 
 and to search out the laws governing them, but laboriously 
 "invoked their own spirits to utter oracles to them; " where- 
 fore philosophy was little more than a web of unmeaning 
 terms, and of empty metaphysical subtilties. 
 
 "With this sort of intellectual activity was joined, as the 
 result of the detestable spirit which inspired monastic teach- 
 ing and monastic practice, a harsh religious asceticism, 
 through which the body was looked down upon with con- 
 tempt, as vile and despicable, the temple of Satan, the home 
 of the fleshly lusts which war against the soul, and as need- 
 ing to be vigilantly kept in subjection, to be crucified daily 
 with its affections and lusts. It was the earthly prison-house 
 of the spirit whose pure immortal longings were to get free 
 from it. Such was the monstrous doctrine of the relation of 
 mind and body. What place could a rational theory of in- 
 sanity have in such an atmosphere of thought and feeling ? 
 The conception of it as a disease was impossible : it was as- 
 cribed to a supernatural operation, divine or diabolical, as 
 the case might be — was a real possession of the individual by 
 some extrinsic superior power. If the ravings of the person 
 took a religious turn, and his life was a fanatical practice of 
 some extraordinary penance — if, like St. Macarius, he slept 
 for months together in a marsh, exposing his naked body to 
 the stings of venomous flies ; or, like St. Simeon Stylites, he 
 spent the greater part of his life on a pillar sixty feet high ; 
 or, like St. Anthony, the patriarch of monachism, he had 
 never, in extreme old age, been guilty of washing his feet — 
 he was thought to have reached the ideal of human excel- 
 lence, and was canonized as a saint. More often his state 
 was deemed to be a possession by the devil or other evil 
 spirit, or the degrading effect of a soul enslaved by sin. 
 From some cause or other, he was a just victim of Divine dis- 
 pleasure, and had been cast down in consequence from hia 
 high human estate.
 
 102 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 It was the natural result of such views of insanity that 
 men should treat him whom they believed to have a de\il in 
 hhn, as they would have treated the devil could they have 
 had the good fortune to lay hold of him. The tortures which 
 the insane suffered from the devils that had entered into him 
 were less than those inflicted by the devils who took charge 
 of him. When he was not put to death as a heretic or a 
 criminal, he was confined in a dungeon, where he lay chained 
 on straw ; his food was thrown in, and the stratr raked out, 
 through the bars ; sightseers went to see him, as they went 
 to see the wild beasts, for amusement ; he was cowed by the 
 whip, or other instrument of punishment, and was more neg- 
 lected and worse treated than if he had been a wild beast. 
 Many insane persons, too, were without doubt executed as 
 witches, or as persous who had, through witchcraft, entered 
 into compact with Satan. It is a striking illustration, if we 
 think of it, of the condition of thouglit at that time, and of 
 the great change which has taken place since, that such ex- 
 pressions as the black arts, witchcraft, diabolical possession, 
 and the like, have fallen entirely out of use, and would ba 
 thought to convey no meaning if they were used now. They 
 were fictitious causes invented to account for facts, many of 
 which undoubtedly lay within the domain of madness. 
 
 Kow, it is a fact, abundantly exemplified in human his- 
 tory, that a practice fi-equently lasts for a long time after the 
 theory which inspired it has lost its hold on the belief of 
 mankind. No wonder, then, that the cruel treatment of the 
 insane "survived the belief in diabolical possession, though it 
 is justly a wonder that it should have lasted into this cen- 
 tury. The explanation of the seeming anomaly is to be 
 sought, I believe, in the purely metaphysical views of mind 
 which prevailed long after inductive science had invaded and 
 made conquests of other departments of Nature. Theology 
 and metaphysics, having common interests, were naturally 
 drawn into close alliance, in order to keep entire possession 
 of the domain of mind, and to withstand the progress of in-
 
 THEOLOGICAL SPIRIT. 103 
 
 iuctive inquiry. With tlie notions they cherished of the na- 
 ture of mind, and of its relations to body, it was thought im- 
 possible, and would have been denounced as sacrilegious, to 
 enter upon the study of it by the way of physical research. 
 To have supposed that the innermost sanctuary of Nature 
 could be so entered through the humble portals of bodily 
 functions, would have been regarded as an unwarrantable 
 and unholy exaltation of the body, which was full of all un- 
 cleanness, corruptible, of the earth earthy, and a gross degra- 
 dation of the mind, which was incorruptible, of the heaven 
 heavenly, and joint partaker of divine immortality. Whoso- 
 ever had dared to propound such a doctrine would assuredly 
 have been put to death as a blasphemer and a heretic. And 
 yet he ought to have been hailed as a benefactor. It is im- 
 possible to say of any false belief which mankind have had, 
 that it has been the most pernicious in its effects; but we 
 may truly say of the theological notion of the relations of 
 mind and body, that it has been surpassed by few false doc- 
 trines in the evil which it has worked. 
 
 The spirit of metaphysical speculation was scarcely less 
 hostile to physical researches into mental function. For 
 when inquirers had struggled successfully out of mere verbal 
 disputation, and had applied themselves to the observation 
 of mental phenomena, the method used was entirely one- 
 sided; it was a system of mental introspection exclusively, 
 each one looking into his own mind and propounding as 
 philosophy what he thought he observed there ; the external 
 observation of mind in all its various manifestations, and of 
 the bodily conditions of all mental action, was ignored. "When 
 all knowledge of mental action was gained in this way by 
 observation of self- consciousness, men naturally formed opin- 
 ions from their own experience which they applied to the 
 mental states of insane persons ; feeling that they themselves 
 had a consciousness of right and wrong, and a power of will 
 to do the right and forbear the wrong, they never doubted 
 that madmen had a like clearness of consciousness and a like
 
 104 CONSCIENCE AND ORaANIZATION. 
 
 power of will — that they could, if they would, control their 
 disorderly thoughts and acts. The dungeon, the chain, the 
 whip, and other instruments of punishment, were accordingly 
 in constant use as means of coercion, the result heing that ex- 
 hibitions of madness were witnessed which are no longer to be 
 seen, "• because they were not the simple product of malady, 
 hut of malady aggravated by mismanagement." "What with 
 the theological notion of madness as a work of Satan in the 
 individual, and what with the erroneous views of it subse- 
 quently begotten of the metaphysical spirit, it came to pass 
 that the barbarous system of treatment was only abolished 
 within the memory of men yet living. In sad truth may we 
 say that, so far as a knowledge of the nature of insanity and 
 of the proper mode of treating it is concerned, mankind owe 
 no thanks, but, on the contrary, much error and infinite hu- 
 man suffering, to theology and metaphysics. 
 
 It was when men recognized insanity as a disease which, 
 like other diseases, might be alleviated or cured by medical 
 and moral means — when they regained the stand-point which 
 tbe ancient Grecians had held — that they began the struggle 
 to free themselves in this matter from the bondage of false 
 theology and mischievous metaphysics. So far as the phe- 
 nomena of deranged mind reach, the battle has been won and 
 the victory is complete; no one whose opinion is of any 
 value pretends now that they are any thing more than the 
 deranged functions of the supreme nervous centres of the 
 body. But the victory is not yet complete along the whole 
 line of mental function ; there is the strongest desire evinced, 
 and the most strenuous efforts are made, in many quarters, 
 to exempt from physical researches the highest functions of 
 mind, and particularly the so-called moral sense and the will. 
 The moral sense is, indeed, the stronghold of those who have 
 made strategical movements of retreat from other defensive 
 positions which they have taken up ; and it is from this 
 stronghold that what are deemed the most telling arguments 
 against the Darwinian doctrine of physiological evolution
 
 THE MORAL SENSE. 105 
 
 have come. Are we, tLcn, as physiologists, to allow an ex- 
 emption from physical research to any function of mind, 
 however exalted ; or shall we maintain through good and 
 through evil report that all its functions, from the lowest to 
 the highest, are equally functions of organization? A vital 
 question for us as medical psychologists, which we must, 
 sooner or later, face boldly, and answer distinctly. 
 
 In Abercrombie's well-known and valued work, "In- 
 quiries concerning the Intellectual Powers," there is a strik- 
 ing passage relating to the moral sense which seems to me 
 truly melancholy. After pointing out clearly the existence 
 of a moral insanity in which every correct feeling is oblit- 
 erated in regard to moral relations, while the judgment is 
 sound in all other relations, and so demonstrating that the 
 influence of the moral principle on the power of conscience 
 may be weakened or lost, while reason remains unimpaired, 
 he says : " That this power should so completely lose its sway, 
 while reason remains unimpaired, is a point in the moral 
 constitution of man which it does not belong to the physician 
 to investigate. The fact is unquestionable ; tlie solution is 
 to be sought in the records of eternal truth." Is not this pas- 
 sage beyond measure sad ? Must science really accept this 
 attitude of helplessness? Must the physician who has to 
 deal practically with these instances of moral insanity for- 
 bear forever to investigate its nature and causation ? So far 
 from assenting to such an exclusion, I hold that there is no 
 sanctum sanctorum in science, and that it distinctly belongs 
 to the physician to seek for the solution of the problem in 
 the discovery of those laws of Nature which are to him the 
 incontestable records of eternal truth. 
 
 Let us clearly apprehend the problem which we have to 
 consider. Some popular capital has been made, and made in 
 quarters where we might justly have looked for greater sin- 
 cerity or sounder apprehension, out of the fact that physi- 
 ology, however far it may advance, can never bridge over 
 the gap between nerve-elements and mind, can never leap
 
 106 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 from the movements of nerve-molecules to consciousness* 
 No one has ever said that it could ; the problem before us aa 
 scientific observers is not to demonstrate the real nature of 
 the force which we designate mental, nor to show how and 
 whj certain molecular movements in nerve become, if they 
 do become, sensation or idea, but it is to trace here, as in 
 other departments of Nature, uniformities of sequence ; to 
 point out that certain sequences are, within our experience, 
 the invariable consequences of certain antecedent conditions. 
 The how or the ^chy is a mystery which we do not pretend or 
 attempt to explain ; we do not even aspire to know it. "We 
 can only know these uniformities of sequence as we do the 
 uniformity of sequence which we call gravitation. What is 
 the actual power which makes one body attract another di- 
 rectly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance, 
 we have not the least knowledge; why and how certain 
 molecular movements become heat, or electricity, or chemi- 
 cal action, we are just as ignorant ; and in admitting that we 
 cannot comprehend how certain states of matter occasion 
 certain states of mind, we may rightly demand that no more 
 should be asked of the physiologist, in explanation of the icJiy 
 of events, than is asked of the physicist. The mystery is 
 neither more nor less in the one case than in the other. To 
 say that it is inconceivable that matter, in however complex 
 a state of organization, should generate consciousness, should 
 feel and think, is simply an ap])eal to the self-sufficiency of 
 human intellect at the present day, and a sort of argument 
 which, if logically carried through, would bar any new con- 
 ception of what, from ignorance, is yet inconceivable to us ; 
 it would make the present limit of conception the limit of 
 conception forever; and it is certainly unwarrantable in the 
 face of the fact that tlie history of tlie progress of knowledge 
 is, in great part, a history of the inconceivable becoming con- 
 ceivable. Moreover, it is an assertion which is positively 
 contradicted by the testimony of persons who have been 
 presumably in their right minds, and who have not spoken
 
 MILTON'S MATERIALISM. 107 
 
 in mere haste and ignorance. Let rae instance that of one per- 
 son, whose qualifications few will contest — I mean John Mil- 
 ton. Both in prose and poetrj he makes known his opinion 
 that matter is capable of intellectual functions, declaring in 
 "Paradise Lost," that the first matter rises through various 
 degrees of substance and of life, until "body up to spirit 
 works," just as from the root springs lighter the green stalk, 
 from thence the leaves, and, "last, the bright consummate 
 flower spirits odorous breathes." That he intended this pas- 
 sage not merely as poetry, but as sound philosophy, is proved 
 by what he says in his " Treatise on Christian Doctrine," 
 where he declares that " man is a living being, intrinsically 
 and properly one and individual, not compound or separable, 
 not, according to the common opinion, made up and framed 
 of two distinct and different natures, as of soul and body — 
 but the whole man is soul, and the soul man ; that is to say, 
 a body, or substance, individual, animated, sensitive, and 
 rational." The notion of matter being capable of thinking 
 was clearly, then, not inconceivable to Milton ; and there can 
 bo no doubt that there always have been persons who have 
 found it more conceivable than the notion of spirit entirely 
 distinct from body, having no relation to it, and yet acting 
 upon it in every thought, feeling, and act of life."* 
 
 ♦ Some of those who have done me the honor to criticise this address, have 
 eeemed to tliink that in saying that Milton held matter to be capable of intellect- 
 ual function, I have not fairly represented his opinion. Let mo add, therefore, 
 the following quotations from his " Treatise on Christian Doctrine : " " For the 
 original matter of which we speak is not to be looked upon as an evil or a trivial 
 thing, but as intrinsically good, and the chief productive stock of every subse- 
 quent good. . . . But that the spirit of man should be separate from the body, 
 60 as to have a perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere 
 said in Scripture, and the doctrme is evidently at variance both with Nature and 
 reason, as will be suowti more fully hereafter. For the word soul is also appHed 
 to every kind of hving being: Gen. i. 30, 'to every beast of the earth,' etc., 
 ' wherein there is life ; ' vii. 22^ ' all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all 
 that was in the tlry land, died ; ' yet it was never infen-ed from these expressions 
 that the soul exists separate from the body in any of the brute creation. ... It 
 would seem, therefore, that the human soul is not created daily by the immediate 
 ect of God, but propagated from fathf/r to son in a natural order. . . . There 
 seems, therefore, no reason why the soul of man ehould be made an exception to
 
 i08 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 With these general remarks, by way of necessary caution, 
 let me come to the particuhir problem which -sve have to 
 face — namely, whether there is the same essential connec- 
 tion between moral sense and brain which there is between 
 thought and brain, or between any of our special senses and 
 its special ganglionic centre in the brain ? Is conscience a 
 function of organization? I will ask yon to look without 
 prejudice at the facts of observation, and to consider if they 
 admit of any other scientific interpretation. For the medical 
 psychologist, whose duty brings him into constant inter- 
 course with facts, cannot rest satisfied with vague specula- 
 tions ; he is bound to investigate the phenomena as they pre- 
 sent themselves to observation, and to form conclusions from 
 them, without regard to accepted theories of faith or knowl- 
 edge ; and if he arrives at sound conclusions from such 
 observation of facts not before observed, these will not 
 contradict old fiiiths unless in that wherein old faiths are 
 wrong, and it is right they should be contradicted. His gen- 
 eralizations, like the generalizations of astronomy, chemistry, 
 or any other branch of science, must rest on their own 
 merits ; they cannot justly be tested by any preconceived 
 standard of truth, however much hallowed by antiquity or 
 sanctioned by authority. 
 
 ■\Vlien we come to deal with examples of moral degen- 
 eracy, whether among the insane or among criminals, we 
 perceive at once that it is not sufficient to ascribe immo- 
 rality to the devil; that we must, if we would not leave the 
 matter a mystery, go on to discover the cause of it in the 
 individual. The eflect defective comes by cause, we are con- 
 strained to believe; what is the cause and what are the laws 
 of moral degeneracy? As society is constituted, certain 
 
 the peneral law of creatidn. For, as has been shown before, God breathed the 
 breath of life into other livin? beings, and blended it so intimately with matter, 
 that the propagation and production of the human form were analogous to those 
 of other forms, and were the proper effects of tliat power which had been com 
 municiUed to matter by the Deity." 
 
 See albo '• Paradise Lost," book v., v. 100 and v. 407.
 
 THE CRIMINAL NEUROSIS. 109 
 
 forms of evil-doing are certainly not profitable in the long- 
 run; how comes it, then, that an individual, capable of look- 
 ing before and after, remembering the retribution of past sin, 
 and foreseeing the Nemesis that waits on future wrong- 
 doing, is so forgetful of true self-interest as to yield to evil 
 impulses ? And whence do these impulses come ? One 
 thing ia certain, that moral philosophy cannot penetrate the 
 hidden springs of feeling and impulse ; they lie deeper than 
 it can reach, for they lie in the physical constitution of the 
 individual, and, going still farther back, perhaps in his or- 
 ganic antecedents. Because the fathers have eaten sour 
 grapes, therefore it often is that the children's teeth are set 
 on edge. Because the fathers had stoned tlie i)rophets, there- 
 fore it was that the children rejected Him who was sent unto 
 them. Assuredly of some criminals, as of some insane per- 
 sons, it may be truly said that they are born, not made ; 
 they go criminal, as the insane go mad, because they cannot 
 help it; a stronger powder than they can counteract Las given 
 the bias of their being. Those who doubt this w^hen it is 
 put in this positive form, will hardly continue to do so when 
 they consider that between the drivelling idiot, equally desti- 
 tute of intellect and moral feeling, whom no labor of training 
 can raise to a human level, and the highest example of intel- 
 lect and moral feeling, there are beings marking every step 
 of the long gradation; that we may -mount from entire ab- 
 sence of moral sense through every grade of deficiency up to 
 its highest state of development. I do not dispute that 
 much may sometimes be done by education and training to 
 counteract in this respect the ills of a bad inheritance, but it 
 is still true that the foundations upon which the acquisitions 
 of education must rest are inherited, and that in many in- 
 stances they are too weak to bear a good moral superstruct- 
 ure. Moral philosophy may make its hard and fast lines, and 
 lay down abstract propositions concerning the power of the 
 will in the conduct of life ; but, when we have to do with 
 concrete cases, it is plain that no such definite lines can be
 
 110 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 applied, and that tlie abstract propositions are only true of a 
 certain proportion of mankind. Moreover, it appears also 
 that tliose of whom they are true have much less merit in the 
 matter, and those of whom they are not true much less blame, 
 than moral philosophers are apt to imagine and inculcate. 
 The fact of inheritance which constitutes the misfortune of 
 the latter constitutes also the virtue of the former. There is 
 often nulla i7nputatio in one case, nulla virtus in the other. 
 
 The causes, course, and varieties of degeneracy are not, 
 then, merely subjects for the moral philosopher or the 
 preacher ; but they are proper subjects for positive scientific 
 inquiry. And if they be so investigated, it is not unlikely 
 that the results may throw some light on the vexed question 
 of the nature and origin of the moral sense. Now, if there 
 be a class of persons who are without the moral sense, who 
 are true moral imbeciles, it is the class of habitual criminals. 
 All observers who have made them their study agree that 
 they constitute a morbid or degenerate variety of mankind, 
 marked by peculiar low physical and mental characteristics. 
 They are scrofulous, often deformed, with badly-formed, 
 angular heads, are stupid, sluggish, deficient in vital energy, 
 and sometimes afflicted with epilepsy. They are of weak 
 and defective intellect, though excessively cunning ; and not 
 a few of them are weak-minded and imbecile. The women 
 are ugly in features, and without grace of expression or 
 movement. The children who become juvenile criminals, do 
 not evince the educational aptitude of the higher industrial 
 classes ; they are deficient in the power of attention and ap- 
 plication, have bad memories, and make slow progress in 
 learning; many of them are weak in mind and body, and 
 some of them actually imbecile. At the end of the best part 
 of a life spent amofig prisoners, a prison-surgeon declarea 
 himself to be mainly impressed with their extreme deficiency 
 or perversion of moral feeling, the strength of the evil pro- 
 pensities of their nature, and their utter impracticability; 
 neither kindness nor severity availing to prevent them from
 
 THE CRIMINAL CLASS. Ill 
 
 i3e vising and doing wrong day by day, although their con- 
 duct brought on them further privations. Their evil propen- 
 sities are veritable instincts of their defective nature, acting, 
 like instincts, in spite of reason, and producing, when not 
 gratified, a restlessness which becomes at times uncontrol- 
 lable. Hence occur the so-called " breakings-out " of pris- 
 oners, when, without apparent cause, they fall into paroxysms 
 of excitement, tear their clothing.and bedding, assault the offi- 
 cers, and altogether behave for a time like furious madmen. 
 
 We may take it, then, on the authority of those who have 
 had the best opportunities of observation, that there is a class 
 of criminals formed of beings of defective physical and men- 
 tal organization ; one result of the defect, which really deter- 
 mines their destiny in life, being an extreme deficiency or 
 complete absence of moral sense: that an absence of moral 
 sense may be a congenital vice or fault of organization. The 
 experience of medical practice certainly confirms this view. 
 From time to time we are consulted about perplexing cases 
 of what might be called moral insanity, or, more properly, 
 moral imbecility, in children of the better classes. Though 
 born in good circumstances of life, and having every advan- 
 tage of education, they cannot, by any care or training, be 
 made to learn and behave like other children ; they display 
 no affection whatever for parents, brothers, or sisters, and no 
 real appreciation of the difference between right and wrong 
 — no love for the one, no remorse for the other ; they are in- 
 herently vicious, and steal and lie with a skill that it is hard 
 to believe could ever have been acquired — are, in fact, in- 
 stinctive thieves and liars ; every thing that their vicious na- 
 ture prompts them to desire is for them right, and they exhib- 
 it a remarkable cunning in gratifying their evil propensities ; 
 they are the hopeless pupils of any master who has any thing 
 to do with them, and are sure to be expelled from any school 
 to which they may be sent. In the end, all those who have to 
 do with them are constrained to ascribe to defect what at 
 first seemed simple badness. Now, what we commonly find
 
 112 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 in these cases, when we are able to push satisfactory inquiry 
 into their hereditary antecedents, is that they come of fami- 
 lies in which insanity or some allied neurosis prevails. This 
 is the interesting fact to which I wish to draw attention. 
 
 In addition to the entire absence or perversion of moral 
 sense, without feeling of remorse, which experience of habit- 
 ual criminals brings prominently out, other important facts 
 which we learn from an investigation of their family histo- 
 ries are, that a considerable proportion of them are weak- 
 minded or epileptic, or become insane, or that they spring 
 from families in which insanity, epilepsy, or some other neu- 
 rosis exists, and that the diseases from which they suffer, and 
 of which they die, are chiefly tubercular diseases, and dis- 
 eases of the nervous system. Crime is not, then, always a 
 simple affair of yielding to an evil impulse or a vicious pas- 
 sion, which might be checked were ordinary control exer- 
 cised ; it is clearly sometimes the result of an actual neurosis 
 which has close relations of nature and descent to other neu- 
 roses ; especially the epileptic and the insane neuroses ; and 
 this neurosis is the physical result of physiological laws of 
 production and evolution. No wonder that the criminal psy^ 
 chosis^ which is the mental side of the neurosis, is for the most 
 part an intractable malady; punishment being of no avail to 
 produce a permanent reformation. A true reformation would 
 be a rg-forming of the individual nature ; and how can that 
 which has been forming through generations be re-formed 
 within the term of a single life? Can the Ethiopian change 
 his skin, or the leopard his spots ? 
 
 The hereditary kinship which is sometimes traceable be- 
 tween crime and insanity, I cannot now set forth in detail; 
 but, to make clear what I mean, I may give one or two illus- 
 trations out of many of a like kind, which might be brought 
 forward. Of five children from an insane mother and a 
 drunken father, one was suicidal, two suffered imprisonment 
 for crimes, one daughter was insane, the other was imbecile. 
 Suicide, crime, insanity, and imbecility, were thus different
 
 DEGENERATE TYPE. 113 
 
 manifestations of a morbid type in the second generation. 
 The case of Christiana Edmunds, who was convicted of mur- 
 der, and afterward reprieved and sent to Broadmoor, will be 
 fresh in your recollection. Her father died raving mad in an 
 asylum; her brother died epileptic and idiotic at Earlswood; 
 her sister suffered from mental excitement, and once attempt- 
 ed to throw herself out of a window ; her mother's father 
 died paralyzed and childish ; a cousin on the same side was 
 imbecile ; she herself had been subject to somnambulism in 
 childhood, had suffered from hysteria later in life, and had 
 finally had an attack of hemiplegia; and at the time of her 
 trial, her face, drawn to one side, showed the effects of the 
 hemiplegic attack from which she had suffered. I had more 
 than an hour's conversation with her in Newgate, and, at the 
 end of it, two convictions were firmly planted in my mind : 
 the first, that she had no real moral appreciation of the nature 
 of her crime, and no shadow of a feeling of remorse with re- 
 gard to it ; the second, that she would have poisoned a whole 
 city-full of people, if it had lain in her way to do so, without 
 hesitation, compunction, or remorse. Nevertheless, her in- 
 tellect was acute, certainly above the average, and showed 
 no signs of disorder. I could only regard her case as a strong 
 confirmation of an opinion which I had elsewhere expressed, 
 and which I believe to be a just conclusion from facts ; 
 namely, that one occasional result of descent from an insane 
 family is a nature entirely destitute of moral sense — congen- 
 itally defective in that respect — whereby the individual is as 
 insensible to the moral relations of life as a person color- 
 blind is to certain colors. I give no opinion here as to the 
 legal policy of treating such a person as of sound and respon- 
 sible nature ; it is a subject beset with difficulties, and man,'^ 
 considerations, on which I cannot enter now, would have to 
 be taken into account ; but I may justly ask you, as scientific 
 men, whether you would pronounce a person, with such he- 
 reditary antecedents and such personal ills, accountable in the 
 same sense or same degree as one of us ? For my part, when
 
 114 COXSCIEXCE ASB ORGAXIZATIOX. 
 
 one thinks of the terrible auction which an nnsound mental 
 organization is, and what reason for devout thankfcdness a 
 man of sound descent and nature has, I would rather prav 
 with the Arabian philosopher, '' God I be kind to the wick- 
 ed ; to the good thou hast already been sufficiently kind in 
 making them good." 
 
 One example more shall suffice to exhibit the alliance be- 
 tween degenerate types ; it shows the effect of crime in one 
 generation of a family upon the mental organization of the 
 following generations — shows, indeed, how the sins of the 
 fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth 
 generations. It is that of the innkeeper, which I have quoted 
 on other occasions: TThile the Reign of Terror was going on 
 during the first French Revolution, he profited by the critical 
 situation in which many nobles of his commune found them- 
 selves, to decoy them into his house, where he was believed 
 to have robbed and murdered them. His daughter, having 
 quarrelled with him, denounced him to the authorities, who 
 put him on his trial, but he escaped conviction from lack of 
 proof. She committed suicide subsequently. One of her 
 brothers had nearly murdered her on one occasion with a 
 knife, and another brother hanged himself. Her sister was 
 epileptic, imbecile, and paroxysmally violent. Her daughter, 
 in whom the degenerate line approached extinction, became 
 completely deranged, and was sent to an asylum. Here, thea, 
 is the sort of petligree which we really want, if we are to 
 judge of the worth of a family — ^the hereditary line of its 
 vices, virtues, and diseases. 
 
 First generation. Acute intelligence, with ) Absence or destmetion 
 murder and robbery. f of moral sense. 
 
 Second generation. Suicide, Homicidal violence. Epilepsy, imbe- 
 I and suicide, cility, and mania. 
 
 Third generation. Mania. 
 
 It may be said that this was an extreme and exceptional 
 case. "Without doubt it was an extreme case; but it is on
 
 MOKAL PECULIARITIES. 116 
 
 that account the better fitted to produce an impression ; and 
 it must be remembered that the laws by which its results 
 were worked out are laws which are continually at work in 
 accomplishing less striking results, and that so-called excep- 
 tional cases in science are, when rightly studied, exception- 
 ally useful in helping us to discover the laws for which we 
 are searching. My argument is, that the moral element is an 
 essential part of a complete and sound character, in the pres- 
 ent state of human evolution ; it was the last acquisition of 
 development in the progress of humanization^ and it is com- 
 monly the first to sufier when degeneracy begins, and there- 
 fore its decay is the first sign of the commencement of such 
 degeneracy. He who is destitute of moral sense is a defec- 
 tive being to that extent ; he marks the beginning of race-de- 
 generacy ; and, if better influences do not intervene to check 
 or neutralize the morbid tendency, his children will exhibit a 
 further degree of degeneracy, and be actual morbid varieties. 
 "VTliat shall be the particular outcome of the morbid strain — 
 whether vice, or crime, or madness — will of course depend 
 much on the circumstances of life ; the inborn fact counts for 
 much, but not for every thing, in the result. Certainly, how- 
 ever, it is a conviction in my mind, produced by observation 
 of instances, that one way in which insanity seems to be gen- 
 erated de novo in a family, is through the deterioration of na- 
 ture induced by destruction of moral sense. As insanity in 
 one generation may produce an absence of moral sense in the 
 next, so, conversely, absence or destruction of the moral 
 sense in one generation may be followed by insanity in the 
 next. 
 
 No one who has had much to do with the treatment of 
 the insane can have failed t-o notice the mental peculiarities 
 somethnes exhibited by their near relations. One striking 
 way in which they display them at times is in an extreme 
 morbid suspicion of every thing and everybody ; in the most 
 innocent actions of others they detect an unworthy motive, 
 and seize on the evil interpretation. They torment them
 
 116 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 ) selves and others with the ingenuity of their suspicions. Se- 
 ,; cret ways and dealings they affect naturally and pursue sys- 
 tematically. However insane their relative may be, they can 
 'i hardly be brought to see it ; and, if they do see it, they seem 
 ■; actually to persuade themselves that the doctors who have 
 / treated him, or those who have had the care of him, are re- 
 sponsible for his state. These moral peculiarities are consti- 
 tutional : they are marks of one variety of the insane temper- 
 ament, and, as such, are of interest to us in our present in- 
 quiry. For the facts which I have thus far mentioned seem 
 to me to prove the essential connection of the moral sense 
 with organization, and to admit of interpretation only on that 
 supposition. It, or the potentiality of it, is inherited by most 
 persons, though some appear to be born without it ; it is de- 
 veloped by culture ; decays from disuse ; and is perverted or 
 destroyed by disease. The last acquired faculty in the prog- 
 ress of human evolution, it is the first to suffer when disease 
 invades the mental organization. One of the first symptoms of 
 insanity — one which declares itself before there is any intel- 
 lectual derangement, before the person's friends suspect even 
 that he is becoming insane — is a deadening or complete per- 
 version of the moral sense. In extreme cases it is observed 
 that the modest man becomes presumptuous and exacting, 
 the chaste man lewd and obscene, the honest man a thief, 
 and the truthfol man an unblushing liar. Short of this, how- 
 ever, there is an observable impairment of the finer moral 
 feelings — a something different, which the nearest friends do 
 not fail to feel, although they cannot always describe it. 
 Now, these signs of moral perversion are really the first symp- 
 toms of a mental derangement which may, in its further 
 course, go through all degrees of intellectual disorder, and 
 end in destruction of mind, with visible destruction of the 
 nerve-cells which minister to mind. Is the end, then, depend- 
 ent on organization, or rather disorganization, and is the be- 
 ginning not ? This course of degeneracy is but a summary 
 in the individual of what we have already seen to take place
 
 IMPAIRMENT OF MORAL SENSE. 117 
 
 through generations, and in both cases we are constrained 
 to believe that the moral changes are as closely dependent 
 upon physical causes as are the intellectual changes which ac- 
 company or follow them. If it be not so, we may bid farewell 
 to all investigation of mental function by a scientific method. 
 
 Other arguments in favor of this view of conscience as a 
 function of organization — the highest and most delicate 
 function of the highest and most complex development 
 thereof — might be drawn from the effect of a severe attack 
 of insanity on the moral feelings. The patient entirely re- 
 covers his reason ; his intellectual faculties are as acute as 
 ever, but iiis moral character is changed ; he is no longer the 
 moral man that he was ; the shock has destroyed the finest 
 part of his mental organization. Henceforth his life may be 
 as different from his former life as was the life of Saul of 
 Tarsus from the life of Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles. An 
 attack of epilepsy has produced the same effect, effacing the 
 moral sense as it effaces the memory sometimes; and we are 
 all familiar with the marked temporary change of moral 
 character in the epileptic which often precedes and heralds 
 the approach of his fits. A fever, or an injury to the head, 
 nas in like manner entirely changed the moral character, and 
 so also has habitual opium-eating or habitual drunkenness. 
 The evil effect of these vices might of course be ascribed to 
 the indulgence of passion and the degradation of the moral 
 sense apart from physical causes ; but the same cannot be 
 said of the effects of a fever or of an injury to the head. 
 Moreover, we know that alcohol and opium do affect the 
 brain by their actual presence there, and through the brain 
 the mind, just as strychnia affects the spinal cord and its 
 functions; and we know also that it is in the natural 
 order of events that continuance of perverted function should 
 lead to organic disease. In the case of opium or alcohol, 
 then, as in the case of a blow on the head, we believe the 
 effect to be physical. 
 
 We are further strengthened in this conviction when we 
 6
 
 118 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 take note of the decided effects of solitary vice upon the 
 moral character, or of snch a sexual mutilation as eunuchs 
 have undergone. Long before that vice destroys the mind, 
 it destroys moral energy and feeling, this effect being the pre- 
 cursor of the intellectual impairment which goes on to utter 
 dementia in the worst cases. Of the moral character of 
 eunuchs, all that we can briefly say is, that in most cases they 
 have no moral character; their minds are mutilated like 
 their bodies; with the deprivation of sexual feeling, they 
 are deprived of all the mental growth and energy which it 
 directly or remotely inspires. How much this is, it would be 
 hard to say ; but were man deprived of the instinct of propa- 
 gation, and of all that" mentally springs from it, I doubt not 
 that most of the poetry and perhaps all the moral feehng 
 would be cut out of his life. 
 
 Before such an audience, it is not necessary for me to in- 
 sist further on such facts as I have mentioned; as physicians 
 we cannot fail to recognize them ; but it is necessary for us, 
 if we would be, like our great master Hippocrates, philoso- 
 phers as well as physicians, to give them tjieir. proper place 
 in a system of medical psychology, and to weigh their bear- 
 ing on accepted philosophical theories. I had meant to 
 point out how they go to prove the doctrine of evolution to 
 be true of the highest mental faculties of man, including his 
 moral sense; but I must refrain. Already I have trespassed 
 too long on your patience. The medical psychologist must, I 
 think, maintain that the best of the argument concerning the 
 origin of the moral sense is with those who uphold its ac- 
 quired nature. That the sentiments of common interest in 
 the primitive family and ti-ibe, and the habitual reprobation 
 of certain acts by individuals as injurious to the family or 
 tribe, should finally generate a sentiment of right and wrong 
 in regard to such acts, and that such sentiment should in the 
 course of generations be transmitted by hereditary action as 
 a more or less marked instinctive feeling, is in entire accord- 
 ance with what we know of the results of education and of
 
 THE ORIGIN OF MORAL SENSE. 119 
 
 hereditary action. Tirae was, wo know, when men wan- 
 dered about the country in families or tribes. In order that 
 they miglit rise from this nomadic state to a national exist- 
 ence, the acquisition and development of a moral sense must 
 clearly have been essential conditions — not, however, as pre- 
 formed agents, but as concomitant effects of evolution. This 
 development is still going slowly on ; but the proof how 
 little moral sense itself instigates progress is seen in the ab- 
 sence of it between nations. Men have risen to a national 
 existence, but they have not yet risen to an international ex- 
 istence. With moral principles that have not changed within 
 historical times, nations still laud patriotism, which is actual- 
 ly a mark of moral incompleteness, as the highest virtue; 
 and statesmen think it a fine thing to sneer at cosmopoli- 
 tanism. But it cannot be doubted that the time will come, 
 though it may be yet afar off, when nations shall know and 
 feel their interests to be one, when moral feeling shall be de- 
 veloped between them, and when they shall not learn war 
 any more ; it will come as a step in evolution and as a condi- 
 tion of universal brotherhood, not otherwise than as, coming 
 between tribes, it bound them into nations, and made patriot- 
 ism the high virtue which it is believed to be. 
 
 In the work of helping to trace the path of human evolu- 
 tion through the ages, a great function lies before a scientific 
 psychology; and in investigating in one department thereof 
 the characters of the various neuroses, and the causes, course, 
 and varieties of human degeneracy, which seem to be neces- 
 sary retrograde accompaniments of progress, we medical 
 psychologists have a vast field before us. To rise to a just 
 conception of the scope and dignity of our work will be the 
 best inspiration for entering on it, as is becoming, neither in 
 an abject spirit of superstition nor in an arrogant spirit of 
 conceit. For this we must not forget ; that, however clearly 
 we trace the order of events, the mystery of their wliy re- 
 mains where it was; however clearly we may follow "one 
 first matter" through
 
 120 CONSCIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. 
 
 " various forms, and various degrees 
 Of substance, and in things that live, of life, 
 
 Till body up to spirit work, in bounds 
 Proportioned to each kind," 
 
 the power which determines whv one tissue should super* 
 vene on another, why life should tend upward, which in- 
 spires and guides the everlasting becoming of things, must 
 ever remain past finding out. Man himself, with all his sor- 
 rows and sufferings, with all his hopes and aspirations, and his 
 labors wherewith he has labored under the sun, it is but a 
 little incident in the inconceivablj vast operations of that 
 primal central power which sent the planets on their courses, 
 and holds the lasting orbs of heaven in their just poise and 
 movement.
 
 PART IL 
 
 E S SAT S. 
 
 L— HAMLET, 
 n.— SWEDENBORG. 
 m.— THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 
 IV.— THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INQUEST.
 
 HAMLET.* 
 
 MuoH as has been written concerning " Ilaralet " by the 
 many who have sympathized with the ditierent phases of his 
 character, yet it would appear that no one who sets himself 
 anew to the earnest study of the drama, is content with what 
 others have done, but believes that ho can add something im- 
 portant from his own reflections. "Were confession honestly 
 made, it would most likely turn out that each sympathetic 
 reader did at bottom consider himself to be the real Hamlet ; 
 no marvel, therefore, that he deems himself best capable of 
 doing justice to the character. Though he fail to give an 
 adequate idea of the Hamlet which Shakespeare created, each 
 critic does unquestionably succeed in revealing his own intel- 
 lectual range, and the sort of one-sided Hamlet which he 
 would have created. Many of these criticisms or expositions 
 would, however, have been rendered unnecessary if their au- 
 thors had but borne it in mind that Hamlet is a poetical cre- 
 ation, and never was a living reality. Certainly, had that 
 been done, it Is not likely that any one would have deliber- 
 ately set himself to prove that he was an actual madman. 
 Heartily sympathizing with him in his perilous perplexities, 
 some are yet needlessly pained by the horrible sentiments to 
 which he gives utterance, and offended by the apparent bru- 
 tality of his conduct ; eager for the moral credit of the hero, 
 they strive to exculpate him, even at the cost of finding "no 
 other excuse but the sad excuse of a disordered mind." Such 
 
 * Westminster Rkview, No K? : — 1. Shakespeare. Yon G. G. Gorvinu* 
 Drltte Auflage. 2. A Study of Hamlet. By JoJia OonoUy, M. D., D. C. L.
 
 124 ESSAYS. 
 
 view proceeds from a misconception of the nature and aim of 
 the drama. 
 
 In tragedy, it is always necessary that the character of the 
 hero be neither purely good nor purely bad ; else there would 
 not be sufficient complication of exciting events. "Were the 
 hero purely good, whUe the circumstances in which he was 
 placed were adverse, then, though we might have the suffer- 
 ing life of a martyr or a saint well adapted to excite our com- 
 miseration, we certainly should not have the dramatic action 
 of a tragedy that would actively move our feelings and pow- 
 erfully stir our sympathy ; in the first act would he included 
 all the rest of the tragedy. The character must not indeed 
 he that of an angel, but that of a man compounded, like other 
 men, of virtues and faults, who struggles with a brave defi- 
 ance against the most adverse circumstances, and, notwith- 
 standing praiseworthy and strenuous efforts, at last sinks per- 
 haps beneath the bad fate of some defect in his own charac- 
 ter. He is an Atlas supporting the world, but in the end is 
 buried under it. Out of the relations of his nature to its sur- 
 roundings, an unavoidable destiny is forged, and he is hurried 
 on in spite of all his struggles through a malign conjunction 
 of events to an unforeseen catastrophe. As in Grecian fable, 
 the efforts which the victim made to avoid the doom foretold 
 him by the oracle, were exactly such as conducted him un- 
 witting to the foreordained catastrophe, so in the drama, the 
 fate which the hero's character makes for him often renders 
 vain all the energy with which he moves hinderances out of 
 his way, and battles with opposing events. "Tragical des- 
 tiny," says Jean Paul, " is the long-reverberating mountain 
 echo of a human discord." 
 
