LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF, CALIFORNIA 
 
 Received /A<^lt^ iM& 
 
 No, ^0 4 %S Shel M 
 
'9. 
 
a 
 
THE CREED OF SCIENCE 
 
 THR 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
THE 
 
 CEEED OF SCIENCE 
 
 RELIGIOUS, MORAL, AND SOCIAL 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM GRAHAM, M.A. 
 
 rKOFKSSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE AM' NDTIOAI ECONOMY, QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST 
 
 SECOND EDITION, REVISED 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LONDON 
 REGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1884 
 
Q/7 
 
 (The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THIS book has to a considerable extent already found 
 its audience, and has received from the thinking portion 
 of the public a degree of attention beyond what I 
 ventured to anticipate for it. 
 
 For the benefit of those '^v^o may read the present 
 edition, I take the opportunity of saying here a few 
 words, in order to explain more clearly the general 
 character, aim, and method of the book, as well as the 
 position taken up in it. 
 
 In the first place, the work is essentially philosophi- 
 cal in its spirit, in its aim, in its standard of thorough- 
 ness, and in its subject, which comprises, amongst other 
 matters, the questions which Philosophy has always had 
 on hand, and which she considers peculiarly her own. Nor 
 do the questions cease to be philosophical, though new 
 and important contributions towards their solution from 
 the side of Science have been handed in, and have to 
 be specially taken into consideration in the treatment 
 of each of them. 
 
 But though philosophical, the book is also in a sense 
 popular; that is to say, it is not merely addressed to 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 I 
 
 the few hundreds who have studied philosophy at our 
 universities, but to the many thousands of educated 
 people who, without having made a special study of 
 Philosophy or of Science, have yet a lively interest in 
 the great and pregnant controversies of our age, as well 
 as in the permanent questions which concern every 
 human being as such, and who have ample intelligence 
 to comprehend them both, if only they are not treated 
 exclusively in the formidable phraseology of the Schools. 
 In order to reach this wider class at which I aim, 
 I have endeavoured in the following pages to minimize 
 scientific terms and to translate, as far as might be 
 safely ventured, the abstract symbols and general 
 formulas in which Philosophy has hitherto found it 
 most convenient to express herself, but by which she 
 has kept herself above the general comprehension, into 
 the more concrete conceptions of a general liberal 
 culture. To do this to some extent where philosophical 
 arguments are employed or the special thoughts of phi- 
 losophers come under purview was absolutely necessary 
 to be understood ; and general intelligibility, though 
 perhaps not fairly to be expected in a philosopher's 
 system, is to some considerable extent expected in a 
 work like the present, which undertakes an exposition 
 of a faith professing to repose on clear and scientific 
 grounds, and presumably meant for all mankind. 
 
 Up to the present the philosopher and the general 
 reader have lived in separate spheres, and have almost 
 come to regard each other as natural enemies. A work 
 
PKEFACE. Vll 
 
 on Philosophy is the despair of the general reader. If he 
 ventures to read it he is only dimly aware of an impersonal 
 something, a sort of intellectual human machine in the 
 background, weaving abstruse sentences with a certain 
 seeming ease and method and logical coherence, but 
 which keeps obstinately aloof alike from his sympathy 
 and intelligence. " Why cannot he make himself in- 
 telligible to ordinary, or even to superior intelligence?" 
 murmurs the general reader. " Impossible," says the 
 philosopher. " What I have to say cannot be stated in 
 other language. It cannot be popularized, nor is it 
 desirable that it should be. Philosophy cannot stoop to 
 accommodate herself to your intelligence. You must 
 raise yourself to her level of language and thought if 
 you would have her benefits. If you want a precious 
 thing, you must be prepared to pay the proper price for 
 it, or go without. " Impossible," in turn replies the 
 general reader. " I have not sat at the feet of the masters 
 of wisdom in the Schools, and I am now too old to learn 
 or to apply your severe language. It is too hard a price 
 to pay for even wisdom, and, in fact, for most people 
 amounts to a prohibitive tax." 
 
 The position is at once serious and a little ridiculous. 
 On the one hand, we have the abstract philosopher 
 charged with wisdom, possessing the key to all mysteries 
 and all knowledge, which one would suppose it was his 
 special business to give to men ; on the other, the general 
 reader, the man of fairly cultivated intellect, hungry for 
 this wisdom and knowledge, and, in the opinion of the 
 philosopher, perishing for lack of it, and yet no com- 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 munication is possible between the two. No word with 
 meaning can pass from the higher to the lower intelli- 
 gence. Within sight of plenty the ordinary man must 
 starve, for outside the pale of Philosophy there is no 
 salvation. A few little words rightly spoken on the 
 right occasions might afford a key to all the treasures, 
 give a clue to all the wisdom ; but yet the magic, light- 
 giving words are never spoken. Some fatal impotence 
 or dreadful necessity keeps the oracle's lips locked, keeps 
 back the illuminating words, and allows only the old 
 enigmatical ones, the old abstruse and ambiguous for- 
 mulas, to flow forth. Our metaphysical salvation, we 
 are given to understand, depends on our attaching the 
 precise sense of the philosopher to some particular term, 
 such as Subject, Consciousness, or some other, which it 
 takes him four hundred pages to explain, while usually 
 after the third sentence the general reader, however 
 desperate his endeavour, parts company with light and 
 comprehension till he reaches the final page. The clouds 
 close, and no. ray of light again breaks through the 
 general leaden atmosphere even to the end, should the 
 reader have the resolution to try it out so far. 
 
 The philosopher will only speak, or can only speak, 
 to be understood of the small circle who have mastered 
 his language, and well if even by them. And thus 
 it would seem that truth and wisdom, like other good 
 things, are to be the exclusive monopoly of a privileged 
 class, and that only the philosophically elect can be 
 saved. 
 
 Or perhaps the philosopher would willingly speak to 
 
PEEFACE. IX 
 
 all mankind, if he only knew how. But, now, when 
 in the like strait of having important but difficult truth 
 to communicate to the general intelligence, what did the 
 prophets and religious founders, and what the great 
 poets in all ages ? They spake in parables and simili- 
 tudes to make the general truth or moral they would 
 inculcate more easily apprehensible. They gave the 
 results of their meditations and speculations, suppressing 
 the too intricate or profound reasonings by which they 
 reached them; or, if they gave them, they translated them 
 into the concrete, and they helped out their meaning by 
 illustration. 
 
 Now, I conceive that by a method not wholly unlike 
 this the high philosopher's thoughts might be brought 
 down to the understanding of the people at least, of 
 fairly educated people. The general principle might be 
 stated, and then given in the concrete; the abstract or 
 abstruse might have its illustration alongside. For the 
 comprehension of the general principle there is nothing 
 like the concrete example, as for the rendering the 
 abstruse clear there is nothing but the aptly chosen 
 image or figure, notwithstanding certain dangers of 
 misapprehending to which their employment may lead. 
 Whoever has successfully caught the' central thought 
 of a great thinker like Spinoza, Kant, or Berkeley is 
 enabled thereby to see the universe from his position, 
 to follow the central thought into its necessary corol- 
 laries; and such are able, if they have the faculty of 
 exposition, including some imagination, to communicate 
 and explain this central thought to others. The person 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 who should be best qualified by practice for this service 
 is the Teacher of Philosophy, who will not be successful 
 unless he possess the gift of exposition, which consists 
 mainly in two things : first, the power of using clear 
 and precise language ; and next, of finding illustrations 
 and analogies as middle terms to connect the intelligence 
 of the pupil with the thought of the philosopher. 
 
 I have in this book occasionally undertaken the 
 delicate function of translating the philosopher's thought 
 to the general understanding, of acting as a sort of 
 interpreter of the high philosophical oracles to the people. 
 It is not an easy task to convey without spilling the 
 doctrine of the abstract thinker into different vessels ; 
 and one might easily fall between two stools in ad- 
 dressing a book to philosophers, theologians, and men 
 of science on the one hand, and on the other to the 
 intelligent general reader. He might fail to catch his 
 general reader, who is apt to be shy if he suspects an 
 attempt to entice him unwarily into any metaphysical 
 controversies, of all of which he has a keen scent from 
 afar, as well as an instinctive dread. On the other hand, 
 if he secures his general reader he may give occasion to 
 the serious philosopher to cavil at the result as wanting 
 in thoroughness and depth. 
 
 Nevertheless I think I have not wholly failed in my 
 aim, for philosophers, theologians, and men of science 
 have read the book, philosophical reviews have analyzed 
 and criticized it, and on the whole not unfavourably, 
 while it has undoubtedly reached at least a section of 
 the general reading class, as is proved by the absorption, 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 comparatively rapid for such a serious book, of the former 
 edition. 
 
 It may be well also to state that, for the sake of greater 
 clearness, I have departed from the customary methods of 
 exposition in another particular. With respect to all the 
 more important controversies materialism, pessimism, 
 socialism, etc. I have tried to give the essential and the 
 best arguments on both sides. I have tried to place 
 myself in all these cases at the believer's point of view 
 in expounding his belief, and in at least two important 
 instances, namely, in the question of a future life and in 
 the great social controversy of our age, now strongly 
 coming to the front, I have stated and almost pressed the 
 rival theories as strongly as if I believed them both, 
 though not, I hope, with the effect of leaving the reader 
 in final doubt as to my own opinions. I have followed 
 this method of exposition not only for the sake of 
 clearness, but to give the reader a sense of reality apt 
 to be lost in long logical discussions. Though the method 
 is not free from certain dangers of misapprehension, no 
 other seemed so suitable for conveying clearly and 
 pointedly, and within a moderate space, the abstract 
 arguments and ideas that are so difficult to grasp in a 
 tangible way. Following a different method, the book 
 would necessarily have been much increased in size by 
 quotation and protracted controversy, with no corre- 
 sponding increase in value or accuracy, and certainly 
 none in interest. By the method adopted, certainly one 
 scores fewer logical or verbal victories over particular 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 opponents, and unless a writer has both knowledge and 
 clearness of vision he runs the risk of misapprehending, 
 as, unless he is candid, he is nearly sure of misrepresenting, 
 the doctrines from which he differs ; but, with all draw- 
 backs, in no other way can he so surely establish an 
 intelligent sympathy with his readers, or so effectually 
 communicate real truth and knowledge. Moreover, in no 
 other way can he so well secure thoughtful attention to 
 ideas and theories which, though sometimes less, are not 
 unfrecjuently more strong than the fallible presentations 
 of them by their defenders for the time being. Finally, 
 in no other way can the writer bring the reader so near the 
 very presence of Truth of that Truth so often obscured 
 by the dust of controversy, and so often attenuated by 
 the logical medium intended to convey it ; of that Truth, 
 I will add, which in so many cases has not given herself 
 unreservedly to one of the contending sides, but is to be 
 found divided in various proportions between them. 
 
 I believe the work has been of use to some, and I 
 believe it might be of use to more in these days of con- 
 fusion. But I have no desire to make converts from other 
 faiths to the particular views expressed in it. Indeed, 
 where any one's faith, religious or moral, is firmly fixed 
 and found satisfactory, it is but a cruel kindness in 
 another to try to shake it. I do not think, however, that 
 such a one would suffer much hurt from the book, and 
 perhaps there are parts of it that would be of use to him. 
 But in the main I am not speaking to or for such. I am 
 speaking to those and they are numerous who in the 
 
PKEFACE. Xlll 
 
 intellectual and moral nihilism of our time scarcely know 
 what to think, believe, or do, and I am speaking for 
 those less numerous, but not a few who, like myself, 
 wish to come to some sort of honest understanding with 
 themselves, on grounds of reason, irrespective alike of the 
 dogmatism of science and of theology as to what they 
 should believe on the questions of capital human concern. 
 The questions treated are no other than these. They 
 are the old eternal questions once more, only they are 
 here considered in their latest aspect, and under the 
 special light thrown upon them by scientific theories and 
 discoveries. And there are also new questions, social and 
 moral, belonging to the stage of social development we 
 have reached. In addition to the new theories of Science, 
 the reader will find in it the leading controversies of 
 morals, and religion, of life and society; in short, the 
 troubled consciousness of our century, which on all 
 questions holds opposite opinions with almost equal 
 assurance, is in a manner reflected in its pages. 
 
 The book thus presupposes a thoughtful reader. 
 It is not meant for the general reader, in the widest 
 sense, but only for a select, though an increasing, section 
 of that huge and omnivorous class. Some, for all the 
 pains taken to lighten the exposition, coujd not read it ; 
 others would not by any persuasion be induced to read, 
 for it is often serious reading and not to be taken in 
 without due attention. 
 
 The ordinary reader could not fully comprehend the 
 argument in the first chapter of Book iii., which is 
 properly metaphysical, without some slight philosophical 
 
XIV PEEFACE. 
 
 as well as scientific culture. Nor could he fully compre- 
 hend the Kantian argument for Free-will, nor for a 
 Future Life, nor for the imperative of Morality, which 
 are briefly considered in the several chapters devoted to 
 these topics, without more knowledge of Kant's system 
 than is to be gathered from the exposition itself. But 
 even as regards Kant I have tried to simplify the expo- 
 sition so that those who have a tincture of philosophy 
 may understand it, while, this philosopher's speculations 
 apart, and they do not occupy much space, the remainder 
 of the above chapters, and in fact, the whole remainder of 
 the book, with the exception above stated of chapter i., 
 and a small portion of chapters ii. and iii. of the third 
 part, ought to be very generally intelligible. 
 
 The first two books have each a certain completeness 
 in themselves. But some controversies, only partially 
 treated in the first chapter of the book, are postponed, 
 as regard their full treatment, to the third book, which 
 is in some respects an appendix. This separation has 
 been objected to, as needless, by an eminent naturalist * 
 who has criticized the book, and by the reviewer in 
 Mind, as resulting in repetition. But, once again, 
 my chief reason was consideration for the reader. 
 Further, I did not wish to impair the interest of 
 the book. The two first chapters of the third part, 
 which are logically connected with the first chapter in 
 the book, are mainly controversial in character, and the 
 argument is close, severe, and somewhat long, and I did 
 * Professor Asa Gray. 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 not wish to repel the reader by plunging him early into 
 a protracted controversy. I gave him in essence and in 
 outline quite as much as he could well digest in the first 
 fifty pages, and I transferred to the end of the book 
 the fuller development of the argument for the special 
 benefit of the metaphysical reader who may want, 
 and perhaps expect it. These two chapters of Book iii. 
 might almost be omitted by the general reader, but not 
 the remainder, which contains two of the most important 
 and, it is hoped, suggestive chapters of the whole work 
 those, namely, on the developed conception of Gk>d, and 
 on the conciliation of the new and old theories of morals. 
 
 The book has been considered sceptical in spirit 
 by some,* and undoubtedly in some respects it is. But 
 there is a healthy as well as a hurtful scepticism, a scep- 
 ticism that allows a faith and hope to live alongside it 
 as well as a different sort, and it is chiefly this healthy 
 species that the reader will find. Moreover, it is possible 
 that the coming generations will have to take their 
 spiritual shelter under just such a scepticism. But at any 
 rate, the rigidly orthodox and the , votaries of varying 
 dogma should remember that, in our days, scepticism 
 may serve religion well, when perhaps their own over- 
 confident arguments may fail to convince. At the present 
 time it is chiefly a wholesome scepticism standing on the 
 despised reason and on the canons of inductive logic 
 which keeps the advanced and atheistic wing of the 
 scientific dogmatists at bay. 
 
 In other respects the book does not favour scepticism. 
 * See The Church Quarterly Review, July, 1882. 
 
 b 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 My opinions are stated clearly as respects each question 
 under consideration, with confidence or hesitation accord- 
 ing to the weight of the evidence or the force of the 
 arguments producible. I believe the entire tendency of 
 the book is wholesome, but however that may be, it was 
 written in the interests of religion and morals as surely 
 as Butler's Analogy, with the first part of which, on 
 " Natural Religion," strange and audacious as the com- 
 parison may seem, it has in fact a good deal in common, 
 both in subject and spirit, if not always in its conclusions. 
 The topics of a Future Life, of Free-will, and of the 
 Moral Government of the World, though differently 
 treated, and though the conclusions reached are some- 
 what different, are common to both, while Butler's 
 " Natural Government " by rewards and punishments 
 corresponds to the regulation of conduct in accordance 
 with the settled sequences and established order of Nature 
 which our scientific philosophers, like Professor Huxley, 
 insist upon, and which is treated of in the second part 
 of this book. 
 
 In venturing to suggest a comparison with so famous 
 a book as Butler's, I am aware that it will be to my 
 disadvantage on the whole. Nevertheless I venture to 
 make it in order the better to indicate the character of 
 the work, and further, I claim one advantage which it 
 possesses over that of Butler, namely, that it was 
 written a century and a half later, and after the new 
 and deeper vision of the universe which we owe to 
 German Philosophy had been supplemented for us by 
 the new revelation of Science searching space and time, 
 
PKEFACE. XV11 
 
 and man and history, and gathering thence a material 
 and concrete filling-up for the intellectual framework and 
 conceptions supplied by that Philosophy. 
 
 There is, perhaps, another advantage which it pos- 
 sesses. It was written by a layman; for though some 
 would deny that the fact as such confers any greater 
 merit on a work dealing with religion and morals, 
 yet I think it does give a somewhat greater guarantee 
 not perhaps of sincerer arguments, but of more im- 
 partial criticism and freedom from foregone conclusions, 
 and this is very particularly wanted in the treatment of 
 the subject in hand. 
 
 The book is very imperfect, and is far from having 
 said the last word on any of the questions treated ; but 
 it is an honest book, written not without much pre- 
 paration, and from a standpoint thoroughly independ- 
 ent as respects schools and sects, philosophic, theologic, 
 or scientific for even Science has her sects. Such an 
 independent position is the first and most indispensable 
 condition at the present time, of saying anything of the 
 least value on the questions here treated ; and it is 
 because it is written from such a position, and because 
 the author has further endeavoured to write clearly and 
 sincerely and with knowledge, that he addresses it to 
 the reader, in the hope that he may find in it something 
 that may serve him, or of which he has felt the want. 
 
 LONDON, December, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION ... ... ... ... ... ... xxv 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 
 
 1. Whence came the physical worlds ? ... ... ... 3 
 
 2. Answer of Science : (1) Of Laplace and Kant ; (2) of Sir W. 
 
 Thomson and Helmholtz ... ... ... ... 5 
 
 3. Origin of life, according to Haeckel : spontaneous generation... 15 
 
 4. Origin of species, according to Darwin : natural selection ... 21 
 
 5. Chance the chief characteristic in the process of natural selec- 
 
 tion ... ... ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 6. Natural selection as a scientific hypothesis, how far proved. 
 
 Its great significance in a theological, philosophical and 
 ethical reference ... ... ... ... ... 31 
 
 7. Natural selection dispenses with Design in the process of 
 
 Evolution ... ... ... ... ... ... 35 
 
 8. Gives a new and sinister solution of the problem of evil. Science 
 
 optimistic in spite of the struggle for existence. Modern 
 pessimism and evolution. ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 9. A Creator, postulated by Darwin, set aside by Haeckel ... 44 
 10. Real issue raised by the doctrine of evolution, Whether Chance 
 
 or Purpose made and rules the world ... ... ... 47 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 1. The place of man in Nature ... ... ... ... 55 
 
 2. The scientific portrait of man ... ... ... ... 58 
 
 3. The development of the human species. Has been by a series 
 
 of great individuals rather than by natural selection and in- 
 heritance ... ... ... ... 64: 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 4. The preceding proved of man during historic as well as pre- 
 
 historic time ... ... ... ... ... 68 
 
 5. The initiative and influence of great individuals a force travers- 
 
 ing the law of natural selection ... ... ... 72 
 
 6. In what direction the further development of humanity tends 71 
 
 7. Concession to the pessimist. Happiness, though possible, 
 
 mostly missed. Causes of this ... ... ... 77 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOB VIRTUE. 
 
 1. Defects in our past ethical systems ... ... ... 83 
 
 2. Chief cause of the failure of the masters of morals want of 
 
 scientific knowledge. Man, as shown by psychology, physio- 
 logy, and natural history ... ... ... ... 86 
 
 3. Man fundamentally an animal, self-conserving and moved by 
 
 sense : far-reaching ethical consequences of these facts, and 
 particularly of the former. The struggle for existence 
 within the human species ... ... ... ... 91 
 
 4. Man also a social animal : ethical consequences of this fact. 
 
 Love for others the happiest feat of evolution. Influence 
 
 of religious founders in its development ... ... 95 
 
 5. Origin of the feeling in the primitive man. How far it admits 
 
 of natural explanation ... ... ... ... 98 
 
 6. The " love of humanity," and " the greatest happiness of the 
 
 greatest number." How far the former is a possible feel- 
 ing, or the latter a practicable or proper aim. Testimony of 
 psychology, experience, and the great writers on the former 
 point ... ... ... ... ... ... 102 
 
 7. The " love of humanity" and the "struggle for existence" as 
 
 exemplified in nations, classes, individuals ... ... 109 
 
 8. The love of our species real and possible in the sense of a love 
 
 of certain individuals as representatives of the whole and 
 redeemers of its unlovable units ... ... ... Ill 
 
 9. Defect in the ethical system of Kant ... ... ... 114 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 
 
 1 . Ethical significance of the free-will controversy ... ... 118 
 
 2. Theory of the man-machine, with consciousness superadded as 
 
 spectator ... ... ... ... ... ... 119 
 
 3. Portion of truth in the theory. Futility and irrelevance of the 
 
 theory 123 
 
 4. Theory of Mill and Bain : our volitions determined by conscious 
 
 motives referring to pleasure and pain ... ... ... 125 
 
 5. Substantial truth of the theory. Corrections suggested. Con- 
 
 scious motives governed by unconscious causes. Variation 
 
 in the strength of conscious motives apparently the same 128 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 } 6. Our actions : how far from automatic and unconscious, how far 
 from conscious causes. Analysis of the possible kinds of 
 causes allows no room for free-will ... ... ... 129 
 
 7. Logical consequence of free-will, involves the miracle of the 
 
 creation of force or energy ... ... ... ... 132 
 
 8. The power of improving our character does not imply free-will 13 > 
 
 9. Merit and demerit, how far affected by the motive theory ... 1H7 
 
 10. Is punishment justifiable on this theory ? ... ... ... 140 
 
 11. Practical freedom the freedom to pursue desired ends un- 
 
 touched by the theory ... ... ... ... 145 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON IMMORTALITY. 
 
 f 1. Verdict of Science: of the physicist, the physiologist, and the 
 
 naturalist ... ... ... ... ... ... 148 
 
 2. Metaphysical theories of the soul. Arguments in favour of 
 
 its immortality. Theological theories of the soul. Immor- 
 tality a revelation, not an inference of reason ... ... 150 
 
 3. Scientific arguments against a future life: (1) From physiology 154 
 
 4. (2) From the Darwinian theory of descent. Natural origin and 
 
 history of the belief in a future life. (3) From evolution in 
 general ; because the human species and all species will dis- 
 appear, and because the earth itself shall perish ... 156 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHE3IS. 
 
 1. Objections, other than theological, to the scientific arguments : 
 (1) Of the spiritualist; (2) of the mystic. Reply of Posi- 
 tive Science to each ... ... ... ... ... 166 
 
 2. (3) Of the universal human heart founded on the desire to 
 
 meet again our loved ones. Reply of Science ... ... 177 
 
 3. Review of discussion. What Science has proved, what failed to 
 
 prove. A future existence possible without memory of the ' 
 past. Belief of greatest philosophers and poets. Why 
 opinion of great poets is important. Belief of Shakespeare 
 and Goethe ; belief of Kant. Conclusions of Kant and 
 Goethe specially noteworthy because they were also men of 
 science ... ... ... ... ... ... 179 
 
 4. Conclusion maintained: that further conscious existence is 
 
 possible, that existence other than consciousness, and per- 
 haps better, is also possible. Is annihilation possible? ... 185 
 
 5. Is the future one of rewards and punishments ? How far virtue 
 
 and vice have received their wages on earth. Possible ob- 
 jections to conclusion ... ... ... ... 190 
 
 6. Recapitulation : how far a scientific philosophy can believe in 
 
 a future life 194 
 
XX11 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Modern pessimism " The Occidental Buddhism." Explanation 
 
 and meaning of the phenomenon ... ... ... 199 
 
 2 Answer to the pessimist : from the experience of the majority ; 
 from the interpretation of consciousness. Consciousness 
 not essentially a want and a pain. Pessimism not the word 
 of life to-day in Western Europe. The " denial of the will 
 to live" and the struggle for existence... ... ... 206 
 
 3. Positive science and positivism. Common principle and point 
 
 of view. Science and Metaphysics ... ... ... 210 
 
 4. Causes of the rise and spread of the positive spirit. Whether 
 
 the old metaphysical questions, stripped of their unreal ele- 
 ments, may not be answered from the positive point of view 215 
 
 5. The positive standpoint suffices at least for all questions relat- 
 
 ing to practice ... ... ... ... ... 220 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MESSAGE AND THE PROMISES TO MANKIND. 
 
 1. The revelation of science ... ... ... ... 223 
 
 2. The truths of science calculated to beget a resigned and re- 
 
 ligious frame of mind ... ... ... ... 225 
 
 3. Knowledge the emancipator and deliverer. The pursuit of 
 
 knowledge the worship and sacrifice accepted by Nature. 
 Grace and favours which physical science has gained for us 
 from Nature ... ... ... ... ... 228 
 
 4. What medical science and physiology have done for us ... 233 
 
 5. The new philosophy and the general probation of life. How 
 
 far the latter may be mitigated by knowledge. Need of 
 stoicism and resignation for which a knowledge of the uni- 
 versal order prepares us ... ... ... ... 236 
 
 6. Good side of the struggle for existence. Competition, its uses 
 
 and necessity. The race in the future ... ... 242 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TO THE POOR. SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM. 
 
 1. The socialist's indictment against modern society. Causes of 
 poverty and all social evils, according to the socialist. The 
 only cure ... ... ... ... ... ... 248 
 
 2. Reply of the sociologist and political economist. Social evils 
 spring from imperfect human nature, not from unjust laws, 
 or imperfect constitution of society. Further development 
 of this view. Consequences. Advice of the sociologist and 
 economist to the poor ... ... ... ... 261 
 
CONTENTS. XXlll 
 
 3. Truth and error in both preceding views. The socialist's pro- 
 
 gramme impracticable, human nature stopping the way. 
 Mistake of the sociologist. Human nature modifiable for 
 a time during which important social changes are possible. 
 Examples 273 
 
 4. Co-operative labour. Limits to the application of the principle. 
 
 Why it must fail for a long time to solve the problem of 
 capital and labour ... ... ... ... ... 282 
 
 5. Under one contingency, the normal slow rate of social evolu- 
 
 tion might be greatly accelerated. The aristocracy of 
 thought and letters on the side of labour. Best present ad- 
 vice to the toiling many. The social agitation in all civil- 
 ized states a practical admonition to statesmen and rulers 286 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE MATERIALISM OP ATOMS AND FORCES. 
 
 1. Is science atheistic? Distinction between science and the 
 philosophies professing to be based on science : positivism, 
 materialism, and evolution. Positivism and theism ... 291 
 
 2. Two kinds of materialism, one constructing the universe from 
 
 atoms, and one from force or energy. How far these are 
 severally atheistic. The theory of man's automatism a 
 logical consequence of the reduction of all to physical 
 energy. Refutation. The two species of energy, physical 
 and spiritual. The latter ever on the increase ... ... 293 
 
 3. A third Something behind all phenomena material or mental. 
 
 Admitted by materialists like Haeckel and Huxley. Effect 
 
 of admission on their philosophy ... ... ... 303 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE EVOLUTION-MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 1. What is necessary to establish a complete materialism. The 
 
 Design argument and the Darwinian theory ... ... 311 
 
 2. The argument for God's existence as the Author of the moral 
 
 law attacked by evolution. Evolution account of the origin 
 and development of morality and religion. Explanation by 
 the evolutionists of the admitted fact of conscience ... 318 
 
 3. Continuation and conclusion of the evolution-materialist's argu- 
 
 ment. A Creator need not be postulated at the introduc- 
 tion of life, or at the first appearance of consciousness ... 326 
 
 4. Reply to this materialism. How far the controversy with the 
 
 materialist may now be narrowed. Futility of all material- 
 ism to-day ... ... ... ... ... ... 330 
 
XXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5, Real danger of Darwinism and the evolution philosophy in 
 another direction; tends to make not Matter but Chance 
 the author of all. Proof of this. Why and in what sense 
 we must believe in Purpose ... .. ... ... 337 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 
 
 1. The modern conception of God. Its origin and development... 345 
 
 2. The conception illustrated in detail. How far it coincides with 
 
 the Ultimate Reality of Herbert Spencer, with the Infinite 
 Substance of Spinoza ... ... ... ... 347 
 
 3. The conception of Kant and Schleiermacher ... ... 352 
 
 4. Will the new conception offer a barrier to the new materialism 
 
 in alliance with evolution ? ... ... ... ... 354 
 
 5. Can theology accept it ? ... ... ... .. ... 356 
 
 6. Theory considered that God can be known in other and human 
 
 relations by a special religious sense ... ... ... 358 
 
 7. True source of the supposed intuitions of the religious sense... 3(32 
 
 8. Source of the complete conception of God so far as possible by 
 
 our minds. Elements of the conception furnished by re- 
 ligion, philosophy, art, and science ... ... ... 3GG 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 
 
 1. (1) That the new teaching destroys virtue by making it a 
 matter of human invention. (2) That it makes the authority 
 of conscience questionable and of no effect ... ... 369 
 
 2. (3) That the relaxed sense of moral obligation will destroy 
 society and civilization. Parallels of history. Stages of 
 moral decay specified. This result more to be dreaded if 
 the theory of the mechanical or materialistic derivatiou of 
 all actions is accepted ... ... ... ... 378 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONFLICT AND PARTIAL CONCILIATION BETWEEN THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 
 
 1. Only mode of partial conciliation. Concession by evolutionist 
 to the spiritualist and moral idealist. Nature of our moral 
 impulses to be learned from the impulses themselves, not 
 from their origin. Our obligation to truth and justice. 
 Limitation to the possible ... ... ... ... 383 
 
 2. Evolutionists may concede that men follow ideals more than 
 
 ever. Morality will not be touched in essence ; but a new 
 valuation of the virtues may be required. Doctrine of 
 heredity 390 
 
 3. Irreducible contradictions between real and ideal morality. The 
 
 contradictions in our nature and in the conditions of life. 
 Tendency to further conciliation, ever short of full harmony 398 
 
INTKODUCTION. 
 
 1. I PEOPOSE in the following pages to give the chief 
 conclusions reached by Modern Science on the central 
 questions of religion, morals, and society, to state, in a 
 word, the general creed of Science ; and, as the scientific 
 faith may still be fallible, or of unequal degrees of credit, 
 I propose, in the second place, to offer some comments 
 and criticisms on some of its more doubtful articles, with 
 a view to their reconsideration or revision. 
 
 Already many have taken in hand to set forth the 
 scientific faith, together with the grounds on which it 
 rests. In particular, eminent physicists and naturalists 
 both in this country and in Germany Huxley, Clifford, 
 Tyndall, Haeckel, Helmholtz, Tait, and Balfour Stewart 
 have all attempted it in essays, addresses > or books, with 
 more or less pretence at fulness. But the physicists and 
 naturalists, though they may be depended upon to reflect 
 accurately the tendency of scientific thought on the 
 questions within their respective provinces which touch 
 on the sphere of religion, do not speak with the same 
 authority on questions moral, social, or philosophical. 
 
 The scientific thinkers, to whom the work more 
 
XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 properly belongs, have also attempted to give expositions 
 of scientific faith and doctrine. Within the past forty 
 years Comte, Mill, Strauss, and -Herbert Spencer have all 
 essayed it. But as the two former wrote before the 
 discovery of the two most comprehensive generalizations 
 iu physics and biology the law of the Conservation of 
 Energy and the law of Natural Selection they failed to 
 reach the new and more commanding point of view 
 which these two laws place henceforth at the disposal of 
 thinkers. Their systems are accordingly to a consider- 
 able extent superseded as incomplete scientific explana- 
 tions of the universe, while the moral and social doctrines 
 of both are pronounced by Herbert Spencer inconsistent 
 with the deepest and widest generalizations of the laws 
 of life and society. 
 
 Herbert Spencer has himself, in the various volumes 
 of his new system of evolution-philosophy, given the 
 most complete and philosophic statement of the scientific 
 faith, and he has given it with special references to the 
 above-named highest laws. But waiving the fact that 
 physicists object to some of his physics, and philosophers 
 to some of his philosophy, the system is itself so volu- 
 minous and vast in fact, so severe a course of reading, 
 which postulates a special facility in the art of quickly 
 apprehending the meaning of a train of abstract symbols, 
 scientific and philosophic that a more compendious if 
 not an easier exposition would seem a matter to be 
 desired. To supply some such condensed exposition to 
 the large and increasing class who have an intelligent 
 human interest in the new scientific theories, and in the 
 great collision and controversy now going on between 
 the new and old beliefs is one object of this book ; to 
 supplement the exposition with a criticism which may 
 assist them to separate the false from the true elements 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV11 
 
 in the new creed, is the second and possibly more im- 
 portant object. 
 
 2. In the absence of any single and universally 
 acknowledged authority on all articles of faith and 
 doctrine I have taken the consensus of scientific opinion 
 amongst the few highest authorities on each particular 
 article, and I have treated this as the orthodox teaching 
 of Science as what would have been the decision had 
 all such authorities met together in Council to fix the 
 faith. Thus, on the question of the origin and future 
 dissolution of our earth and solar system, the most 
 eminent physicists are in the main agreed, however much 
 they may differ on such philosophical questions as the 
 immortality of the Soul or the existence of God. Pro- 
 fessors Tait and Helmholtz, for example, differing on the 
 latter, are still agreed that a widely dispersed nebulous 
 matter, closing together under gravitation, awoke the 
 sun's fires, and produced the earth and planets originally 
 at molten heat. They are further agreed, and so also are 
 Professors Balfour Stewart and Clifford, in accepting Sir 
 W. Thomson's doctrine of the Dissipation of Energy 
 with the consequent future dissolution of all the systems 
 of the universe. There is a consensus of opinion, that 
 is to say, amongst the foremost physicists as to the 
 remote physical beginning and far-off end of the material 
 universe, though they differ widely as to the nature and 
 destiny of the human soul. Accordingly, this consensus 
 of opinion may be accounted an article of scientific faith, 
 even though some physicists seem disposed to doubt it. 
 
 In like manner, I have treated as the orthodox belief 
 the Darwinian doctrine of the origin of Species, and in 
 particular of the animal origin of Man, even though 
 there still exists with respect to both an eminent body of 
 
XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 scientific dissent. It is to be so held because the balance 
 of biological authority, estimated not less in quality than 
 in quantity, has clearly pronounced in its favour; and 
 because on these two points the biologists form the final 
 court of appeal. 
 
 But when we come to mental, moral, and social 
 questions, neither physicists nor naturalists are any 
 longer authorities, however little some of them seem 
 disposed to concede the point. In particular, when the 
 question relates to man and his behaviour under the 
 complex motive forces, conscious or unconscious, which 
 determine it (supposing the question to come at all 
 within the range of scientific methods or treatment), we 
 shall no longer refer to the physicist or the naturalist for 
 the scientific doctrine. Not to the physicist certainly, 
 whose special studies of the invariable behaviour of 
 matter or the settled sequences of physical phenomena 
 prepare him very imperfectly for the investigation of the 
 widely different phenomena presented by human con- 
 duct; nor yet to the naturalist, whose infinitely wider 
 subject of plant and animal life forbids the due concen- 
 tration of regard upon the special human subject, par- 
 ticularly on its inner conscious side. Nor need we 
 greatly care as yet to consult that new man of science, 
 the anthropologist, not at least until he has a little 
 more systematized the miscellaneous mass of facts re- 
 ferring to man in all times and climes which at present 
 forms the subject-matter of his study. 
 
 On all questions concerning man himself, his virtues 
 and vices, and the uniformity, such as it is, which his life 
 in society presents, we are properly referred, on the part 
 of science, to a different order of specialists to the 
 psychologist, the moralist, the sociologist, to such au- 
 thorities as Mill, or Bain, or Herbert Spencer, who, in 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 addition to their writings on the philosophy or the logic 
 of the sciences, have dealt expressly, and from the scien- 
 tific point of view, with ethical and social questions. It 
 is true, indeed, that both physical and vital phenomena 
 are manifested in the human subject, that man is both 
 a machine and an organism in which the law of the 
 transmutation of energy is fulfilled ; true, therefore, that 
 he is so far a proper subject for physical and biological 
 investigation ; still, neither the most important nor the 
 most interesting problems presented by man relate to 
 the mechanism, however express and admirable, of his 
 physical structure, nor to the transmutations of physical 
 into vital and mental energy which really has place 
 within the human machine. Nor do they relate to those 
 other facts of organic functions and their various rela- 
 tions, with which the science of physiology deals. The 
 most important problems presented by man from the 
 point of view of science are psychological, moral, and 
 social, and our scientific authorities may be credited 
 with having taken into consideration such physical and 
 physiological conclusions as have special and important 
 bearing on these questions. 
 
 3. Thus far on the subject of authorities. But it 
 may be said, If your exposition be unexceptionable, and 
 your finding of faith and doctrine accurately gathered 
 from the first and surest sources as respects each par- 
 ticular article, is it not a little presumptuous to affect 
 thereafter to criticise such acknowledged authorities ? 
 
 I think not, and for the following reasons : In the 
 first place, we must distinguish between scientific faith 
 and scientific fact, between a fully verified law and a 
 supposed inference hazarded from it without being con- 
 tained under it, between a well-established theory and 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a hypothesis only probable, perhaps only possible. The 
 facts, the laws of science are true and certain : nothing 
 can be more so. But the same cannot always be said of 
 the interpretations of the facts, of the inferences from 
 the laws, of the temporary tentative hypotheses framed 
 to give some sort of systematic unity or supposed causal 
 connection to a collection of facts or of laws. And some, 
 though by no means all, of the articles of belief fall under 
 this description. They are only hypotheses of different 
 degrees of probability, and consequently of fallibility; 
 whilst one or two,, confidently accepted by Herbert 
 Spencer and Strauss at the hands of the physical specu- 
 lators, do not merit even the name of good hypotheses, 
 being predictions which have yet to be fulfilled from 
 hypotheses which are acknowledged to be uncertain. 
 The articles, in particular, which touch on the religious 
 sphere are mostly inferences without scientific justifi- 
 cation, because from the nature of the case they can 
 never receive that verification by comparison with facts, 
 which Mill, Bain and Lewes, our authorities on the logic 
 of science, insist on as essential to legitimate inference or 
 confident prevision. 
 
 Thus, any one with a moderate acquaintance with 
 physics, who has mastered the principles of inductive and 
 deductive logic as taught by Mill or Bain, may without 
 presumption point out, what some physicists are ready 
 enough to tell us, that the nebular hypothesis of Nature's 
 mode of manufacture of the earth and worlds of space, 
 now somewhat confidently offered as an article of belief, 
 is still only a hypothesis, subject in all its forms, and 
 after all its revisions, to very serious doubts ; while at 
 the best it does not admit of that decisive proof which 
 other hypotheses, at first doubtful, in process of time 
 received. 
 
 And happily, it is still more permissible to doubt the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 recent apocalyptic vision and gigantic prediction of the 
 greater prophets of physics so circumstantially recorded 
 by Professors Tait and Balfour Stewart, in The Unseen 
 Universe; the prediction that the sun will one day, 
 Saturn-like, devour his own offspring, the earth and 
 planets, with their satellites ; that thereafter the nearer 
 suns our own and Sirius, for example " having each 
 long since devoured his attendants," will rush together to 
 absorb each other or reduce themselves to a nebulous 
 vapour in the attempt ; that after an infinite series , of 
 such collisions, after each of which there is a sun or 
 perhaps two suns the less in space, after innumerable 
 deaths (as well too as occasional births) of suns and 
 systems, the final consummation, however long delayed 
 by this disturbing birth-element in the calculation, will 
 be the coalescence of all the matter of all previous suns 
 and systems into one widely diffused matter of uniform 
 temperature, which, as such, can make no fresh attempt 
 at world-generation.* 
 
 I say we may be fairly permitted to doubt this very 
 " big " physical speculation, even without being extreme 
 sceptics with regard to the general scientific creed ; more 
 especially as the first though worst calamity, the fall of 
 our earth upon the sun, is confessedly such a long way 
 off that the unbeliever can never be convinced in the 
 only effectual way by fulfilment or unmistakable 
 tendency to fulfilment of the prophecy* Besides, the 
 supposed finer matter dispersed through space, the uni- 
 versal ether or " resisting medium," whose imperceptible 
 but ceaseless friction in opposition to the earth's motion 
 is the small cause which is to bring about the great 
 catastrophe of the fall of the earth on the sun, this 
 
 * The Unseen Universe, pp. 165, 166 j see also H. Spencer's First 
 Principles, p. 528. 
 
 C 
 
XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ether may still further attenuate itself, or it may grow 
 denser in some regions and rarer in others, thus possibly 
 allowing a freer or a void space for the earth's unimpeded 
 movement. Or better still, and more likely, the resisting 
 medium, as eminent astronomers now begin to think, 
 may have no existence, or, if any, only within a safe and 
 limited region, which does not concern the earth. The 
 whole disturbing prediction may be only a false alarm, 
 founded on the eccentric behaviour of Encke's comet, 
 whose slight anticipation of its calculated time of return 
 led, as is well known, the perplexed astronomers to 
 this hypothesis of a resisting medium. But even if the 
 ether does exist, as Herbert Spencer and Professors Tait 
 and Balfour Stewart believe, we might still escape the 
 apprehended disastrous consequences. Something might 
 always turn up in the long chapter of chances to save 
 the earth. Our present laws of Nature, as Mill suggests, 
 may not keep quite steady and invariable so long. Or, 
 on the other hand, they may ; and the earth, which has 
 gone on so many millions of years in spite of the efforts 
 of the ether, may still contrive to keep off from the sun. 
 But the best encouragement of our scepticism comes from 
 the fact that a shade of it, at moments, appears to cross 
 the mind, at other times so confident, of our physical 
 speculators themselves. Thus, Professor Balfour Stewart, 
 after describing the chaotic beginning of the visible 
 universe to which " our modern knowledge enables us 
 to look back with almost certitude," and after predicting 
 the inevitable end with equal certainty, lets fall the 
 significant sentence, not unsuggestive of scepticism in its 
 author, " It ought, however, to be borne in mind that 
 our knowledge of the laws of matter is in reality very 
 limited." 
 
 In like manner, though to a less degree, we may 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXX111 
 
 entertain doubts respecting the far more important and 
 significant Darwinian hypothesis. We may doubt that 
 the hypothesis of Natural Selection is as well-founded 
 as the Newtonian theory of Gravitation ; or, admitting 
 Natural Selection as an undoubted vera causa, we may 
 strongly doubt that it was the sole agency employed by 
 Nature in the derivation and fashioning of her innumer- 
 able types and varieties of life. We may doubt the 
 universal applicability of the hypothesis, even though 
 we must acknowledge that our biologists have produced 
 much evidence in its favour. And those who prefer to 
 doubt may still doubt the descent of man from an extinct 
 variety of the ape species, though it is really easier to 
 believe, and is more likely to be true, than the infinitely 
 wider Theory of Development, from which, if established, 
 it would of course follow as an evident corollary. In the 
 present case, the corollary, if the least satisfactory, is 
 the most significant part of the theory ; and already, 
 independent of the theory, in our undoubted ancestor, 
 the Cave-man, we have more than half-way bridged the 
 gulf between us and our still more questionable " country 
 cousin," the gorilla. 
 
 But, as said, we may still doubt a little longer our 
 alleged animal origin, as we may doubt Haeckel's hypo- 
 thesis of the Spontaneous Generation of life, which, 
 though it can hardly as yet be pronounced an article of 
 scientific faith, is probably destined at no "distant date to 
 become one. And we may entertain degrees of doubts 
 about all these hypotheses, even though we concede that 
 each one of them is on the right lines of truth, and is 
 gradually feeling its way nearer and nearer to it. For 
 that some doubt is inseparable from every hypothesis is 
 implied in the very notion of a hypothesis ; and all who 
 know the logical and psychological conditions which 
 
XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 govern our assent when rightly yielded, know also that 
 all degrees of doubt may and do attach to hypotheses, 
 even in the minds of their originators themselves. 
 
 So stands it with the Darwinian hypothesis when 
 looked at from the scientific point of view. A degree of 
 doubt still hangs over it, as to the amount of which and 
 the co-relative amount of evidence in its favour we must 
 defer to the opinion of the best biologists, supposing them 
 logical and free from mental bias. But it is otherwise 
 when the scientific hypothesis is converted by biologists 
 like Haeckel into a universal philosophical theory a 
 change which, though great and significant in its con- 
 sequences, is easily and often made without notice being 
 taken of it. When the scientific hypothesis of Darwin is 
 turned into a philosophical system called Darwinism, or 
 is made the leading principle in the allied though more 
 complete system of Herbert Spencer, called the Evolu- 
 tion Philosophy ; when it is regarded not merely as a 
 probable scientific hypothesis, but as a full philosophical 
 interpretation of the universe and of the whole course of 
 organic evolution, to say nothing of mental, moral, and 
 social evolution in man ; then it is quite another matter, 
 and we have a right to object to the all-embracing pre- 
 tensions of the hypothesis, even though we be neither 
 specialists nor advanced students in biology. 
 
 In fact, when Natural Selection a name barely 
 serving to mask the infinite play of Chance, which is its 
 essential feature is offered us as the chief or sole creative 
 agency ; when the only principle employed by Nature in 
 the elaboration of the marvels of organic and of all other 
 evolution is said to have been the principle of utility ; 
 when the unfolding of the purpose of the universe is re- 
 solved into movement in " the line of least resistance ; " 
 in a word, when Chance and physical necessity, to the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 exclusion of Reason, Morality, and Purpose, are announced 
 by Haeckel and Huxley, if not by Darwin himself, as the 
 fundamental principles of the universe and of its process 
 of development, we have the strongest philosophical 
 grounds for objecting to the Darwinian doctrine so 
 understood. 
 
 It is our right and our duty to challenge the con- 
 clusions of Science, or rather of the current philosophies 
 which profess to speak in her name and with her credit, 
 when they affect to be authoritative and final deliver- 
 ances on philosophic or religious questions of supreme 
 import. On the question of a future life, and of the 
 existence and nature of God, we cannot allow the decisions 
 of scientific specialists or even of scientific philosophers 
 to contain the whole truth and the final word. On these 
 two questions, that have been discussed since the days of 
 Plato by the supremest intellects of our species, it cannot 
 be allowed that the greatest of these were wholly away 
 from the truth which has been only revealed at last in 
 our own day by the latest great scientific hypothesis in 
 conjunction with the law of the Conservation of Energy. 
 Our new scientific philosophies must be content to have 
 their pretensions tried by the same tests as all previous 
 philosophies, namely, by criticism. They must be con- 
 tent to be valued by their powers of recommending 
 themselves to the most developed human reason, in- 
 cluding the universal human instincts ; and when they 
 have been thus tried and valued, I venture to predict 
 that none of our new interpretations of the universe, 
 neither the revised Materialism of Democritus resting on 
 the doctrine of atoms and energy, nor the Evolution- 
 Materialism of Haeckel which mingles the germs of life 
 with the atoms, nor the still higher Evolution Philosophy 
 of Herbert Spencer, will give full and final satisfaction. 
 
XXXVI INTKODUCTION. 
 
 The last is the greatest, but as it takes away the attribute 
 of Purpose from the Ultimate Reality and Power which 
 it acknowledges in the universe, it will fail so far to find 
 acceptance with men. 
 
 4. The question of a future life does partly belong 
 to Science ; and physics, physiology, and natural history 
 under the light of the Darwinian theory, have all ap- 
 parently decided against the possibility of it. When the 
 cunningly constructed human machine breaks up ; when 
 the bodily organism, with all its functions, including 
 thought, collapses ; when man, the merely developed 
 animal, dies like the rest ; there is a common scientific 
 verdict that the end has veritably come, that the career 
 of man as a conscious individual being has for ever 
 closed. And it is not to be denied that the apprehension 
 that it is really so has been deepened in our generation 
 by the discoveries of Science. Nor has the apprehension 
 been lessened by the application of the new Historical 
 Method which tries to show the natural origin and 
 genesis of the doctrine itself, and which, moreover, points 
 to a period in the infancy of the species when the notion 
 of immortality did not even exist. Nevertheless, the 
 question of a future life is only in part a scientific one ; 
 nor is the doctrine disproved by showing that in the 
 infancy of the species it was no more thought of than it 
 now is in the infancy of the individual. The question is 
 also philosophical, or, if the reader is not afraid of the 
 word, metaphysical. It is metaphysical ; for on the two 
 questions of God and immortality, if one raises them at 
 all, there is no escape from metaphysics, which, in fact, 
 since the days of Kant, has been concentrating itself 
 mainly round these two questions. Happily, from the 
 side of philosophy, the question of a future life shows 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 
 
 itself in an aspect quite other than it does from that of 
 Science. In the two concluding chapters of the First 
 Part of this book the whole question is discussed anew, 
 and with special reference to the new scientific theories 
 which bear upon it. I have fronted the arguments of 
 science with the counter- theses of philosophy and religion, 
 supplemented by the instincts of the human heart, and I 
 have endeavoured, finally, after assigning to the several 
 arguments the degree of weight that seemed in each case 
 due, to take the fair measure of our fears as well as of our 
 hopes. 
 
 5. As regards the scientific ethics, in addition to 
 exposition, some criticism is called for ; because, though 
 a certain agreement is apparent, one is also soon forced to 
 recognize very serious differences amongst the scientific 
 authorities ; and also because the doctrine the most ap- 
 parently well grounded does not appear wholly unexcep- 
 tionable. Thus, scientific moralists agree that the will is 
 not free, and here I agree with them ; they agree further 
 that the ultimate end of action is happiness or the lessen- 
 ing of pain ; that the proper standard of virtue or right 
 action is the amount of resulting good or happiness or 
 utility ; and with neither of these principles am I dis- 
 posed to quarrel much. But though utilitarianism is 
 thus the common ethical creed of scientific moralists like 
 Mill and Bain and Herbert Spencer, itr is by no means 
 conceived alike by all of them. The utilitarianism of 
 Mill, which places the happiness of others first, that of 
 self only second, is very different in itself and in its 
 consequences from the utilitarianism of Spencer, which 
 reverses this order ; and if the latter doctrine, backed as 
 it is by evolution, and reposing on wider and deeper 
 generalizations of the necessary laws of life, is to be held 
 
XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the more scientific and defensible presentment of utili- 
 tarianism, then the reflection is forced upon us that 
 certain celebrated formulas, such as " the greatest happi- 
 ness of the greatest number," and the " love and service 
 of humanity," which have made much noise in these 
 latter years, must be either henceforth dropped, as moral 
 mottoes referring to delusive because impracticable goals, 
 or else must be narrowed to more modest and possible 
 aims, with a corresponding abatement as well in their 
 dignity as in our obligation to follow them. For if the 
 claims, the happiness, the well-being of self, must come 
 first, both in the order of time and of reason ; if the 
 struggle for existence in some form, however disguised, 
 is, as implied by Spencer, inseparable from all life, it 
 clearly follows that the happiness of others, even of those 
 nearest us, must give place, and can only come second ; 
 while the happiness of the greatest number should be no 
 aim of ordinary people at all, and can only be an aim to 
 the statesman or even the most autocratic ruler within 
 the limits of his own nation or race, and even within 
 further limits determined for him by social facts and 
 forces which he must take into account. 
 
 There is, in reality, opposition wide as the poles be- 
 tween the new and the old utilitarianism, between the 
 humanitarian ethics of Mill, which makes the happiness 
 of the species its aim, and the evolution ethics of Spencer, 
 which, although it assigns a place to the facts of sym- 
 pathy and sacrifice, nevertheless recognizes " the struggle 
 for existence " as the most universal and necessary, the 
 most controlling and comprehensive generalization ; and if 
 we elect to stand by the utilitarian creed at all, we must 
 further make choice between these its divergent forms, 
 or else we must make some compromise between them. 
 
 It is with the utilitarianism of Spencer that we shall 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 
 
 be chiefly concerned; for it must be allowed that it is 
 not only more practicable, but also more scientifically 
 grounded than any previous presentment of the utili- 
 tarian creed. It is more truly rational than the famous 
 rationally deduced system of Kant, because, unlike the 
 latter, it is founded on human nature and can be followed 
 by human beings. It is better based on human nature 
 than the ethics of Butler ; more consistent than the ortho- 
 dox popular system, a compound of Butler and Kant, 
 which goes by the name of the a priori or intuitional 
 morality. But when all this has been said in its favour, 
 we have to add that there are grave objections to some 
 of its tenets, and still graver ones to its inmost spirit and 
 practical tendency. There are the most serious questions 
 raised by it ; nay, that most serious and sinister of all 
 questions, whether Virtue has any reality beyond con- 
 vention, is once more irresistibly raised by it ; and the 
 answer to the question from the evolution point of view 
 is not quite satisfactory. In fact, if virtue is not to be 
 attacked at a vital point by being resolved in the last 
 analysis into selfishness ; if morality is to be regarded as 
 other than a useful invention, to abate social jar and 
 friction ; if moral rules are not to be brought to the level 
 of police regulations ; then there are some qualifica- 
 tions or concessions that must be made by the evolution 
 moralist over and above those made by Mr. Spencer, in 
 his recent remarkable work, The Data of Ethics. 
 
 Whatever becomes of moral systems, the practical 
 morality, the ethics to be preached and enforced on men 
 in future, must be the result of a compromise between 
 the new and old teaching ; and an attempt is made in 
 the last two chapters of the book at a partial conciliation 
 between the evolution ethics on the one side, and the 
 transcendental, intuitional, and humanitarian ethics 011 
 
xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the other. It is there maintained that the evolutionist 
 must concede to the moral idealist that sacrifice is an 
 actual ultimate fact, as well as an eternally necessary 
 thing in life; further, that he must acknowledge the 
 reality and binding obligation of the ideals of Truth, 
 Justice, Charity, as true and not illusory lights, whose 
 meaning, as given in the impulses to them, is that they 
 should be followed, within rational bounds indeed, but 
 sometimes at all hazards. He must also concede to the 
 Kantian that there does exist somewhere a moral "ought," 
 absolutely imperative, and a duty that must be done at 
 whatever cost. But the latter, on his side, will have to 
 give up the notion that the whole complex and some- 
 times contradictory field of conduct can be reduced under 
 the all-embracing category of duty, equally obligatory 
 and equally inexorable, even when the duties are in 
 evident conflict. It will have to be given up, under 
 penalty of the whole Kantian scheme of moral legislation 
 being pushed impatiently aside, as not properly addressed 
 to men, but to a wholly different order of beings to 
 beings possessed of free-will, which assuredly cannot be 
 men ; to noumenal egos, who are not swayed by our 
 phenomenal passions and motives ; in short, to hypo- 
 thetical beings, existing nowhere on earth or in space, 
 but only in the strange sphere of Things-in-themselves, 
 or in the philosopher's imagination. 
 
 In order to get a suitable practical ethics for men, 
 there must either be a 'further element of sacrifice, of 
 devotion, of absolute allegiance to duty, borrowed and 
 added on to the evolution ethics, that it may contain the 
 proper moral prescriptions for men in an imperfect moral 
 world, which is improved less by moral systems than by 
 individuals who manifest these qualities ; or else the 
 absolute systems must soften a little their rigid and un- 
 
INTRODUCTION. xli 
 
 conditional moral code. They must stoop to consider 
 the actual circumstances of men subject to facts and 
 conditions of nature and environment under which action 
 must be taken, and subject sometimes to perplexities and 
 moral antinomies, where no right course is visible, no 
 moral rule applicable. And if they cannot do this, if 
 the absolute moralist, like Kant, must plead a non possu- 
 mus, then we must be content to improve our evolution 
 and utilitarian ethics, and do the best we can with them. 
 
 Where our scientific authorities are all agreed, as on 
 the question of the ultimate moving principle of action, 
 and again on the question of the freedom of the will, I 
 am in the main agreed with them. But on the last- 
 named famous controversy a new statement of the neces- 
 sitarian theory seems necessary, as well to supply certain 
 points omitted by Mill and Bain, as on the other hand 
 to show the futility of the merely mechanical theories of 
 certain physicists and biologists, who, by reducing all 
 action in man to the play of physical forces in the man- 
 machine, would destroy the moral man altogether, as 
 well as drag this old controversy back once more into the 
 dark regions from which, after infinite vain wrangling, 
 it had just emerged. 
 
 6. There remains an important aspect of Science to 
 be considered ; an aspect in which she is distinguished 
 equally from the metaphysical as from the hypothetical 
 speculations which so often pass current under her name 
 and assume her credit ; an aspect under which she shows 
 herself, her character, and pretensions in their fullest 
 and clearest light. 
 
 There is the Baconian view of Science, according to 
 which she challenges our attention, not upon the strength 
 
Xlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of uncertain theories or provisional hypotheses, which 
 for the most part she sets lightly by, but upon the evi- 
 dence of her established laws, their worth and certainty; 
 an aspect in which, far from being subject to the doubt 
 that hangs over her hypotheses, she offers herself to us 
 as the only assured truth, and the highest conceivable 
 type of certainty and reliability. 
 
 There is positive science regarded as a vast and ever- 
 increasing body of verified natural laws, of ascertained 
 natural sequences, which, arranged in their proper 
 groups and sub-groups, constitute, the several sciences ; 
 positive science, which, having divided the phenomena 
 of the outer world into their proper provinces physical, 
 chemical, natural and having successfully reduced these 
 to law and order for the intelligence, is now engaged in 
 reducing physiological, psychological, and social phe- 
 nomena to law also; positive science, which, before evo- 
 lution had even been heard of, had already, in large 
 measure, revolutionized man's previous conception of the 
 universe, and which is further destined, if not to revo- 
 lutionize wholly, at least to greatly modify, the currit 
 theories of religion, morals, politics, and the conduct of 
 life. 
 
 There is positive science (not Positivism), which in 
 itself is truth, which in its searching methods furnishes 
 the surest test of truth, and the potent instruments in 
 its further discovery; positive science, which, in its 
 application, has given man the mastery over Nature, and 
 tamed and turned her once formidable and destroying 
 forces into his potent and submissive slaves; positive 
 science, which, besides ministering to the higher wants 
 of his intelligence, has multiplied manifold man's comfort 
 and the material factors of his happiness, while con- 
 fidently promising indefinite further gifts and services. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xliii 
 
 This aspect of Science, in which she is properly her- 
 self and truly great; in which she brings not merely 
 the fruit which Bacon chiefly sought, but also truth, not 
 merely material but spiritual bread, not merely the 
 power which knowledge gives but the satisfying know- 
 ledge itself, and the pleasure from its discovery or redis- 
 covery, I have dwelt upon in the Second Book, on 
 account of its intrinsic importance and the constant 
 extension of this positive spirit over all departments of 
 inquiry. Further, it is from this positive point of view 
 that the Socialism and Pessimism of our time can be 
 most profitably considered and best answered. 
 
 It must, however, be allowed that hitherto it has 
 been chiefly in the physical and biological sciences, and 
 in the practical sciences and arts to which these supply 
 the necessary knowledge, that the conclusions and 
 results of the positive methods have been of great and 
 evident value. It is the positive conclusions of astro- 
 nomy, chemistry, physics, physiology, and their applica- 
 tions in engineering, medicine, surgery, navigation, and 
 the numerous other useful arts, that have multiplied 
 man's power and increased the material conditions of his 
 happiness. It is these same positive conclusions that 
 have slowly altered and aggrandized his conception of 
 the universe. But when we come to the mental, moral, 
 and social sciences, there is less unanimity in their culti- 
 vators. Neither the laws of mind nor those of society 
 are beyond dispute, like physical laws. There is less 
 universality, and less permanence in the laws, because 
 mental and social phenomena vary with the individual 
 and the society. Nevertheless, of psychology at least it 
 may be said, that, however its scientific claims be rated, 
 it will at no distant day be regarded as an important 
 department of study in connection with physiology, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 V 
 
 having its uses and applications in an order of things 
 higher than material interests in philosophy, criticism, 
 ethics, politics, education, and even, in union with phy- 
 siology, in the preservation of health and the conduct 
 of life. 
 
 It is chiefly in the sphere of society that the dis- 
 covery of settled laws becomes difficult, and the worth of 
 those discovered questionable. For how, it is asked, can 
 we reduce social phenomena to any permanent laws, 
 when, as history clearly teaches, the appearance of a 
 single great spirit, of a religious founder like Buddha, or 
 even of a conqueror like Csesar, might greatly modify 
 them ; and when the rise and spread of a new religious 
 faith, or the growth of a new social system, might almost 
 wholly dissolve them ? The objection has weight ; and 
 we shall see reasons of a different sort for objecting to 
 any science of society which would appear to bind man's 
 power of social or political initiative in the fetters of 
 necessity in the shape of scientific laws, social or eco- 
 nomic, few or none of which are true for all ages and all 
 societies. Sociological and even Economic laws, it may 
 be said, unlike physical laws, are revocable. They are 
 made by the will of men, and the will of men can 
 unmake them. They are made possible only by the 
 consent of men, which can be revoked if it suits the 
 general interest and convenience to do so. In short, 
 the struggle of classes to enfranchise or to better them- 
 selves, the general movement of modern society to greater 
 social equality and justice, the whole of what we call 
 social progress, tend to make many sociological and 
 economic laws merely temporary expressions of social 
 facts, and the quicker the progress, the less durable all 
 such laws. The notion of social evolution, and still 
 more of revolution, is incompatible with permanent laws 
 
INTRODUCTION. xv 
 
 of social equilibrium, though it allows of laws of change 
 or growth ; and therefore the application of the term 
 " science " to the ascertained order, such as it is, of social 
 phenomena, is a matter of doubtful propriety. In this 
 region of interesting speculation, scientific methods are 
 unquestionably applicable ; methods which have borne 
 fruit in the explanation both of the facts of existing and 
 of past societies ; but whether the utmost possible sys- 
 tematization of which the infinite body of facts of a 
 complex modern society admits, is to be called by the 
 name of science or by some more fitting term, is still a 
 disputed question. 
 
 I must add, too, that it is to a considerable extent a 
 verbal one, since the applicability of scientific methods is 
 universally admitted ; while, further, that there is some 
 order amongst social phenomena which lasts for a con- 
 siderable time, is also allowed by all, and an accurate 
 statement of this, together with the prediction of the 
 next term in social progress, might fairly be regarded as 
 scientific. But whether a science of society in a stricter 
 sense be or be not possible, what is certain is that as yet 
 the science has not been fully developed in any sense. 
 The entire scope and boundary of the science are, in 
 fact, not conceived alike by the only two thinkers who 
 have laid claims to the creation of it Cornte and Her- 
 bert Spencer. And it still remains to be seen how far 
 the latter eminent thinker, when he^ has finished his 
 task, will have succeeded in at last creating the grand 
 Science of Society, embracing, amongst other things, the 
 subjects already more or less systematized, of political 
 economy, politics, and jurisprudence. 
 
 In what precedes, I have given a general indication 
 of what is to follow ; of the chief questions that will be 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 raised, of the methods of exposition and criticism that 
 will be employed, of the general spirit in which they 
 will be treated, and, in some cases, of the conclusions 
 that will be contended for. We shall now proceed to the 
 development in detail of the outline indicated. 
 
BOOK I. 
 THE CEEED OF SCIENCE 
 
 RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE CKEATION AND GOD. 
 
 I. THE earth, the sun, and the worlds of space stand 
 before us as existing facts, poised in space and governed 
 by law; and unless on the hypothesis of their eternal 
 existence, as we now behold them, they must have had 
 an origin of some kind. What was the origin ? the 
 mind of man naturally and persistently asks. To this 
 question only three answers seem possible. They were 
 created, or suddenly summoned into existence from 
 nothing, by fiat of the Creator. They were slowly 
 evolved by natural processes such as are still in opera- 
 tion, from elementary matter. Lastly, the question is 
 too transcendent for human capacity ; we do not know ; 
 and we can never know from the necessary and eternal 
 limitation of our faculties and means of knowledge. 
 
 The hypothesis of the eternal existence of the earth, 
 the sun, and the other heavenly bodies would seem at 
 first the most natural one to hold ; but it is negatived, 
 as regards the earth and the solar system generally, by 
 the consideration that the sun itself, on which the earth 
 and planets depend, is, according to scientific showing, 
 a consuming energy, a lit lamp and fire that could not 
 have been burning for ever unless recruited by agencies 
 
4 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 of which Science has no knowledge and can form no 
 guess. 
 
 The hypothesis of creation in time need not be long 
 considered, because the thing itself is in fact unthinkable. 
 Creation ex nihilo, the creation of matter from pure 
 nothing, is entirely unthinkable ; * while creation in the 
 less proper sense of architectonic world-building from 
 pre-existing materials, though not beyond the reach of a 
 certain rude anthropomorphic imagination, is an unsatis- 
 factory and inadequate explanation, for besides that the 
 highest philosophic thought lends no countenance to such 
 a conception, it is also opposed to the view which geology 
 has accustomed us to take of the extremely slow tran- 
 sition of our earth through an indefinite series of changes, 
 due to the action of natural causes, which still continue 
 their work. It is opposed to the whole modern concep- 
 tion of evolution, which, however satisfactory or other- 
 wise it may itself turn out as a complete hypothesis (a 
 point to be considered in its turn), has at least so far 
 established its claims on our credit as to set aside in 
 comparison the notion of the sudden construction of the 
 earth and worlds by a world-builder. We are still at 
 liberty, indeed, to believe in a Power, one and eternal, 
 immanent in matter, and moving it when it is supposed 
 to move by its own laws ; but, though we may even con- 
 tinue in imagination to represent this Power as still at 
 work like the architect or the engineer, we can no longer 
 believe in it as really working in such fashion, or concede 
 to the conception of the Great Architect who fashioned 
 
 * See Critique of Pure Reason, p. 139, Meikle John's translation, where 
 Kant, treating of " The Permanence of Substance," tells us that creation 
 and annihilation are alike inconceivable in the field of possible ex- 
 perience, and that the two ma.xims, " Gigni de nihilo nihil," (( in nihilum 
 nil posse reverti," should never be separated. 
 
 See also Herbert Spencer's First Principles, ch. iv., " On the Inde- 
 structibility of Matter." 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 5 
 
 worlds and launched them fully finished on their paths 
 in space, other than a poetic significance of no scientific 
 or philosophical value. 
 
 The negative doctrine of Nescience, or the necessary 
 insolubility of the problem from the limitation of our 
 faculties, is one only to be fallen back upon finally, after 
 the complete and demonstrated failure of Science to solve 
 the mystery of the origin of things by a positive and 
 probable hypothesis. At least, Nescience will only be 
 listened to without impatience after Science has made 
 her utmost attempt at explanation and signally failed. 
 But Science is now in possession of the ear of the court ; 
 she professes to have a satisfactory hypothesis to offer 
 explanatory of the origin of the material universe, as well 
 as of the world of life. It remains, therefore, to let her 
 unfold her hypothesis, and apply it to the explanation 
 of the facts, that we may see how far we can accept it. 
 
 2. According to Science, the earth, the sun, the 
 moon, the planets, and all the host of heaven are the 
 results of the condensation, millions of years ago, of a 
 nebulous vapour or extremely attenuated matter diffused 
 throughout the expanse of space. 
 
 This dispersed matter, with a stock of potential 
 energy, existed from eternity; but into their previous 
 possible states or transformations, Science does not in- 
 quire. She commences her story at the beginning of the 
 evolution of the present existing universe, without rais- 
 ing the question whether the necessary materials might 
 not have entered into the composition of a previously 
 existing one which had become dissolved ; and for pur- 
 poses of explanation she postulates at this beginning our 
 present quantity of matter and energy, subject to the 
 law of gravitation, and the law of the transformation 
 of energy. 
 
6 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 The primitive matter, at first in a chaotic state, we 
 are to suppose slowly reduced to order under the con- 
 tinued agency of these two laws. Its isolated atoms, 
 under gravitation, congregated into groups more or less 
 close, and these again into larger and larger groups, 
 until at length the original diffused matter became re- 
 solved into a number of rotating nebular masses of 
 spherical form, of immense volume, and in a state of 
 high heat from the previous shock of their atoms and 
 constituent parts. 
 
 According to the nebular hypothesis, these vaporous 
 and rotating spheres slowly cooled by radiation, in 
 cooling contracted, in contracting acquired a more rapid 
 rotatory motion, in consequence of which, through the 
 increased centrifugal force, huge rings of vapour were 
 at length flung off from the equatorial regions. These 
 Saturnian rings successively projected from the spinning 
 spheres as the cooling of the central nebulous mass still 
 continued, in their turn condensed, broke from their 
 annular shape at their points of feeblest cohesion as 
 rings of smoke now do, united again by gravitation, 
 and settled into the spherical form like their parent 
 masses, with which, however, they continued still con- 
 nected, as planets, by the powerful invisible chain of 
 gravitation. But the planets, in cooling, had early 
 imitated the process of the parent nebulse by also ex- 
 pelling rings of vapour which, having gone through the 
 same steps as their generating primaries, appeared as 
 younger families of planets, or planetoids a third 
 generation, so to speak, and faithful copies, both in form 
 and movements, of their progenitors. Such was the 
 origin of our earth and planets, as well as of their moons 
 their lawfully-born offspring, and still the followers 
 of their fortunes ; while in the rings of Saturn we have 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 7 
 
 an instance of a former potential moon, whose course 
 of development was checked, the broken fragments not 
 having united a mishap which, however, had the good 
 result for Science of suggesting the whole hypothesis to 
 its originators. 
 
 Such is, in substance, the celebrated speculation of 
 Laplace and Kant, concerning the origin of the earth 
 and the solar system ; the first of that startling series 
 of tales issued by Science during the past century, and 
 which has now been seemingly completed in the Dar- 
 winian story of the origin of plants and animals, and 
 above all in the crowning one the metamorphosis of 
 the ape into the man. 
 
 The hypothesis is generally allowed to be of a legiti- 
 mate and scientific character. It postulates only a vera 
 causa, and such laws as we still see in operation. It 
 postulates only a nebulous mass subject to present 
 physical laws ; and such nebulae now exist, while such 
 laws, we may fairly be asked to believe, did govern 
 from eternity the behaviour of matter and energy. 
 Moreover, the hypothesis explains many of the facts 
 requiring explanation, as the fact that the motions of 
 the planets are all nearly in the same plane ; that the 
 central mass of our system remains a blazing sun, while 
 the surface of our earth has long since cooled ; the fact 
 of the rings of Saturn, the satellites and the various 
 temperatures of the planets, and many other things. 
 Nevertheless, as will presently appear, the hypothesis is 
 not without great and as yet unexplained difficulties. 
 
 " The greatest of them," as Professor Newcomb urges, 
 " perhaps, is to show how a ring of vapour surrounding 
 the sun could condense into a single planet encircled by 
 satellites." * For the ring of vapour that by supposition 
 
 * Newcomb's Astronomy, Part IV, ch. iii., which contains a full 
 consideration of the subject. 
 
8 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 condensed into our earth, for instance, must have been 
 at least the diameter of the earth's orbit, that is, some 
 two hundred millions of miles, in breadth. But now, 
 even if we suppose this enormous ring to have been suc- 
 cessfully expelled after the manner described by Laplace 
 a supposition not without its difficulties ; if we suppose 
 it to have subsequently condensed as it certainly would, 
 and to have broken up as it probably would ; the 
 further suppositions that we must make constitute a 
 demand on our scientific faith that is scarcely justified by 
 either physical science or analogy. For we are asked to 
 believe that all the sundered parts, probably extremely 
 numerous, some of them separated by the interval of the 
 earth's orbit, and all of them necessarily moving with 
 great velocity in the same direction, at length, after 
 paroxysmal efforts due to the action of gravity, found 
 themselves together again in one symmetrical sphere of 
 vapour, moving orderly round the sun. The exercise of 
 faith required is great ; for physical science would rather 
 predict that the broken parts of such a ring, instead of 
 coalescing into a single sphere, would, as the authority 
 just quoted affirms, " condense into a swarm of smaller 
 bodies like the asteroids," or like those still smaller, 
 which compose, according to conjecture, the rings of 
 Saturn. And then we must believe that this precarious 
 process of generating worlds repeated itself without acci- 
 dent again and again ; the rings of Saturn showing the 
 only abortive attempt. The earth also was a sphere of 
 vapour which, in shrinking, left behind a ring, which in 
 its turn condensed, broke up, joined again, and finally 
 formed our moon. And Jupiter must have been thus 
 successfully delivered of his numerous progeny of eight. 
 But a much more serious difficulty presents itself in the 
 case of Uranus, whose moons move in a direction nearly 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 9 
 
 the reverse of that required by the hypothesis. It would 
 seem that either Uranus received a temporary tilt over 
 in his orbit at the moment when each of his rings was 
 disengaged, or else some great perturbation or other 
 exceptional experience occurred to each of his progeny 
 after they were born. And the same must be said of 
 Neptune, whose single moon moves in a more decidedly 
 retrograde order. 
 
 Moreover the conditions, if any, under which such a 
 ring could be thrown off from a rotating sphere of cool- 
 ing vapour have not been investigated mathematically, 
 nor is there any experiment in point,* while under the 
 conditions supposed by Laplace, it has been objected that 
 in the absence of all cohesion between the particles of 
 vapour, the throwing off the ring in the manner alleged 
 was in fact impossible. Finally, the existing nebulse do 
 not manifest that symmetry of outline which is requisite 
 if they are destined to condense into suns and planets. 
 All which objections, together with others that might be 
 urged, tend to discredit the hypothesis very considerably 
 in the forms propounded by its originators. 
 
 The authors of The Unseen Universe have given an 
 improved statement of the nebular hypothesis. They 
 begin with a chaos of atoms compelled to order by the law 
 of gravitation, instead of reaching it slowly by chance 
 after many false starts and failures as in the system of 
 Democritus. We are told that " the original state 'of 
 the visible universe was a diffused or chaotic state, in 
 which the various particles were widely separated from 
 one another, but exerting on one another gravitating 
 force, and therefore possessed of potential energy. As 
 
 * That of Plateau, sometimes adduced, of a sphere of oil rotating 
 in water, is no confirmation, as it relates to a different thing in a 
 different medium, and on an infinitely smaller scale. See Jevons's 
 Principles of Science. 
 
10 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 these particles came together, impinged on one another, 
 or gathered' into groups, this potential energy was 
 gradually transformed into the energy of heat, and into 
 that of visible motion. We may thus imagine the cooling 
 and (except under very strict conditions of original dis- 
 tribution) necessarily revolving matter, in course of time 
 to have thrown off certain parts of itself, which would 
 thereafter form satellites m or planetary attendants, while 
 the central mass would form the sun." * 
 
 Now, if this be the development hypothesis of Kant 
 and Laplace, as we are expressly told it is, it must be 
 allowed that most of the difficulties which beset the more 
 audacious . presentments of it are avoided. But also, it 
 must be said, with this more guarded and general state- 
 ment of it, nearly all the grandeur of the hypothesis 
 vanishes. With the contracting spheres and the mighty 
 rings of vapour suppressed, which closed together and 
 became worlds, all the charm and attractiveness is gone. 
 That, however, should not signify in a matter that 
 respects only scientific accuracy. True ; but also with 
 the removal of the rings and the sphere of vapour, the 
 hypothesis itself is gone. There is nothing remaining 
 but a mass of matter which threw off parts of itself in 
 its revolution a different, if a safer, theory. Nor is it 
 wholly satisfactory either. For unless the parts were pro- 
 pelled in a skilful manner that has not been described, 
 they must have either fallen back again or travelled into 
 space, to return no more ; and why neither of these acci- 
 dents, antecedently possible, did actually happen, we are 
 left to surmise. 
 
 This last theory has, however, been presented by 
 Sir W. Thomson, its real originator, from a much more 
 
 * The Unseen Universe, p. 164, Fifth Ed. 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. H 
 
 striking and suggestive point of view, from which it 
 claims a further and a special consideration. 
 
 According to this distinguished physicist, the sun and 
 the heat of the sun were produced some millions of years 
 ago by the fall together of its materials from a state of 
 wide diffusion, as a cloud of stones and dust and gaseous 
 matter. The shock of its atoms, and the mutual collision 
 of its smaller constituent bodies and masses under the 
 action of gravitation, gradually warmed and lit up the 
 nebulous mass, while the final rush together of the whole 
 immense materials with prodigious velocities resulted, by 
 the law of the convertibility of energy, in a vast develop- 
 ment of heat in a single condensed mass, which formed 
 the sun. 
 
 In like manner, the fall together of the earth's 
 materials millions of years ago, produced the earth at 
 first at white heat, like the sun ; but as the earth's con- 
 stituents fell in smaller quantity, from less distances, and 
 with consequent less velocities, the amount of heat, 
 though great, was far less than in the case of the sun. 
 Accordingly, the earth cooled down long since, while the 
 sun, though lavishly spending heat from the beginning, 
 will not be reduced to the earth's temperature for 
 millions of years to come. 
 
 In the same way, our moon and all the other planets, 
 with their moons, were produced the meteoric showers 
 and the comets, probably of meteoric 'composition, still 
 existing to remind us of the like former condition of all 
 the other bodies of the solar system. 
 
 Such is the theory of Thomson respecting the origin 
 of the sun and planets. But there is no mention here of 
 rings of vapour, and in other respects we are a good way 
 from the theory of Laplace. It is, in fact, so far, a 
 different and a better hypothesis. It explains the sun's 
 
12 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, EELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 heat, which was assumed by Laplace ; and it explains 
 it by a true scientific cause the impact of masses in 
 motion. Moreover, by a still bolder application of the 
 same conception, and for the first time, we might almost 
 say, since men began to speculate on the matter, it ex- 
 plains in a real way, the actual presence of our old solid 
 earth here in space to-day. It is true that the explana- 
 tion given the sudden convergence from the four winds 
 of the materials of our globe is at first a little startling, 
 and almost as trying to the imagination as the old theory 
 of creation ex nihilo. But on reflection we see that the 
 thing is possible, the conception scientific. If we believe 
 our earth to be a globe in space, we must allow that 
 its materials, as well as those of every other heavenly 
 body, may have come thus together from a state of 
 nebular or meteoric dispersion, under the strong com- 
 pulsion of gravitation ; and it may have even been, as 
 Professor Tait suggests, " that they fell together in such 
 a way that the whole mass of the earth was agglome- 
 rated together almost at once." 
 
 We might, I say, even believe in this instantaneous 
 fusion and chemical union following on the mechanical 
 forcing together of the materials, since the chemical 
 change, on the vast scale of a given mass of loose 
 materials into a molten planet, may be quite as easy for 
 Nature to effect as the chemical changes on the small 
 scale in her ordinary operations. It is only when we 
 ask the inevitable further question Whence came the 
 materials that thus suddenly met together one day for 
 the composition of our globe ? that the theory begins to 
 prove unsatisfactory. For it appears from Sir W. Thom- 
 son's expositor, Professor Tait, that the precipitated sub- 
 stances came from, or rather formerly composed, a smaller 
 nebulous cloud that had become severed from the primi- 
 
ON THE CKEATION AND GOD. 13 
 
 tive mass before its main body had finally condensed 
 into the sun. But how severed ? is still the question, 
 and that which raises the old difficulty. The fall together 
 of the parts of a scattered nebulous cloud we understand, 
 and admit as a possible explanation of the sun and 
 planets ; but, precisely for that reason, the fall asunder 
 of the primitive nebulous mass is difficult to understand, 
 and cannot be allowed as an explanation of the separate 
 masses required to compose the earth and planets, with 
 their numerous moons. It cannot be allowed, at least, 
 until some natural force is pointed out sufficiently power- 
 ful to produce the separation in opposition to the strong 
 force of gravity drawing the mass ever closer together 
 by hypothesis. No matter how loosely associated the 
 constituents of the original nebulous cloud, in order to 
 break off parts from ifc (since no original repulsive force 
 is postulated) it must be shown that some such force, 
 centrifugal or other, would be generated within the mass. 
 Nor would this be sufficient. It must be further shown 
 how such a force disintegrated the nebula so skilfully, 
 and gave the transported parts at the moment of projec- 
 tion such precise velocities and in such directions, that, 
 avoiding the other contingencies of the case of passing 
 off finally into infinite space or describing paths returning 
 on the mass they have been ever since moving in nearly 
 circular orbits around it. 
 
 It must be shown, in short, that all- was provided for 
 by law, and that nothing was left to chance, especially 
 at the supreme moment when our earth was cast off. 
 Until this has been shown more satisfactorily than has 
 yet been done, though we may entertain ourselves with 
 the speculation that the earth and planets were formerly 
 nebulous islands, floating in space, we shall yet hesitate 
 to believe in their alleged former connection with the 
 
14 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 mainland of the sun's nebular continent, and all the 
 more when we reflect that the former existence of 
 the islands themselves is not beyond the reach of doubt. 
 
 To conclude : we know nothing for certain respecting 
 the mode of origination of the earth, the sun, the planets, 
 the stars. We believe, on the showing of Science, that 
 the sun could not have existed from eternity, because his 
 heat is a limited quantity that Jcould not have lasted 
 perpetually unless recruited from sources of which 
 Science has no knowledge. But still, there may now be, 
 and there may have been, such sources.* Nor could we 
 be certain to the contrary, unless we were assured that 
 we know all the physical forces in nature, and that none 
 of these, either separately or by their conjoint action, 
 could have kept up an eternal supply of solar heat. 
 Assuming, however, as more probable, that the sun has 
 not existed from eternity, we are sure that he gathered 
 his tires by natural causes. But we are not sure that 
 the only cause was the impact of falling masses of matter, 
 or the condensation of his diffused matter into closer 
 compass, as Helmholtz has it. And assuming that the 
 sun had a beginning in time, we are equally sure that 
 the earth had also a beginning, since it could not well 
 have existed in the sun's absence. But we are not sure 
 that the earth (any more than the sun) was formed at 
 white heat by the rushing together of its materials, much 
 less that it is the solidified result of a prodigious ring of 
 vapour, thrown off ages ago from a revolving vaporous 
 sphere in the course of its contracting and cooling down 
 to the sun. 
 
 Both these hypotheses should, indeed, be treated with 
 the respect that is due to the guesses of men of genius. 
 
 * Since the above was written, Dr. Siemens, in his Ccnservation of 
 Solar Energy, has advanced a positive theory of such possible sources. 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 15 
 
 Still, however scientifically prompted, however skilfully 
 shaped, however superior to the rude cosmogonies of non- 
 scientific ages that we now dismiss as only fit for chil- 
 dren, they are only guesses. They are only attempts at 
 the solution of the problem being given a world or a 
 system of worlds, to determine how they were made ; 
 a problem so transcendent that the highest human solu- 
 tions may be no more than rude approximations. And 
 all real verification is out of the question ; since, however 
 true our theory of the past process of construction, a 
 competing and more plausible theory is, we see, always 
 possible ; while, if worlds are now anywhere made in 
 stellar space according to our formula, it is still impos- 
 sible to prove the fact, owing to the remoteness of the 
 phenomenon. We must not, then, with some, treat the 
 nebular hypothesis in either of its forms as if it contained 
 the whole truth which explained fully and finally the 
 process of world-making. We must not erect it into an 
 article of scientific faith with the physicists and geolo- 
 gists, or make it an integral part of our philosophic sys- 
 tems with the evolution philosophers like Strauss and 
 Herbert Spencer. We are simply to consider the two 
 forms of the hypothesis as conjectures equal in poetic 
 grandeur, but unequal in scientific credit of the phe- 
 nomena, possibly portentous, abnormal, and wholly 
 beyond the reach of the scientific imagination to shape, 
 which preceded or accompanied the first appearance of 
 the earth, the sun, and the planets as globes in space. 
 They may both contain a certain proportion of truth ; 
 they may both be erroneous and misleading, even though 
 one might be less wide of the facts than the other. 
 
 3. Let us now pursue the scientific narrative of the 
 creation, which starts from the nebular hypothesis as 
 accepted truth ; and for the moment let us also concede 
 
16 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 its truth. According to both forms of the hypothesis, 
 though there is independent geologic evidence to the 
 same effect, our globe existed as a molten sphere before 
 it cooled down to a solid one. With this fiery-fluid 
 condition of things, the existence of all life such as we 
 know it was wholly incompatible.* Life was impos- 
 sible on the earth till, after the lapse of ages, its surface 
 had become sufficiently cooled. And then we are pre- 
 sented with the same question with respect to the origin 
 of life that was before raised with respect to the origin 
 of the earth itself. If life has not been from eternity 
 and it evidently has not been whence came its first 
 forms ? Now, if we dismiss the strange fancy of Sir W. 
 Thomson, that the first forms of life were transported 
 from some other planet to the earth upon an aerolite 
 a theory moreover, which would only push back the 
 mystery one step, without solving it there are only two 
 other possible answers to the question of the origin of 
 life. Either life was created supernaturally from nothing, 
 or from nothing by us conceivable, by the fiat of the 
 Creator, as we read in the Mosaic and Miltonic account ; 
 or life was spontaneously evolved by Nature herself 
 from the primitive physical atoms, according to natural 
 process, by chemical and physical laws. The first, it is 
 contended by scientific thinkers, is no answer, since the 
 word " creation " conveys, when closely pressed, no mean- 
 ing, and the creative fiat is a wholly inconceivable cause 
 a notion which Science and Philosophy agree in de- 
 claring to be unthinkable, and the attempt to realize 
 
 * There are, indeed, those who think that life may have existed in 
 some form " as an eternal constituent of the universe." And Haeckel 
 has hazarded the notion that " all matter is, in a certain sense, alive." 
 Bnt no life such as we know it could have existed in the first fiery- 
 fluid condition of our globe as Science represents it ; and if matter be 
 alive, it must be in a sense wholly inconceivable to us. 
 
