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 OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BV 
 
 SPOTTISWOOUE AND CO., NEW-STKEET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS 
 
 A.\l> 
 
 COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS 
 
 WITH SOME OF THEIR APPLICATIONS 
 
 U\' 
 
 WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF A TREA llSli 'ON LABOUR' 
 
 M A C M I L L A N A N U C O. 
 
 1873
 
 'I entirely agree with you as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts 
 of some philosophers and the fantastical conceits of others. I am even so 
 far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have quitted several of the 
 sublime notions I had got in their schools for \'ulgar opinions. And I give it 
 you on my word, that since this revolt from metaphysical notions- to the 
 plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely 
 enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many things which 
 before were all mystery and riddle.' — Berkeley's Hvlas and Philonous. 
 

 
 3^ 
 TS3cr 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The r.ooK was all but finished, and only the Trefacc 
 remained, over which I was hesitating, apprehensive 
 equally of putting into it too much and too little, when one 
 of the most frequent ' companions of my solitude ' came to 
 my aid, shewing me, in fragments, a jireface alread\- nearl}' 
 written, and needing only a little piecing to become forth- 
 with presentable. Here it is. 
 
 ' In the.se sick days, in a world such as ours, richer than 
 usual in Truths grown obsolete, what can the fool think- 
 but that it is all a Den of Lies wherein whoso will not 
 speak and act Lies must stand idle and despair ^ ' Whereby 
 it happens that for the artist who would fain minister medi- 
 cinally to the relief of folly, ' the publishing of a Work of 
 Art,' designed, like this, to redeem Truth from premature 
 obsolescence, ' becomes almost a necessity.' For, albeit, ' in 
 the heart of the speaker there ought to be some kind of 
 gospel tidings burning until it be uttered, so that otherwise 
 it were better for him that ho altogether hold his peace,' 
 still, than t(^ ha\-e fire burning witliin, and n<^t to put it 
 forth, not man\- w(^rsc things are rcadilx imaginable.
 
 vi preface: 
 
 ' Has the word Duty no meaning ? Is what we call Duty- 
 no divine messenger and guide, but a false, earthly fantasm, 
 made up of Desire and Fear ?' In that ' Logic-mill of thine ' 
 hast thou ' an earthly mechanism for the Godlike itself, 
 and for grinding out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure ? I 
 tell thee, Nay ! Otherwise, not on Morality, but on Cookery, 
 let us build our stronghold. There, brandishing our frying- 
 pan as censer, let us offer up sweet incense to the Devil, 
 and live at ease on the fat things //e has provided for his 
 elect,' seeing that ' with stupidity and sound digestion, man 
 may front much.' 
 
 Or, ' is there no God ? or, at best, an absentee God, 
 sitting idle ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of 
 His universe, and seeing it go V Know that for man's 
 well-being, whatever else be needed, ' Faith is one thing 
 needful.' Mark, 'how, with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, 
 can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross ; how, 
 without it, worldlings puke up their sick existence, by sui- 
 cide, in the midst of luxury.' Of how much else, ' for a pure 
 moral nature, is not the loss of Religious Belief the loss } ' 
 'All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution, the 
 stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in 
 the so genial heart would have healed again had not the 
 life-warmth of Faith been withdrawn.' But this once lost, 
 how recoverable .-* how, rather, ever acquirable .'' ' First 
 must the dead Letter of Religion own itself dead, and drop 
 piecemeal into dust, if the li\'ing Spirit of Religion, freed
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 from this, its charnel house, is to arise on us, new born of 
 Heaven, and with new heah'ng under its wings.' 
 
 Reside these burning words of Mr. Carlyle any addi- 
 tional words of mine would stand only as superfluous foils, 
 and arc, therefore, considerately pretermitted. 
 
 Cadogan Place : December 1872.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 I. AXTI-UTILITAKIAXISM i 
 
 II. HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS ... 84 
 
 III. DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN . . .11 
 
 J 
 
 IV. HUXLEYISM 158 
 
 V. RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM . . 199 
 VI. LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. . . .266 
 
 EPILOGUE 29S
 
 OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ANTI- UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 Having, by the heading of this essay, announced that it 
 is intended to be partly controversial, I can scarcely begin 
 better than by furnishing the reader with the means of 
 judging whether I myself correctly apprehend the doctrine 
 which I am about to criticise. If, then, I were myself an 
 Utilitarian, and, for the sake either of vindicating my own 
 belief, or of making converts of other people, had under- 
 taken to explain what Utilitarianism is, I should set about 
 the task somewhat in this wise : — 
 
 The sole use and sole object of existence is enjoyment 
 or pleasure, which two A\ords will here be treated as 
 synonymous ; happiness, also, though not quite identical in 
 meaning, being occasionally substituted for them. Enjoy- 
 ment, it must be observed, is of very various kinds, 
 measures, and degrees. It may be sensual, or emotional, 
 or imaginative, or intellectual, or moral. It may be mo- 
 mentary or eternal ; intoxicating delight or sober satis- 
 faction. It may be unmixed and undisturbed, in which 
 case, however short of duration or coarse in quality, it may 
 in strictness be called happiness ; or it may be troubled 
 and alloyed, although of a flavour which would be exquisite 
 if pure, and if there were nothing to interfere with the per- 
 
 B
 
 2 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 ception of It. Understood, however, in a sufficiently com- 
 prehensive sense, enjoyment or pleasure may be clearly 
 perceived to be the sole object of existence. The whole 
 value of life plainly consists of the enjoyment, present or 
 future, which life affords, or is capable of affording or 
 securing. Now, the excellence of all rules depends on 
 their conduciveness to the object they have in view. The 
 excellence of all rules of life must, therefore, depend on 
 their conduciveness to the sole object which life has in view, 
 viz., enjoyment, But the excellence of rules of life, or of 
 conduct or modes of acting, would seem to be but another 
 name for their morality, and the morality of actions 
 obviously depends on their conformity to moral rules. 
 Whence, if so much be admitted, it necessarily follows 
 that the test of the morality of actions is their conducive- 
 ness to enjoyment. 
 
 But the enjoyment thus referred to is not that of the 
 agent alone, for if it were, no action whatever could pos- 
 sibly be immoral. Whatever any one does, he does either 
 because to do it gives him or promises him pleasure, or 
 because he believes that the not doing it would subject him 
 to more pain than he will suffer from doing it. Besides, 
 one person's enjoyment may be obtained at the expense of 
 other people's suffering, so that an act in which the actor 
 takes pleasure may destroy or prevent more pleasure alto- 
 gether than it creates. The enjoyment or happiness, 
 therefore, which Utilitarianism regards, is not individual, 
 but general happiness ; not that of one or of a few, but 
 of the many, nor even of the many only. It is often 
 declared to be the greatest happiness of the greatest num- 
 ber, but it may with more accuracy be described as the 
 largest aggregate of happiness attainable by any or by all
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 3 
 
 concerned.' Again, an action which, in some particular 
 instance, causes more pleasure than pain to those afifectcd 
 by it, may yet belong to a class of actions which, in the 
 generality of cases, causes more pain than pleasure, and 
 may thus involve a violation of a moral rule, and, conse- 
 quently, be itself immoral. Wherefore the enjoyment 
 which Utilitarianism adopts as its moral test is not simply 
 the greatest sum of enjoyment for all concerned, but that 
 greatest sum in the greatest number of cases. In its 
 widest signification it is the greatest happiness of society 
 at large and in the long run. From these premises a deci- 
 sive criterion of right and wrong may be deduced. Every 
 action belonging to a class calculated to promote the per- 
 manent happiness of society is right. Every action be- 
 longing to a class opposed to the permanent happiness of 
 society is wrong. 
 
 In the foregoing exposition I have, I trust, evinced a 
 sincere desire to give Utilitarianism its full due, and I shall 
 at least be admitted to have shown myself entirely free 
 from most of those more vulgar misconceptions of its nature 
 which have given its professors such just offence. Many of 
 its assailants have not scrupled to stigmatise as worthy only 
 of swine a doctrine which represents life as having no better 
 and nobler object of desire and pursuit than pleasure. To 
 these, however, it has, by the great apostle of Utilitarianism, 
 
 ' The distinction here drawn is not merely verbal. The greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number may mean either the largest total of happiness in which 
 the largest possible number of those concerned can participate, or a still larger 
 total, which, if some of the possible participants were excluded, would be 
 divisible among the remainder. The largest aggregate of happiness attainable 
 by any or by all concerned, means the largest sum total absolutely, without 
 reference to the number of participants. Writers on Utilitarianism seem to 
 have sometimes the first, sometimes the second of these totals in view, but 
 more frequently the second than the first. 
 
 n 2
 
 4 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 been triumphantly replied that it is really they themselves 
 who insult human nature by using language that assumes 
 human beings to be capable of no higher pleasures than 
 those of which swine are capable ; and that, moreover, if 
 the assumption were correct, and if the capacities of men 
 and of swine were identical, whatever rule of life were good 
 enough for the latter would likewise be good enough for 
 the former. But I am not an assailant of this description. 
 Inasmuch as there undeniably are very many and very 
 various kinds of pleasure, I of course allow Utilitarianism 
 credit for common sense enough to acknowledge that those 
 kinds are most worthy of pursuit \\hich, from whatever 
 cause, possess most value — that those which are most 
 precious are those most to be prized. But whoever allows 
 thus much will have no alternative but to concede a great 
 deal more. The most precious of pleasures is that which 
 arises from the practice of virtue, as may be proved con- 
 clusively in the only way of which the case admits, viz., by 
 reference to the fact that, whoever is equally acquainted 
 with that and with other pleasures, deliberately prefers it 
 to all the rest, will, if necessary, forego all others for its 
 sake, and values no others obtainable only at its expense. 
 By necessary implication it follows that, as being more 
 valuable than any other, the pleasure arising from the 
 practice of virtue must be that which Utilitarianism recom- 
 mends above all others as an object of pursuit. But the 
 pursuit of this particular pleasure and the practice of virtue 
 2.x^ synonymous terms. What, therefore, Utilitarianism 
 above all other things recommends and insists upon is the 
 pmcticc of virtue. Now, the practice of virtue commonly 
 involves subordination of one's own interest to that of other 
 people ; indeed, virtue would not be virtue in the utilitarian
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. S 
 
 sense of the word unlcs.s it did involve such subordination. 
 Wherefore tlie pleasure arislnc^^ from the practice of virtue, 
 the pleasure A\hich occupies the highest place on the utili- 
 tarian scale, and that which Utilitarianism exhorts its 
 disciples chiefly to seek after, is nothing else than the 
 pleasure derived from attending to other people's pleasure 
 instead of to our own. 
 
 Nor is this all. In order adequately to appreciate the 
 loftiness of utilitarian teaching, and its utter exemption 
 from the sordidness with which it is ignorantly charged, we 
 must devote a few moments to examination of those dis- 
 tinctive peculiarities of different kinds of pleasure which 
 entitle them to different places in our esteem. 
 
 All pleasures may be arranged under five heads, and in 
 regularly ascending series, as follows : — 
 
 1. Sensual pleasures : — To wit, those of eating and 
 drinking, and whatever others are altogether of the flesh, 
 fleshly. 
 
 2. Emotional, by which are to be understood agreeable 
 moods of the mind, such as, irrespectively of any agreeable 
 idea brought forward simultaneously by association, are 
 produced by music ('for,' as Milton says, ' eloquence the 
 soul, song charms the sense'), by beauty of form or colour, 
 by genial sunshine, by balmy or invigorating air. 
 
 3. Imaginative, or pleasures derived from the contem- 
 plation of mental pictures. 
 
 4. Intellectual, or those consequent on exercise of the 
 reasoning powers. 
 
 5. Moral, or those which are alluded to when virtue is 
 spoken of as being its own reward.' 
 
 ' I ilu not form a separate class of pleasures of the affections, because these 
 seem to me not to be elementary, but to l)c always compounded of two or 
 more of the other five kinds.
 
 6: ANTI-UTILITARIANISM, 
 
 That of these several kinds, each of the last four is pre- 
 ferable to any preceding it on the list will, it is to be hoped, 
 be allowed to pass as an unquestioned truth, for to any one 
 perverse enough to deny it, the only answer that can be 
 made is an appeal to observation in proof that all persons 
 who are equally acquainted with the several kinds do 
 exhibit the preferences indicated. Neither, so far as the 
 two kinds first-named alone are concerned, is it possible to 
 go much more deeply into the reasons why emotional plea- 
 sures are to be preferred to sensual, than by pointing to the 
 fact that all competent judges of both are observed to like 
 the former best. If all those who are endowed with equal 
 sensitiveness of ear and of palate prefer music to feasting, 
 and would any day give up a dinner at Francatelli's for the 
 sake of hearing a rejuvenescent Persiani as Zerlina, or Patti 
 as Dinorah, the one thing presumable is, that all such per- 
 sons derive more enjoyment from perfect melody than from 
 perfect cookery, and little else remains to be said on the 
 subject. The same ultimate fact need not, however, limit 
 our inquiry as to the preferableness of imaginative or intel- 
 lectual to emotional pleasures, and of moral to any of the 
 other three. This admits of, and demands, a more subtle 
 explanation, from which we may learn, not merely that 
 certain preferences are shown, but also why they are 
 shown. The preferences in question are demonstrably not 
 due to the greater poignancy of the pleasures preferred. 
 It is simply not true that the keenest of imaginative plea- 
 sures is keener than the keenest of emotional, and still less 
 that the keenest of intellectual is so. The very reverse is 
 the truth. The supremest delight attainable in fancy's most 
 romantic flight is, I suspect, faint in comparison with the 
 sort of ecstasy into which a child of freshly-strung nerves
 
 AiXri-UTIUTARIANISM. 7 
 
 is sometimes thrown by the mere brilliance or balmincss of 
 a summer's day, and with which even we, dulled adults, 
 provided we be in the riL,dit humour, and that all things are 
 in a concatenation accordingly, are now and then momenta- 
 rily affected while listening to the wood-notes wild of a night- 
 ingale, or a Jenny Lind, or while gazing on star-lit sky or 
 moon-lit sea, or on the snowy or dolomite peaks of a 
 mountain range fulgent with the violet and purple glories 
 of the setting sun. And yet the choicest snatches of such 
 beatitude with which— at least, after the fine edge of our 
 susceptibilities has been worn away by the world's friction 
 — we creatures of coarse human mould are ever indulged, 
 are but poor in comparison with the rich abundance of the 
 same in which some more delicately-constituted organisms 
 habitually revel. If we A\ould understand of what develop- 
 ment emotional delight is capable, we should watch the 
 skylark. As that ' blithe spirit ' now at heaven's gate 
 ' poureth its full heart,' and anon can 
 
 Scarce get out his notes for joy. 
 But shakes his song together as he nears 
 His happy home, the ground, 
 
 what poet but must needs confess with Shelley, that in 
 his most rapturous dream, his transport ne\-er came nigh 
 the bird's ? And yet what poet would change conditions 
 with the lark .'' Nay, ^\•hat student or philosopher would .^ 
 albeit the utmost gratification ever earned by either of 
 these in the prosecution of his special calling — in acquiring 
 knowledge, in soh'ing knott}' problems, or in scaling the 
 heights of abstract contemplation — is probably as inferior 
 in keenness of zest to that which the poet knows, as the best 
 prose is inferior in charm to the best poetr\-. It ma}' even 
 be that both poet and philosopher owe, on the whole, more
 
 8 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 unhapplness than happiness — the one to his superior sensi- 
 bihty, the other to his superior enlightenment, and yet 
 neither would exchange his own lesser happiness for the 
 greater happiness of the lark. Why would he not ? It is 
 no sufficient answer to say that in the lark's happiness there 
 are few, if any, imaginative or intellectual ingredients ; 
 that it is almost utterly unideal, almost purely emotional, 
 exactly the same in kind, and only higher in degree, than 
 the glee of puppies or kittens at play. The question re- 
 curs as forcibly as ever, why — seeing that enjoyment is the 
 one thing desirable, the only thing either valuable in Itself, 
 or that gives value to other things — why is it that no 
 intelligent man would accept, in lieu of his own, another 
 mode of existence, in which, although debarred from the 
 joys of thought and fancy, he nevertheless has reason to 
 believe that the share of enjoyment falling to his lot would 
 be greater, both in quantity and sapidity, than it is at 
 present ? The following seems to me to be the explana- 
 tion of the mystery. 
 
 It might be too much to say that nothing can please a 
 person who is not pleased with himself, but it is at any rate 
 clear that nothing can greatly please him which interferes 
 with his self-satisfaction. Now imaginative and intel- 
 lectual enjoyment, each of them, involves the exercise of 
 a special and superior faculty, mere consciousness of the 
 possession of which helps to make the possessor satisfied 
 with himself. It exalts what ]\Ir. jMill aptly terms his 
 sense of dignity, a sense possessed in some form or other 
 by every human being, and one so essential to that self- 
 satisfaction without which all pleasure would be tasteless, 
 that nothing which conflicts with it can be an object of 
 serious desire. In virtue of this special faculty, the most
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 9 
 
 wretched of men holds himself to be superior to the most 
 joyous of larks. To divest himself of it would be to lower 
 himself towards the level of the bird, and to commit such 
 an act of self-degradation would occasion to him an 
 amount of pain which he is not disposed to incur for the 
 sake of any amount of pleasure obtainable at its expense. 
 It is, then, the fear of pain which prevents his wishing to 
 be turned into a lark. He is not ignorant that he would 
 be happier for the metamorphosis, but he dreads the pain 
 that must precede the increase of happiness, more than he 
 desires the increase of happiness that would follow the 
 pain. 
 
 The force of these considerations will be equally, or 
 more apparent, on their being applied to analysis of moral 
 pleasures. That these arc the most truly precious of all 
 pleasures, is proved by their being habitually more highly 
 prized than any others by all who are qualified to make 
 the comparison. But why arc they so prized .-* Not, as I 
 am constrained, however reluctantly, to admit, on accoimt 
 of their greater keenness as pleasures. It would be at best 
 but well-meaning cant to pretend that the self-approval, 
 the sympathetic participation in other people's augmented 
 welfare, the grateful consciousness of having done that 
 which is pleasing in our Heavenly Father's sight, together 
 with whatever else helps to compose the internal reward of 
 virtue, constitute a sum total of delight nearly as exquisite 
 as that which may be obtained in a variety of other ways. 
 The mere circumstance of there being invariably included 
 in a just or generous action more or less of self-denial, self- 
 restraint, or self-sacrifice, must always sober down the 
 gratification by which virtue is rewarded, and make it 
 appear tame beside the delirium of gladness caused by
 
 lo A NTI- UTILITA RIA NISJf. 
 
 many things with which virtue has nothing to do. We 
 will charitably suppose that the occupant of a dukedom, 
 who should secretly light upon conclusive proof that it was 
 not his by right, would at once abandon it to the legal 
 heir, and we need not doubt that he v/ould subsequently be, 
 on the whole, well content to have so acted, but we cannot 
 suppose that he would make the surrender with anything 
 like the elation with which he entered on the estate and 
 title. If there were really no pleasure equal to that with 
 which virtue recompenses its votaries, the performance of a 
 virtuous act would always make a man happier than pre- 
 viously ; moreover, the greater the virtue, the greater would 
 be the consequent pleasure. But any one may see that an 
 act of the most exalted virtue, far from increasing, often 
 utterly destroys the agent's happiness. Imagine an 
 affectionate father, some second Brutus or second Fitz- 
 stephcn of Galway, constrained by overv/helming sense of 
 duty to sentence a beloved son to death, or a bankrupt 
 beggaring himself and his family by honestly making over 
 to his creditors property with which he might have safely 
 absconded. Plainly, such virtuous achievement, far from 
 adding to the happiness of its author, has plunged him in 
 an abyss of miseiy, his only comfort being that in the 
 lowest deep there is, as we shall presently see, a lower 
 deep still. Far from being happier than he was before 
 acting as he has done, he would be much happier if, being 
 vicious instead of virtuous, he had not felt bound so to act. 
 Unquestionably, what either upright judge or honest bank- 
 rupt has incurred — the one by becoming a saticide, the 
 other by making himself a beggar — is pure and simple 
 pain, unmitigated by one particle of positive pleasure. Yet 
 it is at the same time certain that the virtue of each has in
 
 ANTJ-UTILirARlANISM. ii 
 
 some form or other given full compensation for the pain it 
 has occasioned, for not only was that pain deliberately 
 incurred in lieu of the pleasure which it has supplanted, 
 but restoration of the pleasure would now be refused, if 
 reversal of the virtuous conduct were made a condition of 
 the restoration. In what, then, does the compensation 
 consist ? In nothing else than this, in judge or bankrupt 
 having been saved from pain still greater than that which 
 he is actually suffering. Wretched as he is, infinitely more 
 wretched than he was before there was any call upon him 
 to act as he has done, he is less wretched than he would 
 be if, recognising the obligation so to act, he had not so 
 acted. He has escaped the stings of conscience, the sense 
 of having wronged his neighbour and offended his God ; 
 he has escaped, in short, self-condemnation — a torment so 
 intolerable to those so constituted as to be susceptible of 
 it, that hell itself has been known to be, in imagination at 
 least, preferred to it. ]\Ir. Mill's splendid outburst that, 
 rather than w'orship a fiend that could send him to hell for 
 refusing, he would go to hell as he was bid, will doubtless 
 occur to every reader. 
 
 This, however, is all. In both the supposed cases, as in 
 every one in which virtue consists of compliance with a 
 painful duty, the pleasure arising from the practice of 
 virtue cannot in strictness be called pleasure at all. At 
 best it is but a partial negation of pain ; more properh', 
 indeed, the substitution of one pain for another more acute. 
 Yet this mere negation, this ethereal inanity, is pronounced 
 by Utilitarianism to be preferable to aught that can come 
 into competition with it. Truly it is somewhat hard upon 
 those who attend to such teaching, to be reproached with 
 their grossness of taste and likened to hogs, for no better
 
 12 ANTI-UTILITARIANISAU 
 
 reason than their predilection for the lightest of all con- 
 ceivable diets. Still harder will this seem, when we recol- 
 lect that Utilitarians are exhorted to be virtuous, less for 
 their own than for other people's sakes. If, indeed, virtue 
 were practised by all mankind, the utilitarian idea of the 
 greatest possible happiness, or, at least, of the greatest 
 possible exemption from unhappiness, would be universally- 
 realised. Still, it is in order that they may afford pleasure 
 to the community at large, rather than that they may 
 obtain it for themselves ; it is that they may save, not so 
 much themselves, as the community, from pain, that indi- 
 vidual Utilitarians are charged to be virtuous. Among 
 those pleasures, whether positive or negative, which it is 
 allowable to them to seek for themselves, the first place is 
 assigned to the pleasure arising from the sense of giving 
 pleasure to others. Thus, not only is it the purest of 
 pleasures that Utilitarianism chiefly recommends for pursuit : 
 even that pleasure is to be pursued only from the purest 
 and most disinterested motives. 
 
 All this I frankly acknowledge ; and I own, too, that, far 
 from deserving to be stigmatised as irreligious. Utilitarian- 
 ism is literally nothing else than an amplification of one 
 moiety of Christianity ; that it not adopts merely, but 
 expands, 'the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth,' exhorting 
 us to love our neighbour, not simply as well, but better 
 than ourselves ; to do for others, not simply what we would 
 have them do for us, but much more than we could have 
 the face to ask them to do ; not merely not to pursue our 
 interests at the expense of theirs, but to regard as our own 
 chief interest the promotion of theirs. That on account of 
 these exhortations Utilitarianism is godless can be sup- 
 posed by those only who suppose that love to one's neigh-
 
 A NT I- UriLITA RIA NISM. 1 3 
 
 hour is contrai-}- to the will of God. By those who believe 
 that works are the best signs of faith, and that love to God 
 is best evinced by doing good to man, Utilitarianism 
 might rather seem to be but another name for practical 
 religion. 
 
 So I say in all sincerity, though not without some mis- 
 giving, as while so speaking I involuntarily bethink myself 
 of Balaam, son of I^eor, who having been called forth to 
 curse, caught himself blessing altogether. Mine eyes, too, 
 have been opened to the good of that which I was pur- 
 posed to condemn, and behold I have as yet done nothing 
 but eulogise. No warmest partisan of Utilitarianism, not 
 Mr. Mill himself, ever spoke more highly of it than I have 
 just been doing. What censures, then, can I have in 
 reserve to countervail such praises } What grounds of 
 quarrel can I have with a system of ethics which I have 
 described as ever seeking the noblest ends from the purest 
 motives ; whose precepts I own to be as elevating as its 
 aims are exalted } On reflection, I am reassured by recol- 
 lecting several, which I proceed to bring forward one at a 
 time, beginning with a sin enormous enough to cover any 
 multitude of merits. 
 
 My first charge against Utilitarianism is that it is not 
 true. I do not say that there is no truth in it. That I 
 have found much to admire in its premises has been 
 frankly avowed ; and in one, at least, of the leading deduc- 
 tions from those premises I partially concur. I admit that 
 acts utterly without utility must likewise be utterly without 
 worth ; that conduct which subserves the enjoyment neither 
 of oneself nor of any one else, cannot, except in a very re- 
 stricted sense, be termed right ; that conduct which inter- 
 feres with the enjoyment both of oneself and of all others,
 
 14 AXTI-UTIUTARIANISM. 
 
 Avhich injuring oneself injures others also, and benefits no 
 one, cannot be othenvise than wrong ; that purely object- 
 less asceticism which has not even self-discipline in view, is 
 not virtue, but folly ; that misdirected charity which, 
 engendering improvidence, creates more distress than it 
 relieves, is not virtue, but criminal weakness. But though 
 admitting that tliere can be no virtue without utility, I do 
 not admit either that virtue must be absent unless utility 
 preponderate, or that if utility preponderate virtue must be 
 present. I deny that any amount of utility can of itself 
 constitute virtue. I deny that whatever adds to the 
 general happiness must be right. Equally do I deny that 
 whatever diminishes the general happiness or prevents its 
 increasing must be wrong. An action, be it obser\^ed, may 
 be right in three different senses. It may be right as 
 being meritorious, and deservang of commendation. It 
 may be right as being tliat which one is bound to do, for 
 the doing of ^^■hich, therefore, one deserves no praise, and 
 for neglecting to do which one would justly incur blame. 
 It may be right simply as not being wrong — as being 
 allowable — something which one has a right to do, though 
 to refrain from doing it might perhaps be praiseworthy. 
 There will be little difficulty in adducing examples of 
 conduct which, though calculated to diminish the sum 
 total of happiness, would be right in the first of these 
 senses. Nothing can be easier than to multiply examples 
 of such conduct that would be right in the third sense. I 
 proceed to cite cases which will ansv.-er both these pur- 
 poses, and likewise the converse one of showing that 
 conduct calculated to increase the general happiness may 
 nevertheless be wrong. 
 
 \Vhen the Grecian chiefs, assembled at Aulis, were
 
 ANTI- UTILITARIANISM. 1 5 
 
 waiting for a fair wind to convey them to Ilium, they were, 
 we arc told, warned by what was to them as a voice from 
 heaven, that their enterprise would make no progress 
 unless Agamemnon's daughter were sacrificed to Diana. 
 In order to place the details of the story in a light as 
 little favourable as possible to my argument, we will 
 deviate somewhat from the accepted version, and will 
 suppose that the arrested enterprise was one of even 
 greater pith and moment than tradition ascribes to it. 
 We Avill suppose that upon its successful prosecution de- 
 pended the national existence of Greece ; that its failure 
 would have involved the extermination of one-half of the 
 people, and the slavery of the other half We will sup- 
 pose, too, that of all this Iphigenia was as firmly persuaded 
 as every one else. In these circumstances, had her country- 
 men a right to insist on her immolation ? If so, on what 
 was that right founded .^ Is it sufficient to say in reply 
 that her death was essential to the national happiness, 
 to the extent even of being indispensable to prevent that 
 happiness from being converted into national woe .-' Mani- 
 festly, according to the hypothesis, it was expedient for 
 all concerned, with the single exception of herself, that 
 she should die ; but were the others thereby entitled to 
 take her life ? Did the fact of its being for their ad- 
 vantage to do this warrant their doing it .^ Simply because 
 it was their interest, was it also their right ? Right, we 
 must recollect, invariably implies corresponding duty. 
 Right, it is clear, can never be rightfull}- resisted. If it 
 be the right of certain persons to do a certain thing, 
 it must be the duty of all other persons to let that thing 
 be done. Where there is no such dut}', there can be 
 no such right. Wherefore, if the ' stern, black-bearded
 
 1 6 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 kings, with wolfish eyes,' who sate ' waiting to see her die,' 
 had a right to kill Iphigenia, it must have been Iphigenia's 
 duty to let herself be killed. Was this then her duty ? 
 ' Duty,' as I have elsewhere observed,* * signifies something 
 due, a debt, indebtedness, and a debt cannot have been 
 incurred for nothing, or without some antecedent step on 
 the part either of debtor or creditor.' But it is not pre- 
 tended that in any way whatever, by any antecedent act 
 of hers or theirs, Iphigenia had incurred or had been 
 subjected to a debt to her countrymen which could be 
 paid off only with her life. It could not, then, be incum- 
 bent on her to let her life be taken in payment. If it had 
 been in her power to burst her bonds, and break through 
 the wolves in human shape that girdled her in, she would 
 have been guilty of no wrong by escaping. But if not, 
 then, however meritorious it might have been on her part 
 to consent to die for her countrymen, it was not her duty 
 so to die, nor, consequently, had they a right to put her 
 to death. She would have been at least negatively^ right 
 in refusing to die, while they were guilty of a very positive 
 and a very grievous wrong in killing her, notwithstanding 
 that both she and they were perfectly agreed that for her 
 to be killed would be for the incalculably greater happi- 
 ness of a greater number, exceeding the lesser number 
 in the proportion of several hundreds of thousands to one. 
 
 It is true that throughout this affair every one concerned 
 was labouring under a gross delusion — that there was no 
 real use in putting Iphigenia to death, and that nothing 
 but superstition made anybody suppose there was. I do 
 not think the case is one less to our purpose on that 
 account, for Utilitarians, like other fallible mortals, are 
 
 ' ' On Labour,' p. 135.
 
 'ANTI- UTILITA RIA NISM. 1 7 
 
 liable to deceive themselves. They never can be quite 
 secure of the genuineness of the utih'ty on which they 
 rely, and in default of positive knowledge they will always 
 be reduced to act, as the Grecian chiefs did, according 
 to the best of their convictions. Nevertheless, for the 
 satisfaction of those who distrust romance and insist upon 
 reality, we will leave fable for fact, and take as our next 
 illustration an incident that may any day occur. 
 
 Imagine three shipwrecked mariners to have leapt from 
 their sinking vessel into a cockboat scarce big enough to 
 hold them, and the two slimmer of the three to have pre- 
 sently discovered that there was little or no chance of either 
 of them reaching land unless their over-weighted craft 
 were lightened of their comparatively corpulent com- 
 panion. Next, imagine yourself in the fat sailor's place, 
 and then consider whether you would feel it incumbent 
 on you to submit quietly to be drowned in order that 
 the residuum of happiness might be greater than if either 
 you all three went to the bottom, or than if you alone 
 were saved. Would you not, far from recognising any 
 such moral obligation, hold yourself morally justified in 
 throwing the other two overboard, if you were strong 
 enough, and if need were, to prevent their similarly ousting 
 you .'' But if it were not your duty to allow yourself to 
 be cast into the sea, the others could have no right to 
 cast you out ; so that, if they did cast you out, they 
 would clearly be doing not right but wrong. And yet, 
 as clearly, their wrong-doing would have conduced to 
 the greater happiness of the greater number, inasmuch as, 
 while only one life could otherwise have been saved, it 
 would save two, and inasmuch as, ccctcvis paribus, two 
 persons would necessarily derive twice as much enjoyment 
 
 c
 
 l8 ANTI-VTILITARIANISM. 
 
 from continued existence as one would. Moreover, their 
 wrong-doing would be of a kind calculated always to 
 produce similarly useful results. It cannot, I suppose, 
 be denied that a rule to the effect that whenever forfeiture 
 of one life v/ould save two, one life should be sacrificed, 
 would — not exceptionally only, but at large and in the 
 long run— conduce to the saving of life, and therefore to 
 the conservation of happiness connected with life. 
 
 The foregoing cases are no doubt both of them extreme, 
 involving exaction of the largest possible private sacrifice 
 for the general good ; but in all cases of the kind, whether 
 the exaction be small or great, the same governing prin- 
 ciple equally applies. If you, a foot-sore, homeward- 
 bound pedestrian, on a sweltering July day, were to 
 see your next-door neighbour driving in the same di- 
 rection in solitary state, would you have a right to 
 stop his carriage and force yourself in .'' Nay, even 
 though you had just before fallen down and broken 
 your leg, would the compassionating by-standers be justi- 
 fied in forcing him to take you in } Or, again, if you 
 were outside a coach during a pelting shower, and saw 
 a fellow-passenger with a spare umbrella between his 
 legs, while an unprotected female close beside was being 
 drenched with the rain, would you have a right to wrest 
 the second umbrella from him, and hold it over her ? 
 That, very likely, is what you would do in the circum- 
 stances, and few would be disposed greatly to blame 
 the indignant ebullition. Still, unless you are a disciple 
 of Proudhon, you will scarcely pretend that you can have 
 a right to take possession of another's carriage or umbrella 
 against the owner's will. You can scarcely suppose that 
 it is not for him but for you to decide what use shall be
 
 ANri- UTILITARIANISM. 19 
 
 made of articles belonging not to you but to him. Yet 
 there can be no doubt that tlic liappincss of society would 
 be vastly promoted if everyone felt himself under an 
 irresistible obligation to assist his neighbour whenever 
 he could do so with little or no inconvenience to himself, 
 or, consequent!}', if external force were always at hand to 
 constrain anyone so to assist who was unwilling to do so 
 of his own accord. 
 
 So much in proof that among things of the highest and 
 most extensive utilit}' there are several which it would 
 be decidedly the reverse of right to do, and several others 
 which it would be perfectly right to leave undone. I pro- 
 ceed to show that there are many other things not simply 
 not of preponderating utility, but calculated, on the con- 
 trary, to do more harm than good, to destroy more happi- 
 ness than they arc capable of creating, which, nevertheless, 
 it would be not simply allowable to do, but the doing 
 of which Avould be highly meritorious, acts possibly of the 
 most exalted virtue. 
 
 Let no one distrust the doctrine of development by 
 
 reason of its supposed extravagance of jorctension who has 
 
 not duly considered to what a sublime of moral beauty 
 
 the united hideousness and absurdity of Calvinism may 
 
 give birth. In that Puritan society of New England 
 
 of which Mrs. Beecher Stowe has given so singularly 
 
 interesting an account in her * Minister's Wooing,* and 
 
 among whose members it was an universal article of belief 
 
 that the bulk of mankind are created for the express 
 
 purpose of being consigned to everlasting flames, there 
 
 are said to have been not a icw enthusiasts in \\hom 
 
 a self-concentrating creed begat the ver}- quintessence of 
 
 self-devotion. * As a gallant soldier renounces life and 
 
 c 2
 
 20 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 personal aims in the cause of his king and country, and 
 holds himself ready to be drafted for a forlorn hope, 
 to be shot down, or help to make a bridge of his mangled 
 body, over which the more fortunate shall pass to victory 
 and glory,' so among the early descendants of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers many an one ' regarded himself as devoted to 
 the King Eternal, ready in his hands to be used to 
 illustrate and build up an eternal commomvealth, either 
 by being sacrificed as a lost spirit, or glorified as a re- 
 deemed one ; ready to throw, not merely his mortal life, 
 but his immortality even, into the forlorn hope, to bridge, 
 with a never-dying soul, the chasm over which ^\•hite- 
 robed victors should pass to a commonwealth of glory 
 and splendour, whose vastness should dwarf the misery 
 of all the lost to an infinitesimal.' And while by many 
 the idea of suffering everlasting pains for the glory of 
 God, and the good of being in general, was thus con- 
 templated with equanimity, there were some few for whom 
 the idea of so suffering for the good of others dearer than 
 themselves would have been greeted with positive exulta- 
 tion. ' And don't I care for your soul, James } ' exclaims 
 Mary Scudder to her lover. ' If I could take my hopes 
 of heaven out of my own heart and give them to you, I 
 would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, " I 
 could Avish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, 
 my kinsmen," and he went on to show how we must be 
 willing to give up even our own salvation, if necessary, 
 for the good of others. People said it was a hard doctrine, 
 but I could feel my way through it. Yes, I would give 
 my soul for yours. I wish I could.' Now we must on no 
 account permit admiration of Miss Scudder's transcendent 
 generosity in desiring to make this exchange blind us to
 
 ANri-UTILITARIANISM. 21 
 
 the fatal effect on social happiness which, if such exchange 
 were possible, the prevalence of a disposition to make 
 it could not fail to have. If Calvinism were true instead 
 of blasphemous, if God were really the Moloch it repre- 
 sents Him, and if, moreover, Moloch were indifferent as 
 to which of his offspring were cast into the fire, caring 
 only that the prescribed number of victims should be 
 forthcoming in full tale, nothing can be conceived more 
 likely to prove an encouragement to evil-doers, and a 
 terror to them that did well, than observation that well- 
 doing not infrequently led to eternal misery, and evil- 
 doing to eternal bliss. Again, if in China, where criminals 
 under sentence of death are permitted, if they can, by 
 purchase or otherwise, to procure substitutes to die in 
 their stead, a son were to propose to die for a parent 
 base enough to take advantage of the offer, could any 
 arrangement be more plainly repugnant to the common- 
 weal than that by which society would thus lose one of 
 its noblest, instead of getting rid of one of its vilest 
 members ? Or, when in England, a thrifty son, by con- 
 senting to cut the entail of an estate to which he is heir- 
 apparent, enables a prodigal father to consume in riotous 
 living substance which would otherwise have eventually 
 become his, is he not clearly taking the worse course for 
 the public by permitting the property to be wasted, instead 
 of causing it to be husbanded ? 
 
 Beyond all question, American Puritan, Chinese or 
 English devotee to filial affection, would thus, each in her 
 or his degree, have, in the circumstances supposed, acted 
 in a manner opposed to the general interest, and would 
 therefore be condemned by Utilitarianism as having acted 
 immorally. Nor could this verdict be gainsaid if utility
 
 22 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 and morality were, as Utilitarianism assumes them to be, 
 one and the same thing. Clearly, that the just should 
 suffer for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, is 
 diametrically opposed to the welfare of society ; where- 
 fore, according to utilitarian principles, by consenting so 
 to suffer, the just becomes unjust, the innocent renders 
 himself guilty. But can there be a better proof that 
 utilitarian principles arc unsound than that this should be 
 a legitimate deduction from them } Can there be better 
 proof that utility and morality are not identical, but two 
 absolutely distinct things } Plainly, there can be no meri- 
 torious or commendable immorality ; neither can there be 
 any virtue which is not meritorious and commendable. Is 
 there, then, no merit, nothing commendable, in accepting 
 ruin or in volunteering to die temporarily, or to perish 
 everlastingly, in order to save a fellow-creature from ruin, 
 or death, or perdition .'' Does not such conduct, considered 
 independently and without reference either to its utility or 
 its hurtfulness, command our instantaneous and enthu- 
 siastic admiration } But how, being so admirable, can it 
 be immoral } how other than virtuous } What else is it, 
 indeed, but the very perfection of that purest virtue which, 
 content to be its own reward, deliberately cuts itself off 
 from all other recompense .'' Without changing the im- 
 memorial meaning of the most familiar words, there is no 
 avoiding the obvious answers to these questions. If virtue 
 and morality, right and wrong, are to continue to mean 
 anything like that which, except by Utilitarians, has 
 always been considered to be their only meaning, it is 
 not simply not wrong, it is not simply right, it is among 
 the highest achievements of virtue and morality to sacri- 
 fice your own in order to secure another's happiness, and
 
 ANTI- UTIIJTA RIAXIS.V. 23 
 
 the disinterestedness, and tlierefore the virtue, is surely the 
 greater, rather than less, if you sacrifice more happiness of 
 your own than you secure to another. So much follows 
 necessarily from what has been said, and something more 
 besides. It follows further that Utilitarianism is not less 
 in error in declaring that actions calculated to diminish 
 the total sum of happiness must necessarily be wrong, 
 cannot possibly be allowable, still less meritorious, than it 
 had previously been shown to be in declaring that actions 
 calculated to augment the sum total of happiness must 
 necessarily be meritorious. 
 
 There is but one way in which Utilitarianism can even 
 temporarily rebut the charge of fallacy, of which otherwise 
 it must here stand convicted, and that is by renouncing all 
 claim to be a new system of ethics, and not pretending to 
 be more than a new system of nomenclature. And even 
 so, it could not help contradicting, and thereby refuting 
 itself. That nothing is right but what is of preponderating 
 utility ; that whatever is of preponderating utility is right ; 
 these are propositions perfectly intelligible, indeed, but 
 which will be found to be tenable only on condition that 
 the very same things may be both right and wrong. The 
 confusion, thrice confounded, inseparable from the sub- 
 stitution of such novel definitions for those which had 
 previously been universally in vogue, is but the smaller of 
 two evils which must thence arise. It would be bad 
 enough that the word ' right ' could not be used without 
 raising doubt whether what people had previously under- 
 stood by the 'just' or the 'generous,' or only the ' ex- 
 pedient ' were meant ; but a still worse consequence would be 
 that, even if no doubt of the sort were entertained, and if all 
 men were agreed to take the word in none but its utilitarian
 
 24 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 sense, the landmarks of right and wrong would thereby be 
 well nigh obliterated. Due credit has already been given 
 to Utilitarianism for its exemplary zeal in inculcating the 
 practice of virtue, but its merit in that respect is more 
 than neutralised by its equally zealous inculcation of prin- 
 ciples, according to which it is impossible to decide before- 
 hand whether any particular practice will be virtuous or not. 
 
 This is my second charge against Utilitarianism. I 
 maintain it to be a doctrine in most of its essentials 
 erroneous ; but I maintain, further, that, even if it were 
 correct, instead of furnishing us with an infallible criterion 
 of right and wrong, it would deprive us of the means of 
 clearly distinguishing between right and wrong at all 
 times at which the power of so distinguishing is of prac- 
 tical value. Bluntly enough, I have pronounced it to be 
 false. With equal bluntness, I now add that, even if it 
 were true, it would, all the same, be practically mis- 
 chievous, and directly opposed to the very utility from 
 which it takes its name. The argument in support of this 
 charge shall now be stated. 
 
 According to utilitarian ethics, the morality of actions 
 depends wholly and solely on their consequences. On 
 this point the language of authority is distinct, emphatic, 
 unanimous, and self-contradictory. ' Utilitarian moralists,' 
 says the chief amongst them, ' have gone beyond all others 
 in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the 
 morality of an action He who saves a fellow- 
 creature from drowning does what is morally right, 
 whether his motive be duty or the hope of being paid for 
 his trouble.' Upon which I would observe, in passing, 
 that to save a fellow-creature from drowning can be 
 deemed to be necessarily right by none but uncompro-
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 25 
 
 mising opponents of capital punishment. Most others 
 will be disposed to doubt its having been a sufficient 
 reason for commuting the sentence of death passed upon 
 the murderer of Dhuleep Sing's gamekeeper, that, owing 
 to physical malformation, hanging might perhaps have 
 given him more than ordinary pain in the neck, or perhaps 
 have prolonged the pleasure which, according to the select 
 few qualified to speak from experience, is attendant on 
 that mode of strangulation. Neither, without sacrificing 
 his judgment to his feelings, could one of these doubters, 
 if Rutherford had been sentenced to be drowned instead 
 of hanged, have stretched out a hand to save the miscreant 
 from the watery grave he so richly deserved. That there 
 are no actions which by reason of their beneficial conse- 
 quences are always and invariably moral, might be too 
 much to affirm ; but I have no hesitation in saying that 
 there are thousands, the morality or immorality of which 
 — their results remaining the same — depends absolutely on 
 their motives. Thus, if two doctors — of whom, for dis- 
 tinction's sake, we will call one Smethurst and the other 
 Smith — in attendance on patients afflicted with precisely 
 the same disease, were by the administration of overdoses 
 of strychnine each to kill his man, the only difference 
 between them being that whereas one intended and ex- 
 pected to kill, the other hoped to cure — would the act of 
 killing be equally immoral in both cases .-' Would it not 
 in the one case be murder, in the other mere error of 
 judgment; and would both be equally crimes, or would 
 the latter be in any degree criminal .-' And if it had been 
 Smethurst instead of Smith who committed the error of 
 judgment — if the overdoses by which he had meant to 
 kill had happened to cure — would his error of judgment
 
 26 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 have thereby been rendered moral, notwithstanding that 
 his motive was murder ? 
 
 The same great teacher, who so strenuously insists that 
 the motive has nothing to do with the morality of an 
 action, does indeed go on to say that it has ' much to do 
 with the worth of the agent.' Here, however, I confess 
 myself unable to follow him. That an act may possess 
 morality independent of the agent, may be intelligible on 
 the assumption that morality means simply utility, and 
 nothing more ; but how, even then, worth can be evinced 
 by the performance of an immoral action, is beyond my 
 comprehension, except upon the further assumption that 
 there may be worth in immorality. 
 
 Waiving, however, these and all other objections, let us 
 for the moment, and for the sake of argument, assume that 
 morality and utility are really one and the same thing, 
 that the right or wrong of an act depends entirely on its 
 results, and then let us obsei"ve how utterly without rudder 
 or compass to assist him in steering correctly will be the 
 best-intentioned navigator of the ocean of life. 
 
 We can seldom, if ever, be quite sure what will be the 
 result of our conduct. Meaning to cure, we may only too 
 probably kill ; meaning to kill, we may not impossibly 
 cure. Until a thing is done, we cannot determine as to its 
 utility ; nor, consequently, in an utilitarian sense, as to 
 the morality of doing it. We must trust implicitly to our 
 skill in calculating events, and if that skill happen to fail 
 us, our conduct may become culpable. With the most 
 earnest desire to act righteously, we can only guess before- 
 hand whether what we propose doing will turn out to be 
 righteous, and can never be sure, therefore, that we are 
 not going to do something wicked.
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 27 
 
 Here I sliall, of course, and very properly, be reminded 
 that what UtiHtarianisni recjuircs to be taken into account, 
 are not merely the probable consequences of some pro- 
 posed act, but the usual consequences of all acts of the 
 same description ; so that its disciples, instead of being 
 left to their conjectures about the future, may be said to 
 have all past experience to refer to. And undeniably 
 Utilitarianism does require this ; thereby, however, con- 
 tradicting itself as, I just now hinted, it \\ould presently 
 be found doing. It does indeed declare those actions only 
 to be moral which in the long run are conducive to, or at 
 least not opposed to, the general happiness ; but it also 
 says that the morality of each particular action depends 
 on its own particular consequences. So that the docile 
 disciple who should do something which, though useful in 
 the long run, happened to be otherwise in his particular 
 case — who, for instance, should save the life of a fellow- 
 creature of whom it would have been well for the world to be 
 rid, would, to his disgust and bewilderment, find that while, 
 with no desire but that of acting rightly, he had been obey- 
 ing one utilitarian law, he had nevertheless been infringing 
 another law of the same code, and thereby acting wrongly. 
 
 Overlooking, however, this incongruity of two equally 
 authoritative rules, let us proceed to consider what dan- 
 gerous latitude of interpretation is allowed to the followers 
 of cither of them. Those who believe that the merit or 
 demerit of each separate action depends on that action's 
 separate consequences, need seldom be at a loss for a 
 pretext for committing the most heinous of crimes. A 
 husband who, hating his wife, had his hate returned, and 
 loving another woman, had his love returned, might 
 plausibly reason thus within himself: The prescribed
 
 28 ANTI- UTILITA RIANISM. 
 
 objects of life are the multiplication of happiness and the 
 diminution of misery ; here are three of us, all doomed 
 to be miserable as long as we all three live ; but the 
 wretchedness of two of us might be at once converted into 
 happiness, if the third were put out of the way. By some 
 such logical process, Queen Mar}^ and Bothwell may have 
 satisfied themselves of the propriety of blowing up 
 Darnley : Mr. and Mrs. Manning, as they sate at meat 
 wath their destined victim over his ready-made grave, may 
 have argued themselves into self-approval of the crowning 
 rite with which their hospitalities were to terminate : any 
 scampish apprentice with designs upon his master's till, 
 any burglar plotting an entry into a goldsmith's shop, may 
 become convinced of his rectitude of purpose, and even 
 take credit for public-spirited zeal, in seeking to appro- 
 priate to his own use part of another's wealth, which he 
 may fairly suppose would be productive of more enjoy- 
 ment if divided between two or more than if left in the 
 hands of one, and that one already perhaps the possessor 
 of more than he knows what to do with. 
 
 Precisely the same sophistry will not indeed suffice for 
 those disciples who, adopting the alternative law of the 
 utilitarian code, feel bound to attend to the consequences 
 not of individual actions, but of classes of actions. The 
 cleverest self-deceiver can scarcely bring himself to believe 
 that, because it might suit his personal convenience to kill 
 or steal, killing and stealing would not be prejudicial to 
 society if generally practised. Still, it is only necessary to 
 have, or to fancy one has, public instead of private objects 
 in view, in order to be able to look with approbation, from 
 an utilitarian point of view, on any amount of homicide or 
 robbery. It was the very same Robespierre that, while as
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 29 
 
 yet diocesan judge at Arras, felt constrained to abdicate 
 because, ' behold, one day comes a culprit whose crime 
 merits hanging, and strict-minded, strait-laced Max's con- 
 science will not permit the dooming of any son of Adam 
 to die,' who, shortly after, when sufficientl}' imbued with 
 the utilitarian spirit, was fully prepared to wade through 
 floods of slaughter towards the enthronisation of his prin- 
 ciples — one of those principles evidently being that, if the 
 decimation of mankind would conduce to the greater 
 happiness of the residue, adding more to the happiness of 
 the nine-tenths whom it spared than it took from the 
 tenth whom it destro}'cd, the said decimation would 
 be a duty incumbent on any one possessed of power to 
 perpetrate it. 
 
 Nor are principles like these appealed to only by those 
 who have recourse to them for the vindication of their own 
 procedure. At those petits-soiipcrs — bachelors' dinners is 
 their modern English name, nodes ccencsque denm their 
 ancient classical — for which some of our London clubs are 
 deservedly celebrated, and with which the Garrick in 
 especial is, in my mind, gratefully associated — at those 
 choice gatherings of congenial spirits, conversation, chang- 
 ing from gay to grave, turns not unfrequcntl}', among other 
 lofty topics, on that which we are here discussing. Then, 
 even at such divine .symposium, one at least of the guests 
 is pretty sure to take the part of devil's advocate, and to 
 exercise his forensic skill in showing how easily inter- 
 changeable are the names of virtue and iniquity, crime 
 and well-doing. September massacres then find, not their 
 apologist, but their eulogist. Noyadcs of Carrier, fusilades 
 of CoUot d'Hcrbois, are cited as examples verj- suitable for 
 imitation in adequate emergencies. Prussia's seizure, on
 
 30 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 behalf of Germany, of Schleswig and Holstein, on pretence 
 of their being not Danish, but German, and her subsequent 
 retention of them for herself on the plea of their having 
 always been not German, but Danish, are applauded as 
 acts perfectly consistent with each other and with the 
 eternal fitness of things. And all this is urged in the best 
 possible faith. Of the recited enormities, were not some, 
 steps to the regeneration of France — others, to the unifac- 
 tion of Germany } And what are myriads of lives in 
 comparison with a regenerate— what violation of the most 
 solemn engagements in comparison with a united, people "i 
 Did not the millions of Frenchmen who sui-vived the Reign 
 of Terror gain more than was lost by the thousands who 
 were guillotined at Paris, or drowned at Nantes, or shot 
 down at Lyons } Is not Germany likely to turn Kiel to 
 far better account than Denmark ever did or could have 
 done .^ and will not German ascendency be abundant com- 
 pensation for Danish decadence } How culpably misplaced, 
 then, were conscientious scruples that would have impeded 
 the march of events in such directions ! Ends need but to 
 be great enough to justify any means. Let but the good 
 promise to exceed the evil, and there is no evil which ought 
 not to be done in order that good may come of it. Thus 
 slightly qualified, the Satanic adage, 'Evil, be thou my 
 good,' is, without more ado, accepted as the utilitarian 
 watchword. 
 
 And what though it be only the most thorough-paced 
 Utilitarians who go these extreme lengths t These lengths, 
 extreme as they are, are legitimate deductions from tenets 
 held in common by the most moderate and cautious as 
 well as by the most reckless of the sect. Crime in the 
 abstract is condemned not less vehemently by the latter
 
 A NTI- UriLITA RIA NISM. 3 1 
 
 than by the former ; but by both equally it is condemned 
 on account, not of its inherent vileness, but solely of its 
 observed results. If the results were different, the agency 
 to which they are due would be fitted with a different 
 epithet. If a world could be conceived to be so organised, 
 or, if this world of ours could be conceived to be so changed 
 as that the practice of killing, stealing, or telling lies would 
 be conducive to the general good, the practice in question 
 would obtain a new name in the Utilitarian vocabulary. 
 Crime would become beneficence ; and to kill, to steal, or 
 to tell lies would be not wrong, but right. These are 
 propositions which, without abjuring the prime articles of 
 his creed, the most timid Utilitarian has no alternative but 
 to endorse ; but how, then, can he shut his eyes to their 
 obvious application } How presume to rebuke those 
 earnest philanthropists, who, to judge from their habitual 
 language, are firmly of opinion that annihilation of one 
 half of mankind would be a small price to pay for conver- 
 sion of the other moiety into citizens of a world-wide Red 
 Republic ; or those admirers of Prince Bismarck, who, hold- 
 ing national aggrandisement to be the national suinniuui 
 bonuvi, deem the most solemn treaties that might impede 
 it to be obstacles which it is obligatory on a patriot to set 
 aside.'' Will not the effects of an)- given cause vary with 
 the changes in the circumstances in which the cause acts "> 
 May it not easily happen that the direct effect of some 
 private crime shall be to augment, instead of to diminish 
 the total happiness of all the persons affected by it } And 
 is it not, then, conceivable that a public crime, provided it 
 be of sufficient magnitude, may more than counterpoise, 
 by the good it is calculated to do, all the harm that all 
 crimes of the same description either have done or are
 
 32 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 likely to do hereafter? It is Idle to reply that such a 
 comparison between public good and evil must needs be 
 mistaken : that the harm, for instance, which violation of 
 treaties does to mankind by sapping the foundations of 
 international confidence, rendering impossible international 
 co-operation, and bringing the very name of international 
 morality into contempt, is infinitely beyond any good it 
 can do in the shape of national aggrandisement. Whether 
 this be so or not is matter of opinion, on which every one 
 may fairly insist on forming his own, and if that opinion 
 be in the negative, a utilitarian agent, in Prince Bismarck's 
 circumstances, would be bound in duty to imitate Prince 
 Bismarck's high-handed policy. In all circumstances of 
 international import, in all cases bearing upon the general 
 interests of society, a Utilitarian, after deciding according 
 to his lights which of the various courses open to him 
 would best promote the general welfare, either immediately 
 by its direct effects, or subsequently and indirectly by the 
 example it would set, would be bound in duty to adopt 
 that course. That course, however wrong it might have 
 appeared in all previous cases, would now become right, as 
 being apparently the one most conducive to the future 
 welfare of mankind. Utilitarianism's standard of morality 
 thus turns out to be, not any fixed and definite notion of 
 expediency, but one liable to change with every change in 
 individual judgment. Its boasted criterion of the right or 
 wrong of an action is the best conjecture which the agent, 
 with or without extrinsic advice, is able to form of the 
 future consequences of the action. Utilitarian law, in 
 short, resolves itself Into this — that every man shall be a 
 law unto himself. Of course no Utilitarians will acknow- 
 ledge this to be their law, not even those who shape their
 
 ANTI- UTILITA RIA NISM. 33 
 
 conduct in exact conformity to it. Nevertheless, that such 
 is the law follows necessarily from their own premises. 
 For does not Utilitarianism sometimes — a little heedlessly, 
 perhaps, but not the less positively — declare that the 
 morality of aii action depends not at all upon its motives, 
 but exclusivcl}' upon its consequences ? Does it not, when 
 most guarded in its language, affirm the morality of actions 
 to depend upon their tendencies, that is to say, on their 
 consequences at large, and in the long run ? But there can 
 never be perfect certainty as to consequences. With regard 
 to the future, plausible conjecture is the utmost possible ; 
 and by differing judgments different conjectures will needs 
 be made. So that the value of the rule of conduct furnished 
 by Utilitarianism to any individual depends upon the 
 latter's ability, supplemented by that of any counsellors 
 whom he may consult, to forecast events. He cannot pro- 
 ceed correctly, except in so far as he or they have the gift 
 of prophecy. However dull his vision ma}' be, he must 
 content himself with his own blind guidance, unless he 
 prefer as guide some one who, for aught he can tell, may 
 be as blind as himself And it is always for himself to 
 judge whether he will follow advice : so that in effect every 
 Utilitarian is his own moral law-gi\-cr ; and, ccrtainl}-, a 
 worse assignment of legislative functions cannot be imagined. 
 But the mischievousness of Utilitarianism does not stop 
 here. We have seen how one of its principles destroys the 
 landmarks between right and wrong, between virtue and 
 vice, causing each to take continually the place of its oppo- 
 site. We have now to see how another of its principles 
 obliterates all distinctions between different kinds of virtue, 
 confounding them in one indiscriminate mass, and imparting 
 to them a sort of general oneness not more lucid than that
 
 34 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 which, according to Mr. Curdle, is the essence of the dra- 
 matic unities. 
 
 The object which it insists upon as conduct's end and 
 aim is the general good — the greatest possible aggregate 
 of good or happiness for all. As the Scriptures enjoin us, 
 Avhether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, to do all to 
 the glory of God, so Utilitarianism exhorts us to do all for 
 the welfare of mankind. Now, far be it from me to carica- 
 ture this soul-inspiring rule by forcing it, under a strained 
 construction, to an unnatural extreme. Fairly examined, 
 it will be seen to make no extravagant demands on our 
 self-denial. As Christianity, even while bidding us to seek 
 first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, promises 
 that all other things shall be added unto us, so Utilita- 
 rianism, even while insisting on our seeking first to please 
 others, permits, nay, directs, us to take as much pleasure 
 for ourselves as we can lay hold of without depriving 
 others, since the aggregate of happiness which it is incum- 
 bent upon us to augment to the best of our ability would 
 othenvise be less. Nay, for the same reason, it disapproves 
 of our foregoing any pleasure of our own, the full equiva- 
 lent of which is not transferred to others. The happiness 
 which it requires us to attend to is that of a society of 
 which each of us is a component member, and no member 
 of which can deny himself any pleasure within his reach, 
 and beyond the reach of others, without diminishing the 
 total of happiness which the whole society might enjoy. 
 ' As between his own happiness and that of others,' says 
 Mr. Mill, ' Utilitarianism requires an agent to be as strictly 
 impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.' 
 Thus qualified, the prescribed subordination of one's own 
 to the general good is no such extravagantly self-denying
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 35 
 
 ordinance. If for anything, it mi^^lit rather be reproached 
 for its cold, calculating cquit}'. With reference quite as 
 much to individual as to communal happiness it is an 
 excellent rule of conduct, against which not a word could 
 be said, provided only it were left to be adopted volun- 
 tarily, and were not authoritatively imposed. 
 
 Unfortunately, however. Utilitarianism allows no option 
 in the matter. Unless we do our very utmost to promote 
 the general weal, at \\hatcvcr sacrifice to ourselves, it 
 charges us with sin of omission. In the ^\•ords of one of 
 the ablest among able Editors, 'justice is the social idea in 
 
 its highest, widest, and most binding expression 
 
 It signifies the moral principle which obliges each so to 
 shape his conduct and relations, his claims and his achieve- 
 ments, that they harmonise with the highest good of all.' ' 
 To which doctrine of Mr. Morley's, if other Utilitarians do 
 not subscribe, it can only be because they are less resolutely 
 logical. Mr. Mill, indeed, though dissenting in appearance 
 on this point from Mr. Morley, agrees with him in sub- 
 stance. Even when on one occasion, distinguishing between 
 duty and virtue, he says that there are innumerable acts 
 and forbearances of human beings which, though cither 
 causes or hindrances of good to their fellow-creatures. He 
 beyond the domain of duty, and within that of \irtue or 
 merit, he goes on to assign as the solo reason for placing 
 them in the domain of the latter that, in respect to them, 
 it is, on the whole, for the general interest that people 
 should be left free, thereby plainly intimating that society 
 would be equitably entitled to insist on them if it thought 
 proper. But conduct that can be equitably insisted on is 
 clearly, in the strictest sense, duty ; and it would be pre- 
 
 ' ' Fortnightly Review,' June, 1S6S.
 
