LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIRT OR 
 
 B.OLOGY 
 
 Received OCT 27 1892 
 
 ^ ccessions No.Jf& . Shelf No. . 
 
IN PRESS, 
 
 AND WILL BE PUBLISHED IN NOVEMBER. 
 
 BOSTON MONDA Y LECTURES: 
 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 BY JOSEPH COOK. 
 One volume I2mo, uniform with this volume. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. - - - PUBLISHERS. 
 
PLATE I. (AFTER BEALE & 
 
 MODE OF ORIGIN OF LIVING CENTRES IN ALREADY EXISTING 
 BIOPLASM. 
 
 Fig.l 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 ./ 
 
 Minute particle of bioplasm from living pus 
 
 corpuscle, showing the different forms which 
 
 it assumed in the course of five seconds. 
 
 X 2800. 
 
 Production of formed material, layer within layer, 
 ind it -iccumulaiion upon the 'surface of bioplasm, 
 u in an epithelial cell. 
 
 Fig. 3- 
 
 New Tendon. Old Tendon. 
 
 A m'.icu's corpuscle represented in 
 the living state, magnified by the 
 .SCO diametw, showing alterations iu 
 form duiin$ one minute. 
 
 Fig- 5. 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 Oermina! spots, with new centres (nucleoli) 
 within them ai-i rnor^ mi uiite germinal spots 
 in th<s intervals ktwfleri them. Ma<>niBftd 
 6.50 tiia meters' 
 
 Moflt minute ovarian ova undergoing develop- 
 ment, in th midst of a delicate tissue con- 
 stituting the ovary and composed ot cells. 
 Tbe ofum seems to arise by the ftrowth ot' one 
 of these. Ma*U!3d &IO diameters 
 
 . 
 
 2?0 DEVOKSHiHE ST B&.9T 
 
BOSTON MONDA Y LECTURES. 
 
 BIOLOGY, 
 
 WITH PRELUDES ON CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 BY JOSEPH COOK. 
 
 M 
 
 "Wie ausnahmslos universell die Ausdehnung, und zugleich wie 
 vollig untergeordnet die Bedeutung der Sendung ist welche der Me- 
 chanismus in dem Baue der Welt zu erfullen hat." HERMANN LOTZE. 
 
 THREE COLORED PLATES 
 
 AFTER BEALE AND FREY. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 (Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.) 
 1877. 
 

 BIOLOGY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 G 
 
 H 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1877, 
 
 BY JOSEPH COOK. 
 
 Att Sights Reserved. 
 
 FRANKLIN PRESS: 
 
 RAND, AVERY, AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
INTKODUCTION. 
 
 THE object of. the Boston Monday Lectures is to present the 
 results of the freshest German, English, and American scholar- 
 ship on the more important and difficult topics concerning the 
 relation of Keligion and Science. They were begun in the Meio- 
 naon in 1875 ; and the audiences, gathered at noon on Mondays, 
 were of such size as to need to be transferred to Park-street 
 Church in October, 1876, and thence to Tremont Temple, which 
 was often more than full during the winter of 1876-77. 
 
 The audiences contained large numbers of ministers, teachers, 
 and other educated men. The thirty-four lectures of the last 
 season were stenographically reported in the Boston Daily Ad- 
 vertiser, and most of them were republished in full in New York 
 and London. 
 
 The lectures on Biology oppose the materialistic, and not the 
 theistic, theory of Evolution. (See p. 111.) 
 
 The lectures on Transcendentalism contain a discussion of the 
 views of Theodore Parker. 
 
 The Committee having charge of the Boston Monday Lectures 
 for the coming year consists of the following gentlemen: 
 
 His Excellency A. H. RICE, 
 Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 Hon. ALPHEUS HARDY. 
 
 Hon. WILLIAM CLAFLFN, Ex- 
 Governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 Prof. E. P. GOULD, Newton The- 
 ological Institute. 
 
 Rev. J. L. WITHROW, D.D. 
 
 REUBEN CROOKE, 
 
 Rev. WILLIAM M. BAKER, D.D. 
 
 RUSSELL STURGIS, Jr. 
 
 Prof. EDWARDS A. PARK, LL.D., 
 Andover Theological Seminary. 
 
 Eight Rev. BISHOP FOSTER. 
 
 Prof. L. T. TOWNSEND, Boston 
 University. 
 
 ROBERT GILCHRIST. 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 Rev. Z. GRAY, D.D., Episcopal 
 Theological School, Cambridge. 
 
 WILLIAM B. MERRILL. 
 
 M. R. DEMING, Secretary. 
 
 E. M. MCPHERSON. 
 
 HENKT F. DURANT, Chairman. 
 BOSTON, September, 1877. 
 
PUBLISHEBS' NOTE. 
 
 Is the careful reports of Mr. Cook's Lectures printed 
 in the Boston Daily Advertiser, were included by the 
 stenographer sundry expressions (applause, &c.) indicat- 
 ing the immediate and varying impressions with which the 
 Lectures were received. Though these reports have been 
 thoroughly revised by the author, the publishers have 
 thought it advisable to retain these expressions. Mr. 
 Cook's audiences included, in large numbers, representa- 
 tives of the broadest scholarship, the profoundest philoso- 
 phy, the acutest scientific research, and generally of the 
 finest intellectual culture, of Boston and New England ; 
 and it has seemed admissible to allow the larger assembly 
 to which these Lectures are now addressed to know how 
 they were received by such audiences as those to vhich 
 they were originally delivered. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURES. 
 
 L HUXLEY AXD TYXDALL ox EVOLUTION .... 1 
 
 IL THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS 35 
 
 m. THE COXCESSIOXS OF EVOLUTIONISTS 51 
 
 IV. THE iliCBOscopE AXD MATEBIALISM 73 
 
 V. LOTZE, BEALE. AXD HUXLEY ox LIVING TISSUES 95 
 
 VL LIFE OB MECHAXISM WHICH? 121 
 
 VIL DOES DEATH END ALL? IXVOLUTIOX AND EVO- 
 LUTION 137 
 
 VLLL DOES DEATH EXD ALL? THE XEBYES AND THE 
 
 SOUL 161 
 
 IX. DOES DEATH EXD AT.T. ? Is Ixsnxcr IMMORTAL ? 191 
 
 X. DOES DEATH EXD ATT. ? BAIX'S MATEKIALISM . 217 
 
 XL AUTOMATIC AXD IXFLUEXTIAL XEBVES .... 245 
 
 XTT. EMEBSOX'S VIEWS ox IMMOBTALITY 273 
 
 XTTT. ULKICI ox THE SPLBTTUAL BODY 299 
 
 PRELUDES. 
 
 PACK 
 
 L GlFT-EXTERPBISES IX POLITICS . 95 
 
 IL SAFE POPULAB FBEEDOM 161 
 
 EEL DAXIEL WEBSTEB'S DEATH 191 
 
 IV. CTVIL-SEBVICE REFOBM 217 
 
 V. AUTHOBITIES ox BIOLOGY 245 
 
 VL BOSTOX AXD EDEXBUBGH 273 
 
 VIL THE GULF CUBBEXT ix HISTOBY i\>3 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS, 
 
 PLATE 
 
 I. ORIGIN OF LIVING CENTRES IN ALREADY EXISTING 
 
 BIOPLASM Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 II. GROWTH AND MOVEMENTS OF BIOPLASTS 121 
 
 III. DISTRIBUTION OF ULTIMATE NERVE FIBRES TO MUS- 
 CLE . 245 
 
I. 
 
 HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 
 
 THE FORTY-SIXTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY LEC- 
 TURESHIP, DELIVERED IN THE MEIONAON OCT. 2, 1876. 
 
"NONE of the processes of Nature, since the time when Nature 
 began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of 
 any molecule. We are, therefore, unable to ascribe either the ex- 
 istence of the molecules, or the identity of their properties, to the 
 operation of any of the causes which we call natural. The quality 
 of each molecule gives it the essential character of a manufactured 
 article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent." 
 PROFESSOR CLERK MAXWELL, "Lecture delivered before the 
 British Association at Bradford," in Nature, vol. viii. p. 441. 
 
 " THERE is a wider teleology which is not touched by the doctrine 
 of evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposi- 
 tion of evolution. The teleological and the mechanical views of 
 Nature are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The teleologist can 
 always defy the evolutionist to disprove that the primordial molec- 
 ular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the 
 universe." PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY in The Academy for Octo- 
 ber, 1869, No. 1, p. 13. 
 
BIOLOGY. 
 
 i. 
 
 HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 
 
 IN 1868 Professor Huxley, in an elaborate paper 
 in the Microscopical Journal, announced his belief 
 that the gelatinous substance found in the ooze of 
 the beds of the deep seas is a sheet of living matter 
 extending around the globe. The stickiness of the 
 deep-sea mud, he maintained, is due to innumera- 
 ble lumps of a transparent, jelly-like substance, 
 each lump consisting of granules, coccoliths, and 
 foreign bodies, embedded in a transparent, colorless, 
 and structureless matrix. It was his serious claim 
 that these granule-heaps, and the transparent gelati- 
 nous matter in which they are embedded, represent 
 masses of protoplasm. 
 
 1. To this amazingly strategic and haughtily 
 trumpeted substance found at the lowest bottoms 
 of the oceans Huxley gave the scientific name 
 Bathybius, from two Greek words meaning deep 
 
 I 
 
2 BIOLOGY. 
 
 and sea, and assumed that it was in the past, and 
 would be in the future, the progenitor of all the 
 life on the planet. " Bathybius," was his language, 
 44 is a vast sheet of living matter enveloping the 
 whole earth beneath the seas." 
 
 2. No less a man than David Friedrich Strauss, 
 who, in 1872, wrote " The Old Faith and New," 
 his last work, used Bathybius as a presumably trium- 
 phant keystone of the physiological portion of his 
 argument against the belief in the supernatural (The 
 Old Faith and New, sect. 48). This deep-sea ooze 
 he made the bridge between the inorganic and the 
 organic, "At least two .. miracles or revelations," 
 wrote Jean Paul Richter, face to face with the 
 French Revolution, " remain for you uncontested in 
 this age, which deadens sound with unreverberating 
 materials. They resemble an Old and a New Testa- 
 ment, and are these, the birth of finite being and 
 the birth of life within the hard wood of matter. In 
 one inexplicable every other is involved, and one 
 miracle annihilates a whole philosophy " (Levana, 
 sect. 38). It is very noteworthy, that, according to 
 Strauss's own final admission in 1872, miracle must 
 be confessed to have occurred once at least at the 
 introduction of life, unless some method of filling up 
 the chasm between the dead and the living forms 
 of matter can be found. Bathybius was to occupy 
 this gap. " Huxley," wrote Strauss, " has discovered 
 the Bathybius, a shining heap of jelly on the sea- 
 bottom ; Hackel, what he has called the Moneres, 
 structureless clots of an albuminous carbon, which, 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALJL ON EVOLUTION. 3 
 
 although inorganic in their constitution, yet are all 
 capable of nutrition and accretion. By these the 
 chasm may be said to be bridged, and the transition 
 effected from the inorganic to the organic. As long 
 as the contrast between inorganic and organic, lifeless 
 and living nature, was understood as an absolute one, 
 as long as the conception of a special vital force was 
 retained, there was no possibility of spanning the chasm 
 without the aid of a miracle " (The Old Faith and 
 New, sect. 48). As devout believers in Bathybius, 
 educated men Strauss affirmed' in the name of 
 what he mistook for German culture could no 
 longer be Christians. Bathybius had expelled mira- 
 cle. Thus in 1868 and 1873 Bathybius was the 
 watchword of the acutest anti-supernaturalistic dis- 
 cussions, and was adopted as a victorious weapon by 
 Strauss, when, with his dying-hand, he was using his 
 last opportunity to equip his philosophy with armor. 
 Men have trembled before Strauss's negation of the 
 supernatural. Bathybius was his chief support of 
 that denial. Huxley called his discovery Bathylius 
 Hackelii. Ernst Hackel, well knowing what stupen- 
 dous issues were at stake, elaborately applauded the 
 discovery. 
 
 3. Great microscopists and physiologists, like Pro- 
 fessor Lionel Beale and Dr. Carpenter, rejected Hux- 
 ley's testimony on this matter of fact. Dr. Wallich, 
 in 1869, in the Monthly Microscopical Journal, pre- 
 sented evidence that the deep-sea ooze has nothing 
 in it to connrm Huxley's views. The ship Challen- 
 ger, engaged now in deep-sea soundings, has accu- 
 
4 BIOLOGY. 
 
 mulated evidence of the same sort ; and at present 
 Bathybius is a scientific myth and a by-word of deris- 
 ion. " Bathybius," says Professor Lionel Beale in his 
 work on " Protoplasm " (London, 1874, pp. 110, 368, 
 371), which the North British Review well calls 
 one of the most remarkable books of the age, 
 " instead of being a widely-extending sheet of living 
 protoplasm, which grows at the expense of inorganic 
 elements, is rather to be regarded as a complex mass 
 of slime, with many foreign bodies and the debris of 
 living organisms which have passed away. Numer- 
 ous minute living forms are, however, still found 
 upon it." At the meeting of the German Natural- 
 ists' Association at Hamburg, in September, 1876, 
 Bathybius was publicly interred. It was my fortune 
 to converse for a while, lately, with Professor Dana 
 of Yale College, when I put to him the question, 
 " Does Bathybius bear the microscope ? " He re- 
 plied, " You know, that, in a late number of 4 The 
 American Journal of Science and Arts,' Huxley has 
 withdrawn his adhesion to his theory about Bathy- 
 bius." Thus the ship Challenger has challenged the 
 assertion with which Strauss challenged the world ; 
 and Huxley himself has left Bathybius to take its 
 place with other ghosts of not blessed memory in the 
 history of hasty speculation. 
 
 4. Nevertheless, in his New- York definition of the 
 doctrine of evolution, Professor , Huxley speaks of a 
 " gelatinous mass, which, so far as our present knowl- 
 edge goes, is the common foundation of all life." 
 As, by his own confession, no such gelatinous mass 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 5 
 
 has ever been observed, his popular assertion thi.t our 
 " knowledge " goes " so far " as to establish that this 
 gelatinous mass not only exists, but is the foundation 
 of all life, is contradictory of his published retraction 
 of his theory before scholars. The observed Bathy- 
 bius having turned out to be a myth, its place is now 
 occupied by an inferential Bathybius. The chasm be- 
 tween the inorganic and the organic was not bridged 
 by the results of actual observation ; but it must yet 
 be bridged, even if only with a guess and a recanted 
 theory. This substitution of the inferential for the 
 observed is unscientific. A primary fault of Professor 
 Huxley's latest definition of the basis of evolution is 
 self-contradiction. 
 
 Huxley persists in his forced recantation in spite of 
 all the alleged discoveries in the Bay of Biscay and 
 the Adriatic. But the gelatinous mass, which, ac- 
 cording to Huxley's New-York Lectures, is the com- 
 mon foundation of all life, he defined. His words 
 permit no doubt that he meant Bathybius and its 
 associated forms of life, as Hackel does in similar 
 language, and not protoplasm in the minute forms 
 in which it exists in the living tissues of to-day. 
 Huxley affirmed in New York, that, " if we traced 
 back the animal and vegetable world, we should find, 
 preceding what now exists, animals and plants not 
 identical with them, but like them, only increasing 
 their differences as we go back in time, and at the 
 same time becoming simpler and simpler, until finally 
 we should arrive at the gelatinous mass, which, so far 
 as our present knowledge goes, is the common foun- 
 
6 BIOLOGY. 
 
 datioii of all life. The tendency of science is to jus- 
 tify the speculation that that also could be traced 
 farther back, perhaps to the general nebulous con- 
 dition of matter" {Tribune Pamphlet Report, p. 16). 
 
 Very plainly, by this gelatinous mass, at which we 
 should " arrive " by a process of investigation carried 
 backward to the first living organisms and to the 
 nebulous condition of matter, Huxley does not mean 
 protoplasm in minute forms in the veins of the nettle, 
 and in the other living tissues of to-day, and in them 
 constituting what his famous lecture of a few years 
 ago called "the physical basis of life." But he af- 
 firmed that our " knowledge," and not merely our 
 theory, goes " so far " as to show that Ms gelatinous 
 mass is " the foundation of all life." 
 
 In view of his recantation as to this sheet of living 
 matter beneath the seas, this assertion is self -contra- 
 dictory. Since no such gelatinous mass has ever 
 been seen, the substitution of an inferential for an 
 observed sheet of living slime enveloping the world 
 is unscientific. With the argument of Huxley, that 
 of Strauss takes its place among exploded and ludi- 
 crous errors. 
 
 5. It follows, also, from the facts now stated, that 
 Professor Huxley^ s New-York Lectures are defective in 
 omitting the most essential part of their subject ; that is, 
 in failing to explain how evolution bridges the chasm 
 between the inorganic and the organic, or the lifeless and 
 the living forms of matter. 
 
 6. There have been and are at least three schools 
 of evolutionists, those who deny the Divine exist- 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 7 
 
 euce, those who ignore it, and those who affirm it ; 
 or the atheistic, the agnostic, and the theistic. Carl 
 Vogt, Buchner, and Moleschott belong to the athe- 
 istic school of evolutionists ; Huxley and Tyndall and 
 Spencer, to the agnostic ; Dana, Gray, Owen, Dawson, 
 Carpenter, Sir J. Herschell, Sir W. Thomson, and, in 
 the judgment of Professor Gray, Darwin himself, to 
 the theistic. 
 
 7. Of the theistic form of the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion, there are theoretically three varieties : (1) That 
 which limits the supernatural action in the origina- 
 tion of species to the creation of a few primordial 
 cells ; (2) That which makes Divine action in the 
 origination of species chiefly indirect, or through the 
 agency of natural causes, and yet sometimes direct, 
 or through special creation ; (3) That which makes 
 God immanent in all natural law, and regards every 
 result of cosmic forces as the outcome of present 
 Divine action. 
 
 8. In the history of the discussion of evolution, the 
 origin of species among plants and animals has been 
 explained by at least seven distinct hypotheses : 
 
 (1.) Self-elevation by appetency, or use and effort. 
 That is the -theory of Monboddo, Lamarck, and 
 Cope. 
 
 (2.) Modification by the surrounding condition of 
 the medium. That is Geoffrey St. Hillaire, Quatre- 
 fages, Draper, and Spencer. 
 
 (3.) Natural selection under the struggle for 
 existence, with spontaneous variability, causing the 
 survival of the fittest. That is Darwin and Ha'ckel. 
 
8 BIOLOGY. 
 
 (4.) Derivation by pre-ordained succession of or- 
 ganic forms under an innate tendency or internal 
 force. That is Owen and Mivart. 
 
 (5.) Evolution by unconscious intelligence. That 
 is Morell, Laycock, and Murphy. 
 
 (6.) Immanent action and direction of Divine 
 power, working by the purposive collocation and 
 adjustment of natural forces, acting without breaks; 
 or the theory of creative evolution. That is Asa Gray, 
 Baden Powell, and the Duke of Argyll. 
 
 (7.) The same immanent Divine power collocating 
 and adjusting natural forces, but with breaks of 
 special intervention, and this notably in the case of 
 man. That is Dana, and Darwin's great co-discov- 
 erer of evolution, Alfred Wallace. (See arts, on 
 " Evolution," by Professor Youmans and President 
 Seelye, in JOHNSON'S Cydopcedia and JOHNSON'S 
 Natural History.) 
 
 What Huxley calls the Miltonic theory of crea- 
 tion, he did well not to call the biblical; for it 
 is generally admitted by specialists in exegetical 
 science, that the writings of Moses neither fix the 
 date, nor definitely describe the mode, of creation. 
 Professor Dana, in the closing chapter of his cele- 
 brated " Geology," exhibits the first chapterof Genesis 
 as thoroughly harmonious with geology, and as both 
 true and divine. Many theologians combine their 
 distinctive positions with some theistic view of evo- 
 lution, especially with that held by Professor Dana. 
 Owenism seems at least as sure of a future as un- 
 modified Darwinism. Dana and Hackel represent 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 9 
 
 respectively, I should say, the use and the abuse of 
 the theory of evolution. 
 
 9. It is thus evident, from the history of recent 
 speculation alone, that there are, or well may be, at 
 least thirty different views as to the past history 
 of nature ; but Professor Huxley affirms, that, so far 
 as he knows, " there have been, and well can be, only 
 three." That nature has existed from eternity, and 
 that it arose, according to the Miltonic hypothesis, in 
 six natural days, and that it originated by evolution, 
 of which latter he gives a definition, these are his 
 three theories ; and they are a curiously incomplete 
 statement of facts in the case. It does not follow, 
 that, if the first two be overthrown, only the theory 
 represented by his definition is left to be chosen ; 
 but this is the implicit and explicit assumption of 
 the New- York Lectures. 
 
 10. It is the theistic, and not the agnostic or the 
 atheistic, school of evolution which is increasing in 
 influence among the higher authorities of science. 
 
 Some agnostics are proud of exhibiting under 
 almost atheistic phraseology a really theistic philo- 
 sophical tendency. Spencer's negations in natural 
 theology amount to the assertion that our knowledge 
 of the Divine existence is like our knowledge of the 
 back-side of the moon, we know that it is, not 
 what it is. But I assuredly know that there is 
 not a ripple on any sedgy shore, or in the open sea 
 of the whole gleaming watery zone, from here to 
 Japan, which is not influenced by that unknown side 
 as much as by the known. So, in the far-flashing 
 
10 BIOLOGY. 
 
 spiritual zones of the universe of worlds, there is not 
 a ripple which does not owe glad allegiance to that 
 law of moral gravitation which proceeds from the 
 whole Divine nature, known and unknown. God 
 is knowable, but unfathomable. The agnostics call 
 God unknowable ; but that he is unfathomable is all 
 that they prove, and often all that they mean. 
 
 11. As Professor Huxley does not notice the dif- 
 ferent schools of evolutionists, his New-York defini- 
 tion of the doctrine is defective through vagueness. 
 
 12. For the same reason, it is defective by a sup- 
 pressed statement of hypotheses which are rivals of 
 his own. 
 
 13. It is evident, from the nature of the case, that, 
 the question of chief interest to religious science is, 
 whether the new philosophy is to be established in 
 its atheistic, its agnostic, or its theistic form. But 
 Professor Huxley regards the order of the appear- 
 ance of species as a matter to be studied with all 
 zeal : the causes of their appearance he thinks are a 
 matter of subordinate importance. At Buffalo he 
 said, " All that now remains to be asked is, How 
 development was effected? and that is a subordi- 
 nate question." He thus makes the merely initial 
 question, What? more important than the command- 
 ing and final question, Why? The clashing looms 
 in Machinery Hall at the World's Exhibition are of 
 supreme moment ; the Corliss Engine, which drives 
 them, is of subordinate and inferior interest. Re- 
 ligious science, therefore, finds Professor Huxley 
 curiously wanting in the sense of logical proportion. 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL OK EVOLUTION. 11 
 
 14. The New- York Lectures insist on resemblances, 
 and not on differences, in related animal forms. 
 
 15. They exaggerate resemblances by broadly in- 
 accurate pictorial representation. The Eocene horse 
 of Wyoming, of the genus Orohippus, Dana says is 
 not larger than a fox (Manual of Geology, ed. of 
 1875, p. 505). The bones of its leg and foot were 
 represented in the New- York reported illustrations 
 as quite as large as those of the horse. 
 
 16. The New- York Lectures prove the existence, 
 not of connected links, but of links with many gaps 
 between them. They prove the existence of steps 
 with many and long and unexplained breaks, and 
 should prove the existence of an inclined plane. 
 
 17. They fail to reply to the great, and as yet 
 unanswered objections to Darwinism, the absence 
 of discovered links between man and the highest 
 apes, the sterility of hybrids, the mental and moral 
 superiority of man, and the existence, in many animals, 
 of organs of no use to the possessors under the laws 
 of either natural or sexual selection. 
 
 18. In asserting that this self-contradictory, vague, 
 and historically inexact account of evolution is a dem- 
 onstration of the truth of his definition, and places 
 evolution, thus defined, on " exactly as secure a 
 foundation." as the Copernican theory, which is veri- 
 fied by all experiment, and has in its favor the 
 unanimity of experts, Professor Huxley's conclusions 
 include more than his premises. 
 
 The New- York Lectures disagree in their con- 
 clusions with those of higher geological authorities, 
 
 oar 
 
12 BIOLOGY. 
 
 equally well or better acquainted with the Ameri- 
 can facts, and notably with the conclusions of Dana 
 and Verrill. According to these professors of the 
 university where the relics are preserved, the bones 
 explain, in part, the variations of one style, but do 
 not account for gaps between groups of animals, and 
 least of all do they account for man (DANA, Manual 
 of Geology, pp. 590-604). 
 
 Professor Gray calls himself, in his latest work, a 
 " convinced theist, and religiously an accepter of the 
 creed commonly called the Nicene" (Darwiniana, 
 1876, p. vi.). Is there yet any occasion for the dis- 
 quietude of a free mind holding these views ? If the 
 demonstrative evidence in favor of the materialistic 
 form of the theory of evolution is unsatisfactory as 
 presented by Huxley in New York, what shall be 
 said of the subtler procedures of Tyndall's Belfast 
 Address ? 
 
 Sitting on the Matterhorn on a July day in 1868, 
 Tyndall meditates on the period when the granite 
 was a part of the molten world ; thinks then of .the 
 nebula from which the molten world originated ; and 
 asks next whether the primordial formless fog con- 
 tained potentially the sadness with which he regarded 
 the Matterhorn. (Musings on the Matterhorn, 27th 
 July, 1868. Note at end of TYNDALL'S Address on 
 Scientific Materialism, 19th August, 1868.) In 1874 
 he answers, Yes, and concludes that we must recast 
 our definitions of matter and force, since life and 
 thought are the flower of both. 
 
 Accordingly, Tyndall's effort is to change the defi- 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 13 
 
 nition of matter. Of the many forms of materialism, 
 his coincides nearest with a tendency which has been 
 gathering strength among physicists for the last hun- 
 dred years, to deny that there are two substances in 
 the universe, matter and mind, with opposite quali- 
 ties, and to affirm that there is but one substance, 
 matter, itself possessed of two sets of properties, or 
 of a physical side and a spiritual side, making up a 
 double-faced unity. (BAIN, PROFESSOR ALEXANDER, 
 Mind and Body, 1873, pp. 130, 140, 191, 196.) This is 
 precisely the materialism of Professor Bain of Aber- 
 deen, and of Professor Huxley ; and its numerous sup- 
 porters in England, Scotland, and Germany, are fond 
 of proclaiming that among metaphysicians, as well as 
 among physiologists, it is the growing opinion ; and 
 that the arguments to prove the existence of two 
 substances have now entirely lost their validity, and 
 are no longer compatible with ascertained science and 
 clear thinking. 
 
 TyndalTs speculations as to matter are simply an 
 extension of the hypothesis of evolution, according 
 to the scientific doctrine of uniformity, from the 
 known to the unknown. Back to a primordial germ 
 Darwin is supposed by Tyndall to have traced all 
 organization : back to the properties of unorganized 
 matter in a primordial nebula Tyndall now traces 
 that germ. Evolution explains every thing since the 
 germ. Evolution must be applied to explain as much 
 as possible before the germ. So far as we can test 
 her processes by observation and experiment, Nature 
 is known to proceed by the method of evolution : 
 
14 BIOLOGY. 
 
 where we cannot test her processes, analogy requires 
 that we should suppose that she proceeds by the same 
 method. As all the organizations now or in past time 
 on the earth were potentially in the primordial germ, 
 so that germ was potentially in the unorganized par- 
 ticles of the primordial star-dust : in other words there 
 was latent in matter from the first the power to evolve 
 organization, thought, emotion, and will. Where mat- 
 ter obtained this power, or whether matter is self- 
 existent, physical science has no means of determining. 
 In the evolution of the universe from a primordial 
 haze of matter possessing both physical and spiritual 
 properties, there has been no design other than that 
 implied in the original constitution of the molecular 
 particles. Of course, it is utterly futile to oppose 
 these views as self-contradictory in the light of the 
 established definition of matter. 
 
 Many of the replies made to Professor Tyndall, 
 however, miss Ithe central point in his scheme of 
 thought and endeavor to show that it is madness to 
 imagine that matter, as now and for centuries de- 
 fined by science, can evolve organization and life. 
 But no one has proclaimed the insanity of such a 
 supposition more vigorously than Tyndall has him- 
 self. " These evolution notions," he exclaims, " are 
 absurd, monstrous, and fit only for the intellectual 
 gibbet, in relation to the ideas concerning matter 
 which were drilled into us when young" (Address on 
 the Scientific Use of the Imagination, 1870). Most 
 assuredly Professor Tyndall does not propose "to 
 sweep up music with a broom," or " to produce 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 15 
 
 a poem by the explosion of a type foundery." 
 Audacities of that sort are to be left to the 
 La Mettries and Cabanis and Holbachs : they are 
 not attempted even by the Biichners and Carl 
 Vogts and Moleschotts and DuBois Reymonds, 
 who, with some whom Tyndall too much resembles, 
 are now obsolete or obsolescent in Germany. " If a 
 man is a materialist," said Professor Tholuck to me 
 once, as we walked up and down a celebrated long 
 arbor in his garden at Halle, " we Germans think he 
 is not educated." In the history of speculation, so 
 many forms of the materialistic theory have perished, 
 that a chance of life for a new form can be found in 
 nothing less fundamental than a change in the defini- 
 tion of matter. Tyndall perceives, as every one must 
 who has any eye for the signs of the times in modern 
 research, that if Waterloos are to be fought between 
 opposing schools of science, or between science and 
 theology or philosophy, the majestic line of shock and 
 onset must be this one definition. " Either let us 
 open our doors freely to the conception of creative 
 acts," he says in the sentence which best indicates 
 his point of view in his Belfast Address, " or, aban- 
 doning them, let us radically change our notions of 
 matter." 
 
 Now, it is singular, and yet not singular, that one 
 can find nowhere in Tyndall's writings the changed 
 definition on which every thing turns. The follow- 
 ing four proposition, all stated in his own language, 
 taken from different parts of his recent discussions, 
 are the best approach to a definition that I have been 
 
16 BIOLOGY. 
 
 able to find in examining all he has ever published 
 on materialism : 
 
 1. " Emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena, were 
 once latent in a fiery cloud " (TYNDALL, Fragments of Science, 
 Eng. ed., p. 163). '* I discern in matter the promise and 
 potency of every form and quality of life " (Belfast Address, 
 1874). " Who will set limits to the possible play of molecules 
 in a cooling planet? Matter is essentially mystical and tran- 
 scendental " (TYNDALL, Fragments of Science, Eng. ed., p. 163). 
 
 2. " Supposing that, in youth, we had been impregnated with 
 the notion of the poet Goethe, instead of the notion of the poet 
 Young, looking at matter not as brute matter, but as the living 
 garment of God, is it not probable that our repugnance to the 
 idea of primeval union between spirit and matter might be 
 considerably abated? " (Fragments of Science, p. 165.) 
 
 3. " Granting the nebula and its potential life, the question, 
 Whence come they ? would still remain to baffle and bewilder 
 us. The hypothesis does nothing more than transport the con- 
 ception of life's origin to an indefinitely distant past " (Frag- 
 ments of Science, p. 166). 
 
 4. "Philosophical defenders of the doctrine of uniformity 
 . . . have as little fellowship with the atheist, who says that 
 there is no God, as with the theist, who professes to know the 
 mind of God. * Two things,' said ImmanuelKant, ' fill me with 
 awe : the starry heavens, and the sense of moral responsibility 
 in man.' . . . The scientific investigator finds himself over- 
 shadowed by the same awe" (Fragments of Science, p. 167). 
 * ' I have noticed during years of self-observation that it is not in 
 hours of clearness and vigor that the doctrine (of materialistic 
 atheism) commends itself to my mind, and that, in the presence 
 of stronger and healthier thought, it ever dissolves and dis- 
 appears, as offering no solution of the mystery in which we 
 dwell, and of which we form a part" (Additions to the Belfast 
 Address, in TYNDALL'S authorized edition). 
 
 Of the definition of matter implied in these ex- 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 17 
 
 tracts, it must be affirmed, not that it is new, for it 
 is simply what the schools call hylozoism, modified 
 by the recent forms of the atomic theory and of the 
 doctrine of evolution, but that it reverses the best 
 established position of science. 
 
 1. It denies, and the established definition affirms, 
 that inertia, in the strict sense of the word, is a prop- 
 erty of matter. 
 
 2. It affirms, and the established definition denies, 
 that matter has power to evolve organization and 
 vitality. 
 
 3. It affirms, and the established definition denies, 
 that matter has power to evolve thought, emotion, 
 conscience, and will. 
 
 In the conflict between the established definition 
 of matter and Tyndall's definition, I, for one, prefer 
 the established, for the following reasons : 
 
 1. If inertia is a property of matter, the power to 
 evolve organization, life, and thought, cannot be ; but 
 that inertia is a property of matter is a proposition 
 susceptible of overwhelming proof from the necessary 
 beliefs of the mind, from common consent, from the 
 agreement of philosophers in all ages, and from all 
 the results of experiment and observation. 
 
 Of course, the logical existence of the alternatives 
 implied in this argument is denied by those who at- 
 tribute both inertia and spiritual properties to matter 
 as a mystic, transcendental, double-faced unity ; but, 
 while they use the word " inertia," their definition of it 
 is not the established one, as is that here employed. 
 By force, I mean that which is expended in produ- 
 
18 BIOLOGY. 
 
 cing or resisting motion. By inertia, I mean the in- 
 capacity to originate force or motion, or that quality 
 which causes matter, if set in motion without other 
 resistance than itself can supply, to keep on moving 
 forever ; or, if left at rest without other force than 
 its own, to remain at rest forever. Materialism, hy- 
 lozoism, and Tyndall's definition of matter, cannot 
 justify themselves, unless it be proved that inertia is 
 not a property of matter. Every student of this 
 theme knows, and in this presence it is unnecessary 
 for me to state, what the proofs are that matter can- 
 not move itself. They are far more superabundant 
 and crucial than even those which support the belief 
 in the existence of gravitation. Newton himself did 
 not regard attraction as an essential property of mat- 
 ter ; and it was long a debate whether his great gen- 
 eralization should be named the theory of attraction, 
 or the theory of propulsion. If the established defi- 
 nition of matter, and the consequent proof of the spir- 
 itual origin of all force, or of the Divine immanence 
 in natural law, are not to be disestablished until that 
 late day when the proof that inertia is not a property 
 of matter, that is, that matter can move itself, can be 
 put into the form of a syllogism, then the yoke of 
 Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, of which Tyndall 
 complains, that, after twenty centuries, it is }^et un- 
 broken, is likely to continue to be what it now is, 
 one of the best examples in history of the survival 
 of the fittest. 
 
 2. The established definition of matter rests on 
 facts verifiable by experience ; Tyndall's, confessedly, 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 19 
 
 is demanded and supported only by the tendencies 
 of an improved theory of evolution. 
 
 " Those who hold the doctrine of evolution," says 
 Tyndall himself, " are by no means ignorant of the 
 uncertainty of their data, and they yield no more to 
 it than a provisional assent. They regard the nebu- 
 lar hypothesis as probable ; and, in the utter absence 
 of any evidence to prove the act illegal, they extend 
 the method of nature from the present into the past, 
 and accept as probable the unbroken sequence of 
 development from the nebula to the present time " 
 {Fragments of Science, p. 166). 
 
 In his Belfast Address, Tyndall says, " The strength 
 of the doctrine of evolution consists not in an expe- 
 rimental demonstration, but in its general harmony 
 with the method of Nature as hitherto known." But 
 Ms definition of matter rests only on this theory, 
 which, as he admits, is not verified by experiment ; 
 while the accepted definition of matter is so verified. 
 It is notoriously to experiment, and to ages of experi- 
 ment, and to necessary belief itself, that the accepted 
 definition appeals ; it is to the exigencies of an un- 
 verified, and experimentally unverifiable theory, that 
 Tyndall appeals. 
 
 3. According to the doctrines of analogy and uni- 
 formity, on which Tyndall relies, matter must be 
 supposed to be inert where we cannot experiment on 
 it, since it is where we can. 
 
 4. Tyndall admits that the manner of the connec- 
 tion between matter and mind is unthinkable, and 
 that, "if we try to comprehend that connection, we 
 
20 BIOLOGY. 
 
 sail in a vacuum." His own definition, therefore, 
 involves propositions which are unthinkable. They 
 must have been reached by sailing through a vacuum, 
 and can be proved only by a similarly adventurous 
 voyage. 
 
 Pertinent exceedingly to the criticism of his defi- 
 nition of matter are Tyndall's famous admissions that 
 " molecular groupings and molecular motions explain 
 nothing ; " that " the passage from the physics of the 
 brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is 
 unthinkable ; " and that, if love were known to be 
 associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the 
 molecules of the brain, and hate with a left-handed, 
 we should remain as ignorant as before as to the 
 cause of the motion " (Fragments of Science, pp. 
 120, 121). If the connection between matter and 
 thought in the brain is so obscure, that neither Tyn- 
 dall, nor Spencer, nor Bain, calls it the connection 
 of cause and effect, but only that of antecedent and 
 consequent, how can the connection between matter 
 and thought in the nebula be so clear, that Tyndall 
 can discern in it, at that distance, " the promise and 
 potency of every form and quality of life " ? How 
 is it that the relations of matter and mind are un- 
 thinkable as they exist in the brain, and thinkable 
 as they exist in the nebula? How is it that the 
 nervous vibrations and the corresponding events of 
 consciousness are, as Tyndall believes them to be, 
 simply consecutive, or correlative, a case of " par- 
 allelism without contact," while the matter of the 
 universe, and the life and thought existing in the 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 21 
 
 universe, are so far from being a case of parallelism 
 without contact, that the "potency" of the latter is 
 all in the former ? 
 
 5. The established definition of matter will, and 
 Tyndall's will not, bear Tyndall's own test of clear 
 mental presentation. 
 
 Bishop Butler shows this well enough, even when 
 Tyndall himself, in the Belfast Address, composes 
 the Bishop's argument. Undoubtedly Tyndall has 
 not laid too much emphasis on the famous German 
 saying, " The true is the clear." But his definition, 
 contemplated with 'all patience and candor, is clear 
 in neither its affirmations nor its negations ; while 
 the established is capable of a coherent presentation 
 in both these respects. So far, indeed, is the Belfast 
 Address from knowing its own opinion, that in one 
 place it says the very existence of matter as a real- 
 ity outside of the mind is " not a fact, but an infer- 
 ence," thus implying that Tyndall is not sure but 
 that Fichte's idealism may be the truth. 
 
 6. The established definition is justified, and Tyn- 
 dall's is not, by the irresistible testimony of con- 
 sciousness that the will has efficiency as a cause. 
 
 Dr. W. B. Carpenter, a far better physiologist 
 than Tyndall, and whose work on " Mental Physiolo- 
 gy," just issued, is, always excepting Lotze's " Mikro- 
 kosmus," the best discussion produced in modern 
 times of the connection between body and mind, 
 analyzes elaborately all the latest facts, including 
 Professor Ferrier's proof of the localization of func- 
 tions in the brain; but he saves himself, as Lotze 
 
22 BIOLOGY. 
 
 does, from fatalism, materialism, hylozoism, and from 
 that definition of matter which Tyndall adopts. He 
 affirms a very broad and sometimes startling doc- 
 trine of unconscious cerebration, but finds in the 
 properties of the nervous mechanism no explanation 
 whatever of our consciousness, that, by acts of will, 
 we can originate physical movements, and control the 
 direction of courses of thought. The central part 
 of TyndaWs errors is to be found in his shy treat- 
 ment of this necessary 'belief. There results from 
 this shyness his insufficiently clear idea of what he 
 means by causation. Almost while Tyndall was 
 speaking before the British Association at Belfast on 
 atoms, M. Wurtz, president of the French Associa- 
 tion, was discussing before that body the same theme, 
 and closing an opening address with no unscientific 
 indistinctness as to what cause signifies. "It is in 
 vain," he said, " that science has revealed to it the 
 structure of the world and the order of all the phe- 
 nomena : it wishes to mount higher ; and in the con- 
 viction that things have not in themselves their own 
 raison d'etre, their support and their origin, it is led' 
 to subject them to a first cause, unique and univer- 
 sal God" (Address republished in "Nature" Aug. 
 27, 1874). 
 
 So much does Tyndall's Address lean on Professor 
 Draper's book on " The Intellectual Development of 
 Europe," that it is a witticism of the London press, 
 that the discourse is rather vapory when stripped of 
 its drapery; but Draper himself, in an elaborate 
 chapter of his "Human Physiology" (pp. 283-290), 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 23 
 
 undertakes, by an argument on the absolute inertness 
 of nerve arcs and cells in themselves considered, to 
 demonstrate physiologically the existence, independ- 
 ence, immateriality, and immortality of the soul. 
 
 7. The established definition is supported, and 
 Tyndall's is not, by the intuitive belief of the mind 
 as to personal identity. 
 
 All the particles of the body are changed within 
 seven years, as science used to teach, or within one 
 year, as it now teaches ; and, trite as the power of 
 this objection to materialism has made the objection 
 itself, the inquiry is now more pertinent than ever; 
 How is it thinkable, if matter evolves the personality, 
 that this remains the same, while the physical man 
 does not retain its identity during any two circuits 
 of the seasons ? 
 
 Mysterious,, indeed, is the phenomenon of the per- 
 sistence of physical scars in living flesh that is con- 
 stantly changing its composition. But grant that 
 the physical basis of memory is an infinite number of 
 infinitesimally small brain-scars, constantly repro- 
 duced, although the particles of the brain are all 
 changed, still it is as unthinkable that these scars 
 should rebuild themselves as that the original cuts 
 should cut themselves. It is the generally-accepted 
 theory of metaphysical science, that the soul builds 
 the body, and not the body the soul. But if it be 
 assumed, that matter does evolve spirit, then, in the 
 case of the physical basis of memory, it must bp 
 supposed to be hand, chisel, inscription, and marble 
 all at once, and not only so, but the reader of the 
 
24 BIOLOGY. 
 
 inscription ; and all this while every particle of the 
 marble is known to crumble away, and to be replaced 
 by entirely new particles, every twelve months. 
 Flatter contradiction to that principle of the induc- 
 tive method which asserts that every change must 
 have an adequate cause does not exist anywhere than 
 inheres in all attempts hitherto made to evolve from 
 matter the soul's ineradicable conviction of personal 
 identity. 
 
 According to Tyndall's proposed definition, there 
 is in man, as in the universe, but one substance : in 
 the microcosmus, as in the macrocosmus, all is double- 
 faced matter, spiritual on the one side, and physical 
 on the other. There is nowhere any immaterial agent 
 separate from a material substance. The particles 
 of man's body are endowed with physical and spir- 
 itual properties, and are so peculiarly grouped, that 
 their interaction produces not only his organization, 
 but his inmost spiritual nature. To say, however, 
 that although the body in its living state loses all its 
 particles, and although these are replaced by new, 
 the old form is yet retained, and that this similar 
 grouping of the particles explains the continuity of 
 the consciousness implied in the sense of personal 
 identity, is to introduce design without a designer. 
 Collocation of parts in an organism is precisely what 
 materialism has never yet explained. Undoubtedly 
 oxygen and hydrogen have such properties, that, if 
 four atoms of the former and eight of the latter come 
 into proper collocation with each other, they will 
 unite, and form water ; but they have no properties 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 25 
 
 tending to bring them together in precisely these 
 proportions. Collocation has ever been a word of 
 evil ornen to the materialistic theory. 
 
 The particles that go out of the system do not 
 transmit their spiritual any more than their physical 
 qualities to the new particles that come in ; for the 
 spiritual qualities, as the changed definition of 
 matter states, inhere in the very substance of each 
 particle ; and inherent properties are not transferable. 
 When, therefore, we exhale and perspire wasted 
 particles, there is plainly no room left by this defi- 
 nition for denying that we perspire latent soul, and 
 exhale latent personality. In a complete renewal 
 of the particles of the organization, therefore, there 
 ought to be a renewal of the personality. Such is 
 the theory ; but right athwart the only course it can 
 sail in juts up' the gnarled rock of man's necessary 
 belief that he does not change his personality: a 
 reef, this, with its roots in the core of the world ; a 
 huge, hungry sea-crag, strewn already with the 
 wrecks of . multitudes of materialistic fleets, and 
 where the new materialistic Armada is itself destined 
 to beach on chaos. 
 
 8. The established definition is justified ; and Tyn- 
 dall's is not by the notorious failure of science to 
 produce a single instance of spontaneous generation, 
 
 9. Admissions of the opponents of the established 
 definition exist in abundance to prove, that, if taken 
 "11 connection with the hypothesis of a creative 
 personal First Cause, it explains all the facts which 
 physical science presents ; but these same opponents 
 
26 BIOLOGY. 
 
 admit that their definition, even when the doctrine 
 of evolution is accepted, brings the physical inquirer 
 at the end of every possible path of investigation 
 always face to face with insoluble mystery. 
 
 10. Finally, the mystic and transcendental defini- 
 tion, by making matter a double somewhat, pos- 
 sessed on its physical side of the qualities claimed 
 for it by established science, but on its spiritual side 
 of the properties necessary to evolve organization 
 and life, attributes to matter self-contradictory quali- 
 ties, and is itself inherently self-contradictory. 
 
 Matter has extension, impenetrability, figure, 
 divisibility, inertia, color. Mind has neither. Not 
 one of these terms has any conceivable meaning in 
 application to thought or emotion. What is the 
 shape of love ? How many inches long is fear ? 
 What is the color of memory ? Since Aristotle and 
 St. Augustine, the antithesis between mind and 
 matter has been held to be so broad, that Sir Wil- 
 liam Hamilton's common measure for it was the 
 phrase, " the whole diameter of being." But it is 
 proposed now and this is the chief thing I have to 
 say to adopt a definition of matter which shall make 
 extension and its absence, inertia and its absence, 
 impenetrability and its absence, divisibility and its 
 absence, form and its absence, color and its absence, 
 co-inhere in the same substratum. To this monstrous 
 self-contradiction the mystic hylozoism of Bain, 
 Huxley, and Tyndall, inevitably leads when it 
 defines matter as a double-faced unity, physical on 
 the one side, and spiritual on the other. The reply 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 27 
 
 to this transcendentalism of the evolution school is 
 simply the first law of the syllogistic process, A is 
 not Not-A. 
 
 1. Matter and mind have two sets of qualities, 
 each the reverse of the other, and absolutely inca- 
 pable of co-existence in the same substance. 
 
 2. We know that the two sets of qualities exist. 
 
 3. We know, therefore, that there are two sub- 
 stances in which the qualities inhere. 
 
 4. There is, therefore, a separate immaterial sub- 
 stance. 
 
 As to practical inferences from this discussion, it 
 is worth while to note that, 
 
 1. The new philosophy as to matter is consistent 
 with a belief in the Divine existence, but not with 
 that of the immortality of the soul. Alexander 
 Bain thinks it absurd to talk of the freedom of the 
 will. Hackel teaches that the will is never free 
 {History of Creation, vol. i. p. 237). 
 
 2. Teachers of the inductive sciences must not be 
 allowed to play fast and loose with the axioms which 
 lie at the basis of the inductive method. Physics 
 scorning metaphysics is the stream scorning its 
 source. Science, of course, is not science, unless it 
 is inductive. But behind the inductive sciences is 
 an inductive method ; and behind the inductive 
 method are the laws of thought. Inductive science 
 implies inductive method ; inductive method implies 
 syllogism ; syllogism implies axioms ; axioms imply 
 intuitive beliefs. Of necessity resting on metaphy- 
 sics, science has nothing surer than its axioms of 
 
28 BIOLOGY/ 
 
 intuitive truth ; but on precisely those axioms rest 
 the inferences of free-will, responsibility, and the 
 existence of a personal First Cause. Plaintively 
 wrote Aristotle, after mentioning self-evidence, 
 necessity, and universality as the traits of intuitive 
 truth, that they who reject the testimony of the 
 intuitions will find nothing surer on which to build. 
 
 3. A distinct definition of the word natural ought 
 to put, and ultimately will put, all science on its 
 knees before a personal God. 
 
 Charles Darwin and Bishop Butler define this 
 fundamental term in the same way ; and that not the 
 obscure, heedless, misleading, outworn, and fathom- 
 lessly vexatious way common in our brilliant periodi- 
 cal literature. It is a fact in which much solace for 
 timid Christians, and much taming anodyne for auda- 
 cious small philosophers, He capsulate, that the fore- 
 most naturalist of our times, and the greatest modern 
 Christian apologist, explicitly agree in affirming, 
 
 (1.) That " the only distinct meaning of the word 
 natural " is stated, fixed, or settled ; " and, 
 
 (2.) That " what is natural as much requires and 
 presupposes an intelligent mind to render it so 
 that is, to effect it continually or at stated times 
 as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect 
 it for once." 
 
 These f?.r-reaching propositions consist wholly of 
 celebrated words from Butler's Analogy (part 1, chap. 
 1), the book which Edmund Burke used to recom- 
 mend to the acutest of his friends as a cure for scep- 
 ticism. Barry, the artist, for whose varied and invete- 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 29 
 
 rate spiritual sickness Burke prescribed only the study 
 of this volume, was so much benefited by it, that, 
 when he made a painting of Elysium, he placed But- 
 ler in the foreground. In our haughty day this re- 
 nowned passage has become in a new degree famous 
 by being adopted through numberless editions as the 
 postulate motto on the titlepage of Darwin's Origin 
 of Species. It stands there as a head-light. The 
 agreement of Darwin and Butler as to the meaning 
 of the word natural is a beacon which ought to be 
 kept steadily in view by any who grow dizzy as they 
 float, perhaps anchorless, in the surges of modern 
 speculation. Butler's and Darwin's definition is 
 Aristotle's and Kant's and Hamilton's, and New- 
 ton's and Cuvrer's and Humboldt's, and Faraday's 
 and Dana's and Agassiz'. Just this definition has 
 for ages been the established one in religious science. 
 Of late, as if it were a new discovery, it has ap- 
 peared as the inspiration of the loftiest portions of 
 modern literature. The vision of what lies behind 
 natural law constitutes the hushed " open secret," 
 which throws the Goethes and Richters, and Car- 
 lyles and Brownings, and Tennysons and Emersons, 
 and ought to throw the whole world, into a trance. 
 
 4. A miracle is unusual, natural law is habitual, 
 Divine action. The natural is a prolonged and so 
 unnoticed supernatural. 
 
 Professor Asa Gray maintains that Charles Darwin 
 is guiltless of all atheistic intent ; that he never denied 
 the possibility of creative intervention in the origin 
 of species ; that he never depended exclusively on 
 
 
30 BIOLOGY. 
 
 natural selection for the explanation of variations 
 in animal forms ; and that he never sneered at the 
 argument from design, to which John Stuart Mill 
 advises philosophers to adhere in their proof of the 
 Divine Existence. 
 
 If religion and science are once agreed in adopting 
 Darwin's and Butler's meaning of the word natural, 
 all that either of them has to do is to become, in 
 Coleridge's phrase, intoxicated with God. 
 
 5. It follows, however, as a minor result of this defi- 
 nition, that it cannot be dangerous to religion to in- 
 quire whether the origin of species is attributable 
 wholly to natural causes ; that is, to habitual Divine 
 action. Is it a terrifying thing to ask whether life 
 itself and all its modifications originated in unusual 
 Divine action, or in habitual Divine action, or partly 
 in one, and partly in the other? It is difficult, 
 and to me impossible, to see what ground for dis- 
 quietude religious science has in the prospect that 
 either of these propositions may obtain proof. What 
 harm, we may say with Charles Kingsley, can come 
 to religion, even if it be demonstrated, not only that 
 God is so wise that he can make all things, but that 
 he is so much wiser than even that, that he can 
 make all things make themselves ? 
 
 The distinction between- mind and matter stands 
 like a reef in the tumbling seas of philosophy ; and 
 its roots take hold on the core of the world. In mat- 
 ter there are definite qualities, such as weight, color, 
 extension. In mind there are none of these: it is 
 absurd to speak of the length of an idea, the color of 
 
HUXLEY AND TYNDALL ON EVOLUTION. 31 
 
 a choice, the weight of an emotion. When Tyndall 
 and Bain, and other revivers of the Lucre tian materi- 
 alism, attempt to make the qualities of matter and 
 mind, which differ as diametrical opposites, and by 
 the whole diameter of existence, extension and 
 the absence of extension, color and the absence of 
 color, weight and the absence of weight, inertia and 
 the absence of inertia, co-inhere in one substratum, 
 and talk of a double-faced somewhat, " physical on 
 the one side, and spiritual on the other," they are 
 self-contradictory. It is upon the hungry tusks of 
 self-contradiction that whole Armadas of materialistic 
 fleets have been 'wrecked age after age; and here 
 Tyndall's barge of the gods, which, like Cleopatra's, 
 
 " Burned on the water : the poop was beaten gold, 
 Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that 
 The winds were love-sick with them," 
 
 only yesterday sank among the mists. But until this 
 reef is exploded, until the distinction between matter 
 and mind is given up, there will very evidently be 
 adequate proof of Design in creation. 
 
 Daniel Webster, when once asked if his political 
 opinions on an important topic had changed, wrote 
 to his questioner to look toward Bunker Hill in thf 
 morning, and notice whether, in the night, the monu- 
 ment had walked into the sea. If any do not care 
 to puzzle themselves with either the shrill and 
 shallow, or with the more quiet and profound voices 
 of modern speculation, and yet wish freedom from 
 mental unrest, let them not take alarm as to the 
 
32 BIOLOGY. 
 
 argument from design until the Aristotelian and 
 age-long monumental distinction between matter and 
 mind has moved from its base ; for, until that shaft 
 walks into the sea, Theism is logically safe. " If," 
 says Kingsley, " there has been an evolution, there 
 must have been an evolver." " Faith in an order, 
 which is the basis of science," says Asa Gray, " cannot 
 reasonably be separated from faith in an Ordainer, 
 which is the basis of religion." The law of develop- 
 ment explains much, but not itself. 
 
 6. As science progresses, it draws nearer, in all its 
 forms, to the proof of the Spiritual Origin of Force ; 
 that is, of the Divine Immanence in natural law; that 
 is, of the Omnipresence of a personal First Cause ; 
 and the religious value of this proof is transcendently 
 great. Wherever science finds heat, light, electricity, 
 it infers the motion of the ultimate particles of mat- 
 ter as the cause ; wherever it finds motion of the 
 ultimate particles of matter, it infers force as the 
 cause ; and, wherever it finds force, it infers, or will 
 yet infer, SPIRIT. 
 