OF 
 UNIVERSIT 
 
 ON THE CREATION AND 
 
 which puts all thought to confusion. The 
 the secret conviction of Science and her sometimes openly 
 hazarded opinion through the mouths of her more out- 
 spoken and sanguine representatives, who hope, at no 
 distant date, to put the matter beyond the reach of 
 further doubt. They have already endeavoured to make 
 manifest by experiments the fact, if not the process, of 
 spontaneous production, by which, they contend, Nature, 
 in the secret recesses of her vast laboratory, formerly 
 introduced the first germs of organic life a process 
 which, in the case of certain simpler organisms, she still 
 occasionally repeats. It is true the experimentalists have 
 not yet succeeded in surprising Nature in the very act of 
 creation. But they feel certain they are on the right 
 road. They by no means abandon the hope of tracking 
 the last and greatest of Nature's secrets to its final 
 hiding-place, masked, as they believe it to be, under 
 simple natural processes and physico-chemical laws. 
 This secret, which has hitherto baffled scientific scrutiny, 
 but which, since the dawn of science, has attracted all 
 who had a thirst for real knowledge, the secret that 
 filled Faust with the consuming desire for the power 
 
 To see below earth's dark foundations 
 Life's embryo seeds before their birth, 
 And Nature's silent operations j 
 
 this secret of the first beginnings of life, so long and 
 seemingly so carefully guarded in the deepest recesses of 
 Nature's breast, will, our physicists and biologists are 
 confident, before long, be finally laid bare. The thing 
 which Kant thought impossible the attempt to explain 
 the facts of life by physical and chemical laws, and 
 which, he affirmed, must be shattered to pieces on a 
 "caterpillar" will be successful, and will explain the 
 man as TV ell as the caterpillar. The missing link in the 
 
 c 
 
18 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 grand chain of evolutionary process from the nebular 
 haze to the sublimed spirit of man, as manifested in 
 Plato, Raphael, Newton, and Shakespeare, will soon be 
 supplied, and the last enigma of existence at length be 
 solved. 
 
 Indeed, Professor Haeckel will have it that the pro- 
 blem is as good as solved at present, spite of the want 
 of confirmation by recent scientific experiment, of the 
 asserted fact of spontaneous generation. According to 
 this eminent biologist, the first step from non-living to 
 living matter was made spontaneously by Nature mil- 
 lions of centuries ago at the bottom of the sea, " where 
 the primitive life organisms were formed like saline 
 crystals in water." * Moreover, this process of spon- 
 taneous generation, though now less necessary, still goes 
 on at intervals, perhaps even constantly, had we only 
 sufficiently keen and commanding range of vision to see 
 it. Some species of the inionera are probably produced 
 in this way. But at least it is certain that, in the past, 
 the fact of spontaneous production of life must have 
 occurred. There is no other conceivable or possible 
 hypothesis. Only grant sufficient time and it is argued, 
 with a whole infinite past to draw upon, there need be 
 no stint in this respect only grant the necessary time 
 to exhaust possible errors, wrong tentatives, erroneous 
 combinations of chemical atoms, and at last the happy 
 fortuitous meeting and permanent alliance of the proper 
 atoms must take place; the living molecule containing 
 the due though complicated combination of chemical 
 atoms will at length be born ; from which, under favour 
 of natural selection, to protoplasm the elementary 
 building material of all life, and in particular of the 
 
 * Address of Professor Haeckel (see Times, August 30, 1878 ; also 
 History of Creation). 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 19 
 
 
 
 monera things will, in further course of time and evolu- 
 tion, in duly sequent steps proceed. True, we cannot 
 get down to the dim ocean-beds to witness the actual 
 process of the production of life from matter by chemical 
 combination ; but though we cannot descend save only 
 in imagination, we can do the next best thing, we can 
 summon up from the vasty deep these elementary forms 
 of life in great variety, as witnesses of the truth of our 
 deductions. And they have been brought up in great 
 variety, in particular in the course of the recent expedi- 
 tion of the Challenger in the South Seas. Professor 
 Haeckel himself, in his History of Creation, gives minute 
 and careful descriptions of several of these remarkable 
 types of life, if such they can be called, which have been 
 thus obtained from an immense depth in the sea. These 
 since celebrated monera are the simplest of all organisms, 
 if that can be properly described as an organism which 
 possesses in fact no organs, and which consists only of a 
 homogeneous, structureless clot of albuminous matter, or 
 protoplasm. Strictly speaking, the moneron is not an 
 organism, it is neither plant nor animal, though all the 
 more interesting on that account ; for this phenomenon 
 propagates its kind by self-division, and absorbs neigh- 
 bouring appropriate matter, which displaces some of its 
 own albuminous particles : * that is to say, these am- 
 biguous creatures between mere matter and life possess, 
 in elementary form, the capacities of propagation, of 
 nutrition, and of growth, which are characteristics of all 
 living beings, while they themselves are certainly not 
 organized beings, according to Haeckel. They form, in 
 fact, the bridge between the two worlds, the organic 
 and the inorganic ; and though not living, they are the 
 original progenitors of all life, including the human. 
 
 * History of Creation, vol. i. p. 186. 
 
20 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 Moreover, to add to the interest which already surrounds 
 this singular class of beings, there is, says Professor 
 Haeckel, amongst its species one " which probably even 
 now always comes into existence by spontaneous genera- 
 tion." * 
 
 If it be objected to these views that scientific experi- 
 ments of an ingeniously searching and seemingly ex- 
 haustive character appear to negative the hypothesis of 
 spontaneous generation, it is replied that such are not 
 and could not be exhaustive. What, asks Professor 
 Clifford, do such experiments really prove ? Merely that 
 "the coincidence which would form a Bacterium 
 already a definite structure, reproducing its like does 
 not occur in a test-tube during the periods yet observed. 
 The experiments have nothing whatever to say to the 
 production of enormously simpler forms in the vast range 
 of the ocean during the ages of the earth's existence." 
 And this is clearly true. The experiments do not exclude 
 the possibility that Nature, in her vast laboratory, can 
 and does at present evolve living from non-living matter ; 
 far less do they destroy the grounds of the scientific con- 
 viction that Nature, working under wholly different and 
 more favourable conditions in the past when the earth, 
 slowly cooling from her originally incandescent state, 
 was warmer, and when her own plastic powers were 
 greater, could evolve life spontaneously from her own 
 breast. But the strongest of all arguments for the theory 
 of spontaneous generation is the inadmissibility of the 
 only rival hypothesis. In no other way can the origin 
 of life be conceived, argues Haeckel. If Nature did not 
 evolve spontaneously the few primordial forms of life 
 which the Darwinian theory postulates, then they must 
 have been supernaturally created. We return to the 
 
 * History of Creation, vol. i. p. 344. 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 21 
 
 miracle the sudden production of things by a Super- 
 natural Personal Creator from blank nonentity the pro- 
 duction of effects without prior natural causes or con- 
 ditions,, and by a process respecting which neither science 
 nor human thought can form any conception. The 
 miracle, from which spontaneous generation would de- 
 liver us, and which puts reason to confusion, once again 
 returns, after being everywhere expelled from the wide 
 territory of Science. 
 
 4. Without further comment for the present on the 
 hypothesis of spontaneous generation, let us resume the 
 story of creation, which, it should be observed, from 
 the production of the first planet from the nebular vapour, 
 to the production of the first human being from a 
 lower form of life, covers much more than the six days' 
 paroxysmal creative labour as recorded in Genesis, neces- 
 sitating, as it did, many hundreds, perhaps thousands of 
 millions of years for its slow evolutionary achievement. 
 
 We have learned the origin of the worlds of space, 
 according to Kant, Laplace, and the physicists ; of the 
 world of life in the dim ocean-deeps, according to Oken, 
 Haeckel, and the naturalists; there remains to be told 
 by Science the origin of the multitudinous and varied 
 species of animals and plants, even should we admit that 
 Nature, the all-bountiful mother, herself unwittingly 
 accomplished the first grand preliminary feats in the 
 spontaneous production of the rudest and simplest forms 
 of life. From the rude and simple to the refined and 
 complex ; from the homogeneous moneron to the hetero- 
 geneous mammal ; from the " few primordial forms " of 
 life which Darwin begins with, and which, let us suppose, 
 have resulted from the due collocation of the chemical 
 atoms after many abortive tentatives, up to the endlessly 
 varied and highly elaborated forms of life which science 
 
22 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 to-day contemplates, there is still a vast distance. And 
 the question now rises, How have all these various 
 species in the organic world arisen ? How has the ele- 
 mentary life run into such endlessly varied forms, each 
 distinguished by its special kind and degree of adapta- 
 tions and beauty? Above all, how has life, starting 
 from such low beginnings, soared to such lofty heights 
 in man himself, severed, seemingly, on all sides from the 
 other species by a great gulf apparently not to be bridged, 
 as shown in his outward form, and yet more in his 
 inward nature and in its still growing capacities of 
 invention, of art, of thought, of disinterested virtuous 
 endeavour ? 
 
 For answer to this most important question we must 
 consult the books of Darwin and of those who have 
 worked in the lines indicated in his world-famed theory. 
 As we there learn, the higher species of plants and 
 animals, including man, were derived from the lower, and 
 all ultimately from " one or a few primordial forms," 
 through the agency of Natural Selection combined with the 
 fact of Inheritance; the first representing the changing 
 and progressive, the second, the conservative factor in 
 the great process of organic evolution. Nature, or to 
 speak more precisely, a complicated but yet connected 
 and continuous process called Natural Selection, whose 
 action has extended over unimaginable ages, and is still 
 at work, was the unconscious sculptor and mechanician 
 that slowly extremely slowly elaborated all the various 
 forms of life that we now behold as well as many long 
 since extinct species. Natural selection it was that 
 separated the different species from each other ; that 
 carved their organs gradually, and ever more carefully, 
 from rough rudimentary attempts, and that fitted them 
 each to the other and all to their environment an un- 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 23 
 
 conscious artist, that worked by seemingly disconnected 
 efforts and without any plan or preconception of the 
 result to be finally achieved, but who nevertheless, by 
 the simplest means, reached at length the most surprising 
 and splendid results. For, by acting on the simple rule 
 of selecting those individuals the best fitted to their sur- 
 rounding conditions to continue their kind, and soon or 
 late letting drop the ill-fitted, and by an undeviating 
 repetition of the process and adherence to the rule, Nature 
 has attained to all the wonderful and varied life that we 
 behold. Moreover, by acting in this manner, she evolved 
 ever higher as well as ever different types. By this 
 means she slowly evolved the wing of the bird, the fin 
 of the fish, the foot of the mammal, all so different 
 propellers from common germinal beginnings ; by this 
 means, by natural selection only, from an optic nerve, 
 coated with pigment and tingling in the sunlight, she 
 elaborated and perfected the living miracle of the human 
 eye, and adapted its lens to the properties of light; 
 finally, by this means she evolved the civilized man from 
 the savage, the savage from the brute, and the brute, 
 through ever lower lines, from the mollusc and the 
 moneron ; results so marvellous without the Darwinian 
 clue, that men were compelled to refer them to the 
 action of a Supernatural and Omnipotent Creator, who, 
 however, according to our anthropomorphic habits of 
 thought, still worked after our human 'fashion in fulfil- 
 ment of a plan and purpose. 
 
 Thus Natural Selection, by seizing on favourable 
 variations accidentally offered, by accumulating and in- 
 tensifying these, and by thereafter handing them on as 
 a constantly increasing capital, from generation to genera- 
 tion, in the fact of Inheritance, succeeded in producing 
 all the variety of plant and animal life that now exists. 
 
24 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 But for the most part, she finished her species myriads 
 of years ago, and has made little alteration since in the 
 type. And having elaborated all her forms, she did her 
 best to efface all traces of her methods of work, and of 
 the slow and laborious steps by which she reached her 
 ends, which, now that we have discovered them, seem at 
 a first view as startling, when morally regarded, as they 
 are simple from the point of view of mechanical con- 
 trivance : consisting simply in invariably favouring the 
 strong and the successful, and in leaving the weak to 
 perish in the eternal and necessary " struggle for exist- 
 ence." Nature had only shown to us the finished article 
 of her manufacture, and we all in our ignorance admired 
 greatly; she had carefully reserved the secret of her 
 processes, which would have much diminished our 
 admiration. It is to Darwin that we owe the drawing 
 aside of the mysterious curtain behind which Nature 
 had carried on her secret operations in the elaboration 
 of her species and varieties. He has explained it to us, 
 and the marvel ceases. He it is who has taken us into 
 her inmost laboratory, and shown her at her labour and 
 in her working dress. He it is first and chiefly who 
 has surprised Nature in the act, who has discovered her 
 secret, and disclosed the processes by which, after long- 
 continued practice, she has reached in some cases so great 
 and splendid results. 
 
 But if Darwin has diminished our wonder, by show- 
 ing us the secret of Nature's mechanical skill, he has 
 aroused other, and some of them disquieting, sentiments. 
 For what a process, according to his showing, Evolution 
 has been ! One long-continued battle without quarter, 
 raging fiercely over the whole animal kingdom, and 
 carried on even into the vegetable kingdom, though there 
 e ss cruelly, because there is no attendant consciousness ; 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. ' 25 
 
 a struggle between species and species, where the weak 
 is ever the prey of the strong ; and a still more deadly 
 and concentrated struggle carried on within the limits 
 of each species, amongst the component individuals, 
 compelled to compete with each other for the same pre- 
 carious supply of food which, however cruelly procured, 
 is always less than the demand for it ; a conflict where, 
 unless in the few social species, it is to "the near in 
 blood the nearer bloody." Indeed, the revelations of 
 the Darwinian story are in many cases by no means 
 agreeable to dwell upon, although as our own species 
 the crown and finished masterpiece of Nature's work- 
 manship has emerged supreme victor from the universal 
 trial by combat, and upon the whole has come well out 
 of the long chapter of most disastrous chances for other 
 species living and extinct, it seems, according to Darwin 
 and Spencer, that, all things considered, we ought to 
 congratulate ourselves on our good fortune. At least, 
 there has been no fall of man ; on the contrary, there has 
 been a wonderful rise, that could scarce in reason have 
 been expected at first. There has been no degradation, 
 but a constant and still-continuing development, which 
 opens out great vistas of promise for our future and 
 still more selected successors. 
 
 5. Nevertheless, what strikes us most in reading 
 this marvellous story of the origin and process of manu- 
 facture of Nature's living forms, is the seemingly chance 
 affair it all was. We are not permitted, on Darwinian 
 principles, to suppose that there was any prevision or 
 forecast of what was to come resident in Nature's blind 
 bosom. There was no conception, not even the vaguest 
 dream, on the part of Nature, at the commencement of 
 the cosmic process, of the forms of life that should 
 emerge in the sequel. Nature did not know what she 
 
26 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 did, for there was no principle of knowledge within her. 
 Still worse, there was no constant purpose in view, and 
 no controlling Power governing the process of evolution. 
 Nature had no special aims in view; anything, in fact, 
 might have happened. She did not aim particularly at 
 life or the human consciousness. When life first resulted, 
 it was an accident, lucky or unlucky, as we choose to 
 regard it. When the first rudiments of that wonderful 
 revealer of nature, the eye, were laid, they came by 
 chance, and by further repeated chances the eye was im- 
 proved. It was improved as a telescope is improved, 
 by slow degrees, only, unlike the telescope, it was 
 improved not by an inventor or maker, but by Natural 
 Selection, which preferred the animals with good eyes, 
 and elected them to continue the advantage to the species. 
 What has resulted need not have resulted, for Nature 
 neither knew, nor cared, nor directed. Things might 
 have taken a wholly different course, on the earth at 
 least, with a slight accidental alteration of conditions at 
 a critical moment in the history of any one of the species. 
 In particular, man himself, the crown of creation, might 
 not have appeared at all. And after his appearance it 
 was only owing to the chapter of accidents unusually 
 favourable that he emerged victor from the general 
 battle-field of existence. Man is here to-day the "master 
 and the interpreter of Nature," because he has escaped 
 a thousand perils and chances of failure, any of which, 
 taking a more adverse turn, might in the infant stages 
 have early closed his since distinguished career. He is 
 here, too, because the particular line of his brute pro- 
 genitors, itself since extinct, survived sufficiently long to 
 launch him on a precarious world, not too well provided. 
 Had the latter circumstance been other, or had the 
 special branch of the tree of life from which man is 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 27 
 
 descended withered earlier, as other branches have done : 
 had even any of the antecedent branches, which bore 
 other diverging types as well as the human, perished 
 earlier, assuredly man would not have appeared. The 
 splendid series of accidents which prepared the way 
 for him and made his advent possible, could not have 
 happened twice ; in which case Nature would have had 
 another master the dog, the horse, the elephant, or 
 some other promising species now kept in the back- 
 ground, and whose " genius is rebuked " by man's over- 
 shadowing superiority. 
 
 On the Darwinian hypothesis, man is the child of 
 Chance, as from the Evolution Hypothesis, in its full 
 generality, all life is the result of chance. An eminent 
 expositor of the truths of physical science, and an elo- 
 quent expounder and advocate of the evolution hypothesis, 
 Professor Tyndall, by implication denies this. He affirms 
 that in the primitive nebular vapour all the future de- 
 velopments of the universe were potentially contained : 
 life, man ; his philosophy, poetry, art, science ; Plato, 
 Shakespeare, Newton, Raphael. Speaking of the evolu- 
 tion hypothesis, he says, " For what are the core and 
 essence of this hypothesis ? Strip it naked, and you 
 stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more 
 ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the 
 nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exqui- 
 site and wonderful mechanism of the 'human body, but 
 that the human mind itself emotion, intellect, will, and 
 all their phenomena were once latent in a fiery cloud. . . . 
 But the hypothesis would probably go even further than 
 this. Many who hold it would probably assent to the 
 position that at the present moment all our philosophy, 
 all our poetry, all our science, and all our art Plato, 
 Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael are potential in the 
 
28 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 fires of the sun. We long to learn something of our 
 origin. If the evolution hypothesis be correct, even this 
 unsatisfied yearning must have come to us across the 
 ages which separate the unconscious primeval mist from 
 the consciousness of to-day." * 
 
 And to this we can only say that a serious attempt 
 to substantiate the proposition, and to show how even 
 the human species, to say nothing of its philosophy and 
 art, or of its Platos and Shakespeares, was potential in 
 the cosmic vapour, would involve the construction of a 
 new system of metaphysics a feat which would present 
 very exceptional difficulties to any one who, like Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall, accepts the law of natural selection, with 
 its admitted play of boundless contingency, as the most 
 fundamental shaping agency in the evolution of organized 
 beings. 
 
 But it is just possible that we misunderstand Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall when we suppose him to imply that Plato, 
 Shakespeare, and Raphael were potential in the original 
 " fiery cloud." What he says is that they " are potential 
 in the fires of the sun." Does he here mean that when 
 the sun is cooled sufficiently, life as on earth will result ? 
 It would be a bold prophecy. Or only that if the sun 
 cooled, and if all other conditions be supposed alike, 
 there would be a like result ? It might be ; but if any 
 difference be allowed, it is safer not to affirm details; 
 since, even on the earth, the Shakespeares and Platos 
 have not yet appeared in whole continents. But perhaps 
 he only means that thought is potential in the sun's fires 
 because, through a series of transformations, it can be 
 referred back to the sun's energy as source, f And if so, 
 
 * Fragments of Physical Science : " On the Scientific Use of the 
 Imagination," p. 163. 
 
 f The latter is certainly one of Professor Tyndall's meanings ; 
 see Fragments of Physical Science : " On Vitality," pp. 437, 441. 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 29 
 
 we have only Plato and Shakespeare traced sideways to 
 the sun as their first cause, instead of backwards to the 
 cosmic vapour as their source. We have only the cruder 
 materialism, which appeals for support to the conserva- 
 tion of energy, instead of the more refined materialism 
 of the evolution hypothesis, both of which will be con- 
 sidered at the proper place. But the final sentence in 
 the quotation from Professor Tyndall I confess I find it 
 difficult to refer to any system of philosophy, or even to 
 give to it any definite meaning. He says, if the evolu- 
 tion hypothesis be correct, that the unsatisfied yearning 
 to know our origin "must have come to us across the 
 ages which separate the unconscious primeval mist from 
 the consciousness of to-day." The only meaning that 
 can be given to this, and what probably is intended, is 
 that this yearning, like all very general feelings, is de- 
 rived by inheritance from the generations behind us, who 
 in like manner inherited it, till we come back finally to 
 our first animal ancestors not far removed from " the 
 unconscious primeval mist." But such a sentiment fades 
 away long before we reach the moneron, and even long 
 before we get back to the monkey, which, as far as we 
 can judge, manifests no desire to know its origin. The 
 sentiment in man is, in fact, a product of philosophical 
 reflection, and of comparatively cultured ages, which 
 scarcely exists in the savage. How, therefore, such a 
 " yearning," born long after life appeared, could " have 
 come to us across the ages " from the primeval mist, in 
 many of which ages it did not exist, is very perplexing 
 to understand, even when assisted by the extremest use 
 of the scientific imagination. 
 
 Doubtless, every material thing, including our own 
 bodies and brains, all that has ever assumed any form of 
 matter, has come out of the original stock of matter, 
 
30 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 which has only been worked into new forms without 
 any increase or diminution ; and therefore we may grant 
 that all these have proceeded from the original cosmic 
 vapour. But this admission does not require us further 
 to say that the highest immaterial things proceeded 
 from the vapour or that they were " potential " in it. 
 Indeed, in what sense could our philosophy or art be 
 said to be potential in the cosmic vapour ? That they 
 were bound to come out eventually in course of de- 
 velopment. But they did not come out in Mars or 
 Jupiter presumably, certainly not in the moon, all of 
 whom are derived from the cosmic vapour as well as 
 the earth. And they would not have come out on the 
 earth if there had not existed other powers and properties 
 than the physical ones postulated in the cosmic vapour, 
 other agency at work than the play of contingency in 
 natural selection; if there had not been an inner force 
 and necessity that was bent on realizing life and con- 
 sciousness and the ever higher content of these 
 Philosophy, Art, Science; an inner Power at work behind 
 natural selection, that manifested both unwearied purpose 
 and all-comprehending executive skill, but of which there 
 is no notice taken in either the Materialist or the 
 Evolution philosophy. 
 
 At least, we are certain on Darwinian principles that 
 after life appeared on earth, and when the universal 
 struggle for existence began, the uncertainty repeated 
 again and again that hangs ever over the ordeal of battle 
 must have made the possible future existence of the 
 human species a matter of contingency; as we are 
 certain that after our species appeared, especially in its 
 infancy, there must have occurred crises, when, as in 
 childhood generally, the further existence of the species 
 trembled in the scales of uncertainty. At the first ap- 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 31 
 
 pearance of man the chances were all against his having 
 that long and successful career, which nevertheless a 
 series of fortunate events have since determined for him. 
 His immediate progenitors, half-human and non-human, 
 perished after launching him, not too well provided or 
 appointed, into a precarious life and a world of battle. 
 Moreover, we know that if from any of the other human- 
 resembling and still existing apes a. variety at all ap- 
 proaching the human had diverged, such did not survive ; 
 so that we must conclude on Darwinian principles that, 
 as the advent of man was not specially contemplated 
 by Nature more than of any other species, and as there 
 was no special fostering or favouring care shown him 
 when he did arrive, his actual survival through so many 
 imminent perils was due, partly at least, to the favour 
 of fortune, as well as the chances of battle. 
 
 In one sense it is true indeed that nothing which 
 has ever actually resulted could have been otherwise ; 
 when the thing has occurred as a fact, we see that there 
 must have been causes all throughout to determine the 
 fact ; and the human species, including its art, science, 
 philosophy, poetry, has resulted as a fact. After the fact 
 has happened, we see that it could not have been differ- 
 ent, owing to the antecedent forces at work, just as we 
 see that an infinite intelligence might have predicted 
 the fact before it occurred; but this admission takes 
 nothing from the logical conclusion that, on Darwinian 
 principles, where neither an infinite intelligence nor a 
 controlling purpose is postulated, the appearance of life, 
 of man, and of consciousness must be recognized as a 
 series of fortunate accidents. 
 
 6. In maintaining that Chance is the chief cha- 
 racteristic of the Darwinian process of natural selection, 
 when viewed in its philosophical reference, we do not 
 
32 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 imply any objection to it as a scientific hypothesis. For 
 what appears to be chance, may be, so far as Science 
 is concerned to regard it, a real scientific cause. And 
 natural selection, with all its seeming chances, is un- 
 doubtedly a legitimate scientific hypothesis. Natural 
 selection is a vera causa, which we can now see actually 
 at work in the organic world, as well as in human societies 
 and nations. The best nations survive, and of these in 
 general the individuals best suited to their environment 
 continue the race. In such ways as natural selection 
 indicates, Nature must have travelled. By such a law 
 as natural selection she undoubtedly did do some, at 
 least, of her work in the differentiation and elaboration 
 of her species and varieties; the only question of im- 
 portance is Did natural selection, which did some or 
 even much of the work, really accomplish all ? Is it the 
 sole scientific cause sufficient to explain all the facts ; 
 and if it be so, is the scientific explanation also a full 
 and satisfactory philosophical explanation ? 
 
 Even as a scientific hypothesis, natural selection is 
 far from being free from defects, which have been pointed 
 out by both friends and adversaries, and some of which 
 have even been admitted by its distinguished and candid 
 originator, Mr. Darwin himself. In particular, Mr. Wal- 
 lace, who shares with Darwin, though in lesser degree, 
 the honour of first propounding the hypothesis, thinks 
 it inadequate to account for the highly developed and 
 organized brain of the lowest savages a brain so far in 
 advance of any present needs to which they could apply 
 it, and which therefore it should have been beyond the 
 power of past needs to develop. And Hartmann, the 
 pessimist philosopher, while admitting that natural selec- 
 tion and inheritance were made use of by the Uncon- 
 scious Power in differentiating the species, and generally 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 33 
 
 in developing the animal and plant world, still denies 
 that these causes are adequate to account for the main 
 part of the development in the organic sphere, which he 
 ascribes to the direct action of the Unconscious, working 
 on to its own special ends. But in my own opinion, the 
 difficulty the hypothesis labours under is simply the tre- 
 mendous and all but incredible range of effects of which 
 natural selection is the only explanation offered, and 
 which, if its pretensions are to be justified, it must 
 actually have accomplished. For we are asked to believe 
 that natural selection evolved or made the thousands and 
 tens of thousands of species of plants and animals from 
 one or a " few primordial forms ; " that natural selection 
 made not only the tree, but the bird that sings in it ; not 
 only the flower, but the bees that suck it ; not only the 
 man himself, but also, in great measure or altogether, his 
 art, science, invention, language, institutions, civilizations, 
 and all his special higher associations. Besides the 
 species, natural selection made the music of the bird, the 
 beauty of the flower, the thought of the man for, beyond 
 natural selection and the facts of adaptation and inheri- 
 tance, no other causes are offered ; and all these different 
 effects, when we view them in their totality, are so pro- 
 digious in comparison with the cause assigned, that the 
 hypothesis seems wholly incredible. That natural selec- 
 tion, the seizing hold of an accidental variation* useful 
 to the individual, according favour to its possessor in the 
 struggle for existence, and transmitting this advantage 
 to the next generation ; that a constant repetition of this 
 simple process should alone have accomplished all the 
 marvels of organic creation, and produced all the higher 
 mental and moral peculiarities of the species, seems too 
 futile an explanation to be seriously believed or enter- 
 
 * Origin of Species, ch. iv. p. 63. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 tained. The hypothesis of the spontaneous generation of 
 elementary life by chemical combination seems a mere 
 trifle in comparison with this tremendous hypothesis of 
 the creation of all other living things merely by Nature's 
 constant preference of individuals possessing an excep- 
 tional advantage which came at first by chance. And 
 yet, when we read once again the Origin of Species, we 
 see that natural selection must have done much, especially 
 when supplemented by the subsidiary cause of sexual 
 selection (itself, however, a species of natural selection). 
 Between them, these agencies have done much : but have 
 they accomplished all ? Has natural selection been the 
 sole cause of all from the scientific point of view, to say 
 nothing now of the philosophical ? I do not think so for 
 the above reasons ; but the reasons why I do not think 
 natural selection a sufficient explanation of the develop- 
 ment of man in particular will appear more fully in the 
 following chapter. I shall only here say that, if natural 
 selection be offered, not merely as a scientific hypothesis, 
 which goes a considerable way in the explanation of the 
 origin and differences of existing species, but also as a full 
 scientific explanation, we cannot accept it without a larger 
 reservation of doubt than belongs to the generality of 
 scientific hypotheses ; and if it be offered, not merely as 
 a scientific, but also as a philosophical explanation, which, 
 together with its further developments, finally disposes of 
 all questions of the beginning and present existence of 
 things and species, and which frees the mind of man from 
 all further need to ask questions, if, in short, it is to be a 
 final philosophical as well as scientific explanation, we 
 cannot accept it at all. 
 
 At the same time, the hypothesis is of the very greatest 
 significance and importance in its philosophical refer- 
 ence. It opens out a new line of inquiry, and suggests a 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 35 
 
 new train of arguments, which the materialist has long 
 been in want of. It does more than this. It suggests 
 new reflections and arguments to all classes of philoso- 
 phical thinkers ; so much so, that it will necessitate a 
 fresh reconsideration of all philosophical and theological 
 problems. Nay, what some may consider of possibly 
 more consequence, it will necessitate an examination, 
 from the very basis, of all our current theories of morals 
 possibly a fundamental reconstruction of them. The 
 appearance of Darwin's Origin of Species in this century, 
 as of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature in the last century, 
 makes and marks the beginning of a new epoch in the 
 history of all philosophical, theological, and moral specu- 
 lation ; an epoch which, in the opinion of some evolution- 
 ists, is destined to simplify greatly all three of them, if 
 not to remove two of them theology and philosophy 
 wholly from the list of independent subjects of thought. 
 This it is which makes the importance of the Darwinian 
 hypothesis. 
 
 7. Theology and philosophy, at least, will be sim- 
 plified on evolution principles. For if the perfections of 
 organs and their exquisite adaptations to their several 
 ends and to each other were achieved by slow natural 
 process, and only after many abortive and unskilful 
 attempts had been made the blunders and failures being 
 necessarily dropped and hidden away from our sight 
 it would seem futile as well as useless to argue, from 
 adaptations that have been slowly made and necessarily 
 left, to a designing mind that conceived and constructed 
 them all at once, as the old theologians argued. If all 
 adaptations can be accounted for as results that came 
 simply by natural process, why suppose preconceptions 
 and special construction of them ? More especially, if 
 good results must have been reached by natural selection 
 
36 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, EELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 in any case, no matter on what road Nature started, why 
 suppose them to have been specially conceived and 
 planned in a mind that aimed at them ? Not without 
 reason, therefore, on evolution principles, have naturalists 
 like Haeckel and Huxley so often repeated that the 
 famous argument from Final Causes to prove the existence 
 of a designing mind and maker is worthless. If Darwin's 
 hypothesis contains the truth and the whole truth, all 
 Theism is worthless, and we may burn our old Natural 
 Theologies and Bridgewater Treatises. Even the qualified 
 doctrine of Kant, that men must read teleology into 
 organic Nature, whether there be warrant for it or no in 
 her inmost structure and essence, is set aside by the new 
 and startling suggestions of science and evolution. For 
 we are shown that Nature had no special aims what- 
 ever in view ; that she could not have had any such ; 
 that the only means employed by her, namely, natural 
 selection, were capable of reaching almost any organic 
 ends ; that they did stray into uncouth and monstrous 
 forms occasionally in geologic periods ; that, in a word, 
 Nature neither knew nor cared what forms should 
 ultimately emerge from the general organic strife and 
 the attempts of individuals to better their condition. We 
 are shown that, though there were no aims in Nature, 
 yet that some kind of order must have resulted, what- 
 ever course she took, if she only persevered sufficiently 
 long in natural selection. As for the appearance of man, 
 it was no more contemplated than that of any other 
 species, nor were there any special preparations made 
 for him on his arrival to ensure a lengthened stay. He 
 came, as the rest, by the necessities of the case, in which, 
 however, chance played a conspicuous part, and when he 
 came he had to fit himself slowly, and with infinite pain 
 and effort, to his by no means happy environment. 
 
ON THE CEEATION AND GOD. 37 
 
 There was no special Providence watching over his 
 cradle, any more than a Creator which specially fashioned 
 and instructed him. 
 
 Now, it is extremely difficult or wholly impossible to 
 trace the operation of mind in this process. There is no 
 room allowed for it. The more we read the story of 
 Darwin, the further and further the notion and the 
 possibility of mind recedes. The species in the organic 
 worlds are brought into being in much the same fashion 
 as the physical worlds in the system of Democritus, 
 namely, by chance. For in that system, after many un- 
 successful trials and momentary adhesions of the atoms, 
 after ephemeral worlds had been born and dissolved again 
 in the course of a day,* at length a particular combi- 
 nation of the atoms occurred, which, as the event turned 
 out, had permanent cohesion in it, from which resulted 
 the solid universe, and, in a like fashion, all that is 
 therein. In a manner not dissimilar the species of 
 animals and plants were begun and survived, while some 
 quickly disappeared, on Darwin's theory ; and there 
 seems on the whole as little room left for a shaping in- 
 telligence (according to our old notions) in the origin of 
 species according to Darwin, or rather Darwinism, as in 
 the origin of the worlds according to Democritus. 
 
 There is only intelligence which results, not previous 
 thought or power which produces it. The first intelli- 
 gence that appears is a faint glimmer that emerges 
 mysteriously a variation that offers itself, of advantage 
 to the creature, but not the effect of superior intelligence 
 outside. A rude sentience first comes by chance, it 
 quickly manifests itself in its shapeless possessor by a 
 blind instinctive groping for food, or by efforts to escape 
 
 * Cicero, De Finibus : " Innumerabiles nmndi, qui et oriantur, et 
 intereant quotidie." 
 
38 THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 destruction, or to suit itself to its conditions. There is 
 certainly no room for a Creator who planned and exe- 
 cuted organisms with their adaptations according to 
 men's old conception; there is scarcely room even for 
 mind, in the most extended sense of the word ; and there 
 appears in the long process no trace of a guiding purpose. 
 Chance, and unimaginable years which favoured it (for 
 natural selection is but a phrase for the endless operation 
 of chance), are the two shadowy and impalpable agents 
 that alone appear as the authors of the protracted world- 
 drama called evolution, from which both we and the 
 worlds have come. These alone have produced the life, 
 variety, adaptation, and beauty of the organic world. 
 
 8. Again, on the moral side, theology and philo- 
 sophy, after weighing Darwin's story so strange and 
 terrible and hopeful by turns must look to and recon- 
 sider their first principles. For the old question of the 
 origin and continuance of evil in this universe of strife, 
 is once more raised up vividly before us ; and this time 
 it receives a new and simple, though sinister, solution. 
 Formerly the knot which puzzled the philosophers was 
 to reconcile the existence of benevolence in the Deity 
 with so much evil and pain which was so antagonistic to 
 it ; now this part of the problem vanishes with the con- 
 scious personality of the Deity. No one, it seems, is to 
 blame for all the evil that man and the other species 
 have suffered. The evil lies in the nature of things 
 which brought about conscious life, and finally in the 
 properties of matter, according to the materialist. 
 Nature, being impersonal and unconscious, is not to 
 blame ; at least it is useless to blame her. Were she 
 conscious, and had she laboured with any connected and 
 persistent purposes, she would be a criminal, as the pessi- 
 mist argues. But in reality, she had no more a malevo- 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 89 
 
 lent than a good intention in view ; and so she stands 
 acquitted. 
 
 The evil that exists, and the evil that has always 
 existed, is rather the result of imperfect organization or 
 of the strife for life between the units, necessarily too 
 numerous for the supply of food. But this evil, in the 
 human species at least, is a steadily diminishing factor, 
 and in time, according to Herbert Spencer, though 
 it be a long time, it will totally disappear. We men, 
 particularly in civilized societies, have come well out of 
 the long and bloody struggle of the past. The fortunes 
 of our species, as appears from its best specimens in 
 civilized nations, are steadily on the rise ; and already 
 great things have been attained, giving a promise of still 
 greater. There has been from the infancy of the species 
 a great and astonishing progress made ; and there shall 
 be yet further progress, and that too at a constantly 
 accelerating rate of speed, so as to carry us further in 
 shorter time. Thus Science, speaking through the mouth 
 of her sanguine apostles, speaks and prophesies. And 
 thus the faith of Science is optimistic, in spite of her 
 painful knowledge of the past, and to some extent also 
 the present, state of things in the world. 
 
 Science, indeed, must be optimistic, both from her 
 knowledge, her pretensions, and her actual work in help- 
 ing men to subdue their evils. She shows us a great 
 rise in our species from a low and unpromising origin, 
 and moreover she has indirectly much mitigated the ills 
 and multiplied the comforts of men through many and 
 great inventions made by her suggestions. Looking 
 backwards, she discerns that there has been an extra- 
 ordinary expansion of man's nature, and a consequent 
 increase of happiness ; looking forward, she feels justified 
 by her own inductive logic in prophesying a much higher 
 
40 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 and happier future for men. She not only prophesies it, 
 but she will herself be the chief agency in the fulfilment 
 of her prophecy she will bring about the happier future 
 and also fit men for it. 
 
 But though Science cannot despair of men and their 
 prospects without stultifying herself and all her preten- 
 sions, and though the facts and results of evolution, in 
 the hands of Darwin himself, as well as in those of 
 Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel, and other savants 
 as well as thinkers, lend themselves to a more or less 
 pronounced optimism, nevertheless, we see from the new 
 school of German pessimists that a quite different inter- 
 pretation may be put both on the process of evolution, 
 as well as upon its final result up to the present. The 
 universe, according to Schopenhauer, the founder of the 
 new school of thought, could not well have been worse 
 without ceasing to exist altogether ; life, and above all, 
 consciousness, the great outcome of it, is itself the grand 
 mistake ; and even if our species has made the best of its 
 unfortunate circumstances, which may be doubted ; even 
 if it has come out the conqueror crowned from the 
 general battlefield of existence, yet bad has been the 
 best, and the crown only covers the greater cares. 
 According to Hartmann, who writes with a full know- 
 ledge of Darwin's doctrines, man pays a heavy price for 
 this questionable superiority to the lower animals ; for 
 his widened consciousness has only enlarged the circle 
 of his sufferings, his greater knowledge eminently multi- 
 plied his sorrows, except in so far as it may one day 
 teach the species to end itself and them together. As 
 for our much-vaunted progress, perhaps if it were well 
 looked into, it might equally well deserve a very dif- 
 ferent or opposite name. For the evil of all kinds, 
 physical and moral, ever increases as well as the good, 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 41 
 
 or in a greater ratio than the good, while our nerves 
 grow more sensitive to the former which is the same 
 thing as an increase in its amount. But it is the ratio 
 between the two factors of evil and good, and not their 
 absolute amounts, that should determine whether we are 
 really making progress or the reverse. 
 
 It does not here concern us to estimate the weight of 
 the pessimist's argument. Let it suffice to say for the 
 present that pessimism has a case, and that the issue 
 raised is not to be dismissed as an unpractical or a profit- 
 less one, on the ground that, whether life be an evil or 
 no, man must submit to it. The rise and spread of pes- 
 simism is a fact of great interest and significance, which 
 cannot be ignored when an estimate of the results of 
 evolution is being made ; and I shall have occasion to 
 refer to the subject again at the proper place. For the 
 present I am only concerned to notice an important 
 difference between the Darwinian account of the origin 
 and evolution of organized beings, and that of Hartmann, 
 the great chief, after Schopenhauer, of the pessimist 
 school of philosophy. In both Darwinism and the sys- 
 tem of Hartmann, the universe now looks as if it had 
 been planned by a conscious intelligence, though in 
 reality it was not. So far the two philosophers are 
 agreed, but only so far. For, according to Hartmann, 
 the Unconscious Will which produced the world laboured 
 without preconception, indeed, but still with a consum- 
 mate art and skill in seeking its ends in the case of 
 organized beings, and with a most persistent, though as 
 the event proved a fatal and perverse, purpose in the 
 evolution of life and consciousness. There was intel- 
 ligence at work, though blind and unconscious, according 
 to our modes of thinking ; and there was will and inten- 
 tion, though they were not accompanied with a con- 
 
42 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 sciousness or shaped in a mind in the remotest degree 
 like ours. The universe is not without an end and a 
 purpose ; far otherwise ; but the misfortune was that the 
 Unconscious, to reach its final aim, found it necessary 
 to pass through consciousness on the road a fatal and 
 all but irretrievable blunder, for which ail conscious 
 beings, and we men in particular who suffer most in 
 consciousness, are now paying the smart. 
 
 The point to which we wish to direct attention is 
 that in the system of Hartmann there is will and purpose 
 and skill manifested in the universe and its course of 
 evolution. Not so in Darwinism, or apparently in the 
 Philosophy of Evolution of Herbert Spencer, which 
 contains the most systematic presentation of Darwin's 
 doctrines. Here Natural Selection, or the " survival of 
 the fittest," is offered to us as the sole shaping agency. 
 This it was that, after endless ages, gave us law and 
 beauty and adaptations in organic life. But natural 
 selection irresistibly raises before our minds the agency 
 of Chance, the opposite of purpose : and in natural selec- 
 tion, which takes ages to accomplish its chance results 
 the conception of a single continuing and controlling 
 Will is necessarily set aside, since such, if it existed and 
 could only manifest itself through natural selection, would 
 necessarily show itself as broken, disconnected, and con- 
 tradictory. And on this point it is that the system of 
 Hartmann seems to me to contain a deeper thought, a 
 more fundamental truth. 
 
 The existence of purpose in the universe, Science 
 must herself admit, a purpose manifested in the fixed 
 and rigid laws in the physical world, as well as in the 
 uniform laws that govern vital processes, and the re- 
 lations of parts to each other in all organisms, nay, even 
 in the actions of men in societies, which are now found 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 43 
 
 to be subject to laws of evolution and coexistence. In 
 fact, wherever Science discovers the reign of law, whether 
 in physical, physiological, or social phenomena, there too 
 reigns purpose ; and wherever she discovers powerful 
 tendencies that will yet become facts and future laws, 
 there the delayed purpose of the universe is still mani- 
 fested, while awaiting fulfilment. 
 
 It is said, however, by Professor Haeckel that there 
 is not any overruling purpose, and that there never was 
 a purpose, in the sense of an intelligent one that aimed 
 at special ends in the evolution of organized beings ; 
 that neither Nature nor any Power behind or immanent 
 in Nature ever knew or cared what should come even- 
 tually out of the course of evolution ; for to this extreme 
 goes his total proscription of Final Causes and of the 
 doctrine " of Providence or vague idealist pantheisms of 
 Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmami." And to this we 
 can only reply that in that case, if there was no purpose, 
 then all was the result of chance, and a blind mechanical 
 necessity. It was chance that brought about the meeting 
 of the right atoms, even if the inherent properties of 
 matter were competent to evolve life from them. And 
 even if necessity and physico-chemical laws produced the 
 organs of animals, it was chance again which determined 
 the " favourable variations " that were seized upon by 
 natural selection ; and it was only as the result of a 
 thousand fortunate chances that man eventually emerged 
 from the prolonged organic strife and hurly-burly. It 
 was chance that presided over his cradle, and that 
 favoured his further development; and, in a word, if 
 we do not allow some principle, with Hartmann, that 
 was ever powerfully pushing towards a goal some 
 power that, though not conscious as we are, yet had a 
 most decided end to attain, and took the sure road to 
 
44 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 attain it, then it was chance that stumbled upon every 
 living thing, as well as that unique thing, the human 
 consciousness, with all its wonderful content Art, 
 Science, Morality, and the thoughts that wander through 
 eternity. And this conclusion the human mind refuses 
 to receive. Thus, while chance is the only possible 
 alternative offered, our reason necessarily falls back upon 
 purpose, as in some sense the determining principle in 
 the world-process, and into this notion it will be the 
 business of Philosophy to throw the best meaning she 
 can. 
 
 9. We have been considering Darwinism in its 
 essential principles, and as a philosophical system which 
 has been developed by others rather than by its dis- 
 tinguished founder. And we are entitled to consider 
 the system, whether Darwin himself would accept all the 
 consequences involved in it or no. For it is the system 
 as a whole that really concerns us ; it is there that the 
 important and far-reaching consequences of the whole 
 doctrine of Natural Selection and Evolution are most 
 clearly manifested. But Darwin himself is only re- 
 sponsible for the conclusions drawn by other evolution 
 philosophers so far as they are logically contained in his 
 principles and methods of reasoning. 
 
 Now, in Darwin's Origin of Species a Creator is 
 placed at the commencement of the process of organic 
 evolution and an intelligent Creator other than the 
 plastic powers of Nature which, however, his most 
 eminent followers have since set aside. The question 
 arises Are they justified in so doing on Darwinian 
 principles ? and the still graver question Are they justi- 
 fied on true and universal and philosophical principles ? 
 The former question I am inclined to answer in the 
 affirmative. For the Creator in the Origin of Species 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 45 
 
 seems introduced more for ornament than for any serious 
 work that He has to do ; or at least, rather to conciliate 
 the mass of hostile theological prejudice certain to be 
 aroused by the other doctrines, than to satisfy any logical 
 demands in the system. He has nothing to do at the 
 beginning, save to endow " one or a few primordial 
 forms " with the lowest degree of elementary life, leaving 
 the rest of the work to natural selection and the ordeal 
 of battle ; and He has had nothing to do ever since (on 
 the earth at least) but to sit passively by and watch 
 laws which execute themselves without need of any 
 interference on His part. He is " a monarch that reigns 
 but does not govern," like the sovereigns under our par- 
 liamentary regime; and accordingly, in the evolutionary 
 monism of Haeckel, the passive, Personal, Supernatural 
 Creator is dethroned, and the real ruling and efficient 
 agency, Matter, eternal and governed by its own laws, is 
 placed on the vacant throne. There is no need to sup- 
 pose creative agency either at the beginning or since, 
 because " physico-chemical laws," which now regulate 
 the behaviour of matter and all the processes of life, 
 were quite competent to introduce life at first. 
 
 But is God denied entirely in the system of Haeckel ? 
 Apparently not. Apparently it is only the Personal 
 Creator, if we are to judge from the following passage : 
 " The more developed man of the present day is capable 
 of, and justified in, conceiving that infinitely nobler and 
 sublimer idea of God, which alone is compatible with 
 the monistic conception of the universe, and which recog- 
 nizes God's Spirit and power in all phenomena without 
 exception. This monistic idea of God, which belongs to 
 the future, has already been expressed by Giordano 
 Bruno, in the following words : * A spirit exists in all 
 things, and no body is so small but contains a part of 
 
46 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 the divine substance within itself, by which it is ani- 
 mated.' " 
 
 But the sublime conception here put forth of a Nature 
 filled with the spirit of God, seems in no way to consist 
 with an explanation of the universe from mere matter 
 and its laws. If a spirit exist in all things, it is clearly 
 different from matter, and then it is impossible to ex- 
 plain the universe from matter alone, so long as the 
 existence of this spirit in and under matter is acknow- 
 ledged. The very admission destroys all materialistic 
 systems. For possibly this immanent and universally 
 diffused spirit is the real First Cause and principle of 
 all things ; and what, then, becomes of your materialism, 
 which, if it have any significance, always means and 
 must mean the derivation of all from, and the explana- 
 tion of all by, matter? Even if this spirit were only 
 another ultimate principle, coeternal and coefficient with 
 matter in the evolution and present support of things, 
 still, there it is, admitted as a second principle, and 
 what becomes of your monism ? " If, in short," we say 
 to Professor Haeckel, " spirit is at the bottom and the 
 most fundamental thing, the final word in your system 
 should be spiritualism and not materialism ; if only a 
 second principle is admitted, not superior to matter, but 
 also not resolvable into it, then your system is dualism 
 and not monism." 
 
 But, however the conception of a nature filled with 
 the Spirit of God consists with Haeckel's materialism, 
 the conception is admitted by him, and is a truly great 
 one. It is the conception which Spinoza developed into 
 such great proportions, with such memorable conse- 
 quences to theology ; and it seems to want only one 
 thing to make it at once reconcilable with the needs of 
 science, theology, poetry, and the imperious cravings of 
 
ON THE CREATION AND 
 
 human nature. It wants only one thing, 
 important, the recognition of a purpose in this universal 
 spirit ; as otherwise we cannot conceive any explanation 
 of the past course of evolution save chance ; and we can 
 have no guarantee that the future course of development 
 will be controlled otherwise than by chance. Without 
 purpose in the inmost essence of Nature, or the spirit 
 diffused through Nature, there is only chance and me- 
 chanical necessity to determine what will take place 
 anywhere in the universe, and this conclusion never has 
 been accepted by the human mind and never can be 
 made acceptable to it. 
 
 10. We repeat the fatal defect in Darwinism, and 
 in all the more or less systematic presentments that have 
 lately been given of the whole doctrine of Evolution, 
 whether by Spencer, Haeckel, Huxley, or Strauss,* is the 
 denial, express or by implication, of all and any Purpose 
 or Final Cause in the universe. For in purpose, in some 
 sense of the word, and, moreover, in a rational purpose, 
 however difficult it be to define the conception in human 
 language or to assimilate it to our notions of purpose, 
 the human mind, nevertheless, obstinately continues to 
 believe. All men believe in it the mass of mankind 
 guided by common sense, as well as the masters of 
 thought who have meditated most deeply on this all- 
 important question. The greatest names in philosophy 
 from Aristotle and Plato to Descartes- and Leibnitz, to 
 Kant and Hegel, even to Schopenhauer and Hartmann, 
 have believed in purpose in some sense of the word ; the 
 only thinkers opposed being Democritus and Epicurus 
 in ancient times, perhaps Spinoza and Hume in modern 
 times, together with the present representatives of these. 
 And apart from the balance of philosophical authority in 
 
 * Strauss, The Neiu Faith and the Old. 
 
48 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 its favour, can any rational and candid mind doubt that 
 there was a purpose in the course of evolution of the 
 universe ? Can any one really doubt that the human 
 consciousness on our earth was not meant and intended 
 to come finally out of the whole evolutionary process and 
 struggle for existence ? At least, can any one doubt that 
 the eye and the ear, which open out the world to all 
 the animals, were not, somehow, in Nature's aims ; or can 
 they believe the other alternative, that the first rudi- 
 mentary eye came one day as the result of a lucky 
 chance, a fortunate meeting of the atoms, that it only 
 appeared after infinite impotent combinations had in 
 vain been tried, at one happy moment when the right 
 number and due arrangement of particles were hit upon ? 
 Is this credible ? And then the same origin must be 
 assigned for the ear, and for all the other organs of sense, 
 as well as for all the mutually adapted organs of the body 
 the origin of chance, a perpetual shifting and rear- 
 rangement of the atoms by chance and mechanical neces- 
 sity till the new and startling phenomena appeared. 
 We say by chance since they were not themselves 
 endowed with any self -moving power, nor was any con- 
 cert possible amongst them, nor any general marshalling 
 agency supposed. Now, it is faintly conceivable, though 
 incredible, that chance might produce the physical organ, 
 which, it must be allowed, is resolvable into cells and 
 nerves and finally into a collocation of atoms. Given 
 endless time to exhaust all wrong arrangements, an 
 instrument like the eye might in the end result ; but it 
 would clearly require an incredible period of time, by 
 the laws of probability, before the right combination of 
 atoms resulted from chance alone. But even if the right 
 arrangement which gave the physical organ at last did 
 result, there is still a gulf from the organ to the seeing 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 49 
 
 power. What is this new phenomenon, the fact of vision, 
 which opens out a new world, which one day or one 
 moment came, having been non-existent just before ? 
 Is this new thing not something like creation ? It is 
 the product of the atoms, the effect of molecular changes, 
 says the materialist. Then the atoms are literally crea- 
 tive they have produced from nothing a most won- 
 derful thing ; they have evolved or evoked this unique 
 power from no pre-existing materials ; for the fact of 
 vision is wholly different from the material particles 
 which compose the organ it is a thing not made up of 
 them, nor of anything but itself, which one moment 
 was not and the next moment was ; and this is creation, 
 call it evolution, if you please. It is creation, and, 
 moreover, it is very like creation ex nihilo, pronounced 
 so absurd only that the blind atoms have accomplished 
 the miracle, according to the materialist. 
 
 In short, we say to the materialist : you believe in 
 creation after all, under the name of evolution ; only it 
 was matter which effected the creation ; and you believe 
 in the miracle of creation from nothing, only that the 
 atoms, acting without intention or concert, accomplished 
 the miracle. You believe in a creation by the atoms, 
 only that the atoms did not know what they were about 
 to do or what was about to happen. They had no 
 intention of producing the result nor could have had 
 any ; and the creation or evolution, first of life, then of 
 the senses, then of consciousness, and last of the human 
 reason, was the result of a long series of fortunate 
 accidents. This is the real and most important issue 
 raised to-day by Darwin, as in ancient times by Demo- 
 critus whether chance or purpose governs the world; 
 and it is the issue raised by the thoughtful Evolution 
 philosophy of Herbert Spencer as well as by the cruder 
 
 E 
 
50 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 atomistic materialism of some of the other expositors of 
 Darwin's doctrines. 
 
 Now, for my own part, I am quite prepared to give 
 up the old anthropomorphic Creator, who went to work 
 in the construction of worlds and organisms as the 
 architect and the machinist. I gladly deliver myself, 
 by the aid of the scientific doctrine of the eternity and 
 indestructibility of matter, from the old dogma of the 
 creation ex nihilo, of the earth and planets by creative 
 fiat. I am even ready, on the strength of the united 
 demand of modern philosophy and thought, made by 
 Spinoza, Fichte, Shelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and 
 Hartmann, as thinkers ; by Schliermacher as theologian, 
 and by Goethe as poet, to surrender the human attri- 
 butes of personality and consciousness in the Deity ; and 
 all the more readily as we are assured by philosophy 
 that these attributes, which we find we can never, by 
 the utmost effort of thought, connect in any way with 
 the notion of God, are in clear contradiction to the 
 notion of an Absolute Being, which, as such, cannot be 
 subject to the limitations which consciousness implies. 
 We can give up all these imperfect conceptions of God, 
 one and all ; but yet we cannot abandon all belief in a 
 purpose, an intention, a finality of some sort, which has 
 been and still is manifested in the universe, and in the 
 evolution of human destiny. 
 
 We cannot give up belief in purpose, because the 
 alternative belief is that the earth and the million spheres 
 in space came from mechanical necessity and for no end, 
 and that life and consciousness came from this same 
 mechanical necessity, supplemented by chance as the 
 active shaping agency and real divinity ; that all things 
 came from chance and that the universe drifts at hazard 
 towards no particular goal but final dissolution. 
 
ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 51 
 
 Men must postulate a purpose in the past, to control 
 the course of evolution, to dispense with the hypothesis 
 of "a fortuitous concourse of the atoms," to avoid the 
 notion, shocking to the reason, of endless and abortive 
 attempts of the atoms to frame a world and to produce 
 life. We require a guiding inner principle ; we even 
 require to postulate creative agency where a new fact 
 appeared, such as life, sensation, consciousness, unless 
 these too existed from eternity as well as matter ; but we 
 do not require to postulate a personal Creator or special 
 creations of the different species of plants and animals. 
 We must have a purpose, and there must be creative 
 power, at each new appearance between the chemically 
 constituted cosmic vapour and the most developed human 
 species. Evolution is granted, and the difference between 
 creation and evolution is hardly worth disputing about. 
 The first appearance of something wholly new, such as 
 life is it to be called creation or evolution ? This is a 
 question that we care not how it be answered. There 
 is, then, a purpose ; it has been creative, and in a certain 
 sense it is supernatural ; for, as Herbert Spencer admits, 
 there is a "power behind humanity and all things," 
 which is not exhausted in any of its forms as shown in 
 evolution. And this power behind Nature, and yet 
 manifesting itself in Nature, might still be called super- 
 natural as well as natural, were it not for the special 
 association of the former word with miraculous inter- 
 ventions. But the power itself is admitted by all, 
 excepting only those who, like Hume,* maintain that 
 phenomena alone, with nothing behind them, compose 
 the universe. 
 
 The present is not the place to press further the 
 inconsistency and insufficiency of the materialist expla- 
 
 * For Hume's remarkable Theory of the Universe, see p. 315. 
 
52 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 nation of the world. Let it here suffice to say that 
 while purpose as well as wisdom is denied, power and 
 even creative power is allowed, in the fact of evolution ; 
 while the further question, whether this power which 
 admittedly shows itself in Nature, though it is itself 
 invisible, non-phenomenal, and so to speak behind Nature 
 should be described as supernatural or by some term 
 of less equivocal meaning, is merely a question of words. 
 The existence of the power is admitted by evolutionists 
 themselves, as well as by so great a thinker as Kant, 
 who is now in such special favour with them. Our 
 belief goes further, for the reasons already assigned : we 
 believe in a purpose, and we believe that purpose to be 
 a good one. In holding this faith, we are at issue both 
 with the evolutionist and the pessimist. In holding fast 
 by purpose as the principle of the universe, we differ 
 from the former ; in holding that it is good, we differ 
 from the latter. Both convictions are articles of faith 
 that do not admit of perfect demonstration ; neither are 
 they always held with the same unwavering strength 
 of conviction. Indeed, at times both are sorely tried. 
 When we look around and see that justice is not yet 
 enthroned in the world; when we see the terrible 
 struggle for existence, in which virtue does not triumph ; 
 when we see the conditions, sometimes terrible as death 
 itself, which the necessities of this struggle exact, not 
 merely from the over-sensitive but from the best and 
 bravest spirits ; when we find the perpetual intervention 
 of this formidable thing which we must call chance, in 
 the crises of our own lives to make or mar them ; and 
 when, disturbed with these reflections, we look through 
 history for support for our faith, and see that the truth 
 has not always triumphed or the good cause prevailed, 
 and that the crises of history, as well as of our own 
 
OX THE CREATION AND GOD. 53 
 
 lives, have apparently turned upon a cast of the dice ; 
 when we brood over all these things, then, indeed, the 
 desperate suggestion sometimes rises within us, that 
 there is and has been no power at the helm, that the 
 universe drifts purposeless, or that some base and malig- 
 nant power is a co-ordinate principle with the good, if 
 not the chief controller of the course of things. In this 
 mood, the stars seern to run blindly ; the world is " an 
 unweeded garden that runs to seed," where " things rank 
 and gross in nature " alone have full and riotous posses- 
 sion ; men are 
 
 The flies of later spring, 
 That lay their eggs and sting and sing, 
 And weave their petty cells and die. 
 
 But these are the dark moments of the trial of our faith, 
 to which we ever return when the paroxysm of doubt 
 and denial has passed. For if the social world, with its 
 evils and miseries, thus sometimes shakes our belief, 
 Nature, ever bountiful and beautiful, is all around us to 
 restore it. And reason and reflection come to our aid 
 also ; for we find that truth after all is triumphing, 
 and that the reign of .justice is slowly extending. We 
 find within ourselves that truth in its pursuit and pos- 
 session is verily what Aristotle, what Plato, and what 
 Bacon, following them, proclaimed it to be " the sove- 
 reign good of human nature." And virtue, goodness, 
 spite of appearances to the contrary, i'f the right tests 
 are applied, is found to be progressing. Possibly not the 
 heroic virtues, but at least sympathy, benevolence, pity, 
 and a wider regard for justice. These social virtues are 
 spreading over wider areas, and are diminishing the fell 
 intensity of the conflict for existence, now no longer 
 carried on without quarter to the vanquished. They are 
 binding men together, and narrowing the range of the 
 
54 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 exclusively selfish regards, the old perennial spring of so 
 much moral evil. And thus we support our faith in the 
 good purpose of the universe. 
 
 It should also be confessed that we are to some 
 extent fortified in it by considerations not altogether 
 addressed to the reason, for no faith is solely rational. 
 We close with it partly on account of the blank and 
 frightful alternatives which the pessimist and the ex- 
 treme materialist offer to us : the one pointing to a prin- 
 ciple at the bottom of things, which, though without any 
 evil intention, necessarily brings evil to us ; and the 
 other, scarcely less alarming, to a universe born of chance 
 and mechanical necessity, and drifting aimlessly towards 
 no goal but final dissolution from the same mechanical 
 necessity. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 1. WE now approach the central and most important 
 question of all What is man himself? a question in 
 appearance sufficiently simple, and one, moreover, dis- 
 cussed from the dawn of speculation, but which, never- 
 theless, science holds to have been only rightly conceived 
 and approached, and only truly answered in all its 
 fulness and significance, for the first time in our day 
 and generation. 
 
 The inquiry concerning the nature of man is evidently 
 of fundamental importance, as all moralists, from the 
 revival of independent moral speculation under Hobbes, 
 two centuries ago, up to our own days, have fully per- 
 ceived. On the answer to the question, What is man ? 
 clearly depends the answer to the three great questions 
 of Kant, What can we know ? What should we do ? 
 What may we hope? Nay, even the 'further question, 
 What can we do ? the great question of moral freedom, 
 the ancient and still-agitated question whether our actions 
 are the product of a secret material mechanism which 
 ultimately sways our wills, or whether and how far man 
 is the master of destiny and the ruler of circumstance, 
 is evidently involved in the fundamental and all-com- 
 prehending one, What is man himself? 
 
56 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 The full answer to this inquiry is, according to posi- 
 tive scientific thinkers, only to be obtained from a 
 variety of sciences, from psychology, physiology, anthro- 
 pology, sociology ; though the great light that has been 
 recently thrown upon the whole subject by the Darwinian 
 discovery of man's animal descent, is of itself a revela- 
 tion and, a guiding clue of immense significance in all 
 future speculations, producing as it does a total revolu- 
 tion in our point of view and in our methods of inquiry. 
 
 It is only in our day Professor Huxley * maintains 
 that man has discovered his true place in Nature arid 
 his real relations to the rest of the animal kingdom, just 
 as three hundred years ago the true position of the earth 
 and its relations to the other heavenly bodies were dis- 
 covered by Copernicus. It is only in our more favoured 
 time Professor Haeckel *f- tells us that " the question of 
 man's position in Nature, the highest of all problems," 
 has been truly solved by Darwin's theory of descent, 
 corroborated as it so strongly is by the facts of em- 
 bryology and physiology. Indeed, it is only in our 
 generation that the question could be even approached 
 or rightly conceived, so thick a mass of fictions, illusions, 
 and deep inborn prejudices had conspired together to 
 draw an impenetrable veil round man's real nature, which 
 effectually hid him from himself. The dogmas of the- 
 ology and metaphysics, the vain imaginings of poetry, 
 man's own pride and prejudices, had each in their 
 several ways and degrees contributed to the one common 
 result of placing a monstrous distorting mirror before 
 him, which hindered him from seeing himself as he 
 really was. They had made it impossible for him to 
 get even on the right track to the wise self-knowledge 
 
 * Huxley, Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature. 
 
 t Haeckel, History of Creation, vol. i. p. 294 ; vol. ii. p. 368, 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 57 
 
 recommended by the old philosophers. He had fallen 
 from an originally holy and god-like estate, theology 
 assured him. His nature, once innocent, was now in- 
 herently vile, and he could do no good thing of himself, 
 though infinite evil. In the other ear of man meta- 
 physics whispered a far more nattering tale in fact, 
 a wholly opposite theory of man, and one much more 
 soothing to his pride and encouraging to his hopes. 
 His nature was innately grand and god-like, and shaded 
 off on all sides without dividing boundary to the infinite. 
 At the bottom of man's being lay his soul, of a character 
 and composition very different from the theological repre- 
 sentation of it. Far from being an essentially vicious 
 thing, it was an ethereal substance, " a thing majestical," 
 an indestructible diamond, that not the power of death 
 or fate, hardly even that of omnipotence itself, could 
 break. The soul, the ego, the inmost essence and core 
 of the man, w T as an imperial thing on the earth, as 
 demonstrated in its own free and uncaused will un- 
 caused by motive other than its own sovereign dictation ; 
 and it was an immortal existence hereafter. Or if the 
 soul was not of independent existence, as most of the 
 metaphysicians argued, it was, according to others, a 
 direct emanation of Deity, and to Him returned at death. 
 So argued the metaphysicians in opposition to the theo- 
 logians, asserting the innate rights and dignity of the 
 soul, and of our essential human nature* Then followed 
 poetry, at one time re-echoing the teaching of theology, 
 at another that of metaphysics, in both cases mingling 
 special fictions and fancies of her own, her Muse now 
 bewailing man's hapless fall and hopeless state, anon 
 chanting his lordly dignity and high future hopes. Thus 
 poetry continued till the beginning of our century, 
 Avhen, having drunk deep the prevailing scepticism and 
 
58 THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 anticipated the coming pessimism, she separated herself 
 definitively from theology, and, for a time, from philo- 
 sophy and from hope ; during which she struck those 
 loud notes of lamentation over man's defeated hopes and 
 mysterious isolation in the universe, which are still 
 ringing in our ears. 
 
 2. But now, stripped of fiction and illusion, what is 
 the scientifically ascertained fact, the sober literal truth 
 respecting human nature ? We desire to know what man 
 really is ; we wish, if possible, to have the conjoint report 
 of the several sciences concerned, and, that the account 
 be the more reliable, from those authorities who have 
 made a special side of man's nature a special subject 
 of study. 
 
 And in response to this desire, we have the latest 
 reports on human nature, as handed in from the several 
 scientific sections, which, when put together, read to the 
 following effect : Man is the superior and highly de- 
 veloped animal, with intellectual, moral, social, sesthetic 
 qualities, differing in degree but not in kind from similar 
 qualities existing in some of the highest of the lower 
 animals. From the point of view of comparative ana- 
 tomy and physiology, man is of like bodily structure 
 and organization with the anthropoids, so much so that, 
 as Professor Huxley concludes, "The structural dif- 
 ferences which separate man from the gorilla and chim- 
 panzee, are not so great as those which separate the 
 gorilla from the lower apes." Man closely resembles the 
 most man-like apes, only that his structure is slightly 
 more complex, and certain of his bodily organs are more 
 highly and more delicately differentiated. The difference 
 between the hand and foot is more pronounced in man 
 than in the nearest resembling animals, his hand is more 
 elaborately finished, his fingers finer and more flexible ; 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 59 
 
 and from this superiority of hand, the brain suggesting 
 the idea, he can make inventions, tools, implements, 
 weapons, complicated machines and appliances, to serve 
 his ends. Moreover, through the higher differentiation 
 of the larynx and tongue, he has the faculty of articulate 
 speech in a much higher degree than any of the other 
 animals, and he can thus communicate with his fellows 
 to an extent that is quite impossible to them. Some of 
 them, indeed, including his nearest relatives, possess the 
 faculty of speech in a low degree ; but man alone can 
 convert the vocal sounds which he can make in the 
 greatest variety, into signs of his inmost wishes and 
 thoughts, and into general conceptions, by means of 
 which he can think and reason about classes and uni- 
 versals, the highest prerogative of the scientific human 
 intellect. Above all, the mass of man's brain is larger, 
 its cells and fibres more numerous and complicated, and 
 he can thence make greater mental acquisitions, which 
 he can store away in the corpuscles of the brain, as in 
 safe and secret closets, for future use. He is, from this 
 comparatively greater size and finer structure of brain, 
 a being of " larger discourse, looking before and after." 
 He can think more clearly, he can see more deeply, he 
 can feel more finely and variously, than any of his 
 humbler brute brethren. He is presented with a clearer 
 and fairer picture of the universe than the dull and 
 confused apprehension of the brute can give. Moreover, 
 his nerves are more numerous and more delicately strung, 
 thereby giving him not only a wider area of pleasure 
 and pain, but special emotional delights, in the cultiva- 
 tion and expression of which man has become an artist, 
 as by his general brain superiority he had become an 
 inventor and a thinker. Finally, man is the pre-emi- 
 nently social animal, more essentially so than the bee, 
 
60 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 the ant, or any other ; and to this fact of his nature, 
 more than even to the special excellences of his hand 
 and head, is to be attributed his great and successful 
 career, and his completely outstripping all competing 
 species in the struggle for existence. For without the 
 social union, his other advantages would have been of 
 little service ; without it, indeed, they would have been 
 but little developed ; but by the social union, which 
 makes division of labour possible, inventions and im- 
 provements are made, science and art become possible, 
 and language, itself a necessary pre-requisite of society, 
 becomes further perfected from the exigency of further 
 social needs. 
 
 Man is a social animal, partly because his immediate 
 animal progenitors were such in some low degree, but 
 more because he speedily learned by painful experience 
 the absolute necessity of union, for life itself on the one 
 hand, and on the other, the great and ever-increasing 
 advantages resulting from the union itself. Moreover, 
 he found his pleasure as well as his profit in social life, 
 being naturally of a sociable disposition, in spite of 
 Hobbes's saying to the contrary. From being a social 
 animal, man at length advanced till he became a moral 
 being ; that is, a being that not only seeks, as every 
 individual created thing must seek, the conservation of 
 its own existence, but which also, in order that others 
 may be free to do the same and in order that society 
 with its great advantages may be possible for all, mani- 
 fests a regard for the rights of others as well as his own, 
 and recognizes the necessity of obeying rules framed in 
 the interest of all, rules which limit the naturally 
 excessive egoism of each to the fair amount which is 
 compatible with that of all the rest. And man became a 
 moral being all the sooner and more easily because he 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 61 
 
 found within himself the germs of sympathy, as well as 
 the undoubted fact of sociability attracting him to the 
 company of his fellows ; which two factors of sympathy 
 and sociability at length between them begat the moral 
 fact now known as benevolence, something resembling 
 a genuine regard for all the members of the tribe, and 
 a consequent heartier disposition, not only to work more 
 zealously with them for the common good and against 
 the common dangers, but even to voluntarily restrict 
 individual selfishness, and sometimes to surrender cheer- 
 fully some of his own share of satisfactions to the re- 
 quirements of others ; in which last case we have the 
 beginnings of the self-sacrificing virtues. 
 
 Such man was in the past; in such ways and by 
 such means he has been developed ; and such as he was 
 he still essentially is, according to the scientific account 
 of him. He is both less and greater than his theological 
 portrait had represented him : " not so happy, but much 
 happier." Not so happy, because, though the race is to 
 have an immortality and a great to-morrow, the in- 
 dividual will have none ; there being no exceptional 
 felicity reserved for him hereafter, any more than for 
 the lower animals from whom he has been" raised. 
 Much happier, because there is a prosperous and pro- 
 gressive career marked out for the individual as for the 
 species here on the earth ; because his " homely nurse/' 
 the earth, has " filled her lap with pleasures of her own " 
 to give him ; because he may know assuredly that his 
 nature has not degraded from a higher, but developed 
 from a far lower level. He is not essentially vile and 
 fallen, but neither is he, on the other hand, Science 
 assures him lest he should boast a being capable of 
 any continued lofty heroism or transcendent excellence, 
 or on the whole capable of more than very moderate and 
 
62 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 average virtues. Speaking generally, man is a being 
 with an inherited leaning to both good and evil, to 
 neither excessively, though, from pressure of self or 
 circumstance, somewhat more given to the latter; not 
 much, however, and the degree may be exaggerated, 
 because there is of necessity much more attention called 
 to his vices, which must be frequently punished, than 
 to his virtues, which mostly pass without notice or 
 external reward. 
 
 However this be, there is to be set against the exist- 
 ing evil the scientific promise of its future diminution, 
 the assurance of a slow tendency to improvement. There 
 is a slow, though admittedly a very slow, change in the 
 relative proportions of the tendencies that make respec- 
 tively for virtue and vice, and this alteration of the 
 existing ratio is in favour of virtue, in the direction of 
 the good. A reduction of evil, both physical and moral, 
 is discoverable through the course of history, and a 
 similar and still great reduction (as before remarked) 
 is promised in the future, when man shall have more 
 completely harmonized his nature with his physical and 
 social environment.* 
 
 Thus, then, our species has not fallen from a perfect 
 or paradisaical state ; on the contrary, it has raised itself 
 by its own efforts, by the favour of Nature, by the fact 
 of natural selection, from a state low and terrible and 
 precarious to its present comparatively enviable position. 
 Man commenced his career with no very exceptional 
 advantages; indeed, like our present ll self-made man" 
 his nearest type and true representative he commenced 
 upon almost nothing ; and the accumulated intellectual, 
 emotional, and moral capital now possessed by the species 
 is mainly an inherited bequest, the result of the patience, 
 
 * Spencer's Data of Ethics ; also, Principles of Biology, ch. xiii. 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 63 
 
 the persistent labour and energy, the unwearied ant-like 
 industry of a thousand generations a result which 
 natural selection has aided to produce, and which in- 
 heritance has handed on. Far from having fallen or 
 retrograded, man has advanced very far indeed; his 
 nature has been widened and deepened on all sides, and 
 a yet further and more glorious development of his 
 nature will take place. What he has done is but a 
 promise of what he will do. What he is, is but as the 
 statue in the rough compared to the finished man of the 
 far future. 
 
 But human nature, though widened and deepened 
 with the process of the suns, is not in any sense of the 
 word infinite, as certain metaphysicians would have us 
 believe. Man's mental, like his bodily constitution, is 
 on all sides bounded and limited. Thought, emotion, 
 volition, are all finite and conditioned ; are subject to 
 laws of regular and ascertained sequence ; fall into the 
 universal chain of cause and effect, as psychology and 
 physiology teach. What, indeed, may be the ultimate or 
 First Cause of the mental as of other phenomena, Science 
 is unable to say a First Cause, even if comprehensible, 
 not being within the scope of her inquiries, and her only 
 notion of causation being constantly recurring sequence 
 but so far as Science traces or follows the phenomena, 
 so far as they are accessible to her most improved 
 methods of search, they are in the last resort caused by 
 states of the bodily organism, in particular by molecular 
 changes in the brain and nervous system.* These are 
 the invariable antecedents, the cause or conditions of 
 consciousness in Hume's and Mill's sense of the word 
 " cause." Without these no thought or consciousness is 
 
 * Huxley's Life of Hume, p. 79 (" English Men of Letters " series) ; 
 also Bain's Mind and Body, pp. 11, 140. 
 
64< THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 possible ; with these they begin, and with these end. 
 Here is the final fact, beyond which Science cannot go, 
 finding no firm foothold for the further speculations in 
 which the metaphysicians are wont to indulge. Further 
 inquiry or attempted explanation she prefers to leave to 
 men of this class, who, however, she observes succeed 
 but badly in their attempts to emancipate mind from its 
 constant connection, from birth to death, ^ith pheno- 
 menal matter which connection she notes as the ultimate 
 fact in this department of knowledge. 
 
 3. Such are the universal and essential charac- 
 teristics of our common human nature, as they manifest 
 themselves to modern scientific inquiry. But now we 
 must further observe, by way of supplement, or comment, 
 that while human nature has its universal, and necessary 
 elements which appear in every individual, thereby 
 producing that general sameness which makes it a fit 
 subject for science, there are also the greatest possible 
 differences amongst the human atoms, according as a 
 greater or less degree or a different combination of the 
 common elements enter into the mental and moral com- 
 position of each individual. Humanity is no homogeneous 
 mass. The individuals composing it differ in intellectual, 
 moral, and social qualities, in religious and sesthetic 
 emotions, even more than they do in physical form and 
 features. There is no identity of nature and no general 
 equality amongst men, even confining the attention to 
 the same society, or nation, or class. While the majority 
 are average men, viewing human nature in its totality 
 and from the point of view of science and of psychology, 
 very many fall below, a considerable number rise above 
 this general level line of humanity, and a select few 
 rise to such exceptional and commanding heights that 
 their fellow-men regard them as beings of a different 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 65 
 
 nature from themselves, and history reserves for them 
 the title of great. Into a few the common elements of 
 our nature have entered in such pre-eminent degree and 
 large amount, and they have thence been enabled to 
 produce results so great and extraordinary for the rest 
 of men results so impossible of achievement or even of 
 conception by the others, that they, with a sort of noble 
 superstition, in former times credited these superior 
 spirits with a divine nature, and reverenced their memory 
 as of gods ; and even still, with a lingering trace of this 
 old hero-worship, with a survival of the old ennobling 
 reverence, great men are called men of genius a unique, 
 indefinable thing, which marks off its possessor from the 
 rest of mankind as of a different and higher nature. 
 These spirits, specially touched to finer issues, seem even 
 yet compact of finer clay and tempered with more ethe- 
 real fire than has gone to the composition of the gene- 
 rality ; and if we remember the services which these 
 select ones have rendered to humanity, in widening its 
 range, in lifting it higher, in multiplying its power, in 
 giving to it new and permanent realms of truth and 
 beauty, in giving to it in their lives examples of its 
 glorious possibilities of effort or achievement in virtue, 
 we shall, in spite of the levelling doctrine of science and 
 evolution, be inclined to deal tenderly with the still 
 lingering and generous superstition that credits great 
 men with being something peculiarly divine. In a sense 
 so they still are, so they were, and so they must ever be. 
 In reality, great men are but the highest summits of 
 that humanity which we all share ; nevertheless, they 
 have shown us what heights there are in humanity, from 
 whence a grander horizon opens. They have shown us 
 how we may climb nearer to those heights. In a certain 
 sense they have been the true creators. They have 
 
 F 
 
66 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, EELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 increased and deepened human nature. They have shown 
 us the truth and beauty we could not have seen save 
 through their eyes. They have created the truth and 
 beauty. They have given us the power we could not 
 have had without their help ; and if they have not created 
 this power, they have given us the control over it. Great 
 men have been the means of developing mankind far 
 more directly and essentially than natural selection, 
 assisted by heredity and adaptation, as even Darwin 
 admits.* It was by means of the superior and original 
 minds that the adaptation of the rest to their environ- 
 ment was brought about. The evolution of human 
 societies and civilizations, the evolution of the arts, insti- 
 tutions, religions, philosophies, literatures, laws, has been 
 accomplished by a series of loftier minds, the individuals 
 of which took up successively and improved upon the 
 thoughts and ideas of their predecessors, beginning with 
 the first creative mind ; and without such minds no fresh 
 initiative or improvement, no originality or advance, no 
 new creation or fresh suggestion appears. There is sub- 
 stantial truth in the view of a great writer that "the 
 history of what man has accomplished in this world is at 
 bottom the history of the great men who have worked 
 there." f Herbert Spencer, it is true, lightly esteems the 
 theory, and asks in reply Whence comes the great man ? 
 What makes him possible ? The great man, he tells us, 
 must be made by his society before he can unmake or 
 improve it. And this view is also, to a certain extent, 
 true ; but not in the most important or essential sense. 
 For society makes only so much of the great man as goes 
 to the composition of the average man, leaving an over- 
 plus which is not to be put to the credit of society or 
 previous human acquisition, but which is a gift from 
 * The Descent of Mam,. f Carlyle, Lectures on Heroes. 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 67 
 
 Nature from the Unknown. It makes all of the great 
 man except his special genius, which is afterwards to 
 improve society; all of Shakespeare except his extra- 
 ordinary imagination and insight, by which he has for 
 ever enriched the world. Even if we revert to the 
 earliest stages of development, we can see that before 
 natural selection got anything worth selecting in the 
 most primitive societies, the creative spirit, the superior 
 man, had first to appear. Before primitive man could 
 make any decided step in advance, or could separate 
 himself conspicuously from his lower animal relations, 
 some inventive individual had to conceive and construct 
 the first rude flint weapon, which gave men so great 
 advantage in the combat with wild beasts or with their 
 fellows ; some prehistoric Prometheus first stole the 
 secret of fire from Nature, and showed to the others its 
 uses ; some one discovered the fruitful corn amongst the 
 common grasses, and taught the rest to plant it ; to some 
 one the idea first occurred that the skin of a slain beast, 
 if deftly transferred and arranged, would warm himself 
 as it did its original owner. Again, and later, some one 
 invented spoken speech, some one before Cadmus in- 
 vented the use of letters, some one before Tubal-cain 
 taught how to temper and shape the metals. But in all 
 these and many other cases, the first seeds of fruitful 
 thought or invention appeared in one mind; the sub- 
 sequent important improvements have* likewise come 
 from one. And this has been true of the history of the 
 arts of war as of peace ; from the inventor of the bow, 
 the spear, and the plough, to the inventor of the printing 
 press and the steam-engine. 
 
 If we come to the historical stages of the course of 
 evolution, we shall see the truth of this exemplified in 
 still more important matters. We still see that all dis- 
 
68 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 covery, advance, and improvement depend on great men, 
 and find their limits and arrest with the non-appearance 
 of these. Civilizations became what they were by a 
 series of great men; without these, they either would 
 not have been at all, or their courses would have been 
 wholly different. But in the absence of the particular 
 great men, would not others have taken their places 
 other Columbuses, other Newtons ? Possibly, in some 
 cases; in others not; but even had others appeared in 
 all, then these would have been the initiating spirits. So 
 that the course of history and evolution would still have 
 moved under the initiative and guidance of individuals. 
 
 4. Our civilization and culture is what great men, 
 as distinct from natural selection, have made it; what 
 inventors and discoverers, what philosophers, founders of 
 religions and lawgivers, what artists and poets, what 
 even statesmen and conquerors, have made it; much 
 more than what evolution, unaided by these, though 
 with the full benefit of natural selection, heredity, and 
 adaptation, has made it. The Homers and Dantes and 
 Shakespeares have enlarged our human nature by reveal- 
 ing to it what was before invisible in itself, by teaching 
 it to read and truly to know itself. They have brought 
 from non-existence into being, and have annexed for 
 ever to man's spiritual kingdom, a new and wonderful 
 world of beauty and of truth, ever the twin bequest of 
 the great poet. They have widened our consciousness of 
 Nature and of ourselves, have added inexhaustible fields 
 of spiritual delight for the soul to revel in in all her 
 changing moods. They have supplied to our spirit its 
 proper elements on which it lives, the nutriment on 
 which it may feed, the air which it can respire. And 
 have not the Beethovens and Mozarts, the Raphaels and 
 Titians, artists of different types from the poets the 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 69 
 
 former who have struck a new and different shaft into 
 the previously unsounded depths of the soul, and have 
 found a language for its previously unexpressed but real 
 emotions; and the latter who have made colours and 
 lines instead of words and sounds, into a language that 
 powerfully speaks to, ennobles, and stirs the soul ; have 
 not these also enlarged our spiritual life ? 
 
 And the Keplers and Newtons, the Lyells and Dar- 
 wins, the labourers in one grand division of the field' of 
 truth, the wide and ever-increasing province of scientific 
 knowledge ; the men who, after prolonged thought, at 
 length extorted from Nature, despite her many masks 
 and disguises, the long-kept secrets of the laws 'of her 
 mighty and mysterious movements, in the heavens above 
 and in the earth beneath, in sustaining and moving the 
 spheres, in sculpturing the outlines of the earth, in the 
 production and differentiating the forms of life ; these 
 men at least, the great geniuses in science must not the 
 apostles of science and evolution allow ? have aided in 
 the development and elevation and civilization of man- 
 kind, apart from any operation of natural selection. And 
 the Platos, and Spinozas, and Kants, and Hegels, the 
 daring leaders of that ever-existing, never-disheartened 
 company of searchers, sworn to fathom the secret of the 
 universe, resultless as their labours have been as regards 
 their final aim, have yet been of incalculable service in 
 the culture and education of the race. ' Nay more, these 
 lonely thinkers, after long beating against the bars of 
 their own great minds, seem at last almost to break 
 down the barrier between themselves and the Infinite ; 
 they actually seem to catch a glimpse, in some supreme 
 moment of revelation were it only for a moment of 
 the final secret of the world, which in a measure they 
 can darkly symbolize to us. And at the lowest estimate 
 
70 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 of their services, the masters of thought, by their mining 
 and quarrying in the secret subterranean regions of 
 thought, not less than by their aspiring nights, if they 
 have not revealed the whole mystery or opened out 
 a tunnel between our world of phenomena and the un- 
 known land beyond, they have, both by their labour and 
 by their failure, shown to us why we cannot reach this 
 transcendent world where repose the real essences of 
 things. They have shown us that our faculties are 
 bounded, even when themselves stretching them to the 
 utmost, even when actually widening them, like Kant. 
 They have shown us the utmost butt and sea-mark of 
 our sail, even when trying to prove that the philosopher's 
 thought is absolute knowledge, like Hegel. They have 
 all confirmed the lesson of our philosopher Locke, to sit 
 down in contented ignorance of knowledge denied to 
 human faculties, even though other beings in the universe 
 may possess it. 
 
 And there have been yet greater men than any of 
 these ; men who have revealed the great possibilities of 
 virtue latent in humanity, as these others its capacity 
 for truth and beauty, and its aspirations to the Un- 
 known. Besides the great discoverers of truth, there 
 have been men who have shown to us what may be 
 dared for truth when discovered the men who have 
 given for truth their blood, and bequeathed to humanity 
 the great traditions which it cannot forget, and dare not 
 fall wholly away from, without accepted dishonour and 
 degradation. There have been the noble army of martyrs 
 for truth, amongst whom science and philosophy are 
 worthily represented. There have been martyrs who, 
 like Socrates and Bruno, have shown that, even when 
 humanity has sunk low, there ever exist individual 
 spirits who redeem it and prevent it from sinking to still 
 

 ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 71 
 
 lower deeps ; men who have shown the mighty power 
 for virtue that lies even in one unbending will; and 
 such suggest the reassuring thought that similar spirits 
 exist at the worst of times, who will dare all death 
 itself, and worse, if fate has worse rather than betray 
 the sacred cause of Truth at a time, critical for Humanity 
 itself, when her life seems threatened. 
 
 And there has been a still more select and inimitable 
 few ; spirits, awful, beautiful, all but divine, who, 
 troubled at once by the mystery of life, and moved by 
 the mighty miseries of men to an infinite love and pity 
 for them, have turned aside from the joys of life that 
 they might have had, if only they could have enjoyed 
 them in the midst of the endless sorrow and with the 
 infinite wail of the world ringing in their ears ; men who 
 have thought, and meditated, and fasted, and supplicated 
 to find out some way of salvation for afilicted mankind, 
 or some mitigation at least of all its miseries. There 
 have been men who could find no peace or joy in life 
 for themselves while the huge incarnate sorrow existed 
 all around them ; who were ready to die for men, if only 
 they might thereby improve their lot ; who like Buddha, 
 resigned all that men call happiness, who like Mahomet, 
 staked life, and like Christ, voluntarily sacrificed it, to 
 save the rest of their fellows. What is more, these 
 mighty spirits not only tried to discover, but actually 
 found, a means of salvation a way of righteousness for 
 men. They did veritably discover and teach men the 
 true way of life, and how they might bear or conquer 
 the evils of life and of destiny. Each of them found a 
 means, pointed out a way, as best suited the needs of 
 their contemporary men, and these means and this way 
 were in great measure applicable to all mankind. They 
 found out truths, permanent and great truths renuncia- 
 
72 THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 tion, resignation, duty, love of our fellows ; only that 
 these truths, great and important and eternal as they are, 
 require to be further supplemented or qualified to make 
 them suitable to the modern man's nature and circum- 
 stances, altered in some respects but still the same, with 
 the same needs, spiritual and social, in others. 
 
