LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 JAMES HI NT ON.
 
 BY THE LATE JAMES HINTON. 
 
 The Place of the Physician. To which is added 
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 Physiology for Practical Use. By various Writers. 
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 The Mystery of Pain: A Book for the Sorrowful. 
 
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 BY ELLICE HOPKINS, 
 
 Editor of the "Life and Letters of James Hinton." 
 
 Rose Turquand : A Novel. Second and Cheaper 
 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 6s. 
 
 " If ' Rose Turquand' is a maiden novel, as we may suppose, it 
 does its author very great credit. It shows real power, and no 
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 is made of flesh and blood like ourselves." Times. 
 
 Work in Brighton ; or, Woman's Mission to Women. 
 
 Ninth Thousand. i6mo. Sewed, 6d. 
 
 " From my own experience in long past years, I am quite sure 
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 which, for the sake of home and family, has a claim on every 
 woman. I bid the work ' God speed' with all my heart, and soul, 
 and strength." Florence Nightingale.
 
 Ex LibriS 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ELLICE HOPKINS. 
 
 WITH 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION BY SIR IV. W. GULL. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & Co., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 1878.
 
 All riyhtt of translation and of reproduction are reserved.
 
 r TTT> \ T>" 
 
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 SANTA HA ^ 
 
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 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IT would be a pain to me that any Memoir of James 
 Hinton should go forth without a word of affectionate 
 regard for his memory from me. It is now near twenty 
 years ago that our acquaintance began. Sympathies in 
 common on the nearest subjects of human interest 
 brought us much together. It was at this time that 
 "Man and his Dwelling - Place " was projected and 
 written. Every page bears witness to the workings 
 of his intensely energetic mind. I recall vividly the ear- 
 nest manner with which he would submit to me the 
 different chapters of this work. Convinced as he was 
 that the only deadness in nature, the only negative con- 
 dition, was man's selfishness, his whole life and thought 
 was to excite a reaction against it. 
 
 It was his favourite conception that the " phenomenal " 
 was essentially antithetic to the "actual." He would 
 illustrate in a hundred ways how this was equally true in 
 relation to our moral sense. The same error which led 
 man, from limited observation, to suppose the earth the 
 centre and at rest, repeated itself under a new form in 
 supposing himself to be a living centre surrounded by 
 dead things. 
 
 Death to him was a purely human idea. All nature 
 is living. The "Physiological Kiddies" exemplified his 
 thoughts on this point very fully. In these essays he 
 was abreast of the best physiology of the time, and may 
 be considered as having done good service in combating
 
 vi Introduction. 
 
 the narrow views that still prevail, even in high quarters 
 and which would raise a barrier in nature between organic 
 and inorganic where none exists. 
 
 Hinton was not a man of science, but a philosopher. 
 Science was to him the servant of philosophy. He felt 
 himself to be an interpreter of nature; not in the 
 Baconian sense by the collection and arrangement of 
 facts, the sequences of causes and effects, but, like the 
 Hebrew seer of old, penetrating through appearances to 
 their central cause. 
 
 I remember one occasion when he came to me full of 
 emotion, with tears in his eyes, at a glimpse he had caught 
 of the universal relation of things to the Divine Cause. 
 " What I see in nature, " he said, " is the Divine power 
 acting within an imposed limit. God, self-limited, is the 
 universe. God is not the universe, but it flows from 
 Him and becomes phenomenal by the laws of limitation.'' 
 
 I could not at the time but check him by quoting 
 Goethe's words 
 
 " Oh ! gliicklich \ver noch hoffen kann, 
 Aus diesem Meer des Irrthums aufzutauchen," 
 
 laying severe stress upon hope, and urging on him that 
 the poet did not seem to admit the likelihood that we 
 should ever realise it by seeing truth as it is. Hinton 
 would not, however, be brought back to our everyday 
 views and imperfect ways of thinking, but insisted that 
 we voluntarily hindered our vision by the mere scientific 
 relation of facts, as opposed to a true philosophy of them. 
 How often he would repeat, " It is the sense and the 
 intellect which raise us to a scientific appreciation, to the 
 mechanical relations of things ; but it is genius and 
 intuition which enable us to penetrate to their higher 
 meaning." To limit human knowledge to that which is 
 scientific was a capital error against which Hinton com-
 
 Introduction. vii 
 
 bated with all his might. For Hinton Goethe was not 
 a true poet ; his view was limited to the scientific and 
 phenomenal. No wonder, then, that Hinton scorned his 
 supercilious doubts, and went on with the assurance 
 that truth was still attainable by man. 
 
 I should give, however, a wrong impression of Hinton's 
 mind, so far as I observed its workings, if I let it be sup- 
 posed that he was a careless observer. He was not in 
 the least indifferent to observation, nor had he a limited 
 view of the range of science or of scientific methods ; this 
 is proved by his physiological and pathological work. It 
 could hardly be otherwise, impressed as he was with the 
 philosophy of his subject. Organic forms were not to him 
 "manufactured articles." He was, I think I may say, 
 from long conversations with him through many years, the 
 truest believer in evolution. Form he saw was the pro- 
 duct of growth under resistance, whether in the uncoiled 
 frond of the fern, the symmetry of leaves, or the features 
 of man. He would have endorsed the words of Milton 
 
 " One Almighty is, from whom 
 All things proceed, .... 
 
 One first matter, all 
 
 Endued with various forms, various degrees 
 Of substance, and, in things that live, of life ; 
 But more refined, more spirituous, and pure, 
 As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending, 
 Each in their several active spheres assigned, 
 Till body up to spirit work, in bounds 
 Proportioned to each kind. So from the root 
 Springs lighter the green stalk ; from thence the leaves 
 More airy ; last the bright consummate flower 
 Spirits odorous breathes ; flowers and their fruit, 
 Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed, 
 To vital spirits aspire, to animal, 
 To intellectual ; give both life and sense, 
 Fancy and understanding ; whence the soul 
 Reason receives." 
 
 Suppression and reappearance in a new and higher 
 form was to him the fundamental law of physiology.
 
 viii Introduction, 
 
 Organisms in upward order, concoct, digest, assimilate, 
 " and corporeal to incorporeal turn." 
 
 Hinton's thoughts on moral subjects were of the same 
 character as those on material. The miserable, despised, 
 and abandoned outcasts of society, sacrificed to the sel- 
 fishness of the well-to-do and respectable, was a glaring 
 instance of the deception of the phenomenal. I think I 
 am justified in saying, from my intercourse with him, that 
 he thought such facts illustrated the object of Christ's 
 work on earth, as showing us how contrary truth is to 
 appearance. I do not, however, trust myself from re- 
 miniscences only, to enter largely into these subjects. 
 Hinton's views on such matters appear fully in his writ- 
 ings, perhaps chiefly in the " Mystery of Pain." 
 
 To descend to lower matters, I may say that Hinton's 
 physical energy always seemed to me as great and in- 
 domitable as that of his mind. Together they afforded 
 an example of intellectual and bodily activity rarely sur- 
 passed. His feelings also were finely touched, and to fine 
 issues. Our profession is proud of his name. The work 
 he did in it was well done, and by it he laid stepping- 
 stones for others to advance upon. 
 
 Hiuton's life was not so full of incident as it was full 
 of thought. Reminiscences of such a life are therefore 
 everywhere embodied in and to be collected from his 
 writings. The main object indeed of his practical life 
 was, I may say, to afford him opportunity to pursue his 
 philosophical speculations. Hence it was that he so early 
 retired from professional work, according to the teaching 
 of his own parable, that gold should be made to buy the 
 more precious things. He was one of the pioneers of 
 humanity through the obscure and dark ways of the sense 
 to the region of truth. 
 
 W. W. GULL.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth and parentage Home influences Death of his eldest 
 brother School life Family removes from Beading to 
 London Placed in a situation at Whitechapel Distress 
 of mind at the wrongs of women Passion for know- 
 ledge Early attachment Letters to his eldest sister 
 Renewed distress and illness Enters medical profession 
 Voyage to China as ship's surgeon Returns to England 
 Takes out his diploma practises at Newport 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Takes charge of Negro emigrants to Jamaica Remains in 
 Jamaica as assistant surgeon Letters home Religious 
 difficulties Visit to America on his homeward voyage 
 Change of religious views Letter to his sister Arrival 
 home 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Engagement to Miss Margaret Haddon Letters to her : On 
 beginning London practice The nature of love Reli- 
 gious difficulties Coleridge's "Aids to Reflection" Prac- 
 tical proofs of Christianity Medical quacks Cure of his 
 mother's deafness Channing Fault-finding Nobility 
 of his father's character, and plea for his own short- 
 comings Faith in Christ 36
 
 x Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PABE 
 
 First turns bis attention to aural surgery Friendship with 
 Mr. Toynbee Studies physiology Letters to Miss Mar- 
 garet Haddon : Neglect of health Musical composition 
 Intoxicating drinks Moral drugging-r-Want of a fit 
 object in life The wonder of the world Attends 
 homoeopathic hospital Physical power of the emotions 
 Physiology of blushing Emotional cures The use 
 of a tear Allopaths and homoeopaths Difficulties 
 Enthusiasm for knowledge Rarity of scientific investi- 
 gation On the nature of the brain Matter and spirit . 54 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Letters to Miss Margaret Haddon, continued : Physiological 
 speculations The doctrine of the Atonement Limits of 
 knowledge The trading spirit in professions Emotional 
 therapeutics The metaphysics of science How to prac- 
 tise homoeopathy Aspirations Incredible credulity 
 Absorption in thinking Increasing faith in Christianity 
 Converts a homoeopath Different modes of service 
 Proposed emigration Limited income Determination 
 to marry 83 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Marriage with Miss Margaret Haddon Birth of his children 
 Friendship with Sir William Gull Letter to Pro- 
 fessor Groom Robertson His method and philosophy 
 Historical sketch Thoughts illustrative of his philosophy 1 08 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Letters to a friend in religious difficulties : Self-surrender 
 The Bible and eternity Love of God and man Truth 
 an union of opposites The spiritual unthinkable Mis- 
 construction of Christ's teaching Feeling good as evil 
 Nature divine and spiritual National communions 
 Asceticism Miracles Prayer Interpretation of error 
 Self-tormenting Practical puzzles Intellectual pa- 
 tience Mental depression Feeling sure . . .130
 
 Contents. xi 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 First begins to publish Assists Mr. Toynbee in aural prac- 
 tice Paper on organic forms Pecuniary difficulties 
 Publication of " Man and His Dwelling- Place " Its 
 success Gives up practice for philosophy Life at Tot- 
 tenham Publication of " Physiological Riddles," and 
 " Thoughts on Health," in Cornhill " Mystery of Pain" 
 written Letters on the subject Involuntary sacrifice 
 Source of his thoughts 1 54 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Letters : On the after-death state " Man and His Dwelling- 
 Place " Imagination Lack of Dramatic power German 
 Relation to other thinkers and present thought The 
 self Failure of income Birth of his youngest child 
 Appointment as aural surgeon to Guy's Hospital Gives 
 up philosophy and returns to practice Letters on giving 
 up philosophy 175 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Residence at Tudor Lodge Removes his family to Barnet 
 and Brighton Letters to his wife and son Letters : 
 Indifference Bereavement Belief How to treat the 
 Bible Letters to his little boy Succeeds to Mr. 
 Toynbee's practice Happiness of his home life Con- 
 versational powers Character of his intellect Love 
 for music and art Social meetings Personal influence 
 Sympathy Letters : Adoption of Orphans Divinity 
 of Christ To his wife Mental hibernation The vision 
 of God On what we can know Relations of his philo- 
 sophy to Kant and Fichte Conversation with Mr. 
 Berry . , . . .207 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Travels on the Continent Letters home Resumes philosophy 
 Mental photography Prints his early MSS. Letters 
 to his family Feeling towards the Established Church 
 Pamphlet on nursing Joins the Metaphysical Society 
 Purchases a property in the Azores Visits France 
 and Spain Studies Asceticism Altruism as held by Mr. 
 Hinton Ethical thoughts 246
 
 xii Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letters : Giving up one's best On the art of thinking Pro- 
 ject of living in the East End of London Man as Christ 
 reveals him Nature of women Joy in the world 
 Sadness of modern life Sends his pictures to the East 
 End of London Letters : Aspromonte To his wife 
 Self-basis of modern life Regard for others Shrink- 
 ing from antagonism Sectarianism Pleasure as a guide 
 Thoughts on genius 286 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Letters : Book on aural surgery The false law Con- 
 scientious sacrifice Jacob Bb'hme and modern theoso- 
 phists Social views Apparent recklessness Increased 
 excitability and need of rest Significant prescription 
 Letters : Cruel idols Dogmatic theology Nothing 
 seen in itself The desire on good Social changes 
 Inaugural lecture at Guy's The place of the physician 
 Retires from practice Publishes " Questions in Aural 
 Surgery " and " Atlas of the Ear " Death of his mother 318 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Summer at Lulworth Mrs. Hinton winters in the Azores 
 Letters to his son the method of fluxions His selfless- 
 ness Stored up force Letters : Right Self-restraint 
 The liberty of art The wonder of the world The 
 correction of the premiss Falsity to fact Dreamland 
 Degradation of women Dynamic relations of evil . 334 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Visit to South Wales Letters : Thinking by leaving out 
 How self came to be put first Lewes' "Problem's 
 of Life and Mind " The fluxion Visit to Brighton 
 Brilliancy of his intellect Pain of life Personal 
 characteristics Attitude towards death, and questions 
 of the hereafter Depression and nervous exhaustion 
 Sets sail for the Azores Failure of property Letters 
 home Inflammation of the brain His death Burial 
 at Ponta Delgada, St. Michaels Conclusion . . . 357
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES HINTOK 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 JAMES HINTON was the son of the -well-known Baptist 
 minister, the Eev. Howard Hinton, and Eliza Birt, his 
 wife. He was born at Reading in 1822, and was the 
 third of a family of eleven children. On his father's 
 side, he sprang from the same stock as the Taylors of 
 Ongar, Mr. Howard Hinton's mother being Ann Taylor, 
 daughter of Josiah Taylor, the engraver, and aunt to Isaac 
 Taylor, the well-known author of the " History of Enthu- 
 siasm," and his sisters Ann and Jane Taylor. 
 
 At the time of his birth, his father was already known 
 as a powerful preacher, as the not altogether orthodox 
 exponent of a more moderate Calvinism than was then 
 in vogue among Baptists, and as a man of great energy of 
 character. Indeed, he bore the strong Taylor stamp of 
 individuality, which made him a leader in his own deno- 
 mination, both in thought and in active philanthropy. 
 
 He owed his name to the philanthropist John Howard, 
 who was an intimate friend of Josiah Taylor, the grand- 
 father, and who, just before starting for Russia, whence 
 
 A
 
 2 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 he was never to return, said to his friend's daughter, in 
 sorrowful allusion to the blight which had fallen on his 
 own happiness while seeking to alleviate the woes of 
 others : " I have now no son of my own ; if ever you 
 have one, pray call him after me," a request which was 
 held sacred. 
 
 His father, the Eev. James Hinton, had given him 
 a liberal education at the University of Edinburgh, 
 the two older universities being then closed against 
 Dissenters ; and he was distinguished not only for 
 sound scholarship, but for the strong scientific tastes 
 which his son afterwards inherited, being an excellent 
 geologist and naturalist. Altogether his was one of those 
 strong, clearly-defined personalities that impress them- 
 selves on the minds of men. " When," in the words of 
 a contemporary, "he rose up in a public meeting to 
 speak, six feet in height, of spare and severe form, with a 
 countenance calm and thoughtful and touched with sad- 
 ness, hardly lighted by eyes which seemed to turn in- 
 wards, as if they were more concerned to see truth than 
 men, the first sentiment awakened was reverence border- 
 ing on dread. When the sentences began to come, clear 
 and convincing in their logic, but uttered in the shrill 
 tones of a nervous temperament, and sometimes flung 
 defiantly at the audience, as if he intended to arouse 
 rather than to conciliate, it was not surprising that he 
 produced on some the impression of being a bitter and 
 passionate disputant." 
 
 But those who knew him better, knew that under 
 some apparent harshness of demeanour lay hidden a 
 nature full of tenderness, with sympathies at once deli- 
 cate and prompt, noble in forgiveness, and humble as a 
 child in acknowledging the faults of temper into which 
 the vehemence of his nature occasionally betrayed him.
 
 Home Influences. 3 
 
 Under the influence of the strong religious feelings 
 which made it his habit for thirty years regularly to 
 retire three times a day for prayer and communion with 
 God, his character gradually mellowed and softened, a 
 growth of years best embodied in his own touching 
 words : " We are near home ; may we be home-like." 
 
 But if James Hinton was thus closely related on his 
 father's side to the Taylors, if from him he derived the 
 intellectual thoroughness, the dislike of bad logic, and 
 reverence for scientific methods which saved him from 
 the otherwise visionary tendencies of his mind, it was not 
 from his father but from his mother that he inherited 
 most, despite the stress Mr. Francis Galton lays on his 
 paternal pedigree in his book on " Heredity." Deep as 
 was the reverence in which he held his father, he always 
 spoke of himself as more especially his mother's child; 
 and it was certainly her impress that he chiefly took. 
 
 She, too, was every way a woman of strong individuality 
 of character ; a fervent, lofty-souled woman, with a spring 
 of sacred enthusiasm in her that seemed to remove her 
 in a measure from the common concerns of life ; beauti- 
 ful to look upon in her early years, till she grew worn 
 with much anxiety and ill-health, but always retaining 
 the gracious dignity of manner which made her rule 
 every one who belonged to her with a woman's mild but 
 irresistible sway, a sway tempered by deep womanly 
 compassion that was ever ready to excuse an offender on 
 her favourite plea of " poor human nature." 
 
 The home in which James Hinton received his early 
 training was a very happy one. It was surrounded by a 
 large garden, where the eldest children, Howard and 
 Sarah, used occasionally to hide from their little brother, 
 a small, toddling, sweet-tempered fellow, much given to 
 disturb their play ; even then showing a strong tendency
 
 4 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 to investigate everything, and re-arrange the game " as it 
 ought to be." 
 
 As he grew older, all three used often to go out to 
 tea together, the great delight being to spend the even- 
 ing with a certain Miss Davis, who kept a drawer full 
 of toys for their especial benefit, and acted the part 
 of a beneficent fairy in their childish world. But, 
 perhaps, what they grew to love best were the long 
 walks they used to take with their father, which he 
 made delightful to them by teaching them to observe 
 the habits of birds and insects, the connection between 
 the stone at their feet and the crust of the earth, the 
 trees, the flowers, the mosses, the lichens ; all were made 
 sources of pleasure to them. James, too, shared his 
 father's taste for music, which subsequently made 
 Mr. Howard Hinton's chapel noted for its exquisite 
 singing. 
 
 But if the stern, upright, yet kindly father was the 
 granite pillar on which that large family rested, the 
 mother was pre-eminently its shaping influence, more 
 especially as Mr. Hinton's studious character and pro- 
 fessional duties led him to spend much of his time in his 
 study. Consecration to God and to the higher interests 
 of life was made the very life-breath of that home; 
 and the children grew up under a religious pressure 
 difficult to realise in these easy-going days. In the 
 round, carefully-ruled copy-book handwriting of a little 
 pinafored maiden, in a letter addressed on the outside 
 " Brother James," one reads that the child on first going 
 to school could not play, but, "when I went upstairs 
 to learn my lessons, I used to fall down on my knees, 
 and pray that God would keep me, and not let me 
 prove treacherous ; " and afterwards she tells us that her 
 aunt had given her the morning hour before breakfast,
 
 Death of His Brother. 5 
 
 and the evening after tea " for retirement," and that they 
 are the happiest times of the day, " it is such an honour 
 to be permitted to love God," she adds. 
 
 At the same time the body was not altogether neglected 
 for the soul, but cared for in a sort of rough, general way. 
 Plenty of food, of a plain, homely kind, was provided for 
 the children. When any one was ill, a feather-bed was 
 brought down and laid on the floor of the sitting room 
 for the comfort of the sufferer, outside appearances being 
 wholly subordinated to immediate utility a peculiarity 
 which Mr. Hinton inherited, and which stuck to him to 
 the last. But how deeply his mother's least injunction 
 sunk into his heart was shown by one characteristic 
 trifle. It was a rule that no child should be helped 
 twice to apple-pie lest the supply should fall short. To 
 the end of his life he said he had never been able to ask 
 for a second help of apple-pie without a distinct feeling 
 of discomfort, and almost of guilt. 
 
 "When he was about twelve years old an event occurred 
 which made a deep impression upon him. Scarlet fever 
 had broken out among the children; but as they were 
 recovering, little being then known or thought of infec- 
 tion, the eldest boy, Howard, was allowed to return into 
 the infected atmosphere. He took the fever and died, 
 without a cloud of regret or fear on his boyish face. 
 James was enthusiastically attached to his brother, who 
 was his hero aud pattern in all things ; and his early 
 death made a great and lasting impression upon him. 
 Soon after, at his own wish, he was baptized, and made a 
 public profession of religion in accordance with the usual 
 practice among Baptists. 
 
 The tie between mother and son was thus made closer 
 and dearer still by James, in consequence of his brother's 
 death, becoming the eldest son. To him she chiefly
 
 6 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 poured forth her heart. She was a woman who, in ad- 
 dition to her exalted piety, took the highest views of 
 womanhood. She emphatically held, in Pere Hyacinthe's 
 words, " that if the man is the head of the woman, the 
 woman is the heart of the man." She, therefore, infused 
 into Jier son an enthusiasm of womanhood, which is a 
 young man's best safeguard against vice a sacred 
 passion which effectually casts out all lower passions, and 
 made it impossible for him ever in word or act to do any- 
 thing to the dishonour of womanhood. 
 
 Meantime, he was receiving a somewhat imperfect 
 education first at his grandfather's school, near Oxford, 
 whence he was sent for a year or two, when he was about 
 fifteen, to a well-known Nonconformist school at Harpen- 
 den, of which Mr. Leonard was then the head-master. 
 
 Mr. Hinton used to relate a curious physiological fact 
 about himself. As a boy he was gifted with a memory 
 which must have been almost as portentous as Lord 
 Macaulay's. It was sufficient for him to read over a lesson 
 once to know it by heart, and repeat it without missing a 
 word. The spare time thus gained was spent in play, of 
 which he was exceedingly fond, being an active, athletic 
 lad, especially noted for his powers of running. But on 
 one occasion, having rushed in from a game of cricket, as 
 usual, at the last moment, to do his lessons, this remark- 
 able memory suddenly left him, without his being able to 
 assign any physical cause any blow on the head, or any 
 other method of accounting for it ; he had only what an 
 American writer calls a " sense of goneness," and that 
 was all. His memory remained a good and serviceable 
 faculty to the last, but its abnormal features never 
 returned. . 
 
 At school the boy seems to have been by no means 
 remarkable, though his master must have had some sort
 
 Removal to London. 7 
 
 of prescience of his abilities, since he wrote to his father : 
 " I do not think your son has any particular bent, but he 
 will succeed in whatever he undertakes." But as his 
 acquirements in algebra did not extend beyond simple 
 equations, at which point he resumed his mathematics 
 only a few years before his death, and as his knowledge 
 of Latin and Greek remained to the last of a rudimentary 
 kind, his proficiency could not have been in any way 
 marked. His remarkable intellect was late in its develop- 
 ment. 
 
 He was now a pious, very orthodox boy, greatly mourn- 
 ing over the corruptions of his own heart, given to serious 
 reflections, and occasionally writing religious verses, in 
 which he expresses the usual melancholy sentiments of 
 happy youth. 
 
 In 1838 a great change took place in the Hinton 
 family. Mr. Howard Hinton left Reading and took the 
 Devonshire Square Chapel in London, henceforth residing 
 in town. Beginning to feel the pressure of his large 
 family, he removed his eldest son from school, and placed 
 him, at the age of sixteen, in the first situation which 
 chanced to offer itself, and which happened to be that of 
 cashier at a wholesale woollen-draper's shop in White- 
 chapel, kept by a respectable member of his own chapel. 
 
 He thus describes his new duties in writing to his sister 
 Sarah : " The way I pass my time here is to rise at seven, 
 and dust till eight. Then do nothing, or anything there 
 is to be done in the morning, and ditto in the afternoon 
 till nine " including having occasionally to hand spirits 
 across the counter to the best customers " not forgetting 
 to take my dinner at one, and my tea at five, after which 
 I have my supper, and then have till 10.30 to write to 
 you, &c., with little variation. I have no news, except that 
 my clothes are getting too small I'm growing so fast."
 
 8 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 But hopelessly unfavourable as this first entrance into 
 life appears on the surface, none who knew James Hinton 
 well but can recognise in it " the divinity that shapes our 
 ends." Whitechapel was the rough cradle in which his 
 mind and spirit awoke to energetic life ; and to the last he 
 bore its impress on him. Brought up as he had been in 
 a pure home in a quiet country town, and drinking in 
 from his mother a reverence for women which in him 
 was always akin to worship, he was suddenly thrust into 
 rudest contact with our worst social evils. 
 
 " The weary and the heavy weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world " 
 
 came crushing down on his young heart with a most 
 cruel force, and the degradation of women possessed 
 him with a divine despair. Indeed, on that point, he 
 was always, if I may use the expression, divinely mad, 
 the true pawis, according to Plato's derivation, with a 
 prophetic insight on some points which the world's 
 history may yet justify. On Saturday nights, in the 
 back streets and crowded courts of Whitechapel, he used 
 to hear women screaming under the blows of their 
 drunken husbands ; and come across others, wearing the 
 same sacred womanhood as his own mother and sisters, 
 with the same gracious dependence on man's strength 
 and care, yet the victims of his passions, flushed with 
 gin and trolling out obscenities. He got a sense of 
 the cruelty of the world, and it got into him and pos- 
 sessed him, and never left him. It became the " un- 
 conscious constant " in all his thinking ; he could think 
 of nothing apart from this ; and at last, as he once said, 
 " it crushed and crushed me till it crushed ' The 
 Mystery of Pain' out of me." He of all men learned 
 to say
 
 His Thirst for Knowledge. 9 
 
 " Blind me with seeing tears until I see ! 
 Let not fair poesy, science, art, sweet tones, 
 Build up about my soothed sense a world 
 That is not Thine, and wall me up in dreams. 
 So my sad heart may cease to beat with Thine, 
 The great World-Heart, whose blood for ever shed 
 Is human life, whose ache is man's dumb pain," 
 
 It was these early influences of his life that formed in 
 him that thoroughgoing altruism which is so marked a 
 characteristic of his thinking. 
 
 He retained his situation for about a year; and, on 
 giving it up, went for a time among his relations in 
 Bristol and Wales, partly in search of employment ; his 
 father endeavouring to get him into a bank or custom- 
 house. He was ultimately placed in the City as a clerk 
 in an insurance office. 
 
 It was here that that other great passion of his life 
 showed itself the passion to know. Occupied all day 
 in mechanical duties, at which, so far as book-keeping 
 was concerned, he never proved an adept, he would often 
 sit up half the night studying. Dr. Johnson's remark on 
 some one boasting to him that he was self-educated 
 " Then, sir, you had a very ignorant fellow for your tutor " 
 was at this time painfully applicable to James Hinton. 
 He had no one near him to direct his studies, and had 
 perforce to put up with the "ignorant fellow for his 
 tutor ; " the result being a curiously miscellaneous course 
 of study. History, Metaphysics, Eussian, German, Italian, 
 Arithmetic, Euclid, were each devoured in turn. 
 
 So consuming was his thirst of knowledge, and so great 
 
 o o * o 
 
 the practical difficulties in gratifying it, that at one time 
 it was his habit to study all Saturday night and all Mon- 
 day night, with the intermission only of a few snatches of 
 sleep. But one night, having passed nearly forty-eight 
 hours without sleep, he found he could not understand a
 
 io Life of James Hinton. 
 
 simple proposition in Euclid. Retiring to rest in disgust, 
 he found on waking that he could see it at a glance ; and 
 from that time took care to give his brain the needful 
 amount of sleep. 
 
 At the age of nineteen he first became attached 
 to the lady whom he afterwards married, after waiting 
 for her many years. It was his first and only attach- 
 ment. For some time his love met with no return; 
 indeed he must have appeared rather a formidable suitor 
 at this time to any young girl, having much the air of an 
 abstract idea untidily expressed, very different from the 
 singular charm he afterwards possessed in ripened man- 
 hood. Wholly indifferent to appearances, his clothes 
 could never be made to fit him ; while his mental absorp- 
 tion at this period made him guilty of frequent lapses of 
 politeness, which are the source of endless expressions of 
 contrition in his letters to his eldest sister, who evidently 
 did her sisterly best to get him into shape. To the girl he 
 loved he rarely spoke, only turning a little white in her 
 presence. With all others he was intensely argumentative. 
 It mattered not whether you were parted from him a 
 week or a month, on meeting he would begin again exactly 
 where the argument was broken off, giving the result of 
 his further meditations on the subject in question, with a 
 mental resoluteness that was never to be shaken off till 
 he got to the bottom of it. 
 
 A few extracts from his letters to his sister Sarah, 
 bearing about this date, will show his steady growth in 
 thought and moral earnestness : 
 
 "London, 1841. 
 
 " For my own part, I feel sometimes a deeper desire 
 than I can express to be in some way or other the bene- 
 factor of my species, and yet I cannot help suspecting
 
 1 1 His Aim in Life. 
 
 that pride and ambition have far more to do with that 
 desire than philanthropy. I do not find in myself the 
 same willingness to be useful in a way of unnoticed 
 perhaps despised toil as I do in ones that should pro- 
 cure me respect and esteem, and be gratifying to vanity. 
 Above all, it is difficult to give practically to God that 
 pre-eminence which He so justly demands, and the with- 
 holding of which will render all we do worse than useless." 
 
 " London, 1841. 
 
 " I find that you are studying metaphysics ; I make no 
 question but that you are doing so with great success. 
 Nevertheless I am rather sorry that Dugald Stewart was 
 the first book on the subject you have met with, because 
 (of course I speak with all humility and diffidence) what- 
 ever may be his merits in some respects, the view he 
 gives of the subject is most partial and unsatisfactory. 
 . . . Judge you yourself whether a scrupulous attention 
 to usefulness I mean an immediate beneficial influence on 
 everyday affairs must not exceedingly cripple and almost 
 put an end to the progress of discovery in any science. 
 
 "Take chemistry, astronomy, geometry, or any other 
 (and they are all, in their present state, of incalculable 
 benefit to us), and consider whether, if they had been in 
 their infancy prosecuted merely for their apparent useful- 
 ness, they ever could have made anything like the progress 
 they have made. Is it not manifestly impossible ? How 
 exceedingly useless must the speculations of the early 
 mathematicians have appeared to a man of Stewart's way 
 of thinking, and how strenuously would he not have 
 urged them to give over drawing unmeaning lines; or, 
 at any rate, to confine themselves to the more obvious 
 facts which might be available perhaps for the better 
 construction of their clothes."
 
 12 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "London, 1841. 
 
 " I saw a short time ago an article in the last number of 
 the ' Edinburgh Review ' on ' Women's Eights and Duties,' 
 with the other recent works on the same subject. . . . 
 The principal object of the writer seems to be to prove 
 the essential inferiority of woman to man intellectually, 
 and to justify her exclusion from all political action. 
 My perusal of it was necessarily very hasty, and I cannot 
 now say with confidence what I think of it. 
 
 " My impression, however, is that he certainly did not 
 prove the latter of his two positions, and not the whole of 
 the former. His argument for the intellectual superiority 
 of man was founded upon the fact that all great geniuses 
 have been men, and that no woman has ever attained to 
 the highest result in any department of science or litera- 
 ture. This must certainly be admitted as a fact ; and I 
 think I must admit the conclusion he draws from it 
 viz., that woman is not capable of doing so.* I am not 
 quite certain of this, however ; but even if it be granted, 
 it does not prove his point. It proves merely that there 
 have been since the creation of the world some dozen 
 men of greater intellectual power than any woman has 
 had. But the same thing can be said of all other men 
 as well, and, therefore, it must not be made to bear ex- 
 clusively on women ; and cannot prove that the average 
 amount of intellectual power (about which is the whole 
 question) is in favour of man. 
 
 " For instance, Newton had greater strength of mind than 
 any woman who has ever lived ; but the same is the case 
 with every man who has ever lived, except, say, ten. Take, 
 then, these ten from the whole number of men, and we 
 
 * How precarious are all such asserted facts, and the inferences they 
 are made to sustain, is proved by the subsequent rise of our great novelist, 
 George Eliot, avowedly first in her own branch of English literature.
 
 Education of Women. 13 
 
 have two classes, women and men, all of whom are in- 
 ferior in intellect to Newton. From whence does it follow 
 that the amount of intellect in one of these two inferior 
 classes is greater than that in the other ? 
 
 "All that is needed to be established is a general 
 equality, and not a capacity in woman for the attain- 
 ment of the highest eminence, which, however, I feel 
 by no means inclined to deny to her. . . . Let there 
 be some boundary fixed to which women cannot attain ; 
 let all the women and all the men who fall below that 
 boundary be taken, and I am persuaded there will be 
 found as much talent among the women as the men. 
 
 " With respect to the subject of education, the above- 
 mentioned writer maintains that, as a general rule, the 
 best education has of late years fallen to the lot of 
 girls, and that, while boys have been poring over use- 
 less Latin and Greek, the girls have been acquiring really 
 valuable information. But this view of the subject does 
 not fully meet the question. 
 
 " Education does not consist in the amount of information 
 imparted, but in the training given to the mind, and the 
 habits induced. Now, here lies the grand difference between 
 the education of boys and girls. Every well-educated boy 
 is taught to look to the cultivation of his mental powers 
 as of the highest importance, and as being his peculiar 
 duty. You know better than I do whether this is the 
 case with girls. My opinion is that it is far other- 
 wise, and that they are taught to regard I beg your 
 pardon for saying it the being married, and the con- 
 duct of household affairs, as the chief end of their exist- 
 ence, while, if their attention is directed to reading (I 
 can scarcely call it to mental improvement) at all, it is 
 merely as an amusement and as something the control 
 of which belongs to men, and with which they have
 
 14 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 no right to interfere. . . . How contemptuous is the 
 phrase, ' literature for ladies ; ' with what different feel- 
 ings one hears of a learned man and a learned woman ! 
 
 " Besides, even if it were the case that the intellect of 
 woman is inferior to that of man, it can only be true 
 for a certain number. It is comparatively few men 
 who can boast of powers of mind greater than have 
 been possessed by many women ; and yet every ignoramus 
 thinks himself at liberty to look down upon them. I 
 have heard puppies, with whom I should be ashamed 
 almost to own a common nature, say, ' Anything will do 
 for women.' Thus it is that they deceive themselves by 
 an abuse of the general truth if truth it be that the 
 male intellect is superior to the female, into the belief 
 of a gross absurdity viz., that their intellect must be 
 superior to that of all women." 
 
 Meanwhile the double strain upon him of intense 
 intellectual toil, and, what was far worse, the sense 
 of the wrongs and degradation of women, was telling 
 upon his health and spirits, and became so intolerable 
 that he resolved to run away to sea, and fly from the 
 thoughts he could no longer bear. His intention was, 
 however, discovered, and increased illness made it doubly 
 impossible to carry it out. His father, now seriously 
 anxious about him, consulted the family doctor with 
 regard to him. " The lad wants more mental occupation 
 to keep his mind from feeding on itself," was the doctor's 
 sensible verdict. 
 
 He accordingly advised his entering the medical pro- 
 fession, as giving the necessary scope to his mental activity. 
 This advice, accompanied by some kind practical help, was 
 at once acted on, and he was entered at St. Bartholomew's 
 Hospital, having just reached his twentieth year.
 
 Enters the Medical Profession. 1 5 
 
 Perhaps a vivid remembrance of his own entrance 
 into life was in his mind when he wrote among his last 
 words to his son, " And as to this, whenever any one 
 comes in your way, especially a good and striving earnest 
 man, think if you cannot help him, cannot, perchance, 
 give him work in which you and he may mutually help 
 each other. By this means you may perhaps entertain 
 angels unawares." 
 
 No particular record survives of his student life. He 
 himself always spoke with the greatest gratitude of his 
 medical education, as having given him the intellectual 
 training his mind stood in need of, as well as providing 
 him with a knowledge of physical science, which so largely 
 influenced his thinking, both as to method and material. 
 
 His remarkable powers and his mental assiduity en- 
 abling him to complete his course in a much shorter time 
 than that assigned, and being anxious to gain some prac- 
 tical knowledge of the world, he devoted his spare time 
 to performing a voyage to China and back as the surgeon 
 of a passenger ship, " The City of Derry." His journal 
 does not present any incidents of particular interest, and 
 his stay in China being limited to two or three weeks, 
 his remarks on that country are necessarily superficial, 
 though showing the habits of a careful observer. 
 
 On his return to England with the ship, he took out 
 his diploma (1847), passing his examinations with dis- 
 tinction, and having previously gained several medals. 
 He then practised for a short time as assistant-surgeon 
 at Newport in Essex. 
 
 By this time, he was aware that he had gained the 
 affections of the young lady to whom for some years he 
 had been devotedly attached; but having become un- 
 settled in his religious opinions, a fresh bar was raised to 
 their union. He thus writes to her sister :
 
 1 6 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "September 1847. 
 
 " It is agony to me to dwell upon the idea that I have 
 gained your sister's love only to make it a source of 
 misery to herself. I would to God that I had rather 
 died. Do not suppose, my dear friend, that this letter is 
 one of self-vindication. I cannot vindicate myself. I 
 wish that I had some punishment to bear that might 
 relieve me from that thought. To make her happier I 
 would bear anything, even that she should think, not 
 only that I do not love her, but that I never did. . . . 
 
 " The happiest thing for me for time and eternity (for 
 I always look upon marriage as a union for eternity), if 
 I might choose, would be Margaret's love, beyond com- 
 parison ; there is nothing that looks even tolerable 
 beside it. But God has decided otherwise, therefore 
 it is not best. I have, and will have, perfect confidence 
 in God. Nay, more, I have thought sometimes, and 
 have told Margaret that perhaps it is my first and chief 
 duty at present to seek for truth, to devote all my ener- 
 gies and all my thoughts to the completing and the 
 rectifying of my own religious opinions; and I hold 
 that nothing can so well enable me to do that, 
 can so well supply the kind of knowledge most useful, 
 most requisite for me, as the seeing of mankind under 
 all their various phases, the watching human nature 
 and human passions as developed under various circum- 
 stances. 
 
 " I have strong hopes that by means of that know- 
 ledge, the acquisition of which is placed in my power, 
 I might at last arrive at a well-grounded confidence, 
 and put myself in a position in which I might labour 
 with zeal and satisfaction for the good of my fellow- 
 men. Do not misunderstand me ; I do not look for 
 pleasure for enjoyment in any such course. I think
 
 Religious Difficulties. 1 7 
 
 that it may be the path of duty, though even of that I 
 am not satisfied ; certainly, v if the other were not closed, I 
 should not dream of it. 
 
 "Of one thing I am quite certain, that I shall not 
 settle down in England for a long while without the 
 utmost repugnance and disgust; but that may be my 
 duty notwithstanding. . . . 
 
 " To make my confession complete, I must tell you two 
 reasons why, if your sister had not acted as she has done, 
 her decision would have failed to give me perfect satis- 
 faction : 
 
 " ist. I think there can be no true union in marriage 
 without essential agreement in religious matters. I think 
 if Margaret and I had continued our communion I could 
 not have helped disturbing her religious faith, and causing 
 her at least the greatest distress, which Heaven forbid ; 
 or if not, and we had been married, I think it most likely 
 that I should feel it my duty to adopt steps in the course 
 of my life in reference to religion which would occasion 
 her, as my wife, the deepest anguish. 
 
 " 2ndly. I should be afraid to have any woman for my 
 wife who would deliberately sacrifice what she considered 
 her duty to God for love to me. I should be afraid for 
 I wish to set my duty to God above all things, and I 
 would wish my wife to help me and set me the example. 
 Margaret has done so, and I knew she would, and there- 
 fore I have never hoped. . . . 
 
 "I have only one word of explanation to add. I 
 never speak of any prospective alteration in my opinions, 
 but that is only because I would not deceive myself, nor 
 be unjust to Margaret. My belief is, that I shall never 
 alter so far as the great question is concerned. Daily 
 almost I seem to grow more satisfied, more at home in 
 my convictions; and I dare not breathe a whisper, nor 
 
 B
 
 i8 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 entertain a thought which rests upon the supposition of 
 a change. 
 
 "Still I hope I am not resolutely prejudiced. It 
 would be happy indeed for me if my eyes could be 
 opened to see myself in error, doubly happy, as I might 
 secure my own happiness, and try at least to secure 
 another's. But these thoughts have had their influence, 
 they have had too much, I dare not entertain them any 
 more. Above all, I owe it as a duty to Margaret that 
 they should not be breathed to her."
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 SOME time previously a scheme had been set on foot by 
 Government to supply the deficiency of the labour-market 
 in Jamaica arising from the emancipation of the West 
 Indian slaves, by importing free labourers from Sierra 
 Leone. Many of these had been themselves captured and 
 brought down to the coast to be sold as slaves, when the 
 Liberation Act was passed ; but having no means of return- 
 ing to their own country, they were glad to embrace so 
 good an opening as that offered by Government. A medical 
 officer was advertised for to undertake the charge of the 
 emigrants, and Mr. Hinton, actuated by the motives touched 
 on in the preceding letter, applied for the position, being 
 glad of the opportunity of studying savage life, and of 
 forming some idea of man apart from civilisation and 
 Christianity. 
 
 After a passage of five weeks in the " Simon Taylor," 
 he arrived at Sierra Leone on Sunday, I5th October 1847. 
 On going ashore, the captain and himself found as many 
 as 1164 liberated Africans in the negro yards, or rough 
 barracks provided for their accommodation. Out of these, 
 248 men, women, and children were chosen and embarked. 
 A headman and headwoman were appointed, and the 
 whole number divided into messes for the distribution of 
 food and clothing; and on November 5th Mr. Hinton set 
 sail for Jamaica with his novel charge. From the first 
 he was exceedingly interested in them ; he gained some
 
 2O Life of James Hinton. 
 
 knowledge of their language, the Yaroba tongue, and 
 tried to get at their ideas and modes of life, forming on 
 the whole a good opinion of them. The headwoman con- 
 stituted herself a sort of queen on board, and proved his 
 right hand in maintaining the obedience which is "the 
 bond of rule." 
 
 The only thing which fairly baffled him were the 
 feminine mysteries of dress. In his distribution of 
 clothing he generally gave rise to a burning sense of 
 injustice being at the heart of all things, his choice of 
 the neatest, and, as he thought, the prettiest prints for the 
 best women, being often quite wrong, the appropriate 
 reward of virtue being in their eyes a gaudy stripe or 
 spot, only vice deserving the retribution of a neat sprig 
 or check. 
 
 On reaching the port of St. Maria, Jamaica, after end- 
 less toil and difficulty he managed to get them into 
 eligible situations. But wishing to satisfy himself with 
 regard to their treatment and welfare, he resolved on re- 
 maining for a year or so in the island, and accordingly 
 took the practice of a medical man who was out of health, 
 making his house his home. 
 
 "During my residence at Eoslyn," he writes home, 
 " my time for the most part passed pleasantly enough. I 
 lived well, saw a good deal of company, and had generally 
 enough to do. The breakfast hour was at nine, the dinner 
 hour four or five. The time between was devoted to practice. 
 Every morning I had a treat a cup of well-made, fresh 
 Jamaica coffee, and six or eight newly-gathered oranges. 
 You stayers-at-home don't know what an orange is, and 
 Jamaica oranges I believe to be the finest in the world. 
 They are prescribed medicinally before breakfast ; and as 
 soon as I got up out of my bed, I used to make some of 
 the little African boys run and gather ten for me ; and I
 
 Life in Jamaica. 2 1 
 
 always observed they would bring besides at least twenty 
 for themselves. They were just in season when I arrived, 
 and it is a pleasure even now to think of the enjoyment 
 they afforded me. 
 
 " Very soon after my arrival I experienced the shock of 
 an earthquake. It occurred in the middle of the night, and 
 was of considerable violence. I felt the bed rock under me 
 once and again ; and a press, which was standing against 
 the wall, seemed to lean forward as if about to fall, and sud- 
 denly start back with a spring. A kind of hollow, clapping 
 sound, twice repeated, arose, as if from underground. I 
 thought, as I found myself suddenly awakened from sleep, 
 that it must have been an earthquake, but I could not be 
 sure, and regarded the circumstance rather with curiosity 
 and interest than alarm. 
 
 " I was struck the next morning by the seriousness 
 with which it was adverted to, but I understand it now ; 
 for though an earthquake may be experienced the first 
 time with feelings of ignorant wonder, its recurrence can- 
 not fail to excite the most solemn emotions. It brings 
 a desolating sense of insecurity, and forces the idea of 
 sudden destruction visibly upon the mind. 
 
 "At an earthquake all creatures seem oppressed with 
 dread ; they suspend their feeding or their play, and look 
 suddenly around them in terror. A horse, even if at 
 full speed, suddenly halts, plants his feet firmly on the 
 ground, trembles in every limb, and breaks out into a 
 sweat. And I cannot, indeed, entirely divest my mind of 
 the foreboding that these islands of the western seas are 
 destined to changes in which agencies of this nature may 
 play a fearful part." 
 
 As Dr. Cooke's representative, Mr. Hinton had the 
 care of the Marine Hospital, the gaol, the poorhouse and
 
 22 Life of fames Hinton. 
 
 out-door paupers, and all the emigrants he had brought 
 over. 
 
 " In my capacity of doctor," he says in a letter to his 
 sister, " I was frequently among them, witnessing the ac- 
 commodation and food provided for them, and the work 
 they were expected to do, and finding everything (I think 
 I may say) as good as could be expected, and certainly 
 better than they would have got at Sierra Leone. 
 
 " They suffer very greatly, at first coming to the island 
 from chigoes (pronounced jiggers) in their feet, as they do 
 not know how to treat them. The chigo is a minute in- 
 sect that insinuates itself into the skin, especially between 
 the toes, and there deposits its eggs in a small bag. This 
 creates considerable irritation, and, if not removed in time, 
 but allowed to propagate, is apt to cause ulceration, to 
 which, without constant watching, the Africans are liable 
 especially the men, who are too lazy or too clumsy to re 
 move them. These 'jiggers ' abound in dry and dusty 
 places, and especially about the works of a sugar estate. 
 
 " One day when I was at Nonsuch, where there are thirty 
 of my Africans, and among them my old headwoman, I 
 asked them if they were comfortable and well-treated. 
 She said 'Yes,' but the 'sugar' was very bad, rubbing 
 her hands over her skin as she spoke. I was rather non- 
 plussed by the expression, nor was it till after a good deal 
 of dumb show that I arrived at a knowledge of the facts. 
 
 " All the Africans I brought out took well to work, and 
 gave satisfaction, except a lot of seven women. It appears, 
 from some unascertained cause, that they from the first 
 refused to work ; and the attorney, rather than resort to 
 coercive means, sent them back to the agent. They were 
 afterwards distributed on other estates, and I hear no more 
 complaints. All of them are now, at the end of ten month g, 
 fat, hardy, and cheerful."
 
 Women in Savage Tribes. 23 
 
 Some ill-feeling was felt against the new-comers by 
 the Jamaica negroes, and much soreness of heart was 
 caused by their being called " Bungoes " a wholly unin- 
 telligible soubriquet bestowed on all emigrants. In vain 
 Mr. Hinton assured them that he himself was a Bungo. 
 Their philosophy was never proof against these two mystic 
 syllables. 
 
 In one of his letters home he makes some curious 
 observations on the position of women in uncivilised 
 tribes. 
 
 "What I have seen this voyage convinces me that 
 among some of the savage tribes of Africa at least 
 the women have their own way, as of course they are 
 entitled to have, pretty nearly as amongst the most 
 civilised nations. Indeed, I rather opine that it is not the 
 ordinance of man, but the laws of nature that determine 
 that. 
 
 " If the women who were on board the ' Simon Taylor ' 
 had been brought up in servile subjection to the other 
 sex, it would have been impossible for them to have 
 assumed so immediately and completely the entire and 
 unequivocal command, although hardly more than half the 
 number of the men ; and among these barbarians, even as 
 among us, whose feelings are refined and softened, so that 
 a woman's tear is more precious than a pearl in our sight, 
 whenever a quarrel arose among the men, the women in- 
 terposed to settle it ; only not as among us, for they 
 evidently acted by authority as well as persuasion. 
 
 " In truth, the women possessed in an incomparably 
 superior degree the qualities of activity and intelligence, 
 which always must bear sway in spite of strength ; 
 and no usages of savage life or barbarian life could abro- 
 gate that decree of God, any more than the force of public 
 opinion and our own barbarous enactments can prevent a
 
 24 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 clever woman from governing a dolt of a husband. Only 
 the other day I met some Africans of quite a different tribe. 
 After talking a little in broken English, I asked one of 
 the men a question ; he began to give me a long rigmarole 
 of an answer, but one of the women said a few words to 
 him in African, and he never opened his mouth again. 
 W,hat was wrong I don't know, but she put him down 
 completely. 
 
 " I don't want to write an essay on the sexes, but 
 I'll just take the liberty of saying, that I imagine it 
 possible that travellers may have been rather deceived 
 sometimes by paying too much attention to customs 
 and external forms, especially when they differ from 
 what they have been used to see, and not sufficiently 
 regarding less obvious but more important facts and 
 feelings, which unite the whole human race, and underlie 
 unchangeably all the varied forms and institutions of 
 human life. 
 
 " For instance, all the world over, once let an occupa- 
 tion become assigned to women, the men the best and 
 kindest of them will leave it to that sex. What man 
 ever thinks of helping his wife to wash, much less doing 
 the washing instead of her ? One example is as good as 
 a hundred. Now, when an Englishman goes to a foreign 
 country, and sees a man lying under a tree and smoking 
 his, pipe, and his wife standing in the river hammering 
 at a parcel of dirty clothes, he doesn't consider it the man's 
 duty to change places with his wife. But if this same 
 person meets a man walking along a road, and his wife 
 following with a load upon her head, he flies into a sudden 
 passion, as I have done, against the stronger sex. But 
 the two cases are exactly parallel. 
 
 " Carrying loads on the head in many countries is the 
 woman's work like washing and stitching and darning
 
 Effects of Slavery. 25 
 
 stockings in ours ; and I am inclined to think it a good 
 deal easier than the latter, at least when the stockings 
 in question happen to belong to me. The men can't do 
 it ; they are not brought up to it, and it requires a good 
 deal of practice ; besides, the women wouldn't let them if 
 they could. I've taken the trouble to find that out, and 
 I don't believe a black man could make his wife (speak- 
 ing as a rule) let him carry her load without taking it 
 from her by force. . . . The power which practice gives 
 of carrying weights on the head is extraordinary. I have 
 known a girl not more than eighteen carry a box, which 
 I couldn't lift without difficulty, no less than fourteen 
 miles, over a steep hill, that I would hardly have under- 
 taken to climb unburdened. She was sent by a mission- 
 ary, too, and laughed when I lifted the box and won- 
 dered how she could carry it. A negro man couldn't have 
 done it. 
 
 " I think, however, the relation between the sexes in 
 Jamaica is anomalous, and not to be taken as a sample of 
 that which exists either in civilised or in savage countries. 
 It has been subject to many disturbing influences. . . . 
 Slavery has left its stamp on the people not yet effaced, 
 nor likely to be. It meets the eye everywhere, but no- 
 where, I think, more forcibly or more painfully than in 
 their treatment of their children. The poor little wretches 
 are habitually beaten most cruelly with sticks or whips 
 upon the bare skin, often for the most trivial fault, or for 
 none at all. They are made to work for their parents at 
 the tenderest age, and almost as soon as they can walk 
 are set to carry weights on their heads. . . . 
 
 "Even making all allowances, it is apt to disturb an 
 Englishman's equanimity to see a great strapping negro 
 walking or riding leisurely along, and his wife and one 
 or more little children toiling after him with heavy baskets
 
 26 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 on their heads. This, however, is the custom of the 
 country, and is seen continually. In short, it seems to 
 be an universal principle among them that the strong 
 should not use their strength to do work themselves, but 
 to make the weaker work for them. It is the principle 
 of slavery." 
 
 The following is the description he gives of a society 
 just emerged from the practice of slavery : 
 
 "Nearly all the upper and middle classes have been 
 brought up in wealth, and are now feeling the pressure of 
 comparative want ; in fact, the same may be said of the 
 labouring population, too, comparing their state now with 
 what it was six or eight years back ; and it seems to me 
 to be the great key by which the anomalies of Jamaica 
 society may be accounted for. For an anomalous state it 
 is. A stranger feels it very soon ; at least I did. 
 
 " I found myself surrounded by men of intelligence, 
 courtesy, and good feeling; if not remarkable for their 
 virtue, by no means pre-eminent in vice; with many 
 faults indeed, but none from which I could hold my 
 friends and acquaintances in England to be exempt; 
 some faults which at home are concealed and kept in 
 check, here open and undisguised ; and other good quali- 
 ties which in England are only to be seen with a micro- 
 scope, here flourishing luxuriantly; perhaps a general 
 principle of indolence pervading all. 
 
 " In short, I found myself among my fellows (not only 
 my fellow-countrymen), only under altered circumstances. 
 A few were bad, and deserved to be abhorred; a good 
 many had a just right to be despised ; the mass were pass- 
 able (that is, I suppose, about as good as myself) ; and 
 some were worthy of admiration and love. Now isn't this 
 a pretty fair delineation of English society ? And yet, 
 notwithstanding the atoms were so decent, the aggregate
 
 Jamaica Society. 27 
 
 was odious. All the social virtues seemed to be annihi- 
 lated, save one, and that was hospitality ; good faith not 
 dreamt of, truth utterly disregarded, mutual esteem and 
 regard unknown, no praise awarded to merit, no disappro- 
 bation fastened on vice, no conversation but complaint 
 and scandal the latter of gigantic growth no amuse- 
 ment but dissipation, no desire even for improvement. 
 
 "It seemed a mystery. The people taken by them- 
 selves were good, that is, pretty good; they were not 
 fools ; they were not altogether selfish ; they were not 
 steeped in vice; they had hearts capable of generous 
 emotions feelings, if not the most refined, at least in a 
 measure true to nature ; put them together, and you made 
 a foul, oppressive atmosphere, where little that was good 
 could lift its head." 
 
 May we not see in these reflections on the problem 
 presented by Jamaica society, as it then was, the first 
 germ of the idea which afterwards became so strong a 
 conviction with him namely, that there is in man, as 
 the result of the culture and effort of ages, enough 
 goodness to regenerate society; but that society, as at 
 present constituted, is built up on the wrong centre of 
 self-interest and self-virtue, instead of on an altruistic 
 basis, and cannot, therefore, form a well-ordered, orga- 
 nised whole; just as, to use his favourite illustration, 
 astronomy, though right in many of its individual calcu- 
 lations, was hopelessly wrong as a system so long as the 
 earth was taken as the centre of rest ? 
 
 After a year or so of Jamaica life, Mr. Hinton began 
 to get heartily tired of it, and his father having written 
 him word that a London surgeon of the name of Fisher 
 was anxious to secure him for his partner, and willing to 
 wait for his return, he writes in 1 849 :
 
 28 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " My mind becomes more and more decidedly fixed on 
 a London practice as my ultimate destination. This is not 
 a nice country to live in, after all ; and, whatever people 
 may say, the emancipated negroes do not possess many 
 amiable or admirable qualities. The genuine African is 
 a far superior being, as might have been expected." 
 
 Among these "genuine Africans" he left a lasting 
 memory. Eleven years afterwards, he was much moved 
 on being told that his name still lived in their hearts 
 and on their lips, for all the kindly personal interest and 
 devoted care for their welfare which he had evinced. 
 
 Having, therefore, resolved on returning to England, he 
 took the opportunity of his homeward voyage to pay a 
 visit to some American relations in New Orleans, where 
 he was brought into contact with slavery in full work, 
 and realised the progress that even the newly-emanci- 
 pated negroes of Jamaica had made over their enslaved 
 brethren. I remember his mentioning, that what first 
 made him feel the evil in his own heart was his 
 tracing a distinct feeling of satisfaction in himself 
 that New Orleans was decidedly more wicked than 
 London. 
 
 His stay in America was necessarily too brief for him to 
 form much idea of the institutions and character of the 
 people, but it was long enough to inspire him with a 
 hearty liking for the Americans, and faith in their future, 
 which never left him, and which made him set great 
 value on the appreciation of his American readers. 
 
 It was just before starting homeward that he first 
 revealed to his parents the great changes that he had 
 been going through in his religious belief, and how he 
 had been for some years past " sounding on a dim and 
 perilous way," his motives for reticence having been the 
 fear of their pain, and his reluctance hastily to sever
 
 Religious Difficulties. 29 
 
 the bond which had united him to those with whom he 
 had worshipped from boyhood. 
 
 Brought up, as he had been, in a semi-Calvinistic 
 theology, with its hard and fast dogmas a theology that 
 forces the conscience and moral emotions of man into its 
 narrow logical mould, and views the atonement as a legal 
 transaction it was evident, as his own mind began to 
 develop, that he must go through a great conflict before 
 he could grasp his true relations to the Unseen, and lay 
 firm hold on 
 
 " Those mighty hopes that make us men." 
 
 Before intellectual difficulties his faith would never 
 have succumbed ; but coming to the Bible with the pre- 
 conceived notions of a rigid theological school, he was 
 led at first to reject it on moral grounds. 
 
 He writes thus to his parents : " I sincerely trust that 
 I have over-estimated the amount of distress which my 
 avowal of the want of implicit belief in revelation will 
 occasion you, and I am the more ready to believe that I 
 have done so, inasmuch as you must yourselves know that 
 the change in my opinions has not been the result of a 
 course of thoughtlessness or vice, nor even the caprice of 
 an undisciplined intellect. I appeal to you both, whether 
 I have not applied myself with all diligence to the work 
 of investigation. 
 
 " Whether I have done it with honesty, God knows ; 
 and from the judgment of men, I appeal to Him. In 
 truth, I may say that the formation of my religious 
 opinions has been (as it well deserves to be) the work of 
 my life hitherto. To that all the knowledge and experi- 
 ence I have gained have been rendered subservient ; and 
 it is mainly for their rectification and completion that I 
 desire more.
 
 3O Life of James Hint on. 
 
 " Many years ago the work began. Looking back upon 
 my mental progress, it seems to me almost like a pro- 
 vidence. It began with an ardent, enthusiastic searching 
 of the Scriptures. Doubts which arose, first stifled as im- 
 pious, then submitted to a one-sided examination with a 
 foregone conclusion and laid aside as settled, but return- 
 ing, multiplying, harassing, and defying me, until my days 
 and nights were one continued scene of misery, and I have 
 wished myself dead many times, because I was determined 
 to believe the Bible, but could not see that it was true. 
 
 "No one knows, my dear parents, nor except by ex- 
 perience ever can know, the agony it has cost me to 
 renounce the Bible an agony to which the preachers, 
 the commentators, and the writers of addresses afford no 
 alleviation. They do not understand and cannot meet 
 the case an honest soul striving to believe the Bible, and 
 yet unable ; and feeling as if he were clinging to a plank 
 amid a waste of waters, and that was being plucked away 
 from him ; they seem as if they could not comprehend. 
 But that was but for a time, and it was caused by a 
 mistake, an error in which we are all brought up that of 
 confounding Christianity and religion. I thought that 
 without the Bible I could have no confidence in God, 
 no reverence, nor love towards Him. I have now found 
 out my error that is, I think so ; yet my ardent desire 
 and my belief is, that if I have been led astray, I may 
 be brought back, and my eyes again opened. 
 
 " The true way to reach truth I take to be to pursue a 
 steadfast, unshrinking course of thought, above all things 
 and under all circumstances seeking to keep the heart 
 right and the affections pure. I trust in God, that, as He 
 knows I have sought to know His will, and (as I hope) 
 will not refuse to obey it, so He will not leave me ulti- 
 mately to believe a lie. ...
 
 Religious Difficulties. 31 
 
 " My wish is, if I honestly can, to commit myself to 
 nothing at present, for I am not prepared to avow my 
 opinions. I hold them lightly, and they may change. 
 Indeed, I cannot hring myself to give up the hope that I 
 may yet be able, ere long, to receive the Scriptures once 
 more with implicit confidence; and though my judgment 
 refuses its assent, my heart still clings to the doctrines 
 of the gospel. I reverence their moral truth, I delight in 
 their appeal to the imagination. I hold them fast as 
 illusions (if such they be) too beautiful to be wholly false. 
 .... Besides, I love Christians. I prefer them to all 
 other people. They are lovely, because they love God, 
 and therein I trust I can truly say I am one with them. 
 It will be a severe trial to me to sever the bond, even 
 though it be only an external one, that unites me and 
 them. ... I leave the matter entirely in your hands, 
 trustingto your judgment rather than my own. 
 
 " This state of my opinion it was to which I alluded 
 when I said there were ' other obstacles ' to my partner- 
 ship with Mr. Fisher. Please to make to him such 
 communication as you think fit, or to let him read 
 this letter, or part of it, that there may be no decep- 
 tion." 
 
 Elsewhere, speaking of moral doubt, he writes : " Con- 
 vinced, as I was, that the Bible was the Word of God, it 
 appeared to me equally plain that some of its statements 
 were opposed to the principles of justice and truth so 
 far as I could understand them. That was horrible. I 
 own I can conceive no suffering more dreadful than what 
 I then endured. I fear no suffering in comparison with 
 it, and the like can never come to me again. Afterwards 
 I came to doubt the existence of God, and that was 
 wretched enough, but not so bad ; for then I did believe 
 in truth and justice, and their ultimate triumph. But an
 
 32 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 unjust God ! Oh, I can conceive somewhat of what the 
 universe would feel if God were wicked" 
 
 It was on his homeward voyage that, depressed and 
 alone, he gained that deeper knowledge of himself 
 which gave him the key to the great spiritual records of 
 our race. " It was not," he writes, looking back at the 
 conflict he passed through at this time, " the prophecies 
 that made me believe the Bible, nor the miracles, nor the 
 impossibility of accounting for all sorts of things unless it 
 were true, but it was simply that I felt myself to be unholy, 
 and I did not think there was a power anywhere that 
 could sanctify me unless it were in that book." 
 
 The following letter to his sister enables us to trace a 
 few of the steps by which he was slowly regaining his f aitli 
 in Christianity : 
 
 "Ship ' Arlington,' 22nd March 1850. 
 
 " MY VERY DEAR SARAH, As I suppose you will be at 
 Oxford when I arrive at home, and that I shall not have 
 the pleasure of seeing you immediately on my return, I 
 wish to have a letter ready to send you directly. How 
 eagerly desirous I am of regaining the family circle I 
 cannot tell you, and I doubt even if you can imagine. 
 How can I tell you how much I regret now that I suffered 
 myself to be drawn into so prolonged an absence. 
 
 " During all this voyage I have been full of self-accusa- 
 tions ; and one of the things that has grieved me most 
 is the unkindness with which I have treated my friends, 
 in not keeping up a full and regular correspondence with 
 them. Indeed, it is by no means with satisfaction that 
 I can look back upon the past twelve months, although 
 I have seen and done in them many things some of 
 which might have been wise and interesting, if there had 
 not been a prior claim upon me.
 
 Change of Opinions. 33 
 
 " However, it is not of these that I wish to speak to 
 you, but of matters more important, which deserve to have 
 a larger share of our- thoughts. Do you know, it was 
 the hope that I might meet with some facts that might 
 throw light upon my religious views, and give definite- 
 ness and completeness to my sentiments and aims, that 
 chiefly determined me upon taking the voyage which I 
 have now completed, and urging it against the wishes 
 of my friends. Well, it seemed to me that all which 
 I saw went to confirm my previous opinions, and when 
 I embarked to come home, I felt more certain of them 
 than ever. Indeed, it was this conviction that I should 
 never change them, which, more than anything else, 
 I may say alone, has caused me to protract my ab- 
 sence so long ; for it seemed to me that such a state 
 of mind would almost render impossible any satisfac- 
 tory settlement at home. And I was very unwilling 
 to tell my father and mother my sentiments, not be- 
 cause I was ashamed to avow them, but because I 
 shrank from the apparent undutifulness of doing so, 
 and I thought it would give them pain and do no good. 
 I am wiser now, however, for I am sure that one of a 
 child's first duties, as it is one of his greatest privileges, is 
 to give his parents his confidence. 
 
 " However, though I had no misgivings about my 
 opinions, I felt much dissatisfaction with some parts of 
 my conduct, and especially that I turned so much time to 
 so little profit. About a month ago I resolved to read the 
 Bible regularly through, and went through the two first 
 books of Moses. Then a book on infidelity fell into my 
 hands, which interested me a good deal, for it was written 
 in a powerful style (it was Nelson, ' On the Cause and 
 Cure of Infidelity'). It didn't do much towards convinc- 
 ing me, but it made me resolve to examine the matter over 
 
 c
 
 34 Life of James Hint on 
 
 again, which I have been doing since that time with the 
 aid of several books for the captain is a religious man, 
 who conducts worship daily with the crew, and has a small 
 religious library on board. 
 
 " It is wonderful what an effect this course has had 
 upon me, especially in the view I have been brought to 
 take of my own character and state before God. I used 
 to think that in my heart I loved God and holiness ; but 
 when I looked at myself in the light of the Bible, I see so 
 plainly that I am altogether sinful. . . . Do you remem- 
 ber, my dear sister, the letter I wrote you a long time ago, 
 about the doctrine of the Atonement? Surely I must 
 have written rash words. I don't remember exactly what 
 they were ; but now I would substitute these only for 
 them, ' Enter not into judgment with me, Lord/ Did 
 I not say that the punishment of sin was its conse- 
 quence in such a sense that it could be remitted only by a 
 miracle, and that no man ought to desire such remission ? 
 I must have closed my eyes ; for we see every day that 
 those physical evils, which are the punishment of sin, are 
 relieved and cured by means not miraculous ; and the 
 nature of the Atonement, and the conditions on which it 
 is applied, take all force from the second objection. 
 
 " You will think that I am now a believer in the Bible, 
 but I cannot say that I am ; though this, I think, I may 
 affirm, that I wish to be so. I cannot but be persuaded 
 that under the influence of the doctrine and precepts of 
 the Bible, I should attain to greater holiness than I can 
 without, that I should be more useful in this world and 
 better prepared to change it for another. I think this, 
 but this is not belief. For, to confess the truth, the sub- 
 ject is full of difficulties. 
 
 " I have read and pondered on what I have access to of 
 the evidences, but I am not entirely convinced, and the
 
 Returns Home. 35 
 
 reading of the Bible suggests incessant difficulties to my 
 mind. I pray to God for His guidance, but I have not 
 satisfaction yet. 
 
 " I am willing to give up any d priori arguments 
 against revelation, at least, I think, I may say all, except 
 my inability to receive that doctrine which condemns to 
 eternal misery all who do not receive the Atonement ; 
 because that class comprehends not a few of the very 
 best people to all appearance in the world. My pre- 
 sent difficulties relate far more to the credibility of the 
 Scriptures." 
 
 A few joyful words from one of his sisters, enclosed 
 with this letter, announce his safe arrival to an absent 
 member of the family : 
 
 11 London, 9 A.M. 
 
 " Only think, dearest, that when your letter arrived 
 our precious wanderer was sleeping at home. He came at 
 half-past five this morning, and knocked papa up, and 
 after speaking to mamma went to bed, where he is still. 
 The little boys amused us at breakfast with their account 
 of the intruder's manosuvres. John was startled into 
 consciousness by the sudden elevation of the pillow with 
 his head upon it, in James' endeavour to put his watch 
 under it ; and Josiah said, with something between a 
 smile and a pout, ' He turned me out of my warm place 
 to get in himself.' "
 
 C 36 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE obstacle presented by his former religious views being 
 now in great measure removed, he became engaged to Miss 
 Margaret Haddon, to whom he had remained constant for 
 ten years. He also entered into partnership with Mr. 
 Fisher, taking a house in Bartholomew Close. 
 The following extracts are from letters to her : 
 
 " Bartfwlomew Close, April 1850. 
 
 "I have had a conversation with my father, and we 
 have decided upon my commencing practice in this house ; 
 with many misgivings and anxieties on my part, yet not 
 without hope and thankfulness, thankfulness for the 
 many advantages God has bestowed upon me, hope in 
 His blessing upon my exertions. I do believe He has 
 good in store for me, and that He is making me fit to 
 receive it, by causing me to feel not only how utterly 
 unworthy / am of it, but also how incapable I am of 
 attaining it by any efforts of my own. I have been very 
 proud, very self-confident ; I will try henceforth to culti- 
 vate a genuine humbleness of spirit, childlike and im- 
 plicit in its reliance upon God, manful and untiring in 
 activity and diligence. 
 
 " I wish I could lay the spectre that haunts me in the 
 past You, my love, who have so little to regret, who have 
 acted so noble and upright a part, and fitted yourself so 
 well for the duties that are before you, you cannot under-
 
 Thoughts about Love. 37 
 
 stand with what feelings I look back upon my misdirected 
 energies, my misemployed time, the subjection of my 
 whole being to false principles, its devotion to mistaken 
 and unattainable ends. . . . 
 
 " My old feelings of despondency have come very near 
 taking possession of me again ; but I won't let them. It 
 would be both wrong and unreasonable, for it is certainly 
 true that I have never yet set myself seriously to work at 
 anything in which I did not succeed. For the most part, 
 failure would have been no great misfortune, but the fact 
 is the same. 
 
 " In my studentship I obtained every prize for which I 
 tried, though that wasn't many. And there is another 
 prize which, with God's blessing, I will yet obtain, and 
 that is yourself. I have been so long accustomed to look 
 upon it as utterly impossible that you could ever be mine, 
 that it seems difficult for me even now to believe it true. 
 
 " Do you know, dearest, I have long been of the 
 opinion that the love with which lovers love ought not 
 to be regarded as anything peculiar and extraordinary; 
 but only as the nearest approach which we can make 
 on earth to the true nature of that love with which we 
 ought to comprehend all our fellow-creatures. In pity 
 to our weakness, and in order that we might be able to 
 comprehend something of what love truly is, God has 
 made us capable of loving one person, that we might be 
 able to form some faint idea of what that state must be 
 where love is perfect and complete. For does not the true 
 secret of loving, of yielding up ourselves to be another's, 
 lie partly, at least, in this, that thus we can understand 
 and appreciate most fully that other's character; the 
 union of soul in love removes as it were a veil from our 
 eyes. When in love, a partition is broken down, and 
 we begin to understand another. Humanity is then re-
 
 38 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 vealed to us perhaps not as it is, alas ! for its glory casts 
 all its faults into the shade but in some faint resem- 
 blance to what it was, what it might be, and what by 
 God's grace it shall be. 
 
 " My heart burns with indignation when I hear people 
 talk of the folly, and blindness, and exaggeration of love. 
 In truth, all, except those who are in love, are blind and 
 ignorant. It is a telescope given us (just for once) by 
 God, to reveal to us wonders and glories, hidden indeed 
 from the unaided eye, but none the less real and glorious 
 for that." 
 
 " May 1850. 
 
 " I have just received your long letter. I like to receive 
 such from you. They are a greater treat to me than you 
 can conceive ; they come so from your heart, and they go 
 straight to mine. It gives you pleasure, too, to write 
 them, I know, as it should indeed, for they do me a world 
 of good. In religion you are my teacher more than my 
 teacher, for you not only direct my thoughts, but also 
 persuade my heart. 
 
 " Do you say, dearest, that you also have known what 
 it is to doubt, and doubt so much that you could not pray? 
 I didn't know that of you. Tell me when it was and why ? 
 How you obtained peace and satisfaction ? I think I may 
 feel sure it was by the same path that promises it to me, 
 if I could only walk in it the path of unreserved sur- 
 render to God, and of unwavering trust in Jesus as my 
 Saviour. You have rightly expressed what keeps me 
 back as yet from that state ; it is a feeling that may be 
 called ' conscientious.' It is the same feeling that operated 
 with me before ; the conviction that the course I take now 
 must be taken satisfactorily, permanently ; that I must 
 not lay aside, unsolved, perplexities that so treated may
 
 Religious Conflicts. 39 
 
 arise again with a power fearfully increased, or compel to 
 silence convictions which, if stifled now, will hereafter 
 extort for themselves a hearing. 
 
 " Here is my difficulty, how can I pray to be enabled 
 to do that which I think / ought not to do, or if I pray for 
 guidance that I may know what is the truth, how can the 
 answer to that prayer come, unless I am in the attitude of 
 honest and resolute inquiry ? . . . I cannot see my way, 
 Meggie, at least, not yet. 
 
 " But it is not needful it would not be wise or kind 
 that I should lay before you all my difficulties, or ex- 
 plain to you, even if I could, how my feet are entangled, 
 how every path, by which I fain would come to a firm 
 and peaceful repose in the Bible, appears blocked up 
 how every argument which I can frame to myself, or 
 which I can find in others, seems to present some 
 flaw how I am driven back and repulsed whenever I 
 stretch forth my hand to lay hold upon the consolation 
 of the Gospel. I hardly like to write to you in this 
 strain at all, and I would not, did I not know that you 
 have a true and hearty confidence in God and His love, 
 both to me and to yourself, which will keep you from 
 being too much distressed. Indeed, it would not be 
 reasonable or right that you should let my present feel- 
 ings harass or distress you. They are needful for me, 
 doubtless, and I cannot but think that the former change, 
 or rather revulsion of my opinions, possessed an element 
 of suddenness which needed rectification. 
 
 " I wish you were here with me, that I might talk to 
 you, might read the Bible with you, and see in your ex- 
 perience a guide and pattern for my own. I am often 
 disposed to murmur at the lot which separates us so much. 
 It cannot be good. It is not good for me. I am always 
 better when you are near me. ... I have often thought
 
 4O Life of James Hinton. 
 
 of the goodness of God in making men and women ; each 
 perfect, and yet so incomplete so beautiful, and yet so 
 deficient. He seems to have designed in us a special 
 adaptation and necessity for love, by creating wants 
 which by love alone can be supplied. That must be the 
 reason, I think, why men are so fond of insisting on the 
 weakness and dependence of women. We are so con- 
 scious of our own dependence upon them, that we cannot 
 be content without claiming for ourselves a capacity for 
 blessing corresponding with our need of our being blessed. 
 I hope that in my future life, when you are my wife, I 
 shall be able to do something for you that can really 
 make you happier than you could be without it. 
 
 " Do you know, love, when once I get the idea of you 
 as my wife into my head, I cannot get rid of it, and two 
 lines of Coleridge are perpetually ringing in my ears 
 
 ' A pledge of more than passing life, 
 Yea, in that very name of wife.' 
 
