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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
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M A N, 
 
 IN Hl> PHYSICAL STRUCrURK AND ADAPTATIONS. 
 
 BY ROBERT MUDIE, 
 
 A l' I II O H O K " 1' H K H K A V K N S ," " T H K K O U B S K A •< O .N « ," 
 " T UK 11 K I I 1 S U N A T f R * I. I -i T," iStC, ScC. 
 
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 THE DYING OLADIATOH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 \VM. S. ORR & CO., AMEN CORNER, 
 PATfclRNGSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCXXXVIII. 
 
MAN 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 There is a beautiful allegory in the Book of Job, which, 
 like every allegoi-y in the Sacred Volume, is applicable to 
 all conditions of men, and all pursuits in which they can 
 engage. Job is afflicted ; and, being in ignorance of the 
 cause, he laments, and labours to discover it. His three 
 wise and learned friends come to comfort him by pointing 
 out the justice of his affliction, and they lecture him on 
 the stubbornness of his ignorance ; but Job rejects their 
 schooling w^ith all the boldness of a man conscious of his 
 own integrity, and appeals from them to the judgment of 
 his Maker. Then Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, 
 a young man who lays no claim to wisdom, comes forward 
 to plead with Job, " in God's stead," as Job himself had 
 wished— that is, in the simple voice of nature. He argues 
 from the government of creation, and of Man as a portion 
 of this creation ; and shows that the real condition of Man 
 can be known only from the study of the power, the 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 wisdom, and the goodness of God, as displayed in the phe- 
 nomena of nature ; that every hypothesis resting upon 
 a foundation different from this is vain and void ; and he 
 closes his oration with these remarkable words : — " Men 
 do therefore fear him : he respecteth not any that are wise 
 in heart ;" — that is, any who pretend to have wisdom, or 
 knowledge, of themselves, in addition to that which they 
 derive from observation and experience. Then comes the 
 climax of the allegory : — The Lord answers Job " out of 
 the whirlwind" — Sia XaiXattos koL vi<pQ)v — out of the tur- 
 moil of the clouds. Wisdom from on high breaks through 
 the doubt and difficulty of the troubled mind; and the 
 voice of this wisdom is still the voice of nature, though, 
 being in the first person, and rising in expression with the 
 speaker, it is far more striking than the preliminary or 
 preparatory discourse of the son of Barachel. 
 
 Men in all ages have their afflictions as well as the 
 Patriarch, or if they have them not, they make them ; and, 
 like the Patriarch, they long for wisdom, whereby they 
 may find the means of relief. 
 
 On no subject is this longing more hard to be gi*atified 
 than on the subject of ourselves — our real place and pur- 
 pose in the world, and the final destiny of our being. If, 
 when the whole of wild nature around us is in a state of 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 perpetual enjoyment, and we are in constant toil and 
 activity, our final destiny be to feed the larvae of blind 
 beetles, the little finger of our affliction is tenfold thicker 
 than the loins of that which fell upon Job : his burden 
 was a mote — ours is a millstone. 
 
 Then, the men who liave taken upon themselves the 
 office of assisting us in this matter — though, like Job's 
 three friends, they have been men of much wisdom — yet, 
 in general, they have come under the denomination of 
 "the wise in heart," — that is, they have formed their 
 assertions on their own theories or hypotheses, and not on 
 that which exists, and can be observed or fairly inferred 
 from actual observation. Hence, they reprove, but they 
 do not reform ; they lecture, but they do not instruct. 
 
 Accordingly, the subject which it should interest us the 
 most to know, is the one of which we are most ignorant 
 and to the study of which we have the greatest and most 
 general aversion. There is a fear to approach it, some- 
 thing analogous to the fear which children have to go into 
 the dark — not because they know that there is any specific 
 cause of alarm, but from di-ead that there may be such a 
 cause. They who bring us into this state, or who leave us 
 in it, however vain they may be, are but Job's comforters 
 
 to us. They only add the burden of their own tediousnes' 
 
 A 2 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 to that which was grievous before ; and we shrink from 
 them as Job did from his friends, and we fall back upon 
 our own thoughts with more bitterness of spii-it than 
 ever. 
 
 I have seen this in the cases of many, and I have felt it 
 in my own ; and therefore, after much reflection on the 
 subject, I am anxious, though of course in a very humble 
 way, to perform the part of Elihu. I profess not to teach : 
 I can only point out to others the way in which I flatter 
 myself that I have obtained instruction — ay, and some 
 portion of that moral confidence which poises a man erect 
 in his position, let the wind of the world blow as it lists. 
 We must not trust to human theories, let them be backed 
 by what authority of name they may. We must read the 
 Book — that volume which is never closed, and the charac- 
 ters whereof are traced by the creative finger. We must 
 study Man as he actually is, in his structure and in his 
 conduct, from the hour of his birth to the final expiration 
 of his breath ; and this we must do— from a Icnowledge 
 of the other creatures, and a full and fair comparison with 
 them— whether he is as perfectly, fully, and exclusively of 
 and for the present world as they are, or whether there is 
 not in him an adaptation for which the present world has 
 no counterpart— a desire which it cannot gratify ; and upon 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 the result of this, and upon no other sure foundation, we 
 must build our hopes. If we do not this, our words and 
 our worshippings are empty words and useless observances ; 
 and we are like a thistle-down in the pathless desert, at 
 the mercy of every wind. If we do not, by some such 
 process as this, establish the Man ui one firm and demon- 
 strative belief, then are we at the mercy of the animal — 
 the mere slaves of animal passion ; and, if such is the case, 
 it matters not much whether the outgoing of the passion 
 be in cupidity or in cant, if these really are difTerent ; for 
 if the one invades the possession, the other is as prone to 
 mangle the reputation. 
 
 On such a subject, it is necessary to write with a caution 
 bordering upon tameness, more especially at the beginning ; 
 for, upon the same principle as the more feeble of the 
 canine breed are always the foremost to give tongue, they 
 who understand the least of the nature and destiny of Man 
 are ever the most forward, if any one shall venture to 
 assail those dogmas the foundation of which they have 
 never examined. There is another reason : as in mecha- 
 nics, so in mental inquiries, a wedge is always the more 
 powerful and the more easily driven, the nearer that it 
 approaches to a simple plane. 
 
 For these, and for other reasons, some of which must 
 
Vm PREFACE, 
 
 occur to every intelligent reader, 1 have made this volume 
 as unassuming, and as free from theoretic formality, as 
 I possibly could ; and I flatter myself that it will be intel- 
 ligible to the most humble capacity, but at the same time 
 not unworthy of the better-informed. 
 
 The argument for which I have endeavoured to prepare 
 the way is, that the human body is organised and adapted 
 for purposes which cannot have their complete fulfilment 
 in the present life. This will lead to the consideration of 
 Intellectual Man in a second volume ; and, as the doc- 
 trine of Intellect, and its necessai-y consequence, Immor- 
 tality, are the foundation of morality in the individual, and 
 of good order in society, two more volumes will be required 
 to complete the ^hole subject, though each of the four 
 will, by the avoiding of the formality of system, be an 
 entire book without the others. They are my favourites 
 above all others that I have written ; and whatever may be 
 said of the execution, the subject deserves attention from 
 the public. 
 
 ROBERT MUDIE. 
 
 Jwie 13, 1838. 
 
ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 r. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 Self-knowledge peculiar to Man — Objections to books of mere 
 anatomy, as affording the knowledge required— Objections to the 
 writings of Paley— Difficulties in the study of Man— The secret 
 character— Why all men are not great— Why some are great— 
 The use of ourselves the grand point to be known— The human 
 body and machines— What respecting Man is most important to 
 be known — Division of the subject .... Page 1 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF" SELF-KNOVVLEDGS. 
 
 That " knowledge is power," is not universally true— Power is not 
 material, or a property of matter— Popular notion of power — 
 Simple knowledge is not power— Obstacles to knowledge— Value 
 of negative knowledge— To whom knowledge is and is not power 
 —Education of the body— Education by experience— Examples— 
 The theorist and the boat— Case of a peer— Regularity of thought 
 and action— Ant— The hand— Mind— Its neglect— Degradation- 
 Means of greatness ....... 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MAN ALONE CAN ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Definition of knowledge —Knowledge of language — Pleasures of 
 memory— Memory is ?nutrf— Systematic zoologists-r-Cuvier's mis- 
 take—Sensation is not knowledge— Man and animals— Vital 
 functions— Our ignorance of the system— Organs and functions- 
 Dreams of phrenologists— The human body cannot acquire know- 
 ledge—Animal faculties— Vegetables and their adaptations- 
 Forms of matter — Animal sagacity .... 69 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAN CAN HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE BUT WHAT HE ACQUIRES. 
 
 Man's original endowment — Innate ideas absurd — Instinctive 
 perfection of young animals — Original genius a fancy — Body 
 and mind — Derangement of tlie body— Original differences of 
 infants are wholly physical — Knowledge htis physical sources — 
 Abomination of cant — We can address the body only — Effective 
 means of addressing it— Beginning of knowledge— Identity is 
 the foundation of knowledge and of action — Will — Delay — 
 Physical training Page 106 
 
 CHAPTER v. 
 
 PLACE AND PURPOSE OF MAN, 
 
 Talue of a hint — Of self-teaching — The organisation of Man — 
 Advantages of studi/inij the animals — Illustrations — Adaptation 
 of animals to their places — Our proper school — The house-fly 
 and the householder — Adaptation of fishes— Of birds— Organs 
 and organisation — Breathing — The first breath — Motion — Repose 
 — Importance of fossil bones — Wings, and their characters — 
 Feet of mammalia — Clavicles — Limbs for motion — Complex limbs 
 — Carnivora, and their uses — Legs of bears — Structure of a paw — 
 Handed animals — Prehensile tails — Perfect adaptation of animals 
 to localities — Man an exception ..... 146 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 SENSATION AND THE SENSES. 
 
 The first man — Must have educated himself — Notion of mind — 
 Popular errors about feeling— No feeling in vital parts— Case 
 recorded by Harvey — Proper sensibility of the heart — Sensa- 
 tions of nerves — Sensibility of the eyes — Vision in animals — 
 Sensations of the ear — Man alone has sensations of perception 
 — Instincts of safety perfect in animals, very limited in Man — 
 Membranes only are sentient — Nature of the muscular sense — 
 Feeling of the centre of gravity — Muscular sense our first tutor 
 — Man as a mere animal — Utter fatuity — Wretchedness of Man 
 as an animal 198 
 
CONTENTS. • XI 
 
 CUAPTER VII. 
 
 SENSATION — PARTICtTLATlS OF SOME OF THE SENSES, AND 
 THEin CO.VNF.XION. 
 
 Doctrine of developiricnts -flaking of a planetary system — Deve- 
 lopment of matter into Man — Action not material or organic — 
 Geneial adiiptation of Man — Structure and functions of the eye — 
 I're^sure on tlie eye — Vision not mech nical — IJetina — Field of 
 view— Axis of vision— Oblique and complex lights— JSange of the 
 eye— The inferior senses — Sensation of tlie ear — Obscurity of the 
 process of sensation — Symjiatliy of tlie ear and voice — Popular 
 orators — Language is intellectual— Conclusion . Page 247 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE VIGNETTES. 
 
 ■ As an illustration of the Physical powers of Man, two subjects have been 
 chosen which seemed much to the purpose — the Frontispiece represents the 
 story of Milo of Crotona, a celebrated Athleta, who, it is snid, attempted to 
 rend asunder an oali which had been shattered by lightning; he succeeded in 
 his attempt, but his strength failing, the tiee, in the rebound, closed upon his 
 hand : being alone, in a wild forest, he remained a prisoner, and was destroyed 
 by wolves. The Vignette represents the celebrated statue immortalised by^-»| 
 Byron as the Dying Gladiator, a worli showing at once the delicate hand of the 
 Artist, and muscular power of the Man. 
 
••J' 
 
 MAN, 
 
 IN HIS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE AND ADAPTATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 "Know thyself," is the solemn admonition of the 
 great Athenian Lawgiver, in consequence of which he 
 is placed foremost in the list of the Seven Sages of 
 Ancient Greece ; and the admonition has been repeated 
 by high authorities, both in ordinary philosophy and 
 in the Sacred Volume : and it is not a little remark- 
 able that Linnaeus, whose short hints often embody 
 more matter than the lengthened disquisitions of more 
 wordy philosophers, has made the power of obeying 
 this mandate the only characteristic of man, in his 
 "System of Nature," or grand classification of the 
 li\dng and growing inhabitants of the earth. After the 
 mere mention of the name, all that the great Swedish 
 naturalist adds, to distinguish man from the other 
 animated beings, are the two short and simple words, 
 " knowing himself," — that is, that man can obey the 
 injunction of Solon, if he will ; and though Linnagus 
 had exhausted the whole of that eloquence which, when 
 
PHYSICAL "WORKS 
 
 the occasion required it, he could exert so warmly and 
 so well, he would have added nothing to the force and 
 the fullness of that very brief expression. 
 
 Considering the high authorities by whom the com- 
 mand has been given, and the power of complying 
 with it expressed so strongly as being the distinguish- 
 ing character of Man as a physical being, it is some- 
 what remarkable that we have had no book for popular 
 reading, in which even the outlines of the whole sub- 
 ject are treated in such a manner as to be efficient for 
 practical purposes. 
 
 We have no lack of books, and veiy many of them 
 excellent books, upon the anatomy and physiology of 
 the human body in the aggregate, and upon the struc- 
 tures and functions of all its several parts, systems, 
 and organs. But these books are, for the most part, of 
 a medical or surgical nature, relating to the structure 
 of the body, or that action of its parts which has little 
 to do with giving man more efficient use of it in its 
 healthy states — as they describe it wholly or chiefly in 
 its mechanical arrangement, and its chemical com- 
 position, with very little reference to the place which 
 it holds, and the part which it is required to act, in the 
 system of created nature. Besides, there are some 
 obstacles and objections to these books as part of the 
 every-day reading of the great body of the people. 
 In the first place, they are too expensive ; in the 
 second place, they are unpleasant books to look at ; 
 in the third place, many parts of them, however 
 necessary and valuable they may be for medical men, 
 are unfit for general circulation and perusal ; and, in 
 
ON MAN. 3 
 
 the fourth place, not any, or even all of them collect- 
 ively, communicate, or are intended to communicate, 
 that popular knowledge of the body which is implied 
 in the injunction which has been quoted. 
 
 The dissection of a human body is an operation 
 repulsive to our natural feelings, for what purpose 
 soever it may be performed ; and, though one can 
 easily understand that a man who is intent upon find- 
 ing out the best means of reducing fractures, ampu- 
 tating limbs, and saving lives, may dissect a human 
 body with as much scientific zeal and honesty of inten- 
 tion as a chemist analyses a substance, or a mathemati- 
 cian solves a problem ; yet we greatly doubt whether 
 an idle spectator, who had no scientific purpose in view, 
 — no prospect of bettering mankind by the result of 
 all that cutting and mangling of which he was a 
 voluntary witness, could escape ^^dth equal purity of 
 feeling. That professional men, who attend to such 
 matters, and who must attend to them, or otherwise 
 be but a lame hand in the operative proceedings, and 
 who do so from the desire of doing good, or more 
 frequently perhaps from that of attaining to eminence 
 in their profession — which is scarcely less praiseworthy 
 than the other, are not aff"ected by those repulsive 
 sights, is proved by the fact that medical men, taken 
 as a class, are among the most suave in their manners 
 and kindly in their dispositions, as well as among the 
 most intelligent, in the whole community. 
 
 But still, that does not make mangled bodies, and 
 severed limbs, and heads sawTi asunder, and the pro- 
 cesses of the most painful operations, and the aspects 
 
paley's natural theology. 
 
 of the most loathsome diseases, eithei in the human 
 subject itself or in pictorial representations, more fit 
 for the public eye, or for being the gi'aphic attractions 
 of books from which the younger branches of families 
 are to glean their information. The chief objection to 
 Paley's Natural Theology, or at all events the objec- 
 tion which comes second to the absence of those intel- 
 lectual and adaptorial views, on the large scale, which 
 ought to take the lead in every such work, is, that it 
 is of too anatomical a character, and represents Man 
 more as a piece of ingenious mechanism, than as a 
 being possessing life, endowed with an immortal 
 spirit, organised in subservience to that spirit, capable 
 of doing much good and arriving at much eminence, 
 and confident in the full assurance of eternal mental 
 enjoyment when the sun of this world has, to him, set 
 for ever. 
 
 We admire the mechanism, — as who that runs the 
 parallel with the works of man can fail to admire it ? 
 but truly this is a humble tribute of admiring adora- 
 tion to Him, who spake, and those bones were in- 
 stantly perfect in all their parts, clothed with all their 
 integuments, and the whole in healthy and vigorous 
 action. That "breath of life," which, as is revealed 
 to us, " the Lord God breathed into the nostrils of 
 man," and of no other sublunary creature, must, even 
 as it is displayed through the medium of the body, 
 always be both the highest and most delightful part of 
 the study of human nature, and the most striking 
 illustration of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the 
 Creator, that can be drawn from his works. 
 
PROPER KNOWLEDCF, OF MAN. 6 
 
 If we are endowed with the proper spirit, that which 
 we first and chiefly desire to promote and participate 
 in, must be what has brought the naked, houseless, 
 and ignorant savage ouC of his cave, clothed him in 
 purple and fine linen, set him upon the throne of the 
 earth, and given understanding to his mind and dex- 
 terity to his hand, till eveiy land has been traversed by 
 his foot, the waters of every ocean have been divided 
 by his keel, and the glance of his eye has carried the 
 line and the balance full eighteen hundred millions of 
 miles into the depths of space, to fetch thence intelli- 
 gence of a world more magnificent than ours, and the 
 which world, distant as it is, is only as the threshold 
 of that mighty temple which God in his goodness has 
 been pleased to permit us to contemplate. 
 
 The grand knowledge of Man, viewed as a subject 
 of general study, is that of the means and the mode 
 by which the race have come to that state in which we 
 find them ; and how their career may be continued at 
 an accelerated rate : and, when we bring this home 
 to ourselves as a personal matter, it is reduced in 
 extent and shortened in time, but in its essential 
 nature it is still the same, — by what means have we 
 been brought to our present state ? and how shall we 
 improve that state, and become wiser and happier 
 every day 1 
 
 Now, mere definition, demonstration, and descrip- 
 tion of organization, how useful soever they may be 
 for their own peculiar pui-poses, are of comparatively 
 little use to us in this grand inquiry ; and if we allow 
 ourselves to be diverted from it by them, we resemble 
 
 b3 
 
6 LIA'ING MAN 
 
 travellers who loiter by the way-side in culling wild 
 flowers and gathering pebbles, which amuse the fancy 
 but retard the journey. If we open the tumuli upon 
 a battle-field, in which leader and led have been 
 hastily entombed together in one promiscuous heap, it 
 is in vain that we attempt to distinguish the bones of 
 the commander from those of the humblest individual 
 that he led on to the carnage, or take up the bone of 
 one arm and say, " This wielded the weapon of a hero," 
 and another and respond, " This fell powerless by the 
 side of a coward." The dead have no tale to tell, 
 even from the instant that the breath is extinct, and 
 before the expression of the last pang, and the quiver- 
 ing of the parting struggle, have subsided into the still- 
 ness of that clay-cold image which sorrowing friends 
 consign to its parent earth, sometimes with pomp and 
 ceremony, which bitterly mock that mortality which 
 they are intended to honour, but cannot. 
 
 If we would know more of the man, we must seek 
 for it among the living, not among the dead ; and 
 whether sepulchral marble, formed with the most ex- 
 quisite art, and all but breathing into life, or the oozy 
 deeps of the ocean, shall cover his mortal remains, his 
 real monument is taken up in the current of human 
 improvement in the exact ratio of the real good that he 
 contributed to produce, whether the crowd of his day 
 sounded the trumpet of fame before him, or yelled in 
 detraction at his heels, or did sometimes the one and 
 sometimes the other. 
 
 The man respecting whom we seek that general 
 knowledge which is to be really useful to us as mem- 
 
MUST RE STUDIED. 7 
 
 bers of society, is not the man of the anatomist, for 
 lie is a mere body, and the study of him is but the 
 study of matter, and not even of living matter. As 
 little is it the man of the systematic zoologist, for 
 while the former is body without life, this one is the 
 living animal without mind. Nor will the man which 
 the intellectual philosopher labours to set before us 
 answer our purpose better. He has something that 
 the others want, but he also wants something which 
 they have. Nay, even if we could combine and gene- 
 ralize all the three, our result would be all too narrow 
 for what the case demands. In this public and general 
 knowledge of Man, we wish to include the originating 
 impulse, and the means of all that has been known, 
 and all that has been done, because without this we 
 may, in our efforts at improvement, omit the very cir- 
 cumstance which would give that improvement effect 
 and value. The attainment of this, or anything like 
 this, is impossible ; but still we may have our faces 
 directed to it, and thereby advance a little way. 
 
 In our own individual case — intimately as we may 
 suppose ourselves acquainted with that, we have diffi- 
 culties of a similar kind ; only the magnitude of them 
 is reduced to very little in comparison — to one indi- 
 vidual as compared with the whole race, and to a 
 portion of a single life as compared with the whole 
 period of human histoiy. In respect to their historic 
 periods, short as the one is in comparison with the 
 other, the history of the individual has a remarkable 
 coincidence with the history of the race. We cannot 
 trace the origin of language or the first dawnings of 
 
8 OBSCURE BEGINNINGS. 
 
 knowledge, either in the pages of the record of antiquity, 
 or in the accounts given by voyagers, since navigation 
 has discovered and explored those places of the earth 
 which seas, deserts, or impassable ridges of mountains, 
 had, up to the time of their modem discovery, cut 
 off from any participation in that knowledge and 
 civilisation to which our o\mi history belongs. The 
 beginnings among many of them were rude ; but in 
 every one there was a beginning, and a beginning of 
 the origin of which they themselves could give no 
 account. There was always a language, and the use 
 of fire, and weapons, of some sort or other, both for 
 the capture of fish and other animals for food, and for 
 combats between tribe and tribe. It is worthy of re- 
 mark, too, that among these rude nations, improve- 
 ment appeared most completely at a stand where it 
 seemed to have made the least advance in former time 
 — to be, so to speak, nearest to its first or rudimental 
 state. Thus, infant civilisation is no evidence of a young 
 nation, but rather the reverse. The j'oung races, in 
 all countries where a remnant of an earlier population 
 remains unmixed, are always the more advanced in 
 knowledge and civilisation. In the Oriental isles, the 
 blacks, who still are found in many of the central 
 forests, are certainly an older people there than the 
 Malays of the coasts, but they are not so civilised ; and 
 they display far less intellect. It is the same in those 
 parts of the Eastern continent in which a remnant of 
 an earlier 'population is to be found in the fastnesses 
 of the mountains or other situations, which the im- 
 migrants have not felt disposed to pay the price of 
 
OF CIVILISATION. 9 
 
 occupying. In America it is still the same ; and, 
 independently of the inferiority of the natives gene- 
 rally to the European settlers and their dependants, 
 wherever a travelled native population have come, 
 they are always, in some degree, superior to the race 
 which they have displaced. ^\'e can readily under- 
 stand why, at the time of the arrival of the new in- 
 habitants, they should have been superior to the old ; 
 for if they had not, they would have been the con- 
 quered and not the conquerors. Thus, it seems to be 
 a general law of human society, that the people who 
 are the oldest, that is, who have been the longest in 
 any locality, are ever the lowest in the scale of 
 civilisation. 
 
 The subversion of the Roman empire by the people 
 of the North, the barbarians, as they are called, is a 
 nominal exception to this, but not a real one. They 
 were called " barbarians," that is, " bearded men," 
 and acts of cruelty perpetrated by them are recorded, 
 probably with many exaggerations : but if we could 
 get at the real facts, there seems little reason to doubt 
 that we should find ample proofs of their being far 
 superior in intellectual energy,-, as well as in bodily 
 vigour and endurance, and in all the higher attributes 
 of the human character, how much soever these may 
 have been dashed and debased by rudeness, to the 
 degenerated and efi"eminate Romans. In our own 
 country, there is no question that the Saxons were 
 superior in intellectual energy to the Britons whom 
 thev dispossessed ; that the Catti, and other con- 
 tinental tribes that took possession of the eastern 
 
10 OUR OWN IGNORANCE. 
 
 coasts and eastern islands of Scotland, were superior 
 to the native Celts that gave way before them ; and 
 that the Norwegian adventurers, who became the 
 chiefs of the clans in the West Highlands and isles, 
 and gave their names to the clans, were superior to 
 the natives over whom they gained such an ascend- 
 ancy. 
 
 Thus, turn where we may upon the globe, we can- 
 not reach so far back as the time of the invention of 
 language, or the first introduction of those arts which 
 distinguish men, even in their lowest states, from the 
 other living creatures. In our individual case it is 
 much the same. We cannot carry our memory back 
 to the time when we learned to speak, or detail the 
 means by which we acquired the use of that grand 
 means for the communicating and perpetuation of 
 knowledge. Much less can we tell when we first 
 began to feel and to think ; and, therefore, our intel- 
 lectual origin, like that of nations, and of the whole 
 race, is involved in obscurity. This is another diffi- 
 culty in the way of our knowledge of Man, whether 
 we take that knowledge as general, or as particular, 
 and applicable to our own case. 
 
 There is another circumstance connected -wath our 
 individual knowledge of ourselves, which must not 
 be lost sight of. The individual that we must know 
 is not the same that is known to the public generally, 
 in the case of our being so known at all, or even to 
 our familiar friends. What we appear, in the former 
 of those cases, is in a great measure put on, whether we 
 are aware that it is so or not ; and, even in the latter, 
 
THE SECRET CHARACTER. 
 
 11 
 
 there is a dark closet in the character into which our 
 most intimate and endeared friend is never permitted 
 to look. It may be well, certainly it is well, that 
 such is the case ; for if our minds were denuded of all 
 covering of prudence, " the shame of our nakedness " 
 would morally appear as olfensive to the world around 
 us, and as injurious to ourselves, as would be the case 
 if we went about physically denuded of our garments. 
 This is not hypocrisy ; but may be, and often is, an 
 opposite, and, consequently, an estimable feeling. 
 ^\'e have really no control over the trains of our 
 thought. We cannot will them, for the one succeeds 
 the other in a manner over which we have no con- 
 trol ; and if two subjects are communicated by the 
 senses, or arise in the mind from suggestion, we can 
 no more help feeling the relation that subsists between 
 them than we can help feeling pain in our finger when 
 it is stung by a hornet, or comes in contact with a live 
 
 coal. 
 
 Therefore, our own happiness, and that of the por- 
 tion of society with which we are acquainted, or in 
 which we have any connexion or influence, both re- 
 quire that we should have a character peculiarly our 
 own, which necessarily contains many traits not to be 
 found in that in which we come before the public. 
 This is our private or personal character, and has 
 nothing to do with station or title, or any of those 
 external attributes, clothed with which we come before 
 the world, and by which we are known there. It has 
 been said, and probably with truth, that " no man is 
 a hero to his valet-de-chambre ;" and it may be said 
 
12 SELF-ESTIMATION. 
 
 with still more truth and force, that " no hero is a 
 hero to himself." The valet-de-chambre may see 
 many unheroic traits in his master, which are little 
 suspected by the many whom he defeats in the field, 
 or even by the officers under his command, whom he 
 is in the habit of meeting every day. 
 
 If our philosophers have due knowledge of this 
 character, which it behoves every man to know for 
 himself, and which none but himself can know or 
 should know, then they are no philosophers in their 
 own eyes ; they are men w ho toil and vex themselves, 
 are always in perplexity, and very often foiled or in 
 error. They creep on " with difficulty and labour 
 hard," and the little steps which they take, though mi- 
 crometic steps in their elements, make some show before 
 the world, and we wonder at their achievements simply 
 because they are new to us. But they never master 
 the grand discoveiy, — that which is to make them 
 philosophers in their own estimation ; or if they fancy 
 that they do, then their discovery lies in the limbo of 
 vanity, and they are not philosophers, — they are self- 
 deceivers, men ignorant of themselves. If they have 
 the requisite self-information, they have no sooner 
 gained the summit of one elevation, than another 
 more lofty rises up before them ; and if they have the 
 proper spirit in them, and man themselves for the 
 toil, the view extends on and on, and they never gain 
 the highest summit ; for death comes in, and in tender 
 mercy to a body which is worn out with the toil, lays 
 it down to its repose in the dust, leaving the free 
 .spirit to bound onward with ceaseless and inexhaustible 
 
SPRING OF HOPE, 13 
 
 vigour. But to us, in the present world, there is a 
 thick veil over the course of that future progress, and 
 a veil which our own death alone can get us within. 
 
 That the ultimate object of even the most active- 
 minded of our race is never gained on this side the 
 grave — and beyond this we know no particulars — is 
 really one of the very best parts of the constitution of 
 man ; for it is this which impels us onward, will not 
 allow us to stop, and thus has achieved for us and for 
 our brethren all those improvements which we see 
 around us, and which are augmenting every day : and 
 it is just because weak and vain minds do not know 
 themselves in their real characters, but take up the 
 echo of the public applause, or sometimes their own 
 vain self-gratulation without any public encourage- 
 ment, that they fancy they have " done their do," and 
 cumber the earth, boasting, but useless, for the re- 
 mainder of their lives. It is this also which in all 
 cases should, and in the case of those who know 
 themselves will, make us welcome death as a helper 
 and deliverer, whose friendly hand will enable us to 
 accomplish that, for which, encumbered as we feel 
 ourselves to be, we are all unfit. Subject to that 
 deterioration and decay to which all material things, 
 in all their states and modifications, are ultimately 
 subject, the body has ceased to be able to bring in- 
 formation, or to answer the call of the mind, and 
 perform the necessary labour. The consequence is, 
 that it degrades us. Beauty is darkness to the eye, 
 music is dumb to the ear, the sweets of the grove 
 give forth no perfume, the breath of spring wafts no 
 
 c 
 
14 DESIRE OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 renovation ; we rock and totter like a time-worn ruin, 
 we prate like children, and those whom our care 
 reared into life, and our counsel led in the way of 
 knowledge, have nothing to spare us but their pity. 
 Who would wish to remain in such a state, even if 
 the pit of annihilation were yawning wide before him ? 
 Who, that had the full assurance of joy in a world 
 where disease and decay shall never come, but where 
 the never-failing To-morrow shall always be brighter 
 than the radiant To-day, would not have " a longing 
 after immortality," an exultation in the near prospect 
 of deliverance ? 
 
 If that knowledge of ourselves which eveiy man 
 ought to have, and which every wise man actually 
 possesses, led to no other result than this, it would, 
 and as far as we are personally concerned will, repay 
 manifold the little labour which the acquiring of it 
 costs us. But this would be selfish, and unworthy of 
 the proper dignity of the human character. We are 
 not sent into this world for the mere purpose of dying, 
 even in the fullest assurance of endless happiness. 
 So curious a structure as the human body, — a struc- 
 ture the^ proper adaptations of which are for the 
 performance of something which is not immediately 
 produced by nature ; but which requires that we 
 should do as well as know, as long and as diligently 
 as the body is capable of doing, — a body thus adapted, 
 is diverted from its proper use, and the goodness of 
 the Creator is despised and his law contemned, if we 
 do not find out what its capabilities are, improve them 
 to the highest degree of which they are susceptible, 
 
OUR GREAT MEN. 15 
 
 and exercise them with that vigour and activity which 
 shall give evidence that we are grateful, not only for 
 the original gift, but for having had our lot cast in a 
 land so redolent of the means of instruction and oc- 
 cupation. Our obligation upon the latter account is 
 far greater than we are apt to suppose ; and the very 
 circumstance of our being born in a land of light and 
 of liberty, in which we have every facility for knowing, 
 and every scope for acting, imposes upon us a duty to 
 our country which we cannot fully discharge, even in 
 the course of the longest and the most active life. We 
 speak of certain great men, — of our Watts, our Ark- 
 wrights, and many others, as the benefactors of their 
 country ; and we wdllingly allow that this praise should 
 ])e given, both in justice to these great men, and for 
 the encouragement of others. But had Watt and 
 Ark-wTight no benefactors to whom they were bound 
 in gratitude 1 Did they not learn our language, read 
 our books, gain instruction from our conversation, and 
 obtain all the materials of their art, — ay, and all the 
 hints of their science and their schemes, from our 
 storehouse ? 
 
 Far be it from the present intention to detract one 
 jot from the merit which is due to such men ; they 
 tried, and they succeeded nobly, and the highest name 
 and honour which can be bestowed upon man are due 
 to them. But still, they were mere men ; and though 
 the popular phrase runs somewhat differently, not one 
 or all of them did or could invent the simplest original 
 idea. They " knew themselves," had ascertained 
 what their powers were, and how to turn those powers 
 
16 WHY ARE NOT ALL MEN GREAT ? 
 
 to account ; and, knowing this, they could borrow 
 hints from all things and occurrences around, and 
 build uj) these hints into those most splendid and 
 useful combinations, which stand monumental of the 
 greatness and value of their self-knowledge. 
 
 And why are we not all equally eminent with them, 
 in the several places which we occupy in society ? 
 Very many of us have as favourable opportunities as 
 any of these great men, and not a few have better. 
 Some of the most illustrious ornaments of our country 
 lived in ages when there were not so many means and 
 stimulus for improvement in all England, as there are 
 now in some single counties ; and that the improve- 
 ment of those means do not tell so conspicuously in 
 this single instance is, probably, in a great measure 
 owing to the instances being far more numerous. 
 But whether this is wholly the case or no, we have 
 certainly more subjects, opportunities, and advantages 
 than they had, and we have the same powers for 
 turning them to account, if we would only study and 
 know ourselves rightly. 
 
 We must not drug our understandings with so 
 stupifying an opiate, as that such men had gennis and 
 we have none. This is the subterfuge with which the 
 negligent and the idle tiy to appease those twinges of 
 conscience which, if properly and promptly attended 
 to, would lead to the happiest results. But the ma- 
 jority of us do not find out this truth till it is all too 
 late, — till society has decided the amount of our 
 value, and decay has marked us with its broad arrow ; 
 and then we make ourselves outwardly ridiculous by 
 
WE ARE WISE TOO LATE, 17 
 
 our fruitless lamentations, or have our hearts gnawed 
 and corroded to the core by their concealment. 
 
 Our ow^n experience never furnishes us with suffi- 
 cient data upon this important subject, until the time 
 has gone by in which these data could be turned to the 
 proper account ; for if we knew ourselves only by the 
 results of our own experience, we should be as self- 
 ignorant as we should be of nature around us, if 
 we knew nothing more of it than we had actually 
 observed by the use of our own senses. 
 
 Observation of the world, that is, of society around 
 us, may seem to many to be exactly what will meet 
 the case, and supply that which we cannot obtain from 
 our own observation and experience until it is too 
 late. But we labour under disadvantages in this case 
 also, — disadvantages which are widely different from 
 those which meet us in our own personal experience, 
 though certainly not less numerous. 
 
 The world is a school of experience, in which way 
 soever we regard it ; and though the experiences that 
 we observe in others, are many to one in comparison 
 w^th what we feel in our own individual case, they are 
 by no means so intimately known or instructive. They 
 also require a length of time, and time is wasted and 
 attention distracted in the observation of them ; so 
 that we cannot get what we require either from our 
 personal experience, or from what we observe in 
 others. 
 
 Even in operations which are merely mechanical, 
 we learn very slowly by merely looking at others. 
 One who could not write might stand six months 
 
 c3 
 
I8 NECESSITY OF PRACTICE. 
 
 over the desk of a penman and see him writing all 
 the time, and yet not be able to sign his name, or 
 even form a single letter, at the conclusion. In other 
 matters it is much the same ; we may see the tool or 
 the instrument, and the way that it is held, and the 
 motions given to it ; but there is a can in its applica- 
 tion by a practised workman which we never see, and 
 which the workman himself cannot communicate to us. 
 We might run over the whole list of the arts, both 
 useful and ornamental, and find the very same result 
 in them all. Nothing seems so easy as the most 
 nice and delicate operation when we see it performed 
 by one who has acquired the art of doing it ; but 
 nothing is so difficult when we first try to put our 
 hand to it. 
 
 But it may be said that all this is merely mechanical, 
 and that it is difi'erent with the conduct of men, and 
 with everything depending upon thought. This is a 
 mistake ; for the veiy reverse is the case. Is a man's 
 action or conduct in life, or his anival by thought at 
 the knowledge of a truth, or the plan of a work or 
 an undertaking, an easier matter than the use of a 
 saw or plane, the bow of a violin, or a painter's 
 brush ? He who imagines that it is, knows very little 
 about the matter. In the case of the mechanical 
 operation, we see the tool, and in part, at least, the 
 manner of using it ; but in the case of thinking and 
 planning, we see neither ; we only see the result ; and 
 all else that we can originally learn, must be gleaned 
 from that. 
 
 In the knowledge of the conduct of mankind, we 
 
IDLY OBSERVING, U) 
 
 have proof, even to a proverb, that little can he 
 gleaned from simple observation ; for they who make 
 the conduct of others the chief o])ject of their atten- 
 tion, and the chief subject of their thought and speech, 
 are invariably triflers in mind and idlers in action. 
 There is, in fact, more human time and talent — no, 
 not talent, but what might be made talent, — wasted 
 in this idle observation of mankind and occupation 
 about their pursuits, than upon all other subjects 
 of dissipation taken together. And a very little 
 reflection may suffice to show us that such must be 
 the case. We see that which tells us nothing more 
 than we are told by every object and every event, 
 whether in nature or in art, namely, that something 
 has been made, or has happened. We see the effects 
 produced on society, just as an ignorant man sees the 
 progress of nature in the seasons, or the apparent 
 motions of the sun, moon, and planets in the sky : but 
 we do not see the causes ; and if in this state of know- 
 ledge, or rather the want of knowledge, we make the 
 attempt, we are veiy likely to apply wrong means or 
 make a wrong application, and in either way failure is 
 certain. 
 
 Mankind are thus masked to us, without the sup- 
 position of any desire on their part to put on disguises. 
 But they do always put on such disguises, not neces- 
 sarily with a view to mislead us or any body else, but 
 because it is absolutely unavoidable, A man who runs 
 about telling all the world of the splendid schemes 
 which he has in petto or in progress, seldom brings 
 any of those schemes to bear in an effective manner ; 
 
20 NECESSITY OF MASKING. 
 
 and even if he does, those who know him, and who 
 would be the proper parties to set the scheme afloat 
 with the public, are talked out of all knowledge, or at 
 least all endurance of it, long before it can be brought 
 to bear. 
 
 Thus, a certain degree of masking before the world 
 is absolutely necessary for the success of individuals, 
 and consequently for the good of society ; and this is 
 the reason why, as we previously hinted, the characters 
 which we see upon the public theatre are by no means 
 those selves, of whom they have, or ought to have, 
 intimate knowledge as individuals. In public they all 
 have parts to play, and they rehearse and dress for 
 their parts, not in the same manner indeed, but with 
 very much the same assiduity, as the common actors 
 of the fictitious drama ; and, whether they will or no, 
 mankind exhibit a tragedy, a comedy, or a farce, 
 according to circumstances, to the enacting of which 
 they are impelled by precisely the same motives as 
 their brethren of the buskin — the hope of their pud- 
 ding and their praise. 
 
 This is unavoidable ; but even if it were not, the 
 avoiding of it would not be endurable. Who could 
 bear, for instance, — and we purposely take our instance 
 from where high talent, spotless integrity, and devoted 
 patriotism are by all admitted to shine more con- 
 spicuously than they elsewhere do throughout the 
 land, — who could bear the cloakless carcase, or the 
 skinless anatomy, of all the ways and wiles, all the 
 plannings and packings, all the preachings and promis- 
 ings, and all the cheapening of opinions and huxter- 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD, 21 
 
 ing of souls, that must be put in large and earnest prac- 
 tice, both to support and to oppose a contested measure 
 in our Houses of Parliament ? 
 
 Such being the case in the most lofty places of the 
 countiy, we cannot expect that it shall be better where 
 all are more mixed, and many are more lowly, — where 
 the chaif is not winnowed away by the gales of elo- 
 quence, and the grist is yet unbolted by even the elec- 
 toral sieve ; and, therefore, we may hold it as a settled 
 point, that the public displays and aspects of men in 
 society are not those from which we can glean that 
 knowledge of human nature which is nevertheless so 
 essential to our right understanding and guidance. 
 
 Even if we had not these more palpable demonstra- 
 tions, we might arrive at the truth by merely attend- 
 ing to the ordinary phrases which we hear every day, 
 and for which, among many other advantages, we 
 cannot be too grateful to the original inventors of lan- 
 guage, or to those who have licked and fashioned it to 
 its present shape, There are very many occasions upon 
 which we can use the word with composure, though to 
 grapple with the real matter for which that word is 
 set doA^Ti would require twice considering. 
 
 To "know the world "' means, by literal interpreta- 
 tion, to be able to escape its dupers, and practise upon 
 its dupes ; and " a man of the world " is understood to 
 be one who is an adept in this art. Now, why should 
 such names and such occupations be necessary and 
 current ; and why should the one and the other win 
 from us, as they unquestionably do, a certain quality 
 and measure of praise ? Why, clearly for this reason : 
 
22 THE USE OF OURSELVES. 
 
 the requisite degree of knowledge upon the subject for 
 enabling us to accomplish our purposes by wisdom, 
 does not exist in society, and, therefore, we are con- 
 strained to use cunning for knowledge, and craft for 
 wisdom. We have not learned enough to enable us to 
 convince, and therefore we go about to cajole. 
 
 The science to which we allude, though the elements 
 of it are scattered through numerous volumes, has not, 
 so far as we know, been presented in a common form, 
 or even obtained a name. The use of ourselves is 
 the real meaning of it ; but that is too common-place 
 for being received as a technical name. The name is, 
 however, a matter of very inferior importance, so that 
 we can obtain a little of the reality, and can make the 
 knowledge of ourselves, in some sort, a branch of 
 education. Whether it could be formally introduced 
 into the routine of the schools is a point which cannot 
 be decided, as there is no evidence upon it, the experi- 
 ment never having been tried ; and our school educa- 
 tion all proceeds upon the assumption that the pupil 
 has sufficient knowledge of himself, or if he has not, 
 he is left to acquire it as he may, along with other 
 things, or let it alone. 
 
 Now this is not our mode of procedure in the case 
 of almost any thing else. If an artisan or operator of 
 any kind is to make use of a complicated tool or in- 
 strument, some pains are taken to school him in the 
 arrangement and use of the different parts, the way of 
 applying the complex instrument, the imperfections to 
 which the several parts are liable, the compensations 
 to be used for the errors arising from them, and the 
 
INSTRUMENTS. THE BODY. 23 
 
 methods by which it may be kept in the best order, so 
 as always to be ready for its work, and capable of per- 
 forming this work well. 
 
 But all this is done without any lecture upon the 
 anatomy of the instrument, or disquisition on the 
 natural histoiy or the chemical composition of the 
 several parts of it. The whole of the tool or instru- 
 ment in its working state is the principal subject of 
 the explanation ; and though the parts may be run 
 over, in their connexion, just for the purpose of point- 
 ing out their relations to each other as conducing to 
 the general effect, yet we never think of taking it to 
 pieces, except for the purpose of showing how it may 
 be cleaned or repaired. 
 
 The human body is, in itself, a far more complicated 
 instrument than any which has been constructed, or 
 which can be constructed, by human skill : and the 
 healthful performance of all its functions is absolutely 
 necessaiy, in order that the body may rightly enact its 
 part in the business or other occupation of life, whether 
 for profit or for enjoyment. The steam-engine has 
 often been alluded to as a master-piece of art, and 
 there is no doubt that it has been, and is, and will 
 continue to be, of great and increasing advantage. 
 But after all, when we come to analyse any of the 
 results which are accomplished by the application of 
 steam, so as to get at the part which the engine 
 actually does, we find that a great deal of complicated 
 machinery is required for the performance of one of 
 the simplest operations. The ultimate effect may be 
 very rare and curious, and it is actually so, in very 
 
24 THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 many of the purposes to which the engine is applied — 
 as in steam-printing, coining, mill-spinning, and many 
 other matters. But it is not the steam-engine which 
 does all or any of these : it is another engine, and veiy 
 generally, mechanically speaking, a much more curious 
 one than the steam-engine ; for while this other 
 machine could be made to perform its work without 
 the engine, the engine could do no part of the work 
 without the machine. The printing-machine, the 
 knitting-frame, and many others, might be named as 
 instances of this. 
 
 We are far from wishing to disparage the steam- 
 engine ; so far, that we at once admit that, as an ap- 
 plication of scientific knowledge and mechanical skill 
 jointly, it is the foremost that ever was introduced into 
 the arts : but as occasion is often taken to run parallels 
 between Man and machines, as these parallels are not 
 always managed in the most judicious manner, and as 
 we purpose to consider the more remarkable adapta- 
 tions of the body of Man, which is the human machine, 
 we have felt that the introduction of these remarks in 
 this preliminary chapter might prevent mistakes, and 
 also prevent us from requiring to break the succession 
 of our observations afterwards. 
 
 In kind, the ultimate operation performed by the 
 steam-engine itself is one which any child could per- 
 form ; and the difference is merely one of quantity. 
 Suppose a child takes a leaden bullet fastened to the 
 end of a bit of string, and alternately raises and lowers 
 its arm, or that it merely raises and lowers the arm 
 without holding any bullet in the fingers by a string, 
 
USE OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 25 
 
 this is an operation of the very same nature as that 
 which the engine performs. It is a small miniature, 
 indeed, and the child could not continue it as the 
 engine does ; but then the child could make the bullet 
 sway like a pendulum, or round in circles or any 
 other curves ; and this the original mover of no steam- 
 engine could accomplish. The work of the engine 
 consists in moving a piston alternately from end to 
 end of a cylinder, with great force and regularity — 
 only, the regularity must be obtained by means of 
 other contrivances ; for the engine, without its centri- 
 fugal governor to regulate the admission of the steam, 
 and its fly-wheel to keep up the motion at the turn 
 of the stroke, would be a most irregular and unsteady 
 servant. 
 
 Thus, that which the steam-engine supplies, is the 
 most rude and elementary of all working ; and the 
 very same result may be obtained from falling water 
 or blowing wind, which were used for the same objects 
 before the steam-engine was contrived ; and falling 
 water is still preferred to the engine in all situations 
 where it can be obtained, because the use of it is very 
 considerably cheaper. But, notwithstanding its greater 
 cost, the engine possesses many advantages. It can 
 be had in any situation where there is a little water ; 
 it occupies little space ; it can be made of any power 
 that may be wanted ; and it works just as well sailing 
 on the sea, or travelling along a road, as when it is in 
 a fixed position upon the earth. These adaptations 
 are more numerous than those of animals, at least, 
 considering them as mere powers ; for, until we have 
 
 1) 
 
26 STEAM-ENGINE. ANIMALS. 
 
 learned to rein in the whale and the dolphin, and make 
 the shark and the skate our hunters upon the deep, 
 the chance is that we shall never be able to employ 
 any animal power in our sea service — except the 
 powers of the sailor. Steam-engines cannot be substi- 
 tuted for animal power in all cases, even upon land. 
 It is possible that in time they may be introduced upon 
 the race-course, and mechanics may run their engines 
 of the same computed power, against each other, in 
 the same manner as sportsmen now run their horses : 
 but we doubt whether the squires of any county in 
 England will ever follow the hounds by steam ; and 
 we at least cannot see how the cleverest engine could 
 be made to clear a fence or a five-barred gate. Con- 
 densation of power is the grand property of the engine, 
 and in this it has certainly no rival, though it inay 
 have one some day. 
 
 We have dwelt at some length upon the subject of 
 the steam-engine, because it is indirectly a part of our 
 main subject — the capability of Man. The rest of 
 nature produces no steam-engines or machines of any 
 kind ; and as our appeal, in showing the capacity of 
 Man for any thing, will always be best made to that 
 which is already done ; and, taking the steam-engine 
 in all its applications, it is certainly one of the most 
 remarkable instances of the success of human design 
 and execution united, it is one of the best to which 
 we can refer in the general way, though we shall after- 
 wards have reason to allude to many other human con- 
 trivances and accomplishings of a more particular and 
 limited nature. 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 27 
 
 In order that our knowledge of Man may be com- 
 mensurate with those means of knowledge which are 
 strictly human, we must limit our inquiry to that 
 which Man has actually acquired for himself, as the 
 proof of his own endowments as a material and mental 
 being. For this purpose it will be necessary to leave 
 out the influence of revealed religion upon human 
 society, though the indirect influence of that religion 
 on the state and progress of the sciences and the arts 
 — especially the former, and what may be called the 
 scientific arts among the latter — has been by no means 
 small. This, however, is not a subject of human be- 
 ginning ; and therefore, whatever may have been its 
 advantages, Man, considered in his own nature, and 
 the exercise either of his body or his mind, is not 
 entitled to take credit for any of the influence which it 
 has had, though there is no doubt that in many in- 
 stances, and by many means, he has tended to lessen 
 and retard this good, which revealed religion would 
 otherwise have effected for him. As Man is a being 
 of earth, and this is an emanation from heaven, it may 
 be laid down as a general truth, to which there is no 
 exception, that he can never mix any portion of his 
 earthly system with this religion without in so far con- 
 taminating that which is from above. Of this, how- 
 ever, we speak only incidentally. 
 
 There is, however, an indistinct species of religious 
 feeling, which seems radical in the veiy constitution of 
 Man, and without which, considering that he is a 
 mental, or spiritual being, as well as an animated and 
 merely sentient one, we could scarcely imagine him 
 
28 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 to exist. We have proofs of this feeling in the fact 
 that all nations in whom the development of mind 
 can be said to have begun, even in the faintest glim- 
 merings, have some sort or form of idolatry or mytho- 
 logy, — some notion that there is an existence different 
 from, and superior to, all that is perceptible by their 
 senses, however shadowy and ridiculous this very rudi- 
 mental notion may appear to us. And, when we follow 
 the progress of mind a little further in the march of 
 civilisation, but still without any thing revealed, we 
 find that the evidence increases to nearly demonstra- 
 tion of this, and of somewhat more than this. When 
 we turn our attention to the more civilised nations of 
 ancient times, to the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the 
 Phoenicians, and the Greeks, we find that the worship 
 of the gods not only kept pace with the arts and the 
 intelligence of the people in other matters, but that it 
 took the lead, and actually stimulated them on to the 
 others ; and but for the gods, we should probably 
 never have heard the strains of the Grecian lyre, or 
 have admired and imitated, and tried in vain to excel, 
 the remains of Greek architecture and sculpture. 
 Nay, it is doubtful whether we are not indebted to 
 the gods, that is, to the belief in the gods and the 
 worship of them, for the dawnings of philosophy, and, 
 strange as it may seem, for the beginnings of the 
 cool and precise science of geometry, far removed as 
 it is understood to be from the ever-varying tints of 
 fancy, and the ardent but sportive glow of imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 Among ruder men, the case has been found to be 
 
NATURAL RELIGION. 29 
 
 still the same in its essence, though of course very 
 different in its appearance. The natives of New 
 Holland, when first visited by Europeans, were ex- 
 ceedingly wretched in their condition, and rude in all 
 their appointments ; but still, when they were ques- 
 tioned about their ancestors, though they could give 
 no explanation in words, they could point the finger 
 to the sky, while an expression more than common 
 lit up their most peculiar physiognomy : and, to those 
 who, enjoying the light, endeavour to cast the dark- 
 ness of their own shadows upon others in intellectual 
 and spiritual matters, there was more sharpness of 
 reproof in that simple and silent finger, than in a 
 verbal oration by the most eloquent advocate that 
 ever mounted rostrum. The inhabitants of New 
 Zealand, though not less treacherous in many traits of 
 their character, were more intellectual ; and they had 
 a mythology, — a most whimsical one according to our 
 notions, no doubt, but still a mythology. From these 
 facts it will be seen, that if we are to consider aright 
 that knowledge which Man has acquired for himself, 
 as a means of knowing his natural capacities, we must 
 not wholly exclude religious feeling of some kind or 
 other. 
 
 With these understandings, that popular knowledge 
 of Man, which may be considered as essential to every 
 one who would make the best use of his time in this 
 world, without any reference either to hopes or to 
 fears of a future state, may be considered as consisting 
 of four distinct parts or sections. But this considera- 
 tion is more in the simplification of the subject, so as 
 
 d3 
 
30 DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 to make it more easy, than in real nature. We can- 
 not appeal to Man as body, without appealing to him 
 as mind ; or as mind, without appealing to him as 
 body. In like manner, we cannot fully and effectively 
 run over even the outline of these, without reference 
 to the moral condition of Man, and to him in his 
 social relations as a member of organised and re- 
 gulated society : because, without taking his moral 
 condition into the account, and regarding him as 
 a member of organised, civilised, and regulated 
 society, we cannot find Man in such a state of 
 development and improvement as will answer our 
 purpose. 
 