 A second reflection which might well have wrought to 
 prevent any attempt at an exact portrait of Hamlet as a liv- 
 ing individual, is a reflection on the form or nature of a true 
 dramatic character. It is an allegorical or symbolical individ- 
 aality, not merely a particular portrait; the secret of its ap- 
 peal to universal sympathy being that the general is manifest
 
 HAMLET 125 
 
 in the concrete, humanity mirrored in the individual. "Were 
 the poet to present to us the exact copy of an individual char- 
 acter, however marked might be its peculiarities, it would still 
 have very little interest for us and would very soon be for- 
 gotten : in his blindness and incompetency, he would sacri- 
 fice the permanent and universal to the fleeting and acciden- 
 tal. And this is assuredly a great mistake ; for every indi- 
 vidual is representative — more or less plainly, an incarnation 
 of the universal; in each one is latent all that is human. 
 Hence it is that the great poet, penetrating into the depths 
 of the individual nature, and grasping the universal or essen- 
 tial, is able to create so many characters ; and hence also it 
 is that we are able, from the appeal which they make to our 
 common humanity, at once to recognize them, though we 
 have never met with the originals in real life. It is the char- 
 acteristic of the genius that he can seize the vague, formless 
 feelings, and the indistinct casual thoughts, that lie deep and 
 latent in our unconscious life, and bring them forth into 
 clearness and distinction ; by flashing a light upon that which 
 lay in obscurity he thus makes a new revelation of Nature, 
 and in his creation we learn to know ourselves. Because 
 every animal too has its footing in our nature, it is possible 
 for the genius of a Landseer to render the common relation 
 visible through the creations of his art, and to appeal power- 
 fully to our sympathies. A true dramatic character that shall 
 live must be representative or symbolical, never a mere por- 
 trait : the story of Prometheus, is it not a universal verity ? 
 Had Shakespeare been content to copy individual nature, no 
 one would have been at the trouble now to remember Hamlet 
 or Falstaff ; and that so many writers have given us characters 
 which are no more than particular portraits, is a suflicient 
 reason why scarce one organic character was added to our pos- 
 sessions from the time of Shakespeare unto that of Goethe. 
 
 It is truly, then, a painful shock to poetical sensibility, 
 when any attempt is made to reduce the universality manifest 
 to our reason through the well-marked individuality of Ham-
 
 126 ESSAYS. 
 
 let's character to a mere portrait with which the senses only 
 are concerned. Hamlet is not the photographic copy of any. 
 real character, hut the idealized realization of human nature 
 under certain conditions: it is an ideal of human nature 
 strongly individualized, the character being, therefore, con- 
 sistent with human nature as a generic expression, and con- 
 sistent with itself as a personality. Consequently it is the 
 highest art, not a mere imitation or reproduction such as in- 
 ferior art is : it is Nature developed through man, and that 
 man Shakespeare. Those, therefore, who reflect will see 
 in Hamlet, as they do in contemplating Nature, that which 
 they bring with them, the faculty of seeing. One man, 
 pluming himself, it may be, on being practical, sees no more 
 than the plain facts, and discovers with exultant littleness 
 the anachronism of Ophelia's calling for a coach; another 
 thrills in harmonious symphony with the poetry in the drama, 
 and follows with feelings of tender sympathy the fate of the 
 hapless Ophelia ; while a third recognizes the philosophy of 
 the play, and traces with admiring awe the relentless course 
 of destiny in the evolution of events. As long as human na- 
 ture remains what it is, all classes in all ages will findareflec- 
 tion of some part of themselves in Hamlet. Is it not, then, a 
 much mistaken labor in any one to strive to point out how 
 minutely Shakespeare has here copied Nature ? The right 
 aim of a critic who is conscious of the exalted scope of art, 
 must be to show how he has developed Nature, to unfold 
 the idea which inspires and pervades the wondrous drama. 
 Surely there is abundant evidence that Shakespeare, with de- 
 liberate purpose, disdains minutely to reproduce Nature, just 
 as he distains chronologies, unities, and such transitory 
 things ; so that, to the mere observer, nothing can be more 
 unnatural than some of his scenes. But he does not appeal 
 to the senses and to one age ; he appeals to the reason and to 
 all time. While he lived he was himself the highest develop- 
 ment of Nature ; and his sincere works, his art, must there- 
 Core be true to Nature, true to the eternal indwelling ideas —
 
 HAMLET. 127 
 
 the imiversal verities, though not induding the fleeting, tem- 
 porary, and accidental. Genius has but little concern with 
 the moment; the "eternities are its seed-field." 
 
 In the first act of " Hamlet," the key-note of the tragedy 
 is struck. There is not, it is true, any prediction of the 
 course which events are to take ; but the tone of mind pro- 
 duced by the scene is a solemn feeling of mysterious awe, 
 which vibrates in the soul like the wail of mournful music, 
 and contains the formless presentiment of coming woes ; it is 
 a heavy but undefined oppression, like that dead stillness or 
 indistinct moaning of physical Nature which sometimes on a 
 summer's day precedes the outburst of a violent storm. This 
 feeling is in excellent harmony with the external circum- 
 stances of the scene — the bitter cold night when there is not 
 a mouse stirring, the sentinel on the lonely platform sick at 
 heart, and the bell just beating one : the external physical 
 world and the internal world of feeling are brought face to 
 face as strophe and antistrophe. And as this depressing 
 scene presages the appearance of the ghost, as this melan- 
 choly of physical Nature foreshadows the event of her trou- 
 bled spirit, so the gloomy presentiment which rests in the 
 mind at the close of the act portends the coming horrors: the 
 dark shadow of predestination is cast over both. When we 
 consciously strive to interpret the oppressive feeling, it be- 
 comes evident that we have a vague instinct that Fate is im- 
 posing on an individual a task which must hurry him to de- 
 struction — that here once more is to be acted the old and 
 unequal contest of human will with necessity, the tragedy at 
 which the gods do laugh. What shall human prudence avail 
 when a supernatural messenger from realms not dreamed of 
 in human philosophy issues the fiat of destiny ? Well may 
 Hamlet exclaim when the ghost appears, and his friends en- 
 deavor to prevent him from obeying its beckonings : 
 
 " My fate cries out, 
 Arid makes each petty artery in this body 
 As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve. 
 Still am I called.^'*
 
 128 ESSAYS. 
 
 After the ghost has made its horrible revelations, aad tha 
 tension of Hamlet's great emotion has relaxed, how infinitely 
 insignificant; how intolerably little, would appear the petty 
 matters of ordinary life ! Ko wonder that he flashes ont in 
 " wild and whirling words " of scorn and sarcasm — words 
 which are the fit expressions of a deep agitation, which rep- 
 resent in their wildness that strange, hoarse tone of voice, and 
 that recklessness of thought, that follow the shock of a pow- 
 erful emotion. Hamlet was inclined by nature, too, to be 
 satirical, as a person of his power of insight, his acuteness of 
 understanding, must almost of necessity be ; and the genuine 
 character is revealed when all external considerations are 
 swept away by the fierce internal storm. TVhat, again, could 
 appear to his seriously moved mind more unfitting the terri- 
 ble gravity of the occasion than the vulgar curiosity of Ho- 
 ratio and Marcellus ? To one who is profoundly and solely 
 afi*ected by some huge and painful sorrow, it is positively 
 afiflicting when indifferent spectators come forward with eager 
 curiosity, complacent commentary, or superficial sympathy. 
 However friendly the intention, their stand-point is so far 
 removed from that of the sufferer, that there can be no real 
 community of thought or feeling: to the lost souls in hell it 
 were scarce any alleviation of their unutterable woe to know 
 that the angelic hosts of heaven grieve for their sufferings. 
 Feeling the character of their eager curiosity, Hamlet pru- 
 dently does not trust his friends on the instant with the 
 knowledge of what might excite their chattering wonder. 
 No ; the ghost had not spoken to them ; it had selected him : 
 from him the tormented spirit demanded revenge and rest ; on 
 him, the son of a murdered father, was imposed the task of 
 avenging his royal father ; in circumstances of unparalleled dif- 
 ficulty he must trust only to his own right hand. This, then, 
 becomes clear, that he must secture secrecy and time for re- 
 flection ; and so, leaving the wild and whirling words in which 
 his overladen nature had taken instinctive refuge from the 
 tension of great passion, he seriously begs his friends to over-
 
 HAMLET. 129 
 
 roaster at they may their desire to learn what the ghost has 
 said, and swears them never to make known what they have 
 seen: 
 
 " And what so poor a man as Hamlet is 
 
 May do, to express his love, and friending to you, 
 
 God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together ; 
 
 And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. 
 
 The time is out of joint ; — cursed spite, 
 
 That ever I was born to set it right 1 " 
 
 It is these last words that are so exceeding melancholy; 
 they contain, as Goethe said, the key to Hamlet's whole be- 
 havior. Are they not tremulous also with the forebodings 
 of failure ? They prove, at any rate, that Hamlet was con- 
 scious that his life must henceforth be a sacrifice to the great 
 deed which had been imposed upon him as a duty. Fate 
 had ordained him to it ; and yet the fate which his character 
 was, rendered him unequal to it. " cursed si)ite ! " 
 
 The life of man is the definite result of fixed relations be- 
 tween the individual and circumstances ; and the events of 
 its evolution take place in accordance with laws which, 
 though little known — almost, indeed, unknown — are yet as 
 certain as those which govern the motions of planets in their 
 orbits. In the pathless immensity of the heavens these can- 
 not miss their way ; and how little must be his insight who 
 can think that man passes unguided through space and time ! 
 But because the multiplicity of elements and the complexity of 
 conditions are so great, it is quite impossible to determme the 
 relations of human events, and to predict their occurrence. 
 This, however, is clear — that the greatest is he who deter- 
 mines as much as possible circumstances, and is as little as 
 possible determined by them. Gratifying and instructive is 
 the spectacle of an heroic man with a definite aim before him, 
 pressing forward with steadfast perseverance toward it; 
 putting aside one hinderance after another ; wisely adapting 
 himself to what cannot be prevented ; and ultimately attain- 
 ing to the goal which he had set himself. Such a one does 
 not make tragedy of his life; for, if circumstances are too
 
 i30 ESSAYS. 
 
 strong for him, lie accommodates himself to circnmstancea, 
 and in the end conquers by obeying : he has a definite aim 
 before him, and works definitely for it. Having possessed 
 his soul in patience, he can endure whatever may betide : 
 "It is the same to him who wears a shoe as if the whole 
 world were covered with leather." When a man, however, 
 goes on aimlessly or carelessly ravelling the threads of his 
 life, he has no right to be surprised if the character of the 
 web is determined for him. Such a one is liable to become 
 the victim of circumstances, and, sorely pressed by them, 
 he groans under the cruel harshness of Fate, and pours out 
 unavailing wails to an indifi*erent Heaven. 
 
 Tragedy is man driven to destruction by circumstances. 
 The nobler the sufi*erer's aim, the more constant his fortitude, 
 the more violent his struggles, the intenser his agonies — the 
 greater is the tragedy. Xothing can surpass in grandeur of 
 conception that type of all tragedy — Prometheus bound with 
 adamantine chains to the bleak rock against which the piti- 
 less waves of the earth-encircling ocean in unvarying monot- 
 ony dashed, and — a victim of unspeakable sufi"ering and of 
 cruel injustice at the hands of the might-possessing, right- 
 spurning tyrant of Olympus — lamenting in bitter anguish of his 
 soul that such should be the reward of philanthropic labor : 
 
 Toiavra a-Tjvpu rov (piXavOp^Tzov rpSTVov. 
 How mournful yet how grandly impressive the representa- 
 tion of his wailing appeal to the waves of the ocean in their 
 multitudinous laughter ! TVhosoever would complain might 
 do well to think of Nature's indifference, to call to mind the 
 wild wail of Prometheus and the answering ttovtiuv Kv/ndrov 
 avi]pi6[jLov ytlaafia. It is grievous enough to fail in life, but it 
 is vainly humiliating, having failed, to weep ; ever, to be 
 weak is to be miserable; and, although we may sorely la- 
 ment the tragedy of aiiiiserable life, yet, as beings endowed 
 with reason, we must acknowledge that no one has unright- 
 eously come to whatever pass he may be in — that he is justly 
 as he is inevitably there, as the definite result of certain co*
 
 HAMLET. 131 
 
 operating causes. Unhappj Lear, raving in boisterous pas- 
 sion to the furious blasts, shrieking in senile anguish to the 
 flashing lightning, his white head pelted by the merciless 
 storm, is certainly a pitiable object, but really a right, nat- 
 ural, and therefore satisfactory object ; for if any one who 
 has lived as long as Lear had lived, has gained no better in- 
 sight into his relations than he had, and knows no better 
 than to do as he did, does not that man righteously deserve 
 Lear's fate? As righteously surely as the man who drops 
 a spark into the barrel of gunpowder on which he is sitting 
 deserves to ascend with rocket-like rapidity into the air and 
 to descend in far-scattered fragments of mortality, " a form- 
 less ruin of oblivion." Great natural sensibility is quite com- 
 patible, in persons of good intellectual endowment, with 
 what might seem to be the coldest hard-heartedness; per- 
 ceiving, as they do, the causes and relations of the most 
 unwelcome event, they see it to be inevitable, and cannot 
 therefore be afflicted by it as those are who feel only its pres- 
 ent painful character and are unable to realize its necessary 
 relations. Pity is often the indolent gratification of self- 
 feeling which shirks the duty of rational investigation. The 
 question, to one who can look beyond his feelings, is not al- 
 together one of compassion or hard-heartedness ; it is rather 
 a question whether there are laws in the universe by con- 
 formity to which a successful end in life is reached, and by 
 rebellion against which ruin comes. "Whoever will not profit 
 by circumstances may confidently expect circumstances to 
 profit by him. The pity of it is that, preach as philosophy 
 may, man has often but little power of control over causes 
 and conditions, for his character makes so much of his fate. 
 " The dice of the gods are always loaded." 
 
 The sorrowful words of despondence and the bitter ex- 
 clamation of regret, with which the first act ends, seem to 
 Indicate that Hamlet was conscious of that weakness in hia 
 character which unfitted him for the great and exceptional 
 deed that had been imposed upon him. At the saiue rime,
 
 132 
 
 ESSAYS. 
 
 he did not shrink from taking up his heavy cross ; and it is 
 in his recognition of the sacrifice which his life must hence- 
 forth be that we find a partial explanation of his rnde be- 
 havior to Ophelia; it was necessary to wipe all trivial fond 
 records from the table of his memory. But there was real 
 suffering in the strange pantomime in which he took a fantas- 
 tic but reluctant farewell of the cherished hope of his life, 
 real despair in the sigh " so piteous and profound as it did 
 seem to shatter all Ms bulk and end his being." By an un- 
 conscious self-deception, the grief arising out of the gloomy 
 presentiment of his desperate fate was transferred in part to 
 the resignation of his love — the sorrow of his life-sacrifice 
 casting its deeper shadow over the sorrow of his love-sacri- 
 fice. Furthermore, it is suflSciently plain, from the warnings 
 which Laertes gives to his sister, from the commands which 
 her father imposes upon her, and from her manner of ad- 
 dressing Hamlet, that his intercourse with her had been that 
 of a superior with one in an inferior position; it was of a 
 freer and less respectful character, therefore, than is custom- 
 ary between lowers who are equals ; be had patronized her 
 with his love. Under these circumstances, it was the natural 
 but unworthy consequence of his feeling of superiority that 
 he did not exhibit that gentle consideration which he might 
 otherwise have done, even though, in obedience to her 
 father, Ophelia had repelled his letters and denied his ac- 
 cess. 
 
 The direct occasion of his rude and singular behavior in 
 the presence of Ophelia is, however, the inseparable blend- 
 ing of genuine affliction with his feigned extravagance; con- 
 scious dissimulation was almost overpowered by the uncon- 
 scious sincerity of real grief. In the moody exaggeration of 
 his letter to her there is the evidence of true suffering; but 
 ho was compelled to dissimulate because he could not trust 
 e^-en her with his plans. ISTo design, therefore, could have 
 been more skillful than that which he carried into execution ; 
 the strange gnise which he purposely assumed was excellent-
 
 HAMLET. 133 
 
 .y well conceived to deceive the king and those about him, 
 initiating, as it did, with consummate ingenuity, the system- 
 atic feigning of madness. Nothing was so likely to mako 
 them believe in the reality of his madness as the conviction 
 that they had discovered the cause of it. Flatter a man's 
 intellectual acuteness, and he will be marvellously indulgent 
 to your folly or your vice, stone-blind to your palpable hy- 
 pocrisy. Polonius fell headlong into the trap which had 
 been set for him ; the vain old dotard who had grown gray 
 amid intrigues and lies, who possessed the memory only 
 of wisdom, and who, in liis professional eagerness to hunt 
 the trail of policy, was stone-blind to the gross and palpable 
 realities, seized the bait, and was forthwith prepared to set 
 forth, not only "the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy," but, 
 with a false and fruitful invention, the successive stages of 
 its invasion. When, in a subsequent scene, Hamlet says to 
 Ophelia, "Your father is a fool," it was in angry and truth- 
 ful earnestness that he spoke. To his proud and sensitive 
 nature it was a grave offence that she whom he had loved 
 should consent to be the creature of her father's stupid plots 
 against him, that she should sully her purity and loyalty by 
 complicity with a foolish, prating, convenient knave, whose 
 scheming Hamlet easily saw through, and whose courtly in- 
 sincerity of character he detested. "When he was alone in 
 the world, as one entrusted with such a task as he was must 
 by the nature of things be, when he was betrayed by friends 
 and benetted round with villanies, it must have been a ter- 
 rible grief to resign his love for Ophelia, to give up the one 
 dear weakness; but it must have added a pang to the deep- 
 est grief to discover that she also was of the number of those 
 who were conspiring against him. It was difficult not to 
 be violent under such circumstances, but the very violence 
 of his conduct was evidence of his love. More than suffi- 
 cient, then, are the reasons for Hamlet's rough behavior to 
 Ophelia, without supposing that it had "no other excuse but 
 the sad excuse of a disordered mind ; " one can scarcely,
 
 134 ESSAYS. 
 
 indeed, understand why some should reprobate it as an inex- 
 cusable offence to the innocent simplicity of the maid who 
 had with so little compunction betrayed him. Here, as 
 elsewhere, Shakespeare will be found to be much more true 
 to Nature than his critics ; he knew women as women know 
 each other. 
 
 On considering the character of Hamlet as displayed in 
 the events of the drama, it is sufficiently easy to remark that 
 it is essentially a weak character so far as power of action 
 is concerned. He is dragged along by circumstances to 
 destruction, and, when dying, does by the merest accident, 
 under a sudden impulse, that which he had been meditating 
 through the scenes of a five-act tragedy. It is noteworthy 
 that in drama, to which action might be thought essential, 
 there is here a hero . who never acts ; and yet Shakespeare 
 has contrived to make him intensely interesting to us by the 
 clear insight which he affords us into the workings of his 
 much - revolving mind. A man struggling with inward 
 troubles is not less, but even more, interesting than one who 
 is fighting with outward difficulties ; only it is a very much 
 more difficult spectacle for the artist adequately to present. 
 Shakespeare has, however, been eminently successful; by 
 exhibiting to us the various motives which arise in a medita- 
 tive mind to paralyze the strong motive to a certain deed, he 
 has excited our earnest sympathy for a character which, so far 
 as action is concerned, is almost negative. The catastrophe 
 is so contrived, therefore, as Goethe has admirably observed, 
 as to appear accidental and a fulfilment of destiny rather than 
 the result of human acts. In truth, the character of Hamlet 
 and the circumstances in which it is placed make destiny ; 
 and, from the relations of the two, to display the necessary 
 law of the evolution of fate, would seem to be the deepest 
 aim of the drama. 
 
 It does not appear that Hamlet felt any great moral repug- 
 nance to the act which had been imposed upon him; and 
 indeed, at the time in which he is represented to have lived,
 
 HAMLET. 135 
 
 revenge for a father foully murdered — the act inculcated 
 directly by a messenger from the other world, and that mes- 
 senger his father's ghost — must have become a solemn and 
 righteous duty. It is the meditative character of his mind 
 wliich paralyzes the power of action ; he considers events in 
 so many relations, and forecasts possibilities with so nice an 
 ingenuity that he is unable to come to any resolution. He 
 sincerely accepts the sacred duty which the buried majesty 
 of Denmark imposes upon him, and never relinquishes the 
 idea of accomplishing the commanded vengeance; but it is 
 the misery of his nature that he is incapable of dismissing the 
 idea from his mind, or of carrying it into execution. He 
 eagerly seeks for excuses for delaying action ; to some extent 
 he plays the hypocrite to himself when he finds a reason for 
 his irresolution in the uncertainty as to the ghost's reality ; 
 and afterward, when he surprises the king at prayer, and has 
 an excellent opportunity for executing his task, he sets forth 
 an elaborate and villanous reason for not doing what he can- 
 not resolve to do. It is not so much that he wishes to sur- 
 prise the king in some deed that " hath no relish of salvation 
 in it " — it is not that he truly cherished the fiendish senti- 
 ments which he utters — which now causes him to let the 
 opportunity go by, but that he gladly seizes on any excuse 
 for procrastination. At a critical juncture, in which it might 
 seem impossible to coin any justification for not acting, Ham- 
 let's active mind finds a motive for further delay in a reason- 
 ing which maligns his moral nature, but which is in exact 
 accordance with his intellectual character. 
 
 This state of reflective indecision is a stage of develop- 
 ment through which minds of a certain character pass before 
 they consciously acquire by exercise a habit of willing. He 
 who is passionately impulsive and has no hesitation at eigh- 
 teen, is, perhaps, reflective and doubtful at twenty-five ; and 
 in a few years more he may, if he develop rightly, be deliber- 
 ately resolute. For the will is not innate, but is graduallj* 
 built up by successive acts of volition : a character, as N"ova-
 
 [36 ESSAYS. 
 
 lis said, is a completely fashioned will. Had Hamlet lived 
 and developed bejond the melancholy stage of life-weariness 
 in which he is represented, and through which men of a cer- 
 tain ability often pass, it may be supposed that he would 
 have been affected very differently by a deed like tliat which 
 was imposed upon him. Either it was a duty, and, according 
 to his insight into its relations, practicable, and he would 
 then lay down a definite plan of action ; or it was not, ac- 
 cording to his judgment, practicable, and he would then dis- 
 miss the idea of acting, and leave things to take their course. 
 As years pass on, they bring surely home to the individual 
 the lesson that life is too short for him to afflict himself 
 about what he cannot help. There is a sufficiency of work 
 in which every one may employ his energies, and things 
 irremediable must be wisely left to take, unbewailed, their 
 way. To rail at the events of Nature is nothing else but the 
 expression of an extravagant self-consciousness ; it is the van- 
 ity which springs from an excessive self-feeling that finds the 
 world to be out of joint, and would undertake to set it right. 
 He only would undertake the government of the universe 
 who cannot govern his own mind. The wisely-cultivated 
 man, conscious how insignificant a drop he is in the vast 
 stream of life, learns his limitation and accepts events with 
 modesty and equanimity. 
 
 When Hamlet does any thing, he is usually determined by 
 some accident, and acts under the influence of a sudden im- 
 pulse. In fact, as he said tliat Polonius was at supper, " not 
 where he eats, but where he is eaten," so we might say of 
 him that he is engaged in a drama, not where he acts, but 
 where he is acted upon. The consequence is, that a variety 
 of incidents necessarily takes place; there is no definite wilJ 
 giving to events a certain direction, and the progress of the 
 play is delayed accordingly. As Hamlet does not act upon 
 the circumstances, they crowd around him, and grow, as it 
 were, upon him : more and raored ifficult does it become for 
 Lim who does not develop in proportion to the development
 
 HAMLET. 137 
 
 of events, to act. " Here is an oak platted in a vase proper 
 only to receive the most delicate of flowers. The roots strike 
 out, the vessel flies to pieces." Hamlet's deliberative inac- 
 tion and his impulsive action alike increase the difficulties 
 around him : an irresolute man is like a magnet to attract 
 difficulties about him ; an impulsive man often multiplica 
 them by his spasmodic energy, which irritates and increases 
 antagonisms — not otherwise than as intermittent pressure 
 upon some part of the body solicits a hyi>ertrophy of the tis- 
 sue beneath, when a continued pressure produces an atrophy. 
 He passionately demands of the ghost — who is the villanous 
 author of his miseries — that with wings as swift as medita- 
 tion or the thoughts of love he may sweep to his revenge, 
 and in a little while doubts whetlier the ghost is not a coin- 
 age of his distempered brain ; he recklessly follows it when 
 it beckons him, registers a solemn vow to remember it as 
 long as memory holds its seat, and quietly takes ship for 
 England. He stabs Polonius under a sudden impulse when 
 he hears a noise behind the arras, and soliloquizes elaborately 
 when he finds the king alone at his prayers. "When the pi- 
 rate vessel overtakes the ship in which he is sailing for Eng- 
 land, he impulsively boards it and is carried away. "When 
 he sees Laertes jump into Ophelia's grave, he jumps in also, 
 and rants more wildly than Laertes. When he learns that 
 the sword is poisoned, on the instant he stabs the king. If 
 we except the scheme by which he makes use of the players, 
 the only thing which he does deliberately is to feign madness, 
 and he adopts that resolution with a strange suddenness. As 
 a matter of policy, it was difficult to see how such feigning 
 could be of advantage to his purpose ; as a matter of fact it 
 was dangerous, and all but wrecked his design. 
 
 The melancholy and life-weary frame of mind in which 
 Hamlet is represented was exactly th-at likely to be produced 
 in a young man of his disposition under his circumstances. 
 He was of a proud and generous nature, nobly ambitious, the 
 accomplished scholar, soldier, and courtier. He had grown
 
 138 ESSAYS. 
 
 np supported bj Ms great father's countenance, and accus- 
 tomed to the respect and homage which attend upon the 
 king's son and the expected heir to the throne. But his 
 father dies suddenly, and his uncle " pops in between the 
 election and his hopes," and not in a straightforward and 
 honorable manner ; but bj underhand cunning steals the pre- 
 cious diadem like a cutpurse of the empire — a treacherous, 
 kindless villain that he was. And now all is sadlv changed. 
 Hamlet is almost a stranger in what was his father's house, 
 and scarce welcome there where he had been the observed of 
 all observers. " I will not," he says to Rosencrantz and Guil- 
 denstern, " sort you with the rest of my servants ; for, to 
 speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully at- 
 tended." Though he is still the " most immediate to the 
 throne," though he has the voice of the king for his succes- 
 sion in Denmark, his sincere nature is disgusted by the ex- 
 perience of such villany in a kinsman, as his ambition is dis- 
 appointed by the failure of his expectations, and his royal 
 pride injured by the attendant diminution of personal conse- 
 quence. 
 
 " King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ? 
 Hamlet. Excellent, i' fiiith, of the chamelion's dish; I eat the 
 air, promise crammed: you cannot feed capons so." 
 
 It is not so much the loss of the throne which overwhelms 
 him — although unconsciously that embitters his grief— as the 
 treachery which he has awakened to. The loss of faith in 
 humanity oppresses his soul ; he has learned, in a painful but 
 decisive way, that " a living dog is better than a dead lion." 
 Those who a few months ago would make mouths at his uncle, 
 now give fifty or a hundred ducats "for his picture in little." 
 But worse, far worse than all the disappointment of his 
 expectations is, to his proud and sensitive nature, the mar- 
 riage of his mother. He feels himself infinitely degraded in 
 the bitter degradation of his mother. 
 
 " Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven 
 Ere I had seen that day, Horatio 1 "
 
 HAMLET. 139 
 
 That it should come to this, that his mother, almost hefore 
 her tears for so excellent a king were dry, should not merely 
 desert the cause of her only son, but hastily marry him who 
 liad treacherously supplanted her son. To a proud nature 
 what can be more afflicting than the deep disgrace of a moth- 
 er ? And as it is impossible, when offended with any one, 
 not to think him worse than he really is, so Hamlet becomes 
 utterly horrified and frantic as he broods over his mother's 
 conduct. 
 
 " Heaven ! a "beast that wants discourse of reason 
 "Would have mourned longer — married with mine uncle, 
 My father's brother ; but no more like my father 
 Than I to Hercules. 
 
 most wicked speed, to post 
 With such dexterity to incestuous sheets 1 
 It is not, nor it cannot, come to good." 
 
 The matter is made almost unendurable to him by the ex- 
 ceeding activity of his imagination ; he torments himself con- 
 tinually with vivid pictures of the scenes of his mother's in- 
 tercourse with her new and odious husband. Some have 
 been offended at the coarse and naked way in which, in his 
 interview with his mother, he dwells so minutely upon the 
 king's amorous dalliance, and have censured his brutality ; 
 they would, for the sake of the proprieties, destroy the con- 
 sistency of the character, and Iiave revolutions made with 
 rose-water. This so-called indelicacy of Hamlet is a special 
 excellence, for it is the consistent result of his active self-tor- 
 turing imagination. Truly, imagination has its pleasures, 
 but it has its pains also: it inspires the creations of genius, 
 but how much of the miseries of genius does it not create ! 
 It has been said again that his language was unnecessarily 
 violent, and that he abused the king in terms which were al- 
 most false from their extravagance. True ; but he had to 
 produce an impression on one who had eagerly accepted this 
 man for her husband, and showed no inclination to rue her
 
 140 ESSAYS. 
 
 indecent and unjust act. That could scarce be done in gentle 
 tones and words of honeyed sweetness ; he must exaggerate 
 like the actor in order to excite a feeling corresponding to 
 the reality, and must thunder the unwelcome truth into un- 
 willing ears. Of all things it seems most irrelevant to dis- 
 cuss the morality of Hamlet's behavior ; the only questions 
 with regard to it are wliether it is true to IsTature generically, 
 and whether it is a consistent evolution of individual charac- 
 ter. It should be borne in mind that, if Hamlet acted with 
 rude violence, he did not act with inconsiderate passion; 
 from a conviction of duty he entered his mother's presence 
 with a deliberate purpose of speaking daggers. But how 
 hard a thing it is for human nature to escape self-deception I 
 The severity with which he reproached his mother for her 
 quick forgetfulness of his father, was an unwitting allevia- 
 tion of the reproaches of his own conscience for neglecting to 
 carry into effect that father's solemn injunctions; in rebuk- 
 ing his mother he rebuked himself also. How admirably 
 well-timed, therefore, the second appearance of the ghost! 
 By that visitation he is reminded that he is not himself blame- 
 less, and is enjoined to spare his mother, just at the moment 
 when he is flattering his conscience with a righteous indigna- 
 tion against her. 
 
 In that deep gloom which painful circumstances have pro- 
 duced in his sensitive mind, the tilings of the world may well 
 appear stale, flat, and unprofitable ; and in the fitful exacer- 
 bations of his melancholy, the tedious formalities of Polonius, 
 and the studied exhibition of royal hypocrisy, excite an im- 
 measurable disgust. He ruthlessly strips off the conventional 
 delusions from things and lays bare the realities ; he utters 
 the severest home-truths -with the greatest satisfaction. 
 "These tedious old fools." If any one in the full possession 
 of his reasoning powers refuses to accept the delusions of life, 
 and persists in exposing the realities beneath appearances, he 
 is so much out of harmony with his surroundings, that he 
 wHl, to a certainty, be counted more or less insane. Strange
 
 HAMLET. 141 
 
 Strange too, as it may seem, it is nevertheless true tliat such 
 a one will commonly feign to be more eccentric or extrava- 
 gant than he really is. Though intellectually he can contem- 
 plate objects and events in their extreme relations, his self- 
 feeling incapacitates him from regarding himself objectively ; 
 and there is a certain gratification or vanity in acting extrava- 
 gantly, and in being thought singular or mad. Doubtless, 
 there was some solace to Hamlet's self-feeling in the mad pan- 
 tomime by which he frightened and took leave of Ophelia ; 
 he was miserable, but there was conceit in his misery. He 
 perceives the things of this world to be stale, flat, and un- 
 profitable ; but, by reason of his great self-feeling, he feels 
 them much also. Had he recognized himself as a part of the 
 stale, flat, and unprofitable things, he must have concluded 
 that his individual feelings were of very little consequence to 
 the universe, that there were many more woful pageants than 
 the scene wherein he played, and have thereupon attained to 
 a healthier tone of mind. Hamlet possessed a great power of 
 generalizing ; bat he mostly generalized within the circle of 
 his self-feeling. 
 
 Supposing that Hamlet had set himself to transcend the 
 present by annihilating in thought those conditions or gen- 
 eralizations of human perception which are called space and 
 time ; how infinitely little must have seemed the narrow 
 sphere of events in which he was concerned ! For side by 
 side before his mental eye he would have, as it were in pict- 
 ure, the countless sufferings which had been borne by men 
 in every age, and which were being borne in every part of 
 the earth : minds bowed down in despair through the crud- 
 est oppressions, deaths through lingering agonies of torment, 
 events crushing down the noblest resolves, and self-sacrificing 
 heroism swept away by the irresistible current of triumphant 
 Wrong — all these clustered around him would be present to 
 his mind ; and among them, scarce discernible, there would 
 be the sorrows of Hamlet the Dane. Man creates space and 
 time, and then becomes the slave of his own creation. Let 
 1
 
 142 ESSAYS. 
 
 him emancipate himself, and Socrates is drinking the liemlock 
 before his eyes ; in his ears is sounding the last despairing cry 
 of agony from the cross of Calvary ; he sees the bloody Pied- 
 montese rolling the mother and infant down the Alpine rock ; 
 and is an excited witness of the martyr's dying agonies, and 
 glorious victory. Happily or unhappily, self-feeling is too 
 strong for such renunciation ; and each one thinks, as Ham- 
 let did, that never mortal was tried as he is tried, and that 
 never were events of such importance as those wherein he is 
 engaged. " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? Behold, 
 and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is 
 done unto me." 
 
 Most people of a certain mental capacity pass at some 
 period of their lives through that stage of life-weariness whicli 
 is generated of great self-feeling — the stage of Byronism or 
 Werterism. If the diary of his youth were opened, many a 
 one might feel surprise, and something of shame, at the woful 
 feelings recorded there, and at complaints of the hollowness 
 of life as bitter as those of Hamlet, without there having been 
 Hamlet's cause for them. It is a condition from which each 
 one has to deliver himself, if he will develop rightly ; in one 
 way or other he must lay the devil Self wherewith he is pos- 
 sessed, and press forward to a calmer stage of insight in which 
 feeling is subordinated to reason. Whether it be in the sor- 
 rows of Werter, or in the sorrows of Teufelsdrock, in the 
 Psalms of David, or in the mournful words of the Preacher, 
 or in what other form it be, the sorrow must be embodied 
 and then left behind. In the waste of turbulent feeling, in 
 the chaos of mind, must it be, as it was on creation's first day, 
 when the Spirit moving on the face of the water said, " Let 
 there be light," and that which was " without form and void '* 
 became order and harmony. The cry is : 
 
 " Ah ! what should I he at fifty 
 Should Nature keep me alive, 
 If I find the world so bitter 
 When I am but twenty-five? " 
 
 ii;
 
 HAMLET. 143 
 
 And tlie result is that he who writes the " Sorrows ofWer- 
 ter " at twenty-five, writes " Fanst" at fifty. 
 
 Let it not any longer escape attention that the deliberate 
 feigning of insanity was an act in strict conformity with Ham- 
 let's character ; he was by nature something of a dissimulator, 
 that faculty having been born in him. Though it is not said 
 tliat his mother, the queen, was privy to the murder of her 
 husband, yet from the words of the ghost, who prefaces his 
 revelations by stating how the uncle had "won to his shame- 
 ful lust the will of my most seeming virtuous queen," it 
 would appear that if she were not actual party to the crime, 
 she was something almost as bad : and at any rate, she, a 
 matron of nearly fifty years of age — "an age at which the 
 hey-day of the blood is tame and waits upon the judgment'* 
 — had within two months of her husband's death rushed with 
 wicked speed to incestuous sheets. "Well, in truth, might her 
 son exclaim, " wonderful son, that can so astonish a moth- 
 er ! " But if Hamlet's character had received no taint from 
 his mother, he was not altogether so fortunate on his father's 
 side ; for he was the nephew of the " bloody bawdy villain " 
 — the "remorseless, lecherous, treacherous, kindless villain." 
 We see, then, the signification which there was in his speech 
 to Ophelia — " You should not have believed me ; for virtue 
 cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it." 
 His uncle, however, appears to have absorbed all the vice of 
 the stock for his generation, as one member of a tainted 
 family is sometimes seen to drain off, as it were, the bad 
 blood of it. Hamlet's fatlier was a brave and noble king, take 
 him for all in all, one whose like would not be seen again, 
 and, compared with his successor, "Hyperion to a satyr." 
 In the shadowy view of him which we have as he flits past in 
 ghostly form, we recognize the generous tenderness of hig 
 soul: 
 
 " Nor let thy soul contrive 
 Against thy mother aught ; leave her to Heaven."
 
 144 ESSAYS. 
 
 And again : 
 
 " step between lier and her fighting soul ; 
 Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works : 
 Speak to her, Hamlet." 
 
 As a heritage, then, Hamlet has that hatred of imder-hand 
 canning and treachery, that sincerity of nature, which justify 
 Laertes in describing him as " free from all contriving : " and, 
 as a heritage also, he lias that faculty for dissimulation which 
 is evident in his character. Explain it how we may, it is 
 certain that a self-feeling mortal, who, so far as conscious life 
 is concerned, is perfectly sincere, who energetically rebels 
 against the deceit or wrong-doing of others, is sometimes o'er- 
 mastered and deceived by his unconscious nature, so that he is 
 an actual unwitting hypocrite as regards his own life. Ham- 
 let is free from all contriving with selfish aim to injure others, 
 but he feigns with sustained method, with a skill which could 
 never be learned, for his own protection. Had he lived, we 
 may believe that, as years went on, he would have more and 
 more clearly displayed the virtues of his paternal antecedent. 
 " He was likely, had he been put upon, to have proved most 
 royally." Strange as it may seem, we not uncommonly ob- 
 serve the character of the mother, with her emotional im- 
 pulses and subtle but scarce conscious shifts, in the individual 
 when young, while the calm deliberation and conscious deter- 
 mination of the father come out more plainly as he grows 
 older. Setting aside any necessity which Shakespeare might 
 think himself under to follow the old play, it is in Hamlet's 
 inherited disposition to dissimulation that we find the only 
 explanation of his deliberately feigning madness, when, to all 
 appearances, policy would have been much better served if 
 he had not so feigned. But he has a love of the secret way 
 for its own sake; to hoist the engineer with his own petard, 
 is to him a most attractive prospect; and he breaks out into 
 positive exultation at the idea of outwitting Eosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern, with whom he was to go to England.
 
 HAMLET. 145 
 
 " It shall go hard 
 But I will delve one yard below tlieir mines, 
 And blow them at the moon ; 6>, His most sweety 
 When in one line two crafts directly meet I " 
 
 The first words which he utters, again, after the success 
 of the play which he had devised to catch the king, are, as 
 Gervinus has pointed out, not words of gratification at the 
 result, but admiration of his own constructive skill ; for he 
 asks whether his plot would not any day get him a fellow- 
 ship in a company of players. Again, with what a calm 
 deliberation and congenial cunning — no feeling of disgust at 
 an unpleasant necessity — does this man who rails so bitterly 
 against his uncle's treachery proceed to open the letter which 
 his companions carried, ruthlessly substituting their names 
 for his own, though there was no evidence that they were 
 privy to the plot against his life. 
 
 Some people are so constituted that they must do things 
 in a secret manner when there is no possible advantage to be 
 gained by secrecy. Burrowing underground like moles, they 
 are all the time as blind as moles are wrongly said to be, and 
 usually seem to think that everybody else is so too. Hamlet 
 did not deceive the crafty king by his feigned madness ; and 
 had not a stronger power than human will been on his side, 
 it would have gone hard with him. If, as he professed, he 
 essentially was not mad, hut mad in craft, it was verily a 
 a most mad kind of craft. The king suspects from the first 
 that there is some unknown cause more than his father's 
 death which thus afflicts him, and is anxious to discover it ; 
 he speaks also of " Hamlet's transformation," not of his mad- 
 ness, in the first scene with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 
 Again in the next scene he asks — 
 
 " And can you by no drift of conference 
 Get from him why he puts on this confusion?''^ 
 
 And when Polonius, with senile vanity and doting garrulity, 
 eets forth what he deems to be the very cause of Hamlet^i
 
 146 ESSAYS. 
 
 lunacy, and with a lying invention runs through the stages 
 of its invasion, the short answers and abiding doubts of the 
 king prove that he did not believe the old man's story : 
 "How may we try it further?" He will in company with 
 Polonius act the spy to satisfy himself whether it is the afiQic- 
 tion of his love or not that Hamlet suffers from. And when 
 he has been a witness of the scene between Hamlet and 
 Ophelia, he is convinced that it is not madness, but some- 
 thing dangerous in his mind, which is the cause of his strange 
 behavior : 
 
 " Love ! his affections do not that way tend ; 
 
 Nor -what he spake, though it lack form a little, 
 
 Was not hke madness. There's something in his soul 
 
 O'er which his melancholy sits on brood ; 
 
 And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose 
 
 "Will be some danger." 
 
 Quickly he resolves that Hamlet shall go to England; and 
 wisely does he do so, considering the words which he had just 
 overheard: "I say we will have no more marriages ; those 
 that are married already, all lut one^ shall live ; the rest shall 
 keep as they are." 
 
 The insanity, then, which Hamlet exhibits is not of a 
 simple character. There is actual feigning, as he himself con- 
 fesses, as the vigorous coherence of his profound soliloquies 
 and his unfeigned speeches proves, as the king plainly recog- 
 nizes, and as the deep significance of his wilful extrava- 
 gances — the " method in his madness" — testifies ; but there 
 is beneath all that a real melancholic mood of mind, a gen- 
 nine morbid subjectivity, of which he is himself keenly con- 
 scious, and which he has admirably described : * 
 
 " I have of late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, 
 foregone all custom of exercise ; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with 
 my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a 
 
 ♦ This view is taken also by Dr. Bucfcnill in his analysis of the character of 
 Hamlet, in the "Psychology of Shakespeare," a second edition of which bos 
 Bi'pearcd under the title of " The Mad Folk of Shakespeare."
 