 5. Thus the development of the human species, 
 the civilizations of humanity, have not been accom- 
 plished by natural selection, as the Darwinian doctrine 
 implies. The development of the human spirit has come 
 from an inner revelation to certain privileged individuals 
 a revelation of truth, of insight, of inventive power, 
 of duty, of beauty ; visiting the soul unsolicited ; coming 
 none can say whence, not even the possessors, further 
 than that it is from the Unknown, from the Purpose 
 of the universe, that thus means and wishes to declare 
 and develop itself from God and not from Chance. 
 Natural selection has clearly had nothing to do with the 
 origin, with the deposition of the first germs of morality, 
 art, invention, science, or religion ; and it has really had 
 extremely little to do with the further development of 
 any of these, or, by consequence, of mankind. It has 
 been through great individuals, men of higher, deeper, 
 finer, nobler natures, in mind, or soul, or moral purpose, 
 that our human species has been developed and lifted up 
 to its present proud heights. It has not been by natural 
 selection that man's soul has been differentiated and 
 perfected, however this be true of his bodily organization. 
 It has been through the superior single souls, and where 
 none such have appeared, as amongst the savage races, 
 man has still remained but a few removes from the 
 brute. It has been by the help of these great ones, 
 formerly held as demigods and heroes, that all the pro- 
 gress and development which science rightly refers to 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 7o 
 
 as the special characteristic of our favoured species, has 
 been made possible. The accidental variation or depar- 
 ture from the average, that occasionally occurs in the 
 individuals of a species, and which gives to its possessor 
 an advantage in the struggle of life, which, according 
 to Darwin, is transmitted to posterity by inheritance, so 
 as to become in time an attribute of the whole species 
 by natural selection, this accidental variation corre- 
 sponds to the appearance of the man of genius, of 
 superior insight, in the human species, save only that 
 the rare differential quality is scarcely ever transmitted 
 by inheritance, and does not usually give its possessor 
 the victory in the combat of existence. 
 
 Human societies, then, have not been raised by 
 natural selection. It has not been in the manner im- 
 plied in the doctrine of Darwin and evolution that man's 
 mental and moral constitution has been developed, what- 
 ever be the truth as regards his physical. It has not 
 been by the superior man winning in the battle of life, 
 and then transmitting his genius to his children, who 
 thus became the origin of a chosen race, that the great 
 man has profited either his species or himself. He has 
 served his kind by the communication of his special 
 secret, new truth, superior insight, higher quality of soul, 
 to some of his brother men the likest himself, and these 
 again to others, till in time the whole mass of men 
 becomes possessed of his idea, and leavened with his 
 spirit. He served men not by the hereditary transmis- 
 sion, but by the direct communication, of his soul. Often 
 the man of genius or hero did not win in the battle of 
 life, rarely or never he transmitted his genius to his 
 children, even if he had any. He did better; he gave 
 the benefit of it at once to all who could profit by it, 
 and ultimately to the human race. At least this is 
 
74 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 what the real and greatest benefactors of their kind have 
 done the discoverers, inventors, philosophers, poets, law- 
 givers, and founders of religions, if not the warrior- 
 kings and conquerors. Neither Plato, nor Mahomet, nor 
 Columbus, nor Shakespeare, nor Newton, produced an 
 appreciable effect on the world through the transmission 
 of their peculiar qualities by heredity. They did not 
 thus distribute the germs of their genius at last through 
 their countrymen and mankind. The manner of their 
 action on men was different; but the result was more 
 speedy as well as more effectual. They delivered their 
 message, did their work, and the others found it directly 
 profitable and acceptable to them. They lifted up the 
 others nearer to their own sublime heights ; and by such 
 a process it has ever been that real progress has been 
 made by the species as a whole endeavouring to ex- 
 pand itself to the dimensions of these kingly spirits, who 
 have been its true educators, improvers, and benefactors. 
 
 6. It is to be further observed that all these great 
 men have expanded human nature on those sides in 
 which we differ chiefly from the lower animals in our 
 capacities for invention, art, thought, morality, religion, 
 which constitute our properly human as distinct from 
 our merely animal nature. They have developed the 
 higher and mental side, comprehending the intellect, the 
 soul, the social and moral sentiments, as distinguished 
 from the self-regarding and sensual side of our nature, 
 the animal impulses and dispositions, which the brutes 
 possess as well as we. 
 
 And yet these other sides, the self -regarding and the 
 sensual, can never be got rid of, as science unmistakably 
 reminds us. They can never be left wholly behind us, 
 as useless and troublesome incumbrances on our march 
 to perfection, while man remains on the earth. However 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 75 
 
 far man may leave behind his animal and put on angelic 
 nature, still the animal remains in the depths of his being, 
 sleeping but not dead, combated it may be and reduced 
 within bounds, but never wholly conquered or subdued. 
 However desirable it might appear that men should die 
 to sense, and live only to the better life of the intellect 
 and the soul, when once they have tasted it; however 
 good it would be for the world that they should put off 
 the old Adam of self, and put on the new life of self- 
 renouncement in behalf of others and of love and labour 
 for them ; however these were to be wished, yet science 
 and experience teach that, considering the inmost nature 
 of man and his inevitable conditions on this earth, this 
 is vain to expect and impossible of achievement, beyond 
 a certain limited extent, determined by these same un- 
 changeable conditions of man, and unchangeable elements 
 of his nature. Man's nature can indeed be changed, and 
 it has been improved; but there remains something at 
 the base, and particularly the senses and the self-con- 
 serving instincts, which cannot be changed. While man 
 remains an animal, susceptible of pleasure and pain, who 
 lives by food, and must be born of woman, so long we 
 may be sure and Nature has taken especial care upon 
 this point he shall be powerfully moved by his appe- 
 tites and passions, and so long the advice and prescrip- 
 tions of Buddha and Schopenhauer to quench them will 
 remain unf ollowed or inoperative ; and' so long, again, 
 as life continues, as in some respect it must ever continue 
 a competition if not always for material divisible goods, 
 yet for ever for certain indivisible satisfactions that must 
 remain the monopoly of individuals so long must the 
 self -asserting and competitive side of man's nature exist 
 and assert itself. Like the sensual side, this too is 
 capable of reduction, and of a greater corresponding 
 
76 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 reduction in its exclusively selfish form, through the 
 growth of sympathy and benevolence; but as in the 
 former, so in this case, there are determinable limits fixed 
 by the nature of things, which can never be passed. 
 
 Sense and self can never be set aside or annihilated. 
 But it is conceivable and possible that, though narrowed 
 in certain directions, unprofitable to society as well as to 
 the individual, they may find the means of a better life, 
 may become ennobled by entering into alliance with the 
 higher parts of our nature ; sense finding the advantage 
 of a union with the affections and the soul, and the self- 
 regarding instincts finding their best and highest life and 
 sustentation from a certain incorporation of the social, 
 or altruistic, sentiments. Sense, in short, may rise to 
 soul, and the life for others might be the best life of self. 
 This is possible, this is the true ideal, and undoubtedly 
 there is some tendency in this happy and beneficial 
 direction. The coarsely sensual and the narrowly selfish 
 life is being slowly left behind us; but the process is 
 slow, slow as all evolutionary processes, and the history 
 of mankind makes us aware of fatal lapses and retro- 
 gressions. For twice before in the history of morals and 
 religion once under Buddhism, and again under Chris- 
 tianity this very idea of love and labour for others has 
 emerged, and twice it again became submerged by a 
 strong return and reassertion of the old selfish and violent 
 impulses. Once again, and for the third time, this senti- 
 ment has appeared, and seems slowly struggling to assert 
 itself in the hearts and moral consciousness of men. 
 Shall it this time succeed and triumph, as the one surest 
 means of bringing in righteousness and securing the 
 salvation of man on the earth ? We cannot be sure ; we 
 can only hope it will advance ; but the question how far 
 men's hearts are really fitted for the reception of the 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 77 
 
 sentiment of love for others or for their species, is one 
 upon which something will be said in the following 
 chapter. 
 
 7. Meantime, before concluding the present chapter, 
 on man's development, let us come to a provisional under- 
 standing with the pessimist, who denies the worth of con- 
 scious life, however variously or widely developed. 
 
 According to the true pessimist, life is so ingeniously 
 adapted to ensure misery and the greatest possible sum 
 of misery, that if it had been expressly and malignly 
 contrived by a designing mind to that very end, there 
 could have been no greater success. The maximum of 
 misery is what is really produced in "this best of all 
 possible worlds," so much admired by Leibnitz. For 
 with just a little more evil added on, the world could not 
 continue to exist at all. Men at least could no longer 
 endure existence, if any sudden and general increase 
 were made to the sum of sorrows, which they now so 
 stolidly bear much more from custom and a mere animal 
 clinging to life, blind and instinctive, than from any 
 rational or well-grounded conviction of its worth. 
 Development is itself an evil, and the more the greater. 
 The more conscious evolution there is, the more the con- 
 tents of consciousness are widened in range or deepened 
 in degree, the worse for the conscious individual. It is 
 rather the business of the wise man to despise progress, 
 and in his own person to resist an expanded development, 
 by narrowing the range of his desires, by " denial of the 
 will to live ; " or to assist the course of progress, only as 
 an evil in itself, which may, however, lead the sooner to . 
 the saving truth that all is hopeless, and should have 
 an end. 
 
 Now, without going the extreme length of the pessi- 
 mists, some of whom, however, seem after all to find life 
 
78 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 far from being the melancholy and terrible thing which 
 their masters have painted it, this much we must concede 
 to the genuine pessimist that up to the present hour, 
 although human nature has been widened and deepened 
 on all sides sufficient (as we who are not pessimists con- 
 tend) to give promises and glimpses of its glorious further 
 possibilities, which a fortunate few seem even now to 
 realize, yet it must be confessed that the net result in 
 happiness realized by our species is somehow disappoint- 
 ingly small. Though a few in whom the elements have 
 been more genially mixed find a high flavour in life, yet 
 men in general, even men of the selecter races and nations, 
 nay, even the most highly gifted specimens of men, do 
 not seem to find a large overbalance of happiness or 
 satisfaction in life. For the most part, men have not yet 
 been able to live and enjoy the higher, or to secure the 
 happier life which has been promised and shown to be 
 possible. They have not yet been permitted by destiny 
 to enter in and take possession of the land of promise 
 foreshadowed by Science, which it now seems, according 
 to Herbert Spencer, the prophet of evolution, is to be 
 reserved for our happier but remote posterity the elect 
 of a more prolonged natural selection. 
 
 However the prophecy may turn out, certain it is 
 that we in the mean time have most of us largely missed 
 an amount of happiness that was possible to us, nay, that 
 was near to us and within our grasp. As Bishop Butler 
 suggests, perhaps every one has missed a degree of happi- 
 ness that he might have attained. How far this fatal 
 result may be owing to the obstinate and over-large 
 claims of sense and self, already alluded to ; how far to 
 the cares and crosses and shocks of chance, incidental to 
 all individual life ; how far it may be due to some deep 
 and essential and irrevocable contradictions in things, or 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 79 
 
 to some fatal misapprehension on our own part of the 
 real laws and conditions which govern our life, and 
 which our wise men and philosophers have not yet dis- 
 covered for us ; how far the final fact be due to these 
 singly or in combination, and how far we may hope to 
 escape from the consequences of some of them, are ques- 
 tions which will engage our attention hereafter. For the 
 present, it need only be said that probably all the above- 
 named causes, in addition to the weakness of our nerves 
 and the want of firmness and solidity in the physical 
 texture and basis, have co-operated in the final result. 
 Together, if not in turn, they have assisted to "put 
 rancours in the vessel of our peace," and to greatly spoil 
 our chance of earthly happiness. 
 
 These adverse things have drawn a strange mist 
 before our eyes, which blots out the divine beauty which 
 is else so evident, and spread so lavishly over the whole 
 face of Nature ; they have shrouded the beauty, and 
 quenched the gladness which beauty should bring ; they 
 have broken the contented calm, and the deep and satis- 
 fying peace the peace which the sage enjoys, but which 
 it is the special promise of the life in intellect to give to 
 all her votaries, and which, when realized, is the fairest 
 reward of the devoted pursuit of truth. These things, 
 which between them would almost alone make a heaven 
 on earth, the joy and the peace from the presence and 
 contemplation of beauty and truth, we* have lost them, 
 though near them. For this veil, which hides alike from 
 us the beauty of Nature and of Art, is only drawn aside 
 at certain happy holiday moments, to tantalize us with a 
 great but suddenly vanishing vision of universal beauty, 
 of a heaven revealed near us and all around us, and then 
 suddenly closing upon us again ; a vision most real for 
 the moment, which we would fain prolong for years a 
 
80 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 moment so fair that, Faust- like, we would fain arrest it for 
 ever, but which nevertheless some fatal or malign power 
 without us or within us prevents us from grasping and 
 making permanently ours. In like manner, our pleasure 
 in the pursuit of truth is broken and fragmentary, though 
 here happily something is always given to the resolute 
 spirit. But its pursuit postulates a preliminary instalment 
 of that peace which it promises to deepen and to make 
 sweeter, and this preliminary amount we usually lack to 
 begin with. If we do not conquer this necessary peace at 
 the point of the sword almost ; if we do not violently take 
 it by force ; that is to say, if we do not shut our eyes to 
 all lesser attractions, and steel our hearts to all competing 
 demands, as only a Spinoza, a Bruno, or a Goethe, as only 
 men great or resolute or possibly devoid of heart can do, 
 then we are scarcely likely tobecome the devoted followers 
 of truth, and we cannot hope to have the peculiar peace 
 and satisfaction which its pursuit and possession brings. 
 
 Finally, our disappointed species has not often as yet 
 found on the earth, but only in the realms of the fancy, 
 that other great and good thing the abiding joy and 
 content from a real communion of soul and affection, the 
 high though different delights of love and friendship. 
 Even here, besides the blight of evanescence, there is the 
 formidable interference of Fate. There is loss total, 
 there is separation, there is estrangement. We can hardly 
 hope to have, or to have for long, that high felicity 
 which our poet describes as the prerogative of spirits in 
 a higher and serener sphere than our earthly one. We 
 cannot here experience 
 
 Such love as spirits feel 
 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure ; 
 No fears to beat away, no strife to heal, 
 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure. 
 
ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 81 
 
 Love, truth, and beauty are the chief needs of the 
 higher nature of man. Of all we may have more and 
 of better quality, from our more developed capacity of 
 soul, than was possible to men in ruder ages ; but yet 
 we feel that of all we are in some way stinted, and that 
 Nature is niggard to a degree, with all her occasional 
 intimations of boundless wealth. These great and good 
 things are all around us ; the capacities to feel and to 
 enjoy them are within us ; what hinders us, then, that we 
 cannot get them ? It sometimes seems as if we had but 
 to open our eyes to see everywhere beauty ; to think 
 boldly and honestly for an hour to stand in the very 
 presence of Truth ; to stretch forth merely our hand to 
 make love and friendship and happiness our own; and 
 yet how we manage for the most part to miss them all 
 nay, worse, to lose them often when within our very 
 hands ! What fatality or malign power, we ask, is at 
 work against us, that the most great and glorious things 
 should be without us, within us, and all around us, and 
 yet that they fly us, as water the lip of Tantalus ? What 
 may be the cause, we must again ask, of our so frequent 
 failure to secure the good, and of our fatality to incur 
 the evil ? May it be, after all, that the cause lies greatly 
 in us, and is removable ; that the fault lies not in our 
 evil stars, nor in things, but in ourselves, that so much 
 amiss happens to us ; that a truer estimate of ourselves 
 and of the inevitable conditions of life, a corrector know- 
 ledge of the terms of what Butler calls our Natural 
 Government, and which Science has for a long time been 
 engaged in ascertaining more clearly for us, might place 
 us in a better position for securing happiness, or at 
 least give us a more commanding ground of vantage for 
 ascertaining what amount and degree of happiness is 
 possible and legitimate to aim at, and what, on the other 
 
 G 
 
82 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 side, is impossible and must be renounced with resig- 
 nation ? This is, indeed, possible. There is, indeed, 
 some hope in this quarter, the amount and nature of 
 which we shall make some attempt to indicate hereafter 
 in the proper place.* In the mean time, the reader is 
 not to conclude, from what has been said in this section, 
 that we attach much significance to the pessimist's 
 valuation of life, which, in reality, we regard as a very 
 erroneous estimate ; nor yet that we have been indulging 
 in a digression from the proper subject of our chapter, 
 which relates to the development of man. What has 
 been here said will be found to have its place in our 
 exposition and argument, as it has its significance in any 
 correct portrait of man or true account of his nature and 
 history. 
 
 * See Book II. ch. i. and ii. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 
 
 1. THE conclusions of psychology, of physiology, of the 
 science of society and of the natural history of man as 
 given by Darwin, place the whole subject of conduct, and 
 particularly of moral conduct vast and complicated 
 as it is in a new and more intelligible light ; and they 
 will serve to place all future systems of ethics that duly 
 regard them on a more comprehensive and stable basis 
 than any former systems. 
 
 After the revival, two centuries ago, of independent 
 ethical speculation, which had been suspended for the 
 previous sixteen centuries, all our English moralists, 
 following the example of Hobbes, the initiator of the 
 ethical Renaissance Locke, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, 
 Butler, Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham 7 with the natural 
 instinct for facts as opposed to theories, which has ever 
 since distinguished the English as compared with Con- 
 tinental thinkers, disregarding the current theological and 
 metaphysical dogmas respecting the nature of man and 
 his soul, endeavoured to anchor their moral systems on 
 the solid foundation of human nature as it really is. 
 Each one tried to base his system upon some principle 
 which he thought the most fundamental and permanent, 
 upon some fact which he thought the most central and 
 
84 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 universal, from which he attempted to explain all the 
 variety of human conduct ; one tracing all moral facts to 
 self-love, another to sympathy, a third to benevolence, 
 another again to a union of self-love and benevolence. 
 But with the best of aims, and sometimes with extra- 
 ordinary genius, unfortunately none of the celebrated line 
 of English ethical constructors possessed, nor was it 
 possible in their time that they could possess, that full 
 and comprehensive knowledge of man's real nature which 
 the conjoint conclusions of the several sciences mostly in 
 their infancy when these men wrote have only recently 
 disclosed to us. The important contributory sciences of 
 psychology and physiology scarcely existed a century ago ; 
 sociology and anthropology have only been admitted into 
 the rank of sciences in the present generation ; and the 
 reformed natural history of Darwin, which includes man 
 in the circle of the animal kingdom, with all the ethical 
 consequences which flow from that fact, is only a thing 
 of yesterday ; from all which it follows that a science 
 of human nature, the indispensable foundation for any 
 stable system of ethics, was not possible to any of our 
 eighteenth-century thinkers. 
 
 There was no psychology before the appearance of 
 Locke's great Essay on the Human Understanding, nor 
 for a considerable time after was there further attempt to 
 apply scientific methods to the investigation of mental 
 phenomena. The foundation for a science of physiology 
 was, indeed, laid by Harvey's discovery of the circulation 
 of the blood, even before Locke's time, but there was little 
 further development of that science for more than a cen- 
 tury, and certainly none in connection with psychology 
 till we come to Hartley. It is true that Hobbes, with the 
 divination of genius, had early apprehended the general 
 and deep connection between our mental and bodily 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 85 
 
 states a connection which, he has expressed with that 
 unrivalled point and perspicuity which is characteristic 
 of all his writings. But Hobbes had only divined the 
 general fact of the dependence of psychical on physio- 
 logical conditions ; he did not know the subordinate laws 
 which govern the union and mutual dependence of body 
 and mind ; and he had not reached his general conviction 
 by mounting through lower laws and facts scientifically 
 established. In another direction, Hobbes had also per- 
 ceived the general truth, without knowing the details 
 which would have justified it. He had perceived the 
 truth, of great and fundamental importance in morals, 
 that most of our social and disinterested sentiments are 
 traceable in large measure (if not, as he believed, wholly) 
 to a self-regarding root ; above all, he saw that moral 
 obligation originally owed and still owes much of its bind- 
 ing force to the imperative of the sovereign authority, 
 furthering the ends of the general social weal. These 
 central facts of the sciences of ethics and of society, Hobbes 
 apprehended with the clearest mental vision, and he ex- 
 pressed them with wonderful clearness and brevity of 
 language. But here also he lacked our later knowledge. 
 He wanted the light which recent research has shed upon 
 the composition of primitive societies, and the real primi- 
 tive condition of men, so different from his hypothesis of 
 mutualrepulsion. In short, Hobbes wanted the conclusions 
 of science, of physiology, of natural history, of civil history, 
 in order to free the great and profound guesses of genius 
 from the accompanying admixture of fiction and hypothesis 
 thrown out at hazard, and to connect his truthful and 
 penetrating but partial glances with the real and scienti- 
 fically established facts and laws of human nature. But 
 still, what Hobbes, what Butler, the most original thinker 
 after Hobbes, and what the other moralists of the 
 
86 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 eighteenth century have left to us, considering the im- 
 perfect state of contemporary science, is wonderful indeed, 
 and would appear still more wonderful if we did not 
 remember that they had the ancient ethics to draw upon 
 the ethics of Aristotle and Plato, the systems of the 
 Stoics and the Epicureans ; and if we did not reflect that, 
 conduct being at all times a necessity for man, some 
 recognized rules of conduct, if not scientific theories, must 
 have at all times existed, whether expressed in current 
 maxims, or drawn from sacred books, or embodied in laws 
 which guarded the general interests of society. 
 
 Our past moralists have left us a series of systems of 
 conduct, each one containing some special or important 
 truth overlooked by the others, the later generally em- 
 bodying the unquestioned truths of the earlier, and being, 
 generally speaking, less open to objection ; but never- 
 theless, none of the systems, nor yet all together, contain 
 the whole truth nor the fundamental truth, either on the 
 subject of morality or the final ground of our obligation 
 to its practice. From none of them could we obtain a 
 code of ethics suitable for our guidance ; for besides that 
 the writers are often at variance with themselves within 
 the limits of their single systems, the systems are wholly 
 opposed to each other with regard to moral obligation, 
 even with regard to the reality of virtue whenever we 
 pass beyond the very elementary virtues which society 
 insists upon as a condition of its own existence. In short, 
 of the many theories of morality and of moral obligation 
 that have been produced in the past, none of them are 
 quite satisfactory to us to-day ; and their rules are of 
 little service to us in the way of guidance in critical, or 
 conflicting, or delicate cases of conduct. 
 
 2. The masters of morals in the past failed to con- 
 struct abiding systems because they had an imperfect 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 87 
 
 knowledge of the human subject ; they failed to create 
 a science and a code of ethics because, even if human 
 conduct can be reduced to rule and system a point not 
 without doubt still the subordinate sciences had not 
 been created or sufficiently far developed to furnish solid 
 principles and reliable clues through the complexities of 
 human nature and human affairs. 
 
 They did not know the human subject : they did not 
 know, as we do to-day from the principles of physiology, 
 the close dependence of our mental and even of our moral 
 life upon the bodily material basis a truth which finds 
 its chief weight and application in the free-will contro- 
 versy, and the apportionment of moral responsibility, but 
 which is not without its significance or importance here, 
 where the nature and limits of virtue are under con- 
 sideration. They did not know that thought, emotion, 
 and volition, the trinity in unity that on the inner side 
 make the man and compose the contents of his conscious- 
 ness, are all, in a certain extremely important though 
 not definitely measurable sense, functions of the brain 
 and nervous system, of the general bodily health and 
 finally of the quality of the blood ; that they vary both 
 in degree of perfection and in amount with our varying 
 bodily states, so much so that an impoverishment of 
 the blood will starve simultaneously the thought and 
 emotions, and will weaken or paralyze the strongest 
 will ; that a prolonged and sustained strain on the brain 
 and nervous system will make "all the uses of this 
 world " seem " weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable," may 
 convert the whole circle and content of consciousness 
 into a perpetual sea of troubles, where virtue and vice 
 are scarcely distinguishable, or seem only matter of 
 opinion, where "nothing is either good or bad, but 
 thinking makes it so ; " and that finally, if the nerve 
 
88 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 exhaustion be pushed sufficiently far, there may result 
 the permanent perverted function of the cerebral organs, 
 which is at once the cause and the physical correlate of 
 that chaos in consciousness which we call insanity the 
 state where reason and virtue are alike unthroned. Our 
 moralists did not know or did not sufficiently ponder the 
 fact that virtue, as well as reason, may be attacked and 
 destroyed by disorder in. the cerebral atoms, or that both 
 may be perverted long before they are destroyed, by 
 prolonged disorder even in the general bodily machinery, 
 truths which are now becoming the commonplaces of 
 mental physiology, but which have not even yet been 
 taken up by the moralist and assigned their proper 
 place and weight in the sphere of ethical speculation or 
 construction. 
 
 Our past philosophers did, indeed, know that man 
 was an animal. This was a very old proposition, that 
 did much service in the various treatises on the school 
 logic ; nevertheless, the philosophers by no means dreamt 
 of the full truth and significance of this well-worn and 
 universally accepted proposition. Man is an animal, as 
 Science teaches, and nothing more; and an animal he 
 remains till the latest day of his earthly sojourn. He is 
 an animal all too surely, and descended from a long line 
 of animal ancestors, stretching backwards to the very 
 dawn of life ; and however far he may appear in certain 
 directions to have transcended his animal origin, and to 
 have put on spiritual or angelic nature ; whatever height 
 he has reached in thought, or art, or virtue ; still the 
 animal sleeps at the bottom of his being, a fundamental, 
 heavy thing, never to be got rid of, which ever and anon 
 wakes into aggressive and unreasoning life, and which 
 ever pulls him down again to the earth after his most 
 aspiring spiritual flights. There still exists in all of us, 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 89 
 
 as in the Lucretius of Tennyson, " the brute brain within 
 the man's," whose aroused activity troubled the material- 
 ist poet and thinker. There are still resident, even 
 within the best, the two natures, each striving for 
 mastery, of which Faust complains; one clinging with 
 clumsy tendrils 
 
 To all the fleshly joys the coarse earth yields ; 
 
 and one that would rise to the contemplation of truth 
 and beauty, and ever aspires to the infinite and the 
 unknown. There is in every man that warfare between 
 the flesh and the spirit, in which the latter is often 
 brought into bondage, as deplored by St. Paul ; and this 
 degrading dualism and antagonism must remain a per- 
 manent fact in human nature, however much the latter 
 be developed. It is true that evolution philosophers 
 promise a diminished antagonism in the future ; and 
 Herbert Spencer in particular here as elsewhere an 
 optimist for the far future relying on the general 
 physiological truth of the increase of all organs in pro- 
 portion to their use, promises a great lessening of the 
 discord between soul and sense by the relatively greater 
 exercise of the brain, the organs of thought, than of 
 those related to the senses and appetites, not to speak 
 of the ever-continuing action of natural selection in 
 picking out, for preferment and for the perpetuation of 
 the species, those individuals with the highest-developed 
 brains. But besides that this alleviation of the strife 
 between the lower and higher natures is only to come at 
 a very distant date, as all evolutionary improvements ; 
 and moreover, so long as man is subject to hunger and 
 desire, must always have its limits, and can never be 
 very complete ; we do not find that there is much con- 
 solation in these assurances for our generation or for the 
 
90 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 two or three immediately following ours, with which 
 alone science and philosophy, on their practical sides, are 
 concerned. There are, indeed, many and strong reasons 
 to conclude, even on the principles of Herbert Spencer's 
 own philosophy, that the organs which have reference 
 to the continuance of the species will never become 
 rudimentary through disuse, whatever others have become 
 or may yet become so in the course of man's strange 
 metamorphoses. There is every reason to think that the 
 instincts relating severally to the preservation of the indi- 
 vidual and of the species, as they are the first and strongest, 
 as they are at the bottom of the universal life, so they 
 will continue in nearly undiminished force to the end of 
 man's career. M.an will remain an animal with appetites 
 and desires, as well as with affections and a conscience, 
 and the former fact must be accepted and made the best 
 of by the mass of men who can accept it, as well as by 
 economists and philosophers who so much deplore it. 
 Any reduction of the sensual side of our nature that is 
 possible or desirable, must be looked for in a different 
 direction from that indicated by Spencer, or Mill, or 
 Schopenhauer. Meantime, the fact itself of the war 
 between the flesh and the spirit, between the body and 
 the soul, is not without its utility. It is a part of our 
 probation, which disciplines the character like all proba- 
 tion, as it has its wider and deeper uses in the aims and 
 total economy of Nature, even in the promotion and 
 spread of civilization, according to Spencer himself. But 
 so much at least is certain : that it will long continue, in 
 spite of the prescriptions of all the philosophers from 
 Buddha to Schopenhauer, and of all political economists 
 from Malthus to Mill, to cure or to mitigate it. And it 
 will continue notwithstanding the promises of evolution, 
 which, even under the most favourable circumstances, 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 91 
 
 asks for a long time to effect a change, and a much 
 longer time almost a geological period to effect any 
 fundamental change in human nature. For that such 
 changes are infinitesimally slow is the one chief lesson 
 of the evolution philosophy. 
 
 3. Further, man is not only an animal, he is more- 
 over, as all living beings, necessarily a self-regarding, 
 albeit that he is likewise, as Darwin tells us, a social, 
 animal. He is self-regarding as well as social ; but the 
 former in a more deep and abiding sense than the latter. 
 The truth clearly laid down so long ago by Epicurus, 
 revived by Hobbes, and assented to by a moralist in 
 many respects so different from both as Butler, that man, 
 in common with every living creature, seeks first and 
 before all else the conservation of his own being and 
 the greatest sum of well-being, remains an eternal and 
 necessary truth, which has received in our day a fresh 
 emphasis from biological science, and a new significance 
 in its bearings upon ethical theory. 
 
 Every human being, however sociable, or sympathetic, 
 or capable of sacrifice he may be, yet resident necessarily 
 in his own isolated consciousness, which acquaints him 
 with pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, necessarily 
 seeks to minimize the one and to increase the other. It 
 is no objection to the doctrine, that the wise man some- 
 times accepts or even voluntarily incurs a pain that he 
 might have avoided ; for he does so .for the sake of a 
 higher satisfaction or to avoid a greater pain. It is no 
 objection that he often rejects the nearer pleasure, fearing 
 the distant and larger pain. Nor is it an objection that 
 the virtuous man often acts from conscience or a sense of 
 duty, which must bring direct and foreseen pain, without 
 any other future pleasure to set against it save the 
 feeling and satisfaction of right doing ; for even in this 
 
92 THE CUBED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 case he would have suffered greater pain from a contrary 
 course of action, in the stings of his outraged conscience. 
 Still less is there any objection in the fact that a be- 
 nevolent man often foregoes the means of happiness for 
 the sake of others, since, as Butler has shown, there is 
 in this case a distinct and positive pleasure secured, much 
 greater than the possible amount foregone, benevolence, 
 both as a frame of mind and in the accomplishment of 
 its aims, bringing its own satisfaction and reward more 
 surely than any other active principle. In all these 
 seemingly exceptional cases, as in all other cases, man 
 follows pleasure, satisfaction, happiness of some species ; 
 whether or no his happiness is inclusive or exclusive of 
 that of others ; whether he prefers the near and sure, or 
 the distant and larger but more doubtful satisfaction ; 
 whether he pursues it directly or circuitously ; and 
 whether, finally, he does or does not secure this invariable 
 end of his pursuit and aim of his being. He follows 
 pleasure, happiness, well-being, let us call it by what 
 names we please, and be the happiness certain or doubtful, 
 near or far off, narrowly and entirely selfish or including 
 in it the happiness of others ; and all this remains true, 
 though, owing to the severe conditions of existence and 
 the evils of his environment, man must more frequently 
 direct his efforts to the diminution of his pains than to 
 the increase of his positive happiness. 
 
 Each individual, then, necessarily seeks his own well- 
 being ; and within limits set by law and conscience, 
 which prescribe that he shall not lessen in certain cases 
 the well-being of others, he is justified, nay, further, he 
 is to a large extent compelled to seek it by the strongest 
 compulsion, or cease to exist. And often, in seeking our 
 own legitimate life and happiness, we are further com- 
 pelled to act in ways that must inevitably subtract from 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR 
 
 the happiness of others those in 
 collision with us ; worse, even our friends. The con- 
 ditions of existence force upon man, as upon all the lower 
 animals, this self-regarding course of action, whatever 
 disagreeable results may follow to others from it ; and 
 some such is sure to result. In a word, the exigencies 
 of life compel men to act in a prescribed way as respects 
 their own interest. We must in certain cases put self- 
 interest in the narrow sense first. But what we must 
 do, that we ought to do ; or at least so to do is legitimate 
 and cannot be shown to be immoral. There is, in fact, 
 an " ought " which comes from strict physical necessity, 
 as well as an " ought " which comes from conscience, and 
 the former carries the first obligation with it. 
 
 Life for self, then, as Herbert Spencer and many 
 moralists before him have concluded, comes first ; life for 
 others, or for humanity if the latter be a practicable as 
 it is a noble ideal can only come second. The truth 
 that man is necessarily a self-regarding animal first, and 
 a social or a sympathetic one afterwards, is forced upon 
 our attention by the facts of experience, by the universal 
 regime of competition all around. But it has been 
 brought before us in a more . deep and comprehensive 
 manner by the teaching of evolution in the writings of 
 Darwin, Spencer, Haeckel, all of whom, show us that the 
 struggle for existence is the all-pervading law throughout 
 the whole animal kingdom. Everywhere they point out 
 to us this universal trial by battle, in some sense of the 
 word. Darwin, it is true, in the case of man, is some- 
 what inclined to draw a veil over the disagreeable facts 
 of this seemingly selfish struggle ; but this veil, Haeckel, 
 dissatisfied with the present course of things and social ' 
 arrangements, would boldly tear aside. He affirms the 
 everywhere selfish, pitiless, and immoral or non-moral 
 
94 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 character of the whole contest, and this not less in the 
 case of man than of any other species. Thus he tells 
 us, in bold and brusque language, that only " the idealist 
 scholar who closes his eyes to the real truth, or the priest 
 who tries to keep his spiritual flock in ecclesiastical 
 leading-strings, can any longer tell the fable of the ' moral 
 ordering of the world.' It exists neither in nature nor 
 in human life, neither in natural history nor the history 
 of civilization. The terrible and ceaseless ' struggle for 
 existence ' gives the real impulse to the blind course of 
 the world. A moral ordering and a purposed plan of the 
 world can only be visible if the prevalence of an immoral 
 rule of the strongest and undesigned organization is 
 entirely ignored." * The picture here drawn is darkly 
 coloured, and, in fact, is not true ; for, as we have main- 
 tained elsewhere, there is a purpose and also a morality 
 discernible in the facts of life and the structure of society; 
 there is, moreover, a progress visible and a tendency to a 
 higher morality, though not quite through the agency of 
 natural selection ; nevertheless there remains an important 
 truth in the view of Haeckel which our rt benevolence " 
 moralists of the past century did not perceive or found it 
 convenient to overlook; and which our humanitarians and 
 utilitarians of to-day, the followers of Bentham, Mill, 
 and Comte, would do well to remember. There is a 
 struggle for existence still going on, which tends to bring 
 out the self-asserting and selfish side of our nature into 
 undue prominence ; the fierceness and fellness of the 
 struggle is indeed considerably mitigated, as compared 
 with that of former ages, and some quarter is usually 
 shown to the conquered ; nevertheless, the struggle still 
 goes on, and, though with mitigated fury, its consequences 
 
 * The Evolution of Man, vol. i. p. 112 ; also History of Creation, vol. i. 
 p. 19, where the like sentiments are expressed. 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 95 
 
 are sufficiently terrible, for our nerves are now more sensi- 
 tive, we have less toughness of fibre, possibly less courage 
 of heart than our fathers, all which weakness in the 
 physical base make the consequences of defeat and failure 
 in the contest the more dreadful in our apprehension. 
 
 The struggle continues ; and while it lasts, and in 
 proportion to its intensity, it tends to keep the social 
 virtues, which undoubtedly exist, from further develop- 
 ment. It keeps them down to that moderate minimum 
 which society exacts, and indeed absolutely requires, as 
 a condition even of carrying on the competitive struggle 
 within some recognized lines of honour and fair play. 
 
 4. Happily, however, man is naturally, as Darwin 
 maintains,* a social animal. He is such, both by long- 
 inherited instincts and the numerous necessities of his 
 life. And men have devised the means of pursuing their 
 own advantage and happiness, in very many cases not 
 only without interfering with that of others, but in some 
 cases all the more effectually in association, actual or 
 virtual, with others ; while advancing a great step, by a 
 happy and fortunate development in man's nature, the 
 greatest in the entire history of our species, they have 
 even come to include the happiness of others as a distinct 
 and important part of their own. 
 
 Men have discovered that many of the materials of 
 well-being and happiness can be best secured by acting in 
 company with others ; that the result of united efforts 
 secures a much greater proportion for each when divided 
 than could have been realized by each one acting in 
 isolation ; that their interests are very often harmonious 
 and not antagonistic. But what is of far greater signifi- 
 cance and importance, they have found a still surer way 
 of conciliating in many cases the old antagonism between 
 
 * Descent of Man, ch. iii., " On a Moral Sense." 
 
96 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 the claims of self and others, namely, by the abolition of the 
 antagonism by the distinct evolution in the individual 
 breast, in the very theatre of self, of the social impulses 
 of benevolence, sympathy, and pity, which powerfully urge 
 their plea in behalf of others, compel us to regard the 
 pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction of others as a part 
 of our own, and which even make us pursue others' 
 happiness as a considerable contribution to our own. 
 
 This fact, the evolution of benevolence or love for 
 others, may fairly be regarded as the happiest feat of 
 evolution. Amongst all the new phenomena which it 
 has turned up, there is none so important as this one, 
 and none promises more in the future to mankind. 
 What may have been the first origin of this feeling of 
 love for others, of this wonderful guest within the rude 
 primitive breast, it is difficult to say, as the first appear- 
 ance of every pleasurable fact of consciousness the 
 feeling of beauty and the gratification from it, the feeling 
 of curiosity and the pleasure from knowledge is 
 involved in mystery. They came we know not whence 
 or why. They did not appear in the plants, or stones, or 
 lower animals, at least not in the latter in high degree ; 
 they appeared in the theatre of man's consciousness, and 
 he found them pleasant, and was thus encouraged to 
 develop them more. But although the first cause of the 
 fact and feeling of love or sympathy is a mystery, there 
 is no doubt of the immense importance of the new feeling 
 for the future of the species, nor of the further historical 
 fact that it owed much of its development to the teaching 
 of the great founders of religions to Buddha and above 
 all to Christ. Love for man was taught by the former, 
 but it was inculcated with new and more intense emphasis 
 by Jesus five hundred years later. It was the "new 
 commandment " for men, and by his teaching and great 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 97 
 
 example, the sentiment received an extension and a 
 deepening in the consciousness of humanity that it never 
 had before. And in very truth, could this sentiment only 
 have taken possession of all men's hearts, the kingdom 
 of heaven had been at hand, and the salvation of man on 
 earth assured. Unfortunately, though the feeling of love 
 and brotherhood did spread amongst the early Christians, 
 it was yet too noble a sentiment to fill men generally ; it 
 spent its strength in converting the barbarous nations, 
 and the old selfishness in man's heart returned, or it 
 had never been rooted out of the hearts of these rude 
 races who found life a struggle for existence in the 
 extremest sense. Christianity and the love of others 
 which it teaches, however, kept the struggle from being 
 more fell and deadly ; and a few good spirits ever were 
 found who made the religion of Christ what he intended 
 it to be one of love and good deeds to others. At the 
 end of the long struggle of the strongest in the dark and 
 Middle Ages, the principle of love to others again emerged 
 in Europe ; it was proclaimed as the principle of morality 
 by the amiable eighteenth-century moralists, Hutcheson, 
 Hartley, Priestley, and in great measure by Butler and 
 Hume ; it even battled fiercely for wider existence under 
 the form of " fraternity " of the French revolutionists ; 
 while in our own days, it is once more pressed upon our 
 regard and attention under the formula of the " love of 
 humanity" of the Comtist, and of "the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number " of the Benthamite, while it is an 
 indispensable postulate in all socialist programmes. But 
 whether this old revived principle of love for others may 
 be expected to regenerate society and abolish or abate 
 the struggle for existence, we shall be in a better position 
 to see presently, when we have glanced briefly at the 
 scientific account of its origin and development. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 5. The light of scientific research and reasoning has 
 lately been thrown far back upon the condition of our 
 half-human progenitors in pre-historic times; and the 
 picture which we have been thence assisted to sum- 
 mon up in imagination of our ancestors, is one strange 
 and wonderful and not altogether agreeable to contem- 
 plate. It is with mingled feelings of pity and wonder, 
 and aversion, and yet with a strange sympathy and 
 fascination, that we are drawn to the portrait, which 
 scientific inquirers have sketched for us, of the primitive 
 man. He appears extremely selfish, in the narrow 
 animal sense of the word, ferociously cruel, visited at 
 moments with a gleam of terror and superstition which 
 may one day develop into religion, and with an oc- 
 casional touch of the faint elements of pity which may 
 hereafter facilitate moral development ; yet in the main, 
 a creature destitute of sympathy, affection, or pity, and 
 with nothing that could be properly regarded as religion, 
 or morality ; in fact, in a state far below that of the 
 lowest savages of to-day, and scarcely one remove from 
 the brute from whom he had become separated thousands 
 of years previously. But happily, the light of historical 
 research first falls upon him in a state of society, which, 
 indeed, may have been his natural state, as it is that of 
 some species of apes, according to Darwin ; or he may 
 have been forced into it from necessity, from experiencing 
 the danger of living alone, then infinitely greater than 
 after the invention of weapons. Natural selection certainly 
 would favour the social life ; at all events, whether he 
 had previously existed in the isolation of the family or 
 no, at the moment that science takes him up, man is 
 shown to us as a member of a community, and a com- 
 munity in the widest conceivable sense, in which property, 
 women, and children pertained to all. It is, however, 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 99 
 
 all but certain that our repulsive but most pitiable and 
 forlorn progenitors possessed one redeeming quality, that 
 of sociability, from which everything might be hoped in 
 the future, and from which, in -fact, all moral improve- 
 ment did actually afterwards come. 
 
 Aboriginal man was a social animal ; he had in him 
 the germs of the quality of sociability, which attracted 
 him to his fellows, and made him dissatisfied and uncom- 
 fortable when long alone. Man inherited this quality 
 probably from the man-like apes, his immediate an- 
 cestor,* since we find some of the existing species of 
 apes are social, if not sociable; at all events, , however 
 acquired, our Caliban ancestors early possessed socia- 
 bility, and by degrees they developed it more and more. 
 The rude primitive man, moreover, became in time at- 
 tracted to some rather than others of his half-human 
 brothers, within his own horde or tribe ; a conscious, and 
 in itself an agreeable, feeling of liking for some rather 
 than others of his forlorn fellows, was born in his rugged 
 breast perhaps for one only who had been more useful 
 to him, or particularly pleasant, or even likeable without 
 known reason. From this rude beginning was born 
 friendship ; the feeling of affection and love for others, 
 though in faint and elementary degree. But where 
 there is love for one, love for several is always pos- 
 sible ; and from sociability and a feeling of common 
 interest and common danger, a general and diffused 
 feeling of good-will to all the members would result. It 
 is probable also that, together with sociability, the faint 
 germs of sympathy existed in aboriginal man, which 
 would make easier the evolution of all the subsequent 
 virtues, including love and pity and justice.f 
 
 * Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. i. pp. 74, 85. f Ibid., p. 78. 
 
100 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 According to Darwin, the social instincts in animals 
 generally are the result mainly of natural selection. 
 Thus he says, " the feeling of pleasure from society is 
 probably an extension of the parental or filial affections ; 
 and this extension may be in chief part attributed to 
 natural selection, but perhaps in part to mere habit. For 
 with those animals which were benefited by living in 
 close association, the individuals which took the greatest 
 pleasure in society would best escape various dangers ; 
 whilst those that cared least for their comrades, and 
 lived solitary, would perish in greater numbers." And 
 not only the social feelings, but parental and filial affec- 
 tions were thus largely developed. " With respect to the 
 origin of the parental and filial affections, which ap- 
 parently lie at the basis of the social affections, it is 
 hopeless to speculate ; but we may infer that they have 
 been to a large extent gained through natural selection. 
 So it has almost certainly been with the unusual and 
 opposite feeling of hatred between the nearest relations, 
 as with the worker bees, which kill their brother drones, 
 and with the queen bees, which kill their daughter 
 queens; the desire to destroy instead of loving their 
 nearest relations having been here of service to the 
 community." * Natural selection doubtless tended to 
 improve the social affections by preserving those societies 
 which had them most developed ; but, as in all other 
 cases, natural selection does not account for the first ap- 
 pearance of the inward conscious feeling of satisfaction 
 or pleasure in the presence of another being of the 
 species, in which the feeling of sociability consists, still 
 less does natural selection account for the origin of the 
 feeling of love of its young by the parent animal, or 
 of the latter reciprocally by them. It is a more natural 
 
 * Darwin's Descent of Man, vol. i. pp. 80, 81. 
 
ON HUMAN NATUKE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 101 
 
 explanation to suppose that the appearance of the mother 
 is the sign and symbol of pleasure, of food, and protection 
 from danger to the young animal from the earliest 
 moment, and that thus association from the earliest dawn 
 of sensation, following upon inherited predisposition, is 
 the true explanation of the filial affections ; the parental 
 being grounded on original instinct, strongly assisted by 
 pity and the principle of association. 
 
 But whatever its origin, the sentiment of sociability 
 was the real internal cement of the primitive societies 
 and communities, and the true source of morality from 
 the inner and conscious side, just as the exigencies and 
 needs of all, the necessity of union against other hostile 
 tribes competing with them for limited food, against 
 formidable wild beasts, or for the purposes of procuring 
 food and shelter, constituted the external pressure con- 
 spiring to the same end of social coherence and conse- 
 quent social morality. The principle of sociability drew 
 aboriginal men together without compulsion, but the 
 necessities of their position would have forced them 
 together, even without any such principle, In short, 
 they found a pleasure in each other's society ; they found 
 the greatest profit in union, and they had further dis- 
 covered by a painful experience the absolute necessity 
 for it. But all this implies the primary virtues and 
 moral rules. There could not be union at all, and still 
 less pleasure and profit in the union, without mutual trust 
 and confidence, without an equitable arrangement and 
 fair division of acquisitions in other words, without 
 the essentials of truth and justice ; and there could be 
 no prosperity without some regard for the general weal, 
 and some at first interested, but afterwards disinterested, 
 efforts to promote it. 
 
 And this principle of sociability or attraction in man 
 
102 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 to his fellows appeared earlier than -the feeling of fear 
 and hostility, which Hobbes assumed, without proof, to 
 be the primitive natural feeling in man. But it must be 
 admitted that the friendly feeling was strictly confined to 
 members of the tribe, and was compatible with hostility 
 to all outside competing tribes, together with aversion to 
 all their individual members. The researches of Lubbock, 
 Tylor, and others, reveal to us the primitive man, not in 
 the state of solitary isolation, where fear and distrust of 
 others would indeed be the natural feeling, but in com- 
 munities of more or less size and coherence, inside the 
 circle of which a certain amount of sociability and 
 mutual confidence existed, while the feelings of repulsion 
 and of hostility, and sometimes of fear, were only roused 
 by the outside tribes, the possible competitors for food 
 and possessions. 
 
 6. The feeling of liking for the average man as 
 such, merely on the ground of his common humanity, of 
 his being one ,.of the same species linked in a common 
 "brotherhood, is a product of much later evolution; a 
 sentiment developed in the course of civilization, which 
 owes much of whatever strength it possesses to the in- 
 culcations of the great religions, and in particular to 
 those of Christianity. But this sentiment has never 
 been very deep or general ; is liable even where it really 
 exists, to be set aside or temporarily extinguished by 
 various antagonistic principles ; and has never yet really 
 extended to all men and nations with the same degree of 
 force. It is true, in modern times there have appeared 
 philanthropists who professedly love their species as such, 
 and who have laboured in its behalf; yet these estimable 
 and distinguished men have usually not come into pro- 
 longed or close contact with many individual specimens 
 of their kind an experience which might have severely 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 103 
 
 tried the strength of their love and patience, or even 
 demonstrated that a general good disposition towards 
 mankind was compatible with an aversion to many 
 individuals composing it. 
 
 There are also in our own day some who, following 
 the teaching of Comte, would put before us as a moral 
 ideal the love of humanity, and life and labour in its 
 general interest a noble aim and goal, if it were only 
 practicable by the human units ; and there are those in 
 still greater numbers who, adopting the creed of Ben- 
 tham and the elder and younger Mill, tell us that the 
 "greatest happiness of the greatest number" is the right 
 moral aim for men the true ethical aim for all men, 
 and not merely for those in influential or commanding 
 positions, as autocratic rulers, statesmen, legislators, 
 philosophers, for whom the maxim is true and on whom 
 it is obligatory, though in different degrees. The only 
 thing we are here concerned to note with respect to these 
 several systems the humanitarianism of the philan- 
 thropist, the love of humanity of the Comtist, and the 
 utilitarianism of the Benthamite is that all alike dis- 
 regard some of the facts of our actual human nature as 
 far as it has yet been developed, and all ignore not 
 merely the present facts of human nature, but the eternal 
 and necessary conditions of human life and of all life on 
 the earth, at least as disclosed by the ^latest teaching ot 
 science and natural history. They are at variance with 
 science, as interpreted to us by Darwin, Haeckel, and 
 Spencer, and though this is not decisive, it is a presump- 
 tion against them. My own objection to them is that 
 they are impracticable ; they make a demand upon our 
 virtue which it has not strength to sustain ; they postu- 
 late a force of enthusiasm which exists only here and 
 there in individuals, and which even in them is only an 
 
104 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 intermittent fire and force. To aim at the happiness of 
 others, at that of the greatest number, is so far from 
 being the right goal of moral action, that if we set about 
 it with all the skill and wisdom and resource at our 
 command, we should scarcely succeed in effecting much 
 happiness, or even a balance of happiness, for one solitary 
 individual. For how ill most of us succeed in promoting 
 the happiness of the one individual with whose case and 
 aspirations we are best acquainted ! how lamentably in 
 general we succeed in securing our own happiness ! How 
 little, then, could we do for others if we tried our utmost ; 
 how little for the happiness of all by directly aiming at 
 it, or in any other way than by first trying to secure a 
 moderate amount for ourselves and those directly depen- 
 dent on us, and then, or subsidiary to this, by filling 
 some function generally useful to mankind. 
 
 The scientific objection to the utilitarianism of 
 Bentham, and the love and labour for humanity, is some- 
 what different, being grounded on the fact that these 
 systems ignore the most generalized conclusions of history 
 and experience. They ignore the facts and conditions of 
 modern life and society ; further, the fundamental facts 
 of all life and of all conceivable societies as disclosed by 
 the sciences of biology and sociology ; * and, further yet, 
 the obvious facts of human nature, of which we are all 
 conscious, but which are only systematically brought 
 before us in the science of psychology. 
 
 And, first, " the love of humanity " in any wide and 
 real sense is opposed to the permanent facts of human 
 nature to facts, at least, which have remained in the 
 species since the days of our rugged primitive ancestors, 
 and which, to all appearance, have still a long vitality 
 
 * See Spencer, Data of Etliics, ch. xi. and xiii. ; also The Study of 
 Sociology, p. 185. 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOE VIRTUE. 1.05 
 
 in them. For there exist in our nature, together with 
 the undoubted fact of benevolence and love of others, the 
 opposite facts of anger, resentment, an instinctive dislike 
 and antipathy to certain persons, together with some- 
 thing very like the seeds of what Professor Bain calls a 
 principle of malevolence. This eminent authority on 
 questions of psychology is inclined to believe, from the 
 hate that may long burn " with almost unremitted glow " 
 in men, as well as for other reasons, that there exists an 
 original principle of malevolence in our imperfect nature ; 
 and certainly, whether it be original or no, none can shut 
 their eyes to the facts of anger, resentment, hatred, envy, 
 and instinctive dislike existing all around us in the 
 world. Besides the benevolent affections, there are also 
 the malevolent ; as well as philanthropy, there exists in 
 germ the principle of misanthropy a dislike instead of 
 a love of humanity, and not uncommonly something 
 resembling a contempt for human nature ; and, un- 
 happily, these last sentiments are quite as likely to be 
 developed in our contact with men, by the scorching 
 probation of life, by the terrible battle for existence, in 
 which, as at times we are inclined to think, it is the 
 " unfit " who chiefly " survive " and the unheroic who 
 succeed. There are always amongst men, as r the master 
 of the human heart and the sounder of all experience 
 knew, spirits of the stamp of Timon 
 
 With his noble heart, 
 That, strongly loathing, greatly broke. 
 
 There are still men like him, generous, magnanimous, 
 open and true, whose loving dispositions and noble 
 natures become poisoned by their life experience, who 
 are stung to madness and universal dislike by the selfish- 
 ness and heartlessness of men, by the wrongs received, 
 
106 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 by the treachery of seeming friends, by the general 
 meanness and baseness of their human environment. 
 There are still survivors of the species of Swift, whose 
 proud natures become converted to universal gall, less 
 by the crosses and disappointments of life than from 
 their painful experience of their kind ; and such, not the 
 worst specimens of their species, having received many 
 of the evils they suffer directly from their fellows, and 
 reasoning from the part to the whole of humanity, under 
 the smart of their sufferings, which perverts their judg- 
 ment, though it gives venom to their satire, come at last, 
 like Swift, to feel contempt and scorn, rising at times to 
 hatred, for their species, and to doubt or deny the possi- 
 bility of any real virtue or goodness in man or in woman. 
 
 And at certain moments of funereal hue, do we not 
 all take sides with the cynics and contemners of our 
 species ? How else explain the pleasure felt in the dark 
 and malignant . portrait of man drawn by Swift ; the 
 higher pleasure in the splendid cynicism which breaks 
 forth from some of Shakespeare's'' nobler characters, the 
 Hamlets, Lears, Macbeths, and Timons ; nay, the lurking 
 satisfaction at the terrible denial of virtue by his baser 
 ones, his lagos and Falstaffs ? " Works of art," it will be 
 said, "and art, catholic in her selection of subject, pleases 
 by the portraiture of an lago as well as of a Brutus, the 
 pleasure coming from the superiority of the art dis- 
 played." But still, our engaged sympathies with these 
 denunciations of men and this denial of goodness, testify 
 to something deeper, to some flaw in human nature, or 
 defect or taint in human virtue ; to this and to a secret 
 consciousness of our weakness as well as scorn of it, the 
 last feeling being the one redeeming fact which the 
 mental analysis discloses. 
 
 And, indeed, what poor stuff our vaunted virtues, as 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOE VIRTUE. 107 
 
 they commonly manifest themselves in men and women, 
 really appear to be to all of us in our cynical or despond- 
 ing moments ! How prudent and calculating ; how safe ; 
 how little sacrificing ! How feeble and timorous of heart 
 their possessors ; how little risk they will run ; how little 
 hardship suffer ! At such moments, be they of deep 
 delusion or of sinister illumination, the masks fall momen- 
 tarily off from the faces of virtue and vice alike, with the 
 startling revelation that there is little essential difference 
 between the two ; an error, indeed, and quickly corrected 
 by the healthy mind, the difference between virtue and 
 vice being real and eternal ; but not so great an error 
 of judgment when applied to conventional virtue and 
 vice, where at times we think that the advantage is in 
 favour of what passes under the name of vice ; nor when 
 applied to that mixture, in various proportions, of the 
 two ingredients with which we are most commonly pre- 
 sented under either name. Not surely, like ours, we 
 think at these moments, were the virtues of past ages, 
 in the days of the martyrs, the heroes, or even the fighting 
 men. They were more boldly pronounced, they were more 
 clearly outlined from vice than our nineteenth-century 
 virtues, " neither cold nor hot," though happily in the 
 course of further improvement, under the fostering care 
 of natural selection, and the breaking in of man to his 
 environment ! Surely, we think, the virtues of our fathers 
 were more virile and more genuine, even if their vices 
 were'grosser than ours. They, at least, believed in the duty 
 of sacrifice. For a cause which they had at heart they 
 would precipitate a quarrel, in which they were ready to 
 spend their lives and fortunes. For what cause, in these 
 days, will men do as much ? Our virtues are often 
 varnished vices ; even those produced by natural selection 
 are merely a calculating prudence, " the reptile virtue " 
 
108 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, KELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 stigmatized by Burke, or else a mere coarse self-assertion 
 or cunning to outwit our competitors in the modern form 
 of the struggle for existence ; qualities contemptible and 
 degrading to human nature, and the opposite of virtues, 
 however necessary their evolution may be shown to be. 
 
 Thus argues the cynical spirit within us all, not with- 
 out some reason. And indeed, in this mood, the facts 
 and conditions of life assume such sombre and sinister 
 hue that a pessimist view of life the most pronounced 
 alone recommends itself to us. Surely, w r e say, there is 
 something ineradicably evil in this thing called human 
 nature; some serpent drop of venom was originally 
 imbibed in the infancy of the species, which has been 
 circulating in the system ever since, and which, until 
 eliminated from the blood, of which there appears no 
 hope, will for ever prevent mankind from attaining to 
 any high goal of virtue or happiness. They cannot 
 attain the first ; they do not deserve the second. Human 
 nature is hopelessly and incorrigibly evil or weak in all 
 men, as theology describes it, and as we feel it in our- 
 selves. 
 
 Shall it be said, in reply, that this spirit speaks too 
 severely, and condemns without discrimination ; that it 
 confounds under one sweeping denunciation, the real 
 and undoubted moral differences between one man and 
 another, as well as all the different shades and degrees of 
 virtue and vice which really show themselves ; and that 
 such cynicism, true to its profession, tends in the indi- 
 vidual to act as if there were no distinction between 
 good and evil, and in the species tends to the fulfilment 
 of its own prophecy that man will never attain to good ? 
 May it be said that the cynicism, such as manifests itself 
 in the great writers, Shakespeare, Pascal, Swift, is a 
 quality good for producing literary effect, and useful as 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOK VIRTUE. 109 
 
 affording a vent for the gloomy side of the souls of men 
 of genius, which they have further invested with a strange 
 attractiveness, but that, nevertheless, all delineations of 
 man, conceived in that spirit, are understood to be too 
 darkly coloured ; that, finally, the cases of the haters and 
 contemners of their species are extreme and exceptional, 
 just as madmen are exceptional ? All this may be said, 
 and with a degree of truth; nevertheless, there is a 
 certain truth in the other views also ; and the last-named 
 cases do really represent a very considerable fraction 
 of mankind similarly affected, though not to the extreme 
 or insane degree. Still more, they represent all of us at 
 certain moments ; for as it has been said that all men are 
 more or less insane and irrational, so it may be said with 
 greater truth, that all men at times are more or less 
 cynical. The character of man, in fact, is no fixed, 
 unchanging thing ; his views are not always the same or 
 under the yoke of one system of opinions, as philosophers 
 fancy. His opinions vary; he holds one set of views 
 under one mood, another under a different mood of mind ; 
 and at certain moments, in a particular mood, under a 
 certain light, the cynical account of man seems the truest 
 expression of the facts, and the pessimist's the most 
 correct portrait of human nature. 
 
 7. But what has all this to do with the question of 
 the love of our kind ? Something ; for if they be even 
 partially true, such accounts abate so far our power of 
 loving such a being as man ; and the existence of such 
 portraits when taken in conjunction with such undoubted 
 facts as anger, instinctive dislike, indignation, envy, 
 rivalry, go to prove that we are not yet ripe for the 
 religion of the love of humanity, and that we are not yet 
 inwardly ready to strike for the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number, even if we knew how, amidst the com- 
 
110 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 plexities,and chances, and uncertainties, and contradictions 
 of things to proceed to secure the happiness of even the 
 smallest number, nay, even, as Butler argues, of one single 
 human individual, for whom we were most deeply concerned. 
 Still further : the love and service of humanity is an 
 impossible and Utopian ideal, so long as antagonism 
 exists between nation and nation, ever and anon breaking 
 out into deadly wars ; so long as civilized nations destroy 
 contiguous savage ones under natural selection ; so long 
 as, within the same nation and within all modern society, 
 there exists envy and enmity scarce concealed and ever 
 deepening between class and class, to say nothing of the 
 differences produced by party spirit or religious rancour ; 
 so long, finally, as the social struggle for existence lasts 
 which necessitates competition and rivalry between man 
 and man for place, possession, power, reputation. In par- 
 ticular, the love of humanity, the aim at the greatest happi- 
 ness, must be postponed for some considerable time to 
 come, as evidently incompatible with the state of growing 
 antagonism between the two main sections of modern 
 society an antagonism threatening civil war or social 
 revolution in all modern civilized nations, although in our 
 own it has only assumed the milder form of a struggle, 
 legal and seemingly peaceful, but really of a most 
 disastrous character, between employers and employed, 
 and in which not the combatants alone but the whole 
 community suffers. When the whole existing frame of 
 society is being shaken ; when there are signs that great 
 social changes are impending ; when, in short, we are in 
 the midst of an age of social revolution rather than of 
 social evolution ; the moral creed of Comte, of Bentham, 
 and of Mill is specially out of place and inapplicable to 
 men's guidance. When the time of struggle is over, if that 
 time ever .comes ; when men have recognized their general 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. Ill 
 
 brotherhood, whoever may live to see it; then the happi- 
 ness of others might, it is just conceivable, be an aim for 
 men in general, and the equal happiness of all an aim for 
 the statesman. But even then the average man would 
 do well to limit his aim and his efforts to the happiness 
 of a few, and the statesman to that of his own nation. 
 
 To sum up this part of our argument : The facts and 
 conditions of modern social and civilized life are not 
 favourable to the cultivation of the virtues required in 
 the love and service of humanity ; and they are possibly 
 still less favourable to the growth of those postulated by 
 the utilitarian ethics of Bentham and Mill, aiming at the 
 greatest happiness of the greatest number. The armed 
 peace, as well as the actual wars, of nations forbid such 
 virtues ; the internal antagonisms of social classes, the 
 struggle for existence between the social individuals, 
 forbid them ; the facts of anger, hatred, repulsion, dislike, 
 which necessarily exist, as well as the opposite and 
 because of the opposite facts of love and good will, all 
 these, added to the innate contradictions of life, as well 
 as to its eternal evil conditions which make it to a certain 
 extent an instinctively selfish struggle as of men in ship- 
 wreck ; nay, our own imperfect virtues in evil sympathy 
 with the general imperfect humanity around us, to which 
 they have reference, forbid them ; and show that the ideal 
 of Bentham and Comte has been pitched too high for our 
 humanity, so far as yet developed ; as also-that the systems 
 are in other respects ill-timed and unsuited to the social 
 and political condition of modern nations in a state of 
 great change and agitation. 
 
 8. And yet we allow that, in a certain sense, love of 
 our species, taken as a whole, is possible, and that admira- 
 tion is justly excited by what it has done and suffered. For 
 all that is great, and worthy, and meritorious, and sacri- 
 
112 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 ficing has been done by man, and by man alone. If these 
 words have still any meaning, as undoubtedly they have, 
 they refer exclusively and truly only to the actions of man. 
 and not to those of brutes, angels, or gods. If only man is 
 vile, the converse is equally true only man is noble. The 
 two propositions stand or fall together. Love of our 
 species, then, is possible, and therefore actions may be asked 
 of individuals, so far as it is in their power, in furtherance 
 of the best interests of the species. But let us be clearly 
 understood. Love for man, for the species is possible, 
 though it is not possible for all the individuals composing 
 it ; and love for the species, because its higher specimens 
 have redeemed the rest of it and cause us to forget them, 
 or, if we think of its inferior atoms, to forgive them. The 
 whole becomes lovely and sacred because of the better 
 parts, because there have been and there are sparks of 
 celestial fire mingled in the general mass of dull and heavy 
 human earth. We love mankind because great men 
 have in very truth loved it, and have lived and laboured 
 and died for it; we love it in the persons of these men, 
 and because we can love- these who were the best part of 
 it. These and their nearest living representatives make 
 humanity, in many respects an unlovable thing, lovely in 
 our eyes. 
 
 We can love man for the great and good men of the 
 past, or of the present when we are assured of their 
 existence ; and also, let it be particularly noted, because 
 the dearest and most lovable, as well as most beautiful 
 things that our earth has to show to us, are some of the 
 human spirits that we meet in it on our passage spirits 
 generous, and brave, and true, and loving, though great 
 perhaps only in our eyes, in mind, or soul, or heart. Un- 
 fortunate he whose life experience has not shown him 
 some of these spirits touched to these good or noble issues ; 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 113 
 
 and unhappy, for in the admission of the fact would lie 
 his own condemnation the implicit confession that there 
 was nothing of analogous nature in himself; that he him- 
 self was neither generous, nor true, nor brave ; that he 
 himself was of those of whom our poet speaks, who shut 
 love out, and "who in turn shall be shut out from Love, 
 and on her threshold lie howling in outer darkness." 
 
 For to the noble and generous and true natures, men 
 naturally turn whatever there is of the like in themselves, 
 ashamed to confess or show an utter penury of the higher 
 human graces in the presence of those richly endowed 
 with them, and who freely and without calculation of cost 
 manifest them in action. To the true and good, men show 
 their best and truest sides as they did to Brutus. Their 
 " better self " comes forward, the baser recedes ; one of 
 the reassuring things which prove, should we feel ever 
 inclined to doubt, the reality and efficacy of truth and 
 goodness. Nor is there a deeper knowledge of human 
 nature anywhere shown, a finer insight into the deepest 
 springs of noble character in their rarer and subtler move- 
 ments anywhere displayed, a more touching tribute to the 
 reality and potency of virtue anywhere paid, than where 
 Brutus the same Brutus who, according to Plutarch, 
 once asked, in a despairing moment, whether virtue were 
 other than a name is made by Shakespeare to utter 
 on the final day at Philippi, and at the supreme hour 
 when men's hearts speak the deepest tr"uth and feeling 
 that is in them, the great and proud and satisfied acknow- 
 ledgment 
 
 Country men, 
 
 My heart doth joy that yet, in all my life, 
 I found no man but he was true to me. 
 
 To resume, then : a few have sanctified the many for 
 us; a few superior specimens of humanity, the general 
 
114 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 mass of human clay and frailty ; the past and present 
 illustrious ones, and the beautiful characters that happily 
 all have met as well as their opposites. These raise 
 humanity in our eyes ; and to these must be added a 
 certain select company happily not a few, of whose 
 existence we are certainly assured, though we know them 
 not that noble band whose case touches our hearts, 
 whose praise has not been widely sounded either by others 
 or themselves, but -who nevertheless remain ever the salt 
 of the earth, upon whom the greater ones calculate ; that 
 noble company of unconscious heroes who do their duty 
 aye, and we are tempted to say more than their duty 
 without asking reward or taking any special credit to 
 themselves for so doing. Honour to these, to the many 
 unknown heroes, to the latent virtue of the world, to the 
 men who do their duty and speak not of it, almost know 
 not of it. If we too have spoken evil things of our species, 
 in the instances of these men and women, and in the 
 reverent and admiring recognition of their worth and 
 merit in the moral order of the world, we would make 
 reparation and acknowledgment of error to our kind. 
 For these are they who in every nation keep up the 
 standard of duty, who maintain the honour of humanity 
 unsullied, who preserve the distinction of virtue and vice 
 from being obscured or wholly obliterated. 
 
 These last, our friends, the few great ones existing, 
 and the many great ones dead but whose work still lives, 
 are the real reconcilers of us to our species, the real 
 redeemers of mankind, the real representatives of what 
 is lovable in humanity. Through them only the " love 
 of humanity " becomes possible, and the phrase receives 
 whatever practical significance it has. 
 
 9. Such then, finally, is human nature, and moral 
 systems must be founded on, as well as addressed to, 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 115 
 
 human nature. If they undertake to guide it, they 
 must begin by taking account of its moral forces and 
 capacities, of what it can do, of what it can only ap- 
 proximately do, of what it cannot do at all. If moral 
 systems are to furnish us with rules of conduct, -they 
 must be such as we can follow, and they must be such, 
 moreover, as it will be generally profitable to follow. 
 Above all, they must not be hopelessly above our power, 
 else we shall be disheartened by their impracticability, 
 no matter what the promises attached to obedience may 
 be ; and we shall end by neglecting them, having thrown 
 them over in despair of fulfilment. 
 
 This is the defect and the danger in the ethical system 
 of Kant. This great thinker and master of system has 
 presented to mankind a wonderful system of morals, in- 
 ternally articulated, rigidly deduced from first principles, 
 and wanting only one thing but that a most important 
 thing to make the system perfect. It has no special 
 reference to human nature. He has founded his system 
 on principles, which are not principles of human nature, 
 not even as shown in the choicest moral specimens of 
 our species. Kant, indeed, avowedly did not build his 
 system on any psychological basis; on any theory of 
 man's actual mental and moral constitution. He did not 
 build it on " empirical," that is, actual human nature. 
 He built it upon a wholly hypothetical human nature, 
 possessed of a free, autonomous will, undetermined, as 
 ours is, by the stress of circumstances, by the strength 
 of internal impulses and forces, by the imperious coercion 
 of society ; upon a human nature whose asserted free- 
 will is not conceivable, as he himself admits, within 
 the sphere of phenomena, but only in the mysterious 
 region of " things-in-themselves " ; upon a human nature 
 that feels the unconditional imperative of duty, even 
 
116 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 when duties are mutually conflicting ; in a word, upon a 
 hypothetical human nature, that, far from approximately 
 coinciding with our actual human nature, scarcely touches 
 it at a single point of contact. And the result has been 
 that human nature, and what science has shown to be 
 its general properties, being disregarded, while a heavy 
 and impossible burden of logically deduced duties and 
 precepts is imposed upon it, human nature has refused 
 to consider the moral message of Kant as specially in- 
 tended for it, and men have declined to be bound *by so 
 logically perfect but humanly inapplicable a system. 
 
 In his anxiety to place the moral law quite outside 
 and above human nature ; in his laudable desire to give 
 it a more sacred authority by detaching it wholly from 
 men's interests and inclinations, he has overshot his mark, 
 and made it impossible for men to apply or to follow it. 
 In this last attempt to make fast to heaven the moral 
 law, which Kant, in spider fashion, had educed from his 
 own breast, the great modern moralist and law-giver has 
 orily cut its special connection with men on earth ; and 
 his wonderful ethical system has in consequence as 
 completely missed its mark in being addressed to men, as 
 if it had been sent to the wrong planet by mistake. It 
 should have -gone elsewhere to some other world, to 
 Jupiter or Uranus, where, according to another specu- 
 lation of the same philosopher, the inhabitants are of a 
 more ethereal and virtuous temper than we are. " For 
 the Earth " must have been written by mistake on the 
 transcendental tablets containing the new message of 
 the law which Kant received from the Absolute in the 
 terra incognita of the noumenal world. 
 
 In conclusion, let me further add that the system of 
 ethics suitable for man, if any such system be possible, 
 remains to be written. Neither utilitarianism, nor trans- 
 
ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 117 
 
 cendentalism, nor our ordinary intuitional morality, nor 
 any other system, will suit. We could not regulate our 
 life for a single day by any of them. And certain it is, 
 if any satisfactory ethical system be ever given to men, 
 it must take account of human nature, both as it now 
 shows itself to psychology, physiology, and the social 
 sciences, and as it has grown, as proved by historical 
 research ; in a word/it must first consider, and that care- 
 fully, what Science has to say on the subject. And 
 Science has at least something very pertinent, if not 
 something decisive, to say upon one old and very im- 
 portant question, on which every possible system of 
 ethics or theory of human conduct must embrace a side. 
 She has something to say worth hearing on the question 
 of free-will and necessity a subject so large and so 
 important as to merit a chapter to itself. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 
 
 1. UNDERLYING the whole question of man's capacity 
 for virtue or for improvement in virtue, affecting the 
 question. of his moral responsibility, that of the justice 
 or injustice of civil punishments, and in some degree 
 affecting the question of the reality of virtue itself on 
 the central point of the merit or demerit of our charac- 
 ters and actions, is the deeper question of moral freedom 
 or free-agency ; the old and still-debated controversy of 
 free-will, which has ever divided philosophers and 
 theologians, which was discussed resultlessly by the 
 metaphysical fallen angels, on the " hill retired " in the 
 infernal abodes; the great question whether we or our 
 wills have any directive control over our volitions and 
 actions, or whether these are not in all cases the proper 
 resultant of motive forces within us which produce them 
 independently of ourselves or our wills, which are 
 merged the one as part and the other as total in 
 the forces themselves. The latter is the conclusion of 
 Science, of psychological as distinct from physical 
 science; the arguments in support of which theory, as 
 well as the necessary qualifications, we propose to give 
 in what follows. 
 
 And, happily, in treating the subject we may now, 
 in great degree, keep clear of its old accompanying 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 119 
 
 metaphysical snares and perplexities; the bottomless 
 vortices into which the mind was formerly sucked, may 
 now be avoided, thanks to the light thrown upon man's 
 nature by the modern sciences of psychology and 
 physiology, which enable us to clear the issues and 
 to ascertain the facts really pertinent to the question. 
 
 2. There has been an old theory of man lately 
 brought forward by certain eminent physicists and 
 naturalists, notably by Professor Huxley, which, if 
 satisfactorily established, would finally and effectually 
 close the free-will controversy. We mean the theory of 
 man's automatism, according to which man, equally with 
 all animals lower in the scale of being, is merely a 
 machine, though a most skilfully constructed one ; a 
 machine in which all mental as well as bodily actions 
 and states, all volitions, emotions, thoughts, as well as 
 bodily movements and functions, are really determined 
 by mechanical forces, irrespective of an imaginary ruling 
 and directing entity called Self, or of any exercise of a 
 supposed independent faculty called Will, which last, so 
 far as it has a real existence in the shape of conscious 
 volitions, merely registers and assents to a decision 
 already reached by the other and only powers at work 
 the physical merely symbolizes a state of the cerebral 
 atoms, a condition of the physical and chemical energies, 
 the only real and all-sufficient causative forces. 
 
 A volition is not the product of a " masterful ego," or of 
 an independent faculty called will, according to Professor 
 Huxley. The volition is caused by hidden mechanical 
 forces, by cerebral molecular movements, just as, when 
 the volition is carried into outward visible effect, the 
 resulting action is obviously due to muscular or mechan- 
 ical forces. Conscious volition, thought, or emotion is 
 always produced by unconscious physico-chemical energies. 
 
120 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, EELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 True, the effects are unlike the causes; a volition, a 
 thought, an impulse is wholly unlike its physico- 
 chemical cause. But the same might be said in every 
 case of cause and effect; and just as oxygen and hydrogen 
 produce water a wholly unlike phenomenon ; just as 
 a special combination of atoms may have the unlike 
 phenomenon of life annexed to them ; so particular 
 arrangements and movements of the cerebral cells and 
 fibres may have, as product or resultant, the wholly 
 unlike phenomenon, an emotion, volition, or thought. 
 
 Man is, in fact, a machine, an automaton. Descartes 
 was right in affirming this of the brutes; he was only 
 wrong in arbitrarily severing them from men a position 
 no longer tenable since Darwin's discoveries. Man, too, is 
 a machine, only the most skilfully constructed of all that 
 Nature has produced. He is a machine, and, moreover, 
 a locomotive machine, moved by the internal mechanical 
 forces generated within from the fuel supplied by the 
 food consumed. He is not moved hither and thither 
 by the directive agency of a spiritual entity called 
 self, supposed to be different from the material forces, 
 yet to be in some indescribable local relation to them, 
 and also to be capable of moving and wielding them. 
 There is, indeed, no such self discoverable, no such direct- 
 ing spiritual agency. There is a thing called conscious- 
 ness; there is a mass of conscious impulses and principles 
 of action ; but all these are themselves products of the 
 physical energies. When we think we have made a 
 prudential resolve as to a line of action, our resolve and 
 our prudence are alike products of a particular position 
 of the cerebral atoms the final source and seat of 
 prudence and resolution, as of all other conscious facts. 
 
 The human animal is also the human machine, 
 and in strictness is only a machine. There are no facts 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 121 
 
 discoverable that cannot be expressed in mechanical 
 terms. Man is a machine in which there is a quantity 
 of disposable energy locked up chemical, mechanical, 
 electrical, thermal energy ,^-which may be transmuted, 
 but which seeks a vent either in muscular movement, in 
 locomotive effort, in the play of consciousness, or in the 
 production of the severer effort of thought. To produce 
 these conscious states, energy is expended, the inner fire 
 and fuel is burnt as well as in physical exertion. There 
 is a certain quantity of- the physical energy required for 
 all mental work, which may express itself in a drama, a 
 philosophical system, a scientific discovery, as well as in 
 the construction of a railway tunnel. In all cases alike 
 energy is merely transformed, and the work done may 
 be conceivably reduced to a common measure in foot- 
 pounds. An hour's labour with the brain, an hour's 
 muscular exertion may be conceivably compared together, 
 even though the products be so different ; in either case 
 it is the same stock of energy that is drawn upon, and 
 this may be drafted, in the same individual, now into the 
 service of the brain, and now directed to muscular effort. 
 It is true that the energy which passes into conscious 
 states or permanent mental products addressed to con- 
 sciousness, is no longer available for further use, nor can 
 any of it be re transformed in any case into the original 
 physical factors; a fact which possibly constitutes an 
 exception to the generality of the law of the transformation 
 and conservation of energy. Or possibly, as an eminent 
 physicist asserts, consciousness is not the proper or 
 primary product of the physical energies in the man- 
 machine, which must always remain physico-chemical. 
 Possibly consciousness is only, as Professor Tyndall has 
 termed it, an accidental " bye-product " something over 
 and above the full and fair physical result, which by an 
 
122 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 accident, fortunate or otherwise, appeared to watch over 
 and register the whole series of physical processes, though 
 these would have gone on just as well in its absence. In 
 this case, thought or consciousness would not consume 
 any of the stock of energy ; the law of conservation of 
 energy would not be threatened in its generality ; and 
 man would be a true automaton, with consciousness 
 added , as a spectator, but not as a director of the 
 machinery. 
 
 The theory of the man-machine which thus emerges, 
 culminates in Professor Huxley's comparison of man to 
 a clock very cunningly constructed, whose face, with the 
 information upon it, corresponds to consciousness, which 
 presents us with thoughts, emotions, volitions ; and just 
 as we know that the hour and minute hand of the clock, 
 which mark the time, are obedient to and caused by 
 hidden forces and inner movements, whose action they 
 serve to measure and visibly symbolize, so our conscious- 
 ness but symbolizes and expresses the mysterious springs 
 and inner movements of the machinery of the brain and 
 nerves, by which, in like manner, states of consciousness 
 are finally caused. Every mental state of which we are 
 conscious is thus at' once the symbol and product of a 
 particular position of the cerebral atoms, of which we 
 are unconscious. The former, according to Professor 
 Huxley, is the effect of the latter, not merely as a " bye- 
 product," but a true product in the scientific sense of the 
 word, because it is an effect which follows from the other 
 as an invariable antecedent. It is an effect, but on the 
 theory of automatism it can scarcely be considered the 
 proper primary effect ; for consciousness might conceiv- 
 ably have been absent altogether (as it now occasionally 
 is in our strictly automatic states and actions), and yet 
 the man-machine might have existed. He might have 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 123 
 
 existed, and, according to Lange and Nageli, have per- 
 formed all outward bodily actions, have walked, uttered 
 speech, made music, possibly mechanical inventions, and 
 all this without the present accidental adjunct of con- 
 sciousness. He would have been then a perfect walking 
 and moving automaton, seemingly skilful and with a 
 certain method, as he is now essentially all this, only 
 with consciousness superadded. 
 
 * 3. This theory of the essentially mechanical nature 
 of man, it need scarcely be stated, is also materialism of 
 the extremest character. It expels everything from man 
 except matter and its properties. The "dominion in the 
 head and breast," the proud characteristic of man, is 
 explained by the properties of matter, by the greater 
 number and finer organization of the cerebral atoms and 
 fibres. There is evidently, on this view of man, not 
 only no free-will, but there is not even any possible 
 power of controlling or guiding conduct. If every voli- 
 tion, as well as every action, is determined by the phy- 
 sical energies, there is nothing left for the moral man to 
 do. In the reduction of everything in man to physical 
 forces, their interaction and results, the moral man is 
 entirely lost, and the power of self- direction which all 
 moralists and all men, including even the automatonists 
 themselves, admit becomes impossible of explanation. 
 Our guidance by the mental light of consciousness, as by 
 the moral light of conscience, is alike incapable of ex- 
 planation. But as this theory has not received the 
 general sanction even of scientific philosophers ; ancl 
 moreover, even if, as Professor Huxley contends, mole- 
 cular movements and mechanical forces cause our con- 
 scious volitions and cause our conduct, still, as for 
 purposes of science we must accept the conscious symbols 
 which we do feel and know as the only measures of the 
 
THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 unconscious atomic changes said to cause them, which 
 we do not know and cannot hope to reach ; since, as Mill 
 on this subject argues, of the two corresponding series 
 we take the clear and the better known for purposes of 
 further explanation, rather than the obscure or worse 
 known ; then, it would seem that, as regards our present 
 question of man's moral freedom, neither the theory of 
 man's automatism nor any other theory which professes 
 to explain mental phenomena solely by physiological or 
 physical causes need be here considered at any great 
 length.* 
 
 We do not argue against the undoubted influence of 
 the body over the mind ; nor dispute that there is a 
 certain amount of truth in the theory of the mechanical 
 causation of all our mental states, including our volitions. 
 It must be freely granted to the materialists that the 
 mind is powerfully influenced by the states of the body, 
 or by what are called states of the body, though what 
 subtle and mysterious elements are here at work none 
 can say. At all events, we are all well aware from expe- 
 rience, if science had not placed the matter beyond the 
 reach of doubt, that what is called the mind is healthy 
 or diseased according to the condition of the brain and 
 nerves, according even to the general health of the body. 
 The total contents of consciousness, thoughts, emotions, 
 and volitions, rise or fall in quantity and quality with 
 the general bodily tone. Even the moral character may 
 become affected, the perception of beauty and truth may 
 become dull or perverted, from some cause connected 
 with possibly only a slight disturbance in the general 
 
 * The theory of man's automatism is maintained by Huxley ; by 
 Nageli (see Report of the Munich Congress of the German Association : 
 Nature, October 4, 1877) ; by Lange, History of Materialism. The theory 
 is in its essentials the same as that advanced more than a century ago in 
 La Mettrie's L'Homme Machine. 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 125 
 
 health of the system. Such considerations show that 
 there are physical causes at work in the production and 
 alteration of mental phenomena ; but whether these are 
 the sole and ultimate causes is quite another question, 
 and one which, even if the materialist's answer be the 
 true one, need not further concern us here.* We contend, 
 so far as regards this question of moral freedom, that to 
 argue that the will cannot be free because all volitions 
 are determined by molecular changes, is to bring this 
 very old controversy into a darker and more hopeless 
 region of discussion than ever. It is to leave light just 
 when the science of psychology (assisted, no doubt, by 
 biology) had given it to us, after infinite vain wrangling 
 and logomachy, prosecuted in the dark. 
 
 4. Science, at least psychological science, is not 
 committed to the theory of man's automatism ; a theory 
 which is only a fresh and exaggerated instance of the 
 strong tendency in men and philosophers in all ages to 
 try to explain all phenomena, however different; by the 
 particular class of phenomena . with which they are 
 habitually conversant ; an instance of the same kind as 
 that of the musical philosopher who explained the soul 
 as a species of harmony, as that of the Pythagorean, 
 whose mathematical meditations allowed him only to 
 discern number as the essential fact and principle in all 
 things. Man is, indeed, a machine, moreover a living 
 and moving one ; but he is also something more, and 
 this additional something, an accident merely, according 
 to the true automatonist philosopher, constitutes, in 
 fact, man's differential feature and his true human nature ; 
 
 * For a full consideration of the materialism resting on the doctrine 
 of the conservation of energy, from which the theory of man's auto- 
 matism is considered to be a corollary, the reader is referred to Book 
 III. ch. i. 
 
126 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 though, to estimate it properly, is beyond the reach of 
 biological and still more of merely physical science. To 
 read and measure human nature, and consciousness which 
 reflects it, belongs to psychology to psychology, aided 
 by the sciences which are ministrant and subsidiary to 
 it ; and to psychology, consequently, we are referred by 
 Bain and Mill for a true theory of human nature, as well 
 as to know the opinion of science on the question of the 
 freedom of the will. 
 
 From the point of view of psychology, we have a 
 picture of man different from the physicist's or natural- 
 .ist's; and we have a more satisfactory application of 
 scientific method to investigate and explain his actions. 
 According to Bain and Mill, the most eminent pyscho- 
 logists who have discussed the present question, our 
 volitions are determined by conscious motives, by pro- 
 spective pleasures and pains, even though there always 
 is a physical counterpart to each consciously felt fact. 
 There is that uniformity of sequence between motive 
 and volition, if not between character and conduct, which, 
 wherever it exists, marks a proper field for scientific 
 inquiry. According to Mill, " a volition is a moral effect 
 which follows the corresponding moral causes as certainly 
 and as invariably as physical effects follow their physical 
 causes." And the moral antecedents or causes are, he 
 tells us, "desires, aversions, habits, and dispositions, 
 combined with outward circumstances suited to call 
 those internal incentives into action. All these, again, 
 are effects of causes, those of them which are mental 
 being consequences of education and of other moral and 
 physical influences." And the same doctrine of the 
 uniformity of sequence between motive and action is laid 
 down with much clearness, accompanied by a masterly 
 psychological analysis, in the writings of Professor Bain. 
 