 36 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 posterous to claim merit for doing that which it would be 
 a breach of duty to leave undone. Duties do not cease 
 to be duties because he on whom they are incumbent is 
 not compelled under penalty to perform them, any more 
 than debts cease to be debts because creditors do not 
 choose to ask for payment. All consistent utilitarian 
 teaching points inflexibly towards Mr. Morley's conclusion, 
 according to which justice and social virtue are absolutely 
 identical, and according to which, also, whoever does not 
 shape his ' conduct, &c., in harmony with the highest good 
 of all,' does less than is due from him, while it is impossible 
 for him to do more. For whatever he propose to do must 
 either be or not be in the prescribed harmony. If it be, 
 he is bound to do it. If not, he is bound not to do it. The 
 very utmost he can do is no more than is incumbent upon 
 him. Less than his very utmost is less than is incumbent. 
 No action of his, therefore, can possess any merit ; for mere 
 fulfilment of obligations is reckoned not of grace, but of 
 debt. Having done eveiything, he is still but an unprofit- 
 able servant ; he has but done that which was his duty to 
 do. Where, then, is the boast of virtue } It is excluded. 
 By what law } By that of Utilitarianism, set forth in its full 
 amplitude. Honesty and generosity, faith, truth, charity, 
 patient endurance, and chivalrous self-devotion, all are 
 mingled together under the name of justice, and justice 
 itself only remains just as long as it remains identical with 
 the largest expediency. 
 
 At this rate we cannot possibly have any virtue to plume 
 ourselves upon. The best we can do being no more than 
 our duty, the only reward we can claim is exemption from 
 the punishment we should have deserved if we had not 
 done it. Whether it be that we have abstained from
 
 ANTI-UriLITARIANlSM. 37 
 
 killing or robbing our fcllow-citizcns for our own advan- 
 tage, or have impovcri.shcd or half-killed ourselves in the 
 service of the State, our meed is the same. Loris non 
 iireris. Non pasccs in cnicc corvos, is ^\•hat we are told. 
 We may congratulate ourselves on having escaped the 
 cat-o'-nine-tails and the gallows. Well, we have, most of 
 us, so much self-sufficienc}', that to deprive us of all ground 
 for it might be a fault on the right side. But now comes a 
 second and more awkward reflection. If you will not of 
 your own accord do your duty, those to whom performance 
 of the duty is owing have a right to use means to make 
 you — foul means if fair means will not avail. If, then, you 
 hesitate to do your utmost for the interests of society, 
 society is warranted in taking measures to accelerate }'our 
 movement. If }ou are not, or what is practically the same 
 thing, if a numerical majority of your fellow-citizens think 
 you are not, making the most beneficial use of )-our pro- 
 perty ; if it be generally considered that it would be for 
 the greater good of the greater number to divide your park 
 and garden into peasant properties and cottage allotments, 
 to double the wages of the workmen in your employment, 
 or to subject you and the likes of }-ou to a graduated 
 income tax for the purpose of setting up national workshops 
 to compete with }-ou in )-our own trade ; and, if }'0u do 
 not readily enter into the same views, then the said nume- 
 rical majority are not simply w'arranted in taking the law 
 into their own hands and doing, in spite of you, what they 
 think ought to be done with your property, but would be 
 culpably remiss if they neglected so to act. 
 
 Now it is needless to dwell on the extent to which that 
 large numerical majority of our fellow-citizens which con- 
 sists of the working classes is imbued with this notion, nor,
 
 38 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 except to those who are similarly imbued, can it be neces- 
 sary to insist that there is no notion of which it is more 
 indispensable to disabuse the working-class mind. This, 
 accordingly, I strove to do throughout a recent work of 
 mine, ' On Labour,' particularly in the chapter which treats 
 of the claims and rights thereof. I there earnestly pleaded 
 that there may be, and arc, private rights independent of 
 utility which no public needs can cancel ; that all which any 
 man, or set of men, is entitled to exact from another is 
 payment or fulfilment of \\'hat is due to him or them from 
 that other ; that unless the poverty of the many has been 
 caused by the few, the many are not warranted in extorting 
 relief of their wants from the few ; that the mere circum- 
 stance of their being without food or w^ork does not entitle 
 the poor to be fed or employed by the rich, for that there 
 is likewise a justice independent of and superior to utility, 
 consisting simply of respect for rights, while injustice con- 
 sists simply of violation of rights. 
 
 In so arguing, I ran directly counter to Utilitarianism, 
 provoking thereby a retaliatory assault from Utilitarianism's 
 tutelary champion, who, as readers of the ' Fortnightly 
 Review ' ' are aware, bore down upon me with an energy 
 no whit the less effective for being tempered with all 
 knightly courtesy. Yet, not to say it vaingloriously, I am 
 not conscious of having been shaken in the saddle, and I 
 now return to the encounter with modest assurance, firmly 
 believing mine to be the better cause, and recollecting too 
 that in a contest with Mr. Mill, let the issue be what it 
 may, I may at least comfort myself with the reflection 
 
 Minus tuipe vinci quam contendisse decorum. 
 
 ' See the No. for June, 1869.
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 39 
 
 I must at the outset be permitted to remark that one or 
 two of Mr. Mill's objections to my statements are based 
 upon misconception of their meaning. I never questioned, 
 but, on the contrary, have always in the distinctest terms 
 admitted that society is perfectly at liberty to put an end 
 to the institution of property in land. No extrcmest 
 Socialist ever went beyond me in proclaiming that the 
 ' earth was bestowed by the Creator, not on any privileged 
 class or classes, but on all mankind and on all successive 
 generations of men, so that no one generation can have 
 more than a life interest in the soil, or be entitled to alienate 
 the birthright of succeeding generations.' ' No one more fully 
 recognises that property in land exists only on sufferance 
 and by concession, and that society, which made the 
 concession, may at any moment take it back on giving full 
 compensation to the concessioners. 
 
 Again, when asserting the inviolability of moveable, as 
 distinguished from landed, property, I was careful to limit 
 the assertion to property honestly acquired. I never 
 supposed it possible to acquire by prescription ' a fee 
 simple in an injustice.' Only, if in any particular instance 
 it be suspected that property has been acquired by force, 
 fraud, or jobber}', I contend that the onus probandi lies on 
 him who raises the question. It is for him to show, if he 
 can, that a commercial fortune has, as Mr. Mill suggests, 
 been built up by 'jobbing contracts, profligate loans, or 
 other reprehensible practices.' Ikit if this cannot be shown, 
 the validity of the actual possessor's title must not be 
 impugned. Property must be ti'eated as of innocent acqui- 
 sition and derivation until proved to be of guilty. And 
 that not merel}' because there could otherAvise be no rights 
 
 ' ' On Labour,' p. 93.
 
 40 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 of property at all, since it must always be impossible 
 for any owner to demonstrate that neither he nor any one 
 of those from whom he derives ever either overreached in a 
 bargain or failed in a contract ; but also, and much more, 
 because whether a person be or be not the rightful owner 
 of the wealth in his possession, no one can possibly be 
 entitled to despoil him unless the wealth can be shown to 
 have been ill-gotten. That right must be held to be com- 
 plete with which no one can show a right to interfere. 
 
 The gravest, however, of Mr. Mill's criticisms is that 
 mine is ' a doctrine a priori, claiming to command assent 
 by its own light, and to be evident by simple intuition.' 
 This is an imputation to which I am so unaware of having 
 laid myself open that I can account for its having been 
 made only on the supposition that Mr. ]\Iill, in common 
 with most other Utilitarians, imagines that their only 
 opponents are Intuitionists, and that it is onl}' necessary to 
 set aside the tenets of these in order to get their own 
 established instead. If this were really the case, utilitarian 
 advocacy would be a comparatively easy task. Intui- 
 •tionism, whether capable or not of being disproved, is by 
 its nature unsusceptible of decisive proof. If I, in support 
 of the proposition that there is in the human mind an 
 intuitive sense of any sort, were to assert that I had such a 
 sense while you denied that you had, it would be impossible 
 for me to prove }'ou to be mistaken, while, unless you were 
 mistaken as to your individual experience, I should clearly 
 be mistaken as to the generalisation which I had based 
 upon mine. But I never said a word about an intuitive 
 sense of right and wrong. How could I, seeing, as no one 
 who chooses to look can fail to see, that the instincts of 
 untutored children prompt them to disregard all rights but
 
 AN71 UTILITARIANISM. 41 
 
 their own, to spit cockchafers, rob birds' nests, and con- 
 fiscate younger children's cakes and apples ? All I say is 
 that there may be and are rights independent of and even 
 opposed to utility, and these, for reasons which shall im- 
 mediately be stated, I call natural rights ; but I do not 
 say that they arc intuitively perceived. As for sense of 
 justice or of duty, or moral sense or facult}', what I under- 
 stand by that is not recognition of certain rights or duties 
 as such, but recognition of the obligation to respect Avhatever 
 rights and to fulfil whatever duties are recognised, accord- 
 ing to which definition it is mere tautology to add that the 
 sense or faculty in question originates simultaneously with 
 the recognition of any rights or duties. For inasmuch as 
 rights invariably imply corresponding obligations — inas- 
 much as if a thing be rightfully claimed, that same thing 
 must needs be due or owing, it is of course impossible to 
 perceive that a thing is owing without perceiving at the 
 same moment that it ougJit to be paid. On this account, 
 and with this explanation, I should not scruple to speak of 
 the moral sense as intuitive ; but if for that reason I am to 
 be called an Intuitionist, so equally must Mr, Mill, for he has 
 said precisely the same thing. He likewise has said that 
 'the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural 
 out-growth from it, capable, in a certain small degree, of 
 springing up spontaneously,' 
 
 II, 
 
 By my avowal of a belief in ' Natural Rights,' I feel that I 
 must have incurred in philosophic quarters a sort of civil 
 contempt, which I am very desirous of removing, and
 
 42 ANTI- UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 which \\\\\, I trust, be somewhat dimniished on my pro- 
 ceeding to explain how few and elementary are the rights 
 that I propose for naturalisation. They are but two in 
 number, and they arc these: — (i) Absolute right, except 
 in so far as the same may have been forfeited by mis- 
 conduct or modified by consent, to deal in any way one 
 pleases, not noxious to other people, with one's own self or 
 person ; (2) right equally absolute to dispose similarly of 
 the produce either of one's own honest industry, or of 
 that of others whose rights in connection with it have 
 been honestly acquired by oneself. I call these ' rights,' 
 because there cannot possibly anywhere exist either the 
 right to prevent their being exercised, or any rights with 
 which they can clash, and because, therefore, by their 
 freest exercise, no one can possibly be wronged, while to 
 interfere with their exercise would be to wrong their pos- 
 sessor. And I call them ' natural,' because they are not 
 artificially created, and have no need of external ratifi- 
 cation. Whoever thinks proper to deny this — whoever, as 
 all Utilitarians do, contends that society is entitled to 
 interfere with the rights which I have called natural, is 
 bound to attempt to show how society became so en- 
 titled ; when for the claim he puts forward on society's 
 behalf he Avill find it impossible to produce any plausible 
 pretext, without crediting society with possession of .a 
 right belonging to that same ' natural ' class, the exist- 
 ence of which he denies. For, as there can be no rights 
 without corresponding obligations or duties, if it be really 
 the right of society to deal at its discretion with the 
 persons or effects of individuals, it must be incumbent on 
 individuals to permit themselves and w^hatever is theirs 
 to be so dealt with. Have, then, individuals incurred any
 
 ANTJ-LTILJTARIANISM. 4 
 
 such obligation ? No obligation, be it remembered, can 
 arise, except through some antecedent act of one or other 
 or both of the parties concerned. Either a pledge of 
 some sort must have been given or a benefit of some 
 sort must have been received. Now undoubtedly there 
 are no limits to the extent to which society and its indi- 
 vidual members might have reciprocally pledged them- 
 selves. It might have been stipulated by their articles 
 of association that society at large should do its utmost 
 for the welfare of each of its members, and that each of 
 its members should do his utmost for the welfare of 
 society at large. But it is certain, either that no such 
 compact ever was made, or that, if made, it has always 
 been systematically set at nought. Society has never 
 made much pretence of troubling itself about the welfare 
 of individuals, except in certain specified particulars ; so 
 that, even if individuals had, on condition of being treated 
 with reciprocal solicitude, accepted the obligation of at- 
 tending to the welfare of society in other than the same 
 particulars, that conditional obligation would from the 
 commencement have been null and v^oid. The one thing 
 which society invariabl}' pledges itself to do is to protect 
 person and propcrt}', and by implication to enforce per- 
 formance of contracts ; and the two things ^^■hich indi- 
 vidual associates in turn pledge themselves to do are to 
 abstain from molesting each other's persons and propert}', 
 and to assist society in protecting both. In so abstain- 
 ing and so assisting consist all those ' many acts and the 
 still greater number of forbearances, the perpetual prac- 
 tice of which by all is,' as Mr. Mill says, ' universally 
 deemed to be so necessary to the general well-being, that 
 people must be held to it compulsorily, either by law or
 
 44 ANTI- UTI LIT ARIA NISM. 
 
 by social pressure.' ^ Under one or other of these two 
 heads may be ranged everything that individuals owe to 
 society in return for the mere protection which they re- 
 ceive from it. 
 
 True, there is an universal understanding that indi- 
 viduals shall be subject to any laws, whether wise or 
 foolish, provided only they be of equal and impartial 
 operation, which may be enacted by a numerical majority 
 of the community to which the individuals belong ; and 
 in this manner individuals may become bound by any 
 number of miscellaneous pledges, society acquiring simul- 
 taneously the right to hold individuals to the perform- 
 ance of those pledges. Thus, if by the vote of an 
 unimpeachably representative House of Commons it were 
 declared to be for the general good, and agreed to ac- 
 cordingly, that every one should be vaccinated or cir- 
 cumcised, it would be incumbent on every one to submit 
 quietly to vaccination or circumcision, how^ever deleterious 
 the operation might be deemed by some. Or if, im- 
 proving upon a hypothetical suggestion of iMr. Mill, a par- 
 liament elected by constituencies in which the labouring- 
 class element greatly predominated, should prospectively 
 forbid the accumulation by any individual of property 
 beyond a specified amount, then, though the almost 
 certain consequence would be that the prescribed limit of 
 accumulation would not be exceeded, still if it were ex- 
 ceeded, the accumulator could not justly complain when 
 the surplus was forfeited according to law. Yet even thus 
 the obligations or duties created will correspond exactly 
 with the pledges given ; none will be incurred except such 
 
 ' 'Fortnightly Review' for June, 1869, p. 683.
 
 ANTI-UriLITARIANISM. 45 
 
 as have been imposed by special legislation — nor even 
 those, unless the legislation have been impartial. A law 
 requiring people to pay poor's-rates would not suffice as 
 a pretext for requiring them to pay education rates like- 
 wise. Neither if, instead of passing the prospective law 
 just now supposed, a governing majority which had pre- 
 viously always permitted the indefinite accumulation of 
 wealth, were retrospectively to decree the forfeiture of all 
 past accumulations beyond a defined amount, would in- 
 dividuals be morally bound to submit to such a decree if 
 they could contrive to evade it, any more than sexqui- 
 pedalians would be bound to lay their heads on the block 
 in obedience to a law directing everybody six feet high 
 to be decapitated. All such partial legislation would be 
 tyrannical, and circumstances must be veiy peculiar in- 
 deed to make submission to tyranny a duty. But of all 
 conceivable legislation, none could possibl}' be more 
 partial, or therefore more tyrannical, than such as should 
 give to society a general power of dealing at its pleasure 
 with its associates, and of arbitrarily subjecting separate 
 classes or individuals to exceptional treatment. Even, 
 therefore, if a law to such monstrous effect were enacted, 
 it could have no morally binding force. It would be no 
 one's duty to acquiesce in it. 
 
 I will not here stop to dispute, though I am not sure 
 that I could without some slight reservation admit, that 
 the receipt of unasked-for benefits places the recipient 
 under precisely the same obligation to benefit his bene- 
 factor, as if the good received by him had been con- 
 ferred on express condition of his availing himself of the 
 first opportunity to render equal good. I will not stop 
 to dispute, for instance, that a person saved from drown-
 
 46 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 ing at the risk of his own rescuer's Hfe, would be bound, 
 on occasion arising, to risk his own hfe in order to save 
 his former rescuer's. For my immediate purpose, it may 
 suffice to remark that society has never been in the habit 
 of showing such parental solicitude for its component 
 members as would warrant its claiming filial devotion from 
 them. In the matter of philanthropy its practice has 
 never been in advance of its very moderate professions. 
 It has invariably contented itself with rendering certain 
 specific services, never failing to exact in return fully 
 equivalent services of each species. 
 
 In candour, however, there must be admitted to be 
 innumerable blessings not yet adverted to, including in- 
 deed most of those by the possession of which man is 
 distinguished from brutes, for which he is in so far in- 
 debted to society that, but for the instrumentality of 
 society, they would never have been his. Unless indi- 
 viduals had formed themselves into communities, civili- 
 zation could have made no sensible progress : there could 
 have been no considerable advances, material, intellectual, 
 moral, or aesthetic. Not only should we have been desti- 
 tute of all the comforts and luxuries that now surround 
 us, we .should have lacked also whatever cerebral deve- 
 lopment we have attained, together with all its con- 
 comitants and consequences ; whatever of intelligence, or 
 moral perceptiveness, or artistic taste we have to boast 
 of. Still, though none of these faculties could have made 
 much approach to maturity except under the shelter of 
 society, they are not gifts of society. Without the help 
 of a plough, land cannot be ploughed ; but we do not 
 therefore credit the ploughmaker with the achievem-cnts 
 of the ploughman. Neither is society to take to itself
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 47 
 
 praise because its members have made good use of the 
 protection ^^'llicl^, in consideration of stipulated services on 
 their part, it lias afforded them. Besides, whatever we 
 inherit from society, wc inherit from a society of members 
 no longer in being. Let the dead come to life again, 
 and it may then become us to examine their claims upon 
 our gratitude, but we need not meanwhile confound past 
 and present generations, nor our forefathers \\\\\\ our con- 
 temporaries. To the mass of these latter, at any rate, 
 we are none of us indebted for our brains or our aptitudes 
 of thought and feeling, and the circumstance of our being 
 joint sharers with them in patrimony bequeathed by a 
 common ancestry, affords no ver}' obvious reason why our 
 share of the inheritance, together with whatever else we 
 possess, should be at their absolute disposal. 
 
 Thus it appears that in no one of the ways in which 
 alone can originate the obligations which must always 
 precede or accompany artificially-created rights, has that 
 particular obligation arisen without which it is impossible 
 for society to obtain artificially the right of preventing 
 individuals from doing as they will with their own. No 
 sufficient pledge has been given by one side, no sufficient 
 benefit conferred by the other. Individuals never agreed 
 to place their all at the disposal of societ}' ; society never 
 rendered to individuals any ser\'ices entitling it to claim 
 such boundless gratitude. One service which it invariably 
 undertakes is that of protecting person and property. 
 This is its chief and primary dut}', the fulfilment of which 
 is always the first object of its institution, often the only 
 one it acknowledges. But clearl}- it cannot by perform- 
 ance of a duty acquire the right of doing the exact reverse 
 of that duty. It cannot by protecting acquire the right
 
 48 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 of molesting. It cannot by preventing person and pro- 
 perty from being meddled with, acquire in its corporate 
 capacity the right of itself meddling. Since then this 
 right of meddling, this right of disposing of what is ex- 
 clusively some individual's own, otherwise than the owner 
 wishes, has not been acquired by society artificially, it 
 must, if it do actually belong to society, have been come 
 by naturally ; and this accordingly is what Utilitarians 
 really, though perhaps unconsciously, assume, treating 
 moreover this gratuitous assumption of theirs as a self- 
 evident truth. 
 
 For, as Utilitarians themselves cannot fail on reflection 
 to perceive, they offer no shadow of argument in support 
 of that ' greatest happiness principle ' on which their whole 
 system rests. Commencing with the undeniable postulate 
 that happiness is the sole object of existence, and per- 
 ceiving that individual happiness alone would be a very 
 misleading object, they proceed to take quietly for granted 
 that the only happiness at which life ought to aim is social 
 happiness. Now, undoubtedly social happiness is of more 
 importance than individual happiness— the happiness of 
 many than that of one or a fcAv ; neither can there be any 
 worthier object of pursuit than the greatest happiness of 
 the greatest number. All this is seen without being said, 
 but what is by no means so easily seen is how it can be 
 incumbent on any one to pursue that object to his own 
 detriment — how it can be imperative on one or on a few 
 to sacrifice his or their happiness in order to promote that 
 of the many. Plainly such self-devotion cannot be for 
 their personal advantage, and Utilitarianism does not even 
 attempt to show how it can have become their dut}'. 
 Meritorious, magnanimous, heroic in the highest degree it
 
 ANTI-UTILirARIANJSM. 49 
 
 would certainly be, but does not that very circumstance 
 prove conclusively that it cannot be due, inasmuch as 
 there is nothing meritorious in merely doing one's duty 
 and paying one's debts ? But of that which is not due, 
 how can payment be riglitfully insisted upon ? What 
 the few are under no obligation to yield, how can the 
 many be entitled to extort, or how can the worthiness of 
 the latter's object excuse their doing that which they have 
 no right to do ? Is any object, however worthy, to be 
 pursued regardless of all collateral considerations ? To 
 these objections Utilitarians have no answer to make. All 
 they can do is tacitl)' to take for granted the disputed 
 duty and right. That the less ought to give way to the 
 greater, and the few to the many, and that the many may 
 rightfully therefore, if need be, use force to compel the less 
 or the few to give way — these are treated by them as 
 incontestable propositions, even as ' doctrines a priori, 
 claiming assent by their own light, evident by simple 
 intuition.' And although thus from their own inner con- 
 sciousness evolving the very first principles of their own 
 philosophy, the premises of their deduction that social 
 happiness is the proper aim in life, and that conduciveness 
 to such happiness is the test of morality — ' Intuitionists,' 
 strange to say, is the distinctive appellation which they 
 propose to affix to all those who hesitate to accept as 
 ethical foundation stones the results of their intuitional 
 evolution. 
 
 Scarcely by a taunt so readily rebuttable will anti- 
 Utilitarians be excited to speedier apprehension of the 
 nature of the lien which corporate self-interest is presumed 
 to-have upon individual self-devotion. Not the less tena- 
 ciously may they cling to their belief in the right of every 
 
 E
 
 so ANTI- UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 one to do as he will with whatever has come by fair means 
 into his exclusive and complete possession. Neither, I 
 venture to think, need less store be set by that right in 
 consequence of an objection very adroitly taken to it by 
 Mr. Mill, which, on account both of its inherent ingenuity 
 and of its having been addressed more immediately to 
 myself, it ^\'ould be inexcusable in me to leave unexamined. 
 In Mr. Mill's opinion, the right in question, even if valid, 
 would be valueless, because it would be neutralised by 
 precisely similar rights belonging to socict}-. If, he argues, 
 individuals are at liberty to do as they will \\\\\\ their own, 
 so likewise must society be. But ' existing social arrange- 
 ments and la^\' itself exist in virtue not only of the forbear- 
 ance, but of the active support of the labouring classes ' who 
 in every community constitute a numerical majority. This 
 working-class majority might then if the\' pleased with- 
 draw their support from existing arrangements, thereby 
 depriving person and property of social protection ; and by 
 merely threatening such withdrawal they could compel 
 individuals to acquiesce in their most extravagant de- 
 mands. ' They might bind the rich to take the whole 
 burden of taxation upon themselves. They might bind 
 them to give employment, at liberal wages, to a number 
 of labourers in a direct ratio to the amount of their in- 
 comes. They might enforce on them a total abolition of 
 inheritance and bequest.' Mr. Mill maintains that these 
 things, although exceedingly foolish, might according to 
 my principles, with perfect equity be done ; na}-, if I under- 
 stand him correctly, that according neither to mine nor 
 to any one else's principles can any adequate reason be 
 assigned why they should not be done, except that their 
 practical results would be baneful instead of beneficial.
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 51 
 
 And takini; this view, he is fully warranted in asking- 
 what it can matter that according to my theory ' an em- 
 ployer does no wron^- in making the use he docs of his 
 capital, .if the same theory would justify the employed 
 in compelling him by law to make a different use— if the 
 labourers would in no way infringe the definition of justice 
 by taking the matter into their own hands and establish- 
 ing by law an}' modification of the rights of property 
 which in their opinion would increase the remuneration of 
 their labour.' ' 
 
 My reply to this and to the -whole argument is the 
 following. So long as society continues to exist, societ}' 
 cannot divest itself of the primary function for the dis- 
 charge of which it was originally constituted. Society, 
 having come together in the first instance, tacitly pledged 
 to extend protection to each individual associate, cannot, 
 ^\•ithout breach of contract, withdraw that protection. It 
 may, indeed, make any impartial laws it pleases, and 
 attach any penalty it pleases to violation of any impartial 
 law, but it cannot in equit}-, whatever it ma}- in practice, 
 place any of its members outside the law ; neither, most 
 certainly, even if its competence did extend thus far, could 
 it go the farther length of conferring on any one the right 
 of doing ^\■rong to an outlaw. It may even be doubted 
 whether, if an outlaw were to injure an\' one still belonsrino- 
 to the societ}', an}- but the injured person himself would 
 be warranted in retaliating. The sole reason that I can 
 perceive why even he would is, that his . rights had been 
 infringed, and that reparation was due to him for any 
 damage sustained b}- him in consequence, while, on the 
 other hand, the aggressor had forfeited those rights of his 
 
 ' See ' Fortnightly Review' for June, 1S69, pp. 6S7-8. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 which might otherwise have forbidden the injured person 
 from taking the reparation due. But society had had 
 none of its rights infringed. By society no injury had been 
 sustained. To society, therefore, no reparation was due ; 
 and society, it seems to me, would have no right to insist 
 on exacting reparation not due to itself from one whom 
 it had forcibly extruded from its communion, and who, 
 therefore, was no longer amenable to its jurisdiction. So- 
 ciety might, indeed, dissolve itself, proclaiming that 'every 
 man for himself, and God for all,' should thencefonvard 
 be the rule. But although it might thus leave individual 
 rights without other defence than that of the owner, it 
 could not annihilate individual rights. It might cancel 
 the right to mutual protection, but it could not, in place 
 of that, create a right of mutual molestation. One's own 
 person and property would still be as much one's own as 
 before, and whoever outraged either would not be the less 
 a wrong doer because society permitted his wrong doing 
 to remain unpunished. In all ethical investigations it is 
 impossible to guard too watchfully against the smallest 
 approach to confusion of might with right. 
 
 Instead of being valueless, the particular rights of which 
 Mr. Mill speaks so disparagingly, appear to me to possess 
 a value which can scarcely be exaggerated. They are, 
 as may be readily perceived, identical with the two which 
 I have termed ' natural,' and of which I began by saying 
 that they are exceedingly elementary, but of which I have 
 now to add that they are also all-comprehensive, for that 
 there are no genuine rights whatever, however numerous 
 or complex, which neither are included within, nor branch 
 out from, them. This will be manifest on comparison of 
 them with the items enumerated in any other catalogue
 
 ANTJ-UTILITARIANISM. 53 
 
 of rights ; as, for instance, with the one drawn up by Mr. 
 Mill, according to whom all rights may be classified as 
 follows: — (1) Legal rights; (2) moral rights ; (3) the right 
 of every one to that which he deserves ; (4) the right to 
 fulfilment of engagements ; (5) right to impartiality of 
 treatment; (6) right to equality of treatment.' Each of 
 these varieties will repay a brief examination. 
 
 Under the head of ' legal ' rights are commonly placed, 
 not those only which are conferred, but those also which 
 are confirmed, by law. Such as law has merely confirmed, 
 however, are of course not the creatures of law. But it 
 is admitted on all hands that a law may be unjust — that 
 is to say, it may without consent from the parties con- 
 cerned, infringe some previously existing right — and as 
 the right so violated cannot have been created by law, 
 inasmuch as what law had been competent to create, law 
 would be equally competent to cancel — it is clear that 
 there must be rights other than those created by law, 
 rights whose origin was independent of, and anterior to, 
 law. It is apparently to rights of this description that 
 Mr. Mill applies the name of ' moral ' rights. Examples 
 of them are a man's rights to personal liberty and to pro- 
 perty in whatever belongs to him as having become his 
 by honest means, to both of which, unless he had forfeited 
 them by misconduct, he would be equally entitled, whether 
 liis title to them were or ^^■cre not recognised by law. The 
 only genuine rights which law can create, or consequently 
 can have to confer, are privileges in respect of person or 
 property other than one's own. Eut such legalised privi- 
 leges are not necessarily rights. Whether they are so 
 actually or not depends mainly on the character of the 
 
 » ' Utilitarianism,' by J. S. Mill, pp. 64-S.
 
 54 ANTI- UT I LIT ARIA NISM. 
 
 legislative authority, A right to interfere with rights not 
 based upon law cannot be conferred without the consent 
 of the parties in whom the independent rights are vested, 
 given either directly by themselves or indirectly through 
 their representatives. If a legislative body be truly and 
 thoroughly representative of the community which it con- 
 trols, then every one of its enactments, however bad or 
 foolish, is virtually an engagement to which every member 
 of the community is a party, and any privilege arising out 
 of it becomes to all intents and purposes a right. If, on 
 the other hand, the legislative authority be autocratic, or 
 if it represent only certain favoured sections of the com- 
 munity, then none of its enactments, however wise and 
 good, of which a majority of the public disapprove, and 
 which interfere with the rights termed by Mr. Mill ' moral,' 
 are morally binding, except on the legislators themselves 
 and their immediate constituents. Any one else may quite 
 blamelessly break the law, and resist any privilege thereby 
 created, though he must, of course, be prepared, in case 
 of detection, to take the legal consequences of his dis- 
 obedience. For example, protective duties, however im- 
 politic, if imposed because a majority of the nation were 
 of opinion that a certain branch of domestic industry had 
 better be fostered by protection, could not be evaded 
 without injustice to those engaged in the protected in- 
 dustry, though there would be no injustice in smuggling, 
 if they had been imposed in opposition to the general 
 sense of the public by a packed Parliament or an absolute 
 monarch. The same legal monopoly, which in the one case 
 could not be justly evaded, could not in the other be justly 
 enforced. A legal privilege, in short, becomes a right only 
 when a majority of those at whose expense it is to be
 
 ANTI- UTILITA RIANISM. 5 5 
 
 exercised, have formally consented either directly or in- 
 directly to its beintj exercised ; and it then becomes a ri^ht 
 solely because an eni^aL^ement has been entered into, in 
 virtue of which, whatever is requisite for its satisfaction 
 has become (^wc. Thus it appears that, whatever legal 
 rights are genuine, and are not at the same time ' moral ' 
 rights also, resolve themselves into specimens of the right 
 to fulfilment of engagements, and belong not more to the 
 first than to the fourth of Mr. Mill's categories, to which 
 latter, therefore, we ma)- at once transfer our attention. 
 
 Why is it, then, that every one has a right to fulfilment 
 of engagements, to have faith kept with him, to have 
 promises observed .'' Solely, as it seems to me, because 
 whatever has been promised to any one becomes eventually 
 his due, and because whatever is due or owing ought to be 
 paid. A promise is nothing less than a prospective transfer 
 of property in some thing, or in the advantage derivable 
 from some action, and when the time appointed for making 
 the transfer arrives, whatever has been promised, whether 
 actually transferred or not, becomes the complete property 
 of, and in the fullest sense of the word belongs to him to 
 whom it has been promised ; so that the right to fulfilment 
 of engagements resolves itself into the moral right of every 
 one to have that which belongs to him, and we have 
 already seen that e\ery legal right which cannot on other 
 grounds be shown to be a moral right resolves itself into a 
 right to fulfilment of an engagement. Whence it follows 
 that there are no legal rights whatever which are not 
 likewise moral rights, and which might not therefore be 
 equally rights, even though they had ne\-cr been legalised. 
 Whence, and from what has just been obser\-ed with 
 respect to the right to fulfilment of engagements, it further
 
 56 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 follows that of the five branches of Mr. Mill's classification, 
 the first and fourth may without inconvenience be dis- 
 pensed with, and that the second will suffice to do duty for 
 itself and for the other two. 
 
 We have next to consider a person's right to that which 
 he deserves, with reference to which, and to my assertion 
 that there is no necessary correspondence between the 
 remuneration which a labourer ought to receive and either 
 his merits or his needs, Mr. Mill inquires as follows :— *If 
 justice be an affair of intuition, if we are guided to it by 
 the immediate and spontaneous perceptions of the moral 
 sense, what doctrines of justice are there on which the 
 human race would more instantaneously and with one 
 accord put the stamp of its recognition than these — that it 
 is just that each should have what he deser\'es, and that, 
 in the dispensation of good things, those whose wants are 
 the most urgent should have the preference 1 ' But surely 
 however just it be that each should have what he deserves, 
 it is so only on condition that he have it from those from 
 whom it is due, and do not take it from those from whom 
 it is not due. The latter, surely, at least as much deser\^e 
 to be allowed to keep what they have already by honest 
 means got, as others to get what they have not yet got. But 
 if so, then that these should be deprived of their deserts, in 
 order that those may get theirs, is surely about the very 
 last doctrine that ought to be put forward as self-evident 
 and intuitive. 'But,' Mr. Mill proceeds to ask, 'if there 
 be in the natural constitution of things something patently 
 unjust, something contrary to sentiments of justice, which 
 sentiments, being intuitive, are supposed to have been 
 implanted in us by the same Creator who made the order 
 Oif things that they protest against — do not these senti-
 
 ANTI-UTILIl ARIANISM. 57 
 
 mcnts impose upon us the duty of striving by all human 
 means to repair the injustice ? And if, on the contrary, 
 we avail ourselves of it for our own personal advantage, do 
 we not make ourselves participators in injustice, allies and 
 auxiliaries of the Evil Principle ? ' ' Now, as I have 
 already said, I am myself no intuitionist, but if I were, I 
 should not the less feel warranted in here replying that 
 by no theory of justice, intuitive or other, can the passive 
 spectator of an injustice to which he is no party be bound 
 to assist in repairing the injustice, simply because he has 
 the means. A creditor denied payment of his fair debts 
 docs not get what he deserves ; but upon whom, except 
 the defaulting debtor, docs it therefore become incumbent 
 to repair the latter's injustice by paying his debts ? And 
 if there be in the general order of mundane affairs, as — • 
 provided I may attribute the existence of it, as of all other 
 evil, not to God, but to the devil — I don't mind admitting 
 there may be — something which prevents many of our 
 fellow-creatures from getting their deserts, something con- 
 trary, therefore, to our sentiments of justice whether those 
 sentiments have been implanted in us by the Creator or 
 not, I still maintain that those sentiments do not impose 
 upon us the duty of striving to correct the injustice. They 
 necessarily stimulate us more or less powerfully, according 
 to their own intrinsic strength, to undertake that noblest 
 of all tasks, but they do not render it imperativ^e upon us. 
 Whether, if we actively avail ourselves of the injustice for 
 our own profit — though this, by the way, is no more than 
 every one of us does who takes advantage of competition 
 among labourers to obtain labour for a less price than he 
 perceives it to be worth — we are not making ourselves 
 
 1 ' Fortnightly Review' for June, 1S69, pp. 6S4-5.
 
 58 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 auxiliaries of the Evil Principle, may be matter of opinion ; 
 but, at all events, we do not even then become participators 
 in an injustice which we did not create, and do not uphold or 
 help to perpetuate, but merely accommodate ourselves to. 
 At worst, we are but accessories to it after the fact. In 
 simply accepting the situation and striving to make the 
 best of it for ourselves, without trying to make it better 
 and only abstaining from making it worse for others, our 
 conduct may be contemptible, mean, base, disgusting, or 
 what you will, only not iniquitous ; for whatever, short of 
 their deserts, may, from the cause supposed, be received by 
 our fellow-creatures, although in one sense plainly due to 
 them, is as plainly not due from us, and we cannot, without 
 palpable injustice, as well as palpable abuse of words, be 
 charged with injustice for merely declining to pay debts 
 that we do not owe. 
 
 The rights to impartial and to equal treatment need not 
 detain us long. There is no right to impartiality except 
 where impartiality is due, and it is only in a small minority 
 of cases that impartiality is due. There is nothing iniqui- 
 tous in showing favour to the extent of giving one person 
 more than his due, provided no other person be prevented 
 from having as much as his due. The lord of the vine- 
 yard who gave unto all his labourers alike, the same to 
 those who had wrought for him but one hour as to those 
 with whom he had agreed that for a penny they should 
 bear the burden and heat of the day, did the latter no 
 wrong ; his eye was not the less good because theirs Avas 
 evil. A judge, or an arbitrator, or the conductor of a 
 competitive examination, is bound to make his award 
 without respect of persons, because he cannot favour one 
 without withholding from some other what that other
 
 ANTI- UTILITARIANISM. .59 
 
 ought to have. On every distributor of Government 
 patronage, h'kewise, it is morally incumbent to select for 
 the public for whom he is trustee, the best servants he can 
 find. An English Prime Minister has no right to make 
 his son a Lord of the Treasury or of the Admiralty, if he 
 know of any one better fitted for the post and willing to 
 accept it ; and if he name any but the fittest candidate, he 
 fails in his duty to the community on whose behalf he 
 acts. But a private employer, acting for himself alone, is 
 under no similar obligation, and may take whom he 
 pleases into his service, and assign to him \vhatcver position 
 therein he pleases, without afibrding any cause for reason- 
 able complaint to those more capable members of his 
 establishment whom he places under one less capable. In 
 short, except in those rare cases in which impartiality 
 means rendering what is due, in which cases it is but 
 another name for justice, there is nothing unjust in dis- 
 regarding it. 
 
 As for equality, although its ' idea,' as Mr. ]\Iill says, 
 ' often enters as a component part both into the conception 
 and into the practice of justice, and in the eyes of many 
 persons constitutes its essence,' ' I can think of no single 
 case in which, unless by reason of some special agreement, 
 it can possibly be due, or in which, consequently, there can 
 be any right to it. Even that equal protection for what- 
 ever is indisputably one's own, the claim of all to which is 
 commonly admitted almost as a matter of course, is really 
 due from those only by whom the obligation to afford it 
 has been tacitly or formally accepted. On this ground it is 
 due from the public at large, and from those indi\-iduals 
 to whom the public has delegated certain of its tutelary 
 
 ' ' Utilitarianism,' p. 267.
 
 6a A XTI- UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 functions, but from no other individuals whatever. No one 
 else is bound to take, for the protection of all other people, 
 whatever pains or trouble he takes for his own security — to 
 w^atch, for instance, as vigilantly that his neighbour's house 
 as that his own is not broken into. And while the one 
 solitary claim of any plausibility to universal equality of 
 treatment requires to be largely qualified before it can be 
 conceded, there is no other claim of the kind which does 
 not carry with it its own refutation ; there is no other 
 A\-hich does not partake of the absurdity patent in the 
 communistic notion that all the members of a society are 
 entitled to share equally in the aggregate produce of the 
 society's labour. How is it possible that an equal share 
 can be everybody's due, if different persons may have 
 different deserts, and everyone's deserts be likewise his due? 
 We have now gone completely through the list of arti- 
 ficially created rights, without finding one that does not 
 derive all its validity from connection with some pre- 
 existing right. We have seen that among so-called rights 
 none whatever are genuine by reason merely of any 
 extrinsic sanction they may have received, but that all 
 real rights either are such intrinsically, or are based upon, 
 or embody within them, some right purely intrinsic. We 
 have seen that there are two rights endued with this 
 intrinsic character — viz., that of absolute control over one's 
 own self or person, and that of similar control over what- 
 ever else has by honest means come into one's exclusive 
 possession, or become due or owing to him exclusively ; 
 and, because these rights, wherever the conditions neces- 
 sary for their exercise occur, of necessity exist, springing 
 up at once and full grown, in the necessary absence of any 
 antagonistic rights that could prevent their existing, I have
 
 A NTI- UTILITA RIA NISM. C i 
 
 not scrupled to call them ' natural ; ' nor do I think that 
 further apology can be needed for such application of ilie 
 epithet. To maintain, moreover, that these natural v\g\\tsi 
 constitute the essence of all artificial ri^^hts, was simply- 
 equivalent to saying that no so-called right can be genuine 
 unless requiring for its satisfaction no more than already 
 actually belongs or is due to its claimant ; while every 
 right which does require no more must be genuine, because 
 there can nowhere exist the right to withdraw or to with- 
 hold from any one anything that is exclusively his. These 
 seeming truisms are indeed diametrically opposed to a 
 theory which ciitcrs on its list of friends names no less 
 illustrious than those of Plato, Sir Thomas More, Bentham, 
 and Mill. Still, whoever, undeterred by so formidable an 
 array of adverse authorities, is prepared to accept the 
 description of rights of which they form part, \\\\\ have no 
 difficulty in framing a theory of justice perfectly con- 
 formable thereunto. 
 
 The justice of an action consists in its being one, ab- 
 stinence from which is due to nobod}-. The justice of 
 inaction — for just or unjust behaviour may be either active 
 or passive — consists in there being nobody to whom action, 
 the reverse of the inaction, is due. 'Justice, like many 
 other moral attributes, may be best defined by its opposite,' 
 and all examples of injustice have tliis one point In 
 common, that they withhold or withdraw from some person 
 something belonging or due to him, or in some other way 
 infringe his rights, and consequently wrong him. Con- 
 versely, a point common to and characteristic of all just 
 acts and omissions, is that they neither prevent anybody 
 from having that which is due to him, nor in any other 
 way infringe any one's rights, and that they consequently
 
 62 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 do no one any wrong. It is not essential to the justice of 
 conduct that an}'thing due be thereby rendered. It suffices 
 that nothing due be withheld. All conduct is just by 
 which nobody is wronged. 
 
 It is further to be noted that all just conduct is of one of 
 three kinds — that which justice peremptorily exacts ; that 
 which she merely permits, and may even be said barely to 
 tolerate ; and that which she approves of and applauds, 
 without, however, presuming to enjoin it. Conduct of this 
 last sort is just in that it leaves nothing undone which 
 justice requires, but it is also more than just in that it does 
 more than justice requires. To speak of it as simply just, 
 is therefore somewhat disparaging. It is just in the sense 
 in which the less is comprehended by the greater. He 
 who faithfully fulfils an engagement that has provided for 
 his making a reasonable return for whatever advantage he 
 might obtain under it, shows himself simply just in the 
 matter, and nothing either more or less. He who, having 
 driven a hard bargain, insists rigorousl}- upon it, giving 
 nothing less, and taking nothing more than had been 
 mutually stipulated, is likewise strictly just, but is also 
 shabby, and deserves to be told so plainly. He who, 
 besides making full return, according to contract, for value 
 received, does something more, at some inconvenience to 
 himself, out of regard for another's need, is not a whit 
 more just than either of the other two, but he is generous 
 into the bargain, and deserves thanks in proportion. 
 
 Rising out of these considerations are two others equally 
 meriting attention. 
 
 In the first place, we may see additional cause for dis- 
 trusting the testimony which etymology has been supposed 
 to reco in favour of ' an origin of justice connected with
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 63 
 
 tlic ordinances of law.' ' That ^jiistiiin is a form o^ jusshjii, 
 that which has been ordered :' tliat ' Zlkuiov comes directly 
 from hUr], a suit of law : ' that ' nr/it, from which came 
 right and righteous, is synonymous with law,' is obvious 
 enough ; and it may not be out of place to add that in 
 French the word droit has, with almost savage irony, been 
 selected as the technical name, not of law simpl}', but of 
 legal procedure with all its crookedness.^ Still it seems 
 more in the ordinary course of things to explain this 
 linguistic identification of law with justice, by supposing 
 conformity to justice to have been the primitive element in 
 the formation of the notion of law, than by supposing 
 ' conformit}' to law to have been the primitive element in 
 the formation of the notion of justice.' It seems more 
 probable that certain things A\ere commanded because 
 they were deemed just, than that they were deemed just 
 because they were commanded. Even the ancient 
 Hebrews, who ' believed their la^\•s to be a direct emana- 
 tion from the Supreme Being,' although, if asked why it 
 was wrong to kill or steal, they might very likely have 
 replied, ' Because theft and murder have been forbidden 
 by God,' would still have acknowledged that it would be 
 wrong to kill or steal, even if there had been no divine 
 prohibition of the practices. And A\hen we recollect that 
 among ' other nations, and in particular the Greeks and 
 Romans, who, knowing that their laws had been made b}' 
 men, were not afraid to admit that men might make bad 
 laws, . . . the sentiment of justice came to be attached, 
 not to all violations of law, but onl}- to violations of such 
 
 ' ' Utilitarianism,' pp. 69, 70. 
 
 - ' Les legistes lour founiircnt au besoiu Tappui liu droit centre Ic droit 
 meme.'— De Tocqueville, ' L'Ancien Regime,' p. 567.
 
 64 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 laws as ought to exist,' what had previously appeared 
 probable is converted into certainty. Principles of justice 
 to which law ought to conform cannot but have been 
 -anterior to la\\', and cannot have originated in law. And 
 certainty on this point grows still more certain, assurance 
 becomes doubly sure, when we reflect that, as was pointed 
 out above, many things are just which, not only does not 
 lavv- command, but which justice barely tolerates, per- 
 mitting them, indeed, to be done, but permitting them also 
 to be reprobated. 
 
 Secondly, we may perceive that in mere justice there 
 can be nothing praiseworth}-. Justice is nothing more 
 than abstinence from injustice, and no commendation can 
 be due for not doing that the doing of which would 
 deserv^e censure. Justice, if entitled to be ranked among 
 the virtues at all, is at best only a negative virtue, as being 
 the reverse of a vice. It is distinguished from all other 
 moral qualities, as being the single and solitary one, com- 
 pliance with whose behests is a duty which we owe to 
 others. Of meekness, patience, temperance, fortitude, 
 courtesy, whatever display it may for any reason be our 
 duty to make, precisely that display justice requires us to 
 make. Whatever of any one of these qualities justice does 
 not exact from us, we ma}-, without wronging any one, 
 omit. We must not, indeed, incapacitate ourselves by 
 tippling for our proper work, nor offend the eyes or ears 
 of decenter folk by reeling obstreperously through the 
 streets ; but, if we take the precaution of retiring during an 
 interval of leisure to our privy chamber, our making beasts 
 of ourselves then and there to our heart's content, is our 
 own concern, and nobody else's. No doubt, in doing this 
 we should be doing very wrong, but still there is no con-
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 65 
 
 tradiction in saying that wc should have perfect rif^ht to 
 do it, inasmuch as wc should thereby be wronging no one 
 but ourselves. Of another class of virtues — of all those 
 which admit of being directly contrasted with justice, and 
 which may for shortness' sake be without much inaccuracy 
 comprehended under the general designation of generosity 
 — it may, with literal truth, be said that the practice of 
 them is no part of our duty to our neighbour. Provided 
 we are careful to let every one have what, between him 
 and us, are his bare dues, wc may be selfish, mean, sordid 
 to excess, without infringing any one else's rights, without 
 the smallest dereliction of our dut}' to others. True, 
 ethical writers are in the habit of speaking of ' duties of 
 perfect and imperfect obligation,' but of these ' ill-chosen 
 expressions,' as Mr. MilV ^vith abundant reason, styles 
 them, the latter, more particularly, is of a slovenliness 
 which ought to have prevented its being used by any 
 ' philosophic jurists.' What some of these mean by it is 
 stated to be ' duties in which, though the act is obligatory, 
 the particular occasions of performing it are left to our 
 choice ; as in the case of charity or beneficence, which we 
 are indeed bound to practise, but not towards any defined 
 person, or at any prescribed time.' But, according to this 
 explanation, there are duties of which performance may 
 not onl}" be indefinitely postponed, even until a morrow 
 that ma}' never come, but of which performance at one 
 time will warrant non-performance of them subsequently ; 
 so that, for instance, he who has behaved charitabl}' on 
 past occasions, may be uncharitable afterwards. ' In the 
 more precise language ' of other writers, we are told that 
 while ' duties of perfect obligation are those duties in virtue 
 
 ' ' Utilitarianism,' pp. 72, 73. 
 F
 
 66 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 of which a correlative right resides in some person or 
 persons, duties of imperfect obh'gation are those which do 
 not give birth to any right.' But, as where there is no 
 right nothing can be due, it would seem from this that by 
 duties of imperfect obligation are to be understood duties 
 performance of which is not due. I hope to be pardoned 
 for declining to accept these illusive distinctions as the 
 boundaries which separate justice from the other com- 
 ponents of morality. I neither understand how any obli- 
 gation can be otherwise than perfect, nor do I recognise 
 any duties whatever except those of justice. The main 
 distinction between justice and all positive virtues I take 
 to be that, whereas compliance with its behests is always 
 imperative, compliance with theirs never is, but is always 
 optional and discretionary. Of whatsoever is, for what- 
 soever reason, due, it is invariably justice, and justice 
 alone, that demands payment or performance. Justice 
 claims, and claims peremptorily, whatever is owing, but 
 never puts forward the smallest pretension to anything 
 that is not owing. But since whatever is oiving plainly 
 ought to be paid, and since justice never claims anything 
 but what is owing, it is clear that there cannot be any 
 merit in satisfying the claims of justice. Merit is possible 
 only in actions which justice does not enjoin, but to which 
 some other virtue exhorts. 
 
 From the main "difference here pointed out, a minor 
 collateral difference ramifies. Of Avhatever ought to be 
 paid or done, payment or performance may be righteously 
 enforced. Here I have the satisfaction of proceeding for a 
 few steps side by side with Mr. Mill, although only, I am 
 sorry to say, to part company again immediately. ' It is a 
 part/ he says, ' of the notion of duty in every one of its
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIAMSM. ' ty 
 
 forms that a person may rightfully be compelled to fulfil 
 it. Duty is a thing which may be exacted from a person 
 as one exacts a debt. Unless we think it may be exacted 
 from him, we do not call it his duty.' ' Now, since justice 
 never a.sks for anything but what is due, never makes a 
 requisition compliance with which is not a duty, it follows 
 that all those persons to whom its requisitions arc addressed 
 may be rightfull}' compelled to comply with them, whereas, 
 since what every other virtue requires is always something 
 not due, compliance with its requisitions is never a duty, 
 and cannot, except unrighteously, be enforced. This — 
 viz., the rightfulness of using compulsion in aid of justice, 
 as contrasted with the wrongfulness of resorting to it in 
 aid of generosity, rather than the rightfulness of punishing 
 breaches of the one and not of the other, seems to me the 
 'real turning-point of the distinction' between the two. 
 For gross disregard of generosity, and indeed of any 
 other virtue, may rightfully be punished, justice fully 
 sanctioning the punishment although indicating also the 
 nature of the penalty to be inflicted in each case, and 
 restricting it within certain limits. Whoever plays the dog 
 in the manger in a manger of his own, or makes an ex- 
 clusively selfish use of his wealth or other advantages, 
 refusing to do good to his neighbour at however little 
 sacrifice on his own part it might be done, is not thereby 
 infringing anybody else's rights, or thereby wronging any 
 one else. He is only exercising his own undoubted rights. 
 Still he is exercising them in a manner deserving of severe 
 reprobation, and which witnesses of his conduct may justly 
 punish by testifying to him the scorn, disgust, or indigna- 
 tion he has excited. It is no more than just that he 
 
 ' ' Utilitarianism,' p. 71. 
 F 2
 
 68 AN TI- UTILITA RIA NISM. 
 
 should have his deserts and receive the punishment which 
 has become his due. But justice, although permitting him 
 to be punished for acting ungenerously, does not sanction 
 his being compelled to make a show of acting generously. 
 If his conduct had been unjust instead of simpl}' un- 
 generous, no punishment would be adequate that did not 
 force him to repair the evil he had done, or to do the good 
 he had left undone. But the most flagrant breach of 
 generosity, neither keeping nor taking away anything to 
 which any one has a right, does nothing for which repara- 
 tion can be due. It consists simply in a man's making an 
 exclusively selfish use of what is exclusively his, and to 
 make such use is one of the rights of propert)-. Whoever 
 exercises that odious right is justly punished by being 
 shown how hateful we think him, but Ave must not, on 
 pretence of justice, commit the injustice of depriving him 
 of a right which is confessedly his. 
 
 It is not, then, by being rightfully liable to punishment 
 that unjust difters from ungenerous conduct. The latter 
 also ofttimes deserves and incurs punishment. But since 
 there can be no merit in doing that the not doing of which 
 would merit punishment, it may seem that, as in justice so 
 likewise in generosity there cannot be anything positively 
 meritorious. Neither in truth would there be if conduct 
 were entitled to be styled generous simply as being the 
 reverse of ungenerous. Generosity would then, like justice, 
 be a virtue in no higher sense than that of not being a vice 
 — a negative virtue if a virtue at all. But an action does 
 not really deserve to be called generous unless what justice 
 requires be exceeded by it in a degree more than sufficient 
 to prevent the agent from deserving the imputation of 
 meanness, nor even then unless the excess have been done
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. G9 
 
 from a purer motive than that of the hope of praise or other 
 reward. An action is generous only in the proportion in 
 which it involves self-sacrifice, voluntarily undergone for 
 the benefit of others, without any view on the agent's part 
 to further compensation than that derivable from the 
 consciousness of making other people happ>'. In such 
 voluntary and disinterested self-sacrifice consists the merit 
 which is one chief characteristic of generosity as of most 
 positive virtue, distinguishing it from justice, in which there 
 is never a surrender of anything which one would be \\ar- 
 ranted in keeping, but merely a rendering of what belongs 
 or is due to others. All conduct, not immoral, admits, as 
 already more than once intimated, of a tripartite division, 
 into that which may be rightfully enforced ; that of which, 
 though it be not due nor rightfully enforcible, neglect 
 deserves to be and may justly be punished by reproaches ; 
 that which is neither due nor reasonably to be looked for, 
 but which involves a voluntary surrender for the good of 
 others of some good which one might without reproach 
 keep for oneself Of this last description is the only con- 
 duct in which there is any proper or positive virtue. 
 
 So much and such complex argumentation may not 
 impossibly be deemed a good deal in excess of what is 
 requisite to establish the conclusion to \\hich it points, and 
 which may be summed up in the following very simple 
 propositions : — That, by a person's rights being understood 
 the privilege of having or doing whatever no other person 
 has a right to prevent his having or doing, justice consists 
 of abstinence from conduct that would interfere w ith that 
 privilege ; that justice, therefore, is not dependent on 
 extrinsic sanction, but arises spontaneously from the nature 
 of things, and may almost indeed be said to spring
 
 JO ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 necessarily from the meaning of words ; and that its sole 
 merit is exemption from the demerit that would attach to 
 the withholding or withdrawing from any person anything 
 belonging or due to that person. With all possible confi- 
 dence, however, in the innate vigour of these propositions, 
 I cannot suppose that they do not require all possible 
 adventitious strengthening to be qualified to displace the 
 doctrine to which they are opposed. I proceed, therefore, 
 to test somewhat further the adequacy of the description 
 of justice which they involve by confronting it with certain 
 intricate problems, in presence of which the rival utilitarian 
 definition will be found to be hopelessly at fault. 
 
 There are few subjects on which casuists have differed 
 more widely than those of the legitimacy, and the proper 
 measure of punishment. One thinks it unjust that any- 
 body should be punished for the sake of example to others, 
 or for any purpose except his own amelioration. A second 
 replies that it is only for the sake of other people's good 
 that an offender ought to be punished ; for that, as for his 
 own good, he himself should be left, to decide what that is, 
 and he is pretty sure not to decide that it is punishment. 
 A third pronounces all punishment unjust, seeing that a 
 man does not make himself criminal, but is made so by 
 circumstances beyond his control- — by his birth, parentage, 
 education, and the temptations he meets with. Then, for 
 the apportionment of punishment, some persons think there 
 is no principle like that of the lex talionis — an eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Others that the penalty 
 should be accurately proportioned to the immorality of the 
 offence, by whatever standard that immorality be measured. 
 Others, again, that punishment should be limited to the 
 minimum necessary to deter from crime, quite irrespectively
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 71 
 
 of the hcinousness of the particular crime punished. Of 
 the first three of these opinions, Mr. Mill observes that 
 ' they arc all extremely plausible, and that so long as the 
 question is argued as one of justice simply, without going 
 down to the principles that lie under justice, and arc the 
 source of its authority, he is unable to sec how any one of 
 the reasoners can be refuted. For every one of them builds 
 upon rules of justice confessedly true — each is triumphant 
 .so long as he is not obliged to take into consideration any 
 other maxims of justice than those he has selected, but 
 that as soon as their several maxims are brought face to 
 face, each disputant seems to have as much to say for 
 himself as the others. No one can carry out his own notion 
 of justice without trampling upon another equally binding.' ' 
 This view of the matter, however, can scarcely be regarded 
 as satisfactory. If utilitarian notions of justice cannot be 
 carried out without trampling each other down, they plainly 
 should not be suffered to go at large, but should be relegated 
 forthwith to the limbo of oblivion. But right cannot really 
 be opposed to right ; justice cannot really be inconsistent 
 with itself: it never can be unjust to do what is just. Anti- 
 utilitarian justice tolerates no such intestine disorder. The 
 sole ground on which she sanctions punishment is the indis- 
 pcnsablcncss of punishment for the reparation of injury. 
 Whoever has suffered wrong has been subjected to invasion 
 of some right, personal or proprietary, and is entitled to 
 amends for the outrage ; while the aggressor from whom 
 the amends are due, ought to render them because he owes 
 them, and because he ought, may, if necessary, be com- 
 pelled, to render them. By the breach of right which he 
 has committed, he has forfeited his own corresponding 
 
 ' ' Utilitarianism,' pp. Si, 82.
 
 72 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 right, which may now be equitably set aside to whatever 
 extent may be requisite for reparation of the evil he has 
 done, one essential part of such reparation being adequate 
 security against repetition of the wrong. So far as may be 
 necessary for this purpose, punishment may equitably go, 
 but no further. Genuine justice does not permit penal laws 
 of human enactment to take into account the abstract 
 turpitude of crime. That she reserves for divine cogni- 
 sance, recollecting that ' Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' 
 saith the Lord. Nor does she permit the smallest aggra- 
 vation of punishment for the sake either of the offender's 
 own mental improvement, or to discourage others from evil 
 doing ; neither, on the other hand, does she recognise any 
 claim to abatement on the plea of an offender not having 
 been able to help acting as he did. She would not, indeed, 
 punish with death or with stripes an outrage committed by 
 a lunatic or an idiot, partly because an outrage may be 
 really less offensive for being committed unwittingly, inas- 
 much as it does not, at any rate, add insult to injury, and 
 also because the corporal chastisement of a lunatic or an 
 idiot could afford no reparation to the wounded feelings of 
 a healthy mind. But so far as even an idiot or a lunatic 
 was capable of making good the evil he had done by ren- 
 dering what had in consequence become due, Anti-utilita- 
 rianism would require him equally with an erring saint or 
 sage to make it, and equally, too, would subject him to 
 whatever restraint might be deemed not more than suffi- 
 cient to prevent his doing the same evil again. And of 
 course she does not treat an offender of ordinary intelligence 
 with indulgence which she would not show even to a lunatic, 
 but exacts inexorably full reparation for what he has done, 
 requiring him commonly to pay in kind so far as he can,
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 73 
 
 and to make up with his person for any deficiency. Within 
 tlie h'niits thus marked out slie is well content that, with 
 the one object which alone justifies punishment, other 
 secondar}^ objects \\ith which justice has no concern, should 
 be combined. She is well content that the same penal 
 measures as are called for in order to compensate the 
 injured party, should also subserve the reform of the cri- 
 minal, and serve as general deterrents from crime. But 
 she protests against the notion that these, or any other 
 objects, can ever excuse the infringement of any ordinance 
 of justice, or of any of even a criminal's rights which the 
 criminal has not forfeited by crime. Justice, in short, in 
 her penal, as in all her other arrangements, has but to 
 adhere closely to the anti-utilitarian principles of rendering 
 what is due, and of taking nothing that is not due, in order 
 to steer clear of all the difficulties by which the ablest 
 and most accomplished Utilitarians confess themselves 
 staggered. 
 