 " God is law, say the wise, O soul, and let us rejoice ; 
 For, if he thunder by law, the thunder is yet his voice. 
 Speak to him thou, for he hears, and Spirit with Spirit' may 
 
 meet : 
 
 Closer is he ';han breathing, and nearer than hands and 
 feet." 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
II. 
 
 THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS, 
 
 THE FORTY- SEVENTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN THE MEIONAON OCT. 9. 
 
" IF every thing is governed "by law, arid if all the power is in 
 the physical universe that ever was there, where is God ? In the 
 intention." PROFESSOR BENJAMIN PIERCE, Unitarian Review, 
 June 1877, p. 665. 
 
 " IN regard to the physical universe, it might be better to substi- 
 tute for the phrase ' government by laws ' ' government according to 
 laws,' meaning thereby the direct exertion of the Divine "Will, or 
 operation of the First Cause in the Forces of Nature, according to 
 certain constant uniformities which are simply unchangeable, be- 
 cause, having been originally the expression of Infinite Wisdom, 
 any change would be for the worse." DR. "W. B. CARPENTER, 
 Mental Physiology, chap. xx. 
 
II. 
 
 THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 
 
 AKISTOTLE said of Socrates that he invented the 
 arts of definition and induction. But Socrates, we 
 know, was not a teacher of logic ; he was the inves- 
 tigator of ethical truth ; and it was in the endeavor 
 to satisfy a distinctively theological thirst that he 
 smote the rocks at the foot of the Acropolis, and 
 caused to gush forth there these crystalline head- 
 springs of the scientific method. Unless we think 
 boldly, north, south, east, and west, and syllogisti- 
 cally, and on our knees, we do not think at all. 
 A Greek teacher of morals first taught us to think in 
 this manner, and, as instruments of ethical research, 
 invented definition and induction. The scientific 
 method thus had a theological origin. Plato first 
 elaborated it ; but he drew all the quenching power 
 of the stream of his philosophy from those pristine 
 springs of definition and induction which Socrates 
 opened. Aristotle, no doubt, was the earliest to give 
 a scientific form to logic as a system ; but his river of 
 philosophy was only the continuation of the stream 
 beginning under the Acropolis, wkere the terrific force 
 of the blow of Socrates had caused these healing waters 
 
 35 
 
36 BIOLOGY. 
 
 to burst out. It was in theology that the scientific 
 method first found full application. However much 
 we may criticise the Greek and Latin schoolmen and 
 early theologians, it remains true that they elaborated 
 Aristotle's logic, and drew out of it a system of 
 induction and deduction, which was only turned a 
 little aside to new objects by Bacon. I am not one 
 of those who think Macaulay's essay on Bacon fault- 
 less. Gladstone has lately shown that the contrast 
 between the system of Aristotle and that of Bacon 
 was not as great as the brilliant historian, who loved 
 antithetical contrasts so well, would make it out to 
 be. The scientific method existed before Bacon's 
 time, and it had received its elaboration chiefly in the 
 schools of theology. But now, since Bacon's time, 
 we hear the scientific method spoken of as if it never 
 had a mother. We are told that religious science 
 must borrow from physical science the scientific 
 method. Religious science will not borrow what is 
 her own. Aristotle affirms that it was in the search 
 after moral truth that Socrates discovered definition 
 and induction. Theology demands in this age, what 
 she has demanded in every age, that we should be 
 loyal to the scientific method. We must have defini- 
 tion ; we must have induction ; clear ideas and spirit- 
 ual purposes conjoined are the only deadly intellectual 
 weapons. When a haughty attitude is assumed 
 by physical science in the name of the scientific 
 method, all that religious science has to do is to show 
 that she was the mother of that method, to adhere to 
 it herself, and to hold to it, a little mercilessly, physi- 
 cal science also. [Applause.] 
 
. 
 
 THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 37 
 
 Among the concessions of evolutionists, these are 
 notorious : 
 
 1. That spontaneous generation must have oc- 
 curred, or the doctrine of evolution as held by Hux- 
 ley and his school cannot be true. 
 
 2. That spontaneous generation has never been 
 known to occur. 
 
 3. That it is against all the ascertained analogy 
 of nature to suppose that it ever has occurred. 
 
 4. That, if spontaneous generation has not occurred, 
 it must be admitted that a supernatural act origin- 
 ated life in the primordial cell or cells. 
 
 5. That the doctrine of evolution as held by Hux- 
 ley cannot be true, unless some bridge can be found 
 to span the chasm between the living and the not- 
 living. 
 
 6. That the present state of knowledge furnishes 
 us with no such bridge. 
 
 Who makes all these far-reaching concessions? 
 Professor Huxley. Where? In a most suggestive 
 article on " Biology," published in " The Encyclopae- 
 dia Britannica," the ninth edition of which, as you 
 are aware, is now issuing from the press. 
 
 It is not asserted by this Lectureship that a doc- 
 trine of natural selection cannot be proved unless 
 spontaneous generation can be shown to be a possi- 
 bility. I assert, however, that the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion " as held by Huxley and his school " cannot 
 stand, unless spontaneous generation can be shown 
 to have been a fact. This is Huxley's own conces- 
 sion. He says, " If the hypothesis of evolution is true, 
 
38 BIOLOGY. 
 
 living matter must have arisen from not-living matter ; 
 for by the hypothesis the condition of the globe was 
 at one time such, that living matter could not have 
 existed in it, life being entirely incompatible with the 
 gaseous state " (HuxLEY, PKOFESSOK, T. H., Encyc. 
 Brit., ed. of 1876, art. "Biology," p. 689). 
 
 " The properties of living matter distinguish it 
 absolutely from all other kinds of things ; and the 
 present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link be- 
 tween the living and the not-living " (p. 679). 
 
 "At the present moment there is not a shadow 
 of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis [or 
 spontaneous generation] does take place, or has taken 
 place, within the period during which the existence 
 of the globe is recorded " (p. 689). 
 
 Will you put these strategic propositions into con- 
 tact with each other ? Huxley's form of the doctrine 
 of evolution stands or falls with the fate of the 
 doctrine concerning spontaneous generation. Dar- 
 win's form of it does not ; Dana's not ; and Gray's 
 not. 
 
 Huxley, you notice, expressly concedes that al] 
 the evidence we now have is against the theory that 
 spontaneous generation is possible, and that the pres- 
 ent state of knowledge furnishes us with no link be- 
 tween the not-living and the living. 
 
 Hackel concedes, and it is very evident from the 
 nature of the case, that if the primordial cells did 
 not originate spontaneously, or by usual Divine ac- 
 tion, they must have been originated supernaturally, 
 or by unusual Divine action. The theory of natural 
 
THE CONCESSIONS ON EVOLUTIONISTS. 39 
 
 selection as held by Darwin does not attempt to 
 bridge the chasm between the living and the not- 
 living. 
 
 To show how incisive the assertion is, " that life 
 is incompatible with the gaseous state," Professor 
 Huxley says, in a note following the sentence I have 
 read, that it makes ,no difference, if we adopt Sir 
 William Thomson's theory, that life may have been 
 inducted into this planet from life in some exterior 
 physical source. The nebular hypothesis, which is a 
 part of the great evolution theory, asserts that all the 
 worlds were once in a gaseous state ; and so in that 
 exterior physical source, which was once a gas, how 
 could life have arisen ? Even Tyndall's famous mat- 
 ter, so richly endowed as to have in it fct the potency 
 and promise of all life," must itself once have been in 
 a gaseous state. 
 
 When Professor Huxley and Professor Tyndall sit 
 together at the top of the Alps, and Tyndall begins 
 his definition of matter, if Professor Huxley will 
 whisper to him these words, " that life is entirely 
 incompatible with the gaseous state," it will not be 
 logically competent to Professor Tyndall to go on 
 speculating, as he once did on the Matterhorn, 
 whether or not his pensiveness and his thoughtful- 
 ness, as well as the gnarled granite peaks, were all 
 potentially existent in the earliest nebula. Let Pro- 
 fessor Huxley and Professor Tyndall correct each 
 other, and perhaps there may arise, in that way, con- 
 tagious life by collision. 
 
 " But," continues Professor Huxley, " living matter 
 
40 BIOLOGY. 
 
 once originated, there is no necessity for another 
 origination, since the hypothesis postulates the un- 
 limited, though perhaps not indefinite, modifiability 
 of such matter. Of the causes which have led to the 
 origination of living matter, it may be said that we 
 know absolutely nothing." 
 
 Here is determined agnosticism. Of course, if 
 physicists will not look outside of matter, they can 
 have no knowledge of a first cause. " Give me mat- 
 ter," said Kant, " and I will explain the formation of 
 a world; but give me matter only, and I cannot 
 explain the formation of a caterpillar." Professor 
 Huxley likes to quote the first half of that celebrated 
 saying, without the last. 
 
 To test the value of these concessions by Huxley 
 as to spontaneous generation, take another theme, 
 and one on which our opinions are not divided 
 the philosopher's stone. We do not now find our- 
 selves able to make a philosopher's stone. We have 
 no reason to believe that Nature ever made a stone 
 that will transmute the baser metals into gold. There 
 is nothing in science to show that such a stone can 
 be found or made. But, unless such a stone has been 
 made at some time in the past, we must give up a 
 pet theory in philosophy. Therefore let us assert, 
 thatj in the complex conditions of a cooling planet, 
 perhaps the philosopher's stone may have come into 
 existence by fortuitous concourse of atoms. [Laugh- 
 ter.] You smile, gentlemen, because you are true to 
 the scientific method, and I mean you shall be. But 
 Strauss, in his " Old Faith and New," asks, " Who can 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 41 
 
 tell what may have occurred in a cooling planet ? " 
 Virchow says that things were mixed in those early 
 ages and that it must be that somehow life origi- 
 nated spontaneously ; at least Strauss would be very 
 glad to have us prove a negative. [Applause.] 
 
 Now, gentlemen, there is a famous theory ir 
 geology called the Uniformitarian Hypothesis. It 
 assumes that the geological formation of the globe 
 was due to precisely the same physical forces that 
 now exist. We have given up the idea of great 
 catastrophes in geology. But when we reason con- 
 cerning spontaneous generation, if we take our stand 
 on the further side of the fact if it ever was a fact, 
 we are in the field of simple physical forces. Here 
 are just the influences that brought into existence our 
 mountains and seas, and determined events in the 
 inorganic world. According to all established sci- 
 ence, these forces have been uniform. The Uniformi- 
 tarian Hypothesis turns upon the idea that uniformity 
 exists in the forces of the inorganic world. We must, 
 therefore, insist, that, if spontaneous generation does 
 not occur now, it never occurred. We must do this 
 in the name of the uniformity of nature. 
 
 The chasm between the not-living and the living 
 forms of matter is the fathomless abyss at the ragged 
 edge of which every traveller on atheistic or agnostic 
 roads at last lifts his foot over thin air. 
 
 It is notorious that evolutionists admit, 
 
 7. That natural selection cannot have originated 
 species, if the sterility of hybrids is a fact. 
 
12 BIOLOGY. 
 
 8. That, in the present state of knowledge, the 
 sterility of hybrids must be accepted as a fact. 
 
 9. That it is fair to ask, as a proof of evolution, 
 that there be formed by selective breeding two spe- 
 cies so different that their intercourse will produce 
 sterile hybrids. 
 
 10. That no such species have as yet been formed 
 by selective breeding, and that, until two such have 
 been formed, the strongest proof of the doctrine of 
 evolution is wanting. - 
 
 Who admits all this ? Professor Huxley. Where ? 
 In his famous " Lay Sermons and Reviews," where he 
 cites (p. 308, American edition) Professor Kolliker, 
 than whom there is no greater authority in embryology. 
 This German says, " Great weight must be attached 
 to the objection brought forward by Huxley, other- 
 wise a warm supporter of Darwin's hypothesis, that 
 we know of no varieties which are sterile with one 
 another, as is the rule among sharply distinguished 
 animal forms. If Darwin is right, it must be demon- 
 strated that forms may be produced by selection, 
 which, like the present sharply distinguished animal 
 forms, are infertile when coupled with one another; 
 and this has not been done." % 
 
 What, now, does .Professor Huxley himself say, 
 speaking before scholars, and in reply to this passage? 
 " The weight of this objection is obvious," is his an- 
 swer; "but our ignorance of the conditions of fertility 
 and sterility," which have been witnessed by man 
 six thousand years, at least, " the want of careful 
 experiments extending over a long series of years, 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 43 
 
 and the strange anomalies presented by the cross- 
 fertilization of many plants, should all, as Mr. Darwin 
 lias urged, be taken into account in considering it." 
 This is all he says, or-that can be said, in reply to 
 this objection. 
 
 Hackel asserts that sometimes hybrids are not, and 
 five hundred other authorities, and all the proverbs 
 of breeders, affirm that true hybrids are, sterile. 
 
 It is safe to say that evolutionists concede, 
 
 11. That natural selection cannot take leaps, and 
 that therefore a multitude of links must have existed 
 between man and the higher apes. 
 
 12. That after a diligent search, for nearly forty 
 years, for traces of these missing links, none have 
 been found. 
 
 13. That, in spite of all imperfections of the geo- 
 logical record, the destruction of these relics, without 
 traces, is amazing, and that their absence leaves the 
 argument for evolution weakest where it should be 
 strongest. 
 
 14. That the oldest human fossils exhibit in essen- 
 tial characteristics no approach to the ape type. 
 
 " No remains of fossil man," says Professor Dana, in 
 a most significant passage of his " Geology " (edition of 
 1875, p. 603), " bear evidence to less perfect erectness 
 of structure than in civilized man, or to any nearer 
 approach to the man-ape in essential characteristics. 
 The existing man-apes belong to lines that reached 
 up to them as their ultimatum; but, of that line 
 which is supposed to have reached upward to man, 
 riot the first link below the lowest level of exist- 
 
44 BIOLOGY. 
 
 ing man has yet been found. This is the more 
 extraordinary, in view of the fact, that, from the 
 lowest limits in existing man, there are all possible 
 gradations up to .the highest ; while below that limit 
 there is an abrupt fall to the ape-level, in which the 
 cubic capacity of the brain is one-half less. If the 
 links ever existed, their annihilation without trace is so 
 extremely improbable, that it may be pronounced impos- 
 sible. Until some are found, science cannot assert that 
 they ever existed" [Applause.] 
 
 In regard to these missing links, Darwin himself 
 says that their absence is amazing. Even Huxley 
 says of what is unquestionably one of the oldest 
 fossil skeletons of man, that it has " a fair, average 
 human skull." The lengths of the bones of the arm 
 and thigh of the man of Mentone, one of the oldest 
 human fossils yet discovered, have the proportions 
 ordinarily found in man, and the skull is of excel- 
 lent Caucasian type. (See DANA'S G-eology, frontis- 
 piece, and pp. 575, 577, and 603.) The poorest fossil 
 human brain is twice the cubic capacity of the best 
 ape brain (DANA'S Geology, p. 603). 
 
 It must be noticed that evolutionists admit, 
 
 15. That, if any animal can be shown to possess 
 organs or peculiarities of no use to it in the struggle 
 for existence, the theory of natural selection breaks 
 down. 
 
 16. That the hairlessness of man was not only of 
 no use, but was a disadvantage, to him in the struggle 
 for existence, and cannot be accounted for by natural 
 selection, and must be accounted for by sexual selec- 
 tion. 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 45 
 
 17. That many animals possess peculiarities, which, 
 so far as we can see, can be of no use to them in the 
 struggle for existence, and cannot be accounted for 
 by any form of selection, natural or sexual. 
 
 In his " Descent of Man," published in 1871, Mr. 
 Darwin himself makes these great concessions. 
 " Natural selection," said Mr. Darwin in his " Origin 
 of Species," published in 1859, " can act only by 
 taking advantage of slight successive variations ; it 
 can never take a leap, but must advance by -short 
 and slow stages. If it could be demonstrated that 
 any complex organ existed which could not possibly 
 have been formed by numerous successive slight 
 modifications, my theory would absolutely break 
 down." 
 
 Compare that extract with this : " I now admit, 
 after reading the essay of Nageli on plants, and the 
 remarks by various authors with respect to animals, 
 that, in the earlier editions of my ' Origin of Species,' 
 I probably attributed too much to the action of natural 
 selection or the survival of the fittest. I had not for- 
 merly sufficiently considered the existence of many struc- 
 tures which appear to be, as far as we can judge, neither 
 beneficial nor injurious ; and this I believe to be one of 
 the greatest oversights as yet detected in my works " 
 (Descent of Man, English edition, vol. i. p. 152). 
 
 It may be safely asserted that evolutionists con- 
 cede, 
 
 18. That whether the cause of variation is a force 
 exterior or one interior to the modified organism, or 
 a combination of these forces, is not known. 
 
46 BIOLOGY. 
 
 19. That it is probable that variation is due much 
 more to some innate force in the modified organism 
 than to any thing outside of it. 
 
 20. That the influence of natural selection has 
 been exaggerated; that it explains much, but not 
 every thing ; that it deserves only a co-ordinate rank 
 with sexual selection as the explanation of the origin 
 of man ; and that very possibly it should have a sub- 
 ordinate -rank in contrast with yet unknown causes 
 of variation. 
 
 " No doubt man, as well as every other animal" says 
 the Charles Darwin of to-day, "presents structures 
 which, as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, 
 are not now of any service to him, nor have been so 
 during any former period of his existence, either in rela- 
 tion to his general conditions of life, or of one sex to the 
 other. Such structures cannot be accounted for by any 
 form of selection, or by the inherited effects of the use 
 and disuse of parts " (Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 387). 
 
 " In the greater number of cases we can only say 
 that the cause of each slight variation and of each 
 monstrosity lies much more in the nature or constitution 
 of* the organism than in the nature of the surrounding 
 conditions, though new and changed conditions cer- 
 tainly play an important part in exciting organic 
 changes of all kinds" (Ibid., vol. ii. p. 388). 
 
 These astonishing modifications of his own theory by 
 Darwin induce Professor St. George Mivart to assert 
 in his " Lessons from Nature," a work which has but 
 just crossed the Atlantic, that " the hypothesis of 
 natural selection originally put forward as the origin 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 47 
 
 of species has been really abandoned by Mr. Darwin 
 himself, and is untenable. It is a misleading positive 
 term, denoting negative effects, and, as made use of 
 by those who would attribute to it the origin of man, 
 is an irrational conception," "a puerile hypothe- 
 sis" (MIVAKT, PROFESSOR ST. GEORGE, Lessons from 
 Nature, London, 1876, pp. 280-331). Any who 
 remember Professor Huxley's article on Darwin's 
 Critics, in " The Contemporary Review," for Novem- 
 ber, 1871, will recall the strong terms in which he 
 speaks of Mivart's scientific and philosophical com- 
 petence. But Mivart holds nearly Professor The- 
 ophilus Parsons's and Owen's creed, that species have 
 originated by a force interior, and not exterior, to the 
 modified organism. To that position Darwin draws 
 nearer and nearer. Among Darwinians there seems 
 to be a conspiracy of silence as to this fact. Dar- 
 winism is becoming Owenism. Darwin himself is 
 not a good Darwinian. [Applause.] 
 
 God be thanked that this age takes nothing for 
 granted ! No : it does take one thing for granted, 
 its own superiority to all other ages ; and yet one 
 other thing, that there are not more things in 
 heaven and earth than are dreamed of in its philoso- 
 phy. But, my friends, the scientific method requires, 
 that, when we run up our list of causes, chemical, 
 electrical, physical, mental, spiritual, we should put 
 at the top, to reach on into the infinite, another class, 
 the unknown. Even in the nineteenth century, 
 there are more things in heaven and earth than are 
 dreamed of in our philosophy. 
 
III. 
 
 THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 
 
 THE FORTY-EIGHTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN THE MEIONAON 
 
 OCT. 16. 
 
" THE convertibility of the physical forces, the correlation of these 
 with the vital, and the intimacy of that nexus between mental and 
 bodily activity, which, explain it as we may, cannot be denied, all 
 lead upward towards one and the same conclusion, the source of 
 all Power in Mind; and that philosophical conclusion is the apex 
 of a pyramid, which has its foundation in the primitive instincts of 
 humanity." DR. "W. B. CARPENTER, Mental Physiology, chap. xx. 
 
 "CAUSATION is the Will, Creation the Act, of God." W. B. 
 GBOVB, Essay on the Correlation of Physical Forces. 
 
III. 
 
 THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 
 
 - 
 
 THE small philosopher is a great character in New 
 England. His fundamental rule of logical procedure 
 is to guess at the half, and multiply by two. [Ap- 
 plause.] God be thanked for the diffusion of knowl- 
 edge ! God save us from the attendant temporary 
 evils of arrogant sciolism in democratic ages ! These 
 are a necessary transitory stage in the progress of 
 popular enlightenment which has just begun to dawn 
 in this yet dim Western world. A little knowledge 
 is a dangerous thing; and it is our boast, that, in 
 America, every man has a little knowledge. We 
 must drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; 
 but every breathlessly hurried free citizen now is en- 
 deavoring, to his honor, to have a taste at least ; and 
 yet we know how mercilessly commerce and greed, 
 and the toil for daily bread, wrench parched lips away 
 from the deep draught. Full popular enlightenment 
 is popular sanity ; penumbral popular enlightenment 
 is often popular insanity; and yet the penumbral 
 must precede the full radiance. The small philoso- 
 pher is always a great character under representative 
 institutions. He seems destined to reign long on the 
 
 51 
 
52 BIOLOGY. 
 
 earth, and often disastrously, and yet not forever. 
 We are an atrociously independent, and as yet only 
 a half-educated people. De Tocqueville said that 
 individualism is the natural, and must often be a 
 most mischievous, basis of democratic philosophy. 
 To her great credit and to her great temporary men- 
 tal distress, Massachusetts, in which popular enlight- 
 enment is more widely diffused than elsewhere, has 
 probably just now more small philosophers than any 
 other population of equal size on the globe. Emer- 
 son wrote of average Massachusetts as she was thirty 
 years ago, " It is a whole population of ladies and 
 gentlemen out in search of a religion." No doubt it 
 is to our credit that we study the newspapers ; but 
 it is not to our credit that we do not better main- 
 tain the best ones, and that we do not sift newspaper 
 information a little more warily, and that some of 
 us think a man can be competently educated on the 
 most trustworthy part of the daily press. "We 
 must destroy the faith of the people in the penny, 
 newspaper," I once heard Carlyle say in his study 
 at Chelsea. I fathomlessly respect able and con- 
 scientious newspapers; I revere their majestic mis- 
 sion in history. I used to be told in Europe that 
 Americans are governed by newspapers ; and I was 
 accustomed to answer, " No, gentlemen, not by news- 
 papers, but by news a very different thing." But, 
 whether the shrewdest readers get at the news that 
 is the most strategic in science, in politics, in art, 
 in theology, -by a hasty scramble through the mid- 
 night scribble of our cheaper dailies, is rather doubt- 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 53 
 
 ful, or, rather, not doubtful at all. The most ap- 
 propriate prayer, when one takes up the penny 
 newspaper, is an invocation of the spirit of unbelief. 
 But the best-used book of your small philosopher 
 is the newspaper. He is unchurched in art, in 
 science, in theology. He hears great names; he 
 obtains glimpses of great truths ; he puts half- 
 truths in the place of systems that will bear the 
 microscope ; and when religious science occasionally 
 gets his haughty hearing, it cannot on the Sabbath- 
 day go into secular discussion with him, and you 
 cannot hold his attention at first, except by secular 
 discussion. You say that I am using this Lectureship 
 very maladroitly, and that it is not wise to discuss 
 here evolution and materialism. I do not speak to 
 or for ministers or scholars, although they crowd this 
 hall ; I am talking to small philosophers. 
 
 Lord Bacon said that " truth emerges sooner from 
 error than from confusion; " and, in the spirit of that 
 remark, you will allow me to be analytical, and to 
 number my propositions, in order that I may save 
 time, and yet be distinct in a crowded discussion. 
 Twenty concessions having been mentioned in a 
 previous lecture, it is next to be noticed that it is 
 notorious that evolutionists admit, 
 
 21. That life is incompatible with the gaseous 
 state, or the state of fused metals. 
 
 22. That our present knowledge justifies the con- 
 clusion, that probably two hundred millions, and cer- 
 tainly five hundred millions, of years ago, the earth 
 and the sun were in a fused state. 
 
54 BIOLOGY. 
 
 23. That neither two hundred nor five hundred 
 millions of years are enough to account for the for- 
 mation of plants and animals from primordial cells 
 on the theory of the Darwinian transmutation. 
 
 These, gentlemen, are the outlines of what many 
 men of science regard as the most serious of all 
 objections to the hypothesis of evolution. This is the 
 only difficulty to which Professor Huxley in his New- 
 York lectures condescended to reply, it is the most 
 prominent of the objections which Hackel endeavors 
 to refute in his recent daring work on " The History 
 of Creation." I now hold in my hand this book, of 
 which Darwin himself says, that its author has much 
 more information than he has on many points, and 
 that, if it had appeared before " The Descent of 
 Man," the latter work would probably never have 
 been written. Professor Hackel teaches at present in 
 the University of Jena, in Germany ; and he is one ot 
 the most extreme of evolutionists. He denies the free- 
 dom of the will, and is a thorough-going defender of 
 the theory of the possibility of spontaneous generation 
 (HACKEL, History of Creation, chap. xiii.). IJe 
 affirms, as Huxley does, that we have no direct evi- 
 dence that spontaneous generation has ever occurred, 
 and that it is against all the analogy of current nature 
 to suppose that it has occurred. But he knows the 
 exigencies of the radical form of the theory of evo- 
 lution ; and so he assumes, with Strauss, that possi- 
 bly in a cooling planet a living cell may have been 
 originated by the fortuitous concourse of atoms. A 
 cell once originated, we can account for all life. But 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 55 
 
 he is painfully aware that the Darwinian transmuta- 
 tion requires almost immeasurable time. " In the 
 same way," he says, " as the distances between the 
 different planetary systems are not calculated by 
 miles, but by Sirius-distances, each of which comprises 
 millions of miles, so the organic history of the earth 
 must not be calculated by thousands of years, but 
 by paleontological or geological periods, each of 
 which comprises many thousands of years, and per- 
 haps millions, or even milliards of thousands of 
 years" (^History of Creation, chap. xxiv.). To the 
 same effect speak Lyell and Dana, and even Darwin 
 (LYELL, Geology, vol. i. pp. 234, 235 ; DANA, G-eolo- 
 gy, ed. of 1875, p. 591 ; DARWIN, Origin of Species, 
 p. 286). 
 
 Now, Professor Huxley very strangely said, in his 
 lectures in New York, that, if the astronomer and geol- 
 ogist will settle between themselves the question as to 
 the length of geological time, he will "agree with 
 any conclusion." 
 
 Not so speaks the candid Darwin ; not so the 
 audacious Hackel ; not so Lyell ; not so Dana ; not 
 so any cautious evolutionist ; not so even Huxley 
 himself, when he talks before scholars. 
 
 "Thousands of millions of years," says Dana 
 (Geology, pp. 59, 591), "have been claimed by some 
 geologists for time since life began. Sir William 
 Thomson has reduced the estimate, on physical 
 grounds, to one hundred millions of years as a maxi- 
 mum." " Any " conclusion ! Let us take the best 
 estimate there is, that of one hundred million years ; 
 
56 BIOLOGY. 
 
 and Hackel implicitly affirms that this is not enough 
 for the process of the Darwinian transmutation. 
 
 What is the evidence, gentlemen, that our earth 
 and the sun were in a molten condition, say, five 
 hundred millions of years ago ? We tolerably well 
 know of what materials the sun is composed. We 
 bring down by the spectroscope its talkative rays, 
 and we can tell what metals are in it. We know the 
 nature of these metals on our globe. Heat is the 
 same thing here and there; gravitation, the same 
 here and there ; light, the same here and there. The 
 immense argument of analogy makes us sure of our 
 footing just so far as the unity of nature prevails. 
 We can estimate approximately what the heat must 
 have been that would fuse the globe and the sun. 
 Sir William Thomson, whose scientific eminence no 
 man will deny, went into a very labored calcula- 
 tion, not long ago, to determine how many years 
 since it was that the sun was a molten mass, and 
 how many years since it was that the globe was in 
 a fused state ; and it is very significant that he came 
 to the same conclusion in both cases. The two con- 
 clusions tallied. The sun, he said, must have been 
 in a molten state four hundred millions of years ago 
 at the most ; and it probably was in that state two 
 hundred millions of years ago at the least. The 
 same may be said of the earth, which, however, was 
 not cool enough to admit life until about one hun- 
 dred millions of years ago, as Dana says. 
 
 When we look at the reasons why Professor Huxley 
 sneers at this argument, we are the more amazed. 
 
THU CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 57 
 
 " The biologist," he says, " knows nothing whatever 
 of the amount of time which may be required for 
 the processes of evolution." Does not he know 
 that there is an immense extent of time required for 
 it ? " Nothing whatever " known about the period 
 needed ! Why, all Darwinians are agreed, all evolu- 
 tionists are agreed, that we must take Sirius-distances 
 to measure the time required by evolution. " I have not 
 the slightest means of guessing," said Professor Hux- 
 ley at New York, " whether it took a million of years, 
 or ten million, or an hundred million of years, or a 
 thousand millions of years, to give rise to that series 
 of changes." On Darwin's, Lyell's, Dana's, and 
 Hackel's authority, this must be called careless talk. 
 It leaves a colossal objection unshattered. (See North 
 British Review, 1867, vol. xlvi. p. 304.) 
 It is admitted by evolutionists, 
 
 24. That variability in species is a lessening quan- 
 tity as descendants are farther and farther removed 
 in form from their progenitors. 
 
 25. That, as every lessening must be a finite quan- 
 tity, species are known to vary only within compara- 
 tively narrow limits. 
 
 26. That selective breeding has thus far found 
 variability a limited quantity. 
 
 27. That the observed differences caused by varia- 
 bility are infinitely small as compared with the range 
 of variability required by the Darwinian theory. 
 
 It has been well said that the savage, looking upon 
 a projectile of modern artillery, might carelessly 
 think it would reach the stars. He does not make 
 
58 BIOLOGY. 
 
 allowance for the circumstance that the speed of the 
 ball is a lessening quantity. We find it to be a fact, 
 that, the farther a derived animal form is removed 
 from its progenitor, the less and less rapidly varia- 
 tions proceed. It follows, therefore, that these les- 
 sening variations may be fitly represented by a 
 sphere, the original progenitor being the centre, from 
 which there may be variations in all directions, and 
 to which there may be reversions in any direction 
 (North British Review, vol. xlvi., art. on "The Ori- 
 gin of Species"). The variations are like the throw- 
 ing-up of a cannon-ball from the earth ; the motion 
 away from the central point is slower and slower as 
 the distance between the ball and the central point 
 is greater and greater. We assuredly know that it is a 
 truth of science that variability is a lessening quantity ; 
 and we therefore do know mathematically that there are 
 limits to variability; for every lessening number is a 
 finite quantity. Thus, gentlemen, there are broad 
 distinctions to be made between so-called species of 
 a variable and real species of an unvarying kind. If 
 we are to be abreast of our modern science, we shall 
 be shy of saying that there is nothing which has been 
 called a species which may be transmuted into another 
 species. 
 
 I would confine the definition of species to the limits 
 of ascertained variability. Here is the sphere of vari- 
 ation ; and we know that the more any descendant 
 varies from its progenitor, the more likely it is 
 to revert. It may go back in a single generation. 
 The law of science is, that variability, being a lessen- 
 
THE CONCESSIONS O3F EVOLUTIONISTS. 59 
 
 ing, is a finite quantity. If you will draw a circle 
 around the outermost sphere of variability, you will 
 have what Hiickel calls a " good species " in distinc- 
 tion from a merely nominal species. The thing we 
 need most in the discussion of evolution is a new defi- 
 nition of species. A. real species will be conterminous 
 with the outermost limits of the sphere of ascertained 
 variability. Grant me this definition, and I will stand 
 with established science on the fact that we have no 
 direct evidence that any real species, thus defined, has 
 ever been transmuted into another species. [Applause.] 
 It is notorious that evolutionists concede, 
 
 28. That the cubic capacity of the brain of the 
 highest apes is thirty-four inches, and of the lowest 
 men sixty-eight. 
 
 29. That the brain of man is by much larger than 
 he needed in the struggle for existence. 
 
 30. That the struggle for existence, or natural 
 selection, does not account for the brain of man. 
 
 31. That the eye of the trilobite, one of the oldest 
 of fossil forms, is fully developed and perfect. 
 
 32. That the trilobites appear suddenly in the geo- 
 logical record ; that there are no premonitions of 
 their approach ; and that there is as yet no direct 
 evidence that they had any ancestry. 
 
 33. That the use of an organ may account for its 
 modification, but not for its formation, since it cannot 
 be used until it is formed. 
 
 34. That in many cases, like those of the eye of 
 the trilobite and the brain- of man, not only the 
 theory of natural selection, but that of sexual selec- 
 tion, breaks down completely. 
 
60 BIOLOGY. 
 
 35. That in some cases it is impossible to imagine 
 what has produced useful variations in animal forms. 
 
 36. That, in certain instances, the adaptation of 
 means to ends cannot be accidental, but must be 
 referred, not to natural, but to supernatural law; 
 that is, not to the habitual, but to unusual divine 
 action. 
 
 These, gentlemen, are startling concessions; arid 
 the most startling of them all is the last, that there 
 are instances in which the adaptation of means to 
 ends "cannot be accidental." But those are Dar- 
 win's words. You will remember that in his deli- 
 cious book on the " Fertilization of Orchids," at the 
 end of its first chapter he speaks of a marvellous 
 arrangement by which, in one species of these flowers, 
 the sipping-moths are " purposely delayed in obtain- 
 ing nectar." He says, " If this is accidental, it is a 
 fortunate accident for the plant. If this be not acci- 
 dental, and I cannot believe it to be accidental, what 
 a singular case of adaptation ! " Professor Mivart 
 {Lessons from Nature, 1876, chaps, ix. and x.) quotes 
 several similar admissions from Darwin's later writ- 
 ings ; and he regards them as a virtual, though not 
 explicit, retraction of the theory of natural selection. 
 You say these are all careless expressions on the part 
 of Darwin ? I beg pardon : they are not so under- 
 stood by men of scientific competence, some of whom 
 watch him more closely than the tiger watches its 
 prey. 
 
 I am riot one of those who lie in wait to find fal- 
 lacies in Darwin; for it matters little to me, as a 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 61 
 
 student of religious science, which one of the three; 
 or four theistic systems of evolution is proven to be 
 the best. If there is a change, I know that every 
 change must have an adequate cause. If there is 
 order in the universe, I know there must have been 
 an Ordainer; for every change must have had an 
 adequate cause. Based upon incontrovertible axio- 
 matic truth, any man may stand in the yeasting seas 
 of speculation, and feel that victorious reef tremorless 
 beneath him ; ay, and fall asleep on it, while the 
 rock, in muffled stern thunders, speaks to the waste, 
 howling midnight surge, " Aha ! thus far ye come, but 
 no farther." Men can never give up belief in causa- 
 tion. If we know there has been evolution in the 
 universe, we know that there has been an Evolver ; 
 and, if design, a Designer ; for every change must 
 have a sufficient cause. It will not be to-morrow, 
 nor the day after, that men will give up self-evident, 
 axiomatic truths. 
 
 Owen, Parsons, Mivart, Dana, and Darwin him- 
 self, all admit that useless characteristics and organs 
 cannot be explained by natural selection ; and Dar- 
 win has made lately many admissions of his over- 
 sights on this point. 
 
 Dana, to the latest date, disagrees completely with 
 Huxley and Hackel as to the origin of man, and 
 agrees with Owen, Gray, Mivart, Parsons, and the 
 whole long, stately, and growing list of the theistic 
 school. 
 
 It is not denied anywhere, that a certain extent of 
 variation may be experimentally produced by ex- 
 
62 BIOLOGY. 
 
 ternal conditions, as in the brine shrimp and the 
 axiolott. What is denied is, that external condi- 
 tions can account for the difference between the 
 not-living and the living. 
 
 It seems to be the policy of atheistic and agnos- 
 tic evolutionists to obscure the distinction between 
 a theory and the theory of evolution. The tendency 
 of science is in favor of the former, and against the 
 latter; that is, for Dana and Hermann Lotze, and 
 against Herbert Spencer and Hackel. The different 
 schools of evolutionists must be distinguished, or 
 there can be no clearness of discussion on this theme. 
 
 You will allow me to read one passage from Pro- 
 fessor Dana on the great contrast between the brain 
 of man and that of apes. Professor Dana, with re- 
 spect be it said, is not a Darwinian ; it is hardly fair 
 to call him, without qualification, an evolutionist. 
 He believes that evolution explains much ; he does 
 not believe that it explains every thing. He does 
 not account for man by evolution. He agrees with 
 Wallace, Darwin's great coadjutor, with regard to the 
 origin of the human will and conscience. Professor 
 Dana, in justifying his significant concessions, says 
 (Geology, p. 603), "In the case of man, the abrupt- 
 ness of transition 4 from preceding forms ' is still more 
 extraordinary, and especially because it occurs so 
 near to the present time. In the highest man-ape, 
 the nearest allied of living species has the capacity 
 of the cranium but thirty-four cubic inches ; while 
 the skeleton throughout is not fitted for an erect 
 position, and the fore-limbs are essential to locomo- 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 63 
 
 tion : but, in the lowest of existing men, the capacity 
 of the cranium is sixty-eight cubic inches ; every bone 
 is made and adjusted for the erect position ; and the 
 fore-limbs, instead of being required in locomotion, 
 are wholly taken from the ground, an4 have other 
 and higher uses." 
 
 You will be told that Professor Huxley has said that 
 man differs less from the apes than the upper apes do 
 from the lower apes, or than the uppermost men 
 from the lowermost. You will be assured that there 
 is this and that and yet another point of resemblance 
 between the skeletons of man and of the apes. But 
 bring the contrast to the real test. What of the 
 brain ? That is the central portion of the system : 
 increased cephalization is the law of the progress of 
 animal forms ; and, the moment you compare man 
 and the ape on that strategic point, the difference is 
 half. 
 
 Thirty-four cubic inches of cranial capacity on the 
 animal side, sixty-eight on the human, and no link 
 between the two ! Forty years given to the search ! 
 All the agony of the defence of the Darwinian hy- 
 pothesis engaged in all quarters. of the globe in filling 
 up this tremendous gap, and the colossal absence yet 
 remaining ! 
 
 Professor Agassiz lies in Mount Auburn yonder ; 
 and on his breast there is a bowlder from his native 
 Alps. Whenever I look on it, I think what a bowlder 
 that man may have carried on his breast into his grave, 
 because he was not able to develop the proposition 
 which he laid down as a gantlet before Darwinism 
 
64 BIOLOGY. 
 
 in the last article lie ever printed. You remember 
 that in our brilliant Atlantic Monthly, face to face 
 with the world, Professor Agassiz, a few days before 
 he passed into that Unseen Holy where all puzzles 
 are solved, affirmed that it can be proved that the 
 geological record is not so imperfect but that we 
 know what existed between the highest apes and 
 the lowest men, and that, however broken it may 
 be, " there is a complete sequence in many- parts of 
 it, from which the character of the succession may 
 be determined" (Atlantic Monthly, vol. xxxiii. p. 
 101). He promised to prove that. He bent that 
 colossal bow, and it dropped out of his dying hand. 
 On the English-speaking globe, now that Lyell has 
 gone hence, there is no man but Dana that can 
 take up that bow, and bend it. But what does 
 Dana say ? Go to Agassiz's grave ; take with you 
 these yet moist sheets of the last number of the 
 American Journal of Science and Arts ; read over 
 Agassiz's tomb the latest utterance of the high- 
 est and gravest authority in American geological 
 science, and you may bring solace to a hovering, 
 mighty spirit for an unfinished task. You will read 
 Dana's latest words (American Journal of Science 
 and Arts, October, 1876, p. 251) : " For the devel- 
 opment of man, gifted with high reason and will, and 
 thus made a power above Nature, there was required, 
 as Wallace has urged, a special act of a Being above 
 Nature, whose supreme Will is not only the source of 
 natural law, but the working-force of Nature herself. 
 This I still hold" You say that Agassiz was unduly 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 65 
 
 theistic, and assumed that there is nothing in evolu- 
 tion. Dana is more cautious. The present state of 
 knowledge, he says (Greology, pp. 603, 604), favors 
 the theory that " the evolution of the system of life 
 went forvvard through the derivation of species from 
 species, according to natural methods not clearly 
 understood, and with few occasions for supernatural 
 intervention. The method of evolution admitted 
 of abrupt transitions between species ; but for the 
 development of man there was required the special 
 act of a being above Nature, whose supreme will 
 is the source of natural law." Huxley has come; 
 Huxley has spoken ; Huxley has gone ; and Dana, 
 over Agassiz's grave, joins hands with Agassiz in 
 the Unseen Holy, to affirm that man is the breath of 
 God. [Applause.] 
 
 It is notorious that evolutionists concede, 
 
 37. That "molecular law is the profoundest ex- 
 pression of the Divine Will." This is Dana's lan- 
 guage (Am. Jour., October, 1876, p. 250). 
 
 38. That, therefore, even if the nebular hypothe- 
 sis be accepted, design in creation yet stands proved. 
 
 39. That, even if spontaneous generation under 
 molecular law were demonstrated, the fact of design 
 in creation would yet stand proved. 
 
 If you will elaborately master Professor Stanley 
 Jevons's famous work on the " Principles of Science," 
 you probably will come to his theistic conclusions, 
 even if you believe in the possibility of spontaneous 
 generation under molecular law. We have had im- 
 portant works on the logical method and order, from 
 
66 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Aristotle to Kant and Hamilton ; and yet, Professor 
 Pierce of Harvard being judge, there have been few 
 more important productions on that theme than the 
 " Principles of Science," by Stanley Jevons, professor 
 of logic and political economy at Owens,' s College 
 Manchester. He is an evolutionist; but he is also a 
 logician. 
 
 " I cannot," he says, "for a moment admit that tlie 
 theory of evolution will alter our theological ideas. . . . 
 The precise reason why we have a backbone, two 
 hands with opposable thumbs, an erect stature, a 
 complex brain, about two hundred and twenty-three 
 bones, and many other peculiarities, is only to be 
 found in the original act of creation. I do not, any 
 less than Paley, believe that the eye of man manifests 
 design. I believe that the eye was gradually devel- 
 oped ; but the ultimate result must have been contained 
 in the aggregate of causes ; and these, so far as we can 
 see, were subject to the arbitrary choice of the Creat- 
 or " [applause] ( JEVONS, PROFESSOR W. STANLEY, 
 Principles of Science, vol. ii. pp. 461, 462). 
 
 It is notorious that even Tyndall concedes, 
 
 40. That if a right-hand spiral movement of the 
 particles of the brain could be shown to occur in 
 love, and a left-hand spiral movement in hate, we 
 should be as far off as ever from understanding the 
 connection of this physical motion with the spiritual 
 manifestations (Fragments of Science, pp. 120, 121). 
 
 It is conceded by Dana, 
 
 41. That the possession by man of free-will and 
 conscience shows that he must have been brought 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 07 
 
 into existence by a being at least as perfect as him- 
 self; that is, by an agency possessing free-will and 
 conscience. 
 
 42. That evolutionists are of two schools, the ex- 
 travagant and the moderate, or the wholesale and the 
 discriminating ; and that the former do, and the latter 
 do not, account for man by the theory of evolution. 
 
 Hackel concedes, 
 
 43. That the theory of man's descent from apes is, 
 according to the admission of the wholesale evolu- 
 tionists, deductive, and not inductive, a result of 
 speculation, and not of observation. 
 
 44. That it probably can never be established by 
 the inductive, that is, by the most strictly scientific 
 method. 
 
 Do you suppose that I think that this audience 
 can be cheated? I do not know where in America 
 there is another weekly audience with as many brains 
 in it ; at least I do not know where in New England 
 I should be so likely to be tripped up if I were to 
 make an incorrect statement, as here. " The process 
 of deduction," says Hackel, " is not based upon any 
 direct experience. Induction is a .logical system of 
 forming conclusions from the special to the general, 
 by which we advance from many individual experi- 
 ences to a general law. Deduction, on the other 
 hand, draws conclusion from the general to the 
 special, from a general law of nature to an individual 
 case. Thus the theory of descent is, without doubt, a 
 great inductive law, empirically based upon all bio- 
 logical experience. The theory, on the other hand, 
 
68 BIOLOGY. 
 
 which asserts that man has developed out of lower, 
 and, in the first place, out of ape-like mammals, is a 
 deductive law inseparably connected with the general 
 inductive law " (HACKEL'S History of Creation, vol. ii. 
 p. 357). 
 
 The theory of man's origin from apes is not based 
 upon direct experience. Merely deductive conclu- 
 sions from circumstantial evidence are sometimes 
 lawful. We do not know all about the worlds be- 
 yond the sweep of the telescope ; but so firmly is the 
 theory of gravitation established that we believe that, 
 if a new world should be discovered, it would be 
 found to be under the law of gravitation. If you will 
 prove by induction the system of evolution as thoroughly 
 as the Copernican system has been proved by induction, 
 you may then fill gaps by deduction. Astronomers pre- 
 dict sometimes that eclipses will occur, and they do 
 occur according to prediction ; and we think, there- 
 fore, that we have ascertained something conclusive 
 as to the mechanism of the heavens. If evolutionists 
 can by selective breeding produce from the same stock 
 two varieties so widely differing that their crossing will 
 produce sterile hybrids, then Twill say that they have a 
 scientific right to fill up by deduction the gaps in the 
 direct evidences of evolution, and not till then. [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 Professor Hackel further concedes, 
 
 45. That " most naturalists, even at the present day, 
 are inclined to give up the attempt at natural explana- 
 tion " of the origin of life, " and take refuge in the 
 miracle of inconceivable creation " (HACKEL'S History 
 of Creation, vol. i. p. 327). 
 
THE CONCESSIONS OF EVOLUTIONISTS. 6& 
 
 The trouble with your small philosopher- in Massa- 
 chusetts and England is, that he out-Darwins Darwin 
 and out-Hiickels Hackel. It is important, at times, 
 that the pulpit should show that it is not afraid of 
 these topics ; and you will notice, that, in this Lec- 
 tureship, the theme of evolution is not skipped. 
 
 You will pardon me one further word on Bathy- 
 bius, which Professor St. George Mivart calls a sea- 
 mare's nest. 
 
 " No more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me." 
 
 Hackel has minutely figured Bathybius in the 
 plates of his most elaborate works. Huxley named 
 it from Hackel, Bathylius HdckeliL Strauss rested 
 on Bathybius the central arch of his argument 
 against the supernatural. 
 
 It was the haughty claim of Huxley and Strauss 
 and Hackel, 
 
 46. That Bathybius is an organism without organs. 
 
 47. That it performs the acts of nutrition and 
 propagation. 
 
 48. That, with other organisms like itself, it stands 
 at the head of the terrestrial history of the devel- 
 opment of life. 
 
 49. That it spans the chasm between the living 
 and the not living. 
 
 50. That it renders belief in miracle impossible. 
 Hackel makes Bathybius a stem from which all 
 
 terrestrial life divides, and comes to its present state 
 {History of Creation, vol. i. pp. 184, 344, and vol. ii. 
 p. 53). It would not be worth much for me here to 
 
70 BIOLOGY. 
 
 cut down this or that bough in the great tree ; but if, 
 with the latest scientific intelligence, I may strike 
 at its bottom stem, Bathybius, I shall have done 
 something. You must not think that students of 
 religious science have no right to be interested in 
 this classical organism. We have heard of it in theo- 
 logical works. We had it thrust in our faces as 
 proof that a miracle is impossible. We therefore are 
 interested, when, walking past our bookstores, we can 
 pick up the yet fresh sheets of the American Jour- 
 nal of Science and Arts, and turn to a passage on 
 Bathybius in an article on the voyage of the ship 
 Challenger. Will gentlemen here do themselves 
 the justice, and this topic the justice, to read this 
 authoritative intelligence (October number, pp. 267, 
 268) ? You will find there this closing concession : 
 51. That Bathybius has been discovered in 1875 
 by the ship Challenger to be hear, O heavens ! 
 and give ear, O earth ! sulphate of lime ; and that, 
 when dissolved, it crystallizes as gypsum. [Applause.] 
 
IV. 
 
 THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM, 
 
 THE FORTY- NINTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY LEC- 
 TURESHIP, DELIVERED IN THE MEIONAON OCT. 23. 
 
irrpvov, GKioeidea <f>i)7i' 
 
 ARISTOPHANES: Aves, 
 
 Blut ist ein ganz besonderer Saft. 
 
 Die Geisterwelt ist niclit verschlossen; 
 Dein Sinn ist zu, dein Herz ist todt! 
 Auf! bade, Sch tiler, unverdrossen 
 Die ird'sche Brust im Merge nroth. 
 
 GOETHE: Faust. 
 
IV. 
 THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 
 
 PLATO in his Pheedon represents Socrates as say- 
 ing in the last hour of his life to his inconsolable fol- 
 lowers, " You may bury me if you can catch me." 
 He then added with a smile, and an intonation of 
 unfathomable thought and tenderness, " Do not call 
 this poor body Socrates. When I have drunk the 
 poison, I shall leave you, and go to the joys of the 
 blessed. I would not have you sorrow at my hard 
 lot, or say at the interment, ' Thus we lay out Soc- 
 rates ; ' or, ' Thus we follow him to the grave, and bury 
 him.' Be of good cheer : .say that you are burying my 
 body only " (PLATO, Phcedon, 115 ; JOWETT'S Plato, 
 vol. i. pp. 465, 466; QUOTE'S Plato, vol. ii. p. 193). 
 
 Materialism teaches that there is nothing in the 
 universe but matter and its laws ; that there is no 
 spiritual substance ; and that what is called mind or 
 soul in a man is but a mode of force and motion in 
 matter, and cannot exist in separation from the body. 
 
 If materialism is the truth, you and I cannot die 
 as well as Socrates did. If that part of us which 
 thinks and loves and chooses is not separable from 
 
 73 
 
74 BIOLOGY. 
 
 our present material frames, our souls are like the 
 electrical charges in the glands of the poor torpedo- 
 fishes, certain to cease to exist as soon as the cells 
 which originate them have been dissolved. On the 
 Peruvian coasts of South America, men drive horses 
 down to the edge of the great deep, in order that they 
 may receive shocks from electric-eels ; and sometimes 
 the hoof of a horse will smite the life out of one of 
 his tormentors; and then the wrecked swimming 
 creature ceases forever to be an electric battery, 
 because the cells in which the electricity originated 
 are destroyed once for all. Now, materialism is the 
 doctrine that the soul is in some sense secreted by the 
 brain, as electricity is by the cells of the torpedo-fish 
 or electric-eel, and that, when the brain is dissolved, 
 the soul is no more. I do not call this an impious 
 inference, if it be, indeed, an inference fairly deduci- 
 ble from facts ; truth is truth, even if it sears our 
 eyeballs ; I call it, however, a withering inference. I 
 am not prejudiced against any conclusion reached 
 through clear ideas ; but the momentous issues in- 
 volved in the affirmations of materialism make me 
 anxious to look into these cells, which Hiickel and 
 Biichner and Moleschott say originate the soul. Ca- 
 banis, as Carlyle narrates with grimmest humor, 
 thought the brain secreted soul as the liver does bile. 
 This philosophy, and the gospel according to Jean- 
 Jacques, were, we know, two of the broadest and 
 blackest of the far-flapping Gehenna wings that 
 fanned the furnaces of the French Revolution. 
 It is not commonly known, except among special- 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 75 
 
 ists in microscopical physiology, that the latest science 
 has something to say to us of immense import as to 
 the relations of matter and life. That theme comes 
 home to the business and bosoms of all men ; and, 
 whatever be the verdict of full investigation, all will 
 be eager to face it, who seek, as we do here, whatever 
 is new and true and strategic in religious thought. 
 On the doctrine of organic cells and living tissues, 
 there is surely no book over fifteen years old that is 
 not largely worthless. A text-book on geology, it is 
 often said, is out of date as soon as it is printed. So 
 swift has been the advance of microscopic investiga- 
 tion, that our cell-theory, which began to be elabo- 
 rated in 1838, has made its supreme advances since 
 1860. " All life from a cell : " we have heard that 
 doctrine since 1840. " All life from bioplasm," which 
 is the core of the organic cell, we have heard as a 
 scientific truth since about 1860. The first physio- 
 logical microscopist in the English-speaking world is 
 now Professor Lionel Beale of King's College, London ; 
 and his. work on " Protoplasm, or Matter and Life," 
 published with elaborate original plates, some of which 
 are of as late a date as 1874, is one of the most impor- 
 tant contributions made to knowledge recently by any 
 original investigator of this central question of ques- 
 tions, whether, when the cells of the brain are dis- 
 solved, the soul, like so much electricity, developed 
 through them, is dissipated forever. 
 
 You remember, gentlemen, that in Dresden the 
 great picture of the Madonna di San Sisto has an inte- 
 rior which everywhere suggests an ineffable exterior. 
 
76 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Many look upon that painting, and study the hushed, 
 shoreless awe and self-surrender of the eyes of the 
 cherubs in the lower part of the transfigured canvas, 
 and do not ask on what, the cherubs are looking. 
 But to cause the observer to ask that, is the chief 
 object of this inspired part of the painting. The 
 Madonna di San Sisto was made for an altar-piece. It 
 was intended to stand before burning incense. In a 
 great cathedral its place would be behind the altar, 
 on which incense is burned to ascend to an unseen 
 but near Holy of holies. It is on the central Ineffa 
 ble Presence before the picture, and to which the 
 incense rises, that these supernaturally intense eyes 
 of the cherubs are looking. Santa Barbara, as you 
 will observe, divides her adoration between the Son in 
 the arms of the mother and the Unspeakable Unseen 
 before him. Another kneeling figure looks toward 
 what is within, but points to what is without. Even 
 the eyes of the Son and the mother gather mysteri- 
 ous, measureless strength from the Unseen Ineffable 
 to which the incense rises. To me, for one, that 
 which is exterior in this most celebrated painting of 
 all time is more impressive than that which is inte- 
 rior. If you look on the interior, there in the back- 
 ground, and not noticeable at first, but filling all the 
 ambient air behind the mother and the Son, is a 
 cloud made up of innumerable blissful faces of super- 
 natural beings in eternal youth. But when at Dres- 
 den, day after day for a month, I studied the paint- 
 ing, I always forgot these in the Central Presence 
 to which the incense ascends; and I went away 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 77 
 
 always in a kind of trance. I know nothing in art 
 that moves me as much as the Unseen Holy suggested 
 before that picture. 
 