' 
 
 ON FREE-WILL, AND MANS AUTOMATI9 *\ 
 
 According to this eminent authority, " the same 
 in the same circumstances will be followed by the same 
 action." * The doctrine of the uniform sequence of 
 motive and action explains all the mental facts of choice, 
 deliberation, self-determination, moral agency, responsi- 
 bility, "without the mysticism of free-will." Moreover, 
 the practice of mankind assumes the uniformity of motive 
 and action. It does not assume the opposite theory. 
 "No one ever supposes either that human actions arise 
 without motive, or that the same motives operate differ- 
 ently in the same circumstances." Hunger always impels 
 us to seek for food, the tender feeling seeks objects of 
 affection, anger prompts to revenge, the desire of fame 
 to live laborious days. Or, if these expected sequences' 
 fail to arise, we ascribe it, not to the failure of the 
 motives, but to their counteraction by other and more 
 powerful motives. 
 
 Further, our expectation of men's behaviour depends 
 on the assumed regularity of sequence between motive 
 and action. All government which makes laws threat- 
 ening penalties for disobedience, assumes that motives 
 are the sole causes of actions, and that the regular opera- 
 tion of motives may be relied on. All theories of educa- 
 tion, of political economy, of society, all operations of 
 trade and all the intercourse of life postulate the reign 
 of law in the human mind ; and all statistics confirm the 
 assumption on the large scale, just as our accurate pre- 
 diction of the behaviour of those whose characters we 
 know, confirms it in individual cases. In fact, man can 
 
 * The sequence is between motive and volition according to Mill, 
 between motive and action according to Bain ; but as the volition is 
 only an interposed link between the motive and the action which it 
 contemplates, there is no substantial difference between the two views. 
 The controversy, however, usually has to do with the first sequence, 
 which alone falls under the internal consciousness. 
 
128 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 be said to have a character only on the assumption that 
 the same motives addressed to him will cause him to act 
 always in the same constant manner. 
 
 5. Such, in brief, is the theory of the determination 
 of the will by motives, as given by Mill and Bain. In 
 substance we accept it. But it requires a deeper and 
 more comprehensive statement to connect it with the 
 truths of evolution and physiology, with the facts of 
 heredity, and with present physiological facts, both of 
 which influence largely the motives, and are thus causes 
 of our actions. The theory requires qualification, both 
 from the point of view of physiology and from that of 
 evolution ; for we are assured that unconscious motives, 
 be they materialistic and mechanical or no, have an 
 influence, mysterious but potent, in the determination 
 of the conscious ones, which alone are recognized by Mill 
 and Bain as the causes of volition. We know, too, how 
 much of our action passes into the automatic, the 
 habitual, the mechanical, where we are as unconscious 
 of volitions as the merest machines. Further, in the 
 world of conscious motives we are certain that what 
 outwardly appears the same motive is not inwardly 
 judged by us to be so, from some change in us ; that our 
 conscious feelings, by which we must measure all motives, 
 are treacherous and uncertain scales in many cases ; that 
 there may be such a thing as a change in character, 
 amounting to revolution, in a comparatively short time ; 
 and that such change may affect our old motives in very 
 unequal degrees, annihilating some and intensifying 
 others; that besides revolution in character, there is 
 always evolution or development up to a certain time of 
 life ; and that in age a reverse process of decay sets in. 
 We feel at times like Lucretius, as if some mighty and 
 malign but invisible hand had seized our will (or what 
 
ON FllEE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 129 
 
 we call our will), "wrenching it backward into his;" 
 again, as if the uses of the world had become weary and 
 unprofitable; as if all our old motives had lost their 
 efficacy and influence over us ; all which facts and con- 
 siderations, though they do not contradict the theory 
 that the will is governed by motives, yet show that the 
 reign of law in the human subject is much less uniform 
 than it is in the physical world, and that the theory of 
 Mill requires qualification, if not a new presentation from 
 a more comprehensive point of view. 
 
 6. Our whole moral character the conscious mass 
 of dispositions, impulses, sentiments from which we act 
 is a product that can be analyzed. While conscious 
 motives can mostly be discovered for each separate 
 action, the strength of the motives themselves can be 
 traced backward to larger and more permanent moral 
 forces which Science can investigate and ascertain some- 
 thing about, quite irrespective of the particular state and 
 properties of the physical molecules of the brain and 
 body. 
 
 According to evolution, the cerebral atoms themselves, 
 with their inherent moral properties, were derived from 
 parents and ancestors with like moral properties ; so that 
 even if they are at present ultimate, they are not true 
 first causes, but themselves results of more comprehensive 
 and controlling causes, which can only be explained by 
 the laws of heredity. 
 
 Again, in addition to inherited organization contain- 
 ing in it the germs of the future moral as well as intel- 
 lectual qualities and dispositions, we have been subject 
 from the first dawn of consciousness, from even our 
 mothers' arms, to education, an external and long-con- 
 tinued influence, which co-operates powerfully with 
 inherited organization to give us our principles of action, 
 
 K 
 
130 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 and to shape our future character. Later still, we became 
 units in the social body, for which our education was 
 in great part a training, and our society with all but 
 omnipotent strength has compelled us to accept and act 
 upon its most accredited principles of action under 
 penalty of its displeasure a most formidable sanction. 
 Besides compelling us to obey its laws, it forces upon us 
 a conformity with its beliefs, sentiments, opinions, so far 
 as these are necessary for the preservation of its own 
 existence ; while the subordinate sections of society with 
 which we may be connected in different relations, in like 
 manner have compelled us to a conformity with their 
 laws and usages and principles. And concurrently with 
 education and the pressure of society, there has been all 
 the time the never-ceasing, ever-changing pressure of 
 circumstances co-operating in the evolution and fixing 
 of our moral character ; and so great has been the total 
 influence of these various forces, heredity, education, the 
 social imperative, and the constant pressure of circum- 
 stance, that an extremely narrow margin indeed is left 
 at any time for the operation of the free autonomous will 
 of Kant and the transcendental metaphysicians. These 
 various factors amongst them make up so much of the 
 moral man that they almost justify the aphorism (quoted 
 by Professor Huxley J that " our moral character is woven 
 for us, not by us." 
 
 At all events, they show that our wills are not free. 
 Our volitions, our actions, are determined by motives, as 
 Mill and Bain contend ; and the motives owe their 
 strength to our character thus shaped under the forces 
 above described. It is true that men imagine they are free 
 to act or not to act, to decide one way or the other, in a 
 given case, because, as Spinoza has said, we know our 
 actions, but not always the motives from which they 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 131 
 
 spring and which really determine them. In reality, our 
 actions, in our maturer years, and after our character has 
 acquired fixity, follow with mechanical regularity from it, 
 and in particular from one or other of the bundle of habits 
 which, in great measure, our character has become. Action 
 from habit is economy of force, a saving of conscious 
 reflection and deliberation; but it is mechanical and 
 automatic, there is no intervention of the faculty of will, 
 any more than there is the weighing of motives. And 
 whenever, as occasionally happens in maturer life, in cases 
 of importance, novel action must be taken, wdiere conscious 
 deliberation does actually precede the decision of the best 
 course of action, our decisions, our volitions, as well as 
 our actions, follow from the motives which are strongest, 
 which are no others than those which promise on the 
 whole the most satisfactory results. It is the strongest 
 motive which determines volition ; there is no arbitrary 
 volition made by a free will in the teeth of the strongest 
 motives or in total disregard of them. Or, if there ever 
 seems to be a case of this description, as where a man 
 affirms that he will act in a particular manner, be the 
 motives on the other side what they may, the fact is that 
 the adverse conscious motives visible or possible, are 
 dominated by the strength of the rival ones, supplemented 
 by a substratum of unconscious motives ref errable to the 
 general moral character and dispositions, but never to a 
 free. will. The man knows how strong are the motives 
 which influence him ; he does not expect that any so 
 strong can possibly appear on the other side ; and his will 
 seems arbitrarily to decide what his character has really 
 determined. 
 
 The case of mechanical action from habit, the case of 
 conscious deliberation, and the case where we are not able 
 to state precisely the motives really influencing us, exhaust 
 
132 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 all cases. But they also leave no scope for the exercise 
 of free-will. In the first case the action is determined 
 mechanically, and in the second and third, by the strength 
 of the motives at work. There is literally no work left 
 for a free will to do, even if the existence of the supposed 
 independent entity called the free self could be proved. 
 There is no work for it to do which is not already taken 
 in hand by other agencies. There is only the case, more 
 conceivable than ever actual, of which the free-will meta- 
 physicians have made so much use the case where the 
 motives seem exactly balanced, as in the example of the 
 ass of Buridanus between the two identical bundles of 
 hay. Here, it is urged, on the motive theory there could 
 be no decision according to the strongest motive, from 
 whence it follows the ass must starve ; but he does not : 
 therefore there is some faculty which arbitrarily elects 
 for one or the other, i.e. there exists a free-will. But even 
 in this extreme case, one or other alternative at a par- 
 ticular moment seems to present the stronger inducement, 
 and the volition, rightly or wrongly, is carried with it. 
 Moreover, if the individual could not properly be said to 
 act from the stronger motive in such a case, but rather 
 from a mechanical and unreasoning impulse, just as little 
 could this impulse be ascribed to the action of a free will. 
 7. If it were possible to uncoil from the completely 
 formed character one by one the various factors which have 
 gone to compose it, so as to lay bare the pure nucleus or 
 inner core of self which is supposed to lie at the root of 
 character, and which it is further supposed can act irre- 
 spective of motives, or even in opposition to their strongest 
 momentum, how much, we might ask of the free-will 
 metaphysician, would remain to represent our proper self, 
 and what range would be left for its free will to operate in ? 
 Indeed, is it not clear that the more superinduced moral 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 133 
 
 influences, such as the effect of education or the imperative 
 of society, are withdrawn, as we sometimes witness in 
 certain forms of insanity or other diseases, the nearer we 
 should come, not to the supposed underlying pure self 
 endowed with a power of free-will, but either to a moral 
 chaos or simply to the underlying animal, governed, as 
 other animals, by the most elementary instincts and im- 
 pulses ? We should not find an independent self, because 
 none such exists independent of the several elements of 
 character. And should we attempt to dive, like Kant, 
 beneath the circle of phenomenal motives, we should not 
 come any nearer to the free imperial ego of the transcen- 
 dental philosopher ; we should not find it located out of 
 space, but rather in our attempts we should strike the 
 hard bottom of the material atoms of Professor Huxley, 
 which, though we have not been able to regard them as 
 omnipotent nor yet as first causes, nevertheless do exist, 
 and as experience together with science assures us, do 
 exert a very potent though somewhat occult influence 
 over our lives. 
 
 Still more, if there were this mysterious self lodged at 
 the bottom of our being, endowed with the power of free 
 volition, whether it issues its mandates from out the inde- 
 scribable sphere of the noumenal world, as Kant maintains, 
 or whether it lives and governs amongst the circle of 
 phenomenal motives in our ordinary phenomenal world, 
 as other metaphysicians hold, in either case a consequence 
 very serious for Science would result. The self, or ego, 
 would be a first cause ; its exercise of free-will would be 
 a miracle, and something extremely like the miracle of 
 creation ex nihilo. It would be the production and exer- 
 cise of a force or energy underived from any prior energy 
 or from other source than itself, which, so far as we can 
 attempt to conceive an inconceivable and impossible thing, 
 
134 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 would be the mysterious and inexplicable process of 
 creation from nothing. It would be the accomplish- 
 ment of the feat which Kant himself declared impossible 
 within the field of Nature, and which accordingly he can 
 represent as possible only by shutting the ego out of 
 phenomenal nature as he has done. 
 
 If we grant free-will, we must be prepared for further 
 consequences. We shall have once more the return of 
 the miracle, everywhere else expelled from the field of 
 science and history : and this time all the more dangerous 
 if the power of working it be lodged within the man's 
 breast to be daily exercised. Let us but once grant this 
 mysterious self endowed with this power of free volition, 
 and the miracle becomes everywhere else credible, as 
 required by theological or metaphysical needs. For 
 what is a miracle but the interruption of the regularity 
 of natural sequence by the sudden irruption and inter- 
 ference of a foreign and superior power ? And what is 
 the exercise of a free-will but the like arbitrary appear- 
 ance and interference of a foreign power in the circle of 
 natural phenomenal motives for the purpose of breaking 
 the natural sequence of motive and volition ? It is not 
 the appearance of a new motive, but of a power different 
 in kind, a thing per se, of whose existence, moreover, we 
 have no evidence. Indeed, if we admit this miracle to 
 be performed within ourselves and by ourselves, we are 
 only obstinate as well as illogical in affirming its im- 
 possibility in other cases where it seems more urgently 
 called for. 
 
 But Science cannot without self-destruction allow 
 either the miracle in general or the special one of creation 
 ex nihilo ; and least of all can she allow that both take 
 place within the theatre of man's breast in the produc- 
 tion of something from nothing, as in the supposed 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 135 
 
 exercise of a free uncaused will. Science explains the 
 facts and phenomena of Nature from second causes, which 
 are invariably, as Mill tells us, phenomenal causes. To 
 do so is the business of Science. She is not concerned 
 either with ontologic or with first causes ; but the exist- 
 ence of a free-will, or ego, is either an ontologic cause 
 with which Science is not concerned, or it is a phenomenal 
 one for w^hose existence she finds no evidence, while it 
 would contradict her two highest generalizations, the law 
 of universal causation and the law of the conservation of 
 energy. The doctrine of a free-will would enthrone the 
 man himself as Deity, would make the ego a true creator 
 a result consistent possibly with most forms of German 
 transcendental philosophy, but not with the conclusions 
 of psychology and of modern science generally. 
 
 8. But is it not an admitted fact that men can alter 
 their character for the better ? and does not this imply a 
 power of free-will ? Not so; a power of improving the 
 character to a certain limited extent is granted ; but this 
 power, limited at best, is one that steadily decreases with 
 years, and a time comes when it ceases altogether. The 
 old cannot change their character for the better. In 
 fact, a time comes in our mature years, different though 
 it be for different persons, when the character has acquired 
 such rigidity, such uniformity in its actions, and it has 
 become so near to an impossibility for its possessor to 
 change it for the better, that some theologians bring in 
 a special miracle to get over the otherwise insuperable 
 difficulty the miracle of sudden conversion, represented 
 as a change of heart, of soul, and of life. But this very 
 necessity for a supernatural intervention is in effect, as 
 it is in the express words of those who believe in it, an 
 admission of the impotence of the free autonomous will 
 of Kant and the metaphysicians to do the work of change. 
 
136 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, KELIGIOUS AND MOKAL. 
 
 According to these last, the self, or ego, is free, free to 
 fulfil the law of duty, but it is not free to alter itself 
 greatly. It is free to do what it is its nature to do ; in 
 other words, it is free to produce its natural effects, as it 
 is to a plant to grow and to flower, though by the same 
 reasoning it is evidently not free to do other than it does, 
 or other than it is its nature to do. It is not free for the 
 bramble to bring forth grapes, or for any tree or man to 
 produce other than its natural fruit a consideration 
 which may show how little the alleged freedom really 
 amounts to. 
 
 According to the necessitarian, like Mill, a power of 
 improving the character to an extent is allowed ; if we 
 really strongly wish to do so, we can; the wish itself 
 being an important motive force in the case, and one 
 depending probably on the original inherited basis of 
 character. But while this power really remains, we can 
 apply it only by perceiving and pressing into our service 
 sufficiently powerful motives to conquer the rival and 
 inferior motives. We must endeavour to make the better 
 motives effect a lodgment in our breast ; we must make 
 them become a part of our character ; and this we can 
 only do on the two conditions that their germs are already 
 within us, and also that they promise a certain balance 
 and reward of pleasurable result. Before a drunkard 
 can be got to make an effort for his reformation, he must 
 have strong motives put before him. If he sees his 
 health, fortune, and family in danger of being ruined, 
 here are strongly deterring motives to the further indulg- 
 ence of his vice. The only question is Can these and 
 the opposite class of pleasurable motives counteract the 
 imperious craving of his bad habit. By trying to press 
 good motives into our service, by incorporating them 
 into our character and trying to work under them, we 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 137 
 
 may succeed in permanently improving the character ; 
 but in order to a continued perseverance and a final 
 victory, these good motives and inducements must con- 
 tinue with us as constant forces in the hour of temptation, 
 and they must be so powerful as to conquer and subdue 
 the old competing inducements and army of lower motives 
 which still, though in diminishing strength, besiege the 
 will. Thus, even in the change of character for the 
 better, and still more clearly in the far commoner change 
 for the worse, we do not get beyond the sway and sphere 
 of motives. We are still within the circle of known, 
 natural, and phenomenal causes. We do not reach or 
 perceive the operation of a free-will, which, did it indeed 
 exist, we should imagine could have no difficulty in im- 
 proving the character. In the change of character here 
 described, we find neither the miraculous agency of 
 free-will nor the still more miraculous sudden conversion 
 of the character by supernatural agency. Every way 
 regarded, the alleged fact of free-will turns out to be an 
 unmeaning figment, an inconceivable and impossible 
 thing. It was a fiction invented by the older meta- 
 physicians anxious for the dignity of man and for the 
 interests of morality, both of which, in the opinion of 
 the necessitarian, can very well dispense with it ; and a 
 fiction sometimes countenanced by theology, in the same 
 interests of morality, sometimes discountenanced, because 
 opposed to the general theological doctrines of original 
 sin and of grace, as well as to the particular doctrine of 
 predestination. 
 
 9. Does not this theory of the determination of the 
 will by motives take away all merit and demerit from 
 our characters and actions ? and does it not destroy all 
 moral responsibility or accountability for the consequences 
 of our actions ? If the strongest motive prevails and 
 
138 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 really determines action, where lies the merit if the action 
 be what is called a good one ? where the demerit if it be 
 the reverse ? Is there any more merit or demerit in 
 human actions on this theory than in the actions of lions 
 or tigers which in like manner obey the strongest motive ? 
 Is not the murderer's act assimilated to that of the tiger 
 who kills a man ? Is not the most heroic action due to 
 the accidental presence and strength of a good motive in 
 the breast, to a happy grace from Nature ? In answer 
 to this it must be confessed that the merit and demerit 
 of actions is, on the necessitarian theory, considerably 
 diminished, though not the praise or blame, the admira- 
 tion or detestation which they may arouse. The merit 
 or demerit of our actions is diminished when we remember 
 that it follows necessarily from motives, that the motives 
 come from character, and that character is in great 
 measure determined for us by heredity, education, and 
 circumstance. Still, it is not wholly so determined, and 
 we are meritorious so far as we endeavour to make it 
 better, so far as we endeavour to make a good conscience 
 our strongest motive force, even though here again we 
 cannot greatly succeed unless, by the grace of Nature, the 
 germs of good have already been deposited within us. But 
 to raise the question of merit or demerit is to raise a vain 
 and misleading issue. Our merits at the best are slight, 
 as others besides the Calvinist theologians have dis- 
 covered, and, undoubtedly, the demerit goes with the 
 merit. If all got their deserts it might not be just to say 
 with Hamlet that " few should escape a whipping ; " but 
 certainly few should get any extra reward ; and the best, 
 like St. Paul, are those Vho would lay the least claim to 
 any. It is true we cannot help attributing merit to the 
 men who have stood firm even unto death for truth and 
 right. We attribute merit to them because they have 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 139 
 
 served and saved the world, although the best of them 
 knew and felt how little in truth was their own merit or 
 desert, that they but did what it was in their nature and 
 given impulse to do, and what on the whole they were 
 obliged by the forces within them to do. They felt 
 that they acted from forces lent to them, and that they 
 deserved little credit for so doing. But the further reason 
 why we on our part are inclined to attribute real and 
 extraordinary merit to the great servers of their species 
 is, that we know there was a war of motives, a conflict 
 between good and evil, going on within the breast, and 
 we persist in representing the good man, the Socrates or 
 Buddha, as having arbitrarily made election for the good 
 by his own free-will and choice, as having closed once for 
 all with the right side, and determined to follow it, though 
 it brought his own extinction from the world. We 
 represent it thus, and in a general way not erroneously. 
 The great man did all this, and so far as to justly excite 
 the admiration and reverence, the love and gratitude, of 
 his fellows and of posterity ; but when we speak scientifi- 
 cally, and from the result of psychological analysis, we 
 see that even the hero or martyr made his memorable 
 decisions by the strength of the motives resident in his 
 breast, as he kept to them by the continuing strength of 
 these same inner moral forces, which were only a happy 
 and glorious grace of Nature or God vouchsafed to him. 
 He felt as Luther this he must do and no other ; from 
 the strength of the motive within, but not from the 
 strength of his own free-will. This he felt, though we, 
 on the other hand, cannot help having feelings of rever- 
 ence, gratitude, admiration, which implicitly acknowledge 
 a merit in him ; feelings which, however, are ennobling 
 to the possessor, as they were part of the sustaining 
 motives to the hero's action itself. 
 
140 THE CREED OF ^SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 10. Why, then, are men punished for actions in- 
 jurious to others or to society, when they only act from 
 the strongest motives ? If the strongest motive or sum 
 of motives invariably prevails and carries the volition 
 with it, it is still a matter of chance whether the motives 
 are good or bad ones, though, if bad or anti-social, we 
 must necessarily act from them. Am I not compelled to 
 act from the strongest motive as irresistibly as a steam- 
 engine is urged forward by the mechanical forces anima- 
 ting it ? and if compelled, are not merit and demerit 
 alike removed ? Why, then, should I be punished if the 
 consequences of my action should happen to harm others ? 
 W T hy on any ground except the superior might of society 
 and not on grounds of justice ? 
 
 And the answer to such an objection usually urged 
 against the motive theory is as follows : " Doubtless you 
 must always decide and act according to the strongest 
 motive which for the time being is before you, unless 
 you postpone your decision in order to allow other motives 
 to rise to view ; but in either case there was supposed to 
 have been present and included in your general circle of 
 motives sitting in council, some degree of conscience, some 
 regard for the rights, and if not also some small desire 
 for the good of others, at least no wish to do them harm. 
 Further, even if all these good motives were absent, still 
 a fear of punishment was very confidently calculated 
 upon by society as being present in your case, as in all 
 cases, amongst the other motives, to warn you off from 
 actions hurtful to society. Some of these motives, pro- 
 hibitory of injurious action to others, and very particularly 
 the dread of punishment, were assumed as having been 
 present to your mind as to all properly constituted 
 minds ; and if unhappily they were not present in due 
 strength, if they were present but were not felt sufficiently 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 141 
 
 strongly to deter you from wrong doing, society, also 
 governed by motives directed to its own preservation 
 and weal, is justified, through its arm of justice guarding 
 its interests, in punishing you, so as to make the deterr- 
 ing motives stronger in future in you and others similar." 
 In order to show the falseness of the theory, a burglar or 
 murderer of a metaphysical turn of mind, who has adopted 
 the necessitarian creed, is sometimes represented as 
 urging : " But is the punishment really j ust ? How can 
 it be just to punish me if my will has been coerced by 
 the strength of the motives which were unfortunately 
 present to me ? " And the answer provided by Bishop 
 Butler still holds good, even from the necessitarian point 
 of view. "As if," says Butler, "the necessity which is 
 supposed to destroy the injustice of murder would not 
 also destroy the injustice of punishing it." But the 
 burglar may be answered more fully from the point of 
 view of his own creed, from the principles of Edwards 
 and Priestley, of Mill and Bain. We may suppose a 
 necessitarian judge to have tried the necessitarian house- 
 breaker, and to reply to his objection : " It appears 
 from the event that respect for the rights of others, for 
 the just rights of property, were very feebly deterring 
 motives with you when you committed this crime; 
 further, that the fear of punishment was not so strong as 
 it is desirable it should have been ; it was calculated that, 
 if not as a moral being, yet at least as *a prudent one, 
 mindful of your own interest and self-preservation you 
 would have had the latter motive before you; it was 
 even confidently assumed that ycru would have it before 
 you in some degree, since you were forewarned of the 
 penalty attached to your offence against the law ; it now 
 appears that, though you doubtless had it before you, 
 you had it not in sufficient degree. This is unfortunate 
 
142 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 for you, especially since you have been convicted of the 
 crime ; and society in self-defence must make the fear of 
 punishment stronger in your apprehension in future, as 
 well as in others resembling you ; and there is no other 
 way in which this can be so effectually done as by making 
 you experience punishment in severe and unpleasant form. 
 You have attacked society in one of its essential founda- 
 tions, the rights of property, and society is justified in 
 repelling such attacks. It is just to defend just rights, 
 and to do so by means of punishment, which is society's 
 means of defence, is just. Further, it is not only just, 
 but the general weal absolutely requires it; for all which 
 reasons I, as the representative of society, and moved by 
 considerations for its security, must pass such a sentence 
 of punishment on you as the gravity of your offence 
 justly deserves." 
 
 So much by way of answer to the metaphysical 
 burglar. And most of the argument applies to the case 
 of him who has taken life ; only that here the further 
 and more special question of the justice of capital punish- 
 ment enters a question which, however, does not con- 
 cern us at present. 
 
 Thus punishment may be defended as just on the 
 motive theory as well as on the rival theory of free-will. 
 Mill goes even further, maintaining that it is only on 
 the motive theory that punishment has any true signifi- 
 cance or justification ; that it would miss its aim if the 
 will were not determined by motives. Punishment, in 
 his opinion, owes its sole efficacy to its being a motive 
 which will certainly have an influence amongst the 
 others at work, which will certainly be taken into more 
 or less serious account by all who meditate crime against 
 society. " Punishment," he says, " proceeds on the as- 
 sumption that the will is governed by motives. If 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 143 
 
 punishment had no power of acting on the will, it would 
 be illegitimate, however natural might be the inclination 
 to inflict it. Just so far as the will is supposed free, 
 that is, capable of acting against motives, punishment is 
 disappointed of its object and deprived of justification." * 
 The final justification of punishment is the greater 
 good to be attained, only by its infliction. It cannot be 
 justified on grounds of vengeance, or of retaliation, or of a 
 desire to inflict pain. The reformation of .the individual 
 and the larger good of society are the aims of punish- 
 ment, but the latter is so much the more important that 
 the former must give way to it in all cases where the 
 two are incompatible, as in the case of the murderer, 
 whose life is dangerous to the community. The aim of 
 punishment is the prevention of crime, sometimes the 
 improvement of the individual. The further question 
 arises before it can be justified Is it efficacious to its 
 end ? Does it prevent crime or improve the offender ? 
 And there can be no doubt what the answer should be. 
 There is no doubt of the efficacy of punishment in 
 general, sometimes for the improvement of the indi- 
 vidual, but far more for the prevention of future crimes. 
 There can be no question that the fear of punishment 
 prevents innumerable crimes of all kinds which nothing 
 but such fear would prevent. Without going the length 
 of Professor Bain, who affirms that "punishment or 
 retribution in some form is one-half the motive power 
 to virtue in the very best of human beings, while it is 
 more than three-fourths in the mass of mankind," we 
 have no doubt at least that the fear of punishment sits 
 as a constant monitor and motive force in the general 
 assembly of the criminal's motives. There can be no 
 question that the dread of punishment is " very potent 
 * Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 576. 
 
144 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 with such spirits/' and that its monitions prevail to such 
 an extent as not only to prevent many potential burglars, 
 swindlers, and murderers, from becoming actual ones ; 
 but also that amongst actual criminals, the fear of conse- 
 quences acting in the place of a conscience, in many cases 
 turns away the current of the criminal's thought from 
 the premeditated crime ; so that the cunningly conceived 
 fraud will not be carried out, the meditated murder will 
 be only in imagination, the contemplated burglarious 
 "enterprise of great pith and moment" will remain 
 only a great idea which will never merit the name of 
 action. 
 
 Responsibility, then, is not destroyed by the theory 
 of motives. On the contrary, a practical sense of it is 
 only to be brought home to the individual who has no 
 conscience or regard for the rights of others, by punish- 
 ment, that is, by a motive. And this punishment must, 
 in the general interest of society, be made sufficiently 
 severe to effect its proper aim of repressing crime within 
 due limits, which it can never hope by excessive severity 
 to wholly extirpate so long as the imperfect constitution 
 of society itself, as well as the imperfect constitution of 
 human nature, are two large producing causes. Punish- 
 ment by society should not be vengeance, it should not 
 be cruel or excessive, it should be tempered with a 
 judicious mercy, and allowance made where possible for 
 the pressure of temptation, for the stress of circumstance, 
 for the compulsion of actual want which sometimes 
 drives to crime. It should be remembered by society 
 that, though we know the temptation which has proved 
 too strong, we do not know how much has been success- 
 fully resisted, the amount of which, in the opinion of all 
 moralists, is a chief factor in appraising the moral worth 
 of character. Finally, it should be remembered that 
 
ON FKEE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 145 
 
 besides a compulsion scarcely short of physical, which 
 want may bring and for which none should be held 
 accountable morally the sum total of the conditions of 
 society itself may be one of the larger causes of the com^ 
 pulsion to crime, on which account also a plea for mercy 
 and leniency is allowed in all cases where it can be 
 exercised without danger to the general social interests. 
 
 11. And yet, after all, in spite of the speculative 
 conclusion that the will is not a free causal agency, but 
 itself determined by causes, is there not the equally clear 
 practical conviction that man can control the course of 
 his life and actions to some considerable degree ? Are 
 we not assured that man is not only the master of 
 Nature, but more the master of his own destiny to-day 
 than he was in any former period of his history? I 
 think we must admit it. And still more; man in 
 civilized communities feels assured that he is not the 
 slave of any fatalistic necessity ; that he is less the sport 
 of chance than man in former ages or in ruder nations ; 
 that he can not only direct and shape the outward 
 physical facts and forces of Nature in his favour, but 
 that he can even, if he wishes it, to an important extent, 
 reshape his own character, in which is implicitly con- 
 tained so much, if not as Schopenhauer contends the 
 whole, of his future destiny. The Man has, if his Will 
 has not, a certain directive power. Even the believers 
 in his automatism are obliged to grant so much, however 
 little their principles would explain it. He can to a 
 large extent control his conduct; he has an undoubted 
 and a great capacity of working towards distant aims, 
 which he strongly desires to reach, and of foreseeing and 
 directing the intermediate steps towards these ends. "We 
 thus possess a practical freedom, the freedom of working 
 towards a desired end, the only freedom of any value ; 
 
 L 
 
146 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 and we have this freedom the greater in proportion to 
 our native force of character and wisdom. That we have 
 such freedom, the fact of our labouring for distant ends, 
 and of our power of choosing the appropriate means to 
 reach foreseen goals, decisively prove, even though it 
 be shown that each step of our actions falls under the 
 sway of mechanical necessity, and that each item of our 
 deliberations was controlled by motives. There is now 
 less of chance pressing on us ; more of choice allowed us ; 
 less of the fatalistic necessity where we can only bow 
 our heads, and with Stoic or Islamite resignation pas- 
 sively await the event which neither effort nor thought 
 can prevent. There is more room in our age of Science 
 for our thought and will, for purpose and design, to 
 influence the known course of things in our favour. The 
 mighty machinery of the universe, vast and complicated 
 as it is, permits man, through the knowledge of it, which 
 Science gives, to turn to profit the very invariability of 
 the working of the machinery, the rigid uniformity of 
 the laws, which at first sight would seem to crush him 
 under the weight of helpless necessity. By his know- 
 ledge of the uniform behaviour of Nature, he regains the 
 practical freedom which the universal reign of invariable 
 law seems at first to take away. For by this regularity 
 of natural law, and by his knowledge of it, man is able 
 to press the laws into his service so as to aid in the 
 accomplishment of his designs and desires ; and the more 
 completely all Nature, including his own bodily and 
 mental states, passes under the dominion of established 
 scientific laws, the more fully man can avail himself of 
 them, and recover his freedom within their bounds and 
 by their means. The more he knows them and takes 
 account of them, the fuller he secures his own practical 
 freedom. We are free, and the condition of our freedom 
 
ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 147 
 
 is this very rigidity of Nature's laws, joined to our 
 knowledge of the several laws themselves. We are free, 
 and knowledge is the true emancipator. To know the 
 physical law, and to make use of it, to know the physio- 
 logical, or mental, or economic law, and to take account 
 of it, is to make the law our servant and not our master. 
 
 Nature is unchanging ; it is for us to know her, and 
 after knowing to obey her, in obeying to obtain the 
 dominion over her. But knowledge is the first condition 
 of empire. Knowledge which positive science as dis- 
 tinct from hypothesis provides is thus the true de- 
 liverer of man both from the tyranny and seeming 
 caprice of external natural forces, blind and powerful, 
 as well as from the maleficent forces, moral or organic, 
 resident within. Ever it is the truth which makes man 
 free, so far as freedom can be predicated of a being 
 subject to external and internal conditions, which can 
 be indefinitely modified and made to serve his most 
 intimate -desire and purpose, but which in themselves are 
 unalterable. 
 
 We are free, in the sense explained ; but there is no 
 autonomous will. There is no absolute sovereignty of 
 the will, but only a constitutional rule subject to many 
 checks and conditions. The will is limited by laws and 
 conditions, physical, organic, mental, social, which must 
 be accepted in any case ; but which, if accepted and 
 made the best of, man can control his destiny in their 
 despite, and even by their means. We can thus act as 
 if we were free, in spite of the doctrine of speculative 
 necessity, as Butler argues ; we are free to pursue our 
 most desired ends the only freedom that any need care 
 to have ; and we shall obtain all the more of this kind of 
 freedom, the more all Nature passes under the yoke of 
 invariable and unchanging laws. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON IMMORTALITY. 
 
 1. AND now, what is the scientific doctrine on the 
 great theme of immortality ? Is there any hope for 
 men ? In one word, no. For any such hope, 'if men 
 must continue to indulge in it after hearing the scientific 
 arguments, they must go elsewhere to the theologian, 
 the metaphysician, the mystic, the poet. These men, 
 habitually dwelling in their several spheres of illusion 
 and unreality, may find suggestions of the phantasy 
 which they persuade themselves are arguments in favour 
 of a future life ; the man of science, for his part, and the 
 positive thinker, building on science who keep within 
 the solid land of inductive truth and positive knowledge, 
 where proof is possible, and where short of absolute 
 proof, analogy should guide the judgment consider no 
 proposition more certain than that the soul is mortal as 
 well as the body which supported it, and of which it was 
 merely the final flower and product. 
 
 Our modern naturalist, following Darwin, has satis- 
 fied himself that man is only the superior animal derived 
 from the inferior ; why should he not die as the others ? 
 Our modern physiologist has ascertained that thought is 
 but a function of the brain and nerves ; why should it 
 not perish with these? Our most advanced physicists 
 
ON IMMORTALITY. 149 
 
 liave discovered that man is a machine first, an animal 
 afterwards, and a conscious being by an inexplicable 
 accident only in the third instance ; a machine in which 
 the various physical agencies are mysteriously trans- 
 muted and utilized to repair the parts, and to propel the 
 whole, with consciousness superadded as spectator, but 
 not as director or controller of the machine ; why should 
 it not collapse with the general break-up of the ma- 
 chinery ? why should it not cease when no longer sup- 
 ported by the various physical energies whose transfor- 
 mations within the bodily machine alone made its 
 existence possible ? 
 
 Yes, indeed; our modern savants, and what is of 
 still more consequence, our positive scientific thinkers, 
 reasoning independently from the verified conclusions of 
 science, have, with few exceptions, come to the con- 
 clusion that the belief in a future life so long prevalent 
 amongst men must be finally given up. While only 
 partially assenting to Hamlet's great eulogium on man,* 
 with his nobility of reason, his infinity of faculty, his 
 " express and admirable " mechanism, they have, with 
 all but unanimous voice, accepted Hamlet's cynical 
 conclusion in its most strict and literal and serious 
 sense, that all is but the " quintessence of dust." For 
 man, though the acknowledged "beauty of the world 
 and the paragon of animals," is still only an animal, 
 subject to the common doom of the rest. The dust is 
 the end ; and this is the conclusion even of those who 
 do not accept the remainder of the materialist's creed, 
 
 * The whole wonderful passage is well worth comparing with the 
 Darwinian doctrine of man, standing as it does so much opposed to it 
 at all points save the conclusion : " What a piece of work is man ! 
 how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving, how 
 express and admirable ! in action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, 
 how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! 
 And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust ? " 
 
150 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 that the cunning arrangements of the atoms was the 
 beginning, and their mysterious marshallings and com- 
 binations the underlying essence and cause, of the whole 
 life-drama of man. 
 
 2. Such is the conclusion of science; but before 
 exhibiting in detail the arguments on which it depends, 
 it is desirable to revert to, and briefly to consider, the 
 theological and metaphysical theories of the soul, together 
 with the auguments for a future existence founded upon 
 them. We shall then be in a better position to estimate 
 the comparative weight of these on the one side, and 
 those advanced by science on the other. 
 
 The metaphysicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries Descartes, Leibnitz, Wolf, Clarke with minor 
 and unimportant differences, had agreed and laid down 
 that the soul was an independent entity, separate from 
 the body, and of wholly dissimilar nature. It was a 
 thinking substance, of its own nature, and of necessity, an 
 immaterial and an immortal thing. But as a further 
 security and protection in the great shock of death, in 
 order to shield it from all harm at that great transition, 
 so suggestive to the imagination of fateful possibilities, 
 they had made it one and indivisible. In short, it was a 
 thinking substance, simple, indivisible, immaterial, and im- 
 mortal. It could not be broken up or dissolved by death, 
 for death could find no avenue of assault, no vulnerable 
 point in a thing so carefully guarded. It could not be 
 touched by any power short of Omnipotence, and not 
 even by Him after an irrevocable existence had once 
 been granted. True, the metaphysicians did not really 
 prove that the soul possessed the alleged attributes, 
 including immortality ; they had only covertly assumed 
 them in their definitions of the soul, and afterwards, 
 according to the fashion of skilful conjurors, merely shook 
 
ON IMMORTALITY. 151 
 
 out of their definitions the desired conclusions which they 
 had already secretly placed there, or which at least they 
 could scarcely avoid knowing were implicitly folded up 
 in the hypotheses they started with. And it was one of 
 the great tasks which Kant imposed upon himself to 
 unmask and discredit all these pretended proofs of the 
 soul's necessary immortality a work accomplished by 
 him so very effectually as for ever to discredit this line 
 of argument for a future life. But strange to say, this 
 great destroyer of other metaphysical constructions, 
 having completely demolished the old theories of the 
 soul and destroyed the old proofs of its immortality, 
 raised up a theory of his own, which, though more pro- 
 found and possibly more invulnerable to logical or meta- 
 physical assault, is, for all practical purposes, and to 
 those not versed in the subtleties of metaphysical specu- 
 lations, substantially the same as the theories destroyed, 
 and open to hardly less weighty objections than lay 
 against them. For, after all, there was a self, or ego, 
 underlying our phenomenal consciousness, though, dive 
 we never so deep with introverted psychological eyes, 
 we could not find it or come into contact with it in any 
 way. There was a real self, though completely and 
 effectually shrouded from our view. There was a real 
 ego, different from the merely empirical ego, from the 
 common ego of our ordinary acquaintance, such as our 
 consciousness shows it to us ; but of this real ego we can 
 only know the existence and nothing more. Hume was 
 consequently right when he said, "We never find what 
 is called self, but only a conscious impression when we 
 look inward." He was only wrong in denying that there 
 was any self, an error corrected by Kant. The ego exists 
 beneath, or rather outside, consciousness. It is a nou- 
 menon, a ding-an-sich, an indescribable something, safely 
 
152 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 located out of space and time, and as such, not subject to 
 the mutabilities of these 'phenomenal spheres. 
 
 The soul, according to Kant, is an unconditional exist- 
 ence, a thing per se, a noumenon, residing out of con- 
 sciousness, of whose ontologic existence we are made 
 aware by its phenomenal projections or effects in con- 
 sciousness. It lives, so to speak, beneath the waters 
 of consciousness, but by its sub-conscious activity it 
 produces the ripples and agitations which appear on the 
 surface. It is true that we cannot prove the existence of 
 this real self in the common scientific, but only in a 
 transcendental, sense. The existence of the ego, in the 
 strictest sense of experienced existence, we cannot prove, 
 because we can have no intuition of it on the one hand ; 
 and on the other, the categories of the understanding, 
 Substance, Cause, and the like, which are necessary to 
 make our experience, do not legitimately apply to nou- 
 mena, which lie quite beyond the frontiers of all possible 
 experience. In reality, the soul is beyond the bounds, 
 though it lies at the bottom, of all our experience. But 
 we must grant its existence, both from the side of the 
 Speculative Reason as explained above, as a cause or 
 source of the phenomena of consciousness ; and again we 
 must grant its existence from the side of the Practical 
 Reason as a moral will. Moreover, as moral will, and 
 from the point of view of action, the ego is free, since we 
 feel the imperative of duty demanding unconditional 
 fulfilment from us, which would be a mockery or practical 
 contradiction on the part of its Author if we had no 
 power to obey its behests. We ought, therefore we can. 
 In this famous argument Kant secures our moral freedom. 
 And finally immortality must be also postulated, though, 
 like the freedom of the will and the existence of God, it 
 is confessedly not proved speculatively* A future life, 
 
ON IMMORTALITY. 153 
 
 and that an immortal one, must be granted us to reach 
 that perfection, whose pursuit reason prescribes as the 
 true end of our being, but which on earth is never 
 reached by even the most virtuous, and which in even 
 .any time short of eternity can only be indefinitely 
 approximated to without being ever fully attained. 
 
 Thus the metaphysicians in general, and Kant in 
 particular, had tried to ground their beliefs in the, soul's 
 immortality. The theologians had reached the same 
 conclusion by a different route. The future life was a 
 revelation from God Himself. It could not confessedly 
 have been deduced with any certainty from reason alone. 
 Nor was it an invariable element in every revelation, 
 since there appears no trace of it in the Mosaic, and little 
 in the Old Testament revelation taken generally. In the 
 Christian revelation, however, the doctrine of the resur- 
 rection to a future life is, as St. Paul assures us, the most 
 central and vital point. According to the Christian 
 theology, an immortal soul is lodged in every man, not 
 immortal in its own essence, as the metaphysicians had 
 made it, but as the gift of God, who has so bade it and 
 declared it to us. The soul existing in every one is, how- 
 ever, impure and sinful in its own nature, owing to the 
 original sin of Adam which all his posterity has inherited, 
 and requires the blood of Christ to purify it, the action 
 of the Holy Spirit to sanctify it. It has ingrained spots 
 and essential taints, which ever tend to 'deepen and to 
 develop into worse evil as life proceeds, and it must be 
 inevitably and irrevocably lost unless its further corrup- 
 tion be arrested, unless it be wholly regenerated by the 
 grace of God, the efficacy of the Spirit, and the merits of 
 the Redeemer, according to the Christian scheme of salva- 
 tion, as generally understood. But even in the worst 
 cases (except, indeed, under the Calvinistic theology), the 
 
154 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 soul, so far lost, can be recovered by the appropriate 
 means of grace. Who are the depositaries of the means 
 is a question, it is true, which divides Christian Churches 
 and sects ; but still it is a consolation held out by all 
 forms of Christianity except Calvinism, that the old 
 vessel of self, after disastrous voyage and seemingly 
 total wreck on earth, can yet be repaired and refitted for 
 another and a happier venture, if not for a final, sure, 
 and certain haven of rest ; but whether, on quitting the 
 earth and leaving this life, the soul launches on prosperous 
 or perilous seas, whether it reaches the islands of the 
 blest or is pent with " those whom lawless and uncertain 
 thoughts imagine howling," the soul, according to all 
 theologians, is immortal, and will preserve its individuality 
 and its present consciousness for ever. 
 
 3. But Science, for her part, finds no grounds for 
 the beliefs of theology or metaphysics in a future life 
 beliefs, moreover, which she regards as little comforting 
 at the best. If her instruments and methods of research, 
 so successful in other fields of inquiry, can be relied upon 
 when applied to man himself, as adequate to measure the 
 full range and to sound the lowest depths of his nature ; 
 and if, moreover, the report handed in respecting that 
 nature is accurate and exhaustive, which assures us that 
 man is only the higher and more developed animal, whose 
 mental nature is only a function of his bodily organism ; 
 then the final conclusion seems to follow irresistibly, 
 that immortality, the eternal prolongation of the mental 
 individuality after the dissolution of the associated or- 
 ganism, is an inconceivable and an incredible thing. This 
 is, indeed, the distinct conclusion of all merely scientific 
 thought when directed to the question ; and here the argu- 
 ments advanced demand our greatest and most serious 
 attention. Let us proceed to unfold them more fully. 
 
ON IMMOETALITY. 155 
 
 Thought, emotion, volition, the psycho-physiologist 
 tells us, the three things which make up consciousness, or 
 the mental side of the man, are inseparably bound up 
 with the brain and nervous system, whose functions they 
 are, just as it is the function of the heart to pump up the 
 blood, and of the lungs to aerate it; and as all functions one 
 day evidently cease their work together the heart to beat, 
 the eye to see, the lungs to breathe- by what logic, it is 
 demanded, can an exception be made in favour of think- 
 ing, the function of the brain, which as palpably ceases 
 as all the rest ? Can thought go on after the dissolution 
 of the brain, the thinking organ ? Indeed, i thought; if 
 consciousness be only a function of the brain, to put the 
 question thus is to show the absurdity of the doctrine of 
 a future life. For can a function be even imagined to 
 exist without the organ whose action in fact constituted 
 its sole existence ? The soul, of whose future existence 
 you speak, is nothing but our consciousness composed of 
 its threefold contents, and these are only functions of the 
 bodily organism the highest functions, it is allowed, but 
 still only functions, all of which must cease together with 
 the body. Is not the power of muscular movement 
 palpably arrested when the limbs become rigid ; and the 
 power of thought, is it not to all appearance as palpably ? 
 why should the appearance be deceptive in the one case 
 rather than in the other ? It is not a case of an inde- 
 pendent entity temporarily lodged in tKe body which 
 merely changes its residence at death, or of an entity 
 which could exist without any bodily residence, as Plato 
 and Butler and the metaphysicians generally conceived 
 it ; it is the case of a power, or function, or faculty, which 
 ceases with its appropriate bodily organ. Or, if you 
 prefer it, it is the case of an effect which ceases, like every 
 effect, with its. proper cause ; for the brain is the cause 
 
156 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 of thought in the strict scientific sense, that the former 
 is the sum of the antecedent conditions, in the absence 
 of which thought is never produced, but which, being 
 given, carries the power of thought invariably with it. 
 And that thought is fully and adequately described as the 
 function of the brain ; that it is nothing more, and nothing 
 other (for to regard it as a case of causation amounts to the 
 same thing), is proved, according to physiologists, by 
 abundant and increasing evidence.* It is proved by our 
 own varied experience in the effort of thinking, as well 
 as by the report of the most competent psychologists and 
 physiologists who have studied the subject, and who show 
 us in proof of the statement the constant concomitant 
 variations in the state of the brain, and in the faculty of 
 thought, in youth and in age, in sickness and in health. 
 In short, thought grows with the growth of the brain, 
 it strengthens with its strength, it varies with its health, 
 declines with its general vigour, and, must we not con- 
 clude, by the canons of inductive logic, that it finally 
 dies, as it appears to do, with its dissolution ? 
 
 Add to this what embryology shows us, that conscious- 
 ness came by slow degrees from unconsciousness. Once 
 there was absolutely no thought, no consciousness, which 
 was gradually evolved from the growing organism as 
 the final outcome and flower of it. We are sure from 
 this circumstance that the relation between the body and 
 soul is of the most intimate and essential nature. The 
 soul was evolved out of the body, as the flower from the 
 plant ; it came with the body, and must it not go with 
 the body, as Haeckel argues ? f 
 
 4. Moreover, there is a wholly new argument now 
 adduced by naturalists as a result of the Darwinian 
 
 * Bain's Mind and Body. 
 
 t History of Creation, vol. ii. p. 361. 
 
ON IMMORTALITY. 157 
 
 doctrine of descent, which, it is thought, should finally 
 lay this question of man's immortality for ever at rest. 
 
 According to this argument, which is wholly indepen- 
 dent of the physiological ones just considered, man is 
 only the higher animal slowly evolved from the lower, 
 with intellectual and moral qualities differing only in 
 degree, and not in kind, from the lower ; why, then, should 
 he not share the common final fate of all the animals ? 
 He is not an infinitely superior being, separated, as he 
 once fondly supposed, by an impassable gulf from the rest 
 of living beings ; the very attributes which he possesses 
 only in higher degree, and in virtue of which the claim 
 to immortality has been preferred in his behalf, the other 
 animals possess in some degree, and, indeed, together with 
 intellectual qualities not inconsiderable, in the possession 
 of some of the highest moral attributes courage, fidelity, 
 patience, self-sacrifice, affection some of the lower 
 animals, the dog, the horse, the ant, far surpass him ; 
 while in the human species itself, as is well known, these 
 same higher qualities, mental and moral, exist in all 
 degrees, from their almost total absence in the savage 
 whether untutored or civilized, up to the intellectual 
 height of a Shakespeare or a Newton, and to the moral 
 splendour of a Socrates or a Buddha ; is it, then, to be 
 contended that every man, from the saint, the sage, and 
 the martyr, to the savage, the fool, and the man " more 
 brutish than the brute," and still more that every animal, 
 from the man down to the mollusc, is to possess the dread 
 and extraordinary attribute of immortality? No, cer- 
 tainly ; not every animal ; only the man, we are told. 
 But even with this sharp separation of man, there would 
 be abundant difficulties in admitting all men equally to 
 immortality, as we have just seen. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, this separation, this arbitrary exclusion of the lower 
 
158 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, KELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 animals, can no longer be made, if once the Darwinian 
 doctrine of man's descent be admitted. And, indeed, 
 long before Darwin's doctrine had been heard of, Bishop 
 Butler almost admitted that the arguments for man's 
 immortality apply equally to the case of the brutes ; all 
 of them except one, specified as peculiar to mankind, 
 namely, our capacity for intellectual life independent of 
 the body, after ideas had been once gained through the 
 senses ; an exception which he would scarce have made 
 if he. had known all that Science, after the research of a 
 century and a half, has since revealed to us in physiology, 
 psychology, and natural history; if he had only fully 
 realized the truth that the very highest life of the in- 
 tellect and the soul is, at bottom, conditioned by physio- 
 logical processes, and that the intelligence as well as the 
 moral qualities of the brutes differs not in nature, but 
 only in degree from our own.* 
 
 But the doctrine of man's descent once granted, there 
 can be no arbitrary exclusion of the brutes, and no special 
 elevation of man to the privilege of a future life. And 
 that man is, indeed, descended from the lower animals, 
 in particular from some extinct variety of the ape species, 
 is the undoubting conviction of the best biologists, who 
 alone are competent to pronounce an opinion on the ques- 
 tion; a conclusion, moreover, which, though deducible from 
 Darwin's theory of development as an evident corollary, 
 is also supported by so much independent evidence drawn 
 from comparative anatomy and embryology, that it would 
 
 * See Butler's Analogy, ch. 1, lt On a Future Life;" in which he 
 speaks of the " natural immortality of brutes," and even of the possibility 
 of their being endowed with latent mental and moral capacities, though 
 it does not seem to have occurred to him that they have actual faculties 
 of this sort, both of which are clearly manifested in all social com- 
 munities, as the ants, bees, and many others (see Darwin's Descent of Man, 
 vol. i. ch. ii. and iii.). 
 
ON IMMOKTALITY. 159 
 
 remain unaffected by any future qualifications or correc- 
 tions that may be made in that theory. 
 
 That man is an animal is the great and special 
 discovery of natural science in our generation. He is 
 only an animal, though the highest of the animals, who 
 has been raised to his pre-eminence partly by the long- 
 continued favour of fortune, partly by his own efforts, 
 but not by any means by special creation or special 
 favour shown him after his supposed creation. He but 
 started his career with a slightly better capital of physical 
 and mental endowment than any of his original com- 
 petitors, and this slight mental advantage it was which, 
 supplemented by a long run of good fortune, enabled him 
 at length so far to surpass all the rest, that he actually 
 came in time to believe he was of an infinitely superior 
 nature to any of them. 
 
 He had far surpassed the lower animals in the race ; 
 he had conquered them, and subjected some to his service; 
 and as he was really ignorant of his true origin, and also 
 as his naturally vain and presumptuous disposition had 
 been further stimulated by his successful career, he 
 began, after the manner of parvenus, to take on grand 
 airs, and at length succeeded in persuading himself that 
 he had a far other and nobler origin than his humbler 
 brute brethren, and was made of more ethereal elements 
 than entered into their composition ; that he was entitled 
 to another life succeeding this ; and finally, as the climax 
 of madness and presumption, to a never-ending life. As 
 Alexander, drunk with the fumes of flattery and pride, 
 assumed the god, and suffered divine honours to be paid 
 to him by the priests in Egypt, so our poor presumptuous 
 man at last persuaded himself that he was a god, for 
 to such a height does the belief in a life interminable 
 virtually amount. 
 
160 THE CEEED OF . SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 A strange and extravagant fancy that arose one day 
 in the breast of one more aspiring than the rest, became 
 soon afterwards a wish ; the wish became a fixed idea, 
 that drew round itself vain and spurious arguments in 
 its favour ; and at length the fancy, the wish, the idea, 
 was erected into an established doctrine of belief Such, 
 in sum, is the natural history of the famous dogma of a 
 future life. Not by any means, however, was it a primi- 
 tive and universal belief of all nations. Arising probably 
 at first with the Egyptians, it was only after a long time 
 taken up by the Jews, then, or possibly earlier, by the 
 Greeks, with whom, however, the life held out, thin and 
 unsubstantial even at best, was far from being desirable. 
 It was only in the Christian and Mohammedan religions 
 that the notion of a future and eternal life was fully 
 developed, and that the doctrine was erected into a 
 central and essential article of belief. 
 
 But now, if man be derived by insensible stages of 
 development from the lower animals, then, unless they 
 also are immortal, the question is irresistibly forced upon 
 us, when and how man became immortal. When did he 
 first become separated so decisively from all lower forms 
 of life ? and when did he become differentiated from his 
 nearest of kin by so prodigious an attribute as im- 
 mortality ? Shall it be said that he was immortal from 
 the beginning of his career ? then so must also have 
 been the brutes, for at the beginning he was indistinguish- 
 able from them. On the other hand, if he only became 
 immortal later on, he must have either slowly acquired 
 the gift or else it was suddenly conferred upon him. In 
 either case, there must have been a particular moment or 
 day when he became immortal. And is it possible to 
 conceive that the species was mortal one day or moment, 
 and immortal the next ? And then the question how he 
 
ON IMMORTALITY. 161 
 
 became immortal is still more difficult ; as the question 
 why, >r for what merit or demerit, having been previously 
 mortal like the brutes, and not more moral, he became 
 liable to an eternity of happiness or misery, is wholly 
 unanswerable. Possibly, however, only superior spirits, 
 and those who strongly desired it, were privileged with 
 the boon of immortality. But in that case, it is not an 
 attribute of the species, and all pretence at constructing 
 a universal argument in favour of it is given up. Indeed, 
 these very questions that we must nevertheless raise, 
 for they force themselves upon us, sufficiently show the 
 absurd notion of the whole doctrine; as a moment's 
 reflection on the kind of future life that religions offer 
 us shows how little desirable it would be, even if a thing 
 so tremendous were at all within the scope of possibility. 
 It is, nevertheless, the secret hope and aspiration of 
 man's heart that he shall have another life, and in spite 
 of his religions, that that life shall be a happier one ; and 
 to this the reply of Science is that the thing is incredible 
 and impossible. The origin of man abundantly demon- 
 strates the groundless nature of this special claim and 
 hope ; and of this origin he must be reminded when he 
 manifests such aspiring blood. He must be told that he 
 is only the higher animal, who has distanced the others 
 in the struggle for existence, and that it is not clear how 
 he has acquired any title to an immortal future merely 
 by his successful efforts to advance himself efforts, too, 
 which would scarcely have been so successful had not 
 fortune favoured him much beyond his merits. In short, 
 he should rest satisfied with his earthly superiority ; and 
 when he aspires to immortality he must be emphatically 
 reminded that he is only, with all his pride and after all 
 his success, the superior social animal, scarcely even so 
 much in some important particulars ; that he is animal, 
 
 M 
 
162 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 and descended from the animals ; of like bodily structure 
 with some of them, and nourished as they upon earthly 
 elements; that he sleeps and feeds and continues his 
 kind even as they; and finally, his functions fulfilled, 
 that he, as they, falls back upon the breast of the earth, 
 the common nourisher and mother, for his final and 
 eternal rest. The energy locked up in his frame, as in 
 theirs, is let loose ; the energy which was only borrowed, 
 but never created, and which in the wondrous bodily 
 machine was transmuted into chemical, mechanical, 
 electrical, vital, and mental forms, is now restored to the 
 vast and universal reservoir of Nature, thence to be re- 
 distributed, and to cycle again in new or old forms of 
 life, in man, or bird, or beast, or flower. The man dies 
 as the brute ; the imprisoned physical and chemical 
 forces escape; but there is no imprisoned soul set free, 
 that goes forth (as in the dream of Shakespeare's Clar- 
 ence) to " seek the empty, vast, and wandering air." He 
 dies, and there is an end; and, were he only wise, he 
 should be thankful indeed that it is so determined. 
 While grateful to Nature for the life he has had, he 
 should, if happily constituted and circumstanced, be more 
 grateful for this her crowning act of grace and, indemnity 
 shown in affording a secure final harbour of perfect rest 
 and peace, an escape from the strife and turmoil of life, 
 into the quiet regions of non-existence the peaceful 
 shores of Nirvana, that Buddha promised as special 
 reward only to the wise and good who had earned it 
 on earth by severest virtue. Above all, he should be 
 thankful to Science for having at last, but only in our 
 days, finished the work of Lucretius and Epicurus, by 
 delivering men from the superstitions and vain terrors, 
 the fear of the gods and of death, that so long had 
 tormented and oppressed them ; for showing us what 
 
ON IMMOKTALITY. 163 
 
 Nature's behaviour in the past to man has really been, 
 what her good and peaceful intentions to him when he 
 quits this life really are. 
 
 We are assured, indeed, by Bishop Butler, that there 
 is no true analogy in all Nature which would lead us to 
 think that death will prove the destruction of a living 
 creature ; * none, save the delusive semblance of analogy, 
 furnished by the decay and dissolution of the vegetables. 
 But, we must ask, is not the life of the vegetable, the 
 plant, palpably arrested and destroyed at its dissolution ; 
 and is not the life of the animal, including man, as 
 palpably? And as the plant dies for ever as an indi- 
 vidual plant, as all that goes to constitute it a plant is 
 dissolved and scattered at the consummation of the event 
 called death, so dies the animal in like manner. The 
 phenomenon, whether to the eye of sense or of reason, 
 is the same in both instances. Further still, there is no 
 rigid line of separation between the plant and the animal; 
 the naturalist cannot say when he has passed the boun- 
 daries of the one kingdom and entered into the other; 
 on this account also we must conclude that death, which 
 destroys the one, destroys the other. As the plant dies, 
 then, so dies the animal, and as the animal dies, so also 
 the man, for in like manner there is no rigid line of 
 separation between them, and no special reason to be 
 urged why man is to have an exceptional immortality. 
 But since the candid and philosophic bishop wrote more 
 than a century ago, only too many analogies have been 
 suggested by Science for her several regions of inquiry 
 astronomy, geology, physiology, natural history all 
 pointing to the one conclusion that all individual things 
 must die, the animal as the vegetable, the man as the 
 animal; nay, even the stars, the sun, the earth itself, 
 
 * Analogy, ch. i., " On a Future Life." 
 
164 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 with all that ever flourished upon it, including the 
 human soul. 
 
 The earth herself shall perish ; her energies exhausted, 
 like those of the moon, her motion in space constantly 
 impeded, and her orbit narrowed, she will finally become 
 precipitated upon the parent sun. But long before that 
 distant catastrophe, our species shall have vanished from 
 off the earth. For Science shows us that man, though 
 the most remarkable and brilliant phenomenon that has 
 appeared, was only a comparatively late arrival on the 
 stage of our planet, and she further clearly hints that he 
 may have to depart comparatively soon. The records 
 of geology show us the general law, that all species have 
 their term of being. They appear, and after a period 
 disappear. They have, as individuals, their exits and 
 their entrances and their several stages. Man, too, will 
 disappear, as other species have done. We can even 
 foresee the possible causes which may lead to this result. 
 His fuel, his food, his heart, or his virtue may fail him. 
 His fuel may fail from exhaustion ; his food from blight, 
 from innumerable noxious insects, defying his means of 
 destruction, from sterility in the earth induced by ex^ 
 haustion, from the competition of lower animals ; worse 
 than all, his own heart may fail if the creed of the pessi- 
 mist prevails. With all these is he threatened, and 
 one would be sufficient to cause his extinction. But 
 however it happen, and however long the end be delayed, 
 the belief of science is that, as our species is not coeternal 
 with the earth, as it came one day on the stage, so it 
 will one day vanish. And the day may not be so remote, 
 as our poet makes Lucretius say 
 
 That hour perhaps 
 Is not so far when momentary man 
 Shall seem no more a something to himself; 
 
ON IMMORTALITY. ff' 165 
 
 UNi'ERSIT. 
 
 But he, his hopes and hates, his homes an^faee, 
 And even his bones long laid within the gr^ws 
 The very sides of the grave itself, shall pass^ 
 Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void, 
 Into the unseen forever. 
 
 How absurd, then, to raise a question as to the immor- 
 tality of the countless myriads of a species that in time 
 shall itself have utterly vanished, without leaving a 
 trace ; the very memory of which shall have passed out 
 of the consciousness of the universe, if any such be left 
 after the disappearance of man ! How presumptuous to 
 suppose that Nature so values these countless individuals 
 as to think it worth her pains to preserve their souls for 
 ever! Immortality was a doctrine begotten of man's 
 presumption, and suitable to his days of ignorance, when 
 he believed that the earth was the central and only im- 
 portant body in the universe; that he himself was 
 specially created, and wholly different from the animals ; 
 and that his soul was a most precious thing, which must 
 at all hazards be saved in the economy of Nature. It is 
 not a doctrine that harmonizes with the views of life 
 and the universe that modern science discloses, still less 
 with the more modest estimate of his own nature and 
 merits, that the judgment of every rational man, in con- 
 firmation of the conclusions of science, must, if he is only 
 fair and candid with himself, inevitably come to. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 
 
 1. SUCH is the argument of Science, seemingly de- 
 cisive against a future life. As we listen to her array of 
 syllogisms, our hearts die within us. The hopes of men, 
 placed in one scale to be weighed, seem to fly up against 
 the massive weight of her evidence, placed in the other. 
 It seems as if all our arguments were vain and unsub- 
 stantial, as if our future expectations were the foolish 
 dreams of children, as if there could not be any other 
 possible verdict arrived at upon the evidence brought 
 forward. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is a remarkable fact that there still 
 exist amongst us types of mind quite distinct from the 
 theological, that remain wholly unconvinced by the 
 scientific logic men who cannot and will not accept 
 the verdict as final. There are those who persist in 
 believing, however seemingly rigorous the reasoning, 
 however true the premises from which the conclusion is 
 drawn, and however apparently exhaustive the whole 
 series of scientific arguments, that still there is a hidden 
 vice, an undetected flaw somewhere ; there is something 
 not yet taken into account in these arguments addressed 
 to the logical understanding; a side or aspect of our 
 
ON IMMORTALITY : COUNTERTHESIS. 167 
 
 nature omitted from the scientific map of the mind, the 
 omission of which nullifies or vitiates the positive argu- 
 ment, the consideration of which would justify our title 
 to immortality. The poet, the mystic, the spiritualist, 
 the moral idealist, whoever has deeply loved, whoever 
 has greatly suffered, will not hear of a conclusion which 
 forbids the hope in a future of redress, of reunion, of 
 happiness; and we should not be doing justice to our 
 theme of debate if we did not grant a hearing to some 
 of these dissidents, who moreover can put their objec- 
 tions into words, not merely founded on fancy, as the 
 men of science are wont to affirm, but apparently 
 founded on fact, appealing to the reasoning faculty, and 
 sometimes carrying conviction with them. Let us, then, 
 hear the reply of the spiritualist. 
 
 According to your argument, urges the latter, all 
 thought is bound up with the bodily machine or or- 
 ganism, and disappears with it, and if all organisms dis- 
 appear, as Science teaches they will, then all mind would 
 also vanish from the universe. Either this must be, or 
 mind can exist without the bodily machinery, which 
 scientific materialism does not grant. And is this ex- 
 treme scientific conclusion credible ? Is it possible that 
 mind, the thing so splendid in its higher manifesta- 
 tions, with its vision of beauty, its depths of tender 
 affection, its godlike apprehension of truth, its divine 
 enthusiasm for right, this subtle and wonderful essence, 
 so slowly gathered and distilled through countless ages, 
 as evolution teaches, should be thus recklessly spilt and 
 lost again out of the universe ? Is this wonderful and 
 potent extract from matter, rising through life, through 
 animal sensations, till, thrice sublimed, it became thought 
 and spirit, which searches the secret of the universe, 
 and through Philosophy and Science herself has partly 
 
168 THE GREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 found it, is this wonderful quintessence, the inmost 
 nerve and life of Philosophy, of Art, as well as of Science 
 herself, to be thus finally wasted ? Is Nature so blind 
 and stupid, as well as so foolishly wasteful of her 
 gathered gains, as to throw away the grandest thing 
 the only really great thing she had reached, and to 
 throw it away just when she had perfected it? The 
 thing, moreover, to attain to which it seems that all her 
 efforts were bent, and towards which all her labours in 
 all directions finally converged ? And is it credible, or 
 even thinkable, that all thought and consciousness 
 should finally perish out of the universe ? for to this 
 length the scientific argument really goes, maintaining, 
 as it does, that not merely my individual consciousness, 
 and all others resembling mine, must cease, but that the 
 human species itse]f must perish in process of time, 
 together with the earth, the sun, our system, and finally 
 all the systems of the universe. Is it thinkable that all 
 consciousness should perish, and that eternal night and 
 nothingness should set in ? that the universe should 
 return once again to the cosmic vapour and the eternal 
 silence from which it first proceeded ? For this is the 
 alternative ; since science has not made the provision of 
 philosophy or religion for the preservation of mind by 
 the postulate of an Eternal Spirit, or, at least, of a great 
 universal mind different from all individual ones. We 
 might have become reconciled to the belief, however 
 insufficient the evidence for it "appears to be, that the 
 earth, the sun, nay, even all the spheres of space, should 
 die ; we might have even accepted the extinction of our 
 hopes of individual immortality ; but when we find that 
 the same argument which destroys all these and our- 
 selves brings us in the end to a universe of death, we 
 must conclude there is a vice in the reasoning which 
 
ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 169 
 
 leads to a conclusion so desperate and absurd. For who 
 -could really believe that this marvellous thing called 
 mind is but a brilliant meteor, that flashed for a brief 
 moment in the infinite night, and then faded again into 
 eternal darkness? that Nature, after her long, deep, 
 unconscious sleep, should have a bright dream called 
 consciousness, to be succeeded by her heavy slumber of 
 death again ? 
 
 We cannot accept this conclusion, so that if immor- 
 tality, the continued existence of the individual, be as 
 Science maintains, inconceivable and incredible ; her own 
 conclusion, which is bound up with, and a corollary 
 from, her demonstrated impossibility of immortality, is 
 -still more incredible. The scientific argument leads to 
 an inconceivable terminus, equally with the opposite 
 argument for a future individual life. The mind, thus 
 placed between seemingly contradictory conclusions, 
 happily bethinks itself that it is after all only finite ; 
 that it cannot possibly exhaust the possibilities of being 
 and of existence ; that it does not even know, nor can 
 Science say, what the conditions of consciousness, and 
 still less of our own self-consciousness may be, so as to 
 be in a position to conclude positively that the latter 
 must cease at death. These things being borne in mind 
 together with a final mystery unexplored and inex- 
 plorable at the bottom of the universe .and of all exist- 
 ence, allow of the possibility of a state of mind, too 
 much overlooked by the dogmatists of science, called 
 doubt, or 'suspense of judgment ; and this suspense per- 
 mits a breathing space for the higher and healthier state 
 called hope, a thing which even a positive thinker like 
 Mill, building his philosophy on the data of positive 
 science, would not wholly take away from men. Thus, 
 in the final mystery of the universe, great, black, and 
 
170 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 unsounded by scientific plummet, uninterrogated by 
 experiment or observation, now lies our hope ; in the 
 great sphere of the possible, which Science should know 
 is great, and which scientific thinkers like Herbert 
 Spencer assure us is very great indeed, there is ground 
 for our hope of further life ; and this hope, as it has 
 ample room to live, so it resides in a region, it is fed 
 from a source, which is perfectly secure from all possible 
 assaults or check by positive science. 
 
 And the answer of the positive scientific thinker 
 to this line of argument is something to the following 
 effect : 
 
 Whether consciousness is to be finally lost out of the 
 universe is a question that might be discussed, and on 
 the whole Science leans to the opinion that it will be 
 lost; but at least there is no question about the final 
 extinction of our particular consciousness. It goes with 
 its old physical basis, the body, and in particular with the 
 brain, the organ of memory, without which there is no 
 consciousness. And we are asked Is Nature so waste- 
 ful and so blind as to throw away consciousness after 
 painfully attaining to it ? Yes : she is blind and 
 wasteful and indifferent ; such is the lesson of evolution. 
 But she can afford to be wasteful, for she is infinitely 
 rich, as astronomy teaches. There are other stars and 
 suns and systems in the universe, enough and to spare, 
 where consciousness and life, and perhaps something 
 better and greater, has been produced, or perhaps life 
 and consciousness has there attained to fairer and state- 
 lier forms than on the earth, where it is just possible 
 that the plastic forces of Nature have only made one 
 of their poorest attempts, great as you are disposed to 
 rate them. Moreover, Science has nowhere affirmed that 
 all the systems of the heavenly bodies collapse at the 
 
ON IMMOETALITY: COUXTERTHESIS. 171 
 
 same time ; for these are infinite, and of unequal ages ; 
 they only die with years and when their energies are 
 exhausted, as we do ; while it is quite conceivable that 
 in the depths of space, young stars and systems are 
 being born. Thus the light of consciousness may never 
 go out, but may be alight in innumerable worlds, even 
 should it fail finally on one, namely, the earth. And 
 again, even if the advanced speculation were generally 
 accepted by scientific men, which decrees that, at the 
 end of inconceivably remote, ages, all the heavenly bodies 
 will finally become resolved into one mass of uniform 
 temperature, still even there life and consciousness might 
 exist, as they might in the course of ages have become 
 adapted to these altered conditions. So that conscious- 
 ness may remain, and the night of nothingness which 
 you dread may never take place. Consciousness may 
 remain, or possibly something greater and better; for 
 after all, the infinite possibilities of the universe, of 
 which you have spoken and which Science does not 
 deny, may allow, and almost to a certainty do allow of 
 a much greater thing than consciousness. There was no 
 reason in particular, no inner necessity, why conscious- 
 ness should have flowered upon life ; it does not do so 
 in the case of the plants ; and something else might 
 have appeared as the flower and summit of life. Con- 
 sciousness is not a necessary product of life : this Science 
 allows ; it is only an invariable effect in the animal 
 kingdom on the earth ; there may be a quite different 
 effect elsewhere. There are many fields for Nature to 
 try her experiments in, where matter may have had 
 a different outcome and a much better one than con- 
 sciousness. For as we know, the pessimists now 
 increasing in number, and reckoning men of science 
 amongst them lament much over this fact of con- 
 
172 THE CUBED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 sciousness, which some consider such a fine thing, but 
 which they consider the grand error made by Nature, 
 and the sad cause of all our woe so much so, indeed, 
 that a celebrated philosopher has been much exercising 
 his mind how best this grand false step and capital 
 blunder of Nature's may be corrected, even yet, though 
 so late in the day. Hartmann, following Schopenhauer, 
 as we know, labours strenuously to show us how this 
 obstinate inherent disease in the inmost constitution of 
 Nature, this continual breaking out into consciousness 
 and individual life, may be finally eradicated from 
 Nature's system. In a word, consciousness with Hart- 
 mann to-day, as with Buddha centuries ago, is the grand 
 evil, for which Nirvana, though differently sought for by 
 each, is the accepted and the only cure. 
 
 Thus we see that the wise, weighing its evil against 
 its good, are by no means agreed as to the desirability 
 of consciousness. But however these questions be finally 
 decided, if ever, by philosophers ; whether consciousness 
 be essentially an evil or no ; whether it will finally fail 
 altogether in the universe or no ; whether there be 
 greater and better things than consciousness elsewhere 
 or no on all which questions Science too has an opinion, 
 though the present is not the place to press it ; the 
 lesson which she categorically teaches with respect to 
 you, the individual, is that your particular consciousness, 
 and that of all men resembling you, bound up as each 
 one is with its indispensable bodily basis, ceases at death. 
 Further, though the lesson less materially concerns you, 
 it is the teaching of Science that, at the end of a period 
 not long in comparison with the long history of the 
 earth, the human species, together with all that it ever 
 produced, will disappear from the earth ; and at the last, 
 though this is less certain, and in any case will probably 
 
ON IMMORTALITY : COUNTERTHESIS. 173 
 
 be immeasurably distant in comparison with the failure 
 of our species, the earth herself will perish, by falling 
 back upon the sun from which, in her state of nebulous 
 vapour, she was originally separated. 
 
 Thus argues Science : but the admission that there 
 are other worlds, with possibly higher forms of life and 
 consciousness, possibly something better than conscious- 
 ness, permits the mystic still to indulge a hope of further 
 life. Let us grant him in turn a hearing. 
 
 Might I not be caught up again after my departure 
 hence, in some new and grander stream of evolution, in 
 some other planet, sun, or star in the course of ages ? 
 Might I not find myself an atom, a conscious being, in 
 this new stream of life, in the same entirely mysterious 
 way as I once was on the earth ? There is ample time 
 ahead, and it is easy for the dead to wait till the 
 favourable chance, the happy moment arises, which 
 ushers me into life once more. There is endless time, 
 there are infinite worlds, there are innumerable possi- 
 bilities. Somewhere, then, sometime, and somehow, I 
 shall be summoned up again ; I shall awaken refreshed 
 after my deep Lethean bath of sleep, and shall take part 
 once again in the strange and mysterious, but withal 
 interesting, drama of life and consciousness, I know 
 not how, or where, or when; but what has once hap- 
 pened can at least happen again, and with infinite 
 chances may and likely will happen. The miracle and 
 the mystery of my awakening from nothing into con- 
 sciousness has undeniably once occurred ; my next new 
 birth will be only a repetition of the miracle which has 
 once already occurred in my particular case. This is 
 indeed so little inconceivable, that it is the fear and 
 dread of the Buddhist that it will happen ; it was to 
 deliver the wise and virtuous man from this danger, so 
 
174 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 certain to the natural unregenerate man, that Buddha 
 taught his one and only sure way to escape it into the 
 blissful unconsciousness of Nirvana. 
 
 And if we grant to Schopenhauer and Buddha that 
 consciousness is necessarily an evil, still, after our extinc- 
 tion here, after having thrown off this mortal coil of 
 individual life, this painful Nessus' shirt of earthly con- 
 sciousness, which for ever frets and stings us, may we 
 not awaken no more into it, or into any individual con- 
 sciousness, but only into the grand general consciousness 
 where the torment and desires of individual life no more 
 will follow us ? May not our little single ray of reason 
 remerge into the general light ; our little rill flow back 
 into the great ocean of being ; our single soul become 
 swallowed up in the mighty universal one ; and may not 
 we ourselves, an emanation of Deity, return to its parent 
 source, as the great Averroes taught, and as Plotinus and 
 the great mystics thought certain? Nay, does not 
 Christianity itself, with its pessimist foundation, teach 
 that somehow we shall leave behind this grievous weight 
 of clay, and that with it our painful and weary earthly 
 consciousness shall drop off; that we shall forget our 
 past being and our terrible earthly experience ; and that 
 when we wake up after His likeness, it shall be, if not 
 in union and absorption, at least in closer relation and 
 more intimate communion, with Deity ? 
 
 Thus argues the mystic, whose type is not extinct, as 
 some suppose ; and to him Science answers 
 
 Something conscious, as you say in the beginning of 
 your argument, may indeed awaken, that is, come into 
 existence ; but not you. Moreover, even if an actual 
 transmigration of your soul into some other being some- 
 where else were even conceivable or possible, unless you 
 add memory there is no possible bridge of communication 
 
ON IMMORTALITY; COUNTEETHESIS. 175 
 
 or means of identifying you here on the earth with that 
 other foreign consciousness severed from your present by 
 none can say how much time and space. In short, if 
 there be not the connection of memory, no possible con- 
 sciousness anywhere, now or at any time, has any more 
 relation to you than to any other conscious or unconscious 
 being. That other would not be you : it would have no 
 more relation to you than to any other being who may 
 choose to claim relationship with it. It has no more 
 relation to you than to the babe unborn, very much less 
 indeed, for that possible being might conceivably enter 
 into and take possession of it, which you in no wise 
 could do. 
 
 " But if that other consciousness be not mine, if the 
 other being be not me, it will suit all as well," obstinately 
 pursues the mystic. So be it, says the positivist scien- 
 tific thinker ; but we cannot continue the argument to 
 profit on these metaphysical lines. Your doctrine will, 
 however, serve you little, regarding the matter from a 
 different and a somewhat more intelligible point of view. 
 For the list of possibilities of existence, the number and 
 variety of conscious beings that may arise in infinite 
 worlds, being so prodigiously beyond the range of even 
 imagination, the chances would be decidedly against 
 your drawing a prize in that vast lottery if all went by 
 chance, or fate the same as chance ; while of your merit, 
 if place goes by merit, we need scarcely, in our present 
 argument, rate yours at more .than the average, which 
 should only secure an average return the highest merit, 
 moreover, being only moderate. In fact, whether fortune 
 or merit should determine your new position, the chances 
 would be decidedly against your drawing a prize in that 
 huge lottery, as it still would be, of possible existence. 
 The chances are all against your coming out even so well 
 
176 THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MOEAL. 
 
 or so high up in the list as you have done in the present 
 life. If you are optimist, satisfied with the present 
 course of things, the chances are many to one against the 
 like good fortune again ; while if you are pessimist, the 
 odds, though not so heavy, still are that the change into 
 a new consciousness would be one from bad to worse, so 
 that, all things considered, you should thankfully accept 
 the conclusion of Science, which allows no hope of any 
 future life whatever. 
 
 As for sharing in the general consciousness, if any 
 such thing there be, Science v professes her inability to 
 form any conception of such a state, and prefers to aban- 
 don speculations of this description to those who like 
 them the mystic, the metaphysician, the religious de- 
 votee. Her final conclusion is, in brief: You die as an 
 individual ; you shall never meet this dear self, or ego, 
 again, from which you are so loth to separate, in all the 
 realms of space or endless periods of time. And on the 
 whole, be thankful that it is so determined in the decrees 
 of the universe, remembering the possibilities and un- 
 doubted hazards that, under any rational estimate of 
 chances, you would have to encounter ; and remember- 
 ing, too, the dread and formidable fears and terrors that 
 in all dogmatic religions gather around this central doc- 
 trine of a future life. These fears now fall off and dis- 
 perse of themselves fears far more terrible than the 
 countervailing hopes were consoling ; and men are now 
 at last at liberty to turn to their proper work in the 
 world untroubled and undismayed by the thought of a 
 future which in no way concerns them ; for which great 
 emancipation they have to thank Science, together with 
 that modern criticism set in motion mainly by the con- 
 clusions of Science, and still guided by her spirit and 
 methods of proof. 
 
ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 177 
 
 2. And our dear ones, are we to meet them never 
 more ? Our loved ones, for whom we would have given 
 our blood, for whom we cheerfully suffered and made 
 sacrifice, are we to see them no more in the field of time ? 
 Was, then, the terrible and agonized adieu by the grave's 
 side in truth the last, the eternal farewell ? If it be so, 
 alas for earthly love ! If it be so, then has Nature been 
 malignantly mocking us when she gave us the feelings 
 of love and affection, and made them so sweet. If it be 
 so, we have been betrayed, and Nature, that we thought 
 loved us, is not only deaf and blind, but has a heart of 
 stone. 
 
 We do not ask a hereafter as a recompense for our 
 poor virtues, nor an eternity to attain to perfection in 
 virtue, nor yet to the full blaze of knowledge ; we desire 
 a hereafter to meet again with those we have loved, those 
 whose presence we found on earth so fair. Virtue and 
 knowledge are good, but the heart is left out of count in 
 these arguments, which postulate an eternity to attain 
 to perfection in knowledge and virtue. The heart is left 
 out in the arguments of the philosophers, and the heart's 
 simpler logic only asks a future for the reunion of souls. 
 And wherefore not ? Is not love and affection the most 
 divine thing that Nature evoked in the long course of 
 her evolutions ? Is it not the greatest thing in conscious- 
 ness ; greater than will, greater than knowledge ? Has 
 it not been " mightier far, than magic potent over sun or 
 star," to move the soul, to move the world ? And is not 
 the attraction of soul to soul more wonderful than that 
 of star to star ? It is our love that demands a hereafter. 
 .And Nature, so rich in her potentialities, so infinite in 
 .her resources, can she not accomplish this ? So good ; 
 will she not accord us this ? Nay, then, the imperious 
 hunger of our hearts, the very might of our desires, which 
 
 N 
 
178 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 are a part of Nature, will force her ! She must grant us 
 this boon. She must grant the reunion, having made 
 the union so sweet. We adjure her by all that we have 
 enjoyed, by all that we have suffered : by our agonies at 
 the open grave, and at the dying bed ; by the might and 
 beauty of earthly love enjoyed ; yea, by the grief and 
 pain of earthly love disappointed and driven back upon 
 itself; and by the martyrs who have died for love of 
 man ; we demand a hereafter of reunion, of compensa- 
 tion ; we demand another life and stage for love. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! What answer can we make to this 
 the eternal and terrible cry of the human heart ? For 
 we touch here at the primal and true source of the desire 
 for another life, and of all the arguments in favour of it. 
 We touch, too, at the real sting of death in the dread of 
 the eternal farewell, the fear that on the further side of 
 that forgetful shore our earthly love cannot revive or 
 live. "Love listens and paler than ashes," as Science 
 coldly replies to this logic of the affections : 
 
 There is no hope, she tells us, of this future of reunion 
 any more than of that other future communion with the 
 good and wise. Nature is deaf and blind to such appeals 
 and arguments. Our most vehement wishes are impotent 
 to make Nature do this great and impossible thing. In 
 fact, she could not support such a prodigious and ever- 
 accumulating burden of life. For the animals, too, have 
 their affections ; and the dog wishes not to be severed from 
 his master ; so that the animals also must have a here- 
 after. But why go over again the old arguments ? In 
 a word, there would not be room in space for all the old 
 individual lives, and these are ever on the increase. 
 And again, Nature is cruel and regardless of our tears. 
 We can clearly see that things are not arranged so as to 
 meet our dearest wishes. Far otherwise. They are 
 
ON IMMORTALITY : COUNTERTHESIS. 179 
 
 arranged so as to abundantly defeat and disappoint them. 
 So Nature shows herself here and now ; why then should 
 she not disappoint you in your hopes of a hereafter of 
 compensation ? But be comforted ; what you complain 
 of is only a pain during this life, and moreover a diminish- 
 ing pain, as Nature has provided mitigations. Hereafter 
 you will not feel the loss of what you now so passionately 
 ask. Further, mankind shall in time reconcile themselves 
 to the thought that this life is the only theatre for 
 earthly love a conclusion that should carry with it the 
 serious admonition, to prize more highly those that we 
 love, from whom we must part so soon ; to cherish more 
 clearly the love that lives only on earth. But will not 
 the conclusion tend also to harden the heart ? It need 
 not be feared ; though a little hardness might not be 
 amiss in regard to this matter. At least it will throw 
 an additional and ineffable sadness over life ? It may 
 be so ; but it also removes a standing menace from life, 
 in killing the future fear as well as hope. 
 
 3. And now that this great question has been 
 sufficiently debated, it remains for us to review briefly 
 the main points in the evidence, and to state what 
 material points have been established by Science, and 
 what she has failed to establish. 
 
 Science, we think, has made out the r dependence of 
 our mind and present consciousness on bodily conditions, 
 so far as to justify the conclusion that the dissolution of 
 the body carries with it the dissolution of our present 
 consciousness and memory, which are reared on the 
 bodily basis. At least, it raises apprehension in the 
 highest degree that this will be the case. Again, Science 
 partly by what Darwin has established, partly by 
 other evidence only recently accessible respecting the 
 
180 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 low state of the primitive man has brought the human 
 species into the general circle of the animal kingdom, in 
 a sense far more deep and essential than was formerly 
 dreamed of; and she has thereby deepened the belief, 
 though without producing absolute conviction, that the 
 arguments proving a possible future life for man hold 
 likewise for the lower animals ; so that if man be judged 
 immortal they should be also, and if they be mortal so 
 also is man. Thirdly, Science has called attention to 
 the fact that there is something like a general law dis- 
 coverable in the history of species, that they all have 
 their term of years, though the term is usually a long 
 one, and that probably therefore the human species 
 itself, as well as all other existing species, will disappear, 
 giving place to wholly different though derivative types 
 of life. And all these things taken together, undoubtedly 
 tend strongly to produce the conviction that death closes 
 the career of the existing individual. 
 
 Nevertheless, we still think that Science has not 
 shown, nor can any argument that she can possibly 
 advance show, that we may not have another existence, 
 or even a series of such existences, after the termination 
 of the present one ; and as this may appear an unex- 
 pected and illogical conclusion after the preceding admis- 
 sions, we are bound to explain the position more clearly, 
 as well as to try to defend it. 
 