 HAMLET. 147 
 
 Bterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you— 
 this brave overhanging firmament ; this majestical roof, fretted with 
 golden fire— why, appears no other thing to me than a foul and pesti- 
 lent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is man ! How 
 noble in reason 1 how infinite in faculties I in form and moving how 
 express and admirable ! in action, how like an angel I in apprehen- 
 Bion, how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of ani- 
 mals ! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust ? Man de- 
 lights not me, nor woman neither ; though by your smiling you seem 
 to say so." 
 
 His great natural sensibility and his very active imagina- 
 tion would combine to render Hamlet distrustful of himself, 
 averse to active courses, and seemingly timid, so that he 
 might justly describe himself as one not easily moved to 
 anger ; but that very sensibility of character would be the 
 cause of great excitability on the occasion of a sudden event 
 pressing unavoidably upon him, and leaving him no time for 
 reflection. Even in the feigned exhibitions of madness there 
 are sincere outbreaks of his excitable disposition. When he 
 would feign, he is so genuiaely moved that he falls out of his 
 character, and speaks with such sincerity and significance 
 that the king rightly suspects a plot. He spoils the part 
 which he should play because he is too much interested in 
 the events, and cannot lay aside his personality. Marvellous 
 beyond all explanation is the subtile and artistic skill with 
 which Shakespeare has thus preserved the consistency of 
 Hamlet's real character amid all the extravagant displays 
 of his assumed character. He exhibits Hamlet in spite of 
 himself — his unconscious nature overpowering his conscious 
 dissimulation. 
 
 It marks, again, the intellectual preponderance which was 
 BO special a feature of Hamlet's character, that he can rea- 
 son so well about his own morbid feeling, and take deliber- 
 ate steps to test the extent of his infirmity. In such a miser- 
 able mood of mind there is great cause for self-distrust ; the 
 ghost which he has seen may be a coinage of the brain, " a 
 subjective bodiless creation, which ecstasy is very cunning in."
 
 148 ESSAYS. 
 
 " The spirit that I have seen 
 May be a devil ; and the devil hath power 
 To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and, perhaps, 
 Out of my weakness and my melancholy 
 (As he is very potent with such spirits) 
 Abuses me to damn me," 
 
 It is with deliberation, therefore, that lie seeks for a means 
 of testing Lis condition, and with eagerness that he embraces 
 the opportunity which the arrival of the players affords him 
 of obtaining confirmation of the ghost's story : 
 
 " If his occulted guilt 
 Do not itself unkennel in one speech, 
 It is a damned ghost that we have seen ; 
 And my imaginations are as foul 
 As Vulcan's stithy." 
 
 "When the behavior of the king at the play has proved that 
 no morbid imagination has created the horrible revelations 
 of the ghost, then he passionately flings aside such a sugges- 
 tion of his mother : 
 
 " Mother, for love of grace, 
 Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
 That not your trespass, hut my madness, speaks." 
 
 So sure as he now is of the ghost's reality, still he does not 
 act. Herein how different does he show himself from 
 Laertes I The mere wJiispers of calumny excite Laertes to 
 furious action; he sends allegiance to hell, vows to the 
 blackest devil, dares damnation, but will be revenged for his 
 father's death; to that point he stands, let come what come 
 may. Hamlet, on the contrary, has the solemn evidence of a 
 spirit from the dead, and the strongest possible motive for 
 revenge, but meditates so much that he can come to no reso- 
 lution. Laertes is ma^^tered by his passion, which hurls him 
 into desperate action ; Hamlet has such mastery over passion 
 that it cannot become a sufficient motive for action — his intel- 
 lectual superiority makes him practically inferior. He la
 
 HAMLET. 140 
 
 himself quite aware of his deficiency, and analyzes his own 
 Btate of mind with great accuracy : 
 
 " Or some craven scruple 
 Of thinking too precisely on the event — 
 A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom, 
 And ever three parts coward." 
 
 He recognizes that rightly to he great is not to stir without 
 great argument, hut, once satisfied, to throw aside all care 
 for consequences — to make mouths at the inyisihle event. 
 He reproaches himself as '' a rogue and peasant slave," that, 
 with the motive and cue for revenge which he has, he still 
 hesitates; and yet his unconscious nature overmasters his 
 intellectual consciousness, and he does nothing. 
 
 Although we admit that Hamlet's failing was want of 
 power of action, it must he allowed that Hamlet's misfortune 
 was the want of a proper sphere of action. That excess of 
 imagination which paralyzes resolution would most likely 
 have disappeared under a life of activity : " The hand of- 
 little employment has the daintier sense." It is the fault of 
 minds like his that they over-estimate realities ; they live in 
 an ingeniously-devised, complex world of imagination, rather 
 than in a comparatively coarse, actual, external world, and 
 balance possibilities with so great a suhtilty that there is no 
 resultant force of will. A person of great intellectual activity 
 is prone to attribute to others as deep a penetration into 
 things as that which he has himself; he does not dare to 
 speculate sufiiciently on the stupidity of mankind. Accord- 
 ingly, the successful man in the practical affairs of life is he 
 who does not see too much, who sees distinctly only that 
 which he wishes, and who, therefore, not doubting himself, 
 acts with definite purpose and determined energy. To the 
 conscientious man of great reflective habit, it is sometimes 
 a real affliction when he must definitely act ; and he would 
 truly do well, for his own comfort's sake, to rush at a resolu- 
 tion with a certain wilful blindness — to allow, if need he, 
 the fall of a coiu to determine his course ; but, having once
 
 150 ESSAYS. 
 
 resolved to work definitely with all his might to the end. 
 Any one may deliherate till death overtakes him before he is 
 Bure, and Nature charges herself with compensation. " He 
 that ohserveth the winds sliall not sow, and he that regardeth 
 the clouds shall not reap." The longer any one lives, the more 
 deeply is he satisfied of the truth of the saying that the 
 world i3 governed with extremely little wisdom ; he per- 
 ceives that he has often given men credit for foresight where 
 they have wisely held their peace and profited by events, 
 and that in a matter of which he had but little knowledge he 
 lias sometimes assumed the profoundest policy in what was 
 really a blundering accident. As the events of practical life 
 insist upon action, the deliberative man is ultimately forced 
 to shut, as it were, one eye — to act even when the motive 
 does not satisfy his intellectual consciousness. Custom lends 
 a kind of easiness to subsequent attempts, and that which 
 was at first a painful trial becomes in time an easy habit. 
 
 The shortness of his allotted span, and the exigencies of 
 life, will not permit any one the luxury of over-estimating 
 his powers or his responsibilities ; he must be content as an 
 atom doing its inevitable work in the universe, accepting 
 calmly the fate of his nature, cast his follies and his wise acts 
 with equal tranquillity into the great whole, which, under the 
 guiding law of its destiny, will surely shape them to their 
 proper ends. Were a man but to think of it, the responsi- 
 bility of not acting is sometimes infinitely greater than that 
 of the most rash act. Suppose that Hamlet had killed the 
 king directly he was appointed by Nature the minister of its 
 revenge, what a host of calamities would have been spared! 
 Then Ophelia had not, after a miserable madness, been 
 drowned ; her father had not been accidentally stabbed ; Ros- 
 encrantz and Guildenstern would not then have been exe- 
 cuted ; and Hamlet himself, his mother, and Laertes, would 
 not have perislied in a common ruin. A catalogue of horrors 
 was the result of Hamlet's great feeling of responsibility in 
 the important scene wherein he played, as in humbler scenes
 
 HAMLET. 161 
 
 a catalogue of mischiefs is frequently the result of an irreso- 
 lution springing from an over-estimated responsibility. Let a 
 man be never so wise, he must sometimes drift at the mercy of 
 fate, without anchorage ; and let a man be never so fool-hardy, 
 fortune will sometimes bring his boat safely into the harbor, 
 " The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor 
 yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of 
 skill ; but time and chance happeneth to them all " — a truth 
 which Hamlet had not failed to recognize in his experience : 
 
 " Eashly, 
 And praised be rashness for it; let us know 
 Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, 
 •Where our deep plots do pall ; and that should teach us 
 There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Eough-hew them how we will." 
 
 How admirably throughout the play is exhibited the want 
 of harmony which so often exists between intellectual specu- 
 l-'ition and the feelings which are the genuine utterance or 
 mirror of the nature — the conscious life over which there is 
 control, and the unconscious life which so constantly over- 
 takes and overpowers the individual! It is as if Shake- 
 speare had wished to point out that, how wisely soever man 
 may reason, it is still impossible for him to shake off the un- 
 reasonable feelings which are deeply planted in his nature. 
 The irresolution of Hamlet is in part owing to a continual 
 oscillation between these warring elements of a nature not in 
 harmony with itself. The king proves to him with convinc- 
 ing logic that it is folly to indulge an unceasing grief for a 
 father dead; but, notwithstanding that the arguments are 
 unanswerable, Hamlet is not cheered. To shufl3e off this mor- 
 tal coil Hamlet perceives to be a consummation devoutly to 
 be wished; and yet the unaccountable fear of something 
 after death sicklies o'er the native hue of resolution. Imagi- 
 nation, not considering too curiously, may follow the noble 
 dust of Alexander to the bung-hole, and yet Hamlet cannot 
 but fear that death may not be a dreamless slumber from
 
 162 ESSAYS. 
 
 whicli no archangel's trump shall ever wake him. Reason 
 as convincingly as philosophy may, it never convinces the 
 feelings; though dismissed with excellent and unanswerable 
 logic, tliey return again and again, and, like Rachel w'eeping 
 for her children, refuse to be comforted. "What, indeed, does 
 philosophy avail, " unless philosophy can make a Juliet ? " 
 
 " Go to : it helps not— it prevails not. Talk no more." 
 
 The appearance of the forces of young Fortinbras, and 
 Hamlet's soliloquy after his encounter with them, have been 
 thought by some — even by Goethe — to be needless events» 
 which uselessly delay the action, and improperly dissipate the 
 reader's attention. But is it not in exact accordance with 
 Hamlet's irresolution that the action of the drama should be 
 delayed ? Is it not well that the reader's imagination should be 
 made to wander, and by presenting a sort of reflection of the 
 manifold considerations of the much-meditating Hamlet, en- 
 force a certain sympathy with him ? Xot only, however, does 
 this scene exhibit Fortinbras, who " for a fantasy and trick of 
 fame," " even for an egg-shell," is content to expose himself to 
 danger and death, as a striking contrast to Hamlet, who, with 
 the strongest motive for revenge, can do no more than " un- 
 pack his heart with words, and fall a-cursing like a very drab ; " 
 but it affords to Hamlet an excellent occasion for a close self- 
 analysis, and seems to reveal to us a real development of his 
 character. At our first meeting him it is immediately after his 
 father's death, when he has just returned from college, and 
 when we may justly think that he has come upon his first ser- 
 ious trial in life ; but, in his sohloquy after meeting with For- 
 tinbras, we see his character as it has been developed before 
 our eyes under the severe but successful training of a mighty 
 Borrow : 
 
 " Niglit brings out stars, as sorrows show us truths." 
 
 It is not a passionate and furious soliloquy like that in 
 which he bursts out after his interview w^ith the players, 
 when he reviles himself as a rogue and peasant slave, and
 
 HAMLET. 153 
 
 ♦ashes himself into a great furj ; it is not the gloomy medita- 
 tion of a morbid mind, wishful to end by self-destruction the 
 heartache and the thousand natural woes that flesh is heir 
 to ; but it is a passionless and intellectual soliloquy, at the 
 end of which he makes a deliberate resolution. In tlie pre- 
 vious soliloquy he is violent and demonstrative, but the pas- 
 sion subsides, and with it the resolution vanishes. As calm- 
 ness returns, matters do not seem so clear; the ghost may 
 have deceived him; action seems most desperate; and the 
 determination — as all emotional resolves not at once carried 
 into effect are apt to do — melts away : 
 
 " What to ourselves in passion we propose, 
 The passion ending, doth the purpose lose." 
 
 But now that he has definitely resolved, after reflection, 
 to execute the vengeance with which he is charged, he 
 makes a deliberate resolution of the will : 
 
 " O, from this time forth 
 My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth." 
 
 Shakespeare's views of destiny very closely resemble those 
 which are met with in ^schylus and the ancient poets. The 
 fatal catastrophe in " Hamlet " is so contrived, it has been 
 said, as to appear a fulfilment of destiny rather than the re- 
 sult of human act ; but it is the marvellous excellence of 
 Shakespeare that he represents his characters as a part of 
 destiny; the consummation is exhibited as the inevitable 
 product of the individual character and the circumstances in 
 which it was placed. Hence it is that his villains, though 
 monstrously wicked, as lago, or unnaturally cruel, as the 
 bastard Edmund, do not excite unmitigated anger and disgust, 
 but rather interest and a sort of intellectual sympathy, and 
 that the virtues of his best characters appear not as merits, 
 but as necessary results of their natures. He always imi)lies 
 .a difference in nature between one person and another, 
 ••wherein they are not guilty," or wherein they are not 
 meritorious, and displays in a natural evolution the necessary
 
 154 ESSAYS. 
 
 result which the fate of his character and his circumstances 
 makes for each one. 
 
 How surely do all things work together in "Hamlet" to 
 the dreadful catastrophe! The pirate-ship, appearing from 
 unknown regions of the ocean, has its appointed part equally 
 with the impulsive character of Hamlet in accomplishing the 
 .unavoidable destiny. The king exercises foresight, and plots 
 desperately to ward off the evil ; but the hand of Fate is 
 against him, and his deep-laid schemes are confounded by the 
 most unexpected accident. Hamlet cannot lay down a plan 
 of action for doing what he must do ; but the hand of Fate 
 is with him and drives him on to his end. " The hour of 
 doom arrives, and the innocent and the guilty, the erring and 
 the avenger, all perish." And yet, had not Hamlet accident- 
 ally stabbed Polonius behind the arras, his secret would have 
 been betrayed to the king ; had he not by chance got hold of 
 the poisoned foil in his combat with Laertes, the king might 
 have lived on in his sceptred guilt. In the end it was the 
 merest chance that Hamlet did live to accomplish his re- 
 venge ; for he was the first wounded by the envenomed 
 rapier, and might easily have died before Laertes, who tells 
 him of the king's treachery. And when he does stab the 
 king, it is rather an impulsive act of vengeance for the last 
 villany disclosed than from any remembrance of his father's 
 murder or the command of his father's ghost; he becomes 
 at last the accidental instrument of a punishment which he 
 had long schemed, but schemed in vain. But retribution for 
 the wicked king was written down in the book of destiny ; 
 Nature sent forth a spirit from her secret realms to declare it, 
 and human wall was powerless to hasten or avert the hour 
 of doom. 
 
 With what a terrible and gradually-evolving certainty, 
 again, does the crime of the king revenge itself ! The curse 
 of his crime tracks the culprit with an unrelenting persisten- 
 cy ; though he hide never so cunningly, turn again and again 
 in his course, and struggle with unspeakable energy, yet it
 
 HAMLET. 156 
 
 bi ings him down at last. All the perfumes of Arabia cannot 
 Bweeten the murderer's hand, nor all the waters in the ocean 
 wash out that single drop of blood : 
 
 " Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens 
 To wash it white as snow ? " 
 
 No; foul deeds will rise to men's eyes though all the 
 earth overw^helm them; and "murder, though it have no 
 tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ." The death 
 of Polonius, which the king would on every account so will- 
 ingly have prevented, becomes the cause of undeserved sus- 
 picion against him, and the instrument of his humiliation ; 
 " the people are muddied, thick and unwholesome in their 
 thoughts for good Polonius's death ; " and " it has been but 
 greenly done in hugger-mugger to inter him ; " the mob, 
 hasty and violent tJien as a Danish mob is still, arraign the 
 king's person, and cry, "Laertes shall be king! " The inco- 
 herences of Ophelia, made mad by her father's death, her 
 " winks, nods, gestures," move the hearers to collection, and 
 "throw dangerous conjectures into ill-breeding minds," 
 which " botch the words up to fit their own thoughts." 
 The ominous clouds are closing darkly in on the sultry day, 
 the muttering of the threatening thunder is heard in the dis- 
 tance, and the fatal flash of the avenging lightning is every 
 moment dreaded. " Each toy seems prologue to some great 
 amiss," and sorrows coming, not "single spies, but in battal- 
 ions," give superfluous death. For the queen's sake, whom 
 his crime has made his wife, and because of the love which 
 the distracted multitude bear to Hamlet, whom his crime has 
 bereaved of father and of place, he cannot proceed directly 
 against him. The gratifications which his sin has gotten him 
 become fetters to prevent him from evading its consequences. 
 
 " She is so conjunctive to my life and soul. 
 That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, 
 I could not but by her." 
 
 The consequences of a great crime, like the slimy folds of
 
 156 ESSAYS. 
 
 Bome horrible serpent, coil faster and faster ronnd the strug- 
 gling victim ; he strains at first with determined silent effort 
 and vehement energy to nndo them ; then, as strength fails, 
 and fatal Fate approaches, with shrieking cries and convul- 
 sive agonies, until at last we heartily pitv his fierce anguish, 
 and pray for the end of the terrible tragedy. The blessing or 
 the curse of an act is its eternity ; the pity of a wicked act is 
 that it often involves the innocent with the guilty in a com- 
 mon ruin : " One sinner destroyeth much good." 
 
 Because poetical justice does not happen in the world, 
 therefore Shakespeare does not make it his business to 
 do poetical justice : he exhibits the gradual evolution of 
 events and develops actions in their necessary consequences, 
 neither approving nor censuring ; the moral lesson which his 
 works teach is the moral lesson which isTature teaches. Of all 
 things, the most presumptuous and ignorant is that criticism 
 which imputes it to Shakespeare as a fault or a crime that he 
 has not shown a sufficient partisanship for virtue, that he 
 has with tranquil indifference permitted the innocent equal- 
 ly with the guilty to suffer and perish when the law of events 
 demanded it. To the sentimental idealist it would have 
 been far more pleasing if a miracle had interposed and stayed 
 the operation of natural law, so that Cordelia might not have 
 been strangled like a dog, and Ophelia might not have been 
 miserably drowned. Some such a critic it was who blamed 
 Goethe for making TVerter commit suicide, instead of rather 
 making him repent and become a moral and a model young 
 man. Some such a critic it must have been who found the 
 death of Hamlet to be cruel and unnecessary. Alas that an 
 angel did not still the troubled waters, and, putting forth a 
 helping hand, rescue Hamlet from the whirlpool of events in 
 which he was struggling ! An angel not appearing, however, 
 it was inevitable that natural law should take its course, and 
 that the much-meditative, indecisive, and impulsive Hamlet 
 should be crushed out by the inexorable march of events. 
 Those who will find a moral in the matter may find it in thia 
 
 I 
 
 i
 
 HAMLET. 157 
 
 iustructive reflection : that Hamlet, who had made so large a 
 use of guile during his life, himself perishes at last the victim 
 of guile. It is plain that Hamlet has a recognition of the fate 
 of which hie is alike the victim and the instrument. Crime 
 has no meaning for him who is appointed by Nature the min- 
 ister of its revenge : " There is nothing good or bad, but 
 thinking makes it so ; " and it causes him no sorrow when he 
 has slain the "unseen good old man." 
 
 " Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell ' " 
 
 And again : 
 
 " For this same lord 
 I do repent. But Heaven hath pleased it so — 
 To punish me with this, and this with me, 
 That I must be their scourge and minister.'''' 
 
 Tlius commissioned, how could he afflict himself because a 
 "foolish prating knave," whose life had been a system of in- 
 trigues, perishes the victim of his own scheming policy? In 
 the path of Hamlet's destiny, as in the course of Nature, hu- 
 man life is of little account : 
 
 " 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes 
 Betwixt the pass and fell incensed points 
 Of mighty opposites." 
 
 By an inexorable necessity he must finish his course what- 
 ever may betide : he cannot turn aside to deplore an old man 
 killed, or even hold back to spare the fair and gentle Ophelia, 
 as the scorching lava-torrent cannot turn aside its course to 
 let the modest violet live. 
 
 It is in this feeling of the sacrifice which he must be to 
 his fate that we find the interpretation of the towering pas- 
 sion into which Hamlet falls at Ophelia's grave. " Oh, 'tis 
 easy enough," might be his reflection, " to make loud wail 
 and to invoke with passionate clamor the silent heavens; 
 but what sort of grief is that which utters itself bo loudly? 
 Ophelia is dead; but could I not weep for her! "
 
 158 ESSAYS. 
 
 " I loved Ophelia ; forty thousand brothers 
 Could not, with all their quantity of love, 
 Make up my sum." 
 
 Am not I of all mortals most wretched, that Orestes-like I 
 am made the undesired instrument of Fate, and that benetted 
 round with vilumies I must go my unhappy course, fatal to 
 those whom I most loved, cruel to those to whom iTature bids 
 me be kind ? But one life ! — think of that — and it doomed to 
 be a sacrifice ! I too could rant ; but it is no matter — do what 
 you may, you are sure to be misunderstood : 
 
 "Let Hercules himself do what he may, 
 The cat will mew, and dog will have his day." 
 
 In that outbreak we have the genuine utterance of Ham- 
 let's deeply-moved and fiercely-tried nature — an outburst of 
 the pent-up feelings ; and immediately afterward be is sorry 
 that he has so forgotten and revealed himself; a proud and 
 sensitive nature is ashamed of the exhibition of great emotion, 
 and angry that it has descended to explain. But, in truth, 
 the occasion was most provoking: to Hamlet, so conscien- 
 tious, so full of consideration, so carefully weighing the con- 
 sequences of his actions, so deeply feeling, and so sincerely 
 abhorring mere passionate exclamation, it must have been in- 
 tensely irritating to witness the violent and noisy demon- 
 stration of Laertes — a violence which surely betrayed a grief 
 not very deep. It is so easy, such a relief, to rant and mouth : 
 
 " Nav, an thou'lt mouth, 
 I'll rant as well as thou." 
 
 Self-consciousness returns even while he is in the full 
 burst of his passion : his great reflection scarce deserts him 
 for a moment ; he knows that he is ranting. 
 
 Before taking a final and reluctant leave of Hamlet, in 
 whose company it would be easy and most agreeable to mul- 
 tiply pages into sheets, let us take notice of his last words to 
 Horatio — more mournful words than which, mortal never ut- 
 tered :
 
 HAMLET. 169 
 
 *' Hamlet. But tliou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my 
 heart : but it is no matter. 
 
 Horatio. Nay, good my lord. 
 
 Hamlet. It is but foolery ; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as 
 would, perhaps, trouble a woman. 
 
 Horatio. If your mind dislike any thing, obey it : I will forestall 
 their repair hither, and say you are not fit. 
 
 Hamlet. Not a whit ; we defy augury ; there is a special providence 
 in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come ; if it be not to 
 come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come : the readiness 
 is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't to leave be- 
 times. Let be." 
 
 In the tone of Hamlet's words at the close of the first act 
 there was the formless presentiment of coming misery ; and 
 now again, in words which are almost his last, there comes 
 over him the dark foreboding of the final catastrophe. The 
 colossal shadow of his tragical end is projected over the clos- 
 ing scenes of his life, and his feeling thrills to its gloomy in- 
 spiration. As the appointed minister of Nature's vengeance 
 for a great crime, he is in most intnnate harmony with the 
 rest of Nature, and an instinctive feeling, mysterious and in- 
 explicable, forecasts unconsciously that issue by which it is 
 subsequently interpreted. He defies augury from a convic- 
 tion that his hour must come at the appointed time. "With 
 the unfailing certainty of destiny it comes ; the " self-sacrifice 
 of life is o'er ; " and the " rest is silence." 
 
 One lesson which Shakespeare implicitly teaches is a les- 
 son of infinite tolerance as the result of deep insight and 
 a comprehensive view. Heartily do we sympathize with 
 Hamlet is his great sorrow and sore trial ; we esteem the 
 faithful friendship and admire the cool judgment of Horatio ; 
 the treachery of Laertes, so greatly provoked as he was by 
 events, does not excite unmitigated horror and render him 
 inexcusably hateful — his repentance we accept with sincere 
 satisfaction ; and even the wicked king inspires sorrow rather 
 than anger, though we abhor his deeds, and as he kneels to 
 pray we would certainly forgive his crime if the decision lay
 
 160 ESSAYS. 
 
 with us: believing that God will be kind to the wicked, as 
 he has been kind to the good in making them good, we can- 
 not give up the comforting hope that, after the day of ret- 
 ribution, the fratricidal king may find rest. No poet save 
 Goethe approaches Shakespeare in the tolerant and emanci- 
 pated point of view from which he contemplates humanitv. 
 On account of this surpassing excellence, some, fired by the 
 restless presumption of their own infirmities, have dared to 
 find fault with Shakespeare ; they have blamed him because 
 he has exhibited moral ugliness unveiled, because he was not 
 sufficiently patriotic, and because he seemed more skeptical 
 ^than was fitting. Imperturbable assurance ! As if Shake- 
 speare's far-seeing vision and penetrating insight could any- 
 where detect inexcusable vice; as if his mighty mind could 
 be fettered by the littleness of skepticism, or could conde- 
 scend to the selfishness of patriotism ! Is it really a matter 
 for regret to any mortal that Shakespeare has not given us 
 the demented twaddle of the Civis Eomanusf 
 
 From the evidence of his sonnets and of diff'erent plays — 
 indeed, from the character of Hamlet himself— there can be 
 no doubt tliat Shakespeare was at one time much tried, dis- 
 heartened, and oppressed by the harsh experiences of life ; 
 he began, doubtless, as many others have done, by thinking 
 life " a paradise," and found it, as others have done, " only a 
 Yauxhall." But as Goethe advanced from the storminess of 
 Werter to the calmness of Faust, so did Shakespeare rise in a 
 glorious development from the subjective character of Timon 
 to that lofty and pure region of clear vision from which he 
 contemplated the actions of men with infinite calmness. His 
 practical life was correspondent ; by bending his actions to 
 the yoke of his intellectual life — by living, in fact, his phi- 
 losophy — he was able to work steadily in the painful sphere 
 of his vocation to tlie end which he had proposed to himself. 
 If Hamlet is a reflex of Shakespeare's character, it reflects a 
 period ere it had attained to its full development — a stage ip 
 which the struggle between the feeling of the painful experi*
 
 HAMLET. 161 
 
 ences of life and the intellectual appreciation of them as 
 events was actively going on — in which his nature was not yet 
 in harmony with itself; but the crowning development of his 
 philosophy seems to have been to look on all events with a 
 serene and passionless gaze as inevitable eflccts of antecedent 
 causes — to be nowise moved by the vices of men, and to see 
 in their virtues the evolution of their nature. It is a proba- 
 ble conjecture which has been made, therefore, that Hamlet 
 was sketched out at an earlier period of his life than that at 
 which it was published, and that it was kept by him for some 
 time and much modified, the soliloquies and large generaliza- 
 tions being some of them perhaps thus introduced, and the ac- 
 tion of the play thereby delayed. Tlie Hamlet of his youth 
 may thus have been alloyed with a more advanced philoso- 
 phy, and a character progressively elaborated which seems 
 almost overweighted with intellectual preponderance. If 
 this be so, it may account for the strange circumstance, that 
 at the beginning of the play Hamlet is represented as wishing 
 to go back to school at Wittenberg, when, as the graveyard 
 scene proves, he must have been about'thirty years of age. 
 
 The metaphysician who would gain a just conception of 
 what human freedom is, could scarce do better than study 
 the relations of the human will in the events of life as these 
 are exhibited in the play of "Hamlet." It represents the 
 abstract and brief chronicle of human life, and, faithfully 
 holding the mirror up to Nature, it teaches — better than all 
 philosophical disquisition and minute introspective analysis 
 can — how is evolved the drama in which human will con- 
 tends with necessity. Struggle as earnestly and as constantly 
 as he may, the reflecting mortal must feel at the end of all, 
 that he is inevitably what he is; that his follies and his vir- 
 tues are alike his fate ; that there is " a divinity which shapes 
 his ends, rough-hew them as he may." Hamlet, the man of 
 thought, may brood over possibilities, speculate on events, 
 analyze motives, and purposely delay action; but in the end 
 be is, equally with Macbeth, the man of energetic action
 
 162 ESSAYS. 
 
 whom the darkest bints of the witches arouse to despercato 
 deeds, drawn on to the unavoidable issue. Mighty, it must 
 be allowed, is the power of the human will ; that which, to 
 him whose will is not developed, isfate^ is, to him who has a 
 well-fashioned vfHiX^ power ; so much has been conquered from 
 necessitv, so much has been taken from the devil's territory, 
 llie savage prostrates himself, powerless, prayerful, and piti- 
 able, before the flashing lightning; but the developed mortal 
 lays hold of the lightning and makes of it a very useful ser- 
 vant : to the former, lightning is a fate against which will is 
 helpless ; to the latter, will is a fate against which lightning 
 is helpless. What limit, then, to the power of will, when so 
 much of fate is ignorance ? The limit which there necessarily 
 is to the contents of the continent, to the comprehended of 
 that which comprehends it. The unrelenting circle of neces- 
 sity encompasses all : one may go his destined course with 
 tranquil resignation, and another may fume, and fret, and 
 struggle ; but, willing or unwilling, both must go. As the 
 play of " Hamlet " so instructively teaches, notwithstanding 
 all the ingenious refinements of a powerful meditation, the hu- 
 man will is included within the larger sphere of necessity or 
 natural law. The cage may be a larger or a smaller one, but 
 its bars are always there. "Where wast thou when I laid 
 the foundations of the earth ? Canst thou bind the sweet in- 
 fluences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst 
 thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide 
 Arcturus with his sons ? Then Job answered and said : ' Be- 
 hold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine 
 hand upon my mouth.' " , Well, then, is it for him who learns 
 his limitation, to whom the dark horizon of necessity be- 
 comes the sunlit circle of duty.^
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.* 
 
 Few are tlie readers, and vre cannot boast to be of those 
 few, who have been at the pains to toil through the many 
 and voluminous writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Indeed, 
 it would, not be far from the truth to saj that there are very 
 few persons who have thought it worth their while to study 
 him at all seriously ; he is commonly accounted a madman, 
 who has had the singular fortune to persuade certain credu- 
 lous persons that he was a seer. Nevertheless, whether luna- 
 tic or prophet, his character and his writings merit a serious 
 and unbiassed study. A madness, which makes its mark 
 upon the world, and counts in its train many presumably sane 
 people who see in it the highest wisdom, cannot justly be put 
 aside contemptuously as undeserving a moment's grave 
 thought. After all, there is no accident in madness; causal- 
 ity, not casualty, governs its appearance in the nniverse; and 
 it is very far from being a good and suflScient practice to sim- 
 ply mark its phenomena, and straightway to pass on as if they 
 belonged, not to an order, but to a Usorder of events that 
 called for no explanation. It is certaiu that there is in Swe- 
 denborg's revelations of the spiritual world a mass of absurd- 
 ities suflScient to warrant the worst suspicions of his mental 
 sanity ; but, at the same time, it is not less certain that there 
 are scattered in his writings conceptions of the highest philo- 
 sophic reach, while throughout them is sensible an exalted 
 tone of calm moral feeling which rises in many places to a 
 
 * Journal 0/ Mental Science, No. 70.
 
 164 ESSAYS. 
 
 real moral grandeur. These are the qualities which have 
 gained him his best disciples, and they are qualities too un- 
 common in the world to be lightly despised, in whatever 
 company they may be exhibited. I proceed, then, to give some 
 account of Swedenborg, not jjurposing to make any review of 
 his multitudinous publications, or any criticism of the doc- 
 trines announced in them with a matchless self-sufficiency ; 
 the immediate design being rather to present, by the help 
 mainly of Mr. White's book, a sketch of the life and character 
 of the man, and thus to obtain, and to endeavor to convey, 
 some definite notion of what he was, what he did, and what 
 should be concluded of him. * 
 
 The first condition of fairly understanding and justly ap- 
 praising any character is to know something of the stock from 
 wliich it has sprung. Por grapes will not grow on thorns, 
 nor figs on thistles ; and, if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, 
 the children's teeth will not fjiil to be set on edge. At the 
 end of all the most subtile and elaborate disquisitions concern- 
 ing moral freedom and responsibility, the stern fact remains 
 that the inheritance of a man's descent weighs on him through 
 life as a good or a bad fate. How can he escape from his an- 
 
 * Emairael Swedenliorg : His Life and Writings. By William Wliite. In 
 two Tolumes. 1S67. — As the present purpose is not to make any criticism of Mr. 
 White's laborious and useful work, I shall not again refer especially to it. although 
 making large use of the materials which it furnishes for a study of Swedenborg ; I 
 may once for all commend it to the attention of those who are interested in obtain- 
 ing an impartial account of the life and -works of the prophet of the Kew Jerusa- 
 lem. Mr. White does not appear to have formed for himself any definite theory 
 with regard to Swedenborg"s pretensions, but is apt, after having told something 
 remarkable of him, to break out into a sort of Carlylian foam of words, •which, 
 however, when it has subsided, leaves matters much as they were Perhaps his 
 book is none the -worse for the absence of a special theory, as we get a fair and 
 unbiassed selection from S-wedenborg's conversation and writings, and a candid 
 account of the events of his life. At the same time it -will ob-viously be necessary, 
 sooner or later, that the -world come to a definite conclusion -with regard to his 
 character and pretensions. If man can attain to a gift of seership, and has in him 
 the faculty of becoming what S-wedenborg claimed to be, it is surely time that 
 some exact investigation should be made of the nature of the facultj', and that -we 
 should set oursel-^fs diligently to -work to discover the track of so remarkable a 
 4evelopment
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 165 
 
 cestors ? Stored up mysteriously in the nature which they 
 transmit to him, he inherits, not only the organized results of 
 the acquisitions and evolution of generations of men, but he 
 inherits also certain individual peculiarities or proclivities 
 which determine irresistibly the general aim of his career. 
 While he fancies that he is steering himself and determining 
 his course at will, his character is his destiny. The laws of 
 hereditary transmission are charged with the destinies of 
 mankind — of the race and of the individual. 
 
 Swedenborg's grandfather was a copper-smelter, of pious 
 disposition and industrious habits, who had the fortune to 
 become rich through a lucky mining venture. He had a 
 large family, which he counted a blessing ; for he was in the 
 habit of saying after dinner, with a humility not perhaps en- 
 tirely devoid of ostentation : " Thank you, my children, for 
 dinner I I have dined with you, and not you with me. God 
 has given me food for your sake." His son Jasper, the 
 father of Emanuel Swedenborg, exhibiting in early youth a 
 great love of books and a pleasure in playing at preaching, 
 was educated for the ministry, in which, by zealous energy 
 and no small worldly shrewdness, he succeeded so well that 
 he ultimately rose to be Bishop of Skara. He was a bustling, 
 energetic, turbulently self-conscious man, earnest and active 
 in the work of his ministry, and a favorite of the king, 
 Charles XI. Of a reforming temper and an aggressive char- 
 acter, with strongly-pronounced evangelical tendencies, by 
 no means wanting in self-confidence or self-assertion, and 
 indefatigable in the prosecution of wliat he tliought to be his 
 duties, he did not fail to make enemies among those of his 
 brethren who were unwilling to have the sleepy routine of 
 their lives disturbed ; but by the energy of his character and 
 the favor of the king he held his own successfully. " I can 
 scarcely believe," he says, " that anybody in Sweden has 
 written so much as I have done ; since, I think, ten carts 
 would scarcely carry away what I have written and printed 
 at my own expense, yet there is as much, verily, there is 
 8
 
 166 ESSAYS. 
 
 nearly as much, not printed." Certainly he was not less 
 keenly careful of the things that concerned his temporal 
 well-being than of those that belonged to his eternal welfare ; 
 and, deeming himself a faithful and favored servant of the 
 Lord, he easily traced in all the steps of his advancement the 
 recompensing hand of his Divine Master. " It is incredible 
 and indescribable," he exclaims, when made Dean of Upsala, 
 " what consolation and peace are felt by the servants of the 
 Lord when raised to a high and holy calling ; and contrari- 
 wise how down-hearted they must be who experience no 
 such elevation." "Without doing any injustice to the zealous 
 bishop, we may suppose that certain worldly advantages con- 
 tributed their measure to the consolation which he felt in 
 being raised to so high and holy a calling. By the death of 
 his wife he was left a widower with eight children, the eldest 
 of them not twelve years old ; but he soon took to himself 
 a second wife, distinguished for her "piety, meekness, lib- 
 erality to the poor," and who was moreover " well-off, good- 
 looking, a thrifty housewife, and had no family." She died, 
 and within a year after her death he married for the third 
 time, being then in his sixty-seventh year. "My circum- 
 stances and my extensive household required a faithful com- 
 panion, whom God gave me in Christina x\rhusia." In his 
 choice of wives, as in other matters, he evinced his shrewd 
 and practical character, acting apparently in accordance with 
 the advice which he gives in a letter to his youngest son, 
 whom he was urging to apply himself to work : " You write 
 well, you reckon well, and, thank God, you are not married. 
 See that you get a good wife, and something with Tier, Pray 
 God to lead you in his holy way." The mixture of piety and 
 worldly wisdom is very characteristic of the bishop. 
 
 His sublime self-assurance was a most striking feature 
 in his character. Assuredly he never lacked advancement 
 either for himself or his family through any modest distrust 
 of his worth or any hesitation to urge his claims; he was, 
 mdeed, most pertinacious in his petitions to the king, in sea-
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 167 
 
 BCD nnd out of season; and, if his prajer was left unnoticed, 
 another was sure to follow in a short time, so that the only 
 way of getting rid of his importunities was to grant some- 
 thing of what he asked. It is only just to him to add, how- 
 ever, that he was not less urgent in his petitions for the ad- 
 vantage of the Church than he was in his petitions for hi8 
 own advantage. So great was the faith which he had in 
 himself and in the efficacy of his prayers that he was per- 
 suaded that he actually worked miraculous cures of disease, 
 " There was," he says, " brought to me at Starbo a maid- 
 servant named Kerstin, possessed with devils in mind and 
 body. I caused her to kneel down with me and pray, and 
 then I read over her, and she arose well and hearty and quite 
 delivered." To this same seemingly hysterical servant, who 
 on one occasion lay senseless and half suffocated, he called in 
 a loud voice, " Wake up, and arise in the name of Jesus 
 Christ ! " Immediately she recovered, got up, and com- 
 menced to talk. Another of his servants had a dreadful pain 
 in her elbow, which nothing relieved, so that for days and 
 nights she went about moaning without rest or sleep. " At 
 midnight she came to the room where I was lying asleep 
 with my beloved wife, and prayed that I would for the sake 
 of Christ take away her pain, or she must go and kill her- 
 self. I rose, touched her arm, and commanded the pain in 
 the name of Jesus Christ to depart, and in a moment the one 
 arm was as well as the other. Glory to God alone ! " Not 
 a doubt seems to have ever ruffled the serenity of his self- 
 complacency ; he had the comfortable conviction, which men 
 of his narrow and intense type of mind sometimes get, that 
 in all his doings the Lord was on his side. "When he was 
 nearly eighty years of age he composed his autobiography, 
 making with his own hand six copies of it, and dedicating 
 them ''to my children and posterity as an example how to 
 conduct themselves after my death." The grave should not 
 quench his shining light; he was resolved, being dead, yet to 
 speak. Of his autobiograpliy or of any other of his cart-load.-?
 
 1G8 ESSAYS. 
 
 of writings it is not probable tbat posterity will ever care to 
 read much ; the good which the restless and indefatigable 
 bishop conferred on the world was done by his energetic and 
 Qsefiil life; he worked well and wisely for his generation, and 
 his generation liberally rewarded him. 
 
 Such, then, was Bishop Swedenborg, whose second son, 
 Emanuel, was born on the 29th of January, 1688, and was so 
 named that he might be "thereby reminded continually of 
 the nearness of God." Of his mother we know nothing 
 more than what the bishop writes of her : "Although she 
 was the daughter of an assessor, and the wife of a rector in 
 Upsala, and of a wealthy family, she never dressed extrava- 
 gantly. As every woman in those days wore a sinful and 
 troublesome fontange or top-knot, she was obliged to do as 
 others did and wear it ; but hearing that a cow in the island 
 of Gothland had, with great labor and pitiable bellowing, 
 brought forth a calf with a top-knot, she took her own and 
 her girl's hoods and threw them all into the fire ; and she 
 made a vow that she and her daughters, as long as they 
 ■were under her authority, should never more put such things 
 on their heads." 
 
 The story, notwithstanding the superstition which it 
 discovers, indicates strong self-reliance and no little force 
 of character, but is hardly sufficient to warrant any special 
 conclusions. As, however, Swedenborg's intellect was un- 
 doubtedly of a higher order than his father's, by nature far 
 more subtile, comprehensive, and powerful, it is probable that 
 he owed much to his mother's stock, as is so often the case 
 with men of distinction. It is a small matter for any one to 
 have had a clever father if he has had a foolish mother. The 
 transmission of his father's qualities of character certainly 
 could not have been an unmixed benefit, some of them hav- 
 ing been evidently already strained as far as was consistent 
 with the maintenance of a sound cquiUbrium. A man whose 
 intellect moved in so narrow a current, who was possessed 
 with such wonderful self-assurance, and who sincerely be-
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 169 
 
 lieved that lie worked miraculous cures, was not unlikely to 
 have a son in whom the exaggeration of these characters 
 passed the limits of sanity. At any rate we may helieve that 
 the busy bishop had but little reserve power to communicate 
 to his children, having needed and used all the force which 
 he had for the manifold projects and works of his own active 
 and demonstrative life ; he put forth too many blossoms him- 
 self to leave much force in his stock available for the next 
 generation. To the quiet, self-reliant, and self-denying en- 
 ergy of his mother's character it may well be that Sweden- 
 borg was more indebted than to the too self-conscious activity 
 of his father. 
 