 " Is it not true that a thorough union of heart and soul 
 implies a union for eternity ? Love would lose half its 
 blessedness if its province did not embrace our whole 
 existence, if its duration fell short of eternity." 
 
 "June 1850. 
 
 " "We will look over Coleridge together. ' Aids to Re- 
 flection* is a book I admired beyond all things at one 
 time, but I have forgotten it so far that I hardly know 
 what I should think of it now. It was written with 
 especial reference to the controversy with the Unitarians ; 
 and, as you will see, begins from the very simplest ground 
 of morality, gradually advancing up to the most myste- 
 rious doctrines of Christianity. No book ever had a greater 
 influence on the development of my mind."
 
 Professional Spirit. 41 
 
 "July 1850. 
 
 " I have hardly thought at all of those religious con- 
 troversies since I last wrote to you ; and I am much better 
 for it. The feeling that Christianity must be true, be- 
 cause it puts me in my right relation with God and 
 with the world, then comes into play, and I am much 
 happier. I cannot quell the doubts, but I can commit 
 myself to God; and being fully assured that when I am 
 most a Christian I am the best man, I am content to 
 adhere to that as my guide, in the absence of better light, 
 and wait till God shall afford me more. Only sometimes 
 the thought will come on me with overwhelming power 
 that I am acting a lie, and doing violence to my con- 
 victions. These are sad times, but I trust they will not 
 always last." 
 
 " August 1850. 
 
 " I may perhaps as well tell you a little more plainly, 
 the nature of the objection entertained by the profession 
 
 against Mr. (not Dr.) ; I do so not on his account 
 
 at all, but because it may serve to render clear to you 
 a principle of wide application, which the public seem to 
 find it veiy hard to understand, but of which it is desir- 
 able that you, as a medical man's wife, should have a com- 
 prehension. 
 
 " In the first place, it is not an objection to the remedial 
 moans he employs ; secondly, it is not that they deny the 
 cures he has effected ; thirdly, it is not jealousy of his 
 success, or a wish to underrate his merits ; the matter is 
 simply this it is a universally recognised law among 
 the members of the profession that all improvements or 
 inventions are the common property of the entire body, and 
 are never to be held as secrets for the aggrandisement of 
 one individual. Is not the reasonableness of this rule on
 
 42 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 the score of humanity, to say nothing of other reasons, 
 manifest ? 
 
 "Again, it is a rule that the profession, and not the 
 public, are the proper judges of the value of any remedy, 
 whether new or old; and that the public opinion in 
 favour of any is not to be sought except as the results 
 of practice, and the testimony of the profession may 
 silently and gradually ensure it. The reasonableness 
 of this rule also, though perhaps not quite manifest to 
 you, is evident enough to any person who knows the 
 deceptiveness of limited experiments, and the deceivable- 
 ness of mankind. 
 
 " Hence, you will perceive that any person who chooses 
 to break these rules, voluntarily and deliberately, and for 
 the sake of some gain, which is usually obtained, puts 
 himself beyond the pale of the profession. The public 
 think he is an extraordinary clever person, his brethren 
 call him a quack. In this it is quite clear there is no 
 hardship. A man has a choice of keeping his character, 
 perhaps at the sacrifice of some possible pecuniary emolu- 
 ment, or of sacrificing it for the sake of increased receipts. 
 Tastes may differ as to the proper course to be pursued ; 
 but it is evident that a man cannot sell his character, and 
 keep it too. 
 
 " You perceive, therefore, that for a man to take out a 
 patent for any supposed improvement in medicine or 
 surgery ; or to advertise that he is able to cure any disease 
 better than other medical men, is to make himself a quack. 
 
 Mr. has done both, and in his case, as it almost 
 
 invariably does in the present state of ignorance among 
 the people, it has paid him well. No doubt he can afford 
 to laugh at more scrupulous people, but for my own part 
 I sincerely hope that if ever I do such a thing I may be 
 made a beggar through it.
 
 Quackery. 43 
 
 "After hearing such remarks as I have made above, 
 people might say, That is all very well, but what is it to 
 us ? If there is a man who can cure us, what difference 
 does it make to us whether he advertises or not, or why 
 should we stop, before having recourse to him, to ascer- 
 tain whether he complies with the regulations of the pro- 
 fession ? The reason for it is this, that every individual 
 has a direct and immediate interest in the honour and 
 integrity of the entire body of medical men. It should 
 never be forgotten that when a sick person employs a 
 doctor, he of necessity places his health, and perhaps his 
 life, absolutely in his hands, and has no manner of security 
 against their being tampered with except in the character 
 of the individual. He cannot judge whether his modes 
 of treatment are right or wrong, or at least only too late 
 to be of any service to him, and the only precautions he 
 can take are two First, to be careful in the selection of 
 his own adviser ; and second, but not less important, to 
 do all in his power to maintain a high moral tone through- 
 out the body or at any rate to let whatever influence he 
 does exert be in that direction. 
 
 " Now I need not point out to you that any man who 
 employs a quack exerts his influence in precisely the 
 opposite direction. Every shilling which is so spent goes 
 to swell the aggregate of a fund which is acting as a per- 
 petual temptation to medical men to betray their con- 
 sciences, viz., the income enjoyed by medical impostors. 
 And this is so enormous, that it is not to be wondered at 
 that men are continually to be found who accept the 
 bribe ; but the guilt, or at least the folly, lies almost as 
 much with those who offer it. 
 
 " Now I have done. Don't think it tedious of me to 
 write so ; for, as my wife, I shall wish you to understand 
 and uphold these principles, and to sympathise with me
 
 44 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 in any sacrifices (if so be there should be any) which I 
 may be called upon to make for them. ..." 
 
 "August 1850. 
 
 "I have had a great pleasure since I wrote to you. 
 My mother's hearing has been entirely restored, of which 
 I have been the humble instrument. I meant to say 
 happy. The affair was simple enough merely a syring- 
 ing properly performed, which I should have done long 
 ago, had it not been that I understood it had been done, 
 and thoroughly done, repeatedly before. I had recourse 
 to it myself, merely through accident, and as prepara- 
 tory to some other steps which I meant to take ; but to 
 my equal surprise and gratification I found it attended 
 with complete success, and my mother hears now as well 
 as any of us. 
 
 " This little bit of good success has made me feel quite 
 happy, for though it is rather more to my discredit, in 
 not having tried so simple a means before, than other- 
 wise (except inasmuch as it was modesty which pre- 
 vented me), yet, according to all appearance, if it had not 
 been for me my mother would have passed the rest of 
 her life under circumstances of grievous deprivation. It 
 is a great pleasure to us all to be able to talk to her so 
 easily, and to find her once more a participator in all the 
 enjoyments of our domestic intercourse. I remember it 
 was one of the things which I especially looked forward 
 to accomplishing when I came home, the restoration of 
 mother's hearing. Last night also I performed the same 
 kindness for an old man who has been long deaf, and with 
 almost complete success. 
 
 " Another poor person in great distress applied to 
 me this morning, for whom also I think I shall be able 
 to accomplish a good deal ; so that my sympathies are
 
 Channing. 45 
 
 beginning to find a little occupation. And I realise a 
 little of that on which I have set my heart as regards 
 my profession, the making it an instrument for doing 
 good and diffusing happiness not the mere alleviation 
 of physical suffering (though that is a great privilege), 
 but the prevention or alleviation of moral evil and degra- 
 dation, and the ministering to a wounded spirit. It is 
 wonderful how much my glorious profession enables a 
 man to do, where no other person, hardly even a minister, 
 could interfere without impertinence. 
 
 " I can hardly advise you, dearest, about the ragged 
 school. I should be very sorry to counsel you to abandon 
 any useful occupation in which you might properly engage 
 yourself, because it is not only a pleasure to you, but also 
 a delight to think of, and is laying up a store of happy 
 recollections for the future. But, at the same time, if it 
 is an engagement in which you cannot persevere without 
 either over-exerting yourself or leaving other duties, I 
 think you should give it up." 
 
 "September 1850. 
 
 " I have enjoyed exceedingly the various extracts which 
 you have 'sent me lately. With that from Channing I 
 sympathise entirely; and I trust that, to some extent, I 
 acted upon it during my travels. It is most true that 
 there is an inward power of good in men, not subdued 
 or capable of subjection by the most adverse circumstances. 
 I have seen it among the falsely refined Chinese, the un- 
 tutored savages of Africa, and the degraded slaves. While 
 humanity remains, it is never or almost never obliterated. 
 
 " God has not made any of His works in vain, nor allowed 
 any of them to become wholly a prey to the destroyer. 
 It is not adverse circumstances that can wholly debase 
 the human soul that can only be done by the deliberate
 
 46 Life of J antes Hinton. 
 
 choice and resolution of the individual himself; but I 
 fear that it can be done. I fear that the men could be 
 found who have given themselves up to evil until the 
 empire of good within them is destroyed; who have 
 refused to listen to the divinity that speaks within until 
 its voice can be no longer heard. But that is not true of 
 mankind anywhere. The most untoward outward in- 
 fluences cannot efface the Creator's stamp upon him, nor 
 render inapplicable even now the original judgment He 
 pronounced that all His works are ' very good.' 
 
 " But, dearest, it is not only in foreign lands and among 
 barbarous tribes that we must look for an exemplification 
 of this law, or be content to find it. Influences as adverse 
 to all that is good, circumstances as unpropitious to the 
 development of any kind of excellence as any that can be 
 found in the arid deserts of Africa, or amid the crushing 
 superstitions of Asia, exist here around us, and in our 
 midst. And not less here, thank God, the evidences of 
 man's indestructible goodness are to be found. 
 
 " Forget for a moment, dear, the untaught Chinaman, the 
 degraded Hindoo, the savage negro, the worse than savage 
 slave, and look into the byways and alleys of this city and 
 of your town. Fancy that you see the hordes that throng 
 the gin-shops, the multitudes that live by vice and crime, 
 it is a pitiable spectacle you have seen none so badly 
 trained, so deeply sunk ; you might wish to turn away your 
 eye as from an ' irremediable evil ' (as Channing says), 
 but you would be wrong. The divinity of human nature 
 is not extinguished there, nor the innate goodness utterly 
 destroyed. It is ' adverse circumstances ' that have 
 brought them so low, and against them the inmost soul of 
 the victim revolts. The fact is one full of hope, and it has 
 been established by abundant and indubitable testimony. 
 I think, dearest, it is one that we should bear in mind.
 
 How to find fault. 47 
 
 " It is a more marvellous and more admirable illustra- 
 tion of the universal principle which Channing notes, than 
 any which the whole world besides can furnish, and to us 
 it is of infinitely more practical moment ; for it is connected 
 with our daily life, and intertwines itself among our daily 
 duties." 
 
 "November 1850. 
 
 " I want to add one little thing ; it is this : "When you 
 think it necessary to tell me of some comparatively 
 trifling failing, and I know you will find it necessary 
 very often, try and treat it lightly and as a matter of 
 course ; tell me of it with a smile among other things, 
 and especially don't be afraid that I shall not take it 
 well. I'll tell you why: because the other plan de- 
 presses me too much, almost, I might say, dispirits 
 me. I mayn't have a correct appreciation of my faults 
 in detail, but in truth I am not ignorant of them in 
 general. I look upon myself as a sort of conglomeration 
 of faults, a kind of aggregate of defects put into a 
 bodily shape ; this is at all times my lamentation and 
 vexation, and I can see scarcely anything to counter- 
 balance it. 
 
 " In fact, I do believe that I am habitually the worse 
 for that very reason. I am out of spirits with myself, 
 and have hardly trust and hope enough to set myself 
 resolutely to work to cure my defects. I need, I do believe, 
 rather to be encouraged to reform than urged to it ; and 
 when people gravely remonstrate with me about some 
 minor point, it is very apt to set me thinking that I am a 
 fool altogether. 
 
 " Don't think, dear, that I wish you not to point out 
 my faults, I hope you will always do so, when there is 
 occasion ; and the more, inasmuch as I have a habit of
 
 48 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 abstraction which renders me very often insensible to 
 them, but try and do it in a cheerful way. Haven't you 
 often heard people talk about ' going ' to do a thing ? That's 
 what I mean ; don't go to do it ; don't let it seem as if you 
 thought it was something formidable or extraordinary. It 
 ought to be treated quite like a matter of course and 
 spoken of as freely as anything else." 
 
 " November 1850. 
 
 " As regards my father, I myself see one or two things 
 in him (chiefly his manner) which are repugnant to me ; 
 but if any one dislikes his nature, it can only be because 
 they don't know him. I speak deliberately, and, I think, 
 impartially, when I say that I have never been intimately 
 acquainted with any man whose whole soul could bear as 
 searching and thorough an examination. I don't know any 
 character for which I have so high a veneration. 
 
 " I don't speak of certain aspects only, but of the whole 
 of it. It is alike great and good, with no more defects in 
 it than are necessary to make it human. There are many 
 great qualities in him which are obvious to all, but I am 
 not referring to those. I am thinking of his private vir- 
 tues, which only those who live constantly with him can 
 appreciate or even know of. I refer to his kindness, his 
 humility, bis self-control, his willingness to acknowledge 
 himself in the wrong, and to make amends for any tran- 
 sient harshness of temper, his forbearance towards those 
 who are weaker than himself, his active and generous 
 benevolence, and the exemplary way in which he fulfils 
 his duties as a husband and father. These qualities, I 
 know, do not appear, they are obscured to the public view, 
 but they are not the less real and genuine, and they exist 
 to an extent of which very few people have any conception. 
 
 " It is the rarest thing in the world, and you must not
 
 Early Absorptions in Stiidy. 49 
 
 expect it, to have opposite qualities combined in the same 
 individual. Gentleness and charmingness are excellent 
 things ; and gentle and charming people could not be 
 dispensed with ; but neither could those men be who are 
 by no means charming, and possess but little gentleness, 
 but who nevertheless have large hearts as well as heads, 
 and accomplish a great deal of very necessary work which 
 gentle people would never undertake. 
 
 " And now, by speaking of my father, I have prepared 
 the way for saying a few words about myself, and I must 
 at once admit that I labour under many defects in regard 
 to my manners and so on. I arn very sorry for it, and yet 
 I am not without my consolations ; not that I undervalue 
 good manners, but what consoles me is, that I can give a 
 good reason for my want of manners, viz., that the time 
 and thought which might have been spent in acquiring 
 them, have been devoted to the pursuit of objects at least 
 as worthy. 
 
 " Although not naturally gifted with gentlemanly man- 
 ners, no doubt, I might have acquired them if I had given 
 my mind to it. Politeness is like every other art, it may 
 be learnt by time and study. But it wouldn't do for all 
 to choose the same object, for then some important things 
 would be neglected ; and on that very account mutual 
 allowances should be made. It would be unreasonable 
 to find fault with a nice, well-informed, polite, agreeable 
 young man, because he hadn't read Berkeley and Hume, 
 and accurately adjusted the claims of Idealism and Mate- 
 rialism. But it isn't much less absurd to call to account 
 an unfortunate youth who has been simple enough to 
 measure his strength against these and various other in- 
 scrutable mysteries, and has learnt thereby to know his 
 own power and condition and duties, because he isn't 
 equally useful at a party, and doesn't know so well how 
 
 D
 
 5O Life of James Hinton. 
 
 to tie his cravat. Nor is it at all a just assumption that 
 the politest and most agreeable men are really the kindest 
 or most desirous to oblige. They are often utterly and 
 irredeemably selfish. I am very sure that many an awk- 
 ward, slovenly, young man, who never seemed to think of 
 any one around him, or to see what they wanted, has 
 thought and mourned for hours in secret over the evils 
 which the vices of much more agreeable people than him- 
 self have inflicted on mankind, and has longed to make 
 himself a sacrifice to cancel them. 
 
 " I haven't in all this but a very remote and partial 
 allusion to myself ; but the inference I want you to 
 draw is this, that you must be very patient with the 
 faults of manner you see in me. They are bad enough, 
 but they should have this to recommend them, they are 
 the price at which all you love and admire in me has 
 been bought. 
 
 " If I hadn't in my early youth shut myself up from all 
 companionship to pursue a course of solitary study ; if I 
 hadn't pursued these studies with all my heart and all 
 my thoughts, even during the time that I mixed in society, 
 so that I lived as it were in a dream, and did not see or 
 know how the people around me behaved themselves, 
 and how it behoved me to behave; if I hadn't looked 
 upon myself (with boyish vanity, perhaps, yet with a 
 man's intensity of purpose) as dedicated to some noble 
 object, in comparison with which all the pleasures and 
 amenities of life were as mere dust in the balance ; if, in 
 my strivings after truth and uprightness and sincerity, I 
 hadn't been disgusted with the hollowness and rottenness 
 at heart of the social usages that surrounded me, and so 
 conceived a contempt for them, I should no doubt eat 
 more elegantly, speak more gently, dress more fashion- 
 ably, and do all things in better taste ; but I shouldn't
 
 Polish and Refinement. 5 1 
 
 have been as worthy a man even as I am now, and cer- 
 tainly not a man that you would love. 
 
 " Think for a moment, if in the course of duty, or even 
 in a conscientious, though mistaken effort to accomplish 
 some great good, I had become personally deformed, so 
 that no one could see me without pain. Would you let 
 that distress you and interfere with your love for me ? 
 And why should you not regard other blemishes, at least 
 as far as they have been incurred in that way, in the same 
 light and with the same composure ? 
 
 " Finally, for I think I have come to the end, don't 
 overlook an important element of the case, and that is 
 my youth. I dare say you have been thinking as you 
 read this letter that you know a good many men who, 
 with the utmost moral and religious eminence, have all 
 that is desirable in polish and refinement. That is true ; 
 but observe the point, they are men. If you could have 
 seen them in their youth, when the elements of their 
 characters were developing themselves, perhaps in strife 
 one with another, I doubt much whether you would have 
 seen what you see now. Instead of the composed, the 
 tranquil, the happy, and the lovely, you might have seen 
 undue eagerness and zeal, leading to some violence of ex- 
 pression, or severity of thought, producing ill-mannered 
 abstraction, and inward conflicts, imparting some asperity 
 to temper. Do you suppose that men don't improve and 
 soften as they grow older ; and when they feel more at 
 ease within themselves, don't become more naturally and 
 easily alive to the little wants of others ? 
 
 " Have patience, love. Consider it is but six months 
 since I was a wanderer over the face of the earth without 
 a home, or prospect of one, or care for one. Do you sup- 
 pose that I am going to live as your husband in my own 
 home, and see young children growing up around me,
 
 52 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 without feeling calmer, more contented, happier, in short, 
 than I am now ; and seeing more clearly what it behoves 
 me to do in every position, and growing more sensitive to 
 the claims which others have upon me ? Let nature have 
 its course and don't fret. I'm improving wonderfully, 
 but a forced growth is no good, in morals, manners, or 
 anything else." 
 
 "November 1850. 
 
 " Your letters fall upon my heart like rain upon a 
 thirsty field. There is nothing to be complained of in 
 my circumstances, and I do not make any complaint of 
 them, except only that little point which I cannot give in, 
 that I am too old to have my marriage deferred any more 
 with advantage. 
 
 " The real cause of my discomfort is, I know, where you 
 direct me to seek for it, in myself ; and the cure is that 
 which you point out, a closer union with Christ, and the 
 cultivation of a more constant communion with God and 
 devotion to His will. And this effort, dear, I am anxious 
 and desirous to make ; but I am hindered greatly by that 
 latent scepticism which every effort at earnest thought has 
 so great a tendency to call up into renewed activity, and 
 so to recommence a conflict, the bare idea of which makes 
 me shudder with dread. 
 
 " And yet against this also I have two resources one 
 is prayer, the other, activity. You teach me more about 
 prayer than any one else I ever heard. I believe in the 
 results of your prayers, and I endeavour to pray as you 
 do, though, as yet, with little earnestness or faith. But 
 this one great advantage I find even from the least 
 attempt at prayer, viz., a new evidence of the fact of 
 the atonement. It seems to me impossible to pray fer- 
 vently, continually, and trustfully without feeling that 
 we could not pray so unless we were first forgiven and
 
 Appeal of the Religious Emotions. 5 3 
 
 accepted, without any reference whatever to our own 
 deserts or deeds. The conscience would recoil from any 
 such approach to God unless we could say at the same 
 time, ' ISTot for my sake.' 
 
 " I see that I have only written what has been said a 
 hundred times before, but I never felt its force so strongly ; 
 that is, I think, I never perceived before how natural 
 and how necessary this intimate union between ourselves 
 and God is ; how irrepressible is the demand our nature 
 makes for it." 
 
 Whatever conflicts James Hinton had yet to pass 
 through, whatever marked modifications his religious 
 belief afterwards underwent, from this time may be said 
 to date the " low beginnings " of the great central truth of 
 his philosophy, namely, that man's moral and spiritual 
 emotions are in as true relations with the visible creation 
 as his intellect, and their claims are Destined to as rich a 
 fulfilment; that his religious aspirations, his love, his 
 worship, his loyal trust in the Unseen, all that lifts him 
 above himself, are not a winding stair of a ruined tower 
 leading nowhere, but are correlated to answering 'realities, 
 so that truth will ever be found to be potential goodness, 
 and goodness to be realised truth. As nature does not 
 put the appeal of his intellect to confusion, but meets it 
 with an intelligent order, with sequences invariable as 
 the laws of thought, with marvels of construction and 
 adaptation that appeal to interpreting mind, so she meets 
 the appeal of his moral emotions, not with the moral 
 negation of a mechanical necessity, not with the cold 
 silence of a blank impenetrable mystery, but with a true 
 response, a "glory that excelleth," the reality which 
 underlies the phenomenon, and which we symbolise in our 
 two highest words love, rightness a necessity which is 
 perfect freedom, a law that is liberty.
 
 ( 54) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IT was soon after Mr. Hinton's return to England that 
 his attention was first turned to that branch of his pro- 
 fession in which he afterwards attained the first eminence. 
 The cure of his mother's deafness, which has already been 
 recounted, awakened in him an interest in aural surgery, 
 which was kept alive by other patients who came to him 
 on the strength of his first cure. Not long after he was 
 introduced to Mr. Toynbee, whose successor he was after- 
 wards to be, and devoted much of his spare time to attend- 
 ing St. Mary's Hospital with him. Their intercourse re- 
 sulted in a close . and lifelong friendship, founded on 
 similarity of thought and aim, and general sympathy of 
 character. 
 
 He also gave the most strenuous study to physiology, 
 and to those curious and intricate problems of the influ- 
 ence of the mind on the body, which have since been so 
 ably investigated by Dr. Carpenter. His remarks on 
 homoeopathy must be understood to apply to the old 
 system of infinitesimal doses, which later homoeopaths 
 have so largely abandoned. 
 
 I continue to give extracts from his letters to Miss 
 Margaret Haddon. 
 
 "December 1850. 
 
 "Indeed, dearest, your health is the great thing for 
 you to attend to now, because that has already been much 
 tried, and if you have to live in the heart of London all
 
 Regard for Health. 55 
 
 your days, you will want a stock of health to bear it. 
 You know, I am naturally anxious about health, be- 
 cause I see so much sickness, and because I know how 
 apt good people like yourself are to let themselves be 
 over-excited until their strength is exhausted, and the 
 occupations of life become a burden to them. It might 
 
 do you good to know a little more of A , for then 
 
 you would see an illustration of the moral evils which 
 come in the train of what seems like a venial (perhaps 
 even praiseworthy) disregard of health. 
 
 " I have a right to speak on this subject. I am myself 
 an instance of it. I labour now under, and shall always, 
 I fear, retain, an irritability of temper caused absolutely 
 and only by my foolish trifling with my health in bygone 
 days, when I used to waste the time necessary for sleep 
 in abortive efforts to study. 
 
 " So inconsistent are mankind (such good friends to 
 doctors by the by), they ill-use their poor bodies most 
 cruelly, most wickedly ; they treat them as a boy 
 does a plaything; sacrifice their well-being to every 
 idle whim of the mind, and every low caprice of the 
 appetite. If they are remonstrated with they will pay 
 no heed ; they say, ' Oh, I am very well,' or, ' I am never 
 accustomed to think of my health,' or, ' I don't believe 
 this will hurt me.' They will go yet further ; they will 
 shut their eyes to the plainest indications of suffering 
 health; they will not notice little ailments; they will 
 think they are nothing and persist in all their evil prac- 
 tices, and all their friends encourage them ; until at last 
 the mischief gets a little worse, they become what they 
 call ill, and all is terror and distress. A fuss is made, as 
 unreasonable as the former neglect. Everything is sacri- 
 ficed to this once-despised health, and yet when it is 
 regained, it is only to be again trifled with in like
 
 56 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 manner. Is it not a true picture, dear ? Mayn't a man 
 whose constant occupation is among such scenes be ex- 
 cused for feeling and speaking strongly about it ? 
 
 " Observe, dear, that I do not advocate people trying 
 to keep well, out of a cowardly fear of being ill, or suffer- 
 ing pain, or losing life, but as a religious duty, in order 
 that they may render to God the full service He demands 
 of them. A man was never made morbid by such a 
 feeling as that, I'll answer for it, nor never will be. This 
 is exactly the element that is wanting to rectify the two 
 errors, of negligence on the one hand, and over-anxiety 
 on the other." 
 
 "December 1850. 
 
 " I have no time for general literature, nor, indeed, do 
 I find any pursuit of that compatible with a proper dis- 
 charge of my professional duties. It is a sacrifice I am 
 obliged to make, and I do not grudge it much. But I 
 am obliged to make it entirely ; other reading has too 
 great charms to be ventured on. I am too fond of 
 certain branches of literature to allow my mind to be 
 open to them. It is a good thing that the science and 
 art of medicine furnishes of itself ample occupation to 
 the intellect and the heart. I must confine myself to 
 that for some years to come." 
 
 "March 1851. 
 
 " You haven't told me whether you have procured the 
 book you want about polarisation of light. I send you 
 some music to copy. It is a chant of my own composing. 
 I hope you will like it. When such ideas come into my 
 head I can't rest till I have written them down. Don't 
 criticise it too severely." 
 
 "March 1851. 
 
 "With regard to intoxicating drinks I am always
 
 Self -Introspection. 5 7 
 
 awake to the disastrous effects of their abuse, and endea- 
 vour, both by example and precept, when practicable, to 
 discourage their use. But as an honest man I cannot 
 deny their use, or set myself against their occasional em- 
 ployment, and, therefore, cannot work heartily with the 
 teetotallers ; and, moreover, I incline to the belief that 
 drunkenness itself is but a symptom of a deeper seated 
 social disorder, and will be most wisely and effectively 
 combated, not by direct means, but by remedies which, 
 passing by itself, should aim a blow at its cause." 
 
 "March 1851. 
 
 "Ponder well my advice to leave off thinking about 
 yourself altogether. You have thought quite enough 
 about yourself to last till you are married, then you can 
 think about yourself in another way, viz., through the 
 medium of your husband, which is the same thing in one 
 sense, but in all respects much better. And those sub- 
 jective novels too, they are all very well, and what you 
 say of them is quite true up to a certain point, but they 
 are susceptible of abuse, and you are not one of the 
 persons that stand most in need of them. Put all sub- 
 jective things into subjection for the present, and be 
 content as God in His providence and His grace has made 
 you. 
 
 "Nature has wonderful remedial powers which can't 
 work while she is being interfered with ; and you, in your 
 moral medication of yourself, have fallen into the error of 
 the old-fashioned allopaths in administering remedies too 
 constantly. Hold your hand a little, I have seen many 
 an obstinate case of disease improve wonderfully upon 
 being let alone. And the body is but a type of the soul. 
 Moral drugging, with self-examination and reflections and 
 resolutions, is every bit as bad as cramming with niedi-
 
 58 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 cines. For examinations are but cathartics, reflections 
 alteratives, and resolutions tonics. And, to make a 
 long matter short, I commend you to a spiritual homceo- 
 pathy." 
 
 "March 1851. 
 
 " I need something specially to do, something upon 
 which I can look as my work, as the thing which I have 
 accomplished, and which I can regard for ever as the 
 representative of my earthly life. Don't you understand 
 this want ? Is it not one that it is right and proper to 
 feel until it is satisfied ? I should not like to be without 
 it, and yet it seems to me at present only a source of 
 embarrassment and discomfort to me. I do not feel yet 
 what it is that I would do, what it is that I am fitted for. 
 Besides, dear, you also cannot devote yourself to me un- 
 less I be myself devoted to some good object. You can 
 dedicate yourself only to a dedicated man. I know that 
 is the case, and I am glad and proud of it ; to say other- 
 wise would be to belie your nature. I do not wish it to 
 be otherwise, and what my heart longs for is that we may 
 be fellow-workers, true helpmates, for there can be no 
 help where there is no labour in a good cause. Is not 
 that your wish too, dear ? 
 
 "But I am embarrassed, therefore idle. Too many 
 things crowd upon me ; none commands me. The thing 
 which shall fill my heart must be not for myself but 
 for others. To be contented I must toil not for comfort, 
 nor money, nor for fame, nor for love, but for truth and 
 righteousness. The habit has become a second nature to 
 me. I have been a dreamer so long (if it be dreaming) 
 that I must still live an ideal life. I must begin to do 
 something, the things that are nearest to me, heartily, 
 earnestly, perseveringly, and get light by working, which
 
 Beauty of the World. 59 
 
 is indeed the only genuine or safe illumination that can 
 be got." 
 
 "nth May 1851. 
 
 " What a world it is ! How wonderful that men should 
 walk on it as if it were made of common earth, or go to 
 California in search of gold. I never yet laid my hand 
 with a resolute heart, upon any portion of God's universe 
 that I could reach that did not turn to gold beneath my 
 grasp. And I know it needs but work and a right spirit 
 to draw, even from the commonest sources, an exhaustless 
 treasure. . . . 
 
 "I have had to go and see a man in a fit; which, 
 though an excellent performance, has somewhat changed 
 the current of my thoughts ; and, indeed, this last sen- 
 tence, viewed in a common-sense light, has rather a ludi- 
 crous aspect even to myself. For this unfortunate gold 
 which I find so plentiful, happens to be the very thing 
 that I most need just now. What wonders even a little 
 of it would perform for us. I must take care that I do 
 not let the allegorical metal cause the real one also to 
 continue a mere vision. That would never do. But a 
 little patience and self-control and all will be accom- 
 plished." 
 
 "April 1851. 
 
 " I go now every morning to the Homoeopathic Hospital 
 at about seven o'clock, so that I am obliged to go early 
 to bed as well. I find myself much better for the change 
 in my habits, in body and spirits too. I am determined 
 to investigate the matter to the bottom, for it cannot 
 fail to repay me, and it would, besides, be such a grand 
 thing if homoeopathy were trae. It would be a pity to 
 lose a chance of finding it out. Only fancy what a
 
 60 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 splendid thing it is to feel that one has discovered the 
 truth iii medicine, that one may give over doubt, inquiry, 
 and toil ; that one always must be right, and never can 
 have the responsibility of deciding between various modes 
 of treatment, and choosing not only a good one, but the 
 best ; and after all, the consolatory reflection that what- 
 soever happens, there can be no fault on our part, that 
 failure can be due only to inexorable fate." 
 
 "May 1851. 
 
 " But to come to my work. The last month has been 
 an invaluable one to me. I have made a great step in 
 knowledge, and have gained a great accession of humi- 
 lity. I have become wise and discovered that I was a 
 fool. The two things must always go together, so I need 
 not dwell on that. It has taken me weeks upon weeks 
 to find out what I knew quite well before, what every- 
 body has known from the remotest antiquity. A verit- 
 able idiot I have been. For my grand discovery is no- 
 thing but that simple fact I told you of before, which has 
 been embodied in the common proverb that ' fancy kills 
 or fancy cures.' But, then, before I only knew it, now I 
 have found it out. Did you never discover the differ- 
 ence between those two things. I wish I could 'find 
 out ' afresh some few other of the things which I know 
 too well. I wonder who invented that saying, ' Blessed 
 are the ignorant.' He was a genius, and deserves well 
 of mankind whoever he was. We know too much. It 
 is our irreverent familiarity with things that blinds us, 
 so that we cannot see that we walk in the midst of mira- 
 cles, and draw in mysteries with every breath, and trample 
 beneath our feet the sublimest principles of philosophy. 
 I would that I understood the little things ; our pride is 
 our greatest enemy.
 
 Knowing too Much. 6 1 
 
 * Twenty years ago a doctor -was walking through a 
 field of peas. He took a few in his hand, and as he 
 meditated he rolled them between his fingers. While thus 
 engaged he passed by a house where lived a woman de- 
 ranged in health. She thought if a doctor was rolling 
 anything in his hand it must be a pill, and asked him to 
 give her some, for she had taken much medicine and could 
 get no better. He gave her two peas ; she took them ; 
 the next day he called and found that they had cured 
 her. 
 
 " And what did he do then ? He was amused and 
 laughed. He told the story in joke to a friend. vain 
 and foolish man ! Did not God then take his hand and 
 lay it on a precious fact, embodying a law precious beyond 
 its worth of diamonds, and say to him, ' Discover me that 
 law collect more facts investigate them patiently and 
 it shall not be hid from you, and then proclaim it to your 
 fellows ! Unfortunate wretch that he was ! He knew too 
 much. He had heard of such things before, and he had a 
 name for them, so he passed on in scorn to compound his 
 drugs and theorise upon their action. And God and 
 nature have avenged themselves. 
 
 " Now, if he had studied that fact, as God commanded 
 him, what might he have done ? First, he might have 
 spared the world a great part of the nonsense that has 
 been talked about mesmerism, electro-biology, and homoeo- 
 pathy, and have saved from pollution the paper on which 
 have been printed the cruel books with which mankind 
 have been persecuted on these subjects. Secondly, he 
 might have brought into practical use a mighty agent for 
 the relief of our suffering fellow-creatures that God has 
 entrusted to us. Thirdly, he might have put medical 
 men in such a position, that they would have been able 
 ere this to arrive at some satisfactory conclusions with
 
 62 Life of James Hinton 
 
 regard to the effects of medicines and the proper way of 
 using them. 
 
 "Now, that's enough. It isn't nearly all he might 
 have done ; but it's enough to satisfy the ambition of any 
 human being. He did not do it ; but be his faults for- 
 given him ; we have all sinned like him." 
 
 "May 1851. 
 
 " I'll tell you why women were made to llush. It is 
 that I might discover by means of it how it is that any- 
 thing that acts on the emotions will cause and cure dis- 
 eases. I thought of that to-day in chapel. 
 
 " I think the matter is so plain that I can explain it 
 to you in a very few words. It is as plain as the reason 
 why water rises in a pump, viz., that the air presses it ; 
 but that was as mysterious while people didn't know that 
 the air had any weight, as it is now how an infinitesimal 
 dose should cure a disease, the mystery being simply 
 that people haven't yet discovered that the 'emotions' 
 have weight. I'll give you first the general principle, 
 and then an illustration, and so you shall have the essence 
 of the matter in a nut-shell. The principle is this : All 
 the emotions produce a specific effect upon the small 
 vessels, capillaries as they are called, which is seen in the 
 face when people blush ; the vessels become relaxed and 
 full of blood, and the face red. All the exciting and most 
 pleasurable emotions relax the capillaries ; all depressing 
 emotions, on the contrary, contract these vessels, which 
 also is seen in the face when a man turns pale with fear. 
 He is pale because the minute vessels don't contain so 
 much blood. 
 
 " Now the same effect that takes place on the surface of 
 the body takes place in the inside too ; in fact, it may take 
 place in any and every part, and sometimes it does.
 
 Emotional Cures. 63 
 
 " This seems very little, but it is almost as vast as the 
 whole range of human suffering ; for relaxation and con- 
 traction of the capillaries is the essence of disease. It is 
 inflammation, it is morbid deposit, it is pain ; etc. Thus, 
 you perceive, we see daily before our eyes emotion setting 
 on foot those processes which constitute disease, and which 
 also (for here is the point) constitute cure. 
 
 " Now, it has been from want of a due appreciation of 
 this fact that the medical world has been at a loss, and 
 several of them have come to believe that infinitesimal 
 doses will cure the greatest diseases. 
 
 " Sir Astley Cooper published in his lectures (thirty 
 years ago) that the only cause he could discover for cancer 
 was mental distress ; and that, he was sure, would produce 
 it. The whole medical world has read those lectures 
 since. And yet, now, go to a medical man and tell him 
 that a cancer has been cured by the production of emo- 
 tions and he will laugh at you. Some few will invent a 
 magnetic fluid and say that that has carried it away ; but 
 as for admitting that a power which will cause a disease 
 may be so applied as to cure it, that passes the bounds of 
 their belief. You have the whole theory now before you. 
 It is simply this : We see a power which continually 
 produces effects which we admit, so far as we can dis- 
 cover, to He at the bottom of almost all diseases. I affirm 
 that that power does produce disease (which is daily seen, 
 though not taken notice of), and that under certain condi- 
 tions it will cure it. 
 
 " I will give you an instance, selected for simplicity. 
 If a person loses too much blood he has a headache, which 
 is due to there being too little blood in the brain, and the 
 vessels, accordingly, too much contracted. Now we have 
 seen that depressing emotions contract the blood-vessels, 
 and as such an emotion produces a headache precisely
 
 64 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 the same as that which is caused by loss of blood, I pre- 
 sume that the same physical condition exists in both 
 cases, viz., a contracted state of the blood-vessels in 
 the brain. Now, having got a headache arising from 
 contraction of these vessels, what is the cure ? Of 
 course, to relax them. And how shall we do that ? 
 One way will immediately suggest itself to you, viz., to 
 produce a cheerful emotion which, as you know, is seen 
 to relax the vessels. Suppose we excite hope; is not 
 the thing done ? that is to say, give the patient a globule. 
 I should think it would cure him. If it won't, my theory 
 is wrong but I don't think it is, because a spoonful of 
 
 water will cure, as in this case that Mr. F attended 
 
 last week. 
 
 "A lady sent for him in a great hurry, late in the 
 evening. She was very ill, and her friends thought she 
 was going to die. She had intense headache, restless- 
 ness, vomiting upon the least movement, and so on. In 
 fact, the vessels in her brain were constricted by fear. 
 Mr. F , like a wise man (having profited by my ex- 
 perience), gave her a tablespoonful of water. The first 
 dose stopped the sickness, cured the headache, and sent 
 her to sleep. Is that a mystery ? The interpretation 
 of it is written easily on every woman's cheek. The 
 hope relaxed the vessels. I haven't selected this case 
 because the affection was nervous, but only because I 
 could describe it easily in simple language. I know of 
 still more striking cases of real disease cured manifestly 
 in the same way. 
 
 " But I will just mention one principle that I have 
 established, and a very valuable one, as I think, viz., that 
 if we wish to bring the emotions into play in the cure 
 of disease we must not give drugs. They interfere with 
 the process. The globules will cure diseases that all
 
 Homoeopathy. 65 
 
 the physic in the world wouldn't touch. I have had 
 a lovely case that bids fair to withdraw from the ranks 
 of the homceopathists the best and cleverest member of 
 the body that I know. On Wednesday last one of the 
 physicians of the Hahnemann Hospital wanted to go 
 to the Derby. I was sitting by his side when the time 
 arrived for him to go, and as there were a few more 
 patients to be seen, it was agreed between us that I should 
 attend to them and order them sugar-of-milk. This I 
 did. On Saturday two of them came again. One was 
 better, the other was well. And this had been a serious- 
 looking case. If I hadn't known the power of bread- 
 pills I shouldn't have dared to order him a globule. He 
 gave an interesting account of himself. The day after 
 he began the medicine (sugar, mind you, alone) he found 
 the pains much worse, but they soon began to mend, 
 and, in fact, had gone away altogether. As the doctor 
 wrote down his words I saw his face grow red (you see 
 the same thing occurred in him as had happened to the 
 patient, emotion relaxed the vessels) ; and when he had 
 done he rose and went to the other end of the room, and 
 said, ' If this be so, all my labour has been in vain.' He 
 knew before what my views were, and the fact flashed on 
 him like lightning. Poor fellow ! he has worked hard for 
 Homoeopathy, but, as I told him, that labour can never be 
 in vain. The world owes much to the homceopathists ; no 
 one owes more than I do." 
 
 "May 1851. 
 
 " It is a whole week, nearly, since I wrote to you, but 
 then you kept me so long without a letter, and I haven't 
 had a moment of time that was not imperatively called 
 for by the work I had in hand. It is perfectly marvel- 
 lous what a light this new power of emotion throws on 
 

 
 66 Life of James H in ton. 
 
 all those mysterious phases of diseased and healthy action 
 that have puzzled us so long. 
 
 " I can tell you a pretty little thing I have discovered 
 among others not so elegant. It is the use of a tear. 
 When a person feels an emotion of grief the small cuta- 
 neous vessels which pour out the insensible perspiration 
 are contracted so that that secretion cannot go on. In- 
 stantly the eyes take on a compensating action, and the 
 tears gush forth, carrying away with them the matter, 
 which being repelled from the skin would otherwise be- 
 come injurious to the system. And I can prove that the 
 forcible repression of tears materially damages the health ; 
 it is counteracting a provision of nature. It is a violation 
 of the physical laws to order a child not to cry when 
 nature demands tears. It is inflicting an injury on the 
 material organisation. Of course, to control excessive 
 crying is another matter; but even the treatment of that 
 should rather be preventive than suppressive." 
 
 "June 1851. 
 
 "My most pleasing anticipation is, that I shall cer- 
 tainly reconcile the allopaths and homoeopaths, if I can 
 prove to them (as I think I can by a chain of evidence 
 quite irresistible) that they have been both curing people 
 all the while by the very same power which power is 
 precisely the same as that by which our much culumniated 
 forefathers cured their patients, with charms and incanta- 
 tions, and that they have been quarrelling all the while 
 about a name, a whim, a mere fancy ; then I think they 
 can never find it possible to go on quarrelling any more. 
 Especially when it must be evident that both are in fault, 
 that the allopath now and then prevents his patient from 
 recovering by an over-exhibition of physic; and the 
 homoeopath consigns a victim to eternity occasionally by
 
 Need of more Investigation. 6 7 
 
 withholding from him the means which God designed for 
 his cure and for which our instincts irrepressibly long. 
 Not that I flatter myself that this will take place yet. 
 It will be many many long years before that can come to 
 pass. Error gains too deep a hold of human nature, soon 
 to be given up. Even my good friend, the homoeopath, 
 whose patient I cured with sugar-of-milk, and who admits 
 the cure to be complete, seems quite unmoved by it. He 
 goes on prescribing his globules as before, although, I 
 think, I have opened his mind a little." 
 
 "June 1851. 
 
 " My imagination is a good deal sobered down since I 
 last wrote, not that my speculations seem to have lost 
 any of their theoretical or practical value, but I am 
 beginning to look at them from another point of view, 
 and see more of the difficulties of the case. What em- 
 barrasses me is want of time. Duly to investigate the 
 subjects that have presented themselves to me would be 
 a work of many years. I do think I can contribute some- 
 thing towards healing this ridiculous but scandalous feud 
 that old Hahnemann had the infatuation to begin ; and can 
 even give the Mormonites and Irvingites a lift towards the 
 comprehension of their miracles, which puzzle them sadly 
 at present ; for a good many of them refuse to be referred, 
 even on the showing of the parties who performed them, 
 to any other agency than the evil one's. 
 
 " So that I have a blessing for all parties in my hands. 
 But if I am to publish on this subject, I must work very 
 hard for a long time. But that always does me good, be- 
 cause my way of working is not to sit down and fag, which 
 always leads to all sorts of errors, but to walk about, and 
 let all sorts of ideas come into my head, which generally 
 turn out to be of value."
 
 68 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "June 1851. 
 
 " If you talk about fear of sacrificing comforts or losing 
 friends, it is because you do not know what feeling an 
 enthusiasm for science is. To add one truth to our 
 store of knowledge, I would sacrifice not only gain, but 
 life. To-day I would be content to die, if so I might 
 advance our knowledge but one stage towards perfection. 
 Eegard for self is a feeling that has and can have no 
 place in any heart so occupied. It is doing God's work, 
 and may God forbid that ever it should be done except 
 with a single eye to Him. I care neither for fame nor 
 profit, if only I can get a living and a wife, and do my 
 work faithfully as between God and my own conscience. 
 That surely is enough for any man, and that is certain 
 for rne. 
 
 "And now, Meggie dear, it is Sunday morning, and I 
 will try and forget all those old week-day distractions, 
 which are very hard to be kept in their place. It is well 
 to do our work as to God, a blessed privilege to feel that 
 whatever we do we may do it to Him ; but it is blessed 
 also to have a day for communion with Him in which we 
 need not work. And it is no time lost either. There is 
 a saying of Luther's which I have often thought of, ' To 
 have prayed well, is to have studied well.' No man ever 
 lost anything in this world by attending properly to 
 the next. Indeed, it is only by that means that we 
 can understand or use this world aright. How different 
 it appears to us, according as we look on it, from amidst 
 its toil, or above it and in the light of heaven. What 
 a trifle is the approbation or praise of men compared 
 with the love of God! What vanities are wealth or 
 that enchantment of fame compared with the happi- 
 ness He can pour into our hearts! I am glad that I 
 know that happiness is only to be found in humble devo-
 
 Service. 69 
 
 tion and consecration and obedience to God. For I am 
 ambitious by nature ; even from boyhood my heart has 
 swelled with the idea that I might do some work which 
 men would not forget. And if it were not that I am 
 already contented, have found in God's love and accept- 
 ance of me enough to satisfy my heart and make me 
 willing to forego all other blessings, these thoughts of 
 mine would have made me mad. Day and night I should 
 have dwelt upon them ; I should have placed all my hopes 
 upon their success ; I should have made my sole reward 
 to depend upon their acceptance by my fellow-men. And 
 succeeding or failing, I should have been alike miserable. 
 " Now with success or failure I must be alike happy. For 
 God looks at and accepts the heart, and does not estimate 
 the merit, or measure the reward, by the skill or talent 
 displayed, but by the motive. And it matters little 
 whether He have made me the instrument of advancing 
 knowledge He has plenty of means of doing that when 
 He wills it should be done if He has given me the pri- 
 vilege of working for Him with devoted heart, of conse- 
 crating to Him a small offering out of the abundance He 
 has given me, and will accept it at my unworthy hands ; 
 then He has given me the richest of all blessings a 
 blessing to which earthly honour can add nothing, from 
 which earthly loss cannot detract." 
 
 "August 1851. 
 
 " In spite of my grumbling nature, I must confess it 
 is sweet to sit down to write to you. I've adopted 
 vour plan to-night, and have your likeness open before 
 me. 
 
 " I mean to begin with philosophy. In the first 
 place, I beg to thank your sister for her kind concern 
 lest I should spoil my book. I fear that her care and
 
 70 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 my toil will alike, however, be thrown away. I have a sad 
 conviction (to which I am almost resigned) that my book 
 will certainly be spoilt, somehow or other, by metaphysics 
 inopportunely introduced, or in some other mode not 
 less disastrous. I have no idea that I can write a 
 book on any subject without spoiling it. I shall be con- 
 tent if it isn't so bad that no spoiling can make it worse. 
 But for the metaphysics, I beg her to understand that so 
 far from exciting the wrath of godly people, that reverend 
 divine, Mr. J. B., holds them to be especially admirable, 
 not so much because, in his opinion, they clear up many 
 things hitherto mysterious, as because they furnish a proof 
 of the falsity of materialism, and such a clear evidence of 
 the necessary existence of a spirit in man. 
 
 " And I must say that herein I agree with him. To a 
 person holding my views, the idea of there being nothing 
 bearing the relation which we suppose our spirits to bear 
 to our bodies, must appear a palpable physiological 
 absurdity. 
 
 " I confess, with feelings of the deepest mortification, 
 that I hold myself to be a fool, with more blindness than 
 can be attributed to any three beetles. I am ready every 
 now and then to throw down my pen in sheer disgust at 
 my own incapacity. It takes me weeks and months to 
 find out the plainest, simplest things. It is only the last 
 two days that I have opened my eyes to the most obvious 
 deduction namely, that we have a power of controlling 
 our thoughts, and, therefore, if the brain thinks, it must 
 be something else that controls its own action. That is 
 too plain to need stating; it would be as reasonable to 
 suppose that a muscle could regulate its own movements 
 as to attribute that power to the brain. There is some- 
 thing in us, or connected with us, that makes use of our 
 brain, supposing it to think; that's evident. Let any
 
 Does the Brain Think. 71 
 
 one say what that is, and he has given his definition of 
 the spirit. 
 
 " I am a fool, as I said before. I have been diving 
 into the abstrusest profundities of physiology, and mount- 
 ing into the highest abstractions of morals, to find evi- 
 dence of this fact, shutting my eyes to it all the while. 
 Ten or twelve times during my recent investigations I 
 have had the conviction brought painfully to my mind 
 that I deserve a good whipping for my stupidity. I 
 could wish there were some one here to give me one now. 
 . . . But to return to the point. It is clear, as I said, 
 that if the brain is the organ that thinks, there certainly 
 exists something that makes use of it for thinking, just 
 as it, in its turn, makes use of the muscles for moving. 
 But then, you see, this logic is entirely overthrown unless 
 it first be granted that the brain does think. If it does 
 not think, we don't know what it does do, and perhaps it 
 may be the organ that controls thought as well as motion. 
 And if so, sure enough our evidence of a spirit rests on 
 a rickety foundation. 
 
 " I thank God that, though I am stupid enough, there 
 are other men who don't seem much wiser ; at least they 
 say things at which I should actually stand aghast. To 
 this do-nothing, do-everything brain, the function of voli- 
 tion has actually been assigned. There is one excuse in 
 men doing so. Divines and metaphysicians have for- 
 bidden them to assign to it its only possible function ; 
 and they could hardly, therefore, do otherwise than 
 ascribe to it impossible ones. 
 
 "Yes, that is grand in its simplicity. The muscles 
 work, but we know that there is a power in us greater 
 than the muscles, because we control their movements. 
 The brain thinks, but we know there is something in us 
 greater than the brain, because we, control its thoughts.
 
 72 Life of James Hinlon. 
 
 But muscle and brain act alike without our control some- 
 times. 
 
 " There I stand as firm as a rock. Whatever controls 
 the brain's action is spirit. When I can discover that 
 beasts control their thoughts, then I will grant that they 
 must have spirits, but I do not see it at present. I think 
 their brains act just according to the stimuli that are 
 brought to bear upon them, and according to that action 
 they produce actions in the body. I see no evidence that 
 beasts ever divert their thoughts from one subject, and 
 turn it spontaneously to another. . . . 
 
 " The brain is the organ of the spirit, the instrument 
 by which the spirit carries out all its purposes, whether of 
 thinking or acting. The spirit acts upon the brain, and 
 thought results, just as the brain acts upon the muscles, 
 and motion results. . . . No form of matter that we are 
 acquainted with can originate action. Matter can only 
 obey the forces that act upon it. The brain can do no 
 otherwise ; when put in action it will think, as a muscle 
 will move when put in action; otherwise it will be as 
 passive as a stone. . . . The capacity for thinking, the 
 adaptation for producing thought, must reside in the brain 
 itself, but thought can only be produced on the applica- 
 tion of some ' force ' to it, either from the body (through 
 the nerves), or by some means we do not understand, from 
 the spirit. The brain bears just the same relation to the 
 spirit that your piano does to you. If you put it skilfully 
 in action, you will produce sweet music (provided it is in 
 tune) ; but if it be put in action by any other cause, it will 
 produce sound more or less musical. Let the cat walk 
 over the keys, and the piano will sound in spite of all you 
 can do to keep it quiet. Let that same cat scratch your 
 finger, and your brain will think in spite of you just the 
 same. The brain is perfectly passive, just as passive as
 
 Thought and Volition. 73 
 
 the piano. Get that thoroughly into your head, and you 
 will see that both the spiritual theory of thought and the 
 materialistic theory of man are equally untenable. Both 
 imply one and the same false dogma viz., that living 
 matter can act of itself. That is a grand error. Living 
 matter, like dead, can only act as it is acted upon. 
 
 " It is physiology that must clear up these metaphysical 
 disputes ; in fact, metaphysics must be merged in physio- 
 logy, as astrology in astronomy. . . . Action once set up 
 in the brain must produce an action in some other part of 
 the body ; it may be, therefore, and is sometimes, in other 
 portions of the brain itself. Thus I account for the carry- 
 ing on of involuntary trains of thought. . . . But the 
 spirit can at any moment of its own will so act on the 
 brain as to control and alter its action. . . . 
 
 " Don't you remember how Coleridge in ' Aids to Ee- 
 flection ' terms the understanding ' a sensuous faculty,' and 
 exclaims, ' If there be a spiritual in man, the will is that 
 spiritual ' ? 
 
 " It wasn't reason led Coleridge to say that. It was 
 religion it was inspiration. It was one of those out- 
 bursts of intuition by which great poets in all ages have 
 anticipated the discoveries of science. 
 
 " It is clear whence has come the error that has led 
 men so far astray. It is the confounding of thought and 
 volition, two things as different as spirit is from matter. 
 And who did it ? The metaphysicians the divines. 
 And how ? By confounding together the functions of the 
 spirit and brain. The materialists have but paid them in 
 their own coin, have used against them weapons forged 
 by themselves. They said matter cannot think the 
 spirit thinks ; that implied that thinking and willing 
 were actions of a similar kind were actions of the same 
 substance.
 
 74 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " That did for a time. Mankind thought the argument 
 very clear, the conclusion very logical. There was only 
 one hitch ; if they could but find out what was the use 
 of the brain. It was very odd that a spiritual being should 
 want a material organ for performing an immaterial 
 action. But the world is full of mysteries, they thought ; 
 it is not more mysterious than other things ; and besides, 
 the brain produces the nervous force, perhaps a nervous 
 fluid ; most likely it is a reservoir very similar to a 
 Leyden jar. 
 
 " But men arose who had no fear of God or spirit 
 before their eyes, and they used their scalpel diligently 
 on the living and the dead, and they maintained, with 
 arguments more wanting in religious feeling than in sound 
 logic, that the brain did think and feel, and with the 
 experiments and inductions of science they shielded them- 
 selves against all appeals either to their reason or their 
 conscience. What then ? The mischief the metaphysi- 
 cians and divines had wrought began to work. They had 
 attributed to spirit the functions of spirit and of brain ; 
 the others naturally transferred to brain the functions of 
 brain and spirit. Hence the interminable squabble, both 
 right and both wrong. 'Tis as bad to put together what 
 God has sundered as to divide what He has put together. 
 The dispute lies in a nut-shell. The divines say the 
 spirit thinks and wills ; the men of science respond, 
 The brain thinks and wills. never-to-be-settled 
 controversy ! What if the brain thinks and the spirit 
 wills ? . . . 
 
 "With regard to details, I think that M is rather 
 
 confusing herself with words. I hold it fully as absurd 
 to say that thought is material, as to say it is immaterial. 
 Perhaps it is as bad to say that thought is physical, which 
 expression I own to be mine. But I only use it for
 
 Functions of the Brain. 75 
 
 want of a better, meaning thereby that it belongs to the 
 phenomena of the physical world, that it has, and can 
 have, so far as we know, no existence except in connec- 
 tion with brains. To the expression that ' the pheno- 
 mena of thought ' are physical, I object, because it con- 
 veys no .meaning to my mind. I don't know in what 
 sense the phenomena of thought are physical ; it is rather 
 its mode of production that is physical. But to talk in 
 this way is only to get confused ; these general expres- 
 sions are merely formulas devised of old, before men had 
 discovered the way to search for truth. What I think is, 
 that the brain thinks, in some sense, as muscle moves, i.e., 
 that the brain being put into its normal mode of acting, 
 thought results. I decline to give any more explicit state- 
 ments on the matter, partly because I don't know anything 
 more about it, partly because I've got a few notions which 
 might appear mystical and absurd, and in attempting to 
 express which I should waste much time to little purpose. 
 
 "' This is a horrid letter ; you mustn't puzzle your brain 
 about it. Don't you think the endeavour to understand 
 ourselves should bring us into closer intimacy with our 
 Maker ? I feel it so. I cannot ponder on the wondrous 
 mechanism of which I am composed, nor strive to pene- 
 trate into the depths of my being, without feeling afresh 
 and more deeply the intimate relation in which I stand to 
 God and His care for me, His love of me, the happiness it 
 must be to do His will. 
 
 " I must go to bed ; mother has come to remonstrate with 
 me ; but I want you to have this letter in the morning." 
 
 "September 1851. 
 
 "Have you read Shirley? It is a wonderful book, but 
 what pleases me most is that the authoress says most 
 distinctly and unqualifiedly that the brain thinks. In
 
 7 6 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 fact, she is a wonderful observer. It is delightful to read 
 her descriptions of disease caused by mental affections. 
 Caroline Helstone's illness is a study for a physician. 
 There could not have been a better commentary written 
 on my doctrine of the emotions. She traces the entire 
 history of a fever caused by grief with inimitable fidelity. 
 Beginning with the right cause, the abnormal action of 
 the brain, she traces every effect as it arises, up to the 
 very verge of death, and then she shows the working of 
 an emotional cure. 
 
 " I am pleased that M approves my views of the 
 
 spirit. I dearly love to persuade people. There can 
 hardly be a greater pleasure (of a selfish kind) than to 
 feel you have brought another person round to your way 
 of thinking. One thing may be objected to my view, 
 viz., that it seems to separate our spirits from ourselves. 
 It produces rather a curious feeling to imagine that our 
 spirits do not think, and so on. But this I take to be, in 
 fact, an improvement, for in truth we have been all along 
 confounding our brains with ourselves, our thinking organ 
 with our essential being. It has been a great mistake. 
 Our brains are no more we than our muscles, our thoughts 
 than our movements. It is not our intellects that are the 
 essential parts of us, but our characters. We feel that, 
 although we have set ourselves against the theoretical 
 admission of it. But it is a thing that it is important to 
 recognise as well as to feel. For thus we can put into 
 words our instinctive perception of the fact that the man 
 who seeks to gratify his intellect at the expense of his 
 duty is, in fact, a sensualist. Many a man is spoilt and 
 ruined now through thinking that his intellect is himself, 
 and that his highest occupation is to cultivate it his surest 
 path to obey it. It is not so. That is, to place the body 
 above the soul, to sacrifice the spirit to the brain. It is
 
 Nature of Spirit. 77 
 
 the conscience he should, above all things, cultivate, and 
 in all things obey : that is himself. When for the sake of 
 intellectual pleasure, or in obedience to intellectual argu- 
 ments, he does violence to it, or neglects it, he lets his 
 brain enslave him, just in the same way as a man lets 
 his stomach enslave him \vho indulges in gluttony or 
 drunkenness. 
 
 " Another thought has occurred to me also, in regarding 
 the spirit as the controller of the brain, viz., that we have 
 a proof here of the intelligent nature of spirit. Not that I 
 think that can be at all doubtful ; but when we say that 
 the spirit does not think, it suggests the idea of want of 
 intelligence, very unfoundedly indeed, though not unnatu- 
 i-ally. For a moment's reflection must convince us that 
 intelligence must have many forms ; it has indeed various 
 forms even in ourselves. And thought, and instinct, and so 
 on, all the modes of intelligence that are connected with 
 brains, must be the very lowest of those forms. So we 
 should never think of ascribing thought to God, except 
 as a reverent adaptation of our mode of action to Him. 
 And with a similar reverence we should think of 
 our own spirit, which probably approaches somewhat 
 to His nature, and has modes of intelligence, perception, 
 and feeling which doubtless far surpass our utmost con- 
 ceptions. 
 
 " But the proof of its intelligence that we get from this 
 view of it is very simple ; it is just like the proof of God's 
 ' intelligence ' derived from the works of nature. It is 
 merely the fact that our spirits use our brains intelligently 
 and for a purpose. 
 
 " But I must send this to the post. I think of you very 
 very often, and never without a thrill of delight that I 
 possess such a treasure."
 
 78 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "August 1851. 
 
 " This reminds me that I did not notice what M. said 
 about our instinctive consciousness, that it was we that 
 thought, and not our brains. I must beg to be excused, 
 for I feel particularly conscious that it is not I that 
 think, but that I use my thinking faculty. I should 
 be sorry to think that my intellect was myself. It is 
 the most subservient faculty I have got, the logical de- 
 partment of it especially. I can turn my reasoning 
 faculties about in any way I please; use arguments to 
 support any side; create ideas in accordance with any 
 hypothesis ; in short, I use my thinking faculties just as 
 I do my motor ones. They are both mere passive instru- 
 ments for carrying out my purposes. Let them both be 
 taken from me and / remain just what I was before." 
 
 "August 1851. 
 
 " I'm glad you enjoyed my last long letters, and found 
 something in them to interest you. At the same time, I 
 had much rather that you should not devote any valuable 
 portion of your time and thoughts to such subjects. In- 
 herently they are questions of words alone. Even the 
 principal terms of ' matter ' and ' spirit ' are themselves only 
 words with no meaning, except such as is attached to them 
 by arbitrary definitions. And the people who have thought 
 most on the subject are undecided as to whether spirit 
 be not matter after all, and matter spirit. 
 
 " For my own part, although I believe in a spirit, and 
 think that I can demonstrate its existence by a process 
 of my own, I nevertheless incline to the opinion that in 
 truth the distinction between the two substances is only 
 an imaginary one. If matter can ' think and feel,' as I 
 have no doubt it can, what need to invent any other kind 
 of 'substance' in order to satisfy our ideas of what a
 
 Matter of Spirit. 7 9 
 
 spirit must be? I don't doubt the same omnipotence 
 that can give consciousness to brains, can give to other 
 forms of matter a higher and more lasting form of intelli- 
 gence ; in fact, that if God can make a dog of matter, of 
 matter He can make an angel. 
 
 " I have said these things not because I believe spirit is 
 matter or the reverse I don't mean to form any opinion 
 whatever on the subject but to show you how entirely 
 all such questions are logomachy merely; to show you 
 my justification for saying that metaphysics is like astro- 
 logy; and that the entire science should be abandoned. 
 My position is, that it is an abuse of the human intellect 
 to employ it on such topics in such a way. That old 
 query, ' How many angels can stand on the point of a 
 needle ? ' is a fair sample of the lot. 
 
 "The real question at issue in all these discussions 
 about matter and spirit is whether man is responsible; 
 whether there is any virtue or vice, any higher power, to 
 which we owe allegiance. What can be more puerile than 
 to meet such inquiry with wordy disquisitions about the 
 nature of thought ? Suppose it can be shown that matter 
 cannot think, and that, in order to account for it, we must 
 suppose a ' spiritual substance,' what earthly help is that 
 towards determining the only question that concerns us ? 
 It is quite as much beyond our conception how spirit thinks 
 as it is how matter should think ; and, indeed, how matter 
 should attract is rather more mysterious still. 
 
 I think a correct application of material and physio- 
 logical science to the facts of man's nature proves that 
 there is some ' substance ' or agent connected with him 
 which is not appreciable by our senses after his death. 
 I call that the spirit, but it really makes no difference 
 what it is called. There is one great reason to suppose 
 it not to be matter viz., that it certainly has the power
 
 8o Life of James Hinton. 
 
 of originating its own actions (at least it seems so), which 
 no other form of matter appears to have. 
 
 " But you see people have got the fancy that if par- 
 ticular metaphysical formula? are interfered with, religion 
 is in danger. They might just, as well say that religion 
 is endangered by the regatta to-morrow at the Isle of 
 Wight. The two things have just as much connection. 
 Why shouldn't men play with words as freely as they play 
 with boats ? Above all things, is science the science of our 
 own nature to be impeded in its progress in deference to 
 such an idle prejudice ? I have a right to speak on this sub- 
 ject ; for when I speak of my physiological views (to some 
 first-rate men too), they say to me, ' I dare say you are 
 right it seems highly probable ; but don't say it. Such 
 views are not incompatible with religion in your own mind, 
 but they would appear to be so to others.' I am not 
 going to give way to such fears. ... I am able, though 
 not very willing to take the trouble, to show that not 
 only are my (most materialistic) views not dangerous to 
 religion, but that, if received, they would put religion on 
 a better footing in respect to science and philosophy than 
 she has occupied for many years. 
 
 " I always fill up my paper when I get on such topics. 
 I am very much amused at myself. You see it is my 
 brain that does it. My spirit I hope is wiser. But I make 
 my brain work hard sometimes ; and I consider it has a 
 right to amuse itself now and then. So I haven't inter- 
 fered with it, but have let one thought give rise to another 
 just as it happened. But now consider this. At any 
 time I could have left off. If therefore it was my brain 
 that was thinking, what was the power that could have 
 made it leave off? Not itself certainly. Can a muscle 
 make itself leave off acting ? I wonder the question has 
 never been put in that light before. The more I look
 
 The Mystery of Matter. 81 
 
 at it, the more satisfied I become with it, and I have found 
 no one yet who sees a flaw in the argument." 
 
 I have purposely given copious extracts from Mr. 
 Hinton's letters on the functions of the brain, because it 
 is evident it was his physiological views on this point 
 that started him on his most distinctive lines of thought. 
 When once we have been led to accept the proposition, 
 " The brain thinks," a proposition held by most of our 
 foremost physiologists it is evident we are on the eve 
 of a fundamental modification of our ideas of the nature 
 of matter. 
 
 " ' Men,' says Herbert Spencer, ' who have not yet risen 
 above that vulgar conception which unites with matter 
 the contemptuous epithets of ' gross ' and ' brute ' " and 
 we may add "dead" 'may naturally feel dismayed at 
 the proposal to reduce the phenomena of life and mind to 
 a level with those which they think so degraded. But 
 whoever remembers that the forms of existence which the 
 uncultivated speak of with so much scorn, are shown by 
 the man of science to be the more marvellous in their 
 attributes the more they are investigated, and are also 
 proved to be in their ultimate nature absolutely incom- 
 prehensible as absolutely incomprehensible as sensation 
 or the conscious something which perceives it, whoever 
 clearly recognises this truth will see that the course pro- 
 posed does not imply a degradation of the so-called higher, 
 but an elevation of the so-called lower.' * 
 
 " ' For after all,' to quote from another eminent physio- 
 logist, ' what do we know of this terrible matter, except 
 as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of 
 states of our own consciousness ; and what do we know of 
 
 * Herbert Spencer's First Principles (1870), p. 886. 
 
 F
 
 82 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 that spirit over whose threatened extinction so great a 
 lamentation is arising, like that which arose at the death 
 of Pan, except that it also is a name for an unknown and 
 hypothetical cause of condition of states of consciousness ? 
 In other words, matter and spirit are but names for the 
 imaginary substrata of groups of consciousness.' " * 
 
 So far from leading to materialism, with Mr. Hinton 
 these convictions were the first step of the ladder which 
 led him up to the conclusion, to be worked out in " Man 
 and his Dwelling-Place," that the phenomenal or material 
 is the appearance, to us, of the spiritual world. And with 
 regard to the proposition " the brain thinks and feels " 
 he afterwards held that matter and force, being mental 
 hypotheses, substrata supplied by the constitutive elements 
 of mind, it is impossible to derive thought from these 
 creations of its own. Like most of the eminent thinkers 
 of the day, he passed through materialism and came out 
 at the other side. 
 
 * Huxley's "Lay Sermons," vii. 143. Mr. HintoD, however, used to 
 comment on the curious tendency among those who recognise the unity 
 of matter and spirit to derive the better known, the conscious, from the 
 less known, matter.
 
 ( 8 3 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 To Miss Margaret Haddon : 
 
 "August 1851. 
 
 " So you are not satisfied with my letters, full of specu- 
 lations, and want to know more about my own self. I 
 must confess it is natural, and I like it. But yet what 
 should be more myself than my thoughts, and how should 
 I tell you anything that concerns me more intimately 
 than the ideas, the working out of which forms my chief 
 business. The facts of human nature, and of science as 
 it bears upon human nature, deserve to be absorbing ; and, 
 in truth, it is a new passion with me. I never felt an 
 enthusiasm for science before, nor should I now, except 
 for the mode in which it has presented itself to me. 
 
 " Indeed, it interests me very much, to trace back the 
 course which my thoughts have taken during the past two 
 months. You know where I began. The question I pro- 
 posed to myself was simply this, as you may remember, 
 ' Why is it that if a person has a headache, the taking of 
 a bread pill will sometimes cure him ? ' I had no object in 
 view whatever, except to trace the relation of cause and 
 effect, nor did I imagine that the solution of that problem 
 could lead one to the adoption of any new views in respect 
 to any matter except the relation of remedial measures to 
 disease. And the answer, too, when I found it, was even 
 ridiculously simple and obvious viz., that the taking
 
 84 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 medicine produced emotion, and emotion is a physical power. 
 And yet from a little commonplace idea I have started on 
 a train of thought that has almost revolutionised my ' hold- 
 ings ' on many of the most interesting and important sub- 
 jects of thought, especially to a physician. My new ideas 
 may be true or false, or rather, in great measure, they must 
 be false ; but that is not the question. They are new and 
 mutually dependent, and inasmuch as they have flowed 
 from an obvious though unrecognised truth, I think they 
 may contain the elements of something valuable. 
 
 " But I was going to tell you where I have finished ; for 
 I must have done now, since it is impossible to go any 
 farther. I have at last embraced the revolutions of the 
 planets in my investigations, and propose to wind them 
 up with an inquiry into the centrifugal force.* You will 
 smile, but I speak in earnest. I have either lighted upon 
 a great fact or a monstrous fancy. If it be the latter, 
 I am content : you know my opinion as to the part which 
 error plays in the world. I don't aspire to any higher 
 honour than to do my work in the world. But my fancy 
 
 * Whatever may be the exact nature of that attraction which is termed 
 chemical affinity, there can be little doubt that it includes this element, 
 a tendency to the approximation of certain particles. It is in one aspect, 
 probably in its primary aspect, an approximating force. In this respect 
 it presents an analogy to the force of gravitation. In the act of chemical 
 change certain particles of matter are approaching each other, moved there- 
 to by mutual attracting influences. If it is conceived that from some 
 cause (not as yet defined) the perfect approximation of such particles is 
 prevented, what so naturally ensues as that they pass by and go beyond 
 each other, the very impulse of their attraction becoming thus the source 
 of their separation. What else have we in life ? Is not the living body 
 constituted by certain particles of matter endowed with approximating 
 tendencies yet carried into divergent relations, which again tend to renew 
 the approximating motion ? . . . The motion of the double stars is the 
 idea of life enacted on a different scale. Atoms or stars endowed with 
 approximating tendencies, carried perpetually into divergent relations by 
 the centrifugal force. Life in Nature, 2nd edition, pp. 231, 251.
 
 The Will is the Man. 85 
 
 is this : that the vital force and the centrifugal force are 
 analogous, or so much so that the same formula (almost) 
 may be used for the expression of both, and the more 
 simple used most instructively to illustrate the more com- 
 plex. If my idea be correct, and it may be partly so, 
 I have made a step towards solving, not the essential 
 mystery, but the ' mystery ' of life. I want to meet with 
 some first-rate mathematician and astronomer just to put 
 to him a few questions as to the centrifugal force, and 
 then I would positively abstain from further pursuit of 
 these subjects for the present, and would patiently retrace 
 my steps, and sit down deliberately to mature the specula- 
 tions that have crowded upon me, and revise and purify 
 what I have written, which amounts to upwards of four 
 hundred pretty closely written foolscap pages. 
 
 " About your ' patients ' : the spontaneous cure of dis- 
 eases is difficult to estimate ; but medical men by no means 
 overlook it. I think the present tendency among allo- 
 paths is rather to over-estimate its efficacy, and to under- 
 rate the power (medicinal and emotional) of medicines. 
 It is to ' nature' that they refer all the homoeopathic cures, 
 and their high opinion of her remedial powers it is that 
 makes them turn a deaf ear to all the evidence of hornceo- 
 pathic success. An erroneous opinion, as they would find 
 it if they were to trust to nature un-aided by tJie emotions, 
 at least erroneous in part ; perhaps it is not so in respect 
 to infants. . . . 
 
 " Do not suppose I set such pursuits of science in 
 comparison with moral aims. / don't hold that man is 
 an observing or reasoning animal, or that any amount of 
 intellectual exertion or scientific attainment can be pleaded 
 in excuse for the neglect of duty. The will is the man, 
 not the intellect. I thank God that He has given me a 
 brain, and has so directed my path in life, as it seems to
 
 86 Life of James Hintor. 
 
 me, that it may be applied in the Lest possible way. But 
 that is nothing ; it is a trifle light as air. Whether a 
 man has a good brain or not may be of importance as 
 regards the progress of the species ; to him it is of com- 
 paratively little consequence. Let the spirit but act aright, 
 the want of intellect can be as easily compensated to it 
 as the want of wealth. Dear Meggie, I hold that it is a 
 greater thing to be a kind and rightly-acting son and 
 brother, and husband and friend, than to ' understand all 
 mysteries,' explain all puzzles, make manifest all the 
 secret workings of nature. Won't you agree that my 
 metaphysics have a practical and useful bearing ? Don't 
 they lead one to a true result ? It would be impossible 
 for me to put intellectual and moral greatness on a par, 
 because I think (metaphysically) that the moral quali- 
 ties appertain to a higher being. And that is a useful 
 opinion for me to hold at any rate, for I am liable to 
 temptation from intellectual sources. Most young men 
 are." 
 
 "September 1851. 
 
 " I am sorry to hear you speak about not being able 
 to receive the common doctrine of the Atonement; not 
 because I wish you to believe any particular doctrine, or 
 doubt in the least that, whatever you believe, your religion 
 will be always of the highest order, but because it is the 
 language of another that you speak, and not your own. 
 I don't pretend to understand the nature, &c., of the 
 Atonement, or to wish you to believe one thing or another 
 about it ; but I sincerely trust you won't adopt other 
 people's opinions on that subject. Hold your own opinion 
 on that subject and all others, and don't let any one's 
 logic shake it. Nothing is easier, and in my opinion 
 nothing is falser, than that kind of liberality in which Mr.
 
 The Atonement. 87 
 
 appears so to rejoice. I fancy that I understand 
 
 it. I've been as ' liberal ' as any man, and know what 
 it means. Examine the doctrine, if you please, as 
 thoroughly as you like ; but I hoped I had convinced 
 you before now that logic can prove anything. If Mr. 
 
 can raise a thousand insuperable objections to the 
 
 commonly-received views of the Atonement, I will be 
 bound I could raise at least as many against any other. 
 You will never find rest for heart or intellect that way, 
 dear. To myself the doctrine of the Atonement is the 
 dearest part of the Christian faith ; a part to which a per- 
 son's heart may justly cleave in spite of all the difficulties 
 which may be raised about it in his head. The rules of 
 an artificial logic are the very last means by which such 
 truths should be tested. In fact, I think your feelings 
 on subjects of religion are infinitely more reliable than 
 Mr. 's views, however elaborated and matured. 
 