 A second greatly vexed question is, 'whether, in a 
 co-operative industrial association, it is just or not that 
 talent or skill should give a title to superior remuneration ? 
 On the one side it is argued that all who do the best they 
 can deserve equally well ; . . . that superior abilities have 
 already advantages more than enough in the admiration 
 they excite, the personal influence they command, and the 
 internal satisfaction attending them ; and that society is 
 bound in justice rather to make compensation to the less 
 favoured for this unmerited inequality of advantages, than 
 to aggravate it. On the contrary side, that society, re- 
 ceiving more from the more efficient labourer, owes him a 
 larger return ; that a larger share of the joint result being 
 actually his work, not to allow his claim to it is a sort
 
 74 ANTI- UTILITA RIANISM. 
 
 of robbery ; that if he is only to receive as much as others 
 he can only be required to produce as much.' ' ' Between 
 these appeals to conflicting principles of justice,' Mr. Mill 
 considers it impossible to decide, ' Justice,' he says, ' has 
 in this case two sides to it, which it is impossible to bring 
 into harmony, and the two disputants have chosen oppo- 
 site sides ; the one looks to what it is just that the indi- 
 vidual should receive, the other to what it is just that the 
 community should give. Each from his own point of view 
 is unanswerable, and any choice between them, on grounds 
 of justice, must be perfectly arbitrary. Social utility alone 
 can decide the preference.' ^ The form of justice depicted 
 with this Janus-like aspect can scarcely be the utilitarian, 
 since, whoever, on utilitarian grounds, selects one of its 
 sides, must perforce, on the same grounds, reject the other. 
 Still, it is spoken of as genuine justice, wherefore that there 
 is a justice independent of utility, would seem, after all, to 
 be admitted by Utilitarians themselves. It is for them, how- 
 ever, to deal Vvith the dilemma which their own ingenuity 
 has thus devised. My only concern with the two-headed ' 
 monster they have imagined is to protest against its being 
 mistaken for the one sole species of justice which Anti- 
 utilitarianism recognises, and which never presents any 
 such double-faced appearance. In the case before us anti- 
 utilitarian justice would decide with her accustomed ease 
 between the two appellants. What she vrould look to 
 would simply be that each co-operator should have his 
 due. But how much soever she might declare an inferior 
 workman to deserve for doing his best, she certainly Avould 
 not allow his deserts to extend to participation in the 
 fruits of the toil of those of his fellows who had done 
 
 » ' Utilitarianism,' pp. 84, 85. * Ibid. p. 85.
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 75 
 
 better than he. His having produced as much as he was 
 able could not render due to him a share in the larger 
 produce of others of superior capacity. Very possibly the 
 superior workmen might agree that all .should participate 
 equally in the aggregate results of their joint labour. If 
 so, well and good. For so liberal a concession they \vould 
 deserve credit, and thanks would be due to them from 
 those in whose favour it was made ; but this of itself would 
 be a conclusive proof, if any were wanting, that the con- 
 cession was an act, not of justice, but of generosity, not of 
 debt, but of grace. 
 
 Again, \\hat discordance is there not as to the most 
 equitable repartition of taxation ! That all should be 
 taxed in equal proportion to their pecuniary means ; that 
 taxation should be a graduated percentage on income, 
 rising as income rose ; that all, whether rich or poor, should 
 be taxed alike ; that all should pay equal capitation, but 
 unequal property-tax — these are some out of many di- 
 vergencies of opinion, and ' from these confusions ' there is, 
 Mr. Mill considers, ' no other mode of extrication than the 
 utilitarian.' ' But if there were really no other, there 
 would, in fact, be none at all. For opinions differ scarcely 
 less as to the utility, than as to the justice of each specified 
 mode of taxation. There are quite as many persons who 
 think it expedient as who think it equitable that people 
 should be taxed either equally, or according to any of the 
 suggested schemes of inequality. All the help that Utili- 
 tarianism here affords is, as usual, to leave every one to 
 judge for himself which plan is the most advisable, and 
 then to pronounce that to be the only moral plan. Anti- 
 utilitarianism offers guidance of a very different sort. It 
 
 ' ' Utilitarianism,' pp. S6, S7.I
 
 76 ANTI- UTILITA RIANISM. 
 
 wastes no time in seeking for an escape from confusion, for 
 it allows no confusion to exist. It spurns equally the idea 
 of different persons being required to pay different prices 
 for equal quantities of the same thing, merely because 
 some of them can afford to pay more, and that of their 
 being all required to pay the same price for different 
 quantities, merely because all are equally in need of the 
 quantities they respectively obtain. It recognises only an 
 imperfect analogy between a club or a mess to which no 
 one need subscribe unless he likes, and a national com- 
 munity to whose funds every resident within its territory 
 has no choice but to contribute ; and while quite content 
 that members of the one should be assessed at any rates 
 to which they have spontaneously consented, it protests 
 against the imposition on members of the other of burdens 
 disproportioned to their several abilities. It denies that 
 the shilling of a man who has but one in the world is of 
 the same value to him because it is his all, as is to another 
 an estate bringing him in 100,000/. a year, seeing that, if 
 the former had his pocket picked, he might presently beg, 
 borrow, or earn a second coin, ^\•hereas if the latter were 
 dispossessed of his estate he might live to the age of 
 Methusaleh without acquiring its equivalent. It perceives 
 that a rich man, by receiving public protection for his 
 property as well as his person, is relieved from an expense 
 in maintaining private watchmen, which a poor man, with 
 nothing but his carcass to defend, would have as little 
 occasion as ability to incur ; and it concludes that more 
 being thus in effect given to the rich, more is due from 
 him in return, and more, consequently, may be rightfully 
 exacted. 
 
 We come, now, to a case that may well give to both
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 77 
 
 Utilitarians and Anti-utilitarians pause — with this dif- 
 ference, however, that whereas it brinies the former to 
 an everlasting standstill, the latter may, after a while, go 
 on complacently meditative, at least, if not rejoicing. 
 
 There are certain situations in which justice loses its 
 authorit}'. ' Thus, to save a life, it may be allowable . . . 
 to steal or take by force the necessary food or medicine, or 
 kidnap and compel to officiate the only qualified medical 
 practitioner.' ' Wherefore, since to steal or to kidnap is 
 essential!)- wrong, it may sometimes be allowable to do 
 wrong. Mr. Mill's explanation of the paradox is, that 
 'there are particular cases in which some other social duty 
 is so important as to overrule any one of the general 
 maxims of justice ; but that in such cases we usually say, 
 not that justice must give way to some other moral prin- 
 ciple, but that what is just in ordinary cases is, by reason 
 of that other principle, not just in the particular case.' - I 
 submit, however, that there is no real occasion to resort to 
 any such ' useful accommodation of language,' in order to 
 be ' saved from the necessity of admitting that there may 
 be laudable injustice.' Let us never shrink from looking 
 error in the face, for fear that, after she has slunk away 
 abashed, some insoluble mystery ma}- remain behind. It 
 is better, at any rate, to be puzzled than deceived. There 
 can be no doubt about theft being essentiall}- unjust, and 
 no skill in the arrangement of words can convert injustice 
 into justice, or prevent injustice from being wrong. But 
 Avhen, as occasionally happens, the only choice open to us 
 is betw-een two immoral courses, it is morally incumbent 
 on us to select the less immoral of the two. The wrong 
 we decide upon does not, however, itself become smaller 
 » ' Utilitarianism,' p. 94. ' Ibid. pp. 94, 95.
 
 78 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 because it prevents a larger. A sworn bravo, who had 
 taken in advance the wages of assassination, would sin less 
 by breaking than by keeping faith with his employer ; but, 
 in either case, would sin. Abstinence from murder would 
 not absolve him from the guilt of perjury. If, unless a 
 loaf were stolen, a life would be lost, Anti-utilitarianism 
 might pardon, but would scarcely applaud the theft. At 
 all events it would not, like the rival doctrine in a similar 
 strait, be reduced to double on itself, declaring that wrong 
 had become right and black white, that the Ethiopian had 
 changed his skin and the leopard his spots. It would still 
 insist as positively as ever that to steal another man's 
 bread cannot be just, however benevolent the purpose for 
 which it is stolen. 
 
 One more illustration and I have done. Whoever be- 
 lieves as I do in the indefeasible sanctity of honestly 
 acquired moveable property, is logically bound to hold 
 equally sacred the rights of bequest and inheritance. 
 With whatever is exclusively your own, you may surely do 
 anything you please except harm ; nor need even harm be 
 excepted if it be done to yourself alone. If, indeed, you 
 go the length of playing ducks and drakes with gold pieces, 
 or of lighting cigars with bank-notes, you are likely enough 
 to be stopped and placed under restraint as a lunatic, but 
 it is clear that this will be done solely because you are 
 presumed not to understand what you are doing, and not 
 from any question as to your right to do it if you do 
 understand, for there are plenty of things far more objec- 
 tionable in themselves, only not implying a want of 
 sanity, which you will be left perfectly at liberty to do. If 
 you choose, in imitation of Cleopatra, to spoil your fish- 
 sauce by mixing powdered pearls with it, or, in imitation of
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 79 
 
 a certain Peruvian va'ceroy, to shoe your carnage horses 
 with silver, no one will dream of interfering with you ; any 
 more than of preventing courtesans and other fine ladies 
 from befouling their nether limbs by sweeping the dusty 
 road with flounces of Brussels lace ; or of preventing 
 members of the Cobden Club from gorging themselves 
 annually, at a cost of five guineas per paunch, in honour 
 of the prince of practical economists. But property, which, 
 however great the good it is capable of doing, }-ou arc at 
 liberty to employ solely for your own hurt, you arc, of 
 course, at liberty to destroy, thereby preventing it, at least, 
 from doing any more harm. The lesser right of abuse is 
 plainly comprehended in the larger. And of that which is so 
 absolutely your own that }-ou may, if }-ou please, wantonly 
 waste or destroy it, you may, of course, transfer the owner- 
 ship, thereby conveying to another person all }-our rights 
 in it, and rendering it as unjust to interfere wath the new 
 owner's disposal of the property, as it would previously 
 have been to interfere with yours. Moreover, since the 
 gift is a purely voluntary act, you may, if you please, 
 without impairing its validity, arrange that it shall begin to 
 take effect from some future date instead of immediately ; 
 so that, by naming some date subsequent to }'our own 
 decease, you will be converting the gift into an equally 
 valid bequest. This, I submit, is decisive as to the iniquit}- 
 of any legal limitation of testamentary power. The right 
 of bequest is comprehended within and rests upon the 
 same basis as the right of possession, so that, unless it 
 would be just to pass a law depriving all persons of any 
 property possessed by them in excess of a given amount, 
 it would not be just to deprive them b}- law of the power 
 of bequeathing the surplus.
 
 So ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 The rights of inheritance obviously coincide precisely 
 with those of bequest. Just so much as the testator parts 
 with the legatee obtains. When the bequest is uncondi- 
 tional, the new owner whom it creates steps into the 
 precise position which the previous owner has vacated. 
 Often, however, a legacy is qualified ^by conditions, and, 
 among others, by this, that the property bequeathed shall 
 be held in trust for certain purposes. Now, if these pur- 
 poses be socially noxious, society need not hesitate to set 
 aside the will that has provided for them. Quite justifiably, 
 society might annul the testamentary endowment of a 
 hospital for fleas and lice, such as Bishop Heber, in his 
 Indian tour, found existing at Baroach and at Surat, because 
 those particular insect pests could scarcely be retained 
 within the walls of their infirmary. Perhaps, too, society 
 might be justified in similarly preventing the endowment 
 of a hospital for superannuated dogs and cats ; whether it 
 would or not depending mainly on the awkward question 
 whether such inferior animals have any rights inconsistent 
 with human interests. Be this as it may, however, where 
 human interests alone are concerned, the rights of condi- 
 tional heirship present no ethical difiiculty. When it is for 
 purposes socially innocuous and affecting human beings 
 alone that property is left in trust, it cannot be equitably 
 diverted from those purposes without the consent of all the 
 individuals whom the testamentary arrangements were 
 intended to affect. It matters not how whimsical or pre- 
 posterous the object enjoined may be ; not even though it 
 be a periodical dinner, cooked after the manner of the 
 ancients, like the nauseous one at which Peregrine Pickle 
 assisted ; or instruction in alchemy or in Hindoo astro- 
 nomy, or in the art of walking on one's head. Not until
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 8l 
 
 there remain no persons at once entitled under the will, and 
 also wishing to partake of tlic banquet or the instruction, 
 can one or the other be equitably discontinued ? As long 
 as there are any such persons left, to stop, without their con- 
 sent and without adequately compensating them, arrange- 
 ments, rights in which liave been vested in them by bequest, 
 would be as palpable a violation of justice as to pick their 
 pockets of sums equivalent to their several interests, real 
 or supposed, in the arrangements. 
 
 If scrupulous adherence to the principle thus laid down 
 would heavily shackle the activity and seriously impair the 
 immediate usefulness of Mr. Forster and his coadjutors in 
 the ICndowed School Commission, I am exceedingly sorr)', 
 but not in the least shaken in my conviction that the prin- 
 ciple ought to be rigidly adhered to. If parochial or other 
 communities are too stupid or too selfish to consent that 
 school endowments under their charge shall be applied to 
 purposes of more extensive utility than the founders con- 
 templated, every effort should be made to persuade or to 
 shame them into consenting, but without their consent the 
 thing .should on no account be done. On this point Utili- 
 tarianism and Anti-utilitarianism would, I apprehend, give 
 identical counsel, the former condemning as impolitic what 
 the latter denounced as unjust. The cause of national 
 education would be ill served by any course calculated to 
 discourage its future endowment b\- priwite testators, and 
 nothing would be more likeh' to have that eftect than 
 arbitrary interference with the endowments of former 
 testators. 
 
 The courteous reader ma)- now be temporarily released, 
 wath fitting acknowledgment of his exemplar}- patience. 
 It would be cruel to detain liim with a recapitulation, with- 
 
 G
 
 82 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 
 
 out which he may readily trace for himself, in what has gone 
 before, the outlines of a consistent body of anti-utilitarian 
 ethics. In these there is little new, little that has not been 
 anticipated by many an old-fashioned saw and antiquated 
 apothegm — such as, Fiat justitia mat C(sluin, ' Be just 
 before you are generous,' and, I would fain add, ' Honesty 
 is the best policy ' — save that to that Utilitarianism may 
 fairly lay equal claim. My modest ambition throughout 
 this essay has been to vindicate some of the most mo- 
 mentous of primeval truths from the slights to which 
 philosophy — not modern, indeed, but modernised and re- 
 furbished — is continuall}- subjecting them, and I ^\'ill not 
 deny that I have modest assurance enough to believe that 
 I have at least partially succeeded. I think I have shown 
 that there are such things as abstract right and A\-rong, 
 resting not on fancied intuition, but on a solidly rational 
 basis, and supporting in turn abstract justice, whose 
 guidance, whoever accepts it, will find to be as sure and 
 as adequate as any that unassisted reason is capable of 
 supplying. Anti-utilitarian justice never tries to look half- 
 a-dozen different ways at once, never points at the same 
 time in opposite directions, never issues contradictory 
 mandates, never halts between two opinions. Her 
 votaries, like other mortals, may often be in doubt as 
 to accomplished facts ; but, provided these be clear, their 
 course is in general equally clear ; there seldom remains 
 aught to embarrass them. If they sincerely desire to 
 ascertain what is due from them, they can seldom err, 
 except on the right side, and they will never dream of 
 disputing that whatever is due from them it must be their 
 dut}^ to do, without respect of consequences. These they 
 ^Jill Icaxc to the supreme controller of events, if they
 
 ANTI-UTILITARIANISM. 83 
 
 believe in one, and will leave to take their chance, if they 
 do not so believe, feeling all the more certain in the latter 
 case that to control events cannot, at any rate, be within 
 their power. They never stop to calculate how much good 
 may perhaps ensue if evil be done. Simple arithmetic, 
 apart from faith, satisfies them that to add wrong to 
 wrong cannot possibly augment the sum total of right. 
 The prime article of their creed is the absolute obligation 
 of paying debts — a piece of unworldly wisdom more than 
 ever now to Jews a stumbling-block, and to Greeks 
 foolishness, but not the less to all, whether Jews or 
 Gentiles, w^ho will accept it, a light to show through the 
 mazes of life, a path so plainly marked that the foolishest 
 of wayfaring men cannot greatly err therein.
 
 64 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 Wanuick. There is a history in all men's lives, 
 Figuring the nature of the times deceased ; 
 The which observed, a man may prophesy, 
 With a near aim, of the main chance of things 
 As yet not come to life, which in their seeds. 
 And weak beginnings, lie intreasured. 
 Such things become the hatch and brood of time ; 
 And, by the necessary fonn of this, 
 King Richard might create a perfect guess, 
 That great Northumberland, then false to him, 
 Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness, 
 Which should not find a ground to root upon. 
 Unless on you. 
 
 King Henry. Are these things, then, necessities ? 
 
 JCing Henry IV. Part II. Act. 3, Sc. I. 
 
 When equally competent thinkers appear to take directly 
 opposite views of a matter of purely speculative interest, it 
 will commonly be found that their differences arise from 
 their using the same words in different senses, or from their 
 being, by some other cause, prevented from thoroughly 
 apprehending each other's meaning. An illustration is 
 afforded by the controversy regarding the possibility of 
 constructing a Science of History, which could scarcely 
 have been so much prolonged if all who have taken part in 
 it had begun by defining their terms, had agreed to and 
 adhered to the same definitions, and had always kept 
 steadily in view the points really in debate. If the word 
 ' science' had been used only in the restricted, though rather 
 inaccurate sense in which it is sometimes employed by some 
 of the most distinguished of the disputants, there would
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 85 
 
 have been less question as to its applicability to history. 
 No one doubts that from an extensive historical survey may 
 be drawn lar^e general deductions on \\hich reasonable 
 expectations may be founded. No one denies that the 
 experience of the past may teach lessons of political wisdom 
 for the guidance of the future. If it were not so, history 
 would be as uninstructive as fairy lore ; its chief use would 
 be to amuse the fancy; and little more practical advantage 
 could result from investigating the causes of the failure of 
 James II.'s designs on civil and religious liberty, than from 
 an inquiry into the artifices by which Jack-the-Giant-killer 
 contrived to escape the maw of the monsters against whom 
 he had pitted himself What is commonly understood, 
 however, by a Science of History is something far beyond 
 the idea entertained of it by such temperate reasoners as 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill and Mr. Fitzjames Stephen. The 
 science, for the reality of which M. Comte in France and 
 Mr. Buckle in England have been the foremost champions, 
 would bear the same relation to political events as Optics 
 and Astronomy do to the phenomena of light and of the 
 solar and sidereal systems. It would deal less with the 
 conjectural and probable than with the predicable and 
 positive. ' In the moral as in the physical world,' say its 
 leading advocates, ' are invariable rule, inevitable sequence, 
 undeviating regularity,' constituting ' one vast scheme of 
 universal order.' ' The actions of men, and therefore of 
 societies, are governed by fixed eternal laws,' which ' assign 
 to every man his place in the necessary chain of being,' and 
 'allow him no choice as to what that place shall be.' One 
 such law is that, ' in a given state of society, a certain 
 number of persons must put an end to their own lives:' 
 another, that a certain number of persons must commit
 
 86 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 murder ; a third, that \\hcn wages and prices are at certain 
 points, a certain number of marriages must annually take 
 place, 'the number being determined not by the temper 
 and wishes of individuals, but by large general facts, over 
 which individuals can exercise no authority.' These are 
 general laws ; but the special question as to who shall 
 commit the crimes or the indiscretion enjoined by them, 
 ' depends upon special laws, which, however, in their total 
 action must obey the large social law to which they are all 
 subordinate.' A Science of History would consist of a 
 collection of ' social laws,' duly systematised and codified, 
 by the application of which to given states of society the 
 historical student might predict the future course of political 
 events, with a confidence similar to that with which he 
 could foretell the results of familiar chemical combinations, 
 or the movement of the planets.* 
 
 This is the theory which a few y^ars ago was so much 
 discussed, and against which, notwithstanding the singular 
 fascination it evidently possesses for some minds, the moral 
 sense of a much larger number indignantly revolts, rightly 
 apprehending that its establishment would be subversive of 
 all morality. For, if the actions of men are governed by 
 ' eternal and immutable laws,' men cannot be free agents ; 
 and where there is not free agency there cannot be moral 
 responsibility. Nor are the apprehensions entertained on 
 this score to be allayed by the answer, ingenious as it is, 
 which has been given to them ^ by one of the ablest and 
 most judicious apologists for the new creed. It is true 
 that human actions can be said to be * governed ' only in 
 the same metaphorical sense as that in which we speak of 
 
 ' Mr. Buckle's first chapter, passim. 
 
 * ' Cornhill JNIagazine,' for June and July, ]86t.
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 87 
 
 the laws of nature, which do not really govern anything, 
 but merely describe the invariable order in which natural 
 phenomena have been observed to occur. It is true that 
 the discovery of invariable regularity in human affairs, sup- 
 jDosing such a discovery to have been made, would not 
 prove that there was any necessity for such regularity. It 
 is conceivable that the orbs of heaven ma}^ be intelligent 
 beings, possessing full power to change or to arrest their 
 own course, and moving constantly in the same orbits merely 
 because it pleases them to do so. Invariable regularity, 
 therefore, would be perfectly consistent with free agency. 
 All this is perfectly just, but it is also altogether beside the 
 question. The offence given by the writers on whose be- 
 half the apology is set up consists not so much in their 
 asserting that there are, as in their insisting that there 
 must be, uniformity and regularity in human affairs ; or, as 
 Mr. Buckle expresses it, that social phenomena ' are the 
 results of large and general causes which, working on the 
 aggregate of society, must produce certain consequences, 
 without regard to the volition of the particular men of 
 whom the society is composed.' Now, though free agency 
 may co-exist with iNi'ariablc regularit}', it obviously cannot 
 co-exist with necessary regularity, which, consequently, is 
 incompatible likewise with moral responsibility. If men 
 are compelled by the force of circumstances, or by any 
 force, to move only in one direction, they cannot be respon- 
 sible for not moving in a different direction. Nor is it 
 more to the purpose to undertake a subtle analysis of the 
 nature of causation, and to explain that it does not, pro- 
 perly speaking, involve compulsion, but simply means in- 
 variable antecedence. Let it be that a cannon-ball does 
 not really knock down the wall against which it strikes.
 
 88 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 and that it would be more correct to say that the ball 
 impinges and the wall falls ; though, seeing that the wall 
 would not have fallen unless the ball had impinged, the 
 distinction is too nice for ordinary apprehension. As 
 understood, at any rate, by the joint headmasters of the 
 new school, causation does involve compulsion. ' Men's 
 actions,' say they, ' are the product not of their volition, 
 but of their antecedents,' and ' result from large and general 
 causes which must produce certain consequences.' Neither, 
 if this be so, is it of any avail to suggest that, possibly, the 
 large and general causes in question may be of only tem- 
 porary operation. ' It may be that the rules,' in accordance 
 with which the sun has hitherto risen every morning since 
 the creation of the world, ' will hold good only for a time.' 
 It may be that the springs, whatever they are, by which 
 the universe is kept in motion, may require to be periodi- 
 cally wound up like the works of a clock, and that, unless 
 this be done, ' on some particular day out of many billions,' 
 the sun may fail to rise, just as the clock, if suffered to run 
 down, would stop on the eighth day. The conjecture would, 
 of course, be not less applicable to social than to natural laws. 
 It is conceivable that the large general causes assumed to 
 regulate human actions might lose their efficacy at the end 
 of a certain cycle, when mankind might either have to re- 
 commence a social revolution similar to the one just com- 
 pleted, or might have to begin an entirely different revolu- 
 tion under entirely different laws. Be it so. Still, if the 
 causes, as long as they remained in operation, possessed a 
 compulsoiy character— if, during the continuance of the 
 supposed cycle, men were bound to act in a certain way in 
 accordance with certain laws, and irrespectively of their 
 own volition — what would it matter that those laws were
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 89 
 
 not eternal and immutable ? For the time being men 
 \voukl no more be free agents than the hands of a clock, 
 while the clock was wound up. Both would be constrained 
 to move in a prescribed direction, whether they would or 
 no. Men in such circum.stances might well be likened, as 
 by Mr. Buckle they are likened, to links in a chain, but few 
 would be prevented from joining in Mr. Goldwin Smith's 
 eloquent protest against the comparison, b}' being told that 
 the chain perhaps was not an endless one. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the principles to which we have 
 been adverting would, if established, be really subversive 
 of morality, inasmuch as they are incompatible with free 
 agency, without which there can be no responsibility. The 
 soundness of a doctrine does not, however, depend upon 
 its tendencies ; and Mr. Buckle was fully warranted in de- 
 manding that his views should be examined with reference, 
 not at all to their consequences, but solely and exclusively 
 to their truth. They certainly ought to be so examined, 
 if examined at all ; but morality is so indispensable to the 
 happiness of mankind, that if there were reason for appre- 
 hending it to be based upon error, there would be equal 
 reason for avoiding an enquiry A\hich might demonstrate 
 the weakness of its foundations, by bringing forward an 
 antagonistic truth. The only adequate excuse, therefore, 
 for enquiring, as I now proceed to do, into the validity of 
 Mr. Buckle's theory, is the confidence I feel that it will be 
 found to contain not recondite, newly-discovered truth, but, 
 at best, only skilfully and curiously-compounded fallacies, 
 which, being dispelled, will leave the foundations of morality 
 as firm and unimpeachable as before. 
 
 In order that he might be able to prove the possibilit}- 
 of a Science of History, Mr. Buckle asked no more than
 
 90 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 the following concessions : ' That, when we perform an 
 action, we perform it in consequence of some motive or 
 motives ; that those motives are the results of some ante- 
 cedents, and that therefore, if we were acquainted with the 
 whole of the antecedents and with all the laws of their 
 movements, we could with unerring certainty predict the 
 whole of their immediate results.' Now, there is certainly 
 nothing in these demands which may not be unhesitatingly 
 conceded. As there can be no effect without a cause, so 
 there can be no action without a motive : the motive or 
 motives of an action are the product of all the conditions 
 and circumstances among which the agent is placed — which 
 conditions and circumstances, again, must have been 
 brought about by antecedent events. The same circum- 
 stances would indeed differently affect persons of different 
 mental constitutions and characters ; but the original con- 
 stitution of a man's mind is itself the product of antecedent 
 events, as is also any subsequent modification of character 
 Avhich it may have undergone. It cannot be denied, then, 
 that men's motives are the results of antecedents. Equally 
 undeniable is it that a knowledge of all the antecedents 
 and of all the laws of their movements would enable us to 
 foresee their results, for this, supposing the laws referred to 
 to have any real existence, is merely equivalent to the self- 
 evident proposition, that if we perceived certain causes and 
 kncAv exactly how they would act, we should know before- 
 hand what would be their effects. But what if there be no 
 such laws } What if, on the showing of Mr. Buckle himself 
 and of his associates, there neither are nor can be } 
 
 The true nature of a scientific law has never been better 
 explained than by the writer already quoted as Mr. Buckle's 
 dexterous apologist. A scientific law is not an ordinance,
 
 IIISrORY'S ^CIEMIFIC PRETENSIONS. 91 
 
 but a record. It simply professes to describe the order in 
 which certain phenomena have been observed uniformly to 
 recur. It differs from a legislative enactment, in that the 
 one would be a law although it \\'ere never obeyed, whereas 
 the other would cease to be a law if one single exception to 
 its statement could be pointed out. Thus the Act of Par- 
 liament enjoining the registration of births, would be 
 equally a law although no births were ever registered ; 
 whereas the \iw\, that in a body moving in consequence of 
 pressure the momentum generated is in proportion to the 
 pressure, would entirely forfeit its legal character if, on any 
 one occasion or in any circumstances, momentum were 
 generated in any other proportion. It is essential, then, to 
 the existence of a scientific law that there should be uni- 
 formity of phenomena. But in human affairs uniformity is 
 impossible. No doubt, in exactly the same circumstances 
 exactly the same events must happen ; but exactly the 
 same aggregation of circumstances cannot possibly be re- 
 peated. Such repetition is inconsistent with the very 
 theory, which is based on the assumption that the repetition 
 is continually happening. 
 
 ' In the moral as well as the physical world ' there arc, 
 say the exponents of the ne^v theory, not only ' invariable 
 rule ' and ' inevitable sequence,' but ' irresistible growth ' 
 and ' continual advance.' In other words, things can ne\-er 
 be twice in precisely the same condition — never, at least, 
 within the same cycle. It has, indeed, been suggested that 
 there may be in human affairs the same sort of regularity as 
 is observed by the hands of a clock ; and that, as the latter, 
 at the end of every twenty-four hours, recommence the 
 movement which they have just concluded, so at the end 
 of, say ' every ten thousand years,' all the same events ^\•hich
 
 92 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 have been happening throughout the period may begin to 
 happen over again in the same order as before. Such a 
 succession, however, would involve quite as much of retro- 
 gression as of progression, and the continual advance so 
 boastfully spoken of would be nothing else than a tendency 
 of society to return to the condition from which it had 
 originally emerged. But, even on this uncomfortable hypo- 
 thesis, there could be no regularity of occurrences within 
 the same cycle ; no clue as to the future could be obtained 
 from investigation of the past. On the contrary, the only 
 certainty would then, as now, be that no combination of 
 events which had happened once could happen again, as 
 long as the existing order of things continued. The infer- 
 ence here follows necessarily from the premises. If there 
 be continual advance — if things are constantly moving for- 
 ward — they cannot remain in the same state ; and if not in 
 the same state, they cannot produce the same effects. 
 For, if it be obvious, on the one hand, that precisely the 
 same causes must invariably produce the same results, it is 
 equally evident, on the other, that the same results cannot 
 be reproduced except by the same causes. If causes calcu- 
 lated to bring about certain phenomena undergo either 
 augmentation or diminution, there must be a corresponding 
 change in the phenomena. Now, effects cannot be iden- 
 tical with their causes, and, in the moral world, effects once 
 produced become in turn causes, acting either independently 
 or in conjunction with pre-existing causes. They become in 
 turn the antecedents spoken of by Mr. Buckle, from which 
 spring the motives of human conduct. But, as all such 
 antecedents must necessarily differ from all former ante- 
 cedents, they must also give rise to motives, must be 
 followed by actions, and must bring about combinations of
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 93 
 
 circumstances, differing from any previously experienced. 
 Thus, in human affairs, tlierc can be no recurrence either of 
 antecedents or of consequences ; and, as a scientific law is 
 simply a record of the uniform recurrence of consequences, 
 it follows that in human affairs there can be no scientific 
 laws. 
 
 It will be understood that human conduct, and the 
 circumstances or causes which influence it, arc here spoken 
 of in the aggregate. It is not pretended that particular 
 causes or circumstances may not continue permanently 
 in operation, though with an influence modified by the 
 concomitance of fresh circumstances ; or that they may 
 not continue to produce consequences difi'ering from their 
 former consequences not more than in proportion to the 
 modification undergone by the causes. Still less is it 
 pretended that certain human phenomena, with which 
 human motives have little or nothing to do, may not be 
 repeated once and again, notwithstanding the important 
 changes constantly going on in every human society. It 
 is not denied that marriages may continue for years 
 together to bear much the same annual proportion to the 
 population, provided that during those years there be no 
 material change in the amount of the economical obstacles 
 which commonly interfere, more than anything else, with 
 men's natural inclination to marry. Still less is it denied 
 that, in a given number of births, the number of girls may 
 always preserve nearly the same superiority over that 
 of boys, or that the proportion beween red-haired and 
 flaxen-haired children may generally be about the same, 
 or that the percentage of letters misdirected in a given 
 country may vary little during long periods. But, in the 
 first of these cases, men do not get married, as Mr. Buckle
 
 94 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 imagined, irrespectively of their volition. If, for several 
 years together, marriages continue to bear about the 
 same proportion to population, it is because during that 
 period circumstances continue to present a certain amount, 
 and no more, of opposition to men's connubial proclivities. 
 In the other cases, it is not at all because the parents 
 wish it that a girl is born instead of a boy, or with flaxen 
 hair instead of carrots ; neither is it from any motive or 
 intention that letters are often misdirected, but, on the 
 contrary, from want of thought, and from the carelessness 
 and haste with which letter-writing, like most other human 
 actions, is unfortunately too often performed. But, before 
 assuming that this carelessness and haste bear an invariable 
 proportion to numbers, we should inquire whether the 
 proportion of misdirected letters is the same in all human 
 societies— the same, for instance, in France and Spain 
 as in England. If not — if varying circumstances produce 
 different results in this respect in different countries — 
 it may be inferred that a variation of circumstances may 
 produce a difference of result in the same country. It 
 will, at any rate, be clear that there is no ' necessary and 
 invariable order ' in which letters are misdirected. In one 
 sense, indeed, it may be said that the proportion of mis- 
 directed letters depends upon * the state of society,' if by 
 that expression be meant, among other things, the nu- 
 merical proportion which individuals of different characters 
 and habits bear to each other. In that sense, we may 
 accept some far more startling propositions. We may 
 partly admit that the state of society determines the 
 number of murders and suicides, if by this be simply 
 meant that the number of murders and suicides committed 
 will depend upon the number of persons whose characters
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 95 
 
 have been so moulded by circumstances as to dispose them 
 
 to put an. end to their own or other people's lives. But 
 Mr. Buckle, b}' whom the assertion was made, was careful 
 to explain that his meaning was the very reverse of what 
 is here supposed. Speaking of suicide, he declares it to be 
 ' a general law that, in a given state of society, a certain 
 number of persons must put an end to their own li\'es ; ' 
 adding that ' the question as to who shall commit the 
 crime depends upon special laws,' and that ' the individual 
 felon onl}' carries into effect what is a neccssar)' con- 
 sequence of preceding circumstances.' In other words, 
 it is not the amount of crime that depends upon the 
 number of persons prepared to commit it ; it is the num- 
 ber of criminals which depends upon the amount of crime 
 that must needs be committed. ' Murder,' he elsewhere 
 says, ' is committed with as much regularit}', and bears 
 as uniform a relation to certain known circumstances, as 
 do the movements of the tides and the relations of the 
 seasons.' ' The uniform reproduction of crime is more 
 clearly marked, and more capable of being predicted, than 
 are the physical laws connected with the disease and 
 destruction of our bodies. The offences of men are the 
 result not so much of the vices of indi\'idual oftenders, 
 as of the state of societ}"- into which the individuals are 
 thrown.' 
 
 There is here so much looseness and inconsistency of 
 language, that what is most offensive in it may easil)' 
 bear more than one interpretation : and the shocking 
 dogma that, in a gi\-en state of society, the force of cir- 
 cumstances constrains the commission of a certain amount 
 of crime, may possibly admit of being explained away and 
 softened down into the comparatively harmless proposition
 
 69 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 that, where all the circumstances, conditions or causes 
 required for the commission of a certain amount of crime 
 are present, that amount of crime will certainly be com- 
 mitted. But what is most provoking in Mr. Buckle is 
 the heedlessness or wantonness with which he is constantly 
 insisting that the causes in question are necessarily present 
 and uniformly acting. What he calls the uniform repro- 
 duction of crime is likened b}- him to the uniform re- 
 currence of the tides. According to him, it is a law that 
 a certain number of suicides shall take place annually, 
 just as it is a law that there shall be high and low water 
 twice in every twenty-four hours. Now a law, as the word 
 is here used, means a record of invariable repetitions of 
 phenomena. Has it been observed, then, that suicides 
 bear, we will not say an invariable, but anything like a 
 definite proportion to population 1 ]\Ir. Buckle thinks 
 it has, and he adduces some facts in support of the 
 opinion ; but his facts, properly understood, disprove in- 
 stead of proving what he asserts ; and, even if they proved 
 it, they would }-et afford no support to his main theory. 
 
 In London, for some years past — how many is not 
 stated — about 240 persons annually have made away with 
 themselves— sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less 
 — the highest number having been 266 in 1846, and the 
 lowest 213 in 1849. ^'-it' ^^■hile the number of suicides 
 has thus been nearly stationary, population has been any- 
 thing but stationary in the metropolitan district, but has 
 advanced with vast and unremitting strides at an average 
 rate of nearly 43,000 a }'ear. In 1841 it was 1,948,369 ; in 
 1851,2,361,640; and in 1861,2,803,989. The proportion 
 of suicide to population has consequently been by no 
 means uniform, but has varied exceedingly, and on the
 
 iriSTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 97 
 
 whole has shown a constant tendency to decrease. But 
 even if it had continued uniform, it would sirnply have 
 shown that, during a certam number of years, the general 
 character of Londoners had, in certain particulars, under- 
 gone no material change. It would not have proved that 
 the regularity of suicide observable among Londoners was 
 in accordance with any general law. To prove this it 
 would have been necessary to show that the proportion 
 had been uniform, not only in the same but in all societies ; 
 in Paris as well as in London, among the Esquimaux of 
 Labrador, and among the Negroes of Soudan. For, if 
 the proportion were found to vary by reason of the 
 differing circumstances of different societies, it would plainly 
 be seen to be at least susceptible of variation in the same 
 society, inasmuch as in no society do circumstances remain 
 the same from generation to generation. So equally with 
 murders. Even if there were no doubt that the percentage 
 of such crimes in England had long continued the same, 
 still that fact would prove nothing as to the uniform repro- 
 duction of crime, if it could be shown that the percentage 
 had ever varied anywhere else — in France or Italy, for 
 example, or in Dahomey. For it would be mere childish- 
 ness to point to the different conditions of England and 
 Dahomey, and to plead that no more was intended to be 
 said than that, with uniformity of circumstances there 
 would also be uniformity of results. So much no one, 
 in the least competent to discuss the subject, would for a 
 moment dream of disputing. But in political affairs there 
 cannot be uniformity of circumstances. The aggregate of 
 circumstances from whicli spring human motives cannot, 
 from the nature of things, ever be repeated ; and, though 
 a ^Q.\\ general causes may continue pcrniancnll}' in operation, 
 
 H
 
 98 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 they cannot continue to produce the same identical results ; 
 for even though they could themselves remain stationary, 
 it would be impossible that their operation should not be 
 affected by the constant change going on around, or should 
 not partake of an otherwise universal forward movement. 
 In political affairs there cannot possibly be any recurrence 
 of identical phenomena ; nor can there, except within a 
 very limited period, be any occurrence of very similar 
 phenomena. But recurrence (and not merely recurrence, 
 but complete and invariable recurrence) is the very founda- 
 tion of science. Without it there can be no scientific laws, 
 and without such laws — i.e., without records of past recur- 
 rences — there can be no sure predictions as to the future. 
 It is only because certain motions of certain bodies have 
 hitherto been observed to take place with invariable regu- 
 larity, that they are expected to continue to do so, and it 
 is upon that assumption only that we venture to predict 
 that the sun will rise to-morrow morning, or that an eclipse 
 will take place next year. But if no event recorded in 
 history has ever yet been known to occur twice under pre- 
 cisely the same conditions, and as a consequence of the 
 same causes, what ground can there be for predicting 
 whether or when any such event will occur again .'* What 
 possibility is there of constructing a science of history, when 
 history supplies no materials for either foundation or super- 
 structure .'' 
 
 There is nothing in this conclusion in the slightest degree 
 opposed to the most approved doctrine of causation. No 
 effect can be without a cause. No doubt, then, the regency 
 of invariable causation holds good of human volitions. No 
 doubt the volitions and consequently the actions of men are 
 the joint results of the external circumstances amid which
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 99 
 
 tncn arc placed, and of their own characters ; which again 
 are the results of circumstances, natural and artificial. So 
 much must needs be admitted, and something more besides. 
 Certain causes will infallibly be succeeded by certain effects. 
 From any particular combination of circumstances, certain 
 determinate consequences and no others will result ; those 
 again will give rise to consequences equally determinate, 
 and those in turn to others, and so on in an infinite series. 
 It follows, then, from the regency of causation, that there is 
 a determinate course already, as it were, traced out, which 
 human events will certainly follow to the end of time ; 
 every step of which course, however remote, might now be 
 foreseen and predicted by adequate, that is to say by 
 infinite, intelligence. Infinite intelligence would do this, 
 however, not by the aid of la\\', but by virtue of its own 
 intrinsic and unassisted strength, wherewith it would per- 
 ceive how each succeeding combination of causes would 
 operate. For, as cannot be too often repeated, a law is 
 merely a record of recurrences; and in human afQiirs there 
 can be no recurrences of the same aggregate either of causes 
 or results. There being then no historic laws, there can be 
 no Science of History, for science cannot exist without 
 laws. The historic prescience, which is an attribute of 
 Infinite Intelligence, not being regulated by law, or at any 
 rate not by any law except that of causation, is not, tech- 
 nically speaking, a science, and even if it were, would be 
 utterly beyond the reach of human intellect and attainable 
 only by Infinite Wisdom. 
 
 The admission made in the last paragraph has cleared 
 the way for the introduction of a question, from which the 
 subject under discussion derives its principal interest, and 
 
 H 2
 
 loo HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 which it is indispensable therefore carefully, though briefly, 
 to examine. If there be certain determinate lines of 
 conduct which men will infallibly pursue throughout all 
 succeeding generations, how can men be free agents ? How 
 — for it is merely the old puzzle over again — how can fore- 
 knowledge be reconciled with freewill ? The difficulty is 
 not to be got rid of by discrediting the reality of freewill, 
 and treating it as a thing for which there is no evidence. 
 When Johnson silenced Boswell's chatter with the words, 
 * Sir, we know our will is free and there's an end on't,' he 
 expressed a great truth in language not the less philoso- 
 phically accurate on account of its colloquial curtness. The 
 consciousness possessed by an agent about to perform an 
 act, that he is at liberty to perform it or not, is really con- 
 clusive evidence that the act is free. For it matters not a 
 jot whether consciousness be ' an independent faculty,' or 
 whether — as, Mr. Buckle reminds us, 'is the opinion of 
 some of the ablest thinkers ' — it be not merely ' a state or 
 condition of the mind.' If consciousness be a condition of 
 the mind, so also is perception ; but perception, whatever 
 else it be, is also that which makes us acquainted with 
 external phenomena, just as consciousness is that which 
 makes us acquainted with internal emotions. The two 
 informants, it is true, are not equally trustworthy. Percep- 
 tion often deceives us, but consciousness, never. We often 
 fancy we perceive what we do not perceive. We may fancy 
 we see a ghost, when we are merely mocked by an optical 
 illusion, or we may mistake the impalpable imagery of the 
 Fata Morgana for solid objects, or the rumbling of a cart 
 for thunder But consciousness is infallible. We cannot 
 fancy we experience an emotion which we do not expe- 
 rience. We cannot fancy we are glad when wc are not
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. loi 
 
 glad, or sorry when wc arc not sorry, or hopeful when in 
 despair ; and to pretend that we can possibly be conscious 
 of willing when wc arc not willing, would be as absurd as 
 to meet the cogito, ergo sum of Descartes, with the reply 
 that, perhaps, we do not really think, but only think wc 
 think. 
 
 Freewill, then, being an indisputable reality, how can 
 it be reconciled with foreknowledge ? There can be no 
 more conclusive way of showing that the two things are 
 capable of co-existing than to point to an example of 
 their actual co-existence, and such an example is afforded 
 by the idea of Infinite Power. Omnipotence, which 
 by its nature implies freewill, comprehends also Omni- 
 science. Omnipotence can do anything whatsoever which 
 does not involve a contradiction ; but even Omnipo- 
 tence can do nothing which Omniscience does not foresee. 
 It can, indeed, do whatsoever it pleases ; but Omniscience 
 foresees precisely what it will be pleased to do. With 
 unbounded liberty to chooSe any course of action, it can 
 yet choose no course which has not been foreseen ; but its 
 freedom of choice is evidently not affected by the fact that 
 the choice which it will make is known before hand. Neither 
 is that of man. An eager aspirant to ecclesiastical prefer- 
 ment is not the less at liberty to refuse a proffered mitre, 
 because all his acquaintances have a well founded assurance 
 that he will accept. A wayfarer, with a yawning precipice 
 before his eyes, may or may not, as he pleases, cast himself 
 down headlong. Whether he will do so or not must always 
 have been positively foreknown to Omniscience ; but that 
 fact in no degree affects his power of deciding for himself. 
 If arguing on the notion that v.hat is to be must be, he 
 decide on moving forward to his destruction, then what has
 
 102 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 been foreseen is simply that he will so argue and be self- 
 deceived, and will consequently perish. But the fore- 
 knowledge which simply perceives what direction will be 
 taken by the will is a very different thing from an over- 
 ruling destiny, which should compel the will to take some 
 special direction. Still it is obvious that, in this instance 
 also, foreknowledge is based entirely on causation. It is 
 solely because human volitions take place as inevitable 
 effects of antecedent causes that Omniscience itself can be 
 conceived as capable of foreseeing them. 
 
 But on such conditions, how can human volitions really 
 be free .■' How can man be really at liberty to will of 
 his good pleasure, if what he is prompted to will depends 
 on the influence which the circumstances that happen to 
 surround him may exercise on the constitution and charac- 
 ter, which he has derived from pre-existing circumstances .■" 
 How can his will be free, if that will be moulded and 
 shaped by circumstances over which he has no control } 
 I have, I am aware, by the mode I have adopted of recon- 
 ciling free-will with foreknowledge, incurred the obligation 
 of reconciling it with another co-existence of yet greater 
 apparent incompatibility. By admitting that ' human 
 volitions take place as inevitable effects of antecedent 
 causes,' that they must be such, and cannot be other than 
 such, as antecedent causes make them, I have admitted 
 that the will, though independent of law, is absolutely sub- 
 ject to, and must implicitly obey, causes. Freewill, then, 
 must be shown to be compatible not with foreknowledge 
 only, but with necessity also. For there is no use in 
 attempting to ignore necessity ; no use in exclaiming with 
 Professor Huxley : ' Fact I know, and Law I know ; but 
 what is Necessity but an empty shadow of the mind's own
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 103 
 
 throwing ?' ' A shadow it most certainly is not, though it is 
 a bugbear, and the veriest that was ever suffered to torment 
 a morbid imagination. It is an indisputable reality, a sub- 
 stantial, but at the same time perfectly harmless, or rather 
 salutary reality, whose terrors need only to be boldly con- 
 fronted in order to disappear and to transform themselves 
 into highly attractive recommendations. For what, after 
 all, does it imply } What but that effects must follow their 
 causes, and causes precede their effects, as plainly they 
 must, unless cause and effect be utterly unmeaning exple- 
 tives. Of course we must on all occasions be affected by 
 surrounding circumstances, in modes exactly accordant 
 with our idiosyncracies, moral and physical. Of course, 
 too, our volitions must exactly correspond with our con- 
 temporaneous affections. When we are empty, we must, if 
 in health, feel hungry, and desire to eat ; when full, we must, 
 unless we are hogs, be satisfied, and prefer to ruminate. 
 Most men are so organised that when tickled they must 
 laugh ; when wronged, must frow^n or sigh. The sight of 
 distress makes them pity, and desire to see it relieved. 
 That of virtue makes them admire, and desire to see it re- 
 warded. That of vice makes them angry, and desire to see 
 it punished. Would we have all these things reversed .'' 
 Would it be well for us that our being starved or surfeited 
 should make no difference in our wish to feed, or our wil- 
 lingness to fast ^ Should we like the chances to be equal 
 whether we should desire distress to be alleviated or aeera- 
 vated "> If not, what is the bondage under which we groan } 
 what the liberty wherewith we long to be made free .? Our 
 sole grievance is that, according to actual arrangements, 
 there must be reasons for our wishes, and that on those 
 
 * ' Lay Sermons,' p. 158.
 
 I04 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 reasons our wishes must depend. Should we then prefer 
 that there were no such reasons ? Would we have our 
 wishes to be independent of reason, and adrift before irra- 
 tional caprice ? Probably we may, on second thoughts, 
 be content to forego an enfranchisement like this ; but, if 
 not, we may at least console ourselves for its indefinite 
 postponement, by reflecting that Omnipotence itself is, 
 equally with ourselves, subject to the sort of necessity 
 under which we are groaning ; equally destitute of the 
 sort of free-will to which we aspire. It is manifest that, 
 since there cannot be omnipotence without boundless 
 liberty, omnipotence must possess completest freedom of 
 will. Yet even the Will of Omnipotence is subject to the 
 despotism of causation. Divine perfection cannot but be 
 at all times affected in modes as exactly corresponding with 
 its own excellence as human imperfection is in modes cor- 
 responding with its deficiencies, and the movements of the 
 Divine Mind cannot but correspond with the affections of 
 the Divine Mind. Those movements are not unmeaning, 
 purposeless, wayward. They, too, have their appropriate 
 springs, and proceed by regular process from legitimate 
 causes, the chief of those causes being the infinite perfec- 
 tion of the Divine Nature. Divine Power cannot then, any 
 more than human, be directed by its owner's will to pur- 
 poses against which its owner's nature revolts. But is this 
 inability a matter to lament over .-* Those must be greatly 
 at a loss for a grievance who make one of its being impos- 
 sible for them to will things which they have over-ruling 
 reason? for not willing". Besides, does man, in order to 
 believe himself free, require more freedom than his Maker .-• 
 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 105 
 
 his lord. Surely it is sufficient that the disciple be as his 
 master, and the servant as his lord.' 
 
 The fact, then, that human conduct is subject to causa- 
 tion, and may by adequate intellit^encc be predicted in 
 it.-, minutest details until the end of time, no more proves 
 that it is governed by invariable laws, which act irrespec- 
 tively of human volitions, than the corresponding fact with 
 reference to Divine conduct impairs the freedom of the 
 Divine Will. There is no one living to whom such a doc- 
 trine — degrading man, as it does, into a helpless puppet, 
 robbing him of all moral responsibility and of every motive 
 for either exertion or self-control — can be more utt<Miy 
 repugnant than to Mr. Mill, who nevertheless, although 
 dissenting from Mr. Buckle's more extreme opinions, makes 
 use of some expressions which may be construed into a 
 qualified approval of his general views. Even Mr. Mill 
 speaks of ' human volitions as depending on scientific laws,' 
 thereby implying that the circumstances from which human 
 motives and, consequently, human actions result are con- 
 tinually recurring with a certain regularity. He speaks of 
 
 ' A highly esteemed literaiy friend, who has done me tlie favour of looking 
 over these pages in manuscript, considers that what I have proved is, not that 
 Omnipotence involves the co-existence of Freewill and Necessity, but that 
 Omnipotence itself, although capable of possessing all things, could not possess 
 Freewill, and that consequently Freewill cannot possibly exist — that there 
 cannot possibly be any such thing. 
 
 Although, for reasons slated four pages back, not myself prepared to accept 
 this view of the matter, I should cheerfully accept it if I could. The argu- 
 ment in the text proceeds upon the assumption that people mean something 
 wlien they talk about Freewill. If, however, they have no meaning, if the 
 phrase be a simple sound signifying nothing, of course all controversy regard- 
 ing the possible co-existence of that nothing with Necessity is settled at once 
 and for ever, while no great amount of philosophy will be requisite to induce 
 mankind to resign themselves very placidly to the absence of that same 
 nothing.
 
 io6 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 ' general laws affecting communities, which are indeed 
 modified in their action by special causes affecting indivi- 
 duals, but which, if their effects could be observed over a 
 field sufficiently wide and for a period sufficiently long 
 to embrace all possible combinations of the special 
 causes, would be found to produce constant results.' ' 
 This proposition seems to proceed on the assumption 
 that general causes are either of uniform operation, or 
 that, if they vary in their effects, their variations, and also 
 those of special causes, occur with a certain regularity, and 
 constantly recur within a certain definite period. But this 
 is precisely what cannot possibly happen. Among the 
 general causes referred to, some few are continuous — those, 
 namely, which are inherent in human nature ; but even 
 these are continually modified in their action by changes 
 continually taking place in those other general causes which 
 constitute the existing state of society, and which are not 
 merely continually changing, but are continually becoming 
 more and more different from what they were originally. 
 So much is fully admitted by Mr. Mill himself, and indeed 
 can be scarcely more strongly enforced than by his own 
 words. ' There is a progressive change,' he says, ' both 
 in the character of the human race, and in their outward 
 circumstances, so far as moulded by themselves ; in each 
 successive age the principal phenomena of society are 
 different from what they were in the age preceding, and 
 still more different from any previous age.' ^ It is admitted, 
 then, that there can be no recurrence of social phenomena ; 
 and it is obvious that, the longer the period of observation, 
 the less possibility can there be of their recurring, since the 
 
 ' Mill's 'Logic' Fifth edition. Vol. ii. p. 527. 
 * Mill's 'Logic,' vol. ii. p. 504.
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETEASIOXS. 107 
 
 greater is the certainty tiiat new causes will come into 
 operation. But, even though it were possible that all the 
 external circumstances which have once influenced either 
 communities or individuals could be repeated, the same 
 circumstances could not a second time produce the same 
 effects. Men of different characters are affected in very 
 different ways by the same influences, and the characters of 
 any particular generation of men are always very different 
 from those of every preceding generation. Let it be sup- 
 posed, for the sake of argument, that the French of the 
 present day could be placed in precisely the same social 
 condition in which their fathers were towards the close of 
 the last century ; still they would act very differently from 
 their fathers. Nay, even though they should, with one 
 single exception, have inherited the dispositions of their 
 fathers, the difference of character in one single individual 
 might suffice to give an entirely new turn to the course of 
 events. If every other antecedent of the first French 
 Revolution were again present, still there might be no 
 second revolution, proxidcd only that, instead of another 
 Louis the Sixteenth, a Leopold of Belgium, or a Frederick 
 the Great were king.' With tlie last mentioned on the 
 throne, there would assuredly be no repetition of that vacil- 
 lation of purpose which rocked the cradle and fostered the 
 growth of popular fury till it culminated in a Reign of 
 Terror. Since, then, there cannot be either a repetition of 
 the same circumstances to act upon men, or a reproduction 
 
 ' ' S'il se fiit trouve alors (vers 1750) sur le trone un prince de la taille et de 
 rhumeur du Grand Frederic, je ne doute point qu'il n'eut accompli dans 
 la socit^te et dans le gouvernement plusieurs des plus grands changements 
 que la Revolution y a faits, non-seulement sans perdre sa couronne, mais en 
 augmentant bcaucoup son pouvoir.'— De Tocqueville, VAiiciat Rt'giiiie, p. 
 274.
 
 io8 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 of the same sort of men to be acted upon by circumstances, 
 human conduct can never exhibit a repetition of the same 
 phenomena ; experience of the past can never, in social or 
 poHtical affairs, furnish a formula for predictions as to the 
 future. Accordingly Mr. Mill, in common with Mr. Ste- 
 phen, disclaims the idea of positive, and pleads only for 
 conditional, predictions. But the very term ' conditional 
 predictions ' involves a contradiction, since it is obviously 
 impossible to see beforehand what perhaps may never 
 come to pass. What is meant by the phrase is really no- 
 thing more than conjectures ; and conjectures, however 
 ingenious and reasonable, cannot be admitted within the 
 pale of science. They cannot be accepted as fruits of a 
 tree which has by the quality of its fruits proved its right 
 to be entitled the Science of History. 
 
 With the view of enhancing the value of conditional pre- 
 dictions, it has been urged that they are of precisely the 
 same description as those which we are in the habit of 
 hazarding with respect to our familiar acquaintance. There 
 are, it is said, ' general maxims regarding human conduct, 
 by the application of which to given states of fact, predic- 
 tions may be made as to what will happen ; ' and all that 
 is necessary for the construction of historical science, is the 
 employment of these maxims on a larger scale. If the 
 premiss here be sound, the inference may be owned to be 
 sufficiently legitimate. If there be any formula with which 
 the actions of individuals are observed to correspond, there 
 is every likelihood that the same formula may, by extension 
 and amplification, be adapted to the actions of communities. 
 But, although there are plenty of maxims telling men what 
 they ought to do, there is not one — except that which 
 declares that they must all die — which affords any positive
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. log 
 
 information as to what they tc/// do. ' Thou shalt not 
 steal,' 'thou shalt not kill,' 'thou shalt not commit adultery ;' 
 — all these and many more are moral laws ; but of not one 
 of them — the more's the pity — is the observance sufficiently 
 regular, to give it the smallest pretension to be styled a 
 scientific law. General propositions, too, there are in abun- 
 dance, representing with more or less accuracy the probable 
 results of particular lines of conduct. Such are the prover- 
 bial sayings, that ' Honesty is the best policy,' that ' A 
 rolling stone gathers no moss,' that ' The racecourse is the 
 road to ruin.' But adages like these were never supposed to 
 afford any basis for prophecy. It may be that an honest 
 man more commonly gets on in the world than a knave, 
 though there is also much to be said on behalf of the coun- 
 ter-proposition, that ' The children of darkness are w^iser in 
 their generation than the children of light;' but, at any 
 rate, there is no doubt that a man may be honest without 
 being prosperous, and that he is often all the poorer for his 
 probity. But, indeed, is there any one conceivable situation 
 in life in which a positive rule can be laid down as to the 
 course which men will follow ? Can it even — to make use 
 of an illustration which has been very effectively cmplo}-cd 
 on the other side — can it even be said that a man will cer- 
 tainly marry a woman with whom he is deeply in love, who 
 returns his affection, whom he can marry if he likes, and 
 whom he has the means of maintaining in a suitable man- 
 ner ? Nine times out of ten he probably will ; but in the 
 tenth instance a Brahmin's passion may be cheeked by fear 
 of contamination with a Pariah, or a King Cophetua's pride 
 may prevent his wedding a beggar-maid, or the titled owner 
 of an entailed estate ma}' decline to illegitimatise his off- 
 spring by espousing his deceased wife's sister, or betrothed
 
 no HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 lovers may be parted by some such mysterious barrier as 
 sprang up between Talbot Bulstrode and Aurora Floyd, or 
 an Adam Bede, in spite of the example set by George 
 Eliot's hero, may refrain from marrying Dinah for fear of 
 breaking his brother Seth's heart. 
 
 Equally vain would be the search for any rule invariably 
 applicable to political affairs. Even general propositions 
 which sound like truisms are not universally true. It cannot 
 even be said that misgovernment always produces discontent, 
 or that the combination of superior strength and superior 
 strategy is always successful in war ; for examples might be 
 cited of nations remaining patient under an iron despotism, 
 and perhaps also of campaigns lost by armies with every 
 advantage of skill, numbers, and discipline on their side. 
 No better specimen can be given of what are popularly 
 spoken of as historical laws than one propounded by Mr. 
 C. Merivale, whose careful study of Roman annals has 
 taught him to regard it as ' a condition of permanent domi- 
 nion that conquerors should absorb the conquered gradually 
 into their own body, by extending, as circumstances arise, 
 a share in their own exclusive privileges to the masses from 
 whom they have torn their original independence.' The 
 principle thus laid down is of great value, but it must not 
 be mistaken for an index pointing unerringly to a goal 
 which will certainly be obtained by following its direction. 
 At least the offer of Austrian citizenship had no perceptible 
 effect in overcoming the exclusiveness of Hungarian nation- 
 ality ; nor in inducing Venetia to become a willing member 
 of a Teutonic Federation, and to lend the same assistance 
 to the House of Hapsburg, as Gaul and Spain did to the 
 Caesars, in suppressing insurrection on the banks of the 
 Danube. History supplies many principles similar to the
 
 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. in 
 
 one evolved by Mr. Mcrlvalc, all more or less useful for the 
 guidance of the statesman. So far as they are just, they 
 indicate the results which would spring from the adoption 
 of certain lines of policy, unless something unforeseen 
 should happen. It is true that something unforeseen is 
 almost sure to happen and to divert or impede the course 
 which events would otherwise take ; but still, it is most 
 important to be able to perceive clearly the influence 
 exerted by certain causes, how much soever that influence 
 may be disturbed by other causes ; since, if it does nothing 
 else, it will at least prevent the disturbing causes from pro- 
 ducing what would otherwise have been their full effect. 
 On principles which indicate only a few out of many causes 
 in simultaneous operation, it is evident that nothing deserv- 
 ing to be called predictions can be founded ; but from 
 them, nevertheless— inasmuch as they teach that some 
 causes act for good and others for evil, as far as their action 
 extends — practical rules of government may be deduced. 
 Such rules, however, which at best can only furnish a loose 
 and shifting basis for doubtful conjectures, stand without 
 the confines of positive knowledge ; they occupy a middle- 
 ground between science and nescience, and constitute A\hat, 
 until very lately, was thought to be designated with suffi- 
 cient distinctness as the ' Philosophy of History.' V>y that 
 term, Mr. Stephen in one place says, is really meant all 
 that he ever meant by the Science of History; and the 
 observation, were it not apparently inconsistent with his 
 general reasoning, might seem to imply that the only ques- 
 tion between him and his opponents is whether a thing, the 
 existence of which is not disputed, ought or ought not to 
 receive a new appellation. But it is otherwise, at any rate, 
 with Mr. Mill. The language used by him on this as on
 
 112 HISTORY'S SCIENTIFIC PRETENSIONS. 
 
 all other subjects, is too clear and precise to admit of its 
 being supposed that he has used a new phrase without 
 attaching to it a new signification, or to permit the present 
 writer to believe, as he fain would do, that a point of no- 
 menclature is the only point of difference between himself 
 and one from whom it is so difficult to differ without diffi- 
 dence and self-distrust.
 
 113 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 But the miscliicf liclh here ; that wlicn men of less leisure see them who are 
 supposed to have spent their whole time in the pursuit of knowledge profess- 
 ing an entire ignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as are repugnant 
 to plain and commonly received principles, they will be tempted to entertain 
 suspicions concerning the most important truths which they had hitherto held 
 sacred and unquestionable. — Berkeley's Hylas and Philonous. 
 