 Of the events of his childhood and early youth nothing 
 more is known than what he himself, writing in his old age, 
 tells us : 
 
 " From my fourth to my tenth year, my thoughts were constantly 
 engrossed in reflecting on God, on salvation, and on the spiritual 
 affections of man. I often revealed things in my discourse which 
 filled my parents with astonishment, and made them declare at times 
 that certainly the angels spoke through my mouth. 
 
 " From my sixth to my twelfth year, it was my greatest delight to 
 converse with the clergy concerning faith, to whom I observed that 
 ' charity or love is the life of faith' " — 
 
 and other wonderfully precocious things. 
 
 We shall be the more apt to believe that he did discourse 
 in that strange way, if we bear in mind that he was bred, 
 and lived, and moved in an atmosphere of religious talk and 
 theological discussion, where Providential interferences were 
 not wanting. The endless praying, the catechizing, the ser- 
 monizing of his father, and the parental admiration which his 
 own childish discourse excited, would tend to engender a 
 prococity in religious matters, which failed not to bear its 
 natural fruits in his subsequent life. From this brief glimpse 
 into the nature of his early training, we perceive suflScient 
 reason to conclude that the extreme self-confidence which he 
 inherited from his father met with a fostering applause rather
 
 170 ESSAYS. 
 
 than a prudent discouragement. Unquestionably, if at that 
 early age his thoughts were constantly engrossed in reflections 
 on God, and his mouth had become an organ through which 
 angels spoke, both his thoughts and his mouth might have 
 been much better employed. 
 
 A notable peculiarity which he asserts to have distin- 
 guished him in his early years, and made him unlike other 
 .children, was a power of almost suspending his breathing; 
 when deeply absorbed in prayer, he hardly seemed to b^-eathe 
 at all. Another remarkable characteristic of the wonderful 
 child I On it he subsequently founded important theories 
 concerning respiration, and his disciples look upon it as 
 connected with the power which he claimed to have of en- 
 tering the spirit-world while still in the flesh. A more 
 commonplace explanation, however, may easily suggest itself. 
 Physicians who are accustomed to be consulted about chil- 
 dren of nervous disposition, predisposed to epilepsy or insan- 
 ity, will call to mind instances in which the little beings have 
 fallen into trances or ecstasies, and spoken in voices seeming- 
 ly not their own. On the one hand, these seizures pass by 
 intermediate steps into attacks of chorea, and, on the other 
 hand, they may alternate with true epileptic fits, or pass 
 gradually into them. So far from being conditions to admire, 
 they are of dangerous omen, and the parent whose child is so 
 afflicted, whether it be by airs from heaven or blasts from 
 hell, would do well to take him to some physician, in order 
 to have the angels or devils exorcised by medical means. If 
 Swedenborg's youthful ecstasies, as seems not improbable, 
 were of this character, his father, who thought his hysterical 
 maid-servent to be possessed with " devils in mind and body," 
 was not likely to interpret them rightly; on the contrary, 
 like Mohammed's epileptic fits, they would be counted visita- 
 tions of the Deity. 
 
 Thus much, and it is unfortunately not much, concerning 
 Swedenborg's parentage, childhood, and early training. Scan- 
 ty as the account is, we may see reason to trace in some eventai
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 171 
 
 of his life the effects of the influences then exerted. I go on 
 now to mention briefly what is known of his youth and early 
 manhood. He was educated at the University of Upsala, 
 where he took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the age 
 of twenty-one. Afterward he travelled abroad in order to 
 complete his studies, remaining some time in London, Paris, 
 and Hamburg, wherever he went evincing an earnest thirst 
 for knowledge, and seeking and obtaining the acquaintance 
 of meft eminent in mathematics, astronomy, and mechanics. 
 Eeturning from his travels, he took up his abode for some 
 years in the little sea-side university town of Griefsvalde, 
 where he certainly was not idle. In a letter to his brother- 
 in-law, he specifies as many as fourteen wonderful mechani- 
 cal inventions on which he was engaged. Among these 
 were: 
 
 Tlie construction of a sort of ship in which a man may go 
 below the surface of the sea, and do great damage to the 
 fleet of an enemy. 
 
 A machine, driven by fire, for pumping water, and lifting 
 at forges where the water has no fall. 
 
 A new construction of air-guns, by which a thousand 
 balls may be discharged through one tube in one moment. 
 
 SchiograpMa universalis^ or a mechanical method of de- 
 lineating houses of every kind, and on any surface, by means 
 of fire. 
 
 A mechanical chariot containing all kinds of tools, which 
 are set in action by tlie movements of the horses. 
 
 A flying chariot, or the possibility of floating in the air 
 and moving through it. 
 
 The number of projects on which he was engaged shows 
 how great was his industry, and how fertile his ingenuity, 
 while the character of them proves that there was no hinder- 
 ance to a habit of ambitious speculation in any modest dis- 
 trust of his own powers. It is evident, too, that at this period 
 of his life his speculations were directed to practical ends ;
 
 172 ESSAYS. 
 
 his daring flights were made from a basis of scientific facts, 
 and aimed at some directly useful result ; he was not yet, at 
 any rate, a mere dreamer of inflated dreams. What, how- 
 ever, is particularly significant is the entire absence of self- 
 restraint in these intellectual projects: there is no problem 
 which he does not hold to be penetrable, and penetrable by 
 him. To what end must such a lofty and high-aspiring spirit 
 inevitably come unless it learn by sad experience soberly to 
 define its aims and definitely to work for them ? Icarns-like 
 in its aspiring ambition, it cannot but be Icarus-like in its 
 disastrous fall. 
 
 In 1715, when he was twenty-seven years old, he returned 
 home, and received before long from the king, in compliance 
 with his father's pertinacious prayers, the appointment of as- 
 sessor in the Eoyal School of Mines, where, as assistant to 
 Polhem, an eminent engineer, he was usefully em^Dloyed in 
 the practical work of his oflBce. At the same time he did 
 not abandon his ingenious and abstruse speculations ; the re- 
 sults of his labors being published in numerous pamphlets, 
 the titles of some of which wiU serve to indicate the nature 
 of his studies. One is entitled "Attempts to find the Longi- 
 tude by means of the Moon ; " another, " On the Level of the 
 Sea and the Great Tides of the Ancient World ; " another, 
 " A Proposal for the Division of Money and Measures so as 
 to facilitate Calculation and Fractions." His brother-in-law 
 Benzelius having discouraged this last scheme as impractic- 
 able and advised him to relinquish it, he replies bravely : 
 
 *'Itis a little discouraging to be dissuaded thus. For myself, I 
 desire all possible novelties, ay, a novelty for every day in the year, 
 provided the world will be pleased with them. In every age there's 
 an abundance of persons who follow the beaten track, and remain in 
 the old way ; but perhaps there are only from six to ten in a century 
 who bring forward new things founded on argument and reason." 
 
 ^ A novelty for every day in the year by all means, provided 
 it be a novelty which has some solidity of foundation and a 
 reasonable chance of bearing the test of verification. But
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 1Y3 
 
 to pursue novelties for novelty's sake, to disdain tlie beaten 
 track merely because it is beaten, and to leap out of it, for 
 the purpose of showing independence— these are things 
 which are likely in no long time to bring a man to considerable 
 intellectual grief. A habit of excogitating vague and hypo- 
 thetical plausibilities is not difl&cult of acquirement, but is 
 very detrimental to exact observation and sound reasoning. 
 There is commonly greater profit, though attended with 
 more pains and less pleasure, in scrutinizing and scrupulously 
 testing one good theory than in putting forth a hundred empty 
 hypotheses; self-restraint being a far higher energy than self- 
 abandonment. It is plain that Swedenborg had, to a de- 
 gree which few persons have had, the power of seizing dis- 
 tant analogies, but it is equally plain that he put no restraint 
 on the exercise of this faculty. No wonder that the world, 
 unapt to welcome warmly any new doctrine, apt indeed to 
 shut the door resolutely in its face, did not receive his won- 
 derful discoveries with the gratitude and interest which he 
 imagined to be their due, but, on the contrary, went on in its 
 prosaic way serenely disregardful of them. 
 
 Writing to Benzelius, he complains that his brother-in- 
 law has estranged his dear father's and mother's affections 
 from him, and that his speculations and inventions find no 
 patronage in Sweden. 
 
 " Should I be able to collect the necessary means, I have made 
 up my mind to go abroad and seek my fortune in mining. He must 
 indeed be a fool, who is loose and iiTesolute, who sees his place 
 abroad, yet remains in obscurity and wretchedness at home, where 
 the furies. Envy and Pluto, have taken up their abode, and dispose 
 of all rewards, where all the trouble I have taken is rewarded with 
 Buch shabbiness ! " 
 
 Again : 
 
 *' I have taken a little leisure this summer to put a few things on 
 paper, which I think will be my last productions, for speculations 
 and inventions like mine find no patronage nor bread in Sweden, and 
 are considered by a number of political blockheads as a sort of 
 8chool-boy exercise, which ought to stand quite in the background, 
 while their finesse and intrigues step forward."
 
 174 ESSAYS. 
 
 In what way his father's affections had shown theraselvea 
 estranged we do not learn. Perhaps the bustling bishop had 
 become impatient of his son's multitudinous speculations, and 
 was urging him to some more practical work ; for he was not 
 apt to look complacently on any neglect of the things that 
 lead to worldly prosperity. To another of his sons he writes 
 on one occasion : " See that you find some occupation where 
 you are. It is no use to be in Sweden to fritter away your 
 best days in idleness." 
 
 Notwithstanding the little favor which his inventions met 
 with, Swedenborg did not carry into effect the resolution to 
 abandon his ungrateful country ; he contented himself with a 
 tour of fifteen months on the Continent, visiting Amsterdam, 
 Leipsic, Liege, and Cologne. During this period he contin- 
 ued to publish numerous pamphlets, one of which was on 
 " Xew Attempts to explain the Phenomena of Physics and 
 Chemistry by Geometry," and another on "A is'ew Method 
 of finding the Longitude of Places on Land or at Sea by Lu- 
 nar Observations." Observing as he travelled, and reflecting 
 on what he observed, he at once published the fancies and 
 speculations with which his prolific mind teemed; and so 
 serene was his self-assarance that he never seems to have 
 doubted his capacity to deal off-hand with the most difficult 
 subjects. Swiftly and recklessly his imagination passed to 
 its conclusions through faint gleams of ?jialogies, leaving de- 
 liberation and verification hopelessly in the rear, if they were 
 ever thought of at all. He returned to Sweden in 1722, and 
 during the next twelve years— from his thirty-fourth to his 
 forty-sixth year — he preserved an unaccustomed silence, for 
 he published nothing. He was, however, far from idle ; the 
 time which was not occupied in the daties of his assessorship 
 being devoted to study and to the composition of three big 
 folios — the "Principia," containing an account of the creation 
 of matter, and the " Opera Philosophica et Mineralia," These 
 were published at Leipsic in 1734. 
 
 In his "Principia" he professes to investigate the file*
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 175 
 
 mental Kingdom, the subtile and intangible particles of which, 
 each having its own powers of elasticity and motion, combine, 
 as he assumes, to constitute an element. But how does he get 
 at any knowledge of these subtile particles which he postu- 
 lates? By reasoning from analogy. The method of Nature, 
 he says, is everywhere the same ; Nature is similar to herself. 
 in Suns and Planets as in Particles ; size makes no difference ; 
 there is the same ratio between 1,000,000 and 5,000,000 
 as there is between -0,000,001 and '0,000,005 ; what is true 
 of the least is true of the greatest. Now, as the whole 
 world is mechanical, these intangible particles must be so 
 also ; visible matter is geometrical as to figure, mechanical 
 as to motion; therefore invisible matter must be so also. 
 Then he goes on to argue in an elaborate way that every 
 thing in Nature originated in a point— just as the origin 
 of lines and forms in geometry is in points — itself somehow 
 produced immediately from the Infinite, and that from a 
 congress of points the First Finite was produced ; from an 
 aggregation of First Finites a grosser order of Second Finites ; 
 from these an order of Third Finites ; and so on until the 
 earth and all that therein is was produced. How he con- 
 trives to get his point produced from the Infinite, and then 
 to start it on such a wonderful career, it is impossible to ex- 
 plain ; his disciples, who discover in some parts of these bar- 
 ren speculations the anticipations of important scientific dis- 
 coveries, and perceive everywhere the marks of a super- 
 human philosophic insight, do not furnish an intelligible in- 
 terpretation. This is not much to be wondered at, seeing 
 that the master himself, when he was subsequently admitted 
 to the Spiritual World, discovered them to be vain and idle 
 fancies. What may justly cause surprise and regret, how- 
 ever, is that his followers should insist on reading a wonder- 
 ful meaning into what he so entirely discarded, and persist 
 in vaguely extolling, without definitely setting forth, the 
 science which they find so marvellous. The fact which it 
 chiefly concerns us here to note is his infinite self-sufficiency ;
 
 176 ESSAYS. 
 
 there is no arrogant self-assertion, no offensive conceit, but a 
 serene and boundless self-assurance, the like of \\-hicb is 
 Beldora met with outside the walls of an asylum, but is net 
 seldom exhibited by the mcnomaniac who constructs elabo- 
 rate theories of the universe out of the troubled depths of his 
 consciousness. When a man plants himself on such a plat- 
 form, he is certainly likely, "whether owing to the fault or 
 discernment of his contemporaries, to inhabit his intellectual 
 estate unquestioned, unlimited, uncontradicted, and alone." * 
 
 The " Philosophical and Mineral Works " contain a very 
 full description of the practical details of mining in different 
 parts of the world ; they testify how well he had observed, 
 and how hard he had studied, during his travels. He gives 
 them the title of " Philosophical " advisedly, because it was 
 his aim to wed philosophy to science, and to rise by steps 
 from the investigation of the mineral to that of the organic 
 kingdom, and through this to the study of man, and of human 
 mind as the crowning achievement of organization. 
 
 " Man did not begin to exist until the kingdoms of Nature were com 
 pleted, and then the world of Nature concentrated itself in him at his 
 creation. Thus in man, as in a microcosm, the whole universe may 
 be contemplated from the beginning to the end, from first to last." 
 
 There is nothing original in this conception, which is 
 indeed as old as thought ; but, if we err not, the conception 
 of the method by which Swedenborg resolved to ascend step 
 by step from the knowledge of the lowest forms of matter to 
 the knowledge of its highest forms, until at last he penetrated 
 into the secret chamber of that " noblest organization in 
 which the soul is clad," was at that time as original as it was 
 profoundly scientific. The grand end which he proposed to 
 himself was the discovery of the soul; to the investigation 
 of its nature he would mount through the different organs 
 and functions of the body, using his knowledge of them as a 
 ladder by which to ascend into " her secret chambers, open 
 
 ♦ Dr. Garth Wilkinson's "Biography of Swedenborg:,"' p. 2T.
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 177 
 
 all the doors that lead to her, and at length contemplate the 
 soul herself." How different in this regard from learned 
 metaphysicians, who deem an entire ignorance of the body 
 no bar to the most dogmatic disquisition concerning mind I 
 ^7ho can withhold admiration of the noble ambition of his 
 design, of the resolute determination to undertake so vast a 
 work, of the imflinching industry with which he set himself 
 to execute it? It is meet that criticism stand respectfully 
 aside for a moment, and do free homage to the philosophic 
 genius of the mind which was capable at that time of con- 
 ceiving so truly scientific a method, and of the resolution to 
 accomplish its application. 
 
 In pursuance of his great scheme of penetrating from the 
 very cradle to the maturity of ITature, he determined to 
 undertake earnestly the study of anatomy and physiology, 
 having inherited at his father's death, which took place in 
 1735, a suflScient fortune to enable him to follow the bent of 
 his inclinations. Accordingly, he started once more for a 
 tour on the Continent, visiting Brussels, Paris, Turin, Milan, 
 Venice, and Rome, occupying himself in the study of anatomy, 
 and amusing himself with visiting the theatres and operas, 
 and seeing what was worth seeing in the different towns. 
 For he was no ascetic, though he lived a solitary life : he 
 was evidently not insensible to certain lusts of the flesh, nor 
 sparing of the gratification of them ; we learn incidentally 
 that in Italy, though he was now fifty-two years old, he kept 
 a mistress, as indeed he had formerly done in Sweden. At a 
 later period of his life we find him telling in his Diary how 
 he wondered much "that I had no desire for women, as I 
 had had all through my life," and again, "How my inclina- 
 tion for women, which had been my strongest passion, sud- 
 denly ceased." Very meagre, however, are the indications 
 of the way in which he spent his time ; it would seem that 
 he visited the dissecting-rooms, if he did not himself dissect; 
 he certainly made himself acquainted with the works of the 
 best anatomists, transcribing from their pages the descrip-
 
 178 ESSAYS. 
 
 tions suited to his purposes ; and in one way or another 
 seven years were passed by him in travelling about and in 
 physiological studies. 
 
 In 1741 he gave to the world the results of his studies 
 and reflections in anatomy by publishing at Amsterdam his 
 " Economy of the Animal Kingdom," which was followed 
 in 1744 by his "Animal Kingdom." These works were the 
 continuance of his great design in the region of organization. 
 In them he made use of the writings of the best anatomists, 
 selecting theii- descriptions as the basis of facts on which he 
 founded his reflections. 
 
 " Here and there I have taken the liberty of throwing in the re- 
 sults of my experience, but this only sparingly ; for, on deeply con- 
 sidering the matter, I deemed it better to make use of the facts sup- 
 plied by others. Indeed, there are some that seem born for experi- 
 mental observation, and endowed with a sharper insight tlian others, 
 as if they possessed naturally a finer acumen ; such as Eustachius, 
 Ruysch, Leeuwenhoek, Lancisi, etc. There are others, again, who 
 enjoy a natural faculty for contemplating facts already discovered, 
 and eliciting their causes. Both are peculiar gifts, and are seldom 
 united in the same person. Besides, I found when intently occupied 
 in exploring the secrets of the human body, that as soon as I discov- 
 ered any thing that had not been observed before, I began (seduced 
 probably by self-love) to grow blind to the most acute lucubrations 
 and researches of others, and to originate a whole series of inductive 
 arguments from my particular discovery alone ; and consequently to 
 be incapacitated to view and comprehend, as accurately as the subject 
 required, the idea ' of universals in individuals, and of individuals 
 under universals.' I therefore laid aside my instruments., and, re- 
 straining my desire for making observations, determined rather to 
 rely on the researches of others than to trust to my own." 
 
 Still he was not ignorant of the dangers which beset 
 ratiocination when divorced from experience. 
 
 " To a knowledge of the causes of things nothing but experience 
 can guide us ; for, when the mind, with all the speculative force which 
 belongs to it, is left to rove about without this guide, how prone it is 
 to fall into error, yea into errors and errors of errors ! How futile it 
 is after this, or at any rate how precarious, to seek confirmation and
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 179 
 
 support from experience ! "We are not to deduce experience from 
 assumed principles, but to deduce principles themselves from expe- 
 rience ; for in truth we are surrounded with illusive and fallacious 
 lights, and are the more likely to fall because our very darkness coun- 
 terfeits the day. When we are carried away by ratiocination alone, 
 we are somewhat like blindfolded children in their play, who, 
 though they imagine they are walking straightforward, yet when 
 their eyes are unbound, plainly perceive that they have been follow- 
 ing some roundabout path, which, if pursued, must have led them 
 to the place the very opposite to the one intended." 
 
 Wise words! but how far Swedenborg was from realizing 
 them in practice, the perusal of a single page of his treatise 
 will suffice to prove. His nature was too strongly bent on 
 speculation to allow him to brook any restraint on the flights 
 of his restless and aspiring intellect, and, when experience 
 left gaps, his imagination never hesitated to fill them up with 
 theories; the very facts, indeed, which he professes to record 
 are frequently so tinged with his own hypotheses as to be 
 made unreliable, while they are almost always too weak to 
 bear the large conclusions which he bases upon them. One 
 thing, however, which distinguishes him prominently from 
 most, if not all, of those who have written upon anatomy and 
 physiology, and which is indeed the outcome of his large and 
 philosophic intellect, is the clear and excellent conception 
 which he evinces of the organism as a living social unity, 
 formed by the integration of manifold orderly-disposed parts: 
 he does not treat of the body as if it were a mere mechanism 
 or carcass of muscle, bone, and nerve, to be carefully observed, 
 dissected, and described or figured ; nor does he deal with 
 the functions of an organ as if it were an independent agent, 
 and had little or no concern or relation with other organs, 
 and with the whole life of the being ; throughout his treatise 
 he grasps the idea of a vital harmony, exhibits the essential 
 interdependence, the orderly subordination and coordination 
 of parts, and brings us face to face with a living organization. 
 To hiir there is no manifestation of the bodily life, however 
 seemingly humble, which has not its deep meaning ; every
 
 180 ■ ESSAYS. 
 
 thing which is outwardly displayed is symbolical of what ex- 
 ists in the innermost. It plainly appears that his science of 
 the bodily organism, fanciful as it often seems, is animated 
 with conceptions derived from the social organization ; and 
 although the latter is a later, higher, and more complex hu- 
 man evolution than the bodily organization, it is certain that 
 ideas obtained in its sphere may be profitably applied to the 
 study of the life of the body. If in one wonderful flash of 
 self-consciousness the intimate functions and relations of every 
 part of the body, and their integration in the unity of the ego^ 
 were miraculously declared, who can tell, nay, who can im- 
 agine, what a flood of light would be suddenly thrown upon 
 the social relations of man ? 
 
 It would be unprofitable to attempt to give here a sum- 
 mary of Swedenborg's physiological views; indeed, it would 
 be impossible to make an abridgment of them: among nu- 
 merous wild conjectures, fanciful theories, strange conceits, 
 and empty phrases, there are many pregnant suggestions, 
 gleams of the most subtile insight and far-reaching analogies 
 illuminating the dry details with light from a higher sphere. 
 When he has gone astray, it might sometimes be justly said 
 of him that "the light which led him astray was light from 
 heaven." Doubtless it is an admiration of this higher intel- 
 lectual light which has inspired Emerson's extraordinary es- 
 timate of his genius. He speaks of him as one who " seemed, 
 by the variety and amount of his powers, to be a composition 
 of several persons — like the giant fruits which are matured in 
 gardens by the union of four or five single blossoms ; " "who 
 anticipated much science of the nineteenth century ; antici- 
 pated in astronomy the discovery of the seventh planet ; an- 
 ticipated the views of modern astronomy in regard to the 
 generation of the earth by the sun ; in magnetism, some im- 
 portant conclusions of later students ; in chemistry, the atomic 
 theory; in anatomy, the discoveries of Schlichting, Munro, 
 and "Wilson ; and first demonstrated the office of the lungs." 
 
 " A colossal soul, he lies abroad on his times, uncompre-
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 181 
 
 bended by them, and requires a long focal distance to be seen; 
 suggests, as Aristotle, Bacon, Selden, Humboldt, that a cer- 
 tain vastness of learning, or quasi omnipresence of the human 
 Boul in Nature, is possible. . . . One of the mastodons of 
 literature, he is not to be measured by whole colleges of ordi- 
 nary scholars. His stalwart presence would flutter the gowns 
 of a university. Our books are false by being fragmentary; 
 their sentences are Ion mots, and not parts of natural dis- 
 course, or childish expressions of surprise and pleasure in Na- 
 ture. But Swedenborg is systematic, and respective of the 
 world in every sentence : all the means are orderly given ; 
 his faculties work with astronomic punctuality ; and his ad- 
 mirable writing is pure from all pertness or egotism." 
 
 These must appear strange and startling assertions to those 
 who have considered deeply the slow and tedious course of 
 scientific discovery, and they woukl be more strange if they 
 were true ; but the sober fact is, that there is scarcely a 
 shadow of reason for attributing to him any of these wonder- 
 ful discoveries. He speculated largely and vaguely about 
 magnetism, chemistry, astronomy, anatomy, as he did about 
 every thing else, and expressed what he thought with an un- 
 equalled self-sutliciency ; but, if his speculations in these 
 sciences be compared with such exact knowledge of them as 
 existed at the time, his information will be found to be super- 
 ficial and defective, his speculations for the most part crude, 
 barren, and fanciful. In regard to this question, it should be 
 borne in mind that Swedenborg did not live and flourish in 
 the thirteenth but in the eighteenth century ; that he wag 
 contemporary with Newton and Halley in science, with 
 Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, in philosophy. It is really only 
 by throwing him back, as it were, into the dark ages, by ig- 
 noring the intellectual development of his time, and looking 
 on his writings as the Mussulman looks on his Koran, that it 
 is excusable to break out into any admiration of his positive 
 Bcientific acquirements. That the world received his publica- 
 tions with indiflPerence was the natural and just consequence
 
 182 ESSAYS. 
 
 of tlieir character ; it would, indeed, lia-ve been remarkable if 
 men seriously engaged in scientific work had thought it worth 
 while to examine and controvert his fanciful opinions. Vain 
 and futile, too, would the attempt assuredly have been if it 
 had been made, for sober inquiry could not meet on a com- 
 mon platform with imagination run riot and self-confidence 
 incapable of doubt. 
 
 It would be useless, then, to attempt to convey an adequate 
 notion of the matter of Swedenborg's writings ; it must suf- 
 fice here to note their intellectual character. Undoubtedly 
 he possessed in a remarkable degree some of the elements of 
 greatness which have existed in the greatest men : a wonder- 
 ful originality of conception ; a mind not subjugated by de- 
 tails and formulas, but able to rise above the trammels of 
 habits and systems of thought ; an extraordinary faculty of 
 assimilation; a vast power of grasping analogies; a sin- 
 cere love of knowledge; an unwearied industry and a match- 
 less daring. Having all these qualities, but entirely lacking 
 intellectual self-restraint, he is scientifically as sounding 
 brass or a tinkling cymbal: his originality unchecked de- 
 generated into riotous fancy ; his power of rising above sys- 
 tems passed into a disregard or disdain of patiently-acquired 
 facts ; though his industry was immense, he never more than 
 half learned what he applied himself to, never patiently and 
 faithfully assimilated the details of what was known, but, se- 
 duced by his love of analogies and sustained by his boundless 
 self-sufBciency, he was carried away into empty theories and 
 groundless speculations. He was unwisely impatient of 
 doubt, constitutionally impatient of intellectual self-control. 
 His writings, though containing many truths excellently illus- 
 trated, and passages of great pregnancy and eloquence, are 
 difi'use, and very tedious to read ; they have neither begin- 
 ning nor end, are full of repetitions, inconsistencies, and even 
 contradictions. His admirers may see in such contradictions 
 the evidence of a persevering and single-minded pursuit of 
 truth, by reason of which he scrupled not to abandon ao
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 183 
 
 opinion so soon as he discovered a wider horizon ; but it is 
 plainly also possible to discern in them the evidence of an ill- 
 balanced intellect drifting from all real anchorage in obser- 
 vation and experience. Toward the end of the " Principia " 
 he says : 
 
 " In writing the present work I have had no aim at the apphause 
 of the learned world, nor at the* acquisition of a name or popularity. 
 To me it is a matter of indiflference whether I win the favorable 
 opinion of every one or of no one, whether 1 gain much or no com- . 
 mendation; such things are not objects of regard to one whose mind 
 is bent on truth and true philosophy ; should I, therefore, gain the 
 assent or approbation of others, I shall receive it only as a confirma- 
 tion of my having pursued the truth. . . . Should 1 fail to gain the 
 assent of those whose minds, being prepossessed by other principles, 
 can no longer exercise an impartial judgment, still I shall have those 
 with me who are able to distinguish the true from the untrue, if not 
 in the present, at least in some future age." 
 
 That he was sincere in this serenely complacent declara- 
 tion is proved by the calm, passionless tone of his writings, 
 and by the steady, unruffled pursuit of his own line of 
 thought in so many fields of labor. But no man is self- 
 sufficing in this universe, and it is an irremediable misfortune 
 to him when he imagines that he is. A due regard to the 
 views and opinions of others is not merely useful, but indis- 
 pensable to a sound intellectual development ; furnishing, as 
 these do, a searching test whereby true theories are separated 
 from those which are false, the former ultimately verified 
 and accepted, and the latter rejected. Truth is not born 
 with any one man, nor will it die with him ; its progress 
 resting on the development of the race in which the greatest 
 of individuals has but a very small part. To profess an en- 
 tire indifierence to the opinions of contemporaries is not 
 therefore a mark of wisdom, but an indication either of fool- 
 ish pretence, or of inordinate vanity, or of downright mad- 
 ness, and shows a pitiful ambition in him who makes such a 
 declaration. How many defective theories have been promul- 
 gated, how much labor has been vainly spent, because scien-
 
 184 ESSAYS. 
 
 tific inquirers have not always set tliemselves conscientiously 
 to work to learn what has been done by others before they 
 began their studies, and how their results stand in relation 
 to well-established truths I The monomaniac who industri- 
 ously wastes his ingenuity in the construction of a machine 
 which shall be capable of perpetual motion is, in his own es- 
 timation, a most earnest pursuer of truth, and at all events 
 has a most sincere indifference to the criticisms of others. 
 In all the world who more original than he ? 
 
 AYhile we are constrained, then, to pronounce Sweden- 
 borg's treatment of scientific subjects often shallow, vague, 
 and fanciful, and for the most part barren of exact knowl- 
 edge and sound principles, it must be allowed that it is 
 characterized by a comprehensive grandeur of method — a 
 method informed throughout with the truth which Bacon 
 earnestly insisted on, that all partitions of knowledge should 
 be accepted rather "for lines to mark and distinguish than 
 for sections to divide and separate, so that the continuance 
 and entirety of knowledge be preserved." He drew large 
 and inspiring draughts from the fountain of all sciences — the 
 "Philosophia Prima," tracing with subtile insight "the same 
 footsteps of iSTature treading or printing upon several subjects 
 or matters." Hence his works are profitable for instruction 
 and correction to all men who are engaged in special branches 
 of scientific research, and whose minds are apt to be fettered 
 by the methods and formulas to which their special science has 
 been reduced, and according to which they have studied and 
 worked, who have, as Bacon says, "abandoned universality, 
 or philosophia prima. For no perfect discovery can be made 
 upon a flat or level: neither is it possible to discover the 
 more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand 
 but on a level of the same science, and ascend not to a highei 
 Bcience." Beyond the principles of each science there is a 
 philosophy of the sciences ; beyond the artificial and some- 
 times ill-starred divisions which men for the sake of conven- 
 ience make, there is a unity of Nature. The principles of
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 186 
 
 one science, fullj comprehended, are a key to the interpreta- 
 tion of all sciences ; they are the same footsteps of Nature 
 treading npon several subjects. How mischievously has the 
 human mind been enslaved by the fetters which itself has 
 forged! Is not the most exalted iinagery of the true poet 
 f jndamentally the highest science ? And shall not a philoso- 
 phy of science be found the highest poetry ? 
 
 We must now pass to a period of Swedenborg's life when 
 a great change took place in his views, his work, and his 
 pretensions. Hitherto his speculations had preserved a 
 scientific semblance; they had been made from some basis of 
 facts, and had evinced some practical tendency, although the 
 speculations went on increasing out of proportion to the facts, 
 until these became little more than the occasions of theories. 
 Now he abandoned the ground of experience entirely, and 
 entered the spiritual world. His subsequent career as seer 
 and theologian was the natural development of his character, 
 but it was a morbid development; and the history which re- 
 mains to be told is the history of a learned and ingenious^ 
 madman, the character of whose intellectual aberration testi- 
 fies to the greatness of his original intellectual structure. 
 
 The manner of the great change by which Swedenborg 
 imagined that his eyes were opened to discern what passed 
 in the world of spirits, and that he was chosen by God to 
 unfold the spiritual sense of the Holy Scriptures, was in this 
 wise: One night in London, after he had dined heartily, a 
 kind of mist spread before his eyes, and the floor of his room 
 was covered with hideous reptiles such as serpents, toads, 
 and the like. 
 
 " I was astonished, having all my wits about me, and being per- 
 fectly conscious. The darkness attained its height and then passed 
 away. I now saw a man sitting in the corner of the chamber. As 1 
 had thought myself entirely alone, I was greatly frightened when 
 he said to me, ' Eat not so much.' My sight again became dim^ and 
 when I recovered it I found myself alone in the room." 
 
 The following night the same thing occurred.
 
 186 ESSAYS. 
 
 "I was tills time not at all alarmed. The man said, 'I am God, 
 the Lord, the Creator and Eedeemer of the world. I have chosen 
 thee to unfold to men the spiritual sense of the Holy Scripture. I 
 will myself dictate to thee what thou shalt write.' " 
 
 Thenceforth, he abandoned all worldly learning and la-, 
 bored only in spiritual things ; the Lord had opened the eyes 
 of his spirit to see in perfect wakefulness what was going on 
 in the other world, and to converse, broad awake, with 
 angels and spirits. Such is his description of the vision in 
 which the scales fell from his eyes and he was called, like 
 the Apostle of the Gentiles, to a new and spiritual mission. 
 "What will the ordinary reader say of it ? Without doubt 
 one of two things: either that it was a nightmare engendered 
 by indigestion following too heavy a meal, or that it was the 
 hallucination of a disordered brain. The former might seem 
 a probable and sufficient explanation, were it not for some 
 important information which exists with regard to Sweden- 
 borg's mental condition at the time. In 1858 a Diary kept 
 by him between 1743 and 1744 was discovered and purchased 
 for the Royal Library at Stockholm. It contains tedious and 
 wearisome records of the dreams which he dreamed night 
 after night, and the spiritual interpretations which he gave 
 to them. They are of all sorts, running through the gamut 
 from the lowest note of despair to the highest pitch of exal- 
 tation ; some are ecstatic visions of bliss in which he feels 
 himself in heaven ; others are distressing visions of tempta- 
 tions, persecutions, and sufferings ; while others are filthy 
 details of obscenities. The following dream — if it were not 
 really an epileptic trance — occurred in the night between the 
 6th and 7th of April, 1744 : 
 
 "I went to bed. . . . Half an hour after I heard a tumbling noise 
 under my head. I thought it was the Tempter going away. Imme- 
 diately a violent trembling came over me from head to foot with a 
 great noise. This happeued several times. I felt as if something holy 
 were over me. I then fell asleep, and about 12, 1, or 2, the trem- 
 blings and the noise were repeated indescribably. I was prostrated 
 on my face, and at that moment I became wide awake and perceived
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 187 
 
 that I was thrown down, and wondered what was the meaning. I 
 Bpoke as if awake, but felt that these words were put into my mouth : 
 
 " ' Thou Almighty Jesus Christ, who hy Thy great mercy deigns 
 to come to so great a sinner, make me worthy of Thy grace.' 
 
 " I kept my hands together in prayer, and then a hand came for* 
 ward and firmly pressed mine. I continued my prayer, saying : 
 
 " ' Thou hast promised to have mercy upon all sinners ; Thou 
 tanst not but keep Thy word.' 
 
 " At that moment I sat in Tlis bosom, and saw him face to face. 
 It was a face of holy mien and altogether indescribable, and He smiled 
 BO that I believe His face had indeed been like this when He lived 
 on earth. . . . 
 
 " So I coiacluded it was the Son of God Himself, who came down 
 with the noise like thunder, who prostrated me on the ground, and 
 who called forth the prayer." 
 
 It is plain that he was afflicted with such painfully vivid 
 and intensely real dreams as occur when the reason is begin- 
 ning to totter, and when it is impossible to distinguish be- 
 tween dreaming and waking consciousness. "I was the 
 whole night, nearly eleven hours," he says on one occasion, 
 "neither asleep nor awake, in a curious trance." Every 
 one must have experienced at some time or another what 
 Spinoza long ago observed, that the scenes of a dream may 
 persist for a time as hallucinations after awakening, and 
 produce a feeling of helplessness or even terror. When the 
 nervous system is prostrated and the threatenings of mental 
 disorder declare themselves, these half-waking hallucinations 
 acquire a distressing reality, and not unfrequently a disgust- 
 ing or appalling character. While dreams may be considered 
 a temporary insanity, insanity is a waking dream, and there 
 is a border-land in which they are so confounded as to be 
 indistinguishable. This confusion is abundantly exemplified 
 in the records of Swedenborg's dreams and visions at this 
 time: 
 
 * I had horrible dreams ; how an executioner roasted the heads 
 which he had struck off, and hid them one after another in an oven, 
 which was never filled. It was said to be food. He was a big wom- 
 an who laughed, and had a little girl with her."
 
 188 ESSAYS. 
 
 Horrible and impious thoughts often caused him agonies 
 of suffering : 
 
 " I had troublesome dreams about dogs, that were said to be my 
 countrymen, and which sucked my neck without biting. ... In the 
 morning I had horrid thoughts, that the Evil One had got hold of 
 me, yet with the confidence that he was outside of me and would let 
 me go. Then I fell into the most damnable thoughts, the worst that 
 could be." 
 
 He is persecuted with sensual dreams on many occasions: 
 
 " April 26 and 27. — I had a pleasant sleep for eleven hours, with 
 various representations. A mamed woman persecuted me, but 1 es- 
 caped. It signifies, that the Lord saves me from persecution and 
 temptation. 
 
 " A married woman desired to possess me, but I preferred an un- 
 married. She was angry and chased me, but I got hold of the one I 
 liked. I was with her, and loved her ; perhaps it signifies my 
 thouguts." 
 
 Some of the entries which follow, made in the month of 
 May, are of a very mysterious character; and how much of 
 what they relate may be vision and how much reality, it is 
 impossible to say : 
 
 " On the 20th I intended going to the Lord's Supper in the Swed- 
 ish Church, but, just before, I had fallen into many corrupt thoughts, 
 and my body is in continuous rebelhon, which was also represented 
 to me by froth, which had to be wiped away. . . . 
 
 " I nevertheless could not refrain from going after women, though 
 not with the intention of committing acts, especially as in my dreams 
 I saw it was so much against the law of God. I went to certain places 
 with Professor Ohheck. ... In one day I was twice in danger of my 
 life, so that if God had not been my protector I should have lost my 
 life. The particulars I refrain from describing." 
 
 Certain passages in the Diary are of such a character as 
 to be quite unlit for publication, or suitable only for publica- 
 tion in a medical journal ; and they are omitted therefore by 
 his biographer. 
 
 A person may of course dream extraordinary di'eams, and
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 189 
 
 keep a record of them, without justly incurring th-^ suspicion 
 of any mental derangement. The notable circumstances in 
 connection with Swedenborg's dreamings are the indistin- 
 guishable blending of dreams and waking visions, and the 
 entire faith with which he accepts and interprets them as 
 spiritual revelations. As a peculiarly endowed being having 
 gifts which no other man had, and the mission to proclaim 
 the church of a New Jerusalem, which he believed himself 
 to have, he looked upon the wildest and most obscene of his 
 dreams as of mighty spiritual significance ; even in the 
 dirtiest details of an unchaste dream he discovers a wonder- 
 ful spiritual meaning. Had it not been for this spiritual 
 interpretation of his dreams and visions, probably no one 
 would ever have doubted the derangement of his intellect. 
 But what is there which, coming in the name or guise of the 
 spiritual, some persons will not be found to accept? Those, 
 however, who reject angrily the supposition of any unsound- 
 ness of mind must admit, if they know any thing of its mor- 
 bid phenomena, that if he was not at this time fast gliding 
 into madness he imitated exceeding well the character of the 
 incipient stages. But there is no need of conjecture where 
 something like certainty is attainable. 
 
 At this period there occurs a break of three weeks in the 
 Diary, the interruption corresponding with what appears to 
 have been a positive attack of acute mania. He was lodging 
 at the house of a person named Broekmer, in Fetter Lane, 
 who, twenty-four years afterward, related the following 
 story to Mathesius, a Swedish clergyman, by whom he was 
 questioned on this subject : 
 
 brockmer's narrative. 
 
 " In the year 1744, one of the Moravian Brethren, named Seniff, 
 made acquaintance with Mr. Emanuel Swedenborg while they were 
 passencfers in a post-yacht from Holland to England. Mr. Sweden- 
 borg, who was a God-fearing man, wished to be directed to some 
 house in London where he might live quietly and economically. Mr 
 Seniff brought him to me, and I cheerfully took him in. 
 9
 
 190 ESSAYS. 
 
 "Mr. Swedenborg behaved very properly in my house. Every 
 Sunday he went to the church of the Moravian Brothers in Fetter 
 Lane. He kept solitary, yet came often to me, and in talking ex- 
 pressed much pleasure in hearing the Gospel in London. So he 
 continued for several months approving of what he heard at the 
 chapel. 
 
 " One day he said to me he was glad the Gospel was preached to 
 the poor, but complained of the learned and rich, who, he thought, 
 must go to hell. Under this idea he continued several months. He 
 told me he was writing a small Latin book, which would be gratui- 
 tously distributed among the learned men in the Universities of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 " After this he did not open the door of his chamber for two days, 
 nor allow the maid-servant to make the bed and dust as usual. 
 