 " There would be no real happiness for us if we could 
 not love God with a full and assured certainty that we 
 were loved and accepted by Him : the gift of His Son is 
 His best and most precious gift." 
 
 "September 1851. 
 
 " You seem to have rather misunderstood my meaning. 
 My sole feeling was against your receiving the opinions 
 of another person unexamined, and suffering yourself to 
 be influenced by arguments which were most probably not 
 to the point. In this I perceive I was mistaken ; and I 
 feel quite satisfied. For my own part I think that people 
 not only may, but ought to, hold different opinions upon 
 such subjects ; that the whole truth is too great to be 
 comprehended by any human intellect; and that it is 
 therefore divided amongst many by a wise and good Pro- 
 vidence. So I really care very little what opinions you
 
 83 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 hold. I only want them to be yours and not another's. 
 It is very well that you are satisfied your mind will not 
 hold a very complete system of doctrinal truth. Of course 
 it won't ; your heart is too big. If we would only remem- 
 ber that we think with brains, we should, I fancy, clearly 
 perceive how impossible it is for our minds adequately 
 to comprehend such subjects. Or, if we would only take 
 a survey of our actual attainments in other branches of 
 knowledge, we should soon perceive that the idea of our 
 being able to realise the nature and bearing of spiritual 
 truth is not less than absurd. 
 
 " "We have yet hardly taken the first step towards an 
 understanding of the laws of matter; we haven't learnt 
 the alphabet of the world in which we live. How shall 
 we think to know the spiritual world ? On no subject do 
 we know more than a few isolated facts ; our minds will 
 not hold a complete system of doctrine on any conceivable 
 topic. There is no fact or power in nature that we can 
 trace back to its source, or forward to its ultimate bear- 
 ings. Every one of our theories and systems is false, and 
 we know it. Our last and greatest step in knowledge has 
 been to prove them so, and those we shall construct in 
 their stead will be equally false and imperfect as our 
 children will see clearly, and their children will see the 
 same of theirs. Surely it behoves us to exercise some 
 little modesty, and not to think it hard that our religious 
 knowledge should stand upon a par with our physical. 
 God has reserved in His own nature and His works such 
 infinite stores of wisdom and benevolence that we need 
 never cease learning, and finding ever more to admire and 
 to adore." 
 
 "September 1851. 
 " I have hardly allowed myself time to write to you,
 
 The Trading Spirit. 89 
 
 for it is now past eight o'clock, and I have engaged to 
 
 sup with Mr. . He has asked me many times, and 
 
 I felt it my duty to go ; that being an acquaintance I ought 
 to cultivate, I suppose, for professional reasons ; although 
 I revolt greatly at that idea. It is a degradation of the 
 profession to seek practice by any means of that class; 
 but society must bear the blame. And, I daresay, 
 society will be better constituted before long. I have 
 been struck lately with the incompatibility there exists 
 between our commercial system and the practice of all 
 the professions. There is an inherent discordance that 
 can never be reconciled, and it becomes only more and 
 more extreme as the former is developed and perfected. 
 
 " All the professions exemplify it in different degrees. 
 I should classify them thus, and say that the trading 
 spirit works atrociously in respect to Divinity, abomi- 
 nably with regard to Physic, and scandalously in reference 
 to Law. But it can't be helped. Tis in the nature of 
 things, and we must be content. Only I please myself 
 by looking forward with a sincere and joyful confidence 
 to the time when a new form of civilisation shall arise, 
 and men shall cease to hold out voluntary bribes to im- 
 position, dishonesty, and false pretence. At least, I 
 console myself with this reflection, that if that is not 
 in the course of God's providence, something wiser and 
 better is. 
 
 " I have had lately to try and comfort two or three 
 people in distress of mind, and have been very much 
 struck with the impossibility there is of giving any real 
 consolation and encouragement except that which arises 
 from religion and is embodied in the Gospel. How- 
 useless it is to tell the desponding of any hope except 
 that which is to be found in God, the friendless of any 
 love but their Maker's, or those distressed by conscious-
 
 po Life of James Hinton. 
 
 ness of guilt of any remedy but a Saviour's blood. It is 
 here that the true test and proof of the Gospel lies. It 
 is light to the blind, strength to the weary, and consola- 
 tion for the broken-hearted." 
 
 "September 1851. 
 
 "An aunt of mine was cured of a long-standing 
 disease, which had been quite given up by the doctors, 
 through an Irvingite minister praying over her. I had 
 the history from herself and from the man who cured 
 her. Now, if Irvingism can do such things as that, I 
 say, Long may Irvingism nourish ! Since I wrote to you, 
 I have had two exquisite cases of real or apparent cure 
 on my system. I don't practise it much, having quite 
 made up my mind on the subject, or I should have 
 plenty more no doubt. I'll tell you one. 
 
 "We have had staying with us a Baptist minister 
 
 from Hamburg, a Mr. K . He is a homoeopathist, 
 
 and subject to attacks resembling asthma which very 
 much incommode him. He usually takes the tinc- 
 ture of phosphorus which he was very anxious to 
 get, as he suffers in a very trying way. I got him 
 a bottle, poured out the tincture, and filled it with 
 spirits of wine. He had some doubts of me, but 
 that didn't prevent the action, for he had no asthma 
 after he began taking it. At least for three nights, since 
 when I have not seen him. ... I can't make out why 
 the people who are cured by homoeopathy are so apt to 
 
 be continually ailing. It reminds me of Mr T , who 
 
 cured all his children for the time with globules, but was 
 afterwards obliged to change his residence on account of 
 their prolonged ill-health. Such things furnish strong 
 evidence in favour of the opinion of those who hold that 
 emotion can only temporarily conceal disease, not really cure
 
 Metaphysics of Physics. 91 
 
 it an opinion in which, however, I don't agree. I hold 
 that emotion can cure disease as really as it can cause it. 
 
 "Dr. banters me now and then about believ- 
 ing in nothing, but does not carry his resistance further, 
 save to say that he still believes there is a power in 
 homoeopathy notwithstanding. But I staggered him on 
 "Wednesday last. Hahnemann, when in the height of his 
 success, used to give one dose of globules and thirty-nine 
 of sugar so making the medicine last a month and I 
 
 asked Dr. how he cured his patients when he 
 
 treated them so. I don't think he said it, but he cer- 
 tainly tacitly admitted that it must have been by ' Hin- 
 tonism,' as he terms it." 
 
 "September 1851. 
 
 " Only think of E 's being enchanted with Finney's 
 
 theology. It reminds me of the days when I had no 
 greater pleasure than the study of Edwards on the 
 Will. I didn't know then what intricate problems and 
 what fascinating theories there were connected with the 
 doctrine of 'Forces/ and 'Action,' and 'Ee-action/ and 
 the whole rigmarole of words under which modern science, 
 like ancient, conceals her ignorance. After all, I must 
 confess, that in one aspect physics, like metaphysics, is 
 mere trifling. The highest effort of man's intellect serves 
 but to prove to him how low, how weak, how foolish he 
 is, how absolutely he fails to understand the least and 
 simplest of God's works ; but the exercise [of moral holi- 
 ness places him at once by the side of angels; yea, 
 assimilates him to God Himself, and he knows it." 
 
 " September 24. 
 
 "The German minister to whom I gave sham phos- 
 phorus has been here to-day. He has had no more attacks,
 
 92 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 and I suggested it might be due to the effect on the mind. 
 He won't hear of it ; he is satisfied the phosphorus has 
 cured him homoeopathically, though he admits the possi- 
 bility that he might have been well without. Isn't it very 
 interesting? I haven't told him, because father thinks 
 it would hurt his moral sense to find me guilty of such 
 deception. It- is curious that though I am becoming 
 more and more convinced of the reality and multitude of 
 emotional cures in fact, they are so familiar to me as to 
 cease to excite any particular surprise or even interest 
 I am less and less disposed to regard it as a proper and 
 desirable way of curing disease. It is a way, a necessary 
 way sometimes, but not (as I think) the right way." 
 
 " September 1851. 
 
 "I'm sorry you feel discouraged in your homoeopathic 
 practice. I don't wonder. You have, however, learnt 
 one thing, viz., how it is that we have gone on so long 
 without finding out how much curative force there is in 
 sham physic. The cause is creditable to our feelings if 
 not to our intellects. It is the extreme difficulty a benevo- 
 lent or conscientious man feels in giving sham physic 
 to people who are really ill; precisely the same feeling 
 you have. It seems like trifling with them. Tlie thing 
 has been done often enough, but it has been under a false 
 theory which has prevented the proper fruits being 
 reaped from the experiment. So the world has gone on 
 blindly. In old times it was found that beads and coins 
 and scraps of paper cured diseases; and a theory was 
 framed by which some virtues could be ascribed to them. 
 Now it is found that globules and diluted tinctures and 
 passes with the fingers do the same, and theories are 
 framed to account for the virtue these new charms 
 possess. And if only we, on the other side, could pre-
 
 Sham Physic. 93 
 
 serve our common sense unperturbed, no harm would be 
 done. But what happens has happened of old, and 
 happens still? Why that when the theory is proved 
 absurd the/acfe are denied. People have made up their 
 minds. They won't hear of a feeling in the mind curing 
 a disease, and so opinion oscillates from the extremity of 
 credulity to that of scepticism. 
 
 " But I didn't send you these globules chiefly that you 
 should make experiments, but with a view to putting it 
 in your power to do real good. I believe fully that there 
 is a not inconsiderable class of invalids who can be re- 
 lieved only by sham physic as distinguished from real. 
 The instinct of taking medicine in disease is so universal 
 and so wide that it cannot be contravened without disad- 
 vantage. If taking physic doesn't make people well, I 
 am quite satisfied that going without it keeps them ill : 
 which comes to much the same thing in the end. Even 
 the sternest medical reformers are obliged to succumb to 
 the demands of nature in that respect at last, however 
 reluctantly. I am satisfied there are some people in 
 Dover who might go the round of all the doctors in the 
 town and get no benefit, upon whom a few of your 
 globules would act ' like (what they are in truth) a charm.' 
 After a little while, perhaps, you might find them out. 
 If you will adopt one or two rules you might act a 
 merciful part, and really elicit some valuable facts, 
 without incurring any troublesome responsibility or 
 anxiety. First, never give your globules to any one who 
 would otherwise adopt any judicious means of cure. 
 Second, never give away more than one or two doses at a 
 time, so that injurious delay may not be incurred. Third, 
 keep a special look-out for cases ' given over by the doc- 
 tors.' It is from that class that you will obtain your 
 striking cures."
 
 94 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "October 1851. 
 " We have had a merry house lately, having two cousins 
 
 with us ; especially L B from Devonshire, who 
 
 is quite a model of a little, bright, merry, active girl, grow- 
 ing into a woman. It is really extraordinary to notice 
 what an influence she has . over all of us, great, uncouth 
 savages as we are. She brings out all our good qualities 
 until we are actually almost surprised at ourselves." 
 
 "October 1851. 
 
 " I haven't had the heart to work at any subject with a 
 view to publication lately. I don't see my way clear 
 before me. I aim highly, and can't regard anything I have 
 done, or am likely to accomplish for a very long time, with 
 feelings even approaching to satisfaction. Good works on 
 science, and especially on medicine, must be the result of 
 long-continued and strenuous labour, and must be matured 
 by patient observation and experiment. A poet or a 
 metaphysician may spin a decent production out of his 
 own head ; a doctor proves himself a fool if he dreams of 
 doing such a thing. I've got hold of the right end of a 
 good subject of that I am clear ; but as for anything to 
 which I could consent to see my name publicly attached, 
 I sha'nt see that for ten years to come, and I ought to be 
 very well content if I do but then attain it. ... I should 
 like to hope that at last, before I die, if even just before I 
 die, and as the sole reward of a long, anxious, and toilsome 
 life, I might be permitted to lift one little corner of the 
 veil that hides from us so much of our nature, and to in- 
 crease by ever so small a fraction our real and certain 
 knowledge. That would be a real and glorious privilege. 
 Even while I am writing, the thought sends a thrill of 
 pleasure through me, and yet sometimes it seems an un- 
 reasonable feeling too. I don't know why it is that I
 
 Experiments. 95 
 
 should set my heart so much on that. It is not for fame 
 or profit's sake ; it would be a folly to think of these, and 
 I am never for a moment tempted to do so. The feeling 
 is to do something for its own sake. It is an instinct that 
 can't be analysed or traced to motives. 
 
 " It interests me partly and amuses me to reflect how 
 the same passion has influenced me all through life. With 
 what zeal I concentrated all my energies on the study of 
 metaphysics when I was a boy ; how with the same object, 
 but with larger scope, I embraced every opportunity of 
 travelling in foreign countries. My one object, from the 
 first awakening of my faculties until now, has been to 
 know human nature. 
 
 " It is certainly right that I am a doctor ; perhaps, after 
 all, I may meet with a reward." 
 
 " October 22, 1851. 
 
 "I attended a meeting at the Homoeopathic Hospital 
 last night, when some very interesting experiments were 
 performed performed, however, with the view of proving 
 a position which they altogether failed to sustain, but 
 affording beautiful evidence and illustration of another 
 and very different principle. They related to the same 
 power which causes a ring suspended in a glass to strike 
 the hour. But I don't mean to trouble you with any 
 account of them. I'm only going to express a weakness 
 to you, which is this. Of all the men who were then 
 present there was not one who made the least attempt 
 to investigate the phenomenon rationally, or put the fact 
 to any ordinary test, except myself. I don't say that I 
 was cleverer than the rest, but no one else tried all 
 of them swallowed down the whole thing, because it hap- 
 pened to suit their views, with the most unscientific 
 carelessness.
 
 96 L ife of James Hinton. 
 
 "Now I have arrived at a directly opposite opinion to 
 theirs, and think I can give true and rational and con- 
 sistent explanation of the whole affair. And what I 
 complain of is, that this is so much the worse for me. 
 These men are turning their ignorance and carelessness 
 to profit, while my knowledge hangs like a chain about 
 me. I cannot help thinking it is too bad, and feel- 
 ing disposed to say with Jonah, ' I do well to be 
 angry.' I am tempted to grumble, although I know it 
 to be most foolish and weakminded, not to say mean- 
 spirited, and although I would not for any conceivable 
 advantage change places with the most prosperous of 
 them all. I should regard death as by far a less calamity 
 than to become the victim of error. Still my baser spirit 
 will make its voice heard. An irrepressible instinct 
 struggles for expression to the effect that it is a crying 
 shame that the foolish and the despicable should usurp 
 the place that belongs to the rational and the manful. 
 I will say it in spite of philosophy and religion, if it be 
 in spite of them, and ease my soul. And having said it, 
 I will turn to more rational and pleasant themes, and one 
 of these may be to trace the existence of this same con- 
 dition in all ages of the world as well as the present, and 
 inquire the reason of it in God's providence. But I can't 
 discourse on the subject to-night, and I will leave off till 
 the morning." 
 
 " October 26, 1851. 
 
 " And to-day I feel altogether indisposed to pursue any 
 such inquiry. It is enough for me to know that it has 
 been an unvarying condition of human life, at least at 
 certain times and in peculiar circumstances. And in the 
 long run, as we may easily see, ample amends is made ; 
 and truth and uprightness are proved to be God's special 
 care.
 
 Faith. 97 
 
 rt As you say, it is a trial of faith, working first 
 * patience/ I have faith in truth and sound reason, and 
 in providence ; and by virtue of such faith I am able 
 to exercise a small degree of patience ; the other fruits 
 will have to come by and by. I am really quite happy 
 in the feeling that in a scientific point of view at 
 least I have begun to tread in just the path which 
 the apostle describes as belonging to true religion. I 
 have faith, and it makes me patient. I can bide my 
 time, and am content in the meanwhile to forego success 
 or notoriety. I can work silently and unnoticed and with- 
 out hurry, acquiring an experience on which to base a not 
 delusive hope. 
 
 " It is beautiful to see that faith is the source and 
 foundation of all hope, and comfort, and earnestness, and 
 diligence in earthly as well as heavenly things. It recalls 
 an old idea of mine, that one proof of the truth of Chris- 
 tianity lay in the truthfulness of the primary principle, 
 that/at^ was the foundation of all religion, because the 
 same was true of human nature in all its other aspects. 5 * 
 
 "October 1851. 
 
 " My last letter to you was a very foolish one, I must 
 admit. I don't often think in the strain in which I wrote 
 it, nor do such ideas cause me more than a momentary 
 disgust. I don't grudge any man his success, unless he 
 be a rogue, neither am I at all anxious to achieve anything 
 brilliant for myself. But I do detest stupidity and folly 
 with all my heart, and find it difficult to deal with them 
 in a state of perfect philosophical composure, especially 
 when important interests on great scientific questions are 
 at stake. 
 
 " It is my physiological speculations which so entirely 
 absorb my thoughts that I can scarcely free them for a 
 
 G
 
 98 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 moment, and which chiefly keep me in an excited state. 
 Iii fact, I have involved myself in the attempt to investi- 
 gate, on a new track of my own, the very highest and 
 most difficult questions (saving the religious ones) with 
 which the human intellect can deal. And my subject, as 
 may be supposed, has mastered me ; and, of course, the 
 greater part of all my work is in vain. I seize a sugges- 
 tion and carry it out only to find at last that it is erron- 
 eous, that it will not conform to all the facts that must 
 be brought to bear upon it, and then I have to begin over 
 again. Often I seem to have before me a distinct and 
 definite problem to solve, one that can be isolated and 
 stand by itself, and I say, ' Now I will just settle that 
 one point and then I will have done, I won't prosecute 
 any further inquiries after that, but will turn back and 
 perfect and re-examine what I have already done.' Of 
 course nothing can be a greater delusion. The solution of 
 each new question does but raise twenty more. There is 
 and can be no ultimate terminus, and with each advance 
 the collateral branches of inquiry only become the more 
 numerous, enticing, and difficult. 
 
 " Now all this is a great pleasure. It is a fascination, 
 in fact. It is my very element. But then I feel that it 
 gets too strong a hold of me. Instead of my pursu- 
 ing my subject, it pursues me. It haunts me. In the 
 form of one doubtful point or another it is incessantly 
 present to my mind, and I haven't the power or the 
 heart to dismiss it, for the pursuit of it is my life. Now 
 this is my nature ; it is just what I am good for, and 
 nothing else. But it will go too far. I can't be moderate ; 
 I consider it my destiny and submit. I always used to 
 be so, and I suppose I always shall be so. The only 
 trouble I have about it is this, that I am in doubt about 
 the good of it. I have the most notable examples before
 
 Wrong Thinkers and Right. 99 
 
 me as warnings, that men, whose humble imitator alone 
 I can aspire to be, have devoted years and years of untir- 
 ing industry only to the erection of a monument of the 
 capacity of man for being deluded. That's pleasant. For 
 all I know I may be labouring now, and may labour for 
 years to come, merely at the construction of a theory that 
 shall simply fall to pieces when it is done. But even so, 
 perhaps a man's labours are not in vain. It's a bad theory 
 that doesn't contain a few particles of truth, put together 
 in their proper places ; and as for a true theory, why, of 
 course, that can only be based on perfect knowledge, and 
 the best of ours must be very small or very false. Good 
 or bad, useful or useless, at anyrate this is my right 
 work. I am contented and happy in it. The world needs 
 some people to do the thinking, and the wrong thinkers 
 are as useful in their way as the right, I dare say, if the 
 truth were known, And which class I belong to I leave 
 it to time to determine. It is only now and then I be- 
 come a little bit gloomy ; generally I am contented in my 
 own abstractions." 
 
 11 November 1851. 
 
 " I think I am becoming more and more at rest in the 
 great doctrines of the Gospel, and am gaining a more firm 
 conviction of their reality. I was thinking this afternoon 
 how miserable it would make me now to give up the 
 Bible ; how I cling to its assurances of pardon and free 
 acceptance, and undeserved love and favour as my chief 
 and only hope. It is a great change that has taken place 
 in me, in point of feeling at least ; but I would I could 
 perceive in myself a more decided and perfect purification 
 of the character as well. For that is the essence of true 
 religion, is it not, love ? to be redeemed from the bondage 
 of sin, as well as its punishment."
 
 ioo Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "November 1851. 
 
 " As for facts and gossip it isn't much I know, or have 
 time to attend to if I did. I am busy. But as for my 
 being grave, that I never was. I am constitutionally 
 remarkably merry and prone to folly, and have no wish 
 to be otherwise. I am very fond of merry people, and all 
 the more when I haven't time to be merry myself. 
 
 " I mean to get some papers inserted in one of the 
 medical journals. I've quite made up my mind against 
 publishing in any other way for some time to come. 
 
 " By the by I had a great triumph lately over the 
 homo30paths. These very experiments of theirs that I 
 wrote to you about, have redounded greatly to my glory. 
 The very man who brought them forward has been obliged 
 to acknowledge that I was perfectly right, and that he 
 was altogether deceived, and this in spite of their having 
 been lectured and published about in all directions. They 
 are invaluable illustrations of my emotional theory ; and 
 an excellent example of the incredible credulity of even 
 intelligent men." 
 
 "November 1851. 
 
 "I have converted a homoeopathist ! One of the 
 physicians to the Hahnemann Hospital has avowed to 
 me his conviction that my view of homoeopathy is the 
 true one, and he is decidedly the most talented but one 
 of all the men connected with it. I believe I am almost 
 the only man existing who could convert a homoeopathic 
 doctor. They are utterly hardened against any mode or 
 amount of reasoning which leaves their facts unexplained, 
 and to a certain degree rightly so. As my friend re- 
 marked, what makes them turn homceopathists is that 
 they see undeniable proofs of cure resulting from the 
 treatment, and they have always been brought up to
 
 Is advised to Publish. 101 
 
 argue that when a medicine cures a disease it must be 
 the drug that does it. Their education furnishes them 
 no principle by means of which they can escape the false 
 inference. 
 
 "Mr. Fisher remarked to me the other day that if I 
 had only worked with half as much zeal and energy in 
 i'avour of homoeopathy as I have done against it (or 
 rather in its explanation), I should have been by this 
 time in a fair way of making a fortune and being able to 
 marry. There is no doubt at all that is quite true. But 
 thank God, as I said before, that I have my senses, if I 
 haven't much besides." 
 
 "November 1851. 
 
 " I was introduced to Dr. Eoget this morning, the man 
 who wrote the ' Bridgewater Treatise,' and had a little con- 
 versation with him about the cure of diseases by imagina- 
 tion. He admitted to me that he could not tell how they 
 were produced, and when I told him my idea, he at once 
 allowed that it met the case, and removed a great diffi- 
 culty. He advised me by all means to publish it, but 
 said it should form a treatise, and not be put forward in 
 weekly letters. 
 
 " There would be some satisfaction if I would write a 
 book and get some money for it, would there not? 
 so that we might get married. But we must have 
 patience." 
 
 "November 1851. 
 
 " Even if I fail altogether and never do anything at all, 
 but only live a happy and good life of love and benevo- 
 lence with you, why that will be quite enough. It will be 
 everything that sweet domestic happiness, sanctified by 
 love and devotion to God. That is the great thing, to love 
 
 TJNIVEfl'.STTY OV 
 
 SANTA BARBARA
 
 IO2 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 and serve Him, and yet I often think there are different 
 ways of serving Him. I try to serve Him when I treasure 
 up an obscure question in my mind, and think, and read, 
 and observe, for days and weeks together, and meditate 
 on it when I walk, and when I sit at meals, and when I 
 lie in bed at night, and when I wake in the morning, until 
 I can find an answer. v I think I may serve God that way 
 quite as well as in many others." 
 
 Mr. Hinton rather thought of emigrating at this time, a 
 practice having been offered him in Canada. He thus 
 writes with regard to it : 
 
 "February 1852. 
 
 "I feel that if I decline this, a double obligation is 
 laid upon me diligently and earnestly to fulfil the duties 
 which devolve upon me here, and to labour zealously to 
 make for myself at home the position which I refuse to 
 accept abroad. It is only on such a condition that I am 
 justified in rejecting an opening, apparently of usefulness 
 and honour, which Providence places before me. I do not 
 think, in a question such as this, that we ought to be 
 influenced solely by considerations relating to our own 
 comfort and profit. Indeed the one great charm Canada 
 has for me is that there, probably, I should be of use 
 here I am not, nor, probably, am ever likely to be. I 
 confess I don't fancy belonging to an over-stocked pro- 
 fession, and having to snatch every morsel of bread I get 
 away from some one else who would be glad to do all 
 that I do, and most likely quite as well, or better. For 
 as for my becoming particularly skilful in my profession, 
 that is out of the question. I may do very well better 
 than most people on some points but there must always 
 be a very, very great many much better than myself;
 
 Proposed Emigration. 103 
 
 and if I practise in England, it seems to me that it 
 always be the case that I shall be attending people many 
 of whom would (if I were not here) be attended by 
 better men, who for want of them are sitting idle. I 
 don't like that idea. It seems delightful in comparison 
 to live anywhere, among however unlovely a set of 
 people to whom my services would be at least of real 
 value and necessity; and to feel, while I am doing my 
 best for the suffering people, that if it were not for what 
 I could do for them they would suffer much more. In 
 short, I should like to earn my living, not only from the 
 individuals from whom I derive it, but from mankind. 
 But, on the other hand, it may be said, that if I don't go 
 to New Carlisle some one else will, and very likely some 
 one quite as competent to fill the post, or more so ; for 
 after all the person they really want isn't a ' London 
 practitioner,' but a man who has lived in the mining 
 districts or some such place, and is familiar with all sorts 
 of accidents and the constitutions of a hardy and laborious 
 peasantry. London practice wouldn't suit that locality 
 very well, I expect." 
 
 "March 1852. 
 
 " As for marrying at Midsummer, though the thought 
 is only too delightful, I must confess I don't see how 
 we are to live. Not that I think a great deal of money 
 is necessary, .250 a year would do well; and I believe 
 we could manage to get furniture enough. I have no 
 idea myself of beginning married life, necessarily, in style. 
 I don't at all hold with the doctrine that children ought 
 to begin where their parents leave off. I think it is 
 quite reasonable for them to begin where their parents 
 began. This, however, is only my own private notion, I 
 don't at all want to force it upon you. But, then, I don't
 
 IO4 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 see my way clear to 250 a year, although I feel that I 
 ought to do so. And in short, I am distressed, irritated, 
 and disgusted, and don't see clearly what to do. But I 
 will find out soon, and give myself energetically to work, 
 and I sha'nt remain in this unhappy state long. 
 
 "Have you really quite decided against Canada? I 
 am not sorry for it. I have decided so too, unless the 
 matter should assume a most irresistibly attractive aspect; 
 in which case, if I alter my mind, I will be bound I can 
 persuade you. And, after all, a life spent in London, even 
 without more than a very little money, if it be actively 
 employed in doing good, is as beautiful as a life anywhere 
 can be." 
 
 "March 1852. 
 
 "I must confess that I ought to be busier, and I will 
 try and find out some way of becoming so. I must cause 
 people to hear of me, not as a clever theorist or a success- 
 ful investigator of science, but as a very excellent hand 
 at the actual cure of diseases. That is the only thing 
 people care about, and perhaps rightly. But the greac 
 thing that takes with them is the puffing off of some new 
 or peculiar mode of treatment. That is the essence of 
 quackery and that's what pays. 
 
 " I have done nothing in regard to my projected papers 
 since the Canadian business began, and do not intend to 
 resume them at present. I do not feel myself quite justi- 
 fied in running the risk which might attend their publica- 
 tion." 
 
 "March 1852. 
 
 " How much good a little happiness does us, especially 
 if it be duly tempered with some drawbacks. My heart 
 is so full of gratitude to God. The fountains of religious
 
 Decides to remain in England. 105 
 
 feeling in my heart are opened anew. I am never able 
 to separate the thought of love of you from love of God, 
 because the former cannot be for earth alone; it must 
 stretch into eternity, and God is the only object eternity 
 presents to us. Dearest, we must be very good as well 
 as very happy, very kind and useful as well as full of joy. 
 Only think of the many who have not anything like our 
 joy. Will it not be delightful to aid the afflicted, to 
 soothe the distressed, to impart heavenly consolation to 
 the sorrowful ? I have been so fretful and impatient 
 lately, I have almost forgotten all these things; I could 
 not have believed that the prospect of being married 
 would have made half so much difference in me. I can 
 work so cheerfully. I don't feel anything a burden. I 
 shall get on yes, three times as well from the influ- 
 ence of the mere idea." 
 
 " April 1852. 
 
 " I do believe the difficulties under which I labour at 
 present are necessary for me, absolutely necessary to 
 make me give my mind, as people say, ' to business.' For, 
 in spite of reason and right feeling, &c., doctoring, like 
 preaching, is become in these days a trade, and must be 
 carried on like a trade if it is to produce a living, and the 
 sooner I am brought to feel and submit to that the better. 
 I have made up my mind to it now. I fully perceive 
 and understand that the part I have to act by my pro- 
 fession is not to do my best for it but for myself. I must 
 make it yield me, in the first place, tables and chairs and 
 house, butcher-meat and bread, a good coat and a gold 
 watch, and then I may seek from it scientific and philo- 
 sophical pleasure, moral elevation, the happiness of doing 
 good, &c. I perceive and assent. I suppose, in fact, it is 
 right and necessary the best upon the whole. But nothing
 
 106 Life of James Hinlon. 
 
 but a considerable amount of pressure would have brought 
 me to this view. If I had had but a little money and not 
 been compelled to earn every penny, I should never have 
 made a farthing. But at the same time, if I had thought 
 that in Canada I could have practised my profession, as 
 a MAN and not as a trader, I should have been much 
 more willing, if not absolutely inclined to go there." 
 
 " April 1852. 
 
 " Neither I nor father know of any crest appertaining 
 to our family. There may be one, and I rather expect 
 there is, as I derive our patronymic from the ' Hintouns ' 
 of Scotland. But we haven't directed our researches 
 in that quarter, so your lady friend must be content with- 
 out. We are a kind of individual that doesn't feel much 
 interest in such things. 
 
 " I cannot get rid of my feelings of annoyance about my 
 practice. I can't get enough to give a tolerable (I mean 
 tolerably profitable) day's work every day. It is difficult 
 to obtain good charges unless you charge for medicine, 
 which I am resolved not to do, even if I have to go to 
 Australia for it. I have made up my mind to practice 
 medicine rightly, or not at all though of the two I 
 think I would rather do the latter. 
 
 " However, I have been very much pleased and encour- 
 aged by looking over a review of the life of Jeffrey. I 
 find he did not make 100 a year by his practice at the 
 bar for five years after he began. He married, indeed, 
 while he was not making that, and neither he nor his 
 wife had any property ; you should see how cheaply they 
 furnished. He said that his marrying was the cause of 
 all his success. And though I would be very far from 
 comparing myself with him, yet I feel sure, and am be- 
 coming more and more convinced, that I have within me
 
 Science or Success. 107 
 
 tlie power of distinguishing myself, and making myself of 
 value. But then the question is, work at what ? at science, 
 or at getting patients ? The two won't go together. Even 
 the most eminent men in the profession agree as to that. 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie said a short time ago that he never 
 in his life ' touched science ' without losing by it."
 
 ( io8 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 IN 1852 Mr. Hinton's marriage with Miss Margaret 
 Haddon took place. It was a marriage of singularly 
 deep affection; and from thenceforward his wife became 
 the sharer in his every thought his love for her being 
 all through his life, from the early age of nineteen, the 
 one 
 
 " Ever-fixed mark 
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken." 
 
 Scarcely any letters, unfortunately, have been preserved 
 of the few following years. Externally they were unevent- 
 ful enough, except for the birth of his two sons, Howard and 
 William, in 1853 and 1854, and, in 1855, of his daughter 
 Adaline. After the first year, Mr. Hiuton had dissolved 
 his partnership with Mr. Fisher, and was now practising 
 for himself as a London surgeon, still steadily pursuing 
 his study of aural surgery, and in his leisure moments 
 occupying himself with arranging and classifying Mr. 
 Toynbee's anatomical museum in connection with the ear. 
 In 1854-55 he gave a course of lectures on Sound, hav- 
 ing been led to the study of vibrations in relation to the 
 organs of hearing. 
 
 In the latter year he wrote to Mrs. Hinton to an- 
 nounce his father having met with a bad accident.
 
 Accident to his Father. 109 
 
 "May 1 6, 1855. 
 
 " I have sad news to tell you : our dear father fell 
 down the pulpit-stairs at Cheltenham and broke his arm 
 his left arm, happily. I enclose you mother's letter. 
 You will see he is progressing favourably. I remember 
 how, when your poor father fell down and injured himself, 
 you felt so vividly how very, very dear he was to you ; 
 and this accident brings the same feeling to my mind. 
 What a loss his death would be to us, and how we 
 should miss his sweet, grave kindness ! Even Howard 
 would mourn for him, would he not \ But I hope there 
 are many years of usefulness and happiness before him ; 
 only he must be content with doing less ; he always exerts 
 himself beyond his strength. Will it not be pleasant for 
 us to wait upon and cheer the old people if they should 
 be spared so long, when they are quite laid aside from 
 active life, and only able to sit and meditate by their fire- 
 side ? I delight to think of my old father so ; I think lie 
 will make a glorious old man. 
 
 " I am glad to have such a good account of the children. 
 It must be glorious for Howard to be revelling so much in 
 the open air, it is so natural and proper for a child. I 
 feel almost as if we had no right to confine him to a Lon- 
 don home unless we are absolutely obliged that is why 
 I am so willing for you to remain away ; for I am sure 
 you feel with me that our comfort and enjoyment are as 
 nothing compared with the securing a healthy, happy, and 
 powerful life for our children. Do you not see, as you 
 watch his little soul expanding beneath the sun, and 
 amid all the beauties of nature, that he cannot attain the 
 full stature of his manhood cooped up here ? You know 
 I was a country boy, and would have fresh air and fields, 
 and all the sweet influences of natural scenery for my 
 children."
 
 no Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "May 1855. 
 
 " Indeed I cannot come to Dover. I cannot go out of 
 town this year. I must attend more closely to business. 
 ... I give my enjoyment to the children, and enjoy it so 
 much more. A man must not expect to be able to bring 
 up a family and to spend money upon himself as well ; 
 that is not in reason ; the less may well be sacrificed to 
 the greater." 
 
 At this period he was in constant intercourse with 
 Sir William (then Dr.) Gull, who remained his valued 
 friend through life. Being both hardworked professional 
 men, they were in the habit of taking their English con- 
 stitutional together from six to eight in the morning, 
 wending their way, deep in discussion, through the com- 
 paratively deserted London streets out into the suburbs or 
 parks, while the air still retained some of the freshness of 
 the morning dew; and returning homeward as the earliest 
 housemaids were cleaning their door-steps, and here and 
 there a window was beginning to open its shuttered lids 
 and show some signs of waking life. On one occasion, 
 being asked whether he had seen Mr. Hinton lately, 
 Sir William Gull, in allusion to some of his speculative 
 nights, laughingly replied, pointing to the top of the 
 highest building in sight, "Hinton! He was up there 
 when I last saw him; he must be out of sight by 
 now ! " 
 
 Uneventful as these years were externally, they were 
 years of prodigious mental activity and change, the great 
 intellectuaVrvvatershed of James Hinton's life, whence most 
 of the ideas which constitute him an original thinker had 
 their source. 
 
 It is of so much importance that the reader should
 
 Letter to Professor Croom Robertson. 1 1 1 
 
 form some general idea of the method he evolved at this 
 time, and some of the results to which it led him, that I 
 shall venture to insert here a letter addressed by him to 
 Professor Croom Eobertson many years later, but relating 
 to trains of thought worked out at this period. 
 
 After some preliminary remarks referring to a meeting 
 of the Metaphysical Society, at which he had read a Paper 
 that led to Professor Eobertson asking him for a further 
 elucidation of his views, he writes : 
 
 " I hope I may now succeed, in the space of a brief 
 letter, in giving a glimpse both of the path I have found 
 myself travelling on, and the sort of result which seems to 
 me possible to be attained. Only let me premise that I 
 know my very eagerness to be understood is a hindrance 
 to me ; for this matter is not to me (and never has been 
 since it first arrested my thoughts) a matter of mere intel- 
 lectual speculation, but has always seemed to me identi- 
 fied with the greatest and most pressing interests of men, 
 to contain, indeed, the secret not perhaps of any inte- 
 rests of man in a future state but certainly of the true 
 ordering of his life here. I dare say that you noticed this 
 in the last paragraph of my paper. 
 
 " I think that the question of the possibility or impos- 
 sibility of philosophy (taking that term to mean a pene- 
 tration to practical purposes deeper than what we now 
 term phenomena) has been essentially altered by the 
 existence of science. A necessary step in the interpre- 
 tation of the phenomenal into terms more true than those 
 of phenomena, must be knowledge of the phenomenal 
 itself, which before science man had not. I should, 
 therefore (since I find people insifjt on treating the ques- 
 tion d priori, a mode I think unsuitable I mean un- 
 suitable to the settlement of the question whether we can
 
 H2 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 have more than phenomenal knowledge or not) I should, 
 therefore, hold that all failures to establish a philosophy 
 (as denned) which did not to the utmost incorporate the 
 fruits of science, were entirely without bearing on the 
 question whether it can be done. An essential condition 
 had not been fulfilled. 
 
 " This being so, I should not count it an exaggeration 
 to say that there is no argument from experience at all 
 to the effect that we cannot have more than knowledge 
 of phenomena. Science has not existed long enough 
 to allow any such experience to arise ; and, moreover, 
 I think I am justified in saying that no really adequate 
 attempt of the kind, sufficient fairly to test the question 
 of possibility, has yet been made on the basis of reaping 
 from science (or the knowledge of what the phenomenal 
 is, and its 'laws'), all the aid it can give. My own 
 thought is, in brief, trying to do this. But it is neces- 
 sary to say that it was not any d priori thought of a 
 method. I was thinking not about philosophy, but about 
 science, when the ideas I entertain dawned on me. And 
 what I seemed to discover was not that, by using 
 science, a philosophy might be attained, but that in the 
 use of science, philosophy, as a fact, did assume a new 
 aspect. 
 
 " Now I can best, perhaps, explain my thought by taking 
 it in two aspects first, of method, and secondly, of, not re- 
 sult, but indications and promise of result. For I am sure 
 nothing ought to, or would more excite in your mind a feel- 
 ing that my thoughts were vain, than if I imagined they 
 were more than puny and feeble tentatives. A man 
 may have reason to say he has found a door, and not a 
 wall, although he can open it but a little way, and has 
 very scanty ideas of the space into which it leads. You will
 
 Conjoint Use of Man 's Facidties. 113 
 
 remember how utterly I must be unable to do justice to 
 what I wish to say, as to method. 
 
 " I note that the Greeks used both sense and intellect 
 as means of gaining knowledge, but that they used them, 
 as it were, separately. Accordingly, some of their best 
 minds expressly held (in some sort) a sense world and 
 an intellect world. Now science differs from that old 
 mode of using the powers in this (partly), that we use 
 sense and intellect unitedly ; that is, our intellect works, 
 not away from, but upon the materials furnished by sense. 
 It does not erect another world upon the sensible, but 
 interprets the sensible. Our world, as recognised by 
 science, is the Greek sensible world and intelligible world 
 united. Now, besides sense and intellect, we have also 
 emotions, conscience, etc., not apart from the other powers, 
 but at the same time not to be merely sunk in them. 
 
 "My position is this: that we use this power let me 
 call it the moral reason separately from our (now united) 
 sense and intellect, and that our business is to learn to use 
 it unitedly with them. Some among us now invent a 
 ' spiritual world,' apart from this world ; others deny it. I 
 affirm of it that it has the same right, and the same no- 
 right to be affirmed, as the Platonic intelligible world ; 
 that the invention of it at once vouches for the existence 
 of a legitimate power in man, and proves its misapplica- 
 tion ; and that what man has to do, and will do, is to 
 leave off using the moral reason in this false way, and 
 bring it to its true use, which is, not to invent another 
 world, but to interpret this ; and that, as uniting (the 
 falsely disunited) sense and intellect has given us science 
 (and this through a perfectly intelligible process in his- 
 tory), so uniting these powers and the moral reason, and 
 using them in the same way together, will give us philo- 
 sophy (as defined). That is, that as the intellect tests 
 
 H
 
 H4 Life of fames Hint on. 
 
 the appearances to sense, and interprets them into the 
 phenomenal (the scientifically true), so the moral reason in 
 man can and will test the ' phenomena ' the intellect pre- 
 sents, and interpret them into something truer than our 
 present meaning of the word phenomenon.* I use this 
 language because I do not wish to affirm this to be the 
 absolute ; it may be only another deeper order of pheno- 
 mena for all I care. Only I affirm it will be related to 
 our present idea of phenomena, as our present phenomena 
 are to the mere appearances to sense. As, in reference to 
 the ' phenomenon ' (e.g., unending motion), two powers of 
 man, sense and intellect, unite in affirming it, the one 
 interpreted by the other, so, in respect to this deeper 
 knowledge, three powers of man will unite in affirming it 
 sense, intellectual reason, and the moral reason. 
 
 " Thus, you see, I have the dream of a new method 
 namely, a new method of using our powers. I do not say 
 this has never been proposed before (I am not well enough 
 read to know) ; but even if it has been, the absence of 
 science rendered the conditions of its success impossible. 
 There were not given the phenomena for the moral reason 
 to exert itself upon. 
 
 " The parallel is this : when sense presents to us any- 
 thing intellectually absurd (or not conforming to the 
 demands of the intellectual reason), we say it is 
 absurd ; it is only ' appearance ' ; and we set to work to 
 discover the rational phenomenon which will give to sense 
 that irrational appearance. Now I propose that when 
 
 * The general reader must bear in mind that the word "phenomenon," 
 however much it may have come to be synonymous with fact, in reality 
 means only appearance, and necessarily carries with it the question, An 
 appearance of what ] just as the reflection in a mirror presupposes an object 
 reflected. For convenience' sake, Mr. Hinton has used "phenomenon" for 
 the intellectual representation, and "appearance" for the sense impression, 
 but the two words are really synonymous.
 
 Dream of a New Method. 1 1 5 
 
 the intellectual reason presents to us any phenomenon 
 which is morally absurd (i.e., which does not conform to 
 the demands of man's moral reason), he shall use his moral 
 reason on the morally absurd (or ' evil ') phenomenon as he 
 uses his intellect on an intellectually absurd appearance. 
 And I hold that he can as much do the one as the other, 
 and is no more transcending his powers in one case than in 
 the other nay, that unless he does so, he is acting incon- 
 sistently and irrationally. He shall say to the 'evil' 
 phenomenon, ' Eeveal to me your morally rational (or 
 good) noumenon (or fact)/ as now he says to every intel- 
 lectually absurd appearance, ' Eeveal to me your intellec- 
 tually rational phenomenon.' 
 
 " Let me give it you in a proportion sum. 
 
 "As is the appearance (to sense) to the phenomenon 
 (or scientific representation), so is the phenomenon to the 
 noumenon (or fact), to be known by conjoint use with the 
 others of the moral reason ; and the method of learning the 
 noumenon from the phenomenon is the precise parallel of 
 that which we already use in learning the phenomenon from 
 the appearance. 
 
 " Is the proposal new ? You best can tell me. I only 
 know that no one suggested it to me. I only found myself 
 using it, and then, on looking at it, it appeared to me 
 eminently common-sense ; and the more I have thought of 
 it (now some sixteen years), the more common-sense and 
 reliable it has seemed to me. 
 
 "As for my results, they would fill they do fill 
 volumes. I should be afraid even to begin to tell you 
 about them. But, perhaps, with this explanation of my 
 method, the paper I read will give you a little idea of 
 them. My whole thoughts were started by finding that 
 organic life was not a new thing in nature, but that there 
 was nothing more in the organic than in the inorganic.
 
 1 1 6 Life of James Hinlon. 
 
 That meant to me that all the inorganic all nature is 
 living.* Then I asked, if nature is living, why, except in 
 the little part of it which is living with our particular life, 
 do we feel it dead ? Why have we called a living object 
 ' dead matter ' ? I thought it meant, that if there was any 
 life and absence of life, we had inverted their positions, 
 and that whatever else absence of life might be, most 
 of that absence was to be found in us. In a word, nature 
 became to me the reality of the ' spiritual world,' of which 
 the supposed ' spiritual world/ that I had heard so much 
 of, was a fictitious image, but in its very fictitiousness a sure 
 proof that we should come to recognise the reality ; even 
 as the intelligible world of old was a prophecy (certain of 
 fulfilment) that man would attain to know the world that 
 science shows him. This is the conscious Being that I call 
 Nature, conscious with a true consciousness, the Being 
 whose action has necessity, whose necessity is active, 
 whose law is freedom, and with whom man will be one 
 when his law is freedom too. 
 
 * Compare with this the conclusion come to by Professor Clifford in his 
 article on "Body and Mind," in the " Fortnightly," December 1874, 
 p. 781 : "The only thing that we come to, if we accept the doctrine of 
 evolution at all, it that even in the very lowest organisms, even in the 
 amaeba which swims about in our blood, there is something or other, in- 
 conceivably simple to us, which is of the same nature with our conscious- 
 ness, although not of the same capacity that is to say (for we cannot 
 stop at organic matter, knowing, as we do, that it must have arisen by 
 continuous physical process out of inorganic matter), we are obliged to 
 assume, in order to save continuity in our belief, that along with every 
 motion of matter there is some fact which corresponds with the mental 
 f net in ourselves. The mental fact in ourselves is an exceedingly complex 
 thing, as also the brain is an exceedingly complex thing. We may assume 
 that the quasi-mental fact that goes along with the motion of every 
 particle of matter is of inconceivable simplicity as compared with our 
 own mental fact, with our consciousness, as the motion of a molecule 
 of matter is of inconceivable simplicity when compared with motion in 
 our brain."
 
 Objective Validity of Moral Reason. 1 1 7 
 
 "You see how exquisitely the teaching of modern 
 thought served me, when these thoughts first began to 
 form in me, in having taught me to see clearly that the 
 ' phenomenal ' was but a phenomenon a thing to which I 
 might not ascribe true existence. All I had to do was to 
 find the object fulfilling the demands of the moral reason 
 that would rationally present to man such a phenomenon. 
 I do not think it is otherwise than a task possible to man 
 to advance in, though never to complete. This interpre- 
 tive use of the moral reason gives him a guide. We do 
 but put the phenomenon again in the same attitude rela- 
 tively in which we have been accustomed to put the 
 appearance, and renew an operation already learned and 
 already proved a true one. It is again creating a science 
 with the phenomenal, instead of the apparent, as the 
 starting-point, and the moral reason standing in place of 
 the intellectual reason. 
 
 "Neither the intellectual nor the moral reason has 
 power to invent : to say, ' This must be because I demand 
 it.' But none the less the intellectual reason has power 
 to test and to interpret. I claim the same power for the 
 moral reason (called the ' heart and conscience '). It does 
 not strike us enough what a strange claim it is to make 
 for our intellectual reason, that it is objectively valid and 
 that nothing in the world of phenomena can contradict it. 
 By aid of this assurance, which nature justifies, how we 
 erect on a basis of mere irrational appearance a great 
 'world' of glorious intellectual order. But in it still 
 lilies moral unreason ; it is as absurd to the heart as any 
 trick of sense to the head. Now I say (and ought it not 
 in all reason to be true ?) that in another sphere related 
 to that of phenomena as the latter is to sense-appearance 
 the moral reason has the same objective validity that 
 the intellectual reason has in the phenomenal ; and that
 
 1 1 8 Life of James H in ton. 
 
 by aid of it "we can again, with equal justice and equal 
 certainty, erect a world, even on the basis of such morally 
 irrational 'phenomena' as those of ours a great world 
 of glorious moral order, and live in it also, and find it true 
 and real, even as we do now live in and find true the world 
 that science teaches us to know. 
 
 " I am ashamed to send you such an avalanche in 
 return for your request for a modest shower. But let me 
 add one thing only. It bears upon the doctrine that the 
 noumenon must be inconceivable. Do you not see that 
 the noumenon I thus suggest fulfils this condition ? It 
 is not 'conceivable.' It is a thing demanding other 
 powers of man besides the conceiving powers in order to 
 be known, namely, his emotional ones. Being incon- 
 ceivable does not mean being not knowable. This fact, 
 the noumenon, thus ascertained by the union of three 
 powers of man, of course is not compressible within the 
 grasp of less than all the three. It stands related to the 
 ' conceiving ' power of the intellect, as the phenomenon 
 which the intellect conceives is related to the touching 
 power of the hand or the seeing power of the eye. It in 
 to the intellect as the mathematical line is to the fingers ; 
 it is extra-intellectual as the ' line ' is extra-sensuous ; 
 our powers must be united to grasp it. But so far from 
 this meaning that it cannot be known, I should rather 
 affirm that it was the only object capable of being known ; 
 and that knowledge of phenomena had no right to the 
 true name of knowledge, even as knowledge of appearances 
 has not." 
 
 The position which Mr. Hinton lays down in this letter 
 he also worked out historically, tracing the gradual evolu- 
 tion of the method he contends for in the history of man. 
 Of this I can of course only give the briefest and most
 
 Historical Evohition of His Method. 119 
 
 imperfect outline. Among the Greeks, Mr. Hinton con- 
 ceived that the senses were being trained on nature to 
 greater fitness and accuracy to what perfection, Greek 
 art remains to bear testimony. Perpetually baffled by 
 the irrational appearances of sense, and not yet having 
 arrived at the conjoint use of sense and intellect, 
 observing a terrestrial motion that was always ceasing, 
 and a celestial motion that was never ending, and having 
 no means of resolving contradictory phenomena into intel- 
 lectual unity, their energetic intelligence necessarily worked 
 away from the materials furnished by observation, and pro- 
 duced the arbitrary cosmogonies of Pythagoras, Parine- 
 nides, Heraclitus, etc., the baselessness of which led to 
 the Socratic endeavour to circumscribe the aims of philo- 
 sophy, and confine them to ethics, as capable of investiga- 
 tion. But at the same time the intellect itself was being 
 trained by the various schools of Greek thought, and one 
 of the most powerful instruments of intellectual knowledge, 
 mathematics, was being forged. 
 
 When Greek learning and Roman civilisation were 
 swept away by what we are accustomed to call the " dark 
 ages," this process of training the mind still went on. 
 Under what seems to us the barren verbiage of the 
 schools, through logical subtleties and wearisome disputes 
 as to the nature of genera and species, the intellect of man 
 was being strengthened, and trained, and prepared, under 
 a better method, to recognise the objective validity of 
 its affirmations. When, therefore, the mind, like a child 
 that has outgrown its clothes, threw off the old methods, 
 and in Roger Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano 
 Bruno, originated the new inductive method of observa- 
 tion and experiment in other words, of interpreting the 
 observations of sense by the conclusions of intellect, the 
 method which, with some errors, the later Bacon was the
 
 1 20 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 first to formulate, the first step was taken which ren- 
 dered possible the magnificent and ever-widening achieve- 
 ments of modern science. But in the same way, in modern 
 times, man's moral sense and emotions are being strength- 
 ened and trained to recognise their objective validity by 
 the poetry of the emotions, from the time of Shakespeare 
 downwards, in contradistinction to the objective sculp- 
 turesque poetry of the ancients, and by the rise of the 
 great schools of modern music. Those who are familiar 
 with Dante, and with the flat negations of the moral 
 sense which even so lofty a mind as his could accept, on 
 the authority of the Church and of dogmatic theology, as 
 the principles of eternal justice, of Him who is Love and 
 Light, can best appreciate the enormous progress that has 
 been made in recognising the objective validity of the affir- 
 mations of the moral reason. The achievements of this 
 third and highest perfected faculty, when brought to bear on 
 the materials furnished it by intellect and sense combined, 
 remain as yet in the future. 
 
 Let us now endeavour to illustrate these views of Mr. 
 Hinton's by a few detached thoughts drawn from his 
 philosophical MSS. bearing the present date, of which we 
 hope some day a more methodical use miy be made ; 
 premising what Mr. Hinton would be the first to maintain 
 that the conclusions to which his method led his own 
 mind, may not be at' all identical with the conclusions to 
 which it may lead the collective wisdom of the future ; 
 only he might hold that they lie somewhere in the same 
 direction. 
 
 Speaking of chemistry, with its theory of atoms, that 
 have, in Clerk Maxwell's words, " all the appearance of 
 manufactured articles," he says : " At first, in almost every 
 science, a real matter is invented, as in the emission
 
 Thoughts. 121 
 
 theory of light, the one-fluid and two-fluid theories of 
 electricity, phlogiston for the phenomena of heat, and for 
 life, animal spirits, vital fluids, etc. Chemistry is still in 
 the same condition." And again : " Chemistry is befooled 
 by matter, dealing with an idea as if it were a real exist- 
 ence. It also must become dynamical, and recognise 
 that its only objects are actions ; that matter is to it only 
 an indifferent substratum, with which in itself chemistry 
 has no concern. All that the chemist works upon or 
 regards must be to him only so much and such kinds of 
 motion.* Chemistry, like all other science, is a science 
 of vibrations." 
 
 " In denying matter, nothing is denied but an hypothesis. 
 The forces or actions which are perceived as things remain 
 as they were. They are the theorists who assume some- 
 thing that they do not perceive, and that cannot be per- 
 ceived nay, not even conceived. Having the action, 
 which is the object of sensation and of thought, why 
 should we go beyond ? " (See note.) 
 
 " Berkeley's argument on matter seems to fail in one 
 respect, namely, that he regards external objects as the 
 action of God upon the mind or spirit. The true view is that 
 
 * On this point Faraday's opinion coincided with Mr. Hinton's. In his 
 discourse, entitled "A Speculation touching Electric Conduction and the 
 Nature of Matter," delivered at the Royal Institution, January 19, 1844, he 
 ays, "What do we know of the atom apart from its force? You recog- 
 nise a nucleus which may be called n, surround it by forces which may be 
 called m ; to my mind the n or nucleus vanishes, and the substance con- 
 sists of the powers of TO. And, indeed, what notion can we form of the 
 nucleus independent of its powers? What thought remains on which to 
 hang the imagination of an n independent of the acknowledged forces?" 
 Like Boscovich, Faraday abolishes the atom, and puts a centre of force in 
 its place.
 
 122 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 they are the absolute action of an infinite being, indepen- 
 dent of any percipient. Of this divine action our minds 
 are a part, not our spirits, which are active beings. The 
 essential idea of being, indeed, is that active power which 
 we call the attribute of the spirit. This, or free-will, is 
 the essential mystery of existence. Existence is spiritual ; 
 all existences are active i.e., spirits. To ACT is to BE. 
 Berkeley denied the positive element, the external exist- 
 ence separate from us or our minds, or any mind. I deny 
 the negative element (or elements), the non-action. For 
 this is the proposition, matter = a non-acting existence (or 
 substance). Berkeley denies the existence; I, the 
 inaction." 
 
 " And what a simplicity is thus introduced into science, 
 into our conception of the physical universe! We no 
 longer refer its existence, as it were, to itself, and need to 
 invent such strange hypotheses; it exists as an image 
 of that which we perfectly understand, that which we 
 know and experience namely, of moral being or action. 
 The source of the phenomenon is not to be sought in the 
 things or properties, etc., which is utterly mysterious, but 
 in the simplest of all things a spiritual act. ... Of 
 course it is absurd to attribute force or power to that 
 which is not actual, which is only an image (phenomenon, 
 appearance). Surely, in asserting the inertness of matter 
 or things, it is implied fully that they are only images, if 
 one could see aright ; for existence is always and neces- 
 sarily one with action. This is not peculiar to spiritual 
 existence ; it is the fact of existence itself. Nothing can 
 be that does not act, or be except by acting." 
 
 "The material world appears to us by virtue of our
 
 The Siibjectiveness of Nature. 123 
 
 fmiteness ; its laws are God's infinite, viewed by a limited 
 being." * 
 
 " The subjectiveness of nature is like the subjectiveness 
 of the motion of the sun, i.e., it is not in ourselves, nor 
 derived from ourselves, nor caused by ourselves it is a 
 thing which we infer from our consciousness of an effect 
 produced upon ourselves by some action external to us, 
 i.e., of a being separate from us. In a word, it is a pheno- 
 menon to reveal a fact ; which fact indeed it is, only per- 
 ceived under a peculiar and inverted form, arising from 
 its relation to ourselves. It is that which the fact 
 ' becomes ' by passing through us, as it were. The 
 phenomenon is the polar opposite of the fact; we, as it 
 were, being the limit, by which the fact suppressed exists 
 as the phenomenon. This is the relation of cause and 
 
 * Compare with this the lines of one of our greatest poets : 
 
 " The sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, the hills, and the plains, 
 Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who reigns? 
 Is not the vision He, though He be not that which He seems ? 
 Dreams are true while they last ; and do we not live in dreams? 
 Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, 
 Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him ? 
 Dark is the world to thee, thyself art the reason why ; 
 For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel ' I am I ' ? 
 Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet ; 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." 
 
 The limitation, which causes man to perceive a spiritual action as 
 matter and force, is subsequently regarded by Mr. Hinton as an absence 
 of life. Tbis is one of the fundamental ideas of " Man and his Dwelling- 
 Place." This affirmation seems to be led up to by the tendency there is in 
 modern science to substitute force relations for properties of matter, and 
 to regard energy itself as not the ultimate fact. (See Professor Tait's 
 address at Glasgow, 1876.) \Ve are thus led to ask, What is behind these 
 phenomena? and Mr. Hinton's answer is, That which the moral reason, 
 working on the facts of intellectual apprehension, presents to us.
 
 124 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 effect, the fact, the cause of the phenomenon, through us 
 as the condition or limit." 
 
 " Do you ask how it is we perceive God's act as matter, 
 i.e., motion and force ? I answer, I do not know, any 
 more than I know why it is I perceive a rapid vibration 
 as colour, or slower vibration as heat. How can a 
 vibration be coloured or hot? The same impassable 
 chasm divides the world of the intellect from the world of 
 the senses as divides the world of the moral reason from 
 the world of both intellect and sense." * 
 
 " One step towards an appropriate conception of the 
 universe I consider this idea to be that it is a limit 
 applied to infinitude by ourselves, originating so time and 
 space, that causes the universe to be to us as matter and 
 motion. This is why each thing has so decided a two- 
 fold character, one spiritual, the other material ; speaking 
 to us, on the one hand, by its beauty and moral meaning, 
 and, on the other, being so much matter under sucli 
 mechanical laws. What is the link between these two 
 aspects ? How can one thing be at once a spiritual idea 
 and an inert material mass ? Is it not a contradiction ? 
 Yet the world would be no world for us if it were not so. 
 Take away the spiritual life from nature, and it is no longer 
 a home for man, but a tomb, a loathsome charnel-house. 
 How, then, is the one thing two ? Man has replied, and 
 has replied truly and yet falsely ; truly, for he has said, 
 ' The world is what it is in itself, and also what we make 
 it ; ' but also sadly wrong, for he has said, ' The world 
 is in itself matter and mechanism, but we, from the riches 
 of our spiritual being, cast over it an illusory glow of 
 
 * I have ventured to amplify Mr. Hinton's thought here, as in the MSS. 
 it is in too condensed a form to be understood by the general reader.
 
 Twofoldness of Nature. 125 
 
 loveliness and feeling.' Alas for us if this were so ! Let 
 us thank God that it has not been left for us to impart 
 the spirit to His creation; that He has not mocked us 
 with a dead image to clasp to our warm embrace, and 
 vivify it, if we can, with our own life. Let us thank God 
 that the solemn friendship of seas and forests, the sym- 
 pathising looks of flowers and stars, the glad greeting or 
 sorrowful rebuke, alike full of love, wherewith the earth 
 and skies ever meet us, are not cold reflections of 
 ourselves. It is true, indeed, that nature is two things 
 that which God makes it, and that which we make 
 it: it is true; but which nature does God make, and 
 which man? Question answered in the asking. The 
 love, the joy, the sympathy, the glad encouragement, the 
 sternly tender monition, the still small voice which the 
 soul hears through and above all other sounds these, O 
 Father ! are Thy nature ; the dull material clod in which 
 they are enwrapt, too often crushed and stifled, this we 
 add." 
 
 " The laws are in us, not in the things ; that is the law 
 of science. Nature truly obeys laws independently of us ; 
 but they are not scientific, but spiritual laws. God's 
 action has its own harmony ; it is truly wise and full of 
 love ; but of that we cannot know, nor could words express 
 it. Dimly seen from a human point of view, in the sim- 
 plicity and grandeur of material laws, in the repose, 
 dignity, and beauty of material things; but not being 
 these, our feeble thought cannot attain to it; to these 
 material things it is as God to man. These are Thy 
 works, Father ! as man's weak brain and narrow heart 
 can comprehend them. Thy real works infinitely more 
 glorious then; Thyself how glorious! This beauty and 
 simplicity that we see, this order amid unbounded variety,
 
 126 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 this unrestrained variety of loveliness comprised in perfect 
 order, the simple laws which regulate alike the vastest 
 orbits of innumerable suns, and the delicate tints of the 
 most fragile flower all these arise from the limits which 
 we impose upon Thy boundless work, and are but faint 
 shadows of the grandeur in which Thou dwellest. Who 
 by searching shall find out Thee ? " 
 
 "That the mind also is a phenomenon, as the 
 body is mind a 'subjective passion/* even as mat- 
 ter gives the inductive proof of that which I have 
 before seen as necessarily true; viz., that the mental 
 and physical universe are God's act; that the only 
 real being is spirit. It is not the spirit that thinks or 
 lives the mental life. The spirit is greater than the 
 mind, which is a phenomenon resulting from passion in it, 
 even as the body is a phenomenon resulting from passion 
 in the mind. How it exalts the spirit to understand that 
 the mind itself results from it, as matter from mind! 
 The personality which, by its subjective passion, has per- 
 ceived an external mind which is moral, holy or unholy 
 that is the reality of the man." 
 
 "God's action on our spirits is, then, phenomena of 
 matter and of mind ; then surely God's action on the spirit 
 must ever be phenomena, and why not such phenomena ? 
 Is here the truth of the resurrection of the body ? God's 
 action on our spirits will surely ever surround us with a 
 universe; it must be so. Heaven shall be so far like 
 earth that we shall have ladies, God's action producing 
 in us phenomena as now ; but seeing God directly in all, 
 it shall be truly heaven to us. Surely the whole difficulty 
 
 * Mr. Hinton here uses the word "passion" in its old sense of au 
 affection.
 
 Phenomenal Evil. 127 
 
 found in the resurrection of the body lies in the figment 
 of a real matter." 
 
 "The universe is necessarily as it is, because God is 
 holy, and His act cannot be arbitrary. This physical and 
 psychical necessity is, in reality, God's holiness. The 
 necessity of the universe does not contravene, but reveals 
 the holiness of God. Physical necessity is a phenomenon 
 of which the interpretation is moral rectitude or love." 
 
 " To see that the evil (phenomenally) is not really evil, 
 but only an effect produced on us by good, has this great 
 advantage that it enables us to face boldly the fact 
 of that evil, and removes the disposition to regard the 
 phenomenon as other than it is. Knowing that evil, too, 
 as evil, is really good, we are no longer afraid to do 
 justice to its proportions as evil, and to admit that, as seen, 
 it is absolute evil, unredeemed by the least trace of good. 
 With this faith in the absolute good (and it applies equally 
 to beauty and ugliness), we can face the facts. It is just 
 as in science; men could not really see nature so long 
 as they thought she was partly false. The experi- 
 mental inductive (phenomenal) science arose necessarily 
 from the faith (for it was strictly ' faith '), from the convic- 
 tion as a self-evident fact, that nature was absolutely and 
 perfectly true. So will the same thing arise from the faith 
 that she is really, absolutely, and entirely beautiful and 
 good. A phenomenal art and philosophy will be the 
 necessary fruits." 
 
 " Sin is not a fact or reality, but a negation, a refusal 
 to share in life. So excellent is life, that not to live is 
 that foul and fearful fact of sin. It is so simple, first, to 
 see that nature is God's act ; to see that all God's act is
 
 128 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 absolutely good. To see what life is shows it all. It is 
 God's hand wiping away our tears. The universe is a 
 scene of absolute life and beauty and good; nothing is 
 there that is not so ; only this sad fact, which yet stains 
 not its glory, that some spirits refuse to share in it, is the 
 great mystery of sin." 
 
 "We misinterpret what the Bible tells us of heaven. 
 It says, indeed, that God will wipe away all tears, that 
 sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and even that there 
 shall be no more death ; but it does not tell us that there 
 (?hall be no phenomenal evil. That is quite another thing. 
 Still there shall be life, yea, more life, still tJierefore evil.* 
 But not sorrow and sighing, not tears ; everlasting joy and 
 undiminished gladness gladness for life, for evil seen to 
 be good. We fancy that if there be evil there must be 
 grief, sorrow and sighing and tears unwiped away. But 
 it is not so. To cure us of our grief it needs not to take 
 away the evil, but to show it us. Shall we grieve at 
 the evil when we see it as God does? Let me only 
 see the evil as it is, God ! and my eyes shall weep no 
 more, nor my heart know another pang. 
 
 " The motion of the sun was a source of error to the men 
 of former times. Now God has removed for us that error, 
 but He has not altered the phenomenon ; still falsely as 
 falsely as when first Adam witnessed the illusion rolls the 
 sun around the earth. But God has shown it to us. The 
 illusion remains, but the error is gone ; so shall evil remain, 
 but the grief shall be gone. The illusion shall not end, but 
 
 *I would venture to remind the reader who may he inclined to say, 
 "This is a hard saying; who can bear it?" that the ordinary conception, 
 of heaven, with its "sacred, high, eternal noon" and monotony of bliss, 
 exclude the highest joy of sacrifice, the very life of love, and therefore of 
 God.
 
 The Philosophy of the Future. 129 
 
 sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Not the least jot 
 will God alter His deed; it is eternal. But none shall 
 gaze upon the life of heaven and say, ' I will not live.' 
 So shall there be no sin there, no death." 
 
 "Stand up, heart! and yield not one inch of thy 
 rightful territory to the usurping intellect. Hold fast to 
 God in spite of logic, and yet not quite blindly. Be not 
 torn from thy grasp upon the skirts of His garments by 
 any wrench of atheistic hypothesis that seeks only to hurl 
 thee into utter darkness ; but refuse not to let thy hands 
 be gently unclasped by that loving and pious philosophy 
 that seeks to draw thee from the feet of God only to place 
 thee in His bosom. Trustfully, though tremblingly, let 
 go the robe, and thou shalt rest upon the heart and clasp 
 the very living soul of God."
 
 130 
 
 OHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE following letters, extending over the next few years, 
 are written to a friend in religious difficulties : 
 
 "CHARTERHOUSE SQUARE, September 1857. 
 
 " I am sorry I can't see you again before you leave for 
 Paris. I hope you will enjoy yourself and be much bene- 
 fited. When you have opportunities, write a line and tell 
 me of your well-being. 
 
 " There is no comfort, no satisfaction, no good in merely 
 getting the intellect right. Only escape from death, cease 
 to regard yourself. Make your own welfare and happi- 
 ness no part of your regard in thinking then all will be 
 clear. In your thinking give yourself and don't ask to get 
 not even satisfaction or peace in the feeling that you 
 are going right, that you may hope to attain something at 
 last. Escape from that damnation. Thank God, the end 
 of all thought, of all effort, of all labour is this which lies 
 here just as close to us at the beginning that we should 
 cease to regard ourselves ; all is mystery to us and dark- 
 ness, until then, though we had all knowledge and knew 
 all mysteries, for that is itself darkness and ignorance. 
 
 " If we can make our thinking too a giving, a loving, 
 an escape from the death of trying to get, then our eyes 
 are opened then we know. Think of that ever, to know 
 is to le. Suppose you are bewildered and know not what
 
 Interpretation of the Bible. 131 
 
 is right nor what is true. Can you not cease to regard 
 whether you know or not, whether you be bewildered, 
 whether you be happy ? Cannot you utterly and per- 
 fectly love, and rejoice to be in the dark and gloom-beset, 
 because that very thing is the fact of God's Infinite Being 
 as it is to you ? Cannot you take this trial also into your 
 own heart and be ignorant, not because you are obliged, 
 but because that being God's will, it is yours also ? 
 
 " Do not you see that a person who truly loves is one 
 with the Infinite Being is cannot be uncomfortable or 
 unhappy ? It is that which is that he wills and desires 
 and holds best of all to be. This is the love of God ; it 
 perceives this illusion of what is to us, and sees and joins 
 itself to that which truly is, that is, to God, and being 
 one so with God, to it also must be God's eternal blessed- 
 ness. To know God is utterly to sacrifice self, to exclude 
 the negation, to be one with Being, that is, to Be." 
 
 "September 1857." 
 
 " Most important I think it is to you to get out of that 
 strange idea, that you ought to understand the meaning, or 
 at least a consistent meaning, in every passage of the Bible. 
 I can't conceive an odder mistake, especially in a person 
 who believes it to be the Word of God, a book not for one 
 man or age, but for all. You will certainly make a mess 
 of the Bible till you can have patience with it. Tis as 
 large as nature and as deep and as simple, and must be 
 dealt with in the same way. If you don't understand a 
 fact in nature, you don't fidget yourself till you can see 
 how it agrees with what you think you do understand. 
 You say, there's a fact I must study when I have time, 
 and meanwhile you go on your way rejoicing not least 
 in this, that if your life is spared you will be wiser by
 
 132 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 and by. Hold fast what you see, remembering that it 
 can't be the truth, i.e., so far as it is intellectual or the 
 result of thought and wait. Don't be in a hurry ; above 
 all things, if you wish to think wisely, avoid forcing your 
 opinions, or forcing theories where you can't see, i.e., 
 accept tentatively, in order to see how far you may be 
 able to get help so, what may seem the best present idea 
 of such and such a fact or passage, but knowing certainly 
 that if you ' put a construction ' it will certainly be a 
 wrong one. . . . 
 
 " Do you not see that all this mystery and darkness, all 
 this horror and doubt, all these chimeras, spring from one 
 source, that putting the eternal into the future, denying, 
 that is, its eternity ; which of course has this one root, that 
 we don't see that it is the present fact. 'Tis as Christ says, 
 'if your hand offend you, cut it off, and don't be cast 
 into hell ; ' don't be damned ; as Paul says, don't sin. 
 If you will get this well into your heart, little that will 
 puzzle or try you much will remain ; much unknown, but 
 not much dark. 
 
 " And now for the love of God and of our neighbour too. 
 The two commandments conjoined have struck me, I see 
 great beauty and wisdom in that. I find it thus. The 
 true love of God is, I conceive, love of the Infinite Being, 
 i.e., the universal fact. 'Tis the one great passion of man, 
 all passions mean this and no other all love, all desire, 
 means, is, the love of God ; our misery and sin is that 
 we don't know this, and seek to satisfy it with that which 
 is not God not fact. Now this being so, you perceive 
 this love might tend to lead us away from thoughts of the 
 real or thing-al, it might be abused to a kind of abstract 
 love that should not comprehend much practical benevo- 
 lence, so love to our neighbour is added to save us from 
 such an error, to show us that true love to God can only
 
 Truth, a Union of Oppositcs. 133 
 
 be in love to man. In John, how the same thing is 
 dwelt upon. But, as you say, all love is truly compre- 
 hended in the love of God there is and can be no other 
 love. 
 
 " P.S. Try and remember in looking at nature, that it 
 is the not-love, the inertness, the evil, that is added by 
 our physicalness. It perverts the mind to allow it to 
 think that this inert selfish world is God's work. It is 
 not it is our death; we ought not to be satisfied with 
 it, 'tis the kingdom of the devil. I haven't said here 
 nearly what I mean. The words won't come to me 
 perhaps words can't rightly say it. Give up wholly 
 thinking of that which shall be to yourself. Let your 
 thought be love ; only ignore and abjure yourself wholly, 
 loving Christ and Being. Then you KNOW more, in- 
 finitely more, than I do." 
 
 "December 1857. 
 
 "I think that almost all the counsel or instruction in 
 respect to thinking that need be given to any one 
 is comprised in this : to remember our ignorance 
 determines our opinions, that while ignorant we must 
 think erroneously if we think aright, and that the use of 
 thinking erroneously is to show us our ignorance ; i.e., to 
 remove it. So the thing to do is to think logically, re- 
 gardless of the result to which we are led, and to change 
 our opinion so soon as ever the best arguments are on 
 the opposite side; remembering always that no opinion 
 can be the right one in respect to any subject against 
 which there is anything in our nature that protests. Only 
 that can be the right opinion which is the union of 
 opposites; which fulfils in itself the demands of those 
 who have maintained opposite opinions, and is the re- 
 concilement of disputes.
 
 134 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "I am glad you find some such excellent people 
 among those who are so far removed from ourselves. It 
 is a great joy to think of it. I daresay in many of these 
 national communions there is a depth of piety in some 
 aspects that we can little conceive. 
 
 "I hear you are likely to go to Eussia. I hope you 
 will ; it would be interesting and instructive for you, and 
 might be very useful. I am myself a believer in the 
 destiny of the Sclavonic nations. 
 
 "Eespecting the redemption of the world I am a 
 believer, not a discoverer. I should never have known 
 it, or thought of it, if I had not learnt it from the Bible, 
 and though once knouring it, it may be seen clearly and 
 demonstrably in nature, yet I find in nature no light 
 as yet that takes me beyond what the Bible says. I 
 rest on these words and such as these: 'All shall be 
 made alive.' And there at present I stop. When I see 
 more I will say it. 
 
 "And in speaking of this matter it is the more 
 necessary to be cautious, inasmuch as the actual, the 
 fact, cannot be thought, we cannot form an intellectual 
 conception of the spiritual. The heavenly state will 
 not be conformed to any thought of ours. The think- 
 ing of necessity sets aside the fact. This, almost more 
 than anything, is what we have to learn that is, 
 practically to learn. It has been the established doc- 
 trine of science and philosophy this long while, but 
 has not affected practical life. One might almost say 
 the error we have been under the error from which 
 all errors have been but offshoots and branches, has 
 been the attempt to make the spiritual come within 
 the domain of the intellectual. We have been resolved 
 to think it, consequently we have set it wholly aside. 
 This s the same old point we are dead and don't
 
 Christian Ethics. 135 
 
 know the fact. To know it is not to have any opinion, 
 it is to have life. Don't try to think heaven; neces- 
 sarily you make it but an unreal earth if not so bad 
 as earth, far, far more is it not so GOOD. Earth is in- 
 finitely better than any heaven we can think. Heaven is 
 to be known as God is to be known. When you can 
 conceive God, then you can conceive what man will 
 be in heaven. God reveals these things to us by His 
 Spirit. 
 
