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 OEMCO NO. 38-298
 
 MIND AND BRAIN: 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CORRELATIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS 
 AND ORGANISATION; 
 
 WITH THEIR APPLICATIONS TO 
 
 PHILOSOPHY, ZOOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, MENTAL PATHOLOGY, 
 AND THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS LAYCOCK, M.D., F.K.S.E., &c, &c, 
 
 PROFESSOR OP THE PRACTICE OP MEDICINE AND OP CLINICAL MEDICINE, 
 
 AND LECTURER ON MEDICAL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 EDINBL7EGH: STJTHEELAXD AND KNOX. 
 
 LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. 
 
 MDCCCLX. 
 
 [The Author reserves the right of Translation.]
 
 I DIN BURGH : PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Thirty years have elapsed since the Author first com- 
 menced an inquiry into the relations of Body and Mind, 
 with a view to practical results. After directing his at- 
 tention for some time to the resources which mental philo- 
 sophy and cerebral physiology supplied to this end, he 
 came to the conclusion that both, as then received, were 
 alike vitiated, for the purposes of inquiry, by a funda- 
 mental defect in method. Neither attempted, nor indeed 
 pretended to attempt, a demonstration of the relations 
 between tbe laws of functional activity of the organ of 
 consciousness and the laws of consciousness itself. Each 
 department of knowledge was expressly held apart from 
 tbe other ; and their subject-matters of inquiry were con- 
 sidered to be fundamentally distinct. 
 
 It is easily seen why this divisive method of inquiry 
 is not applicable to practical ends, either in mental or 
 vital science. Since we have no other sources of know- 
 ledge than those which our consciousness affords, and 
 since all our states of consciousness are necessarily coin- 
 cident with the operations of our vital forces, it follows, 
 that a knowledge of the laws of consciousness, in relation 
 with the laws of the vital forces, must constitute the foun- 
 dation of all science whatever ; or, in otber words, that
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 Metaphysic, to be complete as a unity, must bring within 
 its range the laws of Life and Organisation. 
 
 The union of philosophy proper with physiology (or, 
 more correctly, with biology), is, however, more espe- 
 cially necessary, if we would establish an applied science 
 of Mind ; for that must be applied to mind active in all 
 the business of human life, whether in the healthy states 
 of which the metaphysician takes exclusive cognisance, 
 or in those morbid states which more especially engage 
 the attention of the physician. In both classes of mental 
 activities, the phenomena of life and consciousness are 
 inseparable ; so that, without a scientific correlation of 
 the two classes of laws, an applied science of Mind is not 
 possible. 
 
 The validity of these views may, and probably will, be 
 questioned, but they are at least those at which the Au- 
 thor arrived after a diligent trial of the divisive method 
 of philosophising. And he was thus led to attempt 
 the application of the correlative method to an eluci- 
 dation of the nature and treatment of insanity, and of the 
 physiology of those peculiar mental states which, under 
 the popular names of Mesmerism, Electro-biology, Spirit- 
 rapping, and Spiritualism, have each in their turn attracted 
 so much of the public attention throughout the civilised 
 world during the last quarter of a century. Although the 
 practical results the Author has thus attained have not 
 been wholly withheld from the public, yet they have been 
 made known only partially as a portion of his academic 
 courses, or through the press in a desultory way, in illus- 
 tration of practical points in treatment; while the method 
 itself, and its modes of application, have never been stated.
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 This proceeding was partly due to a disinclination on his 
 part to grapple with such an all-comprehending subject, 
 until some of the departments of physiology were more 
 advanced, and the public mind more convinced of its fun- 
 damental importance ; mainly to a hope that delay would 
 not only enable him to develop his views, but also afford 
 the leisure necessary to the proper exposition of a new 
 system, and of the facts upon which it must be based. 
 
 The latter expectation, at least, has not been fulfilled. 
 Every year brought its own pressing duties, and it was 
 not until the Author was required to deliver a course of 
 lectures on Medical Psychology, in the University of 
 Edinburgh, that he made an effort to systematise the 
 results of his labours. An urgent need was at once felt 
 for an introductory exposition of the correlations of phy- 
 siology and philosophy, according to a method whereby 
 the reciprocal relations of Body and Mind — the subject- 
 matter of medical psychology — could be scientifically and 
 practically determined. The attempt to meet this need 
 has resulted in the present volumes. The work has there- 
 fore a twofold object — namely, first, as a class-book, to 
 introduce the student of medical psychology to a com- 
 prehensive inquiry into the relations of consciousness to 
 organisation ; secondly, to afford to the general student 
 of mental science, in its practical applications, whatever 
 those may be, a solid foundation for a course of self- 
 culture, in an exposition of the relations of organisation 
 to consciousness. 
 
 That a course of medical psychology thus constructed, 
 and a work thus arranged, in adaptation to the wants of 
 both the professional and general student, are amongst
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 the scientific demands of the age, is manifest from 
 various considerations. The enlightened physician has 
 long been convinced, that a science of Life and Organisa- 
 tion, built up on the solid foundation of a sound mental 
 philosophy, is an essential requisite to the proper develop- 
 ment of a science of medicine ; without that, the practice 
 of medicine can never be anything more than an art. 
 The advanced metaphysician, impressed by the progress 
 of physiology, is beginning to see that the union of philo- 
 sophy and physiology is not only possible but necessary; 
 so that some in the first class of modern philosophical in- 
 quirers combine them in study and teaching.* The philo- 
 sophical phrenologist, too, although avowedly physiolo- 
 gical, is convinced that he must abandon the empirical 
 method of research, and look more deeply into the corre- 
 lations of the laws of Life and Thought, if he would ad- 
 vance phrenology to the philosophical and scientific level 
 of the time. 
 
 Then, again, the increase of insanity, or at least of the 
 numbers of the insane, and the difficulties thence aris- 
 ing, are exciting a spirit of inquiry as to the best means 
 of treating and preventing that disease. For the public 
 mind in general, ignorant of its nature and causes, vacil- 
 lates to and fro with a lamentable mutability of purpose ; — 
 being now full of sympathy for the insane, and indignant 
 at their detention in safe custody ; now horror-struck by 
 some terrible act of insane violence, and indignant that 
 the wretched sufferer should escape the vengeance of the 
 
 * My colleagues, the Professors of Moral Philosophy and of 
 Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh, both in- 
 troduce physiology into their courses.
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 law. And this state of public opinion has influenced so 
 strongly the welfare of families and the administration 
 of justice, that leading minds now see the absolute neces- 
 sity there is for a science of Mind more available to bene- 
 ficial legislation on this question than that which the 
 divisive method has hitherto afforded. 
 
 A large number of persons of general culture also feel 
 the necessity of some more available general principles 
 than philosophy or physiology affords, and are endea- 
 vouring, according to a method of their own, to attain 
 them. Phrenology first made the physiological study of 
 mental science popular; but there arose concurrently with 
 it a variety of methods of experimental research into the 
 laws of action of the brain and nervous system, known 
 as Mesmerism, Electro-biology, and the like, the great 
 object of which is to establish certain mystic theories of 
 life and organisation, and thought. Such is always the 
 first stage of inquiry, when the operation of forces of 
 nature hitherto unknown is discovered. All modern 
 physical philosophy thus arose. What is to be regretted 
 is, that this great truth in the development of science 
 should have failed to impress this class of inquirers ; and 
 that, as a consequence, some of the best intellects of the 
 day should have heroically suffered so much in defence 
 of the truth as to fact, and yet have been led away so 
 widely into the false as to theory. In a mental philoso- 
 phy which takes due cognisance of the laws of Life, will 
 be found the best antidote to this evil. The phenomena 
 of mesmeric and of analogous processes are in truth 
 nothing more than the results of experiments upon the 
 functions of the brain by impressions on the senses. As
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 such they are invaluable; and when rightly compre- 
 hended, under the guidance of the principles of a sound 
 cerebral psychology, will help to build up a mental 
 science from which all mysticism will be as effectually 
 excluded as it now is from physical science. 
 
 Further, natural history, zoology, and ethnology, are 
 raising questions which it is the proper business of philo- 
 sophy to solve. What, it is asked, is the difference be- 
 tween reason and instinct? Where are the limits of 
 animal and vegetable life ? What is the origin of living 
 things, in all their infinite variety? How came the 
 animal Man upon the earth ? What makes men to differ 
 as to race, form, and mental qualities ? Science having 
 subdued the physical forces of matter to man's uses, and 
 made them his servants and swift messengers, is now 
 vigorously pushing its efforts in the direction of the vital 
 forces, so that they too may be brought under control. 
 
 While the zoologist and physicist are thus extending 
 their sphere of research, the political economist and 
 ethical philosopher are equally busy with inquiries into 
 the development of the human faculties, with a view to 
 education ; and with the laws of social organisation, as 
 the foundation of a science of Sociology. And thus, from 
 every quarter, the science of human nature is tending to 
 unity, in a system of philosophy which shall have for its 
 foundation the great correlations of the laws of organi- 
 sation and consciousness. 
 
 Such, then, being the scope and extent of modern 
 research, and such the objects which various classes 
 of inquirers are pursuing, it became necessary so to set 
 forth the correlative method that on the one hand it would
 
 PliEFACE. XI 
 
 serve to establish this unity of human knowledge, and 
 on the other be available in its various subordinate 
 departments. And here, at the outset, a great difficulty 
 arose; for the qualifications, predilections, and attain- 
 ments of the persons interested, are so different and 
 diverse, that it seemed almost impossible to sketch 
 a plan which would meet the requirements of all. It 
 seemed, however, to the Author, that the natural 
 development of the subject was most likely to be in 
 accordance with the needs of the greater number of 
 inquirers. He has therefore sketched a method, and 
 carried it out into the formation of a body of doc- 
 trines, in such a way that the reader, if an earnest 
 student, may have a guide through the multitudinous 
 phenomena he has to examine and compare, in his 
 scientific progress from the known to the unknown. 
 
 In accordance with these views, the First Part of the 
 work sets forth the necessary connection between Physio- 
 logy and Mental Philosophy ; states the objects which a 
 correlative method of inquiry should aim at ; and inquires 
 into the obstacles to scientific progress which have arisen 
 out of the divisive method. In these chapters the same 
 idea is necessarily examined under various aspects; and 
 therefore the style has a tautological character, which would 
 have been avoided if that had been possible. The method 
 proper is then developed ; and while it is shown how a 
 teleological unity may be attained, it is also established 
 as a fundamental principle, that any practical science of 
 Mind must be founded on, and be tested by, the common 
 sense and experience of mankind. 
 
 In the Second Part, the results of that experience, and
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 the general doctrines reached by speculation and the 
 divisive method, are systematically summarised, so as to 
 constitute them the platform for the scientific portion of 
 the inquiry. Much of this Part must necessarily be 
 familiar to the philosophical reader, and might therefore 
 have been omitted, so far as he is concerned. Such a 
 summary seemed to be necessary, however, for that large 
 class of students who have little time or taste for the 
 study of metaphysics. 
 
 The Third Part is that which commences the scientific 
 portion of the work ; it is occupied with the causes of 
 Life and Consciousness. Of late years science has de- 
 veloped the unity of the physical forces, and reduced 
 them to a general law of transference of force ; the cor- 
 relations of the physical and vital forces in this respect 
 have also been marked out. But no one has shown how 
 forces are transferred so as to attain the ends which are 
 observed to be attained by the operation of the vital 
 forces ; nor has any one attempted to throw a scientific 
 bridge across the impassable gulf which has hitherto ap- 
 peared to separate the phenomena of life and organisation 
 and of thought. Now, the Author has aimed to overcome 
 this difficulty by a new and very simple method, and 
 one perfectly available, as he believes, for all purposes 
 of inquiry. Looking at the two classes of phenomena, 
 and examining what they have in common, this prin- 
 ciple is deduced — viz., That whereas Mind designs, 
 Life is designed. Design, therefore, is common to 
 both ; but in the one there is a conscious energy of 
 design, in the other an unconscious. And this further 
 law of correlation is universally manifest — viz., That the
 
 PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 results of the vital forces, operative according to a law of 
 design, coincide with the various states of consciousness 
 known as desires, feelings, and the like. Hence a general 
 law of design, with its derivative laws, correlates both 
 the laws of life and of consciousness. 
 
 In the Third Part, the principles of Teleology, or Men- 
 tal Dynamics, are developed from this law of design, and 
 ideas are considered as causes not only of life and 
 thought, but of all the phenomena of creation. It is this 
 part of the work which will probably attract more critical 
 attention than others. The Author would therefore state 
 here, that the views therein developed are intended to 
 be wholly scientific. Mind is simply considered as an 
 ordering force in creation, to be examined according to 
 the usual method of scientific research ; that is to say, 
 as it is manifested in the sequences and co-existences 
 of phenomena. There is no discussion as to the nature 
 of soul, mind, or spirit, such as is found in psychological 
 works generally ; and thus the phenomena are examined 
 wholly apart from those philosophical and theological 
 speculations which are altogether foreign to science. In 
 introducing, therefore, so much of these speculations as 
 is to be found in this Part, the Author had solely in 
 view the restriction of the inquiry within its proper limits. 
 
 Having thus established a system of general principles, 
 the Author proceeds to apply them in succession to the 
 general laws of Life and Organisation, or Biology ; to 
 the development of a scientific Cerebral Psychology; 
 and to the first principles of a Mental Physiology and 
 Organology. By this method the reader is thus first led 
 up to the great general laws of all phenomena over which
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 mind, considered as an ordering force, dominates ; and 
 thence downwards, through the great laws of archetypal 
 development and physiological change, to the derivative, 
 special, and ever-varying phenomena of consciousness 
 and life. In examining the latter, the Author has more 
 fully developed that great law of unconscious functional 
 activity of the Drain as the organ of consciousness — which 
 he was the first to demonstrate.* Although it is a law 
 without which no physiological explanation of the pheno- 
 mena of consciousness is possihle, yet it is more especially 
 applicahle to the phenomena of latent consciousness. 
 
 The reader is led through a great variety of speculative 
 and scientific inquiries; hut in every stage the Author has 
 kept in view either the solution of practical questions, or 
 the suggestion of new methods of inquiry and of new prin- 
 ciples by which that solution may be reached. If the work, 
 embracing so wide a range of phenomena, appears too ex- 
 tended, the Author would explain that he has endeavoured 
 to condense it within the smallest possible compass ; and 
 to this end, in the evolution of great laws, he has rather 
 indicated their application to phenomena than illustrated 
 them. As, however, the reader descends more and more 
 from the general to the special, he will find the practical 
 illustrations more and more developed. But even here 
 with a view to the economy of space, the Author has 
 ventured to refer frequently to his published practical 
 papers, rather than to extend the work by details. For the 
 same reason he has avoided reference to numerous writers 
 on the subjects discussed, and selected only a few of many 
 leading names. Thus, in the department of metaphysics, 
 
 * See Appendix.
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 he has quoted principally from leaders of diverse though 
 not wholly conflicting schools — viz., Kant, Eeid, Hamil- 
 ton, Ferrier, Whewell, and J. S. Mill. 
 
 The entire scope of the work is to carry up the doctrine 
 of final causes, in a connected form, to its highest uses; 
 and to show that Mind is the final cause, as an ordering 
 force, of all the physical forces, and of all their derivative 
 manifestations in the phenomena of creation. Under the 
 guidance of this principle, that union of the two great de- 
 partments of human knowledge, hitherto so sedulously 
 kept apart, is attained. Thus, the work, it is hoped, may 
 serve to advance both ; for on the one hand, the pheno- 
 mena of Life and Organisation are brought into the do- 
 main of Philosophy ; on the other, the phenomena of 
 Thought are brought into the domain of Physiology. 
 The unifying principle, that mind is dominant over matter 
 and its forces, enables us to compare and generalize phe- 
 nomena hitherto considered wholly discordant, so as to 
 harmonise them, and thereby to break through that 
 eternal maze of contradictions, as to reason and instinct, 
 consciousness and unconsciousness, life and intelligence, 
 within which all philosophical inquiry has been so long 
 involved. By adding physiology to philosophy, we place 
 philosophy at the head of the inductive sciences, and at 
 the same time bring all the sciences of Life and Or- 
 ganisation into philosophical relation and unity. The 
 basis of this unity is Teleology, applied deductively and 
 inductively to all the phenomena which science investi- 
 gates. 
 
 Warned by the failure of all preceding attempts to 
 establish a new philosophical method, the Author does not
 
 Xvi PREFACE 
 
 venture to offer an opinion how far this effort is likely to be 
 acceptable. He may, however, be permitted to express a 
 hope that it will be considered at least a step onwards, 
 and that, by its aid, the practical results to which it has led 
 him may be largely added to by others. He cannot doubt 
 that the student of human nature, whether he be physi- 
 cian or metaphysician, will find much to interest him in 
 the generalisations which bring instinct and reason into 
 the same category ; and that the principles by which the 
 laws of Life and Development are brought into correlation 
 with tbe laws of Thought, will not fail to offer materials 
 for suggestive thought on fundamental questions of bio- 
 logy and palaeontology to the naturalist, physiologist, and 
 philosophical zoologist, although he may not be ready to 
 concede the validity of either the method or the doctrines. 
 The Author hopes, too, that the general laws of Life 
 and Thought which he has evolved will be found available 
 to a more scientific art of Medicine ; and, in particular, to 
 an explanation and elucidation of the nature and manage- 
 ment of the various morbid states generalised as mental 
 diseases, and of those not less irregular conditions of the 
 mental functions which have proved the source of so much 
 serious error as to the reciprocal relations of Body and 
 Mind. He reserves for some future occasion an exposi- 
 tion of the more special applications of his principles to 
 this and the other departments of Practical Medicine. 
 
 Rutland Street, Edinburgh, 
 Uth April 1860.
 
 CONTENTS OF YOL. I. 
 
 Part I.— PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION ON 
 METHOD. 
 
 Chapter I. — On the Necessary Connection of a Phy- 
 siology of the Brain with a Practical Science of 
 
 Mind. 
 
 Page 
 The Problem stated, ..... 1 
 A continuous Energy manifested in Life and Thought, . 2 
 Practical Study of the Nervous System necessary to de- 
 termine its Laws of Action, .... 3 
 Uses of Logic and Metaphysics in the study, . . 4 
 Its comparative ease, ..... 5 
 Necessity of Discipline and Preparation, . . 6 
 Peculiarity of the Subject-matter of Inquiry, . 7 
 Importance of the study of Comparative Psychology, 9 
 
 Chapter II. — On the Ends to be attained by a Science 
 of Mind founded on a Philosophical Physiology 
 of the Brain. 
 
 Includes the Correlations of Mental and Vital States, . 12 
 
 iEsthetical character of Philosophy, so-called, . . 13 
 
 Practical character of Mental Science, ... 15 
 
 Applications of Mental Science, — 
 
 To Mental Hygiene, . . . . .15 
 
 To Medical Art, . . . . .17 
 
 To Medical Science, ..... 19 
 
 To Success in all Professional Pursuits, . . 20 
 
 b
 
 XV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 Paga 
 
 Applications of Mental Science, — 
 
 To Sociological Psychology, .... 22 
 
 To Psychology of Public Hygiene, ... 23 
 
 To Psychology of Climatology and Ethnology, . 24 
 
 To Medical Topography, .... 25 
 
 Dependence of Social Progress on Mental Science, . 25 
 Psychological Relations of Agriculture, ... 27 
 Connection of National Mental Vigour with healthy Phy- 
 sical Conditions, ..... 29 
 
 The Fine Arts in relation to vigorous National Life and 
 
 sound Morals, . . . . . .31 
 
 The relations of Mental Science to a complete Philosophy, 32 
 
 Chapter III. — On the Obstacles to the Development 
 of a Practical Science of Mind arising out of the 
 Adoption of Erroneous Principles and Imperfect 
 Methods. 
 
 The Chaotic state of Mental Philosophy shown — Fraser, 
 
 Kant, Reid, Ferrier, Mill, .... 34 
 
 The Causes thereof stated generally, ... 37 
 
 \ 1. Separation of Philosophy and Physiology from each other, 
 and from Observation and Experience. 
 
 Conflicting theories of Life and Mind resulting from the 
 
 Dogmas of the Vitalists, .... 42 
 
 Reaction against Vitalism — Stahl, Cahanis, Gall and 
 
 Spurzheim, ...... 44 
 
 Rise of a New School of Philosophy in Britain — J. S. Mill, 
 
 J. D. Morell, H. Spencer, A. Bain, ... 46 
 
 \ 2. Avowed neglect of Observation and Induction, in deter- 
 mining the relations of Body and Mind. 
 
 Insufficiency of the Method of Meditation and Reflection, 49 
 
 Results of the neglect of Experience— Kant, Reid, Ferrier, 51 
 
 Cause of this in an erroneous Datum of Consciousness, 52 
 Antagonism of Philosophical dogmas to the Laws and to 
 
 the Common-sense of Mankind, ... 54
 
 CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 Page 
 § 3. The Defects and Ambiguities of Philosophical Terms. 
 
 Illustrations from Reid, Locke, Hamilton, Ferrier, . 55 
 
 Causes of the Ambiguities, .... 67 
 
 Observed also in Physiology and Zoology, . . 67 
 
 Bad Eesults, in leading to Imperfect Systems of Philosophy, 58 
 
 And in the embroilment of Speculation, . . 60 
 
 Chapter IV. — Tiie Subject continued. Restrictions on 
 the Progress of Mental Science from the Preju- 
 dices of Mankind and the Dogmas of Speculative 
 Metaphysics and Theology. 
 
 2 1. Erroneous Fundamental Dogmas of the Spiritualists and 
 
 Vitalists. 
 Prejudice that the Laws of Thought are in no relation to 
 
 the Laws of Life and Organisation, ... 63 
 
 The Asiatic character of European Metaphysics thence 
 
 arising, ....... 65 
 
 Analogy between the Fundamental Error of the Cartesian 
 
 and the Ptolemaic Philosophy, .... 66 
 
 \ 2. Prejudices that have arisen from the Limitation of Specula- 
 tive Philosophy to the Phenomena of Human Consciousness. 
 
 Feeling and Sensation logically denied to Lower Animals 
 
 by Descartes, ...... 68 
 
 Illogical rejection of the study of Comparative Psycho- 
 logy by Reid, ...... 69 
 
 Acknowledged Identity of Human and Animal Instincts 
 
 — Hamilton, Mill, Agassiz, .... 71 
 
 Injurious effect of the Cartesian Philosophy on Natural 
 
 History and Zoology, ..... 73 
 
 \ 3. Influence of Prejudices created by the Dogmas of 
 Speculative Theology. 
 Ecclesiastical Philosophy not an inquisitio veri but only a 
 
 confirmatio veri, ...... 75 
 
 Necessary Antagonism of this Philosophy to Scientific 
 
 Research, ...... 76
 
 XX CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Prejudices of Speculative Theology as to the Nature of the 
 
 Soul, ....... 77 
 
 Active opposition to the progress of a Practical Science of 
 
 Mind thence arising, ..... 78 
 
 Is a cause of Scepticism in Philosophy, . . 79 
 
 A true Philosophy not Sceptical, ... 80 
 
 \ 4. Prejudices arising from the Apparent Antagonism of 
 Mental Science to Revealed Truth. 
 
 The general question stated — Dr Whewell's views, . 82 
 
 Prohable identity of Scientific and Revealed Truth, . 83 
 
 True Science eminently Religious — The Prince Consort, 
 
 Dr Whewell, Galen, 84 
 
 Chapter V. — On a Proposed Method for the Develop- 
 ment of a Practical System of Mental Science. 
 
 § 1. On the Generalisations to be derived from the Common-sense 
 and Experience of Mankind, as to the Fundamental Principles 
 * of a Practical Science of Mind. 
 
 Intimate connection of all departments of Knowledge, . 87 
 Philosophy is the nexus of all Knowledge, . . 88 
 Experience the Criterion of a right method of Research, . 89 
 On the Method of detecting the Generalisations of Ex- 
 perience, . . . . 92 
 From Language — Ferrier, Hamilton, Mill, . . 92 
 From Laws of Society — Mill and Ferrier, . . 95 
 From the conduct of individuals, ... 96 
 By the eliminations of Error, ... 97 
 Speculative propositions useless — Doctrine of Ghosts, 98 
 Experience the only solid foundation of a Practical 
 
 Science of Mind, ..... 101 
 
 § 2. The Method of Determining the First Principles of a 
 Science of Mind by Observation and Induction. 
 
 The Generalisations of Experience as contained in General 
 
 Terms, ....... 101 
 
 The Correlations of Forces as Agents to Ends, . . 103 
 
 Application of Teleology to Research, . . . 104
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Teleological Method a Rational Method, 
 Especially as applied to Life and Organisation, . 
 Objections considered, .... 
 Teleology as Mental Dynamics, 
 
 § 3. Summary of the Method of Procedure. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Page 
 106 
 
 107 
 109 
 112 
 
 Part II.— METAPHYSICS. 
 
 Division I.— GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Chapter I. — Matter and Mind. 
 
 First Experience of Consciousness, . . . 117 
 
 Nature of Matter and Mind, . . . .118 
 
 Metaphorical terms used to designate Mind, . . 120 
 
 The most ancient doctrine Materialistic, . . . 121 
 
 Modern Psychological Theories of the Nature of Mind, . 122 
 Modern Dynamical Theories, .... 123 
 
 Chapter II. — Consciousness as Existence. 
 
 Ideas included in the term Body, .... 125 
 Ideas included in the term Life, .... 126 
 Speculations as to the Cause of Life, . . .127 
 
 Modern Physiological Theories, .... 128 
 Consciousness and Existence cannot be separated as to 
 
 Causation, . . . . . .130 
 
 Division II.— EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 Chapter III. — General Doctrine of Consciousness. 
 
 \ 1. Consciousness as the Ego. 
 The Ego depends on the Correlation of Life and Mind, . 
 And is the result of Experience of Existence, 
 
 § 2. Consciousness as Feelings and Sensations. 
 The Feelings indicate States of Existence, 
 
 1S3 
 135 
 
 136
 
 XX11 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Sensation and Feeling synonymous, . . .137 
 
 Sensations and Sensibility as Causes, . . . 139 
 
 The terms Feeling and Sensation applied to special states 
 
 of Consciousness, ..... 139 
 
 Consciousness denned, ..... 140 
 
 § 3. Consciousness as Knowledge — Cognitional Consciousness. 
 
 As an Intuitive Knowledge of Existence, . . 141 
 
 As Intuitive Beliefs, ..... 141 
 
 As identified with Attention, . . . 143 
 
 As identified with Memory and Recollection, . 144 
 
 Chapter IV. — Consciousness as Thought and Will. 
 
 § 1. Successional Consciousness as Thought. 
 
 Identity of necessary modes of Thought and Existence, 146 
 Involuntary and necessary character of Successional Con- 
 sciousness, ...... 147 
 
 Necessary Relation of Trains of Thought to States of Body, 149 
 Necessary Dependence of Memory on States of Body, . 149 
 Is expressed in the metaphorical language of Metaphy- 
 sicians, ....... 150 
 
 Can Consciousness be occupied with more objects than one 
 
 at the same moment? . . . . .153 
 
 Rapidity of Vital Sequences and of Thoughts correlative, 155 
 
 § 2. Consciousness as Will, or Volitional Consciousness. 
 
 Meaning of the term Faculty, .... 155 
 
 Relation of Desire to Will, .... 156 
 
 Necessary Connection of the Will with the Vital Forces, . 157 
 
 To what extent the Will is free, .... 158 
 
 Division III.— ONTOLOGY. 
 
 Chapter V. — Unconscious Existence. 
 
 The Narrow Limits of the Corporeal Sphere of Consciousness, 159 
 Influence of this on Speculation, . . . 160
 
 CONTENTS. XX111 
 
 Page 
 Necessary Connection of Conscious Existence with 
 
 Corporeal States, . . . . .161 
 
 Consciousness, therefore, not synonymous with Soul, 162 
 Injurious influences of the contrary doctrine, . 163 
 Mind as distinguished in Existence from Body, . 164 
 Mind cannot be conceived as acting apart from Matter, 165 
 Philosophy contradictory to its own dogma of inde- 
 pendent Mental Action, .... 166 
 
 The question of Continuous Conscious Existence dis- 
 cussed — Locke, Cudworth, Tucker, Hamilton, . 167 
 Whether there are Indifferent Sensations — Reid, 
 
 Hamilton, ..... 171 
 
 Ordinary Language expresses the various States of Exist- 
 ence, ....... 172 
 
 Correlation of unconscious Mental and Cerebral Action, . 173 
 
 Chapter VI. — On Latent Consciousness. 
 
 First degree of Hamilton's Mental Latency as Memory, 174 
 Second degree of Mental Latency as unknown Knowledge, 175 
 Third degree of Mental Latency as unconscious Percep- 
 tions, ....... 176 
 
 Objections to the doctrine of Latent Consciousness met, 177 
 
 Explanations of Ideas that do not rise into Consciousness, 179 
 Leibnitz's doctrine as to Latent Consciousness not known 
 
 to British Psychologists, .... 180 
 
 Reception of the doctrine of Latent Consciousness in 
 
 France and Germany, ..... 183 
 
 Latent Consciousness correlative with unconscious Vital 
 
 sequences as Cerebral Action, . . . .184 
 
 Wide scope of Leibnitz's Philosophical Inquiries, . 185 
 
 Chapter VII. — Instinctive Existence. 
 
 § 1. The Conclusions of Experience. 
 
 General behaviour of Man towards Lower Animals, . 187 
 
 Recognised Analogies between'Instinctive and Vital Processes, 189 
 The term Nature as used synonymously with Instinct, . 190
 
 XXiv CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 § 2. The Conclusions of Philosophy. 
 
 Instinct attributed to the Direct Action of the Deity, . 191 
 Instinctive character of all Rental operations universally 
 
 acknowledged, . • • • .191 
 
 The process of Inductive Reasoning is itself Instinctive — 
 
 Hale, Kant, J. S. Mill, . . . .193 
 
 The Generalisations included under Instinct and Reason, 195 
 A Spiritual Energy the common Cause of both, . 197 
 
 Chapter VIII.— Speculative Ontology. 
 
 § 1 . The General Relations of Life to Consciousness considered as 
 Universal and Particular. 
 Endless Polemics as to the Nature of Existence, . 198 
 
 Their origin in a false Fundamental Postulate, that Mind 
 
 and Consciousness are the same, 
 
 Illustrations of the Results of this Error, 
 Advantage of using the term Ego as significant of Mind 
 
 in the abstract — Ferrier, 
 Mind as the Ego and the Will— Hegel, Schelling, 
 Mind in the abstract as Force : the Physio-Philosophers, 
 Consciousness is not Being, but only a state of Being, 
 The "concrete Ego" due to the coincidence of Conscient 
 
 States with Vital States of Being, 
 
 199 
 
 200 
 
 201 
 203 
 204 
 205 
 
 205 
 
 § 2. The Relative and Correlative in Existence. 
 Mind and Matter in Correlation necessary to Existence, . 206 
 The inquiry into the Laws of that Correlation by Meta- 
 physicians and Psychologists, . . • 207 
 The Doctrine of Relation the foundation of all Knowledge, 208 
 Nothing known out of Relation, .... 209 
 First act of Self-Consciousness a Cognition of the Rela- 
 tive and the Correlative, .... 210 
 Origin of the Polemic as to Universals and Particulars, . 211 
 Vices of Philosophical Method are Fundamental, . 213 
 Defective Teleology of Plato, . . . .214 
 Teleological Unity of all Cognitions of Existence— Kant, 216
 
 CONTENTS. XXV 
 
 Part III.— MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. 
 
 Pago 
 
 Principles and Method of Mental Dynamics, . . 217 
 
 Division I.— THE COKRELATIONS OF CAUSES, 
 OR FIRST PRINCIPLES OF ETIOLOGY. 
 
 Chapter I. — General Doctrine of the Correlations 
 
 of Causes. 
 
 A Law denned, and its necessary character shown, . 219 
 
 Correlative in this sense with Force, . . . 220 
 Science a Knowledge of the Laws of Operation of Uni- 
 versal and Derivative Forces, . . . .221 
 
 Consequent Unity of Science, .... 221 
 
 Definitions of Life — Stahl, Cuvier, Bichat, Lamarck, . 223 
 
 Antagonism of Vital and Mechanical Forces, . . 224 
 
 Mind as the Universal in our Cognitions of Force, . 225 
 
 Chapter II. — The Correlations of the Physical 
 Forces. 
 Recent Researches, ..... 228 
 
 Ancient Doctrines and Modern Speculations, . . 229 
 
 Correlations of Heat and Motion, . . . 230 
 
 Researches of Rumford and Davy, . . . 231 
 
 Correlations of Heat and the Mechanico-Chemical Forces, 234 
 Experimental Researches into the Unity of the Physical 
 
 Forces by Joule, Mayer, Grove, &c, . . . 235 
 
 Mathematical Researches — Carnot, Clausius, Regnault, 
 
 Thompson, Chapeyron, Rankine, Maxwell, . . 237 
 
 Philosophical Researches — Newton, Boscovitch, Poisson, 
 
 Exley, Hickok, Macvicar, Challis, Faraday, . . 239 
 
 General Results of the Researches, . . . 244 
 
 Chapter III. — Correlations of the Physical and 
 Vital Forces. 
 
 Early Speculations, ..... 248
 
 XXVI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Modern Doctrines — Whewell, Grove, Mayer, Fowler, Car- 
 penter, ....... 
 
 Teleological Defects of certain Doctrines, 
 Their Teleological Philosophy that of Plato, 
 
 Page 
 
 249 
 251 
 253 
 
 Chapter IV. — Correlations of the Physical, 
 Vital, and Mental Forces. 
 
 Is a Law of Design operative in Creation ? . . 255 
 
 Affirmed by the Experience of Mankind, . . 255 
 
 Included in Words signifying Mind, . . 257 
 
 Recognised as the Basis of Theological Speculation, 258 
 Inferred from Astronomical Phenomena — La Place, 
 
 Brougham, ..... 260 
 
 Also from Geological Phenomena, . . . 2G1 
 
 And from Palaeontology, .... 261 
 
 From our Intuitions as to Stability and Chance, . 263 
 
 Mind defined, ..... 265 
 
 Chapter V. — General Formulae of the Correla- 
 tions of Life and Consciousness. 
 
 The Author's Early Views, .... 
 
 269 
 
 Chapter VI. — Ideas as Causes. 
 
 § 1 . General Doctrines of Ideas as Causes. 
 
 Method of Inquiry is necessarily Teleological, 
 Mind the necessary Antecedent to Phenomena, . 
 Ideas can only be considered as Causes correlatively, 
 What is implied in the idea of Cause, 
 Palaetiology as applied to Causal Ideas, 
 All Causes necessarily derivative of a First Cause, 
 
 270 
 272 
 
 274 
 275 
 275 
 277 
 
 \ 2. On the Modes of Derivative Evolution of Ideas considered 
 
 as Causes. 
 Derivative character of all Forces, . . . 278 
 
 Evolution of Ideas in Creation from the General to the 
 
 Particular, . . . . . . 279
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 xxvn 
 
 Page 
 
 Illustration in Organic Development, . . . 280 
 Evolution of an Archetypal Idea in the Moral World, . 281 
 Speculations as to the Extent of such Derivative Evolu- 
 tions ... 282 
 
 § 3. Classification of Ideas as Causes. 
 Nature and Origin of Teleiotic Ideas, 
 
 285 
 
 Chapter VII. — Intuitive Ideas and Necessary Truths 
 
 CONSIDERED AS MOTIVES TO ACTION. 
 
 Definition of Intuitive Ideas and Necessary Truths, . 287 
 Distinction between General and Derivative Truths, . 289 
 And between d priori Truths and Truths of Expe- 
 rience, ...... 290 
 
 Origin of our Idea of Number in Experience, . . 290 
 
 Experience of Mankind as to Nature of Intuitions, . 292 
 
 What must be distinguished in Intuition, . . 293 
 
 Intuitions of Truth in the Abstract, and of Moral Truth, 294 
 
 Views of Hobbes and Locke, Kant, Reid, Whewell, . 295 
 
 Necessary Truths fully recognised, . . . 296 
 
 Necessary character of False Belief explained, . . 297 
 
 What is Physiologically necessary in Cognition, . . 298 
 
 Law of Evolution of Noetic Ideas as Causes, . . 299 
 
 Method of determining the Laws of Reason, . . 300 
 
 The Laws of Reason the Laws of Succession of Phenomena, 301 
 
 Chapter VIII. — Mind considered as the First Cause. 
 
 The Supreme Designer the First Cause, . . . 304 
 
 The Biblical Doctrine of the Godlikeness of Man, . 305 
 
 The Archetypal Idea of Man, .... 305 
 
 An Intuition of a Deity as a Designer fundamental, . 306 
 
 The Preaching of St Paul at Athens Platonic, . . 307 
 
 Ancient Doctrines as to the Relationship of Man to God, 308 
 
 Causes of Polemics as to the First Cause, . . 309 
 
 The " Plastic Nature" of Cudworth means a Law of Design, 310 
 
 Nature also another word for a Law of Design, . . 312 
 
 Ideas implied in the word t\Ki;, .... 313
 
 XXV111 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 How Pantheism arises as an erroneous conclusion, 
 Speculations of Oriental Theology, 
 The Doctrine of the Divine Personality an intuition, 
 Correlations of Theology and Science as to the First Cause, 
 
 Science is Religion, 
 
 Page 
 314 
 314 
 315 
 316 
 319 
 
 Division II.— BIOLOGY. 
 
 Order of procedure, 
 
 320 
 
 Chapter IX. — The Fundamental Conditions of 
 Existence considered Teleologically. 
 
 Cause, Matter, Space, Time, Change, as Conditions, . 322 
 
 The Atomic Hypothesis of Matter, . . . 323 
 
 All Hypotheses founded on the Ideas of Cause and Matter, 324 
 
 Permanence and Incessant Change as Conditions, . 326 
 
 Limitation of the Conditions to Finite Existence, . 327 
 
 What is meant by Creation, .... 328 
 
 The Fundamental Ideas of the Mosaic Cosmogony, . 330 
 
 The Idea of Incessant Cyclical Changes applied to the 
 
 Kosmos, ...... 331 
 
 General conclusions, ..... 331 
 
 Chapter X. — Laws of Permanence with Incessant 
 Change in Organisms. 
 
 § 1. The General Doctrine. 
 
 Two Modes of Manifestation of Vital Changes, . . 333 
 
 Prescience as a Relation of Time to Vital Changes, . 334 
 
 Permanence as Stability, ..... 335 
 
 Primary Law of the Vital Forces, . . . 336 
 
 Law of Chronometric Changes, .... 337 
 
 The Author's Researches, .... 338 
 
 § 2. The Laws of Cyclical Changes. 
 
 As manifested in Organic Phenomena, . . . 339 
 
 As manifested in Cosmic Phenomena, . . . 340 
 
 Ancient Doctrines of Cyclical Changes, . . . 341
 
 CONTENTS. XXIX 
 
 Chapter XI. — Fundamental Principles of Morphology, 
 or the Laws of Existence in Relation to Space. 
 
 Page 
 
 § 1. General Doctrines of the Forms of Things. 
 
 The Form and Limits of a thing due to the action of its 
 
 Forces, ....... 344 
 
 Forms are Absolute and Relative, . . . 345 
 
 Limits of a thing considered as its Isodynamic boundaries. 346 
 
 Form due to Co-existent Phenomena, . . . 347 
 
 Lawof Evolution of Form from the Simple to the Complex, 348 
 
 Genera and Species in the Forms of Crystals, . . 349 
 
 \ 2. General Laws of Absolute or Permanent Forms. 
 
 Organisms have no Absolute Permanence of Form, . 349 
 
 TheArchetypal or Relatively Absolute Form of Organisms, 350 
 
 Unity as the Cause of the Sphere, . . . 351 
 
 Duality as the Cause of the Elliptical Spheroid, . . 351 
 
 Plurality and Totality as the Cause of Complex Forms, . 352 
 
 Geometrical Theories of the Beautiful — Hay, Macvicar, . 352 
 
 Laws of Animal Symmetry, .... 353 
 
 § 3. General Laws of Contingent or Variable Forms 
 
 of Organisms. 
 
 Fundamental Laws of Variation, .... 356 
 
 Theory of the Action of External Forces — Hinton, H. 
 
 Spencer, ...... 358 
 
 Law of Adaptation applied to Form — Lamarck, Darwin, 
 
 Sedgwick, Powell, ..... 361 
 
 Law of Hereditary Transmission, . . . 365 
 
 Chapter XII. — The Law of Evolutional Develop- 
 ment of Archetypal Forms. 
 An Archetypal Idea analogous to a General Proposition — 
 
 Agassiz, ...... 367 
 
 Law of Prescient or Prophetic Types, . . . 369 
 
 The Laws of Absolute and Derivative Development — 
 
 Quatrefages, . . . . . 370
 
 XXX 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Identity of the Modern and Platonic Doctrines, . 
 
 And of the principles of Aristotle's Logic and Zoolo 
 gical Classification, 
 Antiquity of the Evolutional Theory — the Eleatics and 
 
 Stoics, ...... 
 
 Primary meaning of the terms Phusis and Physiologoi, 
 The Doctrines of Parmenides an Evolution-Theory, 
 The " Numbers" of Pythagoras were Causal Ideas, 
 Modern Evolution-Theories of Life — Wolff, Goethe, Vicq 
 
 d'Azyr, St Hilaire, .... 
 
 Theories of Von Baer and M. Edwards, . 
 
 Page 
 372 
 
 373 
 
 374 
 375 
 376 
 378 
 
 379 
 
 380 
 
 Chapter XIII. — Fundamental Laws of Vital Action. 
 
 § 1. Fundamental Ideas as Vital Energies. 
 
 Meaning of the term Energy, .... 382 
 
 The Idea of Unity as the Fundamental Vital Law and 
 
 Energy, ...... 383 
 
 Meaning of the term Organised — "Whewell, . . 384 
 
 Metaphysical Doctrine of Kant, .... 385 
 
 The Law of Unity the Law of Creation, . . . 386 
 
 The Law and Idea of Duality, .... 387 
 
 Duality the Correlative of Polarity and Relativity, . 388 
 
 The Law of Variety and of the Many, . . . 388 
 
 g 2. Physiological Correlations of the Fundamental Ideas 
 of Vital Action. 
 
 The Law of Dichotomy and Differentiation as a Mode of 
 
 Vital Energy, ...... 390 
 
 The Law of Integration, ..... 391 
 
 Dichotomy and Integration as Fundamental Laws of 
 
 Thought, 391 
 
 And as Sociological Laws — H. Spencer, M. Edwards, . 393 
 
 Correlative Ideas of Chemical Union and Affinity, . 394 
 The Laws of Vital Affinity, . . . .395 
 
 The Law of Repetition, or Serial Dichotomy, . . 397 
 
 The Idea and Law of Perfection, .... 397
 
 CONTENTS. XXXI 
 
 Page 
 
 Perfection correlative with Infinity and Variety, in Unity, 398 
 
 The Antithetic Law of Imperfection, . . . 398 
 
 Law of Development of Monstrosities and Disease, . 399 
 
 Consonance of the Ideas of Perfection and Imperfection, 399 
 
 Progressive Perfection the Grand Idea of Creation, . 401 
 
 The Teleological Method provides for Evil, . . 402 
 
 Necessary Limits of Cognition as to Perfection, . . 403 
 The Moral Relations of our Intuitions and Desires for 
 
 Perfection, ...... 403
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK. 
 
 The figures i. ii. refer to volumes i. and ii. 
 
 Abernethy, i. 43. 
 
 Ackermann, ii. 386. 
 
 Adams, Dr, ii. 307. 
 
 Agassiz, M., i. 58, 73, 174, 262, 
 
 317, 356, 368; ii. 50, 180. 
 Alison, i. 44 ; ii. 20. 
 Allman, Prof., ii. 147, 247, 369. 
 Ampere, M., ii. 387. 
 Anaxagoras, i. 329 ; ii. 128. 
 Aratus, i. 308. 
 Aristotle, i. 128, 248, 374, 379, 
 
 397; ii. 128, 156, 178. 383. 
 Audouin, M., ii. 381, 383. 
 Augustine, St, ii. 128. 
 Austin, Mr, ii. 318. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, i. 110. 
 
 Baillarger, M., ii. 359. 
 
 Bain, Mr, i. 46. 
 
 Baer, Von, i. 379. 
 
 Beck, Dr, ii. 386. 
 
 Bedder, M., ii. 346. 
 
 Beddoes, Dr, i. 232. ■ 
 
 Beecher, H. "W., ii. 99. 
 
 Bell, Sir Charles, ii. 389, 429. 
 
 Bernard, Prof. C, i. 171, 248; 
 
 ii. 226, 393, 398, sqq. 
 Berthollet, i. 244. 
 Bichat, i 223 ; ii. 386. 
 Bishop, Mr, ii. 334. 
 Bizot, ii. 315. 
 
 Blainville, i. 379; ii. 129, 178. 
 Blair, Dr, ii. 276. 
 Blumenbach. ii. 386. 
 Bojanus, i. 379. 
 
 Bonnet, Charles, i. 153; ii.5. 1 78. 
 Boscovitch, i. 239, 245, 388. 
 Bouillaud, M.. ii. 315. 
 Bowman, Mr, ii. 336. 
 Braid, Mr, ii. 328. 
 Brewster, Sir David, i. 349. 
 Brocca, Dr, ii. 396. 
 Brodie, Sir B. C, i. 18. 
 Brougham, Lord, i. 260. 
 Brown, Dr, i. 137. 
 Brown, Dr Samuel, i. 245 ; ii. 85. 
 Brown-Sequard, Dr, ii. 390, 393, 
 
 399, 400, 435, 443. 
 Briicke, Dr, i. 244. 
 Buchanan, Rev. Jas., i. 316. 
 Buckle, Mr, i. 24. 
 Budge, M. ii. 398, 411,456. 
 Burdach, ii. 433. 
 
 Cabanis, i. 44. 
 
 Carlisle, i. 234. 
 
 Carnot, i. 237. 
 
 Carpenter, Dr, i. 43, 250, 252, 
 
 380; ii. 20, 169, 172, 209. 
 Cams, ii. 387. 
 Cat, Le, ii. 322. 
 Challis, Prof., i. 242. 
 Chapevron, i. 239. 
 Chossat, ii. 398. 
 Christison, Prof., ii. 223. 
 Cicero, i. 307, 311, 343, 351. 
 Clarke, Dr Adam, i. 330. 
 Clarke, Mr J. Lockhart, ii. 346, 
 
 352, 385,413.416, 427. 
 Clausius, i. 239.
 
 XX XIV 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Colebrook, i. 115. 
 Collier, Dr, i. 128. 
 Coleridge, Hartley, ii. 106. 
 Combe, Mr George, ii. 79, 158. 
 
 170, 290, 457. 
 Condillac, i. 183. 
 Consort, H. R. H. the Prince, 
 
 i. 84. 
 Cousin, M., i. 141, 293, 301, 389. 
 Cudworth, i. 167, 259, 302, 305, 
 
 316, 323, 376. 
 Cullimore, Mr, ii. 342. 
 Cuvier, i. 223, 351, 379 ; ii. 129, 
 
 386. 
 
 Darwin, Mr, i. 365. 403 ; ii. 183. 
 Daubeny, Dr, ii. 275. 
 Davy, Sir H., i., 232, 234, 237. 
 Deen, Van, ii. 391. 
 Descartes, i. 67, 163, 259, 309. 
 Dolce, Ludovico, ii. 158. 
 Draper, Mr, ii. 275. 
 Duges, M., i. 354 ; ii. 244, 387, 433. 
 Duncan, Dr, jun., ii. 313. 
 Dutrochet, M., ii. 220. 
 Duval, M., ii. 244. 
 Duvernoy, M., ii. 346. 
 
 Edwards, M. Milne, i. 380, 393; 
 
 ii. 275, 381. 
 Epictetus, i. 319. 
 Kxley, Mr, i. 240, 245. 
 
 Falret, M., ii. 315. 
 Faraday, Prof., i. 235, 243, 388. 
 Ferguson, Mr, i. 312. 
 Ferrier. Prof., i. 49, 52. 75. 80, 
 92, 95, 122, 131, 163, 199, sqq. 
 Flourens, M., ii. 388, 441. 
 Forbes, Sir J., ii. 315. 
 Forbes, Prof. J. D., ii. 230. 
 Forbes, Prof. E., ii. 259. 
 Fowler, Dr, i. 250. 
 Fraser, Prof., i. 34, 36. 
 
 Gall, ii. 164, 168, 386. 
 Gardner, ii. 275. 
 Gerlach, ii. 345. 353. 
 Goethe.i .379,381 ; ii. 243, 13] 
 
 Goodsir, Prof., ii. 112. 
 Grandidier, Dr L., ii. 315. 
 Granville, Dr, ii. 313. 
 Gratiolet, M., ii. 333, 438, 459. 
 Grew, Dr, i. 259. 
 Grove, Mr, i. 237, 249. 
 Gubler, M., ii. 322, 405. 
 Guislain, Prof., ii. 272. 
 
 Hale, Sir Matthew, i. 193. 
 
 Hall, Dr M., ii. 387. 
 
 Haller, ii. 5, 166. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, i. 1, 19, 
 45, 50, 76, 93, 118, 123, 131, 
 141, 153, 159, 166, 172, 176, 
 180, sgq.; ii. 47, 127,316. 
 
 Harvey, i. 230. 
 
 Hay, Mr D. R., i. 352 ; ii. 115. 
 
 Helmhotz, Professor, i. 243 ; ii. 
 324. 
 
 Hilaire, Geoffrey St, i. 379, 399. 
 
 Hilaire, Isidore St, i. 224. 
 
 Hinton, Mr J., i. 358 ; ii. 232. 
 
 Hippocrates, i. 24 ; ii. 306. 
 
 Hobbes, i. 13, 295. 
 
 Hodgson, Dr, ii. 315. 
 
 Holland, Sir H., i. 140 ; ii. 80, 
 86, 170. 
 
 Hooke, ii. 5. 
 
 Horace, i. l6, 175, 292. 
 
 Horner, i. 256. 
 
 Humboldt, ii. 276. 
 
 Hunter, John, i. 379 ; ii. 232. 
 
 Huxley, Professor, i. 362, 380; 
 ii. 147. 
 
 Jacobi, M., i. 176. 
 
 Jacobson, ii. 389. 
 
 .lenner, ii. 232. 
 
 Jehyns, Soame, i. 400; ii. 178. 
 
 Joule, Mr, i. 235, 238. 
 
 Jussieu, M. Adrien, ii. 394. 
 
 Kant. i. 4. 34, 37. 51, 111. 193, 
 273. 372. 384 ; ii. 43, 109, 128. 
 
 Kingsley, Mr, ii. 320. 
 
 Kolk, Prof. Van der, ii. 347, 351, 
 353, 391, 403, 405, 407, 422, 
 130, sqq.
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Kolliker, ii. 345, 350. 
 Kramer, ii. 313. 
 Krimer, ii. 398. 
 
 Lamarck, i. 223, 379. 
 
 Latham, Dr, ii. 208, 259. 
 
 Laplace, i. 244. 
 
 Laurie, Simon, i. 93. 
 
 Lavater, ii. 1G6. 
 
 Lavoisier, M., i. 233. 
 
 Le Conte, Prof. Joseph, i. 250. 
 
 Lee, Dr Robert, ii. 385. 
 
 Leibnitz, i. 185 ; ii. 128, 178. 
 
 Leuchart, ii. 208, 257. 
 
 Leuret, ii. 387. 
 
 Lewes, Mr G. H., i. 44, 198, 
 
 380 ; ii. 9. 
 Leydig, ii. 343, 347. 
 Liebig, Von, i. 28, 374, 379, 
 
 397 ; ii. 222, 275. 
 Lister, Mr, ii. 346. 
 Locke, i. 167, 253, 295. 
 Longet, M., ii. 398. 
 
 Macaire, M., ii. 220. 
 Mackintosh, Sir J., i. 61. 
 Maclise, Mr, i. 365, 367 ; ii. 421. 
 Macvicar, Rev. Dr, i. 241, 346, 
 
 353, 388. 
 M'Cosh, ii. 119. 
 Magendie, ii. 391, 393. 
 Magnus, Albertus, ii. 156. 
 Marx, Professor, i. 185. 
 Matteucci, i. 248. 
 Maxwell, Professor J. C, i. 239. 
 Mayer, M., i. 235, 249. 
 Mayo, H., ii. 391. 
 Meckel, i. 379 ; ii. 313, 386. 
 Meissner, H., i. 206, 347, 356. 
 Mellini, M., i. 230. 
 Mill, Mr, i. 137, 147. 
 Mill, J. S., i. 22, 36, 46, 48, 63. 
 
 72, 90, 94, 105, 136, 193, 222, 
 
 290, 314; ii. 51,109. 
 Milton, i. 317. 
 Mobs, i. 349. 
 Moleschott, M., ii. 275. 
 Montagnana, Petrus, ii. 156. 
 Moore, Thomas, ii. 52, 73, 100. 
 
 Moquin-Tandon, i. 355 ; ii. 25, 
 
 244. 
 Morel, M., ii. 74. 
 Morell, Mr J. D., i. 44, 129 ; ii. 47. 
 Morren, ii. 275. 
 Miiller, Johannes, i. 383 ; ii. 387, 
 
 415. 
 Miiller, J. C, ii. 347. 
 Miiller, Professor Max, i. 118, 
 
 121, 229,314, 383; ii. 132. 
 Murray, Mr, ii. 53. 
 
 Newport, Mr, ii. 381. 
 Newton, Sir I., i. 239, 257. 
 Nicholson, i. 234. 
 Nunneley, Mr, ii. 322. 
 Oersted, i. 204, 235. 
 Oken, i. 291, 379, 380; ii. 339. 
 Owen, Prof., i. 367, 370, 380 ; ii 
 180, 254, 314, 338, 344. 
 
 Paget, Mr, i. 337. 
 
 Paul, St., i. 307 ; ii. 198. 
 
 Paulus iEgineta, ii. 307. 
 
 Philip, Wilson, ii. 398. 
 
 Pinel, ii. 433. 
 
 Planer, Dr, ii. 357. 
 
 Plato, i. 294, 302, 309, 372; ii. 
 
 128. 
 Playfair, Dr Lyon, ii. 299. 
 Poisson, M., i. 240. 
 Pope, ii. 36, 178. 
 Powell, Rev. Professor B., i. 230, 
 
 364 ; ii. 129. 
 Prochaska, ii. 20, 26, 163, 169. 
 
 Quatrefages, M. de, i. 394 ; ii. 
 
 217, 254, 334, 371. 
 Quekett, Mr, i. 352. 
 Quetelet, M., ii. 313. 
 
 Racine, M., i. 69. 
 
 Rankine, Prof., i. 237. 
 
 Ransom, Dr, ii., 208. 
 
 Raymond, M. Dubois, i. 248. 
 
 Regnault. M., i. 237. 
 
 Reid, Dr, i. 34, 40, 49. 59, 70, 
 
 72, 79, 131, 167, 189, 312; ii. 
 
 12, 46, 56, 87.
 
 XXXVI 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Reid, Prof. J., ii. 415, 430. 
 Reil, ii. 386. 
 Reraak. ii. 148, 350. 
 Robert-Houdin, M., ii. 321 
 Rolando, ii. 359. 
 Romberg, ii. 391. 
 Rumford, Count, i. 231, 237. 
 Ruskin, Mr, i. 31, 348; ii. 118, 
 321. 
 
 Sanderson, J. B., ii. 107. 
 
 Scarpa, ii. 386. 
 
 Schelling, i. 203. 
 
 Schiff, ii. 390, 393. 
 
 Schuyl. Florentii. i. 68. 
 
 Sedgwick, Prof., i. 361. 
 
 Seneca, i., 311, 324. 
 
 Serres, M., ii. 380, 387, 391, 405, 
 
 452. 
 Sbakespeare, i. 283. 
 Sharpev, Dr, ii. 386. 
 Siebold, Von, ii. 259. 
 Socrates, i. 309. 
 Sbmmering. ii. 313. 
 Solly, Mr, ii. 142, 429, 433, 438, 
 
 sqq. 
 Spencer, Mr H., i. 44, 209, 359, 
 
 393; ii. 10,170, 178. 
 Spurzheim, Dr, ii. 79, 164. 
 Stabl, i. 128,223; ii. 167. 
 Stannius, ii. 349. 
 Stewart, D., i. 59, 147, 180, 192, 
 
 258 31 ^ 
 Stilling, M. ii. 390, 432. 
 
 Taylor, Mr Isaac, i. 53. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, i. 281 ; ii. 122. 
 Thomson, Dr Allen, ii. 206. 
 Thomson, Prof. W., i. 237, 4si4. 
 Thomson (the Poet), i. 404. 
 Thuret, M. ii. 207. 
 Tiedemann, ii. 316. 
 Todd, Dr, ii. 441. 
 Treviranus, ii. 387. 
 Tucker, A., i. 151, 152, 168. 
 Turner, Mr, ii. 346. 
 
 Unzer, i, 129 ; ii. 4, 39. 
 
 Valentin, ii. 422. 
 
 Velpeau, ii. 313. 
 
 Vicq d'Azyr, i. 379. 
 
 Vimont, ii. 75. 
 
 Virchow, Prof., ii. 279, 357, 440. 
 
 Virgil, i. 341. 
 
 Volkmann, ii. 348, 420. 
 
 Wagner, R., ii. 208, 347, 355. 
 
 Waller, Dr, ii. 395, 403. 411. 
 
 Walshe, Prof., ii. 305. 
 
 Weber, ii. 386. 
 
 Weinhold, ii. 398. 
 
 Weiss, i. 349. 
 
 Whewell, Dr, i. 5. 81, 83, 109, 
 209, 222, 249, 276, 313, 324, 
 345, 384, 394; ii. 43, 111. 
 
 Willis, Thomas, ii. 161,169, 433. 
 
 Wolff, i. 379. 
 
 Wrightson, Rev. A. B., i. 229. 
 
 Wesley, ii. 131. 
 
 Zinn, ii. 387.
 
 PART I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON TIIE NECESSARY CONNECTION OP A PHYSIOLOGY OF THE 
 BRAIN WITH A PRACTICAL SCIENCE OF MIND. 
 
 " On EARTH THERE IS NOTHING GREAT BUT MAN ; IN MAN 
 THERE IS NOTHING GREAT BUT MIND." Sucll are the Words 
 
 which the late Sir William Hamilton has left inscribed 
 upon the wall of the class-room of Logic and Metaphysics 
 in the University of Edinburgh. If they express a true 
 conception of the human mind, then we cannot too 
 highly estimate the importance of that living organ 
 by which it is manifested and energizes, and which is 
 known as the Brain. As a being, man is constituted, like 
 all other animals, of an exquisitely constructed series of 
 machinery, each so admirably adapted to the other that 
 they work together to the best results ; as a rational being 
 he thinks, and feels, and wills in and by a special appa- 
 ratus — the nervous system — of which the chiefest portion 
 is the encephalon, or that contained within his skull. All 
 his desires and motives are experienced in and act upon 
 this important apparatus — and all are expressed by it; so 
 that what the man is, in character and conduct, is the 
 expression of the functions of this nervous system. 
 
 A
 
 2 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 To understand, therefore, the laws and modes of exist- 
 ence of man as a rational heing, — how he may be per- 
 fected, and how his wants may be best determined and 
 fulfilled, — it is necessary to know, not only how the en- 
 cephalon is constructed mechanically, and how it acts 
 dynamically, but under what conditions it is constructed, 
 and according to what laws it is operative. Or, in other 
 words, the laws of development and organisation of the 
 encephalon, as the necessary instrument and seat of man's 
 energies and feelings, must be determined, if we would 
 rightly understand its mechanism and modes of activity, 
 under varying states of the consciousness, in various 
 races, nations, societies, individuals. The vital processes 
 and the correlative mental states of each moment are 
 linked to a series of similar changes, of which they are 
 logically the necessary results, extending far back into 
 time. This long series of activities — vital and mental — 
 continuing through a succession of individual men, from 
 generation to generation, corresponds, in cerebral physio- 
 logy and psychology, to that long succession of forms of 
 organisms which, commencing in the abysses of time, are 
 the subject-matter of pah"eontology ; so that, just as the last 
 individual of a species is but the latent expression or mani- 
 festation of a long series of cycles of changes in the species, 
 so the last thoughts, and feelings, and actions of an indivi- 
 dual man are but the result of a series of changes dating 
 far back in his own individual history, or having their roots 
 in the modes of mental and vital activity of his ancestry. 
 Now, it is undeniably true, that throughout these 
 cycles of vital changes there is an immanent, inherent 
 Energy ever operative, which is not a mere physical or 
 material agent, and which can only be conceived as an 
 actively adapting force manifested in the phenomena of 
 life ; consequently, its laws and modes of operation can
 
 chap. I.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 3 
 
 only be determined by determining tbe laws of develop- 
 ment and organisation and of mecbanical structure and 
 dynamical action of tbe living structures by whicb it 
 is manifested. If it be inoperative, it is unknowable. 
 Hence, mind and its laws can only be known tbrough tbe 
 phenomena of life and its laws. And since tbe pheno- 
 mena of human consciousness are biologically a special 
 form of manifestation of vital processes, whicb have their 
 seat and origin in the encephalon, the laws of thought, 
 and will, and feeling, can only be fully determined for 
 practical uses in correlation with the laws of action of the 
 nervous system, of which the encephalon is the chiefest 
 portion and the highest development. It follows, there- 
 fore, from these considerations, that the brain and nervous 
 system are the proper subject-matter of a true science of 
 mind — without a knowledge of which there can be no 
 such science whatever, in the proper sense of the term. 
 It equally results, that its study as an applied science can 
 only be followed according to the method pursued in the 
 study and application of the other applied sciences. The 
 practical psychologist is an artist : as such he must be 
 familiar both with the principles and the subject-matter of 
 bis art. Mere reading and reflection cannot, therefore, 
 serve to make a man a practical psychologist any more 
 than they would serve to make him a physician, mathe- 
 matician, chemist, musician, navigator. In practical 
 psychology (as in all other applied sciences) there must be 
 an accurate apprehension of the broad general truths of 
 the science ; then an accurate and extended experience 
 of its subject-matter, which is man as he exists under 
 varying conditions — the experience being enlightened by 
 the knowledge of these general truths, and corrected by 
 the familiar application of them in the concerns of daily 
 life. Mental science is the chemistry of human nature.
 
 4 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [rART i. 
 
 Its principles, and its methods of observation and inquiry 
 may be taught in the class-room ; its practical uses, its 
 analyses and manipulations, must be learned and prac- 
 tised in the great laboratory of the world, by each man 
 in his own sphere of action. But, under all circumstances, 
 and amidst all conditions, the phenomena to be finally exa- 
 mined are the phenomena of life and organisation, mani- 
 fested in the brain and nervous system, and of which the 
 physiology of the brain, considered as the organ of mind, 
 takes scientific cognisance. 
 
 Hence the student of mental science, if he would be a 
 successful student, must concentrate his researches upon 
 the laws of action of the brain and nervous system, as 
 they correlate the laws of thought and volition, and must 
 eschew all efforts to develop it by simple meditation on 
 his own states of consciousness, or by the processes of 
 logical art, to the exclusion of observation and experi- 
 mental research on the subject-matter of his science. 
 " No one," Kant observes, " by means of logic alone can 
 venture to predicate anything of or decide concerning, 
 objects, unless he has obtained, independently of logic, 
 well-grounded information about them."* And he adds, 
 as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, con- 
 sidered as an organon, must always be a logic of illu- 
 sion; and that any attempt to use it as an instrument, 
 in order to extend and enlarge the range of our know- 
 ledge, must end in. prating ; any one being able to main- 
 tain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single 
 assertion whatever. 
 
 Nevertheless, a knowledge of true logic and metaphy- 
 sics is of as great importance in scientific research, as of 
 close and accurate observation of phenomena. There can 
 
 * Kritik tier Rein : Vernunft. Introduction.
 
 chap. I.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 5 
 
 be no observation without thought about tbe thing ob- 
 served, and no right or useful thought without that dis- 
 cipline of the mind which a knowledge of true logic 
 and metaphysics implies. Undoubtedly they have been 
 either wholly neglected, or treated as of secondary im- 
 portance, by many modern incpiirers ; but it will be found, 
 on examination, that these persons have fallen into errors 
 which the knoAvledge they despised would have enabled 
 them to avoid, or have been less successful than they 
 otherwise would have been ; or, from a natural defect in 
 the constitution of their minds, have not been able to 
 perceive the true uses and applications of logic and meta- 
 physics in inductive research. The most successful in- 
 quirers have usually been good metaphysicians.* 
 
 The knowledge of such general laws is not in itself of 
 difficult attainment ; the real difficulties arise from the ob- 
 stacles which faulty methods and preconceived prejudices 
 throw in the way of a true method. If these obstacles be 
 happily surmounted, and a right method adopted and pro- 
 secuted with steady industry, it will be found that the study 
 of mental science is not only the most generally useful and 
 
 * " That process which is here termed metaphysical — the ana- 
 lysis of our conceptions and the experience of their inconsistencies 
 (accompanied with the study of facts) — has always gone on most 
 actively in the most prosperous periods of each science. There 
 is in Galileo, Kepler, Gassendi, and the other fathers of mechani- 
 cal philosophy, as much of metaphysics as in their adversaries- 
 The main difference is, that the metaphysics is of a better kind ; 
 it is more conformable to metaphysical truth. And the same is 
 the case in other sciences Nor can it be otherwise. For all 
 truth, before it can be consistent with facts, must be consis- 
 tent with itself. ... It would be easy to adduce, from the works 
 of all great discoverers, passages more profoundly metaphysical 
 than any which are to be found in the pages of barren a priori 
 reasoners." — Dr Whewell. Novum Organum Renovatum, 3d ed. 
 1858, book 3, chap, iv., § 5.
 
 6 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 the most attractive of all scientific pursuits, but also, that 
 the science itself is as easy of acquirement, and much 
 more within the reach of the general public, than those 
 which require elaborate apparatus for their successful 
 prosecution. For the student of mental science has, in 
 the phenomena of his own consciousness, both the means 
 and the matter of observation ; — his own brain is an in- 
 strument which, if rightly used, exceeds all other instru- 
 mental aids to research whatever. By it he is brought, in 
 truth, into direct and immediate relation with those forces 
 of matter upon which all vital phenomena depend. And 
 if it be necessary to connect those phenomena with the 
 structure and functions of organisms, modern physio- 
 logy, in all its departments, presents him with an extent 
 of knowledge on this point so great, that, as compared 
 with it, the physiology of Plato was not so advanced as 
 the vague knowledge of most intelligent persons of 
 modern times. Nay, children in our ragged schools in 
 Edinburgh, at least, are more advanced in this respect 
 than the wisest of the ancients. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, however, that discipline and a 
 method should be mainly directed to acquiring and apply- 
 ing a knowledge of the physiology of the brain, if the ob- 
 ject aimed at be to develop a practical science of mind. 
 1. The student, to this end, must be ever on the watch to 
 counteract the insidious operation of preconceived notions 
 and prejudices, as the most important of the obstacles to a 
 proper knowledge of the nature of his instrument. 2. He 
 must thoroughly satisfy himself of the inestimable import- 
 ance of the science itself, as that the final object of which 
 is to enable him to know and exercise dominion over 
 himself and others. With such convictions he will not 
 readily be persuaded that he need give less time and 
 labour to the knowledge of his own nature than he is
 
 chap. I.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 7 
 
 prepared to devote to any other branch of science ; while 
 he is ready to devote years to mathematics, languages, 
 and the like, with a conviction that earnest toil is the 
 only means to success, he should he prepared to view 
 mental science in at least a similar light. 
 
 It is manifest, also, from these considerations, that the 
 student should be prepared by previous study, and a suf- 
 ficient mental training, for the task before him. Tims, 
 since he has to combine physiology and philosophy to 
 practical ends, a competent knowledge of the two great 
 departments of knowledge should be an object of neces- 
 sary attainment. But by a competent knowledge of phi- 
 losophy I do not mean more than may be acquired by 
 the careful study of two or three standard works on psy- 
 chology and metaphysics, together with a fair knowledge 
 of elementary logic. By a competent knowledge of phy- 
 siology I mean only a general knowledge of vital struc- 
 tures and functions, as seen in both the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms. To this end books may help much ; 
 but observation and anatomical research by the aid of 
 books, or, better still, a teacher, are absolutely necessary. 
 A certain general knowledge of natural history, includ- 
 ing zoology and botany, must be also possessed by the 
 student. 
 
 Now, although the student of mental science must 
 needs employ the methods of scientific research in gene- 
 ral, the subject-matter of his science is, in its relation to 
 himself, wholly different from the subject-matter of other 
 sciences. The very thing he has to examine is that by 
 which he examines ; the organ whose laws and processes 
 he has to determine is that by which he is enabled to 
 observe and conclude. His brain is both the object and 
 instrument of his researches. Hence all the aims and me- 
 thods of mental science have a twofold relation to the brain
 
 8 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 and nervous system : firstly, as an instrument of research ; 
 secondly, as the instrument of relation whereby the man is 
 brought as a rational being into connection with the exter- 
 nal world, and the exponent of all those desires and mo- 
 tives which make him what he is. It is this twofold relation 
 which has made the study of mental science so difficult, 
 in so much as the two classes of phenomena are inextri- 
 cably intermingled ; and it is thus that many have been 
 led to the opinion that mental science must necessarily 
 be always too imperfect for any uses as an applied 
 science ; that the phenomena it investigates are far too 
 obscure and complex to be brought under general prin- 
 ciples, or, if brought under such principles, that they are 
 far too profound and too general for application to the 
 multitudinous and infinitely varying changes in the minds 
 of men — or, at least, that common minds can never grasp 
 them for daily use. This doctrine is undeniably true of 
 those a priori principles which a one-sided philosophy 
 offers us as the results of meditation and the logical art, 
 to the exclusion of observation and experience of the 
 subject-matter the brain, but undeniably inapplicable 
 to those practical principles which are reached by the 
 twofold method described. It would be strange, indeed, 
 if it were otherwise, and there were no simple and avail- 
 able principles of a science of human nature, when the 
 whole fabric of human society is held together by the 
 operation of those principles, and when every man, 
 woman, and child in it is of necessity, and instinctively, a 
 practical psychologist. For surely (to mention but one 
 illustration) that estimate of a man's character, and of 
 his probable modes of thought and action, which is habi- 
 tually deduced from the features, gestures, tones of voice, 
 race, language, accent, expression of countenance, and 
 the like, is virtually nothing more than an empirical
 
 chap, i.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 9 
 
 psychology, however informal it may be. And when the 
 generalisations which can thus be made respecting the 
 feelings and actions of mankind are reduced to general 
 propositions, they become the empirical laws of a prac- 
 tical science of physiognomy. 
 
 Thus prepared, the student will be able to carry on the 
 twofold process of observation and induction already re- 
 ferred to without that complexity and difficulty which 
 is otherwise experienced. All his observations can be 
 arranged, accordingly as they are intended to develop a 
 knowledge of the brain as an instrument of research — i.e., 
 of its physiology proper ; or as they are intended to apply 
 to a knowledge of human nature — i.e., as facts of mental 
 science. To both these ends the student can either ob- 
 serve and experiment upon his own states of conscious- 
 ness in their corporeal relations, or upon those of other 
 living things about him. By the former method he will 
 soon acquire the habit of detecting the necessary rela- 
 tions which corporeal changes, from whatever cause aris- 
 ing, bear to his mental states, and thus gain a large 
 amount of practical self-knowledge ; by similar observa- 
 tions on others, he will in like manner gain a large* 
 amount of practical knowledge of mankind. Children 
 and the insane are, however, the best subjects for study, 
 but especially children, as the corporeal and mental phe- 
 nomena they manifest are less complex in them than in 
 adults. 
 
 The habits and instincts of the lower animals, whether 
 wild or domestic, including the inhabitants of aviaries, 
 vivaria, or aquaria, will supply never-failing objects of 
 instruction and interest. The entire insect world is a crea- 
 tion to itself, in which the relations of the law of design 
 to organisation are manifested in every variety of phase, 
 and in which the busy life of mankind, with all its multi-
 
 IO DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 farious processes and pursuits, is reflected as if it were 
 a mirror. Nor must it be forgotten that the instincts 
 of plants are amenable to the same general laws as those 
 of animals, and that many of these organisms are as sus- 
 ceptible of the action of chloroform, opium, carbonic acid, 
 and other so-called nervine agents, as man himself. 
 
 A few weeks or months tbus occupied will suffice to 
 form those habits of observation, without which neither 
 the successful study nor the practical application of men- 
 tal science is possible. Yet I would here venture to add 
 a few words of caution. Although I am anxious to popu- 
 larize the science of mind, and therefore seek to break 
 down the barriers which have hitherto excluded the great 
 majority of educated men from its pursuit, I only mean 
 it to be popular in the sense of being non-professional, 
 and not popular in the sense of its being a thing easy of 
 acquirement. The student owes scientific labour and 
 serious thought to it as a sacred duty ; for without these 
 mental science will degenerate into a superficial, frivolous 
 pretence of knowledge. The true psychologist, therefore, 
 must be ready himself, and demand of others, to submit 
 to discipline ; must toil to acquire the necessary preli- 
 minary knowledge which may be considered only instru- 
 mental, as the anatomy and physiology of the nervous 
 system, and the sciences of life and organisation, so far 
 as regards general principles ; must acquire a precision 
 in the use of terms as nearly of mathematical exactness 
 as the ambiguities and imperfections of language will 
 allow, together with that skill in the use of his intel- 
 lectual powers which a logical training supplies ; and 
 finally, he must practise his observing powers in his daily 
 intercourse with man, and not with man alone, but all the 
 living things his fellow-creatures about him, with a spe- 
 cial reference to the great object of his studies. Now,
 
 chap. I.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. I I 
 
 if this list of requirements may appear in imagination so 
 great as to dishearten the inexperienced student, or the 
 man who has been accustomed to limit his investigations 
 to the phenomena of his own consciousness, I would just 
 remark, that the reality is by no means so overwhelming 
 as the imagination. On the contrary, I think that a 
 practical science of human nature may be successfully 
 studied in equal time and with equal ease as most of the 
 higher departments of other sciences, as for example the 
 higher mathematics, physical astronomy, chemistry, en- 
 gineering physics, and the like, provided always that the 
 same method and the same perseverance be used in 
 acquiring the practical science of human nature as in 
 acquiring them.
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 ON THE ENDS TO BE ATTAINED BY A SCIENCE OF MIND FOUNDED 
 ON A PHILOSOPHICAL PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN. 
 
 The bearings of a mental science on life and organisation 
 are as important as those of life and organisation on 
 mental science; for if the phenomena of the latter corre- 
 late the states of consciousness, the phenomena of con- 
 sciousness correlate vital states. This conclusion neces- 
 sarily follows from the fundamental truth in life and 
 thought, that the encephalon is the seat of all the states 
 of consciousness, however intellectual or however animal; 
 and that, consequently, all the motives, desires, and ac- 
 tions of man, however diversified, must finally be asso- 
 ciated with the healthy action of the brain, as the organ 
 of all his energies, and the seat of all his feelings. Hence 
 we can, on the one hand, interpret the vital phenomena 
 of which the brain is the seat, by the mental phenomena 
 correlative with them ; while, on the other hand, we can 
 determine by observation to what extent, and under what 
 conditions, the latter are modified. Now, the former 
 method is the portion of mental science which determines 
 the laws of mental action in connection with the laws of 
 vital action, or, in other words, develops the physiology 
 of the brain ; the latter is that by which the knowledge 
 thus acquired is applied to practical uses. Hence a true 
 physiology of the brain is founded on mental philosophy, 
 in combination with biology ; a true mental science is
 
 chap. II.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 1 3 
 
 founded on the physiology of the brain thus educed in 
 combination with mental philosophy. The error in the 
 method hitherto followed has consisted in following each 
 apart from the other. This must have a separate investi- 
 gation. In the meanwhile, it will be useful to deter- 
 mine what are the ends attainable by a practical science 
 of mind, so that we may fully comprehend the true extent 
 of the basis upon which a philosophical physiology of the 
 brain must rest. 
 
 Mental science teaches the laws and modes of existence 
 of man as a rational being ; a practical mental science 
 must teach the application of these laws to the wants of 
 man. Philosophy and science are not opposed to each 
 other; they only differ in their capability of application. 
 Philosophy, indeed, in one sense, may be considered 
 as an aasthetic art, being the application of knowledge t<> 
 pleasurable uses. Strictly, philosophy is the pursuit of 
 truth for its own sake ; and in this respect science re- 
 sembles philosophy. But science also enables man to 
 advance his material happiness and wellbeing, while phi- 
 losophy only gratifies the thirst for knowledge of the 
 causes of things, which is the first developed and most 
 dominant of his intellectual desires. Curious inquiry 
 into the world within him and about him is one of man's 
 highest enjoyments, wholly irrespective of its uses. He 
 speculates on the nature of God, — the mysteries of his own 
 existence, — the nature and causes of good and evil, — the 
 origin of all that he sees around him. He earnestly seeks 
 after a knowledge of the beginning of creation — of the 
 trees of the forest and the flowers of the plains ; of rocks 
 and mountains ; of rivers, and the ever-flowing ocean ; 
 of the firmament, of the clouds and dew, and of the 
 distant circling stars. Knowledge thus acquired, to these 
 ends, is wisdom or philosophy. Hobbes has finely ex-
 
 1 4 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 pressed this view of philosophy : " Philosophiam noli 
 credere earn esse, per quam hunt lapides philosophici, 
 neque illud quam ostentant codices metaphysici ; sed 
 rationem humanam naturalem per omnes res creatas 
 sedulo volitantem, et de earum ordine, causis, et effectibus, 
 ea quae vera sunt renunciantem. Mentis ergo tuae, et 
 totius mundi filia philosophia in te ipso est, nondum 
 fortasse figurata, et genitori mundi qualis erat in principio 
 informi similis."* While thus flying through all crea- 
 tion on the wings of thought, man is checked neither by 
 the greatness of the object of his speculations nor by its 
 smallness — neither by extent in space nor distance in 
 time. He meditates on the nature of God as if He were 
 man ; like the Divine Essence to which he likens himself, 
 he passes mentally into the abysses of space, and careers 
 through worlds and systems extending into infinity. In 
 like manner he plunges into the depths of time, and 
 counts a thousand years as if they were but a moment. 
 He penetrates by the eye of sense or of reason into the 
 minutest phenomena of terrestrial life, and only comes 
 to the one sure conclusion, that he, the Thinker and 
 Seeker, is the representative of them all — a very micro- 
 cosm in himself. 
 
 Such a philosophy is essentially, indeed avowedly, 
 speculative, and contributes to man's happiness in the 
 same way as any other speculative excitement. It is not 
 a science which teaches him how to be happy under all 
 circumstances and under all conditions ; it is not the 
 knowledge of good and evil, and of the means of avoiding 
 the one and attaining to the other. To merit the designa- 
 tion of practical, philosophy should be so simple as to be 
 intelligible, when properly studied, to men of ordinary 
 
 * A'l Lectorem, Element. Philosoph. 4to. Amsteloil. 1G08.
 
 chap. II.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 1 5 
 
 understanding; should be available to the daily and 
 ordinary needs of man, whether in his domestic or social 
 relations ; should teach him true wisdom, in so far as 
 wisdom consists in knowing rightly what happiness is, 
 by what things of daily life it may be acquired and pro- 
 moted, by what retained ; should afford to man that true 
 knowledge of himself which is essential to his future as 
 well as present happiness ; and, finally, its truths should 
 so accurately correspond to the order of phenomena in 
 creation, that therein the thirst for knowledge, and the 
 doubts and fears and speculations of the inquiring mind, 
 should find their contentment, and society the surest 
 guarantee for solid order and progress. Such a practical 
 philosophy of mind I believe to be attainable : no one 
 will doubt that it is absolutely necessary to man's well- 
 being. A practical science of mind — to state its objects 
 more specifically — must be capable of a threefold appli- 
 cation to practical ends : namely, first, to advance the 
 happiness of man in his individual and domestic rela- 
 tions ; secondly, to secure the welfare of society ; thirdly, 
 to advance that knowledge which secures the develop- 
 ment of the race, and establishes man's dominion over 
 nature. These form an ascending series of objects neces- 
 sarily in relation to each other, and I will endeavour to 
 illustrate each series. One and all, however, can only 
 be aimed at through a mental science based on a philo- 
 sophical physiology of the brain. 
 
 The first application of mental science to the happiness 
 of the individual is comprised in the practice of medicine 
 and mental hygiene. No intelligent man can observe 
 the relations of his bodily states to his mental without 
 observing that the ivill, the primary faculty of the human 
 mind, is deeply influenced thereby. It is not only in the 
 use of his muscular powers (for that is an exercise of the
 
 1 6 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part r. 
 
 will), in relation to the external world, that he is enfeebled 
 or palsied by bodily disease ; his voluntary efforts to recall 
 his knowledge into consciousness, or memory, are equally 
 under the influences of the corporeal organisation. So 
 also as to the ordering of his thoughts and of his acts as 
 a rational being : in minor states of bodily disorder they 
 are confused, irregular, uncertain, and under imperfect 
 control ; in more serious forms the will is placed in abey- 
 ance thereby, and moral responsibility ceases in conse- 
 quence. In like manner are his feelings subject to bodily 
 disorder, whether in relation to others or to himself. 
 Horace thus concisely expresses the psychological in- 
 fluences of the midnight debauch : 
 
 " Quin Corpus onustum, 
 
 Hesternis vitiis aninium quoque pra?gravat una, 
 Atque affigit humo divinse particulum aurae." 
 
 Not less, however, is the recognised influence on the 
 temper of the empty stomach : hence a shrewd common 
 sense leads a man to ask a favour of his patron after 
 dinner rather than before ; or to warm his soul to enthu- 
 siasm or charity at a banquet. Lord Chesterfield says a 
 battle has been lost because a general had a fit of indi- 
 gestion. 
 
 These familiar things are of daily occurrence. A 
 change of temper in a child is held to be almost a suffi- 
 cient proof of bodily derangement, arising either from 
 the process of dentition or other morbid changes peculiar 
 to infancy. In the sex, various morbid changes in the 
 mental condition are constantly associated with functional 
 changes in the organs appropriate to reproduction. At 
 all ages, in both sexes, hardly any bodily disease, how- 
 ever slight, occurs without coincident changes in the 
 consciousness. On these occasions there is not only a
 
 CHAP. II.] .DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 1 7 
 
 feeling of lassitude and discomfort generally, but the 
 memory is less vigorous, the perceptions less distinct, 
 the judgment less firm, the thoughts less clear. More 
 intensely developed, this state may pass into actual deli- 
 rium, either continued or not ; or, where the causes of 
 the mental disorder are more definitely fixed in the ner- 
 vous system (and especially in the encephalon), and the 
 disorder itself more chronic, true insanity may result. 
 In other words, the same causes which act upon one per- 
 son to the development of an irritability of temper and 
 feebleness or obscurity of thought hardly perceptible, 
 may in other individuals utterly overthrow the reason. 
 Often, indeed, so continuously do these two classes of 
 morbid mental phenomena supervene, that it is difficult 
 to draw the line between them, and determine whether the 
 sufferer is insane or not ; and in truth the one state may 
 pass into the other even within a few hours, and back 
 again, so that the same individual is now insane, now 
 sane, — now courteous or amicable, now ill-tempered or 
 reckless. There is no more fertile source of domestic 
 unhappiness than this varying morbid state : it blights 
 the hopes and pleasures of father and of child, of wife 
 and of husband, of lover and of friend, of tutor and of 
 patron, of scholar and of master. 
 
 Bodily ease (a feeling) and health of body are coin- 
 cident ; hence dis-e&se is correlative with cessation of 
 health of body ; so that the change from the feeling of 
 ease to bodily pain, or suffering, or disease, is a change 
 in the consciousness, and therefore psychological. Nor 
 is this change limited or restricted to mere corporeal 
 states : on the contrary, it involves the whole man, as 
 to both body and mind. When that change occurs, many 
 other changes in the consciousness follow, varying infi- 
 nitely in character. Thus it is that a true art of medicine 
 
 B
 
 1 8 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 necessarily includes a knowledge of the relations of body 
 and mind in health and disease. " It is the business 
 of medical practitioners," says the distinguished Pre- 
 sident of the Royal Society of London, and of the 
 Medical Council of the United Kingdom, " to study not 
 only the influence of the mind on the body, but also 
 that of the body on the mind ; and in so doing they 
 have the opportunity of learning, more than others, to 
 trace moral effects to physical causes. Wbere others 
 complain of a fretful, peevish temper, it may be that 
 they are led to make allowance for the difficulty of self- 
 restraint where there is a superabundance of lithic acid 
 in the blood, or an organic disease in the viscera. In the 
 catalepsy induced in a nervous girl by the so-called mes- 
 meric passes, they see only one of the numerous phases 
 of that multiform disease, bysteria ; and in the mischiev- 
 ous, and sometimes even in the "benevolent enthusiast, 
 who by his sincerity and earnestness enlists in the cause 
 which he undertakes the sympathy of the multitude, their 
 more experienced observation will often detect the com- 
 mencement of the illusions of insanity."* 
 
 It is not necessary that the changes in the bodily 
 health that lead to morbid states of the feeliners and 
 
 O 
 
 will, or vice versd, should be strongly manifested. On the 
 contrary, they are often so slight as to be overlooked. 
 Nevertheless it appears certain that no morbid change, 
 however minute, can take place in the body, without a con- 
 current change, although not cognisable by observation, 
 in the mind. Hence it is that the Greek word for disease, 
 pathos — the root of the term patliolcxjy — which expresses 
 the science of disease, was used also to express mental 
 
 * Sir B. C. Brodie, Bart. Psychological Inquiries ; in a Series of 
 Essays, intended to illustrate the Mutual Relation of the Physical 
 Organisation and the Mental Faculties, 1st edit., 1854.
 
 chap, ii.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 1 9 
 
 states of suffering, and is equally the root of the word pa- 
 thetic. It is admitted, therefore, that in numerous diseases 
 there are no very manifest changes in the mental condi- 
 tion ; while in another class, although these occur, and are 
 in fact a part of the symptoms, they are not the leading or 
 most important symptoms. Thus, the " lowness of spirits" 
 and irritability of temper felt by the dyspeptic are only' 
 looked upon as symptomatic of the disorder of the 
 digestion ; the mental prostration and even delirium of 
 fever are considered as merely transient changes in the 
 consciousness, which will cease with returning health. 
 Such forms of disease constitute, in fact, the great ma- 
 jority of the cases treated by the physician, and, in 
 regard to treatment, do not require, from their very 
 nature, any special knowledge of the relations which 
 the body bears to the mind. But when the bodily dis- 
 ease is manifested by symptoms predominantly involving 
 the mental states, and more especially when it interferes 
 with the moral responsibilities and social duties of the 
 man — that is to say, in mental diseases — a special know- 
 ledge of the relations of body and mind is imperatively 
 required for successful treatment. 
 