 Science has not proved, nor can she prove, that a 
 conscious being may not hereafter emerge somewhere, in 
 which or through which I may awaken again into being. 
 But it would not be really you, Science and common 
 sense together exclaim ; it could not be you without 
 memory to make the link of connection, the bond of 
 identity, between that other being and you, between 
 that supposed self and your present self. No matter, we 
 
ON IMMORTALITY : COUNTERTHESIS. 181 
 
 say, that other will be all as good as me, if the same 
 feeling of individuality and self-consciousness gathers 
 round it then and there, as here and now. And it may 
 be me to all intents and purposes without memory. For 
 memory is not necessary to the peculiar unique feeling of 
 self- consciousness which I have at this moment. Memory 
 is necessary to connect my present with my past ex- 
 perience, my present with my past consciousness ; but 
 it is not necessary in order to have the peculiar feeling 
 of individuality or self-consciousness unshared by any 
 other being, which is the essence of the fact of self. 
 There may have been past existence without memory; 
 there may be a future existence without memory, just 
 as my present feeling of conscious existence is inde- 
 pendent of memory. This last feeling may have place 
 if all memory were suddenly annihilated, as it sometimes 
 is under certain diseases, under abnormal psychical 
 states, and even every morning in all of us for a moment 
 after waking from sleep. JBut how, without the absurdest 
 metaphysical theories, objects the positivist, could that 
 other and future consciousness be you ? How and in 
 what sense can another being be you, more than any one 
 else, without the fact of memory to make the identifica- 
 tion ? The reply, then, in a word, is We cannot tell 
 how; but also it is to be particularly noted that the 
 feeling of self -consciousness, and of how. I am myself 
 now, is equally indescribable, equally beyond analysis 
 or explanation. None can tell what makes it, how I 
 have it, why it did not associate itself with another 
 rather than me, why it did not become the conscious 
 covering to another ego as its real core rather than mine, 
 why, in a word, to put it in the extremest form, it was 
 not another being rather than I which was born when I 
 was born, and which slowly awoke into consciousness 
 
182 THE CKEED OF SCIENCE, EELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 instead of me ; and none can pretend for a moment to 
 affirm that the same strange mystery of awaking from 
 unconsciousness into conscious being, which has already 
 once happened in my case, may not happen once again. 
 The questions clustering round the fact of my present 
 self-consciousness are the most insoluble mysteries ; but, 
 nevertheless, they all relate to a fact realized in each 
 and all of us; and since I am a conscious individual 
 now, without my knowing how I am so or how I became 
 so, why, it may be asked, may the like not have place 
 once again ? or, indeed, more than once ? 
 
 But is not all this mysticism, or the old unintelligible 
 and vicious metaphysics ? Mysticism, metaphysics, it 
 may be ; but, nevertheless, it also expresses a fact that 
 has been, that is ; and it only asks us to conceive the 
 possibility of the like occurring again. Nay, even though 
 it should be pronounced mysticism, it is the belief of 
 the mightiest philosophers, poets, and religious founders. 
 For the greatest of these, though they announced and 
 taught a future existence, still did not make it merely a 
 continuation of our present one, a sort of second volume 
 of our earth history, with a recollection of the first; 
 they at least the greatest of them regarded a future 
 life as certain and natural, even without memory ; the 
 insoluble question not being at all raised how we could 
 awake to conscious life again in the absence of it. They 
 cut the knot of this metaphysical entanglement in the 
 Pythagorean and Buddhist doctrine of transmigration, in 
 the Platonic doctrine of pre-existence, and in most of the 
 great religious systems that have obtained sway over 
 men. That we shall have many future existences before 
 final extinction is, indeed, the great grief of the Buddhist, 
 as that we shall have only one, be it of happiness or 
 misery, is the belief of the Christian, though a memory 
 
ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 183 
 
 of the past is not implied under either religion. The 
 greatest poets, too, as well as philosophers and founders 
 of religions, have had this thought of another existence ; 
 and the poets must count for much in the argument, 
 since they possess in higher degree than others the 
 great creative faculty of imagination which outlines the 
 province of the possible beyond the reach of other men. 
 They see, at least the greatest of them see, more clearly 
 than men possessing only the logical intellect and a more 
 limited range of intuitions, what may be possible, and 
 how much there is room for in the nature of things. 
 And does not the very greatest of poets, who was also 
 supreme as a thinker, while treating this great question 
 of a future life through the thought of Hamlet, regard a 
 further existence as possible, without any necessary re- 
 collection of the past ? Has Shakespeare not carefully 
 considered the scientific conclusion, " To die, to sleep 
 no more," and while judging this a good thing and "a 
 consummation devoutly to be wished " in face of the 
 multiplied miseries of life which he enumerates, does he 
 not also reject it as an insufficient determination of the 
 question by qualifying the natural suggestion, "to die, 
 to sleep," by the noteworthy addition, "to sleep, perchance 
 to dream ; ay, there's the rub " ? 
 
 In fact, this mighty spirit, in profound philosophic 
 insight, as in all else incomparable, has given a summary 
 of the whole argument in this memorable soliloquy, 
 which has never been approached by savant or philo- 
 sopher for depth and weight and point, and he has 
 condensed the conclusions of both sides in this great 
 debate, as well as the whole result of the argument, into 
 a single line 
 
 To die, to sleep ; to sleep, perchance to dream* 
 
184 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 Here are the alternatives (and we have not got much 
 beyond this as yet upon the question) ; the first clause 
 denoting the scientific conclusion ; the second, with all 
 that the word " dream " vaguely suggests, denoting that 
 possibility of further life which we are here maintaining. 
 
 And not only the greatest of all poets, another only 
 less than he, but having the one advantage over him of 
 being a man of science and a discoverer in science, as 
 well as poet Goethe, the greatest of poets since Shake- 
 speare, calm as well as emotional, a deep thinker too as 
 well as a savant and poet, has believed in a life to follow 
 this. It is true that he seems also to have believed in 
 the continuation of consciousness and of the present life, 
 because it breaks off unfinished here an argument more 
 than questionable. Apart from this, however, a future 
 life recommended itself to his sober judgment as rational; 
 while there are also evidences from other utterances of 
 his that he did not consider a recollection of the earthly 
 life necessary in order to realize the existence that 
 follows it. 
 
 We have spoken of the poets; and now let us add 
 the name of but one philosopher that of Kant already 
 cited. We name Kant for two reasons : first, because he 
 was, like Goethe, a man of science, and a bold and 
 original inquirer in science, as well as amongst the 
 greatest of speculative thinkers. He, therefore, could 
 look through both the scientific and philosophic glasses, 
 and compare their respective clearness and ranges of 
 vision. Further, scarcely amongst all the sons of men is 
 there one that could be named, who devoted to this very 
 question thought so deep, so strenuous, so long-sustained. 
 And what was the report of Kant, after the meditation of 
 years, and after regarding the question from all possible 
 sides ? It is to be read in his Critique of Practical 
 
ON IMMORTALITY : COUNTERTHESIS. 185 
 
 Reason. I have already given the result in the preced- 
 ing chapter. Let me briefly restate it. Kant believes 
 in a future life. He confesses that he has not proved it 
 speculatively. It can never be so proved that doubts 
 may not be raised respecting it doubts which are of the 
 very essence of the question, and which it is scarcely 
 desirable should be wholly removed. A future life is 
 a necessary postulate of the practical reason; though 
 whether the real ego which is to survive remembers, or 
 cares to remember, the present life, is a point necessarily 
 left obscure from the fact that the doctrine has not been 
 proved from the side of the speculative reason. 
 
 4. Another existence, then, is possible, likely, 
 certain ; nay, more than one such. Somewhere else 
 after this existence closes, I may find myself again slowly 
 awakening from a second birth, into conscious being, as 
 once before on the earth, and in a manner wholly in- 
 explicable even as then. But what species of conscious 
 being animal, angel, man once more, or something 
 greater than any of these ? and where ? in another 
 planet, in the stars as Plato surmised, once again in our 
 old earth, or haply out of relation to any space as 
 Kant thought possible, who dare pretend to say with 
 certainty ? 
 
 Further yet, as consciousness itself may rise to 
 highest or sink to lowest content, as it may vary from 
 the worm's to the man's, from faintest sensation to the 
 inspirations of genius, so there may be in an infinite 
 universe something grander and greater than any actual 
 or conceivable consciousness. There may be species of 
 existence, modes of being unnamable by us, which are 
 yet infinitely superior to consciousness, more to be 
 desired than consciousness ; and this chapter of greater 
 chances is open to us likewise. But by no means are we 
 
186 THE GREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 hinting that mere blank non-being, the mere privation 
 of our present conscious being as shown in the stone 
 or clod, is a greater thing than consciousness ; nor that 
 Nirvana, the dark goal of the Buddhist's hopes the 
 mere stripping off of all our present modes of conscious- 
 ness, sensation, desire, affection, aspiration, thought, and 
 hope, as hindrances, not helps to happiness or peace 
 is superior to consciousness, or the greater thing that we 
 may reach hereafter. We do not mean to imply that 
 the unconscious existence of the stone, of the wave, of 
 the cloud, nor yet that the blank nonentity, the sudden 
 precipitation into eternal darkness, and our reduction 
 to nothing (if any such thing be possible in Nature), 
 which the extreme materialist contemplates as the only 
 outlook after death, is the better state than conscious- 
 ness. Not any of these things, even if any of them be 
 thinkable or possible. What, then, do we mean ? This : 
 that the division of the sphere of existence roundly into 
 two parts, the conscious and unconscious, is misleading ; 
 the second segment of the sphere, to wit, the uncon- 
 scious, containing vastly more than the first, while also 
 its separate divisions and modes may be wholly different 
 from each other, though all confounded under one name 
 the unconscious. To divide existence into the con- 
 scious and unconscious provinces is as if we were to 
 divide animals into men and not-men, where the second 
 expresses a far greater sum of life than the first, though 
 without reference to any of its differential features. 
 So the word " unconscious," or not-conscious, strictly 
 speaking, expresses no more than the absence of con- 
 sciousness, while the sphere itself may embrace a much 
 greater region than the conscious, while also it may have 
 and it has modes of being greatly varied, amongst which 
 some greater than consciousness may well have place. 
 
ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 187 
 
 Thus in the unconscious sphere there are to be found 
 the various physical forces and chemical elements ; but 
 besides these things, themselves unconscious though they 
 reveal themselves to consciousness, there may be behind 
 the phenomenal curtain something grander than con- 
 sciousness, though indescribable, and not to be projected 
 even in imagination upon the surface of any human 
 consciousness. 
 
 There may be, then, in the unconscious sphere, some- 
 thing better, greater, grander than any consciousness. 
 There may be not one such state, but many, into one of 
 which we may one day enter after we quit this present 
 state. And now, what in particular may these states 
 be ? What are the states of being better than the highest 
 conscious state, better or greater than the poet's vision 
 of beauty, than the lover's paradise, than the enthusiast's 
 rapture, than the sage's peace; better, again, than the 
 unconscious bliss of Nirvana, the pure holiday-time of 
 simple non-existence, the utter extinction of conscious- 
 ness, the m/mmfum bonum of Buddha and Schopenhauer ? 
 Ah ! this we cannot tell. Philosophers, mystics, poets, 
 prophets, and revealers are all as impotent as the men 
 of science to say what may be, though they have been 
 for ever putting their souls on the stretch to describe 
 this great unexplored continent between consciousness 
 and annihilation. To know and tell this would be to 
 know and tell all. But "this eternal blazon must not 
 be to ears of flesh and blood," nor can it be made by 
 mortal mind. We await the only possible, the only real 
 enlightener, Death or if death is only a word to express 
 the failure of our present consciousness, we await the 
 experience itself on the further shore. 
 
 Nevertheless, the great philosophers, poets, mystics, 
 and revealers have all taught us something. They have 
 
188 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 shown us the possibility of such grander spheres of being, 
 both conscious and unconscious, if they have not been 
 able to describe the actuality by analogy, or similitude, 
 or suggestion. They have both suggested the possibility 
 and they have shown us the credibility of such other 
 greater states. In particular, one conclusion of the 
 greatest significance and importance, but left out in the 
 scientific reckoning, has been suggested by philosophy, 
 namely, that the removal of consciousness is not equal 
 to annihilation, that death is not the eternal wind up ; 
 that what follows is not the state of the flame when the 
 oil that fed it is all consumed. In short, the suggestion 
 of Science itself respecting matter and force, holds of 
 consciousness and of existence generally There is no 
 creation or annihilation, but only a change of state. 
 The conscious may pass into the unconscious, and into 
 many and inconceivable varieties of the unconscious, and 
 it may re-emerge into the conscious again, and the 
 process may be, as sometimes we hope, and sometimes 
 we dread, an eternal one ! 
 
 Thus though we cannot describe higher forms of con- 
 sciousness than we have actually experienced; and 
 though we can still less tell what are the grander things 
 than consciousness, we can yet suggest the possibility 
 of such to every one, as also in a certain sense the mean- 
 ing of the assertion. Every one can see that with but 
 four senses, with the sight of sense or hearing cancelled, 
 our consciousness would not be so rich or wide as with 
 our present five ; also that if there were no such thing 
 at all as the feeling of affection or the perception of 
 beauty, both of which, in some people, are very faint, 
 two of the greatest things would be removed from our 
 inner consciousness. Thus there is a higher and a lower 
 degree, a narrower and a wider area to consciousness 
 
ON IMMOETALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 189 
 
 even now. Still more, there may be great things and 
 modes of being that could not enter through any of the 
 usual avenues of the senses into consciousness at all, 
 which would require a new sense, or several new ones, to 
 give them to us. " It would be absurd," said Mill, " t 
 assume that our words exhaust the possibilities of Being. 
 There may be innumerable modes of it which are in- 
 accessible to our faculties, and which consequently we 
 are unable to name." * 
 
 And what we mean to imply is just this. There may 
 be things that "eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor 
 hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive," as St. 
 Paul affirmed. There may be "more things in heaven 
 and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy," as 
 Shakespeare says. There may be infinite modes of being 
 or attributes under which the one Eternal Substance can 
 express itself, though to us men it has only revealed 
 itself under the two forms of thought and extension, as 
 Spinoza has taught. Silence is the proper, indeed the 
 only, attitude for us in the face of these possibilities; 
 but silence only after their existence has been pointed 
 out and recognized ; silence after we have called attention 
 to them, and can speak no more regarding them ; because 
 to call attention to them is a matter of moment to men 
 that have hereafter to face these possibilities. 
 
 We know the existence of a world outside our 
 conscious phenomenal world, as Kant affirms; but we 
 know no more. Our ignorance is even greater that Kant 
 believed ; for, admitting the possibility of further exist- 
 ence, we cannot tell by what rule or law the succession 
 of further existence will be determined. We cannot 
 conclude with any degree of probability that our future 
 places depend upon our earthly merit or demerit, both 
 
 * Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's PhilosopJiy, p. 14. 
 
190 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 of these being on an average extremely limited, little 
 dependent on individual will or effort, and receiving 
 their natural rewards on earth. 
 
 5. May not our future depend on our constant 
 efforts and endeavour to conform our conduct to the 
 moral law, to the well-known virtues of veracity, justice, 
 benevolence, as some of the greatest of our species, 
 philosophers and founders of religions, have taught us ? 
 We can scarcely so conclude to-day; for, though mo- 
 rality is evidently deep in the unfathomed Purpose and 
 Power that rules and sustains the universe the germs 
 of it being implanted in our hearts and handed on by 
 inheritance from generation to generation ; and, more- 
 over, social chaos and ruin resulting in its absence yet 
 apparently morality is still not the deepest thing in the 
 universe, or even the chief thing aimed at on the earth 
 in human society, which still subsists with a mode- 
 rate amount of it, mixed with much of the contrary. 
 Further yet ; our virtues and vices, as such, are actually 
 rewarded and punished on the earth ; of average quality, 
 they receive their average reward; and there exists no 
 apparent reason in things why they should be rewarded 
 and punished a second time hereafter still less, if the 
 monstrous notion 'deserved any notice that they deserve 
 an eternal reward or punishfnent. 
 
 There is no reason why any but exceptional virtues 
 and vices which have failed to meet their due meed on 
 earth, should be considered again. Except in these 
 cases, there is no need for the supplemental correction 
 of the earthly errors ; and even in these cases, if we 
 looked sufficiently deep, we should find that there is 
 very little redress hereafter required, for by a subtle 
 moral economy on the part of Nature, the eminently 
 virtuous or vicious have already received their wages, 
 
ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 191 
 
 not always the outer and material one indeed, but the 
 inner and essential. In but few cases would the earthly 
 inequitable decisions and arrangements require revision 
 or redress ; if we could look sufficiently deep into men's 
 hearts to see their real pains and pleasures, the rewards 
 and punishments that are here distributed. Wrong and 
 injustice do exist, but the unjust are not therefore the 
 happier even here ; above all, the man of highest virtue 
 has no cause of complaint, for Nature has paid him in a 
 way that the others know not of paid him, moreover, 
 by the day and by the hour, paid him by the " piece- 
 work" richly and liberally, in proportion to his work 
 and in his work through the satisfied feelings flowing 
 therefrom. 
 
 And is there nothing that we can do to better our 
 chances in this great hereafter of possible existences ? 
 Scarcely anything, so far as reason can determine ; the 
 management of the beyond being subject to laws which 
 transcend any pretence of reason to fathom. But though 
 nothing positive can be stated, the doing or not doing of 
 which would improve our future chances, yet there is a 
 kind of premonition in our hearts that it is better and 
 wiser to front the future, with its possible perils and 
 felicities, with the consciousness of duty done and life 
 well-spent ; and bearing in mind this instinct of future 
 desert or ill desert, be it rational or irrational, it is well 
 to state that to aim at the perfection of our own being, 
 as well as at the good of others so far as possible ; these 
 two things, as on the whole they best promote our 
 happiness here, so they may, though there is no certainty 
 whatever on the matter, be of further profit to us in the 
 future. They are at least more likely to profit than an 
 opposite and vicious course, especially if accompanied 
 with effort and sacrifice a consideration which may 
 
192 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 afford some inducement to him who occupies a lower 
 moral level to do his duty better, though the man of 
 higher virtue will not need it. To the former the doing 
 good actions over and above what society exacts, as of 
 charity and mercy and pity, may be recommended as a 
 good spiritual investment against future contingencies, 
 which may be repaid with high interest, though it is 
 also possible and rather more likely that Nature will 
 repudiate the whole supposed debt. There seems, indeed, 
 one case where she stands debtor the case of sacrifice ; 
 of great sacrifice for principle, or other voluntary sacri- 
 fice, without expectation of reward, here or hereafter; 
 and this, where nothing was demanded, may be the one 
 case where the Purpose which rules the universe will 
 acknowledge the obligation, though how, or where, or 
 when, it would be hazardous to conjecture. 
 
 Our only consolation is our assurance that what 
 takes place finally will, on the whole, be just and rational. 
 It will be rational ; for reason now rules the universe 
 from the atom to the star, from the solar and sidereal 
 systems to our more wonderful bodily and mental 
 systems. It will, on the whole, be just ; for though irre- 
 gularities and brief pains may hereafter exist as now, so 
 also they may be eliminated altogether as errors over 
 which Nature has triumphed. We hope for improve- 
 ment, upon the whole, for this fact of improvement in 
 the evolution of something ever better is the deepest 
 thing in the purpose of the universe, as even Science 
 shows. Nature is capable of greater, juster, more rational 
 things elsewhere, for she is constantly reaching after 
 these things here, and with this assurance we may 
 rest. 
 
 It may, however, be said that the further existence 
 here shadowed forth is hardly worth the having, being 
 
ON IMMOETALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 193 
 
 indefinite, uncertain, unsubstantial, and little consoling 
 at the best. And this may be true to an extent ; still, it 
 is not to the point. The question is not what we should 
 like in the future, but what may possibly lie before us, 
 what is the range of possibilities, and amongst these if 
 there be any ground of reason, any likelihood that one 
 thing rather than another should befall us. It may be 
 said, too, that the doctrine is the old one of transmigra- 
 tion of Buddha and Pythagoras. Yes ; in some respects, 
 but not in all; for the transmigration here suggested 
 may not only be into another consciousness, but also 
 into something unconscious a state to be carefully dis- 
 tinguished, however, from the utter non-being and 
 imaginary annihilation of the materialist. But, on the 
 whole, the doctrine is as little palatable as consoling, it 
 will be said. Nevertheless, it contains a truth omitted 
 alike in the dogmatism of science and in the dogmatism 
 of theology. The existence here suggested is possible, 
 likely, certain, while the annihilation of science is not 
 possible ; and the more express and definite pictures of 
 theology will never be realized, there being seemingly no 
 provision made for them in the economy of things. As 
 to the prospect before us being unpalatable, it must be 
 repeated that unpleasant existence may be possible here- 
 after as now; but there are also chances of something 
 better than the present, and our hopes lie in this 
 direction. Rationality and justice will 'rule there as 
 here, and likely in higher degree ; nay, even good- 
 ness, here evidently at work though shrouded, and 
 evidently progressing though hindered, may be mani- 
 fested in more unstinted measure; and fortified with 
 these reflections, we may still front the future which 
 none can avoid, with less fears than our fathers, and if 
 not, on the other hand, with their firm faith and 
 
 o 
 
194 THE CEEED OF SCIENCE, EELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 sanguine hope, yet not destitute either of faith or of 
 hope. 
 
 This at least appears certain we shall never escape 
 out of the circle of existence into annihilation. We shall 
 never get away either from consciousness higher or lower 
 than our present, or from something quite other than 
 consciousness, but quite as important and significant, and 
 which yet is as far as the opposite pole from annihila- 
 tion. We may have full and ample taste of both con- 
 scious and unconscious existence, in ways and modes 
 that we dream not of, nor can describe, the present life 
 being far from the conclusion of our " strange, eventful 
 history." 
 
 6. To recapitulate : What we here affirm is, that 
 another and a conscious existence is possible, and more 
 than one such. . A higher conscious existence is possible, 
 and also a lower ; and amongst the many possible, the 
 continuation of the present would seem the most likely 
 of all, were it not for the difficulty of connecting the 
 future drama and continuation with the present prologue 
 when the bridge of memory is broken down. Uncon- 
 scious existence is also possible, as of the stone or the 
 plant, and also, what is of much greater importance, 
 unconscious existence of a great and grand order, which 
 we cannot attempt to describe, but the notion of which 
 all can see the drift of who have the poetic or pantheistic 
 conception of a great universal spirit, and even all who 
 think of God, the Infinite Spirit, as wholly unlike the 
 finite spirit. Annihilation should also be included 
 amongst the list of our possibilities, were it not that the 
 word is a name which contains really only the minimum 
 of meaning, or rather contains no meaning, except the 
 cessation, the removal of existence in one form. For we 
 have no evidence, but all the contrary, that there is any 
 
ON IMMORTALITY: COUNTERTHESIS. 195 
 
 such thing. Science herself rather whispers that there 
 is no creation, nor destruction, but only change. This is 
 what she implies in her postulate of the indestructibility 
 of matter, and in her proof of the conservation of energy. 
 Further, even of the kind of existence of the stone, the 
 wind, or the wave, of inorganic nature in general, we 
 know nothing. To know, we should be, as the poet in 
 his invocation to the West Wind " Be thou, spirit 
 fierce, my spirit " desires to be. There may be a par- 
 ticular spirit even here, which we cannot perceive or 
 fathom, even as we believe, without doubt, that there is 
 one universal, mighty, all-pervading spirit, under these 
 and all things, "a motion and a spirit that impels all 
 thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls 
 through all things." 
 
 And we are by no means certain that the best ex- 
 ponents of scientific doctrine would be disposed to con- 
 test these conclusions. Scarcely would Herbert Spencer, 
 with his doctrine of the unknowable, and his various 
 express declarations regarding the many and various 
 possible forms of manifestation of the ultimate and 
 transcendent power, which has only thrown out man as 
 one of these manifestations, but who, with his marvels, 
 will pass away, to be followed by other and unimaginable 
 forms of existence. Nor could Haeckel, who affirms 
 that the soul question is in a wholly different position 
 from what it occupied twenty years ago; who thinks 
 that " all matter is in a certain sense alive ; " and who 
 quotes Bruno approvingly to the effect that "a spirit 
 exists in all things, and no body is so small but contains 
 a part of the divine substance within itself, by which it 
 is animated." These admissions allow room for a future 
 existence different from annihilation, as they even allow 
 for [further conscious life ; the only questions of differ- 
 
196 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 
 
 ence remaining being whether the present "I" could 
 ever partake in such further existence, and in what sense 
 it could be said to be me, and how such existence now 
 concerns me, metaphysical questions, the difficulty of 
 satisfactorily answering which is, indeed, too evident; 
 but as very similar difficulties can also be raised about 
 our present existence, we recommend them to be either 
 avoided or briefly resolved, by simply affirming that an 
 inexplicable thing which has once happened may happen 
 again, without our being called upon to explain it further. 
 What happens daily, what is for ever happening around 
 us the awakening into conscious life, the slow evolution 
 from unconsciousness into conscious being may happen 
 again ; nay, what happens to myself every morning when 
 I awake out of deep sleep death's counterfeit may 
 happen to me after death. I know not how ; I am not 
 bound to explain; nor can, in the one case more than 
 the other. 
 
 What the men of science physicists, physiologists, 
 naturalists seem really to imply and to intend to say, 
 is that we cannot have a future life after death, because 
 our mind and memory depend on the body, and are 
 necessarily dissolved with it, while to have and to feel a 
 future existence, we should at least carry our memory 
 with us, to make possible the knowledge and identifica- 
 tion of ourselves by ourselves. Now, for my part, I am 
 disposed to accept the premise that our present memory 
 ceases with the body, but for reasons already stated, by 
 no means do I regard the whole argument as valid, or 
 accept the conclusion drawn from it, that therefore we 
 cannot have another life. This is the only difference 
 between me and the men of science, which may, however,, 
 as already hinted, be really less than it seems. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CBEED 
 
 OF SCIENCE. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 
 
 1. THE new system of pessimism is a very remarkable 
 phenomenon of these latter days. Appearing in an age 
 of vaunted progress and great material prosperity, pessi- 
 mism, as the shadowy handwriting on the wall at the 
 banquet of the Babylonian monarch, pronounces our 
 modern civilization as weighed in the balance and found 
 wanting. Nay, our philosophical pessimism strikes 
 deeper; it denounces conscious existence itself, however 
 highly and variously developed as necessarily evil, as a 
 fundamentally vicious thing, an all but irreparable error 
 into which the ultimate principle of existence, unguided 
 by reason, necessarily strayed. 
 
 Unlike the other current systems, pessimism takes its 
 stand within, upon the fact of consciousness, which, far 
 from having an accidental appearance in the course of 
 the evolution of the universe as the Evolutionist and 
 Darwinian asserts, or a chance but unique product of the 
 physical energies in the present bodily machine as the 
 extreme materialist affirms, was and still is an essentially 
 necessary outcome of the ever striving and dissatisfied 
 Will of the universe to live, and to attain to conscious 
 being, if only to find (through the assistance of philo- 
 sophers) the vanity of it. Consciousness was a necessary 
 
200 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 result, a mistake that must have been made soon or late, 
 here or elsewhere, but which, having been once made 
 and found incurably bad, can only be finally set right by 
 a retracing of the steps made by the unconscious will, 
 by a return to unconsciousness. There is no other 
 remedy ; consciousness being demonstrably an evil in its 
 nature, a ceaseless striving for something which it has 
 not, and a constant dissatisfaction with what it already 
 has. There is no remedy to be expected from its fur- 
 ther development, which will only drive deeper its sting, 
 and give us a keener sense of our poverty, vanity, and 
 misery. In fact, the evils of life increase in direct pro- 
 portion to the widening and deepening of our conscious 
 life, and the most gifted, the men of the deepest thoughts 
 and feelings, are the most unhappy of all. Such are the 
 essential features of the modern pessimism.* 
 
 As an estimate of the worth of life, the pessimism of 
 Schopenhauer and Hartmann is no new pronunciation. 
 It is at least as old as the days of Job and of Solomon, 
 the first of whom enlarges upon the misery, the second 
 upon the vanity, and both upon the worthlessness of life. 
 It is not even new as a metaphysical theory ; for its 
 essential conclusions, reached, moreover, by the same 
 methods of metaphysical and psychological principles 
 confirmed by an appeal to men's experience of life, were 
 taught by Buddha more than twenty-three hundred 
 years ago. In fact, just as the essence of modern 
 materialism may be recognized in the atomism of Demo- 
 critus, so the main features of modern pessimism appear 
 in Buddha's theory of existence, projected some half- 
 century before ; so that if history does not repeat itself, 
 
 * For an account of the systems of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, 
 see Sully's Pessimism, ch. iv. and v., in which volume also the whole 
 subject of the worth of life is fully and ably discussed. 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 201 
 
 philosophy, or the state of the human mind which gives 
 birth to philosophy, apparently does. 
 
 The last-named great spirit it was who first systemati- 
 cally taught that man, from his inmost mental make and 
 constitution, from his insatiable wants and lusts and 
 omnivorous desires, no less than from the external 
 troubles and fatalities of life, must be miserable, until, 
 having entered once for all upon the only path to peace, 
 he has attacked the disease of life at the root ; until he 
 has seen through its illusions, and cured himself of its 
 desires ; until he has extinguished within himself the 
 consuming fires of lust and hate and the all-too-eager 
 desire for life. Nor can the wise man, the sage, attain 
 to a consummated peace, the only earthly happiness, till 
 he has detached his desires completely from every earthly 
 object round which their tendrils are thrown; until, 
 finally, by supreme effort of concentrated meditation and 
 virtue, to which only the perfected saint and sage is 
 adequate, he has destroyed finally, all desire for material 
 or immaterial existence, all desire for life on earth, all 
 desire for further life hereafter. Then only it is, having 
 reached this last and most glorious summit of earthly 
 piety and virtue, that the heavy burden of life's miseries 
 and sorrows falls off, that the perpetual pain of existence 
 ceases to fret, and the ever-vexed and perturbed con- 
 sciousness becomes calm and peaceful as the surface of 
 the sleeping lake in summer evening. For then at length 
 has been already reached on earth the peaceful and holy 
 state of Nirvana, the blissful prelude and foretaste of 
 that grander Nirvana, that state of supreme unconscious 
 peace, of soft, sweet, infinite, and eternal rest, to be 
 enjoyed by the perfect hereafter. As for the bad and 
 imperfect, they must plunge again into the storms and 
 vortices of existence, as the punishment for their. demerits 
 
202 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 here, until, by entering hereafter on the path of escape 
 pointed out by the great deliverer, they also soon or late 
 (and it may be never) escape from the pains and penalties 
 of conscious being into the happy and silent shores of 
 Nirvana. 
 
 The pessimism of our modern teachers, then, the 
 " occidental Buddhism," as it has been justly styled, of 
 Schopenhauer and Hartmann is not new ; and it is even 
 remarkable how much of the system of its modern 
 founder, including the proffered remedy for life's ills of 
 quietism, or " the denial of the will to live," is contained 
 in the metaphysical and moral teaching of Buddha.* 
 But it is certainly new to find such a pessimist system 
 emerging in the nineteenth century, and offered by its 
 modern founder as the last result of philosophy, logically 
 filiated to the Kantian metaphysics, and offered again by 
 his chief disciple, Hartmann, as the only philosophy 
 which accords at once with the highest inductions of 
 science as well as with sound metaphysical principles. 
 And it is a new and very noteworthy phenomenon to- 
 find this despairing philosophy appearing and finding 
 a sympathetic response in the hearts of men of the 
 advanced and cultured and conquering races of Western 
 Europe, and just at the moment when the triumphs of 
 modern progress were being chanted in full chorus and 
 were ringing loudest in all men's ears. Just when the 
 jubilant chorus was loudest, the note of desolation and 
 despair has broken in as a discord, and rings sufficiently 
 loud and clear to make the optimists of progress pause 
 and ponder. Contemporaneously with the great dis- 
 
 * For an account of the Buddhist system, see The Legend of Gau- 
 dam&, the Buddha of the Burmese, by Bigandet, pp. 430-480; alsa 
 Buddhism by T. W. Ehys Davids, in the series of "Non-Christian Ke- 
 ligious Systems," published by the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge. 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 203 
 
 coveries of science, with the march of invention, with 
 the wonders of steam and electricity, in an age of boasted 
 general advance and improvement, this philosophy of 
 despair has appeared. A strange portent surely. What 
 may it mean that in these days of telegraph and rail- 
 ways, of universal suffrage and cheap press, of constant 
 discoveries in science and inventions in the useful arts, 
 in an age of diffused knowledge, diffused material com- 
 fort, extended political power to the people, in an age 
 of general enlightenment and progress in all directions, 
 there should suddenly appear and find acceptance, 
 amongst the cultured and fortunate classes first of all, a 
 philosophy affirming the nullity of all these things, and 
 the worthlessness of existence, however supplemented 
 by progress ? Does the phenomenon portend that modern 
 civilization, hollow and despairing at its heart, of which 
 such philosophy is a symptom, is about to perish as former 
 civilizations have perished, to sink as religion has 
 already sunk ? Is it the symptom of a state of things 
 gravely amiss, and deep-seated, not in our spiritual state, 
 but in our social constitution, with its terrible contrasts 
 of want and luxury, which points to social revolution as 
 its only cure ? Or, finally, is it merely an exceptional 
 product in philosophy, phantasmal and ephemeral, an 
 offspring of the abysmal individual melancholy of a man 
 of genius, who has made it attractive to a large circle of 
 readers, just as the despairing poetry of our century has 
 been found attractive ; a philosophy which, on the whole, 
 had better have been cast in the poetic than the philo- 
 sophic form, and which will dissipate itself anon without 
 producing other than a poetic result, a momentary and 
 not unpleasant agitation in the emotion of the reader, 
 which has no effect on conduct ? All these three ques- 
 tions may be seriously asked concerning the pessimist 
 
204 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 philosophy, the transplanted Buddhism, which has at 
 length appeared and found disciples in Western Europe. 
 The view last intimated seems, on the whole, the nearest 
 truth;* though there are some who think that the 
 spread of pessimism is rather a sign that the internal 
 constitution of society is wrong and requires readjust- 
 ment. 
 
 That a systematic pessimist creed should have ap- 
 peared ages ago amongst the monotonous myriads of 
 miserable beings that swarmed South-Eastern Asia, and 
 that such a creed should be hailed as the word of deliver- 
 ance and salvation, is sufficiently intelligible. "Man 
 is a weed in these regions," as De Quincey has said ; 
 existence is lightly valued at the best is an evil rather 
 than a good in the general estimation ; the doctrines of 
 pessimism and Nirvana go hand-in-hand, and are well 
 suited to the nature of the people of these countries. 
 The immemorial tyranny of caste ; the special oppression 
 of conscience by the priestly class; the necessarily 
 deadly struggle for existence amongst the teeming 
 millions ; the misery of life, added to the utter mystery 
 and inexplicability of it all ; these things are amply 
 sufficient to account for the first appearance and the 
 general acceptance of the system of Buddha ages ago in 
 Hindustan, where it was born, as the like circumstances 
 account for its reception in the surrounding countries 
 after it had been rooted out of India. The soil was 
 everywhere ready for the seed of Buddha's teaching. 
 Pessimism is the natural creed of a people and a 
 society where the many mutually crush each other by 
 their numbers, where they are crushed again by the 
 ruling classes, and where, tormented by superstitions, 
 
 * Sully's Pessimism, pp. 452, 453. 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 205 
 
 they have permitted the priests to obtain a spiritual 
 despotism. In such a social and spiritual state, the 
 prophet of Nirvana came and was hailed as saviour. 
 But that a like creed should appear in the advanced and 
 wealthy nations of Western Europe, and should find 
 disciples, not as yet amongst the poor, but the superior 
 and cultured classes, seems at first sight a somewhat 
 strange and unaccountable thing. 
 
 Nevertheless, its appearance is not so inexplicable 
 as at first one might suppose. Some of the conditions 
 which favoured the reception of Buddha's teaching, the 
 pressure of population and great inequality of social con- 
 dition, exist in modern Europe. But added to these 
 there are special causes peculiar to our age and civili- 
 zation. The prevailing disbelief in the old theological 
 dogmas, the deepening doubt, extending to ever wider 
 circles until now it has reached the masses, of any 
 compensating happiness hereafter for all the miseries 
 and injustices suffered here; these things, joined to an 
 increased intensity in the struggle for existence, to which 
 our more flaccid fibres and more sensitive nerves are less 
 equal, suffice to account for a certain failure of heart and 
 hope, a diminished joy and zest in existence, and a 
 desponding feeling as if the Power that rules the world 
 had in our day dishonoured His acceptances, and become 
 bankrupt as regards His promises to pay in a future life, 
 all which things are of the essence' of the pessimist 
 mood of mind, and offer a fitly prepared soil for a 
 pessimist philosophy professing to be deeply and scien- 
 tifically grounded. 
 
 It is not, then, wholly strange that a degree of 
 despair should have set in in the midst of our vaunted 
 age of progress. But it would, we think, be strange if 
 the mood became very general, if it were anything more 
 
206 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CKEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 serious than a black and passing cloud. For, after all, 
 assuredly, in spite .of all our failure of faith, existence is 
 not less a good, the banquet of life is not less royally 
 spread or decked than in the most halcyon days of the 
 happiest former civilizations. Assuredly neither the 
 Greek of the time of Pericles, nor the Roman in the days 
 of Augustus, nor the Arabian in the golden prime of 
 Al-Raschid, had as much reason, on the whole, as we 
 to-day to enjoy existence. Neither Greek, nor Roman, 
 nor Arab, in the palmiest days of their civilizations, 
 possessed the multiplied comforts and luxuries, the 
 expanded sciences and literatures, the increased treasures 
 of art, the more developed and refined social life, which 
 are accessible to-day to greater numbers than under 
 any former civilization. Nor was their art so highly 
 developed; nor had they our modern feeling for the endless 
 beauty in external nature that great new sense with 
 which our modern poets and painters have endowed us. 
 And yet we cannot enjoy; we have lost our appetite at 
 the feast of life, which the Greek, with a less rich and 
 varied repast, enjoyed so much, though he had no more 
 hope of future felicity than our present unbelieving- 
 generation. 
 
 2. In spite of the misery around, of the sorrow 
 within, of the future hope shrouded or wholly withdrawn 
 should it even amount to that we feel that pessimism 
 is not the true gospel for men to-day. It is not true 
 that life is necessarily an evil, which is only disguised by 
 irrational illusions. Life may be an intolerable evil for 
 some unfortunate ones ; it is not so for all, and it was not 
 always an evil even for the most unfortunate. The 
 direct contrary of the pessimist proposition may be held ; 
 life for most men is not an evil ; up to the day of death, 
 if asked, they would so reply ; and there is no going 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 207 
 
 beyond the individual's testimony to his own case. His 
 testimony to his own experience of the worth of life is 
 more to be relied upon than any system of philosophy, 
 which argues him miserable on a priori principles or 
 general grounds, in spite of his protest. It is useless to 
 .say that he is under an illusion. The agreeable illusion 
 is part of the pleasure he feels ; he thinks his life, on the 
 whole, enjoyable; he would live it over again; and he 
 would gladly accept another hereafter, only just as good 
 as the present. And so far from consciousness being 
 necessarily an evil, are there not times in the life of all 
 when the content and essence of consciousness is itself 
 perfect felicity ; moments when we have seemed to hold 
 happiness in our hands, which we would scarce have 
 exchanged with the angel ; hours of felicity so full 
 that we have asked ourselves could we desire more or 
 higher bliss ? Have not most of us, at some time of 
 our lives, felt what Othello, in a moment of overjoyed 
 consciousness, expresses : 
 
 My soul hath her content so absolute, 
 That not another comfort like to this 
 Succeeds in unknown fate ? * 
 
 But the possibility of even a moment of such happiness 
 destroys the pessimist argument, that life must be an 
 evil, because consciousness is always a want, and there- 
 fore a pain. 
 
 Such is the pessimist syllogism : all Want is pain ; the 
 essence of consciousness is a want ; therefore conscious 
 life is an evil. But consciousness, as we have already 
 shown, is not merely a want; it is frequently also a 
 
 * Othello, Act II. Scene i. See also in same scene, where he speaks 
 farther to the same point : 
 
 I cannot speak enough of this content, 
 It stops me here ; it is too much of joy. 
 
208 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 having, a possession, a satisfied content, and sometimes 
 a perfected felicity. The artist's consciousness of a 
 beautiful sunset, of a smiling summer sea with light 
 summer clouds above it, of the strange and sublime vision 
 of Nature from an Alpine summit, these are not wants, 
 but satisfactions, the opposite of wants. The glad con- 
 templation of the beauty visible over the face of Nature, 
 and of a subtler fugitive beauty caught by the artist 
 amongst the complex conditions of human life ; the 
 tranquil joys of the intellect face to face with or only in 
 pursuit of truth ; the pleasure in the society of superior 
 minds ; the different pleasure from the presence of those 
 we love; all these are instances of satisfied, not dis- 
 satisfied consciousness ; their true meaning is not a 
 privation but a possession, not pain but pleasure, and 
 sometimes without any alloy. Nor is it true that it 
 belongs only to youth to enjoy life. There are appro- 
 priate satisfactions for our maturer years, even for age ; 
 though it must be allowed that the ratio between our 
 joys and griefs becomes, on the whole, a diminishing one 
 with years. Still, there are compensations. Neither 
 our pains nor our pleasures are so keenly felt. We 
 reach a state of tranquil equilibrium in maturer years, 
 in which an intelligent comprehension of life becomes 
 possible. There lies an elevated table-land in the 
 middle of life, before we begin to descend the downward 
 slope, from which we command a wider intellectual 
 horizon. At this period the perception of truth is 
 clearer and stronger, while it is reinforced by the expe- 
 rience of life ; the perception and relish of beauty in Art 
 or Nature, high and satisfying pleasures, long remain 
 iindiminished ; and the desire to serve our species, if we 
 have ever had any such desire, becomes greater. So that 
 even after the joys and raptures of youth have all gone 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 209 
 
 by, there may be much enjoyment of a higher, though 
 a more tranquil sort. 
 
 Life, in short, is adapted to happiness as well as to 
 misery. Nature is striving her utmost to produce happi- 
 ness, as well as to produce beauty. And how near to 
 a splendid success she has been ! At moments, we feel 
 convinced that Nature is aiming at human happiness ; 
 and we know it from our own experience. We feel 
 sometimes that, but for some slight hitch or hindrance 
 somewhere interposed by the malevolent powers, but for 
 something trivial not in the essence but the accidents of 
 things, a grand general success might have been made !' 
 Nay more, that Nature will yet succeed in her aims at 
 human happiness, if only men themselves will learn to 
 aid and second, by all the ways that Science and Wisdom 
 point out, the efforts that she is constantly and kindly 
 making in their behalf. Having derived so much satis- 
 faction from life, and so much good from society with all 
 its imperfections, we argue that much more is possible 
 yet, and that this problem of happiness, so far as we 
 have any right to expect it, may yet be solved satis- 
 factorily for man. But again comes the desponding 
 mood ; and in these alternations between exaggerated 
 optimism and exaggerated pessimism, man in these days 
 lives ; while it is only by duly checking the one against 
 the other, that a sober, balanced judgment which may 
 guide rational expectation and practice is possible. 
 
 The pessimism of the philosophers in any case is not 
 a true gospel. It does not contain the true word of life 
 for man to-day in Europe ; and even if it were wholly 
 true, it would be the kind of truth which it does not 
 profit to insist upon. Unless with the diagnosis of the 
 disease there is also the accompanying prescription 
 supplied as by Buddha, there is no good end served by 
 
210 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 preaching pessimism. Quietism, asceticism, denial of the 
 will to live, as recommended by Schopenhauer, will not 
 suit our Western populations in the midst of the pressure 
 and struggle of existence. Possibly, indeed, a tincture 
 of this quiescence might be of service as an alterative 
 medicine to the system, in these days of feverish com- 
 petition and too keen pursuit of wealth ; but quietism 
 would not at all suit as our constant habit and way of 
 life. We want rather a fuller life, more wisely conducted ; 
 for it is to be particularly remembered, in discussing this 
 question of pessimism, that many of the ills of life are of 
 our own making, many more the making of others, both 
 of which might have been avoided if the lesson of Bishop 
 Butler and of positive science were more deeply borne in 
 upon our minds, that we are under Natural Government, 
 where we should rule our actions by a knowledge of the 
 regular sequence of cause and consequence. And this 
 consideration may serve to introduce that system and 
 view of life which professes to regard the world wholly 
 from this the scientific point of view. 
 
 3. From the point of view of Positive Science, there 
 exist in the universe only phenomena, and a regular 
 order in these which it is the business of the scientific 
 investigator to discover, and which, when ascertained 
 and concatenated, constitute Science, the only knowledge, 
 real, true, and fruitful. At least, if there be existence in 
 the universe other than phenomena, actual or possible, 
 we shall never know aught about them beyond the bare 
 fact of their existence ; and if there be other knowledge 
 than that of the facts and laws of phenomena, it is barren 
 and useless. 
 
 That there exists only phenomena for the human 
 understanding, the author of the Critique of Pure Reason, 
 himself greatest amongst the metaphysicians, has satis- 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 211 
 
 factorily and finally demonstrated. There exists for men 
 only phenomena, and Science gives us the only reliable 
 and systematized knowledge of these, which knowledge 
 is merely the invariable relations, or the unchanging 
 successions and the constant co-existences of the same 
 facts or phenomena. These are all that man can know, 
 all that Science can discover : but happily such know- 
 ledge is all that we require, and all that we should ask. 
 It suffices for an intelligent understanding of the universe, 
 for the mastery of Nature, for a wise and rational regula- 
 tion of life and conduct. What more would man require ? 
 Truth for man is only science a knowledge of the facts 
 and laws ascertained by science, or by historical investi- 
 gation, working by the methods and animated and 
 guided by the spirit of science. Philosophy itself is only 
 science, at least, if men insist upon a philosophy other 
 than the general conclusions of science in the mental and 
 moral departments of inquiry ; if a distinction must be 
 drawn between science and philosophy, then philosophy 
 can only be the systematic connection of the highest 
 conceptions and generalizations supplied by science 
 causation, evolution, the law of gravity, of the persistence 
 of energy, of natural selection, and the application of 
 these to explain the facts and lower laws of things. 
 Philosophy, or metaphysics, as Aristotle conceived it, 
 comes thus after physics, and exhibits the skeleton 
 system of laws, which holds the cosmos together, and 
 which governs life and mind, with the lower laws affili- 
 ated to the higher, and these again to a few or one 
 highest, which Science has reached or hopes yet to reach. 
 But all philosophy which does not rest on a basis of 
 science and fact, all philosophy which pretends to pene- 
 trate behind phenomena, and to make even a single 
 affirmation respecting what it affects to discover in that 
 
212 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 terra incognita of things in themselves, or which con- 
 tinues to indulge in feats of logical legerdemain, with the 
 abstract notions of existence and non-existence, will be 
 recognized as the empty pretence and delusion which it 
 really is. More particularly metaphysics, or ontology, 
 which has always pretended to a knowledge of the real 
 being and essence of things other than their phenomenal 
 manifestations, and which has aspired to lift the phe- 
 nomenal veil and to solve 'the final mystery of existence, 
 will be wholly discredited. It is a spurious department 
 of knowledge, which has never dealt with aught beyond 
 fictitious entities, phantasmal creations, or empty verbal 
 nothings ; and it has only so long imposed upon men 
 because of the genius of some who devoted themselves to- 
 its prosecution, having first imposed upon themselves. 
 It aspired to get beyond or behind phenomenal appear- 
 ances, to the world of true and real being ; in reality, it 
 got no further than the vain analysis of empty abstract 
 notions, and the fictions currently agreed upon by the 
 metaphysicians; unless, when the private phantasms 
 and monstrous mirages of the individual mind were 
 added so as to form a new system. It advanced no 
 further than these, which were after all phenomena, 
 though of a peculiar sort, as representing nothing beyond 
 their own chimerical selves. Happily, however, meta- 
 physics is now very generally falling into the disrepute 
 and discredit which so long ago overtook the pretended 
 science of astrology. 
 
 The above is the most general point of view of the 
 positive scientific thinker. It is the common point of 
 view of science, of what is called the experience-philosophy, 
 as well as of the positivism of Comte. But the positive 
 thinker must not be identified solely with the disciple of 
 Comte, for the point of view and frame of mind is 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 213 
 
 Common to many who by no means accept the positivism 
 of Comte as a scientific and full philosophy. The positive 
 spirit is, in fact, as old as the days of Bacon, who is the 
 true father of it in modern times, as well as of the in- 
 ductive method of discovering general truths, which 
 recognizes and applies it. And the same positive spirit 
 has, ever since the time of Bacon, not merely governed 
 the whole course of physical scientific discovery, but has 
 also manifested itself with increasing force in all other 
 departments of inquiry, and it is now dominant in 
 biological science, in mental, moral, social, and political 
 science, in the whole field of criticism and historical 
 research, and even in much of the current philosophical 
 speculation. In all these departments of knowledge, men 
 seek either for the fact, as in history and criticism, or for 
 the law of recurrence or co-existence amongst the facts, as 
 in science. Even in moral and social speculations, the 
 positive attitude to the problems presented, existed long 
 before the time of Comte, who is erroneously believed by 
 some to be the initiator of it. It is the positive spirit 
 which governs the moral and political speculations of 
 Hobbes's Leviathan, it is the spirit in great measure of 
 Locke's great Essay on the Human Understanding, the 
 completely pervading spirit of Adam Smith's Wealth of 
 Nations, as of Hume's famous Treatise of Human Nature. 
 In fact, so generally has the practical positive spirit 
 shown itself in English speculation, that Continental 
 critics, like M. Taine, make it a reproach to the Eng- 
 lish mind, which, they believe has some peculiar bent 
 from Nature and some special sympathy with the 
 positive spirit, which prevent it getting beyond the 
 visible and tangible facts of sense, and rising to lofty 
 speculation. But whether this last be so or not, and 
 whether the charge is to be regarded as a ground of 
 
214 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CUBED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 reproach, or in the light of an honour, since the spirit is 
 now becoming universal, a fact it is that, from the time 
 of Bacon to our own, all the great works of the English 
 intellect outside the sphere of poetry, and notably in 
 philosophy and morals, have been remarkably distin- 
 guished by the positive spirit, and governed by its 
 methods of inquiry and proof. 
 
 Positivism, as here regarded, is, in its philosophical 
 references, rather an attitude of mind to all philosophical 
 problems, and a method of treating such of them as are 
 legitimate and soluble, than a system of philosophy itself. 
 It is true that Comte has offered his positivism to the 
 world in the latter character, as a philosophy with an 
 appended doctrine. But the pretensions of Comte's 
 Positive Philosophy have not been generally credited in 
 these respects, especially after being further supplemented 
 by his religious fancies. By positivism, then, we do not 
 specially refer to Comte's characterization of it, any 
 further than as it recognizes, and anew emphasizes, the 
 general positive spirit and methods which existed before 
 his time, and which at present obtain amongst thinkers 
 on all subjects except theology and metaphysics, and 
 sometimes even on these. 
 
 The positive point of view, which is no other than 
 the ground of proved experience, is professedly that of 
 the modern evolutionist and materialist, of Darwin and 
 Spencer, of Haeckel and Huxley; although the materialist, 
 in his ambition to give an explanation of the world from 
 matter only, finds it extremely difficult to adhere to the 
 positivist injunction to keep clear of the metaphysical 
 vortices, which, in truth, f are always perilously near 
 all assertions respecting the ultimate principle of the 
 universe. But, however difficult it be to maintain it, 
 especially when hypotheses are necessarily employed, 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 215 
 
 and however great the temptation at times to abandon 
 it, the positive point of view is that of evolution and 
 materialism. It is that of Darwin in his Origin of Species, 
 whose great law of Natural Selection, inductively 
 gathered, and deductively applied to the explanation of 
 vast classes of facts, and many inferior empirical laws in 
 the organic world, is as splendid a result of the positive 
 method in the domain of biology, as the Newtonian law 
 of gravitation in the sphere of physical science. And 
 the whole immense philosophy of evolution, in the hands 
 of Herbert Spencer, is nothing more than an attempt to 
 solve, by positive, natural, scientific, and phenomenal 
 causes, the old problems of the creation of the universe 
 and all living things within it, man included, together 
 with the origin of language, thought, morality, religion, 
 and all else which distinguishes man problems which 
 had so often been previously attempted by the theologian 
 and metaphysician, by occult, fictitious, supernatural, or 
 unintelligible causes. 
 
 4. The rise of this positive spirit and way of 
 viewing the universe, three centuries ago, was in great 
 measure due to a reaction from the barren and wearisome 
 scholastic metaphysics, in alliance with a futile physics 
 which rested on metaphysical hypotheses instead of 
 experiment; and the general prevalence of this spirit 
 at the present day is owing to the grand scientific 
 discoveries and brilliant results in the sphere of practical 
 invention which have followed in the wake of its adop- 
 tion. To these last chiefly, but also, it must be allowed, 
 to a widespread conviction that metaphysics is still as 
 empty as in the days of scholasticism, that the abstrac- 
 tions of Hegelian metaphysics and the elaborate futilities 
 of Duns Scotus and Aquinas are still much on a par. 
 The notion is more and more commonly accepted by the 
 
216 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CKEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 cultured, that, even for an explanation of the mysterious 
 universe in which we are, and for answer to all the 
 legitimate and intelligible questions that the mind of 
 man can raise, we must look to science and not to meta- 
 physics. Science alone speaks the words of truth and 
 reality, and metaphysics, as ever, where she pretends to 
 enlighten us and explain things, deals only with empty 
 abstractions converted into realities, or with fancies, 
 delusions, and chimeras. She raises insoluble questions, 
 and pretends to have given an answer ; she raises unreal 
 and unmeaning ones, with whose strange knots and 
 perplexities the mind that has foolishly allowed them 
 to enter contends laboriously and painfully, as sometimes 
 in dreams we struggle with strange and fantastic 
 problems, only to wonder and smile in the daylight, 
 after awakening, that such absurd questions should 
 have perplexed and tormented us. The metaphysical 
 questions are either insoluble and should not be raised, 
 or unreal and fantastical and need not be ; in either case 
 we may dismiss them for the future. Science will 
 answer the real questions. 
 
 I do not consider this to be the whole truth of the 
 matter; nor the distinction made between science and 
 metaphysics the true one; for after all metaphysics 
 should be only another name for sound philosophy. But 
 the preceding is the view of Comte and his followers. 
 It is also pretty much the view of Mill and Bain, who 
 have handled philosophical questions in the positive 
 spirit, and of men who, like Professor Huxley, deride 
 at once Comte and the " pure metaphysicians." Accord- 
 ing to the late G. H. Lewes, himself a positivist, but who 
 fairly reflects the views common to all positive scientific 
 thinkers, the spirit of man in pre-positive ages had been 
 goaded and driven by an inquiring evil spirit within, 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 217 
 
 into the deep waters of ontological speculation, where it 
 speedily and surely got sucked into the circular currents 
 and bottomless vortices of empty metaphysical contro- 
 versies respecting Being, Existence, Becoming, First 
 Cause, Real Substance, and the like. It was urged 
 viciously into a region of insoluble enigmas and trans- 
 cendental riddles, where the brain grows dizzy with 
 " thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls," which are 
 pressed upon it ; into a region where light or knowledge 
 never comes or has come since men first began to specu- 
 late; into a land of chimeras dire, where the mind 
 wandered perplexed and lost, discussing ceaselessly, as 
 Milton's fallen angels on the " hill retired," in the infernal 
 abodes, the whole dismal circle of metaphysical enigmas 
 "providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, fixed fate, 
 free-will, foreknowledge absolute," with others similar; 
 and still, as ever, the mind of men, as the mind of the 
 evil spirits, could find " no end, in wandering mazes lost." 
 At length Positive Science came, with her true methods 
 of interrogating Nature, and showed man a means of 
 escape from the fatal fascinations of metaphysics. The 
 whole vicious circle of metaphysical problems might be 
 evaded, and real profitable questions might be substituted 
 for them, sufficiently difficult to attract man's energies, 
 and yet not insoluble. Or if the old questions of the 
 origin and final goal of the universe and man, of free- 
 will and immortality, must still engage the mind of 
 man ; if the metaphysical virus is still so far left in the 
 blood through heredity, that it will still raise the old 
 cjuestions, let them be attempted from the scientific side, 
 by the scientific and experimental methods of inquiry 
 and proof, with deductive reasoning resting on a sound 
 basis of inductively ascertained facts, which will give a 
 certain or probable conclusion according to the weight 
 
218 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 of the evidence, and the degree and kind of verification 
 possible. And let all the conceptions which we bring 
 to bear in the discussion be filled only with the facts of 
 experience, and be emptied of their old fictions, question- 
 begging hypotheses, and unreal, unknown elements. Let 
 the notions of matter and substance, creation and cause, 
 providence and purpose, be freed from their unknown 
 and hypothetical contents, which are incapable of verifi- 
 cation, and be filled only with the facts taught by ex- 
 perience or science, which facts these symbols alone 
 represent, and for which alone they should stand. Were 
 this duly done, then indeed we might receive a corre- 
 spondingly positive and scientific answer to our old 
 metaphysical inquiries. 
 
 However, this may succeed, it has become gradually 
 clear to man, partly from the failure of the great meta- 
 physicians, who have, twice within the past two hundred 
 years, attempted in vain to take the problem of the 
 universe by storm, and partly from the express teaching 
 of two of the greatest amongst them, Kant and Hume, 
 that the human mind could not advance beyond pheno- 
 mena ; that it knew nothing even of its own wonderful 
 self beyond its phenomenal modes and affections; and 
 that whatever problem might remain for philosophy, 
 whether in determining the conditions and boundaries 
 of the knowing faculties, or in weaving into systematic 
 unity the final conceptions and laws handed in by 
 Science, still, that the business of Science herself was 
 to trace and discover a systematic order in the several 
 departments of phenomena presented by Nature, external 
 or human. Further, men have begun to perceive more 
 clearly that a knowledge of phenomena and their con- 
 stant conjunctions, as it is all that we can know, so it is 
 all that we really require to know ; and that such know- 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 219 
 
 ledge will go much further than was at first suspected, 
 even towards the answering, not merely of the old 
 metaphysical questions of free-will, providence, and the 
 like, in a scientific manner, but even in giving answer 
 to the question acknowledged since the time of Kant to 
 be the chief philosophical question, namely, How we 
 come to have knowledge or experience, or " What makes 
 experience possible." This question is answered in our 
 days by positive science, and from the general point of 
 view of experience, by psychology, physiology, and the 
 demonstrated fact of inherited mental aptitudes, by 
 which it is shown that all knowledge in the individual 
 is unfolded from a germinal point, just as his body is ; 
 that each individual is born with the potentiality of 
 developing all the inherited ideas of the race ; and that, 
 in the race itself, or rather in the total series of animals 
 of which man is the last and highest, all knowledge 
 gradually unfolded itself from a similar zero point, by 
 insensible gradations. Thus Herbert Spencer and Darwin 
 explain from experience what was regarded by the 
 intuitional school as the a priori and mysterious element 
 in knowledge, not to be accounted for from any experi- 
 ence. Our a priori notions are brought under the facts 
 and laws of heredity and evolution, and thus the question 
 of knowledge itself, so far as answerable by the human 
 mind, is answered from the positive scientific point of 
 view. Knowledge has unfolded itself gradually in the 
 total organic world, as we know it now does in each 
 individual. But the question how the first faint glimmer 
 of any knowledge first broke in a world previously 
 unconscious, is as unanswerable as the question how life 
 first appeared. All that we can say is, that from its 
 commencement it was conditioned by the material 
 organization of the brain and nerves, as life was bound 
 
220 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 up with peculiar aggregations of matter ; but we cannot 
 tell why a brain was necessary or how life came from 
 matter. These are the metaphysical and insoluble 
 questions. Thus finally a knowledge of the sequences 
 and conjunctions of phenomena which constitute science 
 is sufficient to answer all legitimate questions. Such 
 knowledge serves at once to explain the universe, to 
 guide our life, to give man the mastery over Nature, to 
 rule the forces without and within. It will explain the 
 world, ourselves, society ; enable us to assign the natural 
 origin, to show the natural course of evolution, to predict 
 the probable final destiny of each ; and such an explana- 
 tion which, unlike the past metaphysical ones, is both 
 intelligible to the human mind, and likely to lead to 
 profitable practical result ought surely to suffice for men. 
 5. But whether the positive point of view and 
 positive scientific methods are or are not adequate to the 
 solution of all questions of philosophy, they are fully 
 adequate to all the demands of practice. Positive know- 
 ledge, purified from all metaphysical questions, is all that 
 is required for the conduct of the individual life by the 
 individual, or of the collective national life by the states- 
 man or legislator. That there exists only phenomena, 
 and a settled order amongst them which is ascertainable, 
 and which is the best and only safe guide in practice, is 
 all that the moralist, the statesman, the reformer, the 
 philanthropist need postulate. For all these have only to 
 adapt phenomenal means to ends, subject to the ascer- 
 tained order of the phenomena, without other question 
 asked than the suitability of the means to the end, and 
 where, consequently, metaphysical questions, even if they 
 have reality in themselves, do not enter. In all depart- 
 ments of practice we have but to know the established 
 order of sequence and coexistence amongst facts, and to 
 
PESSIMISM AND POSITIVE SCIENCE. 221 
 
 act accordingly. This is the case too with the practical 
 inventor, with the physician who deals with our bodily 
 disorders, as well as with the political reformer who 
 attempts to cure the social maladies. The physician 
 requires only to know the laws of the human body, 
 the causes of diseases and their remedies, without 
 raising the question of what is " vitality " in itself, or 
 what is the ultimate cause of life ; the inventor of the 
 steam-engine required only, in addition to his own 
 inventive genius, a knowledge of the laws of heat, of 
 motion, of the propulsive power of steam, without once 
 being required to raise the inquiry whether heat, and 
 steam, and motion were anything in themselves other 
 than their phenomenal appearances, or whether a hidden 
 reality or entity lay under or behind them, what was the 
 real nature of heat, or how it could possibly transmute 
 itself into motion, questions which, however absorbing 
 and interesting to the metaphysician, would be entirely 
 irrelevant from the point of view of the inventor 
 who conceived, or of the engineer who constructed, the 
 machine. In all cases, however the metaphysical ques- 
 tions be answered, or whether they be answered at all, 
 concerns not the man of practice. In all the practical 
 arts, in all the sciences that relate to practice, for the 
 prudent conduct of life, for the moral conduct of life, as 
 weU as for all purposes of scientific, that is, of real and 
 possible, explanation of Nature, man requires nothing 
 more than the knowledge of phenomena and their in- 
 variable successions and coexistences ; while for the 
 effectual discovery of these laws of phenomena amidst 
 the complexity and obscurity of their involved circum- 
 stances, he requires only that positive inductive method 
 of interrogating Nature first conceived and pointed out 
 by Bacon, which has since been so successfully applied in 
 
222 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 practice by physicists, chemists, naturalists, physiologists, 
 and economists ; and whose whole method of procedure 
 has been so completely systematized and described in all 
 its parts, and subordinate aids, induction, deduction, 
 hypotheses, observation, experiment, statistics, by posi- 
 tive thinkers of the past and present generation, in 
 particular by Comte, Whewell, Mill, and Bain. This is 
 the method of inquiry which has borne so much fruit in 
 the past three centuries in the explanation of Nature, 
 man, and society, and in the subjection of the powers 
 of Nature to human wants. This inductive method of 
 search after Nature's laws has already given us our 
 whole body of scientific truth, and the resulting mastery 
 over Nature. It is this same method further extended, 
 though still limited to the finding and explaining of facts 
 and laws, that will at length give us a moral science and 
 rules of life suitable to man's real nature and circum- 
 stances in the world, and a science of society which will 
 explain the conditions of social well-being. According 
 to some, we shall even get from the resulting laws and 
 conceptions a new philosophy and a new religion ; but 
 if positive science cannot serve us thus far, it will render 
 the other and more pressingly needed service. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 
 
 1. SCIENCE is the true revelation to men the only 
 revelation that men have ever received or can receive. 
 For Nature reveals only the secrets which her patient 
 worshippers, after a careful interrogation and close 
 observation, have had the skill to extract from her else 
 close and impassible breast. She has only revealed the 
 " open secret " of her laws to her devoted inquirers, who 
 have carefully watched the ways of her present be- 
 haviour, and have detected the marks of her past 
 behaviour ; reserving a final secret at her heart which 
 none can fathom or discover. This secret is incommuni- 
 cable by her ; nor could it be understood by mortal ears 
 if it were otherwise. The fancied whispers of inspira- 
 tions by the prophets and founders of religions were but 
 the private imaginings of individuals, which the ardour 
 and vehemence of their own souls, conjointly with the 
 spiritual wants and fears of their fellows, intensely 
 desirous of a revelation, permitted to pass for such in 
 rude, uncritical, and credulous ages. Men wanted a reve- 
 lation, a voice from the void ; and the revealer, himself a 
 representative man, more intensely feeling the want than 
 the others, after long and lonely religious contemplation, 
 believed that to him was communicated the secret, and 
 he came forward to supply the want. But he had not 
 
224 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 got the secret. Nor did the philosophers succeed better. 
 The cloud-constructed systems of the great metaphysi- 
 cians who attempted, by a different route and fashion, 
 by the might of their own reason, to take by storm the 
 secret that they knew had not been voluntarily revealed, 
 came no nearer to disclosing the actual truth of things or 
 the final reality and mystery at the bottom of them. 
 The religions and absolute philosophies alike report only 
 the reveries or imperfect imaginings of the individual, 
 which were mistaken by one for the voice of Revelation, 
 by the other for the last truth of Reason and Nature. 
 
 The revelation of science is, indeed, much less precise 
 and circumstantial than that of the religious founders; 
 but it more accords with facts, with the historical fact as 
 witnessed to by marks which geology reads, and with 
 the present actual facts and laws which, during the 
 human historical period, we believe to have been never 
 different. The chain of established scientific truths and 
 laws contains a less sublime scheme and conception of 
 the universe than the grand systems of Plato, or Leib- 
 nitz, or Hegel ; but it is at least more simple and level 
 to our intelligence, it is much closer to the actuality of 
 things, and it always admits of verification. The scien- 
 tific conception of the universe can be compared with 
 the actual facts ; it is merely gathered and generalized 
 from these facts; while the scientific story of Nature's 
 development challenges disproof or refutation, by con- 
 frontation with inexplicable facts and by every applic- 
 able inductive or deductive test. Science may be open 
 to correction in detail, but she believes she holds the 
 substantial truth. In the case of the philosophical 
 systems, they have either no counterpart, being con- 
 structed wholly from the imagination, or if there be any 
 original corresponding to the philosophers' scheme, it 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 225 
 
 admits of no comparison with the copy. The truth of 
 Nature is the system-maker's reading of her, deduced 
 from abstract principles conceived in his own breast, and 
 shaped together by his own mental constructive power. 
 But that the systems do not read either the truth or reality 
 of Nature is proved by their contradictions with each 
 other, as well as by their own internal inconsistencies. 
 
 2. Science will bring not only material but spiritual 
 comforts and alleviation. It will bring both truth and 
 fruit : truth, in itself ; fruit, from its indefinite adapta- 
 bility to the material wants and wishes of men, as well 
 as from its further application to the conduct of life. 
 Science in itself is the true, in its application is the good. 
 The truths of science will save you ; in the sequel they 
 will save the world ; they alone can do so. They will 
 save your soul, in the only sense in which it can be 
 saved by pointing out to it the right way of life ; by 
 giving to it a fuller, freer, better life on the earth, the 
 only certain theatre of its existence and activity ; by 
 giving to it light, by supplying it with sustaining and 
 strengthening truths ; in a word, by showing it the 
 universal empire of law, which embraces both it and the 
 cosmos, the knowledge of which is the sum of truth, and 
 to accommodate ourselves to which is the sum of wisdom 
 and virtue. And this truth will not only save you, it 
 will set you free, as it is ever the work of truth to do. 
 It will set you free by delivering you from the vain fears 
 and terrors and superstitions which so long held the soul 
 of man in degrading bondage, adding their formidable 
 terrors to the miseries of life. It will further set you 
 free within the bounds of natural law, by enabling you 
 to accomplish your desired ends the surer the more 
 you know the unvarying course of things, to which on 
 the one hand your aims must be accommodated, but 
 
226 THE GOSPEL,, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 which on the other can be indefinitely turned to serve 
 you. 
 
 Our perturbed spirits shall at length find rest under 
 the reign of ascertained truth and universal, unvarying 
 law. Our minds shall also be at peace with respect to 
 the final insoluble mystery of the universe, into which 
 not even the angels can penetrate. We shall give up 
 the attempts to solve it, accepting it as a final fact, and 
 being content with a knowledge of the general laws of 
 phenomena. This knowledge of the order of the world, 
 of what we can know and of what we must be content 
 to be ignorant of, will bring back to us our banished 
 peace of mind. The sweet serenity of spirit, the most 
 precious jewel of our souls, will return to us again. We 
 shall take heart of grace, and, knowing the liberal terms 
 that Nature allows to the wise, knowing at least more 
 clearly than men ever knew before the conditions under 
 which we live, fixed and immutable in some directions, 
 alterable in others, and by ourselves for our advantage, 
 we shall once again, as men born under former happy 
 civilizations, put on a cheerful courage, and find enjoy- 
 ment in existence. We shall no more go round bewailing 
 our evil conditions, asking who will show us any good ? 
 Our new-born pessimism shall disappear, direful and 
 phantasmal as our old superstitions. The spirit of man 
 shall get rest after its long and searching probation, after 
 all this feverish agitation and disquietude, prolonged for 
 three centuries, respecting the nature, the origin, and the 
 final destination of the soul. 
 
 Resignation, the last, the greatest, and most difficult 
 of the virtues, will follow under the new dispensation of 
 natural law holding all things, the world, and man, and 
 society in its embrace. Resignation to the unalterable 
 evils of life which the old Stoic strenuously tried to 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 227 
 
 inculcate upon himself, which the religion of Islam 
 prescribes as its central precept, which Christianity 
 supplicates from heaven, becomes almost for the first time 
 a possible and natural frame of mind to man ; the lesson 
 of science being borne in upon his mind from all sides 
 and by countless instances, that the course of nature, the 
 laws of the universe, and the laws of life, from which 
 certain evils must result, are fixed and unalterable. It 
 is natural, when we know that the order of the world is 
 carried on under laws which will not change for our 
 wishes or our prayers, to be resigned to the special evils 
 which the general laws bring with them. It is natural 
 to try to be resigned to the inevitable in any case, and it 
 is wise ; but when we learn that some of the inevitable 
 ills are the result of general laws which bring a greater 
 sum of good ; that others of our ills are not inevitable, 
 but reducible in amount through the beneficial help of 
 these very invariable laws and the unchanging nature 
 of things and properties of matter ; and that finally both 
 the greater good, and the continual diminution of evil 
 within limits, are only obtainable on the twofold condi- 
 tion of the invariability of the laws joined to our know- 
 ledge of them ; then the spirit of resignation to the order 
 of things, which is demanded from us on account of the 
 residuum of evil, becomes tempered with gratitude on 
 account of the larger good. 
 
 When we reflect that the particular e'vils from which 
 we suffer and from which no deliverance can be obtained, 
 are natural effects of the general order, parts of the total 
 chain of cause and consequence which binds the cosmos 
 together : and that to ask for an exception in the opera- 
 tion of natural law, for a single remission of the result in 
 our special favour, would be tantamount to asking for 
 the abolition of law and for the dissolution of the 
 
228 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 universe; this thought and lesson when deeply im- 
 pressed upon us, tends to beget in us the spirit of resigned 
 if not of cheerful acceptance of these evils which can be 
 demonstrated to be unavoidable ; while the additional 
 experience that rebellion against natural law only in- 
 creases our evils by bringing besides its own special 
 punishment, makes us take still further to heart the 
 lesson of science and experience. Still more, when we 
 remember that the invariability of physical and natural 
 law, which sometimes presses so severely upon us as to 
 call for all our patience, is precisely that feature which 
 not only makes possible all the good that we enjoy, but 
 which also gives us our mastery over Nature, with all the 
 positive good which thence results, as well as partial 
 deliverance from evils which are not inevitable then 
 our resignation becomes the easier and more natural, our 
 gratitude the greater. The religious sentiment of resig- 
 nation to the evil, of gratitude for the good, and of 
 complete final dependence upon a law-governed cosmos 
 is thus naturally produced in us. 
 
 We think no more of asking Nature to spare us from 
 special evils, which are a part of her general beneficent 
 order, when exemption could only be obtained on con- 
 ditions which would be subversive of this order, and 
 which, even if possible or conceivable, it would be impious 
 as well as absurd to ask, as rendering impossible a greater 
 good to others and even to ourselves. 
 
 3. But are we not thus shut fast in prison behind 
 the bars of these necessary laws ? Are we not bound in 
 the fetters of these unbroken chains of causation which 
 Science everywhere discloses in the world of mind as in 
 matter, in the succession of thoughts and volitions, as 
 well as in the succession of physical facts and events ? 
 Are we not on all sides, and everywhere we turn, met by 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 229 
 
 the iron links of necessity, massive or fine, in these 
 unvarying connections and inseparable conjunctions of 
 facts which constitute the universe on the scientific 
 showing of it ? In a word, is not the full accomplish- 
 ment of science, and the complete establishment of the 
 reign of law in matter, in mind, in the human body, in 
 human societies, only the completion of our subjection to 
 necessity and fate ? Not so, replies the positive thinker ; 
 less now than ever does necessity press upon men, and it 
 is to the universal reign of law, and to science which has 
 found and demonstrated it, that we owe our deliverance. 
 For though the universe is indeed, in a sense, a huge 
 machine, though the order of the world is invariable and 
 ascertained, though fire invariably ignites gunpowder, 
 though lead sinks in water, though all animals die, and 
 the dead do not rise again ; though all this be true, yet 
 we find that the laws of Nature are not our tyrannical 
 masters, and the empire of necessity does not oppress us. 
 On the contrary, we find that even while we act under 
 laws, we can bend their action indefinitely to our will 
 and pleasure and advantage. And this is practical 
 freedom, the only real freedom, the freedom to pursue 
 what we desire. We can set the laws to act together or 
 in opposition to each other. We can set two or more 
 causes in action together, and make them to unite, or 
 alter, or cancel their special effects. We can increase, 
 vary, modify, neutralize the operation of laws, but only 
 by the action of other laws. We can summon one law 
 to our aid to deliver us from the evil effect of another 
 law. We can get one cause to counteract another cause, 
 water to extinguish a conflagration, quinine to cure an 
 ague or fever. In like manner we may link together 
 several instances of laws with their effects into a series in 
 a machine, as the steam-engine, which is but the con- 
 
230 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 juncture and constraint of the laws of heat, of motion, of 
 the expansive force of steam and its propelling power 
 upon a given movable mass ; all which laws, in addition 
 to others, are fulfilled in and by the machine, and are 
 made by it to work submissively and untiringly towards 
 one desired end. 
 
 But to master and constrain Nature we must know 
 her, and we must obey her. We must have an accurate 
 knowledge of the law, a right estimate of the behaviour 
 of the forces that we use ; for the same force that will- 
 serve us submissively if we understand it, the same law 
 that will work our will if we go with it, will destroy us 
 without mercy in the opposite case. The first prelimi- 
 nary condition of Nature's service is knowledge that 
 we should study and know her, that we should learn the 
 sequences that Science has slowly gathered through the 
 centuries ; and where her laws admit of definite mathe- 
 matical measurement, that we should not mistake in the 
 application of our formulae or in the calculated strength 
 of materials, as otherwise our bridge will not bear the 
 strain upon it of possible forces, but breaks down ; our 
 vessel, with its centre of gravity placed too high, cap- 
 sizes in a sudden gale ; our lighthouse, with its foundation 
 sapped by the action of the waves, is blown down in a 
 storm. The condition next after knowledge that Nature 
 exacts is obedience. We must first know, we must next 
 obey; but these two conditions once fulfilled, there is 
 nothing that she may not grant us ; nothing that we 
 may not hope for, even marvels that cannot now be 
 dreamed of by us any more than the marvels of steam 
 and electricity by our ancestors a few generations back. 
 Already we have tamed and made all the great agencies 
 and forces of Nature our potent, though as yet only 
 partial, vassals. Heat, light, electricity, water, wind, and 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PKOMISES TO MANKIND. 231 
 
 steam, already perform for us all manner of service ; in 
 the future they will do still more marvellous things. By 
 more exact and concentrated observation, by the subtle 
 and well-pointed interrogation of Nature's more hidden 
 ways of operation, at last comes the great discovery for* 
 which these prepare the way, which had already existed 
 in the hazier form of hypothesis ; and the discoveries of 
 the laws invariably lead, by help of a different class 
 of minds, to the great practical invention which further 
 presses the inexhaustible forces of Nature into the service 
 of man. By observation and experiment prompted by 
 hypothesis, the discoverers first learn the general laws of 
 phenomena, then the more special, both together con- 
 stituting the science; and the science illuminates the 
 path of endless practical inventions. It is to this double 
 labour of the men of science and the practical inventors, 
 of the Newtons and Watts, that we owe all our mastery 
 over the once formidable forces of Nature ; in particular, 
 we owe it to the extraordinary discoveries and inventions 
 of the past half-century, which, further, besides multi- 
 plying our comforts and emancipating men's muscles from 
 strenuous toil, have greatly revolutionized our social and 
 industrial life. 
 
 Let men only learn Nature's ways of behaviour first 
 her ordinary, and then her more secret and exceptional 
 but still general processes and all things are possible, 
 and may be attained from her. She will relax her 
 rigidity; she will grant everything to knowledge. To 
 ignorance and rebellion only is she merciless and cruel ; 
 and to both equally so. 
 
 Knowledge is the true prayer, the only one to which 
 Nature hearkens and responds, as the pursuit of know- 
 ledge is her true and accepted worship. By knowledge 
 alone man has been delivered from the forces and scourges 
 
232 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 and fatalities of Nature, blind and mighty and destroy- 
 ing fire and flood, lightning and tempest, plague and 
 famine, shipwreck and untimely death. To appease the 
 wrath of these awful and destructive powers of Nature, 
 the primitive man supposing them deities or demons, in 
 trembling fear built temples, and offered prayer and 
 sacrifice of everything that could be conceived to appease 
 offended deities, in vain : while modern man, by a know- 
 ledge of Nature's laws, not only averts her anger, but 
 converts her most formidable forces into his powerful 
 servants. Thus by knowledge only, he has performed 
 the miracle of taming the blind and inanimate forces of 
 Nature, much more difficult to subdue than the animals 
 or savage beasts, and utterly insensible to supplication, 
 or prayer, or sacrifice. Let us only know her conditions, 
 and accept them, and Nature will be propitious indeed. 
 Where she had else been our scourge and destroyer, she 
 will give us all things liberally to enjoy. And who are 
 they who have enabled us to placate Nature, the priests 
 of this true worship who have made atonement, the 
 mediators between ordinary men and Nature who have 
 rendered her propitious ? The priests have been the dis- 
 coverers and inventors in the sciences and the arts ; the 
 temples Nature herself; and the inner shrines where 
 the worship has been carried on, have been the labo- 
 ratory and the observatory, the study of the natural 
 philosopher and inventor, and the workshop of the 
 engineer. 
 
 The mastery of Nature has not been the sole result 
 of physical science. This has, indeed, followed from 
 scientific knowledge and discovery, and material advan- 
 tages and comforts, great and important, have again 
 followed from it. We have further got an explanation 
 of Nature, for which the human mind craves as much as 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO 
 
 for material results. We have learned the 
 of the world : that nothing can disturb it outside the 
 circle of natural causes ; that nothing ever will disturb it 
 which is not the result of natural causes ; and that such 
 disturbing causes, which are rather of the nature of 
 growths, are always of prodigiously slow development. 
 By the progress of physical and natural science con- 
 jointly, we have at length been delivered from the 
 terrors of superstition and ignorance, and the tyranny 
 of dogmatic creeds, which took advantage of them. 
 
 4. And even in the general practical sphere, Science 
 has done more than merely minister to man's material 
 comforts and happiness. After discovering the laws and 
 obtaining the dominion over the forces of external nature, 
 Science has come to man himself, to human nature ; and 
 here, too, she has ascertained the laws, physiological and 
 psychological, as manifested in his mind and frame ; 
 and from this knowledge, supplemented by the practical 
 science of medicine itself a slow growth of traditional 
 experience and knowledge we may hope in future to 
 regulate the expenditure of our physical and mental 
 energies with a wiser economy ; we may even hope, by 
 the improved resources of the medical art, to come to 
 terms with, if we may not wholly subdue, the maleficent 
 forces within, which show themselves in diseases or dis- 
 ordered function of body or mind ; and it even appears 
 certain that we might save ourselves half the diseases, 
 and a large fraction of the unhappiness and minor 
 miseries of life by common attention to the known and 
 demonstrated laws of health. 
 
 In the natural order of inquiry, and according to the 
 order of difficulty and complexity, Science has first ad- 
 dressed herself to the study of the physical world ; next 
 to the organic world, or the world of life ; and lastly to 
 
234 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 the phenomena of the social world.* At the summit of 
 the series of living beings, Science encounters man, the 
 most complex and finished product of life, furnishing the 
 subject of the two co -related sciences of physiology and 
 psychology. In man Science finds two systems, a bodily 
 and a mental one, totally dissimilar and yet wonderfully 
 fitted together, and working into each other, as an 
 existent fact; a wonderful and indissoluble union, form- 
 ing the marvellous whole the man himself, with a 
 bodily organism capable of movements the most express 
 and admirable, and with a mind capable of producing 
 the most wonderful thoughts ; in " action like an angel, 
 in apprehension like a God." The physiologist discovers 
 in the living human body a system far more truly 
 wonderful than any solar or sidereal system moved only 
 by physical forces a system in which the parts are 
 variously and exquisitely adapted to each other and to 
 the whole, with mutual actions and sympathies, subtly 
 transmitted between parts ajacent and parts remote, and 
 between the total bodily and total mental systems them- 
 selves, all conspiring to the common final ends of life, 
 movement, and thought. Here, too, Science finds laws, 
 both of bodily function and of mental faculty, of structure 
 and growth, of mutual action of parts, and of secret 
 nervous communication. From the cunning disposition 
 of the elementary atoms and cells, to the finished physio- 
 logical functions and anatomical relations of the full- 
 grown organism ; from the first faint dawn of infant or 
 
 * As a matter of fact, the three orders of inquiry have been carried 
 on contemporaneously, both under the Greek and modern civilizations. 
 The above is, no doubt, the order of complexity ; but whether it is the 
 order of difficulty, as Comte and Spencer and Mill affirm, may be made 
 a question. Political economy and sociology, so far as they are sciences, 
 do not seem more difficult than the physical sciences in the deductive 
 stage, which draw on all the resources of the mathematical sciences as 
 well as on experiment* - 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 235 
 
 embryonic sensation, to the crowning marvel of con- 
 sciousness and inspired thought ; all the phenomena in 
 the human being are subject to law; and many of these, 
 of much consequence to bodily and mental health, and for 
 the regulation of life, physiologists have already mastered 
 for us. When the various functions duly perform their 
 work, when the whole mechanism, bodily and mental, 
 works smoothly and harmoniously, there is annexed to 
 this state the general sense of health, and feeling of joy 
 and satisfaction in existence; but when any of them 
 fails, when any part of the bodily machinery is out of 
 order, when a certain organ performs its function badly, 
 when the normal relation between important organs is 
 disturbed, or their mutual action perverse, the earth 
 becomes for us " a sterile promontory," and all happiness 
 is attacked at the root. True, some organs may dis- 
 charge their functions ill, without impairing our spirits, 
 but in these cases we are often lulled into a false 
 security. The general rule, however, is that disordered 
 function, however slight, affects our spirits ; when more 
 serious, it produces disease ; and in both cases diminishes 
 happiness or satisfaction in existence. Moreover, our 
 bodily system is a machine so delicate that it is subject 
 to all kinds of disturbing and disordering causes short 
 of those which stop its further action by breaking it up 
 completely. It is subject, in addition, to all "the skyey 
 influences," to evil influences from our fortunes, our 
 fellows, our ill-adapted or adverse circumstances, our 
 passions, as well as to mysterious possibilities of dis- 
 turbance or sudden failure inherited from our ancestors, 
 and lying sleeping possibly for years in the ultimate 
 atoms and cells of the frame. All this Modern Science, 
 physiology and embryology, has taught us ; but she has 
 done more than point out the evil r she has come to our 
 
236 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 assistance and partial delivery. By the light which the 
 science of physiology has given to. medicine, by the aid 
 which chemistry, electricity, and botany have supplied, 
 as well as by the many discoveries of the powerful 
 remedial effects of certain drugs and agencies, the modern 
 physician is enabled to attack declared diseases with 
 much more knowledge and skill. He is able, moreover, 
 to contend much more successfully with the disturbing- 
 causes within ; while we ourselves, by a knowledge of the 
 general principles of physiology and by ordinary atten- 
 tion to the known laws of health, may in great measure 
 escape those diseases and ailments which people so 
 often bring upon themselves, and may preserve ourselves 
 in good bodily health. 
 
 5. But the mind diseased, can any medicinal art 
 minister to it ? The " rooted sorrow," can Science pluck 
 it from the memory ? Can physic or the positive con- 
 clusions of philosophy 
 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
 And with some sweet oblivious antidote, 
 Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
 Which weighs upon the heart ? 
 
 And the answer of the positive scientific thinker is, Yes, 
 to a degree; science and the philosophy founded on 
 science do enable us to deal with and to diminish this 
 class of ills. Science can really minister to the mind 
 diseased, as well as teach us to escape the causes of such. 
 She can veritably mitigate the deeper soul-sicknesses, as 
 she can effectually cure the more ordinary but less malig- 
 nant forms of the same general type of disorder. For 
 mental physiology and medical science now well under- 
 stand that mental disorders, both of the serious and 
 superficial sort, are really bodily disorders; that the 
 mind diseased is but the brain and nervous system 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 237 
 
 diseased; and between them they have discovered a 
 curative treatment as well as a mental hygiene. There 
 are both material and moral medicines prescribed, which 
 act directly upon and compose the disordered molecular 
 action, at the root of all serious mental disturbance. 
 And there is a moral as well as a physical therapeutic 
 and regimen for our more serious and deep-seated soul- 
 sickness, our melancholies, world-weariness, despond- 
 encies, abysmal depressions, and paroxysmal despairs, 
 as well as for the lighter and more evanescent moral 
 ailments of the same general nature, though less virulent 
 in degree, which are the common human heritage. Even 
 when there is functional cerebral disorder, amounting to 
 mental aberration, there is now a possibility of complete 
 cure, or at least of mitigation which was not possible in 
 the old days of ignorance and barbarous treatment. 
 