 In no department of science Is it possible for an enquirer 
 to advance considerably beyond all his predecessors without 
 serving as a light by whose aid his successors may advance 
 somewhat beyond him. This is the only apology that I 
 feel disposed to offer for the freedom with which I am 
 about to criticize one who, having been, by judges so com- 
 petent as Adam Smith and Professor Huxley, pronounced 
 to be ' by far the greatest philosopher ' and ' acutest thinker ' 
 of his own age, would, doubtless, be at least on a level with 
 the greatest philosophers of the present age if he were 
 living now. The veriest cripple that can manage to sit on 
 horseback may contrive to crawl some few steps beyond 
 the utmost point to which his steed has borne him, and, it 
 those steps be uphill, may, by looking back on the course 
 he has come, perceive where the animal has deviated from 
 the right road. Yet he does not on that account suppose 
 that his own locomotive power is in any respect to be com- 
 pared to his horse's ; neither need an annotator on Hume, 
 when pointing to holes in his author's metaphysical coat, 
 be supposed not to be perfectly aware that it is the strength, 
 
 *I
 
 114 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 not of his own eyes, but of the spectacles furnished to him 
 by his author, that enables him to perceive them. 
 
 The concentrated essence of Hume's metaphysics is to 
 be found in 'An Enquiry concerning Human Understand- 
 ing/ forming part of a volume of Essays which Hume 
 published somewhat late in life, and which he desired 
 might 'alone be regarded as containing his philosophical 
 sentiments and principles.' To a formal, though necessarily 
 rapid, examination of the results of this ' Enquiry,' the 
 present chapter will be almost exclusively devoted. Often 
 as the operation has been performed already, there are 
 two reasons why its repetition here may not be without 
 utility : for, first, its subject is a treatise containing the 
 germs of much subsequent and still current speculation 
 which, in so far as it is merely a development of those 
 germs, cannot but be infected by whatever unsoundness 
 may be inherent in them ; and, secondly, because the subject, 
 hackneyed as it may seem, is so far from being exhausted, 
 that there is scarcely one among the doctrines embodied in 
 it to W'hich, as I proceed at once to show, fresh objection, 
 more or less grave, may not be taken by a fresh inves- 
 tigator. 
 
 To begin very near indeed to the beginning, let us take, 
 first, the section of the ' Enquiry ' which treats of the ' Origin 
 of Ideas.' All the perceptions of the mind may, according 
 to Hume, be divided into two classes, whereof the one con- 
 sists of all those ' more lively perceptions,' termed by him 
 indifferently Impressions or Sensations, which we experience 
 when we ' hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or 
 will : ' the other, of those ' less lively perceptions of which 
 we are conscious when we reflect on any of the sensations 
 above-mentioned,' and which are commonly denominated
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 115 
 
 thoughts or ideas. ' All our ideas or more feeble perceptions,' 
 he continues, 'are copies of our impressions or more lively 
 ones,' the 'entire creative power of the mind amounting to 
 no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, 
 augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded by the 
 senses and experience.' So confident is he of the literal 
 accuracy of this statement, as to proceed to intimate that 
 whenever we find in conversation or argument 'a philoso- 
 phical term employed seemingly without any idea or 
 meaning,' we have only to enquire from what impression 
 its idea, if it have one, is derived, when, if no impression 
 can be adduded, we may be sure that no idea is present 
 either. The only phenomenon opposed to this rule, which 
 lie professes himself able to think of, is that of a person 
 who, of a colour — as, for instance, blue — with which he is 
 familiar, is able to conceive a shade somewhat different 
 from any of the shades which he has actually seen ; but 
 this instance he disregards as too singular to affect the 
 general maxim, to which, as he might have added, it is not 
 really an exception, any more than would be the power of 
 a person who had never seen a mountain higher than 
 Snowdon or Mont Blanc to conceive one as high as Chim- 
 borazo or Mount Everest, for, equally in both cases, the 
 ideas are copies of sensible impressions, although of com- 
 plex, not simple, ones — of colour and graduation in the first 
 case, of size and increase in the second. Still, there is at 
 least one genuine exception, which it is the more remark- 
 able that Hume should have overlooked, as it may be said 
 to have stared him in the face from the \ery subject-matter 
 he was considering. Our idea of idea itself, from what 
 sensible impression is that derived .' We have just been 
 told that the difference between an idea and a sensation is 
 
 I 2
 
 Ii6 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 that the first is a copy of the second, a feeble copy of a 
 lively original. The idea therefore is not itself a sensation ; 
 the copy is not itself an original. Neither consequently 
 can the idea or notion which the mind proceeds to form of 
 any of its previous ideas be derived from or be a copy of 
 a sensation : it cannot have entered the mind ' in the only 
 manner by which,' according to Hume, ' an idea can have 
 access to the mind, to wit, by actual feeling and sensation.' 
 Let me not be misunderstood. Let me not be supposed 
 to be courting collision with the Berkleian thesis of the 
 non-existence of abstract ideas. I do not for one moment 
 doubt that all our general or class notions of sensible 
 objects or events are merely concrete ideas of individual 
 objects or events — that, for instance, whenever we talk of 
 man or motion in general, we are really thinking of some 
 particular man or motion, which, as possessing all properties 
 common to all men or motions, serves as a representative of 
 the entire genus. Neither am I prepared to deny, although 
 scarcely either prepared to admit, that even of abstract 
 qualities all our general or class notions are equally ideas 
 of particular specimens of those qualities ; that, when we 
 speak, for instance, of virtue or vice in general, we are 
 thinking of some particular exhibition of some particular 
 kind of virtue or vice. Nay, I am not even concerned to 
 deny that our idea of idea in general may possibly be a 
 copy of some particular one of our previous ideas which, 
 for the nonce, serves to represent all our other previous 
 ideas. I limit myself to saying that our idea of idea in 
 general, whether it be or be not itself an abstraction, is, 
 at all events, not a copy of sensation. I admit that it 
 thereby differs essentially from most, if not all, other 
 general ideas. Possibly it may be only through my having
 
 DAVID HUME AS A MErAPHYSICTAX. 117 
 
 myself felt the promptings of some particular virtue or 
 vice, that I am able to form an idea of that particular virtue 
 or vice. If so, I admit that my idea of that particular 
 virtue or vice is but, as Hume would say, a copy of my 
 feeling. And since, undoubtedly, I can feel myself thinking, 
 or perceiving, or performing any other mental operation, 
 I am bound to admit, further, that my idea of any such 
 operation may equally be described as a copy of a sensation 
 which I have experienced. All I contend for is that if, 
 after having formed my idea, either of a mental operation 
 or of anything else whatever, I proceed to ask myself what 
 sort of an entity that idea is, the answer which I give 
 myself, or, in other words, the idea which I form of my 
 previous idea, being a copy of idea, cannot be a copy of 
 sensation. 
 
 So much must surely be conceded to me, for that white, 
 being white, cannot be also black is not nearly so certain as 
 that idea and sensation, being two distinct things, idea of 
 idea cannot be idea of sensation. The concession, indeed, 
 is likely enough to be accompanied by an exclamation of 
 wonder that so microscopic a flaw in an elaborate expo- 
 sition should be thought worth pointing out ; but Hume 
 himself would certainly not have so retorted. Of the 
 doctrine \\hich I am impugning, viz., that every idea is 
 copied from some preceding sensation, he had spoken as 
 follows : — 'Those who would assert that this position is not 
 universally true, nor without exception, have only one, and 
 that an easy, method of refuting it, by producing the idea 
 which, in their opinion, is not derived from this source. It 
 will then be incumbent on us, if we would maintain our 
 doctrine, to produce the impression or lively perception 
 which corresponds to it.' He was much too candid not to
 
 ii8 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 have acknowledged that this challenge of his had been 
 fairly and fully met. He was not a man to refuse to own 
 himself refuted when, after distinctly intimating that the 
 production of one single idea, having no perception corre- 
 spondent to it amongst those which we experience ' when 
 we see, or hear, or feel, or love, or hate, or will, or desire,' 
 would suffice for his entire refutation, he found such an 
 idea produced. He knew too well also to what enormous 
 errors of thought minute errors of expression may lead, to 
 disregard any speck of inaccuracy in any one of his defini- 
 tions. The apparently slight oversight committed by him 
 on this occasion will, indeed, be presently seen to have 
 sensibly contributed to lead him subsequently into a mistake 
 of no small practical moment. 
 
 We come next to the ' Association of Ideas,' the influence 
 of which almost all of Hume's successors, as well as himself, 
 seem to mc to have greatly over-rated. That there is a 
 ' principle of connection between the different thoughts or 
 ideas of the mind ' is, as he says, sufficiently evident ; and 
 that this principle is, as he was apparently the first to 
 remark, threefold, deriving its efficacy from resemblance, 
 contiguity in time or place, and cause or effect, may also 
 be admitted with little qualification. But I presume to 
 think that he is quite incorrect in adding that, in virtue of 
 the aforesaid principle, ideas ' introduce each other with a 
 certain degree of method or regularity.' You are walking, 
 let us suppose, through Hyde Park, thinking of nothing 
 more particular than that the morning is a pleasant one, 
 when you suddenly find yourself in imagination pacing the 
 shore of the Dead Sea, and, pausing to ask yourself how 
 you got there, you discover, perhaps, that it was by the 
 following steps. Remarking some landscape effect in the
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 119 
 
 distance, you were reminded of a similar one which you 
 had remarked years before while taking a walk fifty miles 
 off in Sussex. Here resemblance operated. Then you 
 recollected how during that walk >-ou were thinking about 
 Mr. Buckle, whose lucubrations you had been conning over 
 before starting. Here entered contiguity both of time and 
 space. The name of Buckle reminded you how that pro- 
 mising writer ended his travels abroad by dying of a fever 
 Avhich he caught while sailing over the sites of the engulphcd 
 cities of the plain. Here cause and effect came into action ; 
 and, so far, everything accords with Hume's theory. But 
 if you repeat the same walk to-morrow, the same landscape 
 effect will almost certainly suggest a train of ideas quite 
 different from that of to-day. Perhaps it may begin by 
 reminding you of landscape effects in general ; then of 
 Mr. Ruskin, who has discoursed so eloquently on that 
 topic, and next of Mr. Ruskin's ' Stones of Venice,' from 
 whence it is equal chances whether your thoughts radiate, 
 on one side of the compass, to stone china, or Stoney 
 Stratford, or Stonewall Jackson, or, on the other, to the 
 ' Venetian Bracelet,' L. E. L. and Fernando Po, or to that 
 efifectivc adaptation of the Venetian style of architecture, 
 the Railway Station at St. Pancras, and thence to some 
 town or other on the Midland Line. 
 
 These examples will be readily recognized as fair 
 average specimens of those impremeditated trains of 
 thought with which we are all familiar. Is there, then, 
 in the arrangement of the consecutive thoughts of which 
 the several trains arc composed, any method or regu- 
 larity common, I will not say to all, but to any two of 
 them } According to Hume and to most of his successors 
 in the same path of enquir}-, there ought to be. Thus the
 
 I20 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 illustrious author of the ' Analysis of the Human Mind ' 
 affirms, without rebuke or protest from any one of his not 
 less illustrious commentators, that ' our ideas spring up 
 or exist in the order in which the sensations existed of 
 which they are the copies : that of those sensations which 
 occurred synchronically, the ideas also spring up syn- 
 chronically, and that of the sensations which occurred 
 successively, the ideas rise successively.' And he adds, 
 ' this is the general law of the Association of Ideas,' 
 remarking, by way of illustration, that, as ' I have seen 
 the sun, and the sky in which it is placed, synchronically, 
 if I think of the one I think of the other at the same 
 time' ; and that, as when committing to memory a passage 
 of words, as, for instance, the Lord's Prayer, we pronounce 
 the words in successive order, and have consequently the 
 sensation of the words in successive order, so when we 
 proceed to repeat the passage, ' the ideas of the words also 
 rise in succession, Onr suggesting FatJicr, Father suggest- 
 ing ivJiich, zvJiicJi suggesting art, and so on to the end.' ' 
 
 Oh Law ! Law ! most abused of scientific terms, what 
 an infinity of dogmatic illegalities are committed in thy 
 name ! The one thing ^\■hich scientific law implies is 
 regularity of occurrence, but what regulation is it that is 
 obeyed in common by a number of sequences commencing 
 at the same point in Hyde Park, yet terminating, one in 
 Africa, another in America, a third in Palestine, and a 
 fourth in the centre of England 'i Can it have been 
 seriously said that it is impossible for us to think of the 
 sky without thinking simultaneously of the sun which illu- 
 
 ' Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Wind. By James Mill. 
 Edition of 1869, with Notes by Alexander Bain, Andrew Findlater, George 
 Grote, and John Stuart Mill, vol. i. pp. 78 ct seq.
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 121 
 
 minatcs the sky ? Is it impossible for us to think instead 
 of the ether which constitutes it, or peradventure even of 
 the resembhincc between its celestial azure and what Moore 
 calls the ' most unholy blue' of some frolicsome Cynthia's 
 eyes ? And is it not notorious that when saying the Lord's 
 Prayer — a prayer which, in spite of the injunction by 
 which its original dictation was accompanied, to 'avoid 
 vain repetitions, as the heathen do,' many Anglican clergy- 
 men insist on repeating half-a-dozen times in a single 
 service — is it not notorious that, so far from the idea of 
 one word suggesting to us the idea of the next, no small 
 effort of attention is requisite to enable us to have any 
 idea at all of what we arc saying ? 
 
 It would seem that the author of the ' Analysis ' either 
 could not help asking himself questions like these, or, 
 without asking the questions, could not help seeing the 
 commonplace truths involved in the inevitable replies to 
 them. It would seem to have been semi-consciousness of 
 the utter inability of the evidence first cited by him to 
 justify belief in the necessarily simultaneous or successive 
 occurrence of the ideas of simultaneously or successively 
 experienced sensations, which made him have recourse for 
 help to complex ideas. ' If,' he says, ' from a stone I have 
 had synchronically the sensation of colour, the sensation of 
 hardness, the sensations of shape and size, the sensation of 
 wei'rht, — when the idea of one of these sensations occurs, 
 the ideas of all of them occur.' Because, then, I may 
 have ascertained by experience that a stone is white, hard, 
 and round, two feet in diameter, and twenty pounds in 
 weight, am I really incapable, if I happen to break my 
 shin against it, of thinking how hard it is, without thinking 
 also how heavy ; or, when trying to lift it, of thinking how
 
 122 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 heavy it is without thinking likewise of its shape and 
 colour ? Elsewhere the same writer speaks of ' ideas which 
 have been so often conjoined that whenever one exists in 
 the mind, the others immediately exist along with it, seem 
 to run into one another, to coalesce, as it were, and out of 
 many to form one idea.* But which are the ideas whereof 
 this can be said ? The writer instances those simple ideas, 
 colour, hardness, extension, weight, which, he says, make 
 up our complex ideas of gold or iron. He instances, too, 
 the ideas of resistance, muscular contractility, direction, 
 extension, place, and motion, of v/hich he says our appa- 
 rently simple idea, weight, is compounded. Does he 
 mean, then, that we cannot entertain the idea of yellowness 
 without entertaining at the same time all the other ideas 
 necessary for composing the idea of gold, and entertaining, 
 too, that idea in addition to all the rest } Does he mean 
 that a train of thought cannot commence with place 
 without terminating with weight ? Of course he means 
 nothing of the kind, although so he distinctly says. 
 Rather, he appears to mean the direct converse, viz., that 
 w^e cannot have the idea of gold or of weight present to 
 the mind, without having present also all the simple ideas 
 of which those complex ideas are compounded — in other 
 words, not that the occurrence of any one component 
 necessarily calls up all the other components, and forms 
 with them the compound, but that the appearance of the 
 compound brings with it all its separate components. 
 
 But neither does this seem to be a strictly correct repre- 
 sentation. I am not sure that I can think of gold without 
 thinking of yellowness, but I am positive that I can with- 
 out thinking of hardness. Nor is there any doubt that the 
 youngest child knows perfectly well what it means when,
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 123 
 
 trying to lift a stone, it calls the stone heavy, although it 
 mieht not be more difficult to make the stone itself than 
 the child understand what is meant by muscular contrac- 
 tility. I own that if it be here demanded of me how a 
 compound can be present unless every one of its com- 
 ponents be present also, I may under pressure be con- 
 strained to suggest that possibly, after all, the very term 
 compound or complex idea may be somewhat of a misnomer, 
 or at any rate that the constituents of such an idea are 
 much fewer than is commonly supposed. Be it admitted 
 that the idea, so styled, could not have been formed with- 
 out the instrumentality of other and previously-formed 
 ideas, still it does not follow that the instruments of pro- 
 duction should for ever after accompany the product. The 
 rackful of dry toast which is brought to you for breakfast 
 could scarcely have been so neatly sliced without the help 
 of a knife, but the toast is not the less in bodily presence 
 on the breakfast-table because the knife that cut it has 
 been left behind in the kitchen. Neither, although you 
 may probably be aware that salt, suet, sugar, and spice 
 enter into the composition of a Christmas pudding, do you 
 necessarily think of those separate ingredients when you 
 think of the pudding, any mcye than you would see them 
 separately if }-ou saw the pudding. The only qualities 
 which you apparently cannot help thinking of when }-ou 
 think of the pudding are its size, shape, and colour. 
 
 One word more about the assumed regularity in the 
 succession of ideas. That when you are repeating a 
 familiar form of words or playing a familiar piece of music, 
 every word uttered or note struck, by reason of connexion 
 of some sort between itself and the word or note next in 
 order, enables you without the smallest mental effort to
 
 124 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 utter that Avord or strike that note, is too notorious to be 
 questioned. But I do very earnestly question whether the 
 connexion that thus operates is an association of ideas. 
 How can it be, when, as frequently happens, you have not 
 the smallest idea of what it is you are saying or playing .-* 
 Have you not often, after reverently saying grace, like the 
 decent paterfamilias you probably are, occasioned a giggle 
 round the table by saying it again a minute or two after- 
 wards, in utter unconsciousness that you had said it just 
 before .'' Or, if I may so far flatter myself as to fancy my 
 reader a fair daughter of the house instead of the staid 
 house father — has it never happened to you. Miss, while 
 executing a brilliant performance on the piano, to have 
 been so entirely engrossed by an animated flirtation 
 carried on simultaneously, that, if at the conclusion of the 
 piece you had been asked what you had been playing, you 
 could not have replied whether it was La ci darcvi la 
 inaiio or Non mi I'oglio inaritar I And is it not evident 
 that non-existent ideas cannot have called real ideas into 
 existence } 
 
 My own modest contribution towards explanation of 
 these mysterious phenomena is as follows. Apart from 
 association of ideas, there is a separate and independent 
 association — to wit, association of volitions. While com- 
 mitting to memory a form of words, or trying a new piece 
 of music, every separate movement of your tongue or of 
 your fingers is consequent on some separate volition. Each 
 series of movements is consequent on a series of volitions. 
 By being repeatedly made to follow each other in the 
 same order, the several volitions become connected with 
 each other, so that whenever the mind desires to marshal 
 them in the aforesaid order, each one, as it presents itself,
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 125 
 
 brings with it the next in succession, until the whole series 
 is completed ; while, as each volition has consequent upon 
 it a corresponding; movement, a scries of corresponding 
 movements simultaneously takes place. The mind mean- 
 while is quite unconscious of the muscular movements that 
 arc going on. What it is conscious of are the volitions 
 without which no voluntary movements of the muscles 
 could have been made, and of which the mind must needs 
 be conscious, because a volition of which the mind was not 
 conscious would be an involuntary volition, a birth too 
 monstrous for even metaphysics to be equal to. But 
 although necessarily conscious of these volitions, the mind 
 is only momentarily conscious. It pays them barely an 
 instant's attention, and therefore instantaneously forgets 
 them, retaining no more trace of them than if they had 
 never been. 
 
 The doctrine of Hume's which next confronts us is his 
 famous one concerning Cause and Eftcct. lie commences 
 it by explaining that all objects of human enquiry are 
 di\isible into two kinds — i. Relations of Ideas, like those 
 of which geometry, algebra, and arithmetic treat, and 
 which arc either intuitively certain, or ' discoverable by the 
 mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is 
 anywhere existent in the universe,' as, for example, the 
 truths demonstrated b}' Euclid, which would be equally 
 incontestable even ' though there were never a circle or a 
 triangle in nature : ' 2. Matters of Eact, as, for example, 
 the sun's rising and setting, or the emission of light and 
 heat by fire, which are never discoverable by unassisted 
 reason, because of no one of them would the opposite 
 imply a contradiction or be consequently inconceivable ; 
 and in our knowledge of an}- one of which we can never
 
 126 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 ' go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses,' 
 except by means of reasons derived from experience of 
 some fact or facts connected in some way or other with 
 the particular matter of fact we are considering. 
 
 So far, all is comparatively plain sailing, but Hume now 
 propounds a difficulty which he at first presents as seem- 
 ingly insurmountable, but which I cannot help thinking to 
 be' mainly of his own creation, and which he himself, almost 
 immediately afterwards, suggests a iiiode, though a very 
 inadequate mode, of overcoming. His language here is 
 not marked by his usual perspicuity, or rather — to speak 
 without respect of persons — it contradicts itself in most 
 astounding fashion ; but his meaning is not the less cer- 
 tainly the following, for there is no other construction 
 which his words will bear. 
 
 ' What,' he asks, ' is the foundation of all conclusions 
 from experience 1 ' Why is it that, having found that such 
 an object has always been attended with such an effect, we 
 infer that similar objects will always be attended with 
 similar effects .-* The proposition that a certain antecedent 
 has always been followed by a certain consequent, and the 
 proposition that the same antecedent will be followed by 
 the same consequent, are not identical. What, then, is the 
 connexion between them which causes one to be inferred 
 from the other .'' The connexion is unhesitatingly pro- 
 nounced by him to be neither intuitively perceived, nor yet 
 to be ' founded on any process of the understanding.' If 
 you insist that the inference is made by a chain of reason- 
 ing, he challenges you to produce that reasoning, and 
 taking for granted that you have none to produce, he pro- 
 ceeds to indicate what principle it is which, in his opinion, 
 does determine us to form the inference. That principle
 
 DAV/D HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 137 
 
 he declares to be custom or habit, by which alone, he 
 asserts, wc are, after the constant conjunction of two ob- 
 jects, determined to expect the one from the appearance of 
 the other ; adding that all inferences from experience are 
 effects of custom, not of reasoning. 
 
 What is the correct answer to this question of Hume's I 
 shall be rash enough to endeavour to indicate a little fur- 
 ther on ; meanwhile there can be no temerity in saying 
 that whatever be the right answer, Hume's is certainly a 
 wrong one. Habit plainly cannot be its own parent. It 
 enables us to repeat more easily what we have already 
 repeatedly done, but it cannot be the cause of our doing 
 or being able to do anything for the first time. An infant 
 that has once burnt its fingers by touching the flame of a 
 candle, expects that if it touch the flame again it will 
 burn its fingers again, but it does not expect this because 
 it has been in the habit of expecting it. Neither, if we be 
 here bidden to understand that the habit referred to is 
 not any mental habit of our own, but a habit which we 
 have observed certain phenomena to have of following 
 each other, shall we thereby be brought one whit nearer 
 the truth. Our infant with the burnt finger has not ob- 
 served that flame is in the habit of burning. It only 
 knows that flame did burn on the one occasion on which 
 it tried the experiment, which experiment it consequently 
 declines to repeat. Besides, no one needs to be told that 
 inferences, though thus capable of being drawn from single 
 occurrences, are drawn with increased confidence from 
 observation of habit. We all know already that, having 
 always found that fire burns, we infer that it always will 
 burn. What we want to know is, why we draw this infer- 
 ence. This is the question which Hume puts, and respect-
 
 128 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 ing which he gives very positively the negative reply that 
 the inference is not drawn either intuitively, nor yet by any 
 process of the understanding. Yet that a body when not 
 moving must needs be at rest, is not more certainly de- 
 monstrable than that inferences cannot possibly be drawn 
 except in one or other of these two ways. Is not every 
 inference a species of belief, and must not every belief be 
 either innate within us, or have been acquired artificially ; 
 and, as in the latter case, it is a mental acquisition, must it 
 not in that case have been acquired by an operation of the 
 mind or understanding } Is it not clear, then, that infer- 
 ences must always be either intuitive or ratiocinative ; and 
 is it not strange that Hume should deny that they ever are 
 so .'' Yet stranger still is it, that even while denying them 
 to be either one or the other, he, almost in the same 
 breath, pronounces them to be both. For, after having on 
 one page denied that they are founded on reason, or any 
 process of the understanding, he describes them on the next 
 page as being not simply founded on, but as being them- 
 selves * processes of the mind,' ' processes of thought,' and 
 immediately afterwards ' arguments,' nay, ' reasonings from 
 experience ; ' and, yet again, after as short a pause, these 
 very same ' reasonings,' and ' arguments,' and ' processes of 
 the mind and thought,' he concludes by styling 'natural 
 instincts which no reason or process of the thought or 
 understanding is able either to produce or to prevent ' — 
 ' operations of the soul as unavoidable ' when the mind is 
 placed in certain circumstances, as it is ' to feel the passion 
 of love when we receive benefits, or hatred when we meet 
 with injuries.' 
 
 What are we to say to a description of mental operations 
 which are and are not ' arguments ' and ' reasonings,' which
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAX. 129 
 
 arc and arc not * processes of tlioui,dit/ which arc not ' in- 
 tuitive,' and which yet arc ' instincts ? ' How arc we to 
 account for such amazing inconsistencies in an exposition 
 of one of the greatest of philosophers ? With all humility, 
 I submit the following as a possible solution of the enigma. 
 
 The one solitary ground on which Hume denies the 
 argumentative and ratiocinative character of what he 
 nevertheless terms arguments and reasonings, is the im- 
 possibility of producing the chains of argument or reason- 
 ing of which they are composed. But this impossibility 
 can at most only prove that the reasonings are elementary, 
 and have, consequently, no component parts into which 
 they can be resolved. But reasoning is not the less reason- 
 ing for being elementary, or for being only a single link in 
 a chain, instead of being itself a chain composed of many 
 links. Still, being elementary, it may occur to, and pass 
 through, the mind with extreme rapidity — with not less 
 rapidity than an intuition or instinct, for which therefore 
 it may easily be mistaken, as accordingly it has actually 
 been by Hume. But that a reasoning from experience is not 
 really an instinct is certain, firstly, because intuitive or in- 
 stinctive reasoning, if not a phrase absolutely devoid of 
 meaning, is a contradiction in terms ; and, secondl}-, because, 
 if it were instinctive, it would precede instead of following 
 experience, and a baby, instead of finding out that flame 
 burns by touching it, would know beforehand that flame 
 burns, and would therefore not touch it. 
 
 From the species of Belief constituted by an inference 
 from experience, Hume, by an easy transition, passes on to 
 Belief in general, which he defines to be ' nothing but a 
 more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an 
 object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to 
 
 K
 
 I30 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 attain,' referring, by way of illustration, to an animal with 
 the head of a man and the body of a horse, which anyone 
 can imagine, but no one can believe in, and desiring us 
 apparently to suppose that if our groom were to come and 
 tell us that he had found a centaur feeding in the paddock 
 beside out favourite saddle-horse, our sole reason for be- 
 lieving in the horse and for not believing in the centaur 
 would be our greater ability to conceive the one than the 
 other. That such a definition should for a moment have 
 satisfied its author's curiosity, Is itself a psychological 
 curiosity which must not, however, be suffered to detain us. 
 Whoever, not content with knowing perfectly well what 
 belief is, desires to have his knowledge of it set down in 
 writing, should read the admirable notes on the subject, 
 with which Mr. John Mill and Mr, Bain have enriched the 
 last edition of Mr. James Mill's 'Analysis of the Human 
 Mind.' Most readers, hov.-ever, will probably be disposed 
 to avail themselves here of a rather favourite phrase of 
 Hume himself, and to plead that, 'if we agree about the 
 thing, it is needless to dispute about terms ; ' and it is not 
 unlikely that such of them as may have formed their 
 notion of metaphysical discussions in general from the 
 specimens given above, may go so far as to hint a doubt 
 whether any of the nice verbal distinctions which meta- 
 physicians so much affect, are really worth the trouble 
 required to understand them. Nor would anyone, perhaps, 
 be much the w^orse for acting upon this suspicion^ provided 
 that, in accordance with it, he kept altogether aloof from 
 the studies which it disparages. His ideas need not be the 
 less clear because he neither knows nor cares of what they 
 are copies, nor whether they are copies of anything ; nor 
 will the order of their occurrence be at all affected in con-
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 131 
 
 sequence of his hc'mg similarly careless, whether that order 
 is or is not go\-erned by a /azu of association ; neither need 
 his inferences from experience be the less sound in conse- 
 quence of his never having enquired how or why they are 
 deduced. But although the most absolute ignorance and 
 corresponding indifference about these and kindred topics 
 may not tend in the least to disqualify him for performance 
 of the whole duty of man, it is not the less important that, if 
 he do care to know aught about them, his knowledge should 
 be exact, for there is no knowing beforehand how luxuriantly 
 the minutest germ of theoretical error may ramify in prac- 
 tice, or into what substantive quagmire trust in deceitful 
 shadows may lead. These respectable aphorisms may be 
 beneficially borne in mind during perusal of vdiat is about 
 to be said. 
 
 If the fact were really, as Ilumc supposed, that wc have 
 110 reason for our inferences from experience, and draw 
 them only because either we have been in the habit of 
 drawing them, or because we are so constituted as to be 
 unable to help drawing them, the reason of our drawing 
 them plainly could not be that we perceive any necessary 
 connection between antecedent and consequent events, or 
 any force or power binding these together as cause and 
 effect. Accordingly, Hume does not scruple to affirm that 
 ' we have no idea of connection or power at all, and 
 that these words are absolutely without meaning when 
 employed either in philosophical reasoning or in common 
 life.' Every idea, he argues, referring to a rule which he 
 somewhat hastily supposes himself to have already pro\ed 
 to be without exception, must needs have been copied 
 from some preceding sensible impression, but neither 
 from within nor from without can we lia\"c received an 
 
 K 2
 
 132 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 impression from which this particular idea can have been 
 copied. No keenest scrutiny of any portion of matter, 
 no study of its external configuration or internal structure 
 could, previously to experience, enable us to conjecture that 
 it could produce any effect whatever, still less any particular 
 effect : could enable us to guess, for instance, that flame 
 would burn, or ice would chill, if touched. Nor even 
 though on once touching flame we get our fingers burnt, 
 are mature philosophers like us to conclude, as if we 
 had no more intelligence than so many babies, that if we 
 touch again we shall be burnt again. All we have as yet 
 learnt from the experiment is that the sensation of touch- 
 ing fire has once been followed by the sensation of burning, 
 but nothing has occurred to suggest that in the first sensa- 
 tion lurked any secret power of producing the second. 
 And what a single experiment does not prove, no number 
 of repetitions of precisely the same experiment with pre- 
 cisely the same results can prove. Even though on a 
 lengthened course of experience we have found that in 
 every case of our touching flame our fingers have been 
 burnt, we are still as far as ever from perceiving any 
 bond of connection between the tw^o events. We do 
 indeed believe that as flame when touched has hitherto 
 invariably burnt, so, whenever touched hereafter, it wilt 
 hereafter invariably burn ; but this, according to Hume, 
 we believe simply because by long practice we have con- 
 tracted such a habit of associating the idea of touched 
 flame with burnt fingers, that whenever we witness the 
 one we cannot help expecting the other. 
 
 Neither, if, withdrawing our eyes from the outward world, 
 we cast them inwardly upon the operations of our own 
 minds, shall we, according to Hume, any the more discover
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 133 
 
 what we arc in search of. What though we know by 
 experience that whatever, within certain limits, our will 
 appoints, our bodily organs or mental faculties will ordi- 
 narily perform ; that our limbs will move as we wish 
 them, and our memory, reason, or imagination bring for- 
 ward ideas which we desire to contemplate, what knowledge 
 have we here beyond that of certain volitions and certain 
 other acts taking place in succession ? What smallest 
 evidence have wc of any connection between the volitions 
 and the other acts ? A volition is an operation of the 
 mind, is it not ? and body is matter, is it not ? And do 
 you pretend to know — can you form the smallest approach 
 to a guess — how mind is united with body, and how it is 
 possible therefore for the refined spiritual essence to actuate 
 the gross material substance. If you ' were empowered 
 by a secret wish to remove mountains or to control the 
 planets in their orbit,' would such extensive authority be 
 one whit more inexplicable than the supposed ability of 
 your will to raise your hand to your head or to cause 
 your foot to make one fonvard step .'' 
 
 If, nevertheless, you fancy you understand in what 
 manner the will has some of the bodily organs under its 
 government, how, pray, do you account for its not having 
 all equally — the heart and liver as well as the tongue 
 and fingers ? Without trying, you never would have dis- 
 covered that your bowels will not, any more than without 
 trying you could have knoA\n that your limbs will, ordi- 
 narily move in conformity \\\\.\\ yowx wishes. Neither, if 
 one of your limbs were to be suddenly paralysed, would 
 )-ou, until you tried, become aware that it would no longer 
 niove as you wished. If there be, then, a power attached 
 to the will, it is plainly experience alone A\hich apprises
 
 134 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 you of its existence ; whereas if you were independently 
 conscious of it, you would know beforehand precisely what 
 it can and what it cannot effect, and would, moreover, 
 when you lost it, become instantly aware of your loss. 
 
 Again, and above all, does not anatomy teach us that 
 when the mind wills the movement of any bodily mem- 
 ber, it ' is not the member itself which is immediately 
 moved, but certain intervening nerves, muscles, and animal 
 spirits, or possibly something still more minute and more 
 unknown,' through which the motion is successively propa- 
 gated until it reach the member ? So that when the mind 
 wills one event, a series of other events, quite different and 
 quite unthought of, take place instead ; and it is only by 
 their means that the will's purpose is finally achieved. But 
 how can the mind be conscious, how can it form the re- 
 motest conception, of a power which not only never does 
 what the mind desires, but never does aught of which the 
 mind is cognisant .-' 
 
 And as we arc thus utterly unable to perceive any power 
 that the mind has over the body, so are we equally uncon- 
 scious of any power of the mind over itself. We know as 
 little of its internal nature and constitution as we do of its 
 mode of connection with the body. We know by expe- 
 rience that at the bidding of the will ideas are continually 
 brought forward ; but by what means they are brought for- 
 ward we are absolutely ignorant, as we are also of the reasons 
 of the fluctuation of mental activity, and why mental ope- 
 rations are more vigorous in health than in sickness, before 
 breakfast than after a heavy dinner or deep carouse. 
 
 Such, on the issue immediately before us, is Hume's 
 reasoning, to which — though necessarily very greatly con- 
 densing it — I shall, I am sure, be acknowledged to have
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPIIYS/CLLV. 135 
 
 conscientiously striven to do full justice, by bringing all its 
 points into the strongest light, and arranging them in the 
 most effective order. Still, with its utmost strength thus 
 displayed before us, wc arc fully warranted in asserting 
 a priori that its whole utmost strength is weakness. If, 
 by following a leader who has engaged to conduct us to 
 a certain spot, we find ourselves at our journey's end in a 
 quite different place, no appeal that the guide can make to 
 maps or finger-posts will persuade us that he has not mis- 
 taken the way. Nor need our judgment be otherwise, even 
 though our guide be Hume, if, having started with him in 
 jjursuit of truth, we are finally landed in a patent absurdity. 
 With all due respect for logic, we protest with Tony Lump- 
 kin against being argufied out of our senses, as we plainly 
 should be if we allowed ourselves to be persuaded that 
 whenever we use the words pozvcr or connection we have no 
 idea thereto correspondent. Since, then, Hume tells us 
 this, we may be quite sure that he has been deluded by 
 some fallacy which may be detected by adequate search ; 
 and being, moreover, sensible that we really have the idea 
 our possession of which is denied by him, wc may be 
 equally sure that the original of which the idea is a copy 
 is similarly discoverable. In sooth, neither the one nor the 
 other is far to seek. The fallacy consists simply in con- 
 fusion of the definite \\'\\\\ the indefinite article. The 
 original of our idea of power Hume himself indicates even 
 while rejecting it. Although constrained by Hume's de- 
 monstration to confess that we cannot even conjecture of 
 what kind is the authority which the will exercises over the 
 limbs, we are not the less sensible that it does exercise an 
 authority of some sort or other, which they are unable to 
 disobey. Wc know that in ordinary circumstances our
 
 136 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 limbs will move when we wish them to move, and will 
 remain quiet when we wish them not to move. Nor this 
 only. We moreover know, or at any rate fancy we know, 
 that they would not have moved unless we had wished them. 
 In examples like these of volitions followed, as the case 
 may be, by premeditated motion or rest, we have some- 
 thing more than the simple sequence observable in the 
 succession of external events. We do not perceive simply 
 that, as when fire is lighted, heat is emitted, so when the 
 mind wills the body moves. We perceive clearly that 
 there must be a connection of some sort between ante- 
 cedent and consequent, without which the first certainly 
 zvoiild not and, ^^'e fancy, could not have followed the first. 
 We perceive, in short, that the second followed because the 
 first preceded. If fire were an animated being, capable of 
 forming and manifesting volitions ; and if we observed that 
 whenever it wished to emit heat, heat was emitted ; and 
 that whenever it wished to withhold heat, heat was with- 
 held ; and if we were thereupon to say that fire has the 
 power of emitting or withholding heat at its pleasure, our 
 words surely would not be destitute of signification ; they 
 would certainly possess some meaning, and that a very 
 obvious one. And so they as certainly do when we say 
 that the mind has power over those bodily movements 
 •which we observe to take place and to cease in constant 
 conformity with its will. I am not saying that what they 
 mean is necessarily truth — we will come to that presently — 
 all I say as yet is, that they mean something, and that that 
 something, whether it be a real or only an imaginary per- 
 ception, is perfectly fitted to be the original of that idea 
 of ' power ' connecting cause and effect, or of ' connection ' 
 betivcen cause and effect, which Hume maintains does not
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 137 
 
 exist, because there is no original from whicli it can have 
 been copied. It matters not that we are quite ignorant of 
 what nature is the something from which our idea of power 
 possessed by the mind over the body is derived, and which, 
 for aught we know, may reside, not in tlie mind, but in the 
 body, and may consist, not of any strength inherent in 
 the former, but of loyalty and docility inherent in the 
 latter. Just as the authority of a popular general over a 
 well-disciplined army is not the less real because the sol- 
 diers, every one of whose lives is at the general's disposal, 
 miglit, if so inclined, mutiny en viassc, so it can make no 
 difference in the mind's power over the body whether the 
 mind be intrinsically able to enforce obedience, or the 
 limbs be so constituted as to be unable to disobey. As 
 little does it matter that a\c are also ignorant of the mode 
 in which the mind's behests are communicated to the mem- 
 bers. It is not the less certain that in some mode or other 
 they are communicated. Neither does it signify more 
 that the mind does not communicate directly with the part 
 of the body which it desires to influence, and acts upon that 
 part only by means of action propagated through a series 
 of intervening parts ; or that it is able to direct only some 
 organs, and not others, or cannot direct even those, if by 
 some accident they have become seriously deranged. A 
 strong-armed blockhead is not the less obviously able 
 to pump up water because the terms ' muscular contrac- 
 tility ' and ' atmospheric pressure ' are as heathen Greek to 
 him ; or because the pump-handle, which alone is directly 
 moved by him, touches, not the water itself, but only the 
 first link in a chain of mechanism connecting it \\\i\\ the 
 water ; or because, if the sucker of the pump got choked, 
 or the well were to dry up, it would be vain for him to go
 
 138 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 on moving the pump-handle. Blockhead as he is, nothing 
 of all this in the least diminishes his conviction that as 
 long as the pump continues in order and there remains 
 water in the well, he can oblige the water to rise by moving 
 the pump-handle ; nor can anything analogous prevent the 
 mind from feeling that whenever, in ordinary circumstances, 
 it wills that the limbs be moved, the limbs not only will be 
 moved, but cannot help being moved accordingly. But it is 
 simply impossible that, from the exercise of volitions which 
 it knovv's will be obeyed, the mind should not receive the 
 sensation of exercising causal power ; and having thus got 
 the sensation, it has nothing to do but to copy the sen- 
 sation in order to get the idea of causal power. Cc n'cst que 
 le pi'cmicr pas qui coutc ; the first step being taken the 
 others cost nothing. The mind having, by introspection of 
 its own operations, discovered what Hume, though profess- 
 ing to look in the same direction, unaccountably contrived 
 to overlook — the idea, namely, of causal pov/er — proceeds 
 to apply that idea to the connection of external pheno- 
 mena. Not only do we, whenever we see a horse or an ox 
 walking of its own accord, infer that the animal Vy-alks 
 because it wishes to walk ; but having observed that, when 
 a stone is thrown into the air it invariably falls presently 
 afterwards towards the ground ; that a magnet invariably 
 attracts any light piece of iron placed near it ; that red-hot 
 coals always burn ; and that water always moistens, we 
 infer that the second constituent of each brace of pheno- 
 m.ena takes place because of the first, meaning thereby that 
 there is some strong bond counecting the two and compelling 
 one to follow the other. If called upon to justify this infer- 
 ence, we may do so by reducing to absurdity its only pos- 
 sible alternative. If there be sujjposed to be no connection
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 139 
 
 between two phenomena constituting one of those invariable 
 sequences which wc arc accustomed to denominate cause 
 and effect, the sequence which tlicy constitute must needs 
 be an unconnected sequence, and the only reason for 
 styling one of the phenomena a cause is, that it is an antece- 
 dent which the other invariably follows. But according to 
 this, as has been pointed out over and over again, day 
 would be the cause of night, and night the cause of day, 
 and tidal flux and reflux likewise would be each other's 
 causes ; and Mr. J. S. Mill has therefore proposed to inter- 
 polate a word, and to define the cause of a phenomenon as 
 ' the antecedent on which it (the phenomenon) is invariably 
 and unconditionally consequent.' ' I must, however, confess 
 myself unable to perceive how the definition is improved by 
 this emendation. There is not, and cannot possibly be, such 
 a thing as nnconditionally invariable sequence, as, indeed, 
 Mr. Mill himself virtually admits by expressly assuming as 
 an indispensable condition of all causation that ' the present 
 constitution of things endure.' But if, notwithstanding the 
 presence of this indispensable condition, it be permissible 
 to call any sequence unconditionally invariable, then the 
 sequences of night upon day and of day upon night are 
 such sequences, and day and night continue consequently 
 entitled to be styled each other's causes as much under the 
 amended as under the original definition. For as long as 
 ' the present constitution of things endures,' that is, as long 
 as the earth continues to revolve on its axis, and the sun 
 continues to shine, and no opaque substance intervenes be- 
 tween earth and sun, day and night will continue to be 
 as invariably and unconditionally each other's antecedents 
 as sunlight will continue to be the antecedent or concomi- 
 
 ' Mill's « Logic' 5th Edition, ^'ol. i. p. 377.
 
 I40 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 tant of day. True, Mr. Mill denies that the earth's diurnal 
 motion is part of the present constitution of things, because, 
 according to him, ' nothing can be so called which might 
 possibly be terminated or altered by natural causes : ' but, 
 if so, then neither ought sunlight to be so called, for it too 
 quite possibly may, nay, in the opinion of many philoso- 
 phers, most certainly will, be extinguished eventually by 
 natural causes. If day ought not to be called the uncon- 
 ditionally invariable consequent of night merely because it 
 would cease to be so if the earth were to cease turning on 
 its axis, then neither ought it to be called the uncondi- 
 tionally invariable consequent of the unshrouded proximity 
 of the sun, inasmuch as it would cease to be thereupon 
 consequent if the sun were to become burnt out. If night 
 be not, and if sunlight be, the cause of day, the reason is 
 not that sunlight always hitherto has been, and, on one in- 
 dispensable condition, always will be followed by day, for 
 so equally has hitherto been, and on the same condition 
 will hereafter be, night. The real reason is, that sunlight 
 not only always has been and will be, but also always iiuist 
 be followed by day ; that unless the constitution of nature 
 very materially change, wherever is sunlight day must be ; 
 whereas not only might day be, although night had never 
 preceded, but unless night had preceded, day must have 
 been from the beginning. In short, to constitute cause, in- 
 variability, however unconditional, will not suffice. Another 
 quality must be added, and that quality I contend to be 
 obligatoriness. A cause, I maintain, Avould not be a cause 
 unless its effect not only do or will, but must necessarily 
 follow it. In common with the great unphilosophic mass 
 of mankind, I hold that between cause and effect there is a 
 binding power which constrains the one to follow the other.
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 141 
 
 If asked whence we suppose that power can have been 
 derived, such of us, as conscious that we arc ' no very great 
 wits,' don't mind confessing that we ' believe in a God,' will 
 not mind cither suggesting that the power, wherever not 
 exerted by an animated creature, may possibly be directly 
 from God. One thing certain is, that inanimate matter 
 cannot possibly possess or exercise any force or power 
 whatever, so that, unless matter, although apparently dead, 
 be really alive, attraction, cohesion, gravitation, and all its 
 other so called forces, being incompatible with dead inert- 
 ness, must needs be manifestations of some living, and 
 possibly divine, power. Far from there being any diffi- 
 culty in conceiving Omnipresent Deity to be exhibiting its 
 might in every speck of universal space in every instant of 
 never-ending time, it is, on the contrary, impossible to 
 conceive otherwise. We cannot conceive one single mi- 
 nutest point in limitless extension to be for one moment 
 exempt from the immediate control of a di\-inc nature as- 
 sumed to be 
 
 T^ifTused throughout infinity's expanse 
 And co-existent with eternity. 
 
 Here, indeed, we hasten to acknowledge with Hume 
 that ' our line is too short to fathom the immense abyss ' 
 which wc have now reached. But wc need not, therefore, 
 follow Ilumc to the lengths to \\hich liis insidious mock- 
 modesty \\oulJ fain entice us. We may concede to him 
 that ' we have no idea of a Supreme Being but what wc 
 leaiiii from reflection on our own faculties,' but we need not 
 imitate him by perversely shutting our c)-es to the evidences 
 of an energy inherent in our own faculties, and thereby 
 entitle him to insist on our joining him in denying that 
 there is any evidence of energy in the Supreme Being.
 
 142 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 We need not, because constrained to admit that we know- 
 no more of the essence of divine, than we do of human, 
 power, pretend that we cannot even conceive such a thing 
 as divine power. Hume's affectation of profound ignorance 
 on the subject must have occasioned unusual amusement 
 in a certain quarter. The Devil can seldom have had a 
 more hearty grin at his darling sin than when witnessing 
 this peculiar exhibition of the pride that apes humility. 
 
 That Hume's ignorance was nothing but affectation is 
 proved by his veering completely round immediately 
 afterwards, and in his very next chapter, and almost in his 
 very next page, pronouncing it to be * universally allowed 
 that matter in all its operations is actuated by a necessary 
 force, and that every natural effect is so precisely deter- 
 mined by the energy of its cause that no other effect in 
 such particular circumstances could possibly have resulted 
 from it.' Throughout the same chapter he argues in the 
 same sense, and quite forgetting how obstinately he had 
 just before contended that there are absolutely no such 
 things as connection or power at all, he defies any one to 
 ' define a cause without comprehending, as part of the 
 definition, necessary connection with its efiect.' So highly, 
 indeed, does he now rate that connecting power, whose 
 very existence he had previously so vehemently denied, 
 that he professes himself unable to set any limit to its 
 efficacy. Even for those who should undertake to deduce 
 from it the impossibility of any liberty of human will, and 
 consequently of any human responsibility, pleading that, 
 inasmuch as with a continued chain of necessary causes, 
 reaching from the first great cause of all to every 
 separate volition of every single human creature, it must 
 needs be the Creator of the A\orld who is the ultimate
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 143 
 
 author of all volitions, and consequently solely accountable 
 for every crime which man commits, he affects, witli 
 exceedingly ill-sitting sanctimoniousness, to have no better 
 answer than that such belief, being impious, must be absurd 
 and cannot be true. It did not suit his purpose to point 
 out that the volitions of Omnipotence itself, equally with 
 human volitions, are necessary effects of causes — the causes 
 in their case being the other attributes with which Omni- 
 potence is conjoined — and that as it is nevertheless impos- 
 sible for the volitions of Omnipotence to be otherwise than 
 absolutely free and uncontrolled, so there is no reason why 
 human volitions likewise should not, in spite of the same 
 objection, be as thoroughly free as our own feelings assure 
 us they are. 
 
 Hume's sudden conversion, so amazing at first sight, 
 from flattest denial to positivcst assertion of causal power, 
 becomes intelligible when he is seen immediately after- 
 wards using his newly adopted creed as a fulcrum whereon 
 to rest his argumentative lever in his assault upon Miracles. 
 About that celebrated piece of reasoning, startling as the 
 avowal may sound, there is, to my mind, nothing more re- 
 markable thanits celebrit}-, for, on close inspection, it will be 
 found to be entirely made up of (i) the demonstration of a 
 truism, and(2) the inculcation of a confessedly misleading 
 rule. Not far from its commencement will be found a defini- 
 tion which, if correct, would leave nothing to dispute about. 
 A miracle, we are told, is 'a violation of the laws of nature,' 
 of laws which a firm and unalterable experience has estab- 
 lished. But if so, cadit quccstio. Of course, there can be 
 no alteration of the unalterable. No need, of course, of 
 further words to prove that a miracle thus defined is an 
 impossibility.
 
 144 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 Let us suppose, however, the word ^inalterable to have 
 been used here by a sHp of the pen instead of inialtcred, and 
 that Hume really meant by a miracle any alteration of what 
 had previously appeared to be the constant course of nature. 
 Even so, we shall have him contending that no amount, 
 however great, of testimony however unimpeachable, ought 
 to be accepted as adequate proof of such an alteration. Of 
 what he urges in support of this position much may be at 
 once dismissed as altogether irrelevant. That the most 
 honest witness may be the dupe of optical or auricular illu- 
 sion, or of a distorting or magnifying imagination ; that there 
 is in many minds a natural predisposition to believe in the 
 marvellous, and that the love of astonishing often gives 
 exaggerated expression to the exaggerations of the fancy ; 
 that self-interest and religious zeal often furnish additional 
 motives for mendacity, and that testimony, even when 
 sincere at first, is apt to become corrupted at every stage 
 as it passes from hand to hand, or is committed to paper — 
 all this, together with any further enumeration of circum- 
 stances calculated to invalidate testimony, is quite beside 
 the real question. It merely proves what no one needs 
 to have proved, the propriety, viz., of weighing evidence 
 and balancing adverse probabilities ; and even though it 
 proved in addition that of all the so-styled miracles on 
 record, there is not a single one the evidence for which 
 is sufficient, it would still prove nothing to the purpose. 
 For Hume is arguing against the credibility, not of any 
 miracles in particular, but of all miracles in general, those 
 included the witnesses for which are of indisputable in- 
 telligence and undisputed veracity. Be the quality of the 
 testimony what it may, no quantity of it, according to him, 
 can be sufficient. This is the essence of his thesis, the
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 145 
 
 only part of it in A\liich there is an}' novelty, and in behalf 
 of this part all that he has to say may be resolved into a 
 sophism, followed by a repetition of the same begging of 
 the question, as is invoh-ed in his afore-cited definition of 
 a miracle. In substance it runs as follows. All testimony 
 is at best but a description of the results of sensible expe- 
 rience — of observations of the senses — but the most faithful 
 description must needs be a less vivid presentation of truth 
 than the reality described. A single original is better 
 evidence than any number of copies. Your own personal 
 experience is more trustworthy than any number of mere 
 records of the experience of other people, and where the 
 two conflict, the former always deserves preference. Now 
 the personal experience of each one of us assures us that 
 many sets of natural phenomena take place in perfectly 
 invariable sequences, in sequences so invariable as to appear 
 to be, and to be familiarly spoken of as, maiiifestations or 
 operations of certain inflexible laws of nature. Within our 
 experience there has never been a single deviation from 
 any such law. Wherefore, though all the rest of mankind 
 should unite in asserting that they have observed such a 
 deviation, we ought not to believe them. Even though, for 
 example — the example, however, being not Hume's, but 
 my own — we were, on leaving home some morning, to hear 
 on all sides that, while we were }'et in bed, the sun was 
 seen to rise in the west instead of the east, and though we 
 found the statement repeated in the ' Times ' and ' Daily 
 News,' and presently afterwards saw it posted up at the 
 Exchange as having been flashed by electric wire from 
 New York and Kurrachee, we are not for a moment to 
 doubt that these reiterated and mutually corroborative 
 statements are utterly false. Eor, numerous and consistent 
 
 L
 
 146 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 as they may be, they are but copies of the experience of 
 other people, while, although we may have to oppose to 
 them only our own single experience, still that single expe- 
 rience is original, and therefore of more worth. The value^ 
 moreover, of any experience is, irrespective of originality, 
 determined by the difference in number between the results 
 of opposite kinds which it has discovered. The smaller 
 number is deducted from the larger, and the balance repre- 
 sents the probability that the results which have most 
 frequently occurred hitherto will continue to occur hence- 
 forward. The larger the deduction thus to be made, the 
 smaller the probability, and vice versa ; and when the 
 deduction is nil, or when there has hitherto been complete 
 uniformity, the probability becomes virtual certainty. 
 When two original experiences are opposed to each other, 
 their respective values, ascertained in the same manner, are 
 compared, and trust is reposed in one or the other accord- 
 ingly. Now, according to these principles, difficult as it 
 might be in the case supposed for any one to conceive 
 what motive all the rest of the world could have for lying, 
 it would be still more difficult to believe them to be speak- 
 ing truth. For why do we ever believe anything that 
 anyone says .-' Why but because we have learnt by expe- 
 rience that, when people have no apparent motive for 
 lying, they commonly do speak the truth .-' But the same 
 experience which has taught us this has taught us likewise 
 that people do now and then lie without apparent motive. 
 At best, therefore, there is never more than a probability 
 that people are speaking the truth, while in this instance, 
 the supposition that they might be speaking the truth 
 Avould imply that there may be a truth against which there 
 is proof amounting to certainty. For what they affirm is
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. I47 
 
 that something has happened the very reverse of what has 
 invariably happened before in the same circumstances. Is 
 it not infinitely more likely that people should be lying as 
 they have often done before, than that the invariable course 
 of nature should have undergone a variation ? With 
 evidence on the one side that has never yet deceived, with 
 no evidence on the other save what has often proved 
 deceptive, how can we hesitate which to accept ? Even 
 though the unanimity of testimony be such as might 
 otherwise be deemed complete proof, it is here met by 
 absolutely complete proof in the shape of a law of nature. 
 The greater probability overwhelms the lesser. The stronger 
 proof annihilates the weaker, leaving none of it behind, so 
 that whoever still persists in believing that a law of nature 
 has been violated, must be content to do so without one 
 particle of proof. No quantity of testimony can furnish 
 the smallest proof of a miracle unless the falsehood of the 
 testimony would be a greater departure from antecedent 
 uniformity — in other words, would be a greater miracle — 
 than the miracle which it attests. Unfortunately it is but 
 too notorious that there is not, and never has been, such a 
 thing as uniform truthfulness of testimon}- to depart from. 
 
 Such, unless most unintentionally injured by compression, 
 is Hume's famous argument against miracles, of which the 
 author was sufficiently proud to boast openly that in it he 
 had discovered what ' will be useful, as long as the world 
 endures,' as ' an everlasting check to all kinds of super- 
 stitious delusion,' but which, as I nevertheless venture to 
 repeat, is compounded in about equal moieties of trans- 
 parent sophism and baseless assumption. For is it not 
 the veriest juggle of words to insist on the necessary inferi- 
 ority of copies to an original, without adverting to the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 indispensable pro\iso that the original with which the 
 copies arc compared should be the original from which the 
 copies have been taken ? May not a copy of Leonardo Da 
 Vinci's ' Last Supper ' quite possibly be equal in force and 
 vividness of expression to the original painting by Benjamin 
 West bearing the same name ? Might it not be wise to 
 trust rather to an Airy, or a De la Rue, or a Lockyer's 
 account of what he had observed during a solar eclipse than 
 to your own immediate observations on the same occasion ? 
 Besides, this first branch of Hume's argument, if sound, 
 would tell quite as much for, as against, miracles, rendering 
 it equally incumbent on actual witnesses to believe, as on 
 all but actual witnesses to disbelieve. If you are always 
 to prefer }-our own original experience to mere descriptions 
 given by other people of theirs, then should it happen to 
 be yourself to whom the sun appeared in the west at an 
 hour when, according to custom, he ought to have been in 
 the east, you are not to allow the protestations of any 
 number of persons who, happening at the time to have 
 been looking the other way, saw the sun in his usual place, 
 to persuade you that what you saw was a mock sun or an 
 ignis faiuns. Rather than imagine that your own senses 
 can have cieceived you, you are to suppose that all about 
 you are in a league to deceive you. For precisely the 
 same reason for which you should reject even universal 
 testimony in favour of a miracle which }'ou have not wit- 
 nessed, you are equally to reject universal testimony in 
 opposition to a miracle the similitude of which you have 
 witnessed. 
 
 Or is it possible for a question to be more distinctly 
 begged than when, to the question whether a miracle has 
 occurred, it is answered that a miracle is not a miracle
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 149 
 
 unless there be uniform experience a_c:^ainst it ; that \\n\- 
 fornily adverse experience is direct and full i)roof ac^ainst 
 anything ; and that therefore there must always be full 
 proof against miracles ? What is here taken for granted to 
 be full proof is the very thing requiring to be proved. If 
 past uniformity really be a pledge for continued uniformity, 
 of course there can be no departure from uniformity. If 
 the whole question does not at once fall to the ground, it is 
 because no question has ever really arisen. But what 
 shadow of pretext is there for treating an hitherto unvaried 
 course of events as necessarily invariable } T^'om past ex- 
 perience we have deduced what we are pleased to call lai^'s 
 of nature, but it is morally impossible that we can seriously 
 think, \\ hatevcr we are in the habit of saying, that these 
 laws are self-denying ordinances whereby nature's God has 
 voluntarily abdicated part of His inalienable prerogative. 
 The utmost efficacy we are warranted in ascribing to them 
 is that of lines marking certain of the courses within which 
 God's providence is pleased to move. But how can ^\•e pre- 
 tend to know for how long a season such may continue to 
 be the divine pleasure .' How do we know that the present 
 season may not be the first of an alternating series, and 
 that it ma}- not at an}' moment terminate, and be succeeded 
 by one of an opposite character .' What though we have 
 some shadow of historical evidence that most physical 
 phenomena have been going on in much the same order 
 for some six thousand years, is that a basis whereon to 
 theorise with regard to the proceedings of Ilim in whose 
 sight one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years 
 as one day .-* Might not as well some scientific member of 
 an insect tribe of ephemera, Avhom ancestral tradition, 
 confirmed by personal experience, had assured that an
 
 ISO DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 eight-day clock had ah'cady gone on for six days, pronounce 
 it to be a law of the clock's nature that it should go on for 
 ever without being again wound up ? Would the insect 
 philosopher's dogmatism be one whit less absurd than that 
 of those human ephemera who so positively lay down the 
 law about the clockwork of the universe ? Those laws of 
 nature to which unerring regularity and perpetuity of 
 operation are so confidently attributed, may they not, 
 perchance, be but single clauses of much farther reach- 
 ing laws, according to whose other provisions the force of 
 these isolated clauses may, in novel combinations of cir- 
 cumstances, be counteracted by some latent and hitherto 
 unsuspected force ? Or is it not, at all events, open to 
 their divine promulgator to suspend their operation at his 
 pleasure ? May it not conceivably have been preordained 
 that the globe of our earth, after revolving for a given 
 number of ages, in one direction, shall then, like a meat- 
 jack, or like an Ascidian's heart,' reverse its order of pro- 
 cedure, and commence a contrary series of revolutions ? 
 Or might not He who prescribed to the earth its rotatory 
 movement, will that the rotation should for some hours 
 cease, and that the sun should in consequence seem to 
 stand still, as it is recorded to have done at the command of 
 Joshua ? Improbable as these suppositions may be, who 
 that has not been taken into counsel by his Creator can 
 
 ' ' There is a class of animals called Ascidians, which possess a heart and a 
 circulation, and up to the year 1824 no one would have dreamt of questioning 
 the propriety of the deduction, that these creatures have a circulation in one 
 definite and invarialjle direction ; nor would any one have thought it worth 
 ■while to verify the point. But ni that year M. von Hasselt, happening to 
 examine a transparent animal of this class, found to his infinite sui-prise that 
 after the heart had beat a certain number of times, it stopped, and then began 
 beating the opposite way, so as to reverse the course of the current, which 
 returned by-and-by to its original direction.' — Huxley s Lay Sermons, p. 95.
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPIIYSICIAX. 151 
 
 presume to say that tliey may not be correct ? The events 
 which they involve are not inconceivable, and whatever is 
 not utterly inconceivable may possibly occur, however 
 numerous the chances against its occurrence. It is not 
 then the fact that 'past experience,' however unvaried, 
 affords full proof of the future existence of any event, or 
 constitutes certainty against the future existence of the 
 reverse of that event. Complctcst uniformity of experience 
 cannot create a certainty by which any opposite probability 
 would be completely annihilated. It only creates a prob- 
 ability which, however great, is still only a probability, and 
 which would become a smaller probability by deduction 
 from it of any opposite probability. But mere probability, 
 however great, always includes some doubt as to its own 
 correctness, some suspicion that its opposite may possibly 
 be correct. How much soever, therefore, uniform expe- 
 rience may vouch for the inviolability of natural laws, it 
 alwa}'s remains possible for those laws to be violated, and, 
 as miracles arc nothing else but violations of natural laws, 
 it alwa}'s remains possible for miracles to happen. But 
 since miracles are possible, testimony to their occurrence 
 ma}', with equal possibilit}', be true, and no further refuta- 
 tion can, I submit, be needed for an argument which insists 
 that all such testimony should be set aside without enquiry 
 as self-evidently false. 
 