 But still, we may make such a virtual analysis, as 
 may help us very much in the simplification of the 
 subject ; and, for this reason, we shall consider Man 
 in four separate points of view, to the first of which 
 we purpose to confine the sequel of the present 
 volume. 
 
 First, PTiysical Man, Under which designation we 
 shall consider the structure, adaptations, and senses 
 of the body, wdth some hints for the culture and im- 
 provement of the last ; though, in the course of doing 
 this, we shall probably be obliged to make some short 
 and occasional references to other parts of the general 
 subject. 
 
 Secondly, Intellectual Man. This will cany us to 
 a much greater length than the former, because this is 
 the part of the compound nature of Man by means of 
 which what has been once known, or in any way ex- 
 perienced by the individual, returns again when it is 
 
DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 31 
 
 required, and often when it is not wanted, in what we 
 call memory or suggestion. 
 
 Thirdly, Moral Man. In the first and second divi- 
 sions of this subject, according to the method proposed, 
 we shall necessarily be restricted, in a great measure, 
 to that which Man is capable of doing and knowing, 
 without much, if any, reference to the pleasurable or 
 the painful effects which it may have upon the indivi- 
 dual or others ; but in this division we shall have to 
 consider the emotions, in which chiefly our happiness 
 or our misery lies, and which have reference to those 
 with whom we are more intimately and personally 
 connected, as well as to ourselves. 
 
 Fourthly, Social Man. Under which we shall 
 have to consider the reciprocal duties which subsist 
 between the individual and that society of which he 
 forms a part, the obligations which he owes to the 
 society of which he thus is a member. In this de- 
 partment it will be necessary to analyse the principles 
 of many of our most popular subjects of conversation 
 and attention ; — governments, and their influence ; 
 legislation, in its temperance and its intemperance ; 
 national churches, systems of education, and institu- 
 tions of various kinds, with their real and supposed 
 uses, and the abuses to which they are all more or less 
 subject. 
 
 In all these, however, and indeed in eveiy part of 
 the book, real information must be the object, and not 
 controversy. Truth and philosophy are of no party, 
 though all parties would do well to cultivate a closer 
 acquaintance with them than they sometimes show. 
 
32 DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 
 
 The object will be to show the real principles of these 
 and all other matters alluded to ; but they wtlU not be 
 given in skeleton ; they will be clothed with as comely 
 an investiture of flesh as the shape of the bones will 
 admit ; and if, as is more than probable, we shall some- 
 times have occasion to use the scalpel, we shall use it 
 gently, and not take the smile off the visage of the 
 patient. The remainder of the present volume will be 
 devoted to the first of these four branches. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 The aphorism of Lord Bacon that " Knowledgb is 
 power," is one of those short sentences to which every- 
 body assents, and which has been perhaps more fre- 
 quently quoted by writers than any other. But, like 
 many other general truths, to which assent is given 
 by custom or fashion, it is very doubtful whether one 
 in ten of those who assent to it and use it, understands 
 its meaning ; and yet that meaning is the foundation 
 upon which the knowledge of ourselves, as the basis 
 of all other knowledge, must be established. 
 
 We admit that " knowledge is power ; " but the 
 aphorism is expressed in terms too general for being 
 applicable to any one practical use. We must know 
 " what the knowledge is," and "to whom*" it is said 
 to be povv'er, otherwise the aphorism may not only be 
 not true, but its opposite may hold, namely, that 
 " knowledge is weakness " — the absence or the de- 
 struction of power. As this is an elementaiy matter, 
 which meets us at the threshold of our investigation. 
 
34 KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. 
 
 and as it is equally applicable to every species of 
 knowledge that we can obtain or desire, whether of 
 ourselves or of anything else, it must be carefully 
 examined. 
 
 Now, as to knowledge being " power," that is saying 
 nothing, unless we understand what we mean by power. 
 But there is nothing which we can call power that 
 can be palpable to any of the senses as a separate 
 subject of investigation. The power is a quality of 
 some agent, and yet it is not perceptible in that agent 
 as those qualities are to which we ascribe no power. 
 The shape, colour, consistency, and all the common 
 distinctions of objects which are perceptible by the 
 senses, are not powers. No substance and no state of 
 a substance is in itself a power ; the power is shown 
 in the change from one state to another, and unless 
 we actually have seen a similar change take place, or 
 are informed of it upon testimony which commands 
 our belief, we know nothing about the power that may 
 have been exerted in the case. 
 
 It is true that we have a general feeling of power, as 
 inseparably connected with eveiything we observe or 
 hear of. In this sense we feel that which has placed 
 things in the condition, posture, and situation in which 
 we find them, and it is a general or short expression 
 for an agent, and the action or effect produced by that 
 agent. As such it is a mental feeling, and not a per- 
 ception by the senses ; and therefore we may conclude 
 that no inhabitant of the earth save Man has any 
 feeling of power, even in this very vague and general 
 sense. 
 
POWER. 35 
 
 But this general feeling is not knowledge, though 
 it is unquestionably an element of that compound 
 feeling which constitutes the desire of knowledge, and 
 by doing so puts us in the way of the attainment of it. 
 If the use of our senses is accompanied by even the 
 faintest glimmering of thought, this feeling of power 
 invariably takes the lead. We see the furnishings of a 
 room, the flowers and shrubs of a garden, the streets and 
 houses of a city, the crops on the fields, the wild plants 
 on the waste, the waters of the sea, the clouds in the 
 atmosphere, and the heavenly bodies in the sky ; we hear 
 sounds, we smell odours ; the states of the atmosphere, 
 the conditions of our own bodies, and the influences of 
 our desires and fears, our exultations and depressions, 
 all have an influence upon our feelings ; and in each 
 and all of these, and in every case that can be named 
 or imagined, we have a feeling of power, a feeling that 
 some agency has had, and exerted, the power of pro- 
 ducing those effects which are thus palpable to our 
 senses or our general feeling. 
 
 Some have denied the existence of this feeling, 
 upon the ground that there is no object of the senses 
 which answers to it ; but this species of argument, 
 when followed out, leads to the denial of all know- 
 ledge, and to that of all the subjects of that knowledge. 
 Our knowledge of a thing is not the thing itself, 
 neither has it the slightest resemblance to it, even 
 when it is of that kind which follows instantly upon 
 sensation. Thus our knowledge of a triangle has not 
 three sides and three angles, whether there be the 
 figure of a triangle before our eyes or not ; and our 
 
36 DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 knowledge of gunpowder would never of itself propel 
 a cannon bullet, or blast a rock. It is the same in 
 every other case ; there is something wanting ; and if 
 we rested wdth the simple fact of the knowledge, the 
 reverse of Lord Bacon's aphorism — " Knowledge is not 
 power," — would be the truth. 
 
 But, though knowledge is not, and cannot, in itself 
 be power, any more than thinking can be the subjects 
 thought of, yet it is the means by which we find out 
 where power is to be obtained, or to what it is to be 
 attributed ; and perhaps the very strongest and most 
 ready and willing feeling of our nature, and the one 
 for the possession of which we have the most reason 
 to be grateful, is the desire of knowledge, — a desire 
 which is unsought for and universal, in the very early 
 periods of our life, and which would continue with us 
 to the end, if less worthy feelings were not encouraged 
 to deaden its activity or to usurp its place. 
 
 One of the most generally pernicious of these is the 
 desire of possession — a desire which is most com- 
 mendable in itself, if we seek for its gratification 
 through all the intermediate steps, and fairly win 
 before we attempt to enjoy ; but if we take the op- 
 posite course, and endeavour to enjoy before we have 
 won, we, in the case of that which can be possessed 
 as property, render ourselves obnoxious to the laws of 
 society. Thought cannot come into court as a matter 
 of litigation ; but still, if we attempt to get over the 
 middle part, and come at once to the conclusion, we 
 practise the same violation of the law of nature upon 
 ourselves, as we do of the law of society, in the case 
 
NEGATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 37 
 
 of others, when we attempt to get possession of their 
 property unjustly. 
 
 Thus, though knowledge is so far from being power 
 that it very often consists in the discovery of the fact 
 that we neither have nor can obtain any power what- 
 ever, in very many of the cases in which we seek it, 
 yet it is scarcely less valuable to us in these negative 
 cases than it is in the positive ones. In the positive 
 case of knowledge, we can go directly to the object 
 which that case points out to us, if we are in possession 
 of the means which will enable us to accomplish this 
 object ; and if the means which we have are not suffi- 
 cient, the discovery of that insufficiency is exactly the 
 same in effect as the discovery of an error of any other 
 kind, and of course ranks among the negative species 
 of valuable knowledge. 
 
 Our negative knowledge, whether it relates to the 
 fact that the event wished for is not, in its own nature, 
 attainable, or to the discovery that we are not in 
 possession of means adequate for its attainment, can 
 scarcely be said to be of less value than positive know- 
 ledge, if, indeed, it is not of more. One of the princi- 
 pal causes of this is the extreme activity of the desire 
 of knowing powers or causes. In countries and ages 
 where there is but little accurate information, the 
 activity of this principle, and the want of information 
 by which it may be guided to the truth, or find at all 
 times rational subjects to engage its activity, are the 
 primary causes of all the superstitions and errors to 
 which people in such a state have always been so 
 much exposed ; and there is an inveteracy in super- 
 
38 IGNORANT AGES OF SOCIETY, 
 
 stitions and errors of this kind, which does not attach 
 to the errors of more enlightened ages, how great 
 soever these may be. The reasons of this are readily 
 seen and easily understood. Ignorant people are 
 exceedingly prone to take up opinions without inquiry, 
 and repeat them in their ordinaiy conversation ; 
 and thus, among them, an erroneous opinion gets 
 easier into use as a matter of every-day speech, than 
 a well-founded one does among those who are more 
 intelligent. But again, it remains longer in use, in- 
 asmuch as new opinions are not produced nearly so 
 fast in these comparatively dormant states of society, 
 as they are when all is bustle and activity. Thus we 
 find that in Britain, in former times, events not only 
 continued subjects of conversation for years, but were 
 even admitted upon the public record, though much 
 inferior in importance to those which are now for- 
 gotten in a week from the time of their occurrence. 
 Thus, for instance, the visit of Paul Jones to the 
 coast of Scotland did not produce one-tenth of the 
 bustle at the time, as the visit of George IV., and 
 yet there is no question that it is already by far the 
 better remembered occurrence of the two. This speedy 
 passing of the memory of events into oblivion, after 
 they have ceased to be useful, is one of the greatest 
 advantages of an informed and active state of the 
 public mind, not only because it clears away lumber, 
 but because it prevents that lumber from getting 
 venerable through age, and thus becoming matter of 
 superstition. 
 
 But every member of society has to pass through 
 
AND OF INDIVIDUALS. 39 
 
 an age of as complete ignorance, as that of the most 
 early times of the society of which he is a member, or 
 from which he is descended. Nay, it is more so in 
 the life of the individual than it is in the case of any 
 nation which has an historic record, for the individual 
 has to come from total ignorance to whatever measure 
 of knowledge he may obtain, and that within the com- 
 paratively short period of threescore and ten years : 
 whereas no nation has been ever found so rude as 
 not to have some language ; and as language is 
 wholly a human invention, the invention of any lan- 
 guage, however rude it may appear to literary nations, 
 always implies a considerable progress in knowledge. 
 It must be admitted that the young member of society 
 possesses some advantages in that part of education 
 which precedes the use of language, inasmuch as all 
 the information which is thus acquired is real and 
 experimental, so that nobody can mislead by false 
 opinions. 
 
 There are some curious circumstances connected 
 with this, which are well worthy of attention by those 
 who wish to see the human subject trained in all the 
 branches of that most useful of all kinds of knowledge 
 — the use of its own compound system of body and 
 mind. We cannot leave mind out of the question, in 
 the acquiring of the very simplest portion of elemen- 
 t&ry knowledge ; as, even in the most rudimental act 
 that can be performed by the infant of an hour old, or 
 even before it is born, we can form no conception of 
 any living action of a human body in which the mind 
 is not present, and we are quite sure that the mind 
 
40 SELF-EDUCATION IN INFANCY 
 
 must have a share in every thing that can, in any way^ 
 be regarded as knowledge. But still there seems every 
 reason to believe that our first lessons, in which none 
 can assist us, are lessons in the knowledge and use of 
 the body, and of the general sensibility or muscular 
 sense, before any of the peculiar modifications which 
 have their chief seats in local organs come into play as 
 inlets of any kind of information. 
 
 Now, we believe that we are borne out by general 
 observation, when we state that, during this early 
 period, the children of the peasantry, if they are kept 
 clean and healthy, and enjoy free and wholesome air, 
 make much more rapid and useful advances than the 
 children of the wealthy classes, who have eveiy ap- 
 parent want and wish anticipated, and are spared the 
 use of their young muscles in every kind of exertion. 
 Thus it is by no means improbable that the very 
 kindness of those who have the nursing of these arti- 
 ficial plants tends not a little to their weakness and 
 helplessness ; and that the self-education of the body 
 which is thus kindly counteracted before the infant 
 can lisp or totter about, may unfit the body for its 
 proper functions through life, not merely in the per- 
 formance of mechanical labour, but in the free and 
 ready use of the body as the indispensable servant of 
 the mind in the acquiring of every kind of knowledge. 
 The fact is certain, that those who do make thei/- way 
 to the higher places of society from humble origins, 
 have always more energy of character than those who, 
 according to the common saying, are born for those 
 places. There are certainly some professions, for the 
 
ITS ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. 41 
 
 effective discharge of the duties of which extensive 
 and varied knowledge, together with great personal 
 energy, is requisite, and of which, hitherto at least, 
 the most efficient members have been obtained from 
 the humbler ranks of society. But, in ordinaiy esti- 
 mation, persons from those ranks labour under the 
 disadvantages of rude society and little schooling ; and 
 it is not easy to state any compensation in their favour, 
 save that, in infancy, they are left more to themselves 
 in the education of their bodies, and that afterwards 
 they have more personal exertion to make in the edu- 
 cation of their minds ; or, generalising the two, they 
 are thrown more upon their own resources, and thereby 
 made more independent beings than they would have 
 become under the opposite circumstances. Some of 
 these points are, however, involved in considerable ob- 
 scurity, and require a train of argument upon which 
 we have neither wish nor necessity to enter. 
 
 Generally speaking, the individual, during his age of 
 ignorance, is exempted from many of the dangers from 
 which the people of a country, during the age of their 
 general ignorance, have no means of escape. There is 
 a buoyancy in young life, and an incessant thirst for 
 novelty and excitement by new objects, which will not 
 allow the attention to dwell long enough upon any one 
 subject for confirming that into a settled superstition ; 
 and thus, though there are very many superstitions and 
 prejudices planted in the young mind by those who 
 are about the party, and have an influence, there are 
 very few in any case, and none in many cases, that 
 can be said to be of native growth. 
 
 e3 
 
42 TO WHOM IS 
 
 These observations will tend to show that the 
 aphorism is not an absolute truth ; but that know- 
 ledge is power only when it points out the power, 
 the means of putting that power in operation, and 
 farther shows us that we have the command of those 
 means and the capacity for applying them. All these, 
 then, are necessary in order to make it actual power 
 in our hands ; but they are regular steps, and each of 
 them, considered in itself, is so much done. If we 
 know the power, we are obviously in a better con- 
 dition than if we were ignorant ; and if we know the 
 means, we are better still ; because then we can know 
 whether we have or have not the command of them ; 
 and if we have not, this knowledge may put us in the 
 way of obtaining it at some future time. Thus, 
 though it is only when perfect that knowledge comes 
 up to the full encomium involved in Lord Bacon's 
 aphorism, yet every stage and degree of it is in so far 
 good. 
 
 " To whom is knowledge power ? " is the second 
 question arising out of the aphorism ; and it is of 
 much more importance to our main subject than that 
 of which we have just given a few illustrations, because 
 it goes more directly and forcibly to establish the 
 value of self-knowledge. 
 
 Now, it must be apparent to every one, that know- 
 ledge, supposing it to be of that kind and degree to 
 which the name of power can be properly applied, can 
 be power only to those who are in possession of it. 
 That knowledge, which is power to all who are in 
 possession of it, is, for that very reason, weakness to 
 
KNOWLEDGK POWER 1 43 
 
 all who are not ; because, in proportion as it operates 
 as an advantage to the one party, it must operate as a 
 disadvantage to the other. This is the case with all 
 power which is unequally distributed among the mem- 
 bers of any community ; for, in proportion as it gives 
 superiority and advantage to those who have it and 
 can exercise it, it is a disadvantage to those who have 
 it not. 
 
 Whether the inequality thus produced does or does 
 not contribute to the general weal of a community, 
 and conduce to more happiness and improvement than 
 if all were perfectly equal in respect of power of any 
 kind, is not the question at present under discussion ; 
 but belongs to the social condition of Man, and will 
 come under our notice in one of the subsequent volumes 
 of this series. That which we have to deal with in 
 the mean time is simply the comparison of one indivi- 
 dual with another, without any reference to the status 
 or importance of either of them in society, but merely 
 for the purpose of grounding an argument to prove 
 that the condition of the individual must be improved 
 in proportion as his physical powers, both of obser- 
 vation and of action, are cultivated, even though his 
 cultivation in other respects may greatly lessen the 
 value of those powers as compared with the whole. 
 One or two cases in illustration of this may not be 
 altogether improper, and we shall take them as varied 
 as possible. 
 
 In the first place, there can be no doubt that the 
 improvements in the modern science of war — and 
 revolting and perhaps unnecessary as that trade is, 
 
44 I>rSTANCE OF WARRIORS. 
 
 it will be admitted that there have been very great 
 improvements in it — there can be no question that 
 these improvements have greatly lessened the value of 
 the personal strength and courage of the individual 
 soldier, whatever may be his rank in the service. Very 
 much of these has been taken away, and thrown upon 
 tactics, appointments, and discipline ; and the whole 
 character of the art has been changed thereby. 
 Animal strength and physical courage have given 
 place to higher principles, that is, principles that have 
 not so much tendency to stir up the angry passions of 
 individuals as those which came into play in the old 
 way of fighting hand to hand, and rousing the indig- 
 nation by taunting speeches, as Homer says was the 
 practice with even the heroes whose deeds are re- 
 corded in the poems ascribed to him. In consequence 
 of this, vast numbers of men are understood to take 
 the field, not only without any personal animosity, but 
 with the most kind and gentlemanly feelings toward 
 each other. Yet still, though the importance of the 
 physical character of the soldier, in respect of the 
 whole army and its apparatus, has thus undergone a 
 change, there is still a distinction between soldier and 
 soldier, on the ground of their physical eflSciency. A 
 man who knows his duty, and who has strength to 
 undergo the fatigue of it, and firmness to do it steadily, 
 bravely, and well, is preferred to one who is cowardly, 
 unstable, or treacherous. 
 
 In civil society, in the second place, it is the same ; 
 and the illustration here is both more pleasant and 
 more profitable. A time may come when the world 
 
INSTANCE IN CIVIL SOCIETY. 45 
 
 shall grow wise enough to dispense with the soldier, 
 even in his present improved condition ; but if we had 
 a prospect of the abolition of civil society, the con- 
 templation of it would be far from pleasant. Now we 
 shall take one of the most ordinary characters, and also 
 one of the most exalted, that have come down to us 
 from the times in which there was comparatively little 
 improvement in the country, and see how it stands in 
 the case of their value. 
 
 The knowledge which has multiplied to so vast an 
 extent the physical power which we apply to so many 
 functions, and which has produced machines and tools 
 which really do more work, and do it better, in 
 Britain, in one year, than the physical strength and 
 the unassisted hands of all the men now living on the 
 face of the earth could accomplish in an age, — the 
 knowledge which has achieved this, is surely not 
 power to the man who has nothing but his mere bodily 
 strength and a pair of uneducated hands. The value 
 which such a man has to bring forward to the common 
 stock has not only fallen, but fallen many hundred 
 per cent., in comparison to all that is done. And be 
 it remembered, that men are not born with greater 
 physical powers, either for observing or for acting, 
 than they were in the times gone by, when none of 
 these methods was discovered, and none of these 
 machines contrived. Therefore, taking the question 
 abstractedly, Man is in a much worse condition at his 
 birth, at the present time, than he was then ; and if 
 he could know even all that he must observe and 
 understand, and all that he must perform with his 
 
46 BEING BORN IN SOCIETY. 
 
 hands, before he is fit for even one of the most humble 
 occupations in society as it is now constituted, the mass 
 would sicken him, and he would give it up in despair. 
 
 Is it a physical disadvantage to us, then, to be born 
 in an age and country whose arts are so much improved, 
 and whose resources are so developed and multiplied ? 
 Quite the reverse. This is the grand inheritance to 
 which every Englishman is born — a far more valuable 
 one than any legislation could by possibility confer ; 
 and not the least part of its value consists in this, 
 that though there is a share, and a share to which 
 no limit can be assigned, for every man that is born 
 in the countiy, each individual must win his share 
 and be worthy of it, in order that he may obtain and 
 enjoy it. 
 
 And if there is any man who must prepare himself 
 with more assiduity and zeal than another, it is the 
 man whose chief dependence is upon his physical powers 
 — upon the observation of his senses, and the applica- 
 tion of his hands. If the task is great in this case, the 
 encouragement is equally great ; and the task never 
 naturally and properly presents itself in such a mass 
 at a time, as to diminish the hopes or damp the 
 ardour of him who sets about it. It is gained by easy 
 steps, each of which makes the labour of the one above 
 it only half of what it was before that one was taken. 
 Thus, if the bodily powers, whether of observation or 
 of action, are willingly and vigorously employed, the 
 nature of the mind is such that it will not remain 
 idle ; and such is its quickness, and the impossibility 
 of fatiguing it, that it will educate itself, and at the 
 
VALUE OF IMPROVEMENTS. 47 
 
 same time so assist the senses that they will perceive 
 twice as much, and the hands that they will perform 
 twice as much, and both will accomplish their work 
 twice as well : and not only this, but the mind can pre- 
 pare the body for the work, and the work for the body, 
 all unknown, even when the eyes are closed and the 
 hands folded in the most balmy and refreshing sleep. 
 
 The encouragement — the example of those who have 
 gone before — is, however, the grand matter. We see 
 the results in all their imposing characters, and we do 
 not see the labour which they cost. Take the instance 
 in any thing we please— in the enjoyments, the 
 accommodations, the ornaments, personal, domestic, 
 local, or national, with which the country so much 
 abounds — in the facilities of intercourse, by means of 
 which days are condensed to hours, and degrees of 
 longitude to miles— in time spent, and consequently 
 expanded in the same ratio in time to enjoy — in the 
 improved powers, by means of which a few pitchers 
 of water and a few pennyworths of coal shall do as 
 much mere labour of force, as the strength of fifty 
 men could accomplish in a week, or in the engine 
 which performs by the stroke of a die in one minute 
 what a man with a hand-tool could not do in a month. 
 We may take our example in each or in all of these, 
 or in a hundred others — ay, or a hundred modifications 
 of any one of them all. 
 
 But even in the fulness of our admiration and de- 
 light at the contemplation of these wonderful results, 
 we must not forget that they are only results. We 
 must not forget the sharp eye and the ten fingers. 
 
48 THE TRUE SCHOOL 
 
 duly educated to the work ; for these are the real 
 authors of the whole. There is no occasion for under- 
 valuing the seats of learning or the associations of 
 learned men ; but truly, for all our more substantial 
 accommodations, personal or public, we are not very 
 greatly indebted to them in the principle, and nothing 
 whatever in the execution. The persons to whom we 
 are actually indebted may have received varied por- 
 tions of what we regard as common education ; but one 
 and all of them have had their real education in the 
 workshop ; and the most splendid and beneficial of 
 them have been practical men, who have educated 
 themselves up from the station of ordinary workmen, 
 and who, when they began, were just as ignorant of 
 mechanics, and made as bungling use of a tool, as we 
 should do if we were to begin to-morrow. The work- 
 shop is the real school of experimental philosophy — 
 the place where every hint is at once brought to the 
 test of experience, improved if it is worthy, that is, 
 capable of improvement, and thrown aside to give 
 place for another and a better, if it is not. In it there 
 are no theories dozed over from week to week, or from 
 month to month, and which, in the end, pass away 
 like idle dreams ; neither are there any dotard pro- 
 jectors, who go boasting all their lives of the mighty 
 things which they are to produce, and sink to their 
 graves in utter barrenness. 
 
 That trains of thought are carried on in the mind, 
 is all very well, because, without a full measure of 
 these, the labour of the hand could not be improved ; 
 and that the results of these trains of thought, and 
 
FOR USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 4f) 
 
 even the steps of their progress, should be recorded 
 in w-riting, and published and circulated in books, is 
 still more commendable, because more useful, than if 
 the train of thought is lost to the world when the 
 thinker is laid in the dust. But truly these are 
 nothing to that which is recorded, step by step, in 
 real and practical results. The man who vsTites in 
 the words of language, addresses himself to all who 
 can, by the comparatively slow process of reading, 
 make themselves masters of that language ; — and 
 science, long a cloistered monk, has not yet quite 
 learned the every-day language of ordinary people. 
 But he who records his thoughts in engines, or useful 
 implements of any kind, addresses himself to the 
 whole world, in a language which nobody can mistake, 
 and which they who run may read, how much soever 
 their conventional language may differ fi-om that of 
 him bv whom the discoveiy and contrivance were thus 
 written in an imperishable language, well kno'wn to 
 all the world. Send an account of the steam-engine, 
 and the manner of its application to the propelling of 
 a ship through the water, to all the nations on the 
 face of the earth, and it would not be understood by 
 even those who were previously acquainted %\*ith the 
 technical phrases of the English or other language 
 in which the account was written : send a steam-ship 
 to circumnavigate the globe, and something would be 
 kno\\Ti of it by even the rudest people that had curio- 
 sity enough to come and inspect it. 
 
 But this is not all ; for, in proportion as the actual 
 and useful result — that to which the contriver gives 
 
 F 
 
50 RENNIE^ — NICHOLSON. 
 
 his hand as well as his word and thought — is more 
 easily understood, and more readily appreciated, by 
 those who would not understand the verbal description 
 of the contriver, either in speech or in writing, even 
 so is it much more comprehensible by the compara- 
 tively illiterate of his own country. The mechanical 
 production, be it what it may, speaks directly to the 
 senses, and through them to the minds of all who see 
 it and feel an interest in the sight, whether they could 
 or could not describe it in language, or even read or 
 write. The instruction, even the mental instruction, 
 which is obtained from the contemplation of these 
 things, esp,ecially early in life, and the bias and pur- 
 pose which that gives to the mind, are often surprising. 
 One of our foremost civil engineers, and one of our 
 most scientific writers upon constructive carpentry, 
 are said to have derived the rudiments of their pro- 
 fessional education and their professional bias from 
 the fact of playing truant at school, that they might 
 witness the progress of the construction of agiicultural 
 implements in the workshops of Meikle, the contriver 
 of the thrashing machine ; and there are no doubt 
 hundreds of instances of the same kind if they had 
 been recorded. We know that the late Mr. Nimmo, 
 whose talents as an engineer were of so much service 
 to Ireland, and would have been of so much more if 
 he had not been carried off in the middle of his career, 
 learned his mechanical knowledge in workshops, and 
 his engineering in studying the practical oj)erations at 
 the Caledonian Canal. It may be said that Nimmo 
 was an able mathematician, and understood the ^rin- 
 
ALEXANDER NIMMO. 51 
 
 ciples of physics well, previously to this ; and we cannot 
 deny that he did : but then, he ran wild for want of 
 subjects worthy of him, and wasted his time and in- 
 genuity upon such trifles as a system of " du-angles," 
 formed by the intersections of two arcs of circles, 
 which was a perfect non-sequitur in geometry, what- 
 ever ingenuity it might display. 
 
 Such are the advantages which mankind derive from 
 the education of the body — from the full, fair, and free 
 use of their faculties of observation, and the prompt 
 and progressive recording of this in something formed 
 by means of the application of the hand. In the case of 
 such a man as Nimmo, it was not the fact of his being 
 a mathematician that led him on to be a practical 
 engineer : for we have seen a superior mathematician 
 who could not by possibility have made the slightest 
 improvement upon a mousetrap of the most simple con- 
 struction ; and we once saw a display by a man of first- 
 rate theoretical ability, who had the whole doctrines of 
 mechanical and chemical philosophy completely at his 
 fingers' ends — but not in the grasp of his fingers, so as 
 to be available for any practical emergency — in a 
 situation so ludicrous, that we may be perhaps par- 
 doned for mentioning the fact, though we of course 
 purposely omit the name. On a beautifully tranquil, 
 but very hot summer day, we had been sauntering 
 along the bank of an estuaiy some mile or three 
 quarters of a mile across : we wished to pass to the 
 other side, and we were two miles and a half or more 
 from the regular ferry, which was no joke in a day so 
 sultry, and no resource but walking. A trim enough 
 
52 THE MATHEMATICAL THEORIST 
 
 little shallop " lay high and dry " near a salmon-fisher's 
 hut, close beside us ; and as the water was smooth as 
 glass, and the demand of the fisherman very moderate, 
 we at once resolved to avail ourselves of his craft. In 
 brief time the skiif was moved to the water, and just 
 as we were stepping on board, a countrywoman, an 
 acquaintance of our Charon, applied for a passage. 
 This was of course granted, and we put oflf. But the 
 exposure of the boat to the heat had softened the 
 pitch inside, and the dust had adhered and painted it 
 stone-colour. The seams, too, had opened a little, 
 as those of any boat would do under the circumstances, 
 but not much. When, however, we got upon the 
 glassy water, and the little shallop, loaded with four — 
 twice its ordinary complement, was gunwale in, the 
 aspect of things became not a little alarming to our 
 philosophical friend. The water began to ooze in aj; 
 the seams of the skifi", and as it removed the dust it 
 had a black and somewhat ungainly appearance. The 
 very soundness of our craft made appearances more 
 alarming, for the water came in at all the seams which 
 were lower than the flood outside, and thus made a 
 greater show upon the inside than if there had been 
 one decided leak enough to swamp us. We had taken 
 our place near the bow to trim the shallop, as three 
 would have been too much by the stern, and we could 
 not help noticing the looks of dread with which our 
 philosopher eyed the blackening sides of the craft. 
 There was a little platform in the bottom of the stern 
 part, upon which appeared not the smallest symptom 
 of the invading water. We observed the philosopher 
 
AND THE BOAT. 53 
 
 more than once look to the countiywoman for some 
 deliverance from his apprehensions, and at last she, 
 in commiseration of his rueful aspect, assured him 
 that there was ^^ some way by which the water that 
 ran in at the sides of the skiff ran out again." At this 
 his hydrophobia seemed instantly dispelled, and he 
 chatted vdih. the woman as if she had been an angel 
 sent to relieve him from the torment of his own 
 apprehensions. We said not a word at the time, or 
 ever after, to the party ; but we could not help feeling 
 that if the very same case had come before him in the 
 shape of a question in hydrostatics, he would at once 
 have demonstrated that the water could not have run 
 out of the skiff, except by an orifice farther from the 
 bottom than that at which it ran in ; and this at the 
 same time brought to our mind the well-known adage 
 that " an ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of 
 clergy," which means, that a fact of which we have 
 acquired the knowledge by our own observation and 
 experience is sixteen-fold more valuable and ready for 
 use than if we learned it by book, or by the mere dic- 
 tum of a teacher. 
 
 Innumerable anecdotes might be given of the total 
 ignorance of men, very able and reflective scientific men, 
 upon practical subjects, the principles of which they 
 understand better, or at all events can explain much 
 better in words, than the parties by whom the opera- 
 tions are carried on, and the most important improve- 
 ments made in the conducting of them. This is no 
 argument against the cultivation of the mind by the 
 prosecution of abstract studies ; but it shows us that 
 
 f3 
 
54 CASE OF 
 
 if we are to make the results of those studies avail- 
 able for any purpose of practical usefulness, we must 
 have frequent reference to the senses, and take the 
 whole man along with us, the body as well as the 
 mind, giving each its due share in the matter. To 
 whatever extent the mind may proceed in its specula- 
 tions, by means of reasoning only, this much is esta- 
 blished by the most indubitable evidence, — that it can 
 have no knowledge of this world of reality but through 
 the medium of the body. But the subject is of suffi- 
 cient importance for being treated as one of the leading 
 topics in another chapter. 
 
 The other instance which we shall give of a party 
 transmitted down, under the same name, from times of 
 comparative ignorance, to whom knowledge has not 
 been power in the original sense in which power was 
 defined, is that of a peer — of one who has descended 
 from a feudal baron of the middle ages, or, which 
 amounts nearly to the same thing, who has acquired 
 the same appellation by whatever means or for what- 
 ever purpose, for these have nothing to do with the 
 matter. Has knowledge been power, that is, baronial 
 power, according to the spirit and intention of the 
 original institution of the order, to such a person as 
 this ? On the contrary, it has annihilated his power, 
 and reduced him to a mere cipher as compared with 
 what he was in the olden time. There is no doubt 
 that it has been of real benefit to him in so far as en- 
 joyment and true dignity of character are concerned ; 
 but the power is now simply that of a man, and all 
 the elements of it might be possessed by any man 
 
A PEE II. 55 
 
 who could afford to purchase them in the market, 
 whether he be peer or not, and without the least refe- 
 rence to his ancestiy. The peer cannot now exercise 
 the power of life and death ; there is no dungeon in 
 his dwelling ; and he has no embattled tower from 
 w^hich he can frown defiance against even the messen- 
 gers of his sovereign. He cannot lead the people 
 around him to battle and plunder in his private 
 squabbles, or for the furtherance of his ambitious 
 views ; and we hear no more of feasts at which a hun- 
 dred beeves and a thousand muttons are served up, 
 together with fowl of every wing and fish of every fin, 
 with an entire porpoise at one end of the table and 
 a whale's tail at the other. 
 
 All this, and much more than this, which was the 
 emblem, if not the essence, of baronial power, is gone, 
 never to return ; and if the owner of a title now aims 
 at being a person of consideration, the talents of the 
 man must be such as to throw the tinsel of the coronet 
 completely into the shade. But still he has only to 
 bring himself up to the spirit and character of the 
 times, and he is a greater man than ever. A man 
 cannot be truly great except in a great age. A farthing 
 candle is a great light in the dark ; but the blaze of 
 Etna is barely discernible in the clear light of the sun, 
 and if it is discernible, it is on account of darkness 
 rather than brightness, of smoke rather than of flame. 
 But as all worldly desires, beyond the mere desire of 
 that which shall supply the physical wants of the 
 body, are resolvable into the desire of notice from 
 others, the modern peer can, if he pleases, command 
 
56 THOUGHT AND ACTION ; 
 
 this to a far greater extent than could have been en- 
 gaged by the most lordly of the olden time. If he 
 does that which is estimable, he has the approbation 
 of Britain in a week, of Europe in a month, and of 
 the world before the circle of the year comes round. 
 No doubt, in the case of his doing that which is not 
 approved, the lash of disapprobation is laid upon him 
 in the same manner, and to the same extent ; but this 
 is his wholesome admonition to " cease to do evil," 
 while the former is his warm invitation to " learn to 
 do well." 
 
 Thus we have attempted to show, that the general 
 diffusion of knowledge in modern times has been, not 
 power, but weakness, to the two extremities of civil 
 society, estimating them according to what may be 
 considered their primary claims and qualifications in 
 former times — that is, physical strength and an un- 
 tutored pair of hands at the one end of society, and 
 unlimited power over the lives and fortunes of a cer- 
 tain number of their fellow-men at the other ; and if 
 the original distinctions have been weakened in these, 
 and new ones rendered necessary, the same may easily 
 be inferred to have been the case in all the interme- 
 diate portions of society. 
 
 This change has been brought about wholly by the 
 development and application of the human powers — 
 by thinking and acting alternating with each other, 
 the action recording the former thought, and affording 
 the means of suggesting a new one, either to the 
 former thinker or to some one else, and the successive 
 thought being recorded in some practical application. 
 
THEIR EECIPBOCITY. 57 
 
 in the same maimer as the antecedent. It is in thi« 
 way, by the mind taking its primary lesson from the 
 rsenses of the body, improving that, lesson, and giving 
 it back to the body to be recorded in a new subject 
 of observation ; and this simple alternation — often by 
 very small steps in the indi\-idual instance, but by 
 those steps often repeated, and the admiration of new 
 observers, the ardour of new minds, and the labour 
 of fresh hands and improved tools and implements 
 brought to bear upon them — ^has reared that splendid 
 structure which we see everv^here around us, and 
 which continues to receive additions and ornaments at 
 a rate which in rapidly increasing every day. 
 
 Thus, even in a physical point of view, there has 
 been added, in every conntry which has felt the im- 
 pulse of civilisation, but in England more than in any 
 other, a new world, in supplement to that which Nature 
 presents to the savage. H^.:.'--^, we have a double field 
 both for our observat: r. %. i ir reflection. We have 
 that which Nature produces, and we have the modi- 
 fications which lilan has effected and continues to 
 effect upon it, so as to make it more agreeable to his 
 senses, or otherwise more conducive to his comfort. 
 
 In all the thickly-inhabited and well-cultivated 
 places of the country we have these two worlds — 
 creations shall we call them ? — the world of nature 
 and the world of art, so completely blended togeth^ 
 that we are unable to sav in many instances which of 
 them predominates — ^the balance between the two is 
 in such equal poise. We are indebted to art for the 
 flowers m our gardens, the plants in our fields, and 
 
58 OUR OBLIGATIONS 
 
 the trees in our forests, to such an extent that if we 
 anywhere meet with a patch of land in what may be 
 considered a state of nature, it is barren and unprofit- 
 able as compared with the rest. It is true that we must 
 enlist Nature into our service, inasmuch as we cannot 
 get the species except by means which Nature has 
 appointed ; but then the very principle is plastic in 
 our hands, and if an ordinary person were to seek in 
 wild nature for those ornamental and useful plants 
 which we see cultivated in such numbers, and with 
 such apparent ease, assuredly he would nowhere in 
 the wide circumference of the earth find one in ten 
 of them. The parties who are interested in procuring 
 them, and who have kept records of the changes, know 
 what was changed : but even here, there are many of 
 which the changes reach beyond the commencement 
 of the record, and in some of these the native plant is 
 not known. 
 
 With our animals it is the same : all domesticated 
 ones, and all the semi-wild ones which are kept in 
 preserves, are in so far artificial, or cultivated. We 
 live upon artificial beef and mutton ; and our sports- 
 men course artificial hares with artificial greyhounds, 
 and follow artificial foxes with artificial hounds, and 
 mounted upon artificial horses. Even the very birds 
 have undergone a change, and a change in which no 
 small part of the agency may be attributed to Man. 
 The screaming and booming have gone along with the 
 stagnant waters, and in their stead we have the call of 
 the partridge and the pheasant, and the seasonal song 
 of the nightingale. Nay, the very elements have been 
 
TO ART. 59 
 
 reached by the labours of Man upon the soil ; and the 
 seasons, as well as the scenes, of our present England, 
 are not those of the England of seven hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 Now, this artificial world, or at all events, this world 
 so much modified by human skill and labour that 
 wild nature may, in some degree, be considered as 
 only the materials out of which it has been moulded, 
 and in which we have an epitome of the whole world 
 within the four seas, not merely in its produce as 
 simple articles of commerce, but in no inconsiderable 
 number of its growing and living subjects, in a state 
 of health and productiveness, and in many instances 
 in a state of improvement — this singular world of our 
 own forming, is the world in which we live, partakers 
 of its advantages ; and, therefore, we are under a filial 
 tie, stronger than words can express, not to be unpro- 
 fitable children during the time of our sojourn in this, 
 the home and habitation of our most beneficent parent. 
 
 The fact is, that the state of the country at the 
 time of our birth, or at the first moment that we 
 could look upon it with an eye of understanding, has 
 a new claim upon our patriotism, a claim which was 
 not known only a few centuries ago ; but which has 
 strengthened upon us with every succeeding year and 
 day of our lives, and will continue to strengthen more 
 and more to future generations, for a period to which 
 we can in the mean time see no end. This is binding 
 upon us as a tie of a far more intellectual, and, there- 
 fore, more sacred nature, than the attachment of the 
 
60 LOVE OF COUNTRY, 
 
 Highlander to his mountain, the Indian to his forest, 
 or the Arab to his wilderness. These attachments 
 are, in a great measure, to physical nature — to that 
 which cannot reciprocate with Man in return ; and 
 therefore his attachment partakes more of poetry than 
 of philosophy ; of romance more than of gratitude for 
 favour conferred or good enjoyed. 
 
 The common-sense value of these romantic attach- 
 ments to country, as well as of all romantic attacK- 
 ments, under what name or denomination soever they 
 may come, is at once explained by the fact, that the 
 most is displayed where the least is deserved. This 
 is the case in every species of idolatry ; for always, the 
 more worthless the idol— the less that it can partake in 
 any one of the qualities on account of which it is wor- 
 shipped, the worship is ever the more fervent in itself. 
 This places the love of country, among the people 
 alluded to, in the class of mere unmeaning idolatries, 
 how much soever we may admire the warmth and 
 sincerity with which it is paid ; for it is part of the 
 constitution of our nature to love warmth and sincerity 
 for their own sakes, and without taking time to 
 scrutinize the causes by which the display of them is 
 called forth. But the obligation of the native of a 
 country in a high state of improvement, is to the men 
 by whom those improvements have been made ; and 
 the course and progressive increase of those improve- 
 ments are the most valuable part of the heritage 
 which is transmitted from generation to generation, 
 and the promoting of which, to the utmost of his 
 
AND ITS OBLIGATIONS. 61 
 
 power and means, is a duty to his country of which 
 no man can divest himself. 
 
 It is a very great inducement to the discharge of 
 this duty, and encouragement under the performance 
 of the labour, whether of preparation or of direct 
 application, which may be necessary for this purpose, 
 that our own reward is in exact proportion to the 
 ability which we display in this performance. This 
 reward we cannot obtain unless we perform the duty, 
 and we cannot do that unless we know our own 
 powers, both physical and mental ; — and not merely 
 know them, but endeavour to ascertain by what means 
 they may be cultivated so as to give them the degree 
 of efficiency which is necessary. 
 
 The necessity of this, even for our own best interest, 
 requires no lengthened argument, and no induction 
 of cases in illustration. A good tool is an advantage 
 to even the best educated and ready hand, though the 
 hand is so much superior to the tool, that the veiy 
 best artists are never the most particular as to the 
 tools or instruments with which they work ; and in 
 some professions it has become proverbial, that those 
 who are fastidious about having the very nicest in- 
 struments are comparative bunglers in the use of 
 them. Not many years ago, we were in the counting- 
 house, or studio, or whatever else it may be called, 
 of an eminent London engineer, where a provincial 
 engineer, who had come up to town upon parliament- 
 aiy business, was finishing a very beautiful perspective 
 elevation of a public work — a large bridge, if we 
 rightly remember. The lines were perfect in their 
 
 G 
 
62 ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 form, their firmness, and their symmetiy, and it 
 seemed as if the workman was occupied in tinting 
 an engraving by Lowry or Turrel. " Show me your 
 instruments," said another engineer, who came in 
 while we were there. A pair of old rusty compasses, 
 with crooked legs, a bit of quill to fit upon one of 
 them as an ink-foot, and a little iron drawing pen, as 
 black as the lines which it had traced on the plan, 
 were produced from an old razor case lying on the 
 table. " Have you no other instruments than those ?" 
 asked the "visitor, in amazement. The other laid 
 down his brush, and holding up two well-formed and 
 strongly-muscled hands, which we know had in former 
 times brought beautiful forms out of shapeless blocks 
 with mallet and chisel, said, " There — that's enough ;" 
 and if the most oratorical lecturer of the age had held 
 forth on the subject for an hour, he could not have 
 passed so striking, so truly eloquent an encomium 
 upon the value and use of well-educated hands. 
 
 We might go over the list of all the organs of the 
 body, and of all the capabilities of those organs, either 
 in the way of obtaining information or in that of 
 executing work ; and we might show that there is in 
 each a vast volume of ability, if it were only called 
 forth by even moderate instruction and exercise : but 
 this subject is far too important for being slurred over 
 incidentally in a paragraph. 
 
 There is, however, one consideration which it may 
 not be improper to name here ; and that is the culpa- 
 bility of devoting so complete an instrument as the 
 human hand to labour quite unworthy of it. Is it 
 
THE HAND. 63 
 
 not a strange, a sad, a fatal prostitution, that an instru- 
 ment which can fetch the most symmetrical forms, 
 in the most graceful attitudes, out of shapeless lumps 
 of stone, or mould them of kneaded clay, — that can 
 animate the canvas with all but pulse and breathing, 
 — give the state of a battle, or the story of a life, to 
 one glance of the eye, with far more truth and effect 
 than any verbal description or even the actual pre- 
 sence of the scene itself, — that can thrill the heart by 
 the vibration of a string, or cany the affections 
 captive whithersoever it lists, by merely touching 
 catgut, — is it not the most cruel, the most profligate 
 prostitution — profligate in one of the best gifts of 
 Heaven, that this most extraordinary and most ser- 
 viceable of all instruments should be occupied, during 
 the whole useful portion of the life of its owner, in 
 turning the same wheel, or striking uniform blows with 
 the same small hammer 1 Shall we debase this instru- 
 ment by dooming it for life to perform that which 
 could be as well done at the expenditure of one-tenth 
 the labour of a donkey, or by a falling stream, or a 
 boiling kettle ? Surely this would be doing great 
 injustice, even in the humble and humbling mechanical 
 view of it, to the foremost of all machines — the ma- 
 chine of God's own making — the one which makes all 
 the others ! 
 
 But even this, bad as it confessedly is, is by no means 
 the worst, either for society or for the owner of the 
 prostituted and degraded hand. There is a mind — an 
 immortal, thinking principle — a principle capable of 
 reading, by means of the body as its instrument or 
 
64 THE MIND. 
 
 servant, the whole of the heavens and the earth, and 
 all the workings and wonders of human talent and 
 industry upon the latter, — there is such a mind bound 
 to the trundling wheel or the alternating hammer, — a 
 wretched and miserable slave, having no enjoyment 
 of itself, and rendering no service to the world ; and 
 so monstrous an injustice both to the one and to the 
 other, ought not to be tolerated in a land of rational 
 beings. 
 
 It may be very true that the man who is thus 
 
 sacrificed may beg to be continued in his drudgery, 
 
 and may regard his deliverance as the taking away of 
 
 what he looks upon as his birthright ; and we have 
 
 known ferry boatmen to march in mimic mockeiy of 
 
 the grave, and bury their oars, when a bridge was 
 
 thrown across an estuary, and they were prevented 
 
 from toiling at the oar for one halfpenny, when they 
 
 had only to put a little bit of canvas and a few cords 
 
 to their boat, stand a few miles out to sea, and fetch a 
 
 wholesome dinner for fifty families, with scarcely any 
 
 additional labour. Thus is the mind reduced to the 
 
 most abject slavery, and made the victim of the most 
 
 ridiculous fears, when the hand is confined to the 
 
 constant repetition of that which has no excitement 
 
 of novelty, and awakens not a thought. And there 
 
 are not wanting, upon the variously-checkered record 
 
 of the human annals, instances of those who have 
 
 been so early and so closely bound down in the slavery 
 
 of others, that they have worshipped their fetters as 
 
 their greatest good, as not knowing how otherwise to 
 
 satisfy their bodily appetite, than by remaining in • 
 
THK NEGLECTED MIND. 65 
 
 their ignominy ; so sadly may human nature sink, if 
 the balmy and buoyant gales of heaven play not 
 around it. 
 
 But this is not the worst, or nearly the worst, that 
 is sure to happen in such cases : degrade and neglect 
 it as we will, the immortal spirit is still the immortal 
 spirit ; it is warmed by Heaven's own ethereal lire ; 
 and all the waters of the world's oblivion cannot 
 quench it. Cut off from the field of its proper occu- 
 pation and pleasure, its restless activity is thrown 
 wholly upon the body ; but there is still no scope for 
 it in the occupation of the body, as that which a 
 machine can do never can require the services of a 
 mind. Hence, when the physical occupation of the 
 body is thus narrowed to the dull routine of a single 
 point, upon which the labour is executed without 
 even any simple consciousness of it, just as the feet 
 never stumble, even in the dark, at the inequalities of 
 a path which has been trodden a thousand times over, 
 the mind has no occupation but about the gi-atification 
 of the appetites and passions, and those, too, of the 
 most low and grovelling description. 
 
 Of the positive ^dces — the low sensuality, the heed- 
 less and heartless life, and the frequent crimes per- 
 petrated for the most unmeaning purposes, and on 
 the most groundless provocations, we speak not ; but 
 we must say that, upon men in so low and lost a con- 
 dition, the laws of God and man have no strength 
 equal to even that of a cobweb. They are the most 
 unsafe population wherewith any land can be afflicted, 
 as they are at the mercy of every demagogue, local or 
 
 g3 
 
66 SAD EFFECTS OF 
 
 general, who may \\'ish to stir up the dregs of society, 
 in order that he may steal through the turbid tide 
 to the dishonest possession of that which no man 
 would award or abet him in, if the current of society 
 ran bright and clear. We mention no name, we 
 assign no local habitation ; but witness the unmeaning 
 mobs, the iniquitous combinations, of weak and deluded 
 men against their own best interests ; the burnings of 
 property ; the throwing of corrosive liquids upon the 
 person from behind corners in dark nights ; the 
 organized associations, procured and paid for out of 
 hungry bellies, for the furtherance of that which, if 
 accomplished to the full extent of their unmeaning 
 madness, would only make them more hungiy still. 
 Witness this, and witness it in an enlightened nation, 
 and an age unprecedented in improvement, and say, 
 if you can, if there is not something sad and sicken- 
 ing in that which can thus degrade those around 
 whom the means of mental and moral improvement 
 are floating thick as the motes in the sunbeam, to 
 this, the very lowest degree that can be named or 
 imagined in the intellectual, the moral, and the social 
 scale. 
 
 Such are some of the fruits, and bitter fruits they 
 are, though natural and necessary ones, of that system 
 ' which uneducates the physical powers of the child, in 
 order that the man may not count for more than a 
 small fraction of a water-wheel or a steam-engine. 
 The infant, before the fetters were put upon it, re- 
 joiced in the breeze of the sky and the light of the 
 sun ; its eye sparkled with delight at the curling cloud 
 
THE DEGRADED MIND. 67 
 
 or the rattling carriage ; the song of the bird brought 
 the index finger instantly to the gladdened ear, and if 
 the_ veriest villain looked it in the face, it would smile 
 with joy that another subject was presented to gratify 
 the young thirst for knowledge. Alas for the altered 
 
 condition of the man ! but one sickens at the 
 
 picture, and cannot proceed. 
 
 "O, for a lodge in some vast wilderness. 
 Some boundless contiguity of shade ! " 
 
 It is in such revolting descriptions as these that we 
 find the most striking if not the most agreeable illus- 
 trations of the negative argument for the great benefit 
 that would result to individuals and to society, if men 
 of all ranks were to know the true nature and action 
 of their physical powers, and improve them by that 
 culture, which is so far from being labour and pain, 
 that it is pleasure and delight — pleasure and delight of 
 a far higher and more enduring character than that 
 which results from the most luxurious gratification of 
 all the appetites and passions taken together. If all 
 that is observed, is observed with pleasure and for in- 
 formation, the better half of the world of our personal 
 knowledge is our own, and our own by a security that 
 cannot be taken away from us, run the course of the 
 world as it may. In like manner, if we know our 
 powders of action, and bestow but a very little attention 
 on the cultivating of them — and the cultivation is a 
 natural and necessary consequence of the knowledge — 
 if we do this, our portion of the reward is sure, accord- 
 ing to the extent of our well-doing ; and so we are in 
 
68 MEANS OF GREATNESS. 
 
 a condition to rejoice in every improvement that can be 
 made, because we know that the benefit of it will be 
 to us as well as to others, and that the closing of one 
 path against our progress is but the opening of another, 
 in which our well-disciplined steps will be steady and 
 certain ; and we shall be gratified by the charm of fresh 
 occupation, and increasing usefulness both to ourselves 
 and to others. This is the frame of mind, by means of 
 which the great of all ages have bounded onward from 
 one subject to another, till they have arrived at the very 
 summit of eminence ; and although that summit is but 
 narrow, and will hold only a few, surely that is no 
 reason why we should not get as near to it as we can. 
 We cannot anticipate all the reverses and contingencies 
 of life, and it is well, for both our success and happi- 
 ness, that we cannot. But thus much is always in our 
 power ; while health and strength remain to us, we 
 can command the capacity of being useful ; and there 
 are few contingencies in ordinary life under which this 
 alone will not suffice to bear us up : and we have this 
 fact established by experience, and new proofs given 
 every day — that no man can be utterly cast down in 
 the world unless he cast down himself. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MAN ALONE CAN ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE ; HE CAN HAVE 
 NO KNOWLEDGE BUT WHAT HE ACQUIKES ; AND HIS 
 ONLY MEANS OF ACQUIRING JT ARE HIS PHYSICAL 
 POWERS OF OBSERVATION. 
 