 Will you follow me long enough to-day, my friends, 
 to find out that this Madonna di San Sisto of Raphael, 
 whose interior suggests an ineffable exterior, is a true 
 analogue of the cell, God and the soul without, 
 inert matter within, every movement of the lattei 
 pointing to the former as its only adequate cause. 
 Come near enough to this Madonna painting of Al- 
 mighty God, and you will be convinced that it was 
 the purpose of the Artist to make the interior sug- 
 gest the ineffable exterior. [Applause.] 
 
 When we study living matter with the highest 
 powers of the microscope, and under the lead of the 
 best original investigators, what does the latest sci- 
 ence see ? 
 
 1. That nothing that lives is alive in every part. 
 
 2. That the substance of every living organism 
 consists of three parts, 
 
 (1.) Nutrient matter, or pabulum. 
 
 (2.) Germinal matter, or bioplasm. 
 
 (3.) Formed matter, or tissue, secretion and de- 
 posit. 
 
 As you stand on some murmurous shore of a tropi- 
 cal sea, and pick up a beautifully colored shell, with 
 its occupant yet in it, you easily perceive a difference 
 between the living and the not-living part of that 
 organism. No doubt the shell grows ; and yet, even 
 while the animal bears it about upon his back, parts 
 of the shell are as truly inanimate as they are when 
 
78 BIOLOGY. 
 
 afterward the painted wonder lies on the shelf of your 
 cabinet. The shell grows, but not in every part, if 
 it be of mature size. It increases its bulk chiefly by 
 additions of matter at its edges and on its interior ; 
 and these increments are made by a process of 
 growth in the softer parts of the organism. We 
 ourselves do not carry very large shells about upon 
 our persons ; but the finger-tips are incased in deli- 
 cate shells, of which by no means every particle is 
 living. It once has been living ; but when you pare 
 matter away from the back of a shell, or from the 
 edge of the finger-nail, you find a very great distinc- 
 tion between it and the quick flesh that is touched 
 in a nerve. Four-fifths of the bulk of most organ- 
 isms, animal and vegetable, is made up of formed 
 matter. Only one-fifth is really alive. 
 
 Into the centre of every organic cell there flows a 
 current of nutrient matter, or pabulum ; and this may 
 be wh.olly inorganic. It may be gas ; it may be a 
 mineral compound ; it may be formed material from 
 meats and fruits. In a cell [referring to a figure 
 the speaker drew upon the blackboard] this nutrient 
 matter is first transformed into living matter, and 
 next the living matter is thrown off as formed mate- 
 rial, to make the cell-wall. There are two currents 
 in an organic cell, one flowing inward, and convey- 
 ing nutrient matter with it ; the other outward, and 
 bearing with it formed material. 
 
 In the centre of the cell, by a process that cannot 
 be explained by chemistry or any physical science, 
 the nutrient matter is changed into living matter. 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 79 
 
 At the outer edge of the cell, formed material ac- 
 cumulates, and is in some cases tissue, in some secre- 
 tion, in some an osseous deposit. 
 
 You have now, I hope, gentlemen, a distinct idea 
 of the three kinds of matter which are to be found 
 in all living organisms, pabulum or nutrient mat- 
 ter, bioplasm or germinal matter, tissue or formed 
 matter. There are no living organisms, vegetable or 
 animal, that are not made up wholly of these three 
 kinds of matter. 
 
 It is only within a comparatively few years that 
 we have been able to demonstrate under the micro- 
 scope the existence of this distinction between the 
 inner portions of 'the cell and the cell-wall. Why, Pro- 
 fessor Huxley himself, down to 1853, considered the 
 core of the cell as of little importance, and as having 
 no peculiar office (" The Cell-Theory," Medical Chir. 
 Rev., October, 1853). He has changed his opinion 
 now on that point, as on several others concerning 
 the cell-theory; and this fact is not to his discredit 
 at all, because the microscopial study of living mat- 
 ter is advancing so rapidly, that theories of 1850 and 
 1860 must often be abandoned. 
 
 Professor Lionel Beale, who is an accepted authority 
 as to this class of facts, however much his inferences, 
 which I do not now present to you, may be objection- 
 able to materialists, has made large use of a most 
 important process of staining living tissue by a solu- 
 tion of carmine in ammonia. That particular solution 
 makes red whatever is living in a tissue, and does 
 not color formed material. When you drench a tis- 
 
80 BIOLOGY. 
 
 sue in that solution of carmine in ammonia, you take 
 it out with all the bioplasts stained red. This dis- 
 covery has been a source of great advances in our 
 knowledge of living tissues, so many of the ultimate 
 parts of which are colorless, and as difficult as water 
 to dissect optically. Fastening the highest magnify- 
 ing power upon tissue prepared by this carmine pro- 
 cess, what do we see ? 
 
 3. That germinal points, or bioplasts, are scattered 
 so pervadingly through all organic structures that in 
 no organism is there a space one five-hundredth of 
 an inch square without a germinal point, or bioplast. 
 
 We are sure to find, in any piece of living matter 
 of that size, a bioplast that will color red in a solu- 
 tion of carmine in ammonia. 
 
 4. That the germinal points, or bioplasts, are the 
 only living matter. 
 
 5. That all formed matter has once been living 
 matter, and so differs totally from inorganic matter. 
 
 Every particle of your oyster-shell has once been 
 living, growing matter, although it now is dead ; and 
 yet, although inanimate, it is not inorganic. The 
 shaggiest back of an oyster is matter of a totally 
 different kind from that of the sand and clay and 
 pebbles of which it makes a couch. Every particle 
 of your muscle, nerve, or bone, has once been a bio- 
 plast. 
 
 I use the word " bioplasm " instead of " protoplasm," 
 because it is a more definite term. It means always 
 that germinal substance which has the power of trans- 
 muting not-living into living matter, and of movement, 
 
THE MICKOSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 81 
 
 of self-multiplication, and of producing formed mate- 
 rial. " Protoplasm " is a word that has been applied to 
 so many different styles of matter, that its indefinite- 
 ness in present usage is a frequent source of confusion 
 of thought in biological discussions. "Bioplasm" 
 and "bioplasts" are words which "agree well with 
 " biology," the accepted name of one of the greatest 
 of the sciences. 
 
 6. That in the cell of an organic tissue the central 
 portion is always a bioplast. 
 
 7. That nutrient matter for the bioplasts may con- 
 sist of inorganic matter, or of formed matter. 
 
 8. That the bioplasts convert the nutrient into 
 living matter, and the living into formed matter. 
 
 9. That the transmutation of the not-living into 
 the living occurs in the bioplasts instantaneously. 
 
 You will read in the older physiologies that all 
 tissues are made up of cells ; and that is, of course, 
 true ; but you must not suppose that it is the latest 
 doctrine that the cell is the object of supreme inter- 
 est in living tissue. The cell-wall is formed matter. 
 The bioplast is the unit of growth. Bioplasm may 
 exist without an enveloping wall. It may be a bio- 
 plast, and not a cell. You may have expected me to 
 say much about cells and the cellular theory ; and I 
 am talking about bioplasts and the bioplasmic theory., 
 The theory of bioplasts has superseded the theory of 
 cells, or rather has given to the latter more definite- 
 ness ; so that now we speak of cells with meanings 
 derived from bioplasts. 
 
 10. That the cell-wall is formed matter, and not 
 
82 BIOLOGY. 
 
 alive, and not necessary to the work of transmuta* 
 tion affected by the bioplast. 
 
 11. That bioplasts always arise from previous bio- 
 plasts. 
 
 12. That they have the power of self-movement 
 in any direction. 
 
 13. That they are capable of self-subdivision. 
 
 14. That each portion of a self-divided bioplast 
 has the same powers as its parent bioplast. 
 
 15. That, when dead, bioplasts cannot be resusci- 
 tated. 
 
 Let us pause here for a moment to notice leisurely 
 the confusion of thought of those who compare this 
 transmutation of the not-living into the living, with 
 the formation of a crystal. I can form a crystal and 
 dissolve it, and form a crystal again out of the solu- 
 tion. I can take two gases, and mix them, and pro- 
 duce water ; and then, by an easy chemical process, 
 I can change the water into these two gases ; and I 
 can do this, back and forth, any number of times. 
 But, gentlemen, if a bioplast is once dead, it cannot 
 be resuscitated. Materialists talk about the process 
 of life being a kind of " vital crystallization," what- 
 ever that may mean. Be sure that you hold to 
 clear ideas. Revere the orthodoxy of straight- 
 forwardness. [Applause.] I want no philosophy, no 
 platform, no pulpit, no dying-pillow, that does not rest 
 on rendered reasons. Owen, who fifteen years ago 
 wrote his great work on the " Anatomy of the Verte- 
 brates," opposed in it Darwinism. He called that 
 system as a whole a " guess endeavor." As others 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 83 
 
 were guessing,' he himself ventured to guess how the 
 chasm between the not-living and the living might be 
 bridged. Fifteen years ago, Dr. Lionel Beale did not 
 stand as a lion in the way of such guessing. Owen 
 put forward as a possible hypothesis that we shall 
 find out some day that there is "molecular ma- 
 chinery" that accounts for the phenomena of life. 
 He thinks life in its simplest forms may perhaps be 
 compared to the power a magnet exerts when it 
 attracts certain particles to itself, and rejects others. 
 It seems to have the power of selection. You might 
 say that the magnet is feeding itself to see how it 
 draws up to itself metallic dust. But the reply to 
 all that is, You may magnetize and demagnetize your 
 poor iron any number of times; but kill once the 
 smallest living organism, and there is no remagnetiz- 
 ing that. You may change your magnet from state 
 to state, as you may change water to gases, and gases 
 to water. You may braid and uribraid the threads of 
 any inorganic whip-lash again and again, but once 
 unbraid any living strands, and there is no braiding 
 them together again forever. [Applause.] 
 
 16. That what the bioplasts effect in the transmu- 
 tation of nutrient into living matter, and of the latter 
 into formed material, chemistry can neither imitate 
 nor explain. 
 
 You must not allow yourself to fall into doubt as 
 to the attitude of materialistic philosophers on this 
 proposition. Who is Hackel ? He is a materialist. 
 What is a materialist ? One who denies that there 
 is any spiritual substance in the universe, and affirms 
 
34 BIOLOGY. 
 
 that matter is the only thing that exists. Can 
 Hackel believe in the immortality of the soul ? It 
 is a mild statement to say that he must be in grave 
 doubt about it. Can Hackel believe in God ? He 
 sa3"s in so many words that " there is no God but 
 necessity." What does Hackel affirm concerning 
 the ability of chemistry to bridge the colossal chasm 
 between the living and the not-living ? That it is 
 powerless to do so. That it is impotent to explain 
 how inorganic is transmuted into organic matter. 
 There is nothing in chemistry that can produce life. 
 I asked a friend who lately took his degree in chem- 
 istry at Gottingen what was thought there about the 
 possibility of producing in the laboratory any par- 
 allels to the action of the bioplasts. " We have 
 given up," said he, " the idea that we can make 
 things grow." " Most naturalists of our time," says 
 Hackel, "are inclined to give up the attempt to 
 account for the origin of life by natural causes " {His- 
 tory of Creation, vol. i. p. 327). DuBois Reymond 
 says, " It is futile to attempt by chemistry to bridge 
 the chasm between the living and the not-living." 
 
 In the bioplast occurs a change which is a sealed 
 volume to the deepest physical science. Here is the 
 not-living, and there is the living ; and instantane- 
 ously the change of the former into the latter is 
 effected. You look with your microscope upon thf3 
 centre of the bioplast, and what do you see? Little 
 germinal points arising in the centre, and enlarging. 
 The bioplast seems to boil bioplasts from its centre. 
 It moves. It divides itself here before our eyes 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 85 
 
 [illustrating on the blackboard]. It throbs. You 
 watch it under your microscope. The viscid mass 
 is throwing out a promontory here and a promontory 
 there, against gravitation, and contrary to all we 
 know of chemical force. Suddenly there come great 
 inlets here and there ; and soon your one bioplast has 
 made of itself two bioplasts. Each of the new l:'o- 
 plasts continues to receive nutriment ; and in its 
 interior the mysterious transmutation of the not- 
 living into' the living, and the preparation of formed 
 material, go on again. Each will divide again ; and 
 thus, little by little, we find formed matter woven at 
 the edge of these creeping bioplasts into what ? 
 Nerve, bone, muscle, artery. We find the not-living 
 changed into the living, and formed material thrown 
 off how ? So as to produce all the tissues of the 
 body. 
 
 Your microscope demonstrates that the little bio- 
 plast has not only the throbbing movement, and 
 power of self-multiplication, but of rectilinear move- 
 ment also. Once this bioplast was here. . It threw 
 off formed material ; and that formed material flows 
 away behind it as your thread flows from your spin- 
 dle. It flows away here as what ? As an incipi- 
 ent nerve. But here another group of bioplasts 
 spin, and a thread flows away as what ? As mus- 
 cular fibre. There you weave your nerve, there 
 your muscle, there your bone, and there your artery. 
 The bioplasts move on ; they convert constantly the 
 nutrient material into living matter, and throw off 
 formed material; and whea at last this thread is 
 
8ti BIOLOGY. 
 
 wound, it has a contractile quality. When that is 
 wound, it has the power of transmitting what we call 
 the nervous force ; or, when the other is wound, it is 
 the beginning of a bone : when this other, that is the 
 commencement of an artery; or when this other, 
 that is an incipient vein. 
 
 We stand in awe before this action of the bioplasts 
 as incoritrovertibly indicating intelligence somewhere. 
 If you please, when the egg begins to quicken, must 
 not the whole plan of your eagle, or of your lion, be 
 kept in view from the first stroke of the shuttles ? 
 It is something to weave a nerve, is it not ? It is 
 enough to keep us on our knees to know that this 
 little mass of colorless, viscid, and, under the micro- 
 scope, apparently structureless matter, can weave 
 osseous, muscular, and nervous fibres. But what if 
 they can not only spin these different threads, but 
 also weave them into warp and woof ? I am putting 
 before you facts that are not controverted at all. 
 Dr. Carpenter adopts these views in the latest edi- 
 tion of his famous " Physiology." They are wholly 
 authoritative statements of what goes on in every 
 living tissue. Among materialists and anti-mate- 
 rialists, as they walk over this high table-land of 
 science, there is, I assure you, my friends, unanimity 
 as to essential facts at present ; and by and by, per- 
 haps, there will be unanimity as to inferences from 
 facts. My belief is, that these facts should be put 
 before all scholars, and not kept from the masses. 
 [Applause.] The members of the legal, clerical, and 
 literary professions, are trained in the logical method 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 87 
 
 as mercilessly as physicists are, and have a right to 
 test reasoning, even where they cannot for themselves 
 verify facts. When I stand here before lawyers, and 
 before learned ministers, and before scholars better 
 informed than I have had opportunity to be on these 
 great themes, I feel, that, although not men of sci- 
 ence, you have the right to test the reasoning of 
 science. I am bringing to you here only what are 
 conceded to be facts ; and you are competent to test 
 the logic of the facts. It is the right of every mind 
 to look into the logic of whatever touches immor- 
 tality, the soul, and all that is highest in human 
 endeavor. 
 
 It is beyond contradiction that we know that these 
 little points of structureless matter spin the threads, 
 and weave the warp and woof, of organisms. But the 
 bioplasts are of apparently just the same matter in the 
 eagle and in the lion. You look into the centre of 
 the egg of the eagle, and you will see a little mass 
 of colorless, viscid substance, wholly structureless, so 
 far as the highest power of the microscope can reveal 
 its nature. But, when the egg begins to quicken, 
 there is a different segmentation for each of the four 
 great classes of animal forms. All eggs of the class 
 of vertebrates, for instance, begin their development 
 in the same way, and run on in the same way for a 
 while ; but your radiates begin another way, and 
 your articulates another. Examined by all the phy- 
 sical tests known to science, bioplasm is the same, 
 however, in your radiate, and articulate, and verte- 
 brate. 
 
88 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Take the twittering swallows under the brown 
 eaves, or your eagle on the cliff, or your lion in his 
 lair : the egg, in each case, is the source of life ; and, 
 when the quickening begins, there is nothing to be 
 seen at the centre of the egg but this structureless, 
 colorless, viscid bioplasm. Nevertheless, it divides 
 and subdivides, and weaves, in the one case a lion, 
 and in the other a swallow, and in the other an eagle ; 
 and I affirm, in the name of all reason, that, from the 
 very first, the plan of the whole organism must be in 
 view somewhere. [Applause.] You know that when 
 a temple is built, the plan of it is in the corner-stone. 
 You know that when the weaver strikes his shuttle 
 for the first time in the finest product of his art, the 
 whole plan of the figures of the web is before him. 
 We see here the bioplasts weaving their threads : 
 we then see them co-ordinating threads and co-ordi- 
 nating them so as, in the one case, to make your swal- 
 low, in another case to make your eagle, in another 
 case to make your lion, and in another case to make 
 your man ; and why shall we not say, following the 
 law, that every change must have an adequate cause, 
 that somewhere and somehow there is here what all 
 this mechanism needs, FORECAST ? [Applause.] 
 
 What are men talking about when they attribute 
 all this to merely "molecular machinery"? Gen- 
 tlemen, it is out of date to say that "molecular 
 arrangement" accounts for nerve and bone and 
 tissue and artery and vein. It is getting too late to 
 say that merely molecular arrangement accounts for 
 the weaving of organic threads and the interweaving 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 89 
 
 of thread with thread. Will you consider what a 
 complicated process is required to produce that hand 
 of yours, or this eye, or this ear ? No doubt strange 
 powers come into existence with the bioplast. Every 
 bioplast is derived from a bioplast: there is your 
 structureless machine, there a little glue-like, color- 
 less matter ; and that is all there is. All life begins 
 in the bioplast; and every bioplast known to man 
 has been derived from a preceding bioplast. Out of 
 what, then, came the first one ? [Applause.] 
 
 Professor Huxley writes for " The Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica " an elaborate article on biology ; and in 
 the opening page of it he says, " The chasm between 
 the not-living and the living the present state . of 
 knowledge cannot bridge." Bring materialism to 
 the edge of that chasm. Hackel calls the bioplasts 
 plastids, but confesses that -they are mysteries. You 
 find in them complicated processes going forward in 
 apparently structureless matter. You see chemical 
 law apparently set at defiance. The action of mate- 
 rial forces appears to be reversed. Hackel, over and 
 over, admits that we cannot produce life, and that 
 we know of nothing but bioplasm that ever has 
 produced it; but somewhere and somehow in the 
 turmoil of a cooling planet, he thinks, forsooth, that 
 there must have been a cell originated by fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms, or spontaneous generation. 
 
 Precisely there is the rock, gentlemen, on which 
 both materialism and the radical form of the evolu- 
 tion theory wreck themselves. There is, I willingly 
 admit, a use, as well as an abuse, of the theory of 
 
90 BIOLOGY. 
 
 evolution. Perhaps Hackel and Huxley illustrate its 
 abuse : Dana illustrates its use. But when I stand 
 at the side of the chasm between the not-living and 
 the living, I, for one, face to face with facts, and 
 all theory put aside, feel as I felt at Dresden before 
 that Ineffable Holy. I am in the presence of 
 Almighty God. Every change must have an adequate 
 cause ; and the organic living cell must have outside 
 of it a God, and inside of it an immaterial principle, 
 to be accounted for under the law of causation. 
 
 Huxley, more cautious than Hackel, says that life 
 is the cause of organization, and not organization the 
 cause of life.. He has printed that opinion over and 
 over (HuxLEY, Introduction to the Classification of 
 Animals), and never taken it back. Well, if life is 
 the cause of organization, probably it is safe to say 
 the cause must exist before the effect. At least, that 
 is Nature's logic. But, if life may exist before organi- 
 zation, why not after it ? I affirm that the microscope 
 begins to have visions of man's immortality. [Applause.] 
 
 Some force forms the parts of an embryo. 
 
 That which forms the parts is the cause of the 
 form of the parts. 
 
 The cause must exist before the effect. 
 
 The force which forms the parts of an embryo, or 
 of any living organism, exists, therefore, before the 
 parts. 
 
 Life is thus the cause of organization, and not or- 
 ganization the cause of life. 
 
 Life, therefore, exists before organization. 
 
 If it exists before, it may after. 
 
THE MICROSCOPE AND MATERIALISM. 91 
 
 Summarizing, then, the latest science analytically, 
 we see in living matter, 
 
 17. That the bioplasts' are a colorless, viscid, and 
 apparently structureless substance, and the same in 
 all animals. 
 
 18. That they throw off the formed material, so 
 that it constitutes nerve, brain, muscle, artery, vein, 
 bone, and all the mechanism of the organism. 
 
 19. That, although of the same chemical composi- 
 tion in the eggs of the different animals, they weave 
 tissues such as to produce the different plans of these 
 animals. 
 
 20. That their action involves, therefore, both the 
 formation of tissues and their growth according to 
 the needs of the animal. 
 
 '21. That it involves the production of all those 
 structures, which, in animal and vegetable organisms, 
 exhibit an adaptation of means to ends. 
 
 22. That it involves the co-ordination of tissues, 
 secretions, and deposits in the organism. 
 
 23. That the plan of the whole organism is neces- 
 sarily taken into view from the first stroke of the 
 shuttles of the bioplasts that weave it. 
 
 Tennyson sings with an emphasis of far-reaching 
 thought : 
 
 " Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies ; 
 Hold you here in my hand, 
 Little flower, root and all. 
 And if I could understand 
 What you are, roots and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is." 
 
92 BIOLOGY. 
 
 So we may say in the light of established science : 
 
 Cells in the crannied flesh, 
 
 I pluck you out of your crannies ; 
 
 Hold you here in my hand, 
 
 Little cells, throbs and all. 
 
 And if I could understand 
 
 What you are, throbs and all, and all in all, 
 
 I should know what God and man is. 
 
V. 
 
 I.OTZE, BEALE, AND HUXLEY ON LIVING TISSUES. 
 
 THE FIFTIETH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN PARK- 
 STREET CHURCH OCT. 30. 
 
" THIS seems to me to be as sure a teaching of science as the law 
 of gravitation, that life proceeds from life, and nothing but life." 
 SIR WILLIAM THOMSON, " Inaugural Address before the British 
 Association," Nature, vol. iv. p. 269. 
 
 "THE scientific mind can find no repose in the mere registration 
 of sequences in nature. The further question obtrudes itself with 
 resistless might, Whence came the sequences ? " PROFESSOR TYN- 
 DALL Fragments of Science, p. 64. 
 
V. 
 
 LOTZE, BEALE, AND HUXLEY ON LIVING 
 TISSUES. 
 
 PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 OUE, people are about entering on a presidential 
 election in presence of all the other nations who are 
 our guests. If a man's head, character, and career are 
 each a truncated cone, lacking all the upper zones, 
 he is no fit centennial candidate. This autumn's 
 choice may be a rudder of the cause of civil-ser- 
 vice reform in many a century to come. Both 
 political parties assert that a great evil exists in 
 the management of our party political patronage; 
 and both call loudly for reform. Is it not the 
 duty of thoughtful men in all the professions to 
 see to it that gilded demagogism does not teach 
 the people a lie in the smooth name of democ- 
 racy? We are told that we must beware of an 
 aristocracy of office-holders. We are assured that 
 civil-service reform, such as both parties demand, 
 may end in the creation of an office-holding class. 
 Which is the worse, to have the great mass of the 
 minor offices in politics the gift of the higher offices, 
 
 95 
 
96 BIOLOGY. 
 
 the upper and lower playing into each other's hands, 
 like gift-enterprises and their patrons, or to have the 
 rule established which Washington and Jefferson and 
 Adams and Madison indorsed, that men shall neither 
 be appointed nor removed on the principle that to 
 political victors belong all political spoils, but shall 
 be put into office for ability and availability, and 
 kept there for good behavior? Let us take patronage 
 from party, and give it to the people. Vast gift-enter- 
 prises in politics are the subtlest threat in the American 
 future. They call for attention from all scholars, 
 although, perhaps, not for much discussion in the 
 pulpit as yet. Ministers know much of which they 
 do not speak in public. But, in our circles of influ- 
 ence, it is assuredly in our power to turn public 
 thought upon this enormous mischief in the cur- 
 rent political life of a yet young nation. Our 
 Woolseys, our Danas, our Tildens, and our Hayeses 
 are united ; and shall educated men of all classes not 
 unite the parlor, the platform, and the pulpit on this 
 now strategic theme ? On civil-service reform, or 
 any other great cause, give me a union of the parlor, 
 the pulpit, and the platform, and I will insure a right 
 attitude of the press; and give me a union of the 
 parlor, the pulpit, the platform, and the press, and a 
 right attitude of politics and of the police will follow. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 THE LECTUEE. 
 
 At certain seasons, it was the custom of the Doges 
 of Venice to symbolize the marriage of their city to 
 the sea by casting a ring into the waves. Transfig- 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 97 
 
 tired marble, Venice stood at the head of the Adriatic, 
 and made the howling, waste, immeasurable brine 
 her servant. But her conquest was one of love, and 
 of the natural superiority of the loftiest spiritual 
 purposes. The sea murmured through her streets: 
 she made it float her traffic. The Mediterranean 
 flashed far and wide ; and far and wide Venice made 
 ifc carry her thought, her enterprise, her beneficence. 
 The modern Venice is religious science : the modern 
 Mediterranean is physical science. Transfigured 
 marble, the loftiest spiritual purposes on earth 
 wherever they exist are the city. Far-flashing, 
 immeasurable sea, a waste plain unless ridden by 
 fleets of holy wills and beneficent enterprises this 
 is physical science. That city purposes to cover that 
 sea with such fleets. The sea and the city rejoice 
 equally in their nuptials. On this occasion I wish, 
 after the manner of the Doges of Venice, to .cast into 
 that sea as a marriage-symbol the ring of the living 
 cell. 
 
 You will allow me to be elementary ; for we can- 
 not approach the mysteries of the microscope with 
 clearness of thought, without attention to some very 
 humble details. ' Let me ask every gentleman here to 
 look to-morrow morning at the unsharpened edge of 
 his razor in order to form a distinct idea of what the 
 one-thousandth part of an inch is. I suppose a thou- 
 sand dull razor-edges put side by side might make an 
 inch. Now, under our better present microscopes, how 
 much breadth may such a razor's edge be made to ap- 
 pear to have ? We can magnify the one-thousandth 
 
98 BIOLOGY. 
 
 part of an inch to the breadth of three fingers, or, 
 exactly speaking, to the length of that line [referring 
 to colored diagrams exhibited on the platform]. 
 The one-thousandth part of an inch, or the dull edge 
 of your razor magnified twenty-eight hundred times 
 linear, is as thick as your three fingers (Beale's 
 " Microscope "). When you have a dot only the 
 one four-thousandth part of an inch in diameter, 
 that is, a dot so small that four like it could lie 
 abreast of each other on your razor's edge, and when 
 you magnify that dot four thousand times, it is 
 of precisely the size of this dot, or as large as an 
 English shilling. We are going into a labyrinth, my 
 friends ; and I wish you to know what opportunities 
 for exact observation the latest science furnishes. 
 You will hear the assertion, that, under the highest 
 powers of the microscope, protoplasm or bioplasm is 
 apparently structureless. I beg you to look at your 
 razor's edge in order that when you examine bio- 
 plasm with a power that magnifies twenty-eight hun- 
 dred times in a linear direction, and know that a 
 line the thousandth part of an inch thick, under 
 that power would be three fingers broad, you may 
 be tolerably certain, that, if there is any structure in 
 the bioplasm that carmine can stain, you will see it. 
 If you are told that this transparent, colorless, and 
 apparently structureless substance is molecular ma- 
 chinery, and that it has purely physical arrange- 
 ments, which not only weave bone, muscle, artery, 
 vein, and nerve, but can co-ordinate tissue with 
 tissue, and produce wholly by machinery a plant or 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 99 
 
 animal, you must remember that under your micro- 
 scope, which gives your razor's edge the breadth of 
 your three fingers, all bioplasm appears to be abso- 
 lutely structureless. 
 
 Ariadne, you know, had a clew, a little thread, 
 which she received from Vulcan, and which she gave 
 to Theseus, by the aid of which he safely penetrated 
 the famous labyrinth of Minotaurus. Cultivated men 
 are now thoughtfully walking into a labyrinth far 
 more complicated than that. Philosophy, not for the 
 first time, but with better weapons than ever before, 
 is entering the border-land between the physical and 
 the spiritual, a labyrinth on the border-ground of 
 the two kingdoms of mind and matter ; a border on 
 which will be fought the Waterloos of philosophy for 
 an hundred years to come ; a border which will be 
 contested as the Rhine never was ; a border where 
 soul and matter, God and man, meet; a border where 
 the questions of immortality, of freedom of the will, 
 of moral responsibility, and even of the Divine Exist- 
 ence itself, will be discussed by the iron lips of the 
 best intellectual artillery on the globe. Now we 
 have in this labyrinth an Ariadne clew, and what is 
 it? Why, simply the axiomatic iruth, that every 
 change must have a sufficient cause. Until the Seven 
 Stars set in the East, men will not give up their 
 belief, that, whenever a change occurs, there must be 
 an adequate cause for it. We are to behold changes 
 occurring in matter, that, under the best micro- 
 scope, is apparently structureless. We are to behold 
 harmoniously concurrent changes occurring, that 
 
100 BIOLOGY. 
 
 when taken together amount to the building up of 
 your hand and nerves and veins, and heart and eai 
 and eye and braift ; and not only to that, but to the 
 co-ordinating and adjusting the wants of each one of 
 these to the wants of each of the others. ExacTa 
 ovfipaxoi name, as the Greeks used to say (all the 
 allies of each) : this is the most wonderful fact in the 
 arrangements of the parts of any living organism. 
 Not only the formation of ^ach part, but the co-ordi- 
 nation of part with part in organic structures, is to 
 be explained, without violence to self-evident truth. 
 We stand before structureless bioplasm, and see it weav- 
 ing organisms ; and we are to adhere, in spite of all 
 theories, to the Ariadne clew, that every cause is to be 
 interpreted by its effects, and that all changes must 
 have adequate causes. [Applause.] 
 
 Before I come to the discussion of the process of 
 carmine staining of living tissues, it is important that 
 I should sketch briefly the history of the cell-theory 
 in physiology. 
 
 What right have I to know any thing about phy- 
 siological and microscopical research ? How should 
 a minister, who, if born to his calling, is, as many 
 think, neither man nor woman, but something be- 
 tween the one and the other, dare to know any thing 
 about the microscope ? I notice that the New- York 
 Nation a journal which I respect for its culture, but 
 which occasionally takes a merely library view of hu- 
 man affairs says that it looked over the catalogues 
 of our theological seminaries lately, and did not find, 
 forsooth, that any thing important is known in these 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 101 
 
 professional schools about the recent progress of phi- 
 losophy or physiology. [Applause.] It found by an 
 attentive examination of printed documents,. about 
 as good evidence concerning the theological instruc- 
 tion in our seminaries as tombstones in cemeteries are 
 concerning the characters of those who lie beneath 
 them [laughter], it discovered, after an exhaustive 
 and astute examination of catalogues, .that ministers 
 have no acquaintance whatever with philosophy in 
 its latest forms. It did not ascertain that at Prince- 
 ton Theological Seminary that mossy, mediaeval 
 school there is a professorship of the relations be- 
 tween religious and other science. At Andover a 
 little less mossy, possibly, as you think, but yet suffi- 
 ciently mediaeval there is a lectureship on that sub- 
 ject; and at some near date there may be established 
 there too, God willing, a professorship on that very 
 theme. Unless a man is equipped in what little of 
 logic and metaphysics a Sir William Hamilton and a 
 John Stuart Mill can teach him, he is not adequately 
 prepared for the Aristotelian lecture-room of Profes- 
 sor Park. What shall we say of the thousand sides 
 of the culture of such a man as Schleiermacher, or 
 Julius Miiller ? 
 
 Go to Germany ; and what name at this instant 
 leads the philosophy of the most learned land on the 
 globe ? What philosopher is read with the most en- 
 thusiasm by students of religious and philosophical 
 science in Germany and England and Scotland ? 
 Hermann Lotze. Who is he ? I am acutely sorry 
 that you have heard of Herbert Spencer, whose star 
 
102 BIOLOGY. 
 
 touches the Western pines, and know nothing of 
 Hermann Lotze, whose star is in the ascendant. The 
 most renowned of the modern German philosophers, 
 he is a great physiologist, as well as a great meta- 
 physician (see art. on " Hermann Lotze " in Mind, 
 July number, 1876). He is the one that is teaching 
 all Germany he taught me, among others to look 
 at this border-land with all the. reverence with which 
 we bow down before Almighty God. Who is Her- 
 mann Lotze ? A man recognized everywhere as 
 thoroughly acquainted with physiology, as Herbert 
 Spencer is not, especially with the latest research. 
 A scholar enriched by the massive spoils of all the 
 German metaphysical systems, and made opulent by 
 all physiological knowledge, and building up with 
 these two sides the colossal arch of a new system, 
 with many a Christian truth at its summit. Although 
 Hermann Lotze, as professor in the philosophical fac- 
 ulty at Gottingen, and one of the higher advisers 
 of the court of Hanover, does not put himself for- 
 ward as an apologist for any one particular school 
 of religious opinion, he is everj^where regarded as a 
 supporter of that form of Christian philosophy which 
 is now absorbing all established science. He is a 
 theist of the most pronounced kind. As to evolu- 
 tion, his positions are nearly those of Dana. He is 
 full of scorn for the idea that the Power that put 
 into us personality does not itself possess personality. 
 Carlyle, toward the end of his famous history of 
 Frederic the Great, says there was one form of 
 scepticism which the all-doubting Frederic could not 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 103 
 
 endure. " Atheism, truly, he never could abide: to 
 him, as to all of us," says Carlyle, " it was flatly 
 inconceivable that intellect, moral emotion, could 
 have been put into him by an Entity that had none 
 of its own " (CARLYLE, Frederic the Great, book 23, 
 chap. 14). This inconceivability is the central prop- 
 osition of Hermann Lotze's philosophy, the most bril- 
 liant, the most audacious, the most abreast of the 
 time, of all the philosophies of the globe. You say I 
 am a re-actionary evangelical, and that I stand here 
 endeavoring to hold back the wheels of progress. I 
 find that I have been publicly compared in grave 
 print to one of the persecutors of Galileo ; not in so 
 many words, but in thought. The truth is, that, in- 
 stead of being re-actionary, this Boston Lectureship 
 is abreast of the latest German investigation. I am 
 proud to say that I have some acquaintance with 
 Hermann Lotze, and that I regard him as the rising, 
 as Germany regards Herbert Spencer as the setting, 
 star in philosophy. [Applause.] 
 
 Now, gentlemen, to be brief, the cell-theory and 
 its history may be summarized in twelve proposi- 
 tions : 
 
 1. In 1838 the microscope was sufficiently per- 
 fected to furnish a solid basis for the observation of 
 facts. 
 
 2. Schleiden founded the cell-theory, but restricted 
 it to plants. With him the cell consisted of a vesicle 
 and semi-fluid contents. 
 
 3. Schwann added to Schleiden's two elements a 
 third, the nucleus. 
 
104 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Why am I running over this history ? Sir William 
 Hamilton never would discuss any great theme with- 
 out looking back across the record of its discussion 
 in order to obtain the trend of opinion through a 
 long range. Without historical retrospect, we are 
 easily deceived by temporary swirls of opinion. We 
 have yet another clew besides the one of cause and 
 effect : it is the unanimity of experts. A fair state 
 ment of the history of the cell-theory will show 
 that the points that are central in the modern form 
 of that theory were established thirty-five years ago, 
 and that there has been unanimity of conclusion as 
 to all the more essential facts. 
 
 (1.) " This semi-fluid substance," says Schwann, 
 " possesses a capacity to occasion the production of 
 cells." 
 
 (2.) " When this takes place, the nucleus usually 
 appears to be formed first, and then the cells around 
 it." 
 
 You will -not fail to remember the distinction be- 
 tween living matter and formed matter, and that 
 nutrient matter is transmuted by the bioplast into 
 living matter, and then thrown off as formed mate- 
 rial. But in the cell are nuclei and nucleoli ; and the 
 question of questions in the central part of the cell- 
 theory is, whether the bioplasm existed before the 
 nucleus, or the nucleus before the bioplasm. 
 
 Schwann gave as his opinion on that point thirty 
 years ago, that the nucleus appears to be formed by 
 the semi-fluid substance in the cell. 
 
 (3.) " The cell, when once formed, continues to grow 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 105 
 
 ly its own individual powers, but is at the same time 
 directed by the influence of the entire organism in such 
 a manner as the design of the whole requires. This is 
 the fundamental phenomenon of all animal and vegeta* 
 lie "life:' 
 
 These words of Schwann are more than thirty-five 
 years old, and express the central truth of the bio- 
 plasmic theory of to-day. 
 
 (4.) " The generation of the cells takes place ill 
 a fluid, or structureless substance, which we may 
 call cell-germinating material (" Zellenkeimstoff," 
 SCHWANN, Reports of the Sydenham Society, 1847, 
 p. 39). 
 
 So much for the cellular theory up to 1840. 
 
 4. In 1841 Dr. Henle adopted the cell-theory of 
 Schleiden and Schwann, but pointed out the multi- 
 plication of cells by division and budding. 
 
 5. In the same year Dr. Martin Barry showed the 
 reproduction of cells by division of the parent 
 nucleus. 
 
 6. In 1842 and 1846 J. Goodsir confirmed Barry's 
 proposition, and maintained that " the secretion 
 within a primitive cell is always situated between 
 the nucleus and the cell-wall, and would appear to 
 be a product of the nucleus ("Anatom. Memoirs," 
 vol. ii., Trans, of the Royal Soc.- of Edinburgh, 1845, 
 p. 417). 
 
 7. In 1845 Nageli showed the comparative unim- 
 portance of the cell-wall. 
 
 8. In 1851 Alexander Brown proved that the cell 
 wall is non-essential. 
 
106 BIOLOGY. 
 
 9. In 1857 Leydig first decidedly declared as estab- 
 lished science that the cell-wall is non-essential. 
 
 10. In 1861 Max Schultze observed that many of 
 the most important kind of cells are destitute of a 
 cell-membrane. He defined the cell as " a little 
 mass of protoplasm inside of which lies a nucleus. 
 The nucleus as well as the protoplasm are products 
 by partition of similar components of another cell." 
 In 1854 Max Schultze had described certain non- 
 nucleated cells, and doubts were thrown on the uni- 
 versality of the nucleus. 
 
 11. In 1856 Lord S. G. Osborne discovered the 
 process of the carmine staining of vegetable and 
 animal tissues. 
 
 12. By aid of this process Professor Lionel Beale, 
 between 1856 and 1866, so far advanced the knowl- 
 edge of living tissues, that now his bioplasmic theory 
 at once supplements and supersedes the cellular the- 
 ory (TYSON, JAMES, The Cell Doctrine; DRYSDALE, 
 DR. JOHN, Protoplasmic Theory of Life : London, 
 1874, pp. 12-108). 
 
 Are you shy of accepting the assertion that the 
 cellular theory, of which you have heard so much, 
 has been superseded by the protoplasmic or bioplas- 
 mic theory? Here is Hackel himself, who says, 
 " The protoplasm or sarcode theory that is, that 
 this albuminous material is the original active sub- 
 stratum of all vital phenomena may perhaps be 
 considered one of the greatest achievements of mod- 
 ern biology, and one of the richest in results " 
 (HACKEL, Quar. Mic. Jour., 1869, p. 223). 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 107 
 
 While we abandon to-day the cell-theory in its old 
 form, we retain it in the new form, if we please to 
 put into the doctrine of the cell the idea that the 
 cell-wall is not essential, but that what is essential 
 is the central viscid, transparent bioplasm, or living, 
 germinal matter. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am not a bold man, and therefore I 
 have adopted as an inflexible rule, not to trust any 
 man's authority as to facts in science without advice to 
 do so from his determined opponents. It would have 
 been enough for me to have had, as I did have, the 
 authority of James Dana for trust in Professor Lionel 
 Beale's statements of facts concerning living tissues. 
 One of the most distinguished theological scholars in 
 this country, whom, out of reverence, I will not name, 
 was afflicted nervously, and threatened with loss of 
 sight. Physicians in this learned city, and in Paris, 
 again and again prescribed for him, but fruitlessly. 
 Dr. Lionel Beale in London was recommended to 
 him ; and one hour of examination of the case was 
 followed by a single prescription, which was effectual, 
 and has been so year after year through a quarter of 
 a century. [Applause.] In one of my groves near 
 Lake George there is a beech which I call " The 
 Bioplast Beech," so delicious were x the hours I spent 
 there this summer with Hermann Lotze and Beale 
 and Dr. Carpenter and Dana and Darwin, and a score 
 of other books of science. m Beale's celebrated Lec- 
 tures before the Royal College of Physicians in 1861, 
 on living tissues, and his discoveries concerning bio- 
 plasm, were preceded by a work on " The Micro 
 
108 BIOLOGY. 
 
 scope," which you had better not buy yet, simply 
 because it is going into a fifth edition. It is a bulky, 
 elaborate book, full of plates; and I have seen it 
 worn ragged in my library, as I call the Athenaeum 
 yonder, with its one hundred thousand volumes, ifcs 
 one hundred magazines, and one hundred newspapers 
 and excellent professional collections. It is a signifi- 
 cant sign when a book of science is worn ragged in 
 a library used by the Sumners and Wilsons and 
 Emersons, and other men who are not likely to 
 waste time on rubbish. 
 
 Beale's volumes I find worn eloquently black, and 
 Bastian's hardly stained. Some small philosopher 
 may tell you that Beale is no authority, and that 
 many of his propositions are in dispute. One of 
 them is ; but it is a proposition that I am not using 
 at all, namely, that the nerves end in loops. Even 
 on that obscure point, opinion is turning more and 
 more to Beale's side. But when a costly work on 
 the microscope, with elaborate plates filled with the 
 results of original research upon living tissues, goes 
 in a few years into a fifth edition, and its author is 
 commonly pronounced to be the first microscopist of 
 the English-speaking world, and when his facts agree 
 with those of Frey, the greatest authority on the same 
 subject in the German-speaking world, even a timid 
 man may read such a book without any great tremor. 
 In examining authorities in science, I seek first to 
 ascertain on what points there is an agreement of the 
 best English and the best German publications ; but 
 that is not enough. We must have the authority of 
 his rivals for trusting any man as an expert. 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 109 
 
 What do the opponents of Beale's conclusions say 
 of his facts ? 
 
 1. Dr. John Drysdale of Edinburgh is the author 
 of a work on " The Protoplasmic Theory of Life ; " 
 and in 1874 was president of the Liverpool Micro- 
 scopical Society. He has given head and heart to 
 the doctrine that bioplasm is a form of matter sui 
 generis ; and that its activity is an outcome of trans- 
 muted physical force, or the result ef "irritability 
 under stimulation." 
 
 He opposes vehemently Beale's conclusion that the 
 actions of bioplasm require to account for them a 
 higher than physical force. But of Beale he sayy, 
 " A master-mind appeared in 1860, we are glad to 
 say, in the person of our countryman, Dr. Lionel 
 Beale of London. He had for years devoted himself 
 with unwearied zeal to microscopial research on the 
 animal tissues, using the highest magnifying powers 
 as- soon as available, and had attained to an almost 
 unrivalled skill, and had discovered various new 
 methods of the preparing objects, which enabled him 
 to analyze the structures of the textures to a point 
 not hitherto reached by anatomists. In 1860 he 
 wrote those ' Lectures on the Structure of the Sim- 
 ple Tissues of the Human Body,' which were de- 
 livered before the Royal College of Physicians in 
 1861, and which are destined, I believe, to make an 
 epoch in the progress of physiological science. Since 
 then, Dr. 'Beale has gone on completing and expand- 
 ing his system, and filling up the details, and has car- 
 ried i ou t in pathology to an extent of completeness 
 
110 BIOLOGY. 
 
 and consistency marvellous for the short time as yet 
 given, and as being the work of one man ; a fact 
 which in itself shows he has seized 011 one great and 
 central principle, which enables him to bring into 
 practical harmony a vast number of scattered obser- 
 vations both of his own and of others. Beale's proto- 
 plasmic theory now takes the place of the cell-theory. 
 General opinion is now in accord as respects the facts 
 with Dr. Beale's statements on the nucleus in 1860 " 
 (DBYSDALE, DR. JOHN, Prot. Theor. of Life : London, 
 1874. Pp. 41, 68, 103). 
 
 2. Professor Alexander Bain makes Beale's facts 
 the basis of the central chapter in his work on " Mind 
 and Body," one of those tempting but disappoint- 
 ing royal roads to knowledge called " The Interna- 
 tional Scientific Series." Bain, as you know, teaches 
 that only matter exists in the universe, but that 
 matter rightly defined is " a double-faced somewhat, 
 having a spiritual and a physical side." That is 
 the nearest approach to a definition that either he 
 or Tyndall has given. In this marvellous compound 
 unit there coinhere in one substratum extension and 
 the absence of extension, form and the absence of 
 form, activity and the absence of activity, all the 
 perfectly contradictory attributes of matter and mind. 
 .1 suppose that it may be asserted that mind is co- 
 extensive with matter ; but never, until we can believe 
 that a thing can be and not be at the same time and 
 in the same sense, will men who love clear ideas 
 adopt Tyndall's and Bain's self-contradictory defi- 
 nition of matter. But even Bain leans confidently 
 
LIVING TISSUES. Ill 
 
 on Beale whenever he speaks of microscopical phy- 
 siology. 
 
 In arguments before juries, Webster often asked 
 his opponents, "Why do you not meet the case?" 
 Remember that famous phrase of his, if you hear the 
 materialistic theory of evolution defended. What is 
 the case against that theory ? It consists of the 
 irreconcilable opposition of the attributes of matter 
 and mind, of the unfathomed gulf between the not- 
 living and the living, of the fact that spontaneous 
 generation has never been shown to be a possibility, 
 and of the missing links between men and apes. Let 
 these points be met fairly, and the case is met. Not 
 until the chasm between the not-living and the liv- 
 ing is filled up by observation, not until that distant 
 time when you shall have found some merely physical 
 link between the inorganic and organic, can you say 
 that the theory of evolution has been proven by induc- 
 tion. A theory of evolution has been proved, but not 
 the theory. The public mind is immensely confused 
 by this one word of many meanings. A. theory of evo- 
 lution Dana holds, but not the theory. The position 
 of this Lectureship is, that there is a use and an 
 abuse of the theory of evolution, and that Hiickel 
 illustrates the abuse, and Dana the use. I hold 
 a theory of evolution, but not the theory. What do 
 I mean by the theory of evolution ? Precisely what 
 Huxley means when he says in so many words 
 (Encyc. Brit., ninth ed. art. " Biology "), that " if the 
 theory of evolution is true, the living must have 
 arisen from the not-living." 
 
112 BIOLOGY. 
 
 3. You want Huxley himself in support of Beale, 
 and you shall have him. The most important propo- 
 sitions that I shall present to you on this occasion I 
 hold here in my hands ; and they are all in the lan- 
 guage, though not in the order of statement, wfiich 
 Professor Huxley uses. I do not know any late lead- 
 ing work in Germany on microscopical physiology that 
 does not mention Beale again and again. When I 
 was in Jena, I bought Ranke's great work on physi- 
 ology, in spite of the fact that I was a minister who 
 had no right to know any thing on* this subject. I 
 brought it with me across the Atlantic; and, on 
 opening it the other day, I found Beale cited, and his 
 propositions put into the foreground of the latest Ger- 
 man statements of the cell-theory. You know that, 
 Schleiden and S.chwann being Germans, the German 
 physiologists, from patriotic and various other mo- 
 tives, cling to the nomenclature of these great men ; 
 but they honor Beale. When I turn to Huxley, how- 
 ever, in his article on biology, in the latest edition 
 of the twenty-one volumes of " The Encyclopedia 
 Britannica," I am able to select from various parts 
 of his discussion these seventeen propositions, every 
 one of which was first made sure by the microscopic 
 research of Lionel Beale ; but Beale is not once men- 
 tioned in this article by Huxley. 
 
 1. "It is certain that in the animal, as in the plant, 
 neither cell-wall nor nucleus are essential elements of 
 the cell." 
 
 That conclusion is the result of a Waterloo battle, 
 if you please. Although the proposition is so quietly 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 113 
 
 stated, Huxley knows what proof there is behind it, 
 and lays it down before the world in this, his most 
 scholarly production on biology, and his latest, as 
 established science. 
 
 2. " Bodies which are unquestionably the equiva- 
 lents of cells true morphological units are some- 
 times mere masses of protoplasm, devoid alike of cell, 
 wall, and nucleus." 
 
 3. " For the whole living world, then, it results 
 that the morphological unit, the primary and funda- 
 mental form of life, is merely an individual mass of 
 protoplasm." 
 
 4. " In this no further structure is discernible." 
 
 I beg you to notice the accord of all these proposi- 
 tions with those which, in the last lecture, I put 
 before you as the result of Lionel Beale's investiga- 
 tion. 
 
 5. " The nucleus, the primordial utricle, the cen- 
 tral fluid, and the cell-wall, are no essential constitu- 
 ents of the morphological unit, but represent results 
 of its metamorphosis." 
 
 We saw how bioplasm throws off formed material, 
 and how the nucleus is the result of the action of the 
 bioplasm, and not bioplasm the result of the nucleus ; 
 and here you find Professor Huxley asserting that the 
 nucleus is a result of the metamorphosis of bioplasm. 
 
 6. " Though the nucleus is very constant among 
 animal cells, it is not universally present." 
 
 7. " The nucleus rarely undergoes any considera- 
 able modification." 
 
 8. '* The structures characteristic of the tissues are 
 
114 BIOLOGY. 
 
 formed at the expense of the more superficial proto- 
 plasm of the cells." 
 
 The structures characteristic of the tissues ! What 
 a smooth phrase that is, for the infinity of design in 
 the human constitution, bone, nerve, artery, muscle, 
 and all that makes a plant a plant, or an animal an 
 animal ! 
 
 9. " When nucleated cells divide, the division of 
 the nucleus, as a rule, precedes that of the whole 
 cell." 
 
 10. " Independent living forms may present but 
 little advance from an individual mass of proto- 
 plasm." 
 
 11. " All the higher forms of life are aggregates 
 of such morphological units or cells, variously modi- 
 fied" (HUXLEY, PROFESSOR T. H., Encyc. Brit., ninth 
 edition, Biology, pp. 681, 682). 
 
 12. " The protoplasm of the germ may not under- 
 go division and conversion into a cell aggregate ; but 
 various parts of its outer and inner substance may be 
 metamorphosed directly into those physically and 
 chemically different materials which constitute the 
 body of the adult." 
 
 13. " The germ may undergo division, and be con- 
 verted into an aggregate of cells, which give rise to 
 the tissues by undergoing a metamorphosis of the 
 same kind as that to which the whole body is sub- 
 jected in the preceding case " (Ibid., p. 682). 
 
 14. " Sustentative, generative, and correlative func- 
 tions in the lower forms of life are exerted indiffer- 
 ently, or nearly so, by all parts of the protoplasmic 
 body." 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 115 
 
 15. " The like is true of the functions of the body 
 of even the highest organisms, so long as they are in 
 the condition of the nucleated cell " (Ibid., 685). 
 
 16. " Generation by fission and gemmation are not 
 confined to the simplest forms of life. Both modes 
 are common, not only among plants, but among 
 animals of considerable complexity." 
 
 " Throughout almost the whole series of living beings, 
 we find agamo genesis, or not-sexual generation" 
 Eggs, in the case of drones among bees, develop 
 without impregnation" (Ibid., 686, 687). 
 
 [After a pause, Mr. Cook proceeded in a lower 
 voice] , 
 
 When the topic of the origin of the life of our 
 Lord on the earth is approached from the point of 
 view of the microscope, some men, who know not 
 what the Holy of holies in physical and religious 
 science is, say that we have no example of the origin 
 of life without two parents. There are numberless 
 such examples. " When Castellet," says Alfred Rus- 
 sel Wallace, Darwin's coadjutor, " informed Reaumur 
 that he had reared perfect silk-worms from the eggs 
 laid by a virgin moth, the answer was, ' Ex nihilo 
 nihil fit,' and the fact was disbelieved. It was con- 
 trary to one of the widest and best-established laws 
 of Nature ; yet it is now universally admitted to be 
 true, and the supposed law ceases to be universal " 
 (WALLACE, ALFRED RUSSEL^ Miracles and Modern 
 Spiritualism, p. 38 : London, 1875). 
 
 "Among our common honey-bees," says Hacke] 
 (History of Creation, vol. i. p. 197), " a male indi 
 
116 BIOLOGY. 
 
 vidual, a drone, arises out of the eggs of the queen, 
 if the egg has not been fructified ; a female, a queen, 
 or working-bee, if the egg has been fructified." 
 
 Take up your Mivart, your Lyell, your Owen, and 
 you will read this same important fact which Huxley 
 here asserts, when he says that the law that perfect 
 individuals may be virginally born extends to the 
 higher forms of life. I am in the presence of 
 Almighty God; and yet when a great soul like 
 the tender spirit of our sainted Lincoln, in his early 
 days, with little knowledge, but with great thought- 
 fulness, was troubled by this difficulty, and almost 
 thrown into infidelity by not knowing that the law 
 that there must be two parents is not universal I 
 am willing to allude, even in such a presence as this, 
 to the latest science concerning 'miraculous concep- 
 tion. [Sensation.] 
 
 17. " The phenomena which living things present 
 have no parallel in the mineral world " (Ibid., p. 684). 
 
 What now, gentlemen, is the conclusion of Hux- 
 ley from all these propositions that seem to point one 
 way? You notice that his facts are Beale's. You 
 find an explicit agreement here of Beale, of Huxley, 
 of Bain, of Drysdale, of Ranke, and I might say 
 of Carpenter, of Dalton, and of scores of recent 
 specialists. The facts being established, the supreme 
 question as to their interpretation is, Life or 
 mechanism, which f 
 
 Beale says life : Beale says a principle that cannot 
 be explained by any form of merely physical force. 
 But Huxley says, and be amazed all men who hold 
 
LIVING TISSUES. 117 
 
 the Ariadne clew, " A mass of living protoplasm is 
 simply a molecular machine of great complexity, the 
 total results of the working of which, or its vital 
 phenomena, depend, on the one hand, on its con- 
 struction, and, on the other, upon the energy sup- 
 plied to it : and to speak of ' vitality ' as any thing 
 but the name of a series of operations is as if one 
 should talk of the horologity of a clock." [Sensa- 
 tion.] You are shocked at this proposition, and 
 therefore I have not spoken in vain. We will con- 
 sider next week this astounding non sequitur. If 
 Hermann Lotze, the first philosopher of Germany, 
 were on this platform to-day, he, in the name of the 
 axiom that every change must have a sufficient cause, 
 would thus and thus [tearing the paper] tear into 
 shreds the materialistic or mechanical theory of the 
 origin of living tissues and of the soul. [Applause.] 
 