 "I think you are mistaken about Christ's teaching. 
 Anyhow He, and the people who learnt from Him, have 
 taught me all I know about religion. What makes you 
 think He meant those who heard Him to think other- 
 wise than the best you can think? I grant He meant 
 better than we think, that we don't rightly understand 
 Him ; but if you will look into the grounds of that feeling 
 you have, I believe you will find it an entire misconcep- 
 tion. There are many parables which I don't understand, 
 but in Christ's teaching, what I do understand I find to 
 be wholly above me and not below. Is not the Sermon 
 on the Mount the ' actual ' ethics carried to their utmost 
 perfection that is, is not what I call ' ethics ' a mere 
 expansion and dilution of that teaching? I know what 
 you are doing. You are carrying into Christ's words the 
 construction that you have been taught to put upon them; 
 you are not yet able to read them simply as they are. 
 It was from those words about cutting off the hand, that 
 I first received an insight into the knowledge that hell 
 is self-indulgence. What perplexes you is that Christ is 
 speaking rightly, and you are thinking wrongly. The 
 very same thing that has put us all astray together about 
 the Bible. Do you remember 
 
 ' Said a people to a poet, go out from among us straightway, 
 While we are thinking earthly things thou singest of Divine.'
 
 136 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 That's the secret of it. We have supposed the men of the 
 New Testament were thinking, like we are, of what we 
 can get. 
 
 "I grant Christ threatens suffering and promises en- 
 joyment at least I think so but I don't find that any 
 inconsistency. You entirely misapprehend ' actualism ' * 
 if you think that it sets those aside. It is by no means 
 so. I affirm for all sin, suffering, those very sufferings 
 that men are afraid of, and for virtue, happiness. But, in 
 truth, you must rub your eyes and look at the Gospels 
 afresh." 
 
 " June 1858. 
 
 "Whenever I hear of troubles, I always think of the 
 wrongness that must be in us that we feel as evil that 
 which is good. Because we always say all good people 
 do that they know all must be good if they could see 
 it aright ; and yet they so curiously take no notice of the 
 fact that their feeling is wrong, that they feel a good thing 
 as evil. This always strikes me so now. I can at pre- 
 sent hardly think of anything else when I hear people 
 talk. It seems so odd to me, so very strange that people 
 don't notice it. They seem to pay all the attention 
 to the fact of their feeling itself, and the mere unplea- 
 santness of it, and none at all to the evident and admitted 
 wrongness of it. I seem as if I could meditate on this 
 for ever; it is wonderful. And, besides, people admit 
 that they would know the things they find so painful to 
 be good, if only they could see aright ; they don't say that 
 anything would need to be altered to make it good only 
 themselves it is good. So it is evident if they could 
 
 * Mr. Hinton used the word " real," or " thing-al," for the material or 
 phenomenal world presented by the intellect ; and " actual " for the 
 spiritual world of true existence.
 
 As Sorrowful, yet Always Rejoicing. 137 
 
 see things aright they would see these things good now ; 
 but it would not avail much to see them good if we still 
 felt them the same, the feeling them evil is the pain. 
 
 " Is it not evident that we want altering and nothing 
 else? We can't say otherwise without denying the 
 goodness of God; for the least devotion compels us to 
 admit that the fact is perfectly good, however it may seem 
 to us. Look as we may, we can't find any evil whatever 
 beyond the feeling wrongly, feeling that as evil which is 
 not evil, and which resolves itself into feeling forms as 
 facts, things that are only phenomena as if really being. 
 What we want, clearly, is to be made to feel right not 
 resignation, &c., but simply Tightness, not to be deceived ; 
 not goodness evidently, but only not to be a fool. 
 And this we can have. I know we can, for what do we 
 want but to know to know God and His work as Christ 
 shows it to us, so that we do truly and absolutely rejoice 
 and delight in it, and are content that things which are 
 evil to us should be for the sake of it. Then we are 
 different, then we don't indeed cease to feel as evil the 
 things we do not like, but we do better, we rejoice even 
 in feeling them so; we are no longer as we were be- 
 fore, the one self wanting what it likes, but a new 
 and truer 'self' even, one may say, is given us. We 
 are, as it were, two persons, the old man not liking the 
 pain, the new man liking it and rejoicing in it, and 
 the latter wholly ruling and triumphing over the former. 
 So that we could almost be glad not to be without the 
 pain, but rejoice that we dare suffer also for His work. 
 
 " What we want to make us right, is only faith a true 
 veritable actual belief that God does all things, and 
 that the thing He does is that good thing. Then all is 
 right. We have that foolish notion in our heads of little 
 and great. We find it hard to believe that in our little
 
 138 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 things the redemption of man is wrought. That's because 
 we are so little. And you see, I suppose it is only in 
 this way God could get that stupid pride which is one 
 aspect of littleness out of us. 
 
 " Since you have been away, I have written two papers, 
 one on a physiological subject, the Law of form or least 
 resistance, and the other a commencement of the more 
 interesting branch the true work, viz., a short paper 
 on matter. I call it ' Common Sense about matter, by a 
 common sense mind,' with the motto from Shakspeare, 
 ' But what's the matter ? ' It is very short and touches 
 the 'matter' very lightly, being meant to be entirely 
 popular, but it contains the most perfect conceptions (in 
 their rudiments, &c.) to which I have yet attained. I don't 
 think, however, I shall get either of them accepted by any 
 periodical, at least not without great difficulty ; and as for 
 the latter, it will want a great deal of polishing. 
 
 "I like the thought of acting on men not so much directly 
 as through others. I should be quite happy to say no more, 
 to have no part in the communication of that which I think 
 to the world, if that which is right and good of it could be 
 said, if the work that is to be done were done by others. 
 I think I would rather it were so. Meanwhile it is a 
 grand thing to be indifferent to success to have our will 
 done in God's. It is indeed a strange miserable blindness 
 of man's, and insensibility to his true greatness and dignity, 
 that makes him insist so on having what he likes. I 
 wonder at it more and more. Only think what a gratifi- 
 cation of ambition it is to have our will God's and so 
 certainly done. Why 'tis nothing more than knowing 
 and choosing rightly, nothing but escaping from miser- 
 able illusions and rising to the true right, man's rightful 
 kingship. Don't you see how Christ makes us kings to 
 God, and we reign with Him, how the saints shall judge
 
 The Wonder of the World. 139 
 
 the world ? Of course, to be king and have his will abso- 
 lutely done that is man's destiny, when he only knows, 
 i.e., when he only is man. 
 
 " Only get that negation out of us, which is the nega- 
 tion of humanity, and then we reign with Christ; we 
 must, because we are one with Him. The dominion can't 
 be given to us now, because it is man's, it waits for man 
 to Be, to attain to true existence. Those old mystical 
 doctrines about man ruling earth and stars, and all de- 
 pending upon him, are not so much amiss. Only as Emer- 
 son says, ' There is no man ; what is all this self-action 
 but so much death ? ' Do you remember it ? 
 
 " It is delightful to have J home. I am sure he 
 
 will come to something grand in time, but nature won't 
 be hurried, and I think he does not know himself yet. 
 Faith he wants, and repose which is its child. Is not 
 that a marvellous passage : ' I will give you rest' ceasing 
 from effort the spontaneous, necessary, unfatiguing life. 
 
 " I'm glad you so enjoy yourself, and hope you will 
 travel to your heart's content. The world indeed is 
 wonderful ; it is divine, spiritual, eternal. This is heaven. 
 We do well to be intoxicated, ravished with its beauty 
 and wonder; only evil when we say, 'All this is mere 
 dead matter and mechanism; the beauty, the life, the 
 moral being is in me.' " * 
 
 "August 1858. 
 
 "I have an opportunity of writing to you, but my 
 brain is dry and I can't find your last letter. My news 
 is that I have nearly done my book, so that you shall 
 
 * Mr. Hinton once said to me in liia emphatic way, "What is the world 
 that science reveals to us as the reality of the world we see? A world 
 dark as the grave, silent as a stone, and shaking like a jelly. That the 
 ultimate fact of this glorious world? Why, you might as well say that the 
 ultimate fact of one of Beethoven's violin quartettes is the scraping of the 
 tails of horses on the intestines of cats."
 
 140 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 have by and by a standard to which I commit myself 
 for the present. I hope I shall find that I have done a 
 wise thing. 
 
 " I hope you feel yourself making progress. If you are 
 stagnating in a quiet place, feeling very idle and given 
 up to nature, and doing nothing but simply your day's 
 work, I should say, judging by my own experience, that 
 you are spending a very profitable time. I do believe I 
 have thought of a great part of the things I have, because 
 I was so mentally idle in Jamaica, I had such an entire 
 break from all my previous habits and thoughts. 
 
 "Are not Faber's 'Oratory Hymns' beautiful, with 
 Schulte's music ? There must be in those universal com- 
 munions something powerful and charming that the 
 isolated Dissenters lose. I feel now that I foresee a time 
 when men will be able to unite and have all these things 
 in common, all the charms and aids of all systems. It 
 only needs to put the intellect in its right place it is a 
 divider only while exercising a false dominion. . . ." 
 
 "October 1858. 
 
 "For my own part, I have not yet a sufficient com- 
 prehension of our relation to our body to form an opinion 
 on the subject of asceticism. My opinion inclines against 
 it, which is perhaps partly due to my having felt strongly 
 the necessity of distinguishing between my own ethical 
 principles, and the selfish asceticism which the world has 
 rejected. But at the same time I decidedly think the 
 ordinary Protestant objections against mortifications are 
 not sufficient, nor going truly to the point, and think it 
 quite possible that a true unselfish system of self-denial 
 may be destined to arise. When one understands aright 
 what this body is, this will become self-evident. I think 
 my nature is such that I shall remain in the dark about
 
 Miracles. 141 
 
 it till then. I see practical questions, always through a 
 theoretical light. But all people do not. I think it very 
 likely that some practical geniuses may see, or perhaps 
 do see, the right solution of that question without any 
 ideas ahout the philosophy of the case at all. My im- 
 pulse would be to submit myself to such a person, if I 
 could meet with one, and be guided practically by him. 
 
 " But this is personal, I don't at all recommend it to 
 others ; with me it might be a voluntary obedience, with 
 others it might be an enslavement. But I think it would 
 be a pity if the ' Catholic ' asceticism died out of the 
 world before the question is settled and its substitute is 
 ready. I have a fancy of this sort ; that the true self- 
 denial ought to be one in which all can participate, not 
 confined to a class. I please my thought with the pro- 
 spect of a time in which self-denial shall be the law of 
 public and domestic life alike, and all orders of people 
 be religious orders, in which society in fact shall be 
 founded upon giving and not upon getting. 
 
 " Don't think you know, or have any means of know- 
 ing, what miracles are, or have any test for them, or that 
 the idea of a ' suspension of the laws of nature ' has any- 
 thing in it. This matter also can wait very well. It is 
 evident to me that the idea of a miracle to us must differ 
 considerably from that which was entertained of it of old, 
 merely by virtue of the great change in our ideas 
 about all things. Few people have any notion how un- 
 like our present entire conceptions of nature altogether 
 are from those of the ancient nations, and those suspect 
 it least who are least aware of the part which science has 
 played in the last few centuries in moulding the entire 
 thoughts of men, educated and uneducated alike. A great 
 gap has to be filled up here, I fancy, before we can enter 
 at all into the thought of the people who spoke about
 
 142 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 miracles of old. I have a notion that the miraculous 
 power is the nature and natural power of man, and that 
 the absence of it is a degradation, not the possession of it 
 an exaltation. The miracle workers the world has seen 
 I take to have been exhibitions of man's true relation 
 to nature, viz., a command over the phenomenal not 
 according to its laws, but by means of the action related 
 to the absolute; even as we, by acting on real things, 
 can alter appearances at our pleasure, and in a way in 
 which we could not by acting on the appearances them- 
 selves. A miracle worker may be conceived as working 
 in that which causes us to perceive the phenomena. So 
 he may alter the phenomenon itself. We, working on the 
 phenomenon, can't do that, we can only alter its form. In 
 the latter case, we work according to the laws of the 
 phenomenon, in the former of course, we overrule them. 
 Of course man's true and proper action can't be on the 
 phenomenal merely, it must be on the absolute ; that is, 
 it is miraculous. Our defect of power is by our defect 
 of being. So the old instinct is justified, that 'spirits' 
 have the power of overcoming the natural laws (though 
 it is rather topsy-turvy). I don't hold that man has now 
 the dominion of nature." 
 
 " January 1859. 
 
 " It is a pleasant thing to write to you, and pleasant 
 also to read your letters, and useful too. I think it was 
 a letter of yours made me think of some things about 
 prayer, which I never clearly recognised before, although 
 they are very obvious when one sees them. There is a 
 sort of feeling in our minds, as if there were no propriety 
 in praying for a thing, if it is not contingent, as if a thing 
 that was certain was excluded from its scope ; and so to 
 feel certain about things as being clearly promised or de-
 
 Prayer. 143 
 
 clared by God, was apt to make us feel an embarrassment 
 in praying for them. I have felt this a good deal, but a 
 little while ago it flashed on me that there must be some 
 radical misapprehension about prayer in my mind, for it 
 is not at all that way that it is represented in Scripture. 
 There the representation of prayer is continually of it as 
 being for things which are certain, and which are known 
 and felt to be certain by those who pray. Just think of 
 a few cases one or two will do and you will find it runs 
 throughout the scriptural representation of prayer. Thus, 
 'My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that 
 they might be saved,' and then he goes on, ' So all Israel 
 shall le saved! And Paul, perpetually in his Epistles, 
 prays for things he is sure will be for blessings on the 
 Churches, e.g., which he knows God will certainly give. 
 So Solomon's prayer. He knew God had promised what 
 he prayed for. So the Lord's prayer. Is it not certain 
 God's kingdom shall come ? But I think the most 
 striking case is Christ's own prayers, which were for 
 things He certainly knew should certainly be. Think of 
 this a little. 
 
 " Well, then, you see our notion of prayer, if we have 
 such an one, as being inappropriate for that which is not- 
 doubtful, is quite unscriptural ; and we must have a better 
 one. Prayer does not mean the asking God for things we 
 can't be sure about receiving if we don't pray. What it 
 is I don't pretend to say I see, but this is a relief and 
 blessing, surely, to know. It is something larger, higher, 
 better than that, better than what we are apt to think 
 of it. Surely this may do for us at the present, if it be all. 
 Can we not let our spirits expand and flow into an unknown 
 thought of prayer. When I try to think of it, as yet I 
 don't get much further than Paul's words, ' We know not 
 what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit maketh inter-
 
 144 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 cession for us.' Do you know, I incline to think that 
 this presents the very truth of prayer for all times, and 
 that we, and all who come after us in the flesh, will speak 
 best of prayer, when they say, ' I know not what to pray 
 for as I ought, but something within me, which is above 
 myself, speaks for rne to God,' and especially of those 
 things which He has promised, and on the assured belief 
 on which all my life is based." 
 
 "April 1859. 
 
 "I sympathise so heartily in the feeling of isolation 
 and unlikeness to others. I have felt that very much, 
 and still do a little. It is a great trial in one sense, but 
 not altogether. God is always so near to us and so per- 
 fect in sympathy when once we can get the true feeling 
 of His presence. And then our life develops perhaps 
 the better ; and I am sure that in power of usefulness and 
 work, the sacrifice of present sympathy is well repaid. If 
 God has a particular work He wishes us to do, how should 
 we expect a fellow-feeling from those to whom He has 
 given a different work ? 
 
 " We must not let ourselves be too much repelled by 
 the expressions of other Christians. Every Christian 
 man means love and self- consecration by the pleasures of 
 heaven. It is notions about justice and so on which 
 make them talk the other way. It is, indeed, the false 
 thoughts which have been necessary to men to all men 
 that make it impossible for Christian men to speak 
 fully and truly. The representations most repugnant to 
 us, almost all of them mean at bottom are assertions of 
 some great principle which could not be given up without 
 an utter loss of alL 
 
 " Think, for example, of the doctrine of the everlasting- 
 ness of future misery. I find that most beautiful and 
 essential. To give that up while men are thinking as
 
 Truth an Union of Opposites. 145 
 
 they do of this life as probation, I think would be an 
 irremediable loss. Do not you see now that means truly 
 the ETERNALNESS of the punishment. Now when it is 
 interpreted, and our thoughts have righted themselves, we 
 see that it is but the necessary form in which the fact 
 that wickedness is the true damnation expresses itself. 
 Damnation is eternal i.e., it is actual and spiritual, not 
 sensational. While the general perversion of thought 
 lasts, by which the eternal is made to mean a temporal 
 continuance, it is right and necessary to hold the misery 
 of the wicked, everlasting. That opinion is better than 
 the ' destruction ' that is, especially in regard to the pro- 
 gress of our thinking the one is bad enough in itself, 
 but it is the road to a better, the other is a stagnation. 
 So I think we should ever feel, recognising in every error 
 the end of a truth, and that it could not be laid aside 
 before it is interpreted, without irremediable loss. For 
 you see, in the belief in the destruction of the sensational 
 consciousness of the wicked, though it would be a loss 
 to have it believed by all, yet is also a good. It is a 
 protest against the other doctrine a proof that that is 
 not true and must be remodelled ; it is a power in the 
 progress of our thought." 
 
 " September 16, 1859. 
 
 " You write me funny letters. I always find them a 
 study. You seem, indeed, to have quite a remarkable 
 gift of creating puzzles and griefs for yourself. I never 
 see you hardly, or hear from you, but you are unhappy 
 or perplexed where no cause for either can be found. 
 You are like those patients for whom one has always to 
 prescribe a good dinner, a few glasses of wine, and a good 
 walk. What is it that is amiss ? You don't understand 
 about the Sacraments, or see all the meaning of the Bible ; 
 
 K
 
 146 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 and you find in yourself an irresistible impulse to be kind 
 to everybody and do all the good you can. It is a sad 
 catalogue. What is the prescription ? But this, I think, 
 I shall leave to you. 
 
 " Suppose you were to think of something really unfor- 
 tunate, if you must be grieved, or, better still, were to 
 leave off thinking of yourself altogether, your know- 
 ledge or your ignorance, your love or your want of 
 it. It makes no matter, and if it were ever so important 
 it can't be altered so. Think about the world, the 
 things that are going on in Dresden, good and bad, great 
 and small, and how God is redeeming man in them. 
 And if a thought about your own ignorance and bad- 
 ness intrudes now and then, say ' Yes ; I am ignorant 
 and bad, but God will take care of that; and in the 
 meantime He is saving the world, and that is my business, 
 to take my part actively or passively in that; and for 
 that my knowledge or goodness are no matter at all. 
 GOD does that.' 
 
 " To speak quite plainly, I think you are tired and not 
 well. Your letter, and all your trying thoughts, simply 
 mean that your brain is fagged. You must leave off 
 thinking for a time, and distract and amuse yourself in 
 any way most accessible, especially out of doors. Every- 
 body needs it. I can bear a good deal of thinking, but 
 I get into just such a way if I go on too long, and I 
 have been practising my own prescription ; for since we 
 moved I've hardly done anything in thinking garden- 
 ing and living most jollily all my leisure. And I'm 
 vastly stronger and better. 
 
 " I needn't speak of any particular subject now. I'm 
 happy to say I know no more of the Sacraments than 
 you. But I'm very patient under it. Perhaps I shall 
 some day, perhaps I shan't. Certainly I shan't by
 
 Accepting o^^r Ignorance. 147 
 
 boring myself about them. And if so be God should 
 choose to discipline me, by placing me in circumstances 
 where I acutely felt the want of knowledge which He 
 had withheld from me, why (unless I became poorly, 
 and so unable to act by the dictates of my wiser 
 thoughts), I should try to submit to, and profit by, that 
 discipline, and say to myself, ' Now God is benefiting me 
 and the world (never forget the world, nothing goes right 
 when that is left out !) by making me conscious of my 
 ignorance, and giving me experience of how to act when I 
 am ignorant.' And what patience and trust and self-control 
 and self-guard it wants does it not ? TRUST, FAITH espe- 
 cially, which of all qualities is by far the most valuable 
 and necessary for us. And nothing strengthens it so much 
 as the feeling ourselves ignorant when we want knowledge, 
 and it seems as if it would be so useful for us. 
 
 " I should use such discipline (and who is without it ?) to 
 strengthen my trust and my faith, and think nothing that 
 is good depends upon my knowing, but all upon God's 
 doing, and that is certain and unchangeable. If the cup 
 of painful ignorance may not pass from us, shall we not 
 drink it ? and from what man has it ever passed, except 
 from the fool who is wise in his own conceit; and we see 
 very well what cup he has instead. And the more should 
 we say this, because that is the straight, direct, and unfail- 
 ing path to knowledge. The road, and only road to know- 
 ledge, lies in the patient and humble acceptance of our 
 ignorance. You try this. Just once say manfully to 
 yourself about all these things that puzzle you, ' I don't 
 know, I don't know a bit about them, I haven't the least 
 idea,' and you will see what wonders it will work. You've 
 no idea of the efficacy of that charm ; I try it continually 
 and so speak from experience. The darkness and heavi- 
 ness clear away from the eyes and heart, and a wonderful
 
 148 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 lightness takes their place. For, after all, there is no 
 reason we should know, nay, there is every reason against 
 it; and besides, there is in prospect the fun or higher 
 pleasure of finding out. And don't we know enough; 
 don't we know God as the Redeemer, not of our wretched 
 selves, but of the world ? keep your eye fixed on that. 
 We are glad, not because we are well off or good, but 
 because the world is to be saved and all men are to be 
 made good, and to acknowledge Christ. Our joy has 
 the same ground and source as His. For is not that 
 what He rejoiced in? What else, then, should we 
 want ? " 
 
 "April 19, 1860. 
 
 "... You, like myself, are puzzled with the practical 
 questions of life. It is trying not to be able to see clearly 
 what one's duty is, but, doubtless, it is a very good and 
 useful trial. It certainly draws into exercise, or perhaps 
 rather demands from us, the exercise of some qualities 
 that might never be developed otherwise, and I suppose 
 we must be content to have them exercised, though we 
 might prefer many other things. Thus, I think, we 
 may plainly see, to help our patience, that the practical 
 problems of living ought to be the last to be solved ; that 
 nothing could be more fatal to our progress than to be 
 able to arrange our outward life quite to our satisfaction, 
 while other questions remain unsettled. The urgent need 
 we feel of knowing what to do is the stimulus whereby 
 we are made to strive to know and understand, which is 
 not one whit less important, nay, perhaps, is more impor- 
 tant. For there is real importance (that is, comparatively 
 there is) in the development of our hearts and consciences, 
 and inner being, by discovery of error and of truth, and 
 knowing more, and so entering more into the work of God.
 
 Practical Problems. 149 
 
 It is for this reason, therefore, I take it among others, 
 that God has made it so difficult for us to know what we 
 ought to do, not on what principles but in what details to 
 direct our life. He wants us to feel this, in order that 
 we may be made to apply ourselves diligently to things 
 which otherwise we should leave quite undone. 
 
 " My own opinion is, that the truly wise and proper way 
 for individuals or for societies to act is not likely to be 
 clearly settled yet, perhaps not for a long time and until 
 a great deal more is known. In the meantime, let us be 
 conscientious ourselves and charitable towards others. Let 
 each one do what he thinks right ; most likely it is best 
 there should be many ways of acting tried, such experi- 
 ments may have much to do with proving what is best. 
 It is by no means certain that what appears very clear to 
 us is therefore true. A little more knowledge might 
 make us turn quite round. In the early days of Christi- 
 anity, they tried all Christians living in common, but it 
 did not seem to be quite the thing, and I should doubt 
 very much if that was right; even the Apostles don't 
 seem, so far as I know, to have held any clear ideas on 
 the point. Perhaps they were a good deal puzzled too, 
 like us." 
 
 "February 1861. 
 
 "I haven't written any letters for a long time. For 
 one thing, I have much more writing upon me than I can 
 do, and I cannot direct my energies. I like to write to 
 you just to tell you how often I think of you, and wish 
 you all good ; but I know letters from me are not necessary 
 to you, being quite sure you will work out your problems 
 in the proper way at last. . . . You generally, when you 
 do put a subject to me, take up just one on which I 
 haven't any light, so that I know I can't help you much.
 
 150 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " In fact, your questions are very much my questions I 
 expect, only I fancy I am much more patient than you 
 are over them less in a hurry to settle them and if I 
 have any advantage over you, I think it is very much 
 that. You will say, that is partly because I am not 
 situated like you with continual necessity for acting on 
 those questions, and needing to have them settled for 
 practical guidance. But this is not true, at least it is 
 very subordinate. I am like you in that, in having to act 
 on things in which I do not see my principles clear, and 
 in feeling hourly the need of a better understanding for 
 my practical guidance. But I am patient notwithstand- 
 ing. If you ask why partly it is because I know it is 
 no good to be in a hurry, but partly, also, from constitu- 
 tion, and partly from habit. Tor no practical end could I 
 hurry or 'scamp' an intellectual problem. It is not in 
 me to do it, and if it were, I hold right thinking to be 
 quite incalculably more practically important than any 
 doing. The world is ruled by its thoughts, but no one 
 knows what will come of doing. Moreover, I don't think 
 the world is our business. If only we do our best (and, 
 fortunately, also if we do not), God will take care of the 
 world and of all things in the world. That last is much 
 the more comfort, is it not ? 
 
 " I'll just tell you what strikes me sometimes when I 
 read your letters. Doubtless there is very much to 
 admire in Russian society, especially that aspect of it 
 which you see. I am very much interested in hearing 
 about it, but I reflect, I don't know how justly, that Rus- 
 sian upper society has another side it is based on 
 slavery. Have you not been struck with the thought 
 how easily a certain kind of goodness flourishes when 
 there is plenty of money, and how vile the roots of the 
 money often are ? "
 
 Quietness and Confidence. 151 
 
 " April 25, 1 86 1. 
 
 " So far as you fear being lulled into indolence I would 
 just say two things ; first, that I expect it really means 
 that you are overdone and not well, and that repose is 
 what you want. You must not reject this idea, as you 
 will be disposed to do, at once, and the more, the more 
 it is the truth. Every one feels just the same under 
 those circumstances. I do myself. When I'm done up 
 I'm haunted by the most painful conviction of my indo- 
 lence, that I've never done anything, nor shall do, and 
 that I don't half work. You have had like me a per- 
 petual tax on your mind, an unintermittent one, that's 
 what we can't stand. You must put it aside for a time, 
 and then see. Not that I say you ought not, or heed not, 
 see that you really do what you can and should; but 
 what we should do is really, very often, to be still. And 
 if we want something to make us more active and 
 energetic, watchful and holy, I know but one thought, 
 that is faith faith producing love. More trust and 
 confidence and joy in God would be the secret the only 
 true or successful secret of more goodness. And this 
 should come quietly and calmly, not in great effort ; this 
 kingdom of God has come not with observation. I'm sure 
 Christians as often and as keenly spend their strength 
 in vain trying to do, in respect to the active service 
 of God, as unconverted people do in respect to getting 
 justified and saved. It is not the doing it is the 
 believing, the trusting and the loving from it, is the 
 thing. Eest and quiet growth, I expect, are what you 
 want. 
 
 " And then there's another point, which should be both 
 believed and remembered, though I grant 'tis difficult to 
 apply that is to one's self namely, that feelings of 
 inability and failure, and discontent with our exertions
 
 152 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 or our powers, are utterly irrational, and in point of fact 
 untrue. They often co-exist, I believe they especially 
 co-exist, with the best and most successful work, and this 
 for two reasons (among others) which are very evident. 
 First, That such work taxing our powers most, is most apt 
 to induce a morbid reaction and give us feelings which 
 are really due to fatigue and exhaustion ; and, secondly, 
 that inasmuch as the feelings themselves mean and ex- 
 press labour, and the striving with difficulty, since they 
 can only arise from the exertion of the strength on 
 obstacles which through that difficulty make their weight 
 felt, therefore, of course, it is only natural that these feel- 
 ings should be most felt when the exertion (and therefore 
 the work done) has been greatest. 
 
 "So much am I convinced (by mere observation and 
 experience) of this fact respecting myself, that I have 
 adopted it as a practical rule to entirely ignore my own 
 feelings in that line. I disregard and put them aside, 
 knowing them to be no test at all, and take what they 
 call in metaphysics a purely objective view, that is, I 
 judge of my work by a critical survey at an after period, 
 or get others to judge of it. And my experience is con- 
 stantly what I tell you. I am beginning, indeed, to escape 
 from a^reat hindrance by acting on this plan ; for so con- 
 tinual and unvaried was my sense of utter failure and 
 inability, that if I attached importance to it, it would have 
 been a bar to my doing anything, and especially anything 
 in those lines in which, as a matter of fact, I succeed 
 about the best. It is very curious, and there is something 
 I should like uncommonly to understand in this causing 
 of untrue feeling through great exertion; but it is cer- 
 tainly a fact, and you should thoroughly recognise it, for 
 \oth by your nature and your position you are likely to 
 ce a good deal tried by it. It affects reflective natures
 
 Deceptiveness of Feeling Sure. 153 
 
 like yours and mine more than some others. It is, besides, 
 especially prone to occur to those whose minds are subject 
 to constant wear and effort even though it may be but 
 slight where there is no chance, or but little, of obtain- 
 ing, at short periods, complete repose and ease, but the 
 thoughts must always be alert or almost always to 
 something, even though it be to trifling things there this 
 sort of feeling is almost sure to arise." 
 
 "October 26, 1864. 
 
 " Let me advise just once. I don't like being an ad- 
 viser much, but just this one thing, to be reverent where 
 you are ignorant, and to attach no weight at all to your 
 naturally feeling sure. "We almost always naturally feel 
 sure wrong it is our fate it is in our very being."
 
 ( 154 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN 1856 Mr. Hinton first began to publish, contributing 
 a few papers on physiological and ethical subjects to 
 the Christian Spectator. 
 
 In 1858 he published a paper in the Medico-Chirur- 
 ffical Review "On Physical Morphology, or the Law of 
 Organic Forms," suggesting that organic growth takes 
 place in the direction of least resistance, a generalisation 
 which Mr. Herbert Spencer has embodied in his First 
 Principles.* " It is remarkable," Mr. Hinton writes, " that 
 in the various hypotheses which have been framed to 
 account for the forms of organic bodies, no attention has 
 been paid to the fact that the process of expansion, in 
 which growth consists, takes place under conditions which 
 limit it in a definite way. It must surely have been from 
 overlooking this circumstance that a mode of speaking 
 has established itself among us, as if there were in organic 
 tissue a power of forming itself into peculiar shapes, as 
 if masses of cells, by some power of their own, could 
 mould themselves into complicated structures. ... So 
 intent have we been in pursuing specific vital tendencies, 
 or the final causes manifested in the uses of the parts [of 
 an organic structure], that it would appear as if we had 
 entirely forgotten that living matter is matter after all. 
 Thus an eminent physiologist informs us, ' the tail of the 
 
 * First Principles, by Herbert Spencer, pp. 231-233.
 
 Organic Forms. 155 
 
 cercaria, which was previously employed for locomotion, 
 is now useless and falls off!'" * 
 
 Mr. Hinton proceeds to formulate his proposition thus : 
 
 " Organic form is the result of motion. 
 
 " Motion takes the direction of least resistance. 
 
 " Therefore, organic form is the result of motion in the 
 direction of least resistance." 
 
 This position he illustrates and enforces by various 
 phenomena of development, and especially from the pre- 
 valence of the spiral form in organic nature, motion under 
 resistance taking a spiral direction, the explanation of this 
 fact being very simple : a moving body encountering resist- 
 ance is deflected, or turned at right angles, and a motion 
 constantly turning at right angles and yet continuing is a 
 spiral. " No theory has seemed capable of accounting for 
 the fact [of organic forms] but that of a peculiar power in- 
 herent in each germ. . . . But what though the appear- 
 ance to the eye, or even to the microscope, of all ova be 
 the same, is it not certain that there is a difference of 
 structure which escapes our observation ? Nay, does not 
 the ascription to them of different powers involve that 
 very difference of structure or composition which it is 
 supposed to supersede ? And what can be simpler than 
 that germs of different structure should undergo different 
 
 * Agassiz and Gould's Comp. Physiology, p. 343. Bacon's warning Las 
 not yet lost its bearing. "To say that the hairs of the eyelids are for a 
 quickset and fence about the sight ; or that the firmness of the skin and 
 hides of living creatures is to defend them from the extremities of heat 
 and 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 trees 
 are for the protecting of the fruit, and the like, is well inquired and col- 
 lected in metaphysic ; but in physic they are impertinent. I say they are 
 but indeed remoras and hindrances to stay and slug 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." Advancement of Learning, 
 Book II.
 
 156 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 changes. . . . Add to this that each change of structure 
 in the process of development modifies all the succeeding 
 ones, and it becomes no longer hard to understand how, 
 from even imperceptible incipient diversities, the widest 
 contrasts of form may accrue. Every divergence is con- 
 tinually multiplied. 
 
 " But how come the germs to differ ? Clearly because 
 formed under differing conditions. They are diverse, be- 
 cause their structure is the result of motion in the direc- 
 tion of least resistance. There is no 'beginning in a germ." 
 
 The paper concludes with a passage of deep general 
 interest : 
 
 " Here I should cease. But it would be affectation to 
 ignore that the view I have taken will be felt by some as 
 contravening the design that they delight to recognise in 
 nature as another step towards excluding God from His 
 creation. I do not feel it so. I may not enlarge upon 
 this aspect of the question, but the entire subject has 
 been so mixed up with theological ideas that I may be 
 permitted briefly to indicate my own view. I hold all 
 vital forms to be what we call necessary, but it is the 
 necessity of Tightness that I recognise, and no other. 
 God's act in Nature appears to us under the form of 
 physical or merely passive necessity, but that is our in- 
 firmity and defect of vision. It is necessary truly, every 
 least fact and part of it, but necessary by a truer, deeper 
 necessity than we perceive, the necessity that Love should 
 do infinitely well and wisely. Welcome to me are all 
 proofs of necessity, all indications of law, all demonstra- 
 tions that things could not be otherwise than they are. 
 
 Never does nature bring us nearer to God than when 
 science excludes from it all arbitrariness, and teaches us 
 to say, This must be as it is. For an intellectual we 
 must learn to substitute a moral conception of creation ;
 
 Moral Conception of Nature. 157 
 
 we need to rise above contrivance; it is holiness that 
 claims our reverence in nature. Well said Bacon, ' The 
 three true stages of knowledge are as the three acclama- 
 tions, sancte, sancte, sancte; holy in the description or 
 dilatation of His works, holy in the connection or con- 
 catenation of them, and holy in the union of them in a 
 perpetual and uniform law.' Was Newton ever held to 
 be an irreligious philosopher ? Yet of him it is recorded 
 that whilst contemplating the simplicity and harmony of 
 the plan according to which the universe is governed, his 
 thoughts glanced towards the organised creation, and he 
 remarked, ' Idemque dici possit de UNIFORMITATE EA, quae 
 est in corporibus animalium.' " 
 
 The following letters are to Mrs. Hinton : 
 
 "August 1857. 
 
 " DEAREST MEGGIE, I went down to Wimbledon and 
 saw Toynbee. He has had a severe attack, but is better, 
 and is likely to be about again by Monday. However, 
 when he found himself so ill, he says he began thinking 
 again of what passed between us about my carrying on 
 his practice; and he seems quite to have made up his 
 mind to introduce me as his successor. In the mean- 
 time he wishes me to attend for him at Saville Row." 
 
 " 1 8 Saville Row, August 1857. 
 
 " I am doing duty here, as you perceive. I have not 
 been very well. I think my visit to Manchester fatigued 
 me ; but, at any rate, it was a change. 
 
 " Willie is a funny boy, very different from Howard 
 strikingly so, I think, for brothers ; but I can't describe 
 him. I expect he will be much like me when he grows 
 up, only a good deal better and greater."
 
 158 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 He writes to a sister-in-law : 
 
 "March, 1858. 
 
 "I'm glad you've read 'Buckle.' It is a magnificent 
 book that is, in some aspects but marred by mighty 
 flaws, and disgraced, as it seems to me, by some amazing 
 weaknesses. E.g., the discussion on the will seems to me 
 the most disgraceful, superficial, and pretentious thing I 
 have ever seen upon the subject (almost, I should add, 
 for I just remember something of Harriet Martineau's 
 which equals it). Also, I believe his great learning is 
 not sound. I have seen his 'facts' wofully called in 
 question ; and in respect to his physiology, it is certainly 
 defective. Also, again, his thoughts are not to any consi- 
 derable extent original, though striking, many of them, 
 and all of them well put. I think, in a word, his great 
 merit lies in his style, including in that term his total 
 power of presentment. A great gift in this line always 
 secures immense applause and immediate influence, some- 
 times long continued too. It is a fascinating book, one 
 by all means to be read, by no means to be believed ; 
 though this, it seems to me, is to be said of all history. 
 At least, you may know, I am a confirmed historical 
 sceptic ; i.e., not as to well-confirmed events, but as to the 
 true connection, dependence, and significance of them. 
 
 " Meggie, who has been quite ill, as you know, is better, 
 indeed well, but nervous, being over- wrought as usual; 
 and indeed I and the children are almost, but not quite, 
 too much for her." 
 
 " March 1858. 
 
 " DEAEEST MEGGIE, Now, is not this good ? I was at 
 De Beauvoir Square this afternoon, and Sarah said to me, 
 'Make haste and write your book; I will pay for the
 
 "Man and his Dwelling- Place? 1 59 
 
 printing of it.' I went to Dr. Gull in the evening, having 
 to speak to him, and mentioned it. ' Tell your sister I 
 will divide it with her.' 
 
 " Being encouraged thus, I am setting to work in good 
 earnest. Is it not striking how there seems to be a sort 
 of success immediately attending me in writing, while in 
 practice I have nothing but continual failing ? And my 
 feeling respecting the two is so different. In philosophy 
 I am in my element ; I have such a glorious conscious- 
 ness of power: I've no fear, and know what to do, and 
 have an instinctive foresight of success. But in physic 
 'tis altogether different; I am a mere imitator and 
 creeper full of doubts and misgivings, dreading rather 
 than desiring work. I think I cannot mistake the voice 
 of God within me and without." 
 
 "March 1858. 
 
 " I feel sure the reason I am so slack is to make me 
 write ; for if only I were earning my living, I am sure 
 I should not do it : I should leave off even now in spite 
 of all resolutions. And this encourages me too ; for I do 
 verily believe that when that object is accomplished I 
 mean the making me write and I can safely be allowed 
 enough to live on, I shall have it. 
 
 " For 'tis very curious, the most credulous superstition 
 never equalled my belief in the intimate relation of all 
 that happens to the Divine care for us. I can see nothing 
 in all nature but the loving acts of spiritual beings, and 
 know no reason for disbelieving anything that it should be 
 conformable to love to do. It is a glorious world ; I do 
 delight in it. One can, and in a way that is almost worthy 
 of it, when we no more care that it should be as we like, 
 which of course we don't when we see 'tis right ; and if 
 we don't like it, we are wrong.
 
 160 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " I won't neglect anything in my practice, and will get 
 on both with that and with the book as well. 
 
 " I didn't tell you how much interest Dr. Gull seemed 
 to take in the publishing. He talked a long time about 
 how it should be brought out in the best way, and by a 
 good publisher; he thinks Murray. Of course, unless I 
 can find some one to take it on its own account, I shall 
 let him decide." 
 
 "March 29, 1858. 
 
 " I wish you were less subject to physical depression, 
 that is, I should like it very much ; but I blush when I 
 find myself saying I wish things were otherwise than 
 they are. I don't mean it. I can't mean it. I could 
 not wish that, if I were to try ever so. 
 
 " People would think that strange, or difficult, or the 
 result of some ridiculous philosophising. But they don't 
 know the secret. They don't know how simple it is. 
 They've no idea that it wants only FAITH (the most 
 natural and easiest thing in the world when we can get 
 rid of a few prepossessions of our own), and 'tis all done. 
 I can't forget for one moment that man is being saved 
 the wonder and glory and joy of it fill and glorify all 
 things. No one could forget it, or care in his secret 
 heart about anything else, who once believed it. That's 
 all. I do affirm nothing is wanted but faith. We are 
 saved by faith, we are ' made right ' by faith, that's being 
 justified. Of course, it makes a man right to believe in 
 Christ, in the redemption by His blood. He can't keep 
 wrong. In spite of himself he is taken and turned right 
 round, sees everything just the opposite to what he 
 thought. He had no idea before the world was anything 
 like that ; all this evil was a mere mystery and perplexity 
 to him, a thing he had to avoid as much as possible, to 
 take as much care of himself and others as he could, and
 
 The Victory of Faith. 1 6 1 
 
 and well, he didn't know ; he could not understand, 
 there were awful things, and very dark problems, we 
 should not seek to penetrate so far, our duty was clearly 
 to secure our own salvation and a happy eternity ; and 
 this world was clearly designed for happiness, man ought 
 to enjoy himself, the creatures of God are good and to be 
 received with thankfulness, it would be a beautiful world 
 if there were not sin. And let us try to get such a posi- 
 tion as will give us influence for good, for everlasting 
 interests depend upon our exertions. 
 
 " Is it not so ? 
 
 "But if he believes! Behold old things have passed 
 away, and all things have become new. There is not 
 much to be said, indeed, words don't seem wanted. But, 
 Meggie, the quiet bliss and wonder, and absolute sur- 
 render, the shame and self- abhorrence with which the 
 heart shrinks back into itself, the new meaning there is 
 put into that word ' God/ so that whereas before it came 
 but feebly and with hesitation from our tongues, now it 
 never will be absent the fire that is in us to tell all men 
 of this wonder, this God, whom it is eternal life to know 
 these things cannot be described. 'There is no more want' 
 I think that comes nearest to it we've got all that 
 we want, we wanted things before because we didn't know 
 what the world was. Now hunger and thirst, and pain 
 and nakedness, are welcome ; they are what we want, for 
 they are the salvation of the world. What we like is of 
 no moment any more, to be crucified with Christ, that is 
 our gladness ; our one desire, that our willing service 
 should not be wanting in the work of God. 
 
 " Do not you see, darling, the brightness of that light, 
 too bright for us to bear, and yet so mild and gentle ? we 
 cannot gaze upon it, but we cast down our eyes and feel 
 that it is there, and that contents us ; that light which 
 
 L
 
 1 62 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 swallows up all the darkness of the world, and the dark- 
 ness of our hearts with it. 
 
 " Let us leave anxieties to God. Why need we bargain 
 that our life should be a success, still less that it should 
 not be a success purchased by sacrifices and sufferings ? 
 Let us leave things to God. If He starves us and our 
 children, in so leaving them, we can BE STAEVED. Believe 
 me, there's nothing so very terrible in it ; 'tis by no means 
 the worst thing that can happen to a person, not so bad 
 as constant anxiety, and doubt, and trembling, and ques- 
 tioning : ' Am I doing the right thing now ? ' ' will this 
 answer, or won't that?' &c., &c. Look at the people 
 who suffer hunger : are they so very unhappy ? It does 
 not strike me so. 
 
 " I know what incipient starvation is, having once upon 
 a time gravely conceived the plan of shortening my life 
 by that means, and abstained from food for a few days 
 accordingly. It may be endured with a good conscience 
 and a loving heart. Let us believe in God and rejoice 
 in what He does, and if we don't like it, be ashamed of 
 ourselves. That's what I am when I don't like the world. 
 I think of old father Adam, and say, ' If it hadn't been 
 for you, I shouldn't have been under this ridiculous 
 illusion ! ' 
 
 " Don't you think with me, love, that the course for us 
 is one of Faith, trusting in God, and leaving things we 
 cannot see or know. Cast off these fears which may or 
 may not be well founded. He's given you a work to do, 
 viz., right or wrong, wise or foolish, mistaken or unrnistaken, 
 to support me in all things and fill me with confidence and 
 joy and vigour ; to make in truth the life of two persons 
 flow through my single veins, that so my every word and 
 action and endeavour should have a redoubled and glorified 
 energy, should be felt by all as the work of two, and not
 
 Gives lip Practice. 163 
 
 of one, a more than twofold work, because instinct with 
 love. That will SUCCEED. Meggie, I tell you, it will suc- 
 ceed, but whether it succeeds or not, is not the question ; 
 it is indeed no matter. It is God's will and work for us, 
 it is the very type and image of Himself too. 
 
 " Only your own experience, and not even that, I think, 
 can make you understand how I have missed you. I think 
 of you all day, and I have come to the deliberate conclu- 
 sion that being in love ' is a fool ' to being married. 
 
 " This must be our motto, love, 'we accept evils ;' that's 
 the hero's and the wise man's talisman. I must quote 
 one thing from Jean Paul I read the other day. ' He who 
 complains more of the wounds of poverty than a girl does 
 of the wounds of her ears, is a poor coward, for they are 
 alike designed to hang jewels in/ 'Twas in a review of 
 Origen by young Vaughan ; a wonderful man he was, so 
 good, so great, so poor. Dear, if some hope against hope, 
 let us not despond against despondency. My ' philosophy ' 
 has been my good genius all my life, do you think it is 
 going to fail me now ? " 
 
 o 
 
 " Man and his Dwelling-Place " was accepted by Parker 
 at his own risk. Its favourable reception, and the conse- 
 quent success of his first connected attempt to bring his 
 philosophy before the public, seemed to justify Mr. Hinton 
 in taking the step of giving up practice, and devoting his 
 whole time to writing. Not only had he a dislike to the 
 empiricism of the practice of medicine, which Voltaire has 
 roughly denned as " putting medicines, of which we know 
 little, into a body of which we know nothing," but he felt 
 that the absorption of his mind in his thoughts unfitted him 
 for discharging the responsibilities of a medical man. He 
 therefore resolved on reducing his expenses to a minimum, 
 and endeavouring to support his family with his pen.
 
 1 64 Life of James I Union. 
 
 He writes thus to his sister-in-law, Miss Caroline 
 Haddon : 
 
 " Charter House Square, August 1859. 
 
 "You are mistaken if you think there is in me any 
 looking after mortifications for their own sake. I quite 
 agree with you ; they don't belong to my theory at all 
 are, indeed, wholly inconsistent with it. I feel my doc- 
 trine to be pre-eminently one of enjoyment, of rejoicing, 
 and of doing what we like. You need not fancy any such 
 inconsistency. But what there is in me, and I dare say 
 what you noticed, is a doubt and uncertainty as to the 
 right in practical life. I wholly doubt whether the plan 
 on which the best of us base our lives that of making 
 ourselves comfortable primarily, and living better off than 
 others because we have the means is not radically un- 
 sound. I have not at present anything else to propose, 
 but it goes against my feelings (I don't mean any ascetic 
 love of self-mortification, I mean my true, natural feel- 
 ings) to throw myself into that life. 
 
 "I know there is a better way. I know it must 
 come ; and though I don't want to hurry it, and have no 
 confidence in my practical feelings, as I have in my in- 
 tellectual ones, still at present it makes my life inharmo- 
 nious. I am paying the penalty the price, rather, per- 
 haps of future light. All my feelings on the point are 
 vague and dim; but of this I think I am sure, that if 
 the true human life were lived, the whole body of those 
 who enjoy a ' comfortable living ' in this country (and this 
 includes us, Carrie, I am very sure) would rise up as one 
 man and say, ' We will not live this way any more, while 
 others are living as they do.' . . . 
 
 " With regard to myself, I want to take all care ; but 
 it is not much that is within my power. Can a plant
 
 Life at Tottenham. 165 
 
 not grow when the sun shines upon it? Is it not a 
 condition of its being able to grow that it shall be under 
 a necessity of growing? It is just so with me. I am 
 under an inexorable fate to think ; could not escape it if 
 I tried or wished ever so much. And then, besides, I 
 know also that deep at the bottom I do notrwish, and never 
 shall wish. It is not a passion perhaps it used to be so ; 
 it is deeper than a passion. It is independent of plea- 
 sure and success. I could conceive it growing into a 
 raging torture or a madness ; but I think it will develop 
 itself healthily and genially, especially if my external 
 life succeeds, as I think it will. I know I am doing in 
 the main the right thing. Crushed and fettered, my im- 
 pulses might blast my life ; but allowed to expand in 
 natural activity, with varied and sufficient occupation, I 
 think I may live a life most men might envy." 
 
 In relation to our accepted code of " the comfortable," 
 to which he alludes in the earlier part of this letter, he 
 used to say to his wife, "You must look at domestic 
 comfort in its relations. You must take into view the 
 want and distress of the other portion of the world ; then 
 that which appears bad is best. . . . "We want to extend 
 the sphere of morals ; we must consider as coming within 
 the sphere of morals our relations to other people. A 
 beautiful house is not beautiful if other people are starv- 
 ing. Stealing does not seem wrong to some people ; so, 
 if we do not take into account our relations with others, 
 it only shows what our moral status is." 
 
 It was, therefore, on principle as well as expediency 
 that Mr. Hinton and his small family settled down in a 
 tiny house in Tottenham, the dimensions of the sitting- 
 room being such, that he used to boast that he could 
 open the door with one hand, poke the fire with the
 
 1 66 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 other, and, had nature given him a third, could have 
 opened the window, all without the trouble of rising 
 from his seat. With only one servant, Mrs. Hinton had 
 to lend a hand to most of the household avocations. None 
 of Mr. Hinton's thoughts were perfect in his eyes till they 
 had received her intelligent approval ; and often he would 
 plunge after her into the kitchen, where she was patiently 
 endeavouring to master some culinary mystery, and keep 
 up such a distracting blaze of metaphysics and physics, 
 epicycles and parabolas, noumena and phenomena, as 
 threatened to make the light pudding or pastry at 
 dinner-time one of the heaviest problems to solve of even 
 "this unintelligible world," and a painful proof of the 
 reality of matter to the uninstructed digestive organs, its 
 ingredients having undergone much transcendental con- 
 fusion. 
 
 On one occasion, Mrs. Hinton, being anxious to en- 
 tertain some of the poor mothers of the neighbourhood 
 whom she had been in the habit of meeting, was betrayed 
 by these influences into the untoward mistake of putting 
 peppercorns instead of currants into a large cake she 
 was making for their especial delectation, only discover- 
 ing her mistake when her guests were assembling. But 
 the blunder proved a happy one, for Mr. Hinton appeared 
 among them, and made them a capital little speech, how 
 a woman's words were meant to be as sweet as currants, 
 and make life a perpetual plumcake to her husband, only 
 somehow some of their tongues make a mistake, and put in 
 biting pepper instead, and no wonder the poor fellow had 
 to go and wash his mouth out at the ' George and Dragon.' 
 Many a husband found his home the sweeter, at least for 
 a time, for the " pepper-cake." 
 
 Household difficulties were further complicated by Mr. 
 Hinton's peculiar views on education. He had a dislike of
 
 " The Mystery of Pain:' 1 6 7 
 
 all punishments, as apt to base good conduct on selfish 
 fears and make self-regard rather than regard for others 
 the ruling motive ; he considered that children could best 
 learn from experience. But though Experience is a good 
 teacher, her school-fees are proverbially high, particularly 
 in a small house, where strict order is especially necessary. 
 So that " plain living and high thinking " were carried on 
 under some drawbacks. 
 
 At first the experiment seemed to answer fairly well, 
 Mr. Hinton earning with his pen considerably more than 
 the 200 a year to which Mrs. Hinton's care and eco- 
 nomy had reduced their expenditure. Thackeray, the 
 then editor of the " Cornhill," accepted for that perio- 
 dical a series of papers called "Physiological Eiddles," 
 exclaiming, " Whatever else this fellow can do, he can 
 write ! " These papers, endeavouring to prove the unity 
 of the organic and inorganic from the scientific side, were 
 afterwards published, with a few additions, under the 
 title of " Life in Nature." Most of the papers afterwards 
 published as "Thoughts on Health" also came out in 
 the " Cornhill " at this time. 
 
 It was in his narrow little Tottenham house that the 
 " Mystery of Pain," to the genesis of which allusion has 
 already been made, was written, though not published 
 till some years later. It was in his small suburban 
 patch of a garden that the gathering of a few green peas 
 gave rise to that train of thought which loosened the bur- 
 then of years from his own heart, and, when afterwards 
 given to the world, proved a " door into heaven " to so 
 many a troubled soul a book of which even so profound 
 a thinker on moral subjects as Dr. J. H. Newman said 
 that " it contained things both new and true." 
 
 The following extracts from letters to two of his friends 
 contain the first germ ideas of the book :
 
 1 68 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " Tottenham, January 1862. 
 
 "Don't you think I might hope for acceptance for a 
 little book under the title of ' The Mystery of Pain : a 
 Book for the Sorrowful ' ? For the motto I should take, 
 ' I cried unto God, What profit is there in my blood ? ' I 
 seem to feel the volume in my heart ; and when I have 
 done with ' Life in Nature ' (the ' Eiddles '), which ought to 
 be soon, I think I shall begin it ; perhaps, at the same 
 time, by way of balance and completeness, as well as ease 
 to myself, making a commencement of what I think I 
 ought to do a thorough statement of my metaphysical 
 position, to be called, perhaps, ' Outlines of a New Sys- 
 tem of Metaphysics.' I should like to do these two 
 together ; and for my own sake I ought. I hardly could 
 be content to do either alone; so I could perhaps 
 better keep the metaphysics out of the first, and the 
 questionable rhetoric out of the latter." 
 
 " Tottenham, July 1862. 
 
 " Whatever the world is (morally), it is certainly some- 
 thing very different from that of which it gives us the 
 impression ; whatever the fact is, it is surely something 
 unlike the seeming. Don't you see, even without special 
 scientific training, how clear Science has made this ? In 
 the end of my little paper, ' Seeing with the Eyes Shut/ I 
 just referred to this. . . . The fact in contrast to the 
 phenomenon must be unseeable. If we could ' see ' it, 
 it would be an invention. I think, indeed, that my utter 
 unimpressibility to the fact of our not seeing my perfect 
 and inevitable assurance that the truth must be one in- 
 visible to us does as much as anything here and else- 
 where to make my arguments seem insufficient. I can 
 hardly help taking it for granted that every one 'sees' 
 this. 1 believe my scientific training helps me here. All
 
 Science a Recognising the Invisible. 169 
 
 science is a recognising the invisible; and, indeed, that 
 general attitude of mind, that conviction that our seeing 
 is not seeing is nothing at all in respect to true or false 
 I think ought to be acquired on scientific ground ; that 
 is, on other than religious ground. A man should come 
 to theology with this conviction grown into him, not 
 having to acquire it there. 
 
 "Don't you see, indeed, that 'walk by faith, not by 
 sight,' is really 'walk scientifically,' knowledge- wise, 
 according to the truth ; and, indeed, that the sum of all 
 that man has learned is the conforming of his thought to 
 that precept ? 
 
 " And here is the whole point between us. Are not you, 
 in your questionings and doubts, really demanding that 
 you should walk by sight ? It cannot be given you. 
 The salvation of man I mean the fact and doing of it 
 is to the human eye (I should say the self-eye) invisible ; 
 and must be invisible, because it is so large and good. I 
 feel I am simply transferring to modern terms the words 
 'walk by faith' when I say 'regard in all things the 
 (necessarily unseen) fact of man's redemption.' I don't 
 demand an intellectual vision only a heart-vision only 
 the indispensable demands of religion." 
 
 " Tottenham, July 1862. 
 
 "Now there's another idea has just occurred to me 
 one of a sort of which I have had many, and which please 
 me as being a kind of union between that which refers to 
 thought and to life. For there is a thing that I clearly 
 see, that the laws of the mental, the physical, and the 
 ethical (or practical) are one ; each may be expressed in 
 terms of the other. Now, here is a rule in science, a rule 
 of thinking viz., that effects have not always single 
 causes, but continually depend on compositions of causes,
 
 1 70 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 of -which two may neutralise each other, and not be appa- 
 rent in the effect; so that causes are not to be learned 
 only by a study of effects. Very different effects may be 
 while causes are largely the same. 
 
 " Now this struck me as having a practical bearing, and 
 a really very pretty and useful one. In our efforts to 
 remove effects (say grief or sorrow), we continually try to 
 do it by removing the causes. Would it not be wiser to 
 try ' composing ' them ? Given a cause of grief, how is 
 the effect to be averted ? Causes can't be got rid of, 
 nothing can i.e., at bottom and ultimately; and prac- 
 tically, even, this is often, very often, the case also. But 
 something can always be added to the cause something 
 which will neutralise, or better, alter, even invert the 
 effect, make joy instead of sorrow. You see the bearings 
 of this, don't you ? so that I need not apply it.* 
 
 " In fact, is it not exactly my practical idea, almost the 
 whole of it ? I would seek to get different results, not by 
 removing or setting aside, but by adding ; and the beauty 
 is, that this is simply better science. Men's ways of act- 
 ing have represented an imperfect, mistaken, necessarily 
 failing scientific method. It isn't according to nature that 
 they should have succeeded. 
 
 * To those who are not familiar with Mr. Hinton's thoughts, this may 
 want an application to make it clear. Take the instance of the offices of 
 a mother to her babe. Abstract the love, and what have you? Pain, 
 weariness, wakefulness, anxiety, toiL But add to the causes of pain a 
 mother's love, and you have the unspeakable joy of a mother over her 
 first-born. The pain, the weariness and wakefulness, the anxiety and toil 
 are all there ; but they have become the glowing heart of a great joy the 
 very conditions of self-giving which make the joy deepest. So the presence 
 of pain in the world proves nothing against the possible blessedness of 
 man, points rather to the world "having been adapted, altogether made, 
 to be the scene of an overpowering, an absorbing love." We cannot get rid 
 of the pain or its cause, but we may bring in other causes which, here or 
 hereafter, will turn it into the very heart of joy, the blessedness of love 
 mode perfect in sacrifice.
 
 Thoughts on Pain. 171 
 
 " There are no thoughts that give me more pleasure than 
 such as these those that show reason and necessity in 
 things that have seemed evil and unaccountably depress- 
 ing and the more so because all such perceptions are 
 the fullest things possible of hope. If men have tried 
 wrongly, then the failure is no sign that they shall 
 not succeed. As certain as possible it is that men shall 
 be happy, shall find in all things cause for joy. They 
 shall certainly succeed when they know how to try, when 
 they have learned to use those causes rightly, to make 
 them elements in a larger and more adequate system of 
 causes. . . . Isn't there a light on the whole of human 
 life in seeing this ? Take all its activities together except 
 a few, and are they not all included in the vain effort to 
 get happy by putting away instead of using causes of 
 sorrow ? 'Tis just like a foolish bad science ; they haven't 
 found the law of things, and for the remedy there is 
 needed what ? Evidently knowledge." 
 
 " Tottenham, July 1862. 
 
 "Do you know to show you how simple it is all 
 my philosophy about pain is contained in this little inci- 
 dent. It happened at the time I was thinking about it, 
 and was one of the things that gave my ideas more 
 thoroughness. You must remember that all nature exists 
 in the least tota in minimis. It was an Italian said 
 that I forget his name, but I hold him among the 
 greatest of geniuses ; that one sentence is enough. He 
 was a physiologist. 
 
 " My incident was this : riding home one evening, I 
 found myself, about half a mile from the end of the jour- 
 ney, alone in the omnibus. So I said to the conductor, 
 ' Don't go on for me if you are not going otherwise ; ' and
 
 172 Life of James Hinlon. 
 
 accordingly he let me out and turned back. Now, as I 
 walked along the road, I was, of course, distinctly glad, 
 not only that the men could go home to their families 
 the sooner, but that it was my walking (and wearing out 
 my shoes) that enabled them. Don't you see I must 
 have felt this ? that man is made to feel so ; that in this 
 (at least) his nature is shown; that if. he had a larger 
 life, it would be so with greater pains ; that here's the 
 point the true bigness of his life is measured by his 
 pains ? 
 
 "Let me tell you how I came to that last idea. It 
 is another case of a ' least/ I was gathering peas in 
 my garden, and, of course, in doing that one gets one's 
 face scratched a little, and sundry small inconveniences, 
 which, in fact, make the fun of doing it. Now, while 
 thus employed, I thought how could I help thinking of 
 this very thing ? it is our nature that the enjoyment 
 of our life demands little inconveniences, exertions, small 
 pains; these are the only things in which we rightly 
 feel our life at all. If these be not there, existence 
 becomes worthless or worse ; success in putting them all 
 away is fatal. So it is men engage in athletic sports, 
 spend their holidays in climbing up mountains, find 
 nothing so enjoyable as that which taxes their endurance 
 and their energy. 
 
 " This is the way we are made, I say. It may or may 
 not be a mystery or a paradox ; it is a fact. Now this 
 enjoyment in endurance is just according to the inten- 
 sity of the life ; the more physical vigour and balance, the 
 more endurance can be made an element of satisfaction. 
 A sick man can't stand it. The line of enjoyable suffering 
 is not a fixed one ; it fluctuates with the perfectness of the 
 life. Now, don't you see the step I took ? Is it not a 
 perfect revelation ? That our pains are, as they are, unen-
 
 Involuntary Sacrifices. 173 
 
 durable, awful, overwhelming, crushing, not to be borne 
 save in mere misery and dumb impatience, which utter 
 exhaustion alone makes patient, that our pains are thus 
 unendurable, means not that they are too great, but that 
 we are sick. We haven't got our proper life. Only think 
 of this being our heritage, our proven nature and destiny, 
 a life so intense and so large that it shall make all 
 human pains the conditions of its exuberance ! I see this 
 in my heart so plainly, I long with quite a painful inten- 
 sity to be able to make others see it with me. Do not 
 you see it is the moral side of my idea of our being altru- 
 istic, having a consciousness co-extensive with huma- 
 nity ? ... So you perceive pain is no more necessarily 
 an evil, but an essential element of the highest good, felt 
 as evil by want in us partly want of knowledge, partly 
 want of love. . . . Christ's life and death, which seems 
 so separate from ours, so contrasted with it, is, in truth, 
 the type and pattern of our own, is the revelation of it, 
 of our life as well as of God's." 
 
 Speaking of our involuntary sacrifices, our unaccepted 
 pains, Mr. Hinton once put it thus : Suppose, instead of 
 Curtius, a slave, hating Rome, and cursing her with his 
 last breath, had been bound hand and foot and thrown 
 into the gulf to save the city. Yet suppose, in some 
 future state of existence, that slave had come to see the 
 part Eome was to play in the civilisation of the world, 
 and was to say from his heart, " I am glad I was sacri- 
 ficed for Rome," at once the involuntary sacrifice would 
 be made his own, filling him with an infinite joy and 
 satisfaction. So Mr. Hinton held that our most blank- 
 seeming woes, the pains and privations we have the most 
 grudged as barren of all good, may have forward ends 
 be, in fact, so much stored-up force and become the 
 very material of the noblest joy when " the more life and
 
 174 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 fuller" shall have revealed the true uses they serve in 
 the redemption of the world. 
 
 But in tracing out what gave rise to Mr. Hinton's 
 thoughts on pain, it must ever be borne in mind that the 
 real source of inspiration, with regard not only to the 
 " Mystery of Pain," but to so much of his highest and 
 most helpful thinking, lay not in the secluded study or 
 in quiet contact with nature, but in the back streets and 
 slums of London. He was a man who emphatically dared 
 to look upon the awful face of life, believing that it was the 
 marred and thorn-crowned face of Love ; believing that the 
 evil phenomenon is ever to reveal a good reality behind 
 it, which alone has actual existence ; that, however black 
 and meaningless it may look, it is the stained glass win- 
 dow seen from without, radiant with martyr and saint 
 and divinest meaning when seen from within. 
 
 " I thank God," he exclaims in his MS. notes, " there 
 is so much ugliness and evil, so many illusions, because 
 each one of them is the voucher for a beautiful and good 
 reality, as each illusion of the sense in science is evidence 
 and voucher for some true scientific fact. I clasp evil and 
 wrongness to my heart; they are life, they are God's 
 tenderest love. He says to me in them, ' Look, my child, 
 and tell me what I am doing ; 'tis painful to you at first, 
 but you will love it when you see it.' By faith, I see it 
 even now, my Father ! and love it, though unseen, be- 
 cause thou doest it. ... Blessed love of God ! that by 
 the evil of a phenomenon expels the deadly real evil that 
 affects the spirit; loving ministers that come around 
 with sharp swords to slay, not us, but the death that is 
 within us."
 
 ( 175) 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 THE following letters are to his friend Mr. Henry King, 
 on a recent bereavement : 
 
 " Tottenham, July 30, 1860. 
 
 " I have just received your letter, for which I very 
 heartily thank you. If I had reflected I should per- 
 haps have hesitated before touching so lightly a chord 
 which vibrates in your heart so deeply, yet I can 
 hardly regret doing that which has gained for 
 me your letter and its profound expression of feelings 
 which are common to all hearts, though perhaps ex- 
 perienced in all their intensity only by a few. I feel 
 that an experience such as yours almost demands 
 rather a -reverent silence than an attempt to urge 
 thoughts, which may be felt to be full of consolation 
 by those whom Providence spares from the deepest 
 affliction, and yet may be found to be quite powerless 
 over the heart when really lacerated. I know how 
 different a quiet contemplation, at our ease, of that 
 which ought to comfort us in sorrow is from the fever- 
 ish and unavailing effort to calm a present grief. 
 
 " And yet I cannot renounce the pleasure of trying to 
 impart to you some thoughts which I have had bearing on 
 the subject to which you refer, which I think are really 
 adapted to soothe some causeless grief and remove 
 forebodings which do injustice to God's bountiful
 
 1 76 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 goodness. I shall try to avoid, in expressing to you 
 m'y thoughts, what might seem like abstract specula- 
 tion remote from human sympathies, and yet, if my 
 language should seem to be of this kind, I know you 
 will be able to understand that in my feeling, those 
 speculative truths are the form under which the dearest 
 and most human joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, 
 and aspirations clothe themselves. 
 
 " I have thought on meditating on the future state, 
 and the change which we cannot doubt will take place 
 in our feelings and our very being even, in that higher 
 state, that almost all which is capable of paining the 
 heart or of seeming repulsive to that emotional nature 
 which is the best and highest part of us, arises from a 
 view which may be shown, even on admitted principles, 
 to be a mistaken one. And that is, that conception that 
 the difference between the heavenly state and ours depends, 
 even in any part at all, upon the loss and taking away of 
 anything we now possess. I think the difference consists 
 wholly in an addition to our present faculties, leaving us 
 therefore all that we now possess, all that we now feel, 
 all relations except sinful and evil ones that we have ever 
 borne, all being as much as ever they were, only altered 
 and placed in a different relation by added faculties 
 and perceptions, to reduce them to the true position, 
 cause them to be felt, not as realities, which they are 
 not, but truly, as they are, phenomenal the signs and 
 evidences, nay, the very fact (as it is capable of being 
 presented to certain faculties of ours), of a truer, higher, 
 reality. 
 
 "May I use my own illustration to make clear my 
 meaning ? A being with sight only would feel mere ap- 
 pearances as realities ; but when there was bestowed upon 
 him the fulness of his faculties (as related to the phy-
 
 The Future State. 177 
 
 sical), and he becomes able to use the power of the touch, 
 then the appearances would not be realities to him any 
 more ; they would be only appearances ; but they would 
 be to him all that they were before, nay, they would be 
 unspeakably more. He could understand them, use them, 
 value them aright, and in every sense find them more and 
 more worthy of regard than when, by his deficiency, they 
 were felt as realities. And so it is with us ; feeling and 
 thinking of phenomena as realities, they mock and deceive 
 us; but feeling and knowing them but as phenomena, 
 surely they would be full of unutterable worth, signi- 
 ficance, and glory. I cannot think (I speak not of my 
 feelings, but of the hardest and severest thought) that 
 spirits in heaven are lost to earthly things, or feel or 
 think them less. Rather it must be that they then truly 
 grasp and possess them, and learn to estimate their worth. 
 In the utmost earnestness of belief, I hold that this world 
 is the eternal world, as much so to spirits in heaven as 
 men upon earth ; and that while we can rise to the true 
 level of the grandeur and glory of this poor seeming life 
 only by hard striving with sense and passion and unbelief, 
 and never can worthily attain to it at all, those that have 
 been clothed upon with the house that is from heaven see 
 it with unimpaired vision, know it, live in it, rejoice in it 
 with an intenser life and a more vivid apprehension, 
 as well as with a calmer and more unruffled joy than 
 ours. 
 
 "Indeed these words of St. Paul express my entire 
 thought, ' Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed 
 upon.' To pass into the spiritual is not to be ' unclothed ; ' 
 it is to be added to, to be made more complete, and that 
 is all. It is by want and loss that we are not in the 
 spiritual. The flesh is not something added ; it is something 
 wanting only; the false substantiality of the physical 
 
 1C
 
 178 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 phenomena to us is the seeming only arising from the 
 defective power within. 
 
 " But I know this only meets half your case, and that 
 the doubt whether the moral change which accompanies 
 entrance into the spiritual world, the perfected holiness, 
 may not break the bonds of mortal sympathy, weighs not 
 less heavily than the other. On this ground, too, it seems 
 to me that a true conception of the facts must remove all 
 question, and give us a joyful assurance. It must be that 
 the sympathy is intensified, not diminished made perfect, 
 and not chilled. It becomes like that of our Maker, who 
 knows our frame, though He does not share its weakness, 
 and remembers that we are dust ; sympathy like that of a 
 parent for a child, which is surely the deeper and the 
 tenderer for being above the sphere of its little passions 
 and mistakes. Whose sympathy with a child is best and 
 truest that of another child who has all the same follies 
 and errors, and petty interests and cares, or that of a 
 mother who knows them all, but does not on her own 
 behalf share in them ; who lives in them and feels for them 
 only through her love ? The deliverance from our needs 
 and weaknesses and passions, from our errors and delu- 
 sions, even from our sins, cannot quench sympathy, but 
 rather first enables it to burn with a pure and deathless 
 flame. We must remember that we are under illusion 
 they have escaped from it ; we are diseased they have 
 been restored to health. Can this diminish love or dry 
 up the fountains of pity ? or, if it did, how could that be 
 heaven ? 
 
 " I think of the case thus : Which sympathises best 
 with a poor delirious patient another sick man who 
 is delirious with him, and shares his illusions, or the 
 friend who tenderly sits by his bedside, watching for and 
 cherishing each gleam of returning reason, but whose heart
 
 Death an Awaking. 1 79 
 
 throbs none the less with deep emotion over his visionary 
 joys and sorrows ? * . . . For a true sympathy with our 
 weakness, our folly, our uttermost unworthiness, we want 
 one who is delivered from their power, one who has no 
 more the struggle to maintain, who can come down and 
 enter into the lowest depths within us, because he can no 
 more fear a fall, can touch and heal the darkest stain, be- 
 cause incapable of soil. . . . 
 
 " Such as this, I think, must be the change from earth 
 to heaven, except that any image is infinitely too feeble to 
 express the bestowment of a deeper and truer life, that 
 giving us a perfect consciousness of the eternal reality 
 which shall redeem us for ever from the dream-conscious- 
 ness of a life lived in shows. For this radical conception it 
 is which seems to me to give the true clue to all these ques- 
 tions, that our present consciousness is strictly like that of 
 a dream, in that it is a feeling of things as existing which 
 do not exist. "We are still condemned to feel the dream as 
 if truly existing ; even though we may know otherwise, we 
 still feel so. Our friends in heaven have awaked, and know 
 it is a dream. But how should that break the bonds of love ? 
 
 " You will excuse my writing so long a letter to you, 
 but I feel as if in such thoughts as these there were 
 sources of legitimate consolation and strength, and I 
 believe you will at any rate accept them as a token of 
 sincere sympathy." 
 
 " Tottenham, August 17, 1860. 
 
 " I am sorry so much time has passed before I have 
 had an opportunity of taking up again the subject of your 
 
 * So Dante of Beatrice : 
 
 " Ond' ella, appresso d' uno pio sospiro, 
 
 Gli occhi drizzd v6r me con quel sembiante 
 
 Che madre fa sopra figliuol deliro." PARA., Canto i. 100-103.
 
 i So Life of James Hint on. 
 
 letter. I have indeed, I must confess, somewhat shrunk 
 from doing so, partly, that I have feared lest I should do 
 too great an injustice to the subject, partly, because a 
 personal grief like yours seems to me a sacred thing, to 
 be treated rather with mute reverence than with words, 
 especially by one who has not been called upon to undergo 
 the same, and who therefore cannot tell how vain those 
 words might easily be made to seem, even to himself. I 
 do not think I could attempt to meet the questions you 
 propose, except from my confidence that you so desire to 
 know my thoughts upon them, that you will be sure to 
 overlook all faults in their expression. 
 
 "Do not suppose that I have a perfect or consistent 
 theory or scheme upon the subject of our intercourse [with 
 the dead], that I can apply to the solution of all difficul 
 ties, and that there is nothing which remains to me still 
 dark and doubtful. Until the receipt of your first letter, 
 I had not given particular thought to the questions it 
 suggested, as, indeed, in God's kind providence there had 
 arisen no event particularly to press it on my mind. What 
 I wrote you was simply what occurred to me as the obvious 
 bearing of views which seemed true to me in other re- 
 spects, upon the questions which weigh on your mind. It 
 is a great happiness to me that you have found them at 
 all suitable or helpful, and I rejoice also in the belief that 
 you will find them capable of meeting further questions. 
 But, I still feel that for full justice to th,em, there ought 
 to be a personal feeling of their overwhelming urgency, 
 the thoughts should be deepened by profound emotion. 
 I know that in this respect I am on quite a different 
 standing ground from you, and so I cannot escape the 
 consciousness that words which may seem to me to go to the 
 heart of the subject, may be felt by you to play merely on 
 the surface. You will pardon me, therefore, if it be so.
 
 Continuity of Being. 1 8 1 
 
 " I will begin with the latter of your two questions, 
 that of recognition. I understand you to feel thus : if in 
 this state our feeling has not been true, if the events over 
 which we have rejoiced or grieved have been not real 
 events, but only things which seemed to happen ; nay, if 
 we ourselves are not what we are conscious of being, but 
 something, although even more glorious, yet different, how 
 shall we, when our feeling is made true, and our con- 
 sciousness is of that now unknown reality, REGAIN our 
 friends ? Even supposing the friend restored, will not 
 that restoration be of something not to be recognised as 
 the same friendship that was enjoyed of old ? 
 
 " If I have stated your thoughts rightly, it seems to me 
 susceptible of an answer entirely satisfactory of many an- 
 swers indeed, or rather, it suggests many topics. But, the 
 direct reply, I think, is, that it assumes a loss of remem- 
 brance, hereafter, which is not, even in the remotest degree, 
 connected with my view of the present state. Do you see 
 this ? It seems to me as if the entire force of the feeling 
 rested on the idea, that if this state be one of a false (or 
 inadequate, for that is rather the fact, it is false only by 
 defect) feeling on our part, therefore, what we now 
 feel cannot, or will not, be remembered perfectly here- 
 after. But, is there any real connection here ? Why 
 should not all we have felt, thought, performed, in any 
 way experienced here, be as much an element of our con- 
 scious remembrance in the future upon the one view of 
 its nature, as upon the other ? Am I right in thinking 
 that this needs only to be pointed out to be recognised, 
 and that it removes part of the feeling you express ? 
 