 " One evening when I was in a coffee-house, the maid ran in to 
 call me home, saying that something strange must have happened 
 to Mr. Swedenborg. She had several times knocked at his door, 
 without his answering, or opening it. 
 
 " Upon this I went home, and knocked at his door, and called 
 him by name. He then jumped out of bed, and I asked him if he 
 would not allow the servant to enter and make his bed. He an- 
 swered ' No,' and desired to be left alone, for he had a great work on 
 hand. 
 
 " This was about nine in the evening. Leaving his door and go- 
 ing up-stairs, he rushed up after me, making a fearful appearance. 
 His hair stood upright, and he foamed round the mouth. He tried to 
 speak, but could not utter his thoughts, stammering long before he 
 could get out a word. 
 
 " At last he said that he had something to confide to me privately, 
 namely, that he was Messiah, that he was come to be crucified for 
 the Jews, and that I (since he spoke with difllculty) should be his 
 spokesman, and go with him to-morrow to the synagogue, there to 
 preach his words. 
 
 " He continued : ' I know you are an honest man, for I am sure 
 you love the Lord, but I fear you believe me not.' 
 
 •' I now began to be afraid, and considered a long time ere I re- 
 plied. At last, I said : 
 
 " ' You are, Mr. Swedenborg, a somewhat aged man, and, as you 
 tell me, have never taken medicine; wherefore I think some of a 
 right sort would do you good. Dr. Smith is near ; he is your friend 
 and mine ; let us go to liim, and he will give you something fitted 
 for your state. Yet I shall make this bargain with you : if the angeJ
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG 191 
 
 appears to me and delivers the message you mention, I shall obey 
 the same; if not, you shall go with me to Dr. Smith in the morn- 
 ing.' 
 
 " He told me several times the angel would appear to me, where- 
 upon we took leave of each other and went to bed. 
 
 " In expectation of the angel, I could not sleep, hut lay awake the 
 whole night. My wife and children were at the same time very ill, 
 which increased my anxiety. I rose about five o'clock in the morning. 
 
 " As soon as Mr. Swedenborg heard me move overhead he jumped 
 out of bed, threw on a gown, and ran in the greatest haste up to 
 me, with his nightcap half on his head, to receive the news about 
 my call. 
 
 " I tried by several remarks to prepare his excited mind for my 
 answer. He foamed again and again, ' But how —how — how ? ' Then 
 1 reminded him of our agreement to go to Dr. Smith. At this he 
 asked me straight down, ' Came not the vision ? ' I answered ' No ; 
 and now I suppose you will go with me to Dr. Smith.' He re- 
 plied, ' I will not go to any doctor.' 
 
 " He then spoke a long while to himself. At last he said : ' I am 
 now associating with two spirits, one on the right hand and the other 
 on the left. One asks me to follow you, for you are a good fellow ; 
 the other says I ought to have nothing to do with you, because you 
 are good for nothing.' 
 
 " I answered, ' Believe neither of them, but let us thank God, who 
 has given us power to believe in His Word.' 
 
 " He then went down-stairs to his room, but returned immediately 
 and spoke, but so confusedly that he could not be understood. I 
 began to be frightened, suspecting that he might have a penknife or 
 other instrument to hurt me. In my fear I addressed him seriously, 
 requesting him to walk down-stairs, as he had no business in my 
 room. 
 
 " Then Mr. Swedenborg sat down in a chair and wept like a child, 
 and said, ' Do you believe that I will do you any harm ? ' I also be- 
 gan to weep. It commenced to rain very hard. 
 
 " After this I dressed. When I came down I found Mr. Sweden- 
 borg also dressed, sitting in an arm-chair, with a great stick in his 
 hand and the door open. He called, ' Come in, come in,' and waved 
 the stick. I wanted to get a coach, but Mr. Swedenborg would not 
 accompany me. 
 
 " I then went to Dr. Smith. Mr. Swedenborg went to the Swed- 
 ish envoy, but was not admitted, it being post-day. Departing 
 thence, he pulled ofi" his clothes and rolled himself in very deep mud
 
 192 ESSAYS. 
 
 in a gutter. Then lie distributed money from Ms pockets among tlie 
 crowd which had gathered. 
 
 " In this state some of the footmen of the Swedish envoy chanced 
 to see him, and brought him to me very foul with dirt. I told him 
 that a good quarter had been taken for him near Dr. Smith, and asked 
 him if he was willing to live there. He answered, ' Yes.' 
 
 " I sent for a coach, but Mr. Swedenborg would walk, and with 
 the help of two men he reached his new lodging. 
 
 " Arrived there, he asked for a tub of water and six towels, and, 
 entering one of the inner rooms, locked the door, and spite of all en- 
 treaties would not open it. In fear lest he shoiild hurt himself the 
 door was forced, when he was discovered washing his feet, and the 
 towels all wet. He asked for six more. I went home, and left six 
 men as guards over him. Dr. Smith visited him, and administered 
 some medicine, which did him much good. 
 
 "I went to the Swedish envoy, told him what had happened, 
 and required that ilr. Swedenborg's rooms, in my house, might be 
 sealed. The envoy v/as infinitely pleased with my kindness to Mr. 
 Swedenborg, thanked me very much for all my trouble, and assured 
 me that the sealing of Mr. Swedenborg's chamber was unnecessary, 
 as he had heard well of me, and had me in perfect confidence. 
 
 " After this I continued to visit Mr. Swedenborg, who at last had 
 only one keeper. He many times avowed his gratitude for the trou- 
 ble I had with him. He would never leave the tenet, however, that 
 he was Messiah. 
 
 " One day when Dr. Smith had given him a laxative, he went out 
 into the fields and ran about so fast that his keeper could not follow 
 him. Mr. Swedenborg sat down on a stile and laughed. "When his 
 man came near him, he rose and ran to another stile, and so on. 
 
 " When the dog days began, he became worse and worse. After- 
 ward I associated very little with him. Now and then we met in the 
 streets, and I always found he retained his former opinion." 
 
 Mathesius adjoins to his copy this testimony : 
 
 "The above account was word by word delivered to me by Mr. 
 Brockmer, an honest and trustworthy man, in the house and presence 
 of Mr. Burgman, minister of the German Church, the Savoy, London, 
 while Swedenborg lived. Arox M^thesics. 
 
 "Stoba Hallfara, August 21, 1796.'" 
 
 Here then is a well-anthenticated narrative of an outbreak 
 of acute insanity sncQ a3 any medical psychologist, acquainted
 
 EMANUEL SWEDEXBORG. 193 
 
 ■^vitli what had gone before, might have almost ventured to 
 predict. Some of Swedenborg's admirers liave tried eagerly 
 but vainly to impugn the veracity of Brockmer's story, as re- 
 lated by Mathesius ; it was not only confirmed by other in- 
 quirers, but it accords singularly with the revelations which 
 Swedenborg makes of his mental state in the Diary, and it 
 assuredly bears in its circumstances the evidence of truth. 
 Admitted, as it must be, to be true in its main features, there 
 remains no doubt that Swedenborg was insane at the time 
 when he claimed to have been first admitted to intercourse 
 with the spiritual world. After the acute attack had passed 
 oflf, as it did in a few weeks, was he perfectly restored, or 
 was he still the victim of a chronic mania or monomania, 
 such as not unfrequently follows acute madness? There 
 were two circumstances in this case which would have pre- 
 vented an experienced physician from looking forward with 
 hope to an entire recovery. The first was the age of the 
 patient, for Swedenborg was at the time fifty-six years old ; 
 and the second was that his madness was not a strange 
 calamity coming on him unexpectedly from without, foreign 
 to his nature, extrinsic, but that it was native to his charac- 
 ter, the result of an unsound development of its tendencies — 
 it was a natural, an intrinsic madness. In the former case 
 the ego^ regaining power, may throw off the intruding aflflic- 
 tion and reestablish itself: in the latter the mania absorbs 
 and becomes the ego^ wherefore no return to entire sanity is 
 possible. It was not then scientifically probable that Swe- 
 denborg would recover ; it was, on the contrary, probable 
 that he would suffer for the rest of his life from the mono- 
 maniacal form of chronic mania. The few records in his Diary 
 which occur after his acute attack tend to confirm the pre-* 
 Bumption of a continued derangement. 
 Thus : 
 
 *' July 1 and 2. — There happened to me something very ourious. 
 I came into violent shudderings, as when Christ showed me His 
 Divine mercy. The one fit followed the other ten or fifteen times.
 
 194 ESSAV^S. 
 
 I expected to be tlirown on my face as before, but this did not occur. 
 At last, trembling, I was lifted up, and with my hands I felt a 
 (human) back. 1 felt with my hands all along the back, and then 
 the breast. Immediately it lay down, and I saw in front the counte- 
 nance also, but very obscurely. I was then kneeling, and I thought 
 to myself whether or not I should lay myself down beside it, but this 
 I did not, for it seemed as if not permitted. 
 
 " The shudderings came all from the lower parts of my body up 
 to my head. This was in a vision when I was neither waking nor 
 Bleeping, for I had all my thoughts about me. It was the inward 
 man separated from the outward that was made aware of this." 
 
 WLat, then, are the conclusions, broadly stated, whicb we 
 may hold to be thus far established? That in the year 1744 
 or 1745 Swedenborg suddenly abandoned all his former 
 pursuits and interests; that he claimed to have been then 
 admitted to the spiritual world, and to have the power 
 of talking with angels; that coincidently with this great 
 change and new mission he was writing what an unpreju- 
 diced person must affirm to he the product of madness; 
 and, lastly, that he had undoubtedly an acute attack of mad- 
 ness. Is it not reasonable to infer that his new and strange 
 pretensions were the outcome of his madness? JS'ot so, his 
 disciples may perhaps say; for throughout his preyious career 
 he had been gradually rising from the earthly to the spiritual ; 
 he had mounted step by step from the study of the lowest 
 forms of matter to the investigation of its highest organic 
 evolution ; and his new mission was the bright and blessed 
 development, the glorious inflorescence, of a consistent life. 
 No question that it was the natural evolution of his previous 
 intellectual career ; a self-sufficiency knowing no bounds had 
 risen to the preposterous pretensions of monomania, and an 
 imagination habitually running riot had at last run mad. To 
 lire a life of complete seclusion, to pursue contentedly an 
 individual line of thought, isolated from communion with 
 men, estranged from their doings and interests, is nowise the 
 way to preserve a sound mental equilibrium ; it is indeed the 
 sure way to engender a morbid style of thought and feeling.
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 195 
 
 to lead to a moral or intellectual monomania. Speculative 
 philosophers, impracticable theorists, self-inspired prophets, 
 and other able men unhappily insulated by undue self-esteem, 
 may retire to the solitude of their chambers, and launch forth 
 their systems, their theories, their denunciations, or their 
 scorn; but the greatest men, who have preserved a healthy 
 tone of mind and displayed the highest intellectual energy, 
 have not separated themselves from other men, but have 
 lived in sympathy with them, and have moved and had their 
 being among thera. As outward expression of idea is essen- 
 tial to its clearness of conception, so a life of action is essen- 
 tial to the highest life of thought. It is in the social as it is in 
 the bodily organism : the surrounding elements of the struct- 
 ure ever exert a beneficial controlling influence on any ele- 
 ment which has taken on an excessive individual action ; and 
 if this escape from such modifying influence, its energy runs 
 into disease, and it becomes an excrescence. 
 
 In July, 1845, Swedenborg returned to Sweden, and soon 
 afterward resigned his assessorship, so that he might be at 
 liberty to devote himself to the new function to which he 
 imagined that he had been especially called. Accordingly, 
 all scientific studies and pursuits he now abandoned entirely ; 
 all worldly honors and interests he counted worthless ; he 
 devoted himself to that sacred oflSce " to which the Lord 
 Himself has called me, who was graciously pleased to mani- 
 fest Himself to me. His unworthy servant, in a personal ap- 
 pearance in the year 1743 ; to open in me a sight of the 
 spiritual world, and to enable me to converse with spirits and 
 angels. . . . Hence it has been permitted me to hear and see 
 things in another life which are astonishing, and which have 
 never come to the knowledge ~of any man, nor entered into 
 his imagination. I have been there instructed concerning 
 different kinds of spirits^ and the state of souls after death — 
 concerning hell, or the lamentable state of the unfaithful — 
 concerning heaven, or the most happy state of the faithful, 
 und particularly concerning the doctrine of faith, which ia
 
 196 ESSAYS. 
 
 acknowledged throughout heaven." He is well aware that 
 manj persons will affirm that such intercourse is impossible, 
 and that it must be mere fancy and illusion on his part, but 
 for all this he cares not, seeing that "he has seen, heard, and 
 had sensible experience " of what he declares : 
 
 " I am aware that many who read these pages will believe that 
 they are fictions of the imagination; but I solemnly declare they are 
 not fictions, but were truly done and seen ; and that I saw them, not 
 in any state of the mind asleep, but in a state of perfect wakeful- 
 ness." 
 
 And he goes on to declare, calmly and seriously, the 
 fundamental purpose of his high mission — that through him 
 the Lord Jesus Christ made His second advent for the insti- 
 tution of a new church described in the Revelation under 
 the figure of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, with regard to these wonderful 
 voyages to the spiritual world, that Swedenborg did not look 
 upon it as totally unlike, far away and distinct from, the 
 natural world of which we have experience — as a country 
 high up above tlie clouds, where people are continually occu- 
 pied in doing the reverse of what they had any pleasure in 
 doing on earth, and indeed are altogether so changed in char- 
 acter, habits, and pursuits, that, if they can affirm their 
 identity, they must be very much astonished at themselves. 
 On the contrary, he considered the spiritual world to be the 
 life and cause of the natural world, which corresponded with 
 it throughout. 
 
 " The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world col- 
 lectively and in every part ; for the natural world exists and subsists 
 from the spiritual world, just as an efi'ect does from its cause. . . . 
 
 *' Whenever I have been in company with angels, the objects in 
 heaven appeared so exactly like those in the world, that I knew no 
 other than that I was on earth. . . . 
 
 " There is so little difference between the life of the spirit and the 
 life of the body that those who have died can hardly realize that a 
 change has been made. . . . 
 
 " A man is equally a man after death, and a man so perfectly that
 
 EMAKUEL SWEDENBORG. 197 
 
 he knows no other than that he is still on earth. He sees, hears, and 
 Bpeaks as on earth ; he walks, runs, and sits as on earth ; he eats and 
 drinks as on earth ; he sleeps and wakes as on earth ; he enjoys 
 sexual delights as on earth ; in short, he is a man in general and 
 every particular as on earth, whence it is plain that death is a con- 
 tinuation of life, and a mere transit to another plane of being." 
 
 All things in heaven, he says, appear to he in place and 
 space exactly as in the world, but all changes of place are 
 effected by the mind. When an angel or spirit desires to go 
 from one place to another, the desire effects its own accom- 
 plishment, and he arrives sooner or later, according as he is 
 eager or indifferent. "Approximations in the spiritual 
 world arise from similitudes of mind, and removals from dis- 
 similitudes ; and thus spaces are merely signs of inner differ- 
 ences. . . . From this case alone the hells are altogether 
 separated from the heavens." 
 
 Now Swedenborg maintained that to him it was given, 
 by the opening of his spiritual sight, to enter the spiritual 
 world and to see what was going on there, while he was still 
 in the natural world ; and that so completely that the spirits 
 "knew no other than that I was one of themselves. An 
 experience like mine no one from creation has had." It is 
 not without interest, nor without significance, to observe 
 what a superior position he assigns himself in the spiritual 
 world : he is the seer in heaven as on earth ; can see through 
 the angels at a glance and teach them many things, while 
 they in vain attempt to contend with him in argument — are 
 ignominiously worsted if they pretend to do so. The won- 
 der is, how any one can sincerely accept as revelation some 
 of the absurdities and obscenities which he relates, how the 
 nature of many of his spiritual discoveries can fail to destroy 
 faith in his seership. On the theory of his madness, the 
 exalted position which he serenely assumes, his assertion of a 
 correspondence between the spiritual and the natural world, 
 and the character of his revelations, are quite consistent. lie 
 lived and moved in the world, and saw it with his bodily
 
 198 ESSAYb. 
 
 eyes as other persons see it ; but his disordered intellect was 
 continually occupied in spiritualistic reflections to which his 
 disordered imagination gave shape; the morbid creations 
 being projected outward and then represented as events of 
 the spiritual world. Formerly he had devoted his energies 
 to scientific speculations, and had elaborated wonderful theo- 
 ries of Nature ; now that he had discarded all scientific pur- 
 suits, and confined himself entirely to the study and the 
 mystical interpretation of the Scriptures, he framed a more 
 wonderful theory of the spiritual world. His eyes were in- 
 deed opened to see what other people could not see, but the 
 gift was nowise so singular as he imagined ; every monoma- 
 niac being similarly gifted. What to him are space and 
 time, the laws of Nature, the hard-won experience of man- 
 kind, the social interests and obligations ? He is above law, 
 above criticism, above error — has a divine right to be always 
 right ! 
 
 In 1749 Swedenborg published the first volume of his 
 "Arcana Coelestia," the work being completed in eight quarto 
 volumes, the last of which appeared in 1756. Most of this 
 time he appears to have spent in London. It would be vain 
 to attempt to give an adequate idea of the variety of subjects 
 handled by him and of the marvelous experiences which he 
 records ; it must suffice to select and present a few illustra- 
 tions from Mr. White's numerous quotations. 
 
 The following are from the " Spiritual Diary." The first 
 of them indicates the disturbed nights which he often had : 
 
 " When I was about to go to sleep, it was stated that certain spirits 
 were conspiring to kill me ; but because I "was secure, I feared noth- 
 ing, and fell asleep. About the middle of the night I awoke, and felt 
 that I did not breathe from myself, but, as I believed, from Heaven. 
 It was then plainly told me that the whole hosts of spirits had con- 
 spired to suffocate me, and as soon as they had made the attempt a 
 heavenly respiration was opened in me, and they were defeated." ! 
 
 Another feature of his troubled state of mind seems to 
 ha^e been a kleptomaniacal tendency :
 
 EMANUEL SWEDEXBORG. 199 
 
 " 1 observed that certain spirits often wished to excite me to steal 
 things of small value, such as are met with in shops ; and so great 
 ■was their desire that they actually moved my hand. I ascertained 
 that in the world these spirits had been tradespeople, who by various 
 artifices defrauded their customers, and thought it allowable. Some 
 had been celebrated merchants, at which I wondered. . . , When 
 they were with me, as soon as I saw any tbing in shops, or any pieces 
 of money, or the like, their cupidity became manifest to me ; for 
 thinking themselves to be me, they urged that I should stretch forth 
 my hand to steal, quite contrary to my usual state and custom." 
 
 Hallucinations of taste and smell were not wanting : 
 
 *' It has sometimes, yea rather often, happened that what had 
 tasted well, has been changed in my mouth to what is nasty, or to 
 another taste. Twice, if I mistake not, sugar tasted almost like salt. 
 A liquid I drank had infused into it a salty taste expressed by the 
 spirits from the juices of the body. . . . The taste of man is thus 
 changed according to the phantasies of the spirits. 
 
 The spirits plot to make him commit suicide : 
 
 " It was often observed, that when I was in the streets, evil spirits 
 wished to cast me under the wheels of carriages ; the efibrt was, in 
 fact, habitual to them. To-day I noticed particularly that they were 
 in the constant endeavor to do so. I was enabled to perceive that 
 evil spirits made the attempt, and that indeed such mischief is their 
 life. 
 
 " There was a certain woman (Sarah Hesselia) who inwardly cher- 
 ished such an aversion to her parents that she meditated poisoning 
 them. She took into her head that I was willing to marry her, and 
 when she found out that she was mistaken, she was seized with such 
 hatred that she thought of killing me, had it been possible. She died 
 not long afterward. 
 
 " Some time before the faculty of conversing with spirits was 
 opened in me, I was impelled to commit suicide with a knife. The 
 impulse grew so strong that I was forced to hide the knife out of sight 
 in my desk. 
 
 "I have now discovered that Sarah Hesselia was the spirit who 
 excited the suicidal impulse as often as I saw the knife. From this 
 it may appear that men may be unconsciously infested with spirits 
 who hated them during their life on earth." 
 
 It will be observed how Swedenborg, whose sense of right
 
 200 ESSAYS. 
 
 and wrong was clear and sharp, attributes to wicked spirits 
 the evil impulses and feelings which sprang from his disorder. 
 "It is given to me to know instantly," he says, "the char- 
 acter of spirits, and not to believe that the feelings which 
 they insinuate are my own, as people generally do, who credit 
 themselves with whatever occurs in their minds." Truly, a 
 saving faith, which evidently withheld him from the commis- 
 sion of many an overt act of insanity. 
 
 What he writes of the Quakers, of whom his spiritual ex- 
 perience had given him a very bad opinion, may be quoted 
 here, in order to show the kind of filthy imaginings which 
 some persons are content to accept as his spiritual revela- 
 tions. 
 
 " When I awoke in the night, I found in the hair of my head a 
 multitude of very small snakes. It was perceived that Quaker spirits 
 had been plotting against me while I was asleep, but without effect. 
 It was only by their phantasies that they were among my hair where 
 I felt them. 
 
 " The secret worship of the Quakers sedulously concealed from the 
 world was made manifest. It is a worship so wdcked, execrable, and 
 abominable, that were it known to Christians they would expel Qua- 
 kers from society, and permit them to live only among beasts. 
 
 " They have a vile communion of wives. The women say they are 
 possessed by the devil, and that they can only be delivered if men 
 filled with tlie Holy Ghost cohabit with them. Men and women sit 
 round a table, and wait for the influx of the spirit. . . . When a 
 woman feels the devil, she selects a man and retires with him," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 "It was inquired whether the Quakers engaged in these obscene 
 rites with their daughters and maid-servants, and it was said that 
 they did." 
 
 These atrocious and most absurd charges bear on their 
 face the evidence of the sink in which they were engendered; 
 they are the disgusting spawn of a diseased fancy dwelling 
 with a pathological sympathy upon sexual obscenities after 
 sexual power had been exhausted by excesses. There is 
 really no excuse which can be offered for them but the sad 
 excuse of a diseased mind. If his followers be possessed of
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 201 
 
 •orae sure canon by wliich they are able to distinguish such 
 iniquitous assertions from those which they deem unquestion- 
 able truths of the spiritual worlds, and to pronounce them 
 errors or hallucinations, they should declare it ; for they as- 
 suredly rest on the same evidence as the seer's other spiritual 
 revelations, and as the revelations of the monomaniac — the 
 ipse dixit of the narrator. 
 
 Swedenborg's sublime self-sufficiency comes strongly out 
 in his intercourse with the prophets, apostles, and other dis- 
 tinguished persons whom he meets in the spiritual world; he 
 stands in no sort of awe or reverence of them, hardly shows 
 them common respect. "Why, indeed, should he, seeing that 
 he declared himself to have a mission equal to, or higher 
 than, that which any of them had fulfilled ? Believing that it 
 was through his instrumentality that the Lord Jesus Christ 
 had made his second advent for the institution of the new 
 church signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation, 
 his coming was second only, if it was second, to the first ad- 
 vent. "Whether he still had the notion, which dm'ing liis 
 acute attack of insanity he expressed, that he was actually 
 the Messiah, does not clearly appear ; it is certain, however, 
 that he believed the second coming to have taken place in 
 his person, and the reign of the new church to have com- 
 menced. He had fulfilled what John had mystically foretold 
 in the Eevelation; and had been a witness of the last judg- 
 ment which took place in the world of spirits in the year 1757. 
 "Very characteristic of the placid monomania with which he 
 was afflicted is the manner in which he speaks of those whose 
 life and works placed them in a position of rivalry to him ; 
 his serene superiority enables him to discover at a glance the 
 evil passions with which they have been possessed. Observe 
 what he says of David and of Paul : " David is possessed 
 with the lust of being chief in heaven. . . . Persuaded that he 
 was a god, he proclaimed himself one." 
 
 It was natural, then, that he should have no kind feeling 
 to Swedenborg :
 
 202 ESSAYS. 
 
 " When I went to bed, evil spirits formed a design to destroy me, 
 and for this end took measures to call out hell and every malicious 
 spirit. . . . They evoked David also, who appeared before me in a 
 dense cloud." 
 
 Assuredly we have a right to wonder how those wh.o ac- 
 cept Swedenborg's claim of a Divine mission contrive to rec- 
 oncile these revelations of David's character with the char- 
 acter of the "man after God's own heart." It is impossible 
 to accuse Swedenborg of conscious imposture ; no impostor 
 would have ventured on gravely making such incredible 
 statements; it follows, therefore, either that David was an 
 impostor, or that Swedenborg was mad. Vague and windy 
 declamation will not obscure the issue ; for if the matter be 
 sincerely sounded, it will appear that from the one or the 
 other conclusion there is no escape. After all, the theory of 
 insanity will be found the most acceptable explanation or ex- 
 cuse, seeing that, if it be not admitted, many holv men besides 
 David must be deemed to have been nothing better than im- 
 postors. Here is what he says of Paul and his pretensions : 
 
 " A certain devil fancied himself the very devil who deceived 
 Adam and Eve. ... It was given me to hear Paul speaking with 
 him and saying he wished to be his companion, and that they would 
 go together and make themselves gods. 
 
 " During my sleep I have been infested by adulterers, and this 
 devil and Paul have lent there aid to my infesters, and so stubbornly 
 held me in an adulterous train of thought that I could scarcely release 
 myself. . . . Hence Paul's nefarious character was made known. 
 
 " Paul is among the worst of the apostles, as has been made 
 known to me by large experience. . . . Besides, he connected him- 
 self with one of the worst devils, would fain rule all things, and 
 pledged himself to obtain for him his end. It would be tedious for 
 me to write all I know about Paul." 
 
 We are not concerned here to vindicate Paul's character, 
 who certainly, though he called himself the least of the apos- 
 tles, did not undervalue his importance ; we are concerned 
 only with the revelation which Swedenborg makes of his own 
 sublime self-sufl5ciency in heaven as on earth. Luther, hear- 
 
 I
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG 203 
 
 mg of his power wliile in tlie natural world to converse with 
 those in the spiritual world, came with others to see him, and 
 asked many questions ; learning, however, that the church 
 had come to an end and that a new church had commenced, 
 be grew very indignant ; but after a while his railing ceased, 
 and he received the doctrine of the new Jerusalem, and ridi- 
 culed his former tenets as in direct opposition to the "Word. 
 Calvin is in like manner refuted by Swedenhorg, and rebuked 
 in the following energetic words : 
 
 " You talk impiously : begone, you wicked spirit ! You are in 
 the spiritual world, and do you not know that predestination implies 
 that some are appointed for heaven and some for hell ? Have you 
 any other idea of God than as of a tyrant, who admits his favorites into 
 his city, but condemns the rest to a slaughter-house ? Be ashamed 
 then, and blush for your doctrine I " 
 
 The extracts which have been made will be suflScient to 
 exhibit the ridiculous side of Swedenborg's revelations of his 
 intercourse with the spiritual world, and the insane extrava- 
 gance of his pretensions ; nevertheless, it would be a great 
 mistake to suppose that all which he says in his " Arcana 
 Ccelestia " is equally foolish ; it cannot, indeed, be denied 
 that there is much of a very different character. Take, for 
 example, his acount of character, whicb he asserts to be 
 the only passport to heaven ; it is unchangeable after death : 
 wherever there is a man in whose heart benevolence rules, 
 there is an angel ; and wherever there is a man in whose 
 heart selfishness rules, there is a devil, who will remain so 
 for all eternity. "Ample experience enables me to testify 
 that it is impossible to communicate heavenly life to those 
 who have led an infernal life on earth." 
 
 " Some who believed that they could easily receive divine truths 
 after death from the lips of angels, and therewith amend their 
 hahits, were subjected to the experiment. Some of them understood 
 the truths they heard, and appeared to accept them ; but presently, 
 when left to themselves, they rejected, and even argued against, what 
 they had learned. Others denied the truths as quickly as they were 
 spoken. . . . They are told for their instruction that heaven is not
 
 204 ESSAYS. 
 
 denied to any one by the Lord, and that if they please they may go 
 there and stay as long: as they like. "When, however, they make the 
 attempt, they are seiz-ed at the threshold with such anguish that, in 
 their torment, they cast themselves down headlong." 
 
 From these and similar experiments, it is rendered cer- 
 tain that no change in character is possible after death ; to 
 transform an evil life into a good life would be to destroy it 
 altogether. Surely there is a far higher sense of truth than 
 there is in the vulgar fancy that in changing worlds there 
 will be a change of character ; that a man, in taking leave of 
 this life, will take leave of his tastes, feelings, habits, and 
 opinions, and undergo suddenly a revolution of nature 
 equivalent to the destruction of his identity and the creation 
 of a new being. "Were such a transformation to take place, 
 it is quite plain that the individual would not know himself 
 any more than the butterfly knows the caterpillar which it 
 has been, and that no one else would know him : that he 
 would not need, therefore, to concern himself greatly about 
 a future state of immortality in which he would be so com- 
 pletely cut off from his earthly life as to have no real relation 
 to it. That only which has been heavenly here will be heaven- 
 ly hereafter. What, in truth, is the heavenly reward of a vir- 
 tuous life but the love of virtue and the unhindered practice 
 of virtuous acts ? What the punishment of hell but the delight 
 in vice and the unrestrained indulgence of a vicious nature ? 
 Whatever his eternal future, each man on earth has heaven 
 or hell in and around him, and will assuredly take one or the 
 other with him wherever he goes, and not find it there. Ac- 
 cordingly, Swedenborg asserts that no one is punished in the 
 world of spirits for deeds done on earth. An evil spirit is only 
 punished for the crimes he then and there commits. " IS^ev- 
 ertheless, there is no actual difference, wliether it is said 
 that the wicked are punished for their crimes on earth, or 
 for the crimes they commit in the world of spirits ; because 
 every being preserves his character through death, and at- 
 tempts to repeat the deeds done in the flesh."
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 205 
 
 He observed that the angels at once discovered a man's 
 autobiography in his structure : 
 
 " When a man's deeds are discovered after death, his angels, who 
 are inquisitors, look into liis face, and extend their examination over 
 his whole body, beginning with the fingers of each hand. I was 
 surprised at this, and the reason was thus explained to me : 
 
 " Every volition and thouglit of man is inscribed on his brain ; 
 for volition and thought have their beginnings in the brain, whence 
 they are conveyed to the bodily members, wherein they terminate. 
 "Whatev^er, therefore, is in the mind is in the brain, and from the 
 brain in the body, according to the order of its parts. Thus a man 
 writes his life in his pJiysique, and thus the angels discover his auto- 
 biography in his structure." 
 
 Is there not here the assertion of a great scientific truth, 
 whether it be a truth of the spiritual world or not ? The his- 
 tory of a man is his character, and his character is written on 
 his organization, and might be read there had we but senses 
 acute enough to decipher the organic letters. There is not a 
 thought of the mind, not a feeling of the heart, not an aspi- 
 ration of the soul, not a passion that finds vent, not a deed 
 which is done, that is not graved with an unfailing art in the 
 structure of the body ; its every organ and the constituent 
 elements of each organ grow to the fashion of their exercise, 
 and there is nothing covered that might not be revealed, 
 nothing hid that might not be known. Is not this a high, 
 solemn, and appalling thought ? If there be a resurrection 
 of the body, then the opening of the book at the day of judg- 
 ment will be an unfolding of the everlasting roll of its re- 
 membrance ; but if the body rise not again, still its life has 
 not passed issueless, for every act has blended with and be- 
 come a part of the energy of Nature, increasing or diminish- 
 ing the evil or good in it, and will never through all time 
 have an end. 
 
 What Swedenborg says concerning the mode of life neces- 
 sary in order to enter heaven, deserves to be quoted as an in- 
 dication of the practical spirit which he had inherited from his 
 shrewd and rather worldly father. To live for heaven it is
 
 206 ESSAYS. 
 
 not at all necessary that a man cease to live outwardly as 
 others do ; he may grow rich, keep a plentiful table, dwell in 
 a fine house, wear splendid apparel, and enjoy the pleasures 
 of the world and the flesh : 
 
 " It is quite allowable that a man should acquire and accumulate 
 wealth, provided he employ no cunning or wicked artifice ; that ho 
 should eat and drink delicately, provided he do not make life consist 
 in eating and drinking; that he should dwell in magnificence accord- 
 ing to his estate ; that he should converse as others do, frequent 
 places of amusement, and busy himself in worldly afi'airs. There is 
 no necessity for him to assume a devout aspect, a sad countenance, 
 or to hang his head ; he may be glad and cheerful ; nor is he com- 
 pelled to give to the poor, except so far as he is moved by aflfection. 
 In one word, he may live outwardly as a man of the world, and such 
 conduct will not hinder his admission to heaven, if only he thinks 
 interiorly in a becoming manner of God, and in business deals right- 
 eously with his neighbor. 
 
 " From much conversation and erperience among angels, it has 
 been given me to know most certainly that the rich enter heaven as 
 easily as the poor ; that no one is excluded from heaven, because he has 
 lived in abundance, and that no one is admitted because he has been 
 poor. Eich and poor alike have entered heaven, and many who 
 have been rich enjoy greater glory and happiness than those who 
 have been poor. The poor do not go to heaven on account of their 
 poverty, but on account of their life ; for whether a man be rich or 
 poor, he is what his life is, and if he live well he is received, and if 
 he live ill he is rejected." 
 
 A far more easy and practicable religion for every-day 
 life than the religion which Swedenborg claimed to have 
 carried forward to a new and higher development. It has 
 been charged against the moral precepts of Christianity, as 
 taught in the New Testament, that they concern them- 
 selves with suft'ering only, not with doing, inculcating passiv- 
 ity, but nowise helping in the active work of life, and there- 
 fore, if carried out in practice, placing the good man entirely 
 at the mercy of the bad. They do not, it is said, constitute 
 a complete code of doctrine sufficient for guidance and direc- 
 tion in the practical struggle of existence, but require to be 
 supplemented by a series of maxims applicable to the develop*
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 207 
 
 ment and formation of character under the duties and respon- 
 sibilities of active life. Certainly it is not in the New Testa- 
 ment that men find the principles requisite for the successful 
 conduct of life on the exchange, at the bar, in the senate, or 
 in any other department of eager competition and strife. It 
 would scarcely be correct to say that Swedenhorg has fur- 
 nished a practical code of morality deriving its life and power 
 from the morality of the New Testament ; but he has through- 
 out his writings produced such a mass of sound criticism and 
 instructive commentary as constitutes an important contribu- 
 tion to a practical system of Christian ethics. He is inconsist- 
 ent, he contradicts himself, he puts forward strange and unac- 
 ceptable doctrines ; still his clear sincerity, and marvellous 
 powers which he frequently displays in his exposition of the 
 Scriptures, call forth irresistibly a feeling of admiration, and 
 almost constrain, not a belief in his spiritual pretensions, 
 but an acquiescence in Emerson's description of him as a 
 colossal soul, " one of the mastodons of literature." It would 
 be impossible, by the quotations which we are able to make 
 here, to give a faithful idea of his moral reflections and script- 
 ural commentaries ; while reading some of them one is con- 
 strained to look back from time to time to his history, and to 
 the character of some of his other writings, in order to recall 
 the madness of his pretensions. The extract which follows, 
 dealing with the scriptural maxim to love your neighbor as 
 yourself, will serve to show the characteristically practical 
 turn which Swedenborg gives to it. It is not the individual 
 who is to be loved, but the goodness and truth in him that 
 are to be loved : 
 
 " Set before you three persons, or ten, whom you may be selecting 
 for some domestic office, and what other criterion have you but the 
 goodness and truth which are in them ? Man is man from goodness 
 and truth. Or, if you are selecting one or two to enter your service, 
 do you not inquire into the will and intellect of each ? The neighbor 
 you can love will be the one you will choose on this occasion. A 
 Man Devil may present the same appearance as a Man Angel. Bene- 
 fiting the Man Angel for the sake of goodness and truth in him, 
 and not benefiting the Man Devil, is charity ; for charity consists
 
 208 ESSAYS. 
 
 in punishing the Man Devil if he does evil, and in rewarding the 
 Man Angel. 
 
 " A man is a neighbor according to the kind and measure of his 
 goodness. "Whoever does not distinguish mankind by the test of 
 goodness may be deceived in a thousand instances, and his charity 
 confounded and annulled. ... It is commonly believed that a broth- 
 er or a kinsman is more a neighbor than a stranger, and a fellow- 
 countryman than a foreigner ; but birth does not make one person 
 more a neighbor than another, not even a father or a mother, nor 
 education, nor kin, nor country. Every one is a neighbor according 
 to his goodness, be he Greek or gentile. . . . 
 
 " Charity, that is really genuine, is prudent and wise. Other 
 charity is spurious, because merely impulsive, gushing from the will 
 without qualification in the light of the understanding." 
 
 "When an evil-minded person takes the coat which belongs 
 to another, it is no charity to give him a cloak also — the char- 
 ity is to get him punished as expeditiously as possible ; and 
 the worst use to put great possessions to is to sell them in 
 order to give to the poor, merely because they are poor. 
 Such is the evolution to which the passive morality of Christi- 
 anity comes in the church of the New Jerusalem ; and it is 
 not improbable that some of those conscientious men who sin- 
 cerely accept Swedenborg as a prophet find no little comfort 
 of mind in a code which, while deriving its inspiration from 
 the morality of the Xew Testament, yet adapts it to the 
 exigencies of daily life in the world where the wicked abound, 
 and must be held in some kind of subjection. Prime-Minis- 
 ter Hopken, who had known Swedenborg for two-and-forty 
 years, and who averred that in all his experience he did not 
 recollect a character of more uniform excellence — always 
 contented, never fretful nor morose — said of his religion : 
 
 "I have sometimes told the king that if ever a new colony were 
 formed, no better religion could be established there than that devel- 
 oped by Swedenborg from the Sacred Scriptures, and for these rea- 
 Bons : 
 
 " I. This religion, in preference to, and in a higher degree than 
 any other, must produce the mo.^t honest and industrious subjects; 
 for it places, and places properly, tJie worslivp of God in u^es. 
 
 " 11. It causes t^e least fear of death; death being regarded mere-
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 209 
 
 (f as a transition from one state to another, from a worse to a better 
 Bituation. Upon his principles, I look upon death as of hardly- 
 greater consequence than drinking a glass of water." 
 
 One virtue of Swedeuborg, wluch lie shares with Bacon 
 and Goethe, and which should be made mention of here, waa 
 that he detested, and gave vigorous expression to his detesta- 
 tion of, metaphysics, as barren and fallacious, transcending 
 the sphere of thought, and by means of which theology had 
 been drawn from its simplicity and made artificial and cor- 
 rupt. It was seldom that his ])ractical instincts deserted him ; 
 he was certainly not, in any just sense of the word, a mystic. 
 
 Thus much as to the revelation which Swedenborg makes 
 ol himself in his writings. It will be interesting, before con- 
 cluding, to ascertain the sort of impression which he pro- 
 duced on those who had personal intercourse with him. Un- 
 fortunately, the principal information which we have on this 
 point comes from those who have been specially interested in 
 giving it, and whose testimony is not free from the bias of 
 their belief in his pretensions. Stories in confirmation of his 
 miraculous powers are related as wonderful and true, while 
 stories discrediting them are put down as false and spiteful. 
 The vulgar notion that a madman must be incoherent, or 
 dangerous, or furious, prepared those who had read his ex- 
 traordinary revelations to find something strange in his be- 
 havior ; and when they were introduced to a calm and cour- 
 teous old gentleman, who conversed sensibly on all ordinary 
 subjects and related his extraordinary spiritual experiences 
 with a quiet and assured confidence, they were naturally sur- 
 prised, and found it hard to believe that his stories had not 
 some real foundation. How little warranted by facts such a 
 conclusion was, an hour's experience in a lunatic asylum 
 would have proved to them. Then, again, it is not likely that 
 any one, not particularly interested in him, would be at the 
 pains to put on record their experience of him. Mrs. Cottle 
 is constantly publishing extraordinary interpretations of 
 Scripture, and distributing them far and wide, as Sweden- 
 borg distributed his books to bishops, deans, clergy, univer-
 
 210 ESSAYS. 
 
 sities, and persons of eminence in different countries ; but no 
 one thinks it worth while to enter upon a formal refutation 
 of Mrs. Cottle, or to record for the benefit of generations to 
 come their opinion of her lunacj. What is self-evident needs 
 no demonstration. When we do happen to get the evidence 
 of disinterested witnesses, who had had opportunities of 
 lengthened observation, it proves that the suspicion of mad- 
 ness was excited by his singular behavior. On one of his 
 voyages from Sweden to England, when he had kept his 
 berth almost the whole time, and had been often heard 
 speaking as if in conversation, the steward and cabin-boy in- 
 formed the captain that their passenger was out of his mind. 
 " Out of his mind or not," said the captain, " as long as he is 
 quiet I have no power over him. He is always reasonable 
 with me, and I have the best of weather when he is aboard." 
 Those that go down to the sea in ships are not free from su- 
 perstition, and Swedenborg's presence on board seems to 
 have been thought lucky, as associated with a quick passage. 
 At one time he appears to have run some danger of being sent 
 to a lunatic asylum, his nephew Bishop Filenius and some 
 of the clergy having entertained the idea on account of the 
 oifence which his heretical doctrines were to the established 
 religion. Happily the design, if it were ever seriously enter- 
 tained, came to naught : it would have been a great pity and 
 a greater injustice had it been carried into eifect. Neither 
 science nor philosophy had yet apprehended all things that 
 are in heaven and earth, and it is always well, therefore, to 
 examine without prejudice, rather than to suppress with 
 hasty violence, any novel opinions, however strange and in- 
 credible they may seem. The history of the progress of 
 knowledge is a history of the incredible becoming credible, 
 of the strange being found true. 
 