 It might appear more systematic to notice each of the 
 three propositions here enumerated in a separate 
 chapter : but an appearance of system is not unfre- 
 quently the bane of writings, which profess to be popu- 
 lar, and to address themselves to those whose reading 
 is desultory and taken in the pauses of other occupa- 
 tions, just as they happen to arise. This is the way 
 in which all enjoyments afford the most gratification ; 
 for even systematic pleasures are painful from their 
 formality ; and they lose much of their zest, because, 
 being planned before, they come upon us in all the 
 stale familiarity of a twice-told tale. Besides, though 
 these are three distinct propositions, they all bear upon 
 the enforcement of one general tiTith, and that is, the 
 necessity of knowing and cultivating our physical 
 powers of observation. 
 
 In the first one — tha^ " Man alone can acquire know- 
 ledge," there may seem something paradoxical, if not 
 
70 MEANING OF 
 
 incorrect ; and yet there is no truth more certain in 
 itself or more capable of demonstration, if we rightly 
 understand what is meant by the word " knowledge," 
 and limit the proposition, as it ought to be limited, to 
 the physical inhabitants of the earth. There is not in- 
 deed any occasion or even possibility of carrying it 
 farther : God, who knows all things from all eternity, 
 can acquire no knowledge ; we can give no opinion 
 respecting the finite spirits shadowily alluded to in the 
 Sacred Volume, though the analogy is against their 
 having any knowledge of material nature ; and as for 
 the creatures of our own imagining, they can have no 
 knowledge, for they have no existence. 
 
 The word "knowledge," like most other words 
 which have no substantive representatives in the mate- 
 rial world, is much more easily understood than de- 
 fined ; and yet if we take the Gieek etymology, which, 
 from the similarity of the sound, is most probably the 
 origin of our word, it at once settles not only the 
 meaning of the word, but the whole question as to 
 the first of the above propositions. The Greek name 
 for knowledge is the subjective form of the veiy 
 same word which actively is the name of mind 
 itself ; and therefore the definition of it is, " that upon 
 which the mind acts," or which it can employ in any 
 process or train of thought, without the least necessity 
 for the immediate presence of any external object, 
 and of course without any need for the senses, or of 
 general sensation. The Latin word intelligentia, which 
 is used in much the same way^ has the same meaning 
 as the other, without being derived from it. It means 
 
THE WORD KNOWLEDGE. 71 
 
 "that which can be read within," or by intellectus, 
 "the internal reader," without any present aid from 
 without — or it is the fact or capacity of this internal 
 reading. 
 
 These etymological explanations involve in them 
 the demonstration of the third proposition also, — 
 namely, that the mind can have no original knowledge 
 of the external or material world but what it receives 
 through the senses ; or, in other words, that the mate- 
 rials of all our knowledge are originally obtained by 
 the instrumentality of the senses, and by that only. 
 The structure which the mind can rear out of those 
 materials, and the way in which it can be enlarged 
 and improved from man to man, or from age to age, by 
 the operations of the mind, is quite another matter, 
 the investigation of which properly belongs to the 
 knowledge of Man as an intellectual being — that is, 
 a being that can work "inwardly," and of himself, 
 altogether independent of the rest of nature, and even 
 though the whole system of things were to be anni- 
 hilated, though in that case he could, of course, receive 
 no new materials for his working. The full analysis 
 of this must therefore be referred to our volume on 
 " Intellectual Man ; " but as the " body without the 
 soul is dead," — the physical part does not seem 
 capable of the least sensation or knowledge of itself 
 after it is separated from the intellectual part, it is 
 quite impossible to understand the one in any thing 
 like a useful manner, without a reference to the other. 
 Indeed, how much soever systematic writers may 
 virtually analyse the systems of Man, and treat of the 
 
72 KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 one without reference to the other, we must take the 
 whole of them in their connexion, if we wish to have 
 any knowledge of Man as we really meet with him in 
 society. 
 
 In questions relating to that material creation which 
 is palpable to the senses, and in which, whenever we 
 either feel at a loss with our speculations, or wish to 
 certify ourselves of their tnith, we can verify them by 
 a direct appeal to the subjects themselves, verbal ar- 
 guments, and especially etymological ones, are not 
 held to be conclusive ; but, in speculations which are 
 purely mental, and in which there is no possible 
 original to which we can refer as an object of percep- 
 tion, the case is widely different. Besides the mental 
 feeling itself, there is in these nothing to which we can 
 refer but language ; and as the feelings of one man 
 not only cannot be made matter of demonstration to 
 another man, but cannot be at all known to him, 
 unless they are expressed in language, it necessarily 
 follows that in them we have no demonstrations but 
 verbal ones. No doubt there is often much ambiguity 
 and uncertainty in these ; but still, they are the best 
 that we can obtain, for the gestures and other dumb- 
 show expressions of the body are not only more unin- 
 telligible in themselves than language, but we can 
 never analyse them so as to be sure how much to refer 
 to mental causes, and how much to the mere feelings 
 of the body itself, which have no reference to any 
 thing mental. 
 
 Therefore, if we would consider the matter aright, 
 the simple fact that the expressions used for know- 
 
IMMORTALITY. 73 
 
 ledge refer to something inward and mental, in ad- 
 dition to the senses, ought to satisfy us that where 
 there is no mind there can be no knowledge. In- 
 deed, it ought to carry us much farther than this, and 
 convince us that that which can know, must, from the 
 very fact of its knowing, be immortal, that is, inde- 
 pendent of the fate and casualty of material things, 
 and secure, not only against the changes of these, but 
 against any ultimate destruction to which they can be 
 subjected. When not one stone is left upon another, 
 of a home with which I was once familiar — when a 
 human being with whom I was once intimate has 
 mouldered in the dust, or been sunk in the extremest 
 depths of the sea, my mental knowledge of the one or 
 the other is not in the least impaired, neither is it one 
 jot altered from what it would be if they were simply 
 removed from the range of my senses, but still in the 
 very same state of existence as when those senses 
 brought me the means of my knowledge of them. 
 
 The destroyed and the dead are just as present and 
 as \d^dd to thought as the absent ; and we often feel 
 far more pleasure in the mental contemplation of 
 scenes which have been totally changed, than we do 
 in those which are presently before our eyes ; and hold 
 sweeter converse with those that are in the grave, 
 than with the most familiar of our living associates. 
 This is a strong argument for immortality, and one 
 which is altogether irresistible, if we would reflect 
 upon it carefully and in the proper spirit. 
 
 The young are so pleased with the passing time, 
 and so high in hope for the next change that the re- 
 
 H 
 
74 THE PLEASURES 
 
 volving wheel may turn up, that they do not much 
 heed these matters. But when life has advanced a 
 little, we find that our pleasure — our time mental satis- 
 faction, is much more frequently in the absent than in 
 the present. 
 
 Then, when our mortal span feels to us as it were 
 near its termination, whether from the casualty of 
 disease or from the lapse of years, hut more especially 
 in the latter case, we live and enjoy more in the 
 desolate and the dead, than we do in the present and 
 the living. When the wine of life has been drained 
 until it is bitter on the lees to the present taste — when 
 the eye is dim to beauty, and the ear dull to the voice 
 of the charmer — when our present sensations tell us 
 of nought save pain and suffering, decayed powers, 
 and uselessness merely tolerated by those for whose 
 benefit we spent the best of our strength ; — then, if 
 we had nothing whereupon to rely but the body and 
 its sensations, it would not be in human nature to 
 support the giievousness of the burden : but in such 
 cases, our knowledge comes wonderfully to our aid ; 
 and the mind repays in an ample measure those 
 lessons which it received from sensation in the days 
 of the body's activity. Worn out, neglected, alone, 
 deserted, in the anguish of bodily sufi^ering, and the 
 extreme of worldly privation, a bright spot and a 
 blithe companion once enjoyed, no matter how long 
 ago, can come with delight to the mind, and more 
 than medicinal balm to the anguish of the body. Far 
 distant from the land of his birth, and brought nigh 
 to the gates of death by disease, under the pestilent 
 
OF MEMORY. 75 
 
 burnings of some foreign atmosphere, thousands have 
 been saved and brought back again to health and 
 usefulness, by the kind labour of the mind in carrying 
 them home to the place of their birth, and the fields 
 and fellow-playmates of that infancy, in which the 
 head felt no ache, and the heart no pang. And there 
 have not been a few of the human race, who, even 
 when immured in the gloom of a solitary dungeon, 
 from which there was not the slightest hope of de- 
 liverance, have lived joyfully in the society of their 
 former friends even though dead, and risen superior 
 in happiness to those whose vengeance had placed 
 them there as the severest punishment that cruelty 
 could inflict. 
 
 This is still an intellectual, not a physical considera- 
 tion, but it is one to which we must advert before we 
 can, even virtually, feel the distinction between the 
 physical and the mental parts of our compound na- 
 ture, so as rightly to understand either. Notwith- 
 standing, we may, in passing, remark, that herein 
 there is involved one of the most unanswerable argu- 
 ments for the existence of an intellectual principle in 
 Man, and for the immortality of this principle. If 
 we were wholly animal — the body and nothing else, — 
 then our whole happiness or misery would follow our 
 sensations for the time, without the slightest vaiiation ; 
 and, exposed to the contingencies which beset us, and 
 which have no parallel in the lives of the other ani- 
 mals, there are many circumstances against which it 
 would be impossible for us to bear up. The maimed 
 and mutilated veteran, who is compelled to beg from 
 
76 THE VETERAN. 
 
 door to door, has his spirits buoyed up and his life 
 sustained by the recollection of the deeds of his 
 former days ; and when he is moved by the tale of 
 that day upon which his commander won gloiy and 
 
 wealth, and he won the privilege of begging 
 
 through life, he casts away all the miseries of the 
 present, and actually feels vigour in those veiy limbs 
 of which he has for a long period been deprived. 
 
 Is this the case, think you, with any of the animals 1 
 Do their memories of the past bear them up under 
 the sufferings of the present 1 When " the high- 
 mettled racer" comes at last to the severest drudgery, 
 the harshest treatment, and the most scanty fare, is 
 he in any way comforted, is the suffering of his present 
 condition in any way relieved, by the memoiy of how 
 he was petted and pampered in the days of his prime ? 
 We do not believe that there is one sane human being 
 who would answer this in the affirmative ; and yet 
 this, when rightly considered, is decisive of the propo- 
 sition that " Man alone can acquire knowledge." 
 
 It must be borne in mind that this is a question 
 into the consideration of which time cannot enter as 
 an element. For, if there is once a knowledge of any 
 thing, — a feeling or perception of that thing which can 
 remain or return in the absence of the impression of 
 the thing presently on the senses, — the fact of its 
 remaining an hour, a day, a thousand years, or for 
 eternity, is not a matter of essential difference. If "it 
 can return without the sensation by which it was 
 originally produced, it is just as independent of that 
 sensation, and of the object occasioning it, at the end 
 
MENTAL MEMORY. 77 
 
 of the longest time after the sensation as of the 
 shortest ; and thus the knowledge which we obtain by 
 means of the senses of the body, is altogether inde- 
 pendent both of the body and of the external objects 
 by which the body was affected in the original sensa- 
 tion. The knowledge has ceased to have any con- 
 nexion with them, from the moment that it be- 
 came knowledge ; and, therefore, their future destiny, 
 whatever that may be, can have no influence upon it 
 in any way whatsoever. If the bodily organs are de- 
 cayed or paralysed, or if the body dies and is reduced 
 into the chemical elements of which it is composed, 
 and these enter into ten thousand new combinations, 
 this does not in any way affect the knowledge which 
 exists independently of the body. So, in like manner, 
 if the whole frame of that external and material 
 nature, of which the senses of the body have fur- 
 nished the means of knowledge, should be molten 
 into thin air, or pass into utter and final nothingness, 
 still this would not, in the least, affect the existence of 
 the knowledge, which, having nothing of matter in 
 it, could not in any way be involved in the fate of 
 matter. 
 
 But although, when thus abstractedly considered, 
 the mind and the merely animal or sentient part of the 
 human system are obviously and clearly distinct from 
 each other, yet when we contemplate Man in nature, 
 and compare him with the other animals, difficulties 
 arise of far greater magnitude than we should be apt 
 to suppose ; and we are very apt to disbelieve, or deny 
 in fact, that which seems so plain and so demonstra- 
 
 H 3 
 
78 SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGISTS. 
 
 tive in philosophy. The real cause of this lies in the 
 fact of the mind in Man not being in any way an 
 object of the senses of other men, and, generally 
 speaking, but imperfectly understood by the man 
 himself. In every age there have been many of the 
 learned in common literature, and in all the other 
 sciences, who have denied the very existence of mind 
 as distinct from matter, or questioned its immortality, 
 which virtually amounts to the same thing ; and the 
 unlearned in all ages have merely a verbal assent or 
 belief of it, as they have of all other subjects which 
 they do not understand. 
 
 Hence, by common observation, and also in the 
 systems of zoological writers, Man is classified along 
 with the other living creatures, and considered as 
 differing from them in nothing save the organisation 
 of the body, and the results of that organisation. Even 
 the late Baron Cuvier, who is by far the most scien- 
 tific of those classifiers, has made the description of 
 Man in the system worse than that of Linnaeus in 
 some respects, though better in others. The improve- 
 ment which he made was owing to his superior know- 
 ledge of the animal organisation, and the purposes for 
 which any particular structure is best adapted. In the 
 extent and accuracy of his knowledge of these subjects, 
 and also in the judgment and candour wdth which he 
 applied this knowledge, he has hitherto had no equal. 
 This accurate knowledge of comparative anatomy led 
 Cu\der to separate Man from the apes and bats, with 
 which Man had been classed by his illustrious prede- 
 cessor ; but the separation was made upon physical 
 
' 79 
 
 CUVIER S MISTAKE. 
 
 grounds only, upon the fact that the structure of 
 Man does not qualify him for climbing like the apes, 
 or flying like the bats. Cuvier was an able and a 
 candid philosopher ; but still, he was only a mate- 
 rial philosopher ; and thus, while by his example 
 he was giving very higli and convincing proofs of 
 mind, he took no notice of it in his precepts. It was 
 this which led him to omit the distinctive character of 
 Man, given with so much truth and effect by Linnaeus 
 — the fact of Man's being the only inhabitant of the 
 earth that can be described as " knowing himself." 
 We shall afterwards see that this definition, or dis- 
 tinctive character, short as it is, is quite sufficient ; for 
 the knowledge of ourselves is the foundation of all 
 our knowledge : and it begins with that of the body ; 
 the use, or even the existence of any one of those 
 parts of it which are afterwards to be used in knowing 
 and acting upon the subjects of the external world, 
 not being known until the knowledge of it has been 
 acquired by experience, the labour of which is far 
 greater than they who have not studied the matter 
 would be apt to suppose, inasmuch as the first efforts — • 
 which are of necessity the most laborious ones — not 
 only escape the observ'ation of others, but are not re- 
 membered by the party himself. Our sensations are 
 the teachers in these cases, and in all cases in which we 
 acquire knowledge for ourselves : but the mind is the 
 pupil, or recipient of the instruction. When a child 
 burns its finger at the flame of a candle, the finger is 
 not taught to avoid the candle ; for if the candle is 
 again brought into contact with it, and concealed from 
 
80 SENSATION IS NOT KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 the child's observation at the same time, there is no 
 more effort made to avoid the candle until the feeling 
 becomes painful, in the second or any future repetition 
 of the experiment, than there was in the first ; and 
 the result is the same, at what period soever of after- 
 life the experiment is made. 
 
 This may be verified by any one : indeed, all must 
 assent to it without verification ; and the same holds 
 in the case of every other sense. The eye never turns 
 away from an offensive light, the ear from an offensive 
 sound, or the nostril from an offensive odour, until the 
 offensiveness of it is actually felt. But, if there were 
 any knowledge in sensation, surely we should find it in 
 the organs of sense ; for if not, then it would follow 
 that a material organ, which is specially adapted to a 
 particular office or function, has to be schooled in that 
 by another organ specially adapted for a different 
 purpose, and not at all adapted for that one — in other 
 words, that all sentient beings act upon the absurdity 
 so happily ridiculed by the satirist, in the case of the 
 
 " Rosicrusian virtuosos. 
 Who see with ears, and hear with noses." 
 
 But if the single material organ is incapable of 
 knowing the object of that very sensation for the 
 purpose of which it is obviously made, it follows that 
 no combination of such organ, let it be as complicated 
 as it may, can have this power, which belongs to none 
 of the parts singly. The compound may, and no doubt 
 does, in this as in many other matters, blind and be- 
 wilder those who are incapable of analysing it ; but it 
 
KNOWLEDGE IN ANIMALS. 81 
 
 can do nothing towards making falsehood truth, or 
 absurdity reason. One falsehood is not the less so 
 fi'om there being fifty others named and considered 
 along with it ; and as little is an absurd opinion 
 rendered one iota the more rational by being main- 
 tained by fifty people ; but the errors and absurdities 
 of reasoning are concealed from being lumped together 
 in masses, just as the follies and crimes of mankind 
 are hidden by the numbers engaged in the perpetration 
 of them. So powerful an effect has this conglomeration 
 of absurdity — this hiding of one error in the shadow 
 of another, upon the understandings of men, that in all 
 intricate cases the minority are far more frequently in 
 the right than the majority. 
 
 It is so in the case of the alleged knowledge of the 
 animals. The philosophical truth is as plain and pal- 
 pable, even to any one w'ho will exercise but a little, 
 and a very little, thought, as a truth can possibly be ; 
 and yet there is probably not one man in a thousand 
 who does not believe the opposite. This, too, not 
 among the illiterate and those who are untutored in the 
 schools, but among those who are the most cunning in 
 beasts, w^ho take the highest places in zoological societies, 
 speak with the greatest confidence at those more 
 general institutions, which great names have devised 
 for their own glorification, and whose crude and most 
 unphilosophical writings are in the hands of every- 
 body who reads upon such subjects. 
 
 What we have hinted at is the chief reason of this. 
 We observe Man only as an object of the senses, just 
 as we observe the other animals. Like these, Man is 
 
62 MAN AND ANIMALS, 
 
 born and dies ; like them, he has a definite organisation 
 and specific organs of sense ; and in these respects 
 there is a certain resemblance between the human body 
 and the bodies of other animals which are vertebrated, 
 or have back-bones and an internal skeleton. This 
 resemblance is faint and shadowy in the fishes, espe- 
 cially in the sharks, the skate, and others which have 
 the internal skeleton soft and cartilaginous, and the 
 hard matter of the bones variously disposed on the 
 surface of the skin, thereby indicating an approach to 
 the crusted and shelled animals, which have few or no 
 internal bones. In the reptiles it is a little closer, 
 though the true serpents have the horny scales upon 
 the body, serving in part as the skeleton, in their 
 motions from place to place. The birds come still 
 nearer in their general structure, though they differ 
 more in certain parts of it, as, for instance, in having 
 no teeth. The mammalia come yet nearer to the 
 organisation of man, though there are veiy great 
 differences among them : some of the handed animals, 
 as, for instance, the chimpanzee of Africa, and the 
 oran-outan of the Oriental Archipelago, have so many 
 resemblances to Man, both in their anatomical struc- 
 ture and their appearance, that they have, as we said, 
 been classed with Man by naturalists, and are so 
 regarded by vulgar observers of all ranks of society. 
 The fact that Cuvier, who sticks to his physical dis- 
 tinctions, and never calls in the aid of the intellectual 
 argument, having separated Man from the apes, is 
 conclusive as to the structural part of the subject. 
 But the structural comparison of IVIan with the other 
 
RESPIRATION. 83 
 
 animals is of sufficient importance for })eing treated of 
 in a separate chapter. 
 
 Besides this similarity in organisation, and the pos- 
 session of localised senses, there are other similarities 
 apparent to common observation between Man and 
 the other mammalia : they perform certain functions 
 by means of their organisation, and they also perform 
 certain external actions, in which the senses appear 
 to be the guides in the case of Man as well as in that 
 of the rest. Let this be admitted, and let us consider 
 what follows : — 
 
 In all those functions of the body, the performance 
 of w^hich is not preceded by an impression upon any 
 particular sense, the senses can acquire no direct in- 
 formation, though deranged states of these functions 
 are far more immediately painful to the body than any 
 thing of which we can be informed through the 
 medium of the senses. Respiration is palpable to 
 sense, it is the means of voice, and it is intimately 
 connected with the senses of smelling and tasting, so 
 that it is scarcely possible that the fact of its being 
 carried on could remain unknown. A certain command 
 over it is also necessary, both for the alternations of 
 speech and silence, and for the various inflexions and 
 modulations of the former. But, though the fact of the 
 suspension of respiration being speedily followed by 
 that of all the functions of life in the body, has been 
 well known from the earliest periods of human history, 
 yet the use of it in the system is of recent discovery, 
 is still imperfectly known, and could never have been 
 arrived at without many examinations of facts and 
 
84 VITAL FUNCTIONS. 
 
 trains of intellectual operation, in which sensation 
 could not have had the least concern, farther than in 
 merely giving notice of the facts upon which those 
 intellectual trains and the conclusions to which they 
 led were founded. 
 
 Of the other vital functions of the body, which are 
 certainly not less essential to its existence than respi- 
 ration, the senses can take still less cognizance, or 
 rather no direct .cognizance at all ; and it may be said 
 that the only feeling which we have of them is a 
 feeling of buoyancy and vigour when they are all in 
 a regular and healthy state, and a feeling of uneasiness 
 when any of them is deranged. Indeed, so vague are 
 these feelings that we are, in most cases of disease, 
 incapable of ascertaining which of these systems is out 
 of order ; and not only are we ourselves in doubt, or 
 rather in complete ignorance upon this subject, but the 
 utmost skill of those who make the structure, functions, 
 and states of the body, the constant subjects of the 
 most careful observation and the most profound thought, 
 are very frequently so much at a loss to find out what 
 is the matter, that they have to cloak their ignorance 
 under the disguise of a technical phraseology, which 
 gains credit for being profound, simply on account of 
 its being so thoroughly deep that it has no bottom of 
 sense whatsoever. 
 
 The process of assimilation, by means of which 
 the food is changed into a substance fit for the 
 nourishment of the body, is still very imperfectly 
 understood, in almost every stage of its progress ; and, 
 even after it has passed through the whole system of 
 
IGNORANCE OF THE SYSTEM. 85 
 
 the alimentary organs, from the mouth to the thoracic 
 duct, by which the chyle is delivered into the ge- 
 neral system of the blood, we cannot say that it is 
 yet fit for the purposes of the body, until the veins 
 have carried it to the heart, that has sent it to the 
 lungs to undergo whatever change it undergoes in 
 respiration, the lungs have returned it back to the 
 heart, and that has sent it over the body by the sys- 
 tematic arteries. Of all the parts and stages of this 
 most complicated and curious process, sensation*knows 
 nothing, save the painful feeling produced by the 
 derangement of any part of it ; and even in that 
 simple case, we have no certainty where, or in what, 
 the derangement consists ; for in some of our most 
 annoying diseases, the seats of them are not only 
 hidden to sensation, but we neither know of ourselves, 
 nor can any one satisfactorily tell us, in what and how 
 we are afflicted. Even the simple fact that the blood 
 does circulate is a recent discovery ; and as to most 
 of the operations which are performed by it in the 
 course of the circulation, we are completely in the 
 dark. 
 
 It is the same wdth eveiy other internal system, with 
 the lymphatics and the nerves for instance. As to the 
 former, we know little of what they administer, or 
 what they absorb ; and as to the nerves, we are pro- 
 bably in much deeper darkness than upon any other 
 part of the system ; for in all likelihood we are in a 
 darkness of our own making, as well as in that which 
 belongs to the veiy abstruse nature of the subject. 
 
 It is true there are not wanting those who attribute 
 
86 ORGANS AND FUNCTIONS. 
 
 to the brain, not only all the sensations of which the 
 body is capable, but all the varied dispositions of the 
 mind, the indications of which they profess to discover 
 in the peculiar form of the cranium. Now, as we do 
 not actually know the functions of the brain and its 
 nervous continuations, we cannot of course decide what 
 particular form of brain may be best for the perform- 
 ance of those functions. But we perceive that in all 
 those organs of the body which have external func- 
 tions to perform, and which we can actually compare 
 with their performances, we find that there is a cer- 
 tain form of the organ which is the best adapted to the 
 performance of the functions. Thus, a hand and arm 
 which have the muscles firm and powerful are capa- 
 ble not only of harder work than those which are 
 feeble and delicate, but they are also far more nice 
 and certain in the performance of the most delicate 
 operation than hands and arms which are to appear- 
 ance far more delicate. Thus, for instance, if we 
 make allowance for the difference of sensibility in the 
 cuticle, and that is perhaps less than we are apt to 
 suppose — at least in any thing save mere endurance of 
 changes of temperature, the hand of a ploughman is, 
 in truth, a much more delicate instrument than that 
 of a lord, and the hand of a milkmaid, if trained, is 
 naturally fitted for nicer work than that of the first 
 lady in the land. 
 
 Now, if there is a certain form and state of these 
 organs of which we can see the operation, which is 
 better ior their appropriate function than any other 
 form and state ; and if considerable development in 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN. 87 
 
 size, and more especially a firm and healthy consist- 
 ency, be found to be favourable in those cases which 
 we can observe, we may at least presume that the 
 analogy holds in those cases which are not open to our 
 observation. Thus, our conclusion from the analogy 
 would naturally be, that a brain which is rather large 
 and of a firm texture should perform its functions, 
 whatever those functions may be, in a more efiicient 
 manner than one which is small and flaccid. But of 
 course this must be taken with limitations — because 
 excess of size may be a burden, and excess of rigidity 
 a restraint upon action. 
 
 We do not, as has been hinted, know the proper 
 functions of the brain and nervous system, even in a 
 merely physical sense of the word ; and thus, instead 
 of knowing in what manner and to what extent pecu- 
 liar formations of brain may influence the mental 
 dispositions of those who possess them, we do not 
 even know their influence upon the body. No doubt 
 the skulls of a considerable number of subjects, both 
 living and dead, have been examined by the professors 
 of Phrenology ; but, even gi'anting that none of these 
 have been made ex post facto, so that the parties went 
 in search of that which they knew they could find, or 
 in support of hypotheses previously formed of which 
 they sought proofs, the number examined is so small 
 a fraction of the whole human race, that they cannot 
 philosophically be received as proofs of a theory of the 
 formal modifications of a part of the body, the substan- 
 tive use of which is not known, That the brain is a 
 most important part of the system, we very readily infer 
 
88 THE SKULL-MEN. 
 
 from the fact of its being more protected from injury 
 than any other part, and from disease and death being 
 produced by concussions of it, which could be suffered 
 in any other part without danger. It is also trae that 
 the more sensitive any part of the system is, the more 
 abundantly is it supplied with nei-ves ; but we do not 
 know that there is any kind of circulation in the 
 nervous system, nor can we tell whether sensation or 
 secretion is its leading function ; and at all events no 
 man ever came to any accurate knowledge of his own 
 propensities by examining the phrenological characters 
 of his cranium : nor has he any need, for there are 
 much more direct and certain ways of getting at this 
 kind of knowledge — indeed, it is of such a nature that 
 we cannot hide it from ourselves if we would. 
 
 We may, in passing, remark, that the name Phre- 
 nology is arrogant and improper, as it takes for 
 granted the chief matter in dispute, the fact of the 
 shape and development of the brain indicating mental 
 dispositions, or speaking " the voice of the mind," 
 which is the literal meaning. The original names, 
 Craniology and Cranioscopy, were not liable to this 
 objection ; but they confined the subject to bumps on 
 the skull, which not unfrequently answer to depressions 
 of the brain, as a thickening of the cellular septum 
 often pushes one table as far in as it pushes the other 
 out. If it were worth while to be precise in language 
 upon a subject which in itself has so little precision, 
 Encephalology would unquestionably be the most ap- 
 propriate term, and the least liable to objection of any 
 kind, because it simply means the voice that is given 
 
THE SKULL-MEN. 89 
 
 out by, or can be gleaned from, the aicephalon, or 
 contents of the skull, without any allusion to phrenos, 
 the mind : and that it has or has not such an allusion 
 is a matter of inference, and not of fact — a process 
 of the mind itself, in which sensation has no farther 
 concern than that of merely supplying the materials ; 
 and the present state of the facts is by far too imperfect 
 . for giving philosophical certainty to such an inference. 
 
 But, though the doctrines of phrenology are thus 
 uncertain, they by no means deseiTe those anathemas 
 on the score of materialism, which some zealots, equally 
 ignorant as the harmless men of skulls, and far more 
 intemperate, unphilosophic, and unchristian, have 
 hurled against the doctrine, which, saving a slight 
 leaning towards the nonsensical, is really one of the 
 most innocent of amusements : and, certes, there are 
 many persons within the four seas, and some of them 
 of sounding name and lofty pretensions, who would be 
 much more harmlessly employed in disporting them- 
 selves with groping the bumps on each others' pates, 
 than they are in their present avocations. 
 
 Grant that all which the phrenologists contend for 
 were established with the same force of e\'idence as 
 a mathematical proposition — that the connexion be- 
 tween the encephalic development and the mental 
 propensity were as clearly established as the fact of 
 heaviness is with lead ; and it would no more affect 
 the immateriality or immortal duration of the mind, 
 than would a similar establishment of lameness with a 
 poet, or a certain terrestrial repulsion of the heels in a 
 dancing-master. 
 
 i3 
 
90 NOTION OP 
 
 For every disposition of the mind, so far as the 
 mind can be known to us, is an acquired disposition, 
 and acquired through the medium of the body, and 
 that only. The body is the teacher of the mind, or, 
 to speak more correctly, it is the pun'eyor which 
 furnishes the mind with all the materials of thought, 
 whether respecting our brethren of mankind, the rest 
 of the external world, or the matter and state of our 
 own bodies ; and the mind has no alternative, but 
 must just receive whatever information this body gives 
 it, modified by whatever humour or state, with regard 
 either to health or feeling, or condition, the body may 
 be in at the time. The bodily appetites and passions, 
 those which the merely animal part of Man partakes 
 of in common with the other animals, cannot, for 
 instance, have their origin in the mind ; but if the 
 body is under the strong influence of any passion, be 
 it what it may, this passion will not only tint with its 
 own colours all the information which the mind gets 
 while the body is labouring under it, but it will com- 
 municate itself, and, if the expression may be admitted, 
 it will press the mind into its service. Hence it is 
 obvious that if the body is habitually under the influ- 
 ence of any appetite or passion, the suggestions of 
 the mind must run more upon subj ects connected with 
 that appetite or passion than upon any others, just as 
 the thoughts of men run upon, and their minds ap- 
 pear to be modelled by, the professions they follow, 
 the company they keep, and the general tenor of their 
 physical lives. 
 
 Thus, if it were well established that the bodily 
 
PHRENOLOGY, 91 
 
 passions and appetites are intimately connected with 
 any particular formations or developments of the 
 brain, or any other part of the organic structure, it 
 must follow that these formations or developments 
 would be indices alike to the body and the mind ; and 
 thus far, a system of phrenology might be quite rational, 
 and not have the slightest tendency to materialism, 
 or the casting of doubt upon the immortality of 
 the mind ; and that therefore it would be just as 
 compatible with morals and religion as any other of 
 the natural sciences. But still, it is to be borne in 
 mind, that the science here, as well as in ever}'thing 
 else, is founded upon relations, which are mental sub- 
 jects at which we never can arrive by the mere per- 
 ceptions of sense ; and that it is by means of these 
 relations only that it becomes knowledge. 
 
 We have gone at some length into the details of 
 this — the ignorance of the senses — the merely physical 
 parts of our compound nature, respecting even the 
 most immediately important of our vital and sentient 
 organs and their functions, for the purpose of showing 
 that though the body can and does communicate in- 
 formation, which the mind elaborates into knowledge, 
 yet, that the body itself does not know the information 
 which it communicates, the subject from which it re- 
 ceives its impressions, or the organisation by means of 
 which those impressions are either received or com- 
 municated to the mind. In so far as the body is con- 
 cerned, the feeling may be pleasurable or painful, and 
 must indeed be the one or the other ; but beyond this it 
 has no existence. It is not anticipated before it actually 
 
92 THE BODY DOES NOT KNOW. 
 
 takes place in the physical impression upon the sen- 
 tient part, and it remains not after the physical con- 
 tact is at an end. Nay, if it is not pleasurable or 
 painful it is not felt at all ; and many have received 
 severe M'ounds in the heat and excitement of battle, 
 of which they ha^^e not been aware till admonished by 
 the flowing blood, or by some other circumstance. 
 
 This ought to satisfy the most determined sticklers 
 for the possession of knowledge by the animals ; for 
 surely, if the human body, which they all allow stands 
 foremost in the rank of organisation, cannot possess 
 knowledge — even the knowledge of its own organs or 
 its own existence, they would never claim a higher kind 
 (for it is more than a degree) of capacities for beings 
 which by their own admission are inferior. Yet, clear 
 as is the demonstration, there is, perhaps, not one in a 
 hundred who would not reject it as an absurd paradox; 
 and such being the case, we need not wonder that 
 the great body of mankind are duped into the belief 
 of eveiy absurdity which is so skilfully wrapped up in 
 the mazes of language as that nothing glaringly false 
 appears in it. 
 
 If we say in as many words, that the dog, which 
 expresses delight at hearing the sound of its master's 
 foot, which perchance greets him with a more kindly 
 welcome than any of the human inmates of his dwell- 
 ing, and which can follow after him for many miles, 
 and find him out in a crowd of thousands, not only 
 does not know that it has any master, but actually 
 has no knowledge of its own existence, or of any one 
 object in that system of nature of which it forms a 
 
ANIMALS AND MAN. 93 
 
 part, we are liable to be disbelieved. Yet this is not 
 only the fact, but it is a fact of which if we have 
 not, not merely the faith but the demonstrative 
 conviction, our confidence in the doctrine of immor- 
 tality is shaken to its very base ; and all the doctrines 
 of morality and religion are at the mercy of the 
 winds — our morality is imposture, our religion is 
 hypocrisy. If this animal, which has its day, and 
 wholly returns to the dust, has the faculty of acquiring 
 knowledge, what an unnecessary waste of Almighty 
 power, what a monstrous contradiction of Infinite wis- 
 dom would it be, to confer an immortal spirit upon Man, 
 when a dog can do all that this spirit can do, without 
 any thing but his mere animal organisation, and do it 
 with less teaching and more certainty than Man can 
 possibly do ! Has the Almighty Creator, through the 
 whole of whose other works there runs such a beautiful 
 adaptation of means to end, that everything is done in 
 the easiest and best manner, with the least expenditure 
 both of materials and of power, and invariably for the 
 good of the whole system jointly with that of the in- 
 dividual, — has He failed in the case of JVlan, — has the 
 Creator of the heavens and the earth been found 
 incapable of so forming a rational and immortal spirit 
 as that it can be any benefit to its possessor which he 
 could not have enjoyed without it, by means of his 
 body, like the other animals 1 
 
 If this does not satisfy those religious persons who 
 round the periods in which they essay to set forth the 
 power, wisdom, and goodness of God, with flourishes 
 about the knowledge and sagacity of animals, it ought 
 
94 ' FREE-WILL IN MAN. 
 
 at all events to silence them till they have gone to 
 school, and learned not by ill-judged ascriptions of 
 praise to bring the very being of their Maker into 
 question. But it is doubtful whether it will have 
 even this effect ; for there is no mode of darkness 
 which so stubbornly resists the light of truth, as ig- 
 norance when it puts on the mantle of religious 
 phraseology. Therefore, reserving the comparison of 
 physical Man with the animals to another chapter, 
 we shall add a few words upon another view of the 
 matter. 
 
 It was D'Alembert, we believe, who so happily 
 ridiculed that doctrine of "free-will" in Man, which 
 has given occasion to so many idle disputations, and 
 been made always the darker the more that has been 
 said concerning it — it was he, we believe, who said 
 that "if a stone knew that it were falling to the 
 ground, it would believe that it fell of its own free-will, 
 and not in consequence of the law of gravitation:" 
 and in like manner we may say, that if the animals 
 knew that they possessed the physical powers that 
 they possess, or even knew the fact of their own ex- 
 istence, we should never bind a horse to the draught, 
 or drive a bullock to the slaughter. It is the fact of 
 our being capable of acquiring knowledge, and their 
 not being capable of it, which gives us that power 
 over them which we have neither strength nor dexte- 
 rity in our bodies to procure otherwise. 
 
 It is true that animals, within those particular 
 ranges to which their organisation and purpose in 
 nature confine them, do many things which we could 
 
ANIMAL FACULTIES. 95 
 
 not do without knowledge, and not a few that would 
 baffle and defeat us in spite of all the knowledge which 
 we can possibly acquire. All the schools and colleges 
 in the world could not, for instance, teach a man to 
 follow upon the slot like a bloodhound, or to find 
 game and stand at it like a pointer : and yet there 
 have been instances in which a pig has been trained 
 to perform the latter operation ; and a pig, like a dog, 
 is an animal which, in a state of nature — the only 
 state in which we can form a proper judgment of 
 animals — finds the greater part of its food by the 
 -cent. We could not, by possibility, make a honey- 
 comb, even if we had the organ of constructiveness 
 developed to such a degree as would delight all the 
 phrenologists upon earth ; w^e could not collect the 
 materials from the same sources, and put them to- 
 gether in the same way that the bee does ; nor could 
 we, with all our science, make a nicer application of 
 the principle of obtaining the greatest accommodation 
 and strength out of the smallest space and quantity 
 of materials. But, still, it would be absurd to say that 
 the bee has the slightest knowledge in the matter : 
 she does not go to school — she goes instantly to her 
 work, as soon as she has undergone her transforma- 
 tion, and is able to fly ; and, instead of giving herself 
 any trouble about the solution of questions of maxima 
 and minima, she never begs one of Euclid's postulates, 
 or tries her powers at crossing the pons a inorum. 
 It is the same throughout the whole range of animated 
 nature ; the creatures have no knowledge, no use 
 for it, and no means of acquiring it. They are 
 
96 ANIMALS AND MAN. 
 
 fitted for certain offices in the grand system of crea- 
 tion ; and one generation of them, however brief may 
 be the term of its duration, is just as fit as another. 
 Perfect at once, they never improve, neither have they 
 in themselves any principles or means of improve- 
 ment. 
 
 " But Man can improve very many of them, so as 
 to make them better fitted for his purposes ; and pro- 
 bably there is not one among them which he could 
 not improve, if he were to adopt the proper means." 
 So he can, and so it is probable ; and he can not only 
 train and improve the animals so as to make them 
 more subservient to his purposes, but he can do the 
 same with vegetables, and with dead matter, in which 
 last there is certainly no knowledge. The iron, while 
 yet in the mine, surely does not know that it is some 
 day to become the blade of a razor, and thereafter to 
 shave a philosopher 1 and the lead which is crystallised 
 with sulphur in the state of galena, even in those rich 
 mines of North Wales, in which lead has freedom to 
 converse with lead by hundred-weights and tons, has 
 no science that it shall some day shoot a partridge or 
 a woodcock 1 
 
 You may say that these suppositions are absurd, 
 and we at once admit that you are in the right ; and 
 we further admit that we have alluded to them for the 
 sake of the absurdity. But let us proceed upwards, 
 and we shall probably find that there is not less ab- 
 surdity in your ascribing knowledge even to your 
 most favourite animal. Take a vegetable — and vege- 
 tables are far more plastic to the cultivating hand of 
 
MAN AND VEGETABLES. 97 
 
 Man than even the most tractable of the animals. 
 When the potato was first brought from the moun- 
 tains of America, was it aware that it would one day 
 form so large a portion of the food of Europeans, or 
 banish famine from so many lands 1 Was the wild 
 colewort, when first found on the strand, conscious that 
 it was to become the broccoli, the cauliflower, and 
 fifty other varieties, all as true to their successions, 
 with proper care on the part of the cultivator, as the 
 wild plant in its native locality ? When the dahlia 
 was first introduced into this country, a paltry flower 
 with a single row of small petals, and not superior 
 in beauty to the common marigold, which is such a 
 nuisance in the corn-fields of some of the poorer parts 
 of the country, what knowledge had it that it was so 
 speedily to become the greatest beauty and the most 
 easily cultivated of all our autumnal flowers, the boast 
 of the professional florist, and the ornament of the 
 little patch of ground by the cottage of every tasteful 
 peasant in the country ? In all these cases, and in a 
 thousand others which we could as easily cite, you 
 will of course answer that the plant had not the 
 slightest pretension to the knowledge of what it was 
 to become, or in any way to the knowledge even that 
 it existed ; but that the whole of the changes, even in 
 those cases in which they have been most remarkable, 
 or most wonderful, if the expression is preferred, the 
 whole of the knowledge which has produced these 
 changes has been the knowledge of man, and not a jot 
 on the part of the plant. 
 
 Admit that it is so, — as who can refuse the admission 1 
 
 K 
 
98 IMPORTANCE OF DISCOVERY. 
 
 — and yet who shall say that there is one tittle of man's 
 invention in the whole matter 1 It is all the result of 
 discovery, and of discovery step by step, of which man 
 was, at the outset, just as ignorant as the plant ; and 
 it is only changing the organisation and the habit and 
 use in wild nature, to bring the same argument home 
 to the case of every animal upon which man has tried 
 his skill, be the. animal, and the change which has been 
 effected upon it, what they may. Nor does the matter, 
 by any means, stop here : for if we make allowance 
 for their structure, organisation, and place in the sys- 
 tem of nature, the plants, even in what we regard as 
 the very humblest of their species, are every way as 
 perfect to their purpose, and as wonderful to us, as the 
 animals. They have not, it is true, the capacity of 
 locomotion, excepting in the distribution of the seeds 
 or germs of many of them : and in this particular 
 habit of their being, or portion of their economy, they 
 are even more wonderful than the animals ; and yet 
 the merest dotard in such matters never thinks of 
 attributing to them the slightest degree of knowledge 
 as to what they are doing, or of the existence of any 
 thing around them, or of themselves. We see fre- 
 quent examples ourselves, and we read of many more 
 wonderful ones, of the efforts made by the roots of 
 plants for their stability, and for the purpose of reach- 
 ing the kind of soil which is fitted for affording them 
 their proper nourishment. Nor are the efforts of the 
 upper parts of plants to reach light, or anything else 
 which is favourable to their well-being, less wonderful. 
 If a tree is planted by art, or sown by nature, in a situ- 
 
ADAPTATIONS OK PLANTS. 99 
 
 ation where it is more exposed to danger — such as 
 being uprooted by the wind — on one side than on 
 another, it in no instance fails to put forth its roots in 
 that direction in which they shall afford it the greatest 
 possible stability which can be afforded by the same 
 exertion of growth. In like manner, we have many 
 instances of the seed of a tree accidentally sown and 
 vegetating upon the top of a ruin, sending down its 
 roots along the wall for many feet, in order to reach 
 the soil at the bottom ; as well as of other roots insi- 
 nuating themselves into the fissures of rocks, and 
 moving tons of granite, in order to get at soil fit for 
 affording them that nourishment which they draw 
 from the ground. We have ourselves seen many in- 
 stances of both of these, and especially of the latter, 
 upon some immense masses of granite in the birch- 
 woods near the seat of the late Macpherson, the trans- 
 lator and transmogrifier of the poems attributed to 
 Ossian, the son of Fingal. The place is in Badenoch, 
 in the upper valley of the Spey, and its name is Bel- 
 voir, or Bellevue, we forget which ; but the name 
 neither makes for nor against the fact. So also we 
 have seen instances of a common potato, which would 
 not have raised its stem above a foot or eighteen 
 inches, if planted in the fields in free exposure to the 
 air and light, climb more than forty feet in order to 
 reach the single aperture in an old tower by which 
 light was admitted ; and as recently as last year (1837), 
 a dahlia root, which we had forgotten in a dark cellar, 
 had grown to the length of two or three feet in the 
 direction of the bottom of the door, the only place at 
 
100 CASES OF PLANTS. 
 
 which a glimmer of light was admitted into its prison- 
 house. 
 
 Now, nobody would surely pretend to say, that in 
 all or any one of these cases the plant had any know- 
 ledge of the situation, or even the existence, of that of 
 which it went in quest in the most vigorous manner 
 and by the most direct line ; and yet the effect was more 
 vigorous, and far more unerring, than if it had been 
 founded upon experience. Of experierice, however, 
 neither of the plants could have had any ; for a plant 
 has not a school in which it can learn by experience 
 that which it is to practise afterwards. The plant on 
 the top of the ruin could not possibly know that there 
 was good soil at the bottom ; and as little could the 
 birch on the top of the granite know either that it 
 could heave the successive pieces of that rock asunder, 
 by insinuating its root between them, or that, when it 
 had once accomplished this laborious task, it would 
 be repaid by a plentiful supply of nourishment from 
 the soil which it would then have reached. Nor will 
 it surely be alleged, that when the potato began to 
 feel the return of the spring, and to grow in the rub- 
 bish at the bottom of the tower, it knew of the chink 
 full forty feet above it, and at the opposite corner ; 
 and that, acting upon this knowledge, it clambered up 
 with a length of stem unusual to the habit of its 
 species, and suspended in the air by nothing but an 
 anxious desire that it might reach the light, expand or 
 flower, and in due time ripen seeds. This would be 
 philoprogenitiveness with a vengeance : and if the 
 fact of its being the result of knowledge could be 
 
FORMS OF MATTER. 101 
 
 established, then it were well that the adepts in the 
 art should cease to heed this bump on the human 
 cranium, and study it in the far more energetic potato ; 
 and in this they would be as much in the way of phi- 
 losophy as a certain most sapient committee of their 
 members were in finding the organs of pugnacity and 
 wit, " uncommonly developed," in a cast which some 
 wicked wags had prepared from a model formed of a 
 most dull and tranquil turnip. 
 
 But the wonderful working of nature, upon what 
 would be with us called strictly geometrical principles, 
 goes much farther than this, with equal honesty and 
 certainty, and under circumstances, in which the veriest 
 dotard in the belief that the physical action of animals 
 would not say that it proceeds upon knowledge. If 
 matter, be it of what kind it may, merely aggregates, 
 or " comes into a lump," from a state of dispersion, it 
 always assumes the form of a perfect sphere ; so that, 
 upon the knowledge hypothesis, a globe is the primary 
 form of matter ; and there is not a single particle of 
 created substance which has not a competent know- 
 ledge of this solid, and can take its place in it with far 
 more ease and certainty than the best-drilled soldier 
 can take his place in a solid square. 
 
 And if the matter is a little more knowing, so as 
 to crystallise at the same time that it aggregates, it 
 displays considerably more skill in geometry. In this 
 way, water is peculiarly knowing ; for it always sets 
 off at an angle of sixty degrees, well aware, of course, 
 that this is the angle of a solid of close occupancy, or 
 perfect inhabitiveness. In these crystallisations, too, 
 
 k3 
 
102 SCIENCE OF SALTS. 
 
 the particles of the same kind — it signifies not whe- 
 ther, to our imperfect knowledge, they be simple or 
 compound — have a most perfect knowledge of each 
 other when they come within hailing distances ; and 
 they also know, with far more nicety than we do, the 
 diflferences of heat and cold. Any salt — Glauber's 
 salt (sulphate of soda), for instance, which is a very 
 shrewd salt, and not only clever at crystallisation, but 
 really knows more of the cure of some diseases of the 
 animal body than all the doctors of the faculty — any 
 salt will illustrate this. If it is dispersed through a 
 large quantity of water, so that the particles are not 
 within call and answer of each other, they remain 
 scattered ; but if the water is diminished to such an 
 extent as that they come within call, they are very 
 speedily combined into crystals. Furthermore, when 
 they get heated they remain sullenly apart, just as is 
 the case with rational beings. Thus, boiling water 
 disperses the particles of much more of this salt than 
 cold water ; so that if a boiling solution is poured into 
 a wide-mouthed bottle, a piece of air-tight membrane 
 tied over the top, and all left quietly to cool, the con- 
 tents of the bottle will remain liquid ; but if you now 
 take a sharp-pointed knife or other instrument, and 
 perforate the membrane, just touching the top of the 
 solution with the point, crystallisation will shoot 
 through the liquid like a flash of light, and it will be 
 a solid in an instant. It is farther to be observed that 
 the greater number of compound substances take a 
 certain quantity of water along with them in forming 
 their crystallisations, and generally the more of it, the 
 
MINERALS AND MAN. 103 
 
 more dissimilar that their ingredients are. Diamond, 
 which, when colourless, is one pure substance (char- 
 coal), and very little mixed when coloured, is an ex- 
 ception. It contains not a particle of water, and yet 
 it adheres more closely together than any other sub- 
 stance known. 
 
 It will surely not be said that there is knowledge in 
 any one of these cases ; and yet the operations are 
 more nice, and the results more perfect, than any at 
 which man can arrive, with all his knowledge and all 
 his experience. It is the same throughout all nature, 
 living and dead, animal and vegetable ; and the animal 
 functions of our own bodies, by means of which they 
 grow, repair their wants, and carry on their whole 
 economy for their appointed time ; but there is not 
 one iota of self-knowledge in this merely material cre- 
 ation, from the simplest mineral up to j\Ian. They 
 work according to laws which form the very essence 
 of their being ; and they can no more deviate from 
 those laws than lead can of itself fly in the air, or 
 tinder remain in the fire without being consumed. 
 
 Hence, all their operations are perfect to their 
 natures ; and Man cannot, even with all his mental 
 knowledge, far less by the animal use of his hands, 
 untrained by practice and unguided by thought, equal 
 the most apparently simple of them. Knowledge 
 given to them would spoil the whole natural symmetry 
 and order of the system. If they had less power of 
 acquiring it than Man possesses, they would generally 
 go wrong ; and if they had as much, it would not keep 
 
104 ANIMAL SAGACITY. 
 
 them right. It does not keep Man always in the right, 
 even in his own estimation, though he is seldom dis- 
 posed to take an unfavourable view of himself ; and if 
 we had a little more knowledge, we should perhaps 
 find that we are never quite right, hut bunglers even 
 in our most careful actions, in comparison with the 
 rest of nature, where all goes on in strict accordance 
 with the laws which God has appointed. We have 
 proof of this in our own individual case ; for if we 
 knew the use of our faculties of observation and 
 thought, and our means of action, and thus became 
 wise in proportion as we grow old, there is no one 
 action of our lives, even those for which the world 
 may have applauded us the most, which we do not 
 feel that we could do better, if we had it still to do. 
 
 If animals could, by possibility, have knowledge, 
 would they not employ that knowledge in the way 
 that man employs it, in the first and least-developed 
 states of society ? Would they not turn it to their aid 
 in procuring a more abundant and easily-obtained 
 supply of their grand necessaiy of life — food 1 And, 
 once beginning and finding the advantage, would they 
 not go on till we had foxes keeping poultry-yards, 
 dogs tending their own flocks, and sheep leaving the 
 labour of nibbling on the bare hill, and sowing turnips 
 upon some sheltered spot 1 If their knowledge did 
 not go thus far at least, could we call it knowledge — 
 knowledge without a prostitution of the term 1 But, 
 instead of this, the " sagacious " dog, unless man has 
 trained him to follow particular objects, barks and 
 
CONCLUSION. 105 
 
 worries as readily at a barrow, while in motion, as at 
 a pig ; and attacks the wheels of the driving carriage 
 even more readily than the heels of the horses. 
 
 We have gone at some length into this subject, 
 because it is the vital one in the knowledge of our- 
 selves — because it lies at the very foundation of 
 morals and i-eligion — because the great majority of 
 mankind have mistaken notions respecting it — because 
 the popular writers, almost to a man, write so as to 
 propagate the error — and because the more skilful 
 analysts have generally avoided it. For these reasons, 
 we shall allow the reader to pause upon it as between 
 chapter and chapter, before we notice the other two 
 points. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAN CAN HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE BUT WHAT HE ACQUIRES ; 
 AND NO MEANS OF ACQUIRING ORIGINAL KNOWLEDGE, 
 EXCEPT HIS PHYSICAL POWERS OF OBSERVATION. 
 
 The short logical demonstrations of both these pro- 
 positions may be said to be given in the meaning of 
 the word " knowledge," as explained in the beginning 
 of the preceding chapter ; but, as the right under- 
 standing of them is of some importance in showing 
 the necessity of self-knowledge, and enforcing the ne- 
 cessity of its application ; and as there are prejudices 
 upon them both, scarcely less inveterate, though not 
 quite so vital, as that which we have endeavoured to 
 expose, we enunciate them anew, and proceed to the 
 illustration of them without farther introduction . 
 