VI. 
 
 LIFE, OR MECHANISM, WHICH? 
 
 THE FIFTY-FIRST LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN THE PARK- 
 STREET CHURCH NOV. 6. 
 
" Tu cuncta superno 
 
 Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherimus ipse 
 Mundum mente gerens, similique imagine formans." 
 
 BOETHIUS, De ConsoL, 9. 
 
 *' WHAT time this world's great workmaister did cast 
 To make all things such as we now behold, 
 It seems that He before His eyes had plast 
 A goodly patterne, to whose perfect mould 
 He fashioned them as comely as He could, 
 That now so fair and seemly they appear; 
 As naught may be amended anywhere. 
 
 That wondrous patterne, wheresoeer it be, 
 "Whether in Earth, laid up in secret store, 
 Or else in Heaven, that no man may it see 
 With sinful eyes, for fear it to deflore, 
 Is perfect beauty." SPENSER. 
 
USlflSI 
 
 iit-~s* 
 
 1 i I" f I- g- * 
 " JL f *; 
 
 ** fc 6 a '.A / < s'* L :V' 
 
 g" = I f * E ' ."^ -'JA'-'^ VTr ~^'V(7^~\ 
 
 ^:*Sl^Ei:v*. 1 
 
 fslilt 
 
 irl|-l 
 
 
 4 r i|* 
 
 hlfl'l ! d 
 
 
 V 
 
 X x 
 
 / /A 
 
 triMi^s^ 
 
 'i - s * i c- s = I " r ^1 
 
 3 
 
 <3, 
 
 03 
 
VI. 
 LIFE, OR MECHANISM WHICH? 
 
 ONE day the poet Goethe, when in his advanced 
 age, was riding home to Weimar with his friend Eck- 
 ermann, and conversing on the immortality of the 
 soul. They turned by Tiefurt into the Weimar road, 
 and stopped at a spot, where, like other travellers, I 
 have often meditated on Goethe's career ; and they 
 had from that outlook a majestic view of the setting 
 sun. The great poet and philosopher remained for 
 many minutes in perfect silence, and at last said 
 with mystic but tremorless emphasis, "Untergehend 
 sogar ist's immer dieselbige Sonne. Setting, neverthe- 
 less the sun is always the same sun. I am fully 
 convinced that our spirit is a being of a nature quite 
 indestructible, and that its activity continues from 
 eternity to eternity." This man knew all philoso- 
 phies and all art materialism, realism, pantheism, 
 the wildest scepticism, and, I fear, not a little of the 
 most infamous sensualism ; but his was at least a free 
 mind and a modern one. Here, however, was his 
 conclusion concerning the possibility of the exist- 
 ence of the soul in separation from the body : Set- 
 ting, nevertheless the soul is always the same soul. 
 
 121 
 
122 BIOLOGY. 
 
 (GOETHE, Conversations with Eckermann, Trans, by J. 
 Oxenford, Bohn's ed., p. 84.) Will you enter to- 
 day, my friends, into Goethe's brain at that instant, 
 and remain there during this discussion, lynx-eyed, 
 I care not how thoroughly so, but earnest? It is 
 incontrovertible that we, too, a little while ago, 
 were not in the world, and that we, too, a little while 
 hence, shall be here no longer. The sun hastes to 
 the west as fast at noon as in the last moment before 
 sunset. 
 
 New lands in our age can be discovered only in 
 old lands. Schliemann, on the Plain of Troy, has 
 shown us a city of great antiquity ; and he has done 
 so by studying an old land beneath its soil. We 
 are reaching the bottom of the Roman forum ; we 
 understand, as never -before, the environment of the 
 Acropolis, because we are looking with the spade 
 for new lands in the old lands. If a new continent 
 has been discovered anywhere in the last twenty-five 
 years, it has been in the ancient continent of living 
 tissues. We are to enter on that strange country; 
 we draw near to it across turbulent seas ; and I think, 
 that, as the Santa Maria ploughs tossing across the 
 waves toward the West, we already begin to see 
 carved wood occasionally, symbol of life behind the 
 watery horizon. Already, as we approach this new 
 continent, do we not find now .and then a poor 
 floating spray of red berries ? Are these little birds 
 not of a kind always cradled on the land ? Are not 
 the shapes of the very clouds, as the sun goes down, 
 some indication that we shall at last reach the firm, 
 
LIFE, OR MECHANISM WHICH? 123 
 
 happy shore ? Is there not breathed upon us out of 
 the undescried but nearing coast an odor as of spices 
 and balm, and frankincense and myrrh, and dates 
 and palms a fragrant atmosphere that comes in 
 the twilight wind off the continent of an unseen 
 Holy? WB have not landed on the new coast yet ; 
 but they who walk late on the deck of the Santa 
 Maria have seen a light rise and fall ahead of us. 
 We are to look to-day at the thickening signs of the 
 approach of a whole new continent in philosophy 
 that lies hardly out of sight. It will be a land 
 assuredly of firm hope of immortality, and therefore a 
 land of inspiration such as no spiced breath of the 
 tropics ever breathed into the physical nostrils. Our 
 souls are sick from lack of the more heavily fragrant 
 airs out of the blessed isles of certainties as to what 
 is behind the veil. It is already certain that we are 
 to discover a new land, and that the inhabitant of it 
 is life, not mechanism. [Applause.] 
 
 Two positions of much importance have been 
 proved, I hope, in lectures preceding this : first, the 
 explicit and entire agreement of Beale and Huxley 
 as to all the central facts concerning living tissues, 
 and this in spite of the disagreement of these author- 
 ities on other points; and, secondly, the crescent 
 unanimity of experts for thirty-five years as to those 
 same facts. The two initial propositions which I 
 think I have established are, that rival experts 
 agree, and that they have agreed for more than a 
 quarter of a century, on the facts fundamental in 
 our discussions here. Let us, now, summarize our 
 
124 BIOLOGY. 
 
 knowledge of bioplasm, remembering, as we do so, 
 that we have the authority of Huxley, of Carpen- 
 ter, of Frey, of Dalton, of Beale, of Dry sd ale, of 
 Bain, of Ranke, and of Kolliker. You will per- 
 mit me, for the sake of clearness of thought, to num- 
 ber the points of our positive knowledge in biological 
 science. 
 
 Bioplasm, otherwise called protoplasm, or germinal 
 matter, 
 
 1. Is transparent ; 
 
 2. Colorless ; 
 
 3. Viscid, or glue-like ; 
 
 4. Under the highest microscopical powers is ap- 
 parently structureless ; 
 
 5. Exhibits these characters at every period of its 
 existence ; 
 
 6. Shows itself, under all the tests known to phy- 
 sical science, to be the same in the animal and, in 
 the plant, in the sponge and in the brain ; 
 
 7. Is capable of throbbing movements, or of advan- 
 cing one portion of itself beyond another portion ; 
 
 8. Is capable of rectilinear movements ; 
 
 9. Executes so many movements, that the same 
 mass probably never twice in its life assumes the 
 same form ; 
 
 10. May exist in masses less than one one-hundred- 
 thousandth of an inch, or as large as one two-hun- 
 dredth of an inch in diameter, but, as constituting 
 the nuclei of fully-formed cells, is usually found in 
 masses from one six-thousandth to one three-thou- 
 sandth of an inch in diameter ; 
 
LIFE, OB MECHANISM WHICH? 125 
 
 11. Absorbs nutrient matter, which may be either 
 inorganic or formed material ; 
 
 12. Instantaneously changes this dead matter into 
 living matter ; 
 
 13. Does so by a process which no human science 
 can imitate or explain ; 
 
 14. Throws off formed material to constitute a 
 cell-wall ; 
 
 15. Develops within itself a nucleus, and within 
 that a nucleolus ; 
 
 16. May exist and move, however, without cell-wall 
 or nucleus ; 
 
 17. Spins the threads of nerves, arteries, veins, 
 bones, and all the mechanism of the system, by throw- 
 ing off formed material ; 
 
 18. Weaves these threads into the infinity of co- 
 ordinated designs in the plant and animal ; 
 
 19. Can by no possible outer environment be made 
 to produce nerve if it should produce muscle, or mus- 
 cle if it should produce nerve, and so of every other 
 tissue, secretion, and deposit ; 
 
 20. Is so thickly scattered through the tissues, that 
 there is scarcely a space one-five-hundredth of an inch 
 in size without its portion of it ; 
 
 21. Is capable of self-subdivision ; 
 
 22. In its self-subdivided parts has all its original 
 powers ; 
 
 23. Always arises from preceding bioplasm ; 
 
 24. Constitutes about one-fifth of the bulk of living 
 bodies ; 
 
 25. Is the sole agency by which every kind of 
 
126 BIOLOGY. 
 
 living thing is made, or, so far as known, has been 
 made or ever will be made ; 
 
 26. When it divides itself, is preceded sometimes 
 in that act by the division of its nucleus, and some- 
 times not ; 
 
 27. May throw off a portion of itself without a nu- 
 cleus, and develop a nucleus in the detached portion. 
 
 28. Forms nuclei and nucleoli, which appear to 
 differ sexually, as it is only after the intermingling 
 of these in certain cases that multiplication takes 
 place ; 
 
 29. Does not transform the nucleus, or nucleolus, 
 directly into formed material ; 
 
 30. Transforms it into ordinary bioplasm, and thus 
 into formed material ; 
 
 31. When recently dead, will take a carmine stain 
 from the solution of carmine in ammonia, as formed 
 material will not ; 
 
 32. At its death is resolved into fibrine, albumen, 
 fatty matter, and salts ; 
 
 33. Forms thus the spontaneously coagulable sub- 
 stance on the diffusion of which through the body 
 the rigidity of the frame after death depends ; 
 
 34. Is in direct continuity with formed material 
 while the latter is in process of formation. 
 
 Such is the most interesting, by far, of all the 
 objects known to physical science. 
 
 Carmine staining, the great discovery of 1856 and 
 1860, must take place immediately after the death of 
 the bioplasm, or it cannot be successfully executed. 
 Many unskilful manipulators in the laboratory, and 
 
LIFE, OB MECHANISM WHICH? 127 
 
 amateurs without number, have endeavored to stain 
 the tissue of plants and animals, and have waited too 
 long after its death, and have failed. Sometimes, too, 
 they have not rightly compounded the materials for 
 their carmine solution, a distinct receipt for which 
 you will find in Beale's work on the microscope. 
 When the process of staining is performed soon after 
 the death of a tissue, all germinal points or bioplasts 
 in it come out with a red color; but the formed mate- 
 rial is not stained at all. 
 
 [From this point on, Mr. Cook referred to large 
 colored diagrams hung on the wall back of the plat- 
 form.] 
 
 These eloquent representations of stained tissues 
 are exact reproductions of Dr. Beale's famous illus- 
 trations, and were made by Mr. Stone, an artist of 
 the Studio building, who spoke admiringly of Beale's 
 illustrations the instant he saw them. Here is the 
 whole cell with its wall, bioplast, and nucleus. (See 
 plate I, fig. 1.) Two currents exist in every cell, 
 one flowing inward in the direction of this arrow, 
 and the other passing out from the centre of the 
 bioplast in the direction of this arrow. Every par- 
 ticle of matter that can be found in a living being 
 is of one of three kinds, nutrient matter, living 
 matter, or formed matter. Nutrient matter comes 
 through the wall of the cell, and, entering into the 
 bioplasm, is there transformed into living matter. 
 
 You had better not take a cell, however, as the 
 type of the elementary part in the living tissue. If 
 you are to be abroast of the very latest investigations 
 
128 BIOLOGY. 
 
 concerning the cell-theory, you will take a naked 
 mass of bioplasm like this as the elementary part. 
 (See plate I, fig. 2.) As I showed you in my last 
 lecture, on both Huxley's and Beale's authority, it 
 is not essential at all that there be a wall of formed 
 material around the naked mass of bioplasm. It is 
 not essential at all there be a nucleus within it. 
 That is the advance we have made since 1838. 
 Nevertheless, if you are to understand the action 
 of these currents, it is well to keep in mind the cell- 
 wall. Nutrient material may pass through the cell- 
 wall in animal tissues just as sap passes through the 
 intercellular substance in vegetable tissues. When 
 once in the bioplast, the nutrient matter is seized 
 on by this living matter, which you see colored with 
 carmine in all these illustrations, and nuclei are de- 
 veloped in the bioplast, and nucleoli within the 
 nuclei. The bioplast produces the nucleus, and not 
 the nucleus the bioplast. It throws off formed mate- 
 rial around its quivering edges, and thus forms a cell- 
 wall. In that wall the oldest formed material is on 
 the outside, and the next oldest just within, and so 
 on to the inner part of the wall, which is in physical 
 continuity with the bioplasm. 
 
 Movement is going on all the while in any naked 
 mass of bioplasm. Here is a bioplast, naked, color- 
 less, structureless matter; and it moves so that it 
 takes these many shapes in five seconds, and these 
 many other shapes in one minute. (See plate I, 
 figs. 2 and 3.) Here we must hold fast to the 
 Ariadne clew,- that every change must have an 
 
LITE, OR MECHANISM WHICH'? 129 
 
 adequate cause. We come here to fathomless de- 
 sign ; but let us enter by slow stages on these 
 sublimities of research. 
 
 Here is a young tendon, and here is an old tendon. 
 The living matter is red, as you notice, and runs in 
 lines through the tendon ; and yet the tendon is 
 narrow. But in the old tendon the formed mate- 
 rial is more abundant than in the new ; and yet all 
 the formed material which makes an increased thick- 
 ness in the old has been thrown off by these bioplasts. 
 They have here thrown off formed material so as to 
 make a tendon, which is, as you know, a structure 
 very different from muscular fibre and from nervous 
 fibre. 
 
 Here is one set of bioplasts that is intended to 
 weave a tendon, here one that is to weave a mus- 
 cular fibre, and here one that is to weave a nervous 
 fibre. There is no possible external influence that 
 can make them exchange offices with each other. 
 You have here a tendon, there a muscle, there a 
 nerve, all woven by these bioplasts. We know that 
 they are thus woven, and that every change must 
 have an adequate cause. Adhere, gentlemen, to that 
 axiomatic truth, though the heavens fall. From your 
 bioplast spindles flows off formed matter here a 
 miracle of muscle, there a miracle of tendon, there a 
 miracle of nerve. 
 
 The cellular integument is not unworthy of no- 
 tice ; for that shows us the career of its bioplasts 
 from the first to the last. You have here the 
 skin that covers one of the papilla on the tongue 
 
130 BIOLOGY. 
 
 of a frog. (See plate IT, fig. 1.) That infinite- 
 ly delicate membrane that covers the little sensi- 
 tive points on the tongue is here magnified. You 
 notice that the bioplasts on the lower or inner side 
 are young, and that there is not much formed mate- 
 rial around them. There are no distinct cells in the 
 younger part of a tissue. This intercellular sub- 
 stance is not formed into the ring-shapes which you 
 see further on, where the tissue is older. As the 
 bioplasts grow, the formed material about them in- 
 creases in thickness, until it becomes so thick that the 
 nutrient matter will not go through the cell-walls. 
 Then the bioplasts languish ; they grow smaller and 
 smaller, and at last the cells in which the bioplasts 
 are dead scale off. When dead never before, ex- 
 cept by violence they drop away; but their places 
 are supplied by soldiers that take position in the gap 
 of the lines, and build according to the pattern of the 
 design of the whole organization. You have here 
 (see plate II, fig. 2) colored illustrations of several 
 stages of the growth of a cell its youth, its adoles- 
 cence, its middle life, its advancing age, its extreme 
 old age. 
 
 Remember that a mass of bioplasm has a tendency 
 to assume a more or less spheroidal form. But it 
 changes itself in the course of a minute into all the 
 protean shapes indicated here, first by the black, 
 then by the unbroken line, then by the broken red 
 line, and divides and subdivides its edges, until at 
 last it throws off this portion of itself, which has the 
 same powers with its parent. (See plate I, fig. 3.) 
 
LIFE, OR MECHANISM WHICH? 131 
 
 We find under our astounded gaze nothing but color- 
 less, glue-like, transparent matter; and yet we see 
 it performing all these miracles of as many differ- 
 ent sorts as there are different sorts of tissues to be 
 woven. 
 
 In a single nerve there is an unspeakable com- 
 plexity; but come to something a little more complex. 
 Let us stand with open eyes before this revelation 
 of Almighty God. Here is a nerve wound spirally 
 around another fibre. (See plate II, fig. 5.) How is 
 it made to twine about its trellis-work ? Why, when 
 that nerve begins to be formed in a living organism, 
 these bioplasts in it are near each other. They begin 
 to throw off formed material. The object is to weave 
 so as to produce this delicate nerve that is coiled 
 spirally around the other fibre. The bioplasts were 
 shoulder to shoulder, and they begin to separate. 
 They weave, and they carry a spiral nerve around 
 that other fibre with perfect precision. 
 
 Adhere to your clear ideas. Materialists say that 
 all this is done by molecular machinery. Do they 
 know what they are talking about when they use 
 that phrase? They say that here are "infinitely 
 complicated chemical properties." They say that all 
 these things occur merely by " a transmutation of 
 physical forces." Do they know what they are saying 
 when they utter propositions of that sort? The 
 tendency of the latest science begins to throw into 
 derision all materialism of this kind. The Germans 
 have a proverb which says, " The clear is the true ; " 
 and ascertained truth can be made clear. Will you 
 
132 BIOLOGY. 
 
 make it clear that " molecular machinery," however 
 complicated, can achieve these results? There a 
 tendon, there a muscle, and there a nerve, are woven, 
 and all by the same machinery ? The same causes 
 ought to produce the same results. There is an al- 
 most measureless difference in your results ; but in 
 all ascertainable physical qualities this bioplasm is 
 the same thing in every tissue. [Applause.] 
 
 Marvels, however, have but just begun. We might 
 pause long on these earlier stages in the formation 
 of tissues ; but there is one word or fact we ought to 
 bow down before, if we have eyes. (See plate III.) 
 It is co-ordination, the adjustment of part to part in a 
 living organism. A vast number of tissues are woven 
 side by side ; and their co-ordination is the supreme 
 miracle. It is more than much, my friends, to weave 
 a nerve, a muscle, a vein. But here we have a mass 
 of thin tissues from a tree-frog, and you have here 
 muscles and veins and nerves interlacing with each 
 other intricately. Not only do the mystic bioplasts 
 know enough to coil one fibre around another fibre 
 spirally, but they weave the whole complexity of the 
 tissues together. How ? So that there is no clash- 
 ing among the multitudinous wheels of the living 
 organism. In the naked bioplast we see changes 
 going on ; and the question is, What is an adequate 
 cause of these changes? Life, or mechanism 
 which ? In the different threads that are woven by 
 the bioplasts we must ask : Life, or mechanism 
 which ? But here, before this transfigured represen- 
 tation of the co-ordination of tissue with tissue, the 
 
LIFE, OR MECHANISM WHICH? 133 
 
 question answers itself: Life, or mechanism which? 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Here is the last white and mottled bird that flew to 
 us out of the tall Tribune tower ; and softly folded 
 under its wing are these words concerning Darwin 
 from Thomas Carlyle at his own fireside in London : 
 " So-called literary and scientific classes in England 
 now proudly give themselves to protoplasm, origin 
 of species, and the like, to prove that God did not 
 build the universe. I have known three genera- 
 tions of the Darwins, grandfather, father, and son, 
 atheists all." [I do not call Darwin an atheist; but 
 this testimony is very significant.] " The brother of 
 the present famous naturalist, a quiet man, who 
 lives not far from here, told me that among his 
 grandfather's effects he found a seal engraven with 
 this legend, ' Omnia ex conchis ' ( 4 every thing from 
 a clam-shell '). I saw the naturalist not many months 
 ago ; told him that I had read his ' Origin of the 
 Species,' and other books ; that he had by no means 
 satisfied me that men were descended from monkeys, 
 but had gone far toward persuading me that he and 
 his so-called scientific brethren had brought the pres- 
 ent generation of Englishmen very near to mon- 
 keys. A good sort of man is this Darwin, and 
 well meaning, but with very little intellect. Ah ! 
 it is a sad and terrible thing to see nigh a whole 
 generation of men and women professing to be 
 cultivated, looking around in a purblind fashion, 
 and finding no God in this universe. I suppose it 
 is a re-action from the reign of cant and hollow pre- 
 
134 BIOLOGY. 
 
 tence, professing to believe what in fact they do not 
 believe. And this is what we have got : all things from 
 frog-spawn ; the gospel of dirt the order of the day. 
 The older I grow, and I now stand upon the brink 
 of eternity, the more comes back to me the sen- 
 tence in the catechism, which I learned when a child, 
 and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes, - 
 4 What is the great end of man ? To glorify God, 
 and enjoy him forever.' No gospel of dirt, teaching 
 that men have descended from frogs through monkeys, 
 can ever set that aside " (Daily Tribune, Nov. 4, 
 1876. Extract from a letter from Carlyle published 
 in Scotland, and quoted in the London Times). 
 
 Will haughty Boston, will the colleges of New 
 England, will tender and thoughtful souls every- 
 where, listen to Thomas Carlyle as he stands upcn 
 the brink of eternity ? [Applause.] 
 
VII. 
 
 DOES DEATH END ALL? INVOLUTION AND 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 THE FIFTY-SECOND LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY LEC- 
 TURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT TEMPLE 
 NOV. 13. 
 
"DIE Nothwendigkeit fiir zrwei unvergleichbare Kreise von 
 Erscheinungen zunachst zwei gesonderte Erklarungsgriinde zu 
 verlangen, verbot uns jeden Versuch, aus "Wirkungen matericller 
 Stoffe, so fern sie materiel sind, das innere Leben als einen selbst- 
 verstandlichen Erfolg ableiten zuwollen." HERMANN LOTZE, Mi' 
 krokosmus, I., 186. 
 
 " ATTENTION to those philosophical questions which underlie all 
 Science, is ag rare as it is needful." PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY, 
 Contemporary Review, Nov., 1871, p. 443. 
 
VII. 
 
 DOES DEATH END ALL? INVOLUTION 
 AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 IF the Greeks had possessed the microscope, they 
 would in all probability never have been thrown into 
 debate over the famous question of their philosophy, 
 whether the relation of the soul to the body is that 
 of harmony to a harp, or of a rower to a boat (PLATO, 
 Phcedon). According to the former of these two 
 theories, the music must cease when the harp is 
 broken : according to the latter, the rower may sur- 
 vive, although his boat is destroyed. He may be 
 completely safe, even when his frail vessel, splintered 
 by all the surges and lightnings, rots on the tusks of 
 the reefs, or sinks in the fathomless waste, or dis- 
 solves to be blown about the world by the howling 
 seas. In the one case, death does, in the other it does 
 not, end all. Dim as was to the Greeks of Pericles' 
 day the whole field which science has entered with 
 the microscope for the first time in the last fifty years, 
 all their greatest poets and philosophers held that the 
 relation of the soul to the body is that of the rower 
 to a boat. This was the common metaphor as men 
 conversed on this theme under the Acropolis two 
 
 137 
 
138 BIOLOGY. 
 
 thousand years ago. Without Christian prejudices, 
 Greek tragedy is full of the dying faith of Socrates. 
 JEschylus, with his eyes of dew and lightning fixed 
 on the fact of immortality, strikes the central chord 
 of his harp ; and one terrific thrum of it 1 often in 
 still days hear across twenty centuries : 
 
 "Blood for blood, .and blow for blow: 
 Thou shalt reap as thou didst sow." 
 
 What if Aristotle and Plato and ^Eschylus had 
 had Beale's and Helmholtz's and Dana's eyes in the 
 study of living tissues? 
 
 When modern investigation asserts that life directs 
 the movements of bioplasm, it does not deny at all 
 that currents of physical and chemical forces are 
 floating around the bioplast boat. It asserts simply 
 that the oars are in the hands of life. You will not 
 understand me to deny that the rower in the boat is 
 aided by the currents beneath him, by the winds 
 around him, and by his own weight and the inertia 
 of his vessel. Nevertheless, between the rower and 
 the boat on the one hand, and the inert log that may 
 be floating beside him on the other, there is plainly 
 all the difference that exists betwen the living and 
 the not-living. Your rower takes advantage of all 
 the forces around him ; he can give them new direc- 
 tions ; he presides over them. He can sail against 
 the wind ; he can row against the current ; he gov- 
 erns the forces that wheel in mysterious complex 
 cycles above and around and beneath him ; he makes 
 them his own, and so is a living thing on the water. 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 189 
 
 Just so, life uses the physical and chemioal forces at 
 work in living organisms. 
 
 There ought to stand before every. discussion defi- 
 nitions, just as before one of Shakspeare's dramas 
 there stand the names of the dramatis persons. I 
 know into what an intricate tropical forest of thought 
 I am entering ; and I am fully aware that the chief 
 personage here is one whose character never has been 
 successfully described in a definition. What is life ? 
 Thousands and thousands of definitions have been 
 attempted of that term ; and we have as yet in words 
 no satisfactory statement of what life means ; but we 
 all understand very well what the thing is. 
 
 Herbert Spencer defines life as " The definite com- 
 bination of heterogeneous changes, both simultane- 
 ous and successive, in correspondence with external 
 co-existences and sequences." This definition has 
 been very much admired; and I suppose you all 
 understand what it means. The latest science finds 
 this definition defective, because it does not limit the 
 changes of which it speaks to one specifically consti- 
 tuted substance now known as bioplasm (DiiYSDALE, 
 Protoplasmic Theory of Life : London, 1874. P. 176). 
 
 I know what I venture ; but, as my definition of 
 life, I must give these words : The power which directs 
 the movements of bioplasm. I beg you to notice that 
 I do not say that life is the force which moves bioplasm, 
 although, as a loose definition, the latter phrase would 
 do. Bioplasm is moved in part by physical and chemi- 
 cal forces, though not chiefly. Chemical and physi- 
 cal forces, however, are not called living in the best 
 
140 BIOLOGY. 
 
 philosophy. To say that life is the force that moves 
 bioplasm is to say that all the power there is in the 
 river on which the boat and rower float originates in 
 the rower. I say nothing of that sort. The force 
 of the river belongs to the river ; that of the oars, to 
 the rower. The power which causes your skiff to 
 move against the current, or which catches the wind 
 in the sail, is that of its living occupant, who directs 
 other forces, and puts forth force of Ms own. Never- 
 theless, in the motion of your little boat, there is a 
 combination of the power of the rower and the power 
 of the currents. So, in the motion of your bioplast, 
 there is the agency of purely physical and chemical 
 forces, together with the co-ordinating agency or 
 directing power which weaves the tissues, and inter- 
 weaves tissue with tissue into designs marvellous be- 
 yond comment, and which cannot be accounted for 
 at all by any thing simply chemical or physical. I 
 affirm, therefore, that life may be denned provision- 
 ally as the rower in the boat, or the power which 
 directs the movements of germinal matter. To give 
 a fuller definition, I may say that life is the invisible, 
 individual, co-ordinating cause directing the forces in- 
 volved in the production and activity of any organism 
 possessing individuality. Of course the vitality of a 
 cell differs from the life of the whole organism of 
 which it forms a part ; for many cells may die and the 
 life of the organism to which they belong not be 
 affected. Important distinctions exist between vital- 
 ity, life, and soul. A single cell may have vitality ; 
 the individual organism to which the cell belongs 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 141 
 
 has life ; and that organism, if possessed of self-con- 
 sciousness, and of the power of self-direction, has 
 soul. To assert Lotze's doctrine of an immaterial 
 principle as the cause of form in organisms is not to 
 assert the theory of vital force. 
 
 When I woke after my first night in Venice, which 
 I had entered by the full moon, my earliest act was 
 to ascend the tower of St. Mark's, and obtain a gen- 
 eral view of the city by the rising sun. Before we 
 discuss our central question, " Does death end all ? " 
 let us take a large view of this theme, as if from St. 
 Mark's tower. Our rising sun here is the refulgent 
 certainty that every change must have an adequate 
 cause. When our national historian wrote the first 
 volume of his history of the United States, it was not 
 known that the Mound-builders had left elaborate 
 traces of themselves in the spacious West. George 
 Bancroft, therefore, asserted that the Mississippi 
 valley was without any remains of human works. 
 But since he wrote that first volume of his, we have 
 discovered the most intricate kinds of mounds in the 
 prairies ; and it is now universally conceded that 
 there was a race of Mound-builders, and that the 
 Mississippi valley is full of their works. On the 
 prairie near Adrian, Michigan, for example, there is a 
 night-hawk traced by mounds on the earth ; and the 
 spread of its wings is two or three hundred feet. 
 Over against him on the ver.dant, ancient acres, the 
 mounds present the figure of a warrior with a bal- 
 anced spear. Bancroft knew something of these 
 mounds at the time he wrote his book ; but he said 
 
142 BIOLOGY. 
 
 they were produced by geological action. In the 
 Drift period these peculiar formations had been made 
 by the complex swirls of the water and icebergs. If 
 a man should undertake to hold to that theory now, 
 and affirm that the Drift period formed these mounds, 
 what would you say to him ? There is your night- 
 hawk. Is it not possible for a complexity of geologi- 
 cal forces gravitation, chemical action, and the 
 turmoil of a cooling planet, of which Strauss, Vir- 
 chow, Hackel, and Huxley make so much to trace 
 on the prairie a night-hawk ?' Is it not, at least, pos- 
 sible that your night-hawk might have been traced 
 there by the movements of matter having in it the 
 power and potency of all life ? May it not be that 
 thus were produced your savage and his balanced 
 spear ? You would say that a man holding such 
 views ought to be sent to the lunatic wards. No 
 may be is good for any thing in science, unless it may 
 be an is. But how about your actually living night- 
 hawk, flying there above the prairie in the edge of 
 the evening ? How about your savage there miracu- 
 lously alive, and poising his spear ? Although you 
 believe this rude earthwork tracery of the night- 
 hawk and the savage cannot possibly have originated 
 in any complexity of merely physical forces in a cool- 
 ing planet, you will allow a man, if he is full enough 
 of scientific authority, to come before you, and seri- 
 ously puzzle you, as Strauss, Huxley, Virchow, and 
 Hackel attempt to do, with the assertion that the 
 bioplast which stands at the head of the develop- 
 ment of your living night-hawk, and which had in 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 143 
 
 it all that has followed of life on this globe came 
 into existence in some Drift period by a fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms. You ought for this to be sent to 
 the lunatic wards. [Applause.] The reply to all 
 reasoning of that sort is simply this, that merely 
 physical forces do not act so. As Agassiz used to 
 say, " The products of merely physical forces are the 
 same in all quarters of the globe, and during all time 
 known to man ; but the products of the forces that 
 produce life are varied under the same circumstances. 
 Between two such sets of forces there can be no 
 causal or genetic connection " (AGASSiz, Essay on 
 Classification). The results of the forces that pro- 
 duce organisms differ in different periods, and there- 
 fore we cannot account for them by these invisible, 
 blind, mechanical laws. If, on the prairie, the figure 
 of your night-hawk was not traced by a complication 
 of these forces, assuredly, in the name of all clear 
 ideas, the first bioplast that came into existence, 
 and the bioplasts that weave the night-hawk and sav- 
 age, were not constructed by any such complication 
 of physical forces, acting without design or choice. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Does death end all ? The answer to that question 
 depends on the reply to another: Is life the cause of 
 organization, or organization the cause of life ? Is 
 the relation of the soul to the body that of harmony 
 to the harp, or that of the harper to the harp ? 
 
 What are the strategic points in the discussion of 
 the origin of life ? 
 
 1. Tyndall, Huxley, Bain, Drysdale, and Spencer 
 
144 BIOLOGY. 
 
 himself, all admit that the actions of bioplasts cannot 
 be explained by merely chemical properties or forces. 
 
 If I succeed in showing you that this concession is 
 made by the materialistic school, you will be relieved 
 from much distress cast on you by popular irrespon- 
 sible scribblers and declaimers. In November, 1875, 
 Professor Tyndall quoted and adopted these words 
 of DuBois Reymond, " It is absolutely and forever 
 inconceivable that a number of carbon, hydrogen, 
 nitrogen, and oxygen atoms should be otherwise 
 than indifferent as to their own position and motion, 
 past, present, or future." [Applause.] (See Preface 
 to TYNDALL'S Fragments of Science. Also his article 
 in The Fortnightly Review, November, 1875, p. 585. 
 Also Dr. CHAKLES ELAM'S art. on " Automatism and 
 Evolution," Contemporary Review^ September, 1876, 
 p. 539.) Tyndall adds in his own words, that " the 
 continuity between molecular processes and the phe- 
 nomena of consciousness is the rock upon which ma- 
 terialism must inevitably split whenever it pretends 
 to be a complete philosophy of the human mind." 
 That is Tyndall, if you please, in 1875, writing a 
 preface to the Belfast address, which needed much 
 explanation after its errors had been searchingly 
 pointed out by general public discussion. 
 
 There is inertia everywhere in all that we call 
 matter. What is inertia ? The incapacity to origi- 
 nate force or motion. Inertia is a property of the 
 matter in bioplasm as surely as of that in any other 
 part of the universe. This is the substance of Du- 
 Bois Rcymond's famous concession, that it is forever 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 145 
 
 inconceivable that a mass of physical atoms past, 
 present, or to come should be outside the range of 
 the law of inertia. "There is," says Faraday (Cor- 
 relation and Conservation of Forces, p. 24), " one 
 wonderful condition of matter, perhaps its only true 
 indication, namely, inertia." 
 
 Even Herbert Spencer, who would be very glad 
 to prove the opposite, says in his " Biology " (vol. i. 
 p. 182), " The proximate chemical principles, or 
 chemical units, albumen, fibrine, gelatine, or the 
 hypothetical proteine substance, cannot possess the 
 property of forming the endlessly varied structures of 
 animal forms." This is Herbert Spencer in 1864. 
 " Nor," continues he, " can any such power be given 
 to the cell as a morphological unit, even if it had a 
 right to that title." It is the bioplast that is the 
 morphological unit, and not the cell. " Therefore," 
 concludes Spencer, " there is no alternative but to 
 suppose that the chemical units combine into units 
 immensely more complex than themselves, 'and that, 
 in each organism, the physiological units produced 
 by this further compounding of highly compound 
 atoms have a more or less distinctive character. We 
 must conclude, that, in each case, some slight differ- 
 ence of composition in these units, leading to some 
 slight difference in their natural play of forces, pro- 
 duces a difference in the form which the aggregate of 
 them assumes." Spencer's " Biology " is now an out- 
 grown book, so rapid has been the progress of bio- 
 logical knowledge since its publication. 
 
 But the reply to this precious theory is, that invo- 
 
146 BIOLOGY. 
 
 lution and evolution are a fixed equation. If these 
 multiplex molecules and their merely mechanical 
 actions, which Spencer says build the body, have no 
 life behind them, you will get no life out of them. 
 [Applause.] If the smaller units out of which he 
 makes up his larger units have no life in them, you 
 will obtain from the latter only what was in the 
 former. 
 
 Let us be forever sure that the law of the persistence 
 of force requires that evolution and involution should be 
 equal to each other. You will get out of your molecu- 
 lar units what you put into them, and nothing 
 more. But, according to Spencer himself, the chemi- 
 cal and physical forces and properties of atoms can- 
 not build an organism. Larger molecular masses 
 made up of these units, he says, may do so. Not 
 unless there can be more evolved from, than is in- 
 volved in, these units. If involution and evolution 
 are not an eternal equation, there may be an effect 
 without a cause. You cannot evolve any thing which 
 you have not first involved. Huxley, Spencer, Bain, 
 and Drysdale, 'all admit, that, if you make up your 
 compounds from all the ascertained molecular activi- 
 ties, you involve nothing that will account for the 
 weaving of these complex tissues. That adirission 
 is fatal to their further pretence, that a combination 
 can be made which will evolve what has not been 
 involved. [Applause.] 
 
 But Dr. Drysdale, who is a candid Scotch writer, 
 makes a most distinct admission, that, even after we 
 have built up these complicated molecular units, the 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 147 
 
 matter in them must be inert. Hear the authority 
 of a man who opposes Beale's opinion, that the action 
 of the bioplasts cannot be accounted for except by a 
 higher than physical cause, and who seriously under- 
 takes, while admitting Beale's facts, to persuade the 
 world that this matter in the bioplasts is of an infi- 
 nitely peculiar sort, and that all it needs is " stimu- 
 lus " to set it at work in all this miraculous weaving 
 and inweaving and co-ordination of tissues. Dr. 
 Drysdale says in so many words (^Protoplasmic 
 Theory of Life, p. 199), " No matter how complex 
 the protoplasmic molecule may be, its atoms are still 
 nothing but matter, and must share its properties for 
 good or evil^ and among the rest inertia. Hence it can- 
 not change its state of motion nor rest without the influ- 
 ence of some force from without. True spontaneity of 
 movement is, therefore, just as impossible to it as to 
 what we call dead matter. ... So we are compelled to 
 admit the existence of an exciting cause in the form of 
 some force from without to give the initial impulse in 
 all vital actions. This is the " What ? The soul ? 
 We expect him to say that ; but what he says is, 
 "This is the stimulus," whatever that may mean. 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 It is very surprising, in view of the school of 
 thought to which Professor Alexander Bain of Aber- 
 deen belongs, that, in his work on " The Senses and 
 the Intellect " (p. 64), he should go so far as to up- 
 hold the doctrine of the spontaneity of vital actions, 
 and to maintain that a spontaneous energy resides in 
 the nerve-centres which gives them the power of initi- 
 
148 BIOLOGY. 
 
 ating molecular movements without any antecedent sen- 
 sation from without, or emotion from within, or any 
 antecedent state of feeling whatever, or any stimulus 
 extraneous to the moving apparatus itself. This fact 
 of spontaneous energy he regards as the essential 
 prelude to voluntary power. 
 
 So much, gentlemen, for the latest concessions of 
 materialists ; but I hold in my hand here the best, 
 or certainly the freshest, book in the world on the 
 " Cellular Theory ; " and what are its opening words ? 
 All medical students in this audience will know that 
 Professor Heinrich Frey of Zurich is a great authority 
 on the cell-theory, and that this book of his has had 
 an enormous sale between the Alps and the Baltic. 
 Frey's work on " Microscopic Technology " is placed 
 side by side with Strieker's " Histology " in the read- 
 ing recommended to the two hundred young men in 
 the Harvard Medical School yonder ; but fresher 
 than either of these books is this new volume pub- 
 lished by Frey in 1875. 
 
 Rufus Choate, as you remember, used sometimes 
 to lay out a course of study in the classics perfectly 
 parallel with that of the young men in Harvard Uni- 
 versity, and, in his breathless profession, would keep 
 pace with them year after year. What if a student 
 of religious science, who has no right to know any 
 thing about physiology, should look at the text-books 
 in use in Harvard Medical School on physiology and 
 other topics, and by this means, and by considerable 
 conversation with men of science, assuring himsel f 
 that he is not reading rubbish, and with a profes- 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 149 
 
 sional medical library at his command, should follow 
 side by side the investigations those highly privi- 
 leged young men are pursuing yonder, and occasion- 
 ally stand with them in their dissecting-rooms? I 
 know at least one student of religious science who 
 does precisely that, and is fascinated with his work. 
 Biology is now quite as interesting as the' classics. 
 In your Johns Hopkins University in Baltimoie, 
 studies are elective ; and about ninety out of oie 
 hundred of the students there elect biology as one 
 of their subjects. 
 
 Professor Frey of Zurich, in this work, which is 
 hardly dry from the press, prints, face to face with 
 the world, these as his very first sentences : " A deep 
 abyss separates the inorganic from the organic, the 
 inanimate from the animate. The rock-crystal on the 
 one side, vegetable and animal on the other : how infi- 
 nitely different the image ! Is it, then, possible to 
 bridge Over this gulf? We answer, Not at the pres- 
 ent time." [Applause.] We turn on in this volume, 
 and find that reference is made to the theory that 
 vital transformations are much like crystallization, 
 and that then these remarks are made, with a very 
 apparent and not undeserved sly smile : 
 
 " Schwann, the founder of modern histology, 
 taught, What the crystal is in regard to the inor- 
 ganic, that the cell is in the sphere of life. As the 
 former shoots from the mother lye, so, also, in a suit- 
 able animal fluid, are developed the constituents cf 
 the cell, nucleolus, nucleus, covering, and cell con- 
 tents. This view was embraced during many yejr* 9 
 
150 BIOLOGY. 
 
 it explained every thing so conveniently. This uas, 
 however, over-hasty. The cell arises from the cell. 
 A spontaneous origin does not occur " (FEEY, PRO- 
 FESSOR HEINRICH, Compendium of Histology, Twenty- 
 four lectures. Translated by Dr. G. R. Cutter. New 
 York: Putnam's Sons, 1876. Pp. 1, 14). All this 
 is in accord with what Huxley says in his article in 
 " The Encyclopedia Britannica," " There is no par- 
 allel between the actions of matter in the mineral 
 world and in living tissues." 
 
 2. After the unanimity of experts, there is no 
 higher authority on any scientific doctrine than to 
 find it taught in standard text-bo.oks in schools of the 
 first rank ; but you may easily ascertain that the very 
 latest standard text-books oppose the mechanical or 
 materialistic theory of life. 
 
 Dr. Tyson's book on " The Cell Doctrine " is in 
 use side by side with Frey in your Harvard Medical 
 School ; but Tyson opens with diagrams from Beale, 
 and closes with Beale ; and where is there any thing 
 in him that is regarded as invulnerable, that he did 
 not obtain from Beale ? Over and over, in the lat- 
 ter half of the book, as he closes the history of the 
 thirty-nine years since the cell-theory was promul- 
 gated, he cites Beale ; and, in spite of all the sneers 
 from Huxley and others about " aquosity and horo- 
 logity," he sums up established science thus, " We 
 believe that the proper shaping, arrangement, and func- 
 tion of these elementary parts, is not a process identical 
 or analogous to crystallization, taking place through 
 merely physical laws, but that there is a presiding 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 151 
 
 agency which controls such arrangement to a definite 
 end." [Applause.] (TYSON, DR. JAMES, The Cell 
 Doctrine, pp. 112 and- 113. Lindsay and Blakiston, 
 1870.) This is a statement out of a text-book men- 
 tioned officially in the catalogue of Harvard Uni- 
 versity as in use in the best medical school of your 
 nation ; and here is the best German book ; and I 
 have just read to you out of the best Scotch book ; 
 and Beale's is the best English book ; and they are 
 all explicitly agreed in the assertion, that it is life, 
 not mechanism, which weaves us and all things that 
 live. [Applause.] 
 
 3. I affirm that we have under the microscope ocu- 
 lar demonstration that it is life which causes organi- 
 zation, and not organization which causes life. What 
 is the first thing that appears in the formation of an 
 organization ? A mass of germinal matter that has 
 life, but no organization. You know what a. naked 
 bioplast is, a little speck of glue-like matter, trans- 
 parent, colorless, and, under the highest powers of the 
 microscope and every other test known to man, show- 
 ing no organization, but yet capable of multiplex 
 movements, all these in a minute [referring to 
 colored diagrams on the platform]. " We fail," 
 Huxley says, " to detect any organization in the bio- 
 plasmic mass', " but there are movements in it and life. 
 We see the movements: they must have a cause. 
 The cause of the movements must exist before the 
 movements. The life is there before organization. 
 But, if life may exist before organization, it may do 
 so after it, or outside it. 
 
152 BIOLOGY. 
 
 If, according to custom in some rude games oi 
 sailors, we were to put a man in a canvas bag, and 
 throw him in the bag upon this platform ; and if that 
 bag were to begin to cast out a promontory here, and 
 a promontory there, and assume scores of shapes, and 
 move to and fro, and pick up, now this object, and 
 now that, we should have no unfit representation 
 of a portion of the movements of a naked bioplasmic 
 mass. [Laughter.] Your astonishing bag here picks 
 up this chair, which cannot move of itself; and, to 
 make the parallel complete, it must have the power 
 of absorbing this inanimate object, and of changing 
 it into something just like itself, or alive. Suddenly 
 this man in the bag may, if the parallel is to be made 
 perfect, throw off a small sack from the bag, and 
 that instantly begins to move on this platform : it 
 forthwith commences to pick up lifeless matter, and 
 to transform it into living matter like itself. It, too, 
 throws off other little sacks, which go through the 
 same motions again. We should say that sacks of 
 that sort had very complicated machinery in them. 
 [Laughter and applause.] But this is by no means 
 the chief marvel. 
 
 You know, gentlemen, that in India it is a play of 
 the children and of grown men to make up the -form 
 of an elephant by stacking themselves together,, two 
 men making a leg of the elephant, six or eight his 
 body, three or four his head, one or two his proboscis. 
 You see in the pictures from India representations of 
 elephants, made up, as you notice when you look 
 at them sharply, wholly of human forms. Now, to 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 153 
 
 carry out this parallel, we must have our first canvas 
 bag transform itself into many canvas bags, and then 
 all of them build themselves up, after this Indian 
 fashion, into the elephant, the lion, the giraffe, or the 
 palm-tree, the date, or the pomegranate ; and these 
 must live. They must grow. Some of the miracu- 
 lous sacks will drop away from day to day; but n. : .w 
 ones must take their places, and fill out the design 
 had in view at the first. Of course, the part assigned 
 to the man in the proboscis of an elephant thus built 
 must be very different from that assigned to a man 
 in the leg. If an elephant is to be made up in that 
 way, the men who form his back must have a very 
 different position from the men who form the tusks. 
 There must be very peculiar activities put forth by 
 each man in each part of your elephant. So, al- 
 though our bioplasm is, to all appearance, the same 
 thing when it weaves a tendon, and when it weaves 
 a muscle, and when it weaves a nerve, its activities 
 are very different. Surely the invisible molecular 
 machinery must be very complicated indeed ; for it 
 makes a tendon here, a muscle here, or a nerve here. 
 According to Spencer and this astute materialistic 
 school, the bioplasts are nothing but molecular ma- 
 chinery, started off by " stimulus " into all this 
 weaving, as the spark starts off the gunpowder into 
 explosion. We say, that, if that is so, the molecular 
 machinery must be more than exceedingly complex ; 
 for not only must it really be very different when it 
 weaves a nerve from what it is when it weaves a 
 muscle; but, and this is the point on which to fas- 
 
154 BIOLOGY. 
 
 ten supreme attention, when we run back the 
 examination of all our co-ordinated tissues, we find 
 that assuredly all this molecular machinery must in 
 some way have existed, or have been provided for, in 
 the first little transparent, colorless, and apparently 
 structureless bioplast which began to weave your ele- 
 phant or your man, your pomegranate or your palm. 
 [Applause.] A rather complicated kind of molecu- 
 lar machinery to be crowded into a space so small ! 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 The acorn which hangs above the nest of your 
 eagle has in it bioplasts that differ under the micro- 
 scope in no particular from the little mass of bioplasm 
 in the eagle's egg. Your bioplasm that weaves your 
 oak is, to all human investigation, the same thing 
 with the speck of bioplasm which weaves your eagle. 
 Gentlemen, there is no inductive evidence of the ex- 
 istence of this mechanism. We may say, therefore, 
 that, in the present state of knowledge, we cannot 
 prove that molecular mechanism, acted upon by phy- 
 sical and chemical forces, is the sole source of organ- 
 ization. 
 
 4. Matter in living tissues is directed, controlled, 
 arranged, so as to subserve the most varied and com- 
 plex purposes. 
 
 Only matter and mind exist in the universe. 
 
 Matter in living tissues must therefore be arranged 
 either by matter or by mind. 
 
 No material properties or forces are known to be 
 capable of producing the arrangements which exist 
 in living tissue. 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? 155 
 
 In the present state of knowledge, these arrange- 
 ments must be referred to mind or life as their source. 
 
 5. Bioplasm exhibits peculiar actions found no- 
 where in not-living matter. 
 
 It exhibits different actions in every different ani- 
 mal and vegetable tissue. 
 
 For each class of these peculiar actions, there must 
 be a peculiar cause. 
 
 That cause must be either matter or mind. 
 
 But the cause has qualities which cannot, without 
 self-contradiction, be attributed to inert matter. 
 
 It must therefore exist in the life, or an immaterial 
 element of the organization. 
 
 6. It is plain, that, before the matter which forms 
 the tissues has entered the organization, the plan of 
 the tissues is involved in the earliest bioplasts. 
 
 There is forecast involved, therefore, in the action 
 of the bioplasts. " Bioplasm prepares for far-off 
 events," says Professor Lionel Beale over and over. 
 
 Forecast is not an attribute of matter, but of mind. 
 An immaterial element exists, therefore, in living 
 organisms. 
 
 7. There is a great fact known to us more cer- 
 tainly than the existence of matter : it is the unity 
 of consciousness. I know that I exist, and that I 
 am one. Hermann Lotze's supreme argument against 
 materialism is the unity of consciousness. I know 
 that I am J, and not you ; and I know this to my very 
 finger-tips. That finger is a part of my organism, 
 not of yours. To the last extremity of every nerve, 
 I know that I am one. The unity of consciousness 
 
156 BIOLOGY. 
 
 is a fact known to us by much better evidence than 
 the existence of matter. I am a natural realist in 
 philosophy, if I may use a technical term : I believe 
 in the existence of both matter and mind. There 
 are two things in the universe ; but I know the exist- 
 ence of mind better than I know the existence of 
 matter. Sometimes in dreams we fall down preci- 
 pices, and awake, and find that the gnarled savage 
 rocks had no existence. But we touched them ; we 
 felt them ; we were bruised by them. Who knows 
 but that some day we may wake, and find that all 
 matter is merely a dream ? Even if we do that, it 
 will yet remain true that I am I. There is more sup- 
 Dort for idealism than for materialism; but there is 
 fro sufficient support for either. If we are to rever- 
 ence all, and not merely a fraction, of the list of 
 axiomatic or self-evident truths, if we are not to play 
 fast and loose with the intuitions which are the 
 eternal tests of verity, we shall believe in the exist- 
 ence of both matter and mind. Hermann Lotze holds 
 that the unity of consciousness is a fact absolutely 
 incontrovertible and absolately inexplicable on the 
 theory that our bodies are woven by a complex of 
 physical arrangements and physical forces, having 
 no co-ordinating presiding power over them all. 1 
 know that there is a co-ordinating presiding power 
 somewhere in me. I am I. I am one. Whence the 
 sense of a unity of consciousness, if we are made up, 
 according to Spencer's idea, or Huxley's, of infinitely 
 multiplex molecular mechanisms? We have the 
 idea of a presiding power that makes each man one 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL. 157 
 
 individuality from top to toe. How do we get it? 
 It must have a sufficient cause. To this hour, no 
 man has explained the unity of consciousness in con- 
 sistency with the mechanical theory of life. [Ap- 
 plause.] (See LOTZE'S greatest work, Mikrokosmus, 
 Leipzig, 1869. Vol. i. book 3, chap. 1.) 
 
 There is not in Germany to-day, except Hacke 1 , a 
 single professor of real eminence who teaches philo- 
 sophical materialism. (See art. on " Philosophy and 
 Science in Germany," Princeton Review, October, 1876, 
 pp. 752-755.) The eloquent Michelet, the life-long 
 friend and disciple of Hegel, lectured at Berlin Uni- 
 versity in the spring of 1874 in defence of the Hege- 
 lian philosophy as a system. Out of nearly three 
 thousand students he obtained only nine hearers. 
 Helmholtz, the renowned physicist of Berlin, has 
 come out through physiology and mathematical 
 physics into metaphysics ; and- his views in the latter 
 science are pretty nearly those of Immanuel Kant. 
 Wundt, the greatest of the physiologists of Heidel- 
 berg University, which leads Germany in medical 
 science, has made for years a profound study of the 
 inter-relation of matter and mind; and he rejects 
 materialism as in conflict with self-evident, axiomatic 
 truth. Hermann Lotze, now commonly regarded as 
 the greatest philosopher of the most intellectual of 
 the nations, and who has left his mark on every 
 scholar in Germany under forty years of age, is every- 
 where renowned for his physiological as well as for 
 his metaphysical knowledge, and as an opponent of 
 the mechanical theory of life. 
 
158 BIOLOGY. 
 
 I look up to the highest summits of science, and 
 I reverence properly, I hope, all that is established 
 by the scientific method ; but when I lift my gaze to 
 the very uppermost pinnacles of the mount of estab- 
 lished truth, I find standing there, not Hackel nor 
 Spencer, but Hemholtz of Berlin, and Wundt of 
 Heidelberg, and Hermann Lotze of Gottingen, physi- 
 ologists as well as metaphysicians all ; and they, as 
 free investigators of the relations between matter 
 and mind, are all on their knees before a living God. 
 [Applause.] Am I to stand here in Boston, and be 
 told that there is no authority in philosophy beyond 
 the Thames? Is the outlook of this cultured au- 
 dience, in heaven's name, to be limited by the North 
 Sea ? The English we revere ; but Professor Gray 
 says that there is something in their temperament 
 that leads to materialism. England, green England ! 
 Sour, sad, stout skies, with azure tender as heaven, 
 omnipresent, but not often visible behind the clouds, 
 sour, sad, stout people, with azure tender as heaven, 
 and omnipresent, but not often visible behind the 
 vapors. Such is England, such the English. We 
 are to extend our field of vision to the Rhine, to the 
 Elbe, to the Oder, to the Ural Mountains ; and, when 
 we look around the whole horizon of culture, the 
 truth is, that philosophical materialism to-day is a 
 waning cause. It is a crescent of the old moon; 
 and, in the same sky where it lingers as a ghost, the 
 sun is rising, with God behind it. [Applause.] 
 
vm. 
 
 DOES DEATH END ALL? THE NERVES AND 
 THE SOUL. 
 
 THE FIFTY-THIRD LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY LEC- 
 TURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT TEMPLE 
 NOV. 20. 
 
" IT needs not that I swear by the sunset redness, 
 And by the night and its gatherings, 
 And by the moon when at her full, 
 That from state to state ye shall be surely carried onward." 
 
 KORAN. 
 
 " DIB Kraft, die in mir denkt und wirkt, ist ihrer Natur nach 
 eine so ewige Kraft, als jene, die Sonnen und Sterne zuzammen- 
 halt. Ihre Natur ist ewig, wie der Verstand Gottes, und die Stiit- 
 zen meines Daseins nicht meiner korperlichen Ercheinung sind 
 fest, als die Pfeiler des Weltalls." HERDER, Philosophy of History. 
 