 And can Science, the mere ascertained sequence and 
 conjunction of phenomena can even physiology and 
 psychology enable us to banish from the breast the evil 
 passions, the poisons in our cup of peace remorse and 
 hatred and fear or aid us to dissipate in our fearful 
 imaginations gloomy apprehensions and the monstrous 
 magnified shadows of the coming evil ? Yes, to some 
 very considerable extent they can; and the incurable 
 residuum, a knowledge of the universal order, will teach 
 you to bear with patience, if not with fortitude. 
 
 Can Science deliver us from the endless cares and the 
 disturbing perplexities of conduct, the trials, difficulties, 
 and dangers, the disappointments, and sometimes the 
 total defeats, with which we meet in life ? No, Science 
 cannot deliver you from these, nor should you ask it. 
 Science cannot cure this class of griefs, which is of the 
 inmost essence of life itself; but she can teach you to 
 minimize them, to see them in their true nature, to 
 
238 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 reduce them to their proper size and reality. Further 
 yet, she can enable you to see a soul of good in these 
 things evil, to find a jewel in adversity itself; and even 
 to extract a balance of advantage from the general pro- 
 bation of life of which you complain. Indeed, you know 
 little what you really want, and what would be really 
 for your good, when you ask the removal of all trial and 
 trouble from life ; and the total removal of difficulty and 
 danger would be far from the heaven of happiness you 
 dream it would be. It would cause you ennui and 
 weariness and nausea of life, but not the peace you long 
 for ; the weariness of a life without aim and effort and 
 struggle, and without the nourishment and renovation 
 of nerve, the genial outcome of spirits, and the real peace 
 in the brain and breast which good aims and sustained 
 effort ever bring with them, even when they do not lead 
 to full fruition. Even Schopenhauer, the modern pessi- 
 mist prophet, admits that the dead calm of full fruition 
 and accomplished desires would be as bad for men as the 
 present torment of life from the restless craving of unful- 
 filled wants and desires; his own idea of peace and 
 felicity consisting not in the fulfilment of our numerous 
 desires, but in the " denial of the will to live," and con- 
 sequent extinction of them. And he is right, so far as 
 he contends that the dead calm of fulfilment would be 
 a worse and more abysmal fate than our present evil 
 condition. This state, where no effort is required, and 
 all trouble is removed, the state where every wish 
 receives fulfilment without action or effort, might suit 
 the angels, but it would not suit men as at present 
 constituted. We are made with faculties both for con- 
 templation and action, but chiefly for the latter. We 
 are made for competition, struggle, combat with our 
 fellows, with nature, with fate, even with the problems 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 239 
 
 and difficulties which thought and conduct themselves 
 present to us. In short, trial and difficulty and danger 
 are for ever inseparable from the life of man, as from 
 the life of every living creature on earth, and without 
 it we find it a little difficult even to conceive the happi- 
 ness of the gods, reduced, as Aristotle argues, to contem- 
 plation merely. The notion of life and trial are with us 
 at least so inseparably linked together, that we cannot 
 conceive of the first without the second. And then the 
 evils necessary for our state of probation are the neces- 
 sary conditions of all that we call progress, and all that 
 we call virtue, which things bring happiness such as we 
 can appreciate. The evils are the condition of all per- 
 fection or approach to it in every direction, in every 
 course of excellence and aspiration. Our nature is 
 adapted and shaped beforehand with special reference 
 to life's ills. We inherit the spirit of struggle and 
 combat. And what man would really have his life free 
 from the dangers which give a zest ; from the difficulties 
 which stimulate and do not daunt the brave ; from the 
 trial of merit which disciplines and strengthens our 
 fortitude, or our powers of achievement ; nay, even from 
 the salutary temporary defeat, which is often the best 
 preparation for, and the prelude to, the future victory ? 
 
 But, however we choose to regard them, it is at least 
 certain that these immemorial and universal evils in some 
 form and in some degree must for ever continue. The 
 excessive degree of probation which kills us before 
 shaping us to our surroundings, or which hardens the 
 heart without improving the virtue, this, we may in- 
 dulge the hope, will with time be mitigated ; it is being 
 mitigated ; but whilst men remain men, and until they 
 shall have far more closely approximated to angelic 
 nature, they cannot be, and it is not desirable that they 
 
240 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 should be, freed from the trial, difficulty, and danger 
 incident to human life. 
 
 There are, indeed, other real ills which bring no 
 counterbalancing benefit in their train; ills in abun- 
 dance, for which no knowledge or arfc has provided 
 effective remedial drugs or even mental palliations. 
 There are the stings of conscience, the corrosions of 
 long-continued remorse and sorrow, the sickness of heart 
 for the hopes long deferred, the despair of heart for the 
 hopes for ever defeated and overthrown. There is the 
 fierce and prolonged probation, which paralyzes or slays, 
 which assaults us before and behind and from all sides, 
 and which, sufficiently long continued, will harden the 
 heart to pity and dull it to good; a probation which, 
 instead of improving our virtue, rather corrupts and 
 envenoms it, turning it into its opposite ; which, in dark 
 moments, may make even the virtuous man doubt the 
 reality of virtue, and the kindly man dislike his species. 
 There are these and other evils the wreck of health, 
 ruin of fortune, loss of friends by death or estrangement, 
 for which no physical or moral medicine has yet been 
 provided in the pharmacopoeia of science, and for which 
 scarcely any soothing anodyne has yet been discovered. 
 But if science has failed, did theology or philosophy ever 
 do much to cure or assuage these classes of human griefs 
 and pangs ? Theology offered a remedy which, ad- 
 mittedly, only operated occasionally through the medium 
 of complex moral and spiritual miracles ; philosophy, 
 with greater show of reason, according to the system we 
 consulted, advised us to fortify our spirits so as to bear 
 the ills, or to make light of them, or to fly from their 
 causes. Nevertheless, the pains remained in all cases : 
 men continued to suffer, in spite of religious or philo- 
 sophical consolations. We now know better ; that some 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 241 
 
 bitter evils are incidental to the universal human lot ; 
 that they are a part of human destiny, like death itself, 
 which cannot be shunned. We know, too, that they 
 follow from natural causes, and that, therefore, no moral 
 miracle can possibly be wrought to deliver us from them; 
 and if there is to be the least mitigation, it must, we 
 know, be wrought by natural means, and in an intel- 
 ligible manner. But happily we also know something 
 more than formerly respecting the sequence of our 
 mental states and their physical concomitants, the evil 
 as well as the good ; and we can do something at least, 
 through the united forces of physiology and psychology, 
 to mitigate the mental pains which we cannot cure. We 
 are taught that if the evil and depressing passions, " the 
 vultures of the mind," have destructive effects upon our 
 nerves and health, as they surely have, we must resist 
 and control or shun the causes which produce the 
 disastrous effects. We are thus compelled, under severe 
 natural penalties, to regulate our life more wisely. We 
 are driven to a greater self-mastery, a stronger and wiser 
 self-denial, it may be even to a greater renunciation of 
 objects dear and desirable ; and we shall certainly be 
 required to cultivate a stricter conscience, and one more 
 void of offence to all. In this way, by natural, which 
 also include moral means, we may really reduce our 
 worst sorrows, troubles and trials to within a narrower 
 and endurable compass ; and when we have in this way 
 done our utmost, it is then our duty, and it exhibits the 
 right spirit, to accept, if not contentedly which might 
 be demanding too much from men at least unmurmur- 
 ingly, silently, and stoically, the irreducible burden of 
 grief that we must bear. We thus return to stoicism ; 
 we must cultivate the spirit of resignation, which a 
 knowledge of the fixed general order of Nature in the 
 
 n 
 
342 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 physical sphere has already prepared us for, but resigna- 
 tion only with respect to that portion of our mental, 
 moral, and physical pangs and maladies for which we 
 are assured there is no alleviation. For we are not 
 called upon to lie down quiescently under ills which we 
 can really, in however small degree, reduce by our 
 wisdom and resolute endeavours. The virtue of resig- 
 nation must not be confounded with apathetic indiffer- 
 ence or with Mussulman fatalism, or even with the 
 quietism the denial of the will to live of the pessimist ; 
 these are only vicious frames of mind resembling it; 
 resignation is the high virtue which is only asked from 
 us with respect to those numerous unalterable ills which, 
 like death, must be accepted, though to cultivate it, and 
 attain to it, in these cases where it is really demanded 
 from us, is the summit of human virtue, showing piety, 
 patience, and fortitude in one. 
 
 6. In spite, however, of all mitigation of our pro- 
 bation from science, or philosophy, or medicine, does not 
 the feverish and increasing intensity of the competitive 
 struggle for life, resulting from our crowded and ever- 
 increasing population, tend to swell the list of sufferers 
 from mental and nervous maladies, owing to the greater 
 demand made on the energies of the brain, the modern 
 weapon of combat, at least with the educated classes, in 
 the battle for existence ? Do not brain and nerves give 
 way or fail more frequently than in former times, when 
 men seemed compact of firmer fibres with stronger nerves ? 
 To some extent probably, though the extent may be 
 easily exaggerated; since such cases are now, through 
 statistics, brought more prominently before our notice 
 than formerly, and since our trebled population, since 
 the beginning of the century, would necessarily show a 
 trebled number of such cases even if there were no 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PKOMISES TO MANKIND. 243 
 
 relative increase. But even if there be not only a greater 
 absolute number, but a greater relative proportion of 
 such, there are more than compensating considerations. 
 
 The greater demand on organs may have a double 
 effect : It may both produce fitness of faculties, and also, 
 if they are below average excellence, it may produce 
 further unfitness ; especially if, as in our modern life, the 
 work is itself becoming more complex and exacting. But 
 in a far greater number of instances, the more stringent 
 demands and severer competition of our more complex 
 social life merely make manifest and patent inherent 
 unfitness, without in any respect causing or increasing it. 
 The severer conditions serve the purposes of probation, 
 by discovering and disciplining excellence where it already 
 exists, while at the same time revealing inherent in- 
 capacity. This is the general rule ; the cases where com- 
 petition produces failure and unfitness, the exception. 
 Competition, indeed, is not to blame in general ; it is the 
 chance and uncertainty which accompanies the com- 
 petitive regime an accident which is no part of its 
 essence that mostly produces the mental failure, or 
 reduced nervous vitality, which, even more than lack of 
 brain, results in the various avenues of competition in 
 the loss of the battle of life. Happily, however, this 
 chance element, through the operation of various counter- 
 acting agencies constantly on the increase which tend to 
 produce a solidarity in men's fortunes, is Being constantly 
 reduced within narrower limits. But while the chance 
 element is being minimized, the competition itself, in 
 some shape and in certain directions, must remain a per- 
 manent fact in human existence. It is even a most 
 important factor in furthering the utilitarian end of the 
 greatest ultimate good of men. It may indeed and it 
 must be mitigated, in certain directions; but it could 
 
244 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 never be wholly dispensed with without producing stag- 
 nation or retrogression. In fact, it is impossible to 
 conceive it wholly abolished, being, as it is, the deepest, 
 most universal law of life when many units live in a 
 state of social aggregation. Amongst communities of 
 ants some competition exists ; even in a socialistic com- 
 munity it could not be done away with. There would 
 still be competition, if not for property, yet for things 
 which could not be divided, and which all could not 
 have ; if not for divisible and material, yet for immaterial 
 things power, fame, excellence ; or if not for self, there 
 would be competition to do the most good for all or for 
 others. Competition, in short, is the necessary and 
 eternal means adopted by Nature, wiser than we, to 
 perfect all the species of animals, and the human species 
 conspicuously ; and competition, in its nobler and more 
 justifiable forms, is the generous desire to surpass, the 
 source of all that is great in human endeavour, and of all 
 that is excellent in human achievement. It is the quick 
 spur to merit and virtue, quite as much as the external 
 prize of wealth or fame, and men can never dispense with 
 it, as the best men will never be without it. In its 
 lower form, however, in the shape in which it so often 
 manifests itself of the selfish desire to amass together 
 the greatest possible amount of wealth, or of the material 
 means to happiness, it deserves no such high commenda- 
 tion as we have bestowed upon it ; though even in this 
 form it is on the whole beneficial, and its excess is far 
 preferable to its absence. In the present state of civilized 
 communities, competition on the whole, including its 
 coarser forms, works beneficially, and works also towards 
 the production of the superior future society. It selects 
 the brain and nerves best adapted to the changed con- 
 ditions of modern social and industrial life, of which the 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PEOMISES TO MANKIND. 245 
 
 chief characteristic is the freer scope allowed to individual 
 efforts, and in which the prizes are now more than 
 formerly to individual energy and ability. By the pro- 
 longed process of natural selection, which essentially 
 implies competition, as alone giving Nature's selection 
 free play, those men will infallibly be found and elected 
 to continue the race who have not only brains and bodily 
 organs fitter for the work involving keener competition, 
 but who will also find a special pleasure in the keenness 
 of the struggle.* They will enjoy the contest, as men in 
 ruder ages " drank delight of battle with their peers," in 
 their coarser trials to find the fit for the different and 
 simpler conditions of life. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that natural selection, having in 
 view only the perfection of the type and species, often 
 presses heavily and mercilessly upon the individual. 
 With a grand goal in view, Nature, in steering towards 
 it, seems utterly regardless of the means employed to 
 reach it. Blind and careless, even cruel and merciless, 
 she shows herself to the existing units that are not aids 
 and instruments to her further aims. Her path is con- 
 stantly over the prostrate bodies of the present slain, 
 indifferent, looking only to her goal the happier better 
 species hereafter. And this is her only justification. 
 But in later times and in our own day there has arisen 
 the protest of human nature against f the cruelty of 
 objective impersonal Nature. In the case of men them- 
 selves, Nature as human nature, begins to relent in her 
 severity. There has come a mitigation in the sterner 
 aspects of the fierce competitive struggle, as also in the 
 consequences to the conquered, now less disastrous than 
 in former less humane times. There is quarter to the 
 vanquished in the social battle of life, as there is in 
 
 * See Spencer's Principles of Biology, vol. ii. p. 503. 
 
246 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 modern civilized warfare ; there is even aid to the 
 wounded in both cases from an increase in our sympathy 
 and humanity. 
 
 There is, moreover, a greater recognition of the gulf 
 of disastrous chance into which the worthy and the 
 intellectually capable may be precipitated as well as the 
 worthless and unfit; and this reflection makes men 
 inclined to deal more considerately with the cases of 
 failure that a change of circumstances or a turn in 
 fortune's wheel might have made their own. This sphere 
 of chance may not really be greater in modern life, but it 
 is more seen and more felt ; and our system of indi- 
 vidualism, of which the socialists complain, necessarily 
 brings a certain amount of it with it. But with the evil 
 has come the mitigation. 
 
 Further, there is the felt community of interests 
 amongst the members of different classes, and callings, of 
 associations and companies with common aims and 
 objects, which abates competition to the extent of the 
 common interest inside such groups and societies, leaving 
 it to exist only between the various groups themselves, 
 or in lessened degree between the individuals composing 
 them. All this, however, does not prevent the applica- 
 tion of the law of natural selection, nor do away with the 
 need of competition in its other and salutary forms. The 
 considerations above pointed out mitigate the harsher 
 features of competition, but they do not show that we 
 could dispense with competition the one sure and 
 constant means employed by Nature to improve society, 
 and to achieve intellectual, moral, and physical excellence 
 in the race. By this sorting and eliminating process 
 constantly at work, if its natural course is not deliberately 
 frustrated by men themselves, in the permission and 
 encouragement of the inferior or worst specimens the 
 
THE MESSAGE AND PROMISES TO MANKIND. 247 
 
 criminals, the imbeciles, the vicious, the diseased by in- 
 heritance to multiply their kind instead of the better 
 specimens, a race with superior brains, healthy frames, 
 and moral dispositions fully adapted to their environ- 
 ment, will inevitably in time be evolved; a race from 
 which the weak and worthless and wicked will have 
 been slowly but surely eliminated, and in which, thanks 
 to the beneficent laws of heredity, they can no more 
 re-appear to deteriorate the high type attained.* 
 
 * See Spencer's Study of Sociology, pp. 340-349. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 TO THE POOR. SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM. 
 
 1. YOUR gospel is good, exclaims the modern socialist. 
 Science, we allow, has done much for man's collective, 
 and something for his individual, benefit. She has 
 multiplied man's material comforts and enjoyments, 
 increased the productive powers of labour, triumphed over 
 the destroying forces of Nature, mitigated the diseases 
 of the individual body ; and for all this she deserves 
 the thanks of mankind. But the diseases of the social 
 body, chronic and destroying : the crime, and want, and 
 poverty the fruitful parent of further crime, and vice, and 
 misery; the social sores and ulcerating wounds of the 
 modern body politic; the drunkenness; the degraded, 
 disease-fraught frames ; the still more degraded minds ; 
 the massed misery and shame of our great cities; the 
 pauperism and prostitution ; all this dismal, broadening 
 river of human want and wretchedness and shameless- 
 ness, scarcely if at all diminished by our vaunted civili- 
 zation or religion, even in its relative amount, while it 
 has vastly increased in absolute amount, while moreover, 
 the sufferers, having tasted the tree of knowledge, have 
 become more keenly alive to the fact of their nakedness 
 and misery, and while the race itself has at last awoke 
 to a keen consciousness of these shameful and intolerable 
 
TO THE POOR. 249 
 
 things; all the evil of this social hell, of far greater 
 dimensions than the social elysium which modern society 
 also contains in its midst, can Science do nothing to 
 check, or to cure, or to mitigate it ? 
 
 Can Science help us to stem this tide of social human 
 misery, the greater part of it, including the crime and 
 vice, being directly traceable to poverty alone, or to the 
 blunted feelings, the perverted moral perceptions and 
 despair, produced by poverty, while the fact itself of 
 poverty, is, as the socialists contend, the necessary result 
 of our present social and industrial system, our economi- 
 cally consecrated regime of competition and individualism, 
 and of the social injustice which lies at the root of it ? 
 Can Science help us to check or control the causes which 
 produce all this misery ? Can she aid to diminish the 
 gulf, ever deepening and dangerous, between rich and 
 poor ; the monstrous and growing contrast between 
 misery and luxury; between the gilded splendour and 
 perfume, the pomp and pride, the varnished vices and 
 forgiven sins of the elect of the social heaven on one side, 
 and on the other the dismal dwellings and privation 
 and hunger, the squalor and stench, the disease and 
 drunkenness, the unforgiven sins and shames of the 
 unfortunates of the social Inferno, which stretches wide 
 and hopeless outside the gates of the social Paradise ? 
 Can Science, we ask, help us here ? And if she cannot, 
 of what avail her other services and gifts to men, which 
 are ever intercepted and monopolized by these same 
 wealthy who already have, to the further detriment of 
 those who have not ? If this gospel of Science is not for 
 alj. mankind, if it is not "the gospel to the poor," as 
 Christianity, though perverted from its Founder's purpose, 
 was meant to be, of what use is the message, and to 
 what purpose all the vain noise and blowing of trumpets ? 
 
250 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 If Science cannot aid to mitigate the evident miseries of 
 the many, if she can only offer us the continued operation 
 of natural selection as a panacea for our admitted social 
 griefs, whence all the jubilations, and why should men 
 of science indulge in optimistic boasts ? If the poverty 
 of the majority forbids even the most elementary con- 
 ditions of happiness, the first necessaries of life, were it 
 not honester for Science and Evolution to acknowledge 
 the case of the pessimist as proved, and keep a little 
 quiet, leaving to men not yet prepared to accept the 
 pessimist solution nor yet the satisfied conclusion of the 
 rich that " the poor will never cease in the land," some 
 other way than by scientific counsel of working out their 
 own earthly salvation ? 
 
 The practical problem for Science in the sphere of 
 society is, according to the socialist, to find a means 
 of curing or mitigating poverty, and the miseries, alone 
 deserving compassion, that flow from it. Can she find a 
 remedy other than the slow one of natural selection, 
 which is, in fact, neither cure nor consolation for the 
 present generation of sufferers, which at best seems little 
 more than a consecration, in the name of Science, of the 
 evils complained of, or an assurance to the victims who 
 are not selected that their sacrifice is for the future good 
 of society. We do not demand of Science, says the 
 socialist, that she should perform the miracle of remedying 
 evils which are a necessary part of the universal human 
 heritage and destiny, as sorrow, sickness, disappointment, 
 or death, but only that she should aid us to remove or 
 lessen want and poverty, with the long and disastrous 
 train of evils that thence proceeds, which things we 
 maintain are curable. We admit that even if Science 
 could or would show us undoubtedly the true scientific 
 causes of these, it would be something, even though her 
 
TO THE POOH. 251 
 
 remedies were useless. Now, the socialist maintains 
 that the great social evils are due to our present social 
 system, that they could be cured by the necessary changes 
 in it, and are demonstrably incurable under that system 
 itself. Science, on the other hand, seems to affirm that 
 the causes are resident in human nature, in the repro- 
 ductive instinct which ever tends to produce a redundant 
 population; and she offers us two most unsatisfactory 
 remedies. The first is her new and universal medicine 
 of " natural selection," and the survival of him who can 
 best equalize his nature to his environment a formula 
 which, applied to human societies, virtually recommends 
 that the present state of things should continue; that 
 the purifying and eliminating process which has done so 
 well in the past should still go on or be applied more 
 stringently if greater results are required ; that in short,, 
 natural selection which only selects those who can 
 adapt themselves to their surroundings, subject to chance 
 and change, and which slays, or slowly saps the strength, 
 or pauperizes so many of the rest is to go on for ever, 
 and all will come right generations hence by this marvel- 
 lous curative process. The second scientific remedy is 
 the old and thrice-famed one of Malthus, so strongly 
 recommended by Mill the " prudential restraint," which, 
 however, contrary as it is to the teaching of Herbert 
 Spencer, whose optimistic eyes, discerning good ever in 
 things evil, sees future possible civilizations in the 
 pressure of redundant population, is also at variance 
 with the doctrine of our contemporary pessimist philo- 
 sopher, Hartmann, who, while, to the optimist, he plays 
 the part of Ahriman to Ormuz, at the same time discerns 
 in the instinct in question the deepest, most obstinate, 
 and most universal, albeit irrational, instinct of nature, 
 the all-powerful will of the species to live. 
 
252 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 The cause of our chief social evils persists the 
 socialist is the constitution of society, our present social 
 system, a system partly of consecrated hereditary privi- 
 lege, which is, however, happily everywhere dying ; but 
 mainly and more perniciously, our present industrial 
 system, of individual competition, of employer and 
 employed, of capital and labour, a system not dying, 
 but everywhere in feverish active life all around ; whose 
 first principle is each one for himself; in which all 
 struggle furiously to push their way to the front, to 
 " get on," as the expressive phrase is, which means to get 
 and to grasp the greatest possible sum of the good things 
 going, that constant and concentrated effort, skill, and 
 cunning, conducted within the bounds of the civil but by 
 no means the moral law, may secure ; a system certainly 
 not favourable to the further development of the social, 
 or kindly, or disinterested virtues, being scarcely com- 
 patible with the primary virtues of truth, or justice, or 
 honesty, but, on the contrary, directly tending to de- 
 velop the intensest forms of selfishness ; a system, more- 
 over, which works badly for mankind, or for nations, or 
 for classes in the gross, being demonstrably inconsistent 
 Avith the "greatest happiness of the greatest number," it 
 being mathematically certain that in the competitive 
 race the greater number will be wholly distanced, that a 
 considerable number, from chance, or circumstance, or 
 strain in the contest, will break hopelessly down, while 
 the happiness of the few who win the prize is a small 
 set-off against the misery of the many who fail, a lottery 
 system, of few prizes and many blanks ; in which the 
 best do not win, where the fortunes of the few are made 
 by the failures of the many; a system, moreover, in 
 which the few successful must, after all, however 
 grudgingly, subscribe to the support of the same dismal 
 
TO THE POOR. 253 
 
 and forlorn army of the failures, and paupers, and crimi- 
 nals-, which it has in great measure produced. 
 
 And yet this regime of feverish competition, with all 
 its evils and disastrous chances for the lower classes, 
 who perish like flies beneath its fluctuations and panics, 
 and with all its odious and vulgar accompaniments, the 
 pushing, struggling, and trampling on the fallen, as they 
 show themselves in the better classes ; this wretched and 
 evil system of individualism, worse than the feudalism 
 which it followed, where the vassal at least shared the 
 bread as well as the fortune of his lord, and where 
 pauperism did not exist ; this system is, it seems, to be 
 consecrated in the name of Science, and pronounced an 
 eternal and unalterable fact and law of social existence. 
 Competition, the ordeal of battle, the survival of the 
 strong, is the universal law of all life, evolution-science 
 affirms. Competition finds the fit within the several 
 callings, is the spur to all invention and excellence, 
 regulates wages, profits, and rents, and, according to 
 orthodox political economy, competition though it con- 
 fessedly depresses wages to Ricardo's pitiless minimum 
 wherever labourers compete against each other and 
 masters take advantage of it is yet an eternal fact, the 
 most necessary condition of social and national progress. 
 
 But this very competitive and much-lauded regime 
 which certain writers on economic and sociological sub- 
 jects would stereotype as necessary and eternal law, 
 is an essentially modern as well as an evidently modi- 
 fiable thing; a stage in the course of evolution, if the 
 evolutionist wishes ; a passing phase of our civilization, 
 which began, as recent research discloses, in a form of 
 communism, which has passed through a series of con- 
 tinuous changes to unlimited individualism, and which no 
 less clearly in certain directions manifests a tendency to 
 
THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 pass again into communism the final goal of civilization, 
 if society be not previously dissolved. The primitive form 
 of society, according to the historians of evolution, was 
 communistic ; * but without pressing this point of history 
 in the remote past, our present system of unlimited 
 competition is a wholly modern thing, and moreover, 
 corrigible or wholly removable if found hurtful to the 
 total social body. The socialist maintains that the system 
 of competition, the essence of our present industrial and 
 social system, is hurtful and vicious, the fount and source 
 of all our social evils ; so much so indeed, that, being 
 given its bare notion and type, all the dark catalogue 
 of social evils and shames, pauperism, drunkenness, 
 prostitution, could be deduced from it by the thinker 
 in his study, nay, by any man of intelligence, with strict 
 logical and almost mathematical rigour, so close and 
 clear is the dependence of the one on the other of our 
 present evils on our present system. The thinker might 
 deduce our griefs from our present conception of society 
 and its constitution, without taking the trouble of sub- 
 jecting his conclusions to the terrible verification which 
 our criminal statistics, as well as the lanes and alleys of 
 our great cities, so abundantly furnish. 
 
 But our new Evolution-Science, after examining the 
 social maladies with the tranquillity becoming to science, 
 offers for cure and comfort her formula of " the survival 
 of the fittest" in the long struggle of existence pro- 
 tracted for generations. Our evolution doctors, with 
 professional gravity and calmness, write out their pre- 
 scriptions for society's weal of "natural selection and 
 the survival of the fittest." They give us, moreover, the 
 old time-honoured, well-intentioned professional advice, 
 
 * See, on this point, Spencer's Principles of Sociology ; Lubbock's 
 Origin of Civilization ; Maine's Village. Communities. 
 
TO THE POOK. 255 
 
 signifying little. We must not be drunken nor im- 
 prudent ; we must get sound scientific knowledge, above 
 all, of the doctrines of evolution ; we must not rebel against 
 the laws of nature, or of life, or of the social organism. 
 To which the economist adds that the poor must not 
 have large families ; while the evolutionist further moves 
 that the species should not be recruited from its inferior 
 specimens its criminals, idlers, and imbeciles. As to 
 general regimen, we must let Nature have her course ; 
 above all, let natural selection, which is Nature's way, 
 have free and full play. Progress, improvement in the 
 health of society under these conditions, will be sure to 
 follow, though it will be slow. It must, in fact, be slow 
 in order to be sure. There is no hope in revolutions, but 
 only in evolution, and the latter is slow, very slow, we 
 are plainly told. The drastic heroic treatment by revolu- 
 tion is dangerous to the life of the body politic ; if it does 
 not kill, it may permanently debilitate or destroy the 
 constitution. Even legislators can do little to benefit or 
 improve men, certainly no speedy good result need be 
 looked for from their action. Even if legislation con- 
 templates a particular good to be realized, and aims 
 persistently at it, by the perversion and complication of 
 things, or by the irony of fate, a quite different result 
 and one wholly unexpected comes out. So teaches and 
 advises evolution, and the prophet and expounder of 
 evolution doctrine, Herbert Spencer. We* thank Science 
 and her teachers ; but happily also, we remember and 
 may remind the evolutionists of another of their doctrines 
 that there has always been and that there still is 
 another form in which the struggle for existence shows 
 itself, and one, moreover, in which the survivors would 
 not be the same, nor the fittest in the same sense, as in 
 the other form of the struggle approved of by the evolu- 
 
256 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 tionist ; that in fact the old ordeal of actual battle, and 
 the survival of the conqueror, is not yet wholly antiquated 
 or out of fashion with men, and before the majority 
 consent to perish slowly one by one under the eternal 
 pressure of poverty and the operation of natural selec- 
 tion, they may prefer to make appeal to the ancient, but 
 still lawful and still practised trial of the strong, if an 
 earlier amelioration of their condition be pronounced 
 impossible. The issue would at least be more quickly 
 decided ; the end would be worth the cost, worth at least 
 the hazarding the very moderate minimum of happiness 
 which the majority enjoy at present, and which small 
 amount, moreover, is all that optimist science and evolu- 
 tion are able to promise .them for generations to come, 
 with which to sustain their patience. 
 
 But we are seasonably advised that we must not 
 rise in rebellion against Science and natural laws. No, 
 certainly. Where it is a question of unvarying physical 
 or natural laws, of settled sequences that will have place 
 whatever men may do, it would be foolish to try to 
 defeat them. But let it well be noted, we do not regard 
 all your so-called sociological and economic laws as of 
 this description. For all these lately discovered laws of 
 society are made by the actions and behaviour of men ; 
 they are only possible by the consent and volitions of 
 men ; and these are determined, as Science knows and 
 teaches, by motives, which, in the case of masses of 
 men, turn mainly on considerations of self-interest. 
 After the laws have been pointed out by Science and 
 recognized by men, it still depends on men's agreement 
 whether they are to continue or no. It depends on the 
 assent and consent of men whether any ascertained social 
 law, any observed relation of men to each other, any 
 particular definition of property, even any particular 
 
TO THE POOE. 257 
 
 structure of society, is to continue to exist or no. There 
 may be good reasons to think that the consent of men, 
 which permits the laws, will not be revoked ; still men 
 retain the right and the power to revoke their consent, if 
 their interest requires it. Men can abrogate sociological 
 laws as well as statute laws, if they find them incon- 
 venient, if they press heavily upon them, if they interfere 
 with the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 
 There is no fatality about them, as about physical laws. 
 Undoubtedly, sociological laws can be changed ; and they 
 will be changed wherever they run counter to the law 
 of self-preservation the first and most imperious of 
 Nature's laws, as Darwin and Spencer rightly maintain 
 it to be. Moreover, some of the supposed laws would 
 soon disappear under the influence of a powerful new 
 sentiment, such as has given birth and life to religious 
 and social revolutions once and again. 
 
 Thus, then, the laws of society and Science, with 
 which we are threatened, are not physical laws, that we 
 should accept their fatal necessity with resignation and 
 bowed heads. They are not universal facts to be 
 accepted and made the best of. They are alterable, all 
 of them inconsistent with men's general wishes all of 
 them which hurt, all which are not obviously implied in 
 the mere notion of men living together at all. These 
 last are not, indeed, alterable, because they are profitable, 
 because men alive to their interest will not alter them. 
 When men, naturally gregarious animals, come together, 
 they must, indeed, live under some moral laws, devised 
 under a sense of the general interest; and they must 
 soon discover and put in practice some economic ex- 
 pedients for making labour more effective, such as the 
 division of employments, and sometimes the co-operation 
 of efforts, which are also obviously prompted by a sense 
 
 s 
 
258 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 of interest; and some kind of regulative agency will 
 appear as alleged. But the various kinds of laws mani- 
 fested moral, economic, sociological all spring from a 
 sense of general interest, and are to be tried by that test 
 when they seem to depart from it. This, in brief, is 
 the essence of the matter and of the science of society, 
 so much talked about in later times ; and whatever laws 
 the science of sociology may discover, this remains a 
 permanent and overriding generalization, that the sup- 
 posed invariable behaviour of associated men will only 
 continue invariable so long as men are generally con- 
 tented so to behave. Any predictions made on the 
 assumption of invariable human nature, in the sense of 
 invariable physical nature, can only be depended upon 
 so long as men are so contented. But they may become 
 discontented with economic and sociological as well as 
 with civil laws, that they think are not for their good ; 
 and whenever they are oppressed or hurt they will be 
 certain to become so, and also apt to apply the best 
 remedy they can find. This is as general a law of 
 human nature, as much a biological or sociological law, 
 if you will, as any that could well be laid down. 
 
 The mistake of the writers on the science of society 
 is to regard existing social and sociological laws, the 
 existing constitution of society, as either unchangeable 
 or not to be changed except extremely slowly. True, 
 there could not well be a science on any other assump- 
 tion, though there might be a history, a description of 
 the phases and stages through which societies have 
 passed ; and therefore the still greater mistake of these 
 writers is, perhaps, the notion that there is any science 
 of sociology at all, when the past career of nations and 
 course of civilization is so capricious, and the future 
 course of social as of general evolution admittedly so 
 
TO THE POOR. 259 
 
 little predictable. History seems to be the proper name 
 for such a study, whose chief business is a description of 
 what has been and of what now is. At least, if sociology 
 be styled a science, it is certain that it cannot look far 
 into the future, however it may explain the past ; and 
 still more certain that it need not be appealed to in 
 order to bind men's hands in the shaping their own 
 fortunes, by the spectre of necessity in the shape of 
 scientific law. 
 
 For the subjects of the supposed science, being men 
 and not physical or chemical substances, are not the 
 same from generation to generation. Nay, men may 
 change even within the limits of a generation, under the 
 strengthening and vivifying force of a new faith. They 
 are modifiable by themselves, or by circumstances, when 
 living in isolation, and they are eminently modifiable 
 when associated together in masses. 
 
 Where Science might fairly find a useful exercise for 
 her deductive powers would be in the logical derivation 
 of our present social disorders pauperism, crime, im- 
 morality from our present conception of life as a com- 
 petitive race, from our present constitution of society, 
 from our present imperfect definition of property, from 
 our present consecrated system of individualism, from 
 our present conventional morality not differing essen- 
 tially from its opposite in so many cases. Given this 
 general state of things, and our worst social maladies are 
 given which flow as surely and necessarily from it as the 
 properties of a triangle from the definitions and axioms 
 of geometry. Deductive Science, we say, might find a 
 profitable field for her labours in the logical affiliation 
 of our social evils to our social system ; but she would 
 greatly hazard her credit for prophesying, if she ventures 
 to predict that the many who see the present evils, and 
 
260 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIEXCE. 
 
 who also more or less suffer from them, will sit down 
 patiently under them and wait for natural selection to 
 deliver them, when they see a more direct and speedy 
 way to their abolition. In short, the majority cannot 
 wait for the social millennium prophesied to come, gene- 
 rations hence, by Herbert Spencer; and they have no 
 faith that natural selection, if unnaturally hindered, as 
 now, will ever select the best in the future, but far more 
 likely the miscellaneous elect, as at present the cunning,, 
 the physically strong and unscrupulous, the skilful 
 schemer within the bounds of law, the immoral, the 
 unpitying, the incapable, the worthless, every way rather 
 than the worthy. Such being the case, argues the 
 socialist, are we to wait with folded arms because, gene- 
 rations after we are gone, natural selection, that is, a 
 name for the results of endless chance, or rather, in the 
 case of human societies at present, casts of the dice 
 loaded with fraud and injustice, may perhaps though 
 it is only a perhaps bring all things to rights ? We do- 
 not think so. For us, if we miss the chance which this 
 life offers of getting justice, no second is ever allowed. 
 For this also Science has taught us. And we do not 
 think that either as rational or moral beings we are 
 called upon to wait, but rather to try to hasten the 
 coming of social justice and righteousness, and the 
 removal of social evils. We feel that now is the time 
 to realize whatever is possible. And let Science under- 
 stand that we know that we are the real final social 
 forces. To us it belongs to mould the shape of society 
 a thing not done by chance, or by passive waiting, but 
 by the active co-operation of men's energies and volitions. 
 Nor is there any reason why we should wait till the 
 science of sociology has made up its mind as to what 
 are the necessary laws that we must or should be guided. 
 
TO THE POOK. 261 
 
 by. We might wait long, indeed, for scientific unanimity 
 here ; rather it is for us men to make the new laws for 
 sociology to study, and the new social phenomena for 
 this still infant science to meditate upon ; and to make 
 them, moreover, clear and decided. 
 
 2. Thus argues the socialist of our days, not with- 
 out a certain amount of truth and reason in his denuncia- 
 tion of society, but also not without passion, and with 
 an undue sense of what is possible, or what changes are 
 speedily practicable in human societies. It is scarcely 
 correct to affirm, as some socialists do, that economic 
 science is enlisted on the side of our present industrial 
 and social system. Political economy, as Professor 
 Cairnes * affirms, is, or should be, indifferent, as between 
 rival theories of social constitution, its business being 
 to determine the effect of any accepted system or the 
 probable effect of any proposed new system on the pro- 
 duction and distribution of wealth. And, in fact, there 
 are eminent economists with a decided leaning to 
 socialist views, as the late Herr Duhring, Lange the 
 well-known author of the History of Materialism, and 
 even our own greatest authority on economic questions 
 since Ricardo, the late Mr. Mill. Political economy is 
 neutral in the controversy, or rather, is appealed to by 
 both sides; but the doctrine of evolution and the new 
 science of sociology, as conceived anji expounded by 
 Herbert Spencer, is decidedly opposed to and casts a 
 clamper on the socialist's aims and aspirations. The 
 .-sociologist, therefore, the disciple of Herbert Spencer, we 
 shall call upon to answer the argument of the socialist ; 
 and the answer is to the following effect : 
 
 Men cannot make any great and sudden improve- 
 ment in the condition of their society, as the socialist 
 
 * Definition and Logical Method of Political Economy. 
 
262 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 supposes. They cannot easily change its structure at 
 all, but good changes are far more difficult of accom- 
 plishment than mischievous ones. The latter they can 
 make if they choose, if they are foolish enough, but the 
 former they cannot. It would be extremely difficult to 
 materially alter the structure of modern society, so 
 complex and connected in all its parts, with its many 
 and mutually dependent functions, all pre-supposing 
 each other, all acting upon each other, as in the physical 
 organism ; with established economic, as well as political, 
 civil, religious organizations, all the slow evolution of 
 ages, and answering to experienced social wants and 
 necessities. You could not materially and at the same 
 time suddenly alter even the economic constitution of 
 society, the thing chiefly aimed at by socialism, because 
 the production and distribution of wealth depends on 
 causes not to be easily altered: the first on laws of 
 physical and of human nature conjointly; and the 
 second on facts or sentiments of human nature; the 
 one class of facts or laws being unalterable quite, and 
 the other but slowly so. You cannot in the latter case 
 quickly change hereditary sentiments respecting property, 
 or general notions as to the right of each to the ownership 
 and disposal of whatever his own ability, industry, or 
 good fortune may bring. You cannot arbitrarily compel 
 men to regard each other as equal, where Nature has 
 set her ineffaceable stamp of inequality ; or force men to 
 regard each other with feelings of love and brotherhood, 
 where the feelings do not exist in the heart. You can- 
 not do these things, and men cannot make the above 
 changes; but without them no sudden regeneration of 
 society is possible, and no scheme of socialism that has 
 yet been suggested is workable. 
 
 Before you can change society materially for the 
 
TO THE POOR. 263 
 
 better, you must first alter and improve its constituent 
 units; and this, as all the laws of life and all the ex- 
 perience of history teach, is a thing not to be done easily 
 or speedily. Men's natures, regarding them in the 
 aggregate, cannot be quickly changed. One generation 
 cannot be raised much above the one immediately pre- 
 ceding it, because it inherits the same general nature, 
 the same sentiments, ideas, prejudices, and imperfections 
 as its predecessor. Even were society ripe and ready 
 for a new social or religious departure, as at the rise of 
 the Christian or Mohammedan religions, the Reformation, 
 or the French Revolution, yet such revolutions, slowly 
 prepared for and slowly accomplished as they really are, 
 are yet never brought about by intellectual conviction 
 of the evils of the existing system of things. There is 
 further required a widespread discontent and a general 
 enthusiasm, aroused and sustained by one or a few 
 leading spirits, and men now lack alike the motive and 
 guiding force. But even if there were a sufficient amount 
 of diffused discontent and social misery everywhere 
 prevalent, to be fanned by the socialist propaganda into 
 a fierce destroying flame all over Europe, from Russia 
 with her nihilists, to Spain with her socialists ; and even 
 if, in the general conflagration, the existing social order 
 should be dissolved, still all this would not in the 
 sequel deeply or essentially alter the social structure of 
 any modern civilized community. It could only produce 
 temporary change or temporary chaos; because, after 
 the wave of fanaticism and destroying fury had spent 
 its strength, supposing only men had not in the interim 
 annihilated each other, they would return to their old 
 average, normal, human natures ; the governmental and 
 other regulative agencies, and an industrial system 
 essentially the same in character as the old, would re- 
 
264 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 emerge, and most things would settle into their old 
 grooves and forms ; even the old social maladies, to cure 
 which was the aim of all this destruction, would repro- 
 duce themselves in equal or probably increased amount, 
 though possibly affecting different persons and sections 
 of society. After temporary anarchy, things would 
 revert of necessity to the pre-revolutionary state, because 
 average human nature, from which they sprang and of 
 which they were the will and expression, remains the 
 same. You have not touched the real root of the evils 
 complained of, by these supposed revolutions. The 
 French nation did not essentially change its social 
 structure by the various revolutions from 1789' to 1871, 
 because the French character remained essentially the 
 same, thus reproducing continually the same or similar 
 evils.* 
 
 But, interrupts the socialist, though the French 
 people did not perhaps alter what you call their social 
 structure, did they not succeed in altering their material 
 fortunes ? Did they not alter permanently the relation 
 of classes to each other, almost annihilating the power 
 of the nobility, and redistributing their property amongst 
 the nation ? In short, the French got the strength in 
 the revolutionary fever to change, and change perma- 
 nently for the better, the fortunes of the majority of the 
 people; they effected a revolution in society, if not in 
 the political and social structure according to your 
 metaphor ; and such a change, only more thoroughly and 
 widely accomplished and accompanied by safeguards to 
 prevent a possible return to the old system, is pre- 
 cisely the general aim and goal of the socialist's en- 
 deavours. A man, we grant, cannot change the structure 
 of his body, nor yet of his mind, but he may at critical 
 
 * See Spencer's Study of Sociology, ch. vii. p. 121. 
 
TO THE POOR. 265 
 
 moments in his life so act as to change for the better his 
 whole future, and what a man can thus do for himself 
 by taking the tide at the flood that leads to fortune, 
 a society or a nation may do for itself by a revolution. 
 It may improve its happiness and fortune without 
 altering its structure. So much, at least, may be said 
 in reply to the " can-do-nothing " argument. 
 
 Nevertheless, replies the sociologist, the disciple of 
 Spencer, you would not thus, by enforced social equality 
 produced by revolution, stamp out poverty, far less the 
 other social maladies that have always afflicted society 
 like inherited diseases, which in great measure they 
 really are. You would not thus eradicate them ; because 
 you have not touched the source, but only the symptoms 
 of social diseases ; you have not reached the perennial 
 and poisoned spring from which proceed all other social 
 evils, poverty included, namely, our average, weak and 
 imperfect, foolishly selfish, and corrupt human nature. 
 The deep cause of all our woe lies here, lies in that 
 imperfect thing called human nature, which only the 
 sanguine enthusiast or foolish philanthropist dreams can 
 be quickly and largely changed. That it is not to be 
 easily changed, is the decided teaching of evolution ; and 
 yet without a very considerable improvement in it, no 
 corresponding improvement in society is possible, as 
 without a permanent and radical regeneration in average 
 human nature, no great social regeneration is possible. 
 Without alterations in individual men, no alterations in 
 social arrangements and institutions, no legislative enact- 
 ments, or forced equalit} r , promise much in the way of 
 good result ; for, waiving the consideration that it would 
 be extremely difficult to make the alterations, yet even 
 if they were decreed by the authority of the State, still, 
 .men's natures remaining the same, after a temporary 
 
THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 experience of chaos, productive of much evil of all sorts, 
 they would return in great measure to the old lines, the 
 worse, if the wiser, for their experience of anarchy, with 
 all its horrors actual and in apprehension. 
 
 Even under the best conceivable socialistic regime, so 
 long as our present human nature remains what it is, 
 our worst social maladies would really remain; crime, 
 immorality, intemperance, insanity, diseased minds and 
 frames would still exist, possibly less concentrated than 
 at present and more diffused, possibly assuming other 
 forms, but inevitably present in equal total amount. 
 They would necessarily still exist, because they are the 
 inevitable products of the old unchanged human heart, 
 from which proceed the evil thoughts that lead to crime 
 and vice, and of the unchanged inherited physical con- 
 stitutions, from which our bodily and mental maladies 
 spring. As for material poverty (to speak nothing of 
 worse kinds, intellectual and moral, which not unlikely 
 would be born in the socialistic Utopia), unless the 
 most stringent restraints were put upon the increase of 
 population, it would soon manifest itself in a universal 
 instead of a partial privation ; while even from the 
 beginning, unless our selfish human nature was wholly 
 changed, so that men would be keenly spurred to live 
 and labour for others, the total result of production 
 would be very much less than at present, with a corre- 
 sponding narrower dividend for each. It is as near as 
 possible to demonstration, with our existing human 
 nature unchanged, and charged with envy, antipathies, 
 selfishness, rivalry, desire to dominate over others ; with 
 many good qualities unsuited for such a state, as with 
 many evil ones the exact opposite of those unwarrant- 
 ably postulated by the socialist ; with the impossibility 
 of giving ability either its proper field or due incentive 
 
TO THE POOR. 267 
 
 and reward for superior productive efforts, that socialism 
 for generations hence would even be adverse to the most 
 effective material production; and consequently that 
 poverty and want would be greater than now, only 
 more uniformly divided. It is all too likely, moreover, 
 that in such a society the higher wants of art, philosophy, 
 literature, would scarcely be born, or would be stamped 
 out as foolish or perverted sentimental cravings, though 
 science, in so far as it ministers by applications of steam 
 or electricity to man's productive powers, might be 
 possibly encouraged ; and it is clear that such a de- 
 generated society, even if it were materially successful, 
 which is more than doubtful, would still afford but sorry 
 accommodation for cultured or elevated human beings. 
 
 Thus even if no mitigation of social maladies were 
 possible, it would still be better to bear the ills we have 
 than fly to others of which we know nothing save their 
 great magnitude and variety ; better for society to suffer 
 with resignation all its present griefs than resort to the 
 desperate remedy offered by the socialist, which would 
 indeed be for it little less than voluntary suicide. 
 
 If, indeed, there were any hope that a radical and 
 permanent change for the better could be effected by 
 social revolution, without a previous radical change in 
 the natures of the social units ; if, by spending the blood 
 of one generation, all future generations could be re- 
 deemed from social misery and want, then, indeed, con- 
 sidering the very moderate amount of happiness which 
 existence promises to the many, it might not be rash 
 and desperate counsel to advise them to try the hazardous 
 adventure of revolution ; the result, for which the present 
 generation would have to pay, might be worth the price, 
 at least to future generations ; but, as shown, there is no 
 hope whatever that any such consequence would result 
 
268 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 from the certain social convulsion and chaos. Thus from 
 the point of view of science and evolution 
 
 All things invite 
 
 To peaceful counsels, and the settled state 
 Of order, how in safety best we may 
 Compose our present evils, with regard 
 Of what we are and were, dismissing quite 
 All thoughts of war. 
 
 And with respect to the poverty of the masses, 
 pursues the disciple of Mr. Spencer, the real fact is that 
 it is produced, not by social arrangements or the im- 
 perfect constitution of society, but in great measure by 
 the individuals themselves ; by themselves directly and 
 largely, by their parents partly, or by the general im- 
 perfections of human nature, if you choose, but not by 
 society, nor could it be removed by any new constitution 
 of society of human device. 
 
 The socialist reasons viciously when he contends that 
 poverty and crime necessarily follow with mathematical 
 rigour from our present social system. The true view 
 of the matter is quite different. It is not our social 
 system being given, our social evils necessarily follow ; 
 but, being given our present average human nature, with 
 its course of historical evolution behind it, then both our 
 present social system, and also our present social evils, 
 are necessary products of it and of its history. Our 
 social structure and concurrent social evils are common 
 effects of the same set of causes ; the one is not the 
 cause of the other. Criminals are thus not " society's 
 failures," for society did not make the inherited evil 
 disposition to crime. Society is not responsible for the 
 mass of pauperism. Existing society, at least, is largely 
 guiltless of both. Our widespread pauperism and crime, 
 in a word, are directly the results of our evil or imperfect 
 human nature and human passions ; and these last being 
 
TO THE POOR. 
 
 given, the former could in the mass be predicted from 
 them. In the total amount they could be scientifically 
 predicted from the constancy of the causes, if our yearly 
 statistics did not save us the trouble, and there is hence 
 unhappily but little hope afforded of any great or speedy 
 reduction in the gross total. Yet this doctrine of scientific 
 prediction does not carry with it any fatalistic conclusion 
 as regards the efforts of individuals ; for though statistics 
 show a uniformity in the number of capital crimes, no 
 individual is bound to commit a murder to make up the 
 list that Science anticipates, and no one is compelled 
 to contribute his quota to the expected quantity of 
 pauperism in a given year. The reverse is, we know, 
 the truth; men are morally bound not to swell these 
 evil lists ; and the doctrine of predictable scientific 
 averages neither frees any from their individual respon- 
 sibility, nor forbids statesmen and others in influential 
 positions from trying, by all rational means, even though 
 they can effect little, to minimize social ills. 
 
 But in particular, with respect to poverty and its 
 causes, each one has the matter, as it affects himself, 
 largely in his own hands, and upon this Mill, no less than 
 Herbert Spencer, insists. We know, from the teaching 
 of political economy, without any doubt, that the main if 
 not sole cause of it in any modern nation in which there 
 is a general disposition to labour, is the excessive numbers 
 of the labourers, necessarily diminishing the rewards of 
 each ; this, joined to vices for which they are responsible, 
 and to disease or weakness for which they are not, is the 
 cause of poverty, and we know the only possible reme- 
 dies which Nature has left us either limitation of the 
 numbers, increase in the resources of production including 
 the character of the producer, or emigration. What is, 
 however, most to be desired, and what must be insisted 
 
270 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 upon, is that each one should, in a fully peopled country, 
 be made to know, first the economic and social conditions 
 under which he lives, and then that he should be made 
 to feel that the care of his own case rests with himself, 
 and that he shall be rewarded or punished by just and 
 natural consequences, as he acts in the one way or the 
 opposite, without hindrance from others in seeking his 
 own legitimate good, without demoralizing help from 
 others to shield him from the consequences of his own 
 imprudence. Only by the severe but necessary discipline 
 of reason and self-control applied to each by himself, and 
 by letting the worthless, the imprudent, and the in- 
 corrigible suffer the natural penalties of their own actions, 
 can our society prosper. This is the only final way. 
 Moreover, it is the only just way, and in the end the 
 most merciful and humane way, as any other course 
 would produce a greater quantity of suffering. Finally, 
 it is also the way of Nature wiser than we. It is her 
 way, her lesson everywhere taught, whether a foolish 
 philanthropy or impracticable and Utopian socialism will 
 accept it or no. 
 
 It is the obstinate facts of human nature, and the 
 fixed conditions of the human environment, that on all 
 sides stop the way to the socialist, and make his pro- 
 gramme impracticable and impossible. If men were only 
 higher rational and moral beings, as we can easily con- 
 ceive them to be, and as they tend slowly to become, all 
 poverty and crime, and most of the vices and diseases 
 that now deform and desolate society and individual life, 
 could be extirpated in two or three generations ; but 
 unhappily here lies precisely the difficulty ; for men as a 
 rule are not, even in our boasted civilized communities, 
 very high rational or moral beings, nor are they capable 
 of being quickly made so. Their nature, as already 
 
TO THE POOE. 271 
 
 repeated, is not capable of being quickly and permanently 
 changed for the better, as all the science of biology, all 
 the experience of history, added to our own personal 
 experience, abundantly demonstrates ; from whence it 
 follows that we must be content to progress slowly in 
 the extirpation of poverty and the other social evils, and 
 mainly by each one endeavouring to provide for and 
 improve himself, and next those who are legitimately 
 dependent upon his exertions. For these various reasons, 
 it is not an experiment in socialism, but rather a fuller 
 and fairer development of the present system of indi- 
 vidualism and property that is required of that system 
 which, as Mr. Mill has truly remarked, " has never yet 
 had a fair trial in any country" (Political Economy, 
 bk. ii., ch. i., " On Property "). 
 
 As for competition, its evils tend to abate, and it is 
 already ceasing where it is desirable that it should cease, 
 viz. between those classes, professions, and trades, where 
 there is a community of interest; but no society can 
 dispense altogether with competition, which indeed is the 
 condition and spur of all excellence.* True, it exists still 
 in evil forms also ; but on the whole at present it pro- 
 duces far more good than evil. On the whole, there are 
 good reasons to think and to hope that our progress in 
 the future will be at an increased rate, because men 
 themselves are more consciously aiming at reforms, 
 improvements, and beneficial changes than in former 
 ages, and because their leaders and representative men, 
 statesmen, reformers, thinkers, are sounding and exploring 
 all possible avenues of progress ; but still, with all these 
 grounds of a hopeful future outlook, the kingdom of 
 heaven which a regenerated human nature would bring, 
 being itself not merely the promise but the substance of 
 
 * Mill's Political Economy, bk. iv. ch. vii. sec. 7. 
 
272 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 such, is not at hand. It will not come during this gene- 
 ration, nor the next. It will not come quickly. The 
 miracle of a speedily regenerated society has been more 
 than once promised by sanguine prophets and social 
 reformers in these latter days, but the miracle has not 
 yet occurred, being, indeed, many times more difficult of 
 accomplishment than even the religious miracle of the 
 instantaneous and radical conversion of the single human 
 soul. It is very true that men are loth to abandon long- 
 cherished illusory hopes, and this dear delusion of a 
 happy society, this ever-vanishing vision of a " perfect 
 state " as possible with imperfect men, and about to conie, 
 is one of their oldest, most constantly recurrent, and still 
 passionately cherished delusions. It is the last delusive 
 hope which the toiling multitude, and many generous 
 spirits far wiser than they, the last which men generally, 
 ever hopeful though ever disappointed, are prepared tc* 
 give up. Yet the hope is no other than a delusion, and 
 it is the chief lesson of the new scientific faith, that none 
 such are good to entertain ; that to endeavour to find 
 and know the truth, the actual naked truth, will profit 
 far better ; that much of men's grief and misery on the 
 earth has been due to this old ostrich habit of trying to 
 fold themselves round with pleasing but treacherous 
 fictions, instead of knowing and facing actual bracing 
 facts ; for the fiction is invariably exploded in process of 
 time, and then men find they have been fed on bankrupt 
 promises, while they have been led disastrously away 
 from their true and right course, which had else been 
 made clear and acceptable to them. Fictions have their 
 place and function in the realms of poetry, but not in the 
 sphere of practice, where action must be taken. There 
 only the fact can profit us to go by; there failure to 
 apprehend rightly the actual facts and actual conditions 
 
TO THE POOE. 273 
 
 which Nature, in her regular behaviour from age to age, 
 has left for man's knowledge, and appointed for his 
 guidance, is ever attended and must be attended with 
 fatal and disastrous consequences. To ascertain the facts 
 and conditions is the special work of Science ; to impress 
 the lesson resulting is the duty of the philosopher and 
 moralist who builds upon science. 
 
 The kingdom of heaven, then, for which men have 
 long prayed, the civitas Dei, the perfect state, will only 
 come when it has already existed in men's hearts and 
 shown itself in their conduct, but that will not be in 
 our day, nor in our children's, although they will be 
 appreciably nearer to it. Nevertheless, the happy time, 
 which will come at last, though late, and by the slow 
 operation of the same perfecting processes which have 
 raised man from the brute to the savage, and from the 
 savage to the civilized man, will not be delayed by 
 this true teaching. It will be delayed only if men, as 
 heretofore, persistently pursue the opposite course, long 
 ago censured by Bacon, of embracing fictions, " flattering 
 hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and 
 the like," instead of the " naked and open daylight " 
 of truth ; of living upon illusions which burst, instead 
 of knowing the literal terms which Nature allows, and 
 facing and accepting the actual facts which she puts 
 before us ; the former being the bad habit to which our 
 poor species has ever been addicted, in all directions, 
 and not merely with respect to the future of society, 
 but the future of the individual. 
 
 3. In the preceding part of this chapter we have 
 shadowed forth the outlines of a great and far-reaching 
 controversy, the most important in the history][of our 
 species; but which, though probably as old as human 
 society itself, and certainly as old as the Republic of 
 
 T 
 
274 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CKEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 Plato in which it is discussed, or as Christianity which 
 began with a communistic form of society, has yet only 
 within the past half-century come to be felt as a con- 
 troversy involving real and living issues of a momentous 
 character, and not Utopias only remotely bordering 
 upon the possible, or vicious theories, which, reduced 
 to practice, would disintegrate and dissolve every exist- 
 ing or conceivable society. 
 
 Though only in abstract, we have tried to present 
 the essential lines of the socialist's argument, and his 
 general indictment against society, together with the 
 reply of the defender of existing society, from the new 
 standpoint of evolution, and from the less comprehensive 
 point of view of economic science. But while acknow- 
 ledging an amount of truth in the arguments of the 
 socialist on the one side, and of the sociologist and 
 economist on the other, we do not find the position of 
 either wholly satisfactory. While we subscribe fully 
 to some of the socialist's indictments of existing society, 
 thinking it almost as bad as could be in some respects, 
 we still demur, with the sociologist, to the socialist's 
 contemplated remedies. We object to those advanced, 
 and still more, perhaps, to those not advanced and 
 scarcely even half-defined to himself, but which are, 
 nevertheless, evidently harboured in the breast of the 
 socialist, and sometimes vaguely shadowed forth. We 
 submit that to prove society imperfect is not the point ; 
 for this is granted on all sides, though to different 
 extents. It would be granted by even the greatest 
 social optimist, the extremest political conservative, that 
 society is not perfect. The real question relates to the 
 practicable cure of admitted evils, and involves a com- 
 parative estimate of the efficacy of different modes of 
 treatment, and also in the opinion of the conservative, 
 
TO THE POOE. 275^ 
 
 the question whether some cures would not be worse 
 than the disease itself; and the great objection to the 
 socialist's mode of treatment is that it would kill the 
 patient if society could be induced to take the medicine, 
 while nothing short of force would induce it to do so. It 
 would dissolve society if administered. Well, some may 
 .say, the objection is not insurmountable. Better that 
 a bad society should die, and make way for a better, 
 since the death of a society does not imply that of the 
 individuals composing it, nor yet of civilization and 
 culture. But there is a greater objection. There is no 
 logic or persuasion, short of that of force, which could 
 induce society to take the socialist's medicine. Even 
 if poured violently down her throat, society would 
 nauseate it and cast it up again, so long as human nature 
 remains constituted as it is. Even if the socialists got 
 the control of the governmental machinery, and made 
 a general confiscation, a new definition of property, and 
 new legislation, limiting to the utmost conceivable 
 extent the power of individuals either in the acqui- 
 sition or disposal of property ; still, human nature 
 remaining generally the same as before (even in the 
 socialists), and not being alterable either by vote of the 
 majority or the compulsion of cannon, the self-seeking 
 impulses and dispositions inevitably remaining, and the 
 affection for wife and child remaining which things 
 are the real springs of the desire for property the laws 
 abolishing individual property could not be carried out ; 
 and after temporary social chaos, invading all order, 
 extending to all departments of life, of whose nature 
 and extent and effects no revolution yet realized gives 
 us any conception, exhausted society would joyfully 
 hail any self-styled saviour promising deliverance from 
 the unendurable delirium and horror of social anarchy. 
 
276 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CKEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 Things after their temporaiy wrench would resort to 
 their old grooves, society being the sadder and the wiser, 
 but scarcely the better, from the costly and not bloodless 
 experience. In a word, the best-laid schemes of the 
 socialist must founder on the old rock of human nature, 
 which, alike on its worst as on its best sides, in its innate 
 selfishness as in its deep affections, presents at present, 
 if not for ever, an insurmountable obstacle to the 
 socialist's programme. 
 
 Thus far we are with the defender of society, from 
 the standpoint of evolution, against a social revolution 
 to end in communism. On the other hand, we believe 
 in opposition to the doctrine of Herbert Spencer, that 
 the nature of man is modifiable more quickly than he 
 supposes, at least at particular epochs, in certain direc- 
 tions, and for a considerable time, even though it 
 suffer a relapse. It may be transformed for a time by 
 a great faith and enthusiasm, though it fall away again 
 from the state of grace. It is modifiable at certain 
 epochs if the right spirits appear to modify it ; and 
 under the modification, if widely spread, as at the rise 
 of Christianity and Mahometanism, men are capable of 
 the most extraordinary things, at other times impossible, 
 being possessed of many times their ordinary strength 
 and heart. The nature of men may be so modified with- 
 out being radically changed at such times, that it may 
 suffice to produce the most remarkable change in their 
 future fortunes and in that of the race to follow them. 
 Thus the nature of the Arab was so modified by the 
 tenets of Mahomet, that he became ruler from Bagdad 
 to Cordova; the nature of the French people became 
 so modified by the precursors and actors in their great 
 Revolution, that they combated combined Europe for 
 a generation, and effected an agrarian and political, if 
 
TO THE POOR. 277 
 
 not a social, revolution, unexampled in the history of 
 European nations. Such changes in masses of men 
 which make important changes in societies, though not 
 radical changes in either case have occurred, and are 
 possible again. 
 
 These times of renewing and regeneration of human 
 nature seem to occur at intervals, according to some law 
 which Science has not yet fathomed so far as to be able 
 to state all the conditions, or to predict the time of 
 recurrence of the seasons of grace. But they have their 
 causes ; and they recur. And moreover, upon such a 
 period of renovation, there are signs that we may be now 
 entering ; nay, perhaps we have already entered upon it 
 for some time without being fully aware of the fact. 
 
 It is true that religious faith of the dogmatic sort is 
 undoubtedly " dry " at the present time. But our social 
 faith, our faith in an improvable society, and one soon to 
 be improved, is by no means so. On the contrary, the 
 social hope seems to wax and strengthen as the religious 
 wanes. And it is possible that if the masses of men 
 generally take to heart the new scientific teaching, which 
 in effect makes the future life of little or no practical 
 account, and the present life everything, thus reversing 
 the comparative value placed upon them by religion ; if 
 they should come to the conclusion that now or never is 
 the time to realize, if not happiness, at least greater social 
 justice and social equality, so far as the latter is com- 
 patible with Nature's inequalities ; and if, moreover, they 
 can get men of genius and honesty and energy to espouse 
 their cause a thing not in itself impossible, and unlikely 
 only because of the rarity of the combination, but of 
 which we have had a few examples already in the present 
 and the past generations then, without a total revolution 
 in the nature of men or things, social and political results 
 
278 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 of a remarkable kind and of great importance might be* 
 brought about in a comparatively brief space of time, the 
 doctrine of slow social evolution notwithstanding. With- 
 out any change in the social structure, which, with 
 Herbert Spencer, we think undesirable, though we do 
 not, with him, think it impossible, a great improvement 
 in the general condition of the mass of mankind might 
 be realized in a moderate space of time. Without con- 
 fiscation of property, without any necessity for attempting 
 to evolve a new social order out of the antecedent social 
 chaos, which the socialist revolution would first usher in, 
 and which, by advanced Continental anarchists and 
 nihilists, is contemplated with so much serenity, not to 
 say satisfaction of spirit, there might still be, well on the 
 safe side of chaos, and far short of socialism, or even in 
 a direction opposite to it, a greatly accelerated rate of 
 social progress, and, to go no higher, a great improve- 
 ment in men's material fortune. And there might be all 
 this accompanied by the greatest of all guarantees of 
 order, namely, the wider diffusion, through the body and 
 soul of society, both of clearer perceptions and a more 
 general practice of the great social virtue of justice, the 
 only final condition of stable equilibrium in society. The 
 general diffusion of clear ideas of justice, and the embodi- 
 ment of justice in laws and institutions, would itself 
 alone constitute this greatest improvement. 
 
 But for the realization of this, it is not socialism that 
 is required. What we really want is, in fact, a better 
 development of the present system, imperfectly described 
 as one of individualism and competition. Tf it were 
 really one of individualism, with the reward for real 
 individual effort and ability, things would be somewhat 
 just. We want individualism better developed, rather 
 than socialism for which human nature is unsuited. But 
 
TO THE POOE. 279 
 
 we want individualism accompanied by justice, the sense 
 and perception of which seems as yet to exist in very 
 imperfect degree and to be almost blind in certain direc- 
 tions, whether amongst individuals or classes. We want 
 individualism, but with the individuals starting in the 
 race on something resembling fair and equal terms, with 
 the prizes of life awarded in reality and not in name to 
 talent, ability, and energy well directed. We require 
 competition, too, because competition, implying emulation, 
 is the spur to improvement and excellence in every 
 direction both as regards the higher productive efforts of 
 the mind, as well as material productions, and because 
 where the competitive spirit is lacking, men and nations 
 slacken in their efforts and begin to stagnate. But we 
 want competition applied to all, with a fair field open to 
 all, and with no favour shown to any of the competitors 
 competition accompanied by just conditions, and with 
 a sense of justice in the competitors themselves, so that, 
 if we cannot redress Nature's injustice and inequalities, 
 we may not add to them. We want, in fact, rather more 
 than less competition, because at present the best prizes 
 are given to those who have been wholly exempted from 
 the competitive trial, which is unjust ; and again because 
 the nations of the world are now brought into closer and 
 keener competition with each other, and only the nation 
 in which this competitive spirit is widely diffused can 
 permanently hold her own and prosper. Thus it is not 
 individualism and competition which really hurt men, as 
 the socialists maintain ; it is the evil things, their direct 
 opposite, which at present prevail, and which hinder 
 their full and fair development. 
 
 It might be urged with some show of plausibility 
 that superior faculty and energy should not be rewarded 
 in proportion to their amount a proposition which is 
 
280 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 certainly held, if not expressly asserted, by many besides 
 certain socialists and trade unionists : by hereditary and 
 privileged imbecility, by the rich who have not laboured, 
 by the dull and incapable of alljranks and callings. The 
 principle is even partially assented to by such a just and 
 capable thinker as the late Mr. Mill, who, in criticising 
 certain forms of communism, thinks that the highest 
 justice would not reward superior ability in proportion 
 to its superiority, as that would be " giving to him that 
 hath," thereby increasing Nature's injustice in making 
 men unequal. But to this and to the above views it 
 may be fairly replied that the first injustice being of 
 Nature's own making, what follows naturally afterwards 
 is not unjust. What cannot in the nature of things be 
 prevented, save by interposing artificial obstacles more 
 evidently unjust, is not to be regarded as an inequitable 
 system ; at least it is one which, if allowed full play, 
 would greatly profit men in general for a considerable 
 time to come. 
 
 Even if it were unjust that superior faculty, being to 
 some extent its own reward, should be further rewarded 
 by a correspondingly large share of money or material 
 things, still it must be remembered that in the fields of 
 industry at least, talent and energy will not work for 
 less ; if they are not adequately rewarded, if they do not 
 ensure a return in proportion to their excellence, they 
 will not be exercised, and in such a state of things all 
 would suffer. The wealth of the nation, which is finally 
 distributed far and wide to all, has for its mainspring 
 the somewhat selfish but most beneficial energy of men 
 aiming at their own benefit, striving to become rich, and 
 this source would be in a great measure dried up if 
 energy, industry, and talent could not upon an average 
 calculate upon something like a corresponding return. 
 
TO THE POOE. 281 
 
 But for the satisfaction of the above-named objectors, 
 who think that talent should not be rewarded, there are 
 surely cases sufficient where Nature herself has made 
 the kind of compensation required cases of her giving 
 ability of the highest kind and of the greatest importance 
 to men, without giving anything more in the shape of 
 money reward, cases of talent and genius and energy, 
 which hardly brought to their possessors even bread. 
 Here, if Nature has erred in making men unequal, she 
 has redressed her error, and made compensation ; though 
 we can scarcely think she has always acted justly even 
 here, in letting the scales incline so heavily in the other 
 direction, against her own favourites, whom she selected 
 in the first instance. 
 
 On the whole, if not absolutely conformable to the 
 principles of the highest conceivable justice, it seems the 
 fairest principle that can be applied on the earth, for a 
 considerable time yet to come, that men should get the 
 highest price they can by all fair and honourable means 
 for the commodity produced or the service rendered, in 
 the open market of the world. And what is desirable, 
 if it were possible, would be that the price should bear 
 some fair proportion to the ability and energy of the 
 producer, joined to the utility of the product or service. 
 It is true that on these principles the great poet or 
 philosopher, a Spinoza, or a Milton, whose commodity, 
 truth or beauty, may not be much in demand at the 
 time in the market, may starve. But the spiritual pro- 
 ducer usually knows beforehand the somewhat severe 
 conditions imposed by Nature in this respect, and if he 
 is wise, like the two above named, he makes his calcula- 
 tions and acts accordingly. Besides the chief payment 
 of the man of genius is made in other coin than money 
 in fame, in spiritual influence, in the pleasure flowing 
 
282 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CKEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 from his work and as of these he generally receives 
 an amount in proportion to his work, on the whole, the 
 principle of rewarding faculty according to its extent 
 is carried out even here. 
 
 4. In denying the possibility of realizing the 
 socialist's ideal for a long time to come, we say or imply 
 nothing against the practicability of workmen in certain 
 cases of association becoming their own capitalists, and 
 sharing the profits as well as the wages of their labour 
 amongst themselves. There can be no objection to this 
 mode of eliminating the individual capitalist and em- 
 ployer, other than what relates to the likelihood of 
 failure. For our own part, we heartily wish all such 
 attempts the success which they have in several instances 
 merited on other grounds than their being good com- 
 mercial ventures. Such attempts are useful and instruc- 
 tive, even where they fail, as showing us the cases of 
 production where the principle of co-operative labour is. 
 inapplicable, as also the probable cause of the failure of 
 its application ; but they are still more instructive, and 
 should be distinct subjects for congratulating not only 
 the associations themselves but society at large, as 
 aiding in the solution of the most difficult social problem, 
 whenever they prove commercial successes, as has been 
 the case in several instances in France and Germany, 
 and in one or two cases in England. All such social and 
 economic experiments are to be wished continued and 
 greater success, and of all promising experiments of a 
 similar character, it is to be desired, as Mill remarks 
 in his Political Economy, that, if possible, the means 
 were procurable, and that every facility be allowed for 
 making the experiment. The difficulty, however, is that 
 such associations must either save their capital from the 
 earnings of their members, or they must borrow it, 
 
TO THE POOE. 283 
 
 neither being easy for workmen to do. For this reason 
 alone the progress of co-operative labour must be slow ; 
 but there are more formidable obstacles. There are 
 deeper reasons, founded on the nature of man and things, 
 why the instances of successful united production must 
 be limited for a long time to come, if not for ever. For 
 the cases to which the principle of co-operative labour 
 applies are limited. There would be many more, indeed, 
 if men's natures were changed and improved, if love for 
 others and mutual confidence the qualities requisite 
 for success were really as common as the advocates of 
 co-operation assume them to be. Ever we come to the 
 same check imperfect human nature, which has not 
 much progressed in this direction since Christianity first 
 preached to men the love of one another ; the same old r 
 unimproved human nature, which still bars the way 
 alike of general progress and of co-operative production. 
 
 For a business can no njore be carried on successfully 
 without a single directing and controlling head, than a 
 bridge can be built, a campaign conducted, a ship sailed, 
 or an epic poem created. There must be in co-operative 
 production, as in all other kinds of production, a single 
 brain interested and responsible, which guides and 
 governs the whole, over and above the instrumental 
 hands which perform the mechanical processes and 
 manual dexterities. There must be a head to guide 
 and govern the whole course of labour from start to- 
 finish, to appoint to each one his suitable part in the 
 division of labour, to buy and sell and watch the market, 
 to know when to contract or extend operations. There 
 must be such a president and directing intelligence, or 
 the whole concern will speedily collapse in the presence 
 of the competing production possessed of this advantage. 
 For here, as everywhere, the law of Darwin holds, that 
 
284 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 a slight but continued advantage decides the battle in 
 favour of its possessor, determines the fittest to survive. 
 A single head must, therefore, either be evolved from the 
 body of the workers in the association, or it must be 
 imported from without and paid for. The former case 
 Mr. Frederick Harrison, a competent judge and a friend 
 of the workmen, thinks, on the ground of their previous 
 habits and training, would be the more unlikely; but 
 supposing such a one to be found one likely to make 
 the adventure a success, with the necessary knowledge, 
 intelligence, and executive ability, amongst the members 
 of the association ; he will, with human nature as gener- 
 ally constituted^ and assuming only the normal ratio of 
 benevolence or class-regard to selfishness, become dis- 
 satisfied to remain unless he can get the market price 
 within the association which his energy and adminis- 
 trative talent would command in the general field of 
 competition. He will be dissatisfied, in short, to remain 
 merely the manager, and if he be paid in proportion to 
 his share in the success of the undertaking, and if, as 
 we must assume, his savings be invested in it while he 
 continues in the association, he becomes in the end 
 virtually the capitalist, with the other members as 
 inferior partners, which would be in effect an abandon- 
 ment of the principle of associated labour a result 
 which would not, indeed, be a return to the old system 
 of labour and capital in constant conflict, but a com- 
 promise between that system and co-operation. 
 
 On the other hand, if the association import a com- 
 petent salaried manager from the outside, which, with 
 the best authorities, as Mill and Thornton, we assume 
 would be the rule (the case last considered being very 
 exceptional), then the interest of the head of the concern 
 in its success would probably not be as keen and absorb- 
 
TO THE POOR. 285 
 
 ing as that of the individual capitalist, and this single 
 circumstance alone would in most cases decide the battle 
 adversely to co-operative production. The interest of 
 the manager would be less keen than that of the master, 
 while the intelligence would on an average be equal, and 
 this fact would make all the difference between a decided 
 success, and a constant struggle to exist ending in the 
 winding up and the consequent dissolution of the associa- 
 tion of workmen. The whole argument may thus be 
 summed up at the present time. Some kinds of labour, 
 whether directly productive or subsidiary to production, 
 are obviously unsuited for co-operation ; while in many 
 cases where it really would apply if human nature were 
 somewhat better than it is, and if the feelings of class 
 regard and brotherhood and love, which are postulated,, 
 were really present in sufficient force and permanence, 
 yet the facts being otherwise, the further difficulty or 
 impossibility of getting the able and honest and zealous 
 head, wholly devoted to the interest of the body of 
 workers, would be certain to ensure commercial failure 
 more or less decided, soon or late. 
 
 Human nature, however, may improve faster in 
 future ; and class human nature, where there is identity 
 of interest, might be expected to develop the qualities 
 necessary for its own existence and progress. And there 
 have been fraternities of monks living and labouring 
 together successfully and in common. 'Why might there 
 not be like fraternities of working men ? The thing is 
 possible, but the sentiments which would keep such 
 societies together must be more than commercial, even 
 to make a commercial success. There must be as strong 
 regard for the community as in ants; there must be 
 industry, too, and there must be not only a strong class 
 feeling, but also fraternal feeling for the individuals, 
 
286 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 this and the possibility of making* the head of the 
 concern share these feelings. Both Mr. Mill and Mr. 
 Thornton regard co-operation as the final solution of 
 the problem of labour, and the goal of the workmen in 
 the future. It will certainly be more generally tried; 
 but I think that the day of its universal adoption is far 
 more distant than either of these friends of labour be- 
 lieved, partly because they wished it. At least, if we 
 assume that the rate of development of the necessary 
 qualities love and mutual trust in the workmen, and 
 at the same time the rate of extinction of the interfering 
 qualities selfishness, and dislike, and jar, and hatred 
 in man in general, is to be only as rapid as in the past, 
 then the future Utopia of labour is a good deal further 
 off than sanguine friends suppose. 
 
 5. There is, indeed, one conceivable and remotely 
 possible contingency which, if it ever became realized, 
 would have a great effect on the future of labour and of 
 all social progress. If the highest intellect and virtue 
 in society, deeply stirred by pity and by a higher sense 
 of justice, ever come to take up the cause of the poor; 
 if, as we see some tendency in that direction, the aristo- 
 cracy of thought and letters and art, possessing as they 
 do the ear and appealing to, the heart of the public, 
 should place themselves at the head of a new social 
 crusade ; more than all, if one man of eminent genius, a 
 single commanding and reforming spirit, should appear, 
 filled with enthusiasm and devotion to the work, who 
 should be the Luther of the social reformation, then 
 indeed the naturally slow course of evolution might be 
 accelerated into revolutionary speed. But though the 
 highest minds of the present and of the past generation 
 have meditated much on the great social problems, and 
 have been all friends of the poor; though Fourier, 
 
TO THE POOE. 287 
 
 Mazzini, Victor Hugo, Louis Blanc, and Mill have all 
 pleaded powerfully in their behalf; and though contem- 
 porary intellect is on the whole not unfriendly to any 
 projected form of socialism which, like co-operative 
 labour, promises anything good and practicable, there 
 has not yet appeared, nor does it seem likely that there 
 will shortly appear, the Luther of the new social refor- 
 mation, the St. Bernard of the new holy war in behalf 
 of the workmen. Still, the appearance of such a spirit 
 or of more than one, is within the range of possibility 
 a hope which the poorer classes may indulge in, and a 
 possibility which the rich and ruling classes might 
 profitably reflect on; the continuance of the need of 
 such reforming spirits being the one cause likely to call 
 them up at last in the fulness of time. 
 
 But in the mean time, while the toiling millions need 
 not wholly abandon hope of some general improvement 
 in their condition, even within the limits of a single 
 generation, the advice of both Mill and Spencer is good, 
 more especially as coming from the former, who proved 
 himself the sincere friend of labour the advice to trust 
 most of all to their own exertions, and in a world which 
 grants to them at present only harsh conditions, to 
 endeavour, by prudence and foresight, by knowledge 
 and attention to the monitions of science, by patience, 
 self-denial, and resignation to the inevitable wherever 
 necessary, to work out to the best of their own ability 
 their individual and social salvation. 
 
 At the same time, a word of admonition, if not of 
 advice, might even be profitable to rulers, statesmen, 
 and legislators in these days. The socialist and nihilist 
 movement all over Europe, from Russia to Spain, the 
 simultaneous attempts on the lives of most of the Conti- 
 nental sovereigns, as the recognized key-stone of the 
 
288 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CKEED OF SCIENCE. 
 
 social fabric, are surely symptoms of some deep-rooted 
 disease, of something seriously wrong in our present 
 social system, which is well worthy the attentive con- 
 sideration of statesmen as well as of thinkers ; and some- 
 thing for the cure of which neither more stringent 
 repression nor aggressive foreign wars, the favourite 
 treatment hitherto adopted, will suffice in future. The 
 root cause of the socialist movement is in reality the 
 poverty of the many in our modern rich communities, 
 joined to a rankling sense of injustice, neither of which, 
 difficult as they may be and are of cure, are to be 
 removed by internal repression or foreign aggression; 
 but, if by anything, by internal reform in institutions, 
 and by the removal of social injustices which still every- 
 where exist, notwithstanding the reforming spirit that 
 has been active for a long time in their partial remoyal. 
 For justice may be reached on the Earth, even though 
 fraternity and social equality be only possible in the 
 Happy Republic of the philosophers. 
 
BOOK III. 
 THE FUTURE OP RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 TJ 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE MATEKIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 
 
 1. SCIENCE is often, in our days, characterized as 
 atheistic. What is the justice of the charge ? It de- 
 pends on what we mean by science and what by atheism. 
 If we mean by science, as in strictness we should, a 
 knowledge of the laws of phenomena, their regular 
 sequences and conjunctions, the discovery of which is 
 the business of science, then science is not and cannot 
 be atheistic, no matter what meaning we attach to 
 " atheism." But if we mean by science, what those who 
 bring forward the charge mostly mean, namely, some of 
 the philosophies professedly based on the conclusions of 
 science, as materialism, positivism, evolution, then it 
 depends on what these several philosophies conclude 
 respecting the First Principle and Ultimate Reality of 
 things, and very particularly it depends on the definition 
 of atheism or of God which we ourselves shall agree to 
 accept. 
 
 Now, there are three philosophies current which 
 profess to be based on the verified conclusions of science, 
 the three above named positivism, materialism, and 
 evolution (or Darwinism, substantially the same as evo- 
 lution). Are these atheistic ? Let us consider them 
 severally. Does positivism deny the existence of a 
 Deity? No. It merely ignores the question. It does 
 
292 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 not raise the question, because it is a metaphysical one, 
 and to positivism all metaphysical inquiries are vain and 
 insoluble. It neither affirms nor denies the existence of 
 God, because, if God exists, it must be in the sphere 
 outside phenomena, and the scientific human mind is 
 only competent to deal with phenomenal existences, and 
 is only concerned with these. It is true that, by ignor- 
 ing the question, positivism becomes practically atheism, 
 though there is no real reason why it should be so, 
 beyond the fact that it has banned all metaphysical 
 questions. The positivist belief, that the hierarchical 
 classification of the sciences may serve for a philosophy, 
 and that the quintessence of experience, as proved and 
 tested and generalized by science, should guide our life 
 and constitute our conception of the universe, is not 
 really exclusive of the question whether God exists or no 
 a question which has been answered in the affirmative 
 by positive thinkers like Locke and Bacon, long before 
 the time of Comte. The question Is there a cause of 
 experience, of phenomena other than the phenomenal 
 facts themselves ? is indeed metaphysical, but it is also 
 one w^hich the human mind perpetually insists on raising, 
 whether it can answer it or no ; and positivism is only 
 practical atheism, so far as it ignores this question, in- 
 volving the question of the existence of God ; while, so 
 far as it denies that there is anything behind experience, 
 or more than isolated phenomena self-produced, it is 
 speculative and genuine atheism. In brief, then, when 
 the positive spirit fills the man of science, when his 
 philosophy goes no further than the conclusions of 
 science, when he tries following the prescription of Comte 
 to seal up the metaphysical eye, his philosophy is to all 
 intents and purposes atheistic, though the question of 
 the existence of a First Cause has never been raised. 
 
ON THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 293 
 
 For not to raise the question of God's existence at all is 
 in any system of philosophy, equivalent to a denial of it, 
 and this, which is involved in its proscription of meta- 
 physics, is the defect in all the forms of positivism, as in all 
 philosophies which build solely on the facts of experience 
 as the only existence. 
 
 2. Materialism, in one of its two modern forms at 
 least, may justly be regarded as atheism. The supposi- 
 tion that matter, conceived as consisting essentially and 
 fundamentally of atoms and molecules, could, through 
 the proper placing and packing of these atoms, produce 
 the order, beauty, life, and thought of the universe, with- 
 out some principle of arrangement, combination, or 
 guidance, lodged in matter or diffused amongst the indi- 
 viduals, something different from the matter, and at least 
 faintly analogous to reason and intelligence, is so hope- 
 less and stupid an attempt at explanation, precipitating 
 so many difficult questions and solving none, that it may 
 fairly be described as absurd as well as atheistic. For, 
 if we dispense in our explanation with everything but 
 the homogeneous atoms, there is no possibility of concert 
 between neighbouring ones any more than there is 
 between those on the earth and the remotest star ; and 
 yet some internal concert between the atoms there must 
 have been, if there was no marshalling external principle, 
 in order to produce, we will not say such a whole as this 
 great law-governed universe, but even a single substance 
 or a single molecule. Even if we import chemical 
 affinity into the atoms, and then life, as Haeckel does, or 
 even mind, as Leibnitz did and some modern atomists 
 seem inclined to do, yet the question would even then 
 remain, how the atoms of our original solar system, 
 individually intelligent and active and living, had such 
 an understanding with each other and with those of 
 
294 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 remoter systems as to form into separate worlds, and 
 to break off into such immense and accurately ordered 
 marches, without some controlling principle of intelli- 
 gence, not contained in the individual atoms, to direct their 
 movement. Nor does modern chemistry or the doctrine 
 of natural selection applied to the molecules really make 
 the revived atomism of Democritus more credible or 
 intelligible in our day than Cicero found it in his. For, 
 besides that the action of chemical affinity at first, and 
 of natural selection afterwards, in producing and con- 
 tinuing life, is a point in dispute, or, more strictly 
 speaking, is not yet proved, still, even were it other- 
 wise, the mind would" never rest satisfied with the ex- 
 planation that matter alone produced life and thought, 
 not even if it were granted that all matter was, as 
 Haeckel affirms, in a certain sense alive. The cause 
 assigned is not adequate to the total series of unlike and 
 marvellous effects. The reply of Cicero still holds good : 
 It is more credible that the letters composing the Iliad 
 should have come into their proper places by chance, 
 than the atoms should have produced the Cosmos without 
 a marshalling agency. To assign a conscious mind and 
 purpose resembling the human may be and is an im- 
 perfect explanation ; but it is, we are assured, by much 
 the lesser error of the two. It is more philosophical to 
 assign the highest than the lowest known cause as the 
 first principle of things, even though we know that the 
 highest is inadequate. 
 