 I. " Man can have no knowledge but what he ac- 
 quires." Though this is almost a self-evident truth, 
 or, at all events, is involved in the more general one 
 that " Man can have nothing but what he acquires, 
 save that which he gets from nature, which consists 
 of his body and his mind, and nothing more ; " yet 
 
KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED. 107 
 
 there have been many disputes and prejudices about 
 it, and there is some rubbish to be cleared away be- 
 fore the public can clearly see it, or benefit by it. 
 Some may think that, in place of the words, " nothing 
 more," in the general truth, as above stated, " the 
 world for the winning " ought to be substituted ; 
 but though there is some truth in this, it is not 
 absolutely true, and therefore it is inadmissible. 
 Men of different countries have not the same power 
 of viewing the world ; for, upon the single subject of 
 knowledge, the savage has little more at command, in 
 point of time, than his own brief term of life, and 
 little more, in point of space, than his own limited 
 horizon and its trifling changes. The civilised man, 
 on the other hand, can avail himself of the experience 
 of thousands of years, and of the whole extent of the 
 earth, and of the heavens too, in so far as these are 
 matter of science. But these are not given him as a 
 free gift, like the bodily power of seeing or hearing? 
 or the mental one of comparing, drawing conclusions, 
 and acting upon them. He must receive them be- 
 fore he can use them ; and it is this necessity which 
 renders the knowledge of ourselves, and how we may 
 turn this knowledge to proper account, so very im- 
 portant and indispensable. In this case, also, and 
 more especially in that of professional meanings, the 
 regulations of society — even the necessary regula- 
 tions, without implying that there is the least in- 
 justice in them — very much diversify the means pos- 
 sessed or enjoyed by different individuals. Thus, for 
 instance, one man comes into the world wath nothing 
 
108 INNOCENCE AND GUILT. 
 
 binding upon him to do, but merely enjoy it, and such 
 a man will sometimes spend his life as much like a 
 mere animal as ever he can — that is, in the gratifica- 
 tion of his bodily appetites ; and another man comes 
 into the world to toil, and learn, and use, and strain, 
 to the very utmost, all his powers of body and of 
 mind, through the entire period of his strength, and 
 then, in his decrepitude, feels obliged to take his 
 living burial in a workhouse, unknown and uncared 
 for, except by those who wish him dead, in order that 
 the parish may be spared the expense of his pittance 
 of food, and haply sell his bones for the reimburse- 
 ment of a Christian and charitable public. But still, 
 even in these extremes, we must not judge of appear- 
 ances ; for the man who is expiring on the straw 
 may have carried through life " a conscience void of 
 oiFence," while the barb of remorse may have been 
 incessantly rankling in the other. Ay, and when the 
 last moment comes — for the justice of Heaven knows 
 no distinction between a poor-house and a palace — 
 the hope of the hapless man may brighten, and the 
 fervent joy may transport his passing spirit, " Come, 
 thou blessed of my Father ! " while, it may be, that in 
 the other case, amid all that wealth, and attendance, 
 and medical skill can give, the blackness of darkness 
 may be upon the mind, and the fearful sounds may, 
 ever and anon, come from it in muttered thunder, 
 "Depart from me, thou cursed!" and shake him 
 with a fearfulness of anguish, compared to which the 
 worst that the world can do would be peace and de- 
 light. Such power may the mind assume, for weal or 
 
INNATE IDEAS. 100 
 
 for woe, when it is .putting off the mortal, and feeling 
 its own independent and everlasting strength. But 
 these are incidental matters only ; and, though they 
 come a little in our way, they are not essential to our 
 main subject, which has reference to the early part of 
 life rather than to its close. 
 
 The principal errors or prejudices, which raise doubts 
 upon the subject of our total ignorance when we come 
 into the world, and our perfect equality at that moment, 
 are chiefly of an intellectual nature ; and, therefore, 
 though they are necessary to a proper understanding 
 of our physical condition, we shall not require to go 
 into them at any length. But they put us wrong 
 in our physical knowledge of Man, by attributing to 
 the mind, as original, certain differences between 
 one man and another, which seem to be in gi-eat part 
 acquired, or, if they at all depend on any original 
 differences, then these are differences of the body, not 
 of the mind. 
 
 The old absurdity of innate ideas — that is, certain 
 portions of knowledge with which we are born — is 
 now nearly forgotten in its direct form ; and, indeed, 
 one wonders why it could ever have been entertained, 
 as one single step in the way of analysis reduces it to 
 one of the most plain and palpable absurdities that 
 can be expressed in words. If these " innate ideas" 
 are to be of any use to us, they must relate to those 
 subjects with which we are to be conversant in life, 
 and surely they would be of the gi'eatest use to us at 
 the very commencement. Thus, an innate idea that 
 fire would burn, or arsenic poison, would be of far 
 
 L 
 
110 INSTINCTIVE PERFECTION 
 
 more use to a child than any metaphysical speculation 
 could be to a philosopher ; and yet, so far is the 
 infant from displaying any sign of the possession of 
 these ideas, that it attempts to seize, and convey to its 
 mouth, the flame of the candle, in preference to any 
 other object on the table ; and, until taught otherwise, 
 it would put arsenic in its mouth as soon as bread. 
 
 The young of other animals, which need no know- 
 ledge to guide them, never fall into these mistakes. 
 By far the greater part of them in number come per- 
 fect from the egg, and of not a few there is not a 
 single individual of the parent race in existence, at 
 the time when the young are thus cast upon the world ; 
 but though they have thus neither precept nor ex- 
 ample to assist them, they manage all their little 
 matters with such perfect accordance to the law of 
 their being, that the annual insects of this summer are 
 so exactly like those of the last, both in their appear- 
 ance and in what they do, that, to our observation, 
 they are the very same. Those animals, which are of 
 larger size, require more food, and have to labour 
 more in the procuring of it, require nursing and 
 feeding, varying in length of time with the species, * 
 but still following one common law — that the more 
 severe the labour is to be, the longer is this nursing 
 protracted. The calf begins to browse and the lamb 
 to nibble in no long time after they are dropped ; but 
 the cubs of the wolf and the lion remain for some 
 time helpless in the den, and are fed by the parent 
 animals. It is the same with the birds : the partridges, 
 and many of the other ground birds, which keep on 
 
OF YOUNG ANIMALS, 111 
 
 the wing but little, run about and pick up their food 
 the moment that they are out of the shell, and even 
 with part of it upon their bodies ; the pigeons, which 
 have to use the wing much, feed their young for some 
 time from the stomach ; and the birds of prey, and also 
 the long-winged birds, which find their food, by severe 
 labour, from the sea or the inland waters, are fed long 
 and in large quantity. There is a difference in these 
 aquatic birds which is worth attending to. The ducks 
 and others which are swimmers, and require much use 
 of the wing only upon their migi-ations, take the water 
 soon after they are hatched ; while those which are 
 unable to feed themselves till they are full-fledged 
 remain in the nest till that is accomplished. That all 
 these matters are of nature, and not of knowledge, is 
 proved by the fact, that no scolding or wheedling of 
 the hen under which the eggs have been hatched will 
 keep young ducklings out of the water, any more than 
 the hatching of a young cuckoo under one of our 
 resident birds makes it forget the migratory habits of 
 its life. 
 
 In the human subject we can trace none of those 
 general habits by which animals, even in the artificial 
 varieties or breeds, are distinguished from each other, 
 any more than we find evidence of the existence of 
 those innate ideas which were once matters of so very 
 general belief. As these innate ideas were regarded 
 as mental, as being such they must have been regarded 
 as knowledge ; and, as there can be no knowledge 
 without a subject known, the absurdity to which the 
 belief of innate ideas immediately leads is this : — " Wg 
 
* 
 
 112 ABSURDITY OF INNATE IDEAS. 
 
 actually have knowledge of some subjects before we 
 can possibly have it ;" and if this is not an absurdity, 
 it would be difficult to imagine words whereby an 
 absurdity could be expressed. Or, as if in order to 
 render the absurdity more glaring, the innate ideas 
 were supposed to relate to the more abstruse subjects, 
 at which we can arrive only by the most protracted 
 trains of thought, while on plain matters, such as we 
 might be supposed to stand most in need of before 
 we had experience, we had not the help of a single 
 adequate idea. It was thus that, w^hat with one ab- 
 surdity, what with another, the schoolmen made Man 
 so bungling and ridiculous a piece of patchwork alto- 
 gether, that we cease to wonder that men should have 
 shunned the study of " Man" with aversion and scorn, 
 as soon as their minds began to be enlightened upon 
 other subjects. Now that which, from mistaken 
 notions, was originally called an idea — a word which 
 is so interwoven with our common speech that we can- 
 not easily discard it, and therefore we must content 
 ourselves with defining it, — an idea is nothing but a 
 name for a particular state of the mind ; and when we 
 say that we "have an idea" of anything, we do not 
 mean that we possess a certain mystical something, 
 independent and in addition to ourselves and the sub- 
 ject of which we have the idea, but merely that our 
 mind is in that state in which it knows or understands 
 the subject, although that subject is not present to 
 the senses at the time. This gives us another expres- 
 sion for the absurdity ; for, according to this — which 
 is the only rational meaning of the word idea — " An 
 
ORIGINAL GENIUS. 113 
 
 innate idea is a state of the mind in which that mind 
 must be before it begins to exist, in the only sense in 
 which we can understand its existence." 
 
 The other prejudice is not much less absurd than 
 this one, but the absurdity is concealed in a thicker 
 conglomeration of words ; and therefore it is more 
 inveterate, and receives probably as general belief at 
 the present day as it did at any former peiiod. It is 
 the doctrine of original genim, — as something in which 
 the mind of one man differs from that of another, not 
 only in general aptitude or capacity, but in regard of 
 some particular subject or class of subjects, in pre- 
 ference to other subjects or classes : as, we say one 
 man has a genius for mathematics, another for paint- 
 ing, a third for poetry, a fourth for music, and so on. 
 In short, this same genius is quite a ProteuS, and 
 may be turned into any shape. Thus, the garrulous 
 Frenchman, whose ordinary powers of colloquy had 
 failed to have any effect in drawing words from the 
 silent man, addressed his flattery to him in these 
 words : — " Sir, you have a great genius for silence." 
 Upon the same principle, to speak of " a genius" for 
 uselessness, for folly, for vice, or for various other re- 
 pulsive matters, would be just as correct as a genius 
 for the more estimable habits of men, only the words 
 in these cases are not in such good odour. 
 
 This genius sounds all very well when we leave it 
 perfectly general, or keep it to the mere name of the 
 habit ; but when we come to particulars, it begins to 
 put on an aspect somewhat different. If, instead of 
 an original genius for poetry, w^e were to say that a 
 
 l3 
 
114 RECIPROCITY OF 
 
 man had been composing songs, odes, or epics, before 
 he began to exist, or instead of one for music, that he 
 had had much of the same pre-existent practice on the 
 fiddle, those to whom we addressed ourselves would 
 have some difficulty in maintaining their gravity ; and 
 yet this is what we really do express every time that 
 we speak of original genius, be the subject upon which 
 that genius is displayed what it may. 
 
 The consideration of this as a matter of intellect, 
 which it is usually, if not invariably, considered as 
 being, belongs not to the present subject ; but as there 
 are, in all probability, some physical differences upon 
 which the belief of this genius may be founded, it 
 becomes a necessary, and far from an uninteresting, 
 portion of the physics of man, inasmuch as it shows, 
 that if we understand the body well, and teach and 
 conduct it rightly, we shall not only reap the reward 
 in a physical sense, but shall get the intellectual 
 honour of possessing original genius into the bargain, 
 as a bonus : we shall, in other words, get both a pen- 
 sion and a title. 
 
 Now, if we have been in the habit of attending to 
 the variations of our owm aptitudes for observation, 
 for thought, or for action, and especially if the whip of 
 necessity has been pretty constantly and smartly ap- 
 plied to us, though not to such an extent as to break 
 us do-wTi, we must have found out that there were 
 times at which we were incapable of observing, think- 
 ing, or acting to any efficient purpose ; and this when 
 there was no specific disease of the body, no occupa- 
 tion of the mind, and no reverse or vicissitude of the 
 
BODY AND MIND. 115 
 
 world, by which we could account for it. At other 
 times, we must have felt the buoyancy of the ready 
 eye, the rapid thought, and the willing hand, come 
 upon us when we were racked by disease, perplexed 
 in thought, or hurt and annoyed by the cares of the 
 world. But there is not the smallest doubt that all 
 these changes are owing to different states of the body, 
 in respect to that quick feeling which pervades all the 
 parts of it, and which has no necessary reference to 
 any one particular sense. 
 
 In such cases, we are accustomed to say that the 
 mind is cast down or elevated ; but such expressions 
 are incorrect. Knowledge is the proper business and 
 occupation of the mind, and therefore it never feels 
 either the depression or the elevation, but from known 
 causes — causes which are known by itself, whether 
 the present object of the sense be such as would lead 
 to this result or not. Thus, for instance, we may look 
 at a beautiful picture, or a pleasant habitation, and 
 thus far the impression upon the sense is such as should, 
 and generally does, conduce to our mental delight ; but 
 the mind may set the shaft of anguish on the string, 
 and make us miserable by one little suggestion. That 
 dwelling and that picture belonged to our dearest friend, 
 with whom we spent our best and happiest days, but 
 now he is mouldering in the dust. In like manner, if 
 the mind can arouse itself, and pluck the arrow which 
 the sense has planted, it always brings its relief in the 
 form of a thought. 
 
 Thus, in these indeterminate cases of weal or of woe, 
 in which we feel that all is out of order, and yet can- 
 
116 PHYSICIANS AND QUACKS. 
 
 not fix upon what really is the matter with us, we may 
 be sure that the primaiy cause is in the body and not 
 in the mind ; and the mental part of the business 
 arises from the body communicating intelligence to the 
 mind that all is not right, without any hint as to what 
 is wrong, and no suggestion arising in the mind to sup- 
 ply this information. People, in common speech, give 
 a very appropriate name to this state, when they say, 
 " they know not what is the matter." Skilful physi- 
 cians are of great use to those of sensitive body in such 
 circumstances ; and the mere fact of one in whom they 
 have faith giving a name to the disease, often takes 
 away more than half the anguish, and ultimately and 
 speedily effects a cure where all the prescriptions in 
 the world would be of no avail. Quacks work upon 
 the very same principle of our nature, only they work 
 differently. No matter what the nostrum is, it gives 
 hope for a moment ; at the end of that moment another 
 is wanted, and so on. 
 
 It is usual to describe these as mental cases ; but, 
 though the cure may be in a great measure mental, 
 the origin of the disease is in the body, as also is the 
 origin of those upliftings of "the spirits," as we say, 
 for which the mind can assign no cause ; and the 
 ascribing of a mental origin to them has jumbled the 
 proper affections of the body and the mind together, 
 and darkened and distorted our knowledge of both. 
 
 Irritability of the bodily system will break through 
 all reason in thought, and all propriety of action ; and, 
 on the other hand, dulness of the bodily system may, 
 so to speak, beggar the mind for want of the mate- 
 
DERANGEMENT OF THE BODY. 117 
 
 rials of knowledge. The latter does not plague its 
 possessor nearly so much as the former, but it renders 
 him comparatively useless. The one does no good, 
 and the other is often doing mischief. There are 
 persons of such a habit of body as that these two are 
 mixed, so that they are either in a torpor of indolence 
 or a storm of passion. These ai'e the greatest afflic- 
 tions to those connected with them that are to be 
 found in human society. They are like the powerful 
 beasts of prey, always dozing, except when they are 
 roaring and rending. 
 
 The body may have every shade of this varying 
 habit, from the happy limit of a body of uniform tone, 
 which never invades the mind with any of its more tur- 
 bulent passions, and thus leaves it free to think upon 
 all subjects as they pass, to that wretched and worth- 
 less constitution of storms which we have attempted 
 to describe. These differences, even including melan- 
 choly and mania, in all the forms and degrees usually 
 termed mental derangement, are wholly of the body 
 in their origin, and their causes may be very varied. 
 This may be brought on by treatment, it may be 
 acquired by habit, or it may be hereditary — that is, 
 it may be in the original constitution or balance of 
 the several parts of the body ; but whether it arise 
 from any or from several of these, or from many other 
 circumstances which act upon the body without their 
 specific action being at all understood, it seems to 
 offer the most satisfactory explanation of what is 
 popularly called the possession or the want of original 
 genius ; though the subject requires consideration also 
 
118 GENIUS IS NOT ORIGINAL. 
 
 upon intellectual grounds, if it were only on account 
 of the fact, that the popular reference of such differ- 
 ences is always to the mind. As this has been the 
 sense in which it has been usually received, the word 
 genius has been supposed to mean not only that fer- 
 tility of the mind in the acquiring and common appli- 
 cation of knowledge, which is the result of a tranquil 
 body and steady and persevering attention, but a cer- 
 tain aptitude and success in working the elements of 
 even a more limited store of knowledge than that 
 which persons without genius possess, into new and 
 striking combinations, which make more impression 
 upon other parties than matters of more real value 
 presented in a simple form. In short, the efforts of 
 genius are understood to tend more to the delight of 
 the world than to its instruction, except in so far as 
 the charm with which it is invested by genius may 
 attract attention to a subject, when that subject has 
 not much to w^in the attention in its simple truth. 
 
 In this sense, genius is unquestionably an intel- 
 lectual matter, and one of the highest to which our 
 attention can be directed, both for our own sakes and 
 for those of others ; for it involves the solution of this 
 problem : — How shall we bring before the public, 
 with the greatest effect, that which w'e wish to do 1 
 But, in this elevated sense, it comes into action after 
 the knowledge is acquired, and therefore it is doubtful 
 how far it may be regarded as original genius, in any 
 sense of the word, and more especially when we con- 
 sider the very beginning of knowledge — the point at 
 which we must start, if we are to have anything 
 
DIFFERENCES OP INFANTS. 119 
 
 like a proper understanding either of ourselves or of 
 others. 
 
 That even at this most elementary stage — at the very- 
 moment when the infant begins to have the slightest 
 shado^^y and indistinct feeling of its own existence — 
 constitutional differences in the hodj/, both of here- 
 ditary descent and of the individual, may make one 
 infant much more quick than another, both to primaiy 
 bodily sensations, and in the communication of these 
 sensations to the mind, is not only probable, but ex- 
 ceedingly likely — indeed, we may say certain, without 
 much fear of error. But of mental differences we can 
 say nothing, until the mind is in possession of so 
 much knowledge as that we can institute a comparison 
 of its extent and effects ; and before the child can 
 furnish us with anything sufficient for this pui-pose, 
 its self-education must have advanced a considerable 
 way, and the principal bent of its intellectual charac- 
 ter has been, in all probability, determined for life. 
 This far we know, with as much certainty as can be 
 obtained upon such a subject, — that children of great 
 sensitiveness and much irritability are most active 
 and observant in their extreme youth ; but it is doubt- 
 ful whether this be, upon the whole, an advantage, 
 and we are sure that an excess of it is not. Their 
 frames are yet all too tender for being able to endure, 
 at the same time, their rapid growth and a high 
 degree of this sensibility, even though precocity of 
 mental development should be one of its consequences ; 
 for very quick and sensitive infants are the most apt 
 to go off in convulsions ; and, even if they escape 
 
120 ORIGINAL DIFFERENCES 
 
 these, they have not the same stamina and permanence 
 as others which are of more tranquil temperament. 
 Their lives are in general shorter, even with all the 
 care that can be bestowed upon them ; and that myste- 
 rious connexion between the body and the mind, which 
 is the most delicate as well as the most incomprehen- 
 sible portion of the whole compound nature of man, 
 gets worn out, and their powers begin to decay, before 
 the ordinary period. Of course, there is evil in the 
 opposite extreme also ; and a constitution of extreme 
 sluggishness and inactivity is not only of inferior value 
 while it lasts, but has the numerical tale of its days 
 shortened, and becomes extinct to the world from 
 sheer inanity. But these are only modifications of 
 the way and the rate in which knowledge is at first 
 acquired, and not any portion of the knowledge itself : 
 and though the aptitude of the recipient is a con- 
 sideration of no mean importance itself, yet its im- 
 portance can only have value by its being put in 
 requisition. 
 
 These hints — which carry the matter as far as it can 
 well be carried without entering formally upon the 
 intellectual view of it, which would be inconsistent 
 with this volume — may suffice to show those who will 
 examine them with attention, and without prejudice, 
 that we begin life in utter ignorance as regards both 
 the body and the mind ; and that, whatever differences 
 of aptitude for the commencement of knowledge and 
 action there may be, are to be referred to the body 
 only, and in no wise to the mind, as we know nothing 
 and therefore can predicate nothing of it, until it 
 
ARE "WHOLLY PHYSICAL. 121 
 
 furnish us with data in the knowledge which it has 
 actually acquired. Our own mental feelings, and the 
 whole of our experiences, which are of such help to us 
 in the study of Man in after-life, avail us nothing here ; 
 for not a hint of them returns to our minds by any 
 future suggestion, — nor can we ever imagine what 
 would need to happen to a full-grown man to bring 
 back to memory the circumstances under which he was 
 when he first felt that he was a being susceptible of 
 simple pain or its absence. The pleasurable feeling 
 is probably later in coming, though it also is before 
 the state of memory. The first curl of a smile, which 
 is hardly perceptible upon the little lip, is in all 
 probability the indication that another human being 
 has, for the first time, tasted the sweet of the cup 
 of life. This conclusion brings us to our second 
 proposition. 
 
 II. "We have no means of acquiring original 
 knowledge, except our physical perceptions." We 
 here make use of the word "perceptions," merely as 
 a general name for all the impressions made upon the 
 sentient susceptibility of the body, outwardly or in- 
 wardly, and whether by senses localised to organs, or 
 exercised in any other way, — every impression upon 
 the body, in short, that could by possibility be com- 
 municated by the body to the mind, whether it may 
 in every instance be so communicated or not. 
 
 In this, also, we are upon somewhat slippeiy ground, 
 and we have to contend with prejudices, which, 
 although not so vital or so general as those that have 
 been already noticed, are probably entertained by 
 
122 MENTAL KNOWLEDGE HAS 
 
 those who are less capable of anything like rational 
 argument, and therefore, more inveterate than the 
 others, — parties who have a short way of settling dis- 
 puted points, by giving to the Devil all who presume 
 to differ from them. But as we have doubts whether, 
 though there may for. aught we know be a good under- 
 standing between the parties, the said personage is 
 disposed to accept all gifts thus given him, we have no 
 fear of the malediction before our eyes. 
 
 We have introduced the limiting term " original," 
 into the enunciation of this truth, and marked it as 
 emphatic, in order. to steer clear of misrepresentation 
 as well as error. There is much knowledge, and that 
 by far the most valuable we can possess and act upon, 
 which is mental in its very origin ; but still, it could 
 not originate, if it were not for the bodily perceptions 
 how much soever it may depart from or soar above 
 the very humble nature of that. Indeed, nothing that 
 the senses do, or can, communicate, is knowledge in 
 the proper sense of the term, until the act of the mind 
 has passed upon it, and compared one part of it 
 with another, and perceived the relations between 
 them. 
 
 There are also various subjects from which an in- 
 quiring mind, well stored with knowledge, cannot be 
 restrained, and from which it were pity that it should 
 be restrained, which overleap the boundaries of that 
 cautious philosophy which is ready at all times to 
 verify its steps by a cross-appeal to the senses. But 
 these airy regions are those in which the fires of genius 
 are lit up, and the wings of fancy are feathered. They 
 
PHYSICAL SOURCES. 123 
 
 turn the cold reality of mortal life into a paradise of 
 intellectual delight, and give us, even while we are in 
 the body, joys which the world can neither give nor 
 take away ; and therefore, the power of launching 
 freely and fully into them, is one of the choicest gifts 
 of our bountiful Father. 
 
 But even in them we must have our beginnings in 
 the sense ; and in this beginning, He has himself set 
 us the example, on the only subject upon which we 
 could have obtained no certain knowledge without the 
 aid of a direct revelation. To those who may be dis- 
 posed to question the necessity of revelation, and say 
 that there is enough to be read in the book of nature 
 to give us correct knowledge in these matters, we 
 only say, that the very wisest men and nations made 
 strangely inconsistent work of it without this heavenly 
 aid ; and that though, with the light of revelation to 
 let us see them, the characters in the book of nature 
 are most legible, and its lessons delightful, yet man- 
 kind were, somehow or other, quite unable to read 
 them in the dark. 
 
 But the evidence, even in this case, is addressed to 
 us as men in the body, in the very same way as the 
 evidence of any historical fact ; and, were it not that 
 this external evidence is such as must be sustained in 
 any court of justice, or by any judgment of ordinary 
 reason, we say it with deference, but we do say it, 
 that the whole of the internal evidence, which comes 
 with such delightful effect when the understanding has 
 been once satisfied by the other, would not be worth 
 one single rush without it. 
 
124 THE ABOMINATION OF CANT. 
 
 This is the delicate ground to which we have alluded, 
 — the ground upon which we meet with those who 
 can condemn, though they are unable to judge ; but 
 it is ground which must be traversed if we are to 
 carry our analysis boldly and manfully on to the truth. 
 All special conversions, and all spiritual experiences, 
 which cannot be resolved into elements explainable 
 upon the ordinary reasoning, and brought to the very 
 same kind of proof which revelation itself is so tri- 
 umphantly able to abide, are either the dreams of 
 ignorant and distempered imaginations, or they are 
 instances of gross imposture, knowingly fabricated for 
 the very worst of purposes — that of cheating the igno- 
 rant and credulous out of their understandings, for 
 the lucre of worldly gain. The message to all man- 
 kind upon this subject is perfect, and fully adequate 
 to eveiy case in which it can be necessary ; and, 
 therefore, the mere assertion of such particular ex- 
 periences is as gi'atuitously absurd, as it is grossly 
 impious. Men may have new and much more 
 delightful feelings upon those subjects, as they have 
 upon all subjects upon which the light of truth limns 
 the radiant trace of hope in the dense and pitchy 
 cloud of ignorance and uncertainty ; but if the feel- 
 ings are genuine, the parties always will, as they are 
 personal matters in which the world has no concern, 
 give God thanks in private, say nothing, and prove 
 their sincerity and gratitude by deeds. With these 
 few words we dismiss such subjects, not again to 
 allude to them ; and proceed to those respecting which 
 there are no such grounds of offence. 
 
WE MUST ADDRESS THE BODY. 125 
 
 All knowledge being either strictly that of the 
 material world, or founded upon evidence for the 
 truth of the elements of which an appeal lies to that 
 world — and the philosophical proof of the existence 
 of our ovai minds must stand the test of this evidence, 
 and does stand it, — there are really no means by which 
 we ever imagine it to be communicated to the mind, 
 but the body. What resources the disembodied mind 
 may hereafter have, has nothing to do with the 
 matter, and though it had, we have no data that could 
 be of any avail concerning it. However, in the present 
 world, to the inhabitants of which, and to them only, 
 our remarks can be addressed, we have to deal with 
 minds in conjunction with bodies, and we must ad- 
 dress ourselves to them through the medium of those 
 bodies ; so that supposing, for the sake of argument, 
 that such pages as these do contain information, it 
 finds its way to the mind of the reader through the 
 medium of his eyes ; and, in order that it may have a 
 fair chance of reaching its destination within, and 
 producing its eifect there, we must endeavour to win 
 the favourable opinion of the porter that keeps the 
 entrance to the inward man, and admits or rejects 
 according as he is affected. 
 
 Even this forms no unimportant part of the know- 
 ledge of ourselves, that is, of human nature ; for 
 language is the means by which we both lead man- 
 kind and are led by them ; and thus, how to make 
 this language produce its effect in a manly way, and 
 without deceit and self-degradation, is no mean point 
 gained. In mere addresses of etiquette, those ordinary 
 
 M 3 
 
126 EFFECTIVE MEANS 
 
 conversations into which we enter, and in which we 
 have hardly any end or motive beyond the showing 
 of our quality and the killing of that time which 
 otherwise would hang heavy on our hands, we are 
 veiy apt to be estimated in the same way as people 
 estimate the quality of their morning visitors — by the 
 loudness of our knocks ; and this mode of deciding 
 goes much farther than many would suppose, probably 
 because it can be applied without any labour of 
 fudging. In physical begging, " the bold beggar gets 
 the big alms ;" and it is much the same in all beg- 
 gings, whatever may be their real or occult object : 
 if our address is to win or even reach the mind, it 
 must first of all please the sense ; and there is not 
 much difference whether it is addressed to the ear or 
 the eye. Among reading people, there is such sym- 
 pathy between these, — so much tendency to produce 
 the same mental feeling, that the very same style is 
 applicable alike to the ear and the eye. In a spoken 
 address, indeed, we have a double advantage, or its 
 opposite. If we please, we gratify two senses, and 
 they jointly become our messengers to the mind ; and 
 if we are indifferent or offend, we have two against us. 
 The appearance, the gesture, and the expression, have 
 an eloquence in them, even before a word is spoken ; 
 and then, the easy flow, and the mellifluous cadence 
 of the words, have veiy often tenfold the power of the 
 sense. It is well for the credit and the name of most 
 public orators that they are so ; for the most capti- 
 vating and effective orations, when we bring the cold 
 scalpel of logical analysis to bear upon them, are 
 
OF ADDRESS. 127 
 
 almost invariably found to have the most feeble, rick- 
 etty, and disjointed skeletons. And it may be well 
 that it is so ; for all mankind can be captivated by the 
 eyes, or carried away by the ears ; but it is only one 
 here and there who is charmed by the intellectual part 
 of the matter, or will even listen to it. If the instra- 
 ment and the performer are both superior, the whole 
 congregation thrill at the sound of the organ ; l)ut 
 unless the preacher has the art of throwing in enough 
 of garnish, the probability is that many speculate, some 
 get impatient to be gone, and a few are overcome with 
 sleep during the sermon. 
 
 Any one who chooses to submit to the trouble of 
 a very little observation, may verify these remarks by 
 an appeal to the facts ; and we have made them not 
 for any censorious purpose, but because they make 
 strongly for our position, that the senses are the only 
 inlets of knowledge. It is wath the beginnings of 
 knowledge in the infant that we ought to deal ; but 
 there we have no direct proof, as the party cannot 
 inform us, and the indications are not intelligible to 
 an ordinary observer. Therefore we must have re- 
 course to analogies, as we must do in all cases where 
 we cannot get directly at the result upon its own 
 evidence ; and analogies drawn from human conduct 
 are always most valuable when taken from those 
 cases in which the parties fancy that they are not 
 acting any part, or giving foundation for any analogy 
 whatever. 
 
 Now, even adults, who have had the advantage of 
 experience, can — excepting in some rare instances de- 
 
128 OUR ORIGINAL laNORANCE IS TOTAL. 
 
 pending upon habits of the parties — be effectively 
 addressed through the medium of the senses only, it 
 must follow that in that early stage, in which there 
 can be no direct address, but when the party must find 
 out for itself that which it desires to know, any othe^ 
 medium is impossible. We are all bom, at least we 
 are all at one time, — and whether it is actually before 
 or after we are born is impossible to be determined, 
 and the determination of it is not required, as it is 
 merely a matter of difference, and difference which, 
 whether it could be decided to be always at one of the 
 times, or sometimes at the one and sometimes at the 
 other, would not in the least affect the truth of the 
 main argument, — we are all, at one time, in utter igno- 
 rance, not only of those inferred truths at which we in 
 time arrive by means of our minds, but of the whole 
 external world, the parts of our own bodies, and even 
 the fact of our existence. For, just as we must have 
 something to know before we can have knowledge, and 
 something to perceive before we can have perception, 
 even so must we have something to feel before we can 
 have feeling, let that feeling be the very simplest that 
 we can name or even imagine. 
 
 Our own existence is naturally the first feeling that 
 we can have, and, however faint it may then be, we 
 cannot escape having it, the instant that any part of 
 our body is affected, whatever the affection may be, 
 and whether external or internal in its application. 
 This first feeling would, if the succession extended no 
 farther, speedily pass away, just as does the life of 
 those infants which once open their eyes and then 
 
BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE. 129 
 
 expire, without carrying with them the slightest 
 knowledge of the existence of the world, or even of 
 that light of which their young eyes caught one mo- 
 mentary glance in their early and easy departure from 
 the scene. 
 
 This first feeling, if life survives it, is communicated 
 to the mind as an element of knowledge, though it 
 does not yet positively amount to knowledge even of 
 the most simple kind. But when a second feeling is 
 produced by another affection of any part of the body, 
 it calls up the memory of the first, though to the 
 body, that, or indeed any subsequent feeling, never 
 again can return. There are now two feelings im- 
 mediately present to the mind, as the first returns so 
 instantaneously upon the other suggesting it that 
 they are mentally felt as together ; and thereupon 
 there is an act of the mind, — the comparison of two 
 elements and the discovery of a relation ; and this 
 relation is the veiy first portion of knowledge ; — 
 rendered knowledge only by the mental act, but 
 still obtained from the sensations of the body, as, 
 without this, the mind could not have obtained the 
 elements. 
 
 We need not say that this first step in knowledge 
 is a small and simple one ; for it is so very simple 
 that it does not, admit of definition. Yet, being the 
 first, it is the most important of the whole ; and but 
 for this little step, the artist never would have 
 executed, the orator declaimed, or the philosopher 
 reasoned. This is a step which cannot be taken but 
 by mind ; and therefore, small as it is, Man is the 
 
130 ANIMALS NEVER KNOW. 
 
 only tenant of earth capable of taking it. The most 
 perfectly organized, the most active, and, according to 
 our common but most erroneous form of speech, the 
 most sagacious, of the animals, never can get even this 
 length. These have the physical feelings, probably, 
 much the same as they are in Man ; but they want 
 the mental power which fetches back the first, and 
 compares it with the second, and therefore they have 
 not the means of arriving at the conclusion, how 
 simple soever that conclusion may be. In the 
 emphatic language of Revelation, " their memory 
 perishes," and with them it is once felt and gone 
 for ever. 
 
 This first step of knowledge is important in another 
 point of view, namely, the nature of the knowledge 
 which is acquired. It is the first mental feeling we 
 have of our existence, and as such it remains with us 
 through life and after death, — as the feeling of mental 
 identity, which is the foundation of our whole charac- 
 ter, physical, intellectual, and moral, for eternity as 
 well as through life. The body has no identity even 
 of substance ; for in the active exertion of life, it is 
 probable that the same particle of matter never acts 
 twice, and it is certain that the same organ, be that 
 organ what it may, is never, in the sentient parts of 
 it, composed of the same identical matter for even 
 two consecutive days. Admitting, therefore, that 
 either by some strange property of it which we do not 
 comprehend, — which, in fact, we know that it cannot 
 possess, but which we admit merely for the sake of 
 the argument ; — admitting this, and knowing as we do 
 
CHANGES OF TIIF, DODY. 131 
 
 by actual observation, that the matter of the body is 
 constantly changing, and that it changes most rapidly 
 in those parts which have the nicest sensibility, and 
 are the most actively used — how could this knowledge 
 be presented, after the departure of the matter which 
 alone was possessed of it ? 
 
 The impossibility of this cannot fail in being ap- 
 parent to any one of common discernment who will 
 bestow but one moment's consideration upon it ; and 
 yet it was for a long time the belief of all those who 
 philosophised on the nature of j\lan ; and it is the 
 belief of many of them still. Common language, as 
 is usual in many such cases, is founded upon the error, 
 and this tends to perpetuate it ; for when we speak 
 of identity, we speak of it as being "personal," that 
 is, identity of the body, which is always understood 
 when we speak of the person ; arid though this is an 
 absurdity, the fact of its having been adopted is a proof 
 of our proposition ; for hereby not only the means of 
 knowledge, but the knowledge itself, is referred to the 
 body. 
 
 This refening to the body of that which can belong 
 to the mind only, involves fully as much absurdity as 
 those references of bodily differences to the mind, of 
 which some notice has been already taken. There is 
 not a more exquisite mixture of sound philosophy and 
 irresistibly cutting satire in the whole compass of 
 language, than the defence in explanation of this 
 doctrine which is given in the letter of the Society 
 of Freethinkers to Martinus Scriblerus, which com- 
 pletely demolishes what it professes to uphold, and 
 
132 "SCRIBLERUS" ON 
 
 does it with the greatest imaginable gravity. The 
 passage has been often quoted, but it is so excellent 
 that we cannot resist transcribing a portion : — " They 
 make," say the Freethinkers, " a great noise about 
 this individuality" (that is, personal identity, or the 
 feeling which every man has that he is himself and 
 not somebody else) ; " how a man is conscious to him- 
 self that he is the same individual that he was twenty 
 years ago, notwithstanding the flux state of the par- 
 ticles of matter that compose his body. We think 
 this is capable of a very plain answer, and may be 
 illustrated by a familiar example : — Sir John Cutler 
 had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid 
 darned so often with silk, that they became a pair of 
 silk stockings. Now supposing these stockings of 
 Sir John's endowed with some degree of conscious- 
 ness at every particular darning, they would have been 
 sensible that they were the same pair of stockings 
 both before and after the darning ; and this sensation 
 would have continued in them through all the suc- 
 cession of darnings ; and yet, after the last of all, 
 there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair 
 of stockings ; but they were grown to be silk stockings, 
 as was said before. 
 
 " And whereas it is affirmed that every animal 
 is conscious of some self-moving, self-determining 
 principle ; it is answered that as in a House of Com- 
 mons all things are determined by a majority, so it 
 is in every animal system. As that which determines 
 the House is said to be the reason of the whole as- 
 sembly, it is no otherwise with thinking beings, who 
 
IDENTITY. 133 
 
 are determined by the greater force of the several 
 particles, which, like so many unthinking members, 
 compose one thinking system." 
 
 The extreme parsimony of Sir John Cutler, which 
 suggested to Arbuthnot the first of these illustrations, 
 is now nearly forgotten ; but the other and more cut- 
 ting part of the satire — that of the many " unthinking 
 members" composing " one thinking system," remains 
 as applicable as it was a hundred years ago ; and 
 thus the personal identity of a public assembly could 
 be established, by the argument of the Freethinkers, 
 just in the same way as the personal identity of one 
 human being. 
 
 The story of the stockings is valuable on account 
 of its mere humour ; but it is far more valuable upon 
 other accounts ; for if we consider it carefully, we find 
 that it involves the true doctrine of identity at the 
 same time that it ridicules the false. There is no 
 changing the identity of Sir John's stockings, as stocl- 
 inffs, though as matter they had been gradually changed 
 from worsted to silk ; for by the express wording of 
 the case. Sir John had the stockings from first to last 
 without once exchanging the old pair for new ones. At 
 the same time it is equally clear, that there is no 
 identity of the material of the stockings at the be- 
 ginning and the end of the process ; for they were 
 wholly worsted in the first state, and wholly silk in 
 the last. But it is evident that neither the identity 
 of the stockings, nor even the fact of their being stock- 
 ings at all, depends upon the kind of matter of which 
 they are composed, any more than the fact of the 
 
 N 
 
134 IDENTITY OP MATTER. 
 
 Lower House of Parliament's being a House of Com- 
 mons would demand that it should be composed of 
 the same identical members now that it was in the 
 days of Dr. Arbuthnot. It is the identity of the form 
 or appearance of matter, which constitutes the only 
 identity of matter to our perception, unless we have 
 an unbroken, continuous knowledge of it ; and then 
 our mental feeling of its identity becomes the same as 
 our own, that is, the latter is the analogous case by 
 which we establish the former. 
 
 The assimilation of new particles to supply the 
 place of those which have become unfit for the 
 purposes of life is well illustrated by the change of 
 members in a House of Comm.ons, of which the whole 
 system of election and procedure remains the same ; 
 for as long as the means and extent of the change 
 of matter in the human body remain exactly the same, 
 the form and appearance, and all the bodily faculties 
 and passions, remain the same also, as may be ob- 
 sei-ved in the case of healthy persons of regular habits, 
 during a very considerable period of middle life. 
 That the changes of personal appearance, and those 
 of the body in other respects, take place in exactly 
 the same ratio, would be too bold an assertion upon a 
 subject which is necessarily involved in so much 
 obscurity ; but that there is an approximation which 
 destroys the identity of the body, and of all the bodily 
 feelings, in the changing periods of life, cannot for a 
 moment be doubted. 
 
 Even in the ascertaining of this identity of appear- 
 ance, however, as in all other cases, our senses ai-e 
 
THE BODY IS NOT A MORAL AGENT. 135 
 
 our only means of knowledge ; and when the per- 
 ceptive powers of the body, and especially the con- 
 nexion between body and mind, become weakened 
 beyond a certain degree, we lose the perception of this 
 identity of appearance, and do not know those who 
 have once been our intimate friends, unless some 
 circumstance is mentioned which brings them to our 
 recollection ; and then they come back to us as we 
 knew them in the days of our vigour. 
 
 In consequence of the identity of the body being 
 apparent only, and not substantial, and also liable to 
 changes of appearance, the body, through the gratifi- 
 cation of its desires, or desires entertained on its 
 behalf, is often the cause of crime, yet the body itself 
 is not morally accountable; and this is the reason 
 why, in our courts of justice, derangement is held as 
 an excuse for crime, and violent momentary passion 
 as a mitigation of the measure of punishment that 
 would be awarded to one who perpetrated the same 
 deed from fore-thought purpose. Superficial observ- 
 ation would be apt to suppose that there is injustice 
 in this ; and it must be admitted that a man of un- 
 governable passions is a very unsafe member of society ; 
 but still his single act does not afi"ord evidence that his 
 moral habit is tainted with the crime, though the veiy 
 passion itself is a bad habit, and may be said to be the 
 cause of whatever is repeatedly done when the party 
 is in a passion. The distinction here, however, be- 
 comes too fine for common j uries or for ordinary laws — 
 such as will apply equally to all parties in a numerous 
 and varied community. 
 
136 IDENTITY THK FOUNDATION 
 
 The mental identity, of which we have felt it neces- 
 sary to give some account, for the purpose of showing 
 that it is no part of our bodily or physical nature, is 
 the foundation upon which the whole of our know- 
 ledge is built ; and, in fact, the materials are in no 
 case knowledge until they are thus built, any more 
 than bricks are part of a building until they are laid in 
 their places in its wall. To whatever extent this 
 building [may be carried, the senses are always the 
 labourers that bring all the materials from without, 
 though the mind which rears the structure may send 
 them in quest of particular materials, which, according 
 to the conclusions at which it has arrived, it be- 
 lieves will answer its purpose. But the sense, what- 
 ever it may be, takes no farther concern in that which 
 it brings, after it has been delivered to the mind ; 
 but, making allowance for fatigue, and the rest neces- 
 sary for its renewal, it is quite free from all embar- 
 rassment about the past, and is as ready for new 
 labours as ever. 
 
 The remarks which have been made vnll help to 
 explain to those who have not reflected much on the 
 subject previously, the general character and use of 
 the body in the business and conduct of life, whether 
 public or private, professional or personal. From the 
 general terms in which it has been stated, it is too 
 vague, however, to admit of particular senses, or pur- 
 poses to which senses are applied. 
 
 This general outline must also be considered as 
 including action by ourselves, and the direction of 
 action in others, which are in such cases executions 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE AND OF ACTION. 137 
 
 of plans which have been formed in the mind, as well 
 as mere knowledge, which has no reference to future 
 action. 
 
 That the work is succeeding according to the plan, 
 and agreeably to our mental desire, or that it is com- 
 pleted and answers our expectation, is about the most 
 gratifying intelligence which any or all of the senses 
 of the body can bring to us. The opposites are by 
 no means so pleasant ; but still they are very useful, 
 as they send us to reconsider our plan, in order to see 
 in what we have been in error. The sense, in order 
 to do its duty properly, has a nicer operation to per- 
 form in the case of failure than in that when all 
 goes well. In the case of success we have no reason 
 to ask " why," and therefore it needs not be done ; 
 but in the case of failure, the announcement of the 
 simple fact, without the " why" along with it, is 
 neither satisfactory nor immediately useful. Always, 
 when we act like rational beings, that is, when we 
 " know what w^e are about," we act upon a plan 
 which we have formed or copied — we being original 
 in the one case, and proceeding upon borrowed judg- 
 ment in the other ; and our desire of the success of 
 our plans must be accompanied by, or rather it must 
 originate in, as much knowledge of the means by 
 which we believe our purpose can be accomplished, 
 as to give our desire that degree of intenseness and 
 certainty which makes it what we call a " will," 
 upon which we act. 
 
 The formation of this will — which is only a name 
 for a particular modification of desire — is rather a nice 
 
 n3 
 
ii «TITT " 
 
 138 FOUNDATION OF '' WILL. 
 
 matter ; and as the immediate formation of it is air 
 act of the mind, the consideration of it properly be- 
 longs to our Intellectual knowledge of Man, that is, 
 of our knowledge of ourselves and others regarded as 
 intellectual. But the materials upon which the mind 
 works in order to arrive at this state of " will," must 
 be originally derived from the senses ; and, therefore, 
 the power of exercising a very accurate and scrutinis- 
 ing observation is absolutely necessary before w^e can, 
 in a rational manner, have a will about any matter 
 which involves many parts, or is difficult in the exe- 
 cution ; and as the mental conception that we have of 
 this plan must be all resolvable into elements, each of 
 which would be intelligible to the senses if it w^ere 
 matter of external observation, these mental plans 
 must, on the other hand, be so framed as that they are 
 palpable to sense in all their parts ; and, on the other 
 hand, the senses must be so tutored and prepared as 
 to be able to execute the several parts of a plan with- 
 out any unnecessary labour of simplification on the 
 part of the mind. 
 
 It must never be lost sight of, in the study or the 
 instruction of ourselves — and in most cases the study, 
 well conducted, is the instructor without any further 
 trouble, — it must never be lost sight of, that the 
 grand objects which we ought to have in view are, 
 making the most of our time, and the best of our 
 powers. The time is measured by the sun or the 
 clock ; and we cannot alter them in either way, for 
 they will go the same number of rounds, whether we 
 are active or idle : but if we measure time by pur 
 
IMPROVING TIME. 13!J 
 
 own activity, whether bodily or mental, the length to 
 which we can draw it out, as compared with the 
 extreme of indolence, is often astonishing. Two men 
 shall, for instance, be engaged in the very same kind 
 of occupation, both shall have equal good will to it, and 
 both shall appear to be equally diligent, and yet the 
 one shall do as much in a week as the other can ac- 
 complish in a month. Indeed, the man who is doing 
 the most in reality, very often appears to common 
 observation to be doing nothing at all ; for in the 
 case of the will, as well as in that of the wing — and it 
 is remarkable that the words should be so closely 
 allied, — there is commonly the least flight where there 
 is the most fluttering. 
 
 Now, the mind, considered in itself, can go as far 
 and as fast as can be desired, for it feels no distinc- 
 tion in respect either of time or of distance. The 
 earliest day that we can imagine is just as near us 
 in a mental point of \iew as to-day ; and the sun 
 or a star, when we think of it, is mentally at our 
 finger's end before we have time to point that finger to 
 meet it. 
 
 Then senses which have local organs, and do not 
 require an absolute contact of those substances which 
 give the mind the means of information, are also pretty 
 quick. Light comes to our assistance with very great 
 swiftness ; and though sound and scent are slower, and 
 more liable to variations, they march with consider- 
 able rapidity. But even the swiftest of these is nothing 
 in comparison with the mind ; and, when we come to 
 cases in which contact is required, and the object must 
 
140 DANGER OF DELAY. 
 
 be brought to the organ, or the organ carried to the 
 object, the sluggishness of matter comes in, in either 
 case, and the mind has to wait until the body has 
 accomplished its task. 
 
 Some degree of this waiting is unavoidable in every- 
 thing to which we can put our hand ; but still, the 
 shorter that this can be made it is the better every 
 way. When the mind waits long, it is apt to wander ; 
 and then, though it requires no time to go on with that 
 which occupies it, both time and trouble are always 
 necessary in order to bring it back from its wanderings. 
 Indeed, the time is often not only much longer and the 
 trouble greater than we should be apt to suppose, but 
 the return from a devious course into which the mind 
 had been led while waiting, is very frequently impos- 
 sible. We have no absolute control over the succes- 
 sions of our thoughts, and therefore a single wandeiing 
 of the mind may make us lose the best opportunity 
 in our lives, and one which may never be repeated to 
 us. These delays are, as we have already said, pro- 
 duced by the slowness of the body in obeying the call 
 of the mind ; and thus we in general find that those 
 who are slow in observing or in putting their hand to 
 work, are generally feeble and irresolute in their 
 minds, and that, from their very sluggishness in execu- 
 tion, they lose, or they never have, the desire or the 
 capacity of planning. 
 
 We do not mean that either observing or acting 
 should be hurried over in such a manner as that it 
 shall not be done well ; but there can be no greater 
 mistake than to suppose that mere delay is in itself 
 
INJURIES UK DELAY. 14 i 
 
 an element of perfection. The fact is, that it is 
 exactly the reverse in all applications of the body, 
 and it does injustice to the mind at the same time. 
 If well done, the more quickly that anything is done 
 the better, in the time saved, the habit acquired, and, 
 generally speaking, in the superiority of the thing done. 
 The very best authors, engineers, painters, musicians, 
 and artists of all kinds — for they are all artists — are, 
 generally speaking, those whose works are most nume- 
 rous ; and, if they should not have the high polish of 
 the others, they are far more useful to the public in 
 the way both of enjoyment and of example. The plays 
 of Shakspeare have not the exquisite polish of the 
 poems of Gray, and the novels of Scott have not the 
 critical accuracy of the writings of Addison ; but Gray 
 was utterly lost in indolence, and Addison was so fini- 
 cal that, as a public man, he could neither make a 
 speech nor compose a paper. Besides, with all the 
 roughness which occasionally appears in Shakspeare 
 and Scott, there is really more of the fire and life of 
 intellect about them — something which, heedless of 
 any nicety of appearance, takes by storm eveiy heart 
 capable of feeling. Besides, there is not a more valu- 
 able doctrine to preach to the public, especially the 
 younger part of them, than that " A great deal may be 
 done in a short time, and done well." 
 
 We once knew a painter, a curious miniature of 
 man in his own person, who was a remarkable instance 
 of this waste of time in laborious finishing, and of its 
 effects upon the character. He had been in the 
 service of the Pope, or the Doge of Venice, we forget 
 
142 A FINICAL PAINTER. 
 
 which ; but when the French oven-an Italy, he returned 
 to his native place, not unprovided for, though still 
 disposed to paint portraits of such as could afford to 
 sit and to pay him. It would have required some 
 calculation to determine which of these was the most 
 costly to a man in active employment ; for, although 
 the price was high, the value of the time required was 
 not lower. The consequences were, that he painted 
 few portraits, and those only of idlers who had nothing 
 to do but sit for their pictures, and who had acquired 
 such "genius" for doing nothing, that they could bear 
 the tardy imprisonment. Twelve months at least 
 were said to be requisite for a single picture, and the 
 sittings were certainly not fewer than a hundred. It 
 is true that, when the picture was finished, it was to 
 a very hair and a thread of the drapeiy ; and wags 
 allege, though we know not with what truth, that 
 one victim became grey in the course of the work, 
 and the hair had to be painted anew. The influence 
 on the general habit of the artist was corresponding. 
 He used to shave but once a week, and the business, 
 which no barber could afford to perform, occupied 
 the entire day from morning till night. Here again, 
 it was alleged that, when he had shaved the one side 
 of his face, he washed himself, went to dinner, and 
 then returned to his labour on the other side ; but we 
 do not vouch for this assertion any more than we do 
 for the former one, respecting which we have entered 
 a caveat. 
 
 We have seen the artist, though he was seldom 
 seen — not having been visible abroad for more than 
 
CONTRAST OF PAINTERS. 143 
 
 twice in four years. We have also seen some of his 
 works, and certainly there was a wonderful minuteness 
 of finish about them. If there was a stray hair on the 
 face, or an enlarged papilla, out of which the subject 
 had somewhat indignantly extracted one in former 
 times, there it was, so true to the original that it could 
 not by possibility be mistaken. With a high magnify- 
 ing power, the effect was almost nature — as exquisite 
 as the flower-painting of the late Ferdinand Bauer ; 
 but put it against the wall of a pretty large room, 
 side by side with one of Raeburn's portraits, and what 
 a contrast ! Take a near view of Raeburn's, and it 
 was harsh patches ; take the magnifier, and it was 
 daubs of mortar ; but put them at the distance at which 
 full-sized portraits should look best, and while the 
 laboured one was a cold canvas sticking on the wall, 
 the other seemed to live, and come into the middle of 
 the room to meet you. We do not mention the name 
 or the place, though we suppose that there is not one 
 now living to whom it could give personal offence, but 
 the facts are substantially true, and the naiTative is 
 not without instniction. 
 
 To enumerate all the advantages which we denve 
 from a ready, vigorous, animated, and rapid use of all 
 our physical powers, whether of observation or of 
 action, would be a long and a laborious task. It 
 would also be, in a great measure, an unnecessary one, 
 as we believe there are few who will not assent to the 
 truth on the general principle. But mere assent to 
 the tnith is not what is wanted ; for no truth is of 
 much consequence unless something active, some- 
 
144 PHYSICAL TRAINING, 
 
 thing that will help us in practice, can be founded 
 upon it. 
 