 Had Hume been content to insist that testimony in 
 favour of miracles should never be received without ex- 
 treme doubt and hesitation, his lesson might well have 
 passed without further objection than that of its being 
 superfluous for any one with sense enough to profit by it. 
 Nor might it have been easy to discover a flaw in his logic, 
 although he had gone so far as to maintain that no one of
 
 152 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 the miracles as yet on record is either adequately attested, 
 or would, even if it had undoubtedly occurred, afford suf- 
 ficient evidence of any religious truth. The best and only 
 adequate evidence for any religious creed is the satisfac- 
 tion which it affords to the soul's cravings and promises to 
 the soul's aspirations ; and no rational Christian would be 
 at all the more disposed to turn Mussulman, even though 
 it should be demonstrated to his entire conviction that 
 Christ did not raise Lazarus from the dead, and that 
 Mahomet did turn the hill Safa into gold, instead of pru- 
 dently confining himself to boasting that he could have 
 effected the transmutation if he had thought proper. But 
 for the purpose which Hume had in view, it was necessary 
 to establish, not merely the doubtfulness, but the absolute 
 falsehood of the miracular testimony on which, in his 
 opinion, ' our holy religion ' rests, in order that the cha- 
 racter of the superstructure being inferred from that of the 
 foundation, both might be condemned together. There is, 
 however, an irreligious as well as a religious fanaticism, 
 and, though it is difficult, while looking at Hume's por- 
 trait, to credit the owner of that plump, good-humoured 
 face with feeling of any sort warm enough to be termed 
 fanatical, it is humiliating to note from his example into 
 what strange inconsistency the coolest and calmest judg- 
 ment may be warped by irreligious prejudice. Having not 
 long before, in order to disparage natural religion, emphati- 
 cally denied the existence of any causal connection between 
 successive events, he now, in order equally to discredit the 
 very possibility of revealed religion, tacitly assumes that 
 same connection, not simply to exist, but to be of an 
 efficacy which no disturbing forces can impair. Admitting 
 that ' the Indian prince who refused to believe the first
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 153 
 
 relations conccrnii\Lf tlic effects of frost ' was wrong in his 
 belief, Ilunic will have it that the prince nevertheless 
 * reasoned justly.' Although recognising truth to be the 
 sole worthy object of quest, he yet enjoins rigid adherence 
 to a rule which he is aware must inevitably lead to frequent 
 error. 
 
 Rather strikingly contrasted, in respect of execution, 
 with Hume's chapter on Miracles, comes the one next in 
 order on a Providence and a Future State, which, for the 
 skill with which the fallacy involved in it is disguised, 
 may be regarded as quite a masterpiece of false reasoning. 
 Among its leading propositions there is but one which 
 does not command immediate assent. That we can argue 
 but from \\hat we know ; that of causes, known to us only 
 by their effects, our estimate ought to be exactly pro- 
 portioned to the effects ; that of a Creator manifested only 
 by Mis works, no higher qualities, no greater degrees of 
 power, intelligence, justice, or benevolence, can be con- 
 fidently predicated — whatever be conjectured — than are 
 apparent in his workmanship : all this, on one moment's 
 reflection, is perceived to be indisputable. Needs must it 
 be, however reluctantl}-, admitted that nothing can be 
 more illogical than to return back to the cause, and infer 
 from it other effects beyond those by which alone it is 
 known to us, or to infer from creative attributes, distinctly 
 manifested, the existence of other and not apparent attri- 
 butes, endowed with some efficacy additional to that pos- 
 sessed by the former. But does it hence follow that faith 
 in a superintending Pro\-idence is so mere a matter of 
 ' conceit and imagination,' a faith so absolutely irrational 
 as Hume considered it .'' A candid examination of God's 
 works will warrant us in coming to a widely different con-
 
 rS4 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 elusion. Among those works is man — a being who, in 
 spite of the utter insignificance of his gvQdlQsi performances, 
 is capable of forming most exalted conceptions of justice, 
 benevolence, and goodness in general, and of feeling the 
 most eager desire to act up to his own ideal. If the divine 
 notions of goodness in its several varieties be not identical 
 with the human, it can only be because they are superior ; 
 and so, too, of the divine love of, and zeal for, goodness. 
 It cannot be that the Creator is inferior to the creature in 
 virtues which the creature derives from Him alone. 
 Demonstrably, therefore, God is good and just in the veiy 
 highest degree in which those qualities can be conceived 
 by man. Demonstrably, too, since the universe is the 
 work of His hands, He must be possessed of power which, 
 if not necessarily unbounded, is at least as boundless as 
 the universe. Thus, rigidly arguing from effects to causes, 
 and scrupulously proportioning the one to the other, man 
 sees imaged on the face of creation a creator, both real- 
 ising his highest conception of goodness, and wielding 
 measureless might. Is not such a being worthy to be 
 looked up to, and confided in, and adored and loved as a 
 superintending providence .'' Is not faith in such a pro- 
 vidence not simply not irrational, but the direct result of 
 a strictly inductive process 1 And would it be an ir- 
 rational stretch of faith sanguinely to hope, if not implicitly 
 to believe, that an union of infinite justice with measure- 
 less might may, in some future stage of existence, afford 
 compensation for the apparently inequitable distribution of 
 good and evil which, according to all experience, has 
 hitherto taken place among human beings } 
 
 Were it desirable to amplify the apology with which this 
 paper commenced, some additional justification of the
 
 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 155 
 
 freedom of the foregoing' criticisms might be found in 
 hints thrown out by Ilumc in \arious parts of the treatise 
 Avhich we liave been examining, and particularly in its 
 concluding chapter, that in many of his most startling 
 doctrines he was but half in earnest. Hume's tempera- 
 ment, too cool for fanaticism, had yet in it enough of a 
 certain tepid geniality to save him from becoming a 
 scoffer. The character which he claims for himself, and 
 somewhat ostentatiously parades, is that of a sceptic or 
 general doubter — a character in which, when rightly under- 
 stood, there is nothing to be ashamed of To take nothing 
 on trust, to believe nothing without proof, to show no 
 greater respect for authority than may consist in attentive 
 and candid examination of its statements, to accept only 
 verified facts as bases for reasoning on matters of fact and 
 existence — these are golden rules of philosophical research, 
 piinciples in which lies the secret of all real progress in 
 any of the higher departments of science. By Hume the}^ 
 were adopted coji amove, and \\ith keen appreciation, not 
 more of their practical utility, than of the sport which he 
 perceived them to be capable of yielding. His serious 
 purpose was to unmask the numberless pretences which in 
 politics, political economy, metaphysics, morals, and theo- 
 logy he found universally current as gospel truths ; to 
 expose the ambiguity and contradictions latent in popular 
 thought, and in the popular forms of expression which are 
 so apt to be mistaken for thought, and to indicate the only 
 safe mode of investigation and the only trustworthy tests 
 of genuine knowledge ; his favourite amusement to put 
 time-honoured commonplaces on the rack, and demanding 
 their raison d'etre, to pass on them summary sentence of 
 extinction if they failed to account satisfactorily for their
 
 156 DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN. 
 
 existence. Unfortunately, in his keen enjoyment of the 
 fun of the thing, he not unfrequently overlooked the solid 
 interests at stake. Like a huntsman who, for the sake of 
 a better run, should outrace his quarry, or who, seeing that 
 the dogs were close upon the hare, should, in order to 
 prolong the chase, start a fresh hare, kept till then snug at 
 his saddle-bow, so Hume, in the excitement of meta- 
 physical pursuit, instead of stopping to gather up what- 
 ever verified affirmations came in his way, would prefer 
 to follow any new negation that he espied, or, if momen- 
 tarily accepting any affirmation as established, Avould 
 proceed forthwith to affirm its direct opposite \\\\.\\ the 
 view of neutralising both. In this, his practice resembled 
 that of metaphysicians in general, who take a singular 
 delight in setting themselves riddle after riddle, which they 
 either assume to be hopelessly insoluble, or Avhich they no 
 sooner solve than they use the solution as the subject of 
 another riddle involving its predecessor in redoubled per- 
 plexity. Now, little harm, and little, perhaps, of anything 
 but good, might thereby be done if the lovers of this game 
 were content to play it by themselves, without inviting 
 others to join who are constitutionally unfit for such intel- 
 lectual wa-estling. But mental exercises may to philo- 
 sophers be health and invigorating sport, and yet be death 
 to the multitude ; and Hume, as an Utilitarian, stands self- 
 condemned for making ordinary people uncomfortable by 
 challenging them to disputations confessedly leading no 
 whither, and bewildering them with confessedly ' vain and 
 profane babblings, and strivings after words to no profit, 
 but to subverting of the hearers, and overthrow of the faith 
 of some.' And it is as poor an excuse for this wanton 
 tampering A\ith other people's creeds, as it is poor amends
 
 DA]' ID HUME AS A M ETAPIIYSICIAN. 157 
 
 for its mischievous consequences, that Hume offers when, 
 after watching for a while his puzzled disciples blown 
 about by the winds of adverse doctrine that he has let 
 loose upon thcni, he proceeds to rally them on their 
 ' whimsical condition,' which he speaks of as a mere laugh- 
 ing matter got up chiefly for amusement. It is only an 
 aggravation of offence that, while, on the one hand, he 
 solemnly pronounces everything to be ' a riddle, an enigma, 
 an inexplicable mystery,' he, on the other hand, cheerily 
 exhorts us not to suffer the ' doubts raised by philosophy 
 to affect our actions.' ' Nature,' he says, ' is always too 
 strong for principles, will always maintain her rights, and 
 prevail, in the end, against all reasoning whatever.' ' The 
 great subverter of Pyrrhonism,' he continues, ' is actual 
 employment and the occupations of common life,' in pre- 
 sence of which its overstrained scruples ' v^anish like 
 smoke.' Although real knowledge consists solely in 
 knowing that we know nothing, and in doubting every- 
 thing, and although sceptics may 'justly triumph' in 
 principles which lead them to deny even the attraction of 
 gravitation, still they had better beware how they act on 
 these principles, lest by stepping unconcernedl}- out of 
 window they come fatally to grief on the stones below, 
 and so the sect and its tenets be annihilated together. 
 So, or to such effect, Hume : but how can there be just 
 ground for pride in speculations which, as their own pro- 
 fessors admit, would, on the first attempt to reduce them to 
 practice, be shattered to pieces b}- hard facts .' That cannot 
 possibl)', even on Hume's recommendation, be accepted as 
 metaph}-sical truth, which flatl\- contradicts common sense, 
 nor can there be an}- unbecoming self-confidence in seeking, 
 even though Hume pronounce the search hopeless, for meta- 
 physical truth, with which common sense may be reconciled.
 
 158 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 ' A force tV esprit tout lui paroit inatiere.'' 
 
 In one of his interesting ' Lay Sermons,' the most in- 
 teresting perhaps of the whole interesting series, Professor 
 Huxley, taking for his theme the ' Physical Basis of Life,' 
 combats ' the widely-spread conception of life as a some- 
 thing which works through matter, but is independent of 
 it ; ' affirming, on the contrary, ' that matter and life are 
 inseparably connected, and that there is one kind of matter 
 which is common to all living beings.' The preacher may 
 be safely allowed to have satisfactorily made out the 
 second portion of this affirmation. With his own singular 
 felicity of illustration, he shows how all vegetable and 
 animal tissues, without exception, from that of the brightly 
 coloured lichen looking so like a mere mineral incrustation 
 on the rock that bears it, to that of the painter who 
 admires or the botanist who dissects it, are, however 
 diverse in aspect, essentially one in composition and struc- 
 ture. He explains how the microscopic fungi clustering 
 by millions within the body of a single fly, the giant pine 
 of California towering to the height of a cathedral spire, 
 the Indian fig-tree covering acres with its profound shadow, 
 the animalcules of ocean's lowest deep, minute enough to 
 dance in myriads on the point of a needle, and the Finner 
 whale, hugcst of beasts, that disports its ninety feet of
 
 MUX LEY ISM. 159 
 
 bone and blubber on ocean's billowy heights, the flower 
 that a girl wears in her hair, and the blood that courses 
 through her veins, are, each and all, smaller or larger 
 multiples or aggregates of one and the same structural 
 unit, which, again, is invariabl}- resolvable into the same 
 identical elements. That unit, he tells us, is an atom or 
 corpuscle composed of ox}-gen, nitrogen, h}'drogen, and 
 carbon, which, and which alone, seem to be required by 
 nature for laying withal the foundations of vitality, inas- 
 much as no substance from which any one of these 
 ingredients is totally absent, ever exhibits any sign of life, 
 while, on the other hand, not only are these four ingredients 
 sufficient of themselves to form a substance capable of living, 
 but they actually do with very little (when any) foreign 
 admixture, form all substances whatsoever that are ever 
 found vivified. All such substances, he informs us, are but 
 varieties of protoplasm, differing indeed from each other in 
 te.xture, colour, and general appearance, even as a diamond 
 differs from granite, yet all being equally protoplasm, just 
 as a diamond and a 'block of granite are equally stones, or 
 as heart of oak and the outer case of a nettle's stinq; are 
 equally wood. The human ovum, he gives us to under- 
 stand, is in its earliest stage but a single particle of proto- 
 plasm ; the human fcetus but an aggregation of such 
 particles, variously modified ; the human body perfectly 
 matured, but a larger aggregation of such particles still 
 further modified. 
 
 He proceeds to point out, as following from these pre- 
 mises, that a solution of smelling salts, together with an 
 infinitesimal quantit}- of certain other salts, contains all 
 the elements that enter into the composition of protoplasm, 
 and conscquentK' of whate\-cr substance the \'er}- highest
 
 i6o HUXLLYISM. 
 
 animal requires for sustenance. He does not, however^ 
 leave us to suppose that any abundance of the fluid in 
 question would avail aught to save a hungry creature of 
 any sort from starving, but continues his exposition to the 
 following effect. Not only is there no animal, there is not 
 even any vegetable organism, to v.hich the elements of 
 food can serve as food, as long as they remain elementary. 
 It is indispensable that hydrogen and oxygen should com- 
 bine to form water, nitrogen and hydrogen to form 
 ammonia, carbon and oxygen to form carbonic acid ; and 
 even then, even at a table groaning under whole hogsheads 
 of these primitive compounds, there is no single animal 
 that would not find itself at a Barmecide feast. There are 
 many plants likewise, which in the midst of such uncon- 
 genial plenty would be equally without a drop to drink ; 
 but there are also multitudes of others which, without the 
 aid of any more elaborated nutriment, would be able to 
 grow into a million, nay million million fold of their 
 original bulk. Provided there be in the seed or germ of 
 any of these latter one single particle of living protoplasm 
 to begin with, that single particle may convert into 
 animated protoplasm an indefinite quantity of inanimate 
 ammonia, carbonic acid, and water. The protoplasm thus 
 created in the first instance, and created, let us suppose, in 
 the form of a lichen or a fungus, is converted by decay into 
 vegetable mould, in which grass may take root and grow, 
 and which, in that case, will be converted into herbaceous 
 protoplasm ; which, being eaten by sheep or oxen, becomes 
 ovine or bovine protoplasm, commonly called mutton or 
 beef; which, again, being eaten by man, becomes human 
 protoplasm, and, if eaten by a philosopher, becomes part 
 of a mass of protoplasm capable of investigating and of
 
 HUXLEY ISM. \(^\ 
 
 expounding in lectures or lay sermons, the changes which 
 itself and its several components have undergone. 
 
 So far we advance with willing steps like dutiful dis- 
 ciples along the path of knowledge indicated by our dis- 
 tinguished biological teacher, who here, however, pulls us 
 up short by suddenly intimating that he sees no break in 
 the series of transubstantiations whereby precisely such 
 oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon as he is lecturing 
 upon, have become metamorphosed into him, the lecturer, 
 and us, the lectured audience, and cannot ' understand why 
 the language which is applicable to any one term of the 
 series should not be used in regard to any of the others.' 
 Oxygen and hydrogen, he reminds us, are gases, whose 
 particles, at and also much below 32° Fahrenheit, tend to 
 rush away from each other with great force ; and this 
 tendency we call a property of each gas. Let oxygen and 
 hydrogen be mixed in certain proportions, and an electric 
 spark passed through them, and they will disappear, and a 
 quantity of water equal in weight to the sum of their 
 weights will appear in their place. But amongst the pro- 
 perties of the water will be some, the direct opposites of 
 those of its components ; watery particles, for example, 
 at an)- temperature not higher than 32° Fahrenheit, tending 
 not to rush asunder, but to cohere into definite geometrical 
 shapes or to build up frosty imitations of vegetable foliage. 
 And let the water be brought into conjunction with am- 
 monia and carbonic acid, and the three will, under certain 
 conditions, give rise to protoplasm, which again, if sub- 
 jected to a certain succession of processes, will rise by 
 successive stages from protoplasm that gives no other signs 
 of life than those of feeding and reproducing its kind, to 
 protoplasm endowed with the power of spontaneous 
 
 M
 
 i62 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 motion, and finally to protoplasm that thinks and reasons, 
 speculates and philosophises. Now why should any of 
 the various phenomena of life exhibited by these varieties 
 of protoplasm be supposed to be of a different class from 
 the appearances of activity exhibited by any of the 
 varieties of lifeless matter ? What reason is there why, for 
 instance, thought should not be termed a property of 
 thinking protoplasm, just as congelation is a property of 
 water, and centrifugience of gas ? Professor Huxley pro- 
 tests t4iat he is aware of no reason. We call, he says, the 
 several strange phenomena which are peculiar to water, 
 ' the properties of water, and do not hesitate to believe 
 that in some way or other they result from the properties of 
 the component elements of water. We do not assume that 
 something called aquosity entered into and took possession 
 of the oxide of hydrogen as soon as it was formed, and 
 then guided the aqueous particles to their places in the 
 facets of the crystal or among the leaflets of the hoar 
 frost. On the contrary, we live i-n the hope and faith that, 
 by the advance of molecular physics, we shall b} -and-by 
 be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of 
 water to the properties of water, as we are now able to 
 deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its 
 parts or the manner in which they are put together.' 
 Why, then, when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia dis- 
 appear, and an equivalent weight of the matter of life 
 makes its appearance in their place, should we assume the 
 existence in the living matter of a something which has 
 no representative or correlative in the unliving matter that 
 gave rise to it } Why imagine that into the newly formed 
 hydro-nitrogenised oxide of carbon a something called 
 vitality entered and took possession t ' What better philo-
 
 NUX LEVIS M. 163 
 
 sophical status has vitality than aquosity ? ' 'If scientific 
 language is to possess a definite and constant signification, 
 wc are,' he considers, 'logically bound to apply to proto- 
 plasm or the physical basis of life the same conceptions as 
 those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere.' Where- 
 fore, he concludes, that ' if the phenomena exhibited by 
 water arc its properties, so are those presented by proto- 
 plasm its properties,' and that if it be correct to describe 
 ' the properties of water as resulting from the nature and 
 disposition of its component molecules,' there can be no 
 * intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties 
 of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its 
 molecules.' 
 
 Here, however, our lay preacher candidly warns us that 
 by the vast majority of his clerical brethren this doctrine 
 would be denounced as rankest heresy, and that whoever 
 accepts it is placing his foot on the first rung of a ladder 
 which, in most people's estimation, is the ' reverse of 
 Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes of heaven.' He frankly 
 owns that the terms of his propositions are distinctly 
 materialistic : nay, that whoever commits himself to them 
 will be temporarily landed in ' gross materialism.' Not 
 the less, however, does he, mingling consolation with ad- 
 monition, recommend us to plunge boldly into the 
 materialistic slough, promising to point out a way of 
 escape from it, and insisting, indeed, that through it lies 
 the only path to genuine spiritualistic truth. 
 
 In pronouncing this to be exceedingly evil counsel, as 
 with the most unfeigned respect for its author I feel bound 
 at once to do, it might not be necessary for me to under- 
 take a detailed topographical survey of the path alluded 
 to. It might, perhaps, suffice to specify the conclusions 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 HUXLEY ISM. 
 
 to which the path is represented as leading, in order to 
 show that those conclusions cannot possibly be reached by 
 any such route. By Professor Huxley himself they are 
 thus described : — We know nothing of matter ' except as a 
 name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of 
 our own consciousness,' nor of spirit, except that ' it also is 
 a name for an unknown and hypothetical cause of states of 
 consciousness. In other words matter and spirit are but 
 names for the imaginary siihst7-ata of groups of natural 
 phenomena.' 
 
 But if matter be not a thing, but a name, and a name 
 too not for a real, but only an imaginary thing, one perfect 
 certainty is that matter cannot possibly be composed either 
 wholly or in part of molecules, and, by necessary con- 
 sequence, that life cannot possibly be * the product of 
 any disposition of material molecules,' nor the phenomena 
 of life be ' expressions of molecular changes in the matter 
 of life.' Of the particular Huxleian doctrine which we are 
 considering, the two moieties are absolutely irreconcileable ; 
 so that on the assumption that either moiety were true, 
 the truth of that moiety would be decisive against the 
 other. If matter have no real, and only a nominal exist- 
 ence, life, which is undeniably a reality, cannot be a pro- 
 perty of matter. If life, being an undisputed reality, be a 
 property of matter, matter must needs be a reality also, 
 and not merely a name. Any one, however, who, like 
 myself, is thoroughly convinced that both halves of the 
 doctrine are equally and utterly erroneous, is precluded from 
 employing one for the refutation of the other, and in order 
 to prove, as I shall now attempt to do, that life is in no 
 sense either a product or a propert}' of matter, must 
 resort for the purpose to independent reasoning.
 
 IIUXLEYISM. 165 
 
 I commence by defining one of tiic princi[);il terms 
 occurring in the debate. When in scientific discourse we 
 speak of anything as a property of an object, we mean 
 thereby not simply that it is a tiling belonging to the 
 object, but also that it is a thing without which the object 
 could not subsist. We mean that it is one of the con- 
 stituents inherent in and inseparable from the object, 
 whose union gives to the object its distinctive character. 
 When we call fluidity at one temperature, solidity at 
 another, and vaporisation at a third, properties of water, 
 we mean that matter which did not liquefy, congeal, and 
 evaporate at different temperatures would not be water. 
 The habits of exhibiting these phenomena, in conjunction 
 with certain other habits, make up the aquosity or 
 wateriness of water. They are parts of water's nature, 
 and, in the absence of any one of them, water would not 
 be its own self, and could not exist. But in no such 
 sense, nor in any sense whatever, is the life or vitality 
 whereby what we are accustomed to call animated are 
 distinguished from inanimate objects, essential to the 
 existence of the species of matter termed matter of life or 
 protoplasm. Take from water its aquosity, and water 
 ceases to be water ; but }'ou may take away vitality from 
 protoplasm, and yet leave protoplasm as much protoplasm 
 as before. Vitality, therefore, evidently bears to proto- 
 plasm a quite different relation from that which a^^uosity 
 bears to water. Protoplasm can do perfectly well with- 
 out the one, but water cannot for a moment dispense 
 with the other. Protoplasm, whether living or lifeless, 
 is equally itself ; but unaqucous water is unmitigated gib- 
 berish. But if protoplasm, although deprived of its 
 vitalit}', still remains protoplasm, \italit\- plainl)- is not
 
 1 66 HUXLEY ISM. 
 
 indispensable to protoplasm, is not therefore a property of 
 protoplasm. 
 
 And that it is not a product of protoplasm, or a result of 
 any particular arrangement of protoplasmic particles or 
 molecules, is not less easily or unanswerably demonstrable. 
 For if it were, as long as the particular molecular arrange- 
 ment remained unaltered, life would necessarily be in 
 attendance ; an amputated joint would, until decomposition 
 set in, be as much alive as the trunk from w^hich it had 
 been lopped, even as water poured from a jug into a glass is 
 quite as much liquid as the water remaining in the jug. 
 There would be no such thing as dead meat, which was 
 not putrid as well as dead, any more than water can freeze 
 without changing from a fluid to a solid ; and there would 
 moreover be production antecedent in origin to its own 
 producer. The force of the last at least of these objections 
 is not to be resisted. Water, ammonia, and carbonic acid 
 cannot, it is admitted, combine to form protoplasm, unless 
 a principle of life preside over the operation. Unless 
 under those auspices the combination never takes place. 
 At present, whenever assuming its presidential functions, 
 the principle of life seems to be invariably embodied in a 
 portion of pre-existing protoplasm ; but there certainly was 
 a time when the fact was otherwise. Time was, as geology 
 places beyond all doubt, when our globe and its appur- 
 tenances consisted wholly of inorganic matter, and possessed 
 not one single animal or vegetable inhabitant. In order, 
 then, that any protoplasm or the substance of any organism 
 should have been brought into existence in the first 
 instance, life plainly must have been already existent. It 
 must at one time have been possible for life, without being 
 previously embodied, to mould and vivify inert matter ;
 
 HUXLEY ISM. 167 
 
 and it must needs have been by unembodied life that 
 inorganic matter was first or^^anised and animated. There 
 is no possible alternative to this conclusion, except that of 
 supposing that death may have given birth to life — that 
 absolutely lifeless and inert matter may have spontaneously 
 exerted itself with all the marvellous energy rec^uisite for 
 its conversion into living matter, exerting for the purpose 
 powers wliich, under the conditions of the case, it could 
 not have acquired without exercising before it acquired 
 them. Whoever declines to swallow such absurdity has no 
 choice but to admit that unembodied life must have been 
 the original manufacturer of protoplasm : but to admit 
 this, and yet to suppose that when now-a-days embodied 
 life is observed to give birth to new embodied life, the 
 credit of the operation belongs not to the life itself but to its 
 protoplasmic embodiment, is much the same as to suppose 
 that when a tailor, dressed in clothes of his own making, 
 makes a second suit of clothes, this latter is the product 
 not of the tailor himself but of the clothes he is wearing. 
 
 Thus, irrespectively of whatever grounds there may be 
 for believing that life still docs, it is incontestable that life 
 once did, exist apart from protoplasm ; and that proto- 
 plasm both may and continually does exist apart from 
 what is commonly understood by life, must be obvious to 
 every one who is aware that protoplasm is the substance of 
 which all plants and all animals are composed, and has 
 observed also that plants and animals are in the habit of 
 dying. That matter and life are inseparably connected 
 cannot, therefore, it would seem, be asserted except in total 
 disregard of the teachings both of reason and observation, 
 and ' the popular conception of life as a something which 
 works through matter but is independent of it,' would
 
 1 68 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 seem to be as true as it is popular. If the only choice 
 allowed to us be between ' the old notion of an Archreus 
 governing and directing blind matter,' and the new con- 
 ception of life as the product of a certain disposition of 
 material molecules, the absolute certainty that the latter 
 conception is wrong, may be fairly urged as equivalent to 
 certainty, equally absolute, that the former notion is right. 
 
 How far soever it may be true that, as Professor Huxley 
 sa}'s, ' the progress of physical science means, and has in 
 all ages meant, the extension of the province of matter 
 and causation,' it is certainly not true that, as he proceeds 
 to predict, the same province will ever be extended suf- 
 ficiently to banish from the region of human thought not 
 'spontaneity' simply, but likewise 'spirit.' In one direction 
 at least, limits are clearly discernible which scientific 
 investigation need not hope to overleap. How much soever 
 we may eventually discover of the changes whereby 
 inorganic matter becomes gradually adapted for the re- 
 ception of life, physical science can never teach us what or 
 whence is the life that eventually takes possession of the 
 finished receptacle. Possibly we at length may, as Pro- 
 fessor Huxley doubts not that we by-and-by shall, see 
 how it is that the properties peculiar to water have 
 resulted from the properties peculiar to the gases whose 
 junction constitutes water ; and similarly how the charac- 
 teristic properties of protoplasm have sprung from pro- 
 perties in the water, ammonia, and carbonic acid that have 
 united to form protoplasm ; but knowing all this, we shall 
 not be a hair's breadth nearer to the more recondite 
 knowledge up to which it is expected to lead. To extract 
 the genesis of life from an}- data that completest acquaint- 
 ance with the stages and processes of protoplasmic growth
 
 HUXLF.V/S.^r. 169 
 
 can furnish, is a truly hopeless problem. Given the plan 
 of a house, with samples of its brick and mortar, to find 
 the name and nationality of the householder, would be 
 child's play in comparison. Life, as we have seen, is not 
 the offspring of protoplasm, but something which has been 
 superinduced upon, and may be separated from, the proto- 
 plasm that serves as its material basis. It is, therefore, 
 distinct from the matter which it animates, and, being thus 
 immaterial, cannot possibly become better known by any 
 analysis of matter. 
 
 Of this emphatically vital question Professor Huxley, as 
 has been already intimated, takes a diametrically opposite 
 view. He does not merely, in sufficiently explicit terms, 
 deny that there is any intrinsic difference between matter 
 and spirit, and affirm the two to be, in spite of appearances, 
 essentially identical. If this were all, I at any rate should 
 not be entitled to object, for I shall myself presently have 
 occasion to use very similar language, although attaching 
 to it a widely different meaning from that with which it is 
 used by Professor Huxley. But the latter goes on to avow 
 his belief that the human body, like every other living 
 body, is a machine, all the operations of which \\'\\\ sooner 
 or later be explained on physical principles, insomuch 
 that we shall eventually arrive at a mechanical equiva- 
 lent of consciousness, even as we have already arrived 
 at a mechanical equivalent of heat. He considers that 
 with the same propriety with which the amount of heat 
 which a pound weight produces by falling through the 
 distance of a foot, may be called its equivalent in 
 one sense, may the amount of feeling which the pcumd 
 produces by falling through a foot of distance on 
 a gouty big toe, be called its equivalent in another
 
 170 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 sense, to wit, that of consciousness. Yet he protests 
 against these tenets being deemed materialistic, which, he 
 declares, they certainly neither are nor can be, for that 
 while he himself certainly holds them, he as certainly is 
 not himself a materialist. Professor Huxley is among the 
 last to be suspected of talking anything, as Monsieur 
 Jourdain did prose, without knowing it. He knows per- 
 fectly well that he has here been talking materialism, but 
 he insists that his materialism is only another form of 
 idealism. He seeks to evade the seemingly inevitable de- 
 duction from his premises by representing both matter and 
 spirit as mere names, and names, too, not for real things, 
 but for fanciful hypotheses which may be spoken of indif- 
 ferently in materialistic or in spiritualistic terms, thought 
 in the one case being treated as a form of matter, and 
 matter in the other as a form of thought. The identity of 
 matter and spirit is, in short, represented by him as con- 
 sisting in this : that the existence of both is merely nominal, 
 or at best merely ideal. 
 
 Ordinary folk may perhaps be somewhat slow to derive 
 from this compromising theory all the comfort which its 
 author deems it capable of affording. Most of us may, 
 probably, be inclined to think that we might as well have 
 been left to fret in the frying-pan of materialism as be 
 cast headlong into idealistic fire, to no better end than 
 that of being there fused body and soul together, and sub- 
 limated into inapprehensible nothingness. Our immediate 
 concern, however, is not with the pleasantness of the 
 theory, but with its truth ; in proceeding to test which we 
 shall probably find that there is as little warrant for ideal- 
 ising matter after this fashion as we have already seen that 
 there is for materialising mind.
 
 HUXLEYISM. 171 
 
 The originator of the theory about to be examined, or 
 rather, perhaps, of a somewhat different theory out of 
 which this has been developed — not to say perverted — 
 may, without much inaccuracy, be pronounced to be 
 Descartes. He it was who, perceiving tliat we are sur- 
 rounded on all sides by illusions of all sorts, that nr^t only 
 is there no authority or testimony implicitly to be de- 
 pended on, but that our senses likewise often play the 
 traitor, and that we can never be perfectly sure whether we 
 are really seeing, hearing, or feeling, or merely thinking or 
 dreaming that we see, hear, or feel, and looking anxiously 
 around for one single point at least on which complete 
 confidence might be placed, ciiscovered such a point in 
 thought. Whatever else we may doubt about, we cannot, 
 he justly argued, doubt that there are thoughts. If it were 
 possible to doubt this, our very doubt would be thought, 
 constituting and presenting as evidence the very existence 
 doubted of. Our thoughts, then, are unquestionably real 
 existences. They may be delusive, but they cannot 
 possibly be fictitious. 
 
 We may perhaps hereafter have occasion to note how 
 Descartes, having thus secured one firm foothold and solid 
 resting-place, outwent the farthest stretch of Archimedean 
 ambition by using it, not as a fulcrum from whence to 
 move the world, but as a site for logical foundations 
 whereon he might, if he had persevered, have raised the 
 superstructure of an universe at once mental and material.* 
 Intermediately, how^evcr, we have to observe how two pre- 
 
 ' Archimede, pour tirer le globe terrestrc de sa place ct le transporter en 
 un autre lieu, ne demandait rien qu'un point qui fut ferme et immobile : ainsi 
 j'aurai droit dc conccvoir de hautes esperances si je suis asscz hcuroux pour 
 trouvcr seulcment une chose qui soit ccrtaine et indubitable. — Descartes, 
 Miditation Dcuxiime,
 
 17^ HUXLEY ISM. 
 
 eminent disciples of the Cartesian school have perverted 
 the fundamental proposition of their great master by- 
 treating its converse as its synonyme. Descartes having 
 demonstrated that ail thought is existence, Bishop 
 Berkeley and Professor Huxley infer that all existence 
 is thought. So says the Professor in so many words, and 
 to precisely the same effect is the more diffuse language of 
 the Bishop, where, speaking of ' all the choir of heaven 
 and furniture of earth, of all the bodies which compose the 
 mighty frame of the world,' he declares that their esse is 
 pcrcipi, that their ' being ' consists in their being ' perceived 
 or known,' and that unless they were actually perceived 
 by, or existed in, some created or uncreate mind, they 
 could not possibly exist at all. 
 
 The reasoning in support of these assertions is in sub- 
 stance as follows : — We know nothing of any material 
 object except by the sensations which it produces in our 
 minds. What we are accustomed to call the qualities of an 
 object are nothing else but the mental sensations of various 
 kinds which the object produces within us. Some of these 
 qualities, such as extension, figure, solidity, motion, and 
 number, are classed as primary ; others, as, for instance, 
 smell, taste, colour, sound, as secondary. Now that these 
 latter have no existence apart from mind can readily be 
 shown thus. If I prick my finger with a needle, the pain 
 I suffer in consequence is surely in myself, not in the 
 needle, nor anywhere else but in myself If an orange be 
 placed on my open hand, my sensation of touching it is in 
 myself, not in the orange. If the orange could feel, what 
 it would feel would be a hand, while what I am feeling is 
 an orange. Nor are my sensations of pain and touch 
 merely confined to myself; they are also confined to a
 
 1/ UX LEVIS.] f. 173 
 
 particular part of myself, viz., to the brain, the scat of my 
 consciousness, which it is, and not the finger or hand, that 
 really feels when the one is hurt, or when anything comes 
 in harmless contact with the other. To prove thi.s, let the 
 fine nervous threads, which, running up the whole length 
 of the arm, connect the skin of the finger with the spinal 
 marrow and brain, be cut through close to the spinal cord, 
 and no i)ain w\\\ be felt, whatever injury be done : while if 
 the ends which remain in connection with the cord be 
 pricked, the sensation of pricking in the finger will arise 
 just as distinctly as before. Or let a walking-stick be held 
 firmly by the handle, and its other end be touched, and 
 the tactile sensation will be experienced as if at the end of 
 the stick, where, however, it plainly cannot be. It is the 
 mind alone which feels, but which, by a peculiar faculty of 
 localisation or extradition, seems to remove a feeling ex- 
 clusively its own, not only to the outside of itself, but to 
 the outside also of the walls of its fleshly tenement. And 
 as it is with pain or touch, so it is with every sensation 
 with which any of the so-called secondary qualities of 
 matter are identical. If I look at, or smell, or taste a 
 blood orange, the sensation of colour, or scent, or flavour I 
 receive is entirely and exclusively my own, the orange re- 
 maining quite unconscious of its own redness, or fragrance, 
 or sweetness, and not, indeed, possessing in itself any real 
 qualities of the kind. For to take redness as an example ; 
 how does the sensation of it or of any other colour arise ? 
 The waves of a certain very attenuated medium, the par- 
 ticles of which are vibrating with vast rapidity but with 
 very different velocities, strike upon an object and are 
 thrown off in all directions. Of the particles which \ibrate 
 with any particular velocity, some are gathered by the
 
 174 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 optical apparatus of the eye, and deflected so as to impinge 
 on the retina and on the fibres of the optic nerve therewith 
 connected, producing in these fibres a change which is fol- 
 lowed by other changes in the brain, which, again, by 
 virtue of some inscrutable union between the brain and the 
 mind, create a feeling or consciousness of colour. What 
 the particular colour shall be, depends either on the rate of 
 motion in the vibrating medium or on the character of the 
 retina ; and if, while the former remained the same, the 
 other were to be altered, or if two persons, with differently 
 formed retinas, and one of the two colour-blind, were to be 
 looking, what had first seemed red might now seem green, 
 or what seemed red to one spectator might seem green to 
 the other. But as the same object cannot itself be both 
 red and green at the same time, it follows that what are 
 called its redness and greenness are not in it, but in the 
 spectator. Similarly, the sounds which an object appears 
 to give forth neither are nor ever were in it : they originate 
 in the mind of the hearer, and have not, and never have 
 had any existence elsewhere. * If the whole body were an 
 eye, where,' asks St. Paul, ' were the hearing ,'' If the 
 whole were hearing, where were the smelling .'' ' and Pro- 
 fessor Huxley more than meets the drift of the Apostle's 
 questions by pronouncing it * impossible to imagine but 
 that if the universe contained only blind and deaf beings, 
 darkness and silence would reign everywhere.' 
 
 And as with the secondary qualities of matter, so, on 
 the same showing, must it be with the primary. If colour, 
 taste, scent, and the like, exist nowhere but in the mind, 
 so neither do extension, solidity, and the like. If the 
 former could not exist unless there were intelligent minds 
 to perceive them, then neither could the latter. For, by
 
 IIUXLEYISM. 175 
 
 extension and its cognates, \vc understand simply relations 
 which wc conceive to exist between certain qualities of 
 objects identical with certain of our own visual and tactile 
 sensations, or between these and our consciousness of 
 muscular effort ; but inasmuch as all sensations and all 
 consciousness are purely mental, and exist nowhere but in 
 the mind, it follows necessarily that ideas of relation 
 between different sensations, or between sensations and 
 consciousness, must also be purely mentnl, and non- 
 existent save in the mind. All the qualities of matter, 
 therefore, primary as well as secondary, are alike con- 
 ceptions of the mind, and consequently could not exist 
 without a mind for them to be conceived by and to exist 
 in. But if the qualities did not exist, then matter, which 
 cannot be conceived otherwise than as an assemblage of 
 qualities, could not exist either. Wherefore in respect of 
 matter itself, as well as of the qualities of matter, esse is 
 pcrcipi, essence is perception, to be is to be perceived. 
 Wherefore, finally, if there were no mind to perceive 
 matter, matter could not exist. O. E. D.' 
 
 Although in the foregoing summary of an argument to 
 which not Berkeley and ITuxley alone, but others of the 
 deepest and acutest thinkers that this country has pro- 
 duced, have contributed, I have strenuously laboured to 
 state all its points as convincingly as the obligations of 
 brevity would permit, T am not myself by any means con- 
 vinced by it. On the contrary, although to say so may 
 seem to imply a considerable overstock of modest as- 
 surance, still I do say that whatever portion of it is sound 
 
 ' Lay Sermons, xiv. ♦ On Descartes' Discourse ;' also an article by Professor 
 Huxley, on 'Berkeley anil the Metaphysics of Sensation,' in ' Macniillan's 
 Magazine ' for June, 1S71.
 
 176 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 is irrelevant, and that whatever portion is relevant is not 
 sound. So much of it as relates to the nature of the 
 qualities of matter, is, however interesting or otherwise 
 important, very little, if at all, to the purpose. No doubt 
 if I prick my finger with a needle, or — to take in pre- 
 ference an illustration employed by Locke — if my fingers 
 ache in consequence of my handling snow, it would be 
 supremely ridiculous to talk of the pain I feel being in the 
 snow ; yet not a whit more ridiculous than to call the snow 
 itself white or cold, if, by so speaking, I mean that anything 
 in the slightest degree resembling my sensation of either 
 snowy whiteness or snowy coldness resides in the snow 
 itself. And as of coldness and whiteness, so of all the 
 other so-styled secondary qualities. If I smell a rose, or 
 listen to a piano, the rose or the piano is quite insensible 
 to the scent or sounds by which my sense is ravished. 
 And of primary qualities, also, precisely the same thing 
 may with equal confidence be alleged. A stone which I 
 perceive to be large, round, hard, and either rotating or 
 motionless, has no more perception of its own extension, 
 figure, solidity, motion, or rest than a snowball has of its 
 colour or temperature. But all this, though perfectly true, 
 has nothing to do with the question, which is not zvliat 
 qualities of matter are, but where they are, and whether 
 they can exist anywhere but in mind ; and this question, I 
 submit, is distinctly begged by those who assume, as is 
 done throughout the reasoning under examination, that 
 our sensations with regard to material objects, and the 
 qualities of those objects, are synonymous and convertible 
 terms. Incontestably, sensations are afi'ections of the 
 mind which neither have nor can have any existence out- 
 side the mind. If, then, the qualities of objects are 
 identical with the sensations which arise in the mind con-
 
 HUXLEYISM. 177 
 
 cerning those objects, why, of course, the quahtics likewise 
 can exist nowhere but in the mind. On narrowly scrutin- 
 ising, however, the supposed identity, we shall find that it 
 involves somewhat reckless confusion of diametrical oppo- 
 sites. When T look at or smell a rose, or eat a beefsteak, 
 or listen to a piano, the sensations which thereupon arise 
 within me, whether immediately or subsequently, either are 
 the results of my seeing, smelling, eating, or hearing, or 
 they are not. To say that they are not is equivalent to 
 saying that an object need not be within reach of the 
 perceptive faculties in order to be perceived ; that I may 
 see or smell a rose, though there be no rose to be seen or 
 smelt ; may dine sumptuously off empty dishes, and be 
 raised to the seventh heaven of delight by the audible 
 strains of a music which is not being executed. FortJinati 
 niniium— only too lucky would mankind be, did this turn 
 out to be a correct theory, affording as it would a solution 
 of every social problem, and serving as a panacea for every 
 social evil. Psychology would then be the only science 
 worth attention, for of whatever things proficiency in that 
 branch of study had qualified any one to form mental 
 images, of those same things would he simultaneously 
 become possessor in full property. Whoever had suc- 
 ceeded in training himself to imagine vigorously might at 
 once have, do, or be whatever it pleased him to imagine, 
 becoming ipso facto, as the Stoics used to say an acquirer 
 of virtue does, * rich, beautiful, a king.' Woe betide any 
 one, however, who, as long as the cosmical constitution 
 remains what it is, shall attempt to put the theorj- into 
 practice, and desisting from all those animal functions, in- 
 volving intercourse with a real or imaginar\' external 
 world, which arc vulgarly supposed essential to animal 
 
 N
 
 178 HUXLF.YISM. 
 
 existence, shall obstinately restrict himself to the sensa- 
 tions which he believes the mind to be, without any such 
 intercourse, capable of creating for the body's sustenance 
 and delectation. The physical extinction inevitably conse- 
 quent on such devotion to principle would speedily render 
 all the devotees physically incapable of testifying in behalf 
 of their peculiar opinion, and, clearing them away, would 
 leave no witnesses surviving but such as were signifying 
 by deeds if not in words their hearty adherence to the 
 popular belief. Practically, then, there may be assumed 
 to be entire unanimity of assent to the truism that for our 
 senses to be affected by the presence of external objects, 
 the objects must needs be present to affect them. On all 
 hands it is in effect admitted that in some mode or other 
 external objects exist, but if so, and if the sensations 
 resulting from operations performed by the bodily organs 
 with external objects would not have resulted unless the 
 objects had been present to operate or to be operated 
 upon, clearly there must be resident in, or inseparably 
 bound up with, the objects a power or powers of producing 
 sensation in conscious mind. But the power of producing 
 sensation, and sensation itself, are not one and the same 
 thing, but two separate and distinct things, intrinsically 
 distinct and locally separate. The feeling, agreeable or 
 painful, according to its intensity, which heat occasions, is 
 not the same thing as the heat by which it is occasioned. 
 The twofold taste, sweet to a healthy, bitter to a dis- 
 tempered palate, of one and the same aliment, cannot be 
 identical with the single property of the aliment whereby 
 the taste is produced. In the sense of seeming red to a 
 spectator with normally constructed eyes, and green ta one 
 who is colour-blind, a ruby or a Siberian crab is at once
 
 HUXLEYISM. 179 
 
 both red and ijrccn, but the two colours which it causes to 
 be perceived cannot be identical with the peculiar structure, 
 or whatever else it be, whereby the ruby or Siberian crab 
 communicates to circumambient ether the one self-same 
 motion that terminates in different impressions on dif- 
 ferently constructed eyes. In these and in all cases of the 
 kind the feeling is in the mind, the source of the feeling 
 in matter. The one is a perception, the other a quality, 
 and to mistake the quality, not merely for a perception, 
 but for the very perception to which the quality gives rise, 
 and to infer thence that the quality must likewise be in the 
 mind, is an instance as glaring as can well be imagined of 
 that most heinous of logical offences, the confounding of 
 cause with effect. 
 
 By what steps Berkeley was led, and has since led 
 so many after him, into so grave an error, he has himself 
 acquainted us. Thus it is that he argues : By sensible 
 things can be meant only such as can be perceived im- 
 mediately by sense : and sensible qiiilities are of course 
 sensible tilings. But the only perceptions of sense are 
 sensations, and all perceptions are purely mental. Where- 
 fore, sensible qualities being, as such, perceptible imme- 
 diately by the senses, must be sensations, and being 
 sensations must be perceptions, and being perceptions 
 they are of course purely mental, and existent nowhere 
 save in the mind. Carefully, however, as I^crkelcy fancied 
 he was picking his way, he really had tripped, and that 
 fatally, at the second step. He calls the qualities of 
 objects sensible things; but sensible they are not according 
 to his definition, for the)' arc not capable of being im- 
 mediately perceived by the senses. It is not sense which 
 
 perceives, but reason which infers them. The senses, as 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o HUX LEVIS M. 
 
 Berkeley elsewhere repeatedly and earnestly insists, receive 
 nothing from objects but sensations, and these they com- 
 municate to the mind without accompanying them by 
 the sHghtest hint as to whence they originally came. The 
 senses suggest nothing as to any qualities resident in or 
 appertaining to an object corresponding with the sensa- 
 tions derived from the object. The existence of such 
 qualities is an inference of reason which, taking for granted 
 that sensations, in common with all other occurrences,, 
 must have causes, and observing that certain of them 
 commonly occur in the presence of certain objects, and 
 never occur in the absence of those objects, infers that the 
 causes of the sensations must exist in the objects. To 
 the causes thus inferred the name of qualities is given, to 
 distinguish them from the sensations whereof they are 
 causes ; and the Berkeleian transgression consists in over- 
 looking the distinction between things so diametrically 
 opposite. 
 
 By the commission of such a sin the most powerful 
 intellect becomes inevitably committed to further enor- 
 mities. Except by neglecting to distinguish between sight 
 and hearing, the effects, and light and sound, their respec- 
 tive causes, it would surely have been impossible for Pro- 
 fessor Huxley to come to the strange conclusion that if all 
 living beings were blind and deaf, 'darkness and silence 
 would everywhere reign.' Had he not himself previously 
 explamed that light and sound are peculiar motions com- 
 municated to the vibrating particles of an universally 
 diffused ether, which motions, on reaching the eye or ear, 
 produce impressions, which, after various modifications, 
 result eventually in seeing or hearing } How these motions 
 are communicated to the ether matters not. Only it is
 
 IfUXLEYISM. r8i 
 
 indispensable to note that they arc not communicated by 
 the percipient owner of the eye or car, so that the fact of 
 there bein;^ no percipient present cannot possibly furnish 
 any reason why the motions should not go on all the 
 same. But as long as they did go on there would neces- 
 sarily be light and sound ; for the motions arc themselves 
 light and sound. If, on returning to his study in which, 
 an hour before, he had left a candle burning and a clock 
 ticking. Professor Huxley should perceive from the appear- 
 ance of candle and clock that they had gone on burning 
 and ticking during his absence, would he doubt that they 
 had likewise gone on producing the motions constituting 
 and termed light and sound, notwithstanding that no eyes 
 or ears had been present to see or hear .-^ But if he did 
 not doubt this, how could he any more doubt that, although 
 all sentient creatures suddenly became eyeless and earless, 
 the sun might go on shining, and the wind roaring, and the 
 sea bellowing as before } 
 
 Akin to the inadvertence which, as I presume to think, 
 has led Professor Huxley thus to misconceive sccotidary 
 qualities, is an inattention to the differences between our 
 ideas, or mental pictures, and the originals whereof those 
 pictures are copies, which seems to me seriously to vitiate 
 his reasoning with regard to primary qualities. With 
 admirable perspicuity he shows • how it is that our notions 
 of primary qualities arc formed ; how the mind, hy localising 
 on distinct points of the sensory surface of the body its 
 various tactile sensations, obtains the idea of extension, 
 or space in two dimensions, of figure, number, and motion : 
 how the power, combined with consciousness of the power, 
 
 ' .\nicle on ' IJcrkeley and the Metaphysics of Sensation,' in ' Macmillan's 
 M.iL^aziue' for 1871, pp. 152 ct scq.
 
 1 82 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 of moving the hand in all directions over any substance 
 it is in contact with, adds the idea of geometrical solidity, or 
 of space in three dimensions : how the ideas thus formed 
 with the aid of the sense of touch are confirmed by, and 
 blended with, others derived from visual sensations and 
 muscular movements of the eye : and, finally, how the 
 idea of mechanical solidity, or impenetrability, arises from 
 experience of resistance to our muscular exertions. All 
 these details, however, interesting as they are, are never- 
 theless quite out of place. What we are at present con- 
 cerned with is the nature of the things themselves, not the 
 nature of our knowledge of them. No question that this 
 latter is purely mental. If figure, motion, and solidity 
 were really, as Professor Huxley says, each of them 
 nothing but a perception of the relation of two or more 
 sensations to one another, no question but that, since the 
 mind is the sole seat of perception, they could exist 
 nowhere else. But if all these suppositions be incorrect, 
 if, as we have seen, there be in matter and apart from 
 mind, potentialities of producing sensations, it follows 
 that, in matter, and outside of mind, there must be rela- 
 tions between different potentialities, and there must, 
 moreover, be limits to, and there may be changes in, those 
 relations. Wherefore, since there is in matter a poten- 
 tiality of imparting to the mind those sensations whence 
 it derives its ideas of place and distance, and since figure 
 is but a ' limitation of distance,' and motion but a ' change 
 of place,' it necessarily follows that there is in matter a 
 potentiality of conveying to the mind those sensations 
 whence it derives its ideas of figure and motion. And a 
 similar remark applies equally to solidity, and to every 
 other so-called quality of matter. All of them arc sub-
 
 JfUXLEYISAf. 183 
 
 stantivc potentialities of producing in the mind those 
 sensations whence our ideas of tlicmselves (the quahties) 
 are derived. No doubt all these qualities would be in- 
 conceivablc in the absence of a mind by which they might 
 be conceived, but it is not necessary that, in order to be, 
 they should be conceived. In discussions of any abstruse- 
 ness we cannot be too precise in our use of words, and we 
 shall inevitably be going astray here if we allow ourselves 
 for a moment to forget that a quality and the conception 
 of that quality are not one single thing, but two things. 
 Can it be seriously supposed that if all the conscious 
 creatures, of every description, by which the universe is 
 peopled, were to fall temporarily into complete stupor, 
 the material universe would, at the commencement of the 
 trance, be deprived of its extension, solidity, figure, and all 
 its other constituent properties, recovering them again as 
 soon as its inhabitants woke up again ? Can it be doubted 
 that, on the contrary, all potentialities resident in its 
 material composition would pursue the even tenor of their 
 way just as if nothing had happened ; performing, during 
 the temporary absence of external percipient minds, pre- 
 cisely those operations which, as soon as consciousness 
 returned to those minds, would be followed by the percep- 
 tions of sight, hearing, and touch ? But if so, then plainly 
 it is exceedingly derogatory to matter to charge it with 
 such absolute dependence on external support that its 
 very being consists in being perceived from without. That 
 matter cannot exist without mind I cheerfully admit, or 
 rather most earnestly affirm, proposing presently to explain 
 in what sense I make the affirmation. Meanwhile let it 
 suffice to have ascertained that the mental service with 
 Mhich matter cannot dispense, whatever else it be, is at
 
 1 84 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 any rate not, as the whole Berkeleian school so positively 
 insist, that of mental testimony to its existence. 
 
 Let us pause here for a moment to report progress. We 
 have seen, on the one hand, that unless mind and matter 
 have been eternally coexistent, mind must have preceded 
 matter, and that it is idle, therefore, to expect, by any 
 researches into matter, to discover how mind (or life) 
 originated. We have seen that from a materialism which 
 represents mind as in any sense a property or product of 
 matter there is no possible outlet to an idealism which 
 represents matter as owing its being to mind. To see this 
 is simply to see that the builder of a house cannot possibly 
 have been born in the house he has himself built. On the 
 other hand, we have seen that the idealism which repre- 
 sents being or existence as consisting of perception is 
 utterly incompatible with materialism of any sort or kind, 
 unless, indeed, with a materialistic nihilism wherein would 
 be no room for a solitary molecule, still less for any 
 molecular structure, and least of all for that motion of 
 molecular structures into Vvhich consistent materialists are 
 logically bound to attempt to resolve all natural phe- 
 nomena. We have, in short, seen that materialism and 
 idealism, in the senses in which those terms are commonly 
 used, are utterly incapable of amalgamation, or indeed of 
 even being harmoniously approximated, without being 
 first deprived of all the characteristic traits which at pre- 
 sent entitle them to their distinguishing appellations. 
 
 To which of the two belongs the larger share of blame 
 for this implacable hostility is easily determined. Ma- 
 terialism, in dealing with mental phenomena, begins by 
 setting chronology at defiance ; but between idealism and 
 the phenomena of matter there is no such aboriginal
 
 HUXLEYISM. 185 
 
 inconc,^ruity. From principles common to every form of 
 idealism a theory is deduciblc which, while frankly acknow- 
 ledging the reality of matter, may, with perfect consistency, 
 maintain that reality to be mental — although mental in 
 the sense of being, not a perception by, but a metamor- 
 phosis of, mind. Of such a theory the outlines seem to me 
 to have been sketched, and the foundations partly laid, by 
 Descartes, and it cannot be otherwise than interesting 
 to inquire in what manner and how far so consummate an 
 artificer advanced in the work, and where and wherefore 
 he suddenly stopped short in it. 
 
 When Descartes, after convincing himself of the hollow 
 pretentiousness of most human knowledge, proceeded to 
 dig away the accumulated drift and sand of ages in quest 
 of any clay or rock there might be below, the first indubi- 
 table verity he came to was thought, about whose reality 
 there could, as already explained, be no possibility of 
 doubt, inasmuch as any doubt concerning it, being itself 
 thought, would be but an additional proof of it. On the 
 bit of firm ground thus thoroughly tested, he proceeded to 
 place a formula not less carefully verified, his famous 
 ' Cogito, ergo sum ' — ' I think, therefore I am.' By many 
 of his followers, however, this second verification of his is 
 deemed to be by no means so satisfactory as it was by 
 himself. Professor Huxley more especially taking vehement, 
 though, as I make bold to add, somewhat gratuitous, 
 exception to every single word of the most celebrated of 
 Cartesian formulae. No doubt the premiss of the formula 
 assumes the conclusion, but it likewise includes as well as 
 assumes it. No doubt, since ' I think ' is but another way 
 of saying ' I am thinking,' to say that ' I think ' is to assume 
 that ' I am ; ' na)-, the same thing is equally assumed by
 
 1 86 HUXLEVISAf. 
 
 the mere introduction of the pronoun ' I.' But Descartes 
 was fully warranted in taking for granted the truth of his 
 conclusion. For by previously showing incontestably that 
 thought and consciousness are real existences, he had com- 
 pletelyproved the premiss wherein his conclusion is included. 
 What though, as Professor Huxley suggests, ' thought ' 
 may possibly ' be self-existent,' ' or a given thought the 
 result of its antecedent thought, or of some external power ' } 
 Be thought what else it may, it must needs be, also, either 
 an affection or an operation ; if not performed, it must be 
 felt ; there must needs be, therefore, something by which 
 it is either performed or felt, and that something cannot 
 possibly be other than a thinking and conscious thing. As 
 surely as thought is, so surely must there be a thinker. 
 This is, in substance, affirmed even by many who deny it 
 in terms, and Hume, in particular, when saying, as he 
 somewhere does, that * all we are conscious of is a series of 
 perceptions,' denies and affirms it at one and the same 
 time. For how can there be perception without a perci- 
 pient .'' or how consciousness without a conscious entity .'' or 
 how can that entity be conscious of feeling without being 
 simultaneously conscious that it is itself which feels, with- 
 out knowing, consequently, that it has a self, or without 
 being warranted, if it possess the gift of speech, in declar- 
 ing, in words even more emphatic than those of Descartes, 
 ' I myself diVa ' .'' And how, if these questions do not admit 
 of reply, can Professor Huxley be warranted in declaring 
 self and non-self to be mere ' hypotheses by which we 
 account for the facts of consciousness,' and adding that of 
 their existence we ' neither have, nor by any possibility 
 can have' the same 'unquestionable and immediate cer- 
 tainty as we have of the states of consciousness which we
 
 HUXLEYISM. 187 
 
 consider to be their effects ' ? Surely the existence of 
 self is one of the most direct and immediate subjects of 
 consciousness ; yet it does not depend for evidence on 
 consciousness alone, but is as unanswerably demonstrable 
 as that two strait^ht lines cannot enclose space or that 
 parallel lines cannot meet, or as any other mathematical 
 negation. No ratiocinative deduction can be more incon- 
 testable than that, since / have thoughts, there must be an 
 / to have them. 
 
 Whoever thus assures himself of the existence of self 
 obtains simultaneously equal assurance of the existence of 
 non-self; for feeling that his conscious self is not boundless, 
 but is confined within limits, he cannot doubt that beyond 
 those limits there must be space, and, receiving continual 
 sensations from without, he perceives that there are, in 
 external space, potentialities of imparting sensations. Thus, 
 I repeat, Descartes in laying down the first principles of 
 his philosophy created an intellectual basis for the external 
 universe. Unfortunately, however, instead of proceeding 
 to place its proper superstructure on the foundation thus 
 laid, he wilfully stepped aside from what he had just pro- 
 nounced the only firm ground in existence, and undertook 
 to raise a rival edifice on part of the formless void beyond. 
 Deeply struck by the grand discoveries of his illustrious 
 contemporaries, Galileo and Harvey, and thence discovering 
 for himself that the phenomena of remotest worlds and 
 also the involuntary phenomena of our own bodily frames 
 take place in accordance with forces of uniform operation, 
 he leaped suddenly to the conclusion that those forces are 
 purely mechanical. The circulation of the blood, he says, 
 ' is as much the necessary result of the structure of the 
 parts one can see in the heart, and of the heat which one
 
 rS.S HUXLEY ISM. 
 
 may feel there, and of the nature of the blood which may- 
 be experimentally ascertained, as is the motion of a clock 
 the result of the force, situation, and figure of its wheels 
 and of its weight.' Nor, in his view, does the heart, by 
 virtue of its structure and composition, merely cause the 
 blood to circulate. ' It also generates animal spirits,' which, 
 ' ascending like a very subtle fluid, or very pure and vivid 
 flame, into the brain as into a reservoir, pass thence into 
 the nerves, where, according as they more or less enter, or 
 tend to enter, they have the power of altering the figures 
 of the muscles into which the neives are inserted, and of so 
 causing all the organs and limbs to move.' He puts the 
 case thus : Even as the ordinary movements of a water- 
 clock or of a mill are kept up by the ordinary flow of the 
 water, and even as ' in the grottoes and fountains of royal 
 gardens, the force wherewith the water issues from its 
 reservoirs suffices to move various machines, and even to 
 make them play instruments or pronounce words according 
 to the difi'erent disposition of the pipes which lead the 
 water'— even so do pulsation, respiration, digestion, nutri- 
 tion, and growth, and ' other such actions as are natural 
 and usual in the body,' result naturally from the usual 
 course of the animal spirits. Moreover, even as intruders 
 upon the waterworks aforesaid unconsciously by their mere 
 presence cause special movements to take place, even as, 
 for example, ' if they approach a bathing Diana, they tread 
 on certain planks so arranged as to make her hide among 
 the reeds, and, if they attempt to follow her, see approach- 
 ing a Neptune who threatens with his trident, or rouse 
 some other monster who vomits water into their faces ' — 
 even so do external objects, b)' their mere presence, act 
 upon the organs of sense ; even so do * the reception of light,
 
 HUXLEYISM. 189 
 
 sounds, odours, flavours, heat, and such Hke qualities in th.e 
 organs of the external senses, the impression of the ideas 
 of these in the intellect, the imagination, and the memory, 
 the internal movements of the appetites and passions, and 
 the external movements which follow so aptly on the pre- 
 sentation of objects to the senses, or on the resuscitation of 
 impressions by the memory,' yea, even so do all these 
 ' functions proceed naturally from the arrangement of the 
 bodily organs, neither more nor less than do the movements 
 of a clock or other automaton from that of its weights and 
 its wheels, without the aid of any other vegetative or sensi- 
 tive soul or any other principle of motion or of life than 
 the blood and the spirits agitated by the fire which burns 
 continually within the heart, and which differs in no wise 
 from the fire existing in inanimate bodies.' ' 
 
 Quite fairly it may be urged that the writer of passages 
 like these would, if writing in modern language, and with 
 tile aid of modern conceptions, have expressed himself 
 much as Professor Huxley does when, declaring that the 
 circulation of the blood and the regular movements of the 
 respiratory, alimentary, and other internal organs are 
 simply 'affairs of mechanism, resulting from the structure 
 and arrangement ' of the bodily organs concerned, from 
 ' the contractility of those organs, and from the regulation 
 of that contractility by an automatically acting nervous 
 apparatus ;' that muscular contractility and the automatic 
 activity or irritability of the nerves are ' purely the results 
 of molecular mechanism ; ' and that ' the modes of motion 
 which constitute the physical bases of light, sound, and heat 
 are transmuted by the sensory organs into affections of 
 
 ' Tlio (luoiation?, of which lliosc in the text are abriclgmonls, w ill ])e found 
 ill ' Lay Scimons,' xiv. pp. 364-7.
 