 "But, besides this, in respect to recognition, I think 
 the view I entertain of the relation of the physical to 
 the spiritual, so far from being at a disadvantage in com- 
 parison with any other, has especial advantage. Let me
 
 1 82 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 repeat, that I hold the change from this earthly to 
 the heavenly state to be by no loss at all, but only 
 by an adding. All, therefore, that belongs to the one 
 state remains in the other, it is altered only in its 
 relation to us. Our feeling in respect to it is altered, 
 by the giving of new life, a more perfect being, and 
 more adequate powers to us. Think of the case 
 abstractly: going to heaven, is, on this view, simply, 
 the perfecting of our nature and leing. Might we not 
 then put aside any particular difficulties which might 
 occur to us about details, as it were, and be fully 
 assured that this could not possibly involve us in any 
 loss, or inflict on us the sacrifice, especially of that which 
 God has made dearest to all that, in our present state, is 
 highest and holiest within us. Surely that which can 
 make us fear that we shall lose by being made perfect, 
 must be an error. I think I see clearly that it is an 
 error, but even if I could not do so, and could not logi- 
 cally extricate myself from such a conclusion, I think I 
 should have none the less confidence. 
 
 " But I may perhaps make my view clearer to you by 
 coming to a lower ground altogether. I think you will 
 allow fully that if we retained in heaven recognition and 
 enjoyment of the inferior pleasures and occupations of this 
 earthly life, it is certain the higher ones would not be ab- 
 sent. Now this is what I do think that is, I think it 
 negatively so to speak, it would agree perfectly with my 
 general view, there is no logical reason why I should not 
 entertain that idea. For it is evidently not forbidden to 
 us, if we think of this physical as a mode in which the 
 spiritual, the eternal is perceived ; which is, in one point 
 of view, the very basis and corner-stone of all my thought : 
 It is this I am seeking very imperfectly and inarticu- 
 lately I know to say. We are in the spiritual and eternal
 
 Defect of our Present Consciousness. 183 
 
 world there is no other in which we can be for there 
 is no other. These physical existences, as we call them, 
 are the spiritual and eternal existence as it is perceived ~by 
 us, related to the true existence as the ' appearance ' per- 
 ceived by the eye is related to the physical object of 
 which it is the appearance, that is they are the phe- 
 nomena of it; or to speak in recognised metaphysical 
 terms, ' the unknown ground of the known phenomena is 
 that spiritual and eternal, which we recognise by the reli- 
 gious faculties.' 
 
 " These phenomena of course do not answer to the truth 
 of that of which they are the phenomena. They cannot 
 because of the littleness of our faculties but they are 
 rightly perceived as phenomena, even as the eye rightly 
 sees 'appearances' which by no means answer to the 
 truth of the object so perceived. If, therefore, we had 
 our perfect being, the physical would still be perceived, 
 just as it is now perceived (probably), but and here is 
 the essential point, it would be perceived as only a pheno- 
 menon that is, it would be perceived truly, as it is. Noiv, 
 by our defect, by absence of the faculties which would 
 give us a conscious perception of the reality as it is, i.e., 
 of the spiritual and the eternal and here I only repeat 
 the accepted dictum of both science and philosophy by 
 their best exponents that essential existence is not con- 
 sciously perceived by us, but only phenomena. I say by 
 this defect in us, the phenomenal is felt to be not as 
 it is, only phenomenal but as absolute and real. This 
 is the wrongness, the illusion of our state that that 
 which is only phenomenal (and is indeed therefore rightly 
 ' perceived ' ) is not felt as it is, as only phenomenal, or 
 apparent by virtue of our faculties, but as actually the 
 existence. 
 
 " Now, it is evident what, holding this view, my con-
 
 184 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 ception must be of the heavenly state, when the wanting 
 faculties, by which we may consciously perceive and feel 
 the absolute being, are added to us ; I must conceive, not 
 that we shall cease to perceive the phenomenal, but that 
 we shall perceive it in its true relations, perceive it 
 rightly FEEL it rightly, and therefore not as now (which 
 is our error and evil) as really existing, but as the mode 
 in which to certain faculties of ours faculties which per- 
 ceive things not as they are, but only 'inadequate' appear- 
 ances of them the spiritual and eternal reality (the sole 
 reality) appears. 
 
 "I think you will see the parallel at once between 
 this view and the relation of our physical sight and touch ; 
 and that ' going to heaven ' may be compared to adding 
 touch, to one who had previously possessed only sight, 
 and by whom, therefore, ' appearances ' had been felt as 
 (physical) realities, and who, accordingly, would have 
 been deceived, been under illusion, and would, in a word, 
 have felt and believed himself to have had to do with 
 one thing, while lie truly (speaking of the physical) would 
 have had to do with another ; and would, of course, have 
 failed and blundered and been disappointed, and have 
 found his life a mystery (physically). Need I say, just as 
 we find our life a mystery, spiritually ? or point out how we 
 do so for the very same reason ; viz., that we have thought 
 we have had truly to do with things which are only 
 phenomena, while in very truth we have had to do with 
 the eternal spiritual realities which we have ignored. I 
 trust I have made this intelligible, but I know I am very 
 apt to fail. I will, however, assume that (by means of 
 omitting the parentheses, and with the help of the patience 
 which I believe you will not grudge) it is clear to you. 
 And then I will trust to you to refer to this, as to a 
 standard, your remembrances of any other expressions I
 
 Recognition Hereafter. 185 
 
 have used bearing on the same point ; they have all been 
 attempts to say this. 
 
 " Now, taking this view, must not my ' a fortiori ' argu- 
 ment be granted me ? The spirits of the just made perfect 
 have all the part in the phenomenal that we have that 
 they ever had that can be had. It is only phenomenal ; 
 and he who perceives and feels and knows it as only 
 phenomenal, knows it not least but MOST, perceives most 
 in it, possesses it most truly. This applies to all pheno- 
 menal things, even the least and lowest, as I have said, 
 and if to them, then surely to the highest. 
 
 " I trust this does go I confess it seems to me to go 
 to the very root and heart of your question about recogni- 
 tion. There must be recognition, because all that was, still 
 is only more is added. Nay, indeed, only for us who are 
 left behind can it be a re-cognition at all, for to them it 
 is a continued undisturbed cognition. They cannot recover 
 knowledge, because they have never ceased to know ; we 
 shall know again when raised up to their level, and not 
 only the old sympathy is restored, but a new sympathy 
 infinitely outweighing all. We shall know again, we may 
 well say, for then we shall see this dark, toilsome, disap- 
 pointing life must be known again to be known at all. I 
 thank you for this thought, which your letter has thus 
 suggested to me, of knowing our earthly life again. My 
 heart rests in it, and cannot you partake with me in the 
 feeling ? It seems an epitome of all my thoughts. We 
 are to know, we must know, our life again. It seems one 
 thing to us; it is another. It is for that I thank 
 God. It seems, alas ! how dark, how sad a scene ; it is 
 the redemption of the world. Is it not a joy to think 
 that when we clasp our friends again in heaven, and look 
 back with them upon the past, it will be to see it, not as 
 we have felt it, but as it is; to take not man's view, but
 
 1 86 Life of James Hinton 
 
 God's ; to know, and know together, that the dark scenes 
 were dark with light too bright for mortal eye, the sorrow 
 turning into dearest joys when seen to be the filling up 
 of Christ's, who withholds not from us His own crown, 
 bidding us drink of His cup, and be baptized with His 
 baptism, and saying to our reluctant hearts, ' What I do 
 thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' 
 
 " It is not loss that we shall then know and feel our 
 life to have been a different thing from that which we 
 feel it now shall so feel its spiritual and eternal bearing 
 that all else shall evidently be to us only the phenomena, 
 the appearances, the forms of that. There is no other 
 loss but the filling of these forms until they are known 
 and felt to be but forms. 
 
 " I am writing too much to you, but I like to dwell upon 
 these thoughts. I do not see how any one could grow 
 weary of them. The conviction that God's work of saving 
 man is really, truly, done in this petty, wearisome, false 
 life of ours, that will not be got right (because it is right) 
 fills me with joy. It satisfies. It is a boundless gratifi- 
 cation to the heart, a boundless interest and stimulus to 
 the intellect. I verily believe if this gospel were preached 
 we should hear no more of the difficulty of making daily 
 life religious, or of fixing the thoughts upon eternal things. 
 There are no others. I love this revelation, because it makes 
 religion everything, by making everything religious. 
 
 " I think a very few words will suffice for the first of 
 your questions. What proof have we, so that we may 
 feel sure, that physical things are not true existences, but 
 are falsely felt so by us ? My answer is The qualities 
 of them are incompatible with the idea of existence. Sense 
 gives us the impression of their existence ; reason, whicli 
 has authority in respect to what ought to be thought, 
 denies it. We are bound to believe some other reason
 
 Dream Consciousness of Present Life. 187 
 
 for our feeling their existence (which feeling, no one more 
 strenuously affirms than I ; the doctrine of man's defec- 
 tiveness rests on his feeling that to exist which does not 
 exist), some other reason, I say, must be given (and must 
 be discovered if it be not known) for our feeling the exist- 
 ence of physical things. Their existence is disproved. 
 If I entered on the question how it is disproved, I should 
 not be able to do it any justice. May I mention, that in 
 ' Man and his Dwelling- Place,' Book ii, Chap. 2 (I think), 
 I have stated, and tried to answer, the very argument 
 you use about the order, &c., of physical events ? I need 
 only suggest one thing in which you will, I think, agree 
 with me, that a definite and rational order in events has 
 no necessary bearing on their being actual or phenomenal. 
 In fact, phenomena must, by the nature of the case, be 
 orderly and have a rational nexus. I use passive, neces- 
 sary (i.e., rational) sequence as an argument of phenome- 
 nalness. 
 
 " I think you will now perceive in what sense I say our 
 present consciousness is a dream consciousness. It is 
 so only in one respect, viz., the feeling and assurance 
 of existence in respect to that which does not exist, of 
 doing that which is not done, but only to man's feeling 
 is, or is done. (This also I have tried to make clear 
 in Dialogue 3.) Of course it is not a dream of the indivi- 
 dual man, but in relation to the whole humanity. 
 
 " I seem to have done very poor justice to the questions 
 you proposed, and I trust that you will be so kind as to let 
 me know what points remain to your mind unanswered, 
 and what need fuller explanation. With you I feel that 
 I am like ' a child crying in the night,' and yet I seem 
 to feel, also, that a revelation has been made to us, and 
 means given us by which we may rise, and are designed 
 to rise, to a state of knowledge and satisfaction much
 
 1 88 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 higher than we occupy at present ; that it is in ourselves, 
 and not in God, that we are straitened. Yours most 
 sincerely, 
 
 " JAMES HINTON. 
 
 "P.S. Although I have written so much, I cannot 
 refrain from adding one thought. In respect to our recog- 
 nising the love and tenderness and self-sacrifice which 
 have glorified this life, I think we may draw great assur- 
 ance from a fact which seems evident to me, viz., that 
 these feelings and the other deep emotions which seem to 
 be excited by physical things, really have relation to the 
 eternal, and not to the phenomenal; that we feel them 
 because it is our nature and our destiny to have a con- 
 scious relation with the eternal which we have not now, 
 so that the future change is but the fulfilling, setting free, 
 and perfecting of this part of our nature. I conceive that 
 the emotions raised in us by physical beauty or grandeur, 
 for instance, are of this kind, hence the ' mystery ' of the 
 power of ' matter ' so to move us. It has not that power. 
 These things move us as pictures or images. The emotion 
 truly applies to the reality." 
 
 Elsewhere he writes, "What trifling nonsense to be 
 amazed and awed at mere mechanical necessity, just what 
 is in lifting and dropping a piece of paper, only very large 
 and very small. Good God! it can't be this in nature 
 that fills our souls to overflowing with awe and wonder 
 and delight, that speaks to us of God, and patience, and 
 love, and peace, rebukes us for sin, comforts us in sorrow, 
 gives us assurance of infinite tenderness and wisdom 
 there must be more in it than we can see that way. 
 Think of the sublimity, the beauty, the grace, the right- 
 ness, the life, that lifts us above ourselves, and fills us
 
 Nature not Mechanical Necessity. 189 
 
 not only with an unutterable joy, but with longings unut- 
 terable too, that says to us, Be more, be better, come and 
 join heart and hand with us. Can this be merely that 
 which science shows us ? so much matter, so many pro- 
 perties, motions so numerous and rapid, mere mechanical 
 necessity. Let us bethink ourselves a moment, if there 
 must not be more in nature than we can see with such 
 glasses." 
 
 "Julys, 1861. 
 
 " DEAREST MEGGI.E, Where do you think I am now ? 
 I am at Dr. Gull's. I have taken up my abode here for 
 a week or so, to do a paper with the Doctor, the one we 
 were talking about before. I want to be engaged on 
 matters of this sort, and not to be compelled to bring 
 forward my own ideas too soon. I want time for the 
 thoughts to mature, and so that they may present them- 
 selves in fit shape to me, and not need to be worked up. 
 
 " YOUR LOVING HUSBAND." 
 
 The next letter in relation to " Man and his Dwelling- 
 Place " is addressed to one of his Australian friends. 
 
 "Tottenham, July 1861. 
 
 "DEAR MR. BLAIR, I shall address you in the style 
 and with the freedom of an old friend. For, to say the 
 truth, though I think I never had the pleasure of seeing 
 you, yet having so frequently heard of you from my 
 brother-in-law, James Haddon, I had something of that 
 feeling towards you before I read your review of my 
 book, for which I now thank you very sincerely. I am 
 much obliged to you for it, and appreciate the sympathy 
 and kindly feeling it displays, as well as the pains you 
 have taken to make your way through its ' confusion.' I 
 don't mean this by way of remonstrance. I am quite
 
 190 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 aware was long ago indeed of the justice of your 
 remarks on that point. The book is the very soul of 
 disorder, but then, I was, metaphorically, all of a heap 
 when I wrote it; and I was harassed beyond measure 
 with the idea that people would not get my idea, so 
 that I kept on giving it them all in a lump, over and 
 over again. I'm aware of that ; but then it is my first 
 book, and considering it has been ascribed over here in 
 turns to Whewell, Vaughan, Kingsley, and one or two 
 others (even Whately !), I hope it may pass in a crowd. 
 
 "By the by, I'll mention it before I forget it, what 
 makes you say it has excited a sensation in America ? 
 Let me know all you know on this point, for though I 
 know it was reprinted there, I have never heard a syllable 
 about it thence from that day to this. Your review is 
 the first intimation I have seen on this point. I am 
 naturally, therefore, curious. 
 
 " But now I am going to call you to account, or perhaps 
 rather to confess to a great failure of expository capacity in 
 myself. For I must tell you that you do not quite rightly 
 represent what I meant to express. I know I have not 
 properly guarded against the misapprehension, and I wish I 
 had received your review only a few weeks earlier, I would 
 have touched on the matter in a short preface I have 
 written to the book. My real statement I think just meets 
 the objections you very justly urge against the view as you 
 put it. Do not you represent me as saying that our defec- 
 tiveness makes us think of, or conceive, nature as dead (inert) ? 
 What I mean to say is, that it makes us FEEL it so, makes 
 us experience it so; I think you see the difference. It is 
 a question of being, and not of thinking. That there is a real 
 difference between what I meant, and what you gathered 
 from my book, is proved by your criticisms, which are 
 applicable to the latter, not to the former. I entirely agree
 
 Redemption of Man. 191 
 
 with you that the change which can make us feel nature 
 truly must go deeper than the reception of Christianity, 
 it must go deeper than any individual change ; I think, 
 deeper even than bodily death itself it must affect our 
 very being, and our physical as well as our moral state. 
 What part ' death/ commonly so called, has, I leave un- 
 settled, but in principle I entirely agree with you. What 
 affects us, I take it, is a deadness affecting MAN (not the 
 individual primarily). What can deliver us, therefore, 
 must be something also affecting man. I have spoken of 
 this (too briefly) in Chapter ii. Book iii., ' Of Life.' 
 
 " I am glad you feel my little work to be of a practical 
 and transforming nature. It was this kind of influence 
 I hoped it might exert in some small degree ; I thought 
 it must if I could succeed in uttering what I had seen and 
 felt, because I found its transforming power on myself. 
 I am little anxious that it should turn out that my par- 
 ticular ideas are the right ones ; but I long to see a purer 
 and worthier life of piety among those who possess it, and 
 what must, I think, come with that a wide and ruling 
 
 o 
 
 influence of it over the world. I think the time is near 
 when both must be. 
 
 " With sincere regards and hearty thanks, I am, yours 
 very truly, ' 
 
 " JAMES HINTON." 
 
 The following letters to two of his friends amongst 
 other topics, refer to himself as a thinker : 
 
 " Tottenham, 1862. 
 
 " Schlegel is not a great scholar ; it would be easy to 
 turn his work into ridicule. That's exactly what I feel 
 of myself I'm not a scholar, nor is there the making of 
 a scholar in me. 'But/ Muller adds, 'when a new
 
 192 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 science is to be created, the imagination of the poet is 
 wanted even more than the accuracy of the scholar.' 
 That I feel, too, that though I am by no means a poet 
 in any technical sense, yet my affinities are all with 
 them, and I have for some time been well aware that 
 my faculty is imagination. I made this discovery, 
 and felt rather interested. I think I recognise in this 
 one reason of my difficulty in literature. I have not 
 my imagination at command for artistic purposes, because 
 it is engaged, absorbed in work; it is not available for 
 the form of my thoughts, because it is built into their 
 substance." 
 
 In other words, his imagination was like the actinic 
 rays which are only partially available for the photo- 
 grapher of foliage, being already taken up in performing 
 work in the substance of the leaf, leaving but a black and 
 imperfect impression on the sensitive plate. 
 
 " Tottenham, September 1862. 
 
 " Thank you very much for your correspondent's criti- 
 cisms. These things are very useful to me. I should 
 never find out myself how to meet the thoughts in other 
 people's minds. Altogether I should be vastly better for 
 more of the dramatic element, the power of putting myself 
 into other people's minds. In writing especially it would 
 help me immensely, would it not? I'm not without 
 hopes that it will grow up in me when I get rest which 
 I earnestly anticipate from thinking. I almost expect 
 that quite new faculties will spring up within me, which 
 now the other keeps latent. Now I have confessed to 
 you one of my weaknesses, and having got so far, shall I 
 indulge myself with going on and confiding to you my two 
 great ambitions ? One is to make some useful mechanical
 
 His Function as a Thinker. 193 
 
 invention ; the other, to write a tale ! Don't you pity 
 me?" 
 
 " Tottenham, September 1862. 
 
 "I taught myself German, in a fit of enthusiasm, at 
 about seventeen, procuring a grammar and dictionary, and, 
 of all books in the world/ Faust.' With these I sat down, 
 and read ' Faust,' with a few exceptions here and there 
 which beat me, and I remember it to this day. I wish I 
 read German with facility, but I seem never to have time 
 to sit down and master it, or even to read books in it, 
 though lately I have compared the greater part of Kant's 
 ' Critique,' sentence by sentence, with an English version ; 
 so I shall be obliged to you for any scraps of German you 
 may think pleasing or useful to me. . . . 
 
 " Thank you for reminding me of Grindon. Do you 
 feel, as you read him and the like, that certain conditions 
 want fulfilling for what they say to be true ? It seems 
 so to me, and that what is peculiar in my own ideas is 
 just the fulfilling of these conditions. I have the same 
 feeling with regard to Maurice. To these thoughts and 
 thinkers I am the humble servant. I can do for them 
 what the mouse did for the lion. Indeed, this is what 
 I feel of myself altogether. The heart of man is now 
 bound down by a net. I can gnaw the threads ; and I 
 know, with a most perfect assurance, that what I am privi- 
 leged to see is the setting free of the human soul into a 
 new liberty. I know it, and I know it will be found so, 
 whether people see it while I live or not. I don't really 
 care about the latter, except as it seems a test by which 
 I may tell whether I do my work aright or not. But I 
 rejoice in the liberty I foresee. ... It isn't needful for 
 me to pursue the practical applications, or to point out the 
 glorious light that falls on theology, or to try and raise 
 
 N
 
 194 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 men's thoughts up from self to altruistic views of religion. 
 All this is sure to be done, and much better than I can 
 do it. What is wanted of me is to untie the knots of 
 false thinking which prevent it all. I seem as if I must 
 keep at that. 
 
 " I perceive the resemblances to my views in the books 
 you mention, but, as far as I am aware, it is not they that 
 stimulate or guide me; but it is from books that give 
 opposite views that I get my illumination. My obliga- 
 tions are absolute to the Positive school. I am, indeed, 
 the most advanced Positivist I know. 
 
 " As a matter of fact, my thought was not suggested to 
 me from the spiritual side and I am sure it never would 
 have been but from the scientific. Such writings as Mr. 
 Grindon's used to repel much rather than attract me, 
 until I got the key to them. Indeed, to speak the truth, 
 they rather repel me now. I am more affected by the un- 
 truthful than the truthful side of them. ... I fancy logic 
 is an insuperable bar to me ; and I feel that deep revolu- 
 tions in the foundations of our thoughts are necessary 
 before the beautiful things that are said can be said 
 honestly ; for bad logic always presents itself to me as 
 intellectual stealing. 
 
 "My thought, I say, came through science, through 
 seeing that an absolute inertness perceived without, meant 
 a negative within, and so on; and thus I came to my 'Life 
 in Nature.' You will see for I avail myself of your kind- 
 ness, and post you the MS. that I try therein to show 
 how my philosophical and religious views grew out of my 
 science. . . . 
 
 " The word ' altruistic ' I borrow from Comte. Is it 
 not a capital word ? I am resolved to naturalise it. We 
 want it. It is the antithesis to 'self;' self -being = dead- 
 ness; altruistic being = life; and so on."
 
 Remoteness from Present Thinking. 195 
 
 " Tottenham, September 1862. 
 
 " I can't tell you how much obliged I am by your so 
 very kindly looking at my MS. . . . You can hardly un- 
 derstand how intensely I suffer practically from the feel- 
 ing that what I write is bad and won't do. This is quite 
 unconnected with any misgivings about my thoughts. In 
 them I have an absolute assurance. . . . 
 
 " If you can't conveniently read now the last two chap- 
 ters, send them back unread. I should indeed be glad to 
 have them pretty soon, as a friend has kindly taken the 
 rest to look at. I should like him to see the whole with- 
 out too long a pause. . . . 
 
 " I think I might avail myself of the opportunity, and 
 add a concluding chapter, with a view of saying some 
 things that might put the reader's mind as far as possible 
 in a receptive attitude towards me in the future ; might 
 try and point out what lines of thought open out, and 
 what prospects there are, leaving him, if I can, with 
 his head screwed round my way (as my friend Dr. Gull 
 says). I know I am unimaginably remote from present 
 ways of thinking. I feel it flash over me now and 
 then with a kind of hopeless despair ; but not so often 
 now as it used. Nor do I expect acceptance except from 
 a certain class of minds ; but there are altogether a good 
 many of that class. ... It is just like every doctrine that 
 denies what we feel conscious of. It is only a few that 
 can pass to it from former thoughts, but all can drink it 
 in with their mother's milk. Only think how few could 
 believe we were whirling round, if it was new ? Not so 
 many by far as can believe we feel nature dead through 
 wanting life. You must remember that I find some 
 people, and some of these are among the strongest- 
 headed, most practically-minded men, who see it as
 
 196 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 clearly as I do myself, to whom it comes just as the very 
 thing they have been wanting." 
 
 " Tottenham, 1862. 
 
 " As for ' Society,' excuse my plainness of speech, you 
 really ought to see better. To the self-life, the self- 
 regard must be primary. That's deadness. Don't you 
 see ? How can you imagine difficulty to me here ? 'Tis 
 what I say. 'Tis a different mode, radical basis, and plan 
 of being, man wants for true life. 
 
 " Have I given you an illustration of mine about the 
 self. Look at a shadow. It is ' to us ' (i.e., to our per- 
 ception and impression) a thing, a non-luminous existence. 
 It is truly not this, but exactly an ' absence of luminous 
 existence.' Do you not see? Carry on the idea, then. 
 We feel the self. It is ' to us ' a thing, an existence not 
 altruistic. It is truly not so, but only absence of altruistic 
 existence. 
 
 " Try this, in head and heart, and see if you can't get 
 to feel it and think it, to think of getting free from self, 
 positively, not negatively. We want self ever, doubtless, 
 but for its true use, as the condition of giving, i.e., of 
 sacrifice." 
 
 " Tottenham, 1862. 
 
 " That point about the individual and the race, I thank 
 you for telling me, wants more clearing up. It seems 
 quite plain and simple to me ; but I dare say I should 
 not see enough in what I have written if I did not know 
 it before. I think I shall refer to Paul's words. Does 
 he not describe himself as ' made alive/ and yet exclaim 
 against the body of this death ? And do we not all ap- 
 prehend perfectly that we both are and are to be saved ? 
 Don't we, in a word, beside being sanctified as we can be
 
 Anxieties. 197 
 
 upon earth, desire to go to heaven ? Do we not look on 
 that as a needful deliverance ? To my mind there is all 
 here. The individual change we can individually have, 
 that is life, that is salvation, but we still 'groan, being 
 burdened,' until man's life is perfect. Then we are 
 free." 
 
 After the first year, Mr. Hinton's new mode of life, 
 which had at first seemed to answer so well, proved a 
 failure. The remorseless activity of his intellect seemed 
 to leave him no leisure for composition. Money ceased 
 to come in; another little girl was born; anxieties 
 thickened. 
 
 He thus writes to his wife : 
 
 " Tottenham, July 1862. 
 
 " I am glad to be put into possession of your real feel- 
 ings on the state of our affairs. I sympathise with them 
 very heartily. I know they are natural, especially in 
 your circumstances, and at a distance. But though I 
 sympathise, I do not share in the least the feeling of 
 being disheartened and cast down. ... It is not things 
 of this sort that depress me, or ever will. The contrary 
 things, praise, openings, the feeling of the greatness of 
 my work, and my inability in relation to it, these things 
 oppress and cast me down; but little hindrances, and 
 closing up of accustomed or expected avenues, and the 
 presence of difficulties to be overcome, I'm not going to 
 be cast down by trifles such as these. They stimulate 
 me, and deliver me from that timidity which is my great 
 hindrance, and which it is not failure, but success, that 
 exaggerates in my case. ... In fact, I know something 
 of myself, and I believe that exactly what I want is being 
 driven to desperation. That self-mistrust that is in me 
 wants just that to counterbalance it. It is apt to amount
 
 198 Life of James Hinton 
 
 almost to a kind of moral paralysis, and the life we have 
 been leading is calculated to encourage it. 
 
 " Don't you know how I shrink from doing anything, 
 and feel that I can't ? And does it not stand to reason 
 that the only remedy to the ' I can't ' must be the ' I must ' ?" 
 
 Affairs getting worse and worse, and he himself more 
 nervous and irritable in consequence, it became evident 
 that, in justice to his wife and family, he would have to 
 return to his profession, from which he had, however, never 
 wholly severed himself, as he had continued to see a few 
 aural patients twice a week at his father's house. 
 
 The following characteristic letter to his wife was 
 written in this crisis of his affairs : 
 
 " Tottenham, 1863. 
 
 " Thank you for your sweet note from Maidstone. ... I 
 wish, while you are away, you would think over again your 
 feeling that you could not have Mrs. A. in the house for 
 the reason you said.* I have thought of it, and I can't 
 feel any way but one. Nor can I believe you would, if 
 you gave yourself a fair chance, and would look beyond 
 what is to be seen in the case. It seems to me exactly 
 like being willing to give a person who had fallen down a 
 civil helping hand, provided it was merely a matter of form ; 
 but if it should turn out he had broken his leg, saying, 
 ' Oh no ; I should have to bear his whole weight.' I 
 can't get over it. ... I don't think, nay, I won't believe, 
 that you have any idea how much these kind of things 
 are to me. I am sure you don't see. Personally, and so 
 
 * Mrs. A. was a very poor and not very cleanly person, to whom Mr. 
 Hinton thought it might be a service to take up her abode in their house 
 during their absence. Fortunately she preferred in the end not to have the 
 trouble of moving from her own quarters.
 
 Appointment as Aural Surgeon. 199 
 
 far as I am concerned, I had rather far the house and all 
 the things in it were burnt, and I were thrown houseless 
 on the world, than that it should stand empty while we 
 are away, and so many who might be, not le the better for 
 it. It seems dreadful to me, and the reason more dreadful 
 still. No, Meggie dear, it is of no use ; you do not see. 
 That sensitiveness of your senses to dirt makes you blind. 
 If you could see my heart as well, and what you do for 
 the sake of a clean house, you'd make it a pig-stye first. 
 
 "But to come to less important matters, though I 
 hope you won't pass too quickly, this Guy's matter 
 seems to be really prospering well. I send you a letter 
 from Dr. Wilks, which explains itself. He's the man who 
 is chiefly acting in it. I expect this to be, and perhaps 
 it may be, all you desire. When 'tis settled, we must 
 think what to do. I think I shall try and see what can 
 be done in medicine. I do believe I am in a condition to 
 make some real progress there, and nothing perhaps could 
 be better worth doing. I am disgusted with those evening 
 meetings ; perhaps I should rather say I have been in- 
 structed by them. I see 'tis no use to attempt to hurry 
 people about my philosophy ; I must speak to those who 
 are prepared, and leave the rest alone. It must have its 
 time, so I ought to turn to something else, and let that 
 take its course. I told King so to-day, and he said he 
 was delighted that I had come to that opinion, and hoped 
 I should stay there." 
 
 The " less important matter " referred to was his ap- 
 proaching appointment as aural surgeon to Guy's Hospi- 
 tal an office which was created for him with the purpose 
 of securing him on the medical staff. He accordingly 
 resolved on accepting so flattering an appointment, and 
 setting up a West-End practice as an aural surgeon,
 
 2OO Life of James Hinton. 
 
 taking a house in George Street, Hanover Square, for that 
 purpose. But experience had already taught him that 
 he could not carry on practice and attend to philosophy 
 at the same time; indeed, his strong sense of profes- 
 sional responsibility made him shrink from making the 
 care of human life and well-being a mere subordinate 
 work. He knew he must give his whole soul to it. But 
 believing, as he naturally did, in his own powers, and 
 believing that he possessed the key to some of our modern 
 problems, to give it all up for the sake of making money 
 for his family was to him a literal laying down of his life 
 at the call of duty. But, with the determined thorough- 
 ness that belonged to him, the sacrifice was accomplished. 
 His MSS. were all locked up out of his sight, and for 
 some years he restricted himself to a sedulous attention 
 to his aural practice. 
 
 What it cost him is best shown in his own words to 
 his wife : 
 
 " George, Street, 2oth September 1863. 
 
 " Let me know at once if you really come home on 
 Tuesday, that I may meet you. If you come I shall be 
 glad enough. It will be happy to be together again. I 
 haven't had a good week, and have been very miserable on 
 Sunday ; but also sometimes I have been able to be not 
 only unconcerned, but glad. Surely, I have thought, I do 
 not want to have a grief which would not be a grief. I 
 feel that I shall be able to take up my cross in a religious 
 spirit soon, and then it will be all right. And do you 
 know I have been feeling so much the beauty of the 
 Lord's Prayer too. It has come quite newly to me that 
 prayer for the daily bread. I have felt the kind sympathy 
 and humanness of it so much more. And then the closing 
 words, ' Thine is the kingdom and the power.' I felt as if
 
 Lays aside Philosophy. 201 
 
 I had never realised that God did rule on the earth before. 
 You see I have felt things far abroad, but it is now neces- 
 sary for me to feel them close at hand too. It was not 
 fitting, perhaps, that I should hold the world at arm's 
 length as a mere matter for study any more. I think, 
 indeed, I know, that I must learn very much from this 
 trial, which really, however, is very hard ; it breaks down 
 all my resolutions sometimes." 
 
 " George Street, Hanover Square, 1863. 
 
 " I've been thinking how I can manage to get reconciled 
 to practice. I ought to be, and really it is too ridiculous 
 to grumble when one thinks of what so many others have 
 to grumble at. Yet I have been feeling horribly to-day. 
 I do believe indeed, I am sure, that it is in part my 
 having had my thoughts turned to philosophy that has 
 made me so. It is most odd how the effect follows ; and 
 still, though not so easily provoked as it was, I felt some- 
 thing of it when first I returned, a kind of deadly chill 
 over me on entering the consulting rooms ; but it has been 
 worse to-day, partly from Mr. W.'s visit on Thursday, but 
 mostly from the effects of last night. 
 
 "You must know your mother had a little company 
 last night. We did not have much deep talk ; mostly, if 
 not external, a kind of serious joking, almost wild some- 
 times, but it brought with it thought, and talk about the 
 world ; and somehow this morning found me intolerable, 
 especially and this is the worst of it as there came a 
 great number of gratis patients. When I'm out of sorts 
 many of these without any others make me savage ; and 
 yet it ought not to be so, for in fact there's no doubt I 
 would much rather practise for nothing than be paid for 
 it, if that were practicable. But somehow you see it is 
 so plainly an accepted fact with me that I took to physic
 
 2O2 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 again for money, and only for that, that I don't get right 
 to it. I don't say I can't, for I've been thinking only to- 
 day that really I can, if I just go the right way about it. 
 You can, and do indeed understand how I have, as it were, 
 been put wrong to the profession in respect to the idea of 
 doing good, i.e., unremunerated good, which is and ought 
 to be one of its most attractive aspects, and is one indeed 
 which for the most part is very considerably felt. But I 
 came to it in exactly the opposite way ; to give up at- 
 tempting or hoping to do good was exactly the condition 
 of my taking to it. That was and is the bitterest part of 
 it ; there is so much that I might do, that seems to me to 
 want doing, so much so important to be done and I must 
 give it up. That has been the sole idea with which it 
 was possible I could enter physic. It must remain till the 
 end of things the paramount idea; but perhaps it need 
 not be so exclusive. Hitherto, I confess the free service 
 I could render in physic hasn't (practically) weighed with 
 me one bit ; and, placed beside my other work, I confess it 
 sinks to me into total insignificance. Yet I think it must 
 be in my power now (I daresay it was not before, and 
 that trying would only have made things worse) to recog- 
 nise and take up into my happiness the pleasure of ren- 
 dering medical services questionable as they are, my 
 inveterate medical cynicism compels me to add. You 
 see, so long as any consideration of that kind only brought 
 back into my consciousness how much of service I was 
 foregoing, how much more and greater than any other I 
 could hope to render, it would have been futile to try and 
 do this. But I think my bonds are sufficiently loosed to 
 enable me to take this pleasure. There is no reason that 
 I should not feel the greatest satisfaction in my gratuitous 
 work. It would be most natural for me to do so, if I 
 could once get free from the feeling that in practising; I
 
 Sense of the Sacrifice, 203 
 
 am giving up doing good for the sake of money (which, 
 nevertheless, you must not forget is the truth}. If you 
 forget or ignore this, you won't be doing justice to the 
 problem, and therefore won't do or speak wisely. The 
 thing is, I don't see that I may not practically forget it, 
 now that the objects foregone have less overpowering in- 
 fluence on me. If I can thus feel the happiness of gra- 
 tuitous work (the altruistic pleasure of it), I shall be 
 comparatively, at any rate, all right." 
 
 " Sunday Evening. 
 
 "Don't you think, love, if there were any celestial 
 creature watching me, he would be infinitely amused at 
 my schemes for altering my nature ? I need not tell you, 
 of course, that my last plan for escaping from myself has 
 utterly and totally broken down. Though I did fairly try 
 it, of course it couldn't stand. It only brought into my 
 head the cases in which I hadn't done good, and had taken 
 fees, any one of which, I confess, to me in point of feeling 
 outweighs all there are or will be for some years on the 
 other side. I have had no fee-patients but o e all the 
 week, and have been as wretched as ever." 
 
 " Sunday Evening. 
 
 " Perhaps this sort of dislocation and upsetting of my 
 mind will appear all orderly and right from a distant point 
 of view, or indeed from one not very distant ; but in the 
 meantime it is a dislocation and upset, and takes me at 
 every disadvantage. My hands seem so tied, I am turned 
 from every good work. It is this having to earn money 
 and not by mere labour, but by skill, which seems to make 
 it my duty to husband, as it were, every minute for that 
 kind of useful labour ; it makes one's own conscience, as 
 it were, turn against one, and shut one up.
 
 204 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "I turn over sometimes my own peculiarities in my 
 mind. I don't know there's much good in it, though per- 
 haps there might be if I could get a clear understanding 
 of the case. It seems to me as if the very intensity of 
 my mind continually defeated itself in everything except 
 the one thing thinking. I fancy it is so, that that in- 
 tensity, which is the secret there, is a sort of hindrance 
 elsewhere ; or rather, perhaps, as if that mingled intensity 
 and indolence, as it were, capability of not doing, or learn- 
 ing, which is the exact requisite for thinking, was not the 
 requisite for other things. Often when I read, I feel as if 
 I wanted to engraft another intellectual nature upon my 
 own, as if that keenness of my intellect wanted to be laid 
 aside, was a hindrance to other gifts which I should in- 
 tensely like to enjoy. I wish such a change would come 
 over me, I would willingly endure even working at 
 physic, if that were a means of bringing it about, and I 
 fancy sometimes it may be so. I say I wish such a change 
 might come over me, a blunting the edge of my thought- 
 power so that it would no longer cut so sharply. I fancy 
 then other powers might grow up in me, other possibilities 
 open to me. I think of it in relation to myself as beating 
 the sword into a ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning- 
 hook ; that is what I want. I don't despair of its coming, 
 perhaps through this dreadful tedium. I'm sure I feel 
 dull enough already, so far as that goes. I think how 
 nice it would be to have, as it were, another kind of mind, 
 the thought-work being done, that terrible edge not being 
 wanted any more, to have the instrument changed into 
 some kindly implement of social or domestic life. It 
 quite delights me to feel that some change of that 
 sort is what I feel in this cramping; perhaps 'tis as a 
 caterpillar is cramped into a chrysalis, and can't do 
 anything.
 
 Getting and Giving. 205 
 
 "I've had a nice day at Guy's; a good many new 
 patients came." 
 
 " Never be afraid," he would say, " of giving up your 
 best, and God will give you His better." In 1871 he 
 thus writes to his wife of the very sacrifice which at the 
 time seemed so hard : " Is it not wonderful, beautiful, 
 the contradiction here of the seeming to the truth ? You 
 knew reasons, and you felt more than you knew, that 
 made it your duty to accept that sacrifice from me, though 
 I rendered it with so many agonies and with such despair, 
 though it seemed to me the utter loss of all the best 
 things, of the holiest duty God had given me. And here 
 is the beauty, that though I could not see it, could not 
 even have imagined it, that giving up was but the condi- 
 tion of my having a better thing a better thing even of 
 the very kind that I gave up my having that insight into 
 the practical life, which is more even than all I had before." 
 
 He learned at last to see that his practice had given 
 him that real contact with life, with individual men and 
 women, which was absolutely necessary for the develop- 
 ment of the practical and ethical side of his thinking, 
 It is a question whether to the last he " knew the world," 
 whether he so far escaped from his own dominating indi- 
 viduality as to realise that all men were not as pure and 
 disinterested at heart as himself, and whether, therefore, 
 with all his keen insight into the principles of ethics, his 
 applications were not apt to be visionary and erroneous. 
 His brain was always throwing out such a white blaze 
 of thought, that all other individualities were blurred 
 and lost in it. But so far as he did gain a knowledge of 
 human nature, and the practical bearing of his ethics on 
 life and conduct, he owed it to his profession.
 
 206 Life of James Hintun. 
 
 " Never fear to let go," lie says in his philosophical 
 notes ; " it is the only means of getting better things, 
 self-sacrifice. Let go ; let go ; we are sure to get back again. 
 How science teaches the lesson of morals, which is ever, 
 Give up, give up; deny yourself, not this everlasting 
 getting ; deny yourself, and give, and infinitely more shall 
 be yours; but give not bargaining ; give from love, because 
 you must. And if the question will intrude, ' What shall 
 I have if I give up this ? ' relegate that question to faith, 
 and answer, 'I shall have God. In my giving, in my 
 love, God, who is Love, gives Himself to me/ "
 
 ( 20 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 ON Mr. Hinton's return to practice, his consulting rooms 
 in George Street not being adapted for a family resi- 
 dence, lie took a house near Eegent's Park, just vacated 
 by George Macdonald. But owing to his eldest boy 
 showing some symptoms of delicacy, the London house 
 was given up after a year or two, and 1865-66 was spent 
 at Barnet and Brighton; Mr. Hinton joining his family 
 every Saturday. He often spoke of this period as one of 
 great enjoyment, his mind and body being refreshed by 
 the invigorating country walks he took during the spring 
 and summer, and his depression gradually passing away. 
 He writes to a friend : 
 
 " George Street, Hanover Square, 1864. 
 
 " I have arrived at that stage in which I can thoroughly 
 enter into the feeling almost it is my own for the time 
 that my notions, though really rather clever, are the 
 merest moonshine, no more likely to be true than that 
 cats should walk on their tails ; and that to trouble our 
 selves about anything of the sort is pure absurdity. Why 
 should a man go into fits about the world ? or what good 
 is likely to come of it if he does ? 
 
 " But between this frame of mind and that which was 
 mine lie dreadful torments." 
 
 The following letter is addressed to an intimate friend,
 
 208 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 Mr. Berry, a medical man like himself, on the loss of his 
 father : 
 
 " George Street, Hanover Square, I2th September 1864. 
 
 " I do indeed sympathise with you in the loss you have 
 sustained, and with the more appreciation of your loss, 
 from having had so frequently of late before my own 
 mind the feeling that the time cannot be far distant when 
 I shall have to part with one or both of my dear parents. 
 I cannot bear to think of it, but seem to have a terror 
 about it, which enables me perhaps to know a little what 
 your feelings are. You do not need, however, to be con- 
 soled, knowing, as you do, how great his gain is, how 
 far indeed, what we call death must be from being any true 
 separation of our friends from us. Though we seem parted 
 from them, I often think, and I do believe, that it is for 
 them a much truer and closer approximation to us, a 
 deeper and more intimate knowledge. For them veils 
 and hindrances are taken away, all that relates them to 
 what is individual rather than human in us, veils and 
 imperfections which are necessary for us because our light 
 is darkness, but, thank God ! are no more necessary for 
 them. 
 
 " Is it not a beautiful thought that they may know and 
 feel their nearness with us, though we cannot feel it with 
 them ? that they are hidden only because they have come 
 nearer, and need to be known by powers more intimate, 
 more penetrating, more true, which give us true know- 
 ledge, without that distance and separation which here 
 must baffle us when most we feel our nearness powers, 
 for the true use of which we must wait, as they have 
 waited, and not in vain. Even of our friends, as well as 
 of our God, we may truly say, ' Now we see through a 
 glass darkly,' through sensuous images, through feeble
 
 Visit to Brighton. 209 
 
 words, through shrinking sensibilities, that dare not let 
 the true soul appear ; but then we shall know them even 
 as God knows us, living in them, our natures rich with 
 their life, their joys our own. We may be rid of this 
 self-limitation some day. Their deliverance is the pledge 
 of ours, for in actual verity we are not many but one. 
 
 "Try to come and see me soon; I should so much 
 enjoy it. Your quickened sensibilities from your recent 
 illness and your present loss would make your conversa- 
 tion and sympathy still more valuable and delightful to 
 me than they always are. And I need some one to do 
 me a little good. I have been dreadfully crushed down 
 and cramped and deadened lately, and don't know how to 
 raise myself up. Come and give me a lift. I am very 
 glad I have you for a friend." 
 
 " George Street, Hanover Square, Nov. 1865. 
 
 " DEAREST MEGGIE, I enjoyed Brighton very much, and 
 had a delightful and thorough change ; I was all day out 
 and saw a magnificent sea on Monday. King and I had 
 some talk, but I was already feeling free from my depres- 
 sion so that I did not care so much about my own affairs 
 ... I saw two people who knew ' Man and his Dwell- 
 ing-place,' Stopford Brooke, Editor of ' Eobertson's Life,' a 
 famous jolly fellow with lots of power, and Mr. Eoss, 
 expelled from the Presbyterian body, and now just enter- 
 ing the Church, feeling the recent decision of the Privy 
 Council gives him freedom. He preached through the 
 West of Scotland at the time of the Free Church move- 
 ment with great effect. Toynbee invites me to dinner on 
 the 23rd at Wimbledon. 
 
 " Your loving Husband."
 
 2io Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " Tudor Lodge, Feb. 1865. 
 
 " Mr. "W. has given us some beautiful thoughts lately. 
 His soul has grown with his afflictions, but he told me 
 the other morning I mention it because it seemed such 
 a reward for me that no one had given him so much 
 light on pain as myself; that I had greatly influenced 
 his whole thought in that region. Coming from such a 
 man, and from such an affliction, was not that a satisfac- 
 tion? He said no one could understand what I said 
 until they had had to suffer but that it bore the test. 
 This rejoiced me, because it is hardly possible for any 
 one to feel his life more wasted, or himself more helpless 
 in face of the waste, than myself." 
 
 "June 1865. 
 
 " I never liked or admired Toynbee as much I think 
 as I did on this last visit. He is a powerful working 
 mau, and has wise and wide sympathies. He is full 
 now of his local museums, for which he actually fills 
 one with an enthusiasm. They would give a bond 
 between rich and poor, as he says ; and I feel too that 
 my views of nature would have a much better chance 
 among people who really know something of how wonder- 
 ful it is." 
 
 "January 1866. 
 
 " I am charmed to have so good an account of the boys. 
 It seems to me it is really a good plan we have lighted 
 upon. I think Mr. D. will make them study, and teach 
 them to like it too. I know, darling, God will be with 
 you, and I hope you will feel Him as enabling you to give 
 the best and highest training to these dear boys, and to lift 
 them truly out of self into life. They will gradually grow 
 into your spirit and get deeper and truer appreciations of
 
 Letters. 211 
 
 things under your influence. It must be nice to you to 
 have them so much and so fully under your own heart. 
 I like the thought of it very much, and that I can come in 
 and out now and then, just enough of me, I expect." 
 
 "March 1866. 
 
 " I dine to-night with the Guy's men ; Gull in the chair. 
 I shall go down with him and get a little talk. Certainly 
 there seems a great want in my days and a restlessness 
 which is your absence. I don't exactly seem to live them, 
 only to pass them." 
 
 "April 1866. 
 
 " To-morrow night I am going to take Maurice's place 
 at Marshall's, he being unable to come ; and I am going 
 to present my position, that the moral faculty in us is 
 the true knowing faculty, that as in science we find the 
 world rational, so in a true knowledge we shall find it 
 right and good. You must think of me about eight 
 o'clock." 
 
 To one of his sons he writes : 
 
 " George Street, Hanover Square, Dec. 1865. 
 
 " DAELING BOY, I was very glad to have your letter, 
 as I always am, and it interested me very much, because 
 it showed that you were thinking in earnest about God, 
 and loving and serving Him, which is the true business of 
 our lives. I know I shall have the joy, darling, of seeing 
 you an earnest-hearted, loving boy, and, if I live, a true 
 and good man. 
 
 " I do not wonder, dear, that you say you cannot feel as 
 if God were your father. "We do not see Him as we del 
 our friends whom we love and trust, and we cannot love
 
 212 Life of James H in ton. 
 
 Him until we know Him and feel Him closer to us than 
 any other friend. Then we love Him most of all. But 
 this takes some time, and it grows with our experience 
 until it seems like our very life. The way to think of 
 God so as to know Him, is to think of Christ. Then we 
 see Him, and can understand how tender and merciful 
 and good He is. Then we can see that even while He 
 condemns our evil, and hates all that is mean and selfish 
 and unkind and untruthful in us, yet still He is full of 
 love and gentleness towards us, and seeks to take away 
 our evils, all of them, bearing them for us Himself that we 
 may be free. And then, too, we see that if He sends us 
 sorrows and difficulties, He only sends them because they 
 are the true blessings, the things that are truly good ; what 
 He Himself took when He too was a man among us. He 
 would have us like Himself, with a happiness like His own, 
 and nothing below it ; and so as His own happiness is in 
 taking sorrow and infirmity, and ever assisting, and giving 
 and sacrificing Himself, He gives us sorrows too, and weak- 
 nesses, which are not the evils that we think them, but 
 are what we should be most happy in, if we were perfect 
 and had knowledge like Him. 
 
 " So there is a use and a service in all we bear, in ail 
 we do, which we do not know, but which He knows, and 
 which in Christ He shows to us. It is a use for others, 
 a hidden use, but one which makes all our life rich, and 
 that richest which is most like Christ's. Good-bye, dear, 
 dear boy, I shall be so glad to see you at home. Write 
 to me as often as ever you like and can. Your loving 
 father, 
 
 u JAMES HINTON." 
 
 The next letters are to his sister-in-law, Miss Caroline 
 Haddon :
 
 Belief. 213 
 
 " George Street, Hanover Square, November 1865. 
 
 " You say, ' It is such a hard thing to believe in God, 
 in Christ, as well as such a terrible thing not to believe.' 
 Of course it may be by and by that I shall find myself in a 
 different state of mind more than one cause might produce 
 it but I want to tell you again how at present it is not 
 hard to me, and seems as if it never could be hard, so to 
 believe. If all my thoughts had been expressly devised 
 to render it impossible for me not to believe, they could 
 not have been more exact. Everything compels me to 
 believe in God, in Christ. I see nothing else anywhere. 
 All things in the world, bad and good, physical, intellec- 
 tual, moral, everything which my thought touches or can 
 touch, speak to me in the same language. Man is altru- 
 istic as God is, and Christ reveals Him. . . . 
 
 "We want a revelation, precisely because of our de- 
 fective relation to the actual, to tell us of it. ' I declare 
 unto you that actual life,' of course because we don't 
 rightly perceive it of ourselves. It is just as a man living 
 in a sight-world that gave him only images, would want 
 some one outside to tell him of the real, or touch world. 
 Don't you see the real (i.e., physical substance) would be 
 to that man just as the eternal (i.e., the actual) is to us ? 
 And we must have a revelation, just as he must. . . . 
 
 " How beautiful, how exquisitely lovely and enraptur- 
 ing, the thought-relations of things are. What sacred and 
 delicate, and what multitudinous yet most exact links bind 
 all things together, showing the most unlike continually 
 to be the very same, and the same in such glorious and 
 exquisite ways nay, ways so full of fun, and of humor- 
 ous, as well as profound suggestiveness. Ah, me ! I do love 
 thinking. It is the most beautiful and enchanting of all 
 the arts, except except the poetry of the future, which
 
 214 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 will rise to the true dignity of art, by accepting the serious 
 work of interpreting for us the phenomenal into the actual. 
 Only think what our lives will be then, when our most 
 serious, fixed, and deliberate, nay, most natural and inevi- 
 table thought of every object and every event is poetry 
 rather is what poetry now but faintly guesses at and sug- 
 gests. I half fancy it won't be so hard then to live a 
 Christian life. It will be full of unsought aids and 
 promptings." 
 
 "November 12th. 
 
 "The other thing I wanted to say to you was in re- 
 ference to your expression, 'It is such a terrible thing 
 not to believe/ I don't think this. To my feeling it is 
 not true as you mean it. It is often not terrible, 
 but most right and good, not to believe. . . . Nothing is 
 ' terrible ' that is the true and legitimate result of our best 
 trying, and that truly expresses our nature. It may be 
 painful, it may involve evils, but it is good. You feel 
 this, I am sure, and perhaps meant nothing else ; but I hope 
 it may become a calm and cheerful faith with you. . . . 
 Don't you think that you need a little course of disbe- 
 lieving ? Don't you think it might do you good ? namely, 
 in making you feel again that you were not believing, or 
 trying to believe, more than you really could feel sure of. 
 You think of this, whether you have not gone a little too 
 fast. Much as I shall regret to part company even for a 
 time, I would be willing, because I have no doubt at all 
 as to the course you would steer ; and the first necessity 
 for a perfect fellowship is that there should be no latent 
 doubts." 
 
 Elsewhere he says, " I find the Bible the secret of all 
 truth ; all I truly know I derive from it ; and yet I would
 
 Letters to his youngest Son. 215 
 
 say to every man, ' Don't believe the Bible if you cannot 
 see clearly tbat it is true. Deal freely, boldly by it. 
 Don't be afraid. 'Tis a friend, not an enemy; if you 
 don't treat it straightforwardly it cannot do its service to 
 you. 
 
 " Don't be afraid. God won't damn you for not believ- 
 ing the Bible. God won't damn you, indeed, for any- 
 thing; 'tis not a future affair at all. To be damned is 
 not to have eternal life 'tis to be dead ; not to have love 
 is the only damnation, and that is a matter for present 
 consideration; the future is as the present it can't be 
 worse, save as more wicked." 
 
 Here are two pretty little letters to his youngest 
 boy: 
 
 "October 1866. 
 
 " DEAR WILLY, I am glad to have your letter, though 
 I must say the spelling was not all quite right. Still 
 I managed to make out that you had tried to show 
 love to Mamma, and that makes me happy. I hope, 
 and quite believe, that you have had another good day 
 to-day ; and if you haven't been perfect, you must not be 
 discouraged, but must only try again and the more. And 
 remember the art is to do at once; delay is the great 
 enemy. If you do at once what you are told, you 
 can hardly imagine how beautifully everything will 
 go, and how 'sweetly happy Mamma will look. Only 
 think of your ship ; you see as soon as ever the wind says 
 to it go, it goes at once. It doesn't wait a moment ; and if 
 it did, would it get on well, do you think ? -You know it 
 wouldn't. Why, it would topple over, and its friend, the 
 wind, in its very help, would only hurt. Now we ought 
 to be like ships before the wind, and the wind should 
 be love, moving us at once. Do you know, the Spirit,
 
 2i6 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 God's own Spirit, is called by the same word that means 
 the wind ? And I daresay one reason is that He fills the 
 sails, and that they yield freely and happily to Him, like 
 ships before a favouring breeze. Kiss Howard and Mamma 
 for me, and learn well. Your loving 
 
 " PAPA." 
 
 He would often paraphrase our Lord's words on the 
 new birth thus : " Be a child of the water, that you may 
 be a child of the wind ; be such a one that you may be 
 able to obey your impulses." 
 
 " DEAR WILLY, I was very glad to have your little note. 
 It shows me you have tried, and that makes me sure you 
 will succeed. Did you hear a nice account of the review 
 from Philip G. ? I hope you will be a volunteer by 
 and by ; but I hope you will never have to fight. Some 
 day all the nations will resolve never to fight any more, 
 but to deal with each other in love only. That will be a 
 good day, will it not ? And every one who lives resolved 
 to suffer evil patiently rather than revenge himself, helps 
 to make it come soon. 
 
 " I shall not forget to look out for a steam-engine book 
 for you ; but I am not sure whether I shall find one this 
 week. 
 
 " Look well after dear Mamma, and make her rest." 
 
 On the death of his dear and valued friend, Mr. 
 Toynbee, in 1866, Mr. Hinton succeeded to his practice, 
 removing to his house in Savile Eow, and henceforth 
 taking the first rank in the branch of the profession 
 which he had adopted. 
 
 The few following years were outwardly perhaps the 
 happiest in Mr. Hinton's life. Realising a large in-
 
 Home -life. 217 
 
 come, which not only set him free from harassing pecu- 
 niary cares, but what was far more to him gave him a 
 definite prospect of release at the end of a few years, and 
 freedom to devote himself to those larger questions which, 
 in one form and another, were always haunting him; 
 with unbroken health, and possessed of the greatest 
 domestic happiness, his whole nature seemed to expand. 
 His own wish seemed realised for a time, the terrible 
 keenness of the thinking faculty in him was blunted 
 down into a kindly implement of healing ; and his mind 
 was set free to develop itself in other directions without 
 incurring that " Nemesis of disproportion " which is so apt 
 to follow any exclusive devotion to one pursuit. 
 
 Though not a very early riser, it w r as his habit to come 
 down about eight o'clock, begin the day with drinking a 
 glass of cold water, and then go for a rapid walk round 
 Berkeley Square, often with a book in his hand, unless 
 his little girl Daisy was trotting by his side, returning to 
 greet his family at breakfast with a fresh joyous smile, 
 and such a look of exquisite happiness at the sight of 
 them, as made the very existence more precious that 
 could bring such joy to another. The house at this time 
 was rarely without guests, who came in for their share of 
 joyous greeting ; and the breakfast table soon became the 
 scene of some animating discussion, often on some of the 
 abstrusest questions of philosophy, lit up from within 
 and made luminous to the simplest comprehension present 
 by his wonderful powers of illustration, and only reluc- 
 tantly brought to a close by the arrival of the first patient. 
 
 It is difficult to give any adequate idea of the charms 
 of Mr. Hinton's conversation to a mind at all in harmony 
 with his own. His most marked peculiarity was the in- 
 tensely emotional character of his intellect. Nature, to 
 him, was no cold abstraction, no cunningly contrived
 
 2 1 8 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 machine made up of matter and force, but a mighty 
 spiritual presence, a living Being, tenderly and passion- 
 ately beloved. The laws of nature were to him the habits 
 of a dear and intimate friend. It was not the artist's 
 delight in nature, nor even the poet's, but a combination 
 of the poet's and the scientist's which was quite unique, 
 He would apply to some of the delicate mental operations 
 by which her secret processes are traced out, the kind of 
 epithets that are more commonly used for objects of 
 natural beauty pretty, elegant, delicious while his 
 action w r as often as if he were tenderly handling some 
 exquisite living thing that he held in his grasp, and on 
 which his gaze was intently fixed. 
 
 But keen as was his delight in purely intellectual 
 operations, he valued everything chiefly, if not only, in 
 its relation to the moral. How often and how urgently 
 would he insist upon this in talking to the educators of 
 the young : " Your business is," he would say, " to teach 
 in all things the art of living." And he held that all 
 things properly understood will teach it, for one principle 
 of life pervades all. The law by which man lives is the 
 law of stars and crystals, of flowers, of music, of painting, 
 of mathematics. How often, from some comparatively 
 remote region of thought, or of art, would he flash down 
 a light upon some practical matter, showing perhaps a 
 neglected duty in its vital relations, or revealing an order 
 in what looked like moral waste and confusion. 
 
 Owing to this strong recognition of the spiritual unity 
 of all life, never was there a man in whom the barrier 
 between the religious and the secular was more completely 
 effaced. Most people seem to require to be screwed 
 up periodically to give a more elevated tone to their 
 thoughts, and at certain stated times, they feel it right to 
 exercise a deliberate selection of topics for their thinking
 
 Music. 219 
 
 and reading; but for him this would have been an ab- 
 surdity. Man's growing life, his redemption from death, 
 that was the object of James Hin ton's constant passion of 
 desire; all things in art, science, sociology, were beauti- 
 ful and interesting to him as they exhibited that pro- 
 cess; and often when he spoke of the world to come 
 that is, to come here and now as he gazed upon it 
 in thought, a strange unearthly light would come into 
 his face, a look that those who have once seen could 
 never forget. 
 
 Mr. Hinton from a boy had always been passionately 
 fond of music Mozart and Beethoven being his favourite 
 masters. One of the few relaxations he allowed himself 
 was the Monday Popular Concerts. " I go," he would say, 
 " to see how the world is made." The only poem he ever 
 wrote was written during the performance of one of these 
 concerts. It was his wife's birthday, and on his return 
 he brought it to her, saying, "Here, Meggie, love, 
 this is my birthday present to you." It illustrates so 
 well the interpretative uses of music to him that I 
 give it here. 
 
 " Oh passionate wail ! that is not sound alone, 
 Nor only man's, O nature, but thy breast, 
 Unveiling, doth proclaim the deep unrest, 
 Thy dole and ours, that maketh us as one ; 
 One in our smitten heart and end unknown, 
 In baffled hope and longing unconfessed ; 
 One, tho' in darkness we, and Thou in glory dressed. 
 Let it sound on, and on, for ever on, 
 It maketh joy of anguish, it filleth even 
 The void it witnesseth with light of heaven. 
 Nay, doth it end in triumph and delight ? 
 Is sorrow rapture, and doth agony 
 Reveal itself as bliss ?
 
 22O Life of James Hint on. 
 
 So listenest Thou, Christ, with heart intent, 
 But knowing all the chords ; the passionate cry 
 Of hearts grown sick with hoping, tears unspent, 
 Weakness, oppression, ruin, purpose high 
 Frustrate and vain : all, all Thou knowest, Lord, 
 Thou hearest we the music one accord." 
 
 "Now, also," he says in his MSS. notes, "I perceive 
 how music represents the universe. It is an ideal, and it 
 is emphatically a representative of the universe because 
 it especially embraces discords, things evil in themselves, 
 yet making an essential part of the perfection of the 
 whole. From music best we may learn how nature 
 may contain so many evils and yet be a true ideal ; per- 
 fect music is the highest mode of the soul's affirmation 
 that the universe as a whole is absolutely beautiful. 
 Perhaps it is in the emotional world that we best per- 
 ceive how partial evils contribute to a perfect result. 
 In the intellectual world next : we better see the use and 
 good of an error than of an ugly thing. Our view ex- 
 pands as we rise from the merely perceptive through the 
 intellectual to the emotional." 
 
 Mr. Hinton's love and study of art had a much later 
 date. For many years his wife could never get him to 
 share her artistic tastes ; it was not exactly apathy, but 
 an inability to enter partially into any pursuit, which 
 prevented him from even visiting the Academy. Shortly 
 before Mr. Toynbee's death, however, the two friends used 
 to visit the Water-Colour Exhibition together, Mr. Hinton 
 being the learner, and profiting from Mr. Toynbee's more 
 cultivated taste. Some pictures that were not worth 
 claiming having been left in the house in Savile Eow after 
 Mr. Toynbee's death, out of regard to the patients that 
 crowded his consulting rooms, and had often to wait many 
 hours before their turn came, he began to replace them
 
 Art. 
 
 221 
 
 by better ones ; and in doing so, was led to enter deeply 
 into the study not only of pictures themselves, but of the 
 principles of art, which, with that singular habit of seeing 
 one thing in and by another that characterised his 
 mind, he afterwards found threw such light on morals, 
 and led to some important modifications of his ethical 
 views. 
 
 About this time he established his evening meetings 
 
 o o 
 
 for philosophical discussion, either at his own house or 
 at one of his friends, in the place of the earlier classes 
 he was in the habit of holding for any who liked to 
 attend them, the formal lecture giving place to a more 
 conversational tone. Many date the beginning of a 
 higher life from these meetings, that conscious recon- 
 ciliation of their moral and intellectual faculties which 
 constitutes the deepest want of the present day. 
 
 Over young men, in particular, his influence was 
 especially happy. One whose whole life will bear its 
 impress, writes, " My thoughts about him are so many that 
 I am afraid I could not say what I wished in a few lines, 
 nor could pages and pages express the feelings that well 
 up from my heart. Yet if you think it desirable I will 
 send this message to young men, Eead his books, follow 
 his teachings and study his thoughts, and you will find 
 a sure guide through this world of ours, a guide who 
 will ever urge you onwards and upwards without a 
 chance of slipping back, and whose watchword is ' Others' 
 needs.' " 
 
 Nor were the needs of others a mere watchword on 
 the lips, they were an ever-present reality in James 
 Hinton's life. No man's heart was more open to any in 
 need, no hand more quick to help. Dr. Cassells, of Glas- 
 gow, relates how, when comparatively a young and 
 unknown man, on the mere strength of his admiration
 
 222 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 for Mr. Hinton's writings, and without any previous intro- 
 duction, he wrote to him, asking him for instruction in 
 aural surgery ; and receiving a prompt and hearty response 
 to his appeal, he went up to town, and describes his first 
 interview, at Savile Eow, with the eminent aurist. After 
 waiting a few moments in some trepidation at the step he 
 had taken, the door burst open, and with that impetuous- 
 ness which characterised all his movements, Mr. Hinton 
 advanced rapidly towards him, grasped his proffered hand 
 in both of his, gave him a hearty welcome that set him 
 at once at his ease, and oblivious of the numerous patients 
 waiting for him, oblivious too of Dr. Cassells' travel-stained 
 appearance, dragged him off at once to his consulting 
 room, where he .introduced him then and there to work, 
 placing his whole professional skill and knowledge at his 
 immediate disposal. 
 
 It was this magical sympathy, so prompt in action, that 
 endowed him with an insight into the hearts of men and 
 women which seemed to them little less than miraculous. 
 The young, the sorrowful, the tempted, the fallen, were 
 drawn to him by an instinctive conviction that he at least 
 could understand and feel for them ; and often has a per- 
 plexing knot in practical life been loosened by his wise and 
 kindly counsel This may seem strange in one who in 
 many ways was so unpractical, and who, with a conscious- 
 ness of this defect, generally left the practical application 
 of his principles to be worked out by others; nevertheless, it 
 is true. Of the practical in general he had no knowledge ; 
 but give him an individual case, the conditions of which 
 he could understand, and the keenness of his moral vision 
 revealed to him at once what was the right and straight- 
 forward thing to do. 
 
 The following letter, which bears the date of his new
 
 A doption of Children. 223 
 
 residence, is addressed to the wife of an intimate friend, 
 who, having no children of her own, he hoped might be 
 persuaded to adopt some poor little orphan child. The 
 rarity of such adoption in English life, especially of orphan 
 little girls, who might thus be saved from the lovelessness 
 and contamination of the workhouse, and know the good 
 influences of a pure home, was a ceaseless surprise and 
 regret to Mr. Hinton. 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, November 1866. 
 
 " Does it not make our hearts bleed when we think of 
 those poor infants who are born not so much into any 
 decent earth, but into a hell worse than the blackest 
 theological imagination ever painted;* when we think 
 of the poor little girl with capacities for heaven destined 
 to become a thing below humanity ? Mothers are happy, 
 but they know not the happiness, in being mothers, of 
 preventing that. Do you never think of the tiny fingers 
 which might press your bosom ? Think of the little fingers 
 which are being stretched out in vain for bosoms that 
 the cold earth covers, or that shame has turned to stone. 
 Oh, amid the merry laughter that rings like a mockery in 
 your ears, does not there mingle sometimes the long wail 
 of a starving babe ? It isn't yet out of my ears, I know ; 
 and I do not wish it should. The things that are done 
 here are too dreadful to be thought of ; much more are too 
 dreadful to be forgotten. 
 
 " Does there not every now and then intrude between 
 you and that baby face which haunts your eyes, a long 
 procession of baby faces, streaming the happiest only of 
 them to the grave ? " 
 
 * "Children not so much born as damned into the world." SOOTH.
 
 2 2. i Life of James Hinton. 
 
 In reference to a little paper on the divinity of Christ, 
 which he wrote after hearing a sermon on the subject by 
 his friend Mr. Stopford Brooke, he writes : 
 
 " Savile How, August 1867. 
 
 " I feel that, although a bungle, it is yet the right thing 
 in the main. . . . Perhaps it is less as bringing God near 
 to us, than as showing how near He is to us, that Christ 
 is most to me. I do not know, I do not say it ought to 
 be so to others. But think of those words, ' He that hath 
 seen Me hath seen the Father.' What do they mean but 
 that our experience is God's experience, only divinely 
 known, divinely borne ? 
 
 " I am quite strange to myself, Carrie. These things fill 
 me with a passion when I think of them. They thrill me 
 like music, and bow me into nothingness like love ; and 
 yet I have put them so away that I live quietly, and 
 hardly know that I am not content without them. I live 
 apart. I wish I could, but I cannot mix the two." 
 
 " Savile Row, September 1867. 
 
 " You see, dear Carrie, that I have got home again. I 
 came this morning by mail from Scarboro'. Meggie and 
 the boys are coming round by sea, and I expect them to- 
 morrow morning to breakfast. We have had a glorious 
 time. 
 
 " Your letter contains so much, I seem as if I should 
 never have done answering it. For instance, when I re- 
 flect on your remark that martyrs were not metaphy- 
 sicians and philosophers, I begin to think it probable that 
 a considerable proportion of them were. It never struck 
 me before, but it is really interesting to think how akin 
 the martyr and the metaphysical character are in some 
 aspects. The martyr must have been eminently idea-led,
 
 Martyrs and Pietists. 225 
 
 placing his conviction infinitely above results, accustomed 
 
 to look at things not visible I feel this the 
 
 more from my own understanding and sympathy with 
 the Pietists (I mean like Mad. Guyon), and their over- 
 whelming feeling of the love and loveliness of God. That 
 is my feeling now. The infinite beauty of God devours 
 me with a feeling to which no words could be extrava- 
 gant. I recognise their feeling as my feeling. But mine 
 came to me through what people would call my meta- 
 physics. It is my vision of God, my seeing of the world, 
 that ravishes me so. I cannot but believe that their feel- 
 ing must have arisen in a way essentially the same, how- 
 ever seemingly diverse. 
 
 " Have I made you see, or rather feel, what I mean by 
 altruistic being ? how love is the expression of the fact 
 of God's existence ? how all goodness is embodied in His 
 nature ? Do not you feel this, at least, that, taking the 
 world and nature as it is, at the worst, though we cannot 
 perhaps explain fully any one thing, yet altogether it does 
 consent to be the phenomenon of a life that is in sacrifice ? 
 However darkly we may grope about the wards of the 
 lock, yet do we not feel that we have grasped the key ? 
 I do. 
 
 " I had this thought as I rode yesterday through that 
 wonderfully beautiful Yorkshire. Surely nature is worthy 
 that it should require some profoundness, some delicacy 
 of thought, some linking together in one of things that 
 seem opposed, something that is a tax upon our 
 powers of thinking, to understand her. Ought it not to 
 be so ? " * 
 
 * Canon Mozley has pointed out how the same age that has developed 
 the scientific analysis of nature has also developed a new sense of natural 
 beauty : "The tendency of the analysis of nature is to reduce the idea of 
 the Deity in men's minds to a negation, and to convert the First Great 
 
 P
 
 226 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 "Savik Row, February 1868. 
 
 " MY DARLING MEGGIE, I have enjoyed thinking of you 
 to-day, knowing you would have many pleasures. Nor 
 have I been dull. Offord and I heard Lynch this morn- 
 ing. He gave us a nice sermon of his sort. The prettiest 
 thing he said, speaking of the ' weightier matters of the 
 law/ was this: There are different kinds of weight. 
 Sometimes a father has himself to make a coffin, and put 
 his own child in it, and carry it along the dreary road to 
 the grave: how much heavier is the child then than 
 when he is carried, laughing, on his shoulder! So 
 it is with the weight Christ takes off from the heart, 
 and the weight of willing service He lays upon, our 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I have finished H. W. Beecher's ' Norwood.' The last 
 volume is quite worth reading. It should do us good to 
 be made to feel as deeply and really as we may, what 
 a deep and terrible discipline of heart and soul that 
 nation has gone through, at least many of them. There 
 must come good fruits from that. I like to try to enter 
 into their enthusiasms and sorrows, and feel knit to them 
 in my soul" 
 
 "February 1868. 
 
 " Last night Savory came in after the Medico- Chirur- 
 gical. He's a great lover of feminine women; says, 
 although he doesn't see why a woman should be the 
 
 Cause into a mere physical force. But the admiration of nature as a 
 creation of beauty, on the other hand, tends to support the moral idea of 
 the Deity. . . . The impression of the visible world as a chain of 
 material causation has been more or less counteracted and counter- 
 balanced by the visible world as a spiritual sight. And so we generally 
 find that no one set of ideas is allowed to domineer and monopolise ground 
 in any age, but, when one rises to power, another is provided to meet and 
 check it." University Sermont, "Nature," p. 159.
 
 Letters to his Wife. 227 
 
 worse for knowing Euclid, yet he prefers them if they 
 don't. This came up from my saying I thought the medi- 
 cal bodies ought not to refuse to examine women. He 
 thinks they ought." 
 
 "August 1868. 
 
 " It is wonderful how quietly my life goes on. No- 
 thing happens but the little regular flow of patients, now 
 not too excessive. It seems to me a very quiet life ; and 
 I have very little impulse to try and make it otherwise. 
 To all intents and purposes, I seem to myself as quiet, as 
 retired, and remote from real contact with the world, as if 
 I were already at Queensferry.* Indeed, I should then be 
 much more in contact with it. I suppose it shows how 
 this medical work remains, as it were, outside of me, and 
 cannot penetrate into me. If I did ten times the work, 
 my soul would be a hermit still. Most likely, however, 
 it is your absence that I feel, and that makes everything 
 else seem unreal to me. I half meant to-day to have 
 seen if I could have written something of my Nottingham 
 lecture ; but the day is all gone without. I feel I could 
 not satisfy myself. 
 
 " But all this does not matter. You and the children 
 are having a nice time, and getting health and refreshment, 
 and living in the beauty of the earth and sea, and that 
 thought enlivens me enough. When people come to our 
 a^e, it is in one another and in our children that we live. 
 
 O * 
 
 One's interests and hopes begin to transfer themselves, 
 and to take a new root. Is it not strange that four 
 children should seem too few to cany one's hopes ? I 
 wonder whether forty would suffice ? not better, I expect. 
 But this is a great joy, that whatever I may teach or fail to 
 
 * In Scotland, where his wife and children tnen were.
 
 228 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 teach them, from you they cannot fail to learn good- 
 ness." 
 
 He -writes to an intimate friend, who, on meeting 
 him after a long interval, was struck by his apparent 
 indifference to his old subjects : 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, August 1868. 
 
 " I am just the same, as you know ; but I am compelled 
 to put on an external covering, or I could not get on at 
 all, and it fits too close to be thrown off at any moment 
 not to say that there is danger of wounds which a spon- 
 taneous instinct makes me avoid. I simply cannot at 
 any moment, and in haste, let my nature really respond 
 to the appeals which things necessarily make to it ; indeed 
 I cannot do it at all without a great expense, for which, 
 in general, I see no adequate return. My self-control has 
 been acquired too painfully, and only by the aid of fostering 
 circumstances which I fold about me as a shield. I am 
 in a perfect maze of pleasant conditions, and I will be 
 glad in them (since I can). Why should I not ? when not 
 to be so would serve but to put farther away all that I 
 most desire. 
 
 "You have been deceived here, I think, and have 
 attached too much importance to that which is for you 
 quite unimportant. You should not see my external 
 ways. That is only my method of holding at arm's 
 length things which, if they came too near, would stab me ; 
 but it is my own heart which I hold at arm's length too. 
 And I have gained a victory, such as it is ; but I loathe to 
 think of it. I don't wonder that to other eyes it seems 
 more like a defeat. Ah me ! and it is a defeat too. I have 
 not risen to an appreciative renunciation; I have only 
 flattened myself down (there is no other word for it) into
 
 Mental Hybernation. 229 
 
 a mock indifference, and it makes me worse, I know it 
 does, truly, in some respects. But I do not care I cannot 
 afford to care. I do not seem to want to be good ; I only 
 want to be absorbed in the passion of the altruistic life, 
 which isn't good, but only a necessity /and merits no re- 
 ward. And for myself, I only want to do my work. But 
 this it is my daily task, my duty, not to want. But how 
 can I cease to want my breath ? how but by dying ? Yes ! 
 there is one way, / hybernate. By the by, there's quite 
 a new light on physiology here. I am a hybernating 
 animal. A wintry torpor has fallen upon me ; that is all ; 
 a kind of living freezing, wherein there exists just vitality 
 enough to keep one going till the spring. I feel a new 
 sympathy with dormice and hedgehogs, and every kind of 
 hybernating animal. I know their sensations, especially 
 how disgusted they feel with themselves. 
 