 The practical inquiry here is. How shall we render 
 our physical powers most useful ? The general 
 answer to this is. To procure a regular and healthy 
 state of the body, and improve all the active organs 
 of it, whether of perception or of motion, by such 
 practice as shall give them the proper tone without 
 wearing them out by over-fatigue. But this also is 
 too general for being of any definite use, and though 
 there are various professional trainings and trainers 
 of the body, yet these are all for particular purposes, 
 and these too not the most generally useful for the 
 people of a working world ; so that, in as far as these 
 trainings do good in one way, they have a chance of 
 doing nearly as much harm in another. They chiefly 
 allude to fighting, or dancing, or bearing the body 
 seemingly upon occasions of display ; and as a nation 
 of fighters, dancers, and exhibitors, would not be either 
 a very agreeable or a very useful nation, something 
 else is required, though to say what it specifically 
 should be, even in any one case, is not a very easy 
 matter, as we never are sure in early life what use we 
 may have for our powers, either of observation or of 
 action, before we come to its close. 
 
 There is a preliminary part of the matter, however, 
 which cannot fail in being useful to us, and that is, 
 an outline of the knowledge of our physical structure, 
 because this will, in part, lead us to the discovery of 
 what it may want or admit of in the way of education ; 
 whether for its preservation under circumstances of 
 
AND ITS USES. 145 
 
 unexpected danger ; its improvement in the acquiring 
 of knowledge, or its efficiency in action. Of this, or 
 some parts of this, an outline is intended to be given 
 in the remaining chapters of this volume, but with as 
 little formality or use of technical words as possible. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 PLACE AND PURPOSE OF MAN, AS INDICATED BY THE 
 
 GENERAL STRUCTURE OF HIS BODY STRUCTURE OF 
 
 ANIMALS. 
 
 This is a subject which, if our limits would pennit us 
 to treat it at any considerable length, would be found 
 far more agreeable as well as instructive to general 
 readers than any disquisition upon the anatomy or 
 mechanics of the body, how minute, accurate, and able 
 soever it might be. It is, in other words, the question, 
 " What was I sent into the world to do ?" supposed to 
 be put by every man for himself: and, though we 
 cannot get a complete answer to it, on account of our 
 imperfect knowledge of the data, and though no gene- 
 ral answer could by possibility be so framed as to meet 
 the case of every man, yet it is something to be put in 
 the way, even by a few hints. 
 
 Indeed, it is probable that this "putting in the 
 way," is not merely the best method of teaching most 
 subjects, but that it is the only method of teaching 
 which can reach the mind with that arousing and 
 encouraging effect, which shall set it gladly and 
 cheerily on its mettle, and very soon bring it up to the 
 
VALUE OF A HINT. 147 
 
 pitch at which it will thank us for the hint, and then 
 bound away, in the energy and exultation of young 
 life and new power, distancing and dazzling us by 
 the splendour of its progress, and the increasing radi- 
 ance of its light. And, if there be one human position 
 in which, more than in any other, a pencil of that joy 
 which is eternal glances on the heart of man, it is 
 when an instructor can, on the brink of the giave, 
 turn his fading eye to the bright luminary which is 
 enlightening the world, and say, " / gave him the 
 hint." 
 
 And there are a thousand cases in which, if they 
 who "bestow all their tediousness" upon us in the 
 way both of oral and of written schooling, would con- 
 tent themselves with giving us the hint, and leaving 
 all the rest to ourselves, we should not only be all much 
 wiser than we are, but the paths of wisdom would 
 be rendered much more pleasing to us, and we should 
 not wander so often into the mazes of folly in quest 
 of gratification as we have hitherto done. The diffi- 
 culty lies in timing the hint well, and giving it with 
 the proper effect ; and he who writes ^^•ith a ^^ew 
 to instructing those who read has no power in the 
 first of these, and labours under many difficulties in 
 the second. But, even if ill-timed and ill-told, the 
 brief hint is better than the tedious harangue ; and 
 it is especially better in cases where the subject is 
 inviting, easy, and interesting. But no subject can 
 have these three qualities in a higher degree than our 
 owDl use and purpose in the world ; and therefore, it 
 is the very subject for hints, and that upon which 
 
148 NATURE AND VALUE 
 
 short ones only are necessary, and imperfection of 
 form cannot seriously diminish their effect. The fact 
 is, that the very putting of this question to ourselves 
 is useful, more especially when we are doing, or form- 
 ing a resolution to do, that respecting the propriety of 
 which we have any ignorance or doubt ; because, 
 whether we can answer the question satisfactorily or 
 not, it brings forward our general feeling of our duty 
 as a standard wherewith to compare that which we 
 are doing or purposing. This supplies us with mate- 
 rials for a new act of the mind, in making the com- 
 parison and discovering the relations ; and as one of 
 the subjects of this comparison is the general sense or 
 feeling of what we believe to be our duty, and the 
 other a subject respecting the propriety of which we 
 are uncertain, we actually bring the doubtful case to 
 the very best criterion which we can obtain in the then 
 state of our knowledge. But this is not all : for the 
 general standard which we had previously fonned is 
 brought to the question itself ; and it is compared and 
 judged, by a shadowy standard no doubt, but still by 
 the standard of what ought to be our duty ; and out 
 of this there arises the feeling of a new relation, and 
 a fresh desire to know more of the shado^^7• standard ; 
 and when once a desire, especially a desire of know- 
 ledge, is fairly formed, that desire is in progress toward 
 ripening to a wish, and after that to a will ; and when 
 this comes, the adage holds true that " Where there is 
 a will there is a way." This is a matter of great im- 
 portance ; and if they who essay to school us on 
 all occasions would reflect how much more fertile of 
 
OF SELF-TEACHING. 149 
 
 knowledge our own desires are than their precepts, 
 they would spare us the burden of the latter, and let 
 us enjoy, to its full extent, the impulse of the 
 former. 
 
 But waiving these subjects, which are, however, far 
 from irrelevant to our present purpose, let us suppose 
 the question of " what we are sent into the world to 
 do ? " put, and that we are endeavouring to answer it. 
 Where shall we look for the answer to it ? Certainly 
 not to our own practice, for there our judgment must 
 be biassed. As little can we look with perfect satis- 
 faction to the conduct of others, for veiy many of 
 them are e\adently doing what they were not, and 
 could not be, sent into the world to do. We pass by 
 the specific crimes of which the law takes cognizance, 
 because the customs of society, without any exercise 
 of our own judgment, forbid us to look to them. But 
 we find a large portion of people, of pure name and 
 reputation, fooling away their time in the most un- 
 meaning occupations, or disputing and squabbling 
 about public men and public measures, which have 
 not the slightest bearing upon the real happiness of 
 the disputants, or of any one else ; and surely these 
 are not doing exactly what they were sent into the 
 world to do. Again, we find men harassing, oppress- 
 ing, and imprisoning each other, not contrary to law, 
 but by means of it ; and surely neither they who make 
 this use of laws for the good of society, nor the 
 framers of such laws, can be said to perform exactly 
 that which they were sent into the world to do. Yet 
 
 o3 
 
160 THE USE OF MAN SHOWN 
 
 again, we find men exerting their whole ingenuity, and 
 lavishing much of their wealth, in order to provide 
 engines and other means by which men shall butcher 
 each other by thousands, and we have thanksgivings 
 offered up to-day for the slaughter of twenty A., and 
 to-morrow for the slaughter of twenty B. ; and, how- 
 ever conscientiously they may believe that all this is 
 done for the furtherance of good order and justice, 
 surely we cannot at once come to the conclusion that 
 these parties are doing quite what they were sent into 
 the world to do 1 We run over the whole of society, 
 and a doubt rises as to the case of every class into 
 which we can suppose it capable of being divided. 
 We turn to our own case, and if we glance only a 
 little way back upon our experience, we find that, in 
 spite of the strength of our bias, there are doubts here 
 also. Therefore, it is not in the practices of men that 
 we are to seek even the simplest rudiments of our 
 answer. 
 
 And, if we reflect but for a moment on the nature 
 of j\Ian, or revert but for a moment to our own con- 
 victions of experience, we must feel convinced of the 
 absolute futility of even attempting to get a satisfac- 
 tory answer from either. As we have endeavoured to 
 explain in the former chapters, Man must proceed in 
 all matters upon his own knowledge, and upon that 
 only ; and, as there is probably no case of any mixed 
 or complicated nature in which this knowledge is not 
 imperfect, and not a few in which it is little better 
 than mere guesses, we can found nothing important 
 upon it, as to what Man is really intended for. 
 
IN HIS ORGANISATION. 151 
 
 But there is one source, from which, if we could 
 but rightly understand it, we should obtain nothing 
 but correct information, and that is the physical struc- 
 ture and organisation of INIan. The imperfection of 
 human knowledge has nothing to do with this ; for 
 JNIan is the workmanship of One whose wisdom is 
 complete and infinite, and whose power to execute the 
 plans of his wisdom is equally efficient and equally 
 perfect ; and, therefore, we are here upon safe ground, 
 whether our steps be few or many. 
 
 But how shall we begin ? for we cannot make know- 
 ledge out of any single subject by means of itself; 
 and, therefore, we must have other subjects where- 
 with to institute comparisons, in order that we may 
 discover relations as the means of our progress 1 
 Well, subjects are plentiful, and quite fitted for our 
 purpose : we have other animals in great number and 
 variety ; we can observe the purposes which they an- 
 swer, or, which amounts to nearly the same thing, the 
 actions which they perform ; we can compare their 
 organisations wdth their actions, and as they are not, 
 in any way, under the guidance of their own imper- 
 fect knowledge, but wholly obedient to the laws insti- 
 tuted for them by their unerring Maker, we obtain 
 analogies which are perfect in themselves, and which 
 will answer for standards in the case of that which 
 we ask with regard to ourselves and our brethren. 
 If we go, and go in the proper spirit, to the birds of 
 the air, they will teach — and to the beasts of the field, 
 they will impart knowledge ; so that there are really 
 few questions with regard to which we are so favourably 
 
152 ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING 
 
 circumstanced, if we only approach it %\dth a little 
 calm consideration. 
 
 And, what are the analogies which we are to bring 
 from our obseiTation of the other animals, so as to 
 be sure guides to the knowledge of the place and pur- 
 pose of Man upon the earth ? They are so few and 
 so simple, that a child in knowledge may understand 
 them ; and yet they are so full and perfect, that the 
 most enlarged and cultivated mind of all the sons 
 of men cannot admire them enough, or comprehend 
 more than a small fraction of their beauty and perfec- 
 tion. There is one single analogy, which compre- 
 hends the whole of the animals, of whatever ' size, 
 form, appearance, or character they may be, and 
 which comprehends them all equally ; so that we do 
 not need to take our induction from any larger num- 
 ber of them than is barely necessary to impress the 
 truth of the analogy upon us, in such a way as that it 
 shall be readily suggested to the memory whenever 
 we have occasion to make use of it. All the animals 
 have certain and definite places in nature, in respect 
 of climate, food, locality, element, and every thing that 
 we can name as affecting them ; and they themselves 
 are fashioned, organised, and endowed with instincts, 
 which fit them for this their proper place and object in 
 nature, and to this fitness the whole of their structure 
 and their disposition are limited. 
 
 In consequence of this, they of themselves form one 
 of the most satisfactory and delightful studies, — a 
 study, in the prosecution of which, when one has 
 once broken the crust,— and that is of such a nature 
 
THE ANIMALS. 153 
 
 as to give way to a willing mind, without leaving the 
 impression that there has been any crust at all — one 
 never tires; and so extensive and varied, that it is 
 novelty to the end of life, even to those who pursue it 
 with the greatest ardour. Hence, if there is any one 
 so dull that nothing in the common way of life can 
 rouse him, so fickle that nothing can fix him, so fasti- 
 dious that nothing can please him, or so any thing 
 wrong that nothing common can make him any thing 
 right ; to such a person, if there be any such, what- 
 ever may be his acquirements or his rank in life, we 
 would say, study the localities, the occupations, and the 
 apparent natural uses of animals as deducible from 
 them ; and, when you have done so, examine their 
 structures, and the way in which they work their 
 structures, by the simple impulse of nature, and with- 
 out the aid of precept or example of any kind. Then, 
 when you have carefully examined the two, compare 
 them together ; and say, if you dare, if there is any 
 one truth, in the whole scope of your experience, 
 more palpable and more irresistible than that the place 
 and office have been made for the animal, and the 
 animal for the place and office 1 So perfect is the 
 adaptation each way, and so perfectly reciprocal is it 
 both ways, that you cannot separate the two so as to 
 class them in any order of succession, and decide as to 
 which existed first. You cannot say that the animal 
 was made for the place and office, and as little can 
 you say that the place and office were made for the 
 animal ; for whichsoever you take first, the claim of 
 the other to priority is so equally good, that you feel 
 
154 THE ASS AND 
 
 yourself like the ass, equidistant between the two 
 equal bundles of hay, seeing both equally tempting, 
 and equally within his reach, and so standing stock- 
 still and starving himself to death, in doubt between 
 plenty and plenty. 
 
 This puzzle, — for there was a time when those who 
 claimed the high places among reasoners occupied 
 themselves most learnedly and gravely about such 
 matters as this, — this puzzle, as it has come in the 
 way, is worthy of a passing word, inasmuch as it is 
 another instance of the perplexity which arises from 
 the false analogies which people, in all ages, and of 
 every variety of rank and education, are so prone to 
 institute between the animals and Man, and then to 
 reason upon them as if they were natural and well- 
 established truths. Neither the gravity of the subject, 
 nor the nature of the case, will admit of our saying 
 that the contriver of this puzzle "made an ass of 
 himself," for the making lay quite the other way, as it 
 does in all these false analogies : he went almost to 
 make a human being — himself if you will — of the qua- 
 druped. If the bundles of hay lay equally distant, right 
 and left, neither ass nor schoolman could see them 
 both at one and the same instant. The ass, if hungry? 
 would go straight to the one which it saw first : or, if 
 it did not go to that one, and then saw the other, it 
 would go to that other ; and because it has no mind, 
 and thus no means of remembering and comparing, 
 it would go to the second in utter ignorance that it 
 had ever seen the first. The man, on the other hand, 
 would remember the first, compare it with the second. 
 
THK BUNDLES OF HAY. 155 
 
 and determine and act upon the conclusion deduced 
 from this comparison. Supposing perfect equality in 
 the appearance of the objects, the decision would he a 
 matter of feeling, and depend on the impression made 
 by each of the objects ; and as the sensations are 
 near to each other in time, in which case a first 
 impression necessarily has some advantage, the chance 
 is, that the first would be selected even after the 
 second had been examined ; but much would depend 
 on the experience of the individual, and the habit 
 arising out of that experience. These are not, how- 
 ever, the analogies to which we must have recourse 
 if we are to make the animals useful to us in 
 the study of Man ; for they generally betray us into 
 en-or, and never, in any one instance, lead us to the 
 truth. 
 
 The perfect reciprocity which is so early seen 
 between the place of an animal in nature, and the 
 organisation of that animal, is an instance of a very 
 different kind of equality from that of any two objects 
 of sense. In the case of such objects the act of the 
 mind is immediately consequent upon the mental per- 
 ceptions of the two ; but in the place and ofiice as 
 the one subject of comparison, and the organisation of 
 the animal as the other, each is a generalisation of 
 very many particulars, and thus it is a mental com- 
 parison, far removed, in train of thought, from the 
 original elements supplied by the senses, and not sup- 
 pliable by any other means. 
 
 These long generalisations are troublesome matters 
 to deal with ; and we must take especial care not to 
 
156 BARRISTERS AND BRICKS. 
 
 throw the decision of them upon the comparison of 
 any single similar parts, one taken from each. A case 
 will illustrate this more clearly than reasoning. The 
 point at issue must be the preference of some one 
 compound subject to another compound subject, com- 
 parable with the first, and therefore of the same kind ; 
 and in order that we make our supposed case appli- 
 cable to that of a real case of mental doubt, we must 
 suppose that the umpire is as yet ignorant of both, 
 just as a judge and juiy are understood to be ignorant 
 of both sides of a suit at law, until the barristers give 
 " tongue," and the witnesses tale. The case in point is 
 in reality the decision of the mind as to which of two 
 former states pleases it the best ; but as this is the 
 ultimate condition to which every case must be brought 
 before it can be decided, the particular instance on 
 which it is taken up is a matter of no moment. Well 
 then, supposing the dispute were whether Buckingham 
 Palace or the National Gallery at Charing Cross is the 
 more contemptible specimen of architecture ; and that 
 the party appealed to has not seen either, which is es- 
 sential to a perfectly unbiassed decision, — what should 
 you think of the practice of the court, if Counsellor A. 
 opened by throwing down a brick of plaintiff Palace, 
 and Counsellor B. replied by throwing down a brick 
 of defendant Gallery ; and then the Judge delivered 
 his charge : " Gentlemen of the Jury, you have been 
 sworn to do justice between the plaintiff and defendant 
 in this case ; here is a brick of the plaintiff, and there 
 a brick of the defendant ; the point for your consider- 
 ation is, whether the plaintiff or the defendant has 
 
BUILDINGS AND LOCALITIES. l'^7 
 
 the more ' lean and hungry look,' and you will return 
 your verdict according to the evidence 1 " 
 
 This sounds not a little absurd,' when applied to 
 two mechanical combinations of solid matter, which 
 are objects of the senses, both in the parts of which 
 they are composed, and in the compounds produced 
 by putting these parts together ; and we can at once 
 see that the absurdity arises from our not having the 
 whole case before us. We desiderate the other mate- 
 rials, the relations in which they have been placed 
 according to the plans of the architects, and the general 
 relation of each structure to the situation upon which 
 it has been erected, and the point from which it is 
 most conspicuous ; and, until we have all these fairly 
 before us, it is impossible that we can come to any 
 thing like a judgment upon the matter. The last is 
 an important relation ; and from want of attention to 
 it. Goldsmiths' Hall, which is a pretty building enough 
 in itself, has, as was remarked by an eminent architect, 
 very much the appearance of an acpoSevT-qpiov appended 
 to the General Post Office. 
 
 But if we feel this absurdity in cases where the 
 compound is an object of sense as well as the parts, 
 much more must we feel it when the compound is 
 only a mental generalisation. This is the source of 
 the majority of our errors in thought ; and as we can 
 act only according as we know, it is the source of very 
 many of our blunders in action — and of not a few of 
 what are called wilful crimes. 
 
 Thus, in the case under notice, and for the proper 
 understanding of which some such illustrations as 
 
158 ANIMALS AND THEIR PLACES. 
 
 these are absolutely necessary, the general conclusion 
 is, that the animal was made for the place, because the 
 place cannot come to the animal ; but this is a partial 
 decision, for it is the fact of the aptness, the adapt- 
 ation of the place, which makes us find the animal 
 there. Therefore, when we look at the whole case, we 
 are compelled to believe not of the individuals, but of 
 both as taken in their general characters, that they are 
 subjects of one perfect and indi\-isible design, — pro- 
 ducts of one simultaneous creation ; and this gives us 
 a higher interest in the study of them. 
 
 The interest which this subject possesses in itself, 
 and the fact of its being the only one fi-om which we 
 can obtain a standard whereby to judge of our own 
 place and pui-pose upon the earth, harmonises so well 
 with the ease and facility which every one has for this 
 study, that we can hardly avoid instituting another 
 comparison here, and feeling the conclusion that we 
 were made for the contemplation of nature, and that 
 nature was equally and simultaneously made to be 
 contemplated by us. We may use the general term 
 nature^ instead of the restricted one animal, because 
 the same interest, the same facility, and the same 
 lesson, run through the whole, extending not to all the 
 earth merely, but to whatever is known to us or can 
 be discovered by ns in the heavens. 
 
 And, as if more completely to insure our study and 
 knowledge of that which has so many charms of in- 
 ^^tation and so many facilities of approach, the lesson 
 is by no means confined to the simple knowledge of 
 our place in the system ; for it is here that we have 
 
NATURE GENERALLY. 159 
 
 to obtain both the materials of all our arts, and the 
 elements of the knowledge which enables us to fit 
 those materials to the purposes which we desire. Ex- 
 cept our bodily feelings, and these are of little or no 
 direct use to us, the creation, as it appears to the 
 senses, is the school of our instruction as well as the 
 arena of our action ; and it is very doubtful whether 
 all our accurate knowledge of our bodies — all that can 
 deserve the name of knowledge, is not obtained by 
 analogy from external nature. There is not one of the 
 local senses which has knowledge of its own organ : 
 the eye does not see itself, the ear does not hear itself, 
 and all the rest are in the same predicament. The 
 foot or the finger does not feel its own length ; and 
 the body, taken as a whole, knows nothing whatever 
 of its height, its thickness, its weight, or any other 
 quality that it has. A person who has had no practice 
 in judging of measured lengths by the sight, cannot 
 tell the measure of his finger within half an inch ; and 
 even one who has had practice this way could not be 
 positive of being within a quarter of an inch of the 
 truth. There is a simple but very decisive experiment 
 about our supposed knowledge of so simple a matter 
 as length without a standard of comparison. Take a 
 small bit of smooth stick, of uniform thickness, and, 
 say, nine inches or a foot long : hold one end of it be- 
 tween the thumb and finger of one hand, shut both 
 eyes, and draw the thumb and finger of the other hand 
 very quickly two or three times along the length ; 
 then, still keeping the eyes shut, draw the thumb and 
 finger another time along the stick, as slowly as you 
 
160 NATURE IS OUR SCHOOL. 
 
 possibly can : grasp it when you think you have reached 
 the middle ; then let go with your other hand, open 
 your eyes, and see how near the middle you have the 
 stick. Tiy several times, at a different rate of slow- 
 ness each time, and you will find that you never fix 
 twice on the same place for the middle, and not on the 
 middle itself in a great number of trials. 
 
 This fact, and many others that could be mentioned, 
 is a clear proof that we are indebted to comparison 
 with the external world for all that we know about 
 even the magnitude of our own bodies ; and that we, 
 in truth, come into life with nothing but a capacity 
 for learning, in the exercise of which capacity nature 
 is our only school. Of other human beings we speak 
 not ; because the knowledge of them must be difterent 
 from that of the other objects of our senses, in as far 
 as the subjects are diiFerent, just as is the case in all 
 the rest of the field of our observation. 
 
 From such considerations as these, — and any one 
 who chooses to pay common attention to the subjects 
 may, without science or learned means of parade of 
 any kind, but just by that simple exercise of the senses 
 which every one can perform, and cannot help per- 
 forming ; — from such considerations we can, and in- 
 deed must, whether we will or not, draw the con- 
 clusion, that our primary object and purpose is that of 
 being observers ; and if we find that our organisation 
 more especially fits us for this, then we may consider 
 the truth established by the very strongest species of 
 proof of which such truths are capable. To do this in 
 the best, and at the same time in the briefest manner, 
 
MAN MADE TO OBSERVE. 161 
 
 we must return to the analogy of the animals, be- 
 cause it is in them that we can see that adaptation of 
 structure to purpose, in which there is the most resem- 
 blance to what we should wish to discover in ourselves. 
 As we pass to that subject, we may, however, remark, 
 that when, in another volume, we come to consider 
 Man in an intellectual point of view, we shall be able 
 to see that there is nearly the same coincidence be- 
 tween some of the laws which apparently govern our 
 mental procedure and those which govern the external 
 world upon the large scale, as there is between our 
 bodily organs of perception, and those objects from 
 which these have to acquire the elements of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 In our endeavours to trace the analogy between 
 place and office on the one hand, and organisation on 
 the other, as these present themselves to our contem- 
 plation in the animal kingdom, it is of little conse- 
 quence what animal, what part of an animal, or what 
 active state of an animal, we take as our means of 
 illustration, so that we take it as it exists in free nature, 
 and without any of those changes and restraints which 
 are imposed upon it by human means. 
 
 One great advantage of the subject is, that any one 
 may observe and understand it, without any expense 
 of preparation or loss of time. The inhabitant of the 
 countiy may do it in the time when he is occupied, 
 whether simply in his o^^^l manual labour, in manag- 
 ing the strength of animals, in superintending the 
 labours of others, in watching over their conduct or 
 their health, or simply in beautifying, adorning, and 
 
 p3 
 
162 THE HOUSE-FLY AND 
 
 rendering more fruitful that portion of the soil of his 
 country over which the chances of life have made him 
 steward, and of his stewardship over which he may- 
 rest assured that he must one day give an account. 
 Even in the most crowded part of the most extended 
 city — the part most remote from any thing green and 
 growing, there is still a remnant of nature, in which, 
 small as it is, the perfection of natural adaptation may 
 be observed ; so that we cannot imagine one spot 
 within the land, at which Man has not some means 
 of applying the analogy, and ascertaining the purpose 
 for which he is sent into the world. The sparrow and 
 the house-fly accompany man into the most retired 
 court or alley ; and there is more of real instruction in 
 their living action and the structure which fits them 
 for that action, than there is in the most costly and 
 curious museum of skins, skeletons, and mutilated 
 fragments of strange creatures, of which the habits 
 and the uses in nature are not known. 
 
 Any one of these very common creatures is quite 
 enough for putting us in the way ; and if we can make 
 a beginning, we are sure to go on. The house-fly is 
 the most general, the most easily observed, and the 
 most curious. Its purpose in nature is to consume 
 various substances which are given out by the human 
 body, by articles of food, and by almost every animal 
 and vegetable production when in a state of change, 
 and given out in such small quantities that they are 
 not perceptible by common observers, neither are they 
 removeable by the ordinary means of cleanliness, even 
 in the best-kept apartment. For the performance of 
 
THE HOUSEHOLDER. 163 
 
 this office, the fly has a command of the house far 
 greater than he who calls the house his property. 
 He may have built it, and he can pull it down, but 
 still he is not so completely at home in it as the fly is. 
 So that, whether it be cottage or palace, the fly, if it 
 had any power of speech, might say to the man, " You 
 have laboured and built, but it has been for my ac- 
 commodation ; for that which is to you merely a 
 shelter affords me all that I require, in food, in 
 clothing, and in habitation." And, though the fly 
 has no voice of any kind, or any passage of air by the 
 mouth, yet the lesson which it affords us is not less 
 intelligible or instructive than if it were given in the 
 most eloquent and appropriate language that man can 
 use. Indeed it is more so ; for it has all the freshness 
 of originality, and goes immediately to the mind, while 
 the other is only at second-hand, and the words may 
 sound in the ear, or be seen by the eye in reading, 
 without making the least impression, or leaving even 
 the simple memory that they have been heard or 
 seen. 
 
 The structure of the feet of the fly, by means of 
 which it can walk upon any surface, whether rough or 
 smooth, and whether presented upwards, downwards, 
 sideways, or with any degi-ee of obliquity, is a very 
 curious matter. It runs up the smooth glass of the 
 window with more apparent ease than we can ascend 
 the best constructed staircase ; and it can alight from 
 the wing, or take the wing again, in " any direction. 
 When flying it has the back uppermost, in the same 
 way aS a flying bird or a walking quadruped ; but it 
 
164 ACTION OF THE HOUSE-FLY. 
 
 can instantaneously start from its position on the 
 window with the back outwards, and settle, after its 
 flight, upon the ceiling, with its back downwards. So 
 easily, so quickly, are these turnings of the body 
 effected in the fly, that we cannot observe the per- 
 formance of them, though we are certain that they 
 must take place ; and such is the power of wing in 
 this small and apparently insignificant creature, that 
 it can mount up almost, if not altogether, in a per- 
 pendicular line, and that without our being able to 
 observe the motions of its wings. The motions of 
 the small gnats which come out when the air is still 
 and warm, especially after a shower but sometimes 
 over the snow, are still more remarkable. Not one 
 of them, in all probability, sees the light of two days ; 
 and they are known to common observers only as 
 sporters in the atmosphere ; and yet they present 
 almost the utmost perfection of organisation for mo- 
 tion that we can name. The whole assembly are like 
 a changing cloud : now spreading, now contracting, 
 now rolling like a ball, now revolving in circles, and 
 performing more evolutions than we have words to 
 apply. Then, while the whole mass are thus continu- 
 ally moving, each individual is as continually changing 
 its relative place among the rest ; and if the position 
 of the sun upon the pearly films of their little wings 
 is favourable, their paths beautify the air with count- 
 less little rainbows, varying and shifting, and appear- 
 ing and vanishing, in a manner the most extraordinary. 
 There are few places at which these may not be seen ; 
 but though they present a veiy beautiful display, we 
 
FEET OF THE HOUSE-FLY. 160 
 
 cannot examine them so closely as we can the house- 
 fly, and hence they are not so instructive. 
 
 It has often been said that this fly is enabled to 
 move along smooth surfaces, which are vertical or 
 turned downwards, by means of suckers on the feet, 
 which adhere by the pressure of the air ; and in some 
 of the books there are accounts of the way in which 
 these suckers act, accompanied by figures of them. 
 But this is at variance with the analogy, and also with 
 the fact. There is no foot of any animal which ad- 
 heres by means of a sucker, and is used alternately 
 with other feet in walking ; and it is doubtful whether, 
 in the cases of animals which adhere by what are called 
 suckers, they really use those organs as such, or whether 
 they merely apply the fine papillae to those surfaces 
 to which they adhere. Be that as it may, the fly cer- 
 tainly adheres to the glass by means of the pads on the 
 feet, and the little claws at their extremities ; and the 
 wings are always ready to come into action if the claws 
 should not be able to retain their hold. 
 
 We have given these instances of general adaptation, 
 because the animals are so small that their several 
 parts cannot be well distinguished by common ob- 
 servation ; and because their whole structure and 
 economy are so very dissimilar to our own, that no 
 inference drawn from the one will apply to the other, 
 as a comparison of similarity. We shall now allude, 
 briefly, to one or two cases, in which the organisation 
 and the use are better seen ; and in these it will signify 
 little, where we choose our locality or what we select 
 as our subject. 
 
166 ADAPTATION OF FISHES. 
 
 Confining our obseiTations to the vertebrated ani- 
 mals, we may consider their places in nature as being 
 in the waters, on the earth, and in the air ; though the 
 birds are really inhabitants of the earth, or of that 
 which is rooted in or supported by the earth, and the 
 mammalia really live in the air, only they are more 
 habitually supported by the earth than the birds are. 
 
 In noticing some of these as illustrations, it will not 
 be necessary to advert to that part of their structure 
 which fits one class of them for breathing in the air only, 
 and another for breathing only in the water, because 
 the organisation by which they are enabled to do so 
 is not open to common observation, and cannot be 
 fully examined, in the living state, even by the most 
 experienced of scientific students : but we may remark, 
 that in this, as well as in all those organs and systems 
 of animals which cannot be seen by us, the adaptation 
 is as perfect as in those which we can see. In the 
 water, for instance, a fish which inhabits at the bottom, 
 one which inhabits the middle depth, one which in- 
 habits near the surface, and one which, from the state 
 of the seasons where it is found, must sometimes have 
 to take short journeys upon land — all have their 
 breathing organs so varied that no one of them would 
 feel completely at home if it were to be confined to 
 the locality of another. One of the mud-fishes, for 
 instance, which have the eyes in the upper part of the 
 head, and their mouths so adapted as to be able to 
 catch only what is above them, would be oppressed in 
 its breathing, as well as starved for want of food, if 
 compelled to remain near the surface ; and a mackerel 
 
ADAPTATION OF niRDS. 167 
 
 would suffer in the same manner, if it were compelled 
 to remain half buried in the mud. 
 
 There are also varied adaptations in the breathing 
 organs of animals which breathe air. If they live 
 wholly or partly in the water, as whales, seals, and 
 some of the fishing birds, they have one form of 
 organs ; if they are always on the surface of the land, 
 they have another ; and if they are much on the wing, 
 their large bones are hollow, and they can in part 
 breathe without the use of the nostril or mouth. In 
 all these varieties, also, each is admirably fitted for its 
 own place and habit ; and, from the simple fact of 
 being so, it is not so well adapted for any other. All 
 the parts of what may be called the vital system — 
 that which carries on the life of the animal without 
 having any obvious specific action upon the rest of 
 nature — presents the same beauty of adaptation ; so 
 that the part of the animal which supports what we 
 may call its working structures, is just as well adapted 
 to its proper locality as the working structure itself ; 
 and one possessing very moderate knowledge as a 
 naturalist would be able to tell, from the examination 
 of those stnictures, or of any one of them, what were 
 the general place and habit of the animal. 
 
 But it is in the working structures — the organs of 
 motion and prehension — that the adaptations of ani- 
 mals are most easily seen, and most strikingly dis- 
 played. The grand personal purpose of all animals — 
 that which forms the business of the individual among 
 them, and answers, so far as the one can answer to 
 the other, to that business, occupation, or profession. 
 
168 GRAND PURPOSE OF ANIMALS. 
 
 for which we have to acquire knowledge and learn 
 action — is the finding of their food ; and this, there- 
 fore, is the part of their economy from which we 
 must derive our standard, whereby to judge our o^^^l 
 case. 
 
 The use of tlie animal in the system of nature, 
 which is the parallel case to the use of Man in society, 
 does not need to be taken into the consideration 
 here ; indeed, it is better left out, as it would only 
 confuse the other part. The finding of the food, 
 however, involves several considerations. The animal 
 must be able to go where the food is, and when the 
 supply at one place is exhausted it must within certain 
 limits be able to seek for a fresh supply in another 
 place. It must be able to seize or otherwise obtain 
 possession of the food ; to pursue it if it be of such a 
 nature as to attempt to escape ; to master it if it be 
 such as to ofi'er resistance ; and to prepare it by 
 dividing into parts, by the separating of extraneous 
 substances, or by the performance of any other opera- 
 tion which may be necessary. It must also, within 
 certain limits, be capable of preserving its existence 
 against the casualties of place and time, and also 
 against enemies — which last may be done by defence, 
 by flight, or by concealment. 
 
 Each of these varies much in different animals — 
 so much indeed that the same description will hardly 
 apply to the whole ; but still the analysis obtained by 
 these three divisions enables us to see the matter 
 more clearly, as it presents the animal to us in three 
 distinct lights. There' is also some advantage in the 
 
IMPORTANCE OF ACCURATE NAMES, 169 
 
 use of a general term for the organs, which are more 
 peculiarly adapted and applied to each of these three 
 classes of functions or labours, as that saves the con- 
 fusion arising from the use of a number of particular 
 names, and also the danger of narrowing the subject 
 by the too frequent use of a particular name in a 
 general sense. 
 
 Precision of language in this respect is a very im- 
 portant matter, far more so than one would be apt to 
 suppose ; and it is highly probable that many of the 
 mistakes upon it which have been ripened by time 
 and use into most inveterate prejudices, were, at first, 
 nothing more than verbal blunders, or the careless use 
 of words, which did no harm in the case of those who 
 first applied them, as they of course knew the meaning 
 independently of the use of the word. Names and 
 terms ought certainly not to be unnecessarily multi- 
 plied ; but, unless a great deal of nicety is used, both 
 in respect of the meaning intended to be expressed, 
 and also in the nature and use of the language, there 
 is always danger of error in employing a word already 
 in general use to express something new. The word 
 "hand," which has been applied to the feet or paws 
 of the apes, monkeys, and other climbing animals 
 which climb chiefly by the grasp of that organ, and 
 not by clasping with the legs or holding on by the 
 claws, is an instance of this unhappy nomenclature, 
 and is no doubt one of the foundations of the supposed 
 similarity between these animals and man, — though 
 a paw of this kind could not perform rightly any of 
 the proper functions of the hand, and the hand would 
 
170 CLASSES OF ORGANS. 
 
 feel as much difficulty in performing the proper func- 
 tions of the paw. 
 
 The three great classes of active organs, arranged 
 according to their functions, may be termed organs 
 of motion, organs of prehension, and organs of defence. 
 But as the purposes of nature are always accomplished 
 at the least possible expense both of parts and of 
 energy, it is only in particular cases that an organ of 
 any one of the three classes is confined to a single 
 function, though there is always one of the three for 
 which it is better adapted than for any other, and its 
 class is of course named after that. Thus, the teeth 
 of a dog are his defences as well as his offensive 
 weapons when he offers battle ; but still their proper 
 function is the seizing and preparing of his food : so 
 also the heels and the teeth of a horse are occasionally 
 used both for defence and for attack, but the first 
 properly belong to his organs of motion, and the 
 second to his organs of prehension. The chief organs 
 which are used for attack or defence, and but little 
 for any other purpose, are the horns of animals, in- 
 cluding, among the rest, the nasal horns of the 
 rhinoceri, the tusks of elephants, the beaks, and also 
 the spines with which some fishes are armed, the 
 spines of porcupines, hedgehogs, and some other ani- 
 mals, and the spurs upon the tarsi of birds. Some of 
 these, more especially the produced beaks of the fishes, 
 which are either produced teeth, or elongations of the 
 bones of the head, are probably more or less used in 
 procuring food ; but the gi'eater number of those 
 which have been enumerated are weapons and nothing 
 
BASIS OF OUGANISATION. 171 
 
 else. The tusks of the hippopotamus, the enamel of 
 which is probably the hardest animal substance known, 
 and the core or bone, which is one of the most firm 
 and compact, are formidal)le weapons to look at ; but 
 still the regular and proper use of them to that power- 
 ful and clumsy, but inoffensive, animal, is the breaking 
 and bruising of its very coarse food. 
 
 The basis or foundation of all these systems in the 
 animal is the skeleton, or bones ; and here it is worthy 
 of remark, that the skeleton forms a very remarkable 
 partition, or, at all events, indication of parting, in the 
 body of the animal. 
 
 The centres, at least of what are called the vital, 
 nutritive, and sentient systems — the heart, the lungs, 
 the stomach, and the brain — are placed in part or 
 wholly within the skeleton, and have not any base 
 of insertion upon it as the fulcrum from which they 
 originate their action, though it helps to keep them 
 in their places. The only exception to this last is in 
 the working of the lungs in respiration ; and then it 
 is very doubtful whether the lungs have any proper 
 action farther than arises from the elasticity of the 
 membrane composing the air-cells and the irritability 
 of their surfaces. The muscular part of the process of 
 breathing is produced by the muscles of the thorax, 
 and by the diaphragm which separates that cavity 
 from the abdomen. 
 
 The working of the lungs themselves is so difi"erent 
 from most of the other actions of the body in which 
 motion is concerned, that a mere notice of it may 
 furnish a useful hint to such as have not already 
 
172 BREATHING AIR, 
 
 thought upon that veiy common and indispensable, 
 but very curious operation. One particular of it is 
 important, as pointing out a line of distinction between 
 the portion of the body over which we have control, 
 and that over which we have none — at least none 
 directly ; but it is not upon this particular that the 
 question has been raised. 
 
 The question is, " How came we to use the lungs 
 at first?" and it will be observed that this is not a 
 futile question, such as if we were to ask why there 
 are any human beings in the world ; for it is not a 
 question of original existence, or even of any parti- 
 cular form of existence ; it is merely a question of a 
 new action in a body already existent. Before birth, 
 there is no respiration and no use for it, as the supply 
 of matter has undergone that operation before it is 
 transferred from the old life to the new. The lungs 
 are therefore not needed, and the position of the body 
 compresses them into a smaller compass than they 
 afterwards occupy. In consequence of this, lungs 
 which have never breathed are heavier than water, 
 and sink ; and lungs which have breathed, if only 
 once, are lighter than water, and swim ; and this is the 
 most certain way of deciding whether an infant found 
 dead has or has not been still-born. 
 
 But the lungs are not only compressed into less 
 room before birth, for they are actually compressed 
 like a squeezed sponge, and expand whenever the 
 pressure is taken oif. The moment they expand, the 
 air rushes in by the nostrils and mouth ; and the 
 force with which it enters carries the expansion a 
 
FIRST BREATH. 173 
 
 little beyond the natural state. This acts as a 
 stimulus upon the muscles, which immediately con- 
 tract, diminish the cavity of the chest, and, in con- 
 junction with the elasticity of the lungs, expel the 
 air, till the lungs are again reduced to less than their 
 natural capacity ; and this stimulates the antagonists 
 of the former muscles, namely, those which expand 
 the chest, and they assist the pressure of the atmo- 
 sphere in again filling the lungs. The expansion of 
 the lungs is always produced by their own elasticity, 
 for no muscular apparatus could work so fine a 
 structure ; but the expansion of the chest gives 
 room ; and the contraction of the chest again occa- 
 sions the expulsion. Thus the lungs are set a-going 
 by atmospheric pressure and elasticity ; and the action 
 is kept up and regulated by these and muscular force 
 jointly. 
 
 The only part of this process which we can control, 
 is the muscular action of the thorax and diaphragm, 
 and we have but a limited control over that : we 
 can draw '• a long breath," but we cannot keep the 
 chest long expanded by "holding our breath ;" and if 
 a man were to form ever so determined a purpose of 
 holding his breath till he strangled himself, nature 
 would break through his determination, and that 
 before he had suifered any injury. Those muscles 
 which are employed in working the lungs being the 
 only portion of our vital system over which we have 
 any direct control, are also the only part that we can 
 improve by education. They are also the only parts 
 of it w^hich have an origin upon the skeleton, or can 
 
 q3 
 
174 ORGANS OF MOTION. 
 
 be numbered in any way among those portions of the 
 body, in the use of which we are to take the other 
 animals as our standard. 
 
 The skeleton, as being the foundation of the whole 
 working structure, is, therefore, the most important 
 part to study in order to understand the action ; for 
 all the actions of animals consist in the moving of the 
 skeleton, or part of it, or something by means of 
 muscles originating in it, in some direction or other. 
 The organs of motion, by which the parts are moved 
 in action, of whatever kind it may be, are always 
 muscles ; for although elasticity is employed in several 
 parts, it works by reaction and not action, and the 
 result of it is repose, or the state of greatest ease of 
 the part. Hence, elastic substances are employed for 
 repose, or for the continued action of parts, when cir- 
 cumstances require that the continuance should not 
 wear out the animal by fatigue, as is done in all cases 
 of muscular or positive action. 
 
 We have examples of these in the feet of birds, 
 when they bend their legs on the perch, in the talons 
 of birds of prey, in the claws of the cat tribe, in the 
 feet of sloths, the claws by which bats suspend them- 
 selves when they sleep, and in many other cases in 
 which one particular position of an organ is essential 
 to that repose which is required for allowing the 
 muscular or active part of the working structure to 
 recover its tone. Man, and all those animals which 
 lay themselves down upon the ground to take their 
 rest, do not require this assistance from elasticity, 
 and accordingly they do not possess it to the same 
 
POSITION OF RErOSE. 
 
 175 
 
 extent as animals which suspend themselves when 
 they are at rest. But, even in ]\Ian, the position of 
 perfect repose is not that of full extension any more 
 than that of full contraction ; and, to keep the fingers 
 extended to their full length for a long time, is just 
 as painful and exhausting as to keep them firmly 
 clenched. The easy position is that which gives equal 
 relaxation both to the stretching and the bending 
 muscles. 
 
 The structure of the skeleton, not only in the num- 
 ber of its bones and their general arrangement, but in 
 the shape of each particular bone, is adapted to, and 
 explanatory of, not merely the kind and number of the 
 muscles and other soft parts which are applied to the 
 bone, but of the whole habits and character of the 
 animal ; and not merely of the animal alone, but of 
 the character of the country for which it is especially 
 adapted. Of course, this is a subject which requires 
 not common observation of the living animal merely, 
 but an intimate acquaintance with every part of its 
 structure, and with the functions which that structure 
 fits it for performing. 
 
 Knowledge of this kind can never, of course, be 
 made available by the great body of mankind, the 
 principal occupation of whose time and attention is 
 about matters of very different, and, to them, much 
 more valuable import. But, even to such, it is of 
 importance to know what can be done, and what 
 actuallv has been done in these matters, in order that 
 they may understand what wonderful power human 
 research, when directed in a proper manner, with 
 
176 FOSSIL BONES AND 
 
 sufficient zeal and perseverance, and with an honest 
 desire to know the truth without any bias in favour 
 of a preconceived theory, has over the whole of that 
 creation of which we are the only terrestrial students. 
 
 In consequence of this, the bones of animals become 
 most important subjects in an historical point of view. 
 In certain situations they remain for a long period of 
 years, even in deposites of loose materials ; and when 
 once the matter in which they are contained has been 
 hardened, or consolidated to the consistency of stone 
 or of firm clay, which completely resists the action of 
 the atmosphere or the escape of any of the parts of 
 which they are composed, we absolutely cannot name 
 a time beyond which a bone shall not last, and tell the 
 tale of its possessor with not much less certainty on 
 the general points, than if that possessor had been 
 alive only a few years ago. 
 
 Many animals, of which not the species merely, but 
 the whole race appear to be now extinct, are found 
 thus recorded in the earth ; and there are many more, 
 which are extinct in all climates in which the remains 
 are found, and the living species of which, in different 
 climates, are very much different from those which 
 are found monumental in the general home and ceme- 
 tery of all animated beings of whose existence we have 
 any knowledge. And, according as they differ from 
 the native animals now found in the same countries 
 which contain the bones, they indicate physical 
 changes in the state of those countries ; and thus they 
 form an indubitable history of the earth, commencing 
 long before any thing recorded in the comparatively 
 
THEIR USES. 177 
 
 brief annals of the human race. Of the specific de- 
 gree of heat or cold, at the time when they were alive 
 and active, they tell us nothing ; for the temperature 
 of a country, whatever it may be, tells little or nothing 
 upon the bones of animals, whatever it may do on 
 the soft parts, and especially upon the external cover- 
 ing. But in every case in which a very ancient native 
 of a polar climate has had as much of its natural 
 covering preserved, as that its adaptation to the tem- 
 perature can be judged of, the indication — nay, the 
 demonstration has unifonnly been, that the country 
 must have been cold at the time when it was a living 
 inhabitant. 
 
 So perfect is the agreement of all the parts of the 
 skeleton of an animal, with the character of the place 
 which it inhabits and the functions that it performs, 
 that these may, by an experienced comparative 
 anatomist, be all inferred, and that with wonderful 
 accuracy, from a single bone. There is a remarkable 
 instance of this, in the remains of an animal found in 
 North America. President Jefi"erson, though a man of 
 observation and acuteness in most matters in which 
 he had the whole case before him, was no scientific 
 naturalist ; and therefore he infeiTed that the bone, 
 which had e^'idently borne a large claw or hoof, had 
 belonged to an animal more carnivorous, more fierce, 
 and more formidable from its size than all the lions, 
 tigers, and other beasts of prey now living on the face 
 of the earth. But when Cuvier came to apply science 
 to this bone, and trace the relation of its use from its 
 structure, he at once discovered that the animal to 
 
178 VARIOUS CHARACTERS 
 
 which it belonged could not have had any murderous 
 pov^^er in its claw^s ; that, in fact, it could not have 
 been a carnivorous animal at all ; but that it had 
 been an herbivorous tenant of a countiy in a wild and 
 marshy state. We enter not farther into the details 
 of this particular case ; but it is important as showing 
 the correctness of the information which observation 
 and judgment can obtain, with regard to the per- 
 fection of that reciprocal adaptation which subsists 
 between animals and their localities and habits ; and, 
 by necessary consequence, the advantages which we 
 derive from using them as a standard, in order to form 
 a correct judgment respecting the place and office of 
 Man upon earth. 
 
 In what we ourselves can observe of the structures 
 and adaptations of living animals, in each of the three 
 classes of their active organs to which we have alluded, 
 the case is still the same. In the case of simple 
 motion in change of place, the wing for the air, and 
 the foot for the earth, are easily distinguished. But 
 then, the modifications of each of these to the varia- 
 tions of the use are not less wonderful. Thus, to 
 take the wing : the wings of an eagle, an owl, a lap- 
 wing, a swallow, a common fowl, a duck, and a wide- 
 ranging petrel, not to mention a hundred others 
 which are equally well adapted to their various offices, 
 are highly instructive. The eagle floats in the air, 
 until its keen eye discovers, upon the surface of the 
 earth, the prey which is to satisfy its want. Accord- 
 ingly, its wings, though very powerful, are at the 
 same time broad and hollow in their under sur- 
 
OF WINGS. 179 
 
 faces, so that they can take a powerful hold on the 
 air, and enable it to float with little labour. But as, 
 when the prey is once discovered, the more speedily 
 the bird can arrive at it the better, both wings and 
 tail are organised for a rapid descent, and the eagle 
 comes down like a meteor, so that one can almost 
 see the tremulous motion of the air. The habit of 
 the lapwing is to wheel, and double, and tumble 
 about, shifting its course almost eveiy instant ; and, 
 accordingly, there is a very peculiar curvature in the 
 wings, which fits it for this species of motion. The 
 owl comes upon its prey by stealth ; and, therefore, 
 the feathers of its wings are fined off, so that it glides 
 noiselessly through the air, as though it were muffled. 
 In the swallow, which has not to rush like the eagle, 
 or to tumble in the air like the lap\nng, but which has 
 to follow^ the \\-inged insects upon which it feeds, in 
 alj the mazes of their motion through the air, the 
 wangs, and also the lateral and more produced parts 
 of the tail, are pointed, so that the bird can turn upon 
 any of them as on a pivot, and thus continue the chase, 
 not\^^thstanding the doublings of the sportive prey 
 upon which it feeds. The swift hawks at a greater 
 elevation than the swallow, where prey for it may be 
 presumed to be less abundant, and to move less in 
 sportive circles ; and accordingly the swift is more 
 powerfully \^^nged for forward flight, but it has fewer 
 points upon which to turn. The common fowl is a 
 feeder upon the ground, and never takes the wing 
 unless to perch, or get out of the way of ground 
 enemies ; and therefore its wings are more adapted 
 
180 CHARACTERS OF WINGS. 
 
 for rising and descending than for forward flight. 
 The tail, which is an essential instrument in the 
 ascent and the descent of all birds, is curiously con- 
 structed in these, so that it may be useful to them 
 when required, and still not an encumbrance when 
 they are upon the ground. For this purpose, the 
 sides of it fold together when it is not required in 
 flight, but expand when it is. The duck, also, has the 
 wings with considerable concavity, and when it flies 
 low its flight is rather fluttering ; but when the species 
 that migrate, get upon their high or migratoiy flight, 
 their course is comparatively smooth, and their pro- 
 gress rapid. The wide-ranging petrels are remarkable 
 for length and power of wing, and as they skim the 
 surface of the water against the wind, they so balance 
 their wings that the current comes below like a wedge, 
 and buoys them up with much less effort than they 
 would otherwise require to make. These must suffice, 
 however, as specimens of wings, for many volumes 
 would not exhaust even the popular notice of this 
 curious subject. 
 
 In every case in which the wing is the principal 
 organ of motion, all the rest of the structure, in as 
 far as motion is concerned, is formed in subservience 
 and assistance to the wing. In like manner, if the 
 feet of a bird are the essential organs of motion, as 
 they are in the ostriches and some others, then the 
 whole of the other parts are subservient to these, and 
 the wings* are useful only in balancing the body ; or 
 they are, in some cases, but little available for this 
 purpose, as in the emu and the apteiyx, in the latter 
 
FEET OF MAMMALIA. 181 
 
 of which the bones of the wings are barely produced 
 beyond the skin of the body. 
 
 In the mammalia, none of which are fliers, — with 
 the exception of the bats, and their flight is unseemly 
 and fluttering compared to the flight of birds, — the 
 organs of motion are feet ; and no adaptation can be 
 more perfect than that of the feet, both to the kind 
 of motion which is habitual to the animal, and to 
 the particular kind of surface upon which that motion 
 is performed. If the feet are nothing but simple 
 organs of motion, then they have their action in the 
 plane of the length of the body only, the fore feet 
 and the hind ones being equally true in this direction, 
 and incapable of motion in any other, so that the foot 
 cannot be brought to the mouth, or rendered in any 
 w'ay serviceable in conducting the food thither. Such 
 animals never have any clavicle, or collar-bone, by 
 means of which the shoulders, or articulations of the 
 fore-legs, can be steadied in such a manner as to give 
 them any rotation upon the shoulder joint, or motion 
 in the cross direction to the axis of the body. 
 
 But no loss of the energy which it is capable of 
 exerting is sustained by the fore-legs of the animal 
 having motion in one direction only ; for the whole 
 of their capacity is concentrated upon that particular 
 direction, and the single motion is far more vigorous 
 in proportion to the exertion made, than any one of 
 the motions is when the organ is capable of per- 
 forming more than one. Hence, the animals that 
 have no clavicles, and no cross motion of the fore- 
 legs, are the most swift-footed of all animals, although 
 
 R 
 
182 USE OP CLAVICLES. 
 
 in this respect they differ not a little, \\dth the peculiar 
 situations for which they are adapted and the exertions 
 which they have to make in order to procure their 
 food. The buffalo and the ox, which naturally inhabit 
 low-lying and rich pastures, are sluggish in their mo- 
 tions as compared with the wild goats and the ante- 
 lopes, which have to range over comparatively barren 
 surfaces. 
 
 The use of the clavicle is to give firmness to the 
 shoulder-joint by a stay abutting on the anterior part 
 of the sternum or breast-bone, to which it is united, 
 not by a moveable joint, but by cartilage ; or if there 
 is great firmness required in the shoulder, and at the 
 same time gi'eat freedom in the neck, as in birds of 
 powerful wing, then the clavicles of the two sides are 
 united into a complete arch ; and the coracoid, which 
 is a mere process of the blade-bone in the others, 
 takes the form of a separate bone, uniting the shoulder- 
 joint to the sternum. In those cases, the blade-bone 
 itself is small compared with that in animals which 
 have not this firmness of shoulder, as it has but little 
 motion, and acts chiefly as one of the parts of the 
 tripod, which gives to the shoulder-joint that great 
 stability which enables it to sustain the powerful mo- 
 tion of the wing. 
 