 Such knowledge can only be sound in proportion as it 
 is based on a knowledge of the causes of healthy mental 
 states ; for disease being only relative to health or ease, 
 the science of disease is only another term for the science 
 of health, according to " the logical axiom that the 
 knowledge of relatives is one, or that the knowledge of 
 relatives is the same."* It follows, therefore, that me- 
 dical science, in its fullest sense, includes the facts and 
 principles of a practical science of mind — that is to say, 
 a knowledge of the causes of both healthy and disordered 
 
 * Sir W. Hamilton. Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 211;
 
 20 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [fart i. 
 
 changes in the consciousness. And such, in every age, has 
 heen the tendency of medical research, so that, whenever 
 the physician passed from the mere practice of his art to 
 the higher walks of inquiry, he inevitahly became a meta- 
 physician or mental physiologist. In this way it has 
 happened that, from Hippocrates downwards, the most 
 eminent and most successful physicians have all, without 
 exception, been either the one or the other. And since 
 the primary or fundamental symptoms of morbid cor- 
 poreal states are psychological, it follows that a know- 
 ledge of the facts and principles of a practical science of 
 mind is fundamentally necessary to the practice of medi- 
 cine. Upon this point, indeed, there is no difference 
 (if opinion amongst intelligent persons, either in or out 
 of the profession. In all the business of the physician, 
 the phenomena of life and mind are inseparably asso- 
 ciated ; and consequently, without a scientific exposition 
 of the correlations of their laws, anything like a practical 
 application of mental philosophy to mental physiology and 
 pathology is impossible. Such exposition and application, 
 therefore, must necessarily constitute, as Medical Psycho- 
 logy, one of the chief ends of a practical science of mind. 
 But are the study and uses of such a practical science 
 of mind to be limited to the medical profession? If 
 philosophy, in the restricted sense of the term, be ad- 
 mittedly open to every one who will engage in the 
 pursuit, it follows a fortiori that a science which both 
 instructs man in the conditions of a healthy and vigor- 
 ous mental life, and comprises the end and aim of 
 philosophy itself, should be at least an equal object of 
 regard. There is, in fact, no question of interest to the 
 individual to which such a science may not be practically 
 available. In matters of daily labour, every man is con- 
 cerned to know what will keep his faculties in vigour,
 
 chap. II.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 2 1 
 
 his memory good, his thoughts clear, his mind at ease. 
 Every woman, whether wife, mother, or nurse, is all the 
 better able to fulfil her duties if a knowledge of the reci- 
 procal influence of body and mind, in infancy, in sickness, 
 and in health, teach her how to treat and bear with the 
 infirmities of child, husband, or invalid. In like man- 
 ner, in the exercise of his social duties, every man needs 
 a like knowledge of the reciprocal influences of body 
 and mind. This is more especially true of man in his 
 domestic relations as the bead of a family, or in the exer- 
 cise of his calling, when to rule or govern wisely is of 
 importance. Hence, a practical knowledge of mental 
 science is essential to parents and masters, jurists and 
 legislators, schoolmasters and teachers, ministers, naval 
 and military officers, governors of jails and penitentiaries, 
 and large employers of labour. Much indocility, way- 
 wardness, stupidity, disobedience, and incorrigible vicious- 
 ness, may often be clearly traced to the influence of 
 the vital functions on the mental states ; so that, unless 
 the bodily health be restored, no change for the better 
 in the mental condition is to be expected, however harsh- 
 ness and severity may be used with a view to reformation . 
 In short, a practical science of mind is necessary to the 
 successful pursuit of every profession whatever. The artist 
 of every kind, whose business it is to please the senses, 
 whether he be sculptor, painter, musician, perfumer, or 
 cook ; or to please the intellect, as preacher, orator, poet, 
 or writer, must know practically the secret sources of plea- 
 surable gratification, if he would be successful in his 
 calling. The laws of feeling — that is of aesthetics, in the 
 widest sense of the term — must be within the range of his 
 studies, and their scientific and practical applications be 
 as familiar to him as those of mathematics to the engineer. 
 So also with those professions whose business is to lead
 
 2 2 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 and guide men. The military and naval officer, the manu- 
 facturer or contractor, the colonial governor, the clergy- 
 man, the professional statesman, — each in his sphere 
 must know the laws of human motives, so that he may 
 be able to develop and direct the operation of the strongest 
 incentives to action. Many of these motives have a deep 
 root in the fundamental instincts of life and organisation, 
 from whence they draw their energy and strength ; and 
 without a thorough acquaintance with these, anything 
 like a scientific guidance and urging of men to the 
 successful attainment of a common object is not pos- 
 sible. True it is that from time to time a genius 
 arises — an anax andron — endowed with an intuitive 
 knowledge of human nature and its secret motives, and 
 works marvellous results. But even he would be all 
 the more successful if his intuitions were corrected by 
 science. 
 
 The kind of mental science thus hinted at, as necessary 
 to the happiness and success in life of the individual, 
 must constitute the proper foundation for that social 
 psychology which, under the names of sociology, politics, 
 or political economy, applies a scientific knowledge of 
 human nature to the wants of the many. In a nation, 
 as in everything else, the whole is equal to the sum of 
 all its parts ; the collective whole reflects the individual 
 elements.* Practical sociology would therefore be the 
 legitimate development of a practical mental science. 
 
 * " The laws of the phenomena of society are and can be 
 nothing but the laws of the actions and passions of human beings, 
 
 united together in the social state Human beings in society 
 
 have no properties but those which are derived from, and may be 
 resolved into, the laws of nature of individual man. In social 
 phenomena, the composition of causes is the universal law." — 
 J. S. Mill. System of Logic, 2d edit., vol. ii. p. 454.
 
 chap, ii.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 2g 
 
 It is the only one that could be safely applied to the 
 wants of man in society, inasmuch as all its funda- 
 mental truths have been already verified in the indivi- 
 dual; and history could verify or correct all those special 
 to it, for history is, or ought to be, a record of the ex- 
 perience of nations in every branch of social science 
 and art. 
 
 One or two illustrations will best show the applications 
 of mental science to the welfare and happiness of the 
 many. In proportion as a population becomes more 
 dense, and cities increase in number and size, both the 
 complexities of the social problem, and the urgency of 
 the need for its solution, increase. Hence public hygiene, 
 especially as applied to large cities, is now attracting the 
 assiduous attention of the moral philosopher ; for the con- 
 nection between the causes of ill-health, as affecting 
 masses of the population, and moral degradation and 
 vice, is no longer a question of doubt. The neglect of 
 sanitary regulations and of moral duties are found to 
 be inseparably associated ; to raise the masses, we must 
 first improve their physical well-being. But this is not 
 true of the poor only. The same principle holds good 
 in all the subordinate relations of man in society, so that 
 none, from the monarch to the peasant, can rightly fulfil 
 his respective social duties, if the inevitable influence 
 which bodily conditions exercise over the morals be for- 
 gotten or neglected. 
 
 The great problems of sociology are more deeply in- 
 volved, however, in the influences which the physical 
 forces of nature exercise over mankind, by modifying 
 the vital forces, and thereby the mental faculties. Few 
 intelligent men are without experience of the power 
 which changes in the temperature or direction of the 
 wind have over their feelings and will. A knowledge of
 
 24 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 such influences, considered as climate, is therefore an im- 
 portant branch of a practical mental science, taken in 
 connection with its applications to political economy. 
 To no nation could such scientific knowledge be more 
 valuable than our own, whether we be considered as a 
 colonising or a conquering people. 
 
 The varieties of mankind appear to be mainly due to 
 climatic conditions, caused partly by the direct influence 
 of the heat and light of the sun, the intensity of the 
 seasonal changes, the proximity or remoteness of masses 
 of water, and the like ; partly by the influence of climate 
 on the food, clothing, dwellings, and other conditions of 
 the race. In consequence of the ethnic varieties in colour, 
 form, mental character, and habits of life thus induced, 
 ethnic varieties in the religion, laws, and forms of govern- 
 ment arise. The science of ethnology takes cognisance 
 of these varieties ; but to be available to sociology in our 
 colonies and dependencies, it must be founded on a 
 scientific basis, such as can only be supplied by the corre- 
 lations of life and organisation with mind in their funda- 
 mental details. Mr Buckle's "Introduction to the History 
 of Civilisation in England" is most remarkable for the 
 vigour and boldness with which the influences that some 
 of the great laws of life, and organisation, and mind, 
 exercise on mankind are discussed, in their especial rela- 
 tions to climate, food, soil, and the general aspects of 
 nature. Food and soil, he shows, have been most influ- 
 ential on social development in Asia and Africa, climate 
 most influential in Europe. To the philosophical physi- 
 cian, Mr Buckle's doctrines and researches cannot fail to 
 prove highly interesting, because entirely kindred to his 
 own. Hardly any of the questions Mr Buckle raises are 
 new to him. Hippocrates, the oldest of medical authors, 
 in his well-known treatise " On Airs, Waters, and Locali-
 
 CHAP, n.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 25 
 
 ties," treats expressly of the same topics that Mr Buckle 
 treats of ; and every one familiar with modern sanitary 
 literature must know what a vast stride medical topo- 
 graphy has of late made, both in this country and on the 
 continents of Europe and North America. On the other 
 hand, numerous ancient and modern writers have eluci- 
 dated the same questions after much the same method, 
 although by no means with that overflowing fulness of 
 detailed proof which Mr Buckle supplies. Amongst 
 those of modern times may be mentioned Montesquieu, 
 Condorcet, and Filangieri. 
 
 Passing from these great questions in sociology, which 
 are to be solved by a knowledge of the laws of action of 
 external agents on the human body, and through it on 
 the mincl, we reach a still more complex problem in the 
 growth and maintenance of the social state. The strik- 
 ing analogies observable between the development of 
 individual organisms and species have been applied to the 
 development of nations or large societies of men ; and the 
 rise and fall of empires have been suspected to be due 
 to the operation of laws of growth, organisation, and 
 decline, analogous to the laws of development, organisa- 
 tion, and decline manifested in the individual man. So 
 that, although man may have attained to that full know- 
 ledge of the influence of external circumstances on his 
 vital and mental states, and therewith to the ability to 
 subdue external nature to his purposes, known as civilisa- 
 tion ; yet, without a knowledge of those more hidden 
 laws by which society culminates and declines, civilisa- 
 tion and all its advantages will ever be in danger of re- 
 trograding, and even disappearing. History has so often 
 indicated this to be the cycle of events with empires, that 
 the philosophic historian adopts it as a general principle 
 of politics. Kepublics or monarchies grow up through a
 
 26 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 youth of energetic action, vigorous inquiry, and brilliant 
 fancy. An adult prime of masculine vigour is charac- 
 terised by national wealth, comfort, and solid develop- 
 ment of the intellect. Then the age of repletion arrives, 
 with suspension of mental and bodily activity, and with 
 gratification of the appetites ; a palsy benumbs the ima- 
 gination,, scepticism vexes the intellect, and an admira- 
 tion of the past stimulates to fixedness and hero-worship. 
 To this finally succeeds old age or national decay, sub- 
 jugation to more vigorous or younger nationalities, and 
 revolutions in art, science, religion, if not subversion of 
 them all. Such changes are more directly due to mental 
 influences, less directly to physical or external, and are 
 often modified by primary or inherent qualities, or groups 
 of qualities, of the race, — themselves originated amidst 
 climatic conditions in a far distant time, and trans- 
 mitted from generation to generation with unwavering 
 steadiness amidst all the variations in external circum- 
 stances. 
 
 It is not, however, in the influence of external circum- 
 stances on man exclusively of the influence of mind, 
 nor in the influence of mind exclusively of the influence 
 of external circumstances, that a practical science of 
 mind finds its proper sphere. This is rather to be found 
 in the reciprocal influences of the two classes of agents. 
 To reduce the operation of these to general expressions, 
 capable of application deductively to the wants of man- 
 kind, is the true end of practical philosophy, as well as 
 of an all-comprehensive mental science. In this sense, 
 indeed, the two terms are synonymous, and in none other; 
 for a philosophy which excludes the whole of physics 
 and of physiology from its inquiries, cannot be practical 
 or scientific in any proper sense of the terms. To this 
 conclusion, in fact, the most practical, and, at the same
 
 chap, ii.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 27 
 
 time, most philosophical thinkers of the day seem to have 
 come. 
 
 Amongst the many illustrations of these views which 
 might be noticed, reference need only be made to one of 
 the modes in which the important influence of agriculture 
 is manifested in human society. The more material 
 things which minister to the life of plants subserve also 
 the life of animals and man. The laws of life are there- 
 fore common to both forms of life, as regards these material 
 things. Now, Divine Providence has so arranged the 
 order of events, that whatever develops the growth of 
 such plants as serve for the food of man, or of the 
 animals upon which he feeds, adds to human welfare, 
 while, at the same time, it perfects vegetable life on the 
 earth. So that where man settles, and labours, and 
 multiplies, there the face of nature assumes more beauty ; 
 and man himself, contending more effectually with the 
 physical influences to which, in common with all other 
 living things, he is subject, becomes more and more 
 developed in all the characteristics of humanity. In 
 other words, civilisation flourishes. For the continued 
 progress of mankind in this development, or, at least, for 
 the permanence of civilisation, so far as regards food, one 
 thing only is necessary — namely, to follow the order of 
 events laid down by Divine Providence ; which is, that 
 the material constituents of animal and vegetable organ- 
 isms shall pass from one to the other in a cycle of con- 
 tinual change and alternation. These changes take- 
 place in the air, earth, and water. The carbon given off 
 as carbonic acid to the air by animals is taken up by 
 plants, and fixed again as carbon ; the phosphoric, silicic, 
 sulphuric, and other acids, together with alkaline earths 
 and salts, pass off with the animal excretions, and, when 
 returned to the soil, maintain in vigour the vital powers
 
 28 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [PART I. 
 
 of vegetables destined to be tbe food of man and animals. 
 Now, so long as this cycle of change is kept up, both 
 forms of life flourish ; but if the fixed mineral consti- 
 tuents that are constantly taken from the soil by plants 
 be not returned to the soil, it at last becomes so defec- 
 tive in these constituents that vegetable life is no longer 
 vigorous ; in other words, the soil is exhausted, and 
 production of food for man and animals ceases. Upon 
 this exhaustion of the soil there necessarily follows, there- 
 fore, with the greater difficulty in the supply of food, not 
 only a hindrance to the development of society, but a 
 retrocession ; and thus flourishing and civilised com- 
 munities may slowly but surely decay, from the neglect 
 of this fundamental law of cyclical interchange between 
 animal and vegetable organisms. 
 
 Baron von Liebig has very lucidly illustrated this 
 application of one of the fundamental laws of life and 
 organisation to political economy, and shown the danger 
 impending over Great Britain in this respect, by examples 
 drawn from the history of ancient Borne and Italy.* 
 
 Amongst modern instances of national disaster thus 
 induced, France at the close of the last century, and Ire- 
 land in this present, might be mentioned. In France, 
 the full sweep of revolution arose from and was depen- 
 dent on its defective agriculture ; and if the spoliation 
 and subjugation of that country did not close the series 
 of national events, it was because the comity of civilised 
 nations ruled otherwise. Ireland, too, was only preserved 
 from famine by the modern appliances of commerce, 
 developed at the cost of millions by tbe rest of the United 
 Kingdom. If she had been a really independent nation — 
 i.e., both independent and self-dependent — nothing, it 
 
 * Letters on Modern Agriculture, edited by Dr Blyth (1859), 
 p. 229.
 
 chap. II.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 29 
 
 seems probable, could bave saved her from utter extinc- 
 tion but subjugation by a foreign power. 
 
 A practical mental science takes cognisance of higher 
 influences than these. Man does not live by bread alone. 
 The alternate cycle of nutrition may be maintained by 
 industrial effort, as in China at this moment, where the « 
 people, it is said, have already practically solved the pro- 
 blem ; or the mountain-streams may bring with them to the 
 plains all those elements of food for plants which man 
 takes away, and, overflowing the land, deposit thereon 
 their mineral wealth in the fittest condition for vegetable 
 nutrition, as occurs in Egypt or Mesopotamia, Hindustan 
 or Italy. Yet even under these circumstances national 
 decay occurs. The Assyrian and the Egyptian empires 
 have long since disappeared, while the fertile plains of 
 Hindustan and Lombardy have for centuries been the 
 battle-field of more vigorous races. Here the exhaustion 
 of the soil is no cause of national decay, for it has an 
 inexhaustible supply of nutrient wealth in the overflow- 
 ing rivers. We must look, therefore, to another cause of 
 change, and this appears to consist in the decay of reli- 
 gion and morals. The natural development of the human 
 mind is towards a knowledge of final causes. G-od and 
 immortality are these final causes ; but the relations of 
 man to God and a future life constitute the foundation of 
 religion and morals. It follows, therefore, that a practical 
 mental science should investigate the laws of develop- 
 ment of this knowledge in the individual and in the 
 nation ; and, applying the science of those laws to educa- 
 tion, and to religious and moral culture, systematically 
 evolve all the higher and nobler faculties of the human 
 mind. To attain to such an end, physical and philoso- 
 phical education must be combined with religious train- 
 ing, so that a knowledge of the laws of bodily vigour as
 
 3° DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 well as of mental energy may be equally and consenta- 
 neously applied to the purpose. In all ages and in all 
 nations, emasculate pursuits have been coincident with 
 decay in religion and morals ; for the form of worship 
 has always reflected the mental characteristics of the age. 
 Thus the general worship of a feminine deity, under 
 whatever name, is significant of national effeminacy 
 and degeneracy ; while, on the contrary, the worship of 
 one G-od in the spirit indicates the operation of those 
 masculine faculties by which men attain to a know- 
 ledge of Abstract Truth, and are enabled to know and 
 reverence the Divine. 
 
 Now, effeminate pursuits, in the mass as in the indi- 
 vidual, are the natural sequence to impaired corporeal 
 vigour and defective cerebral development. This is 
 more particularly true of those emasculating vices which 
 consist essentially in the gratification of the sexual 
 lusts by unnatural means. Such vices act directly on 
 the nervous system, and render it imperfect ; while it 
 is strengthened by the sports of the field, or by exer- 
 cises which call forth the muscular powers, and the 
 native love of enterprise and danger inherent in man. 
 But there is a cycle of change in the moral world, 
 as in the vital or physical world. Large cities are un- 
 favourable to the development of corporeal vigour, unless 
 hygiene, or the science of public health, brings all its 
 appliances to bear on their domestic economy. And being 
 this, they are favourable, conversely, to the development 
 of a quick sensibility of the brain without a correspond- 
 ing corporeal vigour ; of a quick sense of pleasure and 
 pain, with a corresponding readiness to seek after pleasure 
 merely, or shun pain ; and of all the vices which depend 
 upon the desires. 
 
 The entire mental character, indeed, is connected with
 
 CHAP. II.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 3 1 
 
 the action of those multitudinous causes of enervation 
 which a high material civilisation necessarily draws with 
 it, if not scientifically counteracted. As the physical 
 vigour decays, the instincts of astuteness and cunning 
 are developed in its place, and therewith fraud and false- 
 hood in the various relations of life. In these respects 
 the man becomes literally effeminate. The imagination 
 also predominates over the reason, concurrently with ex- 
 altation of the cerebral functions, so that credulity and 
 superstition are often correlative with a high aesthetic 
 development, and with great quickness of perception and 
 refinement of taste. The development of the fine arts 
 is too often thought to indicate a corresponding advance 
 in society ; but it is evident from these considerations, 
 that, unless accompanied by an equal development of the 
 manly virtues and of the intellectual powers, it is but a 
 sign of national degeneracy. Hence it too often happens 
 that the decay of a state dates exactly from the period 
 when the arts of life attained their maximum.* 
 
 By taking the moralist's view of the subject, we may 
 attribute too much, perhaps, to the abuses of art ; from 
 
 * Mr Ruskin has very ably set forth the political significance 
 of a high aesthetic development. He observes : — " At the moment 
 when, in any kingdom, you point to the triumphs of its greatest 
 artists, you point also to the determined hour of the kingdom's 
 decline. The names of great painters are like passing bells. In 
 the name of Velasquez, you hear sounded the fall of Spain ; in 
 the name of Titian, that of Venice ; in the name of Leonardo, 
 that of Milan ; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there 
 is profound justice in this ; for in proportion to the nobleness of the 
 power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile ; and hitherto, 
 the greater the art the more surely has it been used, and used 
 solely, for the decoration of pride (whether religious or profane 
 no matter) or the provoking of sensuality." — The Two Paths, &c. 
 By John Ruskin, M.A., p. 128.
 
 32 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [PART I. 
 
 the scientific point of view which I propose, we see more 
 general causes in operation, and learn that high aesthetic 
 development and an all-pervading love of sensual plea- 
 sures are coincident, and due to the same causes. It is 
 therefore in a discovery of the laws of correlation of the 
 moral and physical or vital forces, as they co-operate in 
 the material organ of the mind, and their application to 
 sociology, that a true mental science would win its 
 highest triumphs; for a nation could thus be carried safely 
 forward, by an applied philosophy of cerebral action, 
 through successive phases of development, to the highest 
 attainable pitch of physical, intellectual, and moral vigour, 
 with the highest aesthetic perfection. 
 
 There is one other object to be mentioned, to Avhich a 
 practical science of mind would be subservient, and that 
 is the complete development of philosophy itself. Such 
 a science must necessarily investigate the laws of thought 
 in correlation with the laws of life, or, in other words, 
 develop the laws of Being. These would be the neces- 
 sary laws of reason and existence. They would consti- 
 tute the first principles of a science of human nature, 
 comprising within it all the laws of thought and of lan- 
 guage, as well as the laws of morals. Such a develop- 
 ment would be the necessary consummation of all human 
 science upon a knowledge of the Divine. 
 
 These, then, are the great objects of a full and complete 
 mental science, in relation with a philosphical physio- 
 logy. It is co-extensive in its scope with created things. 
 It investigates the action of the physical forces, that it 
 may determine their relations to the forces of life and 
 organisation ; it investigates the vital forces, that it may 
 develop the relations of life and organisation to mind ; 
 and it investigates the phenomena of mind in their rela- 
 tions to physical and vital forces as operative in the
 
 CHAP. II. J DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 33 
 
 brain, that it may deduce general principles applicable 
 alike to the material welfare and the highest moral, in- 
 tellectual, and spiritual interests of man. It is neces- 
 sarily co-extensive with that knowledge in which all men 
 take interest, and is synonymous with that philosophy 
 which Kant defined as the science of the relation of all 
 cognition to the ultimate and essential aims of human 
 reason (teleologia rationis humance).
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE OBSTACLES TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PRACTICAL 
 SCIENCE OF MIND, ARISING OUT OF THE ADOPTION OF ERRO- 
 NEOUS PRINCIPLES AND IMPERFECT METHODS. 
 
 Having determined the objects to be arrived at in the 
 development of a practical science of mind, the next step 
 would properly be to set forth the method of attaining 
 them. Before this be done, it is an absolute necessity to 
 success to determine first in what respects the methods 
 hitherto followed have failed in these objects, and the 
 reasons of the failures; otherwise we may select a method 
 which has already proved to be barren in practical results. 
 My friend and able colleague, Mr Fraser, Professor of 
 Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh, 
 observes that complaints of the chaotic state of opinion, 
 and the incurable discard of sects in philosophy, have 
 become common, especially in modern books ; adding — 
 " It must be conceded, that some eminent leaders in phi- 
 losophy have given their countenance to the opinion, 
 that the past history of reflection is the history of an 
 intellectual chaos ; and that its guides may now hope to 
 substitute a cosmos for the chaos. Two celebrated con- 
 temporaries, whose works have induced the greatest 
 metaphysical movement in late times, Eeid and Kant, 
 may be quoted as instances. There is a remarkable coin- 
 cidence between the opening part of Eeid's Essays and 
 the preface to the first Critique of Kant. Both deplore
 
 CHAP. III.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 35 
 
 variety and collision among preceding systems, as a 
 scandal inconsistent with the unity of truth. Both con- 
 trast the oscillations of mental research with the steady 
 march of the physical and mathematical sciences. Both 
 look with good hope into the future, in case of a change 
 in the old and still fashionable method of constructing 
 systems of Philosophy. Both confess that preceding phi- 
 losophers have wandered from the path. Both indulge 
 the expectation that a path may still be found."* Kant's 
 remarks are decisive. He says : " At present, as all 
 methods, according to the general persuasion, have been 
 tried in vain, there reigns nought but weariness and com- 
 plete indifferentism — the mother of chaos and night in 
 the scientific world." This indifference, he adds, "is 
 plainly not the effect of the levity, but of the matured 
 judgment of the age, which refuses to be entertained with 
 illusory knowledge." Kant looked upon this state of 
 things as a call to reason to undertake the most laborious 
 of all tasks — that of self-examination ; or, in other words, 
 to adopt such a purely metaphysical method as is implied 
 in the critical investigation of pure reason. " This path," 
 he says, the only one remaining, " has been entered upon 
 by me ; and I flatter myself that I have in this way dis- 
 covered the cause of — and consequently the mode of 
 removing— all the errors which have hitherto set reason 
 at variance with itself, in the sphere of non-empirical 
 thought."! Kant was very conscious that his declara- 
 tions of success must sound boastful and extravagant, 
 but he justifies them by affirming that they are beyond 
 comparison more moderate than those advanced by the" 
 commonest author of the commonest philosophical pro- 
 gramme. Experience has proved the worth of Kant's 
 
 * Rational Philosophy in History and in System ; 1858, pp. 21, 22. 
 t Critik der R. : Vernunft. Preface.
 
 36 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I.. 
 
 system. Philosophy has assuredly made great progress 
 by the help of it ; but as assuredly it is not yet in that 
 satisfactory position in which that great thinker so con- 
 fidently hoped he had placed it. While he investigated 
 the laws of pure reason with a subtlety and depth, and I 
 may add success, rarely equalled, he omitted to examine 
 them in relation with the laws of action of that organ by 
 which reason itself is possible. Hence he only opened 
 the way for more successful methods, and left philosophy 
 little improved as to its procedures and general results ; 
 so that a modern metaphysician hesitates not to say, 
 " The best way of attaining to correct opinions on most 
 metaphysical subjects is by finding out what has been 
 said on any given subject by the psychologists, and then 
 by saying the very opposite. In such cases we are sure 
 to be right in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred."* 
 Mr Fraser fully acknowledges how important is a know- 
 ledge of the relations of consciousness to organic life ; 
 nevertheless he is not inclined to agree with this dis- 
 paragement of philosophy. On the contrary, he attempts 
 to prove, " that no sphere of mental labour can record a 
 longer series of illustrious successes than Eational Phi- 
 losophy, when a true interpretation is applied to the 
 historical phenomena, and when success is judged by the 
 highest intellectual standard." Mr Fraser says ably and 
 clearly all that can be said on this point, and demon- 
 strates, at least, that the opinions referred to have been 
 too broadly stated. Under any circumstances it must 
 however be acknowledged, that the methods of studying 
 human nature scientifically, hitherto followed, are im T 
 perfect. Thus, Mr J. S. Mill only re-echoes the general 
 conviction when he remarks, — " In the departments of 
 inquiry relating to the more complex phenomena of 
 * Professor Ferrier. Institutes of Melaphysic, p. 315.
 
 CHAP. HI.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 37 
 
 nature, and especially those of which the subject is man, 
 whether as a moral and intellectual, a social, or even as a 
 physical being, the diversity of opinions still prevalent 
 among instructed persons, and the equal confidence with 
 which those of the most contrary way of thinking cling 
 to their respective tenets, are proof not only that right 
 modes of philosophising are not yet generally adopted on 
 these subjects, but that wrong ones are."* And this 
 is the criterion of philosophical progress which Kant 
 himself sets forth in the preface to the second edition of 
 his Kritik (1787) : " Whether," he observes, " the treat- 
 ment of that portion of our knowledge which lies within 
 the province of pure reason, advances with that unde- 
 viating certainty which characterises the progress of 
 science, we shall be at no loss to determine. If we find 
 those who are engaged in metaphysical pursuits unable 
 to come to an understanding as to the method which they 
 ought to follow ; if we find them, after the most elabo- 
 rate preparations, invariably brought to a stand before 
 the goal is reached, and compelled to retrace their steps 
 and strike into fresh paths ; we may then feel quite sure 
 that they are far from having attained to the certainty of 
 scientific progress, and may rather be said to be groping 
 about in the dark."f 
 
 If we inquire into the causes of this acknowledged 
 failure of philosophy to develop a science of human na- 
 ture, we shall find that they are those which are now the 
 recognised obstacles to progress in every department of 
 science whatever. We have to blame, especially, an im- 
 
 * Elements of Logic, 4th edit. vol. ii. p. 288. 
 
 f Kritik der R. : Vernuvft. Mr Meiklejohn's trans, p. xxiv. Bolin. 
 This translation of Kant's Kritik is confessedly the best and 
 cheapest published, and is therefore the edition I have selected fur 
 reference.
 
 38 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 perfect conception of its objects and scope, and, as a con- 
 sequence, the assumption of erroneous fundamental prin- 
 ciples. We have also to blame incomplete and erroneous 
 methods, founded upon erroneous principles, imper- 
 fect observation of the phenomena to be investigated, 
 in consequence of the blinding influence of precon- 
 ceived opinions, and injurious restrictions upon in- 
 quiry, the result of theological prejudices and of well- 
 grounded fears for the safety of the great truths of re- 
 ligion and morals. Minor influences might be mentioned, 
 but these are the principal causes of the perplexities, con- 
 tradictions, and inutilities of Philosophy, considered as 
 a science of mind. As a necessary preliminary, therefore, 
 to the setting forth of such a method as may help to 
 place Philosophy in its right place in the circle of the 
 sciences, we must examine these untoward influences 
 upon its progress, and illustrate them in detail. They 
 will be best considered in two sections, for the theological 
 prejudices and religious fears merit a special notice ; we 
 will therefore first notice some of the obstacles to the de- 
 velopment of a practical mental science to be found in 
 imperfect methods and in fallacious inductions, used as 
 fundamental or general principles. 
 
 Section I. — Separation of Philosophy and Physiology from 
 each other, and from Experience. 
 
 The inquiries into human nature have been followed 
 according to three principal methods. The first is the 
 empirical, or the method of experience only, without 
 reference to scientific research or philosophical specula- 
 tion. It is the method followed by mankind in general ; 
 its principles are embodied in aphorisms, maxims, pro- 
 verbs, and the like, and are manifested in the language,
 
 chap, in.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 39 
 
 laws, and conduct of men. The second is the philoso- 
 phical, which seeks to arrive at truth and a knowledge of 
 human nature by speculative inquiries and a 'priori de- 
 ductions founded on an examination of the phenomena 
 of mind and consciousness — the things that are known or 
 felt — the noumena as distinguished from the Manifested. 
 The third is the scientific or physiological, which aims 
 to attain to a knowledge of human nature by the induc- 
 tive method, directed mainly to an examination of the 
 phenomena of life — the things manifest in the body. To 
 these, in strictness, might be added a fourth method — 
 the unscientific — which uses partly one of the preceding 
 methods, partly another, without reference to any funda- 
 mental general principles or primary data. 
 
 Now, as none of these methods have attained to satis- 
 factory results, it is of importance to determine in what 
 respects they are imperfect ; and, upon a general survey, 
 it appears that they have failed because their funda- 
 mental or primary data were false, and that these were 
 false because the nexus of the subject-matters of inquiry 
 was not comprehended. Each has been followed to the 
 exclusion of the others. Thus, Experience knows nothing 
 of metaphysic or physiology ; Metaphysic ignores phy- 
 siology and experience ; Physiology divides itself by a 
 sharp line from experience and metaphysic. Metaphysic 
 limits itself to the phenomena of Thought. Physiology 
 limits itself to the phenomena of Life. Experience exa- 
 mines the phenomena of both Life and Thought, but, 
 adopting the erroneous limitation of metaphysic and 
 physiology, arrives at no clear conception of either. 
 
 This bare statement of the matter may appear at first 
 to be incorrect. It might be reasonably expected, for 
 example, that the various morbid mental states known 
 as insanity, which so imperatively attract the attention
 
 4° DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 of the physician, would have also led the metaphysician 
 to a right estimate of that knowledge which experience 
 gives as to the fundamental relations of hody and mind ; 
 or that, at least, while he attempted to explain the laws 
 of Thought as manifested in healthy states of mind, a 
 solution of the problem as to unhealthy states would 
 have been attempted also. But philosophy does nothing 
 of the kind. These morbid mental states are even re- 
 jected as sources of knowledge. Eeid only represents 
 the notion of a school when, in reference to the delusions 
 of lunatics, he remarks — " All I have to say to this is, 
 that our minds, in our present state, are, like our bodies, 
 liable to strange disorders ; and as we do not judge of 
 the natural constitution of the body from the disorders 
 or diseases to which it is subject from accidents [a false 
 premiss], so neither ought we to judge of the natural 
 powers of the mind from its disorders, but from its sound 
 state."* Hence philosophy, in rejecting so valuable a 
 source of knowledge, sheds no light upon one of the 
 most terrible inflictions to which the mind of man is 
 exposed, — gives no knowledge as to its relations to mo- 
 rals, no information as to its causes, no help as to its 
 cure. The social evils that have resulted from this 
 rejection of the teachings of experience are incalculably 
 great, and pervade the whole business of human life. 
 In particular, education, ethical philosophy, and the ad- 
 ministration of justiee manifest them. Thus, the judges 
 and juries of the land cannot pass by the question in 
 this easy fashion when they have to decide what is or is 
 not insanity. To a conclusion they must come, whether 
 or no, in the case before them ; and as they appeal to 
 philosophy, the law, as administered by them, is involved 
 in the errors and ignorance of philosophy. This prac- 
 * On the Intellectual Powers, Essay II. chap. v.
 
 chap, in.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 41 
 
 tical evil has been felt so strongly that, in 1843, the 
 House of Lords called upon the judges of England to 
 declare authoritatively, in their collective capacity, what 
 state of mind really constitutes insane irresponsibility. 
 The most important of their dicta was, that if it were 
 proved that a criminal was incapable of distinguishing 
 right from wrong when he committed the crime, the plea 
 of insanity might be admitted, but not otherwise. The 
 scientific and practical value of this solemn judicial dic- 
 tum may be estimated from a consideration of the fact 
 that a large majority of acknowledged lunatics, now le- 
 gally restrained in public and private institutions for the 
 insane, do possess this knowledge ; and that, in truth, the 
 government of these institutions is conducted almost 
 wholly upon the principle that those who have to be 
 governed have knowledge of good and evil, and of right 
 and wrong. It follows, therefore, that if the judicial 
 dictum were strictly applied, these persons ought not to 
 be restrained, but should, as responsible agents, be per- 
 mitted to enjoy social liberty. 
 
 Now, the physiologist is not, like the philosopher, 
 professedly speculative : he has never, therefore, wholly 
 ignored practical ends, nor discarded his experience of 
 morbid mental states; but he has constantly been in 
 doubt as to how far these states were physiological — 
 that is, depended upon states of the body. Hence, 
 while with all men of intelligence, delirium, furious 
 mania, and the like, were admittedly corporeal diseases, 
 those more subtle forms of mental derangement, in 
 which the line of demarcation between healthy and 
 disordered function of the brain is drawn with diffi- 
 culty, were believed to be of incorporeal origin, and 
 not disease. The management of the insane, up to 
 the close of the last century, was necessarily guided by
 
 42 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part r. 
 
 those erroneous opinions and by the current philosophy, 
 and was therefore of the most injudicious, nay, barbarous 
 character. No one doubted — not the best, and wisest, 
 and kindest of men — that stripes, and chains, and 
 barred cells were the most efficient means of cure. A 
 lunatic was treated medically as a criminal ; and thus 
 cruel bodily tortures were added to the mental agonies 
 which the unfortunate sufferer endured. In truth he 
 was a wretched being, cut off from all kindly sympathy, 
 an object of horror and aversion to his dearest friends. 
 If such was the treatment of those plainly and un- 
 questionably insane, little indulgence could be granted 
 to the weak in judgment or infirm in temper, in whom 
 functional disease or a faulty organisation was the cause 
 of their defects. The operation of such causes of mental 
 defect was in fact hardly suspected, so that not a few 
 insane fanatics in religion or in politics fell into the 
 hands of the public executioner. 
 
 This wide separation of physiology from philosophy is 
 the first fundamental defect we encounter — a separation 
 which takes its origin in the ignoring by both of the 
 facts of experience, as to the inseparable relation of body 
 and mind. For although it will be fully conceded that 
 physiology, of late years, has not neglected experience to 
 anything like the same extent as philosophy, its funda- 
 mental principles are so little altered, that its facts and 
 theories as to Mind and Life are incessantly at variance. 
 Thus, the modern physiologist readily accepts the teach- 
 ing of experience as to the phenomena of Life, because 
 scientific observation is practically nothing else than a sci- 
 entific experience; but he still rejects it as to the pheno- 
 mena of Thought, and on the same grounds that he sepa- 
 rates physiology from philosophy, or metaphysics — namely, 
 that there is no parallelism or analogy between the two
 
 chap, in.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 43 
 
 classes of phenomena. Thus, a popular writer on physio- 
 logy, in referring to the doctrines of Stahl, who recog- 
 nised their identity, and maintained the old doctrine of 
 their community as to cause, remarks, as to the teachings 
 of experience, " Although there are few, if any, philoso- 
 phers who would avow such a doctrine as that of Stahl 
 at the present tim,e, we trace its effects very evidently 
 exerted upon popular opinion. We have known it main- 
 tained by many well-informed persons, that the pheno- 
 mena of life and mind are obviously so closely connected, 
 that, to refer one class to the operation of the properties 
 of matter, without an independent controlling entity, — 
 in other words, to set aside the doctrine of a vital prin- 
 ciple, — necessarily implies the relinquishment of the idea 
 of mind as a distinct existence. Nothing, however, can be 
 more absurd than such a dogma. The two classes of phe- 
 nomena are not connected otherwise than by a very re- 
 mote analogy.* And the same writer, proceeding to 
 express his own scientific views, adds, " All the pheno- 
 mena of life (putting aside, of course, those psychical 
 changes with which we are contrasting them) concern 
 matter only, and consist in its actions and reactions ; and 
 there is nothing in them related to consciousness. It is 
 but reasonable, then, to refer them to the laws of matter 
 if we can do so. But the phenomena of mind are uni- 
 versally allowed to be of a very different character : there 
 is nothing tangible or material about them ; and whether 
 we regard them as causes or results of material changes, 
 our reasons must have a very different basis than the 
 existence or non-existence of a vital principle. On this 
 point all the most intelligent of modern writers are fully 
 agreed." Amongst those quoted by this writer are Aber- 
 
 * Dr W. B. Carpenter. On Life, Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and 
 Physiology, vol. iii. p. 144.
 
 44 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 nethy,Prichard, and Alison, all of whom contended against 
 confounding mind, or the " conscious principle," with the 
 vital principle. 
 
 Cabanis was the first after Stahl to work out the cor- 
 relations of life and thought, and attempt a practical 
 development of them.* Of his views Mr G-. H. Lewes re- 
 marks : " This conception of a possible psychology is in 
 itself enough to mark for ever the place of Cabanis in the 
 history of philosophy. It establishes psychology as one 
 branch of the great science of life. It connects the ope- 
 rations of intelligence and volition with the origin of all 
 vital movements. It makes Life and Mind correlatives. 
 This was a revival of the great truth clearly recognised 
 by Aristotle, from whom it descended to the schoolmen. 
 ' Impossibile est,' says Aquinas, very emphatically, 'in 
 uno homine esse plures animas per essentiam differentes, 
 sed una tantum est anima intellectiva, qua? vegetative et 
 sensitivae et intellectiva? officiis fungitur.' The division 
 of life and mind, as two distinct entities, was introduced 
 by the Italians of the Eenaissance, adopted by Bacon, 
 and once more rejected by Stahl, who returned to the 
 Aristotelian doctrine. With the fall of Stahl's doctrine, 
 the separation of mind from life again became the dic- 
 tum of the schools until Cabanis." f The modern Grer- 
 man schools have been more or less tinctured with it ; 
 while in England Mr Morell,J and especially Mr H. 
 Spencer,§ have taken it as the starting-point of psycho- 
 logical induction. 
 
 But, with all its defects, cerebral physiology has always 
 been very attractive to a large class of thinkers. It has 
 
 * Rapports du Physique et du Moral de V Homme. 1 802. 
 
 t Biographical History of Philosophy. Library edition, p. 623. 
 
 \ Elements of Psychology. London, 1853. 
 
 § Principles of Psychology. London, 1855.
 
 chap, ill.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 45 
 
 been clearly seen that the physiology of the encephalic 
 structures has plainly very numerous practical relations. 
 Constituting collectively what may be termed the organ 
 of mind, their healthy or morbid states, as such, mani- 
 festly influence all the most important affairs of man. 
 The pathology and treatment of insanity; the connection 
 between mental disorder and vice ; the nature, training, 
 and development of the mental powers ; and, in short, 
 the science of human nature in its most comprehensive 
 meaning, can never be rightly understood until an accu- 
 rate and comprehensive physiology of the encephalon is 
 erected, and the relations of body and mind accurately set 
 forth. These are some of the problems which phrenology 
 professedly grapples with, as established by Grail and 
 Spurzheim. Such, then, being the character and objects 
 of cerebral physiology, it is clearly an obstacle to the right 
 application of its truths to mental science to affirm, as a 
 fundamental proposition, that the phenomena of life and 
 thought, as manifested in the brain, are not connected 
 otherwise than by a very remote analogy, for it is wholly 
 at variance with the facts. It is admitted by all, that 
 every change in the consciousness is coincident with 
 some vital change in the encephalon, no matter what or 
 where. Without such vital change, no mental phenomena 
 whatever are manifested. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be admitted, that such a proposi- 
 tion of the physiologist justifies that correlative funda- 
 mental doctrine of the philosopher which is, on the other 
 hand, the source of all the errors and fallacies of philoso- 
 phical research, — namely, that the phenomena of conscious- 
 ness, as knowledge, are the sole, the exclusive objects of 
 his labours. The philosopher, therefore, makes no pretence 
 to a knowledge or use of physiology. " The philoso- 
 pher," observes Sir Wm. Hamilton, " requires for his
 
 46 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part r. 
 
 discoveries no preliminary preparations, no apparatus of 
 instruments and materials. He has no new events to 
 seek, as the historian ; no new combinations to form, as 
 the mathematician. The botanist, the zoologist, the 
 mineralogist, can accumulate only by care, and trouble, 
 and expense, an inadequate assortment of the objects 
 necessary for their labours and observations. But that 
 most important and interesting of all studies, of which 
 man himself is the object, has no need of anything ex- 
 ternal ; it is only necessary that the observer enter into 
 his inner self, in order to find there all he stands in need 
 of ; or rather, it is only by doing this that he can hope 
 to find anything at all. If he only effectively pursue 
 the method of observation and analysis, he may even 
 dispense with the study of philosophical systems. This 
 is at best only useful as a mean towards a deeper and 
 more varied study of himself."* 
 
 It is but justice, however, to a rapidly increasing 
 school of modern philosophy, to state that these views 
 are not held in their full extent by some of the best of 
 modern thinkers. The intimate connection between 
 mind and organisation, both as a fact of experience and 
 in the relations of cause and effect, is recognised by 
 several eminent writers, as Mr Spencer, Mr Morell, Mr 
 Bain, and others. Perhaps Mr J. S. Mill presents the 
 best illustration of a transitional school of this kind, 
 although, in discussing this question, he rather argues 
 from our ignorance than as to our powers and possible 
 methods of inquiry. " That every mental state has a 
 nervous state for its immediate antecedent and proximate 
 cause, though extremely probable, cannot hitherto be 
 said to be proved in the conclusive manner in which this 
 can be proved of sensation; and even were it certain, 
 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 383.
 
 CHAP, in.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 47 
 
 yet every one must admit that we are wholly ignorant of 
 the characteristics of these nervous states ; we know not, 
 and at present have no means of knowing, in what re- 
 spect one of them differs from another ; and our only 
 mode of studying their successions or co-existences must 
 he by observing the successions and co-existences of the 
 mental states of which they are supposed to be the 
 generators or causes. The successions, therefore, which 
 obtain among mental phenomena, do not admit of being 
 deduced from the physiological laws of our nervous 
 organisation ; and all real knowledge of them must con- 
 tinue for a long time at least, if not for ever, to be sought 
 in the direct study, by observation and experiment, of 
 the mental successions themselves. Since, therefore, the 
 order of our mental phenomena must be studied in those 
 phenomena, and not inferred from the laws of s i any 
 phenomena more general, there is a distinct and separate 
 science of mind. The relations, indeed, of that science 
 to the science of physiology must never be overlooked or 
 undervalued. It must by no means be forgotten that the laws 
 of mind may be derivative laws resulting from the laws 
 of animal life, and their truth, therefore, may ultimately 
 depend on physical conditions ; and the influence of phy- 
 siological states or physiological changes, in altering or 
 counteracting the mental successions, is one of tbe most 
 important departments of psychological study." * 
 
 The suggestion which I have italicised merits more 
 than a passing notice, for it contains the germ of a new 
 method. But Mr Mill has evidently written under the 
 doctrinal influence of the current physiological school, 
 that the vital changes in the nervous system are the 
 " generators" or causes of the coincident mental states. 
 
 * System of Logic, 4th edit., vol. ii. p. 426.
 
 48 DISSEKTATION ON METHOD. [part. i. 
 
 This is a fundamental error in physiology, if the doctrine 
 be taken in its absolute sense. The phenomena of life and 
 consciousness are due to a common cause — an ordering 
 law of design or adaptation to ends. In the present 
 empirical and unphilosophical state of neurology and 
 biology, thus fundamentally vitiated, I cordially concur 
 with the opinion expressed by Mr J. S. Mill, to the effect 
 that, to reject the resource of psychological analysis, 
 and construct the theory of the mind solely on such data 
 as physiology at present affords, is a great error in prin- 
 ciple, and an even more serious one in practice. " Im- 
 perfect as is the science of mind," Mr Mill observes, " I 
 do not scruple to affirm that it is in a considerably more 
 advanced state than the portion of physiology which 
 corresponds to it."* 
 
 Sect. II. — Avoiued Neglect of Observation and Induction 
 in determining the Relations of Body and Mind. 
 
 That philosophy and physiology have not long ago 
 been thus intimately united in inquiry into the laws of 
 mind, is due to various other causes besides this funda- 
 mental defect of philosophical method ; it is sufficient to 
 revert to one of the most important, — namely, the difficul- 
 ties of the investigation which such union implies. The 
 relations of vital to mental changes have been universally 
 held to be wholly inscrutable ; and undoubtedly, until 
 within the last quarter of a century, physiology was 
 hardly equal to the performance of its share of the inves- 
 tigation. Nevertheless it was, and is still, a common and 
 apparently pleasant business with metaphysical writers 
 to enlarge upon the extent of our insuperable ignor- 
 ance ; for it has at least this result, that an excuse was 
 
 * Op. citato, p. 427.
 
 chap. III.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 49 
 
 thereby secured for making no attempts to remove that 
 ignorance. Professor Ferrier has well ridiculed this 
 proceeding of psychologists : — " ' What does this cheese 
 consist of? ' says a customer to his grocer. ' Consist of! ' 
 answers the man — ' consist of ! why, it weighs twenty 
 pounds to a hair, and that is what it consists of.' Our 
 psychologists are that grocer. We ask them what igno- 
 rance is, and what we are ignorant of ? and they reply 
 that, while our knowledge is as mere dust in the balance, 
 our ignorance is so great that it might ballast the whole 
 British navy."* Such a procedure has necessarily rendered 
 all philosophical researches defective at the verj r outset 
 in the primary requisites to successful inductive inquiry. 
 
 Nor, looking at this source of ill-success from the 
 metaphysical side, can we come to any other conclusion. 
 All our knowledge is confessedly relative in its origin ; 
 yet philosophy professedly examines phenomena out of 
 relation to each other. It investigates the universal as 
 something apart from the particular, the absolute as apart 
 from the contingent, the relative as apart from the cor- 
 relative. By limiting the inquiry to the phenomena of 
 consciousness, all other phenomena — the result of mind 
 in action — are excluded. The great world of creation is 
 shut out from view ; and even all the infinitely varied 
 acts of intelligence in lower animals laid aside as useless 
 in the inquiry. But I will illustrate by details. 
 
 In answer to the question, " From what source must 
 the knowledge of the mind and its faculties be drawn ? " 
 Eeid answers, " The chief and proper source of this 
 branch of knowledge is accurate reflection upon the 
 operations of our own minds" — that is to say, thought, 
 apart from any experimental inquiry into the influence 
 
 * Institutes of Metaphi/sic, p. 429. 
 
 D
 
 5° DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 which the body exercises upon those operations. Yet 
 Reid fully recognised the general fact, that due activity 
 of the brain is necessary to thought. "It is well 
 known," he says, " that disorders in the brain deprive us 
 of the power of perception." He also saw " that, as the 
 impressions on the organs, nerves, and brain correspond 
 exactly to the nature and conditions of the objects by 
 which they are made, so our perceptions and sensations 
 correspond to those impressions, and vary in kind and in 
 degree as they vary." Yet, with this clear and distinct 
 acknowledgment of the part which the brain takes in 
 thought, Reid passed over the practical conclusion flowing 
 from it, and made no inquiry into the alleged correspon- 
 dence between the actions of the organism, the " impres- 
 sions," and the states of consciousness. This neglect of 
 physiology he carried to an absurd length. Thus, in one 
 of his letters to Dr James Gregory, in a note " On Power" 
 (Reid's Works, p. 80), he thus speaks of volition in the 
 morbid state of palsy : — " If I be struck with a palsy, 
 that volition and effort which before moved my hand is 
 now unable to do it. Is this owing to an inability to 
 produce the first motion ? or is it owing to mere derange- 
 ment of the machine of the body ? I know not." Nor 
 does Dr Reid go on to say that it would be well to deter- 
 mine these questions by observation and experiment. 
 On the contrary, he rejoices apparently in his ignorance 
 and doubt ; for he adds, " Nay, I am uncertain whether I 
 be truly and properly the agent in the first motion ; for 
 I can suppose that, whenever I will to move my hand, 
 the Deity, or some other agent, produces the first motion 
 in my body — which was the opinion of Malebranche. 
 This hypothesis agrees with all that I am conscious of in 
 the matter." The hypothesis itself indicates a curiously 
 clear perception of what must be known and determined
 
 chap, in.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD- 5 1 
 
 before we can comprehend the true nature of an act of 
 volition, and by implication affirms the necessary know- 
 ledge to be attainable only by researches into the struc- 
 ture and working of " the machine of the body," upon 
 the derangement of which the palsy depends. Yet, in 
 common with all pure metaphysicians, Eeid turned aside 
 from the necessary researches, and ignoring for the future 
 even the existence of the machine, confined himself to 
 the discussion of abstract questions. 
 
 It is interesting to note how clearly Kant indicated the 
 cause of this fatal neglect of observation. He attributed 
 it to the employment of the psychological idea of the 
 Ego as a constitutive rather than as a regulative prin- 
 ciple. " When employed," he observes, " as such, for the 
 explanation of the phenomena of the soul, and for the 
 extension of our knowledge regarding this subject beyond 
 the limits of experience — even to the condition of the 
 soul after death — it is convenient enough for the purpose 
 of pure reason, but detrimental, and even ruinous to its 
 interests, in the sphere of nature and experience. The 
 dogmatising spiritualist explains the unchanging unity 
 of our personality, through all changes of condition, by 
 means of the unity of a thinking substance, and the inte- 
 rest which we take in things and events which can happen 
 only after our death, from a consciousness of the imma- 
 terial nature of our thinking subject, and so on. Thus 
 he dispenses with all empirical investigations into the 
 cause of these internal phenomena, and with all possible 
 explanations of them upon purely natural grounds; while, 
 at the dictation of a transcendent reason, he passes by 
 the universal sources of cognition in experience, greatly 
 to his ease and convenience, but to the sacrifice of all 
 genuine insight and intelligence." * 
 
 * Kritik der R. : Vern. Transcendental Dialectic — App.
 
 52 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 But further : This fundamental error as to the inscruta- 
 bility of the sources of our knowledge, involves all the 
 methods hitherto pursued for investigating the phenomena 
 of nature. For it is clear that if mind cannot be investi- 
 gated out of relation to matter, neither can matter be 
 investigated out of relation to mind. In this way a 
 seemingly well-founded but erroneous conclusion from 
 phenomena runs as a thread of error throughout the 
 cycle of the sciences. Professor Ferrier, with his usual 
 sagacity, has placed his finger upon this result of the 
 methods founded on the doctrine criticised. " The 
 common division of the sciences into two leading cate- 
 gories, — the science of mind and the science of mat- 
 ter, — when regarded as more than a mere verbal, and, to 
 a certain extent, convenient distinction, is founded on the 
 fallacy contained in this psychological deliverance, and 
 partakes of its fallaciousness. Indeed, to lay down the 
 realism of subject and object as complete and absolute 
 (that is, as an out-and-out reality which is not also a 
 unity), which psychology frequently does, is to extinguish 
 every glimmering of the scientific reason ; for this implies 
 that the realism as laid down in cognition is complete and 
 absolute, which it can only be when intelligence can act in 
 opposition to its own necessary and insuperable laws."* 
 That such fundamental errors would vitiate an entire 
 system, however well worked out, is a logical necessity. 
 
 If men were habitually to examine what is implied 
 in the idea of son, without reference to the correlative 
 idea of a parent, or to investigate light without reference 
 to darkness, or life without reference to death, the pro- 
 cess would be exactly analogous to that which is the 
 fundamental method of philosophy. How, then, has this 
 
 * Institutes <>f Metaphysic, p. 111.
 
 c«ap. in.] DISSERTATION OX METHOD. 53 
 
 glaring defect been continued? Simply in this way. 
 Every man who consults his daily experience of life, and 
 who reflects upon the phenomena of his own mind, finds 
 that he has a feeling or consciousness of existing apart 
 from all other things in creation — that is, possesses an 
 internal experience or intuition of his personality and 
 individuality, and of his power to do, or not to do, as he 
 chooses. But there is no closer connection apparent to the 
 man himself between these intuitive feelings and the orga- 
 nisation, than there is between the man and the machines 
 which he constructs and uses for his mechanical purposes. 
 The hand or arm appears to the consciousness as but an 
 instrument, just like the axe which the hand grasps. 
 Under these circumstances the fundamental error in 
 method leads to a fundamental error in observation and 
 induction ; for consciousness, being examined as some- 
 thing absolute, in virtue of the fundamental canon of 
 philosophical inquiry, the step is easy to the conclusion 
 that it is something absolute — i.e., a separate and inde- 
 pendent terrestrial agent. Then, this apparently inde- 
 pendent relation of the consciousness to the organisation 
 (for it is only apparent) is adoped by the speculative 
 psychologist as the real relation ; and thereupon he builds 
 a whole system, or rather whole systems, of mental philo- 
 sophy, " spiritualism," and the like, and develops their 
 applications. There is not the slightest misgiving as to 
 the unstable foundation thus taken. On the contrary, the 
 principle is assumed to be sound, with the most unques- 
 tioning confidence, equally by Descartes, Spinoza, and 
 Reid. "Again, we refrain," says Mr Isaac Taylor (I quote 
 from an able work of his, lately published),* " from that 
 which belongs to animal physiology, and therefore make 
 
 * The World of Mind, §§ 323, 325.
 
 54 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part r. 
 
 no inquiry concerning a nervous system, or that muscular 
 apparatus through which animal movement is effected. 
 Mind has no consciousness of power, or of muscles : 
 volition is a purely rudimentary fact, having respect to 
 nothing hut the mental intention which is realised at the 
 instant it takes place ; how realised, the Mind neither 
 knows nor cares, but the physiologist may discover it if 
 he can. . . . On the one side there is Thought, or mind 
 ■in act; on the other side there is motion — taking place in a 
 mass, larger or smaller, heavier or lighter. The interven- 
 ing apparatus we are unconscious of — we are quite mind- 
 less in regard to it ; it is to the mind as if it were not." 
 
 Turn from this speculative psychology to the com- 
 mon sense of mankind, and its defects appear at once. 
 The labourer, whose arm is paralysed, cares much to know 
 how he may again wield the axe ; the judge and jury, 
 when the plea of insanity is advanced to shield the 
 criminal, listen carefully to the facts stated in support of 
 the plea as to the injured skull, the idiotic, ill-developed 
 brain, the delirious ravings from some slight mental 
 cause, the hereditary transmission of a tendency to dis- 
 eases of the brain, and the like. So, also, while the 
 speculative psychologist tells in eloquent language how 
 the soul triumphs over old age, disease, and death, the 
 legislator throws the protection of the law around the 
 landed property of the sick and dying, by requiring strict 
 proof that their last will and testament was made when 
 not rendered imbecile in mind by senility, bodily infirmity, 
 or disease. Thus the law, as representing the common 
 sense and experience of mankind on the one side, 
 and speculative philosophy on the other, are wholly 
 at variance on the practical points. Nor is it diffi- 
 cult to see how the variance arises. The common sense 
 of mankind looks wholly at the states of consciousness,
 
 CHAP. Ill,] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 55 
 
 as modified by changes in the organisation, and speaks 
 of the man; philosophy looks at the same states as wholly 
 apart from organisation, and speaks of the mind. 
 
 This is also precisely the difference between the prac- 
 tical psychologist and the speculative philosopher. To 
 the former, it is the man in his twofold constitution who 
 is conscious, not the mind as apart from the man. As 
 his states of body vary, so his states of mind vary — that 
 is, his feelings, thoughts, motives, volitions, actions. 
 Equally the practical man of common sense knows that 
 these variations in the mental conditions depend, neces- 
 sarity, upon variations in the bodily conditions ; he guides 
 his conduct accordingly, and uses agents which he knows 
 will act upon the organisation when he desires to alter 
 his states of consciousness. If he desires to abolish it 
 wholly and be insensible to pain, he breathes the vapour 
 of chloroform ; if he wishes to be brilliant in imagination 
 or glowing in diction, he swallows opium ; if to be gay 
 in spirit and joyous with a sense of vigorous life, he 
 drinks wine. Philosophy and experience are thus wholly 
 at variance in the practical business of life ; it is not sur- 
 prising, therefore, that thus failing in useful results, philo- 
 sophy should have no regard from the mass of mankind. 
 
 Sect. III. — The Defects and Ambiguities of Philosophical 
 
 Terms. 
 
 It is hardly credible to what an extent metaphysical 
 writers have been betrayed into fallacies by the defects 
 and ambiguities of their language and terminology. 
 Thus, Sir William Hamilton shows that the term sensa- 
 tion^ as used by Eeid, means a special and limited act of 
 consciousness ; while philosophers in general understand 
 by the same term a different and a general act. Sir
 
 56 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part. i. 
 
 William Hamilton shows, too, thatKeid devoted an elabo- 
 rate criticism to the Cartesian system of ideas, not noting 
 that the word idea in that system meant both the proxi- 
 mate bodily antecedent of the mental state, and that 
 state itself. Hence his criticisms were wholly groun- 
 less and erroneous. Sir William Hamilton states the 
 same of Eeid's criticisms of Berkeley and Locke, and 
 of Locke's criticism of Descartes. As to Locke, Sir 
 William Hamilton asserts that his " whole philosophical 
 language is, beyond measure, vague, vacillating, and 
 ambiguous. In this respect he has afforded the worst 
 of precedents, and has found only too many among us 
 to follow his example." Sir William Hamilton amply 
 shows, farther, " that the principal terms of philosophy 
 have not only been frequently changed from their origi- 
 nal meanings and correlations, but that these meanings 
 and correlations are sometimes simply reversed. As an 
 illustration, the use of the words object and objective by 
 philosophers may be adduced. When applied in one 
 way, it correctly indicates what exists of its own nature ; 
 when applied in another, what exists only in thought. 
 Both of these counter meanings have obtained in the 
 nomenclature of different periods and different philoso- 
 phies — nay, in that of the same period and the same 
 philosophy." Again, the words idea and ideal — in such 
 universal use to express states of consciousness and their 
 results — are employed in such vague and various mean- 
 ings by philosophers, that Sir William Hamilton in 
 general eschews them. Similar illustrations might be 
 multiplied to almost any extent.* 
 
 It is obvious that these defects in the terminology 
 and nomenclature of philosophy (which are familiar to 
 
 * Compare, inter alia, Professor Ferrier, Institutes, 1st edit. pp. 
 266-69.
 
 CHAP. III.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 57 
 
 all metaphysicians) must be fatal to its scientific ad- 
 vancement ; for without precision in the meaning and 
 use of its terms, no advance is possible in any, even the 
 simplest, science of observation. It is clear, then, that 
 a reform in philosophy must begin with a reform in its 
 terminology ; and I would venture to urge upon all those 
 who take an interest in philosophical research, whether 
 steps might not be taken for the purpose of establishing 
 a general nomenclature or terminology of mental science. 
 
 The causes are various. They consist, firstly, in the 
 inherent difficulties of the subject-matter of inquiry. 
 Secondly, in the constant tendency of all words, in the 
 progress of time, to be used in a sense sometimes widely 
 apart from the meaning originally attached to them. 
 Thirdly, in the inattention, ignorance, and deceit of 
 writers, especially when polemical questions are raised, 
 or some favourite system has to be developed. The 
 main cause, however, lies in the fundamental errors of 
 the method followed by the majority of inquirers, and 
 which has been already set forth as an obstacle to the 
 advancement of a practical philosophy. The terms refer 
 to the phenomena of consciousness out of all relation to, 
 and wholly disconnected from, the phenomena of Life. 
 But those must be as variable as the vital changes with 
 which they are inseparably connected, and upon which 
 they depend. Hence the attempt to define them out of 
 relation to the latter, is as difficult as it would be to 
 define and describe the shadows that pass over the sur- 
 face of a mountain, without reference to the sun, or the 
 cloud, or the mountain's side. Until, then, there is a 
 more fixed point of inquiry found in the correlations of 
 the laws of the vital and mental forces, the terminology 
 of metaphysic must remain obscure and contradictory. 
 
 It must, however, be stated, that these defects are to
 
 58 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part r. 
 
 be met with also on the side of physiology, even to a 
 greater extent, as to the use of metaphysical terms, and 
 to an almost equal extent in reference to the terminology 
 proper to physiological science and the science of Life. 
 Metaphysical terms are used very indefinitely by some 
 writers in the discussion of mental physiology, or are 
 used in too restricted a sense, or a sense altogether new ; 
 or new words are invented, apparently under the belief 
 that new truths are expressed thereby, whereas they 
 seem simply to indicate the ignorance of the writer. M. 
 Agassiz has very clearly shown the evils of these pro- 
 ceedings in reference to zoology, and the distinctions 
 made between species. " If such distinctions," he re- 
 marks, " are introduced under well-sounding names, they 
 are almost certain to be adopted, as if science gained any- 
 thing by concealing a difficulty under a Latin or Greek 
 name, or was advanced by the additional burden of a new 
 nomenclature ! Another objectionable practice, prevail- 
 ing quite as extensively also, consists in the change of 
 names, or the modification of the extent and meaning of 
 the old ones, without the addition of new information or 
 of new views. . . . May we not rather return to the 
 methods of such men as Cuvier and Baer, who were never 
 ashamed of expressing their doubts in difficult cases, and 
 were always ready to call the attention of other observers 
 to questionable points, instead of covering up the defi- 
 ciency of their information by high-sounding words ?"* 
 The evil consequences to philosophy of these defects 
 in method, principles, and language, have been most 
 disastrous, from whatever point of view we consider it. 
 Philosophers have most justly set forth the transcendent 
 importance of philosophical culture. It is, or ought to be, 
 
 * An Essay on Classification (1859), p. 8G8.
 
 ORAF. ill.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 59 
 
 the science of human nature, and should aim to ohtain a 
 knowledge of human nature not empirically, hut deduc- 
 tively and inductively, so as to include within its range 
 all human science. When the late Professor Duo-aid 
 Stewart read to the Eoyal Society of Edinhurgh his 
 account of the Life and Writings of Dr Reid, he quoted 
 from Mr Hume, to the effect that there is no question of 
 importance whose decision is not comprised in the science 
 of man ; and there is none which can be decided with 
 any certainty before we become acquainted with that 
 science. " To prepare the way," he added, " for the ac- 
 complishment of the design so forcibly recommended in 
 the foregoing quotation, by exemplifying in an analysis of 
 our most important intellectual and active principles, the 
 only method of carrying it successfully into execution, 
 was the great object of Dr Reid, in all his various philo- 
 sophical publications. In examining these principles, he 
 had chiefly in view a vindication of those fundamental 
 laws of belief which form the ground-work of human 
 knowledge . . . leaving to his successors the more agree- 
 able task of applying the philosophy of the mind to its 
 practical uses." 
 
 How far, and with what success, this agreeable task of 
 applying the philosophy of the mind to its practical 
 uses has been fulfilled since the time of Dr Reid, is not 
 a matter of doubt. While it has unquestionably made 
 great advances, especially in the department of logic, it 
 obviously still wants that higher development which can 
 constitute it a practical science. It is not yet capable of 
 application to the attainment of that practical knowledge 
 of human nature which men desiderate in the conduct of 
 affairs. The same defects are manifested in the relations 
 of philosophy to the natural history sciences. With 
 these it is in antagonism on some points, and in only
 
 60 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i.. 
 
 imperfect accordance on others. For want of that order- 
 ing and vivifying influence which it is the business of a 
 true philosophy to shed through all departments of human 
 knowledge, these sciences lie apart from each other like 
 the scattered, disjected members of a glorious statue, 
 awaiting a master-hand to bring them into harmonious 
 combination. 
 
 This is by no means a new reproach to philosophy: if it 
 were, I would hardly have ventured to state it ; for that 
 man may well be designated as presumptuous who, on his 
 own conclusions, should venture to impugn the success of 
 intellectual labours so great and so grand as the history 
 of philosophy presents to our notice. It is, in fact, the 
 conclusion of all thinking men. Nothing can be stronger 
 on this point than the lately expressed opinion of a dis- 
 tinguished living metaphysician : — " It is a matter of 
 general complaint, that, although we have plenty of dis- 
 putations and dissertations on philosophy, we have no 
 philosophy itself. This is perfectly true. People write 
 about it, and about it ; but no one has grasped with an 
 unflinching hand the very thing itself. The whole philo- 
 sophical literature of the world is more like an unwieldy 
 commentary on some text which has perished, or rather 
 has never existed, than like what a philosophy itself 
 should be. . . . Hence the embroilment of specula- 
 tion ; hence the dissatisfaction, even the despair, of every 
 inquiring mind which turns its attention to metaphysics. 
 There is not now in existence even the shadow of a tri- 
 bunal to which any point in litigation can be referred."* 
 
 Nor has philosophy been more successful as to other 
 objects aimed at. Although it avowedly seeks truth 
 for its own sake, its culture is also recommended as a 
 
 * Professor Ferrier. Institutes of Metajjhysic, p. 5.
 
 CHAP. HI.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 6 1 
 
 salutary exercise of the mental powers — a sort of soul- 
 gymnastics, whereby the man is trained to detect and 
 grapple with error. If, however, the practical psycho- 
 logist turns to writers on mental philosophy, either in 
 search of truth, or as an exercise of mental discipline, he 
 is grievously disappointed ; for he finds himself too often 
 bewildered in an entangled maze of words, and rises 
 from the study of his subject with the opinion so ener- 
 getically expressed by Sir James Mackintosh as to the 
 G-erman school of philosophy, that it is " accursed." Now, 
 such a condition of things must be an insuperable obstacle 
 to the attainment of any practical end whatever. In 
 conclusion, it may be added that any science whatever, 
 if based upon fundamental fallacies, or even if vitiated 
 by one really fundamental error, must necessarily be in- 
 volved more and more widely in every form of difficulty 
 and doubt. So that, if we had not been able to place our 
 finger upon some of the fundamental obstacles to a 
 vigorous growth of a true science of mind, we could 
 plainly have inferred that such there must necessarily be 
 in the current philosophies, from a simple consideration 
 of their defects (p. 37).
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE RESTRICTIONS ON THE PROGRESS Of MENTAL SCIENCE 
 ARISING FROM THE PREJUDICES OF MANKIND AND THE 
 DOGMAS OF SPECULATIVE METAPHYSICS AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 Sect. I. — The Influence of a Fundamental Prejudice 
 of Experience and Speculative Philosophy. 
 
 Although few intelligent men are ignorant of the 
 obstacles which preconceived opinions and prejudices 
 present to the development of truth, it is not a wholly 
 unnecessary task to direct special attention to some of 
 those which stand in the way of a progressive science of 
 mind. There are four kinds to be noted here — namely, 
 (1.) Those which arise out of the prejudices of mankind ; 
 (2.) Those which arise from the teaching of imperfect 
 systems of philosophy ; (3.) Those which spring out of the 
 subordination of philosophy to speculative theology ; and 
 (4.) Those which arise from the conflict of science with 
 the interpretations of revealed Truth. 
 
 We have seen that both physiology and philosophy 
 have agreed to adopt the fallacious fundamental principle 
 that the phenomena of mind and lie are wholly distinct as 
 to nature and cause, and ought therefore to be examined 
 wholly apart. The divarication of physiology from philo- 
 sophy which has resulted has its origin mainly with the 
 philosophers ; but it cannot be denied that the prejudices 
 of physiologists, arising out of this fundamental dogma,
 
 chap, iv.] DISSEKTATION ON METHOD. 63 
 
 have blinded them as to the true meaning of the facts. 
 Just as, when the Copernican theory was first promul- 
 gated, eminent practical philosophers spoke of its absur- 
 dity, and illustrated their asseverations by such arguments 
 as that, if it were true, men at the Antipodes must stand 
 on their heads, and the like ; so physiologists, with a 
 preconceived opinion as to distinctness of "mind" and 
 " vital principle," can only see in the opinions of those 
 who differ from them the absurd effects of popular errors 
 in observation. Their dogmatism serves well to exhibit 
 the effects of prejudices on the powers of observation, inas- 
 much as phenomena, which are so intimately associated, 
 that they are wholly inseparable, even in thought, are 
 declared, in consequence of preconceived notions, to be 
 not connected, otherwise than by a remote analogy. 
 
 The consecpiences of this prejudice illustrates very well 
 the wise teaching of an eminent living logician. " But 
 the greatest of all causes of non-observation," remarks Mr 
 J. S. Mill, " is a preconceived opinion. This it is which, 
 in all ages, has made the whole race of mankind, and 
 every separate section of it, for the most part unob- 
 servant of all facts, however abundant, even when pass- 
 ing under their own eyes, which are contradictory to any 
 first appearance, or any received tenet."* It is in this 
 way alone that it is possible to explain the strongly 
 expressed objections of modern physiologists to the doc- 
 trine implied in the correlations of life and mind; for 
 their daily and hourly experience must have taught its 
 truth to them, at least, who had an intimate knowledge 
 of the phenomena of Life. 
 
 The most fundamental prejudice of philosophy rests 
 on its fundamental datum, — namely, that the laws of 
 Thought can be investigated independently of the laws 
 * System of Logic, 4th edit. vol. ii. p. 337.
 
 64 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [PART I. 
 
 of Life and Organisation. Looking at the present state 
 of philosophy from this point of view, it cannot be 
 denied that, as to the prejudices which interrupt its 
 development, its position is very similar to that which 
 physical philosophy held at the period of the Keforma- 
 tion. Physicists, speculating at that era on the mecha- 
 nism of the earth and heavens, started from the every- 
 day experience of mankind as to the movements of the 
 heavenly bodies. They were seen to move in circles 
 through the firmament round the earth as a fixed point 
 or centre. What more obvious conclusion than that the 
 phenomena were as they appeared ? Philosophy adopted 
 that conclusion as a primary datum, and the Church and 
 the common-sense of mankind confirmed it. Thereupon 
 was built, as upon a sure foundation, an entire series 
 of theological and other hypotheses, which were never 
 doubted, and which at last became so fixed in men's 
 minds as truths that it was considered an intolerable 
 crime to question them. Thus the whole array of crystal 
 spheres, and of cycles and epicycles, with their primum 
 mobile, became part of theology. Hence it happened 
 that, in the sentence of the " supreme and universal 
 Inquisition " pronounced upon Galileo, the following 
 conclusions occur : — " 1st, The proposition that the sun is 
 the centre of the world, and immovable from its place, 
 is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, 
 because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. 2dly, 
 The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the 
 world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with 
 diurnal motion, is absurd, philosophically false, and, 
 theologically considered at least, erroneous in faith." 
 The result of the conflict which arose is well-known ; 
 and the truth which came forth was, that there was mo- 
 tion according to a fixed law — the law of gravitation.
 
 CHAr. iv.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 6$ 
 
 All intelligent men are now agreed that there is motion 
 round a centre as a fixed point, but that the motion is 
 not real as to the apparently moving sun and planets ; 
 that the fixity is not real as to the apparently immove- 
 able earth. Now, this simple change in the primary 
 datum led to such an entire revolution in physical philo- 
 sophy in general, as well as in astronomical science, as 
 to change the material civilisation of the world ; for the 
 great advance of European, as compared with Asiatic 
 nations, in material civilisation, and in all that contri- 
 butes to the material happiness and welfare of society, 
 during the last three centuries, is mainly due to the suc- 
 cessful applications of natural science, so developed, to 
 the wants of man. Physics, or natural philosophy, has 
 passed from the library and church to the workshop and 
 counting-house, and the ordinary influences of commer- 
 cial enterprise may now be trusted for developing these 
 applications more and more. That this cannot be said 
 of Metaphysics, or speculative philosophy, is eertain, if 
 we consider that philosophy to include the science of 
 human nature. It is still cultivated in the library, and 
 its study restricted to a limited circle of philosophic and 
 speculative men. To the great mass of mankind it is 
 therefore wholly barren of results. Under no circum- 
 stances has it hitherto become a practical science, gene- 
 rally applicable to the daily wants of society. In these 
 respects, mental philosophy has not changed much since 
 the time of Plato, and European civilisation is not in 
 advance of Asiatic. If things were otherwise, we should 
 see mental science as much a part of a man's educa- 
 tion as physical science, and working beneficially in 
 the family, the school, the church, the studio ; in the 
 crowded town, the busy factory, the barrack, the camp ; 
 in the courts of law, and in the national councils. Yet 
 
 E
 
 66 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 nowhere in human affairs do we see the principles of 
 mental science guiding man's actions. Everywhere it is 
 a more or less sagacious experience (as in the Middle 
 Ages with regard to physical science), which takes the 
 place of positive knowledge and of scientific truth — an 
 experience, nevertheless, which, however sagacious, often 
 errs, because it is not corrected by well-directed observa- 
 tion, nor guided by well-founded principles. Experience 
 of human nature and the science of human nature have 
 been so wholly severed, that a practical psychology could 
 not be constituted. 
 
 This arrest of development of philosophy is greatly due 
 to the fact, that men's minds are influenced as to the 
 world of mind by a like fundamental fallacy, which 
 was current for ages as to the world of matter. Mental 
 philosophy, starting from its primary datum of con- 
 sciousness, adopts the apparent for the real, and thereupon 
 builds up whole series of systems which have the same 
 defect as their fundamental principle — namely, are un- 
 real, and are consequently wholly inapplicable to the real 
 business of the world. It follows, however, from modern 
 experience as to the enormous progress which physical 
 philosophy has made, since a true primary datum and right 
 method were adopted, that an equally important advance 
 will be made in mental philosophy if a similar change 
 be made as to its primary datum and method ; so that 
 we may thus hope to convert philosophy into a practical 
 science, as available for the needs of man's spiritual 
 nature, as physical science has been available to the satis- 
 faction of his physical necessities. That such a change 
 is needed, is manifest enough from the aspect of the 
 times ; and that such a change must accompany another 
 great advance in civilisation, all past history teaches. 
 These considerations render it of the greater importance
 
 chap, iv.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 67 
 
 to examine the character of the obstacles to the general 
 adoption of a new scientific method of inquiry, based on 
 a new datum. 
 
 Sect. IV. — Influence of Prejudices that have arisen from 
 the Restriction of Speculative Philosophy to the Pheno- 
 mena of the Human Mind. 
 
 It has been long held as one of the fundamental dogmas 
 of the speculative philosophy of Europe, that no animal 
 besides man is endowed with a soul or mind ; and that, 
 consequently, the phenomena of mind are not to be 
 studied in the inferior animals, but in the phenomena 
 of the human consciousness exclusively. As a matter of 
 common sense and daily experience, no one doubts the 
 close similarity between the mental operations of man 
 and the lower animals, especially of those that are his 
 companions. And few modern metaphysicians would 
 venture to affirm that there is any other dissimilarity 
 than in degree of manifestation ; indeed, it is acknow- 
 ledged on all hands that there is no cognisable difference 
 in kind. It would seem, therefore, that a comparative 
 psychology would be welcomed by all earnest inquirers, 
 as offering the means of investigating that great world 
 of Thought in which the Divine Mind itself is confessedly 
 manifested. Yet the conduct of philosophy has been 
 wholly different. Man has been taken from community 
 with his fellow-creatures, and placed in a world of Life 
 and Feeling altogether apart. The Cartesians, or fol- 
 lowers of Descartes, carried this logically to the fullest 
 extent; for while they limited their investigations to the 
 human consciousness, they denied that the lower animals 
 had any consciousness whatever — they were insensible 
 automata. Such was the absurd but logical result of
 
 68 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 a false generalisation as to facts. The result was 
 equally as absurd as to principles ; for if lower animals 
 were to be held as automata, how, with so many points of 
 similarity (it was held by an atheistical school), can you 
 maintain that men are anything more ? And this con- 
 clusion had a reflected action on speculative theology. 
 It was argued, that if animals were allowed to have feel- 
 ing, we must either conclude that GTod dealt unjustly 
 with his creatures, and so derogate from his perfection, 
 or we must lower the dignity of human nature to a level 
 with that of the brute, and cut off every hope of immor- 
 tality. In short, the doctrine that men were at all to be 
 compared with their fellow-creatures lower down in the 
 scale of creation was considered so atrocious, that it was 
 declared by one of the Christian Fathers to be an inven- 
 tion of the devil. " Quam vanitatem, ut inventum quod- 
 dam diaboli, merito detestatur B. Chrysostomus, Homil. 
 4. in acta, exclamans, per philosophos hoc semper egisse 
 diabolum, ut ostenderet, nostrum genus nihil a brutis 
 differre."* And unquestionably Schuyl was correct in 
 saying that many philosophers of high reputation had 
 held the doctrine — amongst whom he enumerates " Zoro- 
 aster, Pythagoras, Anaxagorus, Plato, Plinius, Plutar- 
 chus, Porphyrius, Lipsius, aliique pene innumeri." Even 
 the worshipped Aristotle was not exempt from this ter- 
 rible charge. 
 
 The influence which the Cartesian school exercised over 
 the opinions of men as to the nature of the mental phe- 
 nomena of lower animals is hardly credible, although 
 when we reflect that the " cause of Heaven" and the 
 dignity of human nature were made to hang upon the 
 question, it becomes less surprising. It required the 
 
 * Florentii Schuyl. Prafalio in Cartesium de Homine.
 
 CHAP. IV.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 69 
 
 eloquence of a Fenelon to protect the lower animals from 
 the terrible results of the Cartesian hypothesis ; for, in- 
 asmuch as they were believed to be soulless automata, 
 they were considered wholly insusceptible of pleasure or 
 pain. The love and fidelity of the dog for his master was 
 wholly an illusion. 
 
 " Insensible automate, il me suit sans me voir : 
 II fait mes volontes sans jamais les scavoir. 
 Sans colere il s' irrite, il gemit sans se plaindre, 
 Sans m' aimer il me fiatte, il me fuit sans me craindre, 
 Le sang fait tout en lui, seul maitre de son corps, 
 Sans qu'une ame preside au jeu de ses ressorts. 
 Si dans quelques momens, touche de ses caresses, 
 D'un cceur pret a l'aimer j' ecoute les foiblesses ; 
 Si dans les chatimens qu'il me paroit souffrir, 
 Par ses cris douloureux je me laisse attendrir, 
 Descartes, en plutot la Kaison me rappelle, 
 Et dictant contre lui sa sentence cruelle, 
 Le declare machine ."* 
 
 But this may perhaps be considered a partial and 
 peculiar example of the application of the Cartesian 
 doctrines ; let us then look nearer home. Keid's mind 
 was eminently practical. Although hampered with pre- 
 conceived opinions and prejudices, he often hit the truth 
 in observation at least. Thus it was with regard to the 
 mental phenomena of lower animals ; he made all the 
 necessary admissions for the establishment of a compara- 
 tive psychology,! in making reason instinctive, and in- 
 
 * (Euvres de M. L. Racine, torn. vi. 12mo (Amst. 1750), torn. iv. 
 p. 56. 
 
 t I subjoin a few of these : — " Perhaps not only our actions, 
 but even our judgment and belief, is in some cases guided by 
 instinct — that is, by a natural and blind impulse." Again, " The 
 faculties which we have in common with brute animals are of 
 earlier growth than reason. "We are irrational animals for a con-
 
 70 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 stinct rational. When we reflect upon the immense de- 
 velopment which comparative anatomy has given to human 
 anatomy and physiology, we cannot but regret that these 
 doctrines have not had their application to human psycho- 
 logy during the last half century, as it is clear that as 
 great an advance would have been made thereby in meta- 
 physics, as in biology. But this was not to be : specula- 
 tive dogmas in metaphysics and theology, derived from 
 the Cartesian school, had already been embodied in the 
 social and moral philosophy of the day ; so that, when 
 the fundamental principles were questioned, it was felt 
 that the whole fabric of morals founded thereon was shaken. 
 Hence, when Priestley asserted as a principle of philosophy 
 that mental community of man and the lower animals 
 which Reid himself maintained as a proposition of ex- 
 perience, and of which few men feel or express a doubt, 
 Reid could only ridicule the doctrine with the Cartesians, 
 as derogatory to man's dignity, and incompatible with 
 social order. In a letter to Lord Karnes,* Reid remarks : — 
 " He (Priestley) thinks, and rejoices in thinking so, that 
 plants have some degree of sensation. As to the lower 
 animals, they differ from us in degree only, and not in 
 
 siderable time before we can properly be called rational." Again, 
 " The operations of brute animals look so like reason, that they 
 are not easily distinguished from it." With Addison, Reid even 
 argued not only that the different species of animals had an in- 
 stinctive sense of beauty, but that they developed the beauti- 
 ful by acts of intelligence. " As we allow to brute animals," he 
 remarks, " a thinking principle or mind, though far inferior to that 
 which is in man ; and as, in many of their intellectual and active 
 powers, they very much resemble the human species ; their actions, 
 their motions, and even their looks, derive a beauty from the power 
 of thought which they express." — On the Intellectual Powers — Essay 
 on Beauty, chap. iv. 
 
 * Letter II. in Works, edited by Sir W. Hamilton.
 
 chai\ iv.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 7T 
 
 kind ; only they have no promise of a resurrection. If 
 this be true, why should not the king's advocate be 
 ordered to prosecute criminal brutes, and you criminal 
 judges to try them ? You are obliged to Dr Priestley for 
 teaching you one-half of your duty, of which you knew 
 nothing before." 
 
 For the better comprehension of this important fun- 
 damental principle, I will mention another illustration 
 of the bad results following upon these wide-spread preju- 
 dices. In ordinary psychology, the relations of buman 
 reason and of animal instinct have constituted an ever- 
 recurring, ever-insoluble difficulty. Now, invariably, the 
 differences only between these two forms of mind have 
 been determined and classified, while the resemblances 
 have been neglected. Even in phrenology, which uses 
 comparative psychology, the vast and varied phenomena 
 of insect life bave no place. The practical result, in tbe 
 study of human psychology, has been to exclude from it 
 the generalisations from resemblances, and therewith tbe 
 greater portion of comparative psychology, from the field 
 of research. But a large number of mental phenomena 
 are confessedly instinctive in man, are therefore corporeal, 
 and, in so far as they are instinctive and corporeal, are 
 identical in their relations with those of lower animals. 
 E.g., the whole of infantile life, from the moment of birth 
 to an age that cannot be exactly determined, is purely 
 instinctive ; then for another period it is sensational ; 
 and from this stage childhood passes into youth, and 
 youth into manhood, by insensible gradations. And 
 tracing back the individual man through intra-uterine 
 existence, we arrive at other successive stages — at first, 
 mere vegetative life with organs ; then corpuscular life, 
 beginning with the primordial cell. 
 
 It is here well worthy remark how striking are the
 
 72 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 resemblances between the bigbest faculties of man and 
 tbose of lower animals. Tbe pbilosopby of Eeid is 
 wbolly founded upon the instinctive character of the 
 former ; and in defence of Reid's views, Sir William 
 Hamilton abundantly shows that the word instinct has 
 been familiarised for ages as a philosophical term, used 
 expressly to denote the character of the higher faculties 
 of the human mind, intellectual and moral.* This one 
 generalisation proves how defective must be that method 
 which fails to grapple with it, and apply it to the develop- 
 ment of a true and comprehensive science of mind. For 
 if all the higher faculties of man be instinctive, why is 
 not this common characteristic of instinctiveness made 
 available in inquiry? Why is this striking point of 
 resemblance lost sight of in examining the differentia 
 between the states of consciousness of man and other 
 animals ? It cannot be doubted that tbe failure is due to 
 the same kind of prejudice which has prevented phy- 
 siologists seeing the resemblances between the pheno- 
 mena of Life and of Thought. Yet the resemblances are 
 obvious both to the common experience of mankind and 
 to the philosopher. 
 
 As a necessary result of this exclusion of comparative 
 psychology from mental science, a sufficient knowledge 
 of the instincts of man was of impossible attainment — 
 nay, it has been found difficult even to theorise as to 
 their nature. f When we remember that the crimes and 
 
 * On the Philosophy of Common Sense; Reid's Works, note A, § 5. 
 
 f Thus, Mr J. S. Mill remarks, " It is certain that, in human 
 heings at least, differences in education and in outward circum- 
 stances are capable of affording an adequate explanation of by far 
 the greater portion of character, and that the remainder may be 
 in great degree accounted for by physical differences in the sen- 
 sations produced in different individuals by the same external or
 
 CHAP. IV.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 73 
 
 follies of mankind are mainly due to the uncontrolled 
 operation of these instincts ("the Flesh" of theology), 
 and that in insanity it is they which are most commonly 
 involved, we get a glimpse of the fundamental inappli- 
 cability of current systems of mental philosophy to the 
 most pressing and most common wants of mankind, 
 which has resulted from these prejudices as to the analo- 
 gies between man and the lower animals. 
 
 It is curious and instructive to note how a funda- 
 mental error of this kind exercises an injurious influence 
 upon departments of science apparently widely apart. 
 The study of the instincts of animals having thus had 
 no proper position allotted them, either in science or 
 philosophy, has become purely anecdotic — a collection of 
 stories, curious if true, and even marvellous, but with 
 no more scientific value than the "giant's" bones at which 
 the earliest inquirers used to wonder when a gigantic 
 fossil bone was revealed. Natural history has diverged 
 into comparative anatomy and embryology on the one 
 hand, and descriptive zoology on the other. So little, 
 indeed, is the importance of comparative psychology 
 appreciated, that the students of the habits of animals, 
 M. Agassiz remarks, are hardly acknowledged as peers 
 by their fellow-investigators, the anatomists and physio- 
 internal cause. There are, however, some mental facts which do 
 not seem to admit of these modes of explanation. Such, to take 
 the strongest case, are the various instincts of animals, and the 
 portion of human nature which corresponds to those instincts. 
 No mode has been suggested, even by way of hypothesis, in 
 which these can receive any satisfactory or even plausible expla- 
 nation from psychological causes alone ; and there is considerable 
 reason to think that they have as positive, and even as direct and 
 immediate, connection with physical conditions of the brain and 
 nerves as any of our mere sensations have." — System of Logic, 4th 
 edit. (1856), p. 434.
 
 74 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 logists, or the systematic zoologists. " And yet," he 
 adds, " without a thorough knowledge of the hahits of 
 animals, it will never be possible to ascertain, with any 
 degree of precision, the true limits of all those species 
 which descriptive zoologists have of late admitted with 
 so much confidence into their works. But, after all, 
 what does it matter to science that thousands of species, 
 more or less, should be described and entered in our 
 systems, if we know nothing about them? "* With that 
 philosophical comprehensiveness which M. Agassiz dis- 
 plays in all his writings, he shows the need there is for 
 ■ the study of a comparative psychology. " Is there an 
 investigator, who, having once recognised the similarity 
 between certain faculties of man and those of the higher 
 animals, can feel prepared, in the present stage of our 
 knowledge, to trace the limit where this community of 
 nature ceases ? And yet to ascertain the character of 
 all these faculties there is but one road — the study of 
 the habits of animals, and a comparison between them 
 and the earlier stages of the development of man."f 
 It is gratifying to observe that the modern school of 
 zoologists, wearied with the interminable discussions as 
 to Species, and the unsatisfactory results of the method 
 hitherto followed as to the mental life of animals, have 
 opened up a new field of zoological inquiry. Thus, one 
 of the most philosophical of the modern French school re- 
 marks : | — " True zoology, or that form of it towards which 
 all other branches of natural science ought to converge, 
 consists in studying the relations of organised beings and 
 their connection with the inorganic world ; in investi- 
 gating the play of the organs as animated instruments 
 
 * Essay on Classification, p. 85. f Ibid, p. 89. 
 
 % Rambles of a Naturalist. By A. de Quatrefages, translated by 
 E. C. Otto, vol. i. p. 50.
 
 CHAP. IV.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 75 
 
 of these mysterious affinities ; in penetrating into their 
 mechanism ; in following them in their modifications, 
 in order to distinguish, if possible, between what is 
 essential and what is incidental ; in ascending from all 
 those effects to the cause, and thus, perhaps, penetrating 
 at some future day into the arcana of life : this is the 
 end and aim of true zoology — the rest merely constitute 
 the means." 
 