 I90 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 nei-vous matter,' which affections become ' a kind of physi- 
 cal ideas constituting a physical memor}%' and may be 
 combined in a manner answering to association and imagi- 
 nation, or may give rise to muscular contractions in those 
 reflex actions which are the mechanical representatives of 
 volition.' Quite fairly may a doctrine, capable of being 
 thus translated, be described as leading" ' straight to mate- 
 rialism.' Quite justly may its author be claimed by 
 Huxley as joint professor of a materialistic creed. True, 
 Descartes lodges within his human mechanism a chose 
 pensante or rational soul, whose principal seat is in the 
 brain, and who is treated as corresponding to a hydraulic 
 engineer stationed in the centre of waterworks for the 
 purpose of increasing, slackening, or otherwise altering their 
 movements. But this rational soul is a very needless 
 appendage to either the Cartesian or the Huxleian system, 
 wherein, if its post be not a literal sinecure, there is, at any 
 rate, little or nothing for it to do which might not quite as 
 well be done without it. The hydraulic engineer, sitting 
 in his central office, has to wind up the whole machinery 
 from time to time, and to turn now this tap, now that, 
 when he wishes to set this or that particular machine in 
 motion. But, as no one need be told, our chose pensante 
 has nothing to do with the winding up of our digestive, 
 circulatory, or respiratory apparatus ; and so far from inter- 
 nally arranging those other internal organs from the mere 
 arrangement of whose parts, according to Descartes, the 
 reception, conversion, and retention of sensations, and the 
 movements, whether mternal or external, thereupon conse- 
 quent, naturally proceed, or from regulating the molecular 
 mechanism, whence, according to Professor Huxley, results 
 the automatic nervous activity which, in his opinion, governs
 
 HUXLEYISM. 191 
 
 the movements of the limbs not less absolutely than those 
 of the intestines, it, nine times out of ten, neither knows 
 nor suspects that any such orc^ans or mechanism exist. If 
 the functions above attributed to the human frame could 
 be shown really to belong to it, pure, not to say crass, 
 materialism, would require no further proof. Those parti- 
 cular functions undoubtedly take place without the cogni- 
 sance of that particular sensitive soul which we call ourself, 
 so that if no other sensitive soul take cognisance of them, 
 they must needs be, not simply automatic performances, but 
 performances of an automaton of such marvellous powers as 
 to be quite equal to the performance likewise of whatever 
 human operations are vulgarly classed as mental. Assume, 
 however illogically, that motion is a function of matter, and 
 from that premiss, whether true or false, the conclusion 
 that thought likewise is a function of matter may be quite 
 logically deduced. ' That thought is as much a function 
 of matter as motion is ' must needs be conceded to Professor 
 IIuxlc)', who, therefore, if he could show that motion is 
 really such a function, would be fully justified in adding, 
 that ' the distinction between spirit and matter vanishes,' 
 that ' we lose spirit in matter.' 
 
 Undeniabl}', then, of the Cartesian philosophy one 
 moiety is, as Professor Huxley says, materialistic ; but 
 from the self-contradictions inseparable from every species 
 of materialism the Cartesian variety is, of course, no more 
 exempt than any other, and it has besides one self-con- 
 tradiction peculiar to itself A clock's pendulum vibrates, 
 and its hands move, not simply by reason of the situation 
 and figure of its weight and wheels, but also because some 
 intelligent person, by winding up the clock, has com- 
 municated an inipulsi\-e force to the weight and wheels.
 
 192 HUXLEYISM. 
 
 Waterworks perform all sorts of antics, not solely because 
 the pipes are skilfully constructed and arranged with a 
 view to such end, but because also an intelligent engineer 
 has turned running water into the pipes. But the only 
 intelligent agent to whom Descartes allows access to his 
 corporeal machinery is one who not only has no notion 
 how to apply a moving force except to some few portions 
 of the machinery, but with regard to the other portions 
 has most likely no suspicion that they even exist. But 
 how in the absence of some other intelligence, of some 
 other 'vegetative or sensitive soul or principle of motion 
 or of life,' is it possible for the inert and inanimate heart to 
 generate animal spirits t — how is it possible for death thus 
 to give birth to life .'' — or, if the generative faculty be sup- 
 posed to be the necessary result of a particular molecular 
 structure, how is it that when the animal spirits become 
 from any cause extinct, they are not immediately re- 
 generated by the same molecular structure 1 or rather, 
 how is it possible for animal spirits to become extinct as 
 long as the molecular structure of which they are neces- 
 sary concomitants remains unaltered '^. In these ques- 
 tions the old insuperable difficulties reappear in new forms, 
 but on these we need not dwell. Apart from anti- 
 materialistic arguments of general applicability, there is a 
 mode of refutation specially adapted to the Cartesian form 
 of materialism, which, besides flatly contradicting itself, 
 contradicts not less flatly a twin system of unimpeachable 
 veracity. Truth cannot be opposed to truth: — a d3ctrine 
 cannot be true, even though propounded by Descartes and 
 Huxley, if it conflict irreconcileably with doctrines which 
 Descartes and Huxley have unanswerably demonstrated. 
 Now one-half of Cartesian philosophy shows conclusively 
 that amidst the countless infinity of human notions, the
 
 HUXLE VISM. 193 
 
 one single and solitary certainty of independent and self- 
 evident authority is the existence of thought, and nothing 
 else whatever, therefore, can be entitled to be regarded as 
 absolutely certain which cannot be shown to rest mediately 
 or immediately upon this. One thing which can, by 
 strictest logical process, be shown so to rest, is the exist- 
 ence of a thinking self ; and another is the existence of a 
 non-self or external universe ; but of tliis external universe 
 we know scarcely anything beyond tiie bare fact that it 
 exists. We know that outside the thinking self there are 
 potentialities capable of somehow or other communicating 
 sensations to the thinking self; but of the nature of these 
 potentialities our senses teach us absolutely nothing, and 
 the few particulars that reason is able to discover, are, with 
 one single though very momentous exception, to which we 
 are rapidly approaching, purely negative. We do know 
 to a certain extent \\\\i\\. qualities of objects arc not. We 
 know that they are not and cannot be in the least like the 
 sensations which we call by the same names. We know 
 that what we call the whiteness and coldness of snow or 
 the hardness and weight of marble, can no more resemble 
 the feelings we receive from looking at or handling snow 
 or marble than the mental exaltation produced within us 
 on hearing one of Bach's fugues is like the organ on 
 which, or the organist by whom, it is played. We know 
 that of the pictures which our senses form for us not one 
 can possibly be a correct likeness. We know^ that what 
 we fancy we see in matter we do not see ; that what we 
 seem to feel we do not feci ; that the apparent structure 
 and composition of matter cannot therefore possibly be real. 
 To this conviction we are irresistibly drawn by a chain of 
 idealistic reasoning of which Descartes forged the Hrst 
 
 u
 
 194 HUXLEYISM, 
 
 link, and every link of which will stand the severest strain. 
 But if this be the teaching of an idealism occupying as its 
 base the only morsel of solid ground to be found in the 
 mental universe, what scrap of footing is there left for an 
 antagonistic materialism purporting to rest on what we can 
 see and feel of a structure and composition which, as we 
 have just satisfied ourselves, we cannot see or feel at all ? 
 
 As plainly then as one half of Descartes' philosophy is 
 materialistic, so plainly, that half, instead of a necessary 
 outgrowth and exact correlative of the other or idealistic 
 moiety is, on the contrary, the latter's diametrical and 
 implacable opponent. As plainly, therefore, as the one is 
 true, must the other be false, and Cartesian idealism, in so 
 far as its character has been exhibited above, has, I submit, 
 been demonstrated to be true. The greater the pity that 
 it was not brought to maturity by its author. In enumera- 
 ting its first principles, Descartes, as I must once again 
 observe, was forming a logical basis whereon a compre- 
 hensive and consistent conception of an external universe 
 might forthwith, have been securely deposited, had he not 
 unluckily, instead of himself proceeding to build on his 
 own foundations, with congruous materials, left them free 
 for others to build upon with gold, silver, precious stones, 
 wood, hay, or stubble, as chance might determine. May I, 
 without presumption, hazard a conjecture as to the sort of 
 fabric that might have arisen, if he had steadily prosecuted 
 his original design ,'' 
 
 At the stage which we are supposing him to have 
 reached, very little remained to complete the work. 
 Around man, around every individual man, or other con- 
 scious intelligence, as its centre, is ranged infinitely ex- 
 tended space, filled with, or, as it were, composed of
 
 HUXLEYISM. 195 
 
 various kinds of matter, every kind and every separate 
 portion of which is endowed with special qualities capable 
 of communicatin<j corresponding sensations to the central 
 intelligence. So far all that can be predicated of any 
 material object or portion of matter is that it is a collec- 
 tion of qualities ; but from hence we may advance boldly 
 to the further negative discovery that it is nothing else ; 
 that there is not and cannot be, in addition to those 
 qualities, any substance in or to which the qualities inhere, 
 or are in any way attached. 
 
 The absence from matter of any such substance is 
 evidenced by the absurdity involved in the idea of its 
 presence. Suppose the substance to exist : the qualities 
 inherent in it must needs be as completely distinct from 
 itself as pins are from a pincushion ; the extension and 
 solidity of an extended, solid substance can no more be 
 identical with the substance than the nominative is iden- 
 tical with the genitive case. The substance, therefore, 
 although deprived of all its qualities will still retain its 
 essence unimpaired, will still be equally a substance, just 
 as a pincushion continues equally a pincushion after its 
 last pin has been abstracted. Conceive, then, all the 
 qualities of matter to be abstracted, and consider what 
 remains — a substance without qualities of any sort. But a 
 substance neither solid, nor fluid, nor yet gaseous ; neither 
 coloured nor colourless ; neither singular nor plural ; with- 
 out form and void, without even extension — what is it .' 
 not something, but nothing ; a nonentity or non-existence. 
 The qualities of matter in being removed from the sub- 
 stance have therefore left nothing behind, and, conse- 
 quently, although carrying with them nothing but them- 
 selves, have yet carried with them all the constituents of 
 
 o 2
 
 ?96 HUXLEY ISM. 
 
 matter, which is thus seen to be composed exclusively of 
 qualities without a single particle of foreign admixture. 
 And since, moreover, the qualities of matter are clearly 
 not themselves substances, that is to say do not themselves 
 stand wider or uphold anything, it follows that their com- 
 pound, matter, must likewise be purely unsubstantial. 
 
 The edifice begun by Descartes has now been raised 
 high and strong enough to have its layer of negations 
 crowned with an affirmation of pre-eminent importance. 
 The qualities of matter, being known only by their effects, 
 are evidently causes : and, being causes, must necessarily 
 be either themselves forces, or, at the least, manifestations 
 of force ; and inasmuch as force involves exertion, it can- 
 not be inert ; and inasmuch as deadness must be incapable 
 of exertion, all force must be alive ; and life without 
 substance cannot be conceived otherwise than as some 
 species of spirit or mind. Such tlierefore must be matter. 
 Matter can be nothing else than pure spirit of some kind. 
 
 And may we not with good reason congratulate our- 
 selves on this result of our investigations } Instead of the 
 vision we were threatened with, of mind losing itself in 
 matter, our eyes are gladdened with that of the converse 
 operation, of the transmutation of matter into mind. And 
 on no account is this metamorphosis to be mistaken for 
 annihilation of matter, whose stolid grossness has vanished, 
 not in order to give place to empty nominalism or to 
 a thin mist of mere mental perceptions existing onl}" in 
 virtue of being perceived, but in order to reappear 
 gloriously etherealised into living energy. By the change 
 that has taken place, corruption has put on incorrup- 
 tion ; the natural body has become a quickening spirit ; 
 death is swallowed up in victory. Matter reappears
 
 HUXLEYISM. 197 
 
 converted, not into a perception of percipient mind, but 
 into percipient mind itself ; yet althou<,di thus presumably 
 percipient of its own existence, it not the less has an 
 existence perfectly independent of perception, either by 
 itself or by any other intellic^^ence. 
 
 Under what head the mind, or combination of living 
 forces, thus constitutiriL;- all matter, ou^dit to be classed, is 
 a question, which the imperfection of human faculties may 
 as well be content to leave unanswered, though to its 
 being supposed to emanate directly from the mind of 
 Omnipresent Deity, one insuperable objection maybe men- 
 tioned, which should be kept steadily in view. There are 
 few of us who will not shrink with horror from a notion, 
 according to which man, whenever doing as he pleases 
 with any material object, applying it, as likely as not, to 
 some base or criminal purpose, is disposing at his pleasure 
 of a portion of the Divine essence : few who will not 
 greatly prefer to believe that the vital principle \\hich 
 manifests itself in the form of a dunghill or of a poisoned 
 dagger, ma)' be, for the time, as completely individualised 
 and separate from all other life or mind, as every human 
 being perceives his own conscious mind or self to be. At 
 all events, wc have now reached a point beyond which it 
 would be rash to rush hastily on. For a while we may be 
 well content to rest where we are. That matter is nothincr 
 else but a peculiar manifestation, or avatar, of some species 
 of mind, whatever that species be, is a proposition as 
 demonstrably true as its converse is demonstrabl}- false. 
 Unless it be possible for death to give birth to life, it is 
 impossible for living mind to be the offspring of inanimate 
 matter ; but so surely as mind is mind, and that living 
 force alone can act either on mind or aught else, so surely
 
 198 HUXLEY ISM. 
 
 must all matter that imparts sensation to mind, be itself a 
 species of living force and consequently a species of mind. 
 An unexpected conclusion this, and widely different, I 
 confess, from that to which I was myself looking forward 
 at the outset of the discussion ; yet, at the same time, one 
 of which there is the best possible proof in the impossibility 
 of conceiving its contrary. It is besides a conclusion to 
 which not only ought Descartes in consistency to have 
 come, but at which both Locke and Berkeley, though ad- 
 vancing from opposite points of the compass, did very nearly 
 arrive ; nay, which the latter did almost touch, and must 
 apparently have grasped, had not his hands been already full 
 of other things. It is, moreover, one from which I do not 
 apprehend that Professor Huxley himself will seriously 
 dissent. Indeed, I almost hope that he may object chiefly 
 to its havdng been moved by me as an amendment on his 
 original motion, and that he may be disposed to claim it 
 for himself as a portion of genuine Huxleyism. If so, I 
 shall readily recognise the claim so far as to admit that 
 things very similar to many of those said by me above 
 had already been said by Professor Huxley ; though, in 
 justice to myself, I must add that their complete opposites 
 had likewise been said by him. But the office which I 
 here proposed to myself was mainly that of an eclectic, 
 who, going over a field which another husbandman has 
 tilled, separates the wheat from the tares, and binds up the 
 former into shapely and easily portable sheaves ; and no 
 more satisfactory assurance can be given of my having 
 been usefully employed in such subordinate capacity than 
 that Professor Huxley, who, amongst all his numerous ad- 
 mirers, has not one sincerer than myself, should welcome me 
 as a coadjutor, instead of repelling me as an antagonist.
 
 '99 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 * Wonder is the basis of worship. Thai progress of science which is to 
 destroy wonder, and in its stead substitute mensuration and numeration, finds 
 small favour with Teufelsdrockh, much as lie otherwise venerates those two 
 latter processes.' — Sartor Resartus. 
 
 By the train of thought pursued in the last chapter, we 
 were led to the conclusion, not, indeed, that matter has no 
 existence, but that its nature or constitution is altogether 
 different from what is commonly supposed. The difference 
 thus discovered does not, however, imply any correspond- 
 ing difference with respect to the properties — sensible pro- 
 perties, as they are commonly called — whereby matter 
 affects the senses. Equally, whether matter be, in all and 
 each of its various species, inanimate, inert, passive sub- 
 stance, or a combination of self-acting forces — equally 
 whether it be the author or merely the subject of whatever 
 activity it manifests, that activity is equally manifested in 
 certain sequences which are as unvarying as if they were 
 prescribed by inexorable and irresistible laws, and which, 
 indeed, by a convenient, though exceedingly treacherous 
 metaphor, are usually styled laws — laws of Nature when 
 spoken of collectively, laws of attraction, repulsion, gravi- 
 tation, motion, heat, light, and the like, when separately 
 referred to. Whithersoever we turn our eyes, however
 
 200 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 closely we piy, into whatever depths of infinity we peer, 
 we observe the most perfect harmony between structure 
 and law, law moulding structure and structure utilising 
 law. Afar off we descry systems upon systems, solar and 
 sidereal, like sand upon the sea-shore for multitude, and 
 every individual orb thereof rotating or revolving in 
 strictest accordance with inflexible mathematical prin- 
 ciples, and evidently owing to the previous influence of 
 those same principles its characteristic configuration. 
 Near at hand we discern organic forms innumerable, each 
 with its own special arrangement of component parts 
 admirably apt for the performance in ordinary circum- 
 stances of special functions, admirably, as circumstances 
 change, accommodating itself by corresponding changes 
 for continuing the same or undertaking other and equally 
 appropriate functions, nor merely performing them all in 
 despite of the restraints imposed by law, but availing 
 itself of those very restraints as means and aids for their 
 performance. Where so much aptness is, adaptation 
 surely must have been : where arrangement is so plainly 
 conducive to ends, the ends must surely have been fore- 
 seen, and the arrangement effected by design and accord- 
 ing to preconceived plan. And there cannot have been 
 design without a designer or designers : the plan cannot 
 but have had its author or authors : nor could the plan 
 have been executed without an artificer or artificers. 
 Author or authors, too, artificer or artificers, be the same 
 singular or plural, must have possessed, individually or 
 collectively, not less of wisdom, power, and goodness than 
 are displayed by the finished work. Now of each of these 
 attributes, the amount to which the aspect of the universe 
 bears witness, albeit not infinite, inasmuch as the universe
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 20 r 
 
 is not without imperfections, is }-et indefinite ; as plainly 
 without measure as the universe is without bounds. 
 Wherefore, not only must the universe have had an author 
 or authors, an artificer or artificers, but his or their wisdom, 
 power, and goodness, must, whether infinite or not, have 
 been at least illimitable. 
 
 Such is the argument from design, and such, to my 
 thinking, the only absolute certainties legitimately de- 
 duciblc from it ; and although these, in comparison with 
 the numerous probabilities ordinarily associated with them, 
 may appear somewhat meagre, yet are they intrinsically of 
 exceeding moment. They constitute the only basis on 
 which any rational religion, any that appeals to the in- 
 tellect as well as to the feelings, can rest securely. Who- 
 ever accepts them, by whatever other name he prefer to 
 call himself, is essentially a theist. He only who denies or 
 ignores them can justly be stigmatised as an atheist. Yet, 
 although an inquiry into their soundness is thus plainly 
 second in interest to none, it is not that in which I 
 propose to engage at present, unless indirectly. My im- 
 mediate concern is not with the strength of theism, but 
 with the weakness of atheism, and the hoUowness of the 
 latter's dialectical pretensions. What in every form of 
 piety is most provocative of philosophic scorn, is its 
 fonvardness of faith, its eagerness of acquiescence ; but to 
 this sort of reproach I expect to be able to show that none 
 are more obnoxious than those very philosophers by whom 
 it is most freely cast. That nothing is more unphiloso- 
 phical than uncompromising irreligion, nothing more 
 credulous than its credulity, no other beliefs more 
 monstrous than those by which it strives to fill up the void 
 created by its own unbelief: this is my present thesis, and
 
 202 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 this I propound, not unaware what formidable antagonists 
 I am thereby challenging, but not without something of 
 the same confidence, and something withal of the same 
 ground for it, as David had when, in equal strait, exclaim- 
 mg, ' The Lord is on my side ; I will not fear ; what can 
 man do unto me ? ' 
 
 Let us at the outset consider what denial of plan in the 
 structure of the universe implies, and note, among other 
 things signified, the following. The exact conformity on 
 matter's part to Nature's laws, everywhere observable, and 
 even more striking perhaps in minute details than in 
 grandiose generalities, is purely accidental. The laws 
 were not enacted in order to be obeyed ; matter's various 
 shapes were not given to or assumed by it in order that its 
 obedience might serve any particular purpose. All ap- 
 pearances of ingenious contrivance in the collocation of 
 elementary particles, or in the co-operation of elementary 
 forces, are mere appearances. It was not designed that 
 under the influence of the laws of motion, chaos should 
 resolve itself into systems, and time divide itself into years 
 and seasons and days and nights. It is quite unintention- 
 ally that the countless varieties of mechanism appertaining 
 to different vegetable and animal fabrics have been ren- 
 dered fit for performing those special processes which, by 
 reason in each case of some special arrangement of parts, 
 they actually do perform with such marvellous precision. 
 It is a total mistake to suppose that the eye was meant for 
 seeing, or the ear for hearing, or the heart for initiating 
 and regulating the circulation of the blood, or nervous 
 ramifications for receiving and disseminating sensible im- 
 pressions. These various organs have been discovered to 
 be useful, and are used accordingly ; but they were not
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 203 
 
 intended to be so used, or contrived with any such view, 
 or, indeed, contrived at all. The forces, whatever they be, 
 and whether identical with or totally distinct from itself, 
 whereby matter, on one supposition, acts, and, on the 
 other, is acted upon, and by whose operation the universe 
 and all its contents have been fashioned and are sustained, 
 are in either case perfectly heedless and reckless forces, 
 operating always without the slightest reference to result. 
 
 Language like this was much in vogue among the 
 French encyclopcxdists of the last century. By opposing 
 it, even Voltaire incurred the reputation of bigotry, and 
 Hume probably had to listen to a good deal of it on that 
 memorable occasion when, dining with Baron D'Holbach, 
 and intimating to his host his disbelief in the existence of 
 atheists, he was informed by way of reply that he was 
 actually at table with seventeen members of the sect.* 
 That in England, too, it was a good deal talked at about 
 the same and a somewhat later period, may be inferred 
 from the fact that against its teaching one of Paley's 
 most celebrated treatises was expressly directed. Doctrine 
 which was once so fashionable, and which even now cannot 
 be said to be obsolete, was not, of course, without some 
 show of reason to support it, and somewhat in this wise 
 the chief arguments in its behalf were usually mar- 
 shalled : — In order to account for actual result, there is no 
 
 ' The story was thus told by Diderot, to Sir Samuel Romilly, when a young 
 man : — ' Je vous dirai un trait do lui, mais il vous sera iin peu scandaleux peut- 
 etre, car vous autres Anglais, vous croyez iiii pen en Dieu ; pour nous autres, 
 nous n'y croyons gueres. Hume dina dans une grande compagnie avec le baron 
 Dllolbach. II etait assis a cote du baron ; on parla de la religion naturelle. 
 "Pour les athees," disait Ilumc, "je ne crois pas qu'il en existe; je n'en ai 
 jamais vAi!" "Vous avez ete un pcu malheureux," rcpondit I'autre, "vous 
 voici k table avec dix-scpt pour la premiere fois. "' — Edinhir^h Kc-'iru^ for 
 January 1847.
 
 204 R EC EXT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 need to imagine previous purpose. All things that exist, 
 ail events that occur, must bear to each other some relations 
 in situation and time, which relations are not less likely to 
 be orderly than disorderly, or, rather, indeed, are more 
 likely to be the former than the latter. For necessarily 
 the rarer rises above the denser ; the stronger compels the 
 weaker ; that which is pushed hardest runs fastest. And 
 even though, among organic forms, orderly and disorderly 
 had been, by the purely fortuitous concurrence of atoms, 
 originally produced in equal numbers, the former would be 
 sure in the course of ages to become the more numerous, 
 and that in proportion to the orderliness of their composi- 
 tion, and to their consequent suitableness for the reception 
 and maintenance of organic life, by which they in turn 
 would be maintained and multiplied, while less aptly 
 organised forms, succumbing in the struggle for existence, 
 perished and vanished away. Thus everything arranges 
 itself — everything, however, being here another name for 
 Nature, which alone does or can exist, which is all and 
 does all ; yet, though doing all things in general, does 
 w^hatever it does quite unintelligently, and without the 
 least desire of doing any one thing in particular more than 
 another. 
 
 Though speaking of this as a show of reasoning, I would 
 by no means be understood to consider it as merely a 
 show. On the contrary, I must admit that it contains a 
 modicum of reality sufficient, in my opinion, to secure the 
 position taken up from being utterly overthrown b}' any 
 direct attack not followed up by reference to a certain 
 palpable absurdity which we shall presently perceive to 
 be inseparably connected with the position. To so much 
 of real reasoning as we have before us, let then all due
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 205 
 
 respect be shown. No doubt all existences must neces- 
 sarily dispose themselves or be disposed somehow. No 
 doubt all occurrences must succeed each other .somehow. 
 No doubt, either, that if the disposing or otherwise origi- 
 nating forces operated quite regardlcssly of plan, no one 
 disposition or succession would be a whit less possible than 
 any other — the most symmetric or evenly graduated than 
 the most disjointed or confused. Now although, since 
 exertion is utterly inconceivable without volition, and since 
 volition is equally inconceivable without consciousness, it 
 must be impossible for any forces ever to exert themselves 
 altogether unintentionally, it is yet perfectly possible for 
 their exertion to have no ulterior intention beyond that of 
 gratifying an unprospective will. This is all that one 
 fidgetting about, as the phrase is, intends, when he has no 
 special motive for fidgetting in any particular direction 
 more than in any other, and similarly it may by possi- 
 bility be the mere fidgettiness of Nature that gives rise to 
 all natural phenomena. Nature, indeed, cannot, any more 
 than any other force or combination of forces, be utterly 
 destitute of intelligence, but its intelligence may not incon- 
 ceivably be of no higher sort than that which the sensitive 
 plant exhibits or mimics. Nature cannot exert itself quite 
 unconsciously, nor consequently quite unintentionally, but 
 its exertions, though not unintended, may possibly not be 
 intended for any result. It must be admitted, then, that, 
 so far, no reason has appeared why the force or forces by 
 which the universe was originally moulded, may not, as 
 contended, have been perfectly heedless and reckless ; may 
 not, without the least premeditation or the slightest view 
 to an\- ulterior object, have produced certain phenomena 
 in those particular sequences to which the name of natural
 
 2o6 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 laws has been given ; and may not, with the same total 
 absence of purpose, have adopted certain other courses of 
 action which, very fortunately, though quite undesignedly, 
 have resulted in the production of endless varieties of 
 mechanism, most of them of marvellously intricate and 
 complex structure, and all and each of them of structure 
 marvellously suitable for performing, in co-operation with 
 Nature's laws, functions of an utility as varied as their 
 structure. And what any forces have been equal to do 
 once, those same forces, if remaining unimpaired, must be 
 equal to repeat times without number. Although, if you 
 found your opponent at dice invariably throwing double- 
 sixes, you might feel confident that his dice were loaded, 
 your confidence, unless otherwise corroborated, would not 
 amount to entire certainty. With unloaded dice there 
 would be nothing strange in double-six being thrown 
 once ; but, if once, why not twice runnirg .'* and if twice, 
 why not three, four, or a million times running, provided 
 that the thrower's strength held out so long } No one of 
 the separate throws, from the first to the millionth, would 
 be attended with more difiiculty than any other. Who- 
 ever made the first might with no greater effort make any 
 one, and therefore every one, of the rest. In the fact of 
 his having commenced the series there would be proof of 
 the possibility of his completing it. In like manner, if it 
 be not inconceivable that Nature's forces may once, by a 
 single unpremeditated exertion, have bestowed on the 
 universe its actual constitution, it is not inconceivable that 
 by continual repetition of similarly unpremeditated exer- 
 tions, they may have ever since maintained that constitu- 
 tion. In this supposition there is nothing patently absurd. 
 It is perfectly legitimate to suppose that any event or
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 207 
 
 combination of events, not demonstrably impossible, may 
 have occurred in the absence of complete certainty that 
 they have not occurred. It may not be illegitimate, there- 
 fore, to suppose that all phenomena of the description 
 termed physical, and all repeated sequences of such pheno- 
 mena, may have occurred, not causally, but casually — that 
 it may have been a fortuitous concourse of atoms which 
 originally established the existing economy of the universe, 
 and an uninterrupted succession of similar fortuitous con- 
 courses that has ever since maintained that economy. 
 That supposition, I repeat, involves no absolute absurdity. 
 What however is, if not absurd, at any rate egregiously 
 unscientific and most unphilosophically credulous, is to 
 treat the supposition as a certainty, notwithstanding that 
 the chances against its representing real facts are as in- 
 finity to infinitesimality ; for not less is the preponderance 
 of improbability that the laws of nature were not inten- 
 tionally prescribed, and that the wondrously complex and 
 wondrously useful harmony that has been established 
 between organic stmcture and natural law was not de- 
 signedly established. In considering this point, it will be 
 convenient to take law first. 
 
 Inasmuch as, on the assumption that all phenomena 
 of inorganic matter are effects, purely unpremeditated, of 
 Nature's capricious restlessness, there would of course be 
 no more reason why any one such phenomenon than 
 any other should not at any time occur, there would 
 equally of course on the same assumption, be no more 
 reason why it should. An infinity of phenomena being 
 at all times equally possible, the chances against any one 
 being, on any occasion, preferred to all the rest, would be 
 infinity less one. Against any particular sequence of phe-
 
 2c8 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 nomena they would be as infinity less one multiplied by 
 the number of phenomena composing the sequence, and 
 against one or more repetitions of the same sequence they 
 would be the same multiple of virtual infinity multiplied 
 by the number of repetitions. Against perpetual repeti- 
 tion, they would, as it were^ be virtual infinity multiplied 
 by infinity. On the assumption stated, an apple loosened 
 from the parent stem, might quite possibly fall to the 
 ground, but quite as possibly might remain suspended in 
 mid air, or rise straight upwards, or take any one of the 
 innumerable directions intervening between zenith and 
 nadir, travelling too, unless interrupted, in the direction 
 selected for any period, from a single moment to endless 
 ages. Experience, however, teaches that an apple or any 
 other body of greater specific gravity than air, does in- 
 variably, when deprived of support, fall straight downward, 
 such downward movement being part of one of those 
 sequences of phenomena which are classed under the head 
 of gravitation. Now, to assert that this, or any other, and 
 consequently every other, specimen of gravitation, cannot 
 possibly have been unpremeditated would no doubt be 
 unwarrantable. No doubt there is one solitary, one in- 
 finitesimal chance that the force whose action results in 
 gravitation may, when producing that result, be acting 
 with as little choice of direction as a fidgetty man makes 
 when moving his arms or legs about for no better reason 
 than that he will not take the trouble to keep them quiet. 
 Only, as on the supposition that the force did not select 
 its course, the chances against its always taking the same 
 course would be infinity less one indefinitely multiplied, 
 the probability that it does select must needs be .the 
 same indefinite multiple of virtual infinity. Not less than
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 209 
 
 this is the preponderance of probability that the invariably- 
 recurrent sequences of phenomena which we are in the 
 habit of rcferrin<j to gravitation, arc premeditated, and 
 that the law of gravitation has, so to speak, been wittingly 
 ordained. And in this respect all invariable sequences of 
 phenomena, otherwise termed laws of nature, stand plainly 
 in the same category. One solitary and infinitesimal unit 
 is the sole deduction to be made from what would other- 
 wise be infinite certaint}-, that the assumption we started 
 with is false, and that all invariable sequences are pre- 
 meditated, all the laws of nature enacted by a lawgiver 
 who intended what he was enacting. 
 
 Intention, however, is not quite the same thing as 
 design. It is possible for action to be at once intentional 
 and purposeless. If a man, taking regularly a constitu- 
 tional walk, is observed always to take the same road, and 
 to stop exactly at the same point, there can be no reasonable 
 doubt as to his intention to walk just so far and no farther ; 
 but it does not follow that he has any object in walking which 
 he supposes would not be equally served by his walking a 
 few paces more or less. Similarly whatever be the cer- 
 tainty that the laws of nature have been intentionally 
 established, there is in that certainty no proof of their 
 having been established for any purpose beyond that of 
 gratifying some whim or humour of the lawgiver. For 
 indications of design in the uni\'erse we must look rather 
 to organic than to inorganic nature, rather to structure 
 than to law. We shall find applying to the former the 
 same reasoning as to the latter, and likewise some more 
 besides. 
 
 Inasmuch as, of the innumerable combinations of which 
 the elements or elementary forces are susceptible, each and 
 
 P
 
 2IO RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 every one, in the absence of any preference for one over 
 another on the part of the voh'tion on which the occurrence 
 of all depends, would have equal chances of occurring, 
 the chances against the occurrence at any particular time 
 of any particular combination would be as the number, or 
 rather as the innumerosity, of all the rest to one. Such, in 
 the absence of any intentional action on Nature's part, 
 would be the odds against any one single occurrence of 
 any one elemental combination. Against the perpetual 
 repetition of the same combination the odds would be the 
 same innumerosity innumerable times multiplied. Never- 
 theless there actually is everlastingly recurring, not simply 
 one single specimen, but an innumerable multitude of the 
 same elemental combinations. Whatever were the com- 
 binations necessary for producing all the existing or- 
 ganisms, vegetable and animal, with w^iich our earth 
 swarms, the constant recurrence of those same or nearly 
 the same combinations is indispensable both for the main- 
 tenance of the organisms during life and for the production 
 of successors to them ; and such constant recurrence is 
 plainly going on. The chances then against its being 
 unintended must be the aforesaid multiple of innumerosity. 
 But this is not all. The multiple in question represents 
 the chances against perpetual repetition of any set what- 
 ever of elemental combinations, but about the actually 
 recurrent set there is this peculiarity, that it produces and 
 maintains innumerable organisms or machines, which — 
 inasmuch as all of them are marvellously fit, by reason of 
 their respective specialities of structure, for performing 
 different obviously useful purposes — have all the appear- 
 ance of having been expressly constructed for the per- 
 formance of those purposes. If these appearances of
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 211 
 
 adaptation were fallacious, if the apparent utility were 
 undesigned, the chances against the perpetual recurrence 
 oi so singularly useful, rather than of some totally useless, 
 set of combinations would be a multiple of innumerosity 
 similar to that \\'hich has clearly been shown to represent 
 the preponderance of probability against the constant 
 repetition of any set of combinations whatever, whether 
 useful or useless. If, then, it were permissible to use so 
 extravagant an hyperbole to indicate an idea of multitude 
 to which it is not in the power of words to give adequate 
 expression, it might be said that while the chances against 
 Nature's habitual action being tcnintciitional, or the result as 
 it were of mere fidgettiness or restlessness, are an indefinite 
 multiple of infinity, the chances against its being pwposc- 
 less and tiiidcsigiicd, without view to end or object, is the 
 same multiple doubled. 
 
 Still, in order to give the solitary and infinitesimal 
 chance on the other side its full due, let us confess it to be 
 as yet not quite conclusively demonstrated that the actual 
 order of inorganic, and the actual constitution of organic, 
 nature are results of uninterrupted repetition of one and 
 the same purposeless volition, and of the same purely 
 fortuitous concourses of atoms. Let us admit it to be 
 not absolutely impossible, not utterly inconceivable, that 
 vegetable and animal organisms were not contrived such as 
 they are with any view to their becoming habitations of 
 vegetable and animal life, but that having been acci- 
 dentally discovered to be fit to be lived in, they have been 
 taken possession of by life and inhabited accordingly ; that, 
 similarly, the wondrously complex and varied mechanisms 
 of which most organisms are composed were not made to be 
 used, but are used because certain uses have been acci-
 
 212 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 dentally discovered for them — the eye, for instance, to take 
 one example out of myriads not less remarkable, not 
 having been meant to be seen with, but being employed 
 for seeing because, by a happy coincidence, the particles 
 composing it have got to be collocated in such wise that 
 a picture of whatever is opposite to it is formed upon the 
 retina, and is thence by a nervous concatenation trans- 
 mitted to the brain. Although, if the most consummate 
 skill, in comparison with which that displayed in the fabri- 
 cation of Mr. Newall's telescope were dov/nright clumsiness, 
 had striven to devise a seeing apparatus, capable of exact 
 self-adjustment to all degrees of light, all gradations of 
 distance, all varieties of refrangibility, it could not have 
 adopted a contrivance more exquisitely ingenious, or 
 evincing more minutely accurate knowledge of the most 
 secret laws of optics, than the mechanism of the eye 
 apparently betokens, let it still be admitted to be not 
 quite beyond the bounds of possibility, that not skill 
 but the blindest and densest ignorance may have presided 
 over the whole operation. But even though the modes 
 of procedure involved in these admissions were not quite 
 impossible or inconceivable, belief in them would, I re- 
 peat, be palpably irrational, and that almost to the 
 last degree. The nearest approach to a reason that can 
 be imagined for it is the Credo quia incredibile est 
 to which philosophers in despair have occasionally been 
 known to resort. Duditni in scJiolis audiveraiJi^ says 
 Descartes, jiiJiil tarn absiirdc diet posse quod noji dicatiir 
 ah aliquo PJiilosopJioruni. In his early college days he 
 had heard that nothing so absurd can possibly be said, 
 but that some philosopher or other may say it. Such 
 words are too hard for me. I make as yet no charges of
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 213 
 
 absurdity, contenting myself for the moment with saying 
 that no notion can be too unscientific to be adopted by 
 those scientific men who, gratuitously running counter to 
 the strongest possible presumption, set the science of pro- 
 babilities so utterl)' at naught as to adopt as reality an 
 hypothesis the chances against which arc but one single 
 iota short of infinite. 
 
 What, however, is unequivocally absurd, is a certain 
 notion which I hinted would be found to be inevitably 
 consequent on the foregoing premisses, and whose self- 
 evident falsity carries with it condemnation of the pre- 
 misses. To say that the creative agency denominated 
 Nature, or by whatever other name known, neither had 
 any ends in view when originally adopting certain sequences 
 of action, and originally fabricating innumerable organisms 
 exactly suitable for the performance, in concert with those 
 sequences, of innumerable useful functions ; nor, although 
 ever since repeating the sequences, and maintaining or 
 reproducing the organisms, has so done with any reference 
 to the purposes which the sequences and organisms serve, is 
 equivalent to saying that the agency in question is not 
 even aware that any purposes are served. He who planted 
 the eye doth not then see. He who fashioned the ear doth 
 not hear. He who teacheth man knowledge doth not, it 
 seems, know. Yet what, according to this, creative agency, 
 whether God or Nature, Creator or Creatress, can not per- 
 ceive, the creature can. Even an ass knows that thistles 
 are good to eat, and that certain movements of his tongue 
 and larynx will result in a bray ; while man not only daily 
 discovers fresh uses for things, but imagines that if he had 
 had the fashioning of them, he might have materially 
 increased their utility ; King Alfonso of Castile, for in-
 
 214 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 Stance, boasting of the valuable cosmogonical advice he 
 could have given had he been taken into council ; and one 
 of Kaiser Wilhelm's predecessors on the throne of Prussia 
 intimating that he, in like case, would have proved con- 
 clusively that pouncied quartz and silex may easily be in 
 excess in arable soil. The creature, then, has intelligence 
 of which the Creator has always been destitute. Yet the 
 creature can have nothing save what, either directly or 
 indirectly^ he derives from a creator. Wherefore that, in 
 becoming endowed with intelligence, man must have re- 
 ceived from the Creator that which the Creator had not to 
 give, is an article inseparable from the profession of faith of 
 those moderate Atheists who are content to regard man as 
 a creature. 
 
 There are, however, others of a more uncompromising 
 temper, who do not hesitate to pronounce creation, in the 
 sense of formation of something out of nothing, to be an 
 incomprehensible myth ; and it cannot be denied to these 
 that, however difficult it be to conceive an uncreated 
 universe existing from all eternity, the conception of an 
 eternally existent Creator is not one whit easier. Fairly 
 enough, therefore, these may proceed to argue that in the 
 production of that compound, man, the share of the agency 
 usually styled creative must have been limited to com- 
 bining and arranging the elemental particles of his cor- 
 poreal moiety. Quite fairly, advancing still farther, they 
 may hazard a conjecture that it is from the union of the 
 corporeal constituents of man that the generation of his 
 spiritual moiety has resulted. But for such generation it iS 
 plainly indispensable that the corporeal constituents should 
 have been not inert particles but self-acting forces, and that, 
 as such, they must have been in possession of more or less
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 215 
 
 intelligence, which intelh'gcncc again cither was or was not 
 equal in amount to that of the human spirit or mind 
 generated by them. If it were not equal, then the forces 
 must have given to their offspring more than they had 
 themselves got to give — which is sheer nonsense. If it 
 were equal, then, inasmuch as the human mind is quite 
 clever enough to discover uses for the various parts of the 
 human body and of other organisms, the forces to which 
 the human mind owes its origin must be at least equally 
 clever. The elementary forces by whose action the human 
 and other organic bodies have been constructed, must have 
 been perfectly aware what they were constructing, and 
 what services the resulting structures would be fitted to 
 render. In other words, they must in their constructive 
 operations have worked towards specific ends, according to 
 preconceived plan and set design, wittingly contriving 
 various machines for various purposes. The advanced 
 Atheists, with whose speculations we are here especially 
 concerned, are thus at liberty to choose between two horns 
 of a dilemma, but must not hope to escape both. Either 
 they stand self-refuted by assuming something to have 
 been made out of nothing — a process which they began 
 by pronouncing impossible — or they must imagine intel- 
 ligence, competent to devise all organisms, to be diffused 
 throughout the universe^ thereby showing themselves to 
 have assumed their sectarian appellation without sufficient 
 warrant, and to be in reality rather Pantheists than 
 Atheists. 
 
 A third h}'pothesis indeed remains for any who are con- 
 tent to believe that Nature's elementary forces ha\'ing, 
 without knowing what they were about, constructed the 
 human body, the human mind, until then a houseless
 
 2i6 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 wanderer, lit upon it by chance, and, observing it to be 
 a habitation suitably swept and garnished, entered in 
 and dwelt there. Upon this supposition l^ere must be, 
 within the limits of our terrene sphere, two distinct species 
 of intelligence, a greater and a lesser — the one competent 
 to construct all sorts of marvellously complex and mar- 
 vellously serviceable machines, yet incompetent to under- 
 stand their utility, the other fully perceiving the utility 
 of the machines, yet utterly incompetent to fabricate them. 
 But there are probably few adventurers on the ocean of 
 speculation who would not prefer total shipwreck to the 
 shelter of such a harbour of refuge as this. 
 
 Atheism must in fairness be acknowledged to have 
 much mended its manners within the last two or three 
 generations. Its tone and language are no longer of the 
 rude, scoffing sort at which Voltaire may be readily pic- 
 tured as breaking into voluble protest, or Hume as 
 contemptuously opening his eyes and shrugging his 
 shoulders. Though grown more civil, however, it cannot 
 be complimented on having grown more rational. At 
 most may it be credited with being more elaborately 
 irrational than of old. It now no longer denies, it only 
 ignores. It does not pronounce God non-existent. It 
 only insists that there is not complete proof that God 
 exists ; thereupon, however, proceeding to argue as if He 
 did not exist, and thereby, not simply confounding de- 
 ficiency of proof on one side with sufficiency of proof on 
 the other, but overlooking an amount of proof that on any 
 other subject would, provisionally at least, be deemed con- 
 clusive, and perversely rejecting an hypothesis which, 
 whether correct or not, is at least a good working hypo- 
 thesis, coinciding exactly with most of the facts, and
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 217 
 
 inconsistent with none of them, in favour of an hypothesis 
 wliich, even in tlie hands of a Huxley or a Darwin, cannot 
 be made to work at all. 
 
 II. 
 
 To my mind there is a genuine pleasure in giving ex- 
 pression to admiration of any great intellectual achieve- 
 ment ; and it is much rather for that reason than on 
 account of any value which I imagine my opinion on such 
 a subject can possess, that, having had occasion to name 
 the illustrious author of the ' Origin of Species,' I desire to 
 preface my criticism on what appears to me to be a grave 
 defect in his theory, by intimating my hearty concurrence 
 in its leading principles. That inasmuch as, owing to the 
 exceeding fecundity of the generality of organic beings, 
 more individuals of almost every species are born than can 
 possibly survive, and that consequently a desperate struggle 
 for existence must take place amongst them ; that in such 
 a struggle the smallest grain may turn the scale, the 
 minutest advantage possessed by some individuals over 
 others determine which shall live and which shall die ; 
 that, as the circumstances in which life is to be maintained 
 change, the character and structure of organisms must 
 change also in order to be accommodated thereto, but that 
 the changes which consequently take place in some indi- 
 viduals are better suited to the altered circumstances than 
 those which take place in other indi\-iduals ; that indi- 
 vidual offspring, moreover, although always strongly re- 
 sembling their parents in the majority of particulars, always 
 exhibit some slight differences from them ; that of these 
 differences such as do not render the offspring less fit
 
 21 8 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 will almost of necessity render them more fit for coping 
 with their rivals ; and that superior fitness, however ac- 
 quired, is as likely as any other quality to be transmitted 
 to succeeding generations— all these are indisputable facts, 
 and from these, as premisses, it seems to me not so much 
 to be legitimately deducible that most existing species 
 may have been produced ' by descent, with modification, 
 through natural selection,^ or ' survival of the fittest,' as 
 necessarily to follow that they cannot have originated in 
 any other way. For all species to have been created such 
 as they now are, is simply inconsistent with the premisses. 
 Whatever beings may at any remote epoch have been 
 created, there must, according to the conditions involved, 
 have been amongst their descendants some better fitted, 
 by reason of divergence from the parent type, for engaging 
 in internecine strife than those, if any such there were, 
 which adhered closely to that type. Whether, then, among 
 the survivors from the first engagement in that never- 
 ending struggle for life which must have commenced soon 
 after the creation, there were or were not any exact repre- 
 sentatives of the parent type, there must have been some 
 exhibiting more or less of divergence from that type. 
 Among the descendants of these, again, there must have 
 been some who, together with the structural or other 
 advantages inherited from their immediate ancestors, pos- 
 sessed, moreover, some advantages first nascent in them- 
 selves, and who were similarly enabled thereby to prevail 
 over their less gifted competitors, and similarly to transmit 
 all their advantages to a posterity, some members of which 
 would similarly be born with certain new advantages in 
 addition. By continual repetition of these processes, and 
 the consequent accumulation of divergencies from the
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 219 
 
 original pattern, however slight those divergencies might 
 separately be, there could not but eventually become 
 formed breeds so distinct from each other as to be to all 
 intents and purposes distinct species, in whichsoever of its 
 many vague senses the term * species ' be understood. 
 Now these species, instead of having been created, would 
 be the result of divergence from their created progenitor. 
 Whether, therefore, any created species do or do not still 
 exist, it is certain that among existing species there arc 
 some that were not created, but which have been gradually 
 evolved, and evolved, too, through survival of the fittest. 
 Mr. Darwin, then, is fairly entitled to the praise of having 
 placed beyond dispute that a process called by himsell 
 ' Natural Selection,' and by Mr, Herbert Spencer ' Survival 
 of the Fittest,' has almost from the commencement of 
 organic life been, and still is, in active operation ; that it is 
 a cause which must needs have originated some species, 
 and is quite competent to have originated all that still 
 exist ; whereas creation, the only other suggested cause, 
 cannot be conceived to have done this latter unless every 
 minutest shade of difference between offspring and parent 
 be regarded as the effect of a separate creative act. Un- 
 less creation have originated every one of those divergencies 
 the accumulation of which constitutes a species, clearly it 
 cannot have originated that species. With some of the 
 phenomena connected with species the theory of creation 
 cannot be reconciled unless this novel interpretation be 
 placed upon the word creation, whereas there are none of 
 the phenomena with which the evolutionary hypothesis 
 conflicts, and few, if any, which, when restricted to its 
 proper office of auxiliary, it will not help to explain. 
 
 To what we might thus be assured of, even if we had
 
 220 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 only general principles to guide us, all obtainable evidence 
 unanimously testifies. Geology distinctly proclaims that 
 every portion of our globe's surface has undergone vast 
 changes, and that its organic inhabitants have changed 
 simultaneously and proportionately. The proof absolute, 
 which it furnishes, that at a period when few, if any, exist- 
 ing species had made their appearance, many species now 
 extinct already existed, is proof equally absolute that if 
 all species extinct and extant were created, they cannot, at 
 any rate, have been created at the same time. Of so 
 much at least we must be satisfied, unless we are prepared 
 to accept the ingenious conjecture of an orthodox divine, 
 that, while our earth was being formed out of chaos, Satan, 
 to confound the faith of remote generations, brought over 
 bones of monsters from other worlds and embedded them in 
 the soil of ours, or that, as the same idea has been otherwise 
 expressed, while the earth's crust was a baking the devil 
 had a finger in the pie. Moreover, on the supposition that 
 there was a break of ages between the creations of extinct 
 and of extant species, as geology positively declares there 
 must have been if both were separately created, how 
 passing strange is the ' grand fact that all extinct beings 
 can be classed with all recent beings ' ! The strangeness 
 disappears, however, when both are regarded as descendants 
 of common progenitors. The wonder would then be if 
 they could not be so classed. Again, how astonishing on 
 the creative, how natural on the evolutionary hypothesis, 
 that the arrangement of bones in the hand of a man, the 
 wing of a bat, the fin of a porpoise, the leg of a horse, 
 should be precisely the same ; the number of vertebrae in 
 the neck of a giraffe, and in that of an elephant the 
 same ; the primitive germs from which a man, a dog, a
 
 RECENT PHASES OE SCJENTIEIC ATHEISM. 221 
 
 frog, and a lobster arc gradually evolved, to all appearance 
 the same — the same microsco[)ic atom of homogeneous 
 matter, undistinguishable by any known test from an animal- 
 cule almost at the bottom of the organic scale ! Above all, 
 that the courses by which animals of all degrees of com- 
 plexity are gradually developed from apparently equally 
 simple germs should, whenever traceable, be found to 
 consist of progressive ramifications, so that every higher^ 
 animal, before arriving at maturity, passes through several 
 stages at the end of each of which lower animals have 
 stopped! How impossible, or how easy, to understand, 
 according as the one or the other hypothesis is adopted, is 
 the phenomenon of what in the one case will be treated 
 as rudimentary, in the other as obsolete, organs ! No one 
 need scruple to regard these as apparatus which the 
 creature has outgrown and allowed to fall into decay 
 through neglect ; but whatever there is in us of real noble- 
 ness of feeling revolts against the notion of their being 
 apparatus which a divine Creator began to build but was 
 not able to finish. And yet again, how insultingly irrecon- 
 cileable with any rational estimate of Divine nature is the 
 possibility of any existing type of mammals having been 
 created, seeing that if so, it must have been created with 
 false marks of nourishment from the womb of a mother 
 that never existed ! 
 
 These arc some of the main grounds on which the 
 Darwinian theory rests. Of the abundance of detailed 
 illustrations from which it may derive additional support 
 no adequate idea can be formed, except by careful perusal 
 of its author's own writings, and these fortunately may 
 without much exaggeration be said to be in everybody's 
 hands. Of the arguments that have been brought forward
 
 222 rece!^ phases of scientific atheism. 
 
 in opposition to it, all seem to me to be susceptible of 
 very complete answers, and one or two of the strongest, of 
 answers more complete than they have yet received. 
 True, there is no disputing the testimony borne by the 
 paintings and sculptures of Egyptian tombs, and of 
 Ninevite palaces, that the basement floors in Thebes and 
 Memphis were infested by much the same sort of beetles 
 as those which are such nuisances in London kitchens ; 
 that Sardanapalus, if ever he exchanged indoor for outdoor 
 sports, may have hunted with dogs and horses that might 
 pass muster at an English meet, and that the Pharaohs 
 were served by negro slaves as like as two peas in all 
 externals to those who in the United States have recently 
 and prematurely been metamorphosed into free and inde- 
 pendent electors. But all this only proves that certain 
 species which existed 4,000 years ago are still represented 
 by unchanged descendants. It does not prove that other 
 descendants and groups of descendants from the same 
 species have not within the same period undergone changes 
 sufficiently great to convert them into distinct races ; 
 neither, if it did prove thus much, would it do more than 
 afford a presumption, and a very deceptive one, that 4,000 
 years are too short a time for the formation of a new race, 
 affording besides, at the same time, much stronger pre- 
 sumption that, within the remotest limits to which Mosaic 
 chronology can be pushed back, the various races of 
 mankind, white, black, and intermediately tinted, can not 
 possibly have descended from one pair of ancestors. 
 
 That domesticated animals, when suffered to run wild, 
 always return to the primitive wild type — this, instead of 
 an argument against, is one of the strongest arguments for 
 the evolution theory, from which it is indeed, as Mr. G. H.
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 223 
 
 Lewes says, a necessary deduction. It is simply because, 
 as the conditions of life change, structure must, for adapta- 
 tion's sake, change likewise, that wild animals arc capable 
 of being domesticated, of being, that is, made to undergo 
 • modifications by being brought from the conditions of 
 wildness to those of domesticity. How, then, should they 
 possibly retain those modifications, how escape return to 
 their previous shape and habits, when retransferred from 
 domesticity to wildness } 
 
 The question, Why are not new species continually 
 produced } may be aptly met by another. How, con- 
 sistently with the theory, is it possible they should ? 
 Natural Selection is represented as acting ' solely by accu- 
 mulating slight successive favourable variations,' as taking 
 only short and slow steps. By what possibility, then, can 
 it suddenly produce modifications sufficiently conspicuous 
 to mark off a new species .'' New species may be, and 
 indeed are, constantly in process of formation on all sides, 
 under our very eyes, without our being aware ; for since the 
 process requires ages for its accomplishment, it must 
 needs be imperceptible by the keenest observation. So 
 that even when a new species is completed, it is not recog- 
 nised as new, so minute is the difiercnce between the per- 
 fection to which it has attained, and the imperfect state in 
 which we and our fathers before us had long known it. 
 
 'Why, however, since, according to the theory of 
 Natural Selection, an interminable number of intermediate 
 forms must have existed, linking together all the species in 
 each group by gradations as fine as are our present 
 varieties — why do we not see these linking forms all around 
 us } * To this objection the very theory against which it is 
 urged affords a partial and almost adequate reply, the
 
 224 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 deficiencies of which are besides to some extent supplied 
 by embryology and geology, and to a farther extent 
 accounted for by the meagreness of the geological record. 
 Natural selection for survival necessarily implies extinction 
 of all that are not selected to survive, so that fossil 
 remains are now the only procurable evidence that any of 
 these latter that have long been extinct ever existed. But 
 very many organic beings are incapable of being preserved 
 in a fossil condition, while of those which can be so pre- 
 served ' the number of specimens in all our museums is 
 absolutely as nothing compared with the countless genera- 
 tions of countless species that must have existed.' It 
 should be recollected, too, that among still existing forms 
 are to be included several which result from uterine trans- 
 formation, and are never found alive except m utcro. 
 
 Another objection, notwithstanding the great stress often 
 laid on it, seems to me to be altogether beside the real 
 issue. It is the one derived from the invariable sterility, 
 real or supposed, of hybrids. A fact cited by Mr. Lewes,' 
 that of the fecundity of a cross called Lcporidcs, bred by 
 M. Rouy of Angouleme, between the hare and rabbit, of 
 which a thousand on an average were for many years, and 
 probably are still, sent annually to market, would seem to 
 be decisive against the assumed sterility ; but, however this 
 be, matters not the least in regard to the efficacy of Natural 
 Selection, which, be it once again observed, is represented 
 as producing new species, not suddenly by the copulation 
 of two old and utterly distinct ones, but very gradually 
 and slowly, by the accumulation of minute differences 
 occurring in successive individuals of the same species. 
 
 The chief if not the only serious obstacles to accept- 
 
 ' ' Studies in Animal Life,' ch.ip. v.
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 225 
 
 ancc of Darwinism seem to me to be of the author's own 
 creation. Now and then he appears somewhat needlessly to 
 overstrain his principles, as for instance when he intimates 
 his conviction that 'all individuals of the same species, 
 and all the closely allied species of most genera,' will 
 hereafter be discovered to ' have descended from one 
 parent and to have migrated from some one birthplace.' 
 This, to my mind, is much more unlikely than his further 
 suggestion that ' all animals and plants are descended from 
 some one prototype.' Startling as this second i)r()position 
 may be on first hearing, it may not very improbably 
 express the real fact, provided by 'some one prototype' be 
 signified, not a single individual, but several individuals of 
 one and the same type. Beyond all doubt there was a 
 time when on and about our earth all matter was as yet in- 
 organic, and when whatever spirit,' of the sort so termed in 
 contradistinction to matter, either permeated the earth's 
 substance or moved about its surface, must have been as yet 
 unembodied. Mr. Darwin demands whetlier any one can 
 ' really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth's 
 history, elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly 
 to flash into li\ing tissues.' I for one certainly am far 
 from believing this. I see no reason for believing that, 
 whatever other phenomenon, at all similar, may at any 
 stage of the world's progress have occurred, it has at 
 innumerable subsequent stages been repeated ; neither do 
 I consider that the phenomenon is likel}' to have worn the 
 guise of a sudden flash. Pnit I do fund)- believe, and am 
 quite unable to substitute any equally plausible substitute 
 
 ' The reader who, having skipped some of the earlier chapters, may find 
 this language obscure, is rccjucslcd to turn liack to the essay on ' Iluxleyism,' 
 pp. 194-6. 
 
 Q
 
 226 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 for the belief, that when the crust of the earth had suf- 
 ficiently cooled, and when other physical conditions had 
 become such as to admit of the manifestation of that life 
 which we are accustomed to distinguish by attaching to it 
 the epithet ' organic,' certain of those forces ^ which, in my 
 opinion, constitute matter, did, either of their own accord 
 or under superior direction — not suddenly flash, but — 
 slowly elaborate themselves into organic structures of some 
 exceedingly simple type ; that in the course of ages these 
 simple structures either developed themselves or were 
 developed into structures rendered by slow degrees more 
 and more complex, until the degree of complexity attained, 
 being such as to fit them for being inhabited by spirit 
 previously unembodied, they were, by individualised por- 
 tions of such spirit, appropriated and inhabited accord- 
 ingly. Beyond all doubt, at some period or other, what 
 had always previously been unorganised matter must 
 have become organised. Of two things one, then. Either 
 this matter must, whether under superior direction or not, 
 have organised itself, or it must have been organised 
 by some other agency. Mr. Darwin, together with all 
 thorough-going Darwinians, inclines, I suspect, to the 
 opinion that matter organised itself ; but if so, it cannot 
 possibly have been inert or lifeless, but must have been 
 active and animate, and capable of volition ; and on that 
 condition, there is no great stretch of fancy in imagining it 
 to have spontaneously adopted the series of arrangements 
 indicated. If, on the other hand, we are content to admit 
 that some external superior intelligence may have per- 
 formed, or conducted, or presided over operations, all room 
 for wonder vanishes. 
 