 Nor will the modern and more refined materialism, 
 which starts from the notion of force instead of matter, 
 and which builds itself mainly on the new doctrine of 
 the conservation of energy, be found in the end more 
 satisfactory to our minds or more philosophical. For, 
 even granting the proof of this law in all its generality, 
 
OX THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 295 
 
 though it is yet, as Lange, in his History of Materialism, 
 admits, only an ideal aim of science ; even admitting 
 that force is never found dissociated from matter, and 
 that all the various forms of force heat, mechanical, 
 radiant, chemical, electrical, nervous energy, could really 
 produce and reproduce each other without loss through 
 the whole cycle of changes, according to determinate 
 rates of exchange ; even granting all this, still it is only 
 phenomenal force, or energy, that is thus exchanged; 
 for it is only phenomenal heat, electricity, etc. (that is, 
 these energies as they impress our senses), that we ever 
 encounter or ever can encounter. We never meet with 
 real, efficient, ontologic force or matter, and unless the 
 materialist is prepared to go the length of Hume, and 
 deny that there is anything in the universe, either 
 material or mental, but phenomena, the doctrine of 
 the conservation and transmutation of energy will little 
 avail him as a basis for -his materialism. For if he 
 admits, as some materialists incautiously do, that there 
 is something real behind our phenomenal matter and 
 energy, something different from the sensations which 
 alone, according to the idealists, make matter and energy 
 for us, then this something can no more be described as 
 matter than as mind. For matter and mind are only 
 known to us by certain feelings and sensations which 
 are given in our consciousness, and this unknown some- 
 thing is not thus given. That there exist only phenomena, 
 as with Hume, is the only position that a materialist 
 who wishes to be a monist can hold. This, however, 
 is not the position of Kant or Herbert Spencer, the two 
 thinkers of greatest authority at present in the scientific 
 world, both of whom believe in this real something 
 behind and different from phenomena, and both of whom 
 repudiate materialism. 
 
296 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 On the other hand, if the materialist stands consist- 
 ently by his monism, and holds fast to phenomenal matter 
 and energy as the one reality which has produced thought 
 as well as all else, we may grant to him that conscious- 
 ness and thought are products of one form of energy, 
 namely, of cerebral activity; but a product only in 
 Hume's and Mill's sense, which is also the strict scientific 
 sense of the word, that is, a consequent having molecular 
 cerebral action for its invariable antecedent. Thought 
 cannot be said to be produced by molecular movement in 
 any other than this its only scientific sense, that is to 
 say, it is not really produced at all by it. There is 
 nothing more than a constant connection of two wholly 
 dissimilar things. Unless matter or energy is literally 
 transmuted into thought ; unless thought is finer matter 
 or energy an affirmation which the hardiest materialists 
 have scarcely dared to make materialism could not 
 establish itself as a monistic system. Finally, even if 
 thought, imagination, ratiocination, could be experiment- 
 ally exhibited to us as an energy which manifests itself 
 like electricity or heat, still this material objective thing 
 would be different from the subjective thought and 
 consciousness which would be necessary to cognize and 
 examine it, as the material organ of vision remains 
 different from the sensation of sight. 
 
 It has, however, been granted by some materialists 
 that thought, though a product of physical energy, is not 
 itself properly to be reckoned amongst the list of energies ; 
 but this is in effect to surrender the materialist's position, 
 that there exist only in the universe matter and energy ; 
 for if thought is not included amongst these, it is an 
 independent existence, an irreducible entity, and we 
 return once more to the old dualism of matter and mind. 
 
 Thought has been erased by the materialist from the 
 
ON THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 297 
 
 list of energies, for two main reasons : First, because, if 
 thought alone could act directly upon or move mechani- 
 cally a single atom of matter, it might have been the 
 first principle of movement at the beginning of things, as 
 it might still be the final sustaining and moving power 
 in the universe. But there is a second and a stronger 
 reason. Our modern materialists, in their anxiety to 
 reduce all in man to physical and in particular to 
 mechanical laws, are compelled to ignore all that is not 
 a physical, and in the last analysis a mechanical or 
 moving, energy. For energy of motion is the final one 
 to which heat, electricity, chemical affinity, nerve force, 
 and all others, if there be others, must be reduced ; matter 
 in motion being the final explanation of the world. 
 Whatever cannot be so reduced is not a physical energy, 
 and thought clearly cannot be reduced. It cannot be 
 reduced, but it may be ignored as immaterial, as an 
 accidental surplus product of the real physical energies ; 
 and thus we reach the conception of the man-machine, 
 the final outcome of this view of things. 
 
 The doctrine that man is an automaton, a most 
 perfectly constructed machine, would logically follow 
 from the denial of all other than physical energies. He 
 does not move himself, he has no power of self-direction, 
 no control over his actions, for all is determined by the 
 internal physical energies, and in particular by the latest 
 mysterious movement of the cerebral ato'ms, supplemented 
 by the executive muscular and nervous energy requisite 
 to carry out the mysterious mandates corresponding to a 
 particular position of the cerebral atoms. 
 
 Man is a machine that can move about ; his move- 
 ments are the resultant of internal mechanical forces, as 
 the motion of a locomotive engine is of the expansive 
 force of steam generated in the boiler. He does not 
 
298 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 move himself, he is not even moved hither and thither 
 by the force of conscious motives, as the necessitarians 
 hitherto believed ; he is not moved by the love of power, 
 or wealth, or fame ; he is moved in each instance simply 
 as certain mechanical forces shall settle it amongst them- 
 selves. He goes as they direct, fancying all the time that 
 he is free, or at least that he is following a motive, a part 
 of what he calls himself. 
 
 This doctrine would certainly destroy freedom of will 
 and freedom of action, in a sense far more deep than was 
 ever dreamed of by any necessitarian, who merely 
 affirmed, like Mill, that t our volitions followed motives 
 conscious motives, related finally to our pleasures and 
 pains. In the desire to reduce everything to physico- 
 chemical causes, and in particular to universalize the law 
 of the conservation and transmutation of energy, this is 
 the hopeless pass to which our physicists bring the 
 science of man and philosophy in these days. Thought, 
 consciousness, is not a physical energy, therefore, to be 
 logical, it is nothing or next to nothing, for the universe 
 is made up of matter and physical energy. At best, con- 
 sciousness is nothing very particular, an accident that 
 turned up amongst the other transmuted things, not a 
 lawful physical product, but, as Professor Tyndall has 
 termed it, a " bye-product," no way essential to the purely 
 physical processes going on in the brain. Thought is not 
 even a cause, it is at most a spectator looking idly on ; a 
 state of consciousness is only, according to Professor 
 Huxley, a sort of symbol of the dark mysterious move- 
 ments of the atoms taking place behind, but which, 
 though its true cause, it no more resembles than the 
 registration of the hour on the face of the clock resembles 
 the inner movement of the machinery which really 
 causes it. 
 
ON THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 299 
 
 Consciousness is thus, according to the automatonists, 
 an accident ; but at least we may add it was a fortunate 
 accident, a very happy hit, however the forces blindly at 
 work turned it up. For, according to all, including the 
 materialists themselves, according to Huxley, to Haeckel, 
 according to the author of the History of Materialism, 
 this accidental product is the sole source of all our know- 
 ledge, the sole means of our reading and interpreting the 
 universe, and of finding its laws, including the law of the 
 conservation of these very energies themselves; and in 
 the long run, these very energies are only known as 
 modes of this consciousness, which, though nothing as a 
 physical energy, yet knows, and in a certain important 
 sense, as the idealist maintains, creates and conserves all 
 things. In fact, the author of the History of Materialism 
 admits as much where he says, "We are justified in 
 assuming physical conditions for everything, even the 
 mechanism of thought ; but we are equally justified in con- 
 sidering not only the external world, but the organs also 
 with which we perceive it, as mere images of that which 
 actually exists." In fact, consciousness, which is not 
 force, or energy, and consequently not matter nor capable 
 of acting on matter, stands declared as a wholly distinct 
 thing from matter, divided from it by an impassable 
 gulf; and we thus return to the old dualism of Descartes, 
 while the materialist is aiming at monism. But if, as 
 this passage from Lange allows, the external world and 
 the organs with which we perceive it, including, of course, 
 all forms of energy, be " mere images of that which 
 actually exists," then we have here shadowed forth two 
 systems, both different from materialism. For these 
 images are each and all pictured on the canvas of con- 
 sciousness, and are never produced elsewhere, and so far 
 as the images are said to make up our universe, as they 
 
300 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 certainly compose all that we directly know of it, we 
 have an assertion of idealism. To this system, indeed, 
 both Lange and Professor Huxley agree ; but also and 
 this is a most material point if all be the " mere images 
 of that which actually exists" a third system, very 
 different from both materialism and idealism, is indicated 
 the system of realism, as old as Plato, and held by 
 Kant and Herbert Spencer, who both believe that there 
 are real things or a real something behind the phenomena 
 that compose the material of our knowledge, though they 
 do not make the old Platonic mistake of supposing the 
 phenomena to be copies or images of it, but merely 
 effects, or modes, or expressions of it. 
 
 But after all, is not consciousness, or thought, an 
 energy of a certain sort ? Bare consciousness, the mere 
 passive knowledge of our mental states, may not be 
 energy, though it is the unique product of it ; still, the 
 severe effort of thought in which cerebral energy is 
 drawn upon and consumed should, we think, when pro- 
 duced, be reckoned as energy, at least as stored-up or 
 potential energy. It is admittedly the product of energy ; 
 then, unless there is a waste, contrary to the law of con- 
 servation, this product should count as energy. It has, 
 to use the scientific language, energy of position, or 
 potential energy ; and, in fact, it may sometimes exert a 
 most potent energy. But it is not energy of the sort that 
 physics is concerned with, says the materialist. " Were it 
 possible for thought to move a single cerebral atom so 
 much as the millionth part of a millimetre out of the 
 path marked for it by the laws of dynamics, the whole 
 'world-formula' would be inapplicable," thinks Lange. 
 But still, the thought which has burned up my cerebral 
 energy to produce it, may, when produced, react on the 
 cerebral atoms of other minds, if not on those of my own. 
 
ON THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 301 
 
 The objective thought expressed in the law of natural 
 selection, in the drama of Faust or of Hamlet, or even in 
 the law of the transformation and conservation of energy 
 itself, has produced a great commotion in the cerebral 
 atoms of many the first time that they were put into 
 nerve-communication with it. But it was not the 
 thought, it was the atoms themselves which produced 
 the agitation on receiving an external material stimulant, 
 replies the materialist. At least, we reply, the stimulant 
 was due to the thought, which was the occasion, the pro- 
 ducing cause of it. When an orator produces excitement 
 in his audience, does not thought move the atoms from 
 their quiescent state and customary paths ? Or is it 
 only the cerebral atoms of the orator acting on those of 
 his audience ? But this, at least, we cannot suppose in 
 the case instanced of our being moved by the reading of 
 Hamlet. Here the original producing atoms have long 
 been scattered, and yet the spiritual energy, which, in 
 association with the material atoms, once gave birth to 
 this marvellous product is still here in this book, arrested, 
 crystallized, and most potent to stir our brain and thrill 
 our nerves. For, as Milton has pertinently observed, 
 " books are not dead things, but do contain as in a phial 
 the potent efficacy of the spirit that bred them." 
 
 Again, may not joyful news exalt the state of the 
 atoms, sad thoughts depress them, steady thought and 
 brain labour quiet and compose them ? May not even 
 the " written troubles of the brain," revived and read by 
 the light and power of memory, strongly move the very 
 molecules themselves which, nevertheless, must be em- 
 ployed, as we grant, to produce the painful impression ? 
 No, the materialist retorts, these written troubles are 
 merely persistent painful positions of the atoms; their 
 revival by memory is merely a fresh agitation of them, 
 
302 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 the pressure upon an old sore. But what makes the 
 pressure ? Not the atoms themselves, but the fact of 
 memory on its conscious side. When our past troubles 
 and sorrows are revived in consciousness, our brooding 
 over them, that is, our conscious thought of them, still 
 reacts upon the atoms, and thus thought, thus conscious- 
 ness, is still an efficient power or energy. 
 
 But, says the thorough-going materialist, to cut the 
 matter short, thought, emotion, cannot act on the atoms 
 of the brain, because, in fact, thought is only made 
 possible by the atoms, and is no more than a conscious 
 symbol of a particular position of them. It is always 
 an effect of some arrangement of them ; and when you 
 affirm that thought, or volition, or emotion acts upon 
 them, what really takes place is action amongst the 
 atoms themselves, of which action, thought, or volition, 
 is but a symbol, or expression, or result. When you 
 say that painful memories meditated upon affect them, 
 the brooding over the painful memories is itself only a 
 painful position of particular brain particles, a persistent 
 and unnatural pressure on them. 
 
 We reply, all this may be true, and yet thoughts from 
 without and even from within may and do move men, 
 and consequently must move the molecules of the brain. 
 The}' r must be the first causes of the brain agitation 
 which is not self-produced. Ideas from without move 
 men mightily ; and they move the world ; consequently 
 they must move the brain atoms into the new position 
 which may serve to express them. In like manner, 
 volitions act upon the cerebral corpuscles. A strong- 
 determination is borne in upon us from the outside 
 from counsel, example, experience, and this also compels 
 the atoms into the requisite physical places. But it- 
 makes the atoms obedient servants instead of being blind 
 
ON THE MATEEIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 303 
 
 and arbitrary masters an important difference. It 
 delivers the will from mechanical necessity and random 
 chance, and gives it a practical freedom by allowing 
 conscious motives to determine our volitions and govern 
 our actions, instead of the last chance or self-determined 
 position of unintelligent atoms. In a word, thought acts 
 on the atoms as well as these on it. Thought remains 
 an energy which can act not merely on our own cerebral 
 atoms, but, what is more directly to our purpose, on the 
 thoughts and acts and feelings of others. The law of 
 the conservation of physical energy is not perhaps 
 defeated ; but it is inapplicable here. It is inapplicable, 
 or it must receive a new extension. For physical energy- 
 is not all energy ; there is spiritual energy also, however 
 little the extreme materialist may be disposed to accept 
 the fact. There is spiritual energy, which is conserved 
 like the physical, but which, unlike it, is ever on the 
 increase. The thoughts of great minds live after them, 
 and by producing ever new thought, are a constant and 
 inexhaustible source of ever new energy. 
 
 Their echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 And grow for ever and for ever. 
 
 The only question remaining is whether this unique 
 and indestructible and increasing energy can be ex- 
 plained completely and solely as a product of the due 
 position of cerebral particles a question to which all 
 thinkers, except the most extreme materialists, will, we 
 think, still give as decided a negative in our days as in 
 the days of Descartes and Kant. 
 
 3. Let us now assume, what all men believe, what 
 Kant and Spencer have tried to establish on philo- 
 sophical grounds, what even materialists such as Lange 
 and Huxley are driven to admit, that there is something 
 
304 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 more in the world than phenomena actual or possible 
 that there is a something behind or under or immanent 
 in all phenomena, even under the cerebral atoms. This 
 something it is not necessary that we should be able to 
 describe; and indeed it is sufficiently evident, as all 
 positivists assure us, as well as Kant, that, admitting its 
 existence, neither our senses nor our understanding can 
 ever penetrate behind phenomena to tell us anything 
 further respecting it. But the mere existence of this 
 transcendent something is quite enough to destroy all 
 materialism, and indeed, unless this noumenal existence 
 be regarded as mind, all idealism as well. This some- 
 thing behind can neither be matter nor yet force, for 
 these, as we see and feel them, are entirely phenomenal. 
 Nor can it be anything even remotely resembling matter 
 or force. It cannot be, as some suppose, an original of 
 which these are copies, which is a wholly groundless 
 and unprovable assumption. We cannot even prove it 
 to be mind resembling our mind. All that we can say 
 of it is, that it is an existence, a substance, of which 
 mind and matter are, as Spinoza held, modes, or symbols, 
 or manifestations. 
 
 But if this Something be once granted, it is quite 
 sufficient to destroy all materialism, and, unless it be 
 in some sort mental, as Berkeley held, all idealism as 
 well. It would even destroy the eclectic system of 
 material-idealism, defended by Professor Huxley.* For 
 clearly this Something is an element not to be ignored, 
 if we desire to derive the universe from a single principle, 
 be it matter or mind. For might it not be the moving 
 principle of all things, the root and source and support 
 of thought, of matter, of energy, as mere emanations 
 from it and manifestations of it ? Perhaps it is at this 
 
 * Life of Hume, p. 82. 
 
ON THE MATEKIALISM OF ATOMS AND FOKCES. 305 
 
 moment the first principle and real quickener of my 
 thought, deeper than the molecular movements in the 
 cerebral atoms which Huxley regards as the ultimate 
 cause of consciousness,* but which are themselves moved 
 and animated by this first principle. In a wftrd, may 
 it not be the moving principle of thought, that which 
 prompts us to these high and searching inquiries respect- 
 ing itself at this moment, as it equally was the moving 
 principle of the homogeneous nebular gas millions of ages 
 ago ? And, indeed, we must all believe it so to be. It 
 is one and the same eternal substance which then was, 
 and now is, at the bottom of all things a substance, one, 
 eternal, infinite and unfathomable beyond its phenomenal 
 manifestations ; the secret sustainer and necessary ground 
 at once of the universe and of the human reason, and 
 whose withdrawal for a moment, if we dare make so 
 wild a supposition, would cause the frame of the universe 
 to disjoint, would produce the wild welter and hurly- 
 burly of the atoms both in the brain and in the cosmos, 
 and would make all things revert to the chaos and 
 ancient night from which the old mythologies derived 
 them. Indeed, the bare notion so shakes the reason in 
 trying to imagine it, as to prove that the final support 
 of the human reason and of the solid material universe 
 is one and the same the Infinite Substance of Spinoza, 
 the God in whom all mankind believe, and of whom the 
 theologians have ever been vainly endeavouring to 
 present us with sensible images. 
 
 A state of chaos, whatever may have been the crude . 
 beliefs of men, there never was in the cosmos, nor ever 
 can be. The existence of God as the eternal support of 
 the universe, as the inmost nerve and essence of thought, 
 is our guarantee to the contrary. And this belief is 
 
 * Life of Hume, p. 79. 
 
 X 
 
306 THE FUTUKE OF RELIGION" AND MORALS. 
 
 confirmed by Science. Far as her ken stretches back- 
 ward in time through millions of centuries, she discovers 
 law ; deep as she penetrates now into space, she finds 
 the same. But, replies the materialist, these laws are 
 only the necessary behaviour of matter ; and matter, 
 filling space, the seat and source of its own energies and 
 governed by its own necessary laws, is God. There is 
 nothing but matter, coarse or fine, together with the 
 energies which play about it, filling up space ; nothing 
 but matter, composed ultimately of similar atoms, from 
 the solid spheres to the azure abyss in which they swim ; 
 itself merely a fine ether, a subtler and more attenuated 
 matter. Pemocritus was right. There exists nothing 
 but atoms and the void ; save only that the void is 
 ether, a rarer matter. And in reply to this, we can only 
 ask the materialist, How can this be maintained to-day, 
 when it is acknowledged that all we know of matter 
 is only phenomenal, only what our five imperfect senses 
 tell us; when, further, the most important fact about 
 matter is now seen to be, not the matter itself, whose 
 atoms seem vanishing quantities, but the various Protean 
 energies that play about it, and when these various 
 energies, transmutable as they are into each other, are 
 themselves only known phenomenally, as interpreted by 
 a higher spiritual energy, which last, however mysteri- 
 ously conditioned by these lower physical energies, can 
 in no respect be regarded as a product of them, since 
 of productivity science knows nothing beyond the bare 
 fact of succession ? 
 
 And, in fact, notwithstanding assertions to the con- 
 trary, it may be doubted if this is not the position held 
 by the author of the History of Creation, as we have 
 seen it is that of Lange in his History of Materialism. 
 For Professor Haeckel has prefixed to the title-page of 
 
ON THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 307 
 
 his work the great lines from Wordsworth's Tintern 
 Abbey in which the belief in God, which we defend, has 
 received its most splendid poetic, if not philosophic, 
 statement, the lines where the poet tells ^is of 
 
 A Presence that disturbs us with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 If this passage does not recognize something more in 
 heaven and earth than is dreamt of in the materialistic 
 philosophy, we are greatly astray in our interpretation 
 of it. And how Haeckel would reconcile this assertion 
 of "something far more deeply interfused" with his 
 own oft-asserted monism and materialism, it would be 
 hazardous to say. Perhaps he would attempt to do so 
 by denying that he is a materialist, as in one place he 
 does. But how, then, is he a monist, as he so often 
 asserts ? And how does he deduce the universe, in- 
 cluding life and thought, from physico-chemical laws ? 
 Certain it is that this something recognized, in the 
 passage quoted, as underlying both matter and mind, 
 is also something very different from matter, in whatever 
 form encountered, or from the forces of matter, however 
 they be transformed or combined. 
 
 Professor Huxley's materialism is more consistent 
 and more outspoken. In his last utterances upon the 
 subject, he states it clearly ; while at the same time he 
 gives us our choice between the materialistic and the 
 idealistic solutions. "For any demonstration that can 
 be given to .the contrary effect," he says, " the collection 
 of perceptions which makes up our consciousness may 
 
308 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 be an orderly phantasmagoria generated by the ego,, 
 unfolding its successive scenes on the background of 
 nothingness ; as a firework, which is but cunningly 
 arranged combustibles, grows from a spark into a corrus- 
 cation, and from a corruscation into figures and words 
 and cascades of devouring fire, and then vanishes into 
 the darkness of night." 
 
 " On the other hand," he continues, " it must no less 
 readily be allowed that, for anything that can be proved 
 to the contrary, there may be a real something which 
 is the cause of all our impressions ; that sensations, 
 though not likenesses, are symbols of that something ; 
 and that the part of that something which we call the 
 nervous system, is an apparatus for supplying us with a 
 sort of algebra of fact, based on these symbols : a brain 
 may be the machinery by which the material universe 
 becomes conscious of itself." * 
 
 Now, so far as one holds the first of these two 
 alternative positions here offered to us, he is an absolute 
 egoist and idealist, as Fichte was. The world is phe- 
 nomena and nothing else, constructed by the ego, which 
 is the single and solitary existence, on the vast vacuity 
 of nothingness.f But so far as one holds the second 
 
 * Life of Hume, pp. 81, 82. 
 
 t This, however, is not quite the view of Hume, as Professor 
 Huxley must know ; for Hume surpassed Fichte in not only destroying 
 matter, but in dissolving the ego itself. He denied that there was an 
 underlying spiritual substance, or ego, any more than a material sub- 
 stance ; and he took away all unity, reality, identity, and substance 
 from the ego, by resglving it, or what we call " self," into a series of 
 internal phenomena, " a bundle of perceptions," to use his own remark- 
 able phrase. With Hume, there is only phenomena in the universe, 
 self-produced, or wholly unknown as to their causes, since we have no 
 conception of causation or productivity beyond the fact of observed 
 succession. With Fichte, the ego exists as a creative agency ; with 
 Hume, it does not exist at all as any single or real thing ; not even 
 as the light of consciousness or thought, nor yet as will. In strictness, 
 Hume is not even an idealist. In his view there exists only phenomena, 
 which come and go without any reason, We should not even ask the- 
 
ON THE MATERIALISM OF ATOMS AND FORCES. 309 
 
 view, and believes in a "real something which is the 
 cause of our impressions/' he is clearly not an idealist, 
 but a materialist if this real something* be matter, as at 
 first it appears to be. However, we are told that, even 
 if this view be accepted, we should be " still unable to 
 refute the arguments of pure idealism. The more com- 
 pletely the materialistic position is admitted, the easier 
 it is to show that the idealistic position is unassailable, 
 if the idealist confines himself within the limits of 
 possible knowledge." Here we have the choice between 
 idealism and materialism presented to us. But, as Pro- 
 fessor Huxley elsewhere admits that " our knowledge of 
 matter is restricted to those feelings of which we assume 
 it to be the cause," * it would not be difficult to show 
 that in reality he is at one with Kant and Spencer and 
 those who admit a something behind, different from 
 what we call matter and what we call mind. As he 
 speaks of "the unknown cause of sensation," which 
 Descartes calls the " je ne sais quoi dans les objets," and 
 Kant the " noumenon," or Ding-an-sich" f it is clear that 
 here is a something different from what we call matter, 
 and that he is neither a materialist nor an idealist, but 
 a believer in an unknown reality, the cause of all our 
 sensations. 
 
 In spite, then, of the doctrine of evolution, and of 
 the conservation of energy, there is still a vacant space 
 left for Deity; not, indeed, for one endowed with the 
 customary anthropomorphic attributes, but for one all 
 the more transcendent for that very reason. Before the 
 
 reason. We believe, indeed, that they will appear again, that the sun 
 will rise to-morrow ; this is an instinctive belief, engendered by custom ; 
 but for all that, this universe of shifting phenomena might, for aught 
 we know, collapse to-morrow, without leaving a wrack behind, not even 
 an impression or an idea, the only things he believed in. Hume is, in 
 fact, a nihilist in philosophy, and almost the only one. 
 
 * Life of Hume, p. 81. t Ibid., p. 85. 
 
310 THE FUTUKE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 cosmic vapour broke from its quiescent and homogeneous 
 state, there was an existence different from it ; under it 
 there was something superior to it and animating it. It 
 is not asserted that matter was not coeternal with the 
 principle that first moved it, and of which it was but the 
 phenomenal expression. This may or may not have been 
 the case ; but if, as is true, we cannot think the absence 
 of matter, much less dare we suppose the absence of its 
 immanent moving principle, which declared itself in the 
 cosmos, in life, and at length in human thought as Hegel 
 maintains. In a word, behind the materialist's army of 
 hydrogen atoms, prepared to create worlds, we are still 
 compelled, even on the materialist's own showing, to 
 posit a marshalling and directing agency, to postulate a 
 principle of movement which we cannot mentally picture 
 to the imagination, but which we must yet think as 
 existing. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 8 1. THE real sting; and danger of Darwinism in its 
 
 o o O 
 
 theological reference does not lie in the pessimist views 
 that it sometimes suggests even to evolutionists like 
 Haeckel ; for we see that both its distinguished founder 
 and the thinker who has worked it into a new system 
 of philosophy, discern, with some reason, a spirit of good 
 in the evil things that evolution and natural selection 
 bring before us. The origin and permission of pain and 
 evil was, indeed, always an insoluble enigma for theology, 
 on the supposition of a Being of infinite goodness as well 
 as power and wisdom ; for why did He not prevent it ? 
 And the hardy optimism of Leibnitz, which attempted 
 to solve the difficulty by boldly asserting that evil was 
 not really evil but only a privation, a negation of good, 
 or at all events a condition of greater good, is, to say the 
 least, as compatible with the scientific story of the rise 
 and progress of man as with the theological story of his 
 fall and only partial recovery. The danger of Darwinism 
 lies in another direction, namely, in showing us a natural 
 explanation of all the evil, real or apparent, from neces- 
 sary causes that could not conceivably be otherwise; 
 and again, in raising up before our vision the old and 
 threatening apparition of Chance, as a shaping agent co- 
 ordinate with a blind and mechanical necessity in the 
 
312 THE FUTURE OF KELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 evolution of all things, the evil as well as the good. 
 For, given the nature of all individual living beings, as 
 essentially and necessarily self-conserving; given the 
 necessarily geometrical rate of reproduction, and the 
 blind strength of the reproductive instincts; given the 
 necessarily limited supply of food; given the large 
 chapter of contingencies that must for ever beset every 
 species of animals, and still more every individual ; 
 given all these, and Darwin shows us clearly that the 
 struggle for existence necessarily begins ; the struggle 
 for life, which in so many cases means death to other 
 beings, begins ; and good and evil are necessarily intro- 
 diiced to the world together, to begin an eternal strife. 
 Even moral evil, which appears only in man, is necessary 
 as well as moral good: neither can appear till some 
 society exists, after which both are necessary and pre- 
 dictable from the nature of the social units and their 
 incidental circumstances. In the whole Darwinian 
 picture of the universe and its process of evolution, 
 necessity and natural selection rule as by native right, 
 while " next to them high arbiter Chance governs all." 
 
 Yet more. Though the evolution doctrine, in the 
 hands of Herbert Spencer, is not materialism, and 
 declines to be identified with materialism which is 
 characterized as a futile hypothesis nevertheless evolu- 
 tion has furnished new arguments and suggestions of 
 which the materialist has eagerly availed himself in 
 order to dispense with the notion of mind and purpose 
 in the explanation of the origin and present existence 
 of the universe. The revised materialism of Buchner 
 and Moleschott in Germany, a quarter of a century ago, 
 had mainly based itself on physiological conclusions and 
 on the new law of the conservation of energy, in attempt- 
 ing to show that mind in man, like every other force, 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 313 
 
 or energy, in Nature, was an inseparable concomitant 
 of matter ; in particular that thought w&s a product of 
 cerebral action, which in its turn was merely energy 
 transformed, in the last resort the energy of heat due 
 to the food consumed. Matter and force are inseparable, 
 and this force, after various transmutations, being stored 
 up in the brain and nerves, found a vent in thought and 
 feeling, as in other organs of the body it animated and 
 performed other functions. There was no entity called 
 the soul anywhere apparent or discoverable by any test ; 
 there was but an elaborate brain organization, whose 
 special function it was to think, as it was the function 
 of the heart to pump up blood, of the eye to see, and 
 even, as affirmed by Vogt, of the liver to secrete bile. 
 
 But all this would not suffice for a complete mate- 
 rialism, even if satisfactorily proved. For there still 
 remained the belief in a Supreme Mind, unshaken by 
 this materialism, even if it be fully granted that what 
 we call our minds are in all respects products of the 
 brain machinery and nervous telegraphy. There was 
 still the belief, deep in men's minds, which Bacon, the 
 initiator of the inductive and positive philosophy, and 
 himself sometimes classed with the materialists, has 
 given expression to in his essay on " Atheism : " "I had 
 rather believe all the fables in the Legend and the 
 Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame 
 is without a mind." Moreover, there were proofs seem- 
 ingly cogent and unanswerable adduced in support of 
 the belief. In particular, there was the famous argu- 
 ment from design and Final Causes. But now it appears 
 that Darwin has at last enabled the extreme materialist 
 to attack and carry the design argument, the last and 
 hitherto impregnable fortress behind which Natural 
 Theology had intrenched herself; the argument that 
 
314 THE FUTUKE OF KELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 even Mill admitted, as having the balance of probabilities 
 in its favour ; and from which Kant himself, the great 
 conqueror in these regions of speculation, after a close 
 siege, at length, contrary to his usual practice, drew off 
 his investing forces, having finally accepted it, as at least 
 subjectively true. And what was the argument that so 
 universally recommended itself, and that was treated 
 with such respect ? Briefly : that the seeming marks of 
 design, and especially the exquisite adaptations in the 
 organic world, prove the existence .of a designing mind. 
 The wing of the bird, the fin of the fish, the eye and 
 hand of the man, these and countless other construc- 
 tions exhibit such admirable and astonishing adaptations, 
 are so perfectly fitted to their proper ends of flight, of 
 sight, of infinitely various mechanical effort, that they 
 must have been planned and conceived by an infinitely 
 intelligent mind, and constructed by supreme executive 
 skill. The animals did not make themselves with all 
 these wonderful organs, and blind Nature could not 
 make them, therefore there must have been a shaping 
 and intelligent Deity. But how, suggests Darwin, if 
 all these skilful products were only slowly brought to 
 their present perfection, if they were all improved, like 
 human inventions, from an elementary stage partly 
 because their individual possessors made use of them, 
 partly because those, who through chance inherited the 
 best, succeeded best in the battle of life, and handed on 
 to their offspring the acquired advantages? How if 
 the perfect eye were an instrument thus slowly achieved, 
 and one which was improved gradually, as a telescope 
 is improved, though without inventor or improver other 
 than the possessor who by use improves it, assisted by 
 natural selection, which picks out for survival those who 
 possess the best instruments ? How, in fact, if all these 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 815 
 
 admired constructions were results that remained, instead 
 of preconceptions executed all at once; if they seem 
 chefs-d'oeuvre of workmanship solely because Nature, 
 like an artist careful of his reputation, has exhibited 
 only her best works, and has destroyed all her inferior 
 ones? 
 
 In fact, Darwin assures us the eye was constructed by 
 endless selection on the part of Nature, who, commencing 
 operations on a mere nerve sensitive to the rays of sun- 
 light, by ever preserving those individuals with the 
 slightest perceptible improvement in the organ after this 
 rudimentary stage, at length perfected an instrument so 
 indispensable for the needs of most animals. The im- 
 provements in all organs were made by Nature, herself 
 in reality of most uninventive genius, but who always 
 acted on the simple rule, which cost her the least possible 
 trouble, of selecting those who by chance had already 
 got an advantage in any of these organs, and entrusting 
 to them the honour and responsibility of continuing the 
 species together with the acquired advantage. And this 
 simple method, requiring so little reflection or genius, 
 this rule of thumb so to speak, if invariably acted upon, 
 and especially if it is carried out faithfully for countless 
 ages, seems almost adequate to accomplish the final marvel. 
 Let Nature but favour and keep the best specimens of 
 her species, and ever drop the inferior .ones, and at the 
 end of ten thousand or a hundred thousand years, she 
 will have some surprising and most select results to 
 show. The perfect result which now so much astonishes 
 us in the human eye, is but the final sum of an infinite 
 series of small incremental advantages acquired in this 
 way during the countless ages since the first germinal 
 eye mysteriously appeared in the starfish or mollusc. It 
 is true that Nature, having learned her art, now does her 
 
316 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 work far more easily and expeditiously. She constructs 
 a hand, an eye, a whole body, and multitudes of them, in 
 a very short space of time comparatively, because when 
 she has once gained any advantage, or learned an art in 
 the organic sphere, she holds to it by a blind conservative 
 instinct, and faithfully reproduces it in the next genera- 
 tion, through the fact of inheritance. Though even in 
 these cases of rapid reproduction, embryology teaches 
 that the embryo goes through the same successive stages 
 in the womb that the long line of its phylogenetic 
 ancestors passed through, only that the steps of the 
 process which it cost Nature millions of years to learn in 
 the case of the species, are now, in the case of the indi- 
 vidual, abridged into a few weeks or months. 
 
 This is the whole story. And here the design argu- 
 ment, as formerly understood, loses its point and force, 
 apparent design being explained by and resolved into 
 natural process and the fact of inheritance. What we 
 mistook for a preconception in an infinite mind, realized 
 by an almighty and skilful hand, is a most excellent 
 result that chance has spared and that natural selection 
 has brought to the front. And suppose an objector were 
 to maintain that this conservative faculty of Nature's; 
 this obstinate holding on to an advantage once gained, 
 and passing it on from parent to offspring ; this marvel- 
 lous faculty of repeating in a few weeks or months all the 
 creative skill which it took millions of years to acquire ; 
 this facility of reproducing at a few sittings the choicest 
 masterpieces of her work, elaborating the human eye in 
 a, dark region, carving the human hand, and laying up 
 the tender cells and coils of the future brain ; that all 
 this is to the full as extraordinary and transcendent 
 workmanship as was ever the supposed sudden creations 
 of species with all their organs and adaptations. Yes, 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 317 
 
 the materialistic biologist tells us, it is quite as wonderful ; 
 but it is a fact, however astonishing, and as a fact it i& 
 conceivable, while the other account of supernatural 
 creation is a fiction, and of the worst kind, because it 
 never coi^be made conceivable to us under our existing 
 mental conditions. Moreover, extraordinary as is the 
 evolution before birth of any living being, human or 
 other, there is no appearance of the action of a mind at 
 work unfolding each stage of the process ; on the contrary, 
 science, which has lately been deeply engaged on the 
 subject, tells us only of the action of matter, the evolution 
 one after another, and according to regular ascertainable 
 laws, of the wonderful properties stored up implicitly 
 in all-powerful and mysterious matter. A mysterious, 
 universal, immanent power is here manifested, if you 
 will ; the materialist affirms that it is a power inherent 
 in and belonging to matter, and most certainly it is not 
 mind in any sense of that term to which we can attach 
 a meaning. Even if we grant a universal power at every 
 point and pulse of the organic, as of the inorganic world, 
 existing everywhere and at all times, still this would not 
 be a universal mind, but a universal power or agency ; 
 and if we are to use our words with any definite meaning, 
 we cannot affirm that there is a supreme mind at work, 
 4 shaping the individual organs by supernatural power 
 before birth, when science assures us that it is all done 
 by natural processes. There is no more trace of mind in 
 the short process of evolution which the science of 
 embryology surveys, than in the long processes of evolu- 
 tion of which Darwin tells us this is but a very brief 
 epitome. The evolution of the individual, with all its 
 exquisite adaptations, is as wonderful truly as the evolu- 
 tion of a planet, as the evolution of the human species ; 
 but it is no more brought about, than were those others, 
 
318 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 by the action of a supernatural mind planning it or of a 
 supernatural hand achieving it ; which are clearly mere 
 words that convey no meaning. It is done by regular, 
 natural steps and processes which science is learning to 
 trace and exhibit to us as invariable laws, mysterious 
 and marvellous in the last result, indeed, but only, as all 
 ultimate facts and laws are and must be, from the laws of 
 embryonic development and natural selection to the law 
 of gravitation, although they, in the long run, relate only 
 to matter and its various manifestations. 
 
 2. Thus, the new materialism seeks to draw renewed 
 life and nutriment from Darwinism. Can it be said to 
 this materialism, which basis itself upon doctrine of 
 evolution, that, whether there be or be not marks of 
 infinite wisdom and goodness discoverable in the entire 
 cosmic process, yet a God, intelligent and moral, must be 
 postulated as the Auther of conscience and the moral law 
 in man; a God who, moreover, still exists as a moral 
 Legislator and Ruler, and who will finally make virtue 
 and happiness coincident hereafter, as we feel they 
 should be, though they never actually are, upon the 
 earth ? This is Kant's argument for the existence and 
 moral government of God, reproduced in Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold's " something not ourselves that makes for 
 righteousness." 
 
 But in answer to this we are assured, not merely by 
 the materialists, but by scientific moralists like Darwin 
 and Spencer, that from the circumstances and necessities 
 of the case, men themselves must have invented morality, 
 slowly but surely a conclusion which is confirmed by 
 Tylor's and Lubbock's researches into the primitive 
 history of mankind. The germs of all morality, we are 
 told, are contained in two primitive instincts the in- 
 stinct of self-preservation and the reproductive instinct ; 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 319 
 
 in particular social morality, or morality proper, implied 
 in our obligation to our fellows, is to be traced to the 
 former. Morality is a necessary corollary from the 
 instinct to live, so much so that, being given three, 
 or even two, social, not to say human, beings agreeing 
 to live together in any kind of union, however loose, 
 morality of some degree and amount, however slight, 
 must result. Three men, three ants, could not live and 
 labour together without manifesting the essential ele- 
 ments of morality. Union, besides allaying mutual fear 
 and distrust, secures certain evident advantages : two 
 can obtain by their united labours more than double the 
 amount of food and raiment that each working separately 
 could procure. Here the self-preserving instinct comes 
 into play. But they could not have the advantages of 
 union unless there was mutual trust, a fair division 
 of labour and of its acquisitions ; and here we have the 
 essential germs of truth and justice. Further, if in a 
 primitive tribe of men, as in a colony of ants, there was 
 not some zeal in individuals for the common good, the 
 society, as a whole, would not flourish, and the indi- 
 viduals themselves would be the losers. So surely, in 
 fact, as the primitive units in a state of isolation, under 
 the instinct of self-preservation, must act in ways that 
 we could generally predict in pursuit of food, so surely 
 when they come together, though still at first under the 
 guidance of this instinct of self-preservation, or self- 
 advancement, they will observe, in their mutual inter- 
 course, a rudimentary moral behaviour, which will in 
 time become customs and then recognized laws, with a 
 power lodged somewhere to enforce them. 
 
 All else follows in the natural course of evolution : 
 the gradual improvement of morality will be accomplished 
 by natural selection favouring those tribes or groups in 
 
320 THE FUTUBE OF RELIGION AXD MORALS. 
 
 which the social as well as other virtues, as courage, and 
 sacrifice, were most observed and practised. All the 
 virtues necessary for society will be thus developed if 
 men live together sociability, sympathy, pity, as well 
 as regard for veracity, justice, and the general weal. 
 True, the vices may also be developed in individuals, 
 because at 'the bottom man remains a being with an 
 obstinate instinct to seek his own advantage, which 
 urges him to violate his duty to others ; but the united 
 interest of the society is always a force antagonistic to 
 these selfish impulses, and exerts itself to repress them. 
 Of course, the looser the cohesion of the primitive socie- 
 ties, the less scope there is for the development of the 
 virtues, which, in a state of savage isolation, may be, as 
 we still see, almost non-existent, or may exist only in so 
 far as the mere primitive unit, the family group, implies 
 some small recognition of them. 
 
 Morality is thus no special fact in human nature 
 necessarily requiring a supernatural being to produce it. 
 The moral law was not specially handed down from 
 heaven to guide men's actions. Given only the self- 
 conserving instinct inseparable from all living beings, 
 given further the germs of the principle of sociability so 
 widely spread in the animal kingdom, and all social 
 animals, man included, must of necessity invent some 
 system of morals. Morality in this respect stands on 
 the same level with art, science, mechanical invention, 
 that they are all equally of man's creation and device. 
 Morality, indeed, presupposes some rudimentary form of 
 society, to whose interests it is strictly related, while 
 the others, although they find their fostering and en- 
 couragement in society, do not necessarily imply it, 
 being possible in solitude. Morality, too, was earlier in 
 the world than art, or science, or even religion (itself of 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 321 
 
 natural origin). It was probably not earlier than some 
 rude mechanical arts ; but just as certainly as these were 
 the devices of men themselves, so were moral notions 
 and rules. Indeed, the first inventors could with better 
 reason lay claim to inspiration than the first moralists ; 
 to invent and to execute being a gift of the few, to 
 perceive the need of moral conduct being common to all. 
 But as we believe that no God was required to teach 
 men to shape their rude stone hatchets, their spear and 
 arrow heads ; as the more skilful conceived and shaped 
 these, urged thereto and taught solely by the necessities 
 of their position under the instinct to live ; the bee and 
 the bird, under like impelling forces, displaying a like 
 mechanical ingenuity ; so men discovered, though much 
 more easily and generally, the need and utility of the 
 primary virtues. The real difficulty never came from 
 not seeing clearly their necessity; this was obvious 
 enough, even to individuals of the earliest and rudest 
 human hordes, just as it is instinctively obvious to the 
 lower social animals to-day. The difficulty was, and, 
 though in much less degree, still is, to reduce moral 
 sentiments and rules to practice, in opposition to the 
 powerful antagonistic forces of selfishness and sensuality, 
 which are in their essence instinctive, unreasoning, prone 
 to boundless excess, and regardless of the good of others. 
 Indeed, the difficulty in ruder times of curbing the 
 ungovernable egotism of the individual 'was felt to be 
 so great, that as soon as men had dome to conceive the 
 notion of supernatural and powerful personalities resident 
 behind the forces and phenomena of Nature fetishes, 
 demons, deities the aid of some of them was specially 
 invoked in order to give a supernatural sanction, the 
 fear of the god's displeasure, in addition to the ordinary 
 natural ones that society supplied. In still later times, 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 we find the law-givers and founders of religions, in their 
 several sacred books, affirming that they had received 
 the moral precepts inculcated by them from heaven. 
 But not the less was morality a matter of man's inven- 
 tion, and practised long before the pretended revelations 
 which afterwards came in to reinforce and confirm it; 
 of human invention like the mechanical arts, but so 
 obviously and instinctively apparent in its necessity, 
 that where even two or three human units were aggre- 
 gated together, there morality was sure to arise in the 
 midst of them. Social necessity was the mother of 
 morality, as individual necessity of the mechanical arts ; 
 but necessity was as much the mother of the one species 
 of invention as of the other. 
 
 Very early, too, but not till they had quite parted all 
 company with their non-human relations, our forlorn 
 and helpless ancestors must have experienced some dim 
 religious feelings, begotten of fear, and awe, and ignorance, 
 and blind dumb wonder, which Nature and her for- 
 midable forces, sometimes terrible and destructive, 
 sometimes again seemingly beneficent and kindly dis- 
 posed, would naturally stir within them. The primitive 
 man found himself cast helpless into a universe fraught 
 with manifold dangers, where all was uncertain, and 
 the sentiment of absolute dependence on Nature and 
 her capricious powers, unless he could find some way 
 to placate them, was borne deeply in upon him. But 
 haply, by figuring the powers of Nature as beings like 
 himself, as he would naturally do, they would be con- 
 ceived as capable of being moved in a human way and 
 rendered more favourably disposed. Hence came religion 
 into the world, born of fear, as Epicurus truly declared ; 
 and hence religious practice soon followed, in the shape 
 of ceremony, sacrifice, and supplication to please the 
 powerful demons and deities. 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 32$ 
 
 But morality, as already said, was prior to religion. 
 Men had moral notions at least as early as religious 
 feelings, and moral practice long before religion became 
 organized into a system of worship with prescribed rites 
 and ceremonies, so that religion was in no sense the 
 source, but only appeared subsequently as an ally, of 
 morality. 
 
 Long after religion had appeared, when a breathing- 
 time in the fierce battle of existence was allowed, when 
 leisure was possible, in an auspicious climate, and amidst 
 happier conditions of life, art was born, and following 
 quickly upon art, science and philosophy not from an 
 immediate material necessity as in the case of practical 
 inventions, nor from a social necessity as in the case of 
 morals, but in order to satisfy a new and inner need, a 
 higher craving born in the souls of men for beauty and 
 truth. 
 
 And, indeed, when one reflects, it might with a far 
 greater show of reason be contended that a G-od was 
 required to teach men the rudiments of art and science 
 than of morality ; to implant the new perceptions of 
 beauty and the new relish for truth both such strange 
 and unlikely visitants to the primitive savage soul than 
 to sow the seeds of morality, or teach men the primary 
 virtues, so certain to be developed amongst them from 
 the evident necessities of the case, without any external 
 instruction. Or, if a divine author were postulated, to 
 produce the first dispositions to moral practice, the first 
 dim feelings of pity, of sympathy, of affection, and still 
 more the disposition, so antagonistic to his inmost essence 
 of self-conservation, to carry virtue to the extreme of 
 self-sacrifice, the argument might have some force. But, 
 couched in the Kantian form, that God exists as the 
 original Author of the moral law, the argument, as we 
 
324 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 have just seen, has as little foundation in reason as it 
 has historical justification under the searching modern 
 criticism of the sacred books of different peoples. 
 
 And as for the fact of conscience, continues the 
 evolution moralist, the feeling of duty and moral obli- 
 gation now existing in men, upon which so much stress 
 is laid by intuitional moralists and theological advocates, 
 this, so far as it is a real fact (though it is far from being 
 a universal one), admits of a quite natural explanation. 
 
 So far as it is a fact, it can be naturally accounted 
 for ; though in reality conscience is to be found in all 
 degrees, from its almost non-existence to its very 
 moderate average amount, and up to the high and very 
 exceptional degree that makes the hero and martyr 
 accept death rather than be false to it. The existence 
 of the sentiment of duty is admitted, as also its occasional 
 intensity; but even in the extremest case, no super- 
 natural cause or origin is necessary. Conscience, we 
 know from science and history, has grown from the zero- 
 state to its present limited degree and range in the 
 average individuals of civilized communities ; we know 
 already the natural causes of its commencement, and 
 the natural history of its genesis and development is not 
 far to seek. The explanation of the present fact of a 
 developed conscience in man is simply this : Man being 
 naturally a social animal, the social conscience has been 
 worked into the species by ages of dearly purchased 
 experience, the results of which were handed on from 
 generation to generation by inheritance. This experience 
 it was that, ever enforcing the lesson evident enough, 
 one would have supposed, without it of its absolute 
 necessity, not merely for the general social weal, and to 
 save it from internal dissolution, but still more pressingly 
 to save it from destruction by external antagonist tribes,, 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 325 
 
 who, besides being braver, were more firmly knit together 
 by the common social bonds of mutual trust, a sense of 
 justice, and regard for the general good. The societies, 
 in fact, which, besides being braver, were more moral, 
 and had a more generally diffused conscience, were those 
 that were favoured by natural selection and survived. 
 And the scientifically established fact of the transmission 
 by heredity of acquired moral and mental qualities, 
 explains why modern societies have a greatly increased 
 moral, no less than industrial and intellectual capital, 
 since each generation starts with the accumulated inherit- 
 ance of the preceding, which, in its turn, it should hand 
 on to the next in at least undiminished amount. We to- 
 day are " the heirs of all the ages," morally no less than 
 intellectually. It is true, some societies may be in a 
 state of moral retrogression; there may be a period of 
 almost general moral degeneracy, as in the decline of the 
 Roman Empire before Christianity arose; but there 
 comes, as then, an epoch of reformation, a new moral illu- 
 mination, often brought about by one superior spirit, who, 
 mistaking his own enthusiasm and the higher intensity 
 of his own moral feelings for a divine voice, announces 
 himself as specially commissioned from heaven to pro- 
 claim anew the moral law and the will of God. And by 
 the powerful contagion of a great example and a great 
 personality, through the fact of sympathy existing in the 
 mass of men, the great prophet or moral reformer has 
 been able to communicate in a measure his state of soul 
 to others, and so at length to raise society to the height 
 it had lost, or even to a still higher moral level. 
 
 Thus is to be explained the existence of conscience, 
 and even, having regard to long periods, a continual 
 increase in the clearness and range of its moral light. 
 Our moral dispositions are thus strictly an inherited 
 
326 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 bequest. And virtue remains indestructible in the species 
 as a whole, whatever deterioration it may undergo in a 
 particular society or in particular individuals. So long- 
 as the structure of the brain and nervous system remains 
 constant, as it does on the whole, conscience, morality, 
 remains safe from open assault or secret sap. If we have 
 inherited a good conscience, like a good constitution, 
 from our parents, we shall keep it. And morality in 
 general, it may be safely said, will not be destroyed by 
 the scientific teaching, because it is hidden and stowed 
 away safely in an inaccessible region, in the inmost 
 molecular constitution of the coils and cells of the brain 
 and nerves, and can only be deteriorated or destroyed 
 with these. Morality is as indestructible as art or 
 science ; its tendency, like these, is to further development 
 and diffusion, not to a deterioration. Thus, then, in fine, 
 there is no need to postulate the supernatural either for 
 the commencement, the improvement, or the continual 
 preservation of morality ; and the voice of conscience, 
 that now speaks with the accumulated moral experience 
 of thousands of generations, is no more the voice of Deity 
 than the perceptions of beauty or truth, likewise inherit- 
 ances, are special inspirations from Him. 
 
 3. Whence, then, the need, demands the evolution 
 materialist, of postulating a supernatural cause ? Not, 
 certainly, for morality; for we show you its natural 
 earthly origin from the necessities of man's life. Not 
 for the creation of the earth and sun and planets ; for we 
 can show you how they must have been born from 
 physical and dynamical laws. To produce consciousness, 
 you wi]l probably say. But consciousness, including its 
 higher stages of self-consciousness and reason in man, 
 was slowly evolved in the entire animal kingdom, culmi- 
 nating in the human species, from unconsciousness ; just 
 
OX THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 327 
 
 as it was evolved in yourself, who, between birth and 
 maturity, have passed through precisely similar stages. 
 This wonderful miracle of evolution has happened in 
 your own case, as it has in that of all men ever born, 
 who attained to man's estate; why, then, may it not 
 have happened in the entire animal kingdom ? Doubt- 
 less the supposition implies the descent of man from the 
 brute, as well as of all conscious life from unconscious- 
 ness. But we show you, there is no a priori impossi- 
 bility in either of these suppositions, and we refer you 
 to Darwin for further proofs of the first, and to Haeckel 
 for a probable proof of the second. Moreover, science at 
 the present moment shows us conscious and sentient life 
 fading into unconscious and insentient forms in the 
 debatable border-land between the plant and animal 
 world ; it shows us unbroken continuity from the plant 
 to the human soul, as it is trying to show and has all 
 but succeeded in showing unbroken continuity between 
 chemistry and consciousness. You think, however, there 
 is a gap between chemistry and consciousness shown in 
 the first appearance of life itself. But why resort to the 
 Deus ex machine*, here more than elsewhere ? The first 
 appearance of life, as of all things, is mysterious : we 
 grant it. It is difficult to trace the laws which govern 
 the successive stages of the evolutionary process: still, 
 science is fast discovering them in embryology ; and life, 
 you must allow, now begins with matt'er, whether you 
 admit or deny the possibility of spontaneous generation. 
 Matter is unquestionably first in the field to-day, in all 
 cases where life afterwards emerges. Matter must be 
 first given, without life or mind, even though life and 
 mind afterwards result. But a Creator, you think, with 
 Darwin, must be postulated at the beginning, in order to 
 produce the first few forms of life, granting that the 
 
328 THE FUTUKE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 laws of organized matter can accomplish all the rest. 
 But what if chemical combination, aided and supple- 
 mented by natural selection, having infinite ages to 
 make many chance trials and failures, and working 
 under more favourable atmospheric or oceanic conditions, 
 on the cooling surface of the globe, or better still, in the 
 dark ocean beds, what if, between them, they should 
 have hit at last by accident upon some faint rude 
 attempts at life, some rudimentary structureless forms, 
 possibly like the monera as now exhibited ; which, 
 having been once successfully launched into life, and 
 well under way, afterwards, by the continuing favour of 
 fortune and natural selection, grew and prospered, and 
 were developed into much greater things ? What, in a 
 word, if chemical affinity and natural selection, that is 
 to say, matter and its necessary laws, and neither on the 
 one hand Chaos, nor on the other a personal world- 
 fashioning Creator, were the original father of things ? 
 
 And as for this rival hypothesis, this supposed super- 
 natural process of creation, reflect for a moment, and see 
 if it be not a mere word expressly invented to cover our 
 ignorance an empty name, which men pass off on them- 
 selves for a real explanation. For, only think, what 
 could this impossible process of creation from blank non- 
 entity be this sudden miraculous summons and pre- 
 cipitation of a host of suns and planets from the empty 
 void, made from no pre-existent materials ? If your 
 mind can really " think the great thought of creation." 
 in this fashion so different from either the Hegelian or 
 the Darwinian conception of it then indeed the process 
 of miraculous creation might be possible in the cosmos, 
 since your mind at least has accomplished the marvellous 
 process of creation, has constructed its thought out of 
 no existent or conceivable materials ! And the sudden 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND 
 
 creation of a single living form, of a caterpd 
 nothing, is no less difficult than the creation of a world 
 or a host of worlds (possibly, indeed, it would be the 
 more difficult feat of the two); for the mere physical 
 magnitude makes no difference in the intrinsic difficulty, 
 or, let us say rather, in its utter inconceivability and 
 absurdity, even as a possible notion. But chemical com- 
 bination to produce life ! this, you say, is equally incon- 
 ceivable and impossible. Not so. We merely conceive 
 new properties to result from a new arrangement of the 
 chemical constituents of matter a thing with which 
 the eye of Science is very familiar in her analysis and 
 interrogation of Nature's processes. But, again, you 
 say, we cannot conceive how life should have originally 
 resulted from a particular arrangement of molecules. 
 Can you conceive, then, how it now results from such an 
 .arrangement, though it does as a fact, as the most 
 eminent embryologists have shown us ? Or can you 
 conceive how, at the present moment, as the basis of life 
 there is only protoplasm, in the last analysis produced 
 merely by the physical and chemical properties of 
 oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, with some other 
 elements in small proportions, duly combined together ? 
 Can you conceive, in fact, how anything which is wholly 
 different from its elements should yet proceed from 
 them ? how water, for instance, should come from 
 oxygen and hydrogen ? and yet it does as a fact, how- 
 ever inconceivable and inexplicable, and how little 
 soever we could have expected such a wonderful trans- 
 formation beforehand. At bottom, indeed, can you con- 
 ceive why anything should come from anything, beyond 
 the fact, which the senses constantly show us, or which 
 Science, assisting our senses, discovers for us, that it 
 ^actually does so happen? In the end, all final facts, all 
 
330 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 the first appearing and becoming of things, even all 
 associations of particular effects Avith particular ante- 
 cedent conditions, are, as our scientific thinkers from 
 Hume to Mill and Spencer allow, equally inexplicable, 
 equally mysterious, equally, if you will, miracles. But 
 it is the business of Science to ascertain the laws and 
 conditions under which these facts and appearances 
 present themselves, to discover the constant relations 
 governing both their successive and simultaneous states. 
 These laws Science can discover ; to do so is her special 
 work, interesting to the thinker and the savant, and 
 useful to the world; but she has learned, from the 
 futility of all such speculations, to decline the further 
 questions why matter has such properties, why it is 
 governed by such laws, why it undergoes such Protean 
 transformations. She has long since handed over the 
 question of the why of phenomena to metaphysics, 
 reserving to herself the question of the hoiv, the question 
 of fact. Nor has metaphysics made much of the other 
 problem of the why, over which she has so long puzzled 
 herself. In the end, we must confess that we cannot tell 
 why final facts are so, why they have been so, or why 
 they should continue so ; and certainly the miracle and 
 final mystery of Nature's ultimate facts and processes is 
 not diminished by the postulate, which can never be 
 proved, of a power lodged behind Nature, acting after 
 the human fashion, moving, constructing, meditating, 
 selecting as we men do, and still less by the further sup- 
 position of such a power acting in a manner entirely 
 supernatural as well as inconceivable, in the evoking of 
 worlds and organisms from pure nonentity, or the void 
 of space. 
 
 4. Here appear the outlines of a new and formick- 
 able materialistic system. Here once again the hydra- 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 331 
 
 headed materialism, so often slain in the course of the 
 history of philosophy, rises up alive and aggressive ; and 
 this time seemingly armed at all points, and threatening: 
 to all the higher interests of man, the belief in God, the 
 reality of virtue, the hope of a hereafter. Surely, we 
 are inclined to think, these recurrent phenomena, this 
 repeated resurrection and apparition of the spectre of 
 materialism, betokens something significant. What may 
 it mean ? And can we give any answer to it ? For a 
 real answer seems urgently required in our time once 
 again. 
 
 You have, indeed, shown, we say to the new mate-' 
 rialist, that the universal mind has not worked accord- 
 ing to men's former rude conceptions; that it did not 
 suddenly call the spheres into being from out the blank 
 and empty abyss ; did not conceive, create from nothing, 
 and then fashion and piece together the parts of animal 
 organisms as a watchmaker puts together the parts of a 
 watch. We allow that the Power which we postulate 
 did not reveal His will to men in the moral law handed 
 down from heaven by special miracle to chosen instru- 
 ments. Nevertheless, though you have shown how 
 matter and mechanical laws might have been the parent 
 of the physical worlds, you have not yet, we conceive, 
 satisfactorily shown how they could have been the 
 sources of the spiritual world ; and you have not shown 
 us what first moved matter itself from its original state 
 of eternal rest, or what impressed law and order on the 
 materials of the universe. 
 
 You have not shown how mere homogeneous matter, 
 be it hydrogen gas or other uniform substance, however 
 refined, could run of itself into order and harmony, as 
 disclosed in the mathematical figures and motions of the 
 earth and planets and myriad sidereal worlds ; motions 
 
332 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 so labyrinthine, with never a collision, time so exactly 
 kept that the earth is never a fraction of a second late 
 in her vast annual journey. Nor have you explained 
 how these huge spinning spheres, some of them hundreds 
 of thousands of miles in thickness, are hung in the 
 heavens self-supported. Are they really so ? No, the 
 law of gravitation keeps them all in their places. And 
 what is gravity ? A universal property of matter, like 
 inertia, you say. And why is not matter rather a pro- 
 perty of it of this mysterious invisible something that 
 admittedly governs it everywhere and at all times ? 
 What is this gravity ? We cannot tell. It is a word 
 for universally observed effects ; but we believe there is 
 a cause for it which is not matter itself. To say that 
 matter moves itself, and that gravity is a necessary law 
 of matter in motion, looks like an explanation, but is 
 really none. 
 
 Then, according to your story, after innumerable 
 tentative trials, at last elementary life appeared. Life 
 was a happy hit, a fortunate and unexpected product, 
 entirely uncontemplated by Nature ! Let us grant this 
 too. Did it appear first in the plant or the animal ? 
 We cannot say positively ; probably simultaneously, here 
 affixing itself to a particular spot as a plant, and there 
 finding itself wonderfully endowed with the faculty of 
 locomotion. Still, this new property of self-movement 
 at pleasure is a very remarkable fact, for though the 
 planets move, they are not supposed to be self-moved, 
 but must obey a fixed external law of movement. 
 Whence have the elementary forms of organic life this 
 singular difference ? Then the feeling of sentiency, and 
 its gradual increase to consciousness, is a still greater 
 marvel. Automatic movement and life might, it is 
 faintly conceivable, be products of chemical and physical 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 833' 
 
 law, and be expressible, as our automatists say, in terms 
 of such. But the light of consciousness and thought, 
 how can we even faintly suppose this to have any rela- 
 tion to a particular collocation of the chemical elements ? 
 Is there not a gulf between chemistry and consciousness, 
 admitted by the most eminent authorities in science ; a 
 difference for ever, than which none greater is conceiv- 
 able, between mind and matter between the internal 
 and unextended states of knowing and feeling and their 
 external and extended material conditions ; an abyss not 
 to be bridged, between the cerebral atoms and thought,, 
 their supposed product? But it is acknowledged that 
 the word " product " is to be taken in Hume's sense of 
 something that invariably follows after something else, 
 though we see no reason why it should so follow. Be it 
 so ; but in that case your materialism and monism break 
 down and become dualism; for if matter is not the 
 efficient cause of thought, but only an antecedent, wholly 
 unlike its consequent ; if matter does not itself always 
 actually think, or if one of its associated forms of energy 
 is not transformed into thought, as the hardier mate- 
 rialists would affirm ; then there are two acknowledged 
 things or entities in the universe, totally different m 
 kind matter and thought. 
 
 However, lest we should be thought to snatch at a 
 merely verbal victory, extorted from [particular scientific 
 concessions, of the difference between nfatter and con- 
 sciousness, we are ready to grant the materialist that if 
 he can prove, beyond doubt or question, that matter 
 adding all its properties, if he chooses was first in the 
 field at the beginning, and that there was nothing else 
 either behind it or immanent in it of a totally different 
 nature, then materialism in its most real and significant 
 sense is proved. We will allow it proved, without press- 
 
334 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 ing him with the concessions of physicists and naturalists 
 like Dubois-Reymond, Helmholtz, and Tyndall, who have 
 admitted the gulf between consciousness and matter ; for 
 at least matter the cerebral atoms though unlike 
 thought, produces it, is the cause of it in the scientific 
 sense, the antecedent, without which it would not be ; 
 while again, ages ago, matter was the parent of it, and of 
 all things that have since been slowly evolved therefrom. 
 The controversy between the materialist and those 
 who differ from him in thinking his explanation of the 
 universe wholly insufficient, may fairly be narrowed to 
 this point: Was matter, and nothing else, first in the 
 field at the beginning of things, or from all eternity ? and 
 is matter, and nothing else wholly different from it, to- 
 day at the bottom of all things life and thought in- 
 cluded ? Was matter the first, and is it still the last 
 and deepest thing in the universe ? This is the real and 
 only important question ; and if, as said, the materialist 
 could really answer it satisfactorily in the affirmative, 
 materialism in its most serious and important sense 
 would be established. And further, we are ready to 
 accept the materialist's own statement of the nature of 
 matter, various and comprehensive as that has now 
 become. We give him the hard, indivisible atoms of 
 physics, though these are rather an hypothesis, or, as 
 Professor Bain terms them, " representative fictions ; " 
 we give the protoplasm in the organic sphere, and the 
 molecules in the brain, as equally material ; and, if he 
 wishes, we are ready to regard the various forms of 
 energy that play on or about matter as their solid basis 
 of operations, as material likewise. Heat, electrical, 
 chemical, and nervous energy, invisible in themselves, but 
 which demonstrate their existence by visible or palpable 
 effects, we shall grant to be material, because they have 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 335 
 
 been found only in conjunction with phenomenal matter. 
 In fact, all that Science has been able to observe in this 
 Protean matter, together with something which she has 
 not observed, but the existence of which she only suspects, 
 we are ready to grant ; and yet we feel compelled to ask 
 Is there not something more than all this phenomenal 
 matter, and all this phenomenal energy ? Is there not 
 something manifested in the universe wholly different 
 from it ? something of which these things are effects ; 
 but which is more than these, and different from these, 
 which in future ages will show far more effects than 
 these, just as to day it shows an infinitely more expanded 
 variety of matter, if so we must call it, than it did in the 
 pleistocene period, and still more, than when it mani- 
 fested itself as only a diffused fiery vapour. 
 
 Was matter the whole at the beginning ? Was there 
 not something behind ? At least, was there not a prin- 
 ciple of development and evolution an immaterial thing, 
 you must allow something which required matter to 
 work upon as material, and by means of which it showed 
 all its marvels ? This process is not matter, and yet 
 this is the essence of the whole universe in time, as it 
 is still the most essential fact in all existence. This 
 process of development requires time, infinite ages, in 
 which to declare itself. It has declared itself on the 
 earth in the various forms of matter, and it has also 
 reached thought. What might not its translations and 
 expressions be through other infinite worlds ? Still only 
 matter, you say, and thought as its product, if there be 
 thought. But are you sure ? and would matter under a 
 sixth or seventh sense, revealing a wholly new side of 
 existence, be our matter ? Would thought, its supposed 
 product, be our thought, if it received its materials 
 through wholly different sources and avenues, perhaps 
 
33G THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 going far deeper into all possible existence than ours ? 
 Has there not, then, been at work throughout the process 
 of evolution, even on our earth, a mighty and mysterious- 
 something ? a something which, if we will speak at all 
 of it, we must Describe as a purpose, moving beneath and 
 irresistibly pushing its way, unfolding itself, ascending- 
 higher and higher ? And the deposition of the germs 
 which afterwards flowered so gloriously in religion, art, 
 morality, even science itself, can this be said to be 
 within the power of matter alone ? Have we not here 
 creation after all ? At one time and at one moment there 
 did not exist in the universe certain things which have 
 since appeared life, consciousness, human affection; at 
 one moment they were not, afterwards they were. Is- 
 this evolution or creation? Indeed, the name is in- 
 different ; but nevertheless, this fact of evolution or 
 creation, call it which you please, still is and you allow 
 it the very life and essence of the world. This is the 
 one process for ever going on, and now more prodigiously 
 than ever. The birth and growth and life of every 
 insect, of every flower, of every man, are instances of it. 
 The universe is still a perpetual process of evolution or 
 creation. And what is the working power ? What 
 evolves all the stages of the process ? What transforms 
 all the energies ? Matter, the universal blind mother, 
 brings forth all from her dark womb ! and the energies 
 of matter transform themselves for ever and ever. To 
 state it thus is indeed to proclaim loudly the futility of 
 materialism, and yet this is all that materialists them- 
 selves give us for explanation. 
 
 Further, in all this process of evolution, in all these 
 transformations of energy, where all is wonderful, there 
 is one thing, one evolution, one transformation, pre- 
 eminently wonderful. There is the evolution of conscious- 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 337 
 
 ness and though t, the supreme marvel of the universe ; 
 there is the unique energy that slowly awoke to con- 
 sciousness, that alone knows and contemplates all the 
 other energies as well as itself. We might almost con- 
 ceive that everything else might be brought into connec- 
 tion with matter as the central principle; that all the 
 othpr facts in the universe might conceivably be hung 
 from the plastic and flexible principle of matter as now 
 viewed; but consciousness, with all its wonderful contents, 
 this and its evolution are inexplicable by materialism, 
 and can only receive explanation by postulating a prin- 
 ciple wholly different from all that we know of matter. 
 
 Or was consciousness, too, as well as life, only a lucky 
 accident that Nature blindly stumbled upon ? Did 
 Matter, blindly groping, while sorting her old materials, 
 while arranging, and rearranging her atoms, at last hit 
 upon this splendid thing by chance this most surprising 
 thing, had she any intelligence to perceive it and to be 
 surprised. For a spirit arose beneath her blind passes, 
 her fortuitous motions and combinations, destined, if not 
 to give eyes to Matter to read herself, at least to be her 
 master and ruler; a spirit that read into the face of 
 Matter and Nature a divine beauty, and found in her 
 breast a truth unsuspected by herself; a soul, too, that 
 found in itself infinite affections as well as immortal 
 longings for a divine something nowhere discoverable in 
 nature or on the earth ; a soul that, in process of further 
 evolution, began to nourish ambitious and dazzling hopes 
 of a future continued life as its inherent right and 
 privilege, that dreamt of equality with the angels, and of 
 an immortality like the gods : such being the startling 
 phenomenon that was one day born of matter in a 
 mindless universe, the product of a lucky accident ! 
 
 5. The sinister question that lies at the root of all 
 
 z 
 
338 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 our new materialism, and which is brought prominently 
 forward by Darwinism, is precisely this old and threaten- 
 ing one Was the universe born of chance ? And are all 
 the grandest things that have since appeared in it 
 thought, will, affection, beauty, enthusiasm, like random 
 products ? This is the real question forced upon us by 
 the latest aspect of the materialistic philosophy, in alliance 
 with the doctrine of evolution ; and now we are face to 
 face with it. 
 
 Was it accident that first deposited the tingling nerve 
 sensitive to the sun's rays, that afterwards, under favour 
 of natural selection, developed into the miracle of the 
 human eye ? Was it accident that endowed the optic 
 nerve with such very remarkable properties ; and that 
 awoke the inner and totally distinct seeing power the 
 reader behind the refracting lens and the optic nerve, 
 who uses both ? And finally, was it accident that awoke 
 all the other senses, together with consciousness and all 
 its varied components emotion, sensations, and thoughts? 
 
 Let those who can believe this ; I for my part must 
 believe differently. We must believe that, in some way, 
 though possibly only faintly analogous to our design 
 and intention, the great results attained by Nature were 
 intended by her, and that she reached them by a route 
 which was not any of the cross-roads of chance. They 
 were both intended to appear, and they were not reached 
 at hap-hazard. We are compelled to interpret the course 
 of evolution as being under guidance; to believe that 
 the final results were aimed at, that Nature did not 
 stumble on her best works by sheer accident, the further 
 results of which would have utterly astonished herself 
 had she eyes to see. Let us freely grant that the 
 intention, design, plan, and purpose which we must read 
 into Nature, and which we must suppose in some way 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 330 
 
 to be there, is and must be very different from ours, only 
 remotely analogous to ours, because we cannot postulate 
 the existence of a Person in which it resides ; but yet 
 we must use the notion of design, because the only other 
 alternative, chance, is still wider away from the facts. 
 If we must elect between the two agencies, chance and 
 design, the latter must be nearer the truth. Design we 
 know already in our. own case to be a true shaping 
 power, while chance effects nothing but evil in the long 
 run. Chance, as an explanation and if design be 
 denied, chance must be offered as the explanation is 
 a word expressing nothing, a word which, under pretence 
 of explanation, affirms nothing whatever. It is this : 
 but it is also much more serious; for it is the express 
 denial of God, and is thus genuine atheism. 
 
 For even if we^ could prove the existence of a God 
 that cared not how the world went, and in no way 
 controlled the course of its evolution and history, although 
 perhaps we could not justly be called atheists, yet the 
 voice of the world, since the days of Epicurus, has 
 regarded the belief that the gods are careless as practi- 
 cally atheism. A power that called the world into being, 
 and immediately resigned all control over it, abandoning 
 it to a chance fate, would scarcely be deserving the name 
 of God. In some way, then, we are compelled to suppose 
 that Nature did not grope her way blindly and blunder- 
 ingly to her most splendid achievements, to life, to 
 consciousness and its contents, to the poet's vision of 
 beauty, the martyr's enthusiasm for virtue, the thinker's 
 thirst for truth. These high things could not have been 
 accidental. The best things that have resulted on earth 
 love, joy, peace, virtue, truth, beauty, these and 
 possibly grander things elsewhere realized, Nature, or 
 rather a power behind Nature, meant, contemplated, and 
 
340 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 intended. Give what latitude to the word " intention " 
 that your imagination enables you, but it is by some 
 such analogy that we must interpret Nature's opera- 
 tions ; and her evident continuing kindness to us in the 
 daily rising of the sun, in her corn and wine, her fruits 
 and flowers, is a confirmation of our faith in her sym- 
 pathy with and good will to men. 
 
 And even if the universe, with its present law and 
 order, could conceivably have come from chance, we are 
 sure it does not thither tend ; for we men have now the 
 course of it, at least on our earth, in large measure in 
 our hands. We are now co-labourers with Nature, and 
 it is by our conscious efforts striving to further her aims 
 that the further work of development is to be carried on. 
 It is in and by us men that the higher level, spiritual, 
 artistic, moral, social, to which she is aspiring, is to be 
 reached. 
 
 Can it be said to all this, that if Nature had not 
 reached her present most excellent things, the chefs- 
 d'oeuvre of her workmanship, she would have reached 
 others as great or greater, though of a different sort; 
 that it mattered not which of the cross-roads of chance 
 she took at any critical moment in the evolution of 
 things ; that if she had not accidentally struck on life, 
 and afterwards on consciousness, which carried with it 
 all its glorious after-contents, she would have found 
 something else as good or better ? May it be said of 
 Nature (as of man himself) that if she had not taken 
 one path at a critical moment in her career, she might 
 have prospered just as well by trying another, or on 
 the other hand, that what she has attained to, and now 
 holds by, might possibly have been far surpassed ; that, 
 far from having taken the tide at the flood that leads on 
 to fortune, she missed it rather on the earth, from whence 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 341 
 
 resulted "the shallows and miseries"' of the remainder 
 of the voyage, which the pessimist now so loudly laments ; 
 that, in fact, far greater things were in the list of possi- 
 bilities originally held in her hands, but which have 
 been for ever missed on the earth by a wrong turn taken 
 at a decisive moment, possibilities which, perhaps, nay, 
 certainly, have been realized in happier spheres, through 
 the exhaustion of chance and .errors, and by the trial of 
 ever new combinations and arrangements ? Or shall we 
 hold, with the optimist, unflinchingly, that our world is 
 as good as it could have been ; that none other or better 
 was possible under the circumstances ? The question is 
 finally a matter for faith, but faith appealing to reason, 
 and I for iny part hold to the latter view. I believe 
 that the highest things attained on the earth are equal 
 to the best anywhere attained, and further, that they 
 were intended to come out in the end, in process of time 
 and evolution. Better or worse of their kind may be 
 realized elsewhere, and even wholly different things, 
 which may be very good ; but nothing greater than the 
 finest things our own old earth has shown us virtue, 
 knowledge, affection, beauty, and the peace and joy 
 which comes from these; while nothing good has any- 
 where been arrived at by chance. 
 
 Professor Huxley contends that the final results on 
 the earth were rigidly necessary from the inherent 
 properties of matter, and could have .been predicted by 
 an infinite intelligence, had there been any such con- 
 temporaneous with the original " cosmic vapour/' just 
 as, being given the somewhat different physical con- 
 ditions of the planet Jupiter, the same intelligence could 
 have predicted with equal certainty a different result. 
 Being given the physical conditions, there was only, 
 he thinks, a mathematical and dynamical problem to 
 
34:2 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 work out, though one of much complexity when con- 
 sidered in its details. Professor Oscar Schmidt, in his 
 work on Danvinism and Descent, in appearance differing 
 from Professor Huxley, but only in appearance, discerns 
 in the evolutionary process, as its most essential attri- 
 bute, the fact of contingency, or as we have simply 
 described it chance. Professor Huxley's physical and 
 mechanical necessity is quite compatible with this meta- 
 physical contingency; indeed, as he himself tells us, it 
 implies it, for he assures us that Darwinism is exclusive 
 of teleology of all design and purpose. And when he 
 speaks of a hypothetical intelligence that might have 
 predicted the final results on the earth life, conscious- 
 ness, and all the rest that followed from these he only 
 means to say that if such an intelligence had existed, 
 capable of seeing clearly the chance combinations that 
 might result and that would result, then he had only to 
 make his mechanical or physico-chemical calculation to 
 know what would follow. The properties of unchanging 
 matter would determine the rest, if only the contingent 
 combinations were known or given. But it is quite 
 clear that, even admitting the actions of all bodies and 
 even all animals to be as physically necessary as the 
 motions of the planets round the sun, there is still 
 endless room for the play of contingency, just as there 
 is in the course of a man's life, though, on the necessi- 
 tarian view, as maintained by Huxley, all his actions 
 are in like manner determined, and even in the end 
 physically determined. If all be physical necessity, there 
 is ample room for contingency, for chance, unless, indeed,, 
 there was not only a hypothetical but a real intelligence of 
 some kind, and not only an intelligence but a power that 
 in some way exercised a control over the course of evolu- 
 tion, and in some way aimed at the final good results. 
 
ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 343 
 
 Another eminent naturalist, Professor Asa Gray, con- 
 tends that the doctrines of Darwin are compatible with 
 design and final causes, as, indeed, with the opposite 
 views. They are compatible with design, I allow ; but 
 only on condition that the Darwinian acknowledges a 
 purpose in the process of evolution, while we allow to 
 him that the meaning of the words "will," "design," 
 "purpose," "intention," are to be widened, and freed 
 from their old anthropomorphic contents. There was 
 a general intention and purpose, which is still shown 
 in the physical universe, in its rigid relations immutably 
 held since the cosmic vapour cooled and condensed into 
 suns and planets, attracting each other by mathematically 
 measurable law ; and there was intention and purpose,, 
 though not as ours, in the pow r er manifested everywhere 
 in Nature, and moving under the process of evolution to 
 reach the best that has been gained. In the organic 
 world this power, though still having its special aims 
 in each single being, nevertheless, by the very fact that 
 it has sundered itself into so many individuals, has 
 seemingly lost its unity of aim and purpose in the 
 animals and in man. But, nevertheless, it has an aim, 
 and steers for it, though in a way seemingly laborious 
 and circuitous, and in some respects clearly incompre- 
 hensible. What is it aiming at now in our species? 
 A better world on the earth, towards which so many 
 powerful tendencies point, a higher and also a happier 
 one ; of this we are sure, for these are the desires and 
 aims of men, which are amongst its chief aims, though 
 they must be realized by men's conscious efforts. In 
 conclusion, we must believe in aim, will, and purpose 
 in the universe, other than the human ; but not in the 
 old theological and anthropomorphic sense. To adhere 
 to the old conceptions of will and purpose, which were 
 
344 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 either strictly framed after human models, or else tied 
 to a particular metaphysical determination of personality, 
 is as wrong as the emptying of the universe, after the 
 manner of our modern physicists and naturalists, of all 
 will and purpose. But the former is a pious error ; the 
 latter, with its logical result of a universe drifting 
 nowhither, is one which would destroy all religion, and 
 all morality so far as bound up with religion. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 
 
 1. WITH difficulty will any of the past forms of idealism 
 be able to make head against the new materialism in 
 association with evolution. For excepting the theo- 
 logical idealism of Berkeley, idealism, in its later forms 
 English and Germanic is compatible witn the evo- 
 lution materialism. And Berkeley's proof of the ex- 
 istence of an Infinite Spirit resembling the human, but 
 vaster, is precisely the part of his system that sub- 
 sequent philosophy has found least acceptable. But 
 setting aside this part, the remainder of the Berkeleian 
 idealism is quite reconcilable with the extremest forms 
 of materialism, which asks only the phenomenal matter 
 that Berkeley freely grants in order to effect all its 
 purposes. Indeed, Professor Huxley distinctly allows 
 that the arguments of " pure idealism " are unanswerable, 
 and can be all the more easily shown to be irrefutable 
 the more completely we accept the materialist's position.* 
 But besides materialism and idealism, there is yet a 
 third monistic conception of the universe, at least as old 
 as the days of Spinoza a system which, though it has 
 been obscured, now by materialism, now by idealism, as 
 
 * His words are : " The more completely the materialistic position is 
 admitted, the easier it is to show that the idealistic position is unassail- 
 able, if the idealist confines himself within the limits of positive know- 
 ledge." Life of Hume, p. 82. 
 
346 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 one or other acquired temporary ascendency, yet has 
 ever reappeared again, and at the present moment seems 
 likely to prevail more and more, and, by drawing to 
 itself the truthful elements in materialism and idealism, 
 in the end to cut the ground from beneath the feet of 
 both ; deriving, moreover, as it has done, ever fresh life 
 and strength from the great scientific discoverers of the 
 past two hundred years, and certainly not least support 
 from those of our own generation. 
 
 There is the conception which represents the Ulti- 
 mate Principle of the universe as something deeper,, 
 wider, greater than either matter as we know it or con- 
 sciousness as we know it; something of which matter 
 and thought are merely special forms, appearances, ex- 
 pressions the only ones, indeed, that we can know, and 
 that only by means of one of these themselves, but 
 which are, nevertheless, far from being exhaustive of the 
 transcendent nature of that One Eternal Substance and 
 Power at the bottom of these things that we know, as 
 well as of innumerable other possible presentations of 
 itself of which we can know nothing. 
 
 This great conception, Spinozistic in its origin, has 
 been unfolding itself for more than two centuries past 
 in human thought ; has been working ever deeper into 
 the philosophic, poetic, artistic, theological, and even 
 lately into the scientific consciousness. It was the con- 
 ception of God in which the soul of Goethe, naturalist 
 and mighty poet, finally rested. It was the conception 
 of Schliermacher, the father of rational theology. Even 
 Kant, thinker and man of science though from the 
 practical reason he reached a different result from the 
 speculative side could find no other conception than this 
 of an Absolute Being, the final unconditioned Substance, 
 "the sum of all realities;" while at the present time, 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 347 
 
 Herbert Spencer, the philosopher of evolution, adopts 
 this idea as the one most reconcilable with modern 
 physical and natural science, as well as with the whole 
 process and doctrine of evolution. 
 
 2. There is in the universe an Existence over and 
 above all phenomena, whether viewed as unconditioned 
 Existence with Kant, as infinite Substance with Spinoza, 
 as an inscrutable Power with Spencer; a transcendent 
 Something, of which matter and mind are alike merely 
 phenomenal manifestations or modes, which are far from 
 being exhaustive of its whole nature. There is an Ulti- 
 mate Reality, in which, according to the great conception 
 of Spinoza, as according to Herbert Spencer wLo has 
 adopted it, mind and matter, subject and object, thought 
 and thing, are finally united ; a reality vaster and deeper 
 than all we know or dream of in matter; grander than 
 all we can think of or imagine in mind which, as we 
 know it, is perhaps only a fugitive, though glorious, 
 flower, thrown out from it here on the earth in the 
 course of its long evolutionary march. There is an 
 Absolute Existence, as according to Hegel (though not 
 essentially Thought, as described by him), unfolding 
 itself slowly in the transmutations of matter through 
 the ages, aspiring constantly higher, from matter to life, 
 from life to sensation, from sensation to consciousness, 
 from consciousness to spirit ; a Power one and the same 
 with that which now exhibits itself in the various Pro- 
 tean transformations of the stock of physical energies, 
 which are merely so many phenomenal masks it has 
 assumed, without any or all of them conveying a full or 
 true description of its real nature. There is a mighty 
 living and universal Power which, though not itself 
 individual, is for ever bursting forth into endless indi- 
 vidual life, in plant, or animal, or man, or angel; a 
 
348 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 Power which, though not personal, yet lives and moves 
 in the inmost being and essence of all persons ; a Power 
 resistless, but beneficent, which, partially suspended in 
 winter, bursts into a glorious resurrection of life and 
 beauty in spring, in bud and blossom, in insect, bird, 
 and brute ; a Power gracious and renovating, which 
 temporarily suspended in our exhausted hearts, yet ever 
 wells up again in inner secret and satisfying springs of 
 hope and joy and peace, life-restoring, light-giving, to 
 our heavy-laden souls. There is a Power, of which 
 matter and energy, life and light, thought and volition, 
 are but forms ; a Power, too, whose exhaustless life and 
 energy are but slightly drawn upon by all the various 
 demands made upon it in our little earth, working as it 
 does simultaneously as one and the same power in each 
 of the myriad stellar systems dispersed through infinite 
 space. In the most distant orbs, from which Science, 
 by her searching analysis and improved methods of 
 observation, has recently brought back her spectroscopic, 
 supplementing her telescopic, reports, the same power is 
 displayed in the composition of matter and in the main- 
 tenance of law as at home on the earth ; and probably 
 in many of those distant spheres it works in the pro- 
 duction of life, while probably also, nay, somewhere 
 certainly, and whether working by other and superior 
 art or working, as here, by natural selection chiefly, it 
 has attained to grander and more excellent results than 
 the choicest terrestrial things, to something greater 
 than truth, beauty, virtue, happiness, or if only to these, 
 then to a higher species of them, to a peace more serene 
 and settled than ours, to a truth more clear and free 
 from error, to a beauty more pervading, to a happiness 
 less fugitive and more unalloyed, to a virtue superior to 
 our smirched earthly product. 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 349 
 
 But further, this transcendent and stupendous Power, 
 however far it has progressed in its mysterious but 
 glorious march of evolution, will, according to Science, 
 exhibit itself in still more surprising results and perfect 
 productions in future times, at least in our earth; in 
 productions which we can now no more conceive than 
 could our rude prehistoric ancestors conceive within 
 their dark and narrow brains all the marvellous dis- 
 coveries, inventions, and improvements of our modern 
 life and civilization. 
 
 This Ultimate Power in the universe, mysterious and 
 unfathomable for ever, however much we or future 
 generations may know of its manifestations, is thus 
 described by the philosopher of evolution, Herbert 
 Spencer: "There is a power behind humanity, and 
 behind all other things ; a power of which humanity is 
 but a small and fugitive product ; a power which was, 
 in the course of ever-changing manifestations, before 
 humanity was, and will continue through other mani- 
 festations when humanity has ceased to be." * 
 
 But the Power is unknowable, he assures us, save 
 only in its manifestations. It would be equally incorrect 
 to describe it as either matter or mind ; for it is more 
 than both, and more fundamental than either. In both 
 cases alike, should we attempt to describe it as material 
 or as mental, we are only applying our imperfect, phe- 
 nomenal, and provisory predicates and notions, our 
 scarcely approximate symbols and words anthropomor- 
 phic when borrowed from our minds and actions, 
 materialistic when borrowed from matter and Nature's 
 actions to something wholly beyond the reach of any 
 
 * According to Spencer, this mysterious Power is the original and 
 abiding source of the religious feelings, which can never find a proper 
 object in any " religion of humanity" as conceived by Comte (Study of 
 Sociology, pp. 311, 312). 
 