 Sect. III. — Influence of Prejudices created by the Dogmas 
 of Specidative Theology. 
 
 Speculative theology, considered as distinct from reli- 
 gion and morals, has always sought to draw to its sup- 
 port arguments from speculative science or philosophy ; 
 and for the very obvious reason that some of the most im- 
 portant dogmas of Christian Churches, such as the doc- 
 trine of the Real Presence, of purgatory, of spirits or ghosts, 
 and the like, are intimately bound up with metaphysical 
 speculation. But inasmuch as, in speculative theology, 
 the dogmas are the fixed and immutable elements, philo- 
 sophy can only be allowed to prove them, not to examine 
 into their truth, much less to disprove them. Hence, to 
 the true ecclesiastic, philosophy is not an inquisitio veri, 
 but a confirmatio veri. 
 
 Now this procedure places philosophy at once in 
 a false position ; for by its very nature it demands 
 the right of free inquiry, inasmuch as it appeals to 
 the reason for proof of truth, and not to authority.* 
 
 * " A system of philosophy," Professor Ferrier observes, " is 
 bound by two main requisitions — it ought to be true, and it 
 ought to be reasoned. If a system of philosophy is not true, it 
 will scarcely be convincing ; and if it is not reasoned, a man will 
 be as little satisfied with it as a hungry person would be by having
 
 7<5 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 On the other hand, speculative theology is professedly 
 based on one of two things — Bevelation, or the tradi- 
 tions of the Church — or on both. And by traditions of 
 the Church I mean all authoritative expositions of the 
 dogmas of a Church, of whatever kind they may be. 
 Now, these are unchangeable, and, strictly speaking, are 
 unreasoned — that is to say, they are mysteries, or things 
 not comprehensible by the reason. Philosophy, there- 
 fore, has not the business in reference to them which it 
 has towards all other things of human knowledge. It 
 has simply to show their reasonableness— that is, that 
 they are compatible with reason. But since every act of 
 independent thought, antagonistic to any of the dogmas 
 of speculative theology, must, in the very nature of 
 things, be considered heterodox, and as these extend 
 over a sphere of thought co-extensive with creation, 
 philosophy, in discussing these dogmas, is, as it were, 
 put into a sort of theological cage, against the innumer- 
 able bars of which it continually beats and struggles — 
 happily, not always in vain. A remarkable instance of 
 the obstacles to progress thus arising may be found in Sir 
 William Hamilton's lately published lectures, in which 
 the successful application of physiological research to 
 philosophy is denounced as subversive of truth and a 
 reverent adoration of the Supreme Being.* 
 
 his meat served up raw. Philosophy, therefore, in its ideal perfec- 
 tion, is a body of reasoned truth." — Institutes of Metaphysics, p. 1. 
 
 * " Even the gorgeous majesty of the heavens," says Jacobi 
 (quoted as ' a great religious philosopher ' by Sir William Ha- 
 milton), "the object of a kneeling adoration to an infant world, 
 subdues no more the mind of him who comprehends the one 
 mechanical law by which the planetary systems move, maintain 
 their motion, and even originally form themselves. He no longer 
 wonders at the object, infinite as it always is, but at the human 
 intellect alone, which, in a Copernicus, Kepler, Gassendi, New-
 
 chap. iv.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 77 
 
 I shall only refer in these remarks to a doctrine of specu- 
 lative theology which is common to all Christendom, 
 leaving out of consideration especially the relations of me- 
 taphysics to the dogma of transubstantiation — a dogma 
 which, in Eoman Catholic countries, has proved a signal 
 stumbling-block to philosophical progress. The doctrine 
 common to all Christendom is that of the resurrection 
 of the dead and of a future life, which, in speculative 
 theology, is transformed into the doctrine of the imma- 
 teriality and immortality of the soul. No one thing has 
 so much retarded the development of a true mental 
 science, and at the same time so deeply perverted the 
 faith of men from the Christian Revelation, than specu- 
 lations on this article of belief. The process is simple. 
 The speculative theologian, having discarded from his in- 
 quiries the mechanism in and by which man alike lives, 
 and moves, and is conscious, is apt to use dishonourable 
 weapons in defence of his method, and to denounce the pro- 
 ceedings of those who adopt a more practical procedure as 
 something immoral, or at least dangerous to religious 
 truth. The transition (we have seen, p. 53) is easy from 
 the primary datum of consciousness, that we are not con- 
 scious of any dependence on organisation, to the dogma 
 that thought and will are in fact, as well as abstractedly 
 and in feeling, independent of organisation; and from 
 thence to speculations as to the immortality of the soul, 
 
 ton, and La Place, was able to transcend the object, by science to 
 terminate the miracle, to reave the heaven of its divinities, and 
 to exorcise the universe. But even this, the only admiration of 
 which our intelligent faculties are now capable, would vanish 
 were a future Hartley, Darwin, Condillac, or Bonnet to succeed 
 in displaying to us a mechanical system of the human mind, as 
 comprehensive, intelligible, and satisfactory as the Newtonian 
 mechanism of the heavens." — Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on 
 Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 37.
 
 78 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 and to the established principle of a modern school of 
 philosophers, that no physiology of the brain or nervous 
 system ever can explain, or help to explain, one purely 
 mental phenomenon. The analogies of physiology may 
 sometimes (it is grudgingly conceded by this school) 
 suggest a mental law, but that, at most, is all it can do. 
 Thought, and the laws of thought, can only be studied in 
 self-knowledge, and the line of research through organi- 
 sation must inevitably lead to pure materialism. 
 
 It is not possible for a thinking man to shun the ques- 
 tion of a future state, when inquiring into the laws of 
 existence in this life. The problem is too momentous for 
 evasion, and the doctrine too great and good to be reasoned 
 away on shallow grounds. How, then, it is asked, can 
 the truths of science be made consistent with the truths 
 of revelation, if it be granted that consciousness is wholly 
 dependent upon organisation ? Such a question the un- 
 physiological psychologist necessarily puts ; for he has 
 laid down the dogma that consciousness is not only a 
 proof of the existence of mind, but that it is the sole 
 proof, since it is its very nature and essence. In other 
 words, it is argued that that which only indicates some of 
 the successive states or modes of existence of an agent 
 is to be taken as indicating the nature of the agent itself, a 
 proposition wholly at variance with sound logic as well as 
 fact. This fallacy has arisen, apparently, from this very 
 limitation of psychological inquiries to the phenomena 
 of human consciousness exclusively ; for the mind readily 
 passes from a simple exclusion of a thing from considera- 
 tion to the denial of its existence. Be this as it may, 
 from this fallacy, deeply rooted both in philosophy and 
 speculative theology, has sprung not only a neglect of 
 a cerebral physiology, the basis of a practical psycho- 
 logy, but an active opposition to the study of it, on the
 
 chai'. iv.] .DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 79 
 
 grounds that its conclusions are opposed to the doctrine 
 of a future life. A practical student of cerehral physio- 
 logy necessarily associates the varying states of the con- 
 sciousness with varying conditions of the organ of con- 
 sciousness — in no other way can he investigate the 
 practical relations of the two. But by the speculative 
 philosopher and theologian, consciousness, even in this 
 world, is considered apart from its organ, and in his 
 mind, to associate the two intimately and necessarily 
 is " materialism ; " so that a physician who teaches that 
 mental derangement is due to disease of the organ (a 
 fundamental truth), incurs the charge of materialism, 
 and, with that, of infidelity and even atheism. 
 
 In this way polemical philosophy has seriously ob- 
 structed the progress of practical psychology, inasmuch 
 as men have been deterred from the right study of it, 
 both by fears for their faith and by dread of obloquy 
 and persecution. The medical profession in especial has 
 been made an object of attack ; for in the honest exer- 
 cise of their duties they must be practical psychologists, 
 whether they will or no. To them the speculative pro- 
 positions of the metaphysician are useless, because not 
 leading to the discovery of means for the cure or alle- 
 viation of disease. If speculative philosophers really 
 advanced the great doctrines of Christianity, their pro- 
 ceeding might have some excuse ; but it is a most im- 
 portant fact, that this identical school of philosophy has 
 perhaps more than any other tended to the spread of true 
 materialism and scepticism, while, at the same time, it has 
 hindered the advance of knowledge. "With remarkable sa- 
 gacity, Dr Eeid long ago pointed out this tendency: "This 
 must be owing," he says, " to some fundamental errors 
 that have not been observed ; and when these are cor- 
 rected, it is to be hoped that the improvements that have
 
 80 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 been made will have their effect." The fundamental 
 error is in the data of the entire system. Firstly, it 
 attempts to prove the future life of man by a hypo- 
 thesis as to his immateriality, which hypothesis depends 
 upon another as to the nature of matter; both which have 
 hardly a logical foundation.* Secondly, the proof has been 
 founded on premises which are contrary to the universal 
 experience of mankind, and thus the reason of man has 
 been placed in opposition to his instinct for a future life. 
 But I need hardly say, that to fix the proof of a great 
 truth in religion and morals upon a hypothesis which 
 daily experience shows to be wholly untenable, is, in fact, 
 to do the utmost injury to religion and morals ; for it 
 necessarily leads thinking men to the inference, that, the 
 premises being untenable, the conclusions are false. And 
 thus, in fact, it has happened ; so that the attempts to 
 demonstrate the doctrine of a future life by a priori 
 arguments of a metaphysical character, have contributed 
 more than the direct . attacks of real infidelity, to shake 
 the faith of man in the greatest truth of religion, whether 
 natural or revealed. 
 
 On the other hand, it is to be noted that a true philo- 
 sophy, so far from being opposed to this fundamental 
 truth of Christianity, confirms it. For, by comprising 
 the phenomena of both Life and Thought under one 
 
 * Professor Ferrier has well put the logical difficulties of the 
 general proposition, that in consciousness there is a particular cog- 
 nition of self, as the ego — that is, that mind is known like matter 
 as a particular cognition, and not as the element common to all 
 cognition. But, in particular, he remarks, that it has caused 
 psychology " to miss the only argument which has any degree of 
 force or reason in favour of the immateriality of the ego, mind, 
 subject, or thinking principle." — Institutes of Metaphysic, pp. 217 
 ant 221, ei seq.
 
 chap, iv.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 8 1 
 
 generalisation, tho.se difficulties and disagreements are 
 made to disappear which arise when they are held widely 
 apart, and each is examined separately from the more 
 limited point of view of speculative theology. The in- 
 quirer (as we shall see) is ahle to pass beyond the variable 
 phenomena of Consciousness and of Life to an Energy in 
 action — a quoddam Divinum — which is not material or 
 physical, except in so far as it is the cause of these phe- 
 nomena, and is the source of all universal and neces- 
 sary truths, of which the idea of a Future is one of the 
 most fundamental. 
 
 (Sect. IV. — Prejudices arising from the Apparent Anta- 
 gonism of Mental Science to Revealed Truth. 
 
 The fourth class of prejudices we have to consider are 
 allied to the preceding as to their theological aspects : 
 they arise from the fallacious conclusion that mental 
 science is opposed to revealed Truth. This kind of 
 obstacle to the progress of scientific knowledge is no new 
 thing, nor is it of little importance in the present day, 
 when Science generally is brought into apparent con- 
 flict with Eevelation. The history of astronomical and 
 geological research shadows forth the future of mental 
 science in this respect, and the obstacles it will have 
 to encounter. The question is a general one, and as 
 such has been discussed by the Rev. Dr Whewell in a 
 spirit which hardly leaves anything to be desired. He 
 remarks* — " The Eevelation on which our religion is 
 founded seems to declare, or to take for granted, opin- 
 ions on points on which Science also gives her decision ; 
 and we then come to this dilemma — that doctrines 
 
 * History of the Inductive Sciences, 3d edit. (1857), vol. i. p. 310.
 
 82 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 established by a scientific use of reason may seem to 
 contradict the declarations of Kevelation, according to 
 our view of its meaning; and yet that we cannot, in 
 consistency with our religious views, make reason a 
 judge of the truth of revealed doctrines. In the case 
 of astronomy, on which G-alileo was called in question, 
 the general sense of cultivated and sober-minded men 
 has long ago drawn that distinction between religious 
 and physical tenets which is necessary to resolve this 
 dilemma. On this point, it is reasonably held, that the 
 phrases which are employed in Scripture respecting as- 
 tronomical facts are not to be made use of to guide our 
 scientific opinions : they may be supposed to answer 
 their end if they fall in with common notions, and are 
 thus effectually subservient to the moral and religious 
 import of Eevelation." But this distinction in reference 
 to astronomical facts, now universally recognised, was not 
 accomplished without long and distressing controversies, 
 nor without serious apprehensions that the whole fabric 
 of society, as regards its religious bearings, was endan- 
 gered. A similar crisis has arisen in our own times as to 
 the facts of geology, with apprehensions and controversies 
 of a like character ; and it is clear the facts of mental 
 science will in their turn have to undergo the same 
 ordeal. Dr Whewell, in common with all the most en- 
 lightened advocates of religion and morals, sees the im- 
 perative necessity of laying down some canon adequate to 
 the reconcilement of religion and science under all cir- 
 cumstances, so that they shall not be brought at least into 
 real antagonism to each other, inasmuch as the progress 
 of science renders an apparent antagonism unavoidable. 
 
 The intelligent reader will easily discover how con- 
 stantly the current psychology and philosophy of the age 
 is reflected in the Sacred writings of a contemporary
 
 chap, iv.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 83 
 
 date. Now, as these are of the most ancient origin, a 
 discrepancy between modern doctrines and those of 
 Scripture inevitably arises ; a discrepancy all the greater, 
 since the microscope has done that for the world of 
 organisation which the telescope has done for the uni- 
 verse at large. And in reference to the changes in 
 doctrine, as compared with those ancient systems of 
 philosophy reflected in the Sacred records, which mo- 
 dern mental science may effect, the remark of Dr Whe- 
 well is particularly applicable, when, with a sagacious 
 presentiment, he remarks, " We can hardly foresee before- 
 hand what part of the past history of the universe may 
 eventually be found to come within the domain of 
 science, or what bearing the tenets which science estab- 
 lishes may have upon our view of the providential and 
 revealed government of the world."* Dr Whewell has 
 discussed this question so ably, and placed it before the 
 public in so accessible a form, that I need only refer to 
 his work. Whatever may be thought on the matter, 
 two conclusions must be held as indefeasible — namely. 
 1. That scientific and revealed truth can never contra- 
 dict each other; and, 2. That men will never cease to 
 inquire into truth, whatever may be the fears of the 
 timid, or the obstacles raised by the prejudices of specu- 
 lation, and the selfishness of bigotry and hypocrisy. Man 
 is created to know G-od and his works, and must fulfil the 
 end of his existence. 
 
 But higher considerations than these arise out of this 
 question. Has Eevelation, in fact, ceased? or is the 
 present era only another form of God's providential 
 dealings with mankind? When we consider that with 
 Him " there is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
 
 * llistory of the Inductive Sciences, 2d edit. vol. i. p. 311.
 
 84 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [PART I. 
 
 ing ; " when we look at the great beneficial results which 
 modern science has achieved already; still more when 
 we attempt to calculate what the future has in store for 
 mankind ; — we cannot but think that Bacon and other 
 philosophers of his day were not too enthusiastic, when, 
 contemplating the grandeur of modern science, they 
 earnestly expressed their belief that these are the days 
 referred to by one of the Jewish prophets as those in 
 which " many shall run to and fro, and knowledge be 
 abundantly increased ; and the knowledge of the Lord 
 shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." 
 Science itself, in its highest and fullest development, is 
 religion ; for although there may be now and then an 
 " undevout astronomer," yet the deepest thinkers are 
 agreed, and have always held, that a knowledge of crea- 
 tion ' and its laws can only lead to the knowledge and 
 love of Grod. 
 
 Hence the Prince Consort not less truly than eloquently 
 declared at Aberdeen, on the 16th September last, to a 
 large multitude of the followers of science, that philo- 
 sophers are not vain theorists or conceited pedants, 
 wrapped up in their own mysterious importance ; adding, 
 " Neither are they daring and presumptuous unbelievers 
 — a character which ignorance has sometimes affixed 
 to them — who would, like the Titans, storm heaven, by 
 placing mountain upon mountain, till hurled down from 
 the height attained by the terrible thunders of outraged 
 Jove ; but rather pious pilgrims to the Holy Land, who 
 toil on in search of the sacred shrine, in search of truth — 
 God's truth, — G-od's laws as manifested in His works, in 
 His creation."* And in an equally impressive manner 
 an accomplished living philosopher vindicates the reli- 
 
 * Address by H.R.H. the Prince Consort, as President of the 
 British Association for the Advancement of Science, 185'J.
 
 CHAP. IV.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 85 
 
 gious character of physiology. " To the real philosopher," 
 remarks Dr Whewell, " who knows that all the kinds of 
 truth are intimately connected, and that all the hest 
 hopes and encouragements which are granted to our 
 nature must be consistent with truth ... it will appear 
 natural and reasonable, that, after journeying so long 
 among the beautiful and orderly laws by which the 
 universe is governed, we find ourselves at last approach- 
 ing to a source of order, and law, and intellectual beauty ; 
 that, after venturing into the region of life, and feeling, 
 and will, we are led to believe the Fountain of life and 
 will, not to be itself unintelligent and dead, but to be a 
 living mind, a power which aims as well as acts. To us 
 this doctrine appears like the natural cadence of the tones 
 to which we have been so long listening ; and without 
 such a final strain, our ears would have been left craving 
 and unsatisfied. We have been lingering long amid the 
 narmonies of law and symmetry, constancy and develop- 
 ment ; and these notes, though their music was sweet 
 and deep, must too often have sounded to the ear of out- 
 moral nature as vague and unmeaning melodies floating 
 in the air around us, but conveying no definite thought, 
 moulded into no intelligible announcement. But one 
 passage, which we have again and again caught by 
 snatches, though sometimes interrupted and lost, at last 
 swells to our ears full, clear, and decided ; and the reli- 
 gious hymn in honour of the Creator, to which G-alen so 
 gladly lent his voice, and in which the best physiologists 
 of succeeding times have ever joined, is filled into a 
 richer and deeper harmony by the greatest philosophers 
 of these later days, and will roll on hereafter the ' per- 
 petual song ' of the temple of science." * 
 
 * History of the Induc'.ive Sciences, 3d edit. (1857), vol. iii. p. 392.
 
 86 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 I can add nothing more to this eloquent passage than 
 the expression of my conviction, that the reader and stu- 
 dent will find in these pages that which will confirm his 
 faith in a fountain of Life and Will, not unintelligent 
 and dead, hut a living Mind, which aims as well as acts 
 — a Mind with which he can claim kindred, not by 
 faith only, but by the conviction of knowledge. And it 
 is a hopeful sign of the times, that on every hand the 
 intelligent and advanced thinkers, in all the various 
 conflicting sects, are beginning not only to see the need 
 of allowing no dogmas to interfere with the development 
 of scientific truth, but, on the contrary, to feel it to be 
 a sacred duty incumbent on them, as religious men, to 
 advance it by all possible means, as the best help to 
 religion and morals.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON A PROPOSED METHOD FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
 A PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF MENTAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Hating examined the objects of a practical science of 
 mind, and the obstacles to the attainment of these objects, 
 which are raised by preconceived opinions, prejudices, 
 fundamental fallacies, and imperfect methods, we have 
 now to determine what are the principles and what the 
 methods which should guide us in avoiding those obstacles, 
 and developing a practical system of mental science. To 
 this end we have to determine man's sources of true 
 knowledge, and his best methods of applying it. The 
 first of these for consideration is experience. 
 
 Sect. I. — On the Generalisations to he derived from the 
 Common Sense and Experience of Mankind, as the Fun- 
 damental Principles of a Practical Science of Mind. 
 
 We have seen (Chapter II.) what a wide field of inquiry 
 is opened out to the metaphysician who would fully de- 
 velop mental science to practical uses. In its highest de- 
 velopment and widest extent it may be termed the science 
 of human nature, and considered as a group of sciences 
 having the laws of thought for the common basis of them 
 all. These are metaphysics and psychology; philology 
 and logic ; sociology, or the sciences of political economy 
 and law ; ethics, and natural theology. The entire group
 
 88 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 constitute, as a whole, what is termed Philosophy. Now, 
 since all the states of Consciousness are the phenomena to 
 he brought under the laws of Thought, and as all these, 
 without exception, coincide with Existence, and there- 
 fore with vital processes without which they cannot take 
 place ; it is necessary, for a sufficient exposition of those 
 laws, that the laws of the vital processes which correlate 
 phenomena of Consciousness be determined in their re- 
 lations to those phenomena. Consequently, the sciences 
 of human nature, being founded on the laws of Thought, 
 must comprise also that knowledge of the laws of Life 
 which is necessary to a correct and sufficient exposition 
 of the laws of Thought. Without this the entire super- 
 structure must be unstable, and the scientific doctrines 
 unsound. Hence biology (or more properly pl^siology, 
 in the larger sense of the term) must be included in 
 philosophy (p. 12). 
 
 Physiology, however, is itself a derivative science. 
 Vital processes are intimately connected with the forces 
 of matter. They are immediately dependent upon some 
 of them, as heat, light, and chemical affinity; while as 
 to others, the whole business of life seems to consist in 
 resisting them. Hence the laws of Life cannot be in- 
 vestigated without reference to the laws of Matter, with 
 which they are correlative. Formerly, physics was con- 
 sidered as wholly distinct from biology (or physiology), 
 just as biology is considered to be wholly distinct from 
 metaphysics. But of late years that direct relation of 
 the physical and vital forces, the practical bearings of 
 which I pointed out more than twenty years ago, has 
 been recognised, with the best results. 
 
 The sciences, therefore, resolve themselves into three 
 greatdepartments of human knowledge — the physical; the 
 physiological, vital, or biological; and the metaphysical.
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 89 
 
 In the first are comprised those sciences which treat of 
 matter and its forces ; in the second, those which treat of 
 life and organisation ; in the third, those which treat of 
 mind. But philosophy extends its roots into and through 
 all ; for, inasmuch as the laws of thought correlate those 
 of life and organisation, and these, again, the great laws 
 of matter, philosophy must include all. Consequently, 
 philosophy, considered as the science of human nature, 
 ought to attain to a knowledge of human nature — not 
 empirically, but deductively, through conclusions derived 
 from the entire range of all human knowledge.* Here, 
 then, we find, theoretically, that the right method of 
 inquiry, in a practical science of human nature, is 
 the converse of the methods hitherto followed. We 
 must not separate the physical from the vital forces, nor 
 the vital forces from mind, hut adopt such a method as 
 shall concentrate all science of these upon an investiga- 
 tion of the nature of man. 
 
 Let us, however, put the question in a more practical 
 form, and inquire by what test or tests we can ascertain 
 whether we are following a right method or not. Now, 
 the criterion I would set forth is this : Since true philoso- 
 phy must be sufficient to explain phenomena satisfactorily, 
 and be at the same time an applied science of human 
 nature, the method must be such as shall comprise all 
 true explanations hitherto attained by science, and all 
 principles which are both admitted to be true by the 
 common sense and experience of mankind, and proved to 
 be true by their applicability, deductively, to the wants 
 of mankind ; that is to say, the principles of a practical 
 philosophy must not only be deduced from man's experi- 
 ence, but, conversely, be tested by experience. It is such 
 
 * Ante, p. 32.
 
 90 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 principles of philosophy alone which can be made avail- 
 able for the advancement and union of the natural 
 sciences, and be at the same time practical. 
 
 The grounds of this conclusion are these : — The prin- 
 ciples derived from the experience of mankind in gene- 
 ral are empirical laws — that is, laws of experience. They 
 simply assert in general terms what have been found to 
 be the invariable relations or successions of phenomena ; 
 and what have been found to vary with the circum- 
 stances of variation as to time, place, and the like. " The 
 indispensable foundation of a scientific formula of in- 
 duction must be a survey of the inductions to which 
 mankind have been conducted in unscientific practice, 
 with the special purpose of ascertaining what kinds of 
 uniformities have been found perfectly invariable, per- 
 vading all nature, and what are those which have been 
 found to vary with difference of time, place, or other 
 changeable circumstances."* Man is necessarily con- 
 ducted to such unscientific generalisations by the laws and 
 conditions of his existence. Like all other animals, he is 
 endowed with instinctive or intuitive powers, by which he 
 is enabled to adapt himself to the varying influences of 
 the external world. But since he has to adapt himself 
 by instincts of reason and knowledge, and not unknow- 
 ingly — that is, by blind instinct — he is compelled by the 
 very necessities of his position to acquire such a know- 
 ledge of the order of nature that he can apply it readily 
 to his uses. It is this knowledge which constitutes the 
 experience of mankind. Hence it follows, that the laws 
 derived from that experience, although often obscurely 
 apprehended, are true laws, and, when formularised ac- 
 cording to a scientific method, may be used not only 
 
 * Mr J. S. Mill. System of Logic, 4th edit. p. 357.
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 9 1 
 
 deductively as the principles of a practical science of 
 human nature, but synthetically, for the connection and 
 explanation of those principles which are derived from 
 corrected experience and observation — that is to say, which 
 are true scientific inductions. It foMows, therefore, from 
 these considerations, that these great empirical generali- 
 sations from the experience of mankind may be safely 
 adopted as the primary data of mental science, from 
 which we may develop, deductively and inductively, those 
 other principles of the subordinate sciences of human 
 nature which constitute their primary data, as the several 
 departments or subdivisions of the general science. In 
 every case these primary data must be of the nature of 
 inexpugnable truths, and be of the widest extent as 
 generalisations of experience ; otherwise they can never 
 serve the purposes of the inquirer. 
 
 Science has already developed in each of the three 
 great departments of knowledge a number of general 
 principles or laws. These have not yet been correlated, 
 or, in other words, their relations to each other not made 
 manifest ; partly because of their imperfect development, 
 principally, however, because those departments have 
 been kept so systematically apart from each other, that 
 they have been placed in antagonism and not in relation. 
 They therefore await such higher generalisations as will 
 serve to bring them under more general principles and 
 more comprehensive laws, so as thereby to effect that 
 unity of the sciences which is the ultimate goal of 
 philosophy. Now it is in man only that there is a unity 
 in experience of the three great forces of creation — the 
 physical, the vital, and the mental. Consequently the 
 generalisations, as to these, of the experience of man- 
 kind, will supply the principles required.
 
 92 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part. I. 
 
 Sect. II. — On the Method of Detecting and Formularising 
 the Generalisations of Experience. 
 
 Seeing that experience must supply and finally correct 
 the fundamental principles of a practical science of mind, 
 and seeing also that that experience ranges over pheno- 
 mena co-extensive with those of creation, the next ques- 
 tion to determine is, how we can detect and formularise 
 the conclusions to which the common sense and experi- 
 ence of mankind have led. 
 
 The experience of man is manifested in three different 
 but closely related modes — namely, in his language, in 
 the laws which regulate his conduct as a social being, 
 and in his conduct as an individual. If his experience 
 of any of the great uniformities of nature, as manifested 
 in these three modes, can be formularised into a general 
 proposition, that proposition will express a fundamental 
 empirical law, fit to be received among the primary 
 data of a true and practical philosophy. 
 
 This is not the place or the occasion to develop the 
 first principles of the philosophy of language. It is suffi- 
 cient for our purpose to show that it supplies evidence of 
 first principles. Both metaphysicians and logicians agree 
 upon this point. Thus Professor Ferrier remarks, " First 
 principles of every kind have their influence, and, indeed, 
 operate largely and powerfully, long before they come to 
 the surface of human thought, and are articulately ex- 
 pounded. This is more particularly the case of language. 
 The principles of grammar lie at the root of all languages, 
 and preside over their formation. But these principles 
 do their work in the dark. No man's intellect traces then- 
 secret operation, while the language is being moulded by 
 their control ; yet the mind of every man who uses the 
 language with propriety and effect is imbued with these
 
 chap, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 93 
 
 principles, although he has no knowledge of their exist- 
 ence. . . . The operative agencies of language are hid- 
 den ; its growth is imperceptible. Like a tree, unobserved 
 through the solitudes of a thousand years, up grows the 
 mighty stem and the mighty branches of a magnificent 
 speech." Again, " That most elementary species of in- 
 struction which we familiarly term the ABC, had no 
 express or articulate existence, in the minds or on the 
 lips of men, uirtil thousands of years after the invention 
 and employment of language."* Single words are, in 
 fact, when rightly understood, the expressions of general 
 principles. It has been long known that general terms 
 are but the expression of the generalisations of man- 
 kind. Thus Sir William Hamilton remarks, " Generali- 
 sation is notoriously a mere act of comparison. We 
 compare objects ; we find them similar in certain respects 
 — that is, in certain respects they affect us in the same 
 manner ; we consider the qualities in them that thus 
 affect us in the same manner as the same ; and to this 
 common cpiality we give a name ; and as we can predi- 
 cate this name of all and each of the resembling objects, 
 it constitutes them into a class. Aristotle has truly said, 
 that general names are only abbreviated definitions, and 
 definitions, you know, are judgments. For example, 
 animal is only a compendious expression for organised and 
 animated body ; man, only a summary of rational ani- 
 mal." -\ So that names and general terms are the direct 
 effect of those mental and vital processes whereby man 
 attains to a knowledge of things around him ; they ex- 
 
 * Institutes of Metaphysic, pp. 12, 13. The student will find in 
 an interesting work lately published, The Fundamental Doctrine of 
 Latin Sy?itax, by Simon Laurie, M.A., a very valuable exposition 
 of some of the true principles of language. 
 
 t Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 313.
 
 94 DISSEKTATION ON METHOD. [pakt i. 
 
 press the results of thought and inquiry, and are there- 
 fore generalisations in the strictest sense. Mr J. S. Mill 
 has so explicitly shown the scientific value of clear em- 
 pirical generalisations, thus expressed in the language of 
 mankind, that I venture to subjoin his authority on this 
 point : — " The classifications rudely made by established 
 language, when retrenched, as they almost always re- 
 quire to be, by the hand of the logician, are often 
 
 in themselves excellently suited to his purposes 
 
 The established grouping of objects under a common 
 name, though it may be founded on a gross and general 
 resemblance, is evidence, in the first place, that the 
 resemblance is obvious, and therefore considerable ; and, 
 in the next place, that it is a resemblance which has 
 struck great numbers of persons during a series of years 
 and ages. Even when a name, by successive extensions, 
 has come to be applied to things among which there 
 does not exist this gross resemblance common to them 
 all, still, at every step in its progress we shall find such a 
 resemblance. And these transitions of the meaning of 
 words are often an index to real connections between the 
 things denoted by them, which might otherwise escape 
 the notice of thinkers — of those, at least, who, from using 
 a different language, or from any difference in their ha- 
 bitual associations, have fixed their attention, in prefer- 
 ence, on some other aspect of the things. The history 
 of philosophy abounds in examples of such oversights, 
 committed for want of perceiving the hidden link that 
 connected together the seemingly disparate meaning of 
 some ambiguous word."* The scientific and practical 
 relations of body and mind have been found difficult of 
 investigation mainly from the causes so sagaciously indi- 
 
 * System of Logic, 4th edit. p. 173.
 
 cum-, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 95 
 
 cated by Mr Mill ; and it will be one of my objects to 
 show how much of profound truth is to be discovered in 
 some general terms in common use. 
 
 The experience of man, as shown in the laws of so- 
 ciety, is but the concrete form of that knowledge of 
 which language is the expression. It therefore follows 
 the same law of development, and may be formularised 
 after the same method. In the paragraph from which I 
 have just quoted, Mr Mill indirectly indicates this con- 
 clusion by indicating the analogy. " The classifications 
 rudely made by established language, when compared 
 with the classifications of a philosopher, are like the 
 customary law of a country, which has grown up, as it 
 were, spontaneously, compared with laws methodized 
 and digested into a code : the former are far less perfect 
 instruments than the latter, but, being the result of a 
 long though unscientific experience, they contain a 
 mass of materials which may be made very usefully 
 available in the formation of the systematic body of 
 written law."* This experience, on which both the 
 customary and written law are founded, comprises that 
 knowledge of human nature which, when formularised 
 into general propositions, constitutes the empirical laws 
 of a science of human nature. The analogy as to de- 
 velopment from experience of both laws and language 
 is close and direct. But both have ecpially their roots 
 deep in the laws of human nature. " The laws which 
 hold society together," Professor Ferrier observes, " ope- 
 rate with the force of instincts, and after the manner of 
 vague traditions, long before they are digested into 
 written tables. The written code does not create the 
 law ; it merely gives a distinct promulgation and a 
 
 * Loc. cit. p. 173.
 
 96 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 higher degree of authority to certain floating principles, 
 which had operated on people's practice antecedently. 
 Laws, in short, exist, and hind society, long hefore they 
 exist as established, or even as known laws. They have 
 an occult and implied influence before they obtain a mani- 
 fest and systematic form. They come early in the order 
 of nature, but late in the order of knowledge ; early in the 
 order of action, but late in the order of thinking; early 
 in the order of practice, but late in the order of theory."* 
 
 The third source of our knowledge of human nature 
 is to be found in the general rules of conduct of indi- 
 viduals. These, of course, vary much under various cir- 
 cumstances, and are liable to be erroneous from various 
 causes. But this is certain, that in proportion as a rule 
 is general, in that proportion it is true. For example, 
 while multitudes of men believe in fairies and ghosts, the 
 alleged experience of such beings is limited to a few only, 
 and that limited experience is found, on incpiiry, to be 
 erroneous. But whatever may be the belief as to the 
 existence of such beings, or however great the admitted 
 experience, no man in his senses had ever such experi- 
 ence of himself, or of his relations to the external world, 
 that he concluded he was a fairy or a ghost, and made 
 the conclusion a rule of life. 
 
 Now, none of these sources of knowledge are of them- 
 selves sure sources. Law is sometimes founded on the 
 conclusions of a false philosophy, or the dogmas of a false 
 religion ; language is often corrupt, or expresses only 
 beliefs and conclusions which (as we have just seen) 
 may be wholly erroneous ; and the conduct of man- 
 kind, as individuals, is often under the influence of 
 these beliefs, and conclusions, and laws. But it is rarely 
 
 * Institutes of Metaphysic, 1st edit. p. 14.
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 97 
 
 that they are all erroneous together. It is therefore 
 only the principles inductively attained to by experience, 
 from which errors have been carefully eliminated, that 
 can be deductively applied to experience in any practical 
 science, but more particularly such a science as that of 
 human nature, in which, by their very nature, the subject- 
 matter of the science and its phenomena are of the highest 
 degree of complexity. In the science of astronomy, so 
 comparatively simple an error in deduction from expe- 
 rience as to the fixity of the earth that was made from 
 the apparent motion of the sun in space, led to a bewil- 
 dering complexity of cycles and epicycles, and for a long 
 period hindered the progress and practical uses of the 
 science. In transcendental metaphysics, there are funda- 
 mental errors far more complex and more fatal. This 
 elimination of error from the deductions of experience is 
 itself, in truth, an instinctive and necessary mental pro- 
 cess. If, in the ordinary act of perception, an individual 
 were to trust to the experience gained through one sense, 
 it would be fallacious ; he therefore unconsciously and 
 instinctively corrects the impressions derived through one 
 sense by those derived through another. If he were 
 to trust wholly to the notions thus reached, he would 
 still be liable to error ; but to avoid these, he instinctively 
 compares the notions thus reached with those attained in 
 time past, or, in other words, he corrects present by past 
 experience, and so attains to more correct results. When- 
 ever, from disorder or disease of the nervous system, a 
 man fails to carry on those processes of verification, 
 mental disorder arises, and all true knowledge ceases to 
 be attained. In those induced states of the brain 
 termed "electro-biological," in dreaming, and in insanity, 
 we have forms of disordered consciousness in which this 
 instinctive correction of the impressions on the senses 
 
 o
 
 98 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 and the thoughts is wholly or partly interrupted. Thus 
 it is with the deductions from the experience of mankind. 
 It is necessary to the elimination of error that the ob- 
 servations from which the deductions flow be in the first 
 instance compared, and the necessary corrections made ; 
 then these corrected results must be compared with the 
 recorded or acquired experience of mankind, so that the 
 deductions may be either modified, corrected, or con- 
 firmed. This being done by the philosopher in his 
 researches, and as a scientific process, experience next 
 tests the practical value of the deductions or principles 
 so acquired, by applying them to the wants and neces- 
 sities of mankind. In national affairs — that is to say, in 
 practical sociology, a science necessarily based on psycho- 
 logy — this is the method constantly pursued, at least 
 in this country. Every act of parliament is the result 
 of this process; and, when brought into operation, has 
 still to undergo the test of experience, so that its imper- 
 fections may be detected. And in proportion as an 
 individual or a nation seeks to extend and purify know- 
 ledge thus obtained, by the elimination of error and the 
 tests of experience, in that proportion the individual or 
 the nation is progressive in all that leads to happiness 
 and wellbeing. 
 
 There is yet another important caution to be had in 
 mind in thus deducing from the corrected experience 
 of mankind the fundamental principles of a practical 
 philosophy — namely, that all principles otherwise at- 
 tained should be excluded ; or, in other words, that in 
 a practical science it is both useless and dangerous to 
 take cognisance of merely speculative propositions, whe- 
 ther it be with a view to apply them, or to determine 
 whether they be true or false. The contrary course in 
 sociology has been fertile in disastrous results to entire
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 99 
 
 nations — in philosophy, to mankind in general. We 
 must therefore bear in mind, that if speculative proposi- 
 tions, even when determined to be true, are found to 
 have no present practical value, they may be wholly laid 
 aside from consideration. We will not even commence 
 the discussion of such, as the discussion itself is injurious 
 to progress, by turning the mind from those principles 
 which are of real present value because of present prac- 
 tical application. 
 
 With a view to the illustration of these doctrines (for 
 it is of importance they should be thoroughly compre- 
 hended and admitted), let us examine the important 
 psychological proposition that there are ghosts ; or, in 
 other words, that human souls, existing in a disembodied 
 state, appear on earth to men in the corporeal form, and 
 even the dress of life. Such a belief is so widely ex- 
 tended amongst mankind, that there is perhaps no tribe 
 or race of men who have it not in one shape or another ; 
 while, like the equally general belief in a future state, it 
 enters largely into the doctrines of all forms of religious 
 culture. Of late years it has given rise to the sects of 
 the Spiritualists, &c. It contains an element of truth, 
 with elements of error. It is founded upon the convic- 
 tion that the spiritual life of man ceases not with his 
 terrestrial life ; this is the true element, just as in the 
 idea that the sun moved round the earth, there was the 
 true element that motion was manifested in the pheno- 
 mena. But the erroneous element in the popular idea of 
 ghosts is, that the spiritual life of the disembodied soul 
 may be again manifested terrestrially in terrestrial form, 
 with transient mundane habiliments. Now, experience 
 could correct the error of observation in the numerous 
 alleged instances of apparitions upon which the deduc- 
 tion rests ; and philosophy might prove most conclusively,
 
 IOO DISSEKTATION ON METHOD. [part. I. 
 
 that such a phenomenon as a visible soul dressed in mail, 
 or coat, or gown, is of impossible occurrence : still, un- 
 less the experience were enlightened so as to perceive the 
 fallacy in the observations, and the judgment informed 
 so that the philosophical argument could be compre- 
 hended, the individual's belief in the truth of tbe pro- 
 position would not be shaken ; and this is in fact the 
 position of multitudes. They have not the necessary 
 knowledge of the structure and functions of the nervous 
 system to enlighten their experience, nor are their minds 
 sufficiently trained in habits of correct thought to appre- 
 ciate the arguments. But a practical psychology ignores 
 the proposition altogether, as a first principle, on other 
 grounds. G-hosts appear so rarely, if at all, and, when 
 they are alleged to appear, being equally as harmless as 
 other creatures of the imagination, they can neither be 
 studied nor estimated practically ; and the proposition, if 
 true, is useless. If, however, we turn from the convic- 
 tions of individuals to the common sense of enlightened 
 nations — that is, to enlightened experience — and inquire 
 to what extent the proposition is operative as a prin- 
 ciple of practical philosophy applied to sociology, we see 
 that it is in fact wholly inoperative, and has hardly 
 a place therein. Amongst such nations, there are none 
 of the useful arts guided by any such principle ; and, 
 especially, no legislation for ghosts, except when the fal- 
 lacious belief in their existence is applied by knaves 
 to fraudulent purposes. While, then, as a speculative 
 proposition, it is useless even if true, it is practically 
 pronounced by the enlightened experience of man- 
 kind to be false. That ghosts do not exist, is there- 
 fore a fundamental proposition in practical psychology, 
 irrespective of all speculative arguments; consequently 
 all deductive propositions, whether theoretical or prac-
 
 chap, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. IOT 
 
 tical, flowing from the contrary doctrine, are wholly re- 
 jected. 
 
 It is then from the experience of mankind, corrected 
 by enlightened observation and inquiry, that all the 
 fundamental principles of a practical philosophy must be 
 deduced. So deduced, they are but empirical laws, or 
 laws of experience ; that is to say, the general expression 
 of the necessary order of phenomena, without need of 
 j-eference to the first cause or causes of that order. The 
 necessary order being known, it can be anticipated or 
 modified, and thus a practical science developed from 
 those laws. 
 
 Sect. III. — The Method of Determining the First Principles 
 of a Science of Mind by Observation and Induction. 
 
 Let us now advance a step in our method. We have 
 seen that the fundamental error of philosophy and physi- 
 ology consists in an examination of the phenomena of 
 Thought out of relation to the phenomena of Life and 
 Organisation (p. 38). It is necessary, therefore, to deter- 
 mine whether the correlations of Life and Organisation 
 with Thought can be detected by scientific methods in 
 these sources of knowledge. 
 
 Many of the most comprehensive general terms of 
 language in common use contain generalisations as to 
 vital and mental phenomena which are scientifically 
 correlative. Thus, the word "animal" connotes attri- 
 butes common to that class of organised beings to which 
 man belongs, and indicates, therefore, that there is a gene- 
 ral law or laws applicable to animals which the general 
 experience of mankind has instinctively detected and 
 expressed in the word. So " Life" expresses some attri- 
 butes still more general, since the term includes both
 
 102 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I, 
 
 animal and vegetable life. "Life," connoting the attri- 
 butes common to all organisms, animal and vegetable, ex- 
 presses the differences between two classes, as well as the 
 attributes common to each class. " Instinct" is another 
 word of like value. We speak of animal instincts, of vege- 
 table instincts, of human instincts. Hence, Instinct is a 
 word which is correlative with Life, and indicates a mode 
 of life common to all organisms, whether animal (includ- 
 ing man) or vegetable. Consequently there is some 
 general law expressed as to the manifestation of vital 
 phenomena termed instinctive, which only requires to be 
 formularised to be made capable of deductive application as 
 a scientific principle to the explanations of the instincts. 
 " Mind " is another general term of the same kind. "We 
 speak of the mind of Grod, of the minds of inferior animals, 
 of the human mind. Hence the term connotes some at- 
 tributes common to all these which the experience of 
 mankind has discovered and generalised, and which, 
 when formularised into a general law, can be made appli- 
 cable, deductively, as a scientific principle, to all mind. 
 "Organisation" is another term of this kind, full of the 
 greatest significance, although rather scientific than 
 popular. Every living thing is organised — that is, con- 
 stitutes a whole of mutually related parts. Society is an 
 organisation of individuals, having mutual relations and 
 duties; the world and the planetary system to which it 
 belongs constitute a whole of mutually related parts. 
 Hence ancient philosophers designated the world an ani- 
 mal. It is clear, therefore, that in the use of these terms 
 some general law or principle is expressed, which in- 
 cludes all the phenomena of both Life and Thought, 
 and that a true scientific method should enable us to 
 seek out and discover that general law. 
 
 Let us now suppose that by such a method the experi-
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. IOg 
 
 ence of mankind has been brought into comparison with 
 the inductive propositions of an empirical psychology, 
 the deductions of a pure metaphysic, and the facts and 
 conclusions of physiology, or the doctrines of the vital 
 forces ; another step will have to be taken, namely, the 
 reduction of the results of our inquiry to some general 
 principles, and an exposition of the applications of these 
 principles to the sciences of human nature. Without 
 this final generalisation of our inquiries, our procedure 
 would be incomplete ; and without an application of the 
 principles arrived at, the whole method would be but im- 
 perfectly understood and developed. 
 
 The highest application of the fundamental principles 
 of a mental science, is to that department of the science 
 of human nature termed the moral sciences. These have 
 for their foundation the laws of society ; but the laws of 
 society are based upon the nature of man as he exists. 
 Mind, in its highest manifestation, is that which deter- 
 mines the order of society, or the harmonious relations 
 of individuals to each other. Social laws must, as to 
 society, be necessary laws ; for without them society can- 
 not exist, or, if they be not executed, must cease to exist, 
 or, in other words, be disorganised. Mind, therefore, is in 
 the nature of a force of nature. 
 
 Now, we have seen (p. 88) that the laws of the phy- 
 sical forces must correlate the laws of the vital forces, 
 and these latter the laws of thought ; but, to complete 
 our inquir}', we must show how these laws of thought 
 correlate the physical forces of nature. In our cognition 
 of human laws, we recognise an element not yet allotted 
 to the great physical forces of nature. We have in both 
 an order of events to be followed, expressed in the law, 
 as the law of gravity ; and we recognise an ultimate force, 
 which compels, if need be, to the order; but we have as
 
 104 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 a fact of experience in human law, that the order is de- 
 signed with regard to certain ends to be obtained — that 
 there is a meaning in the law, namely, that certain results 
 shall follow upon the order of events, as the object of 
 the law. We also have as a fact of experience, that the 
 design is due to a designer, or designers ; in other words, 
 to thought or mind in act, for design is the special 
 attribute of mind. 
 
 Passing, then, to an examination of the great uni- 
 formities of nature and the laws of the physical forces, 
 and to the phenomena of life and organisation due to 
 those forces which we term vital, do we recognise in 
 them a design and a designer? As a question of expe- 
 rience, there can be no doubt that, as to a vast variety 
 of phenomena, there is a recognised end aimed at in the 
 order in which they occur. No one doubts, practically, 
 that ends are aimed at in organisation. For example, it 
 is certain that the lungs are constructed or developed for 
 the express purpose of bringing air into relation with 
 the living tissues ; and that all living tissues, whether in 
 plants or animals, which have this office or function, and 
 attain the end aimed, are of the nature of lungs ; that 
 lungs are not used to attain the same end as bones, or 
 brain, or as the limbs generally. No one doubts that 
 the stomach is expressly adapted to attain an end, 
 namely, the reception of alimentary stuff, and its trans- 
 formation into something else, so that it shall be added 
 to the blood in a fit state — that is to say, in a state 
 adapted to the end for which the blood receives it. And 
 so also of the functions of organs in relation to each 
 other. In Life and Organisation, the whole of the 
 phenomena are in such order that a definite end, or the 
 final cause of the phenomena, shall be obtained, namely, 
 the continued existence of the organism in time and
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. IO5 
 
 place. In the phenomena of Mind and of modes of Exis- 
 tence, adaptation to ends is therefore the great law, and 
 that whether we consider those of instinct alone, or the 
 more complex phenomena of human actions. In in- 
 stinct, the adaptation of the corporeal structures to the 
 needs of the organism is an inexhaustible theme of curi- 
 osity and delight to the naturalist, and, indeed, is so 
 wonderful, that it has been believed so far to exceed 
 the adaptation of the human reason, as to be attributed 
 to a something divine. In human actions, the motives 
 to action are always the objects of anxious inquiry — 
 that is to say, what are the ends aimed at by the indi- 
 vidual? Keason itself is but a knowing adaptation of 
 means to ends ; and all Art is nothing more than science 
 in its practical applications, as a knowledge of the means 
 by which certain ends are or may be reached. " Art in 
 general," Mr J. S. Mill remarks, " consists of the truths 
 of science arranged in the most convenient order for 
 practice, instead of the order which is most convenient 
 for thought. Science groups and arranges its truths so 
 as to enable us to take in at one view as much as pos- 
 sible of the general order of the universe. Art, though 
 it must assume the same general laws, follows them only 
 into such of their detailed consequences as have led to 
 the formation of rules of conduct, and brings together, 
 from parts of the field of science most remote from one 
 another, the truths relating to the production of the 
 different and heterogeneous conditions necessary to each 
 effect, which the exigencies of practical life require to be 
 produced."* The "Art of Life" is described by Mr 
 Mill as having three departments — Morality, Prudence 
 or Policy, and Esthetics. " To this art," Mr Mill adds, 
 
 * System of Logic, 4th edit. vol. ii. p. 525.
 
 106 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part i. 
 
 " other arts are subordinate, since its principles are those 
 which must determine whether the special aim of any 
 particular art is worthy and desirable, and what is its 
 place in the scale of desirable things. Every art is thus 
 a joint result of laws of nature disclosed by science, and 
 of the general principles of what has been called Tele- 
 ology, or the Doctrine of Ends, which, borrowing the 
 language of the German metaphysicians, may also be 
 termed not improperly the principles of practical rea- 
 son."* The ultimate principle of this teleology (this 
 eminent logician adds) is the happiness of not man only, 
 but of all sentient beings. 
 
 Now, the term Teleology has also been applied (Mr 
 Mill thinks improperly) to that department of human 
 knowledge which attempts to discover the ends aimed at 
 in all the various successions of the phenomena of crea- 
 tion, and which therefore assumes that an end is aimed 
 at in all phenomena. This is the doctrine of so-called 
 " final causes," when the assumption is made the basis of 
 an explanation of the order of phenomena. Many dis- 
 cussions have been raised as to the validity of this pro- 
 cedure, since Bacon first objected to it as sterile in re- 
 sults ; none of these have been directed, however, against 
 the method itself, so much as against its abuses. Tbat 
 ends are aimed at in nature is so universal a conviction, 
 that the word "Nature" itself constantly stands, in the 
 language and expressions of both the learned and un- 
 learned, for a something which both designs and acts 
 to given ends.f It is thus used because it expresses the 
 universal experience of thinking men as to the mani- 
 festation of order and design in creation ; nor, indeed, is 
 it possible to avoid expressing the idea in one form or 
 
 * System of Logic, 4th edit. vol. ii. p. 527. 
 
 t See infra.
 
 chap, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. I07 
 
 other, when discussing the laws of things. Thus, in 
 reference to the passage just quoted, as to the origin of 
 Art, it may be stated that no art, being, as affirmed, the 
 result of the laws of nature, can contain what is not in 
 the laws of nature ; " yet," Mr Mill remarks, " every art 
 has one first principle, or general premise, not borrowed 
 from science — that which enunciates the object aimed at, 
 and affirms it to be a desirable object. The builder's art 
 assumes that it is desirable to have buildings ; architec- 
 ture (as one of the fine arts), that it is desirable to have 
 them beautiful or imposing."* When the object aimed 
 at is attained, we say, that is the result of the art. Now, 
 as every art aims at the promotion of happiness as its 
 ultimate end, and as this is the ultimate principle of 
 Teleology, it follows (hat, if that be also the ultimate end 
 of Life and Organisation, Teleology, or the doctrine of 
 ends, must be our guide in the development of the first 
 principles of mental science. Or, in other words, the 
 results of the laws of Nature, as ends, must be the great 
 object of our scientific researches into the correlations of 
 Life and Thought. Whether happiness, to use the words 
 of Pope, be "our being's [sole] end and aim," may be 
 questioned on logical grounds; but as a fact of experience, 
 it is surely unquestionable that it is one of the ends; 
 and in truth, when investigating the phenomena of Life 
 and Organisation, it is not possible, for this reason, to 
 avoid the teleological method, as we can when investiga- 
 ting mere cosmic or physical phenomena. We cannot be 
 content with simply determining the mere relations of 
 things or events — an existence, a co-existence, a succes- 
 sion, or a resemblance — and not inquire into the ends 
 thereof. Such a doctrine, applied to physiology, would 
 
 * Op. cit. p. 526.
 
 108 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part r. 
 
 in fact arrest all scientific research into the phenomena 
 of life ; for the investigation into the so-called functions 
 of organs is nothing more than a teleological investiga- 
 tion. If we do not investigate functions, what can we 
 investigate? for anatomy, as an art, is only of value in as 
 far as it reveals the uses of organs. Again, all disease is 
 a disorder of function : if we know nothing of the func- 
 tion, how can we investigate its disorder? To cultivate 
 the art of medicine, according to the method which the 
 opponents of teleological research insist upon, as the 
 proper method for investigating the phenomena of nature 
 in all cases, would he, in effect, to dispense with all re- 
 search into either the structure or function of organs, 
 and to found its precepts upon the boldest empiricism ; 
 such, for example, would be the Hahnemannic "prov- 
 ings " of the action of remedies, if undertaken by persons 
 utterly ignorant of the anatomy and physiology of the 
 human body ; that is, of the structure and uses of organs. 
 But there is another point of view of this question. 
 The human mind can no more divest itself of the idea of 
 design, as a cause of phenomena, than it can divest itself 
 of the ideas of cause, or space, or time. It is a neces- 
 sary idea, and therefore a fundamental truth. This is not 
 the place to prove this proposition, nor is it necessary to 
 advance formal proofs; for every intelligent man may 
 establish its truth for himself, either by observing the 
 modes of thought of children, or of uncultivated or bar- 
 barous men, or his own mental processes. It is not sur- 
 prising, therefore, that language contains general terms 
 expressive of man's generalisations as to this universal 
 law of design. Such a word, we have seen, is nature. 
 Perhaps the G-reek language presents no more striking 
 illustration than the word which is the root of the term 
 " teleology." Thus, tcXos not only signifies an end simply,
 
 chap, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. IOQ 
 
 but tilings existing to an end ; or gives origin to verbs 
 indicative of action to an end. In this sense, tcXos ex- 
 presses a legion of soldiers — i.e., an orderly arrange- 
 ment of men to an end ; then that it is a designed 
 series of events (tcXXw, orior) ; then the completion of 
 the series, or the end attained, rcXeco, ad finem perduco, 
 perficio, I finish ; and rcXeuos, perfecte, absolute, integre, 
 plene ; then that the end or the conclusion of the series 
 is reached, as teAos in the sense of maturitas vircjinis, or 
 the end of childhood, tcXcut^, mors, the end of the series 
 termed life, or death. 
 
 We thus see that the teleological method is a natural 
 method of inquiry, and universally applicable. If we 
 inquire into the history of its applications, we find that 
 it has been either imperfectly or erroneously applied. 
 Erroneously, when the ends aimed at have been as- 
 sumed hypothetically, and not determined by careful 
 observation and research. Imperfectly, when it has 
 been limited to a particular class of phenomena. Thus 
 Dr Whewell, one of its ablest advocates, remarks that 
 the " idea of a final cause is applicable as a fundamental 
 and regulative idea to our speculations concerning organ- 
 ised creatures only. That there is a purpose in many 
 parts of creation, we find abundant reason to believe, from 
 the arrangements and laws which prevail around us. 
 But this persuasion is not to be allowed to regulate and 
 direct our reasonings with regard to inorganic matter, of 
 which conception the relation of means and ends forms no 
 essential part. In mere physics, final causes, as Bacon 
 observed, are not to be admitted as a principle of reason- 
 ing."* Dr Whewell makes this concession, however, 
 with some reluctance ; for he remarks that if, in looking 
 
 * History of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. vol. ii. p. 247.
 
 110 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part I. 
 
 at the universe, we follow the widest analogies of which 
 we obtain a view, we see, however dimly, reason to believe 
 that all its laws are adapted to each other, and intended 
 to work together for the benefit of its organic ])opulation, 
 and for the general welfare of its rational tenants ; and 
 he denies that, as physical science advances from point to 
 point, final causes recede before it. The principle of 
 design is seen in another mode of application, but loses 
 none of its force. We are only " led into a scene of 
 wider design, of deeper contrivance, of more compre- 
 hensive adjustments."* 
 
 It may be doubted, indeed, whether the authority of 
 Bacon is rightly quoted as opposed to the teleological 
 method. He seems to have objected simply to a specula- 
 tive, hypothetical, or imaginative process of determining 
 the ends, to the exclusion of observation, rather than to 
 the determination of ends absolutely. This will appear 
 from his own words : " To say that the hairs of the eye- 
 lids are for a quickset and fence about the sight ; or that 
 the firmness of the skins and hides of living creatures is 
 to defend them from the extremities of heat or cold ; or 
 that the bones are for the columns or beams, whereupon 
 the frame of the bodies of living creatures is built ; or 
 that the leaves of the trees are for protection of the 
 fruit ; or that clouds are for watering of the earth ; 
 or that the soliclness of the earth is for the station 
 and mansion of living creatures, and the like, is well 
 inquired and collected in metaphysic ; but in physic they 
 are impertinent — nay, they are indeed but remoras and 
 hindrances to stay and stop the ship from further sailing, 
 and have brought this to pass, that the search of the 
 'physical causes hath been neglected and passed in silence." f 
 This is a protest, in truth, against the ignava ratio ; for it 
 
 * Op. cit., pp. 253, 254. f Advancement of Learning, book ii.
 
 CHAF. v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 1 1 1 
 
 is hardly conceivable that Bacon means to say that eye- 
 lashes, skin, hones, leaves, clouds, are of no use, and 
 exist to no purpose, when in fact their uses are obvious. 
 What he means to object against is, the substitution of 
 mere hypotheses as to their uses, for inductive inquiry 
 into their causes, or into their natural history, structure, 
 and relations, so that their uses may be determined from 
 the order of the phenomena. 
 
 That there is an ever-active tendency to this pro- 
 cedure, is familiar to all who have studied the matter; and 
 that it is injurious to science, by satisfying the mind 
 with fictions, is certain. Kant has placed these imperfect 
 uses of the teleological method in a clear point of view, 
 in discussing what he terms the error of inactive reason 
 (ignava ratio). This error arises when we adopt a principle 
 of inquiry which requires us to regard our investigations 
 of nature as absolutely complete. This error we have 
 already referred to as an obstacle to the progress of 
 mental science (p. 48, sqq.) Such a principle is adopted 
 erroneously in teleology, when we assume tbe Supreme 
 Mind to be a constitutive, and not a regulative principle 
 in nature. We thus make the investigation of causes a 
 very easy task, by directly referring such and such phe- 
 nomena to the unsearchable will and counsel of tbe 
 Supreme Wisdom, while we ought to discover their 
 causes in the general order and laws of their occur- 
 rence. "We are thus recommended," Kant observes, 
 " to consider the labour of reason as ended, when we 
 have merely dispensed with its employment, which is 
 guided surely and safely only by the order of nature 
 and the series of changes in the world, which are ar- 
 ranged according to immanent and general laws."* 
 
 * Kritik der Rein : Vernunfl. The Natural Dialectic of Human 
 Reason.
 
 112 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [parti. 
 
 These arrangements, it is true, have an end merely in 
 relation to each other as constituting a whole, or a 
 systematic unity. The principle of final unity, there- 
 fore, is that alone which guides us teleologically. 
 Hence, all that we ought to do in scientific research 
 is to follow up the physico-mechanical order of pheno- 
 mena, so as to determine the general laws of their 
 relations to each other, with the hope of discovering 
 the teleological connection also, or the reason of those 
 relations. 
 
 Another imperfect application of the teleological 
 method may be mentioned, namely, the limitation of it 
 to the determination of good ends. This is, indeed, the 
 most common mistake that is made. Men having formed 
 an idea of what is good or evil morally, are always look- 
 ing for a moral purpose in the order of nature, and have 
 built up hypotheses as to the moral ends which the Deity 
 has in view in that order. The result has been inter- 
 minable disputations and disquisitions as to " Evil," 
 " Necessity," and the like, which, turning upon mere 
 hypotheses and speculations, and not upon facts, lead 
 necessarily to no conclusions. If we would attain to a 
 true knowledge of these things, we must wholly abandon 
 these metaphysical speculations as "barren virgins;" 
 and, using the teleological method rightly, discover the 
 Divine counsels, so far as that is possible, by observing 
 the ends attained, and classifying them ; or, in other 
 words, determine the results of uniform successions, co- 
 existences, and the like. 
 
 We should thus be enabled, while we were determining 
 these results, to determine the laws of mind, considered 
 as an ordering force in creation. From this point of 
 view, teleology would be something more than a ques- 
 tionable doctrine of " final causes," inasmuch as dealing
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. I 1 3 
 
 with Mind as an ordering force, it would be strictly the 
 science of Mental Dynamics. 
 
 Having thus a clear conception of the true nature of 
 teleological research, we can the better understand how 
 we can extend its applications so as to pass beyond the 
 correlations of Life and Thought, and examine satisfac- 
 torily the correlations of Mind, considered as an ordering 
 force, with the great physical forces of nature. Such an 
 investigation is not only necessary to bring our know- 
 ledge into unity, but also to our practical object, 
 namely, the building up of a practical science of human 
 nature, and which, as we have seen already (p. 103), must 
 be based on a correlation of the physical and vital forces 
 with Mind. It will not, however, satisfy the require- 
 ments of our method to stop here, and rest solely on the 
 results attained by this extension of the teleological 
 method. On the contrary, it must be so developed that 
 the principles it educes must be demonstrably conform- 
 able with both the inductions of science, and the experi- 
 ence of mankind. In other words, those principles must 
 be subjected to the double proof required to establish 
 all general principles whatever (p. 89). 
 
 Sect. IV. — Summary of the Method. 
 
 If, then, we reconsider the preceding doctrines, with a 
 view to a practical development of our proposed method, 
 we shall find that there are three stages or steps by which 
 it may be carried into effect. First, we shall have to in- 
 quire into the general and scientific experience of man- 
 kind as to their states of Consciousness (Empirical Psy- 
 chology) ; next, we shall have to examine into the funda- 
 mental laws of Existence (Ontology) ; and, thirdly, into 
 the first principles of Mind as an ordering force to ends 
 
 H
 
 114 DISSERTATION ON METHOD. [part r. 
 
 (Teleology, or Mental Dynamics). In the first, we 
 examine Consciousness in relation to vital phenomena; 
 in the second, Existence in relation to vital and physical 
 phenomena ; in the third, we develop the great correla- 
 tions of Mind with the physical and vital forces considered 
 in relation to design in creation, viewed as a systematic 
 unity, or the doctrine of Ends. This will bring the 
 highest manifestation of mind — as a creative and regu- 
 lative power — into synthesis with creation, and consecu- 
 tively into synthesis with the human mind. Here, the 
 method will show that the ideas of the Divine Mind, .as 
 revealed in the phenomena of creation, are none other 
 than the fundamental ideas and a priori conceptions of 
 the human mind as revealed in consciousness ; that the 
 ends aimed at and attained by the Creator are the objects 
 of the instinctive desires of the creature ; and that, con- 
 sequently, the phenomena of nature constitute a reflex of 
 the human mind. Or, to use the words of M. Agassiz, 
 " the whole universe may be considered as a school in 
 which man is taught to know himself and his relations 
 to his fellow-beings, as well as to the First Cause of all 
 that exists."* In this way we shall have completed the 
 task which we proposed at the outset (pp. 87-90) — namely, 
 to develop a method of philosophical incpuiry which should 
 combine the three great departments of human know- 
 ledge into unity, and attain to a knowledge of human na- 
 ture, not empirically only, but deductively, through prin- 
 ciples derived from the entire range of all science. Such 
 principles being established, they can be applied de- 
 ductively to the development of each department of 
 philosophical culture. In establishing these principles, 
 I shall show their general applications to Metaphysics, 
 
 * An Essay on Classification (1857), p. 8, note.
 
 CHAP, v.] DISSERTATION ON METHOD. 115 
 
 or a science of the fundamental laws of Thought ; to 
 Biology, and the entire group of Natural History 
 Sciences ; and to Sociology ; and then proceed to de- 
 velop more especially the scientific hasis of a mental 
 Physiology and Organology, and their bearings upon 
 Medical Psychology and Mental Pathology. The whole 
 will thus be a philosophical, scientific, and practical 
 exposition of the fundamental laws of Life and Thought 
 in their correlations. As such, it will constitute a 
 solid basis upon which the metaphysician, moral philo- 
 sopher, political economist, biologist, zoologist, and 
 medical practitioner, can alike build up their respective 
 departments ; and at the same time be a starting point 
 for the man of general culture, who wishes to study 
 human nature under all its multifarious aspects. Such 
 a wide field of inquiry must necessarily be passed over 
 cursorily ; errors, too, are inevitable, from the very nature 
 of the subjects considered : still, I indulge a hope, that 
 the views I shall set forth, however imperfectly, will 
 contribute, in some degree at least, to the building up of 
 a true philosophy on the solid basis of observation and 
 induction, and be of practical use.
 
 PART II. 
 METAPHYSICS. 
 
 Metaphysic, in the ordinary sense of the term, includes 
 both Psychology and Ontology. The one discusses the 
 laws of Consciousness and Thought, the other of Being. 
 Metaphysic is founded upon experience, in so far as it is 
 founded on the phenomena of Consciousness ; but it is 
 speculative in so far as the solution of the problems in- 
 volved is attempted by d -priori reasonings rather than 
 by inductive processes. 
 
 DIVISION I. 
 
 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 MATTER AND MIND. 
 
 1. A Human Being feels himself, on investigation, to 
 be one, yet of a twofold nature, or constituted of two 
 distinct elements. He intuitively distinguishes himself 
 from all other things around him and not of him, which 
 to him constitute the external world. As one, he thinks 
 and speaks, and calls himself man — an ancient Sanscrit
 
 I 1 8 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 word meaning to think, and the root of the Zend word 
 manthra, speech* And just as he intuitively distin- 
 guishes the external world from himself, so he separates 
 that part of himself which feels internally, as a subject, 
 from that part of himself which he perceives externally 
 in space — an object. He sees and touches his own limbs 
 and trunk, and sees the eyes, and ears, and face of other 
 men like himself. He feels that he moves his limbs, 
 and trunk, and face, and uses his eyes and ears.: these 
 constitute, as a whole, his body. Now to him, that which 
 sees, touches, and causes motion, is one thing; that 
 which is seen, touched, and moved, is another. The 
 one is the agent, the other the object. He distinguishes 
 these by names; and the agent, or that which feels and 
 acts, he calls soul or mind ; that which is acted on or 
 moved, is body or matter. The individual is one in a 
 natural "Dualism." Thus Sir W. Hamilton remarks: 
 " The veracity of consciousness in the fact of percep- 
 tion [i.e., the accuracy of our intuitive knowledge of our 
 existence] being unconditionally acknowledged, we have 
 established at once, without hypothesis or demonstration, 
 the reality of mind and the reality of matter ; while no 
 concession is yielded to the sceptic, through which he 
 may subvert philosophy in manifesting its self-contra- 
 diction. The one legitimate doctrine thus possible may 
 be called natural realism, or natural dualism." f 
 
 2. Next comes the question, what is the nature of 
 matter, and what of mind ? Here again experience gives 
 what appears to be a simple solution. Matter is not 
 mind, just as mind is not matter. Mind is therefore 
 
 * Professor Max Miiller. History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature 
 (1859), p. 21, note. 
 
 t Supplementary Dissertations to Reid's Works, note A. (On the 
 Philosophy of Common Sense), p. 746.
 
 Div. i.] PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. IIQ 
 
 ////material, and that which we cannot touch, handle, see, 
 feel, and the like. On the contrary, matter is that which 
 we can touch, handle, see, feel ; and since we experience 
 certain changes in our consciousness when we thus 
 examine matter to which we give names, we connect 
 those changes causally with the thing handled, touched, 
 and the like, and we say they are due to the qualities of 
 hardness, extension, weight, coldness, warmth, and the 
 like — which names indicate the changes in our conscious- 
 ness. These causes of change we conclude to be inherent 
 in the thing touched, inasmuch as without them we ex- 
 perience no sentient changes, and have no knowledge of 
 matter, or of the thing we term material. 
 
 3. Now philosophers have raised many discussions 
 upon these and other notions, as to the nature, qualities, 
 and properties of matter, which are to be found in works 
 on philosophy and metaphysics ; but mankind in general 
 have had little difficulty in deciding what is mind and 
 what is matter. Not only can the one be compared with 
 the other, and the differences be thus established, but one 
 kind of matter can be compared with another, and their 
 differences established, almost ad infinitum. It is not so 
 with mind, however, inasmuch as it is only strictly cog- 
 nisable by the inner sense of each individual man alone. 
 Nevertheless, as it is impossible that the act of compari- 
 son should not be made, and the similarities and differ- 
 ences noted, man compares, firstly, what he does as an 
 intelligent being — that is to say, his actions — with the 
 actions of other animals who seem, like him, to be intelli- 
 gent, and with the results of that Divine intelligence 
 which he sees operative in creation. Secondly, He com- 
 pares what he is as Being, with what he sees in creation. 
 Now the result of these comparisons are numerous and 
 complex. The comparison with the Divine Intelli-
 
 120 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 gence is twofold : First, Man likens it to himself. Hence 
 the Deity, from this point of view, is anthropomorphize. 
 Secondly, He likens his own mind to the Deity, and then 
 concludes that he is in the image of God. The compari- 
 son with lower animals has led to such a variety of doc- 
 trines, religious and philosophical, that even a catalogue 
 of them would be wearisome. It is enough to say that 
 the doctrine of metempsychosis, which identifies the soul 
 of animals with the soul of man, so widely spread over 
 the world, is the chief of them. 
 
 4. The comparison with matter has led to the results 
 which most interest us, inasmuch as from it has arisen 
 the greater number of the terms by which mind is 
 designated in various languages. Man, feeling that there 
 is something within him distinct from the body, and 
 having an instinctive conviction that that something 
 will continue after the body ceases to exist as a body, 
 sought to liken it to something external, with points 
 of similarity. Now, the only thing in the qualities of 
 which there was found any similarity or likeness is air. 
 It differs from that usually termed matter, and is like 
 mind in not being hard, extended, visible, heavy (to 
 the touch), and the like ; yet, like mind, it has power to 
 move. Soul is one of several words in various languages 
 which express this similitude of mind to air. Psuche, 
 pneuma, in Greek ; spiritus, anima, and animus, in Latin, 
 the two latter derived from the Greek word for air 
 (aminos) ; ghost, ghaist (Scotch) ; gheist (German), from 
 "gas," or the same root ; nepesli and ritach, Hebrew for 
 soul and spirit; and atma (Sanscrit), analogous to, and the 
 root of, atmos (Greek) ; which again is the root of " at- 
 mosphere," vapour, or air. These are all cognate terms, 
 and are either derived from words which signify to 
 breathe, air, breath, or have that signification primarily.
 
 DIV. I.] PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. 121 
 
 They indicate a doctrine as to the nature of this un- 
 known hasis, which was common to the entire East, and 
 perhaps to the entire civilised world, from the earliest 
 periods. 
 
 5. The influence of this doctrine, and of the notions 
 connected with it, is to be found in the earliest Biblical 
 find Sanscrit literature. The word dtman, which in the 
 Veda occurs often as tman, means life, particularly animal 
 life, or the vital principle, and is compared with the sap 
 of plants. Most frequently, however, tman and dtman 
 are employed in the sense of self; just as we say, " My 
 soul praises or rejoices, for I praise : I myself rejoice." 
 This is the most usual signification of dtman in the later 
 Sanscrit, where it is used like a pronoun. Yet dtman 
 means there also the soul of the universe — the highest 
 soul or self (paramdtman), of which all other souls par- 
 take, from which all reality in this created world ema- 
 nates, and into which everything will return. Thus, a 
 Hindu speaking of himself (dtman), spoke also, though 
 unconsciously, of the soul of the universe (dtman).* 
 
 6. This ancient doctrine, except when thus refined into 
 a comprehensive metaphysical notion of power, was essen- 
 tially materialistic, inasmuch as, applied to physiological 
 phenomena, it taught that both life and thought depended 
 upon a gas or air, or a gaseous asthereal substance, which 
 circulated through the arteries or "air-carriers," and was 
 derived from the brain ; and that the soul could and did 
 assume a material, albeit gaseous or sethereal, form after 
 death. It therefore entered largely into the metaphysics, 
 physiology, and mythology of the most ancient nations, 
 as well as the most uncivilised. To this day it is the 
 doctrine universally popular, and constitutes, in its most 
 
 * Prof. Max Miiller. A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature 
 (1859), p. 20.
 
 122 METAPHYSICS. [part. ii. 
 
 materialistic development, an essential portion of the 
 creed of by far the largest part of Christendom. 
 
 7. This doctrine is, however, no longer current as a 
 physiological doctrine in the schools of medicine, physio- 
 logy having ceased to recognise the ventricles of the brain 
 as the seat of the " spirits," the arteries as their con- 
 duits, and the nostrils as the ducts through which the 
 brain draws them in ; nor is it recognised by modern 
 philosophy, or the advanced theologians. It is found, 
 indeed, to be not only wholly incompatible with the 
 highest truths, but to be more practically mischievous 
 than the grossest scepticism. Professor Ferrier has 
 exhibited the consequences to which it leads in the most 
 striking and vigorous terms, in reference to the extra- 
 ordinary delusions of " spirit-rapping." " The word 
 by which the thinking principle is designated in all 
 languages," Mr Ferrier observes, " bears evidence to the 
 inveteracy of the superstition that the conception of 
 mind might be formed by conceiving a material sub- 
 stance of extreme fineness and tenuity. Many circum- 
 stances have conspired to keep this fanaticism in life. 
 The supposed visibility of ghosts helps it on."* 
 
 8. Although the materialistic element has been elimi- 
 nated from philosophy, the modern theories generally 
 retain the doctrine that there is a separate Ens, or thing, 
 — a particular immaterial something — to which they 
 apply the old terms. I must exempt Professor Ferrier's 
 views from this statement, who argues with great logical 
 depth and acuteness that, as a particular immaterial 
 thing, mind is wholly incognisable.f Modern Psycho- 
 logy implies, moreover, throughout, that there is not 
 only a particular separate thing, but that the nature and 
 
 * Institutes of Metaphysic, 1st edit. p. 224. 
 t Op. cit. pp. 230-32.
 
 Div. i.] PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. 12^ 
 
 laws of its existence may be, and indeed ought to be, in- 
 vestigated apart from the body (p. 48). The definition 
 which Sir William Hamilton gives of the science is conclu- 
 sive as to this point. He says — " Psychology, or the 
 Philosophy of the Human Mind strictly so denominated, 
 is the science conversant about the phenomena, or modifi- 
 cations, or states of the mind, or Conscious-Subject, or 
 Soul, or Spirit, or Self, or Ego."* As to the "mind," 
 we learn that " since Descartes limited psychology to 
 the domain of consciousness, the term mind has been 
 rigidly employed for the self-knowing principle alone. 
 Mind, therefore, is to be understood as the subject of the 
 various internal phenomena of which we are conscious, 
 or that subject of which consciousness is the general 
 phenomenon. "f As to the word subject, it " is used to 
 denote the unknown basis which lies under the various 
 phenomena or properties of which we become aware, 
 whether in our internal or external experience."! " But 
 the philosophers of mind have, in a manner, usurped and 
 appropriated this expression to themselves. Accordingly, 
 in their hands, the phrases conscious or thinking subject, 
 and subject simply, mean precisely the same thing ; and 
 custom has prevailed so far, that, in psychological dis- 
 cussions, the subject is a term now currently employed 
 throughout Europe for the mind or thinking principle." § 
 
 9. Now, although it is usually acknowledged that we 
 know nothing, and can know nothing, of the nature of 
 mind, and are thereby preserved from the rude material- 
 istic comparisons of the early periods of metapbysics, 
 nevertheless we seek to know something, according to 
 the instinctive method of comparison ; and we still com- 
 pare it with what we know. Modern research, especially 
 
 * Sir William Hamilton. Lech/res on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 129. 
 t Ibid. p. 156. % Iud - P- 149 - § Ibid - P- 158 -
 
 1 24 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 in chemistry and physical astronomy, has developed defi- 
 nite notions of the forces of matter, and we can com- 
 pare mind with these. That comparison leads us to the 
 conclusion that mind is that which has the power of 
 beginning motion ; matter has not the power : mind is 
 that which feels and thinks ; matter does not feel or 
 think : mind adapts events to designed ends ; matter is 
 adapted to ends : mind is conscious ; matter is uncon- 
 scious : or, finally, since all these are included under 
 consciousness, Mind is Consciousness. This conclusion 
 as to the nature of mind, in comparison with matter, is 
 the foundation of various modern systems of philosophy, 
 commencing with Descartes. The forces of matter and 
 of mind have been and are held wholly apart. What, 
 however, is the fact, as proved by the experience of 
 mankind? Are they wholly distinct? and, if distinct, 
 are they to be held wholly apart in all investigations as 
 to their nature, and qualities, and properties, respectively? 
 To answer these questions, it is necessary to inquire 
 especially into the nature and limits of consciousness, 
 and, firstly and primarily, into the relations of conscious- 
 ness to Existence or Being. If Beings manifest all the 
 phenomena we attribute to mind, although not conscious, 
 then mind must be the cause of Being, and therefore of 
 something more than consciousness.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS OR EXISTENCE THE NATURE OF LIFE. 
 
 10. In consciousness, man has a personal experience of 
 his existence — >that is, of his continuous being in space, — of 
 standing out, as it were, from every other thing in space. 
 Greek, orao), oro, lottj/jli', Latin, sto, sisto, existens. He 
 discriminates that which stands out visibly, tangibly, as 
 his body — bodyge, Anglo-Saxon, stature ; leib, German. 
 
 11. Now, the body is matter, but it differs from other 
 matter in various properties or qualities — that is, as to 
 the various modes in which it affects the consciousness, 
 as a thing apart from and external to the consciousness. 
 But matter is presented to the consciousness under con- 
 ditions similar to that of the body, that is, there are 
 other men, and other organisms like men in general 
 qualities, namely animals ; and other organisms like 
 animals in mere general qualities, namely vegetables. 
 Now, the qualities of these organisms are generalised 
 under the term Life, and the matter of which they are 
 constituted is termed living matter. Life is therefore a 
 necessary quality of the matter which constitutes our 
 bodies, i. e., ourselves ; and since our existence ceases 
 when those qualities disappear which we generalise 
 under the term Life — that is, when we cease to stand out 
 or be present in space — Life and Existence are correlative 
 terms. Man has a variety of experience as to animals 
 in general, which he has derived and generalised from
 
 126 METAPHYSICS. [part it, 
 
 observation of those of their mental and vital phenomena 
 in which their nature resembles or differs from his own. 
 This experience, crude and erroneous at first, has never- 
 theless been made available from all time to his daily- 
 needs; and the experience and the principles deduced 
 therefrom being corrected (i.e., errors eliminated by scien- 
 tific research, p. 101), constitute the facts and principles 
 of Physiology, General and Comparative, and through 
 that of practical medicine. Thus man, in common with 
 all other animals, breathes the atmospheric air, and eli- 
 minates from it the oxygen contained therein ; hence 
 the deduction that the vital processes in man and in 
 lower animals — in so far as the uses of oxygen are in- 
 volved — are identical ; and so it follows, that researches 
 in lower animals as to the uses of oxygen may be made 
 available to the elucidation of its uses in the body of 
 man. Not otherwise is it with the classification of 
 mental operations. We can follow no other method than 
 to inquire and observe carefully in what respect those 
 of other living things differ from and resemble man, and 
 generalise the differences and resemblances ; taking care 
 to select such differences and resemblances as are real. 
 
 12. Let us look, then, at the generalisations and deduc- 
 tions of the common sense and experience of man, as to the 
 conditions of his Existence, or life, in common with ani- 
 mals generally. It is obvious to all thinking men, from 
 experience alone, that man is subjected to the same 
 general laws as those which govern the actions of many 
 other animals. He comes into existence in a similar 
 way, that is, by parentage ; grows and is developed into 
 perfection according to similar laws ; lives, is nourished, 
 and reproduces his species according to similar instincts ; 
 dies and disappears under similar physical conditions. 
 And the common sense of mankind extends these
 
 Div. I.] PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. \2f 
 
 generalisations, recognises this brotherhood in existence 
 with all organisms whatever, and classes all organisms, 
 whether vegetable or animal, conscious or unconscious, 
 rational or irrational, in one class of things, — viz., those 
 endowed with life, or subjected to vital forces. So that 
 Life is the expression of the fundamental principle that 
 they are all governed as " living matter " by the same 
 o-eneral laws. And when man makes of these lower 
 organisms his dear companions, his fellow-labourers, his 
 defenders, his attached friends, and enacts laws in their 
 favour, and for their protection from injury — thus taking 
 them, as it were, into the circle of human society — he 
 but in diverse ways practically asserts the fundamental 
 principle, that, as beings, they have a nature genetically 
 identical with his own, although specifically different. 
 
 13. Now, the speculations of mankind as to the nature 
 and cause of Life, or Bodily Existence, have been wholly 
 like those as to the nature and cause of Mind. It being 
 a familiar fact that Life ceases in man and other animals 
 with the cessation of respiration, the inference was ob- 
 vious that air is the cause of Life, and that something of 
 the nature of air circulated through the body and main- 
 tained life. Hence, the term anima indicated the cause 
 of Life as well as of consciousness ; and from anima is 
 derived the term animal, as expressive of a large class of 
 Beings, believed to have, in common with man, conscious- 
 ness or feeling, as well as Life. The doctrine is of high 
 antiquity ; but a difference was drawn between the souls of 
 men and of brutes. " For that which befalleth the sons of 
 men befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them ; as 
 the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one 
 breath [ruach], so that a man hath no pre-eminence 
 above a beast. All go unto one place ; all are of the 
 dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit
 
 128 METAPHYSICS. [part a. 
 
 [ruach] of man that goeth upward, and the spirit [ruacK] 
 of the beast that goeth downward to the earth ?* Ruach 
 here means both breath and spirit (4), and is translated in 
 this passage in both significations. Amongst the Greeks, 
 the doctrine of Aristotle is the most complete as to the 
 dependence of Life and Consciousness upon a common 
 cause. He says — " Some writers maintain that the 
 Psuche is divisible, and that by one part it thinks, and 
 by another feels desire ; but what then, if it be naturally 
 divisible, holds its parts together? Not the body, cer- 
 tainly, we answer ; for the Psuche, on the contrary, holds 
 it together, as, from the moment of its departure, the 
 body expires and decays. If there be a something that 
 makes it one, that something is in the strictest sense the 
 
 Psuche But the living principle in plants 
 
 seems to be a kind of Psuche ; for animals and plants 
 alike partake of it, and it is separable from the sentient 
 principle, but yet without it no creature can possess sensi- 
 bility." f And again — " Let it suffice for the present to 
 say that Psuche is the source of the nutritive, the sen- 
 tient, cogitative, and motive faculties." J 
 
 14. The phenomena of Life have been usually attributed 
 to some special but unknown cause, variously designated. 
 A theory of Life founded on the hypothesis of the " ani- 
 mal spirits," was most common amongst Arabic and me- 
 diaeval physiologists ; in later years, theories of a " plastic 
 nature" " Archajus," "vital principle," "vis nervosa" 
 have also been current, with much the same result in all 
 cases. In modern times, Stahl took the lead in resusci- 
 
 * Ecclesiastes, chap. iii. ver. 19-21. 
 
 t Peri Psuches, book i. chap. 5. (Dr Collier's translation.) 
 
 I Ibid, book ii. chap. 2. Dr Collier has translated Psuche by 
 
 " vital principle," other writers, by "aninia;" I have preferred 
 
 retaining the original word.
 
 Div. I.] PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. I29 
 
 tating and applying to the explanation of modern facts 
 in anatomy and physiology, the Aristotelian doctrine 
 which attributed Life and Thought to a common cause. 
 He thereby gave a great impulse to mental physiology, 
 although his views lost ground quickly with the advance 
 of neurological research, and the more materialistic views 
 of the last century (p. 44). Of later years, the doctrine 
 has been developed principally in Germany, and mainly 
 from the fact that the German physicians started from 
 the doctrines of Leibnitz rather than of Descartes, as to 
 the relations of Consciousness to Being. While the latter 
 made unceasing consciousness necessary to life, the 
 former admitted that there were mental modifications 
 without consciousness. Hence continuous consciousness, 
 not being necessary to Being, was not held as necessary 
 to continual Being or personal identity. Some British 
 metaphysicians have adopted the doctrine of experience 
 current in Germany. " Thus," Mr J. D. Morell writes, 
 " the soul, as we have shown, is prior to consciousness. 
 It exists unconsciously from the formation of the first 
 cell-germ ; it operates unconsciously throughout all the 
 early processes of life ; it acts unconsciously even in 
 the greater part of the efforts which subserve our intel- 
 lectual development."* And again, f "The soul is in 
 the whole body, in every part of it, in every nerve ; it 
 forms the peculiar essence of humanity, and with the body 
 it constitutes the reality and the unity of the individual 
 man. Of physiological writers, TJnzer has exhibited this 
 unity in the most striking way, and by the vastest array 
 of facts. (See his Erste Griinde Einer Physiologie, &c.) 
 We become most sensible of this if we attempt to draw a 
 line anywhere between vital and psychical forces, and find 
 
 * Elements of Psychology (1853), part i. p. 74. 
 t Ibid, p. 76. 
 
 I
 
 I gO METAPHYSICS. [part ir. 
 
 how impossible it is to succeed in doing so. Even in the 
 early unconscious developments of life, there is an intel- 
 ligible purpose manifested, which denotes the presence of 
 a rational principle, although that principle only mani- 
 fests itself as yet in teleological forms and processes. 
 Instinct, again, plainly betokens mind, only in a lower 
 sphere ; for all the actions which it prompts are as dis- 
 tinctly impressed with the laws of reason as those which 
 rise above it. Neither is it possible, if we go one step 
 further, to separate the phenomena of sensation from 
 those of the physical and vital forces. The conscious 
 and the unconscious sides of the process are so blended 
 together, that it is only by a mental fiction that we dis- 
 tinguish them, and assign a cause to the one different 
 from that which produces the other. If we go upwards 
 from sensation towards the more intellectual regions, each 
 step involves a corresponding action of the nervous sys- 
 tem, which gives occasion to the allied mental phenomena 
 as certainly as any other organ of the frame is associated 
 with its appropriate function. And even if we ascend 
 to the autocratic power of the will, still that is only 
 reached by a succession of steps, all involving both 
 thought and feeling, between no two of which we can 
 draw any line of demarcation, so as to say where the vital 
 and automatic processes end, and where those of the soul, 
 par excellence, begin. The whole, in fact, are so inter- 
 woven in producing the result, that they point us of 
 necessity to a primitive unity as the real starting-point 
 of them all." 
 
 15. It is thus clearly deducible from experience that 
 consciousness cannot be separated as to Causation from 
 existence or being. Existence is certainly implied in 
 consciousness, but is not dependent upon consciousness. 
 Life and Mind are correlative in consciousness, and
 
 DIV. I.] PRINCIPLES OF EXPERIENCE. [21 
 
 dependent, therefore, upon correlative forces: Knowing 
 and Being have the same cause.* It is upon this point, 
 then, that a true practical psychology must turn. If we 
 maintain the metaphysical definition of mind or the soul, 
 and limit it to states of consciousness, then we must still 
 multiply psychal agents and principles, and speak of the 
 vital principle, Instinct, Consciousness, Sensation, Per- 
 ception, Eeason, Thought, as things fundamentally dif- 
 ferent, with all the consequent confusion. If we accept 
 a practical generalisation, which comprises all these as 
 modifications of one primary force or energy, then we 
 can extend our inquiries into the nature of mind hy 
 both deductive and inductive experiment and observa- 
 tion throughout creation, and simplify a large mass of 
 confused phenomena ; and in doing this we should not 
 only attain to an inestimable good, but we should act 
 according to that cardinal maxim of all philosophy — the 
 " law of Parsimony" of Sir William Hamilton—" That 
 substances are not to be multiplied without necessity ; in 
 other words, that a plurality of principles are not to be 
 assumed when the phenomena can possibly be explained 
 by one."f Such a generalisation is moreover necessary 
 for the investigation of that vast number of mental phe- 
 nomena which philosophy excludes from its field of in- 
 quiry, and hands over to physiology, namely, those that 
 in man are instinctive and involuntary, or performed 
 automatically and unconsciously. To these belong, in 
 
 * I would hero refer to Professor Ferrier's series of subtle 
 metaphysical arguments upon this point, as an example of d priori 
 conclusions logically deduced from a simple proposition, for in- 
 structive comparison with these d posteriori inductions from the 
 generalisations of experience. 
 
 t On the Philosophy of Common Sense ; Reid's Works, note A, \ 2. 
 p. 751.
 