 ' See again, pp. 1 94-6.
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATI/ US M. 227 
 
 In regard to the character of the structural prototype, 
 that, of course, would depend in part on surrounding 
 physical conditions, and if these have ever been the same 
 in all parts of the globe, there is no apparent reason why 
 any number of specimens of the prototype may not any- 
 where have been independently elaborated. It is not 
 possible, however, that, since the earth began to revolve 
 round the sun, physical conditions can have been sinml- 
 taneously the same in all latitudes ; while, on the other hand, 
 it seems probable that, although the same set of conditions 
 might perhaps admit of the production of only one organic 
 type, there might be other sets of conditions favourable to 
 the production of other types. On the whole, then, it seems 
 more probable that inorganic matter combined (or ivas 
 combined) in the hrst instance in several modes, than in 
 one single mode, in order to become organic. But what- 
 ever may have been the organic form or forms it first took, 
 to assume that only a single individual of each form was 
 independently elaborated, and that all other individuals, 
 both of the same form and of all the more complex form.'^, 
 gradually evolved from that one — are descendants from the 
 same first individual, the same first parent — surely very gra- 
 tuitously increases the difficulties of the subject. Especially 
 it complicates the problem of the distribution of the same 
 plants and animals over countries immemorially separated 
 by gulfs apparently impassable by natural means. 
 
 The obstruction which Mr. Darwin has created to the 
 progress of his opinions b)' the exaggerated shape in 
 which some of them have been presented is, however, 
 as nothing in comparison with the injury he does to his 
 theory by obstinately rej;:cting certain materials indis- 
 pensable for its satisfactory completion. What an ad-
 
 228 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 mirable theory it is so far as it goes ! How nicely it fits 
 into all the facts it comes in contact with, even into those 
 which it is, of itself and unassisted, incompetent to ex- 
 plain ! How elevating too and ennobling, when rightly 
 conceived ! for who can fail to rejoice in the view it 
 presents of ' Natural selection working solely by and for 
 the good of each being ' that it spares, and causing ' all 
 corporal and mental endowments to tend towards per- 
 fection ' ? or who need mind suspecting himself to be 
 descended, through an ape, from a triton or a hydra, if he 
 may compensate himself by hoping to have a distant 
 posterity of angels ? How well, moreover, would it, if 
 permitted, chime in with any rational religion, besides 
 being, as already hinted, absolutely essential to that part 
 of the Mosaic creed which represents all the variously 
 coloured and variously featured races of men as springing 
 from one single couple. By what perversity then is it 
 that Mr. Darwin takes such pains, if not to render his 
 theory irreligious, at least to exclude from it the assistance 
 which religion alone can afford, and which it so greatly 
 needs, that whoever, without that assistance, attempts to 
 apply the theory to the complete elucidation of phenomena, 
 will be found inevitably committing himself to the most 
 astounding hypotheses .'' Here I picture to myself a curl 
 on the lip of some advanced Darwinian who, having 
 accompanied me so far, cannot altogether suppress his 
 compassionate scorn at the proposed recurrence now-a- 
 days to a mode of thought so obsolete in the treatment of 
 scientific subjects as the theological. ' Positive biology,' 
 he will perhaps superbly exclaim, repeating the words of 
 Mr. G. H. Lewes, 'declines theological explanations alto- 
 gether.' Yes, but positive biology is therein very unwise,
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 229 
 
 for as, if the same reader v/il! accompany me a litllc 
 further, I pledt^e myself to show, it is the unthcological or 
 atheistical, not the theistical, mode of treatment which is here 
 utterly out of place and fla,c,n-antly unscientific. 15e it, with- 
 out the slit^htest reserve, admitted that the formation of 
 almost all, and probably of quite all, existing species is 
 due, and cannot be otherwise than due, to survival of the 
 fittest, the superior fitness of these, moreover, being due to 
 the gradual accumulation of innumerable and, for the most 
 part, exceedingly slight divergencies from the parent stock. 
 But whence and why these divergencies ? It cannot be 
 without a cause that even one more feather than the 
 parent possessed appears in the offspring's wing, or a novel 
 tint on its coat, or that the curve of beak or talons is 
 not precisely the same in each. What then is the cause .-' 
 Unphiloso{)hic people will most likely call it ' all chance,' 
 getting sneered at for their pains, and justly too, as using 
 words without meaning. ])ut are not philosophers themselves 
 doing much the same thing, and merely restating facts which 
 they profess to explain, when, like Mr. Lewes,' they talk of 
 the 'specific shape' assumed by an 'organic plasma' being 
 ' always dependent on the polarity of its molecules,' ' or 
 due to the operation of immanent properties ; ' or declare 
 that, in the process of organic evolution, ' each stage de- 
 termines its successor,' ' consensus of the whole impressing 
 a peculiar direction on the development of parts, and the 
 law of Epigenesis necessitating a serial development,' inso- 
 much that, ' every part being the effect of a pre-existing, 
 and in turn the cause of a succeeding part,' the reason 
 why, when a crab loses its claw, the member is reproduced, 
 is that the group of cells remaining at the stump ' is the ' 
 
 ' 'Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses.' Tart II. ' Fortnightly Review ' fur June 
 1868.
 
 230 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 necessary condition of the genesis ' of precisely that new 
 group which the reproductive process imperatively requires 
 to follow next in order, this second group equally the 
 necessary condition for genesis of the one required third, 
 the third for the fourth, and so on ; and that the rea- 
 son w^hy the thorns of a blackberry admit of somewhat 
 close comparison with the hooks and spines of certain 
 crustaceae, is that portions of the integument of both 
 plant and crawfish ' tend under similar external forces to 
 develop ' into similar forms ? 
 
 I pass rapidly over one or two minor difficulties that 
 here present themselves. I will not stop to ask how — if 
 reproduction of lost limbs be due to polarity of the mole- 
 cules, in other words to the direction which in the circum- 
 stances of the case the molecules are bound to take, and if 
 the polarity of each particular set of molecules be im- 
 pressed upon them by the group formed immediately pre- 
 viously — how it is that the group terminating the docked 
 stump of a limb, which group is represented as com- 
 mencing the work of reproduction, imparts a different 
 direction or tendency to the fresh molecules of nourish- 
 ment that are supplied to it, from that which it has been 
 accustomed to communicate to previous molecular supplies. 
 Hitherto it has used such molecules solely for the repair 
 of its own waste ; now it employs a large portion of them 
 to build up an entirely new fabric. It seems then that 
 molecular polarity is not a fixed but a variable property, 
 and, being such, cannot be inherent or originate in the 
 molecular nature. But I will not linger over this point nor 
 yet over the fact, absolutely unintelligible on the polar 
 hypothesis, that it is comparatively only few animals that 
 are capable of reproducing severed parts. Although the
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 231 
 
 process required, no doubt, is, as Mr. Lewes says, ' in all 
 essential respects the same as that which originally pro- 
 duced ' the parts, the last layer of cells left at the place of 
 excision after a human leg or arm has been cut off, lacks 
 the skill to repeat an operation, which according to the 
 hypothesis it has once before performed. It cannot so 
 determine the polarity of the molecules with which it is 
 supplied by the arteries as to constrain them to group 
 themselves into a new layer, instead of merely repairing 
 an old one. A crab or a lobster, or a polype's molecules 
 are clever enough for this, a man's not. Without pressing 
 these objections, but on the contrary, conceding for the 
 nonce and for argument's sake, to molecular polarity, to 
 immanent properties, to Epigenetic evolution, all the efficacy 
 claimed for them, I limit myself to inquiring what causes 
 the various tendencies and directions which these imply. 
 Tendency pre-supposes impulse ; direction control. What 
 is it that here imparts the impulse and exercises the con- 
 trol } AMiatever else it be, it must, for reasons stated at 
 length on a previous page, be something possessing at 
 least enough of intelligence to exercise volition, and which 
 at least intends that the movements which it originates 
 shall take place, whether it further intends or not the ends 
 which eventually result from the movements. To myself 
 it seems barely conceivable that c\'en the least marvellous 
 of these ends should have been undesigned. Take, for 
 instance, half a dozen infusoria of some exceedingly low 
 type, all individually single cells or sacs of matter perfectly 
 transparent and destitute of any approach to structure that 
 can be detected with a magnifying power of five thousand 
 diameters. Observe how, after feeding for a while, and in- 
 creasing proportionately in size, one will di\ide itself in
 
 232 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 half, each half becoming a separate and complete animal- 
 cule, another line itself internally and clothe itself exter- 
 nally with clustered cells, which, by a series of differenti- 
 ations, traceable through a number of animalcular varieties, 
 eventually exhibit the outlines of respiratory and circu- 
 
 • 
 
 latory systems. To me, I repeat, it seems all but incon- 
 ceivable, and altogether incredible, that the intelligence 
 which willed these cellular divisions, multiplications, and 
 differentiations to take place, did not foresee what would 
 be their results, and did not will them for the sake of those 
 results. And if I do not deem it still more incredible that 
 there should be 7jatiiral selection separating the fittest for 
 survival by accumulating upon them slight advantages 
 which qualify them to survive, without there being at the 
 same time a Jiatnrc, or other exalted intelligence, however 
 designated, which selects, and which accumulates advan- 
 tages upon the objects of its selection, in oi'der that they may 
 survive, it is only because I consider the extremest limits- 
 of credibility to have been already passed. But I forget. 
 On reflection I perceive that I am doing scant justice to 
 the elasticity of philosophic belief How far this is 
 capable of stretching on occasion, let one or two notable 
 Darwinian specimens show. 
 
 No single piece of organic mechanism is oftener or more 
 confidently appealed to by Theists as rendering conclusive 
 evidence on their side than the eye, nor would they run 
 much risk by allowing sentence to go for or against them 
 according as Mr. Darwin has or has not succeeded in his 
 attempt to explain that evidence away. Possibly he may 
 disclaim having made any attempt of the kind, and I must 
 admit that it is less by what he says than by what he 
 leaves unsaid, that he lays himself open to the charge.
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 233 
 
 Indeed, in almost all he says on the subject, I ni)\sclf cor- 
 dially agree, embracing even some of his views with less of 
 hesitation than he seems to have felt in putting them 
 forward. He seems to me, for instance, to have somewhat 
 gratuitously admitted it to be apparently ' in the highest 
 degree absurd to suppose that the eye, with all its inimit- 
 able contrivances for adjusting the focus to different dis- 
 tances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the 
 correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could 
 have been formed by natural selection.' For since, as he 
 proceeds unanswerably to argue, ' numerous gradations, 
 from an imperfect and simple eye to one perfect and complex, 
 each grade being useful to its possessor, can certainly be 
 shown to exist ; ' since, as certainly, slight variations of the 
 eye do occur, and are inherited, and since of these varia- 
 tions there cannot but be some v.'hich are useful to the 
 animal exhibiting them under changing conditions of life, 
 the difficulty of believing in the formation of a perfect and 
 complex eye by natural selection can be little else than a 
 prejudice of the imagination. He proceeds to indicate 
 some probable stages in the assumed process. Some of 
 the lowest organisms, in which no trace of nerves can be 
 detected, are known to be sensible to light, owing, pro- 
 bably, to the presence in the sarcode of which they are 
 mainl)^ composed, of certain elements which, in organisms 
 somewhat higher in the scale, become aggregated and 
 developed into nerves specially endowed with the same 
 sensibility. An optic nerve thus formed, surrounded b}'- 
 pigment cells, and covered by translucent skin, is the 
 simplest organ that can be called an e}-e, but it is an 
 eye incapable of distinct vision, and serving only to dis- 
 tinguish light from darkness. Tn certain star-fishes, small
 
 234 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 depressions in the layer of pigment-cells are filled with 
 transparent gelatinous matter projecting with a convex 
 surface like a rudimentary cornea, and this, it has been 
 suggested, may serve, not only to form an image, but to 
 concentrate the luminous rays. In insects, the numerous 
 facets in the cornea of their great compound eyes have 
 now been ascertained to form true lenses, the cones, more- 
 over, having been discovered to include curiously modified 
 nervous filaments. It is impossible not, in this series of 
 changes, to perceive the appearance of graduation, nor 
 ought there to be much difficulty in believing the apparent 
 graduation to be real, when we consider how {q.\v com- 
 paratively are the still living forms in which the changes 
 cited have been observed, and how far more numerous the 
 extinct forms by which intermediate changes may have 
 been presented. If there be no extravagance in sup- 
 posing that natural selection may have occasioned these 
 early steps, neither is there any in supposing that, by con- 
 tinued progress in the same direction, it may at length 
 have fabricated the most perfect optical instrument pos- 
 sessed by any member of the articulata. And, if credited 
 so far, why not still further.-' why not with competence to 
 form a man's or an eagle's eye .-• So far I am as com- 
 pletely at one with Mr. Darwin in respect to the eye as in 
 respect to any other of the subjects taken by him for illus- 
 tration. The fact is, however, that in this, as in every 
 similar instance, he has completely evaded the real diffi- 
 culties of the case. It is not a whit more startling to be 
 told that the most complex eye, with all the latest im- 
 provements, than to be told that the earliest rudiment of 
 an optic nerve, may have been formed by the gradual ac- 
 cumulation of minute differences. Only allow time enough
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 235 
 
 for the requisite accumulation, and neither operation is one 
 wliit more unintcHigible than tlic other. The difficulty, 
 equally and utterly insuperable in both cases, is to under- 
 stand how the difference can have been undesigned. 
 ' How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light,' says Mr. 
 Darwin, ' hardly concerns us more than how life itself 
 originated.' Perhaps not ; nor, indeed, very well could it, 
 for the second question of the two is surely one of almost 
 unsurpassed concernment ; but, at any rate, when either of 
 the two is asked, nothing can be more reprehensible than, 
 by studiously ignoring the only alternative reply, to leave 
 it to be inferred that the nerve made itself, or that life 
 caused itself to live, that both are in short examples of 
 what I\Ir. Darwin strangely calls ^variation causing altera- 
 tions' ' Let us briefly consider a few of the results sup- 
 posed to be attributable to this singular process. The 
 eye, as every reader of course knows, though here and 
 there one perhaps may not be the worse for being re- 
 minded, consists of four coats — the sclerotic, outermost and 
 strongest, which constitutes the white of the eye ; the cir- 
 cular, tough, and coloured, yet pellucid, cornea, in the centre 
 of which is seen the pupil ; the choroid, full charged with 
 black pigment, and lining the sclerotic ; the retina, an ex- 
 pansion of the optic nerve, lining in its turn the choroid ; 
 of the iris, a flat membrane, dividing the eye into two 
 very unequally-sized chambers ; of a lens termed the 
 crystalline, suspended in the posterior chamber imme- 
 diately behind the iris ; and of two humours (also virtual 
 lenses), whereof one, the aqueous, is enclosed in the anterior 
 chamber formed by the iris and the cornea, while the other, 
 the vitreous, fills the whole of the posterior chamber save 
 
 ' ' Origin of Siiccios,' p. 226.
 
 236 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 what is occupied by the crystalline lens. By what nice 
 interlacement of filaments the fibrous ring that margins the 
 pupil, or aperture through the iris, regulates the admission 
 of light, contracting or expanding, yet always preserving 
 its circular form, according as the brilliance is excessive or 
 deficient ; how the humours or lenses are continually vary- 
 ing in figure and relative position so as to concentrate 
 every pencil of light admitted on that point exactly where 
 the retina is spread out to receive it ; how, according as 
 the object looked at is near at hand or far off, certain 
 muscles perform quite opposite services, rendering the 
 cornea more or less prominent, pushing the crystalline lens 
 forward or backward, and thereby lengthening or shorten- 
 ing the axis of vision, so that, whether the rays enter di- 
 vergently from a near object, or parallel from a remote 
 one, they equally fall into focus at the same distance 
 beyond, and equally form on the retina a picture of the 
 object from which they come, perhaps compressing a land- 
 scape of five or six square leagues into a space of half an 
 inch diameter, and anon allowing the page of a book or a 
 dinner-plate to occupy the entire field of vision — to these 
 and to any kindred marvels it would be superfluous more 
 than momentarily to refer. Suffice it to note how^ 
 measureless the superiority, as a mere piece of mechanism, 
 of an average eye to the finest of telescopes, and how 
 just, nevertheless, is the telescope-maker's claim to praise 
 for skilful adaptation to the laws of optics, when he has 
 succeeded in a faint and feeble imitation of some minor 
 part of nature's visual apparatus. Yet nature's original 
 and infinitely more beautiful aptitudes we are forbidden to 
 deem adaptations, being required instead to regard them 
 as self-produced, or, at any rate, as having been un-
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 237 
 
 designed. Now I unreservedly admit that, among all 
 conceivable forms, among the most exquisitely beautiful 
 and most usefully intricate and complex, there is not one 
 which may not possibly have been produced without aim 
 or purpose by the mere restlessness of elemental forces ; 
 the amount of probability of their having been so pro- 
 duced being, however, according to the formula already 
 set forth in its proper place, as one to infinity multiplied 
 more or less frequently by itself But what adequate 
 superlative shall we invent to express the credulity, the 
 credulosity run mad, of those who, in a matter of scientific 
 belief, deliberately accept such odds. Observe how at 
 once extravagantly gratuitous and painfully elaborate such 
 credulosity is ; how easily, on the one hand, all its ends 
 could be served by the simple expedient of supposing a 
 superintending intelligence ; how, on the other, it compels 
 ingenuity like Mr. Darwin's to entrench itself behind a 
 phrase of utterly unmeaning gibberish. 
 
 If you see a man moving slowly, with head down, over 
 an extensive plain, you may fairly suspect that he does 
 not know where he is going, and possibly does not mean 
 to go an)'wherc in particular. But if you perceive that on 
 reaching a ditch he takes a leap over, you are quite sure 
 that, when leaping, he meant to get to the other side. To 
 that extent his saltatory movement is unequivocal e\'i- 
 dence of design. It is perhaps to escape the necessity of a 
 similar inference that Mr. Darwin so frequently quotes the 
 proverb Natnra non facit saltuvi ; but, if so, he leans on a 
 broken reed — on a bit of proverbial philosophy as weak as 
 the weakest of Mr. Tupper's. That Nature does some- 
 times make a leap, and a pretty long one, must be obvious 
 to any visitor to the Museum of the London College of
 
 238 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 Surgeons, who has examined the two-headed and four- 
 legged human foeti there preserved in spirits. It may be 
 said that these are leaps in the wrong direction. Be it 
 so. Still, whoever can leap backward can make an equal 
 leap forward, and most people will find the latter the 
 easier feat of the two. The power, whatever it be, that 
 coupled together the Siamese Twins, and gave to those 
 respected brothers, the late William and Robert Chambers 
 of Edinburgh, twelve fingers and twelve toes apiece, w'ould 
 not have gone at all more out of the way by doing, sud- 
 denly and at once, several of those things which Mr, 
 Darwin doubts not that it does slowly and by degrees — 
 by single acts, for instance, instead of by a succession of 
 acts, aggregating into the semblance of an optic nerve 
 certain elements in the sarcode of certain low organisms, 
 spreading out the nerve thus formed into a network or 
 retina, forming a number of separate pigment-cells into a 
 homogeneous cornea, and following up these first steps by 
 others which, how much soever more apparently complex, 
 would cost comparatively little after the earlier and simpler 
 ones had been taken. Now let but the power competent 
 to do these things be credited with sense enough to be 
 aware of its competence, and it may then be regarded as 
 not unlikely to have done some of them on purpose. 
 Whereupon, the genesis of the eye ceases to be a mystery. 
 All the appearances of contrivance that have resulted from 
 the operation find their obvious and complete explanation 
 in the assumption of a contriver, and all such hazy films 
 as that of variability producing variation cease to be capable 
 of serving as excuses for wilful blindness. ' And why 
 should not the power in question be so credited .'' Here is 
 Mr. Darwin's solitary reason why. He doubts whether
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC A THEISM. 239 
 
 the inference imi^licd may not be 'presumptuous.' He 
 apprehends that we have no ' right to assume that the 
 Creator works by intellectual powers like those of a man.' 
 Truly, of all suggested modes of marking respect for 
 creative power, that of assuming it to have worked un- 
 intelligently is the most original. 
 
 The hypothesis offered by Mr. Darwin in explanation of 
 the most perfect of organic structures, is deemed by him 
 to be equally explanatory of the most marvellous of 
 animal instincts. Parenthetically, here, never having as 
 yet met with a definition of instinct which I am able to 
 accept as satisfactory, I make bold to offer a description 
 of my own. Instinct is innate knowledge how to perform 
 any useful actions, accompanied by a tendency or propen- 
 sity to perform those actions, but wholly unaccompanied 
 by knowledge of any purpose which they can serve. This 
 is pure instinct, an example whereof is afforded by the 
 beaver, of which animal I have somewhere read that one 
 caught when newly born, and brought up by itself in a 
 room in its captor's house, proceeded after a while to build 
 up across the apartment the semblance of a dam, composed 
 of brushes, rugs, billets of wood, and other litter. Pure 
 instinct differs essentially, not in degree only, but in kind, 
 from reason, which is not knowledge, but an instrument 
 for acquiring knowledge. Instinct, however, is rarely if 
 ever found pure, being apparently always accompanied by 
 more or less of reason. Even a polype makes some show 
 of reason by moving its cilia in one mode when it desires 
 to suck in food, and in another when it mercl)' wishes to 
 move on ; A\hi]e it is scarcely possible for an unprejudiced 
 spectator to doubt of its being by a rational deduction 
 from experience that a dog knows that it will get kicked
 
 240 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 if it presume to snatch at the meat on its master's plate, 
 instead of waiting for the scraps he may be pleased to 
 throw to it when he has done. Instinct by necessary im- 
 plication involves habit ; habit as necessarily always more 
 or less modifies structure ; structural modification always 
 may be, and often is, inherited, carrying with it a tendency 
 to the habit out of which itself arose ; therefore habit and 
 instinct are likewise heritable. Some instincts are origi- 
 nated artificially. The reason why, on the very first op- 
 portunity, a young pointer has been known to point at 
 game, and a young sheep-dog to run round, instead of 
 at, a flock of sheep, is that some of their respective 
 ancestors had been carefully trained so to point and to 
 wheel. These, however, are exceptions to the general 
 rule. Most instincts are of what every one would call 
 natural, and Mr. Darwin calls 'spontaneous' origin, he 
 explaining the meaning of the latter term to be that the 
 slight variations from a primordial type, the accumulation 
 of which is considered by him to constitute actual instinct, 
 are ' variations produced by the same unknown causes as 
 those, which produce slight deviations of bodily structure.' 
 But here I am once more compelled to join issue with 
 him. Of the causes which he styles unknown, I maintain 
 that we know at least thus much — either they are them- 
 selves intelligent forces, or they are forces acting under 
 intelligent direction ; and in support of this proposition I 
 need not perhaps do more than show from Mr. Darwin's 
 example what infinitely harder things must be accepted by 
 those who decline to accept this. 
 
 Mr. Darwin, like every really truth-loving controver- 
 sialist, far from desiring to shroud, invites special attention 
 to any seeming weaknesses in his position ; and, therefore,
 
 RECEMT PHASES OF SCIEXTII-IC AT//E/SM. 241 
 
 when contending that all the faculties commonly classed 
 as instincts, are exclusively due to natural selection, of 
 course takes care to particularise the cellmaking faculty 
 of the hive b?e. Antl here, again, I gladly bear my 
 humble testimony to the partial success he has achieved. 
 Although bound to protest against the claim set up by 
 him, on behalf of natural selection, to the entire credit of 
 producing the hive bee's most remarkable characteristic, 
 I cannot but think he has succeeded in removing all the 
 apparent difficulties of believing that natural selection's 
 share may have been not less important in that than in 
 any other productive operation in which it takes part. 
 
 In popular estimation the hive bee is a heaven-born 
 mathematician which, having been set the problem how 
 to fill a given space with waxen cells with the least loss 
 of room and expenditure of material, arrives by intuition 
 and instantaneously at a solution which Newton himself 
 was ignorant of, and to which, but for his discovery of the 
 fluxional calculus, it would have been impossible for h's 
 follower, Maclaurin, to attain. And, doubtless, it may 
 excusably be deemed supernatural that the insect should 
 adopt off-hand precisely that six-sided figure, and pre- 
 cisely that inclination of the angles of the same figure's 
 pyramidal roof or floor, which, only by very refined and 
 recondite investigation, can be scientifically shown to be 
 those best fitted for the purpose. Mr. Darwin has, how- 
 ever, adduced strong grounds for supposing the amazing 
 architectural skill thus displayed to have been acquired, 
 not suddenl}^ but by the same slow degrees as those 
 which are so clearly traceable throughout organic pro- 
 gress in general. At the lower end of a short apiary 
 series, he observed humble bees using their old cocnons 
 
 R
 
 242 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 for honey pots, sometimes adding to them short tubes 
 of wax, and likewise making separate and very irregular 
 cells entirely of wax. At the higher end of the series, 
 he saw hive bees making double la}'ers of cells, each cell 
 an hexagonal prism with the basal ends of its six sides 
 bevelled so as to fit on to a pyramid formed of three 
 rhombs, and each of the three rhombs which compose the 
 pyramidal base of a single cell on one side of the comb 
 entering into the composition of one of the three adjoining 
 cells on the opposite side. Intermediately, he found the 
 Mexican DicliponcB dojJiesticcB depositing their honey in 
 cells nearly spherical, and of nearly equal sizes. 'These 
 cells, although aggregated into a mass otherwise irregular, 
 are always at such a degree of nearness to each other 
 that they would have intersected or broken into each other 
 if the spheres had been completed. But this is never 
 permitted, the bees building perfectly flat walls of wax 
 between the spheres which thus tend to intersect. Hence, 
 each cell consists of an outer spherical portion, and of two, 
 three, or more, perfectly flat surfaces, according as the 
 cell adjoins two, three, or more cells ; and when one cell 
 rests on three others, as from the spheres being nearly of 
 the same size is very frequently and necessarily the case, 
 the three flat surfaces are united into a pyramid rudely 
 resembling the three-sided pyramidal base of the hive 
 bee's cell, and necessarily enter, like the three rhombs of 
 the latter, into the construction of three adjoining cells.' 
 Reflecting on these remarkable gradations, it occurred to 
 Mr. Darwin that if the melipona were to make its spheres 
 of precisely equal sizes, and to arrange them symmetrically 
 in double layers, and were further so to dispose them 
 as that the centre of each should be at the distance of
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 2i,i 
 
 radius x \^2 or radius x \-/\i^2\ from the centres of the 
 six surrounding spheres in the same layer, and at the same 
 distance from the centres of the adjoining splieres in tlie 
 other and parallel layer — then ' if ])lanes of intersection be- 
 tween the several spheres on both layers were formed, there 
 would result a double layer of hexagonal prisms united 
 together by pyramidal bases formed of three rhombs ; and 
 the rhombs and the sides of the hexagonal prisms would 
 have every angle identically the same with the best mea- 
 surements that have been made of the cells of the hive 
 bee.' Then, submitting this view to Professor Miller of 
 Cambridge, he had the gratification of being assured by 
 that distinguished geometer that it was strictly correct. 
 Certainly a very happy example of an ingenious conjecture 
 verified by a species of demonstration hardly inferior to 
 the experimental. Certainly a very valuable testimony to 
 the soundness of all the main and really essential prin- 
 ciples of Darwinism. Good cause, certainly, is hereby 
 shown for believing that the cell-making faculty of the 
 hive bee may be nothing more than the aggregate of many 
 minute and successive improvements upon that of the 
 melipona, and this, again, than a similar aggregate of im- 
 provements on that of the humble bee ; and for bclie\ing 
 further that hive bee and melipona may both be either 
 descendants from the humble bee, or joint-descendants with 
 it from some still earlier common progenitor. In order to 
 believe this it suffices to believe that a bee ^\■hich at one 
 period made, like the humble bee, cells \'er)- unequally 
 sized and irregularly rounded, came gradually, in the course 
 of time, to make them as nearly equal in size and as 
 nearly spherical as those of the melipona ; and subsequentl}-, 
 during a further lapse of tune, came to arrange them 
 
 K 2
 
 244 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 .at the same distances from each other, and in double 
 layers like those of the humble bee. To assume thus much 
 requires no inordinate stretch of faith ; and thus much being 
 assumed, it is seen at once that the hive bee, requiring for 
 its cells only about half as much wax as the humble bee 
 does, and consequently only about half as much honey 
 for the secretion of the requisite wax, would, in a struggle 
 for existence, leave the humble bee so little chance that 
 in all probability the two species would nowhere coexist, 
 were it not for the special resource derived by the humble 
 bee from possession of a trunk long enough to enter 
 the nectaries of certain flowers, which the shorter trunk 
 of the hive bee is unable to tap. But though there 
 be no difficulty in assuming the improvements in question 
 to have gradually taken place, and to have become aggre- 
 gated in the manner supposed, there is, to my mind, an 
 insuperable objection to supposing that successive genera- 
 tions of bees should have successively adopted the im- 
 provements without either having the sense to know ^^■hat 
 they were doing, or being prompted by some superior 
 intelligence that did know. I will not be so superfluous 
 as to exaggerate the difficulty. Passing over the earlier 
 stages of the process, and confining myself to one or 
 two of the later, I will content myself with showing how 
 infinitesimally small, when magnified to the utmost, are 
 the chances in f ivour of these having been passed through 
 blindly. I will admit it to be possible that in a society 
 of purely meliponish habits, there might, in virtue of one 
 or other of those inscrutable causes classed under the 
 general name of spontaneous variation, arise some two 
 or three individuals with an innate propensity to make 
 accurately spherical and equally sized cells ; that these
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 245 
 
 individuals, if cither males or fertile females, and not 
 sterile neuters, nn'^ht help to generate others with the 
 same propensity, these again generating others, and so on, 
 until the greater part or the whole of the community 
 became possessed of the same constructive aptitude. I 
 will admit further that, in virtue of the same inscrutable 
 causes, individuals, at Hrst few, but gradually increasing 
 in number, might similarly be born with the additional 
 tendency to make cells at the same, and that the most 
 appropriate, distance from all adjoining cells ; and will 
 freely acknowledge that the bees, modifying their previous 
 mode of construction, as melipona; necessarily would do 
 under these altered circumstances, would construct a layer 
 of cells similar iPi all respects to those on one side of the 
 hive bee's comb, except that their bases would be flat 
 instead of pyramidal. I*\u-ther, I admit that the bases 
 would become pyramidal in case the bees «hould set about 
 constructing double instead of single layers of cells on the 
 same principle. Not a little liberality is required for these 
 admissions. For, in the first place, the fact of the bees 
 having acquired the habit of making perfect and equally 
 sized spheres w^ould not of itself be of any obvious benefit 
 cither to individual bees or to the society at large : in 
 order that it should enable material and labour to be 
 saved it wculd have to be accompanied by the habit 
 of malcing the cells at special distances from each other. 
 And, in the second place, though some few indi\iduals 
 should present themselves with an innate tendency to 
 choose these special distances, whatever advantage might 
 result therefrom, whatever saving of material or labour, 
 would be shared in equally by the whole community, 
 the particular individuals to whom it was due benefiting
 
 246 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 by it no more than any of the rest, and not being, in 
 consequence, more likely than they to survave in any 
 struggle for existence, or to leave behind them offspring 
 inheriting their special characteristics. No help, therefore, 
 can be derived from Mr. Danvin's principles towards con- 
 jecturing why a small minority of such specially endowed 
 bees should be gradually converted into a majority, and 
 should eventually constitute the whole community, there- 
 upon becoming in fact converted into a new species. Let 
 us, however, liberally waive this and all similar objections, 
 and assume a community of hive bees to have been, in 
 the utterly unaccountable manner indicated by the term 
 spontaneous variation, developed from a meliponish stock. 
 Unfortunately, all our liberality will be found to have 
 been thrown away without perceptibly simplifying the 
 problem to be solved. For, whatever be among meliponae 
 the distribution of the generative capacities, among hive 
 bees, at any rate, all workers are sterile neuters, Avhich 
 never have any offspring to whom to bequeath their cell- 
 making skill, while the queen bee and drones, which alone 
 can become parents, have no such skill to bequeath. 
 Clearly the formula of ' descent with modification by 
 natural selection,' is, in its literal sense, utterly inapplicable 
 here. In whatever manner the cell-making faculty might 
 have been acquired by the first homogeneous swarm of 
 hiv^e bees, it must inevitably have terminated with the 
 generation with which it commenced, if transmission by 
 direct descent had been necessary for its continuance. 
 The only resource open to Mr. Darwin is to suppose, 
 not merely (what is, indeed, obviously the fact) that queen 
 bee after queen bee, besides generating each in turn a 
 progeny of workers endowed with instincts which their
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 247 
 
 parents did not possess and could not therefore impart, 
 generated also princess bees destined in due season to 
 generate a working progeny similarly endowed with in- 
 stincts undcrived from their parents ; but to suppose further 
 that all this has happened in the total absence of aim, 
 oljjcct, intention, or design. Now that all this should have 
 so happened, although not absolutely inconceivable, nor, 
 therefore, absolutely impossible, is surely too incredible 
 to be believed except in despair of some other hypothesis 
 a trifle less preposterous. It is surely not worth while 
 to set the doctrine of probabilities so completely at naught, 
 for the sake of an explanation which avowedly leaves 
 every difficulty unexplained, referring them all to causes 
 not simply unknown but unconjecturable. What excuse, 
 then, have philosophers, of all people, for doing this in 
 preference to the simple expedient of supposing that, 
 although the parturient bee, queen or other, cannot intend 
 that any of her progeny should be more bounteously 
 endowed than herself, there is an independent intelligence 
 that does so intend ? To content oneself with pronouncing 
 such preference to be eminently unscientific is tenderness 
 of language nearly akin, I fear, to literary bathos. 
 
 ITT. 
 
 I HAVE said that the form of unbelief to which, on 
 the principle of calling a spade a spade, I have taken 
 the liberty of giving the name of Scientific Atheism, mani- 
 fests itself no\v-a-days rather by ignoration than by formal 
 denial of God. This, however, is not a new feature in any 
 atheism really worthy of being st}-led scientific. E\-en 
 as ]\Ir. Darwin \erball)' recognises a Creator, although
 
 248 RECENT PHASES OE SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 without assigning to Him any share in creation, even so 
 Kant, when more than a century ago undertaking, in his 
 ' General Natural History and Theory of the Celestial 
 Bodies,' ' to account for the constitution and mechanical 
 origin of the universe on Newtonian principles, spoke of 
 the elements as deriving their essential qualities from the 
 'eternal thought of the Divine Intelligence,' without, how- 
 ever, crediting the said Intelligence with having interposed 
 in order to carry out His thoughts. ' Give me matter,' he 
 says, 'and I will build the world ;' and \\ithout other data 
 than diffused atoms of matter endowed with simple attrac- 
 tive and repulsive forces, he proceeds to expound a com- 
 plete cosmogony. 
 
 He pictures to himself the universe as originally an 
 infinite expansion of minutely subdivided matter, and sup- 
 posing a single centre of attraction to be somewhere 
 therein set up, he endeavours to show that the result must 
 be a prodigious central body surrounded by systems of 
 solar and planetary worlds in all stages of development. 
 ' In vivid language,' says Professor Huxley,^ ' he describes 
 the great world-maelstrom widening the margin of its 
 prodigious eddy in the slow progress of millions of ages, 
 gradually reclaiming more and more of the moleculai 
 waste, and converting chaos into cosmos.' Then, fixing his 
 attention more particularly on our own system, he ac- 
 counts for the relation between the masses and densities of 
 the planets and their distances from the sun, for the ec- 
 centricity of their orbits, for their rotation, for their satel- 
 
 ' Of this treatise, no English or French translation has, I believe, been pub- 
 lished. For my own very limited acquaintance with it, I am indebted to the 
 extreme kindness of my friend, Professor Croom Robertson, who has most oblig- 
 ingly favoured me with a nianuscrii)t version of tlie portion referred to in the text. 
 
 ■■' ' Lay Sermons,' p. 240.
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 249 
 
 litcs, f(jr the general agreement in the direction of rotation 
 among the celestial bodies, fcjr Saturn's ring, and for the 
 zodiacal light. All this he does, according to Professor 
 Huxley, by 'strict deduction from admitted dynamical 
 principles,' and I, well aware of my own inability to form 
 an independent judgment on the point, gladly take so 
 high an authority's word for it. I'^or aught that I know, 
 Kant's attractive and repulsive forces being admitted, the 
 establishment of centres of attraction, and of circle within 
 circle of revolutions round them, and all his other details, 
 Avould follow naturally and of course. I limit myself to 
 asking, Whence these simple forces.'' — and ^\•hen Kant 
 replies, ' From the Eternal Thought of the Divine Under- 
 standing,' 1 should be the last to criticise if his answer 
 stopped there. Unfortunately, he adds that the forces 
 were ' evolved without purpose ' ; in other words, that the 
 Intelligence which thought them into existence failed to 
 think of any purpose for them. ' Matter,' he proceeds, 'is 
 \}urc\y passive, yet, nevertheless, has in its simplest state a 
 determination towards the assumption of a more perfect 
 constitution in the way of natural development, whereby it 
 breaks up rest, stirs up nature, gives to chaos shape.' For 
 the elements whereof this passively stirring up matter is 
 composed ' ha\e native powers of setting each other in 
 motion, and are to themselves a spring of life ; ' and when, 
 having of course being previously dead, the}- have given 
 themselves life, they forthwith begin to attract each other 
 \\\\\\ a strength \'ar)'ing with their \-ar)'ing degrees of 
 specific gravit)'. The scattered elements of the denser 
 sort collect by attraction all particles of less specific 
 gravity out of their immediate neighbourhood, and arc 
 themselves similarl}- collected I)\- particles of still denser
 
 250 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 sort, these again by others denser yet, and so on, until, as 
 results of this particular action, several masses are formed 
 which in like manner would converge towards and be 
 united with the largest and densest of their number, were 
 it not that the counter principle of repulsion now comes 
 into play. This principle — familiarly exemplified in the 
 elasticity of v^apours, the emanations from strong smelling 
 substances, and the expansion of all spirituous substances — 
 causes the vertical movements of the converging masses to 
 be deflected laterally, so as ultimately to enclose the 
 central mass wdthin circles which, at first intersecting each 
 other in all directions, are at length, by dint of mutual 
 collision, made all to revolve in the same direction, and 
 nearly the same plane. 
 
 Now I most earnestly protest against being suspected 
 of what in me would be the intolerable impertinence of 
 desiring to cast ridicule on these magnificent speculations, 
 the grandeur of which I thoroughly appreciate so far as 
 my scant mathematics enable me to follow them. I take 
 exception to them only because the language in which 
 they are couched seems to imply that operations, of whose 
 nature one of the most powerful of human intellects could, 
 at its utmost stretch, catch only a faint hazy inkling, may 
 yet have been initiated and perfected without the inter- 
 vention of any intellect at all. This is a falsism against 
 which my respect for philosophy and philosophers makes 
 me only all the more indignant when I find any of the 
 latter falling into it, as those of them inevitably must who, 
 busying themselves, early or late, 
 
 With a mis^hty debate, 
 A profound speculation about the creation 
 And organical life, and chaotical strife, 
 With various notions of heavenly motions,
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 251 
 
 And livers and oceans, and valleys and mountains, 
 And sources of fountains, and meteors on higli, 
 And stars in the sky, — propose by and bye, 
 
 like John Ilookham Frcrc's Aristophanic Birds, 
 
 If we'll listen and hear. 
 To make perfectly clear 
 
 how creation took place without a conscious Creator. All 
 their fancied solutions of this hopeless puzzle have one 
 feature in common — a family likeness which the wickedest 
 wit finds it difficult to caricature. There is a note to 
 Frere and Canning's ' Loves of the Triangles ' which the 
 reader will be grateful to me for transcribing here, the 
 more frequently he may have laughed at it already, laugh- 
 ing now all the more, and laughing heartily at it now 
 though he may never have before. 
 
 It begins by tracing the genesis or original formation of 
 Space to a single point, in the same manner as the elder 
 Darwin had, in his ' Zoonomia,' traced the whole organized 
 universe to his six Filaments. It represents this primeval 
 Point or Piinctiini salicns of the universe, after ' evolving 
 itself by its oivn energies, to have moved forwards in a 
 right line ad infinitum till it grew tired.' Whereupon, ' the 
 right line which it had generated would begin to put itself 
 in motion in a lateral direction, describing an area of 
 infinite extent. This area, as soon as it became conscious 
 of its own existence, would begin to ascend or descend, 
 according as its specific weight might determine, forming 
 an immense solid space filled with vacuum, and capable of 
 containing the present existing universe.' 
 
 Thus slow progressive points protract the line, 
 
 As pendant spiders spin the fdmy twine : 
 
 Thus lengthened lines impetuous sweeping round, 
 
 Spread the wide plane, and mark its circling bound ; 
 
 Thus planes, their substance with their motion grown, 
 
 Form the huge cube, the cylinder, the cone.
 
 252 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 It then proceeds as follows : — 
 
 * Space being thus obtained, and presenting a suitable 
 nidus or receptacle for the generation of cJiaotie matter, an 
 immense deposit of it would gradually be accumulated ; 
 after which the filament of fire being produced in the 
 chaotic mass by an idiosyncrasy or self-formed habit ana- 
 logous to fermentation, explosion would take place, suns 
 would be shot from the central chaos, planets from suns, 
 and satellites from planets. In this state of things, the fila- 
 ment of organization would begin to exert itself in those 
 independent masses which, in proportion to their bulk, 
 exposed the greatest surface to the action of light and 
 heat. This filament, after an infinite series of ages, would 
 begin to ramify, and its viviparous offspring would di- 
 versify their forms and habits so as to accommodate them- 
 selves to the various inennabula which nature had prepared 
 for them. Upon this view of things, it seems highly pro- 
 bable that the first efibrt of Nature terminated in the pro- 
 duction of vegetables, and that these being abandoned to 
 their own energies, by degrees detached themselves from 
 the surface of the earth, and supplied themselves with 
 wings and feet, according as their different propensities 
 determined them in favour of aerial or terrestrial existence. 
 Others, by an inherent disposition to society and civilisa- 
 tion, and by a stronger effort of volition, would become 
 men. These in time would restrict themselves to the use 
 of their hind feet ; their tails would gradually rub oft' by 
 sitting in their caves or huts as soon as they arrived at a 
 domesticated state ; they would invent language and the 
 use of fire, with our present and hitherto imperfect system 
 of society. In the meantime, the Fuci and Alg(B, with the 
 Corallines and Madrepores, would transform themselves
 
 RECENT PHASES OE SCIENTIEIC ATHEISM. 253 
 
 into fish, and gradually populate all tiic submarine portiuns 
 of the globe.' ' 
 
 Although the writers of this delicious drollery seem to 
 have had Dr. h.rasmus Darwin only in view, they could 
 not, we thus sec, parody his peculiar crotchets without 
 hitting off not less neatly some of the corresponding extra- 
 vagances of both earlier and later expounders of Nature. 
 Nature is a phrase which, greatly to the confusion of those 
 who so employ it, is habitually used simultaneously in two 
 quite opposite senses, .so as to denote at the same time 
 both the agency in virtue of whose action the universe 
 exists, and likewise the universe itself which results from 
 that action. Nature, in either signification, becomes to a 
 great extent interpretable when the agency so designated 
 is credited with sufficient sense to foresee and to intend 
 the results of its own action. On that condition, although 
 among the many unsolved problems she may continue to 
 present there will be some evidently lying beyond the 
 limits of human comprehension, there will be none running 
 counter to human reason. Except on that condition, the 
 universe is not simply uninterpretable, it is a bewildering 
 assemblage of irreconcilable certainties. Philosophy's 
 choice lies between such patent truisms as that there can 
 be no force but living force, no vis but vis vivida, no vis 
 inej'tice otherwise than metaphorically, and such blatant 
 falsisms as that inertness and exertion may coincide, un- 
 intelligence generate intelligence, agency of whatsoever 
 sort produce, merely by its own act, and merely out of its 
 own essence, other agency capable of higher action than its 
 own. Philosoph}% when with these sets of alternatives 
 before her she deliberately chooses the latter, becomes 
 
 ' 'Beauties of the Anti-Jacobin,' 1799, pp. 214-6.
 
 2 54 RECENT PHASES OE SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 Scientific Atheism, all the varieties of which have one point 
 in common, resembling each other in their proneness to 
 rush upon and embrace demonstrable impossibilities for 
 the sake of avoiding a few things hard to be understood. 
 One variety, however, the Comtist, far exceeds all the rest 
 in the lengths to which it is carried by this propensity. 
 
 IV. 
 
 If, in speaking as I am about to do of Comtism, I commit 
 — heedless of Mr. Lewes' solemn warning — the grave offence 
 of speaking confidently about a writer whom I have never 
 read, I may at least plead in extenuation of my fault, that, 
 although my knowledge of that writer be confessedly 
 merely an echo of what others have said of him, those 
 others, at any rate, far from being his antagonists, are two 
 of the most ardent of his not undiscriminating admirers. 
 It is from Mr. Mill' and from Mr. Lewes ^ himself that I 
 have derived the notions of Comtist philosophy that 
 suggest to me the following notes. 
 
 I lay no stress on certain flaws in the fundamental 
 propositions that ' we have no knowledge of anything but 
 phenomena, and that our knowledge of phenomena is only 
 relative, not absolute ; that we know not the essence nor 
 the real mode of production of any fact, but only its rela- 
 tions to other facts in the way of succession or similitude ; 
 that the constant resemblances which link phenomena 
 together, and the constant sequences which unite them as 
 antecedent and consequent, are all we know about them, 
 and that their causes, whether efficient or final, are un- 
 
 ' 'Auguste Comte and Positivism,' /^m/w. 
 
 * 'History of Philosophy,' 4th edition, vol. ii. pp. 654-735.
 
 RECENT PHASES OE SCIENTTEIC A THEISM. 255 
 
 known and inscrutable.' 1 will only suggest that our mere 
 consciousness of possessing some knowledge of phenomena 
 is itself a knowledge distinct from the knowledge which 
 constitutes its subject — distinct, that is, from the know- 
 ledge of phenomena ; that if it were possible for us to be 
 aware of only one single fact, we should know something 
 about that fact, notwithstanding that there were no other 
 facts which it could be perceived to have preceded or fol- 
 lowed, or to which it could be likened, even as a polype 
 with a stomach-ache would know something about a 
 stomach-ache, although ignorant that it had a stomach, 
 and oblivious of any former sensation, whether painful or 
 pleasurable ; and that if the causes of phenomena be 
 utterly unknown, our ignorance of them ought not to be 
 so signified as to sound like knowledge, as it does when 
 resemblances are said to link, and sequences to unite, 
 phenomena together, thereby warranting the inference that 
 one phenomenon succeeds another because the two arc so 
 linked and united. 
 
 These, however, are trifles — mere spots on the sun one 
 might say, were but the surface on which they appear 
 altogether sunlikc — and I leave them without additional 
 remark except that, although it may perhaps have been 
 hypercritical to point them out, still the language of a 
 new philosophy, claiming to supersede all old ones, ought 
 to be proof even against hypercriticism. I pass on to a 
 generalisation, termed by Mr. Mill 'the key to Comte's 
 other generalisations : one on which all the others are 
 dependent, and which forms the back-bone, so to speak, of 
 his philosoph}-,' insomuch that ' unless it be true he has 
 accomplished little.' This is the so much vaunted dis- 
 covery that all human thought passes necessarily through
 
 256 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 three stages, beginning with the theological, and proceeding 
 through the nietaph}'sical to the positive. These three 
 terms, however, in the novel sense in which they are used 
 by Comte, stand very urgently in need of definition. By 
 the theological is to be understood that stage of the mind 
 in \\hich the facts of the universe are regarded as governed 
 by single and direct volitions of a being or beings pos- 
 sessed of life and intelligence. It is the stage in which winds 
 are supposed to blow, seas to rage, trees to grow, and 
 mountains to tower aloft, either because winds, seas, trees, 
 and mountains are themselves alive and so act of their 
 own accord ; or because there is a spirit dwelling in each of 
 them which desires that it shall so act ; or because each 
 separate class of objects is superintended by an out- 
 dwelling divinity, which similarly desires; or, finally, because " 
 one single divinity, supreme over all things, initiates and 
 maintains all the apparently spontaneous movements of 
 inanimate bodies. In the metaphysical stage, phenomena 
 are ascribed not to volitions, either sublunary or celestial, 
 but to realised abstractions — to properties, qualities, pro- 
 pensities, tendencies, forces, regarded as real existences, 
 inherent in but distinct from the concrete bodies in which 
 they reside ; while the characteristic of the positive stage 
 is the universal recognition that all phenomena without 
 exception are governed by invariable laws, with which no 
 volitions, natural or supernatural, interfere. These being 
 the three stages, the discovery of which as a series neces- 
 sarily passed through by human thought in its progress 
 towards maturity, constitutes one of Comte's chief glories, 
 I almost tremble at my own audacity, shrinking from the 
 sound myself am making, when by inexorable sense of 
 duty constrained to declare that the grand discovery is 
 after all merely that of a distinction without a difference.
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 257 
 
 What Comte chiefly coiulcmned in the metaphysical 
 mode of thought, arc the conception of mental abstractions 
 as real entities which exert power and produce phenomena, 
 and the enunciation of these entities as explanations of the 
 phenomena ; and certainly ' it is,' as Mr. Mill says, or rather 
 was, previously to his own ingenious solution of it, ' one of 
 the puzzles of philosoi)hy, how mankind, after inventing a 
 set of mere names to keep together certain combinations 
 of ideas and images, could have so far forgotten their own 
 act as to invest these creations of their will with ob- 
 jective reality, and mistake the name of a phenomenon 
 for its efficient cause.' Those natural laws, however, on 
 which Positivism relies — are not they as purely mental 
 abstractions as the essences, virtues, properties, forces, and 
 what not, for which it is proposed to substitute them .-' 
 Yet since Positivism regards these laws as ' governing ' 
 l)henomena, and having phenomena ' subject ' to them, must 
 it not necessarily regard them likewise as realised abstrac- 
 tions, as real entities } Plainl)-, if its language be taken 
 literally, its professors must acknowledge that it does, 
 unless they prefer to stultify themselves by propounding 
 such unmitigated nonsense as that power may be exercised, 
 and phenomena produced, by ;/^w-entities. But if so, what 
 else is Positivism than another form of that very meta- 
 physicism which it condemns } and a form, too, peculiarly 
 obnoxious to ]\Ir. Mill's caustic remark that ' as in religion, 
 so in philosophy, men marvel at the absurdity of other 
 people's tenets, while exactly parallel absurdities remain in 
 their own, and the same man is unaffectedly astonished 
 that words can be mistaken for things, who is treating 
 other words as if they were things every time he opens his 
 mouth.' 
 
 s
 
 258 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC A THEISM. 
 
 Possibly, however, it may be replied that ' government by 
 natural laws ' is a phrase which Positivists never use ex- 
 cept metaphorically, and by which they never mean more 
 than certain successions of events.^ Very well. Either, 
 then, they acknowledge no real government of phenomena 
 at all, in which case to speak of phenomena as governed by 
 law is, if not a purely gratuitous mystification, as glaring 
 an instance as can well be conceived of a ' bare enunciation 
 of facts, put forward as a theory or explanation of them : 
 or, if they do recognise real government, then they must 
 suppose that, behind those mere mental abstractions, laws 
 or order of Nature, there must be some lawgiver or other 
 being that originally issued the laws, or ordained the order, 
 and still enforces them, or maintains it. But if this be the 
 positivist faith, then, that we may discover its other self, 
 we have only to go still further back ; as far back, how- 
 ever, as to the theological stage, supposed to have been so 
 early left behind, yes, even unto the deities or deity that 
 the metaphysical entities had displaced. Positivism, in 
 short, is in this dilemma : either the mode of thought 
 claimed by it as peculiarly its own is simply that process 
 so justly ridiculed by Comte himself as the ' naif reproduc- 
 tion of phenomena as the reason for themselves,' and by 
 Mr. Lewes as 'a restatement' (by way of explanation) 
 ' of the facts to be explained ; ' or it is at any rate nothing 
 more than a return, either to the metaphysical or to the 
 theological mode of thought, according as one or the other 
 is adopted of the only two interpretations that can pos- 
 sibly be placed on its own nomenclature. A new mode 
 
 ' Not that so restricted a meaning can, with any propriety, be placed on 
 positivist definitions of law. See, for instance, that of Mr. Lewes (' History 
 of Philosophy,' vol. ii. p. 701), who defines law to be 'the invariable relation 
 between two distinct phenomena, according to which one depends on the other.'
 
 RECENT PHASES OE SCIENTIEIC ATHEISM. 259 
 
 it certainly is not. It is cither no mode of thought at all, 
 but merely an empty form of words ; or it is at best only 
 a new name for one or other of two old-fashioned modes, 
 both of which its author denounces as false from the 
 beginning, and now worn out and obsolete into the bargain. 
 Of other features of Comtist philosophy it would be out 
 of place to speak here,' where, indeed, that philosophy would 
 
 ' Some few additional random remarks, however, though not permissible in 
 the text may, perhaps, be less inappropriate in a note. 
 
 My scientific deficiencies do not prevent my understanding or, at least, fancy- 
 ing I understand,* that Comte's famous 'Classification of the Sciences' may be 
 extremely serviceable as indicating in what order the sciences may most profit- 
 ably be studied. That a student's general progress would be swifter and surer 
 if, before entering on physics or chemistry, he had already made considerable 
 progress in algebra, geometry, and mechanics, than if he commenced all five 
 sciences simultaneously, seems probable enough. If, however, the classifica- 
 tion be intended also to indicate historically the order in which the sciences 
 have actually been studied, I cannot but suspect it to be misleading. Certainly, 
 if knowledge of number was the earliest knowledge acquired by man, those 
 savage races which have not even yet learnt how to count beyond four, must 
 have been content with very few lessons in arithmetic when turning off to other 
 branches of learning. 
 
 As to the measure of success that attended Comte's scheme of creating a 
 Philosophy of General Science, I presume not to utter one syllable of my own, 
 preferring to cite what Mr. Mill says of that 'wonderful systematization of the 
 philosophy of all the antecedent sciences from mathematics to physiology, 
 wliich, if he had done nothing else, would have stamped him on all minds 
 competent to appreciate it as one of the princij^al thinkers of the age.' In all 
 sincerity, I say that the mere conception of the enterprise, whose vastness is so 
 luminously expounded by Mr. Lewes, in the last edition of his 'History of 
 Philosophy,' seems to me to betoken superior genius. I feci, as it were, simply 
 awe-struck in the presence of an intellectual ambition, that within the brief span 
 of one human life could aspire to a mastery over all the sciences, sufficient, first 
 for co-ordinating the fundamental truths and special methods, and so obtaining 
 the philosophy of each, and then for co-ordinating the manifold philosoi)hies 
 so obtained, and — by condensing them all into one homogeneous doctrine, and 
 blending them into one organic whole, whereof each part would be seen to 
 depend on all that preceded, and to detcrniine all lliat succeeded — transforming 
 all science into philosophy. 
 
 One point however remains on wliicli I shall speak with some confidence, 
 that, namely, of the inclusion among ' Comte's titles to immortal fame ' of the 
 creation of a Science of Sociology. ' What the law of gravitation is to 
 astronomy, what the elcmenlaiy properties of tissue^ are to physiology,' that, 
 
 S 2
 
 26o RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 not have been mentioned at all but for its having been 
 transformed by its author into a religion, and that, too, an 
 
 says Mr. Lewes, in the opinion of Comte's disciples, ' is the law of the three 
 stages to sociology.' But if, as I have shown, there are not really three but 
 only two stages, the so-called third stage being simply a return to either the 
 second or the first, the law of the three stages cannot be much of a law, nor 
 the science of which it is the essence much of a science. 
 
 Mr. Lewes, nevertheless, maintains that M. Comte created Social Science. 
 Mr. Mill considers that he did not create it, but only proved its creation to be 
 possible. With all possible deference, I submit that what he really did was to 
 prove its creation to be impossible. 
 
 In a passage of Mr. Mill's ' Positivism,' quoted with approval in Mr. Lewes's 
 ' History of Philosophy,' and presumably, therefore, expressing the sentiments 
 of both writers, Comte is described as pronouncing inappropriate to the .Science 
 of Society, the method universally admitted to be proper to all other sciences — 
 that, namely, of obtaining by induction the laws of the elementaiy phenomena, 
 then, from these laws thinking out deductively those of the complex phenomena, 
 and, finally, of verifying by specific observation the laws obtained by deduction. 
 Among social phenomena, he is described as arguing, the elementary ones are 
 human feelings and actions, the laws of which are the laws of universal human 
 nature. But the human beings, on the laws of whose nature social facts depend, 
 are not abstract or universal, but historical human beings, already shaped and 
 made what they are, not by the simple tendencies of universal human nature, but 
 by the accumulated influence of past generations of human society. This being 
 the case, the laws of universal human nature evidently cannot serve as materials, 
 whence it would be possible for any powers of deduction, starting fiora the 
 bare conception of the Being Man, to predict beforehand how successive gene- 
 rations of men would feel and act. Wherefore, in order to get at social laws, 
 we must reverse the ordinary method, seizing upon any generalizations which 
 the facts of history, empirically con.sidered, will supply, and then using the 
 universal laws of human nature for the verification of these generalizations. 
 
 I will not linger over the glaring inconsistency involved in the conclusion 
 thus arrived at, of appealing, for the verification of empirical generalizations, 
 to a species of deduction confessed to be impracticable for waiiit of the 
 requisite materials. I prefer to show that from Comte's own premises, as 
 rendered by Mr. Mill, necessarily results a separate conclusion, absolutely 
 fatal to his sociologically creative pretensions. According to him, as we have 
 seen, the laws of elementary social facts, or of human actions and feelings, are 
 the laws of universal human nature, which latter can, of course, be no other 
 than whatever habits of invariably, in given circumstances, feeling and acting 
 in given modes, may be common to all mankind. But it is admitted that the 
 particular generation of human beings at any time existing must, by the accu- 
 mulated influence of preceding generations, have been rendered very different 
 from every preceding generation : and nothing is more certain than that two 
 <'-encrations differing v.'idely from each other in character, would, in many given
 
 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 261 
 
 atheistical religion — the 'Religion of Humanity.' To myself, 
 as to most people, a religion without a God is :i con- 
 tradiction in terms. To constitute what is almo.st univer- 
 sally understood by religion it does not sufifice that there 
 be a 'creed or conviction claiming authority over the whole 
 of human life : a belief or set of beliefs deliberately adopted 
 respecting human destiny^ and duty, to which the believer 
 inwardly acknowledges that all his actions ought to be 
 subordinate:' nor that there be in addition 'a sentiment 
 connected with this creed or capable of being invoked 
 by it, sufficiently powerful to give it, in fact, the authority 
 over human conduct to which it lays claim in theory:' 
 nor yet that there be, moreover, ' an ideal object, the 
 believer's attachment and sense of duty towards which arc 
 able to control and discipline all his other sentiments and 
 propensities, and prescribe to him a rule of life.' ' That such 
 an object is fully capable of gathering round it feelings 
 sufficiently strong to enforce the most rigid rule of life, will 
 certainly not be denied by me, privileged as J am to count 
 among my friends more than one whose whole life is 
 little else than a life of devotion to an object, ' the general 
 
 circuni^iaiiLcs, not only not feel and act in precisely the same, but would in- 
 evitably feel and act in widely different, manners. Nor is this all. The 
 circumstances by which any generation is surrounded have been partly shaped 
 for it by preceding generations, partly modified by itself — so that it is not 
 possible for any two generations ever to find themselves in the same circum- 
 stances. Wherefore, as there never can be a repetition of either men or of 
 circumstances precisely the same, it is manifestly impossible for any habits of 
 feeling and thinking, in given modes in given circumstances, to be common to 
 any two generations of men, still less to universal mankind. In other words, 
 there cannot possibly be any laws of human nature : and if no laws of human 
 nature, then no laws of elementary social facts ; and if no laws of elementary 
 social facts, then no laws of complex social facts ; and if no laws of social facts, 
 elementary or complex, then no single particle of material wherewith to build 
 up the Science of Society or Sociology. 
 
 ' ' Auguste Comte and Positivism,' pj). 133-4.
 