VIII. 
 
 DOES DEATH END ALL? THE NERVES 
 AND THE SOUL. 
 
 PRELUDE OF CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 SAFE popular freedom consists of four things, and 
 cannot be compounded out of any three of the four 
 the diffusion of liberty, the diffusion of intelli- 
 gence, the diffusion of property, and the diffusion of 
 conscientiousness. In the latter work, the Church is 
 the chief agent ; and her most important instrumen- 
 tality we call the Sabbath. Goldwin Smith very 
 subtly says that it is free religion and hallowed Sun- 
 days which explain the average moral prosperity of 
 America. We have had in the last week, in Boston, 
 a somewhat obscure and erratic convention, advising 
 America to do better than she has thus far done in 
 following the New-England ideas concerning Sunday. 
 Give America, from sea to sea, the Parisian Sunday, 
 and in two hundred years all our greatest cities will 
 be politically under the heels of the featherheads, the 
 roughs, the sneaks, and the money-gripes. [Ap- 
 plause.] Abolish Sunday, and the social sanity it 
 fosters, and, in less than a century, the conflict be- 
 
 161 
 
162 BIOLOGY. 
 
 tween labor and capital would issue here in petroleum 
 fire-bottles. Capital in our great municipalities is 
 fleeced now to the skin. Does it wish such social 
 insanity to spring up as shall cut it through the 
 cellular integument to the quick? If it does, let 
 capital abolish Sunday. Working-men desire to 
 build co-operation up into a palace for themselves 
 and their little ones; and God speed their effort 
 to protect their own ! But how can co-operation 
 succeed without the large confidence of man in 
 man? and how can that come without the moral 
 culture given by the right use of Sundays ? Co- 
 operation fails because men are not honest. How 
 are men to be made honest without a time set apart 
 for religious culture ? That population which habit- 
 ually neglects the pulpit, or its equivalent, one day 
 in seven, can ultimately be led by charlatans, and 
 will be. [Applause.] 
 
 I am no fanatic, I hope, as to Sunday ; but I look 
 abroad over the map of popular freedom in the world, 
 and it does not seem to me accidental that Switzer- 
 land, Scotland, England, and the United States, the 
 countries which best observe Sunday, constitute 
 almost the entire map of safe popular government. 
 
 Sabbath is a day of religious culture and cheerful 
 rest. Its biblical warrant is found in the re-affirma- 
 tion by the Sermon on the Mount of the whole moral 
 spirit of the Decalogue. I affirm, without fear of 
 successful contradiction by any cultured thought, 
 that the Sermon on the Mount re-affirms the moral 
 spirit of the Decalogue, and in that re-affirmation 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 163 
 
 perpetuates the direction to hallow one-seventh 
 portion of our time : it matters very little which 
 seventh. " Forsake not the assembling of yourselves 
 together," is apostolic precept, as it was apostolic 
 example. No doubt small critics may show that the 
 apostles and our Lord did works of necessity and 
 mercy on the Sabbath ; and so do we, and so will we 
 to the end of time. But the Sermon on the Mount 
 re-affirms your first, your second, your third, your 
 fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth com- 
 mandments. How are you to show that it does not 
 re-affirm the fourth in spirit ? " Not one jot or tittle 
 shall ever pass from the law till all be fulfilled." 
 
 It is fifteen hundred years now since Constantine 
 put into execution the law bringing one day in seven 
 an unwonted hush on all industry in the Roman 
 dominion. Here we are ten centuries off from the 
 time when Christianity closed her chief political 
 struggles. Here is a republic built chiefly by Chris- 
 tianity, and perfectly free, and governing more square 
 miles than ever Caesar ruled over. This nation calls 
 peace to her industries one day in seven. She sends 
 nine millions of her population, one in five, to a World's 
 Fair, and shuts the door every Sunday. I know what 
 report says about the evasions and hypocrisy of the 
 Centennial Commission in admitting persons surrep- 
 .titiously into the buildings on the Sabbath against 
 the vote to close the grounds on that day. If the 
 report is correct, the Centennial Commission ought 
 to have public rebuke, unless it can make adequate 
 explanation. 
 
164 BIOLOGY. 
 
 I am glad to see that even this erratic convention, 
 dazzled out of sight by the sound ideas and majestic 
 words of the Episcopal congress, was wise enough to 
 proclaim that it did not wish to introduce into 
 America the European Sunday. 
 
 Hallam says that European despotic rulers have 
 cultivated, as Charles II. did in the day of the " Book 
 of Sports," a love of pastime on Sabbaths, in order 
 that their people might be more quiet undei political 
 distresses. " A holiday Sabbath is the ally of des- 
 potism." Wherever the Romish or Parisian Sunday 
 has prevailed for generations, it has made the whole 
 lives of peasant populations a prolonged childhood. 
 
 America, I venture to say, is satisfied with the rec- 
 ord of the Sabbaths in her World's Exhibition. This 
 convention seemed to think, however, that the bur- 
 den of a great reform was laid upon its shoulders. It 
 apparently thought its thin meetings the representa- 
 tion of a large constituency. Men are strangely full 
 of company sometimes, when before the mirrors of 
 high self-appre'ciation. Sidney Smith, calling on a 
 nobleman, passed through a room full of mirrors, 
 which showed him several images of his own form 
 approaching from many directions. He was wholly 
 alone ; but he was overheard to say, " A meeting of 
 the clergy, I see." [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 Suppose that the musician at your organ yonder 
 has on his finger Gyges' ring, which according to 
 the Greek mythology, as you remember, made the 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 165 
 
 wearer invisible. It is entirely clear, is it not, that 
 if we were to approach and study that instrument 
 while it is in action under the fingers of this invisible 
 musician, we should find in it no authority for attrib- 
 uting the anthem proceeding from the organ to the 
 inert matter composing the organ ? We should have, 
 on the contrary, incontrovertible evidence in the very 
 structure of the instrument that it was made to be 
 operated upon from without. If it is to give forth 
 melody, it must be moved by something not itself. 
 It is composed of wood and metal and ivory, all of 
 which, with all their complicated mechanical arrange- 
 ments, are inert, and, if taken alone, are wholly val- 
 ueless in the production of music. 
 
 In one portion of the organ we have a keyboard, 
 and, in the case supposed, we look on the very intri- 
 cate combinations and motions in the keys, and see no 
 cause for the movements. But we know, if we are 
 sane, that every change must have an adequate cause. 
 We find a perfect correspondence between the mo- 
 tions of the keys and the pulsations of the melody 
 rising and falling in this temple. But this parallelism 
 is not identity. The keys in motion are not the 
 music. Motions and forces are not the same. 
 
 Let, now, some inquirer of narrow mental horizon, 
 and confusing as so much current discussion does 
 motions with forces, assert that these intelligent 
 movements of the keys which, of course, must 
 have behind them forces containing intelligence 
 are the sole cause of the anthem. Let him insist on 
 a new definition of ivory. Let him affirm 'that the 
 
166 BIOLOGY. 
 
 matter composing these keys has in it the power and 
 potency of all music, from the simplest air up to Bee 
 thoven's Fifth Symphony. Let him go behind the 
 organ, and elaborately study the very powerful and 
 purely physical forces at work in the interior of the 
 instrument. Let him show, learnedly and laborious- 
 ly, that currents of air thrown into the pipes pro- 
 duce, according to merely mechanical principles, the 
 wholly physical concussions in the molecular parti- 
 cles of the atmosphere which are concerned in the 
 music. As no merely physical science, by any test 
 known to man, can detect the presence of the musi- 
 cian, let this observer assert that there is no musician 
 independent of the instrument, and that the anthem 
 proceeds wholly from the mechanism of the organ, 
 acted upon by exclusively physical stimulation from 
 without. Let him assert that the hypothesis of an 
 invisible musician is as absurd as the attribution of 
 aquosity to water, or of horologity to a clock. Ac- 
 cording to this supposed materialistic observer of the 
 organ, there is nothing in the anthem which is not 
 wholly the result of the mechanism of the organ on 
 the one hand, and of the merely physical forces sup- 
 plied to it by the organ-bellows on the other. Let 
 this naturalistic observer have a great name among 
 men of his own opinions. 
 
 Sho^d we be puzzled by these confident asser- 
 tions ? Not if we held fast to the Ariadne clew of 
 the self-evident, axiomatic truth, that every change 
 must have an adequate cause. We should say that 
 this instrument, being made wholly of matter, is 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 167 
 
 inert. We should assert, in the name of established 
 science, the incontrovertible inertness of all parts of 
 the organ taken alone. We should say that the 
 motion of rough currents of air through it does not 
 and can not account for the intricate and ravishing 
 melody which captivates our souls by its intelligence, 
 and must have behind it a soul. Mere wood, metal, 
 and ivory cannot utter Beethoven's spirit. Perhaps 
 the air, by the slight pressure of intelligence on the 
 keys, can be ruled into melody, and made to give all 
 its majestic force to the intelligent weaving of the 
 anthem. But in your organ, as elsewhere, involution 
 and evolution are a fixed equation. You bring out of 
 it only what you put in. Your musical instruments 
 will throw no Beethoven into the air, unless there is 
 a Beethoven at the keys. 
 
 Such, my friends, is the stern outline of the inef- 
 faceable contrast between the body and the soul. The 
 distinction between matter and mind is a gulf as vast 
 and impassable in physics as in metaphysics. The 
 soul wears Gyges' ring. It is, indeed, invisible to 
 the microscope, and intangible to the scalpel. But 
 there are mysterious molecular motions in the ner- 
 vous substance of the brain. Neural tremors fill the 
 keyboard of the body. Undoubtedly there is a per- 
 fect correspondence between these tremors arid the 
 anthems of thought and emotion, in your Homer, 
 your Demosthenes, your Caesar, your Milton, you* 
 Shakspeare. But the parallelism is not identity. 
 Motions and forces are not the same. The keys in 
 motion are not the music. Physical forces play 
 
168 BIOLOGY. 
 
 through the brain ; but they do not sing, unless modu- 
 lated by the ineffable touches of the keys. Just as 
 surely as you, from the structure of an organ, may 
 infer the necessity of a wholly exterior agent to move 
 it, so, from the structure of the nervous system, we 
 must infer the necessity of a wholly external agent 
 to set it in action. [Applause.] 
 
 In what I am about to put before you I have the 
 authority of Frey, of Strieker, of Ranke, of Kolli 
 ker, of Carpenter, of Beale, of Dalton, and of 
 Draper. 
 
 1. In the nervous mechanism there are two kinds 
 of fibres, called by physiologists the automatic arcs, 
 and the influential arcs. 
 
 We have here a representation of the simplest 
 kind of nervous fibre [illustrating by a figure upon 
 the blackboard], the pendent curve of a nervous 
 thread, one end in contact with the external surface 
 of the body, and the other connected with this mus- 
 cular tissue. If you please, the bioplasts weave all 
 that. 'Perfectly simple as the structure looks, it is a 
 miracle. Can you make any thing like it? Here is 
 your muscular fibre, which has the peculiar quality 
 of contracting under nervous stimulus. Here is 
 your nervous cord, which transmits strange influ- 
 ences that cause contraction when they are received 
 upon this muscular tissue. One test by which true 
 is to be distinguished from false science is, that the 
 former does, and that the latter does not, concern 
 itself carefully with beginnings. Remember, that, 
 even in this automatic nerve, motions and forces are 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 169 
 
 not the same. Muscular contraction is an effect of 
 physical forces only as these act on mechanism 
 arranged before the forces themselves came into play. 
 Your miraculous brain is first woven by your bio- 
 plasts. You say mind is the result of the mechanism 
 of the brain ; but the mechanism of the brain is the 
 direct product of bioplasmic action. 
 
 Of course, I am ready to admit, that, if you touch a 
 portion of this automatic nervous arc with a galvanic 
 current, you will produce contraction there in the 
 attached muscle. Electrical stimulation of such a 
 nerve may produce a contraction of the muscle even 
 after the man is dead. But what wove that nerve ? 
 What wove that contractile tissue ? 
 
 Beyond this simplest structure, the next higher in 
 the development of the nervous system is what is 
 called the cellated nervous arc. We see it here, a 
 pendent curve as before ; but now with a very large 
 bead, or mass of nervous matter with bioplasts in the 
 middle of it, is hanging at this point. It is yet true 
 that irritation here produces contraction there. 
 What influence, then, has this nervous centre upon 
 the transmission of this nervous force? The books 
 say that there is no proof that the nervous influence 
 is changed in quality by its passage through one of 
 these simplest ganglia. You may single out a nerve 
 arc of that primitive style, and irritate it by an elec- 
 tric current on one side of this large bead or ganglion, 
 and you will produce contraction in the muscle just 
 as before. You irritate this side beyond the great 
 bead, and you produce contraction. 
 
170 BIOLOGY. 
 
 But a third step in the development of the nervous 
 system does introduce a change. Many of these 
 nerve-centres are tied up to other nerve-centres 
 [illustrating by a figure in which the ganglion of the 
 nerve-arc was connected with another ganglion] ; 
 and in a nerve with its ganglion connected in that 
 style with another ganglion, a portion of the influ- 
 ence transmitted through this complex nervous mass 
 is thrown off into this other complex nervous mass. 
 Your physiological authorities call the latter a register- 
 ing ganglion. This transmission of nervous influence 
 into the registering complex of nervous matter may 
 be very inadequately illustrated, Professor Draper says, 
 by a faucet with three stops (DRAPER, PROFESSOR 
 J. W., Human Physiology, p. 380), or by a mirror 
 with a portion of the isinglass taken off the back. 
 The light is in part reflected and in part transmitted. 
 Thus this registering mass of nervous matter retains 
 a portion of the force sent through this nervous arc ; 
 and, in an animal possessing this nervous mechanism, 
 there will be memory, or something equivalent to it. 
 
 Thus far we have seen only what is called the 
 automatic nervous mechanism. Please fix in your 
 minds, gentlemen, the simplicity of this structure, 
 and, when a more complicated mechanism is outlined 
 in connection with this, keep vividly before your 
 minds the contrast between the two. 
 
 All established science is agreed that there are 
 automatic and also influential arcs in the nervous 
 system, and that the contrast between the two things 
 is as marked as that between their accepted scientific 
 names. 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 171 
 
 In the higher animals there is added to the simpler 
 automatic part of the nervous system a far more in- 
 tricate structure, called the influential nervous mech- 
 anism. Professor Draper represents the contrast 
 between the automatic and the influential part of the 
 nervous system by this ideal figure (DRAPER, 
 Human Physiology, p. 282), which I here reproduce 
 line for line. It is substantially a lower curve and 
 an upper curve, the one automatic, the other influ- 
 ential, and the two bound together by nervous 
 threads. In all physiology, outside the supreme 
 topic of bioplasm, I know nothing which is so sug- 
 gestive as this contrast between the automatic and 
 the influential nerve-arcs. Here, assuredly, is a 
 majestic mount of vision upon which the philosophy 
 of the relations between body and soul, matter and 
 mind, must often pace to and fro. 
 
 2. Plants and many animals possess only the auto- 
 matic arcs. 
 
 3. Such organizations as possess only the auto- 
 matic arcs are automata ; and, although they have 
 life, they cannot, in the strict sense of the word, be 
 said to possess souls including free-will and con- 
 science. 
 
 The contrast between the influential and the au- 
 tomatic is that between freedom and necessity. It 
 is that between man, with the power of choice, and 
 your poor honey-bee, who is supposed to work as an 
 automaton. The bee has not the influential arc : it 
 has only the automatic nerves. Accordingly, by in- 
 stinct it has built its cell in the same way age after 
 
172 BIOLOGY. 
 
 age. Two bses under precisely the same circum- 
 stances will do precisely the same things. 
 
 But this upper arc, which is possessed by man, is 
 called influential, and not automatic, because it is the 
 seat of activities of a free sort. This is the key- 
 board of your invisible musician : this is the white 
 ivory shaped by no mortal fingers, and on which life 
 plays. [Applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, I have been accused of being rhetori- 
 cal ; but a man who wishes to dazzle by rhetoric does 
 not talk in twenty-eighthlies and forty-ninthlies, as 
 I have sometimes done. Any one, however, who 
 wishes to convince by cool precision, very naturally 
 employs numerals. You will allow me, therefore, to 
 number the points of a discussion, which must be 
 crowded, and which would nevertheless be clear. 
 
 Just here expose themselves in more than glimpses 
 the fascinating questions as to the difference between 
 instinct and reason, and as to the immortality of 
 instinct. Animals that possess only the automatic 
 nerve-arcs have only instinct for their guidance : 
 they have life, but not free-wills and consciences. 
 Later in this course of lectures, I shall discuss the 
 question, whether, after death, there is a survival of 
 the immaterial principle in animals that are mere 
 automata. Here and now I emphasize only this 
 broad distinction between the influential and auto- 
 matic nerve-arcs, a physical fact, without any haze 
 either in' its margin or its contents. God material- 
 izes. In the universe of forms, as well as in that of 
 forces, the Divine language has no empty syllable. 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 173 
 
 Perhaps this invisible musician, with Gyges' ring on 
 his finger, has not been left without a witness of 
 himself in the whitish-gray keyboard of the human 
 organ. Perhaps the contrast between the automatic 
 and" influential nerve-arcs is just as important a fact 
 in the instrument God has made as the distinction 
 between your musician and the man who moves the 
 bellows behind the organ is in the instrument man 
 has made. Among the automatic and influential 
 nerve-arcs, all philosophy ought to stand listening 
 with hushed breath. 
 
 4. Man possesses in abundance both the automatic 
 and influential arcs. 
 
 5. Whatever animal possesses the influential arcs 
 has a depository, magazine, or reservoir of force not 
 dependent on external impressions. 
 
 Aristotle noticed with great keenness of interest 
 the fact that men awake before they open their eyes. 
 Professor Bain regards that circumstance, with which 
 we are all familiar, as one out of thousands of proofs 
 that external irritation is not necessary always to 
 internal activity. 
 
 By the way, Aristotle was accustomed to assert 
 that the most interesting portion of human knowl- 
 edge is that which refers to what he called the ani- 
 mating principle of physical organisms. We are 
 beginning to think, I hope, that what is called bio- 
 plasm is the most interesting by far of all the objects 
 know to physical science. That, in substance, is an 
 opinion two thousand years old. Aristotle defined 
 the animating principle as the cause offoxmj/n organ- 
 
174 BIOLOGY. 
 
 isms (Ariutotle de Anima, passim'). This to him was 
 the most alluring of all the topics open to Greek 
 philosophy. He said often, that, if we ought to* be 
 interested in a theme in proportion to its dignity, 
 certainly nothing could be more entrancing than the 
 study of the animating principle. 
 
 6. In man the influential arc is the seat of Intel- 
 lect, free-will, and conscience. 
 
 7. But, as man possesses the automatic arc also, 
 many of his actions are automatic. 
 
 We must expect to find in some animals which 
 have a much more perfect automatic nervous mecha- 
 nism than man, instincts, and, apparently, sponta- 
 neous movements, of the most marvellous kinds. I 
 am not asserting that man is not in some respects an 
 automaton ; but he is by no means as good a one as 
 might be chosen if the power of automatic nervous 
 action is to be shown. Professor Huxley went before 
 a great audience at the Belfast meeting of the Brit- 
 ish Association for the Advancement of Science, and 
 took a headless frog, and put it on the back of his 
 hand, and then turned his hand slowly over ; and the 
 frog kept his place till the hand had been reversed, 
 and the frog stood in the palm. (HUXLEY'S Ad- 
 dress on the Question, Are Animals Automata . ? ) Now, 
 said Professor Huxley, is there any will concerned in 
 that ? Is not this the result of purely physical stim- 
 ulation of the frog's nerves ? Have we not here an 
 automaton?. He meant to puzzle the world about 
 the freedom of the human soul. But the bioplasts 
 wove that frog too. After the automatic mechanism 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 175 
 
 is woven, such results are very well known to follow 
 the action of the merely automatic part of the ner- 
 vous system. A frog with his head cut off you may 
 put on the back of your hand, and you may turn the 
 hand over, and the frog will keep its place meanwhile 
 without assistance, and stand on your palm. Of 
 course, there is no action of the cerebral hemispheres 
 there. The irritation of the feet has such an effect 
 as to cause the muscles to enable them to cling to 
 their support ; just as, while the perching bird sleeps^ 
 the perch itself stimulates to action the muscles that 
 cause it to be clasped by the bird's feet. Will you 
 please notice that you have no right to be puzzled by 
 any number of facts like these, and that all there is 
 in Huxley's famous experiment is admitted truth 
 concerning the automatic part of the nervous system, 
 and that the puzzle consists in putting that fragment 
 for the whole ? 
 
 8. As in man, the automatic and the influential 
 nervous arcs are blended together by innumerable 
 commissures, and are yet perfectly distinguishable 
 by study, so the automatic and the free activities of 
 man are, in experience, most intricately blended to- 
 gether, and yet are perfectly distinguishable by care- 
 ful attention. 
 
 9. Sometimes the former may become so powerful 
 as to overcome the latter ; and sometimes the latter 
 may overcome the former. 
 
 10. The power of habit, and, to a great extent, 
 that of emotion, depends on the action of the auto- 
 matic arcs. 
 
176 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Your classical orator of Boston stands upon some 
 transfigured platform, and the warp and woof of his 
 unpremeditated language fall from the loom of his 
 mind, every figure perfect. You hold up in print 
 the next morning his speech between your eyes and 
 the merciless sunlight, and there is no flaw in the 
 weaving. Your Phillips, your Everett, your Sum- 
 ner, your Webster, have scarred into their nervous 
 systems good literary habits. You know very well 
 that a scar will not wash out, or grow out. Abso- 
 lutely there is no doubt about this. But how vast 
 and fathomlessly practical are the applications of the 
 simple truth that scars are ineraseable ! A two-edged 
 sword this, and of keener than Damascus steel. Your 
 dull inebriate, who scars his brain by the habit of 
 intemperance, thinks, that, after his reformation, his 
 nervous system will slowly recover all the soundness 
 it once had. But in your finger a scar will not grow 
 out; and on your brain a scar will not grow out. 
 Here are scars which were made when my fingers 
 were too young to be trusted with edged tools ; but, 
 although the particles of my body have been changed 
 many times since then, the scars are here, reproduced 
 with the reproduction of the particles of the body. 
 Once in seven years we have a new body, the books 
 used to say : once in twelve months, as they say now, 
 the particles of our physical system are changed. 
 Scars, however, are absolutely unchangeable in the 
 changing flesh. We carry into our graves the marks 
 of boyhood's sports ; and this is as true, if you please, 
 of the sports that scar the brain as of those that gash 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 177 
 
 the fingers. The most searching blessing on good 
 habrts, the most penetrating curse on bad, is found 
 in the one fact, that the automatic nervous mecha- 
 nism is such, that when a habit, good or bad, is 
 scarred into the nerves and brain, the soul pours 
 forth the result of the habit almost spontaneously. 
 
 The influential nerve-arcs can, indeed, hold back 
 the activity of the automatic arcs. " The will counts 
 for something as a cause," says Huxley himself. 
 Dr. Carpenter explicitly teaches, that the influential 
 nerve-arcs may resist, " keep in check and modify " 
 the action of the automatic nervous mechanism. 
 (CARPENTER, Physiology, eighth edition, 1875, p. 
 730. See, also, his Mental Physiology, passim.') 
 
 The power of volition resides in the influential 
 arcs. But even a man is so far an automaton, that, 
 if he is an orator, he will scar himself with the com- 
 plete oratorical habit, and may speak, as the bird 
 sings, without effort. You wonder at the precision, 
 fluency, and force of the language of your Burke or 
 your Chatham. But the automatic nerve-scars rep- 
 resenting good literary habits may have been in the 
 mother, or in both parents, or in five generations. 
 Certainly the habit of good extemporaneous speech 
 has been cultivated through more than a quarter of 
 a century by your Chatham and your Burke. It is 
 now scarred deeply into the nerves ; and scars do 
 not grow out. And when, before any audience, the 
 warp and woof of eloquent speech are needed, the 
 automatic action of good habit sets its power behind 
 the will of the orator ; and nearly all that is required 
 
178 BIOLOGY. 
 
 is, that some great thought and passion should throw 
 the shuttles once, and then the figured, firm web flows 
 spontaneously from the perfect loom. [Applause.] 
 But just so, my friends, your tendency or mine to 
 slovenly speech, our fearfully unsesthetic ways, and 
 even the inebriate's thirst, or the sensualist's leprous 
 thoughts, scar the nervous system in its automatic 
 arc. When you, thus scarred by habit, and it may 
 be, alas ! by inheritance, pass the place of tempta- 
 tion, you are seized, you know not with what power : 
 you feel that there is necessity upon you ; and that 
 mystery is simply the fact that scars are ineraseable. 
 You have scarred your nervous system with an evil 
 habit ; and now this terrific power of the automatic 
 mechanism stands behind your will. Your musician 
 yonder, under the same automatic law, derives power 
 from the very source from which you derive weak- 
 ness. He calls forth melodj^, spray after spray of 
 the fountain of the anthem ascending and falling, 
 with raptures all in rhythm ; and we are lifted by it 
 to the azure ; we are ennobled by it mysteriously : 
 but your musician is making no effort. So has habit 
 ingrained his nervous mechanism, that he plays as 
 the bird sings. Professor Huxley states, that once an 
 old soldier, who had been accustomed all his life tc 
 come to a perfectly erect attitude at the word " atten 
 tion," was carrying home his dinner on a Londor 
 street, when a comrade who desired sport called out 
 to him from the other side of the way, " Attention ! " 
 Instantly the inattentive soldier came into the up- 
 right .attitude, and dropped his dinner in the street. 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 179 
 
 Now, Professor Huxley says, that, although the de- 
 tails of that anecdote may not be all correct, they 
 might be, and that they might be because of the 
 power of the automatic action of the nervous system. 
 So you, holding }^our families' or your own pure char- 
 acter in your arms ; you, citizens of Boston, holding 
 your honor in this city in your bosoms, are some 
 day tempted sorcerously by intemperance or passion, 
 by the greed and fraud of crooked trade or politics, 
 or by any of the bad impulses that habit or inherit- 
 ance has woven into your nerves; and suddenly, 
 under automatic trance, which might yet have been 
 escaped by force of will, the things dearest to you 
 are dropped by you in the draggled street of your 
 private or public life at the sudden word " Atten- 
 tion " from the black angel. [Applause.] 
 
 11. The action of the influential arcs is not to be 
 regarded as a creation of force, but rather as the 
 optional opening of a reservoir of force, given with 
 the gift of life to each organization that possesses 
 free-will. 
 
 I touch here upon a great mystery, and am quite 
 aware of the nature of the ground over which I pass ; 
 but you will notice that this proposition does not go 
 as far as Sir John Herschel does, when he asserts 
 that the soul is, to a small extent, a real creative force. 
 Let us call it, rather, a power- delegated for optional 
 use. All the power we have is certainly delegated 
 power. We have received it all from Almighty God. 
 His force is all the force there is in the universe, 
 intellectual or physical. [Applause.] 
 
180 BIOLOGY. 
 
 12. This fast, that free-will is exercised through 
 the influential arcs of the nervous system, does not, 
 therefore, necessarily contradict the law of the per- 
 sistence of force. 
 
 13. In both the automatic and the influential arc 
 there is a perfect adaptation of the structure to the 
 agent that is to set it in activity. 
 
 Sometimes, at the end of the automatic arc, you 
 have an eye, with its marvellous lenses, or an ear, 
 which Professor Tyndall calls " a harp of three thou- 
 sand strings." 
 
 14. The eye is the outer portion of the automatic 
 arc concerned in vision ; and all parts of the eye are 
 adapted in their structure to a wholly external agent, 
 light. 
 
 15. The ear is the outer portion of the automatic 
 arc concerned in hearing ; and it is adapted perfectly 
 to an external agent, sound. 
 
 16. The nerves of smell are connected with a struc- 
 ture adapted to a wholly external agent, odor. 
 
 17. The tongue is adapted in the same way to a 
 wholly external agent, flavor. 
 
 18. Many problems in biology are susceptible of an 
 inverse solution : as, for example, given the nature 
 of light to determine, what must be the structure of 
 the organ of vision ; or, given the structure of the 
 eye to determine what is the nature of light. 
 
 19. So, in relation to the agent which moves the 
 influential arcs, we have the problem : Given the 
 structure of the brain to determine the nature of 
 the agent which sets it in action. 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 181 
 
 20. There is an absolute analogy in construction 
 between the elementary arrangement of the fibres 
 of the brain and those of any other nervous arc. 
 
 21. The influential, as well as the automatic part 
 of the nervous system, has its centripetal and centri- 
 fugal fibres, which converge to sensory ganglia, or 
 nervous centres. 
 
 22. Just as the automatic arcs in man's nervous 
 system have vesicular material at their external 
 extremities in the organs of the senses, so the influ- 
 ential have vesicular material at their external ex- 
 tremities in the convolutions of the brain. 
 
 23. But we know beyond question that the auto- 
 matic nerve-arcs can display no phenomena of them- 
 selves : they all require an external agent to set them 
 in motion. 
 
 24. The optical apparatus is inert without the 
 influences of light ; the auditory inert without sound. 
 The organs of taste and smell, and the nerves con- 
 nected with them, are inert and without value, except 
 under the influences of wholly external agents. 
 
 25. Established science asserts the absolute inert- 
 ness of the cerebral structure in itself ; or the entire 
 incapacity of the influential as well as of the auto- 
 matic nerve-arcs to initiate their own activities. 
 
 26. As, therefore, from the structure of the eye, 
 we may infer the existence of a wholly external 
 agent, light, or from that of the ear, the existence 
 of a wholly external agent, sound, so, because of the 
 absolute inertness of the cerebral structure in itself, 
 we must attribute its activities to an agent as external 
 
182 BIOLOGY. 
 
 to it as sound is to the ear, or light to the eye. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 27. That agent is invisible to the external vision, 
 and intangible to external touch. 
 
 28. It is positively known to consciousness, or the 
 internal vision and touch. 
 
 29. That agent is the soul. 
 
 30. As the dissolution of the eye does not destroy 
 the light, the external agent which acts upon it ; and 
 as the dissolution of the ear does not destroy the 
 pulsations of air, the external agent which acts upon 
 it ; so the dissolution of the brain does not destroy 
 the soul, the external agent which sets it in motion. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Gentlemen, there is more than one soul here 
 besides mine sad with unspeakable bereavement. 
 There are eyes here besides mine which weary the 
 heavens with beseeching glances for one vision of 
 faces snatched from us in fiery chariots of pain. Is 
 death the breaking of a flask in the sea ? Is there 
 for me no more personal immortality than for a 
 consumed candle ? Cool precision, gentlemen, not 
 rhetoric; even at^the edge of the tomb, cool pre- 
 cision ! 
 
 I open Professor Draper, and read, " If the optical 
 apparatus be inert, and without value save under the 
 influence of light ; if the auditory apparatus yields 
 no result save under the impressions of sound, 
 since there is between these structures and the ele- 
 mentary structure of the cerebrum a perfect analogy, 
 we are entitled to come to the same conclusion in 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 183 
 
 this instance as in those, and, asserting the absolute 
 inertness of the cerebral structure in itself, to impute 
 the phenomena it displays to an agent as perfectly 
 external to the body, and as independent of it, as 
 are light and sound ; and that agent is the soul." 
 [Applause.] (DRAPER, Physiology, p. 285.) That 
 is a very sacred kind of Scripture, for it is the record 
 of God's work fairly interpreted. 
 
 I might quote twenty other authorities ; but I cite 
 this book because it has a great fame in Germany, and 
 is accessible to all, and because Professor Draper, in 
 a most painfully unfair volume on " The Conflict be- 
 tween Science and Religion," has set himself some- 
 what outside the pale of what I call just sympathies 
 in this great discussion. He, at least, has proved his 
 freedom from all traditional opinions. The objec- 
 tion to the latter book is, that he confuses Romanism 
 and Christianity, and shows that conflict has existed 
 between some forms of the church and science, and 
 then infers that Christianity itself is in conflict with 
 clear ideas. This man, with more than one compeer 
 of his in the latest physiological research seconding 
 his words, affirms, in the' face of the world, that " It 
 is for the physiologist to assert and uphold the doc- 
 trine of the oneness, the accountability and the im- 
 mortality of the soul, and the great truth, that, as 
 there is but one God in the universe, so there is but 
 one spirit in man " (DRAPER, Physiology, p. 24). 
 " We have established the existence of the intellectual 
 principle as external to the body " (Ibid., p. 286). 
 That is Beale, and that is Hermann Lotze, too. 
 
184 BIOLOGY. 
 
 There is a school of rather small philosophy in 
 Cambridge yonder, among a few young men, who, 
 very unjustly to Harvard, are supposed by large 
 portions of the public to represent the University. 
 I happen to be a Harvard man, if you please, and 
 ought to know something of my Alma Mater. 
 There is not a paving-stone or an elm-tree in 
 Cambridge that is not a treasure to me. Who does 
 represent Harvard ? Hermann Lotze and Frey and 
 Beale, rather than Herbert Spencer and Hiickel, are 
 the authorities which the strongest men at Cambridge 
 revere. [Applause.] The North American Review, 
 the Harvard chair of metaphysics, the Harvard pul- 
 pit, the Cambridge poets and men of letters, who 
 are tall enough to be seen across the Atlantic and 
 half a score of centuries, are not converts to mate- 
 rialism. 
 
 Must I infer that the New- York Nation is pos- 
 sessed of a philosophy of materialistic tendency ? I 
 have not criticised, I have even defended, the theistic 
 doctrine of evolution. I have endeavored only to 
 show that the atheistic and agnostic forms of that doc- 
 trine are violently unscientific. There is a use and 
 an abuse of the theory ; and Dana 'represents the one, 
 and Hackel the other. I have treated atheism and 
 materialism without much reverence ; for I revere the 
 scientific method. But three weeks in succession I 
 am assailed with ridicule without argument in a crit- 
 ical journal that claims to be courteous and fair. As 
 this cultured, and, I may say, distinguished Boston 
 audience knows, the New-York journal has stated 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 185 
 
 my positions with the most broad and painful inaccu- 
 racy. Am I to stand here before an audience that 
 has as much culture in it as any weekly gathering in 
 the United States, and be lashed before the world 
 b}^ this New- York weekly, which is, indeed, well 
 informed in politics, but in philosophy is so far be- 
 hind our times as to be now predominantly Spence- 
 rian ? Its editor, as you know, resides in Cambridge ; 
 and the small, disowned school in philosophy there 
 seems to have taken possession of this periodical of 
 very unequal merit. In philosophy, the Nation has 
 no outlook beyond the Straits of Dover. I do not 
 remember that I ever saw in it a single reference to 
 Hermann Lotze, or any proof of large knowledge of 
 so much as the outlines of the freshest German 
 thought of the first rank on the physiological side of 
 metaphysical research. As to present culture in the 
 wide and rich theological field, I may say, that, so 
 far as a specialist's judgment is worth any thing, 
 mine is, that the Nation cannot be trusted on this 
 theme, it is so benighted by its insular philosophy, 
 and by a very frequent arrogance toward all theology 
 not Spencerian. This paper needs a rival. I dislike 
 to criticise it; for, after all, it is our poor best in 
 the way of a critical weekly. At a hotel table in 
 Munich once, a haughty English lord asked me what 
 was the best paper in America of the order of the 
 Saturday Review of London. " The Nation," I said. 
 " Yes," he replied ; " but you have forty millions 
 of people, and Great Britain has only forty millions, 
 and you have but one paper of this class." 
 
186 BIOLOGY. 
 
 There used to be a proverb, that, when Philadelphia 
 wanted to know what to think, she looked to New 
 York ; and, when New York wanted to know what 
 to think, she looked to Boston ; and, when Boston 
 wanted to know what to think, she looked to Con- 
 cord. No doubt this proverb originated in Concord. 
 [Laughter.] But I walked the other day with a 
 Concord author whose words have been read with 
 delight by two generations, and will be remembered, 
 I hope, by twenty ; and he said to me under those 
 histoiic elms on your Boston mall, after having been 
 twice in the audience of this Lectureship, " You may 
 tell Boston that I, for one, regard Lionel Beale and 
 Hermann Lotze as the rising men in philosophy." 
 That is Bronson Alcott, who lives not far from the 
 spot where Nathaniel Hawthorne lies at rest till the 
 heavens be no more. If you listen to the inner 
 voice of Emerson's latest publications, and to that 
 of Caiiyle's, you will find that these men whom you 
 have called pantheists, are no deniers of the per- 
 sonal immortality of the soul. 
 
 Am I out of my field in endeavoring to prove that 
 man has a soul ? Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Let no 
 shoemaker go beyond his last, Horace said ages ago. 
 But what if, in the progress of the ages, there be 
 made a new last? Significant signs of the times are 
 the professorships and lectureships starting up in re- 
 nowned theological schools on the relations between 
 the religious and other sciences. In New- York City, 
 in Union Seminary, there is a lectureship, with ten 
 thousand dollars endowment on "The Relations of 
 
THE NERVES AND THE SOUL. 187 
 
 the Bible to the Sciences." It is called the Morse 
 Lectureship, because founded by Samuel F. B. Morse, 
 in memory of his father, who was only a doctor of 
 divinity. In the same school there is a lectureship 
 on " Hygiene," founded by Willard Barker. We 
 have the Vedder Lectureship at the New Brunswick 
 School of the Reformed Church in America. Prince- 
 ton has a chair, established in 1871, designed to dis- 
 cuss elaborately "The Relation of Christianity to 
 Natural and Speculative Science." Andover has a 
 lectureship, and I hope may soon have a professor- 
 ship, on this theme. Out of place ! I maintain that 
 all these foundations are timely, and deserve the 
 cordial support of all scholars. They are a new last, 
 indeed ; but the occupants of these chairs will make 
 specialists of themselves in their new fields, which 
 will by no means be outside the range of theological 
 research. All these facts were overlooked by the 
 Nation when it made its astute examination of cata- 
 logues to see whether ministers know any thing of the 
 latest philosophy. Catalogues are a sufficiently sorry 
 authority ; but their less slovenly perusal might have 
 taught this journal that a new last has been created 
 by a new time, and that, in the name of Horace's 
 maxim, no student of religious science can be warned 
 off the field which Hermann Lotze and Beale have 
 entered. No student of religious* science is ade- 
 quately equipped for his work, unless, with open 
 eyes, he has worshipped in that temple of physiologi- 
 cal research where Lotze and Helmholtz and Frey 
 and Wundt and Beale and Carpenter and Dana, and 
 
188 BIOLOGY. 
 
 all men of science who think not to twenty only, but 
 to thirty-two points of the compass, now kneel, 
 hushed, dead, in the presence of a Living God, but 
 ready to rise up alive, and fill civilization with their 
 own enthusiasm. [Applause.] 
 
IX. 
 
 DOES DEATH END ALL? IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 
 
 THE FIFTY-FOURTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT 
 
 TEMPLE NOV. 27. 
 
" DES Todes rhiircndes Biltl steht, 
 
 Nicht als Scnrccten dem "Wciscn, und niclit als Ende dem From- 
 men." 
 
 GOETHE: Hermann iind Dorothea. 
 
 "Dm Schopf ung himgt als Schleier, der aus Sonnen und Geistern 
 gewebt 1st, iiber dem Unendlichen, und die Ewigkeiten gcheu vor 
 dem Sclileier vorbei, und ziehen ilm nicht weg von dem Glanze, den 
 er verhiillet. . . . Ich und du, und alle Menschen und alle Engel 
 und alle Wiirmclien ruhen an seiner Brust, und das brausende, 
 schlagende Welten- und Sonnenmeer ist eiu einzages Kind in seinem 
 Arm." JEAN PAUL KJCHTER, Hesperus. 
 
IX. 
 
 DOES DE4TH END ALL? IS INSTINCT 
 IMMORTAL ? 
 
 PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 ON the morning of Saturday, Oct. 23, 1852, Dan- 
 iel Webster, whose statue was unveiled last Saturday 
 in Central Park, said to his physician, " I shall die 
 to-night." Dr. Jeffries, much moved, replied, after 
 a pause, "You are right, sir." The gorgeous and 
 jewelled October day rolled on at the edge of the 
 sea ; and, when evening came, the last will and tes- 
 tament of your greatest statesman and orator was 
 brought to him for his signature, which he affixed, 
 and then said, " Thank God for strength to do a 
 sensible act ! O God, I thank thee for all thy mer- 
 cies." His family was brought to his bedside ; and 
 his biographer, Curtis, noticing that Mr. Webster 
 was about to say something which should be re- 
 corded, took his seat at a table, and caught these 
 last words. Curtis says they were uttered slowly 
 in a tone which might have been heard through half 
 the house : " My general wish on earth has been to 
 do my Master's will. That there is a God, all must 
 acknowledge. I see him in all these wondrous works. 
 
 191 
 
192 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Himself how wondrous ! What would be the con- 
 dition of any of us, if we had not the hope of immor- 
 tality ? What ground is there to rest upon but the 
 gospel ? There were scattered hopes of the immor 
 tality of the soul, especially among the Jews. The 
 Jews believed in a spiritual origin of creation. The 
 Romans never reached it ; the Greeks never reached 
 it. It is a tradition that communication was made 
 to the Jews by God himself through Moses. There 
 were intimations, crepuscular, twilight. But, but, 
 but, thank God ! the gospel of Jesus Christ brought 
 life and immortality to light, rescued it, brought it 
 to light." Then the greatest reasoner this country 
 has produced caused a sacred hush to fall upon his 
 dying-chamber; and in a loud, firm voice he re- 
 peated the whole of the Lord's Prayer, closing with 
 these words, " Peace on earth, and good- will to 
 men: that is the happiness, the essence, good- 
 will to men." Another authority, that of his own 
 secretary, says, that, in the last week of his life, this 
 man, whose career you know, often repeated the 
 whole hymn, of which the first stanza is, 
 
 Show pity, Lord; O Lord, forgive! 
 Let a repeating rebel live. 
 Are not thy mercies large and free ? 
 May not a sinner trust in thee ? 
 
 Webster knew his own need of these petitions. I 
 am not here to say that he lived a Christian life. I 
 raise this morning, when Webster is before the nation, 
 the question, whether there is any evidence that he 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 193 
 
 died repentant. I hope there is. Not many years 
 ago I sat, on a howling winter-night, at the fireside 
 of John Taylor in gnarled New Hampshire ; and he 
 said to me, " Webster always attended the commu- 
 nion-service when he was at Elms Farm. Till his 
 death he was a member in good standing with the 
 Salisbury church, with which he united when a 
 young man." "But," said I, "was that church 
 strong enough to discipline a statesman?" "If 
 Webster had shown," John Taylor replied, " any 
 thing of intemperance, or other evil ways, in New 
 Hampshire, he would have been disciplined by that 
 church. What he did in Washington, I know not. 
 Here, among those who knew him best, he was always 
 ready to kneel at the family altar. There was one 
 hymn that we always used to like to sing together," 
 said John Taylor, with his immense bass voice, and 
 wholly unconscious of the expression he was making 
 of his own massiveness. " We liked to sing together 
 4 Old Hundred: ' it seemed to fit us." The venerable 
 Judge Nesmith, whose guest I have sometimes been 
 at Franklin, has told me things almost too sacred to 
 be repeated here, concerning Webster's religious 
 thoughtfulness in his last years. " Were they the 
 last words I have to utter," said John Taylor to me, 
 " I should say Webster died a Christian ; " and just 
 this testimony has been given me by the profound 
 judge, Nesmith, who stands highest among all au- 
 thorities concerning Webster's life in his native 
 haunts. Your Robert C. Winthrop, at New York 
 on Saturday, said he had knelt with Webster at the 
 
194 BIOLOGY. 
 
 table of our Lord, and witnessed the fervor and 
 tenderness of his devotions. 
 
 But, gentlemen, a death-bed repentance is never 
 to be encouraged before the time, or discouraged at 
 the time. What I wish to insist upon, face to face 
 with all the small philosophies of our time on both 
 sides of the Atlantic, is the record of Webster's last 
 speech, revised by himself. These sentences which 
 Curtis caught are the last unrevised speech. But on 
 Sabbath evening, Oct. 10, the last formal speech was 
 written, and on Oct. 15, was revised and signed by 
 Webster's own hand. These, his last revised words, 
 stand upon the marble of the tombstone at Marsh- 
 field. Plymouth Rock looks on them ; and they look 
 on Plymouth Rock. This is the record Webster left 
 as his last word to men in all ages ; and ought it not 
 to be copied in marble in some spot more conspicuous 
 than that brown Marshfield shore ? 
 
 "Philosophical argument, especially that drawn 
 from the vastness of the universe as compared with 
 the apparent insignificance of this globe, has often 
 shaken my reason for the faith that is in me ; but my 
 heart has assured and re-assured me that the gospel 
 of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. The Ser- 
 mon on the Mount cannot be a merely human pro- 
 duction. This belief enters into the very depth of 
 my conscience. The whole history of man proves 
 it" (CuKTis's Life of Webster, vol. ii. p. 684). 
 
 At twenty-three minutes of three o'clock on the 
 Sunday morning following that Saturday which was 
 illumined by the serious words on immortality, Web- 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 195 
 
 ster passed into the Unseen Holy into which all men 
 haste. Boston, since 1852, has been wringing her 
 hands in secret, and saying not infrequently, as the 
 plain man said at the tomb ir Marshfield, " Daniel 
 Webster, without you the world seems lonesome." 
 Are we sure that we are without him ? When Rufus 
 Choate took ship for that port 'vvhere he died, some 
 friend said, " You will be he~e a year hence." 
 " Sir," said your great lawyer. " I shall be here a 
 hundred years hence, and a thousand years hence." 
 [Applause.] 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 
 
 If death does not end all, what does or can? If 
 we can demonstrate by a purely physiological argu- 
 ment, as Draper, Lionel Beale, and Hermann Lotze, 
 say we can, that the soul is an agent as external to the 
 cerebral mechanism as light is to the eye, or sound 
 to the ear, we have taken the Malakoff and Redan of 
 materialism ; and then the question is, whether we 
 can get on in Russia. [Laughter.] A small critic 
 may ask how the immortality of the soul is proved by 
 showing its externality and its independence in its 
 relations to the physical organism. The immortality 
 is not directly proved by the proof of the externality 
 and the independence ; but it is indirectly made prob- 
 able. If you take Island No. 10 and New Orleans, 
 you can sail from St. Louis tc die Gulf, and thence 
 to any coast you please. If, as the highest philosophy 
 of Germany, Scotland, England, and America, asserts, 
 our nervous mechanism is wholly inert in itself, and 
 as plainly requires an external agent to set it in mo- 
 
196 BIOLOGY. 
 
 tion as any musical instrument does, then the dissolu- 
 tion of the brain is no more proof of the dissolution 
 of the soul than the dissolution of your organ is 
 proof of the dissolution of the musician who plays it, 
 but who has Gyges' ring on his finger, and is invisi- 
 ble. It has, in all ages, been the pretence of materi- 
 alists, that the relation of the soul to the body is that 
 of harmony to the harp, and not of the harper to the 
 harp, or of the rower to a boat. But show me by 
 physiological argument that the soul is an agent ex- 
 ternal to the nervous mechanism, and you have proved 
 that the relation of the soul to the body is that of a 
 harper to a harp, or of a rower to a boat ; and, in 
 showing that, you have removed, I affirm, not only a 
 great, but the greatest obstacle to the belief in im- 
 mortality. Unless there is evidence to the contrary, 
 as there is not, we must believe in the persistency of 
 that spiritual force which we call the soul ; and this 
 we must do in the name of the scientific principle of 
 the persistence of force, itself the most vaunted of all 
 modern points in science. [Applause^] 
 
 Allow me, gentlemen, to untwist a little the famous 
 Ariadne clew, which we follow here in all our inves- 
 tigation ; namely, that every change must have an 
 adequate cause. In that one principle lie capsulate 
 a great number of axioms which are at the base of all 
 kinds of research, theological, physiological, political, 
 or historical. 
 
 Lest you should suspect me of theological bias in 
 untwisting the strands of this clew, take that inter- 
 pretation of it which the great physiologist, Wundt, 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 197 
 
 whom I have often quoted, adopts in his work on 
 " The Physical Axioms in Relation to the Principle 
 of Caus-alit}^," a book published at Erlangen in 
 1866. Professor Wundt says that the principle that 
 every change must have an adequate cause, contains 
 in it these six axioms : 
 
 1. All causes in Nature are causes of motion. 
 
 2. Every cause of motion is external to the object 
 moved. 
 
 3. All causes of motion work in the direction of 
 the straight line uniting the point from which the 
 force departs with the point upon which its operation 
 is directed. 
 
 4. The effect of every cause persists. 
 
 5. Every effect is accompanied by an equal coun- 
 ter-effect. 
 
 6. Every effect is equivalent to its cause. 
 [WUNDT, PROFESSOR WILHELM, On the. Physical 
 
 Axioms in Relation to the principle of Causality. See, 
 also, UBERWEG'S History of Philosophy, passages on 
 Wundt.] 
 
 Will you remember, my friends, that the definition 
 of force is this, That which is expended in producing 
 or resisting motion? That is Meyer's definition ; and 
 Meyer, if he had never given any other proof of genius 
 than this one phrase, would deserve to be called a 
 man of great powers. But go behind even this defini- 
 tion, and, for the sake of clear ideas, ask- what is 
 expended in producing or resisting motion. Surely 
 the only thing we can think of as being expended 
 thus is pressure. What produces pressure ? Your 
 
198 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Carpenters, your Agassizes, and your Herschels, yotii 
 Newtons, your Sir William Hamiltons, your Danas, 
 as well as your Richters and Carlyles and Lotzes, 
 all hold that behind the pressures which produce 
 the motions of the universe is WILL! MOTIONS, 
 PRESSURES, WILL is the universe transfigured? 
 [Applause.] This is not declamation, however, but 
 established philosophy of the latest date. Whoever 
 will look into the last chapters of Dr. Carpenter's 
 "Mental Physiology/' or at the last sentence of Mr. 
 Grove's famous " Essay on Correlation of Forces," 
 or into Professor Agaesiz' " Essay on Classification," 
 or into Sir John Herschel's "Astronomy," or Dana's 
 " Geology," or Professor Pierce's great work on " The 
 Mathematics of Astronomy," will find the doctrine 
 unhesitatingly maintained, that force is always and 
 everywhere of spiritual origin. [Applause.] When 
 I was in. Harvard University, I went one day into a 
 bookstore, and turned over a great quarto on "The 
 Mathematics of Astronomy" by Professor Pierce; 
 and I came upon a chapter entitled " The Spiritual 
 Origin of Force." I looked into it ; and, welling 
 up out of that stern granite of mathematics, I found 
 the Castalian spring of crystalline water, where 
 the Goethes, and Herschels, and Carpenters, and 
 Agassizes, and Lotzes, and Danas, and Richters, 
 and Carlyles have drunk so long. In the transfigur- 
 ing scientific certainty that all force originates in 
 Will, I found that better than Delphic spring, one 
 deep draught of which gives a new vision to the eyes, 
 and makes the whole universe a burning bush, of 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMOKTAL? 199 
 
 which Orion and the Seven Stars are only a lower- 
 most leaf, but every fibre of which, near and far, 
 burns with a fire that cannot be touched, and every 
 dustiest path before which is ground so holy, that on 
 it we must take off our shoes, however proud of in- 
 tellect we may be. [Applause.] Take now, the doc- 
 trine, that wherever we find heat, light, electricity, we 
 infer motions of the ultimate particles of matter as the 
 cause ; and that, wherever we find motions, we infer 
 pressures as the cause ; and that, wherever we find 
 pressures, we infer WILL as the cause, and you have 
 the point of view of these six axioms, which, by the 
 way, are not the words of any small philosopher, nor 
 of a theologian, nor even of an ethical teacher, but 
 of a man simply of the microscope and scalpel, adher- 
 ing in all the labyrinth of modern physiological in- 
 vestigation, only to the idea of sanity, that every 
 change must have an adequate cause. [Applause.] 
 You say that this is poetry, and so it is ; but it is 
 also cold, exact science. You say this is not Har- 
 vard University. Are you sure ? Yonder on the 
 banks of the Charles sits the most philosophical poet 
 of our generation, yes, tne most philosophical on 
 either side of the Atlantic ; and, in the name of 
 Harvard University, James Russell Lowell might 
 rise and sing what he sang in his own name only 
 yesterday : 
 
 " God of our fathers, thou who wast, 
 Art, and shalt be, when the eye-wise who flout 
 Thy secret presence shall be lost 
 In the great light that dazzles them to doubt, 
 
200 BIOLOGY. 
 
 We who believe Life's bases rest 
 Beyond the probe ofchemic test, 
 Still, like our fathers, feel thee near." * 
 
 LOWELL, Atlantic Monthly, D<cember, 1876. 
 
 [Applause.] 
 
 I hold in my hand an important and enticing book, 
 eagerly waited for by me for one, and off which the 
 spray of the gray sea has hardly yet been shaken. 
 It is a volume on " The Functions of the Brain," 
 issued only last month by Dr. David Ferrier, fellow 
 of the Royal Society, and professor of forensic medi- 
 cine in King's College, London ; and it will need no 
 recommendation to gentlemen of the medical profes- 
 sion, who are permitted to know something of living 
 tissues, and to form and express opinions after study 
 as to the great controverted theories in biology, as 
 no layman in science is except the editor of the 
 Nation. [Laughter and applause.] Professor Fer- 
 rier is a follower of two great German investigators, 
 Fritsch and Hitzig ; and his work and theirs undoubt- 
 edly constitute not only the freshest, but the most 
 important, of all recent contributions to the knowl- 
 edge of the nervous system. 
 
 Let me now, in the name of the latest research, 
 put before you, step by step, an argument 'exclusively 
 physiological, and leading up, as that of last Monday 
 did, along this line of Wundt's wholly tremorless 
 axioms, to the conclusion that the soul is external to 
 the nervous mechanism, which it sets in motion. 
 
 1. Fritsch and Hitzig and Dr. Ferrier have proved 
 that certain of the convolutions of the brain of a 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 201 
 
 living animal may be electrically stimulated so as tc 
 produce in the animal various physical actions. 
 
 2. The stimulation of different parts of the brain 
 produces different results, which can be foretold by 
 the experimenter. 
 
 3. The doctrine of the localization of functions in 
 the brain is now, therefore, practically beyond dis- 
 pute. 
 
 I am aware that two great physiological parties 
 the localizers and the anti-localizers occupy the field 
 of recent investigation concerning the brain. But, if 
 we have Brown-Sequard, Hermann, Foster, and Dupuis 
 among the anti-localizers, we have among the localizers 
 the now preponderating names of Charcot, Fritsch, 
 Hitzig, Ranke, Carpenter, Ferrier, Draper, and Dalton. 
 