 132 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 fact, some of the highest processes of the human under- 
 standing. This generalisation, therefore, if placed only 
 on the humble footing of a hypothesis, should, for a time 
 at least, he admitted to serve the purpose of the induc- 
 tive inquirer, and especially be made available to a more 
 scientific classification of the phenomena dependent on 
 mind. But in fact it is no hypothesis; it is rather a 
 great truth, rich in great practical results.
 
 DIVISION II. 
 
 EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GENERAL DOCTRINES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Sect. I. — Consciousness as the Ego. 
 
 16. The fundamental principle, that Existence in the 
 order of events precedes Thought, having been over- 
 looked by the great majority of philosophers since the 
 time of Descartes, they have commenced the investiga- 
 tion of the laws of Thought independently of the laws of 
 Life, or Existence. Hence the doctrines of consciousness 
 are founded primarily upon inquiries into how the man 
 feels and knows, without reference to how he exists ; in 
 other words, an " immaterial" Ego has been accepted as 
 the proper subject of inquiry, rather than the " concrete" 
 Ego. 
 
 17. Now it is a fact of experience, that the conscious- 
 ness of oneness, unity, or personality in existence, de- 
 pends upon the correlation of life and mind. Every 
 man has a consciousness of personality. He knows that 
 he exists continuously as one — i.e., as a unit or an indi- 
 visible thing in time and space. He is an individual 
 person throughout. He exists as one and the same in 
 bealth and in disease; in sleeping and in waking; in 
 consciousness and unconsciousness ; in infancy, child- 
 hood, youth, manhood, old age. In no two of these, and
 
 134 METAPHYSICS. [PART II. 
 
 numerous other states and conditions, is he exactly the 
 same. Incessant change from moment to moment is the 
 law of his nature ; yet with this incessant change he is 
 one and the same person, or individual. The common 
 sense of both the man and of mankind determines, that 
 from the moment of his birth to the last pulse he is one 
 and the same individual man. All law and social order 
 is founded upon the fundamental fact, that on earth this 
 unity of the man never ceases; that his primary con- 
 stituent elements are never separated so long as he 
 lives. When the unity is destroyed by the separation 
 of his primary constituents (taking these to mean soul 
 and body), the individual ceases to exist as the terres- 
 trial being, man. Such a separation is death. Language 
 seems to associate the same expression of this indivi- 
 duality with life. We have seen that the same word in 
 Sanskrit (dtman) which means air or breath, is also used 
 to signify self (5) ; from the same root is probably derived 
 a-ham (in cuneiform inscriptions Adam), Ego, eyw, ich — I 
 am, I live, I breathe. Metaphysicians, as we have seen 
 (p. 52), have considered existence and conscious exist- 
 ence as the same ; but the experience of mankind is to 
 the effect that the individual is not always conscious of 
 his existence, nor even always conscious that he thinks. 
 He exists, in reference to his actions and passions, in two 
 different and antagonistic states, between which, how- 
 ever, there is every degree of transitional intensity. He 
 feels, and he does not feel; he is conscious, and he is 
 unconscious. Emerging from the womb, he first feels 
 simply, and has no perception of the external world ; 
 then perception takes place ; next memory, and there- 
 with thought upon the feelings and perceptions ; and 
 finally the conceptions, imagination, and reason of the 
 perfect man, are developed.
 
 niv. ii.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 135 
 
 18. In passing from the unconscious to the conscious 
 state at any period of life, man reaches the full exer- 
 cise of his powers, whatever those may be, in the same 
 order ; so that the awaking from the sleep of healthy life 
 is a transcript in brief of that gradually awakening into 
 mental life, which, commencing with birth, ends in the 
 full development of the mental powers. The terms mind 
 and consciousness are applied to all these mental phe- 
 nomena, and include alike the simplest feeling of pleasure 
 or pain, and the highest efforts of the understanding. 
 Consciousness is therefore conditional. It is only when 
 in ordinary health that man, at a certain stage of his 
 existence (not before), acquires this consciousness ; *. e., 
 the knowledge that he exists as one and the same in time 
 and space. He arrives at this knowledge by observation 
 and experience, under given bodily conditions. He per- 
 ceives under these conditions that his existence is con- 
 tinuous ; he observes that there is space around him, and 
 a world external to himself. He sees things like him- 
 self occupying and moving in the space around him. 
 He separates himself by comparison from all other things 
 in time and space, and designates himself Ego, 7, me. 
 He is thus se^-conscious. Barely indeed, however, does 
 the man say Ego cogito, ergo sum : I think, therefore I 
 am. That metaphysical dogma is contrary to experience. 
 In the order of events, life precedes consciousness, just as 
 consciousness precedes knowledge. Hence the doctrine 
 of experience is the reverse of the Cartesian proposition, 
 and may be formularised rather into " I live, therefore I 
 think : I think, therefore I know." As consciousness is 
 thus identified with existence by the Cartesian doctrine 
 of consciousness as a cause, it is a logical conclusion from 
 that doctrine that such a thing as unconscious existence 
 is an absurdity, and impossible. Hence, in states of
 
 I36 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 existence like fainting, insensibility, stupor, profound 
 sleep, and the like, it is argued that the individual is 
 really conscious, but that, when he returns to his ordinary 
 state, he does not recollect having been so. This question 
 shall have a special examination ; it is here referred to 
 for the purpose of noting, that never-ceasing conscious- 
 ness is also held to be necessary to personal identity — 
 i.e., to the knowledge of continuous existence as one and 
 the same in time and space. 
 
 Sect. II. — Consciousness as Feelings and Sensations. 
 
 19. In practical medicine, as in the ordinary business 
 of life, the states of consciousness termed Feelings are 
 of predominant interest. The words ease and disease 
 imply, indeed, the entire subject-matter of medical art — 
 the body — as well as fundamental states of consciousness 
 (p. 17). Nor are the terms limited to corporeal pain 
 only. Phrenalgia (or melancbolia) is as much corporeal, 
 and as much within the scope of medicine, as neuralgia. 
 Hellebore, indeed, may cure both alike, just because both 
 may occur from similar changes in the blood and tissues. 
 
 20. Now, the fundamental doctrine of the feelings 
 is, that they are states of existence. Yet there is as 
 much variety in the use of the term " Feeling " by 
 metaphysicians, as of the term consciousness. It has, 
 firstly, a general application to all states of the con- 
 sciousness, and is only, in fact, another term for con- 
 sciousness, or tbe state of being conscious. Thus, Mr J. 
 S. Mill : — " A feeling and a state of consciousness are, 
 in the language of philosopby, equivalent expressions; 
 everything is a feeling of which the mind is conscious." 
 Again — " Feeling, in the proper sense of the term, is a 
 genus, of which Sensation, Emotion, Thought, are sub-
 
 div. ii.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1 37 
 
 ordinate species. Under the word Thotight is here to be 
 included whatever we are internally conscious of when 
 we are said to think ; — from the consciousness we have 
 when we think of a red colour without having it before 
 our eyes, to the most recondite thought of a philosopher 
 or poet."* Or, more comprehensively, Mr Mill remarks, 
 " It was of great importance, for the purpose of naming, 
 that we should not only have names to distinguish the 
 different classes of our feelings, but also a name equally 
 applicable to all those classes. This purpose is answered 
 by the concrete term Conscious, and the abstract of it 
 Consciousness. Thus, if we are in any way sentient — 
 that is, have any of the feelings whatsoever of a living 
 creature — the word Conscious is applicable to the feeler, 
 and Consciousness to the feeling, — that is to say, the 
 words are generical marks, under which all the names 
 of subordinate classes of the feelings of a sentient crea- 
 ture are included. "f 
 
 21. Sensation is used in the same sense as Feeling. It 
 is a quality of Sentient Beings. Accordingly, Dr Brown 
 states — " Sensation is not the object of consciousness 
 different from itself, but a particular sensation is the 
 consciousness of the moment, as a particular hope, or 
 fear, or grief, or resentment, or simple remembrance, 
 may be the actual consciousness of the next moment. 
 In short, if the mind of man and all the changes which 
 take place in it, from the first feeling with which life 
 commenced to the last with which it closes, could be 
 made visible to any other thinking being, a certain series 
 of feelings alone — that is to say, a certain number of suc- 
 cessive states of the mind — would be distinguishable in 
 it, forming, indeed, a variety of sensations, and thoughts, 
 
 * Elements of Logic, 3d edit. vol. i. pp. 54-5. 
 
 f Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 172.
 
 138 METAPHYSICS. [part 11. 
 
 and passions, as momentary states of the mind, but all 
 of them existing individually, and successively to each 
 other."* These states of consciousness, or "feelings," 
 constitute the evidence of our existence as conscious 
 beings. "When we speak," says Dr Brown, "of the 
 evidence of consciousness, we mean nothing more than the 
 evidence implied in the mere existence of our sensations, 
 thoughts, desires, which it is utterly impossible for us to 
 believe to be and not to be, or, in other words, impos- 
 sible for us to feel and not to feel, at the same moment."! 
 Hence the cognition of self, or self-consciousness, implies 
 more than a feeling of existence, or feeling of pain, or 
 the like. It implies a knowledge of existence founded 
 on comparison and observation. Thus, Dr Brown ob- 
 serves, " It is on observation, therefore, or on conscious- 
 ness, which is only another word for internal observation, 
 that the whole of science is founded ; because there can 
 be no comparison without observation of the phenomena 
 compared, and no discovery of agreement or disagreement 
 without comparison. "J The mental process by which we 
 arrive at self-consciousness in ourselves is also that by 
 which we arrive at a knowledge of consciousness in 
 another. We see that, under certain conditions, we per- 
 form certain acts consecutively to, or coincidently with, 
 certain feelings, or emotions, or sensations ; when we 
 observe other animals, under similar conditions, doing 
 the same acts, we infer that they are in the same states 
 of existence — that is, the same states of consciousness — 
 as ourselves. And this is the only way in which we can 
 arrive at a knowledge of the states of consciousness in 
 all others than ourselves ; for even human speech comes 
 
 * Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 245, 
 edit. 1820. 
 
 t Op. cit. vol i. p. 256. J Ibid. vol. i. p. 88.
 
 piv. ii.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1 39 
 
 under this general category. "When, however, we at- 
 tempt to apply the criterion to lower animals, we find 
 that it is insufficient as a proof of consciousness. 
 
 22. Sensibility is a term which is used by the majority 
 of continental writers to indicate that state of a part of 
 the body which takes place, when, on the application of 
 a stimulus, those vital actions which seem to indicate 
 feeling are excited. It is also used in this sense by 
 Whytt and other physiological writers. The same con- 
 dition has been termed physical sensation, inasmuch as 
 there is no consciousness of pain, or of the impression 
 which is the stimulus to the vital actions. These are 
 now well known as reflex acts, and are purely automatic. 
 Other actions of this class, which are necessarily asso- 
 ciated with feelings or sensations, are concluded by 
 many writers to be therefore caused by sensation. This, 
 however, seems to be an error in induction. 
 
 23. Feeling and sensation are terms often used synony- 
 mously, and in special applications. Thus, feeling has a 
 special application to states of the consciousness con- 
 sequent upon, or coincident with, the excitation of the 
 emotions and passions. These, in so far as they are 
 either pleasurable or painful states of existence, are 
 generalised under the term " The Feelings." But feel- 
 ing has also a special application to states of the con- 
 sciousness induced by changes in the organ of conscious- 
 ness through the sense of Touch. "VVe feel whether a 
 thing is hard or soft, rough or smooth ; we feel our way 
 in darkness. Feeling has also a special application to 
 states of consciousness consequent on bodily injuries. 
 As to these, sensation and feeling have been used synony- 
 mously, and the simple feeling of pain has been classed 
 (but, as I think, erroneously) with the states of con- 
 sciousness in which, by means of our senses, we become
 
 14° METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 cognisant of the qualities of bodies, and of an external 
 world. Thus Mr Mill terms the various kinds of pain or 
 titillation accompanying lacerations, cuts, bruises, friction, 
 light touches, and the like, " sensations of disorganisa- 
 tion." Those feelings which accompany the varied 
 actions of the muscles, those which are referred to the 
 alimentary canal, and those which we have by the five 
 senses, are all equally termed sensations by him. 
 
 24. Upon the whole, consciousness is best described as 
 a succession of states of existence, characterised by feel- 
 ings, thoughts, volitions, and the like. Sir Henry Hol- 
 land seems to describe it in the fewest and simplest words 
 as constituting the mental life of man : — " What, then, 
 is this consciousness ? Scarcely can we render the con- 
 ception of it clearer by definition, or describe what is 
 inseparable from our existence and identity of being. 
 .... We have in the instrument of examination the 
 actual thing to be examined ; for we cannot better de- 
 scribe the mental life of man than as embodied in a suc- 
 cession of acts or states of consciousness, so continuous 
 as to give and maintain the sense of personal identity."* 
 
 Sect. III. — Consciousness as Knowledge : Cognitional 
 Consciousness. 
 
 25. We have seen that, fundamentally, consciousness is 
 the knowledge of our existence ; and that our feelings, or 
 sensations, are but states of this knowledge — are to us 
 the evidence of our existence both in time and space. 
 The term consciousness has been applied more widely in 
 the sense of knowledge to a variety of mental phenomena, 
 and in a variety of meanings. Some of these must be 
 examined. 
 
 * Chapters in Mental Physiology, 1st edit. p. 47.
 
 div. ir.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. I4I 
 
 2G. In the first place, by the term Consciousness, as 
 used by philosophers, in its strictest sense, an intuitive 
 knowledge of present and conscious existence only is 
 implied ; an intuitive knowledge of both past and present 
 existence is a form of se^-consciousness, and known as 
 personal identity. Self-consciousness, in the full sense 
 of the term, comprehends an intuitive knowledge of exist- 
 ence, both past, present, and future. Thus Sir William 
 Hamilton states as to consciousness simply, " Conscious- 
 ness is a knowledge solely of what is now and here present 
 to the mind. It is therefore only intuitive, and its ob- 
 jects exclusively presentative. Again, consciousness is 
 a knowledge of all that is now and here present to the 
 mind : every immediate cognition is thus an object of 
 consciousness, and every intuitive cognition itself simply 
 a special form of consciousness."* And so also M. 
 Cousin : " It is not by consciousness that we feel, or will, 
 or think, but it is by it we know that we do all this." 
 Here consciousness is not applied to existence simply, 
 but only to certain modes of existence. 
 
 27. Secondly, Consciousness is identified with intuitive 
 cognitions, and through these with intuitive beliefs. " An 
 act of consciousness is of the most elementary character ; 
 it is the condition of all knowledge ; I cannot, therefore, 
 define it to you ; but as you are all familiar with the 
 thing, it is easy to enable you to connect the thing with 
 the word. I know, I desire, I feel. What is it that is 
 common to all these ? Knowing, and desiring, and feeling 
 are not the same, and may be distinguished. But they 
 all agree in one fundamental condition. Can I know 
 without knowing that I know ? Can I desire without 
 knowing that I desire ? Can I feel without knowing tha t 
 
 * Supplementary Dissertation, note B, \ 1, p. 810.
 
 I42 METAPHYSICS. [l'AKT II. 
 
 I feel ? This is impossible. Now, this knowing that I 
 know, or desire, or feel, this common condition of self- 
 knowledge, is precisely what is denominated Conscious- 
 ness."* Here consciousness, or knowledge, is substituted 
 for existence — the one fundamental condition of knowing, 
 and desiring, and feeling ; and, at the same time, for the 
 intuitive cognition of self — that is, is made equal with 
 self-consciousness. And in entire consistency with this 
 view, Sir William Hamilton subsequently remarks : " We 
 are wholly unable to conceive a being possessed of feel- 
 ing and desire, and, at the same time, without a know- 
 ledge of any object upon which his affections may be 
 employed, and without a consciousness of these affections 
 themselves."! Now, if we extend the application of this 
 doctrine to the earliest stages of human existence, or to 
 the lower divisions of the animal kingdom, we cannot 
 but see its restricted range. It is very probable that a 
 newly-born infant feels pain without knowing that it 
 feels as an individual, and desires without knowing what 
 it desires — probable as a matter of fact, and probable 
 because the cognition of self, or me implies the cognition 
 of the not-me, or the external world, — an amount of 
 knowledge which, if conceded for the newly born-infant, 
 or the human fcetus in utero (and this is a great assump- 
 tion), cannot be reasonably conceded to the members of 
 the lowest classes of the animal kingdom, as hydras and 
 oysters, which may possibly feel pain and enjoyment, 
 but have probably no knowledge of self. It is to be ob- 
 served, however, that this acute logician affirms on the 
 same page, what few will deny, " that consciousness is 
 the condition of all internal phenomena — comprises 
 within its sphere the whole phenomena of mind." It is 
 
 * Sir W. Hamilton. Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 158. 
 t Ibid. p. 188.
 
 Div. EI.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1 43 
 
 applicable, therefore, equally to a state of existence con- 
 stituted of the simplest feeling of bodily pain, or of the 
 simplest act of will, as of the most elaborate series of 
 thoughts, or the strongest emotions. 
 
 28. Thirdly, Consciousness is identified with attention, 
 or the special direction of the senses and the faculties to 
 any given object or subject. This includes volition. A 
 person walks along the street, and is passed by a friend, 
 of whom he takes no notice ; or the clock strikes loudly, 
 and he does not hear it. He is said to be unconscious 
 of the objects he neglects, and conscious of the thoughts 
 that at the moment engaged his mind. So Sir Wil- 
 liam Hamilton observes : " When occupied with other 
 matters, a person may speak to us, or the clock may 
 strike, without our having any consciousness of the 
 sound ; but it is wholly impossible for us to remain in 
 this state of unconsciousness intentionally and with will. 
 We cannot determinately refuse to hear by voluntarily 
 withholding our attention ; and we can no more open 
 our eyes, and by an act of will avert our mind from all 
 perception of sight, than we can by an act of will cease 
 to live. We may close our ears or shut our eyes, as we 
 may commit suicide ; but we cannot, with our organs 
 unobstructed, wholly refuse our attention at will. It 
 therefore appears to me the more correct doctrine to 
 hold that there is no consciousness without attention, 
 without concentration— but that attention is of three 
 different degrees or kinds."* Now, it is worthy no- 
 tice that this state of existence, or of necessary con- 
 sciousness, termed attention, is, under certain conditions, 
 universally acknowledged to be a vital or corporeal state. 
 Thus Sir W. Hamilton proceeds to say of the three kinds 
 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 247.
 
 144 METAPHYSICS. [part a. 
 
 or degrees of attention, " The first [is] a mere vital and 
 irresistible act ; the second, an act determined by desire, 
 which, though involuntary, may be resisted by our will ; 
 the third, an act determined by a deliberate volition. 
 An act of attention — that is, an act of concentration — 
 seems thus necessary to every exertion of consciousness, 
 as a certain contraction of the pupil is requisite to every 
 exercise of vision." I shall show, subsequently, that 
 every form of attention is a state of consciousness coin- 
 cident with a corresponding state of the portion of the 
 organism, involved. It is not so much an exertion of 
 consciousness as of the organs involved in the effort ; 
 and when the individual concentrates his attention upon 
 his own thoughts, his state is analogous to that state of 
 existence which accompanies dreaming, or even sound 
 sleep. In the one case the senses are not directed to 
 external things by the waking man, he being otherwise 
 occupied ; in the other the senses are not so directed 
 because of that corporeal condition known as sleep. 
 
 29. Fourthly, Consciousness is identified with memory 
 and recollection, or the knowledge of the past, both 
 popularly and by philosophers. Thus, when a person 
 means to say that I do not recollect an event, he will 
 say, It is not in my memory ; I am not conscious of 
 it ; or, I am not aware that it happened. 
 
 Memory and recollection are two materially related 
 faculties, by which past states of existence are brought 
 into relation with the present and anticipations of the 
 future. Sir William Hamilton distinguishes memory 
 as the retentive or conservative faculty; recollection 
 as the reproductive. "Memory," he says, "strictly so 
 denominated, is the power of retaining knowledge in the 
 mind, but out of consciousness : I say retaining know- 
 ledge in the mind, but out of consciousness ; for to bring
 
 div. rt.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. I45 
 
 the retentum out of memory into consciousness, is the 
 function of a totally different faculty." " If we are 
 capable of knowledge, it is not enough that we possess a 
 faculty of acquiring, and a faculty of retaining it in the 
 mind, but out of consciousness ; we must further be en- 
 dowed with a faculty of recalling it out of unconscious- 
 ness into consciousness ; in short, a reproductive power. 
 This reproductive faculty is governed by the laws which 
 regulate the succession of our thoughts — the laws, as they 
 are called, of mental association." " By reproduction, 
 it should be observed that I strictly mean the process of 
 recovering the absent thought from unconsciousness, and 
 not its representation in consciousness," &c. Here we 
 have the word " unconsciousness " used in a mode which 
 seems to contradict the doctrine that the mind is never 
 unconscious ; for if it can be unconscious as regards all 
 previous states of existence, why (mutatis mutandis) can- 
 not it be unconscious as regards the present ? Memory 
 is, however, like attention in its nature ; it is a faculty 
 so intimately associated with the operation of the vital 
 forces, that no man doubts its entire dependence upon 
 corporeal states. We may doubt as to absolute uncon- 
 sciousness, but there can be no doubt as to absolute loss 
 of memory and the power of reminiscence ; and it is 
 equally certain that that loss is wholly due to morbid 
 changes in the nervous system — i.e., in the encephalon.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS AS THOUGHT AND WILL. 
 
 Sect. I. — Successional Consciousness, or Tliought. 
 
 30. Every man who examines the order of his own states 
 of consciousness is cognisant of a continuous succession of 
 them. This succession has heen termed trains of ideas; 
 and when combined definitely, the association of ideas. 
 When the thoughts that succeed each other have refer- 
 ence mainly to pre-existent thoughts — that is, to ante- 
 cedent states of consciousness — the condition is termed 
 Reminiscence ; and when these succeed, in consequence 
 of a special attempt to recal states of past consciousness 
 into consciousness again, the process is an act of Energy 
 — a volition — termed Recollection, or an act of memory. 
 Sir William Hamilton, as we have seen, designates it 
 Reproduction. 
 
 31. If we examine our thoughts in relation to our exist- 
 ence, we find, in the first place, that they are involuntary. 
 When we are conscious, we cannot help but be conscious; 
 when we have thought, we cannot help but think. Man 
 can no more help thinking and feeling than he can help 
 existing. If he would stop the current of his thoughts 
 altogether, he must interrupt mental existence altogether. 
 Hence it is that men so often long for a Lethe, to cease 
 from painful thoughts ; that so often drugs are taken to 
 modify or interrupt thought ; that so often the hope of 
 utter oblivion is so sweet.
 
 div. a.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. IAJ 
 
 32. This identity of necessary modes of thought ami 
 of existence, in respect to the fact of necessary continu- 
 ousness, as involuntary successions and co-existences of 
 events, has had the fullest recognition by all the foremost 
 philosophers. " So completely," says D. Stewart, " is 
 the current of thoughts in the mind subjected to physi- 
 cal laws, that it has been justly observed by Lord Karnes 
 that we cannot, by an effort of our will, call up any one 
 thought, and that the train of our ideas depends on 
 causes which operate in a manner inexplicable by us. 
 This observation, although it has been censured as para- 
 doxical, is almost self-evident ; for to call up any par- 
 ticular thought, supposes it to be already in the mind."* 
 To the like effect Mr Mill thus remarks: "Thought 
 succeeds thought, idea follows idea, incessantly. If our 
 senses are awake, we are continually receiving sensations 
 of the eye, the ear, the touch, and so forth ; but not sen- 
 sations alone. After sensations, ideas are perpetually 
 excited of sensations formerly received; after those 
 ideas, other ideas ; and during the whole of our lives a 
 series of these two states of consciousness, called sensa- 
 tions and ideas, is constantly going on. I see a horse ; 
 that is a sensation. Immediately I think of his master ; 
 that is an idea [conception]. The idea of his master 
 makes me think of his office ; he is a minister of state ; 
 that is another idea," &c.f Again the same writer 
 observes, " Over the occasions of our sensations, we have 
 an extensive power. We can command the smell of a 
 rose, the hearing of a bell, the sight of a tree, the sensa- 
 tions of heat and cold, and so on. Over the occasions of 
 our ideas, we have little or no direct power. Our ideas 
 come and go. There is a perpetual train of them, one 
 
 * Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, chap. v. # 3. 
 t Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 53.
 
 I48 METAPHYSICS. [fart ir. 
 
 succeeding another ; but we cannot will any link in that 
 chain of ideas ; each link is determined by the fore- 
 going ; and every man knows how impossible it is, by 
 mere willing, to make such a train as he desires. 
 Thoughts obtrude themselves without his bidding ; and 
 thoughts which he is in quest of will not arrive."* To 
 the same effect, although in reference to the active rather 
 than passive states of consciousness, writes Sir William 
 Hamilton : " To prevent misunderstanding, it may be 
 observed, that in saying the mind is active and passive, 
 in a cognition, I do not mean to say that the mind is 
 free to exert or not to exert the cognitive act, or even 
 not to exert it in a determinate manner. The mind 
 energises as it lives, and it cannot choose but live ; it 
 knows as it energises, and it cannot choose but energise. 
 An object being duly presented, it is unable not to appre- 
 hend it, and apprehend it both in itself and in the rela- 
 tion in which it stands. It may evade the presentation, 
 not the recognition of what is presented."! 
 
 Since the acquisition of knowledge and its ready 
 application to the needs of the moment wholly depend 
 upon the vigour of these processes, it is of the highest 
 practical importance to determine the laws of association 
 of ideas with especial reference to memory and recollec- 
 tion. Hence, from Aristotle downwards, these laws have 
 had the most careful investigation. But the same de- 
 fect has vitiated this part of philosophical inquiry as 
 we have found to vitiate others. It has been attempted 
 to determine how ideas are reproduced into conscious- 
 ness before it has been determined how they are pro- 
 duced. 
 
 33. Now we have seen that the mind only energises 
 
 * Analysis of the Human Mind, p. 88. 
 t IteicTs Works, note D, foot-note p. 859.
 
 div. II.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1 49 
 
 in relation with body ; that its existence is manifested 
 only under certain conditions of body; that, conse- 
 quently, the succession of states of consciousness must 
 have relation to succession of states of body. It is over 
 these latter, therefore, that the man exercises a power, 
 when, by means of alcohol, opium, and other drugs, he 
 modifies the succession of his thoughts — either when he 
 interrupts it altogether, or modifies it so as to develop 
 new and more pleasurable trains of thought. Conversely, 
 when thoughts arise not only unbidden, but contrary to 
 the experience of the man, as in insanity ; or when thej r 
 assume a complexion of gloom or brightness to which 
 they have no real claim, as in insane delusions, and 
 thereby affect the judgment so as to lead on to homicide 
 or suicide, or a thousand foolish acts, — it is inferred con- 
 clusively from the facts of daily experience, as well as 
 from the general deductions of medical science, that 
 the morbid states of the thoughts and will are clue to 
 changes in the body. 
 
 34. That changes in the brain affect the memory, 
 is one of the best established facts in philosophy. No 
 honest inquirer denies the general fact. Looking upon 
 the acquisition of knowledge, or the exercise of the Ee- 
 tentive Faculty, and the recollection of knowledge when 
 acquired, or the exercise of the Eeproductive Faculty, as 
 acts of the will (and this will not be denied by the most 
 sceptical), we can class them with other volitions. But, 
 the carrying a thought into action (an exercise of the 
 Motor Faculty — an act of the will emphatically), is well 
 known to be wholly dependent upon the integrity of the 
 brain ; if certain portions of this be modified in structure 
 or function, the individual can no longer perform the acts 
 he wills. So it is in morbid states of the memory and 
 recollection ; when certain morbid states of the brain
 
 I $0 METAPHYSICS. [ 
 
 PART. II. 
 
 take place, the individual can neither acquire knowledge 
 nor recollect what he has acquired. 
 
 35. Although metaphysicians have almost unanimously 
 refused to expressly recognise the validity of these facts, 
 or rather the conclusions which are deducible from them, 
 they have not been able to neglect them in speculations 
 as to the memory, judgment, and the like. They have 
 found it necessary, in fact, to materialise the memory, in 
 spite of the most opposite convictions, so that the lan- 
 guage of metaphysicians is, in fact, in opposition to 
 their teaching. Thus, they speak of impressions on the 
 memory, of stores, of traces, of obliterations — all referrible 
 to changes in the " internal objective " tissue. A curi- 
 ously felicitous passage of this kind is subjoined : — " At 
 all these times the Mind does no more than observe the 
 ideas in her thoughts ; and if she judges variousty, that 
 diversity is not owing to any act of hers, but to the dif- 
 ferent state of her imagination. She plays the spectator 
 only, discerning the prospect before her; and whether 
 she shall see a full or a faint evidence, or none at all, 
 depends upon what her organs of reflection shall exhibit. 
 This, we readily acknowledge in memory, which is one 
 species of judgment ; for what is remembering, but hav- 
 ing the idea of a thing we know we had seen before ? 
 Everybody will allow that we remember past events ac- 
 cording to the traces of them remaining in our memory; 
 and when these traces sometimes happen to be altered, 
 we remember wrong. Nor has remembrance been unfre- 
 quently compared to reading a written memorandum, 
 which, being obliterated, gives us imperfect information 
 or none at all, or, being erased or interlined in our ab- 
 sence, leads us into mistakes. And one might as aptly 
 apply the comparison to all other kinds of knowledge, 
 which, being nothing but the perception of what lies in
 
 mv. II.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. I5I 
 
 our understanding, may be called reading the characters 
 exhibited by our mental organs ; and whatever changes 
 the inscription there, must of course produce a like altera- 
 tion in our perceptions."* 
 
 36. The whole of this comparison is materialistic, in 
 the sense in which the metaphysician uses the term — 
 that is, treats of the judgment and memory as belonging 
 to the man, the concrete Ego, and not to the abstrac- 
 tion, the " immaterial Ego.'" And, pursuing the train of 
 thought, this author intimates the possibility of an entire 
 change in a man's mental character from a change in the 
 "seat" of his mind, indicating, but unconsciously to 
 himself, the close dependence of morbid mental states 
 on the vital forces. "From hence," he continues, " arises 
 a curious question, whether, if it were possible for two 
 men to transport their minds suddenly into one another's 
 seats, each would not instantly lose his own ideas, and 
 acquire those of the other. I think it cannot be doubted 
 the exchange would be complete with respect to sensa- 
 tion ; for the senses must convey all their notices to the 
 present inhabitant, not being able to reach the former 
 occupier, now removed to a distance. It seems probable 
 that each would be able to repeat whatever the other had 
 learned by heart, and remember occurrences happening 
 to him ; and if arts and sciences have their foundation 
 in memory, he would slide at once into possession of the 
 other's accomplishments. Perhaps it may be thought 
 going too far to suppose they would adopt each other's 
 sentiments, opinions, and consciousness ; but it would be 
 hard to demonstrate there would not be a thorough ex- 
 change in these respects too : so that the Papist might 
 laugh at all revealed religion as being a thing ridiculous 
 
 * A. Tucker. Light of Nature, vol. i. chap. ii. § 17.
 
 152 METAPHYSICS. [ 
 
 PART II. 
 
 in itself, and the Freethinker contend tooth and nail 
 for the Pope's infallibility ; the Methodist might clearly 
 discern at one glance the absolute impossibility of mira- 
 cles, and the Rationalist hear revelations conveyed in a 
 whisper, with an evidence greater than that of sense ; 
 the philosopher might see there is no enjoyment but in 
 the hurry of company or a round of fashionable diver- 
 sions, and the giddy girl discern the vanity of all sensual 
 gratifications, and find herself never less alone than when 
 alone ; the saint might tremble at the dread of punish- 
 ment, being conscious of villanies he never committed, 
 and the murderer look back with joy upon a life of inno- 
 cence, and feel the comforts of a conscience void of all 
 offence."* This curious exposition of what might pos- 
 sibly occur, if two men were to change their " mental 
 organs," is an epitome of what does occur in cases of 
 insanity, and from the influence of " suggestion " or 
 morbid attention, in mesmeric and other cases, on the 
 mental organ and its mode of action, f 
 
 37. The associated series of states known as Thoughts 
 are in relation with coincident series of changes in the 
 organ of Thought, consequent upon the action of the 
 vital forces to that end. As these will have to be con- 
 sidered when we discuss the physiology of memory, it is 
 unnecessary to refer here to the laws of reproduction and 
 
 * A. Tucker. Light of Nature, vol. i. chap. ii. § 17. 
 
 f The above quotation is from a copy of Tucker's Works, well- 
 thumbed about half a century ago by the readers of a public 
 library. One or two of these have made annotations on the margin 
 of the passage quoted ; as, " Does memory depend on a peculiar com- 
 bination of matter?'' "Ass," "Blockhead," &c. They are all re- 
 markably characteristic of the ignorant dogmatism which decides 
 peremptorily on questions utterly beyond its knowledge or its 
 powers.
 
 DIV. tl.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. I53 
 
 association of ideas or states of consciousness laid down 
 by metaphysicians. 
 
 38. There is a question which may be examined here, 
 namely, the relation of successive states of consciousness 
 to each other. It is involved in the problem, Can con- 
 sciousness be occupied with more than one object at the 
 same moment ? Locke, Stewart, Brown, and others, 
 answer the question in the negative. Sir William Hamil- 
 ton takes the affirmative side, in common with Aristotle, 
 Leibnitz, and others. It is an old subject of debate. 
 " The modern philosophers who have agitated this ques- 
 tion are not aware that it was one canvassed likewise in 
 the schools of the Middle Ages. It was there expressed 
 by the proposition, Possitne intellectus noster plura simul 
 intelligere ? Maintaining the negative we find St Thomas, 
 Cajetanus, Ferranensis, Capriolus, Hervajus, Alexander 
 Aleusis, Albertus Magnus, and Durandus; while the 
 affirmative was asserted by Scotus, Occam, Gregorius 
 Ariminensis, Lichetus, Marsilius, Biel, and others."* 
 As a fact of experience, its solution would appear to be 
 easy. " How many several objects can the mind simul- 
 taneously survey, not with vivacity, but without absolute 
 confusion? I find," says Sir William Hamilton, "this 
 problem stated and differently answered by different 
 philosophers, and apparently without a knowledge of 
 each other. By Charles Bonnet the mind is allowed to 
 have a distinct notion of six objects at once ; by Abraham 
 Tucker the number is limited to four; while Destutt- 
 Tracy again amplifies to six."f Sir William Hamilton 
 thinks six ; you may see six different marbles at once. 
 
 39. This does not, however, seem to meet the question. 
 It is not how many objects you may think you see, but 
 
 * Sir W. Hamilton. Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 253. 
 t Op. cit. p. 254.
 
 154 METAPHYSICS. [part It. 
 
 how many you can be conscious of at once. The letters 
 in a word may all be seen at once as letters of that word ; 
 are we conscious of each one as a distinct letter at one 
 and the same instant of time? The problem is one 
 which involves the two elements of time and succession 
 on one hand, and the multiplicity of parts on the other. 
 Its solution is one which would require careful experi- 
 mental analysis in reference to these elements ; but 
 seeing with what rapidity the mind takes cognisance of 
 objects, and taking into account the unity of conscious- 
 ness, we may conclude that what states of consciousness 
 seem simultaneous are either successional in great rapi- 
 dity, or the whole is the object of consciousness of the 
 moment, the parts being noted subsequently. The phe- 
 nomena of attention, especially, show that the conscious- 
 ness can be occupied with only one series of thoughts 
 at a time ; so that even what are otherwise the most 
 painful impressions, are wholly unfelt when the attention 
 is concentrated upon one object. This is a matter of 
 daily experience; and we can conclude from the fact, 
 that the man cannot take cognisance at the same time of 
 states of consciousness known as conceptions, and those 
 termed sensations. It is at least very probable that, 
 when the mind is engaged in thought, the successive 
 parts of which consciousness is made up — that is, occur- 
 ring in time — are presented to the consciousness of the 
 moment as one. Certainly the analysis of the thought 
 into its elements is in fact another process altogether, and 
 depends upon memory; it is a reproduction of the by- 
 past state, and a representation of it to the mind. Each 
 definite state of consciousness is, therefore, the many in 
 the one, just as the body is the many in the one, and the 
 Ego itself is the many in the one. This is the great law 
 of all thought. In every act of perception — that is, of
 
 mv. II.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1 55 
 
 recognising an object as distinct from another object — 
 there must be the act of comparison ; for one object can 
 only be known as distinct from another, by being placed in 
 relation therewith. Now this act of comparison involves 
 that synthetical unity of consciousness which is termed 
 Apperception. 
 
 40. The rapidity of succession of these acts of syn- 
 thetical unity varies greatly in individuals, and when 
 comparatively great, constitutes the quality of mind 
 termed quickness of perception. Numerous facts prove 
 that this quality really depends upon the rapidity of vital 
 changes in the cerebrum, or, in other words, on consti- 
 tutional conditions. It is a quality which may be acquired 
 or confirmed by practice, and is strictly a physiological 
 question, to be considered in a succeeding Part. 
 
 Sect. II. — Consciousness as Will, or Volitional 
 Consciousness. 
 
 41. The successions of our thoughts are not always 
 passive. In many there is a feeling of exercise of power 
 — an Energy. These we have seen to characterise the 
 state termed Attention, Kecollection, and the like. Now 
 these states of feeling, as to the exercise of power inter- 
 nally, are termed Faculties. "Faculty (facultas) is de- 
 rived from tbe obsolete Latin facul, the more ancient 
 form of facilis, from which again facilitas is formed. It 
 is properly limited to active power, and therefore is 
 abusively applied to the mere passive affections of the 
 mind."* "Faculty is active power — capacity is passive 
 power." f These states of consciousness are termed by 
 Kant the Exertive or Conative faculties of the mind, and 
 
 * Sir W. Hamilton. Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 177. 
 t Ibid.
 
 I56 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 are distinguished from the feelings or capacities of plea- 
 sure and pain, and the cognitive faculties. Conation is 
 another term for willing — conations are volitions."* 
 
 42. The feeling of an exercise of power, a volition 
 or conation, enters into all our states of consciousness. 
 We name them differently simply because there are 
 different ends aimed at in the various exercises of power. 
 Now we seek to recollect a past state of consciousness — 
 now to modify a present state — exercising ourselves with 
 our internal processes ; or we seek to modify something 
 external to us, by an exercise of power directed through 
 the motor apparatus of our bodies ; or we carry on active 
 efforts with both ends in view. We exercise our senses 
 in observation of external things ; we compare our ob- 
 servations — we draw conclusions ; we thus acquire a 
 knowledge of things, which in its turn constitutes a 
 motive for our acting on external things. 
 
 43. The state of mind which precedes the feeling of 
 the actual exercise of power is termed a desire. It is a 
 general term, applicable to all our active states of con- 
 sciousness ; but, like volitions, desires are classed accord- 
 ing to the object aimed at in the volition or exercise of 
 power. Hence a variety of desires, from those directed 
 towards the simplest requisites of existence — the cor- 
 poreal desires — to the highest feelings of the soul. An 
 entire school of physiologists have maintained that sensa- 
 tion is a cause of animal movements in the same sense 
 that volition is ; or, in other words, that a passive men- 
 tal condition is also an active condition. This con- 
 clusion is not only contrary to the analytical deduc- 
 tions of metaphysicians, but also to corrected experience. 
 That there are active animal movements, coincidently 
 
 * Sir W. Hamilton. Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 189.
 
 niv. ii.] EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 1 57 
 
 with, or consecutively to, the states of consciousness 
 termed sensations, is quite certain ; but the inference 
 that such states are the causes of the movements is more 
 than doubtful. When we endeavour to restrain this 
 class of movements by an exercise of power, we find at 
 once that we have the same thing to deal with as physical 
 force, and have to make sometimes as powerful an effort 
 to effect our purpose as if we were lifting a heavy weight. 
 Arising out of the same class of phenomena is the oft- 
 repeated question, whether man is free. Upon this point 
 it is sufficient to observe here, that it is the man that 
 acts, but man can only act according to the laws of 
 his existence, whatever those may be. " Man," says Sir 
 William Hamilton, " exists only as he lives ; as an intelli- 
 gent and sensible being he consciously lives, but this onty 
 as he consciously energises. Human existence is only a 
 more general expression for human life ; and human life 
 only a more general expression for the sum of energies 
 in which that life is realised, and through which it is 
 manifested in consciousness. In a word, life is energy, 
 and conscious energy is conscious life." * We have 
 seen that the memory and recollection, and therewith the 
 judgment ; the attention, and therewith volition ; the 
 feelings, and therewith the desires — nay, consciousness 
 itself, — all depend upon the operation of certain forces 
 within us. If, therefore, a man would be free to choose 
 to be in this state or the other, to do this thing or the 
 other, he must be able to direct and control the internal 
 or vital forces, just as he directs and controls the physical 
 or external forces. This, it is clear, cannot be attained 
 without a knowledge of those forces — or, in other words, 
 of their relations to his varying states of consciousness ; 
 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 435.
 
 158 METAPHYSICS. [part ir. 
 
 for, without that knowledge, he cannot modify those vital 
 conditions upon which the successional states of con- 
 sciousness directly depend. Perfect freedom is there- 
 fore compatible in man only with perfect knowledge of 
 his own nature. 
 
 44. Now, men are in some degree able to regulate the 
 succession of their thoughts, desires, volitions. All the 
 corporeal appetites, the " lusts of the flesh," arise in- 
 voluntarily and spontaneously. The man who is ignorant 
 of their true nature is " led away captive " by them ; the 
 man with knowledge of them is often (not always) able 
 to restrain them. A volition restrains a conation ; but 
 knowledge implies memory and recollection, and all the 
 operations of the vital processes connected therewith. 
 Hence, freedom of the will is necessarily coincident with 
 healthy vital action. We are thus led to a knowledge of 
 the nature of one of the most terrible disorders of human 
 nature, namely, mental derangement, which is nothing 
 more than a loss of freedom of the will, consequent upon 
 morbid states of the organ of thought and will. And we 
 can also understand how, in arrested development of 
 tbat organ as in idiocy, or in imperfect development as 
 amongst ignorant and savage men, the freedom of the 
 will cannot exist, but the individual must necessarily 
 and inevitably be the slave of any dominant evil pro- 
 pensities.
 
 DIVISION III. 
 
 ONTOLOGY. 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 UNCONSCIOUS EXISTENCE. 
 
 The relations of Consciousness to Existence have been 
 deduced both from the side of experience and of specu- 
 lation. We will examine the conclusions attained by 
 both methods. We shall then be able to pass more 
 easily to the doctrines of the next part — namely, those 
 of a scientific and philosophical teleology, or mental 
 dynamics. 
 
 45. It is remarkable how limited is the corporeal 
 sphere of consciousness. If we except one class of vital 
 phenomena, man is wholly unconscious of all those 
 purely vital operations going on within him according 
 to a plan, known as the processes of vegetative life. 
 That class of exceptions is to be found in the vital pro- 
 cesses of the cerebro-spinal ganglia, in which the results, 
 and the results alone, of those processes, and not the pro- 
 cesses themselves, are revealed to the consciousness. He 
 is not conscious of any of the forces at work or produced 
 within his organism, except when his muscles contract 
 to perform his will. Of the chemical processes, as such, 
 incessantly going on in every blood-corpuscle, cell, 
 granule, fibril, he is wholly ignorant. How he grows, 
 how bis organs are formed in adaptation to the various
 
 1 60 METAPHYSICS. [ 
 
 PART II. 
 
 wants of the organism, and in fulfilment of the plan of 
 his being, is profoundly hid from his knowledge. Nor is 
 he more acquainted with the mode in which the healthy 
 actions of the various tissues and organs of his body are 
 maintained, — how waste is repaired, how disorder is ob- 
 viated when it arises, how new and disturbing external 
 agencies are met by new adaptations of organs already 
 existing, or by the formation of new and suitable struc- 
 tures. His beginning is even a greater mystery to him 
 than his destiny, for instinct and revelation alike teach 
 him to hope confidently that he will live again in 
 another world; but whence and how began that im- 
 mortal life is not revealed, either by Divine or human 
 wisdom, except that it is from and in God. 
 
 46. That which may be thus stated of the vital pro- 
 cesses going on within the body of man, is true also of 
 the organs subservient to these processes — his brain, and 
 other viscera. He feels the results of their functional 
 activity as registered in the cerebro-spinal ganglia, or 
 some of them — those results corresponding to the multi- 
 tudinous changes in his consciousness known as sen- 
 sations, passions, thoughts, volitions, will ; but inde- 
 pendently of observation of the external mechanism, 
 and of anatomical research, he is wholly ignorant that 
 he has a brain, or nerves, or heart, or stomach, or lungs, 
 or eliminating organs, and a fortiori of the working or 
 functions of those organs. 
 
 47. When, therefore, the most brilliant intellects of 
 all times have speculated independently of scientific re- 
 search on these points, the result has been only to de- 
 monstrate more clearly man's innate ignorance of his 
 constitution. The functions of the heart were unknown 
 for thousands of years ; indeed, they are of comparatively 
 recent discovery, and at this moment are known to com-
 
 div. in.] ONTOLOGY. l6l 
 
 paratively very few of mankind. The theories as to the 
 seat of feeling, and the passions, and thought, have been 
 most various and contradictory. By one theory of great 
 antiquity it was fixed in the heart, and this dogma has 
 impressed itself on the entire language of Europe ; by 
 another in the liver ; by another in the diaphragm ; by 
 others in the brain, or in particular portions thereof ; but 
 by the great majority of mankind it is believed that inas- 
 much as there is no distinct consciousness of any organ, 
 thought goes on independently of any organ whatever. 
 
 48. But man is not always thus conscious — i.e., has 
 knowledge of his existence. Although he knows that 
 he exists as a dual being in unity (that is, as a body- 
 and-soul individual) on the testimony of consciousness, 
 or of the intuitive feeling and knowledge he has of his 
 existence, yet he knows also, on the testimony of daily 
 experience and common sense, that consciousness is not 
 a necessary state of existence of the soul, any more than 
 it is of the body. In other words, he finds by experience 
 that consciousness, in its varying states, is often dependent 
 upon appropriate states of the body ; while, by reason, 
 he concludes that the soul exists although there be no 
 consciousness — that is, it exists per se, and independently 
 of the body. If the feeling or knowledge of mental exist- 
 ence were a necessary condition of the actual existence, 
 every time the man became unconscious — that is, ceased 
 to feel or know — the soul would cease to exist, which is 
 absurd. Hence the soul exists unconsciously to the man, 
 as well as consciously. No general fact is so well estab- 
 lished by the experience of mankind, or so universally 
 accepted as a guide in the affairs of life, as that of uncon- 
 scious mental life and action. The law founds upon it the 
 doctrine of irresponsibility ; the nightly recurring state 
 of repose is most perfect when the consciousness is most 
 
 L
 
 162 METAPHYSICS. [part n. 
 
 completely 'abolished ; the surgeon induces that state 
 artificially when he would exercise his art without the 
 infliction of suffering; the state of profound slumber is 
 the result of various morbid states ; and even death it- 
 self is looked upon as but a falling asleep. The life of 
 the soul continues, although, with the repose, or injury, 
 or falling to pieces of the organisation, that mere terres- 
 trial phenomena termed Consciousness ceases. All these 
 are familiar facts and conclusions, and are rightly appre- 
 ciated in the practical conduct of the affairs of life. 
 
 49. But when the general fact is transformed into a 
 general proposition, and made a deductive principle of 
 philosophy, an error in the use of words arises, which 
 would be remarkable, if it were not one which is common 
 to all the terms of philosophy. The soul being so con- 
 tinually identified with that mode or state of its exist- 
 ence termed Consciousness, the two words have come to 
 be used synonymously ; and thus effect has been substi- 
 tuted for cause, consequent for antecedent, a state for a 
 thing. But Consciousness and Soul are clearly not syno- 
 nymous. On the contrary, consciousness is nothing more 
 than a generic term, by which we signify various mental 
 states of existence, to which certain changes in the body 
 are necessary antecedents ; inasmuch as, unless those 
 changes take place, the modes of consciousness do not 
 follow. This substitution of one meaning for another in 
 the use of the same word, is a common source of error in 
 metaphysics. "Perception," "sensation," and other words, 
 indicative of modes of consciousness or states of existence 
 of the soul, are constantly used in the same double sense, 
 and hence errors constantly arise, and interminable dis- 
 cussions as to words. 
 
 50. No errors in philosophy more fatal, or discussions 
 more interminable, have arisen than from this synony-
 
 DIV. 
 
 in.] ONTOLOGY. 163 
 
 mous use of the ideas consciousness and soul. " The 
 general problem," remarks Sir William Hamilton, " in 
 regard to the ceaseless activity of the mind, has been 
 one agitated from very ancient times. . . . Plato and 
 the Platonists were unanimous in maintaining the con- 
 tinual energy of intellect. . . . The Aristotelians, in 
 general, were opposed to the Platonic doctrine. This 
 doctrine was adopted by Cicero and St Augustine — ' Nun- 
 quam animus,' says the former, ' agitatione et motu 
 vacuus esse potest.' ' Ad quid menti,' says the latter, 
 'praeceptum est, ut se ipsum cognoscat, nisi ut semper 
 vivat, et semper sit in actu.' The question, however, 
 obtained its principal importance in the philosophy of 
 Descartes. That philosopher made the essence, the very 
 existence, of the soul to consist in actual thought, under 
 which he included even the desires and feelings ; and 
 thought, he defined, all of which we are conscious. The 
 assertion, therefore, of Descartes, that the mind always 
 thinks, is, in his employment of language, tantamount to 
 the assertion that the mind is always conscious."* This 
 doctrine is practically the identification of Knowing and 
 Being; for, on consideration, it will be seen, that the 
 question, as here put, refers to one element of the man 
 only ; it is not whether the man himself — the Dual in 
 unity — is conscious, or his body, but whether his mind, 
 considered as apart from his body, has ideas and is con- 
 scious. The question, so put, could not be a subject of 
 experimental investigation ; for never was such a thing 
 known to a philosopher as a human mind or soul think- 
 ing and acting apart from the body. It has been 
 demonstrated, indeed, by Professor Ferrier, in the de- 
 monstration of his ninth proposition, to be an impossible 
 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 312-13.
 
 164 METAPHYSICS. [part it. 
 
 thing. " The Ego, or self, or mind, per se, is absolutely 
 unknowable. ... It can know itself only in some par- 
 ticular state, or in union with some Non-Ego ; that is, 
 with some element contradistinguished from itself." * 
 And again : " To lay down the dualism of subject and 
 object as complete and absolute (that is, as an out-and- 
 out duality, which is not also a unity), which psychology 
 not unfrequently does, is to extinguish every glimmering 
 of the scientific reason ; for this implies that .the dualism 
 is laid down in cognition as complete and absolute, which 
 it can only be when intelligence acts in opposition to 
 its own necessary and insuperable laws."f We cannot, 
 in fact, conceive how mind could act independently of 
 matter, although we can conceive it to exist indepen- 
 dently of matter. But the conceivable in thought, and 
 the conceivable in fact or act, are wholly different things. 
 Thus the geometrician defines a point to be that which 
 has neither parts nor dimensions. Can we, however, by 
 any effort, realise a point — that is, an actual thing with- 
 out parts or dimensions? The nearest conception of 
 some would certainly be the idea they had formed of 
 soul. Then as to causation, which is involved in our 
 conception of Mind, we can conceive a cause in the 
 abstract, but can we realise it without at the same time 
 conceiving the thing caused — the effect ? This is a 
 matter of experience. I must say that I cannot. How 
 can we comprehend Mind as a cause of motion until we 
 know that motion results, from its operation ? or how can 
 we comprehend it as manifested, before any manifesta- 
 tions of mind appear ? All abstract truths end thus in 
 the inconceivable — just as all conceivable time ends in 
 infinite time, all space in infinite space, and the like. 
 51. Now, we can conceive mind to be existent and 
 * Institutes of Metaphysic, p. 235. f tbid, p. 112.
 
 div. m.] ONTOLOGY. 165 
 
 latent, — that is, if manifested in a past time, as not mani- 
 fested now — or if manifested now, as not to be manifested 
 at a future time. In this way we arrive at the con- 
 ception of the latent existence of the soul after death — 
 that is, as not manifested for a time until the man lives 
 again ; or. in other words, until the mind is manifested 
 in another body. And this process is the more easy, 
 because we already apply it to the comprehension of 
 those powers or forces of matter, that, like mind, are 
 known only by their effects. We thus speak of latent 
 heat ; that is, heat not manifested by changes in matter, 
 or in our own bodies. The so-called electric and mag- 
 netic fluids may in like manner be latent ; that is to 
 say, only manifested when matter undergoes a change 
 cognisable by us. It is, indeed, on these relations of the 
 " Imponderables " to matter, that the doctrine of a corre- 
 lation of forces is founded. As we shall speedily see, 
 what we call light, heat, magnetism, electricity, chemical 
 affinity, &c, are the manifestations of one and the same 
 primary force acting differently under varying condi- 
 tions, but which are only possible in and through matter. 
 52. Applying these illustrations to mind in its relations 
 to matter, we clearly see that the generalisation which 
 distinguishes between mind and matter, is as well-founded 
 as that which distinguishes between matter and the 
 forces of matter ; but it is equally true that we can no 
 more realise mind as acting apart from matter, than we 
 can realise the force of gravity or of chemical affinity as 
 acting apart from matter. And this is one of the great 
 empirical laws derived from human experience. The 
 term individual indicates the one indivisible being con- 
 stituted of both matter and mind. No man of common 
 sense believes that his mind really acts in the ordinary 
 concerns of life, does anything in the world apart from
 
 1 66 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 his body. So also as to the laws of society. In the 
 entire decalogue, nothing else is referred to but the man. 
 No human laws give human rights to the dead ; they are 
 no longer men, but " souls " only, and cease therefore to 
 be members of human society. It is quite remarkable, 
 indeed, how often the common sense and experience of 
 men triumph over man's most cherished and deep-rooted 
 superstitions. Of the great majority in the United King- 
 dom who believe materialistically in ghosts, how few act 
 up to their belief ! 
 
 53. It is not otherwise with philosophy. It also aban- 
 dons its dogma of independent mental action, and acts 
 on experience. The man, in philosophy, is the concrete 
 human Ego, i. e. the reality; while the "immaterial Ego" 
 is the abstraction. " Our nervous organism," Sir William 
 Hamilton observes, " (the rest of our body may be fairly 
 shut out of account,) in contrast to all exterior to itself, 
 appertains to the concrete human Ego, and in this 
 respect is subjective internal ; whereas, in contrast to the 
 abstract immaterial Ego, the pure mind, it belongs to 
 the Non-Ego, and in this respect is objective external."* 
 Or, take the following striking exposition, by Sir William 
 Hamilton, of the relations of mind to body : " It may 
 appear not a paradox merely, but a contradiction, to say 
 that the organism is at once within and without the 
 mind ; is at once subjective and objective ; is at once 
 Ego and Non-Ego. But so it is ; and so we must admit 
 it to be, unless, on the one hand, as materialists, we 
 identify mind with matter ; or, on the other, as idealists, 
 we identify matter with mind. The organism, as ani- 
 mated, is sentient ; is necessarily ours, and its affections 
 are only felt as affections of the individual Ego. In this 
 
 * Reid's Works — Supp. Dissertations, note D, \ 2, p. 858, foot-note.
 
 DIV. 
 
 III.] ONTOLOGY. 167 
 
 respect, and to this extent our organs are not external 
 to ourselves."* 
 
 54. Philosophy thus joins with the common sense of 
 mankind in affirming that the man is not mind alone nor 
 matter alone. Hence we find that those philosophers who 
 oppose the doctrine of unconscious, i. e. latent, states of 
 mental existence, equally with those who advocate it, 
 advance proofs or objections founded on the premiss that 
 the soul in action is not separate from the body — that is, 
 is a dualism in unity. Thus Locke, who opposed the doc- 
 trine, draws his arguments entirely from his experience 
 of his corporeal states, just as Sir William Hamilton, 
 who supported it, attempts to establish it by experi- 
 mental research on himself during a particular corporeal 
 state. And Locke's argument is therefore perfectly well 
 founded. " We know, certainly," he says, "by experi- 
 ence, that we sometimes think, and thence draw this in- 
 fallible consequence, that there is something in us that 
 has a power to think ; but whether that substance per- 
 petually thinks or no, we can be no further assured than 
 [the same] experience informs us." The state of exist- 
 ence usually selected as the battle-ground is that of sleep. 
 So Locke says : " Wake a man out of a sound sleep, and 
 ask him what he was at that moment thinking on. If 
 he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, 
 he must be a notable diviner of thoughts that can assure 
 him that he was thinking : may he not, with more reason, 
 assure him that he was not asleep ? "f Cudworth in 
 like manner appeals to experience, in opposition to the 
 Cartesians : " Those philosophers themselves, who make 
 the essence of the soul to consist in cogitation ; and 
 
 * Reid's Works — Supp. Dissertations, note D*, p. 880, foot-note. 
 t Essay on the Human Understanding, book ii. chap. 1, \\ 
 9, 10-14, sqq.
 
 1 68 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 again, the essence of cogitation in clear and express con- 
 sciousness, cannot render it any way probable that the 
 souls of men in all profound sleep, lethargies, and apo- 
 plexies, as also of embryos in the womb, from their very 
 first arrival thither, are never so much as one moment 
 without expressly conscious cogitations, which, if they 
 were, according to the principles of their philosophy, they 
 must, ipso facto, cease to have any being," &c. Again, 
 '"It is certain that our human souls themselves are not 
 always conscious of whatever they have in them ; for 
 even the sleeping geometrician hath, at that time, all 
 his geometrical theorems and knowledge some way in 
 him ; as also the sleeping musician, all his musical skill 
 and songs ; and therefore why may it not be possible for 
 the soul to have likewise some actual energy in it which 
 it is not expressly conscious of? "We have all experi- 
 ence of our doing many animal actions non-attendingly, 
 which we reflect upon afterwards." Again, he shows that 
 the soul loses its sense of personal identity. — " There is 
 also another more interior kind of plastic power in the 
 soul (if we may so call it), whereby it is formative of its 
 own cogitations, which itself is not always conscious of; 
 as when, in sleep or dreams, it frames interlocutory dis- 
 courses betwixt itself and other persons, in a long series, 
 with coherent sense and apt connections, in which often- 
 times it seems to be surprised with unexpected answers 
 and repartees, though itself were all the while the poet 
 and inventer of the whole fable."* 
 
 In the middle of the last century, Tucker controvert- 
 ed the doctrine as applied to personal identity. He re- 
 marks : " There seems to be the same objection against 
 Mr Locke's doctrine of consciousness constituting identity. 
 
 * The True Intellectual System of the Universe, book i. chap. iii. 
 # xxxvi. par. 17.
 
 nrv. 
 
 HI.] ONTOLOGY. 169 
 
 It would be presumption in me to contradict a man of his 
 clear and steady judgment — therefore shall suppose I have 
 somehow or other misunderstood him ; but, to tbe best 
 of my apprehension, he seems to have placed our exist- 
 tence in a quality, rather than a substance ; for by the 
 term consciousness I cannot understand a Being, but only 
 a power or property of some Being ; nor do I apprehend 
 a man loses his existence or personality every time he 
 loses his consciousness by falling asleep. Could Mr 
 Locke himself imagine that his person was annihilated 
 every night when he went to sleep, and recreated again 
 when he awoke in the morning? The most that I can 
 allow to consciousness, unless I grossly mistake the word, 
 is, that it should be, in most cases, the evidence to us of 
 our identity ; for scenes that we remember convince us 
 of our being the very persons present at them."* 
 
 55. Sir William Hamilton advances, on the opposite 
 side, experimental inquiries, as well as the usual argu- 
 ment, that we are conscious in sound sleep, but do not 
 recollect having been conscious. This latter he supports 
 by the phenomena of somnambulism, in which it is very 
 certain that there are two parallel but wholly distinct 
 series of conscious states, and in which the individual 
 has, as it were, two mental lives, or, as some might say, 
 two souls ; so that, when existent in the one state, he is 
 utterly unconscious of what he thought, or felt, or did 
 in the other. But in these instances (which are by no 
 means rare) the one state is clearly dependent upon 
 bodily conditions ; for when those conditions again occur, 
 then there is recollection of the thoughts and actions 
 done or felt during a previous state of the same bodily 
 conditions. Further, although the individual himself be 
 unconscious of bis somnambulistic acts, those about him 
 * Tucker. Light of Nature, vol. iii. p. 76, 2d edit.
 
 170 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 have witnessed them, whereas, in an absolutely sound 
 sleep, there is no evidence whatever to the bystanders of 
 mental activity in the sleeper. The man lies perfectly 
 still, only breathing gently and regularly. He is said to 
 be living, but unconscious. Sir William Hamilton made 
 experiments upon himself, with the view of settling the 
 question practically. He caused himself to be suddenly 
 wakened from sleep at different seasons of the night, and 
 found that he was always able to observe that he was in 
 the middle of a dream, although often very slight. It is 
 to be remembered, however, that some men, from a spe- 
 oial constitution of their nervous system, never are in 
 absolutely deep sleep ; and this, as he had an attack of 
 hemiplegia, might be the case with Sir "William Hamilton. 
 If, however, it be granted that the fact were otherwise, 
 still the experiments prove nothing ; for, from the known 
 rapidity of mental activity, the period which would ne- 
 cessarily elapse, however short, between the profound 
 sleep and the awakening to complete consciousness, 
 would necessarily be occupied by a dreamy state. To 
 all this it may be added, that Sir William has himself 
 settled the question by his doctrine of "mental latencies." 
 Further, Sir William Hamilton expressly excludes mor- 
 bid and physiological states generally from his inquiry, 
 without any satisfactory reason. Now, there can be no 
 reasonable doubt that there are states of stupor in which 
 the encephalic structures — the acknowledged organs of 
 thought and conscious mental activity — are so com- 
 pressed, or so supplied with poisonous blood, tb^,t their 
 function is wholly suspended, its continuance being in 
 fact proved to be impossible. Again, there are foetuses 
 without brains which live and move — i.e., have Being 
 — in which all cognitive activity is impossible, inasmuch 
 as the encephalon is in them wholly deficient.
 
 biv. in] ONTOLOGY. 1 7 1 
 
 56. It must be remembered, also, tbat consciousness, in 
 the largest sense, varies in degree according as the cor- 
 poreal conditions vary. This is seen in the majority of 
 cases of anaesthesia, whether caused by chloroform or 
 alcohol, in which there is a gradual and progressive 
 abolition of consciousness. First the external senses, 
 beginning with the touch, or common sensation, are be- 
 numbed ; then the cerebral nerves, and faculties of per- 
 ception ; then abolition of consciousness as to thought 
 and feeling succeeds, — the respiratory ganglia and appa- 
 ratus alone acting ; and finally, in fatal cases, abolition of 
 their functional activity, and therewith death. This 
 order of events is seen in surgical cases when chloroform 
 is administered, and also when other poisons operate upon 
 the nervous system and nerve-centres. In fatal alcoholic 
 intoxication, and in the changes produced by opium, we 
 see the same gradual advance of anaesthesia from the 
 hemispheres, the organ of thought, to the respiratory 
 ganglia, the centre of life. Claude Bernard found that 
 when sensibility disappeared in an animal from the 
 action of any poison whatever, the fifth pair, which sup- 
 plies nerves of sensation to the head and face, was the 
 last of the cutaneous nerves to become insensible.* 
 
 57. Closely related to the question of unconscious exist- 
 ence is that of " indifferent " sensations. Are there 
 states of consciousness in which we have no conjoint 
 affection of the agreeable or disagreeable ? Eeid teaches 
 the doctrine of indifferent sensations. It is a point not 
 easy to settle absolutely; but, upon the whole, the op- 
 posite doctrine appears the more probable — namely, that 
 there is such an affection of the consciousness as is 
 termed feeling in every act or state of it, although 
 
 * Lemons sur la Physiol, et Pathol, du Systeme Nerveux, (1858), 
 torn. ii. p. 86.
 
 I72 METAPHYSICS. [part 11. 
 
 it may be, and often is, very slight. The phrase " indif- 
 ferent sensation" seems, in fact, to imply a contradiction. 
 In ordinary states of consciousness, no one can doubt 
 that there is a feeling of pleasure or pain. It is only as 
 to the higher abstractions of the intellect tbat any doubt 
 can arise. Now, in these, is desire ever absent ? If not, 
 then they can never be indifferent, unless desire itself be 
 a state of indifference, which is a contradiction in terms. 
 Sir William Hamilton clearly expresses the facts upon 
 this point. " Cognition and feeling are always co-exist- 
 ent. The purest act of knowledge is always coloured by 
 some feeling of pleasure or pain ; for no energy is ab- 
 solutely indifferent, and the grossest feeling exists only 
 as it is known in consciousness. Tbis being the case of 
 cognition and feeling in general, the same is true of per- 
 ception and sensation in particular. Perception proper 
 is the consciousness, through the senses, of the qualities 
 of an object known as different from self. Sensation 
 proper is the consciousness of the subjective affection of 
 pleasure or pain which accompanies that act of know- 
 ledge. Perception is thus the objective element in the 
 complex state — the element of cognition ; sensation is 
 thus the subjective element — the element of feeling."* 
 
 58. Upon the whole, ordinary language expresses the 
 varying states of our existence as regards the conscious- 
 ness. They are classed, in fact, in the terms known as 
 verbs, which are immediately expressive of the states of 
 the Ego, I, or individual man. I exist, implies life without 
 consciousness, i.e. suspended mental animation; 1 feel, 
 implies consciousness simply ; I think, implies self-con- 
 sciousness ; I do, implies the state of consciousness known 
 as will — the man not passive but active, not suffering but 
 acting ; and hence it is that the word logos — the term 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 99
 
 div. III.] ONTOLOGY. 173 
 
 for mind in its highest development — is translated ver- 
 bum, the verb, or emphatically "the Word," the old 
 English term for the Being or Becoming. It is a re- 
 markable circumstance, that this doctrine of unity in 
 duality is distinctly expressed in one of the great creeds 
 of Christendom — the widest spread, in truth, of any — and 
 settled only after discussions which shook the whole 
 fabric of society throughout the civilised world. And 
 more, it is expressed as illustrative of the greatest mys- 
 tery of the Christian faith. According to that creed — the 
 creed of St Athanasius — "as the reasonable soul and 
 flesh is one man, so G-od and man is one Christ — not by 
 confusion of substance, but by unity of person." 
 
 The true source of all these discussions as to whether 
 consciousness is continuous or not, is in the fundamental 
 doctrine which holds Mind apart from Life (p. 62). When 
 we reverse the doctrine, and include life under mind, as 
 the common cause of both conscious and unconscious 
 existence, we view consciousness and unconsciousness in 
 the same light as they are placed by the experience of 
 mankind — namely, as modes of existence which are deter- 
 mined by the varying phenomena of vital action. Such 
 being the general law, the proper inquiry is, what vital 
 phenomena correspond to conscious states of existence, 
 what to unconscious. There are the phenomena of con- 
 scious and unconscious cerebral action.
 
 CHAPTEE VT. 
 
 LATENT CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 59. There is a doctrine of psychology closely connected 
 with the doctrines of unconscious cerebral action, which I 
 was the first to develop, more than twenty years ago, of 
 vast importance to a practical science of mind. Sir 
 William Hamilton, who alone of British psychologists 
 has fully developed the theory of latent states of men- 
 tal activity, "or mental latency," distinguishes three 
 degrees of the condition. The first is to be seen in ac- 
 quired knowledge. " I know a science or language, not 
 merely while I make a temporary use of it, but inas- 
 much as I can apply it when and how I will. Thus 
 the infinitely greater part of our spiritual treasures lies 
 always beyond the sphere of consciousness, hid in the 
 obscure recesses of the mind. This is the first degree 
 of latency."* This is the condition referred to by Cud- 
 worth as an unconscious state (54). It is identical with 
 memory, or the result of the "conservative faculty," 
 and which has been already referred to as a state of 
 unconsciousness (29). It is identical also with po- 
 tential existence, as opposed to actual existence. In 
 physiology it corresponds to the primordial stage of life 
 — that of the primordial cell and the immediate products 
 of development, — a stage in which the energies of the 
 whole future life are " latent," or " potentially" present. 
 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 339.
 
 DIV. III.] ONTOLOGY. 175 
 
 Sir William Hamilton clearly distinguishes these two 
 forms of existence, and illustrates them hy this first de- 
 gree of latency. " Potential existence means merely 
 that the thing may he at some time ; actual existence, 
 that it now is. Thus the mathematician, when asleep 
 or playing at cards, does not exercise his skill ; his 
 geometrical knowledge is all latent, but he is still a 
 mathematician — potentially : — 
 
 ' Ut quanivis tacet Hermogenes, cantor tamen atque 
 Optimus est modulator ; — ut Alfenus vafer, omni 
 Abjecto instrurnento artis, clausaque taberna 
 Sutor erit.' * . 
 
 ' Hermogenes,' says Horace, ' was a singer, even when 
 silent.' How? a singer not in actu, but in posse. So 
 Alfenus was a cobbler potential ; whereas, when busy in 
 his booth, he was a cobbler actual. In like manner my 
 sense of sight potentially exists, though my eyelids are 
 closed ; but when I open them, it exists actually."! 
 This, it must be admitted, is the true mode of setting forth 
 the theory of unconsciousness. When the man is uncon- 
 scious and the organ healthy, the mind is potentially 
 active, and this in every stage of his existence. 
 
 60. " The second degree of latency exists," Sir William 
 Hamilton states, "when the mind contains certain systems 
 of knowledge, or certain habits of action, which it is 
 wholly unconscious of possessing in its ordinary state, but 
 which are revealed to consciousness in certain extraordi- 
 nary exaltations of its powers. The evidence on this point 
 shows that the mind frequently contains whole systems 
 of knowledge, which, though in our normal state they 
 have faded into oblivion, may, in certain abnormal states, 
 
 * Horace, Sat. I. iii. 129. 
 
 f Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 179.
 
 176 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 as madness, febrile delirium, somnambulism, catalepsy, 
 &c, flasb out into luminous consciousness, and even tbrow 
 into tbe sbade of unconsciousness tbose other systems by 
 which they had for a long period been eclipsed and ex- 
 tinguished. For example, there are cases in which the 
 extinct memory of whole languages was suddenly restored, 
 and, what is even more remarkable, in which the faculty 
 was exhibited of accurately repeating, in known or un- 
 known tongues, passages which were never within the 
 grasp of conscious memory in the normal state. This 
 degree, this phenomena of latency, is one of the most 
 marvellous in the whole compass of philosophy."* Sir 
 William Hamilton then adduces cases illustrative of the 
 statement, most of which are familiar to the students of 
 insanity, hysterical delirium, somnambulism, mesmeric 
 clairvoyance, and so forth. This degree of latency is 
 psychologically only another form of reproduction from 
 memory, excited by diseased activity of the organ of 
 thought. We shall see subsequently that such repro- 
 ductions are not limited to the latencies acquired during 
 the individual's life, but that they extend to hereditary 
 transmissions of habits, capacities, &c, deduced from the 
 parents — one or both. 
 
 61. The third class or degree of latent modifications are 
 included in the question stated by Sir William Hamilton, 
 whether in the ordinary processes of mental life, there 
 are "mental modifications — i.e., mental activities and 
 passivities, of which we are unconscious, but which 
 manifest their existence by effects of which we are con- 
 scious." Now, Sir William Hamilton's answer is, " 1 
 am not only strongly inclined to the affirmative, — nay, I 
 do not hesitate to maintain, that what we are conscious 
 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 339-40.
 
 mv. in.] ONTOLOGY. 177 
 
 of is constructed out of what we are not conscious of, — 
 that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made up of the 
 unknown and incognisable."* These, as we have seen, 
 are the vital changes, the results of which are coincident 
 with conscious states. This remarkable metaphysical 
 doctrine is supported by its eminent propounder with all 
 that logical acumen for which he was so distinguished. 
 In answer to the objection, How can we know that of 
 which we are unconscious, seeing that consciousness is 
 the condition of knowledge? "it is enough to allege," 
 he remarks, " that there are many things which we 
 neither know nor can know in themselves — that is, in 
 their direct and immediate relation to our faculties of 
 knowledge — but which manifest their existence indirectly 
 through the medium of their effects. This is the case 
 with the mental modifications in question : they are not 
 in themselves revealed to consciousness ; but as certain 
 facts of consciousness necessarily suppose them to exist, 
 and to exert an influence in the mental processes, we are 
 thus constrained to admit as modifications of mind what 
 are not in themselves phenomena of consciousness." 
 
 62. Then, in reply to the objection which asks, How can 
 knowledge come out of ignorance— consciousness out of 
 unconsciousness — the known out of the unknown ? Sir 
 William Hamilton brings forward special evidence to 
 the effect that such is constantly occurring under ordi- 
 nary circumstances. First, it is seen in all acts of Per- 
 ception. There is a minimum impression on the sense 
 engaged in the act, beyond which the object becomes 
 imperceptible, yet that minimum is composed of parts. 
 Consequently the parts impress the consciousness, yet 
 they are unperceived. " Vision is the result of the rays 
 
 * Op. cit. vol. i. p. 347. 
 
 M
 
 I78 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 of light, reflected from the surface of objects to the eye ; 
 a greater number of rays is reflected from a larger sur- 
 face ; if the superficial extent of an object, and, conse- 
 quently, the number of the rays which it reflects, be 
 diminished beyond a certain limit, the object becomes 
 invisible ; and the minimum visibile is the smallest ex- 
 panse which can be seen, — which can consciously affect 
 us, — which we can be conscious of seeing. This being 
 understood, it is plain that, if we divide this minimum 
 visibile into two parts, neither half can, by itself, be an 
 object of vision or visual consciousness. They are, seve- 
 rally and apart, to consciousness as zero. But it is 
 evident that each half must by itself have produced in 
 us a certain modification, real though unperceived ; for as 
 the perceived whole is nothing but the union of the unper- 
 ceived halves, so the perception — the perceived affection 
 of which we are conscious — is only the sum of two modifi- 
 cations, each of which severally eludes our consciousness." 
 63. Sir William Hamilton multiplies instances of a 
 less abstract character. Thus, the leaves of a forest are 
 not cognisable at a distance, only an expanse of green ; 
 yet each leaf must have entered into the entire impres- 
 sion ; the murmur of the sea heard at a distance is made 
 up of parts — is the complement of the noise of many 
 waves— just as the noise of each wave is the complement 
 of the noise caused by many particles of water dashing 
 upon the shore. It is an aneritlimon gelasma. His 
 most interesting illustration, however, is taken from the 
 mental process termed Association of Ideas, in which 
 " one thought suggests another in conformity to certain 
 determinate laws — laws to which the successions of our 
 whole mental states are subjected." " It sometimes 
 happens," Sir William Hamilton continues, " that we 
 find one thought rising immediately after another in
 
 mv. in.] ONTOLOGY. 1 79 
 
 consciousness, but whose consecution wo can reduce to 
 no law of association. Now in these cases we can gene- 
 rally discover, by an attentive observation, that these 
 two thoughts, though not themselves associated, are each 
 associated with certain other thoughts ; so that the whole 
 consecution would have been regular, had these inter- 
 mediate thoughts come into consciousness between the 
 two which are immediately associated." The interme- 
 diate thoughts are latent modifications of consciousness. 
 If a number of billiard balls be placed in a straight row 
 touching each other, and the first at one end be struck, 
 it is only the last or terminal one of the row which 
 moves from its place ; all the others are motionless, and 
 serve only to transmit the force delivered to the first. 
 " Something like this," Sir William Hamilton observes, 
 " seems often to occur in the train of thought. One idea 
 mediately suggests another into consciousness — the sug- 
 gestion passing through one or more ideas which do not 
 themselves rise into consciousness." 
 
 64. This phenomenon was noticed and explained by 
 Professor D. Stewart, on the same grounds from which it is 
 argued that the mind is always conscious ; for he main- 
 tained that the connecting links are really ideas, of which 
 the consciousness is so transient that they are immedi- 
 ately forgotten. Sir William Hamilton very successfully 
 meets this view, and asserts the unconscious character of 
 the connecting links ; but be at the same time does not 
 explain how there can be ideas which do not rise into 
 consciousness — for consciousness seems absolutely neces- 
 sary to an idea — unless the term be qualified by the 
 term material; in which case a material idea corresponds 
 to a series of vital changes in the organ of thought. As 
 the whole argument is a substantial assertion of the 
 doctrine of unconscious existence, and highly illustrative
 
 l8o METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 of the difficulties which beset the ordinary methods of 
 metaphysical inquiry, I subjoin it. We have seen that 
 Mr Stewart says there is momentary consciousness of the 
 intermediate links in the chain of ideas, but no memory. 
 Sir William Hamilton replies : " In the first place, to 
 assume the existence of acts of consciousness, of which 
 there is no memory beyond the moment of existence, 
 is at least as inconceivable an hypothesis as the other. 
 But, in the second place, it violates the whole analogy 
 of consciousness, which the other does not. Conscious- 
 ness supposes memory ; and we are only conscious as we 
 are able to connect and contrast one instance of our 
 intellectual existence with another. Whereas, to sup- 
 pose the existence and efficiency of modifications beyond 
 consciousness, is not at variance with its conditions ; for 
 consciousness, though it assures us of the reality of what 
 is within its sphere, says nothing against the reality of 
 what is without. In the third place, it is demonstrated 
 that, in perception, there are modifications, efficient, 
 though severally imperceptible ; why, therefore, in the 
 other faculties, should there not likewise be modifica- 
 tions, efficient, though unapparent? In the fourth place, 
 there must be some reason for the assumed fact that 
 there are perceptions or ideas of which we are conscious, 
 but of which there is no memory. Now, the only reason 
 that can possibly be assigned is, that the consciousness 
 was too faint to afford the condition of memory. But 
 of consciousness, however faint, there must be some 
 memory, however short. But this is at variance with 
 the phenomena ; for the ideas A and C may precede and 
 follow each other without any perceptible interval, and 
 without any, the feeblest memory of B. If there be no 
 memory, there could have been no consciousness ; and 
 therefore Mr Stewart's hypothesis, if strictly interrogated,
 
 niv. UT.] ONTOLOGY. l8l 
 
 must even at last take refuge in our doctrine ; for it can 
 easily be shown that the degree of memory is directly 
 in proportion to the degree of consciousness, and, con- 
 sequently, that an absolute negation of memory is an 
 absolute negation of consciousness."* 
 
 65. Sir William Hamilton adduces another class of 
 phenomena, to which his theory of mental latencies is 
 applicable — namely, the operations resulting from our 
 acquired dexterities and habits. As I shall refer to these 
 when considering instinctive consciousness, I shall not 
 notice this part of the argument here. I would rather 
 call attention to his history of the doctrine. Leibnitz 
 seems to have been the first who detected and attempted 
 to explain this class of "mental latencies." "To this 
 great philosopher," remarks Sir William Hamilton, " be- 
 longs the honour of having originated this opinion, and 
 of having supplied some of the strongest arguments in 
 its support. He was, however, unfortunate in the terms 
 which he employed to propound the doctrine. The 
 latent modifications — the unconscious activities of mind 
 — he denominated obscure ideas, obscure representations, 
 perceptions luithout apperception or consciousness, insensible 
 perceptions, &c. In this he violated the universal usage 
 of language. For perception, and idea, and representa- 
 tion, all properly involve the notion of consciousness— it 
 being, in fact, contradictory to speak of a representation 
 not really represented ; a perception not really perceived ; 
 an actual idea of whose presence we are not aware." f 
 Sir William Hamilton mentions Lord Karnes (Home) 
 and Abraham Tucker as exceptions to the statement, 
 that " to British psychologists the opinion would hardly 
 seem to have been known. By none, certainly, is it 
 
 * Op. citato, pp. 353-55. f Ibid. p. 362.
 
 l82 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 seriously considered." The passage mentioned by Sir 
 William Hamilton, in which Tucker refers to the pheno- 
 mena, is interesting, inasmuch as it presents the most 
 familiar illustration of the process of unconscious cerebral 
 activity, and points at "the internal mechanism." It 
 is to be met with in his discussion of " trains of ideas." 
 " But though the Mind, by her notice, begins the forma- 
 tion of a train, there is something in our internal me- 
 chanism that strengthens and completes the concatena- 
 tion. It has been generally remarked by schoolboys, that 
 after having laboured the whole evening before a repeti- 
 tion, to get their lesson by heart, but to very little pur- 
 pose, when they rise in the morning they shall have 
 it current at their tongue's end, without any further 
 trouble. Nor is it unusual with persons of riper years, 
 upon being asked for a determination, which they cannot 
 form without a number of things to be previously con- 
 sidered, to desire time to sleep upon it ; because, with all 
 their care to digest their materials, they cannot do it 
 completely ; but after a night's rest, or some recreation, 
 or the mind being turned for awhile into a different 
 course of thinking, she finds they have ranged themselves 
 anew during her absence, and in such manner as exhibits 
 almost at one view all their mutual relations, depen- 
 dences, and consequences, which shows that our organs do 
 not stand idle the moment we cease to employ them, but con- 
 tinue the motions we put them into after they have gone 
 out of sight, thereby working themselves to a glibness 
 and smoothness, and falling into a more regular and 
 orderly posture than we could have placed them with all 
 our skill and industry."* 
 
 * The Light of Nature Pursued. By Abraham Tucker, Esq., 2d 
 edit. (1805), chap. x. \ 4, vol. i. p. 248. This work occupied its 
 author from 1750 to his death in 1774.
 
 div. in.] ONTOLOGY. 1 83 
 
 66. Nothing can more clearly show the unpractical cha- 
 racter of speculative metaphysics than the circumstance, 
 that this important doctrine of mental philosophy should 
 have attracted no attention in this country, until it was 
 revived by Sir William Hamilton in his lectures, and 
 applied by the author, twenty years ago, to an explana- 
 tion of the functions of the brain, — without any know- 
 ledge, however, on his part, of Sir William Hamilton's 
 teachings. This neglect Sir William Hamilton attributes 
 to the obscure phrases by which Leibnitz first propounded 
 it. " The close affinity of mental modifications with per- 
 ceptions, ideas, representations, and the consequent com- 
 mutation of these terms, have been undoubtedly the 
 reasons why the Leibnitzian doctrine was not more 
 generally adopted, and why, in France and in Britain, 
 succeeding philosophers have almost admitted as a self- 
 evident truth, that there can be no modification of mind 
 devoid of consciousness. As to any refutation of the 
 Leibnitzian doctrine, I know of none. Condillac is 
 indeed the only psychologist who can be said to have 
 formally proposed the question. He, like Mr Stewart, 
 attempts to explain why it can be supposed that the 
 mind has modifications of which we are not conscious, 
 by asserting that we are in truth conscious of the modi- 
 fication, but that it is immediately forgotten.* In 
 Germany, the doctrine of Leibnitz was almost univer- 
 sally adopted. I am not aware of a philosopher of the 
 least note by whom it has been rejected. In France, it 
 has, I see, lately been broached by M. de Cardaillac as 
 a theory of his own ; and this, his originality, is marvel- 
 lously admitted by authors like M. Damiron, whom we 
 might reasonably expect to have been better informed."! 
 
 * Origine des Connoisances Humaines, sect. ii. c. i. \\ 4-13. 
 f Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 362.
 
 184 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 In a note to this passage, the Editors of the Lectures 
 remark : " In the second edition of Damiron's Psychologie 
 (vol. ii. p. 188), Leibnitz is expressly cited. In the first 
 edition, however, though the doctrine of latency is stated 
 (torn. ii. p. 190), there is no reference to Leibnitz." The 
 neglect of this doctrine is rather due, I think, to the 
 strongly- rooted opinion that the mind, or soul, is always 
 conscious ; for, since the time of Descartes, who identi- 
 fied the mind and consciousness, to affirm that man was 
 ever unconscious was held to be virtually a denial of 
 the continued existence of the soul, and therewith of all 
 the dogmata which were deduced from the doctrine of 
 Descartes. Nothing shows more conclusively the influ- 
 ence of this doctrine than Sir William Hamilton's own 
 views as to " latent " consciousness and continued con- 
 sciousness (55, 59), andwhich appear to me to be essenti- 
 ally contradictory. And I have found that some of my 
 critics, who have discussed my doctrine of unconscious 
 cerebral action, have refused to admit even the possi- 
 bility of it, on the ground that unconscious mental action 
 is a contradiction ; while others, acknowledging the vali- 
 dity of the facts upon which it is founded, have been 
 wholly unable to shake off the trammels with which pre- 
 conceived notions have restricted their minds, so as to 
 deduce the practical conclusion that vital successional 
 states and conscious successional states are due to a 
 common law — a law of design, which includes both.f 
 Such a law of design logically implies Thought some- 
 where ; and Thought, ideas. Hence, as applied to the 
 vital phenomena which correlate states of Thought, 
 the notion of " material " ideas, or something similar, 
 necessarily enters into all reasonings on these modes 
 
 f See the history of the development of this doctrine, by the 
 Author, in Appendix to vol. ii. of this Work.
 
 div. in.] ONTOLOGY. 1 85 
 
 of existence in which an intelligent order of phenomena 
 is manifested without consciousness ; and even when 
 these physiological hypotheses are not entertained, the 
 fact remains nevertheless, — namely, that these vital 
 phenomena are in necessary relation to those states of 
 existence termed " latent consciousness," and the like. 
 To express that fact in language, when the organisation 
 was left out of consideration, it was necessary to use the 
 term Mind in a sense which made it synonymous with 
 organisation. Hence the use of phrases by Leibnitz and 
 others, such as " insensible perceptions," " perceptions 
 without apperception," "latent consciousness," "uncon- 
 scious mental states," and the like. All these terms are 
 really applicable to vital sequences occurring in the organ 
 of thought, without any consciousness or knowledge of 
 them or their results on the part of the individual ; which 
 sequences occur, however, according to mental laws, as 
 revealed to us by or in consciousness. 
 
 67. Leibnitz was not a mere speculative philosopher. 
 On the contrary, he was in active correspondence with 
 many of the leading physiologists and physicists of his 
 day, and took an interest in natural history and medicine 
 as well as in mathematics, philosophy, the history of 
 letters, poetry, political economy, and the like. He 
 looked upon all science as the true treasure or good of 
 humanity, and termed himself Placidhts* " La medi- 
 cine," he remarks, "est la plus necessaire des sciences 
 naturelles. . . . Elle est la plus haute point et comme 
 
 * Compare Erdmann, Oper. Philos. Leibnitii, Berl. 1840, p. 91 ; 
 and especially Dr K. F. H. Marx's Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz in 
 seinen Beziehungen zur Anneiwissenschaft ; in Abhand. der Konig : 
 Gesellschaft der Wissensch : zu Gottingen. This learned paper is 
 published separately (4to, 1859), and is an interesting memoir of 
 Leibnitz in his relations to the medical sciences.
 
 1 86 METAPHYSICS. [part. II. 
 
 le fruit principal des connoisances du corps par rapport au 
 notre. Mais toute la science physique, et la medicine 
 meme, a pour dernier but la gloire de Dieu et le bonheur 
 supreme des hommes."* And be lamented tbe neglect 
 witb which the relations of body and mind were gene- 
 rally treated : " L'ou peut dire, que c'est une verite aussi 
 certain que deplorable, que l'ame et le corps sont les 
 premieres choses auxquelles on devroit penser, et les 
 dernieres auxquelles ou pense."f The great teleological 
 principle which runs through natural phenomena he 
 embodied in a comprehensive aphorism : " Neque enim 
 aliud est Natura, quam Ars quaedam magna."J His 
 Protogcea was a sort of " vestiges of the natural history 
 of creation ;" for at the close he remarks : " rerum naturae 
 praestat nobis Historia vicem;" while the full title of 
 the work, as edited by Scheid, expressed the same idea. 
 " Pkotog^a, seu de prima facie telluris et antiquissimae 
 historian vestigiis in ipsis naturae monumentis, disser- 
 tation &c." Hence he looked upon all organisms as 
 machines, but originating in mind : " dici possit corpora 
 naturae organica revera machinas divinas esse ;"|| and 
 therefore, in controverting certain of the views of Stahl, 
 he remarks, "Etsi omnis actionum fons sit in anima, 
 nihil tamen fit prater corporis leges." It is obvious, 
 therefore, that the doctrine of Leibnitz as to latent and 
 unconscious mental states was really developed from a 
 comprehensive view of the facts of natural history, in- 
 cluding palaeontology ; and based upon biological princi- 
 ples, which were afterwards to have a fulleT exposition 
 and application by Wolff, Gothe, Oken, G-. St Hilaire 
 Lamarck, Cuvier, Blainville, Grant, and Owen. 
 