 " Still there is the promise of a spring, perhaps even for 
 me ; and God made me, I suppose, with the capacity of 
 cherishing deep inside a life debarred from outer mani- 
 festation. Has he not made others so nay, all? But 
 don't you know that if you rashly touch a hybernating 
 animal, it falls into a fever and may die? Beware, 
 therefore, how you touch me." 
 
 In the spring of this year, Mr. Hinton having delivered 
 a lecture at Nottingham "On What we can Know," he 
 writes to one of his auditors : 
 
 "Savile Row, April 1868. 
 
 " Thank you for your abstract of my lecture, which is 
 of interest and of use to me. 
 
 " I will tell you what I think on the question you ask. 
 
 " First about the falsity of our sense-perceptions being 
 to our advantage, I note two points : (i) How much more 
 valuable, so to speak, the perceptions are in themselves.
 
 230 Life of fames Hinton. 
 
 Suppose we perceived all light and heat and sound as only 
 so many varieties of motion, what would the world be worth ? 
 (2) We can get more knowledge by modified impressions, 
 by having limited senses, than we can conceive ourselves 
 getting if we could only have exact ones. Perspective 
 is a case in point. If distant objects did not look small, 
 how could we see an extensive surface at all ? Tis con- 
 tradictory. How have got any idea of the heavens, if the 
 stars had looked even a mile across ? Again, light gives 
 us at once perceptions of form, of distinctness, of objects, 
 &c. ; but how could vibrations, perceived as vibrations, 
 help us to such conceptions ? 
 
 " So with touch, again. If we had no impressions from 
 touch but accurate ones, we could learn from it about no 
 object that extended beyond the reach of our fingers. And 
 if things did not to our touch begin and cease, how many 
 objects could we possibly take cognisance of ? Just so many, 
 evidently, as could be crowded at one moment into our sen- 
 suous apprehension ; an infinitesimal portion of the things 
 our senses have taught us about, from the very fact that 
 things do have the goodness to take themselves out of the 
 way, although this is making our senses report distinctly 
 false. Is it not clear that the false perceiving of our senses is 
 altogether the only conceivable condition of their becoming 
 the means of large and varied knowledge ? Not to say 
 that this sense-lie of beginning and ceasing is the precise 
 basis of our knowledge of succession, of order in a word, 
 of science. Put the problem, How will you give a being 
 of limited perceptive sphere the power to comprehend? 
 The answer surely must be, Give him modified, especially 
 negatively modified, apprehensions, with power to use them. 
 Surely it shows in the strongest light the unreason pf the 
 present Positivist leap, ' Our perceptions, in this aspect, 
 are modified, therefore we cannot know.'
 
 "On What we can Know" 231 
 
 " Then for your second question : the proofs that the 
 scientific result is but phenomenal are very many ; but 
 many of them abstruse, and incapable of being popularised. 
 I confess the one I prefer and think the plainest is the 
 inertia. I cannot conceive anything more axiomatic 
 than that; only, like other axioms, it needs to be clearly 
 understood. Our perceiving an objective inaction, and not 
 as an absence of existence, but as the very character of 
 existence itself, carries its own interpretation to my mind 
 so plainly, that I cannot conceive anything making it 
 plainer. Especially when we look at it from the other end, 
 as it were, and see that, of course, when we examine a 
 phenomenon, we find it hasn't action.* It cannot; not to 
 exist and not to act at least are one. 
 
 " But still the other arguments are very numerous. 
 The conceptions of matter and force involve contradictions 
 which Herbert Spencer has argued out at great length, and 
 shown that no statement of them will bear examination. 
 (See his 'First Principles/) There is another argument, 
 too, which this lecture has suggested to me, namely, that 
 in the conception of the world as matter and force (which 
 is the scientific phenomenon), the intellect does not really 
 rise above the senses at all, but simply endorses and uni- 
 versalises the presentation of nature by touch, the most 
 palpably subjective of all our senses. It is still a sen- 
 
 * See Essay, "The Fairyland of Science." "Whatever is that secret 
 activity in nature, of which all the forces are exhibitions to our sense, we 
 know one tiling respecting it, viz., that it is not force. . . . Force ia a 
 sensation of our own, and is no more to be attributed to the object in con- 
 nection with which we feel it than is the brightness of a colour or the 
 sweetness of a taste. When we take upon ourselves to alter the arrange- 
 ments of the universe, we feel pressure, push, or pull ; accordingly we attri- 
 bute to insentient matter our sensations, and w speak of an arch pressing 
 on its abutments, of particles of matter attracting or drawing one another, 
 and so on."" Thouyhtton Health," p .274.
 
 232 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 suous apprehension. ... It is very odd how that me- 
 chanical sense-apprehension is used to banish all the 
 other lovelier ones, all that makes nature dear and de- 
 lightful and awful. . . . The present demand, it strikes me, 
 is precisely for us to emancipate our thought of nature 
 from the effects of touch, from the subjective elements 
 which it introduces. And this has two bearings of 
 interest. In the first place, it gives a more definite char- 
 acter to the problem, as the Positivists put it, it is so 
 vague, ' we cannot transcend our consciousness,' ' we have 
 no faculties,' &c., &c. These are exactly the modes of 
 expression under which all sorts of fallacies impose them- 
 selves upon us. No problem ever was or will be clearly 
 seen through so. But, Can we, or can we not, transcend 
 the conceptions imposed by this particular sense of touch ? 
 is a rational and practical question, to which we may 
 reasonably hope to obtain a clear and demonstrable reply. 
 And then, secondly, it makes the question so clear, and 
 parallel to the case of sight. We have transcended 
 thoughts imposed by its subjective elements, and chiefly 
 by the mere force of reason operating on the facts of our 
 experience. I can't for the life of me see why the force 
 of reason should fail in this other case. 
 
 "Then the question resolves itself into two points: 1st, 
 Negatively, Can we affirm of the data of touch that they 
 mnst be subjective, whether we can go beyond them or 
 not ? and, 2nd, Can we refer those impressions given by 
 touch to any other elements wholly or partly given us in 
 experience, as by experience of motion we refer light to 
 motion ? Of course you see at once how I answer both 
 these questions affirmatively. I say that if we knew, and 
 could know, nothing but matter and motion, we still could 
 negatively lay our finger with demonstration on certain ele- 
 ments given in touch, and say, These are not objective ; and
 
 Subjectiveness of Touch. 233' 
 
 again I say that there are other facts in our experience 
 by which our touch experience may be interpreted and 
 explained.* 
 
 " Now you see this brings me to another of your ques- 
 tions, which shows that perhaps even you have not quite 
 fully perceived my statements. It is my exerting effort 
 makes me perceive nature as containing force and resist- 
 ance (which is the same) ; it is this effort of mine makes 
 nature mechanical to me. It is our self-action introduces 
 the non-action into nature. From this came my thought 
 of the arbitrary action (self-action) and necessary passive- 
 ness (mechanical necessity), the two halves phenomenally 
 apprehended of the one actual necessary action love, 
 holiness, the reality underlying the phenomenon. 
 
 "Then as to your next question, I should say two 
 things. First, I don't deal with words, nor care about 
 them. If any one found any difficulty as to man's 
 deadness, as to whether ' deadness ' was the best word to 
 use to express man's defective apprehension, I should say, 
 Drop the word altogether. The thing I point out remains 
 just the same. To me they cluster most perfectly around 
 the central thought of a lack of life in man. But in the 
 meantime I won't embarrass myself and raise up artificial 
 obstacles by a word. If any one feels that, for man's 
 moral emotions to be available for interpreting nature, 
 there can't be a deadness in him, by all means let him 
 not think of it so. Provided that he agree with me in 
 
 * See Essay, "The Fairy Land of Science." "The feeling from which 
 we derive the idea of force " conveyed to us by our touch impressions 
 "rests upon a consciousness of difficulty, of resistance, of imperfect 
 ability. It arises from resisted efforts. In fact, it is our own imperfection 
 we ascribe to nature when we imagine that our feeling of force truly re- 
 presents its working. In it there is neither exertion nor resistance, but a 
 perfect order an order to explain which we rnunt look deeper than to our 
 *eusuous experience."" Tk^uyhtt on Health," p. 275.
 
 234 Life of J antes Hinton. 
 
 thinking that nature is truly active, and a want in man 
 makes him feel inert, &c., we agree quite enough. . . . 
 
 "I demur to your statements. I think that man's 
 natural thought of right and good is diametrically opposed 
 to God's good and right ; and, indeed, as idealised in his 
 invented ' heaven,' comes very near to the true being 
 damned, viz., in utterly excluding possibility of sacrifice. 
 So you see I do think man's deadness shows itself in hi? 
 moral emotions, there eminently. If spiritual life has any 
 meaning at all, is it not death that is expressed in the 
 thought it cannot be denied to be man's natural thought, 
 his 'hell' will stand fixed for ever to attest it that 
 suffering is worse than sinning 1 
 
 " Then I say, as for the objective validity of the moral 
 emotions, where, I should like to know, was the objec- 
 tive validity of the intellect till it was made valid 
 by interpreting appearances 1 What were its inventors 
 worth 1 Were its arbitrary cosmogonies or its ' intelligible 
 world' more rational than our heaven is good? The 
 parallel here is perfect, it seems to me. Both faculties 
 are alike perfect for their true work, impotent for that 
 which they assume ; their true work being to judge the 
 representations of the subordinate faculties, and to be 
 themselves regenerated in the doing of it. In spite of 
 the radical unsoundness of man's moral sense, putting the 
 self-good as the good (the intellect also radically unsound, 
 putting self-being, self-action, for the being, the action), it 
 has nay, in some respects, not in spite so much as in 
 virtue of this belief in self-good as good it has an adapta- 
 tion to begin the work of interpreting, i.e., now that the 
 way has been prepared, and, observe further, now that the 
 revelation has been made to it from without. I have 
 never said that man could interpret the phenomenal if 
 Christ had not lived and died. Full life-possessing crea-
 
 Objective Validity of the Moral Reason. 235 
 
 tures with altruistic consciousness may have (surely do 
 have ?) the same task of interpreting phenomena by the 
 moral sense. I suppose it is the normal condition of 
 the creature ; but their moral nature is different, and the 
 task is clear and straight. But of this one might think. 
 
 " Then, finally, as you know, by saying there is a dead- 
 ness in man, I do not mean to imply there is no life. 
 Certainly there is life now. ' He who hath the Son hath 
 life,' and this doubtless was also in the earliest ages. This 
 human experience is the raising up of man to life ; this 
 you know was always iny proposition. When I say 
 broadly, ' Man is dead,' I still feel I speak rightly, though 
 I know I may mislead. I mean death gives the whole 
 character to the scene, lies at the root of it, is the foun- 
 dation of the whole mode of experience which we call 
 human life, determines the nature of our perceptions, of 
 our inevitable feelings ; and our natural thoughts express 
 it to understand it we must think of it as death. But 
 I do not exclude thereby the growing life. I make even 
 that intelligible, for that is to be rightly understood only 
 as a light shining in a darkness that comprehends it not. 
 Man's full life is heaven, as far as the heaven is above the 
 earth from this. 
 
 " Now, as to your last question, whether what we shall 
 know by interpreting the phenomenal will be the being, 
 real existence. I say it will and must be ; but I will put 
 the case before you. 
 
 " i . Supposing it were not, still my argument is good. 
 It would be something beyond phenomena ; it would no 
 more be phenomena than phenomena are sense-appear- 
 ances. And we should have got a victory over another 
 stratum, so to speak, of subjective elements. 
 
 " 2 . As you say, if it were not so, it would not matter, be- 
 cause the object known answering to all our faculties would
 
 236 Life of James H in ton. 
 
 truly suffice for us. It would also truly suffice for the 
 regulation of life. The moral unreason of the world is 
 unquestionably the true impulse to a desire for knowledge 
 beyond the phenomenal. And here comes a suggestion 
 respecting the moral status of Positivism. As a system, I 
 should say it was certainly defective, because it leaves 
 the moral nature without objective support. It leaves it 
 to invent its own idea of good, exactly where the intellect 
 was left of old. This is not only a defect, it is an incon- 
 sistency ; it is against its whole spirit and all its principles. 
 But, then, see the fatal dilemma which besets it. To have 
 an objective basis for the moral nature, it must find the world 
 good, and a good world means a God. Positivism in this 
 aspect, again, proclaims its own shortcoming, and of course, 
 leaving the moral sense thus on a mere subjective basis, its 
 claim to regulate life must be rejected on its own grounds. 
 
 " This is curious, too, the affirmation of a revelation is 
 the affirming an objective basis to the moral sense ; and it is 
 really very striking how early and how widely the affirma- 
 tion was made, as if an objective basis for the moral nature 
 was felt as a want sooner and more deeply than the need 
 of one for the intellectual nature. So Plato, though quite 
 content to speculate, makes Socrates say that we want a 
 revelation above all things, I believe on moral grounds. 
 It is curious to note the inversion here, how the Positivist, 
 binding intellect down to the objective, don't object to let 
 the moral sense float free. 
 
 "I think even if there were a moral subjective ele- 
 ment, we should never ask with any sincerity of ques- 
 tioning whether we could not go beyond the appear- 
 ance to the moral nature, at least not until some other 
 and further faculty in our nature revealed itself ; then we 
 should try, but also we should succeed. And on this 
 point I used often to think whether the emotional nature
 
 Positivism. 237 
 
 as a whole did not really contain distinct faculties des- 
 tined to be used in succession viz., the conscience and 
 emotions, the sense of right and the affections. But I 
 don't think it is so. They are a true unit, I believe ; very 
 likely there is a parallel to this twofoldness in the subor- 
 dinate faculties. 
 
 " 3. But, in fact, the moral sense used objectively must 
 show us the actual being (i.e., if it is capable of this 
 use.) This is why the existence which alone the moral 
 sense can recognise, inasmuch as it must be good and 
 holy (you see this, I think ?), must be, because it must act. 
 Only that which is can truly act, and only that which 
 acts can be the existence the moral nature can recognise ; 
 or, to speak metaphysically, do you not see that to ex- 
 clude inertia is to exclude phenomenalness, even in the 
 utmost extension of the word? That which is pheno- 
 menal, inasmuch as it is not (and it makes no difference 
 to what faculty it is phenomenal), must have the quality 
 of not acting. 
 
 " And so you see, knowing the actual is knowing God ; 
 it is eternal life. It is a thing different in kind from the 
 knowing of a phenomena. It is a process of being. In it 
 is a true identification of object and subject. And so, in 
 one sense, a most true one, here, while death reigns in our 
 members, at the best we see but in a glass darkly; but 
 then when our perfect nature is given us, we shall know 
 even as we are known." 
 
 The next letter is an answer to a question as to how his 
 doctrine of the objective validity of the affirmations of the 
 moral sense was related to certain doctrines of Kant and 
 
 Fichte. 
 
 "Savile Row, May 1868. 
 
 "My recollections of Fichte are a little bit misty;
 
 238 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 and in what sense the doctrine that by the moral sense 
 we know the absolute is his, I can't say. I recognise it, 
 however, as in a certain sense Kant's ; it is his doctrine 
 of the practical reason ; and in some sense surely it is now 
 everybody's (except the Positivists). In fact, it is very 
 old, as old as anything to be called religion. I don't 
 claim any novelty in that. What I say is, that it is the 
 work of the moral faculties to interpret nature. I dare- 
 say there are previous forms of this affirmation. I 
 should be sorry to think there were not; but I should 
 doubt if they were in the form of clear and tenable pro- 
 positions. You see that the idea requires that the 
 conception of the physical as the phenomenon of an 
 actual should be clearly before the mind. I don't think 
 this was Fichte's thought. If my infirm remembrance 
 holds, he said of nature that it was a limit of man's per- 
 sonality, a self-imposed limit apparently, not at all a 
 bad idea; indeed, very splendid taken in its order, involv- 
 ing, for example, a magnificent feeling of the negativeness 
 about it ; but quite incompatible with any idea of seeking 
 the absolute in it. In fact, Fichte, like the later Germans 
 in general (though I fancy by no means the latest), 
 taught the absolute in man. The substratum of the 
 phenomenal in Kant's thought was still a thing. He calls 
 it the ' Ding an Sich' you remember.* In fact, with all his 
 
 * Kant held that though we can have no direct knowledge of noumena 
 (Ding an Sich), their existence is a necessary postulate. Although we can 
 only know the appearances of things, we are forced to conclude that the 
 things exist. Thus, in the case of a rainbow, we discover that it is only 
 the appearance of certain drops of water. These drops of water, although 
 owing their shape, colour, &c. , to our sensibility, nevertheless exist. They 
 do not exist as drops of water, because drops of water are but phenomena ; 
 but there is an unknown something which, when affecting our sensibility, 
 appears to us as drops of water. Of this unknown something we can 
 affirm nothing, except that it necessarily exists, because it affects us. We 
 are conscious also, that that which affects us must be something different
 
 Kant and Fichte. 2 39 
 
 acuteness, it never occurred to him that inertness meant 
 phenomenalness a thing whereat I cannot cease to 
 wonder, and shall not until I have had time (in my next 
 life) fully to study his mental history and see the neces- 
 sities of its course. 
 
 " Plato, who must always be thought of in this connection, 
 to whose general thought and aim I in my ignorance fancy 
 my own are nearest of all akin, I think laid hold of the 
 unfixed and floating Greek term aubvios exactly under the 
 same impulse and with the same object as I take the 
 "actual." Plato clearly thought that the actual of the 
 phenomenal was to be discovered by the intellect. His pro- 
 ceeding was the false image of science. In short, you will 
 find, I think, that all through the idea has been that the 
 moral faculties deal with another world, with other existence 
 than this physical one.* That is the point to which my 
 proposition refers. Their work is in this world, and there is 
 no other: they must be used together with, not apart from, 
 the intellect. It is just as, in using intellect with sense, 
 we have not two worlds, of sense and of idea, but one of 
 
 from ourselves. This the law of causation necessitates. A phenomenon, 
 inasmuch as it is an appearance, presupposes a noumenon a tiling which 
 appears ; but this noumenon can never be positively known ; it can 
 only be known under the conditions of sense and understanding, ergo, as a 
 phenomenon; Kant's "Ding an Sich" is therefore wholly indeterminate 
 in its nature. But Kant also maintained that there exist elements in 
 consciousness not derived from experience, but which are necessarily true, 
 namely, the d, priori truths of mathematics, the ideas of God, virtue, and 
 immortality truths practical, not theoretical, founded on certainty, not on 
 demonstration ultimate facts from which there is no escape, not con- 
 clusions deduced by reason. Hence his " Critique of the Practical IleMOa," 
 to which Mr. Hinton alludes. See Lewes t "Hiitory of Philotophy" II. 
 
 5i6, 517- 
 
 * The dove cleaving the thin air, and feeling its resistance, might sup- 
 pose that in airless space her movements would be more rapid. Precisely 
 in this way Plato thought that by abandoning the sensuous world, because 
 of the limits it placed to his understanding, he might more successfully 
 venture into the void space of pure intellect. -Kant't "Kritik," Einlcituny.
 
 240 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 science ; so, if I am right, we shall have one world only, 
 neither of sense nor of science, but of philosophy, or, as I 
 think it will be best to call it, of knovjledge. When we 
 really know we shall perhaps see no reason against saying 
 so in Saxon. . . . 
 
 "You see how the feeling of the phenomenal as that 
 which really exists, was necessarily in the highest degree 
 misleading to the intellect. Though itself an error, not of 
 the intellect but of feeling, of experience, one might 
 say, yet it imposes inevitable errors upon the intellect, 
 the greater, in some respects, the more true its operations. 
 It altogether vitiates its starting-point. It gives a wrong 
 standard for existence, and involves it in a labyrinth of 
 perplexity : this can easily be seen. But some time ago 
 I saw, alike in history and in necessity, that this is the 
 course through which thought goes, must go, starting with 
 the phenomenal as existing, and yet being as it must be, 
 really related to, and springing from, the actual. The 
 first thought ascribes to the phenomenal (imperfectly) 
 actual qualities (e.g., the mythological age, when each 
 natural phenomenon of nature is the action of a parti- 
 cular divinity). The next, based on examination of the 
 phenomenal, or the scientific method of observation, 
 resulting in more or less complete discovery of its 
 qualities, assigns to existence phenomenal qualities inert 
 matter and force, taken as the existence of the world. 
 These two stages must precede the discovery of the 
 nature of our experience as feeling the existence of 
 phenomena. But it is not only in this respect, as refer- 
 ring to the interpretation of nature as a whole, that the 
 order applies. I think I saw it in many others. In fact, 
 it is my law of anticipation, theory, and interpretation. 
 Do not you recognise it ?" * 
 
 * This was a favourite thought of Mr. Hinton'a. He once illustrated
 
 The Three Stages. 241 
 
 "I am glad you like my idea, about the art of the 
 Greeks. I want to know something about the true 
 significance of those stages of human history, and these 
 various elements of human nature. 
 
 " You see art bribed men to train the senses, as utility 
 in our day bribes them to train the intellect. By 
 training, I mean making them work on nature, and learn 
 to conform to her demands. One can, I think, go on a 
 little further thus: (Greek, and say Italian) art, or the 
 training of the senses science, or the training of the 
 intellect, to be succeeded by philosophy, or the training 
 (in the same sense) of the moral faculties. 
 
 "Well, but then science had a precedent stage, the 
 mediaeval or dark age, in which the intellect was very 
 active, emphatically so, but was not being trained on nature. 
 I think I see the significance and necessity of this period of 
 
 the three stages of human progress to me in a child's learning to walit. 
 The mother holds oat her arms to the child, the child makes a bound for- 
 ward to reach her and falls; its idea is right, but wrongly expressed. 
 Then comes the stage of learning to walk, when the child's mind stops 
 short at the process, and each step becomes an end in itself, instead of 
 a means. The idea is wrong ; that which is only a means has become a 
 laborious end ; but it is a wrongness that is leading it to the right. Lastly, 
 the final stage, when the child takes back the old suppressed idea, having 
 learnt the right movement in which to interpret it, and the. process is 
 again merged in the end, but with a truer and larger result. In other 
 words, human progress is not in a straight line, but in a spiral, which Mr. 
 Hinton would say "is the direction of least resistance," as is shown by the 
 rise of a bubble in water. Any one can trace out these spirals or triplets 
 for themselves : i. The tribe, a. Mechanical government, exacting DO 
 blood relation between the government and the governed, peoples being 
 united or disunited on the "theory" of hereditary succession, &c. 3. 
 Modern nationality, the old tribal feeling enlarged, i. The patriarchal 
 age. 2. The Mosaio law. 3. Christianity. Or, to take the one to which 
 the present letter alludes. i. Fetichism (divinity in nature, but 
 arbitrary). 2. Physical science (hypotheses of matter and force). 3. 
 Divine action, apprehended as phenomena, and whose necessity is active 
 or moral 
 
 Q
 
 242 Life of James Hinton 
 
 preparation. Then was not there a similar period before 
 and preparatory to the training of the senses, a time when 
 they were active, eminently active, but not being trained 
 on nature? Is this a clue to the pre-artistic epoch of 
 humanity ? It was the dark age relatively to the senses, 
 as I affirm this is the ' dark age ' relatively to the moral 
 sense, the time when the faculty is sharpened, prepared, 
 but scarcely used. 
 
 " Now this strikes me as pretty. You know what I say 
 of mathematics and poetry. The Greeks made mathe- 
 matics, but did not use it ; they made it for the pleasure of 
 it. (I've just been going over the 4/th Proposition with 
 Willy, and really it is beautiful.) But modern science 
 puts it to use by making it interpret nature ; and you 
 see how she develops it. Is it not created in the 
 work? Surely the old 'mathesis' was but a 'power to 
 become.' 
 
 " And then of poetry I say the same. We make it for 
 pleasure, and think it beautiful ; but that is the idea of a 
 child ; its destiny is to be trained to be created in its right 
 use of interpreting nature. That is its fruition, its des- 
 tiny. Our past and present verse is but a prophecy 
 that poetry is to be a true interpretation of the phe- 
 nomenal into the actual. Is not that a delicious thought ? 
 And is it not wonderful how all these things come and 
 make themselves one ? And there is this immense ad- 
 vantage in these various forms of the same fact, viz., that 
 we can study all the others in any one and each. I verily 
 believe that this is a fact. Each one makes visible, re- 
 veals some character and some relation which is hidden in 
 the rest ; so that we can discern what was in those we 
 cannot directly learn about, by seeing what is in those we 
 know. The physical organs, the progress of the human 
 faculties, the history of mathematics, &c., all will be in-
 
 Mathematics and Poetry. 243 
 
 terpreted by each other, and so things quite undiscover- 
 able will be discovered, being seen in something ' other.' 
 For knowledge, as I have often said, like love and being, 
 . is altruistic.* And this is how I find out many of the 
 things I am gladdest to know : I perceive what is in some- 
 thing which seems quite different, and yet which I have 
 seen to be a parallel, and then I can see it in the other 
 also. That is about as near as I can express my art of 
 thinking. . . . 
 
 " My thoughts always come with the ends cut sheer off 
 (unless, as often, they grow into a complete something that 
 was incomplete before), and there they remain till they 
 grow again, I being perfectly patient meanwhile, because 
 I know that if I went on, the end would be a cutting 
 off just the same, and probably at quite as tantalising a 
 place. . . . 
 
 "As for your remarks about theology, you know I 
 reverence all that expresses man's aspirations, and sense 
 of holiness and sin, and desire for good. Though I may 
 speak strongly almost in an opposite sense, that is really 
 only because I venerate these things so much, and see in 
 them a significance so much beyond themselves. Even 
 the weak and evil side of them has its glory, and bears 
 witness to Divinity. Do not I say in 'Man and his 
 Dwelling-place,' ' Let death have reverence ' ? It is what I 
 feel; we must recognise the death, or the glory too is 
 wanting. Man's history is sublime and glorious as is the 
 cross of Christ, and only so. Head otherwise, it is as 
 black as hell. And yet men are good, wonderfully good, 
 and God loves them. He loves them this I am sure of 
 with a passion of delight, to shadow which forth He made 
 the love of man to woman, and with a tender joy of sym- 
 
 * For instance, the falling of a stone must be seen in the rising of a foun- 
 tain, or of light bodies, before the law of gravity can be educed.
 
 244 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 pathy which restrains its impatience to deliver, only lest 
 it should mar the blessedness and crush the tenderest 
 flower of paradise ere its brief day be done. For I think 
 man, of all God's creatures, the most blest, dowered with 
 the deepest sacrifice, with the highest life. He has been 
 privileged to die ; there is an awful glory about this thought. 
 This word death, which seemed to man the sum of all hor- 
 ror, has become the sacredest and holiest of all." 
 
 Mr. Hinton once said, talking to his friend Mr. Berry, 
 " Not so long ago all people believed in the sense world ; 
 and, on investigation, it was found to be irrational and 
 unintelligible. So the best informed men thought the 
 ' rational world ' was far away, and they would only be 
 able to get there after death. The belief held sway for 
 many centuries; now, by patient searching, what is the 
 result ? Why, this curious fact, that the rational world 
 (now called the scientific) was the world which people 
 had always been in, though it appeared to mankind, for 
 so many ages, to be contrary to reason, because they only 
 used the sense faculty to understand it. But see, the 
 world is now to the best people, in relation to the heart 
 and soul, exactly as it was to the head and the reason ; 
 as the rational world was thought to be far away till they 
 rightly understood it, so we think heaven, or a world 
 conforming to the moral sense, and answerable to 
 the needs of the heart's satisfaction, is 'far away' 
 too, and where we hope to be on the death of the 
 body. But when the world is rightly understood and 
 interpreted by the aid of the joint powers of the sense, 
 intellect, and heart of men, they will find there is 
 only one world where God is; and that fallen human 
 nature is in the process of its destined restoration, man- 
 kind first beginning with the sense impression, and for
 
 Unity of the World. 245 
 
 centuries believing in that ; then for ages believing in the 
 scientific or sense-intellect world, and at last finding that 
 this is the world of love and goodness, where God dwells 
 and has always dwelt. But they did not know it because 
 they were dead and thought themselves alive."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 IN the autumn of 1868 he accompanied his friend, Dr. 
 M'All Anderson of Glasgow, to Germany, with a view to 
 studying the aural practice of that country, and also of 
 visiting the different mineral springs which had acquired 
 so much celebrity, ending his tour with a brief visit to the 
 North of Italy. He writes home to his wife : 
 
 "Breslau, September 1868. 
 
 " I find my journey even more valuable than I expected 
 not that I have gained finished convictions on many sub- 
 jects, but I have so greatly increased my grounds of judg- 
 ing. I have quite avoided thinking, and only tried to 
 receive impressions. If I had thought as well, I should 
 have been utterly worn out. And there is another 
 principle I always act upon (almost without expressly 
 meaning it), and that is to let my special views be swept 
 out of my mind if they possibly can be. I wish to give 
 every possible chance against them. If a larger observa- 
 tion of men and things leads in that direction, let it have 
 its full effect; I do not wish to interpose any obstacle. I 
 don't wish to believe my own opinions if they are not 
 true, and will not of their own power withstand all oppos- 
 ing influences. . . . 
 
 " I will scarcely tell you anything about Dresden. Of 
 course there is vastly too much to endeavour to report in 
 a letter, but we had, on the whole, a capital week, seeing
 
 Tour on the Continent. 247 
 
 lots of doctors, and learning not very much, but a little. 
 There were some aural surgeons there, and they and we 
 formed a conference and described a good many points of 
 treatment. It did not come to much; but still it was 
 interesting. . . . 
 
 " I saw, with the greatest interest, a little of the higher 
 schools at Dresden and Breslau very little, I must confess, 
 but still enough to give me some understanding of them, 
 especially of the manner science is taught. It struck me 
 very much, however, that in Dresden the master of one of 
 the largest 'Real-Schulen,' where the apparatus for teach- 
 ing science was truly enormous, thought that an education 
 chiefly classical was for all purposes the best. ... It is 
 very striking to see how the Swiss and German boys are 
 taught business as well as other things, and the value of 
 the money of different countries, and so on, from whence 
 comes great practical advantages. But I think there are 
 drawbacks, and the result of my observation altogether, 
 is that, while I admire some things very much, I do 
 not wish to see England germanised. "VVe must do better, 
 especially we must avoid the deliberate absorption in 
 material things. . . ." 
 
 " Vienna, Sunday, Tjlh. 
 
 " I am glad I have seen something of these Catholic 
 countries, and have joined in what seems to be, and I am 
 sure often is, the sincere worship of multitudes. I have a 
 much larger and better knowledge through it ; and of this 
 I am sure that in the Roman Church is still one great 
 hope of the world. That which is impossible and rotten 
 in it is familiar enough to us; but its persistent hold 
 upon, and guidance of, the religious emotions of so 
 many persons, is a thing never to be despised. The 
 Protestant Church seeks to gain a hold upon men now
 
 248 Life of James Hinlon. 
 
 by becoming less and less religious ; the Roman Church, 
 at least, holds those whom it does hold with no such 
 sacrifice." 
 
 ''Milan, October 1868. 
 
 "I have had quite a new' experience. I have seen, 
 though it was but at a distance, perhaps better so, a 
 mountain in its glory. That is a solemn thing ; one 
 hushes one's breath when one speaks of it. It was at the 
 latter part of the journey to Trieste ; its name is the Gou- 
 berg part of the Italian Alps. I did not know what it 
 was before, nor can I tell what it is that overwhelms one ; 
 but it is so. Other things are grand and sublime and 
 lovely; but this smites you with awe. . . . 
 
 "Till I left Vienna, I had really worked very hard; 
 but this is my holiday, and I make it so. Good-bye, 
 love. It is just twelve, and I am to be called at five 
 to go to the Cathedral and see the sunrise from the 
 Tower. . . ." 
 
 On his return home he writes to his mother, then in 
 infirm health, on her birthday : 
 
 *' Savile Row, December 1868. 
 
 " To us, dearest mother, who are in health and vigour, 
 you are scarcely less useful now in your example of 
 cheerfulness and patience, and thoughtfulness for every 
 one else, showing us how infirmity should be borne, than 
 you were in the old days when we were the feeble ones. 
 It would be a pity if the relation of parent to child were 
 not so far inverted before it ceased ; it would lose almost 
 half its use, and a great part of its delight." 
 
 In the course of a conversation in 1869, an eminent
 
 Resumes Philosophy. 249 
 
 London surgeon suggested that, as Mr. Hinton had now 
 attained to the highest skill in his profession, he would 
 be perfectly justified in following the bent of his mind 
 after the business of the day, and turning again to philo- 
 sophy. So for the first time for six years he unlocked 
 his MSS., and devoted the evenings to writing down 
 his thoughts. Only those who knew Mr. Hinton inti- 
 mately, could realise the intellectual passion that thinking 
 was to him, how certainly, once indulged in, it would 
 resume its sway over him, and how impossible it was to 
 carry it on safely in addition to the immense strain of a 
 London practice. From this time his brain was in a state 
 of tension, which could not but prove fatally injurious in 
 the end. 
 
 Mr. Hinton had always been in the habit of writing 
 down his thoughts till he laid aside philosophy a habit 
 which he now resumed. Wherever he was, at a friend's 
 house, in the street, at church, at a concert, he jotted down 
 his notes on scraps of paper, backs of envelopes, bills, and 
 programmes, writing them out in full in the evening. It 
 was a sort of mental photography, his MSS. being an 
 accurate photograph of the processes of thought rather 
 than a record of finished results. Mind being, in Mr. 
 Hinton' s view, a part of nature, the phenomena of thought 
 were to him at least as much worth recording and study- 
 ing as any others. He accordingly put down his thoughts 
 as they came, altering nothing, forcing no conviction into 
 accordance with another, ever regarding a paradox as the 
 promise of a larger truth, in which the opposites would 
 be reconciled in a higher unity. Indeed, the process of 
 his thought was eminently Hegelian ; first, each idea, as 
 he himself says, " by its dialectic force limiting itself, and 
 suggesting or becoming its opposite ; then that again 
 becoming a third, which is the union of the two, a judg-
 
 250 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 ment being idea, its opposite, and a polar union making 
 opposites one." 
 
 A mass of MSS. having thus accumulated, he pro- 
 cured the assistance of a literary friend in revising and 
 striking out repetitions; and ultimately devoted a large 
 sum to having them printed, that so they might be more 
 available for use, either by himself or by others who 
 should enter into his labours. They were never intended 
 for publication, but those who have had access to them 
 are unanimous in their judgment that they far surpass 
 Mr. Hinton's published works in profound and suggestive 
 thought, and place him in a far higher rank as an original 
 thinker. 
 
 He writes to his wife : 
 
 "June 1869. 
 
 " I am going to set to work and print my early MSS. 
 These papers of mine will give me a sort of stimulus to 
 work I have not had for years ; and if I do them, I can 
 easily imagine that I should also do more in aural surgery, 
 being more girt up to work. The more I think over the 
 papers, the more disposed I am to carry them out, though 
 the task is enormous." 
 
 "August 29, 1869. 
 
 "You are very good to let me stick to my work; 
 at the same time, I confess that, feeling so little tired 
 as I do, I don't see that there is any reason, except 
 custom (which is ever worse than none, when it stands 
 atone), for taking a holiday. But still this isn't the ques- 
 tion. The thing is, that I love you very much for giving 
 the chief precedence to my work. That is like a wife. I 
 never heard anything more characteristic of a good wife 
 than what was said of Mrs. Gladstone when she thought
 
 Letter to his Eldest Son. 251 
 
 her husband was being killed ; her first feeling was, ' What 
 will become of the Irish Church Bill ? ' That is the wife 
 for a man to have. But I am sure you would feel 
 the same for me, so that I am as happy as Gladstone, 
 anyhow." 
 
 To his eldest son while at school at Eugby : 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, June 29, 1869. 
 
 "My DEAR BOY, Thank you for your letters. It 
 interests me to read them. I like to think of you as 
 turning your mind to such subjects. Still, as you know, 
 I think the knowledge of the phenomena, that is, of what 
 the senses can perceive, is the best basis you can lay, and 
 that the superstructure is of secondary importance till a 
 good basis is laid, though the exercise of the reason, 
 especially with good strong criticism afterwards, is a very 
 useful thing. 
 
 " I am glad you like the idea of studying geometry as 
 an exercise of direct perception. I think it must be 
 specially valuable so; and I am very pleased that you 
 think it practicable and useful. The habit of looking 
 thoroughly and minutely into things, alike with the eyes 
 and with the reason, so as to cultivate the power of seeing 
 their qualities and relations, and not merely trying to 
 infer them, must be a most excellent one. It will be very 
 valuable to you. 
 
 " I do not, at present, see very much in the formula 
 you quote from Professor Boole, but perhaps you will be 
 able to make me when you show me the book. It is true 
 the advance of thought has consisted in simplification, and 
 must do so still ; but then, before this can come, there 
 must be a perception of the apparent complications ; so 
 that there are two processes, a recognition of apparent
 
 252 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 variety, multiplicity, disharmony, and a resolving it into 
 unity and order. We must have both, and if the first is 
 not ample and exact, the last is petty and fictitious. Write 
 to me and tell me about the school and your companions ; 
 what boys you know, and what they are like. I am glad 
 you are an early riser. I used to be one also ; there is 
 no plan so good. 
 
 "JAMES HINTON." 
 
 To his eldest daughter : 
 
 " 1 8 Bavile Row, September 9, 1869. 
 
 "MY DARLING ADA, Though we shall meet so soon, 
 I was very glad to have your little letter. The sight of 
 your handwriting always makes me feel glad, and especi- 
 ally when I open it and find you have been so happy, 
 and that your chief disappointment has been in other 
 people's bonnets. It must be difficult to paint from nature, 
 but mamma is very clever ; with her help you will get to do 
 it quite well. You and Howard will be the drawing 
 ones ; Willy and Daisy the musical ones ; only, you make 
 such progress with your music that you will belong to 
 both divisions. Willy really gets to manage the harmo- 
 nium quite nicely. I expect some day he will take to 
 playing and succeed well. Then what concerts and sing- 
 ing we shall have with him and Daisy. They will 
 be getting up musical parties, at which you will have 
 to preside, and to arrange for everything; that will 
 be nice. You will find that you will be looked up to 
 for everything by those careless little creatures. And 
 you will have to keep mamma from doing too much, too ; 
 as for me, I shall be quite forgotten. But then I shall 
 also forget myself in my enjoyment of you all, so it 
 won't matter."
 
 Letter to his Eldest Son. 253 
 
 To his eldest son : 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, March 24, 1870. 
 
 " MY DEAR BOY, How long I have been wanting to 
 write a letter to you ; but I have let other things, which 
 always seemed to want doing, make me defer it. It was 
 too bad, but I suppose I knew in my heart that letters 
 between us were not very much needed. Each knew so 
 well what was in the other's heart. 
 
 "I am glad you decided for yourself about the con- 
 firmation, and also I am glad you decided not to be 
 confirmed. It might have been in many respects good, 
 but I think you did right not to consider the advan- 
 tages it offered equivalent to its being connected with 
 a mode of religious thought and action with which 
 you had not perfect sympathy, so that you could not 
 throw yourself into it without reserve. I think, and I 
 believe you will think with me in this always, that in 
 all that we call religion, the very first and chief condi- 
 tion is, that we should be utterly and absolutely sincere, 
 open, straightforward, and free from pretence, and should 
 consider nothing an advantage that has to be purchased 
 at the least shade of falsity. In other regions, as of 
 material advantage, though falsehood must always be a 
 crime and a mistake, yet at least some visible results may 
 be for a time secured by it, it has some excmcs if no 
 reasons ; but in religion the whole meaning and worth of 
 which lies in honesty, purity, holiness, and devotion of 
 the heart, the least shade of insincerity, or of endeavouring 
 to secure results, is as absurd as it is hateful. If religion 
 means anything, it must mean absolute truthfulness. We 
 may dream we can serve our fellow-men by pretences, but 
 to think of serving God by make-believes, is to insult
 
 254 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 Him. But, indeed, I know you feel this as much as I do, 
 and I am sure that you will try as much as ever I could 
 wish you to make all your life transparent, and to banish 
 all the false pretences which fill our present life with 
 evil. 
 
 " If you wish to spend another term at Rugby, I think 
 we must spare you ; you will make a good use of it. We 
 want you to come soon and live at home ; because the 
 opportunity won't last so very long, and it is time now 
 you began to share our life. We want you to do so very 
 much ; but still distance does not prevent this, and that 
 is the best sharing which best enables you to take up 
 what we leave unfinished, and perfect what we do incom- 
 pletely. I am sure it is a great age of the world for 
 which you are preparing an age in which .the great ques- 
 tion of the true significance of human life will, at least, 
 begin to decide itself. I like to think of my sons and 
 daughters having a part in that. It need not be great 
 (as men call greatness), but it cannot be little if it is hon- 
 est and faithful. This is one question men will have to 
 answer, Is it our nature to take the best care of ourselves 
 or to live in giving up ? I know how your heart would 
 answer this, and I think the time is coming when all 
 men will give the same. Your loving father, 
 
 "JAMES HINTON." 
 
 With regard to the Established Church, reference to 
 which is made in this letter, Mr. Hinton had been 
 much prejudiced by an incident which occurred to him in 
 his profession. He was once called into the country to a 
 clergyman whose life was despaired of unless an exceed- 
 ingly delicate and difficult operation could be performed 
 through the ear. On the strength of the report that he
 
 The Established Church. 255 
 
 had been given over by his own medical man, the living 
 was sold at 500 additional value. The notion of two 
 men daring to gamble over his patient's life, and that an 
 established ecclesiastical system should render such a 
 transaction possible, made Mr. Hinton justly indignant, 
 more especially as he held that, had it come to his patient's 
 knowledge that 500 had been staked on the certainty 
 of his death, it would have inflicted a nervous shock that 
 must, in his critical state, have proved fatal. As it was, he 
 had the satisfaction of saving his life, and cheating one of 
 the parties to this ecclesiastical bargain. But for some 
 years he maintained a resolute protest by refusing to 
 enter a church. 
 
 In 1869 he published a pamphlet on "Nursing as a 
 Profession." Mr. Hinton was in favour of every girl being 
 brought up, like boys, to a profession, so that every woman, 
 whether she needed to earn her bread or not, should 
 have her own distinct line of service proficiency in any 
 one thing being generally an added capability in all, 
 and therefore likely to make her a better wife and 
 mother in case of marriage. But of all the avoca- 
 tions open to women, he gave the foremost rank to 
 nursing, and was anxious it should be raised to the 
 dignity of a profession. He reversed the usual estimate 
 of the relative importance of doctor and nurse, believing 
 that the real curative power lay with the latter. An ex- 
 pression of surprise was once quoted in his presence 
 " how any woman could condescend to be a doctor who 
 had the chance of being a nurse." "Exactly so," he 
 replied. " "When a commonplace young man says, ' I 
 want to be a doctor/ I say, ' Very well/ because I dare- 
 say he will do well enough. And if a commonplace girl 
 wants to be a doctor, I take it for granted she will 
 do well enough too. But if a girl says, ' I want to be a
 
 256 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 nurse,' I begin to consider whether she has the requisite 
 qualifications. For the nurse's profession embraces all that 
 is good in both the medical and clerical professions ; the 
 positive elements of each without the negative elements of 
 either. She has the doctor's science without his drugs, 
 and the parson's religion without his dogmas." 
 
 At the close of this year he joined the Metaphysical 
 Society on its inauguration, at the wish of the Poet 
 Laureate, who had been much struck by some of Mr. 
 Hinton's writings, and henceforth he regularly attended 
 its meetings. 
 
 In the year 1870, the year of the Franco-German war, 
 an old acquaintance persuaded him to relieve him of a 
 property in St. Michael's, one of the islands of the Azores, 
 which had become burdensome to its possessor, but which 
 he represented to Mr. Hinton as likely to prove valuable. 
 In order to see the place, he resolved in the autunm to 
 make a tour through France and Spain, touching at the 
 Azores on his way home. 
 
 In summer he always wore a white or buff silk coat, 
 which, together with his peculiarly earnest look, made 
 him the observed of all observers. Beaching Orleans in 
 the middle of the night, Mr. and Mrs. Hinton found 
 all the hotels crowded with panic-stricken fugitives from 
 Paris, and had to put up at a little wine-shop. The 
 next day they walked through the city; recruits were 
 everywhere being drilled, drums beating, soldiers tramp- 
 ing in every direction. As they sat taking their chocolate 
 in the square, Mrs. Hinton took out her pencil to get an 
 outline of the cathedral. They noticed several of the 
 soldiers looking at them and whispering, and presently 
 they were politely ushered to the mayor's abode, after 
 having had to stand in a small office for some time in 
 close proximity to persons of obviously not very good
 
 Visit to Spain. 257 
 
 character. Followed by a throng of people, they appeared 
 before the mayor, and he inquired their business and 
 examined their passports. Having satisfied himself that 
 they were not spies, only that unaccountable breed of the 
 human species, " Les Anglais," he let them go ; and on 
 Mrs. Hinton inquiring whether there was any danger in 
 going about freely, contented himself with saying, " No, 
 madame ; but you must not sketch." 
 
 Mr. Hinton was again arrested at San Sebastian ; but 
 so far from being deterred, he was greatly amused at his 
 adventures, and resolved on going, contrary to his banker's 
 advice, into the mountains to see the monastery and birth- 
 place of Loyola, a proceeding attended by some risk, as 
 the Carlists were scouring the country. 
 
 Though the whole bearing of Mr. Hinton's thoughts 
 was opposed to asceticism, there was in his nature a strong 
 element of sympathy with it; he used to say he was 
 never comfortable but when he was a little bit uncom- 
 fortable. It was therefore with the profoundest interest 
 and emotion that he studied the old monuments of asce- 
 ticism, the convents and monasteries which met him at 
 every turn in Spain. Mrs. Hinton well remembers how 
 one day, at the convent near Cintra, as she was ex- 
 ploring the lovely alleys of cork and peach trees, their 
 great branches fringed with the hare's foot fern, and 
 thinking to herself in that paradise of verdure, that the 
 old monks at least knew how to fix upon the loveliest 
 and most fertile spots, she heard her husband's voice 
 calling to her ; and with intense emotion, almost awe, he 
 led her silently to a cell in the rock where a great man, 
 once the governor of the Portuguese settlements in India, 
 lived for many years, and where he died the cell being 
 a mere hole, and so small that there was no room to lie 
 down in it. 
 
 Jl
 
 258 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 During this year Mr. Hinton's thoughts turned especi- 
 ally to ethics. He writes : 
 
 " I gave up my work to take to practical life, and 
 as my reward, is not the vision of the practical life 
 given to me ? I was given a seed, and when most I 
 loved it, I was bidden to bury it in the ground ; and I 
 buried it, not knowing I was sowing. Now, I see quite a 
 new thing in the Gospel. Christ redeemed the world not 
 by teaching, but by dying ; and with what a wonder it 
 strikes me His agony, His shrinking, His prayer. It was 
 a thing He did not like. He could not see and feel it to 
 be good. Do we not lose by separating Him too much 
 from ourselves ? 
 
 " I enter also more into martyrdom ; we don't think of 
 that, that men gave up the being useful, the doing work 
 for God. 
 
 " And Abraham's sacrifice, too, I see. He gave up the 
 son, ike world's hope, not his own love alone, but him in 
 whom all the nations were to be blessed; he trusted 
 God. All these things have a new meaning for me. 
 Full of infinite beauty is that sacrifice of Isaac. The 
 men who cannot tolerate it have not felt, they do not 
 know. To me in the end of the world, that speaks ; 
 and the beautiful reward ' Now know I that thou lovest 
 Me.' " 
 
 In Spain, as we have said, he was brought face to face 
 with asceticism, and was led to study man's endeavour to 
 attain to goodness on the basis of the self of the individual 
 soul and its inevitable result, the putting away of pleasure 
 and the infliction of austerities, in order to possess merit 
 in the eye of Heaven a tendency which he recognised as 
 certain to crop up under all sorts of disguises as long as
 
 Altruism. 259 
 
 man is thinking about himself, even about his own good- 
 ness. " Let the world come to an end, but let this self 
 be killed," the ascetics cried. " They sought to kill the 
 pleasure for the self's sake ; what they did was to kill the 
 pleasure but not the self." True goodness, man's redemp- 
 tion from self, like health, like happiness, can only be 
 attained altruistically. 
 
 But it was not till the end of this year and the be- 
 ginning of 1871 that he passed through what he always 
 spoke of as a moral revolution; and that he finally 
 worked out what he sometimes called a new idea of 
 right, but in reality held to have been taught by Christ, 
 though since obscured and almost lost. 
 
 From the first, Mr. Hinton had learned altruism from 
 modern science. In nature, nothing exists in and for 
 itself. Each force, to live as power, must merge itself in 
 some other force. 
 
 " Alles sich zum Ganze webt, 
 Ein in dem andern wirkt und lebt." 
 
 Nothing stops short at itself. All nature's ends are 
 larger means. " I don't know whether it is fanciful, a 
 sort of sublime punning," he once said, " but what I see 
 in nature is the power of an end-less life." And man, 
 by erecting himself as an end, dislocates this order, and 
 can only be made one with nature by living in others, and 
 subordinating himself to a whole. 
 
 So much misunderstanding exists as to what is meant 
 by altruism, that it is necessary to define the meaning 
 which Mr. Hinton attached to the word. The common 
 sense of all practical thinkers tells them that egoism is a 
 necessary factor in life ; the only mistake is in thinking 
 that altruism, at least as held by Mr. Hinton, denies it. 
 ' If/ says Mr. Herbert Spencer in his well-known papers
 
 260 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 on Sociology, ' the dictate " live for self " is wrong one 
 way, the opposite dictate "live for others," is wrong in 
 another way. The rational dictate is " live for self and 
 others." '* In other words the words in which Mr. Hinton 
 would sum up his altruism Have a true response to every 
 claim whether of self or others. 
 
 But the practical question still remains, how are you to 
 obtain this directly or indirectly ? For, as Mr. Hinton 
 often pointed out, if you teach a child to divide 
 its duties into duties to self, and duties to others, the 
 question will be perpetually forced upon him when it 
 comes to practice, " How much for self, and how much 
 for others ? " Not only will some of his energy be used 
 up in the work of deciding, but, in his endeavour to 
 serve two masters, he will practically fail to strike the 
 balance, and will tend, as all history shows, either to do 
 things because they are hard to the self in which case 
 his very thought of right will be perverted and his 
 virtues mischievous, as in the ascetic ages or he will 
 tend to sink into -a more or less self-centred life, regard- 
 less of the true claims of human good. The only way, 
 Mr. Hinton would urge, to get a true response to every 
 claim, is to look upon ourselves as means to an end, and 
 the means to be cared for because of the end; not the 
 dual principle, " Myself and others," but the moral unity, 
 "Myself in and for others," which can alone set us 
 free to take whatever is needful for ourselves, with the 
 same healthy impulse as we take food, not as an end, 
 with the glutton, but as a means for service, with the 
 man. " The curve described by a planet cannot be un- 
 derstood by thinking at one moment of the centripetal 
 force, and at another of the tangential force; but the 
 
 * Herbert Spencer's "Study of Sociology" (International Series), 
 viii. 201.
 
 Altruism. 261 
 
 two must be kept before consciousness as acting simul- 
 taneously." * And the only way, Mr. Hinton held, prac- 
 tically to achieve this, is by what, from want of a better 
 word, he called altruism. 
 
 To take one of Mr. Herbert Spencer's own illustra- 
 tions, " Every one must admit that the relation of parent 
 and child is one in which altruism is pushed as far as is 
 practicable. But even here it needs a predominant 
 egoism. The mother can only suckle her infant on 
 condition that she has habitually gratified her appetite in 
 due degree. And there is a point beyond which sacrifice 
 of herself is fatal to her infant; and therefore a point 
 beyond which, if she is thinking of her child, she will 
 not go." -f- Surely it is an obvious fact that hundreds of 
 over-tired or anxious mothers are only induced to take re- 
 gular and necessary food, not from " a predominant egoism," 
 but from the very thought Mr. Spencer himself suggests, 
 that otherwise they will not be able to nourish their 
 infant? Are there not thousands of men and women 
 who only care for life enough to go on living, from the 
 thought of the helpless women and children dependent 
 upon them? and is there not, therefore, in altruism a 
 more powerful principle of self-preservation, a more robust 
 egoism, than in egoism itself a principle that never 
 gives way to suicide or recklessness ? The general who 
 has the sense of other lives depending upon him is surely 
 less likely to expose himself than the foot-soldier who lias 
 only himself to take care of. Indeed, with a large class 
 of minds the only idea of altruism seems to be the short- 
 sighted folly too common, alas! that defeats its own 
 end. 
 
 How little altruism in some must lead to the develop- 
 
 * "Study of Sociology," viii 203. 
 t Ibid., viii. 201.
 
 262 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 merit of selfishness in others, as has been sometimes urged, 
 is best shown by some thoughts of Mr. Hiiiton's bearing 
 the present date. 
 
 " Is there not," he says, " a real light in the command to 
 love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as our- 
 selves ? There is a real strangeness in this command in 
 respect to our neighbour. It has even been quoted as a 
 reason for not making great sacrifices for him, on the 
 ground that we should not like any one to do so much 
 for us ; and were not this right, indeed, if there were not 
 with it that which is the condition of this loving our 
 neighbour as ourself, viz., the absolute, all-absorbing love 
 to God? If we have thought of what loving God is, 
 then is not the place of the neighbour plain? Does it 
 not mean that individuals are not to be to us as man, as 
 the world, that that is to be the first, and all men 
 thought of and served for it ? 
 
 " For what is loving God ? Is it the love one gives 
 one's lapdog? Is not the only true love sympathy 
 in God's work, devotion to that which the loved One 
 loves, in which He lives ? Is any other love worthy 
 of the name, least of all any other love to God? 
 Is not this the only true thought of love to God, devo- 
 tion to His work, absolute desire and care for that, a 
 passion, ruling and absorbing all, for man's life, for the 
 world and its redemption ? and all else that assumes 
 its name, all devotion that is not devotion to some good, 
 some work that is His work, is it not mere superstition ? 
 Man, man's life, the growing into life of the world, all 
 passion for serving that is the love of God, all else is 
 mockery. 
 
 "Then see this in the command, Love God with all 
 your soul, -be devoted with all your passion, with every
 
 How to Love worthily. 263 
 
 power, so that there is nothing in you that is not abso- 
 lutely absorbed in it, to man's life. And then love your 
 neighbour too, man being men. But them love not so ; 
 love them as yourself as yourself, which you subor- 
 dinate utterly, and devote to man, so love them, so devote 
 them. 
 
 "Is not this the true meaning, and do we not see 
 how true it is, how right, how needed? Do we not 
 see what fatal evils the false place the individual holds 
 with us, inflicts on us, and how vainly we strive to 
 rectify them by some imaginary loving of a God whom 
 we invent ? How futile that love is to enable us to 
 love our neighbour the nearest as the farthest off 
 truly with a true and worthy and human love ! For in 
 truth is this not a command to love them thus : wholly in 
 subordination to man and his life, to God ? Is it not a 
 revelation to us of the way to love them ? For them, 
 also, how can we love otherwise than in so using them, 
 even as ourselves, for God, in man ? Thus loving them is 
 loving them most, most honouring them, giving them 
 most. To be loved more than God is to be unloved ; to 
 be set above humanity is to be cast below the beasts ; the 
 other love is the true love, which must give the best, which 
 must accept, that the beloved may give. This command 
 how beautiful it is ! It is God fulfilling for us the con- 
 dition of our being able to accept sacrifice from our friend, 
 our child, our nearest and dearest, and so to give them 
 the best, enabling us to love them with a worth} love, 
 and accept from them, because accepting from them, not 
 for ourselves, but for Him. For truly without that great 
 and absolute love to God which leaves no other love 
 besides, but must include all loving in itself or exclude 
 it wholly, there were possible no love to man that were 
 not mockery, and did not mean pampering, which is scorn.
 
 264 Life of James Hmtoii. 
 
 To be able to love, we must be able to accept, and that 
 must be for another. 
 
 " That love must be this, and demands that absolute 
 devotion to a work, the love for God and His work, how 
 well we see in what that which we call love is sunk to. 
 See what love has become in absence of that loving God. 
 Love ? it is another word for greed ; it does not know 
 how to accept. It murders whom it would sustain, 
 degrades whom it would raise. When with absolute 
 passion God again is loved that is, when again His work 
 is seen, and rouses a passion, as it must, that consumes all 
 others then again human love shall find its place on 
 earth, and we shall know again what loving one another 
 means. 
 
 " And this accepting from the loved, what is it but 
 exactly the giving being made implicit, made perfect? 
 How shall we have even our love truly great, truly a 
 blessing ? We are so unwise, it hurts its objects ; we 
 cannot even love aright. And is not this God's answer, 
 ' Love Me with all your heart ; let man's life rule your 
 passion, so that all else whatever, whomsoever it may be, 
 must be absolutely used for that, because you cannot help 
 so using them, then you know how to love them. You 
 have fulfilled the condition of all perfect doing ; in that 
 not loving, you have truly loved. 
 
 " How exactly it is one with that doing which is not 
 doing that is in all true art ! That is how nature teaches 
 the painter to paint. He says, like man of loving, ' How 
 shall I truly paint this ? my very care and pains, so igno- 
 rant and unperceptive am I, hurt it; how can I be true to 
 it as I would ? ' Nature comes with her reply, God's very 
 word to man, ' Love Me with all your heart and soul and 
 strength ; be true to me, and you have learnt to be true to 
 that object too ; see, in that not loving it you have loved
 
 Intellectual Methods in the Moral Life. 265 
 
 it perfectly, in that not giving to it, you have made it 
 wholly rich.' This it is which, from a mere draughts- 
 man, makes him a painter, and gives him the gift of 
 truth to nature,* a change which images the love with all 
 the soul to God, that is, to man, to a whole, to which all 
 the individuals do serve." 
 
 A few more thoughts, partly drawn from his letters, 
 partly from his MSS., will further illustrate his position 
 in morals. For their full understanding, it is necessary 
 to bear in mind that Mr. Hinton considered that the 
 moral faculties in man had lagged far behind the intellec- 
 tual faculties, and are still in that earlier deductive stage, 
 when the intellect, perpetually baffled by the contradictori- 
 ness of the sense appearances, worked away from the 
 materials furnished by sense, and busied itself with 
 abstract ideas, or submitted itself to the authoritative 
 dicta of theology. In the same way the moral sense is 
 at present trained, not on facts, but on intuitional prin- 
 ciples, on the dictates of the Church, or the written 
 precepts of the Bible, a rational response of the moral 
 emotions to the facts of the world we live in being 
 scarcely so much as taught. And Mr. Hinton held 
 that our moral disorders must go on, like the earlier 
 intellectual disorder, till we learn to introduce the intel- 
 lectual methods into the moral life, and get rid of the 
 
 * Mr. Hinton often alluded to the three stages of painting, in their deep 
 moral significance, i. Rude and inaccurate drawing, whose freedom is 
 the freedom of a scrawl. 2. Where the whole is sacrificed to a pains- 
 taking accuracy of details, the "picture being all to pieces." 3. Where 
 the details are seen with reference to a larger whole and a deeper 
 fact, so that not they, but only the effect and spirit of them, is in the 
 work ; first license, then restraint, then liberty, illustrating the progress 
 of man from the selfish freedom of the lowest savage to the true freedom 
 of service, through rigid, fixed laws and self-virtue ; in other word*, 
 the three stages of breaking, obeying, aud fulfilling law.
 
 266 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 non-regard to facts out of our moral life, as we have 
 already got rid of the non-regard out of our intellectual 
 life, which existed before the rise of inductive science. 
 To have a due regard not to some but to all the facts, to 
 see everything not isolated but in its relations, to bring 
 every conclusion again to the test of facts, in one word, 
 accuracy of regard, this is the fundamental principle 
 of modern science; this it is which has enabled it to 
 evolve a great world of glorious intellectual order out of 
 previous chaos, and made possible its ever- widening 
 achievements. The scientist would be disgraced who 
 held himself under some supposed necessity of attending 
 to one class of phenomena that told for him more than 
 to any other. But this which is held as a shame and dis- 
 grace in the intellectual world, and as a certain road to 
 error and disaster, is still formulated by many of our mora- 
 lists, if not as a duty, yet as a necessity in the moral world. 
 Man labours under some supposed necessity of attending 
 only, or chiefly, to his self-interest ; to the one class of 
 facts which tell sensibly upon him, just as it was once 
 taken for granted he was under a necessity of stopping 
 short at the sense-impression. But in both cases nature 
 pursues him, as once with intellectual disorder, so now 
 with the intolerable moral disorders of our present life. 
 
 In both cases, Mr. Hinton maintained, compromise is 
 useless. It was of no use to say, " Base your life on the 
 impression of your senses, only restrain your intellectual 
 passion for truth when it leads to wrong results." No re- 
 straint would obviate the consequence of the error at the 
 foundation. In the same way, it is of no use to say, " You 
 may base your life on self-interest, only restrain your 
 passions that you may do no wrong." The task is as 
 impossible in the one case as in the other. In both there is 
 a falsity at the foundation which must vitiate the results,
 
 Ethical Thoughts. 267 
 
 Our moral disorder cannot cease till we recognise this, till 
 we learn to use the self -impressions self-regard, self-love, 
 self-interest as we have learnt to use the sense-impression, 
 as that, namely, which brings us into sensible relation 
 with a larger whole, recognising that both present but 
 partial facts, and in both cases bringing in the elements 
 left out ; regarding not only the little class of facts that 
 belong to our own life, but the facts of the lives of others, 
 and interpreting our self-interest as we interpret our* 
 sense, in subordination to the larger whole. 
 
 " You know," he writes, " how it seems to me that it 
 would be of great advantage to us to use a negative 
 term to express the negative in respect to our emotions, 
 and to call absence of response to facts not selfishness, 
 but non-regard. Now, it seems to me, that not only our 
 thoughts but our efforts are often twisted awry by this 
 treating an absence as if it was something. So, e.g., how 
 people strive against selfishness, but in truth there is no 
 selfishness to be striven against, and it is futile to strive 
 against it. The only remedy for not regarding facts is to 
 regard them. 
 
 " There is another point similar to this. The true state 
 of the emotions, duly responsive to every fact which has 
 a natural relation to them, what I call a true regard, you 
 observe is true ; its character is that it is accurate, accor- 
 dant with facts ; its absence is falsity, inaccuracy, distortion 
 from the fact. You see this. Now would there not be 
 an immense advantage in our keeping this simple fact in 
 mind, and thinking of it, and speaking of it so, as true, 
 and the question of it as a question of truth and falsity ? 
 You see what we do instead, we call it by quite a differ- 
 ent name; we call a true regard not simply 'true,' but 
 benevolent, generous, kind, or some term of that sort
 
 268 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 which conceals from us the simple fact that it is a matter 
 of truth or error. And from this is it not obvious how 
 there flows one great practical evil ? we hide from ourselves 
 so the real nature of the practical problem, and come to 
 act upon a notion obviously absurd, as soon as ever we 
 recognise that it is a question of truth we are concerned 
 with. This error, namely, that calling a true regard by 
 other terms than true, we come to feel as if it might be 
 done without, as if other things might be substituted for 
 it. 
 
 " This you see is the very mess we are in ; we are try- 
 ing to make some other thing or things ' do instead ' of 
 love, but if we called it ' instead of truth ' we should see 
 at once that it was nonsense. N"o one would seriously 
 suggest to do without accuracy or truth, and try to do 
 with something instead. There is no substitute for truth, 
 we must have that, and its absence means disaster. And 
 it is just as much so in the moral as in the intellectual 
 world, of course. But you see, how, by calling what is 
 really a matter of simple truth by the name, e.g., of benevo- 
 lence, we come to lie down under the feeling that it is a 
 nice thing to have, yet if we have not got it we must do 
 without it ; and that there are some contrivances or other 
 just laws, a good police, prudence, balance of interests, 
 punishments, &c., &c., which may do instead. But call 
 it truth and the absurdity is manifest at once ; it becomes 
 as manifest then in words as it is in facts. "Would 
 it not be worth while to make this correction in our 
 thoughts ? " 
 
 " Most curious is the feeling that we do not see why 
 our emotions should respond to the facts, why we should 
 'care.' It is the same as not seeing why our intellect 
 should respond to facts, why we should think according
 
 The True Right. 269 
 
 to them, why is a thing being the fact any reason for our 
 thought being according to it? Probably men did not 
 always see this ; may we find traces, perhaps, of men 
 not having perceived why the existence of a fact was 
 any reason for their intellectual consciousness corre- 
 sponding ? 
 
 "Most curious, for instance, is the question raised as 
 against utilitarianism, why is it ' right,' a ' duty,' to prefer 
 the greater pleasure of others ? curious, for one thing, be- 
 cause it shows the eye so intensely fixed upon ourselves. 
 Is it not simply thus: the needs, or wants, or capabilities for 
 happiness of others are facts in nature, as facts they must 
 be regarded, or we are untrue to nature ; it is the same 
 with the emotions as with the intellect, the regard must 
 be true to nature. If it is not, of course there must 
 come the fruits of untruth; and especially this in each 
 case, that the true, natural, fit operation of our powers 
 will lead to false results, that is, in the practical life, 
 where these results of our faculties are rights or laws, it 
 makes false rights or laws." 
 
 "The true right at bottom, is it not simply truth to 
 the fact, i.e., the correspondence of our emotional consci- 
 ousness, as of our intellectual, to the facts around us ? e.g. y 
 if two persons are hungry, another and I, and my feeling 
 only responds to the hunger of one, it may, or may not 
 be wrong, but assuredly it is untrue, as untrue as there 
 being four of anything and my thinking there are but 
 three, and though '/' may go on so all my life, man will 
 assuredly correct it. 
 
 " Does not the thought of morals become simple thus : 
 the non-regard is not wrong : we see it is not, it becomes 
 the basis and ground of the most intense and most pain- 
 ful right it is not wrong, but it is untrue to fact ; and
 
 270 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 so, as in the intellectual life, it necessarily works itself 
 right, producing effects which compel a rectification. 
 Now, is not all that we call 'moral' simply the experi- 
 ence of this process ? The untruth to fact in feeling will 
 have the very same effect as a corresponding untruth in 
 thought, namely, it will start man on a process which is 
 a reductio ad dbsurdum, and end in a correction of the 
 feeling. An individual may live all rightly and con- 
 tentedly enough with any falsity of thought or feeling, 
 but man corrects it, is compelled to correct it, and then 
 the individuals find it their nature, their only true nature; 
 they receive it from ' man.' " 
 
 " The present relaxation of our hold on pain (ascetism, 
 self-discipline) is certainly due, really, to the greater regard 
 to others, but then, with this greater regard seems to come 
 the recognition of our non-regard. Man's thought that 
 he does, must, may, base his life on non-regard (i.e., self 
 first) has come with the very elimination of the non-regard. 
 But is not this necessary? Does he not now, at least, 
 so much regard others, that he does perceive that in the 
 basis there is a non-regard of them. So naturally he is 
 puzzled and comes for the time, as the best he can do, to 
 take it for granted it must be so." 
 
 " God," says Bastiat, " has confided the realisation of His 
 providential designs (true community) to the most active, 
 most personal, most permanent of all our energies, self- 
 interest, a principle embedded in our inmost nature, which 
 never flags, never takes rest." Is it not strange that 
 Bastiat does not see how exactly this might answer to a 
 setting forth of sense as the basis and rule of the mental 
 life ? Why, it is not so long since true intellectual scien- 
 tific activity was as rare and feeble as the altruistic element
 
 Sense and Self-regard. 271 
 
 in us. Yet, did that rare and feeble element reveal the 
 true ruler. Sense needed to be what it was, only as a 
 basis and means for that. 
 
 " And in respect to practical life it is as it is in respect 
 to thought. All men can receive science ; society can be 
 organised according to it on the basis of the intellectual 
 powers and not of sense merely, although intellect is pre- 
 dominant only in a few, and the mass would be altogether 
 incompetent to emancipate themselves from sense. The 
 few can do it for all. 
 
 " So they can in the other respect. The mass, feeble as 
 are the altruistic elements in them comparatively, are 
 quite good enough to be organised of free consent into an 
 altruistically based society. It only needs those faculties 
 to do their part in the few who are so made as to be fit 
 to lead; the rest are sure to follow. 
 
 " Having self first, and believing the sense-impressions 
 are evidently the same, both merely a leaving out. And 
 so the one is as certain to be cured as the other. The 
 attitude of science is simply that of taking in the things 
 at first left out, having present to our regard the 
 universal." 
 
 " Acting for self is not wrong, it is inevitable, a matter 
 of course as much as any other false premiss into which 
 man is born, as much as his beginning by believing the 
 sense-impression, the earth being the immovable centre 
 of the universe, &c. But in both cases, by refusing the 
 things it makes right, nature brings the'power of the right 
 against it. It is the same as all correcting the premiss ; 
 the false premiss is not illogical, not foolish, it is simply 
 where we find ourselves ; but because it makes logic como 
 to certain results, nature by refusing those results, brings 
 the whole power of logic to bear against the premiss ; the
 
 272 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 whole power of logic against a thing not illogical, of 
 reason against a thing not foolish. For a false premiss is 
 not foolish ; we see as wise and clever men have believed 
 them, as will ever believe the true. As good men have 
 taken acting for self as the basis of their life, as will ever 
 refuse it. It is no question of goodness, any more than 
 true knowledge of nature beneath appearances is of 
 cleverness, only of man's having, or not yet having, 
 worked out problems intellectual and moral respec- 
 tively." 
 
 " Will it not be a beautiful clear moral vision when we 
 look back and around on all the deeds and forms of human 
 life with one standard, judging them by one test ; when 
 the badness in all bad things is looked at simply accord- 
 ing to one law, the truth or falsity of the regard to facts, to 
 things in their relations. When we look at slavery with 
 its lists of ruined captives, and depressed industry on the 
 one hand, and competition with its war of classes, its ruined 
 weakest, and scamped work on the other, and see them 
 not as one bad thing and one good, but as one evil ope- 
 rating, one falsity spoiling two things (which can be had 
 only by being so spoiled). And so, again, the enslave- 
 ment of women under the name of wives on the one hand, 
 and on the other the falsity of the home, its selfish 
 withholding, its deliberate acceptance of its support on 
 prostitution. When we look at things not merely from 
 the outside, and pride ourselves in them, but judge with 
 one judgment all around and see how falsity spoils all 
 things." 
 
 "This is our state; it is like a bar pressed on at both 
 ends; because out of its natural position at one end, 
 encountering force at the other also, the distortion at one
 
 The False Right. 2 73 
 
 end causing a distortion that is, a tension to be also at 
 the other, so that the two forces co-operate. There are 
 two things awry ; on the one hand, the acting for self (a 
 distinct tension and ivrungness) ; and, on the other, the 
 relations of life are distorted, and made to be against the 
 natural demands ; the one distortion brings the other, that 
 is, brings it with man's growing life, because it brings 
 with it a feeling that ' right ' means that which it is right 
 to do for self, an isolated right, a thing seen apart from, 
 its relations, and therefore not truly seen. There are two 
 twists or strains, and they balance, as it were, so that both 
 get right together. First, there is the one distortion, the 
 self-life, and there is nothing to put it right, no power 
 present to free the bond that holds it wrung ; but by de- 
 grees there arises this other force, the distortion of the 
 relations of humanity that come by the nature of the 
 virtuousness this self -life imposes. And the very fact of 
 this distortion is a force making against that other distor- 
 tion ; its coming is the arising of a force, the bearing of 
 which is against* the bond that holds the other. For a 
 time it is resisted, but it grows. The two distortions are 
 put against each other, as the assuming sense-impressions 
 to be true, and the distortion of reason that resulted, and 
 the one puts right the other ; they become right together, 
 for the force of each is united." 
 
 " A good woman said of another, ' How splendidly she 
 dresses, but then there is no reason she should not, she 
 has plenty of income and has a right to dress so.' The 
 question of how others are dressed is ' no reason ' for her 
 dressing otherwise, and so the rights accordingly follow. 
 But how simple it is ; a person who is moved by all the 
 facts, on whom everything has its power, wants no other 
 right, there is no place for right or law, no emptiness for 
 
 s
 
 274 Life of James Hintun. 
 
 them to come into. A person not moved by all the facts, 
 of course, must be looking about for a right, and make 
 laws for himself. Not being guided by a true response to 
 the ever-varying claims of human good, he must find his 
 right in certain rigid things which he may or may not do. 
 And then, how plain, that a being with his regard too 
 much on himself, when he comes to ' good ' will infect 
 that also with that condition of his own, he will make his 
 good or right also a thing too much about himself. 
 
 " That acting for self necessitates right in rigid things, 
 is so simple, so obvious, that we are apt to get confused 
 if we try to think it out. We look for something abstruse 
 instead of common, something unknown instead of known 
 quite well ; we look beyond the object and so cannot see 
 it. It is involved in the fact that the things which can 
 be rightly done for self, are not the same that may rightly 
 be done if the regard is on others. A child may not 
 neglect to learn its lesson for its own pleasure, but it may 
 neglect to learn it to nurse a sick relation. You remem- 
 ber what Mr. W. said of the Sunday, ' If you are wishing 
 to serve God you may read the newspaper ; ' that is, if 
 you are acting for self your Sunday must be a rigid thing; 
 there are certain things you must not do ; but if you are 
 not, it is an action, and the thing may vary. Look at the 
 Commandments : is there a law ' you may not kill ' ? 
 Certainly not, the law is ' you may not kill for yourself 
 if acting for self, you may not kill.' The executioner or 
 the soldier in defence of his country does not break the 
 law not acting for self, for them the right thing varies. 
 That which is wrong when done for one's self, may become 
 right when the claims of human good demand it. And 
 this is my complaint against our life, that the right recog- 
 nised and insisted on in it is one that implies acting for 
 self at the root."
 
 Social Abscesses. 
 
 275 
 
 "A thing being always right or wrong means that it 
 shall not vary with its relations. This is why our moral 
 life is such a confusion, that we have made our morals 
 consist in shutting our eyes to the relations of things and 
 refusing to let them have weight. The tendency not to 
 see things in their relations is man's chief tendency to 
 error intellectually, and we have made morals formulate 
 this into a duty." 
 