 When you give a rabbit chloroform, and then re- 
 move a portion of its skull, the animal suffers no 
 pain, and consequently does not fall into such con- 
 tortions as to cause the act of taking away parts of 
 the skull to injure the delicate texture of the brain. 
 We have succeeded at last in uncovering the living, 
 palpitating, cerebral tissues, without disturbing their 
 delicate machinery ; and we have done this by the 
 use of chloroform, not known in the world as an 
 ansesthetic until a few years ago. Using electrical 
 currents that are just distinguishable by the tip of 
 the human tongue, and employing blunted electrodes 
 that will not scarify the nervous webs we touch, 
 we may stimulate the exposed brain of a living 
 animal, and ascertain that the stimulus on differ- 
 ent parts produces different motions. We may 
 
202 BIOLOGY. 
 
 accurately foretell these motions, after having had a 
 sufficient experience in such kinds of experiments. 
 One particular part of the brain, for instance, will, 
 if stimulated, produce the attitude of resistance in 
 the animal ; and another part, if stimulated, will 
 cause the attitude of fear. In short, a large portion 
 of the brain has now been investigated in this way 
 so thoroughly, that wo may affirm that it is a key- 
 board on which electricity may play. This effect of 
 galvanic currents on the automatic nervous mechan- 
 ism is peculiarly evident on the lower or automatic 
 nerve-arcs. You stimulate a centrifugal automatic 
 nerve [referring to the blackboard], and you will pro- 
 duce motion in the muscle attached to the correlated 
 centrifugal fibre. 
 
 Is there any proof at all that the whole brain is a 
 keyboard that can thus be played upon by electrical 
 stimulation ? 
 
 A portion of it more closely connected with the 
 spinal cord than the rest is a keyboard ; but does the 
 law of the automatic portion extend to the whole 
 mass of the brain? The nervous mechanism is 
 divided into the influential and automatic arcs. 
 Does this fundamental distinction hold good under 
 the searching test of electrical stimulation ? 
 
 4. It is agreed that the frontal lobes are the seat 
 of intellect. 
 
 5. But electrical stimulation of these highest parts 
 of the influential nervous mechanism produces no 
 motion. 
 
 If there are produced in this portion of the influ 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMOBTAL? 203 
 
 ential arcs by electricity such tremors as cause mus- 
 cular motion when produced by electricity in the 
 automatic arcs, no motion follows in the muscles. 
 This is a fact of vast significance ; but there is 
 another of even higher import. 
 
 6. If one hemisphere of the brain be removed, 
 paralysis of the powers of motion and sensation fol- 
 lows in one-half the body. 
 
 7. But, even when one hemisphere of the brain is 
 removed, all the mental operations may yet be fully 
 performed (FERRIER, Functions of the Brain, p. 
 257). 
 
 8. These results of electrical stimulation and of 
 cerebral injury, being opposite in the two cases, prove 
 that physiological causes such as are concerned in 
 the automatic nervous mechanism are not to be found 
 in operation in the influential nervous mechanism 
 as it is represented by the anterior lobes of the 
 brain. 
 
 9. The distinction between automatic and influen- 
 tial is made broader, therefore, by the latest scientific 
 research. 
 
 Let us examine a little leisurely the bearing of 
 these propositions upon the great biological distinc- 
 tion between the automatic and the influential por- 
 tions in the nervous system. The important point 
 to be noticed [illustrating by diagrams] is, that you 
 may stimulate with electricity an influential arc here, 
 and not produce any motion yonder. On the con- 
 trary, touch the corresponding portion of an auto- 
 matic arc, and you move this muscular fibre. Al- 
 
204 BIOLOGY. 
 
 though this mechanism is called automatic, remember 
 that it was made so by the bioplasts that wove it, 
 and that a contractile quality was given to this mus- 
 cular fibre by the bioplasts that wove both it and 
 this nerve, and tied the two together. Apply your 
 electrode to the automatic arc, and you produce con- 
 traction ; but apply your electrode to the influential 
 arc, and you produce no contraction. There is, 
 therefore, a difference between the structure of an 
 influential arc and that of an automatic arc. We 
 prove this tangibly when we try point after point 
 of the brain and of the great nervous centres con- 
 necting it with the spinal cord, and find that the 
 lower powers of the nervous mechanism are reflex 
 and automatic, but that these higher frontal lobes 
 are ocularly demonstrable not to be of that sort. 
 When we apply to them the electrical test which 
 produces motion elsewhere, no motion whatever is 
 produced. 
 
 If you take away one hemisphere of the brain, 
 what is the effect ? One-half the body is paralyzed. 
 The sensation and the motion which belong to the 
 side of the body opposite to the removed hemisphere 
 are gone. But your mental powers continue, and 
 exhibit in completeness all their activities. Dr. Fer- 
 rier himself is authority for the astounding fact that 
 the action of the mind is not so bound up even with 
 these influential arcs, that it cannot show the whole 
 army of its powers when you take away one whole 
 hemisphere of the brain. If that can be proved, 
 gentlemen, it has been proved tolerably well, I should 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 205 
 
 say, that there is a difference between the influential 
 and the automatic arcs, or that between the two things 
 there is as broad a contrast as between the two scien- 
 tific names. Just that has been proved beyond dis- 
 pute. It is admitted by the latest science that you 
 can take away one hemisphere of the brain, and have 
 complete mental action yet remaining, although you 
 cannot take away one hemisphere without paralyzing 
 one-half of the body. If I show this, 1 prove that 
 there is a distinction of great breadth and signifi- 
 cance between the influential and the automatic 
 arcs. 
 
 " The physiological activity of the brain," says 
 Professor Ferrier in a most suggestive passage, "is 
 not altogether co-extensive with its psychological 
 functions. The brain as an organ of motion and sen- 
 sation, or presentative consciousness, is a single organ 
 composed of two halves : the brain as an organ of 
 ideation, or re-presentative consciousness, is a dual 
 organ, each hemisphere complete in itself. When one 
 hemisphere is removed or destroyed by disease, motion 
 and sensation are abolished unilaterally" that is, 
 upon the opposite side, " but mental operations are 
 still capable of being carried on in their completeness 
 through the agency of the one hemisphere. The indi- 
 vidual who is paralyzed as to sensation and motion by 
 disease of the opposite side of the brain (say the 
 right) is not paralyzed mentally ; for he can still feel 
 and will and think, and intelligently comprehend, 
 with the one hemisphere."* If these functions are not 
 carried on with the same vigor as before, they at least 
 
206 BIOLOGY. 
 
 do not appear to suffer in respect of completeness" 
 (FEKRIER'S Functions of the Brain, p. 257, 89). 
 
 A great fact this, even when standing alone ; but 
 add to it the test of your subtle electrical stimulus, 
 and you find that all that is implied in the distinction 
 between influential and automatic is borne out by 
 these two colossal circumstances, that stimulus on 
 the influential arcs will produce no motion, but that 
 it does produce complex motion if applied to the 
 automatic arcs; and that half of the brain may be 
 taken away, paralyzing the half of your body, while 
 the mind continues all its operations. [Applause.] 
 
 10. Physiological causes do not act where they do 
 not exist. 
 
 11. The action of the influential nervous mechan- 
 ism is not, therefore, originated by the physical causes 
 operating in the automatic nervous mechanism. 
 
 12. But the inertness of the mechanism in itself 
 demonstrates that it must be set in motion by an 
 external agent. 
 
 13. That agent must be either matter or mind. 
 
 14. It is demonstrated that the action of the bio- 
 plasts in weaving the brain, and that of the frontal 
 lobes after they are woven, cannot originate in mat- 
 ter. 
 
 15. It originates, therefore, in an external imma- 
 terial agent. 
 
 16. This, which is, in part, immediately known to 
 consciousness, is life and the soul. 
 
 17. Modern microscopical research, therefore, 
 proves that the soul is an agent external to the nerv- 
 ous mechanism which it sets in motion. 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 207 
 
 18. This being proved, it is demonstrated that the 
 relation of the soul to the body is that of the rower 
 to a boat, or of an invisible musician to a musical 
 instrument, 
 
 19. But it has been admitted for ages by material- 
 ists themselves, that, if this is proved, then death does 
 not end all. 
 
 Therefore, in the present state of knowledge, the 
 case stands thus : 
 
 20. If death does not end all, what does or can ? 
 [Applause.] 
 
 " Electrical irritation of the antero-frontal lobes," 
 says Dr. Ferrier, " causes no motor manifestations, 
 a fact, which, though a negative one, is consistent with 
 the view, that, though not actually motor, they are 
 inhibitory motor, and expend their energy in indu- 
 cing internal changes in the centres of actual motor 
 execution. . . . The development of the frontal lobes 
 is greatest in men with the highest intellectual 
 powers; and, taking one man with another, the 
 greatest intellectual power is characteristic of the 
 one with the greatest frontal development. The 
 phrenologists have, I think, good grounds for local- 
 izing the reflective faculties in the frontal regions of 
 the brain ; and there is nothing inherently improba- 
 ble in the view that frontal development in special 
 regions may be indicative of power of concentration 
 of thought and intellectual capacity in special direc- 
 tions " (FERRIER, Functions of the Brain, pp. 287, 
 288). 
 
 In this assertion, that a four-banked organ has more 
 
208 BIOLOGY. 
 
 musical power than one with a single bank, Ferriei 
 is not falling into materialism ; nor is he adopting 
 the whole phrenological map, of most portions of 
 which he speaks with no respect. His belief is, that 
 a new and better map will be made some day by in- 
 finite painstaking. He asserts simply that the keys 
 on which the anthems of intellect are played are in 
 the frontal portion of the brain, and that this anthem 
 is at its best when the rows of keys are the most 
 numerous, on which our invisible musician with 
 Gyges' ring plays. [Applause.] 
 
 What of the immortality of instinct? A great 
 distinction exists between those organisms that are 
 mere automata, or have life, but no free-wills or con- 
 sciences, and the higher animals, which have both the 
 automatic and the influential nervous mechanism. 
 The plant and the automaton have life, but not souls 
 in the full sense of the word. But do not facts require 
 us to hold that the immaterial part in animals having 
 higher than automatic endowments is external to the 
 nervous mechanism in them as well as in man ? What 
 are we to say if we find that straightforwardness may 
 lead us to the conclusion that Agassiz was not unjusti- 
 fiable when he affirmed, in the name of science, that 
 instinct may be immortal, and when he expressed, 
 in his own name, the ardent hope that it might be ? 
 
 Go to Agassiz' grave in Mount Auburn yonder, 
 and, at the side of the Swiss bowlder which marks 
 the spot, stand alone and read these words of his, 
 and meanwhile send your thoughts onward into the 
 eternities and immensities, whither, no doubt, he sent 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 209 
 
 his, when he wrote in the face of the world this 
 majestic inquiry. These are the closing sentences 
 of one of the most remarkable passages in perhaps 
 the most remarkable of his works, his " Essay on 
 Classification : " " Most of the arguments of philoso- 
 phy in favor of the immortality of man apply equal- 
 ly to the permanency of the immaterial principle in 
 other living beings. May I not add that a future 
 life in which man should be deprived of that great 
 source of enjoyment, and intellectual and moral im- 
 provement, which result from the contemplation of 
 the harmonies of an organic world, would involve a 
 lamentable loss ? and may we not look to a spiritual 
 concert of the combined worlds and all their inhab- 
 itants in presence of their Creator, as the highest 
 conception of paradise ? " 
 
 (AGASSiz, Louis, Contributions to the Nat. Hist. 
 of the U. S., vol. i. p. 66 ; Essay on Classification, 
 close of part i. chap. 1, sect, xvii.) 
 
 " It was seventy years ago, 
 
 In the pleasant month of May, 
 In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, 
 
 A child in his cradle lay ; 
 And Nature, the old nurse, took 
 
 The child upon her knee. 
 4 Come, wander with me,' she said, 
 
 ' Into regions yet untrod, 
 And read what is still unread 
 
 In the manuscripts of God. ' 
 And whenever the way seemed long, 
 
 Or his heart began to fail, 
 She would sing a more wonderful song, 
 
 Or tell a more marvellous tale." 
 LONGFELLOW, On the Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz, 
 
210 BIOLOGY. 
 
 What sings she now to this great soul which has 
 passed into that paradise of which his worthiest con- 
 deption was, that it should be a concert of the com- 
 bined worlds ? One cannot but recollect in the sub- 
 limity of this passage that this man was born in 
 sight of the Alps. Of French descent, of Swiss 
 birth, of German education, of American activity, 
 Agassiz is now of the house not made with hands ; 
 and so large was he, that, even when in the flesh, he 
 appeared by forecast to be a citizen, not of America, 
 or of Europe, but of the supreme theocracy, in whose 
 presence he hoped to see a concert of the combined 
 worlds and all their inhabitants. [Applause.] 
 
 Richter used to say that the interstellar spaces are 
 the homes of souls. 
 
 Tennyson sings most subtly his trust : 
 
 " That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
 That not one life shall be destroyed, 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
 When God hath made the pile complete. 
 
 That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 
 That not a moth with vain desire 
 Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire. ' ' 
 
 IN MEMORIAM, liii. 
 
 Is it not worth while for us, standing here at 
 Agassiz' tomb, with Richter on our right, and Ten- 
 nyson on our left, to pause a moment, and on their 
 wings, so much stronger than ours, to look abroad a 
 little into this highest conception of paradise? A 
 concert of combined worlds 1 The Seven Stars have 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMORTAL? 211 
 
 their planets ; Orion in this infinite azure is attended 
 by his retinue of worlds ; the lightest feather of the 
 Swan which flies through the Milky Way represents 
 uncounted galaxies ; in the north, Ursa Major guards 
 realms of life so broad, that thought faints in pass- 
 ing across but one of the eyelashes of the eternal 
 constellation as it paces about the pole unwearied ; 
 Aquarius, Bootes, Sagittarius, Hercules, each holds 
 in his far-spread palm of sidereal fire innumerable 
 inhabitants. What if Agassiz and Klchter and 
 Cuvier and Milton and Shakspeare, and that host 
 which no man can number, are studying at this 
 moment a concert of all the life of Orion and the 
 Seven Stars, Ursa Major, and the rest, and of that 
 forgotten speck which we, on this lonely shore of 
 existence, call earth ? The loftiest exhibition of 
 organic life of all kinds from all worlds, and in the 
 presence of their Creator ! Would it not be an im- 
 measurable loss to be without this concert of com- 
 bined worlds? Would it not be a diminution of 
 supreme bliss not to have union with God through 
 these, the most majestic of his works below our- 
 selves? Shall we, too, not hope that this highest 
 conception of paradise may be the true one ? Rich- 
 ter would say, if he stood here, that he hopes it may 
 be. Tennyson says, as he stands here, that he wishes 
 it may be. Must not we, remembering the long 
 line of acute souls who have believed in the possi- 
 bility that instinct is immortal, say, that, if it be so, 
 it is best that it should be so ? Whether it is so or 
 not, I care not to assert : what I do affirm is, that the 
 
212 BIOLOGY. 
 
 argument for immortality, by striking againsfc the 
 possibility that instinct may be immortal, is not 
 wrecked, but glorified. [Applause.] 
 
 When we close our short careers, some questions 
 that we debate as matters of high philosophy will be 
 personal to you and to me. As we lie where Web- 
 ster lay, face to face with eternity, and its breath on 
 our cheeks, there will come to us, as it cannot come 
 now, the query whether the relation of our souls to 
 our bodies is that of harmony to a harp, or of the 
 harper to the harp. The time is not distant when it 
 will be worth something to us to remember that they 
 who walk late on the deck of the Santa Maria have 
 seen a light rise and fall ahead of us. The exter- 
 nality and independence of the soul in relation to the 
 body are known now under the microscope and scal- 
 pel better than ever before in the history of our race. 
 Exact science, in the name of the law of causation, 
 breathes already through her iron lips a whisper, to 
 which, as it grows louder, the blood of the ages will 
 leap with new inspiration. Before that iron whisper, 
 all objections to immortality are shattered. [Ap- 
 plause.] If, in the name of physiology, we remove 
 all objections, you will hear your Webster, when he 
 comes to you, and says that a Teacher attested by 
 the ages as sent with a supreme Divine mission 
 brought life and immortality to light. There is no 
 darkness that can quench the illumination which now 
 rises on the world. No ascending fog from the shal- 
 lows of materialism can put out the sun of axiomatic 
 truth. Ay, my friends, in the oozy depths of the 
 
IS INSTINCT IMMOKTAL? 213 
 
 pools where the reptiles lie among the reeds in the 
 marshes of materialism, there arises a vapor, which, 
 as it ascends higher, that sun will irradiate, will 
 stream through with his slant javelins of scientific 
 clearness, until this very matter which we have 
 dreaded to investigate shall take on all the glories 
 of the morning, and become, by reflected light, the 
 bridal couch of a new Day, in a future civilization. 
 [Applause.] 
 
x. 
 
 DOES DEATH END ALL? BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 
 
 THE FIFTY-FIFTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT 
 
 TEMPLE DEC. 7. 
 
heiligen Todten gleichgiiltig sind, dem werden es die 
 Lebendigen auch." JEAN PAUL RICHTEK, Titan, cycle 47. 
 
 " FIVE hundred doors 
 And forty more 
 Metbinks are in Valhalla. 
 Eight hundred heroes through each door 
 Shall issue forth. 
 
 All men of worth 
 Shall there abide. 
 
 The ash Igdrasil 
 Is the first of trees." 
 
 THE PROSE EDDA. 
 
DOES DEATH END ALL? BAIN'S MA- 
 TERIALISM. 
 
 PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 CHABLES DICKENS, toward the close of his " Ameri- 
 can Notes," says, that, when in the United States on 
 his first visit, he was often forced by sheer amaze- 
 ment to ask why dishonesty, conjoined with high in- 
 tellectual capacity, received so much reverence from 
 Americans. " Is it not a very disgraceful circum- 
 stance," Dickens would inquire, " that such a man 
 as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property by 
 the most infamous and odious means, and, notwith- 
 standing all the crimes of which he has been guilty, 
 should be tolerated and sheltered by your citizens ? 
 He is a public nuisance, is he not ? " " Yes, sir." 
 " A convicted liar ? " " Yes, sir." " He has been 
 kicked and cuffed and caned?" "Yes, sir." 
 " And he is utterly dishonorable, debased, and profli- 
 gate ? " " Yes, sir." " In the name of wonder 
 then, what is his merit ? " " Well, sir, he is a smart 
 man." [Applause and laughter.] Dickens says 
 he held this dialogue a hundred times (American 
 
 217 
 
218 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Notes, chap, xviii.). In Dickens's name I once told 
 this anecdote to a learned German, who replied 
 in the spirit of the renowned German candor, and 
 in his own name, bringing his hand down upon 
 the table with an emphasis that made the glasses 
 ring, " That word ' smart ' will break America's 
 neck yet, unless you break the word's neck." [Ap- 
 plause and laughter.] 
 
 Every gentleman's political sympathies I wish to 
 treat always with as much respect as I treat my own ; 
 but as to my own I say, Perish my political party, if 
 it succeeds by fraud ! [Much applause.] 
 
 We are suddenly entering, in our hundredth year, 
 upon an as yet almost unnoticed, but subtly sugges- 
 tive exhibition of one great weakness in our political 
 system ; namely, that, in close elections, gigantic 
 political spoils tempt to gigantic political frauds. In 
 presence of Centennial guests we are now in the 
 midst of a war of affidavits ; and it appears that 
 the combatants are about equally able. [Laugh- 
 ter.] It is no empty sign of our times that 
 contestants for Apolitical primacy in a territory 
 greater than Csesar ever ruled over cannot satisfy 
 each other that each means to be fair. The far- 
 seeing, fateful Muse of history, holding her pen 
 in readiness to record what is yet to be in Ameri- 
 ca, and looking on the present and coming size 
 and fatness of party political spoils in the United 
 States, whispers to our people anxiously the words 
 of Shakspeare's Coriolanus : 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 219 
 
 " My soul aches 
 
 To know, when two authorities are up, 
 Neither supreme, how soon confusion 
 May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take 
 The one by the other." 
 
 There are now eighty thousand minor offices filled 
 by party patronage in the United States. While the 
 principle, that to political victors belong political 
 spoils, governs our politics, eighty thousand men will 
 be turned out of office, and eighty thousand put in, 
 with every change of the national administration. 
 You know that Washington turned out but eight 
 men, Adams only four, Jefferson thirty-nine, but not 
 one of them for political reasons, Madison nine, Mun- 
 roe five, and the younger Adams only two, but Jack- 
 son six hundred and ninety. Our population, as a 
 whole, is doubling every thirty years. Soon we shall 
 have two hundred thousand or three hundred thou- 
 sand to be turned out or put in whenever a President 
 is elected. Will the republic bear that strain ? You 
 will not, you say, vote for Washington's and Jeffer- 
 son's rule, to appoint the able, promote the worthy, 
 and never remove the worthy for merely partisan rea- 
 sons. You fear that there might grow up, under such 
 a practice, an aristocracy of office-holders. It does 
 not seem to occur to the astute opponents of civil- 
 service reform that such an aristocracy, as it would 
 not be turned out or put in by party patronage, and 
 not be changed with the administrations, would serve 
 both political parties, and so be no aristocracy at all. 
 
 Let the nation adhere for a century longer to 
 
220 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Jackson's accursed principle, that to political victors 
 belong all political spoils, and what must be the 
 effect? What if closely contested national elections 
 occur ? The spoils of party patronage are already 
 becoming so great in the United States as to consti 
 tute, with large and often controlling portions of both 
 political parties, wholly irresistible temptations to 
 fraud. But the spoils grow vaster and fatter with 
 fearful speed. Only civil-service reform can remove 
 this enormous coming mischief. It can do so only by 
 taking patronage from party, and giving it to the 
 people. Gigantic party political spoils, gigantic party 
 political frauds, these are cause and effect. They 
 imperil the peace of the republic. They must do 
 so more and more as our population grows. Ulti- 
 mately in America there will be either civil-service re- 
 form or civil war. [Sensation.] 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 Plato represents Socrates as saying that he had 
 looked at many authorities, and, among others, at the 
 nature of things, but dared not look long at the lat- 
 ter for fear his eyes would be dazzled (Pliaedori), 
 It is the radiance of the nature of things, or axio- 
 matic, self-evident truth, which must frighten back 
 to Chaos the vampire Doubt. On some sickly veins 
 of our meaning and sceptical age that vampire broods 
 as a nightmare ; but no nightmare can bear the noon. 
 Mrs. Browning sang plaintively in the name of poe- 
 try, and her antipodes, Ernst Hackel, affirms aggres- 
 sively in the name of science, that, 
 
 " A wider metaphysics would not harm our physics." 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 221 
 
 Two thousand years ago, Aristotle, with a measure- 
 less plaintiveness and gladness, wrote what the history 
 of all discussion has since confirmed, that they who 
 forsake the nature of things, or axiomatic first truths, 
 will not and can not find any thing surer on which to 
 build. Let us bring all those who are halt and lame 
 and blind with doubt, or mental unrest, into the sun- 
 light of axioms. Let us cheer ourselves in the vivi- 
 fying radiance of the noon of the self-evident truths. 
 The questions which the progress of science raises 
 the progress of science will answer. It will do so, 
 not to the detriment, but to the coronation, of reli- 
 gious science. Twenty centuries before the modern 
 forms of physical science were born, religious science 
 made, as she yet makes, the dateless and eternal noon 
 of axioms her soul. 
 
 I find no form of materialism, old or new, that car- 
 look into the authority which dazzled Socrates, and 
 retain steadfastness of gaze. 
 
 What is the newest form of materialism? That 
 of Professors Bain and Tyndall, and that which is 
 adopted, in a large degree, by Huxley and Spencer, 
 and, almost without qualification, by Hackel. You 
 know that St. George Mivart calls Huxley Hackel's 
 Alter Ego (Contemporary Evolution). No man doubts 
 that Hackel, i.i spite of his protestations, is a materi- 
 alist, or one who believes that there is but a single 
 substance in the universe, namely, matter. " The 
 will is never free " 's HackePs constant teaching ; 
 and to his amazingly narrow philosophy, which Ger- 
 many discards, " God is necessity " only, and has " no 
 
222 BIOLOGY. 
 
 freedom of choice." Huxley quietly holds many of 
 Hackers philosophical opinions, but expresses them 
 with far less boldness on their offensive side than 
 Hiickel does. When it is asserted that Herbert 
 Spencer's positions are not of materialistic tendency, 
 let a competent witness be called, say Thomas Raw- 
 son Birks, professor of moral philosophy in Cam- 
 bridge University, England. This trained and in- 
 dorsed scholar has just sent to us across the sea a 
 work of beautiful clearness and candor, entitled 
 " Modern Physical Fatalism, and the Doctrine of 
 Evolution, including an Examination of Mr. H. 
 Spencer's First Principles." The " Fatalistic Philos- 
 ophy and Doctrine of Evolution as unfolded ly Spen- 
 cer " he regards as " radically unsound, full of logical 
 inconsistency and contradiction, flatly opposed to the 
 fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and even to 
 the very existence of moral science " (Preface, Sept. 
 28, 1876). You must not allow yourself to think 
 that the highest philosophical authority in Cam- 
 bridge in England, and the highest in Cambridge in 
 America, are really of two opinions as to any philos- 
 ophy that is predominantly Spencerian. Is it main- 
 tained that Huxley is not a materialist in any sense, 
 because he has said that he is not in some senses of 
 that word of many meanings ? What are his defini- 
 tions ? Who is it that teaches in so many words, in 
 his latest and most deliberate utterance (HUXLEY, 
 Encyc. Brit, art. "Biology," 1875), that "a mass of 
 living protoplasm is simply a molecular machine, the 
 total results of the working of which, or its vital phe- 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 223 
 
 nomena, depend, on the one hand, on its construc- 
 tion, and, on the other, upon the energy supplied to 
 it ; and to speak of vitality as any thing but the name 
 of a series of operations is as if one should talk of the 
 horologity of a clock"? If that is not materialism, 
 what is ? How much more space does that definition 
 leave for freedom of the will and moral responsibil- 
 ity and immortality than is left by Hackel's more 
 outspoken but not more sweeping phrases ? That 
 sentence contains both Huxley's and Spencer's cen- 
 tral position. But every redoubt in the camp which 
 defends the mechanical theory in biological science is 
 riddled and ploughed by the artillery of Hermann 
 .Lotze and Wundt and Helmholtz, and all the best 
 learning of Germany, to say nothing of Scotland and 
 America. Of course, the English materialistic school 
 must pick its phrases carefully. It often says it is 
 not materialistic ; but it is to be tested by its defini- 
 tions. Many of Huxley's phrases imply not only a 
 fear of arousing the aversion of scholars to material- 
 ism, but also a lack of intellectual unity. Tyndall 
 and Huxley are both freely accused in England and 
 Germany of metaphysical incompetence. On the 
 question whether certain schools of thought are ma- 
 terialistic or not. those innocent souls who cannot 
 fasten their eyes fixedly on definitions will find all 
 the beaten paths of modern philosophical discussion 
 full of what politicians call dust for the eyes of the 
 umvary. 
 
 In the sea of axiomatic truth, materialism swims 
 with fins of lead. 
 
224 BIOLOGY. 
 
 1. Bain's and Tyndall's materialism, which is the 
 latest and subtlest kind, asserts that matter is " a 
 double-faced unity," having " two sets of properties, 
 or two sides, the physical and the mental; " but is, 
 nevertheless, " one substance," and the only sub- 
 stance which exists in the universe (BAIN, Mind and 
 Body, p. 196). 
 
 2. If this definition is correct, it follows, that, in 
 matter, physical and spiritual qualities must not only 
 inhere, but co-inhere, in one and the same substratum. 
 The qualities of matter and mind must be conjoined 
 in one substance. 
 
 3. Among the fundamental qualities of matter are 
 extension, inertia, gravity, color, form. 
 
 4. But the qualities of mind are the antipodes of 
 these qualities. It is absurd to speak of the exten- 
 sion, inertia, gravity, color, or form of a thought, an 
 imagination, a choice, or an emotion. 
 
 When Caesar saw Brutus stab, and muffled up his 
 face at the foot of Pompey's statue, was his grief 
 round, or square, or triangular ? [Laughter.] When 
 Newton conceived the idea that gravitation is a uni- 
 versal law, was that thought red, or brown, or violet ? 
 When Lincoln by a stroke of his pen manumitted four 
 million slaves, was his choice hexagonal, or octagonal ? 
 Does the act of imagination in a Shakspeare weigh 
 an ounce, or a pound ? These questions show that 
 the terms which we apply to matter are totally inap- 
 plicable and meaningless if applied to mind. [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 5. Professor Bain himself admits that the organic 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 225 
 
 and the inorganic are not so widely separated as mat- 
 ter and mind ; and that the elements of our experi- 
 ence are in the last resort, not one, but two. " Mental, 
 and bodily states are utterly contrasted; and our 
 mental experience, our feelings and thoughts, have no 
 extension, no place, no form or outline, no mechanical 
 division of parts, and we are incapable of attending 
 to any thing mental until we shut off the view of all 
 that " (BAIN, PROFESSOR ALEX., Mind and Body, pp. 
 124, 135). 
 
 You must not suppose that Bain is witless enough 
 not to recognize the distinction between mind and 
 matter as the broadest known to man. His work on 
 " Mind and Body " I hold in my hand ; and it is one 
 number of those royal and very disappointing roads 
 to knowledge, called " The International Scientific 
 Series." I reverence Professor Bain. He has written 
 some books which are thorough, and will bear, in 
 most parts, the logical microscope. But this volume 
 on " Mind and Body " seems to have been made to 
 order and in haste. Nevertheless, it is the Bible of 
 the latest English materialism ; and now, out of this 
 freshest revelation, let me read a text or two. 
 
 " EXTENSION," says Professor Bain,' " is but the first 
 of a long series of properties all present in matter, all 
 absent in mind. INERTIA cannot belong to a pleasure, 
 a pain, an idea, as experienced in the consciousness. 
 Inertia is accompanied with GRAVITY, a peculiarly 
 material quality. So COLOR is a truly material prop- 
 erty: it cannot attach to a feeling, properly so 
 called, a pleasure or a pain. These three properties 
 
226 BIOLOGY. 
 
 are the basis of matter; to them are superaddei 
 Form, Motion, Position, and a host of other prop- 
 erties expressed in terms of these, Attractions and 
 Repulsions, Hardness and Elasticity, Cohesion, Crys- 
 tallization. Mental states and bodily states cannot 
 be compared " {Ibid., pp. 125, 135). 
 
 These sound very much like Sir William Hamil- 
 ton's phrases, but they are Bain's ; and yet, turn on 
 to the last and most emphatic paragraph of this book, 
 and you find a proposition at which Sir William 
 Hamilton or Hermann Lotze would only smile ; 
 namely, that there is in the universe but " one sub- 
 stance," which has two "sides," whatever that 
 word may mean, "a physical and a mental," and so 
 is " a double-faced unity." " The arguments for the 
 two substances have, we believe, now entirely lost 
 their validity. The one substance with two sets of 
 properties, two sides, the physical and the mental, 
 a double-faced unity, would appear to comply with 
 all the exigences of the case " {Ibid., p. 196). 
 
 Not if the nature of things is yet as dazzling to us 
 as it was to the eyes of Plato and Socrates- and Aris- 
 totle and Liebnitz and Kant and Hamilton ; not if 
 axiomatic truth is as radiant to us as it is to Lotze 
 and Helrnholtz and Wundt and Beale and Dana ; 
 not if we are to adhere to the first of all logical laws, 
 that, whatever stands or whatever falls, a thing can- 
 not be and not be at the same time and in the same 
 sense. [Applause.] 
 
 6. If matter is a double-faced unity, having a spirit- 
 ual and physical side, there must co-inhere in one and 
 
227 
 
 the same substratum extension and the absence of 
 extension, inertia and the absence of inertia, color 
 and the absence of color, form * and the absence of. 
 form. 
 
 7. To assert that these fundamentally antagonistic 
 qualities of matter and mind not only inhere, but co- 
 inhere, in one and the same substratum, is to assert 
 that a thing can be and not be at the same time and 
 in the same sense. [Applause.] 
 
 8. This limitless self-contradiction wrecks in this 
 age, as it has wrecked in every age, the pretence 
 that there is but one substance in the universe. 
 
 9. We know incontrovertibly that there are two 
 sets of attributes, which, as diametrical opposites, can- 
 not co-inhere in one substance, since extension and its 
 absence, inertia, form, color, and their absence, cannot 
 possibly co-exist in one and the same thing at the 
 same time. 
 
 10. Every attribute, however, must belong to some 
 substance. 
 
 11. Two irreconcilably antagonistic sets of attributes 
 must belong to two substances. 
 
 This proposition is as venerable as the sword Ex- 
 calibur of King Arthur. With it materialism of the 
 older forms has been defeated on many a Waterloo 
 of philosophy ; with it materialism in its newest form 
 has no battle but that which consists in flight from 
 its deadly edge. 
 
 12. The axiomatic knowledge, we have of two 
 such sets of attributes necessitates the conclusion 
 that matter and mind are two substances. 
 
228 BIOLOGY. 
 
 13. In that inference from self-evident truth, all 
 forms of materialism are shown to be absurd, as all 
 forms alike assert that there is but one substance. 
 
 14. Professor Bain's fundamental error is the con- 
 fusion of " dose succession " with " union. 11 He asserts 
 " union " of the qualities of matter and mind in one 
 substance with two sets of properties. He endeav- 
 ors, but in vain, to show that this is not union in 
 place ; and then says (Ibid., p. 137), that " the only 
 mode of union that is not contradictory is the union of 
 close succession in time. 11 Such succession is not union 
 in any sense that can justify the assertion that there 
 is but one substance in the universe with two sets of 
 properties. 
 
 In the last pages of this weak book, Moleschott, 
 Vogt, and Biichner, whom Germany regards as little 
 men, are mentioned as among the recent bright lights 
 of materialism. Bain admits distinctly, and yet, of 
 course, without emphasis, that " it is not to be sup- 
 posed that these writers are in the ascendant in Ger- 
 many. 11 His poor sketch of the history of materialism 
 is intended to show that this system of thought may 
 expect a successful future. That argument, how- 
 ever, with many others, stumbles, and falls flat over 
 his concession, that the most intellectual nation, in 
 which philosophy is a passion with scholars, and 
 which has given to this subject more thought than 
 all other nations combined, repudiates the latest as 
 well as the oldest materialism. 
 
 Gentlemen, I know that thus far in this address 
 the argument is metaphysical ; but, in the audience 
 
229 
 
 of scholars, it is not for that reason useless. Meta- 
 physics is simply an articulate knowledge of the neces- 
 sary implications of axiomatic truths, and is not only 
 a very clear and exact science in itself, but the 
 mother of all the other sciences. We must reject 
 either self-contradiction or sanity. We must adhere 
 to primary, self-evident truths, or fall into that ulti- 
 mate form of scepticism which knows nothing except 
 that it knows nothing, and does not know even that 
 [laughter], except upon the evidence of these very 
 axioms or intuitions, with which it plays fast and 
 loose. The man who does not know much is a great 
 character in our inquiring but unphilosophical times. 
 When you trace a mind which rejects axioms up to 
 its last refuge of oleaginousness, or ignorance, or 
 weakness, you can ask, " Are you sure that you know 
 nothing with certainty ? " " Yes," he replies, " I 
 am sure." u But then there is one thing you know 
 with certainty." " No : I am sure that I know 
 nothing surely." " But how are you sure that you 
 are sure ? " Only on the authority of the axiomatic, 
 self-evident truths which dazzled the eagle eyes of 
 the Acropolis ; are presupposed in all reasoning ; and 
 are imbedded not only in the human mind, but in the 
 very nature of things. Every change must have a 
 cause. The whole is greater than a part. Mind ex- 
 ists. Matter exists. A thing cannot be and not be 
 at the same time and in the same sense. A straight 
 line is the shortest distance between two points. 
 These are a few of the renowned fundamental prin- 
 ciples, first truths, axioms, intuitions, eternal tests of 
 
230 BIOLOGY. 
 
 verity, of which metaphysics gives the list ; and tc 
 conscientious consistency with these, it is the duty 
 of religious science, which first elaborately studied 
 axioms, to hold mercilessly all other sciences and 
 herself. 
 
 Curiously, and yet not curiously, physiology ai:d 
 metaphysics tell the same tale whenever they speak 
 on the same points. To test one science by another 
 is the most important, and, intellectually, the most 
 delicious, of all arts. Let us turn now to physical, 
 concrete facts again, and observe the coincidence of 
 their testimony with that of the primary mental facts 
 or axioms. In the field of modern physiological 
 research, materialism fails through hopeless and 
 practically measureless self-contradiction. 
 
 1. If matter is a double-faced unity, having a 
 spiritual and physical side, and is the only substance 
 that exists in the universe, then, in matter, spiritual 
 and physical qualities must not only inhere, but 
 co-inhere, in the same substratum. 
 
 2. It must be true of every atom of matter that 
 it has a spiritual and a physical side. 
 
 3. In every atom, therefore, spiritual and physical 
 qualities must be found so inseparably conjoined, that 
 the one side cannot be conceived to be taken away 
 without carrying the other side with it. 
 
 " 4. If this be the true character of matter, then the 
 physiological activities of the atoms must be at least 
 co-extensive with the psychological activities dis- 
 played in connection with those atoms ; that is, loth 
 the psychical and physical sides of the one substance- 
 
BAIN'S MATEBIALISM. 231 
 
 matter must go together, and, if the latter be removed 
 from any grouping of atoms, the former must go with 
 them. 
 
 5. According to this newest materialistic definition 
 of matter, the physiological activities of the brain 
 must be in this sense co-extensive with its psycho- 
 logical activities. 
 
 6. But according to the experiments of Ferrier, 
 Fritsch, and Hitzig, one whole hemisphere of the 
 brain may be taken away, and one-half the body 
 paralyzed in consequence, and yet the mental opera- 
 tions remain complete. 
 
 7. "The physiological activities of the brain are 
 not co-extensive with its psychological activities." 
 
 This is Ferrier's own language, of which he does 
 not seem to see the philosophical importance. 
 
 8. Matter, therefore, is physiologically demonstrat- 
 ed not to be a double-faced unity with inseparably 
 conjoined spiritual and physical properties. 
 
 9. But the psychological changes taking place in 
 the mind must have an adequate course. 
 
 Evolution equals involution. There cannot be in 
 the effect what does not exist in the cause : if there 
 could be, there would be an effect without a cause. 
 
 10. The adequate cause of the psychological 
 changes taking place in the mind does not exist in 
 the physiological changes going forward in the brain ; 
 foi other things being equal, effects must vary when 
 ihkir causes vary ; and the half of the brain may be 
 token away, and the mind yet perform with complete- 
 ness all its operations. 
 
232 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Many writers have taught that the connection of 
 cause and effect maybe tested in three ways, either 
 by taking away the cause, and noticing that the effect 
 ceases ; or by introducing the cause, and noticing 
 that the effect springs up ; or by making the cause 
 vary, and noticing that the effect varies. We cannot 
 take the moon out of the heavens, and we cannot 
 dip the tides out of the sea ; and so, in regard to the 
 tidal motions of the ocean, we cannot apply the first 
 two of these tests. But we can use the third ; for we 
 notice, that, when the sun and moon are in conjunc- 
 tion, the tides are higher than at other seasons. We 
 observe that the tides follow the moon, and always 
 vary according to its position. Now, this is precisely 
 the test that I apply in reading under the law of 
 causation the philosophical import of the latest. phy- 
 siological facts. We cannot take apart the body and 
 soul, and then bring them into conjunction, noticing 
 first the effect of their separation, and then that of 
 their union ; but we can cause the one to vary 
 somewhat, and notice the variation, or absence of 
 variation, in the other. We take away a hemisphere 
 of the brain, arid do not produce the variation in the 
 mind which it is perfectly clear ought to follow if 
 materialism is true. Bain's pretence, that the an- 
 tagonistic qualities of matter and mind inseparably 
 co-inhere in one substance-matter, is inconsis tent with 
 such a fact as Ferrier brings before the world, when 
 he says, as all physiologists say, that you may take 
 half a brain away, paralyzing half the body, and yet 
 leave the mental operations memory, imagination, 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 233 
 
 affection, choice, reason, perception, the whole list 
 of faculties complete. We vary the supposed 
 cause, and the supposed effect does not vary; and 
 this is proof that it is not an effect. 
 
 It is to be expected that a small diminution of 
 vigor in mental action may follow the taking-away a 
 hemisphere of the brain ; but in a large brain this 
 effect is hardly perceptible. Take away half the 
 force of the bellows of your organ yonder, and your 
 anthem proceeding from the organ is less loud ; but all 
 its notes and rhythms remain. In the brain is your 
 anthem in the bellows, or in the musician's fingers ? 
 Materialism is a stupid peasant that forever stands 
 behind the organ, and can see only the bellows, and 
 never the musician ; and asserts, when the latter 
 wears Gyges' ring, that he does not exist, and so 
 would blunderingly account for the anthem by the 
 bellows and organ alone. 
 
 11. As the adequate cause of physiological changes 
 in the mind cannot be found in matter, it must exist 
 outside of matter. 
 
 Hermann Lotze is forever reiterating as the great 
 maxim of his philosophy, " Exceptionally wide in 
 the universe is the extent, entirely subordinate is the 
 mission, of mechanism." This is the keynote of the 
 deepest philosophy of Germany at this moment, that 
 mechanism is to be found everywhere in the universe, 
 but that it is everywhere the horse, and not the rider. 
 " Exceptionally wide in the brain," Hermann Lotze 
 would say, " is the extent, but wholly subordinate is 
 the mission, of the nervous mechanism." 
 
234 BIOLOGY. 
 
 We must remember that this very mec'nanism, the- 
 known origin of which is left in such mystery by ma- 
 terialists, is woven by the bioplasts with a sufficient 
 cause behind them. We must study that cause by 
 its phenomena, as we study any other object in Na- 
 ture. As many unprejudiced students as have seen 
 Lionel Beale's preparations and exhibitions of tis- 
 sues under the microscope, have, he says, hopelessly 
 abandoned materialism. 
 
 A fascination not easily described attends the 
 study of living movements under the microscope, as 
 a kind of conviction there comes to you, which no 
 diagrams convey, that life and mechanism are two 
 things. I am properly conscious of the fact that I 
 am no microscopist. Perhaps I had better reveal, 
 however, that it happens that I have the opportunity 
 to use, at any hour of the day or night, what I sup- 
 pose to be by far the best microscope in Boston. It 
 belongs to a professor, a physician, who has made his- 
 tology a specialty, and who was so kind as to invite 
 me to use his magnificent instrument. It is what 
 the books call a one-seventy-fifth objective ; and the 
 highest power Beale is using is only a one-fiftieth. 
 This prince among microscopes is in Tremont Tem- 
 ple building now ; and it shows a white blood cor- 
 puscle nearly as large as the silver piece called a 
 sixpence ; and even Lionel Beale's best instruments 
 show it hardly larger than a three-cent piece. Dis- 
 sections of brains are offered to my inspection fre- 
 quently ; and, although I have 110 right as a student 
 of religious science to do so, I seize eagerly every 
 
235 
 
 opportunity to study the physiological side of phi- 
 losophy as one part of religious science. Let me say 
 that only the other evening, in this very Temple, in 
 company with experts who all believed in Lionel 
 Beale, and not in the mechanical theory of Hackel, I 
 saw living bioplasm pass and repass through the field 
 of this exceptionally excellent instrument. I had read 
 all Beale says of bioplasmic movements; I had im- 
 pressed upon myself the intricacy of the work done 
 by the bioplasts; I had minutely studied the best 
 colored plates ; and I thought I knew something of 
 the difference between the action of life and that of 
 merely physical force : but, when I saw bioplasm 
 itself in movement [such as is represented here], I 
 felt myself in the presence of an entirely new reve- 
 lation of the inadequacy of materialism, with all its 
 prate about chemical forces, to account for the weav- 
 ing, I will not say of a brain, an eye, an ear, or a 
 hand, or of nerve within nerve, and of bone beneath 
 muscle, but of the humblest and simplest living fibre 
 that ever a bioplast spun. 
 
 Think of the various activities of the one sub- 
 stance bioplasm ! The fluid that lubricates the eye 
 is thrown off by the same matter that constructs 
 bone. The muscle and the tendon are woven on one 
 loom. Take that which you drink at your tables, 
 and call milk, and what is it but smooth cell-walls 
 thrown off by the bioplasts, and now, in their ab- 
 sence, sliding over each other as a beautiful fluid ? 
 What is this instrument of three thousand strings, 
 which we call the ear, but a mass of cell-walls woven 
 
236 BIOLOGY. 
 
 together by bioplasts ? How are we to account for 
 the miraculous retina and lenses of the eye ? They 
 came from the same loom that weaves the brain. 
 Sow is such variety of effects to be accounted for with 
 no variety of mechanism ? 
 
 12. Outside of matter is to be found only what is 
 not matter, that is, an immaterial cause. 
 
 13. The existence of that cause is demonstrated 
 by the application of the axiomatic truth, that every 
 change must have an adequate cause. 
 
 14. This same law demonstrates the externality 
 and independence of this cause in its relations to the 
 cerebral mechanism. 
 
 15. The relation of this immaterial agent to the 
 body, therefore, is that of a harper to a harp, or of 
 a rower to a boat,^,nd not that of harmony to a harp. 
 
 16. The dissolution of the brain, therefore, no 
 more implies the dissolution of the soul than that of 
 a musical instrument does that of an invisible musi- 
 cian who plays upon it, or that of a boat does that 
 of the rower. 
 
 17. Death, therefore, does not end all. Therefore, 
 for the third time, by an independent line of argu- 
 ment purely physiological, we conclude, 
 
 18. If death does not, what does or can? [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 To outline now a third argument, let me ask you 
 to notice in all their relations to each other this 
 series of propositions : 
 
 1. It is a physiological fact that every human 
 being once breathed by a membrane, then by gills, 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 237 
 
 then by lungs, and once had no heart, and then a 
 heart with but one cavity, and then a heart of four 
 cavities (DRAPER, Physiology, p. 550). 
 
 2. The particles of the body are continually 
 changing. 
 
 3. In the metamorphoses of insects, not only are 
 the particles of the body changed, but its entire plan 
 is altered. 
 
 Will you, my friends, but picture to yourselves the 
 change of plan which must be made when a creeping 
 creature is transformed into a flying one? Your 
 beautiful tropical butterfly was once a repulsive 
 chrysalid. It had only the power of crawling. But 
 the bioplasts wove it. Little points of transparent, 
 structureless matter were moving in it, were throw- 
 ing off cell-walls in it, and bringing these walls into 
 the shape, now of a tendon, now of a muscle, now of 
 a nerve, and so completing the whole marvellous plan 
 of a crawling creature ; disgusting in our first sight, 
 a miracle at the second. But now these same bio- 
 plasts, which, according to materialism, have nothing 
 at all behind them but chemical forces, suddenly catch 
 a new and very brilliant idea, namely, that they will 
 weave a flying creature. [Laughter and applause.] 
 Whence comes that ? Out of matter ; for matter has 
 a physical and a spiritual side. They thereupon, 
 without any new environment, with the same sun 
 above them, and the same earth underneath them, 
 and the same food, begin to execute a wholly new 
 plan, or rather to carry out one held in reserve 
 from the first. They weave anew; there appears 
 
288 BIOLOGY. 
 
 within, and rising out of, the creeping, odious worm, 
 your gorgeous tropical butterfly ; and lie is the same. 
 There is identity between that flying creature and 
 that creeping creature. Are they two, or one ? You 
 breathed by gills once ; you breathe by lungs now. 
 Is your identity affected in the change ? Your bio- 
 plasts wove you, so that once you had a heart of 
 one cavity, and now have one of four. Are you 
 the same ? Is your identity affected through all 
 these changes ? Every few months, the flux of the 
 particles of the living tissues carries away all the 
 particles in the entire physical system. How do we 
 retain identity ? Matter has a physical and a spirit- 
 ual side, indeed. While all the matter that composed 
 my body has gone in the flux of growth, I am I, how- 
 ever. I have an ineradicable conviction that I am 
 the same person that I was years ago ; and yet, years 
 ago, there was not in my body a particle that is now 
 there. I have an ineradicable conviction that the 
 butterfly is identical with the crawling worm ; but 
 the characteristics of your worm are left behind when 
 there appears in the worm a resurrection to a new 
 life. [Applause.] 
 
 What if your butterfly were in all his parts as 
 invisible as he is in some portions of his wings ; and 
 what if, to human ken, through sight or touch, there 
 could be no account given whatever of that creature 
 woven out of the loathsome chrysalid ? What if, out 
 of that discarded organism, were to arise something 
 eq aally glorious with the butterfly, but wholly invisi- 
 ble, would this change be more miraculous than the. 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 239 
 
 rising of that visible winged creature out of that body? 
 I think not. If Crod can lift the visible out of the 
 clirysalid, may lie not be able to lift the invisible also ? 
 Yes ; but you say that this is Christian materialism. 
 I beg your pardon : I know what thoughts beyond the 
 reaches of our souls rise for utterance as we face life 
 in death. I do not assert that the soul is material; 
 nor do the Scriptures do so, where they affirm that 
 there is a spiritual body as there is a natural body. 
 What that means, I need not here, in the presence 
 of so much learning greater than mine, discuss ; but 
 I do affirm, that if God, instead of lifting a visible, 
 were to lift an invisible, flying creature out of the 
 worm, insect or man ! he would perform no 
 greater miracle than that he does now. Nothing 
 more inconceivable would it be to lift a wholly in- 
 visible new form out of a chrysalis than one partially 
 invisible. The change need not be greater ; and He 
 who can do the one miracle, and does it day after 
 day before our eyes, can do the other. 
 
 4. In all the flux of the body the soul retains con- 
 scious, personal identity. 
 
 5. The unity of consciousness, and the sense of 
 continuous personal identity, require adequate ex- 
 planation. 
 
 6. Nothing can exist in an effect which did not 
 previously exist in the cause. 
 
 7. Effect?; must change when causes change. 
 
 8. If conscious personal identity were an effect of 
 the matter comprising the physical organism, it ought 
 to exhibit as an effect the same flux which exists in 
 its supposed cause. 
 
240 BIOLOGY. 
 
 9. No such flux is observed in the effect. 
 
 10. Therefore, the cause of the sense of personal 
 identity is not to be found in the matter of the 
 organism. 
 
 11. As only matter and mind exist in the universe, 
 that cause must be an immaterial agent existing in 
 connection with the physical organism. 
 
 12. That agent is known to consciousness, and is 
 called the soul. 
 
 13. Its existence is not only known to conscious- 
 ness, but is demonstrable by the law of causation 
 which requires that every effect must have an ade 
 quate cause. 
 
 The unity of consciousness and the permanence 
 of personal identity are supreme German arguments 
 against all forms of materialism. 
 
 This is the birthday of Thomas Carlyle. Eighty- 
 four years ago, in the stern year in which Louis 
 XVI., Marie Antoinette, and Charlotte Corday, went 
 to the scaffold, there came into the world the first 
 prose poet of our time, and the most lofty and vivid 
 imagination, except Richter's, since Milton. Is it 
 not fitting that on this day, at least, we should listen 
 seriously to a man who has thought boldly, and with 
 no narrow mental horizon ? 
 
 "You have heard," says Carlyle, and in perfect 
 freedom from all bias but that of genius, " St. Chrys- 
 ostom's celebrated saying in reference to the Shechi- 
 nah, or ark of testimony, visible revelation of God 
 among the Hebrews : ' The true Shechinah is man.' 
 Yes, it is even so : this is no vain phrase ; it is veri- 
 
BAIN'S MATERIALISM. 241 
 
 tably so. The essence of our being is a breath of 
 Heaven. This body, this life of ours, these faculties, 
 are they not all a vesture for that Unnamed ? We 
 touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human body. 
 We are the miracle of miracles. This is scientific 
 fact. God's creation it is the Almighty God's. 
 Atheistic science babbles poorly of it with scientific 
 nomenclatures, experiments, and whatnot, as if it 
 were a poor dead thing to be bottled up in Leyden 
 jars, and sold over counters; but the natural sense 
 of man in all times, if he will honestly apply his 
 sense, proclaims it to be a living thing. Ah I an 
 unspeakable, God-like thing, toward which the best 
 attitude for us, after never so much science, is awe, 
 devout prostration, and humility of soul; worship, 
 if not in words, then in silence " (CARLYLE, Hero 
 Worship). 
 
 Who in Boston has a right to look loftily on Car- 
 lyle ? Macaulay said, but let me only whisper the 
 fact, that he did not see how Prescott, being what he 
 was, could live in such a place as Boston. Who in 
 any American editor's chair, or in any college in New 
 England, is authorized to look condescendingly upon 
 Carlyle, even on this theme, although, forsooth, he is 
 not a microscopist ? [Applause.] 
 
XI. 
 
 AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 
 
 THE FIFTY-SIXTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY LEC 
 
 TURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT 
 
 TEMPLE DEC. 11. 
 
" IT is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and 
 arranged, while no material forces or properties are known to be 
 capable of discharging such functions. ... I believe that it will be 
 found, that the institution of the series of preparatory changes 
 which occur previous to the development of the lasting form and 
 structure of tissues can only be accounted for upon the supposition 
 of the existence of a power capable of foreseeing what was about 
 to happen, and of determining beforehand the arrangement that 
 would be most advantageous to the living being, and able to pro- 
 vide beforehand for requirements that it was foreseen would arise 
 at a future time." LIONEL BEALE, Protoplasm, pp. 306, 358. 
 
 " THE laws of nature do not account for their own origin." 
 JOHN STUABT MILL, Logic. 
 
PLATE 111. (AFTER BEALE ) 
 DISTRIBUTION OF ULTIMATE NERVE FIBRES TO MUSCLE. 
 
 Distribution of finest nerve fibres which result from the division of dark-bordered nerve fibres to 
 
 the elementary muscular fibre* of the thin mylo-hyoid muscle of the liyla.or greeu tree frog. The 
 
 diameter of each muscular fibre is lens than that of a human red blood corpuscle. The capillaries 
 
 are injected blue, x 1800. 
 