 For a short time, in 1761, Swedenborg took an active part, 
 as a member of the House of ISTobles, in the deliberations of 
 the Swedish diet. He evinced great interest in the questions 
 which were discussed, spoke with credit to himself, and waa 
 listened to with respect ; but soon perceiving, as he thought.
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 211 
 
 tliat envy, liatred, and self-seeking, prevailed among the mem- 
 bers, he became dissatisfied, and ceased to attend. Instead 
 of living and laboring among men, helping by patient en- 
 durance and wise insight to guide and lead them in the right 
 way — being in the world, if not of it — he retired to his medi- 
 tations and visions, where he had matters all his own way. 
 Thus he abandoned a life of action, whereby the just balance 
 of the faculties is maintained, and went willingly the way of 
 his madness. 
 
 When in Sweden he lived in a small house, which he had 
 built himself in one of the suburbs of Stockholm, his servants 
 being a gardener and his wife, who lived in the house. He 
 gave very little trouble, his diet being very simple ; he mado 
 his own cofi'ee, which he drank freely day and night, and his 
 dinner was usually a small loaf broken into boiled milk. He 
 slept between blankets, not liking sheets, and, as he informed 
 the Eev. A. Ferelius, "never washed his face or hands, and 
 never brushed his clothes, for no dirt or dust would stick to 
 him." His bodily health was usually good ; sometimes, how- 
 ever, he suffered from severe toothache, which he attributed 
 to hypocritical spirits who beset him. On one occasion Paul 
 was the wicked spirit that thus troubled him. A most wicked 
 adulterer was with him some days, and produced pains in 
 the toes of his left foot, loins, and breast. Devils tried to 
 enter his brain and kill him, but the Lord saved him. So it 
 was with other pains, which ceased when the evil spirits 
 which induced them were routed. He paid little regard to 
 day and night, sometimes sleeping through the one and work- 
 ing through the other, and he would occasionally lie in bed 
 entranced for days together. He was often heard talking 
 aloud in the night, and when asked what had been the -mat 
 ter, Avould answer that evil spirits had blasphemed, and that 
 he was speaking against them zealously. 
 
 " Sometimes he would weep bitterly, and cry, with a loud voice, 
 'Lord, help me ! Lord, my God, forsake me not ! ' When seen 
 in these states, he appeared as sick. When delivered from them, ha 
 would say, ' God be eternally praised ! All suffering has passed
 
 212 ESSAYS. 
 
 awav. Be comforted, my friends : nothing haj>pens to me -which the 
 Lord does not permit.' 
 
 " After one of these trials, he -went to bed and did not rise for 
 several days. His servants grew imeasy ; perhaps he had died of 
 fright ; and thev debated whether they should not summon his rela- 
 tives, and force open the door. At length the gardener climbed to the 
 window, and, to his great relief, saw his master turn in bed. Kext 
 day he rang the bell. The wife went to the room, and related how 
 anxious they had been, to which he cheerfully replied he had been 
 very well, and had wanted for nothing." 
 
 He "was accessible and affable to visitors, M-omen excepted.* 
 and talked freely concerning his intercourse with the spiritual 
 ■world, speaking with such an air of gravity and sincerity as 
 prevented any unbecoming display of incredulity. Neverthe- 
 less, he exhibited considerable shrewdness in evading at- 
 tempts on the part of believers to obtain a positive test of 
 his wonderful powers. A certain student of Upsal, Xicolas 
 Collin, who, having read his books with admiration, visited 
 him. requested as a great favor that he would procure him 
 an interview with his brother who bad died a few months 
 before. Swedenborg inquired what his motives were for de- 
 siring such a communication. " I confessed I had none be- 
 sides gratifying brotherly affection, and an ardent wish to ex- 
 plore a scene so sublime and interesting to a serious mind. 
 He replied that my motives were good, but not suflBcient ; 
 that if any important spiritual or temporal concern of mine 
 had been the case, he would then have solicited permission 
 from the angels, who regulate those matters." Lavater, who 
 wrote to him from Zurich with great respect and sincerity, 
 putting four definite questions which he was eager to have 
 answered, was not more successful. Swedenborg did not 
 reply to the letter; and a second letter, similarly earnest and 
 pressing, wliich Lavater sent, was also left unanswered, not- 
 withstanding the profound expression of reverence and the 
 urgent entreaty which it contained. To a minister of state 
 
 ♦He would see no lady alone, asserting that "women are artful and mi^ht 
 pretend that I sought their closer ac/juainiance."' Evidently he had not failed tc 
 profit by the mistress-keeping experience of his younger days.
 
 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 213 
 
 who applied to him for information concerning a certain 
 young prince who had disappeared, without any one know- 
 ing what had become of him, he replied that the prince was 
 in a society of the spiritual world to which he could not 
 readily gain admission ; that the angels had no knowledge 
 of his state ; and that the matter was not of sufficient impor- 
 tance to warrant an application to the Lord about it. Pro- 
 fusely liberal in his revelations when there was no oppor- 
 tunity of checking his stories, he evaded such direct ques- 
 tions as would have brought his pretensions to the test of 
 experiment. It is, as it ever has been, a circumstance inci- 
 dental to manifestations of the supernatural that they fail to 
 take place just when, in order to confound the skeptical, they 
 ought to take place, and that they are needlessly abundant 
 in the presence of those who are so full of faith that they do 
 not require to be convinced in order to testify of them. No 
 wonder, then, that so many persons who find it nowise con- 
 trary to the order of Nature to believe in the existence of 
 fanatics, madmen, and impostors, claiming supernatural pow- 
 ers and witnessing to supernatural stories, do find it alto- 
 gether contrary to their experience of the order of Nature to 
 believe in supernatural events. 
 
 About the beginning of August, 1771, Swedenborg visited 
 England for the last time. He took possession of the lodg- 
 ings in Cold Bath Fields which he had occupied on a former 
 occasion, at the house of one Richard Shearsmith, a wig-maker. 
 There, on Christmas Eve, he had a stroke of apoplexy which 
 deprived him of the power of speech and produced paralysis 
 of one side. From this attack he rallied for a time, recovering 
 his speech; but on the 29th of March, 1772, he gently expired, 
 having, it is said, predicted on wliat day he should die. "He 
 was as pleased," said the servant, " as I should have been if I 
 was going to have a holiday, or going to some merry-making." 
 
 Thus passed over to the silent majority one the story of 
 whose life, notwithstanding the eccentricities which it ex- 
 poses, cannot fail to excite a kindly interest. There would 
 be no advantage, but on the contrary a certainty of misinter* 
 10
 
 214 ESSAYS. 
 
 pretation, in attempting to make a summary estimate of hi* 
 character; this is best exhibited in the history of his life. 
 The trLth assuredly lies in the mean between the opposing 
 views taken of him. On the one hand, there are those who 
 see in him an inspired seer, and stubbornly refuse to see any 
 insanity ; on the other hand, there are those who see only 
 the insanity, and dismiss him with pity or contempt. There 
 is truth in both these extreme opinions, error in both of 
 them. That Swedenborg did, as he asserted, enter the 
 spiritual world and have daily intercourse with angels there, 
 and see and hear the things which he declared that he saw 
 and heard, is an opinion which it would be a humiliation 
 and shame to discuss seriously in this century, unless some 
 reason can be given for supposing that all the delusions of 
 insanity are broken glimpses of a higher region of existence 
 than our sound senses can take cognizance of. In that case, 
 however, it might still be open to dispute whether Sweden- 
 borg's heaven discovers any higher scenes and events, or a 
 more exalted order of beings, than the world in which we 
 live ; for it seems truly rather d vulgar and a commonplace 
 invention, such as any person of oj'dinary ingenuity giving 
 the rein to his fancy, and untroubled by any doubt of him- 
 self, might easily imagine. Certainly there is nothing in his 
 revelation which by its inherent power and grandeur inti- 
 mates even, much less testifies to, a superhuman insight; 
 nothing which is inconsistent or incompatible with the wild 
 imaginations of a person the balance of whose faculties has 
 been lost. Like the painter's picture of a lion beneath which 
 it was necessary to write " This is a lion," Swedenborg's 
 representation of the spiritual world needs a like inscription 
 in order to be known. Looking simply to the intellectual 
 power displayed in its manufacture, we are bound to ac- 
 knowledge that it cannot be compared for a moment with 
 that which is exhibited in a drama of Shakespeare, or even 
 with that which we may recognize in a superior novel. Com- 
 pare the visions of Swedenborg, who had so many times 
 been in heaven, with the visions of Dante, " the man who
 
 [ EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. 215 
 
 had seen hell ; " do they not show by the side of these like 
 the wild, dreary, and incoherent flights of a dreaming or a 
 delirious imagination? How immeasurably below the true 
 and noble creations of a great imagination, rightly cultivated, 
 working calmly under the restraints of law, and revealing its 
 insight and strength in its repose and self-control ! Consider 
 the ridiculous height to which Swedenborg exalts himself; 
 he is as much superior to the inhabitants of heaven as he is 
 to the dwellers upon earth, for, while possessing, as a natural 
 man, all the privileges of spiritual insight which the angels 
 have, and easily surpassing them In spiritual knowledge, he 
 can in a moment become invisible to them, by returning to his 
 natural self. That he has found disciples who devoutly accept 
 to the uttermost these pretensions proves that it is impossible 
 to be too bold in speculating on the credulity of mankind. 
 
 On the other hand, it cannot be denied that among the 
 many absurd things he has written, there are also many 
 words of wisdom, fruitful veins of original thought, and pas- 
 sages profoundly suggestive even to the best of minds. Be- 
 cause a man's mind is unsound, all which he says is not, 
 therefore, folly. It is a vulgar and mischievous error, spring- 
 ing from the grossest ignorance of insanity, to suppose that a 
 person who speaks rationally and behaves with propriety 
 cannot be mad, as it is also to suppose madmen necessarily 
 incapable of rational intellectual exertion; athwart the 
 murky atmosphere of madness lightning-flashes of the deepest 
 insight occasionally shoot, and the light of genius is some- 
 times only the light of a falling star. The recognition of 
 Swedenborg's hallucinations and delusions, and the rejection 
 of the cardinal doctrines of his later years, on the ground of 
 insanity, by no means warrant the rejection of all that he has 
 developed from his false premises or engrafted on them. 
 Moreover, though he was insane, he was capable of taking 
 care of himself sufficiently well, and of managing his affairs 
 with prudence. 
 
 Perhaps it was fortunate for the prophet of the Church of 
 the iTew Jerusalem that he lived in Sweden, and in the last
 
 216 ESSAYS. 
 
 eentarv ; for, had he lived at the present day in England, it is 
 very donbtfiil whether he would have been left in undisturbed 
 possession of his freedom and his property. There might, 
 indeed, have been no small danger of the extinction of his 
 prophetic mission in a lunatic asylum. "Whether the world 
 would have suffered loss, or gained any thing by the violent 
 suppression of his doctrines, are questions concerning which 
 conjectures must be futile; but my conviction unquestionably 
 is that it would have suffered loss. In truth, no one has yet 
 sufficiently considered how much originality and individual- 
 ity are systematically suppressed in lunatic asylums, and how 
 hard it would have gone with some of the most distinguished 
 reformers of past generations if their lots had been cast in 
 these days when there are scattered over the land so many 
 overgrown and overcrowded asylums. Can any one, after 
 reading the Journal of George Fox, believe that he would not, 
 had he lived now, have found his way into a lunatic asylum ? 
 Thus would Quakerism have been blasted in its germ, and the 
 world robbed of all the benefit which it has reaped from that 
 form of religious belief. Of autobiographies, one of the most 
 interesting is the autobiography of Benveniito Cellini, but the 
 perusal of it cannot fail to convince a candid reader that Ben- 
 venuto Cellini, had he lived now, would have been shut up in 
 a lunatic asylum long before he had produced his finest work 
 of art. Had not Comte been removed from Esquirol's asylum 
 when there seemed no prospect of his recovery, and taken 
 home to the care of his wife, it may be deemed certain that 
 the world would never have had the system of the Positive 
 Philosophy. The power of the stepping out of the beaten 
 track of thought, of bursting by a happy inspiration through 
 the bonds of habit and originating a new line of reflection, is 
 most rare, and should bo welcomed and profited by, in spite 
 of its oftentimes becoming extravagant, and sometimes de- 
 generating into the vagaries of insanity. The individuals who 
 manifest these impulses of development may not see their 
 true relations, and may carry them to a ridiculous extreme : 
 but they are still, perhaps, the unconscious organs of a new
 
 EMANUEL SWEDExVBORG. 217 
 
 birth of thought, which shall plant itself and become largely- 
 fruitful in the minds of others possessed of a larger philo- 
 sophic capacity, but not, perhaps, capable of the originating in- 
 spiration ; for the men who perceive and coordinate the ten- 
 dencies of development are not commonl j the men who origi- 
 nate them. The originality is truly an inspiration, coming 
 we know not whence, and the very opposite in action to that 
 power of habit which enthralls the mental life of the majority 
 of mankind. There are antagonistic forces at work in the 
 determination of the orbit of human thought as there are ip 
 the determination of the orbits of the planets — a centrifugal 
 or revolutionary force giving the expansive impulse of new 
 ideas, and a centripetal or conservative force manifest in the 
 restraining influence of habit ; the resultant of their opposing 
 actions being the determination of the orbit of the evolution 
 of mind. Is it not, then, beyond measure sad to think that pre- 
 cious germs of originality may be blighted by the practice, too 
 prevalent in this era, of treating as insanity any marked devia- 
 tion from the common standard of thought or action? Na- 
 ture, we know, shows a most lavish and reckless waste of life, 
 of fifty seeds often bringing not even one to bear, but herein 
 does not set an example which it is man's duty or interest to 
 follow ; for the purpose or nisus of his being is to improve 
 upon Nature, to carry it through human nature to a higher 
 evolution. In accomplishing patiently and faithfully this 
 function he must work by a far other method than that 
 which self-inspired seers into self-created spiritual worlds 
 adopt; but, while rejecting their method, he may still grate- 
 fully gather the good fruits of their lives, and profit by the in- 
 struction which is to be obtained from the study of even the 
 most erratic orbits. Now, as ever, and forever, it is true that 
 the wrath, the folly, the madness of men are made to praise 
 Him whom sun and moon, fire and heat, winter and summer, 
 mountains and hills, seas and floods, the green things of tho 
 earth, and the holy and humble men of heart, bless, praise, and 
 magnify forever, but whom systems of theology and the 
 prophets thereof have so much misrepresented and degraded.
 
 I 
 
 m.— THE THEORY OF VITALITY.* 
 
 It lias been the cnstom of certain disciples of the so- 
 called Positive Philosophy to repudiate as extravagant the 
 well-known opinion of Protagoras, that man was the meas- 
 ure of the universe. If the proposition be understood of 
 man as he is known to himself by the revelations of self- 
 consciousness, there is unquestionably great reason for its 
 rejection ; but, if it be applied to him as an objective study, 
 it is manifest that modern science is tending to prove it by 
 no means so absurd as it has been sometimes deemed. Day 
 by day, indeed, is it becoming more and more clear that, as 
 Sir T. Browne has it, man " parallels Nature in the cosmog- 
 raphy of himself;" that, in truth, "we are that bold and 
 adventurous piece of IsTature which he that studies wisely 
 learns in a compendium what others labor at in a divided 
 piece and endless volume." t The " heaven-descended yyuOi 
 aeavrSp " acquires new value as a maxim inculcating on man 
 the objective study of himself. 
 
 The earliest cultivators of Grecian philosophy — Thales, 
 Anaximenes, and Diogenes of Apollonia — did seek objec- 
 tively for the apxf] or first principle of things common to 
 man and the rest of Nature. This primitive kind of induc- 
 tion was soon, however, abandoned for the easier and speed- 
 ier deduction from the subjective facts of consciousness ; so 
 that, as the German philosopher is said to have done with 
 
 * British and Foreign Medico- Chir. Review, No. 64, 1863. 
 t Beligio Medici.
 
 I 
 
 THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 219 
 
 tliG elephant, man constructed the laws of an external world 
 out of the depths of his own consciousness. Because an in- 
 dividual was conscious of certain passions which influenced 
 his conduct, he fancied that natural bodies were affected in 
 their relations to one another by like passions. Hence the 
 phenomena of Nature were explained by sympathies, antip- 
 athies, loves, discords : oil had an antipathy to water ; 
 Nature abhorred a vacuum ; Love was the creative force 
 which produced development and harmony ; Hate, the de- 
 structive force which produced disorder and discord. The 
 method was only a phase of the anthropomorphism by which 
 the Dryad was placed in the tree, the Naiad in the fountain, 
 and the gods of mankind were created by man. 
 
 The result of such a method was inevitable. "When in a 
 language there is but one word for two or three different 
 meanings, as happens in all languages before the cultivation 
 of science — when, for example, the loadstone is said to attract 
 iron, the earth to attract heavy bodies, the plant to attract 
 moisture, and one mind to attract another, without further 
 differentiation — tliere necessarily is an ambiguity about 
 words; disputes thereupon arise, and the unavoidable issue 
 is sophistry and sophists. That was a result which the in- 
 genious and active mind of Greece soon reached. In scien- 
 tific nomenclature it is constantly becoming necessary to dis- 
 card words which are in common use, because of their vague- 
 ness and want of precision; for as it is with life objectively, 
 and as it is with cognition or life subjectively, so must it be 
 with the language in which the phenomena are expressed. 
 A scientific nomenclature must rightly present a progress 
 from the general to the special, must reflect in its increasing 
 specialization the increased specialization of human adapta- 
 tion to external Nature. As might be expected, Plato and 
 Aristotle both recognized the evil in Greece, and both tried 
 to check it. The metaphysics, analytics, etc., of the latter 
 have been described as a dictionary of general terms, " the 
 process throughout being first to discover and establish defi-
 
 220 THE THEORY 
 
 nite meanings, and then to appropriate to each a several 
 word." * But it is in vain to attempt to establish words ex- 
 cept as living outgrowths of actual facts in ISTature. The 
 method was a mistaken one ; there was not an intending of 
 the mind to the realities of external Xature, and knowledge 
 was barren, wanting those "fruits and invented works" 
 which Bacon pronounces to be, as it were, " sponsors and 
 sureties for the truth of philosophy." 
 
 Much the same thing happened in the earlier part of the 
 Middle Ages. The mysticism and sophistry which then pre- 
 vailed, the endless and unprofitable but learned and ingenious 
 disputes concerning empty propositions and words which had 
 no definite meanings, might be said to represent the wasted 
 eflforts and unavailing strength of a blind giant. But as the 
 infant, moved by an internal impulse, at first strives uncon- 
 sciously for its mother's breast and draws its nourishment 
 therefrom, gradually awakening thereby to a consciousness 
 of the mother who supplies it, so the human mind for a time 
 gathered unconsciously the material of its knowledge from 
 Nature, until it was gradually awakened to a full conscious- 
 ness of the fruitful bosom which was supplying it. The al- 
 chemist, moved by his avarice and the instinct of a unity in 
 Nature, and the astrologer, moved by the feeling of a destiny 
 governing human actions, both lighted on treasures which, 
 though not then appreciated, were yet not lost; for of astrol- 
 ogy came astronomy, and from alchemy, in the fulness of 
 time, was born chemistry. In Roger Bacon, who successfully 
 interrogated Nature in the spirit of the inductive method, we 
 
 * Coleridge's Literary Correspondence. It i? for this attempt, praise- 
 worthy surely as far as it went, that Bacon is unduly severe upon Aristotle 
 in some parts. Thus : " And herein I cannot a littie marvel at the philoso- 
 pher Aristotle that did proceed in such a spirit of difference and coutradic* 
 tion toward all antiquity, undertaking not only to form new words of sci- 
 ence at pleasure, but to confound and extinguish all ancient wisdom." (De 
 Augmentis Scientiarum.) And again : " Aristotle, as though he had been 
 Of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not reign except the first thing 
 he did he killed all his brethi-en." (Ibid.) 
 
 \
 
 OF VITALITY. 221 
 
 see the human mind instinctively and, as it were, uncon- 
 sciously striving after the true source of knowledge ; while in 
 the Chancellor Bacon, who established the principles and 
 systematized the rules of the inductive philosophy, we see 
 It awakened to a clear apprehension of the necessity of doing 
 with design and method that which in an imperfect manner 
 it had for some time been blindly aiming at. But as it is 
 with the infant, so it is with humanity : action preceded con- 
 sciousness, and Bacon was the efflux of a spirit which pre- 
 vailed, and not the creator of it. 
 
 The method of investigation has accordingly been com- 
 pletely reversed. Instead of beginning with himself and 
 passing thence to external Xature, man begins with Nature 
 and ends with himself; he is the complex to which his in- 
 vestigations ascend step by step through progressively in- 
 creasing complications of the simple. Not only so, but the 
 necessity of studying himself objectively is fully recognized ; 
 it is not the subjective feeling of heat or cold in a feverish 
 patient, but the figure at which the thermometer stands, that 
 is now appealed to as the trustworthy index of the real tem- 
 perature. The development of the senses, or, in other words, 
 the increased specialty of human adaptation to external Na- 
 ture, has been, as the progress of science proves, the founda- 
 tion of intellectual advance ; the understanding has been de- 
 veloped through the senses, and has in turn constructed in- 
 struments for extending the action of the senses.* The tele- 
 scope has merely been a means for enabling the eye to pene- 
 trate into distant space, and to observe the motions of worlds 
 which the unaided vision would never have revealed ; by the 
 microscope the minute structure of tissues and the history of 
 
 * A great desideratum is a history of sucli development of the senses : 
 " Wir besitzen gar treffliche Werke Hber die Geschichte von Schlacbten 
 nnd Staatsformen, genaue Tagebucher von KSnigen und fleissige Verzeich- 
 Bisse von den SchOpfungen der Dichter. Aber den wichtigsten Beitrag za 
 einer Bildungsgeschichte des Menschen In der eingreifendsten Bedeutnng 
 des Wortes hat noch Niemand geliefert. Una fehlt eine Entwlckelung* 
 geschichte der Sinne."— Moleschott, Kreislauf des Lebens.
 
 222 THE THEORY 
 
 the little world of the organic cell have been made known ; 
 the balance has demonstrated the indestructibility of matter, 
 and has supplied to science the exactness of the numerical 
 method; and, in the electric stream, there has been found a 
 means of investigating nerve-action, like that which there ia 
 in polarized light for ascertaining the internal condition of 
 crystallized bodies. Who would have ventured to predict 
 some time since that it would ever be possible to measure 
 the speed at which an impulse of the will travels along the 
 nerves ? * And who will venture to say that it will not at a 
 future time be possible to measure the velocity with which 
 one idea calls up another in the brain ? Biology must plainly 
 of necessity be the last and most difficult study, for it pre- 
 supposes the other sciences as vital force supposes inferior 
 forces; but it is the evident tendency of advancing knowl- 
 edge to bring life more and more within the compass of sci- 
 entific investigation. And if it be sometimes made a reproach 
 to science, as it was by Comte, that it has not discovered the 
 laws of life, it may well rest calm under the censure, point- 
 
 * Snch an eminent physiologist as Miiller could venture to predict the 
 impossibility thereof. In his Physiology he says : " Wir werden auch wohl 
 Die die Mittel gewinnen die Geschwindigkeit der Nervenwirkung zu ermit- 
 teln da uns die Vergleich ungeheurer Entfernung felht aus der die Schnel- 
 ligkeit einer dem Nerven in dieser Hinsicht analogen Wirkung des Licht 
 berechnet ^yerden kann." With which compare Helmholtz: " Ueber die 
 Methoden kleinste Zeittheilchen zu messen," etc. 1850. 
 
 As long as physiologists considered it necessary to refer the operations 
 of the nerves to the extension of an impcnderahle or psychical principle, it 
 might well appear incredible that the rapidity of the stream should be 
 measurable within the limits of the animal body. At present we know, 
 from the investigations of Du Bois-Reymoud on the electro-motor proper- 
 ties of nerves, that the activity by which the propagation of a stimulus is 
 accomplished is closely connected with an altered arrangement of their ma- 
 terial molecules — perhaps even essentially determined by them. Accord- 
 ingly, the process of conduction in nerves may belong to the series of con- 
 tinuous molecular operations of ponderable bodies, in which, for example, 
 the conduction of sound in the air, or the combustion in a tube filled with 
 an expl'>sive mixture, is to be reckoned. It is not surprising therefore," 
 he adds, " that the speed of conduction should be very moderate." (Ueber 
 die Methoden, etc.)
 
 OF VITALITY. 223 
 
 ing to the history of the earth to show that iTature, having 
 done all else, required a long period before it accomplished 
 the evolution of life. 
 
 In spite, then, of a desire on the part of some persons to 
 separate biology from the other sciences, and, notwithstand- 
 ing the alarm occasionally displayed with regard to the dig- 
 nity of vitality, it is the certain tendency of advancing 
 knowledge to bring a science of life into close and indissolu- 
 ble relations with other sciences, and thus to establish in 
 cognition, or to reflect in consciousness, the unity which 
 exists in i^ature. When, in ancient times, life was assigned 
 to the stars, the air, the water, a sort of unity was recog- 
 nized, but recognized only by explaining Nature from a very 
 imperfect knowledge of man ; now the task is to explain man 
 on the basis of an increasing knowledge of Nature, and in 
 that way to demonstrate the unity of the whole. What must 
 be the result? Nothing less, indeed, than the reconciliation 
 of the ideal and the real, the identification of subjective and 
 objective. As life is a condition in which an intimate corre- 
 lation exists between the individual and Nature, it is evident 
 that, while Plato dealt only with ideas of the mind, his sys- 
 tem must remain comparatively unprofitable ; but it is evi- 
 dent also that, since we have learned to discover the laws or 
 ideas in Nature of which ideas in the mind are correlates, it 
 becomes possible to find in Nature an interpretation of 
 Plato's true ideas.* Once for all, it may perhaps be taken 
 for granted that the ideas of genius never can be meaningless ; 
 for its mental life is a reflection in consciousness of the un- 
 conscious life of Nature. How excellently has this been ex- 
 emplified in him who embodied in poetical form the scientific 
 spirit of this age I It was the great characteristic of Goethe, 
 
 * " But it is manifest tliat Plato, in his opinion of ideas as one that had 
 a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did descry 'that forms we»e the 
 true object of knowledge,' but lost the real fruit of his opinion by consider- 
 ing of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and de- 
 termined by matter ; and so turning his opinion on theology, wherewith aU 
 ilia natural philosophy is infected."— Z>e Aug. Scient.
 
 224 THE THEORY 
 
 as Lavater justly said of him, to give a poetical form to tho 
 real ; he proved, in fact, that science, in place of rendering 
 poetry impossible, opened a field for the highest poetry. His 
 romance of the Elective Afiinities {WahlverwandscJiaften) 
 starts from the chemical affinities of elements, and applies 
 Buch affinities to human beings, therein exactly reversing the 
 old method, which, starting from the phenomena of self-con- 
 sciousness, applied the passions of the human mind to the 
 phenomena of external Nature. Of Goethe it may be justly 
 said, that in him the ideal and the real were happily blended; 
 that he embodied the scientific spirit of the age, and yet was 
 in some respects an advance upon it ; that he was a prophecy 
 of that which must be a course of development of the human 
 mind if it be destined to develop. 
 
 The foregoing general sketch of the course and tendency 
 of knowledge is fully justified by the present aspect of sci- 
 ence. When Nature was first examined objectively the dif- 
 ferences in matter appeared manifold, and its modes of energy 
 or activity — ^that is, its forces — appeared many also. On a 
 more careful use of the senses, however — in fact, by the ap- 
 plication of the delicate balance to the products of combus- 
 tion — it became evident that one form of matter only disap- 
 peared to reappear in another form ; that it never perished, 
 but only changed. Elementary matter thus passes upward 
 into chemical and organic compounds, and then downward 
 from organic to chemical, and from chemical compounds to 
 its elementary condition. Out of dust man is formed by an 
 upward transformation of matter, and to dust he returns by 
 a retrograde metamorphosis thereof. Corresponding with 
 the changes in the form of matter are changes in its modes 
 of energy or its forces; to different combinations and ar- 
 rangements of molecules correspond diff'erent modes of en- 
 ergy. Force therefore is eternal, like matter, and passes 
 through a corresponding cycle of transformations. The cor- 
 relation and conservatior of forces, which have always been 
 more or less clearly recognized as necessities of human 
 
 I
 
 I OF VITALITY. 225 
 
 thought, are now accepted as scientific axioms, and are daily 
 receiving experimental demonstration.* 
 
 Though it may seem difficult to avoid the conclusion that 
 there is fundamentally but one natural force which manifests 
 itself under difi"erent modes, yet such a supposition at present 
 transcends the domain of science. As a matter of fact we are 
 compelled, in order to form a satisfactory conception of mat- 
 ter and its forces, to regard it under a twofold aspect. In 
 all our conceptions we imply a sort of dualism of power in 
 every body, though we are very apt to forget it in our gen- 
 eralizations. The hinges of gravitation, for example, keep 
 worlds in their orbits by opposing a centrifugal force which 
 would otherwise drive them afloat into space. The smaller 
 hinges of molecular cohesion hold together the infinitely 
 smaller bodies which we call molecules of matter, in opposi- 
 tion to a repulsive force, which, on the application of a little 
 heat, may drive them off into space, and in volatile sub- 
 stances does so drive them off without heat. It is the same 
 with liquids ; their diffusion power is similar in character to 
 the volatility of solids; while " colloids " are volatile, "crys- 
 talloids " are comparatively " fixed." There is a relation of 
 molecules to one another which we are compelled to repre- 
 sent in conception as the result of a force of repulsion or 
 tension. And as some sensible image is necessary for the 
 . mind in order to the clearness of a conception of the invisi- 
 ble, physics assumes between the ponderable molecules of a 
 body certain ethereal particles which are in a state of sta- 
 
 * Epicurus, Democritus, Aristotle, all upheld the eternity of matter; 
 the quotations from Lucretius and Persius on that subject are well known, 
 but the following passage from the De Av.gmentis is not so common : " All 
 things change, but nothing is lost. This is an axiom in physics, and holds 
 in natural theology; for as the sum of matter neither diminishes nor in- 
 creases, so it is equally the work of Omnipotence to create or to annihilate." 
 Other passages of like import occur in Bacon's writings. And the Bra- 
 nnnical doctrine is as follows : "The ignorant assert that the universe iu 
 the beginning did not exist in its author, and that it was created out of 
 nothing. O ye, whose hearts are pure, how could something come out of 
 nothing?"
 
 226 THE THEORY * 
 
 tionary oscillation, the degree of temperature of the body 
 being supposed to depend upon the intensitj of the active 
 force of these imponderable intermolecular particles. If the 
 body be suddenly and greatly compressed, these motions are 
 communicated to the imponderable ether outside the body, 
 and tension force thus becomes free force in manifest radia- 
 tion of beat. " What is heat in us," very justly said Locke, 
 " is in the heated body nothing but motion." When heat is 
 withdrawn from matter — that is, when the tension force be- 
 comes free, its molecules get nearer to one another — their 
 cohesion is greater ; thus vapors become liquids and liquids 
 become solids. 
 
 It seems probable that the necessity of regarding matter 
 under this twofold aspect of attraction and repulsion is owing 
 to man's inability, as being himself a part of Xature, to form 
 a conception of Nature as a whole. He must necessarily re- 
 gard things in relation to himself; for as he exists only in 
 relation to Xature, and as every phase of consciousness is an 
 expression of this relation, it is plain that one of the elements 
 of the relation cannot free itself, and from an independent 
 point of view watch unconcernedly things as they really are. 
 Thus, though we speak of passivity and activity, they are 
 really not different kinds of action, but different relations of 
 the same kind of action. Whatever be the cause, and how- 
 ever doubtful the philosophical validity of the distinction, 
 we are compelled to regard matter in this twofold relatiol. 
 One aspect of the relation we describe as passive, statical, 
 cohesion, or, to use the generic term, attraction ; the other 
 is active, dynamical, tension, or, to use the generic term, re- 
 pulsion. Attraction plus repulsion of molecules constitutes 
 our conception of matter ; and, in observation of its modes 
 of energy, attraction is recognized in gravitation, cohesion, 
 magnetism, affinity, love, while repulsion is found in the cen-' 
 trifiigal force, in heat, in electricity, in antipathy, and hate. 
 
 It is in rising to the department of chemical compounds 
 that attraction is found under a new and special phase as
 
 I 
 
 OF VITALITY. 22l 
 
 eliemical affinity. But, wheu tlie chemical union of two mol- 
 ecules into a single one takes place, a diminution of the ten- 
 sion force surrounding each molecule must occur, and, accord- 
 ing to the law of the conservation of force, an equivalent of 
 another force must be set free. This happens in the produc- 
 tion of heat and electricity ; for, as Faraday has shown, 
 chemical action cannot take place without the development 
 of electricity. The amount of force liberated in a simple 
 chemical combination will be the equivalent of the tension 
 force lost. "When one atom of carbon combines with one atom 
 of oxygen, a definite quantity of tension force surrounding each 
 molecule disappears, and a definite quantity of heat is accord- 
 ingly produced. When two molecules separate in chemical de- 
 composition, they necessarily make passive or latent so much 
 active force; so much heat becomes so much tension force. 
 But furthermore, in a chemical decomposition we have the 
 resolution of that very intense and special force, chemical 
 affinity itself; so that the force set free will, one would sup- 
 pose, fiir exceed that which becomes latent as tension force 
 around the molecules. We know not why two molecules 
 should chemically combine ; we accept as a fundamental law 
 of their nature this higli, special, and powerful form of at- 
 traction ; but we do know that, when chemical decomposition 
 takes place, a little chemical force must be resolved into 
 a large display of inferior force. It is a fiict authenticated 
 by Faraday, that one drop of water contains, and may be 
 made to evolve, as much electricity as under different modes 
 of display would suffice to produce a lightning-flash. The 
 decomposition of matter is the resolution of force, and in 
 such resolution one equivalent of chemical force will corre- 
 spond to several equivalents of inferior force. Thus chemical 
 force, though correlated with the physical forces, may be 
 taid to be of a much higher order than they are. 
 
 In the still higher stage of matter in a state of natality, 
 we meet with chemical combination of a much more complex 
 character than occurs in inorganic matter ; attraction appears
 
 228 THE THEORY 
 
 under its most special and complex form. Matter, which in 
 its elementary condition might occupy some space, is so 
 blended or combined as to occupy a minimum ot space ; and 
 force, which, under a lower mode, might suffice perhaps to 
 illuminate the heavens, is here confined within the small 
 compass of an organic cell or of a speck of protoplasm. "We 
 have to do, however, with organic matter under two forms — 
 as dead and as living matter, as displaying energy of its own, 
 or as displaying no energy. Dead organic matter has ceased 
 to act, and it is now acted upon ; it is at the mercy of the 
 forces which surround it, and immediately begin to eflfect its 
 dissolution. Heat hastens decomposition, because in the 
 separation of the constituents of organic matter into the 
 ultimate inorganic products — carbonic acid, ammonia, and 
 water — a certain amount of active force must become latent 
 as the tension force of these molecules ; and this force the 
 heat supplies. There is also the force of the chemical affinity 
 of the oxygen of the air for the oxidizable elements of the 
 substance ; and the combination is necessarily attended with 
 the production of heat. The heating value of organic matter 
 will accordingly increase with the quantity of oxidizable ele 
 ments; but the matter is by no means so simple as it might 
 at first sight appear to be. Suppose the atom of carbon with 
 which an atom of oxygen combines was previously in com- 
 bination with, for example, an atom of hydrogen; and the 
 question is, whether the amount of heat produced will be th'e 
 same as though the atom of carbon had been free ? In reality 
 it wiL not ; it must be less, because in the separation of the 
 carbon atom and the hydrogen atom so much active force 
 must become tension force — that is, so much heat must dis- 
 appear or become latent ; and that loss of heat will neces- 
 sarily counterbalance a part of the heat produced, or the 
 decrease of tension force which occurs, through the combi- 
 nation of the atom of carbon with the atom of oxygen. It is 
 this consideration which appears to invalidate some experi- 
 ments made and conclusions come to with regard to animal 
 heat.
 
 OF VITALITY. 229 
 
 But there is another consideration. In this mere burning 
 or decomposition of organic matter, or that which represents 
 the passive, statical, or attractive phase of vitality, the active 
 force whicli results is due partly to force from without, and 
 not solely to the liberation of force latent in the matter. Ex- 
 ternal forces have, as it were, been pulling it to pieces. 
 What, then, on the principle of the conservation of force, 
 becomes of that intense chemical force which is implied in 
 the organic nature of the material, that power which holds 
 it together as a specific material differing in properties from 
 all kinds of inorganic matter ? Though dead, the chemical 
 composition of organic substance is the same as when alive ; 
 and its future destiny is entirely dependent on the circum- 
 stances in which it may be placed. In the air, it is true, it 
 will undergo decomposition into inorganic products ; but, if 
 it be surrounded with the conditions of life, if it be exposed 
 to the influence of higher forces, by being given as food to 
 some animal, it does not go downward, but upward, and 
 somehow takes on life again. It is plain what becomes of 
 the statical force under the latter circumstances. But, in the 
 decomposition of organic matter in the air and the correlative 
 resolution of force, it is not so evident what becomes of all 
 the force which must be liberated. That it returns to general 
 Nature can admit of no doubt; but does it all appear as heat? 
 4- part of it must necessarily do so, becoming latent as the 
 tension force of the molecules of the ultimate products of its 
 decomposition, and the rest is liberated under some form or 
 other, if not entirely as heat. There is some reason to believe, 
 however, that dead organic substance does not always un- 
 dergo the extreme retrograde metamorphosis of material and 
 of force before being used up again in vital compounds, even 
 by the vegetable kingdom. It has been shown that not only 
 do pale plants, such as fungi, feed on organic matter, but 
 that soluble humus is regularly taken up by the roots of al- 
 most all plants. Prof. Le Conte has shown it to be probable 
 that the decomposition of the organic matter supplies the
 
 230 THE THEORY 
 
 force necessary for raising other matter from a lower to a 
 higher stage.* The force necessary for organization is thus 
 furnished by the force which results from disorganization ; 
 death and destruction are the conditions of life and devel- 
 opment. 
 
 When organic matter displays energy — that is, when it 
 has life — its relations with its surroundings are different. As 
 chemical affinity seems to hold the place of attraction in it, 
 and to correspond to gravitation among celestial bodies, 
 cohesive force among molecules, and magnetic force among 
 polar molecules, so its dynamical or vital action seems to cor- 
 respond to the force of repulsion, to the centrifugal force of 
 heavenly bodies, the tension force of molecules, and electrical 
 repulsion. The display of energy coincides with a molecular 
 change in the statical element. With the function of a gan- 
 glionic nerve-cell, for example, a correlative molecular change, 
 or "w^aste," as it is called, necessarily takes place either in 
 the nerve-element itself or in what is supplied to it from the 
 blood. The substances which are met with in the so-called 
 extractives of nerve-tissue afford abundant evidence of a ma- 
 terial waste ; for as products of the retrograde metamorphosis 
 are found lactic acid in considerable quantities, kreatin, uric 
 acid, probably also hypoxanthin, and, representing the fatty 
 acids, formic and acetic acid.f And what Du Bois-Eeymond 
 proved to happen in muscle, Funke has observed to happen 
 also with nerve : while the contents of nerve-tubes are neutral 
 during rest in the living state, they become acid after death, 
 and also after great activity during life. After excessive 
 mental exercise, it is well known that phosphates appear in 
 
 * The Correlation of Physical, Chemical, and Vital Force, and the Con- 
 servation of Force in Vital Phenomena. By J. Le Conte, Professor of Ge- 
 oloiry and Chemistry in South Carolina College. (American [Journal oi 
 Science and Arts, No. 28, 1859.) 
 
 + It is interesting to remark how the products of chemical transformation 
 resulting from nerve-action agree with the products of decomposition after 
 muscular activity, and how the results coincide with what, a priori, might 
 have been expected from the great vital activity of nerve-structure.
 
 OF VITALITY. 231 
 
 the urine in considerable quantities ; and it is only bj sup- 
 posing an idea to be accompanied by a correlative change in 
 the nerve-cells that we can explain the bodily exhaustion 
 which is produced by mental labor, and the breaking down 
 of the brain under prolonged intellectual efforts. There is 
 even at times a sensation of something going on in the brain ; 
 and, in insanity, such anomalous feelings are sometimes per- 
 sistently complained of. But the change or waste which 
 accompanies energy is restored by nutrition during rest, and 
 the conditions of future energy are thus established ; nutritive 
 attraction steadily repairing the waste of centrifugal function. 
 The cell thus, for a time at least, preserves its individuality ; 
 and definiteness of energy, with the maintenance of individ- 
 uality, is what is connoted by vitality. 
 