 If swiftness and long continuance of motion, merely 
 in forward progression, without any other specific 
 action of the foot, as a grasping, clutching, or digging 
 instrument, is required, then the blade-bone is taken 
 into the moveable parts of the fore-leg, the tarsus, 
 or principal length of the foot, into the hind one ; 
 
LIMBS FOR PROGRESSIVE MOTION. 183 
 
 and, in all such feet, the toes only come in contact with 
 the ground in walking, the extremities of them being 
 armed with hoofs, not w4th claws or nails. 
 
 The horse is a good illustration of this ; and the 
 freedom of the blade-bone is a very essential " point," 
 in judging of the kind of action for which a horse is 
 best fitted. If that slopes far backward in the upj)er 
 part, then the horse is adapted for getting fast over 
 the ground, but comparatively weak in draught ; and, 
 on the other hand, if the shoulder is square, the horse 
 is much more efficient at a dead pull, but much less 
 capable of swift motion. The numerous varieties of 
 horses which are to be met with, each of them the best 
 adapted possible for some one purpose, and on that very 
 account the worst adapted for any other, are among the 
 most striking proofs that we have, both of the prac- 
 tical advantage that we may derive from studying the 
 structure of animals, and the general truth, that each 
 animal is especially adapted for some particular pur- 
 pose in nature. 
 
 In all those animals which have the legs formed for 
 progressive motion only, there are comparatively few 
 muscles towards the extremities, the muscles being 
 chiefly upon the upper joints, and the soft parts of 
 the terminal ones being principally cartilages and 
 ligaments. In various ways this is a veiy beautiful 
 adaptation. The motion of the whole limb is what is 
 chiefly wanted ; and this is obtained by the concen- 
 tration of the muscles on the shoulder. Thus the 
 distal part, which has the most extensive and rapid 
 motion to perform, is not loaded, and the parts of it 
 
184 LIMBS FOR COMPLEX ACTION. 
 
 are such as not to be so liable to injuiy, either from 
 use or exposure, as if they were composed of parts 
 having more vital action. But when they are injured, 
 they are more difficult to heal, as the power of healing 
 in any part of the body, is always in proportion to the 
 energy of living action in that part. This is, by the 
 way, the reason why wounds, which would be very 
 troublesome if not fatal to persons of disordered habit, 
 are easily healed in children and those of vigorous 
 health. 
 
 If the paw or extremity of the limb has additional 
 action to perform, the freedom in forward motion is 
 diminished ; the shoulders are, to a greater or less 
 extent, provided with clavicles ; and the distal parts 
 of the limb are more complicated in their structure, 
 and more furnished with muscles : more care is also 
 taken to protect them from changes of the weather, 
 as well as from other injuries. The fleet animals 
 always deliver themselves from their hoofs and alight 
 upon the same ; but all animals which use their feet 
 as paws, have elastic pads from which they deliver 
 themselves, and on which they alight. And, when the 
 action of the foot in any other way than merely for- 
 ward motion is great, the whole length of the tarsus 
 is brought to the ground in walking, and the march 
 is clumsy as compared with that of the hoofed ani- 
 mals. 
 
 Lions and tigers are animals of great muscular 
 power, and they are muscular down to the very ex- 
 tremities of the paws ; but, in their ordinary motions, 
 they are loose and twining ; and the body seems a 
 
LION AND TIGER. 185 
 
 subordinate part of the animal, intended chiefly for 
 uniting the head and feet. This may seem to be a some- 
 what homely style in which to describe the mighty 
 monarch of the African wilderness, and the gorgeous 
 nawab of the Indian jungle ; but it is nevertheless far 
 nearer the truth than the terms in wliich those tyrants 
 of wild nature are usually described. 
 
 A lion or a tiger is, in tnith, nothing else than an 
 organisation by means of which clutching and rending 
 claws, and tearing teeth, are brought to bear with the 
 greatest certainty and effect, in lessening the numbers 
 of various other species of living creatures ; and be- 
 yond this, neither the one nor the other is of the 
 slightest use in creation. When their hunger is ap- 
 peased, they doze in perfect indolence till they are 
 hungry again. Their dens are loathsome to the sight, 
 and most offensive to the smell : and they never come 
 abroad in peace to add to the beauty and interest of 
 the landscape, as is done by animals of more elegant 
 motions but less murderous dispositions. 
 
 And is it not a blot and blemish in the system of 
 nature, that it should contain animals of such power, 
 and power to be used only in the perpetration of 
 cruelty ? Far from it, — so far that it is one of the 
 greatest beauties of the whole system, when we in- 
 clude Man in the catalogue ; and it is not wanting in 
 beauty, even when no particular reference is made to 
 him. The countries which these formidable animals 
 inhabit, are all, at the time of their plentiful inhabit- 
 ing, unfit for human occupation, or at all events 
 unoccupied by Man. Singh, the lion of India, is 
 
 e2 
 
186 INDIAN LION. 
 
 unknown when that land of many vicissitudes is 
 generally occupied by an active population ; but when 
 war exterminates the people, and the jungle covers the 
 obliterated ruins of the village, Singh comes again, 
 no one can very well say whence, and claims it as his 
 own. It is the same with the other powerful beasts of 
 prey. When the late Mahratta war had desolated so 
 much of India, it became literally infested with wild 
 beasts ; and after tranquillity was restored, these 
 beasts had to be subdued before the labours of the field 
 could be securely carried on, or the domestic animals 
 could be safe in, the pastures. 
 
 The physical condition of Africa and India renders 
 the ;presence of such animals absolutely necessary, if 
 there is not sufficient human population to supply 
 their place. It may not seem over-complimentaiy to 
 Man, to tell him that he is only a substitute for a wild 
 beast in the system of nature ; but it is nevertheless 
 true, and literally true, if he does nothing in the 
 world but simply maintain his animal existence. 
 And it is well for him that it is true ; for we shall see 
 by and by, that Man, as a merely physical creature, 
 has no place or portion in the world which he can call 
 his own ; and therefore, if a power far exceeding all 
 animal strength did not enable him to take the prey 
 from the spoiler and the portion from the mighty, 
 among the other inhabitants of the earth, there would 
 really be no place for him, and no possibility of sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 In all countries, but especially in the countries to 
 which we have alluded, all those animals which are 
 
SEASONAL USE OF PREYERS. 187 
 
 most useful to Man, for food, for clothing, or for any- 
 other purpose, have a tendency to multiply far be- 
 yond the food that there is for them ; and the sup- 
 plies of food during the rainy and the diy seasons, 
 which alternate so regularly with each other, are so 
 different, that one half, or at least a gi-eat part of the 
 animals which are actually required to keep down the 
 indi\ddual growth of vegetation during the season of 
 plenty, so that it may ripen seeds, would perish for 
 want during the dry and parching time. Thus, taking 
 it upon the general principle, these ravenous beasts 
 kill and eat only that which, were it not for them, 
 would die of famine or disease, and pollute the earth 
 and contaminate the air with carrion. Even as matters 
 are, there have to be scavengers to eat up the remains 
 of casualty, as well as killing preyers to thin the num- 
 bers of the living ; and not only insects and other 
 small animals by myriads, jackals in packs, and 
 hysenas in no stinted numbers, but birds of powerful 
 wing, such as vultures and the large storks, are pro- 
 vided for clearing the land of the comiption of the 
 time. These come from afar to their prey, by means 
 which we cannot explain, any more than we can ex- 
 plain the means by which those migratoiy birds 
 which are seasonally with us and seasonally gone, 
 come, without memory or landmark, to the very same 
 spot, after an absence of months, at the distance of 
 thousands of miles. All these predatoiy animals, 
 whether they prey upon the living or upon the dead, 
 are just as essential in the system of wild nature, a.s 
 those animals upon which they prey. 
 
188 USE OF PREYERS. 
 
 The perfection of the whole, indeed — that without 
 which it could not be a self-supporting system, con- 
 sists in the fact that each is supported upon the 
 surplus of another — that surplus which, were it 
 allowed to remain, would speedily become fatal to the 
 veiy species of which it forms part. Man himself 
 forms no exception to this ; for were it not for the 
 kindly interference of death, the world would soon be 
 so encumbered by old persons, and hampered in by 
 old prejudices, that both the means and the spirit of 
 improvement would speedily come to an end. Thus, 
 it is easy to demonstrate upon natural principles that 
 it is good for the world we should die : — it remains 
 for ourselves to prove the other assertion, it is good 
 for the world we have been born. 
 
 The necessity for these beasts of prey in wild na- 
 ture, the offices which they perform, and the fact that 
 when Man once fairly takes possession, they vanish of 
 themselves, faster than he can hunt them down, afford 
 us among the most clear and striking proofs that, 
 though there is no place or portion for Man as a 
 mere animal, he may win any place and any portion, 
 by means of that intellectual power, with which 
 none of the other animals have any thing that can 
 come in competition. This may seem an interpolation, 
 and a breaking of the chain of consideration as to the 
 organs of motion in animals ; but when there is an 
 inference to be drawn from any position, the more 
 immediately that it can be made to follow the account 
 of that position the better. 
 The paws of these predatory animals are, as we 
 
LEGS OF BEARS, 189 
 
 have said, better made out in their bones, more 
 abundantly supplied with muscles, and better defended 
 against changes of the weather and other contingencies, 
 than those feet of animals which are used simply for 
 walking. They have, in consequence, certain motions 
 of their own parts, independently of that general 
 motion at the shoulder, which is the chief motion in a 
 merely walking limb. Thus, the lions have imperfect 
 clavicles, by means of which they are enabled to hug 
 with the fore-legs, and use the paws, in a rude manner, 
 but a very rude manner, as scraping and digging in- 
 struments, and also in laying hold, though only in a 
 very clumsy way. For adapting the bear more com- 
 pletely to his peculiar mode of life, which, in all the 
 varieties, is rather a rough one, and in some of them 
 especially so, he applies the whole tarsus, or flat of the 
 foot, to the ground, which gives him a broad, and, by 
 consequence, a firm base to stand upon, so that he 
 can rear up upon his hind legs, and have the use of 
 his body and fore-paws when in that position. Dogs, 
 and some other animals which are digitigrade, or walk 
 upon the toes and balls of the toes only, can partially 
 rear up in this way ; but then, it takes a much greater 
 effort from them than from the bear ; and, conse- 
 quently, they have veiy little power either of the 
 body or the fore-legs. To compensate to the bear in 
 walking for the application as foot of that part of the 
 limb which is used as leg in more appropriate walkers, 
 the knee-joint is completely free, instead of being 
 hidden in the muscles of the haunch, as it is in the 
 others. The forward flexure or bend of this joint, 
 
190 PAW OF A 
 
 which is the other way from the backward bend of 
 the tarsal or ankle-joint, — the middle one in the hind 
 leg of an animal organised specially for walking, 
 gives an appearance of shambling and instability to 
 the bear when he walks : the great extent of paw 
 which he applies to the ground further increases this ; 
 and thus, we do not feel that a bear is quite in his 
 element when he runs, neither do we give him credit 
 for so much swiftness and power of march as he really 
 possesses. This is also one of the reasons why the 
 bear is accounted so clumsy and ungainly an animal, 
 although there are few that are better adapted to their 
 purposes, — indeed, there are not any, for the adapta- 
 tions of all animals are equally perfect when we come 
 to understand that for which they are adapted. 
 
 The paw, that is, the fore-foot of the beast of prey, 
 of which the lion may be taken as the model, is a far 
 more complicated instrument than the paw of the 
 bear ; and, therefore, considered merely as it is used 
 in walking, it has to carry a much gi-eater load of what 
 is not necessaiy in that operation than the paw of 
 the bear. The clutching paw requires to turn on the 
 wrist, so that it may grasp in different directions, and 
 there are separate organs for mo\dng the claws. All 
 this requires a combination of muscles, bearing some 
 resemblance in their general shape in mass to those 
 of the fore-arm in Man, but, of course, different in 
 their purpose and arrangement, and more powerful in 
 their action, though not capable of the same con- 
 tinuous exertion. In this singular instrument of de- 
 struction, the action of walking is an inferior matter, 
 
PREDATORY ANIMAL. 191 
 
 subservient to that of clutching and rending the prey. 
 The bones of the paw are much harder and heavier 
 than the bones of animals in general, and the 
 muscles, tendons, and ligaments are all of more 
 compact texture. In consequence of this, the animal 
 can strike a terrible blow with the paw, without mov- 
 ing the body or using the claws, — this alone being 
 able to crush a moderately large animal, and break 
 the bones of one of greater size. Then, the simple 
 clutch of the one paw, with the claws protruded, is 
 sufficient to take such hold as not only to lacerate the 
 jflesh of an animal in the most serious manner, but to 
 pull the bones out of joint ; and, as the wounds which 
 these claws inflict are lacerated wounds, and not clean 
 ones, like those made by a sharp-cutting instrument, 
 they are difficult to be healed, and the scratch of an 
 animal of this tribe is often more serious than a 
 sabre-wound. Even the scratching of the hand by 
 an angiy cat is far more likely to fester, and more 
 difficult to heal, than a knife-cut of many times the 
 depth. 
 
 But, powerful as is the action of the organs of 
 destruction in these predatory animals, and much as, 
 in proportion to their strength, it disqualifies them 
 for the common operation of walking, it is but mo- 
 mentaiy in its exercise. The simple stroke or clutch 
 of the paw may no doubt be repeated again and again, 
 though there must be some excitement before the 
 animal can make even this much exertion. But when 
 the whole body comes into action, and the whole 
 energy is exerted, strong excitement is required for the 
 
192 ACTION OF PREYERS. 
 
 preparation, and exhaustion follows the effort, whether 
 it be successful or not. Such animals never course 
 their prey so as to run it dovin. They lie in wait, or 
 they steal within the proper distance of it, in a crawl- 
 ing and crouching manner, as if they were afraid of 
 being seen ; and such of them as seek for their prey 
 in places of thick and tangled vegetation, have their 
 fur so nicely fined off, that they can glide through the 
 thickets without rustling a single leaf, and thus ap- 
 proach within slaughter-distance of the prey without 
 occasioning any alarm even to the most ready ear. 
 Even when they arrive at the distance which instinct 
 informs them will suit their purpose, they do not 
 make their attack at once, but crouch, lash them- 
 selves with the tail, and apparently use other means 
 to produce a degree of excitement and ardour which 
 is no apparent part of their nature, unless when they 
 are pinched with hunger, or aroused in defence of 
 themselves or their young. 
 
 The next step beyond this, in the adaptation of feet 
 to other purposes than that of mere walking, or change 
 of place in absolute distance, is that which is found 
 in what are termed the "handed animals." These 
 include the whole of the apes, baboons, and monkeys, 
 both of the eastern continent and the western, as well 
 as some other animals which have feet of the grasping 
 structure, but differ from the characteristic ones in 
 their food, and in various characters connected more 
 or less with their feeding. 
 
 The whole of these are forest animals, and many of 
 them exclusively inhabit trees, in which they are quite 
 
HANDED ANIMALS. 193 
 
 as much at home as swimming animals are in the sea, 
 winged animals in the air, or the conmion-footed 
 animals upon the surface of the ground. "When they 
 walk upon the surface of the earth, some of them 
 occasionally walk upon the hind-legs only, some go 
 upon all-fours, and some have the fore-legs so long 
 that they reach the ground when the body is in nearly 
 an upright position ; but whatever may be their more 
 habitual mode ot walking, they are one and all bad 
 walkers, and the hind feet are generally, if not in- 
 A-ariably, the worst adapted for this purpose. The 
 loins are feeble ; the articulations of the thigh-bones 
 are loose ; the knees and ancles have lateral motion ; 
 and the tendency of the latter is to throw the sole of 
 the foot inwards, so that they appear to walk best — 
 if there be a best in such walking — upon the outer 
 edge of it. This jDosition of the foot is most conspi- 
 cuous in the ouran-outang, and the other long-armed 
 apes of the close forests of south-eastern Asia ; but 
 even the chimpanzee, which is by some regarded as 
 the nearest approximation to the human form, excites 
 painful feelings when it stands erect. This does not 
 arise from muscular weakness in the animal, for they 
 are much more muscular than human beings, and in 
 cases in which their strength can be properly applied, 
 they are much stronger. But, whatever may be their 
 differences in other respects, they are all climbing 
 animals : their extremities are simply grasping in- 
 struments, and the hind ones are generally the best 
 fitted for this purpose, while in not a few the tail 
 is lengthened, so that, though it can of course be of 
 
 s 
 
194 PREHENSILE TAILS. 
 
 no use as a prop in supporting the body, it ser^^es as a 
 new instrument by means of which the whole body 
 may be suspended, and all the four extremities left 
 free to catch hold of whatever they can reach. Some 
 of those which have this organ the most efficient, as, 
 for instance, the slender species from tropical America, 
 which are called spider monkeys, have only a mere 
 rudiment of a tubercle in place of a thumb on the fore- 
 feet. Yet these, which, according to our estimates, 
 formed as they are upon the models of walking animals, 
 are ungainly and helpless, are really among the most 
 nimble and efficient of the whole, when they are in 
 their proper place among the trees. 
 
 We shall not enter more into the details of the 
 animal structure, though we heartily recommend this 
 subject to the observation and study of the reader. 
 There is one lesson to be learned from them all, and 
 yet, in the many repetitions which may be obtained 
 from a moderate extent of observation, each has its 
 peculiar characters so clear and definite, that each has 
 all the charms of novelty. We find in this kind of 
 observation no inappropriate parallel to our own lives, 
 if we spend them as the lives of rational beings ought 
 to be spent. The scenes and the occurrences of life 
 are new to us every day ; but the enjoyment of life 
 flows on in one unbroken current. Just so in the 
 case of the animals. The varieties of structure are 
 endless, but the beauty and perfection of the adapta- 
 tion are one ; and so admirably is each fitted to its 
 purpose, that if we have proceeded only a little way 
 in our observation, we soon learn to know either of 
 
PERFECTION OF ANIMALS, 195 
 
 them if we know the other. No matter what the 
 situation is, in respect of climate, surface, or any- 
 thing else, and no matter what may be the kind of 
 food which that situation affords for an animal, or 
 the means which must be resorted to for procuring 
 that food : for, if there is food there, then there is sure 
 to be an animal so organised to be able to procure 
 that food, with the greatest certainty and the least 
 expenditure of exertion : the work which this animal 
 is appointed to perform is done in the very best, and, 
 at the same time, the most convenient manner ; so 
 that, if we wish to study a model of perfection in plan 
 and purpose, we have it at once in any animal in a 
 state of nature. 
 
 The harmony of the organs is complete ; and yet 
 we cannot say that any one of them has been con- 
 stnicted with a view of adapting it to any other one. 
 There is not the slightest trace of that " making out 
 a plan by experiment," which is indispensable in the 
 case of even the most wise and experienced of the 
 human race — the more certain of being resorted to, 
 the more experience that the designer has had. He 
 makes trial of the nature of his materials, the forms 
 of the several parts of his work, and the way in which 
 these are applied and adapted to each other. In all 
 of these, he has to try again and again ; in many 
 instances he has to sacrifice beauty to usefulness, or 
 usefulness to beauty ; and if the object of his design 
 be an engine or machine which has to be worked, it is 
 found impossible to give it equal strength throughout, 
 or to contrive the parts so as that some of them shall 
 
196 ANIMALS 
 
 not wear out in the using much sooner than others. 
 Then, though he should fancy that he has got it ever 
 so perfect, faults will appear afterwards, and improve- 
 ments will require to be made. 
 
 But the whole structure of the animal, and the 
 office which the animal performs in nature, is one 
 simultaneous design ; and when we say that there is 
 an adaptation of part to part, of organ to function, or 
 of animal to office, we cannot say of one member of 
 the comparison that it was made for the other, in any 
 stronger manner, if we make the one the standard than 
 if we make the other. The adaptation to the use is 
 perfectly equal ; and, taking each animal in its locality, 
 or the whole of living nature, and the world, which is 
 the theatre of living action, we cannot say that the 
 animals have been made for the world, any more than 
 we can say that the world has been made for the 
 animals. The system, considered as a whole, is per- 
 fect ; but it is not more perfect than even the simplest 
 part of which it is composed. 
 
 With Man the case is different ; not that the organ- 
 isation in Man is inferior to what it is in the other 
 animals. If any distinction were to be made, the 
 general organisation of the human body would deserve 
 the preference. But when we have once informed 
 ourselves well respecting the structure of Man, if we 
 then go to wild nature, seeking the appropriate place 
 and office of Man according to his organisation, in the 
 same way as we so readily discern the place and office 
 of every other animal, the place and the office of Man 
 are not to be found. Human beings have never been 
 
AND MAN. 197 
 
 discovered absolutely in a state of nature ; but the 
 less removed they are from it, they are always the 
 more wretched. They improve as society is culti- 
 vated ; and, in fact, the cultivation of society and the 
 improvement of human beings, are only different 
 names for one meaning. With other animals the case 
 is the reverse : they may be improved for human use 
 by domestication, but as animals they are always 
 deteriorated. 
 
 s 2 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SENSATION AND THE SENSES. 
 
 As there is no place or office in wild nature, for which 
 Man is fitted by his organisation as the other animals 
 are fitted by theirs, it follows that the merely animal 
 instincts of Man must be wholly incapable of enabling 
 him to support himself, even in the supplying of his 
 most simple wants. In illustration of this, it is not 
 easy to put a case which shall be even intelligible, as 
 the only practical instance which we can have is that of 
 an infant, and in it the body is feeble and imperfect ; 
 and there is some difficulty in forming so complete an 
 imaginary analysis as shall exclude the use of mind, 
 and a certain degree of knowledge gained by expe- 
 rience ; for we cannot carry back our memory to any- 
 thing like the beginning of thought, because there 
 must be a train of thought, and a relation to another 
 train, or to present sensation, before any former state 
 of the mind can recur. If we suppose, however, that 
 the first man was created in the full growth and vigour 
 of his body, but in even greater ignorance than a child 
 is at the moment of its birth, we shall be able to form 
 
THE FIRST MAN. 199 
 
 some notion of the utter helplessness of a man cast 
 upon the world entirely without knowledge or experi- 
 ence of any kind ; and that he should, at the instant of 
 'his creation, have had any knowledge, either of the 
 objects of the external world, or of the parts of his own 
 body — or even that he had any body, or any existence, 
 is impossible. 
 
 Therefore, if we can only carry the analysis to him, 
 at this most interesting moment of his existence, when 
 he was in the full capacity for knowing, by the use of 
 a perfect body, — when all nature w^as around him to be 
 known, and yet not one sensation, not the slightest 
 indefinable feeling of a pleasurable kind, had been 
 experienced, we shall be able to understand how much 
 and how rapidly he must have learned. If constituted 
 like other men, — and if not so constituted he could not 
 have been man, but must have been a being of a dif- 
 ferent order, of w^hose nature we can form no idea, and 
 from whom, therefore, we cannot argue, — if he had 
 been thus constituted, he must have felt hungry, or at 
 least he must have felt a painful sensation, though an 
 indefinite one, within no long period after his form- 
 ation. But, upon the hypothesis of his total ignorance, 
 — the only hypothesis which is of even the slightest 
 value in the case, — he could not have known that he 
 was hungry for food, far less what would satisfy his 
 hunger, or what would poison him. The description 
 which Milton puts into the mouth of his personification 
 of Adam is poetically beautiful ; but still it does not 
 meet the philosophy of the case, inasmuch as it is, in 
 its own nature and expression, an imagined description 
 
200 THE FIRST MAN. 
 
 by a man of great learning, and not an attempt to 
 embody the feelings of one yet wholly ignorant. We 
 shall, however, make a quotation from it : — 
 
 . " As new waked from soundest sleep 
 
 Soft on the flow'ry herb I found me laid 
 In balmy sweat, which with his beams the sun 
 Soon dried, and on the reeking moisture fed. 
 Straight toward heaven my wondering eyes I turn'd. 
 And gazed awhile the ample sky, till raised 
 By quick instinctive motion up I sprung. 
 As thitherward endeavouring, and upright 
 Stood on my feet ; about me round I saw 
 Hill, dale, and shady meads, and sunny plains, 
 And liquid lapse of murmuring streams ; by these. 
 Creatures that lived and moved, and walk'd, or flew, 
 Birds on the branches warbling ; all things smiled ; 
 With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflow'd. 
 Myself I then perused, and limb by limb 
 Survey'd, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran 
 With supple joints, as lively vigour led : 
 But who I was, or where, or from what cause, 
 Ejiew not : to speak I tried, and forthwith spake ; 
 My tongue obey'd, and readily could name 
 Whate'er I saw. ' Thou Sun,' said I, ' fair light. 
 And thou enlighten'd Earth, so fresh and gay. 
 Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains. 
 And ye that live and move, fair creatures, teU, 
 TeU, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here ? ' " 
 
 Paradise Lost, book viii. 253—277. 
 
 If such was the opinion of Milton respecting the 
 degree of knowledge which the first man had at the 
 very moment of his creation, what are we to imagine 
 must be the opinions of the great majority of the 
 human race, if they have any opinion at all upon the 
 subject ? If it be said that the first man was miracu- 
 
THE FIRST MAN. 20 1 
 
 lously endowed with knowledge, then there is an end 
 of the argument in as far as the human knowledge is 
 concerned, as we only stifle the demand made by one 
 difficulty, by means of the louder voice of another ; 
 and, while doing this, we bring a charge of inconsist- 
 ency against the Creator of Man. It is true that this 
 charge is concealed ; but poison is not the less fatal 
 for being concealed from him to whom it is adminis- 
 tered. Why should Man have required a miracle 
 more than any of the other members of creation, un- 
 less upon the supposition that they were all fitted for 
 their several places, and he was not ? And this is only 
 saying, that though the Creator could endow inorganic 
 substances with their properties, plants wdth their 
 habits, and animals with their instincts, yet that he 
 was incapable of framing i\Ian — a being who should 
 derive the elements of knowledge through the senses, 
 in the same way as the animals, but should act upon 
 it by means of a far higher and more general power 
 than any instinct — the power of mind. This is an 
 error of precisely the same kind as the belief of innate 
 ideas, which rendered the science of mind so long an 
 absurdity ; for the doctrine of the schools maintained, 
 in fact, that Man had some knowledge of the world 
 before he is born ; and this a^eges that the first man 
 had a very considerable degree, not of simple know- 
 ledge, but of learning, before his creation. Even if 
 we were to admit the fact of this miraculous know- 
 ledge in the case of the first man, it could not have 
 become the groundwork of common human know- 
 ledge, because they are not, in any sense of the word, 
 
202 OUR ORIGINAL IGNORANCE. 
 
 quantities of the same kind. Therefore, in the real 
 investigation of the question — the treating of it in such 
 a way as that it shall be useful in the knowledge of 
 ourselves, or of any thing else, we are left in precisely 
 the same state with the miracle in the case of the first 
 man as we are without it. » 
 
 Hence we must content ourselves vrith the common 
 philosophy of the case, and take it for granted that we 
 get the very first article of our knowledge exactly in 
 the same way as we get all the rest, — that is, by a cer- 
 tain organic change in the sentient organ or part of 
 the body ; and the immediate communication of this 
 to the mind, by a process of which we really know 
 nothing. 
 
 We must be complete and constant in the admission 
 of our ignorance upon this point, otherwise we shall 
 be certain of falling into one or another of those hy- 
 potheses which have made this portion of philosophy 
 so repugnant to the feelings of all persons of common 
 sense. It is usual, even with those who are not par- 
 tisans of any particular hypothesis upon the subject, to 
 speak of a sensorium, to which the organic changes 
 made upon the sentient parts of the body are trans- 
 mitted, before they can be known to the mind ; and 
 that there is a communication from this sensorium to 
 those parts of the body which are to act, before there 
 is any action. 
 
 Now, in the first place, this is purely gratuitous ; 
 that is, nobody can by possibility observe or know any 
 thing about it. In the second place, it makes the 
 mind a material substance, by assigning to it a par- 
 
NOTION OF MIND, 203 
 
 ticular state or locality within the body, or making 
 space necessary to its existence, while space is really 
 essential to the existence of matter only. The only 
 notion that we can have of extent as in any way appli- 
 cable to the mind, is the extent of the subject of its 
 knowledge at the particular time, or rather in the par- 
 ticular instance, to which we refer ; and the very same 
 mind may be as completely occupied in the consider- 
 ation of a single particle of the fluid which is in the 
 smallest vessel of the most minute creature which the 
 microscope can reveal to us, as with the earth, the solar 
 system, or the whole universe. These states are all 
 that we know of the mind : that it can be in them 
 without the presence of their subjects as affecting the 
 senses, or \\-ithout any other natural cause, is a proof 
 that it has an existence independent of matter ; and 
 the instantaneous transitions, and expansions, and 
 contractions, which it can make, are such as we cannot 
 possibly suppose matter capable of making. In the 
 third place, all the facts, so far as facts can be obtained 
 upon so very nice and difficult a subject, are against 
 the hypothesis of the transmission of sensations in one 
 direction or in another. No doubt the whole body is 
 excited by strong sensations, as well as by strong 
 emotions of the mind ; but by what means these gene- 
 ral excitements are produced, we have not any obvious 
 means of kno\dng, and conjecture cannot be admitted 
 in illustration of such subjects. 
 
 This last point is so essential to a right understand- 
 ing of the general physical process of sensation ; that 
 again is so necessary to any thing like an accurate 
 
204 POPULAR ERRORS RESPECTING FEELING. 
 
 knowledge of the mode of action in the different senses 
 as the inlets of knowledge ; and this is so essential to 
 our being able to turn round the mental process upon 
 the organ, and convert that which was at first the 
 scholar into the teacher of its master ; that every one 
 should know something at least concerning them. For 
 this reason, and also because the subject is curious, 
 and rather contrary to our common language and be- 
 lief, a few short observations upon it may be both in- 
 teresting and useful. 
 
 In our common notions upon this subject we are 
 very apt to suppose and to say, that the deeper any 
 part of the body is seated, and the more essential it is 
 as part of the vital system, the more intensely is it 
 susceptible of feeling, — the word "feeling" being used 
 as a general name for all organic states and their 
 changes, which can in any way be communicated to 
 the mind so as to be known. Now, this common 
 notion is not only incorrect, but it appears to be totally 
 without foundation ; and that, in their healthy states, 
 the most essential vital parts of the human body have 
 no feeling at all. 
 
 Even in the stomach, into which matters not yet 
 assimilated are received, it is doubtful whether there 
 is any feeling in a perfectly regular and healthy state. 
 We do feel hunger, and probably it is among the ear- 
 liest of all our feelings ; and we feel a sense of heavi- 
 ness after a full meal, especially if there has been 
 much sensation of hunger previously. But the feeling 
 is painful in both states ; and the pain of the reple- 
 tion after hunger appears to arise from the change of 
 
NO FEELING IN THE VITAL PARTS. 2()5 
 
 state being carried to too great an extent. Both, there- 
 fore, come under the denomination of diseased actions, 
 though, if the system is otherwise healthy, they are 
 but of a transient nature. 
 
 We feel the operation of breathing, but then this is 
 a muscular feeling, the capacity of the chest being 
 altered in the performance of the operation ; and the 
 lungs themselves do not appear to have any feeling 
 when in a healthy state ; and even when pulmonary 
 consumption has proceeded so far that vesicles are 
 formed in the bronchial substance, it is extremely 
 doubtful whether pain is felt in that substance. 
 
 The heart, which is the centre of the system of cir- 
 culation, and sends the blood to the lungs to undergo 
 the action of the air, to the whole body for the support 
 of life and the renewal of decay, and from the one of 
 those systems to the other, is a muscular structure ; 
 and it is also probable that, though that coat of the 
 arteries which consists of rings, or circular fibres, and 
 the contraction of which propels the blood into the 
 smaller ramifications and the capillary junctions with 
 the veins, is not of the colour of ordinary muscle, yet 
 that there is some power of action in it of an analo- 
 gous kind. But neither the heart nor the arteries 
 appear to have the least feeling whatever when they 
 are in the healthy state, and probably not even when 
 they are diseased. The pulsation of the heart may be 
 felt through the side ; and those arteries which lie near 
 the surface may be felt to beat. After violent exertion 
 or excitement, too, the pulsation of the heart may be 
 felt, and, in imagination at least, if not in reality, 
 
 T 
 
206 CASE MENTIONED 
 
 heard, without the application of the hand to any part 
 of the body. But the circulation of the blood is never 
 felt, and the heart itself gives us no evidence whatever 
 of its existence. It does not appear indeed that the 
 heart, or any part of the system of circulation, would 
 actually feel pain, even on the infliction of the severest 
 mechanical injury ; that the casualty which arises from 
 injuries inflicted there, tells merely in the destruction 
 or impairing of the function of the part ; so that a 
 wound which did not impair the function might be 
 inflicted there and healed, without the party's having 
 any knowledge about the matter. 
 
 We believe the first well-authenticated case that has 
 been recorded of the insensibility of the heart to feel- 
 ing of any kind, is that which was examined by the 
 great Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation. A 
 young nobleman had a portion of the parietes of the 
 side destroyed by an abscess, consequent upon a fall. 
 The wound healed, but without the restoration of the 
 parts which had been destroyed by the abscess ; and 
 the heart and lungs could both be touched through 
 the opening, without any feeling that they were 
 touched. When he returned from his travels, the 
 case became known to Charles I., who expressed a 
 desire that Hai-vey might be allowed to see and exa- 
 mine him ; and this was readily gi-anted. " When I 
 had paid my respects to this young nobleman," says 
 Harvey, " and conveyed to him the King's request, he 
 made no concealment, but exposed the left side of his 
 breast, when I saw a cavity into which I could intro- 
 duce my fingers and thumb ; astonished with the no- 
 
* BY HARVEY. 207 
 
 velty, again and again I explored the wound, and first 
 marvelling at the extraordinary nature of the cure, I 
 set about the examination of the heart. Taking it in 
 one hand, and placing the finger of the other on the 
 pulse of the wrist, I satisfied myself that it was indeed 
 the heart which I grasped. I then brought him to the 
 King, that he might behold and touch so extraordinary 
 a thing, and that he might perceive, as I did, that unless 
 when we touched the outward skin, or when he saw 
 our fingers in the ca\'ity, this young nobleman knew 
 not that we touched the heart ! " 
 
 A number of observations have been made, all tend- 
 ing to confirm the truth that the heart possesses no 
 sort of feeling by which it can detect the presence of 
 any external object ; and there seems no reason to 
 doubt for a moment that the same insensibility to 
 the touch of external objects is common to all those 
 inward organs which are most essential in the func- 
 tions of life and health. Not one of them has any 
 power of feeling by means of which it can inform the 
 mind of its size or shape, or even of the simple fact of 
 its existence. This is an admirable provision in the 
 constitution of the body, both as regards the happi- 
 ness of our existence, and the concentration of our 
 mental attention upon those feelings which can bring 
 us the elements of knowledge really useful to us in the 
 conduct and business of life. But before we proceed 
 to the particular illustration of this, it may be necessary 
 to advert to a few more of the facts and arguments on 
 the parts of the case. 
 
 Though the heart is thus quite insensible to the 
 
208 PROPER SENSIBILITY 
 
 touch, we must not suppose that it is wholly insen- 
 sible ; for, on the contrary, it is, in its own way, and 
 for its own proper function, one of the most sentient 
 organs in the whole of our curious and complicated 
 system. The blood, between which and the heart that 
 reciprocity of stimulation is carried on, which is so 
 indispensable to the whole action of the living body, 
 is every w^ay as insensible to the touch as the heart is ; 
 and yet the action performed by the two jointly is one 
 of the most delicate, — one of the most sensitive to 
 changes of all kinds, even very minute ones, which it 
 is possible to imagine. There is not an external im- 
 pression, be it made upon what part of the body it 
 may, — there is not an emotion of the mind, there is 
 not a change in action, in the atmospheric air, in the 
 state of the body with regard to health, and not even 
 a local injury or change, let it be ever so slight, which 
 does not produce some change on the action of the 
 heart, in power, in rapidity, or in both ; and from 
 what part soever this affection of the heart may come, 
 brief time elapses before the heart communicates it 
 all over the system. It may happen that the primary 
 derangement of the system is that of an organ which 
 is in itself as insensible to outward impressions as the 
 heart is, and which is only local in its proper func- 
 tion ; but this tells on the heart, and through that 
 upon the whole system. It may be that some external 
 part is excited to diseased action, and this instantly 
 tells in a hard and quickened pulse at the wrist : or, 
 it may be that some such part is languid, and inca- 
 
OF THE HEART. 209 
 
 pable of the right performance of its function ; and 
 then the pulse at the wrist is languid and irregular. 
 
 This power which the heart has of distributing 
 either a morbid excess or a morbid deficiency over the 
 whole system, is of the greatest advantage to us ; and 
 the advantage is much increased by the fact, that it is 
 all done without our knowing anything about the 
 details of the matter. If we always knew the internal 
 state of our own bodies as well as we know the state 
 of that external world which is palpable to the senses, 
 we should be incapable of thought or of action, and 
 our lives would be insupportable. Thus, it is impos- 
 sible for us to say whether we ought to feel the most 
 gratitude for that which we are able to know, or 
 that of which, from its very nature, we must remain 
 ignorant. 
 
 The brain, and in all probability its continuation in 
 the vertebral column, are as insensible in themselves 
 as the heart ; and if the coverings and membranes 
 were once divided, and the pain from that division 
 abated, there seems no reason to suppose that any 
 pain would be felt, upon cutting into the substance of 
 the brain, or that the process of thought would be at 
 all interrupted by the abstraction of that veiy portion 
 of it which phrenologists maintain to be the most 
 cogitant organ of the whole. With the ners'es it ap- 
 pears to be the same. Generally, they have not that 
 feeling which in the surface of the body we call 
 touch : and though all the local organs which are 
 peculiarly the seats of the other named senses are 
 copiously supplied with ramifications of nerves, yet 
 
 T 2 
 
210 SENSATIONS 
 
 the supplying nerve itself does not partake in the sen- 
 sation — is not stimulated by that which produces the 
 specific effect in the proper organ. Every sentient 
 part of the body, whatever may be the kind of sensa- 
 tion for which it is fitted, is always supplied with 
 nerves, though it is in many cases, if not in all cases, 
 doubtful whether these nerves can be traced absolutely 
 to that which we ought to consider as the real organ 
 of the sensation ; and the nerves are always accompa- 
 nied by blood-vessels as far as we can trace them. 
 
 If the whole of the nerves that go to any part of 
 the body are divided, every kind of living action in 
 that part is at an end, whether it be sensation in any 
 of its modifications, or motion ; but the very same 
 thing happens if all the blood-vessels are divided ; and 
 thus both are essential to the healthy and proper 
 action of the part. But though the division of all the 
 nerves has this efi"ect, we cannot say that any commu- 
 nication is carried on between one part of the body 
 and another by means of the nerves. Some have said 
 that there is a circulation of nervous energy in sub- 
 stance, and some that there is a propagation by a sort 
 of vibrations ; but we have no trace of any organisa- 
 tion by means of which a circulation could be carried 
 on, and the substance of the nerves appears to be ill 
 suited for any kind of vibration. In every circulation 
 in the body, the truth of which has been in any way 
 established, there is a distinct apparatus of circula- 
 tion ; and this is the case whether the circulation be 
 a complete one, like that of the blood, or an alterna- 
 tion, like that of the lungs in breathing. Without the 
 
OF NERVES. 211 
 
 action of the chest and the diaphragm, the function of 
 breathing could no more be carried on than the func- 
 tion of circulation could be carried on without the 
 heart. 
 
 It does not appear that two different kinds of sensa- 
 tion can be displayed by the same identical sentient 
 part, though they may be, and often are, blended 
 together in the same organ. In consequence of this, 
 when there are more than one, one may be destroyed 
 and the other may remain, whether the destruction of 
 that which is lost be by natural disease or by artificial 
 means. Thus, the feeling of pain may be destroyed 
 in a limb while the power of motion remains, or the 
 feeling of pain may remain without the other. What 
 is usually called touch, seems to be, in this view of it, 
 a very complex feeling, or rather an incorrect name 
 for many feelings which have been confounded with 
 each other. Thus we find that there are persons who 
 have a very exquisite feeling of touch, properly so 
 called — that is, of the presence of objects, and the 
 characters of their surfaces ; but whose sensibility to 
 heat and cold, or to pain and its opposite, are by no 
 means so acute ; and there have also been instances 
 of the total absence of some one of those feelings 
 while the others remained in perfect vigour. 
 
 It is of the utmost importance to have a clear under- 
 standing of these facts, because they are essential to 
 the proper knowledge of the senses ; and we cannot, 
 of course, educate the senses, or use them with proper 
 advantage, if we have not a thorough knowledge of 
 their nature. 
 
212 SENSIBILITY OF 
 
 We find facts similar to those mentioned, in the 
 cases of all the senses which have local organs. The 
 portion of the eye which is the proper organ of vision 
 is quite insensible to all the complex feelings usually 
 ' known by the name of touch — the presence of an 
 object, the feeling of pain, and sensibility to changes 
 of temperature. The internal parts of the eye feel 
 hardly any thing of these, and the white and ball of the 
 eye generally not much, though the eyelids, and other 
 parts immediately investing the eye, are peculiarly 
 sensible to them, especially to pain. On the other 
 hand, strong light, which has little or no effect on the 
 common feelings of touch, powerfully affects the eye, 
 considered as an organ of vision. A blow inflicted 
 upon the eyeball, without affecting the surrounding 
 parts, is seen as light and not felt as pain : a wound 
 in the retina produces the same sensation as if a bril- 
 liant pencil of light were flashed on the eye ; and if 
 the interior surface of the eyelids is inflamed, the 
 struggle in the turgid capillaries appears, to the shut 
 eye or in the dark, like small irregular lines playing 
 upon a dark ground. It is probable that this, as well 
 as some other spectral appearances within the eye, 
 may be communicated through the white, or even 
 from the parts behind the eye, as well as through the 
 pupil. 
 
 The insensibility of the optical portion of the eye to 
 pain and temperature is a very beautiful provision in 
 the structure of that organ. The eye has to keep 
 watch amid all dangers and in all weathers, and 
 therefore it requires to be continually in armour ; and 
 
THE EYES. 213 
 
 unless its stnictnre is destroyed, or its view hidden hy 
 the other parts, it never shrinks from its post. The 
 surrounding parts, which protect it from those dangers 
 which it cannot see, are remarkably sensitive, but the 
 eye itself is quite the reverse. There is no climate 
 that in any way affects the ball of the eye, either by 
 the severity of its cold or the ardour of its heat. 
 
 Though it is sometimes said that the eye can see 
 nothing but colour, yet there appear to be different 
 affections of it by different degrees of light, in which 
 colour has very little concern, if indeed it has any at 
 all. There are some remarkable compound effects 
 resulting from the action of direct and reflected light 
 upon the eye at the same time, especially if these are, 
 as is often the case, of different colours ; and, besides 
 these temporaiy differences, which arise from the 
 nature of the light, there are others that arise from 
 the eye, some of which are of a temporary, and some 
 of a permanent nature. These can be noticed with 
 more advantage when we come to speak of the struc- 
 ture and functions of the eye as a principal subject of 
 remark ; but we may mention in the mean time, that 
 there have been instances of whole families who had 
 the most correct visual perception of the shapes of 
 objects, so as to design or execute ornamental works 
 with great taste, but who were yet unable to make any 
 distinction of colours when the differently coloured 
 objects were of the same size and shape. 
 
 It must not, however, be forgotten, that as mere 
 sensations on the eye as a sentient organ — it is highly 
 probable that the only differences are stronger or 
 
214 OXEN AND RED COLOURS. 
 
 weaker feeling ; and that the animals, which have no 
 mental process in addition to the mere feeling of 
 sense, have probably no discernment of colour. There 
 is one observed fact which, though it may at first 
 seem to make against this, is really a confirmation of 
 it. It is this ; cattle are veiy strongly excited by 
 bright red, so much so that an enraged bullock will 
 stop to gore and trample any red article of apparel, 
 and allow the wearer to escape. The explanation of 
 this does not appear to be very difficult. All eyes that 
 see by means of the same kind of light must be 
 aff'ected by it in pretty nearly the same manner, so far 
 as the merely physical sensation goes. Now, we know 
 from our own case, that when the eye becomes fatigued 
 by long looking at any one colour, or simpl}'- if long 
 habituated to the colour, whether it is fatigued or not 
 it becomes remarkably sensitive to the complemental 
 colour. Red is the complemental colour to green ; 
 and the eyes of grazing animals are, of course, much 
 habituated to the latter, and consequently in a state 
 of great sensibility to red if it is presented to them. 
 Hence, it does not follow from the excitement into 
 which the animals are thrown by the red colour, 
 that they have any knowledge of red as a colour, but 
 are merely excited by it because it happens to be the 
 colour to which their eyes are the most sensitive. 
 This also explains, in a satisfactory manner, the similar 
 kind of excitement into which cattle are thrown at the 
 sight of blood, and which some fanciful speculators in 
 such matters have attempted to account for upon the 
 ground of a sentimental horror of slaughter on the 
 
VISION IN ANIMALS. 215 
 
 part of the animals. Sentiment, on the part even of 
 human beings, is not unfrequently rather a question- 
 able matter, as it is sometimes imputed and at other 
 times affected ; but when we find it attril)uted to the 
 animals, we may always be sure that it is a mere 
 imputation, for which there is not the least shadow of 
 a foundation. 
 
 How the animals which have no mind and there- 
 fore no faculty of reasoning, manage; the refractions, 
 parallaxes, and other optical deceptions, by which we 
 are so liable to be imposed upon if we do not under- 
 stand their nature, we have not the means of ascer- 
 taining with any thing like absolute certainty ; but 
 the probability is, that as they have none of the ad- 
 vantages of mind, they are also exempted from the 
 disadvantages. This is, however, only an incidental 
 matter ; but still it is one of some importance, inas- 
 much as those races of mankind which have the least 
 mental development have always the most ready and 
 exact use of the senses, and especially of the eye ; just 
 as those who cannot write, or do not practise it, 
 always have more accurate verbal memoiy than they 
 who keep regular books, and commit eveiy thing to 
 writing. 
 
 The sensations of the ear, though they are not per- 
 haps of so striking a character, have distinctions pretty 
 similar to those of the eye. The nei"V'es of hearing 
 and those of feelirg, whether of pain or of the 
 simple contact of any object, are quite distinct, and 
 either of them may be deprived of its sensation with- 
 out any corresponding injury to the other. It so 
 
216 SENSATION OF THE EAR. 
 
 happens, too, that certain diseased states of the ear, 
 which in themselves emit no kind of sound, have the 
 same influence upon the auditoiy part of the organ as 
 if they were sonorous. If the arteries are in even a 
 very slight state of increased action from inflamma- 
 tion, and the side of the head is laid close upon the 
 pillow, the pulsations of the vessels of the ear are 
 heard as if they were audible sounds ; and in the affec- 
 tion popularly called " singing in the ears," the cause 
 is some diseased action of the interior parts of the 
 organ, which is too weak to produce any sensation of 
 pain, hut strong enough for affecting the far more 
 delicate sense of hearing. 
 
 If we were to be very precise or systematic in de- 
 scribing the very numerous and variously modified 
 sensations of which the body is capable, we should 
 probably have to arrange them in three divisions : — 
 Sensations of perception, sensations of feeling, and 
 sensations of action. 
 
 Sensations of perception are those which furnish to 
 the mind the means of perceiving that there is some 
 object to be known, without any reference to the effect 
 of that object upon the body, either as painful or as 
 pleasurable. The named senses which come under 
 this denomination are chiefly sight, hearing, and 
 touch, in the simplest use of that term — that is, the 
 simple contact of the touching part with some other 
 substance, without any regard to the feeling by which 
 that may be accompanied, either of a pleasurable or of 
 a painful nature, or any wish for the performance of 
 an action. The senses of smell and taste may no 
 
SENSES OF PEUCRPTION. 217 
 
 doubt be exercised for a similar purpose, but in an in- 
 ferior degree. 
 
 It is not, however, to be understood that any of these 
 three, considered as a sensation of perception, occupies 
 the whole of the organ, — that every ait'ection of the 
 eye, the ear, or the tactual surface, is a sensation of 
 perception. This is not the case in Man ; and in the 
 other animals, though the organ may be more acute 
 than in the human subject, the sense of perception, in 
 the strict and proper meaning of the word, appears to 
 be wholly wanting in it. Thus, the eye of the eagle, 
 and the nose of the dog, are generally understood to 
 be more acute than the same organs in Man ; but, in 
 a state of nature, it would be incorrect to say that 
 either of them exercises its keen organ, in any one 
 instance, for the obtaining of knowledge, and for no 
 other purpose. No doubt the eagle can espy the 
 dappled ptarmigan among the lichen-spotted stones 
 from a height at which man, taking a bird's-eye view 
 of things, could hardly discover an elephant ; but no 
 one ever supposes that the eagle has any desire to 
 study ornithology : she wishes to eat. The professional 
 ornithologist — especially the British one, with whom 
 science is rated at what it will fetch — has no doubt 
 the same motive at bottom when he quarters the moor 
 or beats the bushes ; but still, even he makes a show 
 of knowledge, in order to cloke the inward pui-pose ; 
 and this must be understood as the result of a highly 
 artificial state of society, and by no means natural 
 to Man. In like manner, when the wild dog scents 
 out carrion in the Australian bush, he is moved by no 
 
 u 
 
218 SENSES OF PERCEPTION 
 
 desire of studying the anatomy of the kangaroo ; and 
 as little when the duck quaffers in the mud, or the 
 spider " feels in the thread," is there any desire of 
 knowledge in the one or the other. 
 
 The senses of perception may be regarded as pecu- 
 liar to Man, and to Man as endowed with mind ; for 
 we may even go the length of saying, that in Man 
 they are not original, but acquired — the results of the 
 operation of that very mind to the information of which 
 they are to minister. The infant, at the very first, 
 possesses them not : its very earliest sensations are, in 
 all probability, simple sensations of feeling, which in a 
 savage state ripen into sensations of action, while the 
 perceptive ones remain in a very low and imperfect 
 condition. 
 
 Those who are not accustomed to that method of 
 analysis which must be followed out if we are to have 
 any competent knowledge of ourselves, and for the 
 want of which many drawl out the full tale of their 
 years in the joint drudgeries of ancient patriarchs and 
 modern plodders, and go to their graves in utter ignor- 
 ance of the real purpose for which they came into 
 the world, and their natural endowments for the per- 
 forming of their parts in it, — those who are thus situated 
 may wonder why there should be more than one sense 
 in the same organ, and in that part of the organ with 
 which the medium of communication is, in all cases, 
 the same. But any one who will reflect but for a 
 moment, must remember, in his own case, how very 
 many different feelings have followed the same kind 
 of exercise of tlie sense — how many desires and fears, 
 
PECUMAK TO MAN. 21!) 
 
 joys and sorrows, hopes and despondences, and all 
 other contrarieties of feeling that can be named, have 
 been produced by sights or by sounds ; and produced 
 when there appeared to be no absolute reason why 
 the one of them should be excited rather than the 
 other. 
 
 That Man alone should possess these senses, in the 
 proper signification of the term, is in itself a veiy 
 strong proof that Man is especially formed for the 
 acquiring of knowledge ; but the proof, from the same 
 source, is equally strong that he fails in his duty if he 
 rests satisfied with mere knowledge, and consumes his 
 days in mere speculation, how diligent and successful 
 soever he may be in that. The sense which is the 
 most generally distributed in the human body — and 
 the one which, taking it on the whole, appears to be 
 superior in Man to what it is in any other animal — is 
 that of touch, considered as a means of knowledge. 
 Many animals possess modifications of this sense, and 
 possess them in a degree so extraordinary that we are 
 quite unable to understand them. The fine filmy 
 margins of the feathers of owls and other nocturnal 
 birds, and of the flying membranes of bats, are in- 
 stances of this, and so are the whiskers of beasts of 
 prey, and of various other animals. But exquisite as 
 the sense of touch is in them, the object of it is not 
 the acquiring of knowledge, but simply the guidance 
 of the animal, so that it may neither run against 
 objects to its own injury, nor alarm its prey. The 
 horse, too, has a very curious sense of touch, appa- 
 rently in the general covering of the body, by means 
 
220 THE SENSES OF ANIMALS 
 
 of which he pauses when he comes near a gate or other 
 obstacle, even in the darkest night, when it is quite 
 impossible that he can derive any assistance from 
 vision. In all cases, indeed, in which the other senses 
 of animals are engaged either in conducting them to 
 their prey, or in escaping fi-om danger, the sense of 
 touch in their organs of motion, or on the surface of 
 the body, are sufficient to guide them under all ordinary 
 circumstances ; and in this the horny hoof does not 
 appear to be inferior to the padded sole of the foot ; 
 but there is not one of these cases in which touch can 
 be properly regarded as a sense of perception — a means 
 of knowledge ; for the foot that takes the ground 
 with the gi-eatest security, or the covering which clears 
 the obstacle to a hair's breadth, gives no information 
 as to the nature or even the existence of that to which 
 it is so well adapted. Indeed, it is the very perfection 
 of the sense in such cases that renders the animal 
 adequate to its own preservation, without the assistance 
 of any knowledge. 
 