XL 
 
 AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 
 
 PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 IT is sometimes sneeringly affirmed that colleges 
 teach little but the art of finding where knowledge 
 is ; and yet that is a great and difficult art. In the 
 froth-oceans of weak books, it is a high service to 
 point out to a hurried man, on any interesting theme, 
 the most serviceable volumes. What are the dozen 
 best English, and what the dozen best German books 
 on biology ? In response to many inquiries, verbal 
 and written, let me attempt an answer to this rather 
 formidable question. There are few or no good books 
 on biology older than 1860. Remember that the 
 microscope did not attain its power to furnish facts 
 of a scientific character for the basis of research till 
 1838. So fast has the study of living tissues pro- 
 gressed, that it may be said that all the conclusions 
 reached before 1860 either have been or will be modi- 
 fied. I therefore can recommend to you nothing 
 older than 1860, except an author or two like Schlei- 
 den and Schwann, who began the investigations of 
 living tissues, and whose works are to be examined 
 for their interest as historical documents. On this 
 
246 BIOLOGY. 
 
 theme, as on so many other philosophical matters, 
 the best books are German ; but take first the Eng- 
 lish in the order of their merit : 
 
 1. Beale, Dr. Lionel S., " Protoplasm ; or, Matter 
 and Life." Third edition : London, G. & A. Church- 
 ill; Philadelphia, Lindsay & Blackiston, 1875. 
 
 The style of this work is attractive for its clear- 
 ness, grace, and force, and occasionally for a keen, 
 logical humor. It is not always that a physician has 
 literary capacity ; but Lionel Beale is a good and 
 almost a brilliant writer. Besides, he has had a lib- 
 eral training in logic and metaphysics, and seems to 
 have grasped philosophy as a whole very fully. But 
 the charm of his book is in the luminousness, vivacity, 
 and power produced by his stalwart grasp of his 
 theme as an origins discoverer. No doubt he has 
 added more to the knowledge of living tissues than 
 any living English author within the last twenty-five 
 years. It does not become me to state here what pre- 
 cautions I have taken to know that I have not been 
 misled in seeking authorities on biology ; but I have 
 taken precautions of a most merciless sort, and con- 
 tinue to take them, and all my precautions end in 
 giving me more and more confidence in Beale as a 
 man of candor and sense as well as of science. If 
 you can buy the productions of but two authors on 
 biology, purchase the works of Beale as the best 
 that the English language offers you, and those of 
 Frey as the best that the translated German at pres- 
 ent affords. 
 
 2. Frey, Professor Heinrich, Zurich, " Manual of 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NEKVES. 247 
 
 Histology," Leipzig, 1867; and "Compendium of His- 
 tology," Zurich, 1876. Translated by Dr. George R. 
 Cutter. New York: Putnam Sons, 1876. Frey's two 
 works are by common consent placed now at the head 
 of German works on histology. 
 
 3. Drysdale, Dr. John, " The Protoplasmic Theory 
 of Life." London, 1874. This work of an Edin- 
 burgh physician, and president of the Liverpool 
 Microscopical Society in 1874, seems to stand third 
 in order of importance. It does not adopt Beale's 
 conclusions as to vital force ; but it accepts his facts, 
 and makes a strenuous and futile effort to reconcile 
 them with what is called the theory of stimulus. 
 
 4. Ferrier, Dr. David, " The Functions of the 
 Brain." London and New York, 1876. This work 
 is indispensable to any one who does not read Ger- 
 man books on biology. 
 
 5. Tyson, Dr. James, " History of the Cell Doc- 
 trine." 
 
 6. Carpenter, Dr. W. B., "Mental Physiology." 
 London and New York, 1874. 
 
 7. Beale, Dr. Lionel S., " How to Work with the 
 Microscope." New edition. Philadelphia, 1877. 
 
 8. Kollicker, " Manual of Human Histology." 
 Translated by George Bush and Professor Huxley 
 for the Sydenham Society, 1853. 
 
 9. Huxley, Professor T. H., art. on Biology in 
 ninth edition of " Encyclopaedia Britannica." 
 
 10. Carpenter, " Human Physiology," ninth edi- 
 tion, 1876. 
 
 11. Draper, Professor J. W., "Human Physiology," 
 1856. 
 
248 BIOLOGY. 
 
 12. Dalton, Professor John C., " Human Physiol- 
 ogy," edition of 1875. 
 
 Here is a list of twelve German authors : 
 
 1. Lotze, Hermann, " Mikrokosmus," 3 vols, 1873. 
 Lotze was born at Bautzen in 1817. He was gradu- 
 ated at Leipzig in 1834, in both philosophy and med- 
 icine. In 1842 he became professor of philosophy at 
 the University of Leipzig, but since 1844 has been 
 professor of philosophy at the University of Gottin- 
 gen. His collected works are to be recommended 
 as all bearing on biology. (See art. on " Hermann 
 Lotze," in July number of Mind, 1876.) 
 
 2. Ulrici, " Gott und die Natur." Halle, 1873. 
 " Gott und der Mensch." Leipzig, 1874. 
 
 3. Strieker, " Handbuch der Lehre von der Gewe- 
 ben des Menschen und der Thiere. Leipzig, 1868. 
 
 4. Hackel, " Generelle Morphologic der Organis- 
 men," 1866. 
 
 5. Schultze, Max, " Protoplasma der Rhizopoden," 
 1863. Read all of Schultze's works. 
 
 6. Neumann, " Ueber d. Zusammenhang sog. Mole- 
 cularen mit dem Leben des Protoplasma ; " Du Bois- 
 Reymond and Reichert's " Arch.," 1867. 
 
 7. Kolliker, " Neue Untersuchungen," &c., 1861. 
 
 8. Kuhne, W., " Untersuch. iiber das Protoplasma," 
 1864. 
 
 9. Helmholtz, " Handbuch der physiol. Optik." 
 
 10. Wundt, Physiologic des Menschen. 
 
 11. Hitzig, " Untersuchungen iiber das Gehirn." 
 
 12. Du Bois-Reymond, Ueber die thierische Elec- 
 tricitat. 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 249 
 
 Omitted books which scholars here may think I 
 ought to have named, would probably appear if 1 
 were to give a list of the hundred best volumes. 
 
 If you can buy but three books, have Frey's 
 "Histology," and Beale's "Protoplasm," and Lotze's 
 " Mikrokosmus." 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 If Aristophanes were here to-day, we perhaps 
 could give him no better entertainment than to cause 
 a frog to utter the famous words of one of this 
 Greek poet's plays : JBreJcekekex, kodx, kodx (ARIS- 
 TOPHANES, The Frogs). We might take a brainless 
 frog, and, by gently stroking its back, we should 
 produce these Greek words, uttered automatically by 
 the vocal organs of the amphibian ; and, as often as 
 we stroked the back, we should insure that result. 
 Goltz, the German physicist, who has lately written 
 an elaborate work on the nerve-centres of frogs (Func- 
 tionen der Nervencentren desFrosches, 1869), says very 
 genially that the batrachian chorus of our summer 
 evenings is the natural proclamation of the fact that 
 it is well with the inhabitants of the marsh as the 
 sedges and the ooze stroke their backs under the still 
 stars. I am not supposing our frog's brain to be 
 removed as a whole, but so far forth only as the tak- 
 ing-away of what are called the .cerebral hemispheres 
 can change the mechanism of the complex nervous 
 mass within the skull. The lower nervous centres 
 in the spinal column and in the neck, and just above, 
 remain in the frog. When I pinch him, thus brain- 
 
250 BIOLOGY. 
 
 less, he leaps. When I place the miraculous creature 
 in the palm of my hand, and turn the hand, as Hux- 
 ley did his in a famous public experiment, intended, 
 but riot sufficient, to puzzle the world as to the free- 
 dom of the will, the frog keeps position, and stands 
 upon the back. I reverse the motion, and he keeps 
 his place, and stands upon the palm. This is not 
 an effect of will on his part, but of the life which 
 stands behind that marvellous automatic mechanism 
 which his bioplasts have woven. I put him in his 
 native pool, and he swims the instant he touches the 
 water. On reaching the shore, however, he at once 
 becomes quiet. He sits there hours and days ; and, 
 if he is not again touched by some external force 
 of such a kind as to irritate his automatic nerves, he 
 will seek no food, and will continue quiet until he 
 becomes a mummy. All this looks as if the frog 
 were an automaton ; and so, indeed, he is when the 
 hemispheres of the brain are taken away. But, 
 when these hemispheres are present, the frog seeks 
 food ; he does not sit in one spot ; his automatic 
 croak he represses when a stone is thrown among his 
 watery bowers of grass and reeds ; he has multitudi- 
 nous playful ways ; he possesses, in short, the power 
 of self-direction. All this he loses with the removal 
 of the hemispheres. The animal that has lost these, 
 however great its remaining automatic power may 
 be, will not seek food, and, unless artificially fed, 
 always perishes of starvation. There appears to be 
 nothing like choice or volition left in the frog after 
 the cerebral hemispheres are ablated. 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NEKVES. 251 
 
 Take a fish, and remove its cerebral hemispheres, 
 and you will find that the same great contrast be- 
 tween automatic and influential nervous action ap- 
 pears. The fish swims with perfect equilibration. 
 The stroke of the fins and tail retains its amazing 
 precision. But the mutilated swimming creature 
 does not stop, as other fishes pause, to nibble at food 
 here and there. It does not loiter, as its companions 
 do, in shaded aqueous couches. It flashes not up 
 thence, as they do, to catch the unwary insect in the 
 evening or morning dusk. The brainless fish has no 
 capacity to play in spheral rhythm with its mates 
 and with the waves. It keeps on in a straightfor- 
 ward course, unless turned aside by some obstacle ; 
 and does not pause until nervous or muscular ex- 
 haustion necessitates rest. That fish, too, will perish 
 of starvation unless artificially fed. It has no tend- 
 ency to seek food; its volitional power is lost. In 
 this case of the fish, a very different law would seem 
 to be exhibited from that which appears in the case 
 of the frog ; and yet the two cases are to be explained 
 by precisely the same contrast between the automatic 
 and the influential nervous arcs. The fish has a 
 constant stimulation of the automatic nerves. The 
 water produces reflex movements ; and these, so 
 wisely did the bioplasts of the fish weave the crea- 
 ture, constitute the complex act of swimming. Your 
 frog sits still because no stimulus is applied to the 
 automatic nerves; and your fish swims because a 
 prolonged excitation of those nerves is produced by 
 the water. But, to show that the case of the frog 
 
252 BIOLOGY. 
 
 and that of the fish are parallel, put the frog into the 
 water, and he will swim in it as long as it floats his 
 body. He is an amphibious animal, and will get out 
 upon the land if he can ; and this is the only differ- 
 ence in the case. 
 
 Let us .remove from a pigeon the central hemi- 
 spheres, and we shall find that the poor bird, when 
 we wave a fiery brand in a circle before its eyes, will 
 follow the motions of the light with its head. If a 
 fly pauses on its crest, it will shake off the intruder. 
 Placed on its back, the bird will regain its feet. If 
 it walks along your table, and .comes to the edge, it 
 will lift its wings the moment this action is necessary 
 to balance its form. So mysteriously have its bio- 
 plasts woven this flying creature, that, when the 
 pigeon thus brainless is cast out upon the free air, it 
 moves there with its accustomed royalty, as if in its 
 home. But when left at rest it makes no spontane- 
 ous movements. This brainless bird, like the brain- 
 less frog or fish, unless stimulated by some outward 
 touch, remains forever quiet, never seeks food, and 
 will become a mummy. It has apparently no power 
 of originating muscular action. It possesses the lower 
 nervous arcs ; but you have taken away the upper ; 
 and in doing this you have taken away its power of 
 originating movements. 
 
 Removal of the hemispheres from a rabbit leaves 
 the animal for a while prostrate ; but, after a varying 
 interval, it exhibits power to maintain its equilibrium 
 on its legs in an unsteady manner. A loud sound 
 causes its silken, sensitive ears to twitch, its quiver- 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 253 
 
 ing, aspen-leaf body to start. Its flight, once begun 
 under proper stimulation, is headlong, bungling, and 
 blind. If left to itself, it will seek no food, remain 
 fixed and immovable on the same spot, and, unless 
 artificially fed, die of starvation in the midst of plenty. 
 It has no capacity to originate motion. (See FLOU- 
 RENS, LONGET, and VULPIAN On the Results of the 
 Removal of the Cerebral Hemispheres in Pigeons. See, 
 also, FERRIER, Functions of the Brain, chap, iv., and 
 CARPENTER, Human Physiology, edition of 1875, pp. 
 696, 697.) 
 
 Gentlemen, it shall. not be my fault if you go from 
 this hall without having impressed on you the dis- 
 tinction between the influential and automatic ner- 
 yous mechanism. Next after the contrasts between 
 the living and the not-living, and between matter 
 and mind, that distinction is the most important and 
 the widest in biology. These three colossal distinc- 
 tions all not only inhere, but co-inhere, in the very 
 substance of the science of the relations of matter 
 and mind. These are the sublime peaks of biology ; 
 a-nd on them, in clear days, whoever would know 
 the landscape of modern philosophy and of religious 
 science must wander with the best telescopes well 
 used, and pace to and fro, and be alone, and some- 
 times kneel. 
 
 Perfectly coincident with metaphysics is physi- 
 ology, whenever the two speak on the same point. 
 Physiology shows us two kinds of nervous activities, 
 one automatic, one influential I might say voli- 
 tional and responsive, but I anxiously avoid merely 
 
254 BIOLOGY. 
 
 technical terms when the use of them is not neces- 
 sary. I adopt the phraseology of Draper, ' influential 
 and automatic," rather than the phraseology of Car- 
 penter, " volitional and responsive," because " influen- 
 tial " is a wider word than " volitional." I suppose 
 that the will does originate muscular action (CAR- 
 PENTER, Mental Physiology, American edition, pp. 
 378, 386, 391, 418). But the will is not the whole 
 soul. I believe that every part of the soul is " influ- 
 ential " on what is called the influential nervous arc. 
 Every finger of the invisible musician who wears 
 Gyges' ring, and which we call the soul, touches 
 some point of this board of whitish gray keys. I will 
 not name the activity of the whole set of fingers on 
 this board by that of the thumb merely. To call 
 this whole list of activities volitional would be to 
 name but the thumb, when we have reason, imagi- 
 nation, emotion, all acting more mysteriously by far 
 than the swiftest motion of your Ole Bull's Norwe- 
 gian fingers on the strings of his magical instrument. 
 Keep, then, this distinction between the influential 
 and the automatic before your mind ; remember that 
 volitional and responsive are other words for the same 
 things, and you will find that the great contrast 
 between matter and mind, which is so prominent in 
 metaphysics, is equally prominent in physiology. 
 
 I hold, that in the divine language in matter, as 
 well as in mind, there is not an empty word, syllable, 
 Better, space or pornt. By and by the time will come 
 when every thing in the universe of forms, as well as 
 in that of forces, will be found to be significant, 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 255 
 
 doubly, trebly, quadruply, infinitely. It is safe to 
 maintain, that this great distinction in the body be- 
 tween the automatic and the influential, is a thing 
 meant to indicate to us the contrast between neces- 
 sity and freedom, fate and choice. So are we woven 
 by the bioplasts, that a part of our actions are respon- 
 sive to physical, and a part responsive to spiritual 
 stimulus. Dr. Carpenter affirms in so many words, 
 that, in the nervous mechanism, " the vesicular sub- 
 stance has for its office to originate changes which it 
 is the business of the fibrous to conduct" (Human 
 Physiology, edition of 1875, p. 587 ; see, also, pp. 694, 
 713,752). "The will," he teaches, "is constantly 
 initiating movement. The distinction between vol- 
 untary and involuntary movement is recognized by 
 every physiologist " (Mental Physiology, pp. 414, 
 379 ; see, also, On the Control of Habit by the Will, 
 pp. 366, 367 ; On its Directing Power, pp. 386-391 ; 
 and On its Determining Power, pp. 423-428). 
 
 It is Carpenter's theory that consciousness is lo- 
 cated in the sensory ganglia, which lie immediately 
 between the influential and the automatic arcs, and 
 that just as an outward physical impulse may be 
 transmitted upward through the automatic nerves to 
 this sensory centre, so an impulse originated by pure 
 spirit in the cerebral hemispheres may be transmitted 
 downward to the seat of consciousness. We know 
 what the nerves of the external senses are ; but Reil 
 and Carpenter very significantly call the highest 
 influential mechanism the nerves of the internal 
 senses. As the automatic nerve touches light, so 
 
256 BIOLOGY. 
 
 the influential soul. Mysterious beyond comment is 
 this physical contrast when regarded as a first letter 
 in the alphabet of philosophy. That part of a tree 
 which is below the soil is not more different from 
 that which is above than the automatic is different 
 from the influential nervous mechanism. A ship be- 
 low the water-line is adapted to the water, and above 
 that line to the air ; but the sails and rudder are not 
 more palpably adapted to different agents than the 
 automatic and the influential nervous arcs in man. 
 As well as we know that a sail is inert without wind, 
 we do know that this upper nervous arc is inert with- 
 out soul. As from the structure of the sail we might 
 infer the nature of wind, so, from that of the inert 
 mechanism of the brain, Draper and Lotze and Beale 
 and Carpenter say we may infer that of the viewless 
 spiritual force which beats on it. 
 
 What can prove to us that the upper arc of the 
 nervous system has that behind it which has power 
 to originate motion, unless it be the fact that the re- 
 moval of that arc takes away all power in the animal 
 to originate motion ? There is the effect ; and it 
 ceases when the cause ceases. I ask only that you 
 should apply here the stern law of Newton, that, 
 where cause and effect are conjoined, the taking away 
 of the former produces the cessation of the latter. 
 We take away the cerebral hemisphere of the fish, 
 the frog, the pigeon, the rabbit; and the animals in- 
 variably become mummies from the loss of all power 
 of originating muscular movements. [Applause.] 
 
 To summarize, then, a crowded discussion, let me 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 257 
 
 in the name, not of Draper simply, but of Beale, of 
 Carpenter, of Ferrier, of Lotze, of Frey, of Strieker, 
 of Kolliker, of Wundt, and of Helmholtz, affirm, 
 
 1. In the absence of the cerebral hemispheres, the 
 lower nervous centres, of themselves, are incapable 
 of originating active manifestations of any kind. 
 
 2. An animal in possession of the cerebral hemi- 
 spheres exhibits a varied spontaneity of action. 
 
 3. Very palpably this is not conditioned by present 
 impressions on the organs of sense. 
 
 4. The lower nervous centres, if they are taken 
 alone, are concerned in automatic or responsive ac- 
 tions only. 
 
 5. The power of self-conditioned activity the hemi- 
 spheres alone possess. 
 
 All great physiological facts reach as far into phi- 
 losophy as they do into physiology. May I state, 
 under appeal for correction, that theology in our 
 times has a physiological side ? I am perfectly 
 amazed at the feeling that many have, that a special- 
 ist in religious science has no right to look into phy- 
 siology. Why, every student of religious science 
 must be more or less a specialist in philosophy ; and 
 philosophy is now built, not only on the investigation 
 of consciousness, but on physiology. At Andover 
 yonder, in the course, say, of a crowded year given to 
 religious truth as a system, fully three months are 
 devoted to what is called natural theology ; and all 
 the six lectures, and often more a week, turn on phi- 
 losophy largely, and I had almost said exclusively. 
 Till the existence of God and of the soul is demon- 
 
258 BIOLOGY. 
 
 strated, religious science does not take up the topic 
 of biblical evidence. She does take it up at last, 
 but with an arm of resistless strength, when at last 
 she comes to the close of natural theology, and enters 
 on revealed. Andover, like New Haven, like Prince- 
 ton, like Edinburgh, like Oxford and Cambridge, 
 like Heidelberg, Halle, Leipzig, and Berlin, begins 
 with axioms, with self-evident, first truths, asking no 
 man to believe more than what Aristotle laid down 
 as incontrovertible, self-evident, necessary, axiomatic. 
 On the basis of that adamant, having proved the 
 existence of God and of the soul, religious Science 
 finds herself in an attitude to ask, What are the 
 relations between the two? There is a God, and 
 there is a soul ; and it must be, in a universe made 
 on a plan, that there are relations between the two ; 
 and that these relations do not depend on count of 
 heads, or clack of tongues. The universe must have 
 conditions of salvation in it if it is made on a plan. 
 Religious science springs out of the universality of 
 law. If there is a soul, and the soul is made on a 
 plan, if there is a God who is all order and all 
 holiness, then it is incontrovertible that there are 
 natural conditions of salvation. What is salvation ? 
 Let us have a definition. Salvation is permanent 
 deliverance from both the love of sin and the guilt of 
 sin. [Sensation.] It must be, that, in a universe in 
 which we can demonstrate the existence of a living 
 God and a living soul, conditions of freedom from the 
 love of sin and from the guilt of it exist, that you and 
 I cannot change by ignoring them, or voting them up 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 259 
 
 or down. The government of the universe is not 
 elective. Therefore, it is fitting for us to begin with 
 demonstrating axiomatically the existence of God 
 and the existence of the soul in order that we may 
 go forward and learn from the plan of the two what 
 must be the natural conditions of their harmony. 
 
 Religion a science ? Yes, assuredly ; for science 
 is simply a body of established truth, or systematized 
 knowledge, reached by the application of the scientific 
 method, that is, by definition and induction. By these 
 processes, which religious science invented, she un- 
 dertakes to investigate the activity of the highest 
 zones of man's being, to establish right conduct upon 
 the nature of things, to ascertain the contents of 
 both natural and revealed truths, to illustrate, in 
 short, by all that can be known to man, the rela- 
 tions between the soul and its Author. A science? 
 Yes, certainly ; a result of the use of the scientific 
 method ; and not only as much a science as any 
 other, but a science as much more than any other as 
 a view from the top of the dome of St. Peter's is a 
 greater outlook than the view from any slit called 
 a window. [Applause.] 
 
 You say that only a brick-maker can understand 
 architecture. Well, I cannot make brick ; but it has 
 been my specialty for the last ten years to study logi- 
 cal, physiological, metaphysical, theological, and ethi- 
 cal architecture. It is trite beyond measure to say, 
 although some sceptics seem never to have heard, 
 thai; it is the duty of every theological student to 
 know with uncommon thoroughness logic and meta- 
 
260 BIOLOGY. 
 
 physics, and the chief results of the most advanced 
 physiological as well as of the latest exegetical re- 
 search. I should consider myself unfit to hold up my 
 rushlight before religious truth anywhere, if I had not 
 given myself to these topics for years, not only under 
 the best guidance, but with the freest spirit. 
 
 Michael Angelo never learned to make a brick ; 
 he was not skilful as a plumber: but he had some 
 knowledge of architecture. I am willing to compare 
 with Michael Angelo's knowledge of material archi- 
 tecture that knowledge of logical and philosophical 
 architecture which belongs in our age to some teach- 
 ers of religious science in Germany. A man may be 
 an architect, although he is not a carpenter, and can- 
 not fell a tree skilfully, or hew a stone, or unroll 
 lead on a roof. There may be in a man sound judg- 
 ment as to architecture, although he knows nothing 
 about making brick. I revere specialists, and am 
 not underrating them ; but very plainly the relation 
 of all minor specialists to philosophy is that of the 
 contributors of material to the architects of your 
 St. Peter's or your Milan Cathedral. From all sides, 
 material comes to the architect. Each specialist 
 guarantees his own material ; but the architect, by 
 all the tests known to man, is to find out what are 
 good and what are bad brick, timbers, granite, and 
 marble ; and, whenever the sciences agree what mate- 
 rials are good, it is our business to build with them 
 the temple of religious thought. [Applause.] We 
 have a right to do this if we understand architecture. 
 [Applause.] 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 26i 
 
 A specialist is undoubtedly a king of research in 
 his own field ; but what if that field embraces only 
 molluscs, or scarabea, or the dative case ? A special- 
 ist may have a wide field. Who is a specialist ? I 
 affirm that your Michael Angelo is a specialist as well 
 as your mere brickmaker and plumber. When the 
 minor specialists assume an arrogant attitude toward 
 the greater, I am always reminded of the stone-cut- 
 ters I conversed with in Story's studio at Rome. 
 " We made this Cleopatra," said they ; " we pro- 
 duced this Sybil ; " and so through twenty resplen- 
 dent works of art. And then the stone-cutters added, 
 as a matter of small moment, u Our modeller, Mr. 
 Story, is up stairs." Even Ernst Hackel insists upon 
 it (^History of Creation, vol. ii. p. 349), that the nar- 
 rowness of outlook of specialists in physical science, 
 and their inadequate philosophical training, is the 
 worst mischief of our modern scientific discussion. 
 Do not think that I speak from prejudice in the asser- 
 tion that there is no profession, unless it be the legal, 
 better trained in logic and philosophy than the minis- 
 terial. [Applause.] I am aware that I am speaking 
 before an audience containing many scholars, and I 
 am anxious never to violate courtesy here toward 
 learning of any kind ; but I do not know where, in a 
 course of medical instruction, any physician gets that 
 merciless drill in logic which is necessary in any ade- 
 quate theological or legal professional preparation 
 and career. I do not know where any man studying 
 merely with the microscope and scalpel and retort 
 obtains that kind of literary and logical and philo- 
 
262 BIOLOGY. 
 
 sophical training which belongs of necessity to the 1 
 and theology. This has been so in all ages, though 
 we undoubtedly have made mistakes. No doubt we 
 have sometimes taken brick that were poorly baked ; 
 and I think that is our chief trouble to-day. [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 In justification of the five propositions thus far dis- 
 cussed, let rne ask you to listen to Professor Ferrier, 
 indorsed now by Carpenter and Dalton in standard 
 text-books of science. " One fundamental fact seems 
 to be conclusively demonstrated by these experiments ; 
 viz., that, in the absence of the cerebral hemispheres, 
 the lower centres of themselves are incapable of origi- 
 nating active manifestations of any kind. An animal 
 with brain intact exhibits a varied spontaneity of 
 action, not, at least, immediately conditioned by pres- 
 ent impressions on its organ of sense. When the 
 hemispheres are removed, all the actions of the ani- 
 mal become the immediate and necessary response to 
 the form and intensity of the stimulus communicated 
 to its afferent nerves. Without such excitation from 
 without, the animal remains motionless and inert. 
 It is true that some of the phenomena which have 
 been described would seem to be opposed to this 
 view ; but they are so in appearance only, and not in 
 reality. . . . Hence the phenomena manifested by the 
 different classes of animals, after ablation of the hemi- 
 spheres, admit of generalization under the law that the 
 lower ganglia are centres of immediate responsive action 
 only, as contradistinguished from the mediate or self- 
 conditioned activity which the hemispheres alone pos- 
 sess " (FERRIER, Functions of the Brain, pp. 40, 41). 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 263 
 
 Although, from the course of his education, Ferrier 
 might be expected to lean toward Plain's philosophy, 
 he cannot be accused of cruderiess while he main- 
 tains that the distinction between matter and mind 
 is as clear in physiology as in metaphysics. He does 
 that in this very significant statement of facts from a 
 physiologist's point of view ; and this to-day is the 
 freshest word on our theme : " That the brain is the 
 organ of the mind, and that mental operations are 
 possible only in and through the brain, is now so 
 thoroughly well established and recognized, that we 
 may, without further question, start from this as an 
 ultimate fact. But how it is that molecular changes 
 in the brain-cells coincide with modifications of con- 
 sciousness, how, for instance, the vibrations of light 
 falling on the retina excite the modification of con- 
 sciousness termed a visual sensation, is a problem 
 which cannot be solved. We may succeed in deter- 
 mining the exact nature of the molecular changes 
 which occur in the brain-cells when a sensation is 
 experienced ; but this will not bring us one whit 
 nearer the explanation of the ultimate nature of that 
 which constitutes the sensation. The one is objec- 
 tive, and the other subjective ; and neither can be ex- 
 pressed in terms of the other. We cannot say that 
 they are identical, or even that the one passes into the 
 other, but only, as Laycock expresses it, that the two 
 are correlated " (Ibid., pp. 255, 256). 
 
 Just here I must fulfil my promise to refer to a 
 courteous question asked me in print (Daily Adver- 
 tiser, Nov. 29, 1876) by a gentleman who thinks 
 
264 BIOLOGY. 
 
 that " chemical force and vital force are cognate." 
 That is his language ; and by it I understand him to 
 mean that the one is kindred in origin with the other. 
 Certainly he does not hold himself in such an atti- 
 tude in this article, that he can be exonerated from 
 the grave charge, that he disagrees with Ferrier, when 
 the latter teaches, as Tyndall affirms also, that these 
 molecular activities " cannot be made to pass into " 
 mental activities. Speaking of the effect of " tea and 
 coffee and phosphorated food in oiling the wheels of 
 the mind," this Boston writer says, " Such agents 
 develop chemical force without question : this force, 
 to the best of our knowledge, accelerates the wheels 
 of life, and it is every way proper to suppose, that, 
 doing thus, it is analogous to the force which sets the 
 wheels going ; or, in short, that chemical force and 
 vital force are cognate." He then goes on to affirm 
 that the " impressions " coming from different quar- 
 ters " are to the individual the representative of the 
 universe, and that it may be said that in this way the 
 universe is each man's tutor, and forms his soul." 
 [Laughter.] Gentlemen, that is materialism. 
 
 Let us test this typical statement by a parallel case. 
 The reasoning may be summarized in three proposi- 
 tions : (1) Chemical force accelerates the wheels of 
 life ; (2) Therefore it is analogous to the force whicb 
 sets the wheels of life in motion ; (3) Therefore chem- 
 ical and vital forces are cognate. Now let us paral- 
 lel that reasoning, point for point, for the sake of 
 clearness. The strong current in the Merrimack or 
 Charles River accelerates the motion of the rower 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 265 
 
 in his boat. It is, therefore, every way proper to 
 suppose that the force of the current is analogous to 
 the force which sets the oars in motion. [Laughter.] 
 
 I beg you to be courteous, gentlemen. This Lec- 
 tureship has but one motto, " The clear, the true, the 
 new, the strategic." I do not first seek orthodoxy ; 
 I seek first clearness. [Applause.] A man who sets 
 before himself even truth as the first object is likely 
 to make truth only the synonyme for his own opin- 
 ion. Let us seek first clearness, whether the heavens 
 stand or fall. [Applause.] 
 
 To proceed, then : the force in the current accel- 
 erates the motion of the rower in his boat : therefore 
 it is every way proper to suppose that it is analogous 
 to the force that sets the oars in motion ; and there- 
 fore the force of the current and the force that moves 
 the oars are cognate. [Laughter.] 
 
 But this is not all ; for, to make the parallel com- 
 plete, we must assert that the force that moves the 
 currents and the force that moves the oars are cog- 
 nate in such a sense, that, when all things are fairly 
 stated, it must be conceded that the force that moves 
 the currents " forms " the force which moves the 
 oars. [Applause.] 
 
 Undoubtedly the rower on the river is aided by 
 the currents, and so, undoubtedly, is the rower called 
 life aided by currents of purely physical force moving 
 through the living organism ; but to say that from 
 this fact we must conclude that the two forces are 
 cognate, is no more unreasonable in the former case 
 than in the latter. 
 
266 BIOLOGY. 
 
 This gentleman thinks, that, at one point, I make 
 a leap in my proof; but I never leaped across the 
 difference between the current in the river and the 
 force that moves the oars. 
 
 I need not mention in detail the reasoning in an 
 earlier paragraph of this criticism ; for the concessions 
 made to me there destroy the criticism, and the 
 whole falls when the word " cognate " falls. The 
 gentleman says it is " force " which moves that por- 
 tion of the brain which will not re-act under electrical 
 stimulus. I say it is "force," but not physical force ; 
 for this, as Ferrier says, cannot be shown to pass into 
 mental force. This gentleman's reasoning to prove 
 that it does so pass proves astoundingly too much. 
 The force, too, must be one adequate to account for 
 the effect produced. 
 
 When the grave assertion is made, that the bellows 
 yonder accelerates the action of the organ, and that, 
 therefore, it is perfectly proper to suppose that its 
 force of rough wind is of the same character with 
 the will of the musician whose fingers touch the 
 keys, -and that, therefore, the musician was Hown out 
 of the bellows, we come to a vivid view of the logic of 
 materialism. [Laughter and applause.] 
 
 You put me into a bad mood, gentlemen. I have 
 heard that hypotheses are allowable up to a certain 
 point, but that there does come a time in logic when 
 there must be an end of hypotheses. DeMorgan, in 
 his logic, tells a story of a servant who was to pre- 
 pare a stork for dinner for his master. But the 
 servant had a sweetheart; and, to gratify her, he 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 267 
 
 cut off a leg of the stork after it had been cooked, 
 and put the mutilated bird upon the table of the 
 nobleman. When dinner was served, the nobleman 
 called the servant to the door of the feasting-hall, 
 and said, " How does it happen that this stork has 
 but one leg?" "Why, sir," was the hypothesis 
 used in answer, " a stork never has but one leg." 
 No more was said in the presence of the company; 
 but the next day, before the nobleman dismissed his 
 servant, he thought he would see what further hy- 
 pothesis the man would offer. So he took his servant 
 into the grounds of the castle, and showed him the 
 storks standing there. " See," the nobleman said, 
 " each stork has two legs." " But look again," said 
 the servant, " each stork has really now but one ; " 
 and surely each was standing, after the manner of 
 his bird, on one. But the nobleman shouted to the 
 birds with a frightening gesture, "Off, away!" and 
 each stork ran away with two legs. " Yes," said the 
 servant, who did not lack hypotheses ; " but yesterday 
 you did not say, 4 Off and away ! ' to that stork on the 
 table." [Laughter.] There must at some point be 
 an end to hypotheses ; but materialism saves itself 
 by saying, " Off and away ! " to the baked stork. 
 [Applause.] Why, the poor grave-digger in Hamlet 
 knew better than that ; for he was no materialist. 
 " Who is to be buried here ? " said Hamlet ; and the 
 fool answered, 
 
 " One that was a woman; 
 But, rest her soul, she is dead." 
 
 At our present point of view, we need only name 
 
268 BIOLOGY. 
 
 the propositions which flow from the latest physio- 
 logical research : 
 
 6. Molecular motions in the nervous system are 
 now definitely known to form in all cases a closed 
 circuit. 
 
 7. They cannot, therefore, be said to be identical 
 with mental activities. 
 
 8. They are only parallel with them. 
 
 9. They are demonstrably not transmuted into 
 mental activities, but only correlated with them. 
 Parallelism is not identity : the keys in motion are 
 not the music of your organ. 
 
 10. Materialism, therefore, fails under the micro- 
 scope of physiology, and it fails equally under a 
 strict application of the law of causation. 
 
 The externality of the soul to the nervous mechan- 
 ism is just as well known in relation to the upper 
 key-board or influential arcs, as the externality of 
 your fingers to the lower key-board or the automatic 
 arcs, is known in these experiments with the frog and 
 the pigeon, the fish and the rabbit. You know how 
 those motions in the lower key-board are produced. 
 You know, therefore, how those in the upper are 
 started. Matter did not start them there. Matter 
 does not start them here. Mind starts them here. 
 Mind starts them there. We are conscious in our- 
 selves of power of choice, and that, inner witness 
 must be combined with the testimony that comes 
 from the scalpel and the microscope, to show that 
 the powe\ of self-direction does not originate in 
 matter. 
 
AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES. 269 
 
 How the unextended substance, mind, can act upon 
 the extended substance, matter, is a mystery ; but to 
 affirm that it does so involves no self-contradiction. 
 What is a mystery? Something of which we know 
 that it is, though we do not know how it is. What 
 is a self-contradiction ? An inconsistency of a pro- 
 position with its own implications. That mind moves 
 matter, we know. How it does it, we know not. 
 Sir William Hamilton (PROFESSOR VEITCH, Memoir 
 of Sir William Hamilton, p. 154), in his efforts to 
 solve this mystery, was anxious that even what is 
 called mesmeric force should be investigated ; and 
 he and many other acute minds have asked whether 
 it may not be within the power of the human will 
 to influence another human will across the street, 
 across the city, across a continent. In the name of 
 exact science, many seek to-day to know whether by 
 possibility human will may not, in some cases, make 
 matter move by willing to do it. I hold no strange 
 theory on this theme ; I am shy to my finger's tips 
 of even the conclusions of Carpenter concerning it. 
 But will you not allow me, in the name of Sir 
 William Hamilton's curiosity, and in that of Presi- 
 dent Wayland of Brown University, to use, merely 
 as illustration, this presumed power of the human 
 will to move matter without contact through other 
 matter ? If you conceive that as possible, and fairly 
 within natural law, then natural law itself becomes 
 the magnetization of all matter by the influence of 
 one Omnipresent Will, in which is no variableness 
 nor shadow of turning. As our wills play upon 
 
270 BIOLOGY. 
 
 the keyboard of the influential human nerves, 
 so Omniscience and Omnipresence, magnetizing all 
 worlds and their inhabitants, play upon all infinities 
 and eternities. [Applause.] The connection of the 
 Divine Will with matter may be thus obscurely re- 
 vealed to us by that of the human will with matter. 
 Each is a mystery; but, if these two are kindred 
 mysteries, the universe is one, and man's passion for 
 unity in science is satisfied. Matter is an effluence 
 of the Divine Nature, and so is all finite mind, and 
 thus the universe is one in its present ground of ex- 
 istence and in the First Cause. In a better age, 
 Science, lighting her lamp at that Higher Unity, 
 will teach that, although He, whom we dare not 
 name, transcends all natural laws, they are, through 
 his Immanence, literally God, who was, and is, and is 
 to come. Science does this already for all who think 
 clearly. [Applause.] 
 
XII. 
 
 EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMOETALITY. 
 
 THE FIFTY-SEVENTH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT 
 
 TEMPLE DEC. 13. 
 
yup OVK kniora-rcu. arof^a 
 rd dlov, ti/Ua TIU.V eTr 
 
 YLUS, Prometheus Sound, 1031. 
 
 Otoc av rad' IOTT] rrjde, prj Oetiv fiera." 
 
 SOPHOCLES, Ajax, 950. 
 
XII. 
 EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 
 
 PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 WHICH city has the greater right to an attitude of 
 intellectual haughtiness, Boston, or Edinburgh? In 
 preparation for all inspired work in poetry and art, 
 and, much more, in religion, it is necessary to make 
 the palms of the hands clean, and to shake off them 
 the glittering, stout vipers, intellectual pride, vanity, 
 and self-sufficiency. Has Edinburgh shown a greater 
 decision and skill than Boston in dislodging these 
 wreathing reptiles from her fingers, as Paul shook off 
 the serpent on Melitus, feeling no harm? Is Edin- 
 burgh really the equal of Boston in culture ? Where 
 is there in this city a better metaphysician than Sir 
 William Hamilton or Dugald Stewart? Who here 
 has advanced exact science more than Black, or Play- 
 fair, or Sir David Bre \vster ? Is there a better politi- 
 cal economist here than Adam Smith, the author of 
 " The Wealth of Nations " ? Have we better histo- 
 rians than Hume and Robertson ? Is there any rheto- 
 rician here likely to be more influential than Hugh 
 Blair ? Have we a painter superior to Sir John Les- 
 lie, a more delightful essayist than Thomas DeQuincey, 
 
 273 
 
274 BIOLOGY. 
 
 a better writer on ethics than Sir James Mackintosh ? 
 What literary name have we, on the whole, superior 
 to that of Walter Scott ? Can Boston produce the 
 equal of John Knox or Thomas Chalmers? What 
 periodical of the same class have we better than 
 " Blackwood's Magazine," as edited by a Lockhart and 
 a Wilson ? What quarterly have we here in Boston 
 more famous than " The Edinburgh Review," with 
 Francis Jeffrey, and Sidney Smith, and Homer, and 
 Macaulay, and Brougham behind it? This Edinburgh, 
 true to the deepest inspirations of conscience in her 
 Scotch heart and intellect, knelt down lately on the 
 shore of the North Sea, and was willing to have her 
 devotions led by an American evangelist ; and shall 
 Boston, on this Puritan and Pilgrim shore, stand 
 stupidly stiff when asked to kneel ? 
 
 Dickens wrote in his last years, that he regarded a 
 Boston audience as next to an Edinburgh audience, 
 but that this was a high compliment to Boston ; for 
 he regarded an Edinburgh audience as perfect. 
 
 What if Boston in 1877 should receive, as well as 
 Edinburgh did in 1874, evangelists thrice more em- 
 phatically approved by experience now than they 
 were then ? What if we should put ourselves as 
 thoroughly as Edinburgh did herself into the attitude 
 of a telescope focused on the sun of religious truth, 
 and ready, therefore, to cause an image of the sun to 
 spring up in the chambers of the instrument? We 
 are proud of our lenses: are we willing to adjust 
 them ? Once adjusted, even poor human lenses, by 
 fixed natural law, may draw down a star or a sun into 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 275 
 
 the soul ; and, although the light is from above, the ad- 
 justment is our own. Are we willing to bring the 
 axis of adjusted, spiritual, telescopic thought in Bos- 
 ton into complete coincidence with the line of the 
 keenest rays of conscience, and of self-surrender to 
 God, and see what the effect will be in the star ting- 
 up within us of a light otherwise unattainable, and 
 hot enough to burn up our temptations, hot enough 
 to purge whatever of politics, or commerce, or social 
 life, is held in the focus of the rays, hot enough to 
 sear the wings of the dolorous and accursed scepti- 
 cisms which flutter not through the Boston noon, but 
 through the Boston dusk, and endeavor yet to build 
 homes for themselves in last year's birds' nests, like 
 Paine's forgotten books, and Parkerism, and small phi- 
 losophy, and free religion and materialism ? [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 Edinburgh, when Mr. Moody came to that city, 
 avoided a division of her Christian forces. Half a 
 score of churches could not hold the audiences ; but 
 there was no lack of trained minds and hearts ready 
 to converse with the religiously irresolute face to 
 face. To bring those who have not surrendered to 
 God face to face with those who have, and to let 
 the two sets of minds act and re-act upon each other 
 in personal hushed conversation, religious study, and 
 prayer, is one of the highest blessings to both, and 
 perhaps the most effective human instrumentality 
 known to man for the diffusion of personal religion. 
 I have seen men and women go into such conversa- 
 tion shiveringly as babes into a bath, and come out 
 
276 BIOLOGY. 
 
 with foreheads white, and eyes like stars. Face-to- 
 face conversation between the converted and the 
 unconverted is everywhere the chief measure to 
 be taken for the religious culture of both. The 
 secret of Mr. Moody's great usefulness is in a com- 
 bination of three things, his total and immeasurably 
 glad self-surrender to God ; his fervid oratory, alive 
 in every part with biblical truth, practical sagacity, 
 and fathomlessly genuine consent to conscience ; and 
 his most uncommon good sense in organizing religious 
 effort in those forms which bring the converted and 
 the unconverted face to face in conversation, biblical 
 study, and prayer. 
 
 A power not of man springs up when the reli- 
 giously resolute and the religiously irresolute converse 
 and kneel together in the Holy of holies of human 
 experience, a divine aroma breathed upon the two 
 from the open Scriptures between their eager faces. 
 These inquiry-meetings, this organization of 'lay reli- 
 gious effort, this putting the "unrepentant face to face 
 with the converted, this kneeling together of those 
 who are right with God and those who wish to be, 
 is the secret, I think, of the chief religious power in 
 the long course of the evangelists' work. 
 
 Edinburgh was willing, with all her haughtiness, 
 to enter into that style of religious effort. Professor 
 Blaikie says that the sacred songs which filled the 
 meetings are at this day better known in Scotland 
 than Burns's poems. In a call issued to all Scotland 
 fi'Dm Edinburgh, nearly all the professors of the 
 University of Edinburgh are represented. There 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 277 
 
 were in the list of signatures the names of Professors 
 Calderwood, Balfour, Blaikie, Charteris, MacGregor, 
 and Crawford, side by side with those of Hanna and 
 Duff, Scott Moncrief, and Horatius Bonar. There is 
 hardly a circle of culture in Edinburgh that was not 
 proud to be represented in the lists of persons en- 
 gaged in the endeavor to carry the truth to all por- 
 tions of society. Will Boston do any thing like this ? 
 Will Harvard University do what Edinburgh Univer- 
 sity was proud to do to carry men on a vigorous 
 current of calm thought into self surrender to God ? 
 I wish to speak with due reverence of this city ; but I 
 am not of the opinion that Boston is entitled to more 
 intellectual renown than Edinburgh ; and yet, in 
 Edinburgh, the students came out by thousands to 
 hear religious truth, and to have a personal applica- 
 tion made of it to themselves, not altogether by the 
 evangelist, but by the spirit of the time. You 
 remember that on one occasion the students of Edin- 
 burgh came together in -the Free Assembly Hall, and 
 so filled it, that Mr. Moody was obliged to speak to 
 an immense gathering in the quadrangle, while Mr. 
 Whyte, successor to Dr. Candlish, and Professor Char- 
 teris, conducted the services within. Around the 
 platform were professors from nearly all the depart- 
 ments of the university, and from the Free Church 
 and College, and nearly two thousand students. 
 This was a more significant scene than that when 
 Gladstone sat on the platform in London. (Dr. 
 JOHN HALL and G. H. STUART, the American Evan 
 gelists, p. 51.) 
 
278 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Edinburgh is looking upon Boston; London 
 watches this city ; Glasgow, Liverpool, Philadelphia, 
 New York, Chicago, ask what Boston will do to bring 
 herself into an attitude in which God can walk up 
 and down our streets as he has walked up and down 
 the streets of other cities. Who will prepare the 
 way for the triumphal procession, not of any sect, but 
 of all Christian truth ? In Chicago, the other day, a 
 young man who had stolen some thousands of dollars 
 confessed his sin to the person with whom he con- 
 versed in an inquirer's room, and of his own accord 
 went to the penitentiary. Over and over again, it 
 has happened in these meetings that men guilty of 
 unreportable deeds have confessed them, and have 
 begun new lives with that emphasis of sincerity 
 which is -given by voluntarily taking witnesses to 
 utterly unspeakable guilt. Is this excitement ? It 
 is Almighty God in conscience. Professor Dorner I 
 heard say once in Berlin University, " The truth is, 
 gentlemen, not so much that man has conscience 
 as that conscience has man." Your Emerson says 
 men cannot love Goethe, because he was incapable 
 of surrender to the moral sentiment. Is Boston 
 ready to give herself up to that sentiment in such a 
 manner, that she shall not only know that she has 
 conscience, but allow conscience, and God who is 
 behind it, to have her ? 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 As light fills, and yet 'transcends, the rainbow, so 
 God fills, and yet transcends, all natural law. Ac- 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 279 
 
 cording to scientific Theism, we are equally sure of 
 the Divine Immanency in all Nature, and of the 
 Divine Transcendency beyond it. Pantheism, how- 
 ever, with immeasurably narrow horizons, asserts 
 that natural law and God are one ; and thus, at its 
 best, it teaches but one-half the truth ; namely, the 
 Divine Immanency, and not the Divine Transcend- 
 ency. Christian Theism, in the name of the scien- 
 tific method, teaches both. While you are ready to 
 admit that every pulsation of the colors seven in the 
 rainbow is light, you yet remember well that all the 
 pulsations taken together do not constitute the whole 
 of light. Solar radiance billows away to all points 
 of the compass. Your bow is bent above only one- 
 quarter of the horizon. So scientific Theism sup- 
 poses that the whole universe, or finite existence in 
 its widest range, is filled by the infinite Omnipresent 
 Will, as the bow is filled with light ; and this in 
 such a sense, that we may say that natural law is 
 God, who was, who is, and who is to come. In the 
 incontrovertible scientific certainty of the Divine 
 Immanency, we may feel ourselves transfigured as 
 truly as any poetic pantheist ever felt himself to be 
 when lifted to his highest possible mount of vision. 
 But, beyond all that, Christian Theism affirms that 
 God, knowable but unfathomable, incomprehensible 
 but not inapprehensible, billows away beyond all 
 that we call infinities and eternities, as light beyond 
 the rainbow. While he is in all finite mind and 
 matte J, as light is in the colors seven, ho is as differ- 
 ent from finite mind and matter as is the noon from 
 
280 BIOLOGY. 
 
 a narrow band of color on the azure. Asserting the 
 Divine Transcenlency side by side with the Divine 
 Immanency, religious science escapes, on the one 
 hand, the self-contradictions and narrowness of pan- 
 theism, and attains, on the other, by the cold pre- 
 cision of exact research, a plane of thought as much 
 higher than that of materialism as the seventh 
 heaven is loftier than the platform of the insect or 
 the worm. [Applause.] 
 
 It would be very Emersonian to differ from Emerson. 
 [Laughter.] His mission, according to his own state- 
 ment, is to unsettle all things. It is common to hear 
 the acutest readers assert that his writings have no 
 mental unity. The poet Lowell thinks that some- 
 times Emerson's paragraphs are arranged by being 
 shuffled in manuscript; and the best British criti- 
 cism (Encyc. Brit., 1875, art. " On American Litera- 
 ture ") says, "They are tossed out at random like 
 the contents of a conjuror's hat." But is there no 
 point of view from which the Emersonian sky, 
 
 u With cycles and with epicycles 
 Scribbled o'er," 
 
 may be seen to have within it a comprehensible 
 law? Before Hegel, Emerson's master, became ob- 
 solete or obsolescent in Germany, no doubt Emer- 
 son was a pantheist ; but I cannot explain by any 
 form of pantheism the later motions of some stars 
 in his pare, soft azure. You may prove that he is 
 more poet than philosopher, more seer than poet, 
 more mysti 3 than seer ; and yet the surety in the 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 281 
 
 last analysis 'is, that he is more Emerson than 
 either. [Laughter.] Individualism held firmly, panthe- 
 ism held waveringly, are to me the explanation of the 
 bewildering and yet gorgeous motions of the constel- 
 lations in his sky. Mr. Frothingham acutely says 
 that Mr. Emerson's place is among poetic, not among 
 philosophic minds {Transcendentalism in New Eng- 
 land, 1876, p. 236). It is not Emersonian to wince 
 under philosophical self-contradiction ; but it is Em- 
 ersonian to writhe under the remotest attempt to 
 cast on individualism so much as the fetter of a 
 shadow. 
 
 Loyalty to the Over-Soul is Emerson's supreme 
 mood. Whether it lead to philosophic consistency 
 or not, is to his scheme of thought an empty question. 
 Whatever shooting-star streams at this instant across 
 the inner sky of personal inspiration is to be observed, 
 and its course mapped down, even if it move in a 
 direction opposite to that of the last flaming track of 
 light noted there. What if the map at last show a 
 thousand tracks crossing each other ? Are they not 
 all divine paths? Are they not to be all included 
 and explained in a sufficiently wise philosophy? 
 The point of departure of all the shooting-stars in 
 Emerson's sky is the constellation Leo. All his 
 metaphysics he is ready to abandon at any moment, 
 if the loftier movements of the soul as it exists in 
 himself come into conflict with his philosophy. He 
 utters whatever the Over-Soul seems to him to say, 
 whether in harmony with previous deliverances or 
 not. He is a pantheist, but not a consistent panthe- 
 
282 BIOLOGY. 
 
 ist: he is an idealist, but not a consistent idealist: 
 he is a religious mystic, but not a consistent mystic : 
 he is an individualist, mapping his own highest inner 
 self, or, as he would say in pantheistic phrase, mapping 
 Grod. The Over-Soul comes to consciousness only in 
 man. In the transfigured work of tracing on the 
 page of literature all gleams of light in the Over-Soul 
 in Emerson, he is consistent with himself, and in this 
 only. A maker of maps of the paths of shooting- 
 stars is Emerson ; and he is more devout than any 
 astronomer intoxicated with the azure. Sit in the 
 constellation Leo, if you would understand the 
 Emersonian sky. 
 
 A brilliant and learned volume by a revered 
 preacher of this city (REV. DR. MANNING, Half 
 Truths and the Truth, 1872) contains the most 
 luminous analytical proof that a pantheistic trend 
 sets through Emerson's writings as the gulf-current 
 through the Atlantic. But Emerson often proclaims 
 his readiness to abandon pantheism itself, if the 
 Over-Soul seems to command him to do so. In the 
 whole range of his often self-destructive apothegms, 
 I find no single sentence so descriptive of his position 
 as a fixed individualist and a wavering pantheist as 
 this : 
 
 " In your metaphysics you have denied personali- 
 ty to the Deity ; yet, when the devout motions of the 
 soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they 
 should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your 
 theory, as Joseph his coat, in the hand of the har- 
 lot, and flee " (EMERSON, Essays, vol. i. p. - r O). 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 283 
 
 Whoever would come to the point of view from 
 which all Emerson's self-contradictions are recon- 
 ciled must take his position upon the summit of 
 individualism, and transfigure that height by the 
 thought that there billows around it what we call God 
 in conscience, and what Emerson calls the Ov^r-Soul. 
 In the loftiest zones of human experience there 
 are influences from a Somewhat and Some-one that 
 is in us, but not of us ; and Emerson is so far pan- 
 theistic as to hold that this highest in man is not 
 only a manifestation of God, but God, and the only 
 God. Therefore he is always in the mount. His 
 supreme tenet is the primacy of mind in the uni- 
 verse, and I had almost said the identity of the 
 human mind with the Divine Mind. As the waves 
 are many, and yet one with the sea, so to pantheism, 
 finite minds and the events of the universe are many, 
 and yet one with God. As the green billows that 
 dash at this moment on Boston Harbor bar, and cap 
 themselves with foam, are one with the Atlantic, so 
 you and I, and Shakspeare, and Charlemagne, and 
 Caesar, and the Seven Stars, and Orion, are but so 
 many waves in the Divine All. The ages, like the 
 soft-hissing spray, may take this shape or that ; but 
 they all come from one sea. Every wave is an inlet 
 to the sea, and to all of the sea. " There is," says 
 Emerson, " one Mind common to all individual men. 
 Every man is an inlet to the same, and to all of the 
 same" (Essay on History'). " The simplest person, 
 ivho in his integrity worships G-od, becomes Grod" 
 Eight generations of clerical descent are behind 
 
284 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Emerson's unwavering reverence for the still small 
 voice : one generation of now almost outgrown Ger- 
 man thinkers is behind his wavering reverence for 
 pantheism. Would he only assert, side by side with 
 .the Divine Immanence, the Divine Transcendency, we 
 might call him a Christian mystic, where now we 
 can only call him a teacher of transfigured panthe- 
 istic individualism. [Applause.] 
 
 Pantheism denies the personal immortality of the 
 soul. To pantheism, death is the sinking of a wave 
 back into the sea. We shall find, however, that 
 Emerson, true to his central tenet of hallowed indi- 
 vidualism, has again and again asserted the personal 
 immortality of the soul, and never denied it in re- 
 ality, though he has often done so in appearance. 
 