 * Leibnitii Opera Omnia, Ed. Dutens, torn. ii. p. i. p. 262. 
 
 t Ibid. torn. ii. p. ii. p. 163. J Protogcea, \ 9. 
 
 'i Gd'dingen, (4to, 1749). || Opp. torn. ii. p. ii. p. 131.
 
 CHAPTER VIX. 
 
 INSTINCTIVE EXISTENCE. 
 
 Sect. I. — The Conclusions of Experience. 
 
 The differences and resemblances between man and 
 the higher vertebrates have always attracted the atten- 
 tion of mankind. The'differences as to form and struc- 
 ture are so well-marked, when extreme examples are 
 compared, that no doubt can arise as to the necessity of 
 recognising a fundamental distinction between the ani- 
 mal and the man. Yet, on the other hand, when the 
 resemblances are examined, and the closest examples 
 of similitude are taken for comparison, it becomes ex- 
 tremely difficult to deny the near approximation of 
 brute to man. Although I have already touched upon 
 this part of the subject in discussing the Method, it will 
 be useful to revert to it again. 
 
 68. The conclusions of mankind as to the mental con- 
 stitution of man, when compared with that of lower 
 animals, have followed the same course. Taking ex- 
 tremes of difference for comparison, the difference be- 
 tween man and his fellow-creatures is great; but taking 
 the extremes of resemblance, the similarity of man and 
 lower animals is equally remarkable. Practically, man 
 acknowledges that, in all essential characters, he is to be 
 classed with his fellow-creatures. Hence the proposition 
 that man is an animal. Certain animals are the com-
 
 i88 
 
 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 panions of man ; they are his helpmates, friends, guar- 
 dians. Now, in transacting with these creatures the 
 ordinary business of life, man treats them, mutatis mu- 
 tandis, as he treats his brother man. If he educates 
 them, it is according to the same methods that he fol- 
 lows when educating his children : he disciplines them 
 into habits; he communicates with them by language. 
 He loves and hates them, and he is loved and hated by 
 them, just as he loves and hates or is loved and hated 
 by his fellow-men. He sympathises with their feelings ; 
 they sympathise with his. Nay, he protects them from 
 suffering and injury by special laws, just as he protects 
 his children, his serfs, or his slaves. And the American 
 slave-owner exercises over his slave the same discipline 
 which he exercises over his horse or his dog ; he even 
 likens the two so habitually, as to question, on scientific 
 grounds, if not deny, the humanity of the African he 
 holds in bondage. Now, philosophers, in speculating on 
 the mental differences between man and. animals, have 
 attributed to the man reason — to the animal instinct. 
 Hence, animals are irrational, men rational beings. 
 Instinctive actions are not founded on knowledge or 
 experience; rational actions are. Instinct is the cause 
 inherent in animals of those proceedings on their part 
 which take place, not only without experience as to the 
 past, but without any conscious adaptation to accidental 
 circumstances, and without any knowledge of the results 
 to follow the course of proceeding. In short, in instinct 
 there is what is termed a blind intelligence — i.e., an 
 intelligent adaptation of actions to ends, but without 
 knowledge of the past, present, or future. 
 
 69. These conclusions from grounds of difference are 
 only true, it is to be observed, as to cognitions derived 
 from experience; they are not true as to feelings and
 
 div. in. ONTOLOGY. 1 89 
 
 emotions that are independent of experience. Lower 
 animals feel pain when injuries are done to them — man 
 is not different from them in this respect, except as to 
 degree. So, too, as to many sentiments and emotions. 
 It is a recorded observation as old as Aristotle, that 
 animals manifest prudence, cowardice, courage, benevo- 
 lence, the social feelings, the conjugal and parental 
 affections, friendship, and the like — all of which are 
 purely instinctive in man. 
 
 70. Nor do the resemblances cease with animal life. 
 If we consider the meaning of the term Instinct, in its 
 widest application, as manifesting a blind, unconscious 
 adaptation to ends, the actions appropriate to nutrition 
 or alimentation, and of respiration or aeration of the 
 tissues, are instinctive. The acts by which these objects 
 are attained may or may not be associated with states of 
 consciousness ; and even when there is a concurrent 
 feeling of pleasure or pain experienced by the organism, 
 we observe that there is coincident therewith only an 
 aiding or intensification of the actions; the actions 
 themselves are done independently of a knowledge of 
 their order, or cause, or object. And there are other vital 
 processes of a similar kind, as to object, which are even 
 more independent of mental states than these, as will be 
 shown subsequently ; for they are certainly performed 
 without any consciousness whatever. Hence Instinct, 
 in this more general sense, is a property of vegetable 
 organisms as well as of man. It is therefore the sup- 
 posed cause of all those acts which are performed either 
 without any mode of consciousness absolutely — that is, 
 unconsciously; without any knowledge, on the part of 
 the individual, of the ends to be attained by the acts ; or 
 without any volition. Thus Dr Reid : '' He [a new- 
 born child] is led by nature to do those actions [of suck-
 
 I90 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 ing, swallowing, &c] without knowing for what end, or 
 what he is ahout. This we call instinct."* 
 
 71. There is no word more commonly in use by every- 
 body than this word Nature. Thus the logician and 
 philosopher speak of the order of nature, the laws of 
 nature, the phenomena of nature, meaning thereby the 
 universe, or cosmos. The physicist speaks of the nature 
 of things, as rocks, metals, compounds ; the naturalist, of 
 the nature of plants, animals ; the moral philosopher and 
 theologian, of human nature and the nature of G-od. In 
 all these the word really signifies that each thing to 
 which it is applied ha's modes of existence special to 
 itself, with special relations to other things ; and that 
 both modes and relations are invariable, or, if variable, 
 vary within certain limits only. Or, in other words, in 
 this use of the word the idea of necessary order with a 
 view to ends is involved ; for there cannot be the idea of 
 invariable order without, at the same time, the idea of 
 design. Hence hosmos, the Greek work for order, is also 
 the term for nature at large, or the creation. This idea 
 of design implies an efficient cause of a mental character ; 
 and thus the word Nature comes to be used in the sense 
 in which Eeid uses it as a director or teacher, or as the 
 efficient cause of the adapted actions of organisms, work- 
 ing without their knowledge. In this case, Nature is obvi- 
 ously but another word for Instinct. Now the ultimate 
 fact expressed in the word is order according to a law of 
 design, without consciousness on the part of the thing 
 ordered. In this sense, Nature is but another term for 
 life. 
 
 Sect. II. — The Conclusions of Philosophy. 
 
 72. It is a matter of experience that many of the 
 * On the Active Powers, Essay II. chap. ii.
 
 niv. ill.] ONTOLOGY. IQI 
 
 actions of lower animals are closely similar to the opera- 
 tion of the highest intelligence ; so that if man be in- 
 stinctive as to many of his actions, animals are in- 
 telligent as to many of theirs. The logical conclusion 
 from those facts would necessarily be, that there is a 
 fundamental identity of mental nature between men and 
 other conscious beings ; but this has been repudiated, as 
 we have seen, and instinct has been usually attributed, 
 when manifested in lower organisms as Thought or 
 Intelligence, to the direct operation of the Almighty, 
 or to something Divine. Thus Keid : " When a bee 
 makes its comb geometrically, the geometry is not in 
 the bee, but in that great Geometrician who made the 
 bee, and made all things in number, weight, and mea- 
 sure."* 
 
 73. Nevertheless, although speculative philosophy re- 
 pudiates this community of nature, and limits the term 
 " instinctive" to those actions which are performed blindly 
 and ignorantly, or at least independently of knowledge 
 and volition, the philosophy of common sense teaches 
 otherwise. It clearly shows that all our mental opera- 
 tions are, in fact, instinctive in their nature. Eeid 
 maintained, in especial, the instinctive character of our 
 beliefs, cognitions, judgments; it is a fundamental prin- 
 ciple in his philosophy, pervading the whole of it, and is 
 thus defended by Sir William Hamilton : " An instinct 
 is an agent which performs blindly and ignorantly a 
 work of intelligence and knowledge. The terms instinc- 
 tive belief— judgment — cognition — are therefore expres- 
 sions not ill adapted to characterise a belief, judgment, 
 cognition, which, as the result of no anterior conscious- 
 ness, is, like the products of animal instinct, the intelli- 
 
 * On the Active Powers, Essay III. part i. chap. 2.
 
 I92 METAPHYSICS. [part 11. 
 
 gent effect of (as far as we are concerned) an unknowing 
 cause. In like manner, we can hardly find more suitable 
 expressions to indicate those incomprehensible sponta- 
 neities themselves, of which the primary facts of con- 
 sciousness are the manifestations, than rational or intel- 
 lectual instincts.'"* It follows, therefore, that the same 
 energy which acts as instinct, and is esteemed a quod- 
 dam divinum in lower organisms, is identical with the 
 energy acting as instinct, and termed Soul in man. 
 
 74. The instinctive character of the mental faculties 
 of man has been fully recognised by philosophers of all 
 times, just as, conversely, the rational character of the 
 mental faculties of lower animals has been recognised by 
 the common sense of mankind. The phrenologists are 
 on this point in entire accord with the metaphysicians. 
 Sir William Hamilton thus defends Dr Eeid for adopt- 
 ing this view of the true character of the human mind : 
 " If Eeason can be justly called a developed Feeling, it 
 may with no less propriety be called an illuminated 
 Instinct ; in the words of Ovid, 
 
 " Et quod nunc Ratio, Impetus ante fuit." 
 
 As to [Keid's use of the term] being an innovation 
 either in language or philosophy, this objection only 
 betrays the ignorance of the objector. Mr Stewart 
 (Essays, 'p. 87, 4to edition) adduces Boscovitch and 
 D'Alembert as authorities for the employment of the 
 terms "Instinct," and "Instinctive" in Eeid's signi- 
 fication. But before Eeid, he might have found them 
 thus applied by Cicero, Scaliger, Bacon, Herbert, 
 Descartes, Eapin, Pascal, Poiret, Barrow, Leibnitz, 
 Musaeus, Feuerlin, Hume, Bayer, Karnes, Eeimarus, and 
 a host of others ; while, subsequent to the Inquiry into 
 
 * Sir William Hamilton. Loc. cit.
 
 div. in.] ONTOLOGY. 1 93 
 
 the Human Mind, besides Beattie, Oswald, Campbell, 
 Ferguson among our Scottisb philosophers, we have 
 with Heimsterhuis in Holland, in Germany, Petens, 
 Jacobi, Bouterwek, Neeb, Koppen, Ancillon, and many- 
 other metaphysicians, who have adopted and defended 
 the expression. In fact, Instinct has been for ages 
 familiarised as a philosophical term in the sense in ques- 
 tion — that is, in application to the higher faculties of 
 the mind, intellectual and moral. ... In a moral re- 
 lation, as a name for the natural tendencies to virtue, it 
 was familiarly employed even by the philosophers of the 
 sixteenth century, . . . and in the seventeenth it had 
 become, in fact, their usual appellation."* 
 
 75. As an illustration of the conclusions on this subject 
 to which almost every thinker has been led, the teaching 
 of Sir Matthew Hale may be quoted, who maintained 
 that as we see in brutes there are lodged certain sensible 
 instincts, antecedent to their imaginative or sensitive 
 faculty, whereby they are predetermined to the good and 
 convenience of the sensible life ; so there are lodged in 
 the very constitution of the soul [of man] certain rational 
 instincts, connaturally engraven in it — antecedently to 
 any discursive ratiocination — whereby it is predisposed, 
 inclined, and biassed to the good and convenience pro- 
 portionable to a rational and intellectual life.f ♦ Sir 
 Mathew Hale, by the phrase " rational and intellectual 
 life of man," meant to express his moral and religious 
 capacities ; and by rational instincts he meant also the 
 " speculative and moral." But Kant and Mr J. S. Mill 
 have shown that the process of reason itself is instinc- 
 tive in its character — the former not perhaps stating the 
 doctrine explicitly, but clearly implying it. Thus his 
 
 * Opere, et loco citato. 
 
 t Primitive Origination of Mankind, § 1, chap. ii. 
 
 N
 
 194 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 theory of a priori intuitions — that is, of ideas or concep- 
 tions anterior to all experience, and therefore inherent in 
 man's nature — is only another mode of stating that the 
 fundamental processes of the intelligence are instinctive. 
 The term Intuitive connotes, in fact, the necessary modes 
 of thought precisely in the same way as the term In- 
 stinctive connotes necessary modes of action. All our 
 a priori judgments, considered as acts, are therefore in- 
 stinctive judgments, and such, indeed, they are usually 
 designated. Nay, Kant uses phrases in regard to the 
 understanding exactly similar to those applied to in- 
 stincts. Thus, synthesis, or " the process of joining dif- 
 ferent representations to each other, and of comprehend- 
 ing their diversity in one cognition," is described by him 
 as " a blind but indispensable function of the soul, with- 
 out which we should have no cognition whatever, but of 
 the working of which we are seldom conscious."* 
 
 76. Nor, when the reasoning faculty of man is analysed 
 and resolved into its elements by the logician, is the re- 
 semblance of the different steps of the process in man 
 and lower animals less striking. On the contrary, when 
 a comparison is made, the result is a distinction so subtle, 
 that it proves most conclusively, that the difference be- 
 tween the mental nature of men and animals is one of 
 degree only, and by no means of kind — that, in fact, the 
 same laws are applicable to both classes of faculties, even 
 as to the higher mental manifestations. Thus, Mr J. S. 
 Mill shows that the lower animals use the method of in- 
 duction in thought. " If reasoning be from particulars to 
 particulars, and if it consist in recognising one fact as a 
 mark of another, or a mark of a mark of another, nothing 
 is required to render reasoning possible except senses and 
 
 * Kritik der Rein : Vernunft. Transcendental Logic, chap. i. 
 §§ 3-6.
 
 div. in.] ONTOLOGY. I<?5 
 
 association : senses to perceive that two facts are con- 
 joined ; association as the law by which one of those 
 facts raises up the idea of another. For these mental 
 phenomena, as well as for the belief or expectation which 
 follows, and by which we recognise as having taken 
 place, or as about to take place, that of which we have 
 perceived a mark, there is evidently no need of language. 
 And this inference of one particular fact from another is 
 a case of induction. It is of this sort of induction that 
 brutes are capable ; it is in this shape that uncultivated 
 minds make almost all their inductions, and that we do 
 so in the cases in which familiar experience forces our 
 conclusions upon us without any active process of inquiry 
 on our part, and in which the belief or expectation fol- 
 lows the suggestion of the evidence with the promptitude 
 and certainty of instinct.* 
 
 77. Thus, then, Thought and Instinct can be generalised 
 under the same term ; and what, when thus generalised, is 
 common to both ? This ; that each is the manifestation 
 of a law of necessary adaptation to ends. The man 
 ceases to be rational when he aims not at an adaptation 
 to ends. Instinct, we have seen, is that adaptation itself. 
 In trying to realise from the side of instinct a more 
 general conception of soul, or mind, we find that it contains 
 three elements. 1. There is the law of necessary adapta- 
 tion to ends. 2. There is the pure reason or thought, the 
 " quoddam divinum," by which the ends are conceived, 
 and the machinery and methods for attaining them 
 designed. 3. There is the force or energy which is 
 manifested in and by the law of necessary adaptation 
 to ends, and which is active or operative in accordance 
 with the conceptions of the pure Thought, so that the 
 
 * System of Logic, 4th edit., vol. ii. pp. 202-3.
 
 I96 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 machinery necessary to attain the end is constructed out 
 of matter, and worked appropriately when so constructed. 
 Now, these three elements enter into the intellectual as 
 well as the instinctive nature of man. A fourth needs to 
 be added, i.e. consciousness, as the common characteristic 
 of all. Consciousness of adaptation to ends, or Thought ; 
 consciousness of the successive events necessary to secure 
 adaptation, or Knowledge ; consciousness of the exercise 
 of the power or energy used in the actual adaptation, or 
 Will ; and, finally, the feeling associated with the pro- 
 cesses — the Desire to attain an end, and to adapt to the 
 attainment ; the Desire to attain the knowledge necessary 
 to secure the adaptation ; the Desire to exercise the 
 power necessary ; and, finally, the Pleasure or Pain con- 
 sequent upon the attempt at adaptation with the success 
 or failure. 
 
 78. We may also infer the differences between man 
 and animals. Human nature is constituted for higher 
 ends than mere animal nature ; for however degraded the 
 man may be, he possesses human capacities and human 
 intuitions potentially, at least. Man's mode of procedure 
 differs also. The rational man adapts to ends, imperfectly 
 knowing, and seeking to know more perfectly, the order of 
 phenomena, that he may duly adapt ; the instinctive 
 animal adapts to ends, not knowing or seeking to know 
 more perfectly the order of the phenomena. The in- 
 tellectually rational animal, Man, is generically capable 
 of the knowledge ; the purely instinctive animal is not 
 capable. Between the highest and lowest capability of 
 knowledge, both in man and animals, there is a long 
 series of degrees of capability ; but the law of continuity 
 is manifest throughout, so that nowhere in the series can 
 the line of demarcation be strictly drawn, and it may be 
 said, Here ends instinct, here begins reason.
 
 DIV. Ill 
 
 ] ONTOLOGY. 197 
 
 79. It follows, then, from all these considerations, that 
 all those general phenomena of mind which we have 
 already investigated are instinctive in their character ; 
 or, in other words, are due to the same cause or causes, 
 and occur according to the same laws, as the mental 
 phenomena of lower animals. Now, these phenomena 
 are vital ; consequently, the mental phenomena of man 
 are vital. 
 
 By successive generalisations of the facts and pro- 
 positions of experience, we thus arrive at the ultimate 
 generalisation attainable, and the phenomena of life are 
 brought under the same efficient cause — a spiritual 
 Energy — as the phenomena of mind. Nowhere can we 
 draw a line of demarcation between these phenomena as 
 to causation, so that the soul, considered as an Energy, 
 acts equally in nutrition, development, and instinct, in 
 all states of consciousness, and in all intellectual opera- 
 tions whatever. These phenomena are but varying mani- 
 festations in time and space, through matter, of the same 
 spiritual thing. Soid operates in all. So that, by the 
 operation in matter of the " immaterial Ego," according 
 to the necessary law of adaptation, vital force and nervous 
 force, instinct or blind adaptation, and reason or conscious 
 adaptation, are variously developed into activity, as 
 modes of action of the same force, according to that law 
 of adaptation itself; and thus the vital and the mental 
 forces and functions are but manifestations of the same 
 pure thought in action. This generalisation is exhaus- 
 tive, being co-extensive with all the phenomena of crea- 
 tion, and is the only generalisation which can compre- 
 hend both the phenomena of Life and Mind.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SPECULATIVE ONTOLOGY. 
 
 Sect. I. — The General Relations of Life to Consciousness 
 considered as Universal and Particular. 
 
 Having, by the method laid down, brought the pheno- 
 mena of Life and Thought into unity as Existence, our 
 next step takes us on to a special inquiry into the nature 
 of the fundamental elements of this unity, and their 
 relations to each other. We have seen that they are two 
 — Mind and Life. "What, then, is the nature of mind 
 and life, and what their relations to each other as they 
 constitute the one individual man? 
 
 80. The discussions as to the nature and laws of Exist- 
 ence have been endless. It would be wholly foreign to 
 the plan of this work, and far indeed beyond my preten- 
 sions, to give an account of the various doctrines thus 
 raised and advocated, and the objections and difficulties 
 with which they have been met. It will be sufficient to 
 indicate a few broad outlines taken from our own point 
 of view.* The opposing philosophers may be divided, in 
 the first instance, into two classes — namely, those who 
 identify consciousness with Being, and those who identify 
 mind with Being. The former include the majority of 
 
 * Mr G. H. Lewes will be found an excellent guide (in his 
 Biographical History of Philosophy) as to the nature and scope of 
 ontological speculations from the metaphysical point of view. 
 Compare especially part ii., Modern Philosophy.
 
 DIV. Ill 
 
 J ONTOLOGY. I99 
 
 the British and French schools, and the followers of 
 Kant in Germany; the latter the followers of Fichte, 
 Schelling, and Hegel. Now, the theories of the former 
 school, as to the connection hetween mind and matter, 
 have been established (as we have seen) for the most 
 part on the erroneous assumption that mind can be a sub- 
 ject of inquiry independently of matter ; or, in meta- 
 physical phrase, can be known and conceived per se. 
 But this assumption being contrary to experience (47), 
 the solution of the problem was not reached, and, as a 
 farther consequence, all theories based upon it as to the 
 nature of Being were necessarily false. The extent of 
 error is not the same with all metaphysicians of this 
 school, for not a few deep thinkers have felt strongly the 
 sources of fallacy lying in the primary postulate. Of this 
 class may be mentioned, as an example, the able Professor 
 of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews. It is plain, however, 
 that he has been restricted in the development of his 
 own views by the same difficulty as others. His funda- 
 mental proposition is, " That whatever any intelligence 
 knows, it must, as the ground or condition of its know- 
 ledge, have some knowledge of itself."* Here " intelli- 
 gence" is a term synonymous with " being" and "self." 
 " Ego". " self " "me," are also used as synonymous with 
 "intelligence," and with mind in the abstract. To all 
 these things the fundamental notion of conscious activity 
 is added. The "intelligence," "self," "me," u JEgo," 
 must have knowledge of self; that is to say, must be 
 self-conscious. But if mind be another form of life, 
 continued consciousness is not its necessary charac- 
 teristic. The "intelligence" of Professor Ferrier is 
 consequently a being which apprehends under the fun- 
 
 * Institutes of Metaphy sic, prop. i.
 
 200 METAPHYSICS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 damental distinctions of self and not-self; as such it can- 
 not apprehend either the one or the other without appre- 
 hending its correlative. But as an animal, or animal- 
 being, sometimes neither self nor not-self, is apprehended 
 by it — i.e., it is unconscious. And as Professor Ferrier 
 identifies intelligence with mind and consciousness, he 
 finds it necessary to meet the admitted objection to 
 his fundamental proposition, that it is contrary to expe- 
 rience, by showing that we are really always conscious 
 of ourselves, but do not know it, in consequence of " a 
 principle of our nature which may be termed the Law of 
 Familiarity, the effect of which law is well expressed in 
 the old adage, ' Familiarity breeds neglect.' " Professor 
 Ferrier acknowledges that the oversight of ourselves 
 in cognition is, " in many cases, all but complete ; " 
 and for his argument he only requires that, of our con- 
 sciousness, " the thousandth part, or even a smaller 
 fraction, be perpetually directed upon ourselves." But, 
 unfortunately, experience will not allow of a hundredth- 
 thousandth part. This is only another form of the 
 psychological assumption that mind and consciousness 
 are identical, and life and mind distinct; and the re- 
 quirement which Professor Ferrier demands is ren- 
 dered necessary by his adopting this assumption. Now, 
 not being true in fact, it cannot be adopted into a 
 theory; otherwise the theory would be at variance 
 with all our experience of the phenomena of human 
 nature. 
 
 81. I subjoin an illustration of this defect in Professor 
 Ferrier's terminology. " Whatever else a man may be, 
 he is, at any rate — himself. He understands what he 
 means when he utters the word ' 1 ; ' and therefore, 
 when such terms as 'mind,' 'subject,' or 'intelligence,' 
 are employed in these pages, they are to be regarded
 
 div. in 
 
 ,] ONTOLOGY. 201 
 
 as strictly synonymous with this less ambiguous though 
 egotistical monosyllable."* But does the word "I," as 
 commonly used, mean what Professor Ferrier states ? 
 It rather expresses the " concrete Ego." Let Mind be 
 substituted for the personal pronoun in speech, and it 
 will be seen that the Ego, as thus used, implies the " cog- 
 nition," or consciousness, of Existence, and not mind 
 simply ; but Existence implies the synthesis of the sub- 
 ject and the object — the union of the universal and the 
 particular. The Ego is not, therefore, intelligence or 
 mind, but a cognition of mind in synthesis with matter. 
 Hence mind must be something more than the state of 
 consciousness termed the Ego, which is simply a state 
 of conscious existence, as unity. What that mind is, we 
 will shortly endeavour to determine. In the meanwhile, 
 we must adhere strictly to the facts of experience, and 
 not vary even the millionth part. 
 
 82. Whenever Professor Ferrier uses the Ego strictly 
 as significant of mind in the abstract, his views are 
 admirably clear. Thus, as to what is Absolute Exist- 
 ence — the thing of which the Ego is the consciousness — 
 he remarks : " Absolute Existence is the synthesis of 
 the subject and object — the union of the universal and 
 the particular — the concretion of the Ego [mind] and 
 Non-Ego ; in other words, the only true, and real, and 
 independent Existences are minds [Egos], together-with- 
 that-which-they-apprehend."f And again : " It was 
 formerly remarked (p. 163), that the equation, or coin- 
 cidence, of the known and the existent is the ultimate 
 conclusion which philosophy has to demonstrate. This 
 demonstration has been supplied, and the conclusion 
 reasoned out from the bottom. The universal and the 
 
 * Institutes, p. 247. t Ibid. prop. x. p. 500.
 
 202 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 particular Ego [mind] and Non-Ego in cognition, are also, 
 in all essential respects, the universal and the particular 
 in existence; or, expressed more popularly, the conclusion 
 is, that every true and absolute existence is a conscious- 
 ness [mind or Ego], together-with-its-contents, whatever 
 these contents be. Thus, Knowing and Being are shown 
 to be built up out of the same elements ; and thus the laws 
 of cognition are demonstrated to be in harmony with the 
 laws of existence ; and thus psychology, the whole spirit 
 of whose teaching is to inculcate the frightful doctrine 
 that there is no parallelism between them, is overthrown." 
 " The absolutely Existent which each of us is indi- 
 vidually cognisant of, is— himself-apprehending-things- 
 by-the-senses [i.e. conscious]. A man cannot be cog- 
 nisant of himself [i.e. his mind] merely, or of things 
 merely, or of senses merely. He therefore cannot be cog- 
 nisant of these three as existences, but only as factors 
 or elements of existence ; and the only true and abso- 
 lute existence which we can know is, as has been said, 
 their synthesis — to wit, himself-apprehending-things-fo/- 
 the-senses [i.e. conscious]. Now, the circumstance to be 
 particularly attended to is, that the part of the synthesis 
 here printed in italics is contingent in its character. Our 
 five senses are the accidental part of the absolute in our 
 cognition ; they are not a necessary part of the absolute 
 in all cognition, and therefore they are not a necessary 
 part of every absolute existence. Other intelligences 
 may be cognisant [i.e. conscious] of themselves, appre- 
 hend'Hig-things-in-other-ways-than-we-do. In which case 
 their absolute, both in cognition and existence, would 
 be different from ours in its accidentals, but not in its 
 essentials.* Such being the case, we cannot investigate 
 
 * Institutes, pp. 504-6.
 
 div. in.] ONTOLOGY. 203 
 
 the nature and laws of mind apart from the laws of exist- 
 ence. The Ego, or self, or mind, per se, is, of necessity, 
 absolutely unknowable. By itself — that is, in a purely 
 indeterminate state, or separated from all things, and 
 divested of all thoughts — it is no possible object of cog- 
 nition. It can know itself only in some particular state, 
 or in union with some Non-Ego; that is, with some ele- 
 ment contradistinguished from itself.* This element is 
 matter, or its forces. 
 
 83. The other class of philosophers start also from 
 Consciousness as a basis of certitude ; but they pass from 
 thence to a conception of the Ego as the cause of both 
 life and thought. Thus, the Ego represents mind in 
 the abstract. The Ego is represented by the will. " I 
 stand between two worlds," says Fichte, "the one visible, 
 in which the act alone avails, and the intention matters 
 not at all ; the other invisible and incomprehensible, 
 acted on only by the will. In both these worlds I am an 
 effective force. The Divine life, as alone the finite mind 
 can conceive it, is self- forming, self- representing Will, 
 clothed to the mortal eye with multitudinous sensuous 
 forms, flowing through me and through the whole im- 
 measurable universe, — here streaming through my veins 
 and muscles, there pouring its abundance into the tree, 
 the flower, the grass. The dead, heavy mass of inert 
 matter, which did but fill up nature, has disappeared, 
 and in its stead there rushes by the bright everlasting 
 flood of life and power, from its Infinite Source. The 
 Eternal Will is the creator of the world, as He is the 
 Creator of the finite reason. "f In Schelling's system 
 these last mentioned ideas of Fichte had their logical 
 development. The Ego in Fichte's system is the human 
 
 * Institutes, prop. ix. 
 
 t Mr Lewes. Biogr. Hist, of Philos. p. 581.
 
 204 METAPHYSICS. [part. n. 
 
 soul — in Schelling's it is the Absolute, the Infinite, the 
 All which Spinoza called Substance, and which the 
 ancients termed the Logos or the One ; and this Absolute 
 manifests itself in two forms — those of the Ego and the 
 Non-Ego, or as Nature and Mind. 
 
 84. These and similar views have led to the develop- 
 ment in G-ermany of numerous systems of physio-phi- 
 losophy, or natur-philosophie, of singular subtlety and 
 depth. Schelling developed an interesting system of the 
 kind, in which he makes the law of polarity the universal 
 law of Nature, and applies it deductively to an explana- 
 tion of the phenomena of physics, chemistry, and organic 
 life. Goethe, Oken, and others, also developed systems 
 of this kind, in which the fundamental idea is that life 
 and consciousness are due to a common cause, and that 
 is Mind. The physio-philosophy of Oken is one of the 
 most remarkable products of the human intellect in 
 modern times. Its fundamental doctrines have a strik- 
 ing resemblance to those which have been termed Pytha- 
 gorean ; while its details are applied to the phenomena 
 of creation with a freedom and a boldness which render 
 it greatly attractive. Its leading fault is that of all these 
 German systems — -namely, a sort of scientific mysticism, 
 utterly opposed to the spirit and methods of the inductive 
 philosophy. Oersted, in Copenhagen, gave a more prac- 
 tical turn to the speculations of the German physio-phi- 
 losophers, and rendered them subservient to the experi- 
 mental discovery of great general laws. The influence 
 exercised by these speculative systems upon scientific 
 progress varied much ; some were almost wholly ethical 
 in their tendencies, others metaphysical, and hardly had 
 any influence whatever. It may be stated generally, 
 however, that whenever the a priori deductions of these 
 systems were such that they could be verified by obser-
 
 mv. in.] ONTOLOGY. 205 
 
 vation or experimental research, they advanced science, 
 as all true d priori deductions necessarily do. 
 
 85. In Ontological speculations of this kind, the phe- 
 nomena of Consciousness are distinguished from the 
 phenomena of Mind or Eeason. Consciousness is not 
 Being — only a state of being. Mind, as the cause of 
 Being, is manifested in consciousness (which is indeed its 
 highest manifestation) ; but it is variously manifested in 
 the phenomena of life (14), before consciousness is a phe- 
 nomenon of animal existence. Consciousness is a conse- 
 quence of life, and is only a manifestation of mind as 
 that is manifested in vital phenomena. And it followed 
 from this, that the phenomena of consciousness only re- 
 presented mind as manifested in organic life — not as 
 manifested in creation at large, and consequently not as 
 absolute Being. 
 
 86. It is not necessary for our purpose to follow these 
 speculations further. We have arrived at what may be 
 assumed to be a solid basis for inquiry. 1. Human 
 Existence may be said to be dependent on the union or 
 synthesis of body and soul, or mind and matter into one 
 — a unity with correlative causes and laws, constituting 
 "the concrete Ego" or individual. 2. Our conscious states 
 are the sources of all our knowledge : that is, when vital 
 processes are coincident with certain mental states, we 
 know, or have knowledge. Unless there be this coinci- 
 dence, we have no knowledge of our Existence, or of self 
 and not-self — that is, are unconscious, and can have no 
 knowledge of things. Hence it is that metaphysicians 
 have found it necessary to make our cognitions or know- 
 ledges the starting-point of inquiry into the laws of 
 Existence. These states of consciousness may be classed 
 very variously, but ultimately they are capable of ar- 
 rangement as generalisations of the experience of man-
 
 206 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 kind. How that experience is reached, and what its 
 validity, are questions which have been long discussed. 
 As a result of these discussions, it is practically con- 
 cluded that it can only be reached under certain con- 
 ditions, which have been termed the necessary conditions, 
 or laws of thought. These laws of thought, in and by 
 virtue of the operations of the mind in them — that is, 
 during experience — are recognised at last as truths, and 
 are in this way the results of experience. Nevertheless, 
 the cognition of these laws as intuitions, axioms, and 
 the like, is one thing — their operation is another thing. 
 The one is only a mode of Egoistic or conscious mental 
 activity, the other is a mode of absolute mental activity. 
 Hence those only are true generalisations of experience 
 — that is to say, true general cognitions reached by the 
 laws of thought — which are universally applicable. Each 
 " concrete Ego" has its own special modes of thought, 
 adapted to its own infinitely varying relations. These 
 are true as to its own special states of consciousness, but 
 not necessarily true as to the special states of other 
 individuals ; they are singular, special, contingent cog- 
 nitions ; but in all there are equally present common 
 modes and laws of thought which are universal, absolute, 
 fixed, necessary, &c. 
 
 Sect. II. — The Relative and the Correlative in Existence. 
 
 87. Metaphysic has thus placed us in the same posi- 
 tion as experience. We have what we call mind and 
 what we call matter, in such relation to each other that 
 both Animal Existence and a knowledge of its laws are 
 wholly dependent upon their relations to each other. 
 For without Mind, as a cause operating on matter, there 
 could be no animal existence ; without Existence, no
 
 Div. in.] ONTOLOGY. 20J 
 
 vital phenomena ; without phenomena, no consciousness 
 and no knowledge of Mind or Existence, or their laws. 
 It is clear, therefore, that upon an inquiry into these re- 
 lations, rests the whole superstructure of a mental science. 
 
 88. But it is to be noted that neither metaphysic nor 
 experience tells us anything of these relations of con- 
 sciousness to organisation ; yet it is the proper business 
 of metaphysic to explain the nature and laws of experi- 
 ence, by explaining these relations. All states of con- 
 sciousness being coincident with vital changes, it is obvi- 
 ous that all our cognitions must be equally coincident 
 with vital changes. And as the class of speculative 
 ontologists maintain that the phenomena of life are due 
 to mind, or pure reason, as a cause, it is doubly incumbent 
 upon them to correlate the laws of the pure reason, as 
 manifested in cosmic and vital changes, with its laws 
 as manifested in states of consciousness termed cogni- 
 tions, and the like. As to the psychologists, no such 
 course is possible ; for they have wholly divorced ah initio 
 the phenomena of Life and Thought. This has resulted, 
 in truth, because experience fails us in the most funda- 
 mental generalisation of experience — the act of simple 
 self-consciousness. For this is such (p. 53) that we have 
 a conviction contrary to true experience — namely, that 
 mind is operating in us as a something out of rela- 
 tion to matter. It is doubtless an intuition of the abso- 
 lute — that is, of mind in the abstract, as a cause — and, as 
 such, is true ; but as such, it is an intuition not evolved 
 into knowledge, except as the result of the most extensive 
 experience and of the highest generalisation. As it is 
 the first and most fundamental intuition of thought, so 
 it is the last-evolved and most general truth of reason. 
 
 89. Now, the method by which man arrives at a know- 
 ledge of all truth whatever, is one and the same. It consists
 
 208 METAPHYSICS. [part ii. 
 
 simply in an investigation of things in relation to each 
 other. On no point is philosophy more unanimous than 
 on this. The logic of the relative and correlative in cog- 
 nitions is well summarised in a note on the " Doctrine of 
 Eelation," by Sir William Hamilton.* Every relation 
 supposes at least two things : a relative not referred — 
 not related — is an overt contradiction. The absolute, 
 the one — the not-relative, not-plural — is diametrically 
 opposed to the relative. " A relation is a unifying act — 
 a synthesis ; it therefore constitutes a unity — the one. 
 But in cognition it is likewise an antithesis, even when 
 the terms are identical ; for in the formula A = A there 
 is the discrimination and opposition of the two terms. 
 Eelation is essentially duality as to numbers of parts or 
 elements, not plurality. The opposite to a relative is the 
 correlative. The relative is what is referred ; the cor- 
 relative, what it is referred to. They can always be 
 reciprocated, or converted. Thus, if we think of the 
 father as relative, and the son as correlative, we can 
 change the terms and think of the son as relative. In 
 this change of mode of cognition we arrive at formularised 
 relations, which are relative and correlative. The relation 
 of the father to the son is Paternity ; of- the son to the 
 father, Filiation. But there can be no filiation without 
 paternity, and vice versa. So also as to the relations of 
 cause and effect. Finally," Sir William adds, " the 
 relatives (the things relative and correlative), as relative, 
 always co-exist in nature (a^a rrj (pvaei), and co-exist in 
 thought (afj.a rfj yvwo-ei). . . . Eelative and correlative 
 are each thought through the other ; so that in enouncing 
 Eelativity as a condition of the thinkable — in other words, 
 that thought is only of the Eelative — this is tantamount 
 
 * Note e, Appendix, Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 535.
 
 DIV. in.] ONTOLOGY. 209 
 
 to saying tliat we think one thing only as we think 
 two things mutually and at once ; which again is equi- 
 valent to a declaration that the ahsolute (the non-rela- 
 tive) is for us incogitable, and even incognisahle. In 
 these conditions of Eelativity, all philosophers are at 
 one ; so far there is among them no difference or dis- 
 pute."* 
 
 90. " The relative," Professor Ferrier remarks, in ac- 
 cordance with these doctrines, " is whatever can be known 
 or conceived only when a correlative is known or con- 
 ceived along with it. But that which can be known or 
 conceived only when a correlative is known or conceived 
 along with it, cannot be known or conceived by itself. 
 Therefore, there is no mere relative in cognition ; in 
 other words, the relative per se, or by itself, is, of neces- 
 sity, unknowable and unknown."! Again, " Whatever 
 can be known (or conceived) met of relation — that is to 
 say, without any correlative being necessarily known (or 
 conceived) along with it — is the known absolute. But 
 some such thing must be known, otherwise all know- 
 ledge would be impossible," &c.J In like manner the 
 law holds good as to existence — for Knowing and Being- 
 are coincident. Hence Professor Ferrier argues, " All 
 absolute existences are contingent, except one ; in other 
 
 * For illustrations of one or two of the various modes in which 
 the law of Relation is applied to mental science, the reader is 
 referred to Dr Whewell's History of Scientific Ideas (3d edit. 1858, 
 vol. i. chap, i.), where it is developed as the fundamental anti- 
 thesis of philosophy ; and more particularly to Mr H. Spencer's 
 Principles of Psychology, of which it is the basis. It is especially 
 worked out in his theory of reasoning. Nothing is more certain 
 in mental science than that this law of Eelation, or Eelativity, is 
 the law of all thought. We shall shortly see that it is equally 
 the law of all phenomena. 
 
 t Institutes, p. 355. + Ibid. p. 362. 
 

 
 2IO METAPHYSICS. PART [I. 
 
 words, there is one, but only one, Absolute Existence, 
 which is strictly necessary ; and that Existence is a su- 
 preme, and infinite, and everlasting Mind, in synthesis 
 with all things."* Again, " In the judgment of reason 
 there never can have been a time when the universe was 
 without G-od. That is unintelligible to reason ; because 
 time is not time, but is nonsense, without a mind ; space 
 is not space, but is nonsense, without a mind ; all objects 
 are not objects, but are nonsense, without a mind ; in 
 short, the whole universe is neither anything nor nothing, 
 but is the sheer contradictory, without a mind.")" 
 
 91. Not otherwise is it in cognition. The first acts 
 of self-consciousness are, to divide the unity of con- 
 sciousness, or existence, into the me and not-me, and 
 then to divide the unity of the me, or concrete Ego, into 
 mind and body. And so also in our cognitions of 
 things in general. " Take any attribute whatever," Mr 
 J. S. Mill remarks, " and if some things have it, and 
 others have it not, we may ground on the attribute a 
 division of all things into two classes ; and we actually 
 do so the moment we create a name which connotes 
 an attribute."^ Duality, as Eelativity, is the condi- 
 tion of the Thinkable ; or, as Sir "William Hamilton 
 adds, we think one tbing only as we think two things 
 mutually at once (89). Hence, reduced to physiological 
 terms, the " universal " is the consciousness of existing 
 continuously as one, derived from the continuous opera- 
 tions of the vital forces which constitute the living body 
 into one; the "particular" is the consciousness of the 
 present relations as one, to the changes induced by the 
 operation of those vital forces acting to unity, which are 
 set up either by causes applied and operating from with- 
 
 * Institutes, prop. xi. p. 510. f Ibid. p. 511. 
 
 + System of Logic, 4th edit. vol. i. p. 136.
 
 div. in. ONTOLOGY. 211 
 
 out, or in consequence of the operation of one portion of 
 the body upon another portion within. Or, in metaphy- 
 sical language, the universal is the Ego, or personal 
 identity ; the particular, the ever-changing, vital, or ma- 
 terial forces. Consequently, if these propositions be 
 admitted, it follows deductively, that in all our modes of 
 consciousness, and in all forms of Being, there is both 
 a relative and correlative, and an absolute and relative. 
 Consequently, an absolute in synthesis with all things 
 — i.e. Existences — must be an element in all Existences ; 
 and since consciousness and existence (Knowing and 
 Being) are coincident, there must be necessarily a like 
 absolute in all cognitions. Now, what is this common 
 absolute of Thought and Existence ? According to the 
 proposition, it is the Supreme, All-pervading Mind. 
 
 92. The metaphysical discussions that have arisen out 
 of this fundamental mode of cognition are endless. The 
 absolute was found to be also the necessary and the 
 invariable as well as the " universal ;" and therefore to 
 correlate the "particular," "singular," variable, and 
 changeable, which, in such correlation, constitute the 
 infinitely-varying unities of thought. The nature of 
 " universals," and " singulars," or " particulars," was dis- 
 cussed from a very early period of philosophy, probably 
 long anterior to the time of Plato. Plato, however, gave 
 the fullest development to the doctrine of the identity 
 as to cause of Knowing and Being. His doctrine, " as 
 may be inferred from a liberal interpretation of the Pla- 
 tonic Philosophy " (to use Professor Terrier's words), 
 " was, that the known and the existent are coincident. 
 The particular and the universal in existence were de- 
 clared to be, in all respects, identical with the particular 
 and universal in cognition. And, doubtless, tbis coinci- 
 dence is the highest truth which Philosophy seeks to
 
 212 METAPHYSICS. [part II, 
 
 establish — is the sublimest lesson she can teach. To 
 this end all her labours are directed, all her instruc- 
 tions minister. To prove it, is to reach the Truth."* 
 But the truth must be proved — not assumed or surmised. 
 Plato surmised it only. " Nevertheless, if Plato was con- 
 fused and unsystematic in execution, he was large in 
 design, and magnificent in surmises. His pliant genius 
 sits close to universal reality, like the sea which fits in to 
 all the sinuosities of the land. Not a shore of thought was 
 left untouched by his murmuring lip. Over deep and over 
 shallow he rolls on, broad, urbane, and unconcerned. 
 To this day, all philosophic truth is Plato rightly divined ; 
 all philosophic error is Plato misunderstood. Out of this 
 question respecting the particular and the universal, as 
 moved by him, came the whole philosophy of the Alexan- 
 drian absolutists, the whole contentions of the Mediaeval 
 schoolmen. Around it all modern speculation gravi- 
 tates. Even Psychology has laid her small finger on 
 this gigantic theme, and vainly imagines that she has 
 settled it for ever. But the wheel of controversy still 
 moves round in darkness, and no explanation hitherto 
 offered has sufficed to arrest the flying truth or to dispel 
 the gloom. Bealism, conceptualism, and nominalism 
 have all been tried in vain; they are all equally at 
 fault .f 
 
 93. Now it cannot be doubted, that in all speculative 
 systems of philosophy the same fundamental truth is 
 present, because it is not possible, in the nature of things, 
 to be otherwise. But the truth may be developed and 
 applied in the most varied modes ; and throughout all 
 systems whatever runs the great fundamental truth, that 
 Mind is the final cause of order in creation. It is vari- 
 
 * Institutes of Metaphysic, p. 1 63. 
 + Op. cit. p. 105.
 
 Div. in.] ONTOLOGY. 2ig 
 
 ously termed Logos, Nous, Beason, G-od, the Divine Idea, 
 Arc. ; and its derivative powers as causes have had still 
 more numerous names, according as they were examined 
 by mysticism, philosophy, or science. It may be the 
 Fate of the Atheist, the God of the Theist, the Fetish 
 of the savage — still the same great truth can be traced 
 through all. 
 
 94. The immense variety of opinions expressed by 
 mankind in generalis due solely to that widely different 
 experience of things which is a necessary result of the 
 constitution of human nature ; but the extreme differ- 
 ences of opinion amongst philosophers are due to vices 
 of method. I have already examined this question, 
 yet it will be of service to illustrate once more what 
 appears to me to be the right method, by the example of 
 a signal failure from the use of a wrong method. Plato's 
 speculative philosophy is not unworthy of the admiration 
 so generally accorded. He grasped very clearly some of 
 the great truths of mental science, reaching them by 
 the mere force of thought. And this is not only possible 
 with such truths, for they are but the evolutions into 
 knowledge of fundamental intuitions — nay, that method, 
 rightly conducted, is the shortest way to attain to a know- 
 ledge of such truths. They are true noumena. But 
 when the same method is adopted to attain to a know- 
 ledge of phenomena — i. e., of events and successions de- 
 pendent upon mind and its derivative ideas as causes — it 
 sinks into a spurious teleology, of which the only result 
 is a series of sterile hypotheses as to final causes (p. 111). 
 Now, such was the method which Plato adopted in exa- 
 mining into the phenomena of creation, and in which 
 he has been imitated by generation after generation of 
 philosophical inquirers down to the present. He sought 
 in thought, and thought alone, that which should have
 
 214 METAPHYSICS. [part II. 
 
 been verified by, if not deduced from, observation. 
 Hence bis doctrine, given at length in the Timceus, of 
 the relations of body and mind, and of biology in gene- 
 ral, is purely hypothetical. It is in truth nothing better 
 than a teleological superstition, which would discredit 
 any modern European of ordinary intelligence. He re- 
 presents the Deity as the artificer of divine natures; 
 but first making the gods, he committed to them (" the 
 junior gods) the charge of producing those that are 
 mortal. The latter, in imitation of their father, receiv- 
 ing the immortal principle of the soul, next fashioned 
 (formed as it were on a lathe) the mortal body, making 
 it entirely to be a vehicle thereto," &c* The method 
 these "junior gods" followed is duly set forth: " First, 
 then, the gods, in imitation of the spherical shape of the 
 universe, bound the two divine circles of the soul in a 
 spherical body — that, namely, which we now call ' the 
 head,' which is man's most divine member, and the ruler 
 of our whole composition. "f Their immortal soul thus 
 seated in the head — the nous, or reason — had three 
 faculties : noesis, or intelligence ; episteme, or know- 
 ledge ; and doxa alethes, or intuitive truth. Subordi- 
 nate to it, the "junior gods" formed a separate mortal 
 kind of soul, possessed of certain dire and necessary 
 passions, — " pleasure, pain — the desertion of what is 
 good," fear, hope, and "all-daring love;" but "fearing 
 to defile the Divine nature more than was absolutely 
 necessary, they lodged man's mental portion separately 
 from the Divine, in a different receptacle of the body; 
 
 * Timceus, chap. xliv. 
 
 t I quote from Mr Davis's Translation, published by Bohn. It 
 is evident, however, that justice is not done to the language 
 of Plato by the use of such a bald word as " composition," when 
 the idea to be expressed is clearly that of organisation.
 
 div. in.] ONTOLOGY. 215 
 
 forming the head and heart, and placing the neck be- 
 tween, as an isthmus and limit to separate the two 
 extremes." The mortal soul had two elements — the 
 one male, iliumihon (hence the anatomical term thymus, 
 still in use) ; the other female, epithumikon. The male 
 portion, which was conceived to partake of fortitude and 
 spirit, and to love contention, was placed above the dia- 
 phragm ; the female, which was conceived to be appe- 
 titive, was placed below. The heart was the source 
 whence was transmitted along the veins the threaten- 
 ings and exhortations of Eeason (i.e. of the nous, seated in 
 the head), in cases of outbursts of anger, caused by the 
 thymic soul. The lungs were formed by the " junior 
 gods," with the object of moderating the excessive heat of 
 the heart, and to be "like a soft cushion " round it, " in 
 order that, when anger rises in it to an extreme height, it 
 might fall on some yielding substance, and so, getting cool, 
 yield cheerfully and with less trouble to the authority of 
 Eeason." Such is an example of the biology and mental 
 physiology of Plato. It must be conceded by his warmest 
 admirers, that, however fully he reached to a knowledge 
 of the " universal and absolute " Eeason by the force of 
 reason, his method wholly failed him in his search after 
 a knowledge of the variable and contingent phenomena 
 of Existence. It is but one of many similar instances 
 which tend to establish the true principles of Method. 
 A knowledge of the fundamental truths of reason — the 
 noumena — and their relations to wide generalisations 
 of phenomena (for these latter are the exponents of 
 the former), may be evolved by laborious thought on the 
 fundamental intuitions ; but an intimate knowledge of 
 the co-existences and successions of phenomena can only 
 be reached by observation, comparison, generalisation — 
 i.e., the slow and laborious method of induction. This
 
 2l6 METAPHYSICS. [part ir. 
 
 is the natural order and method : — Intuitions first ; then 
 the teachings of Experience. But all our cognitions have 
 the quality of unity ; and hence the two sources of know- 
 ledge must combine into one mental act. "All know- 
 ledge," Kant remarks, " begins with intuition, proceeds 
 from thence to conceptions, and ends with ideas. Al- 
 though speculative reason possesses, in relation to all these 
 elements, a priori sources of cognition, which seem to 
 transcend the limits of all experience, a thorough-going 
 criticism demonstrates that it can never, by the aid of 
 these elements, pass the bounds of possible experience, 
 and that the proper destination of this highest faculty of 
 knowledge is to employ all methods, and all the princi- 
 ples of these methods, for the purpose of penetrating 
 into the innermost secrets of Nature by the aid of the 
 principles of unity (among all hinds of which teleological 
 unity is the highest) ; while it ought not to attempt to 
 soar above the sphere of experience, beyond which there 
 lies nought for us but the void Inane."* 
 
 We will now proceed to examine, by the aid of this 
 principle of teleological unity, "the innermost secrets of 
 Nature," lying hid in the relations of Mind to the pheno- 
 mena of Life and Thought, and develop the laws of 
 Mind as the cause of all phenomena. 
 
 * Kritik der Rein : Vernunft. App. to Transcendental Dialec- 
 tics, final paragraph.
 
 PART III. 
 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. 
 
 The method we have laid down requires ns now to 
 develop the general principles of Teleology, or the 
 general laws of Mind, considered as a force in creation 
 operating to ends ; and to develop them in such a way 
 that the phenomena which the three great divisions of 
 the sciences investigate — namely, the physical, the vital, 
 and the mental — may be brought into teleological unity. 
 Without this result we shall fail to attain our great ob- 
 ject, which is to determine, scientifically, the relations of 
 the vital forces to mind. Such laws will constitute the 
 principles of what we have termed Mental Dynamics. 
 
 95. Our method is founded upon the fundamental 
 datum, that there is an order of succession of the pheno- 
 mena of creation in space and time, which man seeks to 
 know and attain. The idea of succession in a given order 
 necessarily implies the fundamental idea of causation. 
 Experience assures us that Mind, and the so-called 
 forces of matter, are equally causes of successions, co- 
 existences, and the like ; but we have already reached 
 the fundamental truth, that Mind predominates over both 
 the physical and vital forces, inasmuch as in relation to 
 their phenomena it is the universal and necessary causal 
 element. To comprehend clearly the relations of Mind and
 
 2l8 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY. [part ill. 
 
 Matter to the other forces and their phenomena, we must 
 examine and correlate the generalisations of experience 
 and science, as included under the three great depart- 
 ments which deal with Forces, Life, and Mind respec- 
 tively, so as to determine the order of events, or the modes 
 in which Mind is the cause of phenomena. This will 
 require a subdivision of Mental Dynamics into three divi- 
 sions. In the first we shall he able to correlate the causes 
 of phenomena, and may therefore term it Etiology ; in 
 the second we shall develop causes in their relation with 
 vital phenomena, so as to determine the general laws of 
 Life, or the first principles of Biology ; in the third we 
 shall bring the general laws of Life into correlation with 
 the general laws of Consciousness, and so establish the 
 first principles of a Scientific Psychology.
 
 DIVISION I. 
 
 THE CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES, OR FIRST 
 PRINCIPLES OF ETIOLOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GENERAL DOCTRINE OF THE CORRELATION OF CAUSES. 
 
 96. We have seen that the experience of mankind is 
 founded upon generalisations of the uniformities of Nature 
 (p. 92), which generalisations are also termed Laws of 
 Nature. The term laiv, as commonly used, denotes the 
 written or spoken words in which is expressed the will of 
 any person or persons having the power to compel others 
 to adapt their conduct to the will so expressed. Conduct 
 
 . so compelled, would be a succession of uniform events ac- 
 cording to law. 
 
 97. In science, whenever a uniformity of successions of 
 events, or of phenomena in Nature, is observed to have 
 taken place, the expression in words or signs of that 
 uniformity is also termed a law. Thus, it is a law of 
 nature that air has weight, that the attraction of gravity 
 is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, 
 that all men die, and the like. Here the mind recog- 
 nises a uniform order of events, and therewith conjoins 
 the expression of that order, or the law. But as the 
 order is logically a necessary order, so the law is logically 
 a necessary law. And in this quality of necessity, or 
 fixed uniformity, or invariableness, the mind recognises 
 a resemblance between the order and the expression of 
 that order ; so that the law, as to the attributes of neces-
 
 2 20 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part hi. 
 
 sity and invariableness, comes to represent to the mind 
 the order, and to stand for it, in regard to those attributes, 
 as the sign thereof. Thus, uniform unvarying order, and 
 the law expressive thereof, are equally the invariable and 
 the necessary. Now, these are the correlative qualities of 
 the " universal" in Knowledge and Existence ; they are 
 therefore the qualities of tbe great forces of Nature, which 
 maintain the unchangeable uniformities determined by 
 observation and experience. Force is a word arising out 
 of man's experience of this necessary order of events. 
 He finds the fixed order to be an inevitable order. This 
 inevitableness implies an irresistible power or force, as 
 the cause of the inevitableness in the order. Those 
 orders of events in Nature which are not inevitable, 
 but variable, and contingent upon some other series of 
 successions, are regulated by derivative, contingent, or 
 secondary laws, and are dependent upon derivative, con- 
 tingent, and varying forces. The highest illustration of 
 this is to be found in the laws of human society. The. 
 supreme powers of the State are present in the judges, 
 corporate authorities, magistrates, and all officers of the 
 laws, as contingent or derivative powers executing funda- 
 mental laws as contingent and derivative laws, and which 
 appear as decisions, bye-laws, and the like. All power 
 and all law is derived from the Crown, as the " concrete 
 Ego" of the State. When, therefore, we speak of the great 
 laws of nature, we imply both a necessary or inevitable 
 succession of events, and the cause of the succession, i.e., 
 a correlative power or force. Thus the terms "law" and 
 "force" become synonymous, and stand for each other. In 
 this way we speak convertibly of the law of gravity and 
 the force of gravity; of the laws of life and the powers 
 of life, or the vital forces ; of the laws of chemical affinity 
 and the force of affinity ; and we say generally of any-
 
 orv. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 221 
 
 thing, that it has the force of law. The term " force" has 
 nevertheless its own meaning, and contains a generalisa- 
 tion different from that of the word " law." In its strictest 
 sense, force expresses that which compels to the course 
 of events expressed in the word "law," without reference 
 to the formula or order. In this way the term becomes a 
 sign synonymous with the order of succession which it 
 compels, just as the term " law " is synonymous with the 
 order which it expresses ; and so "law " and "force" are 
 convertible terms, being equal to the same thing in ex- 
 pression — namely, a fixed order of events. 
 
 98. There are both universal forces and particular 
 forces. The universal are those primary forces of matter 
 which inevitably and unchangeably compel to the uni- 
 formities of succession expressed in the general laws of 
 motion of matter, the chief of which is the law of gravi- 
 tation. The particular forces are those which cause the 
 apparent deviations from the general laws. But since 
 the inevitable and necessary alone can control itself, all 
 the phenomena which appear to be clue to deviations 
 from the primary laws and forces, are necessarily due to 
 forces which are contingent, derivative, or secondary. 
 These apparent deviations from the great laws and forces 
 of nature constitute, in truth, none other than the phe- 
 nomena of Nature, and, as such, are the sole objects of 
 science. Science may therefore be defined to be a know- 
 ledge of these deviations from the great laws of nature 
 formularised in contingent or derivative laws. Here 
 ao-ain we meet with the union of the universal and the 
 particular in the widest generalisation of the phenomena 
 of creation, and can comprehend how it is that the sciences 
 — that is, the orderly expression. of cognitions or " know- 
 ledges " — all tend to centre upon a few generalisations, 
 and these again to unity. An illustration of this point
 
 222 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part hi. 
 
 will be useful. Man maintains himself in an erect posi- 
 tion in opposition to the force of gravity, and contrary to 
 the law of gravity. This he effects either by a volition 
 or unconsciously. In either case, Mind is the universal 
 element in the act, the vital forces the particular element. 
 Now, if the whole series of events couldbe traced, so that 
 the source of the power by which he resists the inevitable 
 force of gravity could be laid bare, it is probable, from 
 recent researches into the correlation of the physical and 
 vital forces, that that source would be found to be in one 
 of the great primary forces of matter ; in other words, 
 that the force exercised in muscles is correlative with 
 the mechanico-chemical forces, or heat, light, electricity, 
 chemical affinity, and the other primary molecular forces 
 of matter ; as these, again, are correlative with the pri- 
 mary force of matter — namely, of motion through space. 
 Such, also, is the probable conclusion as to all manifesta- 
 tions of the vital forces. 
 
 99. Much ingenuity has been exercised in attempts to 
 determine the cause of Life. Dr Whewell has well in- 
 dicated how great a service would be rendered to physio- 
 logy D y the philosopher who should establish a precise, 
 tenable, and consistent conception of life.* Inasmuch 
 as the phenomena of consciousness are comprised under 
 the same laws as the phenomena of life, and are due to 
 the same causes, such a conception would be of equal 
 service to metaphysics. But, as Mr Mill justly observes, 
 such a conception can only be obtained from the pheno- 
 mena of life itself; and inasmuch as the term itself 
 indicates that the conception has been so obtained by 
 mankind, it only remains to discover what is usually 
 included under the term. 
 
 * Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 173.
 
 div. I.J CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 223 
 
 100. Stahl and others have defined life teleologically — 
 i.e., according to its ends. Stahl said it was the pre- 
 servation of the corruptible mixture of which our body 
 is formed.* Cuvier and his followers define it as the 
 faculty of resisting for a limited period the operation of 
 the general laws of Nature, as manifested in inorganic 
 matter, and of acting contrary to those laws ; the terms 
 "life" and "vital force" being used to designate these 
 apparently exceptional instances of deviation from the 
 fixed laws of Nature.f Here Cuvier recognised the 
 defect in any definition of Life which set its laws in 
 antagonism to the general laws of creation, inasmuch as 
 unity of law and cause is a necessary element in any 
 scientific definition of the order of any phenomena what- 
 ever. In another work he laid down incessant change 
 as the main characteristic of life. Life, he said, is the 
 property with which certain combinations of matter are 
 endowed, of continuing- for a certain time in a certain 
 form, yet of incessantly assimilating to their constituent 
 elements a portion of the surrounding substances, and of 
 returning a portion of their substance back.J Bichat's 
 definition is well known : Life is the sum of the func- 
 tions which resist death. § This was also substantially 
 the definition of Lamarck : Life, he says, is that order 
 and condition of things, in the portions of every body 
 endowed with it, which render possible, or allow of, the 
 performance of organic motion, and which, so long as 
 they continue, effectually resist death. || 
 
 * Theoria Medica Vera — De Vitd et Sanitate (Leipsic edition. 
 1831), vol. i. pp. 228, sqq. 
 
 t Anatomic Comp. (1800), torn. i. pp. 1-2. 
 
 } Regne Animate, 2d edit. torn. i. p. 11. 
 
 I Sur la Vie et la Mart (1800), p. 1. 
 
 || Recherches sur V Organisation des Corps Vivants (Paris, 1802), 
 p. 71.
 
 224 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [paet in. 
 
 100. M. Isidore G-eoffroy St Hilaire has recently swp- 
 plied an excellent summary of trie various definitions of 
 Life given by physiologists, in his philosophical work 
 now in course of publication, to which I would refer the 
 reader.* The fundamental principle in all is teleological 
 — i.e., recognises the end of the phenomena usually in- 
 cluded under the term Life. Practically, it is a word 
 which connotes the positive in antithesis to the nega- 
 tive ; the existent in antithesis to the non-existent ; 
 living matter, in fact, in antithesis to dead matter. Life 
 and death, living and dead, organic and inorganic, are 
 therefore terms which mutually correlate and explain 
 each other. Now, that is inorganic and dead which is 
 inevitably subject to the primary forces of matter ; such 
 as the attraction of gravitation, light, heat, chemical 
 affinity. On the contrary, that is organic and living 
 which is only evitably subject to these forces. Kocks 
 and stones increase by accretion, in virtue of a quality of 
 matter in subordination to the force of gravity. It is 
 that force which has made many rocks what they are. 
 Others are what they are by the force of heat, acting as 
 a force of repulsion. Plants increase in opposition to 
 the force of gravity when they increase vertically up- 
 wards ; and manifestly by some other force than the 
 force of gravity when they increase horizontally, and 
 downwards vertically, and by a force which can only be 
 compared with that in virtue of which they grow up- 
 wards. It is only when the plant is dead that this force 
 ceases to operate. 
 
 101. So also with the forces of matter generalised as 
 chemical forces. The living matter resists these forces, 
 so that the changes they induce in dead matter are not 
 
 * Ilistoire Naturelle Gfnerale, torn. ii. (1858), pp. 72-102.
 
 div. I.] . CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 225 
 
 manifested so long as life continues. With death a 
 purely chemical process commences, known as putrefac- 
 tion, or decay; during life there is a continuous resist- 
 ance to these processes. Hence Life is a resistance to the 
 physical forces of matter — or in other words, consists in the 
 exercise of special forces. We thus arrive at the concep- 
 tion that the phenomena which we term vital are manifes- 
 tations of, and due to, certain forces, which we therefore 
 term vital. And seeing the antagonism there is between 
 the forces of living matter and of dead matter, we use 
 language corresponding to this experience, and speak of 
 the vital forces as opposed to the physical forces. These, 
 therefore, correlate each other in cognition. Now, in this 
 general cognition we detect a universal and a particular 
 in correlation. For Life, as represented by vital forces, 
 is the variable and contingent ; whereas the great uni- 
 formities of Nature, being necessary, unchangeable, and 
 inevitable uniformities, are due to forces equally neces- 
 sary, unchangeable, and inevitable. Hence, in our cog- 
 nition of Life, the physical forces correspond to the 
 " universal," the vital forces to the " particular." But, 
 then the "particular" are always derivatives of the 
 "universal;" the antagonism, therefore, observable be- 
 tween the physical and vital forces is, as Cuvier saga- 
 ciously suspected, only apparent. The latter are, in 
 fact, only another form of manifestation of the universal. 
 We see that the physical forces themselves are but 
 derivatives of another force, namely, that which orders 
 all things to ends, and which is most particularly mani- 
 fested in the phenomena of life, of which consciousness 
 and thought are the highest evolutions (77). This is 
 what is termed Mind. Mind is therefore the " uni- 
 versal" element in our cognition of both the physical 
 and the vital forces, and consequently of all the known 
 
 p
 
 226 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 forces of creation. In other words, mind is the universal, 
 necessary, unchanging, causal element in all our cogni- 
 tions of ourselves and of the universe ; matter, as repre- 
 sented by the physical and vital forces, being the con- 
 tingent, variable, ever-changing, causal element. Mind 
 is the first cause ; the one absolute thing, from which 
 all other causes and things are derivative. 
 
 102. Our method, thus carried out to its logical conclu- 
 sions, necessarily opens before us the widest possible field 
 of inquiry into which the human mind can enter, inas- 
 much as it is co-extensive with creation. It imposes 
 upon us the task of determining the correlations of Life 
 and Consciousness, through the correlations of Mind with 
 the physical and vital forces, as displayed in the unity of 
 all created things. In furtherance of this task, it will be 
 necessary to proceed step by step throughout the large 
 generalisations which are needed for the completion of 
 it; and commencing first with the correlations of the 
 physical forces with each other, ascend thence to the 
 correlations of the physical and vital forces, and finally 
 to the correlations of these with Mind, as the final or 
 ultimate cause to which we can reach.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CORRELATIONS OF THE PHYSICAL FORCES. 
 
 103. Nothing is more conclusive as to the progress of 
 modern science than the simplification of physical causes. 
 Ignorance is the prolific mother of hypotheses as to causes, 
 inasmuch as for every phenomenon it guesses a cause. As 
 knowledge sheds its light amongst these, phantoms disap- 
 pear or integrate, and thus gradually hecome fewer and 
 fewer, until, finally, the ultimate change is reached, and 
 the realities of light and order are manifested. Man's 
 knowledge of the causes at work in nature have passed 
 through these successive phases, so that forces whicli 
 formerly were either only mystically apprehended, as 
 magnetism, or speculatively apprehended, as heat and 
 light, are now classed with each other, and with others 
 the discovery of which constitutes the glory of modern 
 science. No subject has been more constantly before the 
 minds of thinking men in all ages than these agencies, 
 and every variety of hypothesis has been invented to ex- 
 plain them. It is only of late years that experimental 
 philosophy has given sufficient precision to our concep- 
 tions on the subject as to render them admissible into 
 scientific works. Such, however, has been the progress 
 of inquiry of late years, that Baron von Liebig has in- 
 corporated the doctrines of the convertibility of the 
 physical forces into each other, or the correlation of these
 
 2 28 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 forces, into the last edition of his Familiar Letters on 
 Chemistry (ably translated by Dr Blyth of Cork). 
 
 104. Some of the experimental illustrations of the 
 convertibility of forces into motion (and consequently 
 of the indestructibility of force as to quantity), which 
 Liebig quotes, are very interesting and conclusive. " It 
 has been established experimentally, that 13,500 blows 
 of a hammer weighing 10 pounds, falling on a bar of iron 
 from a height of one foot, produce an amount of heat 
 sufficient to raise one pound of water from the freezing 
 point to that of ebullition. This fact may be represented 
 in another way, by saying that 1350 cwts. of water, fall- 
 ing from a height of one foot, will raise the temperature 
 of one pound of water from freezing to the boiling-point ; 
 or, in other words, that this amount of heat corresponds 
 to a 'working-power capable of elevating 13J cwt. to the 
 height of one foot."* It has also been found that the 
 same amount of electricity which, when converted into 
 heat by the resistance of the conductor, raises by one 
 degree the temperature of one pound of water, generates 
 a magnetic force capable of elevating a weight of 13^ 
 cwt. to the height of one foot. Again, it has been proved 
 by careful experiments that the same amount of electri- 
 city will produce, by the decomposition of water, so much 
 hydrogen as will, by its combustion, raise the tempera- 
 t ure of one pound of water one degree. 
 
 105. In vital processes the same law is manifested. 
 Without light and heat, plants do not grow ; without heat, 
 chemical affinity ceases, and animals perish. This cor- 
 relation of the physical and vital forces is, in fact, a neces- 
 sary deduction from the correlations of the physical forces 
 with each other. Hence the force set free during the 
 changes in the blood and tissues upon which the funda- 
 
 * Op. tit. p. 109.
 
 BIT. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 229 
 
 mental phenomena of life depend, is convertible not only 
 into motion, but also into beat, electricity, magnetism, 
 and chemical affinity. 
 
 106. Tins doctrine of the correlation of the forces of 
 organic and inorganic nature has had currency for a long 
 period, although stated very variously. The influence of 
 heat as a universal cause of phenomena seems to have 
 been recognised long anterior to the era of the Greek phi- 
 losophy, and as such to have been the cause of fire-wor- 
 ship at a period in the history of mankind incalculably 
 distant from the present. The ancient Hindu philosophy 
 teaches that " all that exist are united with fire, or 
 Agnis, and all things that shall exist shall be thus also 
 united." (Rig Veda, hymn lxviii. ver. 1.) "On thee, 
 Agnis, depend all the collected firm works which the 
 gods have raised." (Ibid, hymn xxxvi. ver. 5.) " The 
 descendants of Bhriga worshipped thee (Agnis) for the 
 sake of obtaining divine birth." (Ibid, hymn lviii. ver. 
 6.) The doctrine contained in the Rig Veda seems to be, 
 that the Deity, or Soul of the Universe, is a fiery es- 
 sence.* " The sun is the soul (dtrnd) of all that moves and 
 rests," is a sententious aphorism of the Eig Veda.f Fire 
 and Light — those fundamental physical agencies which 
 seem necessary to all vital mechanism — were also con- 
 sidered the Divine elements of nature at an early period 
 in the history of G-reek philosophy. Hippocrates, in ex- 
 pressing not only his own sentiments, but those of Hera- 
 clitus and many of the Stoics, says, " It appears to me 
 that what is called ' heat,' the elemental fire, is immortal 
 and omniscient ; that it sees, and hears, and knows all 
 
 * An Introductory Treatise to Sanscrit Hagiographia, by the Rev. 
 W. Wrightson, A.B. (Dublin, 1859), p. 141. 
 
 t Professor Max Miiller. History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature 
 (1859), p. 20.
 
 230 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 things, both present and to come."* In more recent times, 
 Harvey attributed life to a calidum innatum present in 
 the blood, totally different in its operations from ordinary 
 heat, and analogous to the element of the stars — one ex- 
 ample of many similar theories. 
 
 107. The advance of modern natural philosophy has 
 constantly given a more definite character to these specu- 
 lations, which received, however, their greatest impulse 
 subsequently to the researches of Black into the nature 
 of heat, and the application of heat to motor purposes by 
 Watt. The inquiry was principally, in the first instance, 
 as to the correlation of heat with what are termed the 
 "living" forces (vis viva) — namely, elasticity, gravity, and 
 the like, and of which the correlative is motion. As the 
 laws of light, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, 
 were more clearly determined, and their correlations dis- 
 covered, the correlations of heat with these or some of 
 them were also perceived, until at last the idea must 
 have entered into the minds of most thinkers. Without 
 putting forward any claim whatever to priority, I may 
 be permitted to state, that so long ago as 1833 it oc- 
 curred to me as a doctrine practically of value in the 
 solution of the question of ocean locomotive navigation, 
 then discussed. I indulged a hope for some time (and, 
 in fact, instituted experimental researches), that galvan- 
 ism and chemical affinity might be substituted for heat — 
 not in the way lately attempted, but by decomposing 
 water, and utilising its constituent gases in explosive 
 mixtures. The close analogies between heat and light, 
 too (always so manifest), have been ably developed ex- 
 perimentally by Professor J. D. Forbes, M. Melloni, 
 Professor Powell, and others. 
 
 108. The attempts to correlate the physical forces made 
 
 * De Princ. aid Carnibus, § 1.
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 23 I 
 
 of late years are of three kinds, — the speculative or 
 philosophical, the mathematical, and the experimental ; 
 they all date principally from the close of the last cen- 
 tury, when the material theory of heat was questioned, 
 and the dynamical theory advanced hy various inquirers. 
 To Count Eumford, and not to Sir H. Davy, is the merit 
 mainly due of first showing experimentally the correla- 
 tions of heat and motion. In a paper entitled, " On the 
 Source of the Heat which is excited by Friction," read 
 to the Koyal Society of London on 25th January 1798, 
 Count Eumford gave an account of numerous experiments 
 he had caused to be made in the year preceding, at a 
 cannon-foundry at Munich. Amongst other results of 
 his researches he found, that the heat produced by boring 
 a cannon made 18*77 pounds avoirdupois, or two and a 
 quarter wine gallons, of water to boil in two and a half 
 hours. " It would be difficult to describe," he says, 
 "the surprise and astonishment expressed in the coun- 
 tenances of the bystanders, on seeing so large a quantity 
 of cold water heated, and actually made to boil, without 
 any fire."* Eeasoning on these and other facts, Eum- 
 ford concluded that the material theory of caloric was 
 not satisfactory. " It is hardly necessary," he observed, 
 " to add, that anything which any insulated body, or 
 system of bodies, can continue to furnish without limita- 
 tion, cannot possibly be a material substance ; and it ap- 
 pears to me extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, 
 to form any distinct idea of anything capable of being 
 excited and communicated in the manner the heat was 
 excited and communicated in these experiments, except it 
 be Motion." He estimated the equivalent to the horse's 
 power which caused the friction, by comparing it with 
 that produced by the combustion of wax, with the view 
 
 * Phil. Trans, vol. lxxxviii. p. 92.
 
 232 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 of showing " how large a quantity of heat (it was equal 
 to nine candles) might be produced by proper mechanical 
 contrivance, merely by the strength of a horse, without 
 either fire, light, combustion, or chemical decomposition." 
 
 109. In another paper read to the Boyal Society 2d 
 February 1804, Count Eumford gave the result of very 
 numerous experiments on heat, and again maintained 
 the theory that it was motion.. "It seems probable," 
 he says," that motion is an essential quality of matter ; 
 and that rest is nowhere to be found in the universe."* 
 And, in accordance with this grand generalisation, he 
 proceeds to explain the phenomena of heat on the hy- 
 pothesis that the constituent particles of bodies are ever 
 in motion, according to the same laws which regulate 
 the solar system ; and that it is changes in the velocity 
 of these movements which determine the phenomena of 
 heat. In particular, he shows that, according to the un- 
 dulatory theory, light and heat are closely analogous in 
 their laws. " Judging from all the operations of nature," 
 he remarks, with a hint as to the physiological application 
 of his theory, " of the causes of which we are able to 
 form any distinct ideas, we are certainly led to conclude, 
 that the force of dead matter (and perhaps of living matter 
 also), or its power of affecting, that is, of moving other 
 matter, or of resisting its impulse, depends on its motion. "f 
 
 110. Dr Beddoes states, in 1799, that long before he 
 was acquainted with Count Eumford's experiments he 
 " had expunged the matter of heat, or caloric, from his 
 chemical system ;" and that Sir H. Davy, who was then 
 engaged at the Pneumatic Institution, made his experi- 
 ments in ignorance of Eumford's.J Be this as it may, 
 
 * Phil. Trans, vol. xciv. p. 156. f Qp. cit. p. 108. 
 
 \ Thomas Beddoes, M.D. Contributions to Physical and Medical 
 Knowledge. Bristol, 1799.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 2^ 
 
 Sir H. Davy must heave been developing his views nearly 
 at the same time as Count Kumford, since he published 
 them in 1799, as his first work, in the volume of essays 
 just quoted, under the title of " An Essay on Heat, 
 Light, and the Combinations of Light." In this essay 
 he controverted not only the material theory of caloric, 
 but went even further, and denied that light was related 
 to heat. " Since light and heat are usually concomitant," 
 he observes, " philosophers have questioned whether they 
 are not cause and effect ; and M. Lavoisier is one of these 
 philosophers. He says : ' La lumiere, est elle une 
 modification du calorique, ou bien le calorique, est il une 
 modification de la lumiere ?'* I have made an experiment 
 which seems to demonstrate that light is not a modifica- 
 tion of heat."f In fact, Davy believed light to be " mat- 
 ter of a peculiar kind," and "not a vibration of aether." 
 Heat, however, he affirmed to be " probably a vibration 
 of the corpuscles of bodies, tending to separate them. It 
 may with propriety be termed repulsive motion. "J He 
 considered that bodies might have this repulsive motion 
 increased in three ways — namely, "by the transmutation 
 of mechanical into repulsive motion," that is, by friction 
 or percussion ; " by the motion of chemical combinations 
 or decompositions ;" and by " the communicated repul- 
 sive motion of bodies in apparent contact." The disposi- 
 tion in bodies to communicate or receive it is termed 
 temperature. One of his experiments was the production 
 of heat by the friction of two pieces of ice. It is remark- 
 able that he omitted all notice of Count Eumford's con- 
 clusive experiments, although well known to him. Sir 
 H. Davy gave to his views further coherency in 1812, 
 and, still omitting all notice of Count Eumford's experi- 
 
 * Traiti Elcmcntaire, torn. i. p. 6. 
 
 t An Essay on Heat, &c, op. tit. p. 9. % lb. p. 21.
 
 234 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 merits, again advocated the doctrine that heat is motion, 
 in opposition to the theory that heat is caused hy a subtle 
 fluid, the matter of heat or caloric. His researches were 
 at first principally intended to controvert a theory of 
 Lavoisier and the French chemists, that gases were 
 simple substances combined with the matter of caloric. 
 Like Count Eumford, he admitted that it was easy to 
 explain various phenomena by that theory, but others he 
 showed could not be so accounted for, — such as the pro- 
 duction of heat both by friction and percussion. Exa- 
 mining these phenomena, he drew the conclusion that 
 " the immediate cause of the phenomena of heat is 
 motion, and the laws of its communication are precisely 
 the same as the laws of the communication of motion." 
 He further inferred, " that the motion, if it exist, must 
 be a vibratory or undulatory motion" (anticipating the 
 more recent researches as to the analogies of heat and 
 light), " or a motion of particles round their axes, or 
 a motion of particles round each other." This latter, 
 he conceived, was the state of fluids and elastic fluids, 
 the particles of the elastic fluids moving with the greatest 
 quickness; while "in ethereal substances the particles 
 move round their own axes, and separate from each 
 other, penetrating in right lines through space," &c* 
 
 111. The relations of heat to the other mechanico- 
 chemical forces, — namely, chemical affinity, electricity, 
 galvanism or voltaic electricity, magnetism, and electro- 
 magnetism, — have all been developed experimentally 
 during the current century. In 1800, it was discovered 
 by Nicholson and Carlisle that water was decomposed by 
 the voltaic pile. In 1801, when Sir H. Davy was ap- 
 pointed lecturer to the Eoyal Institution (having already 
 verified that important fact), he prosecuted his researches 
 
 * Elements of Chemical Philosophy, vol. i. p. 93, saq. 1812.
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 235 
 
 in this new field of inquiry, and announced at last the 
 foundation of his electro-chemical theory, that chemical 
 and electrical phenomena are identical as to cause — i.e., 
 forces. The theory developed somewhat vaguely hy 
 Davy was completely established in 1833 by the pro- 
 gressive researches of Mr Faraday, who found that one 
 grain of water required for its decomposition as much 
 electricity as would make a powerful flash of lightning. 
 In 1820, Oersted announced his discovery of the relations 
 of electric and magnetic phenomena and forces ; M. 
 Ampere quickly followed with his establishment of the 
 electro-dynamical theory ; and finally, Mr Faraday, in 
 1833, discovered the laws of magneto-electric induction. 
 112. At this time, the conviction that a common cause, 
 or force, operated in all these varied phenomena, had be- 
 come very general ; and definite attempts were made to 
 demonstrate that unity of the physical forces which is 
 implied in the idea. Two chemists, in especial, engaged 
 at nearly the same time in researches to this end — namely, 
 Mr Joule of Manchester, and M. Mayer. The first to pub- 
 lish his researches was Mr Joule, who demonstrated expe- 
 rimentally, in 1841, that the heat produced by a voltaic 
 pair was proportionate to its electro-motive force for equal 
 quantities of zinc oxidised.* In 1842, he showed that 
 the heat produced by the combustion of an equivalent of 
 a body is proportionate to the intensity of its affinity for 
 oxygen. In 1843, he read at Cork, to the British Asso- 
 ciation for the Advancement of Science, a paper " On the 
 Calorific Effects of Magneto-electricity, and on the Me- 
 chanical Value of Heat." This was published at length in 
 the same year.f His conclusion was, that "the quantity 
 
 * Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxix. Oct. 1841 ; Paper dated 
 March 1841. 
 
 | l'hilosophical Magazine, vol. xxiii. pp. 263, sqq.
 
 236 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [fart in. 
 
 of heat capable of increasing the temperature of a pound 
 of water by one degree of Fahr. is equal to, and may be 
 converted into, a mechanical force capable of raising 
 838 lbs. to the perpendicular height of one foot." Mr 
 Joule also adds, that he has " proved experimentally 
 that heat is evolved by the passage of water through 
 narrow tubes."* In 1844, he experimented on the elas- 
 ticity of gases, and proved that the heat in elastic fluids 
 depended on the motion of their atoms jf and in 1845 
 and 1847, and later years, he resumed and continued his 
 experiments on the friction of fluids, and the heat equi- 
 valent to motion thence derived. $ M. Mayer states that 
 he first determined experimentally the equivalent of heat 
 and motor power at Sourabaya in 1840, and published 
 the results of his inquiries in Wohler and Liebig's An- 
 nalen for May 1842, in an article " On the Forces of In- 
 organic Nature." In this paper he defined forces to be 
 things indestructible, transformable, and imponderable : 
 he defined a weight lifted as force. The heat generated 
 by the union of oxygen and hydrogen he attributed to 
 motion ; and he likened a locomotive-engine with its 
 train to a distilling apparatus — the heat under the boiler 
 being changed into motion of the train, and this showing 
 itself as heat again in the heated axles of the wheels. 
 He also showed that the descent of a column of mercury, 
 compressing a gas or elastic fluid, is equivalent to the 
 degree of heat resulting from the compression ; and he 
 concluded that the fall of a weight from the height of 
 about 365 metres (i.e., percussion) corresponded to the 
 heat which would raise the same weight of water 1° Cent. 
 M. Mayer subsequently (in 1845) developed his views 
 
 * Op. cit. pp. 441, 442. 
 
 f Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxvi. p. 369. 
 % Philosophical Transactions (1850).
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 237 
 
 experimentally, and gave them consistency in a theory 
 of the correlation of forces. He demonstrated experi- 
 mentally the conversion of motion into magnetism, and 
 of this into heat. It is evident that both Mr Joule 
 and M. Mayer worked originally in ignorance of each 
 other's labours ; and the merit of discovery, as to the 
 equivalent of heat and motion, seems equally due to 
 both, although priority of publication rests with Mr 
 Joule. 
 
 113. The experiments of Joule and Mayer attracted 
 much attention. In particular, Professor William Thomp- 
 son confirmed, in 1843, those of Mr Joule. Mr Grove, 
 however, set forth the correlations of the physical forces 
 in the most systematic form, in a course of lectures which 
 he delivered at the Eoyal Institution in 1843, and which 
 were published in pamphlet form in 1846.* A third 
 edition (extended to 229 pages, so rapidly had the subject 
 advanced) was published in 1855. M. Seguin reproduced 
 it in France, with additional facts. Since then, the doc- 
 trine has had various expositions. 
 
 114. The dynamical theory of heat, thus first developed 
 experimentally by Count Eumforcl and Sir H. Davy, 
 had its mathematical expositions by Carnot, Eegnault, 
 Chapeyron, Wm. Thompson, Clausius, Eankine, and 
 others. Carnot published his mathematical theory of 
 the motive power of heat in 1824.f His fundamental 
 postulate is, that after a body has experienced a certain 
 number of transformations, if it be brought identically 
 to its primitive state as to density, temperature, and 
 
 * On the Correlations of Physical Forces ; being the Substance of 
 a Course of Lectures delivered in the London Institution in the 
 year 1843. Lond. 1846. 8vo, pp. 52. 
 
 t Reflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu, et sur les Machines 
 Propres a developer cette Puissance, par S. Carnot.
 
 238 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 molecular constitution, it must contain the same quantity 
 of heat as that which it initially possessed; or, in other 
 words, that the quantity of heat lost hy the body under 
 one set of operations is precisely compensated by that 
 which is absorbed under others. This theory clearly con- 
 tained the idea of the unity of the physical forces, and 
 was the starting-point of a series of similar researches, 
 continued up to the present time. Carnot's doctrines 
 were discussed in 1834 by M. Chapeyron,* and by Pro- 
 fessor Wm. Thompson in 1849,f in connection with the 
 researches of Regnault on the same subject, published 
 in 1847.J In 1851, Professor Thompson advanced the 
 question still further, by a paper in which the general 
 theory was discussed in its relations to Mr Joule's ex- 
 perimental researches.§ The researches of Clausius, 
 published on this subject, were contemporary with those 
 of Professor Thompson. || In the same year, Professor 
 William Macquorn Rankine read a paper to the Eoyal 
 Society of Edinburgh,^ in which he developed mathe- 
 matically the laws of the mechanical action of heat, 
 especially in gases and vapours ; he premised an exa- 
 mination of the hypothesis of mechanical vortices, and 
 its applications to the theory of temperature, elasticity, 
 and specific heat. At the close of the same year, Mr 
 Rankine read another series of mathematical researches 
 to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, founded on further 
 
 4 
 
 * Journ. d'Ecole Poly technique, vol. xiv. (1834). 
 
 t Account of Carnot's Theory, &c. ; Trans, of the Eoyal Society of 
 Edinburgh, vol. xvi. p. 541. 
 
 \ Memoires de VInstitut. torn. xxi. 
 
 § On the Dynamical Theory of Heat ; with Numerical Results deduced 
 from Mr Joule's Equivalent of Heat, &c.' ; Trans. Royal Society of 
 Edin. vol. xx. p. 261 . 
 
 || Published in Pogyendorf's Annalen, 1850. 
 
 % Trans, vol. xx. p. 147.
 
 Div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 239 
 
 experimental researches of Mr Joule, just then communi- 
 cated to the Eoyal Society of London. More recently 
 (September 1859), Professor J. C. Maxwell, of Aberdeen, 
 laid before the British Association for the Advancement 
 of Science, some illustrations of a dynamical theory of 
 gases, founded on the hypothesis that they are consti- 
 tuted of particles of matter in rapid motion. Assuming 
 these to be small, hard, and perfectly elastic spheres, 
 acting on one another during impact, he demonstrated 
 the laws of their motion with the view of applying those 
 laws to the dynamics of gaseous matter. This assump- 
 tion is equivalent to the hypothesis that the particles are 
 centres of forces of which the action is insensible, except 
 at a certain small distance, when it suddenly appears as a 
 repulsive force of very great intensity. If the aggregate 
 molecules which move together be supposed to have a 
 bounding surface which is not spherical, then (Professor 
 Maxwell thinks) the rotatory motion of the system will 
 store up a certain proportion of the whole vis viva, as has 
 been shown by Clausius ; and in this way it is possible 
 to account for the value of the specific heat being greater 
 than on the more simple hypothesis.* It would be easy 
 to add to the list of researches in this direction ; but these 
 few references will suffice to show how deeply modern 
 research is imbued with the doctrine of the correlation 
 of the physical forces, and how largely mathematical 
 methods have been applied to the development of it. 
 
 115. The philosophical inquiries into the correlation of 
 the physical forces vary much in their character ; but al- 
 though partly mathematical and partly experimental, they 
 are essentially speculative. Newton had already perceived, 
 and hypothetically indicated, the unity of these forces, 
 when Boscovitch gave a systematic formula to the idea, 
 * Lond. Edin. and Dublin. Phil. Mag. (Jan. 1860), p. 20.
 
 240 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 which has maintained its ground into modern times.* 
 Concurrently with the recent advance of experimental 
 philosophy, numerous attempts of a similar kind have been 
 made to correlate the molecular forces of matter, and 
 formularise the results of experimental research into a 
 coherent system of physico-mechanical forces. Amongst 
 the earliest and most complete attempts may he men- 
 tioned those of M. Poisson, a philosopher of France, who 
 died too soon for his fame and for science. He applied 
 mathematics to the elucidation of the dynamics of the 
 physical forces. In 1828 he attempted to develop the 
 laws of equilibrium of movement of elastic bodies in a 
 Memoir read to the Academie des Sciences ;f and again, 
 in 1830, in another on the propagation of motion through 
 elastic media. In 1839, he communicated an interesting 
 paper to the AcademyJ of a like character, in which he 
 further developed his atomic views, and applied them to 
 the determination of the mathematical laws of crj^stallisa- 
 tion, and to the force of crystals. Fundamentally, M. 
 Poisson's doctrines are very similar to those of Mr Exley 
 of Bristol, who was working at the same subject at the 
 same time, although elaborated by a purer mathematical 
 method. Mr Exley published, in 1829, a systematic ex- 
 position of the correlation of the force of gravity with 
 all the molecular forces of matter, of a singularly able 
 and comprehensive ,.character.§ Mr Exley's work has 
 not had that notice bestowed upon it by physicists which 
 
 * Philosophic^ Naturalis Theoria, &c. Venice, 1758. 
 
 t Memoires de V Academie, torn, viii., x. 
 