 Is the energy displayed by living matter something quite 
 special ? In attempting to answer that question, two consid- 
 erations should be kept in view. In the first place, an effect 
 need not at aU resemble in properties its cause ; the qualities 
 of a chemical compound are quite different from those of its 
 constituents. Such a complex compound as organic matter 
 really is may be expected, therefore, to exhibit peculiar prop- 
 erties in no way resembling those of its constituent elements 
 or those of simple compounds. In the second place, the ar- 
 rangement or grouping of the molecules in a substance, inde- 
 pendently of its chemical composition, may greatly alter its 
 properties : there is a molecular as well as a chemical consti- 
 tution of matter. In that condition of bodies which is de- 
 scribed as Isomerism, there are atoms alike in number, nature, 
 and relative proportion, so grouped as somehow to produce 
 compounds having very different chemical properties. Again, 
 it has been found that the same matter may exist under two 
 very different conditions, and with very different properties — 
 as colloidal and as crystalloidal, in a gelatinous or in a crys- 
 talline state. And what is the chief difference ? It is that 
 the colloidal is a dynamical state of matter, the crystalloidal 
 a statical state. The colloid exhibits energy ; its existence is
 
 232 THE THEORY 
 
 a continued metastasis ; and it may be looked upon, says 
 Graham, " as the probable primary source of the force ap- 
 pearing in the phenomena of vitality." The distinction be- 
 tween the two kinds of matter is, in fact, " that subsisting 
 between the material of a mineral and the material of an 
 organized mass." And yet minerals may exist in the colloidal 
 state ; the hydrated peroxides of the aluminous class, for ex- 
 ample, are colloids. Furthermore, the mineral forms of silicic 
 acid deposited from water, such as flint, are found to have 
 passed during the geological ages from the colloidal into the 
 crystalline condition ; and, on the other hand, in the so-called 
 blood-crystals of Funke, a soft and gelatinous albuminoid is 
 seen to assume a crystalline contour. " Can any facts," asks 
 Graham, " more strikingly illustrate the maxim, that in Ma- 
 ture there are no abrupt transitions, and that distinctions of 
 class are never absolute ? " * 
 
 The foregoing considerations render it evident that the 
 manifestation of organic energy by matter is not a contrast to 
 the kind of energy which is displayed by inorganic matter, 
 and so far justify tlie supposition that it may be a question 
 of chemical composition and intimate molecular constitution. 
 Vitality would not then be a special principle, but a result, and 
 would be explained ultimately by the operation of the so-called 
 molecular forces. Coleridge's assertion, that the division of 
 substances into living and dead, though 'psychologically ne- 
 cessary, was of doubtful philosophical validity, would receive 
 a support which its author could scarce have expected for it. 
 
 Before granting any conclusion, it is desirable to examine 
 into that which is generally deemed to constitute the spe- 
 
 *A further characteristic of colloids is their singular inertness in all 
 ordinary chemical relations, though they have a compensating attivity of 
 their own in their penetrability ; they are permeable when in mass, as water 
 is. by the more highly diffusive class of substances, but they cut off entirely 
 other colloid .1 substances that may be in solution. It is evident that our 
 conception of soli;l matter must soon undergo considerable modification. 
 (.On Liquid Diffusion ajjplied to Analysis. By T. Graham, P. R. S. PbUo. 
 Bophical Transactions, 1862.)
 
 OF VITALITY. 233 
 
 cialty of life. Now, it is certain, 'vrlien we consider the vast 
 range of vitality from the simple life of a molecule or cell to 
 the complex life of man, that valid objections may be made 
 to any definition of life. If it be wide enough to comprise 
 all forms, it will be too vague to have any value; if narrow 
 enough to be exact, it will exclude the most lowly forms. 
 The problem is to investigate the conditions of the manifesta- 
 tion of life. A great fault in many attempted definitions has 
 oeen the description of life as a resistance or complete con- 
 trast to the rest of JSTature, which was supposed to be con- 
 tinually striving to destroy it. But the elements of organic 
 matter are not different from those of inorganic, whence they 
 are derived, and to which they return; and the chemical and 
 mechanical forces of tiiese elements cannot be suspended or 
 removed within the organism. What is special is the manner 
 of composition of the elements: there is a concurrence of 
 manifold substances, and they are combined or grouped to- 
 gether in a very complex way. Such union or grouping is, 
 however, only a further advance upon, and by no means a 
 contrast to, the kind of combination which is met with in in- 
 organic bodies. Life is not a contrast to non-living Nature, 
 but a further development of it. The more knowledge ad- 
 vances, the more plainly is it shown that there are physical 
 and chemical processes upon which life depends. Heat is 
 produced by combustion in the organism as it is in the fire ; 
 starch is converted into sugar tliere, as it is in the chemical 
 laboratory ; urea, which is so constant a product of the body's 
 chemistry, can be formed artificially by the chemist ; and 
 the process of excitation in a nerve, on the closure of a con- 
 stant stream, appears to be analogous to the process of elec- 
 trolysis in which hydrogen is given o& at the negative pole.'' 
 The peculiarity of life is the complexity of combination in so 
 small a space, the intimate operation of many simultaneously- 
 acting forces in the microcosm of the organic cell. Knowl- 
 
 * A. von Bezold : TJntersuchiitisen iiber die electrische Erregung der 
 Nerven and Muskeln. Leipzig, 1861.
 
 234 THE THEORY 
 
 edge cannot pass the life-boundary, because there are not 
 at present any means of following the intimate changes which 
 take place beyond it ; there is a world there into which the 
 senses of man cannot yet enter. But, as each great advance 
 of science has followed some invention by which the opera- 
 tion of the senses has been extended, there can be little 
 doubt that the important step toward a true science of life 
 will be made with the discovery of a means of tracing the 
 delicate processes of protoplasmic activity. Microscopic phys- 
 ics and microscopic chemistry, nay, physics and chemistry 
 of a delicacy beyond the reach of the powers of the highest 
 microscope, are needed. So that it may well be that this gen- 
 eration and generations to come will have passed to their 
 everlasting rest before a discovery of the secret of vital ac- 
 tivity is made. 
 
 Before dealing with that which is considered to mark a 
 second and great peculiarity of life, namely, its aim or plan, 
 it will be well to illustrate the foregoing remarks from the 
 phenomena of conscious vitality. It is, in truth, with the low- 
 est form of vitality as it is with the lowest form of conscious 
 vitality — with the human mind in the earliest stages of its evo- 
 lution. A self-conservative impulse moves the most barbarous 
 people to regard the operation of the external forces of Xature, 
 and to adopt rude means to preserve life and to obtain comfort ; 
 the savage avoids the current which would drive his frail ca- 
 noe on the hungry breakers, and shelters his hut from the over- 
 whelming fury of the storm ; he may be said to war with Ma- 
 ture for the maintenance of individual power, as the vital 
 force of a cell may be said to war with the nature that imme- 
 diately surrounds it. But it is obvious that man only struggles 
 successfully with the physical forces by recognizing the lawa 
 of their action, and by accommodating his individual forces to 
 physical laws ; it is victory by obedience. By conscious obedi- 
 ence to the physical law, he appropriates, as it were, the force 
 thereof, in the increase of his own power; the idea is devel- 
 oped in his mind as the correlate of the law or iJta in Sa*
 
 OF VITALITY. 235 
 
 tiire ; in his mental progress Nature is undergoing develop- 
 ment through him. By keeping in mind this analogy of the 
 mental force the difficulty will be obviated, which there might 
 seem to be in conceiving the organic cell as a result of physi- 
 cal and chemical forces, and yet as resisting the action of 
 these forces. Every act of so-called resistance on the part 
 of the cell to the natural forces is really a phenomenon indi • 
 eating the development of them ; its life is not a contrast to 
 non-living Nature, but a further complication of it. The fun- 
 damental law of life is the same for its conscious and uncon- 
 scious manifestations ; it is individuation by appropriation. 
 And, however necessary it may seem to the individual, as a 
 part of a whole looking at the rest, to represent the vital as 
 in constant antagonism to the physical, such a conception 
 does not faithfully express the condition of the whole regard- 
 ed as a whole. A just conception of Nature as one harmoni- 
 ous whole is plainly not antagonistic to the spirit of any in- 
 vestigations which may tend to prove the dependence of life 
 on physical and chemical processes. 
 
 That which is commonly said to constitute the specialty of 
 life is the maintenance of a certain definite plan ; and accord- 
 ingly Coleridge, following Schelling, defined life as "the 
 principle of individuation." Given the different kinds of 
 force and of matter, and how, it is asked, is the pattern de- 
 termined and worked out? A3 every individual is in life 
 weaving out some pattern " on the roaring loom of time," 
 though " what he weaves no weaver knows," so the lowest 
 form of vitality manifests a definite energy, and is said to 
 accomplish a definite plan. A crystal would go on increasing 
 if suitable materials and the conditions of its growth were 
 present, " but it has been provided that trees do not grow up 
 into heaven." Life works according to an aim, said Aristotle. 
 Admitting all this, we are not therefore called upon to admit 
 a special contrast to the rest of Nature. Liebig compares the 
 living body to a building which is constructed after a definite, 
 preordained plan; but it is obvious that exactly in the same
 
 236 THE THEOllT. 
 
 sense might the positive biologist say of the chemical atom, 
 that it is constructed and displays energy according to a pre 
 ordained plan; or even of the crystal, that it works out a 
 certain pattern, seeing that it cannot overstep the laws of 
 its form. The plan is the law of the matter, and the law is not 
 something outside the matter, but it is inherent in it. Organic 
 matter, like the chemical element, has an activity given to it- 
 self which it must display ; the law of causality is true of it 
 as of inorganic matter ; and the organic effect, the so-called 
 accomplishment of the plan, is the necessary result of a cer- 
 tain molecular constitution and certain intimate combinations 
 which exist in the organic molecule or cell or monad, or 
 whatever else we choose to name the ultimate unit of life. 
 
 The direct denial of a special vital force has been the 
 natural reaction against that dogmatism which assumed a vital 
 principle that was self-generating, did any thing it liked, and 
 was not amenable to investigation. That any force should 
 be self-generating in inexhaustible quantity is really an in- 
 conceivable supposition. If the axiom, that force, like matter, 
 is not capable of annihilation, be accepted, and we find, as 
 we do, that organic bodies incorporate, or somehow cause to 
 disappear, inorganic matter and force, and thereby themselves 
 increase, it is an unavoidable conclusion that the organic 
 matter and force must represent the converted inorganic 
 matter and force. To suppose that the vital force was self- 
 produced would be to suppose a disturbance of the equilib- 
 rium of Nature, and it might not then be unreasonable to 
 fear lest the earth, by the increase of its repulsion force, 
 should break through the hinges of gravitation and float off 
 into space, or burst into fragments, as a planet between Mara 
 and Jupiter is supposed at one time to have done.* 
 
 * Science, in its view of life, seems to be followinffthecorrse of develop- 
 ment in Hnmboldfs mind. In his earlier writings lie defined vital force as 
 the unknown cause which prevents the elements from following their origi- 
 nal attractive forces. (Aphorism, ex doct. Phys. Chem. Plant.) " Reflection 
 and prolonged study," he says, in his "Aspects of Nature," "in the depart- 
 ments of physiology and chemistry, have deeply shaken my earlier belief in
 
 OF VITALITY. 237 
 
 "When, however, it is said that a minute portion of living 
 matter converts inorganic matter into its own nature, and 
 thus develops new organic matter which has the power of 
 doing likewise, it is evident that a great and peculiar poten- 
 tiality is assumed in the living molecule. What power is it 
 which transforms the matter and force ? Some who have ad- 
 vocated the correlation of the vital force with the physical 
 forces seem not to have given due attention to this question ; 
 they have laid such great stress on the external force as to 
 have fallen into an error almost as great as, though the oppo- 
 site of, that of the advocates of a self-generating vital force. 
 External circumstances are the necessary conditions of in- 
 ward acti\dty, but the inward fact is the important condition 
 — it is the determining condition, and, so far as we know 
 yet, it can only be derived from a like living mother struct- 
 ure. Nevertheless, even in that inherited potentiality there 
 is not a contrast to that which happens in the rest of Nature. 
 "V^'hen heat is converted into electricity, or any force into 
 another, the change is not self-determined; the determining 
 force lies in the molecules of the matter, in the so-called 
 statical force, that which Aristotle in his division of causes 
 names the material cause. And if it be objected that a little 
 life is able to do such a great deal, the answer is that a like 
 thing happens in fermentation. When a certain organic sub- 
 stance makes the inorganic matter in contact with it become 
 organic, it may be that it does so by a kind of infection or 
 fermentation by which the molecular relations of its smallest 
 particles are transferred to the particles of the inorganic just 
 as in the inorganic world forces pass from matter to matter. 
 
 But there are further considerations. Admitting that tlie 
 vital transforming matter is at first derived from vital struct- 
 
 p^cnliar so-called vital force." And again : "The difficulty of satisfactorily 
 referring the vital phenomena of organism to physical and chemical laws 
 depends chiefly (and almost in the same manner as the prediction of mete- 
 orological processes in the atmosphere) on the complication of the phenom- 
 ena, and on the great number of the simultaneously- acting forces, as well &a 
 the conditions of their activity." 
 11
 
 238 THE THEORY 
 
 are, it is evident that the external force and matter trans- 
 formed does in turn become transforming force — that is, vital. 
 And if that takes place after the vital process lias once com- 
 menced^ is it, it may be asked, extravagant to suppose that a 
 similar transformation might at some period have commenced 
 the process, and may even now be doing so ? The fact that in 
 growth and development life is continually increasing, from a 
 transformation of physical and chemical forces, is after all in 
 favor of the presumption that it may at first have so origi- 
 nated. And the advocate of this view may turn upon his 
 opponent, and demand of him how he, with a due regard to 
 the axiom that force is not self-generating, and to the fact 
 that living matter does increase from the size of a little cell 
 to the magnitude of a human body, accounts for the continual 
 production of transforming power? A definite quantity only 
 could have been derived from the mother structure, and that 
 must have been exhausted at an early period of growth. The 
 obvious refuge of the vitalist is to the facts that it is impossi- 
 ble now to evolve life artificially out of any combination of 
 physical and chemical forces, and that such a transformation 
 is never witnessed save under the conditions of vitality. 
 
 Thus the argument stands. Meanwhile, those who do 
 believe in the origination of life from non-living matter hope 
 to succeed in artificially producing the upward transforma- 
 tion, and may say reasonably enough that it is not to be ex- 
 pected that such transformation should now take place as a 
 regular process in iN'ature, except under conditions of vitality. 
 Sach a supposition is as unnecessary as it would be to assume 
 that the savage must continue to rub together his sticks, after 
 he has obtained the spark, in order to make the fire burn. 
 What only is necessary is that the spark of fire, or the spark 
 of life, once evolved, should be placed under suitable condi- 
 tions, and it wiU then go on increasing. The minutest portion 
 of living matter really now contains implicitly, as it were in a 
 microcosm, the complexity of chemical and physical combina- 
 tions and the conditions which were necessary for the first
 
 OF VITALITY. 239 
 
 production of life in the macrocosm, and it supjjlies these as 
 the conditions of further vital transformations. In fact, Na- 
 ture, having accomplished a result, does not need on each fu- 
 ture occasion to go through the preliminary steps by which 
 the result was first arrived at. And in this relation it is very 
 interesting to observe how much use is made of the force 
 supplied by the destruction of certain organic matter in rais- 
 ing other matter to a higher stage. It is supposed, for ex- 
 ample, that urea is partly produced by the oxidation of an 
 excess of so-called albuminous matters in the blood, without 
 tliese having entered into the formation of tissue ; and the 
 force thus supplied in the retrograde metamorphosis will be 
 available, and probably is used, for the exaltation of other 
 elements. 
 
 It needs but little consideration to see that the living cell 
 cannot supply all the force which is used in increasing and 
 advancing life — in the multiplication and transformation of 
 cells; heat and other external conditions are necessary, as 
 being, so to speak, material for transformation. It is a mis- 
 take, however, to say, as some have said, that heat and ex- 
 ternal conditions determine the rate of growth. The rate of 
 germination, for example, certainly varies according to exter- 
 nal conditions, but the limits of variation are fixed by the 
 inherent properties of the structure. The seeds of a begonia 
 taken from the same pod will, as Mr. Paget has pointed out, 
 germinate, some in a day, some at the end of a year, and 
 some at various intermediate times, even when they are all 
 placed under the same external conditions. And the same 
 author has pointed out other indications of self-dependent 
 time-rates in the lower organisms. There are, in fact, inter- 
 nal as well as external conditions of growth, and the former 
 are the more important, for they are really the determining 
 conditions. It is with the organic cell and its conditions as 
 it is with the individual and his circumstances ; the latter may 
 greatly modify character, and are necessary for development, 
 but the essential fact, which determines the limit of the motli-
 
 240 THE THEORY 
 
 fjing power of circumstances, is the nature implanted in the 
 individual. 
 
 It is easy to perceive how impossible it is, in the present 
 state of science, to come to any positive conclusion with re- 
 gard to the nature of the vital force. All that can be said is, 
 tliat advancing knowledge more and more clearly proves the 
 dependence of life on physical and chemical processes, and 
 tends to show that vital action does not contrast with the 
 kind of action exhibited by inorganic Nature. Living matter 
 displays, in fact, the energy of colloidal and the plan of crys- 
 talloidal matter. "When vital force undergoes resolution into 
 inferior force, simultaneously with the decomposition of sub- 
 stance, it is into heat, chemical force, and electricity, that we 
 find it, as it were, unfolded; it is a natural conjecture, there- 
 fore, that the conditions of the artificial production of vitality 
 must be a high and complex chemistry to represent the stat- 
 ical correlative, and some mode of repulsion force, as heat 
 or electricity, or both, to represent the dynamical correla- 
 tive. It is certainly extremely unphilosophical in the present 
 condition of knowledge to refuse to accept vitality as a 
 special mode of manifestation of force; the special character 
 of its phenomena demand that, whatever its real nature may 
 be, vital force should for the present be received as a distinct 
 force on the same terms as chemical force or electrical force. 
 The facts of observation, as well as a 'priori considerations, 
 unquestionably demand also that it should be regarded as 
 subject to the laws of the correlation and conservation of 
 force. 
 
 As, then, vital force is jjlainly by far the highest force in 
 dignity, a small quantity of it will correspond in value to a 
 much greater quantity of an inferior force ; one equivalent 
 of vital force, in fact, will correspond to many equivalents 
 of the lower forces. An immense amount of force is re- 
 quired to raise matter from its elementary state to that con- 
 dition in which it is described as organic ; and the upward 
 transformation evidently only takes place through the inter-
 
 OF VITALITY 241 
 
 mediate action of cliemical force. But vital force surpasses 
 chemical force apparently in as great a degree as chemical 
 force surpasses physical force. How great, then, must be its 
 mechanical equivalent! Who can measure the power of a 
 great idea? Armies fight in vain against it, and natioDS 
 yield to its sway. What wonder that life was the last and 
 highest development of Nature, and that it was produced 
 only after the inferior forces had been long m existence ! 
 What ground, furthermore, it might be asked, have we for 
 supposing that It is destined to be tlie last development of 
 force ? Is it not possible that a still higher manifestation of 
 force than that which we call vital may ultnnately result 
 from the complexity of forces and conditions which are now 
 present on earth? The hypothesis of Laplnce was, that in 
 primeval times a large quantity of nebulous matter was 
 spread through space. This nebulous matter was through 
 gravitation aggregated into solid masses, immense heat must 
 have been thus produced, and this heat might then produce 
 light, and develop electricity as it does now when acting on 
 the thermo-electric plates. Electricity might appear again 
 as heat or as light, or as chemical force, as it does in the de- 
 composing cell of a voltaic battery. The correlation of these 
 forces we are able to trace now, and it is not difficult to con- 
 ceive how they mutually excited and affected one another in 
 the primeval times when the earth was, as we are told, 
 without form and void. But there was a time when no life 
 existed on the earth. So that as we can now obtain one 
 force from another up to the point where life begins, when 
 we are at fault, similarly considerable time elapsed in ISTature 
 before vital force followed on the physical and chemical 
 forces. Science may, then, claim that in its difficulty and 
 delay it only reflects a corresponding difficulty in N'ature. 
 
 But there are other important considerations with regard 
 to vitality. It does not follow, because we recognize a special 
 vital manifestation, that there is but one kind thereof; it is in 
 reality necessary to admit different degrees, if not different
 
 242 THE THEORY 
 
 kinds, of vitality. As with organic matter so with organic 
 force, we trace an advance from the most simple and general 
 to the most complex and special. The tissue of the simple 
 protozoon is uniform and exhibits no trace of structure ; its 
 active relations are equally simple. In the ascending scale 
 of life continuous diff^entiation of tissue corresponds with 
 increasing specialty and complexity of relation with the ex- 
 ternal, until in man we observe the highest example of a 
 unity of organism proceeding from manifold varieties of ele- 
 ments, and of unity of action from the coordination of many 
 forces. And as it is with the animal kingdom, so it is with the 
 elementary structures which form it ; there is a scale of dignity, 
 a hierarchy of tissues ; the lowest appear first, and are neces- 
 sary steps for the evolution of the highest. All the force of 
 Kature could not develop a nerve-cell directly out of inor- 
 ganic matter; and the cell of the Protococcua nivalis^ or the 
 molecules of the Amoeba, could not, under any possible cir- 
 cumstances, energize as nerve-force. Between the vitality 
 of thought and the vitality of the fungus there is scarcely a 
 comparison possible ; the former is dependent upon the widest 
 and most complex, and at the same time the most intense and 
 special relations with external Nature, while the latter exhibits 
 only a few general and comparatively simple relations there- 
 with. Between the relations of a nerve-cell and an epidermic 
 cell with their surroundings, there is as much difference as 
 there is between the relations of a Ehizopod and those of a 
 Cephalopod with external Nature. And the relations of a 
 nerve-cell with its surroundings are, it must be remembered, 
 dependent on the maintenance of the relations of all the in- 
 ferior elements of the body which intervene in the descending 
 scale between it and the inorganic. 
 
 "Whatever, then, may be the fact in animal development, 
 it is certain that transformation of species takes place in the 
 structural elements. When a tissue takes material from the 
 blood, it does not merely aggregate, but it assimilates it— 
 that is, it makes it of the same Tcind with itself. In develop-
 
 OF VITALITY. 243 
 
 ment, a higher tissue constantly proceeds from a lower one, 
 and demands the lower one as a necessary antecedent to its 
 production ; it has thus, as external conditions, not only 
 those which are general, but the intimate and special influ- 
 ences of the tissue which is before it in the order of existence. 
 In the latter are supplied the special and essential conditions 
 for the exaltation and transpeciation of force and material. 
 But all exaltation of force is, as it were, a concentration of 
 it ; one equivalent of the higher force corresponds to many 
 equivalents of the inferior force which has been transformed. 
 Hence it is that the power of reproducing tissues or parts in 
 animals is diminished much more by development than by 
 growth ; and the law which describes the reparative power 
 in each species of animal as being in an inverse ratio to its 
 position in the scale of life, though not strictly proved, is yet 
 true as a general proposition. 
 
 If, now, the degree of dignity of an element represents a 
 corresponding degree of vitality, it is obviously right to speak 
 of the life of the blood, without any design of placing its life 
 on the same level with that of nerve. In the decomposition 
 of material and the correlative resolution of force which take 
 place when the blood-cell returns to the inorganic state, there 
 will be much less force liberated than when a nerve-cell un- 
 dergoes the retrograde metamorphosis. As a great expendi- 
 ture of force is needed to raise matter from the inorganic to 
 the organic state, so a further greater expenditure is required 
 to raise matter from a low organic to its highest organic con- 
 dition. The nerve-cell is, so to say, the highest parasite 
 which thus sucks up the life of the blood ; and, if the process 
 of its decomposition were accurately observed, it would be 
 found that all the force which had been consumed by it in its 
 upward transformation was given back to ITature in its down- 
 ward metamorphosis. 
 
 The retrograde metamorphosis of organic elements is con- 
 stantly taking place as a part of the history of life. In the 
 fanction of nerve-cell, a nerve-force is liberated which exciteg
 
 244 THE THEORY 
 
 muscnlar force, and is ultimately given back to external Na- 
 ture as motion ; the coincident " waste " of substance is re- 
 ceived into the blood, and ultimately also passes back to 
 Nature. It is probable, however, that this " waste " does 
 not pass always directly out of the body, but that it may be 
 first used as the nutriment of some lower element. Thus, as 
 there seemed reason to believe that, in the economy of Na- 
 ture, animal matter did not undergo the extreme retrograde 
 metamorphosis into inorganic matter before being used as food 
 by vegetables, so in the animal body the higher elements do not 
 appear at once to undergo the extreme retrograde metamor- 
 phosis, but are first used as the nutriment of lower organic 
 element. How admirably does Nature thus economize in the 
 body! Just as on a larger scale the carbonic acid exhaled 
 by animals is taken up by vegetables, and a poison thus re- 
 moved from the atmosphere in which the animal lives, so by 
 one organic element of the body the blood is purified from 
 the waste matter of a higher element which would be poison- 
 ous to it. 
 
 The parts impaired by activity, as all parts mast be, are 
 repaired during rest in a condition of health. And it is 
 very interesting to observe, as Mr. Paget has pointed out, 
 that the organic processes of repair in each tissue are ad- 
 justed to a certain time-rate, which is variable according to, 
 but is not determined by, external conditions. The time-rate 
 is determined by the implanted properties, and "for each 
 unit of nutrition might be reckoned a unit of time." The 
 periodicities of organic life appear to be prominent instances 
 of the law; and the rhythmic motions of the heart, or the 
 motions of cilia, are, Mr. Paget supposes, due "to a method 
 of nutrition in which the acting parts are, at certain peri- 
 ods, raised Avith time-regulated progress to a state of instabil- 
 ity of composition from which they then decline, and in their 
 decline may change their shape and move with a definite velo- 
 city, or (as nervous centres) may discharge nerve-force." * In 
 
 * On the Chronometry of Life. By J. Paget, P. R. S. (Croonian Lec- 
 ture before the Royal Society, 1857.)
 
 OF VITALITY. 245 
 
 this recognition of the chronometrj of organic processes, 
 there is unquestionably great promise for the future ; for it 
 is plain that the observance of time in the motions of organic 
 molecules is as certain and universal, if not as exact, as that 
 in the motions of heavenly bodies. Each organic process 
 has its definite time-rate; and each cell has its appointed pe- 
 riod of life different for different kinds 'of cells. The exer- 
 cise of its energy is the accomplishment of the life-task of the 
 gland-cell of the stomach, and its existence ends therewith — it 
 discharges its duty with its life ; but it is not so with other 
 cells. It is not known, for example, how soon the blood-cell and 
 other cells die. The blood-cell may be ephemeral, and after 
 the manufacture of its material straightway perish, supplying 
 in the products of its decomposition material for the coloring 
 matters of the bile; or it may accomplish its function more 
 than once, and live tlierefore for some time. Certain facts 
 do, indeed, point to a short duration, as, for example, the de- 
 struction of the nucleus in the blood-cell, the analogy of the 
 cells of the stomach and milk-glands, and of the sebaceous 
 and spermatic cells, and the great production of blood-cells ; 
 but nothing positive is known, and the subject is one which 
 awaits, and ought to receive, careful attention. 
 
 Such, then, is the general process of life physiologically 
 regarded. But there is nothing special in disease. Although 
 the destructive cancerous mass seems at first sight to admit 
 of no sort of comparison with the beneficial formation of a 
 developing organ, yet the production is governed by laws of 
 organic growth and activity. No new forces nor new laws 
 appear in the organism under the circumstances which are de- 
 scribed as disease. " 'Tis as natural to die as to be born," says 
 Sir T. Browne ; and, if we choose to accept the doctrine of final 
 cause, we must acknowledge that the disease which leads to 
 death is as natural, as much in the purpose of Nature, as the 
 physiological processes which constitute health. An indi- 
 vidual exists in certain relations with the external, and the 
 harmony which results from the maintenance of these rela*
 
 246 THE THEORY 
 
 tions is health, -vrhile a disturbance of them, whether from a 
 cause in the organism or in the external circumstances, or 
 partly in one and partly in the other, is discord or disease. 
 The phenomena of morbid action may therefore, when prop- 
 erly regarded, be serviceable as experiments illustrating the 
 character and relations of vital action. 
 
 As each cell has its appointed period of life, and each 
 species of cell its natural degree of life, and as there are 
 many cells and many kinds of cells in the human body, it is 
 evident that disease will be more easily initiated in it than in 
 an organism with less differentiation of tissue, and less com- 
 plexity of structure. For the life of the organism is the sum 
 of the life of its individual parts, and superiority of vitality 
 signifies more numerous, special, and complex relations with 
 the external. In the lowest organisms, where there is a 
 similarity of structure, one part is independent of another, 
 and dependent only on the maintenance of certain general 
 and simple relations with the external ; there is, therefore, 
 comparatively little liability to disturbance.* When the parts 
 are, however, unlike, and there is a definite subordination of 
 them, so that the well-being of the highest structure is de- 
 pendent on the well-being of all the structures which inter- 
 vene in the descending scale between it and inorganic JSTature, 
 there is plainly abundant room for disturbance. As in the 
 state, so in the organism, the vitality of the government flows 
 from, and rests upon, the well-being of individuals. 
 
 When, from some of the many disturbing causes which 
 initiate disease, a particular elementary constituent of the 
 body is prevented from rising to the dignity of its specific 
 constitution and energy, there will, if the disturbing cause 
 
 * Goethe, after saying that every thing living is a collection of living, 
 Belf-dependent beings, adds: "Je unvolkommner das Geschopf ist, desto 
 mehr sind diese Theile einander gleich Oder almlich, und desto mehr gleichen 
 Bie dem Ganzen. Je volkommnpr das Geschopf wird, desto unahnlicher 
 werden die Theile einander. Je ahnlicher die Theile einander sind, desto 
 weniger sind sie einander subordinirt. Die Subordiaation der Theile deutet 
 Ruf ein volkommneres Geschopf."
 
 OF VITALITY. 247 
 
 has not been so serious as to destroy tlie life of the part, be a 
 production of an element of a lower kind with a lower en- 
 ergy ; and that is a diseased product. It is as if the substance 
 of a polype were produced among the higher physiological 
 elements of the human body, and went on increasing there 
 without regard to relations with surrounding elements of 
 tissue. There may be a production of foreign substance in 
 larger quantity than that which should rightly be formed of 
 the natural tissue, and a greater display of force, but both 
 structure and energy are of a lower order. What is gained 
 in quantity is lost in quality, and the vitality is intrinsically 
 less. 
 
 Inflammation in a part is really the result of a degenera- 
 tion of its vitality. When a wound heals by the " first inten- 
 tion,^' there is direct adhesion of its surfaces, and no inflam- 
 mation, for the natural vitality of the part is maintained, and 
 effects the repair. "When slight inflammation occurs, the vi- 
 tality of the part has undergone a certain degeneration, and 
 material of an inferior order to the proper element of the part 
 is produced ; this substance binds the surfaces together, and 
 it may in process of time, on the complete subsidence of in- 
 flammation, and under the favorable conditions of surround- 
 ing healthy tissue life, even rise to the condition of the proper 
 structure. But the lymph does not appear to be thrown out 
 with any special beneficial design ; it is the simple result of 
 a deterioration of energy, is only a less degree of a positive 
 evil. When greater inflammation takes place, or when the 
 natural vitality of the part is feeble, there is a greater degen- 
 eration, and material of a still lower kind, which is not even 
 organizable under any circumstances, is produced. Pus is 
 poured out, and ceases to appear with the restoration of the 
 proper vitality of the tissue. If the inflammation is still 
 greater, the degeneration passes into actual destruction of 
 ufe, and mortification ensues. When John Hunter, therefore, 
 speaks, as he does, of Nature calling up the vital powers to 
 produce suppuration, his words convey a false notion of what
 
 248 THE THEORY 
 
 really happens. The injury has so damaged the parts that 
 the vital action cannot rise to its specific elevation ; an in- 
 ferior kind of action is alone possible, which is really disease, 
 and only so far beneficial as it proves that the life of the part 
 has not been killed outright. As might be expected, there- 
 fore, it is in exhausting diseases that inflammation most com- 
 monly and easily occurs. How incorrect, then, is it to speak 
 of inflammation as if it were a process specially provided for 
 restoring the healthy life of parts ! When adhesive inflamma- 
 tion is said to limit the suppuration of an abscess, its occur- 
 rence is a result of diminishing mischief, and testifies to a less 
 serious degeneration of vital force. How hard it is not to be 
 blind when theories or wishes lead us ! When adhesive in- 
 flammation fixes a piece of strangulated gut to the side of the 
 belly, so as happily to prevent the passage of fecal matter 
 into the peritoneal cavity, it is sometimes said to be a wise 
 and kindly provision of Is ature. "What, then, shall be said 
 of inflammation when it glues the gut to a hernial cavity, or 
 manufactures a fibrous band which strangles the gut ? Is this 
 also a wise and beneficial design ? 
 
 That which is true of the material products of inflamma- 
 tion is necessarily true of its force ; the heat, and pain, and 
 rigors, the forces as well as the material, testify to a degenera- 
 tion of vital force. The sort of stormy rage and demonstra- 
 tive activity which characterize inflammation, though unques- 
 tionably an exhibition of force, are not really an increased 
 display of the proper vital force. The latter has undergone 
 a transformation from the quiet, self-contained activity of 
 development into the unrestrained dissipation of a lower ac- 
 tivity : and, as regards the latter, it might be said that sev- 
 eral monads of its matter, or volumes of its force, are equiva- 
 lent only to one monad of matter or one volume of force of 
 the former. Kigors, as the involuntary action of voluntary 
 muscle, are a degradation of action witnessing to a molecular 
 deterioration of vital conditions. Heat is a physical force 
 which must have resulted from the retrograde metamorphosia
 
 OF VITALITY. 249 
 
 of vital force. The existence of pain, where rightly there 
 should be no sensation, testifies to a molecular deterioration 
 of statical element and a correlative exhibition of force. The 
 increased action of inflammation in a part is, therefore, di- 
 minished vital action. Perhaps it might once for all be 
 stated, as a law of vital action, that the dignity of the force 
 is in an inverse ratio to its volumetrical display. It is indeed 
 ■with organic action as it is with mental action. The emo- 
 tional man displays considerable force, and often produces 
 great effects in the way of destruction, but his power is vast- 
 ly inferior to that of the man who has developed emotion a. 
 force into the higher form of will-force, who has coordinated 
 the passions into the calm, self-contained activity of definite 
 productive aim. Surely creation always testifies to a much 
 higher energy than destruction. 
 
 The foregoing considerations unavoidably flow from a 
 conception of vitality as correlate with other natural forces, 
 and as subject to the law of the conservation of force. They 
 obtain additional weight, however, from being in some ac- 
 cordance with the important generalizations which one of 
 the most philosophical physiologists of the present time has 
 made with regard to morbid products. Virchow has, as is 
 well known, referred all morbid structures to physiological 
 types, and maintains that there is no new structure produced 
 in the organism by disease. The cancer-cell, the pus-cell, 
 and all other disease-produced cells, have their patterns in 
 the cells of healthy structure. The cells of tubercle corre- 
 spond with the corpuscles of the lymphatic glands ; pus and 
 colorless blood-corpuscles cannot be distinguished except by 
 looking at the place whence they come ; the cells of cancer 
 in bone " are the immediate descendants of the cells in bone ; " 
 and certain colloid tumors have the structure of the umbilical 
 cord. "Where a new formation takes place, certain histolo- 
 gical elements of the body must generally also cease to exist ; " 
 and every kind of new formation is really, therefore, destruc- 
 tive, and destroys something of what previously existed. The
 
 250 THE THEORY 
 
 connective tissue, with its equivalents, he describes as the 
 'common stock of germs of the body ; from them morbid 
 structures proceed bj continuous development. " Heterolo- 
 gous tissues have physiological types ; and there is no other 
 kind of heterology in morbid structures than the abnormal 
 manner in which they arise as to place (heterotopia), time 
 (heterochronia), and quantity (heterometria)." * 
 
 The conclusions with regard to vital force, which a con- 
 sistent conception of it as a natural force seems to necessi- 
 tate, will find extensive application in the various phenomena 
 of disease. We have seen that if the resolution of the vital- 
 ity of a single nerve-cell into a vitality of a lower kind be 
 supposed — into that, for example, of polype substance — it 
 would necessarily suffice for the production of a whole 
 polype, or perhaps of a multitude of polypes. In other 
 words, one nervous unit, monad, or molecule, is the vital 
 equivalent of many units, monads, or molecules of polype 
 substance. How idle it is, then, to dispute, as some have 
 done, as to whether epilepsy is increased vital action or 
 diminished vital action, when there exists no clear conception 
 of what is meant by the words ! No one can deny that there 
 is great display of force in the convulsions of epilepsy, but is 
 it increased vital force ? Is a man in convulsions a strong 
 man ? for that is the real question. Does convulsion in a 
 paralyzed limb indicate increased vital action of it ? When 
 tetanus of a muscle is produced, as Weber showed it might 
 be, by putting a loop of thread round its nerve and slowly 
 and gradually tightening it, does the violent action of the 
 muscle testify to increased vitality ? If it really does, then 
 the mechanical tetanomotor of Heidenhain might, properly 
 used, suffice for the cure of every paralysis, and effect a com- 
 plete renewal of life. 
 
 In speaking of vital action, we may either consider the 
 whole organism as individual, or we may consider the cell or 
 organic monad as the individual. If we regard the organism 
 * Cellular Patholo^fy.
 
 OF VITALITY. 251 
 
 as individual, then when general convulsions take place in it — 
 that is, violent and aimless movements completely withdrawn 
 from the control of the will, which should rightly coordinate 
 them into definite action — it is simply to use words without 
 meaning to say that the vital action of the individual is in- 
 creased. There is not, then, individual action ; and the defi- 
 nition of vitality is not applicable to the organism as a whole. 
 The highest manifestation of individuality is in the conscious- 
 ness of man, the so-called unity of the ego ; but, when the 
 coordination of forces for a definite end is replaced by the 
 convulsions of epilepsy, there is neither subjective nor ob- 
 jective unity of action. Instead of that quiet will-force which 
 expresses conscious unity, or that unconscious unity of or- 
 ganic action which is manifest in sleep, there is the violent 
 and incoherent exhibition of inferior force. Increased action 
 is the result of a degeneration of the proper vital action. " A 
 man in convulsions is not strong, though six men cannot hold 
 him." 
 
 Like considerations apply when the single cell is regarded 
 as individual. In virtue of a certain chemical constitution 
 and a certain definite arrangement of molecules, a cell ex- 
 hibits energy as nerve-force. That special mode of energy is 
 the definite result of a certain coordination of chemical com- 
 binations and molecular relations ; and these are connoted in 
 the individuality of the cell. When, however, in place of 
 the definite process of statical attraction (nutrition) and dy- 
 namical repulsion (energy), there takes place a large demon- 
 strative display of force — as general epileptic convulsions, 
 being the sum of the action of the individual cells, prove 
 there must — it is impossible to pronounce such force as of 
 the same rank or kind as the proper energy of the cell. It is 
 an inferior kind of power, and the certain indication of a de- 
 generation of the statical correlative. It is the duty of a cell, 
 so to speak, as of an individual, to live in certain relations 
 with its surroundings — it is, indeed, its essence as an individ- 
 uaX cell of specific character ; and, when it is not so living, it
 
 252 THE THEORY 
 
 is really degenerating, losing its nature or kind, passing more 
 or less quickly toward death. Its action is certainly not in- 
 creased functional action. In truth, it would be as just to 
 caU the extravagant action of madness in an individual occu- 
 pying a certain position in a system of government increased 
 functional action, and to say that the government was stronger 
 for his degenerate action. A state, again, would not be pow- 
 erful, would not even exist, if each individual did as his pas- 
 sions prompted, altogether regardless of his relations to 
 others; and it would certainly be a strange use of language 
 to say then that the functional action of that individual was 
 increased. 
 
 The phenomena of conscious vitality might be used to 
 illustrate the same principles. A passionate man is not 
 strong-minded, nor do the ravings of insanity reveal mental 
 vigor. A completely-fashioned will is the true mark of a 
 strong mind. " A character," said ITovalis, " is a completely- 
 fashioned will." As in the order of natural development 
 there has been an ascent from the physical and chemical 
 forces to the aim-working vital force, and thence from the 
 lowest vitality to the higliest manifestation thereof, so in the 
 course of mental development there is a progress through 
 sensation, passion, emotion, reason, to the highest phase of 
 mental force, a well-fashioned will. The rightly-developed 
 mind, like the healthy cell, recognizes its relations to others ; 
 self-feeling gives place to or expands into moral feeling, and 
 in the will all the phases of consciousness are coordinated 
 into calm, just, definite action. K'oise and fury surely indi- 
 cate weakness ; the«y are the manifestation of inferior force 
 — the tale of an idiot signifying nothing. The strongest force 
 is quiet force, and the ravings of insanity, which might not 
 unjustly be compared to the convulsions of epilepsy, do not 
 evince mental power. 
 