 " Acting for self makes right a rigid thing, and a rigid 
 thing in man's life is precisely as a dead thing in the 
 living body. It cannot partake in the life and so is 
 disease. It is as a foreign body, a thing unmoving in 
 the midst of a moving whole. And just as nature, as 
 soon as ever a dead thing is in the living body, begins 
 instantly to turn it out, so does man's life begin instantly 
 to turn out a dead or rigid right, a right that is a thing 
 and not an act. And by the very same processes that 
 are disease ; she makes an abscess round the foreign body, 
 she surrounds the dead right with crime we call it dis- 
 soluteness, the abscess state. Crime and vice are the 
 means by which nature casts out rigid or dead rights, that 
 is, puts away acting for self. Give her time indeed that 
 we must give her, for she takes it. Our attempts to put 
 these down or away are simply the attempts to cure an 
 abscess without the casting out of the irritating body. 
 In presence of the dead thing, spiritual and physical 
 alike, nature's forces take that form, the form of disease. 
 These are her best forces, that is their action; all the 
 goodness in her life goes into it. It is vain to try to make 
 it better while the irritant remains, the abscess is the 
 goodness, the form which life so must take." 
 
 "To make life better, what is proposed is more nnd
 
 276 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 more regard to others or facts; in order to make a life 
 based on non-regard, on self, go well, more regard to others 
 is proposed by all as the means for a better, no one pro- 
 poses to do without it ; but should it not be used, not to 
 patch a life based on non-regard, but to change its basis ? 
 May not our efforts now be almost summed up as efforts 
 to make a life based on non-regard go on with sensuous 
 and moral satisfaction. So it is a restraint there, and a 
 restraint here, restrictions everywhere and ever increasing ; 
 and for every new evil, some new special remedy just put 
 on, leaving all the rest the same as it was before, not seeing 
 that every change must run through the whole as in a 
 living frame." 
 
 " It is necessary to see the change in man's regard 
 the new aim, and life as a thing that is to be, or at 
 least to keep our thought on it as a conceivable issue, 
 in order to make it possible to see the world as good. 
 For its evils are good if we see them as powers, the 
 powers by which man's life is brought; but we cannot 
 see this unless we see a ' life ' that may be brought, a 
 change in his soul which they may effect. Unless we 
 can recognise this, we cannot recognise them as powers, 
 for there is nothing for them to do." 
 
 "Here is the difference of nature's law to the self's. 
 Nature's is : indulge pleasures, instincts, impulses, as ser- 
 vice leads, and do not desire against it. The self's is : ab- 
 stain, restrain passion ; it changes the law into this, its 
 eye too blind, too bounded, its thought too shut up to 
 itself, even to see if it be service." 
 
 "Let man back himself by the powers of his passion 
 for service, and then see if he is weak. Does he not
 
 The Training of the Desires. 277 
 
 succumb so to things because he refuses the power by 
 which he could stand against them ? Observe, while he 
 refuses this, his weakness and failing are proofs rather of 
 his power they are proofs of the mightiness of the power 
 he might use. Does not service stand, as the other 
 powers of nature, as fire, steam, electricity, &c., stand, 
 waiting for man to use them, hurting him till he does ? " 
 
 " Understand, I don't say an existing generation can be 
 changed. Such a thing is never in my thoughts, as I 
 believe it has never been in history. What I think of 
 is a truer thought of right being taught to children, and 
 it wants three generations. I propose that all children 
 shall be taught a new thought of right I mean a new 
 thought from now, not new in the world, only Christ's 
 this, namely, that God's command to all is, that the 
 desire of the heart, the true preferring and wish and 
 choice of the soul, should be for good ; that a care or 
 wish for anything about ourselves, as against tliat, is sin 
 the one sin, the breach of the one command, to love ; 
 that whenever their desires so swerve, they have sinned, 
 and must repent and amend ; that nothing less than this 
 is God's command ; that nothing less than this can pos- 
 sibly avail. 
 
 " And for proof we shall stand. If any child should ask, 
 ' Why should we insist on this ? why would it not do 
 to think first of ourselves, and then have laws according 
 to keep ? ' men shall point back to history and say, ' Our 
 fathers tried that, and it brought them to the nineteenth 
 century. Shall we go back to it ? You can if you like ; 
 only let your regard be first to yourself, and it will come.' 
 
 " Now if this were taught to children, would it not be a 
 new teaching? And if it were taught effectually, and 
 became as well obeyed as are now tlie other rights
 
 278 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 that are taught them, would not the world be a new 
 place ? If men obeyed this law on the desires as they do 
 obey the otlur laws which we have now, would not the 
 change be enormous ? If one could go to every man and 
 say, 'You are bound to be desiring good and serving 
 it absolutely in every act/ as we can now go to him 
 and say, ' You are bound to be honest,' would it not be 
 different?" 
 
 " If true goodness be in that which expresses and comes 
 with acting not for self, is not the training we try to give 
 as means of moral uprightness, the training in the being 
 able to resist pleasure, to overcome the passions, so as to 
 resist them when coming as temptations is not the power 
 very much wasted? Ought not this to be the thing 
 cultivated, the inability to desire against service; to 
 strengthen that positive feeling of this power of service to 
 rule the desire absolutely, and in a way not capable by 
 any pleasure (while the mind remained sane) to be over- 
 balanced ? So having no need to think about being able 
 to refuse pleasure, the whole feeling being that, to be 
 pleasure, the thing must be service ; strengthening, not 
 the power to refuse pleasure, but the inability to find 
 pleasure except in service. It is not that there should 
 be none of the other, but which should be the aim ? 
 Then having the true as the object, the other would take 
 its place naturally; and even be strengthened by this 
 very perception that it was but a means to another and 
 truer thing." 
 
 " You may have your thoughts wholly on others ; you 
 need not put even your virtue first. It is a liberty to 
 enthrone others absolutely that I have discovered, and 
 which, when I tell it to other men, they say often is a
 
 True Attaining Altruistic. 279 
 
 new life to them. I don't mean to say a man has not to 
 attend to his own moral state in order for service, even 
 as he has to attend to his own physical state ; that is so 
 clear, I've very likely often omitted to say it. You don't 
 contradict me in saying that. Don't think yon do." 
 
 " Is not the secret of true doing simply the finding 
 what wants doing, the reason for doing, the regarding that, 
 and that merely ? If this be true in all cases, then of 
 course it will be true of pleasurable things as well; 
 and the good is that so virtue will never mean doing 
 mischief; for the other way, not only our self-seeking 
 but our self-virtue will be mischievous. The real hin- 
 drance is people thinking not simply what wants doing, 
 but of what is expected of them that is, of them- 
 selves. That makes them go also into silly luxuries; 
 it is this one thing holds them to their bondage, to 
 pleasures that are not pleasures, and to their virtues that 
 are cruelties ; they cannot do simply what wants doing, 
 they must think of what is expected of them. And it 
 may be said, ' This is easy enough if you are not caring 
 about people ; be indifferent to others around you, and 
 you can easily not mind what is expected of you. 
 But is that truly caring for those others ? is it not a 
 mockery, really caring for ourselves under the form of 
 it? How much of what is called regard for others 
 is really regard for self, a thinking what is expected 
 ofmeP 
 
 " That question, ' How shall I be a good person ? ' gets 
 into man's thoughts ; substitute for it ' What will really 
 help and be for good,' and is not all done ? Here we 
 have the law again ; we must do, in doing something else, 
 lose our life in order to save it. It is true, as J. S. Mill
 
 2 So Life of James Hinton. 
 
 states in his Autobiography, that happiness, to he truly 
 attained, must not he directly sought. It is true also of 
 being good. Direct 'being good' is thinking of self. 
 Is it not the universal difference between the seeming 
 and the fact ? To be truly attained, must not everything 
 be not directly sought that is, is not all true attaining 
 altruistic ? and is not the problem in every case to find 
 the other thing by which any (given) thing may be 
 done ?" 
 
 "Was there ever anything so curiously twisted as 
 utilitarianism ? Thus, e.g., ' it has been found that the best 
 for all comes from each one's attending mainly to his own 
 interests ;' therefore what ? that men must put themselves 
 first! How curious! Why not attend mainly to their 
 own interests, because that is the thing that is best 
 for all? Even human good must not be too directly 
 sought. 
 
 " Of course, altruism is felt to be absurd, by being made 
 to mean sacrifice altogether. Insisting that it be sacri- 
 fice is making one's self, and not the good of others, deter- 
 mine it." 
 
 " The altruistic plan of life wants a guide ; and politi- 
 cal economy furnishes it. Its principles, and self-interest, 
 furnish the guide to that which is useful, needed, 
 should be done. It must be embodied most perfectly 
 fulfilled too in the life based on the opposite principles. 
 Only by knowing what political economy teaches, by act- 
 ing on what it proves, can an altruistic life be lived with- 
 out intolerable failure, just as the laws of science must 
 be based on a careful study of the phenomena. And it 
 is beautiful to see how this conscious apprehension of 
 true ' economy ' is wanted for an altruistic life, and for
 
 Political Economy. 281 
 
 what reason, therefore, it exists ; not for the supposed end 
 of getting rich as fast as possible, of material prosperity, 
 but to prepare for, to allow, an altruistic society a better 
 good than that aimed at. 
 
 "For thus the practical rules for life are plain the 
 things to be done, the modes and directions of activity, 
 are those which political economy points out ; the prin- 
 ciples on which these things are to be done, the aims 
 sought, the voluntary activity, should be those of an 
 altruistic life. Here again we see very prettily how 
 political economy is perfected in altruism, while altruism 
 is not, and cannot be, taken up into it (as guiding life on 
 self principles) ; it must be crushed then ; demonstrating 
 which is to be subordinated." 
 
 " Here is our debt to political economy it has taught 
 us the relation of all our deeds to the necessities of others. 
 All our action is in relation with things on which the very 
 'soul's' life of others turns. If we only recognise, see 
 simply as a fact, as political economy shows it to us, what 
 our choice is, how simple it becomes, scarcely a choice, 
 rather a necessity laid upon us." 
 
 " How distinctly there has grown in recent times the 
 twofold feeling, on the one hand, of thinking of, seeking 
 the visible and traceable good of others ; and, on the other, 
 of not seeing any reason for refusing pleasure. These two 
 are essentially connected together, although the false pre- 
 miss of self-interest still retained, distorts our life, and 
 turns it to evil. These two feelings it is that should be 
 cultivated, perfectly carried out, and to their full meaning. 
 That is the true advance ; till it comes to perfect regard 
 for others' good, and no refusing pleasure the perfect 
 rule of service."
 
 282 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " It may well be, however truly the law of service may 
 be the true law, that it shall not, even for generations, be 
 possible to all till the thought of men is better trained. 
 So that it might be more true to say, there must be made 
 free the cJioice between these two laws : the law of service, 
 and the law of restraint of passion, truly, between having 
 a self-passion and a nature-passion, for a nature-passion 
 is a passion that is already restrained, even as, long ago, 
 I saw nature is passion restrained; the choice is of a 
 restrained passion, or a passion needing restraint. A man 
 may choose whether he will have his own interest first, 
 and accept the limits within which he will pursue it; 
 or whether he will have the law of service, and will 
 consent to its condition, that his thought, his desire is on 
 good." 
 
 " Is it not the sign of the despair that has settled down 
 on us, this conviction that has so fallen on us that our lives 
 must be centred round self, that it is not even suspected 
 any longer that this is what is the matter with them, and 
 what keeps them full of evil ? Is it not plain here is a 
 good life, truly good, and full of every kind of enjoymentj 
 that might be for all, for all children that might be born, 
 too, just by their accepting that one thought, our right 
 shall be putting good first, and not our own advancement? 
 No ; instead of this there is to be fewer lives. Not the 
 ' comfort ' or ' advancement,' but the existence of the 
 children is to be forgone; they are not to be at all* 
 
 * Mr. Greg has pointed out in his "Enigmas of Life'" how Malthusian- 
 ism stands in direct conflict with the law of heredity ; for, if recognised, 
 it would lead to the highest and most self-controlled individuals of the 
 species either refraining from marriage or marrying late, leaving the 
 world to be populated mostly by the improvident and the reckless the 
 worst instead of the best of the breed. The ultimate population of the
 
 One Law for Men and Women. 283 
 
 The child is to be denied, not a great place in the world, 
 and the means of scraping a great deal of its pleasant 
 things around himself, but Being altogether, all things. 
 It is life we are to refuse our possible children, and this 
 all the while when putting others first would do not only 
 as well, but so infinitely better ; instead of a good life for 
 all, it is proposed to have fewer lives fewer lives, that 
 the lives that are may continue self-centred, and yet be 
 comfortable." 
 
 "You see what I aim at and am working for is that 
 human good shall be the thought and aim even in the re- 
 lations of men and women, and shall give them their right 
 and wrong human good, not man's pleasure. ... I 
 want one law for men and women, but a law of the 
 spirit one law, the absolute desire for good in both. 
 Aim at this, and we can get the unity. What has pre- 
 vented has been that we left this, and went down to laws 
 of things. Carry the law up to the spirit, and we can 
 and shall have it one. 
 
 " I am looking for women to initiate a power that shall 
 go to the root of man's confirmed habit of putting ques- 
 tions about himself before questions about others, and 
 pluck it up. What really bothers women so about us 
 (one chief thing) is exactly this, that we are busy about a 
 goodness for ourselves which is its own end, and is not as 
 means for service. Men are taught to think about their 
 own virtue, not about the good of women. Virtuous 
 young men say, as you know by experience, ' I know how 
 to take care of myself,' not ' I know how to take care of 
 
 world, Mr. Hinton considered, was a question which might bo relegated to 
 the future to be dealt with, and the consideration of which as immediately 
 pressing tended to paralyse our efforts in dealing with more urgent 
 problems.
 
 284 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 the weakest woman that comes in my path.' Give men 
 something better than mere self-restraint to overcome by. 
 Let women say and mothers teach, ' The needs of others 
 must be absolutely enthroned.' " 
 
 " My thoughts don't go much to questions of outward 
 order. These settle themselves. Granted that monogamy 
 is the law of service, as you hold ; then if we can get the 
 law of service recognised, we should so gain a true mono- 
 gamy. Do you call English life monogamous? explain 
 to me I don't understand. Are we speaking of names 
 and pretences or of realities ? The problem is not how 
 to keep, but how to attain to monogamy. Is the second 
 wife better because a woman is basely forsaken for her 
 sake? or is it better that twenty should have preceded 
 and been totally disregarded, that one, the twenty-first, 
 may be held in apparent honour ? 
 
 " What is the meaning of ' maintaining monogamy ' ? 
 Is there any chance of getting it, I want to know. 
 
 " Our daughters cannot have a human life while woman- 
 hood is where it is. It would be better for them to die 
 than to grow up, and live in such nice homes, with those 
 their sisters round them." 
 
 " my God ! can it be true that the end is not 
 come ? Didst Thou bring me hither only to torture and 
 delude me ? Yet, as Thou knowest, the torture is welcome, 
 and I am willing even to be deluded ; for if I see not 
 then Thy will is better than my vision. But let my 
 strained eyes close, and be at rest. They cannot look 
 longer if hope is to vanish. Let the world's evil run its 
 course uncheered by one gleam of hope, but let me cease 
 to witness it. Even so. It is good, but I have borne 
 enough."
 
 Mans Possible. 285 
 
 " If I am to be remembered at all," Mr. Hinton once 
 said to a married friend of his, " This is what I would be 
 remembered by, that I was the man who said, ' Man is so 
 made that he can rise above the sexual passion, and sub- 
 ordinate it to use.' There even if that is false, and all 
 else I ever said was true, I would rather be remembered 
 as having said that one falsehood than by all the truths."
 
 286 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 He writes to a friend : 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, "jth September 1870. 
 
 "You know that is the terrible work I have had to do 
 this year; to see afresh the whole thought of right and 
 wrong, to see that not restraint, but the condition in 
 which restraint is no more called for, is the only true 
 good. I call it a terrible task, and indeed the word is 
 far too light to express it; and I look back upon it as 
 something too painful to be remembered. 
 
 " Don't you see that genius gives up its best ? Think, 
 is it not plain, that the power to do this is exactly what 
 makes it genius ? that is, its power to do this, holding on 
 to it at the same time. For all true giving up has 
 holding on in it. Do you not see what genius does is 
 exactly to attain a better than any best before it, its own 
 of course included? How can a better be attained but 
 by and in giving up every other ? All men do and must 
 do this, but the difference is that other men only can or 
 do give up their best for a better which they see before 
 them. Genius gives up its best for a better, yet unknown, 
 unseen, unproved better; it has to give up, making no 
 conditions, to go out from its father's house with no as- 
 surance of a better land, unstipulating it shall not be an 
 outcast for ever; having only the assurance that what 
 Nature says is better, must be, than any conviction, any
 
 Giving up our Best. 287 
 
 devotion of its own, and willing, if it be not, to take what 
 she has to give. It takes Nature for better or for worse, 
 and makes no bargain it shall not be for worse. That, I 
 suppose, is why Nature never deceives it but, indeed, 
 she cannot, for that would be to betray herself. . . . 
 
 " Now I know that with a little time you would see 
 how Philip II. taught me this, but it isn't worth puzzling 
 over. You are right about him, I dare say, but can't one 
 see a thing by its contrary ? Philip II. couldn't give up 
 his best, the catholic unity of the world a 'best,' in my 
 opinion, as worthy of being held fast as any that more 
 than a very few men indeed have ever seen. Conceive 
 it. Was it not a grand vision ? Nay, too grand to be a 
 vision merely. I think we shall see the truth of it yet. 
 He couldn't give up his best. When one sees the Escu- 
 rial one sees the man. Protestantism loathes his name 
 and justly, on one side. But which of us can give up 
 our best ? Which of us isn't sorry for the evils that seem 
 inseparable from it and resolved to hold to it still ? . . . 
 
 " Do you not see how different the giving up the best 
 is in the world of thought and in that of morals ? The 
 one is a trembling, astonished delight, with such glad news 
 to tell ; the other leaves you crushed and wounded, glad 
 with a joy that hardly knows itself from grief which 
 cannot spare the grief that justifies it to itself, and 
 with a burden on the tongue that it can hardly either 
 utter or conceal." 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, August 1870. 
 
 " You have sent me two good little letters, and if I had 
 not been very much occupied I would have answered them 
 at once. If it seems to you that there is a contradiction 
 between two things which both seem to be true as facts 
 or to have fair evidence, that is exactly the universal
 
 288 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 problem, that is the condition for seeing. I should be dis- 
 posed to say though this would want more considering 
 that true knowledge always comes in that way, and must. 
 Till there is the contradiction as I should have the im- 
 pression there are not the elements for completing the 
 incompleteness of the perception. I should say it was 
 there that the whole art of the process lay. Whether or 
 not, there may be some rule found for the process, I 
 would not be sure, but I much incline to think there will 
 be, and that given two contradictions, a distinct method 
 for excluding the negation from each will some day be 
 formulated. One may say ' Note such and such signs and 
 proceed in such a way ; ' not that this could ever limit 
 thinking and reduce it to a routine, the recognition of 
 order, unity, and necessity always gives liberty instead of 
 restrains it. 
 
 "But at present I do not see this general process, I 
 only feel it must pretty certainly exist. In the absence 
 of it, I have chiefly to say that the art of letting the 
 two unite is to abstain from force, not to make them 
 one but to let them become so. It is a seeing, not an 
 adjusting. Here you see we come to what I saw about 
 Genius, that it is willing to feel it does not know ; that 
 which is not Genius insisting that one or other of the 
 not known things is knowledge. Genius accepts the 
 contradictions, feels, 'I don't know that.' You see it 
 means dissatisfaction, unrest, where others are satisfied. 
 It means doing the best it can, very likely one thing at 
 one time, and at another time the opposite ; alike with a 
 sense that neither is the truly right thing to be done. In 
 a word, it is consciousness of not-seeing ; but a consciousness 
 of not-seeing in an active, stimulating, not in a paralysing 
 form, a consciousness of not seeing that is neither con- 
 tent not to see nor capable of saying ' I see,' when it does
 
 Conditions of Seeing. 289 
 
 not, nor of putting things together for its own convenience 
 and saying they are so. 
 
 " Now if you are in this unhappy happy frame of mind 
 about those points you indicate, I congratulate you ; that 
 is seeing in its becoming. You see the state has two 
 characters ; on the one hand, you are compelled to seek 
 with the extremest energy, for perhaps this conscious not 
 seeing is the unease which the human mind bears of all 
 most unwillingly ; and on the other, you are forbidden to 
 invent, to dream, to affirm false seeing. To that frame of 
 mind, the fact, if the conditions of its being seen exist, is 
 sure to reveal itself the fact which gives both the contra- 
 dictories as demands. Take Copernicus, for instance : he 
 felt that simplicity and unity were demanded in our 
 thought of the unknown ; he felt that complexity and 
 disorder were forced upon him by observation. He would 
 not deny either, that was all, his whole soul being intent 
 upon the problem. Then he saw what satisfied both the 
 demands at once, and that proved itself, that is always 
 what does prove itself. It brings with it an absolute con- 
 viction, which he, I think, who has once truly experienced, 
 never can be mistaken in again. He who has once felt this 
 has an unfailing instinct. He demands it always again, 
 and the least glance is sufficient to show him where it is 
 not. He has felt the touch of nature on his soul. But, 
 also, as I have often said, a man who has genius may fall, 
 is fallen, as soon as he consents to accept evidence, any 
 evidence but that. He has no gift of knowing that can 
 supply its place ; his only faculty is that of knowing that 
 he does not know. Yes ! it is that throws down the barrier 
 we raise between ourselves and nature, and renders it 
 possible for her to make herself known to us." 
 
 In 1 870 we find the following entry in his journal : 
 
 T
 
 290 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 " In case I should never be able to carry it out, I should 
 like to put on record what my wish for my life would be, 
 namely, to live among, and, as nearly as compatible with 
 health, in the same atmosphere, and on the same food, as 
 the lowest class in the East End of London, and as near 
 as might be to the scene of my beginning of life in 
 Whitechapel. Living there and thus, to mix intimately 
 with and become the friend of the lowest and poorest 
 class, and do all that was natural and straightforward to 
 raise them and convey to them truer thoughts of their 
 own life and of the world ; and especially to have a place 
 in which I could put at their command all my books and 
 pictures, &c. With this to combine a school, not carried 
 on by myself, but, as far as was necessary, at my own 
 expense, to which I could get people familiar with science 
 to come frequently and interest the children, and I might, 
 as far as I could, do the same. I would also organise 
 visits to places of instruction and pleasure, and especially 
 to art collections. Then, in conformity to a thought 
 suggested by M., I think that to take some existing gin- 
 shop, and, without repelling its frequenters by attempt- 
 ing any control, to seek gradually to substitute wholesome 
 drinks, and bring natural moral influences to bear upon 
 them, would be the mode I should think best to carry out 
 this plan. 
 
 " The other objects some with ease, the others with 
 more or less difficulty can be united with it. For this 
 life I would cut off to any extent that might be necessary 
 my intellectual work ; and I long for it as a man longs 
 for his wedding-day. . . . And, as far as I can see 
 into myself, this necessity is a part rather of my in- 
 tellectual than of my moral constitution. It is a result 
 of that demand for unity that goes all through my 
 thoughts. The discordant lives of the differently placed
 
 Helping without taking the Burthen. 291 
 
 individuals affect me with an intolerable sense of dis- 
 order." 
 
 With the ordinary philanthropic schemes, conducted 
 by committees, public dinners, and subscription lists, Mr. 
 Hinton felt himself out of sympathy. " I am not pleased 
 with the feelings which are excited in me by the hearing 
 of benevolent schemes, plans for ameliorating the condi- 
 tion of the poor, &c. I do not like the unsympathetic 
 state of mind they seem to arouse in me ; I have even 
 suspected myself of jealousy, absurd as it seems. But I 
 think the truth is this, that it is another form of that 
 repulsion I have from intellectual statements which are 
 like my own but yet are not like which differ essen- 
 tially, and yet might seem the same. And is it not that 
 I miss in both alike sacrifice taken as the foundation, 
 the recognition of that as the good, as the end for which 
 all exists ? All helping without taking the burden, all 
 serving that is not heroism, all giving that has not 
 absolute losing in it, I cannot but have a revulsion from, 
 a feeling almost as if I feared its success. Seeing the 
 hope of so much more, I cannot but be discontented with 
 the thought of less." 
 
 He thus describes his habitual attitude of mind : " I 
 am like a man climbing a mountain, every limb strained 
 to the utmost, every nerve tense; and he or she who 
 would be with me must accept life so, must climb the 
 mountain or be content to keep upon the plain. They 
 must accept the strain, the effort; they must face 
 closing their eyes, even, that they may not see the 
 precipices with sheer death at the bottom of them, the 
 pathless rocks that mock all thought of progress; they 
 must breathe that thin keen air, and be content to walk 
 on ice where each footstep is a slip, and would be a fall, 
 but that it enables us to take the next."
 
 292 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 No wonder that he goes on to add " The key to my 
 treatment of people, especially of those I love, I know, is, 
 that I cannot feel any other way than that every one 
 wishes most, and is perfectly willing, to be utterly sacri- 
 ficed for the good of the world. I cannot really believe, 
 nor by any means get to believe, that it is not so. It 
 seems as if Christ had so revealed man to me, that I can- 
 not see any man except through Him. And in spite of 
 all evidence, the feeling, the conviction clings to me, and 
 I cannot escape it, could not, I believe, even if I tried. 
 Surely this must go deeply into my nature. Why cannot 
 such plain proof and demonstration drive that conviction 
 out of me, that that, and not all that one sees, is the 
 true nature of man ? What makes me cling to that 
 conviction is that which makes me altogether. I see 
 that must be the truth, and the senses cannot avail 
 to contradict it to me. It is as if I had seen the 
 true fact somewhere, and persist that all else is but its 
 phenomenon. 
 
 " And, indeed, this is the secret of what some call my 
 tact. I treat men as if no self were in them ; and this is 
 true, after all, though not true. Especially it is what 
 makes women feel I understand them. I take it for 
 granted there is no self in them, and they know it is true. 
 It is the fact of them. A woman will always love the man 
 who says to her ' Lay down your life ' better than the man 
 who says 'Take up your rights.'" "That's true in the 
 abstract, in theory," one of Mr. Hinton's most intimate 
 friends once answered, " Half my life I feel that I want no 
 consideration, only to be made use of ; that I have enough, 
 and care only for being of use. But the other half of one's 
 time one yearns for sympathy and kindness, and to be 
 cared for." He smiled, and said, " Don't you see, women 
 were made that way, in order that real sacrifice might be
 
 Uncomfortable Views. 293 
 
 possible to them ? There is no sacrifice in giving what 
 one does not care for. That is just the little 'minus* 
 which was necessary to make the 'plus' possible, and 
 people have thought that little minus, which was meant to 
 be sacrificed, was the whole of women, and have treated 
 them by yielding to that, and 'considering them,' and 
 giving them ' nice things,' instead of making them of use 
 as they long to be." 
 
 "It is in those we love," he says, "sacrificing them- 
 selves, and our accepting it ; it is in that we shall truly 
 learn sacrifice. Do we not here see in light the dark 
 riddle of God's cruelty? "What does He do but take? 
 So He gives us sacrifice. How could He keep the best 
 thing for Himself ? how not give it to us ? Did I not 
 say long ago it was in us God sacrifices Himself ? " 
 
 If it be urged that these are very uncomfortable views 
 of life, I might suggest that Christianity itself, with its 
 fundamental axiom, " He that loveth his life shall lose it," 
 cannot strictly be defined as a comfortable religion. I 
 would ask whether our modern worship of " the comfort- 
 able" has given us a life that really satisfies even the 
 most worldly amongst us ; whether, on the contrary, it has 
 not bound down the free play and joyous movement of life 
 under a " weight of custom, heavy as frost, deep almost 
 as life," debarring us from the healthy joys of " high think- 
 ing and plain living," from the lofty enterprise and joyous 
 heroism that " feeds the high tradition of the world," and 
 from the deeper blessedness of sacrifice, 
 
 " That makes us large with utter loss 
 To hold divinity " 1 
 
 Whether in one word, our modern "enlightened self- 
 interest" enables its disciples to write of the world as 
 this man wrote in 1 87 1 ?
 
 294 Lrf e of James Hinton. 
 
 "Will my friends try after I am dead for I cannot 
 do it myself, I cannot say it as I mean and wish to 
 tell the world how beautiful and rich, and absolutely 
 good, full of joy and gladness beyond all that heart 
 can wish or imagination paint, I feel that the world 
 is, this human life. I know it by my own, which is 
 no exception, but only life made smaller, that it may 
 be seen ; made smaller for the ends served, achieved by 
 every human life, the most lost and wasted, are wider 
 than the ends visibly served by mine, as the heavens are 
 wider than the earth. Nor, indeed, is this little visible 
 use of mine more than a mere fraction of my use; 
 it is as nothing to that which God has given me, though 
 I know it not. He does not give me less because He 
 gives me this little ; He does but lift a little corner of 
 the veil and say, ' This is what all human life is, all like 
 this little bit of yours ; be glad.' I have heard such wise 
 men speak of our thoughts, and the ideas we can form of 
 things and of our life, as being so impossible to be true, 
 as being like the notions an insect might have of a 
 Madonna of Kaffaelle's. And that is what I mean ; so 
 much does this life surpass what we thought of it, so 
 overwhelmed, and merged, and lost, and sunk in gladness. 
 That is what life is ; and to say this properly for me is 
 what I wish my friends to do. 
 
 " And in the joy and delight and feeling of new life 
 given them, which people do find in seeing what I see 
 (some few people, I mean, those who do truly see it), 
 what a testimony there is to the tension, the crushing 
 that is put upon the soul by the modern life, and that it 
 is ready for a sudden spring to a different order a sudden 
 spring in which the forms will rearrange themselves in a 
 new order, free from effort." 
 
 On one occasion he had been reading a literary man's
 
 Sadness of Modern Life. 295 
 
 account, of how he walks in his garden among the 
 beauties of nature, and yet is sad. " Sad ? of course 
 he is sad. How can a man be happy living a life which 
 
 is not his own life ? If E had to plan a life for 
 
 himself, would he ever build a big house and shut up 
 works of art in it, and put a wall round his garden to 
 shut in the flowers ? It is the old baron's castle a little 
 
 modified; it expresses not E 's life, but the life of 
 
 some remote ancestor of his, who was probably a robber 
 by profession. Only he has eliminated out of the old 
 baron's life its one human element the relation of loy- 
 alty between him and his dependents. The baron would 
 have risked all he had to avenge any retainer of his who 
 was injured. After some fashion he loved his men. But 
 
 E pays the police to protect him ; he contracts for his 
 
 men, and knows nothing about them." 
 
 If, instead of our self-centred lives, and their right and 
 wrong in outside things, and self-restraint as the principle 
 of observance, we were to recognise God's command to 
 love, the claim of humanity on the heart and desire for 
 absolute service, which abolishes all law in fulfilling it, 
 and sets us free to take as much pleasure as we feel 
 needed to give us healthy elasticity for our work, might 
 we not know a little more of the joy and a little less of 
 the sadness Mr. Hinton speaks of ? " Do you mean to 
 say I may live as I like ? " was once indignantly asked of 
 a great preacher who had learnt this lesson. " Would to 
 God," he replied, " I could live as I like, for then would I 
 live holily." 
 
 In this year Mr. Hinton sent his most valuable 
 pictures to be exhibited in the East End of London. 
 Had he lived, he would have used his whole influence to 
 make his gift the nucleus of a larger collection, to be the 
 especial property of the very poor. " To make White-
 
 296 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 chapel a little better," was ever the thought engraven 
 on his heart. " At fifteen I walked about the streets and 
 cried about these poor people, and now I am fifty I do 
 just the same. How little I could have thought then of 
 what I should be that that fifteen would have come to 
 this fifty!" 
 
 " Late one evening," Mr. Berry writes, " James Hinton 
 took me for a walk in the Strand. He led me into the 
 Alhambra ; we were very soon surrounded by women of 
 loose character. He took no notice of them, but held me 
 by the coat with both hands and looked me in the face, 
 and began quietly talking about 'unconscious sacrifice.' 
 Soon his gentle speech attracted the notice of the women, 
 who grouped themselves round him, witn the policemen 
 who attend to keep order (the acting was all the time 
 going on on the stage), and all were spellbound while he 
 sweetly discoursed on Christ's hatred of sin and pity for 
 the sinner ; and finished a most touching address of some 
 ten minutes by saying, ' If our Saviour were on earth, 
 where would he be ? Why here ? ' And then we left, and 
 my dear friend wiped tears from his eyes." 
 
 The following letter is in acknowledgment of Mrs. 
 Hamilton King's beautiful poem, " Aspromonte " : 
 
 "June 1871. 
 
 " I must do myself the pleasure of writing you a line 
 to tell you how much I have enjoyed your little volume. 
 I fear I should not have read any of it yet, if it had not 
 been for the lucky accident of my having to read my 
 wife to sleep the other night. I took up your book, 
 which I had kept near at hand, and began ' AspromonteY 
 nor could I lay it down till I had finished ' Orsini.' I
 
 "AspromonU" 297 
 
 hardly know when I have had more pleasure ; for it was 
 not only my delight in the feelings and their expression 
 which I should have had at any tune "but they came both 
 to my wife and myself as a special message of encourage- 
 ment and comfort. If they had been written for us they 
 could not have been more exactly suited to do us good, 
 and relieve the feelings of pain and depression under 
 which we were together . suffering. Indeed, you have 
 given us a great boon, and I have to thank you for her 
 as well as myself. 
 
 "Your little preface, too, awoke such a chord in my 
 heart. Perhaps Mr. King may have told you (if he has 
 ever had time to talk of unimportant things with you) 
 that I had to leave off work in which my whole heart was 
 engaged with no seeming prospect of ever returning to it ; 
 so that when I read your words- 1 knew how much they 
 meant. And I don't know if it was presumptuous in me 
 to feel that perhaps, as your words had brought help to 
 me, so if you knew my experience it might not be with- 
 out encouragement to you. I think no bitterness of 
 regret or hopeless longing could have been greater than 
 mine; but I have been taught to see that that utter 
 forcing from my hands of work that seemed to lie open 
 before me, and that had engrossed all my passions and 
 desires, was the very condition of my doing it in any 
 worthy sense ; that if I had not been called on to give it 
 up, I could not have achieved it. What I have found in 
 my own case has made me feel sure that it is impossible 
 for anything to be taken away from us, except because it 
 is to be more completely given us, and in a more perfect 
 way. I could not have known what I think I know, 
 except through having had to lay down all that I valued 
 most. And then all the rich experience, that the other 
 work we are called to, gives us, is added on to our former
 
 298 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 one besides. I often think how God gives us seeds, and 
 we should never plant them if He did not compel us." 
 
 "The seed gives up, surrenders itself," he says else- 
 where in his MS. notes ; " it yields before the forces of 
 nature ; they enter into it, and take possession of it, and 
 seem to put it altogether aside ; but the end is that they 
 reappear as it. The seed ' comes again in glory ' in the 
 harvest. It comes altruistically made one with nature, 
 embracing her. Truly it comes because no more itself, 
 but more." 
 
 To his Wife : 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, September 1871. 
 
 " Isn't it odd, Love, I have had to-night another appli- 
 cation from an American publisher to reprint ' Thoughts 
 on Health.' It seems to suit the American taste. That 
 is the third application. He suggests I should reprint 
 ' The Brain/ ' Thinking with the eyes shut/ ' Fairy-land of 
 Science/ ' Skeleton and Force/ with selections from other 
 volumes to make a volume. I shan't do anything till I 
 have seen King, but it will be nice to be read in America ; 
 I like the thought." 
 
 " September 1871. 
 
 " War, speaking generally, is the very strongest instance 
 that could be imagined, that right is in the act and not in 
 the thing. The soldier's duty is to murder and to steal, 
 that is, to deprive people of their property, but he has to do 
 it not for himself. This should be noticed too, if a soldier 
 meets in battle a personal enemy and kills him, not be- 
 cause it is his duty to fight, but because he hates him, he 
 commits murder, and is as wicked as if he murdered him 
 in peace. Don't you see this ? On the other hand, if a 
 soldier, for his own comfort or for a bribe, refuse to kill
 
 Grena. 299 
 
 an enemy when he ought to kill, he is a traitor, and if 
 evil come to his army the blood is on his own head. Is it 
 not wonderful how right is in the action, not in the thing ; 
 the thing will twist about any way without the least 
 confusion, or distortion, or difficulty in keeping the moral 
 question right." 
 
 " 18 Savile Row, September 10, 1871. 
 
 " This is a pretty satisfactory letter from Mr. B , 
 
 is it not ? Mr. C also called ; he is the person who 
 
 said I had given too much for Grena.* He reckons the 
 place worth 4000 ; but I do not consider that I should 
 be justified in attaching too much consequence to this one 
 
 opinion. Mr. B will give me some day a true estimate. 
 
 As it is, I do not mind ; it would not be worth ,4000 if it 
 would not yield 200 a year clear, and this is more than 
 the funds would give me on the price, and I would much 
 rather have it than funds. No one knows what the un- 
 disguised and bitterer growing war between rich and poor 
 will end in ; the natural end is ruin. It may be averted, 
 but only by a moral revolution, and no one knows 
 whether that will come in time. Therefore, though per- 
 haps Mr. V may have cheated me somewhat, I am 
 
 content with Grena. 
 
 " Mr. C said the trade of the island is certainly 
 
 improving. St. Michael's oranges are still the best; he 
 himself is introducing steamers, and is going this year to 
 send a steamer to America. That trade is only just be- 
 ginning. . . . 
 
 "I have had so many thoughts since I came home, 
 and they fill my soul so. Love, do not you forget them 
 whatever you do; make them your life; yield to them 
 wholly ; no other thing matters. It is my one care, my 
 
 * The property Mr. Hiiiton had purchased in the Azores.
 
 300 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 one anxiety, that your soul should go with mine, should 
 let itself be carried away wholly by the same passions. 
 You know what they are. I wish you could perceive 
 with the same intellectual conviction as I do, how a basis 
 is possible, is laid now, for our life in everything ; what 
 an enormous change even science alone has made, and 
 how wide it reaches. But this does not matter if only 
 your heart responds fully; that is all, but also that is 
 everything. That is everything to me ; it is the question 
 of whether, so far as my own individual life is concerned, 
 it is worth my having or not." 
 
 The next letters are to his sister-in-law. 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, September 1871. 
 
 " Many thanks for your kind care of our dear little girl. 
 I am glad she is good to you. I know she will get good 
 from you. 
 
 "But there is one thing I wanted to say to you: 
 whatever of good or bad there may be in her, I want 
 there not to be this, the shame and deception of our 
 modern life, the feeling that first satisfying our own 
 pleasures, and then putting out our hands to help others, 
 is good.* She must not have that which I find every- 
 where the grafting of devotion to God and man on first 
 
 * How little helping others is put first in our modern Christianity is 
 perhaps best shown in the choice of a house. Next to the question of 
 health comes a pleasant neighbourhood, fashion, agreeableness, &c. ; 
 service, except in the case of a professional man, never once enters. Who 
 thinks of taking a house in a healthy but low neighbourhood, because 
 there the people most want raising, holding our social advantages as what 
 they are, a trust for the good of the many? If it be urged that the 
 thought of our families must come first, Mr. Hinton would say, "Yes, 
 the devil always comes to an Englishman in the shape of his wife and 
 family." Not "1'egoisme a un,"but "1'ego'isme a deux, a trois, a quatre," 
 U the great stronghold of self in England. But would it not be worth
 
 Self in Possession of the Stronghold. 301 
 
 surrounding ourselves with every comfort and pleasure ; 
 recognising what we do of our duty to God and man, and 
 then first surrounding ourselves with houses and lands as 
 nice as we can get them for our own pleasure, and on 
 that, grafting the doing something, be it little or much, 
 for our fellows. Let her feel at least that she has to 
 choose between God and Mammon. I really don't care 
 much which she chooses in face of this fatal uniting 
 both. Don't get that into her, nor aid in its being in her. 
 I don't say it isn't already ; for indeed how is any one to 
 grow up in these days and not be poisoned with it before 
 he is aware. Nothing but my having lived in White- 
 chapel (I thank God every day for that) saved, or could 
 have saved me. It is ingrained, absorbed, ground into 
 natures infinitely better and fuller of natural kindliness 
 than mine. Let her devote nine-tenths of her energies, 
 or nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths if she likes, 
 to serving herself, provided she does not think it good. 
 That's our wretchedness ; self has taken possession of our 
 goodness. We don't find him so dreadfully raging and 
 fighting perhaps as he was ; but does an enemy rage and 
 fight when he has taken the stronghold and bound the 
 garrison ? Surely we might at least see, whatever we do ; 
 unseeing, all our actions turn to ill." 
 
 "September 1871. 
 
 "I do not admit that regard for others is in any 
 relative deficiency in the world now (i.e., in England, 
 which is all the world we know about), but hold that 
 
 considering whether, in the evils around us, we have not, as it were, the 
 weights, the pulling down of which would do our work of raising and 
 elevating in our families, as well as outside them, far more effectually 
 than our too often futile endeavours to raise and elevate our children by 
 our own efforts? Might we not use the evils without to cure the evilg 
 within?
 
 3O2 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 there is every reason to believe that there is as much as is 
 for the present wanted. I for my aims do not want more 
 in men or women ; more will be wanted, I fully believe, 
 and will come when it is wanted. I don't believe it is 
 wanted now, but only a different use of what we have 
 a different position of it or order. We put it last, where- 
 as it ought to come first that is all. The consequence 
 of course is, that being out of its place, it itself comes to 
 evil, and we dare not indulge ourselves in it. Till we can 
 use what we have how can we tell if we want more ? 
 
 " This is what your letter is like : Suppose there is a 
 great reservoir of water up in the hills, and it keeps on 
 overflowing every now and then, and doing a lot of mis- 
 chief. I propose to put a pipe in and supply a starving 
 town below : you come to me and say, ' But what is the 
 good ? it is water that we want ; how will you secure 
 water ? ' The heavens secure water. At least let us 
 use what we have. If regard to others, rested on our 
 urging, there would be a drought indeed; nor would I 
 waste my labour in making pipes ; I would be jolly. 
 Those words of Paul's keep ringing in my ears : ' If the 
 dead rise not, let us eat and drink.' I say with him, If 
 man can't be man, let us be jolly. I know what I would 
 do I am all prepared. 
 
 " Think of all the people you know ; if they had the mak- 
 ing of the world, would they make it as it is, even if making 
 it otherwise detracted ever so much from their own plea- 
 sures ? Would any one of them ? Not one of the people 
 I know would. Then there is a certain amount of regard 
 for others which is not used, which cannot find its vent. I 
 seek to use this. No one can affirm its quantity ; to me, 
 studying it, it does not seem at all too small. When I find 
 the want of more, perhaps I shall try to increase it. Per- 
 haps, I say ; for it hardly seems likely to me that I should
 
 The Nature of Triie Regard. 303 
 
 judge it worth while. I have scruples about filling up the 
 world with print, and can hardly conceive myself adding 
 any more to the multitude of appeals on every hand full of 
 all sorts of motives and urgings to regard others, and deny 
 self, and be willing for sacrifice. There is distinctly too 
 much talk on that subject ; I believe there is less action 
 for the multiplicity of it. How could I possibly add to 
 that ? Are there not deaf people to cure ? 
 
 " But what I notice is, that with all the talk about it, and 
 things not at all likely to get put right by means of it, there 
 is a distinct mistake as to what it means, and what the 
 real effect of regarding others' needs is. To put this straight 
 seems to me to want trying, and to be likely to come to 
 something ; but why it should be mixed up with a talk 
 about the motives I cannot understand. Let those who 
 want to be urged by motives go to church, take up a 
 volume of sermons, or a good person's novel, or a child's 
 story-book, or go to any of the hundred of stores where 
 that article is sold 
 
 " Your letter gives me the key to another thing : you do 
 not make adjustment for difference of sex. Of course 
 regard to others has two sides or forms caring about the 
 world and caring about persons. Now these two sides 
 are given to men and women. The true regard for others 
 is the man's and the woman's together. Now young girls 
 among whom you live don't care, and find it hard 
 to care, for the world : nay, you yourself do not truly 
 care for it your words betray that you don't. You do 
 not see it; your 'humanity in the concrete,' which is 
 'so apt to be disagreeable/ means that you do not see 
 it. You are a person who cannot see the wood for the 
 trees, and may revenge yourself by saying that we men 
 cannot see the trees for the wood. Now boys care for 
 the world. I believe that almost every boy who has
 
 304 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 had a chance that is, who has ever heard about the 
 world, lias had any knowledge by which his true feel- 
 ing could be drawn out cares distinctly more about 
 the world being as it ought to be than about how he 
 can make it best for himself. I say that is the natural 
 reaction of the boy's mind, and that if he grew up into a 
 human life, he would require to be taught that men ever 
 did anything else. The whole lot of us are forced into 
 self-regard that is, such self-regard as ours. Because men 
 tend to begin that way, does it follow that they like what 
 comes of it ? Why did they not -then persist in liking 
 what came of believing their sense-impressions ? 
 
 " But there is immense hope in this division of regard 
 for persons and for the world between women and men. 
 As in all such cases, there is a negation in each half, and 
 an infinite multiplication effected by their union. But 
 have you not been confusing acting for service with regard- 
 ing the world, perhaps even more than ever I meant ? 
 The people we have to regard are those who stand visible, 
 though beyond our own circle ; going beyond the family 
 does not mean putting the world first. 
 
 " But there is another point still in which we may see 
 together, and that is where you lay such stress on the need 
 at present for willingness to do all most painful things for 
 others' sakes. You know I don't deny ; I take it for granted. 
 Perhaps I say so little about it because I am conscious that 
 I have been thinking of it too much rather than too little, 
 or at least relatively too much. But there is another 
 reason for which I say little of it, and that is because I am 
 so sure there are plenty of people ready. That willingness 
 does not need creating, only opening a channel for. Any 
 one who thinks that if a clear call came for martyrdom, 
 be it what it might, there would not be the people ready, 
 thinks of this age not only positively in itself, but, as
 
 Shrinking from Antagonism. 305 
 
 compared with all other ages, infinitely worse than I 
 do. I say that in its actions it is worse, as a chrysalis 
 is worse than a grub, but in its soul it is at least as 
 ready, I say that the people who will do all painful 
 things that service shall want doing, are ready and 
 waiting." 
 
 "January 1872. 
 
 " I don't wonder that the fear of society is so strong 
 on you, or indeed on any woman. I doubt, indeed, if it 
 is really stronger on any one than myself. My shrinking 
 from the putting myself into antagonism with those I most 
 love and respect is extreme and absolute. I cannot 
 imagine it and simply shut my eyes when it suggests 
 itself in detail. I know the persons, whose thoughts and 
 ways and doings I repudiate, are beyond all comparing 
 better than myself. But then how can it be helped ? 
 "What is the good of thinking of it ? One might as 
 well keep moaning that the sea is deep. How one 
 will do it, one does not know ; but it simply has to be 
 done. . . . 
 
 "But of hypocrites I take no note. What people 
 'might say/ who are not really trying to find the 
 true thing to say, is to me like what wind might 
 blow." 
 
 " February 1872. 
 
 " You know I have no objection to be one of the 
 dreamers ; what does it matter ? I am just as content to 
 be that as anything else. But one thing I am sure of, that 
 I do not want any one to yield one iota to my personal rule, 
 or to believe anything I say, except because, and just so 
 far as, he sees it true. And another thing I know too, and 
 that is, that I do not want to make any select or separate 
 
 u
 
 306 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 society,* or people with any different right or law from the 
 rest of men and women. So many seem to have come 
 to shipwreck on that; but here I have no tempta- 
 tion. There is a true law, indeed, and a false, but the 
 true law is the law for all, the false law for none. 
 The one duty is to come from under the false to under 
 the true, which is, not do this or do that, but be 
 such that you can do whatever is wanted to be done ; not 
 a fleshly commandment, but the power of life for all, 
 and here." 
 
 "February 1872. 
 
 " You say you don't see how being guided by pleasure 
 is to be distinguished from acting for it. I rather won- 
 der, because that is so completely settled by our eating. 
 Which "of us does not eat for service, absolutely ? Yet 
 for that very reason do we not let pleasure entirely guide 
 us ? If we do not, we are diseased, either in body or 
 mind. There is no eating perfectly for service but by 
 letting pleasure guide the eating. Without professing 
 perfectly to see this, my strong feeling is that this gives 
 a key to all, to what all man's life will be ; and that when 
 he has come to understand it fully, it will be found that 
 pleasure will be in all things as much a guide as it is in 
 this. But apart from this illustration, if the desire is for 
 service and that is the only right, the desire being for 
 service then the doing what is for service will be the 
 pleasure. We think very falsely of pleasure, confound- 
 ing it so much with pleasant sensations ; pleasure is the 
 play of passion, and varies constantly. Let the passion 
 
 * This was Mr. Hinton's bete noire. He once said to me, when we 
 were out walking together, " If I thought the man would arise who would 
 use my name to denominate a sect, I declare I would knock him down by 
 proxy in the first man we meet."
 
 Desire for Service. 307 
 
 be for service, and it is plain being guided by pleasure 
 will be following service. So God does according to His 
 pleasure. Man will be man only then, when the same 
 is true of him. 
 
 " But besides this, as the facts of nature in man's life 
 appear to me at present, it seems to me that when once 
 he has made service his end and desire, what he will be 
 called to will be absolutely the most pleasurable life in 
 every way, with only such exceptions as will be needed 
 to prevent a monotony of pleasure. 
 
 " But on these points I fancy my thoughts are a little 
 influenced by my own particular experience. I have 
 ever since I lived in Whitechapel for it was that that 
 did it desired service, and acted for it desired with. 
 a desire that has no second, no second even in the sum 
 of all other desires I have ever had, that the world 
 should be better. Now what has it meant? That I 
 have acted according to my pleasure. I expect that 
 among men not grossly vicious, and even perhaps in- 
 cluding some of them, .there has hardly been a man 
 whose doings have been so much pleasure-guided as mine. 
 I am conscious that it is so; aware that I must seem 
 a most self-indulgent man in many ways to very many 
 people ; ' aware that good, even decent people, do restrain 
 themselves from pleasure in very many ways that I do 
 not. And I feel a distinct connection between the two 
 things. Not only does my doing what I seek to do con- 
 stantly lie in my doing the most pleasurable things 
 studying what I like best, going to see pictures, going to 
 concerts, &c., but besides this, and more strikingly still, 
 my desire being for service, makes pleasure my guide. It 
 sets me free so to follow my instincts. Of course I do 
 not think of it that would spoil and contradict it but 
 I act it. I cannot really like anything I do not feel to
 
 308 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 be for my work; all most pleasant things are irksome, 
 nay, intolerable to me, if they seem to me to be hin- 
 drances to that. Then what follows ? Why, that every 
 impulse that can attract me I feel to be for my work, 
 whether I know how it can be or not. I do according 
 to my pleasure, for if I were not persuaded somehow that 
 the thing is for my work, it would not be my pleasure ; it 
 would be my hatred. 
 
 "So it is from a kind of private experience I speak 
 here when I feel so sure that desiring service will mean 
 being guided by pleasure. This is, of course, the 'in- 
 stinct' or apparent 'self-indulgence' of genius. It is 
 pleasure-led, and safely. Pleasure which leads all others 
 wrong, or seems to do so, leads it right. I am speak- 
 ing of it in its working, not as a person, taking, perhaps, 
 to drinking. Why does pleasure lead it right ? Because 
 it cannot have pleasure save in that which seems its 
 work's truth. That and pleasure are identified with it ; 
 so the law not to be guided by pleasure is abrogated for 
 it. Its work is the law, ' Love and do what you like/ 
 written in terms of fact. But this being guided by plea- 
 sure has in it an immense amount of what is not pleasure, 
 what one least likes to do." 
 
 Mr. Hinton wrote much on the phenomenon of genius ; 
 it was indeed his autobiography; its mysterious joys and 
 sorrows he felt in some measure to be his own. The man 
 of genius, he was wont to say, is simply one who perfectly 
 yields himself to the control of nature, who cannot resist 
 her, but is strong with her might against all opposing 
 forces. To talent may belong power, wisdom, elevated 
 beauty, laborious research, clever adaptation ; genius may 
 lack any or all of these qualities ; its gift is a special or- 
 ganisation that fits it for its one function of seeing and
 
 Genius. 309 
 
 uttering the truth, which at that particular time is the 
 outcome of the progress of humanity. He saw how the 
 man of genius is often led to commit apparently wilful 
 and wanton breaches of social rules, to inexplicable and 
 motiveless actions that cause trouble and perplexity to 
 those nearest and dearest to him ; but he contended that 
 this is the price the possessor, or rather the victim, of the 
 heavenly gift must pay for his power. If he is to see 
 that hidden thing which he has to reveal to all men, he 
 must often be blind to that which all men see. Flexible 
 as a reed to every breath of nature's inspiration, but 
 often utterly impervious to good advice. Seeing what 
 excellent reasons can be urged for a different line of con- 
 duct, but constrained to assert that the instincts that 
 guide him have nothing to do with .good logic this con- 
 tradictory being, at once so weak and so strong, the 
 despair of prudent friends and advisers, Mr. Hinton strove 
 to interpret and to commend to those sympathies of which 
 he of all men stands most in need. 
 
 To his Wife : 
 
 " Savile How, 24th August 1872. 
 
 "I have seen a vision of my little book on the Ear. 
 I shall enjoy doing it, and it will be as much like me as 
 anything I shall have done at all. I have seen what 
 made it unattractive to me : two things one, the saying 
 over again so much, things that have been written dozens 
 of times before ; and the other putting clown things as if 
 you knew all about them, when you know quite well that 
 they are as doubtful as possible. Now I shall escape both 
 these abominations, and do just what I like to do. How 
 do you think ? 
 
 " I shall write not a treatise, manual, text-book, guide,
 
 310 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 in short, an oracle, but guess ' The Questions of Aural 
 Surgery.' 
 
 " Of course I am speaking of the little book that is to 
 go with the Atlas, not of that, which must be separate. 
 Is it not jolly ? So I shall lay the whole stress of the 
 book on the points which want clearing up ; and what is 
 known, or what I personally advise, will come in, not as 
 an essential part of the book, but as a kind of ground- 
 work, mentioned incidentally, as it were, but for that 
 very reason more impressive and better to be remembered. 
 There will be, as it were in the fresh point of interest 
 raised something besides itself to remember it by. 
 
 " The idea running through the book will be : These 
 few things we know ; this plan I follow as the best I 
 have tried ; these others are advised by other men ; but 
 the points we want to know are these. 
 
 " Now I shall get on with that. My heart quite failed 
 me in the thought of writing an ordinary book, saying, 
 this is that way do this, &c. 
 
 " I think it will be more interesting to the reader, and 
 distinctly help the study of the subject ever so much 
 more." 
 
 "September 2, 1872. 
 
 "Do not you see, Love, the thought by which life 
 might be made new ? It is natural enough, it is not wrong 
 to put our own advantage or pleasure first, but if we do 
 if we do one single thing not because it is good for that 
 to be done, but because it is for our pleasure then there 
 comes on us a whole law, perverted and made false by 
 this same consideration of our pleasure. We have made 
 false the law under which we live, and can no more say 
 simply and humanly, What is for good ? that is my right 
 to do, but must bring in the alien question of our plea-
 
 Letters to his Son. 31 1 
 
 sure, and say, ' What things can I do for myself ? ' Men 
 Lave not thought of the effect of acting for self on right. 
 They have taken passively the right which acting for self 
 imposes, as the true right. No one proposes to them a 
 new right and its condition. Is it not plain the problem 
 has changed, that past experience, however full of failure, 
 is no ground for expecting failure in the future ? Failure 
 thus is the assurance of success, its condition, the means 
 by which it is brought. That goodness of limited desires 
 and restraints, based on an accepted putting self first, 
 shall pass away ; and a new thought of goodness, good put 
 irst, and all things free, shall come in its stead." 
 
 " 18 Savile Row, December 3, 1872. 
 
 "My DEAR How, I am very proud of your Balliol 
 exhibition, for I know you have worked very hard for it ; 
 although it is not worth so much as the other one, I 
 would rather you stopped at Balliol. Do not do yourself 
 harm ; you will be tempted ; but it is unwise. It is 
 contrary also <to good for others. Willy comes out like 
 a real student." 
 
 <c December6, 1872. 
 
 " I am very glad you have done so well, and particularly 
 glad that your old friends at Rugby find pleasure in your 
 success. To me it is more still. As a reduction in the ex- 
 penses of your education, it is a distinct facility for doing 
 things which else I might not have been able to do ; and 
 I thank you much for helping me. Of course, also, it will 
 render you more able to be free to do the work that your 
 heart may be set upon, by rendering it possible for you to 
 be more free from the need of earning money. It may 
 not, however, be particularly advantageous for you to be 
 able to do this, because I have found having to devote
 
 312 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 myself to earning money, the very greatest help and ad- 
 vantage in my best work, and this most when it looked 
 least like it. One of the chief lessons of my life has been 
 that what seems most hindering is most helpful." 
 
 The next letter is to a friend on the pain and sacri- 
 fice involved in carrying out some conscientious con- 
 victions. 
 
 " Savile Row, zgth February 1872. 
 
 "If you felt how I feel about this, how absolutely 
 and wholly I prefer to have the thing to do shown me 
 brought me to do without any choice of my own, or even 
 against my choice, you would feel, too, that this being 
 talked about and misrepresented, as you say, must b 
 exactly as welcome as anything else. It simply markj 
 out what to do. I wonder whether it could possibly be 
 the same to you ? Probably not quite, and it must be 
 much more painful besides. 
 
 "I do not see what there is to be said for you and 
 others situated as you, except that taking that position 
 means making all pain whatever welcome, and that when 
 it comes there is nothing to be said but that it has been 
 most welcome long ago. To refuse to take any part in 
 the matter, to say it is not true, or that, though it is true, 
 you cannot have anything to do with it, is open to any 
 one ; to say the contrary and take any note of pain, is not. 
 There is only one tiling pain must be to you as if it were 
 not. It is one effort, or rather it is one consenting, one 
 great, huge, passionate regret ; but it exhausts all power 
 of regretting; it is over done for ever. There is then 
 no more pain, that is, no more pain in the same sense 
 that there ~uas before, no pain that you wish not to 
 be. Of all pain, past, present, and to come, you have
 
 Jacob Bohme. 3 1 3 
 
 asked one question, Do you mean this being done ? and it 
 has answered ' Yes/ and then your soul has answered, 
 ' Then I count you joy ; pass on.' Pain is not pain if you 
 love it ; only the pains you cannot love, the pains you 
 give. You will find it true and false, false and yet true. 
 You will say the pain is welcome, and your own tears 
 will contradict you ; and you will not know whether it is 
 welcome or not, only that you have no choice but to 
 choose it. 
 
 "Am I sorry for you or not? I do not know. I 
 cannot write without tears, yet what would I have 
 altered ? Why must Life come in pain, and joy be for- 
 bidden even to be desired ? There it stands ; and we are 
 content. It is best to turn away. There is the torn heart ; 
 was it unjust, cruel ? nay, it did not wish not to be. All 
 is said ; may one not choose sorrow ? But there is a groan, 
 too, beneath the contentment, and it is right ; and no ear 
 shall be deaf to it not God's ear, nor man's ; it is right, 
 only there is the contentment, too, above the groan. 
 
 " But then, when the pain is welcome, I do think it is 
 often very much less than we should have feared, very 
 much less even in its external causes. "We often think 
 more pain will be given than is, more difficulty encoun- 
 tered than ever arises. Simplicity and truth find paths 
 when all things else fail ; and often, indeed, things that 
 seem most unlikely are the very things most prepared 
 for." 
 
 The two following letters are to a disciple of Jacob 
 Bohme, who had sent him a criticism on a little tract 
 Mr. Hinton had published anonymously, called " Others' 
 Needs." 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, January 1873. 
 
 " Thank you for reading my paper, and for expressing
 
 314 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 your criticisms, which of course, are valuable. I should 
 have been disposed to think with you that the ideas were 
 too complex for ordinary folk, but I don't find them so ; 
 and I think you will be pleased, as I was, to hear that a 
 minister to whom I had sent it, told me the other day 
 that, having to give an address to some quite poor people 
 at a Welsh chapel, he introduced the idea of the paper, and 
 found that it was quite understood and best received of 
 all. That I was glad to hear, for I want to speak to the 
 simple ; and I think there would be so much good in the 
 thought of that paper being clearly seen and borne in 
 mind. 
 
 " I am very interested about Bdhme. But you high-and- 
 lifted-up people, who see all through the world, ought to 
 understand that you are very tantalising to us poor folks 
 (and also that we envy you less than we otherwise 
 should), because you are so unable to share your treasures. 
 Will you not try to tell me what this truth is (I say this 
 truth, not these truths), by which all is made so plain, so 
 that we can understand ? I agree to be judged by my 
 own standard. I also think I see a truth that makes a 
 great many things plain ; but I hold it is not the true 
 truth unless it can be made available for all. 
 
 "Do tell me one thing that Bohme has taught you. 
 Observe, I do not speak doubtfully : I believe, entirely, 
 he saw wonderful things ; but I think less of his seeing 
 because he has not made more people see. . . . 
 
 " It is real genuine interest makes me want to know. 
 If ever I am tempted to pride, it is when I feel in myself 
 (which I do) that I belong, however low down, to the 
 same class and order as he. And so I can better explain 
 to you why, what you said some time ago, that your belief 
 in Bohme made it impossible for you to go along with 
 me save me the slightest feeling that might almost be
 
 Theosophists. 3 1 5 
 
 called pain. It is not at all that you hold to other opi- 
 nions than mine ; that I like quite as well as if you did not. 
 But there is vanity in the feeling, perhaps, but it is sin- 
 cere it makes a feeling come over me as if some years 
 hence some one might use, misuse me as you do him, 
 and say he cannot listen to those other things because I 
 said so-and-so, and he must believe as I said. That 
 would grieve my very soul in heaven, and I am sure 
 Bohme is grieved by you. He would not be so abused 
 by any one if he could help it." 
 
 "January 1874. 
 
 " Thank you very much for your kind letter. Our 
 father's death was most "happy no pain, and perfect peace. 
 Many thanks for the violets ; Margaret and Ada delighted 
 in them, and little Daisy too. They are appropriate as 
 well as beautiful. 
 
 " By and by, I shall have more time for reading and 
 study, and then I hope to know more of Bohme. But 
 in the meantime I am of opinion, as I have said 
 before, that those who are so aided by him are, to 
 outside observers, much to blame for not endeavouring 
 more to bring before others that which is so valuable to 
 themselves. You will agree with me that to tell any 
 considerable number of persons to read the existing trans- 
 lations of Bohme, even if they were to be obtained, would 
 be quite unreasonable. They are not translated into 
 intelligible language to ws. And if they require, as well 
 as deserve, a real task of study to be able to understand 
 them, then people ought to have something to put before 
 them which should make them feel that it was worth 
 their while. In a word, I do not think the Theosophista 
 of the present age do their duty, and that if the world 
 suffers, as is very probable, from a lack of knowledge that
 
 3 1 6 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 they possess, they will be called to account hereafter for 
 having lived in selfish isolation of privilege. 
 
 " And now, having vented my spleen, which is partly 
 a personal feeling (for why does not some one, en- 
 lightened by Bohme, give us a new translation of one 
 of his works, with a general account of them, so that 
 we might know ?), let me say to you also, that I feel 
 you misunderstand my relation to the Theosophists, or, 
 as I am in the habit of calling them, the mystics. I 
 feel myself to be one with them, and always have felt 
 so, ever since my first acquaintance with them. The few 
 things I have made out of Bohme's charmed me; and 
 I am quite sure that under the veil of his (translator's) 
 words there is some great ' method ' hidden, some method 
 of finding the spiritual in the physical, which, I agree 
 with you in thinking, is the chief want of this age. 
 
 " Surely no real spirit-led Theosophist ever wished to 
 make the world stand still just at his point of view, and 
 never to advance or change ? If Theosophy means that, 
 I trust I shall never be one, never be willing to have the 
 spirit killed for the sake of a letter whose whole value is 
 that, at one particular time and state of human vision, it 
 best expressed the spirit. I think the spirit of Theosophy 
 will find itself other expressions still, as every living 
 spirit ever does, and that it is quite possible to be blind 
 to the very power of the same spirit now that was in it 
 of old, by insisting upon seeing it only as it appeared, and 
 hearing it only as it spoke, then. This may indeed be 
 part of the cause of the seeming selfish indolence and 
 neglect of the Theosophists with regard to the present 
 time. Their souls may be barren because they do not open 
 their eyes to the present as well as the past. Is the 
 earth forsaken of God ? Has the work of man in the last 
 two centuries not also been a work He has ruled ? is it to
 
 The Voice of God in the Present. 3 1 7 
 
 have no part in his vision of spiritual things ? I am sure 
 that lack of sympathy will never be a true help to 
 spiritual seeing ; nor would one of the men of the past, 
 whose words seem so wonderful now, have had his inspira- 
 tions from above if his soul had not throbbed in profound 
 sympathy with the strivings and the achievings of the 
 men around him, and the age that wrought within him. 
 The next voice of God to men (and it is a voice to us we 
 want), I venture to believe, will have in it a revealing of 
 the meaning of all this great and earnest toil, especially 
 in science, of the last few centuries. 
 
 " With best and kindest regards and sympathy, though 
 my letter may read harshly, Yours most truly, 
 
 "J.H."
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 THE following letter is to his sister, Sarah : 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, November 1873. 
 
 " MY DEAR SARAH, Thank you very much for report- 
 ing the conversation. It is very interesting, also very 
 good sense, as far as it goes. 
 
 " What I observe about it is, that there is a very sound 
 argument, and what comes of it is a very intolerable con- 
 dition; and I infer that there is something more to be 
 thought of. I am not sure how far you know my opinions 
 about society. Don't imagine them, nor receive them from 
 any one but myself. Perhaps they are peculiar. I hold 
 the present state of things horrid ; but as for the reason 
 it is horrid, and the way of mending, it may be that my 
 views are my own. . . . 
 
 "I don't object to rich men. I have tried to become 
 one myself. I would try more, except that other things 
 draw me more powerfully. Also, I own land, and, for 
 that matter, have a large house upon it (though I don't live 
 in it), but I try to get rent for it, and have been recently 
 raising my prices; and I make a profit, too, out of the 
 wages of more than one other person, and should be glad 
 to do so out of more. Moreover, I speculate now and 
 then (in pictures), and turn an honest penny that way. 
 So you see I have no objection to rich men, or to the 
 means of getting rich. I distinctly wish I were richer.
 
 Social Views. 319 
 
 Moreover, I do not "believe much in co-operation ; that is, 
 I think individual masters and workmen, and so on, are 
 the natural order, and will not be superseded to any great 
 extent. Getting profit, and collecting it into masses as 
 capital, is a thing essential to the well-being of society ; 
 and, like most other things, is best done by people with 
 natural gifts for it, and unfettered. All these things I 
 don't remember ever doubting. The question it seems to 
 me men overlook, is one which has no special relation 
 to riches, nor indeed to anything but man's soul. Is it 
 truly human that a man should employ his powers for 
 himself ? What does ' for himself ' mean ? Yours, ever, 
 
 "J. HINTON." 
 
 The next letter is to his wife, on being called away to 
 see a patient. 
 
 " 1 8 Savile Row, Tuesday Evening. 
 
 " I.e., Abingdon. I am here all right, dearest, and hope 
 I shall do the little girl some good. It is nothing very 
 serious, but needs attention. She is a nice little creature, 
 with such pretty little hands. 
 
 " I hope, darling, you have found papa and mamma 
 very well for them, and happy, and that you feel happy 
 too, and will enjoy yourself and rest. Was it not a nice 
 walk we had last night ? You must think of it often, as 
 I am sure to do, and especially when you are disposed to 
 become unhappy and desponding. . . . 
 
 " But, speaking of the difficulty of seeing what truly is 
 in me in spite of what seems, Mrs. Boole came in the 
 morning to see you, thinking you had not gone so soon, 
 and we had a little talk. Among other things, she said 
 any one would naturally feel sure, from my ways, that I 
 never thought of anything seriously at all, but did every-
 
 320 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 thing in the most rash and offhand way, that it looked 
 as if I acted utterly without consideration. Now, I can 
 quite understand that it should look so. One reason is 
 that there is ever so much latent in my mind. This, you 
 will easily see, must go with the constitution that makes one 
 feel that lie does not know. This feeling cannot do other- 
 wise than lead to the collection, as it were, unexpressed 
 in the mind, of a whole accumulation of observations and 
 thoughts, just adapted to give the appearance of utter 
 inconsideration. This, of course, must be the secret in 
 part at least of the sudden promptings of genius, that 
 suppressed accumulation in the mind. No doubt it is 
 true to a great extent of women, is the key to part of their 
 quickness of insight and rapid convictions ; and I fancy 
 it is very much indeed true of you, mixed with other 
 things. But I only referred to this because it joined 
 itself so curiously with what I had been thinking of the 
 difficulty it must have been to see me truly against the 
 seeming of me." 
 
 The following letter explains itself : 
 
 " Savile Row, August 1 872. 
 
 "But now, love, I am filled with such a solemn joy. 
 I hardly know how to bear it. Think, darling, it is 
 truly, absolutely possible that in one year and a little 
 more I might be wholly free. It seems my God gave me 
 all things. I have a feeling it might kill me when it 
 comes, with the ceasing of the tension on the soul, which 
 may have been so much more than I know. But don't 
 let this frighten you ; besides, it is not really likely, and 
 certainly the longer it is deferred the more likely it is to 
 be. Oh, it would make me so quiet, and I see I shall 
 not be violent and angry any more. I want only
 
 Retiring from Practice. 321 
 
 to beseech. It is only my being so tied makes me 
 so full of rage. But this is the question, love ; I want 
 you to think of it, and tell me shall I fix it now or 
 
 not ? " 
 
 The rest of the letter is occupied with careful calcula- 
 tions of whether it could be done without too much sacri- 
 fice to his wife and children. 
 
 The absolute necessity of his retiring from practice was 
 becoming evident to Mrs. Hinton from his increasing 
 mental excitement. The rage he speaks of was in part 
 due to the state of nervous tension he was in, so little 
 realised by those who took offence at some of the excited 
 things it led him to say and do. But in part it was 
 natural to him, the intensity his nature being nowhere 
 more strongly displayed than in the force of his indig- 
 nation. His face would blanch and every fibre of his 
 frame quiver with a passion which, when over, left him 
 utterly spent and exhausted. But it never vented 
 itself on individuals; only on false principles, and on 
 the goodness that is so busy taking care of itself that it 
 has no time to think of others. On one occasion, some 
 intimate friends of his told him of an acquaintance of 
 theirs who, because he was too virtuous to revenge him- 
 self on a man who had injured him, allowed him to retain 
 a post for which he was unfit, and in which he was doing 
 great mischief. His rage on hearing it knew no bounds, 
 not against the individual so much as against the state of 
 social feeling of which it was an instance. When he had 
 quieted down a little, he said, " It's just as bad to sacrifice 
 other people to your virtue as to sacrifice them to your 
 pleasure. Indeed, I think it's worse." "But," said his 
 friend, " self- virtue is one of the stages that man has got 
 to go through sooner or later, and therefore it is better to 
 
 x
 
 322 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 be in that stage than the preceding one." " Yes, you're 
 right. It's further advanced. It's like having to go through 
 a slough. When you have got to the middle, you're fur- 
 ther advanced than when you were close to the edge, but 
 you're deeper in. Self- virtue is the middle, and it's worse, 
 it's deeper in, than sacrificing other people to your pleasure, 
 although it's further advanced." 
 
 But most often this passion of anger would come upon 
 him while reading in the police reports of the crime and 
 punishment of some poor outcast of society, abandoned by 
 the selfish rights of our so-called Christian civilization to 
 every evil influence, born and bred in circumstances 
 which make virtue a name, and vice a necessity, and then, 
 when degradation has borne its legitimate fruit of crime, 
 ruthlessly punished and crushed by the society that has 
 denied him the social conditions for better things. It was 
 the " right " that makes virtue so much a luxury of the 
 respectable classes which was the object of his most un- 
 sparing wrath. 
 
 But towards the person, the individual who erred or 
 did amiss, Mr. Hinton was ever tolerant. Even those 
 who knew him most intimately can never remember hear- 
 ing him say an ill-natured thing. This was the more 
 marked because he was a man who, partly from his 
 erratic, unconventional ways, and in part from the strange 
 originality and eccentricity of his mind, inspired the 
 strongest dislikes as well as the most devoted attach- 
 ments. He was perfectly conscious of the former, and 
 felt them keenly; but perhaps only his wife knew that 
 he felt them at all. He habitually treated those whose 
 dislikes he was aware of with a frankness of manner in 
 society, and an untiring kindness on all occasions, that 
 often puzzled its recipients. Never was there any one 
 so difficult to quarrel with, or who took so graciously and
 
 Our Idea of God. 323 
 
 magnanimously all that people said of him or to him ; 
 never one who had more of the Greek eVtetyteta, the 
 " sweet reasonableness," which was ever ready to listen 
 and to weigh, with none of the " pugnacious dogmatism 
 of partial reflection." 
 
 The preoccupation of his mind in his thoughts, and 
 especially in social questions, about this time, occasionally 
 led to very funny mistakes, though his strong sense of 
 professional responsibility kept it from really injuring his 
 practice. On one occasion he gravely handed a patient a 
 prescription with the following remarkable direction: 
 " The ointment to be rubbed round the world night and 
 morning ; " only just perceiving his error in time to snatch 
 it back and rewrite it, "to be rubbed round the ear." 
 This slip of the pen has its quaint significance to those 
 who had experience of his enthusiastic nature, the despair 
 of less sanguine temperaments, and how often he seemed 
 to them to think that some great moral remedy could be 
 " rubbed round the world " as a sure and certain cure to 
 all the ills which flesh is heir to. 
 
 To one of his friends he writes : 
 
 " Savile Row, 1873. 
 
 "By inventing our God, I was not speaking of the 
 historical origin of the idea of God. 1 spoke of our 
 idea of a God, which is a very striking phenomenon 
 the God that our race and generation have affirmed. I 
 do not want to insist on the darker side of the thought, 
 but the God who sent little children to hell, and 
 values Sabbath-days and other physical doings more than 
 human lives, how came man to invent that God, I 
 mean ? Did not the conjoined and yet incompatible wishes 
 not to think of himself, and yet to feel himself good, 
 contrive that fiction as a means of their co-existing ? It
 
 324 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 does look like it to me ; and if you look simply at human 
 life, a desire for restraining his passion, i.e., for feeling 
 himself good, looks as if it were wonderfully near being 
 a primary passion of man's. Why should it not be, i..c., 
 if there are any primary passions at all ? Why should 
 he not as much ' like ' the feeling of being good, as the 
 taste of sugar ? the feeling of being good which he cannot 
 have except in restraining his passion be his passion 
 what it may, casting himself into the fire to save his 
 enemy, even, he cannot feel himself good if he is in- 
 dulging it. No man can feel himself good in any self- 
 sacrifice if he likes it. How feel good (which is feel 
 self-good) if we are doing what we like ? Has not that 
 phrase come to be used as the very contrary to being 
 good ? 
 