 J Op. cit. torn, xviii. 
 
 \ Principles of Natural Philosophy ; or, a New Theory of Physics, 
 founded on Gravitation, and applied in explaining the General Properties 
 of Matter, the Phenomena of Chemistry, Electricity, Galvanism, Mag- 
 luiism, and Electro-Magnetism. By Thomas Exley, A.M. 8vo, 
 1829. Longman & Co.
 
 DIV. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 24I 
 
 it merits, Boscovitch's theory having in some degree 
 already occupied the ground, although far inferior in 
 extent and completeness to the Exleyian doctrine ; no- 
 thing more complete has in fact been published since. 
 So far as I know, the only theory which exceeds it, in 
 comprehensiveness rather than in applicability, is the 
 recent production of an American theologian.* In this 
 system of the universe the leading idea is Platonic ; but 
 the forces of matter are reduced to two mutually opposing 
 forces, as in the great majority of systems of this kind. 
 Dr Hickok first lays down a priori principles, com- 
 mencing with matter considered as substantial resistance, 
 and proceeds thence forward to the first laws of motion and 
 their derivative laws, and so on to the principles of Gra- 
 vity, Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, Chemical Action, and 
 Crystallisation. He is not content, however, like Mr 
 Exley and others, with the application of his principles 
 to terrestrial forces and laws, but, on the one hand, brings 
 under the same general laws the formation of worlds and 
 their distribution as stellar masses in space, and on the 
 other the development of vegetative, animal, and human 
 life. The cosmical and physical speculations of Dr 
 Hickok are remarkable for their simplicity and boldness ; 
 the organismic betray an inherent insufficiency and weak- 
 ness. The Eev. Dr Macvicar of Moffat has just published 
 a small work of deep thought, in which he attempts to 
 reduce the phenomena of nature to unity.f Starting 
 from a fundamental law of Being, which he designates 
 the " Law of Assimilation," and which is dynamical in 
 
 * Rational Cosmology, or the Eternal Principles and the Necessary 
 Laws of the Universe, by Laurens P. Hickok, D.D., Union College, 
 New York (1858). 
 
 f The First Lines of Science simplified, and the Structure of Mole- 
 cules attempted. Edinburgh,. 1860. 
 
 Q
 
 242 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part. 111. 
 
 its form or character, he gradually evolves the laws of 
 Inertia, gravitation, elasticity, and symmetry. A theory 
 of "the ultimate atom," or primary atomic sphere, is also 
 deduced from the same law, and from this the principles 
 of a definite system of atomic philosophy developed. 
 The laws of composition of bodies, both organic and inor- 
 ganic ; the development, of matter from the simple to the 
 complex forms ; and the laws of chemical equivalents, of 
 crystallography, and of morphology generally, are evolved 
 from these principles. Numerous woodcuts assist to ex- 
 plain the text, and present to the eye a singular variety 
 of beautiful geometrical forms, both simple and complex, 
 developed out of the dynamics of the theory. This com- 
 prises equally the atomic constitution of vapour and 
 silicon, and the morphology of snow-flakes and sulphur- 
 molecules. The fundamental idea of Dr Macvicar's sys- 
 tem is teleological. 
 
 116. Very recently, renewed attempts, showing great 
 power of thought, have been made in this country, to 
 develop a mathematical theory of physical forces. In 
 particular, Professor Challis of Cambridge, in a paper 
 lately published,* has brought forward a mathematical 
 theory of attractive forces, and a theory of the force of 
 gravity, founded on the Newtonian hypothesis, that the 
 constituent particles or atoms of matter are hard, im- 
 penetrable, inert, and capable of movement ; with the 
 addition, by Professor Challis, that they are spherical, 
 and acted upon by the pressure of a highly elastic medium, 
 pervading all space, but the operation of which only be- 
 comes perceptible when, from any cause, it is made to 
 press unequally on opposite hemispherical surfaces of the 
 atoms. This hypothesis is in accordance with what Mr 
 
 * The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Phil. Magazine, Nov. and 
 Dec. 1859.
 
 Div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 243 
 
 Faraday denominates " the conservation of forces." In 
 the numher of the same journal for February of this year 
 (1860), Professor Challis has also developed a theory of 
 molecular forces, which, he thinks, differs from the 
 others as to the character of its primary datum, inas- 
 much as it admits of no other kind of action than the 
 pressure of a very elastic fluid medium (the aether), and 
 of no law of force which is not a mathematical deduction, 
 by means of hydrodynamical equations, from the assumed 
 dynamical property of the medium — namely, that its 
 pressure is proportionate to its density, 
 
 117. A doctrine of the conservation of force has arisen 
 out of the doctrine of the convertibility of the forces into 
 each other. As the opinion has gained ground that force 
 can be neither created nor destroyed, inquiries have been 
 made as to the distribution of force under certain condi- 
 tions, or how it is conserved. Amongst the philosophers 
 who have discussed this question may be mentioned M. 
 Helmhotz* and Mr Faraday. f These speculations have 
 served to raise doubts as to the accuracy of the current 
 theories of the physical forces, and to suggest new objects 
 and methods of experimental research. Mr Faraday, in 
 particular, has thus been led to question the validity of 
 the notions current as to the force of gravity, and to 
 inquire what becomes of the force when one body recedes 
 from another, seeing that the force of attraction varies 
 inversely as the square of the distance. Such being the 
 fact, it follows, according to the law of the conservation 
 of force, that some other exertion of power, hitherto un- 
 known, must be proportionately growing up, either within 
 or without bodies.J Mr Faraday's ingenious speculations 
 
 * " On the Conservation of Force ;" Taylor's Scient. Memoirs, 1853. 
 t " On the Conservation of Force ;" Phil. Mag. vol. xiii., 1857. 
 X Op. cit. p. 231.
 
 244 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 have been controverted by Dr Briicke, Professor of Phy- 
 siology in the University of Vienna.* 
 
 118. With reference to these various speculations it 
 may be observed generally, that they rather profess to 
 explain the concatenation of known phenomena than to 
 demonstrate new relations. They rather show, as to the 
 unknown, what may or can be known, than exhibit what 
 has been worked out under the guidance of the principles 
 or theories; differing, therefore, in this respect, from 
 those numerous speculators who have been rather anxious 
 to discover new facts — i.e., phenomena in new relations — 
 by the aid of speculative views applied to experimental 
 research. What is to be noted generally is this, that 
 an explanation of the relations of these forces to matter 
 involves an admission of the Atomic Theory, one of the 
 most ancient of physical hypotheses — according to which 
 all bodies consist of exceedingly minute particles, placed 
 at certain distances from each other, so that there is free 
 space around each particle. They are, physically, indi- 
 visible units, or, in other words, are incapable of further 
 division without destruction, and are therefore termed 
 atomic, or atoms. Nevertheless, the atomic particle is 
 conceivably made up of smaller particles ; only it cannot 
 be separated into its ultimate elements without ceasing 
 to be. Now it is on these atoms, or physical units, that 
 the physical forces act, — causing them to move, to adhere 
 to each other, to repel each other, and the like, according 
 to certain laws. The fundamental law of their forces, 
 long since recognised by Laplace and Berthollet, is the 
 fundamental law of mechanics — namely, that an atom or 
 molecule, put in motion by any power whatever, may 
 communicate its own motion to another atom in contact 
 
 * " On Gravitation and the Conservation of Force," Phil. Mag. 
 vol. xv. (Feb. 1858.)
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 245 
 
 with it. " This law," Baron Liebig remarks, " has only 
 recently been recognised as a cause of the alterations in 
 the forms and properties which occur in our chemical 
 combinations ; and its establishment is the greatest and 
 most enduring acquisition which chemical science has 
 derived from the study of fermentation."* The nature 
 of the motions between the atoms are represented vari- 
 ously by various theories ; but two primary ideas repre- 
 sent the two principal classes of theories, which may be 
 termed the linear and the spherical. According to the 
 linear hypothesis, the motion is from atom to atom, as 
 ideally represented in line ; according to the spherical, as 
 ideally, though complexly, represented in spheres. The 
 linear idea was chiefly adopted, in the first instance, to 
 explain the phenomena of electric attractions and repul- 
 sions, but was subsequently applied to the correlative 
 phenomena of chemical affinity, magnetism, and light 
 and heat. The spherical idea does not necessarily rest 
 on the Newtonian theory of solid atoms, although it does 
 not reject it. Thus Boscovitch's theory was founded on 
 the substitution of mathematical centres or spheres <>f 
 force, for solid atoms — these being surrounded by alter- 
 nate spheres of attraction and repulsion. Mr Exley 
 simplified this theory, and started from the fundamental 
 principle that each atom of matter consists of an inde- 
 finitely extensive sphere of attraction, resting on a very 
 small concentric sphere of repulsion — the force being 
 everywhere, from the centre inversely, as the square of the 
 distance ; repulsive near the centre, and then attractive. 
 The solid atom is combined with spheres of force in the 
 late Dr Samuel Brown's hypothesis of chemical forces. 
 According to this hypothesis, a particle or atom is a mole- 
 
 * Familiar Letters on Chemistry, edited by Dr Blyth, p. 231.
 
 246 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part Til. 
 
 cular nucleus, surrounded by five spheres of force alter- 
 nately repulsive and attractive — E, a, E', d, E". The first 
 force, E, is never overpassed in the procedure of nature ; 
 the second, a, is the sphere of chemical affinity; the third, 
 E', is the force which hinders the compression of a solid 
 body beyond a given point ; a is the force of cohesion ; 
 " and that of E" is ' the sphere of gasiformation ; repul- 
 sion, liquiformity, lying in the mesoteric line of the two 
 last."* The theory of physical forces of Dr Hickok 
 offers very similar general features to the others. The 
 attractive and repulsive forces he designates the diremp- 
 tive and antagonistic molecular forces. These work 
 against each other within certain- primary limits. " The 
 pure forces," he observes, " in their contact in the simple 
 limit, may be known as units under the term of molecules, 
 or molecular forces ; the working to the limit constitu- 
 ting an antagonist molecular force, and the working away 
 from the limit constituting a diremptive molecular force. 
 The combination of these forces, in their joint inter- 
 action making a new compound, as a third thing unlike 
 to either alone, may be known also as a unit, consti- 
 tuting a material atom, and which may be further known 
 as a chemical atom or molecule. Our conception of 
 matter must therefore be of this combination of dis- 
 tinguishable forces, though we shall find it convenient 
 for the more clear apprehension of the principles of the 
 universe, to follow out the workings of each distinctly 
 and separately."! 
 
 119. Although I have mentioned one or two of the 
 more consistent atomic theories, it is to be observed that 
 the agreement of these with each other is of no import - 
 
 * Lectures and Essays, by Samuel Brown (1858), vol. i. pp. 
 »'4-69, note. 
 
 t Rational Cosmology, p. 96.
 
 DIV. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 247 
 
 ance for the present purpose, which is simply to demon- 
 strate the unity of the ideas upon which they are 
 founded ; they all agree in the fundamental doctrine 
 that the changes in the sensible phenomena of matter, 
 which they attempt to explain, are due to motions of 
 atoms, or atomic spheres, which are in synthetical rela- 
 tion to each other, and that the motions are due to the 
 transference of force.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CORRELATIONS OF THE PHYSICAL AND VITAL FORCES. 
 
 120. The correlations of the physical and vital forces 
 have not escaped the attention of philosophers. The 
 obviously close dependence of all life, whether animal or 
 vegetable, upon heat and light, led to the earliest theories 
 of cosmogony and generation, and to a widespread form 
 of worship in the East — the worship of fire and of the 
 sun. Such a principle could hardly have escaped the 
 acute intellect of the ancient Greek physiologists. Thus 
 Aristotle remarks that though some were of opinion 
 that fire was the cause of nutrition and growth in ani- 
 mals, it was only a correlative, or con -cause — avvalriov 
 7ra>s — co-operative with the psyche* And elsewhere he 
 remarks : " Neither is digestion of food (pepsis), by which 
 nutrition is effected in animals, done without the psyche, 
 nor without heat, for all things are done by fire."f Hy- 
 potheses were abundantly formed as modern physical 
 science advanced, until the discoveries of Galvani and 
 Volta turned the attention of physiologists almost exclu- 
 sively to the correlations of electricity and galvanism 
 with the vis nervosa or nerve-force. It is sufficient to 
 mention the names of Matteucci, Du Bois Raymond, and 
 Claude Bernard, to indicate how fertile this discovery 
 has been in extending our knowledge of the relations 
 which vital phenomena bear to the physical forces. 
 
 * Be Anima, lib. ii. | De Eesp. cap. vii .
 
 DIV. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 249 
 
 121. Although the idea of a correlation hetween the 
 vital and physical forces in general must have occurred 
 to many, if not most thinkers on the subject, Dr Whe- 
 well seems first to have definitely expressed it in modern 
 times. " Life," he observed, in 1840, " is a system of 
 Vital Forces ; and the conception of such forces involves 
 a fundamental idea. Mechanical, chemical, and vital 
 forces form an ascending progression. Chemical Affinity 
 includes in its nature Mechanical Force, and may often 
 be practically resolved into mechanical force. (Thus, 
 the ingredients of gunpowder, liberated from their chemi- 
 cal union, exert great mechanical force : a galvanic bat- 
 tery, acting by chemical process, does the like.) Vital 
 Forces include in their nature both Chemical Affinities 
 and Mechanical Forces ; for vital powers produce both 
 chemical changes (as digestion) and motions which imply 
 considerable mechanical forces (as the motion of the sap 
 and the blood.)"* In 1846, when Mr Grove published 
 his views on the " Correlation of Physical Forces," he 
 also expressed an opinion that his " principles and modes 
 of reasoning might be applied to the organic as well as 
 the inorganic world ; and that muscular force, animal and 
 vegetable heat, &c, might, and at some time will, be 
 found to have similar definite correlations." The merit, 
 however, of having first distinctly formularised the doc- 
 trine, and indicated experimentally the forces which are 
 convertible into each other, appears to rest with M. 
 Mayer ; to whose labours, in developing the theory of 
 the correlation of the physical forces, I have just re- 
 ferred (112). Those views were first published in 1845. 
 In this essay M. Mayer applied his theory of the phy- 
 sical forces to vital phenomena. He arranged synopti- 
 
 * " Aphorisms concerning Ideas," Philosophy of the Inductive 
 Sciences (1840), vol. i. p. xxxiv.
 
 250 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part HI. 
 
 cally the principal forms of the forces which are con- 
 vertible into each other, as follows: — 1. and 2. Motion 
 (vis viva); 3. Heat; 4. Magnetism, Electricity, Galva- 
 nism ; and 5. Chemical Force. The blood, according to 
 his views, is a fluid which burns slowly when submitted 
 to the action of the walls of the capillaries, the result of 
 the process being animal heat and motion.* In Sep- 
 tember 1849, my venerable friend, Dr Fowler of Salis- 
 bury (who, at the close of the last century, introduced 
 the physiological researches of Galvani to the British 
 cultivators of science), read a paper to the British Asso- 
 ciation for the Advancement of Science, which was an 
 answer to the question, " If Vitality be a Force having 
 Correlations with the Physical Forces?" Next, Dr Car- 
 penter gave a more elaborate exposition of the doctrine, 
 in 1850, in his able paper " On the Mutual Relations of 
 the Vital and Physical Forces," read to the Eoyal So- 
 ciety of London, and published in the Philosophical 
 Transactions. Very recently, and impressed especially 
 with the doctrines which Dr Carpenter stated in his 
 paper, Professor Joseph Le Conte, of South Carolina 
 College, Columbia, has attempted to show more particu- 
 larly the relations of the chemical forces to the forces 
 operative in the vital phenomena — a subject as fertile in 
 suggestions and hypotheses as the correlations of the 
 physical forces. f Various other attempts in this direc- 
 tion might be mentioned in this list of hypothetical 
 researches after the relations which material and vital 
 
 * Compare Comptes Rendus, vol. xxvii. p. 385. 
 
 t The Correlation of Physical, Chemical, and Vital Forces, and the 
 Conservation of Force in Vital Phenomena, by Jos. Le Conte, Pro- 
 fessor of Geology and Chemistry, &c. Silliman's American Journal, 
 Nov. 1859 ; and Lond. Edin. and Dublin Philosophical Magazine, 
 Feb. 1860.
 
 mv. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 25 1 
 
 forces bear to each other, some of a highly mystic cha- 
 racter. I need not, however, enter upon the history of 
 these, as my object is not to write the history of this 
 branch of scientific research, but simply to show that the 
 doctrine of the correlations of the forces of nature is 
 founded upon the solid basis of observation and physical 
 and mathematical research, and is therefore a true scien- 
 tific generalisation. 
 
 122. It is to be noted, however, that although so much 
 has been done to elucidate the unity of operation of the 
 forces of nature, nothing has been achieved teleologi- 
 cally in explaining how they are applied to ends. It 
 is a doctrine as old as the hills, that Mind is the first 
 cause of motion. The proposition of Anaxogaras, Now 
 /xev apxyv KLvrjaeuq, has been re-echoed by all metaphysi- 
 cians of modern times. It is an equally ancient doctrine 
 that motion and change are the cause of all the pheno- 
 mena of creation — i. e., change of relation of things in 
 space and time. In the modern doctrine of the correla- 
 tion of the physical forces, the unifying idea is (118- 
 119) that they are all convertible into motion, and that 
 they are simply manifestations of the different relations 
 to each other in which atoms are placed. But there has 
 been no teleological development of the doctrine, in its 
 application to Life and Thought. Force has been simply 
 personified according to the ancient and vulgar plan. 
 An illustration is given in the following passage from an 
 able paper on this head : — " Starting with the abstract 
 notion of Force as emanating from the Divine "Will, we 
 might say, that this force, operating through inorganic 
 matter, manifests itself in electricity, magnetism, light, 
 heat, chemical affinity, and mechanical motion ; but that, 
 when directed through organised structures, it effects the 
 operation of growth, development, chemico-vital trans-
 
 252 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 formation, and the like ; and is further metamorphosed 
 through the instrumentality of the structures thus gene- 
 rated into nervous agencies and muscular power."* 
 Here the hypotheses are numerous : — 1. Force emanates 
 from the Divine Will ; 2. Operates in matter, and " mani- 
 fests itself" as electricity, &c. ; 3. Is " directed " through 
 organised structures. How the organised structures first 
 arise, and who or what directs the force, is left in doubt ; 
 but since the force manifests itself, it may be inferred 
 that it directs itself through organised structures. 4. But 
 however directed, it also " generates" organised structures 
 through the operations of growth, development, &c, in 
 the organised structures through which it directs itself, 
 or is directed. 5. And, finally, it is " metamorphosed" or 
 changed, by the structures it thus generates, into nervous 
 agency and muscular power. As the latter it is force 
 again, or rather motion. 
 
 123. It is hardly necessary to discuss this discordant 
 series of hypotheses seriously; perhaps they are not very 
 seriously propounded. But, for our purpose, it is worth 
 while inquiring what directs the force in its final evolu- 
 tion as " nervous agency" and "muscular power?" for 
 in living conscious organisms these things act to ends. 
 We find no intelligible answer in the hypotheses. Ac- 
 cording to the subjoined passage, the able author appears 
 to think that there are two sources of adapting cause, the 
 Will of G-od, and the Will of created sentient beings ; 
 and one might conclude from thence, that the " nervous 
 agency and muscular power " are the result of the me- 
 tamorphoses of their adapting Will-force. This idea is, ■ 
 however, negatived by the whole chain of hypotheses, 
 and by the following statement : — " Believing, as the 
 
 * Dr Carpenter, "On the Mutual Relations of the Vital and 
 Physical Forces," Phil. Trans. 1850, p. 752.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 253 
 
 author himself does, that all force which does not 
 emanate from the will of created sentient beings, directly 
 and immediately proceeds from the will of the omnipo- 
 tent and omniscient Creator, which is evidently the idea 
 entertained by Locke ;* and looking, therefore, at what 
 we are accustomed to call the physical forces as so many 
 modi operandi of one and the same agency, the creative 
 and sustaining Will of the Deity, he does not feel the 
 validity of the objections which have been raised by some 
 to whose opinions on philosophical questions he attaches 
 great weight, against the idea of the absolute metamor- 
 phoses or conversion of forces.f 
 
 124. Considered philosophically, the teleology of these 
 hypotheses of the vital and physical forces is not that 
 which modern science should afford us. It is simply 
 in another form, that of Plato's physiology, with its 
 " junior G-ods" (p. 214). The force " emanating " from 
 the Divine Nature as the source of all Power, and Life, 
 and Thought, is represented as diffusing itself into matter 
 through a thousand channels, as manifesting and direct- 
 ing itself, as operating, constructing, effecting, and at 
 last as disappearing in a nerve-and-muscle metem- 
 psychosis, to reappear as adapted motion. On the other 
 hand, created sentient beings, necessarily derivatives, 
 like the junior gods of the Divine Being, are represented 
 as having their own will-force. This force, like that of 
 the Supreme Will, is represented as meandering into 
 nerves, cells, and muscles ; and like it, too, as building 
 up, guiding, controlling, directing to ends. 
 
 125. That such are the conclusions at which all thinkers 
 have arrived in all ages, as to operating of a directing 
 and controlling force throughout creation, is very cer- 
 
 * Human Understanding, book ii. chap. xxi. " On Power," § 4. 
 t Op. cit. p. 730.
 
 254 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [pakt hi. 
 
 tain ; and that from this point of view the idea is a true 
 idea, must be admitted. What modern philosophy needs 
 is a scientific exposition of the order of events and the 
 successions of phenomena, as dependent on Mind, in cor- 
 relation with the great forces of nature. This exposition 
 must start from the fundamental facts wholly ignored in 
 these speculative inquiries. 
 
 126. Here, then, is the central point of inquiry; for 
 since the human organism itself is built up and rendered 
 fit for the acquisition of a knowledge of these physical 
 and vital forces, in their correlations, by the operation of 
 these forces, the question to determine is, what are the 
 correlations of the laws of design, as derivative laws of 
 the Supreme Designer, with those fundamental intuitions, 
 energies, and processes of thought (the result of the 
 operation of vital forces) by which we attain to a know- 
 ledge of these laws ? To determine this, we must first 
 ascertain the general correlations of the physical, vital, 
 and mental forces.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CORRELATIONS OF THE PHYSICAL, VITAL, AND MENTAL FORCES. 
 
 127. In proceeding to answer the question propounded 
 at the close of the last chapter, and to examine the corre- 
 lations of the forces of inorganic and organic matter with 
 the adapting force — namely, mental power — it is clear, 
 from the foregoing considerations, that we must start 
 with the simplest possihie conception of what conscient 
 mind is. Man feels and energises, knows and acts. These 
 are his fundamental mental powers. Now, when he acts 
 consciously, he knows that he acts designedly ; that is, 
 to an end. His action is through his muscles, and is 
 upon matter — is the communication of motion to matter, 
 according to the fundamental law of the action of the 
 physical forces just stated (119). But further, it is the 
 general teleological law of all his motions, and, it may 
 he added, of those of all organisms, to be adapted to ends ; 
 or, in other words, a law of design correlates the laws of 
 operation of the vital forces. This point we have already 
 examined fully, and have demonstrated the law (p. 107). 
 The question arises, however, whether a law of design, 
 with its corresponding force, is universally operative, 
 and therefore correlative, with all the forces of matter 
 whatever. 
 
 128. Let us begin this inquiry with the intuitions and 
 unformularised experience of mankind as expressed in 
 language. And, firstly, we find that the whole doctrine
 
 256 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 of the forces of creation depends upon the intuition of 
 them as causes. They can he thought upon as nothing 
 else. Hence the correlation of these physical forces with 
 mind. The union of the particular with the universal 
 in the concrete Ego is manifest in the daily business of 
 life, and expressed in the general terms of language. 
 Man exercises what he calls power when he communi- 
 cates motion, i.e. applies force to bodies; but that con- 
 scious exercise of power is eminently an act of the will — 
 a mental act. It is the will. When exercised consciously, 
 a resistance to the act of energy is usually experienced ; 
 and inasmuch as that which moves and that which re- 
 sists the effect are found by experience to be identical, 
 they both take the name of vis, or force. Now, the force 
 man exercises over external things is found to be seated 
 in his muscles. Accordingly, power and muscular potuer 
 are almost synonymous. This was an early notion. The 
 original meaning of the Greek word for force, Fis (Latin 
 vis) is the same as the more modern word for muscle or 
 tendon (is), with the digamma instead of the aspirate; 
 and one of its earliest applications as an abstract term 
 was to muscular power. Thus Homer, — 
 
 " Then Ajax a far heavier stone upheaved ; 
 He whirled it, and impressing ~F ts intense 
 Upon the mass, dismist it." 
 
 Homer also speaks of the F?s of a river, and Hesiod of 
 the Fts of the north wind.* And now, in modern times, 
 the vis, or force, which moves the heavenly bodies through 
 space is found to be identical in its character with the 
 vis of the winds, the waves, and the living muscles. 
 129. Nor is this the only illustration of this kind. In 
 
 * Dr Whcwell. History of Scientific Ideas (3d edit. 1858), vol. i. 
 p. 206.
 
 niv. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 257 
 
 applying the force seated in his muscles, man aims at 
 ends to be attained by that application of force ; and the 
 attainment of those ends is the business of his life. 
 Hence the Greeks used the term /3io9 to express the life 
 of man in the sense of active pursuit of objects ; and in 
 this sense it enters into the word biography, which is a 
 history of the active pursuits of an individual during the 
 period of his existence. The word /3tos is a derivative 
 of Fis, B often taking the place of the digamma in Greek. 
 In the Latin term vi-ta, the digamma takes the more cog- 
 nate sound of v. Hence the word /3iov, a bow, as the 
 primordial instrument of applying force to obtaining a 
 subsistence, or maintaining continuous life. 
 
 130. The use of force to ends being thus the charac- 
 teristic of Mind as known to us, and order being implied 
 in the attainment of ends, the term Mind is used to 
 designate the force which maintains order. Hence Sir 
 Isaac Newton recognised mind in both planetary and 
 vital phenomena, because of the uniform order in which 
 they occurred : " Tarn miram uniformitatem in plane- 
 tarum systemate, necessario fatendum est intelligentia et 
 consilio fuisse effectam ! Idemque dici possit de uni- 
 formitate ilia qua? est in corporibus animalium. Habent 
 videlicet animalia pleraque omnia bina latera, dextrum 
 et sinistrum forma consimili,"* &c. Mind and its syno- 
 nyms thus express both force simply, as the physical 
 cause of the orderly sequence of phenomena, and the 
 directing and adapting force. Mens (Latin) is derived 
 from the Greek juevos, which means both vis and the 
 meaning specially implied in mens; and in this sense 
 the latter word was sometimes used. "Deorum mente 
 ac ratione omnis mundus administratur," says Cicero, 
 distinguishing between Eeason, the ordering power, and 
 * Optices (1719), p. 411.
 
 258 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 mens, the force applied. It is to be noted, too, that men, 
 used as a terminal in Latin, often corresponds in mean- 
 ing to tcXos in Greek (p. 109), and indicates a fixed order, 
 an unvarying, certain succession of mental origin, — as 
 Eegiment, Government, existing by a fixed rule of con- 
 duct. Hence Kegimew, Monumenturn, a fixed teaching or 
 monition. In Greek, iaw, used as a conjunctive, and also 
 alone, means certe, profecto — certainly, completely. The 
 verb /xevu), root of maneo, signifies to be present perma- 
 nently, to exist predominantly, snperstes sum ; to look for 
 an end. From /xevo) probably comes ix.vabp.ai, and from 
 this memini and its derivatives, as Memory. Mind 
 (gemynd, Anglo-Saxon ; mein-en, German, and its de- 
 rivatives, as meaning — Anglo-Saxon, mcen-an) indicates 
 " that which feels, Avhich thinks, which has the power 
 of beginning motion."* 
 
 131. Further, in looking round him, man intuitively 
 recognises everywhere in creation the operation of a 
 power like his own mind. Hence, with an imperfect 
 knowledge of the order of events, he is apt to apply the 
 same method of reasoning to natural phenomena as to 
 his own actions, and so to infer that a conscious intelli- 
 gent agent is present as a cause. In this way, in all 
 ages and amongst all nations, Mind, as the unseen cause, 
 has been individualised ; and imaginary deities, demi- 
 gods, and supernatural beings or agents, have peopled 
 the earth, air, and ocean. With a more perfect know- 
 ledge of the order of nature, he brings his ideas into 
 unity, and refers all the orderly adapted succession of 
 events in creation to a Supreme Intelligence, as the ori- 
 ginal Cause of all things. And in speculating further 
 upon the nature of this Great Cause, man can only con- 
 
 * D. Stewart. Philosophy of the Human Blind, 2d edit. vol. i. 
 p. 401.
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 259 
 
 ceive it as a force in operation to ends. " Though it he 
 tr.ue," says Cudworth, " that the works of nature are dis- 
 pensed by a Divine law and command, yet this is not to 
 be understood in a vulgar sense, as if they were all 
 effected by the mere force of a verbal law or outward 
 command, because inanimate things are not command- 
 able nor governable by such a law ; and therefore, besides 
 the Divine will and pleasure, there must needs be some 
 other agent and executioner provided for the producing 
 of every effect, since not so much as a stone or other 
 heavy body could at any time fall downward merely bj' 
 the force of a verbal law, without any other efficient 
 cause. . . . Wherefore the Divine law and command, 
 by which the things of nature are administered, must be 
 conceived to be the real appointment of some energetic, 
 effectual, and operative cause for the production of every 
 effect."* Speculations have varied as to the mode in 
 which the Creating Mind operates in or upon creation ; 
 but the most generally received and the most philoso- 
 phical doctrine is that which teaches that G-od impressed 
 motion, in the first instance, on matter. Thus Descartes, 
 in one of his letters to Dr Henry More, writes, " That 
 transference [translatio], which I call Motion, is a thing 
 of not less real existence than is figure ; for it is a mode 
 in body [modus in corpore]. The Moving Power, how- 
 ever, may be of G-od himself, maintaining that transfer- 
 ence in matter as He fixed it at the moment of its crea- 
 tion, or belong to a created substance, as our mind or 
 any other thing to which He gave the power of moving 
 body ; and, indeed, that power in a created substance is 
 its mode, but not in G-od."f Dr GTrew speculated to the 
 
 * The True Intellectual System of the Universe, book i. chap. iii. 
 I xxxvii. 2. 
 f Epistolce, 72, torn. i.
 
 260 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 same effect as to the cause of life : " Yet neither by Life, 
 nor the subject of it, do I mean a principle of motion — 
 the universal state of motion, as that of matter, being 
 neither increased nor diminished, but only transferred ; 
 but I mean a certain power to determine the manner of its 
 being transferred"* &c. Here the modern law of pheno- 
 mena, deduced from the correlation of the physical 
 forces — namely, the transference of motion — is explicitly 
 laid down ; but Grew, in advance of Descartes and mo- 
 dern physicists, adds the teleological element to his con- 
 ception of Life — namely, a definite manner of transference, 
 that is, to ends. 
 
 132. As a question of scientific research, design maybe 
 fairly inferred from the motor phenomena of creation.f 
 
 * Cosmologia Sacra (Lond. 1695), p. 62. 
 
 f Thus Lord Brougham states : " The fact of the heavenly 
 bodies which form our system all moving in the same direction of 
 revolution, is deserving of the deepest attention, when we con- 
 sider that it leads to the most important result of the stability of 
 the system ; and that it is one of innumerable arrangements 
 which might have been made, and none of which could have led 
 to this result. In any other case, equal roots, or imaginary roots, 
 or both, must have found their way into the equation from which 
 the law of stability is deduced (Laplace, Mec. Cel., lib. ii. c. 7, gg 55, 
 57, and liv. xv. c. 1). Now, the same profound geometrician has 
 shown, in another work, by the calculus of probabilities, that it is 
 above four millions to one in favour of the forty-three motions 
 from west to east (including rotation as well as revolution, and 
 the motions of the sun and of the rings as well as of the planets 
 and satellites) having been directed by one Original or First 
 Cause; and by the same calculus he has shown the probability 
 of the sun's rising again on the morrow of any given day, to be 
 not much more than 1,800,000 to one ; or in other words, that this 
 event is above two million times less probable than the truth of 
 the proposition that the motions in our system were designed 
 by one First Cause." — Paley's Natural Theology, with Illustrative 
 Notes by Lord Brougham and Sir Charles Bell (1836), vol. ii. 
 p. 101.
 
 niv. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 26 1 
 
 Nor, if we examine the great empirical law of uniform 
 and continuous succession, can we come to any other 
 conclusion than that a law of design is the higher gene- 
 ralisation of the great uniformities of creation. Geology 
 tells us that, in a time so long past that the imagination 
 utterly fails to form any idea of the interval, the waves 
 rippled upon a sandy shore, and the raindrops fell pre- 
 cisely as they do now under like circumstances. If the 
 great uniformities of nature were not in definite relation 
 to each other — if there were not fixed laws for the trans- 
 ference of force — this might have only happened for a 
 day, and never more ; for without such definite relation 
 there could be no certainty of the recurrence of the 
 phenomena. Yet it seems probable they have never 
 ceased during the whole of an immeasurable lapse of 
 time. Now the relation of uniform events, or of moving 
 things to each other, so that there shall be a constant 
 recurrence of the same phenomena, is an orderly succes- 
 sion of events, and implies adaptation, or a fitting of the 
 events or things to each other, and therefore design. If 
 there were no such order, there would be no uniformities. 
 Hence it follows, as a logical necessity, that a law of de- 
 sign comprises all those fixed unvarying successions of 
 events which we attribute to the physical forces. 
 
 133. The same argument is deducible from the ceonic 
 succession of organisms. Geology has made it clear that, 
 concurrently with this demonstrable adaptation of the 
 great masses of creation to each other as moving things, 
 there have been many successive series of living things, 
 all existing in adaptation to the external conditions which 
 arise out of the operation of the great laws of nature. 
 And although scientific inquirers are not agreed as to the 
 teleological interpretation to be put upon the great phe- 
 nomena of life and organisation, yet they strongly prove
 
 262 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY, [part III; 
 
 the operation of a great law of design. To this conclu- 
 sion we must necessarily come, if we grant that the 
 great laws of nature and their forces, as manifested in 
 the planetary movements, are derivative of a law of 
 design ; for it is logically necessary that the derivative 
 forces shall include the characteristics of the primary, 
 and consequently that the vital and chemical forces 
 should be also subordinate to a law of design. Amongst 
 the most recent upholders of this doctrine is M. Agassiz, 
 who has deduced from it some new principles of zoo- 
 logical classification. He maintains the unity of design, 
 as a rigorous conclusion from the facts. This he reaches 
 by omitting the simpler relations of organised beings to 
 the world around, or those of individuals to individuals, 
 and considering only the great types as to their structural 
 complications in past geological ages, or in successive 
 phases of their growth, embryonic and otherwise. The 
 special facts which prove that creation is the result of 
 design are developed in a series of sections, with the fol- 
 lowing results, amongst others: — 1. All nature is com- 
 bined into one system. 2. Diversified types exist under 
 identical external conditions, showing, that it is not the 
 conditions which cause the diversity of the types. 3. 
 Similar types are repeated under the most diversified 
 circumstances. 4. Unity of plan in otherwise highly 
 diversified types of animals. 5. The correspondence, now 
 generally known as special homologies, in animals other- 
 wise entirely disconnected : their exhibiting " more im- 
 mediately the power of expressing a general proposi- 
 tion in an indefinite number of ways, equally complete in 
 themselves, though differing in all their details." 6. In 
 like manner, " the various degrees and different kinds of 
 relationship, among animals which can have no genea- 
 logical connection, exhibit thought — the power of com-
 
 Div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 263 
 
 bining different categories into a permanent harmonious 
 whole, even though the material basis of this harmony- 
 be ever changing." M. Agassiz lays down, in short, 
 thirty conclusions of this kind, drawn from the facts of 
 palaeontology and zoology, and sums them all up in the 
 general conclusion, that "all organised beings exhibit in 
 themselves all those categories of structure and of exist- 
 ence upon which a natural system is founded, in such a 
 manner that in tracing it the human mind is only 
 translating into human language the Divine thoughts 
 expressed in nature in living realities."* Thus unity of 
 the law of design in organisms may be fully admitted as 
 correlating the unity of the law of relation of the 
 mechanico-chemical and vital forces. 
 
 134. How deeply this idea of unity of mental force is 
 associated with our generalisations as to the primary laws 
 and forces of matter, and therefore with all the deri- 
 vative generalisations, may be easily shown from other 
 considerations. For example, the idea of stability is 
 necessarily associated with the great laws of necessary 
 succession of events in nature. While the secondary or 
 derivative laws may be infinitely various, they must be 
 all ultimately regulated by some primary or more general 
 law, which governs the whole series, and fixes them as a 
 whole in some necessary order ; otherwise they would be 
 not only derivative but diverse. Such a state would be 
 that described as Chaos ; and hence, in cosmic specula- 
 tions Chaos is anterior to mind. In human society such 
 a condition of the people, as regards the laws, is termed 
 Chaotic. 
 
 135. Or we may see this point in another light, by in- 
 quiring, What is the meaning of Chance ? Now, chance 
 has two meanings. First, it expresses the variable or 
 
 * Essay on Classification, p. 199, sqq.
 
 264 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 contingent, without reference to any order or uniformity 
 of succession or relation, as co-existence and the like. 
 Here it is opposed to order, and means disorder. But 
 disorder, in that sense, means no fitting adaptation of 
 events or things to each other — no exercise, therefore, of 
 the reason ; unless, indeed, the disorder itself be an object, 
 in which case the new order of events is of the relative 
 or particular, and is itself order of a certain kind. In a 
 scientific sense, the idea of chance (as we have seen) is 
 wholly excluded from those fixed inevitable uniformities 
 in the general laws maintained by the great forces of na- 
 ture (132). What is immutably fixed must be inevitably 
 order ; and if there be an apparent deviation, it can be 
 only apparent, and not real. The apparent deviations 
 may or may not be traced to their proper positions ; but 
 if they cannot be traced, then the word Chance expresses 
 our ignorance. It is a generalisation of the unknown as 
 to order, law, and cause. It is the language-sign of 
 the unknown in man's experience — the algebraic x of 
 speech. And in proportion as science is developed, in 
 the same proportion man is enabled to pass from estimat- 
 ing the chances or probabilities of events, to predicting 
 the events themselves. Hence the true test of a new 
 general truth in science is, that it adds to the power of 
 prediction already possessed.* Thus design is as much a 
 part of the phenomena of creation as force, law, or uni- 
 formity. Each correlates the other. 
 
 136. Further, if the vital forces be derivative of the 
 physical forces, which we may now accept, temporarily at 
 least, as a truth in science, it necessarily follows that the 
 law of design which characterises them must be derived 
 from the physical forces ; and if it be admitted that there 
 be but one universal and absolute (90, 91), then it is logi- 
 * Mr J. S. Mill. System of Logic, 4th edit. vol. i. p. 322.
 
 div. [.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSER. 265 
 
 eally necessary that Mind, as manifested by a law of design, 
 is that universal and absolute. Again, in no other way 
 can we conceive Mind as being absolutely universal — 
 that is, both in the relative universal, and the particular — 
 that by the doctrine that it is the universal of the phy- 
 sical forces of creation in our cognition of force, of which 
 vital forces are the variable, contingent, and derivative. 
 Again, a mental force must have a correlative law (97) ; 
 now that correlative law in creation is a universal law of 
 design. 
 
 137. Mind, in its highest determination, is that which 
 regulates, as its ultimate end, the application of force to 
 desirable results (p. 105). Upon this all art, all morals, 
 all government and order depend. Hence all the laws of 
 society are necessarily correlative with an executive — 
 that is, with an agency for the application of physical 
 force sufficiently energetic to compel men, in the last re- 
 sort, to adapt their actions to the prescribed order. The 
 explosive force of gunpowder is in modern times the 
 chief force of this kind ; and in royal arsenals, can- 
 non were formerly inscribed with the significant words, 
 Ultima ratio regum. 
 
 138. It may be advanced, that this so-called design is 
 only the mode in which the phenomena of creation are 
 presented to our consciousness, and that there may be, in 
 fact, no designer. It is the universal element worked 
 out to its final development in the most comprehensive 
 generalisation. I am not prepared to affirm the pro- 
 position that the human mind should be accepted as the 
 measure and criterion of all things ; on the contrary, it 
 is finite in its powers, and can only conceive — not com- 
 prehend — the infinite. Nevertheless, it must be con- 
 ceded that, according to the fundamental laws of human 
 nature, a fixed order cannot do otherwise than indicate
 
 266 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part ill. 
 
 to man a designer — that is, one that conceives the order 
 and fixes it; and, inasmuch as the succession of events 
 which manifest design necessarily imply the exercise 
 of a correlative force, it necessarily follows, also, that 
 the designer originates and exercises the force. In other 
 words, it is an inevitable conclusion from the premises, 
 as well as from the common sense and experience of 
 mankind, that in creation there is a Supreme Mind which 
 is the first cause of order and motion. Motion and 
 order, therefore, are Thought in act. 
 
 139. Thus from every point of view, a law of design 
 includes in a higher generalisation all the great laws of 
 creation. It is proved by the experience and general 
 belief of mankind ; by the mathematical demonstrations 
 of a Laplace; by the conclusions of the naturalist; by 
 the fundamental principles of metaphysics ; and by the 
 most rigorous logic. And when we come to apply the 
 generalisation deductively, as a fundamental principle 
 of philosophy, we shall find that it will stand the test 
 of all truth — viz., of being practically applicable to the 
 wants of mankind (p. 89).
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 GENERAL FORMULA OF THE CORRELATIONS OF LIFE AND 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 140. We are now in a position to formularize the 
 fundamental law of the relations of body and mind. As 
 to the latter we have — 1. The fundamental intuition that 
 we are two things in relation to each other — namely, 
 Matter and Mind. These we may designate the thing 
 that is adapted, and the power that adapts to ends (137). 
 2. "We have established on d priori grounds, as a more 
 definite conception of the fundamental intuition, that 
 there can be no existence except in the synthesis of 
 mind and body — the subject and object, the thing adapt- 
 ing and the thing adapted (87). 3. That in attaining 
 to a knowledge of truth — that is, of the real relations of 
 events or things to each other — we follow intuitively a 
 fundamental method developed in the "Doctrine of Eela- 
 tion" (88), which consists in placing two cognitions in 
 relation to each other, termed, therefore, the relative 
 and the correlative. 4. That it is by the analysis and 
 synthesis of cognitions in relation to each other a mutual 
 mental process is completed, and a thought or idea rises 
 in the consciousness. 
 
 141. As to body as matter — 1. We have the funda- 
 mental law that motion and change constitute all phe- 
 nomena. 2. That the fundamental law of motion and 
 change is, that a portion of matter in motion, whether it 
 be an atomic element or atom, or a mass of atomic ele-
 
 268 MENTAL DYNAMICS,-»OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 ments, will communicate its own motion to another 
 atomic element, or mass of them. 3. That the various 
 phenomena of which we have knowledge, are only known 
 to us as due to definite motions amongst masses or 
 atoms in relation to each other. 4. That the expression 
 of these relations in words or signs is the law, conception, 
 notion, or idea of the relations. It follows, therefore, 
 that the fundamental law of all phenomena, whether they 
 he those of Matter, Life, or Thought, is the same. This 
 law may he termed the Law of Eelativity. 
 
 142. The law of Eelativity has its derivative laws, or, 
 in other words, laws of the relations of the motor forces 
 to each other, or of the atoms moved. These relations, 
 when stated definitely, are, as to matter, simply the laws 
 of matter. They differ according as the motion is be- 
 tween masses and atoms. The laws of the former are 
 those with which the mechanical sciences have to deal — 
 those of the latter are the subject-matter of the me- 
 chanico-chemical sciences. 
 
 143. The derivative laws of Eelation, as manifested in 
 life and organisation, are the subject-matter of the natural 
 history sciences, and vary according as they express the 
 relations of masses or atomic elements. To the former 
 class belong the Natural History sciences proper — to the 
 latter, Physiology or Biology. But in life and organisa- 
 tion the teleological relations have to be considered, or, 
 in other words, the functions of organs — i.e., the ends 
 attained by the vital forces. 
 
 144. The laws of Eelation, as manifested in Thought, 
 are termed Ideas, or states of consciousness. When the 
 phenomena are co-existences, they are active or volitional 
 states ; when successional, they are as to thought associa- 
 tions of ideas ; as to actions are motives, habits, and the 
 like. In all cases the laws of relation of the vital forces
 
 DIV. r.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 269 
 
 correspond to intuitions, conceptions, notions. Since the 
 relations of all the phenomena of creation, whether they 
 result from physical, vital, or mental forces, can be re- 
 duced to relations of force and motion, it follows that a 
 complete knowledge of those relations is that which is 
 expressed numerically. But, inasmuch as the law of 
 design dominates over all the forces, truth is only at- 
 tained when not only the relations are duly expressed, 
 but their ends or results known. 
 
 145. The preceding views were substantially first 
 publicly stated by me in 1839, in a paper written in 1838 
 (Edinburgh Medical and SurgicalJotirnal, January 1839), 
 and again more explicitly in 1840, when I observed : — 
 " If we would obtain a large and definite knowledge of 
 the action of force upon matter and intelligence, in ex- 
 citing the phenomena of Life and Thought as displayed 
 in man, we must examine the laws of its action, as 
 exhibited in every living organism, and in the mole- 
 cular changes of inorganic matter. A thousand circum- 
 stances assure us that, between these last and the highest 
 efforts of human intellect, there is a continuous chain of 
 phenomena, although we are unable to follow it link by 
 link." And after passing in review some of the series of 
 this chain, I added — " These principles are of the highest 
 importance. They form the connecting link between the 
 phenomena of consciousness and the molecular changes 
 in organic matter, upon which the phenomena of heat, 
 electricity, galvanism, and magnetism depend. They 
 point out a new path of experimental inquiry into the 
 phenomena of Life and Thought, and if traced out in all 
 their relations, cannot fail to change the whole aspect of 
 mental philosophy."* 
 
 * A Treatise on the Nervous Diseases of Women, by Thomas 
 Laycock, M.D. (1840), p. 91, § 155, to p. 100, § 171.
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 IDEAS AS CAUSES. 
 
 Sect. I. — General Doctrine of Ideas as Causes. 
 
 146. In determining more particularly the relations of 
 Mind to Phenomena, as the first cause thereof, we have 
 to bear in mind that the objects of our researches are 
 twofold — viz., to satisfy the mind inquiring after truth, 
 and to develop principles capable of application deduc- 
 tively to the wants of mankind in Art (p. 32). And since 
 our knowledge is based upon conscious states, it is to the 
 laws and modes of action of our own minds, as revealed 
 in consciousness, that we must refer all our investigations 
 into created things. Now, there are two distinct lines of 
 investigation open to us, such as have been hitherto fol- 
 lowed, each to the exclusion of the other, or we may com- 
 bine the two methods, and thus reach results attainable 
 by neither. First, we can consider Mind in the abstract, 
 or as " pure Reason ; " ascertain its general laws as de- 
 rivatives of the law of design, a, priori, or deductively ; 
 and examine their results as manifested in the phenomena 
 of creation. This procedure would give us the institutes 
 of a teleological metaphysic. Secondly, we can consider 
 Mind in the concrete ; ascertain its general laws induc- 
 tively, as results of the derivatives of the law of design 
 manifested in the phenomena of consciousness; and 
 apply them to an elucidation of the phenomena of life
 
 DIV. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 2JI 
 
 and organisation. This procedure would give us the 
 principles of what has been termed Mental Physiology ; 
 but more correctly, I think, we might use the term Mental 
 Dynamics. By the first method we should be able to de- 
 velop the fundamental ideas, truths, or intuitions of the 
 human mind, as derivatives from the Supreme Mind ; by 
 the second, we should be able to show the relations of 
 these ideas, truths, and intuitions, considered as states of 
 consciousness to the ever-changing phenomena of exist- 
 ence. But the third mode is that which demands pre- 
 ference ; for inasmuch as no state of consciousness what- 
 ever happens without correlative vital processes, so it 
 follows that no vital processes, whatever they be, or 
 however they be named, happen independently of their 
 correlative ideas and intuitions of mind in the abstract. 
 Hence the necessity of following, with a view to practical 
 results, both the lines of inquiry conjointly. It is requi- 
 site, however, to re-state first principles, so as to under- 
 stand explicitly, and without doubt, that when conducting 
 teleological inquiries into the phenomena of life and or- 
 ganisation in correlation with thought, we have to modify 
 fundamentally our method (p. 88). Hitherto science has 
 bqen satisfied to determine what uniformities and co- 
 existences are constant, and what have been found to 
 vary, with the conditions of variation. The inquirer 
 could therefore content himself with an expression of 
 the order of succession of events as a law, without refer- 
 ence to the ends aimed at, and designate as force that 
 which he conceived to be the cause of the succession. 
 In investigating the order of phenomena as subordinate 
 to a law of design, we must pass beyond these questions, 
 and inquire both what ends are aimed at, and what are 
 attained according to the law. In other words, physical 
 and vital research must be immediately subordinate to
 
 272 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 teleological research (p. 107). This is especially true of 
 the phenomena of life and organisation ; for just as the 
 ■varied phenomena of external nature are only apparent 
 deviations from the fixed unchangeable laws of nature, 
 and are dependent upon their correlative forces, so the 
 varied phenomena of existence are only apparent devia- 
 tions from the fixed unchangeable law of design, and are 
 dependent upon its correlative force, or that which is 
 called Mind (138). 
 
 147. But this teleological method also necessarily im- 
 plies an inquiry into the causes of the order of events to 
 ends ; or, in other words, the causal relations of Mind to 
 the infinitely various phenomena of creation. In con- 
 ducting this the etiological portion of teleology, however, 
 we cannot deviate from the method of procedure by which 
 we arrive at a knowledge of physical causes. Yet we have 
 this important difference between the two kinds of pheno- 
 mena, that Mind is the final cause of all phenomena, and 
 therefore of the physical forces themselves. Motion and 
 order (we have seen) are Thought in act. Hence, tele- 
 ology is in one sense but another word for etiology, or the 
 doctrine of causes in general. Mind, thus conceived as the 
 universal force, has its derivative or particular forces, 
 which, like the derivative forces of creation, cause the 
 apparent deviations from the general law of design mani- 
 fested and maintained in creation (98, 101). Such deriva- 
 tive mental forces (as we will term them) correlate neces- 
 sarily all the operations of the particular physical forces ; 
 so that whatever is variable and contingent in Mind, is 
 correlated by what is variable and contingent in Matter. 
 But this general law runs throughout, namely, that as 
 Mind is necessarily antecedent to the phenomena of the 
 universe in general, considered as dependent upon the 
 great physical forces, so Mind is necessarily antecedent
 
 Div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 273 
 
 to all the particular and variable phenomena of creation, 
 considered as dependent upon derivative, particular, and 
 contingent physical forces ; or, in other words, it is the 
 final cause of those phenomena. 
 
 148. In our own experience of our varying mental 
 states, we find this to be the general law. Whenever 
 we are conscious, we find that thought precedes act ; or, 
 taking special instances, we feel that special states of 
 thought precede special states of both thought and action. 
 Such are the states which are designated by the terms 
 sensation, conception, desire, and the like. More par- 
 ticularly we speak of special states of abstract thought as 
 ideas ; or popularly, the term is applied to all states in 
 which the intuition of design is involved. In this way 
 it happens that the notion we form of the universe, and 
 of its subordinate parts, is that of a structure or system, 
 not beginning of itself, but designed (130) in the same 
 way that an architect would lay down the plan of a house, 
 or a lawgiver a scheme of polity of a nation. The entire 
 scheme or plan is the Idea of the designer ; and the 
 schemes of plans of special details — as of this or that 
 room for such or such uses, or such particular laws or 
 orders adapted to anticipated circumstances — are the sub- 
 ordinate ideas of which the general Idea is constituted. 
 But there is this difference between the work of the 
 human mind and that of the G-reat Designer, that whereas 
 the agency of human hands is needed to carry out the 
 ideas of the scheme or plan of the human mind, — in the 
 grand scheme of creation, and in all its' subordinate and 
 infinitely varying details, the ideas themselves are the 
 causal agents — i.e., the immediate antecedents to all phe- 
 nomena. " In the idea," says Kant, " pure Keason pos- 
 sesses even causality, and the power of producing that 
 which its conception contains. Hence Ave cannot say 
 
 s
 
 274 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 of Wisdom, in a disparaging way, ' It is only an 
 idea.'"* 
 
 149. But in examining the order of events in life and 
 organisation, or even in creation at large, we must take 
 the utmost care not to extend this doctrine of ideas as 
 causes beyond its legitimate bounds. The word is in 
 truth only another word for Mind in relation with some- 
 thing else. So that when we say a general idea is the 
 cause of all its derivative ideas, and these in their turn 
 the causes of the dynamical changes which they correlate 
 (being the immediate antecedents to these changes), we 
 do not mean cause in an absolute sense, for there is only 
 one absolute — namely, the Supreme Mind. The imme- 
 diate antecedents, considered as ideas, are only, therefore, 
 ideas-in-correlation-with-their vital and physical forces, 
 out of which correlation they cease to be causes — or rather, 
 are non-existent as active agents. The utmost that can 
 be granted is their potential or latent existence" (59). 
 This remark applies most particularly to ideas considered 
 as states of consciousness, in which the series of vital 
 changes are wholly hid from our consideration objectively, 
 and which are only presented as results of the series of 
 vital changes — that is to say, of the ends attained. Since 
 an act of energy — whether it be thought or will — takes 
 place at the same moment that the result is attained, the 
 correlative conscious idea and the feeling of energising 
 are coincident with the correlative vital changes ; but the 
 vital changes may, and do, occur, although there be no 
 consciousness, either as to the act of energy or the idea. 
 This is the unconscious state of Existence (45, sqq.), and 
 includes the " mental latencies" of Sir W. Hamilton (61). 
 
 150. Further, when we investigate ideas as causes, it 
 is of the utmost importance to remember the true nature 
 
 * Kritlk der Hei?i : Vernunft.
 
 DIV. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 2"] $ 
 
 of a cause — namely, that it is that which is the necessary 
 antecedent to, or co-existent with, an event. For it fol- 
 lows, that since all the phenomena of creation are succes- 
 sional and co-existent in time and space, every existent 
 and antecedent must have a co-existent and antecedent ; 
 or, in other words, have a cause of which it is the effect. 
 So that there is a necessary co-existence and unbroken 
 succession of events implied in the idea of Cause. This 
 is learned as a matter of experience by every one who 
 examines the succession of his own thoughts ; for, as we 
 have seen, that is wholly beyond his own control (31). To 
 use the expressivewords of Sir William Hamilton, " The 
 mind [organism] energises as it lives, and it cannot choose 
 but live ; it knows as it energises, and it cannot choose 
 but energise" (32). The life of a man is therefore like a 
 stream of events or changes in linked sequence, flowing 
 on as necessarily as the waters of Niagara. It is true 
 that, in common language, the will is spoken of as the 
 first cause of conscious thoughts and acts, but no act of 
 will (that is, of mental energising) can occur without 
 its necessary co-existents and antecedents — that is, its 
 causes ; and such as these are, so will the act of will be. 
 There is, in fact, no more a spontaneous act of will than 
 there is spontaneous generation. Strictly, such an act 
 is a creation, and belongs only to creative power. 
 
 151. And this general truth points to another — viz., 
 that the causes of every present state of consciousness 
 of organisms extend far back into time. Tracing the 
 life of any organism whatever, we find that the neces- 
 sary antecedent to its existence in time and space is 
 the existence of another organism in time and space, 
 and which is termed its parent. This, a fact of experi- 
 ence, is generalised in the scientific proposition, Omne 
 vivum ah ovo. Tracing the antecedents upwards then,
 
 276 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 genealogically, we are finally lost, as to observation and 
 deduction, in the abyss of time, and end in thought with 
 a Supreme Creative Mind as the final cause, whose fiat 
 was the expression of his Energy to begin a series of 
 events, and maintain them in necessary succession. 
 
 152. Dr Whewell, in discussing the philosophy of 
 palcetiology, shows how ,the series of causes and effects 
 may be conceivably traced upwards to the time when 
 this solid earth was, hypothetically, a nebula, or lumi- 
 nous, incandescent, diffused mass of matter ; and so we 
 may be " led by a close and natural connection, through 
 a series of causes, extending from those which regulate 
 the imperceptible changes of the remotest nebula? in the 
 heavens, to those which determine the diversities of 
 language, the' mutations of art, and even the progress of 
 civilisation, polity, and literature."* This tracing of 
 causation upwards is the determination of the " final " or 
 last cause of the series ; but it does not make the final 
 cause different in nature from the nearer or efficient 
 causes, except that it is the cause of them. The proper con- 
 clusion to which it leads is, therefore, that the necessary 
 succession of events, with which we connect the notion of a 
 succession of causes and effects, is due to one or a universal 
 cause, operating throughout the whole series of succes- 
 sions. Thus, the first cause is therefore not only the one ne- 
 cessary antecedent, but the one cause of the entire succes- 
 sion. Every so-called cause is thus a derivative of this the 
 final or true cause — a power ever causing orderly change. 
 
 153. Sir William Hamilton writes as a metaphysician 
 to the same effect. " My doctrine of causality," he 
 says, " is accused of neglecting the phenomena of change, 
 and of ignoring the attribute of power. This objection 
 precisely reverses the fact. Causation is by me pro- 
 
 * History of Scientific Ideas, 2d. edit. vol. ii. p. 276.
 
 DIV. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 277 
 
 claimed to be identical with change — change of power 
 into act ("omnia mutantur"); change, however, only 
 of appearance — we being unable to realise in thought 
 either existence [substance] apart from phenomena, or 
 existence absolutely commencing or absolutely termi- 
 nating. And especially as to power : Power is the pro- 
 perty of an existent something (for it is thought only as 
 the essential attribute of what is able so or so to exist) ; 
 power is, conseoruently, the correlative of existence, and 
 a necessary supposition in this theory of causation. 
 Here the cause, or rather the complement of causes, is 
 nothing but powers capable of producing the effect — is only 
 that noiv existing actually, which previously existed poten- 
 tially in the causes. We must in truth define a cause, 
 the power of effectuating a change; and an effect, a 
 change actually caused."* 
 
 154. Thus tracing up the series of causes of Life and 
 Thought, we find that they must be all derivatives' of, 
 and contained in, the First Cause, however varied the 
 resulting phenomenal changes or successions may be. 
 "Mutation, causation, effectuation," adds Sir "William 
 Hamilton, f " are only the same thought in different re- 
 spects ; they may therefore be regarded as virtually 
 terms convertible. Every change is an effect; every 
 effect is a change ; an effect is, in truth, just a change 
 of power into act — every effect being an actualisation of 
 the potential " (61). These doctrines as to the causes 
 of mental and vital phenomena strike directly at the 
 root of that fallacious notion so long current, that Con- 
 sciousness is a true power or cause ; the only true cause 
 being Mind, considered as an ordering power or force. 
 
 * Lectures on Metaphysics, App. vol. ii. p. 538. — The Italics are 
 mine. 
 
 t Op. cit. p. 540.
 
 1 
 
 jS MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 Sect. II. — On the Modes of Derivative Evolution of Ideas 
 considered as Causes. 
 
 155. These doctrines as to the causes of things, and 
 especially of vital phenomena, can only be of value in so 
 far as they are applicable to man's experience in crea- 
 tion. To apply, them with success, it is necessary that 
 we should have as clear ideas as possible how derivative 
 causes are evolved out of the first cause, considered as 
 Mind. To this end we must separate Mind from its 
 theological relations, and restrict ourselves to the scien- 
 tific aspects of the question. In no other way can Ave 
 even attempt to determine scientifically how human con- 
 sciousness is evolved out of vital phenomena, and how the 
 laws of Thought have their origin in the laws of Life, con- 
 sidered as results of a mental or ordering force to ends. 
 
 156. Now, in looking at the general results of Mind 
 operating in creation, we find that they consist in an 
 evolution or development of phenomena. A general idea 
 is evolved into a number of subordinate ideas ; or, in 
 other words, there is the relation of domination (of the 
 absolute), and subordination (of the contingent). But 
 we can only know that Mind exists as it is made known 
 to us by the operation of these ideas in us — that is, by the 
 phenomena of our own consciousness; and in like manner, 
 we can only determine the derivative evolution of them 
 as causes by means of our mental powers acting through 
 organisation ; which, again, is the result of their action. 
 In examining the forces of creation, it is found ne- 
 cessary to arrange them according to their effects ; or, 
 in other words, according to their laws of action. They 
 are divided, however, by the doctrines already established, 
 into general and derivative, dominant and subordinate, 
 absolute and contingent, universal and particular, and
 
 DIV. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 279 
 
 the like. Now, the most general force of this kind 
 is the force of gravity or attraction, and its correlate, 
 repulsion. Motion is the result of the reciprocal action 
 of these forces. The derivative physical forces are those 
 termed the imponderahles — namely, heat, light, mag- 
 netism, chemical affinity, in an evolving scale of pro- 
 gress. Derivative again from these are the vital forces, 
 which finally culminate in the vis nervosa and Mind. 
 Now, throughout the whole of this series of forces, the 
 one permanent universal result is motion ; and all their 
 results of these forces in operation may be resolved into 
 changes of atoms in space in relation to each other (118- 
 120). This special law is, however, manifest, that as they 
 become more and more derivative, the changes induced 
 become more and more varied, the relations of the atoms 
 more and more complex, and the resulting phenomena 
 more and more multiform. 
 
 157. It is even so with Mind, considered as the source 
 of all phenomena. There runs throughout all its results 
 one great universal result — order correlating motion. Its 
 derivative powers ever become more and more derivative, 
 and therewith the resulting changes become more and 
 more varied, the orderly relations of the atoms of matter 
 more and more complex, and the phenomena produced 
 more and more multiform ; until the highest evolution is 
 attained in the profoundest thoughts of the mind of 
 man, and the deepest knowledge of his own nature and 
 of God. 
 
 158. In this systematic evolution from the general to 
 the particular, it happens that, while the dominant idea 
 regulates all the subordinate ideas, these latter also be- 
 come efficient causes in their turn, as general ideas. This 
 is more particularly seen on a large scale in the develop- 
 ment of systems of government, religious polity, and the
 
 280 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part HI. 
 
 like, with one fundamental yet restricted Idea as the 
 basis. Thus, in the fundamental dogma of Islam, " There 
 is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet," the first limb 
 is a general proposition, which can be proved to be of 
 universal acceptance amongst all nations and in all ages, 
 wherever such a point of mental culture has been reached 
 by man that the idea of one Grod could be rightly com- 
 prehended. The second limb is a proposition of limited 
 acceptance in both time and space ; for it could not, 
 under any circumstances, be true, anteriorly to the exist- 
 ence of the individual named ; was only believed by a 
 few ; and its acceptance is still limited to compara- 
 tively a small portion of mankind. Yet, as such, it 
 determined the establishment of systems of civil and 
 religious polity, which changed for a wbile the ma- 
 terial and moral aspect of a great part of Europe and 
 Asia. 
 
 159. This mode of domination and subordination of 
 ideas is even more distinctly manifested in generation 
 and development. The egg of an animal or the seed of 
 a vegetable is seen to unfold itself, as it were, and part 
 after part to be developed, until the general idea implied 
 in the original scheme of construction is completely ma- 
 nifested. The process is also seen in the evolution of 
 particular tissues. Thus, the vascular system, com- 
 mencing with a single homogeneous vessel, carrying the 
 nutrient fluid to and fro with a simple oscillation, is finally 
 evolved into an elaborate apparatus, with a central pump 
 and its valves and works, and with a series of subordi- 
 nate distributing vessels, ending at last in minute and 
 only microscopically visible ramifications. Such, also, is 
 the law of evolution of the respiratory apparatus, and all 
 glandular systems; and such the law of development of 
 tbe nervous system and the mental powers. Nor have
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 28 1 
 
 there been wanting largo speculations as to the single- 
 ness of the source of the varied phenomena of creation in 
 regard to forces, of which we have already taken note ; * 
 or in regard to the evolution of organic life on this earth, 
 of which class the work entitled Vestiges of the Natural 
 History of Creation is an illustration; or even in respect 
 to the entire scheme of creation, of which the " physio- 
 philosophies " of the modern German school of specula- 
 tion are examples. 
 
 160. Nay, even the moral world, the exclusive domin- 
 ion of man on earth, is believed to be under this same 
 law of derivative evolution of an archetypical idea into 
 dominant and subordinate ideas ; so that philosophers, 
 moralists, and theologians seem agreed in the opinion, 
 that Divine Providence has in view a grand and bene- 
 ficent scheme, whereby man will be more and more per- 
 fected in all the essential qualities of his nature. In 
 short, it is an increasing belief that the evolution of a 
 fundamental and dominant idea is going on in the moral 
 as in the organic and the physical world — a belief well 
 expressed by the greatest of living poets : — 
 
 " For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widen'd by the process of the suns." 
 
 In this respect, Mind, as a force, is peculiar ; for this law 
 of the evolution of mental force shows it to be widely 
 different in its effects from the mechanical forces. For 
 whereas in these there is neither increase nor diminution 
 in time, but only transference, as 'to Mind there is mani- 
 fest increase and cumulation ; since from age to age it 
 appears to exert a wider and wider dominion over matter, 
 and thereby to manifest a growing intensity in the opera- 
 tion of its forces. And this is the law of evolution of 
 * Chap, ii., " On the Correlations of the Physical Forces."
 
 282 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 both individual organisms and of the great system of 
 living things. It is concurrently with a higher and 
 higher complexity and development that the phenomena 
 of consciousness are evolved in lower organisms, as it is, 
 in like manner, concurrently with a gradually yet more 
 perfectly evolved system that Thought in the individual 
 man is developed and strengthened. Mind, thus evolved 
 in the concrete, culminates more and more as Mind in 
 the abstract — that is, in a knowledge of the laws and 
 order of Nature, and of the ends aimed at and attained 
 by mind as a causal agent. 
 
 161. What is the meaning of this successional evolu- 
 tion of the phenomena of Life and Thought, and what 
 results may arise, are matter for curious speculation. 
 The human mind, with all its energies and aspirations, 
 is the greatest of the known results of that ordering force 
 known to us — yet it is but one result. What other kinds 
 of consciousness may have been evolved, is not revealed to 
 us by science, for we can judge truly of none except our 
 own. What may be evolved in the lower forces of 
 organisms is less and less easily determined as we pass 
 downwards, from the vertebrates through the inverte- 
 brates, to the most general forms of organisms. What 
 may be evolved as we ascend upwards, is wholly beyond 
 our observation. We can only speculate as to "angels 
 and archangels, principalities and powers," anthropomor- 
 phising in a dim, helpless fashion, as best we may. It is, 
 however, at least probable, if not d priori certain, that 
 man is not the only Knowing being in creation ; and 
 that, amidst the infinite diversity of created things, there 
 are intelligent beings so widely different as to the ends 
 of their existence from mail, and therefore so differently 
 constituted in relation to the forces of matter, that their 
 objective existence may be utterly beyond our knowledge.
 
 DIV. l.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 283 
 
 " Man," I formerly remarked,* " is at the head of a vast 
 ascending scale of animal life, so extended in its con- 
 nections downwards, that for the present purpose it may 
 be considered as infinitely extended. With our existing 
 knowledge of the uniformity of the laws of creation, the 
 deduction is absolutely incontrovertible, that the scale of 
 being is not truncated at man, and that beyond him there 
 cannot be a dark, unpeopled void. The law of gradation 
 of development, rigorously pushed to its legitimate con- 
 clusions, points out an infinite gradation of Being, above 
 and superior to man. That we cannot see such Beings, 
 nor demonstrate their existence, is a necessary result of 
 our position in the scale, and no proof whatever of their 
 ?ion-existence. The worm knows nothing of man, his 
 works, or his actions ; nothing of the sun or the stars, or 
 of the beings swarming around it ; and so, with reference 
 to the spiritual world — the world around and above us — 
 our organs may be, and doubtless are, as imperfect as 
 those of the worm with reference to the world around and 
 above it." What this law may have in store for man in a 
 future state, we know not. Here, "we see but as in a glass, 
 darkly." Certain it is, that the imagination is lost in the 
 contemplation of the Conceivable, when we meditate upon 
 this great law of evolution of the Will of God. 
 
 " There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim. 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
 But while this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." "f" 
 
 Thus, then, we come to the conclusion that ideas are 
 
 causes, in the true sense of the term, of the phenomena of 
 
 * " Essay on the Reflex Function of the Brain," Brit, and For. 
 Med. Review, Jan. 1845, at the close. 
 f Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice.
 
 284 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 nature. And we are led to this by all possible testimony ; 
 namely, the evidence of our consciousness, the inductive 
 researches of science, and the most lucid and compre- 
 hensive doctrines of philosophy and religion. They are 
 the energetic causes of order in all cosmic and molecular 
 phenomena, and of growth, development, nutrition, in- 
 stinct, consciousness, thought. But they are energetic 
 causes only as derived from the Supreme Thought of 
 creation — the first cause of all things ; and they ener- 
 gise, or are manifest as causes, only when in correlation 
 with the physical and vital forces which operate in nature. 
 
 Sect. III. — Classification oj Ideas as Causes. 
 
 162. We may now proceed to classify ideas as causes, 
 so as to determine at least the principal groups, and thus 
 be able to apply these doctrines of mental causation to 
 the laws of organisation, the order of vital phenomena, 
 and the fundamental processes of thought. 
 
 Looking at Mind in the abstract, and as the universal 
 Cause in creation, we can consider it in the light of 
 a general idea, with its subordinate elements or deriva- 
 tive ideas. Let us inquire, then, what is the most general 
 idea in the physical and vital phenomena of creation. 
 As we have a series of co-existences and successions to 
 consider with reference to the cause of their order in the 
 observed series, we can only look at the end attained as 
 the correlative of the idea which rules them. But to 
 attain an end implies combined action for its attainment, 
 when the agents are many. Hence, without here confus- 
 ing the reader with a detailed argument, the end attained 
 in creation may be safely assumed as the union of all 
 things into a harmonious whole. The most general idea, 
 therefore, of such a scheme or plan is the idea of unity.
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 285 
 
 This idea will consequently be, first, an efficient cause of 
 unity — be energetic to that end — in correlation with the 
 great forces of creation ; and, secondly, will be an equally 
 efficient cause of unity — be energetic to that end — in all 
 the derivative, variable, and contingent manifestations of 
 these forces. As such, it will be "the universal" in all 
 ideas. Such an idea is obviously to be distinguished 
 from those complex and derivative states of consciousness 
 in which the idea is known or felt as a dim intuition. 
 The term by which I would distinguish this class of gene- 
 ral ideas is teleiotic, from Te'Aeios (derivative of reXos:) sum- 
 mus, perfectus, thereby denoting their special characteris- 
 tic as the class of absolute and complete ideas. We may 
 therefore designate unity a fundamental teleiotic idea. 
 
 163. Teleiotic ideas differ accordingly as they are pri- 
 mary or derivative, and according to the ends arrived at. 
 We have already marked out three classes of phenomena — 
 the physical, the vital, and the mental or conscious (p. 88). 
 We can therefore distinguish three corresponding classes 
 of teleiotic ideas. The terminology only requires modifi- 
 cation. Thus, the physical forces are either cosmic, when 
 considered in reference to the laws of motion of the hea- 
 yenly bodies ; or molecular, in reference to the molecular 
 forces, of which chemical affinity is the most striking. 
 We might therefore use the terms cosmical, physical, and 
 chemical, to designate the ideas or causes of action to ends 
 which are in correlation with those forces. The term 
 " vital" is of doubtful propriety, as it is already used in va- 
 rious senses. The word " zoical" would be more accurate, 
 if the root of the word was not limited to animal life. Upon 
 the whole, therefore, seeing that the word /810s is already 
 adopted in Biology to indicate the science of life, the 
 word " biotic" would best designate the teleiotic ideas of 
 life and organisation. There remain the teleiotic ideas
 
 286 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [PART III. 
 
 of conscious states of existence, the noetic ideas, and 
 which may be classed under two heads — namely, 1st, as 
 they are known simply, but not in their relations ; and, 
 Idly, as they are known both simply and relatively. In tbe 
 former class are comprised all the intuitive ideas or funda- 
 mental "intuitions" of the metaphysician, and the "in- 
 stinctive " feelings of the naturalist. The well-marked 
 characteristic of this class is their " necessity" — i.e., their 
 necessary causal relation to all states of consciousness 
 and vital action. In the latter class are all the notions 
 reached by the aid of experience, but which necessarily 
 include fundamental intuitions as their primary elements. 
 This class of ideas, in the popular sense, are "motives ; " 
 they are the causes which influence to this or that line 
 of conduct. According to the preceding views, there are 
 two classes of such ideas — namely, the teleiotic ideas of 
 consciousness or intuitive ideas, and the varying, con- 
 tingent, and particular ideas, which result from what is 
 termed experience, but which nevertheless contain that 
 element of the teleiotic idea from Which they are derived 
 (156). Thus, tbe primary teleiotic idea — namely, unity 
 — realised in the consciousness, as the feeling of oneness 
 (the Ego), is the absolute or universal in intuition and 
 every cognition of experience (82).
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INTUITIVE IDEAS AND NECESSARY TRUTHS CONSIDERED AS 
 MOTIVES TO ACTION. 
 
 104. Metaphysicians have discussed in various ways, 
 and under various phases, the question whether all our 
 knowledge is the result of experience ; or whether, by 
 the constitution of our nature, we have knowledges inde- 
 pendently of experience, or which only require experi- 
 ence for their development. According to the one view, 
 the mind is a tabula rasa, or like a sheet of white paper 
 in which experience writes its teachings; according to 
 the other, there are innate ideas, powers, or capacities, 
 in the tabula or paper, which are there independently of 
 experience. Whenever these questions have been dis- 
 cussed according to the usual method — that is to say, 
 when the sources of our knowledge have been inquired 
 into, without regard to the laws of action of the vital 
 forces in those corporeal structures, in virtue of which 
 we acquire any knowledge at all, incurable confusion 
 has been the result. The two great sects between which 
 philosophy has been divided have both truth on their 
 side ; that they disagreed at all was due, in fact, to the 
 one-sided view each took of the question. In particular, 
 in discussing the various moral and philosophical ques- 
 tions to which the problem has given rise, the phrases 
 intuitions and intuitive ideas have been used synony- 
 mously with the terms intuitive truths and necessary
 
 288 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 truths. Now these terms are not, in fact, synonymous, if 
 we look at mental phenomena in their correlations with 
 vital changes. Strictly speaking, an idea, considered as 
 a causal agent, is neither true nor false ; we might with 
 equal propriety say that the force of gravity is true or 
 false. It is only in its relations in consciousness that we 
 can speak of an idea as true or false. Truth, then, as a 
 quality, is a derivative, contingent, and variahle idea; a 
 special truth is the knowledge of an idea in its real re- 
 lations — i.e., a cognition of accurate experience. The 
 essential quality of an idea is its necessity, in which it 
 correlates law and force (149). Hence metaphysicians use 
 the term necessary (literally, never-ceasing) correlatively 
 with terms applicable to all the great laws and forces of 
 nature. Thus Professor Ferrier observes : " The words 
 'unchangeable' (or permanent), 'necessary' (or essential), 
 ' universal' (or common, or general), as here employed, are 
 nearly or altogether synonymous. The unchangeable is 
 that which cannot be changed in cognition, and is there- 
 fore equivalent to the necessary or universal. Tbe neces- 
 sary is that wbich cannot be dispensed with or got rid of in 
 cognition, and is therefore equivalent to the uncbangeable 
 and universal. The universal is that which is everywhere 
 and always present in cognition, and is therefore equiva- 
 lent to the unchangeable and necessary. In contrast to 
 these terms stand the words 'changeable' (or fluctuating), 
 'contingent' (or accidental), 'particular' (or peculiar). 
 These, too, are mere variations of the same expression."* 
 165. Looked at from the teleological point of view, 
 all truths are obviously necessary truths, inasmuch as 
 what we term truths are only our cognitions, intui- 
 tional or acquired, of tbe fixed, immutable, and necessary 
 order of events in creation, or of the correlative forces 
 * Institutes, p. 153.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 289 
 
 upon which those events depend. Hence it is the quality 
 of necessity which correlates all truth whatever. But 
 we can distinguish between universal or general, and 
 particular or derivative truths, just as we distinguish 
 between general and derivative ideas, and general and de- 
 rivative laws and forces. Now, as these are variable and 
 contingent, because derivative, so there are truths which 
 are correlatively variable and contingent, because deriva- 
 tive ; these are the truths of experience. The funda- 
 mental truth of mental science is, that Mind regulates 
 the application of force to desirable results (101). "Within 
 this generalisation all tbe other truths of mental science 
 are contained as derivative truths. Or, if we examine the 
 order of events as determined by the law of design, in 
 discovering the results of that order we learn what are 
 the fundamental or derivative ideas and truths. The 
 truths are none other than the generalisations of science 
 or of experience as to that order; — e.g., it is a truth that 
 all men die, that life is finite, that air has weight, that 
 we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, &c. The 
 ideas are none other than the results converted into 
 cognitions, and considered etiologically and apart from 
 the phenomena, as the law by which events were made to 
 succeed each other in a fixed order. Thus, while an idea 
 is that which conceivably and necessarily precedes the 
 order of events in the mind of the designer, as cause ; 
 the truth is that which expresses the results of the order, 
 as the manifestation of the idea in creation. The idea 
 expresses the noumenon — i.e., the order as it is thought 
 or designed (148) ; the truth expresses the correlative 
 phenomenon — the thought realised, or the order effected. 
 Hence the idea is necessarily potential, the truth neces- 
 sarily actual. It follows from these premises, that ideas 
 and truths correlate the laws of creation ; that funda- 
 
 T
 
 290 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY. [part hi. 
 
 mental ideas and truths correlate fundamental laws ; deri- 
 vative ideas and truths correlate derivative ideas and laws. 
 
 166. Turning now to an examination of the distinction 
 made by metaphysicians between & priori truths and the 
 truths of experience, we find that the distinction is the 
 same as that made between the universal and the par- 
 ticular, the absolute and the contingent, the primary 
 and the derivative, and the like. Examined teleologi- 
 cally from this point of view, the truths of experience 
 are like those derivative results of general laws and 
 forces which we attribute to chance : tbey are cog- 
 nitions in which we do not perceive the absolute and 
 the universal ; they are generalisations in which the 
 fact that they are intuitive or fundamental is not ex- 
 pressed or recognised (135). It is very obvious, then, 
 that the truths of experience, when attained, are logi- 
 cally as necessary truths as the phenomena of so-called 
 Chance are logically necessary phenomena. A truth 
 of experience ceases, therefore, to have the quality of 
 uncertainty when the general truth from which it is 
 derivative is detected and formularised. 
 
 167. If we apply the fundamental law of all cognition 
 to an elucidation of this question, we cannot but see 
 that, in the widest sense of the term, all truths whatever 
 must be truths of experience ; for consciousness itself is 
 but an experience of the vital changes within us. We do 
 not even lmow that we exist as One, out of relation to 
 something else (91). Now, a knowledge of that relation 
 implies an anterior cognition of self and not-self, which 
 cognitions can only be results of the teleiotic or tele- 
 organic changes going on within us to that end. Mr 
 Mill, therefore, has rightly attributed even our ideas of 
 Number to experience,* if the term be used in the sense 
 
 * System of Logic, book ii. chaps, v. vi.
 
 mv. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 29 1 
 
 here indicated; for it is obvious, that a man can only know 
 himself numerically as one, by knowing that he is one in 
 numerical relation to another one, or to several ones. In 
 his own consciousness he has the intuition of two — viz., 
 his mind and his body. An organism devoid of these 
 intuitions is mentally non-existent — it is 0. " The first 
 form of the expansion or manifestation of the mathe- 
 matical monas, or of 0, is + - . The + - is nothing 
 else than the definition of 0. is the reduction of the 
 positive and negative series of numbers upon which the 
 whole of arithmetic depends. A series of numbers is, 
 however, nothing else than a repetition of a + 1 or a - 1 ; 
 consequently, the whole of arithmetic reduces itself to 
 + 1-1."* The same law applies to our cognitions of 
 things in space or time. It is of no consequence by 
 what sign we indicate the two things in relation. If it 
 be A, then A = A. That is, A, as known in one portion 
 of space or time, equals A as known in another portion of 
 space and time. The two states of consciousness differ 
 only, in fact, as to the different relations of the A to space 
 and time. But to the application of this difference a 
 double experience of A in space and time is needed, and 
 a synthetical comparison of the two experiences. This 
 means nothing more than that experience is reduced 
 to its simplest element;— it is Mind in synthesis with 
 organisation — mind active. 
 
 168. The whole of Part I. on " Mathesis," in Oken : s 
 Physio-pfrilosophy, is well worthy careful attention, as an 
 aphoristic account of the operation of the Law of Kela- 
 tivity in developing our fundamental intuitions (141). 
 And when it is remembered that all the phenomena 
 of which the mechanical, secondary mechanical, and 
 
 t Oken, Elements of Physio-philosophy, translated by Mr Tulk 
 for Ray Society, p. 10.
 
 292 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part hi. 
 
 mechanico- chemical sciences treat, can be expressed 
 numerically, and that the theory of the atomic force is 
 based on the idea of a succession of positive and negative 
 states of atoms— i.e., a + -,+ -in series— we can better 
 understand how, according to the ancient Pythagorean 
 doctrine, Numbers were made equal to Ideas as causes. 
 Since the vital forces are derivatives of the physical and 
 chemical forces of matter, so also will their laws be; 
 and hence our fundamental intuitions must not only be 
 intuitions of experience, but must also be numerical. 
 Consequently, that can only be termed an absolutely 
 true cognition of experience which is, or can be, ex- 
 pressed numerically. All others are comparatively vary- 
 ing, indefinite, and obscure. 
 
 149. Experience confirms the deductions of science 
 regarding innate ideas, powers, capacities, and intuitions, 
 considered as causes, and leaves us in no reasonable 
 doubt as to the operation of such mental forces. The 
 moralist recognises the universal law of innate universal 
 tendencies to definite states of consciousness, and finds 
 them so absolute in their operation that they cannot be 
 overlooked, if we would influence men's minds : — 
 
 " Telepbe, vel Peleu, male si mandata loqueris, 
 Ant dormitabo, aut ridebo. Tristia mcestum 
 Vultum verba decent ; iratum, plena minarum ; 
 Ludentem, lasciva ; severura, seria dictu. 
 Format enim natura prius ?ios intus ad omnem 
 Fortunarum habitum ; juvat, aut impellit ad iram, 
 Aut ad bumum mcerore gravi deducit, et angit ; 
 Post effert animi motus interprets lingua."* 
 
 The simple difference between one man and another is 
 
 due to these laws of Mind. The common experience of 
 
 man is so settled, indeed, as to this point, that no intelli- 
 
 * Q. Horatius Flaccus. De Arte Poetica, 103-111.
 
 DIV. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 293 
 
 gent father neglects a consideration of the innate powers 
 of his son, or his natural capacities as they are termed ; 
 knowing that no experience can contend effectually 
 against connate tendencies. Practical men have asked 
 rather, How could these natural capacities be evolved 
 and utilised? or in other words, How could the ex- 
 perience of the individual be so directed as to secure 
 their utmost strength of manifestation? The intuitive 
 ideas of the metaphysicians are, in fact, none other than 
 the correlative cognitions of the intellectual or other 
 instincts, and which are evolved into the consciousness 
 after the same law as the instincts proper are evolved 
 (77). M. Cousin has likened this element of our nature 
 to inspiration. " Inspiration," he observes, " is in all 
 languages distinguished from reflection ; it is the percep- 
 tion of truth (I mean of essential and fundamental 
 truths) without the intervention of volition and of indi- 
 vidual personality. We are but simple spectators of the 
 fact — we are not agents ; at least, all our agency consists 
 in being made conscious of what passes in our view. In 
 this there is doubtless already some activity, reflected 
 upon, voluntary, and personal."* 
 
 170. Two things are to be distinguished in these innate 
 things : first, the ideas as truths, or perceptions, or states of 
 knowledge ; secondly, the ideas as causes of other states of 
 knowledge, or of action — i.e., as causal ideas or motives. 
 And upon these differences a classification may be founded. 
 The intuitions, as truths or states of knowledge, have re- 
 ference to all the relations in which man exists, — as to- 
 wards Grod, his fellow-creatures, external nature, and the 
 like ; or in other words, they are moral, and religious, and 
 intellectual. As incitements to action, they are motives, 
 
 * Introduction to History of Philosophy, translated by H. S. Lim- 
 berg (Boston, U.S., 1832), p. 165.
 
 294 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part hi. 
 
 feelings, sentiments, and the like. That all men possess 
 potentially intuitions, as ideas or motives, is certain, 
 ult hough all men, or all races of men, have not the same 
 intuitions, or intuitions of equal strength and scope. 
 The differences in the intuitions constitute, in fact, dif- 
 ferences of character in races as well as in individuals. 
 
 171. Examining the matter more specifically, it can 
 he demonstrated hy experience that man has an intuition 
 of truth in the abstract. " The cause of assent to any- 
 thing is its appearing to be true. It is not possible to 
 assent, therefore, to anything which appears to be not 
 true ; because it is the very nature of the understanding 
 to agree to truth, to be dissatisfied with falsehood, and 
 to suspend its belief in doubtful cases. The soul, as 
 Plato says, is never voluntarily deprived of truth, but 
 what is false appears to it to be true."* And so a much 
 more modern writer observes : " Observing that I possess 
 an inner sense, quite distinct from my reasoning powers, 
 which in an exceedingly delicate, small, and humble 
 way influences my apprehensions both of things and 
 people, I wait upon this spiritual instinct as quietly and 
 reverently as I can ; and by this sort of silent attention 
 to its actings, I gradually acquire, as I believe, a just 
 conception of the nature of truth. "f 
 
 172. Man has also an intuition of moral truth. To 
 this fundamental faculty of the human mind various 
 terms have been given, and various theories as to its 
 origin developed ; these being, for the most part, expres- 
 sive of its Divine origin from the Supreme, Mind. It 
 corresponds to the " God within the soul" of Pythagoras, 
 and Epictetus, and Seneca ; to the " eternal principles 
 of justice " of Justin Martyr ; the " light and law of 
 
 * Epictetus, book i. chap, xxviii. 
 t Visiting my Relations, p. 215.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 295 
 
 nature" of St Paul, Cicero, and others ; to the " natural 
 revelation" of Locke; to the "light of truth," the 
 " Divine Spirit," " conscience," " reason," of numerous 
 writers. Such an intuition, developed into special truths, 
 is the admitted foundation of all natural religion hy all 
 those who admit a natural religion at all. Further, 
 this doctrine was applied at a very early period to an 
 explanation of the origin and nature of abstract or mathe- 
 matical ideas. Such axioms as that equals added to 
 equals make equals ; that cause is in the order of nature 
 before effect, and the like, were looked upon as eternal, 
 immutable truths. This class of ideas corresponds to the 
 "universals" or " intelligibles ; to the "pre-established 
 principles," the " unchanging," and the like. They are 
 the " innate ideas " of Descartes, as opposed to the " ad- 
 ventitious." 
 