 May we not, then, already perceive, what advancing 
 knowledge must ever render more clear, how the conscious 
 mind of man blends in unity of development with the nn-
 
 OF VITALITY. 253 
 
 conscious life of Nature? As the revelation of Nature pro- 
 ceeds in the progress of science, the idealism of Plato and 
 the realism of Bacon will be found to harmonize as expres- 
 sions of the same truths ; the generalizations of Humboldt 
 and the poetical intuitions of Goethe may be looked upon as 
 but different descriptions of the same facts. Idealism and real- 
 ism blend and are extinguished in the intimate harmony be- 
 tween the individual and Nature. How great, then, the igno- 
 rance which fancies that poetry demands a rude age for its 
 successful development ! How little, again, the insight which 
 would make of science an ugly anatomy only ! After analysis 
 comes synthesis ; and, beyond the practical realization of sci- 
 ence in works which add to human comfort, there remains 
 the £esthetical embodiment of science. Art has now opening 
 before it a field so wide that imagination cannot dare to limit 
 it, for science must plainly attain to its highest development 
 in the work of the future poet, who shall give to its reality a 
 beautiful form. Goethe indicated the path, but he who shall 
 accomplish it will be a greater than Goethe.* 
 
 * Perhaps the tmest estimate of science, and the most remarkable 
 prophecy with regard to it, is to be foand in that wonderful tale by Goethe, 
 " Das Mahrchen," a tale which has been described, by one who has done 
 most toward making Goethe known and understood in England, "as the 
 deepest poem of its sort in existence— as the only true prophecy emitted 
 for who knows how many centuries."
 
 IV.-THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY.* 
 
 It is not a little hard upon those who now devote them- 
 Belves to the patient interrogation of Nature, by means of 
 observation and experiment, that thej should be counted, 
 whether thej will or not, ministers of the so-called Positive 
 Philosophy, and disciples of him who is popularly considered 
 the founder of that philosophy. No matter that positive in- 
 vestigation within the limits which Oomte prescribes was 
 pursued earnestly and systematically before his advent, and 
 with an exactness of method of which he had no conception; 
 that many of those distinguished since his time for their 
 scientific researches and generalizations have been unac- 
 quainted with his writings; that others who have studied 
 them withhold their adherence from his doctrines, or ener- 
 getically disclaim them. These things are not considered; 
 60 soon as a scientific inquirer pushes his researches into the 
 phenomena of life and mind, he is held to be a Comtist. Thus 
 it happens that there is a growing tendency in the public 
 mind to identify modern science with the Positive Philosophy. 
 Considering how much mischief has often been done by iden- 
 
 * Journal of Mental Science, No. 70. The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry. 
 Address delivered to the Members of the Edinburgh Philot^ophical Institu- 
 tion, November 6, 1868. By William, Lord-Archbishop of York. (Edmon* 
 •ton and Douglas.)
 
 THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 255 
 
 tifying the character of an epoch of thought with the doc- 
 trines of some eminent man who has lived and labored and 
 taken the lead in it, and tlms making his defects and errors, 
 hardened into formulas, chains to fetter the free course of 
 thought, it is no wonder that scientific men should he anxious 
 to disclaim Comte as their lawgiver, and to protest against 
 such a king being set up to reign over them. Not conscious 
 of any personal obligation to his writings, conscious how 
 much, in some respects, he has misrepresented the spirit and 
 pretensions of science, they repudiate the allegiance which 
 his entliusiastic disciples would force upon them, and which 
 popular opinion is fast coming to think a natural one. They 
 do well in thus making a timely assertion of independence ; 
 for, if it be not done soon, it will soon be too late to be done 
 well. "When we look back at the history of systems of re- 
 ligion and philosophy, it is almost appalling to reflect how 
 entirely one man has appropriated the intellectual develop- 
 ment of his age, and how despotically he has constrained the 
 faith of generations after him ; the mind of mankind is abso- 
 lutely oppressed by the weight of his authority, and his errors 
 and limitations are deemed not less sacred than the true ideas 
 of which he has been the organ : for a time he is made an 
 idol, at the sound of whose name the human intellect is ex- 
 pected to fall down and worship, as the people, nations, and 
 languages were expected, at what time they heard the sound 
 of the flute, harp, sackbut, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, 
 to fall down and worship the golden image which Nebuchad- 
 nezzar the king had set up. Happily it is not so easy to take 
 captive the understanding now, when thought is busy on so 
 many subjects in such various domains of Nature, and when 
 an army of investigators often marches where formerly a 
 Bolitary pioneer painfully sought his way, as it was when the 
 fields of intellectual activity were few and limited, and the 
 laborers in them few also. 
 
 A lecture delivered by the Archbishop of York before the 
 Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, which has been pub-
 
 256 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 lished as a pamphlet, contains a plain, earnest, and on the 
 whole temperate, b\it not very closely-reasoned, criticism, 
 fi'om his point of view, of the tendency of modern scientific 
 research, or rather of Positivism, and a somewhat vagne dec- 
 laration of the limits of philosophical inquiry. He perceives 
 with sorrow, but not with great apprehension, that the pros- 
 pects of philosophy are clouded over in England, France, and 
 Germany, and that a great part of the thinking world is oc- 
 cupied with physical researches. But he does not therefore 
 despair ; believing that Positivism indicates only a temporary 
 mood, produced by prostration and lassitude after a period 
 of unusual controversy, and that it will after a time pass 
 away, and be followed by a new era of speculative activity. 
 It may be presumed that men, weary of their fruitless efi'orts 
 to scale the lofty and seemingly barren heights of true philos- 
 ophy, have taken the easy path of Positivism, which does not 
 lead upward at all, but leads, if it be followed far enough, to 
 quagmires of unbelief. The facts on which the archbishop 
 bases his opinion, and the steps of reasoning by which he is 
 able thus to couple a period of speculative activity with a 
 period of religious belief, and to declare a system of positive 
 scientific research to be linked inseparably with a system of 
 unbelief, do not appear ; they are sufficient to inspire strong 
 conviction in him, but they apparently lie too far down in 
 the depths of his moral consciousness to be capable of being 
 anfolded, in lucid sequence, to the apprehension of others. 
 
 To the critical reader of the lecture it must at once occur 
 that a want of discrimination between things that are wide- 
 ly different is the cause of no little looseness, if not reck- 
 lessness, of assertion. In the first place, the archbishop 
 identifies off'-hand the course and aim of modern scientific 
 progress with the Positivism of Comte and his followers. 
 This is very much as if any one should insist on attributing 
 the same character and the same aim to persons who were 
 travelling for a considerable distance along the same road. 
 As it was Comte's great aim to organize a harmonious co-
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 257 
 
 ordination and subordination of the sciences, he assimilated 
 and used for his purpose the scientific knowledge which was 
 available to him, and systematized the observed method of 
 scientific progress from the more simple and general to the 
 more special and complex studies ; but it assuredly is most 
 UL warrantable to declare those who are engaged in physical 
 research to be committed to his conclusions and pretensions, 
 and there can be no question that a philosophy of science, 
 when it is written, will difi'er widely from the so-called Posi- 
 tive Philosophy. 
 
 In the second place, the archbishop unwittingly perpe- 
 trates a second and similarly reckless injustice in assuming, 
 as he does, that modern science must needs accept what he 
 describes as the sensational philosophy. " Thus the business 
 of science," he says, "is to gather up the facts as they ap- 
 pear, without addition or perversion of the senses. As the 
 senses are our only means of knowledge, and we can only 
 know things as they present themselves to the eye and ear, 
 it follows that our knowledge is not absolute knowledge of 
 the things, but a knowledge of their relations to us, that is, 
 of our sensations." Passing by the question, which might 
 well be raised, whether any one, even the founder of th« 
 sensational philosophy, ever thus crudely asserted the senses 
 to be our only means of knowledge, and our knowledge to 
 be only a knowledge of our sensations ; passing by, too, any 
 discussion concerning what the archbishop means, if he 
 means any thing, by an absolute knowledge of things as dis- 
 tinct from a knowledge of things in their relations to us, and 
 all speculations concerning the faculties which finite and rel- 
 ative beings who are not archbishops have of apprehending 
 and comprehending the absolute ; it is necessary to protest 
 against the assumption that science is committed to such a 
 representation of the sensational philosophy, or to the sensa- 
 tional philosophy at all. Those modern inquirers who hav© 
 pushed farthest their physical researches into mental func- 
 tions and bodily organs have notoriously been at great pains
 
 258 THE LIMITS OP 
 
 to discriminate between the nervous centres i^lL-.h. minister 
 to sensation and tiiose which minister to reflection, and have 
 done much to elucidate the physical and functional connec- 
 tions between them. They have never been guilty of calling 
 all knowledge a knowledge only of sensations, for they rec- 
 ognize how^ vague, barren, and unmeaning, are the terms of 
 the old language of philosophical strife, when an attempt is 
 made to apply them with precision to the phenomena re- 
 vealed by exact scientific observation. The sensorial centres 
 with which the senses are in direct connection are quite dis- 
 tinct from, and subordinate to, the nervous centres of idea- 
 tion or reflection — the supreme hemispherical ganglia. It is 
 in these, which are far more developed in man than in any 
 other animal, and more developed in the higher than in the 
 lower races of men, that sensation is transformed into knowl- 
 edge, and that reflective consciousness has its seat. The 
 knowledge so acquired is not drained from the outer world 
 through the senses, nor is it a physical mixture or a chemical 
 compound of so much received from without and so much 
 added by the mind or brain ; it is an organized result of a 
 most complex and delicate process of development in the 
 highest kind of organic element in Nature — a mental organi- 
 zation accomplished, like any other organization, in accord- 
 ance with definite laws. We have to do with laws of life^ 
 and the language used in the interpretation of phenomena 
 must accord with ideas derived from the study of organiza- 
 tion; for assuredly it cannot fail to produce confusion if it be 
 the expression only of ideas derived from the laws of phys- 
 ical phenomena, so far as these are at present known to us. 
 Now, the organization of a definite sensation is a very difier- 
 ent matter from, has no resemblance in Nature to, the phys- 
 ical impression made upon the organ of sense, and the or- 
 ganization of an idea is a higher and more complex vital 
 process than the organization of a sensation ; to call knowl- 
 edge, therefore, a knowledge only of sensation is either a 
 meaningless proposition, or, in so far as it has meaning, it is
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 259 
 
 falser than it would be to affirm the properties of a chemical 
 compound to be those of its constituents. "Were they who 
 pursue the scientific study of mind not more thoughtful than 
 the Archbishop of York gives them credit for being, they 
 would have no reason to give why animals with as many 
 senses as man has, and with some of them more acute than 
 his, have not long since attained, like him, to an understand- 
 ing of the benefits of establishing archbishoprics. 
 
 It must be understood that by the assertion of the organic 
 basis of mental function is not meant that the mind imposes 
 the laws of its own organization ; on the contrary, it obeys 
 them, knowing not whence they come nor whither they 
 tend. Innate ideas, fundamental ideas, categories of the un-r 
 derstanding, and like metaphysical expressions, are obscure 
 intimations of the laws of action of the internal organizing 
 power under the conditions of its existence and exercise ; 
 and it is easy to perceive that a new and higher sense con- 
 ferred on man, altering entirely these conditions, would at 
 once render necessary a new order of fundamental ideas or 
 categories of the understanding. That all our knowledge is 
 relative cannot be denied, unless it be maintained that in that 
 wonderful organizing power which cometh from afar there 
 lies hidden that which may be intuitively revealed to con- 
 sciousness as absolute knowledge — that the nature of the 
 mysterious power which inspires and impels evolution may, 
 by a flash of intuitive consciousness, be made manifest to 
 the mind in the process of its own development. If Nature 
 be attaining to a complete self-consciousness in man, far 
 away from such an end as it seems to be, it is conceivable 
 that this might happen ; and if such a miraculous inspiration 
 were thus to reveal the unknown, it would be a revelation of 
 the one primeval Power. Clearly, however, as positive sci- 
 entific research is powerless before a vast mystery — the 
 whence, what, and whither, of the mighty power which 
 gives the impulse to evolution — it is not justified in making 
 any proposition regarding it. This, however, it may rightly
 
 260 THE LIMITS OP 
 
 do ; while keeping its inquiries within the limits of the 
 knowable, it may examine critically, and use all available 
 means of testing, the claims and credentials of any professed 
 revelation of the mystery. And it is in the pursuit of such 
 inquiries that it would have been satisfactory to have had 
 from the archbishop, as a high-priest of the mystery, some 
 gleam of information as to the proper limits which he be- 
 lieves ought to be observed. At what point is the hitherto 
 and no farther to which inquiry may advance in that direc- 
 tion ? "Where do we reach the holy ground when it becomes 
 necessary to put the scientific shoes from off our feet ? There 
 must assuredly be 'some right and duty of examination into 
 the evidence of revelations claiming to be Divine; for, if it 
 were not so, how could the intelligent Mussulman ever be, 
 if he ever is, persuaded to abandon the one God of his faith, 
 and to accept what must seem to him the polytheism of the 
 Christian Trinity ? 
 
 Another error, or rather set of errors, into which the 
 archbishop plunges, is that he assumes positive science to be 
 materialistic, and materialism to involve the negation of God, 
 of immortality, and of free will. This imputation of mate- 
 rialism, which ought never to have been so lightly made, it is 
 quite certain that the majority of scientific men would ear- 
 nestly disclaim. Moreover, the materialist, as such, is not 
 under any logical constraint whatever to deny either the ex- 
 istence of a God, or the immortality of the soul, or free will. 
 One is almost tempted to say that in two things the arch- 
 bishop distances competition : first, in the facility with which 
 he loses or dispenses with the links of his own chain of rea- 
 soning; and, secondly, in his evident inability to perceive, 
 when looking sincerely with all his might, real and essential 
 distinctions which are at all subtile, which are not broadly, 
 and almost coarsely, marked. If the edge of a distinction be 
 fine, if it be not as blunt as a weaver's beam, it fails seem- 
 ingly to attract his attention, "Whosoever believes sincerely 
 in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, as taught by
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 20 1 
 
 tlie Apostle Paul, which all Christians profess to do, must 
 Burely have some difficulty in conceiving the immortality of 
 the soul apart from that of the hody; for, if the apostle's 
 preaching and the Christian's faith be not vain, and the body 
 do rise again, then it may be presumed that the soul and it 
 will share a common immortality, as they have shared a com- 
 mon mortality. So far, then, from materialism being the ne- 
 gation of immortality, the greatest of the apostles, the great 
 Apostle of the Gentiles, earnestly preached materialism as es- 
 sential to the life which is to come. There is as little or less 
 justification for saying that materialism involves of necessity 
 the denial of free will. The facts on which the doctrine of 
 free will is based are the same facts of observation, whether 
 spiritualism or materialism be the accepted faith, and the 
 question of their interpretation is not essentially connected 
 with the one or the other faith ; the spiritualist may consist- 
 ently deny, and the materialist consistently advocate, free 
 will. In like manner, the belief in the existence of God is 
 nowise inconsistent with the most extreme materialism, for 
 the belief is quite independent of the facts and reasons on 
 which that faith is founded. The spiritualist may deny God 
 the power to make matter think, but the materialist need not 
 deny the existence of God because he holds that matter may 
 be capable of thought. Multitudes may logically believe that 
 mind is inseparable from body in life or death — that it is 
 born with it, grows, ripens, decays, and dies with it, without 
 disbelieving in a great and intelligent Power who has called 
 man into being, and ordained the greater light to rule the day 
 und the lesser light to rule the night. 
 
 What an unnecessary horror hangs over the word materi- 
 alism ! It has an ugly sound and an indefinite meaning, and 
 is well suited, therefore, to be set up as a sort of moral 
 scarecrow ; but, if it be closely examined, it will be found to 
 have the semblance of something terrible, and to be empty 
 of any real harm. In the assertion that mind is altogether a 
 function of matter, there is no more actual irreverence than in 
 12
 
 262 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 asserting that matter is the realization of mind ; the one and 
 the other proposition being equally meaningless so far as they 
 postulate a knowledge of any thing more than x>henomena. 
 "Whether extension be visible thought, or thought invisible ex- 
 tension, is a question of a choice of words, and not of a choice 
 of conceptions. To those who cannot conceive that any or- 
 ganization of matter, however complex, should be capable of 
 such exalted functions as those which are called mental, is it 
 really more conceivable that any organization of matter can 
 be the mechanical instrument of the complex manifestations 
 of an immaterial mind ? Is it not as easy for an omnipotent 
 power to endow matter with mental functions as it is to 
 create an immaterial entity capable of accomplishing them 
 through matter? Is the Creator's arm shortened, so that He 
 cannot endow matter with sensation and ideation? It is 
 strangely overlooked by many who write on this matter, that 
 the brain is not a dead instrument, but a living organ, with 
 functions of a higher kind than those of any other bodily 
 organ, insomuch as its organic nature and structure far sur- 
 pass those of any other organ. What, then, are those func- 
 tions if they are not mental ? I^o one thinks it necessary to 
 assume an immaterial liver behind the hepatic structure, in or- 
 der to account for its functions. But so far as the nature of 
 nerve and the complex structure of the cerebral convolutions 
 exceed in dignity the hepatic elements and structure, so far 
 must the material functions of the brain exceed those of the 
 liver. Men are not sufficiently careful to ponder the wonder- 
 ful operations of which matter is capable, or to reflect on the 
 miracles efiected by it which are continually before their eyes. 
 Are the properties of a chemical compound less mysterious 
 essentially because of the familiarity with which we handle 
 them ? Consider the seed dropped into the ground : it swells 
 with germinating energy, bursts its integuments, sends up- 
 ff^ard a delicate shoot, which grows into a stem, putting forth 
 in due season its leaves and flowers, until finally a beautiful 
 structure is formed, such as Solomon in all his glory could not
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 263 
 
 equal, and all the art of mankind cannot imitate. And jet 
 all these processes are operations of matter; for it is not 
 thought necessary to assume an immaterial or spiritual plant 
 which effects its purposes through the agency of the material 
 structure which we observe. Surely there are here exhibited 
 properties of matter wonderful enough to satisfy any one of 
 the powers that may be inherent in it. Are we, then, to be- 
 lieve that the highest and most complex development of or- 
 ganic structure is not capable of even more wonderful opera- 
 tions? Would you have the human body, which is a micro- 
 cosm containing all the forms and powers of matter organized 
 in the most delicate and complex manner, to possess lower 
 powers than those forms of matter exhibit separately in Na- 
 ture ? Trace the gradual development of the nervotis system 
 through the animal series, from its first germ to its most com- 
 plex evolution, and let it be declared at what point it sudden- 
 ly loses all its inherent properties as living structure, and be- 
 comes the mere mechanical instrument of a spiritual entity. 
 In what animal, or in what class of animals, does the imma- 
 terial principle abruptly intervene and supersede the agency 
 of matter, becoming the entirely distinct cause of a similar, 
 though more exalted, order of mental phenomena? To ap- 
 peal to the consciousness of every man for the proof of a 
 power within him, totally distinct from any function of the 
 body, is not admissible as an argument, while it is admitted 
 that consciousness can make no observation of the bodily or- 
 gan and its functions, and until therefore it be proved that 
 matter, even when in the form of the most complex organi- 
 zation, is incapable of certain mental functions. Why may it 
 not, indeed, be capable of consciousness, seeing that, whether 
 it be or not, the mystery is equally incomprehensible to us, 
 and must be reckoned equally simple and easy to the Power 
 which created matter and its properties ? When, again, we 
 are told that every part of the body is in a constant state of 
 change, that within a certain period every particle of it is re- 
 newed, and yet that amid these changes a man feels that he
 
 264 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 remains essentially the same, vre perceive nothing inconsist- 
 ent in the idea of the action of a material organ; for it is not 
 absurd to suppose that in the brain the new series of particles 
 take the pattern of those which thej replace, as they do in 
 other organs and tissues which are continually changing their 
 substance yet preserve their identity. Even the scar of a 
 wound on the finger is not often effaced, but grows as the 
 body grows : "why, then, assume the necessity of an imma- 
 terial principle to prevent the impression of an idea from be- 
 ing lost ? 
 
 The truth is, that men have disputed vaguely and violently 
 about matter and motion, and about the impossibility of mat- 
 ter affecting an immaterial mind, never having been at the 
 pains to reflect carefully upon the different kinds of matter 
 and the corresponding differences of kind in its motions. All 
 sorts of matter, diverse as they are, w^ere vaguely matter — 
 there was no discrimination made; and all the manifold and 
 special properties of matter were comprised under the gen- 
 eral term motion. This was not, nor could it lead to, good; 
 for matter really rises in dignity from physical matter in 
 which physical properties exist to chemical matter and chem- 
 ical forces, and from chemical matter to living matter and its 
 modes of force ; and then in the scale of life a continuing as- 
 cent leads from the lowest kind of living matter with its force 
 or energy, through different kinds of physiological elements 
 with their special energies or functions, to the highest kind 
 of living matter with its force — viz., nerve-matter and nerve- 
 force ; and, lastly, through the different kinds of nerve-cells 
 and their energies to the most exalted agents of mental func- 
 tion. ObAiously, then, simple ideas derived from observation 
 of mechanical phenomena cannot fitly be applied to the ex- 
 planation of the functions of that most complex combination 
 of elements and energies, physical and chemical, in a small 
 space, which we have in living structure ; to speak of me- 
 chanical vibration in nerves and nerve-centres is to convey 
 false ideas of their extremely delicate and complex energies,
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 265 
 
 and thus seriously to hinder the formation of more ji;st con- 
 ceptions. 
 
 In like manner, much barren discussion has been owing 
 to the undiscriminating inclusion of all kinds of mental mani- 
 festations under the vague and general term mind; for there 
 are most important difterences in the nature and dignity of 
 so-called mental phenomena, when they are properly observed 
 and analyzed. Those who have not been at the pains to 
 follow the order of development of mental phenomena and 
 to make themselves acquainted with the different kinds of 
 functions that concur to form what we call mental action, 
 and who have not studied the differences of matter, are doing 
 no better than beating the air when they disclaim against 
 materialism. By rightly submitting the understanding to 
 facts, it is made evident that, on the one hand, matter rises 
 in dignity and function until its energies merge insensibly 
 Into functions which are described as mental, and, on the 
 other hand, that there are gradations of mental function, the 
 lowest of which confessedly do not transcend the functions 
 of matter. The burden of proving that the Bens ex macJdnd 
 of a spiritual entity intervenes somewhere, and where it 
 intervenes, clearly lies upon those who make the assertion or 
 who need the hypothesis. They are not justified in arbitra- 
 rily fabricating an hypothesis entirely inconsistent with ex- 
 perience of the orderly development of Nature, which even 
 postulates a domain of Nature that human senses cannot take 
 any cognizance of, and in then calling upon those who reject 
 their assumption to disprove it. These have done enough if 
 they show that there are no grounds for and no need of the 
 hypothesis. 
 
 Here we might properly take leave of the archbishop's 
 address, were it not that the looseness of his statements and 
 the way in which his understanding is governed by the old 
 phrases of philosophical disputes tempt further criticism, and 
 make it a duty to expose aspects of the subject of which ha 
 does not evince the least apprehension. He would, we ima-
 
 266 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 gine, be bard put to it to support tbe beavy indictmont con- 
 tained in tbe following sentence wbicb be flings off as be 
 goes beedlesslj forward: "A system wbicb pretends to dis- 
 pense witb tbe ideas of God, of immortality, of free agency, 
 of causation, and of design, would seem to offer few attrac- 
 tions." The question of the value of any system of philosophy 
 is not, it may be observed incidentally, whether it is unattrac- 
 tive because it dispenses witb received notions, still less 
 because its adversaries imagine that it must dispense with 
 them; but it is whether it possesses that degree of funda- 
 mental truth wbicb will avail to enlarge tbe knowledge and 
 to attract ultimately the belief of mankind. History does not 
 record that the doctrines of Christianity were found attractive 
 by the philosophers of Greece or Rome when they were first 
 preached there ; does, indeed, record that Paul preaching on 
 Mars' Hill at Athens, the city of intellectual enlightenment, 
 and declaring to tbe inhabitants the unknown God whom 
 they ignorantly worshipped, made no impression, but found 
 it prudent to depart thence to Corinth, nowise renowned at 
 that time as a virtuous city, renowned, indeed, in far other 
 wise. "We have not, however, quoted the foregoing sentence 
 in order to repudiate popular attractiveness as a criterion of 
 truth, but to take occasion to declare tbe wide difference be- 
 tween tbe modest spirit of scientific inquiry and the confident 
 dogmatism of the so-called Positive Philosophy. Science, 
 recognizing the measure of what it can impart to be bounded 
 by the existing limits of scientific inquiry, makes no proposi- 
 tion whatever concerning that wbicb lies beyond these lim- 
 its; equally careful, on tbe one band, to avoid a barren 
 enunciation in words of what it cannot apprehend in 
 thought, and, on the other band, to refrain from a blind 
 denial of possibilities transcending its means of research. A 
 calm acquiescence in ignorance until light comes is its atti- 
 tude. It must be borne clearly in mind, however, that tliis 
 scrupulous care to abstain from presumptuous assertions does 
 not warrant the imposition of any arbitrary barrier to the
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 267 
 
 reach of its powers, but is quite consistent witli the convic- 
 tion of the possibility of an invasion and subjugation of the 
 unknown to a practically unlimited extent, and with the most 
 strenuous efforts to lessen its domain. 
 
 The wonder is — and the more it is considered the greater 
 it seems — that human intelligence should ever have grown to 
 tlie height either of affirming or of denying the existence of a 
 God. Certainly the denial implies, even if the affirmation 
 does not also, the assumption of the attributes of a God by 
 him who makes it. Let imagination travel unrestrained 
 through the immeasurable heavens, past the myriads of orbs 
 which, revolving in their appointed paths, constitute our 
 solar system, through distances which words cannot express 
 nor mind conceive definitely, to other suns and other planet- 
 ary systems ; beyond these glimmer in the vast distance the 
 lights of more solar systems, whose rays, extinguished in the 
 void, never reach our planet : still they are not the end, for 
 as thought in its flight leaves them behind, and they vanish 
 in remote space, other suns appear, until, as the imagination 
 strives to realize their immensity, the heavens seem almost 
 an infinite void, so small a space do the scattered clusters of 
 planets fill. Then let sober reflection take up the tale, and, 
 remembering how small a part of the heavenly hosts our 
 solar system is, and how small a part of our solar system 
 the earth is, consider how entirely dependent man, and 
 beast, and plant, and every living thing are upon the heat 
 which this our planet receives from the sun; how vege- 
 tation flourishes through its inspiring influence, and the 
 vegetation of the past in long-buried forests gives up again 
 the heat which ages ago it received from the sun ; how animal 
 life is sustained by the life of the vegetable kingdom, and by 
 the heat whicb is received directly from the sun ; and how 
 man, as the crown of living things, and his highest mental 
 energy, as the crown of his development, depend on all that 
 has gone before him in the evolution of Kature — considering 
 all these things, docs not living Nature appear but a small
 
 268 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 and incidental bj-play of the sun's energies ? Seems it not 
 an unspeakable presumption to affirm that man is the main 
 end and purpose of creation ? Is it not appalling to think 
 that he should dare to speak of what so far surpasses the 
 reach of his feeble senses, and of the power which ordains 
 and governs the order of events — impiously to deny the 
 existence of a God, or not less impiously to create one in his 
 image? The portion of the universe with which man is 
 brought into relation by his existing sentiency is but a frag- 
 ment, and to measure the possibilities of the infinite unknown 
 by the standard of what he knows is very much as if the 
 oyster should judge allXature by the experience gained with- 
 in its shell — should deny the existence on earth of a human 
 being, because its intelligence cannot conceive his nature or 
 recognize his works. Encompassing us and transcending our 
 ken is a universe of energies ; how can man, then, the " feeble 
 atom of an hour," presume to affirm whose glory the heavens 
 declare, whose handiwork the firmament showeth? Certain- 
 ly true science does not so dogmatize. 
 
 Bacon, in a well-known and often-quoted passage, has re- 
 marked, that "a little philosophy inclineth men's minds to 
 Atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about 
 to religion ; for while the mind of man looketh upon second 
 causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no 
 further ; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confeder- 
 ate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and 
 Deity." It is not easy to perceive, indeed, how modern sci- 
 ence, which makes its inductions concerning natural forces 
 from observation of their manifestations, and arrives at 
 generalizations of different forces, can, after observation of 
 Is'ature, avoid the generalization of an intelligent mental 
 force, linked in harmonious association and essential relations 
 with other forces, but leading and constraining them to higher 
 aims of evolution. To speak of such evolution as the course 
 of Ils'ature is to endow an undefined agency with the proper- 
 ties which are commonly assigned to a god, whether it be
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL IXQUIR?. 269 
 
 called God or not. The nature, aim, and power of this su- 
 preme intelligent force, working so far as we know from 
 everlasting to everlasting, it is plainly impossible that man, a 
 finite and transient part of Nature, should comprehend. To 
 suppose him capable of doing so, would be to suppose him 
 endowed with the very attributes which, having only in part 
 himself, he ascribes in the whole to Deity. 
 
 Whether the low savage has or has not the idea of a God 
 is a question which seems hardly to deserve the amount of 
 attention which it has received. It is certain that he feels 
 himself surrounded and overruled by forces the natures and 
 laws of which he is quite ignorant of, and that he is apt to 
 interpret them, more or less clearly, as the work of some 
 being of like passions with himself, but vastly more powerful, 
 whom it is his interest to propitiate. Indeed, it would ap- 
 pear, so far as the information of travellers enables us to 
 judge, that the idea entertained of God by the savage who 
 has any such idea is nearly allied to that which civilized peo- 
 ple have or have had of a devil ; for it is the vague dread of 
 a being whose delight is in bringing evil upon him rather 
 than that of a being who watches over and protects him. 
 Being ignorant altogether of the order of Nature, and of the 
 fixed laws under which calamities and blessings alike come, 
 he frames a dim, vague, and terrible embodiment of the causes 
 of those effects which touch him most painfully. Will it be 
 believed, then, that the Archbishop of York actually appeals 
 to the instinct of the savage to rebuke the alleged atheism 
 of science ? Let it be granted, however, that the alleged in- 
 stinct of the savage points to a God and not to a devil ruling 
 the world, it must in all fairness be confessed that it is a dim, 
 undefined, fearful idea — if that can be called an idea which 
 form has none — having no relationship to the conception of 
 a God which is cherished among civilized people. In like 
 manner as the idea of a devil has undergone a remarkable 
 development with the growth of intelligence from age to age, 
 until in some quarters there is evinced a disposition to im-
 
 270 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 prove him out of being, so the conception of a God has under- 
 gone an important development through the ages, in corre- 
 spondence with the development of the hnman mind. The 
 conceptions of God aflarmed by different revelations notably 
 reflect, and are an index of, the intellectual and moral char- 
 acter of the people to whom each revelation has been made, 
 and the God of the same religion does unquestionably advance 
 with the mental evolution of the people professing it, being 
 differently conceived of at different stages of culture. Art, 
 in its early infancy, when it is, so to speak, learning its steps, 
 endeavors to copy ITature, and, copying it badly, exaggerates 
 and caricatures it, whence the savage's crude notion of a God ; 
 but the aim and work of the highest art is to produce by 
 idealization the illusion of a higher reality, whence a more 
 exalted and spiritual conception of Deity. 
 
 Notwithstanding the archbishop's charge of atheism 
 against science, there is hardly one, if indeed there be even 
 one, eminent scientific inquirer who has denied the existence 
 of God, while there is notably more than one who has 
 evinced a childlike simplicity of faith. The utmost claim of 
 scientific skepticism is the right to examine the evidence of a 
 revelation professing to be Divine, in the same searching way 
 as it would examine any other evidence — to endeavor to trace 
 the origin and development, and to weigh the value, of re- 
 ligious conceptions as of other conceptions. It violates the 
 fundamental habit of the scientific mind, the very principle 
 of its nature, to demand of it the unquestioning acceptance 
 of any form of faith which tradition may hand down as 
 divinely revealed. When the followers of a religion appeal, 
 as the followers of every religion do, in proof of it, to the 
 testimony of miraculous events contrary to the experience 
 of the present order of Nature, there is a scientific fact not 
 contrary to experience of the order of Nature which they 
 overlook, but which it is incumbent to bear in mind, viz.: 
 That eager and enthusiastic disciples sometimes have visions 
 and dream dreams, and that they are apt innocently to ima-
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 271 
 
 gint> or pnrposely to invent extraordinary or supernatural 
 events worthy the imagined importance of the subject, and 
 answering the burning zeal of their faith. The calm observer 
 and sincere interpreter of Nature cannot set capricious or 
 arbitrary bounds to his inquiries at any point where another 
 may assert that he ought to do so ; he cannot choose but 
 claim and maintain the right to search and try what any 
 man, Jew or Gentile, Mussulman or Bramin, has declared 
 sacred, and to see if it be true. And, if it be not true to him, 
 what matters it how true it be ? The theologian tells him 
 that the limits of philosophical inquiry are where faith be- 
 gins, but he is concerned to find out where faith does begin, 
 and to examine what sort of evidence the evidence of things 
 unseen is. And if this right of free inquiry be denied him, 
 then is denied him the right to doubt what any visionary, or 
 fanatic, or madman, or impostor, may choose to proclaim as a 
 revelation from the spiritual world. 
 
 Toward the close of his lecture the archbishop, breaking 
 out into peroration, becomes violently contemptuous of the 
 philosopher who, ^' with his sensations sorted and tied up 
 and labelled to the utmost, might," he thinks, "chance to 
 find himself the most odious and ridiculous being in all the 
 multiform creation. A creature so glib, so wise, so full of 
 discourse, sitting in the midst of creation with all its mystery 
 and wonder, and persuading you that he is the master of its 
 secrets, and that there is nothing but w^hat he knows ! " It 
 is not very difiScult to raise a laugh by drawing a caricature ; 
 but it was hardly, perhaps, worthy the lecturer, the subject, 
 and the audience, to exhibit on such an occasion an archi- 
 episcopal talent for drawing caricatures. As we have al- 
 ready intimated, this philosopher, " so glib, so wise, so full 
 of discourse," does not profess to know nearly so much of 
 the mystery and wonder of creation as the archbishop does. 
 There is more flourishing language of the same sort before 
 the discourse ends, but it would be unprofitable to transcribe 
 or criticise it; and it is only right to the lecturer to say that
 
 272 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 ho is near his conclusion when he works himself up into this 
 vituperative and somewhat hysterical ecstasy. The follow- 
 ing passage may be quoted, however, as instructive in more 
 respects than one : 
 
 " The world offers just no"w the spectacle, humiliating to us in 
 many ways, of millions of people clinging to their old idolatrous reli- 
 gions, and refusing to change them even for a higher form ; while in 
 Christian Europe thousands of the most cultivated class are beginning 
 to consider atheism a permissible or even a desirable thing. The very 
 instincts of the savage rebuke us. But just when we seem in danger 
 of losing all may come the moment of awakening to the dangers of 
 our loss. A world where thought is a secretion of the brain-gland — 
 where free will is the dream of a madman that thinks he is an em- 
 peror, though naked and in chains — where God is not or at least not 
 knowable, such is not the world as we have learned it, on which 
 great lives have been lived out, great self-sacrifices dared, great piety 
 and devotion have been bent on softening the sin, the ignorance, and 
 the misery. It is a world from which the sun is withdrawn, and with 
 it all light and life. But this is not our world as it was, not the world 
 of our fathers. To live is to think and to will. To think is to see 
 the chain of facts in creation, and passing along its golden links to 
 find the hand of God at its beginning, as we saw His handiwork in its 
 course. And to will is to be able to know good and evil ; and to will 
 aright is to submit the will entirely to a will higher than ours. So 
 that with God alone can we find true knowledge and true rest, the 
 vaunted fruits of philosophy." 
 
 Was ever before such a terrible indictment against Chris- 
 tianity drawn by a Christian prelate? Its doctrines have 
 now been preached for nearly two thousand years; they 
 have had the aids of vast armies, of incalculable wealth, of 
 the greatest genius and eloquence ; they are embodied in the 
 results of conquests, in the sublimest works of art, in some 
 of the noblest specimens of oratory, in the very organization 
 of modern society ; thousands upon thousands have died 
 martyrs to their faith in them, and thousands more have been 
 made martyrs for want of faith in them; they have been 
 carried to the darkest places of the earth by the vehicles of 
 commerce, have been proclaimed by the messengers and
 
 pniLosorniCAL inquiry. 273 
 
 backed by the moral power of a higher civilization; they 
 are almost identified with the spirit and results of modern 
 scientific progress : all these advantages they have had, 
 and yet the archbishop can do no more than point to the 
 spectacle of millions of people clinging to their old idola- 
 trous religions, and to thousands of the most cultivated class 
 in Christian Europe who are beginning to consider atheism a 
 permissible or even a desirable thing 1 "Whether it be really 
 true that so many of the cultivated class in Europe are 
 gravitating toward atheism we cannot say ; but, if the allega- 
 tion be true, it may well be doubted whether an appeal to 
 the instincts of the savage who persists in clinging to his 
 idolatry will avail to convince them of their error. It is not 
 very consistent on the archbishop's part to make such an ap- 
 peal, who in another paragraph of his lecture emphatically 
 enjoins on philosophy not to banish God, freedom, duty, and 
 immortality from the field of its inquiries, adjuring it solemnly 
 never to consent to abandon these highest subjects of study. 
 Another comment on the passage above quoted which sug- 
 gests itself is that men have undergone great self-sacrifices, 
 sufierings, and death, for a bad cause with as firm and cheer- 
 ful a resolution as good men have for the best cause ; to die 
 for a faith is no proof whatever of the truth of it, nor by 
 any means always the best service which a man may render it. 
 Atheism counts its martyrs as well as Christianity. Jordano 
 Bruno, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, was condemned for 
 atheism, sentenced to death, and, refusing to recant, burned 
 at the stake. Yanini, who sufiered death as an atheist, 
 might have been pardoned the moment before his execution 
 if he would have retracted his doctrines ; but he chose to be 
 burned to ashes rather than retract. To these might be 
 added others who bave gone through much persecution and 
 grievous suffering for a cause which the Archbishop of York 
 would count the worst for which a man could suffer. How 
 many Christians of one sect have undergone lingering tor- 
 tures and cruel deaths at the hands of Christians of another
 
 274 THE LIMITS OF 
 
 sect for the sake of small and non-essential points of doc- 
 trine in which only they differed — for points at issue so mi- 
 nute as to " be scarcely visible to the nicest theological eye ! " 
 Christianity has sometimes been a terrible war-cry, and it 
 must be confessed that Christians have been good persecu- 
 tors. When the passions of men have worked a faith into 
 enthusiasm, they will suffer and die, and inflict suffering and 
 death, for any cause, good or bad. The appeal to martyr- 
 dom of professors is therefore of small worth as an argu- 
 ment fbr the truth of their doctrine. Pity 'tis that it is so, 
 for, if it were otherwise, if self-sacrifice in a cause would suf- 
 fice to establish it, what a noble and powerful argument in 
 support of the Christian verities might archbishops and bish- 
 ops offer, in these sad times of luxury and unbelief when so 
 many are lapsing into atheism ! 
 
 But we must bring to an end these reflections, which are 
 some of those that have been suggested by the perusal of the 
 archiepiscopal address on the " Limits of Philosophical In- 
 quiry.'' Though heavy charges are laid against modern sci- 
 ence, they are made in a thoughtless rather than a bitter 
 spirit, while the absence of bigotry and the general candor 
 displayed may justify a hope that the author will, on reflec- 
 tion, perceive his opinions to require further consideration, 
 and his statements to be too indiscriminate and sweeping. 
 On the whole there is, we think, less reason to apprehend 
 harm to scientific inquiry from this discharge of the arch- 
 bishop's feelings, than to apprehend harm to those who are 
 obstinately defending the religious position against the attack 
 which is thought imminent. For he has used his friends 
 badly : he has exposed their entire flank to the enemy ; 
 while he would distinctly have philosophy concern itself 
 with the highest subjects — God, freedom, and immortality — 
 despising a philosophy which forbears to do so, and pointing 
 out how miserably it falls short of its highest mission, he 
 warns philosophy in the same breath that there is a point at 
 which its teaching ends. 
 
 I
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY. 275 
 
 " Philosophj, while she is teaching morals and religion, 
 will soon come to a point where her teaching tends. . . She 
 will send her scholars to seek in revelation and practical 
 obedience the higher culture that she can onlj commence.'" 
 
 The pitj of the matter is, that we are not furnished with 
 a word of guidance as to where the hitherto and no farther 
 point is. With brave and flourishing words he launches the 
 inquirer on a wide waste of waters, but without a rudder to 
 guide him, or a compass to steer bj. Is he to go on so long 
 as what he discovers is in conformity with the Gospel accord- 
 ing to the Thirty-nine Articles, but furl-to his sails, cease his 
 exertions, and go down on his knees, the moment his discov- 
 eries clash with the faith according to the Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles ? "What guarantee have we that he will be content to 
 do so ? In withholding the Scriptures from the people, and 
 shutting off philosophy entirely from the things that belong 
 to faith, the Church of Rome occupies a strong and almost 
 impregnable position ; for, if there be no reading there will 
 be no inquiry, and if there be no inquiry there will be no 
 doubt, and if there be no doubt there will be no disbelief. 
 But the union of philosophical inquiry and religious faith is 
 not a natural union of kinds ; and it is difficult to see how 
 the product of it can be much different from the hybrid 
 products of other unnatural unions of different kinds — can 
 be other than sterile, when it is not monstrous. 
 
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