 Man possesses no such instinctive means of safety, 
 — no such means whereby each part of the body that 
 may be exposed to danger, has a self-acting power of 
 preservation against that danger. The human foot 
 can be educated by practice, so as not to stumble on a 
 known path in the dark ; but it has no such power in 
 a path untrodden before ; and even if unknown ob- 
 stacles are placed in a well-known path, the chance is 
 that they will be stumbled upon in the dark. Those 
 exquisite sensations of touch in the animals are not 
 guides to action, any more than they are means of 
 
ARE INSTINCTIVE. 221 
 
 knowledge. The simple avoidance of the momentaiy 
 danger is all that they assist in, and the purpose of 
 the animal, whatever that purpose may be, must be 
 accomplished by other means. Not so in Man ; for 
 in him, the sense of touch may be made to supply the 
 place of the other senses in working, and even in the 
 acquiring of knowledge, of which we know many 
 remarkable instances in the case of the blind ; and 
 there are many of the nice operations in the arts, where 
 touch has to be called in to continue the work after 
 vision has failed, notwithstanding all the assistance 
 which the optician can give it. It is true that there 
 is something more than mere touch in these cases, and 
 we must refer the actual performance of the process 
 to the sensations of action ; but still touch is the 
 guide which puts those other sensations in the way, 
 and it has no such tendency in the animals. 
 
 The sensations of feeling, considered merely as such, 
 do not in themselves tend to the knowledge of any 
 object external of the body, or even very definitely to 
 the knowledge of the body itself. In themselves they 
 are simply either pleasurable or painful, and it may 
 be that the latter is the predominating feeling, the one 
 which puts all the train in motion ; and that the sense 
 of pain is the grand incentive to all animal action, and 
 to knowledge in Man. It is the painful craving of 
 hunger, of thirst, or of some other appetite, which 
 excites eveiy animal to exertion ; and the first move- 
 ments and indications of movement on the part of the 
 human infant, seem all to be the immediate results of 
 unpleasant sensations. In the veiy early stages of life, 
 
 u 3 
 
222 SENSATIONS OF FEELING, 
 
 there is only one indiscriminate expression for the 
 whole of these uneasy sensations, — the child can simply 
 cry ; and this is the veiy first indication of life, and 
 prohably contributes not a little, along with the causes 
 already alluded to, to begin the important function of 
 respiration. As the repeated exercise of this feeling, 
 and the connecting of it into little trains of associated 
 thought by the mind, gives the infant some knowledge 
 of the parts of its body, the crying, which was at first 
 the only means of expression, is accompanied by con- 
 vulsive, or at all events indefinite movements of the 
 body ; and, after a time, the movements are made 
 without the necessary accompaniment of the crying : 
 then, when the powers of the body are matured, and 
 the extent of them known, the propensity to crying 
 gradually goes off, and if the animal system still con- 
 tinues to predominate over the intellectual, these 
 sensations of feeling are expressed by other actions of 
 the body. 
 
 In the animals there is not, in any case, an inter- 
 mediate process between the sensation of feeling and 
 the bodily action ; and from the indolence of the ma- 
 jority of them when they are not under the immediate 
 influence of any sensation, it is probable that they 
 are, in all, or at least in most cases, driven by neces- 
 sity, and not attracted by the hope of actual enjoy- 
 ment. Indeed, we may say that this is absolutely 
 and uniformly the case ; for, although there is a sha- 
 dowy sort of hope which nobody can define, yet when- 
 ever hope is of so definite a nature as that we can 
 assign it a specific object, it must be to some extent 
 
CONTRASTS. 223 
 
 founded upon knowledge, and thus it can have no 
 existence where there is no mind. When the hound, 
 the horse, and the rider, start in chase of the game, 
 the hound starts from the instinctive impulse arising 
 out of his animal feeling, upon which, in a state of 
 nature, he acts for the appeasing of his hunger ; but 
 this feeling is trained by the huntsman. The horse, 
 in like manner, starts simply upon that feeling which 
 in a state of nature drives him across the desert in 
 quest of the green spots ; and this is also trained. 
 The hunter alone has hope in the chase ; and the 
 same capacity of acquiring knowledge which gives him 
 this hope, gives him the means of training the hound 
 and the horse as the means of accomplishing this 
 object of the hope ; and the mere circumstance of 
 selecting and preparing means is a marked distinction 
 between the man and his irrational associates in the 
 chase. 
 
 The principal object of the sensation of feeling is 
 the preservation of the body, from danger and from 
 want, and from pain of eveiy kind. This is the pri- 
 maiy sensation in the animals, whether we refer it to 
 one or to another of the named senses. Preliminary 
 to the action of the animal there is nothing but this, 
 and therefore the action, or the positive effort to the 
 performance of it, depends immediately upon the sen- 
 sation, and upon nothing else, whether that sensation 
 is produced by something from without, or by a merely 
 unpleasant state of the body of the animal. In the 
 case of the simple feeling of pain, there is an imme- 
 diate sensation of action, a shrinking or motion of the 
 
224 SURFACES ALONE FEEL. 
 
 part ; and it matters not whether the pain is by a 
 twinge of the body itself, or by an impression from 
 without ; for, if the fact of the latter is not known by 
 the evidence of some other sense, the shrinking and 
 starting is the same in the one case as in the other. 
 
 It is very probable that this pain is felt at the surface 
 only ; and there are some cases which seem to prove 
 that it is so when the pain arises from an external 
 injury. When a pike or bayonet pricks the skin of a 
 man or horse in battle, and the excitement of the 
 wounded party is not too great for allowing the wound- 
 ing to be at all felt at the time, the tendency is to run 
 upon the weapon, even although the wounding is in 
 that case to be destructive of life. Those celebrated 
 but not over-wise men of old, who fell upon their own 
 swords when matters went contrary to their wishes, 
 had no relenting of nature to induce them to stay their 
 hand after the operation was once begun ; for as soon 
 as the sword had penetrated their integuments the pain 
 was over, and the natural tendency of the body was to 
 run upon the weapon. 
 
 In the performance of surgical operations, it is well 
 known that comparatively little pain is felt after the 
 integuments have been divided. Hence the experienced 
 surgeon takes especial care that the position of the 
 patient shall be well secured until the skin is divided, 
 and he makes the incision in that to the full extent 
 that may be required, and with the gi-eatest possible 
 expedition. This part of the operation, in which 
 only the integuments are divided by the instrument, 
 is of course attended with little danger in itself; 
 
AN ILLVSTRATION. 
 
 225 
 
 and the precise extent of it is a matter of inferior 
 moment, so that it is large enough and quickly done. 
 \Vlien it is over, and the more delicate and dangerous 
 parts of the operation are proceeding, little more is 
 necessary, unless in the case of another painful sur- 
 face between a sound part and a diseased one, than to 
 prevent the patient from being a spectator of what is 
 going on ; for in ordinary cases he will have no more 
 knowledge of it than the young nobleman, mentioned 
 by Harvey, had of the fact of his heart being handled 
 when the outside skin was avoided and his \dew was 
 intercepted. If, however, the patient shall see the 
 operation going on, he wall feel sympathetic pain al- 
 though there is no pain in reality : and thus no patient 
 should be allowed to watch the progress of an ampu- 
 tation, or any other serious operation in which much 
 use of the knife is required. The author once had an 
 instance of this in the performance of a trifling opera- 
 tion upon himself. A steatomatous tumour had formed 
 upon his upper eyelid, and, in a very short time, it 
 grew to the size of a pigeon's egg, so that, though not 
 painful, it was annoying. He asked several medical 
 gentlemen to remove it ; but some declined, from the 
 fear that they would have to divide the tendon which 
 raises the eyelid, and the others from the great pain 
 that it would occasion to extract the whole of the cyst, 
 and the danger of leaving any portion of that remaining. 
 Soon after, he had occasion to call upon a lecturer on 
 anatomy, who performed the operation in less than a 
 minute, without any more pain than the momentary 
 twitch occasioned by dividing the skin ; and every 
 
22G SENSIBILITY 
 
 trace of the object of so much alarm was gone, never 
 to return, in the short period of a single day, and with 
 no dressing save a bit of plaster. 
 
 As an animal sensation, this feeling of pain in the 
 human subject is both a transient and, in many cases, 
 a trifling one ; and if people would employ half the 
 mental care which they bestow upon its needless exag- 
 geration, in calm consideration of the fact of how limited 
 it is in the range of its action, and how brief in its 
 duration, they would bear whatever share they may 
 have to bear with comparatively little uneasiness. 
 
 That this peculiar sensation should be common to 
 almost the whole surface of the human body, and that 
 it should be almost wholly confined to the surface, is 
 a very beautiful part of the economy of our nature. 
 It is a protection to us all over, — an armour far more 
 complete, and efficient for far more purposes, than 
 any in which warrior was ever incased, and it is an 
 armour which burdens us with no additional weight. 
 It has this property too, that it is always most keen 
 on those parts of the body in which the feeling of 
 touch as a sensation of perception is most exquisite ; 
 and thus, it guards with the greatest vigilance those 
 parts which are the most essential to our usefulness 
 and our enjoyments. 
 
 Were it not for this sensibility to pain in the skin, 
 the body would be exposed to continual mangling and 
 injury from eveiy object with which we come in con- 
 tact ; and if a man had, by knowledge and forethought 
 purpose, to take the same cai'e of his person which is 
 taken by this simple sensation, without the least know- 
 
OF THE SKIN. 227 
 
 ledge or eiFort on his part, this labour alone would be 
 a burden, nothing else could be done, and life would 
 be quite insupportable. Besides the absolute pain, 
 which is the warning in the case of actual mechanical 
 danger, there are a thousand other uneasy sensations 
 of which we get warning for our good by the same 
 property of the skin. It warns us of eveiy neglect in 
 the way of cleanliness, and of many other things, 
 which, if they went unheeded, would become inju- 
 rious. The sympathies which it has to the states of 
 the atmosphere, though we can neither describe nor 
 name them, are not the least singular or the least 
 valuable of all the admonitions that we receive from 
 this general guardian and adviser of the body. Those 
 influences of the weather, that is, of the state of the 
 atmosphere, upon our "feelings," as we say in the 
 remaining phraseology of our absurd theory, are, one 
 and all, nothing more than influences upon the skin ; 
 for, upon the interior of the body — upon any one of 
 what we term the vital parts of our system, the weather 
 can have no effect. These are insensible to pressure, 
 to cutting, and even to burning ; and therefore it is 
 impossible that they can be affected by any of those 
 changes of the atmosphere. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment the wretched condition 
 we should be in if the whole interior of the body had 
 the same kind and degree of feeling as the skin. The 
 interior is full of motions, and of motions that never 
 cease while life lasts ; and if the parts had been sensi- 
 tive to each other in these motions, there would have 
 been such confusion, of creeping, and tickling, and 
 
228 THE MUSCULAR SENSE. 
 
 tingling, and smarting, that we could have attended 
 to nothing else ; and when we moved our arm and 
 fingers, our attention would have been so occupied by 
 the feelings in the muscles and other parts, that we 
 should have been quite incapable of directing the hand 
 to any useful purpose. Hence we have equal reason 
 to be grateful for the absence of the sensation of feel- 
 ing in the interior of the body, as we have for the 
 presence of it in the surface. 
 
 The third class of our sensations, or those of action, 
 may all be resolved into one which is much more gene- 
 ral and definite than our sensations of mere feeling. 
 This is the muscular sense ; and though it is but lately 
 that it has been named and described, and can scarcely 
 be said to have yet obtained the place which it ought 
 to occupy, it is probably the most valuable and impor- 
 tant of all the senses of the body, — the one by means 
 of which all the rest communicate with each other, — 
 the grand instrument in the acquiring of knowledge, 
 and the only one by means of which that knowledge 
 can be turned to any practical account. 
 
 This sense is common to Man and to all other 
 animals, even to the oyster which is cemented to the 
 bottom of the sea, and then has not the slightest power 
 of motion from place to place ; for the oyster can open 
 and shut the valves of its shell, and though one of 
 these motions may be performed by the reaction of 
 an elastic ligament, two antagonist ligaments, what- 
 ever may be the degree of their elasticity, cannot he- 
 gin a motion, or continue it beyond a given length of 
 time. If this were possible by means of them, those 
 
PERPETUAL MOTION, 229 
 
 observers who dream about the discovery of a machine 
 of perpetual motion, would not dream so utterly in 
 vain as they have hitherto been destined to do ; for 
 the impossibility which now meets them in the prin- 
 ciple of the motion, would be reduced to that of 
 finding perpetual materials whereof to construct their 
 machine. This would still, no doubt, be fatal to the 
 perpetuity, but not to the motion ; and thus the pro- 
 jector would be enabled to rejoice in the workman- 
 ship of his hands during the whole term of his mortal 
 life, whereas, in the present state of things, his cabinet 
 can show nothing save the wonderful ingenuity of his 
 failures. But the two ligaments, how violently soever 
 we set them to work against each other, very soon 
 come to a state of quiescence by mutual consent ; and, 
 therefore, we are unable to hold out any new hope for 
 the dreamer. 
 
 The muscular sense is, like the other senses, quite 
 unconnected with feeling, and may be in continual 
 operation without the party being in the least aware 
 of it. This happens constantly in the heart, in the 
 arteries, and in various other inward parts of the 
 system ; and thus this sense is not in itself a source 
 of knowledge any more than the other senses. The 
 action of a muscle — that for the originating of which 
 it is specially constructed, is motion, and the succes- 
 sion of this motion, expressed in the muscular feeling 
 or sense, is the foundation of our knowledge of extent 
 in space and succession in time, and the only means 
 by which the perceptions of our other senses are con- 
 
 X 
 
230 MEANING OF INSTINCT. 
 
 nected with the realities of the external world, or with 
 the existence and form of our own bodies. 
 
 In the animals, this sense follows immediately upon 
 the sense of feeling, whether that is excited by local 
 organs, or by injury or pain of any kind ; and the 
 action of the muscle follows immediately upon the 
 exciting of the sense of that muscle. It is this which 
 is called instinct in the animals ; and it is so called 
 because the ifiuscular action, which is the final effort 
 of the animal, is all put out by or grows out of the 
 present sensation, without reference to any thing that 
 went before, or is expected to come after : that is to 
 say, the animal is guided by no experience, and pro- 
 ceeds according to its plan ; and by being competent 
 for all its purposes without these, it does not require 
 mind, and does not possess it. What has been some- 
 times called reason in animals, being nothing more 
 than that the animal has a more complicated part to 
 perform than some other animals, and its sensations 
 and muscular actions are more numerous accordingly, 
 but the instinct is as perfect in the one case as in the 
 other. The borings of the ship-worm, under water 
 and in the dark, by an animal which has no eyes or 
 ears, and no use for them, are quite as clever as the 
 labours of the beaver, about which we have heard so 
 much ; and the part performed by the coral insect — 
 a diminutive creature which cannot be seen by the 
 eye — is vastly more conspicuous in nature than that 
 performed by the elephant. The little things work 
 in myriads, and build islands in the ocean : the ele- 
 
EDUCATION OF MUSCLBS. 231 
 
 phant has nothing to leave but his bones, to swell 
 some heap of mud and rubbish. 
 
 It has been doubted whether the muscular sense 
 ever acts in Man so as to produce muscular motion 
 without the interposition of mind ; but the doubt is 
 unfounded. Pei*sons of exclusively intellectual cha- 
 racter, who neglect the body in attending to the mind, 
 and persons who neglect both body and mind, have 
 this sense in very imperfect exercise ; and the recluse 
 of the closet and the mere clown are equally conspi- 
 cuous for not " bearing their bodies seemingly " as 
 they move about. They dodge and roll, and fatigue 
 themselves by raising and lowering, and rocking about 
 the centres of gravity of their bodies, so that a few 
 miles of walking exhausts them far more than it does 
 those who have cultivated this sense, and can carry 
 the weight of their bodies smoothly along. Old 
 soldiers, if they have escaped mutilation, are a long- 
 lived and fast-walking race ; and there is no doubt 
 that they owe much of this to the care with which 
 they are drilled into the most advantageous positions 
 and motions of the body. Men who are exposed to 
 the free and pure air of an open country ought to live 
 long, and be erect in their old age; but such is not the 
 case, for they are not trained in the " beai'ing " of the 
 body, and thus they wear themselves out by the labour 
 which they take in moving the weight of the body ten 
 times as much as is necessary. A truly graceful pos- 
 ture of the body is always an easy one — at least after 
 a bad habit, previously acquired, is coiTected ; and it 
 will invariably be found that those who go about any 
 
232 EDUCATION OF MUSCLES. 
 
 bodily labour gi-acefully, perform it better than the 
 awkward, and with much less fatigue. Even at the 
 writing-table, much depends on the attitude. One 
 who places the chair far from the table, puts back his 
 heels under the chair, and brings forward his body 
 leaning on the elbows, till the profile of his figure is 
 like a Z, is as fatigued after a few hours as if he had 
 been performing labour ; whereas one who knows how 
 to sit at a wTiting-table may continue twelve hours or 
 more each day, for weeks, without suffering the least 
 in his health, or feeling the slightest inconvenience. 
 
 All the balancings of the body may be regarded as 
 depending on the muscular sense, with little or no 
 assistance fi-om any of the other senses, though, when 
 they are studied, there is of course something of mind 
 in them ; but if this sense, and the action of the 
 muscles which naturally follows it, are not destroyed 
 by awkward positions of the body in early life, the 
 care which they take of the attitudes and safety of the 
 body, not only without any mental purpose, but with- 
 out any knowledge, are very remarkable. 
 
 This is a subject which is by no means attended to 
 as it ought to be in the training of human beings^ 
 In many instances, the dancing-master is the person 
 to whom this part of the business is committed ; but 
 any one who looks at the gait of a dancing-master, a 
 figurante, or a rope-dancer, in the streets, will want 
 no ghost conjured up to tell him that this is not quite 
 the training that is required for a graceful, a vigorous, 
 and a long-lived people. 
 
 A care of the body is shown in the muscular sense 
 
STABILITY OF THE BODY. 233 
 
 of infants, long before there can he any mental know- 
 ledge, which last is, of course, derivable from experi- 
 ence only. The action of the different parts of the , 
 mouth, which are requisite in obtaining for it that 
 nourishment which nature prepared, is scarcely less 
 intuitive than respiration, the circulation of the 
 blood, digestion, or any of the other vital functions 
 of the body ; and surely no man will say that the 
 mind has any thing to do in the case of these. The 
 blood must circulate, and various other important 
 functions of the system must be carried on, long 
 before the mind is at all aware of the existence of the 
 body ; and the knowledge of any one of them as a 
 philosophic truth, contributes not a jot to its better 
 performance in the philosopher's own system. 
 
 In the early stage of existence, there are some re- 
 markable indications of that care which the muscular 
 sense afterwards takes so readily and so unbidden in 
 maintaining the stability of the body. The human 
 body is admirably formed for stability upon the poste- 
 rior extremities, in the feet and limbs, the articula- 
 tions of these with the body, and the form and 
 organisation of the body itself; but something more 
 than this is requisite in order to ensure stability, not 
 only in the actions which the body has to perform 
 when it stands on the feet, but in any still position, 
 be that position what it may. It has often been re- 
 marked that stability upon its feet cannot be given to 
 a statue, even though it is a model of symmetry in al 
 its parts, and that attitude which is known to be the 
 most stable in man is given to it. To make it stand 
 
 X 3 
 
234 STABILITY OF THE BODY. 
 
 at all, is a matter of some difficulty ; and it cannot be 
 so placed as that a very gentle ^\'ind from some quarter 
 ^ shall not lay it end-long. 
 
 Now, why should this be ? Why should the human 
 body stand firmly upon its feet, even though it is no 
 model of symmetr)'-, while the statue which has, in 
 form, the strength of a Hercules or the symmetiy of 
 an Apollo, tumbles on the least agitation of the 
 atmosphere ? This question is easily answered. The 
 statue has but one centre of gravity, and when that is 
 so shifted as that the perpendicular through it to the 
 centre of the earth falls in any way without the base 
 of the statue — that is, without a figure formed by 
 lines joining all the external points of the feet upon 
 which the statue rests — down the statue must tumble, 
 with all the passiveness of a lump of matter of any 
 other shape. 
 
 The human body, on the other hand, has a muscular 
 feeling of the centre of gravity, in consequence of 
 which, if that centre is so much to one side as that 
 the position is beginning to become unstable, the 
 motions and flexions of the limbs instantly shift the 
 centre of gravity, or rather shift the attitude of the 
 body so as to accommodate it to that centre. Suppose, 
 for instance, that the feet are in any position ; then if, 
 as already mentioned, all the extreme points in which 
 they touch the ground are joined by lines, the figure 
 formed by these lines will be the base upon which the 
 body is supported. Suppose, again, that this figure is 
 cut out in a piece of board, of equal consistency and 
 weight, inch for inch, in all its parts, there is one 
 
STABILITY OF THE BODY. 235 
 
 point in this board upon which it could be supported 
 perfectly level upon the point of a pin, and this point 
 is its centre of gravity. If the shape of the board 
 were known, this centre of gravity could be found 
 with no great trouble, as it is the point through which 
 every straight line drawn across the board must divide 
 the said board into parts of equal weight : but we are 
 speaking of any position of the feet, or of one foot, or 
 of a heel or a toe, or any position of a foot upon which 
 the body can be supported ; and, therefore, the de- 
 termining of the centre of gravity for any one figure 
 would only confuse us. So, let the figure be on the 
 ground, and its centre of gravity known, and let a per- 
 pendicular line be supposed to be drav^n upwards 
 from this centre of gravity, and passing through the 
 centre of gravity of the body ; then the body wdll be 
 in the position of greatest stability which it can have 
 with the feet in the same position. The centre of 
 gravity of the body is somewhere in the height of it, 
 varying a little wdth the form ; and if this centre is 
 kept in the perpendicular, the body will always main- 
 tain the position of the greatest stability, whatever 
 may be the flexures or motions of the other parts ; or 
 the centre of gravity may move so as to be over any 
 one point in the base, and yet be stable, only the sta- 
 bility will alM-ays be less the nearer that the body is 
 to one side of the base, and the farther it is from the 
 opposite one. The number of positions which the 
 body can assume while on the same base of the two 
 feet is almost beyond the power of arithmetic ; and as 
 the positions of the feet themselves may be also greatly 
 
236 INFERENCE, 
 
 varied, the command which we have of the body by 
 means of our power of working it upon its centre of 
 gravity is almost incredible, unless by those who have 
 studied the matter ^^'ith the greatest attention. 
 
 There is no animal which has nearly the same 
 variety in the command of its body, even though the 
 feet upon which it rests should be clutching or grasp- 
 ing ones ; and when the animal has to stand on all- 
 fours, the positions are still more limited. This com- 
 mand of the body in Man is in itself a clear proof that 
 he is organised for doing something more than any 
 other of the inhabitants of the earth — something more 
 than is required for any imaginable purpose in wild 
 nature ; and this is an irresistible proof of the fact 
 that the human body must be organised for the accom- 
 modation and use of something not to be found in the 
 whole range of material nature, whether organised 
 or not. There is nothing in the material world at 
 all worthy of such a body ; and therefore the body 
 itself, if we study it rightly, demonstrates the exist- 
 ence of the mind, and demonstrates it by those actions 
 of the body in which the mind may be said to have 
 no share. 
 
 All those motions and balancings to which we have 
 alluded depend upon the muscular sense, and upon 
 that only ; and though they are so extremely varied, 
 w^e have taken the very simplest case by means of 
 which any illustration of them can be given. We have 
 supposed the feet to remain at rest all the time, and 
 we have made no allusion to the senses which have 
 their organs in the head as observant, the hands as 
 
THE UNEDUCATED CODY. 237 
 
 acting, the features as expressing, the mouth as speak- 
 ing, or the whole attitude and gestures of the body as 
 giving force andeifect to that which is spoken. Com- 
 bine these in all the variety of which they are capable, 
 and then multiply the combination by all the varieties 
 of motion in place which can be given by the feet 
 without internipting or interfering with any of the 
 others, and then say, where shall language be found to 
 express that of which the human body is capable ? 
 
 In all this, too, we are alluding merely to the un- 
 educated body, — not to the body as it is trained by the 
 help of the mind, but to it simply as it is prepared — 
 as the organic structure, by means of which the mind 
 is to perform its still more wonderful operations. The 
 consideration of the educated body, or of its education, 
 does not properly belong to the present volume, be- 
 cause, without the mind, admirably formed as the body 
 is, there can be no education even of it. All that we 
 have stated, and much more than it is possible to 
 state, belongs in full perfection to the rudest savage 
 of the human race, ere yet he has bended a bow, 
 pointed a spear, or even rubbed two dry sticks against 
 each other, and thereby kindled a fire. These oper- 
 ations, simple as they are, have mind and contrivance 
 in them, and we are alluding to nothing but the body ; 
 but when, by the proper education of both parts of 
 our compound nature, these parts are made to act 
 together with their full efi'ect, what a study is ]\Ian, 
 and how all other terrestrial subjects that can engage 
 our attention sink into nothing in comparison ! In 
 our volume on " Intellectual Man," we shall be able 
 
238 IN&TINCTIVE CARE 
 
 to cany this most interesting subject one little step 
 farther — to exhaust it, or do justice to it, would be 
 altogether impossible. 
 
 In what has been stated of this muscular power in 
 the simple fact of preserving the balance of the body 
 in a countless number of positions, we have not made 
 the slightest allusion to knowledge ; for all that we 
 have stated is done, and done just as readily and as 
 perfectly, by the man who never heard of a centre of 
 gravity, and who knows nothing about the name or 
 the existence of a muscle, or any thing more about the 
 structure of his body than what he sees : nay, even 
 though he is blind, and deaf and dumb, and has not 
 the least distinction of odours or of tastes, he can do it 
 as readily and as perfectly, and probably more so, than 
 if he were the greatest mechanical philosopher and 
 anatomist that ever lived. 
 
 This care which the body can take of itself is in- 
 dependent even of the knowledge that the body exists, 
 for the other animals have it, in that degree which 
 their habits require, as well as Man has ; and, as we 
 have had occasion to mention, there is no reason to 
 believe that they know the fact of their own existence, 
 any more than the same fact is known by a vegetable 
 or a stone. It is a sense, and a more important sense 
 in the general system and economy of the body than 
 any of the five senses which are usually named. It 
 shows itself in infants before they are capable of giving 
 any signs that they can make use of the senses of 
 observation. It is by means of this that they acquire 
 the knowledge and use of their limbs. The hand 
 
OF THE nODY. 230 
 
 of the infant is brought to the month before the 
 fingers have learned to grasp ; and after they have 
 learned this, whatever they can grasp is attempted to 
 be brought to the mouth, and if they cannot succeed 
 in this attempt, an effort is made to bring the mouth 
 to that which is grasped. All this is done before the 
 eye can be observed to notice or fix itself upon any 
 object, though, from the very first, there is a sensibility 
 of the eyes to light. The care of the body, by means 
 of this sense, also begins at a very early period of life ; 
 and fi-om the circumstances under which it is dis- 
 played, it cannot possibly be the result of experience, 
 or of danger perceived by any of the observing senses. 
 There seems, in the early action of this muscular 
 sense, a feeling of the direction of gravitation, which 
 almost tempts one to believe that Newton's grand 
 discoveiy might have been made or approximated, 
 at any time, if philosophers had been wise enough 
 to take infants for their instructors, and sought in- 
 formation by the only means which are efficient for 
 ol^taining it — careful observation. How far soever 
 an infant may be free upward or laterally, it shows no 
 apprehension of falling in any of those directions ; 
 but if it is unstable downwards, it makes some little 
 effort towards saving itself, how few and rudimental 
 soever may be the motions of which it is capable : so 
 also, if it is tossed or carried upwards, even with con- 
 siderable velocity, it shows no symptom of alarm, but 
 if it is allowed to feel a descending motion, though 
 far more slow and gentle than that by which it is 
 raised, it exhibits efforts for self-preservation, although 
 
240 PRIMARY FEELINGS IN 
 
 all too young for having any distinct knowledge of 
 external things, or of direction in space as a measur- 
 able quantity one way or another. 
 
 Remarkable as this muscular sense is in the power 
 of preserving the body under such circumstances as 
 those that have been mentioned, it is incapable in 
 itself of acquiring any knowledge of the external 
 world, or of acting in concert with any of the other 
 senses ; for though pain is probably the first of all our 
 sensations, and certainly the first of which we are 
 capable of giving any expression that can be under- 
 stood, there is no efi'ort made by the very young infant 
 to remove or shrink from local pain. If a pin, un- 
 wisely put in any part of its dress, shall lacerate its 
 flesh, or if, as is sometimes the case, a surgical oper- 
 ation shall be necessaiy, the child, even if instantly 
 born, will show symptoms of uneasiness, by crying 
 and convulsive motions of the body. But these in- 
 dications have not the slightest reference to the seat of 
 the pain ; and no efi'ort is made by the part to shrink 
 from the instniment, or by the mouth to reach it, 
 although the mouth should previously have been used 
 for that natural purpose to which it is obviously 
 directed by instinct, without the least assistance from 
 or connexion with any thing mental. 
 
 Our muscular sense is thus our first tutor ; but the 
 extent to which it can of itself cany our education is 
 very limited. From what has been remarked, and the 
 remarks are easily verified, it cannot of itself com- 
 municate with any other sense ; and beyond the simple 
 fact of taking food, which is purely animal and instinc- 
 
MAN AND THE ANIMALS. 241 
 
 tive, and as much a part of the vital process of alimen- 
 tation, as digestion in the stomach, or any other stage 
 of assimilation, it makes no effort whatever, until the 
 other senses, or some of them, are in exercise, and a 
 connexion is estahlished by means of the mind. Even 
 the single effort to use the mouth is objectless, or 
 without discrimination, and this continues for some 
 time after it can use both the hand and the eye. The 
 feeling of gravitation, though evinced by convulsive 
 motions at a very early stage, is never accompanied by 
 any effort to prevent falling until the education of the 
 body is considerably advanced. 
 
 In the young of the animals the progi'ess is very 
 different. These come into the world in very various 
 stages of development, some of them much less de- 
 veloped in their bodies than the human infant, and 
 others so far advanced that they are instantly able to 
 shift for themselves ; but whatever may be their degree 
 of development at the beginning, the whole of their 
 system, so far as it is necessary for their own personal 
 safety and support, comes forward together. They 
 never make any mistakes in their food, or in anything 
 else, and though a longer or a shorter term, according 
 to the species, is necessary for the full development 
 of their muscular strength, and the other parts of their 
 organic system, the instinct is never behind the deve- 
 lopment, but rather in advance of it. The young of 
 the ox, for instance, butt with the head before they 
 have any horns ; and many other animals display the 
 instinct by which parts are used, before those parts 
 have made their appearance. So far from their requir- 
 
 Y 
 
242 NATURAL IMPERFECTION OF 
 
 ing any teaching in the natural use of any of their 
 organs, the instinctive use of the organs appears to 
 come first ; and, however curious or complicated the 
 organ or its purpose may appear, the instinctive appli- 
 cation of the organ to the accomplishment of ,the 
 purpose is just as perfect as in those cases which we 
 consider the most simple. The bee builds her cell, 
 the spider weaves her snare, and the ant-lion prepares 
 his pitfall, upon the same model, and with the same 
 accuracy, in one generation as in another. No teaching 
 is required, and the solitary insect, which has never 
 seen, and never will meet with one of its race, is just 
 as efficient at its labour as the one which belongs to a 
 colony of millions. 
 
 How different from Man ! Abandoned at the mo- 
 jnent of his birth, or even after the knowledge of the 
 body and of the external world was partially acquired, 
 he would inevitably perish ; and though we have no 
 instance of Man in that state, yet if his life were 
 preserved, and he were to grow up in wild nature, 
 solely dependent on his own personal acquirements, 
 he w^ould be the most wretched of animals, — the most 
 imperfect and helpless thing upon the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 Although, therefore, the body, considered simply in 
 its structure, and in the very limited instinctive use of 
 sensation, is wonderful, yet, if we were compelled to 
 stop here, it w^ould be a melancholy and mournful 
 wonder, — a sad failure in the midst of a world in which 
 all else is perfection. To use a homely illustration, 
 our going to the contemplation of it would be like going 
 
TllK llL'MAiN HODY. 243 
 
 to see the wheels and levers and other combinations 
 which a maker of a perpetual motion or any other 
 impossible machine had put together with the most 
 consunnnate symmetry in the form and laliour in the 
 finish of the several parts, but in which the principle, 
 by which alone the parts could have any value, were 
 wholly wanting. According to the fable, Prometheus 
 succeeded, by terrestrial means, in completing the 
 bodily organisation of the man which he made, but he 
 had to rob Heaven of the sacred fire before his man 
 could perform even the humblest action. It is even so 
 with us ; give us simply our body, curious as it is, and 
 the few instincts which we possess, and assuredly, 
 though happily we should not know our own misery, 
 we had better not be. 
 
 We may not, dare not; attempt to draw the picture, 
 and fortunately for us — as it would curdle our blood 
 and fix us in death — we are spared the sight of the 
 original ; but there are approximations ; and it were 
 well that they who aflfect to deny the mind, and \\ho 
 treat the doctrine of immortality as a dream, and the 
 word and promise of the Almighty as an imposture, 
 should take that as the subject whereby to demonstrate 
 the dignity and perfection of merely physical Man — 
 the chef-cVce-uvr^e of material nature, the perfection to 
 which the "organising affinities," and the "polarisa- 
 tions of material atoms " have toiled through all the 
 gradations of inferior being. 
 
 We must not seek for this on the couch of the dead, 
 whether the spirit has untimely departed and left the 
 body in its symmetry, or whether the latter has been 
 
244 PHYSICAL MAN IN 
 
 worn to the grave ; for though the sight there is 
 mournful to the eye, the lesson is cheating to the 
 mind ; and perhaps the doctrine of life and immor- 
 tality is never more eloquently preached than by that 
 dead body of a friend over which we stand with 
 streaming eyes. 
 
 But go to that gloomy abode in which the unfortu- 
 nates of our race are hidden from the mockings of the 
 wicked and the moralisings of the sentimental. Go to 
 that distant ward from which issues no yell of the 
 maniac, and no laugh of the idiot. Go where lies the 
 depth of fatuity, in which every cord is broken between 
 the body and the mind, even that one which made the 
 internal part of the physical machine work while yet 
 in the dark abode where it originated. Go with con- 
 fidence, for there, if you can bear your own feelings, 
 you have nothing to dread. There no manacle is 
 wanted, no keeper is required. Approach that thing 
 on the straw : it has some remains of human shape ; 
 it lives, it breathes, and it can digest the food which 
 is put into its mouth. It has legs and arms, but they 
 move not, or if they do, their meaningless motions 
 affect you more than their stillness without repose. 
 You never saw a human being lying in that attitude 
 — tumbled down as though it were a cast-oiF garment 
 or a broken potsherd. That hand is clenched, and 
 has been so till the nails have grown through the 
 palm, and appear on the back ; that other finger has 
 been on the stretch till it cannot be bent ; but the one 
 grasps nothing — the other points to nothing. The jaw 
 hangs down, and the tongue is lolled out, but no sound 
 
HIS PURITY OF PERFECTION. 245 
 
 even of air escapes from the melancholy portal. Those 
 eyes see not ; those ears hear not ; and though the 
 heavens and the earth were commingling in one ruin, 
 not one of those features would be disturbed. All 
 is passive ; there is no command, no restraint, no 
 feeling of existence : — But the heart sickens, and we 
 must return. The very tide of frenzied mania, gnash- 
 ing the teeth through the grating at you, and tearing 
 the flesh from its own bones, is a relief after such a 
 sight. 
 
 Go now, and boast of the dignity of the merely 
 animal nature of ]\Ian ; for this is Physical Man, not 
 in absolute purity and perfection certainly, for there is 
 yet life ; but it is Man in a state in which no one 
 member of the body has ever received the slightest 
 education from the mind — ]\Ian, with all his instincts, 
 as he was born, and probably as well organised at his 
 birth as the foremost man of the time ; but, left wholly 
 to the resources of the body, they have reared him up 
 to this. Disease could not have produced this ; for if 
 the mind has once had any educational eifect upon 
 the body, that effect can never be wholly obliterated ; 
 and when you turn from this extreme specimen of 
 born fatuity to 
 
 " The moping idiot, and the madman gay," 
 
 you feel as though you were brought into the society 
 of a philosopher and a man of the world. 
 
 Such is the conclusion to which our speculations 
 must of necessity lead, if we consider Man only as a 
 physical being ; and such would have been our own 
 
 y3 
 
246 MENTAL DERANGEMENT. 
 
 condition if we had not been endowed with mind. 
 This is certainly not veiy flattering to any man's pride, 
 and it involves a very sharp reproof to those who 
 spend their whole time upon the body, and leave the 
 mind neglected ; but it is a view of the matter by no 
 means unwholesome in respect of instruction, and it is 
 absolutely necessary to carry our consideration to this, 
 in order that our knowledge of Man may rest on the 
 proper basis. 
 
 I am aware that this is not the usual method of 
 considering the subject, or of speaking concerning it, 
 even in those courts which have the control of those 
 who have lost all control of themselves. The blame 
 is laid upon the mind. Of " unsound mind,'''' " men- 
 tally deranged,'''' or " out of his mind," are the common 
 expressions, whether the disease be mania, idiocy, or 
 fatuity. But they are all wrong ; and if it could be 
 shown that there had been one instance of a diseased 
 or deranged mind, then the existence of the mind is 
 not true, — ^immortality is a vain dream, and religion is 
 a mockery, — morality and decorum are absurd, and 
 laws are most iniquitous restraints upon the natural 
 rights of mankind to catch what they can and how they 
 can. This is a sorry conclusion to the doctrines preached 
 every day in the high places ; but it is the only one of 
 which these doctrines admit. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SENSATION. PARTICULARS OF SOME OF THE SENSES, 
 
 AND THEIR CONNEXION. 
 
 Some of the senses are so important in themselves, 
 so curious in their organs, and have been the causes 
 of so many mistakes and errors, that a short notice of 
 them is an essential part of the physical description of 
 Man, even in the most light and popular manner in 
 which it can be treated. But before proceeding to 
 them, there is one point connected with sensation and 
 animal feeling of every kind, whatsoever it may be 
 called, which is especially worthy of our attention, as 
 meeting, and tending strongly to rebut, a doctrine 
 which has been brought forward in almost every age, 
 though under very different forms. We believe that 
 the doctrine as at present in fashion among those who 
 feel themselves obliged to say something, but do not 
 know veiy well what to say, is called, or should be 
 called, " The doctrine of developments'' The whole 
 of it has not yet been " developed" in any system by 
 one author, but there are scraps of it here and there, 
 which, taken in their order, establish a very regular 
 
248 DOCTRINE OF DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 succession, and show how these philosophisers fancy 
 they could make worlds, and people them with all 
 ranks of being up to Man inclusive — if they had ma- 
 terials to their mind, and length of life to work them 
 properly. Such as are acquainted with the subject, 
 and its progressive history, will not fail to perceive 
 that this is really nothing more than a modern " de- 
 velopment" of the old doctrine of Epicurus, which 
 flows so sublimely incomprehensible in the matchless 
 versification of Lucretius. The " elementaiy particles " 
 of the modern system are much the same as the " seeds 
 of things " of the Ancient ; only he takes up the sub- 
 ject when it is a little " developed," so that different 
 things have different seeds, while the moderns begin at 
 the beginning, and make all things out of one common 
 matter, by means of the properties of that matter 
 alone. Further, Lucretius only assigns the gods a 
 state of luxurious idleness — allows them to retire, as 
 it were, while the moderns dispense with them alto- 
 gether. This being mentioned, let us proceed with 
 our " development." 
 
 The first thing is to get a world — a globe, as the 
 ground upon which all the rest is to be done. Now, 
 the regions of space contain a certain something 
 called " primordial matter," which is so rai'e and 
 filmy in its substance that no eye or instrument can 
 detect it, and even the sunbeams, which make known 
 our atmosphere, do not tell upon it. This consists of 
 particles far more minute than the globules of blood 
 in the smallest of the microscopic animalculae — so 
 
MAKING A WOULD. 
 
 249 
 
 minute, indeed, that there is nothing in which they 
 can differ, and thus they are all exactly alike. Not- 
 withstanding this, the two sides of each of them are 
 not quite like each other, or, to come nearer to the 
 purpose, they are not entirely of the same mind. If 
 the one has a tendency to go north, the other has as 
 great a tendency to go south ; if the one east, the 
 other west ; and so on, always to opposite points of 
 the compass. This sets them a-whirling round ; and 
 although they are so very little, they are withal so 
 numerous, that their whirling causes no little disturb- 
 ance, though a long time elapses before they make 
 any appearance. This is, however, a beginning, such 
 beginning as it may be called ; and the reader will 
 not fail to observe, that it takes for granted the two 
 essential parts of creation — the creation of matter, and 
 the creation of action, thus substantially admitting on 
 the whole that which they are inclined to deny in the 
 detail. 
 
 The whirling goes on, and as in the course of it one 
 always impinges upon another, the two sides in con- 
 tact are two against one to each of the other two. 
 The consequence is, that the two whirl together, and 
 soon get a third, and so on. There is no reason why 
 this contact and gathering should be confined to one 
 p^t of space rather than another. Thus a number of 
 these little collections are made, though each of them 
 is still smaller than the particles of any of the com- 
 ponent parts of our atmosphere. No matter, — they 
 whirl away, and the same contact takes place, and is 
 attended with the same results as in the single atoms. 
 
250 IMAKING A AVOKLI). 
 
 Tlius, a filmy thing is at last formed, which is called a 
 nebula, and may be seen by the help of a good tele- 
 scope. 
 
 This nebula keeps whirling t)n, and the parts get 
 more and more in contact till a nucleus forms in the 
 centre of it ; and then the whole appears as a bearded 
 star. The distant parts keep at a distance, and form 
 smaller nuclei of their own, but too minute for being 
 even seen with the assistance of the telescope ; and 
 terti<ary nuclei are in some cases formed round the 
 secondary ones. We need not say that this is the 
 framework of a system, consisting of a sun, and pla- 
 nets, and satellites, which wants only a little more 
 whirling to consolidate the whole and make it fit for 
 new purposes. Such is the way in which the " deve- 
 lopment " gets a sun and planets, and when these are 
 obtained the major part of the work is finished. 
 
 It would be too tedious to run over the whole of 
 this process, or to endeavour to ascertain when the 
 whirling, which still continues in the masses, gives 
 place to other " developments" in the details, though 
 it is certain that, from gas, through the inorganic 
 licjuids and solids, and the plants and animals, up to 
 Man, there is a regular progress, which may either go 
 the whole length, or stop at any particular stage. The 
 real process is not known ; and thus we may as well 
 retain the notion of whirling as a figurative one, as it 
 is the first part of a process, and certainly " a neater 
 way of doing business" than Lucretius's downward 
 motion of the atoms, with a little incomprehensible 
 " squint " from the perpendicular. We sh;dl not stop 
 
ANIMALFSATION. '2')\ 
 
 to inquire how a lifiuid becomes a rock, or a rock a 
 plant, though it seems that this is an accommodating 
 stage of the development, — inasmuch as it depends 
 upon how the \^ind blows whether the plant shall be 
 a lichen in the air, a conferva in the river, or an alga 
 in the sea. Neither shall we notice how the first gets 
 on till it becomes a duck, the second till it is a salmon, 
 or the third till it is a whale ; but we may give a guess 
 at the progress from mutton to Man. A dog may be 
 taken as the intermediate development ; and this is so 
 far justified by the partiality of the dog for mutton on 
 the one hand, and for Man on the other, "\^'ell, an 
 indefinite number of developments — whirlings — ^bring 
 us to the sheep, and the sheep eat turnips ; a few more 
 develop the dog, and he eats mutton; a few more 
 still develop Man, and he eats both the mutton and 
 the turnips. How many more whirlings may be neces- 
 sary in order to develop a philosopher capable of in- 
 venting or appreciating this theoiy, we pretend not to 
 know ; but it has been done, and so we must conclude 
 that it has been done " in some way." 
 
 It is by no means easy to maintain a grave face 
 upon a subject of this kind ; and perhaps the best 
 treatment of it is a little lightness of expression. But 
 in reality it is no laughing matter ; for it is from be- 
 ginning to end the doctrine of materialism in its most 
 malignant and inveterate fonn, or " type," as the 
 abettors of the system would call it. Our astronomei-s, 
 at least such of them as are worthy of the name, 
 are above such matters ; for the science of the heavens 
 is too ample and too clear for being clouded by such 
 
252 SENSATION NOT MATERIAL. 
 
 hazes ; but not a few of our men of system in the 
 matter of plants and beasts, are of more humble 
 capacity, and therefore they are apt to develop much 
 of the doctrine without being veiy well aware of the 
 consequences ; and as their books are more easily read 
 than those of the astronomers, they are more likely to 
 do mischief. 
 
 Now, if it were true that all plants and animals, 
 including j\Ian himself in the number of the last, were 
 produced or producible out of one common matter, by 
 means of principles or properties inherent in that matter 
 in its most simple and rudimental state, and that this 
 matter would run the whole round in all cases, if not 
 aiTested by circumstances at some particular stage, 
 then all distinction would be at an end, and mind 
 itself would be nothing more than a certain polarisation 
 of matter, to be as completely obliterated when the 
 state of the matter changed, as the solidity of a piece 
 of coal is when it is wholly consumed or converted 
 into vapour and gas by the action of the fire. But if 
 it can be shown that sensation is not a property of 
 matter, and could not be produced by any material 
 combination, then the very same proof would be still 
 more conclusive in the case of mind. 
 
 It must not be supposed that this would be proving 
 too much, and rendering mind unnecessaiy, by show- 
 ing that sensation is not a property of matter as such ; 
 for the doctrine of immortality, and even that of acquir- 
 ing knowledge and retaining that knowledge in the 
 absence of the subjects from which it is acquired, do 
 not rest on the mere fact of not being properties of 
 
ACTION NOT A QUALITY OF MATTER. 253 
 
 matter. Electricity, though unquestionably not mat- 
 ter, in any sense in which we can use the term, 
 is as obviously not a property of matter ; neither is 
 light, heat, or life, animal or vegetable. All these are 
 action, or modifications of action ; and it would be 
 absurd to say that either a property of matter, or 
 matter itself, is, or can be, action, or that action is, 
 or can be, a property of matter. The matter of an 
 animal is exactly the same the moment that the life 
 of it is at an end, as it was the moment before, and 
 the properties of that matter must also be nearly the 
 same after the lapse of so very short a time ; but all 
 action, and sensation among the rest, is at an end. 
 
 Besides, the notion of a quality of matter does not 
 depend on the quantity of that matter, but is equally 
 diffused through the whole of its mass, and the small- 
 est portion partakes of the quality as well as the 
 largest. As little has the form which matter may be 
 in, any connexion with the qualities of that matter, 
 whether that matter be simple or compound according 
 to our ordinary modes of expression. Organisation 
 does not change the qualities of matter, because, 
 though we sometimes speak mysteriously about or- 
 ganisation, it simply means a number of parts applied 
 to each other according to some definite plan of 
 an-angement. If we get matter which can act in any 
 way, it must be capable of acting in all parts of its 
 substance ; and in like manner, if action is to be origi- 
 nated by the fact of matter being organised, all parts 
 of the organisation must be concerned in it ; or if 
 not, the action must be originated in the same man- 
 
 z 
 
254 ACTION IS NOT ORGANIC. 
 
 ner, without the useless parts, as with them. Upon 
 these principles, — and they are very obvious ones, — 
 no action which is confined to a particular organ, and 
 especially no action which is confined to a surface, 
 can be the result of organisation. 
 
 We have, in the preceding chapter, endeavoured 
 to show that feeling is confined to the mere surface, 
 or at all events to the integument of the human 
 body. The seat of the muscular sense cannot be so 
 well ascertained, because this sense is not known 
 except by the muscular action which accompanies it ; 
 and though, by means of some applications, such as 
 that of a galvanic circle, contraction or motion can be 
 produced in a muscle after death, yet that proves 
 nothing with regard to the muscular sense of the 
 living animal. It is not the contraction of the muscle 
 upon any thing being applied to it, or indeed the con- 
 traction of it at all, which we wish to ascertain : it is 
 that sensation which induces action, not in one muscle 
 merely, but in many muscles, — not only without the 
 application of any artificial stimulant, but without 
 the wish or even the knowledge of the person for 
 whose safety the warning sensation is given and in- 
 stantly obeyed by the muscles. We call this sense 
 " muscular," because it immediately brings the mus- 
 cles into action, and brings them with a precision 
 which no knowledge and purpose could efi:ect, and 
 not from any knowledge that we have of the seat of 
 the sensation which gives the warning. Thus, we can- 
 not tell whether that be a surface action or not, or 
 what part it is which gives warning to the whole 
 
UNCONSCIOUS SENSATIONS. 255 
 
 muscles that the body is off its poise, and requires 
 their aid in order that it may recover itself. 
 
 The sense is not the less valuable to us in conse- 
 quence of our not knowing in what it is situated or 
 how it acts, any more than the circulation of the blood 
 is less valuable to those who are ignorant of the man- 
 ner in which it is carried on, or of the fact of its being 
 carried on at all. It is very general, and, if the case 
 require, very powerful in its effects ; for if one who 
 is walking along and never thinking of the matter, 
 stumbles in the street nearly to a fall, the muscular 
 effort, though soon over, produces much agitation 
 and heat in the system. There is also some reason 
 to believe that it acts better when we have no know- 
 ledge whatever of its acting ; for there are many well- 
 authenticated instances of sleep-walkers keeping their 
 balance with perfect security in situations into which 
 no person would venture awake. 
 
 The senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting, 
 and also touch, in that modification of it which enables 
 us to know the differences of the bodies touched, are 
 surface actions, that is, they take place at surfaces, 
 and at surfaces only, though there is, in the case of 
 the exposed ones, a protecting covering over the im- 
 mediately sentient surface, without which covering 
 the sensation could not be borne ; and in the case of 
 the ear, — violent and sudden addresses to which 
 startle us more than in any other sense, — the nervous 
 filaments, whose surfaces appear to be the immediate 
 seat of the sense, are bathed in a fluid, which both 
 keeps them in finer condition than if they were in the 
 
256 GENERAL ADAPTATION OF MAN. 
 
 air, and muffles the sound. The fluids of the eye 
 probably in part perform the same office ; and the 
 olfactory passages, and the organs of taste, are also 
 kept lubricated with -moisture. So much is this the 
 case in the last-named sense, that when we express 
 the strong desire which any one has to taste a viand, 
 we say, in common language, that it " makes his 
 mouth water ;" and the saying is in accordance with 
 the fact. 
 
 The remarks now offered show in the clearest man- 
 ner that no living animal can originate from mere 
 combination, and that there can be no progressive 
 development among animals, whereby one of the 
 more simple orders can ever become one of the more 
 cultivated. Every species is the product of a specific 
 creation continued by the appointed means, and pos- 
 sessing the same organisation, the same sensation, 
 and the same instincts, generation after generation ; 
 and, though the species has a certain play of character, 
 so that it can change a little according to natural 
 circumstances, and be still more changed by art, yet 
 there are limits which it cannot pass, — and whenever 
 these are reached in any state of a country, the species 
 becomes extinct. Man alone is the exception to this. 
 He can dwell in all countries where he can find food 
 by artificial means. He alone therefore is " the appro- 
 priate inhabitant of all the earth;" and this is in 
 itself a proof that his artificial operations are guided 
 by a principle over which the physical circumstances 
 under which he is placed have no absolute power. 
 This renders the knowledge of the body, both in its 
 
THE EYE. 257 
 
 organisation and its sensation, little else than a pre- 
 paring for the more important knowledge of Man as 
 endowed with mind, the condition in which we find 
 him in nature, and, therefore, the one in which he 
 can be studied to the greatest advantage. But, as the 
 mind receives its knowledge of the external world by 
 means of the senses of observation, and puts its desires 
 and wishes into execution chiefly through the medium 
 of the muscular sense, a knowledge of the organs 
 of the senses and the modes of their action (the eye 
 especially) is essential to a proper knowledge of our- 
 selves, and a correct judgment of others. 
 