 173. Hobbes and Locke opposed this doctrine, and 
 maintained that all our knowledge is the result of ex- 
 perience ; and their views have had the support of some 
 great thinkers. But a modified doctrine has sprung up, 
 which may be termed Eclectic — namely, that although 
 there are doubtless fundamental intuitions or modes of 
 thought, they require what is termed experience for their 
 development into thought — experience being here a term 
 really indicative of vital as well as mental activity. This 
 question is that which Kant examined in his famous 
 Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, in which he demonstrated 
 logically that there are intuitive ideas. Before him, 
 or contemporaneously with him, Beid taught the same 
 doctrine empirically. " The criterion — the index by 
 which Kant discriminates the notions of pure or a priori 
 origin from those elaborated from experience " — (Sir 
 William Hamilton writes), " is their quality of necessity; 
 and its quality of necessity is precisely the quality by
 
 2Q6 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part hi. 
 
 which Reid proves that, among others, the notion of 
 causality cannot be an educt of experience, but must 
 form a part of the native cognitions of the mind itself."* 
 Sir William Hamilton adds, that the term a priori, by 
 the influence of Kant and his school, is now very gene- 
 rally employed to characterise those elements of know- 
 ledge which are not obtained a posteriori; are not 
 evolved out of experience as fictitious generalisations, but 
 which, as native to, are potentially in "the mind" ante- 
 cedently to the act of experience on occasion of which 
 (as constituting its subjective conditions) they are first 
 actually elicited into consciousness. These, like many — 
 indeed most — of his technical expressions, are old words 
 applied in a new signification. Previously to Kant, the 
 terms a priori and a posteriori were, in a sense which 
 descended from Aristotle, properly and usually employed, 
 the former to denote a reasoning from cause to effect — 
 the latter, a reasoning from effect to cause. Sir William 
 Hamilton very truly observes, that the first problem of 
 Philosophy, although one of no easy accomplishment, is 
 to seek out, purify, and establish by intellectual analysis 
 and criticism, the elementary feelings or beliefs in which 
 are given the elementary truths of which all are in pos- 
 session. Professor Whewell, entertaining the same con- 
 victions, has very successfully endeavoured to detect, by 
 an inductive method, the fundamental ideas from which 
 universal and necessary truths are derived, so as to give 
 them a practical application to an improved method of 
 scientific research. f 
 
 174. That there are necessary truths or laws of reason, 
 is now fully recognised by the best living metaphysicians, 
 but the fundamental importance of determining them is 
 
 * Supp. Dissertations — Reid' a Works, note A, ? 3, p. 753. 
 t History of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. ; London, 1858.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 297 
 
 hardly comprehended by many ; and it is not without 
 justice that Professor Ferrier asserts that " the un- 
 founded assumption that the class of necessary truths, or 
 laws of reason, is either null or of very limited extent, 
 and the effrontery with which their investigation has 
 been proscribed, as an illegitimate pursuit, have contri- 
 buted more directly than any other cause to arrest the 
 improvement of speculation, and to render it a vague 
 and unreasoned science ; for Philosophy executes her 
 proper functions only when dealing with necessary truth. 
 This cause, however, is merely an exemplification of the 
 more comprehensive cause already pointed out ; for the 
 necessary truths of reason, being the most primitive ele- 
 ments of philosophy, and the first in the order of things, 
 are fixed by that very circumstance as the most obstinate 
 in concealing themselves from view, and as among the 
 latest that shall be brought to light."* 
 
 175. There is yet another important question to be 
 considered which arises out of these doctrines — namely, 
 What is the character, and what the origin, of false or 
 erroneous ideas, notions, or motives ? It is a matter of 
 common observation and daily experience, that men have 
 the strongest convictions of the truth of certain ideas or 
 notions which all mankind, not lunatics, would agree in 
 designating as false. A lunatic, for example, infested 
 by a fixed idea, has an unalterable conviction that he 
 is in possession of a fabulous amount of wealth, or is 
 endowed with supernatural powers, or holds some high 
 'office, as Pope or Emperor, or suffers from certain imagi- 
 nary agents, or is afflicted with imaginary and impossible 
 diseases. So also with persons not generally recognised 
 as lunatics, who believe in notions equally false as those 
 of the insane, or are given over to wild and extravagant 
 * Institutes of 3fetaj)hysic, p. 22.
 
 298 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part III, 
 
 conclusions from false facts. How, we ask, are these 
 false cognitions to be explained? 
 
 176. This department of delusive knowledges, noted 
 as morbid, or trenching on morbid states, opens up the in- 
 quiry as to what is physiologically necessary, fundamental, 
 and universal in our cognitions. We have seen that, 
 as a generalisation of experience, man cannot but be 
 conscious in certain modes (31), but those modes are 
 necessarily coincident with the results of the operation 
 of the vital forces, whatever those may be. Hence he 
 cannot but think in accordance with the laws of the vital 
 forces. He may know that certain cognitions which 
 thus arise are delusive ; but still, even that knowledge is 
 equally the result of the operation of the vital forces. 
 This is proved by the mental state known as dreaming, 
 when the vital state of the encephalon and of the ex- 
 ternal senses is such, that we see no incongruity whatever 
 in what, in the waking state, are the most incongruous 
 cognitions. Such is also the state in delirium, and such 
 also, in a more permanent degree, in various forms of in- 
 sanity ; for in these the leading characteristic is that of 
 necessity. So soon as the disorder is so extended in the 
 encephalon that no correct cognition or volition is pos- 
 sible, the man must think, and act, and feel according to 
 the disordered operation of the vital forces, on which the 
 disordered states of consciousness depend. 
 
 177. The element of the so-called necessity — that by 
 which Kant and Eeid distinguished a 'priori truths, or 
 truths independent of experience — attaches, therefore, to 
 all modes of existence as well as states of conscious- 
 ness. It is equally the law of life and organisation, as of 
 thought. " Can a man, by taking thought, add one cubit 
 to his stature?" It is the law of all instinctive actions 
 and processes. Can a man suffer or not suffer pain as he
 
 Div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 299 
 
 wills ? It is the recognised fundamental law of the asso- 
 ciation of ideas in thought (32) ; for necessity means, in 
 this sense, nothing more than the immutable, inevitable 
 order of creation, according to the laws of the Supreme 
 Mind. Guided by these views, then, we can seek with 
 propriety for the causal ideas and truths of experience in 
 the fundamental ideas and truths, of which they are the 
 derivatives ; or, in other words, we have to seek for the 
 particular in the general. To this end it is necessary to 
 establish what is general either deductively, i.e., a priori, 
 or inductively from the conclusions which experience 
 communicates. In either case we know that there are 
 potentially present in the man a series of universal, fun- 
 damental, and necessary ideas, correlating equally uni- 
 versal, fundamental, and necessary cognitions or truths, 
 with which the faculties are necessarily busied in all pre- 
 sent states of consciousness, and which, becoming active 
 during each state, are the necessary causal elements of 
 the thoughts and acts. These are what I have termed 
 the noetic teleiotic ideas (p. 286). 
 
 178. Examining these noetic ideas as causes, we ob- 
 serve that they follow the general law of ideational evo- 
 lution. Every idea is evolved in the consciousness, in 
 co-existing and successional relations, as a general 
 idea ; that is, as one, and in relation with the whole 
 man as one. So evolved, it is the predominant or 
 leading idea — the form or species of that man's mind — 
 and is duly realised both in organisation or vital energy, 
 and in functional energy. In this way the physiognomy, 
 expression, tones of voice, bodily movements, and actions, 
 generally correspond to the dominant idea or group of 
 ideas. They are all in such relation to each other that 
 the observer grasps the whole as a unity, and connects that 
 whole with the ideas, motives, or predominant mental
 
 300 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [paut hi. 
 
 energies operating within; and is thus enabled to discover, 
 by the outward realisation in automatic or conscious vital 
 changes, the inevitable mental character, which is often 
 studiously concealed. 
 
 179. This doctrine being assumed as established, I 
 may here venture to ask the oft-repeated question, By 
 what method of inquiry can we best attain to an accurate 
 knowledge of the fundamental ideas and truths of Eeason? 
 Must we seek for them in the contingent, fleeting, com- 
 plex, and everchanging states of the human conscious- 
 ness — the never stable opinions of men — or in the abso- 
 lute, universal, and necessary ideas and truths of abso- 
 lute and universal Mind, as manifested in creation ? The 
 latter, according to the principles hitherto enunciated, 
 must be the method ; for in this one way we study at 
 their origin and source all fundamental ideas and neces- 
 sary truths, inasmuch as, in accordance with those prin- 
 ciples, all the necessary intuitions and fundamental 
 powers of the human mind must correspond to derivative 
 results of the general law of design operating in and 
 through the vital forces (156, 157). That is to say, every 
 fundamental state of consciousness must be coincident 
 with the laws of action of the vital forces, as expressive 
 of teleiotic ideas, and as manifested in the results attained 
 by that action, in accordance with the law of design. 
 And since these vital forces are but derivatives and cor- 
 relatives of the physical forces, it follows, that those 
 results of their actions which coincide with states of 
 consciousness must correspond to correlative results in 
 the external world ; or, to state the doctrine dogmati- 
 cally, all the intuitive ideas and truths of the human 
 mind are to be discovered inductively, as results of the 
 great law of design, and correspond necessarily, therefore, 
 to the fundamental ideas of the Great Thought of creation.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 30I 
 
 180. If these views as to the physiology of funda- 
 mental ideas and necessary truths be admitted, then it 
 must be likewise admitted that a criterion of truth may 
 be attained both scientifically and metaphysically; for 
 we can correct the dimly felt intuitions of our own con- 
 sciousness, and the imperfect results of our own expe- 
 rience and observation, by comparing them with the 
 fixed, immutable, and eternal Ideas of the Divine Eeason, 
 as deduced from observation of the orderly succession of 
 phenomena in creation. It also necessarily follows from 
 the same premises, tbat such a comparison, founded on 
 the results of careful observation and deduction, can 
 supply (nay, can alone supply) the true first principles of 
 a science of Ideology, or metaphysic — a science which, 
 so founded, would be entitled to take its place at the 
 head of all the natural sciences, and put speculation and 
 theory in their due subordinate position in all the deriva- 
 tive sciences, whether of matter and its forces ; of life 
 and organisation, and their forces ; or of the human 
 mind and human nature, in their relations to creation 
 and the Creator. 
 
 181. I shall shortly develop these views; but I would 
 here add that they are not without important confirma- 
 tion on the side of metaphysic. Thus M. Cousin re- 
 marks, " Truth may be perceived by Eeason in its human 
 state, if I may so express myself, yet not always cor- 
 rectly ; but even then, Truth itself is neither altered nor 
 destroyed ; for it subsists independently of that human 
 reason, which either does not perceive it at all, or perceives 
 it incorrectly. Truth in itself is as independent of Eea- 
 son in its present state [manifested in Life] as Eeason in 
 itself is independent of man, in whom it appears. And 
 having thus separated it from the fallible reason of man, 
 nothing remains but to refer it to Eeason not yet fallen
 
 302 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part hi. 
 
 into humanity — to universal, absolute, and infallible Kea- 
 son ; to eternal Keason, which is without space or time, or 
 any contact witb anything relative, or contingent, or erro- 
 neous ; to that Intelligence of which our own, or rather 
 that which appears in us, is but a fragment ; to that pure 
 and incorruptible Thought, which our thought reflects. 
 This is the theory of Plato and of Leibnitz — the theory 
 which I have myself adopted, and which on former occa- 
 sions I have so fully developed from this chair."* To 
 the same effect Cudworth writes : " And from hence it is 
 evident, also, that there can be but one only original 
 Mind, or no more than one understanding Being self- 
 existent ; all other minds whatsoever partaking of one 
 original Mind, and being, as it were, stamped with the 
 same seal. From whence it cometh to pass, that all 
 minds, in the several places and ages of the world, have 
 ideas and notions of things exactly alike, and truths in- 
 divisibly the same. Truths are not multiplied by the 
 diversity of minds that apprehend them, because they 
 are all but ectypal participations of one and the same 
 original or archetypal Mind and Truth. As the same 
 face may be reflected in several glasses ; and the image 
 of the same sun may be in a thousand eyes at once be- 
 holding it ; and one and the same voice may be in a 
 thousand ears listening to it : so, when innumerable 
 created minds have the same ideas of things, and under- 
 stand the same truths, it is but one and the same eternal 
 Light that is reflected in them all (' that Light which 
 enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world '), 
 or the same voice of that one everlasting Word, that is 
 never silent, re-echoed by them."f 
 
 * Op. cit. p. 129. 
 
 t The True Intellectual System of the Universe, book i. chap, v., 
 close.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 303 
 
 182. It is in the methods of development and applica- 
 tion of these views as to intuitive ideas and necessary 
 truths, rather than in the fundamental principles, that 
 I differ from the most eminent metaphysicians. The 
 " pure Eeason " of the latter, or " the Eeason " simply, 
 corresponds with what I have designated Mind. But 
 whereas in metaphysics the pure Eeason is separated in 
 theory and in observation from life and organisation, and 
 all the results of the great forces of nature, Mind, accord- 
 ing to my views, necessarily gives rise to, and correlates, 
 the forces of nature, and is thus the final cause of all 
 created things, and of all the changes in them. It may 
 advance the subject if Mind be considered scientifically 
 from this point of view.
 
 CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 MIND CONSIDERED AS THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 183. The object of this work being purely scientific, 
 it hardly comes within its scope to discuss the nature of 
 the Deity as the Creator and Governor of the world. 
 This is the business of Theology, or of that speculative 
 philosophy which, abandoning induction, seeks to find in 
 metaphysical or a priori deductions a solution of that 
 great problem. Besides, the moral relations of man to 
 G-od are so solemn, that it seems hardly fitting to discuss 
 them as scientific questions. And yet Science is emi- 
 nently religious, as we have seen (p. 84) ; so that, if the 
 question be approached in a suitable spirit, the specu- 
 lations of the philosopher and the teachings of the theo- 
 logian may be compared with the conclusions of science, 
 without incurring the charge of impiety or presumption. 
 
 184. Mind, we have seen, is the cause of all pheno- 
 mena ; it is therefore the cause of all vital action and 
 of all thought. And it is not the cause as if it were 
 remote and occasional ; on the contrary, it is an ever- 
 present, ever-operating, internal force or energy. Now, 
 since Mind thus manifested is but another word for the 
 Supreme Designer and the Source of all power, it follows 
 that G-od is in a relation with all the phenomena of crea- 
 tion, as their Cause. 
 
 185. Many and very different systems of physio-philo- 
 sophy and speculative theology have been founded upon
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 305 
 
 this general proposition, in all ages and among all 
 civilised nations, whether of the east or the west. We 
 need not stop to examine any of these* There is one 
 point, however, which, on account of its scientific import- 
 ance, may be noticed — viz., the theological doctrine of 
 the natural likeness of man to God, as the Cause of his 
 being. The Mosaic account of creation affirms that God 
 made man in His own image, after His own likeness.f 
 This declaration cannot possibly be interpreted as refer- 
 ring to anything else than man's mental and moral nature ; 
 any other inference would be to teach from Scriptures 
 a doctrine they also repudiate — viz., an organic anthro- 
 pomorphism. Such being the fact, we can only view 
 the Scriptures as teaching, in philosophical phrase, that 
 a -perfect man is a phenomenal realisation of the most 
 fundamental idea of the Divine Mind, and of all its 
 derivative ideas. That there should be a fundamental 
 idea is logically necessary, if the existence of a Supreme 
 Designer be admitted ; and that such idea should be 
 realised, is equally a necessary conclusion. That man 
 is the realisation of an idea of the Divine Mind is there- 
 fore a truth of revelation, a truth of intuition, a truth of 
 philosophy, and a scientific induction. 
 
 186. Before examining this Godlikeness of the arche- 
 typal man, it is necessary to determine what is included 
 in the notion. We may learn it— first, from the natu- 
 ral history of man as an organismic realisation of the 
 
 * The reader will find a vast store of learning brought to bear 
 upon these subjects, so far as connected with European specula- 
 tion, in Cudworth's great work, The True Intellectual System of the 
 Universe. 
 
 f "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness. ... So God created man in his own image ; in the image 
 of God created he him." — Genesis, chap. i. ver. 26, 27. 
 
 U
 
 306 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part lit. 
 
 archetypal idea ; secondly, from the intuitions of man 
 as a conscient realisation of the idea; and thirdly, de- 
 ductively, from a priori conclusions as to the teleiotic 
 contenta of the idea. As to the contenta, it is obvious 
 that the fundamental idea would energise to realise a 
 phenomenal development of itself (162); as to the in- 
 tuitions, they would correspond to the realisation in 
 thought of those contenta ; as to the natural history of 
 man, the realisation would be proved by a differential 
 estimate of man as compared with other animals. Now, 
 the fundamental idea of the Divine Mind, considered as 
 a scheme of creation, cannot be comprehended by man, 
 except in so far as it is realised in him. He can know 
 nothing by observation of the universe in which the 
 scheme is realised, except in so far as his powers permit, 
 which are finite both as to time, space, and energy. 
 The ends aimed at in his own creation are more within 
 his grasp. They are his characteristics as an animal, 
 and appear to be — 1. The faculty of knowing God as 
 the source of power and order. 2. The faculty of know- 
 ing the order of creation — that is, of the laws of G-od. 
 3. The power of subjecting those laws to his ends — or 
 in other words, exercising dominion over nature. 
 
 187. The intuitions of man, we have already seen, 
 are necessarily in relation with the ideas of the Divine 
 Mind ; that is to say, with the ends aimed at and attained 
 (146). The most fundamental of these is the idea of 
 Cause, or energy to ends, and which, in the moral nature 
 of man, is the idea of a moral cause. Now this is the 
 fundamental intuition of a Deity, or more strictly of a 
 supernatural cause, designing and executing. This is 
 so universal, that there is no race of men without some 
 such intuition : " Qua? est enim gens, aut quod genus 
 hominum, quod non habeat sine doctrina anticipationem
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 307 
 
 quandam deorum ? quam appellat rpoA^tv Epicurus, i<l 
 est, anteceptam ammo rei quandam informationem, 
 sine qua nee intelligi quidpiam, nee quasri, nee disputari 
 potest. Cujus rationis vim atque utilitatem ex illo cce- 
 lesti Epicuri deregulo et judicio volumine accepimus."* 
 
 188. That man is the realisation of a Divine Archetype, 
 seems also to have been the orthodox teaching of ancient 
 philosophy. And for this reason the philosophical St 
 Paul showed to the Athenians, that in this respect 
 Christian doctrine and Greek philosophy were agreed. 
 In his discourse at Athens he taught that the pheno- 
 mena of life, and motion, and thought, depend directly 
 upon God ; thus adopting the doctrine of the Platonists, 
 that the Deity is both a regulative and constitutive prin- 
 ciple. For it must be observed, that the words " For in 
 Him we live and move, and have our being," are not 
 an accurate rendering of the original ; the word ia-fiev 
 meaning, We have conscious being. Nor did he limit 
 himself to this simple statement ; for he adds an expla- 
 nation of this participation in the Divine nature which 
 would be perfectly intelligible to the learned Athenians. 
 This is found in the words tov yap kcu yeVos ia-fiev, trans- 
 lated " For we are His offspring." Now, that the word 
 "offspring" is not the counterpart of the word yevos as used 
 by the Greek philosophers, is clear from its use by Aris- 
 totle; and as this is a quotation from the opening sentence 
 of Aratus' astronomical poem, entitled On Phcenomena, it 
 must be taken in the philosophical sense. That sense 
 implied similarity of form and nature, determined by an 
 idea or archetype, as a cause ; and hence, as used by St 
 Paul, it implied both a community of causal archetype be- 
 tween man and God, and a generic likeness of man to God 
 as to mental characteristics. The true cause of his exist- 
 * Cicero. Be Natura Deorum, lib. i. § 16.
 
 308 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY, [part ill. 
 
 ence is in the idea, or as it was termed, the " Intelligible." 
 St Paul, therefore, justly added, as the logical conclusion 
 from the doctrine common both to Greek philosophy and 
 Christian teaching, that since we have our existence 
 causally in God as the Creative Idea, we ought not to 
 think the Divine to be like gold, or silver, or stone, the 
 graven product of man's art and skill. 
 
 189. The sentiments of Aratus constitute the intro- 
 duction to a scientific work on the Kosmos, as known to 
 the Greeks, and are conclusive as to the conceptions 
 which the learned ancients had formed of God. He ob- 
 serves, " With Dios we must begin — the Ineffable — nor 
 from him rove. Full of Dios are all the towns and marts 
 of man ; full the ocean and ports ; — we all are ever in 
 communion with Dios, for we are of the genus of him." 
 In the hymn of Cleanthes a similar expression occurs, — 
 " For we are of the genus of him : the echo and image 
 of the Eternal One" — Ek gov yap yevos icr^iv, rjX 0V /^V 7 ?/** 1 
 Xo^ovtIs fxovvov. Considered from this point of view, the 
 opening invocation of our Lord's form of prayer is preg- 
 nant with meaning : " But when ye pray, say, IIATEP 
 rj/jcwv 6 ev tois oupavots" — ' Father of us ! who art in the 
 heavens.' That this was a general opinion amongst the 
 educated classes of the ancient world, might be shown by 
 ample evidence. It may suffice to quote a passage from 
 a work (JDe Mundo) of a writer supposed of the period 
 of Aristotle, or at least anterior to the Christian era : — 
 il It is an ancient opinion or tradition, that hath been 
 conveyed down to all men from their progenitors, that all 
 things are from God, and consist by Him ; and that no 
 nature is sufficient to preserve itself, if left alone, and 
 devoid of the Divine assistance and influence."* 
 
 * Vide passage in The True Intellectual System of the Universe, 
 book i. chap. 4.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 309 
 
 190. Now this doctrine of Mind, as the first cause, has 
 not hitherto, I believe, had a true deductive and induc- 
 tive application to phenomena. It has either been wholly 
 neglected for theological speculations into the nature of 
 God, or secondary causes have been substituted for it 
 in physics, and the inquirer has simply sought to deduce 
 a priori deductions from it as to the Good, the Beautiful, 
 the True, &c. An early illustration of this is to be found 
 in Plato. Socrates in the Phoedo (§ 108), is repre- 
 sented as referring to this doctrine thus : " Hearing a 
 person read out of a book, written, as he said, by Anaxa- 
 goras, and which affirmed that Mind was the order and 
 cause of all things, vov<; icrnv 6 SiaKoafxwv tc kclI iravratv 
 aiVios, I was delighted with this cause, concluding that 
 there was nothing more certain, and that the regulating 
 Intelligence orders all things, and disposes each in such 
 way as shall be best for it," &c. But Socrates goes on 
 to say that he found no such a priori deductions applied 
 to the explanation of the phenomena of creation and of 
 thought ; on the contrary, he found Anaxagoras made no 
 use of this Intelligence as a cause, but made the causes 
 to consist of air, aether, water, and many other things 
 equally absurd. Descartes, in modern times, fell into the 
 same kind of error ; for having made all things dependent 
 on motion, and G-od the cause of that, he wholly lost sight 
 of Intelligence as the first cause, and attributed all the 
 phenomena of creation to " vortices." 
 
 191. Those who have limited the doctrine of Mind as 
 a first cause to theological speculations, have discussed 
 the nature of the Deity according to two leading ideas. 
 According to the one, He is the Supreme Orderer of crea- 
 tion according to fixed laws — i.e., a regulative principle, 
 but not in creation as part of it. According to the other, 
 the Deity is Himself an essential element of all phe-
 
 3IO MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [PART III. 
 
 noniena as their immanent and ever-operating Cause — 
 i.e., a constitutive principle. The one idea corresponds 
 to a Theos, the other to a Pantheos. Either of these 
 notions, if taken separately, leads away from the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of the personality of God. For the idea of 
 a Pantheos implies that all things participate in the 
 Divine Nature, and that, therefore, as a cause, God is 
 everywhere ; the idea of a Theos, omitting this causal 
 nature of Mind, substitutes an inevitable order in the 
 place of Divine Providence as a regulative principle, 
 naming it " Fate," " Necessity," and the like. This 
 negatives the idea of a God at all (Atheism). 
 
 192. It will be useful to examine these doctrines with 
 a view to the better comprehension of Mind as a cause ; 
 for in this, as in other antagonisms of thought, the truth 
 lies in the union in Relation of the two ideas — i.e., in the 
 conception of God as both a constitutive and regulative 
 principle. Either, taken separately, affords an insufficient 
 explanation of tbe phenomena of creation, and of the in- 
 tuitions of the human mind. Atheism, in the strict sense, 
 is the most difficult of opinions to reach and to hold ; and 
 is only reached, in fact, by a sort of revulsion against im- 
 perfect theories of the Divine Nature. The most common 
 theory of this kind is that which represents God as if He 
 were an artificer, an anthropomorphic workman — of sur- 
 passing skill, it is true, but still a workman. Now, it 
 is a thorough knowledge of the law of design in creation, 
 and of the causal character of Ideas, which is the proper 
 antidote to Atheism thus arising. A law of design, rightly 
 understood, can never take the place of the designer ; 
 but such a law is needed for the demonstration of his 
 existence. Hence Cudworth advocated the theory of a 
 " plastic nature," devoid of express knowledge and under- 
 standing, as subordinate to the Deity, intending thereby
 
 Biv. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 3 1 1 
 
 to explain the phenomena of creation, chiefly in the 
 way of confutation of the Cosmo-plastic and Hylo-zoic 
 Atheisms. But, he adds, " Though we had a further 
 design herein also for the defence of Theism, forasmuch 
 as without such a nature either Glod must he supposed 
 to do all things in the world immediately, and to form 
 every gnat and fly, as it were, with His own hands, which 
 seemeth not so becoming of Him, and would render His 
 providence, to human apprehension, laborious and dis- 
 tractive ; or else, the whole system of this corporeal 
 universe must result only from fortuitous mechanisms, 
 without the direction of any mind — which hypothesis, 
 once admitted, would unquestionably, by degrees, sup- 
 plant and undermine all Theism.* 
 
 193. This " plastic nature " of that distinguished 
 philosopher is nothing more than a formularised develop- 
 ment of what is included in the simple term " nature " by 
 all writers (71). It is the cognition of the fixed order, 
 according to design as cause, which is seen in creation. 
 Thus Cicero has the phrase " rertim natura " for the 
 universe, and " artifex ipsius mundi natura " for G-od. 
 So also Seneca, " Nihil aliud est natura quam Deus et 
 divina quasdam ratio, toti mundo et partibus ejus in- 
 serta." The law of design is thus put for the source of 
 the order or design. Cicero marks the sense in which it 
 was used in his day: "Alii Naturam censent esse vim 
 quandam sine ratione, cientem motus in corporibus ne- 
 cessarios ; alii autem vim participem ordinis, tanquam 
 via progredientem." And again, " Sunt qui omnia na- 
 turae nomine appellent, ut Epicurus, sed nos, cum dici- 
 mus, ut glebam, aut fragmentum lapidis, aut aliquid 
 ejus modi, nulla cohaerendi natura; sed ut arborem, et 
 animalia, in quibus nulla temeritas, sed ordo apparet et 
 * Intellectual System of the Universe. Preface.
 
 312 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [fart hi. 
 
 artis quaedam similitudo."* Here the idea is teleo- 
 logical, being limited to the order to ends seen in 
 organisms. 
 
 194. This is almost the exact meaning of the word 
 "nature," as applied by modern writers to instinct and 
 instinctive action (72-75). Hence, Nature, it is said 
 by writers, "teaches," "causes," "performs," "builds 
 up," and the like, in all the phenomena of life and orga- 
 nisation. Thus Stewart, supporting Eeid's doctrine of 
 the instinctive character of all our actions, remarks : "In 
 this point of view, what can be more philosophical, as well 
 as beautiful, than the words of Mr Ferguson, that ' natu- 
 ral affection springs up in the soul of the mother, as the 
 milk in her breast to furnish nourishment to her child. 'f 
 ' The effect is here to the race,' as the same author has 
 excellently observed, ' what the vital motion of the heart 
 is to the individual — too necessary to the preservation of 
 nature s works to be entrusted to the precarious will or 
 intention of those concerned.'"! Nature is put for the 
 order of things termed Life and Organisation. Thus Dr 
 Eeid : — " We find it impossible to doubt of things of 
 which we are conscious. The constitution of our nature 
 forces this belief upon us irresistibly. "§ Reid, support- 
 ing the doctrine of natural language of the thoughts and 
 feelings as one of his first principles — namely, "that cer- 
 tain features of the countenance, sounds of the voice, and 
 gestures of the body, indicate certain thoughts and dis- 
 positions of the mind" — remarks, " For these reasons, I 
 conceive that it must be granted, not only that there is 
 
 * De Nat. Deor. lib. ii. chap, xxxii. 
 t Principles of Moral and Political Science. 
 
 X Life of Reid, apud Sir W. Hamilton's edition of " Reid'a 
 Works," p. 23. 
 \ Op. cit. p. 463,
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 3 1 3 
 
 a connection established by nature between certain signs 
 in the countenance, voipe, and gesture, and the thoughts 
 and passions of the mind, but also that, by our constitu- 
 tion, we understand the meaning of those signs, and from 
 the sign conclude the existence of the thing signified."* 
 195. The persistence with which this fundamental 
 teleological idea of the order of creation has commingled 
 with fundamental ideas as to the Creator, is well worthy 
 a passing notice. The word tcAos, the root of teleology, 
 or the science of Ends, gives origin, as we have seen 
 (p. 108), in Greek, to reWw, facio, fio, orior, and TeAetfw, 
 sum, fio, orior, words connoting creative power and intel- 
 ligence. But (as used by Greek writers) in its seondary 
 meanings, TeAos also denoted ideas connected with reli- 
 gion and morals. Thus it was used to mark reward and 
 punishment, executive dignity, and religious mysteries. 
 It is not improbable that reAos itself is derived from some 
 obsolete Sanscrit or Arabic root. Such a root is found 
 in the Hebrew term for God — El or El-oah, plural 
 Eloliim ; Arabic, Allah, and in the derivatives Eli, 
 Elias (my God) ; Greek, 'HAias. And as the sun or fire 
 was an ancient object of reverence (106), the same word 
 may have been the root of tJAio?, the sun, and IXn, the 
 sun's heat — a word which is probably the root of the Latin 
 Ele-ment-um (see ante 130), and which enters into proles, 
 adolescens, and other similar words, expressing the ideas 
 of generation and growth. f 
 
 196. The conception of the Deity as a constitutive 
 principle simply, and not as a regulative principle, must 
 necessarily lead on to Pantheism ; because, setting aside 
 
 * Life of Reid, apud Sir W. Hamilton's edition of " Keid's 
 Works," p. 450. 
 
 f See Professor Whewell's Discussion of this in History of 
 Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. vol. ii. p. 4.
 
 314 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 His laws as causal ideas, it implies the direct participation 
 of all things in the nature of God ; and any theory of etio- 
 logical or causal ideas which implies this direct partici- 
 pation, must have the same effect upon men's minds, as 
 to the personality of the Supreme Being, which " pure 
 Puntheism " produces. To avoid this result, it is neces- 
 sary to consider Mind as a constitutive and ordering 
 force, derived from Grod, and as that by which He mani- 
 fests His Will. The force of gravity is, in fact, con- 
 ceived to be just such a regulative and constitutive prin- 
 ciple. Essential to all things, it is participated in by all 
 things. The mind has no difficulty in entertaining the 
 idea, nor in comprehending the cosmic and organic re- 
 sults of its operation — namely, solar systems, or many 
 organised individuals constituting The One in regulated 
 relation. So it is with mental force. Everywhere pre- 
 sent as a constitutive and a regulative principle, it is 
 participated in by all things ; and yet the result is indi- 
 vidual, self-conscious organisms. Such we can affirm to 
 be the ultimate law; and it is, in fact, no more difficult 
 of apprehension than was the Newtonian theory of 
 gravity when first propounded.* 
 
 197. But a form of speculative theology has prevailed 
 very extensively, in which the two principles have both 
 their mythological representatives. The regulative prin- 
 ciple is made to appear as a deity without activity — 
 Thought latent ; the constitutive principle, as Deity 
 active. Or the Deity has been represented as alternately 
 active and dormant. These views have had their origin 
 in Asia, where perhaps the most subtle and the most 
 
 * Compare J. S. Mill (System of Logic, 4th edit. vol. i. pp. 468 
 sqq.) for instances of disbelief in the antipodes, rejection of the 
 theory of gravitation, &c., from the influence of preconceived no- 
 tions as to the conceivable.
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 315 
 
 ancient speculations have been developed. The following 
 hymn from the Vedas gives an idea of the speculative 
 powers of the ancient Hindoo philosophers as to the origin 
 and nature of God, and of His working in creation : — 
 
 " Then there was no entity nor non-entity ; 
 No world, nor sky, nor aught above it ; 
 Nothing anywhere. . . . 
 Death was not, 
 Nor then was Immortality, 
 Nor distinction of the day or night ; 
 But That [i.e., God] breathed without afflation. 
 Who knows, and shall declare, whence and why 
 This creation took place? 
 
 The gods are subsequent to the production of this world ; 
 Who then can know whence it proceeded, 
 Or whence this varied world uprose ? 
 He who in the highest heaven is ruler knows, indeed, 
 But not another can possess this knowledge."* 
 
 198. The doctrine of the personality of the Deity has 
 a double foundation on the experience and the intuitions! 
 of mankind. Every man feels, amidst all the multifari- 
 ous processes of his corporeal frame, that he is one, or a 
 person, knowing the past and present, and anticipating 
 the future — desiring, feeling, suffering. He is all this 
 in virtue of the laws of his existence, and eminently in 
 virtue of the great law of adaptation to ends. Now, it is 
 not conceivable that man should be thus personal and 
 conscious, and his Creator (whose existence, by the terms 
 of the argument, is admitted) should be impersonal and 
 unconscious. It would be as easy to conceive that the 
 cause is not equal to the effect ; that the less is greater 
 than the whole ; that the contained is larger than the 
 container. Further, all men, at all advanced in thought, 
 
 * Hymn from the Vedas, Colebrook's Essays, pp. 17, 18. See 
 also this Hymn discussed in Professor Miiller's History of Sanskrit 
 Literature, pp. 559-G4.
 
 3 16 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 have some intuitive conviction, however erroneously it 
 may be developed, of a personal agent, external to them- 
 selves hut operative in nature, and influencing through 
 natural phenomena their weal and woe. As man rises 
 above Fetishism and Nature-worship, the intuition ac- 
 quires clearness, and at last becomes the innate convic- 
 tion of a superintending Providence and a personal God. 
 
 199. It is not conceivable that these ideas could arise 
 in the mind of man as solitary exceptions amidst the 
 other intuitive truths of his nature ; the more especially, 
 when it is demonstrated that it is in virtue of a Provi- 
 dence, or design, creation exists as it is. Cudworth ob- 
 serves that this innate assurance of Grod's personal exist- 
 ence, called a vaticination of Divine sagacity by Plato 
 and Aristotle, is Faith in the Scripture sense. " For the 
 Scripture faith is not a mere believing of historical 
 things, and upon inartificial arguments or testimonies 
 only, but a certain higher and divine power in the soul, 
 that peculiarly correspondeth with the Deity. Notwith- 
 standing which, knowledge or science added to this faith, 
 according to the Scripture advice, will make it the more 
 firm and stedfast, and the better able to resist those 
 assaults of sophistical reasonings that shall be made 
 against it."* 
 
 200. Since I shall shortly have to search for the in- 
 tuitions of the human mind in those of the Divine 
 Thought in creation, as a department of teleological 
 inquiry, I cannot do better than show how closely theo- 
 logical speculations tread upon the conclusions of science 
 by quoting the following eloquent passage from a pole- 
 mical work by an eminent living theologian, f and sub- 
 
 * Loc. cit. p. 64. 
 
 t Faith in God and Modern Atlieism compared, by Jas. Buchanan, 
 D.D.
 
 div. I.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 317 
 
 join for comparison a similar passage from a recent 
 philosophical work of Agassiz. "If it be true," I)r 
 Buchanan remarks, " that Mind invests nature with its 
 own forms, is it not also true that there is something in 
 nature that corresponds with human thought ? — 
 
 ' What if earth 
 
 Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein 
 Each to other like, more than on earth is thought ? ' 
 
 Milton. 
 
 And when man looks at nature, and beholds there, re- 
 flected as in a mirror, the ideas of his own Eeason ; — 
 when he discovers in that outer tablet of creation a 
 visible transcript of the same intelligence of which he is 
 conscious within ; — when he finds that it has a meaning, 
 and that its meaning becomes intelligible only in the 
 light of his own mental laws; — that he is dissatisfied 
 until this meaning is discovered, and rests on it with 
 entire acquiescence as soon as it is clearly discovered ; — 
 when he finds such a harmony between his own mind 
 and the universe as qualifies him to become its inter- 
 preter, and such an analogy between what be knows 
 within and what he sees without as enables him to dis- 
 cover indications of the same Thought in nature of which 
 he is conscious in his own heart. . . . How can he fail 
 to believe that that nature, which is so faithful a mirror 
 of human thought, is also a symbol of the Divine ; and 
 that he is called not only to be an interpreter of its 
 meaning, but a minister also of that august Temple which 
 God has reared for His own worship and glory?" " To 
 me it appears indisputable," remarks M. Agassiz, in re- 
 ference to zoological systems,* " that this order and 
 arrangement of our studies are based upon the natural 
 primitive relations of animal life, — those systems, to 
 * An Essay on Classification (1859), p. 9.
 
 2l8 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 which we have given the names of the great leaders of 
 our science who first proposed them, being in truth but 
 translations into human language of the thoughts of the 
 Creator. And if this is indeed so, do we not find in this 
 adaptability of the human intellect to the facts of crea- 
 tion, by which we become instinctively, and as I have 
 said unconsciously, the translators of the thoughts of 
 G-od, the most conclusive proof of our affinity with the 
 Divine Mind ? And is not this intellectual and spiritual 
 connection with the Almighty worthy of our deepest con- 
 sideration ? If there is any trutb in the belief that man 
 is made in the image of God, it is surely not amiss for 
 the philosopher to endeavour, by the study of his own 
 mental operations, to approximate the workings of the 
 Divine Eeason, learning from the nature of his own mind 
 better to understand the Infinite Intellect from which it 
 is derived. Such a suggestion may at first sight appear 
 irreverent. But who is the truly humble? He who, 
 penetrating into the secrets of creation, arranges them 
 under a formula, which he proudly calls his scientific 
 system ; or he who, in the same pursuit, recognises his 
 glorious affinity with the Creator, and, in deepest grati- 
 tude for so sublime a birthright, strives to be the faithful 
 interpreter of that Divine Intellect with whom he is 
 permitted, nay, with wbom he is intended, according to 
 the laws of his being, to enter into communion ?" 
 
 201. As one more illustration of many that might be 
 adduced, in favour of the assertion that all thinking men 
 in all ages have been led to the same conclusion on this 
 point, I subjoin the following passage from Epictetus 
 for comparison with the preceding. It also shows that 
 the doctrine here expressed may, in the religious man, 
 be a source of religious feeling and consolation :— " Why 
 may not he who understands the administration of the
 
 div. i.] CORRELATIONS OF CAUSES. 3 IQ 
 
 world, and has learned that the greatest, and most prin- 
 cipal and comprehensive of all things, is this system 
 composed of Men and God ; and that from Him the seeds 
 of Being are descended — not only to my father and grand- 
 father, but to all things that are produced and born on 
 earth, and especially to rational natures, as they alone 
 are qualified to partake of a communion with the Deity, 
 being connected with him by reason, — why may not 
 such an one call himself a citizen of the world? why 
 not a son of God ? and why should he fear anything that 
 happens among men ? Shall kindred to Caesar, or any 
 other of the great at Kome, enable a man to live secure, 
 above contempt, and void of all fear whatever ; and 
 shall not the having G-od for our Maker, and Father, and 
 Guardian, free us from griefs and terrors?"* Thus the 
 conclusions of the philosopher, the theologian, and the 
 physiologist, point alike to the Godlikeness of man, and 
 to God as the true Cause of all law and order. This is 
 sufficient for the man of science, who has to inquire into 
 the order and laws of nature, and their causes. But 
 there he arrests his researches : he does not venture to 
 discuss the Divine nature, because it is demonstrably 
 beyond his inquiries. Nevertheless, when Science holds 
 forth her light, he may be permitted the attempt to read 
 more distinctly the laws of human thought, as reflected 
 in that glorious mirror on which are reflected also the 
 ideas and ends of a creating and upholding Providence. 
 Nor is it beyond the sphere of science to recognise and 
 discuss the foundations of the moral world — namely, a 
 grand beneficent Thought in creation, operating according 
 to a law of necessary adaptation to ends. Such inquiries 
 can only elevate the thoughts of the man who engages in 
 them, and, above all, excite deeply grateful feelings that 
 * Epictetus, book i. chap. ix.
 
 320 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part HI. 
 
 he is permitted thus to examine into and comprehend 
 something of the mighty working of Him who is " All 
 in All," and to be a co-worker with Him in applying 
 the knowledge thus attained in carrying out the benefi- 
 cent schemes of His divine providence. Nor will those 
 feelings be less tender or reverential, if to them be added 
 the ennobling conviction of his Keason, as well as of his 
 Faith, that God is his Father, and that in Him, in very 
 truth, at every moment of his life, he lives, and moves, 
 and has conscious existence.
 
 DIVISION II. 
 
 BIOLOGY. 
 
 We have now to apply the teleological doctrine of 
 Causal Ideas to the phenomena of Life and Organisation, 
 so as to develop the great correlations of Life and Con- 
 sciousness with the laws of the Physical Forces. The 
 subject admits of division under the three following 
 heads : — 1. The fundamental conditions under which 
 Existence is possible according to a law of design. These 
 will necessarily constitute the "categories" of Thought, 
 and also the correlatives of those ideas which lie at the 
 root of all science, as space, time, number. 2. The 
 fundamental laws of vital processes by which Existence 
 is begun and continued, and which must correlate the 
 intuitive or fundamental ideas of Keason, and the funda- 
 mental processes of Consciousness. These are the vital 
 energies manifested teleologically. 3. The fundamental 
 laws of Force, or the general doctrines of Morphology, 
 which must also be correlative with the fundamental or 
 intuitive ideas of Form and Function, whether in nature, 
 science, or art. These are the laws of Development 
 manifested teleologically. The unity of the corporeal 
 and mental states of Existence, as manifested in the laws 
 of Consciousness or Thought, will be discussed separately. 
 
 x
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE CONSIDERED 
 TELEOLOGICALLY. 
 
 202. There are five conditions which are necessary 
 to existence — viz., Cause, matter, space, time, change. 
 The conscious states which correlate these conditions are 
 intuitive and fundamental ideas, and are evolved by- 
 experience into clear conceptions. So that man, upon re- 
 flection, finds Mind can only manifest itself in existence 
 as it acts upon matter ; without matter, there can be no 
 manifestation of mind (140). He finds, too, that there 
 can be no matter without space ; and that as change in 
 matter is the result and sole evidence of the operation of 
 Mind, and change can only occur in sequence, that is, in 
 time, both space and time are as necessary conditions to 
 existence as matter and mind. These, consequently, are 
 also the necessary conditions of mental action, or action 
 to ends, and underlie, therefore, equally the general laws 
 of the mental and the physical forces. For since the 
 first and most necessary result of the exercise of force to 
 end is motion (141), this law of motion correlates all 
 the forces of creation, and all the changes which constitute 
 the phenomena of things. Without matter, no change ; 
 without change, no phenomena ; without motion, no 
 change ; without force, no motion ; without mind, no 
 force. Mind is therefore the final cause of all phenomena, 
 but only in correlation with matter, forces, motions, and 
 changes to ends.
 
 Div. ir.] BIOLOGY. 323 
 
 203. Now, hypotheses have varied as to the thing 
 moved, or, in other words, as to the application of force. 
 Ou the one hand, the properties of matter are assumed 
 to be due to the active dynamic or motor relations of its 
 individual molecules or atoms to each other — the atomic 
 theory (119); on the other, there is the more popular 
 hypothesis of a vis inertice, or inert force inherent in all 
 masses of matter, and which is acted on by the vis viva, 
 or force proper. This has its most general application in 
 the so-called " first law of motion." 
 
 204. The earliest hypothesis elaborated by reason in 
 opposition to experience was the atomic. Cudworth, 
 speaking of it, says, that it " seems to have had its rise 
 and origin from the strength of Eeason, exerting its own 
 inward active power and vigour, and thereby bearing 
 itself up against the prejudices of Sense, and at length 
 prevailing over them after this manner. The ancients, 
 considering and revolving the ideas of their own minds, 
 found that they had a clear and distinct conception of 
 two things, as the general heads and principles of what- 
 soever was in tbe universe ; the one whereof was passive 
 matter, and the other active power, vigour, and virtue. 
 To the latter of which belongs both cogitation and the 
 power of moving matter, whether by express conscious- 
 ness or no. Both which together may be called by one 
 general name of Life ; so that they made these two general 
 heads of Being or Entity — passive matter or bulk, and 
 self-activity or life. Moreover, when they further con- 
 sidered the first of these, the material or corporeal prin- 
 ciple, they being not able clearly to conceive anything else 
 in it besides magnitude, figure, site, motion or rest, which 
 are all several modes of extended bulk, concluded there- 
 fore, according to reason, that there was really nothing 
 else existing in bodies without, besides various com-
 
 324 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part ill. 
 
 plexions and conjugations of those simple elements — 
 that is, nothing but mechanism. Whence it necessarily 
 followed, that whatsoever else was supposed to he in bodies, 
 was indeed nothing but our modes of sensation, or the 
 fancies and passions in us, begotten from them, mistaken 
 for things really existing without us."* 
 
 205. The ideas of cause (i.e. mind) and substance 
 were at the foundation of all the most consistent hypo- 
 theses of the ancients. Thus Seneca speaks of the 
 Stoics, " Dicunt Stoici nostri, duo esse in rerum natura, 
 ex quibus omnia fiant, causam et materiam. Materia 
 jacet iners, res ad omnia parata, cessatura si nemo moveat. 
 Causa autem — id est ratio — materiam format, et quo- 
 cumquevult versat, ex ilia varia opera producit."f And the 
 Eeason necessarily reaches the same conclusion in modern 
 times, inasmuch as the current notions are teleiotic truths. 
 Whether we speak of substance, matter, or vis inertia, of 
 atoms, or of centres of molecular forces, the idea of a 
 force to be overcome, and of a force that designedly over- 
 comes, correlates all our ideas as to the forces of nature, 
 physical, chemical, vital, or mental, and may therefore 
 be considered to be primary teleiotic ideas, or funda- 
 mental intuitions (163)4 Such are the ideas referred 
 to by Cudworth, upon which the ancient philosophers 
 founded their theories, and which Philosophy in all times 
 must necessarily adopt as the primary elements of our 
 cognitions as to matter and its phenomena. The idea, 
 it is true, may not be clearly perceived, and its applica- 
 tion to the phenomena of nature may be imperfect; 
 
 * The True Intellectual System, &c, book i. chap. i. \ xxvii. 
 
 t Epistolce, 65. 
 
 I For an able examination of Locke's denial of the idea of 
 Substance, see Dr Whewell's History of Scientific Ideas (3d edit. 
 1858), vol. ii. p. 31.
 
 Drv. ii.] BIOLOGY. 325 
 
 nevertheless it remains as a fundamental intuition. Ex- 
 pressed as above, although it correlates all the theories 
 of the ultimate constitution of matter, it more especially 
 coincides with that of Boscovitch, that all bodies may be 
 considered as consisting of a combination of mathemati- 
 cal centres, from which emanate forces that at certain 
 distances are attractive forces, at certain other distances 
 repulsive, and at greater distances attractive again ; but 
 always according to laws which may be expressed — like 
 the law of gravity — numerically or mathematically. Dr 
 Whewell expresses an opinion that it may be so con- 
 ceived as possibly to involve an explanation of all the 
 powers which their parts exert (such powers, namely, as 
 those which produce optical, thermotical, and chemical 
 phenomena) ; but this theory cannot supply an explana- 
 tion of the mechanical properties of a body as a whole, 
 especially of its inertia. A collection of mere centres of 
 force can have no inertia* Now, we have seen that 
 matter only implies something which resists force — what 
 else can this be but force ? That which we call inertia, 
 as to terrestrial things, only seems to be the force of attrac- 
 tion. It is not difficult, therefore, to conceive that as 
 the force exercised varies as to attraction and repulsion 
 in the combined mathematical centres amongst them- 
 selves, so the sum of the forces in combination, as in a 
 gas, or a crystal, or a stone, may vary as to inertia, 
 weight, elasticity, and the like. Dr Whewell's examina- 
 tion of the current atomic theories is very instructive, 
 more especially as indicating the various forms which a 
 fundamental idea will assume (118). 
 
 206. It must, however, be carefully remembered, that 
 "matter" is a term also used to designate the cause of 
 certain changes in our states of consciousness (2), which 
 * Op. et loc. cit. p. 59.
 
 326 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part. ill. 
 
 changes are due, as we have seen, to the action of the 
 physical forces upon those tissues in and hy which the 
 organism is developed into a conscious state of existence. 
 It therefore designates, thus used, both the hypothetical 
 subtratum or substance, and the causes of motion — i.e., 
 the forces which operate within it. Hence, when used 
 in this sense (and it is the most important of all its 
 uses), the term " matter " is synonymous with its forces, 
 and not with inert substance. 
 
 207. Although the phenomena of creation are neces- 
 sarily dependent upon incessant change, things are seen 
 to be permanent. Hence, permanence and incessant 
 change are two conditions of Existence. The per- 
 manence is hypothetically attributed to the substratum 
 within which the forces induce continual changes or 
 motions to ends. The more consistent theory is, that it 
 is due to the permanence of the cause of the changes ; for 
 without it there would be no phenomena at all. That final 
 cause is Mind (149). Without incessant change there 
 would be no phenomena ; without Mind no change. 
 Hence, Mind is the only permanent thing in creation. 
 
 208. We can now comprehend better the fundamental 
 conditions of Existence. Motion necessarily implies 
 space, in which it occurs; and change implies succession 
 of phenomena, and therefore time, in which the succes- 
 sive changes take place. Motion also implies relation 
 of two things, and therefore co-existence in time and 
 space. Hence succession and co-existence are the funda- 
 mental conditions of phenomena (that is, of changes) in 
 time and space. 
 
 209. Further, motion in space implies a thing moving 
 and moved through space in time, and passing therefore 
 through portions of it. These portions represent units 
 of time and space ; their combination of one or more
 
 DIV, 
 
 II.] BIOLOGY. 327 
 
 into unity is a number of units. The time passed through 
 is marked by the results of the action of force — namely, 
 motion in or through space. The fundamental conditions 
 for the operation of Mind as a regulative force are there- 
 fore Force, Substance, or Matter ( = force + " substance"), 
 Time and Space. The fundamental condition for the 
 conscient cognition of the results of Mind, or the know- 
 ledge of phenomena, is the intuition of Number (167). 
 
 210. These conditions of all Thought and Existence are 
 only conceived, logically, as the necessary antecedents of 
 Mind considered as the created cause, not as the creative. 
 Of Mind as the self-existent and creative cause, we can 
 necessarily form no conception whatever ; for if we were 
 to say that space and time were its necessary antece- 
 dents, they would be its causes, and it would be circum- 
 scribed within space and time. All we can say is, that 
 we have an intuition of the Infinite as to cause, space, 
 and time. And this intuition correlates our notion of the 
 Self-existent. How the Infinite and Self-existent can 
 be, is not conceivable by us, inasmuch as, by the very 
 law of our existence, our knowledge is restricted to the 
 Finite — that is, to changes caused by, and restricted to, 
 portions of the Infinite. We are capable of the intuition 
 that there is a self-existent, absolute, intelligent Being, in 
 relation with all things (90, 91). We term Him the First 
 Cause (chap, viii.) ; but all the fundamental ideas we have 
 of His attributes are actually and logically illimitable. 
 We cannot conceive Him finite in time; because, ascend as 
 we will into the past, we cannot conceive His beginning. 
 We cannot conceive Him finite in space ; because, put 
 limits to space as we will, so as to define His presence, 
 we do but draw lines in unlimited space. We cannot 
 conceive Him limited in power ; for to limit the forces 
 of creation, is to limit Him. Nor, count the ages as we
 
 328 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 will, can we ever conceive that system of worlds to ter- 
 minate which is upheld by His continual power, or date 
 the period of its beginning. Finally, we cannot conceive 
 Him finite in the power to design, for that would be to 
 conceive limits to His creative energy. 
 
 211. It is as well to observe here, that the argument 
 is equally valid with those who would substitute notions of 
 "necessity," "fate," "nature," or "matter," for the in- 
 tuition of a Divine Intelligence as the first cause, or 
 true Absolute. Time, space, and eternal successions of 
 events from age to age, in a fixed order, without begin- 
 ning and without end, or that which men call Cause, 
 would still be necessary conditions of Existence, and 
 fundamental ideas of our conceptions of any one of these 
 substitutes. Nor would even that which we call Design 
 be wanting ; for a fixed, unchangeable series of events is 
 what men call Order and Good ; and the quality of in- 
 finity would still belong to these ideas. On the other 
 hand, the derivative, contingent, or particular ideas and 
 truths are all conceivable, in so far as they are limited 
 to derivative, contingent, and particular things. Thus 
 the ideas of mind, force, substance, unity, duality, an- 
 tagonism, plurality, permanence, change, and the like, 
 as applied to finite things, are all conceivable. They 
 express, indeed, phenomena — that is, what can be felt, 
 seen, observed, and numbered or measured, in time and 
 space, and which are due to an intelligent cause ; never- 
 theless, without these conditions, we cannot conceive 
 them to exist. 
 
 212. When, therefore, we consider the beginning of 
 things, it is only the beginning as conceivable by a finite 
 mind. Now, it is this Beginning which we term the 
 Creation, and which has occupied so deeply, in all ages, 
 the thoughts of men. Various theories of cosmogony,
 
 div. ii.] BIOLOGY. 329 
 
 as of theology, have been developed ; they have all, 
 however, as their basis, the fundamental intuition that 
 Mind is the first cause. But, inasmuch as order cor- 
 relates design, Mind, in cosmogony, is considered as the 
 first cause of order; for if there was need of a design 
 at any period, the necessity could only arise from the 
 absence of order. Hence substance (or inert matter), 
 space, and time, being considered as the necessary ante- 
 cedents to the present order of things, they are of neces- 
 sity the conditions of antecedent disorder. Now, this 
 hypothetical pre-existent state of disorder is termed 
 Chaos, and the subsecpuent state of order is termed 
 Kosmos. The term creation (Latin creo) has its root in 
 the old Greek word xp«o or xpa<D, the primary meanings 
 of which had reference to the communication of Divine 
 knowledge and power. Hence it specially applied to 
 oracles. Its derivative, xPVP a ) indicated the results of 
 force exercised by mind to ends — res, negotium, factum, 
 opus, as well as oraculum. The most intelligible theories 
 of cosmogony have always started with Mind as the first 
 ordering cause, and its antecedents, viz. substance, with- 
 out force or order, and space. The doctrine of Anaxa- 
 goras seems to have been the most clearly expressed. It 
 is affirmed by Diogenes Laertius, that he was the first who 
 considered Mind as well as Matter to be a primary, inde- 
 pendent principle, commencing his work with the general 
 proposition, " All things were without change, or the 
 same ; then Mind coming, arranged them [into worlds]" — 
 ITavTa )(pr]}xaTa tjv 6(jlov, eira vows eXOwv avra SLeKoafxrjcre. 
 He affirmed, also, that Mind is the cause of motion — 
 Now /xev apxqv Kivrjaews. Ovid has briefly expressed the 
 opinions of at least some of the learned Eomans of his 
 time, and which were to the effect that there was a 
 Chaos in the beginning, in which there was neither
 
 33° MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part tii. 
 
 order nor harmony, and matter was one inert or motion- 
 less mass : — 
 
 " Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, ccelum. 
 Unus erat toto nature vultus in orbe, 
 Quern dixere Chaos ; rudis indigestaque moles, 
 Nee quicquam nisi pondus iners ; congestaque eodem 
 Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum." 
 
 213. The Mosaic cosmogony is based on the same 
 ideas. First, G-od is represented as creating " the sub- 
 stance of the heavens and the earth," for this is the 
 true translation, the original and important particle rsc, 
 JEth, not being rendered in the common translation. 
 This particle, composed of the first and last letters of 
 the Hebrew alphabet, was used to express the sum and 
 substance of all things.* The substance thus created 
 was, however, inert, so far as the earth is referred to; for 
 it is described as being without form and void, while 
 darkness was on the face of the abyss. The next step in 
 causation was light, or the cause of order ; for God said, 
 " Let there be light," and order began. Now the word 
 translated "light" has other meanings elsewhere in the 
 Bible. Thus, in Isaiah xxxi. 9, and Ezekiel v. 2, it 
 means fire ; in Isaiah xliv. 16, it means the heat or 
 warmth derived from the fire ; in Job xxxvii. 3, it means 
 lightning, or the electric fluid ; and in Job xxxi. 26, it 
 means the sun as an object of worship. In all these 
 verses there is the same idea implied ; namely, that of 
 force. As the learned Oriental scholar just referred to 
 (Dr Adam Clarke) remarks, the word that would best 
 express the true meaning of the term translated "light" 
 is heat or caloric. The absence of light, as a character- 
 istic of "Chaos," is not peculiar to the Mosaic cosmogony; 
 other ancient writers make eternal night the antecedent 
 * Compare Dr A. Clarke's comment on the passage.
 
 DIV 
 
 ii.] BIOLOGY. 331 
 
 to the present order of things ; in Greek writers, for 
 example, chaos means not only disorder but darkness. 
 
 214. It is unnecessary for our purpose to pursue this 
 subject further, for nothing is more unsatisfactory than 
 cosmological speculations, whether indulged in by meta- 
 physicians or geologists. And abundance of arguments, 
 logically unanswerable at least, might be brought against 
 this doctrine of a universal chaos, as precedent to the 
 orderly phenomena of nature. In truth, as we have seen 
 already, we cannot conceive such a state of things con- 
 sistently with the adoption of the doctrine which teaches 
 the eternal existence of God. The more satisfying hy- 
 pothesis, at least, is that which makes order to be as 
 universal and boundless, as the Divine Mind upon which 
 it depends is Absolute and Infinite ; and although to the 
 Infinite and Eternal we can conceivably set no limits, 
 yet, within the Infinite and Eternal, we can conceive 
 eternal cycles of phenomena. Thus we can conceive the 
 boundless universe undergoing incessant cyclical changes 
 in its constituent elements, so that worlds and systems 
 are successively disintegrated and integrated, and new 
 creations begun in never-ceasing cycles of change. In 
 this way we can see how the nebular hypothesis may help 
 us to a better idea of creation ; and we can conceive how 
 that which we term Chaos was the period antecedent 
 to a special integration, according to the Divine laws, of 
 that limited portion of universal matter which is com- 
 prised in our solar system. 
 
 215. Be this as it may, we cannot come to any other 
 or better practical conclusion, in the present state of our 
 knowledge, than that there are certain conditions neces- 
 sary to all existence. 1. That the observed existing order 
 of phenomena had a beginning in time. 2. That they are 
 due to changes occurring in space. 3. That the things
 
 33 2 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part rn. 
 
 in which the changes occur must be substance — i.e., some- 
 thing circumscribed in space. 4. That the changes or 
 phenomena did not begin of themselves, but were begun 
 by something else, termed cause ; and, 5. That that cause 
 is an ordering power or force, of which the whole pheno- 
 mena of creation constitute the continual manifestation. 
 These are the fundamental and necessary conditions of 
 finite existence, and the limits to our cognitions. These, 
 too, are the fundamental conditions of the manifestation 
 of that law of design which is the regulative principle 
 of creation. Without them, therefore, neither Life nor 
 Thought is possible, and no idea can arise in the con- 
 sciousness. As conditions of Existence and Thought 
 absolute, they are infinite ; but as potential and regula- 
 tive ideas in Life and Organisation, they are limited in 
 their operation by the fundamental idea of the law of 
 design itself — namely, unity.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LAWS OF PERMANENCE WITII INCESSANT CHANGE IN ORGANISMS. 
 
 Sect. I. — The General Doctrine. 
 
 216. Inasmuch as the operation of the molecular forces 
 of matter upon organisms — that is, of light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, &c, are constantly varying, so, according to the 
 law of adaptation, must hoth the phenomena of Life and 
 Thought he constantly varying. Hence, while there 
 is continuance of the organism in time and space, or 
 permanence as a whole, as to its parts there is incessant 
 change ; in other words, the phenomena of Life and 
 Thought are incessantly changing — are the particular, 
 variable, contingent, in our cognition of Existence. The 
 changes are manifested in two modes : 1. As physio- 
 logical changes, when they are changes in the ultimate 
 constituents of the organism — i.e., teleorganic, molecular, 
 chemical, or histological changes. 2. As morphological 
 changes, when they are manifested in the form of the 
 organism, or of some of its principal parts considered as 
 a whole or wholes. Hence two fundamental procedures 
 are applied to biological phenomena — namely, 1. As 
 they occur in relation to time, Biology proper ; 2. As 
 they occur in relation to space, Organic Morphology, of 
 which systematic zoology is the principal department. 
 We will proceed to examine the changes in time in 
 relation with the laws of permanence and incessant 
 change.
 
 334 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 217. Time, as we have seen, is a necessary condition 
 of existence. The modes of all phenomena are perma- 
 nence, succession, and co-existence in time ; the rela- 
 tions are simultaneity and succession. Without these 
 there could he no phenomena ; for phenomena are simul- 
 taneous and successional changes, hut changes ever suc- 
 ceeding each other, Should change cease, phenomena 
 cease too. Hence, successional changes are necessary to 
 the fundamental idea of permanence in time and space.* 
 
 218. To comprehend better the relations of time to 
 vital actions and to thought, let us revert to their causes. 
 We have seen that Thought precedes phenomena as a 
 causal antecedent ; but it is Thought in correlation with 
 Force (147-149). Now, if we hypothetically conceive the 
 moment when creation began to be precisely the moment 
 when Thought energised, such a moment of time would 
 be the first Present ; for as there had been no act before 
 it, there could be no past. The act of energy having taken 
 place, phenomena begin ; but these are necessarily fol- 
 lowed by another act of energy. When that takes place, 
 the time it occupies is the present, and the moment of 
 antecedent energy is now the past moment. But every 
 act of energy, according to a law of design, has an end 
 in view. To act with an end in view, is to act with 
 reference to the future time, or to a moment which is 
 not, but is to be. This idea of Prescience is the funda- 
 mental idea, therefore, of the law of design, and as such 
 correlates all acts of energy ; or in other words, every 
 vital action takes place presciently — i.e., with reference 
 to the future. What the nature of that action will be, 
 is necessarily determined, however, by the antecedents 
 to it — or its causes (152) ; so that the future is indisso- 
 
 * Compare Kant, Kritik der Rein. Vernunft. " Of the Perma- 
 nence of Substance."
 
 DIV. 
 
 n.] BIOLOGY. 335 
 
 lubly linked to the past by the present. While, however, 
 change is incessant in organisms, there is permanence 
 of the one — the individual. In man and the higher ani- 
 mals this permanence constitutes personal identity. The 
 present individual is the same man that existed in past 
 time, and that will exist in future time, however changed 
 in form and substance. What, then, is the cause of this 
 permanence or organic unity in the past, present, and 
 future ? Obviously, the cause of the phenomena them- 
 selves ; that alone is the unchanging thing. Now, the 
 cause of the phenomena, as we have established, is Mind, 
 evolved as teleiotic ideas. It is this which is not only 
 the source of the vital forces, but of that linked order 
 of events (150, 151) which constitutes each individual, 
 species, genus, and branch what it is. 
 
 219. In cosmic and molecular phenomena, permanence 
 is stability. The simplest notion of the general law of 
 incessant change, in correlation with stability, may be 
 obtained by an examination of astronomical phenomena, 
 in which the operations of all the primary forces of matter 
 are also most distinctly shown. If a body at rest be pro- 
 jected into space, it will move on for ever in the same 
 line of projection ; that is to say, its direction and velo- 
 city will be permanent, unless some other force act upon 
 it, to change its velocity or deflect it from the line of 
 projection. When such a force so acts, as, for example, 
 the force of gravity, every point of space passed through 
 by the body corresponds to a change of direction ; so that, 
 taking the earth as an example, there are as many 
 changes in the direction of the earth's motion round 
 the sun, as there are mathematical points in the ellipse 
 which it describes by its motion. These infinitesimally 
 minute and numerous changes are not only compatible 
 with stability, but, by the law of cyclical recurrence of the
 
 33<$ MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY, [part lift 
 
 changes, and their integration into one, stability is secured. 
 The phenomena, although ever-changing, always occur 
 as a unity in the same order of change, according to the 
 laws of action of the motor forces (132, note). 
 
 220. Now. the earth has other motions besides this 
 annual motion ; there are its diurnal motion on its own 
 axis, and its secular motions in common with the planets, 
 and which are dependent upon their mutual affinities. 
 Changes occur in these motions at long intervals of time 
 (as marked by the precession of the equinoxes), but with 
 the same law of what may be termed cyclical order, upon 
 which the law of stability depends. Seeing that stability 
 is the result of incessant cyclical change, we can formu- 
 larise the law as " the law of cyclical change and sta- 
 bility," and, reasoning from our own experience of our 
 own mental operations, we refer all these changes and 
 their results to a law of adaptation of events to these 
 ends— namely, change and stability (207); which law 
 arises necessarily out of a law of design. 
 
 221. Let us now revert to the order of vital pheno- 
 mena, and examine them in reference to this primordial 
 law of creation. The first circumstance that arrests our 
 attention is, that the antagonism between the vital and 
 physical forces to which vital phenomena are due — that 
 is to say, the law by which the operations of the primary 
 forces of matter are so modified by the action of the 
 forces themselves, as to constitute those secondary series 
 of the phenomena of nature known as the phenomena 
 of iif e — i s identical with that antagonism between the 
 forces of attraction and repulsion, or polarisation, mani- 
 fested in the heavenly bodies, and upon which the great 
 laws of incessant cyclical changes are dependent. The 
 deflection from the line of motion in space is analogous 
 to the deflection from the order of physical phenomena
 
 div. II.] BIOLOGY. 337 
 
 manifested in vital phenomena, all which, as we have 
 seen, are as antagonistic to merely physical phenomena, 
 as the eternal motion of a body in a straight line in 
 space is antagonistic to eternal motion of the same body 
 in an ellipse, circle, parabola, or the like. This funda- 
 mental law of change in vital phenomena carries with it 
 the other general laws associated with it in physical phe- 
 nomena ; so that the law of incessant cyclical changes, 
 and the law of stability, together with the law of adapta- 
 tion, to the end that there shall be both incessant change 
 and stability or continuance of the order, are inseparable 
 in the order of vital phenomena. Incessant cyclical 
 change, and therewith stability, is shown in the con- 
 tinued life of individual organisms, and in the con- 
 tinuance of organisms in general (i.e., as species) on the 
 earth. In the individual, the series of cyclical changes 
 end with the reproduction of one or many organisms 
 from the individual as a parent. When this function is 
 performed, the end of existence is attained, and the con- 
 tinuance of the individual is no longer an absolute law 
 of existence. Many organisms perish almost imme- 
 diately after the reproductive process has been com- 
 pleted ; in others its completion is the date from whence 
 commences a decline of vital power, or, in other words, 
 is the period when the tendency to death commences. 
 
 222. Mr Paget has shown that incessant chronometric 
 changes in the nutrition of organisms are the cause of 
 measured movements. He is of opinion that, in the 
 vertebrata, the rythmic motion of the heart is due to the 
 time-regulated discharges of nerve-force in certain of the 
 ganglia in and near the substance of the heart, by which 
 discharges the muscular walls are excited to contraction. 
 In invertebrata, the corresponding pulsatile movements of 
 hearts or vessels are probably independent of nerve-foice. 
 
 y
 
 3^8 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 The time-regulated action of both the nervous centres 
 and the independent contractile walls is due to their 
 nutrition being rythmic — i.e., to their being raised, in 
 certain periods, to a state of instability of composition 
 by nutritive changes in composition, going on with regu- 
 lated progress ; in their decline from which they dis- 
 charge nerve-force, or change their shape in contraction. 
 The muscular substance of the heart in the vertebrata 
 has a rythmic nutrition of its own, corresponding and 
 co-ordinate with that of its ganglia. 
 
 223. Eythmic nutrition is a process in accordance with 
 the general laws of organic life ; very many organic pro- 
 cesses being composed of timely-regulated alternate 
 action and inaction, or alternate opposite actions — i.e., 
 they are rythmical, with longer or shorter units of time. 
 And all organic processes being chronometric — i.e., ordered 
 according to laws of time as exact, and only as much 
 influenced by external conditions as are those relating 
 to weight, size, shape, and composition* — the sum of the 
 vital forces of organisms is in relation to time. But each 
 dift'ers from the other in this respect ; for that sum is 
 made up of minor periods of time, and those again of 
 lesser periods. The fundamental unit of time is appa- 
 rently the complex result of two kinds of chronometric 
 forces — namely, 1st, The cosmic physical forces, acting as 
 causes of terrestrial and meteorological changes, and thus 
 indirectly influencing the development of the vital forces ; 
 and, 2d, The biotic idea of development, which, as it 
 evolves in growth and completion, is manifested by vital 
 changes, marked by their occurrence or recurrence at 
 periods which can be measured. 
 
 224. This law of periodicity, as manifested in the 
 
 * Mr Paget," On the Cause of the Rythmic Motion of the Heart," 
 I Iromian Lecture, Phil. Magazine, vol. xv. (Jan. 1858), p. 70.
 
 DIV. ir.] BIOLOGY. 339 
 
 phenomena of reproduction, and its applications to the 
 pathology and treatment of the diseases of the nervous 
 system of women, were first pointed out by me in a paper 
 published in 1839,* and more distinctly in 1840. f Sub- 
 sequently I published a series of papers developing the 
 applications of the law to general physiology and patho- 
 logy, fixing the fundamental period or unit of time in 
 man.J It is worthy of remark that systematic writers and 
 compilers have almost wholly ignored the question. 
 
 Sect. II. — The Laios of Cyclical Changes. 
 
 225. I have already remarked that perhaps the clearest 
 conception we can form of creation is, that it is an infinite 
 whole, made up of parts which are unities, and which are 
 incessantly undergoing cyclical changes. From this point 
 of view, our solar system is one of an infinite number of 
 unities thus alternating in changes (214). This law of cy- 
 clical change is manifested in organisms. Some animals 
 and plants complete an entire series of phenomena — a 
 period of life — within a day of twenty-four hours; of this 
 kind are the ephemeral insects, or the night-blowing 
 plants, as the Victoria regia. More generally, a series of 
 physiological changes, marked by alternate action and 
 repose, occupy the daily period ; and these periods make 
 up a larger period of like alternate action and repose. 
 Such a period is the annual period in many animals, in so 
 far at least as reproduction is concerned, and probably as 
 to other physiological changes.§ The entire year may be 
 said to be the analogue of an entire day. Then, as each 
 
 * Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal (July 1839), p. 43. 
 f On the Nervous Diseases of Women, chap. iii. 
 
 X Lancet, vol. i. (1842-43). 
 
 # See my Papers in the Lancet.
 
 34° MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 revolving year is added to the sum of years of life, the 
 morning of youth advances into the noontide of manhood, 
 and manhood gradually declines into the evening of life, 
 and death at last ends the cycle of changes. 
 
 226. The same law is manifested in the great pheno- 
 mena of the universe. The doctrine of great cosmic 
 cycles of change is of very ancient date, and very general 
 prevalence. The Hindoos hold that the work of creation 
 and dissolution has been continually going on from 
 eternity, in a series of cyclical changes regularly re- 
 peated or recurrent. Brahma, or God, is represented 
 as in the first place creating all things in their order ; and 
 that this creation having been perfected or completed, 
 its series of evolutional changes exists for a definite 
 period, termed a Kalpa. The Kalpa is divided into 
 four parts or ages, a thousand times repeated, in the 
 ratio to each other of 4, 3, 2, 1, and comprises the 
 lapse of four thousand two hundred and ninety-four 
 millions of years. At the conclusion of„this period a 
 dissolution of the universe occurs. This state of chaos 
 continues for an equally long period of time ; which 
 being completed, Brahma, or God, begins the work of 
 creation anew, and creates the same things in the same 
 order, to continue for the same period of time ; so that 
 whatever events have taken place in the current Kalpa, 
 have taken place in the innumerable Kalpas which have 
 already elapsed.* 
 
 227. The ancient Egyptians held a similar doctrine of 
 recurrent cycles. They had a theory of an Annus magnus 
 within which there was a complete cycle of mundane 
 phenomena, and which was completed in from 300,000 
 to 360,000 years. That great year of the universe being 
 ended, and the whole assemblage of celestial phenomena, 
 
 * Rev. W. Wrightson. Sanscrit Ilagiographia.
 
 D1V. 
 
 II.] BIOLOGY. 34 T 
 
 which are regarded as the influential causes of all changes 
 in the sublunary world, being restored to the same order 
 and proceeding in the same catenation as before, the 
 whole series of events that depend upon them follow in 
 their former connection of time and place. The same 
 individual men are doomed to be born again, and perform 
 the same actions as before. The same arts are to be in- 
 vented — the same cities built and destroyed. Or, in the 
 words of Virgil, who evidently had this philosophical doc- 
 trine in view, 
 
 • Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera quse vehat Argo 
 Dilectos heroas : erunt etiam altera bella ; 
 Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles."* 
 
 This ancient theory of cosmic cyclical changes seems to 
 be referred to by the author of Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher, 
 who applied his heart " to know, and to search, and to 
 seek out wisdom, and the reason of things," when he 
 remarks ; " The thing that hath been, it is that which 
 shall be ; and that which is done, is that which shall be 
 done ; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there 
 anything whereof it maybe said, See, this is new? It 
 hath been already of old'time which was before us."f 
 
 228. Dr Whewell has expressed an opinion to the 
 effect that these and other ancient theories are to be 
 considered of mythological rather than scientific origin. 
 There can be no reasonable doubt that science, as pre- 
 sented to the popular mind by the most ancient philoso- 
 phers, had a mythological character given to it ; for both 
 science and philosophy were made subservient to priestly 
 domination. And it is probable that this proceeding 
 had a corrupting influence on both. Nothing is more 
 natural, even amongst modern philosophers, than to 
 
 * Eclogue iv. | Chap. v.
 
 34 2 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part ni. 
 
 make marvels, for the time, of scientific discoveries. But 
 there can he no reasonable douht, that physical science 
 attained a much higher development in these remote 
 ages than the popular expositions of it which have come 
 down to us would lead us to imply. The Chaldeans are 
 said to have used a sol-lunar period of 600 years, the unit 
 of which was a solar year of 365d. 5h. 51m. 35s. 2th., 
 and 7421 lunations of 29d. 12h. Mm. 2s. 48th.* If 
 this be so, the conclusion is obvious as to their scientific 
 acquirements. Nor is it at all certain that the Annus 
 magnus of the Egyptians should be placed in the same 
 category as the Kalpa of the Hindoos. ■ Such, considered 
 as an astronomical cycle only, and not in its astrological 
 applications, seems to be by no means improbable. The 
 earth's orbit is at present elliptical, but in some far dis- 
 tant age it was circular, and in some remote future age it 
 will be circular again ; after this it will again open out 
 into an ellipse, and the eccentricity reach to a moderate 
 amount, when it will again diminish as before. These 
 progressive changes are due to the action of the planets 
 on the earth. The time required for these alternate 
 cycles (Sir F. Herschel states), though calculable, has not 
 been calculated farther than to satisfy us that it is not 
 to be reckoned by hundreds or thousands of years. It 
 is a remarkable coincidence, that the knowledge of this 
 cyclical change was acquired indirectly through ancient 
 Chaldean records of lunar eclipses. 
 
 229. The order of geological changes was also known 
 to some extent to the ancient philosophers. This is in- 
 dicated by the story that Anaximander accurately pre- 
 dicted an earthquake, and warned the Lacedemonians of 
 
 * On " The Ancient Chaldean and Egyptian Chronology," by 
 Isaac Cullimnre, Esq., in The Morning Watch, a quarterly journal, 
 No. xv. p. 177.'
 
 div. II.] BIOLOGY. 343 
 
 it, who left their city in consequence, and went armed 
 into the plain before it occurred. This and other 
 similar predictions are mentioned by Cicero,* so that we 
 must not rashly conclude from the distorted science and 
 philosophy of poets and others, that the ancients had 
 no true knowledge of either, and that their prediction of 
 geological catastrophes was wholly mythological. They 
 seem, indeed, to have both deduced the law of cyclical 
 change a priori, and calculated it from observation of the 
 order of phenomena. 
 
 * De Divinatione.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF MORPHOLOGY, OR THE LAWS OF 
 EXISTENCE IN RELATION TO SPACE. 
 
 Sect. I. — General Doctrines of Forms of Tilings. 
 
 230. The existence or manifestation of a thing in 
 space (10) is due to the action of its forces on, or in, 
 its substance. These determine the extent of space 
 within which it shall move, or live, or act ; or, in other 
 words, its form. Consequently, its form will vary ac- 
 cording to the operation of its teleiotic ideas, whether 
 cosmic, chemical, or biotic — that is to say, according to 
 its nature. Hence the truth of Aristotle's dogma, 'H /xoptprj 
 (pvo-is, Nature is Form. 
 
 231. All forms have their limits in virtue of the law 
 of Existence in space. Hence the idea of a Limit is 
 fundamental, " the use of which in proving the proposi- 
 tions of the Higher Geometry cannot be superseded by 
 any combination of other hypotheses and definitions."* 
 A straight line corresponds to the first law of motion 
 in space ; a curve, to the constant deflection of a body 
 moving in an imaginary straight line, by a deflecting 
 force. And as this double motion is the primary mode 
 of manifestation of force in the phenomena of nature, 
 it follows that the lines which constitute the visible 
 limits of a thing in space are made up of curves. " Every 
 
 * Dr Whewell. Hist, of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. vol. i. p. 152.
 
 dit. II,] BIOLOGY. 345 
 
 curve may be considered as the limit of some polygon ; 
 and every varied magnitude as the limit of some aggre- 
 gate of simpler forms ; and thus the relations of the 
 elementary figures enable us to advance to the proper- 
 ties of the most complex cases."* 
 
 232. The form of a thing is thus defined by the 
 limits of its forces operating in space ; or, in other words, 
 the form indicates the extent of operation of the forces 
 which constitute the thing, one, a thing. Now, these 
 forces are of two kinds, the absolute and the relative ; 
 there must therefore be two kinds of forms, the absolute 
 and the relative. For example, the form of a nebula or 
 cluster of stars is determined by the reciprocal influence 
 upon each of the stars which constitute it one thing — 
 a nebula. Eetained within each other's force-sphere, the. 
 visible outline of the whole is due to the light reflected 
 from the entire group to our organs of vision ; it is 
 their absolute visible form as constituting one thing, or 
 a nebula. But if we were situate within the limits of 
 the nebula — that is, on one of the stars or suns which 
 compose it — the form would be altogether different. It 
 would be probably found to be that of a concave surface, 
 like our own heavens, studded with the stars which con- 
 stitute the nebula. 
 
 233. The same law applies to all objects of perception 
 by the eye, as a man, a tree, a forest, inasmuch as tbey 
 are all units of perception made up of a multiplicity of 
 parts (62). The Form Absolute is, like every notion of 
 the absolute, conceivable, but cannot be represented or 
 realised, being infinite. It is the form which the uni- 
 verse must assume, and which, according to the funda- 
 mental principle of Kosmic Teleology, must be that of 
 a sphere with its centre everywhere, and its surface 
 
 * Dr Whewell. Hist, of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. vol. i. p. 152.
 
 346 MEXTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 nowhere ; for all the parts must be in isodynarnical 
 equilibrium, to constitute the absolute and perfect unity 
 implied in our conception of the universe. 
 
 234. These statements are applicable more especially, 
 however, to visual form ; but form may be determined 
 by touch. In this case, the relation of the points of 
 resistance to each other, or, in other words, a force cor- 
 relative with light — the force of molecular repulsion — 
 determines the form. Other correlative forces could 
 conceivably act upon each other, and upon the sentient 
 organism, and thereby the limits of a thing be deter- 
 mined. In this way, the limits of the solar system are 
 marked by the sphere of action of the centrifugal and 
 centripetal forces ; so also the limits of the system which 
 the earth and moon in dual relation constitute. Hence 
 Dr Macvicar justly argues, that " the forms of objects are 
 their isodynamic boundaries in space," and differ, there- 
 fore, as to the forces which operate in it. " The form of 
 an object, when conceived scientifically, is rather an 
 enclosure in space around its centre, which gives or 
 manifests the isodynamic boundary of some property of 
 that thing, as, for instance, its property in relation to 
 light, or impenetrability, electricity, magnetism, &c. It 
 is therefore physically correct to speak of the visible 
 form, the tangible form, the electro-magnetic form, of an 
 object ; but to speak of its form without limitation is 
 to use abstract language, which cannot lead to positive 
 science — unless by form generally we mean visible form, 
 as is, indeed, usually the case."* 
 
 235. The same idea is involved in theories as to the 
 physical properties of bodies. These properties are 
 nothing else than the results of the action of the bodies 
 
 * First Lines of Science Simplified, App. " Elements of the Eco- 
 nomy of Nature," a Fragment, 2d edit. (1860), p. 27.
 
 div. ii.] BIOLOGY. 347 
 
 upon each other, or upon sentient organisms ; and as 
 these results are due to the mutual action of their in- 
 ternal forces, force is the cause of the properties as well 
 as of the form. " The forces by which the particles of a 
 body are held together [and give it its form], also cause 
 it to be hard or soft, heavy or light, opaque or transparent, 
 black or red; for if these forces are not the cause of 
 these peculiarities, what can be the cause ? By the very 
 supposition which we make respecting these forces, 
 they include all the relations by which the parts are 
 combined into a whole ; and therefore they, and they 
 only, must determine all the attributes of the whole. "f 
 Form, thus taken in its widest sense, passes into the 
 illimitable. We cannot, for example, limit the gravi- 
 tating force of the earth to the moon or to the sun, since 
 it extends to the whole of the planetary system. Nor, 
 in this sense, can we limit the form of the planetary 
 system, taken as a whole, except in its isodynamic rela- 
 tions to other systems. The great law of continuity 
 applies, in short, to form, as to all other things in creation. 
 
 236. Form is due to co-existence of phenomena : the 
 form of a thing at any moment is the result of the co- 
 existent forces of the moment. When the successions of 
 co-existent changes are so minute as to be inappreciable, 
 the form is said to be permanent ; on the contrary, if the 
 forces are active, and the successions of changes frequent, 
 the form varies accordingly. Permanence and change of 
 form are proportionate, therefore, to the simplicity or com- 
 plexity of the teleiotic ideas, and of their manifestations 
 in time and space. The cosmic class are the most simple 
 in character ; hence there is little change in the form of 
 the great masses of the universe. The chemical teleiotic 
 ideas are manifested by greater variety and changeable- 
 
 t Dr Whewell. Hist, of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. vol. ii. p. 26.
 
 348 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OE TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 ness of form as they approach the biotic ; and in the 
 biotic we have the highest degree of both. But there 
 are higher and higher degrees of derivation in the biotic, 
 according as Mind is evolved into conscious activity, until 
 they culminate in Man. In him, the highest beauty 
 is associated with the largest complexity and the most 
 perfect unity. This is seen in both his colour or com- 
 plexion and his form, including, under man, both sexes. 
 237. With this higher and higher development, limita- 
 tion, such as is possible and even aesthetic in the cosmic 
 or geometrical forms, becomes more and more difficult. 
 The nobler the materials, says Mr Kuskin, the less their 
 [geometrical] symmetry is endurable. Mr Kuskin shows 
 clearly the importance of knowing that indefinableness 
 in colour is one of the first requisites to beauty in colour. 
 " It is a marvellous thing to me that book after book 
 should appear on this last subject, without, apparently, 
 the slightest consciousness, on the part of the writers, 
 that the first necessity of beauty in colour is gradation, 
 as the first necessity of beauty in line is curvature, — or 
 that the second necessity in line is softness. . . . Unless 
 it loses itself, and melts away towards other colours, as a 
 true line loses itself and melts away towards other lines, 
 Colour has no proper existence, in the noble sense of the 
 word."* It is interesting, too, to note the atomic cha- 
 racter of the material. " The final particles of colour 
 necessary to the completeness of a colour's harmony are 
 always infinitely small, either laid by immeasurably 
 subtle touches of the pencil, or produced by portions of 
 the colouring substance, however distributed, which are 
 so absolutely small as to become at the intended distance 
 infinitely so to the eye."f 
 
 * The Two Paths, by J. Ruskin, M.A., p. 270. (App. v.) 
 t Ibid. p. 271.
 
 DIV. I 
 
 E.] BIOLOGY. 349 
 
 238. Crystallography has had its greatest development 
 since the researches of Weiss and Mohs gave greater 
 definiteness to the laws of crystallisation as a process 
 due to force, and showed that all existing forms could 
 be derived from the fundamental forms ; that is, were 
 what might be termed genera and species. Sir David 
 Brewster threw new light upon them when he showed 
 that the geometrical symmetry of crystals corresponds 
 exactly to their optical form. Weiss, seeing that the 
 properties of bodies were determined by forces which 
 acted in them, and not by the molecules of which they 
 were composed, developed the idea, and arrived experi- 
 mentally at the general principle, that amidst all the 
 casual fluctuations in the primitive form of crystals, there 
 were fundamental relations in their dimensions, or what 
 are now called axes of symmetry. " With reference to 
 these axes," he found, as he goes on to say, that ' a 
 multiplicity of internal Oppositions, necessarily and mu- 
 tually interdependent, are developed in the crystalline 
 mass, each relation having its own Polarity, so that the 
 crystalline character is co-extensive with these Polari- 
 ties.' "* Morphology, in its widest sense, is therefore 
 based, as a science, upon a knowledge of the correlations 
 of the forces operative in and around things. 
 
 Sect. II. — General Laws of Absolute or Permanent Forms. 
 
 239. In organisms, the law that the visible form is 
 due to the action of the vital forces, considered as causal 
 ideas, is very strikingly manifested. In none (except, 
 perhaps, the simplest) is there true permanence of form ; 
 even during the adult life of the individual, changes 
 are continually going on, although slowly and imper- 
 * Dr Whewell, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 84.
 
 35° MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [PART III. 
 
 ceptibly. Biotic forms are due to two kinds of forces, 
 and hence two kinds of vital forms. The one kind is an 
 "archetypal" form as determined by the plan of con- 
 struction — the primary formative or archetypal idea — of 
 which it is a derivative form ; this is a permanent or im- 
 mutable form, being due to a universal or fundamental 
 idea. The other kind of form is a particular or indi- 
 vidual form, and is physiological ; being determined by 
 the contingent and variable vital forces, it is contingent 
 and mutable. 
 
 240. The archetypal or absolute forms of plants and 
 animals must necessarily follow the great primary laws 
 of phenomena. First, there is a unity of form in the 
 primordial cell common to all organisms, whether animal 
 or vegetable ; this seems to be primarily the sphere or 
 spheroid. As the idea is evolved in various directions, 
 forms vary. Thus plants differ from animals funda- 
 mentally in the relative position of their respiratory and 
 nutrient organs; secondarily, in the locomotive power 
 by which the form of animals are so deeply influenced. 
 Animals seem to be formed upon four principal arche- 
 types — according to Cuvier's arrangement — viz., the 
 radiate, mollusc, articulate, and vertebrate ; or upon five, 
 if the protozoa be accepted as a distinct branch. But 
 these archetypal ideas, whatever the number of branches, 
 are only archetypal in the sense that they are derivative 
 from a fundamental law of design, and therefore corre- 
 late vital forces operating to ends. Now, there are two 
 classes of these archetypal forms : first, those which 
 correspond to primary laws ; second, those which cor- 
 respond to derivative or secondary laws, in descending, or 
 rather expanding series. The first class of forms would 
 therefore correspond to the fundamental derivative ideas 
 of unity, duality, plurality, and totality, which we shall
 
 Div. II.] BIOLOGY. 351 
 
 have to consider in the next chapter, as the fundamental 
 causal ideas, or laws of the vital processes. 
 
 241. Unity gives the form of the sphere or spheroid, 
 for in this all the parts are in equal relation to each 
 other, and all in relation to one point — the centre. This, 
 according to a great variety of hypotheses and researches, 
 is the fundamental form of things. It is, in particular, 
 the basis of all the various theories of molecular and 
 physical forces, of crystallisation, chemical affinity, and 
 the like, brought forward of late years (p. 245). The 
 circle was used in ancient India as the symbol of the 
 Divine Generator, for it is as a circle that the visible 
 limits of the sphere are presented to the consciousness. 
 A volume might be written on the derivative ideas which 
 meditation on the sphere and circle has suggested. One 
 instance will suffice to illustrate this. The ancient doc- 
 trine of the Beautiful, as it applied to the sphere, is 
 stated by Cicero in a summary of one class of ideas of 
 this kind : " Quid enim pulchrius ea figura, quas sola 
 omnes alias figuras complexa continet, qugeque nihil as- 
 peritatis habetur, nihil offensionis potest, nihil incisum 
 angulei, nihil anfractibus, nihil eminens, nihil lacunosum? 
 Quumque duae forrnaa prasstantes sint, ex solidis globus 
 (sic enim cr^atpav interpretari placet) ; ex planis autem 
 circulus aut orbis, qui kvkXos Grasce dicitur ; his duobus 
 formis contingit solis, ut omnes earum partes sint inter se 
 simillimas a medioque tantum absit extremum, quantum 
 idem a summo ; quo nihil fieri potest aptius."* 
 
 242. Duality, as a teleiotic idea, is fundamentally the 
 idea of the One in relation to the One. In its simplest 
 operation in matter, whether as a cosmic or molecular 
 causal idea, it gives the form of the prolate spheroid or 
 ellipse — i.e., the dynamical unity or synthesis of two 
 
 * Be Natura Deorurn, lib. ii. chap, xviii.
 