 When, in 1832, Mr. Emerson bade adieu to his 
 parish in this city, he used, as on every occasion he 
 is accustomed to use, memorable words. "I com- 
 mend you," the last sentences of his letter to that 
 parish read, "to the Divine Providence. May he 
 multiply to your families and to your persons every 
 genuine blessing; and whatever discipline may be 
 appointed to you in this world, may the blessed hope 
 of the resurrection, which he has planted in the con- 
 stitution of the human soul, and confirmed and mani- 
 fested by Jesus Christ, be made good to you beyond 
 the grave ! In this faith and hope I bid you fare- 
 well" (EMEKSON, R. W., Letter dated Boston, Dec. 
 22, 1832, quoted in Frothingham? s Transcendental- 
 ism in New England, 1876, p. 235). These are 
 wholly unambiguous words. 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 285 
 
 You say that Emerson never has asserted, since 
 18&2, the personal immortality of the soul; but 
 what do you make of certain almost sacredly pri- 
 vate statements of his to Fredrika Bremer ? That 
 authoress, whose works Germany gathers up in 
 thirty-four volumes, came out of the snows of 
 Northern Europe, and one day found Mr. Emerson 
 walking down the avenue of pines in front of his 
 house, through the falling snow, to greet her. Day 
 after day they conversed on the highest themes. 
 Months passed while Fredrika Bremer was the guest 
 of Boston ; and, toward the end of the lofty inter- 
 changes of thought between these two elect souls, 
 there occurred what Fredrika Bremer calls a most 
 serious season. One afternoon in Boston, with all 
 the depth of her passionate and poetic temperament, 
 she endeavored to convince Emerson that God is not 
 only in all natural law, but that he transcends it all ; 
 that he demands of us perfection ; and that, there- 
 fore, as Kant used to say, we must expect personal 
 immortality or opportunity to fulfil the demand ; 
 that religion is the marriage of the soul with God ; 
 and that the idea that God is objective to us, and 
 that our souls may come into harmony with his, a 
 Person meeting a person, is vastly superior, as an 
 inspiration, to any pantheistic theory that all there 
 is of God is what is revealed to us in the insignifi- 
 cant scope of our faculties. She endeavored, in the 
 name of lofty thought, to show the narrowness of 
 pantheism at its best. The interview was serious in 
 the last degree ; and Fredrika Bremer savs that Em- 
 
286 BIOLOGY. 
 
 erson closed it with these words, " I do not wish 
 that people should pretend to know or believe more 
 than they really do know and believe. The resur- 
 rection, the continuance of our being, is granted : 
 we carry the pledge of this in our own breast. I 
 maintain merely that we cannot say in what form 
 or in what marner our existence will be continued " 
 (EMERSON, " Conversation with Fredrika Bremer," 
 Homes of the New World^ vol. i. p. 228). 
 
 Transcendentalism in New England was marked 
 by a bold assertion of the personal continuance of 
 the soul after death. " The Dial " always assumed 
 the fact of immortality. " The transcendentalist was 
 an enthusiast on this article," Mr. Frothingham says ; 
 and Mr. Emerson's writings, he adds, were " redo- 
 lent of the faith." Theodore Parker thought per- 
 sonal immortality is known to us by intuition, or as 
 a self-evident truth, as surely as we know that a 
 whole is greater than a part. It must be admitted 
 that New-England transcendentalism caused in many 
 parts of our nation a revival of interest and of faith 
 in personal immortality. (See FEOTHINGHAM, Tran- 
 scendentalism, pp. 195198.) Mr. Emerson was the 
 leader of New-England transcendentalism. 
 
 But you say, that since 1850, Emerson has changed 
 his opinion ; and yet, if you open the last essay he 
 has given to the world, that on " Immortality," you 
 will read, " Every thing is prospective, and man is 
 to live hereafter. That the world is for his educa- 
 tion is the only sane solution of the enigma. . . . 
 The implanting of a desire indicates that the gratifi- 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 287 
 
 cation of that desire is in the constitution of the 
 creature that feels it. ... The Creator keeps his 
 word with us. ... All I have seen teaches me to 
 trust the Creator for all I have not seen. Will you, 
 with vast cost and pains, educate your children to 
 produce a masterpiece, and then shoot them down ? " 
 What do these phrases amount to, taken in connec- 
 tion with the two earlier passages which I have 
 cited, and which assuredly assert personal immor- 
 tality ? " All sound minds rest on a certain prelim- 
 inary conviction, namely, that, if it be best that con- 
 scious personal life shall continue, it will continue ; 
 if not best, then it will not ; and we, if we saw the 
 whole, should, of course, see that it was better so. 
 ... I admit that you shall find a good deal of scep- 
 ticism in the street and hotels and places of coarse 
 amusement ; but that is only to say that the prac- 
 tical faculties are faster developed than the spiritual. 
 Where there is depravity, there is a slaughter-house 
 style of thinking. One argument of future life is 
 the recoil of the mind in such company, our pain 
 at every sceptical statement." 
 
 The " conscious personal " continuance of the soul, 
 Emerson no more than Goethe denies. In this very 
 essay, however, we milst expect to find apparent self- 
 contradiction ; and accordingly we can read here these 
 sentences, written from the point of view of a waver- 
 ing pantheism, " Jesus never preaches the personal 
 immortality. ... I confess that every thing con- 
 nected with our personality fails. The moral and 
 intellectual reality to which we aspire is immortal, 
 and we only through that." 
 
288 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Allow me, on this occasion, to contrast arguments 
 with ipse dixits, and to use only the considerations 
 which are implied in Emerson's teachings on immor- 
 tality. You will be your own judges whether the 
 conclusion that there is a personal existence after 
 death must follow from his premises. I shall, of 
 course, unbraid the reasoning, and show its strands ; 
 but its braided form is Emerson's axiom, " The Cre- 
 ator keeps his word with us." The argument is old ; 
 and for that reason, probably, Emerson values it. It 
 has borne the tooth of time, and the bufferings of 
 acutest controversy age after age. In our century 
 it stands firmer than ever, because we know now 
 through the microscope, better than before, that 
 there is that behind living tissues which blind 
 mechanical laws cannot explain. 
 
 1. An organic or constitutional instinct is an im- 
 pulse or propensity existing prior to experience, and 
 independent of instruction. 
 
 This definition is a very fundamental one, and is 
 substantially Paley's (Nat. TheoL, chap. 18). 
 
 2. The expectation of existence after death is an 
 organic or constitutional instinct. 
 
 3. The existence of this instinct in man is as 
 demonstrable as the existence of the constitutional 
 instincts of admiration for the beautiful, or of curi- 
 osity as to the relations of cause and effect. 
 
 What automatic action is, you know ; and an in- 
 stinct is based upon the automatic action of the 
 nervous mechanism. Who doubts that certain pos- 
 tures in anger, certain attitudes in fear, certain 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 289 
 
 others in reverence, certain others in surprise, are 
 instinctive ? These postures are taken up by us, 
 without reflection on our part : they are organic in 
 origin. It is instinct for us to rest when we are 
 fatigued, and to take the recumbent position; and 
 we do not reason about this. The babe does it. 
 Instinctive actions appear early in the progress of 
 life, and are substantially the same in all men and in 
 all times. An educated impulse does not appear 
 early, and is not the same among all men in all 
 times. Of course, it would avail nothing if I were 
 to prove that the belief in immortality has come to 
 us from education. If that belief result from an 
 organic instinct, however, if it be constitutional, then 
 it means much, and more than much. 
 
 4. The dulness of these instincts in a few low 
 races, or in poorly-developed individuals, does not 
 disprove the proposition, that admiration for the 
 beautiful, and curiosity as to the relations of cause 
 and effect, are constitutional in man. 
 
 5. So the occasional feebleness of the expectation 
 of existence after death does not show that it is not 
 an organic or constitutional instinct. 
 
 6. This instinct appears in the natural operations 
 of conscience, which anticipates personal punishment 
 or reward in an existence beyond death. 
 
 You desire incisive proof that we have a constitu- 
 tional anticipation of something beyond the veil ; but 
 can you look into Shakspeare's mirror of the inner 
 man, and not see case after case of the action of that 
 constitutional expectation? Shakspeare's delinea- 
 
290 BIOLOGY. 
 
 tions are philosophically as unpartisan and as exact 
 as those of a mirror. Is it not the immemorial pro- 
 verb of all great poetry, as well as of all profound 
 philosophy, that there is something that makes cow- 
 ards of us all as we draw near to death, and that this 
 something is not physical pain, but a Somewhat 
 behind the veil ? Death would have little terror if 
 its pains were physical and intellectual only. There 
 is an instinctive action of the moral sense by which 
 we anticipate that there are events to come after 
 death, and that these will concern us most closely. 
 
 Bishop Butler, in his famous " Sermons on Con- 
 science," has no more incisive passage than that in 
 which he declares that " conscience, unless forcibly 
 stopped, magisterially exerts itself, and always goes 
 on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sen- 
 tence which shall hereafter second and confirm its 
 own." This prophetic action of conscience I call 
 the chief proof that man has an instinctive expecta- 
 tion of existence after death. We are so made, that 
 we touch somewhat behind the veil. As an insect 
 throws out its antennae, and by their sensitive fibres 
 touches what is near it, so the human soul throws 
 out the vast arms of conscience to touch eternity, 
 and Somewhat, not ourselves, in the spaces beyond 
 this life. All there is in literature, all there is in 
 heathen sacrifice, continued age after age, to propi- 
 tiate the powers beyond death, all there is in the 
 persistency of human endeavor, grotesque and cruel 
 at times, to secure the peace of the soul behind the 
 veiL ; are proclamations of this prophetic action of 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMOETALITY. 291 
 
 conscience ; yet conscience itself is only one thread 
 in the web of the pervasive organic instinct which 
 anticipates existence after death. [Applause.] 
 
 7. This instinct appears in a sense of obligation to 
 meet the requirements of an infinitely perfect moral 
 law. 
 
 We know that the moral law is perfect, and there- 
 fore that the moral Lawgiver is perfect. 
 
 But the moral law demands our perfection. 
 " Therefore," said Immanuel Kant, " the moral law 
 contains in it a postulate of immortality." Its re- 
 quirement is a part of our constitution, and cannot 
 be met in this stage of existence. It is not met here, 
 and therefore the moral law requires us to beli eve in an 
 existence after death. That is Kant's very celebrated 
 proof; but I am pointing to it only as one thread in 
 this organic web which we call instinctive anticipa- 
 tion of existence after death. Put your Shakspeare 
 on the fear of what is behind the veil, side by side 
 with your Kant on this anticipation of the time when 
 we can approximate to perfection, and you will find 
 these broad-shouldered men, in the name of both 
 poetry and philosophy, affirming, as the postulate of 
 organic instinct in man, that existence after death is 
 a reality. [Applause.] 
 
 8. It appears in the universality of the belief in 
 existence after death. All widely-extended beliefs 
 result much more from organic instinct than from 
 tradition. 
 
 9. It appears in the human delight in permanence. 
 
 10. It appears in the unoccupied capacities of man 
 in his present state of being. 
 
292 BIOLOGY. 
 
 11. It appears in the convictions natural to the 
 highest moods of the soul. 
 
 " There shine through all our earthly dresse 
 Bright shootes of everlastingnesse. ' ' 
 
 12. It appears in the longing for personal immor- 
 tality characteristic of all high states of complete 
 culture. 
 
 13. It appears conspicuously in Paganism itself, in 
 the persistence of all the ages of the world in the 
 efforts to propitiate Supreme Powers, and to secure 
 the peace of the soul beyond the grave. 
 
 How is the force of any impulse to be measured, 
 unless by the work it will do ? What work has not 
 this desire of man, to be sure that all will be well 
 with him beyond the veil, not done ? What force has 
 maintained the bloody sacrifices of the heathen world 
 through all the dolorous ages of the career of Pagan- 
 ism on the planet ? What force has given intensity 
 to the inquiries of philosophy as to immortality? 
 What has been the inspiration of the loftiest litera- 
 ture in every nation and in all time, whenever it has 
 spoken of avenging deities that will see that all is 
 made right at last ? How are we to explain the per- 
 sistency of every age in the attempt to propitiate the 
 powers beyond the veil, and to secure the peace 
 of the soul after death, if not by this impulse arising 
 organically, and existing as a part of the human 
 constitution ? [Applause.] 
 
 14. Nature makes no half-hinges. God does not 
 create a desire to mock it. The universe is not un- 
 
EMERSON'S VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY. 293 
 
 skilfully made. There are no dissonances in the 
 divine works. Our constitutional instincts raise no 
 false expectations. Conscience tells no Munchausen 
 tales. The structure of the human constitution is 
 not an organized lie. " The Creator keeps his word 
 with us." [Applause.] 
 
 15. But, if there is no existence after death, con- 
 science does tell Munchausen tales ; man is bunglingly 
 made; his constitution raises false expectations; his 
 structure is an organized lie. 
 
 Our age has many in it who wander as lost babes 
 in the woods, not asking whether there is any way 
 out of uncertainties on the highest of all themes, and 
 in suppressed sadness beyond that of tears. Small 
 philosophers are great characters in democratic cen- 
 turies, when every man thinks for himself ; but lost 
 babes are greater. There is a feeling that we can 
 know nothing of what we most desire to know. I 
 hold, first of all, to the truth that man may know, 
 not every thing, but enough for practical purposes. 
 If I have a Father in heaven, if I am created by an 
 intelligent and benevolent Being, then it is worth 
 while to ask the way out of these woods. I will not 
 be a questionless lost babe ; for I believe there is a 
 way, and that, although we may not know the map 
 of all the forest, we can find the path home. [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 There are four stages of culture; and they are 
 all represented in Boston to-day, and in every highly 
 civilized quarter of the globe. There is the first 
 stage, in which we usually think we know every thing. 
 
294 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Then comes the second stage, in which, as our knowl- 
 edge grows, we are confronted with so many ques- 
 tions which we can ask and cannot answer, that we 
 say in our sophomorical, despairing mood, that we can 
 know nothing. A little above that we say we can 
 know something, but only what is just before our 
 senses. Then, lastly, we come to the stage in which 
 we say, not that we can know every thing, not that we 
 can know much, indeed, but in which we are sure 
 we can know enough for practical purposes. 
 
 Every thing, nothing, something, enough! There 
 are the infantine, adolescent, juvenile, and mature 
 stages of culture. [Applause.] 
 
 16. But, so far as human observation extends, we 
 know inductively that there is no exception to the 
 law that every constitutional instinct has its correlate 
 to match it. 
 
 17. Wherever we find a wing, we find air to match 
 it ; a fin, water to match it ; an eye, light to match 
 it ; an ear, sound to match it ; perception of the 
 beautiful, beauty to match it ; reasoning power, cause 
 and effect to match it ; and so through all the myriads 
 of known cases. 
 
 18. From our possession of a constitutional or or- 
 ganic instinct by which we expect existence after 
 death, we must therefore infer the fact of such exist- 
 ence, as the migrating bird might infer the existence 
 of a South from its instinct of migration. 
 
 19. This inference proceeds strictly upon the sci- 
 entific principle of the universality of law. 
 
 20. It everywhere implies, not the absorption of 
 
295 
 
 the soul into the mass of general being, but its per- 
 sonal continuance. 
 
 Your poet William Cullen Bryant once sat in the 
 sweet country-side, and heard the bugle of the wild 
 migrating swan as the bird passed over him south- 
 ward in the twilight. Looking up into the assenting 
 azure, this seer uttered reposefully the deepest words 
 of his philosophy : 
 
 Whither, midst falling dew, 
 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue 
 
 Thy solitary way ? 
 
 There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 
 The desert and illimitable air, 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost. 
 
 He who, from zone to zone,- 
 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone 
 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
 BRYANT, To a Waterfowl. 
 
XIII. 
 
 IMICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 
 
 THE FIFTY-EIGIITH LECTURE IN THE BOSTON MONDAY 
 
 LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN TREMONT 
 
 TEMPLE DEC. 25. 
 
" DEB Leib der Menschen 1st eine zerbrechliche, immer erneuete 
 Hiille, die endlich sich nicht mehr erneuen kann." HEBDEB, Phi- 
 losophy of History. 
 
 " THE poet in a golden clime was born, 
 
 With golden stars above; 
 Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
 
 The love of love. 
 He saw through life and death, through good and ill ; 
 
 He saw through his own soul; 
 The marvel of the everlasting will, 
 
 An open scroll, 
 Before him lav." TENNYSON, 
 
XIII. 
 ULRICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 
 
 PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS. 
 
 THIS morning, the bells of Christian churches on 
 the continents, and of Christian vessels on the great 
 deep, are audible to each other around the whole 
 planet. I am not speaking rhetorically, but geo- 
 graphically, when I say that the Christian Church 
 at this moment encircles the world in her arms. We 
 forget too often what a great continent Australia is, 
 and what a pervasive force her English language and 
 laws may become in the lonely southern hemisphere. 
 But Japan has forced herself upon the notice of the 
 world of late, as the undeveloped England of the 
 Pacific. Her great Mikado congratulated our Presi- 
 dent, only the other day, on the success of our Cen- 
 tennial Exhibition ; and there lay behind the cordial 
 words from the far shore just the sentiment which a 
 Japanese high official expressed lately at Hartford, 
 that the Christianization of Japan is an event to be 
 expected in the near future. The revolution in that 
 crowded island of sensitive, ingenious men, is in the 
 hands of the cultivated upper classes. It does not 
 
 299 
 
300 BIOLOGY. 
 
 depend on count of heads or clack of tongues, and is 
 not likely to go backward. 
 
 You say Russia and England may come into armed 
 collision in the shadow of the Himalayas, and that 
 the bear and the lion may fill the Cashmere vale with 
 blood. May God avert this ! But, even if they do 
 so, it will yet remain sure, in any event, that the days 
 of Buddhism are numbered ; and that, so far as Pa- 
 ganism governs Central Asia, it is every year squeezed 
 more and more nearly to its exit from life between 
 the state necessities of Russia and England. Com- 
 ing farther West, it is significant that the Suez 
 Canal, the key to the great gate of the way to India, 
 belongs now chiefly to Great Britain ; and that, even 
 with the Egyptian road to the East in her possession, 
 she cannot afford as yet to take off from Constanti- 
 nople an eye behind which, for eight hundred years, 
 has rested no inconsiderable portion of authority on 
 this planet, and which now rules a fifth part of the 
 population of the globe. 
 
 Only this morning, from under the sea, we have 
 whispered to us by electric lips great promises by 
 the " sick man " of the Bosphorus. The liberty of 
 Ottomans is to be inviolable. The religious privileges 
 of all communities, and the free exercise of public 
 worship by all creeds, are guaranteed. Liberty of 
 the press is granted. Primary education is compul- 
 sory. All citizens are eligible to public offices, 
 irrespective of religion. Confiscation, statute labor, 
 torture, and inquisition are prohibited. Ministerial 
 responsibility is established. A chamber of deputies 
 
ULKICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 301 
 
 and a senate are instituted. These two houses, in 
 connection with the ministry, have the initiative in 
 framing laws. General and municipal councils are 
 to be formed by election. The prerogatives of the 
 Sultan are to be only those of the constitutional 
 sovereigns of the West. 
 
 In 1453 Islam crossed the Bosphorus with a 
 bound ; for the leprosies of its social life had not yet 
 had time to unstring its nerves. Its own poisons 
 have made it now little more than unspeakably 
 flaccid flesh, without a soul. Its promises are very 
 empty. But this time, as never before, the demand 
 for reform is emphasized by the great powers of 
 Europe. This new constitution just promulgated 
 in Constantinople contains no guaranties which the 
 rest of Europe will not ultimately be obliged to 
 secure from the populations of European Turkey. 
 But, if Islam must make the changes Europe 
 demands, she must violate the Koran. Let adequate 
 political reforms be perfected in Turkey, and Islam- 
 ism is sure to unloosen her accursed, leprous grasp 
 from the fair throat of the Bosphorus. 
 
 One of our most gifted missionaries and statesmen, 
 Dr. Hamlin, has said lately, "Let Turkey stand, 
 that Islam may fall." No doubt this opinion is a 
 wise one from his point of view ; an(J. this morning 
 even we, who are so little familiar with the politics 
 of the Bosphorus, can understand, that, if all the 
 reforms the recent conference of the great powers 
 hag asked for are carried, the Koran is a dead letter 
 in Turkey. Dr. Hamlin seems to say that certain 
 
302 BIOLOGY. 
 
 political changes are going forward in Turkey under 
 the pressure of her own state necessities and of the 
 demands of the great powers; that these changes 
 cannot be carried through without violating in the 
 boldest manner the political and religious provisions 
 of the Koran ; and that, therefore, if Turkey will 
 carry these reforms through, she will undermine the 
 authority of her own sacred book. 
 
 It seems probable, however, that Providence is 
 to make shorter work with what Carlyle calls the 
 unspeakable Turk than he would in any way make 
 with himself under the pressure of the necessity for 
 political reform. Is it not pretty clear that Glad- 
 stone's advice will ultimately be followed ; and that 
 Turkey as a Mohammedan empire will at least have 
 no more armed support from Christian powers ? If 
 she must take care of herself, how long can she, who, 
 in one of the fairest regions of the globe, is a treach- 
 erous bankrupt now, maintain her position in Europe, 
 face to face with the increasingly angry protest of 
 her own population and of Russia on the north, and 
 of Austria, Germany, England, and France toward 
 the setting sun? Constantinople and Cairo are held 
 by Islam to-day only with faint grasp. Without 
 these cities she will be driven back in her fearful 
 sickness to her deserts. Only most slowly can . she 
 be healed there of her terribly poisoned blood. The 
 days of the distinctively Mohammedan power in 
 Europe are numbered. 
 
 Looking around the globe to-day, we see, therefore, 
 an unbroken line of Christian influences in the near 
 
TJLEICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 303 
 
 future, stretching from the Yosemite to the Sandwich 
 Islands, to Australia, to Japan, to India, and past 
 the Suez Canal, and thence to the Bosphorus, and 
 thence to Germany, now possessing political and 
 Protestant primacy in Europe, and so on to England, 
 and then across that little brook we call the Atlantic, 
 only two seconds wide now for electricity. There 
 are no foreign lands. 
 
 In this year, America may say of her guests what 
 was said of Portia's suitors : 
 
 " The watery kingdom 
 
 Whose ambitious head threatens the face of heaven 
 Is no bar to stop the foreign spirits; 
 But they come as o'er a brook." 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 Christianity at this hour reads her Scriptures, and 
 lifts up her anthems, in two hundred languages. One- 
 half of the missionaries of the globe may be reached 
 from Boston by telegraph in twenty-four hours. God 
 is making commerce his missionary. 
 
 It is incontrovertible that it was predicted ages 
 ago, that a chosen man called yonder out of Ur of the 
 Chaldees should become a chosen family, and this a 
 chosen nation, and that in this nation should appear 
 a chosen Supreme Teacher of the race, and that he 
 should found a chosen church, and that, to his 
 chosen people, with zeal for good works, should ulti- 
 mately be given all nations and the isles of the sea. 
 In precisely this order world-history has unrolled 
 itself, and is now unrolling. No man can deny this, 
 No man can meditate adequately on this without 
 
304 BIOLOGY. 
 
 blanched cheeks. "What are the signs of the times 
 which I have recounted on this festal morn, but 
 added waves in this fathomlessly mysterious gulf- 
 current ? We know it began with the ripple we call 
 Abraham. It is now almost as broad as the Atlantic 
 itself. What Providence does, it from the first in- 
 tends to do. We see what it has done. We know 
 what it intended. It has caused this gulf-current 
 to flow in one direction two thousand, three thousand, 
 four thousand years. Good tidings, this gulf-cur- 
 rent, if we float with it ! good tidings which are to 
 be to all peoples ! A Power not ourselves makes for 
 righteousness. It has steadily caused the fittest to 
 survive, and thus has executed a plan of choosing a 
 peculiar people. The survival of the fittest will ulti- 
 mately give the world to the fit. Are we, in our 
 anxiety for the future, to believe that this law will 
 alter soon ? or to fear that He whose will the law 
 expresses, and who never slumbers nor sleeps, will 
 change his plan to-morrow, or the day after ? [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 On this day of jubilee, let us gaze on this gulf- 
 current, and take from it heart and hope, harmonious 
 with the heart of Almighty God, out of which the 
 gulf-current beats only as one pulse. 
 
 The difficulties that Christianity has now are 
 chiefly in great cities. They are in the unfaithful 
 members of highly civilized society. They are in that 
 subtle and pernicious inactivity which undermines 
 the nervous force of the world at its centres. [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
ULBICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 305 
 
 THE LECTURE. 
 
 De Wette, the great German theologian, who died 
 in 1849, and who was called the Universal Doubter, 
 said in his last work, published in 1848, that " the 
 fact of the resurrection, although a darkness which 
 cannot be dissipated rests on the way and manner of 
 it, cannot itself be called into doubt " any more than 
 the historical certainty of the assassination of Caesar 
 (Ds WETTE, Concluding Essay, appended to His- 
 torical Criticism of the Evangelical History, p. 229). 
 This is the passage over which Neander, the famous 
 church historian, shed tears when he read it. De 
 Wette was a leader of the acutest school of ration- 
 alism in Germany in his day, and denied utterly that 
 there are passages in the Old Testament Scriptures 
 predicting the coming of our Lord. He was coupled 
 by Strauss himself with Vater, as having placed on 
 a solid foundation the mythical explanation of the 
 Bible. Nevertheless, such is the cumulative force of 
 the evidence of the resurrection as a fact in history, 
 that De Wette, listening only to the latest voices of 
 the most laborious, precise, and cold research, affirmed, 
 face to face with the sneers of the rationalism which 
 he led, that the fact itself, although we do not under- 
 stand the way and manner of it, is incontrovertible. 
 
 I am to speak this morning, not of this fact, but of 
 the way and manner of it. I know that the theme 
 is fit to blanch the cheeks. 
 
 Before taking up this mystery of mysteries, how- 
 ever, let us, for a moment, glance at the logical value 
 
306 BIOLOGY. 
 
 of De Wette's concession. It is a verdict reached 
 unwillingly by long listening to all the public and 
 secret words of history and philosophy the guides 
 which scepticism is so eager, and which religious sci- 
 ence may well be yet more eager, to force upon the 
 attention of the world. 
 
 I am accustomed to recite as a part of my private 
 creed these propositions, based on De Wette's con- 
 cession as to the fact of the resurrection : 
 
 1. The intuitions of conscience prove the moral 
 excellence of the biblical system. 
 
 2. The moral excellence of the biblical system 
 proves that it is not inconsistent with the attributes 
 of an infinitely perfect Being to give to that system 
 a supernatural attestation. 
 
 3. If an historical attestation of this kind has been 
 given to the biblical system, the existence of that 
 attestation may be proved by the established scien- 
 tific rules of historical criticism. 
 
 4. The established scientific rules of historical 
 criticism, severely applied, demonstrate the fact of 
 the resurrection. 
 
 5. The fact of the resurrection proves, not the 
 Deity, but the Divine authority of our Lord, as a 
 teacher sent into history with a supreme and divinely 
 attested religious mission. 
 
 6. The Divine authority of our Lord proves the 
 doctrines he attested. 
 
 7. Among these are his Deity, the Inspiration of 
 the Scriptures, the necessity of the New Birth, 
 the Atonement, Immortality, the Eternal Judgment. 
 [Applause.] 
 
ULRICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 307 
 
 It was my fortune once to put these propositions 
 before the acutest intellect I have ever met in the 
 field of theology, and to ask if they would bear the 
 logical microscope. I remember, that, as I repeated 
 them slowly, the majestic eyes of the listener were 
 lifted from the earth to the horizon, and from the 
 horizon to the infinite spaces of the Unseen Holy 
 behind the azure. When at last I asked if De 
 Wette's verdict did not contain in it all these con- 
 clusions, the unwavering reply was, " All, incontro- 
 vertibly. But De Wette's concession is the result of 
 the conflicts of eighteen centuries of scholarship. 
 Adhere to those propositions ; for they have borne 
 the tooth of time in the past, and will bear all 
 the buffeting of acutest controversy in the future." 
 [Applause.] Once in his garden at Halle-on-the- 
 Saale, in an hour I shall long remember, I put those 
 propositions before Professor Tholuck, with the same 
 emphatic result. 
 
 It is on the way and the manner of the personal 
 continuance of the soul after death that German 
 philosophy now bends an intense, prolonged, reverent 
 gaze. You will not suppose me to indorse every 
 thing which I put before you this morning as a part 
 of the latest German philosophy. Nevertheless, I 
 confess my sympathy with the whole trend of that 
 magnificent body of thought which is represented by 
 the Lotzes, the Helmholtzes, the Wundts, and the 
 Ulricis. Whoever is in accord with this school, 
 which now leads the most intellectual and learned 
 nation of our times, will find himself in most em- 
 
308 BIOLOGY. 
 
 phatic antagonism to the English materialistic 
 school. This latter, however, has nothing to say 
 that is new to Germany. Gentlemen here who have 
 been accustomed to form their philosophical opinions 
 from an English outlook, will, perhaps, allow me to 
 ask them this morning, for once, as an experiment, 
 to . occupy the German point of view. I do not 
 request you to take the opinions of the Germans, 
 though they have a far greater fame than the Eng- 
 lish for philosophical breadth and acumen ; but 
 will you not take their point of view long enough 
 to understand that there are two philosophies in the 
 world ? If there is one represented by the Huxleys 
 and Hackels, there is another opposed at all points 
 to materialism, and represented by the Lotzes and 
 Helmholtzes, and Wundts and Ulricis, names 
 which the future is far more likely to honor than 
 those of any of their critics. 
 
 1. Lotze, Ulrici, Wundt, Helmholtz, Draper, Car- 
 penter, and Beale teach that the nervous mechanism 
 in its influential arc is plainly so constructed that we 
 must suppose it to be set in motion by an agent out- 
 side of it. 
 
 2. Every change must have an adequate cause. 
 
 3. Only when involution is equal to evolution in the 
 connection between cause and effect is the cause ade- 
 quate to produce the effect. 
 
 We all agree, and we talk smoothly, as to the au- 
 thority of the tropically fruitful axiom, that every 
 change must have an adequate cause. But what is 
 an adequate cause ? My definition, which I do not 
 
ULBICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 309 
 
 ask you to accept, is, Such a cause as maJces involution 
 equal to evolution. Sir William Thomson, speaking 
 of the shrewd attempt of materialism to explain 
 living tissues by infinitely complex molecular combi- 
 nations of merely material particles, says it is forever 
 sure that we cannot get out of the combinations any 
 thing that we do not put into them ; and that all 
 science is against the idea that evolution can ever 
 exceed, in the force or the design it exhibits, the 
 involution which must go before the evolution. In- 
 volution before evolution is the fact on which to 
 fasten attention, if we would be lifted out of materi- 
 alism. Let us be involutionists first, and evolutionists 
 afterwards. The astute attempt of Tyndall is to put 
 into matter what he wishes to draw out of it. His 
 whole effort is to introduce a new definition of mat- 
 ter. He would have us think of matter as a double- 
 faced somewhat, having a material and spiritual side ; 
 and although, in attempting to do so, we necessarily 
 fall into immeasurable self-contradiction, he is forced 
 to undertake the support of even that, because he 
 knows that evolution cannot be greater than involu- 
 tion. He would put into his theory, therefore, on 
 the one side, that power and potency of all life which 
 he wishes to take out on the other. It is the supreme 
 law of philosophy that involution and evolution are 
 an eternal equation. Materialism is marked by per- 
 haps, nothing more superficial than the attempt to 
 avoid the force of that law in the explanation of 
 living tissues. Even Tyndall (Materialism and its 
 Opponents, 1875), after reasoning in favor of the 
 
310 BIOLOGY. 
 
 theory which Professor Frey, the German histologist, 
 says science has given up, that life is a kind of vital 
 crystallization, says inadvertently with curious self- 
 contradiction, that a living organism is " woven by 
 a something not itself." Materialism astounds us 
 by the assertion that physical and chemical forces 
 are enough to explain the formation of living tissues ; 
 but no man has shown that in physical and chemical 
 forces there can be an involution equal to the evolu- 
 tion we call organism and life. The evolution in 
 man is intelligence, imagination, emotion, will, or all 
 that we call the soul ; and the involution, therefore, 
 must have in it 'the equivalents of these qualities. 
 Forever and forever it will be true that you can find 
 in living tissue, and take out of it, only what is put 
 into it, visibly or invisibly. [Applause.] 
 
 4. The nature of what Aristotle called the animat- 
 ing principle, or the soul, is to be inductively in- 
 ferred by an inflexible application of the principle 
 that involution must equal evolution. In living 
 tissues, as everywhere else, every change must have 
 an adequate cause. 
 
 5. The co-ordination of tissues in a living organ- 
 ism must proceed from a sufficient cause, defined as 
 one in which involution is equal to evolution, and 
 which therefore must possess, not only intelligence, 
 but permanence and unity in all the flux of the 
 atoms of the body. 
 
 6. The unity of consciousness requires the same. 
 
 7. The persistence of the sense of personal iden- 
 tity requires the same. 
 
ULBICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 311 
 
 The immense facts that each individual feels him- 
 self to. be one, and that his identity through life is a 
 certainty in spite of the flux of the particles of the 
 body, are to be accounted for. It is enough to the 
 acute German, born a metaphysician, to know that 
 he has an ineradicable sense of personal identity, and 
 that his consciousness is a unit, to cause him to repel 
 the idea that all we call the soul is the result sim- 
 ply of an almost infinitely complex arrangement of 
 atoms. Everywhere there is permanent unity in the 
 plan of each organism that has life. All there is in 
 the oak is woven after the fashion of the oak ; all in 
 the lion, after that of the lion ; all in the man, after 
 that of the man. We do know incontrovertibly that 
 in each individual there is, from first to last, no devia- 
 tion from the one plan on which the bioplasts weave. 
 Now, that unity must be accounted for. It is a fact ; 
 it is tangible ; it is visible. 
 
 If we have always before our speculative thought 
 the ascertained activities of the bioplasts ; if we 
 behold them throwing out here and there their prom- 
 ontories, dividing and subdividing, and yet always 
 weaving on a plan existing in the first stroke of their 
 shuttles, and so carrying nerve around muscle, and 
 forming here a vein, and there an artery, here a tendon, 
 and there a hand, an ear, an eye, a brain, we shall 
 feel that all attempts to prove materialism by physi- 
 ology are attempts to quench the noon under a bat's 
 wing. [Applause.] Ulrici talks freely of much 
 sand thrown in the eyes of our time by materialism ; 
 and so do Lotze and Helmholtz, and Wundt and 
 
812 BIOLOGY. 
 
 Beale ; and sometimes, in gusty days, I think there 
 is a little of this dust even in this pellucid New-Eng- 
 land air. [Laughter.] 
 
 8. The nature of the animating principle has of 
 late, in Germany, been very carefully inferred from 
 the effects it produces. 
 
 It is the belief of many that science draws near 
 to an explanation of some parts of the mystery in 
 the connection of the soul with the body. 
 
 9. The late German philosophy holds the view that 
 the soul must be conceived as a property or occupant 
 of a fluid similar to the ether. 
 
 10. This fluid, however, does not, like the ether, 
 consist of atoms. 
 
 Elaborate attempts to found the hope of existence 
 after death on the scientific certainty that atoms 
 cannot be destroyed have often been made ; and an 
 effort of this sort has lately appeared in the work of 
 a New- York authoress on " The Physical Basis of 
 Immortality." She adopts Bain's philosophy, and 
 talks of a material and a spiritual side in an atom ; 
 and she says that somewhere in the physical organ- 
 ism there is a soul-atom, and that this cannot be 
 destroyed. This theory is German, only it is a little 
 out of date, although Lotze once favored it. (For 
 Lotze's present views, see MikroJcosmus, Drittes 
 Buch, Zweites Kapitel, Von dem Sitze der Seele, Alle- 
 gegenwart der Seele im Korper.) There are two com- 
 peting theories, that of the soul-atom and that of 
 the soul-fluid. It is the doctrine of the non-atomic 
 ether, or soul-fluid, which your Ulrici whose Ger- 
 
TJLEICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 313 
 
 man book, as you see, I read to pieces in a hundred 
 miles in the railway-train this morning advocates. 
 By the way, allow me to say that Ulrici's three vol- 
 umes, entitled " Gott und der Mensch," published at 
 Leipzig in 1874, are far more incisive than even his 
 " Gott und die Natur," on all topics relating to living 
 tissues and the connection between soul and body. 
 Be sure to read the former work, especially the por- 
 tion on the nervous system and the soul. (Vol. i. pp. 
 161-225; see, also, UBERWEG'S History of Philos- 
 ophy, vol. ii. p. 303.) 
 
 It is Ulrici's view that the soul is the occupant 
 of a, non-atomic ether that fills the whole form, and 
 lies behind the mysterious weaving of the tissues. 
 
 Who is Ulrici ? Not a small philosopher, I assure 
 you. Hermann Ulrici, professor of philosophy in 
 the University of Halle, was born in Germany in 
 1806. He studied law and afterwards physical sci- 
 ence in the stern manner of the German universities, 
 and then gave himself to literature and philosophy. 
 He has written an elaborate work on aesthetics ; and 
 his criticisms on Shakspeare are the best, except 
 those of Gervinus. Everywhere in Germany he is 
 recognized as authorized to speak on the nerves and 
 the soul from the point of view of a specialist ; and 
 his is, perhaps, the highest name in Germany, after 
 that of Lotze, in all philosophy connected with the 
 relations between mind and matter. 
 
 11. This non-atomic fluid is absolutely continuous 
 with itself. 
 
 12. Its chief centre of force is in the brain. 
 
314 BIOLOGY. 
 
 13. But it extends outward from that centre, and 
 permeates the whole atomic structure of the body. 
 
 Have you ever, my friends, floated in thought 
 above the green and steel gray seas of the globe, and 
 called vividly before your imagination the contrast 
 between the dark depths and the sunny surfaces of 
 the oceans? The upper portions of every ocean are 
 permeated by the sunbeams ; but, as we descend in 
 the Atlantic or Pacific, we come to obscurity ; and, 
 in the lowest search of the sea, there is darkness. 
 Just so in the connection of the soul with the body. 
 There is a sunny sea, an obscure sea, and a dark sea. 
 A portion of the operations of the immaterial princi- 
 ple in us we are vividly cognizant of through con- 
 sciousness. A few of the activities of our physical 
 organization we are conscious of obscurely ; most 
 of them, however, and all this weaving of tissues, go 
 on wholly below consciousness. There seem to be 
 mental operations that proceed in the darkness of 
 the mental Atlantic. Some go on obscurely in a 
 region of partial illumination. But intellect, will, emo- 
 tion, belong to those sunlit waves where conscious- 
 ness fills the billows at the surface of the mental 
 ocean with iridescence. You will readily admit that 
 consciousness does not make us aware of all the 
 activities of the immaterial principle. That unit 
 which we call the soul is not cognizant of all its own 
 operations as it is conscious of memory or of an act 
 of reason. Many things which the immaterial prin- 
 ciple in man does, it performs in the dark depths, 
 where no man's consciousness comes, and yet God is 
 there. [Sensation.] 
 
ULRICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 315 
 
 14. The soul, as an occupant of this ethereal en- 
 swarthment, operates in part unconsciously, and in 
 part consciously. 
 
 15. It co-operates with the vital force. 
 
 16. It is not identical with that force. 
 
 In order to explain living tissues, it is not necessary 
 to assume the existence of what is called vital force ; 
 but it is necessary to assume the existence of an imma- 
 terial principle. Hermann Lotze takes great pains, 
 and Ulrici does, to show that the immaterial principle 
 is not necessarily to be thought of as identical with what 
 has been called the vital force. That which moves 
 these bioplasts, and causes them to build on a plan 
 kept in view from the first, and maintained as a unit 
 to the last, we say must be an adequate cause of 
 these motions ; and that is not the vital force sirapty, 
 although it may be the vital force with this other 
 psychical force behind it ; and yet the two are al- 
 ways to be carefully distinguished from each other. 
 
 17. The soul has a different type for each different 
 organism. 
 
 As it were folded up, it exists, of course, in the 
 embryonic germ of each organism, oak, lion, eagle, 
 or man. 
 
 18. It is the morphological agent which weaves all 
 living tissues. It spins nerves. It weaves the mus- 
 cles, the tendons, the eye, the brain. It arranges 
 each part in harmony with all the other parts of the 
 organism. 
 
 19. When it rises to the state of consciousness, it 
 produces the phenomena known as thought, imagina- 
 tion, emotion, and will. 
 
316 BIOLOGY. 
 
 20. So far forth as the ethereal enswathement of 
 the soul is non-atomic, it is immaterial. 
 
 It is the business of the Boston Monday Lecture- 
 ship to keep before this audience, so many members 
 of which know more than the lecturer, the very 
 latest speculations, if they lead to any thing strategic. 
 You will allow me to say that as wise men as Mar- 
 tin eau and Ulrici and Beale and Lotze and Helm- 
 hotze do not sneer at the idea that the universe may 
 have in it three things, and not merely two. Matter 
 and mind, we have commonly said, include every 
 thing ; but some are whispering, " Perhaps there is 
 an invisible middle somewhat, for which we have no 
 name, but which is remotely like the ether." Is it 
 material ? It is not atomic ; and matter is. Now, 
 Ulrici so far adopts this idea as to affirm explicitly 
 that the ethereal enswathement of the soul must be 
 non-atomic, and so far not like matter. He thinks 
 that the atomic constitution of this enswathement 
 would be absolutely inconsistent with the fact of the 
 unity of consciousness. He holds, that, if the soul- 
 fluid be made up of atoms, there is no proof that it is 
 not in flux with the flux of the particles of the body. 
 But the persistence of our sense of individuality is 
 proof that there is no such flux in the substance in 
 which mental qualities inhere. We know that there 
 are in us certain mental attributes, and that every 
 attribute must have a substratum ; and in the sub- 
 stratum in which any thing permanent, like the sense 
 of identity, inheres, there must be no flux, but per- 
 manence. Therefore, following the clew that every 
 
ULBICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 317 
 
 change must have an adequate cause, Ulrici holds 
 that the enswathement of the soul, this ethereal body, 
 is non-atomic, and not in flux. 
 
 Just as the summer lightning blazes through the 
 cloud, so the soul blazes through that spiritual body 
 which is finer than nervous tissue, finer than elec- 
 tricity. When the egg begins to quicken, the life is 
 the chief thing in it, and that life belongs to a cer- 
 tain somewhat, an ethereal form of matter that con- 
 nects it with all this dead world around. The soul 
 inhering in that spiritual body takes to itself cloth- 
 ing, and builds the visible matter upon the invisible. 
 According to the law of the invisible matter, accord- 
 ing to its power to take large or small space as its 
 exigences require, it grows, for a season, larger and 
 larger, until the soul in it has taken clothing to itself 
 out of this visible world. We appear here as ghosts 
 appear in the night. Carlyle says we are all ghosts ; 
 we appear, we disappear ; we come forth from the 
 invisible, we go into the invisible. These are facts ; 
 but Germany begins to speculate as to the adequate 
 causes of our being woven as we are, and says, that, 
 behind all the weaving of our tissues, there must be 
 this ethereal body. Why does she say that ? Ger- 
 many commonly has a reason for her positions. 
 
 There is Niagara. You see a rainbow drawn across 
 the surface of the cataract. The rainbow does not 
 move. The water moves. What is the cause of 
 the rainbow? The water, you say. No! Germany 
 replies; the rainbow never moves. If the water 
 were the chief cause of the rainbow, the rainbow 
 
318 BIOLOGY. 
 
 would move ; for you must have in the fountain 
 what you have in the source. The occasion of the 
 rainbow is in the water; the cause is in the sun. 
 That is not in flux. Your rainbow is not in motion, 
 either. Now, the plan of man's organism does not 
 change from the first quickening of the egg until the 
 man drops into the grave. It is one thing, just as that 
 rainbow is one thing. Our sense of identity persists. 
 Nevertheless, all the particles in the body are changing 
 as the drops in Niagara are. The cause of our sense 
 of personal identity must be something that is not in 
 perpetual change. Your fountain cannot rise higher 
 than your source. The plan of your mechanism does 
 not change, arid so the source of that plan does 
 change. We know that every coarser physical par- 
 ticle does change. There is nothing in my hand 
 that was there seven years ago, I suppose, except the 
 plan of the material. The particles have all been 
 changed ; but the plan is just the same. That plan 
 which does not change implies the existence in man 
 of a substance which does not change , and, although 
 that substance is invisible, science thinks it is there 
 because it sees effects which can be explained only 
 upon that supposition. 
 
 We know that the rainbow is not in flux, and so 
 we know there is something behind it which causes 
 it to persist in one form. As the. plan of your eagle, 
 your lion, your man, your oak, is steadily adhered to 
 from first to last, we say that plan belongs to some- 
 thing that is not in flux, that came in when the plan 
 threw its first shuttle, and goes out unimpaired, even 
 
ULKICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 319 
 
 after the shuttle ceases to move. That invisible some- 
 what some scholars in Germany call a spiritual body. 
 
 21. This non-atomic ethereal enswathement of the 
 soul is conceivably separable from the body. 
 
 How shall I proceed, gentlemen, when thoughts 
 crowd upon us here and now that soon will seem too 
 sacred even for the hushed chambers from which 
 you and I must pass hence, each alone ? Who has 
 treated death inductively ? What do the dying see ? 
 What do they hear? What do they fear, and what 
 do they hope ? I am asking of you only loyalty to 
 the self-evident truth, that every change must have 
 an adequate cause. The Ariadne clew has now 
 brought us mercilessly up to the certainty that the 
 adequate cause of all this weaving of living tissues 
 must be something having unity ; something not in 
 flux with the constant changes of the particles of the 
 body ; something that is as steady as the rainbow 
 drawn across the east, while all the drops of rain are 
 rapidly changing their position. 
 
 It is not every untrained or trained mind that is 
 able to follow even this axiomatic Ariadne clew 
 through all this labyrinth of philosophy. Sometimes 
 I think that philosophers are to be divided into 
 classes like generals, according to their capacity to 
 manage intricate problems. There are generals that 
 can command ten thousand men ; but Napoleon said, 
 there are only a few who can command five hundred 
 thousand. There are intricacies in philosophy which 
 it takes a Lotze or an Ulrici, a Kant or a Hamilton, 
 a Helmholtz or a Beale, to walk through without 
 
320 BIOLOGY. 
 
 bewilderment. Adhere to the writers who are clear. 
 Many a general on the field of philosophy can take 
 care of ten thousand ; but only now and then one can 
 manage five hundred thousand men. 
 
 If you come to the conclusion that there is an in- 
 visible, non-atomic, ethereal enswathement, which 
 the soul fills, and through which it flashes more 
 rapidly than electricity through any cloud, you must 
 remember that the majestic authority for that state- 
 ment is simply the axiom that every change must 
 have an adequate cause. This is cool precision ; this 
 is exact research on the edge of the tomb. Professor 
 Beale says in so many words, " that the force which 
 weaves these tissues must be separable from the 
 body ; " for it very plainly is not the result of the 
 action of physical agents. Ulrici shows, especially in 
 a magnificent passage on immortality (G-ott und der 
 Menseh, vol. i. pp. 222-225), that all the latest results 
 of physiological research go to show that immortality 
 is probable. 
 
 You say, that, unless we can prove the existence 
 of something for the substratum of mind, we may be 
 doubtful about the persistency of memory after 
 death ; but what if this non-atomic, ethereal body 
 goes out of the physical form at death ? In that 
 case, what materialist will be acute enough to show 
 that memory- does not go out also ? You affirm, that, 
 without matter, there can be no activity of the mind ; 
 and that, although the mind may exist without 
 matter, it cannot express itself. You say, that unless 
 certain, I had almost said material, records remain in 
 
TTLRICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 321 
 
 possession of the soul when it is out of the body, 
 there must be oblivion of all that occurred in this 
 life. But how are you to meet the newest form of 
 science, which gives the soul a non-atomic enswathe- 
 ment as the page on which to write its records ? 
 That page is never torn up. The acutest philosophy 
 is now pondering what the possibilities of this non- 
 atomic, ethereal body, are when separated from the 
 fleshy body ; and the opinion of Germany is coming 
 to be very emphatic, that all that materialists have 
 said about our memory ending when our physical 
 bodies are dissolved, and about there being no possi- 
 bility of the activity of the soul in separation from 
 the physical body, is simply lack of education. 
 There is high authority and great unanimity on the 
 propositions I am now defending ; and although I 
 do not pledge myself always to defend every one of 
 these theses, yet I must do so in the present state 
 of knowledge and in the name of a Gulf-current of 
 speculation which is twenty-five years old, and has 
 a very victorious aspect as we look backward to the 
 time when the microscope began its revelations. 
 
 22. It becomes clear, therefore, that, even in that 
 state of existence which succeeds death, the soul may 
 have a spiritual body. 
 
 What ! You are preaching to us the book called 
 the Holy Word ? Yes, I am ; and here is a page of 
 it [with a hand on colored diagrams of living tissues]. 
 [Applause.] A spiritual body ! That is a phrase 
 we did not expect to hear in the name of science. 
 It is the latest whisper of science, and ages ago it 
 was a word of revelation. [Applause.] 
 
322 BIOLOGY. 
 
 23. The existence of that body preserves the 
 memories acquired during life in the flesh. 
 
 24. If this ethereal, non-atomic enswathement of 
 the soul be interpreted to mean what the Scriptures 
 mean by a spiritual body in distinction from a natural 
 body, there is entire harmony between the latest re- 
 sults of science and the inspired doctrine of the 
 resurrection. [Applause.] 
 
 What if I should dissect a human body here ? I 
 might have a man made up of a skeleton; then I 
 could have a human form made up of muscle. If 
 I should take out the arteries, I should have another 
 human form ; and just so with the veins, and so with 
 the nerves. Were they all taken out and held up 
 here in their natural condition, they would have a 
 human form, would they not ? Very well ; now, 
 which form is the man ? Which is the most impor- 
 tant ? But behind the nerves are those bioplasts. 
 If I could take out those bioplasts that wove the 
 nerves, and hold them up here by the side of the 
 nerves, all in their natural position, they would have 
 a human form, would they not ? And which is the 
 man ? Your muscles are more important than your 
 bones ; your arteries, than your muscles ; your nerves, 
 than your arteries; and your bioplasts, that wove 
 your nerves, are more important than your nerves. 
 But you do not reach the last analysis here ; for, if 
 you unravel a man completely, there is something 
 behind those bioplasts. There are many things we 
 cannot see that we know exist. I know there is in 
 my body a nervous influence that plays up and down 
 
ULBICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 323 
 
 my nerves like electricity on the telegraphic wires. 
 I never saw it ; I have felt it. Suppose that I could 
 take that out. Suppose that just there is my man 
 made up of nerves, and just yonder my man made up 
 of red bioplasts ; and that I have right here what I call 
 the nervous influence separated entirely from flesh. 
 You would not see it, would you? But would not 
 this be a man very much more than that ? or that ? 
 What if death thus dissolves the innermost from the 
 outermost ? We absolutely know that that nervous 
 influence is there. We know, also, that there is 
 something behind the action of these bioplasts. If I 
 could take out this, which is a still finer thing than 
 what we call nervous influence, and could have it 
 held up here, I do not know but that it would be 
 ethereal enough to go into heaven; for the Bible 
 itself speaks of a spiritual body. You know it is 
 there, this nervous influence. You know it is there, 
 this power behind the bioplasts. When the Bible 
 speaks of a spiritual body, it does not imply that 
 the / soul is material; it does not teach materialism 
 at all ; it simply implies that the soul has a glori- 
 fied enswathement, which will accompany it in the 
 next world. I believe that it is a distinct biblical 
 doctrine that there is a spiritual body as there is a 
 natural body, and that the former has extraordinary 
 powers. It is a body which apparently makes noth- 
 ing of passing through what we call ordinary mat- 
 ter. Our Lord had that body after his resurrection. 
 He appeared suddenly in the midst of his disciples, 
 although the doors were shut. He had on Him the 
 
324 BIOLOGY. 
 
 scars that were not washed out, and that in heaven 
 had not grown out. I tread here upon the edge of 
 immortal mysteries ; but the great proposition I wish 
 to emphasize is, that science, in the name of the 
 microscope and the scalpel, begins to whisper what 
 revelation ages ago uttered in thunders, that there is 
 a spiritual body with glorious capacities. 
 
 This is a sad world if death is a leap in the dark. 
 But, gentlemen, we are following haughty axio- 
 matic certainty. In clear and cool precision, science 
 comes to the idea of a spiritual body. We must not 
 forget that this conclusion is proclaimed in the name 
 of philosophy -of the severest sort. The verdict is 
 scientific : it happens also to be biblical. Is it the 
 worse for that ? It is more and more evident, as the 
 training of the world advances, that every thing fun- 
 damentally biblical is scientific, and that every thing 
 fundamentally scientific is biblical. [Applause.] 
 
 In every leaf on the summer boughs there is a 
 network which may be dissolved out of the verdant 
 portion, and yet retain as a ghost the shape which it 
 gave the leaf from which it came. In every human 
 form growing as a leaf on the tree Igdrasil, we know 
 that network lies within network. Each web of 
 organs, if taken separately, would have a form like 
 that of man. There might be placed by itself the 
 muscular portion of the human form, or the osseous 
 portion, or the veins, or the arteries, and each would 
 show the human shape. If the nerves could be dis- 
 solved out, and held up here, they would be a white 
 form, coincident everywhere with the mysterious, 
 
ULRICI ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY. 325 
 
 human, physical outline. But the invisible nervous 
 force is more ethereal than this ghost of nerves. 
 The fluid in which the nervous waves occur is finer 
 than the nervous filaments. What if it could be 
 separated from its environment, and held up here ? 
 It could not be seen ; it could not be touched. 
 The hand might be passed through it ; the eyes of 
 men in their present state would detect no trace 
 of it ; but it would be there. 
 
 Your Ulricis, your Lotzes, your Beales, adhere un- 
 flinchingly to the scientific method. The self-evident 
 axiom, that every change must have an adequate 
 cause, requires us to hold that there exists behind 
 the nerves a non-atomic, ethereal enswathement for 
 the soul, which death dissolves out from all com- 
 plex contact with mere flesh, and which death, thus 
 unfettering without disembodying, leaves free before 
 God for all the development with which God can 
 inspire it. [Applause.] 
 
 " Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss 
 With an individual kiss, 
 And joy shall overtake us as a flood, 
 When every thing that is sincerely good 
 
 And perfectly divine, 
 With Truth and Peace and Love, shall ever shine 
 
 About the supreme throne 
 Of Him to whose happy-making sight, alone, 
 When once our heavenly-guided souls shall climb 
 
 Then, all this earthly grossness quit, 
 
 Attired in stars we shall forever sit, 
 Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time! " 
 
 MILTON. 
 
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