 " Look over the world where is not man engaged 
 in thwarting his desires for the sake of something 
 he calls God? but how does he get at the God who 
 wants him to thwart his desires ? Is not a passion for 
 thwarting his desires likely to have had part in making 
 the God, as well as vice versa ? I only say that this is a 
 very curious subject for study. Cruel idols seem to me 
 Yery like ' projected reasons ' for something man found 
 himself doing, and had to make a reason for. The God 
 who wanted men not to be healed on the Sabbath-day was, 
 I should say, demonstrably a projected reason. The Jews 
 had made him up, because they had forgotten what the 
 Sabbath was for. But if this be one case, it is certainly 
 a type of many. Don't shut the question up. 
 
 " But as for man having a primary desire for feeling 
 himself good, see what that wonderful writer of Genesis 
 says. The command on man was, not to avoid evil not 
 to avoid even knowing evil but not to know good and 
 evil. As if one might say the primary passion of man
 
 "Others Needs." 325 
 
 the source of his mischief was his wishing to be (self) 
 good. Do not let us shut questions like this up. If 
 men had really answered them anything like they feel 
 they have, they would not be making such a frightful 
 mull of their life now. . . . 
 
 " I know I am always most obscure through taking for 
 granted that which I mean the most, as if all must know 
 it the point from which I start, and on which I build. 
 And I learned from Mr. B. to recognise what a latent 
 thought of God there was in my thought of the law of 
 the service of man, and indeed must be. It is not pos- 
 sible to say, ' The traceable needs of men and women are 
 1 the rule of our life,' without meaning they are the law of 
 God. The two cannot be separated. We see it in Christ; 
 the most intense in His thought of God, the most absolute 
 in His insistance on the law of the traceable needs of 
 man. They are one. People say 'human good is the 
 law,' and invent their own God, or leave him out, if they 
 make up their own idea of human good; for they put 
 into it just as much self-goodness as they choose, and 
 that contents them. But they cannot say the traceable 
 needs of men are the law of right, and leave out God. It 
 must be seen as His command before it can be felt as our 
 right. Let any one try it." 
 
 "SavileRow, March 1873. 
 
 " You have heard me say, I think, how the truth of all 
 spiritual things, of all that is called dogmatic theology, 
 is in its being spiritiial truth, true to the soul, and that, if 
 it has this, it has all the truth it can have or ought to 
 have ; that to look for any other is a mistake ; and that 
 no one intellectual form can be truer than another. The 
 highest expression of human thought in its utmost attain- 
 ment is no more 'true' than the very poorest and
 
 326 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 lowest, all being alike altogether untrue, as being in- 
 tellectual apprehensions of that which cannot be in- 
 tellectually apprehended. All are stories made up to 
 ourselves of things that are not, have not been, cannot be ; 
 all are perfectly true, if they convey to man the spiritual 
 truth in the fullest way he can receive it ; that is, if they 
 correspond to, and fulfil his knowledge and his moral 
 feeling. 
 
 "They become false as soon as ever, for the sake of 
 keeping a certain intellectual form, they do violence to 
 either of these as soon as our knowledge is ignored or 
 moral sentiment coerced. The truth of theology is the 
 truth of a story; the truest truth, truth conveyed in 
 terms of things that are not. So we see the first stories 
 were of theology; that was the storyteller's earliest theme, 
 a prophecy perchance in this; and is it not there- 
 fore that the story takes such lead now in human in- 
 terest, and absorbs so much of man's power? He is 
 learning the art of seeing truth the more true because in 
 terms of non-reality, of learning to recognise what that 
 true truth demands. And so shall we not discern that 
 the true ' story ' for which all the others are but prepara- 
 tions, is the story of man's own life ? the rest, fragments 
 of that ? 
 
 " So it is visible, science must transform theology. God 
 has winked at the times of ignorance. Every statement 
 of spiritual truth must correspond absolutely to our know- 
 ledge. It must conform to all we know of physiology, to 
 all the needs which the physical expresses. What a 
 change is needed from the time when men did not know 
 how the mind depended upon the body! And so, too, 
 how men have made science antagonistic to religion, by 
 refusing to let its form change. . . . 
 
 " Of course, the reason of human history can be seen
 
 Unity of Humanity. 327 
 
 only outside itself, it lies in its relations. This we have 
 often spoken about. Then, as to thinking of humanity 
 as ' one man.' I will tell you the difference between us ; 
 my feeling is a feeling of him, a perception or conscious- 
 ness, like a sense-perception, not reasoned, not at all caring 
 about being rational, but simply there. The being I mean 
 by man is the being I perceive. I have not reasoned 
 him out. I perceive him, nay, I love him, that is, her ; for 
 she is by no means a ' colossal man ' but a little, trembling, 
 quivering, passion-driven woman, throbbing with uncom- 
 prehended instincts, and afraid with timid regrets and 
 sorrows for half -imaginary sins, which she repents of, but 
 knows she will still commit, and does commit. I don't 
 know about humanity as any ' colossal ' thing whatever ; 
 but that little restless woman thing I know, for she 
 works in me, and keeps me in perpetual unrest. Would 
 not the wave be quiet if it were not for the sea, which, 
 when the spirit breathes upon it, can let no wave be 
 still? 
 
 " You are thinking of this ' one man ' with your intel- 
 lect; there is no such thought-out 'one man' anymore 
 than such one God. . . . And the idea of a ' colossal man ' 
 is, above all, out of place, like thinking God is ' great,' 
 because He fills all space. Those magnitudes, spiritual 
 powers, and dominions are exactly not great, but too 
 small ever to be found too small for any microscope to 
 reach them ; ' he that would be greatest among you, let 
 him be least/ is the very law of being. You are seeking 
 a self man the living among the dead. He is not here. 
 He is risen." 
 
 "The real determining causes of man's history," Mr. 
 Hinton once said to me, " must of course lie outside itself. 
 You could not give the history of so much as a stone as
 
 328 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 long as you look only at the stone. You must know the 
 law of gravity and the motion of all celestial bodies, to 
 account for its weight ; you must know the properties of 
 oxygen, and the laws of chemical reaction, to account for 
 the colour produced by the action of the air upon it. If it 
 be chalk, you must know the history of the earth through 
 ages of the past, the nature of organic life, and the order 
 of its evolution from the inorganic ; to account for its 
 hardness and constitution in general you must descend 
 into all the intricacies of molecular physics.* In the 
 same way the reason that the world is what it is, the 
 meaning of its sin and sorrow, must be extra-mundane. 
 We can of course only guess at it." Mr. Hinton believed 
 that in some way man is laying down his life for the 
 universe, consenting to death that he may reveal the 
 life of God as sacrifice. That man's fall and redemption 
 subserves some wider purpose is a thought with which 
 the readers of St. Paul are familiar. See especially Ephes. 
 i. 9, 10; iii. 9, 10. 
 
 He thus writes to a friend on his approaching retire- 
 ment from practice : 
 
 ' "Savile Row, July 18, 1873. 
 
 " I have been so happy often of late in looking for- 
 ward to my life. What I want to do is so simple. I 
 want to say to people, ' Are we turning the moral power 
 God has already given us to its true account ? ' Without 
 
 * Compare Tennyson's well-known lines 
 
 " Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies, 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower ; but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is."
 
 The One Right. 329 
 
 being better men or women, how much better our life 
 might be. This is so continually before my eyes; and 
 it flows like a new current of blood all through me. 
 What hinders that men, now and here, should begin to 
 have their regard on good, to take the absolute desire for 
 it as their duty, their one and only right ? This easier 
 and better good stands ready for them, and they are 
 ready, too, for it. It is of no use their trying to get 
 better; they build their very good upon a wrong. The 
 thing now to do is to correct that wrong ; and it means 
 not a harder, but an easier thing, possible to more and 
 weaker people ; instead of restraint of passion, a passion 
 that does not need restraint. My heart beats so for it. 
 And it is so strange. I am fifty, and it seems to me that 
 my life is just beginning. I have more time for work 
 (probably) than all the time I have ever had before ; and 
 I am younger than ever I have been besides." 
 
 " Savile Row, July 28, 1873. 
 
 "I wish you knew all my late thoughts; . . . they 
 are the same as all the former ones the very same over 
 again, indeed. It strikes me so wonderfully sometimes 
 how exactly the same thing they are ; only the subjects 
 altered. . . . You speak of luxury could any thought 
 be simpler or more sufficient than that all things that 
 are for good are right to do, and nothing else ? that our 
 desire must be on good always ? Have you read ' Other's 
 Needs'?" 
 
 The next letter is in answer to some inquiries as to 
 the nature of the social changes that might come with a 
 truer aim in human life. While holding to the essential 
 permanence of the marriage tie, and being, therefore, 
 opposed to divorce, Mr. Hinton. considered that our mar-
 
 33O Life of James Hint on. 
 
 riage laws were too much rigid and inflexible laws of the 
 letter, and needed to be made more fluent to the claims 
 of human good. But to questions of external order 
 Mr. Hinton was at heart profoundly indifferent. " Get 
 the true principles of human life recognised, and ex- 
 perience will teach us what is for service," he used to 
 say ; " set the living waters flowing, and they will make 
 their own channel." He never allowed that any one 
 differed from him who agreed with him as to principle, 
 and only differed as to practical application. On the 
 latter point, he emphatically recognised his fallibility, his 
 part being rather to discover than to apply. 
 
 " Savile Row, 1874. 
 
 " It is very interesting that you quote ' with what body 
 do they come ? ' You know that is one of my pas- 
 sages. I think, in using Paul's words to ask the ques- 
 tion, you are using them in their true meaning, that 
 the spiritual body of man's emotions, passions, deeds, and 
 not this phenomenal flesh and blood, was his subject, 
 even as the resurrection is the raising up of man to 
 life. . . . But I confess I can't share the embarrassment 
 some of my best friends feel about this. What is human 
 life but emotions and convictions expressing themselves 
 in deeds and modes of living ? I suppose, as it has 
 managed to be that before, it will go on being that. And 
 that is all I can even suppose to be wanted ; new feel- 
 ings and new thoughts will, as heretofore, go on to make 
 their own modes of operation. How has it got into 
 your head that they want predicting, much more pre- 
 arranging ? How could that fail to be mischievous ? Do 
 you propose to help a plant to grow ? Is it not enough 
 to give it earth and water, and put it in the sun? It 
 is some curious wrinkle in your thought that wants
 
 Principles of Human Life. 331 
 
 smoothing out. Pass your hands over it, as you would 
 over a crumpled pocket-handkerchief, and see if it is not 
 better. . . . Besides, I find, following the law of service 
 (with endless mistakes, doubtless, I don't think any- 
 thing of them; they are part of it) is not puzzling or 
 hard at all, nor obscure, but exactly easy. It is always 
 coming to you, as it were. And, indeed, it is nothing but 
 the old familiar doing your best, than which I never had 
 or felt the want of any other rule. . . . And even when 
 following the law of service has seemed to me to mean 
 diverging from former and from customary doing, I have 
 found it not more hard, but enormously less so than I 
 should have supposed. I am obliged to check myself, lest 
 I should think social changes easier than they will turn 
 out." 
 
 In 1873, Mr. Hinton was asked to give the inaugural 
 lecture at Guy's, afterwards published, with one or two other 
 essays, under the title of " The Place of the Physician," 
 a title on which Sir William Gull wittily remarked to its 
 author, " The place of the physician, by a surgeon ? that is 
 nowhere" 
 
 But the longed-for day of deliverance had at last arrived. 
 In March 1874, Mr. Hinton gave up practice and the large 
 income he had at his control, to devote all his energies to 
 the great objects of human good he had in view. But, 
 alas ! in order to effect his purpose, he had for the last 
 year or two been working recklessly, throwing, as he 
 himself said, the strength of ten men into his profession, 
 and at the same time passing six or seven works simul- 
 taneously through the press, while piles of MSS. bear 
 witness to the remorseless activity of his mind ; and 
 though the injury his brain received remained latent 
 for a year and a half, there is no doubt the seeds of the
 
 33 2 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 fatal malady which caused his premature death were 
 already sown. 
 
 He writes to his son : 
 
 "Kentish Town, April i, 1874. 
 
 " MY DEAEEST How, "We have made the great change. 
 I trust in God that it will be for good. I think it was a 
 true desire for good that moved me to the resolve ; and 
 nothing more encouraged me than the kind and generous 
 and loving way in which my children, as well as mamma, 
 entered into my hopes and aims, and chose less of this 
 world's advantages in order that those aims might be car- 
 ried out. It was a trouble getting out of the house. I 
 could only feel one thing a hope that I might never 
 have so much furniture again. 
 
 "As you may suppose, I feel the change. Already 
 the whole Savile Eow life seems like a dream to me. It 
 is as if it had never been ; so much so, that even the 
 old Tottenham life seems nearer and realer. But perhaps 
 this is only temporary. But the feeling that has come is 
 not one of great depression, which I should have thought 
 natural I only had a few hours of that but one of 
 great seriousness and solemnity. The excitement of my 
 recent life has passed away, and I want to pause and 
 think, and be spoken to again by God, in quietness. 
 Then I have had a sort of unrooted baselessness of feel- 
 ing, as if I had no place in the world, and especially a 
 feeling of total and utter impotence, as if I never had 
 been or should be able to do anything again. This has 
 been very strong, but it is passing away ; and as I was 
 reading some of Matthew Browne's essays yesterday I 
 felt quite a passionate gladness come over me that my 
 business now was with human life. 
 
 " Willy will come to you to-morrow. After he has had
 
 Death of his Father and Mother. 333 
 
 a little rest try and get him to work, and help him a 
 little. You can do this in his natural philosophy. I 
 believe he will get through. I tell him I believe in him ; 
 which, indeed, I always did and do. It is impossible to 
 look in his face and not believe in him. Mamma has 
 gone to grandmamma's at Bristol. Your loving father, 
 
 " J. HlNTON." 
 
 Mr. Hinton had suffered the loss of his father in 1873, 
 as is already briefly alluded to in one of his letters ; and 
 now the sacred tie of so many years between mother and 
 son was to be broken, and he was to lose his surviving 
 parent. She died at the good old age of fourscore years, 
 having peacefully bidden her beloved son " good- night " 
 just before her eternal morning broke. 
 
 "Thanks, dearest mother," he writes, after a memo- 
 randum of the day of her death, " thanks to you now in 
 heaven, thanks always, and boundless, for the reverence 
 and respect for woman that you taught me, even if 
 nothing were to come of it but my own delight and 
 gladness and truer seeing of her loving heart." 
 
 His parting gift to his profession was his " Questions 
 on Aural Surgery," and his " Atlas of the Ear," the latter a 
 work of great labour, the drawings of which were executed 
 by Mrs. Hinton, the originals being presented to Guy's 
 Hospital. The whole work is the recognised text-book 
 of the branch of the profession which Mr. Hinton had 
 made his own, and formed a valuable advance in aural 
 surgery.
 
 ( 334 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 THE summer of 1874 was spent chiefly at Lulworth in 
 Dorsetshire. Mrs. Hinton was at this time very much 
 out of health, and needed absolute rest and quiet. So it 
 was determined that she should winter with one of her 
 children in the Azores, where, as has been already men- 
 tioned, Mr. Hinton had purchased a small property. Mr. 
 Hinton acquiesced in what he felt was best for her, as 
 securing her entire rest from all the exciting subjects that 
 engrossed his own mind. Their home was therefore 
 temporarily broken up. 
 
 " Kentish Town, i^th April 1874. 
 
 "My DEAR How, I am glad of your little note. 
 You must send to me now all you write, because I 
 shall have more time to enter into your pursuits, which 
 I have long desired ; and also you must give me some 
 lifts in mathematics. I must attend to them a little. 
 They are so interesting and so full of suggestiveness, 
 I have been going on a little with Mrs. Boole in our 
 desultory way, which nevertheless has its value, at least 
 for me. I got a little inkling about the conic sections, 
 and then we came on to the calculus. It is very jolly ; 
 and I find it quite like what I thought it. The four 
 forms of it are such fun. The Fluxion (what I call the 
 honest or nature-form) as plain as the day; the Infini- 
 tesimal, which keeps hold of the infinitely small quantities
 
 The Teaching of Mathematics. 335 
 
 and neglects them (which roused Newton's ire even to 
 madness, and no wonder); the refined Infinitesimal or 
 Differential, which takes the ratio only ; and La Grange's, 
 which tries to get round the whole thing, but, as is said, 
 doesn't quite. These are splendidly interesting, quite 
 apart from mathematics ; they are a study of human life ; 
 nor does one need to know anything more than alge- 
 braical notation to enjoy them I won't say thoroughly, 
 but exquisitely. And my ideas about a new teaching of 
 mathematics become both clearer and more confirmed. I 
 should say this way : What is taught in our schools (to boys) 
 is not mathematics, but a little fraction of the history of 
 mathematics, and not even as a history. It is just as if, in 
 teaching astronomy, boys should not be taught anything 
 of what Copernicus did, but trained just a little bit in 
 the tracing on paper the apparent motions, and formu- 
 lating them, and should simply hear of Copernicus as a 
 man who did some wonderful thing which great astrono- 
 mers could know about. That is exactly as our teaching 
 of mathematics does in respect to Newton, and with just 
 as good reason. What Newton did was simply what 
 Copernicus did to make the thought true to nature, put- 
 ting aside the non-perception that infects our native 
 vision, and makes us deal first with fictions of our own 
 constructing. Now, I would have every child trained a 
 little in the epicycles before it heard anything about what 
 Copernicus did ; and so in geometry. But of course the 
 earth's motion is the beginning of astronomy ; so is the 
 fluxion of mathematics. And this should be our teaching 
 of it : ' This is what Newton did for us : lie revealed to us 
 nature, and this is how it was done first ; but the dead or 
 fictitious mathematics came before, and must have come.' 
 Then the lessons of it are infinite, for you see what New- 
 ton showed us was not speaking of realities and true
 
 33^ Life of James Hint on. 
 
 values anything about magnitudes and spaces (much as 
 that is in one point of view, but it has no glory, by reason 
 of the glory that excelleth ; these were just the clay given 
 to create a statue in anything will do) ; but what he did 
 was, to show us the everlasting art, the art of Life, of 
 letting go and holding on at once, of having in effect, of 
 raising from things into powers, from physical to spiritual. 
 This is what he taught us. To look merely at the lines 
 and values is as if in a book one should look merely at 
 the letters. It is his process, his act that has an infinite 
 value and significance. That is being true to nature, 
 always and everywhere. 
 
 " Then look at the dependent variables. What it is, is 
 the relation of the external law to the law of the soul 
 the variation of the former with the latter; the mutual 
 varying, indeed. It is Life it teaches us. And so it is 
 all through ; the child must have these things put before 
 him quite afresh. 
 
 " But I suppose, perhaps, it is not ' wise ' of me to put 
 these thoughts before you now. Only, I can't think of 
 that, because, you see, you are my dearest friend, whom I 
 want to know all about me. . . . Your loving father, 
 
 " JAMES HINTON." 
 
 "Mr. Hinton used often to remark," writes his 
 friend, Mrs. Boole,* " how curious it is to notice that, 
 whereas everybody thinks of geometry as if it were 
 true, the very type of absolute truth, many people 
 get an impression of something not quite true, not quite 
 satisfactory about all forms of fluxions and calculus 
 methods. And this is natural. The man who says, 
 " Here is a straight line, or circle, or ellipse, I am going 
 to investigate its properties," gives an impression of fixed- 
 ness and repose, which naturally convey a sense of truth 
 
 * The widow of the well-known mathematician, Professor Boole.
 
 The Calculus. 337 
 
 and reality. He who says, ' There is a curve somewhere, 
 and I am going to study this straight line which flies off 
 from it at a tangent, and then that other straight line 
 which diverges from it in some other direction, in order 
 to find out where the curve would go, and how I am to 
 trace its course,' gives to some minds the sense of bewil- 
 derment, of there being nothing to trust to, almost of being 
 juggled with, and led off on a false track. 
 
 " But in reality it is Euclid who is apt to mislead and 
 convey to those, whose attention has not been drawn to 
 observe the contrary, the false impression that mathematical 
 straight lines and circles are forms which exist in nature, 
 whereas nothing that lives and grows moves in or contains 
 a mathematical straight line or circle. In the calculus, 
 straight lines are consciously and avowedly studied as 
 fluxions or elements of more complicated forms which 
 exist in nature, but which man's mind cannot grasp. A 
 curve being the path of a point acted upon by two or 
 more forces, and the human mind being able to follow 
 the action of only one force at a time, we find the best 
 way to study a curve is to divide it into its elements, and 
 to consider, first, how the point would move if acted upon 
 by one force only, then how it would move under the 
 action of the other only. And the important difference, 
 Mr. Hinton considered, between Newton and his rival 
 imitators and appliers is, that they, looking only to get 
 results, were content to say, or at least seemed to 
 Newton to be saying, 'Go a little way wrong in this 
 direction, then a little way wrong in that, you will get 
 a zig-zag or polygon, which coincides with the curve 
 at certain points ; and if you make these points frequent 
 enough, the difference between the zig-zag and the curve 
 will be so slight that one may be taken for the other.' 
 
 " Mr. Hinton thought it only natural that Newton should 
 
 Y
 
 338 Life of James H in ton. 
 
 be angry with those who suggested that this convenient 
 method for getting immediate results in mathematics was 
 the same as, and could be substituted for, his own grand 
 doctrine of fluxions. 'We must not neglect the very 
 smallest errors,' Newton exclaims, meaning, as Mr. Hin- 
 ton interprets him, ' A falsehood is not the less a false- 
 hood for being small.' Not smallness but mutual coun- 
 teraction of errors makes truth. Put both straight lines 
 together from the very beginning that is, from the very 
 beginning of your tracing the effect of one force, remem- 
 ber that the other exists, and will have to be taken into 
 account, and that any result you can get, until that is 
 accounted for, will necessarily be false. 'Two wrongs 
 can never make a right,' we often say. 'Two wrongs 
 do lead us to discover, a right,' Mr. Hinton said, ' on 
 condition not of being so small that we are not much 
 ashamed to call them right, but of our not mistaking 
 either for the right, any more than we mistake the 
 straight lines by which we come at the course of a curve 
 for the curve itself, on condition of our remembering that 
 the one is as necessary and true as a process and as false 
 as a final result as the other, and endeavouring to put them 
 together from the beginning. Our only hope, Mr. Hinton 
 urged, of solving any important problem, lies in remem- 
 bering that whatever a man can see and know can be 
 only an element of the truth, the straight line which both 
 is and is not in the curve ; that man is being set to work 
 out fluxions of the true right, which, when worked out, 
 are not to be kept but used, as Newton taught us to let 
 the straight line vanish, that we may have it in its effect 
 The straight line has vanished, but we have a change of 
 direction, and the resultant, the curve, remains." 
 
 Indeed, this was the one method Mr. Hinton traced
 
 The Method of Fluxions. 339 
 
 through nature, art, human life. In nature everything 
 is fluxionised ; she is perpetually letting go the straight 
 line that she, may secure the curve of her true orbit; 
 sacrificing, in endless evolution, the lower form to the 
 higher, which yet would not be without the lower. In 
 art the same method may be traced : the " keeping " of a 
 picture depends on the artist letting go some of the de- 
 tails, to have them in the effect of the whole. And in 
 morality, in the highest moral act, self-sacrifice, do we 
 not let right and justice vanish that we may have them in 
 their effect, ceasing as an outward law, to be as the power 
 of an inward life, the one principle which fulfils all law 
 love ? Only in human life this method grows too painful to 
 the self. In all ages man has wailed over this hard neces- 
 sity that is on him, forbidding him to clutch and keep, suf- 
 fering him only to have by losing, to keep by letting go, to 
 possess by using, and bidding all else wither in his grasp 
 
 " Entbehren soll'st du ! soll'st entbehren J 
 Das 1st der ewige Gesang, 
 Der jedem an die Ohren klingt, 
 Den unser ganzes Leben lang 
 Uns heiser jede Stunde singt." 
 
 Hence man's resistance to this fluent order of nature, the 
 tendency in all human life to stiffen into lifeless forms, 
 and " good customs that corrupt the world," and the decay 
 that relentlessly cleaves to his best and highest, too 
 fondly grasped as ends, and not used as larger means. 
 
 The principle of the fluxion was accordingly the very 
 key of all Mr. Hinton's thinking. He used to say that 
 the secret of thinking is to treat all tilings in science, in 
 religion, in morals, as the method of fluxions teaches us 
 to treat curves. Our fixed rules are like the straight 
 lines, whereas nature works in curves. And he believed
 
 34O Life of James Hlnton. 
 
 that what ailed mathematics itself is, that it keeps too 
 tight a grip on particular forms and modes of investiga- 
 tion, laying too much stress on forms that have once 
 been useful. " Nothing," Mr. Hinton urges, " is too pre- 
 cious to let go." But his letting go was the letting go 
 of the fluxion, the using utterly for a purpose, the ceasing 
 as an isolated thing to be as a living power sacrifice, in 
 its highest and truest sense, without those adventitious 
 meanings which have so defaced the word. 
 
 On one occasion an intimate friend of his was fretting 
 somewhat at not being able to put a cross on the grave of a 
 relation because the rest of the family disliked it. " Don't 
 you see," he said to her, " that by giving up your own way, 
 you will be virtually putting a cross on the grave ? You'll 
 have it in its effect. The one is but a stone cross, the 
 other is a true spiritual cross." 
 
 The law of service itself was not to be an end, but a 
 means. " Man," he held, " is not always consciously to 
 be thinking what is most for service, and trying to 
 pursue it ; but through adopting that as his aim he will 
 have fulfilled the condition of being able to follow his 
 impulses, which then will reveal themselves truly as 
 guides to service infinitely beyond his power to see." 
 
 It was, doubtless, Mr. Hinton's intense realisation of 
 the method of the fluxion as the law of all life that 
 tended to make him the curiously selfless being he was. 
 Once I remarked to him, half laughingly, when he offered to 
 show me some of his MSS. on a subject I was thinking of 
 writing on myself, " But suppose I were unconsciously to 
 borrow some of your thoughts ? I'll try not, but still I 
 might do so without knowing it." He looked at me 
 with a gentle surprise and said, "You are welcome to 
 take any of my thoughts. I would much rather you
 
 Characteristics. 341 
 
 should say them than myself." And it was no affectation 
 in him which made him write in his journal, " I do not 
 care how can I care ? whether my thoughts are true or 
 false. If they are not true, the truth must be better. It 
 does not matter that they seem to me perfectly good. 
 The truth, if they be not true, must be better still." 
 
 "I think of him pre-eminently," said one of his most 
 intimate friends, " as the one man I have known who 
 never tolerated selfishness or self-regard in any shape or 
 under any disguise ; who hunted them pitilessly out of 
 every corner of life. Each thing was to be put aside as 
 soon as it grew into a self form. And especially each 
 thing which he himself had said was to be contradicted as 
 soon as anybody tried to crystallise it into an excuse for 
 selfish action, or for stagnation of thought, or especially for 
 contempt of any class of thinkers. This constant flux and 
 change of his point of view was perplexing to those who 
 did not understand it. When once you saw what it meant, 
 it became the most delightful element in his conversation. 
 He always seemed to me to bring rest into the house with 
 him, and just for the very reason that I could depend 
 on his giving me the 'polar opposite' of my thought, 
 whatever it might be, none the less so when my thought 
 was the mere reflex of his talk on a former occasion. 
 
 "The severest lecture I remember getting was for 
 having gas burning in a room which no one was using, 
 ' wasting fire and light which the poor want,' he said. I 
 tried to explain that the room would be wanted by and 
 by, and I could not trust children to turn gas up and 
 down. He interrupted me with, ' Oh yes ; I know it is 
 inconvenient ; ' but went on to explain the wickedness of 
 one person wasting for their convenience what another 
 needed for health and comfort."
 
 342 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 But though he never tolerated selfishness of principle, 
 to all sorts of lapses, from failure, from forgetfulness, from 
 weakness, from ignorance, he was absolutely tolerant. He 
 used to say " that there is goodness enough in the world to 
 save it over and over again ; moral effort enough to effect 
 six times over all that wants doing. Men are anxious 
 enough to live up to a standard ; it would be more to the 
 purpose to alter their standard." Here again he would 
 bring in his favourite idea of nutrition or stored-up force 
 liberated in function. Nature has stored up moral force 
 by setting people for ages to impossible and useless and 
 self-centred tasks, till the habit of doing something else 
 besides what one likes, has become strong enough for any 
 purpose for which it can ever be wanted ; and now the 
 thing is to set it free to apply itself to true purposes. In 
 this connection he often spoke of fashion as a great store- 
 house of moral force. " It is vain to preach and write and 
 talk," he used to say ; " nothing would ever persuade men 
 and women to leave of making themselves uncomfort- 
 able for fashion's sake, merely in order that they may be 
 more comfortable. The habit of dressing not merely for 
 one's comfort, for instance, has become ingrained and 
 inveterate. But once show people that they can better 
 serve others when more simply dressed, and then all 
 the force of self-sacrifice, which has gone to make 
 them dress outrageously, will flow into some other 
 channel, and they will dress comfortably, as a matter 
 of course." 
 
 The following extracts are from letters to one of his 
 friends : 
 
 "July 1874. 
 " I do not think you have yet clearly recognised what
 
 The True Right. 343 
 
 you mean by c right.' It would be well to take it on a 
 definite point. Take murder or killing. It would be 
 interesting if you were kind enough to make out clearly 
 here what is the right. I think you would find it a state 
 of the soul, not a literal or fleshy thing, and that this 
 state of soul is the true obedience to God's will, expressed 
 in its true revelation, the good of man. Is not this a 
 sufficient account of right in all cases ? 
 
 " I fancy there comes a confusion here, and much more 
 from what I don't say than from what I do ; from my 
 taking for granted a thing I do not mean to controvert, 
 viz., that when there is self-regard, self-restraint may be, 
 is, must be, the road to a true regard. I take this for 
 granted ; it is part of the position of the advance to the 
 correction of the premiss; it is involved in all I say, 
 which is meaningless without it. Nor do I believe that 
 any one who clearly felt and saw that the true aim was to 
 gain a true regard would ever have fancied that I omitted 
 it. People suppose I omit it because the idea of self as 
 the centre being the evil to be escaped, has not been 
 clearly in their mind. 
 
 " The use of self-restraint as a means is a thing I have 
 no objection to lay any amount of stress on. It is one of 
 the keys to the ascetic ages, one of the reasons the whole 
 world has been ascetic. The self-restraint is the storing up 
 of the force to be used afterwards in making the correc- 
 tion of the premiss (the casting out of self-regard). One 
 of my complaints of our condition, especially in one 
 respect, is, that it puts aside most grossly and unnaturally 
 the natural demands for restraint, without fulfiDing the 
 conditions. Here we are, and with what restraints of a 
 true kind ? 
 
 " There need be no misunderstanding between us here.
 
 344 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 Self-restraint is a means through which the true right is 
 gained. It is a lane leading to a house. What I com- 
 plain of is, that we are not told to go through the lane 
 into the house, but go and stay in that lane. And don't 
 you see what comes of it to so very many is, that they 
 never enter the lane at all. Nor shall we ever get them 
 into the lane by any urging on them to go and stay there, 
 only by bidding them hasten to the house. 
 
 " Another way of putting the same confusion may be 
 this : We agree that service, true regard, is the true right, 
 Now, it may truly be said, when self is the centre, then 
 the thing that is service is self-restraint ; as when a leg is 
 broken the useful thing is not walking, which is the true 
 right, but lying in bed, a false one made right by a false 
 condition of the body. So that with a self-centred per- 
 son the law of service means his self-restraint. 
 
 " This is my aim, to make this change : to cease con- 
 senting that self should be the centre, and then teaching 
 the self-restraint that follows as the right ; but to teach 
 as the absolute and necessary right, never to be let go, 
 or any substitute accepted, a true ruling response of the 
 soul to good, which should give us true laws, laws that 
 imply a true regard. 
 
 " I would seek more seek more in respect to man's 
 spiritual good. I say we don't try for enough. 
 
 " Now, dear friends, have I not Christ on my side ? Did 
 He bid us think that men shall always have self for 
 their centre, and so have self-restraint for their right ? 
 and that God's will will never be done on earth as in 
 heaven ? 
 
 " I say let us not be content to go on trying to put 
 away things we make wrong, but let us go deeper, and try 
 to put away that feeling or state of soul which makes
 
 Liberty. 345 
 
 them wrong, which is simply to say, let us remember again 
 that God's law is to love. 
 
 " And when I saw that this was our true duty, not to 
 put things away, but to cease to make them evil, then I 
 naturally perceived that the hopelessness of our attempts 
 at putting them away had a new meaning ; that it meant 
 we were trying for too little, s6eking a false good that 
 never would or ought to be given to us ; that the hopeless- 
 ness of the failure was God's voice calling to us to seek 
 more." 
 
 ''July 1874. 
 
 " So you actually quote to me one of Euskin's saddest 
 sentences* a sentence that you challenge me, as it were, 
 to put beside this, ' Where the spirit of the Lord is, there 
 is liberty.' Poor sad eyes ! to which though no eyes 
 ever deserved it better the vision of the joy has not 
 been given, and in this life (one cannot but feel) never 
 will be given. The pathos is infinite ; but why quote it 
 to me ? I know what reverence is, and sometimes feel 
 
 * The sentence alluded to is from Raskin's "Oxford Lectures on Art." 
 After alluding to the good that came of the great masters' work, he says, 
 "One thing more they taught of which nothing but evil ever comes or can 
 come liberty. By the discipline of five hundred years they had learned 
 and inherited such power, that whereas all other painters could be right 
 only with effort, they could be right with ease ; the others right only under 
 restraint, while they could be right, free. Tintoret's touch, Corregio's, 
 Reynold's, Velasquez's, are fr.ee as air, and yet right. ' How very fine ! ' 
 said everybody. Unquestionably very fine. What a grand discovery ! Hero 
 is the finest work done, and it is quite free. Let us be free also. What fine 
 things shall we not do also ! With what results we know." 
 
 Which passage Mr. Hinton annotates thus : " Consider that discipline 
 of five hundred years ; other men's not theirs ; their own only adding a 
 very little. So it is now ; the discipline of the ages waits for its fruit. 
 But it i> most true that the reason and nature of the liberty need making 
 clear. That is what I seek to do even for art as well as for life."
 
 346 Life of James Hint on. 
 
 where it is due. I see the sadness of the man nay, feel 
 as if it were my own pain too who sees and feels the 
 sadness of the fall and failure, but not the assurance of 
 the triumph ; who, because by the hard destiny of his 
 course, man's hands first grasp a shadow of good things 
 to come, sees the mockery only of the type, and has no 
 foretelling in his soul of the triumph that grows from 
 it. True enough, men have grasped a false liberty, and 
 art bears high, for all eyes to read, the lesson. Thank 
 God! 
 
 " The true freedom will always corrupt until it can say 
 and make intelligible, to men, ' This is my secret ; the 
 condition to be fulfilled is this.' It must explain as well 
 as act, and act as well as explain. 
 
 " But where I feel you so absolutely one with me, and 
 through art, is in this (which I feel to be the whole ques, 
 tion), that the true ideal, the thought of the best right, 
 the hope, and therewith the aim, lies not in the mainte- 
 nance of the restrictions, but in the fulfilling the condi- 
 tions of their passing. This is what I learnt from art, 
 and what has enthroned it as the rule of my practical life. 
 It has opened my eyes to the true aim. Now this is much 
 less of a new light to a woman than it is to a man. But 
 to us men, nevertheless, it is a turning from darkness to 
 light, a whole new conception of life, a whole new revela- 
 tion of possibilities of good in it. ... It comes to us like 
 a deliverance from self-seeking a dull, leaden yoke that 
 has crept over us, as far from being our will as stiffness is 
 to a freezing man." 
 
 To his sister-in-law :- 
 
 " ii Mitre Court Chambers, November 1874. 
 " No one could have believed the things that I have
 
 The Wonder of the World. 347 
 
 found. I am in a perpetual wonder. If the world had 
 been made to amaze me, it could not have been a source 
 of more boundless and endless wonder.* And it is so 
 beautiful besides at once a terror and a joy. There it 
 is, the taking up of man into that great life of nature's ; 
 he who thought himself the chief and highest. Oh me ! it 
 is a vision to have seen. But it won't let one go one's own 
 way, nor avoid being a fool, nor be a person one can like, 
 nor help giving perpetual pain. I shall be a dream or a 
 vision people will think of with love ; but I shall never 
 be liked as a man, not by those that know me. Nature 
 has taken me and used me, and she is welcome ; but she 
 ought to let me perish. What do I want to go on living 
 for ? I, who am but a power of seeing, having stripped 
 myself of all else to purchase it, am already of the past, 
 A sight is in having been." 
 
 "London, 1875. 
 
 " In respect to your feeling of the need of force to 
 bring in a moral change, look at the history of early 
 Christianity. The non-Jewish nations first and most 
 readily accepted it the people amongst whom you 
 would say the force had not been. In the Jewish life 
 there had been the tension ; but when the new beginning 
 came, then it was among those who had not shared in that 
 tension that the new passion found its easiest acceptance. 
 All do not have to do the same work. A tension is 
 wanted to open men's eyes to a true way , but the truer 
 way is also a more natural and easy way, and calls all to 
 enter it. Does it remain hard to you to get the perfectly 
 
 * " All knowledge begins and ends with wonder ; but the first wonder i 
 the child of ignorance; the last wonder is the parent of adoration." 5. T. 
 Cokridge.
 
 348 Life of J antes Hinton. 
 
 clear perception and feeling of a growing life here, carried 
 on by successive generations entering into the results of 
 former labours, and not needing to repeat them, but to go 
 on to fresh ones ? If it is, tell me how, and I will look 
 at it again. 
 
 " You see it took a long hard toil on the part of 
 the Jew to bring in our thought of loving God ' an- 
 ticipated/ I suppose, many times by poet and prophet, 
 but only made a universal possession by Christ. But 
 now we have the thought, is there any reason for not 
 beginning with it ? Any difficulty ? We might do well 
 to make every child understand how hard it was to get it ; 
 even as I would teach every child a good deal more of 
 how hard it was to get at the motion of the earth. Nay, 
 it might even be well to make every child do for himself 
 every chief correction of the premiss that man has 
 achieved (and you see they are all easy ; are all leaving 
 off that which is more difficult, to take that which is less 
 so, and therefore suitable for teaching a child to do). I 
 should seek to come as near to that as possible if I were 
 a teacher. But you see that does not affect what we were 
 speaking of. The new beginning once attained, is the 
 accomplished heritage of every child. From that, all the 
 processes, disciplinary, and others, thereafter start. . . . 
 It is man having his power, his force given him afresh. 
 
 " Think of astronomy ; all the mental force with which 
 man constructed, remembered, realised the epicycles, was 
 given back to him when he said, ' I shall begin with the 
 earth as moving.' And we have made stellar astronomy 
 with the very same mental power that we should have 
 had otherwise to put into keeping up the memory of the 
 epicycles. It is like lifting a heavy weight, and placing 
 it upon a shelf. "While we are raising it, all our force is
 
 Corrections of the Premiss. 349 
 
 in that. We put it on the shelf, and all our force is 
 given us again free for new doings. It is no more a tax 
 upon us when it is on the shelf than when it was upon 
 the ground. The new beginning is putting the weight 
 upon a shelf. The raising is there still, but Nature does 
 it then. All our strength is ready again for our tasks. 
 
 "Now, by the by, it is interesting to think of the 
 great corrections of the premiss which man has done, and 
 which a child of sixteen might be led through to do, each of 
 them for himself. Let us try to enumerate some of them. 
 
 "I. Numeration and subtraction, &c. Putting 10 for 
 inn in ii a splendid achievement never surpassed, 
 making position do for things. Then beginning to add 
 or subtract from right to left. 
 
 "II. Leaving out dimensions from geometry: our 
 definition of point and line. 
 
 " III. Earth's motion. 
 
 " IV. Unity of force. 
 
 " V. Mathematical fluxion, a fresh doing of geometry, 
 another leaving out dimensions. 
 
 " This is a very scanty list, but it will do for a sugges- 
 tion. Then there are other regions. There is that great 
 one of art that was a beginning whereby exactness 
 ceases to be a duty. And then we come to the moral 
 world. This, by the by, is what I mean by making the 
 method of genius universal. For the person rightly 
 called a genius is only a cunning little fellow, who has 
 a knack of casting his eye on the beginning ; and when 
 lie finds himself with a lot of nasty hard things to do or 
 think, demonstrably ' right,' and yet coming somehow to 
 wrong, with no way of making them really fit, looks round 
 behind him to see how things are there, and finds to 
 his joy and gladness, and amazement, and sorrow, and
 
 35 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 distress, and to all the future's joy and gladness too, 
 opening when he has overcome the sharpness of death, the 
 dominion of joy to all who can share his vision, and that 
 is every one in due time finds that if he begins another 
 way, those hard things, right with such a wrongness, need 
 not be done at all. 
 
 "Mitre Court, 1875. 
 
 "That little note of M.'s is very interesting. I 
 would point out, however, to this good girl, that in 
 saying ' she cannot care so much for human good/ she 
 is refusing God's command, and saying she cannot obey 
 it. It is wonderful how we overlook this, take it for 
 granted God's law cannot be obeyed, and proceed with 
 no sense, not only of sin, but even of the fact that we 
 are putting it aside, to bring in a substitute. At that 
 I have felt, and still feel, an amazement. I wonder 
 how I could have gone on so long so unsuspecting of 
 what I was doing doing that. Surely we might at least 
 recognise the fact in words, and say, as prefix to our other 
 proposals, 'God's law to love cannot be obeyed.' We 
 should then remember what we are doing. Do not even you 
 a little bit forget this "? we are so trained to forget it even 
 in our goodness ; our very religion often means forgetting 
 it, as we see in this child ; do not you a little forget that 
 saying we cannot have a passion for man, is saying we 
 cannot obey God's law ? . . . 
 
 " Consider what hard things whole nations do. Is it 
 really hard that people should truly ask and care what 
 their fellows' lives are? Fancy one being thought an 
 enthusiast for that ! . . . 
 
 " You see what makes the difference in my hopes from 
 other men's ? It is just this : that I look forward to
 
 The Bringing in of a True Regard. 351 
 
 letting go things; that I propose, not only that men 
 should care for their fellows, but that this should do 
 alone. Don't you see the difference ? Because men can't 
 do two things that is no reason they cannot do one. And 
 if other things are let go, that gives more force for the 
 one that remains. . . . 
 
 " What do we mean by long ? One hour is long for a 
 butterfly; twenty years for a man. What is long for 
 human life ? I think the visible work of the last 2000 
 years has been visibly quickly done (besides all the work 
 invisible as yet to us). Don't you feel that to recognise 
 the bringing in of a true regard, as an end designed to be 
 gained by man's experience, casts an exquisite light over 
 history ? What is there on any large scale that it does 
 not take up into significance and reason ? Well, what I 
 hope for, and feel it is reasonable to expect, is, that every 
 child in some 200 years will be taught the right, which is 
 having his care on others, regarding himself as he truly is, 
 as an instrument, not falsely as an end ; not as an end 
 either for being comfortable, or for being good. You see, 
 in the other thought of right there is the same error as iu 
 self-indulgence; the self is put inaccurately as an end. 
 And the change we would make is simply a correcting of 
 the falsity to fact. We are instruments or means, and 
 must, to be true to fact, so regard ourselves. In nature 
 nothing is end; everything is means. The wrong in us 
 is that to each of us self comes as an end an error as 
 much involved in seeking our own goodness as in seek- 
 ing our own pleasure. I don't know any aspect of tho 
 thought that gives me more pleasure at once delight to 
 my intellect as beautiful, or hope to my soul as certain 
 to be realised than this that it is simply correcting a 
 falsity to fact, simply saying our thought, our feeling, 
 must be true. How can anything ' do ' instead of truth ;
 
 352 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 how truth fail to rule ? Observe that what I say is not, 
 ' "We want a true regard.' All do really say that, or feel 
 it more or less distinctly. What I say is not, we must 
 have it, but it will do alone. We don't want morally 
 anything more. We may put all our force on gaining 
 that. . . . 
 
 " Is it hard to me to any one to think of my fel- 
 lows' good, if I try ? Harder than the other hard things 
 we do when we try? Harder to cultivate and inflame 
 a passion a passion natural to the human breast than 
 to restrain one ? I only say, Turn the energy which you 
 devote to putting flames out into kindling flames. The 
 flames are all very well, and they don't want putting out ; 
 we only want more of them. Of course you know it is 
 not harder, it is easier. We give it, at least all wise 
 people do, as an aid; and when we want a person to 
 restrain his passions, what help is there so great as to say 
 to him, ' Think what mischief, and to how many, your 
 indulgence would be.' Nay, that you women do habitu- 
 ally do this so much more than men (men thinking so 
 much more of being good, you of helping others), is the 
 chief reason it is so much easier to you to avoid vice of 
 every sort. That is why mostly your practical life is so 
 much better than ours. You take the easier task, think- 
 ing of others instead of trying to restrain yourself. So 
 much is this the case, that Margaret and I used perpetu- 
 ally to misunderstand one another. She had no notion 
 of self-restraint, except thinking of others. The two 
 terms were to her identical. But they are not so to 
 men. All I want is that they should be so. I want 
 men's right made the same as women's. Is this a thing 
 to despair of ? " 
 
 To another friend he writes :
 
 God's Reality better than Man 's Ideal. 353 
 
 "London, 1875. 
 
 " You ascribe to me thoughts the most entirely opposite 
 to all I entertain. It really astonished me. I thought 
 I had made you understand that the basis of my whole 
 thought was that we had not interpreted God's law strin- 
 gently enough (which law, I say, with you, if men sought 
 of Him, He would give them strength to obey), but have 
 consented that man should be impure in heart, and 
 have substituted for it another law (which is not God's, 
 but emphatically a commandment of men), viz., that 
 having passions which are not good, they should restrain 
 them. ... 
 
 " You have lived in a dreamland. You have made up 
 an idea of good and evil, of right and beauty, which belong 
 to dreamland. . . . But the world is not dreamland, but 
 better. Yes, better. And, above all, better in tin's ; that 
 the goodness it demands, and must and will have, is a 
 better goodness than that of dreamland ; and when you 
 women wake, that is what you will find ; that your vision 
 of good and beauty has, in contact with facts terrible as 
 they may seem to grow into a better one, infinitely 
 better. That is what I feel. You know it. You think, 
 and say, ' It is too good to c.ome.' I say it is not ; for 
 not only ' God will give power to all who seek it, and 
 obey His law,' but there is a power stored up in these 
 facts, that are so hateful, to make it come. Here is the 
 power to bring it, to bring the better good, surpassing 
 dreamland, which you say cannot be. 
 
 " Did it never occur to you, knowing that God is 
 ruler, and does according to His will, and makes the 
 ' passion ' of man to serve Him, did it never occur to you 
 to ask, ' What has He suffered tlwse evils for'? Try if 
 there be not some reason in my answer, ' To compel 
 men to cast out and put away a hidden evil, that they 
 
 z
 
 354 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 would never otherwise have even suspected, that evil 
 being, that while life presents to them infinite questions 
 of good and evil, they stand before it with their thought 
 primarily fixed on the question of their own pleasure. 
 
 " It is to cure this evil in men that women have 
 been sacrificed, and I say (with so much more than you 
 can know present to my eye), that being sacrificed so is 
 not cursed, but blessed. It is through woman and her 
 pangs that man is to receive the life of the soul, as well 
 as of the body. Man's life is their gift, who are sunk to 
 hell without a chance; from their hands he shall be 
 compelled to accept it. That is God's justice, His 
 avenging. Shall He not avenge His own elect, His elect 
 to sorrow and destruction ? 
 
 " Try and keep this thought before you, and don't let 
 any other get into its place as being mine : Men shall be 
 compelled to take their thought off the question of their 
 pleasure, and absolutely to enthrone their fellows' good, 
 because women (insisting on saving their sisters) shall 
 compel them to have a right, which means that their 
 thought is absolutely on good, and not on their 
 pleasure." 
 
 Elsewhere he writes, "I come and look at moral 
 nature with eyes trained in looking at physical nature, 
 and so I see that they are one. I do perceive anew this 
 Nature whom I have known so long, and half-loved, and 
 half-feared, and wholly served, she is the very angel that 
 came and rolled away the stone of the grave where man 
 had lain in death ; and said to woman, God, it is too 
 much ! to a redeemed harlot woman, ' Seek no more the 
 living among the dead.' This is what I have seemed to 
 see, that it is through lost women, and in their saving, 
 that man's life shall be given him. ... So when I read it
 
 Dynamic Relations of Evil. 355 
 
 was to a woman who had drunk that cup, that the angel 
 said, ' He is risen ; seek Him among the living,' awe seizes 
 me, and I bless God who has made the world a miracle of 
 wonder, and pray Him to remember that I am dust, and 
 when He has given me as much as I can bear, to take 
 another vessel, and seek Him out lips that the sight does 
 not make dumb." 
 
 "South, IVaks, March 1875. 
 
 " MY DEAR CARRIE, Looking as we passed at one of the 
 self-acting machines where the loaded waggons, descend- 
 ing, drag the empty ones up, I thought, That is the prin- 
 ciple I want to introduce into human life consciously, 
 and as a method knowingly adopted the method of our 
 machinery, or use of nature's forces, the laying hold of the 
 dynamic relations, and using the force of a thing falling 
 to do our raising. I want to use the power of the fall of 
 a thing that has been raised, consciously to have that in 
 our thought and aim in man's moral life." 
 
 On the dynamic relations of evil, Mr. Hinton, as we 
 see, laid great stress. It was to him an integral part of 
 the process of correcting the premiss, by which man is 
 educated in the true sense of the word, i.e., made to 
 educe for himself the true from the false, the right from 
 the wrong, working out his results by a process of moral 
 evolution. Evil in the world, he held, had its analogue 
 in nutrition. In nutrition certain chemical elements are 
 assimilated, and held in a state of tension, their tendency 
 to combine being resisted in the organic matter. The 
 force thus held ready for use is set free in the function, 
 whether of muscular or nervous action, a chemical re- 
 action taking place, which evolves heat and energy. Or, 
 to take a far simpler analogy, evil is the raising of a
 
 356 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 heavy weight, which in its fall raises something else. In 
 one of the great world-sores, slavery, we can see this 
 process ever going on in one form or another; but 
 perhaps it is most strikingly exemplified in the move- 
 ments that have led to modern emancipation. Naturally 
 the premiss was assumed, to begin with, that the stronger 
 might impose his will on the weaker. Self-interest 
 enjoined it; what was there so especially sacred in indi- 
 vidual responsibility to forbid the stronger animal master- 
 ing the weaker ? But slowly the selfish principle worked 
 out its results of sorrow, degradation, cruelty, and licen- 
 tiousness ; the evil grew more and more intolerable ; 
 slowly the force gathered, till at last it needed but a touch 
 to set it free, and, in the fall of slavery by its own weight 
 of evil, to lift humanity for ever to the higher moral 
 level that respects personal liberty, and recognises the 
 brotherhood of man and the sanctity of individual respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 May we not, therefore, believe, with Mr. Hinton, that 
 that other great nameless world-sore, which eats like 
 a cancer into the heart of our modern Christian and 
 civilised society, with all its mystery of depravity, de- 
 gradation, and disease, may we not believe it a force 
 stored up to impel man to recognise the evil of self as a 
 basis of life, the impotence of mere self-restraint en- 
 grafted on such a basis a force to lift him to a higher 
 level of a purity which is love, a chastity which is service?
 
 ( 357 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE last letter in the preceding chapter, bearing the date 
 of South Wales, was written during a brief sojourn 
 among the miners of Merthyr Tydvil, on the occasion 
 of the great strike, the causes of which he was anxious to 
 investigate. 
 
 " Waiting for a Train, Berwick Station, May 1875. 
 
 "DEAK CAEEIE, Since our talk together I have 
 wanted to write to you on one or two points. One 
 thing is instructive to me, as to the way in which it 
 happens that my processes of thought seem to me to 
 excite a mistrust or feeling of inaccuracy or partialness, 
 even (excuse me I only say seem) in persons who so 
 appreciate me, and enter- into the results of my thinking 
 as you do. I think I do see a reason, at any rate, one 
 that I recognise as distinctly true in fact, and also as 
 quite accounting for the phenomenon. 
 
 "It is what I can scarcely now help calling my 
 fluxion method of thinking; that is, the plan which I 
 am quite conscious of when I look into the workings of 
 my mind, of laying aside part of the visible elements of 
 a case, in order better to see the others. "What makes 
 this process right is, that the laying aside is remembered ; 
 and what makes it necessary is the complexity of facts, 
 the presence in all of them, not only of many, but of 
 counteracting or balancing elements, so that the results
 
 358 Life of James H in ton. 
 
 look simpler than they are, and the full extent of some 
 of the things present, can be perceived only by getting 
 rid, in thought, of the mixed-up influences of the others. 
 
 "The complexity of Nature as I now judge, though 
 I did not always know it renders the process not less 
 than essential to all true vision of her. You see how 
 gravity is an instance of it; this is hidden by the 
 tangential motion ; it is only to be ' seen ' by that being 
 left out, and treated as if it were not for the time. 
 I see it in art, too ; indeed, I hold it to be a universal 
 condition of true seeing ; it alone can teach us how much 
 there is, as, in order to see the oxygen in water, we must 
 bid the hydrogen for the time to stand aside. I call it 
 revealing by leaving out. Now, when this has been done, 
 all persons, of course, can see it, by having it pointed out 
 to them. But, you see, the only person who can see this 
 first in any case, can discover it when it is not known, 
 is a person who naturally tends to look that way or has 
 been led to acquire the habit of doing so by long effort in 
 vain to do without it. And you see how inevitably he will 
 be misunderstood ; that habit of laying aside in order to 
 restore, that keeping in abeyance till the hidden things 
 had been fully recognised is sure to look like mere 
 ignoring, mere putting away and oblivion, or even refusal, 
 to those who have not the same tendency, or the same 
 experience. Do not you see that misapprehension must 
 come ? And the more natural that method is to any man, 
 the more it comes to him as of course, and as the simple 
 and natural and only method of seeing (which it is), the 
 greater will be the difficulty to him to apprehend why he 
 is misapprehended. Many, many things will be guessed 
 or supposed by him as the reason his thoughts are mis- 
 conceived, or not seen, before it occurs to him that his so 
 natural and inevitable method of laying aside some elements
 
 Insight and Onsight. 359 
 
 for a time that others may be visible, is what is not un- 
 derstood. I have no doubt this accounts for what is often 
 very, very provoking to others in me. "When a thing is 
 said in reference to a remark of mine, how I am apt to 
 reply, ' Why do you say ' but ' so and so ? of course I in- 
 clude that.' Of course I do, but no doubt I have put it 
 aside, in order to see the other thing I note ; and this is 
 visible, only through the laying aside for a time of the 
 first. 
 
 "This is one thing I wanted to write to you. I am 
 persuaded it is the source of a lot of mysterious difficulty. 
 It is natural to some people to treat things in this way, to 
 let go for revealing, holding all the while ; less natural to 
 others ; but the former are a perpetual source of grief to 
 the latter. It is easy to see how arbitrary, wanton, and 
 vexatious they must look. But here is the good of it ; 
 nothing is wanted but that the case should be understood 
 to put it all right. Let those who do it be aware that it 
 wants explaining those who don't do it understand that 
 it wants doing sometimes, nevertheless, and be ready to 
 recognise the process. So here is another help to peace 
 we may hope to have gained. Do you not see that these 
 two ways of looking that which reveals by leaving out 
 and then restores, and that which simply keeps hold of all 
 answer to insight and onsight ? The former is seeing that 
 which is not apparent. And the force which brings 
 it is the discontent with the apparent, the feeling that the 
 apparent is not, and cannot be the true. That is how a 
 man is forced no one likes it to that leaving out. It 
 is just as hard and just as painful to the man who does it 
 as it is to the man who won't do it only he is driven to 
 it by a pain also on the other side ; it recognises what you 
 will remember under the objectionable term 'positive 
 denial,' that a thing practically not present, yet is truly
 
 360 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 present, and only seems not so by the presence of some- 
 thing else. 
 
 " Now, I think there is an illustration of all this in what 
 we were talking about the other day ; how far people are 
 c good,' and, if they are, how it is our practical life is so 
 bad. . . . Now, first, here is the force. As I look at our 
 life, taking it as it appears, I knew I do not see it. I 
 can't tell why ; at least, not for ' reasons.' I doubt if I 
 could give any adequate one; . . . but I feel that my 
 sight of it is not knowledge, but ignorance. . . . An 
 impression of absolute unreason and unreality is given 
 to my mind. I don't care how accurately and completely 
 all that is presented to me is formulated; that is not 
 human life. It is a contradiction. So you see there is 
 a compulsion on me, a necessity the universal compul- 
 sion and necessity by which I believe all deeper seeing 
 has come to see human life differently, if I am to see 
 it at all. That which is visible in it is not it. I must 
 see more if I am to feel I see it. But that is, I must see 
 some hidden thing, must recognise that some things that 
 seem not there at all, are really there. . . . 
 
 " How shall this impossible apparent motion of human 
 life be resolved into its true constituents ? What is there 
 that must be 'uncovered,' and seen to be truly there, 
 though practically absent, before we can know it ? 
 
 "Now, the fact that has arrested me in social life, 
 perhaps it is emphatically in modern social life, though 
 perhaps not is the discord between people and what they 
 do; how such people can do such things. This is the 
 problem. What I am perhaps more conscious of than 
 most, is the evil of this good life. And this is, I suppose, 
 the happy fruit of my sojourn in Whitechapel in my 
 youth. 
 
 " Now, you know more or less my suggestions as to the
 
 The Individual Determined by the Race. 36 1 
 
 reasons of the discordance. But I don't want to go into 
 them now. I don't feel that I do know them adequately; 
 I am only just beginning my study of people ; but I begin 
 it in one respect advantageously, namely, with the clearest 
 perception of my ignorance. . . . One point that interests 
 me is, that the recognition of some force operating on 
 people, and making their deeds not a true expression 
 of them, is the same thing I have felt in other ways and 
 often spoken of, namely, the recognition of man as one, 
 and that the history, relations, and conditions of this one 
 affect, and even largely determine, what the individuals 
 are. You see that in this thought we do call in the 
 question of the race, the meaning of its course and destiny, 
 to make us understand the familiar doings of our fellows ; 
 and on quite other grounds I am sure it is only so that 
 the individuals can be truly seen. It is the question I 
 ask about men when I look at them, seeing as I do that 
 what is presented to me as if it was, is a thing that can- 
 not be what force deflects their deeds ? . . . 
 
 " One may say the problem is, how came a society made 
 up of such people, to have deliberately accepted putting 
 self first, and for this world too ? Do you not see how 
 this has come ? We will start from the classic or savage 
 states, in which not the self, but the state or tribe, is first, 
 i.e., deliberately first with those who deliberately choose. 
 With that intense religious life of Christianity and the 
 consequent deepening of individual responsibility, there 
 gradually came putting the self deliberately first; but 
 then it was for another world and not for this for 
 heaven, not for greenhouses and carriages ; and by means 
 of all austerity and toil for the general good, not by 
 means of high walls erected round every beautiful spot of 
 land to keep off all eyes, but a few select ones. But then, 
 having got self first for another world, this ' other world '
 
 362 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 has been slipped away; the evidence would not stand; 
 the methods were mischievous ; all sorts of causes com- 
 bined, and slipped away the other world, and slipped 
 in this ; and so landed poor man in this result, to which 
 I hold it impossible he should have been brought, except 
 by being thus betrayed into it of deliberately putting 
 self first and yet not for another world, but for this. . . . 
 This could not have come except through the failure of 
 the old ascetic life, with self first for another life ; so that 
 came that this might follow, and this assuredly that 
 something else might follow. And what? When self 
 has been put first once for the other world, and then for 
 this world, what is next to come ? 
 
 "Dear Carrie, it is assuredly true that some men and 
 women will be alive and remain to the coming of the 
 Lord ; the very last epoch of human life will be witnessed 
 by some eyes and hailed, or wailed (more likely at first) 
 by some hearts incredulous and incapable of believing 
 that they can be the witnesses of the last stage, the 
 triumph. Then assuredly, too, the last stage but one 
 will be witnessed by some eyes, and trembled at, and 
 mourned over, and disbelieved in by some weak and 
 troubled minds. Why should they not be yours and 
 mine ? 
 
 " Your loving brother, 
 
 " J. H." 
 
 The earlier part of the letter, alluding to Mr. Hinton's 
 habit of " thinking by leaving out," probably in great part 
 explains the fact of his so often producing the impression 
 of destructiveness, and exciting a feeling of dread and 
 distrust in the minds of those who did not understand 
 him. One was apt to feel at first as if one's most 
 cherished first principles were being slowly pulverised
 
 Thinking by Leaving Out. 363 
 
 by the energetic action of his mind, and were passing away 
 from one's despairing clutch in an impalpable dust. It 
 was only after one had got the clue to his mode of 
 thinking, and had learned that the balancing fact, 
 omitted in the processes of his thought, was carefully 
 restored in the final conclusion, that one came to see how 
 eminently constructive his mind was, and found one's 
 self with quickened convictions, as if till then one had 
 held the phenomenon of truth, and now grasped the 
 reality. 
 
 As an instance of this peculiarity, he would often speak 
 as though he thought that when man became a part of 
 nature his individuality would be lost, there would be 
 no more " I and thou ; " that nature was truly living, and 
 the organic creature only a special manifestation of the 
 universal life, destined to be reabsorbed. This grieved 
 one of his auditors, and he then proceeded to make his 
 real meaning clear. He compared individual men to 
 letters in a word, and God to the whole word. " A child 
 sees the letters m, a, n, separately, and then sees the word 
 ' man.' A man takes in first the word, then (if he looks) 
 the letters. Now we say ' individuals and God in them.' 
 Hereafter we shall say, ' God, and in this form.' " 
 
 The following letter is to Dr. Cassells of Glasgow: 
 
 "London, 1875. 
 
 " MY DEAR CASSELLS, I am very glad of your note. I 
 do see the world with new eyes, and do feel it a joy, and 
 long for others to see it with me, and to see it better. 
 That would be better still, of course. I never expected 
 that a man like you, with so much to do, would ever come 
 to enter into my thoughts. It was certainly a good 
 providence that brought us together. In the future we
 
 364 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 shall do much work together. I so want helpers, people 
 who can do what I can't ; and I shall be most interested 
 to see what you write. Another person's presentation is 
 what is wanted almost most of all. . . . 
 
 "I've been working away, plodding hard at various 
 things; and have exerted some influence indirectly on 
 people engaged in various works. This is what I like 
 best of all. I have been reading, amongst other things, 
 Lewes's ' Problems of Life and Mind.' This is, you know, 
 a thoroughly negative book, wanting to shut us up to the 
 senses and immediate generalisations from them; but to 
 me it has given an immense number of suggestions. 
 Whole new regions have been opened by them. I have 
 not published much, because I feel so strongly the 
 necessity of completing my knowledge and getting a 
 better hold of the things I want to treat. I go on 
 trying to learn, and my thoughts do expand and become 
 larger and ever fuller. So I am not discontented. 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "JAMES HINTON." 
 
 "M. C. C., 1875. 
 
 DEAEEST ELLICE, I am very glad to hear that you are 
 comfortably settled at Sark, and quite enjoy the thought 
 of it, though I do wish it could have been at St. Michael's : 
 all the other things would have been better for an inter- 
 mission. I've quite discovered of late that some things 
 can't be seen in a hurry, nor while you are in a hurry 
 which some one is very apt to be. I should like to be 
 with you, to tell you of a little thought I had on Satur- 
 day evening. There are two or three other later ones 
 I've had the greatest pleasure from I'd like to tell you, 
 but this is the last. 
 
 " A little girl of ten said to me, ' Do tell me about the
 
 T/te Fluxions. 365 
 
 fluxion ' (I'd been talking in her hearing about Newton's 
 fluxions, which I don't at all understand, a great deal of 
 it). So what do you think I did ? Such a happy thought 
 came to me. I told her plainly, so that she quite under- 
 stood all I meant. 
 
 " I said (but I can only give you the barest notion, no 
 notion at all in fact) 'Multiply me 17 by 3. So you 
 know we get 3 times 7 is 21, i and carry 2; 3 times I 
 is 3 and 2 is 5=51.' 'Now/ I said, 'do you see what 
 you have done with that 2 ? You have put it down, and 
 then rubbed it out ; it was necessary to have it, but not 
 to keep it. Now, a fluxion is this ; it is a thing we need 
 to have, but are not intended to hold ; a thing we rightly 
 make, but in order to unmake/ And indeed that is the 
 whole point. But this simple case shows also perfectly 
 how it comes, how the law of it comes upon our life. 
 For you see our making 21, comes only from our taking 
 the 7 of 17 by itself, isolating it from the 10. In the 
 3 times 17 there is no 21 ; we make the 21 simply by 
 separating the 17 into 2 parts and taking one only first. 
 That is (here is my word) the 2 1 is an isolation-right, a 
 right or truth that comes by leaving out. 
 
 "Now, all isolation-rights are fluxions in this sense; 
 we have to do them, but in order that we may undo them. 
 
 " And this is the law of man's life, because nature is so 
 great and rich that he is compelled to take her piecemeal, 
 and in all things he makes for himself, by his inevitable 
 leaving out at first, ' isolation-rights.' 
 
 " And the difficulty of his life the difficulty above all 
 others is that these isolation-rights have got to be not 
 kept, but used ; not held as they come, but ' carried ' on 
 into another mode of being, which seems like their being 
 lost. 
 
 " This is the pathos of man's life. He makes isolation-
 
 366 Life of James Hinttn. 
 
 rights, and has not known the law of it and recognised its 
 
 ^o 
 
 meaning. 
 
 "Now, this applies to all things. It is so pretty I 
 can't show you even a fraction of its bearings. But you 
 can think of many of them if you choose. Look at all 
 our sciences. Are they not clearly enough, every one ot 
 them, parts no more the whole than 7 is, not only of 1 7, 
 but of a whole page full of figures ? Each one of them, 
 therefore, makes for itself an isolation-right or true, a 
 truth which comes only by its being isolated, wants not 
 holding, but to be lost, as the 2 of the 21 is lost in 5, 
 when the one is taken in (i.e., the I of the 17). 
 
 "And the very relation of the figures in numeration, 
 whereby each term means not one, but many of those 
 before it, comes to have a distinct significance all through 
 our mental life. 
 
 " In fact, the world is so beautiful I don't know what to 
 do ; only, as you know, the condition of that joy is con- 
 senting to bear pain ; and one scarcely dares to say one is 
 happy, because it makes the pain confront one, and the 
 words have lost their meaning ere they have passed one's 
 lips. 
 
 " Look at this very fluxion ; it is such joy to see it, such 
 pain to have to live it. ... Oh, me ! I am happy and 
 sorry ; and just now I cannot see a bit whether that glad- 
 ness I think is coming on the earth is coming or not. 
 
 " By the by, I expect to leave for St. Michael's on the 
 4th of August. If you have any of my letters by you 
 it does not matter else I should like to take them to 
 show Margaret. I know she'd like to see them. . . . I'm 
 beginning to be always thinking about going to St. 
 Michaels and being at home there. I'm not sure I shall 
 be in a great hurry to come back. Ever yours lovingly, 
 
 "JAMES HlNTON."
 
 Visit to Brighton. 367 
 
 Mr. Hinton's departure for St. Michael's having been 
 unavoidably delayed till the end of the autumn, he came 
 down to Brighton to be with me for a few days before 
 setting sail for the Azores, from whence he was never to 
 return. It seemed impossible to associate the thought 
 of death with that exuberant vitality. Never had his in- 
 tellect been more brilliant. To talk to him was, to use a 
 quaint simile of Oliver Holmes, like shaking hands with 
 Briareus. Metaphysics, science, poetry, art, insoluble 
 human problems, ethics, books, heaven, hell, life, death, 
 passed in endless procession before me as he talked, now 
 clapping his hands with boyish glee at some new light 
 that had occurred to him, and exclaiming triumphantly, 
 " Now, isn't that pretty intellectually pretty, I mean ? " 
 and now speaking of desecrated womanhood, and the hope 
 of its redemption in the future, with an intensity of feel- 
 ing that seemed like the 
 
 " Tides of the whole great world's anguish 
 Forced through the channels of a single heart." 
 
 Feeling the great world-evils, and especially the wrongs of 
 women, as his own, it was no wonder he once said, " I 
 haven't had much pain of any particular sort in my life, 
 but I feel as if life itself were chiefly pain to me." 
 
 Those lines of Browning of one risen from the dead 
 always seemed to me to describe him best in the keenness 
 of his spiritual vision, and a certain strangeness that 
 belonged to him. His " thread of life " ever seemed to 
 
 " Run across some vast distracting orb 
 Of glory on either side that meagre thread, 
 Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet 
 The spiritual life around the earthly life ! 
 The law of that is knowh to him as this ; 
 His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.
 
 368 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 So is the man perplext with impulses 
 
 Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, 
 
 Proclaiming what is Right and Wrong across, 
 
 And not along, this black thread through the blaze. . . . 
 
 And oft the man's soul springs into his face." 
 
 Once or twice I urged him to work up some of his 
 numerous MSS. for publication. "Well, you see," he 
 would reply, " the activity of my brain must die down. I 
 shan't be able to go on producing much longer, and then 
 will be the time to work up old materials, and get them 
 into shape. There's immense longevity in my family; I 
 shall probably live till I am eighty." 
 
 " What ! " I exclaimed ; " do you look forward to such 
 an undesirable thing as living till you are eighty ? " 
 
 " Oh, I think I can do," was the characteristic answer, 
 with a slight shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 His attitude towards death and questions of a future 
 world, the " light hand " with which he touched the sub- 
 ject whether his own death or another's was most 
 peculiar. His manner in speaking of it was as far as 
 possible from frivolity or flippancy ; and yet it was almost 
 equally far from our ordinary conventional solemnity. 
 There was something Socratic about it, and reminded one 
 irresistibly of the "Crito" and "Phsedo." If any one 
 spoke of the dogma of everlasting punishment, for instance, 
 to which he was much opposed, he never answered indig- 
 nantly. He would sometimes say, " Yes ; if a cannon- 
 ball hits a sinner on the head, he goes to hell for ever 
 without a chance of mending ; but if it had happened to 
 hit him on the knee, he would have had a bad illness ; 
 and might have been converted, and be finally saved. So 
 everlasting perdition is a matter of measurement of an 
 iron ball going a few feet higher or lower. 
 
 Several times when he was with me he complained of
 
 Letters Home. 369 
 
 having suffered from sleeplessness and depression, but 
 knowing the severe strain that had been on him, it did 
 not excite any apprehension in my mind, more especially 
 as he was suffering much anxiety with regard to his 
 affairs in the Azores, fearing lest his absorption in the great 
 interest of mankind had made him in any measure care- 
 less of what was due to Mrs. Hinton's comfort. The bad 
 symptoms, however, increased after he left me, and those 
 who devotedly tended him during the last few weeks he 
 was in town were aware that he was very ill. Still, when 
 he set sail with his eldest daughter for St. Michaels, we 
 hoped the best from change of scene and quiet, and 
 above all, reunion with Mrs. Hinton. But the shock, on 
 arriving, of finding his worst fears realised about his pro- 
 perty necessarily deepened the melancholy that had 
 settled upon him. 
 
 He writes to a sister-in-law : 
 
 " It is so sad to me that I have lost the power of help- 
 ing those who need worldly aid. I wanted to give the aid 
 of thought and knowledge instead, which indeed are 
 better when they are true. But now how I feel the trial 
 it is not to have means to help! But I feel also that 
 God may have given me more than I have lost the very 
 wisdom I sought, the very sobriety and humility which 
 alone could make my thoughts truly and perfectly help- 
 ful. I have no doubt of them, except as all my soul 
 seems thrown into doubt ; and I want and wish to hold 
 nothing certain that I have thought, but to have all made 
 better." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "I have tried for too much, and failed; but yet per- 
 
 2 A
 
 370 Life of James Hinton. 
 
 haps in that, my failure, God is giving me more even 
 than I tried for. He has opened my eyes, at least a little, 
 though I am blind and foolish still, no doubt. I will try 
 and be wiser, and look more, and care more what others 
 feel." 
 
 And in his last letter to his son : 
 
 " But, How, there is a wrong, an intense wrong, in our 
 society running all through our life, and it will be made 
 righter some day. I dashed myself against it ; but it is 
 not one man's strength that can move it. It was too 
 much for my brain ; but it is by the failure of some that 
 others succeed, and through my very foolishness, perhaps, 
 there shall come a better success to others, perhaps more 
 than any cleverness or wisdom of mine could have 
 wrought. And I hope I have learnt, too, to be wiser. 
 We have not come to the end ; though I am so exhausted, 
 that I seem scarcely able to believe in anything more 
 before me." 
 
 At first it seemed as if our hopes would be realized, 
 and that with rest and care he would recover. He 
 grew better, and talked of returning with his wife and 
 daughters. 
 
 The blow fell with awful suddenness at the last. 
 Acute inflammation of the brain declared itself, and after 
 a few days' intense suffering, in which he knew no one, 
 he entered into his rest on the i6th of December 1875. 
 
 He sleeps among the unfamiliar orange-trees, alone 
 with his God, in the churchyard of the little English 
 Church at Ponta Delgada, in that far island of the West, 
 far, far away from all who loved him on earth, whose 
 hearts can but cry, " He is not there ; he is risen."
 
 Conclusion. 371 
 
 God's ways are not our ways. We have to remember 
 that 
 
 " The perfect circle of eternity 
 Is but a crooked line in time." 
 
 Looking at the goodly stones he had amassed, but which 
 now want the master-hand to raise them from an aimless 
 heap into a fair temple of truth, with that unity of plan 
 for head and heart which is the one want of modern 
 thought, we can but bow to His inscrutable will whose 
 way is in the bitter unfathomable sea, and His paths in 
 the deep waters, and whose footsteps are not known, but 
 who yet leads His people like a flock. 
 
 But there are some on this earth to whom to have 
 known and loved James Hinton has given to all life a 
 diviner meaning; and who now live to carry on his 
 work for the world, for that human good which he 
 loved with a passion that found no equal even in the 
 sum of all other desires. 
 
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