 352 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 spheres or spheroids, whose centres are in relative equi- 
 librium. This form correlates the combination of two 
 spherical units in which the periphery of each bisects the 
 centre of the other. It is a form which plays an import- 
 ant part in the theories of the forces into which the idea 
 of dualistic relation enters, as polarity, and the like. 
 
 243. Plurality and totality produce composite forms, 
 the fundamental character of which consists in the union 
 of many spheres or spheroids. Such forms vary greatly 
 according as the primary elements are connected, ag- 
 gregated, integrated, or coalesced. These are highly 
 evolved derivatives of the fundamental idea, and are 
 therefore the forms of things in which the causal ideas 
 are highly evolved derivatives. They are consequently 
 seen in organisms which are constituted of complex 
 groups of integrated spheres or spheroids, their limits 
 or outlines being made up of areas or segments of the 
 latter. " However striking the difference," Mr Quekett 
 observes, " between an animal and plant may seem at 
 first sight in the higher groups, a more extended exami- 
 nation shows that animals and plants gradually approach 
 each other as we descend in the scale, until they meet in 
 a common centre — the simple and individual cell." And 
 again, " The typical form of cell is either spherical or 
 oval; but by pressure of growth, cells assume almost 
 every variety of shape." * 
 
 244. Mr D. R. Hay has developed a geometrical theory 
 of the Beautiful in living forms of singular completeness 
 and simplicity;! of which the fundamental idea is, that 
 the outline is due to the combination of arcs of various 
 ellipses harmonically flowing into each other — i.e., curves 
 
 * Lectures on Histology (1852), pp. 3, 7. 
 
 t The Science of Beauty, as Developed in Nature, and Applied in A rt. 
 Edin. 1856.
 
 mv. II.] BIOLOGY. 353 
 
 of a composite ellipse. Mr Hay's theory presents that 
 fundamental test of a true theory which unity of doctrine 
 gives; for he shows its applicability to the Beautiful in 
 colour and sound. Or, in other words, the theory is appli- 
 cable to the determination of the geometric laws of action 
 of the forces by which harmony in colour and sound are 
 produced, as well as harmony in outline or limits (234). 
 
 245. The composite physical forms determined under 
 the influence of molecular or chemical teleiotic ideas by 
 the combination of spheres or spheroids, is very admirably 
 illustrated by Dr Macvicar's researches, in whose theory 
 the sphere or spherical shell is the fundamental or 
 primary form. Nothing can surpass the beauty of form 
 which the crystals of bodies theoretically take, when 
 made up of spheres in correlation, according to the laws 
 Dr Macvicar develops.* 
 
 246. Symmetry. — The forms of organisms being due to 
 the forces energetic within them, and these being in 
 equilibrium with each other and with external forces, 
 Symmetry is the result. Thus dichotomy, with equili- 
 brium of the two halves, leads to lateral symmetry. A 
 repetition of dichotomised and combined units in a bila- 
 teral, lineal series, is the form of the Articulata and 
 Vertebrata. In the Badiata the arrangement is circular ; 
 in the Molluscs the symmetry is disturbed. Symmetry 
 being due to a repetition of simple forms, or dichotomised 
 units, is perfect only when all the symmetrical members 
 of a natural product are, under like circumstances, alike 
 affected by the natural formative power. " The parts 
 which we have termed symmetrical resemble each other, 
 not only in their form and position, but also in the manner 
 in which they are produced by natural causes." This is 
 
 * First Lines of Science simplified (Edin. 18G0), Appendix, part 
 ii. chap, i., " The First Lines of Morphology." 
 
 z
 
 354 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 the law determined by observation and experiment.* 
 Further, there may be symmetry in the expansion, or 
 partial or total suppression of units or limbs. Thus the 
 Eadiata have for the most part five limbs. If one of these 
 be expanded, or in any way peculiarly modified (as in the 
 echini), it is reduced to the type of animals with a sym- 
 metrical right and left side. Or if the number be doubled 
 as in the ten-rayed Asterias, and the circle be elongated so 
 that there be five opposite pairs, it is transformed into the 
 type of an articulate animal with two symmetrical halves. 
 247. Symmetry is determined by Number. The One 
 and the One in dual symmetrical relation, is binary sym- 
 metry ; the Binary and the Binary in dual symmetrical 
 relation, is quaternary symmetry. Organic and inor- 
 ganic symmetry are widely different as to the funda- 
 mental forms, although in the lower forms of organisms, 
 as the Diatomaceae and the Alga?, the inorganic form of 
 binary or quaternary symmetry is seen. A quinary sym- 
 metry of the parts is a fundamental form of organised 
 things. Thus, M. Duges strongly argues that five is the 
 fundamental number of parts in a limb of the Vertebrates. 
 The single bones he believes to be fusions or integrations 
 of the five elements; and he maintains that the differen- 
 tiation progresses as the limb is distant from the trunk. 
 Thus in the arm, there is one bone ; in the forearm, two; 
 in the first carpel row, three (the pisiform bone being a 
 true sesamoid) ; in the second carpel row, four ; in the 
 metacarpus, five, but covered with skin and muscle ; and 
 finally, five in the free moving fingers. M. Duges sup- 
 ports his argument by numerous facts drawn from em- 
 bryology and comparative anatomy.f 
 
 * Dr Whewell. History of Scientific Ideas, vol. ii. p. 73. 
 t Memoire sur la Conformite Organique dans UEchelle Animale 
 (4to, Montpellier, 1832), p. 43.
 
 DIV. II.] BIOLOGY. 355 
 
 248. This quinary development and integration of parts 
 is by no means an isolated fact in organisation. Thus 
 M. Moquin-Tandon has observed that in the medicinal 
 leech every five segments, with their ganglia, contain all 
 the essential elements of a complete animal. The same 
 law of development is to be observed in the Nephelis. It 
 is differently manifested, however, in other members of 
 the Leech family. The completion of the organisation 
 occurs with every three rings in the BrancJiellion, the 
 Ponbdellw, and the Glossiphonice ; with every two rings in 
 the Brancliiobdellce ; and with every ring in the Piscicolce* 
 The general prevalence of the quinary arrangement, or 
 multiples of it, in radiate animals, as in the Asterias, 
 and throughout dicotyledonous plants, points to a general 
 law of quinary development, of which the production of 
 limbs is one of the manifestations. The apparent excep- 
 tions in animals and plants are simply and easily ac- 
 counted for by the law of integration of two or more of 
 the fundamental elements, or the differentiation of one 
 above the rest. It is no unimportant general fact in 
 support of this view, that the number five is nowhere 
 symmetrically produced in inorganic bodies. f 
 
 Sect. III. — General Laius of Contingent or Variable 
 Forms in Organisms. 
 
 249. It is in the forms of living things that the 
 greatest variation is manifested, for the reasons already 
 set forth (236). In these, as in the forms of inorganic 
 matter, the forms are due to the action of the forces. 
 
 * Monographe de la Famille des Hirudintes, 2d edit. p. 197, foot- 
 note. 
 
 t Dr Whewell. History of Scientific Ideas, 3d. edit. vol. ii. 
 p. 72.
 
 35<5 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 Now these are vital, and manifest, therefore, the teleiotic 
 idea of adaptation throughout all the vital processes, 
 whether they be operative in the tissues, that is, inducing 
 teleorganic change, or whether they act upon instru- 
 ments expressly adapted for motion to ends, as limbs. 
 
 250. The mutations of form take place, however, in or- 
 ganic beings, within the limits of the fundamental type, 
 as determined by the archetypal idea ; but they vary in 
 extent in organisms according to the variety of external 
 conditions to which they have to be adapted. These 
 mutations are sometimes so great as to lead naturalists 
 to the conclusion that new genera or species are formed. 
 This is more particularly observed when a succession of 
 individuals have been subjected to similar external con- 
 ditions, so that the same adaptation has been exercised 
 from generation to generation, and thus a strong ten- 
 dency to change of form developed. Mere functional 
 activity at successive moments of existence, or in succes- 
 sive periods of existence of the organism, will, however, 
 lead to changes in form. Thus in the Amseba, and other 
 protozoa, the archetypal form seems to be lost to a great 
 extent in the functional form ; for the animal changes 
 its outline in accordance with the uses to which it puts 
 its entire body as an organ of prehension and digestion. 
 In plants, and in higher animals, the functional form is 
 known as the position, attitude, expression, and the like, 
 and constitutes the characteristic features of the indi- 
 vidual. These functional variations in form lead to 
 variations of the individual from the generic or specific 
 type. M. Agassiz points out this source of variation as 
 indicating the need that naturalists should collate the 
 habits of animals with their forms ; " then we shall 
 know," he says, " what is yet too little noticed, how 
 extensive the range of variation is among animals, ob-
 
 niv. II.] BIOLOGY. 357 
 
 served in their wild state, or rather, how much indivi- 
 duality there is in each and all living beings. So 
 marked, indeed, is this individuality in many families 
 — and that of the turtles affords a striking example of 
 this kind — that correct descriptions of species can hardly 
 be drawn from isolated specimens, as is constantly at- 
 tempted to be done. I have seen hundreds of specimens 
 of some of our chelonians, among which there were not 
 two identical ; and truly the limits of this variability 
 constitute one of the most important characters of many 
 species."* 
 
 251. The study of Embryology and Development has 
 shown to what an extent the form varies at different 
 periods of existence — so extensively, indeed, that with 
 many organisms, it is wholly different at different periods. 
 Thus, there is no similarity in outward form between the 
 beetle and its larva, and little between the butterfly and 
 its caterpillar. In the Echinoderms there is a wonderful 
 diversity of development; still more remarkable is it in 
 the " alternation of generations." 
 
 252. Archetypal symmetry is often modified. This 
 disturbed symmetry is due to various causes. The ma- 
 jority have reference to Function. This is seen in 
 fishes, like in the Kays, Skates, Flounders, &c. ; others 
 have reference to the action of external forces, as atmo- 
 spheric pressure, gravity, light, and the like. Hence 
 arise, certainly, some of the changes in the form of 
 various plants, and probably in various animals. Mr 
 Hinton has ingeniously endeavoured to apply this prin- 
 ciple of the action of external forces to an explana- 
 tion of certain symmetrical forms in plants and animals. 
 " Organic form," he says, " is the result of motion. 
 Motion takes the direction of least resistance. Therefore, 
 
 * Essay on Classification, p. 84.
 
 35^ MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 organic form is the result of motion in the direction of 
 least resistance." He finds the spiral form to correspond 
 to this conclusion. " Throughout almost the whole of 
 organic nature, the spiral form is more or less distinctly 
 marked. Now, motion under resistance takes a spiral 
 direction, as may be seen by the motion of a body 
 rising or falling through water. . . . Parts which grow 
 freely, as the horns of animals, and the roots of plants 
 when caused to grow in water, often present the spiral 
 form in great perfection. . . . The spiral form of the 
 branches of many trees is very apparent, and the uni- 
 versal spiral arrangement of the leaves around the 
 stem of plants needs only to be referred to," &c* Mr 
 Hinton mentions the development of various organs 
 and structures to be illustrative, as he believes, of this 
 law; the heart, intestines, the head, nay, the entire 
 embryo of the mammal, represents a left-handed spiral. 
 He seems, moreover, to object to the doctrine of Final 
 Causes, as applied to organisation ; but he apparently has 
 not a full comprehension of it, or his opinion has been 
 formed upon imperfect expositions of it. Eecognising 
 that organisation is an " absolute Tightness and order," 
 he asks, " how should this be attained except through 
 motion in the direction of least opposing force ? What 
 else is this law of motion but that exact Tightness seen 
 from the human point of view ? Does it not mean that 
 each minutest part determines the being of every other, 
 — >a perfect mutual interaction and subordination, a Tight- 
 ness from the very first, and through every step, that 
 must end in a completed Tightness at the last? Let us 
 try to think of this, freeing our minds from preconcep- 
 
 * " On Physical Morphology, or the Law of Organic Form," 
 by James Hinton, M.R.C.S., Brit, and For. Med.-Chir. Review (Oct. 
 1858), vol. xxii.
 
 Div. II.] BIOLOGY. 359 
 
 tions. How can there be other than perfect order and 
 adaptation in that organisation in which each part has 
 had its equal share in the moulding of the whole? 
 There unity must he, and beauty, and most exquisite 
 harmony, for there law has been perfectly fulfilled." 
 Mr Hinton's theory is of a very ingenious kind, and 
 although imperfectly worked out, it must be admitted that 
 it contains a truth. It cannot be forgotten, however, that 
 there is a something — a cause — of the differences in form 
 inherent in organisms, quite independently of the ex- 
 ternal conditions; and that it is to the adapted play be- 
 tween the internal developing and external resisting force, 
 and not to the latter only, that forms are due. A crystal 
 may be modified as to its form by external conditions, 
 but there is nevertheless a generic form to be modified. 
 
 253. In an interesting communication, published in 
 a succeeding number of the Brit, and For. Med.-Chir. 
 Review (January 1859), Mr Herbert Spencer further 
 illustrates this theory, and points out how external con- 
 ditions determine or modify the form of both plants and 
 animals. Mr Spencer thinks the doctrine of an ideal 
 type to be an " untenable hypothesis," but as he requires 
 the aid of " the law of hereditary transmission, under- 
 stood in its most transcendental sense," to render his 
 views generally applicable, it does not appear that any- 
 thing is gained by discarding the doctrine of an ideal 
 type ; for the doctrine of hereditary transmission is in 
 truth but another form of it, since that means the neces- 
 sary or causal connection of the forces of an individual 
 organism with the forces of an organism like it, which 
 necessarily preceded it in time. The hereditariness limits 
 the development, so that under no conceivable external 
 conditions could a mushroom be modified into a man. 
 254. These considerations bring us to the considera-
 
 360 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [rART ill. 
 
 tion of specific forms, as distinguished from individual 
 forms, and to the question of the origin of species. Now, 
 just as individual forms are determined by derivative 
 laws of the great biotic law of adaptation to ends, so also 
 are specific forms. But 'there is this difference, that 
 whereas, as to the former, the law aims at the con- 
 tinuance of the individual in time and space ; as to the 
 latter, it aims at the continual succession of individuals 
 — that is, of living things. This is really the point to 
 consider, and not whether there is a teleological main- 
 tenance of species, or fixed forms. What is not found 
 in the particular cannot be predicated of the general, but 
 the contrary. Now, as we find that functional and struc- 
 tural variation of form is the law of succession and co- 
 existence in the vital phenomena of the individual, we 
 must logically look for the operation of the same law in 
 the species, for that is nothing more than a group of 
 individuals. Hence, so far from there being a law of im- 
 mutable specific form, we have just the contrary in opera- 
 tion, and mutability of form of species is the absolute. 
 
 255. Let us examine this question fundamentally. 
 We know that every living thing, whether plant or 
 animal, manifests a variety of processes, the general law 
 of which is the law of continuance in life — the lex nostri 
 conservatio of physiologists. This is the object of pro- 
 cesses like those of growth, nutrition, development of 
 organs and tissues, and of the modes in which the organs 
 are used — that is, of the instincts or instinctive processes. 
 It is, however, a more general law that the individual 
 life shall cease — that is, that continuance in Time and 
 Space for the period to which it is adapted is not an 
 indefinite period, but only a small cycle of changes (225). 
 Yet, while the individual perishes, the species is main- 
 tained in continuance, or the individual lives on in the life
 
 DIV. 
 
 II.] BIOLOGY. 36l 
 
 of its offspring. And if, in the course of time, those 
 cycles of physical or cosmic changes to which the species 
 are adapted are modified, the species is further adapted 
 to the modifications ; and although in the process it 
 happens that something like a new species arises, still, 
 amidst all these changes, extending, as geology and 
 palaeontology teach, through periods of time of immea- 
 surable length, Life continues, ever changing its form in 
 adaptation to external nature, hut never ceasing its mani- 
 festations. Thus, then, with the great law of Life, the 
 law of adaptation to ends, manifested in every series of 
 successive events, we have also never-ceasing change and 
 ever-enduring stahility from age to age. 
 
 256. It has not been found possible to escape this 
 general conclusion as to the continual adaptation of or- 
 ganisms. It is seen alike influencing the philosophy of M. 
 Lamarck, of the author of the "Vestiges," of Mr Darwin, 
 and of Mr Sedgwick. " In one sense it maybe true," the 
 latter remarks, " that time has influenced the development 
 of organic life. For during past epochs, the superficial 
 temperature of the globe, the distribution of land and 
 water, and, in one word, all the great physical causes 
 which modify the distribution of the animal and vege- 
 table types, appear to have undergone a succession of 
 slow, gradual changes ; and while we are contemplating 
 these changes, we seem to be ascending step by step to 
 the conditions of the existing period. On this view we 
 might naturally expect the organic types of the old world 
 to exhibit a development towards the forms of living 
 nature ; not, however, simply as an effect of time, but 
 rather as an effect of physical conditions brought about 
 gradually during the long lapse of time."* 
 
 * A Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge (5th 
 edit.), preface, p. lvi.
 
 362 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part ill. 
 
 257. From the teleological point of view, the absolute, 
 universal, and fundamental is the morphic archetype; 
 within this, and as its derivatives, changes take place, 
 which, in relation to it, are the contingent and particular. 
 Hence, while in one sense there is no change — i.e., as 
 regards the fundamental object and plan — in another sense 
 there is incessant change ; so that not even two indi- 
 viduals, in the more highly evolved organisms, are alike 
 (250). As to the permanence of fundamental life, a re- 
 mark of Professor Huxley is worthy notice, who observed, 
 in a discourse on the persistent types of Animal Life, de- 
 livered at the Koyal Institution, London, June 3d, 1859, 
 that after long investigation he concluded that only eight 
 or nine ordinal types of animals were extinct, out of one 
 hundred and twenty recognised types ; and he added, on 
 tbe authority of Dr Hooker, the eminent botanist, that 
 of the two hundred ordinal types of plants, not one was 
 wanting. He illustrated his views from all departments 
 of the animal kingdom, from the polyzoa to vertebrata. 
 He thought that this little change of type indicated 
 " that each is but the result of an enormous series of ante- 
 cedent changes of form, the whole of which are perhaps 
 for ever hidden from us in the abyss of Pre-geologic time." 
 
 258. It is to be noted, however, that there is another 
 result of the fundamental law of Mind manifested in 
 creation, too important to be omitted here. Incessant 
 change, we have seen, is a fundamental condition of all 
 phenomena. Changes thus occurring in the distribution 
 and operation of the external forces of nature influence 
 the operation of the vital forces of organisms. In either 
 case, the incessantly succeeding changes are observed to 
 end constantly in varieties of things. . This is the fact ; 
 so that multiplicity and variety correlate unity and per- 
 manence, as well as incessant change. We may there-
 
 mv. 
 
 II.] BIOLOGY. 363 
 
 fore conclude, that although the laws of development, 
 known as the law of unity of type and permanence of 
 species, are amongst the general laws of life, the laws of 
 multiplicity and variety correlate them. Now, the con- 
 tinuance of the species in Time and Space is a continu- 
 ance of individual Life in multiplicity — the one indi- 
 vidual producing the many. 
 
 259. If we examine how it is that multiplicity and 
 variety are manifested, we must go back theoretically to 
 a conceivable time when an archetypical mode of exist- 
 ence was first entered upon ; just as we go back to a 
 conceivable time when the planetary masses acquired 
 their forms and motions. Now, looking closer, we ob- 
 serve that the same law is manifested in primary life as 
 in primary motion. The form of Existence or the Arche- 
 type, once launched in time and space, continually tends 
 to reproduce itself in successive organisms in a sort of 
 cycle of changes. And this is true, not only as to the 
 transmission of the archetypical characters of the species, 
 but also as to deviations from, or variations in, the form 
 and functions of organs from those of the archetype, the 
 consequence of the incessant operation of the law of 
 adaptation to variations in external conditions — that is 
 to say, in the operation of the forces of nature. Now, 
 these variations in external conditions on the large scale 
 are climatic, and lead to varieties due to climate ; or they 
 are aeonic, and have taken effect from age to age, during 
 an immeasurable period of years, characterised by suc- 
 cessive geological changes or cataclysms of great magni- 
 tude. Such changes have influenced greatly the form and 
 function of particular elements of organisms of every kind 
 (256). Nevertheless, however great the changes in this 
 respect, the laws of unity and permanence, as the absolute 
 and universal, amidst all the variety and multiplicity, are
 
 364 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 demonstrably efficient. Hence, as I" have already ob- 
 served elsewhere,* with reference to the law of unity, 
 " just as the great law of matter is applicable to the 
 countless suns and systems that for countless ages have 
 swept, and that still sweep, through space, whether they 
 be already discovered or are still to become visible — so 
 also this great law of Life is applicable to all life, whether 
 animal or vegetable ; to all functions, whether compre- 
 hended or yet to be discovered ; to life in all epochs ; to 
 all living things, of the past as well as of the present." 
 The Eev. Baden Powell has treated this question in an 
 admirable manner : " Throughout all formations," he 
 observes, with reference to the past, " the grand truth to 
 which every accession of geological discovery bears wit- 
 ness, is the unity of plan continually exemplified in all 
 the varieties of organic structure disclosed. Even the 
 most seemingly monstrous and incongruous forms of ani- 
 mated existence in past times are all, without exception, 
 constituted according to a common plan, and with parts, 
 organs, and functions, related by the closest analogies to 
 each other, so that no sooner is a new form discovered 
 than it is instantly assimilated with some known type, 
 and found to hold an assignable place in the system. "f 
 And, in reference to the conditions of existence and the 
 external world, to which organisms are both adapted and 
 adaptable, he adds, " Of organised life, we find some of 
 the conditions equally unchanged [as the physical condi- 
 tions]. The animals and plants of those remote epochs 
 were, like those now existing, subject to the same general 
 physiological laws of respiration and circulation, digestion 
 and nutrition, locomotion and instincts ; their eyes and 
 
 * On the Principles and Methods of Medical Observation and Re- 
 search, by T. Laycock, M.D. (18G0), p. 182. 
 t The Unity of Worlds, p. 337.
 
 DIV. II.] BIOLOGY. 365 
 
 ears adapted to the same optical and acoustical condi- 
 tions ; their reproduction generally regulated by the same 
 general laws."* 
 
 260. If we speculate as to the future, can we doubt that 
 these laws will be still the laws of life and organisation 
 from age to age, as they have been from age to age, and 
 such as they are now? for do we not see that these laws 
 are correlative with the primary laws and forces of matter 
 itself, and will only cease when these come to an end ? 
 
 201. The development of varieties in plants and ani- 
 mals, and of hereditary characteristics as to structure and 
 functions, is due, therefore, to the law of permanent ac- 
 tion with incessant change. Place an organism under 
 such conditions as to light, heat, food, protection from 
 hurtful agencies, and the like, that they differ from those 
 amidst which the parent organism existed, and changes 
 in adaptation to the new conditions, involving both struc- 
 ture and function, will be developed. In other words, 
 the vital forces will have a new direction given to them, 
 in so far as the new conditions are operative. But this 
 new direction is integrated in the sperm-cell and germ- 
 cell, and continued on to the reproduced organisms, and 
 so on, as long as they are not modified or deflected, as it 
 were, by great variations in external conditions. f The 
 transmission of a predisposition to hereditary diseases, 
 
 * The Unity of Worlds, p. 359. 
 
 t Mr Darwin's work on the origin of Species having attracted 
 so much attention so very lately, and having heen so fully dis- 
 cussed, it is hardly necessary to do more than call the reader's 
 attention to it, as an instructive and important addition to the 
 literature of this part of the subject. The article " Skeleton," by 
 Mr Maclise, in the Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, is also 
 worthy notice, as an interesting exposition of the operation of the 
 law of variety in unity in the development of the archetypal 
 skeleton.
 
 366 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [rART 111. 
 
 whether of the blood generally, of the blood-vessels, or of 
 special organs, as the heart, lungs, brain, is nothing more 
 than a continuance, in a new direction, of the vital forces 
 induced by those conditions winch are known so to modify 
 vital functions as to render them morbid. That such pre- 
 dispositions are not manifested permanently as varieties, 
 is due to the general law, that, since disease is but a feebler 
 resistance to the causes of death, the progress of the mor- 
 bid condition in each successive generation accelerates 
 the extinction of the family or race, so rendered heredi- 
 tarily morbid. In this way the law of adaptation to ends, 
 as regards the species, is manifested as the teleiotic idea 
 of Perfection ; and the extinction of what maybe termed 
 " morbid varieties," is nothing else than the result of 
 the operation of a fundamental law, by which the purity 
 and vigour of the species is maintained, and life con- 
 tinually advanced towards perfection.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LAWS OF EVOLUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHETYPAL 
 
 FORMS. 
 
 262. In the chapters on Ideas as Causes (chaps, vi. vii., 
 p. 270, sqq.), I have pointed out the causal relations of 
 ideas to phenomena, and have particularly indicated the 
 law of evolution of a fundamental idea. This evolutional 
 order of phenomena has been specially observed in re- 
 ference to organisms in all ages, and, as the law of mor- 
 phological evolution, according to a plan pre-conceived 
 and pre-arranged, has had abundant illustration from the 
 labours of philosophical zoologists. The latest and most 
 important contributions in this country to the elucida- 
 tion of the problem are those of Professor Owen. 
 
 263. It will readily be understood that the fundamental 
 biotic ideas which I have defined already, are those which 
 are termed by Mr Maclise, Professor Owen, and others, 
 Archetypes, or Archetypal Ideas. M. Agassiz shows very 
 clearly how such a general teleiotic idea — a derivative of 
 the idea of unity — is evolved like the contenta of a general 
 proposition, as if by a deductive process, throughout the 
 various organisms that constitute a great branch or type 
 of animal Form and Life. He observes, in discussing the 
 order of succession of vertebrata in past ages, and com- 
 paring the respective classes, from their earliest repre- 
 sentatives to the latest, that through all their intricate 
 relations of type and structure, there seems an evident
 
 368 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 tendency towards the production of higher and higher 
 types, until at last Man crowns the whole series. " Seen, 
 as it were, at a distance, so that the mind can take a 
 general survey of the whole, and perceive the connection 
 of the successive steps, without heing bewildered by the 
 details, such a series appears like the development of a 
 great conception, expressed in proportions so harmonious 
 that every link appears necessary to the full comprehen- 
 sion of its meaning, and yet so independent and perfect 
 in itself, that it might be mistaken for a complete whole ; 
 and again, so intimately connected with the preceding 
 and following members of the series, that one might be 
 viewed as flowing out of the other. What is universally 
 acknowledged as characteristic of the highest conceptions 
 of genius, is here displayed in a fullness, a richness, a 
 magnificence, an amplitude, a perfection of details, a 
 complication of relations, which baffle our skill and our 
 most persevering efforts to appreciate all its beauties. "* 
 264. It is to be noted, therefore, that, just as in the 
 life of the individual there is a period of imperfection 
 and defective evolution, so as to the species, and its 
 life in time, there is a period of imperfect evolution. M. 
 Agassiz has worked out this parallelism, and shown the 
 analogies between the geological (or seonic) succession of 
 animals, and the embryonic growth of their living re- 
 presentatives. His conclusions are thus given : — " It 
 may therefore be considered as a general fact, very likely 
 to be more fully illustrated as investigations cover a 
 wider ground, that the phases of development of all 
 living animals correspond to the order of succession of 
 their extinct representatives in past geologic times. As 
 far as this goes, the oldest representatives of every class 
 may then be considered as embryonic types of the 
 * Essay on Classification, p. 1G6.
 
 Div. II.] BIOLOGY. 369 
 
 Comatuloids; the oldest Echinoids, embryonic representa- 
 tives of the higher living families ; Trilobites, embryonic 
 types of Entomostraca ; the Oolitic Decapods, embryonic 
 tj'pes of our Crabs ; the Heterocercal Ganoids, embryonic 
 types of the Lepidosteus; the Andrias Scheuchzeri, an em- 
 bryonic type of our Batrachians; the Zeuglodonts, embry- 
 onic Sirenidse ; the Mastodonts, embryonic Elephants,"* 
 &c. This law of embryonic types goes beyond genera 
 into "hyper-embryonic types, in which embryonic features 
 are developed to extremes in the further periods of growth ; 
 as, for instance, the wings of the Bat, which exbibit tbe em- 
 bryonic character of a webbed hand, as all mammalia have 
 it at first, but here grown out and developed into an organ 
 of flight; or assuming in other families the shape of a fin, 
 as in the Whale or the Sea-Turtle, in which the close con- 
 nection of the fingers is carried out to another extreme. "f 
 265. Now, just as the embryonic stage of an indivi- 
 dual animal prefigures its future stages, so geologic 
 types prefigure future developments of species. These 
 latter, M. Agassiz remarks, " may be considered as ex- 
 emplifying, as it were, in the diversity of animals of an 
 earlier period, the pattern upon which the phases of the 
 development of other animals at a later period were 
 established. They now appear like a prophecy in those 
 earlier times of an order of things, not possible with the 
 earlier combinations then prevailing in the animal king- 
 dom, but exhibiting in a striking manner the antecedent 
 consideration of every step in the gradation." Hence, 
 M. Agassiz has designated such geological types of 
 animals prophetic types. These, and other facts, tend to 
 establish the idea of an atonic generation and develop- 
 ment of species and organic worlds, as of a temporal 
 generation and development of individuals. " Perhaps," 
 * Essay on Classification, p. 174. f Ibid, in loc. cit. 
 
 2 A
 
 37° MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [pakt hi. 
 
 Professor Owen remarks,* " the most important and 
 significant result of palasontological research has been the 
 establishment of the axiom of the continuous operation of 
 the ordained Becoming of living things." We see, then, 
 that the doctrine of archetypal ideas is founded upon a 
 true induction. 
 
 266. Each species of animal and vegetable is charac- 
 terised by its own peculiar structures and instincts, in 
 virtue of which its vital forces are determined in adapta- 
 tion to the conditions in which it is placed, and to the 
 ends of its existence ; beyond these it does not pass 
 either in act or structure, except by such development of 
 new instincts and intuitions (the results of experience 
 educed by external conditions) as it is capable of. Such 
 development of the forces is, however, only a mode of 
 contingent adaptation to ends, and occurs, therefore, 
 like all other vital processes, in accordance with the 
 law of design, of which it is a derivative manifestation. 
 
 267. In organisms we can thus distinguish two series 
 of processes ; namely, those which they manifest neces- 
 sarily, and those of which they are capable or are en- 
 dowed with potentially, but do not manifest necessarily. 
 The former being necessary are absolute, and are effected 
 by mechanism proper to the genus and species. It is 
 this mechanism which gives the form or visible position 
 in space to the organism, and supplies to the zoologist 
 those characters upon which they base their morphological 
 classifications, as the tracheae, gills, lungs, limbs, spine, 
 nervous system, and the like. The latter processes are 
 relative, and the sources of the various modifications in 
 structure and instincts which organisms undergo when 
 placed under new or varying conditions — or, in other 
 
 * In his able article " Palaeontology," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 8th. ed. vol. xvii. p. 91.
 
 div. II.] BIOLOGY. 371 
 
 words, subjected to the influences of the physical forces. 
 Now, both these processes are results of the law of design, 
 but the former is morphologically teleiotic ; that is to say, 
 the absolute form of the organism is developed according 
 to a fundamental pattern or general type (the archetype). 
 And as there cannot be a pattern without a fundamental 
 idea, so there cannot be construction without the subor- 
 dinate or derivative ideas, which are necessarily expressed 
 in the pattern (156, sqq). An eminent living French zoolo- 
 gist has put this notion in a clear form: "At this point 
 of our inquiries, the entire mass of beings which we have 
 been studying will appear to us to be decomposed into a 
 somewhat limited number of primitive types, around which 
 their immediate derivative types are disposed at various 
 distances, and in accordance with a certain order. These 
 are in their turn surrounded by secondary derivatives, and 
 so on in consecutive series. Existing species may all be 
 classified within this theoretical animal kingdom, being 
 distributed in accordance with the degree of resemblance 
 which they present to ideal types. It is thus that the 
 celestial bodies, grouped together in a thousand different 
 ways, gravitate around one another, with their planetary 
 attendants circling round them either isolated or accom- 
 panied by satellites. On our earth, no less than in 
 celestial space, we find that Nature faithfully adheres to 
 those wondrous laws of analogy which she observes in all 
 her grander manifestations ; and thus we behold on the 
 surface of our globe the same spectacle of unity and har- 
 mony which, in the immensity of space, strikes the senses 
 
 with the profoundest impressions of wonder and admi- 
 ration."* 
 
 268. Such a general principle seems to be the neces- 
 
 * Rambles of a Naturalist, by A. de Quatrefages, translated by 
 E. C. Otto (1857), vol. i. p. 98.
 
 1 
 
 72 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY. [part III. 
 
 sary result of the laws of human thought. In our own 
 minds, we find that what we term Ideas are causes of 
 rational actions ; that is to say, that they necessarily 
 precede or coincide with certain formative acts of which 
 we are conscious (148). This is a fundamental intuition 
 of cause ; and we thence infer that ideas are the causes 
 of form and development, and nutrition to an end. But 
 whence, it is asked, come these ideas ? Clearly not from 
 the organism itself, for they precede it, inasmuch as they 
 are manifested in the parent; clearly not from the parent, 
 for they are derived from its parents through an infinite 
 series of successions. We necessarily, therefore, seek for 
 their source in an Intelligence external to the organism, 
 and that something is named the Creator. Consequently 
 the forms of organisms and the functions of their parts 
 are said to correspond to a Divine Ideal (151, 200). 
 
 2G9. This is essentially the doctrine of Plato and the 
 older Greek philosophers as to Ideas. " Plato," says 
 Kant, " employed the expression Idea in a way that 
 plainly showed he meant by it something which is never 
 derived from the senses, but which far transcends the 
 conceptions of the understanding, inasmuch as, in ex- 
 perience, nothing perfectly corresponding to them could 
 be found. Ideas are, according to him, archetypes of 
 tilings themselves. ... In his view they flow from the 
 highest Eeason, by which they have been imparted to 
 human reason ; which, however, exists no longer in its 
 original state, but is obliged with great labour to recall 
 by reminiscence — which is called Philosophy — the old 
 but now sadly obscured ideas." * Again: "But not only 
 in that wherein human reason is a real causal agent, and 
 where ideas are operative causes (of actions and their ob- 
 jects) — that is to say, in the region of Ethics — but also in 
 
 * Kritik der R. Vernunft, Transcend. Dialectic, book i. sect. i.
 
 div> ii.] BIOLOGY. 373 
 
 regard to Nature herself, Plato saw clear proofs of an 
 origin from ideas. A plant, an animal, the regular order 
 of nature, probably also the disposition of the whole uni- 
 verse, give manifest evidence that they are possible by 
 means of, and according to, Ideas ; that, indeed, no one 
 creature, under the individual conditions of its existence, 
 perfectly harmonises with the idea of the most perfect of 
 its kind — just as little as man with the idea of humanity, 
 which nevertheless he bears in his soul as the archetypal 
 standard of his actions : that, notwithstanding, these are 
 in the highest sense individually, unchangeably, and 
 completely determined, and are the original causes of 
 things ; and that the totality of connected objects in the 
 universe is alone fully adequate to that idea."* 
 
 270. The divisions of genus and species of Aristotle (the 
 great philosophical zoologist of Greece) are apparently 
 founded on this doctrine of archetypal development, — the 
 former word (yevos) applying to the branch or type which 
 is generated in or in virtue of the archetypal or general 
 idea (188); the latter (fiSos) being the form (species prces- 
 tans, forma) in which the idea — the ideal form or species 
 (etSe'a) — is manifested. Internal evidence is not wanting 
 to prove that the excellences of Aristotle's classification 
 were due to the conception he had formed, although im- 
 perfectly, as to the true causes of development, and which 
 he applied to zoonomy with all the completeness that the 
 then existing state of knowledge admitted of. In the 
 Aristotelian school of logic, "the five words" which 
 denoted the nature and relation of classes, are Genus, 
 Species, Difference, Property, Accident. Now, according 
 to Porphyry, Genus and Species are superior and inferior 
 classes, capable of repeated subordination ; in this respect 
 showing that to be the quality of general ideas which 
 
 * Kritik der R. Vernunft, Transcend. Dialectic, book i. sect. i.
 
 374 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part III. 
 
 belongs to the archetypal ideas. "The 'most general' 
 Genus is the widest class ; the 'most special Species' the 
 narrowest. Between these are intermediate classes, which 
 are Genera with regard to those below, and Species with 
 regard to those above. . . . The ' difference' is that which 
 is added to the G-enus to make the Species : thus Kational 
 is the difference by which the genus Animal is made 
 the species Man ; the difference in this technical sense 
 is the ' specific,' or species-making difference (euWoids). 
 It forms the 'definition' for the purposes of logic, and 
 corresponds to the ' character' (specific or generic) of the 
 natural historians."* Here we recognise, under another 
 terminology, the ancient notion of the evolution of ideas 
 as causes, in which each antecedent and co-existent is 
 not only the necessary antecedent and co-existent, but 
 also the more general (the phrase cannot be avoided), or 
 less differentiated, than the consequent, or the results. 
 
 271. The doctrines of Aristotle, like those of the modern 
 sciences, were the culmination of a long series of philo- 
 sophical inquiries and researches. Hence his biological 
 principles and views can only be thoroughly understood 
 by comparison with those of his predecessors and contem- 
 poraries, upon which they are in fact based. For example, 
 his division of subjects into the physical and metaphy- 
 sical has in truth an older doctrine, that of the Eleatics, 
 for its foundation. Of this school, Parmenides was the 
 nearest to the time of Plato and Aristotle, and most 
 strenuously maintained the doctrine of causal ideas, as 
 the real things in phenomena. These being the causes 
 of things, were distinguished by the older philosophers 
 from their effects; which latter (the phenomena of nature) 
 were termed <pu'cris — that is, the Generated (to ytyvo/xevov of 
 
 * Vide Dr "Whewell's History of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. (1858), 
 vol. ii. pp. 105-6.
 
 dtv. II.] BIOLOGY. 375 
 
 Plato) — from the perfect passive of <jf>vw, gigno, edo, pario. 
 Hence Phusis meant also scxus, pudenda, as indeed 
 " nature," in an old and still popular sense, means semen. 
 According to the notion of these ancient speculators, 
 these causal principles operated in inert matter in the 
 same way that the vivifying principle of the seminal 
 fluid operates in the ovum. The world of matter was, in 
 fact, literally compared to an egg, of which the Divine 
 Eeason was the vivifying principle. In his speculations 
 on the generation of animals, Aristotle distinguishes first 
 causes more philosophically, marking the difference be- 
 tween the first cause of order to ends and the first cause 
 of motion — r) apxv T ^? Kiv^o-ews. " Of these two causes, 
 the chief seems to be the final or intending cause, for 
 this is Eeason (Aoyos), and Eeason is alike the first cause 
 — apxrj Se o Xoyos — in both Art and the harmonious com- 
 binations of Nature."* Zeno and his followers, the 
 Stoics, maintained that this logos was Grod ; and that, as 
 a fire-like agent, He contained within Himself all these 
 derivative causes, by which, according to an inevitable 
 order, everything is generated or produced. These de- 
 rivative causes were therefore termed Spermatic logoi. 
 
 272. It was in this way that the term Phusis, The 
 Brought-forth, as we should say, or, The Developed, 
 signified the phenomena of creation, and more particularly 
 of organised creation. The Physica were those things 
 which were considered to be the manifestations of the 
 causal or generating principles, or the " Sensibles ;" while 
 the logoi, the " Intelligibles," were the Metaphysial — the 
 causes themselves. 
 
 273. Physiology, in the ancient sense of the term, was 
 therefore the science of phenomena as results of deriva- 
 tive " reason " (physiologoi), and was only another word 
 
 * De Partib. Animal, lib. i. cap. i.
 
 37<$ MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part iit. 
 
 for the philosophy of nature, including biology and 
 mental physiology, in the modern sense of the terms. 
 Hence Aristotle's treatise on the Psyche was included 
 amongst the Parva Naturalia, he having declared that 
 the consideration of the Psyche is part of the philosophy 
 of nature.* On the other hand, Metaphysic is the deter- 
 mination and application of the causal ideas to an ex- 
 planation of the phenomena of reason and to the philo- 
 sophy of the human mind (180). Thus defined, it was 
 divisible into two parts, namely, the philosophy of ne- 
 cessary or absolute truth (aXrjOeta, the Not-hidden, from 
 a, privative, and \-q6-q, concealed), and the philosophy of 
 opinion or consciousness (8o£a from 8o/cew, Existimo, video). 
 The one dealt with " pure reason," the Aoyos, — the other, 
 with pure reason as manifested by or concealed within 
 organisation — that is, human thought. 
 
 274. How deeply the entire philosophy of the Greeks 
 was interpenetrated with this doctrine of Causal Ideas, 
 and of Mind as the first cause, has been admirably shown 
 by the learned Cudworth — the following quotation from 
 whose great work will serve to show at what an early 
 period it was developed in Greece, and at the same time 
 how fully Aristotle understood and accepted it : " Where- 
 fore Parmenides thus asserting a trinity of Divine hypos- 
 tases, that was properly called by him h to -n-av — that is, 
 one most simple Being, the fountain and. original of all ; 
 and the second of them (which is a perfect intellect) was, 
 it seems, by him called, in way of distinction, ev noWa, 
 or 7rdvTa, ' one-many,' or ' one-all-things ;' by which ' all 
 things ' are meant the intelligible ideas of things that 
 are all contained together in one perfect mind. And of 
 these was Parmenides to be understood also, when he 
 
 * Be Animd, lib. i. cap. i. Compare Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures 
 on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 127.
 
 div. ii.] BIOLOGY. 377 
 
 affirmed that all things did stand and nothing flow [were 
 permanent], not of singular and sensible things, which, 
 as the Heraclitics rightly affirmed, do indeed all flow 
 [undergo ehange]«Jbut of the immediate objects of the 
 mind, which are eternal and immutable ; Aristotle him- 
 self acknowledging that no generation nor corruption 
 belongeth to them, since there could be no immutable 
 and certain science unless there were some immutable, 
 necessary, and eternal objects of it. Wherefore, as the 
 same Aristotle also declares,* the true meaning of that 
 controversy betwixt the Heraclitics and Parmenideans, 
 whether all things did flow or some things did stand, 
 was the same with this — Whether there were any other 
 objects of the mind besides singular sensibles that were 
 immutable ; and consequently, whether there were any 
 such thing as science or knowledge which had a fir- 
 mitude and stability in it? For those Heraclitics who 
 contended that the only objects of the mind were sin- 
 gular and sensible things, did with good reason conse- 
 quently thereupon deny that there was any certain and 
 constant knowledge, since there can neither be any de- 
 finition of singular sensibles (as Aristotle writes),f nor 
 any demonstration concerning them. But the Parme- 
 nideans, on the contrary, who maintained the firmi- 
 tude and stability of science, did as reasonably conclude 
 thereupon, that besides singular sensibles, there were 
 other objects of the mind, universal, eternal, and immu- 
 table, which they called 'the intelligible ideas,' all origi- 
 nally contained in one archetypal mind or understanding, 
 and from thence participated by inferior minds and souls. 
 But it must be here acknowledged, that Parmenides and 
 
 * Met. lib. iv. cap. v. 
 
 t He states this to have been the opinion of Plato, and dis- 
 sents from it.
 
 378 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [pakt hi. 
 
 the Pythagoreans went yet a step further, and did not only 
 siqjjJose those intelligible ideas to be the eternal and immutable 
 objects of all science, but also as they are contained in the 
 Divine Intellect, to be the principles aiyl causes of all other 
 things. For thus Aristotle declares their sense : ' The 
 ideas are the causes of all other things (ama to. e."8r] tois 
 aXXots), and the essence of all other things [each thing] 
 helow is imparted to them from the ideas, as the ideas 
 themselves derive their essence from the first unity' (to 
 Tt rjv elrai CKasTw twv aWwv to clSt] 7rape'^ovrai, tois oe 
 ei'Seo-i to &>)* — these ideas in the Divine understand- 
 ing heing looked upon hy these philosophers as the 
 paradigms and patterns of created things. Now, these 
 ideas being frequently called hy the Pythagoreans 'Num- 
 bers,' we may from hence clearly understand the mean- 
 ing of that seemingly monstrous paradox, or puzzling 
 Griphus of theirs, that Numbers were the causes and 
 principles of all things, or that all things were made out 
 of Numbers ; it signifying, indeed, no more than this, 
 that all things were made from the ideas of the Divine 
 Intellect, called Numbers; which themselves, also, were 
 derived from a monad or unit : — Aristotle somewhere 
 intimatingf this very account of their assertion, that 
 ' Numbers were the causes of the essence of other things, 
 namely, because to etS^ dpifyioi — the ideas were num- 
 bers.' "| 
 
 275. The fragments of this ancient philosophy which 
 have come down to us indicate this, at least, that it con- 
 tained many doctrines attributed to Plato, although he 
 seems to have criticised it in a hostile spirit. Neverthe- 
 less, he held the Pythagorean doctrine in the sense here 
 
 * Metaphysics, lib. i. cap. vi. t Ibid. 
 
 X The True Intellectual System of the Universe, book i. chap. iv. 
 sect. xxi.
 
 DIV. XI 
 
 ,] BIOLOGY. 379 
 
 given by Cudworth, as Aristotle held the Parmcnidean 
 doctrine, that ideas are not only types, but causes of phe- 
 nomena. " Plato," says Aristotle, " thought that sensible 
 Tilings [i.e., pbenomena], no less than their causes, were 
 Numbers ; but the causes are Intelligibles [i.e., Ideas], 
 and other things Sensibles."* 
 
 276. In one form or other, the doctrine of types, or 
 archetypal ideas, has exercised so important an influence 
 on modern zoology and biology, that it may be stated 
 these sciences could have had no development without 
 it, but would have remained an undigested mass of facts. 
 Wolff, one of the greatest thinkers biology has ever had, 
 not only anticipated G-oethe in his great law of arche- 
 typal evolution of plants, but also showed the unity of 
 animal life and organisation, so early as the year 1759, 
 in his inaugural dissertation entitled Theoria Generationis, 
 and subsequently in 1764, in his Theorie von der Gene- 
 ration. Wolff was long in advance of his day ; for even 
 when Goethe brought out his treatise on the metamor- 
 phoses of Plants, and developed the law of unity of type 
 and evolution of parts, he had great difficulty in finding a 
 publisher, and several years elapsed before the truth and 
 importance of the law were recognised. In 1784, Goethe 
 had also applied the idea to comparative anatomy, and 
 led the way in philosophical anatomy, by attempting to 
 determine the homology of the inter-maxillary bone ; to 
 be followed by Oken, Bojanus, Meckel, Cams, Von 
 Baer, and other philosophical anatomists in Germany. 
 In France (contemporaneously with Goethe), Vicq d'Azyr 
 (in 1780), Geoffrey St Hilaire, Cuvier, Blainville, La- 
 marck, and others, and in England, John Hunter, have 
 developed the same idea ; so that it is now the un- 
 questioned basis of philosophical zoology, including 
 * Mr G. H. Lewes. Biog. Hist, of Philosophy.
 
 380 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part III. 
 
 embryology, and development generally. Professor E. 
 E. Grant was amongst the first to teach it in England. 
 In more recent times, the works of Oken and Professor 
 Owen have helped to promulgate it, as applied to the 
 differentiations of the typical vertebra ; of Von Baer, as 
 applied to the differentiations of the fundamental tissues 
 of the embryo; and of Milne Edwards, as to the differen- 
 tiations of function. 
 
 277. Mr G. H. Lewes has some remarks on this subject 
 worthy notice : — " The law announced by Goethe," he ob- 
 serves, " and I believe distinctly announced by him for the 
 first time, is now to be met with in every philosophic work 
 on zoology. One form of it is known in England as Von 
 Baer's law — viz., That Development proceeds from the 
 Like to the Unlike, from the General to the Particular, 
 from the Homogeneous to the Heterogeneous ; and has 
 by Owen, Carpenter, and Huxley, been often lauded and 
 applied. I have too profound an admiration for Von 
 Baer to wish in any way to diminish his splendid claims ; 
 but I cannot help remarking, that when Dr Carpenter 
 attributes to him the merit of having discovered this law, 
 he is in direct contradiction with Von Baer himself, who 
 not only makes no such claim, but, in giving the formula, 
 adds, ' This law of development has indeed never been 
 overlooked.' His merit is the splendid application and 
 demonstration of the law, not the first perception of it. 
 It is generally known that the law of ' division of labour 
 in the animal organisms' is claimed by Milne Edwards, 
 the great French zoologist, as a discovery of his own. 
 Yet we see how clearly it is expressed in Goethe's for- 
 mula. And with even more clearness, also, we see ex- 
 pressed Cuvier's principle of classification — viz., the sub- 
 ordination of parts. I do not wish to press this point 
 further ; nor do I wish that these great men should be
 
 DIV. II.] BIOLOGY. 381 
 
 robbed of any merit in order to glorify Goethe with their 
 trophies. The student of history knows Iioav discoveries 
 are, properly speaking, made by the age, and not by men. 
 He knows that all discoveries have had their anticipa- 
 tions ; and that tbe world justly credits the man who 
 makes tbe discovery available, not the man who simply 
 perceived it possible."* 
 
 278. Whether regard be had to the speculations of the 
 earliest G-reek philosophers (and we might even ascend 
 from them into the still higher antiquity of Egyptian 
 and Indian metaphysics), or whether we consider the 
 more precise because inductive developments of the doc- 
 trine in modern times, we have essentially nothing else 
 than a demonstration — by the orderly arrangement of the 
 phenomena of development, form, and function — of the 
 great law of mental causation, namely, the evolution of 
 the special from the general, the contingent from the 
 absolute, the particular from the universal. What is now 
 needed, therefore, is to correlate the laws of Thought with 
 the laws of Life, so as to show their common origin and 
 nature, and so bring them into unity. 
 
 * The Life and Works of Goethe (1855), vol. ii. p. 152.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF VITAL ACTION. 
 
 Sect. I. — Fundamental Ideas as Vital Energies. 
 
 279. Having considered the conditions of Existence of 
 organisms, and their relation to time and space as a 
 whole, we have now to determine the relations of Causal 
 Ideas to the order of vital phenomena in general. 
 
 All these go on in accordance with a law of de- 
 sign, and with the result that some end is attained, as 
 growth, nutrition, aeration or depuration of the blood, 
 and the like. Now, as the idea of power, working inter- 
 nally in organisms to ends, is necessarily associated with 
 these phenomena, the cause is termed an Energy. The 
 term is expressly intended to indicate this internal ope- 
 ration of the vital forces to ends : evepyeia ab cvepyew, 
 intus efficio, ago. In unconscious things the Energy 
 is termed vital ; in conscious organisms it is known as 
 mental Energy. The vital energies are of two kinds : 
 first, they are either vegetative, with purely internal re- 
 lations ; these effect all the phenomena of development, 
 nutrition, repair, reproduction ; or, secondly, they are the 
 moving causes or powers of the organs which are con- 
 structed in adaptation to external things. In this class 
 are included all the instincts, whether animal or vege- 
 table. But, thirdly, when states of consciousness accom- 
 pany their operation, they are the feelings, ideas, motives,
 
 DIV. 
 
 ir.] BIOLOGY. 383 
 
 and the like, acting as passions, emotions, and faculties. 
 Since the result of the operation of all Energies — 
 that is, of the internal operation of forces to ends — is 
 the realisation in time and space of the scheme or plan 
 contained in the universal law of design, it is ohvious 
 that the fundamental laws of vital action will he correla- 
 tive with fundamental biotic ideas, which have all their 
 modes of teleiotic energy as derivatives of the general 
 law or idea of adaptation to ends. And as these are also 
 correlative with the fundamental laws of consciousness 
 and thought, it is obvious that in determining the one 
 class of energies and ideas, we must also determine the 
 other. This, then, I now propose to do, as to the primary 
 and fundamental laws and ideas. 
 
 280. The Teleiotic Idea of Unity as a Fundamental Law 
 of Life. — Looking at the entire phenomena of creation as 
 a result of a law of design, we can only consider them as 
 being developed in such relation to each other that the 
 ends aimed at in creation shall be attained. For the 
 attainment of ends through the operations of many , 
 things, it is necessary that those operations be in har- 
 monious relation to each other, so that the one end aimed 
 at be attained by the conjoint operations of the many. 
 Now, this end of the law of design correlates the idea 
 of unity in the law of design, or the combination of all 
 things into a whole of mutually related parts. Meta- 
 physicians and philosophers, speculating a priori, have 
 come necessarily to this conclusion. In living things, 
 it is remarked by a distinguished philosopher, " the parts 
 make up the whole, but the existence of the whole is 
 essential to the preservation of the parts. But parts 
 existing under such conditions are organs, and the whole 
 is organised. ' Organised beings,' says the physiologist 
 Muller (Elements of Physiology, p. 18), " are composed of
 
 384 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY. [part III. 
 
 a number of essential and mutually related parts.' ' An 
 organised product of nature,' says the great metaphy- 
 sician Kant (Urtheilshraft, p. 286), is that in which all 
 the parts are mutually ends and means."* 
 
 281. It follows, therefore, that the fundamental idea 
 and law of Life and Organisation — the "universal" — is 
 the law and idea of Unity. Now, this comprises two 
 other fundamental ideas — namely, many parts to he com- 
 bined into one, or the many in the one, and multitudi- 
 nous changes among the parts to be combined to one 
 object, or in many objects having reference to the one. 
 Every organism, as is proved by observation and deduc- 
 tion, is built up and acts according to, and in virtue of, 
 derivative laws and forces (230). The structure and 
 arrangement of the various parts of which an organism 
 is made up, are not only in relation to each other, so as 
 to constitute the organism a whole or a unity, but they 
 are in relation to each other as the whole, so that the 
 organism itself, as a thing existing, may be in relation to 
 the conditions of its existence, or continuance as a whole, 
 in Time and Space. These relations are established in 
 virtue of the law of design, which, as manifested in or- 
 ganisms, may be better designated the law of adaptation 
 to ends. " The system is organised," Dr Whewell ob- 
 serves, "when the effects which take place among the 
 parts are essential to our conception of the whole ; when the 
 whole would not he a whole, nor the parts parts, except 
 these effects were produced ; when the effects not only 
 happen in fact, but are included in the idea of the 
 object ; where they are not only seen, but foreseen — not 
 only expected, but intended ; in short, when, instead of 
 being causes and effects, they are ends and means."f 
 
 * Professor Whewell. Ilistory of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. (1858). 
 vol. ii. p. 239. t Op. cit. p. 240.
 
 div. ii.] BIOLOGY. 385 
 
 282. Now, the relations of organisms being twofold — 
 namely, of the constituent parts to each other, and of the 
 whole to the external world — the manifestations of the 
 law of adaptation to ends are twofold. The adaptations 
 of the various parts of an organism (as one) to each other, 
 without consciousness, constitute the phenomena of Life 
 or Existence simply ; and the adaptations of the organism 
 as a whole to the external world, without consciousness, 
 constitute the phenomena of " instinct," or instinctive 
 Existence. The adaptations of the organism which con- 
 stitute Life and Instinct, when accompanied with feeling 
 without knowledge, constitute sensational Existence ; the 
 adaptations of the organism with knowledge constitute 
 rational Existence, or the concrete Ego. 
 
 283. The question, examined empirically and meta- 
 physically, may be stated in the words of Kant. All 
 combination (conjunctio) is either composition (compositio) 
 or connection (nexus). Composition is the synthesis of a 
 Manifold, the parts of which do not necessarily belong to 
 each other. For example, the two triangles into which 
 a square is divided by a diagonal, do not necessarily 
 belong to each other ; of this kind is the synthesis of the 
 homogeneous in everything that can be mathematically 
 considered. This synthesis can be divided into those of 
 aggregation and coalition, the former of which is applied 
 to extensive, the latter to intensive qualities. The second 
 sort of combination (nexus) is the synthesis of a mani- 
 fold, in so far as its parts do belong to each other — for 
 example, the accident to a substance, the effect to the 
 cause ; consequently it is a synthesis of that which, 
 though heterogeneous, is represented as connected d, 
 priori. This combination — not an arbitrary one — I en- 
 title Dynamical, because it concerns the existence of the 
 Manifold. This, again, may be divided into the Physical 
 
 2b
 
 386 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part HI. 
 
 synthesis of the phenomena among each other, and the 
 Metaphysical synthesis, or the connection of phenomena 
 a priori in the faculty of cognition."* 
 
 284. If we examine the phenomena of creation in 
 general, and of organisation in particular, we find that 
 we arrive inductively at the same general law. Creation 
 is a whole made up of an infinitesimal number of parts 
 in relation to each other. The matter of which the earth 
 is composed is conceivably and actually divisible into 
 larger and smaller parts, until the mind reaches the 
 abstract conception of an atomic or molecular division, 
 and therewith of molecular forces. The earth itself is 
 only a subdivision of a system, or harmonious putting 
 together of masses — the solar system ; and this, again, 
 only a subdivision of another and more inclusive, in 
 which solar systems play the part of a solitary planet in 
 relation to other solar systems. And the mind can con- 
 ceive combination after combination of such compound 
 systems, until, pursuing a course wholly antagonistic to 
 that which carries it onwards to the molecular division 
 of matter, it reaches the conception of one grand whole, 
 the Universe — the absolute created One — with all its 
 parts in due relation to each other, and itself in relation 
 to the Creator (chap, viii.) Multiplicity of parts, there- 
 fore, necessarily implies a unity of parts, as the result of 
 the great laws which regulate the uniformities of nature. 
 
 285. Now, what is thus manifest in the world of matter, 
 is manifest also in the world of life and organisation. 
 After analysing the structures of an organism, and de- 
 termining their functions as things distinct from each 
 other, down to the microscopic cells and granules which 
 constitute it, we see that they are so placed in relation 
 
 * Kritik der Rein. Vernunft, Transcendental Doctrine, sect. iii. 
 note.
 
 DIV. 
 
 II.] BIOLOGY. 387 
 
 to each other as to constitute a whole — one thing — a 
 unity. Just as from one primordial cell are developed 
 all the various apparatuses of relation, so all these, when 
 developed, act together in relation to each other as one 
 organism; and if it be granted that the two cells which, 
 by their union, constitute a primordial cell, do not in 
 fact coalesce dynamically, but constitute the primordial 
 elements of the two halves of the body, the law of unity 
 is not different from that which combines a planet and 
 its satellites, as the earth and the moon, into a unity in 
 relation to the sun. So also, when organisms combine 
 and form compound organisms, as trees, or certain hel- 
 minthoids, the law of unity is not different from that by 
 which the parts of an individual organ are constituted 
 into a whole, an individuum ; or as solar systems are con- 
 stituted into a whole in relation to other solar systems. 
 Or, further, when organisms are not structurally but 
 socially one — that is to say, form a society — the same 
 law holds good : the society is a unity in reference to 
 the ends for which the individual organisms are united 
 together, or constituted into a whole. The idea of unity 
 is therefore the most primary teleiotic idea of all pheno- 
 mena. It is the fundamental idea of Life: in cognition, 
 it correlates the fundamental intuition of the one. 
 
 286. The Laio and Idea of Duality. — We have seen 
 that nothing can be known or can exist out of relation to 
 something else, except the Absolute One. Now, this is a 
 fundamental idea of the law of design, and is implied in 
 the union of many into one ; for out of relation to each 
 other, there could be no union of the units or parts that 
 make up the whole. The simplest and fundamental 
 relation is that of the One to the One, or duality. The 
 operation of this idea is manifested in the laws of motion 
 of the heavenly bodies, in which the mutual antagonism
 
 388 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 of two kinds of forces in relation with each other is the 
 cause of adapted movements in unity (119). So, again, in 
 the molecular phenomena of matter; the idea is mani- 
 festly in operation in the law of polarisation, and perhaps 
 in all the phenomena of form and molecular change. Mr 
 Faraday's researches have done much to develop the 
 causal relations of duality as polarity. " The permanent 
 and stable course of things," observes Professor Whewell, 
 in discussing the application of the idea of polarity, " is 
 that which results from the balance and neutralisation 
 of contrary tendencies. Nature is constantly labouring 
 after repose by the effect of such tendencies; and so far 
 as polar forces enter into her economy, she seeks harmony 
 by means of discord, and unity by opposition."* We 
 have the same law manifested in chemical synthesis or 
 affinity, in virtue of which two opposing elements, as an 
 acid or alkali, combine to form one thing, yet with a law 
 of preference — that is, with " elective" affinity. To this 
 class also belongs Boscovitch's atomic theory, and espe- 
 cially a very ingenious theory of crystallisation and 
 molecular composition put forward by my friend Dr 
 Macvicar of Moffat, to which I have already called the 
 reader's attention, and in which it is set forth as " the 
 law of assimilation." 
 
 287. Duality being only another form of the idea and 
 law of " Eelativity," it is obvious from preceding con- 
 siderations (87, 141) the idea must be as fundamental an 
 element in all cognitions, and in all operations of forces 
 to ends, as the idea and law of unity. Without dualistic 
 action, there can be no unicity. 
 
 288. The Law and Idea of Multiplicity, Variety, or the 
 Many. — That this is a fundamental idea of the law of 
 design, is proved by the same arguments that prove unity. 
 
 * History of Scientific Ideas, vol. i. p. 370.
 
 Kiv. II.] BIOLOGY. 389 
 
 There could be no combination to ends if there were not 
 the Many to combine ; the idea of the Many is therefore 
 one of the most fundamental laws of manifestation of phe- 
 nomena. The infinite diversity in creation is equally 
 the great end of the law of design as the unity of crea- 
 tion. Unity, therefore, as a causal idea, is the necessary 
 cause of the Many. An archetypal idea necessarily in- 
 cludes unity of plan ; acting as a cause, the idea must 
 necessarily evolve the Many out of the One — many de- 
 rivative ideas, and therewith many derivative phenomena. 
 as the correlatives in time and space of those ideas (156). 
 It follows, therefore, that plurality, multiplicity, and 
 variety — all forms of the idea of the Many — are implied 
 in the idea of unity. "Unity," says M. Cousin, "is 
 anterior to variety ; but although the one be anterior to 
 the other, yet, when they are in being, how can they be 
 isolated ? What is an indivisible unity, a dead unity, a 
 unity remaining in the depths of its absolute existence, 
 and never developing itself into multiplicity, variety, 
 and plurality ? It is for itself as if it were not. In the 
 same way, what is variety without unity ? It is a variety 
 which admits not of unity ; which, therefore, cannot be 
 referred to any unity, nor even elevated into a totality, 
 nor into any collection whatever; nor can it ever be 
 added together or make up a sum."* 
 
 Sect. II. — Physiological Correlations of the Fundamental 
 Ideas of Vital Action, as Fundamental Laxvs. 
 
 289. These fundamental ideas have their correspond- 
 ing or correlative modes of physiological action, whereby 
 they are realised phenomenally in Time and Space. 
 These consist in the formation of the one into many ■ 
 
 * Introd. to Hist, of Philos., translated by H. G. Linberg (Boston, 
 U.S., 1832), p. 115.
 
 39° MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 of tbe many into one; of the one into two, in relation. 
 They are the fundamental laws and processes of life and 
 organisation, and are distinguished by physiologists ac- 
 cording to the subject-matter upon which the energy 
 is exercised. Tbe formation of the one into many is 
 disintegration, multiplication, or differentiation ; of the 
 many into one, is integration, combination, or individuali- 
 sation ; and of the one into two, is dichotomy, or dualisa- 
 tion. I shall commence with the last-mentioned, as tbe 
 basis of differentiation. 
 
 290. Dichotomy. — We have already seen that in every 
 cognition we require the relative and the correlative, or, 
 in other words, the cognition is divided into two parts 
 (88). This mental process is the fundamental ele- 
 ment of the mental faculties, considered as energies or 
 active powers ; it is the process of Dichotomy. But tbe 
 process implies also tbe correlative act — namely, the syn- 
 thesis of the two parts into one. So that in cognition 
 there is multiplicity in unity, the many forming the one ; 
 and dichotomy in unity, the multiplex one forming the 
 two. Now, we have a correlative physiological process in 
 organisation and development, as one of the fundamental 
 results of the law of design. The contenta of the primor- 
 dial cell divide into two halves, or two spherules are 
 formed out of the one ; and then these each divide into 
 two by a similar process of dichotomy, and each of these 
 again divide into two ; and thus the process is repeated 
 until the series of divisions (the "mulberry stage") is 
 completed, and the primordial cell is filled with granules 
 or minute cells. Then a new process commences, by 
 which tbe granules are integrated so as to form the ger- 
 minal membrane, out of which the various tissues and 
 organs are successively developed according to the process 
 termed Differentiation, and which consists in the succes-
 
 Div. II.] BIOLOGY. 39I 
 
 sive formation of the more special tissue out of the more 
 general in a fixed and unchangeable order — the order of 
 archetypal development. This evolution does not cease 
 with what may be termed Birth, but is continued onwards 
 until the organism attains to its complete evolution — i.e., 
 the development of the reproductive organs, or puberty. 
 
 291. Integration. — Now, if we pass on to an examina- 
 tion of the derivative ideas and laws potentially present 
 in the primordial cell, we find that they are those which 
 have been actually in operation in the organisms from 
 whence its two primary elements — the sperm-cell and 
 germ-cell — were derived ; or, in other words, the charac- 
 teristics of the parent, whether mental or corporeal, as 
 displayed in time and space, are reproduced in the or- 
 ganism thus developed out of the primordial cell. Hence 
 it follows that the sperm-cell and germ-cell respectively 
 are a potential (59) integration of the operations in time 
 and space of the vital forces (within certain limits) proper 
 to the parent ; just as the development of the individual 
 from a whole, constituted by a union of the two cells, is 
 a differentiation of that whole in time and space. When 
 we examine more carefully into the facts of hereditary 
 transmission, we shall see how close is the correlation 
 between these processes of generation and development, 
 and those of thought. (See Part IV. chap, iv.) 
 
 292. It is worthy of note here, that the mere physio- 
 logical processes of integration and differentiation have 
 not hitherto been placed on a true philosophical basis. 
 Physiologists have usually limited their inquiries to the 
 process of differentiation as manifested in the develop- 
 ment of the embryo, and have overlooked the process 
 of integration, as manifested in the formation of the 
 sperm-cell and germ-cell of the parents. Nor has even 
 the doctrine of the integration of the sperm-cell and
 
 39 2 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 germ-cell, in virtue of which the ovum is formed, had 
 any extension beyond the simplest statement of the fact 
 that they do integrate. Yet it cannot be doubted that 
 these processes are fundamental processes of life and 
 organisation ; and if so, then they are fundamental pro- 
 cesses in those teleorganic changes with which modes of 
 consciousness are coincident (176, 179). It is not, there- 
 fore, surprising that this fundamental law of dichotomy 
 and integration, thus manifested in the highest forms of 
 mental activity, and in the lowest or simplest forms of 
 vital activity, has had no notice whatever in so far as it 
 is a law common to both classes of processes, or even little 
 notice as an isolated fact. According, however, to the 
 views already laid down, we can compare the two pro- 
 cesses, as dependent upon a common fundamental law. 
 So that the order of development of ideas or thoughts, 
 and their manifestation as phenomena in acts, may be 
 taken to correspond with the development of the corre- 
 sponding teleiotic ideas, and the manifestation of that 
 development in organisms. Hence the synthetical unity 
 of apperception and the formation or production of a 
 new cognition out of the relative and correlative, are 
 analogous to the formation of a primordial cell. There 
 are two cognate but yet dissimilar elements, containing 
 a multiplicity of parts or elements in unity, which, by 
 their union, form a third, different from both ; and this 
 integration (corresponding to the law of synthesis of 
 force) is followed by a differentiation of the general cog- 
 nition, and its evolution into subordinate or derivative 
 cognitions, i.e. deductions from the general. 
 
 293. Thus the fundamental processes of thought are the 
 manifestations of fundamental teleiotic ideas ; and, start- 
 ing from this point, we can theorise both as to the funda- 
 mental act of thought or apperception — the synthesis of
 
 div. n 
 
 .] BIOLOGY. 393 
 
 the relative and correlative — the sperm-cell and germ- 
 cell of ideas — and as to the vital processes which go on 
 in the encephalon, the organ of thought. And such an 
 extension of the doctrines is required' by the very terms 
 of the principles laid down ; for these general laws and 
 truths must correlate all the derivative laws and truths, 
 and consequently we must carry on the correlation of the 
 laws of Life and the laws of Thought through their most 
 complex as well as most simple manifestations. 
 
 294. We may conclude, from all these premises, that 
 the law is equally applicable to the genesis and develop- 
 ment of society as of organised life, to the genesis of new 
 compounds (in molecular matter) and to the genesis of 
 planetary systems or worlds. That it is eminently a fun- 
 damental law of the sciences of human nature, might be 
 demonstrated inductively, if this were the occasion . Suffice 
 it to say, that, as a matter of observation, it lies at the 
 root of all human knowledge and human affairs. The 
 law has already had an interesting d priori application 
 to sociology given to it by Mr Herbert Spencer, in an 
 inquiry into the genesis of associations of men, and the 
 laws of the development of society.* 
 
 295. In zoology it has had an important application 
 to the laws of development, and to methods of classifi- 
 cation, in the doctrine of the physiological division of 
 labour. M. Milne Edwards claims the merit of having, 
 in 1827, first clearly enunciated this doctrine, and of 
 having on various occasions applied it to the classification 
 of animals, and to philosophical zoology in general. f 
 
 * " The Social Organism," Westminster Review (Jan. 18G0) ; 
 and also in an early volume of the National Review. 
 
 t Compare M. Milne Edwards' Lemons sur la Physiologie et I'Ana- 
 tomie Comp. de Vllomme et des Animaux (Paris, 1857), vol. i. p. 16, 
 note.
 
 394 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [fart III. 
 
 M. A. de Quatrefages, Professor of Ethnology to the 
 Museum of Natural History, Paris, has also been an 
 eloquent advocate of the doctrine, as a professed disciple 
 of M. Milne Edwards;* and M. Adrien Jussieu has re- 
 cently applied it to the classification of plants.f 
 
 296. In chemistry, the words union and affinity have 
 a meaning correlative with integration ; the doctrine has 
 indeed been recognised, although not formularised. Thus 
 Dr Whewell observes, as to the uses of the word affinity, 
 " Common mechanical attractions and repulsions, the 
 forces by which one body considered as a whole acts upon 
 another external to it, are, as we have said, to be distin- 
 guished from those more intimate ties by which the parts 
 of each body are held together. Now, this difference is 
 implied, if we compare the former relations, the attrac- 
 tions and repulsions, to alliances and wars between 
 States ; and the latter, the internal union of the particles, 
 to those bonds of affinity which connect the citizens of 
 the same State with one another, and especially to the 
 ties of Family. "We have seen that Boerhaave compares 
 the union of two elements of a compound to their mar- 
 riage; ' we must allow,' says an eminent chemist of our 
 time, I ' that there is some truth in this poetical compari- 
 son. It contains this truth, that the two become one to 
 most intents and purposes, and that the unit thus formed 
 (the Family) is not a mere juxtaposition of the component 
 parts ; and thus the idea of affinity, as the peculiar principle, 
 of chemical composition, is established among chemists, 
 and designated by a familiar and appropriate name.'"§ 
 
 * Compare his Rambles of a Naturalist, translated by E. C. Otto 
 (1857), vol. i. p. 102, sqq. 
 t Cours Elernentaire de Botanique. 
 X Dumas. Lemons de Phil. Chem. p. 363. 
 § History of Scientific Ideas, 3d edit. (1858), vol. ii. pp. 19, 20.
 
 Div. ii.] BIOLOGY. 395 
 
 297. Vital Affinity. — Affinity is chemical integration ; 
 integration of the sperm-cell and germ-cell is a vital 
 affinity. This law of mutual and definite relation in 
 vital processes is too important in determining the modes 
 of thought and action, and too influential upon the will 
 and all the intellectual processes, to be passed over with- 
 out notice. 
 
 298. In the vital affinities of life and organisation, we 
 can discriminate between the Force and the Idea. Thus, 
 when two cells come within the sphere of each other's 
 action, two processes begin : firstly, Disintegration (cor- 
 responding to decomposition in chemical processes), so 
 that each one cell ceases to be one by continuous dicho- 
 tomy, and so disappears; secondly, Integration, so that the 
 two are formed into one. In this process, it is a necessary 
 condition to the series of changes that two cells act upon 
 each other. Nevertheless, there must be dynamical rela- 
 tions existing, antecedently but potentially, between the 
 cells, such that the ends be attained. Now, these dyna- 
 mical relations are not accidental, but depend upon the 
 causal antecedents of the two cells. The cells must be in- 
 tegrations of the multiform manifestations in Time and 
 Space of an archetypal idea in a pre-existing individual ; 
 or, in other words, must belong to the same species (266). 
 There is thus a vital affinity between the two cells. 
 When this is not present, as is the case when the gene- 
 rative cells of animals of different species are brought into 
 contact, there is no teleorganic change set up, and no 
 sequences of phenomena begun. 
 
 299. Not otherwise is it in regard to the action of the 
 phj'sical forces or organisms. Heat or light is an essen- 
 tial condition for the commencement of the changes with 
 which the life of an individual begins, or even for the 
 permanence of that condition in which the teleiotic forces
 
 3<?6 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OK TELEOLOGY, [tart III. 
 
 may be said to be latent. It is true tbat certain animals 
 (as fisbes) may be frozen, and when thawed live again ; 
 but tbis only indicates that less heat is necessary for 
 the permanence of the vital forces in them than in 
 others. Some change — no matter what — takes place 
 when the force termed heat, or light, is applied to the 
 organisation already fitted to receive an impulse from it ; 
 and forthwith a series of changes is begun, corresponding 
 to the archetypal idea of the organisation. Nor are 
 these affinities restricted to heat and light, for all that 
 class of forces which constitute the " Imponderables," 
 and act upon the atoms of matter, have in like manner 
 their teleiotic adaptations. Chemical affinity is due to 
 fixed laws of reciprocal activity amongst the atoms of 
 matter — in other words, to chemical teleiotic ideas ; and 
 even as to them, the play of the cbemical forces is often 
 first begun and best kept up when the force termed heat, 
 or light, is applied to the subject-matter. 
 
 300. In all the phenomena of feeling and thought, 
 the same law of excitation and affinity holds good. The 
 impression of the physical forces received through the 
 senses is in truth a manifestation of those forces accord- 
 ing to a biotic idea ; so that the visual and auditory im- 
 pressions, which excite the teleorganic changes that cor- 
 respond to the phenomena of instinct, are but the result 
 of physical and vital forces acting under their appro- 
 priate teleiotic ideas. In like manner, the impressions 
 which reach the inner mechanism, and cause sensations, 
 react upon all the other encephalic tissues in orderly 
 sequence, and induce that series of linked states termed 
 a Cognition, or the association of ideas. In this latter 
 process, as in the formation of a primordial cell, it is 
 only those impressions that are in teleiotic affinity which 
 are operative.
 
 DIV 
 
 II.] BIOLOGY. 397 
 
 301. Eadiant heat and light heing the primary stimuli 
 of the vital processes, are also the primary stimuli of 
 consciousness. Then follows the stimulus of actual con- 
 tact or touch ; and inasmuch as the latter is a stimulus 
 in virtue of the communication of force, and therefore 
 of something analogous to heat and light, all stimuli 
 resolve themselves into stimuli of touch ; or in other 
 words, affinitive force must be communicated to the 
 living organism or its tissues, if we would induce tele- 
 organic changes therein. It was by a somewhat similar 
 process of reasoning that (according to Aristotle) Demo- 
 critus, Leucippus, and other ancient philosophers, con- 
 cluded that all sense was a kind of touch.* 
 
 302. Repetition. — The last fundamental law of vital . 
 action I shall consider is, repetition of organisms or of 
 their parts, or Serial Dichotomy. It is a special manifes- 
 tation of plurality or multiplicity in correlation with 
 union or unicity, rather than unity ; with combination, 
 rather than integration. Its resulting phenomena are 
 best observed in the lower forms of animal and vegetable 
 life, in which several individuals combine together to a 
 common end, as the Polyzoa ; or are united into society 
 as in plants, zoophytes, and various helminthoid ani- 
 mals. Eepetition may be correlated with integration, 
 as is seen in the Articulata. As these and the preced- 
 ing forms of vital energy will be abundantly illustrated 
 in another Part (Mental Physiology), I shall not dwell 
 upon them further at present. 
 
 303. The Idea and Law of Perfection. — The end at- 
 tained in time and space is the complete realisation of 
 the teleiotic idea, whatever that may be ; that complete 
 realisation is that which we call Perfection. Hence, each 
 thing, typically, is perfect in its kind. But all creation is 
 
 * De Sensu et Sensibili, cap. iv.
 
 398 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 the evolution of one idea; and consequently every deri- 
 vative idea must possess the qualities of this, the primor- 
 dial archetype. What such qualities are, have been well- 
 expressed in a proposition renowned, says Kant, among 
 the schoolmen, "Quodlibet Ens est unum, verum, bonum." 
 
 304. When multiplication and repetition attain their 
 utmost extent in correlation with the closest integration — 
 or in other words, when there is the highest development 
 of the Many, and the closest union of the Many into 
 a harmonious One — then perfection is attained (284). 
 Hence the universe, as the union of an infinite number 
 of elements into One, satisfies our ideal conception of 
 the Perfect, although we cannot realise the idea, because 
 it is an infinite and absolute Perfection (210). 
 
 305. The teleiotic idea of Perfection — that is, of ends 
 attained — correlates the teleiotic idea of Order as neces- 
 sary to the attainment of Perfection. In consciousness, 
 both correlate the intuitions of the Good and the Beauti- 
 ful, and have their antithetic ideas in the teleiotic ideas 
 and the intuitions of Disorder, Evil, and Ugliness. In 
 Morphology, for example, there are certain deviations 
 in the external forms of both plants and animals from 
 what we conceive to be the Beautiful, which seem to be 
 included in the archetypal idea or plan according to which 
 they are developed, for they are natural forms — that is 
 to say, those forms in which all the vital processes are 
 well and healthily performed, in due accordance with 
 teleiotic Ideas and modes of Energy. These deviations 
 are either termed ludicrous or ugly, according as the idea 
 of harmlessness or evil is associated with them. Of this 
 kind of organisms are some of the Euphorbiaceae, the Or- 
 chideae, &c, amongst plants ; Toads and Camels amongst 
 vertebrates ; African and Mongolian races amongst men. 
 
 306. In vital processes, what is termed Disorder and
 
 VIV. I 
 
 I.] BIOLOGY. ^yy 
 
 Disease are so much a part of the great plan, that there 
 are fundamental teleiotic ideas and laws by which they 
 are anticipated and obviated. Nor ought we to omit 
 the consideration of those aberrations from the arche- 
 typal plan which are monstrosities, or which, in so far 
 as the individual animal is concerned, is a development 
 in a retrograde direction — that is, a manifestation of 
 a lower type of organisation than the normal type, by 
 arrest of development or otherwise. To this branch of 
 anatomy, G-. St. Hilaire gave the term Teratology. Phy- 
 siologists have usually limited their researches to struc- 
 tural monstrosities ; but there are also monsters as to 
 cerebral functions — that is to say, individuals otherwise 
 complete as to the type of humanity, but who are as to 
 their instincts and intellect on a level with brutes.* 
 Nor, when we begin to arrange the various modes of 
 energy, as manifested in the appetites and instincts of 
 man, can we leave out of consideration the great fact 
 that man has intuitions of moral evil as well as of good. 
 Hence, it is a necessity that we should examine the 
 great end aimed at in creation — namely, Perfection — 
 in relation with those derivative causes or causal ideas 
 by or through which what we call Disorder, Disease, 
 Ugliness, and Evil, are developed in organisms. 
 
 307. Now, Perfection is the universal and absolute ; it 
 is therefore in correlation with these derivative ideas as 
 the contingent and particular. And if we examine these 
 modes of energy a little more closely, it is found that 
 they may each be divided into two antagonistic groups 
 in correlation to each other, and to the ends they aim at. 
 As we cannot conceive the exercise of force without re- 
 sistance, so we cannot conceive energy exercised to tbe 
 
 * Compare M. Morel, Traite des Degmfrescences de VEspece Hu- 
 
 maine (1857).
 
 400 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part hi. 
 
 maintenance of order without disorder. But this dis- 
 order, as a derivative of Order (156), is a part of the 
 great scheme of Creation. Hence, in all phenomena 
 there are those elements which are universal as to order, 
 and those which are particular as to disorder. While, 
 on the one hand, for example, we find creatures exist 
 so that they shall enjoy life, or be happy or good, we 
 find, on the other hand, that they also exist so as to 
 suffer evil, or pain, disease, and a termination of ex- 
 istence. The one is as much a law of creation as the 
 other. Fossil remains have lately been found which 
 showed that the animals, during life, had had ex-os- 
 tosis and other diseases of their bones. Further, the 
 death of myriads of organisms is the sole means by 
 which the life of myriads is maintained. These have 
 been discussed as " evils of imperfection," and con- 
 sidered as not evils, except in so far as the absence of 
 some comparative good is evil. " No system can pos- 
 sibly be formed, even in imagination, without a sub- 
 ordination of parts. Every animal body must have 
 different members subservient to each other; every 
 picture must be composed of various colours, and of 
 light and shade ; all harmony must be formed of trebles, 
 tenors, and basses; every beautiful and useful edifice 
 must consist of higher and lower, more and less magnifi- 
 cent apartments. This is in the very essence of created 
 things, and therefore cannot be prevented by any means 
 whatever, unless by not creating them at all."* Hence 
 it necessarily follows, from the principle of subordination 
 of parts to a whole, that organisms " should exist of 
 various degrees of strength, beauty, and perfection ; to 
 the comparative want of which advantages we give the 
 
 * Soame Jenyns. A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of 
 Evil, Letter II.
 
 mv. n 
 
 .] BIOLOGY. 4OI 
 
 names of Folly, Weakness, Deformity, and Imperfection, 
 and very unjustly repute them as evils ; whereas in 
 truth they are blessings, as far as they extend, though 
 of an inferior degree."* 
 
 308. This argument is more especially applicable to 
 co-existences in time ; but if we examine the matter in 
 relation to successional existences, the result is the same. 
 The grand idea of creation, as it appears to us, is that of 
 a system ever rising into higher and higher perfection 
 (160). Geology establishes the fact, that in the abyss of 
 time terrestrial animals were less developed than now, the 
 archetypal idea less evolved on earth, and the organisms 
 less differentiated. This is the idea, in other words, of 
 imperfection to be made less imperfect (2(55). So also is 
 it with the development of the individual man ; the law 
 of progress is from the imperfect to the perfect. Com- 
 mencing as an amorphous microscopic particle of living- 
 matter, struck off, as it were, from a pre-existent indi- 
 vidual, without form or beauty, his limbs and frame are 
 gradually evolved, until uterine life ends and world- 
 existence begins. Then a fresh series of changes com- 
 mence, in virtue of which he becomes less and less im- 
 perfect in form and function, until he attains the full 
 maturity of beauty, life, and power, of which he is 
 capable. Nor is it otherwise with the moral nature of 
 man. So soon as his experience of his own nature 
 evolves his intuitive ideas into clear conceptions, he re- 
 cognises its imperfect character, and thenceforth aspires 
 after and struggles to attain a less imperfect nature — 
 i.e., to become more God-like. 
 
 309. Nor is the argument inapplicable to all those 
 social and moral evils which seem to torture mankind. 
 
 * Soame Jenyns. A Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of 
 Evil, Let tor [I. 
 
 2 c
 
 402 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part in. 
 
 Without subordination, society cannot exist ; but all sub- 
 ordination, we have seen, implies relative imperfection ; 
 all imperfection, evil; and all evil, some kind of incon- 
 venience or suffering. " Most of those to which we our- 
 selves are liable may be easily shown to be of this kind, 
 the effects only of human nature, and the station man 
 occupies in the universe ; and therefore their origin is 
 plainly deducible from necessity. . . . These, I think, 
 may be comprehended under the following heads, — 
 poverty, labour, inquietudes of mind, pains of body, and 
 death ; from none of which, we may venture to affirm, 
 man could ever have been exempted, so long as he con- 
 tinued to be man."* 
 
 310. These various phenomena, which we term Evils 
 and Imperfections, whether cosmic, biological, or moral, 
 have been usually advanced, almost triumphantly, by the 
 Anti-teleological school as wholly subversive of the doc- 
 trine that a law of design regulates the phenomena of 
 the universe. The argument which they are adduced 
 to support is only another form of that never-ending 
 polemic which has occupied philosophical minds since 
 philosophy began, and on this account only might well be 
 allowed to pass. But as the doctrines just laid down 
 constitute, in fact, a sufficient answer to the allegations, 
 I need not enter into details. What is certain is, that 
 all agree as to the facts ; these are fully admitted on 
 both sides ; it is as to the relations of the facts to each 
 other — i.e., the interpretation of them — that the differ- 
 ence arises. On the one side that relation is recognised 
 as one of antagonism or difference, on the other as one 
 of resemblance : in this work it is one of correlative 
 relation — the relation of the Absolute to the Contin- 
 gent (141). 
 
 * Soamo Jenyns. Op. cit.. Letter III.
 
 Div. n.] BIOLOGY. 403 
 
 311. The interpretation will be in truth, however, very 
 much a question of individual mental character and 
 habit. If the Anti-teleologists could stretch their con- 
 ceptions beyond the mere antagonisms of monstrosities 
 of development, such as supernumerary parts, useless 
 appendages, and imperfect limbs, they might see that 
 logically these are included in the great law of Eelativity, 
 according to which there must be the antagonism of the 
 Absolute and the Perfect with the Contingent and Im- 
 perfect. At a certain point, however, all speculation must 
 stop; for Perfection, like Time and Space, being infinite, 
 we can only comprehend it within limits. Those limits, 
 as seen by us, include an incessant struggle to attain 
 perfection, in virtue of which the imperfect passes away 
 and the more perfect remains. Looking at it from this 
 point of view, the sickness and death of imperfectly 
 developed individuals correlate the dwindling and extinc- 
 tion of imperfect species ; both secure progressive Per- 
 fection (261). Thus the law which Mr Darwin has lately 
 elucidated so ably is by no means in opposition to the 
 principles of a true Teleology, but rather strongly sup- 
 ports them. 
 
 312. Finally, to these considerations we may add, that 
 to man there must always remain something unknown in 
 the world of Life as well as in the great Kosmos, which 
 he must struggle to know — something for his imagina- 
 tion and his faith to dwell upon. Our view of creation 
 being limited, we can never rightly conceive to what 
 good ends those things which we call evil tend. It is 
 here that Faith — " the substance of things hoped for " — 
 begins. We have intuitions of perfection, and of a more 
 perfect state than the present, and we instinctively labour 
 to realise them. Those intuitions are verities — dimly 
 seen, it is true, but as firm as the intuitions of conscious-
 
 404 MENTAL DYNAMICS, OR TELEOLOGY, [part III. 
 
 ness that we feel, and think, and know. Here, then, is 
 a rational ground for the belief, that if we could know 
 and comprehend the whole plan of creation, those things 
 which we term "imperfections" would, under a higher 
 generalisation, appear as perfections ; and that, in rela- 
 tion to the grander and more comprehensive plans which 
 we conceive so dimly, that which we now, with our 
 limited powers, regard, and practically must by our very 
 nature regard, as Evil, would be found to be very Good. 
 And since this intuition of Perfection correlates the 
 teleiotic idea of Perfection in -created things, it is a 
 necessary element of our nature, whether physical or 
 moral. We cannot but feel it, therefore, when we con- 
 template created things with a knowledge of God's laws. 
 
 " I cannot go, 
 
 Where universal love not smiles around, 
 Sustaining all yon orbs and all their suns ; 
 From seeming evil still educing good ; 
 And better thence again, and better still, 
 In infinite progression.'"* 
 
 * Thomson. Ilymn on the Seasons. 
 
 END OF FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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