 As our concern is with Man, not as he is known to 
 the anatomist in the forms and arrangements of the 
 different parts of the body, but as he appears to com- 
 mon observation when he is alive and in health, a 
 minute description of the parts of the eye w^ould be 
 foreign to our purpose. The ball of the eye, nearly 
 insensible to touch in itself, is imbedded in parts of 
 extreme sensibility, which have, as it were, the care 
 of it. The brow shades it from downward light, and 
 the tuft of hair upon the brow from small substances 
 falling down. The eyelashes are a further protection 
 against this ; and the extreme sensibility of the in- 
 terior of the eyelids makes them very excellent 
 guardians of the ball of the eye, which is the optical 
 organ. The ball is moved by a very delicate com- 
 bination of muscles, which instantly turn the opening 
 or pupil of it in any direction that may be necessary ; 
 and the expansion and contraction of the iris, which 
 
 z3 
 
258 STRUCTURE AND ACTION 
 
 are produced by the action of light upon it, adjust it 
 to the degree of light with so much nicety, that in a 
 very considerable range of intensities, nearly the same 
 action of light is admitted through the pupil or 
 opening into the interior of the eye. The humours 
 of the eye, especially that which is called the crys- 
 talline lens, and which resembles a magnifying glass 
 in form, concentrate the light, and also make the rays 
 cross each other, so that the portion of light which 
 enters the pupil at one side, meets the back part of 
 the eye at the opposite one. A question used some- 
 times to be raised as to why this inyersion of the 
 position of light as it passes through the transparent 
 parts of the eye should not make us see objects in an 
 inverted position. But the question is an unnecessary 
 and unphilosophic one. The parts of the eye through 
 which the light passes before the reversal of the rays 
 have no power of vision, and are quite insensible to 
 light and to every thing else. Thus, the part of the 
 eye which is sensible to light — even if we could imagine 
 that it has the power or the means of knowing the 
 object from which the light comes, or whether the 
 light comes from an object at all, which it has not — 
 can have no knowledge of the light in any other way 
 than as it arrives at itself. If it judges of position at 
 all — which is more than questionable, it can judge only 
 from what comes in contact vidth and affects itself. 
 Farther than this, the eye, even though we were to 
 suppose that it has the most perfect capacity for 
 knowledge, which it has not, and cannot by any pos- 
 sibility have, — the sentient part of the eye can know 
 
OF THE EYE. 259 
 
 nothing — as there is really nothing more that comes 
 within the range of its observation. 
 
 The sentient part in the hack or bottom of the eye 
 can, therefore, be affected by nothing, save what comes 
 to it through the humours ; and whatever crossing of 
 rays or other changes may take place in the progress 
 through those, are quite unknown to the eye, with 
 whatever knowledge we may suppose the sentient 
 portion of it to be endowed. Light, or some degi'ee 
 or modification of light, appears to be the only im- 
 pression of which the eye is susceptible ; and, from 
 what was formerly said of the effect of a wound in the 
 retina, or sentient part of the eye, being that of a 
 flash of light, and not a twinge of pain, it can easily 
 be understood, that every effect upon the parts of the 
 eye which are essential to vision only, must be a 
 sensation of light. A violent blow on the eye appears 
 as an instantaneous flash of light ; and this effect is 
 produced, not only when the eye itself is struck, but 
 when there is a violent concussion of the head, which 
 we may suppose transmissible to the parts surrounding 
 the eye, and so to the eyeball itself. If one walking 
 hastily and heedlessly in the dark shall strike the fore- 
 head violently against a post or any other object, 
 the resistance of which first meets that part of the 
 body, then, instantly, and before any pain is felt in 
 the place which has received the stroke, a flash of 
 light is seen by both eyes, brighter in proportion as 
 the stroke is more violent. Thus, any sudden agitation 
 produced in the exterior coats of the eyeball, from 
 whatever source it may arise, always tells upon the 
 
260 EFFECTS OF PRESSURE 
 
 sentient part of the eye as light, and never as pain or 
 any other sensation. 
 
 There is one very simple and easily-perfomied ex- 
 periment, which is worthy of attention, as helping to 
 illustrate the very beautiful and somewhat difficult 
 subject of vision. If the finger is pressed, with the 
 eyelids closed, upon the front of the eye, that is, im- 
 mediately over the iris, it is difficult to produce even 
 the least sensation of light ; but if the finger is placed 
 on the ball at the inner canthus, next the nose, circles 
 of coloured light are always seen, whether the eyelids 
 be open or shut, and their brightness is in proportion 
 to the degree of pressure applied. At the external 
 canthus, the same degree of pressure has little or no 
 effect in producing the sensation of light. The different 
 effect upon these parts of the eye is worth notice. It 
 is probable that the pressure immediately over the 
 iris has the same effect upon that organ as a sudden 
 and intense light, that is, it makes the sphincter act 
 and close the pupil, so that the impression does not 
 reach the sentient part of the eye. At the external 
 canthus, again, the coats are much stronger and firmer 
 than they are at any other part of the eye, because this 
 is the place at which the ball is most exposed to 
 external injuries. At the inner canthus, the elevation 
 of the nose protects the eye ; and therefore the coats 
 do not require the same strength. The sensibility to 
 pressure diminishes from the inner canthus to the 
 external, and of course the firmness of the coats in- 
 creases in the same proportion, though much more 
 slowly on the upper side, where the eyebrow forms 
 
ON THE EYE. 261 
 
 a protection, than on the under side, where the ball of 
 the eye is more exposed. In this there is an instance 
 of that perfect economy which is so conspicuous in all 
 parts of the body, — the strength being always in exact 
 proportion to the occasion there is for it, so that no 
 part is deficient, or loaded by the weight of unnecessary 
 matter. This holds out a most useful lesson to all who 
 are engaged in the construction of machines ; and, were 
 this the place to follow out the details of the subject, 
 it would be easy to show that, in the human body, and 
 the bodies of all animals, the texture of the material 
 used is as admirably fitted to the purpose which it 
 serves, as the quantity. 
 
 When the finger is pressed against the eyeball at the 
 inner canthus, the light is seen in the direction of the 
 outer canthus ; and in whatever direction the pressing 
 finger moves the ball, or is moved upon it, the circles 
 of light appear to move in the opposite direction ; so 
 that the pressure is given at one end of a diameter of 
 the eyeball, and the sensation of light invariably ap- 
 pears to come from the opposite end. 
 
 This is a curious matter, and none of the explanations 
 of it which have been proposed are quite satisfactoiy. 
 It seems, however, that the retina, or that part of the 
 nervous tissue which lines the firmer coats of the ball, 
 is not affected in that part of it which is sentient to 
 ordinary light received through the pupil, but that the 
 sensation of light is felt on the inside of the coats, 
 immediately where the pressure is applied, ha\4ng 
 precisely the same effect there as if there were a lumin- 
 ous object presented to the eye at the very spot where 
 
262 THE COMMON EXPLANATION 
 
 the spectrum appears. We cannot suppose that there 
 is any thing resembling the propagation of a beam of 
 actual light from one part of the eye to another, as 
 light is propagated from point to point of the posterior 
 surface of a rain-drop when a rainbow is formed, be- 
 cause, though we do know something of the laws of 
 the motion and propagation of light, we know nothing 
 of any such laws of sensation. 
 
 This may convince us that the popular accounts 
 usually given are but ill calculated to explain the 
 structure and sensibility of the eye, to say nothing 
 about the more difficult matter of the sensation of 
 vision, or the still more difficult one of the knowledge 
 of the presence of a visible object. 
 
 The common explanation is, that the eye is a sort of 
 camera-obscura ; that the light entering at the pupil 
 is refracted by the lens, and produces an image or 
 picture of the objects before the eye on the retina, in 
 an inverted manner, just in the same manner as the 
 light simply admitted through a lens forms an inverted 
 image upon the table of a camera-obscura ; and that 
 this image is the real object seen. Now, those who 
 say this, never consider that, if the only eifect of the 
 eye were to form an image on the retina, another eye 
 would be required to see this image, and that the 
 mode of action in this second eye would be very dif- 
 ficult to explain. The fact is, that there is no evidence 
 whatever of the formation of any image upon the 
 retina of the eye in vision ; neither is it possible to 
 imagine the use of such an image, granting that it 
 were formed. What use would there be of the image 
 
OF THE EYE IS FAULTY. 263 
 
 when the object itself is before the eye ? When we 
 are in the presence of a friend, we do not need to fetch 
 his picture, or examine the image of him in a camera- 
 obscura, to know whether he actually is himself or not. 
 We look at the man, and we instantly recognise him ; 
 and we know him also by the tones of his voice, or, 
 if we are very familiar with him, we know the tread 
 of his foot. 
 
 It has been supposed that there is demonstration of 
 the formation of this image, in the fact that an image 
 is formed on the retina of an eye, when recently taken 
 from the head of an ox, or other animal ; but the 
 image so formed is a common optical phenomenon, 
 and has no more to do \xiih the sense of \-ision, than 
 the eye of the ox, when removed from the head of 
 the dead animal, has to do with seeing the grass on 
 the meadow or the rest of the herd. The retina is 
 transparent, and forms part of a globular body ; and 
 all such substances form images at their posterior 
 surfaces, — as any one may see by going into a chemist's 
 shop and looking at the circular show-bottles in the 
 windows. These give very distinct images of the 
 parties passing in the street ; and surely the bottles 
 do not see. The fact is, that this image formed on 
 the retina of the eye is nothing more than an instance 
 of that false and foundationless philosophy so long 
 fashionable in the schools, and not yet wholly exploded? 
 — that we do not perceive things themselves, but 
 merely the ideas or spectra of things, — a doctrine of 
 which there is not only not any proof, but which is 
 manifestly absurd, in supposing that there are two 
 
264 VISION IN THE EYE 
 
 worlds, — a world of reality and a world of perception, 
 and that we can have no knowledge of the former, 
 except what we obtain through the medium of the 
 latter. Those who are accustomed to virtual analysis 
 can at once see that this world of perception is, in 
 truth, nothing more than a personification of our per- 
 ceptions themselves ; but the majority of mankind are 
 much less capable of this process of analysis than they 
 ought to be — probably in consequence of the " parrot " 
 way in which they are cramped and spoiled by that 
 ridiculously-absurd mechanical process, which is er- 
 roneously called teaching ; and, therefore, the error 
 among them is more inveterate and difficult to be 
 removed. 
 
 The eye, being much more apparently mechanical 
 in part of its structure than any of the other sentient 
 organs of the body, has been mainly instrumental in 
 putting us wrong upon this subject ; and, therefore, 
 it is the best one to use when we endeavour to set 
 ourselves right. In so far as the " humours " of the 
 eye, — the aqueous humour in the fore part, the 
 vitreous humour in the body of the ball, and also 
 the lens, or " magnifying-glass of the eye," — are con- 
 cerned, these are certainly nothing but optical instru- 
 ments ; and, in as far as they are concerned, they can 
 be assisted by artificial lenses, such as are used in 
 spectacles, telescopes, and microscopes. But these 
 parts are not sentient to light, or apparently to any 
 thing else. They thus perform a mechanical office, 
 and nothing more ; and if their form, consistency, and 
 transparency, could be preserved after death, they 
 
IS NOT MECHANICAL. 
 
 265 
 
 would continue to perform their office, and perform 
 it just as well as though they still belonged to a-hody 
 living and in perfect health. To attempt explaining 
 the process of vision hy means of these would, there- 
 fore, be no nearer the purpose than attempting the 
 same by means of an opera-glass or a telescope. The 
 artificial instrument, and the natural one, thus far 
 considered, agree with each other in office : they do 
 not enable us to see, — they only enable us to see better 
 than we can do without them. They hold, in short, 
 the veiy same place in the process of sight that all 
 mechanical helps do in the cases where we use them 
 judiciously: they enable us to work better than we 
 could work without them ; but they are useless, unless 
 the principle of working is in ourselves. The shoulder 
 or the mouth may be taught to write, in the case of 
 those who have no hands and arms ; but the untaught 
 hand cannot write any more than the shoulder of the 
 same party. In matters which depend wholly upon 
 muscular exertion, we teach the whole body, even when 
 we intend to teach only a single member of it. Thus, 
 the right hand is the only part which is usually taught 
 to write ; but if necessary, any part of the body to 
 which a pen can be attached, and which can perform 
 the required motions, can write also. A sense which 
 is confined to a local and specific organ cannot be 
 taught to any part save that organ, and the portion 
 of the organ in which the faculty of the sense is 
 actually seated can be taught nothing but that sense, 
 and in that it of course wants no rudimental teaching, 
 though it may be improved by practice — which is 
 
 A A 
 
266 THE RETINA OF THE EYE. 
 
 indeed all that can be accomplished by education of 
 any kind. Hence, if we are to understand the opera- 
 tion of any sense, we must turn our attention to the 
 specific part or parts in which that sense is seated. 
 It is true that, in addition to the actual sentient sur- 
 face, or tissue, or whatever else it may be, we must 
 also attend to the muscles by which that tissue is 
 worked, or by which the preparing organs, if any, are 
 made to bear upon it ; but still the sentient portion 
 itself is the principal subject. 
 
 The retina^ or membrane which lines the ball of 
 the eye, and incloses the humours as far forward as 
 the iris, is unquestionably the seat of vision, and 
 therefore the subject which claims our chief attention. 
 The word "retina" does not mean a "net- work," 
 as is often supposed, but simply that which " holds," 
 or "retains," the impression of the light, from the 
 verb retineo, to hold, or keep hold of ; and thus it is 
 well expressive of the office of this membrane. It 
 consists of three parts : first, the internal tunic be- 
 tween the other parts of the retina and the vitreous 
 humour of the eye ; secondly, the middle or medul- 
 lary part, which is supposed to be nervous matter, and 
 the entrance of the optic nerve into which forms a 
 conspicuous spot in which there is no sense of vision, 
 and which is on this account called punctum ccecum^ 
 the blind point ; and, thirdly, a very fine membrane, 
 which forms the exterior or posterior surface of the 
 retina, which adapts itself very intimately to all the 
 little irregularities in the pulpy mass which lies be- 
 tween the two membranes. This thin membrane, or 
 
FUNCTIONS OF THE EYE. 2G7 
 
 the mere surface of it, or the surface of contact be- 
 tween it and the pulpy mass which has been called 
 nervous matter, appears to be the real seat of vision, 
 though the membrane is so thin, and the point at 
 issue so nice, that one cannot speak very decidedly 
 respecting it. In the living subject, all the three 
 parts of the retina are perfectly transparent, so that 
 whatever light enters the eye must penetrate to the 
 posterior surface ; and this is at least one of the 
 reasons for concluding that the posterior membrane, 
 or its surface, is the immediate organ of vision. It 
 has been supposed that the optic neiTe, which enters 
 the pulpy substance of the retina, transmits the sen- 
 sation to the sensorium ; but both the sensorium and 
 the transmission are hypotheses without proof; and 
 the fact of the nerve itself being quite insensible to 
 light is against the truth of the hypothesis, though not 
 conclusively — as there is nothing conclusive against 
 any hypothesis, but the proof of the contrary of what 
 that hypothesis asserts. • 
 
 A little spot in the centre of the retina remains 
 transparent after the rest of the organ begins to be 
 obscured by decay in the dead subject ; and this little 
 spot is one which is worthy of attention, if we wish 
 to understand how the eye acts in the process of 
 seeing. This point, which we may call the centre of 
 the retina, or centre of the se?ise of vision, is in the 
 middle of the posterior pail of the eye, in like manner 
 as the centre of the pupil, or opening in the iris — and 
 which may be called the centre of the light, or medium 
 of vision — is in the middle of the anterior part. A line 
 
268 • FIELD OF VIEW, AND 
 
 joining these two points is the axis of the eyfe, and 
 this line, or axis of the eye, if supposed to be produced 
 outwards to any object towards which the eye is 
 directed, is the line of sight, or axis of view, and the 
 point in which it meets the object is the point of sight, 
 or centre of the field of view — that is, of all that is 
 visible to us in that particular position of the eye. 
 
 Our field of view, when uninterrupted, is always a 
 circular space, but it varies in extent according to 
 circumstances : thus it is broader in proportion to the 
 distance when near than when remote ; but in this 
 respect it is indefinite, as it depends not a little upon 
 the objects which are in the field. If it is uniform 
 throughout, we see more of it than when there are 
 some prominent objects upon which the eye can rest, 
 but it is also much more tiresome to look at. An ex- 
 tent of flat sand or heath, or even of rich meadow or 
 luxuriant corn-field, has no charm for the eye com- 
 pared with a scene broken by hills and rocks, and 
 streams and waterfalls, with clumps of trees, and 
 cottages and a church-spire looking over some em- 
 bowering thicket. So also a picture in which the 
 chiaroscuro is well managed, by throwing both light 
 and shade into masses, has a charm which we cannot 
 find even in a superior picture if it is flat — that is, if 
 all the objects in it appear equally illuminated. No 
 doubt there are secondary or mental feelings which 
 mingle in our general impression upon such subjects ; 
 but, independently of these, there is a difference to the 
 eye, felt by that organ at the very first glance. 
 
 A cone of light may be considered as coming from 
 
ITS PROPERTIES. 2G9 
 
 this field of view, the axis of which cone is the axis of 
 view, and the apex or point of it the focus of the eye. 
 The effect of the lenses of the eye is to shorten this 
 cone, by bringing the field of view apparently nearer 
 to the eye, upon the very same principle as a tele- 
 scope appears to bring objects nearer. The reciprocal 
 of the fraction of the real distance, to which objects 
 are apparently brought by the telescope or other 
 optical instrument, is called the power of the instru- 
 ment : thus, a telescope which represents objects as 
 at one-fourth of their real distance, is said to have a 
 power of four, and so on in other cases. 
 
 Objects in the centre of the field of view are always 
 the most clearly seen, because the light comes most 
 directly from them, and enters the eye in the most 
 favourable manner. Light which falls obliquely upon 
 the eye is partly dispersed by reflection, both at the 
 external surface of the cornea and at the anterior sur- 
 face of the ciystalline lens. In consequence of this, 
 the field of \ie\v is never a space of which we can de- 
 fine the boundaries, for the visible gradually melts 
 away into the invisible ; and we can rarely examine 
 the field with a steady eye, both because it is very 
 difiicult to keep the eye steady without a particular 
 object, and because it is difiicult to find a real field of 
 view in which there shall not be some object more 
 attractive to the eye than the rest of the field is. 
 Some have attempted to define the extent to which 
 the field of view can be distinctly seen ; but it does 
 not appear that the subject is a definite one, for it 
 seems to be affected both by the distance of the field 
 
 A a3 
 
270 CENTRE OF VISION. 
 
 and the peculiar formation of the eye. If the field is 
 near, we can see more of it in angular distance than 
 if it is remote : at a foot distance, we can see the 
 whole length of an object a foot long, but we cannot 
 see an object a mile long at the distance of a mile. 
 The column of air through which the light has to 
 €ome to us, in the case of the long distance, robs us 
 of a portion of the light of that object, and substitutes 
 its own light instead ; and this is the foundation of 
 what is called aerial perspective. 
 
 But besides the difference of the light which comes 
 to us from different parts of the field of view, and the 
 different modifications of it by the instrumental parts 
 of the eye, there is a difference in the sensibility of 
 the retina as the recipient of the impression ; and this 
 is one of the most important considerations in the 
 study of the eye. We have remarked that the centre 
 ■of the retina — the point where the axis of the eye 
 meets it — remains transparent, when all the rest has 
 become opaque and clouded, after death ; and this 
 point is also much more sensible to light in the living 
 eye than any other part of the retina. We do not 
 mean to say that there is in the centre of the retina a 
 certain definite spot which is all over more sensible to 
 light than the rest of the member, and beyond which 
 dimness begins at a specific boundary. There is 
 nothing of the kind. The centre is the point of 
 greatest susceptibility, and the faculty gradually les- 
 sens as we recede from the centre every way. The 
 law according to which it diminishes has not been 
 very clearly examined, and probably it is one which 
 
VARIATION IN THE RETINA. 271 
 
 cannot be determined, nor would the determining of 
 it be a matter of much importance. The fact itself 
 is, • however, a veiy interesting one, as without this 
 diminishing susceptibility of the retina from the centre 
 outwards, there are many circumstances under which 
 we should hardly be able to see any object. 
 
 ^^'e shall notice some of these circumstances by and 
 by ; but ^here appears to be another advantage in this 
 gradual change of the nature of the retina. From 
 being a merely sensible membrane of high delicacy at 
 its centre, it becomes gi-adually less sensible, and 
 acquires something of a muscular character as it ap- 
 proaches the iris ; and in the iris itself, the effect pro- 
 duced by light is muscular action. In this arrange- 
 ment we may observe economy of parts and perfection 
 of the organ jointly obtained ; for we have two dif- 
 ferent sensibilities to light, seated in the opposite parts 
 of this membrane, and overlaying each other in the 
 parts which are intermediate. The sensibility to light 
 as we approach nearer to the iris, is proved by the 
 experiment of pressing the finger on the inner side of 
 the eye, so as to bring out the circles of light which 
 appear in the opposite part. If the pressure is made 
 as far back upon the ball as possible, the circles or 
 zones of light are veiy bright ; and they are less and 
 less bright, with the same degree of pressure, as that 
 pressure is applied nearer and nearer to the iris ; and 
 if on the iris itself, no light appears, even from a pres- 
 sure much greater than that which produces brilliant 
 zones, when applied far back on the ball. 
 
 Now, as this production of light by pressure, so far 
 
272 DIRECT VIEWS 
 
 as one can carry the experiment without inconve- 
 nience, diminishes as the internal sensibility to light 
 diminishes, and must also increase as it increases — 
 which is only stating the same fact the other way — 
 it becomes highly probable, that if we could continue 
 the pressure all the way to the centre of the retina, 
 the light would increase, till, at the centre itself, it 
 would have the appearance of a bright beam_ entering 
 at the pupil, just as is the case when that part is 
 w^ounded by a pointed instniment. This does not 
 prove certainly that vision is produced by the im- 
 pinging of the light on the retina, but it renders the 
 fact probable. 
 
 The muscular feeling, which increases in the inner 
 coat of the eye as the feeling of vision diminishes, 
 appears to be an impatience of light, or a resistance 
 of it, or shrinking from it. This is veiy conspicuous 
 in the contraction of the iris when exposed to strong 
 lights, and also in the fact that a strong light coming 
 obliquely on the eye pains or fatigues it more than a 
 similar light coming directly ; and this is of some im- 
 portance in helping us to use the eye to the best 
 advantage — that is, in making the most use of the 
 centre of the retina. 
 
 In doing this, there is a double advantage. The 
 centre of the eye affords not only much clearer vision, 
 but vision much less distorted by refractions and 
 parallaxes, than portions of the retina distant from the 
 centre ; and the eye is at once converted into an in- 
 strument by which distances can be measured by mus- 
 cular feeling, much in the same way that muscular 
 
AND SIDE GLANCES. 273 
 
 feeling converts the sense of touch in the fingers into a 
 measure of distance. 
 
 That our having the best view of any object, or part 
 of an object, must be a great advantage to us, requires 
 no illustration, for it is self-evident ; and any one can 
 readily revert to instances of the superior information 
 obtained by a front view over a side glance, even with 
 equal \\-ishes of information, and equal time spent in 
 looking. By a " side glance" we do not, however, 
 mean glancing sideways with the eye turned in the 
 head, and the axis directed to the object, but glances 
 in which the axis does not or cannot reach the object, 
 so that a side-light is all that can come to the eye. 
 As to the simple fact of seeing, it is of little conse- 
 quence how the eye is situated in respect to the head, 
 so that the axis is upon the object looked at ; but 
 when the eyeball is very much turned to one side, the 
 muscles which are inserted upon the whole ball, and 
 give it its motions, are strained, and therefore there is 
 less command over the eye, less power in it as a mea- 
 suring instrument ; and it examines an object in detail 
 with more difficulty than when it is in a fonvard 
 position. 
 
 The natural desire which we have to examine an 
 object makes us bring the axis of the eye to bear 
 upon it ; and, as the ball is turned by the muscles, 
 and not by any power in itself, the desire really ad- 
 dresses itself, not to the power of vision in the eye, 
 but to the muscular feeling. The inner coat of the 
 eye assists, however, in this process ; for that im- 
 patience of light, which becomes stronger as the light 
 
274 MOTION OF THE AXIS, 
 
 is more oblique and the vision less perfect, moves the 
 oblique part away from the light, or, in other words, 
 it tends to move the centre of the eye into the centre 
 of the light. 
 
 The double provision which there naturally is for 
 the motion of the axis of the eye, and the celerity with 
 which that motion is in consequence made, show that 
 this is a very important part of our economy, and it 
 is one which can be very much cultivated by practice. 
 A person little accustomed to reading takes a con- 
 siderable time to read one page of a book ; so long, 
 indeed, that he is not able to carry the meaning with 
 him from beginning to end, though he may perfectly 
 understand every individual word, phrase, and sen- 
 tence ; but one who has been much accustomed to 
 reading can run over a page while he draws his finger, 
 at a moderate rate, from top to bottom ; and the 
 chance — nay, the certainty — is, that if he can run 
 over a book skilfully in this way, he shall lay it down 
 with a much clearer and more useful knowledge of its 
 scope and contents than if he read it word by word, 
 and weighed the merits of it sentence by sentence. 
 We grant that this is not the way to study a book, 
 but it is the way to find out whether a book is worth 
 studying ; and this is a matter of considerable im- 
 portance, except in the case of books of amusement, 
 which are read only for the sake of the 'stoiy, and of 
 which the interest would be lost if the story were 
 known beforehand. 
 
 The same advantage is obtained by glancing over a 
 landscape, or any subject consisting of many parts ; 
 
AND ITS USES. 275 
 
 and a person who is accustomed to this kind of ob- 
 servation can see more, enjoy more, and learn more, 
 in one hour, than one who drudges on from detail to 
 detail can do in a week. This process may be called 
 generalisation by the eye ; and the eye is the only 
 organ of sense which can generalise rapidly, and with 
 proper effect. The fact is, that it is this quickness in 
 the eye which forms the essence of what is called a 
 habit of observ'ation ; and no one who has not seen 
 the effects could be aware of the vast superiority that 
 it gives, and the very little trouble with which it may 
 be acquired. It is not trouble at all, indeed ; for the 
 great power which the veiy first essay of it proves to 
 have been acquired, makes pleasure of all the future 
 practice. 
 
 Thus, in judging of relations or comparisons, in 
 which there is both a muscular feeling and a mental 
 process, the ready use of the eye is of far more value 
 to us than that of any other organ ; and in this way 
 the eye can do far more for its owner than that owner 
 can show to others. Virtually, it can divide space 
 without limit, though we cannot mark the spaces so 
 divided beyond a certain measure, and that depends 
 on the keenness of the eye and the nature of the sub- 
 stances used. If the eye is very fine, and the mark- 
 ings also, less than the hundredth part of an inch can 
 be marked off. This, it is true, is nothing to what 
 the hand can do, because the real pencil or style which 
 the eye carries — namely, its axis of vision — cannot 
 make any mark, and the hand is called in as recorder ; 
 but the actual division which the eye can make, by 
 
276 RAPID MOTION OF THE EYE. 
 
 means of its axis, is far more minute than even the 
 two thousand five hundred parts into which the hand 
 can divide a single inch. The hand and the eye are 
 the only organs which we ever employ in extending 
 our knowledge of the material world ; and in range, 
 in rapidity, and in accuracy, without some actual 
 application of a standard, the eye is certainly the 
 superior of the two. Both of them work by means of 
 the same measuring instrument — namely, the mus- 
 cular feeling ; and both require a mental reference 
 before that which they are the means of acquiring 
 can amount to knowledge ; but in the use of its mus- 
 cular measure, the eye is both more ready than the 
 hand and more accurate. The eye can glance over 
 every letter in a page before the finger can be pointed 
 individually to each letter in two or three lines. There 
 is one advantage in the muscles of the eye : the extent 
 of motion — the space which the axis of vision travels 
 over, is told upon single lengths of muscles, without 
 the intervention of any bones and joints. Thus, the 
 sense of the motion is obtained at once ; but in moving 
 the finger, if it is over any considerable distance, the 
 hand, the fore-arm, the arm, and even the body, may 
 come into play ; and as there are a great many muscles 
 at work in this, we could hardly reduce them to cal- 
 culation, and the mind can give a very inadequate 
 estimate of them. Then the process is so much slower 
 in comparison than that by the eye, that time enters 
 into the estimate ; and we are very apt to judge of 
 the space passed over from the time, without reference 
 to the muscular exertion, which is the real measure. 
 
COMPOUND LIGHTS. * lit 
 
 Thus, when we do not see them at the same time, or 
 do not see them at all, we have very different notions 
 of the lengths of two equal rods, along which we pass 
 the hand slowly in the case of the one and quickly in 
 the case of the other, with the eyes shut both times. 
 
 The advantages which we derive from the dimi- 
 nished visual sensibility of the retina as we recede 
 from the centre of it, in respect of clearness of vision, 
 is a very important matter, both in enabling us to fix 
 our attention upon any particular object in the field 
 of our view, and for enabling us to see objects at all, 
 in certain positions of the light in which we view them. 
 In the common use of our eyes, in daylight or an illu- 
 minated apartment, we generally have two lights to 
 deal with, the one of which shows us the object at 
 which we look, and the other prevents us from seeing 
 that object. We see all objects which are not lumi- 
 nous by means of reflected light j and luminous objects, 
 if they are brilliant, are less definite to the sight than 
 objects which give no light of their own : the disc of 
 the unclouded sun is much less definite to our view 
 than the disc of the unclouded moon, and the light of 
 a lamp is neither so bright nor seen so far, as the re- 
 flection of the sun from a window-pane. 
 
 If a painting is varnished, or a print framed and 
 glazed, there are two separate lights given out by the 
 surface : one from the varnish or the glass, which is 
 the entire light reflected without any distinction of 
 colours, or lights and shadows ; and the other, which 
 shows the colours, because each coloured portion 
 absorbs all the light except that portion which forms 
 ^ B B 
 
278 ADAPTATION OiP THE EYE 
 
 its o\vn colour. The first of these lights is reflected 
 from the picture at the same angle at which it falls 
 upon it, only it is reflected the other way ; and if the 
 light is strong and falls obliquely, and we stand in 
 the way that it comes oif in reflection, we see nothing 
 but a shining surface ; but if we shift out of this posi- 
 tion, so as to get more directly in front of the picture, 
 we see the colours. The light from these is sent off 
 in many directions, though in some better than in 
 others ; and thus a picture does not appear quite the 
 same when seen in different lights, either in respect 
 of their intensity or of the direction in which they 
 come. These are partial matters, however. 
 
 But when we are abroad in the sun, or where there 
 is a strong light, and especially where there are two 
 strong cross lights, our vision is a little disturbed as 
 it is, and would be vastly more so if it were not for 
 the diminished sensibility of the retina as we recede 
 from the centre. The light of the sun, which comes 
 to us directly, comes fully to us, while the objects 
 which we see by means of that light reflect only a 
 portion of it. Thus, if they were to affect the retina 
 equally, the stronger would in a great measure hide 
 the weaker, and the light of the sun would, so to 
 speak, put out the other one. Constnicted as our 
 eyes are in the manner most advantageous for seeing 
 in this light, we feel not only great difficulty in getting 
 distinct vision, but great pain in the eyes, when the 
 objects we wish to look at are near the bright sun in 
 position. When the sun has just risen in a clear 
 morning, the objects in the eastern horizon are veiy 
 
TO MIXED LIGHTS. 279 
 
 indistinct ; and those in the western horizon are 
 equally indistinct when the sun is near setting. At 
 mid-day, with a clear sun, the objects in the south 
 are most obscure, though being in shadow they make 
 a contrast with the sky. Those in the east and the 
 west are most characteristic in their masses, or have 
 the boldest relief, as they have all the advantages of 
 light and shade ; but those in the north have their 
 details best made out, and their colours most perfect. 
 Some attention to these effects of different positions 
 of the direct and reflected light are of much use, in 
 giving that effect of light and shade to scenery which 
 harmonises best with the character of the subjects, 
 and also to those who wish to derive the gi'eatest 
 pleasure from the use of their eyes in viewing the 
 country — an occupation fraught with much more 
 health and pleasure, and instruction, than many are 
 aware of. If you would see the grandeur of some 
 stately tower, or other large and opaque object, get it 
 between you and the sun, and approach it near enough 
 to be in its shadow ; if you would judge of the finest 
 effect of an ornamental tree or shrub, view it across 
 the sun ; and if you would find out the delicate 
 beauties of a flower, or inspect any other minute 
 object to the most advantage, turn your back to the 
 sun, and let it be in your shadow. The education of 
 the eye in these matters is a delightful task, but it is 
 one of those in which one hint is better than fifty 
 teachers. 
 
 The cases in which the two lights interfere, and 
 
280 VARIOUS POSITIONS 
 
 one of them weakens the other, are very numerous. 
 If a candle is placed in the window, those without 
 cannot see what goes on in the room nearly so well as 
 if the candle were against the opposite wall, because 
 the direct light from the candle is more powerful than 
 the reflected light from the objects in the room. It is 
 upon the same principle that, when a reader's eyes 
 begin to fail, he holds the book on the other side of 
 the candle, and places it so that the direct light of the 
 candle does not fall upon his eyes ; and it is upon the 
 same principle still, that a shade over the lamp or 
 candle is so advantageous both for clearness of sight 
 and for saving of the eyes. What is going on inside 
 a house in daylight is never so well seen by those who 
 are without, as what is going on without is seen by 
 those within, because of the diminished light that 
 comes out ; and after a certain obliquity to the plane 
 of the window, one cannot see into the room at all. 
 
 Objects in the direction over which the sun is at 
 mid-day, are less distinctly seen in winter than in 
 summer, because the light of the sun is more nearly 
 in the direction of the eye ; and the nearer the equator 
 the place is, the sunward view at mid-day is the more 
 distinct. When the sun is in the zenith, the mid-day 
 view is clear, and equally clear in all directions. 
 Hence, when a large apartment is lighted by one 
 brilliant chandelier placed high in the centre, the light 
 is far more pleasant, and the contents of the room are 
 more generally and more clearly seen, than by any 
 number of lights placed nearly on the same level with 
 
OF LIGHT. 281 
 
 the eye. Hence, also, the great advantage of a light 
 from the top, especially in the studios of artists, and in 
 picture-galleries and collections of statues. 
 
 If the direct light comes exactly in the same direc- 
 tion as the reflected light by which an object can be 
 seen, there is no construction of eye that can render 
 the object distinct ; but there are not very many 
 instances in which we are reduced to this, the least 
 favourable use of our organs of sight. If the direct 
 light is a strong one and the reflected very weak, as in 
 the case of a partial eclipse of the sun, where we have 
 the full light of the sun from the uneclipsed part, 
 and only the reflection of the earth upon the moon, 
 a shade of coloured or smoked glass, or even a hand- 
 kerchief of fine texture put on the eyes, folded as 
 many times as may be necessary, takes off the glare 
 of the sun, and enables us to get a clearer view of the 
 whole phenomenon. 
 
 Had the retina been equally sentient through a large 
 portion of its extent, w^e should have had veiy little 
 use of our eyes in bright sunny days, because so 
 many side-lights would have come in upon us, all 
 equally strong with the light from the object which 
 we wished to see, that we should never have been 
 able to get a clear ^n.ew of that object. Various noc- 
 turnal animals, and owls in an especial manner, appear 
 to have the active part of the retina much more ex- 
 tended than it is in ]\Ian. This is obviously necessary, 
 because the fainter light by which they have to seek 
 their prey requires a larger field on which to produce 
 its effect. But when these animals are forced to 
 
 B b3 
 
282 RANGE OF THE EYE. 
 
 come abroad in clear sunshine, they are so bewildered 
 by the cross lights that they are unable to see their 
 way, and thus they may be taken by the hand. If the 
 day is very dark, however, they see better ; and the 
 larger owls of the higher latitudes seek for prey the 
 whole day long, when the air is darkened by thick 
 clouds or snow-storms. A total eclipse of the sun will 
 also send the day-birds to their perches, and bring out 
 the owls. 
 
 Such are a few particulars, relative to the functions, 
 uses, and in part the culture of the eye, — the most 
 beautiful, and in some respects the most interesting 
 of all the organs of sense, and one which might be 
 far better cultivated, and turned to much more plea- 
 surable and profitable account than it is with most of 
 us. A cultivated and industrious eye is certainly, next 
 to good health, the most valuable of all our physical 
 enjoyments. It is the one which makes the nearest 
 approach to mind itself in the range and rapidity of 
 its power. Twenty or thirty miles is the utmost 
 extent at which the ear can catch even the loudest 
 sound with which we are acquainted, and to do this 
 the circumstances must be peculiarly favourable. 
 Then the^^in which comes thus murmured from afar 
 is really nothing in signification ; for we can tell 
 nothing about what occasions it, and it is only under 
 particular circumstances that we can tell the direction 
 in which it comes. The eye can see at the distance 
 of more miles than the ear can hear at hairbreadths, 
 and it can be the means of guiding us to accurate 
 knowledge, at distances greater in the same propor- 
 
INFERIOR SENSES. 283 
 
 tion than those at which the ear can give us any know- 
 ledge ; and, in its own peculiar department, it can 
 accomplish more in an hour than the hand can in a 
 month. It touches so nearly upon intellect, however, 
 and holds intercourse so directly with that, that the 
 consideration of it must be partially renewed in the 
 volume on " Intellectual Man." 
 
 The senses of smelling and tasting can scarcely be 
 said to come within the denomination of senses of 
 perception, or at all events of senses of information, 
 as the sensations which they communicate are simply 
 those of pleasure or pain, and not of a nature upon 
 which any thing like information can be founded. 
 They sympathise with each other, but they sympathise 
 little with any of the other senses, and, one may say, 
 nothing at all with muscular feeling, which may be 
 regarded as the grand means of connexion and inter- 
 course between the sensations of the body and the 
 perceptions of the mind. They are thus the most 
 exclusively animal of all our senses, and admit of very 
 little in the way of cultivation ; — although, to those who 
 have their enjoyment more in and for the body than 
 in the higher pursuits which become the dignity of 
 beings endowed with the means of acquiring know- 
 ledge without limit, and being happy in the exercise 
 and enjoyment of that knowledge for ages without 
 end, they form not a little of the occupation and the 
 enjoyment of life. The freshness of nature is delight- 
 ful, and that wholesome food should be gi-ateful is an 
 indication of a healthy state of the system, and a pledge 
 of its continuance ; but they who have to stifle their 
 
284 SENSATION OF 
 
 own effluvia in artificial odours, and spur their jaded 
 palates by meretricious dainties, are more deserving of 
 our pity than worthy of our imitation. 
 
 The ear is an organ of a different character, and the 
 sense of hearing, of which it is the seat, is the inlet of 
 much knowledge, and the source of some of the most 
 exquisite pleasures of our existence. The ear has not 
 the same direct communication with the muscular 
 sense as the eye or the hand ; but still the sympathy 
 between them is not less complete, if indeed it is 
 not, in some respects, more so. In the ear, as in the 
 eye, there is a double function, one having reference 
 to the external world, and the other to the body. 
 The first of these is the proper function of the ear, 
 and the other belongs to it in common with all parts 
 of the body that have feeling of any kind — and, if we 
 except the salts of lime in the bones, there is pro- 
 bably no part which has not some kind of feeling, 
 whether we are acquainted with it, or have even the 
 remotest consciousness of it in our own case. A very 
 serious injury cannot be done to any part of the body 
 which is in itself sentient, without a communication 
 to all the other parts, and in the case of the localised 
 senses, each sense receives its information in its own 
 particular way. A violent injury done to the head, 
 if such as not to put an end to all sensation, tells 
 as lightning to the eyes, and as thunder to the ears. 
 Sir Charles Bell mentions that, in the case of an 
 officer, through the bones of whose face a musket- 
 ball had passed, " he felt as if there had been a flash 
 of lightning, accompanied with a sound like the shut- 
 
THE EAR. 285 
 
 ting of the door of St. Paul's." The flash to the eyes 
 is instantly over, but the sound in the ears is more 
 prolonged ; and accordingly we find, that when the 
 head is struck severely and unexpectedly against any 
 obstacle, the party generally puts the hands to the ears 
 before knowing what really has happened. 
 
 It would be to no purpose that we should minutely 
 describe the parts of the ear ; for the most skilful 
 anatomist by whom those parts ever were demon- 
 strated, can no more tell us that the ear is so con- 
 structed as that it must hear, than the man who knows 
 no more of its structure than can be seen by that 
 casual glance which we throw upon things perfectly 
 indifferent to us. We may indeed inform ourselves 
 that there is an opening which leads to very intricate 
 cavities in the bone, and that we come at last to a 
 fluid in which filaments connected with what we call 
 the auditory nerve are bathed ; and we call this the 
 especial organ of hearing. But we cannot tell what 
 particular, either 'in the form or the substance, makes 
 it so, or even that it is so. The nerve itself, of which 
 these filaments appear to be prolongations, does not 
 hear ; and though the dividing of it destroys the sense 
 of hearing, we have no right to say that the nerve con- 
 veys the faculty of this sensation from the brain to the 
 filaments, or the sensation itself from the filaments to 
 the brain. Air, light, heat, and humidity, and probably 
 many other matters which we do not know, are neces- 
 sary before a plant can expand a flower, and prepare 
 and fertilise and ripen seeds ; but we cannot take 
 upon us to say that all these could of themselves pro- 
 
286 OBSCURITY or thk 
 
 duce the seed of a plant : that is specific, and must 
 either be of the plant itself, or not at all. It is the 
 same with the organ of hearing. It is a specific part 
 of the animal organisation, varied so as to be in all 
 cases the best fitted for the pui'poses of the animal ; 
 and it must derive its nourishment from other parts, 
 because there is in the animal a special system for the 
 nourishment of the whole, and according as any part 
 requires a different kind of supply from the arterial 
 blood which is distributed over the whole body, organs 
 of secretion are always produced for the purpose. But 
 no matter, of what kind soever it be, can be elabo- 
 rated into a sensation, for a sensation is not matter ; 
 and surely it would be absurd to say that matter could, 
 by the action of any material apparatus, be that appa- 
 ratus what it might, be changed into that which is not 
 matter. That the nerve does supply the peculiar 
 organ of hearing with something which is essential to 
 the faculty of hearing is certain, because the faculty 
 ceases when the nerve is destroyed ; but that it sup- 
 plies it with the faculty, or conveys that faculty or the 
 exercise of it in one way or another, is a mere asser- 
 tion, which is not only without proof, but contrary to 
 all probability — as absurd as if one were to assert that 
 the only way to become an adept in Greek is to live 
 in indolent seclusion, and drink copiously of port 
 wine. 
 
 It is the same in the case of every other sense, 
 whether more local or more diffused, and whether in 
 Man or in any other animal. We cannot tell whence 
 it arises or how it acts ; and though, by the indirect 
 
PROCESS OF SENSATION. 287 
 
 process of destroying certain paiis of the organisation, 
 or seeing them as naturally destroyed, we come to the 
 conclusion that the organ with whose destruction the 
 sense ceases is the seat of the sense, yet we have no 
 absolute certainty upon even this point. Thus, when 
 we examine the subject of sensation, calmly and with- 
 out prejudice or hypothesis one way or another, we 
 find that we are in exactly the same predicament with 
 regard to it, as with regard to the subject of mind. 
 Certain impressions are made upon certain organs of 
 our bodies, which are not made upon any other parts : 
 we call the faculty of receiving the impression a sense, 
 and we call the part to which we trace it the organ of 
 that sense ; and if we find a similar organ in another 
 individual, whether of our own species or of any other, 
 we immediately conclude, upon the general principle 
 which guides us in all our reasonings, that the same 
 organ is endowed with similar sensation in that indi- 
 vidual. If we find that the use made of the organ is 
 not the same, then we examine in order to ascertain 
 what difference there is^in the organ ; or if we find a 
 difference in the organ, we examine in order to ascer- 
 tain with what difi"erence in the application it is at- 
 tended, and, by proceeding in this manner, we have 
 arrived at whatever knowledge of the animal creation 
 we possess. But we cannot prove the locality or even 
 the existence of any of these senses in any other way 
 than by these efi"ects. So that sensation is in reality 
 a matter of belief — and the very fact of our existence, 
 when we examine it narrowly, is traceable to the very 
 same foundation, and to no other. 
 
288 HEARING. 
 
 The case of the mind is nothing different in princi- 
 ple, only we can refer the mind to no particular organ, 
 neither can we say that the whole body regarded in 
 its combination is the organ of the mind in the same 
 way that we may call it the common organ of the 
 senses, in their sympathies and combined actions. The 
 senses themselves are the organs of the mind — if indeed 
 we can call them organs ; and those senses are not, 
 as we have seen, material, nor can they be originated 
 or produced by any combination or process of mere 
 matter. Mind is a step further than this from any 
 thing that matter can produce from its mere properties 
 as matter. 
 
 Hearing is one of the senses by which the human 
 body is specially fitted for its connexion with the mind ; 
 and though, in proportion as the mind is more exer- 
 cised in knowing, judging, and planning, all the senses 
 acquire more of an intellectual character, yet hearing 
 is especially the intellectual sense, even more so than 
 vision, valuable as that sense is in its nature, and 
 extensive as it is in its range, after it has once been 
 cultivated. As is the case with vision, so with hearing, 
 there are many animals which have the mere sensa- 
 tion more acute than it is in Man ; but there appear to 
 be no others in which the ear can become an inlet of 
 general knowledge. 
 
 That the senses of animals are susceptible of a 
 peculiar kind of cultivation, no one can deny ; and it 
 will also be readily granted that this may be accom- 
 plished either by human training or by the animals 
 themselves. Plants are susceptible of cultivation, for 
 
MAN AND ANIMALS, 
 
 289 
 
 they obey the hand of the grower, and they adapt 
 themselves to situations and circumstances without 
 any human assistance ; and it would be strange indeed 
 if the animals had not similar power. Animals have 
 senses ; the muscular sense is excited by the senses of 
 observation and feeling, and muscular action follows 
 the excitement in them as well as in Man. The grand 
 difference is, that in them this constitutes the whole 
 process ; they have no occupation but animal action, 
 and no stimulus to this action but their senses ; while 
 Man has an internal train of operations, by which he 
 can plan whatever he wishes to plan, and put that 
 plan into execution, or desist from it, without any 
 immediate stimulus from the senses of the body. By 
 this means the process of education in Man can go on 
 independently of the objects of sense, and Man can 
 know a great deal more than he ever had any bodily 
 experience of. 
 
 Dogs, for instance, may be very clever animals in all 
 matters that come under their sensal observation ; 
 but no dog can know what dogs were doing in the 
 days of Julius Csesar, or what they are now doing in 
 China. If they knew this last, there would, in all 
 probability, be a canine crusade against the Celestial 
 Empire for the horrid practice of eating dogs, to which 
 the inhabitants of that empire are so much addicted. 
 This is at least one instance of the fundamental dis- 
 tinction, and we find one of the strongest physical 
 proofs of it in considering the connexion of the ear, or 
 the sense of hearing. 
 
 We have already observed that there is no obvious 
 
 c c 
 
290 SYMPATHY BETWEEN 
 
 physical measure in the ear, at all answering to that 
 which the eye employs when its axis travels over the 
 length of a line or any dimension of an object : but, on 
 the other hand, there is no immediate connexion be- 
 tween the eye and the organs of voice ; while between 
 the ear and those organs there is one of the strongest 
 connexions which can be found in the whole physical 
 system of Man. 
 
 The organs of voice are so very different in Man 
 from the organs of noise in the other mammalia, that 
 the capacity for voice in him almost merits the name 
 of a peculiar sense. We have no satisfactory evidence 
 of what sounds those organs would pronounce, if the 
 party had no example to learn by ; but we do know 
 that those who are born deaf have naturally no voice, 
 however perfect their organs may be ; and when they 
 are taught to articulate, their sounds are hollow, mo- 
 notonous, and destitute of expression. Sounds which 
 reach the ear from the organs of voice, or from the 
 mouth generally, — for the whole mouth is concerned 
 in the process of speech, — are better heard and more 
 sonorous than those that enter by the external ears. 
 This is at once proved by a well-known and simple 
 experiment. Fasten a bit of string to the top of the 
 poker ; take the end of the string between the teeth, 
 and swing the' poker so that it shall strike gentle blows 
 against the fender. If the ears are left open, the 
 blows will tell only as a tinkling noise ; but if they are 
 closely shut, th« sound of the blows will be as sonor- 
 ous as the tolling of a bell, and far from disagreeable. 
 When a rustic listens to a marvellous tale, he does not 
 
THE EAR AND VOICE, 291 
 
 turn his ear to the teller, but faces him open-mouthed, 
 as if he were swallowing the sounds. Other instances 
 will suggest themselves to any one who chooses to 
 attend to the subject. 
 
 Now this remarkable sympathy between the organs 
 of hearing and the organs of speech not only points 
 out that it must have a purpose, but it points otit 
 what that purpose is. Man not only hears the voices 
 of his fellow men, by means of the outward ears, in 
 the same manner as he hears other sounds ; but he 
 has an inward and more perfect hearing of his own 
 voice, directly through the connexion between the 
 mouth and the ears. It is certain that this inward 
 hearing is always simultaneous with the utterance of 
 speech ; and it is highly probable that, in all cases in 
 which the words are spoken with earnestness and feel- 
 ing, the ear takes the lead, and the feeling thereby 
 suggested so modulates and tunes the noise, that the 
 character of the sounds carries the passion which the 
 speaker feels or wishes to express home to the feelings 
 of the hearers ; and carries it with so much power that 
 they whom no reasoning would convince, are carried 
 captive by mere sound. This is greatly the case 
 among men in a rude state of society ; and an impas- 
 sioned speaker, who tunes his voice to^_the feelings, 
 captivates our attention, even although we understand 
 not a word of the language in which he speaks. The 
 expression of the face and the gestures of the body no 
 doubt contribute largely to the whole effect ; but we 
 are strongly affected by the sounds alone, when the 
 
292 POPULAR HARANGUERS. 
 
 speaker is concealed, as well as the language un- 
 known. 
 
 In those who address popular audiences, we have 
 veiy remarkable instances of this. The speaker who 
 leads the crowd as he lists is never the man who ad- 
 dresses himself most closely to their understandings, 
 or who himself has the clearest perceptions and the 
 most correct and useful views on the subject. He is 
 very often a man of little knowledge and less principle ; 
 and these are among the most successful qualifications 
 that he can have. Men led by the understanding go 
 advisedly and in their own strength : but they who are 
 taken by the ears are borne whithersoever he who suc- 
 ceeds in taking them lists. Even in those assemblies 
 which are understood to be the most armed against 
 those weapons which assail and overcome the ^^llgar, 
 we find instances, and striking instances, of this influ- 
 ence of mere sound. The speech which calls forth 
 applause at the close of every section or sentence, 
 and which rounds its peroration amid " loud and long- 
 continued cheering," is often sorry stuff when it ap- 
 pears in print, corrected by the author ; and would be 
 quite unintelligible if set down verbatim. 
 
 Still, there is no question that this sympathy be- 
 tween hearing and voice is in itself a most valuable 
 gift, and that it is one of the special adaptations of the 
 physical man for his higher character and ofiice as 
 an intellectual being ; and the want of this sympathy, 
 and the unfitness of the mouth in the other mammalia 
 for being an organ of voice, is a proof that they are 
 
LANGUAGE IS INTELLECTUAL. 293 
 
 not fitted for mental endowment, and consequently 
 that they do not possess it. Animals do indeed express 
 their appetites by sounds as well as by gestures and 
 actions, and when their nature is such that they asso- 
 ciate in large or small numbers, or for longer or shorter 
 times, they have particular cries by means of which 
 they call and answer to each other ; but we do not 
 suppose that there is any one capable of reflecting 
 upon the subject who will venture to say that any one 
 sound uttered by an animal is expressive of a single 
 shade of meaning beyond the expression of the mo- 
 mentary passion of the animal uttering it. 
 
 Language is wholly intellectual in its origin, and 
 where there is no intellect it would be a useless gift 
 to a creature that had no mind, but in which the pre- 
 sent sensation is all that is needed for the supply of the 
 present want. The absent, the past, and the future? 
 are the only subjects for which language is necessary ; 
 and there are the province of the mind, not of the 
 senses. No doubt we speak about present phenomena, 
 occurrences, and objects ; but any one who chooses to 
 attend to the manner in which we speak of them, will 
 invariably find that they are spoken of in reference to 
 past experience, or future anticipation. 
 
 Thus we find that Man, considered only in his phy- 
 sical nature, is a being altogether out of place : that 
 there is no locality on the earth for which he is spe- 
 cially formed, no habit analogous to those of the other 
 animals for which he is specially fitted ; and that, if 
 he were to live as they live, the best and most inter- 
 
 D D 
 
294 CONCLUSION. 
 
 esting part of his physical organisation would be 
 worse than useless, — that his means of strength would 
 be weakness, and the powers by which he is enabled 
 to subdue the world would be his own destruction. 
 Therefore, in order to understand Man in his real 
 position in the world, we must' study him as Intel- 
 lectual, — in order to know ourselves aright, we must 
 know the nature and the phenomena of our minds. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 [brADBURT and RVAN8, PRINTERS, Vt'lin'RFJllARS. ] 
 
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