 262 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 interest of the human race,' plainly incapable of affording 
 them in exchange that ' eternity of personal enjoyment ' 
 to which ordinary devotees look forward as their reward, 
 and whose virtue I honour as approaching the sublime, 
 on account of its independence of all the props and stimu- 
 lants which ordinary virtue finds indispensable. But the 
 sublimest virtue does not of itself constitute religion. For, 
 besides the ' creed,' ' conviction,' and ' sentiment ' indicated 
 above, there is needed some suitable object of worship 
 to which the soul may alternately bow down in humble 
 reverence, and look up in fervent love — some being to 
 whom its prayer, praise, and thanksgiving may be fit- 
 tingly addressed. This want, recognised — as one of the 
 few who do not recognise it admits — by nine out of every 
 ten persons, was distinctly recognised by Comte, who, 
 however, attempted to supply it by pointing, not to God, 
 but to Man. His reason for this was not a conviction that 
 there is no God. On the contrary, he habitually dis- 
 claimed, not without acrimony, dogmatic atheism ; and 
 once even condescended so far as to declare that ' the hypo- 
 thesis of design has much greater verisimilitude than that 
 of a blind mechanism.' But in the ' mature state of intelli- 
 gence ' at which his mind had arrived, ' conjecture founded 
 on analogy did not seem to him a basis to rest a theory 
 upon.' He preferred a religious theory without a basis, 
 and therefore adopted one as destitute of support as the 
 tortoise on which stands the earth-upholding elephant of 
 
 A 
 
 Hindoo mythology ; selecting, as the ' Grand Etre ' to be 
 worshipped, ' the entire Human Race, conceived as a con- 
 tinuous whole, past, present, and future.' For this great 
 collective w^«-cxistence, this compound of that which is, 
 that which has been but has ceased to be, and that which
 
 RFXENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 263 
 
 is not yet, he elaborated a minute ritual of devotional ob- 
 servances, and would, if he had had the chance, have con- 
 secrated a complete sacerdotal hierarchy, subordinated to 
 himself as supreme pontiff. Having, for fear of recognising 
 what possibly might not be, begun by, wilfully and with his 
 eyes open, recognising what could not possibly be, he pro- 
 ceeded to invest this sanctified non-existence with precisely 
 those attributes best calculated to render it unfit to receive 
 the admiration he prescribed for it. That feeble Humanity — 
 the actually living portion thereof, that is — may need and 
 be the better for our services, which Divine Omnipotence 
 of course cannot be, was distinctly urged by him as a 
 reason why prayers, or at least those outpourings of feeling 
 which he so designated, should be addressed to the former 
 and not to the latter. That Humanity is in a constant 
 state of progress, so that both the collective mass and 
 choice specimens of each successive generation of men 
 must always be superior to the corresponding masses and 
 specimens of all previous generations, is a prime article of 
 thcComtist creed ; but not the less is it an imperative injunc- 
 tion of the Comtist rubrick that religious homage shall be 
 paid, not only to the collective ' Grand Etre ' of Humanity, 
 but also to individual worthies of past ages — that superiors 
 shall consequently fall down before, and worship, and take 
 as models, their intellectual and moral inferiors. The fact 
 of a religion made up of tenets like these having been 
 thought out by one of the profoundest of reasoners does 
 not prevent its being the very perfection of unreason. 
 Even though on the one side there were nothing more 
 than some doubt whether Deity might not e.xist, still with 
 complete certainty on the other of the non-existence of 
 ' Humanity,' Deity ought in fairness to have at least the
 
 264 RECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 
 
 benefit of the doubt. In selection for adoration, that 
 which only perhaps may be, at any rate deserves to be, 
 preferred to that which positively is not. The excess of 
 superstition with which St. Paul reproached the Athenians, 
 for raising an altar to the ' Unknown God,' looks like 
 excessive circumspection, beside the solemn dedication of 
 temples to a chimera known not to be. Nay, even Isaiah's 
 maker of graven images is at length outdone. Even he 
 who, having hewn down a tree, ' burneth part thereof in 
 the fire, with part thereof eateth flesh, roasteth roast, and 
 is satisfied, warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, 
 I have seen the fire ; and with the residue maketh a god, 
 yea, his graven image, and falleth down unto it and wor- 
 shippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me, for 
 thou art my god ' — even he has at last found more than 
 his match in irrationality. For he has at least before him 
 a visible tangible block of wood, not the mere memory of 
 one that has long ago rotted, nor the dream of one that is 
 yet to grow, whereas that mental figment, Consecrated 
 Humanity, is not even a real shadow, but only a fancied 
 one, a shadow cast by no substance. And it is to Comtists 
 of all people — intellectual salt of the earth as they are — 
 that this figment is recommended for adoration — yes, 
 to those who, pharisaically standing aloof from the 
 common herd, thank their imaginary substitute for God, 
 or whatever else it is they deem thankworthy, that they 
 are not blind as other men are, and least of all as those 
 dazed metaphysicians who actually personify their own 
 mental abstractions. No wonder that such extreme pro- 
 vocation should try the patience of all but the stanchest 
 disciples. No wonder that Mr, Lewes himself should seem 
 half inclined to apostrophise his quondam master in words
 
 PECENT PHASES OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. 265 
 rcscmblin<^ tliusc once addressed to Robespierre, 'Avec ton 
 
 A 
 
 Grand Etre, tu commences a m'embeter.' 
 
 Here make we one more pause. This chapter's theme 
 is, as was betimes premised, not the strength of theism, 
 but the weakness of atlicism. I liavc in it attempted to 
 execute a design which, according to lioswell, was con- 
 ceived by Lord Hailes, and approved by Dr. Johnson, that 
 of writing an essay, Sm- la cn'dnlitc dcs incrcdiilcs, and 
 I think I have succeeded so far as to show that, if any 
 one who can swallow atheism affects to strain at theism, it 
 cannot, at any rate, be for want of a sufficiently capacious 
 gullet.
 
 126 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 Thought without Reverence is barren. The man who cannot wonder, who 
 does not hahiitually wonder (and worship), were he president of innumerable 
 Royal .Societies, and carried the whole Mccaniqnc Celeste and Hegel's Philo- 
 sophy, and the epitome of all laboratories and observatories with their results, 
 in his smgle head, is but a pair of spectacles, behind which there is no eye. 
 Let those who have eyes look through him ; then he may be useful. — Sartor 
 Resa?ius. 
 
 ' I wouldn't mind,' said once a representative of extreme 
 heterodoxy, in debate with a champion of its diametrical 
 opposite — ' I wouldn't mind conceding the Deity you con- 
 tend for, were it not for the use commonly made of him 
 after he is conceded.' And no doubt that use is such as 
 might well provoke a saint, provided the saint were likewise 
 a philosopher. To whatever extent it be true that man 
 was created in the image of God, it is certain that in all 
 ages and countries God has been created in the image of 
 man, invested with all human propensities, appetites, and 
 passions, and expected to demean himself on all occasions 
 as men would do in like circumstances. As popularly 
 conceived, so long as sensual gratification was esteemed 
 to be the suiniiinni bonuin, he wallowed in all manner of 
 sensual lust ; when some of his more fervent worshippers 
 turned ascetics out of disgust with fleshly surfeit, he be- 
 came ascetism personified : at every stage his great delight 
 has been flattery, and his still greater, revenge ; in the 
 exercise of power he has always been capricious and often 
 wanton — rtithlcssly vindictive against impugners of his
 
 LIMITS OF DEMON STRAP IE THEISM. 267 
 
 honour and dignity, unspeakably barbarous to unbelievers 
 in his reality. Now, as knowledge advanced, unbelief in 
 a God so much below the level of ordinarily virtuous 
 men advanced equally, quickening its pace, too, as the 
 particular branch of knowledge styled 'physics' spread, 
 and, spreading, exposed the utter impossibility of many of 
 the fables in which theological views had been expressed. 
 Wherefore, theological oracles have in every age and country 
 been apt to confound scientific inquisitiveness with unbelief, 
 and to denounce physical science especially as a delusion 
 and a snare, and its cultivators as impostors none the less 
 mischievous for being at the same time dupes. Of course, 
 the latter have not been slow to return the compliment. 
 Hearing the truths discovered by them stigmatised as false- 
 hoods, they naturally enough retorted the charge of falsity 
 against the divine authorities in whose name it was made. 
 Finding war waged against them by every religion with 
 which they were acquainted, they naturally enough in turn 
 declared war against all religion, even with that form 
 thereof which underlies every other except when sufficing 
 to itself for superstructure as well as base. Natural enough 
 this, for Jiiinianwn est crrare ; but very humanly erroneous 
 withal, for to include Deity itself in the same denial with 
 pseudo-divine attributes is about as sagacious a proceed- 
 ing as to refuse to recognise the sun at midday on account 
 of his not appearing in Phoebus's chariot and four. 
 
 When religion on the defensive declares herself opposed 
 to reason, so much the worse for religion. She is thereby 
 virtually surrendering at discretion, since to appeal to her 
 only other resource — revelation — is to beg the whole sub- 
 ject in dispute. Similarly, the worse and still less excusable 
 is it for science to declare herself irreconcileable with 
 religion, for she, too, is thereby slighting reason. It is
 
 268 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 only by forsaking the single guide in whom she professes 
 to trust, and blindly giving herself up to angry prejudice, 
 that she can fail to discover the rational solidity of so much 
 of every religion as consists of theism. 
 
 For this, as we have seen, the argument from design 
 abundantly suffices, although the only absolute certainty 
 thence dcducible be that the universe must have an author 
 or authors fully equal to its original construction, its 
 subsequent development, and its continued maintenance. 
 Even if it be not inconceivable, -notwithstanding that the 
 chances to the contrary be many times infinity to one, 
 that the mere restlessness of some utterly unintelligent 
 force may have fabricated all material structures, and 
 imparted to all their movements certain orderly successions, 
 it is still manifestly impossible for unintelligence to have 
 brought forth intelligence — for the speculative, critical, carp- 
 ing spirit of man to have been generated by that which has 
 no speculation in its eyes, nor any eyes, to have speculation 
 in ; impossible, in short, for the creature to be more richly 
 endowed than its creator. Since numerous embodied 
 intelligences actually exist, they must have been preceded 
 by intelligence capable of creating them and all other 
 existing intelligences that have not eternally existed ; and 
 it is simply impossible that creative intelligence, whose 
 creatures owe to it whatever intelligence they possess, 
 should on any occasion have exhibited a want of intelli- 
 gence which they are competent to detect. 
 
 Ikit although it be thus dcmon.strably certain that an 
 author of the universe exists, it does not follow that there 
 is only one. As to this no proof positive, only probabilities, 
 can be adduced ; but the probabilities are of an amount 
 all but equivalent to certainty. They are forcibly urged
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRAIiLE THEISM. :;69 
 
 by Mr. Mill. Many exactly uniform occurrences, he ob- 
 serves, are more naturally referretl to 'a single, than to 
 a number of wills precisely accordant.' But the classes 
 of uniform occurrences being exceedingly numerous, if 
 there were a separate will for each class, there would 
 be equally numerous wills, and ' unless all tiiese wills 
 were in complete harmony (which would itself be the 
 most difficult to credit of all cases of invariability, and 
 would require beyond anything else the ascendancy of 
 a supreme Deity),' it would be ' impossible that the 
 course of phenomena under their government should 
 be invariable.' Every fresh appearance of resemblance 
 extending through all nature 'affords fresh presumption 
 that the whole is the work, not of many, but of the 
 same hand, and renders it vastly more probable that 
 there should be one indefinitely foreseeing Intelligence 
 and immoveable Will than that there should be hundreds 
 and thousands of such.' ' I will not run the risk of weaken- 
 ing this reasoning by expansion. Its obvious inference 
 that, there being a God, there cannot be more than one, 
 could not be set forth more irresistibly. 
 
 That the wisdom of the Creator cannot be less than 
 the amount thereof manifested in His works is a self-evident 
 proposition, which none will be hardy enough directly to 
 dispute. There is, however, one critic, of great ability and 
 yet greater daring, who appears to doubt whether the wis- 
 dom manifested in the universe is anything to speak of. Mr. 
 Lewes' faculty of veneration is, I suspect, but imperfectly 
 developed, since ' the succession of phases which each (ani- 
 mal) embryo is forced to pass through,' is sufficient to give 
 its action pause. ' None of these phases,' he remarks, ' have 
 
 ' ' Auyuste Conite and Positivism,' pp. 25-8.
 
 270 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 any adaptation to the future state of the animal, but are 
 in positive contradiction to it, or are simply purposeless ; 
 many of them have no adaptation even to its embryonic 
 state ; whereas all show stamped on them the unmis- 
 takable characters of ancestral adaptations and the pro- 
 gressions of organic evolution.' ' What,' he asks, ' does 
 this fact imply ? ' ' There is not,' he continues, ' a single 
 known example of an organism which is not developed 
 out of simpler forms. Before it can attain the complex 
 structure which distinguishes it, there must be an evolution 
 'of forms which distinguish the structures of organisms 
 lower in the series. . . On the hypothesis of a plan 
 that pre-arranged the organic world ' (by no means, 
 however, necessarily in types that could not change, 
 but rather in types adapted and calculated to change), 
 ' nothing,' he considers, ' could be more unworthy of a 
 supreme intelligence than this inability to construct 
 an organism at once without making several tentative 
 efforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yes- 
 terday, and repeating for centuries the same tcntatives and 
 the same corrections in the same succession.' ' Anthro- 
 pomorphists,' he says, ' talk of " The Great Architect," em- 
 phasising the name with capitals,' but ' what should we 
 say to an architect who was unable, or, being able, was 
 obstinately unwilling, to erect a palace except by first 
 using his materials in the shape of a hut, then pulling it 
 down and rebuilding them as a cottage, then adding 
 storey to storey and room to room, not with any reference 
 to the ultimate purposes of the palace, but wholly with 
 reference to the way in which houses were constructed in 
 ancient times } What should we say to the architect who 
 could not form a museum out of bricks and mortar, but
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 27 r 
 
 was forced to begin as if going to build a mansion, and, 
 after proceeding some way in this direction, altered his 
 plan into a palace, and that again into a museum ? Would 
 there be a chorus of applause from the Institute of Archi- 
 tects, and favourable notices in the newspapers of this 
 profound wisdom ? ' ' 
 
 Notwithstanding the exulting tone in which these ques- 
 tions are put, and which seems to imply that in their pro- 
 poser's opinion they are unanswerable, they may, I think, 
 be very summarily disposed of. Whatever other com- 
 ments might be made on the conduct of an architect who 
 should build in the complex manner suggested, surely the 
 very last thing said would be that he did not know how 
 to build in simpler wise. His having actually built a 
 palace would be decisive proof of his knowing how to 
 build a palace ; and of all queer reasons for questioning his 
 possession of that much architectural knowledge, about 
 the queerest would be the fact of his having built, not a 
 palace only, but a hut and cottage in addition. And if, 
 adopting a still more complicated style, he should begin 
 by so constructing a hut that, if left to itself, it would draw 
 up brick and mortar from the earth, and grow into a 
 cottage, and then go on growing and adding storey to 
 storey till it became a palace, this surely would be a 
 proof not of less, but of infinitely more, arcliitectural 
 knowledge than if he had commenced and completed the 
 palace with his own hands. Not unwarrantably, perhaps, 
 may Mr. Lewes, reflecting that his own and every other 
 human organism's genesis has consisted of at least three 
 stages, oval, foetal, and infantine, wonder why he was not 
 formed all at once, 'as Eve was mythically affirmed to be 
 
 ' 'Fortnightly Review' fui June 1S68, 'Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses.'
 
 272 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 taken from Adam's rib, and Minerva from Jupiter's head,' 
 and why he was not brought forth full dressed in an inde- 
 finitely expansible suit of clothes. Not quite inexcusably, 
 perhaps, might he conceive the reason to be some mere 
 whim or humour of his Maker, though there might be 
 more gratitude in conjecturing that the triple process was 
 adopted for the purpose of assisting biological enquirers 
 like himself in their special researches. From so practised 
 a logician, however, about the very last thing to have 
 been here expected was that he should suggest creative 
 ' ignorance and incompetence ' as the only apparent alter- 
 native to denying a Creator altogether, as if incapacity 
 for a comparatively easy process were a likely reason for 
 choosing one greatly more difficult. It might have occurred 
 to Mr. Lewes that, if there were any absurdity in the 
 choice, the Being who made him and bestowed on him the 
 faculty of perceiving the absurdity, could not have failed 
 himself likewise to perceive it and consequently to avoid it. 
 Of divine power, the measure or measurelessness is obvi- 
 ously identical with that of divine wisdom. Both attributes 
 must be at least co-extensive with the universe ; both con- 
 sequently illimitable. Divine goodness, moreover, inas- 
 much as the creature's moral ideal cannot be superior to 
 his Creator's, must be at least as vast as human imagina- 
 tion : God must be at least as good as man can conceive 
 Him. But how, by goodness so transcending, conjoined 
 with immeasurable might, can the co-existence of evil be 
 tolerated } To this last, and perhaps greatest, among the 
 many great questionsbrought forward for renewed discussion 
 in these pages, I have long had by me an attempt at a 
 reply, which, finding myself unable either to strengthen or 
 shorten it by turning it into prose, I venture to submit in 
 its original rhythmical form.
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 273 
 
 A Voice came to me as I sate apart, 
 
 Pondering the burthen of life's mystery, 
 
 In dim perplexity, with troubled heart. 
 With whisper weak and faint it came to me, 
 
 Like feeble glimmer of the struggling moon 
 
 To wildcred mariner on midnight sea : 
 With whisper weak at first, but strengthening soon, 
 
 Like the moon's beam when fihny clouds disperse, 
 • And through my scattered doubts, with quiet tune, 
 Uttering in clear, apocalyptic verse, 
 
 Truth, which for comfort and monition sent, 
 
 E'en as the voice revealed, do I rehearse. 
 
 * What art thou ? Whence derived ? With what intent 
 Placed where perpetual hindrances exhaust 
 Thy wasted strength, in baffled effort spent ? 
 
 Where in blind maze, with crafty windings crossed. 
 With stumbling-blocks beset, with pitfalls strewed, 
 Thou wanderest, in endless error lost ; 
 
 Athirst beside glad rivers that elude, 
 With mocking lapse, thy tantalized pursuit. 
 And hungering where gilded husks delude 
 
 With bitter ashes as of Dead Sea fruit, 
 Ashes of Hope, but seed of Discontent, 
 That rears its upas growth from blighted root ? 
 
 Around, thou hear'st Creation eloquent, 
 Hymning creative attributes, and seest 
 The starry marvels of the firmament. 
 
 And marvels of the nearer earth, released 
 By impulse from within, not dimly shown. 
 Nor plainlier in the greatest than the least : 
 
 And, through the known discovering the unknown, 
 Acknowledgest thy Maker, power supreme. 
 Might, and dominion, deeming His alone. 
 
 Nor His the lax dominion mayst thou deem 
 
 That builds up empire, and when built, neglects. 
 Lo ! where, afar, sidereal orbits gleam, 
 
 What first impelled, impelling still, directs : 
 Urges and guides each solar chariot, 
 The mundane mass of every globe connects, 
 
 T
 
 274 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 By its own energy cohering not, 
 
 E'en as dead leaves, decaying languidly, 
 Not from themselves derive the force to rot. 
 
 ' All-strengthening, all-sustaining Deity, 
 Diffused throughout the infinite, abides, 
 Dwells and upholds : — then, haply, dwells in thee? 
 Yea, verily. Within thy frame resides 
 
 What, by its movement only mayst thou know. 
 The circling blood, thy being's ambient tides, 
 Is't thine own will that bids them ebb and flow. 
 And from their inundating flood depose 
 Organic germs, whence health and vigour grow ? 
 Yet though such witness serve thee to disclose 
 In human tenement divine abode, 
 Not thine be the material creed that shows 
 The spirit's birthplace in the moulded clod ; 
 Not thine the pantheist raving, that because 
 God dwelleth with thee, thou thyself art God. 
 Bethink thee — is't self-reverence that o'erawes 
 
 Thy prostrate soul, and from thy faltering tongue, 
 Subdued, involuntary homage draws ? 
 And when by harrowing pang thine heart is wrung, 
 Is't for self-aid thy wandering eyes inquire. 
 Heavenward, at length, in fervid suppliance flung ? 
 And from thy native slough of sensual mire, 
 Is't to the mark of thine own purity 
 Thy loftier aims and holier hopes aspire ? 
 Harshly thy fleshly fetters bear on thee, 
 In dark and dreary prison-house confined. 
 Cramped and diseased with long captivity. 
 And hath divine Intelligence designed 
 
 That noisome dungeon for her own restraint — 
 By her own act to galling bonds consigned, — 
 Self-doomed, with wilful purpose, to acquaint 
 Herself with sin and sorrow, and pollute 
 Ethereal essence with corj^oreal taint ? 
 How doth thy helpless misery confute 
 
 That frantic boast of vain conceit, untaugh 
 The paltriest of its ])lans to execute !
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 275 
 
 Hast thou the art to add, by taking thought, 
 
 One cubit to thy stature ? and hast thou, 
 
 Or such as thou. Nature's whole fabric wrought? 
 Not thine such vaunt — not thine to disavow 
 
 The lustre of thy genuine origin. 
 
 To the Most Highest, as thine author, bow 
 With rapture of exulting faith, wherein 
 
 Devotion's cravings their desire achieve, 
 
 The bright ideal that they imaged, win. 
 Rejoice that thus 'tis given thee to believe, — 
 
 To recognise transcending majesty, 
 
 Worthy all praise — all honour to receive : 
 Rejoice in that high presence, gratefully 
 
 Offering the vows that thy full heart dilate : 
 
 Rejoice that thence there floweth light, whereby 
 Thy emulative quest to elevate 
 
 Thitherward, where unblemished holiness 
 
 Irradiates sovereignty, benign as great. 
 
 * But here thou pausest, scrupling to confess 
 
 A providence of aspect all benign. 
 Fear not that sceptic scruple to express. 
 
 Of truth, Almighty Goodness could assign 
 Good only to the work of His own hand, 
 Warmed into life by His own breath divine : 
 
 And, where unchecked Beneficence had planned 
 A home for creatures of a fragile race. 
 Evoked from nothingness at His command. 
 
 Nor care, nor want, nor anguish should have place, 
 Nor fraud betray, nor violence oppress, 
 Nor hate inflame, nor wallowing lust debase, 
 
 Nor aught be found, save what conspired to bless 
 The sentient clay, wrought surely for that end, — 
 For wherefore wrought, if not for happiness ? 
 
 * Not, as some teach, for mastery to contend 
 
 With fate, — in doubtful conflict to engage, — 
 Struggling, in pain and peril, to ascend 
 Slowly, through this probationary stage, 
 
 Sore let, but tried and chastened, and thereby 
 Earning on earth a heavenly heritage. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 Was there then need that prescience should try, 
 By ordeal pitiless, assured event, 
 Disclosed beforehand to prophetic eye ? 
 
 Need was there, by austere experiment. 
 To test the frailty and the fall foreknown 
 Of man, beneath o'erwhelming burthen bent ? 
 
 In this was tutelar prension shown ? 
 Hardly may he, in such belief confide. 
 Who sees his fellow myriads left to groan 
 
 In barren penance, without light or guide, 
 
 E'en from their birth by fostering vice controlled, 
 Doomed as they cross life's threshold — doomed untried. 
 
 ' As hardly, too, may he the dogma hold 
 That fetters reason with a graduate chain 
 Of beings, linked in order manifold. 
 
 Where, to each link, 'tis given to sustain 
 A part subservient to the general weal, — 
 Duly to share the mutual burthen's strain : — 
 
 Though who from such allotment would appeal, 
 Could it be tmth that wisdom's masterpiece 
 Such aid could lack, such feebleness conceal, 
 
 Suing its own constituents for release 
 
 From wrong innate, throughout its texture wove, 
 By hard necessity, not light caprice ? 
 
 But to what purjDort could premonished Love 
 A system twined with mutual suffering weave, 
 When but a word all suffering would remove ? 
 
 And wherefore yet delayeth the reprieve 
 Of I.ove, that doth not willingly afflict 
 Its children, neither wantonly aggrieve ? 
 
 Can aught the gracious purpose interdict 
 
 Of Him, whose piercing eye, whose boundless sway, 
 No cloud can dim, no barrier restrict ? 
 
 Say'st thou, " By path inscrutable, and way 
 Past finding out, perchance, may mercy bend 
 To its own use, whate'er its course would stay. 
 
 And through the labouring world high mandate send 
 That all things work together unto good, 
 Work, though by means corrupt, to righteous end?"
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 277 
 
 Beware how such conjectures must conclude. 
 
 Can means imi)ure Omnipotence befit, 
 
 And clog the range of its solicitude ? 
 Can finite bonds confine the Infinite ? 
 
 Though man, by choice of ill, must needs oflfend, 
 
 Need God do ill that good may come of it? 
 Must havoc's mad typhoon perforce descend ? 
 
 May naught else serve to fan the stagnant air ? 
 
 Must captive fiame earth's quaking surface rend, 
 Or seek escape in lava flood ? and ere 
 
 Effete society new structure raise, 
 
 "Must dearth or pestilence the ground prepare ? 
 Thus is it that a parent's care purveys 
 
 His bounty, and, exacting rigorously 
 
 The price in tears, each boon's full cost defrays ? 
 Thus, with vain thrift withholding the decree, 
 
 That from his treasury's exhaustless store 
 
 To all could grant unbought felicity ? 
 
 ' But haply still 'tis reasoned (and with more 
 
 Of reason's semblance were the plea maintained), 
 That higher yet would life's ambition soar. 
 
 Not for mere scheme of happiness ordained, 
 But for advance in virtue, — for the growth 
 By patient zeal and meek endurance gained : 
 
 That, at the table of voluptuous sloth, 
 
 Though banqueted on sweets without alloy, 
 Unsated were a generous nature, loth 
 
 To feast where unearned lusciousness would cloy, 
 Faint with the tedium of unbroken rest, 
 Sick with the sameness of unruffled joy : 
 
 That for more poignant pleasure, and of zest 
 Heightened and edged by healthful exercise, — 
 For scope wherein her conscious strength to test 
 
 In keen pursuit and venturous enterprise. 
 For dear exemjilars, in whose course serene 
 Aficction's tearful warmth might sympathise. 
 
 For these the yearning mind would languish, e'en 
 Though with all else that wish could name endued, 
 While, in her striving for self-discipline,
 
 2/8 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 Foiled, and with fervid impulses imbued 
 
 Vainly, where neither aught could valour dare 
 Nor aught confront and challenge fortitude : 
 
 And where no outward token could declare 
 The hidden worth congenial heart would hail, 
 Hail with each kindred chord vibrating there ; 
 
 Since virtue wakes not but when griefs assail, 
 Or travail burthens, or temptations try. 
 Slumbering supine, till roused by adverse gale, 
 
 In the deep sleep of moral lethargy, 
 
 Joy's fullest cup, by hope or doubt unstirred, 
 Curdling the while to dull satiety. 
 
 ' Thus haply some have reasoned, undeterred 
 By reasoning, with equal emphasis 
 But counter aim, as readily preferred : 
 
 Since Heaven's perfection striveth not, nor is 
 In peril lest it lapse to apathy, 
 Or lassitude invade its tranquil bliss. 
 
 And were it as they deem, and righteously 
 
 Were man adjudged with his brow's sweat to eat 
 Bread leavened with embittering misery, 
 
 E'en then affliction's measure to complete. 
 
 Amply might pain, and want, and death suffice, 
 And feeling's blight, and baffled love's defeat. 
 
 And, on the altar of self-sacrifice, 
 
 Hope's withered blooms by resignation laid : 
 Nor were it needed that incarnate vice, 
 
 In human mould, in the same image made, 
 Trampled with iron hoof his fellow man. 
 Virtue's chastised development to aid. 
 
 For whence was Vice derived ? Ere life began, 
 For His own offspring could their Maker trace 
 Their loathsome office, and beneath his ban 
 
 Place them, accurst (creating to debase), 
 And doom as fuel for the flames that test 
 A favoured few, elect by partial grace ? 
 
 Elect or outcast— if alike confessed 
 
 Of the same parent, sons — brethren who bear 
 No differing lineaments, save those imprest
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 279 
 
 By his prevision — in ilieir parent's care 
 
 Should not all be partakers 1 Should not all 
 
 Freely, alike, his nurturing guidance share ? 
 Are any worthier? 'Tis that warning's call 
 
 Extends to them alone — 'tis that to them 
 
 Alone is given vigour, wherewithal 
 Temptation's fraudful violence to stem — 
 
 And how shall He, who needful strength denies, 
 
 Weakness for its predestined fall condemn ? 
 How, when the creature of His wrath replies 
 
 With feeble wail and inarticulate moan, 
 
 The sighing of that contrite heart despise ? 
 What man amongst thy fellows hast thou known 
 
 Who, if his son ask fish, will jeeringly 
 
 Give him a serpent, or for bread a stone ? 
 If ye, being evil, at your children's cry 
 . Know how to give good gifts, should not much more 
 
 Your heavenly Father His good things supply 
 To them who ask Him ? Should He not restore 
 
 A cleansed heart within them, and renew 
 
 An upright spirit ? not, what they implore 
 Reversing, and restraining, lest they do 
 
 The good they would, — constraining them withal 
 
 To do the evil they would fain eschew? 
 How wilt thou to the same original 
 
 Whence all just thoughts and pure desires proceed, 
 
 Impute corrupt imaginings, whose thrall 
 Enslaves anew the soul but newly freed 
 
 From their pollution ? Can a hybrid growth 
 
 Arise spontaneous from unmingled seed ? 
 Are grapes upon the bramble borne, or doth 
 
 The fig bear olive berries? Canst thou show 
 
 Twin waters, sweet and bitter, issuing both 
 From the same fountain ? Neither should there flow 
 
 Blessing and cursing from one mouth, nor yet 
 
 From the same Providence both weal and woe. 
 
 * Vile as thou art, ofttimes in thee have met 
 
 Mercy and Truth — and Peace and Righteousness 
 Have kissed each other ; and thine heart is set
 
 28o LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 Ofttimes to follow what is just, redress 
 
 Where thou hast trespassed, rendering; ofttimes, too, 
 Forgiving other's trespass : to distress 
 
 Thou grudgest not its sympathetic due 
 Of kindly deed, or word, or mutual tears, 
 Nor in vain wholly labourest to subdue 
 
 The hydra host whose foul miasm blears 
 Thy vision, and the distant gleam obscures 
 That dimly through thy prison casement peers. 
 
 E'en to the darkened dungeon that immures 
 Thy soul, some feeble glimmer finds its way. 
 Crushed beneath earthly durance, still endures 
 
 Some lingering fire below that weight of clay, 
 Some generous zeal, some honest hardihood, 
 Some faith — some charity. — And whence are they ? 
 
 If not of Him whose quickening breath endued 
 All things with life, — and, when he looked upon 
 What He had made, beheld that all was good : 
 
 All good, — but chiefly man, in whom alone 
 Some likeness of Himself — some clouded light, 
 From His own countenance reflected, shone. 
 
 Doth not the sun outshine the satellite ? 
 And shall not He who in the murkiest hour 
 Of sin's defilement, streaks thy dreary night 
 
 With beams that bid thee, lower yet and lower 
 Descending, hope, perchance, to rise again, — 
 Say — shall not He in holiness as power 
 
 Transcend the creature whom His gifts sustain ". 
 And here, if sneering casuist blaspheme, 
 And to divided nature's sovereign. 
 
 Ascribe, in nature's opposite extreme 
 Like eminence, and nature's God aver 
 In evil, even as in good, supreme, — 
 
 Heed not, or ask if man's Artificer 
 
 With His own work, in virtue matched, can prove 
 At once more holy and unholier ? 
 
 * Yet since all good is fruit of love, and love 
 Worketh no ill, how still doth ill abound ? 
 Is't haply that with love a rival strove ?
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 281 
 
 Mark well this parable. In chosen ground 
 
 Only good seed a husbandman had sown, 
 
 Yet when the blade sprang up, therewith he found 
 Tares that amid the stifled wheat had grown. 
 
 Then knew he well, how, entering unawares. 
 
 This, while men slept, an enemy had done. 
 And 'tis an enemy who, scattering tares 
 
 Amid the corn sown in Creation's field, 
 
 With deadly coil the growing plant ensnares. 
 And no mean enemy, nor one unsteeled 
 
 For bold defiance, nor reduced to cower 
 
 Ever in covert ambuscade concealed. 
 But at whose hest the ravening hell-hounds scour 
 
 A wasted world, while himself prowls to seek, 
 
 Like roaring lion, whom he may devour, 
 And upon whom his rancorous wrath to wreak. 
 
 Sniffing the tainted steam of slaughter's breath, 
 
 And lulled by agony's despairing shriek. 
 For it is he who hath the power of death. 
 
 Even the devil, by whom entereth sin 
 
 Into the world, and death engendereth : 
 Yea ! by whom entereth whatsoe'er within 
 
 Warreth against the spirit, — sordid greed, 
 
 Pride, carnal lust, envy to lust akin. 
 And malice, and deceit, whose treacheries breed 
 
 Strife between brethren, and the faith o'erthrow 
 
 Of many, and the duped deserters lead, 
 Beneath the banner of their deadliest foe, 
 
 In rebel arms a Parent to defy, 
 
 Whom, by His gifts alone, His children know. 
 
 • Not less that Parent marks with pitying eye 
 The blinded rage that rivets its own chain : 
 Not less to His own glorious liberty 
 
 Seeks, from corruption's bondage, to regain 
 His erring children, — by device, or lewd, 
 Or threatening, lured, or goaded to their bane : 
 
 Not less to overcome evil with good 
 
 Labours, and shall therewith all things subdue 
 Unto Himself— but hath not yet subdued.
 
 282 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. ■ 
 
 And wherefore ? wherefore tarrieth He, while through 
 Eden, by daring foray oft defaced, 
 Marauding fiends raaUgnant raid pursue, 
 
 Winging the turbid whirlwind's frantic haste, 
 Pointing the levin's arrowy effluence. 
 Over the mildewed harvest's hungry waste, 
 
 Breathing the fetid breath of pestilence, 
 And crying havoc to the dogs of war, 
 Let slip on unresisting innocence ? 
 
 Why suffereth He that thus a rival mar 
 
 His cherished work — through devastated fields 
 Borne on triumphant in ensanguined car ? — 
 
 Him, who with power to rescue, tamely yields 
 His helpless charge to persecuting hate. 
 Nor His own offspring from the torturer shields. 
 
 But sits aloof, callously obdurate, 
 
 While but the will is lacking to redeem, — 
 Him, how shall fitting stigma designate ? 
 
 ' But 'tis not thus thy calmer doubts esteem 
 The loving-kindness that with open hand 
 Dispenses bounty in perennial stream. 
 
 Oft hast thou proved, while in a foreign land 
 A sojourner, as all thy fathers were, 
 Thou pacest painfully the barren sand. 
 
 How o'er thy path watches a Comforter, 
 And scatters manna daily for thy food, 
 And bids the smitten rocks that barrier 
 
 The arid track, well out with gurgling flood, 
 And oft to shade of green oasis leads, 
 And, from pursuer thirsting for thy blood, 
 
 Such scanty shelter as is thine provides : 
 And though full oft that shelter fails, and though 
 Its torn defence demoniac glee derides, 
 
 Yet not for this the cheerful faith forego, 
 That memory of uncounted benefits 
 And conscious instinct's still, small tones bestow. 
 
 Charge not thy God with aught that unbefits 
 Tenderest compassion, nor believe that He 
 With hardened apathetic scorn commits
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 283 
 
 A favoured people throughout Hfe to be 
 
 Subject to bondage. Doubt not of His will 
 To rescue from that galling tyranny. 
 
 Yet, if in His despite creation still 
 
 In thraldom groan and travail — what remains? 
 What but that strength is wanting to fulfil 
 
 His scheme of mercy? What but that He reigns, 
 Not as sole wielder of omnipotence, 
 But, o'er a world unconquered yet, maintains 
 
 Encounter with opposing influence, 
 
 Which He shall surely quell, but which can stay, 
 Awhile unquelled, His mightier providence. 
 
 'And doth this sadden only, or dismay? 
 
 Grieves it that He, whose follower thou art, 
 Rules not supreme with unresisted sway ? 
 
 Or that, the progress of His grace to thwart, 
 Satanic might the host of hell arrays ? 
 And doth it not a thrill of joy impart 
 
 That not alone need barren prayer anj praise 
 Thine homage be, — thy choicest offering 
 The formal dues prescribed obedience pays ? 
 
 Henceforth with firmer step approach thy King. 
 Some puny succour, thou, in thy degree, 
 Some feeble aid, thou, even thou, mayst bring ! 
 
 In the fell conflict raging ceaselessly 
 
 Around, thou, too, mayst join — thou, too, engage 
 In that dread feud, tw^in with eternity, 
 
 Which faithful angels and archangels wage 
 Against the powers of darkness, to extend. 
 O'er realms retained in demon vassalage, 
 
 Their sovereign's pure dominion, — and to blend 
 All worlds beneath one righteous governance, 
 Into one kingdom which shall have no end. 
 
 ' Wouldst thou, if haply so thou mayst, advance 
 
 That blessed consummation ? Wouldst thou speed 
 The lingering hour of Earth's deliverance ? 
 Arise — the naked clothe, the hungry feed, 
 
 The sick and wounded tend, — soothe the distressed. 
 If thy weak arm cannot protect, yet plead
 
 :84 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 With bold rebuke the cause of the oppressed, 
 Kindhng hot shame in Mammon's votaries, 
 Abashed, at least, in lucre's grovelling quest ; 
 
 And, in the toil-worn serf, a glad surprise 
 Awakening — when, from brute despondency, 
 Taught to look up to heaven with dazzled eyes. — 
 
 Thus mayst thou do God service, — thus apply 
 Thyself, within thy limit, to abate 
 What wickedness thou seest, or misery: 
 
 Thus, in a Sacred Band, associate 
 
 New levies, from the adverse ranks of Sin 
 Converted, — against Sin confederate. 
 
 Or — if by outward act to serve, or win 
 
 Joint followers to the standard of thy Lord, 
 Thy lot forbid, — turn, then, thy thought within : 
 
 Be each recess of thine own breast explored : 
 There, o'er thy passions be thy victories won : 
 There, be the altar of thy faith restored, 
 
 And thou, a living sacrifice, thereon 
 
 Present thyself — This ever mayst thou do, 
 .Nor, doing this, wilt aught have left undone.' 
 
 Here ceased the Voice, commissioned to renew 
 Truth, which, of old, when Bactrian sage began 
 Nature's dim maze to thread with slenderest clue. 
 
 Its doubtful scope and daik design to scan, 
 With inward whisper, hopeful witness bare. 
 And justified the ways of God to man. 
 
 And suddenly its warning ceased, but ere 
 
 It ceased, the scales had fallen from my eyes, 
 And I beheld, and shall I not declare 
 
 What my uncurtained vision testifies ? 
 
 Shall coward lips the word of life suppress ? 
 The oracle vouchsafed from Heaven disguise ? 
 
 Nay, as one crying in the wilderness, 
 
 Where none else hearken, to the vacant air 
 And stolid mountains utters his distress, 
 
 E'en so will I too cry aloud, ' Prepare 
 
 Before Him the Lord's way. Make His path straight,' 
 Nor heed though none regard me, nor forbear
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 285 
 
 Though all revile, but patiently await 
 
 Till, like light breath that panting meads exhale, 
 And scornful zephyrs lightly dissipate. 
 
 But which, full surely, down the echoing vale. 
 Shall roll with sounding current, swift and loud. 
 My slighted message likewise shall prevail, 
 
 Entering the heart of many a mourner, bowed 
 Beneath despair, and with inspiring voice 
 Calling to hope to cleave her midnight cloud. 
 
 And bidding grief, in hope's new dawn, rejoice. 
 
 This is a creed which long since came to mc after 
 earnest inward communings, and which, though subse- 
 quent reflection has in some few particulars modified it, 
 I still in substance hold, clinging to it with a grateful 
 consciousness of ever-multiplying obligations. For in 
 it the soul has free scope for its loftiest aspirations and 
 its widest and deepest sympathies, strongest incentives 
 to zeal, surest guidance for activity, solace in every dis- 
 tress, support under every difficulty, added cause for 
 exultation in every success, renewed resolution in every 
 defeat. Still, it is here offered, not as ascertained truth, 
 but merely as a sample of those guesses at truth by which 
 alone ordinary mortals need hope to promote the common 
 cause of humanity in any of its higher bearings. Such 
 guesses, however, when harmonising with all the con- 
 ditions of their subject-matter, may fairly claim to be 
 provisionally regarded as truths — nay, to be adopted as 
 working hypotheses until superseded by new hj'pothcses 
 capable of doing the same work better ; in which super- 
 cession none ought to rejoice, nor, if sincere truth-seekers, 
 will rejoice, more cordially than the propounders of the 
 discredited doctrines. It is in this spirit and with these 
 reservations that the articles of faith above recited arc
 
 286 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 submitted for consideration. How much soever they may 
 fall short of the truth, they are, I feel, in the absence of 
 any nearer approach to the truth, capable of rendering 
 excellent service. However faintly and hazily the out- 
 lines of Deity be shown in them, the Deity whom they 
 so imperfectly delineate is yet one to whom may justly 
 be ascribed glory in the highest, one worthy of all 
 trust, love, and adoration — of an adoration, too, inclusive 
 not more of praise than prayer. 
 
 If the divine claim to the last-named tribute be dis- 
 puted, it had better be by arguments other than those 
 on which certain writers, with Mr. Galton for their leader 
 and Professor Tyndall for their backer, have been re- 
 cently expending much misapplied ingenuity. If the 
 efficacy of prayer be, as the foremost of these declares 
 it to be, ' a perfectly appropriate and legitimate subject 
 of scientific enquiry,' the enquiry ought at least to be 
 conducted according to scientific rules. On this point 
 Mr. Galton himself lays much stress, intimating that 
 whereas an unscientific reasoner may be expected to be 
 ' guided by a confused recollection of crude experience, 
 a scientific reasoner will scrutinise each separate experi- 
 ence before he admits it as evidence, and will compare 
 all the cases he has selected on a methodical system.' 
 Nevertheless, a brief examination of the experiences on 
 which he and his principal associate rely, may suggest 
 some doubt as to which of the two specified classes of 
 reasoners it is that they themselves belong. 
 
 The facts or fancies cited by Mr. Galton in proof that 
 praying is of no use are the following : i. ' Sick people who 
 pray or are prayed for do not on the average recover 
 more rapidly than others.' 2. Although ' the public prayer
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 287 
 
 for the sovereign of every state, Protestant or Catholic, 
 is and has been in the spirit of our own — "Grant her in 
 health long to live " — sovereigns are literally the shortest- 
 lived of all persons who have the advantage of affluence.' 
 3. The ' clergy are a far more prayerful class ' than either 
 lawyers or medical men, it being ' their profession to 
 pray,' and ' their practice that of offering morning and 
 evening family prayers in addition to their private devo- 
 tions,' yet ' wc do not find that the clergy are in any 
 way more long-lived in consequence ; ' rather, there is 
 room for believing their class to be the ' shortest-lived 
 of the three.' Nay, even missionaries, eminently prayer- 
 ful as they are themselves, and prayed for as they are 
 with especial earnestness by others, ' are not sup^rnaturally 
 endowed with health,' and 'do not live longer than other 
 people.' 4. ' The proportion of deaths at the time of birth 
 is identical among the children of the praying and the non- 
 praying classes.' 5. Though 'we pray in our Liturgy that "the 
 nobility may be endowed with grace, wisdom, and under- 
 standing,'" our ' nobility are peculiarly subject to insanity ;' 
 as are likewise, indeed, 'very religious people of all deno- 
 minations,' ' religious madness being very common indeed.* 
 6. So far from ' religious influences ' appearing to have 
 ' clustered in any remarkable degree round the youth 
 of those who, whether by their talents or their social 
 position, have left a mark upon English history,' ' remark- 
 able devotional tendencies ' have been conspicuous chiefly 
 by their absence from ' the lives either of our Lord Chan- 
 cellors or of the leaders of our great political parties ; ' 
 while, out of our twenty-three extant dukes, four at least, 
 if not five, are descended from mistresses of Charles II., 
 not a sin^jle one of them, on the other hand, being
 
 288 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 known to Mr. Galton to be of ' eminently prayerful quali- 
 ties.' 7. In respect of those ' institutions, societies, com- 
 mercial adventures, political meetings and combinations 
 of all sorts ' with which England so much abounds, and 
 of which ' some are exclusively clerical, some lay, and 
 others mixed,' Mr. Galton ' for his own part never heard a 
 favourable opinion of the value of the preponderating clerical 
 element in their business committees.' * The procedure of 
 Convocation which, like all exclusively clerical meetings, 
 is opened with prayer, has not inspired the outer world 
 with much respect.' Nay, ' it is a common week-day 
 opinion of the world that praying people are not practical.' 
 8. In those numerous instances in which an enterprise is 
 executed by the agency of the profane on behalf not of 
 the profane themselves but of pious clients, ' the enter- 
 prises are not observed to prosper beyond the average.' 
 Underwriters recognise no difference in the risks run by 
 missionary ships and by ordinary traders, nor do life 
 insurance companies, before they accept a life, introduce 
 into their ' confidential enquiries into the antecedents of 
 . the applicant ' any ' such question as " Does he habitually 
 use family prayers and private devotions .-' " ' Neither are 
 the funds of devout shareholders and depositors at all safer 
 than those of the profane when entrusted to the custody of 
 untrustworthy directors, not even though the day's work 
 of the undertaking commence, as that of the disastrous 
 Royal British Bank used to do, with solemn prayer.' 
 
 Two or three minutes' attention to the grounds for, 
 and the circumstances connected with, these statements, 
 may assist us in appreciating Mr. Galton's notion of the 
 
 ' ' Statistical Enquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer,' by Francis Galton, in 
 Fomightly Review,' for August 1872.
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 289 
 
 difference between confusedly recollected experiences and 
 experiences properly scrutinised and methodically selected. 
 For the statement first on the list, some negative evi- 
 dence is considered to be afforded by the absence of any 
 'single instance in which papers read before Statistical 
 Societies have recognised the agency of prayer either in 
 disease or in anjthing else.' The chief authority for it, 
 however, is the eloquent silence of medical men ' who, had 
 prayers for the sick any notable effect, would be sure 
 to have observed it,' seeing that they are ' always on- 
 the watch for such things.' But arc they really, in every 
 case of recovery from illness that comes under their notice, 
 so particular and so successful in their enquiries whether 
 any, and, if so, how much, prayer has been offered on 
 behalf of the patient, as to be quahfied to judge whether 
 prayer has had anything to do with the cure ? If not, 
 although they may be showing their discretion by not 
 speaking on the point, the 'eloquence of their silence ' must 
 not be too hastily interpreted. For doctors, of all men, 
 should be the last to deny, as an abstract proposition, the 
 efficacy of prayer in disease, knowing, as they do, how 
 great is the curative influence of prayer when addressed 
 to themselves. How, they may naturally ask, is it to be 
 expected that sickness should be cured unless properly 
 treated .■* and how can it be properly treated without a 
 doctor .'' and how can a doctor be expected to attend 
 unless he be asked .-* Upon which very natural queries 
 others naturally follow. What would be the good of the 
 doctor's coming unless he prescribed judiciously .'' and 
 will he not more certainly prescribe judiciously if his 
 judgment be guided by special interposition of divine 
 grace ? and if pra)'er to himself has plainly been one 
 
 U
 
 290 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 condition of his coming, why may not prayer to God have 
 been one condition of his judgment having been rightly 
 guided ? Will it be pretended that God's proceedings 
 are abjectly submissive to inexorable laws from which 
 those of the doctor are exempt, and that though the latter 
 would certainly not have attended unless he had been 
 asked, the grace of God, if given at all, must have been 
 given equally whether asked for or not ? 
 
 Statements 2 and 3 are founded on a memoir by Dr. 
 Guy, purporting to show the ' Mean Age attained by 
 males of various classes who had survived their 30th year 
 from 1758 to 1843,' and whose deaths were not caused 
 by violence or accident. According to this table, the 
 average age of 97 members of royal houses was only 
 64-04, while that of 1,179 members of the English aris- 
 tocracy was 67-31, and that of 1,632 gentlemen commoners 
 70'22 ; the proportion between the total number of royal, 
 and that of noble and gentle, personages who died within 
 the period specified, being apparently supposed to be as 
 97 to 281 1, or as I to about 29. Except upon this sup- 
 position, Mr. Galton could not with any consistency have 
 appealed to these figures, for he had previously announced 
 his intention to be 'guided solely by broad averages and 
 not to deal with isolated instances.' He seems, however, 
 to forget this judicious rule when he comes to treat of the 
 clergy, of whom 945 are compared in the table with 294 
 lawyers and 244 medical men. Here, he says, ' the clergy 
 as a whole show a life value of 69'49 against 68-14 for 
 lawyers, and 67-31 for medical men;' but then, he adds 
 ' this difference is reversed ' when the comparison is made 
 between members of the three classes sufficiently dis- 
 tinguished to have had their lives recorded in Chalmers'
 
 LIMITS 01- DEMOXSTRAlil.E TIUIISM. t^i 
 
 Biographical Dictionary or the Annual Register, the value 
 of life among clergy, lawyers, and medical men thcii 
 appearing as66'42, 66*51 and 6734 respectivel)'. Whether, 
 of the distinguished professional men concerned in this 
 second comparison, the parsons were distinguished for 
 their prayerfulness and the lawyers and doctors for their 
 prayerlessness, Mr. Galton omits to state ; and still more 
 serious omissions on his part are those of not mentioning 
 in what part of our Liturgy we are accustomed to pray 
 that it may be granted to the Queen, not simply long 
 to live, but also to live longer than other people ; like- 
 wise in which of ' the numerous published collections of 
 family prayers ' that have undergone his scrutiny, is to 
 be found a petition that parsons may live longer than 
 lawyers or doctors ; and, yet again, since an average^ falling 
 short of threescore years and ten by little more than three 
 and a half, is so contemptuously rejected by him, what 
 is the precise number of years that would be accepted 
 by him as a liberal compliance with prayer for long life ? 
 
 While deducing his argument from clergymen, Mr. Galton 
 makes repeated and particular reference to the clerical 
 sub-gcmis, missionaries, treating it as the more remark- 
 able that these should not enjoy comparative immunity 
 from disease, because, as he suggests, it would have been 
 so easy for God to have made them a favoured class in 
 respect of health : to wit, by the notable expedient of 
 dissuading them from exposing themselves to any of the 
 risks peculiarly attendant on missionary enterprise. ' Tro- 
 pical fever, for example, is due to many subtle causes which 
 are partly under man's control. A single hour's exposure 
 to sun, or wet, or fatigue, or mental agitation will determine 
 
 an attack.' What more simple than for God so to ' act 
 
 u 2
 
 292 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 on the minds of the missionaries as to disincline them to 
 take those courses which might result in mischance, such 
 as the forced march, the wetting, the abstinence from food, 
 or the night exposure ?' What more simple, either, it may 
 be added, than for God to save prayerful soldiers from ever 
 being killed in battle by merely putting it into their minds 
 to desert whenever they are ordered upon active service ? 
 
 That ' the distribution of still-births is wholly unaffected 
 by piety' Mr. Galton has satisfied himself by finding, 'on 
 examination of a particular period, that the proportion of 
 such births published in the ' Record ' newspaper and in the 
 ' Times ' bore an identical relation to the total number of 
 deaths,' He had previously, we must suppose, satisfied 
 himself that advertisers in the ' Times ' never say their 
 prayers. 
 
 For the asserted commonness of religious madness Mr. 
 Galton cites no evidence whatever, and, to judge from the 
 sympathies and antipathies of which one of his avow^ed 
 opinions may be supposed to be the subject and the object, 
 speaks probably on this point solely from hearsay. Very 
 possibly, however, his assurance of the extraordinary pre- 
 valence of insanity among British noblemen may be based 
 on personal observation, as, of course, is that regarding the 
 prayerlessness of his own ducal acquaintances. Birds of a 
 feather, proverbially, flock together, and the same touch of 
 irreligion may quite possibly suffice to make certain dukes 
 and certain commoners kin. 
 
 Against the inefficiency, however notorious, of the cleri- 
 cal element in business committees, ought in fairness to be 
 set the equally notorious efficiency of Jesuits in whatever 
 they undertake, the signal statecraft displayed by the 
 Wolseys, the Richclieus, and the Ximenes's of the days in
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 293 
 
 which cardinals and archbishops were permitted to take a 
 leading part in executive politics, and the very respectable 
 figure still presented by the lords spiritual, beside the lords 
 temporal of the British House of Peers. As for ' the 
 common week-day opinion that praying people are not prac- 
 tical,' those by whom it is entertained, of course, mentally 
 except praying Quakers. 
 
 The fact that insurance offices do not attempt to dis- 
 tinguish between the prayerful and the prayerless, but, 
 treating both classes as liable to the same risks, exact from 
 both the same premiums, proves, I submit, nothing against 
 the efficacy of prayer, not even that the managers of in- 
 surance offices do not believe in it. The statement that 
 prayerful and prayerless, when placing their money in the 
 same dishonest keeping, or engaging in the same bad 
 speculations, suffer losses, bearing exactly the same propor- 
 tion to their respective ventures, although most probably 
 quite true, is also one which Mr. Galton has neglected to 
 verify by the application to it of any test, scientific or other. 
 Finally, If the disasters of the Royal British Bank are to 
 be ascribed to its custom of opening business with prayer, 
 not only ought the cackle of Convocation to be attributed 
 to a similar cause, but also all the legislative botchcry of 
 the House of Commons, and the abolition of prayer before 
 debate should be treated as the most urgently needed of 
 those further parliamentary reforms with which the fertile 
 brains of certain eminent statesmen are suspected to be 
 teeming. 
 
 Thus much by way of intimation that there would be no 
 excessive temerity in encountering Mr. Galton even on the 
 ground of his own choosing, were that ground really worth 
 contending for. But baseless and exorbitant as all Mr.
 
 294 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 Galton's postulates are, there is not one of them to which 
 he might not be made heartily welcome, for any effect its 
 surrender could have upon the real issue, the true nature 
 whereof both Mr. Galton and his principal coadjutor have, 
 with marvellous sleight of eye, contrived completely to 
 overlook. Such Pharisees in science, such .sticklers for 
 rigorously scientific method, might have been expected to 
 begin by authenticating the materials they proposed to 
 operate upon, and, when professing to experiment upon 
 pure metal, at least to see that it was not mere dross they 
 were casting into the crucible. Plainly, however, they de- 
 spise any such nice distinctions. The most earnest prayer 
 and the emptiest ceremonial prate are both alike to them. 
 What sort of a process they imagine prayer to be may be 
 at once perceived from the sort of trials to which they 
 desire to subject it. 
 
 * After much thought and examination,' the coadjutor 
 aforesaid — a bashful Teucer, over whom Professor Tyndall 
 has, like a second Ajax Telamon, extended, with chivalrous 
 haste, the shelter of his shield— does ' not hesitate to propose 
 that one single ward or hospital under the care of first-rate 
 physicians or surgeons, containing a number of patients 
 afflicted with those diseases which have been best studied, 
 and of which the mortality rates are best known, should be, 
 during a period of not less than three to five years, made 
 the object of special prayer by the whole body of the faith- 
 ful, and that, at the end of that time, the mortality rates 
 should be compared with the past rates, a'nd also with those 
 of other leading hospitals similarly well managed during 
 the same period.'* In suggesting this experiment, termed 
 
 ' ' Contemporary Review,' July 1872. 'The Prayer for the Sick. Hints 
 towards a serious attempt to estimate its value.' Communicated by Prof. Tyndall.
 
 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 295 
 
 by himself 'exhaustive and complete,' its propoundcr 
 imagines himself to be offering to the faithful ' an occasion 
 of demonstrating to the faithless an imperishable record of 
 the real power of prayer.' If, however, he were himself 
 petitioning for the reprieve of a condemned criminal, he 
 would scarcely expect to succeed, even with so tender- 
 hearted a minister as Mr. Bruce, if he were to let out in the 
 course of his supplications, that he did not care whether he 
 succeeded or not, and was asking for the reprieve solely for 
 the purpose of ascertaining whether the head of the Home 
 Office is really invested with the prerogative of mercy. 
 Yet no suspicion crosses his mind that the Searcher of Hearts 
 may possibly be displeased with prayers addressed to Him by 
 the lips ofthose who were, all the while, saying in their hearts 
 that they did not want their prayers to be granted, but 
 only wanted to satisfy their curiosity to know whether they 
 would be granted or not. Equally remarkable is the trust- 
 fulness of Mr. Galton, in opining that ' it would be perfectly 
 practicable to select out of the patients at different hospi- 
 tals under treatment for fractures, or amputations, or other 
 common maladies, whose course is so well understood as to 
 admit of accurate tables being constructed for their duration 
 and result, two considerable groups, the one consisting of 
 markedly religious and piously befriended individuals, the 
 other of those who were remarkably cold-hcartcd and neg- 
 lected ; and that, then, an honest comparison of their 
 respective periods of treatment, and the result, would mani 
 fest a distinct proof of the efficacy of prayer, if it existed to 
 even a minute fraction of the amount that religious teachers 
 exhort us to believe.' Evidentl}', he imagines that it would 
 -be sufficient for the hospital authorities to advertise — not 
 of course, in the ' Times.' but in the ' Record ' — and that,
 
 296 LIMITS OF DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 
 
 thereupon, whoever, having entered into his closet and shut 
 the door, had, on behalf of any of the patients experimented 
 upon, prayed to the Father who seeth in secret, would at 
 once come forth and proclaim openly how he had been 
 engaged. Not by ' arguments ' of no greater 'cogency' 
 than that of any based upon results thus obtainable, need 
 either of the two experimentalists expect to persuade 
 praying people that prayer is, ' in the natural course of 
 events,' doomed to become 'obsolete, just as the Waters of 
 Jealousy and the Urim and Thummin of the Mosaic Law 
 did in the times of the later Jewish Kings.' Not quite so 
 easily will they cause it to be ' abandoned to the domain 
 of recognised superstition,' just as belief in witches and in 
 the Sovereign's touch as a cure for scrofula, and ' many 
 other items of ancient faith have already successively been.' 
 Both of them have, it seems, yet to learn that the only prayer 
 which is believed by people of some little enlightenment to 
 be of any avail, is the ' fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous 
 man,' prayer that cometh from ' a pure heart fervently,' 
 prayer that is made ' with the spirit and with the under- 
 standing also.' Prayer of this sort is not to be discredited 
 by any abundance of statistical testimony to the futility of 
 cold lip-worship, or by any number of fresh examples 
 of the generally recognised fact that the children of 
 this world are wiser in their generation than the children 
 of light. The recovery from the very jaws of death of 
 King Hezekiah, of Louis XV. of France, while as yet 
 undetected and bicn-aimc, and of the present Prince of 
 Wales, may, none the less probably, have been in part due 
 to the prayers offered up for the first by himself, for the 
 second, according to President Renault and Mr. Carlyle, 
 by all Paris, and, for the third, by the whole British empire,
 
 LIMITS 01' DEMONSTRABLE THEISM. 297 
 
 because lessons appointed to be regularly said or sung \\\ 
 churches for the prolongation of the Sovereign's life, and 
 said and sung by the congregations to whom they are set, 
 with equal regularity, whether the Sovereign be well or ill, 
 detested or beloved, are to all appearance disregarded. 
 Modern believers in prayer are well aware that, although 
 they ask, they ma)' nc^t receive if they ask amiss, and would 
 accept this as fully adequate explanation of the disappoint- 
 ment of anyone, who had the face to pray that he might 
 grow as rich as the late Mr. Brassey, or be created a duke, 
 or appointed Lord Chancellor, or supplant Mr. Gladstone in 
 the premiership, or Mr. D'Israeli in the leadership of Her 
 Majesty's Opposition. Moreover, tlie spirit, duly seasoned 
 with understanding, in which alone true prayer can be 
 made, is one, not of presumptuous dictation to a Heavenly 
 P'ather, but of sincere and grateful recognition that ' He 
 knoweth better than ourselves what is for our good.' Far 
 from praying for selfish aggrandisement, we cannot, if we 
 pray aright, pray that, whether from ourselves or others, 
 the cup of affliction may pass awa}-, \\ithout adding, 
 ' Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' The only 
 gifts that can with propriety be prayed for unconditionally 
 are gifts s})iritual — cleansing of tlic thoughts of the heart, 
 .strength to resist temptation, strength to endure trials, 
 strength to perform our appointed work ; and whoever may 
 think fit to make these the subjects of statistical inquirj-, 
 may depend upon being assured by everyone experi- 
 mentally qualified to re})l\', that they are never asked for 
 faithfull}- without being obtained effectuall)' ; together with 
 large measure, if not of the cheerfulness, at least of the 
 patience, of hope. 
 
 .\
 
 298 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 If with rash step, or with presumptuous word 
 
 I have transgressed, or with unshrinking eye 
 
 Have sought to pierce the awful mystery 
 
 That veils thy Godhead, yet forgive me, Lord I 
 
 Thou knowest that I sought not to draw nigh 
 
 Thy Throne, save that my witness might record 
 
 More truly of Thine attributes, whereby 
 
 On Earth, e'en as in Heaven, might be adored 
 
 The fulness of Thy glory. Not in wrath 
 
 His tre^ass wilt Thou judge, whom, licence, bred 
 
 Of zeal, though blinded, yet devout, betrays, 
 
 Nor scorn the unconscious wanderer from Thy path. 
 
 Nor leave me hopeless, if indeed misled 
 
 By thirst for truth, more deep in error's maze. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 ON LABOUR: 
 
 ITS WRONGFUL CLAIMS AND RIGHTFUL DUES; 
 ITS ACTUAL PRESENT AND POSSIBLE FUTURE. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 8vo. cloth, price 14s. 
 
 'This is a book which all true economists should welcome.' 
 
 Economist. 
 
 ' It may be doubted whether any considerable economic work of equal 
 merit has appeared since the first publication of Mr. Mill's " Political 
 Economy. " . Athen/EUM. 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., London.
 
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