350 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 combination of human symbols, material or mental, 
 however skilfully and subtly put together by even the 
 greatest thinkers, to adequately characterize. Language 
 can give no more than an approximate description of 
 the manifestations of the Power, which itself remains for 
 ever inaccessible and unfathomable. It would, indeed, 
 be the easier of the two, according to Spencer, to offer a 
 solution of the problem of the universe and the tran- 
 scendent power manifested in it in terms of mind than 
 in terms of matter, but both solutions would be inade- 
 quate. " It would be easier to translate so-called matter 
 into so-called spirit, than to translate so-called spirit into 
 so-called matter (which latter is, indeed, wholly im- 
 possible) ; yet no translation can carry us beyond our 
 symbols." The materialist's solution of the world- 
 problem, he thinks futile. The idealist's is also inade- 
 quate; for though idealism can express the phenomena 
 of matter in terms of mind, yet matter exists as a mode 
 of force. Its reality, though relative, is as deep as that of 
 our thought. We cannot conceive its non-existence. In 
 one sense, matter is perhaps a more essential predicate 
 of the Ultimate Power than mind ; for matter was first 
 in the field on the earth, as geology and the doctrine 
 of evolution assure us. Moreover, this matter extends 
 through all space. Far as gravitation extends, there 
 reigns matter ; and its probable ultimate unit, the hy- 
 drogen atom, has been reported in Sirius and Aldebaran 
 by the spectroscope ; while we cannot affirm with equal 
 confidence the existence of mind or consciousness closely 
 resembling ours in remote parts of the stellar regions. 
 
 According to Spencer, we do not know this Ultimate 
 Power, and we shall never know it. Neither we nor 
 any of the human species, however enlarged their intelli- 
 gence may in future become, shall know it. In fact, it 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 351 
 
 would appear as if no conceivable intelligence could ever 
 solve the final enigma of the world ; certainly no human 
 intelligence will ever be adequate to the problem. The 
 Ultimate Power " is no more representable in terms of 
 human consciousness than human consciousness is repre- 
 .sentable in terms of a plant's function." While men 
 remain subject to the limitations of consciousness, they 
 cannot compass in thought an existence transcending all 
 consciousness ; and men must be for ever subject to these 
 limitations. 
 
 However, though so much is inaccessible, we may 
 ven now know something of this noumenal existence 
 and Ultimate Power. We can know its existence, in- 
 finity, eternity, universal agency and efficacy, and its 
 final utter incomprehensibility. The latter predicate 
 may seem a contradiction in terms, but it is not so. It is 
 real and important, though negative knowledge, to know 
 that the Final Power and Being in the universe must for 
 ever remain unknown, not only by us, but by the most 
 exalted intelligence that can come after us; for men have 
 long and persistently believed the contrary, believed 
 that by searching they could find out God, or, on the 
 other hand, that He could communicate with and reveal 
 His real nature to them. 
 
 We can know something more, and what more im- 
 mediately concerns us than the universal and negative 
 predicates just named. We can know $ie sides of His 
 nature that this Universal Being has turned to us, the 
 small illuminated segment of the vast inscrutable sphere 
 of existence. We may know the manifestations of this 
 transcendent Power both in ourselves and in the external 
 world. This knowledge, science and a sound philosophy 
 rightly interpreting the facts and conclusions of science, 
 provide, us with ; and such knowledge, a real and true 
 
352 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 revelation and guide of life, of greatly increased clearness 
 and range, men may haply have to-day as they never 
 could have had in any former period of man's sojourn 
 on earth. 
 
 3. This Ultimate Reality in the universe is God. 
 The conception which we have illustrated in some detail 
 coincides, in its main features,* with that of Spencer, 
 though he was by no means the first to propound it or to 
 shape it forth to the world. The conception is essentially 
 due to the great Spinoza, the profoundest philosophical 
 mind of a century prolific in the production of great 
 thinkers, as it was also the conception accepted and 
 further illustrated by Goethe, the greatest modern poet. 
 Moreover, something like this, and differing only from 
 this in the ascription of purpose, is the notion of Schlier- 
 macher, the founder of modern rational theology. Kant, 
 indeed, a great and original thinker, came to a different 
 conclusion. For, although he had himself destroyed 
 the old and stock arguments for the existence of God, 
 and though from the furthest frontier of his own under- 
 standing commanding the most advanced outlook, he 
 could discern nothing but a shadowy something a 
 merely "limitative" concept of a thing-in-itself at the 
 end of all experience, a something which was no real 
 thing, though constantly mistaken by the metaphysicians 
 for such; nevertheless, Kant recovered his belief in 
 God from another and an unexpected quarter. He re- 
 covered it, first, in the shape of an Idea of the Reason ; 
 an idea that the understanding, dealing only with con- 
 cepts pure or empirical, could not supply, but which the 
 reason, a different faculty, finds herself necessarily and 
 
 * In its main features ; for, as stated, we recognize one element, the 
 most important of all, namely, purpose, which is omitted alike from 
 the Substance of Spinoza and the Ultimate Reality of Spencer. 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION" OF GOD. 353 
 
 unaccountably possessed of ; an idea or . goal that invites 
 and beckons the reason to follow it, and which finally 
 shows itself as the most abstract and attenuated concep- 
 tion of absolutely unconditioned being, further described 
 after the manner of Leibnitz as if to infuse some life 
 and reality into it as " the sum of all possible realities.'* 
 But secondly, and in a more concrete form, Kant proved 
 the existence of God from the Practical Reason. God 
 veritably exists, and stands in a most important relation 
 to us as the Author of the moral law ; a postulate which 
 the practical reason is compelled to make from the abso- 
 lutely imperative and unconditional character of the 
 notion of Duty a notion which we find in ourselves, 
 which admits of no human origin or explanation, but 
 which constantly refers us back to a Divine Author and 
 an abiding Will, at once intelligent and virtuous, as its 
 only conceivable source. Such was Kant's manner of 
 proof; and it may be added that in this notion of duty, 
 followed up, he recovered all the interests that he had 
 himself put in jeopardy, not only God, but freedom of 
 the will and immortality. 
 
 " We ought, therefore we can ; " we feel the cate- 
 gorical order of duty, therefore it must be within our 
 power to follow it. In this argument Kant recovers 
 free-will. And a future life is necessary to bring into 
 final harmony virtue and happiness, which reason re- 
 quires, but which never has place in tjiis world. But 
 subsequent criticism has not ratified Kant's practical 
 proof, or rather postulate, of God's existence. It has 
 been considered as irreconcilable with the remainder of 
 his philosophic system, an after-thought, prompted by 
 the weakness of age and an unwillingness to part with 
 the personal Deity of his youth and the masses. On the 
 other hand, his destructions of the old proofs of the 
 
 2 A 
 
354 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 existence of God has been accepted as complete and 
 decisive. This, however, leaves God, in Kant's system, 
 where he is posited before Kant's refutation began, as an 
 absolute Being behind all experience, the finally unfathom- 
 able but real ultimate source o the phenomena of mind 
 as of matter ; a notion in all essential particulars the 
 same as the conception of Spinoza reproduced by Goethe 
 and Spencer, which we have already presented. 
 
 4. This conception of a grand Keality, whose phe- 
 nomenal projections in space and in our consciousness 
 alone are knowable, is a great as well as philosophical 
 conception, and probably that with which all thinking 
 men will finally close as the worthiest that finite faculty 
 can frame of Deity. It has the merit of reconciling most 
 of what Science has been teaching with all that Philo- 
 sophy whose special business it is to decide upon the 
 question has yet been able to agree upon. Further 
 and this is important it satisfies the demands of the 
 imagination, as shown by its general acceptance by 
 imaginations of 'the grand order, as those of Goethe, 
 Wordsworth, Shelley, Carlyle ; it falls in also with the 
 instinctive beliefs of the human race, which, at bottom, 
 and ever in its own blind wisdom, both believed in God 
 and acknowledged His final incomprehensibility. 
 
 But will this conception offer any effectual check to 
 the new and all-menacing materialism ? Yes ; we think 
 so. For the universe is no longer regarded as made up 
 solely of matter, nor yet of matter and energy in conjunc- 
 tion. Matter has not so completely filled up the universe, 
 either as diffused ether or as solid bodies, but that there 
 is room for an all-important principle that it is not 
 material behind. Nor has energy, whether chemical, 
 electrical, mechanical or thermal, exhausted all possible 
 forms of phenomenal energy, and still less their source, 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 355 
 
 which is not a phenomenal thing. Whether we include 
 the energy of the soul amongst the list, or exclude it as of 
 more ethereal sublimation, there is something deeper than 
 either it or them, and the source of both. Matter remains 
 merely one of the two most general modes or expressions 
 of a transcendent power, which may have other modes 
 manifested elsewhere and cognizable by superior faculties 
 or more numerous senses. Nay, even our phenomenal 
 matter, which, in our conception of it, is strictly relative 
 to our five senses, and about which it is supposed we 
 know everything, how might it not appear to beings in 
 one of the planets, with a sixth or seventh sense added 
 on to ours, and as informing to them as the eye is to us ? 
 Matter is not even a fixed and rigid thing in the eyes of 
 modern science. For we must radically change our 
 notion of it, Professor Tyndall tells us. The distinction 
 between organic and inorganic matter no longer holds, 
 says Professor Haeckel, and in " a certain sense matter is 
 itself alive," he further tells us. It is only known as a 
 theatre of forces, which are the real efficient powers, 
 affirms a third. But how can we endow with creative 
 power that of which the very notion is thus shifting and 
 illusory ? How can we make our metaphysical system 
 to depend on a conception that we cannot fix ? The 
 creative power of matter is taken away, because we do 
 not know what matter is, and the more we try to fathom 
 matter, the clearer becomes the conviction both that we 
 cannot know even it, and that there is something deeper 
 behind it. Matter, as far as we do know it, remains and 
 will remain what Kant reduced it to mere phenomena, 
 with something behind to support them ; and energy 
 remains phenomenal energy, with something beneath it 
 to make it efficient. Nor does the solid universe exist 
 merely as Hume conceived it a sheet of phenomena, 
 
356 THE FUTUEE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 with nothing behind it, a series of outside aspects of 
 unreal things temporarily painted and effaced on the 
 canvas of consciousness the canvas itself scarcely real, 
 a bubble that might at any moment burst, having 
 nothing in the inside of it. There is a Power behind 
 phenomena, which produces them ; a substance one and 
 the same at the bottom of the universe and of our 
 thought, which preserves them both in law and order ; a 
 power whose existence is our only final guarantee that 
 the physical universe will not resolve itself into chaos 
 before our eyes, and that the universal reason will keep, 
 steady on her throne. This Power removed if we could 
 or dare suppose it anarchy in the atoms, universal 
 chaos within and without, in the brain and in the cosmos, 
 is conceivable; this Power present and eternally sup- 
 porting all is our guarantee to the contrary. And, once 
 more, this final support and Power is God. 
 
 5. And can Theology accept this conception ? Will 
 it suit her exigencies and requirements ? To this it must 
 be replied at once that it will not suit a theology that 
 insists on standing on a non- scientific cosmogony, or on 
 a discredited chronology, or on particular anthropomorphic 
 sketches of the nature and character of God, or one that 
 exacts, as the only true test of theism, our ascription of 
 certain inscrutable metaphysical attributes to Him. It 
 will not suit any of these, nor hardly, indeed, any form 
 of dogmatic theology; but when supplemented by the 
 attribute of purpose, which Science on her side must 
 grant, it will harmonize very well with a theology which 
 allows that there may be development in theology as in 
 all other knowledge, and development in our conception 
 of Deity as development in our conception of the universe, 
 which is His manifestation. 
 
 Theology may dislike the seemingly pantheistic 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 857 
 
 notion, and may refuse it for a time ; but in the end she 
 will accept it. And there are evident proofs, notwith- 
 standing a tacit agreement to ignore the fact and an unwill- 
 ingness to acknowledge it, that even the most dogmatic 
 Churches can, with time, slowly change and accommodate 
 their theological conceptions. Development is possible 
 even within the oldest and most dogmatic Christian 
 Church, notwithstanding the very narrow range allowed 
 for it by the dogma of infallibility. The advance of 
 knowledge and the wider vision of truth can still infuse 
 fresh life into the old religious doctrines ; they can still 
 " wake a soul under the ribs of death," to which, of them- 
 selves, petrified scholastic propositions and metaphysical 
 dogmas respecting God so surely tend. And there is no 
 manner of doubt that the imperative necessity is being 
 felt and silently accepted by all theologies desirous of 
 preserving a continued life, of reshaping their conceptions 
 of the Creator, His ways and works, more in accordance 
 with the great revelation vouchsafed to men through the 
 scientific discoveries of the past three hundred years. 
 
 In particular, this conception of God will not suit the 
 theology that insists on ascribing to Him the attributes, 
 -at once metaphysical and specially human, of personality 
 and consciousness ; the former being the precise one that 
 it is so difficult to get any clear conception of even in 
 ourselves, and both, especially consciousness, being, as 
 Fichte and other philosophers have irrefutably demon- 
 strated, inapplicable and directly contradictory to the 
 notion of an Absolute Being. For consciousness and 
 personality, whatever else they imply, clearly imply the 
 notion of limits and conditions, neither of which can, 
 without contradiction, be applied to an absolute and 
 unconditioned Being ; to a transcendent, tremendous, and 
 universal Power, the chief fact in our knowledge of 
 
358 THE FUTURE OF EELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 which is precisely its freedom from all the limits which 
 govern and bind our finite being. 
 
 It is much better not to yoke the fortunes of religion 
 with any dogma, proposition, or assertion of historical 
 fact, the truth of which the progress of science and 
 thought may afterwards compel men to discredit ; better 
 not to subject religion to the serious hazards involved in 
 her acceptance of particular chronologies, cosmogonies, 
 miraculous stories, that may have to give way before 
 better-verified accounts and stricter tests of evidence ; 
 and better not to test the quality of our faith, its truth 
 and purity, by our acceptance or non-acceptance of 
 certain metaphysical determinations of the attributes of 
 the Deity, made in unphilosophic and prescientific ages, 
 and still existing in petrified forms in ancient confessions 
 of faith, but which though still challenging our assent, 
 the highest human thought has shown us are either 
 unmeaning or wholly inapplicable in their reference to the 
 Absolute Being. It is better, we say, not to put theology, 
 and especially religion which, though not identical with 
 theology, is in the closest relationship with it in such 
 perilous alliance with what is questionable or untrue ; 
 for when the day comes, as it does, when the false must 
 fall off and the unmeaning must be surrendered, there is 
 some real danger that the whole of religion may be dis- 
 carded with the perishable accidents with which it had 
 been united, or at least some danger of its eternal truth 
 and reality being for a time obscured from the eyes and 
 effaced from the souls of men. 
 
 6. It has, however, been affirmed that much more 
 than this limited and negative knowledge, which alone 
 a sober philosophy professes to have of God, is possible ; 
 it has been affirmed that men, or certain privileged men, 
 have a special sense or faculty for the immediate and 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 359 
 
 direct cognition of God as a separate Being and Per- 
 sonality; and that this sense presents them with a special 
 class of intuitions, which are specially and particularly 
 related to the Divine Personality as no other intuitions 
 are. It has been asserted, and it is still asserted, not 
 only that God can be known under the metaphysical 
 attributes of personality and consciousness, as cognized 
 and proved by the human intellect, but also that a direct 
 cognition of Him, and a divine communion with Him, 
 is possible by means of the religious sense or faculty, 
 which is intermediary between God and the human soul. 
 There is, say those who thus believe, a part, or side, or 
 faculty of the soul call it Keason, Imagination, Illumi- 
 nation, Eeligious Sense, or by whatever name that 
 reveals God directly, as a mighty and mysterious Power, 
 it is true, but also in certain specially human or other 
 important relations, as the compassionate God-Father, 
 the author of good and of grace, the Whisperer of Truth, 
 the Inspirer of vision beatific of Himself. This religious 
 sense the old saints and mystics had Plotinus, St. 
 Augustine, St. Bernard, as also the old prophets and holy 
 men, and their modern representatives, though in less 
 degree, still have it. It still gives them inspiration of 
 the true and aspiration to the good, intuitions issuing 
 from the infinite fountain of goodness and truth, and. 
 yearnings again to it. And it is not to be denied as a 
 fact, that throughout the history of theology and philo- 
 sophy, we find a long line of saints and martyrs and 
 mystics, who were fully convinced that they had imme- 
 diate cognition of God, the felt knowledge of His 
 presence or absence, and the privilege of occasional 
 communion with Him. St. Augustine, St. Bernard, 
 A Kempis, Pascal, all saintly and devotional minds, so 
 believed ; as did also others of a somewhat different 
 
360 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 stamp Plotinus, Boehme, Swedenborg, and many be- 
 sides. Indeed, with the Alexandrine mystics like Plo- 
 tinus, the communion at rare and rapturous moments 
 seemed to amount to actual union with God; a union 
 ineffable, unspeakable, but rarely vouchsafed and quickly 
 lost again. Nor have there ever since been wanting 
 representatives of both types of soul, even up to our 
 own days. It is in this same spirit that an eloquent and 
 thoughtful contemporary writer still speaks when he 
 contends against our modern materialists that "the 
 upper zones of human affection above the clouds of self 
 and passion take us into the spheres of a Divine Com- 
 munion." * Nevertheless, modern psychology, to which, 
 if psychology is a true scientific niap of the mind, the 
 question of the existence and analysis of any mental 
 faculty properly should belong, is chary in her admission 
 or recognition of any such religious sense. Can it be 
 said, in reply, that the fault may lie with psychology, or 
 rather with the psychologists ; that if these regard only 
 the phenomena of the general or vulgar consciousness, it 
 is no marvel if they should miss what only appears in 
 spirits more finely touched, and what in these is only to 
 be read by the possessors themselves, and not by the 
 psychologist, unless similarly endowed ; that, in fact, the 
 mistake lies with psychology in ignoring the mental 
 experience of thfe highest class of minds for the con- 
 sideration of the average experience of common minds ; 
 and if thereafter psychology affirms she can find no trace 
 of a religious sense or faculty, so much the worse for her, 
 the confession only showing the strict limits of her pro- 
 vince, and the small value of her scientific pretensions. 
 Psychology, it is said, as it properly deals not with 
 the minds of children, or savages, or imbeciles, but of 
 
 * Religion as affected ly Modern Materialism, by Rev. J. Martineau; 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 361 
 
 grown and civilized men, so amongst these it should not 
 omit the highest order of minds, or the exceptional 
 phenomena there presented, especially when they are 
 supposed to have reference to a question so high and 
 delicate and important as that of the possible cognition 
 of Deity. For have not some men in like manner a 
 special artistic sense, which divines the several species 
 of beauty hidden from others, in mere sounds and visible 
 symbols ? Are not the special beauties of eye and ear, 
 of form and colour and sound, incommunicable and un- 
 intelligible to those who are destitute of the artistic 
 sense ; for whom the sounds, which are a revelation and 
 a speaking voice to the musical artist or poet, are mere 
 vibrations on the tympanum of the ear ; for whom " the 
 primrose by the river's brim " is only a yellow primrose, 
 while to the poet it is a suggestion and a significant 
 whisper of so much more than even its own evident 
 grace and beauty ? 
 
 So argues the religious spirit in opposition to the 
 scientific. This view of the matter would transfer the 
 question of the existence of a religious sense from 
 the sphere of the general science of psychology to par- 
 ticular applications of it in the study of exceptional 
 minds. But even so regarded, there would still be re- 
 quired a trained and delicate psychological eye to read 
 clearly the phenomena in question ; and there would be 
 further required a very considerable faculty of faith in 
 others to credit the assertion that any such private and 
 personal illumination is a guarantee of such an objective 
 fact as the existence of a personal Deity, and not a 
 mistaken interpretation of intuitions emanating from a 
 widely different and natural, though it may still be 
 .a divine and noble, source. 
 
 And even granting the reality of the analogy between 
 
362 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 the religious and artistic senses, it still remains a fact 
 that the possessors of the former are constantly becoming 
 rarer, while the sharers in the artistic emotions and per- 
 ceptions are constantly becoming more numerous with 
 the diffusion of a liberal culture. Could it be said that 
 the religious sense once existed more universally and 
 more intensely because it was more needed, but that now 
 it has fallen into general disuse, and in most cases is a 
 merely impotent organ? That the sense once existed, 
 because in the early dismal days of Christianity, when 
 the saints and martyrs were driven into deserts and 
 caves, under the scourge of persecution, added to their 
 conviction of the vanity of life, the felt presence of God 
 as a support was an imperative need; but that in 
 modern days, the need being less pressing, the religious 
 sense or feeling is feebler, amounting in most to no more 
 than a kind of rudimentary spiritual organ, which only 
 testifies to the former different spiritual wants and 
 environment ? 
 
 It might be said, and possibly with truth ; but what 
 we know, and what concerns us here to note as fact, is 
 that those who lay claim to a special organ of com- 
 munion with a personal Deity are becoming rarer ; that 
 when the modern representatives of Plotinus or St. 
 Bernard attempt, though less confidently than their pro- 
 totypes, to describe their mode of apprehension of the 
 Divine Personality, and their manner of intercourse with 
 Him, they are for the most part above the logical under- 
 standing to which their experience is untranslatable, 
 and that modern psychology, which tries to explain the 
 artistic and moral perceptions, has reserved no place or 
 name for the so-called religious intuitions, or for the 
 religious sense. 
 
 7. For the most part, we have said, that the be- 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 363 
 
 lievers in a religious sense are unintelligible, and their 
 soul experiences untranslatable. It is, however, not 
 altogether so. And it is just a possible explanation of 
 the state of soul of all such people, that they are mis- 
 taking the real nature and sources of a very genuine and 
 a very important class of emotions. For Nature, the 
 visible, bountiful, beautiful, mysterious Cosmos itself, 
 may powerfully stir and agitate the soul, while yet the 
 effect may be wrongly referred by its recipient to an 
 invisible personality resident behind or apart from it. 
 Nature, or the power behind Nature, one with arid in 
 S3^mpathy with the power at the bottom of our souls, 
 may effect the communion with God already referred to. 
 More particularly, there are certain great emotions which 
 the contemplation of Nature calls up within us, which, 
 taken singly or in blended composition, may be the very 
 identical intuitions supposed to be specially related to a 
 personal conscious Deity. There is before us mighty 
 and infinite Nature herself, the benignant and beautiful 
 mother, known but unknown, all-producing, all-absorbing; 
 full of mystery and awe and terror, as well as of grace 
 and bounty and beauty ; the all-sustainer, the all-de- 
 stroyer ; who produces us for a moment and then swallows 
 us up ; who has passed already through unimaginable 
 and eternal years, but who is still more fresh and beau- 
 tiful than in her earliest youth. Her infinity and 
 grandeur, her myriad worlds, her infinitely prodigal life, 
 the bounty scattered by her hands, the ever-changing 
 beauty of her face, the impenetrable mystery at her 
 heart, these, as well as the reverse side of her face, her 
 seeming cruelty and callous indifference, the misery as 
 well as the mystery of life, are all calculated to arouse 
 those mingled emotions of awe and reverence, of fear 
 and hope, of love and gratitude, as well as the sense of 
 
364 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 absolute and complete final dependence on her, emotions 
 which are the original source, as they are the abiding 
 essence of all religious feeling ; emotions really aroused 
 by Nature, but which men have habitually referred to 
 personified powers or to a single personality behind her. 
 The emotions begotten by the contemplation of Nature 
 are well calculated to beget the sense of a perpetual, 
 mighty, and universal Presence and Power. But the pre- 
 sence and the power which exists is that of great Nature 
 herself, who is, as Schelling conceived her, divine and 
 identical with the divine in us ; and the noble emotions 
 so vivifying to our souls which flow directly from the 
 contemplation of her, eternal and exhaustless, increasing 
 and not diminishing with the advance of the ages, these 
 it was, and these it still is, that the religious soul has mis- 
 taken for special intuitions of God. It was communion 
 with Nature direct that was mistaken for communion 
 with God (and Nature is at least the only symbol of the 
 invisible power behind it) ; it was communion with her 
 such as the poet and the artist, who derive their strength 
 and inspiration from her, still delight in ; only that the 
 poet knows that the pleasure in the pathless woods, as 
 well as the rapture on the lonely shore, is to be referred 
 to the grace of Nature, as does the artist, who in love 
 with her fair features, which he tries to transfer to his 
 canvas, refers to her the quiet pervading pleasure in her 
 presence, which is the moving principle of his art and 
 the chief secret of his skill. It was in all these cases 
 communion with Nature ; but it was also, if the theo- 
 logian likes it better, a mysterious attempt, in the case 
 of some of the greatest spirits, at intercourse with the 
 Infinite, with which the soul of man, of the great poet, 
 artist, thinker, mystic," or sage, at all times, and now, as 
 in the days of Plato, of Plotinus, of St. Bernard, feels 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 365 
 
 itself in some real but indefinable and inexpressible 
 relation. It was an attempt, at intermittent and supreme 
 moments, to transcend human conditions, to pass the 
 furthest frontier of thought and emotion ; an endeavour, 
 however vain, to fathom the mystery, to catch the 
 furthest light, to reach a final support, which the mind 
 of man has ever, from its double sense of impotence and 
 infinity, been vainly assaying. 
 
 We are, indeed, in relations of the deepest sympathy 
 with visible Nature, as well as in profoundest final de- 
 pendence upon her relations deeper than those of the 
 child to its mother ; why, then, should not this mighty 
 and mysterious yet ever visible and beautiful presence 
 stir us deeply and at times most strangely ? She is alike 
 BO lovely in her golden sunsets and silver clouds, in her 
 splendid summer dress and soberer autumn colours ; so 
 beautiful in her glassy seas and flashing waves, by 
 meadow, grove, or stream, in flower, and bird, and man, 
 and brute ; and then she is sublime and awful on the 
 lonely summits of her mighty mountains, august and 
 terrible in her lightnings and ocean tempests. But again, 
 she is goodness itself, and shows her kind intention in 
 her cooling fountains and fruits, in her corn, her olives,, 
 and her grapes, ripening in her valleys and mountain 
 slopes. The flowers scattered on the wayside, while, 
 showing the consummate artist she has become, are in- 
 nocent whispers of her friendliness to man. And all the 
 while, whether she shows herself as bountiful, or beau- 
 tiful, or angry, or terrible, she moves calmly for ever 
 under her own appointed and unchanging laws ; all the 
 while, too, we feel that she is profoundly and utterly 
 mysterious, and that none can penetrate beneath the 
 exterior of her impassive breast to read the final secret 
 that she nourishes in her awful and inscrutable heart. 
 
366 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 Thus, then, the attributes and qualities with which 
 man endowed God, are truly attributes of Nature, and 
 all the emotions referred to the one are directly begotten 
 by the contemplation and consideration of the other. 
 Communion with God was communion with Nature, 
 including or supplemented by communion not only with 
 the heights but also with the depths and solitudes of 
 man's own soul. The intuitions of the religious sense 
 are naturally produced in the meditative poet by the 
 contemplation of Nature, at least as naturally as any 
 other class of emotions ; and to the true poet of Nature, 
 who is always, like Wordsworth, the high priest of her 
 worship, the cosmos, supposed by certain theologians to 
 be merely the garment of an indwelling Deity, becomes 
 at last identified as both sign and thing signified with 
 Him, its appearances and symbols become His veritable 
 speech and thought, its laws the expression of His will, 
 and the entire visible universe, with its immanent energy 
 and final unresolvable mystery, becomes God, His living 
 reality and totality. 
 
 8. Does Science object to such a conception of 
 God ? On the contrary, so far as her unaided efforts can 
 go in the framing of such a notion, this is one to which 
 her discoveries are vaguely pointing ; this is the result 
 to which the scientific conception of the cosmos tends, 
 that is to say, the conception, so far as it is competent to 
 Science without the aid of Philosophy or Art to frame 
 it. And is this atheism ? Then the noblest spirits, 
 including the greatest modern poets and eminent theo- 
 logians, are atheists ; then Wordsworth Nature's poet, 
 and Goethe universal poet, then Schliermacher the theo- 
 logian, and Schelling the philosopher, must all be held 
 as atheists a result sufficient to refute the charge. 
 
 Science shows to us an eternal and infinite cosmos, 
 
ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION OF GOD. 367 
 
 its sum of contained matter from eternity to eternity 
 the same ; its stock of energy, passing through thermal, 
 mechanical, electrical, vital forms, without the least 
 fraction being ever lost or gained. She has shown us, 
 too, the slow steps, and in some cases at least, the simple 
 means by which Nature travelled from the inorganic 
 to the organic, from matter to spirit, from the rude 
 tentative to the finished production. She has completed 
 for us the disastrous and yet glorious history of life, and 
 above all, of man, glorious at least so far as relates to 
 our favoured species ; for life has been prodigiously 
 multiplied, happiness ever widened, and art, morality, 
 religion, knowledge, have been born and wonderfully 
 developed amongst men. To-day Science shows us the 
 universal reign of law, but teaches also that the very 
 inflexibility of Nature's behaviour constitutes her chief 
 claim upon our gratitude, since it is this invariability of 
 law which makes science, invention, life itself, with all 
 its conquered advantages, possible and permanent things. 
 She has shown us that where Nature is apparently cruel 
 she is really kind, and that while she punishes ignorance 
 of her laws or rebellion against them with merciless 
 severity, to those who know her laws and fall in with 
 them she will grant all things liberally to enjoy. 
 
 And Art has added to the scientific conception in 
 discovering for us a new divineness spread over all the 
 face of Nature, a divine beauty, invisible to the people 
 of the infant world, invisible even for the most part to 
 former civilizations, because the inward perceptions 
 which create the external beauty were not yet born 
 in men; and Religion, which still lives in man's soul 
 -as ever, reinforced by Science and Art, sees Nature 
 powerful, benignant, working by fixed law, beautiful 
 but also at times awful and terrible to all, and in the 
 
368 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 end profoundly mysterious as well as regular in all her 
 ways. Religion discerns a purpose through the course 
 of evolution which Science shows a purpose sometimes 
 dark and shrouded, but again revealed, and which is 
 for her accordingly the chief article of unshaken faith. 
 Religion discerns in Nature, and the Power which she 
 divines behind Nature, both the present support and the 
 final disposer of all; that on which we are in the end 
 dependent for all things for life, for thought, for happi- 
 ness, now and hereafter, if such hereafter we are to have. 
 Thus it is from Religion, reinforced by Science and 
 Art, that we get the complete conception of Nature, and 
 of God the purpose within it and the mystery at the 
 bottom of it. But if, as Schliermacher contends, we 
 separate the notion of God from that of the universe, 
 we have only a name for that portion of the total con- 
 ception which is inexplicable, and which contains the 
 mysterious and unknowable quantity; if we do not 
 separate the notions, then is God identical with Nature 
 or the Cosmos, plus the final mystery, where, however, 
 only the first part of the conception, the cosmos itself, 
 has any real and positive signification for our minds. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 
 
 1. THEEE are some who apprehend from the whole new 
 teaching, and especially from the Darwinian theory of 
 the descent of man and of the origin of morals, something 
 if possible more serious than the dethronement of a 
 personal Ruler, the destruction, namely, of conscience, 
 His last voice and representative on earth, of the moral 
 law that the German transcendental philosophy, which 
 destroyed so much else, had anew pronounced sacred. 
 
 There are those who are now becoming anxious for 
 the fate of virtue itself, whose inmost essence and dearest 
 life seem threatened by the doctrines of science. There 
 is a deepening fear in desponding moments, at the hearts 
 of men who are just and true and good, that the great 
 ideal lights and guiding beacons of Truth and Justice 
 and Benevolence are soon to be extinguished in the 
 moral heavens; that, together with Religion, Morality 
 also is about to receive her quietus; that along with 
 faith and hope in a hereafter of compensation for so 
 much amiss here, that which is greater than either faith 
 or hope, namely, charity, the disinterested love and 
 labour for others, or for our kind, will slowly die in the 
 hearts of men from the chilling, by the sciences economic 
 and sociological, of the internal heat that supported it, 
 
 2 B 
 
370 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 and through the teaching of our evolution moralists of 
 the former low source and the present vulgar utilitarian 
 sanction of the disinterested virtues. Even the senti- 
 ment of duty, it is feared, the sentiment that found a 
 lodging-place in all but the most abandoned breasts, and 
 that sometimes visited even these; the sentiment that 
 some actions must be done and others left undone, with- 
 out once counting cost or thinking of consequence; 
 even this, the source of all that is morally good or 
 worthy in man, and which chiefly exalts him above 
 the brute, seems in danger of being sapped by the 
 psychological account of its origin in the individual, 
 and by the evolutionist's account of its origin in the 
 species. 
 
 Such are the fears, not to say the beliefs, of some ; 
 and it must be confessed that there are not wanting some 
 grounds for the apprehensions. For what is virtue, 
 according to the latest light thrown back on its origin, 
 and according to the evolution interpretation of the 
 facts ? A thing of human contrivance, an invention 
 which men were forced to make, as well from mutual 
 fear as from selfish calculations, a discovery, a device, 
 which if it had not been made neither their society nor 
 themselves would have existed. Morality was at first, 
 and still is in its essential features, a set of police regula- 
 tions, devised originally by the more politic heads of the 
 tribe to keep the unruly and anti-social spirits in order. 
 It was devised in the general interest of the tribe, to 
 produce harmony within, and strength against the ex- 
 ternal enemy. Morality, in short, was a discovery of 
 man like any other, a discovery easy to make, if necessity 
 had not forced him to make it, since he had already in- 
 herited the moral germs from his humbler quadrumanous 
 ancestors. He had but to improve and develop these, 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 371 
 
 and in doing so he had everywhere examples to copy 
 from, in the ants, the bees, and other social animals 
 existing around and practising the virtues of industry, 
 disinterested labour, courage, and others necessary for the 
 good of the community. Morality, in fact, was an inven- 
 tion, to which men, as well as other social animals, were 
 driven by the necessity for it, and encouraged to improve, 
 by the utility of it. It was an invention, and like all 
 such, susceptible of improvement from age to age, as 
 suited better to the altered social needs of men. More- 
 over., it was susceptible of variation, as suited to the 
 somewhat different social conditions of different people. 
 It was not precisely immutable, as the former moralists 
 represented it. The habits of veracity which suited one 
 community with a particular moral nature and physical 
 environment, would not equally suit another community; 
 and hence, to tell the truth, might be honoured in one 
 society and but lightly esteemed in another. But never- 
 theless, some virtues were necessary for all ; and amongst 
 these a minimum at least of what we reckon the cardinal 
 virtues veracity, justice, charity were indispensable 
 for the continuance of any, even the most incoherent, 
 kind of social union. 
 
 On this account, certainly, Virtue, if she was not the 
 earthly and baseborn child of fear and selfishness, as 
 Hobbes had characterized her, had these at least as 
 important constituent elements, and shaping factors when 
 she first appeared in the primitive human world. The 
 story of her heaven-descended origin was a pleasant 
 poetic fiction of later ages, invented by self -deluded but 
 well-intentioned enthusiasts, the founders of religions, 
 and encouraged by crafty and politic rulers and priests 
 in their own interests, by moralists and poets in behalf 
 of the general interests of society. It was a fiction 
 
372 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 almost believed in by its first inventors, and justified by 
 the disbeliever on account of its necessity for restraining 
 the selfishness, and breaking in the boundless passions of 
 the individuals composing the more primitive social 
 organizations. 
 
 And now, if such were the true earthly origin of 
 Virtue, the supposed offspring and " darling child " of 
 Jove ; and if her essence at bottom to-day in no way 
 belies her selfish and utilitarian origin, as the teaching of 
 Spencer and Darwin implies, then the question is raised, 
 how can Conscience justify her present pretensions to be 
 the absolute ruler of conduct ? For that she now has, 
 and legitimately has, such pretensions, is maintained no 
 less in the amended utilitarianism of Spencer than in the 
 high transcendental morality of Kant, or the modified 
 English intuitional morality. It is maintained, but it is 
 not explained. Again, if to assign the origin be to mark 
 the limits and sphere of morality, as the evolution ethics 
 seems to imply, how is it that Virtue has so far tran- 
 scended alike her selfish and social origin ? Still more, 
 why should she aspire to do so ? Why should she not 
 confine herself to the earth, from which she sprang ? why 
 should she aspire ever to grander ideal heights, to a purer 
 justice, to a more perfect and diffused truth, to a greater 
 good embracing ever greater numbers ? If selfishness lie 
 essentially at the root of life and conduct, we should 
 naturally expect it ought still to show itself in the grown 
 flower of the most developed conduct. But does it do so ? 
 Is there not self-forgetting and self-sacrificing conduct in 
 spite of the evolutionist's picture of the eternal and 
 necessary struggle for existence ? There is truly, but the 
 fact has not been explained by the theory, nor can it 
 easily be explained. 
 
 For even if social and disinterested sentiments have 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 373 
 
 been, in the course of countless generations, gradually 
 superinduced on the original selfish root ; even if the self- 
 regarding sentiments were slowly transmuted by a moral 
 and physiological chemistry, itself not explained, into the 
 unselfish sentiments ; still these last principles can find, 
 on this evolution theory, no adequate justification for 
 their action, should they come in collision with the self- 
 regarding principles in us. Why should we follow dis- 
 interested principles against our clear self-interest, the 
 first of obligations, on the evolution theory of life as a 
 ceaseless competitive fight ? It is not open to the 
 evolutionists, as it was to the benevolence moralists, to 
 say we follow them because we derive greater pleasure 
 and satisfaction from them. And when a collision arises, 
 such as must constantly happen, between the self-asserting 
 and the self-forgetting impulses, between our supposed 
 interest and conscience, why may we not deny the 
 authority of Conscience, that can only show such question- 
 able credentials of her claims to rule as a mere inherited 
 tendency amounts to ? For this fact of inherited tendency 
 is all that Darwin and Spencer give us on which to found 
 the right of conscience to be the ruler of our actions. 
 True, indeed, Spencer allows that conscience should rule, 
 but the difficulty is, with the utilitarian origin and 
 the utilitarian final end, and with the conception of life 
 as in some sort always a competitive struggle, to establish 
 any valid and incontestable claim to rule'. It is ruler de 
 facto, he allows ; how it is ruler de jure is not explained ; 
 and should we feel inclined to shake off its yoke, to deny 
 that a divine right can come from the fact of inherited 
 tendency, there seems no real reason why the rule of 
 conscience might not be disputed in theory as well as 
 disallowed in fact. The pretension, in short, might be 
 denied as a usurped authority. 
 
374 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 More especially, it is argued that the moral casuist 
 will be disposed to rate the authority of conscience lightly 
 when he is further informed that conscience itself, this 
 inward monitor and light, together with our inherited 
 tendency to certain virtues if not too costly in their 
 practice, were the slow products of a process whose 
 essential feature was the desperate individual struggle 
 for life. And how conscience, the absolute commanding 
 voice, the warning and seemingly unearthly light, could 
 be born on such a battle-field ; how morality, that was 
 to be the mitigator and moderator of the wild and selfish 
 struggle, could at all arise in the brief pauses of the 
 strife, how it could be evoked out of the very strife 
 which itself was partly to heal, or how emerge from the 
 moral chaos, to compose which was its chief business, 
 has not been at all satisfactorily explained to us. For 
 to say that savage societies and tribes, as a first condi- 
 tion of vigorous external war, must first have secured 
 some harmony and peace within, must have secured 
 some mutual understanding amongst the internal units, 
 amounting to a low sort of morality, is not a sufficient 
 explanation of the height and disinterested sacrifice to 
 which moral conduct may reach, even amongst savage 
 tribes, notwithstanding all their immorality. Some 
 other and higher origin still seems requisite to make the 
 moral feelings do their work. Even to give the dog his 
 fidelity and affection, the ant its courage and devotion to 
 the interest of the colony, asks for a higher origin than 
 the instinct of self-preservation or the fear of punish- 
 ment, as these virtues in the lower animals require even 
 now some higher prompting to their practice. 
 
 But if, indeed, from such an origin and by such a 
 route virtue really reached the earth, men may well 
 repeat the desperate sarcasm of Brutus 
 
 There, vile jade Virtue, thou'rt proved but a word ! 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 375 
 
 If virtue is but the result of a convention, as Hobbes 
 affirmed, and as evolution confirms ; if it is in its essence 
 only a set of police regulations, conceived and drawn out 
 in the interest of the social order ; then, indeed, it has 
 no substance or reality. Virtue is then only a name, 
 and not what some of her deluded followers, faithful 
 even unto death, believed her to be something deep as 
 the central foundations of the universe, beautiful beyond 
 all else, and real as life itself; that towards which, above 
 all, Nature pushes and tends as her highest aim and 
 goal; that on which she has most determinedly and 
 passionately set her heart ; and that too which, albeit 
 her efforts seem slow and vacillating, and her progress 
 fitful or interrupted, she will surely at last attain. 
 
 If, objects the moral idealist, morality is essen- 
 tially, as by implication it is in the evolution ethics, a 
 selfish compact or transaction whereby we engage our- 
 selves to restrain certain of our selfish impulses, for the 
 sake of a larger ultimate net return to self in a different 
 shape, and not necessarily to a higher self, then virtue 
 is destroyed in idea, as it assuredly will be in practice, 
 whenever this ethics is adopted and acted upon. For 
 assuredly the selfish man will seek, and justifiably, to 
 evade or perform imperfectly his part of the moral con- 
 tract, whenever he can with safety, and especially wher- 
 ever his supposed interests come into collision with those 
 of others. In short, with such an origin, virtue is effec- 
 tually destroyed ; and, indeed, vice not less ; for there 
 remains no essential or real distinction between them. 
 The difference is for us one of name, of convenience, even 
 of provisional names and of changing convenience. The 
 human world that we imagined the only moral world 
 becomes the most completely non-moral world, since man 
 is the only animal that, having a conscience, is able to 
 analyze it away, and thus escape from its authority. 
 
376 THE FUTUKE OF EELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 And does it not follow, from this account of 
 that the thief or burglar is justified in taking, if he is 
 able by force or fraud, from a society composed only of 
 selfish atoms and reposing only on the fact of possession 
 and might, that which he deems necessary for self-pre- 
 servation the first and strongest and most pressing- 
 obligation, on the showing of the evolutionist ? Further, 
 is it not evident that neither truth nor justice will be 
 striven for very ardently in a society which adopts such 
 a benumbing moral faith, as Herbert Spencer himself is 
 inclined to admit, if not to approve of ? * Why, indeed, 
 should they, if the pursuit of such visionary ideals in- 
 volves costly personal effort, perhaps sacrifice, and the 
 destruction of self the centre and end of all our actions ? 
 In a word, with the evolution origin for morals, no moral 
 obligation remains. There remains only the obligation 
 of interest; for the individual the primary obligation 
 to exist, and to attend to the interest of self to the 
 utmost extent within the limits of law and conventional 
 opinion : and for society the primary obligation to 
 defend its own existence and interests, including its own 
 imperfections, however opposed they may be to truth, 
 justice, and the greater good both of itself and of future 
 society. 
 
 And the feeling of duty, what is it, on this showing, 
 but a noble delusion, of which, whenever it presses 
 heavy on us or prescribes arduous 'or dangerous service, 
 we, as prudent and sensible persons, may conveniently rid 
 ourselves ? And a nice sense of honour, what is it more 
 than a sense of duty, when duly weighed in the scales of 
 the evolution ethics ? It is a word, a thing of air, " a 
 trim reckoning," possessed by him " who died o' Wednes- 
 day," as Falstaff described the other honour related to 
 
 * Study of Sociology, p. 402. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 377 
 
 glory. And Falstaff's practical conclusion as regards 
 this species of honour "I'll none of it" would be likely 
 enough to become the general one, as regards both duty 
 and honour under a general acceptance of the new ethics, 
 especially if there was no promised payment in their 
 service of an immediate and tangible kind. 
 
 But, on the evolution theory of the origin of moral 
 sentiments, how shall we explain the fact that men up 
 to the present pursue truth regardless of results, contend 
 for justice, are ready to incur danger in defence of the 
 down-trodden, to efface themselves for others, or to die 
 for duty ? And why should our species, deluded, if 
 science has truly gauged its character as essentially self- 
 asserting and selfish, ever and anon, and not less in our 
 own than in former ages, make such passionate and pro- 
 digious efforts to enthrone truth and right in some more 
 perfect form in the earth, or in their own society efforts 
 repeated again and again, and in which individuals have 
 dashed themselves to pieces in pursuit of a glorious but 
 impossible goal ? Nay, why should the apostles of the 
 scientific faith furnish us themselves with such bright 
 examples of the contrary of their moral teaching ? Why 
 should some of them furnish us with the best examples 
 in our days of the devotion of the martyrs of the past to 
 truth, if they do not believe the interest of truth to 
 transcend every other? A Socrates, and a Giordano 
 Bruno, we can understand how they could devote their 
 lives and give their blood rather than betray the sacred 
 cause of truth, because they believed that the interest of 
 truth transcended the supposed adverse interest of all 
 human societies and institutions ; but our evolutionists, 
 who, like Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley, follow truth 
 regardless of consequences, and yet accept the utilitarian 
 ethics, which founds truth on its social utility, what shall 
 
378 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 we say of them ? What, but that there exists an un- 
 reconciled contradiction between their ethical creed and 
 their own practice ; and that their deeds give the best 
 refutation to their words ? 
 
 2. There are even graver counts in the indictment 
 against the morality of science ; that it tends to dissolve 
 society as well as poison virtue. It is argued that to 
 regard morality as merely a thing of human invention, 
 evolved and perfected by the pressure of the social neces- 
 sities conjointly with the action of natural selection; to 
 consider it as a set of relations really conventional, and 
 necessary only in the sense of being, in great measure, 
 indispensable for the well-being of the average units 
 composing the social whole; to assign to virtue only 
 such a low origin, and to make right and wrong depend 
 only on the uncertain and variable sanctions of external 
 reward and punishment, is, in effect, to destroy virtue 
 and to cut the inmost nerve of virtuous endeavour. The 
 effect of this ethical teaching is to poison virtue by slow 
 degrees and with small doses, even in the virtuous man, 
 who should accept it. As for the generality, the mass 
 of the species, as described by evolution, they will be 
 nothing loth to be free from their old moral bonds and 
 fetters ; nor will they be long in putting in practice the 
 pleasing lesson of their future moral emancipation. The 
 moral yoke of science will indeed be easy, its burden 
 light and almost pleasant. But neither the first nor the 
 final social result which might be predicted with some 
 degree of scientific confidence, from the many examples 
 of history, which show an invariable sequence between 
 moral degeneracy and failing civilization, will be quite 
 so pleasant for the next few generations or for future 
 society. A deluge of immorality, and moral materialism 
 as bad as immorality, will set in as the first result of the 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 379 
 
 ethical doctrine of science, so well in keeping with her 
 discoveries and inventions, resulting mainly in the mere 
 multiplication of material joys and comforts for the few. 
 A deluge of moral materialism something far more 
 serious than metaphysical materialism, which is at least 
 compatible with a high ideal life in its advocates will 
 set in, which will indefinitely postpone the happy mil- 
 lennium, promised by Herbert Spencer as the result of 
 continued natural selection ; and in the resulting moral 
 nihilism our tainted civilization, with its mere material 
 prosperity here high piled up and alongside boundless 
 want and misery, our boasted modern society, with its 
 external pomp and glitter and perfume and its internal 
 hollowness and corruption, will go down to sure and 
 deserved destruction. 
 
 A society and a civilization with moral conviction 
 sapped, for which the eternal beacons of truth and justice 
 no longer shine as guiding or warning lights, which has 
 extinguished the illusions of faith and hope, and for 
 which even charity can scarce exist, if the evolution 
 teaching prevails; a society, in short, which will have 
 lost its soul and replaced it by its senses, must go surely 
 down to destruction and chaos, after the manner of all 
 past societies from which the inner light and life had 
 departed. It will go down as the Roman civilization, 
 morally sapped by the Epicurean, the true prototype of 
 the Evolution philosophy, went down before the vigorous 
 external barbarian, who had not tasted of the tree of 
 knowledge of good and evil as raised by Epicurus: 
 only that in the case of modern society the Goths will 
 probably be internal the toiling many in its midst, who 
 labour for the rest for small reward, but who, with all 
 their misery and vices, have yet more of the virile virtues 
 of humanity than the rich and ruling classes. 
 
380 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 To specify more precisely the stages of moral decay : 
 if the feeling of the sacredness surrounding the notion 
 of duty ; if the absolutely imperative authority and cha- 
 racter of the mandates of conscience, as insisted on in 
 the Kantian ethics, be once called in question ; and, still 
 more, if the notion of duty should be dissolved by 
 scientific analysis, or the evolution explanation of how it 
 naturally came by slow development through natural 
 selection, not only will the evil-disposed throw over 
 at once all remaining restraint of conscience, if only they 
 can with safety ; not only will the selfish throw down 
 with alacrity the moral burden which science has so 
 much eased from their shoulders, but, what is worse, the 
 arms of the virtuous will begin to grow weary and their 
 hearts to wax faint in the long and losing struggle with 
 the constantly augmenting forces of evil. It is true they 
 will continue to fight, but they will not be able to make 
 way, and their efforts will only serve to delay the general 
 moral decay and final social dissolution, not unaccom- 
 panied by social catastrophes. 
 
 Nor will it suffice to say in deprecation of such appre- 
 hensions that, with respect to many actions, men must 
 continue to feel a moral obligation to do or to refrain ; 
 that the moral imperatives, thou shalt and thou shall 
 not, must continue to be felt by men, whatever account 
 analysis or evolution may give of the genesis of the 
 feelings. For men will reduce the area of this field of 
 felt obligation, and will not allow the feelings to press 
 with inconvenient severity upon them. They will con- 
 tract the domain of morality as they have already con- 
 tracted that of religion. They will reduce the sphere of 
 its prohibitory precepts to the smallest minimum con- 
 sistent with escape from legal punishment or from the 
 unfavourable opinion of those who can hurt them. The 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION ETHICS. 381 
 
 internal punishments, the pains and penalties annexed 
 to wrong doing, they will resolutely overlook, till these 
 will gradually become remitted, and at length die a 
 natural death, from the gradual hardening of the heart, 
 the alienating of the moral perceptions, and the slow 
 corruption of conscience, the moral judge, by a continual 
 bribing process. And when men have thus wholly or 
 partially slain the inner moral self, the reduction of the 
 area of moral conduct (if, indeed, any true morality can 
 be said to remain) will be very great indeed, considering 
 how many evil actions men may perpetrate that no 
 external punishment can reach neither law, nor the 
 unfavourable opinion of the good, which might not be 
 regarded, nor yet that of their fellows, which would be 
 regarded, but who themselves will be, in general, men of 
 the same relaxed moral principle. 
 
 In the same manner, as they have reduced the pro- 
 hibitive, men will reduce the sphere of the hortatory 
 and positive moral precepts to such actions only as 
 promise rewards of an outward tangible and visible 
 character, to results that admit of a ready material 
 investment and with a prospect, if necessary, of imme- 
 diate realization. The inner satisfaction from duty done 
 or conscience followed, they will lightly rate, and, indeed, 
 properly, as they will but slightly feel them. Nor will 
 it be only positive moral conduct that they will thus 
 reduce; all other kinds of conduct, all .pursuit of ideal 
 aims, all heroic action, all action to any end which does 
 not promise prompt material payment the only result 
 they will have smy capacity in their souls to enjoy 
 they will be disposed to dispense with. 
 
 And all the more will men be so disposed to act and 
 to live, when they are informed, as they now are by a 
 school of scientific moralists different from the evolu- 
 
382 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 1 
 
 tionists, that all our actions without exception are deter- 
 mined by the interaction of natural forces resident 
 within the body, which, in the last analysis of the 
 materialist, are physical and chemical forces, blindly at 
 work, however orderly may be at times the results of 
 their action, forces over which, as such, we can have no 
 sort of control ; when we are told that man is the sub- 
 ject essentially of mechanical, which are exclusive of 
 moral, laws, the universal authority of the first leaving 
 no space for the operation of the second ; when we are 
 assured that our character is given to us and not made 
 by us, and that, in a word, there is no ego or moral 
 subject by and through which we possess a moral 
 freedom and initiative, or can be made responsible beings, 
 but instead of it a collection of natural forces in a tem- 
 porary connection with the material organization, whose 
 interactions really determine all resulting actions, as 
 well as volitions, emotions, and thoughts. In a word, 
 and to sum up the indictment, when men discover that 
 the only actions in a real sense obligatory on them, are 
 those where the external force of law or opinion can be 
 brought to coerce them, as they will not be slow to 
 gather from the evolution ethics ; and when they further 
 learn from our new atomist and materialist philosophers, 
 that even with respect to these few the action that 
 finally takes place will be determined by natural and 
 physical forces in any case, thus absolving them from 
 all consequences of the decision ; should they put this 
 double doctrine together which the men of science are 
 everywhere inculcating, there will not be much space 
 left for that morality or conduct which an influential 
 writer has maintained should cover at least three-fourths 
 of life,* and which, on any reckoning other than the 
 scientific, should extend to a very large proportion of it. 
 
 * Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 15. 
 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONFLICT AND PARTIAL CONCILIATION BETWEEN THE NEW 
 AND OLD ETHICS. 
 
 1. SUCH are the various apprehensions of religious 
 and moral men, such the general spirit and the chief 
 forms of the objections urged to the new morality by the 
 spiritualist, the moral idealist, and . the intuitionalist. 
 Attempts have been made to answer the objections here 
 urged, though I cannot think that the full weight and 
 point of some of them have been fully felt or adequately 
 met by any of the expounders or defenders of evolution 
 in general or the evolution morality in particular. 
 
 Some of the objections urged by the idealist may be 
 without sufficient grounds, some of the apprehensions are 
 doubtless baseless or exaggerated, but nevertheless is 
 there real and just cause of alarm for the future of morals ; 
 and my aim and desire in the remainder of this work is 
 to make some attempt at discriminating between objec- 
 tions resting on real and rational grounds, and those 
 founded chiefly on chimerical fears; as also, in some 
 degree, where such seems possible, to effect a conciliation, 
 or at the least a better understanding of the points at 
 issue between science and morality, or rather between the 
 evolution ethics on the one side, and moral idealism and 
 spiritualism on the other. 
 
 I believe, indeed, what will appear more fully in the 
 
384 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 sequel, that much of the apparent contradiction (though 
 not all) rests on a confusion between real and ideal 
 morality ; between the scientific generalizations of con- 
 duct founded on man's actual behaviour, and the higher 
 morality founded on the hypothetically perfect man ; 
 between the morality which aims to lay down more or 
 less definite rules for man as scientifically known and 
 placed in certain general relations to his fellows and 
 social environment, and the morality of the Kantian, the 
 idealist, or the intuitionalist, which severally require the 
 moral subject to follow the unconditional imperative of 
 duty, the dictates of conscience, or the lead of the great 
 ideals to which he is impelled by moral forces within. 
 There is confusion in idea, as well as incompatibility to 
 a certain extent in fact, between what science teaches us 
 from our nature and the exigencies of our social environ- 
 ment we must do, and that which the moral law, the 
 authority of conscience, and the force of ideas tell us we 
 ought to do ; though, until men's moral nature is both 
 more perfect and more in harmony with its surroundings, 
 they never can accomplish other than approximately that 
 to which their highest moral conceptions point. 
 
 To the end of conciliation between the evolution and 
 ideal morality, there is only one safe position to be taken 
 up and held by the evolutionist, no less than by the 
 idealist or intuitionalist. Let the scientific moralist 
 maintain that whatever may have been the primitive 
 origin of our present moral sentiments, whatever the 
 history of the magic transformation of the self-regarding 
 into social and even self-sacrificing impulses admitted as 
 existing facts, that the true meaning and reality of these 
 last is to be sought for in the conscious feelings and 
 impulses themselves as now felt and manifested in us ; 
 and this wholly irrespective of their scientific origin and 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 385 
 
 slow development through the course of man's natural 
 history. The meaning is to be sought for and found only 
 in the feelings themselves, wholly irrespective of any 
 knowledge of their derivation, whether in ourselves in 
 our short life, or in the species in its lengthened one. 
 Let the evolutionist grant, as he can quite afford to do, 
 that the true meaning and intention of our moral prin- 
 ciples of action is to be found in their developed form as 
 shown within ourselves to-day, and is not to be found in 
 the rude primitive germs, the first fugitive moral gleams 
 in our remote human or animal ancestors ; that, in fact, 
 if we had neither psychological nor evolution teaching as 
 to their origin, we should still know the meaning of our 
 moral impulses. More especially : to go back to their 
 origin in our species ages ago for light, is as useless and 
 misleading as it would be for the man to revert for an 
 explanation of those sentiments and principles of action 
 which govern his conduct as man, to their first appearance 
 in the boy. He would not obtain light by such a course 
 of retrospection; on the contrary, he would be leaving 
 light, only to find it fade more and more into final and 
 utter darkness. We should not thus find the true mean- 
 ing, or nature, or aim of pity, or love, or ambition, or 
 sacrifice, nor even of the sociable feelings ; for none of 
 these exist in the boy or in the undeveloped man in other 
 than rudimentary, that is, not in their real and proper 
 form. They have not the emotional and- moral content 
 which is necessary to constitute them truly moral prin- 
 ciples, as in the fully developed man. They only contain 
 faint intimations of the future principles. Indeed, strictly 
 speaking, our earliest sentiments and principles no more 
 resemble these when fully matured, than the grub the 
 butterfly, or the embryo in its several stages, the later- 
 developed animal. And not less is the difference between 
 
 2 c 
 
386 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 the moral sentiments as shown in the infancy and in the 
 maturity of the race. 
 
 Above all, it is useless to turn to the origin, if we 
 would know what course of action our present moral 
 intuitions point to. To consult the dark oracle of the 
 primitive man, even could we reach the strange interior 
 of his moral consciousness, would avail us to this end 
 just as little as the careful psychological scrutiny of the 
 moral instincts of his nearest existing representatives, 
 would now avail us. In all such investigations, however 
 carefully conducted, we are leaving the light which is in 
 ourselves and round about us in the world of man, and 
 going into dark regions in search of it. That light is 
 nowhere to be found, save in the feelings themselves as 
 manifested and interpreted by ourselves, corrected by the 
 interpretation of the highest specimens of our species 
 who have had the same feelings in highest form in the 
 feelings of pity as we now experience it, in the love of 
 justice, of truth, of charity, of our kind, or whatever 
 other social or disinterested sentiment is strong within 
 us. The meaning of these principles is given in the 
 principles, and that meaning is action, to which they 
 unmistakably point ; but action regulated by reason and 
 advised by science, which give a commanding view of 
 the possible remote as well as the immediate consequences 
 of such actions. 
 
 If, then, the evolution moralist would really obviate 
 the objections of the spiritualist or idealist, let him thus 
 acknowledge that the true meaning of our moral ideas 
 and impulses is to be read in their present full-grown and 
 developed form, as shown in the most superior spirits, 
 and not in their germinal form, whether as shown in 
 children, savages, or the doubtful traces of the primitive 
 man. Let him acknowledge further, as Herbert Spencer 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 387 
 
 in effect does, that though in their origin they had the 
 good of the tribe in view, yet veracity, justice, and 
 benevolence are now to be pursued for their own sakes, 
 under the guidance of reason ; the good of society being 
 too large an aim in its totality, too shifting and uncertain 
 in any special form, to constitute a steady object of 
 pursuit. Let the evolutionist admit freely, as he well 
 may, that if we are filled with a passion for truth or 
 justice, the significance of these moral facts for us is that 
 they require an issue in action correspondent to them, 
 and their meaning in the moral economy of the universe 
 is that, in an unjust world which hates the truth, there 
 must always be spirits thus strongly touched with a 
 passion for truth and justice ; and that if these and such 
 as these, above all, do not stand up for these ideals, and 
 at times, if need be, stand prepared to quarrel in their 
 behalf, injustice, and falsehood, and fraud, and violence 
 (like rank and poisonous growths) would reign supreme 
 on earth, until at last society, composed wholly of such 
 immoral and warring elements, reverted to its proper 
 chaos, and effected its own destruction. 
 
 But he who feels strongly the sacredness of the 
 sentiments need not stop to inquire how the feeling of 
 sanctity has grown around the original ruder and simpler 
 form of the feeling. Let him accept the fact of its 
 sacredness, as given in the feeling, in all faith. He need 
 not care to analyze it into its constituent .moral elements 
 with the psychologist, nor to trace the history of its 
 growth with the. evolutionist. There is little use in 
 either the analysis or the history for him who is strongly 
 filled with the sentiment, and who wishes to act. And, 
 in fact, such a one does not care to verify the legitimacy 
 of his moral impulse, for fear it should prove an illusion. 
 He embraces it and he acts upon it in full faith that it 
 
388 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 was meant to urge to and to point to its proper actions. 
 He may or he may not know that the true final aim of 
 justice is the well-being of mankind as Darwin and 
 Spencer say, or the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number as Mill and Bentham teach ; he may or he may 
 not know that the natural external origin of justice was 
 the exigencies of society, and the internal origin the 
 first appearance of a strange sentiment which is now 
 strong in him; in any case, what he feels is that the 
 sense of justice and right exists in him, and demands 
 appropriate action. 
 
 Doubtless the just man, the righteous, loved of 
 Heaven, should act under the guidance of reason as 
 well as under the impulse of his sense of justice ; and 
 therefore, though bound to do justly in all the relations 
 of life, he is not bound, unless he occupies a very ex- 
 ceptional position of influence, to aim at a comprehensive 
 realization of justice in his society or in the world. For 
 even the statesman, the legislator, the moral or practical 
 reformer, who might hope to make the claims of justice 
 more fully felt or more widely extended, must first 
 carefully consider the facts and conditions of his society, 
 before he can hope to effect any change either in its 
 sentiments or institutions which might give justice a 
 broader and deeper foundation. With respect to this, 
 the most important of the social virtues, all that can be 
 considered as incumbent on the generality of us, as 
 distinguished from statesmen and reformers, is that in 
 so far as the conditions and exigencies of our social 
 surroundings admit, so far as our circumstances, our 
 talents, our opportunities allow, and consistently with 
 the discharge of other necessary and possibly con- 
 flicting duties, we should, by seconding the aims of 
 those who have the claims of justice at heart, endeavour 
 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 389 
 
 to hasten the reign of justice and the bringing in of 
 righteousness on the earth. These are doubtless large 
 limitations and abatements of the absolute aims of the 
 idealist ; but science to-day, as in the days of Aristotle, 
 and with stronger reasons, insists on our having regard 
 to the categories of time, place, and persons, to the 
 considerations of possibility and suitability in our moral 
 endeavours. 
 
 Men can always do something, by word and equitable 
 deed, for the cause of justice ; at a favourable moment 
 possibly more; but it is only on great spirits specially 
 elected, and on the rare occasion of a great opportunity 
 presented, that the high duty may devolve of striking 
 their strongest for the cause of justice without regard to 
 cost or consequence. At important moments in the life 
 of nations, in certain great crises in human affairs, in 
 great reformations or revolutions, the great man, who 
 is also the just, whether statesman, reformer, soldier, 
 writer, is called upon to speak and act in bolder and 
 more decisive manner. But all are not called to this 
 high service, nor yet the greatest spirits, save at the 
 fitting hour. To the thinker belongs the elaboration 
 of the growing idea of the just; on all men it is in- 
 cumbent to act justly in the common relations and 
 intercourse of life; but to strive after a more compre- 
 hensive establishment of the ideal of justice in our still 
 unjust world, is only asked of the great men, the masters 
 of affairs and of action, and from them only when the 
 fulness of time has come, when, indeed, they may call 
 upon the rest to strongly second their efforts. Within 
 these limits the claims of the moral idealist in behalf of 
 justice must be reduced. 
 
 In like manner with regard to our duty to truth. If 
 we are haply the chosen depositaries of important and 
 
390 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 universal truths which it concerns mankind to know, 
 we should seek to diffuse it at all hazards; even if we 
 only know something more than the limited circle which 
 we can hope to influence amongst which our life is cast, 
 we should try to share our superior truth and knowledge ; 
 yet should we do so in this case with especial care and 
 caution, lest we do more harm than good to the ultimate 
 cause of truth, if not harm to our friends in disturbing 
 their mental peace, while a regard for their happiness 
 constitutes at least as weighty an obligation as that we 
 are under to the spread of unwelcome truth. 
 
 We should aim at the good of our kind, beginning 
 with our friends, and we are also to aim at the spread 
 of truth ; and hence may easily result a collision of 
 duties difficult to reconcile. There is, indeed, but one 
 mode of partial reconciliation possible, namely, by adopt- 
 ing a qualification like to that laid down as applicable 
 in the case of justice. We must maintain that while 
 the truth, naked and unveiled, will ultimately be for the 
 good of the world and mankind ; and while, therefore, a 
 Socrates, a Luther, a Spinoza, must and should proclaim 
 it, though it bring not peace but a sword to men, 
 and not peace but perturbation within the proclaimer's 
 breast; yet that the like is not asked from the mass 
 of men, save as seconders and supporters of the superior 
 men. Nor are even superior men bound at all times, 
 and to all men, to speak the faith that is in them. There 
 should be fit occasion and fit audience. All men are 
 under obligation, with the known exceptions, to veracity, 
 without which no society could exist ; but all men are 
 not called upon to be either the apostles or martyrs of 
 truth, nor yet, except possibly once in the course of 
 centuries, to take up arms in her behalf and fight. 
 
 2. Neither science nor evolution can have anything 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 391 
 
 to say against these views of the nature and meaning of 
 our present moral principles. On the contrary, science 
 must concede that it is in accordance with our present 
 developed moral nature that men should act ; that under 
 these, guided by reason, they do, in fact, act. And the 
 evolutionist may very well agree with the idealist on 
 the matter of fact alleged by the latter that the species 
 is scarcely less now than at any former period in its 
 history, governed and swayed by moral ideas. He may 
 reply to the idealist that the moral sentiments are not 
 likely to be sapped by a knowledge of the germs and 
 roots from which their highest flowers have sprung in 
 the later history of mankind. 
 
 The evolution moralist, as well as any, may assert 
 the fact, which is merely in accordance with the general 
 principles of evolution itself, that the moral conscious- 
 ness of mankind has become both more widened and 
 deepened in modern times ; that men, in all civilized 
 communities at least, are now more generally regardful 
 of the claims of truth and justice ; that they have a 
 clearer perception of the extended relations to which the 
 developed notion of justice applies ; that they show a 
 greater respect for veracity in their speech, and a clearer 
 appreciation of the claims of discovered and established 
 general truths on their regards. Further, they may 
 contend, too, that men now more actively pursue the 
 good of others, and, though the fact is certainly not 
 insisted on by Herbert Spencer, that their souls are as 
 inflammable as ever to the influence of great disinte- 
 rested ideas. For, in fact, the emotions which are the 
 inner force and fire to the higher virtues, exist now, at 
 least in potential form which might easily be stirred into 
 active existence, in more developed amount and intenser 
 degree in the individual, as they have also extended 
 
392 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 their sway over a larger mass of mankind. The senti- 
 ments social and political, which have no reference to 
 self or personal interests, but to race, country, class, or 
 kind, are far more widely diffused, and have shown 
 themselves in more pronounced and potent form in 
 modern times, and certainly not least strong during the 
 past quarter of a century. History, since the epoch of 
 the French Revolution up to our own day, gives abun- 
 dant proof of the power of mere ideas over men, apart 
 from every question of their origin or even legitimacy. 
 Men have struggled for ideas as passionately in the nine- 
 teenth century as in the sixteenth or in the age of the 
 Crusades, save only that the ideas have changed their 
 form and the colour of their attractions, |)eing now 
 humanitarian rather than religious. Men have struggled 
 for them simply because they find them existing within 
 themselves, and because they feel their imperious sway 
 over them. They have not cared to analyze them with 
 the psychologist, feeling that they were meant for action 
 and not for analysis. And men will still continue, in 
 spite of disappointment in attaining the reality, in spite 
 even of their disappointment in the reality itself when 
 attained, to struggle again and again, with unwearied 
 faith and patience, for the ideal glorified in imagination. 
 And what an amount of effort, of blood, has been freely 
 spent during a whole century for ideas for liberty, for 
 unity, for brotherhood, for humanity, nay, for revolution 
 and anarchy itself, which have for some become strangely 
 consecrated as the conditions precedent of curing the 
 actual and obstinate evils of society ! 
 
 And what enthusiasm, too, have not men of science, 
 of speculation, of learning, shown in our age for truth 
 for its own sake, apart from its apprehended good or 
 evil results to themselves ! What love of it ; what 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 393 
 
 sacrifice for it ; what faith in its final efficacy ! Let, 
 then, our scientific moralist freely concede to the idealist 
 that man cannot live without ideals, which he trustfully 
 accepts, and, indeed, sometimes blindly and desperately 
 follows, without caring to know their origin, without 
 doubt as to their ultimate beneficial social tendency, 
 although he has not primarily such social good in view, 
 but simply the glorious ideas themselves which he would 
 serve. And even if these sometimes appear to delude 
 and deceive, man will still act again in accordance 
 with them. Their votary refuses to disbelieve them, 
 refuses to see blemishes in the divinity that he loves. 
 Though all others should even see only ugly and repul- 
 sive features, the true believer sees only beauty, and 
 passionately follows his ideal be it Freedom with 
 radiant mien, Justice with front severe, Truth with her 
 fair features, nay, even the dark phantoms of Nihilism 
 and Anarchy with the dagger and torch in hand, all 
 alike exercise a strange and sublime, sometimes a terrible, 
 fascination for the believer. The evolution moralist 
 cannot, indeed, deny the force and reality of such dis- 
 interested sentiments during the past thirty years, from 
 whatever source they derived their mighty energy. And 
 that moral and social energy still exists in modern 
 societies. No part of it is spent or disappears without 
 producing its proper effect. None of it, at least, is lost. 
 If in appearance finally lost or dissipated, it is only 
 momentarily and only in appearance. It is again 
 gathered and recruited, and again applied to the progress 
 and development of humanity, which in the end is 
 always moved by these great sentiments at its heart. 
 And whatever be the origin of these or other sentiments, 
 whether in himself or in the species, whether they first 
 appeared yesterday or ages ago, is immaterial to the 
 
394 THE FUTUKE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 social man of to-day, so far as relates to action. They 
 exist now in his breast, and man as naturally acts from 
 their impulse as physical forces act to produce their 
 proper effects. But, should they do so ? is the disquiet- 
 ing doubt and question raised by the evolution moralist 
 and sociologist, Herbert Spencer. Are they wise in so 
 passionately following their political and social impulses, 
 so foolishly and thoughtlessly their philanthropic and 
 benevolent ones ? It matters not ; since wise or im- 
 prudent they will so act, even in spite of his moderating 
 gospel. For such a being social man is to-day, in this 
 the latest stage of his natural history. At present, ideas, 
 which may prove illusions, urge him to act for their 
 fuller realization. That such social and spiritual forces 
 are necessary, is shown by the fact of their existence ; 
 and in spite alike of the despairing pessimism of Hart- 
 mann, which treats them as illusions, or the qualified 
 optimism of Spencer, which expects nothing from them, 
 but all from time and natural selection, man will still be 
 governed, naturally and necessarily, by ideals, and the 
 species will still be urged forward by aspirations within 
 its breast. Neither, then, shall ideal aims be destroyed 
 by scientific analysis or research, nor yet virtue, as some 
 are apprehensive. For if we look at the subject from 
 another and a more strictly scientific point of view, 
 virtue is safe. It is safe because its foundation and 
 source lies in a region inaccessible to hurt, impregnable 
 alike to external assault or to internal sap. Morality, 
 virtue, is safe in its essence, however its accidents be 
 affected, because its essence resides in the inmost struc- 
 ture and essence of the nerves and cells of the developed 
 brain of the species, which has been developed with even 
 a more special reference to the moral than to the intel- 
 lectual or material needs of men. Morality can only be 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 395 
 
 deteriorated by a change for the worse in the composi- 
 tion of the cells and fibres of the brain, and these cannot 
 be suddenly or easily changed in the race, whatever 
 accidents they may be subject to in the individual. The 
 doctrine of heredity and continued development is on 
 the side of morality, and this doctrine is one of the most 
 assuring conclusions which recent science has given to 
 men. Further yet, the social exigencies more impe- 
 riously demand obedience to moral rules in modern com- 
 plex than in former simpler societies ; and, therefore, 
 there need be no fear of a relaxation of the social im- 
 perative as regards either legal or moral rules essential 
 to social existence and development, but only of those 
 which stand opposed, and which should, therefore, be 
 rather regarded as immoral than moral commands. 
 Until, then, the physical basis of the brain and nerves 
 is deteriorated in modern nations, men will not be less 
 moral; and unless the universal laws of life, and the 
 eternal requirements of every society are mutable, the 
 primary virtues the core of virtue will remain im- 
 mutable, while the growing body of virtue will be 
 mutable only in the sense of being more developed. 
 This is, or should be, the answer of evolution to those 
 who fear for the interests of morality. 
 
 Morality will not be touched in essence, but it is 
 quite compatible with this and not unlikely that its 
 essential features may be in future more clearly recog- 
 nized, as also that there may be a new valuation of the 
 old virtues. It is quite possible that, on taking a new 
 inventory of our moral capital and moral practices, it 
 should be pronounced by a competent ethical valuator 
 that there was a change in the relative worth of some 
 moral habits and virtues ; that some had suffered deteri- 
 oration ; that others had improved in worth ; nay, even 
 
396 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 that some new ones might be now required by our 
 changed and changing modern society. It is more than 
 possible that, by our new moral teachers, certain old and 
 now useless practices will cease to be regarded as virtues, 
 while others, hardly now esteemed as such, or at least 
 placed low down in the scale of virtuous excellence, will 
 receive more honourable recognition. It is not likely 
 that asceticism, or fasting, or supplication will be as 
 highly esteemed as heretofore. The merit of uninquiring 
 faith, or of assent without due grounds, will be rated 
 much less, though that the many should repose faith in 
 the more carefully verified conclusions of their superiors 
 in wisdom and knowledge will be always requisite. 
 The wickedness of doubt, as such, will itself be greatly 
 doubted ; as doubt will be held a meritorious mental 
 state, or the reverse, according to the mind in which it 
 appears, and according to the subject to which it refers. 
 Even sacrifice, although it must always occupy the 
 highest rank in the virtues, since it will be always called 
 for more or less in the discharge of our appointed func- 
 tion or duty, will be less highly rated outside that 
 sphere, unless for great and worthy ends, to which only 
 the few are called. On the other hand, the old virtues 
 which respect self will be as much required as ever; 
 possibly more : courage will be as much needed, though 
 not so much of the merely physical sort; temperance 
 will be more required in the front of greater temptations, 
 and with our nerves more excitable ; while prudence, 
 implying judgment, will be more necessary in the midst 
 of the more complex conditions of life ; above all, the old 
 stoical spirit of combined fortitude and resignation will 
 require cultivation to support the shocks of fortune and 
 the defeat of cherished hopes, which must continue to 
 be frequent, though brain and nerves are now less firm 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 397 
 
 to bear them. On the social side, the claims of the great 
 social virtues veracity, justice, charity will be more 
 than ever imperatively recognized and enforced, both by 
 conscience and opinion. Sympathy, not merely with the 
 sorrows, but with the general mental states of others, 
 will be more and more felt as a pressing want of human 
 nature, both as a mitigation of sorrow and as a multipli- 
 cation of satisfactions ; while sympathy, in the form of 
 pity for the misery and want around, including an 
 active disposition to relieve it, will long continue, in 
 spite alike of the depressing economic and sociological 
 doctrine, to rank amongst the holiest feelings and the 
 best springs of virtuous conduct in human nature. 
 
 Virtue, then, will not be destroyed. Morality, as well 
 as religion, will remain. It will remain as an eternal 
 necessity of our social nature and of our condition in the 
 world. Its field may, indeed, as already implied, be 
 contracted in some directions, but it will receive a more 
 than equivalent augmentation in others, so that a larger 
 total area of life will pass under the sway of morality. 
 A greater number of our actions will become moralized, 
 to use the new and significant term ; that is to say, we 
 shall come to feel, with regard to them, that the doing or 
 not doing them is not a matter of indifference, but of 
 some degree of moral obligation. But the obligation to 
 these new virtues will be of a lighter kind than to the 
 older ones shown to be necessary through a longer and 
 a universal experience; so that, though morality may 
 increase extensively, it may still become a less costly 
 intensive effort to the doer. It will be so because there 
 will be less real sacrifice asked or needed in future, since 
 action in behalf of others, owing to men's widened 
 sympathies, will become more easy and even pleasurable, 
 and since also, if the sacrifice is of a more serious 
 
398 THE FUTUEE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 character, others will the less ask or expect it of us, even 
 should we be disposed to make it. In this, which is no 
 invidious sense, the moral yoke of science might be de- 
 scribed as easy. But its code can never be very light so 
 long as duty is recognized, and life remains in its essence 
 what it is. 
 
 3. So far the evolution moralist might successfully 
 defend his doctrine against objections urged. But in 
 order to do so a large faith in the future is necessary. 
 Meantime is it not a fact that there exists at the present 
 moment an irreconcilable contradiction between the new 
 teaching of science, biological and sociological, and the 
 currently accepted teaching of the moral sciences ; be- 
 tween the morality which conscience points out and 
 prescribes to us, and the actual behaviour which science 
 shows us the deepest laws of life and the necessities of 
 existence impose upon us ; between the moral law which 
 imperatively declares we ought, and the scientific law 
 which clearly shows us we must ? Is there not, too, a 
 contradiction between the moral facts within ; between 
 the fundamental instinct of self-preservation, and the 
 equally certain fact of self-sacrifice ; between the impulses 
 of pity and sympathy pleading for the mitigation of 
 others' woe, and the fact of self-assertion in the ceaseless 
 competitive struggle of life urging us to regard only our 
 own weal ? 
 
 It must be granted that there does exist the contra- 
 diction, which is palpably and prominently brought before 
 us by the new evolution morality ; and the contradiction 
 has not been satisfactorily reconciled by any of our 
 evolution teachers, either by Darwin, Spencer,* or any 
 
 * This chapter was written before the appearance of Mr. Spencer's 
 Data of Ethics. An attempt is there made at a conciliation of opposing 
 theories ; but the attempt is not very successful. It could not be, in 
 fact, for Mr. Spencer treats Ethics exclusively from the standpoint of 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 399 
 
 other. But the real fact is, that this moral antinomy has 
 always existed ; the new moral philosophy has only 
 served to bring into clearer manifestation the contradic- 
 tions latent in the conditions of life, as well as other more 
 obvious ones. 
 
 There always was and there always will be a collision 
 of interests amongst men, as well, indeed, as a certain 
 conflict in our own moral nature even when there is no 
 question of a collision with the interests of others. The 
 ideal and the real in morals can never be brought into 
 more than partial or momentary, not to full and final, 
 harmony. Their spheres can never be brought into 
 complete coincidence, not even should our species continue 
 to exist and to improve until the final day prophesied by 
 physical philosophers, when our old and worn-out earth 
 shall fall back upon the parent sun to recruit her ex- 
 hausted fires. There are, however, some hopeful consider- 
 ations. There is a tendency to greater harmony in the 
 conflicting conditions of life, and in the contrary moral 
 impulses within us. Although, as evolution teaches, the 
 most central fact of life should f orjbid the perfect and final 
 harmony between the interests of the individual atoms 
 composing the social aggregations, or between the various 
 united groups and interests as against each other, yet 
 is there the most undoubted tendency to a diminution of 
 mutual interference of real interests. This much, at least, 
 evolution and sociological science have shown us.* The 
 moral and industrial and social progress of society has 
 greatly consisted in the gradual creation or discovery of 
 common interests, common pleasures and sources of enjoy- 
 ment, and also, it must be particularly noted, in the 
 
 evolution and the generalizations of the sciences, without regard to the 
 evolution of the science itself, through a series of thinkers from the days 
 of Aristotle. 
 
 * See Spencer's Data of Ethics, ch. xii. 
 
400 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 distinct evolution and transmission by heredity of affec- 
 tions and sentiments lodged specially in the breast of 
 each to consider the claims of others in the cases of com- 
 petition, and sometimes to induce us to surrender our 
 own pleasure and satisfaction for the sake of others. 
 Reason and reflection teaches us that often there is no 
 real antagonism between our good and that of others 
 where we supposed there was such ; and that often a 
 seeming conflict may be resolved into a real community 
 of interest, while even in the case of a real opposition 
 there are developed principles existing within us the 
 sense of justice, the fact of benevolence, the judgment of 
 conscience whose business it is to consider fairly the 
 competing claims of others, and sometimes even to take 
 the part of others against ourselves ; at least, as in the 
 case of the impulses to benevolence and mercy, to con- 
 sider it better " to give than to receive," to forgive than 
 to revenge. In such moral factors as these lies our hope 
 of future moral progress, as in the recognition of them 
 lies the possibility of a partial reconciliation of the real 
 and ideal morals, of the scientifically ascertained facts and 
 conditions under which men must live and act, and the 
 unconditional commands of the moral law as conceived 
 by Kant, or the supreme authority of conscience as proved 
 by Butler. But there can be only a partial approach to 
 harmonization between the opposite moral schools, as 
 there can be only a nearer approach to coincidence 
 between the real and ideal spheres of conduct. 
 
 For there are contradictions in our own nature as 
 well as in the external conditions of things. There are 
 the self -conserving instincts at the bottom of our being, 
 which must ever produce a certain interference with the 
 happiness at least of some others. And besides pity and 
 sympathy, there are facts of our nature antagonistic to 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 401 
 
 pity.* There is the fact of anger, the fact of antipathy, 
 together with a certain hardening of the heart naturally 
 produced as a sort of moral covering or protection by 
 the many shocks incident to our life of probation. There 
 is also, together with competition, the disastrous life of 
 chance, in part the result of overflowing population, in 
 part of our individual regime ; and these facts of com- 
 petition and chance, pressing more heavily on man in 
 modern times than in the days of feudalism, bring home 
 to the individual in the thick of the competitive and 
 pitiless struggle, the fact and the reminder that life is 
 still, in spite of our moral progress, in a real and most 
 serious sense, a struggle of each for himself, and a 
 struggle not merely against his competing fellows, but 
 also against the threatening chapter of contingencies 
 from within and without. Having reached the stage of 
 social progress called individualism, where each one is 
 entrusted with and must take care of himself, such a 
 state of things must exist ; and we must'accept the good 
 and evil of it together, the good being that we have 
 large individual liberty of action, as the natural comple- 
 ment of the state ; the evil that, under this system of 
 universal competition and individualism, where each one 
 thinks first and above all else of " getting on " to use 
 the significant phrase, which marks the essence of the 
 system there is a wider front exposed by the individual 
 to the assaults of the formidable impersonality called 
 Chance, and a consequent greater danger of lapse into 
 the dreaded and dismal social abyss which hides the for- 
 lorn and hopeless host of the failures. 
 
 It is true that the present is only a transitional stage 
 in the great march of social evolution. True also that 
 there are hopeful signs, too many and various to be mis- 
 * See Book I. ch. iii, 
 
 2 D 
 
402 THE FUTURE OF RELIGION AND MORALS. 
 
 understood, pointing to the fact that the era of unmiti- 
 gated competition and individualism is being left behind. 
 Where competition has shown itself injurious, men are 
 giving it up. The community of interest in so many 
 departments of life is too evident, and the necessities of 
 mutual support and aid and protection too pressing, not 
 to produce a certain mutual understanding and merging 
 of destructive internal competition amongst the units 
 that compose a class, or who are associated in an interest. 
 That very sense of mutual dependence, and of a com- 
 munity of interest, to which all society owes its origin, 
 is now seen to be applicable to many subordinate classes 
 and groups and sections of a modern complex society, 
 applicable everywhere, in fact, where an interest common 
 to numbers, however few, may appear. In such cases men 
 seek, and they will seek yet more, to minimize hazard 
 and chance to the individuals, by making all associated 
 partners in a common fortune. But though men will 
 continue to do so more and more, as society progresses, 
 its necessity as well as its advantages being so obvious ; 
 yet they will not withal be able to dispense wholly with 
 competition, either amongst associations, or the united 
 interest, or nations, or even amongst individuals whose 
 interest, though common in certain respects, may yet be 
 incompatible in others with that of their fellows in their 
 own class or association. 
 
 While man remains man, even in the extremest con- 
 ceivable type of a socialistic community, competition in 
 some form must continue amongst individuals ; as while 
 he remains an animal, however far he may have tran- 
 scended his lower animal origin, there must cling to him 
 some of his old selfish and sensual nature. He may 
 become a more social, a more intellectual, a more spiritual 
 being, his development moving forward on all these higher 
 
PARTIAL CONCILIATION OF THE NEW AND OLD ETHICS. 403 
 
 lines, but yet the progress is slow, and the ideal goal 
 will never be fully gained. We can hardly even imagine 
 a time when the facts of anger, and envy, and jealousy, 
 and acquisitiveness will be extinguished. " Virtue can- 
 not," as Hamlet tells us, " so inoculate our old stock," but 
 we will relish something of that which diverges there- 
 from. Neither the social, nor the sympathetic, nor the 
 sacrificing virtues can ever be so far developed as to 
 wholly fill up the area of life and exclude all interests 
 antagonistic to others ; and though it is conceivable that 
 a competition having the good of others for its object 
 may become not uncommon, yet such would still subsist 
 side by side with the old egoistic competition for a share 
 of the divisible satisfactions which two cannot possess 
 or enjoy at the same time. This egoistic competition, 
 though with slowly diminishing intensity, this con- 
 flict of interests, though within a slowly lessening- 
 field, evolution and the social sciences assure us must 
 continue ; and this part of the new teaching is so far 
 ethically significant that it lies on the transcendental 
 and ideal morality, either to refute it or to accept it and 
 accommodate its own teaching to it. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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